The GOAT list makes NO SENSE

The GOAT articles by TL's Mizenhauer have generated completely expected drama for StarCraft 2 fans as it put Maru at number 1 over the actual GREATEST OF ALL TIME player, Serral, at second place. I'm here to tell you why this made no sense.

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#Starcraft2 #SC2 #PiGStarcraft

[patrickgass]

Clearly sOs is the best player of all time, given he built a nexus in his opponent's base and won, during a professional match. No other accomplishment will ever outshine that, I don't care how many tournament wins you get or how much money you make.

[AdmiralBison]

Basically, the author's argument hinges on Serral will never be the No.1 GOAT unless he wins a GSL Code S
(Even though Serral frequently BEATS the best players of GSL) Emphasis seems to be more on GSL achievement.

IF Serral entered and won a GSL expect the goal posts to be moved.

[macedindu]

I felt kinda bad about MaxPax's winrate vs. Serral, but it turns out, it's basically in line with top players. xD

[SootShade]

29:52 And that's where Miz convinced me. To stand so tall above your best competition is exactly what it means to be the greatest. And to do it so consistently and over such a long time, is what separates Serral from every single other player.

[mllPX]

I wonder how crazy the pro scene would have been if Life, YoDa, and all them didn't match fix. I would have LOVED to see a Life vs Serral match.

[AlexandruSD]

The most impressive feat of Serral (at least in my eyes) is shifting the center of weight from Korea to Europe. Before Serral it was like "Foreigner made it to the round of four, then got drunk and embarrassed himself". Nowadays is like "Who won the last premier championship? It was Serral, right?" Or maybe Reynor, Clem, MaxPax... He first surpassed the top Koreans in skill (those numbers don't lie), and then essentially dragged an entire region to that level. Even if he retires tomorrow, he set such a high standard of play that Reynor, Clem and MaxPax will continue to dominate for years to come. If that isn't greatness, I don't know what is. Maru has literally grown up in the Korean eSports system, and eventually rose to dominate it. But he didn't establish that system, performs rather poorly outside of it, and there is no bunch of talented 20 year-olds vying to topple him from the throne.

[whathefizz]

he clearly is wrong. SERRAL is by the best, hands down. not a question, not a debate

[georgvonrechenberg]

Back in 2018/19 I still was totally all for Maru being the GOAT. His 4 GSL titles in a row were just unbelievable. But over time Serral proved that he's managing to stay on top with incredibly consistency which I think is unmatched.
The only argument one could make for Maru, is that he's been competing in high preparation league systems (GSL) and in weekender-tournaments all the time while Serral only competed in the latter ones. We saw it with Reynor how differently hard competition in GSL can be when he got kicked out in group stage being a favorite on paper. But that's comparing guess work since Serral will never compete in GSL and even if he did, it wouldn't be as meaningful nowadays.

[displacedicon]

The thing I didn't know here was that Maru hasn't beaten Serral at lan in nearly 7 years shesh.

[DaeoSZ]

i'm a huge maru fanboi and its clear that maru struggles with premiere tournaments outside of korea because his playstyle is insanely intense and he is just mentally exhausted by the time he reaches the grand final...

that said, Serral is the GOAT Maru is #2. i don't even really enjoy watching Serral, but the dude is an absolute machine who has completely figured out the zerg race

[alexandrel]

Life is the most gifted player of SC2 (just couldn't continue his dominance).
Maru is the best player with prep time.
Serral is the most dominant player.

My first memories of Serral being incredible was in Nation Wars when Serral took a map each from PartinG, Hydra, Innovation. South Korea used their ace in Innovation went Team All-Kills including Serral 1 map and Serral as ace for Finland. Everybody was: who the fuck is that Serral kid giving so much trouble they had to resort to big daddy Innovation as ace to slap that Serral kid down. 😂

[eLECHtricity]

Everyone seems to forget that from mid 2018 to 2021 protoss could only beat zerg with deception and cheap one off all ins. The balance of the PvZ matchup was so atrocious. If both sides played perfectly, 0 mistakes from either side zerg was 100% to win, between infested terrans and abduct outranging feedback the zerg could endlessly trade energy for carriers. Serral is probably the strongest player in history but his results will always be tainted by zerg being objectively overpowered for over two years.

[dfepona]

Crazy feats;
Not to mention Maru back to back runner up for Katowice though...
Rogue being only player in history to win Blizzcon then win Katowice. (Rogue also being away from military, could he have more if he didn't have to leave yet?)
TY being the only player/caster to ever win a GSL, let alone 2 in the same year and making ro4 the one he didn't win, is impressive.
Reynor making GSL RO32 when he was 15, then turned 16 flew back overseas for his first WCS event.
Innovation was the only active player, until he retired that had won a GSL in wings/swarm/lotv era (1 in each, pretty awesome).
Life's story is super impressive, shameful how it ended unfortunately.
soO's 6 time GSL finals, multiple finals in other tournies as well--
Darks consistant ro4/8 over so many years.
Fairly sure Neeb was the first foreigner to win on Korean soil--

Competition;
the other thing to say would be typically in GSL, their are favourites, but also anyone can sort of win to an extent, in the last WCS years, it's really only serral/reynor/clem win them.

GSL being lesser prize pools now is true, but at the same time the player pools got massively cut as well, but the when you look at the ro16 and see the names you can look at it and say, realistically any of these players have a chance of winning--where as european style, serral/clem/reynor are there--you see them winning.
But at the same time the Korean's have so much pride in winning such a glorified tournament, does that differ because of prize money? Not to mention The kespa era, there were also way more players and way more GSLs throughout the year as well. Also WCS formats is different compared to GSL and have alot less prep times. Region lock and online tournaments are a huge difference too...


What is the best though? Maru doing stuff since 2013, is that more impressive to the rise of Serral since circa '18? No one will ever forget Blizzcon 2018 when Serral did win it to become the first foreigner to do so.

Everyone has their own story and changes depending how you choose to look at it. "this person won this era, this patch was bad, rogue only won cause nydus broken' etcetc.
You're either going to agree or find an argument because 'you' want one, because it 'doesn't match the way you think/feel about the situation. Which sometimes will be changed because this was memorable for this reason you were at home or with friends and witnessed it together--so that in it's self helps the meaning from the victory imo--
Personally, I love Rogue/TY/herO/stats/reynor

That's my opinion, great analysis pig.

[rogal_dorn]

Serral studying his opponents and coming with strategies for every single one of them AND executing those strategies flawlessly makes him the GOAT in my opinion.

[JosephParker_Nottheboxer]

I feel that "best" or "GOAT" is always going to cause issues... for me the "best" is the person that elevates the game the most. Maybe not in wins, but in bringing excitement, discussions and the public eye to the game. The person that makes others want to play and makes the public want to watch, or participate. It might stem from a name you can chant out in a crowd, or a personality quirk... something that is greater than them, greater than the game, but brings us all in to the game.
For me honestly it's 5 Names.. Lowko, PiG, Harstem, GuMiHo, and Scarlet
Lowko, that accent and joy of the game bridges that gap from gamers to normals in a relatable, quirky but really enjoyable way. Passion really describes his stuff.
PiG, excitement, better breakdowns, fun challenges and competitions, and willing to take it a little less seriously while still bringing new content. (Pro gamer vs 12 Cheater AI comes to mind.)
Harstem, Beating GM with stupid stuff, loves to mess around and has fun, and yet still can get in the to 4 of pro events, showing he's damn good and still loving the game.
GuMiHo. The name chants so well, he doesn't win often but always brings something new and fresh to the table, always smiles and his games seem never boring.
Scarlet. The only female pro SC2 player I know of, and as far as I can tell gender is never brought up, but she does fun challenges, revolutionized creep spread and engages with fan and casters like PiG's holdout challenges, and while doesn't win a lot compared to some others, she brings people to the game, and we need more female role models to enjoy.
Without these 5 people, and people like them... it fades off into a game that someone else does, and plays and we stop caring... and it slowly goes away....

[VeryBadPlayerTV]

all anyone has to do is link the guy who made this article the video that was posted months ago, maybe over a year now. Of some dude breaking down the stats of all sc2 pros of all time. serral is like seriously leagues above everyone else. In the video he literally makes a chart showing the difference in many different stats across all pros. in about 90% of the stat reads and obviously overall. serral is quite literally fucking 6 steps above every other pro player the chart be looking like
.serral



. maru
. ppl i forget

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etc

its actually not even close. if there was a new rank above grand master. serral would be the rank above that.

[UrbanGridL]

A lot of players nowadays don't know about proleague or region lock. They just see Serral dominating in foreign tournaments with a sprinkle of korean players and automically assume hes the best of the best. Serral is an amazing player, and the best player currently, hands down. People are not really taking into consideration that Maru has been playing top Korean players since 2012, then followed by nonstop top 10 koreans in proleague which is nothing but a bloodbath every week. The caliber of players Maru consistently had to play doesn't match with Serrals thorough both their careers. That's what makes him the GOAT. Serrals name was nothing until 2017, and even then, the players he was playing during this period in region lock was lackluster to say the least.. all north american and EU players. Lets be honest now.

[kingsgambit]

As someone new to SC my opinion doesn't way much here, but as someone who has played games for longer than 2 decades I'd wager that it is more valuable than the majority. If you look at games back in the early 2000's they were designed to be balanced. However, they were also considered boring to many. Understand that the entertainment of the design for both players and viewers is what is important as that is what keeps the game alive.
You have 3 factions with completely different strategies. The playstyles are not the same. It is not meant to be completely balanced "by design". When you mix in players skills and the fact that the fog of war makes rts games more of a card game with rng rather than a chessboard (not including the vast amount of information/ build orders) it almost seems like it is obvious of why it is difficult to balance out the game.
My suggestion?! Stop trying to balance out three different factions to determine who is the best player. The best is the one who is the most dominant with all three factions. You want a balanced match? Well, we all know the answer to that don't we! MIRROR MATCH!!!

[Lilac_Ranch]

Anything other than Serral is just wrong. Stats Speak for themselves:
Premier, Major, Minor, and weekly, Tournament 1st place conversion rate -
Serral - 41% Maru - 22%
Total winnings
Serral - 1, 484, 084.00
Maru - 1, 290, 781.30
Win rate vs Top Tier players (as of 2023)
Serral - 67%
Maru - 57%
Serral vs Maru
75% series, 67% game
We cant really compare tournaments that Serral refuses to move and live in Korea for a month at a time in order to play in. But we know Maru is the goat in Korea, but we also know that Serral is the goat everywhere else, and crushes Maru in particular. Serral beats everyone, has a long career and has only gotten better over time. His deep tournament finishes are better than Maru as well. Serral is just a Freak, and his freak stats are just far better than Marus, they just are. Trying to create some wacky point system in which you can include and rank tournaments that only Maru is going to play in and then use those points in a system with Serral makes no sense.

Thats like saying I am a better boxer than Floyd Mayweather because I have won 300 fights in my neighborhood, and Floyd has only has 50 wins. That would be ridiculous. And it would also be silly to think that with Mike Tyson and Floyd both in their prime that Floyd would win because hes 50-0 and mike is 50-8. No clearly Mike would smash little Floyd. But in Starcraft everyone is in the same weight class, and we know Maru loses 75% of his series to Serral. Sorry if it hurts peoples feelings but Serral is the GOAT.

[flexprog]

My own picks would be :

#1 Maru
#2 Serral
(#3) Life but only ignoring his history
#4-5 Rogue
#4-5 sOs
#6 Dark

I think Serral's second place is debatable because we don't really know how he would have fared in the Korean scene in the long term. Yes he would probably have sniped Maru a lot more, but against most other koreans we can't really predict his winrate. He won a few times against them but also lost to players like Reynor who don't have the level to compete against top Koreans.
Can't really decide here, just hypothesize.

Life's position is also in brackets because he doesn't belong in this list for obvious reasons, but in an alternative world you can't argue that he would have been top 3.

Rogue is hard to rate but in his prime he was astonishingly good, maybe the highest peak level ever. His strategic sense was so good that he made every other player, including the ones on this list, look like amateurs trying to play checkers while he was playing a game of 4D chess.

sOs has to be up there because he made Protoss what it is today, even if it always was the "3rd race". Every subsequent Protoss champion had to follow his way of playing more or less to win. He defined the cheese and suprise tactics that make Protoss work, while also being one of the masters of the race overall, both micro and macro. He was the first to beat Life after Life dominated the game for 2 years.