EPTTerran:
Maru:
A no-brainer. I'll try to say something that hasn't been said about him before and call him the LeBron James of SC2. He's gone from being famous for his youth to being famous for his longevity, and he's shown the ability to excel in just about every facet of the game. Micro god, king of proxy rushes, late-game master, taking a straight-up build and winning with multitasking, throwing creative stuff at his opponents, he's done it all -- except win a world championship, of course.
Innovation:
The machine, the reflection of perfection. My favorite player ever to watch -- if his early widow mine or hellion got enough to put his opponent down even the slightest bit, the follow-up timing push to win the game was as beautiful as it was inevitable.
TY:
Another guy with insane longevity after starting as a child, and probably the top thought leader among all terrans historically. Winning a GSL while doing double-duty as a broadcaster was remarkable.
MVP:
There are a lot of directions to go with this last slot, and no one pick is all that more legitimate than another. Clem's a great pick -- he's already only to Maru among Terran for money won, and he's probably playing the race as well as anyone's ever played it. If SC2 keeps going, he'll almost certainly be, at the very least, somewhere on here. But MVP was SC2's first consensus best player, and his dominance relative to his peers and his elevation of the game in its early stages shouldn't be forgotten.
Tough omissions: Clem, Gumiho, MMA, Polt, Bomber, ByuN, MKP
Zerg:
Serral:
He's really good at the game. Defensive mastery and total understanding of the race, watching him dismantle a top pro without feeling the need to bring his main army off creep is just gorgeous to watch.
Rogue:
The most cerebral zerg of all time, able to take games with clever all-ins or in the lategame, his ability to plan out a Bo5/Bo7 was stuff of legend. Playing him really was akin to playing a "Roguelike" -- even if you vaguely knew what was going to happen, there was no way to prepare for how things would change from game to game. Oh, and there was an extremely high chance you would die.
Dark:
From the SKT version that would macro opponents into submission while turning the map purple to the version that could hang on and come back from positions no other zerg could, to the version pummeling opponents with off-kilter timings and hoards of roaches, Dark has always been at or near the top, and he's still doing it to this day.
soO:
Brutal last choice between Reynor, soO, and NesTea. soO played in the toughest era and his run of GSL Finals might be the most impressive thing ever accomplished in SC2 until Maru and Serral started doing ridiculous things well after the end of Kespa. Picking NesTea would have kept things consistent with the early MVP pick, but that era was just so much weaker than the one SC2's tragic hero played in. Reynor has been fantastic, and his hyper-fast style of play fills a lot of the void that [REDACTED] left behind with his untimely exit with the game, but I'll give the nod to the guy who made his heartbreaking mark on the game when it was at its peak.
Tough omissions: Reynor, NesTea, Solar, [REDACTED], Jaedong, Scarlett, Stephano, DRG
Protoss:
Zest:
For better or for worse, Protoss in SC2 has been about setting a new meta and making opponents play a game they don't want to instead of taking an established playstyle and mastering it. Nobody was better at doing that than Zest. He'd come up with a new playstyle that exposed his opponent's weakness in the current meta, master it, then do it all over again when his previous exploit had been figured out.
sOs:
Your favorite player's favorite player to watch, and their least favorite one to play against. No player of any race has expressed creativity as well as sOs did. Sometimes it felt like he wasn't even being exploitative with his creative plays -- he just found something cool you could do in the game, and he wanted to show it to everybody. And it's not like all he was doing was having cool games -- only Zest has won more money among Protoss. Zest was the best at using the increased possibilities of Protoss to punish opponents in the most efficient way possible, but sOs used the race to push the boundaries of Starcraft in a way they'll probably never be pushed again at the highest level.
Rain:
He's only 14th among Protoss on the money list, but when Rain was in his prime he reached heights nobody else ever has with Protoss. He showed that a defensive, macro protoss could compete and even dominate. Everyone has their hot takes, and mine is that the history of top-level Protoss in SC2 would be fundamentally different if Rain hadn't gone back to Brood War. He was that good.
MC:
SCREW YOU ALL I'M PICKING THE BOSS TOSS. Have herO, Stats, and Classic all won more money than him, while competing over a much longer period? Yes. Have they shown more all-around ability with the race, showing the ability to win in drawn-out macro games? Yes. Heck, did PartinG play MC's MOBA-Toss style a bit better than he did? Probably. But were any of those players the Boss Toss? No. MC was the dominant Protoss force in the early years of SC2, was a key thought leader for things like force field usage, and his flawless micro and brutal timings defined the race for years and years to come.
Toughest Omissions: herO, Classic, Parting, Stats, Trap, Neeb
Maru, INnoVation, Mvp, TY
Serral, Rogue, Nestea, Dark
sOs, Zest, MC, proooobably Stats but this fourth slot is wide open
Or was I?
