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
It's almost like H2H record isn't the most meaningful metric for GOAT matters (nor are earnings, it's still painful how some "weaker" regions players got A TON of money for simply being the largest fish in a small NA / LATAM pond)
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
It's almost like H2H record isn't the most meaningful metric for GOAT matters (nor are earnings, it's still painful how some "weaker" regions players got A TON of money for simply being the largest fish in a small NA / LATAM pond)
Head to head records are part of a players statistical profile. It's a good measure of how good a player is versus his peers and is a valuable part of assessing a player's overall value. I'm of the opinion that H2H, while tempting, should not be a major factor when deciding a player's overall value relative to another player. It was useful to use when evaluating Serral and Mvp against their peers (specially comparing overlapping players in a defined time period), but I wouldn't put too much focus on it as a general rule.
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
It's almost like H2H record isn't the most meaningful metric for GOAT matters (nor are earnings, it's still painful how some "weaker" regions players got A TON of money for simply being the largest fish in a small NA / LATAM pond)
Head to head records are part of a players statistical profile. It's a good measure of how good a player is versus his peers and is a valuable part of assessing a player's overall value. I'm of the opinion that H2H, while tempting, should not be a major factor when deciding a player's overall value relative to another player. It was useful to use when evaluating Serral and Mvp against their peers (specially comparing overlapping players in a defined time period), but I wouldn't put too much focus on it as a general rule.
The main problem with head2head (imo) is that if a player A is beating player B in a specific time period (due to being better in the match-up, favorable balance, being more in form or whatever), the more they play in this period, the more it will benefit player A.
However, if player B were to beat player A in a different time period / circumstances, but they weren’t given as many occasions to play often, he won’t be able to catch up.
For a more concrete example, what would have happened if Serral before he went full time were to play the KR players pre-2017? Or what if Maru kept playing versus Serral after he beat him in WESG2018?
In BW, only maps change afaik, but in sc2 we have a lot more patches on top of the map rotations. It makes the comparisons difficult.
At the very top level, a tiny advantage like favorable map / balance can skew the results. It’s very probable Protosser has beaten Serral in sc2 more often than the contrary, but they probably stopped playing against each other since Protosser moved on to something else, but if he were to play his younger brother in his prime, the record would probably lean towards Serral very quickly.
This is why comparing players of different eras is difficult.
On May 22 2024 01:05 Poopi wrote: This is why comparing players of different eras is difficult.
That is the first issue you run into with a GOAT list. My solution was to "score" as you would in golf, where players compete against the course and are compared against one another to determine the winner. If you don't filter this through both stages you become insanely subjective insanely fast as you try to figure out how to weigh the million and one differences between Mvp and Serral's career.
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!
It seems like using their database dump isn't as "easy" as it sounds, probably because of
The dump contains 11 tables. Some columns are foreign keys to tables that have been removed from the dump (primarily involving user accounts). Everything given below is in terms of PostgreSQL standards.
. I will try to tackle it later then.
As Mizenhauer previously said though, having all of this data in an excel sheet (or google sheets) doesn't seem like the easiest way to visualize it / get meaningful informations. It is still interesting to try and gather such data for everyone to be able to play a bit with it and draw their own conclusions about the greatest players.
Such discussions (GOAT, etc.) help keeping a sport / esport alive imo
On May 22 2024 01:05 Poopi wrote: This is why comparing players of different eras is difficult.
That is the first issue you run into with a GOAT list. My solution was to "score" as you would in golf, where players compete against the course and are compared against one another to determine the winner. If you don't filter this through both stages you become insanely subjective insanely fast as you try to figure out how to weigh the million and one differences between Mvp and Serral's career.
Yeah I can see how it is very difficult to do "objectively".
That's probably why people weren't sure about Dark or mvp being omitted from the list, even more than Rain, mvp feels like a player from a completely different era of sc2
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.
I wasn't saying that I believe everything after Proleague is completely irrelevant, just that I believe everything after Proleague is steadily less relevant. It's a sliding scale, not a cliff-edge.
On May 12 2024 05:47 Starcloud wrote: It would be more interesting to have an article with wondering the reasons why Maru is so dominate in the first place. Maybe have an interview or two from his rivals even. Now this feels more like an additional explanation for his number one position, that really doesnt actually add up anything to the case.
It's just army control. And it isn't just max army situations, it's every phase of the game, including multiple fronts.
Both He and Serral are the only players to make not only their max armies look untouchable, but also the only ones to navigate seemingly unwinnable situations if/when they ever get behind.
In Maru's case he's much more prone to making build order mistakes and suboptimal strategy decisions. He overcomes this by being able to identify and execute in situations where other players might not be able to do either.
Worth noting I still think Serral is the best overall since his play is much more suffocating as he doesn't make near as mistakes. As for the interviews there have been a handful and they've all pretty much mirrored this thinking.
On May 12 2024 05:47 Starcloud wrote: It would be more interesting to have an article with wondering the reasons why Maru is so dominate in the first place. Maybe have an interview or two from his rivals even. Now this feels more like an additional explanation for his number one position, that really doesnt actually add up anything to the case.
It's just army control. And it isn't just max army situations, it's every phase of the game, including multiple fronts.
Both He and Serral are the only players to make not only their max armies look untouchable, but also the only ones to navigate seemingly unwinnable situations if/when they ever get behind.
In Maru's case he's much more prone to making build order mistakes and suboptimal strategy decisions. He overcomes this by being able to identify and execute in situations where other players might not be able to do either.
Worth noting I still think Serral is the best overall since his play is much more suffocating as he doesn't make near as mistakes. As for the interviews there have been a handful and they've all pretty much mirrored this thinking.
Aye, I think Maru is the guy who does things you didn’t think were possible, mixed in with the occasional baffling decision, where Serral is the guy who basically always does what you’re ’supposed’ to do and executes it excellently almost every time.
You really don’t want to run into Maru if he’s on his absolute A game, but on an average day for both it’s Serral you wanna avoid.
Even if the most low-stakes environment for good pros, laddering, Serral basically doesn’t lose. I’ve watched him frequently do a 3 hour stream and not actually lose a game.
Maru is obviously no slouch laddering either don’t get me wrong there! But Serral’s floor is just ridiculously high, like he brings 80/90% of his best game all the time, even in the most casual of settings. It’d be like a pool player in your local bar playing pretty close to how they would in a big prestige tournament.
On May 12 2024 05:47 Starcloud wrote: It would be more interesting to have an article with wondering the reasons why Maru is so dominate in the first place. Maybe have an interview or two from his rivals even. Now this feels more like an additional explanation for his number one position, that really doesnt actually add up anything to the case.
It's just army control. And it isn't just max army situations, it's every phase of the game, including multiple fronts.
Both He and Serral are the only players to make not only their max armies look untouchable, but also the only ones to navigate seemingly unwinnable situations if/when they ever get behind.
In Maru's case he's much more prone to making build order mistakes and suboptimal strategy decisions. He overcomes this by being able to identify and execute in situations where other players might not be able to do either.
Worth noting I still think Serral is the best overall since his play is much more suffocating as he doesn't make near as mistakes. As for the interviews there have been a handful and they've all pretty much mirrored this thinking.
I’m not sure it’s this simple. “Strategy” in RTS often comes down to pre-game decisions on what builds, tech/army comp, and timing attacks you want to go for, mixed in with some in-game decisions on the same. I actually don’t think there’s anyone better at the strategy component than Maru, other than maybe Rogue, who somehow can soul read his opponents and craft strategies that perfectly counter them.
Perhaps somewhat of a hot take, but Serral only really got good at the “strategy” component of the game in the last couple of years. He had gotten by for so long on near flawless execution that it wasn’t until he was regularly dropping series to Clem and Reynor that he realized he needed to start mixing in cheeses, all-ins, high-risk backstabs, etc. It is a testament to how great Serral is that he was able to adapt so perfectly, but also revealing that he resisted it for so long.
Maru’s execution I don’t think has ever been on Serral’s level. But it’s always been very good. The thing is, I think people confuse Maru’s old cheesy play with being a younger, faster, more aggressive player, but if you listen to Day9 dailies from like over 10 years ago he explains how these were actually strategic plays. A “normal” player would cut their losses after the 3rd medivac full of mines gets shot down, but Maru calculates (almost always correctly) that this particular opponent (e.g. Myungsik or Neeb, to think of a couple games off the top) will be so distracted and fearful of additional mine drops that Maru can safely macro to a winning position. His 2018 proxy play was a similar concept. Yes once every few games he would do game ending damage and this was an important part of the calculus, but it was much more about disrupting the opponent’s play and taking control of the game.
It is true that Maru has very good control, which is what makes a lot of these strategies possible. But he never had Byun-level micro skills (there are old interviews of Maru saying he tried so hard to copy Byun’s reaper micro and couldn’t do it). And yet it is amazing that Maru went from aggro proxy Terran to turtle Terran in such a short period of time. In that time, he also showed how mech could be good against Zerg (and even Protoss!). He added some of the most incredible comebacks to the game’s history off great execution for sure, but more importantly impeccable strategic decision-making and game sense regarding the position he was in and what the perfect response needed to be. Serral almost never makes enough mistakes to end up in these kinds of desperate positions, but when he does, he often just executes his defense perfectly until the other guy throws away their winning position.
The thing is, SC2 is primarily a game about who executes “better” and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player execute as well as Serral (except maybe Clem on his best days). Mvp, TY, SOS, and Rogue I felt maybe had the best strategic understanding of the game for their races, but Maru I think has maybe surpassed TY in the last few years. This is why I think Maru is so good at GSL. He is just very good at preparing strategies that can work against specific opponents, but then also has that unique ability to pull it back quite often even if his strategy doesn’t pan out. And yet Flash is maybe the only gamer who can reliably overcome an execution skill deficit with his superior strategic understanding of the game (as he demonstrated with his incredible Random run in ASL).
The thing is with these strategic players, your decisions are not always going to work out and then it’s easy to say these were “mistakes”. In some cases, they are just strategic mistakes. For example, Maru should not have played this one base skirmish style of TvT against Oliveira in the Katowice finals on given that he was almost certainly going to have a major edge in the mid and late game. But in general strategies involve calculated risk so they don’t always pan out.
On May 22 2024 21:48 rwala wrote: It is true that Maru has very good control, which is what makes a lot of these strategies possible. But he never had Byun-level micro skills (there are old interviews of Maru saying he tried so hard to copy Byun’s reaper micro and couldn’t do it).
You are citing a 12 month period (mid 2016-mid 2017) during which ByuN had the undisputed best REAPER control in the world (the unit was nerfed soon after and ByuN became a slightly above average Terran who hasn't won a premier event in eight years).
ByuN could micro one unit (reaper) and snipe slow banelings off creep when doing the 2/1/1. His splits are awful and he falls apart when he has to pay attention to an army and multiple defensive positions (this is a theme going back to 2016).
Take any other period of time, or any other Terran unit and it's clear that Maru's micro is vastly superior, or on par, with anyone to have played SC2. It's not even a discussion.
On May 22 2024 21:48 rwala wrote: It is true that Maru has very good control, which is what makes a lot of these strategies possible. But he never had Byun-level micro skills (there are old interviews of Maru saying he tried so hard to copy Byun’s reaper micro and couldn’t do it).
You are citing a 12 month period (mid 2016-mid 2017) during which ByuN had the undisputed best REAPER control in the world (the unit was nerfed soon after and ByuN became a slightly above average Terran who hasn't won a premier event in eight years).
ByuN could micro one unit (reaper) and snipe slow banelings off creep when doing the 2/1/1. His splits are awful and he falls apart when he has to pay attention to an army and multiple defensive positions (this is a theme going back to 2016).
Take any other period of time, or any other Terran unit and it's clear that Maru's micro is vastly superior, or on par, with anyone to have played SC2. It's not even a discussion.
Yeah agreed. Maru was initially known as an aggressive/cheesy/micro based player. His TvP dropping marauders on Colossus was huge at the time, relentless drops (exid Terran), engagements, concaves. Then you factor in how many games he has pulled back by being unkillable and efficient.
Not to mention one thing I think he does far and away better than any other terran is siege tank target fire on banes or other priority targets.
On May 12 2024 05:47 Starcloud wrote: It would be more interesting to have an article with wondering the reasons why Maru is so dominate in the first place. Maybe have an interview or two from his rivals even. Now this feels more like an additional explanation for his number one position, that really doesnt actually add up anything to the case.
It's just army control. And it isn't just max army situations, it's every phase of the game, including multiple fronts.
Both He and Serral are the only players to make not only their max armies look untouchable, but also the only ones to navigate seemingly unwinnable situations if/when they ever get behind.
In Maru's case he's much more prone to making build order mistakes and suboptimal strategy decisions. He overcomes this by being able to identify and execute in situations where other players might not be able to do either.
Worth noting I still think Serral is the best overall since his play is much more suffocating as he doesn't make near as mistakes. As for the interviews there have been a handful and they've all pretty much mirrored this thinking.
I’m not sure it’s this simple. “Strategy” in RTS often comes down to pre-game decisions on what builds, tech/army comp, and timing attacks you want to go for, mixed in with some in-game decisions on the same. I actually don’t think there’s anyone better at the strategy component than Maru, other than maybe Rogue, who somehow can soul read his opponents and craft strategies that perfectly counter them.
Perhaps somewhat of a hot take, but Serral only really got good at the “strategy” component of the game in the last couple of years. He had gotten by for so long on near flawless execution that it wasn’t until he was regularly dropping series to Clem and Reynor that he realized he needed to start mixing in cheeses, all-ins, high-risk backstabs, etc. It is a testament to how great Serral is that he was able to adapt so perfectly, but also revealing that he resisted it for so long.
Maru’s execution I don’t think has ever been on Serral’s level. But it’s always been very good. The thing is, I think people confuse Maru’s old cheesy play with being a younger, faster, more aggressive player, but if you listen to Day9 dailies from like over 10 years ago he explains how these were actually strategic plays. A “normal” player would cut their losses after the 3rd medivac full of mines gets shot down, but Maru calculates (almost always correctly) that this particular opponent (e.g. Myungsik or Neeb, to think of a couple games off the top) will be so distracted and fearful of additional mine drops that Maru can safely macro to a winning position. His 2018 proxy play was a similar concept. Yes once every few games he would do game ending damage and this was an important part of the calculus, but it was much more about disrupting the opponent’s play and taking control of the game.
It is true that Maru has very good control, which is what makes a lot of these strategies possible. But he never had Byun-level micro skills (there are old interviews of Maru saying he tried so hard to copy Byun’s reaper micro and couldn’t do it). And yet it is amazing that Maru went from aggro proxy Terran to turtle Terran in such a short period of time. In that time, he also showed how mech could be good against Zerg (and even Protoss!). He added some of the most incredible comebacks to the game’s history off great execution for sure, but more importantly impeccable strategic decision-making and game sense regarding the position he was in and what the perfect response needed to be. Serral almost never makes enough mistakes to end up in these kinds of desperate positions, but when he does, he often just executes his defense perfectly until the other guy throws away their winning position.
The thing is, SC2 is primarily a game about who executes “better” and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player execute as well as Serral (except maybe Clem on his best days). Mvp, TY, SOS, and Rogue I felt maybe had the best strategic understanding of the game for their races, but Maru I think has maybe surpassed TY in the last few years. This is why I think Maru is so good at GSL. He is just very good at preparing strategies that can work against specific opponents, but then also has that unique ability to pull it back quite often even if his strategy doesn’t pan out. And yet Flash is maybe the only gamer who can reliably overcome an execution skill deficit with his superior strategic understanding of the game (as he demonstrated with his incredible Random run in ASL).
The thing is with these strategic players, your decisions are not always going to work out and then it’s easy to say these were “mistakes”. In some cases, they are just strategic mistakes. For example, Maru should not have played this one base skirmish style of TvT against Oliveira in the Katowice finals on given that he was almost certainly going to have a major edge in the mid and late game. But in general strategies involve calculated risk so they don’t always pan out.
I agree with some of the above with a few comments.
It's not clear to me that Maru "never had Byun-level micro skills" - I've watched many Byun's old reaper micro vids and I didn't find them more impressive than Maru's current level. Byun pioneered it, but Maru became just as good. It's possible that the pre-nerf power of the reapers contributed to the impression that Byun made better of them. For units other than reapers, I believe Maru's micro is better than Byun's e.g. his control of marines in proxy racks plays. In TvT early skirmishes, these two are comparable and Maru perhaps has a slight edge.
Serral is indeed very solid in executing. However I would also say this stability is at least partially due to 1) Zerg play being more forgiving when it comes to the likelihood/impact of mistakes, and 2) sticking to a proven playbook.
When a team of ghosts gets fungaled, or a clumped up ball of marines doesn't split in time and gets blown up by banes, the game is often over for the Terran because it takes too long/too much to replace these units. Miss a nydus at your home base? Your production is gone and again GG. The margin of error is quite small. In contrast for a Zerg - didn't control banes perfectly? That's OK as long as they didn't all get blown up and trade well enough. Didn't control lings during back-stabbing? That's OK they will auto attack and can be replaced quickly. Lost some infestors that got spotted? No problem just make more with your superior economy. I'm simplifying a bit but hopefully you get the idea.
I talked about the playbook in another post so won't repeat it here.
When a team of ghosts gets fungaled, or a clumped up ball of marines doesn't split in time and gets blown up by banes, the game is often over for the Terran because it takes too long/too much to replace these units. Miss a nydus at your home base? Your production is gone and again GG. The margin of error is quite small. In contrast for a Zerg - didn't control banes perfectly? That's OK as long as they didn't all get blown up and trade well enough. Didn't control lings during back-stabbing? That's OK they will auto attack and can be replaced quickly. Lost some infestors that got spotted? No problem just make more with your superior economy. I'm simplifying a bit but hopefully you get the idea.
Terran player detected! with standard stuff "Terran is the hardest race" mimimi. I used to believe it, but I don't agree anymore. Terran has the most diversity and usability in its units. The way it is acted here "one mistake and you lose" simply marine spam 50/0 -> can fight everything and outscale all no aoe units. just tank -> 10min+ playtime. lose all workers, keyword Mule. stabilize Terrans ecco until it is 60-80 workers again.
in other words it is almost impossible to lose a unit or trade inefficiently as a terran. always this fake hype about Terran "micro".
On May 12 2024 05:47 Starcloud wrote: It would be more interesting to have an article with wondering the reasons why Maru is so dominate in the first place. Maybe have an interview or two from his rivals even. Now this feels more like an additional explanation for his number one position, that really doesnt actually add up anything to the case.
It's just army control. And it isn't just max army situations, it's every phase of the game, including multiple fronts.
Both He and Serral are the only players to make not only their max armies look untouchable, but also the only ones to navigate seemingly unwinnable situations if/when they ever get behind.
In Maru's case he's much more prone to making build order mistakes and suboptimal strategy decisions. He overcomes this by being able to identify and execute in situations where other players might not be able to do either.
Worth noting I still think Serral is the best overall since his play is much more suffocating as he doesn't make near as mistakes. As for the interviews there have been a handful and they've all pretty much mirrored this thinking.
I’m not sure it’s this simple. “Strategy” in RTS often comes down to pre-game decisions on what builds, tech/army comp, and timing attacks you want to go for, mixed in with some in-game decisions on the same. I actually don’t think there’s anyone better at the strategy component than Maru, other than maybe Rogue, who somehow can soul read his opponents and craft strategies that perfectly counter them.
Perhaps somewhat of a hot take, but Serral only really got good at the “strategy” component of the game in the last couple of years. He had gotten by for so long on near flawless execution that it wasn’t until he was regularly dropping series to Clem and Reynor that he realized he needed to start mixing in cheeses, all-ins, high-risk backstabs, etc. It is a testament to how great Serral is that he was able to adapt so perfectly, but also revealing that he resisted it for so long.
Maru’s execution I don’t think has ever been on Serral’s level. But it’s always been very good. The thing is, I think people confuse Maru’s old cheesy play with being a younger, faster, more aggressive player, but if you listen to Day9 dailies from like over 10 years ago he explains how these were actually strategic plays. A “normal” player would cut their losses after the 3rd medivac full of mines gets shot down, but Maru calculates (almost always correctly) that this particular opponent (e.g. Myungsik or Neeb, to think of a couple games off the top) will be so distracted and fearful of additional mine drops that Maru can safely macro to a winning position. His 2018 proxy play was a similar concept. Yes once every few games he would do game ending damage and this was an important part of the calculus, but it was much more about disrupting the opponent’s play and taking control of the game.
It is true that Maru has very good control, which is what makes a lot of these strategies possible. But he never had Byun-level micro skills (there are old interviews of Maru saying he tried so hard to copy Byun’s reaper micro and couldn’t do it). And yet it is amazing that Maru went from aggro proxy Terran to turtle Terran in such a short period of time. In that time, he also showed how mech could be good against Zerg (and even Protoss!). He added some of the most incredible comebacks to the game’s history off great execution for sure, but more importantly impeccable strategic decision-making and game sense regarding the position he was in and what the perfect response needed to be. Serral almost never makes enough mistakes to end up in these kinds of desperate positions, but when he does, he often just executes his defense perfectly until the other guy throws away their winning position.
The thing is, SC2 is primarily a game about who executes “better” and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player execute as well as Serral (except maybe Clem on his best days). Mvp, TY, SOS, and Rogue I felt maybe had the best strategic understanding of the game for their races, but Maru I think has maybe surpassed TY in the last few years. This is why I think Maru is so good at GSL. He is just very good at preparing strategies that can work against specific opponents, but then also has that unique ability to pull it back quite often even if his strategy doesn’t pan out. And yet Flash is maybe the only gamer who can reliably overcome an execution skill deficit with his superior strategic understanding of the game (as he demonstrated with his incredible Random run in ASL).
The thing is with these strategic players, your decisions are not always going to work out and then it’s easy to say these were “mistakes”. In some cases, they are just strategic mistakes. For example, Maru should not have played this one base skirmish style of TvT against Oliveira in the Katowice finals on given that he was almost certainly going to have a major edge in the mid and late game. But in general strategies involve calculated risk so they don’t always pan out.
I agree with some of the above with a few comments.
It's not clear to me that Maru "never had Byun-level micro skills" - I've watched many Byun's old reaper micro vids and I didn't find them more impressive than Maru's current level. Byun pioneered it, but Maru became just as good. It's possible that the pre-nerf power of the reapers contributed to the impression that Byun made better of them. For units other than reapers, I believe Maru's micro is better than Byun's e.g. his control of marines in proxy racks plays. In TvT early skirmishes, these two are comparable and Maru perhaps has a slight edge.
Maru micro isnt as "flashy", as in he would continuous drop/undrop a Cyclone to deal mitigated damage on the opponent, or making Reaper "juke" move that escape the ling surround, I think Byun and Clem are better than him at this. But Maru would focus his energy on making great macro timing, doesnt miss upgrade, setting up units, making the right in-game decision. I think those are more important than the simple "micro" of the units, like I dont care how good you micro the Medivac drop, you cant stop a Viking/Raven - Tank combo if you dont have the right units. Terran is about efficiency, and Maru has been the most efficient at playing it for a while now imo.
On May 12 2024 05:47 Starcloud wrote: It would be more interesting to have an article with wondering the reasons why Maru is so dominate in the first place. Maybe have an interview or two from his rivals even. Now this feels more like an additional explanation for his number one position, that really doesnt actually add up anything to the case.
It's just army control. And it isn't just max army situations, it's every phase of the game, including multiple fronts.
Both He and Serral are the only players to make not only their max armies look untouchable, but also the only ones to navigate seemingly unwinnable situations if/when they ever get behind.
In Maru's case he's much more prone to making build order mistakes and suboptimal strategy decisions. He overcomes this by being able to identify and execute in situations where other players might not be able to do either.
Worth noting I still think Serral is the best overall since his play is much more suffocating as he doesn't make near as mistakes. As for the interviews there have been a handful and they've all pretty much mirrored this thinking.
I’m not sure it’s this simple. “Strategy” in RTS often comes down to pre-game decisions on what builds, tech/army comp, and timing attacks you want to go for, mixed in with some in-game decisions on the same. I actually don’t think there’s anyone better at the strategy component than Maru, other than maybe Rogue, who somehow can soul read his opponents and craft strategies that perfectly counter them.
Perhaps somewhat of a hot take, but Serral only really got good at the “strategy” component of the game in the last couple of years. He had gotten by for so long on near flawless execution that it wasn’t until he was regularly dropping series to Clem and Reynor that he realized he needed to start mixing in cheeses, all-ins, high-risk backstabs, etc. It is a testament to how great Serral is that he was able to adapt so perfectly, but also revealing that he resisted it for so long.
Maru’s execution I don’t think has ever been on Serral’s level. But it’s always been very good. The thing is, I think people confuse Maru’s old cheesy play with being a younger, faster, more aggressive player, but if you listen to Day9 dailies from like over 10 years ago he explains how these were actually strategic plays. A “normal” player would cut their losses after the 3rd medivac full of mines gets shot down, but Maru calculates (almost always correctly) that this particular opponent (e.g. Myungsik or Neeb, to think of a couple games off the top) will be so distracted and fearful of additional mine drops that Maru can safely macro to a winning position. His 2018 proxy play was a similar concept. Yes once every few games he would do game ending damage and this was an important part of the calculus, but it was much more about disrupting the opponent’s play and taking control of the game.
It is true that Maru has very good control, which is what makes a lot of these strategies possible. But he never had Byun-level micro skills (there are old interviews of Maru saying he tried so hard to copy Byun’s reaper micro and couldn’t do it). And yet it is amazing that Maru went from aggro proxy Terran to turtle Terran in such a short period of time. In that time, he also showed how mech could be good against Zerg (and even Protoss!). He added some of the most incredible comebacks to the game’s history off great execution for sure, but more importantly impeccable strategic decision-making and game sense regarding the position he was in and what the perfect response needed to be. Serral almost never makes enough mistakes to end up in these kinds of desperate positions, but when he does, he often just executes his defense perfectly until the other guy throws away their winning position.
The thing is, SC2 is primarily a game about who executes “better” and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player execute as well as Serral (except maybe Clem on his best days). Mvp, TY, SOS, and Rogue I felt maybe had the best strategic understanding of the game for their races, but Maru I think has maybe surpassed TY in the last few years. This is why I think Maru is so good at GSL. He is just very good at preparing strategies that can work against specific opponents, but then also has that unique ability to pull it back quite often even if his strategy doesn’t pan out. And yet Flash is maybe the only gamer who can reliably overcome an execution skill deficit with his superior strategic understanding of the game (as he demonstrated with his incredible Random run in ASL).
The thing is with these strategic players, your decisions are not always going to work out and then it’s easy to say these were “mistakes”. In some cases, they are just strategic mistakes. For example, Maru should not have played this one base skirmish style of TvT against Oliveira in the Katowice finals on given that he was almost certainly going to have a major edge in the mid and late game. But in general strategies involve calculated risk so they don’t always pan out.
I agree with some of the above with a few comments.
It's not clear to me that Maru "never had Byun-level micro skills" - I've watched many Byun's old reaper micro vids and I didn't find them more impressive than Maru's current level. Byun pioneered it, but Maru became just as good. It's possible that the pre-nerf power of the reapers contributed to the impression that Byun made better of them. For units other than reapers, I believe Maru's micro is better than Byun's e.g. his control of marines in proxy racks plays. In TvT early skirmishes, these two are comparable and Maru perhaps has a slight edge.
Maru micro isnt as "flashy", as in he would continuous drop/undrop a Cyclone to deal mitigated damage on the opponent, or making Reaper "juke" move that escape the ling surround, I think Byun and Clem are better than him at this. But Maru would focus his energy on making great macro timing, doesnt miss upgrade, setting up units, making the right in-game decision. I think those are more important than the simple "micro" of the units, like I dont care how good you micro the Medivac drop, you cant stop a Viking/Raven - Tank combo if you dont have the right units. Terran is about efficiency, and Maru has been the most efficient at playing it for a while now imo.
The thing about Maru is that he's changed tremendously during his career. When he won OSL in 2013, he was viewed as a "cheesy micro player". Two years later-he's the second best macro terran (behind INnoVation(and possibly TaeJa)) and he wins SSL
I've always thought these videos are very reflective of the game at a time. Terrans were splitting, controlling small groups (or individual groups) in small/medium fight and stutter stepping like crazy.
It's fair to say that Maru had the best micro among Terran in the world by summer/fall 2013. I know watching the Maru/Dear games at the end of that year is ancient history at this point, but the stuff they were doing was groundbreaking. To say we had never seen people do the things they did would be an understatement.
There are links to the rest of the games from that series in the spoiled section
ByuN micro is very good, in the sense that he is able to be super cost efficient. People are mocking his splits but they fail to understand that what matters is being cost efficient with your actions, not splitting for the beauty of it.
ByuN is still a monster in that regard, even though lots of casuals don’t seem to grasp it. They are the same casuals that think Zest’s macro is bad because he floats money, not realizing it’s usually by choice.
On May 23 2024 03:56 Poopi wrote: ByuN micro is very good, in the sense that he is able to be super cost efficient. People are mocking his splits but they fail to understand that what matters is being cost efficient with your actions, not splitting for the beauty of it.
ByuN is still a monster in that regard, even though lots of casuals don’t seem to grasp it. They are the same casuals that think Zest’s macro is bad because he floats money, not realizing it’s usually by choice.
ByuN's micro is fine, He's very good at controlling small groups of units (which makes sense given his success with reapers and the 2/1/1). Other than that, he's slightly above average.
On May 23 2024 03:56 Poopi wrote: ByuN micro is very good, in the sense that he is able to be super cost efficient. People are mocking his splits but they fail to understand that what matters is being cost efficient with your actions, not splitting for the beauty of it.
ByuN is still a monster in that regard, even though lots of casuals don’t seem to grasp it. They are the same casuals that think Zest’s macro is bad because he floats money, not realizing it’s usually by choice.
ByuN's micro is fine, He's very good at controlling small groups of units (which makes sense given his success with reapers and the 2/1/1). Other than that, he's slightly above average.
He is better with small groups of units compared to large armies indeed. But he axes his play even in TvT around that, and somehow makes it work more often than not
Which player would you use as baseline for « average » though? If you mean someone like HeroMarine, I agree. If you mean random GM terrans, I don’t really agree
EPT
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