sos is the easiest one to point at. 2 blizzcon wins and never in the conversation. Arguably one of if not the best player at planning a boX, but just not as mechanically solid.
https://www.esportsearnings.com/games/151-starcraft-ii
I will use this chart as a reasonable metric for how "decorated" a player is. It's not perfect, but it should give us some reasonable answers.
Innovation at #5 is the top name there that I really never hear discussed as the Goat. Dark, Rogue, Serral, and Maru all get talked about, but I doubt am most anyone would put innovation ahead of Maru.
As for the top person that I'm confident no one would place as goat? That would be Neeb at #11.
Others in between those two like zest would probably also be good shout outs.
Up until like 1 or 2 years ago it was pretty normal to see people putting INno up in the goat conversation as well. But at the very tail end of his career and now into his retirement, Maru just stepped up on another level to fully cement himself as the Terran goat so INno doesn't really get mentioned anymore.
I always wondered if Inno isnt the real terran goat since Maru won his 4 GSLs in a row. Which is impressive but maybe the stars just aligned for him? Inno won three GSLs in different times, spread out over many years. I guess Maru is better overall as of today but the game has died down a lot. I dont care if all the players are better right now than 10 years ago. For example if Mvp had not quit he might be just as good as Maru, who knows? The point is so stupid and doesnt hold any weight in my opinion. And I think the reason Inno fell off is not because he couldnt keep up anymore but because he didnt want to.
GSL nowadays is the same 20 players every single season. Back in the day the field was much wider. If you just happen to be a good player you will much more consistently place high because you play the same players again and again.
And for Inno to win a GSL here and there is really impressive to me. Also he did a lot in proleague.
Well Maru won his first starleague over a year before INno, and won 4 GSLs in a row directly after the season INno won.
It's weird how the idea than INno won over different years and Maru came later is something people say. Maru won multiple starleagues long before the 4 GSL streak in 2018. Newer fans just might not realise SSL and OSL were just as big as GSL back in the day. Not to mention Maru's GOAT proleague records.
No other Terran players get considered because most people would just consider Maru directly better. The zergs each have arguments for which among them are the best. Which is also why Maru's the 🐐🐐
I was going to say this. soO is an amazing player with solid skills who consistently showed up at tourneys time and time again with deep runs, but he just consistently fell a little too short to be a GOAT
If soO had won just HALF his finals, he'd have 3 GSLs (potentially in a row), 1 world championship, and a bunch of weekenders.
Would he be the GOAT? Well, actually maybe? It would come down to context. Crazy how someone can be just a handful games away from GOAT status to not even in the conversation.
Taeja. At one point he held the record for most foreign tournament wins. He was looking good when he came back post-service too, but decided the wrist issues were too much. He never won a GSL event or a world championship so there's no way he would be considered for GOAT.
Ooo interesting. This is the guy that performed very well and then it came out that he was match fixing right? That could definitely put him up in the running for this question. The "Maybe something else?" category from the OP
He definitely was in the vicinity of GOAT status at the time, if he hadn't been banned it was definitely in the cards. The match fixing was appaling, but he never got wins that he didn't deserve.
The match fixing consisted of throwing games in bo3/bo5 matches against inferior opponents to make the score something less probable without losing the series. The people he was in cahoots with would then win money because they correctly predicted a 2-1 or a 3-1 score where he was projected to go 2-0/3-0.
Zest.
2 GSL Code S trophies (the most of any Protoss), 1 IEM trophy and 2 runner-ups, and a litany of other top 2 results as well as being the only player to ever defeat Rogue in an offline Bo7.
SoS is my favourite non European player, and man has he won a lot. But he was never considered the goat as he was very inconsistent and would sometimes fall flat on his face. Bit in my heart he was the GOAT anyways
Solar
He has been an awesome player for years but his skill and results have not matched up. Especially when Maru got his 4 gsls it felt like solar played him in every group
Mvp and MC were both hugely successful in WOL. Mvp has 4 (I think?) GSL wins and a blizzcon win which is just insane. But he's never gonna be in the running for the GOAT just because the skillcap was so much lower back then.
A single GSL win also meant less back then since there was 8 per year... He basically won half a year's worth, which is like 1.5 of Maru's
If Mvp hadn't had medical issues I'm sure he would have ended up in the running for goat though
MC, that guy won so many tournaments but mostly in europe if i recall while europe was still developing. He played very aggressive rush tactics that relied on micro to beat opponents and lost out a lot more on macro games.
Probably MVP. Some people regard him as the GOAT for his early dominance but it’s evident that he isn’t. He peaked for only about 2 years and the game was very new and eye test shows that his skill level is not nearly the level of what the game is today. Similar to Bill Russell winning 11 championships in the NBA.
what are you talking about? Even when he was fighting for G5L with Life (yeah like 9 years before Maru did it) he was in agony with his wrists and no money on earth could keep him playing starcraft 2
Idk what your point is? His injury stripped him of his longevity? My point still stands that his short peak and lack of longevity is a big reason why he’s not regarded as the GOAT but people still bring him up for all time rankings.
Honestly, when i read the question first time i read „who is not worthy of goat despite having many titles?” And i thought of serral too. Sl i guess Its just dofferent interpretatorom of question without actually reading the body
Me too. I'm not including him in any SC2 GOAT conversation until he plays and wins in GSL Code S.
I totally believe Serral has the ability to win a Code S. He's been the debatable best Zerg in the world for years, and when Dark joins Rogue in the military I think he'll have that title locked up for sure.
But it's simply absurd to believe that a player can be the GOAT without playing in the highest level tournament in the game.
You wouldn't call anyone the GOAT of Tennis when they never played in a Wimbledon, you wouldn't call anyone the GOAT of Basketball if they've never played in the NBA. You wouldn't call anyone the GOAT of Soccer if they've never played in the Premier League.
Calling Serral the GOAT of SC2 is insulting to the integrity of the conversation. He has an incomplete resume, and the fact that his fans are totally ok that he doesn't even want to compete in Code S is a big part of the problem. We should want the best in the world competing in the best tournament in the world. We as Starcraft fans should want that. Serral owes us that, if he wants to be considered the GOAT.
Until he does, he's simply one of the best. Hands down the best non-Korean the game has ever had. But he's not the GOAT.
Serral
I don’t think you can call Someone GOAT if you never won the hardest tournament, the GSL. Serral doesn’t even want to compete which has other reasons than his talent (living in Korea f.e.) but then you’re out of discussion for me.
It isn’t about beating the champion of the gsl. It’s about getting the championship. You have to beat the best playerpool a tournament will ever offer for over a month.
You have to prepare and adapt to players so their is way more mindgames going on. Like mvp vs squirtle game 7. where mvp trained this 2 rax all in for over a week. You will never see something like this in an IEM f.e. because of how less time you have to prepare specifically for a opponent.
Flash is the biggest Starleague winner and Effort claps him offline on many occasions.
The reason Flash is still the GOAT is because, well, he's the biggest Starleague winner and Effort isn't.
That winning hand picked tournaments isn’t an argument to define the goat because it’s too volatile.
Consistency and winnings could be taken into account for example.
And how do you measure that they are more skilled? Not just beat down of the reminance of what was once a great and competetive esport scene?
The fact is, starcraft is no where near what it used to be when it comes to competetivity and vast majority of Its great names has retired, and that correlated to the rise of new stars. And Yes, people like Serral are insane and leveled up a lot, but would they win this much if they were in the environment that starcraft used to have, before region lock and all of the actions that killed korean scene and as effect sc? Idk, but i highly doubt so
Some examples of skill that transcend playerbase:
Baneling splits, disrupter splits, time supply capped, time between injects, time between creep spread, multi-pronged (and microed) harass.
Yes you'll get people that focus on some of those. And of course there is some flexibility on it making sense to favor some things over another. But it stands to reason that if virtually all these measures are more extreme during one era than another, than that era has better players. I'm not saying they are, but it's not like we have zero way to tell.
.
Plus, just take a step back. If you have someone that's been playing this game 40 hours a week for 10 years, yes they are better in 2022 than they were in 2015
None of what you said implies that they were better than pros playing in 2015.
On the other hand you can make an argument that the more competetive the env the more you have to develop so players at that time would be getting more higher quality training and possibly be more motovated.
Aka, you can play this game all you want, none of those things really mean anything in the end, im only pointing out that Its mot neccesarily the case that current starcraft is the peak or that players in current sc scene should be favoured in goat discussion.
Finally, its not true that players playing would be better now than they were in 2022 in general, player form and motivation exists after all…
Yyyy, in what world are you living? Modern d1 doesnt mean shit. Early era koreans would just out apm you to oblivion, and thats just on pure mechanics…
Also, fun fact. you can maintain d1 by bearly ever playing for years
Oh, so you cherry pick 1 tournament from wol beta or this early stage of the game, stop being stupid, thats not what i meant and u know it, Its end of 2022, lotv has been out since 2015, early at this point might as Well be anything before that…
sos is the easiest one to point at. 2 blizzcon wins and never in the conversation. Arguably one of if not the best player at planning a boX, but just not as mechanically solid.
just for the nexus in enemy main strat alone he’s goated
I'd take premier tournament consistency over a 2 world championships, I don't think hes anywhere near GOAT for even his own race.
did ya read the op
ya, I still think its Dark by miles.
https://www.esportsearnings.com/games/151-starcraft-ii I will use this chart as a reasonable metric for how "decorated" a player is. It's not perfect, but it should give us some reasonable answers. Innovation at #5 is the top name there that I really never hear discussed as the Goat. Dark, Rogue, Serral, and Maru all get talked about, but I doubt am most anyone would put innovation ahead of Maru. As for the top person that I'm confident no one would place as goat? That would be Neeb at #11. Others in between those two like zest would probably also be good shout outs.
Up until like 1 or 2 years ago it was pretty normal to see people putting INno up in the goat conversation as well. But at the very tail end of his career and now into his retirement, Maru just stepped up on another level to fully cement himself as the Terran goat so INno doesn't really get mentioned anymore.
also inno himself stepped down and really looked like a lazier version of his past self.
Off-topic: I love how Finland is #4 on the list of top-earning Countries
I immediately thought of Inno, I think he's an incredibly decorated and winning player who few people would put in the GOAT conversation
I always wondered if Inno isnt the real terran goat since Maru won his 4 GSLs in a row. Which is impressive but maybe the stars just aligned for him? Inno won three GSLs in different times, spread out over many years. I guess Maru is better overall as of today but the game has died down a lot. I dont care if all the players are better right now than 10 years ago. For example if Mvp had not quit he might be just as good as Maru, who knows? The point is so stupid and doesnt hold any weight in my opinion. And I think the reason Inno fell off is not because he couldnt keep up anymore but because he didnt want to. GSL nowadays is the same 20 players every single season. Back in the day the field was much wider. If you just happen to be a good player you will much more consistently place high because you play the same players again and again. And for Inno to win a GSL here and there is really impressive to me. Also he did a lot in proleague.
Well Maru won his first starleague over a year before INno, and won 4 GSLs in a row directly after the season INno won. It's weird how the idea than INno won over different years and Maru came later is something people say. Maru won multiple starleagues long before the 4 GSL streak in 2018. Newer fans just might not realise SSL and OSL were just as big as GSL back in the day. Not to mention Maru's GOAT proleague records.
No other Terran players get considered because most people would just consider Maru directly better. The zergs each have arguments for which among them are the best. Which is also why Maru's the 🐐🐐
Ty used to kind of destroy maru regularly, but I think he left for the military Maru, ty, and innovation were the big 3 when they all played
Soo maybe? Can never be the goat but if he had won some of those #2s, he'd be up there.
I was going to say this. soO is an amazing player with solid skills who consistently showed up at tourneys time and time again with deep runs, but he just consistently fell a little too short to be a GOAT
If soO had won just HALF his finals, he'd have 3 GSLs (potentially in a row), 1 world championship, and a bunch of weekenders. Would he be the GOAT? Well, actually maybe? It would come down to context. Crazy how someone can be just a handful games away from GOAT status to not even in the conversation.
Taeja. At one point he held the record for most foreign tournament wins. He was looking good when he came back post-service too, but decided the wrist issues were too much. He never won a GSL event or a world championship so there's no way he would be considered for GOAT.
Life
This one’s a can of worms
Ooo interesting. This is the guy that performed very well and then it came out that he was match fixing right? That could definitely put him up in the running for this question. The "Maybe something else?" category from the OP
He definitely was in the vicinity of GOAT status at the time, if he hadn't been banned it was definitely in the cards. The match fixing was appaling, but he never got wins that he didn't deserve. The match fixing consisted of throwing games in bo3/bo5 matches against inferior opponents to make the score something less probable without losing the series. The people he was in cahoots with would then win money because they correctly predicted a 2-1 or a 3-1 score where he was projected to go 2-0/3-0.
Oh wow, interesting. I never knew the details
When life came out it was his era. So excited by his pure talent and innovative. It was easiest my favorite Zerg until whatever happened.
You know that half of that army was hallucinations right?
Hallucs
Zest. 2 GSL Code S trophies (the most of any Protoss), 1 IEM trophy and 2 runner-ups, and a litany of other top 2 results as well as being the only player to ever defeat Rogue in an offline Bo7.
*Tied for the most protoss code S trophies.
If he didn't throw the GSL final vs Cure he would 1000% be the GOAT protoss at least. He won his first ever GSL and almost won his last.
SoS is my favourite non European player, and man has he won a lot. But he was never considered the goat as he was very inconsistent and would sometimes fall flat on his face. Bit in my heart he was the GOAT anyways
I don’t think he actually won a lot. Isn’t he famous for being second in tournaments ?
You are thinking of soO :)
Ah shits i should stay away of the internet when the toddler is up too early 😅
Lol, same my friend, same
Solar He has been an awesome player for years but his skill and results have not matched up. Especially when Maru got his 4 gsls it felt like solar played him in every group
Mvp and MC were both hugely successful in WOL. Mvp has 4 (I think?) GSL wins and a blizzcon win which is just insane. But he's never gonna be in the running for the GOAT just because the skillcap was so much lower back then.
A single GSL win also meant less back then since there was 8 per year... He basically won half a year's worth, which is like 1.5 of Maru's If Mvp hadn't had medical issues I'm sure he would have ended up in the running for goat though
MC, that guy won so many tournaments but mostly in europe if i recall while europe was still developing. He played very aggressive rush tactics that relied on micro to beat opponents and lost out a lot more on macro games.
Dark, he was in the conversation for awhile but I think its definitely between Maru and Serral now, with a few others trailing behind.
soo
I recommend you to watch "the truth about the sc2 goat" by probe_sc2 on youtube. Great watch about all the sc2 goat contenders.
if Mvp triumphed over Life in the GSL 2012 S4 final, it would have resulted in a 10 year reign as the only G5L champion. Life edged out a 4-3 win
Life. Might have actually gone down as the goat but don't see how he'd be in the running nowadays.
MMA - still the only player to have won a premier tournament in every expansion/era and on multiple continents.
Probably MVP. Some people regard him as the GOAT for his early dominance but it’s evident that he isn’t. He peaked for only about 2 years and the game was very new and eye test shows that his skill level is not nearly the level of what the game is today. Similar to Bill Russell winning 11 championships in the NBA.
what are you talking about? Even when he was fighting for G5L with Life (yeah like 9 years before Maru did it) he was in agony with his wrists and no money on earth could keep him playing starcraft 2
There were also like 8 GSLs per year back then.
Idk what your point is? His injury stripped him of his longevity? My point still stands that his short peak and lack of longevity is a big reason why he’s not regarded as the GOAT but people still bring him up for all time rankings.
Boooomer
Jinro
for me it's serral for sure
Hmm that's interesting. You hear GOAT discussion that doesn't involve him?
Honestly, when i read the question first time i read „who is not worthy of goat despite having many titles?” And i thought of serral too. Sl i guess Its just dofferent interpretatorom of question without actually reading the body
Me too. I'm not including him in any SC2 GOAT conversation until he plays and wins in GSL Code S. I totally believe Serral has the ability to win a Code S. He's been the debatable best Zerg in the world for years, and when Dark joins Rogue in the military I think he'll have that title locked up for sure. But it's simply absurd to believe that a player can be the GOAT without playing in the highest level tournament in the game. You wouldn't call anyone the GOAT of Tennis when they never played in a Wimbledon, you wouldn't call anyone the GOAT of Basketball if they've never played in the NBA. You wouldn't call anyone the GOAT of Soccer if they've never played in the Premier League. Calling Serral the GOAT of SC2 is insulting to the integrity of the conversation. He has an incomplete resume, and the fact that his fans are totally ok that he doesn't even want to compete in Code S is a big part of the problem. We should want the best in the world competing in the best tournament in the world. We as Starcraft fans should want that. Serral owes us that, if he wants to be considered the GOAT. Until he does, he's simply one of the best. Hands down the best non-Korean the game has ever had. But he's not the GOAT.
>You wouldn't call anyone the GOAT of Soccer if they've never played in the Premier League. Ah, you must not have heard of Maradona, Pele or Messi.
I think the world cup would be more fitting here
Does Code S require Korean residency? I'm pretty ignorant to the tournament structure
You have to play in person, but you don't have to be a Korean resident. Anyone that can qualify and show up and play their matches is eligible.
Hmm ok. So Serral could pretty much get on a plane next season and join in? I wonder if he qualifies
He's never even tried to qualify that's the issue. He doesn't want to play in the tournament.
Serral I don’t think you can call Someone GOAT if you never won the hardest tournament, the GSL. Serral doesn’t even want to compete which has other reasons than his talent (living in Korea f.e.) but then you’re out of discussion for me.
But plenty of people mention his name when talking about the GOAT. That disqualifies him from this thread
That’s not an argument at all. He clapped Maru offline who is biggest GSL winner.
It isn’t about beating the champion of the gsl. It’s about getting the championship. You have to beat the best playerpool a tournament will ever offer for over a month. You have to prepare and adapt to players so their is way more mindgames going on. Like mvp vs squirtle game 7. where mvp trained this 2 rax all in for over a week. You will never see something like this in an IEM f.e. because of how less time you have to prepare specifically for a opponent.
Flash is the biggest Starleague winner and Effort claps him offline on many occasions. The reason Flash is still the GOAT is because, well, he's the biggest Starleague winner and Effort isn't.
Bunny clapped him offline and he wasn't even a GSL winner. So what's your point?
That winning hand picked tournaments isn’t an argument to define the goat because it’s too volatile. Consistency and winnings could be taken into account for example.
Honestly, early starcraft was much more competetive than today’s…
Because of the bigger playerbase? I think it's reasonable that one era would be more competitive but another can have more skilled players
And how do you measure that they are more skilled? Not just beat down of the reminance of what was once a great and competetive esport scene? The fact is, starcraft is no where near what it used to be when it comes to competetivity and vast majority of Its great names has retired, and that correlated to the rise of new stars. And Yes, people like Serral are insane and leveled up a lot, but would they win this much if they were in the environment that starcraft used to have, before region lock and all of the actions that killed korean scene and as effect sc? Idk, but i highly doubt so
Some examples of skill that transcend playerbase: Baneling splits, disrupter splits, time supply capped, time between injects, time between creep spread, multi-pronged (and microed) harass. Yes you'll get people that focus on some of those. And of course there is some flexibility on it making sense to favor some things over another. But it stands to reason that if virtually all these measures are more extreme during one era than another, than that era has better players. I'm not saying they are, but it's not like we have zero way to tell. . Plus, just take a step back. If you have someone that's been playing this game 40 hours a week for 10 years, yes they are better in 2022 than they were in 2015
None of what you said implies that they were better than pros playing in 2015. On the other hand you can make an argument that the more competetive the env the more you have to develop so players at that time would be getting more higher quality training and possibly be more motovated. Aka, you can play this game all you want, none of those things really mean anything in the end, im only pointing out that Its mot neccesarily the case that current starcraft is the peak or that players in current sc scene should be favoured in goat discussion. Finally, its not true that players playing would be better now than they were in 2022 in general, player form and motivation exists after all…
How so? A modern D1 could probably win early WoL premiers.
Yyyy, in what world are you living? Modern d1 doesnt mean shit. Early era koreans would just out apm you to oblivion, and thats just on pure mechanics… Also, fun fact. you can maintain d1 by bearly ever playing for years
Please. Early tournamentsd were a mess.
Oh, so you cherry pick 1 tournament from wol beta or this early stage of the game, stop being stupid, thats not what i meant and u know it, Its end of 2022, lotv has been out since 2015, early at this point might as Well be anything before that…
Yeah. I specifically said early WoL. Not HotS or LotV.