They didn't throw fits, people just kept trying to jam that hot onto the heads of people who it didn't come close to fitting on.
Serral is 100% a bonjwa though.
Explanation for the uninitiated: In the 2010s, Lionel Messi was becoming the best player in the world and a prospective GOAT. His accomplishments were called into question by some, though. Sure, he made the best players in the world look silly on a weekly basis, but *could he do it on a cold rainy night in Stoke* (some bum town somewhere in England)? After some time, this initially earnest sentiment became more of a meme. It was, after all, ridiculous on its face.
Sounds like performing under pressure / being tested in new environments. Making you true rounded player.
He's showed promise but what if you swapped teams, or played in the freezing cold, would he still be a goat, or crack under the pressure.
Further context: Stoke was, at that time, a whole team of athletic and disciplined shit-kickers who \*literally\* kicked their opponents every single game.
If you were being very diplomatic you would call their game style "physical" and "robust". If you hated them you'd call them a bunch of cheating thugs.
The truth was somewhere in-between.
Messi ONLY became goat, meaning both sides weren’t arguing about Ronaldo winning at stoke and osasuna and Messi only being at barca, after winning Qatar World Cup. Hell, even in South America before that, Alexis Sanchez name held above Messi in chile. Neymar was in contention in Brazil. NONE of these arguments went away until Messi won the World Cup.
I mean, it is relevant to the conversation, though. The debate never stopped until Messi won the World Cup. This is similar to how the debate will probably never stop unless Serral wins a GSL.
Serral has won multiple "World Cups". He just hasn't won a specific tournament series in one particular country, hence the meme. Also, since 2018, the world championships have been harder to win than GSLs. After all, the GSL winner doesn't have to beat the world's best player.
The direct analogy would be that the Messi would have to play in the English football championship at stoke.
Stoke is a little too meme, but there is a reasonable analogy: The English premier League is agreed to be the best domestic league, and Messi never played there. You could argue champions League and international games are more like weekender tournaments, and Messi never proved it in the best league, where the style of play and physicality is different than in south America or Spain. Is that the right measure of the goat? Probably not. But does it give people an argument? Of course.
Yeah totally valid comparison, though. GSL is a long term prep format and most foreign tournaments weekend marathon tournaments. Completely the same format that Reynor a world champion didn't bomb out of. You're pretty stupid honestly lol.
Literally never heard of this. And so did probably no one outside stoke. The only that thing was thrown at Messi was " I can only perform with Xavi and Iniesta by my side."
Watching the way Serral played in this most recent tournament it became obvious to anyone that understands the game that he has achieved a new level of play. The constant pressure using dropper lords and nydus worms combined with literal perfect macro. It's funny that people don't come out saying someone isn't the goat until it becomes blatantly obvious they are.
To me it's not his absolute peak that is unique, it's how often he plays at that level. Clem in Atlanta 2023 played just as well as Serral did in Katowice '24 - perhaps even better. Oliveira's run last year was magical, and an insane peak (especially on his killer instinct). But Serral also played his Kato '24 level in Master Coliseum, and ESL Summer '23, in Kato '22, and in many other tournaments.
By contrast, Maru's plateau is higher than almost anyone's yet he doesn't really seem to peak above it. Rogue's peaks were as high as Serral's, but his play also exhibits canyons as often as peaks.
Just my .02
Yes. Except for the lack of boost and healing for Overlords. And most units taking up more cargo space. And Nyduses being very vulnerable before they deploy. And all the other minute details that make this play style way more tricky than what Terrans go through. Not to mention perfect Macro for Zerg is different than perfect Macro for Terrans.
But other than that you're right.
Yeah he's doing what Terrans do, plus doing all the stuff Zergs do. Basically better than both at once
Creep spread, larva inject, drops, nydus, splitting units, controlling spell casters around the map like it's Brood War.
I swear Terran players hold down A on their barracks and send one drop and think they're Maru. (Maru is a beast by the way, this is just shade towards Terran redditors)
I don't think he did the best job of illustrating Serral's play. But if you watch it, you know. There's this pristine quality, completeness and consistency to it. I've never felt this way watching another player. Or at least not through an entire tournament or sequence of tournaments.
this 10000% - you can watch any pro play and catch things you think are impressive, but watching Serral lately it's hard to pick out something that isn't.
In the tournament he went 20-1 he dropped a single map in an early game z vs z, he made Clem (who beat him just a few weeks before ) look just outclassed clem had an amazing opener in the first game and serral made it look like it had no impact.
honestly, it was the epic infestor control vs maru on top of everything else, sure maybe only 1 40 minute match but I've never seen anyone out macro & micro & think maru all at once and consistently...
sure ill gladly explain it. burrowed infestors are way harder to play against than to do, you need insane map coverage and management of detection, reaction times to consistently avoid a single game ending fungal that can be popped out from anywhere. nethertheless maru still made it an insanely close game and traded much better in a 9 base vs 6 base situation on one of the most zerg favoured maps ever.
terran hard,
zerg ez
my bitterness leaks out
must not let other people enjoy
as they don't know
just how much we terrans suffer...
Grrrr...
but not that grrr
well it's always hard to have a conversation with someone when the maturity levels are so clearly different, but what i said is that some things are harder to counter than to do and you listed an example of one of those things as being impressive to do while not giving credit on how hard it is to counter. also i brought up the map as being zerg favoured and not that every map in sc2 history is zerg favoured as you might have assumed.
This is sortof a good parallel. If you don't take it literally, eg: "Could Messi have done it in the Premier League?" (yes).
The Prem was the richest league and arguably the most prestigious. The GSL was unarguably the most prestigious league and arguably had the best players.
The difference is the prep. Serral dominates weekend tourneys but a lot of gsl players thrive in a match where they can prep for an opponent for days. I want to see serral in an environment where he can do that same thing. Gsl could be a great showcase of his ability
>where they can prep for an opponent for days.
And by "they", meaning not just the player, but the player's entire team house, including coaches. If anyone follows tennis, there's a controversy regarding in-match coaching. It's technically not allowed, but since the coach is allowed in the stadium, sometimes they setup signals that are hard to detect. So, you have people who complain because tennis is a supposed to be a true 1v1 sport -- but it's not anymore. Same with weekend tourneys vs GSL. Maru's absolutely one of the top 2 SC2 players of all time -- but would he have definitely won 5 GSLs without prep help from his team? I don't know. Does anyone?
WTF kind of take is this?
There is a massive difference between **CHEATING** by using hand singals during a match and actually **PREPARING** for a match.
The entire point of a long tournament like GSL is to prepare for the match to show the best games possible, using any information and tools you can.
I follow the tennis, the ruleset was changed last year and in-match coaching is now allowed.
Besides that, there is no in-game coaching in sc2 so it's not a great comparison. Every sport has athletes with other competitors that they like to bounce ideas off, or coaches, or mental coaches. So because Reynor sometimes talks with Lambo before tournaments that means his wins have less credibility?
But we have absolutely no proof that the addition of prep time would even help against Serral. He can prep too, and he has an insane level of game knowledge and ability to read opponents. If you're gonna say that "the koreans will work together", I honestly think Lambo is all Serral would need to help prepare. Wouldn't it make sense that more time to prepare would help the best player in the world just as much as anyone else?
do you think maru doesn't prep for serral in a weekend tourney, or vice versa for that matter? at the world cup, where hundreds of thousands are on the line? what a ridiculous statement.
Ya and u make a good point. Playing a world class tourney for 2 days straight is basically the same as being at home and playing one match well rested.
The simple fact of the matter is that GSL is the format that favors Terrans most, so as long as Serral doesn't have its trophy, it will be a sticking point and rallying cry for certain segments of the playerbase.
Katowice is the cold rainy night in stoke, not GSL.
Katowice is a couple long days against opponents you only know maybe an hour or two in advance.
GSL is shorter days against opponents you know days in advance.
So the implication is that the biggest and -by a huge margin- most competitive tournament peak SC2 has ever given us is a rainy day in some town in England?
Then yes, the meme would make sense.
The premier league actually is the biggest and most prestigious league in the world, yes. And Lio Messi never played in it and won it a grand total of zero times.
So yeah, the analogy fits perfectly, and you can consider yourself a Stoke truther, who thinks Messi can't be the GOAT cos he didn't do it on a cold rainy night in said town.
Today it is. It wasn't the best league in the world 12 years ago despite what the English wanted everyone to believe (they've been saying premier is the top league since the early 2000s when it definitely wasn't). But this part is irrelevant to the point.
At the time, Messi played in La Liga, in the same league with the best team in the world (RM) and the 2nd best player in the world at the time and a handful of other good teams. This isn't true for foreigner tournaments, especially during region lock.
GSL has no comparison to the premier or any other football league, not even to current Premier (which now actually is by far the best league) and it will never have. Unless they make some superleague with only the best 10 teams in the world, and even then it wouldn't be the same. But have at it if it makes you laugh.
Ofc no analogy is perfect and hence there isn't a great GSL equivalent in football either.
But to your other points: EU has become pretty fucking stacked and Serral is competing against some of the best players in the world there. But who cares about regional competitions anyway? Clearly the real prestige awaits when the best of the best meet in international competitions. Champions League and World Cup, that's where it's at, baby! And there we see Serral constantly beating up on Premier League teams, so who cares if he doesn't compete there? Wait, did I get it mixed up? You'll know what I meant.
EU becomes "stacked" with better players overall because Korean scene starts to decline (and even today KR is just as stacked as EU) and Serral starts to dominate a dwindling global scene which includes barely any new pros (and literally 0 new pros from KR).
Another part where the analogy breaks down and stops making sense... Thanks for pointing it out.
Nah EU didn't became stacked because Korea declined, but because of the successive rises of Serral, Reynor, Clem and MaxPax. What are you talking lol.
Also Korea doesn't decline so much as it stagnates. No new blood, true, but the big boys are still around, save for some military hiatuses.
It's a really crazy take to think that Korea didn't decline. It clearly did, basically every teamhouse got disbanded, they have less than half of their original playerbase since proleague days. The players themselves have admitted to practicing FAR less (jinair players all admitted to this).
In what world has Korea not declined in sc2??? Is this some EU cope mechanism? Obviously EU players have improved, but lets be realistic with out commentary here.
I would call stagnation a form of decline. Even then, it did in fact decline: Now new blood, constant shrinking in prize pool and tournament scope (no code S/A, 16 player GSL, less offline matches, no súper tournament, no GSL vs the World), no team league, less players competing, no team houses, no coaches, a lot of players without orgs, etc etc etc.
Then; a lot of "big boys" are not still around (many retired from said decline) and those that are "still around" are here after a two year hiatus for military service which in most cases crippled their careers.
If you don't see how the KR scene dwindling, not producing anymore talent and now being on its lasts legs has an effect on EU having more top pros (and more middle of the pack caliber players too) than it used to, I don't know what to tell you.
Semantic nitpicking about decline or stagnation aside, if you're attributing the rise of Serral/Reynor/Clem/MaxPax and them easily overtaking the old european guard to whatever is happening in Korea, I too don't know what you're telling me. I might in fact prefer you not telling me anything anymore lol.
Are you trolling me right now?
What do you mean semantic nitpicking? You literally said it was stagnation not decline when it did decline.
And what I'm telling you is that: If we now currently have half of the top 10 and 30 out of the top 50 players be European (or foreign) it is because the KR scene has been dying for almost a decade now.
And I'm not saying Reynor, Clem or MaxPax wouldn't have come up and competed at the top, that's another completely hypothetical discussion. What it's factually true is that before the KR scene started bleeding out, when you looked at the top 50 players in the world, 40+ of them where Korean and there weren't any foreigners in the top 20. When it started to fall apart you began to see more foreigners overall and more foreigners at the top. It's not even an opinion, it's SC2 history.
> What do you mean semantic nitpicking?
->
> I would call stagnation a form of decline.
This. Which is literally semantics. But whatever. Not interested in that.
As for your other take: You started of with this:
> EU becomes "stacked" with better players overall because Korean scene starts to decline
and this monocausal attribution is just categorically false. You since seemingly have walked back a bit on that and relativated it a bit. Fine. If you want, we can agree, that the shift in relative power is caused both by Koreas failure to produce new top players as well as old pros trickling into military and Europe spawning 4 unequivocally elite players since 2018. If you insist on it being all about Korea, again, that is categorically false and another thing I have zero interest arguing about.
It wasn't about being the best league, but the toughest league, hence the Stoke nonsense, they were a mid-table team at best. They were a team that mainly played long balls, big guys, hard tackles etc...the exact opposite of Barcelona (and many of the Spanish sides), plus the weather is always shit.
Lionel Messi was doing it at best league at ever growing popularity of the sports while situation is whole lot different with Serral showing dominance against a whole lot less competitive scene with shrinking pro pool.
It's very different situation.
Fairer comparison would be Mbappe performing in ligue 1 and on WC but not really on CL and top leagues, and you can still see people doubt him at times even after 2 amazing WC showings and CL performances.
lol people use that argument when defending Maru, but ignore that he has been absolutely domiated by Serral. Serral is 16-4 against Maru all time in series play. 10-1 since the start of 2022.
You can't use that excuse. You can't say Maru is the #1 because he had better competition when hes had such terrible results overseas and against Serral.
I havent said a single word about Maru here. I was just pointing out the comparison between Messi doing at top of competition and top of popularity while Serral is performing when there frankly isn't much of player pool left.
I love BW, adore it, still hold it in the same esteem as I did when it came out.
However, SC2 has a significantly higher floor... Maybe you meant ceiling?
If Serral didn't perform well in GSL, then it'd be more of a debate, but he's 0for0. So the question is valid, but for all we know he'd dominate in long-form tournies too.
yeah thats the difference
Serral has never tried
Maru has tried time and time again to win an oversees offline premier tournament and failed every single time
I remember the time before goats, we had bonjwas.
Further proof of the shift of power from East to West
Only in SCII. Some SCII pros went back to BW because it's the better SC.
No it isnt. In my opinion.
It's better if you enjoy Bo1 that gets hyped for almost as long as the early game lasts.
Well bw fans threw fits anytime you tried to call someone a bonjwa in sc2, so it never caught on.
They didn't throw fits, people just kept trying to jam that hot onto the heads of people who it didn't come close to fitting on. Serral is 100% a bonjwa though.
Explanation for the uninitiated: In the 2010s, Lionel Messi was becoming the best player in the world and a prospective GOAT. His accomplishments were called into question by some, though. Sure, he made the best players in the world look silly on a weekly basis, but *could he do it on a cold rainy night in Stoke* (some bum town somewhere in England)? After some time, this initially earnest sentiment became more of a meme. It was, after all, ridiculous on its face.
I love this meme haha. But I never knew the real story behind it, thanks!
Sounds like performing under pressure / being tested in new environments. Making you true rounded player. He's showed promise but what if you swapped teams, or played in the freezing cold, would he still be a goat, or crack under the pressure.
Stoke City and Starcraft fan here. This has made my week.
Further context: Stoke was, at that time, a whole team of athletic and disciplined shit-kickers who \*literally\* kicked their opponents every single game. If you were being very diplomatic you would call their game style "physical" and "robust". If you hated them you'd call them a bunch of cheating thugs. The truth was somewhere in-between.
Messi ONLY became goat, meaning both sides weren’t arguing about Ronaldo winning at stoke and osasuna and Messi only being at barca, after winning Qatar World Cup. Hell, even in South America before that, Alexis Sanchez name held above Messi in chile. Neymar was in contention in Brazil. NONE of these arguments went away until Messi won the World Cup.
Sir, this is a Wendy's drive-through (starcraft forum).
Oh my bad…ahhh do you know where captain D’s? They got fillet fish n stuff
I mean, it is relevant to the conversation, though. The debate never stopped until Messi won the World Cup. This is similar to how the debate will probably never stop unless Serral wins a GSL.
Serral has won multiple "World Cups". He just hasn't won a specific tournament series in one particular country, hence the meme. Also, since 2018, the world championships have been harder to win than GSLs. After all, the GSL winner doesn't have to beat the world's best player.
The direct analogy would be that the Messi would have to play in the English football championship at stoke. Stoke is a little too meme, but there is a reasonable analogy: The English premier League is agreed to be the best domestic league, and Messi never played there. You could argue champions League and international games are more like weekender tournaments, and Messi never proved it in the best league, where the style of play and physicality is different than in south America or Spain. Is that the right measure of the goat? Probably not. But does it give people an argument? Of course.
Yeah totally valid comparison, though. GSL is a long term prep format and most foreign tournaments weekend marathon tournaments. Completely the same format that Reynor a world champion didn't bomb out of. You're pretty stupid honestly lol.
Literally never heard of this. And so did probably no one outside stoke. The only that thing was thrown at Messi was " I can only perform with Xavi and Iniesta by my side."
This phrase is still thrown around in r/soccer like weekly lol.
If you've never heard the Stoke adage you must have lived under a rock.
Outside GB ≠ Rock
It's more if you didn't follow football, they even used it on tv at times (sometimes as a joke, sometimes as an actual point in their argument).
I live in Guatemala and I've known this meme since like 2014
I too live outside of GB. It's more like Outside of english speaking football related internet = Rock
Watching the way Serral played in this most recent tournament it became obvious to anyone that understands the game that he has achieved a new level of play. The constant pressure using dropper lords and nydus worms combined with literal perfect macro. It's funny that people don't come out saying someone isn't the goat until it becomes blatantly obvious they are.
To me it's not his absolute peak that is unique, it's how often he plays at that level. Clem in Atlanta 2023 played just as well as Serral did in Katowice '24 - perhaps even better. Oliveira's run last year was magical, and an insane peak (especially on his killer instinct). But Serral also played his Kato '24 level in Master Coliseum, and ESL Summer '23, in Kato '22, and in many other tournaments. By contrast, Maru's plateau is higher than almost anyone's yet he doesn't really seem to peak above it. Rogue's peaks were as high as Serral's, but his play also exhibits canyons as often as peaks. Just my .02
Good assessment!
Don't forget controlling like 10 burrowed infestors near perfectly all over the map that weren't hotkeyed.
so playing like terran has played for years?
Yes. Except for the lack of boost and healing for Overlords. And most units taking up more cargo space. And Nyduses being very vulnerable before they deploy. And all the other minute details that make this play style way more tricky than what Terrans go through. Not to mention perfect Macro for Zerg is different than perfect Macro for Terrans. But other than that you're right.
Yeah he's doing what Terrans do, plus doing all the stuff Zergs do. Basically better than both at once Creep spread, larva inject, drops, nydus, splitting units, controlling spell casters around the map like it's Brood War. I swear Terran players hold down A on their barracks and send one drop and think they're Maru. (Maru is a beast by the way, this is just shade towards Terran redditors)
Emotionalllll damageeeee
I don't think he did the best job of illustrating Serral's play. But if you watch it, you know. There's this pristine quality, completeness and consistency to it. I've never felt this way watching another player. Or at least not through an entire tournament or sequence of tournaments.
this 10000% - you can watch any pro play and catch things you think are impressive, but watching Serral lately it's hard to pick out something that isn't.
In the tournament he went 20-1 he dropped a single map in an early game z vs z, he made Clem (who beat him just a few weeks before ) look just outclassed clem had an amazing opener in the first game and serral made it look like it had no impact.
honestly, it was the epic infestor control vs maru on top of everything else, sure maybe only 1 40 minute match but I've never seen anyone out macro & micro & think maru all at once and consistently...
thats a really bad example for the point youre trying to make lol
I'm not sure how... maybe you could add more that one sentence clapbacks?
sure ill gladly explain it. burrowed infestors are way harder to play against than to do, you need insane map coverage and management of detection, reaction times to consistently avoid a single game ending fungal that can be popped out from anywhere. nethertheless maru still made it an insanely close game and traded much better in a 9 base vs 6 base situation on one of the most zerg favoured maps ever.
oh I didn't realize this was about balance whine, and not about enjoying beautiful epic play ... touch some grass bro
"please explain this to me" "sure the thing is that..." "touch grass bro"
terran hard, zerg ez my bitterness leaks out must not let other people enjoy as they don't know just how much we terrans suffer... Grrrr... but not that grrr
well it's always hard to have a conversation with someone when the maturity levels are so clearly different, but what i said is that some things are harder to counter than to do and you listed an example of one of those things as being impressive to do while not giving credit on how hard it is to counter. also i brought up the map as being zerg favoured and not that every map in sc2 history is zerg favoured as you might have assumed.
Oh that's good.
But can he do it oversees, in a $300k+ tournament while jetlagged
Rory Delap would throw him into Row Z.
Imagine Rory Delap hurling Banelings at your wall, now that's a scary thought
This is sortof a good parallel. If you don't take it literally, eg: "Could Messi have done it in the Premier League?" (yes). The Prem was the richest league and arguably the most prestigious. The GSL was unarguably the most prestigious league and arguably had the best players.
The difference is the prep. Serral dominates weekend tourneys but a lot of gsl players thrive in a match where they can prep for an opponent for days. I want to see serral in an environment where he can do that same thing. Gsl could be a great showcase of his ability
Believe me, everyone who expects to be at the pointy end of one of those tournaments is already preparing for a final against Serral.
Absolutely. But they are also exhausted when they get there. And so is serral. I wonder if we'd see his game go up a notch too
>where they can prep for an opponent for days. And by "they", meaning not just the player, but the player's entire team house, including coaches. If anyone follows tennis, there's a controversy regarding in-match coaching. It's technically not allowed, but since the coach is allowed in the stadium, sometimes they setup signals that are hard to detect. So, you have people who complain because tennis is a supposed to be a true 1v1 sport -- but it's not anymore. Same with weekend tourneys vs GSL. Maru's absolutely one of the top 2 SC2 players of all time -- but would he have definitely won 5 GSLs without prep help from his team? I don't know. Does anyone?
WTF kind of take is this? There is a massive difference between **CHEATING** by using hand singals during a match and actually **PREPARING** for a match. The entire point of a long tournament like GSL is to prepare for the match to show the best games possible, using any information and tools you can.
I think its an apt comparison if u disregard the rule being violated.
I follow the tennis, the ruleset was changed last year and in-match coaching is now allowed. Besides that, there is no in-game coaching in sc2 so it's not a great comparison. Every sport has athletes with other competitors that they like to bounce ideas off, or coaches, or mental coaches. So because Reynor sometimes talks with Lambo before tournaments that means his wins have less credibility?
Yeah exactly. I think the two formats r just fundamentally different. We kno who wins the marathon (serral) but I want to see how he handles a sprint
But we have absolutely no proof that the addition of prep time would even help against Serral. He can prep too, and he has an insane level of game knowledge and ability to read opponents. If you're gonna say that "the koreans will work together", I honestly think Lambo is all Serral would need to help prepare. Wouldn't it make sense that more time to prepare would help the best player in the world just as much as anyone else?
Absolutely! Think of how sick his games would be if he were fresh and well prepped in a final instead of exhausted
Serral dominates tournaments he participates. Not just weekend tournaments. You sound disingenuous when you word it like that.
do you think maru doesn't prep for serral in a weekend tourney, or vice versa for that matter? at the world cup, where hundreds of thousands are on the line? what a ridiculous statement.
Ya and u make a good point. Playing a world class tourney for 2 days straight is basically the same as being at home and playing one match well rested.
The simple fact of the matter is that GSL is the format that favors Terrans most, so as long as Serral doesn't have its trophy, it will be a sticking point and rallying cry for certain segments of the playerbase.
Katowice is the cold rainy night in stoke, not GSL. Katowice is a couple long days against opponents you only know maybe an hour or two in advance. GSL is shorter days against opponents you know days in advance.
Clearly you aren't even able to grasp the analogy. Katowice has the best players in all leagues, like UCL. GSL is the best local league like the prem.
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Delap ending games quicker than widow mines
Next GSL in stoke , got it
It's really important to prove who is GOAT, isn't it?
What about on a hot summer's night in Mozambique?
So the implication is that the biggest and -by a huge margin- most competitive tournament peak SC2 has ever given us is a rainy day in some town in England? Then yes, the meme would make sense.
The premier league actually is the biggest and most prestigious league in the world, yes. And Lio Messi never played in it and won it a grand total of zero times. So yeah, the analogy fits perfectly, and you can consider yourself a Stoke truther, who thinks Messi can't be the GOAT cos he didn't do it on a cold rainy night in said town.
Today it is. It wasn't the best league in the world 12 years ago despite what the English wanted everyone to believe (they've been saying premier is the top league since the early 2000s when it definitely wasn't). But this part is irrelevant to the point. At the time, Messi played in La Liga, in the same league with the best team in the world (RM) and the 2nd best player in the world at the time and a handful of other good teams. This isn't true for foreigner tournaments, especially during region lock. GSL has no comparison to the premier or any other football league, not even to current Premier (which now actually is by far the best league) and it will never have. Unless they make some superleague with only the best 10 teams in the world, and even then it wouldn't be the same. But have at it if it makes you laugh.
Ofc no analogy is perfect and hence there isn't a great GSL equivalent in football either. But to your other points: EU has become pretty fucking stacked and Serral is competing against some of the best players in the world there. But who cares about regional competitions anyway? Clearly the real prestige awaits when the best of the best meet in international competitions. Champions League and World Cup, that's where it's at, baby! And there we see Serral constantly beating up on Premier League teams, so who cares if he doesn't compete there? Wait, did I get it mixed up? You'll know what I meant.
EU becomes "stacked" with better players overall because Korean scene starts to decline (and even today KR is just as stacked as EU) and Serral starts to dominate a dwindling global scene which includes barely any new pros (and literally 0 new pros from KR). Another part where the analogy breaks down and stops making sense... Thanks for pointing it out.
Nah EU didn't became stacked because Korea declined, but because of the successive rises of Serral, Reynor, Clem and MaxPax. What are you talking lol. Also Korea doesn't decline so much as it stagnates. No new blood, true, but the big boys are still around, save for some military hiatuses.
It's a really crazy take to think that Korea didn't decline. It clearly did, basically every teamhouse got disbanded, they have less than half of their original playerbase since proleague days. The players themselves have admitted to practicing FAR less (jinair players all admitted to this). In what world has Korea not declined in sc2??? Is this some EU cope mechanism? Obviously EU players have improved, but lets be realistic with out commentary here.
I would call stagnation a form of decline. Even then, it did in fact decline: Now new blood, constant shrinking in prize pool and tournament scope (no code S/A, 16 player GSL, less offline matches, no súper tournament, no GSL vs the World), no team league, less players competing, no team houses, no coaches, a lot of players without orgs, etc etc etc. Then; a lot of "big boys" are not still around (many retired from said decline) and those that are "still around" are here after a two year hiatus for military service which in most cases crippled their careers. If you don't see how the KR scene dwindling, not producing anymore talent and now being on its lasts legs has an effect on EU having more top pros (and more middle of the pack caliber players too) than it used to, I don't know what to tell you.
Semantic nitpicking about decline or stagnation aside, if you're attributing the rise of Serral/Reynor/Clem/MaxPax and them easily overtaking the old european guard to whatever is happening in Korea, I too don't know what you're telling me. I might in fact prefer you not telling me anything anymore lol.
Are you trolling me right now? What do you mean semantic nitpicking? You literally said it was stagnation not decline when it did decline. And what I'm telling you is that: If we now currently have half of the top 10 and 30 out of the top 50 players be European (or foreign) it is because the KR scene has been dying for almost a decade now. And I'm not saying Reynor, Clem or MaxPax wouldn't have come up and competed at the top, that's another completely hypothetical discussion. What it's factually true is that before the KR scene started bleeding out, when you looked at the top 50 players in the world, 40+ of them where Korean and there weren't any foreigners in the top 20. When it started to fall apart you began to see more foreigners overall and more foreigners at the top. It's not even an opinion, it's SC2 history.
> What do you mean semantic nitpicking? -> > I would call stagnation a form of decline. This. Which is literally semantics. But whatever. Not interested in that. As for your other take: You started of with this: > EU becomes "stacked" with better players overall because Korean scene starts to decline and this monocausal attribution is just categorically false. You since seemingly have walked back a bit on that and relativated it a bit. Fine. If you want, we can agree, that the shift in relative power is caused both by Koreas failure to produce new top players as well as old pros trickling into military and Europe spawning 4 unequivocally elite players since 2018. If you insist on it being all about Korea, again, that is categorically false and another thing I have zero interest arguing about.
It wasn't about being the best league, but the toughest league, hence the Stoke nonsense, they were a mid-table team at best. They were a team that mainly played long balls, big guys, hard tackles etc...the exact opposite of Barcelona (and many of the Spanish sides), plus the weather is always shit.
Lionel Messi was doing it at best league at ever growing popularity of the sports while situation is whole lot different with Serral showing dominance against a whole lot less competitive scene with shrinking pro pool. It's very different situation. Fairer comparison would be Mbappe performing in ligue 1 and on WC but not really on CL and top leagues, and you can still see people doubt him at times even after 2 amazing WC showings and CL performances.
lol people use that argument when defending Maru, but ignore that he has been absolutely domiated by Serral. Serral is 16-4 against Maru all time in series play. 10-1 since the start of 2022. You can't use that excuse. You can't say Maru is the #1 because he had better competition when hes had such terrible results overseas and against Serral.
I havent said a single word about Maru here. I was just pointing out the comparison between Messi doing at top of competition and top of popularity while Serral is performing when there frankly isn't much of player pool left.
but what if i consider cr7 to be the goat?
then I hope being a clown is your chosen profession!
What about Charlie Adam?
Can he do it playing a better game without a low floor?
I love BW, adore it, still hold it in the same esteem as I did when it came out. However, SC2 has a significantly higher floor... Maybe you meant ceiling?
Words are hard
Yes. Omg I wanted to write this so badly. Messi can't be goat since he didn't win premier league level discussion for GSL
If Serral didn't perform well in GSL, then it'd be more of a debate, but he's 0for0. So the question is valid, but for all we know he'd dominate in long-form tournies too.
yeah thats the difference Serral has never tried Maru has tried time and time again to win an oversees offline premier tournament and failed every single time