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Northern Ireland26493 Posts
On November 18 2025 22:54 Zergiica wrote:
Stephano said back in 2012.? that there is a guy from Finland that will dominate. It's clear Serral is a GOAT to anyone watching SC2. No one ever dominated as he did/does.
Saying it is easier now makes no sense. Specially if you consider prizes.
And, there is an eye test. Cmon, last World Champ. was something unreal. All of the top games right now are unreal. If you compare them with older eras.
Of course, arguments that best players retired is false. Best players had no problems to find a team or to compete as solo warriors. Jaedong or Flash would never go back to BW if they thought SC2 could bring them more money.
Talents pool is way smaller and with time, scene will die but we can still enjoy best SC2 ever right now and for some more time.
It’s quite funny because the Korean fanboys just ignore what the Korean players actually say about the lad. soO even called him out as a very promising talent before he exploded.
He’s frequently named as the scariest opponent, and has been for years.
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On November 18 2025 22:54 Zergiica wrote:
Stephano said back in 2012.? that there is a guy from Finland that will dominate. It's clear Serral is a GOAT to anyone watching SC2. No one ever dominated as he did/does.
Saying it is easier now makes no sense. Specially if you consider prizes.
And, there is an eye test. Cmon, last World Champ. was something unreal. All of the top games right now are unreal. If you compare them with older eras.
Of course, arguments that best players retired is false. Best players had no problems to find a team or to compete as solo warriors. Jaedong or Flash would never go back to BW if they thought SC2 could bring them more money.
Talents pool is way smaller and with time, scene will die but we can still enjoy best SC2 ever right now and for some more time.
You can't just watch Clem vs Serral and say the general skill level of the scene is higher than ever. Yes, they are probably the 2 most skilled players ever (at least mechanically) but they are also massive outliers in the current scene which is why tournaments are always won by them and maybe sometimes Maru or Reynor.
If I compare herO (the best Protoss currently) to 2016-2019 Stats, Stats wins everytime. herO makes so many mistakes.
Players like Cure, Maru, ByuN, Dark (when he was still there) were also all stronger mechanically 6-7 years ago, and I think that's pretty evident and also what they think.
So the average opponent Serral or Clem has to beat to win a tournament is weaker mechanically than 6-7 years ago.
If you talk about strategy/optimization that's another question. Flash famously said that his 2018-self would smash his 2010-self due to superior game knowledge, but if his 2010 self would get a couple months to adapt he would overcome his 2018-self. However, I'm not sure if that's applicable to sc2 since they are playing a completely different version of the game and much of the current game knowledge wouldn't be applicable to an earlier version of the game.
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On November 18 2025 09:21 doktordingerdonger wrote:Here is the list of s-tier tournament winners and runner ups (  S-Tier Tournaments/HotS) during the height of the Kespa teamhouse era, and when they first became either teamless (more than a year) or retired for the first time from sc2. Not counting military service and if they then returned. And of course, many kespa dudes were not able to compete in other non-korean s-tier tournaments as well... so the very few foreigners that did something noteworthy in that time would be likely 0 if they also went abroad. 2013: duckdeok 2014: stephano 2015: yoda, first, flash, revival, snute, oz, san, rain, sora, pigbaby, stardust, heart, forgg 2016: life, leenock, soulkey, innovation, stardust, jaedong, taeja, polt, hyun, MC, bomber, dear, soo, byul, parting, zest, classic, sacsri, sen, mkp, hydra, dark, lilbow 2017: hero, naniwa, dream, curious 2018: mma, snute, jjakji 2020: impact 2021: sos 2024: trap only maru, herO, solar, scarlett, cure, gumiho, true and mana have not been retired or teamless for longer than a year in that timespan until now. (...) Of all people who were finalists in an s-tier tournament during HotS 2013-15, 38 (out of 56) retired or were teamless for a significant amount of time of over a year already by 2016, 45 (out of 56) by 2018. You would think that retirements would be uniformly distributed in a healthy scene... but they were highly concentrated in 2015/16. And I only count finalists here, not the nonfinalists who make up by far the most people and who would be way more inclined to retire but i dont wanna count it because you guys would dismiss that effort like you always do and return to your usual delusions. So the creme of the crop, the best players during the most competitive era retired or had a hard time finding a new team in 2016.
Oh, this is a doozy. You're conflating the decline of a scene with the restructuring of a scene, and to prove your point you're defining the decline of the scene by the metrics of that restructure (and for bonus points, ignoring both the launch of BW Remaster and the continued utter competitiveness of most of the players in your 2016 list).
You're throwing together players who were teamless but competitive, teamless and uncompetitive, retired (just kidding, we're gonna win future world championships), retired (for realz I promise), who left to practice BW for Remaster, and players who were literally banned for life for matchfixing (contributing directly to the end of kespa) all into the same bucket.
On November 18 2025 09:21 doktordingerdonger wrote:
you guys would dismiss that effort like you always do and return to your usual delusions.
Yeah no this is why your effort is being dismissed. Your entire case is made of whole cloth.
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Northern Ireland26493 Posts
On November 19 2025 02:01 sc2turtlepants wrote:Show nested quote +On November 18 2025 09:21 doktordingerdonger wrote:Here is the list of s-tier tournament winners and runner ups ( S-Tier Tournaments/HotS) during the height of the Kespa teamhouse era, and when they first became either teamless (more than a year) or retired for the first time from sc2. Not counting military service and if they then returned. And of course, many kespa dudes were not able to compete in other non-korean s-tier tournaments as well... so the very few foreigners that did something noteworthy in that time would be likely 0 if they also went abroad. 2013: duckdeok 2014: stephano 2015: yoda, first, flash, revival, snute, oz, san, rain, sora, pigbaby, stardust, heart, forgg 2016: life, leenock, soulkey, innovation, stardust, jaedong, taeja, polt, hyun, MC, bomber, dear, soo, byul, parting, zest, classic, sacsri, sen, mkp, hydra, dark, lilbow 2017: hero, naniwa, dream, curious 2018: mma, snute, jjakji 2020: impact 2021: sos 2024: trap only maru, herO, solar, scarlett, cure, gumiho, true and mana have not been retired or teamless for longer than a year in that timespan until now. (...) Of all people who were finalists in an s-tier tournament during HotS 2013-15, 38 (out of 56) retired or were teamless for a significant amount of time of over a year already by 2016, 45 (out of 56) by 2018. You would think that retirements would be uniformly distributed in a healthy scene... but they were highly concentrated in 2015/16. And I only count finalists here, not the nonfinalists who make up by far the most people and who would be way more inclined to retire but i dont wanna count it because you guys would dismiss that effort like you always do and return to your usual delusions. So the creme of the crop, the best players during the most competitive era retired or had a hard time finding a new team in 2016.
Oh, this is a doozy. You're conflating the decline of a scene with the restructuring of a scene, and to prove your point you're defining the decline of the scene by the metrics of that restructure (and for bonus points, ignoring both the launch of BW Remaster and the continued utter competitiveness of most of the players in your 2016 list). You're throwing together players who were teamless but competitive, teamless and uncompetitive, retired (just kidding, we're gonna win future world championships), retired (for realz I promise), who left to practice BW for Remaster, and players who were literally banned for life for matchfixing (contributing directly to the end of kespa) all into the same bucket. Show nested quote +On November 18 2025 09:21 doktordingerdonger wrote:
you guys would dismiss that effort like you always do and return to your usual delusions.
Yeah no this is why your effort is being dismissed. Your entire case is made of whole cloth.
Also look at the decline in Twitch viewership through a 7 year period post Kespa. Not the other side of the 7 years which would roughly cover the game coming out until the end of Kespa!
Need I mention that Kespa players like, broadly didn’t stream? I mean yes it’s a useful barometer of a shrinking scene sure, but what point is being made in this invocation?
My biggest criticism of Kespa was that they just did BW again. But unlike BW, this time the audience was primarily non-Korean and they didn’t really adapt to that reality.
It’s not super relevant to the GOAT chat, but I just felt I’d mention.
Post feels like a bunch of (correct) bullet points, but out of order and with no dates or timeline to work off. So conclusions are well, a bit wonky.
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EPT
