On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
As I’ve said before, I think people are sleeping on quite how far Serral is currently ahead of his fellow Zergs
Where previously there was a clear ‘big 4’ of Zerg, not unlike the tennis equivalent where it’s likely one of them is winning a big prize, who it is will depend on form and fine margins come tournament day.
Now it’s more akin to the period a bit before/after they were all peaking, where Federer/Djokovic respectively were just the guy.
PvZ is a bit less rough than some of those periods too, patches helped, herO’s innovations too.
If herO’s involved, I give him a roughly 50% shot at worst of beating any Zerg on the planet in recent times, unless that Zerg happens to be Serral in which case he’s a big underdog for me. And I think overall other Toss have generally put in some more competitive performances in PvZ for a while now.
Which I think is quite a contrast from other periods and metas where I think most would outright have favoured any of that Zerg ‘big 4’ in a ZvP against anyone really.
Dark being older/a father, Rogue going to military and Reynor being in a slump play their parts too of course. But regardless of underlying factors it’s only really been Serral who’s kept up a vP and vT that’s consistently the best around, or very close
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral's worst winrate year vs Koreans since 2018 is 70.3% (in 2021). For reference people used to win world championships or multiple GSLs with 65%-66%.
You have no idea how wrong you are.
Serral dominated the 2nd half of 2018 and from 2022 on, but from 2019 to 2021 he had a small dip in form and wasn't really dominating as Rogue, Reynor, Dark, Trap and Maru were all outperforming Serral for significant amounts of time (not all at the same time, but they had all periods where they were inarguably performing better than Serral).
Doesn't mean Serral was bad as he probably still was a top 3 player at all times which is impressive enough but I guess that's what he was refering to.
I commend you for your memory, but alas none of us is getting any younger - and quantitative facts are stubborn. Serral was #1 in annual vs Kor winrate in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022 (tied with Maru more or less that year) and 2023. Only in 2021 was he #3 indeed with 70.3% in matches, third to Dark's 72.7% and Maru's fantastic 77.9%. This meshes pretty well with 'Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years?' in my view.
This is not inconsistent with Reynor and Rogue having periods of absolute brilliance, and the prizes to prove it, in 2019-2021 as you mentioned, but still being overall less consistent and dominant than Serral.
Since it randomly came to mind for me, some of the top 'auras' in the history of SC2 for retired players. Obv not comprehensive, just some stuff that came to mind.
Nestea: Late 2010 - early 2011 Mvp: 2011 Stephano: Late 2011 - Early 2012 TaeJa: 2013 Life: 2014 INnoVation: 2013, 2015, 2017 (maybe 2014?)
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
When you're referring to data driven are you talking about Maru's 19-43 map record, and 4-15 match record vs Serral and 0 World Championships? Or were you more referring to the data from the specific tournaments that you decided were more important?
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
When you're referring to data driven are you talking about Maru's 19-43 map record, and 4-15 match record vs Serral and 0 World Championships? Or were you more referring to the data from the specific tournaments that you decided were more important?
It's good to know that, in your mind, head to head record is all that matters. It gives me a solid indication of whether or not your posts are worth reading-especially when you can't even bother to check that Maru has, in fact, won a WC event with a 200k first place prize.
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
When you're referring to data driven are you talking about Maru's 19-43 map record, and 4-15 match record vs Serral and 0 World Championships? Or were you more referring to the data from the specific tournaments that you decided were more important?
It's good to know that, in your mind, head to head record is all that matters. It gives me a solid indication of whether or not your posts are worth reading-especially when you can't even bother to check that Maru has, in fact, won a WC event with a 200k first place prize.
I didn't say it's all that matters. But it's pretty relevant "data". One could strongly argue it's the most conclusive data in the debate because how one sided it is.
Here's a quote from your own article- "Yes, there is an obvious flaw in Maru's career resume: the lack of a WCS or IEM world championship". So don't flame me for saying 0 world championships.
But the "data" clearly doesn't justify your rankings. Your list is highly subjective. In your intro you stated "The gold standard - Code S/OSL/SSL aka "Korean Individual Leagues"". Which is entirely your own opinion. Which is fine, I don't agree, but it's your list. But then don't pretend that Hero's opinion's are just his feelings and the data clearly supports your conclusion, because it doesn't.
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
When you're referring to data driven are you talking about Maru's 19-43 map record, and 4-15 match record vs Serral and 0 World Championships? Or were you more referring to the data from the specific tournaments that you decided were more important?
It's good to know that, in your mind, head to head record is all that matters. It gives me a solid indication of whether or not your posts are worth reading-especially when you can't even bother to check that Maru has, in fact, won a WC event with a 200k first place prize.
I didn't say it's all that matters. But it's pretty relevant "data". One could strongly argue it's the most conclusive data in the debate because how one sided it is.
Here's a quote from your own article- "Yes, there is an obvious flaw in Maru's career resume: the lack of a WCS or IEM world championship". So don't flame me for saying 0 world championships.
But the "data" clearly doesn't justify your rankings. Your list is highly subjective. In your intro you stated "The gold standard - Code S/OSL/SSL aka "Korean Individual Leagues"". Which is entirely your own opinion. Which is fine, I don't agree, but it's your list. But then don't pretend that Hero's opinion's are just his feelings and the data clearly supports your conclusion, because it doesn't.
herO's opinion is fine, yours isn't. Head to head is one of the worst metrics for ranking players because not all matches are created equal and, for players like Mvp and Serral, they never got a chance to play another (alternatively, how does one compare an offline Bo7 between Zest and INnoVation when they were both in their prime from (2013-2015) to one they played a few months before they retired in an online event with a few hundred bucks on the line). Head to head is a useful tool, one that played a part in my evaluation, but it's a part that can only be used in certain situations and the value of its application varies greatly.
I mentioned two types of World Championships. It's your fault if you forget about WESG, not mine if I omit it in that exact circumstances due to sentence structure/mentioning it elsewhere.
"The gold standard" is a phrase used to refer to something of great (or, in many cases, unrivaled) prestige. Code S is 100% the longest running, biggest name value, most prestigious event out there despite the fact that Serral has not participated in it. One can acknowledge that an event with a massive payout is a incredibly important, but Gamers8/ESWC doesn't supplant Code S' place in StarCraft II history just because they hand out more money.
On June 22 2024 00:05 StarcraftHistorian wrote: Hello hello my fellow SC nerds!
This is an extra special one for me, with the legendary herO. Him and I covered his best Proleague memory, thoughts on the GOAT debate, the reason Protoss has been struggling and more! I hope you all enjoy it =D
Thanks for the interview. I love to hear about herO's perspective of protoss matchups these days. But, if possible I would like to have StarcraftHistorian's interview with Rogue. This guy haven't talked much even in interview over the years. I think his last interview was with DPG admin? What was his thoughts? How he evaluate his interactions with Maru and others? Everything about his departure to military service and coming back seemed like in silent mode.
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
When you're referring to data driven are you talking about Maru's 19-43 map record, and 4-15 match record vs Serral and 0 World Championships? Or were you more referring to the data from the specific tournaments that you decided were more important?
It's good to know that, in your mind, head to head record is all that matters. It gives me a solid indication of whether or not your posts are worth reading-especially when you can't even bother to check that Maru has, in fact, won a WC event with a 200k first place prize.
I didn't say it's all that matters. But it's pretty relevant "data". One could strongly argue it's the most conclusive data in the debate because how one sided it is.
Buster Douglas has a winning record against Mike Tyson.
On June 25 2024 03:06 Blitzball04 wrote: Thanks for the interview
Another pro admitting Serral is the goat, yet some people crying and complaining when ESL made a verbal comment saying “Serral is the goat”
Serral is the goat has been the consensus for years now
I’ll take the opinions of pro players and casters over forum posters anyday
Yet some people still desperately trying to include Maru into the conversation is quite comical
As someone who has played and practiced with/against many magic pros, I respect that there is a "feel" factor that one can only experience from personal exposure to a player. However, when it comes to being as objective as possible, I greatly prefer a data driven interpretation.
When you're referring to data driven are you talking about Maru's 19-43 map record, and 4-15 match record vs Serral and 0 World Championships? Or were you more referring to the data from the specific tournaments that you decided were more important?
It's good to know that, in your mind, head to head record is all that matters. It gives me a solid indication of whether or not your posts are worth reading-especially when you can't even bother to check that Maru has, in fact, won a WC event with a 200k first place prize.
I didn't say it's all that matters. But it's pretty relevant "data". One could strongly argue it's the most conclusive data in the debate because how one sided it is.
Here's a quote from your own article- "Yes, there is an obvious flaw in Maru's career resume: the lack of a WCS or IEM world championship". So don't flame me for saying 0 world championships.
But the "data" clearly doesn't justify your rankings. Your list is highly subjective. In your intro you stated "The gold standard - Code S/OSL/SSL aka "Korean Individual Leagues"". Which is entirely your own opinion. Which is fine, I don't agree, but it's your list. But then don't pretend that Hero's opinion's are just his feelings and the data clearly supports your conclusion, because it doesn't.
herO's opinion is fine, yours isn't. Head to head is one of the worst metrics for ranking players because not all matches are created equal and, for players like Mvp and Serral, they never got a chance to play another (alternatively, how does one compare an offline Bo7 between Zest and INnoVation when they were both in their prime from (2013-2015) to one they played a few months before they retired in an online event with a few hundred bucks on the line). Head to head is a useful tool, one that played a part in my evaluation, but it's a part that can only be used in certain situations and the value of its application varies greatly.
I mentioned two types of World Championships. It's your fault if you forget about WESG, not mine if I omit it in that exact circumstances due to sentence structure/mentioning it elsewhere.
"The gold standard" is a phrase used to refer to something of great (or, in many cases, unrivaled) prestige. Code S is 100% the longest running, biggest name value, most prestigious event out there despite the fact that Serral has not participated in it. One can acknowledge that an event with a massive payout is a incredibly important, but Gamers8/ESWC doesn't supplant Code S' place in StarCraft II history just because they hand out more money.
The H2H is soo skewed though, it doesn't matter if half of Maru's losses were hypothetically at ESL cups. He'd still have a losing record and it'd look bad. Maru has a H2H that overall beats everyone, Serral has a H2H that overall beats everyone including Maru. That's when H2H becomes a very telling factor that can't be ignored. It is more significant than a raw statistical winrate vs who knows what. But, being the GOAT and the currently best player are different, so let's look at WESG 2017 instead.
Most people don't consider WESG a world championship. A WC-tier event at the most maybe, depending on the person. It's definitely not the official WC the way that WCS and Katowice have been. But I know you classify it as a WC-tier event in the context of your GOAT articles, so let's look at what you had to say about WESG 2017:
Despite the weak player pools at the WESG tournaments in 2017-18, I considered them to be worth just slightly less than a season of Korean Individual Leagues or an average ESL/Blizzard world championship.
Seems like you think WESG 2017 counts as slightly less than a KIL. So a WESG 2017 win can't fill out Maru's resume the way that a WCS or Katowice would (when officially the WC).
I know that in that statement you also said it's worth about the same as an average ESL/Blizzard WC, which I highly disagree, but the large majority would agree that in a "data-driven approach", WCS and Katowice (especially when officially a WC that year) are worth more than a KIL or a WESG. Of which Maru is sorely lacking.
I know that in that statement you also said it's worth about the same as an average ESL/Blizzard WC, which I highly disagree, but the large majority would agree that in a "data-driven approach", WCS and Katowice (especially when officially a WC that year) are worth more than a KIL or a WESG. Of which Maru is sorely lacking.
The only thing that makes a WC harder to win than Code S is if a superior player (who doesn't compete in KR) is added to the player pool (aka Serral post 2017). I had to make a fair number of generalities in the intro (and during player entries) to avoid writing thousands of words about the minute differences between tournaments, despite the fact that I had to account for all of them during research.
I want to note that I'm not arguing in favor or Serral or Maru for GOAT, I'm simply defending the work I put in. I'm extremely confident that my evaluation process was far more rigorous than that utilized by others. A forum poster or someone putting out a 5-10 minute video doesn't have to worry about dealing with the most scrupulous and demanding editor in the history of StarCraft II (Wax never gets the credit he deserves) and I can 100% assure you that if I didn't put in the required amount of work that those articles would never have been posted. I'm fine with people thinking I am incorrect, but my standard when it comes to determining whether or not a counter argument is viable is extremely high.
I know that in that statement you also said it's worth about the same as an average ESL/Blizzard WC, which I highly disagree, but the large majority would agree that in a "data-driven approach", WCS and Katowice (especially when officially a WC that year) are worth more than a KIL or a WESG. Of which Maru is sorely lacking.
The only thing that makes a WC harder to win than Code S is if a superior player (who doesn't compete in KR) is added to the player pool (aka Serral post 2017). I had to make a fair number of generalities in the intro (and during player entries) to avoid writing thousands of words about the minute differences between tournaments, despite the fact that I had to account for all of them during research.
I want to note that I'm not arguing in favor or Serral or Maru for GOAT, I'm simply defending the work I put in. I'm extremely confident that my evaluation process was far more rigorous than that utilized by others. A forum poster or someone putting out a 5-10 minute video doesn't have to worry about dealing with the most scrupulous and demanding editor in the history of StarCraft II (Wax never gets the credit he deserves) and I can 100% assure you that if I didn't put in the required amount of work that those articles would never have been posted. I'm fine with people thinking I am incorrect, but my standard when it comes to determining whether or not a counter argument is viable is extremely high.
Thanks Wax for torturing us into the greatest version of ourself at each article.
I know that in that statement you also said it's worth about the same as an average ESL/Blizzard WC, which I highly disagree, but the large majority would agree that in a "data-driven approach", WCS and Katowice (especially when officially a WC that year) are worth more than a KIL or a WESG. Of which Maru is sorely lacking.
The only thing that makes a WC harder to win than Code S is if a superior player (who doesn't compete in KR) is added to the player pool (aka Serral post 2017). I had to make a fair number of generalities in the intro (and during player entries) to avoid writing thousands of words about the minute differences between tournaments, despite the fact that I had to account for all of them during research.
I want to note that I'm not arguing in favor or Serral or Maru for GOAT, I'm simply defending the work I put in. I'm extremely confident that my evaluation process was far more rigorous than that utilized by others. A forum poster or someone putting out a 5-10 minute video doesn't have to worry about dealing with the most scrupulous and demanding editor in the history of StarCraft II (Wax never gets the credit he deserves) and I can 100% assure you that if I didn't put in the required amount of work that those articles would never have been posted. I'm fine with people thinking I am incorrect, but my standard when it comes to determining whether or not a counter argument is viable is extremely high.
Not everyone would believe that harder automatically = more prestigious or important, even if there's a relationship between the two. Case in point, I would hope everyone would believe that someone who won nine world championships would pretty much automatically be the GOAT. Conversely, it's not at all clear Maru is.
On June 25 2024 10:48 Waxangel wrote: Since it randomly came to mind for me, some of the top 'auras' in the history of SC2 for retired players. Obv not comprehensive, just some stuff that came to mind.
Nestea: Late 2010 - early 2011 Mvp: 2011 Stephano: Late 2011 - Early 2012 TaeJa: 2013 Life: 2014 INnoVation: 2013, 2015, 2017 (maybe 2014?)
On June 22 2024 04:52 Cactus66 wrote: I get the impression from the pros they don't think it's much of a goat debate. Usually a bit of a smirk or laugh when describing how it's just different having to play serral.
At least these days, there is the ‘all time’ part of course
I’d give herO at least, if not better than 50/50 shot against any other player in PvZ right now, and basically a 0% if it’s Serral
While his ZvT is good enough to sweep Clem and Maru at Katowice, or beat an on-fire Oliveira and sweep Maru recently, his ZvP is somehow even better again.
IMO the single best matchup any player has had in SC2. A few years ago Zerg was just generally dunking on Protoss so Serral doing so wasn’t atypical, but he’s kept that almost invincibility while his peers no longer have it
I'm pretty sure herO would've put up a better fight against Serral than Maru. ...
... whereas Dark, Reynor and Rogue could go on a domination spree similar to Serral
Gonna put a big citation needed on these statements. When Serral and herO last played, Serral completely crushed him. His army movement and understanding of where he was in the game and on the map was just better, consistently.
Those three Zergs have all had some high peaks, but none of them have ever kept it looking consistent like Serral has. They may dominate a tournament, maybe two in Rogue's case, but not a year, let alone five or six in a row. Further, they had those peaks before a substantial weakening of banelings, which doesn't seem to have affected Serral the least bit.
Can you cite when serral dominated 5 years? Winning one or two tournaments a year is not the same as dominating. Are we literally just ignoring how the other top 3 zergs (reynor, rogue, dark) since 2019 all the way through 2023 were winning a bunch of stuff?
Serral literally won almost everything he touched during that spam
The majority of the stuff dark and rogue won was in Korea, which Serral didn’t bother attending. And when he did go to Korea, he went 2/2 winning 2 GSLs
Dark and rogue never had to go through Serral to win their championship. They had to rely on their peers to pull an upset such as rag, solar, etc. I believe only sOO and innovation won their championship by going through Serral
"Dark and rouge never had to go through serral to win their championship" Sure, they got to dodge one or two talented players who MAYBE could have messed them up. Serral got to dodge the entirety of the most talented players in the game by farming far weaker scenes, which fueled his invites to those events where the worst korean at that event had a harder path to it than any of the EU/NA that could have been there. I wonder how many cutoffs he would or wouldn't have made if everyone was forced to play everyone at all events instead of getting a free bypass by playing the weaker WCS scene. Maybe nothing changes, but maybe facing top talent with a week+ of prep time would have cost him.
I get not wanting to face that gauntlet and staying home and farming free money and WCS points etc. Makes sense to be honest, but I'm not sure you suddenly get upgraded to GOAT status when you were playing T-Ball while everyone else is dodging 100 MPH fastballs.
This is exactly why the WCS system in its current form worked for developing players, they didn’t have to immediately be competing with a stacked Korean playerbase off the bat until/if they’re ready to make that step up.
And on the flipside there is that step up, which was made. This goes both ways in that the player operating in a weaker region doesn’t get as high a standard of competition when it does come to doing battle with Korea’s best. And additionally, Serral has the best vKorean record in the game’s history despite generally only playing Korean opposition who’ve passed various qualification hurdles and not those lower down the pyramid.
I like my sports comparisons even if they don’t always 100% mesh exactly. The vast majority of the world’s best basketball players are in the NBA, but if some bloke showed up who was top 1-5 in the world by most’s reckonings who never set foot in it, isn’t that arguably a bigger feat?
Or as per your comparison the guy who’s not used to facing 100 MPH fastballs enters competition where he is and adapts almost immediately.
I’ve said it a million times, eventually Blizz/ESL largely got the structure right for foreign players, but they and other orgs dropped the ball with Korea. No sport in the world operates without tiers of competition that lead up to the elite.