EPTGreatest Players of All Time: 2025 Update - Page 5
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Drahkn
199 Posts
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Glorfindelio
229 Posts
On January 29 2025 13:28 Drahkn wrote: Serral peaked after the game was way less competitive sadly he will never be able to become the GOAT of sc2, only Maru spans that length of domination at absolute peak SC2 competitive level I'd agree with this statement, if that domination at peak sc2 competitive level included a single world championship, which you'd think he could have attained if the competition was that much weaker for so long. Greatness, by definition, shines in certain moments, which is why I hold his loss to Oli/Time against him to such a degree. Consider Maru, in his historically best MU (and an all-timer in it), against a player who had never won a Premier, facing someone who's never going to out-mechanics him. Yet he still wasn't able to pull out the win. More than that, he played out of character and made some baffling decisions at the doorstep of his crowning victory. | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10381 Posts
Because up to 2017, Maru wasn't a GOAT contender. It was Innovation or MVP, excluding Life or Taeja during their peaks, and the brief sOs hype if he were to have beaten Innovation in GSL and denied his 3rd GSL and gotten his own, leaving Innovation without a clear argument to be above MVP and sOs. And maybe the brief mentions of Rain and Maru at the very end of HotS. | ||
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Blitzball04
191 Posts
On January 31 2025 00:49 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: I'm curious exactly what that length of domination refers to. Because up to 2017, Maru wasn't a GOAT contender. It was Innovation or MVP, excluding Life or Taeja during their peaks, and the brief sOs hype if he were to have beaten Innovation in GSL and denied his 3rd GSL and gotten his own, leaving Innovation without a clear argument to be above MVP and sOs. And maybe the brief mentions of Rain and Maru at the very end of HotS. Prior to 2017. The goat contenders the goat contenders were innovation / mvp / life / sOs Each had something lacking in their resume. Innovation was missing world championships, life had the scandal, sOs was lacking GSL’s, and mvp dominance was during a “weak” period After 2017, Maru only dominated the Korea scene and couldn’t do that on the international scene ( thanks for Serral), but also he has some chokejob losing to players when he was the heavy favourite. Maru rise in Korea was due to other Koreans leaving for military or simply just aging out | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany16086 Posts
On January 31 2025 02:41 Blitzball04 wrote: Maru rise in Korea was due to other Koreans leaving for military or simply just aging out You realize that holding that opinion also discredits Serrals achievements because he benefits just as much from the same factors? | ||
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Locutos
Brazil273 Posts
the scene had less Team houses? It did. But we cant put aside the time funnel logic. Only the true talents remained. If by 2018, sOs, Zest, Taeja, MC, MMA, etc. If any of them had been getting the same results the Maru did, they would have kept playing. Simply like that. Why didnt they keep playing? Cus they werent Serral, or Maru, or Clem. | ||
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Moonerz
United States467 Posts
On January 31 2025 07:39 Locutos wrote: 2018 Stacraft II version had the true talents simply because it had the ones who had been playing since their childhood/early puberty, which is the minimun necessary to become really great at any sport. the scene had less Team houses? It did. But we cant put aside the time funnel logic. Only the true talents remained. If by 2018, sOs, Zest, Taeja, MC, MMA, etc. If any of them had been getting the same results the Maru did, they would have kept playing. Simply like that. Why didnt they keep playing? Cus they werent Serral, or Maru, or Clem. Orrr the team houses were gone and so were the big salaries. Look at gsl prize distribution, if you didn't win outright you didn't make a ton of money. So would you put in the long hours for a chance at money? Especially coming from a salaried environment Not to mention those players had been playing for quite some time at that point and were older so moving on to military and then a normal life was probably tempting as well. Even the players like Maru and rogue that stuck are playing at a lesser level than they would if the team houses had been around still. I just don't believe anybody practices to the same extent anymore | ||
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Locutos
Brazil273 Posts
On January 31 2025 08:07 Moonerz wrote: Orrr the team houses were gone and so were the big salaries. Look at gsl prize distribution, if you didn't win outright you didn't make a ton of money. So would you put in the long hours for a chance at money? Especially coming from a salaried environment Not to mention those players had been playing for quite some time at that point and were older so moving on to military and then a normal life was probably tempting as well. Even the players like Maru and rogue that stuck are playing at a lesser level than they would if the team houses had been around still. I just don't believe anybody practices to the same extent anymore Now for sure they dont practice anymore.. But at 2018? When some big names had left, but theres was still big prizes. And by the way, since big salaries went away, it means that prize pool became more important, so winning tournaments became more crucial. I think Maru, Rogue, Stats, etc gave their best (injuries aside). And they were the best, which is why they remained | ||
Waxangel
United States33678 Posts
On January 29 2025 14:31 Glorfindelio wrote: I'd agree with this statement, if that domination at peak sc2 competitive level included a single world championship, which you'd think he could have attained if the competition was that much weaker for so long. Greatness, by definition, shines in certain moments, which is why I hold his loss to Oli/Time against him to such a degree. Consider Maru, in his historically best MU (and an all-timer in it), against a player who had never won a Premier, facing someone who's never going to out-mechanics him. Yet he still wasn't able to pull out the win. More than that, he played out of character and made some baffling decisions at the doorstep of his crowning victory. While I personally have Serral as my GOAT by a slim margin over Rogue, I do have to respect the "nothing after 2017/18 matters" point of view. The uncomfortable truth is that we, the people who are left discussing this in 2025, are the worst people to look at the matter objectively. We're the group that's MOST bought in to competitive SC2, and the existential core of our fandom is that we believe that post-KeSPA and post-Blizzard history matters. I kind of wonder how boxing historians look at the competitors in the modern era (after the 2000's-ish) where the prestige and popularity of the sport has declined from its heyday. | ||
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Balnazza
Germany1344 Posts
On January 31 2025 08:07 Moonerz wrote: Orrr the team houses were gone and so were the big salaries. Look at gsl prize distribution, if you didn't win outright you didn't make a ton of money. So would you put in the long hours for a chance at money? Especially coming from a salaried environment Not to mention those players had been playing for quite some time at that point and were older so moving on to military and then a normal life was probably tempting as well. Even the players like Maru and rogue that stuck are playing at a lesser level than they would if the team houses had been around still. I just don't believe anybody practices to the same extent anymore This is such an odd take tbh. So you are basically saying Koreans needed years of being in the best training enviroment on the planet and the highest salary in the world by a lot to be able to be above Serral? What people seem to conveniently forget: Proleague wasn't the UEFA Champions League or NBA (or any other high-end Sports League for that matter). If you are a really talented player in lets say Football (Soccer for the people across the pond), you can live in the freaking desert and still be scouted by one of the european football clubs. And if you are good enough, work hard enough and have that bit of luck, you will make it to that S-Tier of Football Clubs in Europe. If you are a really talented SC2 player in lets say 2014 and you live in Sweden, then...well, you are a very talented SC2 player that lives in Sweden and gets his ass handed by a guy who might be a good chunk worse than you, but happened to be born in Korea and got picked up by KT or T1, training with the very best every single day and getting a better salary than you. Proleague didn't have the best players, it produced the best players from an available player pool, that certainly was not global. The first requirement to get into Proleague was basically "be born in Korea". Which also means that for Koreans, being a progamer was actually a somewhat valid career choice, because there was an infrastructure to do so. And please, I'm not saying "lul, without Proleague Maru is a Gold Terran at best!!1". No, he clearly is one of the absolute S-Tier World Class Best Players who ever touched this game. But beyond that very S-Tier level, Proleague inflated the ability and skill of a lot of players, an option everyone outside of Korea simply didn't have. Which of course isn't their "fault" and doesn't invalid anything the Koreans did or achieve. It just is something to remember. Or to put it simple and in much fewer words: Saying "Serral is only dominant because of the loss of teamhouses" is the same as saying "as soon as the playing field was leveled, Serral was better than anyone else". Which essentially still makes him the GOAT. | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany16086 Posts
On January 31 2025 14:03 Balnazza wrote: This is such an odd take tbh. So you are basically saying Koreans needed years of being in the best training enviroment on the planet and the highest salary in the world by a lot to be able to be above Serral? What people seem to conveniently forget: Proleague wasn't the UEFA Champions League or NBA (or any other high-end Sports League for that matter). If you are a really talented player in lets say Football (Soccer for the people across the pond), you can live in the freaking desert and still be scouted by one of the european football clubs. And if you are good enough, work hard enough and have that bit of luck, you will make it to that S-Tier of Football Clubs in Europe. If you are a really talented SC2 player in lets say 2014 and you live in Sweden, then...well, you are a very talented SC2 player that lives in Sweden and gets his ass handed by a guy who might be a good chunk worse than you, but happened to be born in Korea and got picked up by KT or T1, training with the very best every single day and getting a better salary than you. Proleague didn't have the best players, it produced the best players from an available player pool, that certainly was not global. The first requirement to get into Proleague was basically "be born in Korea". Which also means that for Koreans, being a progamer was actually a somewhat valid career choice, because there was an infrastructure to do so. And please, I'm not saying "lul, without Proleague Maru is a Gold Terran at best!!1". No, he clearly is one of the absolute S-Tier World Class Best Players who ever touched this game. But beyond that very S-Tier level, Proleague inflated the ability and skill of a lot of players, an option everyone outside of Korea simply didn't have. Which of course isn't their "fault" and doesn't invalid anything the Koreans did or achieve. It just is something to remember. Or to put it simple and in much fewer words: Saying "Serral is only dominant because of the loss of teamhouses" is the same as saying "as soon as the playing field was leveled, Serral was better than anyone else". Which essentially still makes him the GOAT. Foreigners absolutely could join Proleague teams if they wanted to like Special and State proved. Most foreigners simply weren't good enough back then. | ||
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Balnazza
Germany1344 Posts
On January 31 2025 16:46 Charoisaur wrote: Foreigners absolutely could join Proleague teams if they wanted to like Special and State proved. Most foreigners simply weren't good enough back then. Neither State nor Special joined Proleague because they were that amazing (no offense). It wasn't exactly like Jin Air said "we NEED that MajOr guy!". Both of them more or less just enjoyed living in Korea, but I highly doubt they got the same amount and level of training than the other players. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland27267 Posts
On January 31 2025 12:05 Waxangel wrote: While I personally have Serral as my GOAT by a slim margin over Rogue, I do have to respect the "nothing after 2017/18 matters" point of view. The uncomfortable truth is that we, the people who are left discussing this in 2025, are the worst people to look at the matter objectively. We're the group that's MOST bought in to competitive SC2, and the existential core of our fandom is that we believe that post-KeSPA and post-Blizzard history matters. I kind of wonder how boxing historians look at the competitors in the modern era (after the 2000's-ish) where the prestige and popularity of the sport has declined from its heyday. On the flipside of that, SC2 isn’t BW. It’s got a very different ecosystem, a different fan base and a different (often shifting) annual structure. Some fans who came from following BW put a huge amount of value in the parts that transferred over from pro BW, but don’t necessarily contextualise it within its new environment. Team leagues were hugely second fiddle to individual titles pre and post-Kespa, and I think for most fans this was also the case during Kespa as well. StarCraft 2 was always a more open, international game, Kespa tried to return it to a closed, purely Korean-based state of affairs. I don’t think it worked and I don’t think it was a sensible aim to begin with. Boxing ain’t what it once was, for a whole ton of reasons. Especially in the heavyweight division compared to the days of legends like Ali, Sonny Liston and Foreman etc. Having 4 title belts, and interminable delays in some of the big fights that still have a huge demand has been a problem. There’s some similarities to eras of SC2 there. MMA has grown to eat into the boxing market as well. But other divisions are pretty healthy and suffer less from this for whatever reason. One hypothesis as to the decline of the specifically American heavyweight is simply that potential boxers in that weight class have got the physical profile to excel in things like NFL and basketball, which are now bigger sports relatively than they were half a century+ ago. Whereas you don’t lose as much potential talent in lower divisions, because those people are too small to really excel in many of the US’ national sports. I’m 5’9, not overweight but I’m much, much bigger than Carl Frampton, a boxer from here who held world titles at two weights. He’d definitely beat me up though. Other countries this may be reversed somewhat. Someone like Tyson Fury is too tall and naturally heavy-set to become say, a football (soccer) star, or at least not easily. There’s also some interesting writing on boxing being something of a refuge and pathway to expression of pride for minority/persecuted communities. In the early 20th century in the States, Jewish boxers featured very prominently for example, which was something I recently learned. Then it was Italian or Irish Americans featuring very prominently, and subsequently African Americans. In the UK we have Tyson Fury who comes from an Irish Traveller background who are massively discriminated against here. Some have argued that as various groups became more enfranchised, this thus lessened the pull of boxing in that way. It’s also a massively working class pursuit in terms of its recruitment pool, it’s certainly the case here too. Our top boxers come from pretty deprived areas, usually in Belfast. Boxing is seen as having a dual benefit of instilling some discipline, but also giving potentially (or actual) wayward youths an outlet for adolescent aggression. Gentrification starts to eat into that however. If gyms that have been around for decades start closing because they can’t afford to keep running with the creep of gentrification, you start to lose the talent production factories. Boxing I think also suffers nowadays in that we’re in an era of just constant content. If you’re a football, NFL or NBA fan etc there’s important matches every week, sometimes more. With boxing, it’s very feast or famine unless you’re a massive hardcore fan, most dip in and out for the real big fights but don’t follow it regularly. Myself like I’ll properly watch the Premier League and Serie A, European competition, and podcasts will keep me up to date on goings-on in La Liga, Ligue Une and other notable stories. This was way less of an issue back in the day, because the competing sports also weren’t all televised. Indeed I’ve heard it said that baseball’s heyday as ‘America’s game’ was as much down to great sportswriters as the game itself. Pick up a newspaper and the good writers could weave a real compelling yarn. But actually watching baseball versus the alternatives? Well it started to drop off just through changes in how people consumed sport. TLDR after reading a bunch of boxing books and listening to podcasts where boxing brains discussed its current state, the general consensus is roughly that boxing has dropped down the pecking order, but is still big enough to not totally invalidate the current epoch. Floyd Mayweather is a gigantic cunt of a man, but boxing writers still consider him an all-time great, or Manny Pacquiao, or Canelo etc. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland27267 Posts
On January 31 2025 17:12 Balnazza wrote: Neither State nor Special joined Proleague because they were that amazing (no offense). It wasn't exactly like Jin Air said "we NEED that MajOr guy!". Both of them more or less just enjoyed living in Korea, but I highly doubt they got the same amount and level of training than the other players. It’s also worth noting that most of the Korean based foreigners never really were or became the best foreign players. Jinro for a short period, Idra and Huk did get some benefits but couldn’t stay ahead of the competition for that long. Special and Scarlett were out there for ages, but were they much better than Stephano or Snute? Perhaps linguistic barriers prevented them from fully making the most of it, but most of the best foreigners we’ve ever seen didn’t spend a huge amount of time in Korea. Folks did occasionally pop over for a bit sure but they weren’t spending cumulatively years there. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland27267 Posts
On January 31 2025 14:03 Balnazza wrote: This is such an odd take tbh. So you are basically saying Koreans needed years of being in the best training enviroment on the planet and the highest salary in the world by a lot to be able to be above Serral? What people seem to conveniently forget: Proleague wasn't the UEFA Champions League or NBA (or any other high-end Sports League for that matter). If you are a really talented player in lets say Football (Soccer for the people across the pond), you can live in the freaking desert and still be scouted by one of the european football clubs. And if you are good enough, work hard enough and have that bit of luck, you will make it to that S-Tier of Football Clubs in Europe. If you are a really talented SC2 player in lets say 2014 and you live in Sweden, then...well, you are a very talented SC2 player that lives in Sweden and gets his ass handed by a guy who might be a good chunk worse than you, but happened to be born in Korea and got picked up by KT or T1, training with the very best every single day and getting a better salary than you. Proleague didn't have the best players, it produced the best players from an available player pool, that certainly was not global. The first requirement to get into Proleague was basically "be born in Korea". Which also means that for Koreans, being a progamer was actually a somewhat valid career choice, because there was an infrastructure to do so. And please, I'm not saying "lul, without Proleague Maru is a Gold Terran at best!!1". No, he clearly is one of the absolute S-Tier World Class Best Players who ever touched this game. But beyond that very S-Tier level, Proleague inflated the ability and skill of a lot of players, an option everyone outside of Korea simply didn't have. Which of course isn't their "fault" and doesn't invalid anything the Koreans did or achieve. It just is something to remember. Or to put it simple and in much fewer words: Saying "Serral is only dominant because of the loss of teamhouses" is the same as saying "as soon as the playing field was leveled, Serral was better than anyone else". Which essentially still makes him the GOAT. Aye, it’s one of the theoretical strengths of eSports, especially a primarily 1v1 game that people shouldn’t need to relocate to be competitive if other structures are working. Cuts overheads considerably, and theoretically lets talent flourish and develop wherever it sprouts. It was considered a big deal when Byun grinded it teamless to win his GSL/WC, or even Rain being the first to win a Starleague while on a foreign team. And I think rightly so. But that’s Serral’s entire career, basically. Reynor and Clem have had team support but not of the team house kind. Maru also had a period where Jin Air were basically the last Korean team standing, and he made some hay in that period, which I think is oft-neglected in such discussions. For me he’s still absolutely up there as a GOAT but I think the gap between his GSL performances and his continual WC fumbles is partly down to having/not having the JAGW collective in the former and not really the time to leverage it in the latter. And he’s dropped notable series in team-kill scenarios, sOs in a WC, Rogue in a GSL final, which I think is further circumstantial evidence there. Without actually being privy to the specifics it’s absolutely speculative of course! From an outside perspective him excelling in the Starleague format, choking numerous WCs, and getting sniped by teammates in big tournies somewhat points that way. Serral became the highest earning player in tournament winnings of all-time in the post-Kespa era, with the most Premiers. Even if we entirely minus out WCS/EU regionals he’s still hoovered up a lot of cash in other tournaments. If the competition has dropped massively, and I’m a progamer it’s a super attractive time to just grind it out and make a bunch of cash. But nobody really did it to the degree Serral did. Although in fairness to Maru, he’s been consistently excellent for years now, most seasons if we’re looking at who had the best year he’s at a minimum 4th and often higher. | ||
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Moonerz
United States467 Posts
On January 31 2025 14:03 Balnazza wrote: This is such an odd take tbh. So you are basically saying Koreans needed years of being in the best training enviroment on the planet and the highest salary in the world by a lot to be able to be above Serral? What people seem to conveniently forget: Proleague wasn't the UEFA Champions League or NBA (or any other high-end Sports League for that matter). If you are a really talented player in lets say Football (Soccer for the people across the pond), you can live in the freaking desert and still be scouted by one of the european football clubs. And if you are good enough, work hard enough and have that bit of luck, you will make it to that S-Tier of Football Clubs in Europe. If you are a really talented SC2 player in lets say 2014 and you live in Sweden, then...well, you are a very talented SC2 player that lives in Sweden and gets his ass handed by a guy who might be a good chunk worse than you, but happened to be born in Korea and got picked up by KT or T1, training with the very best every single day and getting a better salary than you. Proleague didn't have the best players, it produced the best players from an available player pool, that certainly was not global. The first requirement to get into Proleague was basically "be born in Korea". Which also means that for Koreans, being a progamer was actually a somewhat valid career choice, because there was an infrastructure to do so. And please, I'm not saying "lul, without Proleague Maru is a Gold Terran at best!!1". No, he clearly is one of the absolute S-Tier World Class Best Players who ever touched this game. But beyond that very S-Tier level, Proleague inflated the ability and skill of a lot of players, an option everyone outside of Korea simply didn't have. Which of course isn't their "fault" and doesn't invalid anything the Koreans did or achieve. It just is something to remember. Or to put it simple and in much fewer words: Saying "Serral is only dominant because of the loss of teamhouses" is the same as saying "as soon as the playing field was leveled, Serral was better than anyone else". Which essentially still makes him the GOAT. Yes I do not believe south Koreans were the best at sc bw and sc2 because of some genetic ability. They were the best because the infrastructure and financial incentives were there. It is entirely possible that Serral is the most naturally talented player, it is also possible that he isn't. For example Stephano (another foreigner known to be extremely talented and lacking in discipline at that time) probably has much better results if he peaked and played during the recent years. That doesn't make him any better or worse of a player. I think you nailed it in your last paragraph "once the playing field was leveled", you're admitting what we all know is true the team house environment generally created the best sc2 players. There are some exceptions at times like byun but that is the exception not the rule. It's ok to admit that we're not seeing the best possible sc we could be. And if you don't believe that then region locking never would have been needed right? | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany16086 Posts
On January 31 2025 22:33 WombaT wrote: If the competition has dropped massively, and I’m a progamer it’s a super attractive time to just grind it out and make a bunch of cash. But nobody really did it to the degree Serral did. While that's true, it's just massively easier to improve when you're younger (not my words, but the ones of many pros) and many koreans also had to make up for lost time due to military, the circumstances just massively favor Serral here. I mean, we don't even need to make up hypotheticals, we can see in Serral's results over the years how the competitiveness of the scene affected his performance. From 2018-2021 he was still a phenomenal player but he still was far from the invincible player he is today as he could lose 3-0, 3-0 and 4-2 to Maru, lost in finals 4-0 and 4-1 to Rogue and Dark, lost to Cure 3-0 and 4-1 and lost many more series to the likes of Byun, Zest, soO, Inno, Stats, Trap, Bunny, TY, Zoun etc. Then the players who were able to beat him one after another retired or declined and suddenly the only players that can beat him are the young ones, that aren't in decline yet (Clem and Maxpax). On the other hand, as I previously said there was some overlap between his reign and the peak of some of the korean greats as from 2018-2021 he competed with the peak versions of Stats, Rogue, Dark and Maru who are generally considered amongst the greatest players of all time. So my guess would be if Serral had competed in the Kespa era his winrates against the top players would be similar as his winrates against Rogue/Dark/Stats/Maru from 2018-2021, with the only difference that there would probably be 10-12 players who could achieve those winrates against him. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland27267 Posts
On January 31 2025 22:52 Charoisaur wrote: While that's true, it's just massively easier to improve when you're younger (not my words, but the ones of many pros) and many koreans also had to make up for lost time due to military, the circumstances just massively favor Serral here. I mean, we don't even need to make up hypotheticals, we can see in Serral's results over the years how the competitiveness of the scene affected his performance. From 2018-2021 he was still a phenomenal player but he still was far from the invincible player he is today as he could lose 3-0, 3-0 and 4-2 to Maru, lost in finals 4-0 and 4-1 to Rogue and Dark, lost to Cure 3-0 and 4-1 and lost many more series to the likes of Byun, Zest, soO, Inno, Stats, Trap, Bunny, TY, Zoun etc. On the other hand, as I previously said there was some overlap between his reign and the peak of some of the korean greats as from 2018-2021 he competed with the peak versions of Stats, Rogue, Dark and Maru who are generally considered amongst the greatest players of all time. So my guess would be if Serral had competed in the Kespa era his winrates against the top players would be similar as his winrates against Rogue/Dark/Stats/Maru from 2018-2021, with the only difference that there would probably be 10-12 players who could achieve those winrates against him. According to Aligulac his offline numbers from the start of 2018 thru the end of 2021: Under these filters, Serral is 383–126 (75.25%) in games and 141–18 (88.68%) in matches From the very end of 2021 to today: Under these filters, Serral is 234–81 (74.29%) in games and 88–16 (84.62%) in matches. Those numbers are insane, nobody is remotely putting in those numbers. Interestingly there’s a slight drop between the first period and the second, which I’d attribute slightly to Reynor and Clem rising up perhaps. Serral may have hoovered up more tournaments in the second era, but he was actually less dominant overall. Offline results from the 1st Jan of 2017: - Under these filters, Maru is 725–400 (64.44%) in games and 261–107 (70.92%) in matches. - Under these filters, Dark is 656–378 (63.44%) in games and 242–103 (70.14%) in matches. - Under these filters, Rogue is 448–264 (62.92%) in games and 170–75 (69.39%) in matches. - Under these filters, Reynor is 413–256 (61.73%) in games and 155–71 (68.58%) in matches. - Under these filters, TY is 403–250 (61.72%) in games and 151–72 (67.71%) in matches. - Under these filters, Stats is 482–325 (59.73%) in games and 186–94 (66.43%) in matches. - Under these filters, Clem is 406–252 (61.70%) in games and 161–82 (66.26%) in matches. - Under these filters, herO is 504–349 (59.09%) in games and 194–111 (63.61%) in matches. - Under these filters, Zest is 471–353 (57.16%) in games and 182–114 (61.49%) in matches. Nobody’s close. Maru of the next best in match win rate is closer to 7th, 8th and beyond than he is to Serral. | ||
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Balnazza
Germany1344 Posts
On January 31 2025 22:46 Moonerz wrote: Yes I do not believe south Koreans were the best at sc bw and sc2 because of some genetic ability. They were the best because the infrastructure and financial incentives were there. It is entirely possible that Serral is the most naturally talented player, it is also possible that he isn't. For example Stephano (another foreigner known to be extremely talented and lacking in discipline at that time) probably has much better results if he peaked and played during the recent years. That doesn't make him any better or worse of a player. I think you nailed it in your last paragraph "once the playing field was leveled", you're admitting what we all know is true the team house environment generally created the best sc2 players. There are some exceptions at times like byun but that is the exception not the rule. It's ok to admit that we're not seeing the best possible sc we could be. And if you don't believe that then region locking never would have been needed right? It doesn't necessarily have to be about teamhouses, just in general a professional coaching enviroment will naturally create the best players, yes. Though the region lock you mentioned is kind of a point against that. Koreans dominated outside of Korea and teamhouses, because they could still rely on the huge gap that enviroment created. So I always feel it is hard to believe that all top Koreans somehow dropped massively in skill in the two years between Proleague shutting down and Serral winning his first World Championship. And as was said before: Serral still had to win against almost all of the greatest players of all time, except maybe for Mvp. If their entire greatness was based on playing in teamhouses, that feels more like a counter-argument against them than against Serral tbh. It it just sad that we never got either a true global Proleague or atleast a western equivalent to it, because in the end: Teamleagues are great. And I think for example LoL has quite shown that your first sentence is more than correct, it isn't like Koreans have a genetic advantage (atleast I'm not aware of that). In the beginning, the korean LoL-Teams clearly benefited from the experience from Proleague, having the best teamhouses and coaching staffs. But slowly but surely and over the years, Europe and especially China closed the gap. Now the best korean Teams are still the best in the world, but no one would say that the lower ranked teams would also wipe the floor with the global competition. A statement that would have been hilarious in Proleague in ~2014 | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany16086 Posts
On January 31 2025 23:28 WombaT wrote: According to Aligulac his offline numbers from the start of 2018 thru the end of 2021: Under these filters, Serral is 383–126 (75.25%) in games and 141–18 (88.68%) in matches From the very end of 2021 to today: Under these filters, Serral is 234–81 (74.29%) in games and 88–16 (84.62%) in matches. Those numbers are insane, nobody is remotely putting in those numbers. Interestingly there’s a slight drop between the first period and the second, which I’d attribute slightly to Reynor and Clem rising up perhaps. Serral may have hoovered up more tournaments in the second era, but he was actually less dominant overall. Offline results from the 1st Jan of 2017: - Under these filters, Maru is 725–400 (64.44%) in games and 261–107 (70.92%) in matches. - Under these filters, Dark is 656–378 (63.44%) in games and 242–103 (70.14%) in matches. - Under these filters, Rogue is 448–264 (62.92%) in games and 170–75 (69.39%) in matches. - Under these filters, Reynor is 413–256 (61.73%) in games and 155–71 (68.58%) in matches. - Under these filters, TY is 403–250 (61.72%) in games and 151–72 (67.71%) in matches. - Under these filters, Stats is 482–325 (59.73%) in games and 186–94 (66.43%) in matches. - Under these filters, Clem is 406–252 (61.70%) in games and 161–82 (66.26%) in matches. - Under these filters, herO is 504–349 (59.09%) in games and 194–111 (63.61%) in matches. - Under these filters, Zest is 471–353 (57.16%) in games and 182–114 (61.49%) in matches. Nobody’s close. Maru of the next best in match win rate is closer to 7th, 8th and beyond than he is to Serral. That's interesting, but also a good example of why winrates aren't equal to results or dominance. From 2022 I have him as a considerable favorite in every tournament he enters and the best player at the world at pretty much all times (maybe Clem now has overtaken him). While from 2018-2021, there were significant periods were Maru, Dark, Rogue or Reynor were considered the best player or at least equal to Serral, and Serral had multiple bad losses as demonstrated in my previous post. edit: actually I noticed you only looked at offline results which is imo extremely misleading as there were hardly any offline events from 2019-2021 so you basically measured his winrate in 2018. If you look at both online and offline his winrate from 2018-2021 is: 1176–400 (74.62%) in games and 474–79 (85.71%) in matches. and from 2022-now: 725–213 (77.29%) in games and 292–43 (87.16%) in matches. This is more in line with what I was expecting. If you limit it to vs korean only the gap becomes even wider with 2018-2021 being: 359–173 (67.48%) in games and 134–37 (78,36%) and 2022-now: 253–89 (73.98%) in games and 96–19 (83.48%) in matches | ||
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