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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.
You mean that I failed to include the thing that I addressed multiple times in the article? The thing that the history review is based on? The thing that is partly responsible for the era-multiplier? The thing that an entire counter-argument-section is dedicated to?
What exactly are you basing the notion, that the games competitiveness delinked massively from 2018, on?
Why exactly there? How come it wasn't a sudden decline but happened rather steadily, following the exodus post-2016?
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Northern Ireland26793 Posts
On June 06 2025 23:01 PremoBeats 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. You mean that I failed to include the thing that I addressed multiple times in the article? The thing that the history review is based on? The thing that is partly responsible for the era-multiplier? The thing that an entire counter-argument-section is dedicated to? What exactly are you basing the notion, that the games competitiveness delinked massively from 2018, on? Why exactly there? How come it wasn't a sudden decline but happened rather steadily, following the exodus post-2016?
No you see the scene only massively declined after 2018. Which in no way is related to Maru’s 4 peat occurring that year.
The weak era occurred at exactly the point after Maru pulled a gap on cats like Innovation, and before Serral gapped him
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Thanks a bunch for this, a great read. I especially enjoyed giving life his due, imo is goat contender with sos, inno, maru and serral.
How would his efficiency fair if you allowed long career players to pick a time period of the same span as life? I think that would only be fair for the efficiency category. Or at least it is if you think of it of who had the greatest peak.
I think the era is downplayed, and the recent maru win shows a lot, not only that he can now win premier global events, but that these 'gods' are actually capable of under delivering . And now that protoss is more relevant it shows that dominance the like that serral has enjoyed shouldn't be possible in a balanced game, though it might still be the most insane thing we've seen yet. The tournament scene is suddenly exciting, because the winner pool has been expanded so, now imagine if there were 4 times the players and many in their prime. There is no way that players could win as consistently as we've seen. Maru wouldn't be winning 5 gsl's in a row had he peaked in HotS. That said, I do think serral is the best modern player, even slightly outperforming clem, while T has been as strong as it's been.
Also, I wanna say that this late lotv era that is so execution based, especially when toss has been irrelevant for a huge part of it, will always be more feast or famine. A car that is 1% faster will always be the faster car, whereas if the meta was more strategy focused, there will be more fluctuation.
These are my first viewing thoughts before getting tainted, if you will, by other comments. Great work.
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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?
I have been watching since Fruitdealer won the first GSL..
What are you even arguing here? You arbitrarily pick 2018 as some big decline despite the article having multiple sections proving that is incorrect and then you list 2 individual tournaments Maru won in an 8 year span. You are basically making my point for me. Maru barely won anything prior to 2018 (I never said he didn’t win anything). That’s literally averaging 1 s tier tournament win every 4 years. Even if you want to start at 2013 instead of 2010, Maru winning 2 tournaments and getting some MVP award over the span of 5 years is hardly a long list of accomplishments. Serral was doing this 3 times a year in his prime.
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United States1923 Posts
On June 07 2025 11:27 onPHYRE 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? I have been watching since Fruitdealer won the first GSL.. What are you even arguing here? You arbitrarily pick 2018 as some big decline despite the article having multiple sections proving that is incorrect and then you list 2 individual tournaments Maru won in an 8 year span. You are basically making my point for me. Maru barely won anything prior to 2018 (I never said he didn’t win anything). That’s literally averaging 1 s tier tournament win every 4 years. Even if you want to start at 2013 instead of 2010, Maru winning 2 tournaments and getting some MVP award over the span of 5 years is hardly a long list of accomplishments. Serral was doing this 3 times a year in his prime.
It's certainly a conundrum. How can fans of one player argue against the other when both experienced their primes at the exact same time  To me the most solid argument for Maru over Serral is that he won a premier event in 2012 and in 2015. His longevity is otherworldly at this point. But, Serral's now in his seventh year as a full time pro who, by nearly every measurement, is better than Maru. Because of that, each year that passes diminishes Maru's advantage in that regard.
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On June 07 2025 11:27 onPHYRE 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? I have been watching since Fruitdealer won the first GSL.. What are you even arguing here? You arbitrarily pick 2018 as some big decline despite the article having multiple sections proving that is incorrect and then you list 2 individual tournaments Maru won in an 8 year span. You are basically making my point for me. Maru barely won anything prior to 2018 (I never said he didn’t win anything). That’s literally averaging 1 s tier tournament win every 4 years. Even if you want to start at 2013 instead of 2010, Maru winning 2 tournaments and getting some MVP award over the span of 5 years is hardly a long list of accomplishments. Serral was doing this 3 times a year in his prime.
Wow, it’s clear you struggle with reading comprehension and love making false claims.
(1) “You arbitrarily pick 2018 as some big decline despite the article having multiple sections proving that is incorrect.”
When exactly did I claim 2018 was the start of a major decline? Please point that out. If anything is arbitrary it's all the weights in OP.
(2) If you’ve really been following the scene since 2010, are you seriously going to deny that the KeSPA era was the most competitive period in SC2 history? And claiming “Maru barely won anything before 2018” is complete bs since he was arguably a top 2 Terran in HoTS, if not the best.
(3) “Serral was doing this 3 times a year in his prime.” You mean to say Serral won 6 actual S-tier events and earned 3 MVPs in S-tier team leagues? Let’s assume the competitive level from 2020 to 2025 was on par with 2015. Now name one year he achieved everything you’re listing. And if you're counting stuff like HomeStory Cup or TSL as S-tier, then honestly, I don’t know what to tell you. Maru's prime in 2018 with 3 GSL titles and a WESG win is the most accomplished single year by any player.
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Amazing article and effort! I haven't read it all yet, but while skimming some parts, the investigation on whether the KR scene declined in skill was very interesting. For a while no one had good ideas of how you might find evidence for or against it. I like the ideas you came up with in how to check it, and agree with the conclusion.
Personally as a competitive player in other games, top players who return years later without practice can usually still easily compete at a very high level. If top KR players in prime 2013-2015 years are still playing in 2016-2024, even if they don't practice much, as long as they practice a little each week most weeks of the year, they are keeping up with the meta and staying in shape enough to compete at a very high level still. If you are playing LotV for several years, you've learned it so well that you mostly just account for small meta shifts, new maps, and balance patches. You don't need to continually practice 40 hours a week every week. Especially because SC2 is not nearly as mechanically demanding as BW with its limitless ceiling. This is subjective of course, but I totally believe that they are still near their top forms or briefly at their top forms now and then even after the prime SC2 years.
It would have been nice to see sOs just because i love him, but understand he'd be in the same boat as Rogue where they have a few big wins, but don't do so great in the rest of the metrics.
Skim reading the replies in this thread, i don't understand the surprise why Rogue is not in the Top 5 in the methodology while players like MVP/Life/Rain are in the Top 5 or above Rogue. They are definitely in the running with their peaks (not sure about Rain but many people feel he's a Top 10 GOAT and some put him quite high), and those were very competitive years they played in. Of course, on my own list i would say it's Serral Rogue Maru as top 3, but Rogue does not always show up in his top form unless it's a bigger tournament. As someone shared, Dark has quite an impressive consistency and resume compared to Rogue; Rogue has lower lows but slightly higher peaks.
My takeaway from the final GOAT score chart is not necessarily the strict ranking of the players. It's that Rain and Rogue both have much less rounded resumes than the players above them. There are arguments for them being top GOATs, but there are many more arguments you can make for say Innovation being more GOAT than Rogue. Which is no surprise considering the competitiveness of the era Innovation played in, and the density of the amount of tournaments and players in SC2's earlier years.
My takeaway from this thread is that people are focusing too much on boiling the data and different perspectives down into a single ranking, instead of looking at it with more nuance and seeing it as more open ended than it is. The weightings are subjective of course, but even if you change the weightings a bit it isn't going to knock Serral down really. He's just way above the others, and he scores high across all categories.
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On June 07 2025 13:47 dedede wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2025 11:27 onPHYRE wrote: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? I have been watching since Fruitdealer won the first GSL.. What are you even arguing here? You arbitrarily pick 2018 as some big decline despite the article having multiple sections proving that is incorrect and then you list 2 individual tournaments Maru won in an 8 year span. You are basically making my point for me. Maru barely won anything prior to 2018 (I never said he didn’t win anything). That’s literally averaging 1 s tier tournament win every 4 years. Even if you want to start at 2013 instead of 2010, Maru winning 2 tournaments and getting some MVP award over the span of 5 years is hardly a long list of accomplishments. Serral was doing this 3 times a year in his prime. Wow, it’s clear you struggle with reading comprehension and love making false claims. (1) “You arbitrarily pick 2018 as some big decline despite the article having multiple sections proving that is incorrect.” When exactly did I claim 2018 was the start of a major decline? Please point that out. If anything is arbitrary it's all the weights in OP. (2) If you’ve really been following the scene since 2010, are you seriously going to deny that the KeSPA era was the most competitive period in SC2 history? And claiming “Maru barely won anything before 2018” is complete bs since he was arguably a top 2 Terran in HoTS, if not the best. (3) “Serral was doing this 3 times a year in his prime.” You mean to say Serral won 6 actual S-tier events and earned 2 MVPs in S-tier team leagues? Let’s assume the competitive level from 2020 to 2025 was on par with 2015. Now name one year he achieved everything you’re listing. And if you're counting stuff like HomeStory Cup or TSL as S-tier, then honestly, I don’t know what to tell you. Maru's prime in 2018 with 3 GSL titles and a WESG win is the most accomplished single year by any player.
2018 is the year Serral started dominating. What other year would you be referring to? I was also stating this year because it was referenced by the original poster I responded to.
Either way, I assure you my reading comprehension is just fine. The majority of the community disagrees with you (multiple polls show Serral being selected as the GOAT by about 60-70% of the community including one here on TL around when the article first came out).. so you can sit here and argue with me about it or just use logic.
90%+ of Maru’s accomplishments have come in the same era as Serral and they pale in comparison.
Comparing a WESG with the weak competition it had to a Homestory cup and acting like it’s somehow better because of the location/name attached to it is ridiculous. There were 4-5 good players and then a bunch of no names. The average offline weekly had more competition. I don’t know how anyone can defend that position. Liquipedia clearly defines what it considers S tier tournaments. Counting individual performances Serral is up 28-19. If you need a year to look at where he won “6 actual S-tier events,” just look at 2018. Please keep in mind we are going off of what TL is saying was S-tier and not what you made up in your head to do mental gymnastics.
Serral 1st place (S-tier only)
2018 WCS Leipzig
2018 WCS Austin
2018 WCS Valencia
2018 GSL vs The World
2018 WCS Montreal
2018 HS Cup 18
2018 WCS Global Finals
How many world championships does Maru have again? Serral won 7 S-tiers in just that one year. 2 over 8 years is laughable as a measure of a GOAT.
While KR had dedicated team leagues the scene outside of this was limited. That being said Serral has represented Finland or “The World” multiple times with a ridiculous win rate. Maru has such a bad win rate outside of KR compared to Serral it’s like comparing the 2007 Patriots to a HS team. It’s almost as bad as stating Maru was a top 2 Terran in HoTS. Both Inno and TaeJa were clearly better and there are certainly arguments to be made for ByuN (who actually won a world title in this era) and Mvp.
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On June 07 2025 17:21 onPHYRE wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2025 13:47 dedede wrote:On June 07 2025 11:27 onPHYRE wrote: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? I have been watching since Fruitdealer won the first GSL.. What are you even arguing here? You arbitrarily pick 2018 as some big decline despite the article having multiple sections proving that is incorrect and then you list 2 individual tournaments Maru won in an 8 year span. You are basically making my point for me. Maru barely won anything prior to 2018 (I never said he didn’t win anything). That’s literally averaging 1 s tier tournament win every 4 years. Even if you want to start at 2013 instead of 2010, Maru winning 2 tournaments and getting some MVP award over the span of 5 years is hardly a long list of accomplishments. Serral was doing this 3 times a year in his prime. Wow, it’s clear you struggle with reading comprehension and love making false claims. (1) “You arbitrarily pick 2018 as some big decline despite the article having multiple sections proving that is incorrect.” When exactly did I claim 2018 was the start of a major decline? Please point that out. If anything is arbitrary it's all the weights in OP. (2) If you’ve really been following the scene since 2010, are you seriously going to deny that the KeSPA era was the most competitive period in SC2 history? And claiming “Maru barely won anything before 2018” is complete bs since he was arguably a top 2 Terran in HoTS, if not the best. (3) “Serral was doing this 3 times a year in his prime.” You mean to say Serral won 6 actual S-tier events and earned 2 MVPs in S-tier team leagues? Let’s assume the competitive level from 2020 to 2025 was on par with 2015. Now name one year he achieved everything you’re listing. And if you're counting stuff like HomeStory Cup or TSL as S-tier, then honestly, I don’t know what to tell you. Maru's prime in 2018 with 3 GSL titles and a WESG win is the most accomplished single year by any player. 2018 is the year Serral started dominating. What other year would you be referring to? I was also stating this year because it was referenced by the original poster I responded to. Either way, I assure you my reading comprehension is just fine. The majority of the community disagrees with you (multiple polls show Serral being selected as the GOAT by about 60-70% of the community including one here on TL around when the article first came out).. so you can sit here and argue with me about it or just use logic. 90%+ of Maru’s accomplishments have come in the same era as Serral and they pale in comparison. Comparing a WESG with the weak competition it had to a Homestory cup and acting like it’s somehow better because of the location/name attached to it is ridiculous. There were 4-5 good players and then a bunch of no names. The average offline weekly had more competition. I don’t know how anyone can defend that position. Liquipedia clearly defines what it considers S tier tournaments. Counting individual performances Serral is up 28-19. If you need a year to look at where he won “6 actual S-tier events,” just look at 2018. Please keep in mind we are going off of what TL is saying was S-tier and not what you made up in your head to do mental gymnastics. Serral 1st place (S-tier only) 2018 WCS Leipzig 2018 WCS Austin 2018 WCS Valencia 2018 GSL vs The World 2018 WCS Montreal 2018 HS Cup 18 2018 WCS Global Finals How many world championships does Maru have again? Serral won 7 S-tiers in just that one year. 2 over 8 years is laughable as a measure of a GOAT. While KR had dedicated team leagues the scene outside of this was limited. That being said Serral has represented Finland or “The World” multiple times with a ridiculous win rate. Maru has such a bad win rate outside of KR compared to Serral it’s like comparing the 2007 Patriots to a HS team. It’s almost as bad as stating Maru was a top 2 Terran in HoTS. Both Inno and TaeJa were clearly better and there are certainly arguments to be made for ByuN (who actually won a world title in this era) and Mvp.
Liquipedia "premier" events categorization is a completely arbitrarily metric made up by the guys who edit a website. No disrespect to them but they don't have any authority on how much a tournament should be weighted and I'm sure even they would disagree that a World Championship is worth the same as a HSC just because they grouped it in the same categorization of tournaments.
There's no reason to cite their categorization as if it had any kind of authority.
Miz for example rated korean individual leagues (mainly during kespa era) and world championships clearly higher than other events - I don't see why he as a writer should have lower authority than a website editor?
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United States1923 Posts
On June 07 2025 17:35 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2025 17:21 onPHYRE wrote:On June 07 2025 13:47 dedede wrote:On June 07 2025 11:27 onPHYRE wrote: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? I have been watching since Fruitdealer won the first GSL.. What are you even arguing here? You arbitrarily pick 2018 as some big decline despite the article having multiple sections proving that is incorrect and then you list 2 individual tournaments Maru won in an 8 year span. You are basically making my point for me. Maru barely won anything prior to 2018 (I never said he didn’t win anything). That’s literally averaging 1 s tier tournament win every 4 years. Even if you want to start at 2013 instead of 2010, Maru winning 2 tournaments and getting some MVP award over the span of 5 years is hardly a long list of accomplishments. Serral was doing this 3 times a year in his prime. Wow, it’s clear you struggle with reading comprehension and love making false claims. (1) “You arbitrarily pick 2018 as some big decline despite the article having multiple sections proving that is incorrect.” When exactly did I claim 2018 was the start of a major decline? Please point that out. If anything is arbitrary it's all the weights in OP. (2) If you’ve really been following the scene since 2010, are you seriously going to deny that the KeSPA era was the most competitive period in SC2 history? And claiming “Maru barely won anything before 2018” is complete bs since he was arguably a top 2 Terran in HoTS, if not the best. (3) “Serral was doing this 3 times a year in his prime.” You mean to say Serral won 6 actual S-tier events and earned 2 MVPs in S-tier team leagues? Let’s assume the competitive level from 2020 to 2025 was on par with 2015. Now name one year he achieved everything you’re listing. And if you're counting stuff like HomeStory Cup or TSL as S-tier, then honestly, I don’t know what to tell you. Maru's prime in 2018 with 3 GSL titles and a WESG win is the most accomplished single year by any player. 2018 is the year Serral started dominating. What other year would you be referring to? I was also stating this year because it was referenced by the original poster I responded to. Either way, I assure you my reading comprehension is just fine. The majority of the community disagrees with you (multiple polls show Serral being selected as the GOAT by about 60-70% of the community including one here on TL around when the article first came out).. so you can sit here and argue with me about it or just use logic. 90%+ of Maru’s accomplishments have come in the same era as Serral and they pale in comparison. Comparing a WESG with the weak competition it had to a Homestory cup and acting like it’s somehow better because of the location/name attached to it is ridiculous. There were 4-5 good players and then a bunch of no names. The average offline weekly had more competition. I don’t know how anyone can defend that position. Liquipedia clearly defines what it considers S tier tournaments. Counting individual performances Serral is up 28-19. If you need a year to look at where he won “6 actual S-tier events,” just look at 2018. Please keep in mind we are going off of what TL is saying was S-tier and not what you made up in your head to do mental gymnastics. Serral 1st place (S-tier only) 2018 WCS Leipzig 2018 WCS Austin 2018 WCS Valencia 2018 GSL vs The World 2018 WCS Montreal 2018 HS Cup 18 2018 WCS Global Finals How many world championships does Maru have again? Serral won 7 S-tiers in just that one year. 2 over 8 years is laughable as a measure of a GOAT. While KR had dedicated team leagues the scene outside of this was limited. That being said Serral has represented Finland or “The World” multiple times with a ridiculous win rate. Maru has such a bad win rate outside of KR compared to Serral it’s like comparing the 2007 Patriots to a HS team. It’s almost as bad as stating Maru was a top 2 Terran in HoTS. Both Inno and TaeJa were clearly better and there are certainly arguments to be made for ByuN (who actually won a world title in this era) and Mvp. Liquipedia "premier" events categorization is a completely arbitrarily metric made up by the guys who edit a website. No disrespect to them but they don't have any authority on how much a tournament should be weighted and I'm sure even they would disagree that a World Championship is worth the same as a HSC just because they grouped it in the same categorization of tournaments. There's no reason to cite their categorization as if it had any kind of authority. Miz for example rated korean individual leagues (mainly during kespa era) and world championships clearly higher than other events - I don't see why he as a writer should have lower authority than a website editor?
I can't wait to write the "Maru was injured even before he started playing StarCraft II therefore all of his stuff needs to be doubled in value" article. 
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On June 07 2025 17:35 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2025 17:21 onPHYRE wrote:On June 07 2025 13:47 dedede wrote:On June 07 2025 11:27 onPHYRE wrote: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? I have been watching since Fruitdealer won the first GSL.. What are you even arguing here? You arbitrarily pick 2018 as some big decline despite the article having multiple sections proving that is incorrect and then you list 2 individual tournaments Maru won in an 8 year span. You are basically making my point for me. Maru barely won anything prior to 2018 (I never said he didn’t win anything). That’s literally averaging 1 s tier tournament win every 4 years. Even if you want to start at 2013 instead of 2010, Maru winning 2 tournaments and getting some MVP award over the span of 5 years is hardly a long list of accomplishments. Serral was doing this 3 times a year in his prime. Wow, it’s clear you struggle with reading comprehension and love making false claims. (1) “You arbitrarily pick 2018 as some big decline despite the article having multiple sections proving that is incorrect.” When exactly did I claim 2018 was the start of a major decline? Please point that out. If anything is arbitrary it's all the weights in OP. (2) If you’ve really been following the scene since 2010, are you seriously going to deny that the KeSPA era was the most competitive period in SC2 history? And claiming “Maru barely won anything before 2018” is complete bs since he was arguably a top 2 Terran in HoTS, if not the best. (3) “Serral was doing this 3 times a year in his prime.” You mean to say Serral won 6 actual S-tier events and earned 2 MVPs in S-tier team leagues? Let’s assume the competitive level from 2020 to 2025 was on par with 2015. Now name one year he achieved everything you’re listing. And if you're counting stuff like HomeStory Cup or TSL as S-tier, then honestly, I don’t know what to tell you. Maru's prime in 2018 with 3 GSL titles and a WESG win is the most accomplished single year by any player. 2018 is the year Serral started dominating. What other year would you be referring to? I was also stating this year because it was referenced by the original poster I responded to. Either way, I assure you my reading comprehension is just fine. The majority of the community disagrees with you (multiple polls show Serral being selected as the GOAT by about 60-70% of the community including one here on TL around when the article first came out).. so you can sit here and argue with me about it or just use logic. 90%+ of Maru’s accomplishments have come in the same era as Serral and they pale in comparison. Comparing a WESG with the weak competition it had to a Homestory cup and acting like it’s somehow better because of the location/name attached to it is ridiculous. There were 4-5 good players and then a bunch of no names. The average offline weekly had more competition. I don’t know how anyone can defend that position. Liquipedia clearly defines what it considers S tier tournaments. Counting individual performances Serral is up 28-19. If you need a year to look at where he won “6 actual S-tier events,” just look at 2018. Please keep in mind we are going off of what TL is saying was S-tier and not what you made up in your head to do mental gymnastics. Serral 1st place (S-tier only) 2018 WCS Leipzig 2018 WCS Austin 2018 WCS Valencia 2018 GSL vs The World 2018 WCS Montreal 2018 HS Cup 18 2018 WCS Global Finals How many world championships does Maru have again? Serral won 7 S-tiers in just that one year. 2 over 8 years is laughable as a measure of a GOAT. While KR had dedicated team leagues the scene outside of this was limited. That being said Serral has represented Finland or “The World” multiple times with a ridiculous win rate. Maru has such a bad win rate outside of KR compared to Serral it’s like comparing the 2007 Patriots to a HS team. It’s almost as bad as stating Maru was a top 2 Terran in HoTS. Both Inno and TaeJa were clearly better and there are certainly arguments to be made for ByuN (who actually won a world title in this era) and Mvp. Liquipedia "premier" events categorization is a completely arbitrarily metric made up by the guys who edit a website. No disrespect to them but they don't have any authority on how much a tournament should be weighted and I'm sure even they would disagree that a World Championship is worth the same as a HSC just because they grouped it in the same categorization of tournaments. There's no reason to cite their categorization as if it had any kind of authority. Miz for example rated korean individual leagues (mainly during kespa era) and world championships clearly higher than other events - I don't see why he as a writer should have lower authority than a website editor?
Ah yes, the most widely accepted and followed western community for the entire lifespan of SC2 is wrong and you are right. This isn’t some “editor” that you speak of. It’s a conglomerate of the biggest followers and fans of the esport. Yes I would take their opinion over whatever you say and so would everyone else.
You realize Miz released an updated rankings where Serral was number 1 right?
I don’t need to make any more arguments/points as you are just making them for me. I think it’s pretty clear, but you do you bud.
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On June 07 2025 18:20 onPHYRE wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2025 17:35 Charoisaur wrote:On June 07 2025 17:21 onPHYRE wrote:On June 07 2025 13:47 dedede wrote:On June 07 2025 11:27 onPHYRE wrote: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? I have been watching since Fruitdealer won the first GSL.. What are you even arguing here? You arbitrarily pick 2018 as some big decline despite the article having multiple sections proving that is incorrect and then you list 2 individual tournaments Maru won in an 8 year span. You are basically making my point for me. Maru barely won anything prior to 2018 (I never said he didn’t win anything). That’s literally averaging 1 s tier tournament win every 4 years. Even if you want to start at 2013 instead of 2010, Maru winning 2 tournaments and getting some MVP award over the span of 5 years is hardly a long list of accomplishments. Serral was doing this 3 times a year in his prime. Wow, it’s clear you struggle with reading comprehension and love making false claims. (1) “You arbitrarily pick 2018 as some big decline despite the article having multiple sections proving that is incorrect.” When exactly did I claim 2018 was the start of a major decline? Please point that out. If anything is arbitrary it's all the weights in OP. (2) If you’ve really been following the scene since 2010, are you seriously going to deny that the KeSPA era was the most competitive period in SC2 history? And claiming “Maru barely won anything before 2018” is complete bs since he was arguably a top 2 Terran in HoTS, if not the best. (3) “Serral was doing this 3 times a year in his prime.” You mean to say Serral won 6 actual S-tier events and earned 2 MVPs in S-tier team leagues? Let’s assume the competitive level from 2020 to 2025 was on par with 2015. Now name one year he achieved everything you’re listing. And if you're counting stuff like HomeStory Cup or TSL as S-tier, then honestly, I don’t know what to tell you. Maru's prime in 2018 with 3 GSL titles and a WESG win is the most accomplished single year by any player. 2018 is the year Serral started dominating. What other year would you be referring to? I was also stating this year because it was referenced by the original poster I responded to. Either way, I assure you my reading comprehension is just fine. The majority of the community disagrees with you (multiple polls show Serral being selected as the GOAT by about 60-70% of the community including one here on TL around when the article first came out).. so you can sit here and argue with me about it or just use logic. 90%+ of Maru’s accomplishments have come in the same era as Serral and they pale in comparison. Comparing a WESG with the weak competition it had to a Homestory cup and acting like it’s somehow better because of the location/name attached to it is ridiculous. There were 4-5 good players and then a bunch of no names. The average offline weekly had more competition. I don’t know how anyone can defend that position. Liquipedia clearly defines what it considers S tier tournaments. Counting individual performances Serral is up 28-19. If you need a year to look at where he won “6 actual S-tier events,” just look at 2018. Please keep in mind we are going off of what TL is saying was S-tier and not what you made up in your head to do mental gymnastics. Serral 1st place (S-tier only) 2018 WCS Leipzig 2018 WCS Austin 2018 WCS Valencia 2018 GSL vs The World 2018 WCS Montreal 2018 HS Cup 18 2018 WCS Global Finals How many world championships does Maru have again? Serral won 7 S-tiers in just that one year. 2 over 8 years is laughable as a measure of a GOAT. While KR had dedicated team leagues the scene outside of this was limited. That being said Serral has represented Finland or “The World” multiple times with a ridiculous win rate. Maru has such a bad win rate outside of KR compared to Serral it’s like comparing the 2007 Patriots to a HS team. It’s almost as bad as stating Maru was a top 2 Terran in HoTS. Both Inno and TaeJa were clearly better and there are certainly arguments to be made for ByuN (who actually won a world title in this era) and Mvp. Liquipedia "premier" events categorization is a completely arbitrarily metric made up by the guys who edit a website. No disrespect to them but they don't have any authority on how much a tournament should be weighted and I'm sure even they would disagree that a World Championship is worth the same as a HSC just because they grouped it in the same categorization of tournaments. There's no reason to cite their categorization as if it had any kind of authority. Miz for example rated korean individual leagues (mainly during kespa era) and world championships clearly higher than other events - I don't see why he as a writer should have lower authority than a website editor? Ah yes, the most widely accepted and followed western community for the entire lifespan of SC2 is wrong and you are right. This isn’t some “editor” that you speak of. It’s a conglomerate of the biggest followers and fans of the esport. Yes I would take their opinion over whatever you say and so would everyone else. You realize Miz released an updated rankings where Serral was number 1 right? I don’t need to make any more arguments/points as you are just making them for me. I think it’s pretty clear, but you do you bud.
I'm not the person you're getting into it with, but your points are also not moving the needle with me. Dismissing wesg but somehow hyping up hsc, and claiming that the region locked eu wcs are impactful is silly imo. In 2018, serral won a grand total of 1 top tier tournament (blizzcon). Even if it's reasonable to dismiss wesg (which is not given that if the competition was so tame he should've won it but didn't), he also competed in iem, and also didn't win that. But sure, maru's 3 gsls, wesg, and better placement at iem also don't count...ok
E: and someone can correct me, but wasn't the liquipedia prior classification of premier vs major strictly based on available price money? Doesn't seem all that instructive as to whether the event was top tier or not
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United States1923 Posts
On June 07 2025 20:32 lokol4890 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2025 18:20 onPHYRE wrote:On June 07 2025 17:35 Charoisaur wrote:On June 07 2025 17:21 onPHYRE wrote:On June 07 2025 13:47 dedede wrote:On June 07 2025 11:27 onPHYRE wrote: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? I have been watching since Fruitdealer won the first GSL.. What are you even arguing here? You arbitrarily pick 2018 as some big decline despite the article having multiple sections proving that is incorrect and then you list 2 individual tournaments Maru won in an 8 year span. You are basically making my point for me. Maru barely won anything prior to 2018 (I never said he didn’t win anything). That’s literally averaging 1 s tier tournament win every 4 years. Even if you want to start at 2013 instead of 2010, Maru winning 2 tournaments and getting some MVP award over the span of 5 years is hardly a long list of accomplishments. Serral was doing this 3 times a year in his prime. Wow, it’s clear you struggle with reading comprehension and love making false claims. (1) “You arbitrarily pick 2018 as some big decline despite the article having multiple sections proving that is incorrect.” When exactly did I claim 2018 was the start of a major decline? Please point that out. If anything is arbitrary it's all the weights in OP. (2) If you’ve really been following the scene since 2010, are you seriously going to deny that the KeSPA era was the most competitive period in SC2 history? And claiming “Maru barely won anything before 2018” is complete bs since he was arguably a top 2 Terran in HoTS, if not the best. (3) “Serral was doing this 3 times a year in his prime.” You mean to say Serral won 6 actual S-tier events and earned 2 MVPs in S-tier team leagues? Let’s assume the competitive level from 2020 to 2025 was on par with 2015. Now name one year he achieved everything you’re listing. And if you're counting stuff like HomeStory Cup or TSL as S-tier, then honestly, I don’t know what to tell you. Maru's prime in 2018 with 3 GSL titles and a WESG win is the most accomplished single year by any player. 2018 is the year Serral started dominating. What other year would you be referring to? I was also stating this year because it was referenced by the original poster I responded to. Either way, I assure you my reading comprehension is just fine. The majority of the community disagrees with you (multiple polls show Serral being selected as the GOAT by about 60-70% of the community including one here on TL around when the article first came out).. so you can sit here and argue with me about it or just use logic. 90%+ of Maru’s accomplishments have come in the same era as Serral and they pale in comparison. Comparing a WESG with the weak competition it had to a Homestory cup and acting like it’s somehow better because of the location/name attached to it is ridiculous. There were 4-5 good players and then a bunch of no names. The average offline weekly had more competition. I don’t know how anyone can defend that position. Liquipedia clearly defines what it considers S tier tournaments. Counting individual performances Serral is up 28-19. If you need a year to look at where he won “6 actual S-tier events,” just look at 2018. Please keep in mind we are going off of what TL is saying was S-tier and not what you made up in your head to do mental gymnastics. Serral 1st place (S-tier only) 2018 WCS Leipzig 2018 WCS Austin 2018 WCS Valencia 2018 GSL vs The World 2018 WCS Montreal 2018 HS Cup 18 2018 WCS Global Finals How many world championships does Maru have again? Serral won 7 S-tiers in just that one year. 2 over 8 years is laughable as a measure of a GOAT. While KR had dedicated team leagues the scene outside of this was limited. That being said Serral has represented Finland or “The World” multiple times with a ridiculous win rate. Maru has such a bad win rate outside of KR compared to Serral it’s like comparing the 2007 Patriots to a HS team. It’s almost as bad as stating Maru was a top 2 Terran in HoTS. Both Inno and TaeJa were clearly better and there are certainly arguments to be made for ByuN (who actually won a world title in this era) and Mvp. Liquipedia "premier" events categorization is a completely arbitrarily metric made up by the guys who edit a website. No disrespect to them but they don't have any authority on how much a tournament should be weighted and I'm sure even they would disagree that a World Championship is worth the same as a HSC just because they grouped it in the same categorization of tournaments. There's no reason to cite their categorization as if it had any kind of authority. Miz for example rated korean individual leagues (mainly during kespa era) and world championships clearly higher than other events - I don't see why he as a writer should have lower authority than a website editor? Ah yes, the most widely accepted and followed western community for the entire lifespan of SC2 is wrong and you are right. This isn’t some “editor” that you speak of. It’s a conglomerate of the biggest followers and fans of the esport. Yes I would take their opinion over whatever you say and so would everyone else. You realize Miz released an updated rankings where Serral was number 1 right? I don’t need to make any more arguments/points as you are just making them for me. I think it’s pretty clear, but you do you bud. I'm not the person you're getting into it with, but your points are also not moving the needle with me. Dismissing wesg but somehow hyping up hsc, and claiming that the region locked eu wcs are impactful is silly imo. In 2018, serral won a grand total of 1 top tier tournament (blizzcon). Even if it's reasonable to dismiss wesg (which is not given that if the competition was so tame he should've won it but didn't), he also competed in iem, and also didn't win that. But sure, maru's 3 gsls, wesg, and better placement at iem also don't count...ok E: and someone can correct me, but wasn't the liquipedia prior classification of premier vs major strictly based on available price money? Doesn't seem all that instructive as to whether the event was top tier or not
Serral went 15-0 in the second half of 2018 against Koreans in offline events. Maru's year is probably more impressive as a whole, but Serral was the better player and the best player I had ever seen play StarCraft II at that point.
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On June 07 2025 00:01 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2025 23:01 PremoBeats 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. You mean that I failed to include the thing that I addressed multiple times in the article? The thing that the history review is based on? The thing that is partly responsible for the era-multiplier? The thing that an entire counter-argument-section is dedicated to? What exactly are you basing the notion, that the games competitiveness delinked massively from 2018, on? Why exactly there? How come it wasn't a sudden decline but happened rather steadily, following the exodus post-2016? No you see the scene only massively declined after 2018. Which in no way is related to Maru’s 4 peat occurring that year. The weak era occurred at exactly the point after Maru pulled a gap on cats like Innovation, and before Serral gapped him
Damn these coincidences...
On June 07 2025 05:09 ejozl wrote:
Thanks a bunch for this, a great read. I especially enjoyed giving life his due, imo is goat contender with sos, inno, maru and serral.
How would his efficiency fair if you allowed long career players to pick a time period of the same span as life? I think that would only be fair for the efficiency category. Or at least it is if you think of it of who had the greatest peak.
I think the era is downplayed, and the recent maru win shows a lot, not only that he can now win premier global events, but that these 'gods' are actually capable of under delivering . And now that protoss is more relevant it shows that dominance the like that serral has enjoyed shouldn't be possible in a balanced game, though it might still be the most insane thing we've seen yet. The tournament scene is suddenly exciting, because the winner pool has been expanded so, now imagine if there were 4 times the players and many in their prime. There is no way that players could win as consistently as we've seen. Maru wouldn't be winning 5 gsl's in a row had he peaked in HotS. That said, I do think serral is the best modern player, even slightly outperforming clem, while T has been as strong as it's been.
Also, I wanna say that this late lotv era that is so execution based, especially when toss has been irrelevant for a huge part of it, will always be more feast or famine. A car that is 1% faster will always be the faster car, whereas if the meta was more strategy focused, there will be more fluctuation.
These are my first viewing thoughts before getting tainted, if you will, by other comments. Great work.
Thank you for the feedback!
The issue I had with era was that pushing it more, would have lead to Life gaining more distance to Maru and INno coming in closer as well. I'll try to compose a follow-up with different weightings, as many (myself included) disagree with the AI conception.
Now please get tainted and then give further feedback, so the follow-up will be more robust.
On June 07 2025 11:41 Mizenhauer wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2025 11:27 onPHYRE wrote: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? I have been watching since Fruitdealer won the first GSL.. What are you even arguing here? You arbitrarily pick 2018 as some big decline despite the article having multiple sections proving that is incorrect and then you list 2 individual tournaments Maru won in an 8 year span. You are basically making my point for me. Maru barely won anything prior to 2018 (I never said he didn’t win anything). That’s literally averaging 1 s tier tournament win every 4 years. Even if you want to start at 2013 instead of 2010, Maru winning 2 tournaments and getting some MVP award over the span of 5 years is hardly a long list of accomplishments. Serral was doing this 3 times a year in his prime. It's certainly a conundrum. How can fans of one player argue against the other when both experienced their primes at the exact same time To me the most solid argument for Maru over Serral is that he won a premier event in 2012 and in 2015. His longevity is otherworldly at this point. But, Serral's now in his seventh year as a full time pro who, by nearly every measurement, is better than Maru. Because of that, each year that passes diminishes Maru's advantage in that regard.
That is a question I posed in the comment section of my old or your article. If things continue as they do now - that Serral keeps sitting around the first or second rank for the following years in terms of won tournaments - how long will Maru's longevity last for the Maru = GOAT-people to keep the narrative alive?
On June 07 2025 14:43 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Amazing article and effort! I haven't read it all yet, but while skimming some parts, the investigation on whether the KR scene declined in skill was very interesting. For a while no one had good ideas of how you might find evidence for or against it. I like the ideas you came up with in how to check it, and agree with the conclusion.
Personally as a competitive player in other games, top players who return years later without practice can usually still easily compete at a very high level. If top KR players in prime 2013-2015 years are still playing in 2016-2024, even if they don't practice much, as long as they practice a little each week most weeks of the year, they are keeping up with the meta and staying in shape enough to compete at a very high level still. If you are playing LotV for several years, you've learned it so well that you mostly just account for small meta shifts, new maps, and balance patches. You don't need to continually practice 40 hours a week every week. Especially because SC2 is not nearly as mechanically demanding as BW with its limitless ceiling. This is subjective of course, but I totally believe that they are still near their top forms or briefly at their top forms now and then even after the prime SC2 years.
It would have been nice to see sOs just because i love him, but understand he'd be in the same boat as Rogue where they have a few big wins, but don't do so great in the rest of the metrics.
Skim reading the replies in this thread, i don't understand the surprise why Rogue is not in the Top 5 in the methodology while players like MVP/Life/Rain are in the Top 5 or above Rogue. They are definitely in the running with their peaks (not sure about Rain but many people feel he's a Top 10 GOAT and some put him quite high), and those were very competitive years they played in. Of course, on my own list i would say it's Serral Rogue Maru as top 3, but Rogue does not always show up in his top form unless it's a bigger tournament. As someone shared, Dark has quite an impressive consistency and resume compared to Rogue; Rogue has lower lows but slightly higher peaks.
My takeaway from the final GOAT score chart is not necessarily the strict ranking of the players. It's that Rain and Rogue both have much less rounded resumes than the players above them. There are arguments for them being top GOATs, but there are many more arguments you can make for say Innovation being more GOAT than Rogue. Which is no surprise considering the competitiveness of the era Innovation played in, and the density of the amount of tournaments and players in SC2's earlier years.
My takeaway from this thread is that people are focusing too much on boiling the data and different perspectives down into a single ranking, instead of looking at it with more nuance and seeing it as more open ended than it is. The weightings are subjective of course, but even if you change the weightings a bit it isn't going to knock Serral down really. He's just way above the others, and he scores high across all categories.
Thanks a lot! And yeah, I was also surprised why people were so alarmed about Rogue's results. It shouldn't come as a big hit that he isn't the most consistent player. Given, that the tournament score should be weighed higher, Rogue still wouldn't be in the best spot for rank 3.
I first thought about skipping the weighting and to be honest, I only included it as 1 year ago I got the impression that people couldn't really comprehend how far Serral is ahead of the curve. He is so far above the average of a super elite cohort which already is miles above even tier 2 players, that this time I thought I had to include a normalization and weighting to make this result more visible (which of course is still open to discussion in terms of relative numbers).
Thanks for noticing that the final ranking is not the part where the attention should be placed and that the important issue is that - while other players have strengths and weakness - one contender simple shines among all metrics.
@the 2018-discussion. Serral has the most prestigious win and more PT wins overall (4 of them region locked), while Maru has a higher prestige-value on average and simply winning 3 GSLs in a row that year. What tips the scales for Serral at least in my opinion are the other metrics.
Match win rate: Serral 85,71% (of course only versus top Koreans) versus Maru's 66,18% (including Serral).
Average place (only tournaments with top Korean participation, not the region locks): Serral 3,10 and Maru 3,39.
Tournament win %: 50% Serral, versus 44,44% Maru (both are insane tbh; Maru played more, but also won more and got good results where Serral simply was not present and thus did not contest Maru's wins or deep runs... normal and Afreeca GSLs). In the tournaments, where the whole world was present, Serral has slightly better results.
It's a close one, but I'd give Serral a small edge on 2018. The 100% match win in the second half of that year (Zest, INno, Stats, Dark, Maru, Rogue, Trap, TaeJa, soO, sOs... I don't think any big name from that time is missing here) is just absolute bonkers.
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On June 07 2025 17:21 onPHYRE wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2025 13:47 dedede wrote:On June 07 2025 11:27 onPHYRE wrote: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? I have been watching since Fruitdealer won the first GSL.. What are you even arguing here? You arbitrarily pick 2018 as some big decline despite the article having multiple sections proving that is incorrect and then you list 2 individual tournaments Maru won in an 8 year span. You are basically making my point for me. Maru barely won anything prior to 2018 (I never said he didn’t win anything). That’s literally averaging 1 s tier tournament win every 4 years. Even if you want to start at 2013 instead of 2010, Maru winning 2 tournaments and getting some MVP award over the span of 5 years is hardly a long list of accomplishments. Serral was doing this 3 times a year in his prime. Wow, it’s clear you struggle with reading comprehension and love making false claims. (1) “You arbitrarily pick 2018 as some big decline despite the article having multiple sections proving that is incorrect.” When exactly did I claim 2018 was the start of a major decline? Please point that out. If anything is arbitrary it's all the weights in OP. (2) If you’ve really been following the scene since 2010, are you seriously going to deny that the KeSPA era was the most competitive period in SC2 history? And claiming “Maru barely won anything before 2018” is complete bs since he was arguably a top 2 Terran in HoTS, if not the best. (3) “Serral was doing this 3 times a year in his prime.” You mean to say Serral won 6 actual S-tier events and earned 2 MVPs in S-tier team leagues? Let’s assume the competitive level from 2020 to 2025 was on par with 2015. Now name one year he achieved everything you’re listing. And if you're counting stuff like HomeStory Cup or TSL as S-tier, then honestly, I don’t know what to tell you. Maru's prime in 2018 with 3 GSL titles and a WESG win is the most accomplished single year by any player. 2018 is the year Serral started dominating. What other year would you be referring to? I was also stating this year because it was referenced by the original poster I responded to. Either way, I assure you my reading comprehension is just fine. The majority of the community disagrees with you (multiple polls show Serral being selected as the GOAT by about 60-70% of the community including one here on TL around when the article first came out).. so you can sit here and argue with me about it or just use logic. 90%+ of Maru’s accomplishments have come in the same era as Serral and they pale in comparison. Comparing a WESG with the weak competition it had to a Homestory cup and acting like it’s somehow better because of the location/name attached to it is ridiculous. There were 4-5 good players and then a bunch of no names. The average offline weekly had more competition. I don’t know how anyone can defend that position. Liquipedia clearly defines what it considers S tier tournaments. Counting individual performances Serral is up 28-19. If you need a year to look at where he won “6 actual S-tier events,” just look at 2018. Please keep in mind we are going off of what TL is saying was S-tier and not what you made up in your head to do mental gymnastics. Serral 1st place (S-tier only) 2018 WCS Leipzig 2018 WCS Austin 2018 WCS Valencia 2018 GSL vs The World 2018 WCS Montreal 2018 HS Cup 18 2018 WCS Global Finals How many world championships does Maru have again? Serral won 7 S-tiers in just that one year. 2 over 8 years is laughable as a measure of a GOAT. While KR had dedicated team leagues the scene outside of this was limited. That being said Serral has represented Finland or “The World” multiple times with a ridiculous win rate. Maru has such a bad win rate outside of KR compared to Serral it’s like comparing the 2007 Patriots to a HS team. It’s almost as bad as stating Maru was a top 2 Terran in HoTS. Both Inno and TaeJa were clearly better and there are certainly arguments to be made for ByuN (who actually won a world title in this era) and Mvp.
LMAO, counting all those 2018 WCS wins where his finals opponents were Has, MaNa, Special, and just-got-into-the-scene Reynor whom he barely beat 4:3 is just hilarious. I don’t think I need to argue with you anymore lol. Just leave this post up as a monument to your own self-humiliation.
‘While KR had dedicated team leagues the scene outside of this was limited’ oh right, that must be why he only started looking good two years after KeSPA disbanded and Blizzard introduced region lock to protect foreigners. Then what was his win rate vs korean from 2010–2017? Must’ve been 100%, since he didn’t even get to play them, hard to lose if you never qualify huh?
And calling HSC S-tier? That’s comedy. I’m not even going to bother at this point, lol.
Also, the fact that you still won’t admit you mistook me for the original post you referred to just shows how you handle real arguments — either by making things up like ‘Maru didn’t win much in HotS’ (when he was the best Terran and Serral wasn’t even top 10 among foreigners), or by coping with nonsense like ‘WCS Circuit and HSC are S-tier like WESG and GSL because Liquipedia says so, wahhh.’ Or you just ignore your own careless claims and hope they quietly slip by. Man, I hope you don’t handle things like this in your actual job or study.
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On June 07 2025 21:04 Mizenhauer wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2025 20:32 lokol4890 wrote:On June 07 2025 18:20 onPHYRE wrote:On June 07 2025 17:35 Charoisaur wrote:On June 07 2025 17:21 onPHYRE wrote:On June 07 2025 13:47 dedede wrote:On June 07 2025 11:27 onPHYRE wrote: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? I have been watching since Fruitdealer won the first GSL.. What are you even arguing here? You arbitrarily pick 2018 as some big decline despite the article having multiple sections proving that is incorrect and then you list 2 individual tournaments Maru won in an 8 year span. You are basically making my point for me. Maru barely won anything prior to 2018 (I never said he didn’t win anything). That’s literally averaging 1 s tier tournament win every 4 years. Even if you want to start at 2013 instead of 2010, Maru winning 2 tournaments and getting some MVP award over the span of 5 years is hardly a long list of accomplishments. Serral was doing this 3 times a year in his prime. Wow, it’s clear you struggle with reading comprehension and love making false claims. (1) “You arbitrarily pick 2018 as some big decline despite the article having multiple sections proving that is incorrect.” When exactly did I claim 2018 was the start of a major decline? Please point that out. If anything is arbitrary it's all the weights in OP. (2) If you’ve really been following the scene since 2010, are you seriously going to deny that the KeSPA era was the most competitive period in SC2 history? And claiming “Maru barely won anything before 2018” is complete bs since he was arguably a top 2 Terran in HoTS, if not the best. (3) “Serral was doing this 3 times a year in his prime.” You mean to say Serral won 6 actual S-tier events and earned 2 MVPs in S-tier team leagues? Let’s assume the competitive level from 2020 to 2025 was on par with 2015. Now name one year he achieved everything you’re listing. And if you're counting stuff like HomeStory Cup or TSL as S-tier, then honestly, I don’t know what to tell you. Maru's prime in 2018 with 3 GSL titles and a WESG win is the most accomplished single year by any player. 2018 is the year Serral started dominating. What other year would you be referring to? I was also stating this year because it was referenced by the original poster I responded to. Either way, I assure you my reading comprehension is just fine. The majority of the community disagrees with you (multiple polls show Serral being selected as the GOAT by about 60-70% of the community including one here on TL around when the article first came out).. so you can sit here and argue with me about it or just use logic. 90%+ of Maru’s accomplishments have come in the same era as Serral and they pale in comparison. Comparing a WESG with the weak competition it had to a Homestory cup and acting like it’s somehow better because of the location/name attached to it is ridiculous. There were 4-5 good players and then a bunch of no names. The average offline weekly had more competition. I don’t know how anyone can defend that position. Liquipedia clearly defines what it considers S tier tournaments. Counting individual performances Serral is up 28-19. If you need a year to look at where he won “6 actual S-tier events,” just look at 2018. Please keep in mind we are going off of what TL is saying was S-tier and not what you made up in your head to do mental gymnastics. Serral 1st place (S-tier only) 2018 WCS Leipzig 2018 WCS Austin 2018 WCS Valencia 2018 GSL vs The World 2018 WCS Montreal 2018 HS Cup 18 2018 WCS Global Finals How many world championships does Maru have again? Serral won 7 S-tiers in just that one year. 2 over 8 years is laughable as a measure of a GOAT. While KR had dedicated team leagues the scene outside of this was limited. That being said Serral has represented Finland or “The World” multiple times with a ridiculous win rate. Maru has such a bad win rate outside of KR compared to Serral it’s like comparing the 2007 Patriots to a HS team. It’s almost as bad as stating Maru was a top 2 Terran in HoTS. Both Inno and TaeJa were clearly better and there are certainly arguments to be made for ByuN (who actually won a world title in this era) and Mvp. Liquipedia "premier" events categorization is a completely arbitrarily metric made up by the guys who edit a website. No disrespect to them but they don't have any authority on how much a tournament should be weighted and I'm sure even they would disagree that a World Championship is worth the same as a HSC just because they grouped it in the same categorization of tournaments. There's no reason to cite their categorization as if it had any kind of authority. Miz for example rated korean individual leagues (mainly during kespa era) and world championships clearly higher than other events - I don't see why he as a writer should have lower authority than a website editor? Ah yes, the most widely accepted and followed western community for the entire lifespan of SC2 is wrong and you are right. This isn’t some “editor” that you speak of. It’s a conglomerate of the biggest followers and fans of the esport. Yes I would take their opinion over whatever you say and so would everyone else. You realize Miz released an updated rankings where Serral was number 1 right? I don’t need to make any more arguments/points as you are just making them for me. I think it’s pretty clear, but you do you bud. I'm not the person you're getting into it with, but your points are also not moving the needle with me. Dismissing wesg but somehow hyping up hsc, and claiming that the region locked eu wcs are impactful is silly imo. In 2018, serral won a grand total of 1 top tier tournament (blizzcon). Even if it's reasonable to dismiss wesg (which is not given that if the competition was so tame he should've won it but didn't), he also competed in iem, and also didn't win that. But sure, maru's 3 gsls, wesg, and better placement at iem also don't count...ok E: and someone can correct me, but wasn't the liquipedia prior classification of premier vs major strictly based on available price money? Doesn't seem all that instructive as to whether the event was top tier or not Serral went 15-0 in the second half of 2018 against Koreans in offline events. Maru's year is probably more impressive as a whole, but Serral was the better player and the best player I had ever seen play StarCraft II at that point.
Btw second half of 2018 that’s just two tournaments GSL vs the World and Blizzcon. If a Korean won these tournaments (with single elimination if they win it means they don’t lose any matchups), are they the better player than Maru who won 2GSLs + WESG year in the first half of 2018?
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how is MMA not even on this conversation
GSL x2
triple crown winner
One of the only people to beat IMMvp consistently
most clutch team league player ever
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On June 08 2025 03:11 ShowTheLights wrote:
how is MMA not even on this conversation
GSL x2
triple crown winner
One of the only people to beat IMMvp consistently
most clutch team league player ever
Because these people act like SC2 only began in late 2018, just so they can conveniently ignore how bad their GOAT was in two out of three versions of SC2
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EPT
