RotterdaM "Serral is the GOAT, and it's not close"

On October 22 2025 10:13 Waxangel wrote:
metas will come and go in actual SC2 games, but the GOAT-debate meta will always be valid in SC content

On October 22 2025 06:09 TeamMamba wrote:
Thanks for another great interview

Always enjoy Rotterdam contents and agree with most of what he said in regards to sc2 stuff.

People really need to stop boosting and overrating the skills level during kespa 2015.

On October 22 2025 14:26 rwala wrote:


Google the concept of absolute versus relative comparisons and apply it to your kespa 2015 comment and then see if you can understand what's going on here. It's a fairly simple concept applied regularly in other games and sports, but somehow confuses SC fans. Most chess play from past world champions--including Garry Kasparov, the GOAT--would be considered iffy (if not completely refuted) by modern standards. Relative to chess understandings of the time Kasparov's play was of course genius. In case that helps you understand better.

On October 22 2025 23:17 ejozl wrote:
It's hard to judge a player's career time while still being in it. Mvp wasn't seen as the absolute goat during wol at all, only upon hots did ppl start looking back and seeing him as the king of wings, looking back life was the best during kespa time + wol, and sOs and inno went above in post kespa. Because serral is still dominating after so many years can either mean that perhaps he tru;y is the greatest, or perhaps the scene is just not what it once was. I think it would be a mistake to take for granted how much he started to dominate and so suddenly, but at the same time I get annoyed when ppl think sc2 is all about mechanics and use the execution of top 3 players today as evidence against the kespa regime, when the game is so much more than being able to max out as fast as possible against the ai, or some other benchmark of execution.

On October 22 2025 19:03 WombaT wrote:

Plenty make the argument that the Kespa era was better skill-wise though as well. Not merely that it was an era with more competitive depth.

Unlike many other sports, the scene has completely changed about 4 times structurally, so comparing does get rather tricky.

Equally we’re not talking massive spans of time either. It is rather confusing in ways sure.

For me it’s Serral, partly because there isn’t really an outstanding counter-candidate from pre-Serral times. If there was a properly dominant, Flash-esque player in the Kespa era, that player probably is the GOAT.

As is, that player doesn’t really exist. And Serral’s playing against the existing hall of famers, without training in full-time team houses and they can’t really keep up.

I think Serral’s accomplishments go a little under the radar, as absurd as that sounds because the scene has gone on, and on. He smashed a seemingly unbreakable ceiling, basically as a solo player doing his thing.

Years of decline, the scene having a mere handful of genuine contenders, and other foreigners lifting WCs is kind of the norm we’re accustomed to, but in a way it detracts from the greatness of what Serral was doing way back in 2018 because we’ve got accustomed to it.

On October 22 2025 20:03 dysenterymd wrote:
Kespa era was definitely the most competitive, but not the highest-skilled. Valuing Kespa achievements highly is valid, but the funny thing is that the other goat contenders who get talked about (Rogue and Maru) have most of their achievements post-Kespa (Maru was a very good Kespa era player, but was nowhere near the goat debate pre-2018.)

If you took Kespa >>> all very seriously, Inno would probably be the GOAT? But then what do his poor results post-2017 (with the exception of the WESG win) mean? Okay, Inno had motivation issues, but Serral/Rogue/Maru still cleaned house with many players who were better than them during Kespa.

On October 23 2025 14:49 rwala wrote:


You're 100% right that SC2 is different than pretty much every other sport and game. I'm not aware of any other one besides perhaps baseball in which the consensus GOAT pick never competed in the most competitive leagues and tournaments in the most competitive era of the game. Certainly I'm not aware of GOATs from other sports and games that got easy quals verging on auto-entries into premier international tournaments and world championships while all other GOAT contenders were nerfed in this regard (I'm pretty sure every KR GOAT contender missed out on multiple such tournaments). I missed all Serral's games against Mvp and the other Kespa era hall of famers, can you link them? Jokes aside, I think your casually incorrect overstatement demonstrates some of the key analytical problems people are having here. In any event, I wasn't really trying to challenge the Serral = GOAT consensus/cult/etc. I am trying to challenge folks to see outside of their confirmation bias and understand how normal fans of other games and sports understand GOATs. I honestly think for many SC2 fans and pros this comes down to "best" = GOAT, and Serral is almost certainly the best so he's a good pick. I'm not sure it's helpful or adds much credibility to exaggerate and say ridiculous things like he beat every hall of famer while he was a student playing part-time.

On October 23 2025 15:01 rwala wrote:


MJ's few "good" seasons with the Wizards are an absolute non-factor re: his GOAT candidacy and you really should just extend that same logic to Inno whatever the reasons for his drop-off. You're right about Rogue but Maru was the best player in the world for many stints pre-2018.

On October 23 2025 14:49 rwala wrote:


You're 100% right that SC2 is different than pretty much every other sport and game. I'm not aware of any other one besides perhaps baseball in which the consensus GOAT pick never competed in the most competitive leagues and tournaments in the most competitive era of the game. Certainly I'm not aware of GOATs from other sports and games that got easy quals verging on auto-entries into premier international tournaments and world championships while all other GOAT contenders were nerfed in this regard (I'm pretty sure every KR GOAT contender missed out on multiple such tournaments). I missed all Serral's games against Mvp and the other Kespa era hall of famers, can you link them? Jokes aside, I think your casually incorrect overstatement demonstrates some of the key analytical problems people are having here. In any event, I wasn't really trying to challenge the Serral = GOAT consensus/cult/etc. I am trying to challenge folks to see outside of their confirmation bias and understand how normal fans of other games and sports understand GOATs. I honestly think for many SC2 fans and pros this comes down to "best" = GOAT, and Serral is almost certainly the best so he's a good pick. I'm not sure it's helpful or adds much credibility to exaggerate and say ridiculous things like he beat every hall of famer while he was a student playing part-time.

On October 23 2025 20:49 dysenterymd wrote:

Maru had 2 starleague wins, a bunch of deep runs, and a great proleague career pre-2018. sOs, Inno, Life, and Zest had clearly better Kespa careers than Maru, while players like Classic/soO/Rain/Soulkey/herO were in around Maru's ballpark depending on how you value certain achievements (2nd places vs 1st places, proleague vs non starleague championships, etc.)

I actually do think Maru being one of the top 10 most accomplished players of the most competitive era helps his case for goat significantly. I also think the community doesn't rate proleague success highly enough (I don't know the exact conversion factor, but players like Maru/Inno being so amazing in proleague has to be worth at least one starleague, right?) But it's still true that most of Maru's accomplishments are post Kespa.

On October 24 2025 21:07 Mizenhauer wrote:


GOAT addendum 2026 on the way!

On October 23 2025 20:42 Captain Peabody wrote:

He's not alone, I also was around all through WoL and I also am a bit confused by the "MVP is the untouchable GOAT of Wings" fervor that others seem to recall.

But I think maybe the problem is just one of relative perspective. Back in 2012 I don't recall that people would have been talking about whether or not MVP was "the GOAT" or even the greatest player of all time with emphasis on the all time. SC2 was a new game, and we all assumed it would have a lot of history going forward, just like BW. People very much did discuss and argue (on both sides) over whether he was "a bonjwa," and I would say something approaching a consensus ultimately accepted that he was. But a bonjwa is not exactly the same thing as *the GOAT* imo.

I agree that Life is the main retrospective loser in terms of people forgetting about how dominant and iconic he really was at his peak, and how long that peak was. But there are obvious reasons for that.

On October 25 2025 03:33 ejozl wrote:

That's true and it was wrong of me to use the word goat, but he wasn't the favourite in that 2012 gsl at all and that has after the fact increased his goatiness since he was able to win when he was weaker and all that old man mvp narrative despite him being 21. Mc was hailed as the winningest player for his earnings which he held to 2016 or smth. But as best player, there were always new ones on the rise, mma, HerO, drg, parting and life, and then there were the kespa influx. I don't think mvp was the favourite for most of his wins.

On October 23 2025 20:49 dysenterymd wrote:

Maru had 2 starleague wins, a bunch of deep runs, and a great proleague career pre-2018. sOs, Inno, Life, and Zest had clearly better Kespa careers than Maru, while players like Classic/soO/Rain/Soulkey/herO were in around Maru's ballpark depending on how you value certain achievements (2nd places vs 1st places, proleague vs non starleague championships, etc.)

I actually do think Maru being one of the top 10 most accomplished players of the most competitive era helps his case for goat significantly. I also think the community doesn't rate proleague success highly enough (I don't know the exact conversion factor, but players like Maru/Inno being so amazing in proleague has to be worth at least one starleague, right?) But it's still true that most of Maru's accomplishments are post Kespa.

On October 24 2025 02:56 Balnazza wrote:
I really want to stay out of the discussion, just to avoid repeating the same-old arguments in both directions, especially on a thread that isn't even really about the GOAT-topic...but I have to ask:



What year(s) pre-2018 would anyone consider Maru to be the best player in the world?
Even if you would do the ludicrous thing to proclaim him the best player after winning his two Premier events pre-2018...that would still just be two 'stints', which in my book hardly count as "many".

On October 23 2025 16:47 PremoBeats wrote:


Trying to chip away at Serral on the basis that he was not born Korean (as the implication is him missing a "proper" GSL win in his resume) is a weak leg to stand on, as was pointed out several times. He on multiple occasions showed to be perfectly able to win competitively even in Korea and in tournaments with top Korean participation on the international stage when competition was insanely strong. As Rotti stated, Serral did so with numbers that no one else was/is able to match in the slightest.

So you missed all of Serral's games against Mvp? Then you missed also all of Mvp's games against Serral, as the argument goes both ways. It would actually be quite ironic to pick Mvp to prove a point, as he has way less games than Serral against the greatest players of SC2.
He played the same amounts of games against Rain as Serral (2). He only played twice against TY. Against herO, Life, sOs, soO as well as Inno he only played once. And Mvp never played Dark, Maru, Classic, Rogue, Zest, Trap, Stats, MaxPax or Reynor while Serral demolished all of the aforementioned multiple times over several years with insane match win rates (except Life, whom he never played and Rain and Rogue against whom the record is somehow even).
This is what Rotti points out in the video: To claim that Serral only played outside of competitiveness is utterly absurd and has no basis in reality. He has a more than sufficient display against the Prime SC2 greats and against guys who were forged in that time and exploded later like Dark.

As we had this discussion multiple times, you know my stance by now: If you disagree that Serral is the GOAT - that is fine, but please use factual takes to support your claims.
Similar to your reply to WombaT, who didn't say that he "he beat every hall of famer while he was a student playing part-time". WombaT's words were "Serral’s playing against the existing hall of famers, without training in full-time team houses and they can’t really keep up".
There is no absolute claim about "every" hall of famer involved and the hyperbolic exaggeration of Serral being a "student playing part-time" is also not present in the original text.

On October 25 2025 14:17 rwala wrote:


I don’t know who you’re arguing with since I don’t care what soil anyone is born on or plays on. It’s ironic that you’re doing what you accuse me of. But fair, I did overstate Wombat’s point. But he is fundamentally incorrect in his point. Serral simply did not compete with many hall of famers and—again—he did not compete in the most competitive tournaments and leagues. That’s just not a debatable proposition. It’s a mathematical reality. Proleague was the most competitive league. He did not play in it. KILs were the most competitive tournaments. He sis not play in them. He basically got auto entries into every premier tourney and world championship that many Korean GOAT contenders were excluded from. Not debatable. Serral can still be the GOAT, but the issue is folks like you bending over backwards to say that math equation can tell you objectively who is the GOAt…iit’s just kinda cringe to be honest. You end up saying weird things like Proleague doesn’t matter but Aligulac rating does.

On October 25 2025 13:46 rwala wrote:


Totally premo and wombat in other threads literally said proleague doesn’t matter at all and then started changing their tune when they realized how silly it sounded.

On October 25 2025 14:05 rwala wrote:


Most of 2016 Proleague when he accomplished one of the greatest feats in all of SC. But I’d be happy to concede he wasn’t the best player as much as Inno, Rain, Zest, TY, MVP, and probably others. You can go back and watch Proleague and that’s what Wolf, GTR, Valdez were saying. A lot of the modern fans don’t really remember or even value Proleague because they never watched it or cared much about it and would probably point out that Maru didn’t even make Blizzcon in 2016. Neither did Inno, and in fact many Korean GOATs failed to break through region lock since they unfortunately didn’t have the region lock near autoqualify that got players like Elazer and Special in.

On October 25 2025 22:19 Balnazza wrote:


How can Proleague (as you proclaim later on) be the most competite thing in 2016 when Maru AND Inno didn't make it into Blizzcon that year? Clearly Blizzcon is more competitive to get in. Also, sorry, but people overexaggurate Marus Proleague '16 slightly...he had an incredibly high winrate, but in terms of actual points, he was equal or behind herO. Not to mention that most of his success came from Mirrormatches of all things. And if you look into Jin Airs playoffs runs, it is noteworthy that most of the heaviy-lifting did get done by Cure and especially sOs.
Maru didn't "fail to break through regionlock", he missed the qualification-line by over 3000 points, that's equal to more than a GSL-2nd place.

It is also funny that you proclaim people don't remember Proleague and then completly misrepresent how easy it is/was for foreigner to get into Blizzcon. Especially since you hand-picked Elazer, a player who only very barely got into Blizzcon 2016, he narrowly avoided to have to play a LastChance decider against Violet to get in (it got a bit less dramatic afterwards because Polt dropped out aswell). There was no "near autoqualify".

On October 24 2025 02:56 Balnazza wrote:
I really want to stay out of the discussion, just to avoid repeating the same-old arguments in both directions, especially on a thread that isn't even really about the GOAT-topic...but I have to ask:



What year(s) pre-2018 would anyone consider Maru to be the best player in the world?
Even if you would do the ludicrous thing to proclaim him the best player after winning his two Premier events pre-2018...that would still just be two 'stints', which in my book hardly count as "many".

On October 25 2025 14:05 rwala wrote:


Most of 2016 Proleague when he accomplished one of the greatest feats in all of SC. But I’d be happy to concede he wasn’t the best player as much as Inno, Rain, Zest, TY, MVP, and probably others. You can go back and watch Proleague and that’s what Wolf, GTR, Valdez were saying. A lot of the modern fans don’t really remember or even value Proleague because they never watched it or cared much about it and would probably point out that Maru didn’t even make Blizzcon in 2016. Neither did Inno, and in fact many Korean GOATs failed to break through region lock since they unfortunately didn’t have the region lock near autoqualify that got players like Elazer and Special in.

On October 25 2025 22:46 WombaT wrote:


At this juncture I think Maru’s had more shots at a WC than any other player and hasn’t won one, even in the weaker era.

On October 26 2025 06:15 Balnazza wrote:

"when was Maru the best player pre-2018?"

On October 27 2025 01:03 rwala wrote:
especially if he was fighting through the brutal KIL tournament formats and KR region nerf for world championship qualification.

It is not so hard to imagine that players like Soulkey or Rain or Mvp or Byun or SOS or Zest or Soo or Taeja or Life or Dream or Flash or Jaedong or whoever in their prime posing major problems for Serral if he was battling for results

But to assume that he would have

I don’t agree with Miz on everything he writes but the central theory of his GOAT analysis avoids the pitfalls of a lot of these heuristics and biases by not trying to diminish the more competitive earlier eras of the game just to justify crowning his preferred players.

On October 27 2025 03:37 Balnazza wrote:


Actually, you are completly missing the point, because you fail to defend your own arguments. I never said anything about regionlock, of course it was designed to help the foreign scene. But that doesn't make it an "auto-qualify", especially not when you then pick a player who had to fight tooth and nail to be in that particular Blizzcon. Of course you picked Elazer because he reached the Ro4 and I guess you wanted to make some point that he got that spot gifted and for free...which he didn't.
You also do the same thing with Maru then: Mind you, my original question was for you to defend your argument that Maru "had many stints" pre-2018 where he was "the best player in the world". You failed to do that aswell, instead making these grandious arguments about KILs and Proleagues and what not.

Inno and Maru missing Blizzcon by massive amount of points in 2016 proved this point: Neither of them was in contention to be the best player in that year, because they performed poorly in their region. This says nothing about the qualitfy of KILs or Proleague in 2016, because that isn't important for your argument.

So how about this: Maybe stop using arguments people bring to Discussion A to then geniously disproving them in Discussion B and actually defend your own argument. When was Maru the best player in the world pre-2016 and why? You said "for many stints", so I assume you can atleast list 1-2 years he was the best player in the world?

It really is not that hard of a question, is it?

On October 27 2025 02:07 PremoBeats wrote:


Wasn't it you who said that it isn't a nerf/buff when things are done to be equaled out or to approximate a "perfect" modifier, which this exact rule was meant to do? So how can you call this a nerf?


Well, if Mvp is your GOAT, he faces an even harder "challenge" than the one you are pointing out for Serral.
As I wrote before, Mvp is most likely the GOAT contender who played the least against other GOAT contenders. So, do the same arguments that you throw at Serral also apply to Mvp? If so, how can he be your GOAT? If not, why? Can you make some arguments why you are inconsistent in applying your metrics?

See, this is my issue with you... it seems like you throw out unfounded accusations or proclaim arguments, but you rarely follow them through as an argument as well as coherently in applying logic.
It happened again in this very thread.
You misquote others, you put words in their mouth and you make claims without backing them up.
So far, I am still waiting for you to write at least one thing about your notion that Maru had "many stints pre-2018" where he was supposedly the best.
I am further waiting for you to prove the unfounded accusation that I said that "proleague doesn’t matter at all".


Who here does?? Stop having arguments in your head.
The only thing that was being said is that it would statistically be reasonable to assume that he would have been the best player if all players gathered in their prime. Not that he would have been equally dominant.


Do you accuse anyone in particular when you talk about people justify crowning their preferred player?
Are you even aware that there is no more transparent list out there than mine, as I demonstrated every little detail of how I arrived at each and every number, without obfuscating, for all of you guys to double check?

On October 26 2025 06:15 Balnazza wrote:


So you complain about people making "bad arguments" to then come to this marvelous and hopefully sarcastic statement, which even then is just...not that smart?
Proleague, buddy, Proleague. We are talking about stats in Proleague, one particular season, the easiest to compare two players. If you can't even do that...well *shrug*

Anyway. I originally just joined this one for the question "when was Maru the best player pre-2018?" and the answer from you two is: Never, can't back it up at all, completly made up, *angry noises*. So I got my my answer and wish you much fun screaming into the void.

See y'all back when Mizenhauers addendum drops!

On October 27 2025 10:48 TeamMamba wrote:


People need to stop disrespecting elazer.

Gsl vs the world the Koreans were literally too easy for Serral that elazer was his toughest opponent in that tournament

On October 27 2025 22:28 rwala wrote:


I don’t apply metrics because I don’t invent math equations to crown my preferred candidate the GOAT. Mvp won the most competitive tournaments against the most competitive pools during the most competitive eras in the most competitive region. As Artosis said, you should be able to make your argument clearly, simply, and succinctly. When you can’t, you’re probably confused and likely seeking to confuse others.

Mvp won the most competitive tournaments against the most competitive pools during the most competitive eras in the most competitive region

On October 28 2025 06:16 TeamMamba wrote:
Literally barely anyone remember Maru nor anyone put him anywhere close as a top Koreans pre 2018.

Based on my memory, WOL was basically mvp nested and MC

Hots was basically a mix of all the other top Koreans and their accomplishments. For example sos 2 world champs, innovation the machine winning multiple GSLs, sOO failing short constantly , Life insane runs.

Maru fans would bring up his SSL win or his forgettable pro league stats. Majority of the fans base don’t even care about Maru prior to 2018.

Let’s be real here, Maru was literally a pedestrian pre 2018. If we do a goat list only from the period 2010-2017. Maru wouldn’t even be top 20

On October 28 2025 07:36 Mizenhauer wrote:


Yes. I need to finish a few projects, but once those are taken care of I'm on it!

On October 28 2025 03:50 Balnazza wrote:


I switched up a name, which I immediatly admitted as a mistake. Doesn't change that everything that I said holds true if you use the correct player - Stats.

So no, you didn't answer me. You avoided the topic and instead shifted the discussion to the value of KILs or Proleague...neither of which helped your original point. So again: 2016 was clearly not a year you would consider Maru to be "the best player in the world", because while he did great in Proleague, he failed to qualify for Blizzcon (which means: He failed to do well in the most competitive giga-galaxy tournaments of all time in that year). If you compare his 2016 to someone like Stats: Stats also did great (equal, slightly better or slightly worse, depending what you value) than Maru, but he qualified for Blizzcon. So Stats alone would have a bigger claim to be "the best player" in 2016...and you could make that argument for numerous players, not saying Stats is necessarily the best.

Which leaves, surprisingly, the question...when were those stints when Maru was "the best player in the world" pre-2018?
No one is having the argument with you about the value of Proleague. No one is disputing the competitiveness of GSL back in the day (though I will always fight on the importance of Blizzcon as the most competitive and important tournament of the year - case in point 2016: People always remember ByuN as a World Champion, the fact that he also won GSL that year kind of gets added on most of the time). But neither the value of Proleague nor the competitiveness of GSL by themselves make Maru "the best player in the world" randomly...this isn't even "Maru vs. Serral", this is literally "Maru vs. other koreans".

So can we make this easy? Do me the favor and do one of two things:
1)Point out these times Maru was "the best player in the world" pre-2018 and why.
2)Just admit you pulled that statement out of thin air and have literally no backup for it.



If you try to make your argument so short you just skip over those little things called facts and statistics, you are not making an argument. You make up a baseless opinion. What would a lawyer call that? Hearsay?

On October 28 2025 03:30 ejozl wrote:
Why do stints have to be years, I think there were many days at least that maru was the best player from 13-15. Of course if you divide it up in years you will lose a lot to low resolution since these years were so competitive. If Maru needed to be the best, it wasn't just 3 pro gamers that he had to beat.

You can't just compare proleague statistics and putting cure above maru is laughable. He was probably comfortably in top 7 in 2015 [life, soo, maru, inno, zest, herO and sOs]. And a record that herO holds is amazingly impressive since he was supposed to carry his team against all of the top dogs and in all of the ace matches, whereas if your just another top player in skt you will get to play trash, or lowely players.
Maru at 7-2 over sOs 7-4 does not mean he's better either, and that the team miscalculated, sOs played the harder matches and were their golden boy, it isn't maru's face that was featured on an aeroplane.

There's been other arguments that are faulty, for instance the fact that serral has dominated for half the game, if maxpax started winning all of the online cups for the next 15 years that could though impressive, never cement him the goat status.

On October 27 2025 23:12 Admiral Yang wrote:


What is this claim based on? Surely the subsequent eras were much more competitive, given that the players who had dominated previously weren't good enough to continue dominating.

On October 28 2025 18:19 Charoisaur wrote:

Yeah the skill level argument isn't a good one, mainly because the skill level rising is due to the combined effort of all players playing since then, and not Serral or Clem's sole credit.
It's like in swimming where techniques are constantly evolving and thus michael phelps isn't holding a single world record anymore, but still what he did back then was more impressive than what swimmers are doing today.

Who is the better football player out of George Best and Marcus Rashford?

It's Marcus Rashford and it's not even close.

Who is the greater football player out of George Best and Marcus Rashford?

It's George Best and it's not even close.

Being better doesn't mean being greater...

On October 29 2025 00:27 Balnazza wrote:


I wouldn't agree that winning a KIL makes you the best player in the world at that moment, but that are atleast examples I can work with, thanks!

On October 28 2025 13:37 Admiral Yang wrote:
It seems that your definition of competitive means larger pool of realistic winners. Which is fine, but if you make that the crux of your definition of who was the greatest you end up arguing that MVP was somehow greater because he was worse.

On October 29 2025 01:39 rwala wrote:


That’s a fair, if simple, summary of my position sure. I don’t understand what you mean about Mvp tho? Greater than who because he was worse than who?

Basically I think you can—and many people do—make a persuasive argument for Garry Kasparov or Bobby Fischer as the chess GOAT, even tho neither in their prime could realistically hang with Magnus or frankly most of today’s top 25 players. The absolute skill level and understand of chess across the board has simply grown too much over time. I really do not understand why some SC2 fans fail to grasp this. It’s axiomatic, basic understanding in literally every other sport or game. The only conclusion I can draw is that some fans are SC lifers and don’t watch or play other sports or games.

On October 28 2025 22:44 TeamMamba wrote:


True to some degree

However since 2018, Serral has been evolving and teaching other Zergs players how to raise their skills. A lot of current skills was started by Serral.

For example more use of burrow roaches, burrow infestor, introducing lurker viper engagements to the Koreans, etc.
I haven’t seen any other Zergs that had yet to have such an impact raising his peers level. Other zergs have yet to learn how to engage properly in late game zvp like Serral

That’s literally half of Sc2 history period

HM- to be fair no one can copy what dark does cause he just does whatever he feels like doing

That’s a fair, if simple, summary of my position sure. I don’t understand what you mean about Mvp tho? Greater than who because he was worse than who?

On October 29 2025 01:33 rwala wrote:


I personally tend to agree with you, I’m more making a point about how the “community” saw it at the time. I just remember Soulkey or Rain or whoever would win a tournament and the commentators and analysts would say they were the best. Or Maru would crush Ps with MMM no Vikings while all the other terrans couldn’t even qualify for tournaments and in Proleague matches GTR or whoever would say this guy is the best in the world. It’s all extremely subjective and these periods of time of being the best for Maru pre-2018 were definitely short-lived compared to some other players. I do think it’s fair to say that pretty after he won his 2013 OSL he was a perennial title contender and consistently “one of the best” in the world.

On October 27 2025 22:28 rwala wrote:


I don’t apply metrics because I don’t invent math equations to crown my preferred candidate the GOAT. Mvp won the most competitive tournaments against the most competitive pools during the most competitive eras in the most competitive region. As Artosis said, you should be able to make your argument clearly, simply, and succinctly. When you can’t, you’re probably confused and likely seeking to confuse others.

On October 28 2025 18:12 Argonauta wrote:
Biggest reason why Rotti and most of SC2 commentators call Serral the goat is because they want this esport to keep going so they need to spin this narrative to try to make the game appealing, they really don't care about being objective or recall past glories.

On October 28 2025 18:19 Charoisaur wrote:

Yeah the skill level argument isn't a good one, mainly because the skill level rising is due to the combined effort of all players playing since then, and not Serral or Clem's sole credit.
It's like in swimming where techniques are constantly evolving and thus michael phelps isn't holding a single world record anymore, but still what he did back then was more impressive than what swimmers are doing today.

On October 29 2025 05:18 Charoisaur wrote:
Maru never was the best in HotS, however I don't think that's the gotcha some people think it is considering how competitive the era back then was, and the only players who really had a period during that time where they were considered the best are Inno, Zest and Life, and even for them it only was a very short period.
Imo being top 5 in that era is probably a bigger feat than being #1 in the modern era (in terms of how many S tier players you have to be able to regularly beat, etc.).

After that he was definitely considered the best during 2018 and in late 2021 when he won all the online tournaments with his lategame-style

On October 29 2025 16:30 MJG wrote:

If you can find a single Manchester United fan who thinks that Marcus Rashford means more to the history of the football club than George Best then I'd be very surprised lmao. But Marcus Rashford has 50 years of technical and tactical development to draw from, so he's definitely the more skilful player.

Greatness isn't the same as skill level.

Never has been, never will be.

EDIT:

I wasn't making an argument by comparison because I'm not getting involved in naming a GOAT, and I don't care who you think the GOAT is either. I think that the community's obsession with this topic is ridiculous.

I even purposefully picked two footballers who aren't in football's GOAT conversation to make my point.

I just wanted to point out that greatness and skill level are very much separate entities, and there are plenty of examples from other sports that would demonstrate the same point.

Starcraft isn't exceptional in this aspect.

On October 29 2025 02:11 Admiral Yang wrote:


If the argument is that "competitiveness" means a greater pool of potential winners, then MVP's claims on that basis must be based on the fact that he failed to dominate his era, thereby giving that era a greater number of potential winners. Ie. MVP is greater because he was demonstrably less capable of domination than Serral, who dominated his era to a much greater extent, including by beating many of the same players who had essentially forced MVP, MC, MMA, Nestea etc. out of the top. That seems a deeply flawed reasoning.

Same with the endless analogies to other sports. You are free to do what you like, but after 30+ pages across multiple threads I still haven't seen that help anyone make their case.

On October 29 2025 19:24 MJG wrote:

When did I say that someone didn't need to be good at the game to be great?

All I'm saying is that being better doesn't mean being greater.

This is an incredibly simple concept.

EDIT:

You might want to go back and look at the original post that I responded to.

I'm only interested in removing from the discussion the nonsensical idea that being better means being greater, or that being worse means that you can't be greater.

Do you know who I'm probably better than given 15 years of additional technical and strategic development in SC2? Pretty much anyone who entered the first three GSLs and then retired shortly after. Am I greater or more relevant to SC2 history than those players? Absolutely fucking not.

Serral dominated in an era with ~1/10th the active pro player base, tournaments with a couple dozen competitors, against a handful of title contenders, in tournaments with much easier paths to qualification and victory, against an aging, retiring, and increasingly injured player base that didn't include most previous title contenders, with almost no new talent to challenge him (other than Clem, who has been dominating him recently). I'm not sure why you think Mvp was "forced" out of the top because he couldn't hang. It's well-known that his injuries forced his early retirement. I'm also not sure why you think beating "many of the same players" who were dominant in an earlier era is a substitute for actually dominating in an earlier era. Clem 5-0'ed Serral and has been dominating him ever since. This is not a substitute for Clem showing tournament results and achievements, and it also doesn't take away from Serral's results and achievements.

On October 29 2025 15:40 PremoBeats wrote:



Just change the word "metric" with the word "logic":
Well, if Mvp is your GOAT, he faces an even harder "challenge" than the one you are pointing out for Serral.
As I wrote before, Mvp is most likely the GOAT contender who played the least against other GOAT contenders. So, do the same arguments that you throw at Serral also apply to Mvp? If so, how can he be your GOAT? If not, why? Can you make some arguments why you are inconsistent in applying your LOGIC?

As you didn't answer these:
1. You said in another thread that it doesn't make sense to call it a buff for Koreans/nerf for Serral when one discounts region locks, as that is a means to simply level the playing field and thus more an "equalizer" than a buff/ nerf. I agreed.
But why do you now call region locks a nerf for Koreans?
Again, this shows how you change wording/framing depending on your acute need, not on a set of principles or based on consistent logic.
2. I am further waiting for you to prove your unfounded accusation that I said that "proleague doesn’t matter at all".
3. As you wrote: "I am not saying Serral would not have been equally dominant in earlier, more competitive eras and tournaments and regions. But to assume that he would have... ".
Who assumed he would have? Which user here made this assumption that you are arguing against?

So according to you, Mvp won in the most competitive era? You think the most competitive era in SC2 was from its beginning up to 2012? Correct?

The chess comparison is off on so many accounts (a world champion being the defender, thus making it much easier to get back-to-back streaks) and Serral also fulfills achievements that were listed, hence I will not address all of them one by one.

To be honest, you kind of remind me of Don Quixote. In your replies you lament about things no one said or argue against issues no one raised. It seems to me that you are fighting wind mills in your head, rather than actually engaging with the other side.

No one said that Serral would be equally dominant had he played in 2012-2016.
No one said that Proleague doesn’t matter in GOAT-discussions.

In the meantime you wrote that it would be fair to say that Maru was the best in the world when he won a KIL. Then following that logic: Wasn’t Serral the best more than any other player - including Maru - for the most stints than any other player when he won tournaments, including all the best players of the world - not only Korans - with win rates that no one thought to be possible?
If no, are you able to explain why?



Or perhaps because he is the GOAT based on all statistics, including regression models that let us compare contenders even cross-era?



But it still is... higher, no?
And some players were not able to keep up with the new influence. Do we seriously believe that all the prime players simply lost their combined skill in 2018, so that Serral can defeat them with win rates of over 85%? While they still delivered against other foreigners or other Koreans? Why is it so hard to accept that one player simply is above the others? And these others were the best of the prime era.

And can you elaborate why you think (honest question) what Phelps did is more impressive than what swimmers do today?
Is it because he dominated his competition much more than any other swimmer?



In my opinion (and as far as I remember for many others as well), Serral's 2018 made him at least equal if not better than Maru, especially because of the WC.

We have years in which there is a more or less similar distribution of different names as winners of tournaments post-2018, despite the fact that there were a lot less tournaments, which from my perspective means, that 1st place was sufficiently fought for.
I argued based on Monte Carlo simulations in the other thread, that it would be harder for player X, who is ahead of the curve, to win a tournament in the modern era, as there, you would have to beat prime Serral and prime Maru who have higher win rates than anything what came before. Meaning you have a skill level you didn't have to fight before.

It seems to me, that people always argue from Serral's perspective, which is - at least in my opinion - not the correct approach.
It can be helpful to see when looking at certain player achievements to determine - for example - that Serral never won in the most competitive time but I fail to see why it wouldn't account for anything that he played these exact players and other players in better versions than their selfs from 2012-2016 and still beat them with unprecedented results.

On October 29 2025 21:44 Admiral Yang wrote:

Serral dominated the field of new talent that had supplanted and replaced the old guard, though. And while his subsequent longevity has certainly been helped by the lack of influx of new blood, when he broke out in 2018, and was already the best player in the world, there was plenty of competition, at a much higher level than what MVP had to play. I am not going to give MVP handicap points for leaving for injury, unlike, say, DRG and Classic, his exact contemporaries, who stuck around to see where their skill ceiling was. If anything, Classic has the more impressive career there.

TLDR: The first movers did not have the most competitive environment. If anything, they had it easier. You can see this in how few of them stuck around into HotS.

On October 29 2025 17:18 MJG wrote:

Like I said, I'm not getting involved in the GOAT debate.

All I wanted to point out was this simple premise:

Skill does not equal greatness.

That's it.

That's the whole point I was making.

On October 29 2025 21:11 rwala wrote:


I think you're having some logic problems bud. Mvp "dominated" in his era to the extent that domination was possible in his era because his domination involved competing in and defeating an active pro player base of a 1000+ pros, tournaments with hundreds of competitors and dozens of title contenders, and tournament gauntlets with ridiculous qualification, group stage, and bracket barriers. Mvp's results in this context were honestly kind of insane. Serral dominated in an era with ~1/10th the active pro player base, tournaments with a couple dozen competitors, against a handful of title contenders, in tournaments with much easier paths to qualification and victory, against an aging, retiring, and increasingly injured player base that didn't include most previous title contenders, with almost no new talent to challenge him (other than Clem, who has been dominating him recently). I'm not sure why you think Mvp was "forced" out of the top because he couldn't hang. It's well-known that his injuries forced his early retirement. I'm also not sure why you think beating "many of the same players" who were dominant in an earlier era is a substitute for actually dominating in an earlier era. Clem 5-0'ed Serral and has been dominating him ever since. This is not a substitute for Clem showing tournament results and achievements, and it also doesn't take away from Serral's results and achievements.

You may not understand the analogies to other sports and games, but you should try. It'll help you gain some perspective. Go back and read my analogy to chess--the OG "most competitive" 1v1 strategy game--because Magnus Carlsen's domination across eras and formats in a growing game against an increasingly competitive pro player base gives you a sense for what actual domination looks like. Again, in chess there are like 5 new Clems every year. Think about that.

On October 29 2025 21:57 rwala wrote:


Brother, you need to spend more than 1 second trying to understand the chess analogy. Notice how Magnus's 5 classical WCs are only part his case for dominance and GOATyness, and Magnus himself doesn't think it's the most competitive competition (which is why he's basically inventing a new world championship circuit). You could learn from Magnus in this regard! I included his 5 classical word championships among his 17 world championships, sure, but this is not why he is so dominant or the GOAT. It's also ironic how you make excuses for Serral's region-lock qualification buffs to get into premier and world championship tournaments, but all of a sudden have major issues with FIDE's classic world championship tournament format. In any event, I (and Magnus) agree with you about the FIDE WC tournament format for sure, and I've also explained why I have issues with the SC2 region-lock qualification process for WC and premier tourneys. This is what it means to be consistent. Try it out

I really encourage you to engage deeply with the chess analogy because it will help you understand what a GOAT looks like, which really should be the first step. And by engaging deeply I don't mean crashing out and writing 10K words with every random argument against it. I mean putting your biases to the side and just sitting down and thinking. Try not to let yourself get triggered or become defensive of your model. Ask yourself simple questions like what can I learn about GOATs knowing that a player can maintain dominance in a growing and increasingly competitive 1v1 strategy game, across all game and tournament formats, when there are like 5 new Clems that emerge every year?

If you reversed the chess timeline--meaning if time went backwards in the history of the game of chess--Serral is in many ways like Bobby Fisher (many people's chess GOAT). See if you can understand why! If you've done the deep thinking I'm recommending, you should be able to

No one is asking you to give Mvp handicap points for his injuries, but I think it's fair to ask you to be accurate. He was not forced out by stiffer competition, but rather because of his injuries. Are you disputing this? No one is evaluating Mvp on hypothetical results that he might have achieved had he not retired early.

This convo tends to have a "pre- versus post-2018" vibe to it, but I probably wouldn't lump all those earlier pre-2018 eras into one in terms of level of competition. I think you're making the same conceptual mistake re: absolute versus relative skill that others are making here when you say Serral was facing "much higher" levels of competition in 2018 than in earlier eras. Again, this logic is not used in evaluating levels of competition in literally any other game or sport (if you can name one, I'll be quite surprised).

There's a really easy way to understand this via a stylized hypo. Say in 2029 Serral and Classic are the only two remaining full-time SC2 pros and say they are playing at a "higher level" than any pro players before them due to continued skill improvements over time. And say we arrange 25 world championship matches with huge prize pools. Classic wins them all. Is Classic your GOAT? I assume not. But once you concede that he is not, the rest of your argument unravels.

On October 29 2025 22:23 rwala wrote:


No one is asking you to give Mvp handicap points for his injuries, but I think it's fair to ask you to be accurate. He was not forced out by stiffer competition, but rather because of his injuries. Are you disputing this? No one is evaluating Mvp on hypothetical results that he might have achieved had he not retired early.

This convo tends to have a "pre- versus post-2018" vibe to it, but I probably wouldn't lump all those earlier pre-2018 eras into one in terms of level of competition. I think you're making the same conceptual mistake re: absolute versus relative skill that others are making here when you say Serral was facing "much higher" levels of competition in 2018 than in earlier eras. Again, this logic is not used in evaluating levels of competition in literally any other game or sport (if you can name one, I'll be quite surprised).

There's a really easy way to understand this via a stylized hypo. Say in 2029 Serral and Classic are the only two remaining full-time SC2 pros and say they are playing at a "higher level" than any pro players before them due to continued skill improvements over time. And say we arrange 25 world championship matches with huge prize pools. Classic wins them all. Is Classic your GOAT? I assume not. But once you concede that he is not, the rest of your argument unravels.

On October 29 2025 23:17 PremoBeats wrote:

I don't need to spend even one second for analogies that don't apply. Especially not on the GOAT as in that regard many sports differ by insane amounts.

Where did I make excuses for Serral's region lock qualification buffs?
So you think that Serral should get a penalty for getting into tournaments through supposed easier qualifiers? Is that correct?
Thinking about a penalty for a player, simply because they hail from a region with an easier qualifier in a GOAT discussion is... I don't know... are you seriously under the assumption that Serral of all players wouldn't have qualified for the tournaments he subsequently won, if he played the qualifier in a different region? Is that your argument?
Just to compare that to the Candidates: The top 8 of the world duke it out in a knockout style tournament and one of them is able to challenge the defender. These are utterly different mechanisms.

So to sum it up:
You think Maru winning 2 KILs and having a couple of good days in Proleague is a proof to the claim that he had many stints where he was the best pre 2018, right?
Why is that important to you?

And you don't have any proof of me thinking/saying that Proleague doesn't matter at all?
Any response to the question to whom you replied when talking about Serral's supposed dominance in the prime era?

You can stop the condescending attitude, as long as you aren't able to answer pretty straightforward easy to answer questions. It's not like you've got some deep, hidden understanding about chess that I am unable to grasp and which leads to being an epiphany why Serral can't be the GOAT. Until you apply the same logic of criticism to your contender, there is simply no consistency. And to even compare the Candidates to a European qualifier, where Serral still had to play in a group stage and the whole knockout brackets of the actual World Championship is simply delusional.

My position applies the same logic to every players - yours shifts depending on who you attack/cheer for.

On October 30 2025 00:55 Admiral Yang wrote:


This logic only really applies if MVP or anyone else from his era had simply been too old to compete from 2018 onwards. They weren't. Plenty of them are still around. The fact that out of all the players from that era, the only one still in contention is Classic demonstrably proves that the skill level was much lower. Putting those players on the pedestal I'm seeing here reeks of nostalgia goggles. They weren't good enough to stick around.

In other words you won’t engage the hypo because it would force you to concede the point.

On October 30 2025 11:04 rwala wrote:


I can’t tell if you’re trolling or not but are you really saying winning a European qualifier in SC2 is harder than winning the Candidates in chess? You really should keep offering your opinions on these matters. It’s helping you greatly in your quest to appear objective and reasonable. I’m not sure why you think you can’t learn anything from the most competitive 1v1 tournament strategy game in history, which also happens to now be an e-sport.

Serral can be the GOAT and is a great GOAT pick and most people’s GOAT pick as far as I can tell. But not because you decided he was and then created a calculator to prove it. A lot of us spent more time than we care to pointing out all the flaws and I appreciate that you admitted to many of your mistakes and the issues with outsourcing your weightings to ChatGPT, etc. I’m not really interested in engaging with your model any further until you’re open to thinking through some basic GOAT concepts firsts.

until you’re open to thinking through some basic GOAT concepts firsts.

On October 31 2025 00:15 ejozl wrote:
I'm not sure current players are even better than back then, I mean in terms of they having spent 6-8 years in the game, yes.

But are top players putting more effort in on a daily basis than back then, no. Are they better strategically, mentally, mechanically?, I mean yes mechanically, but only in certain areas, 'disregarding the areas they are weaker, and it's only 4-5 players we're talking about, is that even comparable at all?

Give back mma his passion, dedication and youth, and 6-8 years and he would not be weaker than anyone.
You can only win this with a hypothetical where the two timelines are not allowed to mix and influence each other. Yes, serral could win in hots with hindsight, and life would be mechanically weaker with only 4 years of play, but let young life have time to catch up, same amount of play time, or remove that playtime from serral and it's another game.

Old man mvp was 21, sharp top 3 in the world herO is 10 years past his peak.

On November 01 2025 01:07 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


Mvp achieved more than almost any other SC2 player in the history of the game. And that's even with injuries. He's not the greatest of all time (anymore), but he's absolutely still on most people's Top 10 list.

Also, saying that the best WoL tourneys were full of "low skilled diamond league players" is a wild take.

On October 30 2025 14:30 Admiral Yang wrote:


I prefer not to engage these hypotheticals, because, much like the sports analogies, they seem like a way for people to reduce the parameters of a debate to a narrow scope where they think they are ahead. Inevitably, what happens is that you end up debating the validity of the hypothetical, much like the useless debates we are seeing in this thread over the validity of increasingly contrived chess analogies. It's simply bad argumentation and poor reasoning. You are substituting what did happen, the current pros are the last men standing because they were simply the best - a strong buff to their GOAT claim, with some bizarre headcanon where the previous GOAT candidates are all 60 years old and simply couldn't continue because you can't be an SCII pro with gout.

On October 30 2025 15:53 PremoBeats wrote:


It is not that I am trolling... it is you not being able to understand what I actually say. I never tried to make the point that winning the European SC2 qualifier is harder than the Candidates in chess. If you actually paid attention you'd notice that I wrote:
"analogies that don't apply"
"These are utterly different mechanisms"
My point is that a reigning Starcraft 2 world champion historically had to play through a qualifier, had to play through a group stage and had to reach the finals through at least 2, if not 3 knockout matches.
A reigning chess champion in contrast is seeded automatically into the finals. This makes defending the title overall a lot easier.
That is my claim.
Do you understand that claim?
If so: Do you agree or disagree?
If you disagree: why?


Which concepts?

You so far presented one concept in this thread (something along the lines of Serral having not played some names from mostly Mvp's time, meaning a metric to look at which contender played whicht top dogs of SC2's greats) that is even worse fulfilled by the player that is your proclaimed GOAT (Mvp) than the one that you attack (Serral). So I ask again: How do you reconcile this rather obvious first check on your consistency/logic?
I mean, I am open to discuss this concept... but I would first need to understand your take on it, as it doesn't seem to make sense.


As you further are (since roughly half a dozen replies) ignoring follow-ups on actual words you put in my mouth (me supposedly saying that Proleague doesn't matter at all) and you don't answer when being pressed on which actual user made certain arguments you argue against (making it seem like you invent arguments in your head that no one actually is making), I can only conclude that you are not being honest in your approach to discussing this topic. At this point, not answering these, can't be seen as a slip up.
Another inconsistency would be you calling out my wording in the other thread when I named adjusting Serral's achievements a nerf, to which I agreed. But now you call the region lock a nerf to the Korean region. It is either or. Either we call adjustments a penalty/buff, although we simply want to level the playing field, or we don't and we simply call them adjustments to a "perfect" state/equilibrium. I don't really care (although in a logical sense I'd probably prefer the latter) which one it is, but there needs to be a consistent approach.

If you are done arguing with me that is fine. I find this exchange utterly unsatisfying as well, when main questions are not being answered, despite repeated reminders.
So I just want to point out that you haven't addressed the inherent logical disputes in your own argumentation.
If I am misrepresenting or misunderstanding you, please point out where the actual misunderstanding is located.

On November 01 2025 05:47 rwala wrote:


Brother, you literally excluded any consideration of Proleague from your original GOAT analysis in that it provided no numerical value in an exclusively numbers-based approach. This is, quite literally, the definition of Proleague not mattering. You corrected this after several people pointed out that it was ridiculous. I give you credit for that. But don't try to pretend you had some thoughtful inclusion of Proleague results in your model from the get-go. For a guy that thinks this entire conversation can be reduced to numbers, this is a shockingly bizarre defense of the value of the number "0".

On November 01 2025 15:46 PremoBeats wrote:


No, I did not exclude Proleague from my first analysis. That is a false statement. At this point I truly have to assume that you are intellectually unable to discuss this topic or that you are having discussions in your mind that lead you to make such obviously wrong statements, instead of engaging with what others or I are actually writing and more importantly what we are meaning.
I explained it several times... in my article, other comment sections and even in this very thread a couple of pages ago... I don't know how else to deliver the information to you:
https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/642247-rotterdam-serral-is-the-goat-and-its-not-close?page=2#32

In my very first article, I included match win rates of Proleague to not let Maru miss out on his phenomenal season. Proleague simply didn't make it into the tournament score, where its impact is rather small anyway (especially for Maru and Serral who dominate and outshine all the others in that metric through mostly individual achievements).
I further didn't fix this because others complained, I adjusted the model in the 2nd article because I found a principled way to account for team events that addressed the methodological issues for the tournament score (see link). It was also the correct thing to do, even though the effect was rather small. This decisions made the follow-up piece less vulnerable to rather unnecessary criticism.
This was shown when you - and others - tried to discredit the 2nd article over semantics (buff/nerf/perfect equilibrium) and the Chat GTP weighting, which I immediately conceded as that wasn't the main discovery and completely unimportant to me or the result. Had there be any possible substantial critique about methodology or the findings, I'd have heard them by now.

So, not only are you - again - factually wrong here, you also still haven't attempted to explain the logical contradictions of Mvp having fulfilled a potential concept to look at a GOAT way less than Serral and how we should treat buffs/nerfs/adjustments to a perfect equilibrium.
Oh yeah... and I still haven't seen an explanation on who you were arguing with when saying that people argue how Serral would have dominated in the prime era the same way he did post 2018. So did you simply have arguments in your head there or what is going on?

And again: Until you apply your criteria consistently to all players or decide which kind of way you want to follow, your argumentation remains self-contradictory and irresolvable.

On November 01 2025 21:42 rwala wrote:


Right, so you gave no value to Proleague achievements, many of us explained how that was ridiculous, you tried to defend your original position for a while, and then you caved when you realized it wasn’t defensible. You also admitted that outsourcing your weightings—the most important part of your model—to ChatGPT was a mistake. I pointed out many other ways in which you claimed your model was nerfing Serral when it was explicitly designed to buff him. You never addressed those points. You admitted that Mvp’s “numbers” weren’t even good enough to pass your pre-screening test, which instantly condemned your model to irrelevance. And on and on and on. I don’t know why you can’t admit that you’re a Serral fanboy and so tried to create a model to prove he’s the GOAT. It’s a totally acceptable and fair thing to do, even if your model is deeply flawed and biased. “Biased” in this context is not even a bad thing, it’s a reality that applies to any model. Any model will necessarily reflect the biases of the specific criteria and weightings that are chosen. You never understood this basic concept. I’m not sure why. It’s a commonly accepted concept in economics and various other social sciences that derived value from modeling.

On July 30 2024 12:37 sc2turtlepants wrote:
While I admire your willingness to continue running in the same circles, rwala straight up said that he prefers subjective metrics (ie he's redefined 'GOAT' as 'My favorite player'), Chariosaur's comments have run in all the same veins, and Poopi won't even engage with the content because then he'd have to state a position that could be refuted when he'd rather just chime in every few pages with a 2-line quip that allows him to maintain an air of smugness. They aren't here to discuss metrics, they're here to complain about them.

To give you the benefit of the doubt, perhaps you feel there's simply no threshold at which the fulltime pro player pool has diminished too much to consider achievements to be meaningful in a GOAT convo, which would be strange

On November 02 2025 16:42 Admiral Yang wrote:


That's the issue here. This argument would certainly be relevant for someone like Maxpax who never played the supposed competitive elite, but Serral is a mere six years younger than MVP, who is the same age as Classic. Every single one of the 11 players on the Mizenhauer list is of an age where it would be perfectly possible to still be an elite player. Whether they left because they lacked the skill or the motivation or had bad luck with injury, the fact of the matter is that they were booted from the elite at a time when age really wasn't an excuse, which is obviously disqualifying in a GOAT-conversation.

On November 02 2025 18:54 Charoisaur wrote:

Keeping up with whom? Other players that are in their late 20s/30s?
Fact is there aren't any up and coming players competing for their spots so of course they're still competitive.
In an environment where there would be constant up- and coming players it's extremely likely they would've been replaced long ago as it happened in BW and early sc2. But the last generation of talents obviously can keep winning forever because there's nobody to replace them.

On November 02 2025 18:54 Charoisaur wrote:


It's literally what top pros say. Dark and Inno for example said they felt they were getting slower with increased age. I trust them over you.