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On August 23 2024 04:52 rwala wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2024 04:39 Locutos wrote:
Maru came the closest to mimick Serral's consistency... and yet, stood far in that regard.
Serral has now MORE THAN DOUBLE the Top 4 placement in premier tournaments that HE and MARU BOTH participated.
Dang! How'd you prove it so convincingly with one devastating stat?!?! Nice! You didn't even need to invent some criteria and an algorithm like some of the others. Impressive!
If you ask a Starcraft fan, even those watching since the early GSLs, the common opinion is that Serral is the GOAT. Even on TL. No heavy numbers crunching needed.
Must you make fun of someone who put a lot of effort into their analysis/article on who the GOAT is?
I mean you can't just say "I think Serral is the GOAT" right? You need an argument.
It's really unfair to accuse someone of "inventing" criteria when making the criteria clear is what you should be doing for proper discussion to happen. And it's really dumb to be mocking people who put a genuine effort into their article and who respond respectfully.
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When you start making a difference between the greatest ever and the greatest of all time, is when you're just wanking around with words. There should be no difference between those two sentences. If michael jordan is the greatest, then boxer is the greatest in sc1, and I guess for sc2 it would be mc.
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On August 23 2024 15:38 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2024 04:52 rwala wrote:On August 23 2024 04:39 Locutos wrote:
Maru came the closest to mimick Serral's consistency... and yet, stood far in that regard.
Serral has now MORE THAN DOUBLE the Top 4 placement in premier tournaments that HE and MARU BOTH participated.
Dang! How'd you prove it so convincingly with one devastating stat?!?! Nice! You didn't even need to invent some criteria and an algorithm like some of the others. Impressive! If you ask a Starcraft fan, even those watching since the early GSLs, the common opinion is that Serral is the GOAT. Even on TL. No heavy numbers crunching needed. Must you make fun of someone who put a lot of effort into their analysis/article on who the GOAT is? I mean you can't just say "I think Serral is the GOAT" right? You need an argument. It's really unfair to accuse someone of "inventing" criteria when making the criteria clear is what you should be doing for proper discussion to happen. And it's really dumb to be mocking people who put a genuine effort into their article and who respond respectfully.
I guess his problem was that the user ignored everything he said to go like "NO, Serral is the Goat because of XY".
When he just spent multiple paragraphs explaining why it's not that easy
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Northern Ireland22975 Posts
On August 23 2024 15:53 ejozl wrote:
When you start making a difference between the greatest ever and the greatest of all time, is when you're just wanking around with words. There should be no difference between those two sentences. If michael jordan is the greatest, then boxer is the greatest in sc1, and I guess for sc2 it would be mc.
People usually make the distinction between GOAT and best ever, not greatest ever and greatest of all time usually.
Which I think is a pretty meaningful distinction. Greatness captures many intangible things, for some it’s as much a feeling instilled, as much as something you can really measure numerically. It can be crushing your competition, having that clutch mentality and always delivering, finding ways to scrape wins when you’re not at your best. Maybe the stakes were higher in your time too.
With some exceptions, humans just tend to get better at things over time. So being the best at an activity will almost always be a modern player. But they mightn’t tick as many GOAT boxes as someone who came before
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Northern Ireland22975 Posts
On August 23 2024 12:04 golden11535 wrote:
It feels like the lack of a truly dominant, no-questions-asked GOAT in the "peak era", for lack of a better term, is what makes this argument so interesting/annoying. Part of that is that being the king of a game that's getting frequently patched is inherently harder, but there's also a lot of stuff that can't just be explained by "patch game imba lmao"; Mvp's injuries, Life being a criminal, soO being a choker... Even Inno, the closest thing to a "consensus greatest of all time" pick in 2017, was legendarily inconsistent and never felt like he fully realized his potential. As a result, we're arguing about two or three players who all peaked after the bottom fell out on KeSPA and the new Korean players stopped showing up, but still managed to blow everyone before them out of the water in terms of trophies.
I'm not sure if there's a point here, I still think Serral should've been #1 but SC2 team leagues are a big blind spot for me and that was one of Maru's best areas. Just funny how this stuff works out sometimes.
Yeah good points. For whatever reason SC2 just didn’t deliver that real dominant player who kept it up for more than a short span of time until relatively recently.
Which does make the GOAT discussion more interesting. If Inno had sustained his absolute peak form for 4-5 years, to take one example, he’d probably have that kind of Michael Jordan status and be reasonably close to a consensus pick. But hey, he didn’t so here we are!
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On August 23 2024 05:03 lokol4890 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2024 04:39 Locutos wrote:
Maru came the closest to mimick Serral's consistency... and yet, stood far in that regard.
Serral has now MORE THAN DOUBLE the Top 4 placement in premier tournaments that HE and MARU BOTH participated.
Ngl this feels made up
Its not. Just go to Liquipedia.
Search for Maru's Top 4's and Serral's Top 4's.
Filter for those that both participated.
Honestly. How many premier tourneys u remember Maru beeing on top of Serral. And the other waay around?
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On August 23 2024 15:38 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2024 04:52 rwala wrote:On August 23 2024 04:39 Locutos wrote:
Maru came the closest to mimick Serral's consistency... and yet, stood far in that regard.
Serral has now MORE THAN DOUBLE the Top 4 placement in premier tournaments that HE and MARU BOTH participated.
Dang! How'd you prove it so convincingly with one devastating stat?!?! Nice! You didn't even need to invent some criteria and an algorithm like some of the others. Impressive! If you ask a Starcraft fan, even those watching since the early GSLs, the common opinion is that Serral is the GOAT. Even on TL. No heavy numbers crunching needed. Must you make fun of someone who put a lot of effort into their analysis/article on who the GOAT is? I mean you can't just say "I think Serral is the GOAT" right? You need an argument. It's really unfair to accuse someone of "inventing" criteria when making the criteria clear is what you should be doing for proper discussion to happen. And it's really dumb to be mocking people who put a genuine effort into their article and who respond respectfully.
What I do know is that I never called anyone “dumb” so….
It sounds like your criteria is basically whatever the “common opinion” is, which is fine (unlike some of the stats obsessed folks on here I agree with you that this is a perfectly valid way of looking at this). I’ve spent more time than I care to admit explaining how I think GOATs should be considered, which include a number of factors of greatness that transcend anything an algorithm can capture.
I told the guy who made the algorithm-criteria list article that I appreciated his effort, though I do think it is misguided. As I said the official boxing stats ranking algorithm doesn’t even have Muhammad Ali in the top 10. This is, of course, insane. And yet there is no folly with the algorithm or criteria itself. It simply cannot capture the many intangible aspects of greatness that are core the human understanding that our silicon overloads will never understand.
It’s not that stats are irrelevant here. It’s just that they are merely one piece of a complex puzzle that is much more of a sociological one than a scientific one.
For this reason, I feel the best argument in favor of Serral is simply that most informed observers and pro players seem to think he’s the GOAT. Which is a pretty dang good argument if you ask me.
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On August 23 2024 15:53 ejozl wrote:
When you start making a difference between the greatest ever and the greatest of all time, is when you're just wanking around with words. There should be no difference between those two sentences. If michael jordan is the greatest, then boxer is the greatest in sc1, and I guess for sc2 it would be mc.
I was quoting an NBA pro player, and I don’t think he was “wanking around with words.” You’re just choosing to play semantics rather than understanding what he was saying. As he explained in the second part of his quote, the difference between Lebron and MJ is a difference of stats versus impact. What’s particularly interesting to me is that despite the stats very clearly favoring Lebron, most NBA pros still think MJ is the GOAT. This to me suggests that they have a more intuitive and sophisticated understanding that distinguishes between the “best” player and the GOAT. I agree most folks in this forum and perhaps even most SCII pros view the concepts as conterminous. I think Miz and others (myself included) are thinking about GOAT more holistically (I believe even Miz said he thinks Serral is the best player to ever play the game, could be wrong about that…)
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Northern Ireland22975 Posts
On August 24 2024 00:55 Locutos wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2024 05:03 lokol4890 wrote:On August 23 2024 04:39 Locutos wrote:
Maru came the closest to mimick Serral's consistency... and yet, stood far in that regard.
Serral has now MORE THAN DOUBLE the Top 4 placement in premier tournaments that HE and MARU BOTH participated.
Ngl this feels made up Its not. Just go to Liquipedia. Search for Maru's Top 4's and Serral's Top 4's. Filter for those that both participated. Honestly. How many premier tourneys u remember Maru beeing on top of Serral. And the other waay around?
I feel this lens is pretty rough on Maru, he’s had a crazily long career. Some pretty much consensus top 10 GOAT picks have maybe half, maybe even less the time towards the upper echelons of the game that he does.
Serral’s been outperforming him at a phase in his career span that many another players would no longer be even a contender anymore in, or retire completely.
Personally either Serral gets my vote, or I go with the whole GOAT thing being too complicated to decide.
But I don’t think Maru’s claim is crazy diminished by performances in the last few years. Just as Tiger Woods can limp around and do very little of note in contemporary golf tournaments
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On August 23 2024 17:37 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2024 15:38 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On August 23 2024 04:52 rwala wrote:On August 23 2024 04:39 Locutos wrote:
Maru came the closest to mimick Serral's consistency... and yet, stood far in that regard.
Serral has now MORE THAN DOUBLE the Top 4 placement in premier tournaments that HE and MARU BOTH participated.
Dang! How'd you prove it so convincingly with one devastating stat?!?! Nice! You didn't even need to invent some criteria and an algorithm like some of the others. Impressive! If you ask a Starcraft fan, even those watching since the early GSLs, the common opinion is that Serral is the GOAT. Even on TL. No heavy numbers crunching needed. Must you make fun of someone who put a lot of effort into their analysis/article on who the GOAT is? I mean you can't just say "I think Serral is the GOAT" right? You need an argument. It's really unfair to accuse someone of "inventing" criteria when making the criteria clear is what you should be doing for proper discussion to happen. And it's really dumb to be mocking people who put a genuine effort into their article and who respond respectfully. I guess his problem was that the user ignored everything he said to go like "NO, Serral is the Goat because of XY". When he just spent multiple paragraphs explaining why it's not that easy
Gotcha, so his problem was moreso them ignoring his counter arguments, not so much to make fun of the author of another article. That's more understandable.
On August 24 2024 03:45 rwala wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2024 15:38 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On August 23 2024 04:52 rwala wrote:On August 23 2024 04:39 Locutos wrote:
Maru came the closest to mimick Serral's consistency... and yet, stood far in that regard.
Serral has now MORE THAN DOUBLE the Top 4 placement in premier tournaments that HE and MARU BOTH participated.
Dang! How'd you prove it so convincingly with one devastating stat?!?! Nice! You didn't even need to invent some criteria and an algorithm like some of the others. Impressive! If you ask a Starcraft fan, even those watching since the early GSLs, the common opinion is that Serral is the GOAT. Even on TL. No heavy numbers crunching needed. Must you make fun of someone who put a lot of effort into their analysis/article on who the GOAT is? I mean you can't just say "I think Serral is the GOAT" right? You need an argument. It's really unfair to accuse someone of "inventing" criteria when making the criteria clear is what you should be doing for proper discussion to happen. And it's really dumb to be mocking people who put a genuine effort into their article and who respond respectfully. What I do know is that I never called anyone “dumb” so…. It sounds like your criteria is basically whatever the “common opinion” is, which is fine (unlike some of the stats obsessed folks on here I agree with you that this is a perfectly valid way of looking at this). I’ve spent more time than I care to admit explaining how I think GOATs should be considered, which include a number of factors of greatness that transcend anything an algorithm can capture. I told the guy who made the algorithm-criteria list article that I appreciated his effort, though I do think it is misguided. As I said the official boxing stats ranking algorithm doesn’t even have Muhammad Ali in the top 10. This is, of course, insane. And yet there is no folly with the algorithm or criteria itself. It simply cannot capture the many intangible aspects of greatness that are core the human understanding that our silicon overloads will never understand. It’s not that stats are irrelevant here. It’s just that they are merely one piece of a complex puzzle that is much more of a sociological one than a scientific one. For this reason, I feel the best argument in favor of Serral is simply that most informed observers and pro players seem to think he’s the GOAT. Which is a pretty dang good argument if you ask me.
Appreciate the clarification  . I interpreted you mocking the author of the other thread but if that was not your intent then all good.
My criteria if i were to make my own ranking wouldn't consider what the common opinion is, though as you said some things are just core to human understanding and if you fixate too much on numbers or certain stats it takes away the complexity of human's ability to think deeper than simple numbers.
For example I personally never felt MVP was that far ahead of Nestea, when people mention the 3 GSLs + the GSL world champ he won (+ Blizzard invitational and other premieres ofc like MLG anaheim), the "4th GSL" and "Blizzard WC" especially makes it seem he's a league above Nestea.
I however never felt this was the case, cus the Blizzard WC didn't mean much to me (it was more of a fun showmatch than a serious WC, the qualifications didn't really prioritize bringing the best players the way modern WCs do, the map pool was outdated and very imbalanced towards T with stuff like Shattered Temple which already got rotated out, and MVP won on Shakuras with mass Ghost snipe which was absolutely known to be broken and was gutted after, and series were Bo3).
And the "4th GSL" was never seen by me as a Code S, with it being only a Ro16 GSL vs the World style tournament and inviting foreigners over most of whom aren't the level of Code S Ro16 players.
And looking back, MVP was in Code A for at least 2 seasons while Nestea remained in Code S all the time, and they both won 3 Code S. With Nestea winning some Code S during MVP's year of dominance. So MVP sure had higher peaks than Nestea but fell off similarly quickly and had lower lows with dropping to Code A multiple times and not even winning those.
Tangent aside, focusing just on the numbers makes it easy to put MVP way higher especially for those who don't remember WoL days much, but going by feeling/memory may give a different result. But i guess even when going by feeling most feel MVP is much above Nestea so maybe it's just me as a small minority 
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On August 24 2024 04:19 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2024 17:37 Charoisaur wrote:On August 23 2024 15:38 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On August 23 2024 04:52 rwala wrote:On August 23 2024 04:39 Locutos wrote:
Maru came the closest to mimick Serral's consistency... and yet, stood far in that regard.
Serral has now MORE THAN DOUBLE the Top 4 placement in premier tournaments that HE and MARU BOTH participated.
Dang! How'd you prove it so convincingly with one devastating stat?!?! Nice! You didn't even need to invent some criteria and an algorithm like some of the others. Impressive! If you ask a Starcraft fan, even those watching since the early GSLs, the common opinion is that Serral is the GOAT. Even on TL. No heavy numbers crunching needed. Must you make fun of someone who put a lot of effort into their analysis/article on who the GOAT is? I mean you can't just say "I think Serral is the GOAT" right? You need an argument. It's really unfair to accuse someone of "inventing" criteria when making the criteria clear is what you should be doing for proper discussion to happen. And it's really dumb to be mocking people who put a genuine effort into their article and who respond respectfully. I guess his problem was that the user ignored everything he said to go like "NO, Serral is the Goat because of XY". When he just spent multiple paragraphs explaining why it's not that easy Gotcha, so his problem was moreso them ignoring his counter arguments, not so much to make fun of the author of another article. That's more understandable. Show nested quote +On August 24 2024 03:45 rwala wrote:On August 23 2024 15:38 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On August 23 2024 04:52 rwala wrote:On August 23 2024 04:39 Locutos wrote:
Maru came the closest to mimick Serral's consistency... and yet, stood far in that regard.
Serral has now MORE THAN DOUBLE the Top 4 placement in premier tournaments that HE and MARU BOTH participated.
Dang! How'd you prove it so convincingly with one devastating stat?!?! Nice! You didn't even need to invent some criteria and an algorithm like some of the others. Impressive! If you ask a Starcraft fan, even those watching since the early GSLs, the common opinion is that Serral is the GOAT. Even on TL. No heavy numbers crunching needed. Must you make fun of someone who put a lot of effort into their analysis/article on who the GOAT is? I mean you can't just say "I think Serral is the GOAT" right? You need an argument. It's really unfair to accuse someone of "inventing" criteria when making the criteria clear is what you should be doing for proper discussion to happen. And it's really dumb to be mocking people who put a genuine effort into their article and who respond respectfully. What I do know is that I never called anyone “dumb” so…. It sounds like your criteria is basically whatever the “common opinion” is, which is fine (unlike some of the stats obsessed folks on here I agree with you that this is a perfectly valid way of looking at this). I’ve spent more time than I care to admit explaining how I think GOATs should be considered, which include a number of factors of greatness that transcend anything an algorithm can capture. I told the guy who made the algorithm-criteria list article that I appreciated his effort, though I do think it is misguided. As I said the official boxing stats ranking algorithm doesn’t even have Muhammad Ali in the top 10. This is, of course, insane. And yet there is no folly with the algorithm or criteria itself. It simply cannot capture the many intangible aspects of greatness that are core the human understanding that our silicon overloads will never understand. It’s not that stats are irrelevant here. It’s just that they are merely one piece of a complex puzzle that is much more of a sociological one than a scientific one. For this reason, I feel the best argument in favor of Serral is simply that most informed observers and pro players seem to think he’s the GOAT. Which is a pretty dang good argument if you ask me. Appreciate the clarification . I interpreted you mocking the author of the other thread but if that was not your intent then all good. My criteria if i were to make my own ranking wouldn't consider what the common opinion is, though as you said some things are just core to human understanding and if you fixate too much on numbers or certain stats it takes away the complexity of human's ability to think deeper than simple numbers. For example I personally never felt MVP was that far ahead of Nestea, when people mention the 3 GSLs + the GSL world champ he won (+ Blizzard invitational and other premieres ofc like MLG anaheim), the "4th GSL" and "Blizzard WC" especially makes it seem he's a league above Nestea. I however never felt this was the case, cus the Blizzard WC didn't mean much to me (it was more of a fun showmatch than a serious WC, the qualifications didn't really prioritize bringing the best players the way modern WCs do, the map pool was outdated and very imbalanced towards T with stuff like Shattered Temple which already got rotated out, and MVP won on Shakuras with mass Ghost snipe which was absolutely known to be broken and was gutted after, and series were Bo3). And the "4th GSL" was never seen by me as a Code S, with it being only a Ro16 GSL vs the World style tournament and inviting foreigners over most of whom aren't the level of Code S Ro16 players. And looking back, MVP was in Code A for at least 2 seasons while Nestea remained in Code S all the time, and they both won 3 Code S. With Nestea winning some Code S during MVP's year of dominance. So MVP sure had higher peaks than Nestea but fell off similarly quickly and had lower lows with dropping to Code A multiple times and not even winning those. Tangent aside, focusing just on the numbers makes it easy to put MVP way higher especially for those who don't remember WoL days much, but going by feeling/memory may give a different result. But i guess even when going by feeling most feel MVP is much above Nestea so maybe it's just me as a small minority
NesTea would mos def be in my top 10! (I might quibble with some minor details in what you wrote but overall I don't disagree.)
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On August 24 2024 04:00 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2024 00:55 Locutos wrote:On August 23 2024 05:03 lokol4890 wrote:On August 23 2024 04:39 Locutos wrote:
Maru came the closest to mimick Serral's consistency... and yet, stood far in that regard.
Serral has now MORE THAN DOUBLE the Top 4 placement in premier tournaments that HE and MARU BOTH participated.
Ngl this feels made up Its not. Just go to Liquipedia. Search for Maru's Top 4's and Serral's Top 4's. Filter for those that both participated. Honestly. How many premier tourneys u remember Maru beeing on top of Serral. And the other waay around? I feel this lens is pretty rough on Maru, he’s had a crazily long career. Some pretty much consensus top 10 GOAT picks have maybe half, maybe even less the time towards the upper echelons of the game that he does. Serral’s been outperforming him at a phase in his career span that many another players would no longer be even a contender anymore in, or retire completely. Personally either Serral gets my vote, or I go with the whole GOAT thing being too complicated to decide. But I don’t think Maru’s claim is crazy diminished by performances in the last few years. Just as Tiger Woods can limp around and do very little of note in contemporary golf tournaments
A very sensible approach. Maru is still a beast, but he's clearly not as fast as he used to be. I think one aspect less talked about is the impact of Maru's injuries. There have been times where it's quite obviously impacted his play, and he's done interviews with Crank in which he's talk about it being a pretty serious recurring issue. One theory I have--which is admittedly not substantiated--is that Maru has deliberately shifted more towards turtle terran positional and strategic play and away from proxy and multi-prong early game play in part because he's simply not as fast as he used to be. It also happens to be a good way to play, but I wonder how much of the shift has been out of necessity rather than as a matter of choice.
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On August 24 2024 04:00 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2024 00:55 Locutos wrote:On August 23 2024 05:03 lokol4890 wrote:On August 23 2024 04:39 Locutos wrote:
Maru came the closest to mimick Serral's consistency... and yet, stood far in that regard.
Serral has now MORE THAN DOUBLE the Top 4 placement in premier tournaments that HE and MARU BOTH participated.
Ngl this feels made up Its not. Just go to Liquipedia. Search for Maru's Top 4's and Serral's Top 4's. Filter for those that both participated. Honestly. How many premier tourneys u remember Maru beeing on top of Serral. And the other waay around? I feel this lens is pretty rough on Maru, he’s had a crazily long career. Some pretty much consensus top 10 GOAT picks have maybe half, maybe even less the time towards the upper echelons of the game that he does. Serral’s been outperforming him at a phase in his career span that many another players would no longer be even a contender anymore in, or retire completely. Personally either Serral gets my vote, or I go with the whole GOAT thing being too complicated to decide. But I don’t think Maru’s claim is crazy diminished by performances in the last few years. Just as Tiger Woods can limp around and do very little of note in contemporary golf tournaments
Maru has a long career. But he was hardly a top 10 goat at any stage pre 2018. From 2010-2017 there was more than 10+ players that had a better career and more accomplishment.
The only reason Maru ever became relevant in these talks were his 4 straight GSL. However unfortunately for him during the same time Serral came along and won everything both in EU and internationally something Maru has struggle to accomplish.
Maru greatest year was 2018, but even that was not as impressive as Serral’s year
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On August 24 2024 10:56 Blitzball04 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2024 04:00 WombaT wrote:On August 24 2024 00:55 Locutos wrote:On August 23 2024 05:03 lokol4890 wrote:On August 23 2024 04:39 Locutos wrote:
Maru came the closest to mimick Serral's consistency... and yet, stood far in that regard.
Serral has now MORE THAN DOUBLE the Top 4 placement in premier tournaments that HE and MARU BOTH participated.
Ngl this feels made up Its not. Just go to Liquipedia. Search for Maru's Top 4's and Serral's Top 4's. Filter for those that both participated. Honestly. How many premier tourneys u remember Maru beeing on top of Serral. And the other waay around? I feel this lens is pretty rough on Maru, he’s had a crazily long career. Some pretty much consensus top 10 GOAT picks have maybe half, maybe even less the time towards the upper echelons of the game that he does. Serral’s been outperforming him at a phase in his career span that many another players would no longer be even a contender anymore in, or retire completely. Personally either Serral gets my vote, or I go with the whole GOAT thing being too complicated to decide. But I don’t think Maru’s claim is crazy diminished by performances in the last few years. Just as Tiger Woods can limp around and do very little of note in contemporary golf tournaments Maru has a long career. But he was hardly a top 10 goat at any stage pre 2018. From 2010-2017 there was more than 10+ players that had a better career and more accomplishment. The only reason Maru ever became relevant in these talks were his 4 straight GSL. However unfortunately for him during the same time Serral came along and won everything both in EU and internationally something Maru has struggle to accomplish. Maru greatest year was 2018, but even that was not as impressive as Serral’s year
This to me is the crux of the debate. I view every one of Maru's 2018 GSL victories as more impressive than Serral's 2018 Blizzcon victory. I mean this in a literal sense of GSL being a similar tournament format with an extra group stage filled with 90% of the global top 20. Blizzcon, by contrast, excluded many of these top 20 players (Inno, Solar, Gumiho, Trap, Byun, Cure, etc.) and included many weaker players (Has, Nerchio, Heromarine, etc.). Serral taking down Showtime, Mana, Has, Reynor within a player pool that excluded 90% of the global top 20 for his 4 "premier" WCS regional wins surely is impressive, but is it really on par with winning 3 GSLs? His 2018 Liepzig challenger, IEM PyeongChang, WESG, and IEM Katowice performances I would argue were maybe not him at his most impressive (somehow these things get left out of the lore). His GSL v. The World victory was pretty cool, still nothing close to as impressive as winning a GSL.
As an aside, couldn't we argue that Serral's IEM PC performance was more impressive than Maru's, after all Maru didn't even qualify?!?! IEM PC is in some ways a microcosm of the pitfalls of region lock, a tournament in which South Korea had two slots and Europe had five, and the main event featured players like Demi and Eggz. It's not hyperbole to say that qualifying for one of the two Korean slots was more impressive than winning the event (though all credit to Scarlett for destroying $O$ in the finals).
These are the nuances you miss when you pop open Liquipedia and look at Serral's 2018 1st place finishes and call it a day.
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On August 24 2024 10:56 Blitzball04 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2024 04:00 WombaT wrote:On August 24 2024 00:55 Locutos wrote:On August 23 2024 05:03 lokol4890 wrote:On August 23 2024 04:39 Locutos wrote:
Maru came the closest to mimick Serral's consistency... and yet, stood far in that regard.
Serral has now MORE THAN DOUBLE the Top 4 placement in premier tournaments that HE and MARU BOTH participated.
Ngl this feels made up Its not. Just go to Liquipedia. Search for Maru's Top 4's and Serral's Top 4's. Filter for those that both participated. Honestly. How many premier tourneys u remember Maru beeing on top of Serral. And the other waay around? I feel this lens is pretty rough on Maru, he’s had a crazily long career. Some pretty much consensus top 10 GOAT picks have maybe half, maybe even less the time towards the upper echelons of the game that he does. Serral’s been outperforming him at a phase in his career span that many another players would no longer be even a contender anymore in, or retire completely. Personally either Serral gets my vote, or I go with the whole GOAT thing being too complicated to decide. But I don’t think Maru’s claim is crazy diminished by performances in the last few years. Just as Tiger Woods can limp around and do very little of note in contemporary golf tournaments Maru has a long career. But he was hardly a top 10 goat at any stage pre 2018. From 2010-2017 there was more than 10+ players that had a better career and more accomplishment. The only reason Maru ever became relevant in these talks were his 4 straight GSL. However unfortunately for him during the same time Serral came along and won everything both in EU and internationally something Maru has struggle to accomplish. Maru greatest year was 2018, but even that was not as impressive as Serral’s year
By majority opinion Maru was already considered top 10 Goat before any of his GSL victories
https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/532199-goat-community-ranking
Also like rwala mentioned I strongly disagree that Serral had a better 2018. His 2018 was more hyped because of his foreigner status but objectively speaking Maru's achievements that year were much more impressive
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So he was rank 9 and then he won a lot of GSL's that didn't have the actual best player in the world.
Then almost everytime he was in a tournament with the actual best player in the world he got outperformed.
2nd place is the max for him.
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On August 24 2024 19:31 Comedy wrote:
So he was rank 9 and then he won a lot of GSL's that didn't have the actual best player in the world.
Then almost everytime he was in a tournament with the actual best player in the world he got outperformed.
2nd place is the max for him.
Maru was the best player in the world when he won his 2018 GSLs (which is why it wasn't particularly surprising that he 3-0'ed Serral and won WESG right before winning his first GSL). Putting that aside since it's a debatable proposition I suppose, I'd be curious if any of Serral's victories were in tournaments with a tougher format and higher average relative player rating than Maru's 2018 GSLs. I see a lot of victories in tournaments that were 80-90% players not even in the top 20 (most of his regionals), or excluded a lot of top 20 players (Blizzcon), or that had more forgiving/less punishing formats (losers brackets and/or IEM K-style group stages where you could literally have a losing record and nonetheless win the whole thing if you have a good day, like Soo, Rogue, and Oliveira did). Not to mention region lock, which was designed to overseed non-Koreans into global championships and other international tournaments, and exclude championship caliber Koreans. Which is why many Korean GOATs couldn't even qualify for the global finals or other international tourneys while guys like Serral basically auto-qualify.
Genuine question: before knowing the results--and only understanding the format and respective player pools--would you consider 2018 GSL or Blizzcon more difficult to win?
Once you realize that a lot of people are getting tripped up by semantics and overvaluing "world championships" compared to the actual strongest tournaments (GSL), it's easy to understand why so many people are worked up by this. Maybe just call GSL a "world championship" in your mind and then it becomes easier to understand the reality of the situation. That's basically what it was with many of the best foreigners (Neeb, Scarlett, Special, Reynor, etc.) playing alongside all the best Koreans, which very few "world championships" had.
It's fine to have Maru at #2 (or even lower). But I wouldn't diminish his GSL victories (especially his earlier ones before the format changes). Winning 4 GSLs in a row against by far the most competitive player pool and most punishing format of any tournament in that era is just ridiculously impressive, even if Serral didn't play in those GSLs.
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Northern Ireland22975 Posts
On August 24 2024 21:22 rwala wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2024 19:31 Comedy wrote:
So he was rank 9 and then he won a lot of GSL's that didn't have the actual best player in the world.
Then almost everytime he was in a tournament with the actual best player in the world he got outperformed.
2nd place is the max for him. Maru was the best player in the world when he won his 2018 GSLs (which is why it wasn't particularly surprising that he 3-0'ed Serral and won WESG right before winning his first GSL). Putting that aside since it's a debatable proposition I suppose, I'd be curious if any of Serral's victories were in tournaments with a tougher format and higher average relative player rating than Maru's 2018 GSLs. I see a lot of victories in tournaments that were 80-90% players not even in the top 20 (most of his regionals), or excluded a lot of top 20 players (Blizzcon), or that had more forgiving/less punishing formats (losers brackets and/or IEM K-style group stages where you could literally have a losing record and nonetheless win the whole thing if you have a good day, like Soo, Rogue, and Oliveira did). Not to mention region lock, which was designed to overseed non-Koreans into global championships and other international tournaments, and exclude championship caliber Koreans. Which is why many Korean GOATs couldn't even qualify for the global finals or other international tourneys while guys like Serral basically auto-qualify. Genuine question: before knowing the results--and only understanding the format and respective player pools--would you consider 2018 GSL or Blizzcon more difficult to win? Once you realize that a lot of people are getting tripped up by semantics and overvaluing "world championships" compared to the actual strongest tournaments (GSL), it's easy to understand why so many people are worked up by this. Maybe just call GSL a "world championship" in your mind and then it becomes easier to understand the reality of the situation. That's basically what it was with many of the best foreigners (Neeb, Scarlett, Special, Reynor, etc.) playing alongside all the best Koreans, which very few "world championships" had. It's fine to have Maru at #2 (or even lower). But I wouldn't diminish his GSL victories (especially his earlier ones before the format changes). Winning 4 GSLs in a row against by far the most competitive player pool and most punishing format of any tournament in that era is just ridiculously impressive, even if Serral didn't play in those GSLs.
This works both ways though. Some regular weekenders have had extremely stacked fields, similar or better prize pools but are often considered by many as inferior to a GSL. For me, depending on the field they’re different, but vaguely equivalent.
And this isn’t static, I think one can make a reasonable argument that a modern Dreamhack is harder to win than a modern GSL. Equally an older GSL, perhaps harder in terms of field than an older WC tier event. In the former one is missing 2 or 3 of probably the top 5 players in the world, the latter would be missing a bunch of the world’s best by virtue of not being purely Korean at a time they basically made up 40+ of the world’s top 50.
For a WC event, the challenge can be in actually getting there and peaking at an event everyone has been prepping for and building their season around. There’s a difficulty that goes beyond purely who’s in the bracket. You gotta perform, you gotta figure stuff out, often damn fast or you’re going home. You’re often exposed to audiences much bigger than you generally deal with, and have to adjust
GSL brings its own set of unique challenges format wise too that set it apart.
Provided there’s some consistency, hey go shoot, we all value different things too of course. For example I think the rationale that Maru’s WESG is WC tier based on prize pool, and that yes the field wasn’t deep, but qualifying was incredibly difficult, is completely reasonable. But then one has to apply that same ‘qualifying was half the battle’ lens to other WC events.
I do enjoy the topic but it does often feel people come up with metrics and rationales to place their favourite high, rather than it being an incidental thing
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On August 24 2024 21:22 rwala wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2024 19:31 Comedy wrote:
So he was rank 9 and then he won a lot of GSL's that didn't have the actual best player in the world.
Then almost everytime he was in a tournament with the actual best player in the world he got outperformed.
2nd place is the max for him. Maybe just call GSL a "world championship" in your mind and then it becomes easier to understand the reality of the situation. That's basically what it was with many of the best foreigners (Neeb, Scarlett, Special, Reynor, etc.) playing alongside all the best Koreans, which very few "world championships" had. [...] Winning 4 GSLs in a row against by far the most competitive player pool and most punishing format of any tournament in that era is just ridiculously impressive, even if Serral didn't play in those GSLs.
I do not want to discredit everything you wrote but this is one of the most hilarious arguments in favor of Maru I've ever read in these halls. "Just imagine a tournament which objectively was not the World Championship and in which arguably the best or second-best player at the time did not participate and in which, at best, one or a few select non-Koreans who sometimes were not even the best in the world participated at a time had been the World Championship, and you'll arrive at the conclusion I espouse."
You are obviously right that GSL was extremely competitive during this period and that it must be valued accordingly, but it is inappropriate to elevate its status to that of a World Championship. Even ignoring the other factors, it was a tournament which occurred many times a year, not as the year's final international competitive culmination. If we took this route of redefining the status of tournaments, we might as well, as WombaT has noted, redefine any of Serral's premier tournament wins as GSL wins, which would be equally silly.
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How is GSL "the most punishing format"? You literally have three lives, four if you include the qualifier, to win it. In the World Championships, you used to have...no 2nd life at all, one Bo5 loss and you were out.
You can say a lot about the sheer level of skill in GSL, but it certainly was never a "punishing" format, especially for the top players.
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EPT
