Serral's irl lastname is pretty badass. In finnish the suffix "-la" basically means "place of/for" and before this suffix there is "Sota" which means war, so his lastname basically is "a place for war"
Honestly can't be understated how ridiculously impressive Serral's 2018 run was, after Katowice 2018 he didn't drop a single (!) Offline match until Katowice 2019, he didn't just look unbeatable, for that period he really was People taking maps off of him in the circuit was considered a genuine achievement It's also impressive in the way he did it. He does aggressive builds occasionally, but his general style was extremely defensive and heavy on finding out on what the opponent is doing, which is much harder to perfect. The fact that he perfected it to a point where he didn't lose a single series for almost a year is beyond impressive and why many consider him the GOAT nowadays
@@enriquegarciacota3914 He just played a Chinese cup last week. Lost 3 maps in the entire tournament. 2 to maru and 1 to herO. So yes, for Serral, if he is in good form, just standard business. But it is insane how high his standard is. His series didnt even look close against some of the best in the world.
You forgot to mention his history pre-2017. He was on a grind for 5 years prior to 2017, and his performance was mediocre at best and watching him suddenly appear out of nowhere was really impressive.
he didn't "appear" out of nowhere, he literally played the ONE year where none of the top 8 KR players played, literally NONE of them played the entire year lol, Serral only won because he didn't vs anyone decent, otherwise he would have been 9th place, like he ALWAYS is, EVERY YEAR. See when he won worlds in 2018, then all the top KR boys came back to SC2 (they were playing R-SC / AOE4 EA then) and suddenly Serral went from 1st place to 19h place overall that year. the west just try to make clickbait storys.
@@mis8866you are full of it. Dark, Stats, and Rouge are some of the best players in the world and he beat each of them in 2018. Dark and Rouge were basically tied for best Zerg players ever from Korea.
I remember watching Serral during his 2018 run, and it was like watching a robot. Whenever an opponent won a map, it was like he evolved right there and adapted.
To be honest, I think the reason Korea isn't as dominant as it was in the Starcraft esports scene is simple. The mental block is broken. Koreans aren't an unbeatable, unstoppable, uncatchable menace to foreigners anymore. This is Serral's greatest legacy. After all they're still just as dominant in the other esports scene they dominated before, League of Legends.
Wrong the only reason why Koreans aren't as dominant as they were is because of lack of sponsor and most importantly, the military service. Koreans have been known since SC1 to train following a super strict team house format. Teams would pay salary to players and they would live together in team houses. That gave them an edge as people could learn from one another. In 2017, KESPA withdrew from SC2 due to some match fixing situations which left all players teamless. On top of that, starting from 2018, a lot of the best Koreans started to leave for military service which caused a drop in skill level. Some players came back to play but never got back to their peak, some decided to completely stop playing, and for most of them, 2 years with no SC2 straight up meant that they were far behind new talents. Remove mandatory military service and we'd have a much different situation. Players like TY, Innovation, Stats, Zest, soO, sOs, Trap, Rogue etc. never would've lost their talent and they would've made the internationnal events even more stacked, challenging the likes of Reynor and that might have slowed them down quite a bit. League of Legends is the proof that sponsors and teams are super important
I met Serral with a very short interaction, he seems very humble, kind and all the good qualities. He even went up to me when he had a photoshoot with his teamm8 Reynor. He could probably see my eyes where about to pop out of their sockets 😅😅😅
I think there is only any grounds for debate in one of these answers, the definitive superior race is clearly Protoss #PurityOfForm #EssenceMoreLikeNonsense #FlyOffHumansWeAreFull
True. It felt like NOBODY expects him to win, yet he has beaten some of the strongest players and proved everyone wrong. My favourite championships overall.
I think if Serral had gotten luckier with his opponents he probably would have beat Olivera. His worst match up is ZvZ and the match for the quarterfinals was a ZvZ which he barely lost 2-3. If he had won I think Olivera would have lost in the semi-finals. But that not the world we live in so… lol. Olivera really did an amazing job and obviously had trained his heart out. Id say he deserved the win.
I am 46 years old and was a high end 2 on 2 player wich was needet to win a title i think it was 1999 in germany Stammkneipe wich was the german champion title back in the time. And since them i was suffering by the domination of Korean sc. Since them it endet always in Korea. Then came Serral . He is like the glowing crusader of sc2 the rest of the world vs Korea. And i was in flame after he won and kept his domination going. Its insane. I realy adore him and he is unarguable the greatest of all times the Muahamad Ali of Starcraft2. I told this rotterdam once and he just spit on me not understanding whats going on. Im glad someone understand. Serral! Back to back Champion. I adore you. You brought SC2 proud back to europe. Thank you for that. And i stil watch any game of you. YOU ARE THE GREATEST OF ALL TIMES ! WHOOOOOHAAAAA
I remember watching the 2018 world championship live while at work. The skill increase Serral went through during that year was insane since early on (sometime in January/February) he was thoroughly wrecked by Classic. Then we saw Serral increasingly lengthen the skill gap with each WCS victory as the top Europeans (including a young Reynor and Clem) were just wiped out by him. Both Serral and Maru have brought the overall skill of SC2 to incredible heights where they genuinely seem to play like robots. The combination of macro, micro, and decision making are on a level of their own.
literally vs'd none of the top 8 KRs in SC2 that year, but okay, clap clap for the guy who won because he didn't vs the guys who have made this game what it is.
I was so happy for Serral because he played the only race that was my favorite...Zerg....My fav match ups back then was ling bane mut vs terrain non mech....That was so fun to play.
god, i love strategy games. idc what the nationality is, i just love seeing someone mastering their craft - the same passion i am being committed to, with less skill but equal joy.
Neeb winning KESPA cup was a big wake up call, to both non korean and koreans. There is a rumor that after it happened, many top players in Korea collaborated, sharing replays of their games against Neeb with each other, analyzing his style of play, and brainstorming counter strategies, all to ensure Neeb would never win again. While there is no solid evidence for that or how prevalent it might have been, in the months following Neeb's win, he went from a seemingly dominant player defeating top koreans in nearly every series, to winning much more rarely, basically no more than any other foreigner. Serral's dominance is so complete and total because he not only beat them, but then kept beating them even harder for years to come, and no matter what Koreans did, it never seemed enough. For non koreans, it really made the possibility of foreigners truly competing on the same level as the greatest koreans actually feel real. It also sort of expanded what "the best at Starcraft 2" could be in people's minds. Instead of it just being whatever the top Korean players were doing, the slightly different playstyles of top foreigner players were now potentially the "better" way to play at the top level, giving all foreigners a big confidence boost, vindicating their efforts a bit.
I think what made it so was in large part because of the synergy that Koreans were able to have with each other and the language barrier for foreigners to discussions. Serral took on the combined intellect of them all. But probably just had to focus on each matchup, and lots of practicing thinking. Micro/macro. Being a genius on several fronts probably helps? Goat.
Wow, this video was amazing. I was following SC2 when it first came out for a couple of years, but then I dropped it. I started following the pro scene again after watching the finals Scarlet won vs SOS in 2018, and I've been hooked since. Watching Serral's ascent into Godhood all these years since 2018 has been amazing. At this point anyone that even thinks to debate the title of GOAT is just braindead. Serral has completely dominated StarCraft like no other player has done in the history of the games. ##SPOILERS for IEM 2024 BELOW## He also won his 3rd world title 10-12 days since this video came out in a completely dominating fashion once again by only dropping a single map in the entire tournament, finishing 20-1 (the 1 lost map was against Dark in the semifinals). He also annihilated Maru in the finals, it was not even close.
well, if you have a player base orders of magnitudes larger, you are going to find a lot more world class players in that group. Look at Snooker. it was pretty much "british isles only" for a long time, since it wasn't played that much in the rest of the world. That might get someone to assume the rest of the world just CAN'T play snooker. Look at it now. Great Australian, Belgian, Chinese, Indian, Iranian, Norwegian, Pakistani etcpp players.
Stephano only won tournaments in Europe and America and did not consistently beat Code S players. At his prime he never competed with the top players of Korea and would absolutely not have been a favorite to win a GSL. Any betting site putting their money on Stephano to place high in GSL would have gone bankrupt
Serral, would have dominated GSL. The time for preparation they get would have given him an even bigger advantage, because he is at the top in that regard too.
I remember sending an email to the afreecatv team about their music playlists in the opening for matches. Got a response like 1 month later and collected all the songs haha
Imagine Serral playing GSL code s, we'd get 20-30 top level offline series a year. Probably will not happen, but one can dream. I have been dreaming about Serral in GSL since 2018, flippin' 6 years already.
If I could try to imprint how impressive this moment was for myself (As somebody who joined the Starcraft community shortly before SC2's release) the best SC players of all time in my head is a list of the following: Koreans: Clem, Reynor, sOs, Bisu, Byun Hyun-woo, PartinG, Rogue, NesTea, Jaedong, etc. Non-Koreans: Serral (honorable mention for IdrA) That's the list. The list had always been Koreans... And then this guy I had been following here and there suddenly exploded and won not once, but twice on Korean turf, against an army of Koreans, and I was just speechless. It would be as historic today, as it would be if an American team won the League of Legends World Cup, a feat never achieved by America, and has been dominated for the past nearly 10 years by solely China and Korea.
Its kinda funny how "foreigners" has come to refer to europeans now. North america and south america basically have no good players left, and the very few they got are either worse than most europeans, or very rarely are basically equal.
Can someone please clarify a thing about the StarCraft economy for me? If building workers and taking expansions is the best way to maximize economy long-term, don't most matches just boil down into a Keynsian Beauty Contest?
I don't know about starcraft 2 but the first 5 minutes of brood war has been basically mapped out at this point and players know exactly what worker count and expansion pace is optimal. Even through 10 minutes players basically know when it's safe to expand
That is if you get to the late game. If you take resourced to expand (get more bases) and your opponents scouts it, he can use the resources and building time that would have went into an expansion and workers, into army units and just kill you. So you have to find a good balance between wether you can expand or attack. The timing is very important and scouting crucial
Man, hearing this story reminds me of Kuroko's Basketball, about the Generation of Miracles vs Kuroko and his team... Well, we're not talking about basketball, okay... the Starcraft Korean players are dominant, which no one can beat them but they can beat themselves for champion after defeating Starcraft foreigner players. If Korean players defeats foreigner players, they have to fight themselves to win. Now, he finally beat the best Korean players and become best player of Starcraft, in late 2010s to early 2020s
No one is mentioning that Zerg was the best/strongest Race at that time, creep spread (basically map hack plus movement speed) and queens were too strong, and that is an Understatement. Clem seems to dominate Serral right now, and people have started to notice that in terms of Speed and Multi-Tasking Serral is not on the level of players like Clem, Reynor, and Maru.
I love this but I was high enough to hear forerunner and not foreigner and I was like "wtf halo? but this is StarCraft." had a real Patrick moment. so much in fact I didn't relies till 14:46
I can only say 1 thing about Serral: is by far better than anyone, past or present. And guys, The main quality of Serral is that he always continues to improve. All the other players can play and improve, but when they reach the limit they don't grow anynire, (some grow a little, others even reach their maximum potential and then get worse), Serral on the other hand doesn't, he seems to have something different, something special, he looks like Saitama , he has infinite potential 😀 😃 😂😂. Thia is funny, butit'd not a jokez this is the truth.
Something that was missed is that during the WOL days KR was far from on top, both Idra and huk dominated early sc2 and were in considered the best players in the world.
Huk and IdrA never dominated. Koreans from EsF would destroy them in tournaments whenever they came from outside Korea. The most successful foreigner of that era was Stefano, and he soon lost level when the KeSPa guys decided to shift from Brood War to SC2.
Korea had a Tv channel for Starcraft... crazy
what's crazier is how illegal the broadcast for BW was, blizzard got no say in what they were doing with their game
Man I love Korea
They actually had 2 for a while during the height of Brood War. Oh and Flash flew in from a freaking airplane for an OSL Finals
I remember spending an entire day downloading game-q vods in late 90s/early 2000 on my 56k modem. Crap quality too, but loved every second of it. ^_^
Not talking down Serral... but he won after Koreans pulled out their broadcasts and teams and switched over to LoL.
I was in Korea in 2000. Went to an internet Cafe to send an email. EVERYONE else in the Cafe was playing Starcraft, it was crazy.
Serral's irl lastname is pretty badass. In finnish the suffix "-la" basically means "place of/for" and before this suffix there is "Sota" which means war, so his lastname basically is "a place for war"
Too bad he didn’t do real fighting or real war instead of a video game where you sacrifice nothing. That name for a real soldier would be so cool!
...So he's the actual Warfield.
@@007Hutchings what an odd thing to say, kinda edgy/cringy
@@douglasgoodwon8227battlefield
@@007Hutchings he said on a youtube comment section.
Honestly can't be understated how ridiculously impressive Serral's 2018 run was, after Katowice 2018 he didn't drop a single (!) Offline match until Katowice 2019, he didn't just look unbeatable, for that period he really was
People taking maps off of him in the circuit was considered a genuine achievement
It's also impressive in the way he did it. He does aggressive builds occasionally, but his general style was extremely defensive and heavy on finding out on what the opponent is doing, which is much harder to perfect. The fact that he perfected it to a point where he didn't lose a single series for almost a year is beyond impressive and why many consider him the GOAT nowadays
What he does is standard business… for the most part
So standard that he’s made a name for himself… lmao
@@WalknTalknStevnHawkn I was quoting him. He said exactly those words some days ago on his stream.
@@enriquegarciacota3914 He just played a Chinese cup last week. Lost 3 maps in the entire tournament. 2 to maru and 1 to herO.
So yes, for Serral, if he is in good form, just standard business. But it is insane how high his standard is. His series didnt even look close against some of the best in the world.
@@TheSuperappelflap But he lost 3 maps. That's the "for the most part" part :)
GOOD TO SEE MY BOY SERRAL GETTING SOME RECOGNITION OUTSIDE OF THE SC2 SCENE
Outside of the sc2 scene? What game is he playing now?
@@jnssmnsnI think he means it’s good to see coverage on a channel that’s not SC focused.
You forgot to mention his history pre-2017. He was on a grind for 5 years prior to 2017, and his performance was mediocre at best and watching him suddenly appear out of nowhere was really impressive.
he didn't "appear" out of nowhere, he literally played the ONE year where none of the top 8 KR players played, literally NONE of them played the entire year lol, Serral only won because he didn't vs anyone decent, otherwise he would have been 9th place, like he ALWAYS is, EVERY YEAR.
See when he won worlds in 2018, then all the top KR boys came back to SC2 (they were playing R-SC / AOE4 EA then) and suddenly Serral went from 1st place to 19h place overall that year.
the west just try to make clickbait storys.
@@mis8866 You really should look up the stats and wins of Serral. How can you be so arrogant and yet so ignorant?
@@mis8866 copium is strong in this one XD
@@mis8866you are full of it. Dark, Stats, and Rouge are some of the best players in the world and he beat each of them in 2018. Dark and Rouge were basically tied for best Zerg players ever from Korea.
@@mis8866 take your pills and stop posting
I remember watching Serral during his 2018 run, and it was like watching a robot. Whenever an opponent won a map, it was like he evolved right there and adapted.
Rematch of the Finno-Korean Hyperwar
So true
I was just about to comment this
To be honest, I think the reason Korea isn't as dominant as it was in the Starcraft esports scene is simple. The mental block is broken. Koreans aren't an unbeatable, unstoppable, uncatchable menace to foreigners anymore. This is Serral's greatest legacy.
After all they're still just as dominant in the other esports scene they dominated before, League of Legends.
Wrong the only reason why Koreans aren't as dominant as they were is because of lack of sponsor and most importantly, the military service.
Koreans have been known since SC1 to train following a super strict team house format. Teams would pay salary to players and they would live together in team houses. That gave them an edge as people could learn from one another. In 2017, KESPA withdrew from SC2 due to some match fixing situations which left all players teamless.
On top of that, starting from 2018, a lot of the best Koreans started to leave for military service which caused a drop in skill level. Some players came back to play but never got back to their peak, some decided to completely stop playing, and for most of them, 2 years with no SC2 straight up meant that they were far behind new talents.
Remove mandatory military service and we'd have a much different situation. Players like TY, Innovation, Stats, Zest, soO, sOs, Trap, Rogue etc. never would've lost their talent and they would've made the internationnal events even more stacked, challenging the likes of Reynor and that might have slowed them down quite a bit.
League of Legends is the proof that sponsors and teams are super important
I mean serral is finnish and we have mandatory servuce too
I met Serral with a very short interaction, he seems very humble, kind and all the good qualities. He even went up to me when he had a photoshoot with his teamm8 Reynor. He could probably see my eyes where about to pop out of their sockets 😅😅😅
cringe alert
That's very sweet :)
Serral vs Korea = 2nd Finno-Korean Hyperwar amongst the stars
As a korean, i'm a huge serral fan! Used to love playing zerg on the bw days. Keep it going goat.
I’m Korean and as much as it hurts me to say this. This guy is the goat. Sc2 goat.
And now he's won Katowice *again*, 4-0 vs. Maru and 20-1 in total.
Man's a beast.
"Dark the foreigner killer" is a crazy nickname. Back in the day we used to call them racist
out of context its the fucking funniest name. "dark the foreigner killer" and some average sized Korean guy steps out
StarCraft-talk is all about foreigners and races, and how some of them are better than others.
I think there is only any grounds for debate in one of these answers, the definitive superior race is clearly Protoss #PurityOfForm #EssenceMoreLikeNonsense #FlyOffHumansWeAreFull
No we did not
I think that a more fitting nickname for Dark is "the final boss", just because of the way he plays the game. Dude has his own meta
I think someone needs to make a video on Olivera's world championship win. It was the biggest but most well played and deserved upset I've ever seen.
Lol it’s as if he’s some kind of anime protagonist during that run!
True. It felt like NOBODY expects him to win, yet he has beaten some of the strongest players and proved everyone wrong. My favourite championships overall.
after beating prime Maru he says I'm a normal man LOL NO
@@discovermajid After stomping an on-form Maru in TvT of all matchups.
I think if Serral had gotten luckier with his opponents he probably would have beat Olivera. His worst match up is ZvZ and the match for the quarterfinals was a ZvZ which he barely lost 2-3. If he had won I think Olivera would have lost in the semi-finals. But that not the world we live in so… lol. Olivera really did an amazing job and obviously had trained his heart out. Id say he deserved the win.
It was on a much smaller scale but Neeb's 2017 WCS run was pretty insane too.
I am 46 years old and was a high end 2 on 2 player wich was needet to win a title i think it was 1999 in germany Stammkneipe wich was the german champion title back in the time. And since them i was suffering by the domination of Korean sc. Since them it endet always in Korea. Then came Serral . He is like the glowing crusader of sc2 the rest of the world vs Korea. And i was in flame after he won and kept his domination going. Its insane. I realy adore him and he is unarguable the greatest of all times the Muahamad Ali of Starcraft2. I told this rotterdam once and he just spit on me not understanding whats going on. Im glad someone understand. Serral! Back to back Champion. I adore you. You brought SC2 proud back to europe. Thank you for that. And i stil watch any game of you. YOU ARE THE GREATEST OF ALL TIMES ! WHOOOOOHAAAAA
I remember watching the 2018 world championship live while at work. The skill increase Serral went through during that year was insane since early on (sometime in January/February) he was thoroughly wrecked by Classic. Then we saw Serral increasingly lengthen the skill gap with each WCS victory as the top Europeans (including a young Reynor and Clem) were just wiped out by him.
Both Serral and Maru have brought the overall skill of SC2 to incredible heights where they genuinely seem to play like robots. The combination of macro, micro, and decision making are on a level of their own.
2018 Serral was goated. It was incredible so many first place finish
had the pleasure to see him live at dreamhack 2018 it was ridiculous how good he was. his playstyle really forced everyone to up their games
literally vs'd none of the top 8 KRs in SC2 that year, but okay, clap clap for the guy who won because he didn't vs the guys who have made this game what it is.
@@mis8866🤡🤡🤡🤡
Didnt he clap Dark, Rogue and Stats that year ? @@mis8866
@@mis8866cry harder lmao serral is considered by pretty much everyone, including pro gamers, to be the greatest of all time.
I remember staying up all night to watch this live. What a magical moment in eSports history.
Serral's run was insane and crazy to watch, it's great to see people appreciating it after all these years
My childhooed was waiting for a non korean to win, so hyped when serral won, gotta love the koreans tho and last year was such an epic underdog story
I was so happy for Serral because he played the only race that was my favorite...Zerg....My fav match ups back then was ling bane mut vs terrain non mech....That was so fun to play.
Always love the SC content. reliving these moments through your videos is so fun
god, i love strategy games. idc what the nationality is, i just love seeing someone mastering their craft - the same passion i am being committed to, with less skill but equal joy.
I realised how good Serral is, When as soon as I looked at the zerg symbol, My first thought was serral before zerg.
Bro the way he says "IT IS DONE" gives me absolute chills
Dude is a better man than me. I would have learned Korean and said "at least you tried foreigner" when I won.
Neeb winning KESPA cup was a big wake up call, to both non korean and koreans. There is a rumor that after it happened, many top players in Korea collaborated, sharing replays of their games against Neeb with each other, analyzing his style of play, and brainstorming counter strategies, all to ensure Neeb would never win again. While there is no solid evidence for that or how prevalent it might have been, in the months following Neeb's win, he went from a seemingly dominant player defeating top koreans in nearly every series, to winning much more rarely, basically no more than any other foreigner.
Serral's dominance is so complete and total because he not only beat them, but then kept beating them even harder for years to come, and no matter what Koreans did, it never seemed enough.
For non koreans, it really made the possibility of foreigners truly competing on the same level as the greatest koreans actually feel real. It also sort of expanded what "the best at Starcraft 2" could be in people's minds. Instead of it just being whatever the top Korean players were doing, the slightly different playstyles of top foreigner players were now potentially the "better" way to play at the top level, giving all foreigners a big confidence boost, vindicating their efforts a bit.
serral was just '_' after winning both tournaments and against some of the greatest starcraft players
I wish at some day I'll see the story about warcraft 3 Emperor Happy, who did the same thing as Serral did.
he is the true honored one
I think what made it so was in large part because of the synergy that Koreans were able to have with each other and the language barrier for foreigners to discussions. Serral took on the combined intellect of them all. But probably just had to focus on each matchup, and lots of practicing thinking. Micro/macro. Being a genius on several fronts probably helps? Goat.
god i love serral
Got to love serral, he's just so fun to watch. The SC2 GOAT
HOLY 7:40 what a badass intro
Wow, this video was amazing.
I was following SC2 when it first came out for a couple of years, but then I dropped it. I started following the pro scene again after watching the finals Scarlet won vs SOS in 2018, and I've been hooked since.
Watching Serral's ascent into Godhood all these years since 2018 has been amazing.
At this point anyone that even thinks to debate the title of GOAT is just braindead. Serral has completely dominated StarCraft like no other player has done in the history of the games.
##SPOILERS for IEM 2024 BELOW##
He also won his 3rd world title 10-12 days since this video came out in a completely dominating fashion once again by only dropping a single map in the entire tournament, finishing 20-1 (the 1 lost map was against Dark in the semifinals). He also annihilated Maru in the finals, it was not even close.
The Eminem of Starcraft
"many players' mental would have shattered"
pasha london school
THATS WHY HES THE GOAT
THE GOAT
A GOAT
well, if you have a player base orders of magnitudes larger, you are going to find a lot more world class players in that group. Look at Snooker. it was pretty much "british isles only" for a long time, since it wasn't played that much in the rest of the world. That might get someone to assume the rest of the world just CAN'T play snooker.
Look at it now. Great Australian, Belgian, Chinese, Indian, Iranian, Norwegian, Pakistani etcpp players.
2011 Stephano and 2018 Serral are the only two foreigners who, if they stayed in Korea for a GSL or two, could have been favorites to win
Stephano only won tournaments in Europe and America and did not consistently beat Code S players. At his prime he never competed with the top players of Korea and would absolutely not have been a favorite to win a GSL. Any betting site putting their money on Stephano to place high in GSL would have gone bankrupt
@@bonusmeme4691 watch the games bro they didn't have anything for him
Neeb was a contender for that for a short time as well.
Serral, would have dominated GSL. The time for preparation they get would have given him an even bigger advantage, because he is at the top in that regard too.
Serral is a hero on the hearts of many zergs, all over the world.
I remember sending an email to the afreecatv team about their music playlists in the opening for matches. Got a response like 1 month later and collected all the songs haha
There was still pure joy in Artosis' voice.
bro looks permanently locked in
While the Koreans dominated there was a lot of support, which fed into the domination, once the chain was broken, they got Finnished
Dude broke history and yet couldnt even muster a smile
Dont know if he is a absolute chad or a full robot
Probably tired.
Standard Finnish
nah hes infested terran irl..he doesnt have emotions cause he doesnt have a soul 😁
Imagine Serral playing GSL code s, we'd get 20-30 top level offline series a year. Probably will not happen, but one can dream.
I have been dreaming about Serral in GSL since 2018, flippin' 6 years already.
I still remember watching Serral vs Dark in Worlds. Damn
The shield of aiur is still a cool ass nickname for stats.
If I could try to imprint how impressive this moment was for myself (As somebody who joined the Starcraft community shortly before SC2's release) the best SC players of all time in my head is a list of the following:
Koreans: Clem, Reynor, sOs, Bisu, Byun Hyun-woo, PartinG, Rogue, NesTea, Jaedong, etc.
Non-Koreans: Serral (honorable mention for IdrA)
That's the list. The list had always been Koreans... And then this guy I had been following here and there suddenly exploded and won not once, but twice on Korean turf, against an army of Koreans, and I was just speechless.
It would be as historic today, as it would be if an American team won the League of Legends World Cup, a feat never achieved by America, and has been dominated for the past nearly 10 years by solely China and Korea.
but clem and reynor are not korean?
@@mrmister5609 shhh it's part of the joke
Truly the finisher
Its kinda funny how "foreigners" has come to refer to europeans now. North america and south america basically have no good players left, and the very few they got are either worse than most europeans, or very rarely are basically equal.
i still watch starcraft 2 matches even tho i'm not playing it, super entertaining compared to other esports
Man i played so much sc2 when serral was an upstart and followed his whole career
Will you also cover his victory in the recent IEM Katowice 2024?
Finally, an episode on the GOAT.
The good old finno-korean hyperwar
Having people saying your name and calling you "the man who fought the nation by himself, and *WON* " is pretty badass to me
I always like to build up my forces and be defensive I’m just not very aggressive in rts games.
Can someone please clarify a thing about the StarCraft economy for me?
If building workers and taking expansions is the best way to maximize economy long-term, don't most matches just boil down into a Keynsian Beauty Contest?
I don't know about starcraft 2 but the first 5 minutes of brood war has been basically mapped out at this point and players know exactly what worker count and expansion pace is optimal. Even through 10 minutes players basically know when it's safe to expand
That is if you get to the late game. If you take resourced to expand (get more bases) and your opponents scouts it, he can use the resources and building time that would have went into an expansion and workers, into army units and just kill you. So you have to find a good balance between wether you can expand or attack. The timing is very important and scouting crucial
@@Sc9cvsd the same goes for SC2.
With the most recent performance at Katowice, Serral is without contention the best player in SC2 right now
Man, hearing this story reminds me of Kuroko's Basketball, about the Generation of Miracles vs Kuroko and his team... Well, we're not talking about basketball, okay... the Starcraft Korean players are dominant, which no one can beat them but they can beat themselves for champion after defeating Starcraft foreigner players. If Korean players defeats foreigner players, they have to fight themselves to win. Now, he finally beat the best Korean players and become best player of Starcraft, in late 2010s to early 2020s
Best rts game of all time
AoE2 & C&C are better.
@@adamm2091aoe2 doesnt even come close to either starcraft game.
The GOAT
serral the goat
Amazing amazing video, congratulations on great narration and content, had me hooked from the beginning.
Serral s gameplay is fun to watch
Thanks for the vid
bro koreans and their superiority complex shines in almost all forms of their media .
I wonder what would happen if the military pulled an Ender’s game by building a StarCraft-like military RTS 🤔
No one is mentioning that Zerg was the best/strongest Race at that time, creep spread (basically map hack plus movement speed) and queens were too strong, and that is an Understatement. Clem seems to dominate Serral right now, and people have started to notice that in terms of Speed and Multi-Tasking Serral is not on the level of players like Clem, Reynor, and Maru.
Then why arent all the top Zerg players just as good if it’s just because they’re overpowered ?
The fact that he plays as Zerg is kinda glorious 😅😂
5:24 BRAAAAAAZILLL MENTIONED!!!!1🎉🎊
It still kills me that we'll never get to see Serral vs Life on a big stage
Some say MaxPax is life! That's why he never competes in live tournaments.
I love this but I was high enough to hear forerunner and not foreigner and I was like "wtf halo? but this is StarCraft." had a real Patrick moment. so much in fact I didn't relies till 14:46
At this point it's a creative choice to show Scarlet on screen twice and not mention her name right?
Like come on, have some shame.
I was there in 2018 when Serral won Blizzcon. I was so ecstatic! That was the best time to be a Starcraft fan
I can only say 1 thing about Serral: is by far better than anyone, past or present. And guys, The main quality of Serral is that he always continues to improve. All the other players can play and improve, but when they reach the limit they don't grow anynire, (some grow a little, others even reach their maximum potential and then get worse), Serral on the other hand doesn't, he seems to have something different, something special, he looks like Saitama , he has infinite potential 😀 😃 😂😂. Thia is funny, butit'd not a jokez this is the truth.
I love serral, I feel like his win paved a path to foreign players like clem and reynor to rise up and be dominant in the game.
we are we are
the youth of a nation
im pretty sure casually explained beat him once acording to his video
Thanks for the video, glad someone covers SC2 unlike "The shitcore esport" channel
Serral moved like Thanos on them Korean pros.
Good Storytelling, Nice
Serral is crazy good.
Oh shit the finno-korea hyperwar just restarted
Serral 🐐💪🇫🇮🇫🇮🇫🇮🇫🇮
Wait pro starcract production goes crazy
About time you made a video on the SC2 goat
Great video one thing I think it’s just take like in takeout, not Ta-Ke
Something that was missed is that during the WOL days KR was far from on top, both Idra and huk dominated early sc2 and were in considered the best players in the world.
Huk and IdrA never dominated. Koreans from EsF would destroy them in tournaments whenever they came from outside Korea.
The most successful foreigner of that era was Stefano, and he soon lost level when the KeSPa guys decided to shift from Brood War to SC2.
Great video. 😊🙏
Serral!!!!
Epci video! :)
Good Serral ❤❤❤❤🎉🎉🎉¡Gracias!
I love serral, the goat of sc2
Very nice. Love Starcraft still.
I still think Serral is the best. It's like Blizzard balance around him instead of Zerg.
THE FINISH PHENOM