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On June 03 2025 08:35 Mizenhauer wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2025 08:28 Antithesis wrote:On June 03 2025 07:31 uselless wrote:
We are so back 3 pages of comments in 2 days nothing like the goat discussion to bring infinite activity instantly This is the one true takeaway here. I appreciate the analysis, despite the criticism some of its assumptions may or may not rightfully call for. It's always beautiful to learn about new statistics in which Serral shines. I fully agree with anyone arguing that GoaTness is also a function of consistency and dominance, not just trophies accumulated, for the simple reason that it is far, far more difficult in SC2 to consistently perform well and continually compete with, if not outcompete, the absolute best of the best, than to have good or even great runs in more or less isolated periods of time. Which is the reason why I too think Rogue is a solid third at best, but not particularly close to Serral and Maru. Obv Rogue doesn't have the consistency of Serral or Maru, but he averaged over one WC or Code S win per year across a six year period. Trophy wise he is quite consistent compared to his overall win rates and average finishing in said events.
And rogue is such a fun character. My first impression of him is in proleague when he looked at the camera instead of monitor knowing he is 100% winning when playing against soO. He also created lots of TVZ build for his old team8 buddy TY which is hilarious.
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United States1886 Posts
On June 03 2025 08:46 dedede wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2025 08:35 Mizenhauer wrote:On June 03 2025 08:28 Antithesis wrote:On June 03 2025 07:31 uselless wrote:
We are so back 3 pages of comments in 2 days nothing like the goat discussion to bring infinite activity instantly This is the one true takeaway here. I appreciate the analysis, despite the criticism some of its assumptions may or may not rightfully call for. It's always beautiful to learn about new statistics in which Serral shines. I fully agree with anyone arguing that GoaTness is also a function of consistency and dominance, not just trophies accumulated, for the simple reason that it is far, far more difficult in SC2 to consistently perform well and continually compete with, if not outcompete, the absolute best of the best, than to have good or even great runs in more or less isolated periods of time. Which is the reason why I too think Rogue is a solid third at best, but not particularly close to Serral and Maru. Obv Rogue doesn't have the consistency of Serral or Maru, but he averaged over one WC or Code S win per year across a six year period. Trophy wise he is quite consistent compared to his overall win rates and average finishing in said events. And rogue is such a fun character. My first impression of him is in proleague when he looked at the camera instead of monitor knowing he is 100% winning when playing against soO. He also created lots of TVZ build for his old team8 buddy TY which is hilarious.
He has my vote for most entertaining player of all time.
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On June 03 2025 08:58 Mizenhauer wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2025 08:46 dedede wrote:On June 03 2025 08:35 Mizenhauer wrote:On June 03 2025 08:28 Antithesis wrote:On June 03 2025 07:31 uselless wrote:
We are so back 3 pages of comments in 2 days nothing like the goat discussion to bring infinite activity instantly This is the one true takeaway here. I appreciate the analysis, despite the criticism some of its assumptions may or may not rightfully call for. It's always beautiful to learn about new statistics in which Serral shines. I fully agree with anyone arguing that GoaTness is also a function of consistency and dominance, not just trophies accumulated, for the simple reason that it is far, far more difficult in SC2 to consistently perform well and continually compete with, if not outcompete, the absolute best of the best, than to have good or even great runs in more or less isolated periods of time. Which is the reason why I too think Rogue is a solid third at best, but not particularly close to Serral and Maru. Obv Rogue doesn't have the consistency of Serral or Maru, but he averaged over one WC or Code S win per year across a six year period. Trophy wise he is quite consistent compared to his overall win rates and average finishing in said events. And rogue is such a fun character. My first impression of him is in proleague when he looked at the camera instead of monitor knowing he is 100% winning when playing against soO. He also created lots of TVZ build for his old team8 buddy TY which is hilarious. He has my vote for most entertaining player of all time.
I do consider him as the zerg goat :p He is so fun to watch even when he gets tilted and smashes keyboards.
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Northern Ireland25613 Posts
On June 03 2025 08:18 dedede wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2025 07:53 WombaT wrote:On June 03 2025 04:50 Pentarp wrote:
Maru will always be my GOAT because he was holding the torch when all other Terrans were dropping like flies. Winning tournaments during unfavourable balance is something that people don't seem to appreciate enough. I think there’s a bit of a flipside here. For whatever reason, while Maru definitely did carry the Terran torch when the race overall was lagging, and more in a last man standing, sole Terran hope way rather than taking titles, he also didn’t tend to flip it and start totally dominating when the race was strong. It’s less of a positive/negative Maru judgement, just something genuinely curious for me. Mvp for example, just the outright best Terran of his time. Still competitive much of the time at his peak regardless of how Terran overall was doing. But pretty dominant when T overall was doing very well. Mvp’s gap to his peers would remain pretty similar. My previous theory was that Maru outperformed other Terrans in rough metas, but in a better meta, other Ts would start to make it deeper and TvT him out of tournaments, to kind of counteract it in a way. However, I did some digging on that theory and really that doesn’t seem to be the case. A strange one! herO also carries protoss when toss is weak but not as stable as Maru. And when protoss is strong herO might just lose pvp but I think it's also because pvp is more random than tvt. Maru used to have a unbeatable tvt record until IEM 2023. I think Maru's biggest enemies are always his teammates e.g. sOs and rogue lol (and zoun looks so scary with his pvt in the kr qualifiers hope maru won't need to play him). So far I don't know any zerg has carried the race when it's weak although which might also be because zerg hasn't had a truly weak patch in LOTV and often (over)represented in large tournaments.
I love herO, but I do think he’s carrying hard because so many top Toss retired or aren’t in shape. In truth he’s also not carrying Toss much harder than Trap did. Trap had more tournament wins in his period, but multiple GSL silvers, 10 GSL Ro8s in a row under the old format, herO has his multiple GSL and a big Ro4 (and crazy run) at EWC.
It’s why I find Maru particularly interesting. It’s the combination of doing it at times when other legendary Terrans were at their peak, but also then not making as much hay when the sun is shining so to speak.
Would have been an interesting alternate history where say, herO came back earlier from military and Trap got to delay his a bit. I think Trap of that time was a bit cleaner than herO, less ballsy but more solid PvT, suffered a bit in PvZ versus the very, very best, especially in big finals. herO’s capable of winning games he shouldn’t in a way Trap tended not to, and his PvZ innovations were probably the last real big meta changes we’ve seen.
Even if just for a year it would have been super cool to see peak Trap and post-military herO both carrying the Protoss flag. herO may have been the originator and refined the herO PvZ style, which for a while became simply ‘how PvZ is played’ but I think Trap mechanically could have played it more cleanly. However, I think herO does have that killer instinct and ability to play scrappy and from behind that someone like Dark excels at, Trap could run a clinic of perfect PvT or whatever, but a bit less of a brawler.
Think it would have been fascinating to see how that went, perhaps they’d push each other into even higher levels, and even just having 2 genuine title contenders for Toss every tournament could have swung things a fair bit. Hypothetical of course, but there’s less variables attached to that one than a big one like ‘what if Kespa continued?’ and you can kinda vaguely see what it might have shaped out as.
For Zerg? Fruitdealer hard carried probably harder than anyone has in terms of pulling a perceived underpowered race along, but it was really for one tournament, and the game was way less figured out.
Perhaps Serral, although not really in the sense of carrying the race. Zerg’s still pretty good. I’d say the nadir of Zerg being at its strongest (in Legacy anyway) was for the couple of years where the ‘Big 4’ of Serral, Dark, Rogue and Reynor were winning every WC, Trap was PvZed out of multiple GSL finals etc. Even cats like Armani and old man DRG were having deep GSL runs to like Ro4s (no disrespect)
Zerg still remains pretty viable and ofc Rogue was inactive, and Dark soon will be. But patch after patch, other Zergs have fallen away and Serral remains not just strong, but statistically his 2024 was the most dominant year we’ve seen over a whole season. Which I think is sometimes forgotten given yes, Clem did sweep him in the biggest prize pool tourney ever.
I’m extrapolating a bit here but if other Zergs fall away, while his results by and large stay the same, I think it’s a safe bet that Serral could hard carry if Zerg got nerfed a little too hard.
I will stress as a neutral in such matters I’d rather not see that happen!
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Northern Ireland25613 Posts
@PremoBeats cheers for the last response, pretty comprehensive!
I see in your OP you mentioned in passing some fun, or trivial stats you sorta unearthed on your travels, but decided not to include? Quite reasonably as it was already rather a comprehensive post
Any chance of posting some of them here? I know I’d enjoy them and I imagine others would too
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On June 03 2025 10:46 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2025 08:18 dedede wrote:On June 03 2025 07:53 WombaT wrote:On June 03 2025 04:50 Pentarp wrote:
Maru will always be my GOAT because he was holding the torch when all other Terrans were dropping like flies. Winning tournaments during unfavourable balance is something that people don't seem to appreciate enough. I think there’s a bit of a flipside here. For whatever reason, while Maru definitely did carry the Terran torch when the race overall was lagging, and more in a last man standing, sole Terran hope way rather than taking titles, he also didn’t tend to flip it and start totally dominating when the race was strong. It’s less of a positive/negative Maru judgement, just something genuinely curious for me. Mvp for example, just the outright best Terran of his time. Still competitive much of the time at his peak regardless of how Terran overall was doing. But pretty dominant when T overall was doing very well. Mvp’s gap to his peers would remain pretty similar. My previous theory was that Maru outperformed other Terrans in rough metas, but in a better meta, other Ts would start to make it deeper and TvT him out of tournaments, to kind of counteract it in a way. However, I did some digging on that theory and really that doesn’t seem to be the case. A strange one! herO also carries protoss when toss is weak but not as stable as Maru. And when protoss is strong herO might just lose pvp but I think it's also because pvp is more random than tvt. Maru used to have a unbeatable tvt record until IEM 2023. I think Maru's biggest enemies are always his teammates e.g. sOs and rogue lol (and zoun looks so scary with his pvt in the kr qualifiers hope maru won't need to play him). So far I don't know any zerg has carried the race when it's weak although which might also be because zerg hasn't had a truly weak patch in LOTV and often (over)represented in large tournaments. I love herO, but I do think he’s carrying hard because so many top Toss retired or aren’t in shape. In truth he’s also not carrying Toss much harder than Trap did. Trap had more tournament wins in his period, but multiple GSL silvers, 10 GSL Ro8s in a row under the old format, herO has his multiple GSL and a big Ro4 (and crazy run) at EWC. It’s why I find Maru particularly interesting. It’s the combination of doing it at times when other legendary Terrans were at their peak, but also then not making as much hay when the sun is shining so to speak. Would have been an interesting alternate history where say, herO came back earlier from military and Trap got to delay his a bit. I think Trap of that time was a bit cleaner than herO, less ballsy but more solid PvT, suffered a bit in PvZ versus the very, very best, especially in big finals. herO’s capable of winning games he shouldn’t in a way Trap tended not to, and his PvZ innovations were probably the last real big meta changes we’ve seen. Even if just for a year it would have been super cool to see peak Trap and post-military herO both carrying the Protoss flag. herO may have been the originator and refined the herO PvZ style, which for a while became simply ‘how PvZ is played’ but I think Trap mechanically could have played it more cleanly. However, I think herO does have that killer instinct and ability to play scrappy and from behind that someone like Dark excels at, Trap could run a clinic of perfect PvT or whatever, but a bit less of a brawler. Think it would have been fascinating to see how that went, perhaps they’d push each other into even higher levels, and even just having 2 genuine title contenders for Toss every tournament could have swung things a fair bit. Hypothetical of course, but there’s less variables attached to that one than a big one like ‘what if Kespa continued?’ and you can kinda vaguely see what it might have shaped out as. For Zerg? Fruitdealer hard carried probably harder than anyone has in terms of pulling a perceived underpowered race along, but it was really for one tournament, and the game was way less figured out. Perhaps Serral, although not really in the sense of carrying the race. Zerg’s still pretty good. I’d say the nadir of Zerg being at its strongest (in Legacy anyway) was for the couple of years where the ‘Big 4’ of Serral, Dark, Rogue and Reynor were winning every WC, Trap was PvZed out of multiple GSL finals etc. Even cats like Armani and old man DRG were having deep GSL runs to like Ro4s (no disrespect) Zerg still remains pretty viable and ofc Rogue was inactive, and Dark soon will be. But patch after patch, other Zergs have fallen away and Serral remains not just strong, but statistically his 2024 was the most dominant year we’ve seen over a whole season. Which I think is sometimes forgotten given yes, Clem did sweep him in the biggest prize pool tourney ever. I’m extrapolating a bit here but if other Zergs fall away, while his results by and large stay the same, I think it’s a safe bet that Serral could hard carry if Zerg got nerfed a little too hard. I will stress as a neutral in such matters I’d rather not see that happen!
Agreed with Trap being the protoss hope carrying the whole race in the protoss dark ages. I feel bad for Trap losing GSLs to Dark and Rogue, and I think he might be the most underrated player ever. Maru's just been through all versions/patches/balances and remains on top that's why I consider he is the greatest of all time. He is probably not the greatest right now even he won dreamhack dallas but I guess it depends on his form and his shoulders.
Serral could carry zerg but it's all hypothetical since there is no patch that zerg's weak. Every champions he won had at least another zerg in top 8 (the two IEM he won both had two zergs in top4 and one zvz final). If any I would put my bet on Rogue to carry the race if zerg can ever be underpowered which I don't see that happen in LOTV at all lol. Besides, I don't know how much Rogue is motivated he is a funny guy who went to play league when he thought zerg was not strong and came back hard once he saw zvp is unlosable lol.
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Northern Ireland25613 Posts
On June 03 2025 11:31 dedede wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2025 10:46 WombaT wrote:On June 03 2025 08:18 dedede wrote:On June 03 2025 07:53 WombaT wrote:On June 03 2025 04:50 Pentarp wrote:
Maru will always be my GOAT because he was holding the torch when all other Terrans were dropping like flies. Winning tournaments during unfavourable balance is something that people don't seem to appreciate enough. I think there’s a bit of a flipside here. For whatever reason, while Maru definitely did carry the Terran torch when the race overall was lagging, and more in a last man standing, sole Terran hope way rather than taking titles, he also didn’t tend to flip it and start totally dominating when the race was strong. It’s less of a positive/negative Maru judgement, just something genuinely curious for me. Mvp for example, just the outright best Terran of his time. Still competitive much of the time at his peak regardless of how Terran overall was doing. But pretty dominant when T overall was doing very well. Mvp’s gap to his peers would remain pretty similar. My previous theory was that Maru outperformed other Terrans in rough metas, but in a better meta, other Ts would start to make it deeper and TvT him out of tournaments, to kind of counteract it in a way. However, I did some digging on that theory and really that doesn’t seem to be the case. A strange one! herO also carries protoss when toss is weak but not as stable as Maru. And when protoss is strong herO might just lose pvp but I think it's also because pvp is more random than tvt. Maru used to have a unbeatable tvt record until IEM 2023. I think Maru's biggest enemies are always his teammates e.g. sOs and rogue lol (and zoun looks so scary with his pvt in the kr qualifiers hope maru won't need to play him). So far I don't know any zerg has carried the race when it's weak although which might also be because zerg hasn't had a truly weak patch in LOTV and often (over)represented in large tournaments. I love herO, but I do think he’s carrying hard because so many top Toss retired or aren’t in shape. In truth he’s also not carrying Toss much harder than Trap did. Trap had more tournament wins in his period, but multiple GSL silvers, 10 GSL Ro8s in a row under the old format, herO has his multiple GSL and a big Ro4 (and crazy run) at EWC. It’s why I find Maru particularly interesting. It’s the combination of doing it at times when other legendary Terrans were at their peak, but also then not making as much hay when the sun is shining so to speak. Would have been an interesting alternate history where say, herO came back earlier from military and Trap got to delay his a bit. I think Trap of that time was a bit cleaner than herO, less ballsy but more solid PvT, suffered a bit in PvZ versus the very, very best, especially in big finals. herO’s capable of winning games he shouldn’t in a way Trap tended not to, and his PvZ innovations were probably the last real big meta changes we’ve seen. Even if just for a year it would have been super cool to see peak Trap and post-military herO both carrying the Protoss flag. herO may have been the originator and refined the herO PvZ style, which for a while became simply ‘how PvZ is played’ but I think Trap mechanically could have played it more cleanly. However, I think herO does have that killer instinct and ability to play scrappy and from behind that someone like Dark excels at, Trap could run a clinic of perfect PvT or whatever, but a bit less of a brawler. Think it would have been fascinating to see how that went, perhaps they’d push each other into even higher levels, and even just having 2 genuine title contenders for Toss every tournament could have swung things a fair bit. Hypothetical of course, but there’s less variables attached to that one than a big one like ‘what if Kespa continued?’ and you can kinda vaguely see what it might have shaped out as. For Zerg? Fruitdealer hard carried probably harder than anyone has in terms of pulling a perceived underpowered race along, but it was really for one tournament, and the game was way less figured out. Perhaps Serral, although not really in the sense of carrying the race. Zerg’s still pretty good. I’d say the nadir of Zerg being at its strongest (in Legacy anyway) was for the couple of years where the ‘Big 4’ of Serral, Dark, Rogue and Reynor were winning every WC, Trap was PvZed out of multiple GSL finals etc. Even cats like Armani and old man DRG were having deep GSL runs to like Ro4s (no disrespect) Zerg still remains pretty viable and ofc Rogue was inactive, and Dark soon will be. But patch after patch, other Zergs have fallen away and Serral remains not just strong, but statistically his 2024 was the most dominant year we’ve seen over a whole season. Which I think is sometimes forgotten given yes, Clem did sweep him in the biggest prize pool tourney ever. I’m extrapolating a bit here but if other Zergs fall away, while his results by and large stay the same, I think it’s a safe bet that Serral could hard carry if Zerg got nerfed a little too hard. I will stress as a neutral in such matters I’d rather not see that happen! Agreed with Trap being the protoss hope carrying the whole race in the protoss dark ages. I feel bad for Trap losing GSLs to Dark and Rogue, and I think he might be the most underrated player ever. Maru's just been through all versions/patches/balances and remains on top that's why I consider he is the greatest of all time. He is probably not the greatest right now even he won dreamhack dallas but I guess it depends on his form and his shoulders. Serral could carry zerg but it's all hypothetical since there is no patch that zerg's weak. Every champions he won had at least another zerg in top 8 (the two IEM he won both had two zergs in top4 and one zvz final). If any I would put my bet on Rogue to carry the race if zerg can ever be underpowered which I don't see that happen in LOTV at all lol. Besides, I don't know how much Rogue is motivated he is a funny guy who went to play league when he thought zerg was not strong and came back hard once he saw zvp is unlosable lol.
I’d go Dark if we’re in hypothetical land (well, after Serral)
There isn’t really a criticism that can be made of Serral that can’t also be made of Rogue really, in terms of doing well when Zerg is in strong periods. Balance etc
Rogue does some whacky stuff, and is a great set planner. But he’s not generally as good as Dark at whacky, off meta-stuff. Or weird, scrappy games. Rogue will kill you with some funky build he’s got in his pocket, but Dark’s the guy for seemingly improvising his way through a scrappy game. Which I think is gonna be what you need to do a lot of in this world where Zerg just suck. Plus he was sticking up results of note in less strong eras anyway when Rogue wasn’t so much. In GSL maybe it swings back to Rogue because of him being a prep merchant, but for your regular non-prep tournaments I’d probably favour Dark
I think Serral is just outright too good, at basically everything. He doesn’t bring out some pocket cheeses as much as others, but he does have them in the locker. He’s faster and cleaner than everyone except maybe Reynor mechanically, he’s got the best temperament, at least in terms of consistency. Maybe not as clutch as offline Bo7 Rogue. Best at scouting and defensively reacting, and the best lategame, especially in ZvP.
If Zerg ever ends up a spot where Serral at current skill can’t carry it to at least an occasional title, IMO the race would be completely broken. Up there with the very weakest any race has ever been in the game’s history.
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On June 03 2025 12:09 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2025 11:31 dedede wrote:On June 03 2025 10:46 WombaT wrote:On June 03 2025 08:18 dedede wrote:On June 03 2025 07:53 WombaT wrote:On June 03 2025 04:50 Pentarp wrote:
Maru will always be my GOAT because he was holding the torch when all other Terrans were dropping like flies. Winning tournaments during unfavourable balance is something that people don't seem to appreciate enough. I think there’s a bit of a flipside here. For whatever reason, while Maru definitely did carry the Terran torch when the race overall was lagging, and more in a last man standing, sole Terran hope way rather than taking titles, he also didn’t tend to flip it and start totally dominating when the race was strong. It’s less of a positive/negative Maru judgement, just something genuinely curious for me. Mvp for example, just the outright best Terran of his time. Still competitive much of the time at his peak regardless of how Terran overall was doing. But pretty dominant when T overall was doing very well. Mvp’s gap to his peers would remain pretty similar. My previous theory was that Maru outperformed other Terrans in rough metas, but in a better meta, other Ts would start to make it deeper and TvT him out of tournaments, to kind of counteract it in a way. However, I did some digging on that theory and really that doesn’t seem to be the case. A strange one! herO also carries protoss when toss is weak but not as stable as Maru. And when protoss is strong herO might just lose pvp but I think it's also because pvp is more random than tvt. Maru used to have a unbeatable tvt record until IEM 2023. I think Maru's biggest enemies are always his teammates e.g. sOs and rogue lol (and zoun looks so scary with his pvt in the kr qualifiers hope maru won't need to play him). So far I don't know any zerg has carried the race when it's weak although which might also be because zerg hasn't had a truly weak patch in LOTV and often (over)represented in large tournaments. I love herO, but I do think he’s carrying hard because so many top Toss retired or aren’t in shape. In truth he’s also not carrying Toss much harder than Trap did. Trap had more tournament wins in his period, but multiple GSL silvers, 10 GSL Ro8s in a row under the old format, herO has his multiple GSL and a big Ro4 (and crazy run) at EWC. It’s why I find Maru particularly interesting. It’s the combination of doing it at times when other legendary Terrans were at their peak, but also then not making as much hay when the sun is shining so to speak. Would have been an interesting alternate history where say, herO came back earlier from military and Trap got to delay his a bit. I think Trap of that time was a bit cleaner than herO, less ballsy but more solid PvT, suffered a bit in PvZ versus the very, very best, especially in big finals. herO’s capable of winning games he shouldn’t in a way Trap tended not to, and his PvZ innovations were probably the last real big meta changes we’ve seen. Even if just for a year it would have been super cool to see peak Trap and post-military herO both carrying the Protoss flag. herO may have been the originator and refined the herO PvZ style, which for a while became simply ‘how PvZ is played’ but I think Trap mechanically could have played it more cleanly. However, I think herO does have that killer instinct and ability to play scrappy and from behind that someone like Dark excels at, Trap could run a clinic of perfect PvT or whatever, but a bit less of a brawler. Think it would have been fascinating to see how that went, perhaps they’d push each other into even higher levels, and even just having 2 genuine title contenders for Toss every tournament could have swung things a fair bit. Hypothetical of course, but there’s less variables attached to that one than a big one like ‘what if Kespa continued?’ and you can kinda vaguely see what it might have shaped out as. For Zerg? Fruitdealer hard carried probably harder than anyone has in terms of pulling a perceived underpowered race along, but it was really for one tournament, and the game was way less figured out. Perhaps Serral, although not really in the sense of carrying the race. Zerg’s still pretty good. I’d say the nadir of Zerg being at its strongest (in Legacy anyway) was for the couple of years where the ‘Big 4’ of Serral, Dark, Rogue and Reynor were winning every WC, Trap was PvZed out of multiple GSL finals etc. Even cats like Armani and old man DRG were having deep GSL runs to like Ro4s (no disrespect) Zerg still remains pretty viable and ofc Rogue was inactive, and Dark soon will be. But patch after patch, other Zergs have fallen away and Serral remains not just strong, but statistically his 2024 was the most dominant year we’ve seen over a whole season. Which I think is sometimes forgotten given yes, Clem did sweep him in the biggest prize pool tourney ever. I’m extrapolating a bit here but if other Zergs fall away, while his results by and large stay the same, I think it’s a safe bet that Serral could hard carry if Zerg got nerfed a little too hard. I will stress as a neutral in such matters I’d rather not see that happen! Agreed with Trap being the protoss hope carrying the whole race in the protoss dark ages. I feel bad for Trap losing GSLs to Dark and Rogue, and I think he might be the most underrated player ever. Maru's just been through all versions/patches/balances and remains on top that's why I consider he is the greatest of all time. He is probably not the greatest right now even he won dreamhack dallas but I guess it depends on his form and his shoulders. Serral could carry zerg but it's all hypothetical since there is no patch that zerg's weak. Every champions he won had at least another zerg in top 8 (the two IEM he won both had two zergs in top4 and one zvz final). If any I would put my bet on Rogue to carry the race if zerg can ever be underpowered which I don't see that happen in LOTV at all lol. Besides, I don't know how much Rogue is motivated he is a funny guy who went to play league when he thought zerg was not strong and came back hard once he saw zvp is unlosable lol. I’d go Dark if we’re in hypothetical land (well, after Serral) There isn’t really a criticism that can be made of Serral that can’t also be made of Rogue really, in terms of doing well when Zerg is in strong periods. Balance etc Rogue does some whacky stuff, and is a great set planner. But he’s not generally as good as Dark at whacky, off meta-stuff. Or weird, scrappy games. Rogue will kill you with some funky build he’s got in his pocket, but Dark’s the guy for seemingly improvising his way through a scrappy game. Which I think is gonna be what you need to do a lot of in this world where Zerg just suck. Plus he was sticking up results of note in less strong eras anyway when Rogue wasn’t so much. In GSL maybe it swings back to Rogue because of him being a prep merchant, but for your regular non-prep tournaments I’d probably favour Dark I think Serral is just outright too good, at basically everything. He doesn’t bring out some pocket cheeses as much as others, but he does have them in the locker. He’s faster and cleaner than everyone except maybe Reynor mechanically, he’s got the best temperament, at least in terms of consistency. Maybe not as clutch as offline Bo7 Rogue. Best at scouting and defensively reacting, and the best lategame, especially in ZvP. If Zerg ever ends up a spot where Serral at current skill can’t carry it to at least an occasional title, IMO the race would be completely broken. Up there with the very weakest any race has ever been in the game’s history.
Hmm, I don’t think anything could possibly be weaker than Terran and Protoss in late 2019 when Maru barely got into the WCS Ro8 as the last terran and Classic/Trap as protoss to unfortunately play against that notorious Infestor/Broodlord/Swarmhost combo. But hey, since the whole "Zerg was weak" thing is purely hypothetical anyway, you can cast your vote for Serral and I’ll stick with my boy Rogue since at least Rogue won one GSL as the only zerg in ro8 —Daddy Dark’s serving in the military now so he’s off my radar for the time being.
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Northern Ireland25613 Posts
Is it noteworthy to win a tournament while being the only one of your race in the Ro8 if 2 of the best 4 players of your race were never in the field?
Maru’s feats are notable because his fellow Terran top dogs were there, and kept falling and leaving him the last man standing.
If, idk, Inno and TY sat out a few tournaments to just chill out, Maru being the last man standing and Fourth Race is like, considerably less of a thing
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On June 03 2025 13:35 WombaT wrote:
Is it noteworthy to win a tournament while being the only one of your race in the Ro8 if 2 of the best 4 players of your race were never in the field?
Maru’s feats are notable because his fellow Terran top dogs were there, and kept falling and leaving him the last man standing.
If, idk, Inno and TY sat out a few tournaments to just chill out, Maru being the last man standing and Fourth Race is like, considerably less of a thing
I’m not saying Zerg was weak in that GSL, so it’s not like I’m trying to defend Rogue or anything. But if the top four Zergs are considered to be Serral, Dark, Rogue, and Reynor—then Rogue’s GSL win came without Serral or Reynor participating. On the flip side, Reynor and Serral competed in the circuit events where Dark and Rogue weren’t present, so they also had opportunities to be the "last Zerg standing." Again, not defending Rogue, just pointing out some facts I recently learned. Only Maru got the Fourth Race title, that GSL rogue won could be Dark/solar/soO/Rag being unlucky in ro16 or something.
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On June 03 2025 07:15 sc2turtlepants wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2025 16:35 tigera6 wrote:
and everybody who watch SC2 know for a FACT that 2024 wasnt Serral best year in term of gameplay, but it happen in the year where there are only so few tournament around. He won Katowice last year, under same bracket and rules as in years past, which on any of those years would have earned him his third World Championship title. He also smashed some other tournies in the first half (Dallas, WTL, Master's Coliseum), and it was only during/after EWC that Clem (a player not in the running for GOAT) hit the top in terms of skill - also the part of the year where the 'few tournaments' hit that you're mentioning.
And he did so while being in the military. Tbf, I don't think he would have defeated Clem anyway, the kid simply was on another level that tournament but it is still incredible that Serral - although being in the sports-branch - achieved so much in 2024 while being able to practice a lot less than he normally would have.
On June 03 2025 07:53 WombaT wrote:
However, I did some digging on that theory and really that doesn’t seem to be the case.
A strange one!
Meaning that it was mostly non-TvTs that kicked him out? This could be an interesting statistcs-piece as well.
On June 03 2025 10:48 WombaT wrote:
@PremoBeats cheers for the last response, pretty comprehensive!
I see in your OP you mentioned in passing some fun, or trivial stats you sorta unearthed on your travels, but decided not to include? Quite reasonably as it was already rather a comprehensive post
Any chance of posting some of them here? I know I’d enjoy them and I imagine others would too
I think I will include these in a follow-up post. Atm I am pretty busy with my business expansion but once things slow down, I will think about some surveys to get the community's impression on weighting and probably the tournament multiplier.
The strongest negative feedback was clearly aimed at Aligulac, which is an indicator that most agree with the general methodology of the other metrics.
Aligulac's error significance is pretty low, given that it mostly targets the few end of 2017/beginning of 2018 lists, but I already wrote in the article that I agree that I would have done the weightings differently (probably tournament score 50 - 60% and the rest adjusted to that. Or 5% for all metrics, 15% for tournament win % and the rest to tournament score).
On June 03 2025 13:17 dedede wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2025 12:09 WombaT wrote:On June 03 2025 11:31 dedede wrote:On June 03 2025 10:46 WombaT wrote:On June 03 2025 08:18 dedede wrote:On June 03 2025 07:53 WombaT wrote:On June 03 2025 04:50 Pentarp wrote:
Maru will always be my GOAT because he was holding the torch when all other Terrans were dropping like flies. Winning tournaments during unfavourable balance is something that people don't seem to appreciate enough. I think there’s a bit of a flipside here. For whatever reason, while Maru definitely did carry the Terran torch when the race overall was lagging, and more in a last man standing, sole Terran hope way rather than taking titles, he also didn’t tend to flip it and start totally dominating when the race was strong. It’s less of a positive/negative Maru judgement, just something genuinely curious for me. Mvp for example, just the outright best Terran of his time. Still competitive much of the time at his peak regardless of how Terran overall was doing. But pretty dominant when T overall was doing very well. Mvp’s gap to his peers would remain pretty similar. My previous theory was that Maru outperformed other Terrans in rough metas, but in a better meta, other Ts would start to make it deeper and TvT him out of tournaments, to kind of counteract it in a way. However, I did some digging on that theory and really that doesn’t seem to be the case. A strange one! herO also carries protoss when toss is weak but not as stable as Maru. And when protoss is strong herO might just lose pvp but I think it's also because pvp is more random than tvt. Maru used to have a unbeatable tvt record until IEM 2023. I think Maru's biggest enemies are always his teammates e.g. sOs and rogue lol (and zoun looks so scary with his pvt in the kr qualifiers hope maru won't need to play him). So far I don't know any zerg has carried the race when it's weak although which might also be because zerg hasn't had a truly weak patch in LOTV and often (over)represented in large tournaments. I love herO, but I do think he’s carrying hard because so many top Toss retired or aren’t in shape. In truth he’s also not carrying Toss much harder than Trap did. Trap had more tournament wins in his period, but multiple GSL silvers, 10 GSL Ro8s in a row under the old format, herO has his multiple GSL and a big Ro4 (and crazy run) at EWC. It’s why I find Maru particularly interesting. It’s the combination of doing it at times when other legendary Terrans were at their peak, but also then not making as much hay when the sun is shining so to speak. Would have been an interesting alternate history where say, herO came back earlier from military and Trap got to delay his a bit. I think Trap of that time was a bit cleaner than herO, less ballsy but more solid PvT, suffered a bit in PvZ versus the very, very best, especially in big finals. herO’s capable of winning games he shouldn’t in a way Trap tended not to, and his PvZ innovations were probably the last real big meta changes we’ve seen. Even if just for a year it would have been super cool to see peak Trap and post-military herO both carrying the Protoss flag. herO may have been the originator and refined the herO PvZ style, which for a while became simply ‘how PvZ is played’ but I think Trap mechanically could have played it more cleanly. However, I think herO does have that killer instinct and ability to play scrappy and from behind that someone like Dark excels at, Trap could run a clinic of perfect PvT or whatever, but a bit less of a brawler. Think it would have been fascinating to see how that went, perhaps they’d push each other into even higher levels, and even just having 2 genuine title contenders for Toss every tournament could have swung things a fair bit. Hypothetical of course, but there’s less variables attached to that one than a big one like ‘what if Kespa continued?’ and you can kinda vaguely see what it might have shaped out as. For Zerg? Fruitdealer hard carried probably harder than anyone has in terms of pulling a perceived underpowered race along, but it was really for one tournament, and the game was way less figured out. Perhaps Serral, although not really in the sense of carrying the race. Zerg’s still pretty good. I’d say the nadir of Zerg being at its strongest (in Legacy anyway) was for the couple of years where the ‘Big 4’ of Serral, Dark, Rogue and Reynor were winning every WC, Trap was PvZed out of multiple GSL finals etc. Even cats like Armani and old man DRG were having deep GSL runs to like Ro4s (no disrespect) Zerg still remains pretty viable and ofc Rogue was inactive, and Dark soon will be. But patch after patch, other Zergs have fallen away and Serral remains not just strong, but statistically his 2024 was the most dominant year we’ve seen over a whole season. Which I think is sometimes forgotten given yes, Clem did sweep him in the biggest prize pool tourney ever. I’m extrapolating a bit here but if other Zergs fall away, while his results by and large stay the same, I think it’s a safe bet that Serral could hard carry if Zerg got nerfed a little too hard. I will stress as a neutral in such matters I’d rather not see that happen! Agreed with Trap being the protoss hope carrying the whole race in the protoss dark ages. I feel bad for Trap losing GSLs to Dark and Rogue, and I think he might be the most underrated player ever. Maru's just been through all versions/patches/balances and remains on top that's why I consider he is the greatest of all time. He is probably not the greatest right now even he won dreamhack dallas but I guess it depends on his form and his shoulders. Serral could carry zerg but it's all hypothetical since there is no patch that zerg's weak. Every champions he won had at least another zerg in top 8 (the two IEM he won both had two zergs in top4 and one zvz final). If any I would put my bet on Rogue to carry the race if zerg can ever be underpowered which I don't see that happen in LOTV at all lol. Besides, I don't know how much Rogue is motivated he is a funny guy who went to play league when he thought zerg was not strong and came back hard once he saw zvp is unlosable lol. I’d go Dark if we’re in hypothetical land (well, after Serral) There isn’t really a criticism that can be made of Serral that can’t also be made of Rogue really, in terms of doing well when Zerg is in strong periods. Balance etc Rogue does some whacky stuff, and is a great set planner. But he’s not generally as good as Dark at whacky, off meta-stuff. Or weird, scrappy games. Rogue will kill you with some funky build he’s got in his pocket, but Dark’s the guy for seemingly improvising his way through a scrappy game. Which I think is gonna be what you need to do a lot of in this world where Zerg just suck. Plus he was sticking up results of note in less strong eras anyway when Rogue wasn’t so much. In GSL maybe it swings back to Rogue because of him being a prep merchant, but for your regular non-prep tournaments I’d probably favour Dark I think Serral is just outright too good, at basically everything. He doesn’t bring out some pocket cheeses as much as others, but he does have them in the locker. He’s faster and cleaner than everyone except maybe Reynor mechanically, he’s got the best temperament, at least in terms of consistency. Maybe not as clutch as offline Bo7 Rogue. Best at scouting and defensively reacting, and the best lategame, especially in ZvP. If Zerg ever ends up a spot where Serral at current skill can’t carry it to at least an occasional title, IMO the race would be completely broken. Up there with the very weakest any race has ever been in the game’s history. Hmm, I don’t think anything could possibly be weaker than Terran and Protoss in late 2019 when Maru barely got into the WCS Ro8 as the last terran and Classic/Trap as protoss to unfortunately play against that notorious Infestor/Broodlord/Swarmhost combo. But hey, since the whole "Zerg was weak" thing is purely hypothetical anyway, you can cast your vote for Serral and I’ll stick with my boy Rogue since at least Rogue won one GSL as the only zerg in ro8 —Daddy Dark’s serving in the military now so he’s off my radar for the time being.
I don't think that hypotheticals are built well around statistics spanning only a couple of tournaments as there are too many confounding factors that could have led to or influenced the results one builds the hypothetical around (not that I am too fond of hypotheticals anyway  ).
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United States1886 Posts
On June 03 2025 13:35 WombaT wrote:
Is it noteworthy to win a tournament while being the only one of your race in the Ro8 if 2 of the best 4 players of your race were never in the field?
Maru’s feats are notable because his fellow Terran top dogs were there, and kept falling and leaving him the last man standing.
If, idk, Inno and TY sat out a few tournaments to just chill out, Maru being the last man standing and Fourth Race is like, considerably less of a thing
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hFFx7Phxvtg0aTC7Se3_Zd5B2Ap_c4G6rzldCzx2auc/edit?usp=drivesdk
I put this together in 2024. It covers what seed a player was ranked prior to the end of year world championship. Starts out with wcs, moves into iem and I'll have to update it to cover ewc. Still, some random tidbits in there and a few interesting conclusions to make.
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All this work and you fail to add the simple fact that Serral dominated in an Era when SC2 competitiveness had declined for a long time. Serral did not win a S tier tournament against Koreans until mid/late 2018. )Serral and Maru are exactly the same age BTW)
Maru has won S tier tournaments since 2012.
The same year Serral gets his first "big" win if you can call it that, Maru wins World Electronic Sports Games 2018 , where he won 200000$ for first place!.
From 2018 the games competitiveness declines massively, and when Serral becomes without doubt the best player in the world some years later the game is already pretty dead compared to what it used to be ( not calling the game dead calm down don't ban me).
Maru's consistency since 2012 is unmatched, and from his big 200000dollar tournament win in 2018 , you can easily tell he has dialed it back has not had the same hunger since.
We can also not forget to add that Serral plays Zerg, let's just say historically a VERY strong race.
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United States1886 Posts
On June 06 2025 17:01 Drahkn wrote:
All this work and you fail to add the simple fact that Serral dominated in an Era when SC2 competitiveness had declined for a long time. Serral did not win a S tier tournament against Koreans until mid/late 2018. )Serral and Maru are exactly the same age BTW)
Maru has won S tier tournaments since 2012.
The same year Serral gets his first "big" win if you can call it that, Maru wins World Electronic Sports Games 2018 , where he won 200000$ for first place!.
From 2018 the games competitiveness declines massively, and when Serral becomes without doubt the best player in the world some years later the game is already pretty dead compared to what it used to be ( not calling the game dead calm down don't ban me).
Maru's consistency since 2012 is unmatched, and from his big 200000dollar tournament win in 2018 , you can easily tell he has dialed it back has not had the same hunger since.
We can also not forget to add that Serral plays Zerg, let's just say historically a VERY strong race.
If you're gonna make excuses for Maru at least blame it on injuries and not his "hunger". Thank you in advance and please remember that blaming injuries (Maru was already receiving treatment for his wrists at hospitals when he was still playing BW) is the official party line of Maru fans worldwide.
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On June 06 2025 17:01 Drahkn wrote:
All this work and you fail to add the simple fact that Serral dominated in an Era when SC2 competitiveness had declined for a long time. Serral did not win a S tier tournament against Koreans until mid/late 2018. )Serral and Maru are exactly the same age BTW)
Maru has won S tier tournaments since 2012.
The same year Serral gets his first "big" win if you can call it that, Maru wins World Electronic Sports Games 2018 , where he won 200000$ for first place!.
From 2018 the games competitiveness declines massively, and when Serral becomes without doubt the best player in the world some years later the game is already pretty dead compared to what it used to be ( not calling the game dead calm down don't ban me).
Maru's consistency since 2012 is unmatched, and from his big 200000dollar tournament win in 2018 , you can easily tell he has dialed it back has not had the same hunger since.
We can also not forget to add that Serral plays Zerg, let's just say historically a VERY strong race.
Maru barely won anything pre-2018 as well. Just because someone started earlier doesn’t make them better.
Serral is head and shoulders above Maru in virtually every statistical measure (which this article points out even if some parts are flawed). Serral wins at such a higher clip than Maru and Maru loses to Serral (and barely ever wins international competitions where the top players are present) so often that to make the argument at this point is absurd.
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On June 06 2025 17:13 onPHYRE wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2025 17:01 Drahkn wrote:
All this work and you fail to add the simple fact that Serral dominated in an Era when SC2 competitiveness had declined for a long time. Serral did not win a S tier tournament against Koreans until mid/late 2018. )Serral and Maru are exactly the same age BTW)
Maru has won S tier tournaments since 2012.
The same year Serral gets his first "big" win if you can call it that, Maru wins World Electronic Sports Games 2018 , where he won 200000$ for first place!.
From 2018 the games competitiveness declines massively, and when Serral becomes without doubt the best player in the world some years later the game is already pretty dead compared to what it used to be ( not calling the game dead calm down don't ban me).
Maru's consistency since 2012 is unmatched, and from his big 200000dollar tournament win in 2018 , you can easily tell he has dialed it back has not had the same hunger since.
We can also not forget to add that Serral plays Zerg, let's just say historically a VERY strong race. Maru barely won anything pre-2018 as well. Just because someone started earlier doesn’t make them better. Serral is head and shoulders above Maru in virtually every statistical measure (which this article points out even if some parts are flawed). Serral wins at such a higher clip than Maru and Maru loses to Serral (and barely ever wins international competitions where the top players are present) so often that to make the argument at this point is absurd.
False. Maru won OSL in 2013 and SSL in 2015 and was MVP in 2015-2016 Proleague. Did you ever watch games back then?
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United States1886 Posts
On June 06 2025 17:36 dedede wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2025 17:13 onPHYRE wrote:On June 06 2025 17:01 Drahkn wrote:
All this work and you fail to add the simple fact that Serral dominated in an Era when SC2 competitiveness had declined for a long time. Serral did not win a S tier tournament against Koreans until mid/late 2018. )Serral and Maru are exactly the same age BTW)
Maru has won S tier tournaments since 2012.
The same year Serral gets his first "big" win if you can call it that, Maru wins World Electronic Sports Games 2018 , where he won 200000$ for first place!.
From 2018 the games competitiveness declines massively, and when Serral becomes without doubt the best player in the world some years later the game is already pretty dead compared to what it used to be ( not calling the game dead calm down don't ban me).
Maru's consistency since 2012 is unmatched, and from his big 200000dollar tournament win in 2018 , you can easily tell he has dialed it back has not had the same hunger since.
We can also not forget to add that Serral plays Zerg, let's just say historically a VERY strong race. Maru barely won anything pre-2018 as well. Just because someone started earlier doesn’t make them better. Serral is head and shoulders above Maru in virtually every statistical measure (which this article points out even if some parts are flawed). Serral wins at such a higher clip than Maru and Maru loses to Serral (and barely ever wins international competitions where the top players are present) so often that to make the argument at this point is absurd. False. Maru won OSL in 2013 and SSL in 2015 and was MVP in 2015-2016 Proleague. Did you ever watch games back then?
Other things Maru did before 2018 (with a little bit of leeway to allow triple crown).
Most wins by any Terran during Proleague (2012/13-2016).
Third behind Inno and Rain for most wins in OSL/SSL/GSL from KeSPA entry to end of Hots.
Most Round of 4 exits of any player in KIL held from 2010-2017 (4).
First and only player to win OSL/SSL and GSL (2012/2015/2018).
Went 22-4 in Proleague 2016 with an unheard of win rate of 85%.
Rookie of the year in Proleague (2014).
My top 6 "Hots" players (this includes the very end of WoL since Kespa came in right at the end) in no order...
Inno
Rain
Maru
Zest
sOs
soO
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On June 06 2025 17:51 Mizenhauer wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2025 17:36 dedede wrote:On June 06 2025 17:13 onPHYRE wrote:On June 06 2025 17:01 Drahkn wrote:
All this work and you fail to add the simple fact that Serral dominated in an Era when SC2 competitiveness had declined for a long time. Serral did not win a S tier tournament against Koreans until mid/late 2018. )Serral and Maru are exactly the same age BTW)
Maru has won S tier tournaments since 2012.
The same year Serral gets his first "big" win if you can call it that, Maru wins World Electronic Sports Games 2018 , where he won 200000$ for first place!.
From 2018 the games competitiveness declines massively, and when Serral becomes without doubt the best player in the world some years later the game is already pretty dead compared to what it used to be ( not calling the game dead calm down don't ban me).
Maru's consistency since 2012 is unmatched, and from his big 200000dollar tournament win in 2018 , you can easily tell he has dialed it back has not had the same hunger since.
We can also not forget to add that Serral plays Zerg, let's just say historically a VERY strong race. Maru barely won anything pre-2018 as well. Just because someone started earlier doesn’t make them better. Serral is head and shoulders above Maru in virtually every statistical measure (which this article points out even if some parts are flawed). Serral wins at such a higher clip than Maru and Maru loses to Serral (and barely ever wins international competitions where the top players are present) so often that to make the argument at this point is absurd. False. Maru won OSL in 2013 and SSL in 2015 and was MVP in 2015-2016 Proleague. Did you ever watch games back then? My top 6 "Hots" players (this includes the very end of WoL since Kespa came in right at the end) in no order... Inno Rain Maru Zest sOs soO
Life?
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On June 06 2025 17:51 Mizenhauer wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2025 17:36 dedede wrote:On June 06 2025 17:13 onPHYRE wrote:On June 06 2025 17:01 Drahkn wrote:
All this work and you fail to add the simple fact that Serral dominated in an Era when SC2 competitiveness had declined for a long time. Serral did not win a S tier tournament against Koreans until mid/late 2018. )Serral and Maru are exactly the same age BTW)
Maru has won S tier tournaments since 2012.
The same year Serral gets his first "big" win if you can call it that, Maru wins World Electronic Sports Games 2018 , where he won 200000$ for first place!.
From 2018 the games competitiveness declines massively, and when Serral becomes without doubt the best player in the world some years later the game is already pretty dead compared to what it used to be ( not calling the game dead calm down don't ban me).
Maru's consistency since 2012 is unmatched, and from his big 200000dollar tournament win in 2018 , you can easily tell he has dialed it back has not had the same hunger since.
We can also not forget to add that Serral plays Zerg, let's just say historically a VERY strong race. Maru barely won anything pre-2018 as well. Just because someone started earlier doesn’t make them better. Serral is head and shoulders above Maru in virtually every statistical measure (which this article points out even if some parts are flawed). Serral wins at such a higher clip than Maru and Maru loses to Serral (and barely ever wins international competitions where the top players are present) so often that to make the argument at this point is absurd. False. Maru won OSL in 2013 and SSL in 2015 and was MVP in 2015-2016 Proleague. Did you ever watch games back then? Other things Maru did before 2018 (with a little bit of leeway to allow triple crown). Most wins by any Terran during Proleague (2012/13-2016). Third behind Inno and Rain for most wins in OSL/SSL/GSL from KeSPA entry to end of Hots. Most Round of 4 exits of any player in KIL held from 2010-2017 (4). First and only player to win OSL/SSL and GSL (2012/2015/2018). Went 22-4 in Proleague 2016 with an unheard of win rate of 85%. Rookie of the year in Proleague (2014). My top 6 "Hots" players (this includes the very end of WoL since Kespa came in right at the end) in no order... Inno Rain Maru Zest sOs soO
Geez thank you for the extra info. I always get annoyed seeing irresponsible comments like the one above, so I couldn’t resist jumping in.
My top 6 HOTS players are a bit different I ranked Maru and Zest above Rain, probably due to my bias toward proleague performance.
Edit: oops just saw the list was in no order my bad
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Northern Ireland25613 Posts
On June 06 2025 14:19 PremoBeats wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2025 07:15 sc2turtlepants wrote:On June 01 2025 16:35 tigera6 wrote:
and everybody who watch SC2 know for a FACT that 2024 wasnt Serral best year in term of gameplay, but it happen in the year where there are only so few tournament around. He won Katowice last year, under same bracket and rules as in years past, which on any of those years would have earned him his third World Championship title. He also smashed some other tournies in the first half (Dallas, WTL, Master's Coliseum), and it was only during/after EWC that Clem (a player not in the running for GOAT) hit the top in terms of skill - also the part of the year where the 'few tournaments' hit that you're mentioning. And he did so while being in the military. Tbf, I don't think he would have defeated Clem anyway, the kid simply was on another level that tournament but it is still incredible that Serral - although being in the sports-branch - achieved so much in 2024 while being able to practice a lot less than he normally would have. Show nested quote +On June 03 2025 07:53 WombaT wrote:
However, I did some digging on that theory and really that doesn’t seem to be the case.
A strange one! Meaning that it was mostly non-TvTs that kicked him out? This could be an interesting statistcs-piece as well. Show nested quote +
On June 03 2025 10:48 WombaT wrote:
@PremoBeats cheers for the last response, pretty comprehensive!
I see in your OP you mentioned in passing some fun, or trivial stats you sorta unearthed on your travels, but decided not to include? Quite reasonably as it was already rather a comprehensive post
Any chance of posting some of them here? I know I’d enjoy them and I imagine others would too
I think I will include these in a follow-up post. Atm I am pretty busy with my business expansion but once things slow down, I will think about some surveys to get the community's impression on weighting and probably the tournament multiplier. The strongest negative feedback was clearly aimed at Aligulac, which is an indicator that most agree with the general methodology of the other metrics. Aligulac's error significance is pretty low, given that it mostly targets the few end of 2017/beginning of 2018 lists, but I already wrote in the article that I agree that I would have done the weightings differently (probably tournament score 50 - 60% and the rest adjusted to that. Or 5% for all metrics, 15% for tournament win % and the rest to tournament score). Show nested quote +On June 03 2025 13:17 dedede wrote:On June 03 2025 12:09 WombaT wrote:On June 03 2025 11:31 dedede wrote:On June 03 2025 10:46 WombaT wrote:On June 03 2025 08:18 dedede wrote:On June 03 2025 07:53 WombaT wrote:On June 03 2025 04:50 Pentarp wrote:
Maru will always be my GOAT because he was holding the torch when all other Terrans were dropping like flies. Winning tournaments during unfavourable balance is something that people don't seem to appreciate enough. I think there’s a bit of a flipside here. For whatever reason, while Maru definitely did carry the Terran torch when the race overall was lagging, and more in a last man standing, sole Terran hope way rather than taking titles, he also didn’t tend to flip it and start totally dominating when the race was strong. It’s less of a positive/negative Maru judgement, just something genuinely curious for me. Mvp for example, just the outright best Terran of his time. Still competitive much of the time at his peak regardless of how Terran overall was doing. But pretty dominant when T overall was doing very well. Mvp’s gap to his peers would remain pretty similar. My previous theory was that Maru outperformed other Terrans in rough metas, but in a better meta, other Ts would start to make it deeper and TvT him out of tournaments, to kind of counteract it in a way. However, I did some digging on that theory and really that doesn’t seem to be the case. A strange one! herO also carries protoss when toss is weak but not as stable as Maru. And when protoss is strong herO might just lose pvp but I think it's also because pvp is more random than tvt. Maru used to have a unbeatable tvt record until IEM 2023. I think Maru's biggest enemies are always his teammates e.g. sOs and rogue lol (and zoun looks so scary with his pvt in the kr qualifiers hope maru won't need to play him). So far I don't know any zerg has carried the race when it's weak although which might also be because zerg hasn't had a truly weak patch in LOTV and often (over)represented in large tournaments. I love herO, but I do think he’s carrying hard because so many top Toss retired or aren’t in shape. In truth he’s also not carrying Toss much harder than Trap did. Trap had more tournament wins in his period, but multiple GSL silvers, 10 GSL Ro8s in a row under the old format, herO has his multiple GSL and a big Ro4 (and crazy run) at EWC. It’s why I find Maru particularly interesting. It’s the combination of doing it at times when other legendary Terrans were at their peak, but also then not making as much hay when the sun is shining so to speak. Would have been an interesting alternate history where say, herO came back earlier from military and Trap got to delay his a bit. I think Trap of that time was a bit cleaner than herO, less ballsy but more solid PvT, suffered a bit in PvZ versus the very, very best, especially in big finals. herO’s capable of winning games he shouldn’t in a way Trap tended not to, and his PvZ innovations were probably the last real big meta changes we’ve seen. Even if just for a year it would have been super cool to see peak Trap and post-military herO both carrying the Protoss flag. herO may have been the originator and refined the herO PvZ style, which for a while became simply ‘how PvZ is played’ but I think Trap mechanically could have played it more cleanly. However, I think herO does have that killer instinct and ability to play scrappy and from behind that someone like Dark excels at, Trap could run a clinic of perfect PvT or whatever, but a bit less of a brawler. Think it would have been fascinating to see how that went, perhaps they’d push each other into even higher levels, and even just having 2 genuine title contenders for Toss every tournament could have swung things a fair bit. Hypothetical of course, but there’s less variables attached to that one than a big one like ‘what if Kespa continued?’ and you can kinda vaguely see what it might have shaped out as. For Zerg? Fruitdealer hard carried probably harder than anyone has in terms of pulling a perceived underpowered race along, but it was really for one tournament, and the game was way less figured out. Perhaps Serral, although not really in the sense of carrying the race. Zerg’s still pretty good. I’d say the nadir of Zerg being at its strongest (in Legacy anyway) was for the couple of years where the ‘Big 4’ of Serral, Dark, Rogue and Reynor were winning every WC, Trap was PvZed out of multiple GSL finals etc. Even cats like Armani and old man DRG were having deep GSL runs to like Ro4s (no disrespect) Zerg still remains pretty viable and ofc Rogue was inactive, and Dark soon will be. But patch after patch, other Zergs have fallen away and Serral remains not just strong, but statistically his 2024 was the most dominant year we’ve seen over a whole season. Which I think is sometimes forgotten given yes, Clem did sweep him in the biggest prize pool tourney ever. I’m extrapolating a bit here but if other Zergs fall away, while his results by and large stay the same, I think it’s a safe bet that Serral could hard carry if Zerg got nerfed a little too hard. I will stress as a neutral in such matters I’d rather not see that happen! Agreed with Trap being the protoss hope carrying the whole race in the protoss dark ages. I feel bad for Trap losing GSLs to Dark and Rogue, and I think he might be the most underrated player ever. Maru's just been through all versions/patches/balances and remains on top that's why I consider he is the greatest of all time. He is probably not the greatest right now even he won dreamhack dallas but I guess it depends on his form and his shoulders. Serral could carry zerg but it's all hypothetical since there is no patch that zerg's weak. Every champions he won had at least another zerg in top 8 (the two IEM he won both had two zergs in top4 and one zvz final). If any I would put my bet on Rogue to carry the race if zerg can ever be underpowered which I don't see that happen in LOTV at all lol. Besides, I don't know how much Rogue is motivated he is a funny guy who went to play league when he thought zerg was not strong and came back hard once he saw zvp is unlosable lol. I’d go Dark if we’re in hypothetical land (well, after Serral) There isn’t really a criticism that can be made of Serral that can’t also be made of Rogue really, in terms of doing well when Zerg is in strong periods. Balance etc Rogue does some whacky stuff, and is a great set planner. But he’s not generally as good as Dark at whacky, off meta-stuff. Or weird, scrappy games. Rogue will kill you with some funky build he’s got in his pocket, but Dark’s the guy for seemingly improvising his way through a scrappy game. Which I think is gonna be what you need to do a lot of in this world where Zerg just suck. Plus he was sticking up results of note in less strong eras anyway when Rogue wasn’t so much. In GSL maybe it swings back to Rogue because of him being a prep merchant, but for your regular non-prep tournaments I’d probably favour Dark I think Serral is just outright too good, at basically everything. He doesn’t bring out some pocket cheeses as much as others, but he does have them in the locker. He’s faster and cleaner than everyone except maybe Reynor mechanically, he’s got the best temperament, at least in terms of consistency. Maybe not as clutch as offline Bo7 Rogue. Best at scouting and defensively reacting, and the best lategame, especially in ZvP. If Zerg ever ends up a spot where Serral at current skill can’t carry it to at least an occasional title, IMO the race would be completely broken. Up there with the very weakest any race has ever been in the game’s history. Hmm, I don’t think anything could possibly be weaker than Terran and Protoss in late 2019 when Maru barely got into the WCS Ro8 as the last terran and Classic/Trap as protoss to unfortunately play against that notorious Infestor/Broodlord/Swarmhost combo. But hey, since the whole "Zerg was weak" thing is purely hypothetical anyway, you can cast your vote for Serral and I’ll stick with my boy Rogue since at least Rogue won one GSL as the only zerg in ro8 —Daddy Dark’s serving in the military now so he’s off my radar for the time being. I don't think that hypotheticals are built well around statistics spanning only a couple of tournaments as there are too many confounding factors that could have led to or influenced the results one builds the hypothetical around (not that I am too fond of hypotheticals anyway ).
Look forward to the follow-up post when you’re less busy!
On the bolded, I wouldn’t spend time investigating that particular theory. I had thought it a plausible explanation, but my initial examination, nothing too thorough did seem to show that the theory wasn’t really borne out
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