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I often wish we have more data-driven analyses to support arguments from both sides. A guy with the handle "Imdata" tried doing that some time ago to support his argument that Serral is a bigger outlier than Maru, I actually thought it was a good attempt, but unfortunately his data was clearly flawed and I didn't see a follow-up after I pointed out some issues.
If we have a hosted dataset (e.g. participants and results from all Premier/Major events for the last 10 years) in Excel format that we can download and model, I believe we can have more objective discussions.
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On May 21 2024 15:23 goldensail wrote: I often wish we have more data-driven analyses to support arguments from both sides. A guy with the handle "Imdata" tried doing that some time ago to support his argument that Serral is a bigger outlier than Maru, I actually thought it was a good attempt, but unfortunately his data was clearly flawed and I didn't see a follow-up after I pointed out some issues.
If we have a hosted dataset (e.g. participants and results from all Premier/Major events for the last 10 years) in Excel format that we can download and model, I believe we can have more objective discussions.
You can download Aligulac results in SQL format here: http://aligulac.com/about/db/
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On May 21 2024 06:01 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On May 20 2024 20:58 MJG wrote:On May 18 2024 06:10 Expensive-Law-9830 wrote: Rule number 1 in this forum: never ask today's 'GOATS' what achievement they had when Kespa team houses existed. This has been mentioned plenty of times. Since the Korean team league structure collapsed, the standard of competition has dropped off a cliff. Players did not dominate season after season back when the Korean team leagues existed. Several players rose up to win GSL only to drop off just as quickly. Maru's G5L was such a landmark achievement precisely because it was so difficult for someone to achieve that many GSL wins prior to Maru managing to do so, but even that happened after the Korean team league structure collapsed. Even qualifying for GSL consistently was difficult back then. For example, look at the winners of the NesTea Award, given to players who manage to qualify for Code S ten times in a row. Only four players managed to do this before the Korean team league structure fell apart in 2016. Fifteen players have done so since. It's not difficult to join the dots. Serral's achievements are impressive, but they've all come during a period where there's a lower standard of competition. People can choose to ignore this if they want - "you can only beat what's put in front of you" - but I personally think it's an important factor to consider. One flipside of this argument is that Korean players are operating under similar conditions to foreign players now, and without having that team house setup advantage that gap has closed considerably. I don’t think it’s a complete refutation, there are other associated issues that are also impactful. It’s not just the collapse of the previous structure, it’s an underfunding of the current one which contributes to the overall decline. The collapse of the Korean team league structure is just a convenient line for me to draw. Regardless of where you choose to draw the line, it remains my opinion that the standard and depth of competition has declined as a result of money leaving the scene, and that this makes Serral's achievements less remarkable than those of other GOAT candidates.
It'll only ever be an opinion though. Amongst his peers, Serral is clearly an outlier, and for some people that is the most important thing. I can't say those people are objectively wrong, it's just a different perspective, and that's what makes the discussion interesting!
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France12750 Posts
On May 21 2024 16:41 MJG wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2024 06:01 WombaT wrote:On May 20 2024 20:58 MJG wrote:On May 18 2024 06:10 Expensive-Law-9830 wrote: Rule number 1 in this forum: never ask today's 'GOATS' what achievement they had when Kespa team houses existed. This has been mentioned plenty of times. Since the Korean team league structure collapsed, the standard of competition has dropped off a cliff. Players did not dominate season after season back when the Korean team leagues existed. Several players rose up to win GSL only to drop off just as quickly. Maru's G5L was such a landmark achievement precisely because it was so difficult for someone to achieve that many GSL wins prior to Maru managing to do so, but even that happened after the Korean team league structure collapsed. Even qualifying for GSL consistently was difficult back then. For example, look at the winners of the NesTea Award, given to players who manage to qualify for Code S ten times in a row. Only four players managed to do this before the Korean team league structure fell apart in 2016. Fifteen players have done so since. It's not difficult to join the dots. Serral's achievements are impressive, but they've all come during a period where there's a lower standard of competition. People can choose to ignore this if they want - "you can only beat what's put in front of you" - but I personally think it's an important factor to consider. One flipside of this argument is that Korean players are operating under similar conditions to foreign players now, and without having that team house setup advantage that gap has closed considerably. I don’t think it’s a complete refutation, there are other associated issues that are also impactful. It’s not just the collapse of the previous structure, it’s an underfunding of the current one which contributes to the overall decline. The collapse of the Korean team league structure is just a convenient line for me to draw. Regardless of where you choose to draw the line, it remains my opinion that the standard and depth of competition has declined as a result of money leaving the scene, and that this makes Serral's achievements less remarkable than those of other GOAT candidates. It'll only ever be an opinion though. Amongst his peers, Serral is clearly an outlier, and for some people that is the most important thing. I can't say those people are objectively wrong, it's just a different perspective, and that's what makes the discussion interesting! The same applies for Rogue though, not just Serral. He "only" started winning big when proleague was disbanded, and zerg started to get really strong. Only Maru among the three GOAT candidates was truly a top class player in the fiercest era. Imo Serral has a better case of GOATness than Rogue. As for Maru, as a super fan I am biased so my opinion on the matter isn't very interesting
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On May 21 2024 16:49 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2024 16:41 MJG wrote:On May 21 2024 06:01 WombaT wrote:On May 20 2024 20:58 MJG wrote:On May 18 2024 06:10 Expensive-Law-9830 wrote: Rule number 1 in this forum: never ask today's 'GOATS' what achievement they had when Kespa team houses existed. This has been mentioned plenty of times. Since the Korean team league structure collapsed, the standard of competition has dropped off a cliff. Players did not dominate season after season back when the Korean team leagues existed. Several players rose up to win GSL only to drop off just as quickly. Maru's G5L was such a landmark achievement precisely because it was so difficult for someone to achieve that many GSL wins prior to Maru managing to do so, but even that happened after the Korean team league structure collapsed. Even qualifying for GSL consistently was difficult back then. For example, look at the winners of the NesTea Award, given to players who manage to qualify for Code S ten times in a row. Only four players managed to do this before the Korean team league structure fell apart in 2016. Fifteen players have done so since. It's not difficult to join the dots. Serral's achievements are impressive, but they've all come during a period where there's a lower standard of competition. People can choose to ignore this if they want - "you can only beat what's put in front of you" - but I personally think it's an important factor to consider. One flipside of this argument is that Korean players are operating under similar conditions to foreign players now, and without having that team house setup advantage that gap has closed considerably. I don’t think it’s a complete refutation, there are other associated issues that are also impactful. It’s not just the collapse of the previous structure, it’s an underfunding of the current one which contributes to the overall decline. The collapse of the Korean team league structure is just a convenient line for me to draw. Regardless of where you choose to draw the line, it remains my opinion that the standard and depth of competition has declined as a result of money leaving the scene, and that this makes Serral's achievements less remarkable than those of other GOAT candidates. It'll only ever be an opinion though. Amongst his peers, Serral is clearly an outlier, and for some people that is the most important thing. I can't say those people are objectively wrong, it's just a different perspective, and that's what makes the discussion interesting! The same applies for Rogue though, not just Serral. He "only" started winning big when proleague was disbanded, and zerg started to get really strong. Only Maru among the three GOAT candidates was truly a top class player in the fiercest era. Imo Serral has a better case of GOATness than Rogue. As for Maru, as a super fan I am biased so my opinion on the matter isn't very interesting My reasoning applies to anyone who came to prominence after the scene peaked, and to everything anyone achieved after the scene peaked.
If you wanted to describe it statistically, then I suppose the way it works in my head is that every achievement prior to the scene peaking has a 1x multiplier, whereas every achievement after the scene peaked has an ever decreasing multiplier the further away we get from the peak.
But this is just one (very subjective) way of looking at things, and I'm not claiming to be more "correct" than anyone else.
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France12750 Posts
On May 21 2024 17:19 MJG wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2024 16:49 Poopi wrote:On May 21 2024 16:41 MJG wrote:On May 21 2024 06:01 WombaT wrote:On May 20 2024 20:58 MJG wrote:On May 18 2024 06:10 Expensive-Law-9830 wrote: Rule number 1 in this forum: never ask today's 'GOATS' what achievement they had when Kespa team houses existed. This has been mentioned plenty of times. Since the Korean team league structure collapsed, the standard of competition has dropped off a cliff. Players did not dominate season after season back when the Korean team leagues existed. Several players rose up to win GSL only to drop off just as quickly. Maru's G5L was such a landmark achievement precisely because it was so difficult for someone to achieve that many GSL wins prior to Maru managing to do so, but even that happened after the Korean team league structure collapsed. Even qualifying for GSL consistently was difficult back then. For example, look at the winners of the NesTea Award, given to players who manage to qualify for Code S ten times in a row. Only four players managed to do this before the Korean team league structure fell apart in 2016. Fifteen players have done so since. It's not difficult to join the dots. Serral's achievements are impressive, but they've all come during a period where there's a lower standard of competition. People can choose to ignore this if they want - "you can only beat what's put in front of you" - but I personally think it's an important factor to consider. One flipside of this argument is that Korean players are operating under similar conditions to foreign players now, and without having that team house setup advantage that gap has closed considerably. I don’t think it’s a complete refutation, there are other associated issues that are also impactful. It’s not just the collapse of the previous structure, it’s an underfunding of the current one which contributes to the overall decline. The collapse of the Korean team league structure is just a convenient line for me to draw. Regardless of where you choose to draw the line, it remains my opinion that the standard and depth of competition has declined as a result of money leaving the scene, and that this makes Serral's achievements less remarkable than those of other GOAT candidates. It'll only ever be an opinion though. Amongst his peers, Serral is clearly an outlier, and for some people that is the most important thing. I can't say those people are objectively wrong, it's just a different perspective, and that's what makes the discussion interesting! The same applies for Rogue though, not just Serral. He "only" started winning big when proleague was disbanded, and zerg started to get really strong. Only Maru among the three GOAT candidates was truly a top class player in the fiercest era. Imo Serral has a better case of GOATness than Rogue. As for Maru, as a super fan I am biased so my opinion on the matter isn't very interesting My reasoning applies to anyone who came to prominence after the scene peaked, and to everything anyone achieved after the scene peaked. If you wanted to describe it statistically, then I suppose the way it works in my head is that every achievement prior to the scene peaking has a 1x multiplier, whereas every achievement after the scene peaked has an ever decreasing multiplier the further away we get from the peak. But this is just one (very subjective) way of looking at things, and I'm not claiming to be more "correct" than anyone else. But what if there is another competitive peak? I mean, imagine if SA keeps investing into esports, and the new RTS (zerospace / stormgate) are worse than Starcraft 2, so ultimately Microsoft/Blizzard finally cares about sc2 again and invests into it. We could have another competitive peak if some new blood from foreign scene / KR scene plays starcraft instead of fortnite, league of legends or whatever other esports. At which point will your multiplier starts increasing back to 1x then? And at which rate your multiplier decays from the peak, to like now in 2024? Seems like magic numbers to me instead of a carefully thought out process
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On May 21 2024 15:58 Argonauta wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2024 15:23 goldensail wrote: I often wish we have more data-driven analyses to support arguments from both sides. A guy with the handle "Imdata" tried doing that some time ago to support his argument that Serral is a bigger outlier than Maru, I actually thought it was a good attempt, but unfortunately his data was clearly flawed and I didn't see a follow-up after I pointed out some issues.
If we have a hosted dataset (e.g. participants and results from all Premier/Major events for the last 10 years) in Excel format that we can download and model, I believe we can have more objective discussions. You can download Aligulac results in SQL format here: http://aligulac.com/about/db/
Thank you. I don't know SQL and I'm debating with myself whether I should learn a new tool just so I can argue better on an internet forum about a game
Again I appreciate it.
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On May 21 2024 17:35 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2024 17:19 MJG wrote:On May 21 2024 16:49 Poopi wrote:On May 21 2024 16:41 MJG wrote:On May 21 2024 06:01 WombaT wrote:On May 20 2024 20:58 MJG wrote:On May 18 2024 06:10 Expensive-Law-9830 wrote: Rule number 1 in this forum: never ask today's 'GOATS' what achievement they had when Kespa team houses existed. This has been mentioned plenty of times. Since the Korean team league structure collapsed, the standard of competition has dropped off a cliff. Players did not dominate season after season back when the Korean team leagues existed. Several players rose up to win GSL only to drop off just as quickly. Maru's G5L was such a landmark achievement precisely because it was so difficult for someone to achieve that many GSL wins prior to Maru managing to do so, but even that happened after the Korean team league structure collapsed. Even qualifying for GSL consistently was difficult back then. For example, look at the winners of the NesTea Award, given to players who manage to qualify for Code S ten times in a row. Only four players managed to do this before the Korean team league structure fell apart in 2016. Fifteen players have done so since. It's not difficult to join the dots. Serral's achievements are impressive, but they've all come during a period where there's a lower standard of competition. People can choose to ignore this if they want - "you can only beat what's put in front of you" - but I personally think it's an important factor to consider. One flipside of this argument is that Korean players are operating under similar conditions to foreign players now, and without having that team house setup advantage that gap has closed considerably. I don’t think it’s a complete refutation, there are other associated issues that are also impactful. It’s not just the collapse of the previous structure, it’s an underfunding of the current one which contributes to the overall decline. The collapse of the Korean team league structure is just a convenient line for me to draw. Regardless of where you choose to draw the line, it remains my opinion that the standard and depth of competition has declined as a result of money leaving the scene, and that this makes Serral's achievements less remarkable than those of other GOAT candidates. It'll only ever be an opinion though. Amongst his peers, Serral is clearly an outlier, and for some people that is the most important thing. I can't say those people are objectively wrong, it's just a different perspective, and that's what makes the discussion interesting! The same applies for Rogue though, not just Serral. He "only" started winning big when proleague was disbanded, and zerg started to get really strong. Only Maru among the three GOAT candidates was truly a top class player in the fiercest era. Imo Serral has a better case of GOATness than Rogue. As for Maru, as a super fan I am biased so my opinion on the matter isn't very interesting My reasoning applies to anyone who came to prominence after the scene peaked, and to everything anyone achieved after the scene peaked. If you wanted to describe it statistically, then I suppose the way it works in my head is that every achievement prior to the scene peaking has a 1x multiplier, whereas every achievement after the scene peaked has an ever decreasing multiplier the further away we get from the peak. But this is just one (very subjective) way of looking at things, and I'm not claiming to be more "correct" than anyone else. But what if there is another competitive peak? I mean, imagine if SA keeps investing into esports, and the new RTS (zerospace / stormgate) are worse than Starcraft 2, so ultimately Microsoft/Blizzard finally cares about sc2 again and invests into it. We could have another competitive peak if some new blood from foreign scene / KR scene plays starcraft instead of fortnite, league of legends or whatever other esports. At which point will your multiplier starts increasing back to 1x then? And at which rate your multiplier decays from the peak, to like now in 2024? Seems like magic numbers to me instead of a carefully thought out process I don't think that's likely to happen, and I'm not sure how I would feel if it did given the murkiness of Saudi Arabian funding, but I suppose it would have to start trending back towards 1x.
Having said that, it's more of a concept/feeling than a rigid statistical system.
It's not a well thought-out process in the slightest.
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France12750 Posts
On May 21 2024 17:36 goldensail wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2024 15:58 Argonauta wrote:On May 21 2024 15:23 goldensail wrote: I often wish we have more data-driven analyses to support arguments from both sides. A guy with the handle "Imdata" tried doing that some time ago to support his argument that Serral is a bigger outlier than Maru, I actually thought it was a good attempt, but unfortunately his data was clearly flawed and I didn't see a follow-up after I pointed out some issues.
If we have a hosted dataset (e.g. participants and results from all Premier/Major events for the last 10 years) in Excel format that we can download and model, I believe we can have more objective discussions. You can download Aligulac results in SQL format here: http://aligulac.com/about/db/ Thank you. I don't know SQL and I'm debating with myself whether I should learn a new tool just so I can argue better on an internet forum about a game Again I appreciate it. I don't think you should learn SQL to do it. I prompted ChatGPT with your request AND the tables description of aligulac database (available on the link), downloaded the aligulac.sql.gz zipped file and the response it gave seems good enough to work, and relatively easy to implement even for a beginner. I will try it once work is finished to see if it gives a good result.
If you want to try to implement it yourself, here is the answer (you would need Python, I choose it because it's the easiest way for me but feel free to ask anything to the chatbot).
+ Show Spoiler +To create an Excel dataset containing participants and results from major/premier tournaments over the last 10 years from the aligulac database dump, follow these steps. We'll use Python and assume you can execute these steps in an environment where you have access to PostgreSQL and Python. ### Step 1: Set Up Your Database 1. **Unzip the SQL dump**: If you haven't already, unzip your `aligulac.sql.gz` file. ```bash gzip -d aligulac.sql.gz ``` 2. **Create a PostgreSQL database**: ```sql CREATE DATABASE aligulac; ``` 3. **Import the SQL dump into PostgreSQL**: ```bash psql -d aligulac -f aligulac.sql ``` ### Step 2: Install Required Python Libraries You'll need `pandas` for data manipulation, `sqlalchemy` for database connection, and `openpyxl` to write to Excel. ```bash pip install pandas sqlalchemy openpyxl psycopg2 ``` ### Step 3: Python Script to Extract Data and Export to Excel Now, let's write a Python script that connects to the PostgreSQL database, queries the data, and writes it to an Excel file. ```python import pandas as pd from sqlalchemy import create_engine from datetime import datetime, timedelta # Database connection engine = create_engine('postgresql://username:password@localhost:5432/aligulac') # Calculate the date 10 years ago ten_years_ago = datetime.now() - timedelta(days=365*10) # SQL Query to fetch major/premier tournament results from the last 10 years query = """ SELECT p.tag AS player_tag, p.country, m.date, m.sca, m.scb, m.rca, m.rcb, e.name AS event_name FROM match m JOIN player p ON p.id = m.pla_id JOIN event e ON e.id = m.eventobj_id WHERE m.date >= %s AND e.big = True ORDER BY m.date DESC; """ # Execute the query df = pd.read_sql(query, engine, params={ten_years_ago}) # Export to Excel output_file = 'tournament_results.xlsx' df.to_excel(output_file, index=False, engine='openpyxl') print(f"Data exported to {output_file}") ``` ### Explanation: 1. * atabase Connection**: Adjust the `create_engine` line to match your PostgreSQL username, password, and database details. 2. **SQL Query**: This queries the `match`, `player`, and `event` tables. It joins these tables to fetch player tags, country codes, match dates, scores, races, and event names for matches that occurred in the last ten years in major/premier events (where `big = True`). 3. **Export to Excel**: The script then writes this data to an Excel file using the `pandas` library. ### Step 4: Execute the Script Run the Python script in your environment. This will generate an Excel file named `tournament_results.xlsx` in your current directory containing the dataset you need. This workflow assumes a functional Python environment with database access. Adjust credentials and connection details as necessary for your setup.
On May 21 2024 17:47 MJG wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2024 17:35 Poopi wrote:On May 21 2024 17:19 MJG wrote:On May 21 2024 16:49 Poopi wrote:On May 21 2024 16:41 MJG wrote:On May 21 2024 06:01 WombaT wrote:On May 20 2024 20:58 MJG wrote:On May 18 2024 06:10 Expensive-Law-9830 wrote: Rule number 1 in this forum: never ask today's 'GOATS' what achievement they had when Kespa team houses existed. This has been mentioned plenty of times. Since the Korean team league structure collapsed, the standard of competition has dropped off a cliff. Players did not dominate season after season back when the Korean team leagues existed. Several players rose up to win GSL only to drop off just as quickly. Maru's G5L was such a landmark achievement precisely because it was so difficult for someone to achieve that many GSL wins prior to Maru managing to do so, but even that happened after the Korean team league structure collapsed. Even qualifying for GSL consistently was difficult back then. For example, look at the winners of the NesTea Award, given to players who manage to qualify for Code S ten times in a row. Only four players managed to do this before the Korean team league structure fell apart in 2016. Fifteen players have done so since. It's not difficult to join the dots. Serral's achievements are impressive, but they've all come during a period where there's a lower standard of competition. People can choose to ignore this if they want - "you can only beat what's put in front of you" - but I personally think it's an important factor to consider. One flipside of this argument is that Korean players are operating under similar conditions to foreign players now, and without having that team house setup advantage that gap has closed considerably. I don’t think it’s a complete refutation, there are other associated issues that are also impactful. It’s not just the collapse of the previous structure, it’s an underfunding of the current one which contributes to the overall decline. The collapse of the Korean team league structure is just a convenient line for me to draw. Regardless of where you choose to draw the line, it remains my opinion that the standard and depth of competition has declined as a result of money leaving the scene, and that this makes Serral's achievements less remarkable than those of other GOAT candidates. It'll only ever be an opinion though. Amongst his peers, Serral is clearly an outlier, and for some people that is the most important thing. I can't say those people are objectively wrong, it's just a different perspective, and that's what makes the discussion interesting! The same applies for Rogue though, not just Serral. He "only" started winning big when proleague was disbanded, and zerg started to get really strong. Only Maru among the three GOAT candidates was truly a top class player in the fiercest era. Imo Serral has a better case of GOATness than Rogue. As for Maru, as a super fan I am biased so my opinion on the matter isn't very interesting My reasoning applies to anyone who came to prominence after the scene peaked, and to everything anyone achieved after the scene peaked. If you wanted to describe it statistically, then I suppose the way it works in my head is that every achievement prior to the scene peaking has a 1x multiplier, whereas every achievement after the scene peaked has an ever decreasing multiplier the further away we get from the peak. But this is just one (very subjective) way of looking at things, and I'm not claiming to be more "correct" than anyone else. But what if there is another competitive peak? I mean, imagine if SA keeps investing into esports, and the new RTS (zerospace / stormgate) are worse than Starcraft 2, so ultimately Microsoft/Blizzard finally cares about sc2 again and invests into it. We could have another competitive peak if some new blood from foreign scene / KR scene plays starcraft instead of fortnite, league of legends or whatever other esports. At which point will your multiplier starts increasing back to 1x then? And at which rate your multiplier decays from the peak, to like now in 2024? Seems like magic numbers to me instead of a carefully thought out process I don't think that's likely to happen, and I'm not sure how I would feel if it did given the murkiness of Saudi Arabian funding, but I suppose it would have to start trending back towards 1x. Having said that, it's more of a concept/feeling than a rigid statistical system. It's not a well thought-out process in the slightest.
So it's mostly foreigner bashing then?
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On May 21 2024 17:58 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2024 17:47 MJG wrote:On May 21 2024 17:35 Poopi wrote:On May 21 2024 17:19 MJG wrote:On May 21 2024 16:49 Poopi wrote:On May 21 2024 16:41 MJG wrote:On May 21 2024 06:01 WombaT wrote:On May 20 2024 20:58 MJG wrote:On May 18 2024 06:10 Expensive-Law-9830 wrote: Rule number 1 in this forum: never ask today's 'GOATS' what achievement they had when Kespa team houses existed. This has been mentioned plenty of times. Since the Korean team league structure collapsed, the standard of competition has dropped off a cliff. Players did not dominate season after season back when the Korean team leagues existed. Several players rose up to win GSL only to drop off just as quickly. Maru's G5L was such a landmark achievement precisely because it was so difficult for someone to achieve that many GSL wins prior to Maru managing to do so, but even that happened after the Korean team league structure collapsed. Even qualifying for GSL consistently was difficult back then. For example, look at the winners of the NesTea Award, given to players who manage to qualify for Code S ten times in a row. Only four players managed to do this before the Korean team league structure fell apart in 2016. Fifteen players have done so since. It's not difficult to join the dots. Serral's achievements are impressive, but they've all come during a period where there's a lower standard of competition. People can choose to ignore this if they want - "you can only beat what's put in front of you" - but I personally think it's an important factor to consider. One flipside of this argument is that Korean players are operating under similar conditions to foreign players now, and without having that team house setup advantage that gap has closed considerably. I don’t think it’s a complete refutation, there are other associated issues that are also impactful. It’s not just the collapse of the previous structure, it’s an underfunding of the current one which contributes to the overall decline. The collapse of the Korean team league structure is just a convenient line for me to draw. Regardless of where you choose to draw the line, it remains my opinion that the standard and depth of competition has declined as a result of money leaving the scene, and that this makes Serral's achievements less remarkable than those of other GOAT candidates. It'll only ever be an opinion though. Amongst his peers, Serral is clearly an outlier, and for some people that is the most important thing. I can't say those people are objectively wrong, it's just a different perspective, and that's what makes the discussion interesting! The same applies for Rogue though, not just Serral. He "only" started winning big when proleague was disbanded, and zerg started to get really strong. Only Maru among the three GOAT candidates was truly a top class player in the fiercest era. Imo Serral has a better case of GOATness than Rogue. As for Maru, as a super fan I am biased so my opinion on the matter isn't very interesting My reasoning applies to anyone who came to prominence after the scene peaked, and to everything anyone achieved after the scene peaked. If you wanted to describe it statistically, then I suppose the way it works in my head is that every achievement prior to the scene peaking has a 1x multiplier, whereas every achievement after the scene peaked has an ever decreasing multiplier the further away we get from the peak. But this is just one (very subjective) way of looking at things, and I'm not claiming to be more "correct" than anyone else. But what if there is another competitive peak? I mean, imagine if SA keeps investing into esports, and the new RTS (zerospace / stormgate) are worse than Starcraft 2, so ultimately Microsoft/Blizzard finally cares about sc2 again and invests into it. We could have another competitive peak if some new blood from foreign scene / KR scene plays starcraft instead of fortnite, league of legends or whatever other esports. At which point will your multiplier starts increasing back to 1x then? And at which rate your multiplier decays from the peak, to like now in 2024? Seems like magic numbers to me instead of a carefully thought out process I don't think that's likely to happen, and I'm not sure how I would feel if it did given the murkiness of Saudi Arabian funding, but I suppose it would have to start trending back towards 1x. Having said that, it's more of a concept/feeling than a rigid statistical system. It's not a well thought-out process in the slightest. So it's mostly foreigner bashing then? An entirely unintended consequence!
And I should probably add that every Zerg achievement towards the end of WoL gets an automatic 0x multiplier...
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United States1764 Posts
On May 21 2024 15:23 goldensail wrote: I often wish we have more data-driven analyses to support arguments from both sides. A guy with the handle "Imdata" tried doing that some time ago to support his argument that Serral is a bigger outlier than Maru, I actually thought it was a good attempt, but unfortunately his data was clearly flawed and I didn't see a follow-up after I pointed out some issues.
If we have a hosted dataset (e.g. participants and results from all Premier/Major events for the last 10 years) in Excel format that we can download and model, I believe we can have more objective discussions.
I have most of that stuff. It's just a huge pain to edit a massive google sheet with all the (most relevant) information.
Personally, I find Mvp to be the biggest outlier as far as "dominance" goes. He played during an era where all the best players were playing in Korea and he had far superior win rates (and won way more events) against the same field that all the other top pros (MC, NesTea, MKP, MMA, Leenock etc) where playing against.
Serral's numbers reflect a slightly greater degree of dominance. But, given region lock and all sorts of factors that have segmented the player base, he doesn't get as many chances as Mvp did to go against his top rivals (and/or victims) which is why I have Serral as the "best" player rather than the most "dominant".
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It's hard to call Maru the GOAT when a contemporary has a dominating record against him.
That said, I think two trends are fairly reliable.
Zerg is better in weekend tournaments. The race is built for stability: -Stable, unexploitable standard openings -superior scouting -strongest defensively (due to creep, larvae, scouting advantage, etc.) -Limited need for build variety
GSL on the other hand is built for Terran and Protoss. Each round, you are focusing on 1-2 players at most. Build variety becomes an advantage as you can tune builds to exploit specific opponents. Get past your 2 opponents? Now you have another week+ to prepare new builds for pre-determined opponents.
Throw in the fact that Koreans are playing with severe jet lag in the majority of weekenders, and it's no surprise that Serral has dominated the European scene.
TLDR: Serral is the best Zerg, Maru is the best Terran, but we will never know who the best player is.
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France12750 Posts
On May 21 2024 20:48 tskarzyn wrote: It's hard to call Maru the GOAT when a contemporary has a dominating record against him.
That said, I think two trends are fairly reliable.
Zerg is better in weekend tournaments. The race is built for stability: -Stable, unexploitable standard openings -superior scouting -strongest defensively (due to creep, larvae, scouting advantage, etc.) -Limited need for build variety
GSL on the other hand is built for Terran and Protoss. Each round, you are focusing on 1-2 players at most. Build variety becomes an advantage as you can tune builds to exploit specific opponents. Get past your 2 opponents? Now you have another week+ to prepare new builds for pre-determined opponents.
Throw in the fact that Koreans are playing with severe jet lag in the majority of weekenders, and it's no surprise that Serral has dominated the European scene.
TLDR: Serral is the best Zerg, Maru is the best Terran, but we will never know who the best player is. Maru is the best player, playing the most difficult race at a level way above the other terrans for long period of times
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On May 21 2024 16:49 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2024 16:41 MJG wrote:On May 21 2024 06:01 WombaT wrote:On May 20 2024 20:58 MJG wrote:On May 18 2024 06:10 Expensive-Law-9830 wrote: Rule number 1 in this forum: never ask today's 'GOATS' what achievement they had when Kespa team houses existed. This has been mentioned plenty of times. Since the Korean team league structure collapsed, the standard of competition has dropped off a cliff. Players did not dominate season after season back when the Korean team leagues existed. Several players rose up to win GSL only to drop off just as quickly. Maru's G5L was such a landmark achievement precisely because it was so difficult for someone to achieve that many GSL wins prior to Maru managing to do so, but even that happened after the Korean team league structure collapsed. Even qualifying for GSL consistently was difficult back then. For example, look at the winners of the NesTea Award, given to players who manage to qualify for Code S ten times in a row. Only four players managed to do this before the Korean team league structure fell apart in 2016. Fifteen players have done so since. It's not difficult to join the dots. Serral's achievements are impressive, but they've all come during a period where there's a lower standard of competition. People can choose to ignore this if they want - "you can only beat what's put in front of you" - but I personally think it's an important factor to consider. One flipside of this argument is that Korean players are operating under similar conditions to foreign players now, and without having that team house setup advantage that gap has closed considerably. I don’t think it’s a complete refutation, there are other associated issues that are also impactful. It’s not just the collapse of the previous structure, it’s an underfunding of the current one which contributes to the overall decline. The collapse of the Korean team league structure is just a convenient line for me to draw. Regardless of where you choose to draw the line, it remains my opinion that the standard and depth of competition has declined as a result of money leaving the scene, and that this makes Serral's achievements less remarkable than those of other GOAT candidates. It'll only ever be an opinion though. Amongst his peers, Serral is clearly an outlier, and for some people that is the most important thing. I can't say those people are objectively wrong, it's just a different perspective, and that's what makes the discussion interesting! The same applies for Rogue though, not just Serral. He "only" started winning big when proleague was disbanded, and zerg started to get really strong. Only Maru among the three GOAT candidates was truly a top class player in the fiercest era. Imo Serral has a better case of GOATness than Rogue. As for Maru, as a super fan I am biased so my opinion on the matter isn't very interesting If the only era that counts is before the collapse of proleague, the GOAT is clearly innovation. In fact, Maru probably doesn't make top 10.
Edit: obviously can make a case for he-who-shall-not-be-named as well, but we WON'T.
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France12750 Posts
On May 21 2024 20:58 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2024 16:49 Poopi wrote:On May 21 2024 16:41 MJG wrote:On May 21 2024 06:01 WombaT wrote:On May 20 2024 20:58 MJG wrote:On May 18 2024 06:10 Expensive-Law-9830 wrote: Rule number 1 in this forum: never ask today's 'GOATS' what achievement they had when Kespa team houses existed. This has been mentioned plenty of times. Since the Korean team league structure collapsed, the standard of competition has dropped off a cliff. Players did not dominate season after season back when the Korean team leagues existed. Several players rose up to win GSL only to drop off just as quickly. Maru's G5L was such a landmark achievement precisely because it was so difficult for someone to achieve that many GSL wins prior to Maru managing to do so, but even that happened after the Korean team league structure collapsed. Even qualifying for GSL consistently was difficult back then. For example, look at the winners of the NesTea Award, given to players who manage to qualify for Code S ten times in a row. Only four players managed to do this before the Korean team league structure fell apart in 2016. Fifteen players have done so since. It's not difficult to join the dots. Serral's achievements are impressive, but they've all come during a period where there's a lower standard of competition. People can choose to ignore this if they want - "you can only beat what's put in front of you" - but I personally think it's an important factor to consider. One flipside of this argument is that Korean players are operating under similar conditions to foreign players now, and without having that team house setup advantage that gap has closed considerably. I don’t think it’s a complete refutation, there are other associated issues that are also impactful. It’s not just the collapse of the previous structure, it’s an underfunding of the current one which contributes to the overall decline. The collapse of the Korean team league structure is just a convenient line for me to draw. Regardless of where you choose to draw the line, it remains my opinion that the standard and depth of competition has declined as a result of money leaving the scene, and that this makes Serral's achievements less remarkable than those of other GOAT candidates. It'll only ever be an opinion though. Amongst his peers, Serral is clearly an outlier, and for some people that is the most important thing. I can't say those people are objectively wrong, it's just a different perspective, and that's what makes the discussion interesting! The same applies for Rogue though, not just Serral. He "only" started winning big when proleague was disbanded, and zerg started to get really strong. Only Maru among the three GOAT candidates was truly a top class player in the fiercest era. Imo Serral has a better case of GOATness than Rogue. As for Maru, as a super fan I am biased so my opinion on the matter isn't very interesting If the only era that counts is before the collapse of proleague, the GOAT is clearly innovation. In fact, Maru probably doesn't make top 10. Edit: obviously can make a case for he-who-shall-not-be-named as well, but we WON'T. Yeah INnoVation is the GOAT in my heart as well, if only Maru didn't exist to remind INno that he isn't the most talented / gifted player in the world. Poor INno
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On May 21 2024 19:24 Mizenhauer wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2024 15:23 goldensail wrote: I often wish we have more data-driven analyses to support arguments from both sides. A guy with the handle "Imdata" tried doing that some time ago to support his argument that Serral is a bigger outlier than Maru, I actually thought it was a good attempt, but unfortunately his data was clearly flawed and I didn't see a follow-up after I pointed out some issues.
If we have a hosted dataset (e.g. participants and results from all Premier/Major events for the last 10 years) in Excel format that we can download and model, I believe we can have more objective discussions. I have most of that stuff. It's just a huge pain to edit a massive google sheet with all the (most relevant) information. Personally, I find Mvp to be the biggest outlier as far as "dominance" goes. He played during an era where all the best players were playing in Korea and he had far superior win rates (and won way more events) against the same field that all the other top pros (MC, NesTea, MKP, MMA, Leenock etc) where playing against. Serral's numbers reflect a slightly greater degree of dominance. But, given region lock and all sorts of factors that have segmented the player base, he doesn't get as many chances as Mvp did to go against his top rivals (and/or victims) which is why I have Serral as the "best" player rather than the most "dominant".
This makes sense. I can't remember if you went into this at all, but I wonder what you think of the game's evolution towards more stable metas and how it impacts these player assessments. My intuition is that this makes Mvp's dominance even that much more impressive, because in those earlier years it was a lot easier to discover or develop new strategies, tactics, and builds that could counter a particular player's strengths. And because the pro scene was a lot bigger, it was more likely that those strategies would surface quickly to displace any player who was super dominant.
It's interesting to think of how these SC2 GOAT convos compare with similar convos in chess where there are legitimately multiple GOAT contenders. Maru is kinda like Gary Kasparov in that he's been on top forever, over the course of multiple generations and metas in how the game is played. Serral is kinda like Magnus Carlsen in that he's the best player to ever play the game. And Mvp is kinda like Bobby Fischer in the level of unrivaled dominance he had over his peers. There are differences of course, these aren't perfect analogies.
There's actually another analogy that I want to touch on, which is how both Mvp and Maru adapted to their injuries. I don't know if Maru has ever said this, but having watched the guy forever, he's definitely adapted to a more cerebral style that is focused on strategic decision-making more than the ridiculously fast mechanics and micro that define, for example, Clem's playstyle. I wonder how much of this adaptation is just a natural result of his accumulated game knowledge and maturity, and how much of it is a deliberate pivot to a style that works better with his injuries.
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On May 21 2024 17:58 Poopi wrote:
I don't think you should learn SQL to do it. I prompted ChatGPT with your request AND the tables description of aligulac database (available on the link), downloaded the aligulac.sql.gz zipped file and the response it gave seems good enough to work, and relatively easy to implement even for a beginner. I will try it once work is finished to see if it gives a good result.
If you want to try to implement it yourself, here is the answer (you would need Python, I choose it because it's the easiest way for me but feel free to ask anything to the chatbot).
Thanks!
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On May 21 2024 20:58 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2024 16:49 Poopi wrote:On May 21 2024 16:41 MJG wrote:On May 21 2024 06:01 WombaT wrote:On May 20 2024 20:58 MJG wrote:On May 18 2024 06:10 Expensive-Law-9830 wrote: Rule number 1 in this forum: never ask today's 'GOATS' what achievement they had when Kespa team houses existed. This has been mentioned plenty of times. Since the Korean team league structure collapsed, the standard of competition has dropped off a cliff. Players did not dominate season after season back when the Korean team leagues existed. Several players rose up to win GSL only to drop off just as quickly. Maru's G5L was such a landmark achievement precisely because it was so difficult for someone to achieve that many GSL wins prior to Maru managing to do so, but even that happened after the Korean team league structure collapsed. Even qualifying for GSL consistently was difficult back then. For example, look at the winners of the NesTea Award, given to players who manage to qualify for Code S ten times in a row. Only four players managed to do this before the Korean team league structure fell apart in 2016. Fifteen players have done so since. It's not difficult to join the dots. Serral's achievements are impressive, but they've all come during a period where there's a lower standard of competition. People can choose to ignore this if they want - "you can only beat what's put in front of you" - but I personally think it's an important factor to consider. One flipside of this argument is that Korean players are operating under similar conditions to foreign players now, and without having that team house setup advantage that gap has closed considerably. I don’t think it’s a complete refutation, there are other associated issues that are also impactful. It’s not just the collapse of the previous structure, it’s an underfunding of the current one which contributes to the overall decline. The collapse of the Korean team league structure is just a convenient line for me to draw. Regardless of where you choose to draw the line, it remains my opinion that the standard and depth of competition has declined as a result of money leaving the scene, and that this makes Serral's achievements less remarkable than those of other GOAT candidates. It'll only ever be an opinion though. Amongst his peers, Serral is clearly an outlier, and for some people that is the most important thing. I can't say those people are objectively wrong, it's just a different perspective, and that's what makes the discussion interesting! The same applies for Rogue though, not just Serral. He "only" started winning big when proleague was disbanded, and zerg started to get really strong. Only Maru among the three GOAT candidates was truly a top class player in the fiercest era. Imo Serral has a better case of GOATness than Rogue. As for Maru, as a super fan I am biased so my opinion on the matter isn't very interesting If the only era that counts is before the collapse of proleague, the GOAT is clearly innovation. In fact, Maru probably doesn't make top 10. Edit: obviously can make a case for he-who-shall-not-be-named as well, but we WON'T. There's a difference between "Results after 2016 shouldn't count" and "results post-2016 should gradually be worth less as the competition of the scene decreased".
The first one is imo stupid and I'm not sure why people bring it up, as if in 2017 it suddenly was so much easier to win tournaments just because Kespa disbanded. The scene getting less competitive was a gradual process, it didn't happen over night.
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On May 21 2024 20:48 tskarzyn wrote: It's hard to call Maru the GOAT when a contemporary has a dominating record against him.
That said, I think two trends are fairly reliable.
Zerg is better in weekend tournaments. The race is built for stability: -Stable, unexploitable standard openings -superior scouting -strongest defensively (due to creep, larvae, scouting advantage, etc.) -Limited need for build variety
GSL on the other hand is built for Terran and Protoss. Each round, you are focusing on 1-2 players at most. Build variety becomes an advantage as you can tune builds to exploit specific opponents. Get past your 2 opponents? Now you have another week+ to prepare new builds for pre-determined opponents.
Throw in the fact that Koreans are playing with severe jet lag in the majority of weekenders, and it's no surprise that Serral has dominated the European scene.
TLDR: Serral is the best Zerg, Maru is the best Terran, but we will never know who the best player is. I'd add to that that Serrals record against Maru is almost solely based on 2022-2024 as they hardly faced each other before that. I think Maru can still be the Goat despite another player being better than him for 2.5 years out of Marus 14 year career.
Of course it can never be proven but I think Serral got quite lucky he mostly avoided Maru from 2018-2021 as his ZvT back then wasn't on the level as it was in 2022-2024 and he lost multiple important series against the likes of Byun, Cure, Inno, Clem during that time
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On May 21 2024 23:35 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2024 20:48 tskarzyn wrote: It's hard to call Maru the GOAT when a contemporary has a dominating record against him.
That said, I think two trends are fairly reliable.
Zerg is better in weekend tournaments. The race is built for stability: -Stable, unexploitable standard openings -superior scouting -strongest defensively (due to creep, larvae, scouting advantage, etc.) -Limited need for build variety
GSL on the other hand is built for Terran and Protoss. Each round, you are focusing on 1-2 players at most. Build variety becomes an advantage as you can tune builds to exploit specific opponents. Get past your 2 opponents? Now you have another week+ to prepare new builds for pre-determined opponents.
Throw in the fact that Koreans are playing with severe jet lag in the majority of weekenders, and it's no surprise that Serral has dominated the European scene.
TLDR: Serral is the best Zerg, Maru is the best Terran, but we will never know who the best player is. I'd add to that that Serrals record against Maru is almost solely based on 2022-2024 as they hardly faced each other before that. I think Maru can still be the Goat despite another player being better than him for 2.5 years out of Marus 14 year career. Of course it can never be proven but I think Serral got quite lucky he mostly avoided Maru from 2018-2021 as his ZvT back then wasn't on the level as it was in 2022-2024 and he lost multiple important series against the likes of Byun, Cure, Inno, Clem during that time
Considering maru bopped him when they played at the wesg in 2018, yeah that probably tracks
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