EPTWhich run was more impressive? TaeJa '12 vs Clem '24
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TL.net Bot
TL.net132 Posts
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Waxangel
United States33475 Posts
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kaby
Russian Federation195 Posts
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25976 Posts
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fLyiNgDroNe
Belgium4028 Posts
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MJG
United Kingdom1322 Posts
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10363 Posts
Winning several premiere tournaments in a short time is much more rare Clem did dominate a Serral who was in his peak form this year, but he also was in the military by EWC and that definitely gave him a disadvantage compared to early 2024 when he was in actual top form Also, Serral is just 1 person, and Clem only got a few other wins at EWC too Though, Taeja's tournies in 2012 did not entail him beating lots of top HotS players like MC, Life, MMA, Innovation, sOs, Zest, etc. like his later results in 2013-2015 did... so, it's not that big of a difference and I could agree with Clem dominating Serral in a Bo9 at the biggest tournament ever being more impressive too | ||
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Balnazza
Germany1229 Posts
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Nakajin
Canada8989 Posts
If TaeJa had gotten a code S during that summer we could talk. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25976 Posts
On September 13 2024 17:28 MJG wrote: I see that recency bias is doing well in the polling... As someone who thinks Taeja is massively underrated these days by many, the one thing he never nailed was a giant tourney like a WC or a GSL, which Clem did pull off this summer. | ||
Mizenhauer
United States1899 Posts
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Poopi
France12904 Posts
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Cricketer12
United States13990 Posts
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Highwinds
Canada955 Posts
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Gemini_19
United States1246 Posts
I picked TaeJa mostly because of that and how team leagues in general back then felt like they had more weight/importance and how that one was also an offline finals which made it even cooler. But Clem's total dominance at EWC probably is the real answer. But I'll let my old TL Korean bias take over a bit. | ||
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Husyelt
United States837 Posts
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Kitai
United States876 Posts
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25976 Posts
On September 14 2024 13:22 Gemini_19 wrote: To me the craziest thing about the TaeJa run in 2012 was after winning those 3 big tournaments back to back and looking on top of the world, then he goes into the IPL Team League and just carries TL so hard with so many back to back matches of him winning like 4-5 games straight, and to do it as their teams last life in the first set of the finals to get the full reset for the 2nd match was so hype back then. Even though they barely lost in the 2nd set it was a crazy thing to witness back then. I picked TaeJa mostly because of that and how team leagues in general back then felt like they had more weight/importance and how that one was also an offline finals which made it even cooler. But Clem's total dominance at EWC probably is the real answer. But I'll let my old TL Korean bias take over a bit. Still one of the all-time great feats in SC2 IMO that IPLTAC performance That was a really cool tournament too. It’s a shame they didn’t persist with it | ||
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Similar_Fix
4 Posts
On September 14 2024 13:22 Gemini_19 wrote: To me the craziest thing about the TaeJa run in 2012 was after winning those 3 big tournaments back to back and looking on top of the world, then he goes into the IPL Team League and just carries TL so hard with so many back to back matches of him winning like 4-5 games straight, and to do it as their teams last life in the first set of the finals to get the full reset for the 2nd match was so hype back then. Even though they barely lost in the 2nd set it was a crazy thing to witness back then. I picked TaeJa mostly because of that and how team leagues in general back then felt like they had more weight/importance and how that one was also an offline finals which made it even cooler. But Clem's total dominance at EWC probably is the real answer. But I'll let my old TL Korean bias take over a bit. I was in the audience of IPL TAC 3, and the day summary is still carved in my mind : IM beats Team Taeja 1-7 | ||
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Waxangel
United States33475 Posts
On September 14 2024 23:55 WombaT wrote: Still one of the all-time great feats in SC2 IMO that IPLTAC performance That was a really cool tournament too. It’s a shame they didn’t persist with it Well, IPL itself died not long after IPL TAC3 ended—an early canary in the coal mine about what a money burner live esports could be. TakeTV's Acer TeamStory Cup is the more unfortunate casualty to me. It had a nice three-season run for hardcore fans, but it was trying to compete in an era where the SC2 calendar was more densely packed, and it couldn't avoid comparisons to Proleague as the real team competition of relevance. In a way, WTL picked up where ATC left off once Proleague died and the scene reorganized around ESL. | ||
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Pandain
United States12989 Posts
Clem is probably peaking harder than Taeja though. + Show Spoiler + to be honest that's not 100% clear either because we still don't precisely know how good his TvT is | ||
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Fango
United Kingdom8987 Posts
You can talk about multiple smaller events or one massive one. But the difference in era makes a difference. Taeja won when there were tournaments to win every month. Nowadays the crown of SC2 is a couple of massive tournaments Clem won the hardest he could. Taeja's teamleague performance is the only thing that can really put him over Clem. But even then he didn't win individual trophies in Code S or in Korea in general, Clem simply won the hardest tournament and Taeja didn't. | ||
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Blitzball04
191 Posts
Taeja era was more competitive but Clem opponents were on a much higher skill level Also Taeja only won the smaller 10K tournament. No where as big and important as something like EWC. If Taeja win a code S and blizzcon this would have been a closer comparison | ||
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shockaslim
United States1104 Posts
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Haighstrom
United Kingdom206 Posts
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KelvinG
United States5 Posts
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Blitzball04
191 Posts
On September 15 2024 17:10 Haighstrom wrote: I remember being more hyped about the Taeja runs, but it's a long time ago and memory gets unreliable. Which tournaments were the best to rewatch, does anyone remember? To be honest I tried watching a few older games but was unable to finish. Wol and hots games are now unwatchable for me due to the lower skill level and games were quite slow. Pro games back then are now basically any ladder games between 2 low masters players (and there being quite generous) | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25976 Posts
On September 15 2024 23:58 Blitzball04 wrote: To be honest I tried watching a few older games but was unable to finish. Wol and hots games are now unwatchable for me due to the lower skill level and games were quite slow. Pro games back then are now basically any ladder games between 2 low masters players (and there being quite generous) This isn’t remotely true. Maybe very early WoL but not by HoTS. Show me a pair of low masters players today who can replicate the likes of the immortal Innovation versus Taeja series and I’ll happily eat my hat. Although probably not gain much nutritionally | ||
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Haighstrom
United Kingdom206 Posts
On September 16 2024 00:42 WombaT wrote: This isn’t remotely true. Maybe very early WoL but not by HoTS. Show me a pair of low masters players today who can replicate the likes of the immortal Innovation versus Taeja series and I’ll happily eat my hat. Although probably not gain much nutritionally We're talking about 2012 though | ||
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Luolis
Finland7138 Posts
2012 the gameplay was already pretty good. Modern low gm's wouldnt stand a chance there. | ||
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Fango
United Kingdom8987 Posts
On September 15 2024 23:58 Blitzball04 wrote: To be honest I tried watching a few older games but was unable to finish. Wol and hots games are now unwatchable for me due to the lower skill level and games were quite slow. Pro games back then are now basically any ladder games between 2 low masters players (and there being quite generous) It's literally just because LoTV games are sped up, they have no early game and are more action packed compared to WoL or HotS. Plenty of GMs and competitive players from WoL jumped back in during LoTV and were still GM straight away. The idea that pro games from 2011 onwards would be masters now is unfounded. 2024 master league is not even remotely close to being any year of Taeja. Hell, I was masters years and years back, and I'm still masters now even though I play a few games a year (if that). Skill level really hasn't changed that much. I also wouldn't have a shot against a pro from any era. | ||
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Balnazza
Germany1229 Posts
On September 15 2024 23:58 Blitzball04 wrote: To be honest I tried watching a few older games but was unable to finish. Wol and hots games are now unwatchable for me due to the lower skill level and games were quite slow. Pro games back then are now basically any ladder games between 2 low masters players (and there being quite generous) While I get that feeling, I personally enjoy seeing different iterations of my favorite games. It's like seeing history, remembering "oh yeah, that used to be a thing" or maybe even seeing something you haven't seen before. And you can always have this feeling of unproven superiority, which is a neat bonus | ||
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ejozl
Denmark3447 Posts
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Hider
Denmark9407 Posts
On September 16 2024 06:03 Fango wrote: It's literally just because LoTV games are sped up, they have no early game and are more action packed compared to WoL or HotS. Plenty of GMs and competitive players from WoL jumped back in during LoTV and were still GM straight away. The idea that pro games from 2011 onwards would be masters now is unfounded. 2024 master league is not even remotely close to being any year of Taeja. Hell, I was masters years and years back, and I'm still masters now even though I play a few games a year (if that). Skill level really hasn't changed that much. I also wouldn't have a shot against a pro from any era. One of my favorite moments . But geez is idra's engagement control some of the worst I have ever seen. Mind you this was some of the highest level TvZ vs ZvT at the time. if you showed me Idra's engagement today I would have predicted diamond-level. I don't think any master zerg could mess up any engagement that bad. That said, obviously if we go back and watch Idra's FPV, his mouse-precision and general speed is still very good at would still fit into GM level today. However, at the time players had no idea how to properly set up fights and thus weren't able to ploperly utilize their APM. My theory is that with the introduction of HOTS, the game became much more harass and action-based. And thus it sped up the learning on how to engage properly much faster. WoL was many times slower and thus even over 1 year post release, players still didn't have a good grasp on how to play fight. I also think this is where the Stephano shined because he was properly one of the first players to figure out how to engage properly. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25976 Posts
On September 17 2024 02:55 ejozl wrote: Summer of taeja wasn't rly an event that happened, it was more that he had two impressive(or starting to get impressive) summers. Clem winning the biggest tournament and then a pretty random, but cool event doesn't amount to anything unheard of. It's nothing like winning the two biggest tournaments in a row, as was the case with ByuN and Rogue, and a few others. People forget that even if they weren’t all the biggest of the big, people weren’t regularly chaining tournament wins together in those days | ||
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Waxangel
United States33475 Posts
On September 16 2024 07:59 Balnazza wrote: While I get that feeling, I personally enjoy seeing different iterations of my favorite games. It's like seeing history, remembering "oh yeah, that used to be a thing" or maybe even seeing something you haven't seen before. And you can always have this feeling of unproven superiority, which is a neat bonus I went back and watched a bunch of old GSL finals, and it's such a weird mishmash of areas where people are high skill/low skill. Some of it really is about what kind of skills are rewarded in a given era. For example, I don't think anyone playing right now has force field micro as good as '11 MC or '12 PartinG because they haven't had to practice it nearly as hard in years. Another example is Terrans of WoL-HotS were as good/better at Banshee kiting/moveshot because it was a part of so many Terran openers for a very long time. On the other hand, Terran multitask/multiprong is really meh in WoL because Medivacs don't have afterburners, so not only is it slower to execute, but it's just so much riskier because you don't have a free get-out-of-jail card if you make a bad decision. No one is incentivized to get super good at multiprong drops—it's just small, low-commitment drops here and there to reap low hanging fruit. | ||
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Fango
United Kingdom8987 Posts
On September 17 2024 03:31 Hider wrote: One of my favorite moments https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yOw-hYMbDY. But geez is idra's engagement control some of the worst I have ever seen. Mind you this was some of the highest level TvZ vs ZvT at the time. if you showed me Idra's engagement today I would have predicted diamond-level. I don't think any master zerg could mess up any engagement that bad. Yeah people really don't have a clue about what diamond is actually like. Pro games from WoL would be, at worst, GM games now. They wouldn't be any lower. You can pick the single most famous blunder (from over a year before the topic of Taeja's run by the way) in sc2 history but it's nowhere near the mess of errors and complete lack of gamesense you see in every diamond/masters games. He would still be GM if you teleported him from 2011 to today. Plenty of competitive WoL players jumped back in a decade later and were GM straight away. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25976 Posts
On September 17 2024 06:02 Waxangel wrote: I went back and watched a bunch of old GSL finals, and it's such a weird mishmash of areas where people are high skill/low skill. Some of it really is about what kind of skills are rewarded in a given era. For example, I don't think anyone playing right now has force field micro as good as '11 MC or '12 PartinG because they haven't had to practice it nearly as hard in years. Another example is Terrans of WoL-HotS were as good/better at Banshee kiting/moveshot because it was a part of so many Terran openers for a very long time. On the other hand, Terran multitask/multiprong is really meh in WoL because Medivacs don't have afterburners, so not only is it slower to execute, but it's just so much riskier because you don't have a free get-out-of-jail card if you make a bad decision. No one is incentivized to get super good at multiprong drops—it's just small, low-commitment drops here and there to reap low hanging fruit. Yeah good point, someone was trying to argue with me on Reddit just today that recent Clem/Reynor games showed that the skill level had declined because the execution of muta micro/defence was worse than previous epochs. In games I haven’t seen btw so I’m not sure it even was any worse. I mean it would stand to reason that Serral or Reynor aren’t quite as good at executing, nor a Clem defending ling/bling/muta as some of those fellows because they’ve seemingly revived it solely to find a solution to the Clem problem, rather than it being the predominate meta for years. | ||
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ejozl
Denmark3447 Posts
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Charoisaur
Germany16006 Posts
On September 17 2024 08:12 Fango wrote: Yeah people really don't have a clue about what diamond is actually like. Pro games from WoL would be, at worst, GM games now. They wouldn't be any lower. You can pick the single most famous blunder (from over a year before the topic of Taeja's run by the way) in sc2 history but it's nowhere near the mess of errors and complete lack of gamesense you see in every diamond/masters games. He would still be GM if you teleported him from 2011 to today. Plenty of competitive WoL players jumped back in a decade later and were GM straight away. Yeah I think many masters players are in complete delusion about how good they are. That's why I like Harstems Is it imba or do I suck series, it really emphathizes the complete lack of game sense/mechanics/logical thinking of diamond/masters players. No masters player would be able to compete anywhere near pro level in any era (okay, maybe in the very first GSL) | ||
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MJG
United Kingdom1322 Posts
On September 17 2024 14:17 ejozl wrote: Ppl have more honed mechanics which make the barrier to entry way higher, but due to the game being so thinned out, the avg gm back in those days were way smarter than the avg gm today. Goody and sjow who were extremely low apm would still easily get gm today and probably easier than back in those days. Goody still plays and is indeed GM. https://sc2pulse.nephest.com/sc2/?type=character&id=682558&m=1#player-stats-mmr | ||
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Expensive-Law-9830
130 Posts
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vg162
6 Posts
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25976 Posts
On September 17 2024 17:38 Charoisaur wrote: Yeah I think many masters players are in complete delusion about how good they are. That's why I like Harstems Is it imba or do I suck series, it really emphathizes the complete lack of game sense/mechanics/logical thinking of diamond/masters players. No masters player would be able to compete anywhere near pro level in any era (okay, maybe in the very first GSL) On the flip side we are all a bit harsh sometimes too, you’re still pretty decent at RTS games if you can hit Masters, and it’s a hard game. But 100% the gap is a chasm. Even the higher level players Harstem showcases are hitting even the earliest checkpoints in their build seconds off what pros are, and this just compounds the further along you go. Like the MMR gap between a decent, solid pro like Harstem and even good amateur GMs is pretty large, it’s ballpark at least as big as that between a solid Master and a Plat player, if not larger. There’s a reason those guys are progamers after all, even now we don’t really see any of the amateurs entering weeklies doing much at all. | ||
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CicadaSC
United States1817 Posts
On September 13 2024 16:48 WombaT wrote: I think it’s gotta be Clem based on how big EWC was to be fair meh, big prize sure but in terms of live audience, and online viewership there have been way bigger tournaments. I think if we are talking about impressive runs we have to mention sOs. Otherwise just between these two? Taeja all the way. They dont call it summer of taeja for nothing. he dominated an entire season or era of starcraft nevermind 1 tournament. | ||
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Jockmcplop
United Kingdom9713 Posts
I don't even know how to compare the two. | ||
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Akio
Finland1838 Posts
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25976 Posts
On January 30 2025 19:07 CicadaSC wrote: meh, big prize sure but in terms of live audience, and online viewership there have been way bigger tournaments. I think if we are talking about impressive runs we have to mention sOs. Otherwise just between these two? Taeja all the way. They dont call it summer of taeja for nothing. he dominated an entire season or era of starcraft nevermind 1 tournament. Clem did also win Bellum Zagora [sic] and was bossing WTL and carrying TL there, on top of doing his usual things in weeklies. Bigger tournaments, or exciting ones as a fan, sure but as a pro? Every second interview for the whole year pros were saying how they were focusing on EWC, so winning that and in dominant fashion is quite the feat. I think and frequently say that I think Taeja’s achievements are a bit underrated now. People didn’t win a bunch of back-to-back tournaments then, and it’s semi normal now. That said the gap in his resume is winning that Starleague or WC tier event against a stacked field, and Clem did that so I’ll give him the slight edge there. sOs is a boss, but he was more a bloke who peaked on the big occasion than one who was smashing people for extended periods | ||
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SharkStarcraft
Austria2240 Posts
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Charoisaur
Germany16006 Posts
On January 30 2025 22:44 WombaT wrote: Clem did also win Bellum Zagora [sic] and was bossing WTL and carrying TL there, on top of doing his usual things in weeklies. Bigger tournaments, or exciting ones as a fan, sure but as a pro? Every second interview for the whole year pros were saying how they were focusing on EWC, so winning that and in dominant fashion is quite the feat. I think and frequently say that I think Taeja’s achievements are a bit underrated now. People didn’t win a bunch of back-to-back tournaments then, and it’s semi normal now. That said the gap in his resume is winning that Starleague or WC tier event against a stacked field, and Clem did that so I’ll give him the slight edge there. sOs is a boss, but he was more a bloke who peaked on the big occasion than one who was smashing people for extended periods Not sure I'd consider todays' tournaments as "stacked" considering there are only six players who can realistically win any given tournament | ||
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Blitzball04
191 Posts
On January 31 2025 00:00 Charoisaur wrote: Not sure I'd consider todays' tournaments as "stacked" considering there are only six players who can realistically win any given tournament To be fair. The players today are more mechanically better than they were back then. If you really look back at those Taeja games. The skill / mechanical is quite underwhelming compared to today. The WOL games are even more ugly. | ||
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luxon
United States114 Posts
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25976 Posts
On January 31 2025 00:00 Charoisaur wrote: Not sure I'd consider todays' tournaments as "stacked" considering there are only six players who can realistically win any given tournament They’re as stacked as they can be, which is wasn’t always (or indeed) often with the tournaments in a much more fragmented scene. The pool is smaller, but one thing that isn’t generally a factor is that the best players available do tend to be in modern tournies. That first summer of Taeja 2012, which is the subject of the poll it’s Taeja winning with a smattering of top players of the day, and the rest of the field consists of mediocre Koreans and foreigners. Foreigners who were nowhere near as competitive as now. On the flipside, his IPL TAC run was an insane feat against the team titans of the day, almost solo. His IEM Shenzen win in 2014, beats both MMA and Life in groups, Zest, Jaedong and then Solar in the finals. And other blokes like Inno were there. Taeja did show an ability to compete with Life and the new Kespa kids on the block, he’s I think actually quite underrated nowadays. Pity he had injuries and the scene was at its most fragmented for some of his best years. But looking through some of his 2012 and he’s just outright better than most of those fields. Not through being a standout player in the scene that nobody can touch, but a ton of the players who were at his standard at the time simply weren’t there for the most part. I think a career comparison I’d have them closer than Taeja’s 2012 summer and Clem’s just past. | ||
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CicadaSC
United States1817 Posts
On January 31 2025 03:47 luxon wrote: lmao most sc2 fans are all born after 2007 so this tracks. Given the remaining talent out there, Clem would have to win another EWC level tourney for this to even be close. This is honestly so dumb how much weight we give to a scene where only a couple koreans still play full time. Again I'm convinced in 2030 when Iba is the only player left and he wins every tournament that year, theres gonna be a poll asking if Iba is more dominant than Maru. this is unironically a take I agree with for the most part. I think the skill level has of course gone up over the years, you have games where players literally play virtually "perfect" games. They know what strategies work and what doesnt,everything has been so fine tuned over the years and players hardly miss a beat with macro such as creep spread, injects etc (which you used to see get a lot less attention in the earlier days) but still, the competitive pool is much smaller. Who is to say Taeja, Rain, Life, Flash whoever wouldnt have also continued to improve in these areas given the time? Heck, given a lot of their expertise in BW I think assuming they would have "perfected" macro is almost a given. So I think what it mostly comes down to is the competitive pool size which undeniably has shrunk. Clem is amazing, so is Serral, probably the best foreigners of all time, and its a bit of a shame they cant do anything about the situation to truly stand out. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25976 Posts
On January 31 2025 22:43 CicadaSC wrote: this is unironically a take I agree with for the most part. I think the skill level has of course gone up over the years, you have games where players literally play virtually "perfect" games. They know what strategies work and what doesnt,everything has been so fine tuned over the years and players hardly miss a beat with macro such as creep spread, injects etc (which you used to see get a lot less attention in the earlier days) but still, the competitive pool is much smaller. Who is to say Taeja, Rain, Life, Flash whoever wouldnt have also continued to improve in these areas given the time? Heck, given a lot of their expertise in BW I think assuming they would have "perfected" macro is almost a given. So I think what it mostly comes down to is the competitive pool size which undeniably has shrunk. Clem is amazing, so is Serral, probably the best foreigners of all time, and its a bit of a shame they cant do anything about the situation to truly stand out. Go look at the tournaments that Taeja won in the 2012 summer of Taeja and the field in those tournaments and if you honestly think it’s better than Clem’s 2024, fair enough. But do look at it, don’t go off memory | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany16006 Posts
On January 31 2025 22:43 CicadaSC wrote: this is unironically a take I agree with for the most part. I think the skill level has of course gone up over the years, you have games where players literally play virtually "perfect" games. They know what strategies work and what doesnt,everything has been so fine tuned over the years and players hardly miss a beat with macro such as creep spread, injects etc (which you used to see get a lot less attention in the earlier days) I don't even agree with that. Sure if you only look at the top 3-4 top dogs that's probably true, but the skill difference between the top dogs and the rest of the field is absolutely massive right now and I'm not convinced the skill level of the average player one has to beat to win a tournament is much higher than it used to be. So it comes down to what's more impressive: beating one S++ level player and several A/B level players to win a tournament, or having to beat several S and S+ level players. | ||
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