MARU vs SERRAL: The GOAT REMATCH! | $42,000 Masters Coliseum 7 (Bo5 ZvT) - StarCraft 2

[@yand3x]

Haven't seen single one SC2 commentator besides Tastosis that I didn't want to mute immediately. And now there is one more pleasant to listen, educated and actually with a deep knowledge of Starcraft. Great job, Jared!

[@Anamukajojo]

"...you need to be at least a minor diety".... made me laugh. Gotta say, pigs casting is top-notch. Never used to watch SC2 prior to discovering him. Now I watch just about all his casts. :)

[@PiGCasts]

Cheers for the kind words! Did you ever play sc2? Or just randomly started watching a video and liked it?

[@Anamukajojo]

played when it came out, but only the campaign. Then, about a year ago, I decided to pop back and try some PVP. I discovered your B2GM series. That is how I found you. I am too much of a nib to play the game, and dont have time to grind (got kids and all), but I do enjoy your casts a lot and always try to find time to watch them :) @@PiGCasts

[@Fleischgewehr]

@@PiGCastsNot the same poster, but I haven't played a game in my life and love your casts. Might install if I get around my hatred for Battlenet, looking to see if there's a way to avoid it.

[@shiiiitstain]

i stopped watching sc2 after dreamhack 2018 and the 2019 SH snoozefest but man ive been devouring these casts the last week and its bringing me back sooo hard. Thanks for the constant vids im very glad you're still going.

[@PiGCasts]

glad you're enjoying sc2 again! master's coliseum has been the gift that keeps on giving this week :D

[@張家宸-z3e]

Serral is GOAT of SC2 for sure..

[@marcelbenner993]

On this GOAT debate: - There is a player who achieved the Triple Crown twice, which only 2 other players achieved. - There is a player who has the highest win rate vs Korean players in 5 years out of 13 StarCraft2 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023). - There is a player who won the world championship twice (most wins among two others) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against at least Top 100 players (47 consecutive wins) - There is a player who holds the longest winning streak against top Koreans (19 consecutive wins; achieved 2 times) - There is a player who achieved an over 90% match win rate in a year (2023) overall - which no one else ever achieved - There is a player who achieved an over 73% (73,24%) game win rate in a year (2023) vs Koreans - which no one else ever achieved (closest is Serral with 69,86% in 2018 and Maru’s 69,44% also in 2023). - There is a player who achieved an over 85% (!!!!) match win rate in three years (2018, 2020, 2023) vs Koreans. The next best other player being Maru with 78% in 2023 and herO with 74% in 2017. - There is a player who has by far the most Premier Tournaments wins with top Korean Participation (15) and overall (23) - There is a player who has NO negative win rate vs ANY pro player since his first Premier Tournament win in 2015 which he played on a regular basis (at least 10 games) - which no one else ever achieved Here are these player’s records against these top Koreans (wins:Korean player wins: draws): vs Maru: 13:4:2 vs Dark: 8:5:1 vs GuMiho: 10:4:0 vs Solar: 16:7:1 vs Cure: 17:3:0 vs ByuN: 12:5:0 vs Classic: 8:2:0 vs Bunny: 9:2:0 vs stats: 9:4:0 vs soO: 8:4:0 vs Innovation: 16:8:0 vs Rogue: 8:7:0 vs Trap: 14:3:0 vs Zest: 10:5:0 That player has been so dominant since his rise to the top in 2018 in Seoul that he won more tournaments - with participation of the best Koreans in the world - in 6 years of playing StarCraft 2 than all players who have been present among the top players for much longer. That player is Serral. I have no idea how anyone can deny that Serral is the GOAT of StarCraft 2. Not one player comes even close to such a dominance over such a long period of time while at the same time amassing more important trophies in less time than anyone else. Serral's win rate vs his weakest matchup (Zerg) is higher than most pro's overall win rates. To anyone arguing flash = SC2 GOAT: Flash never had win rates that even come close to Serral's and had lower win rates than Innovation at time. He also was only present in SC2 for around 2 years. He definitely is the SC GOAT though. To anyone arguing Innovation/Maru: These two both failed to show up on the really big stages. Maru only ever got a 2nd place at Worlds with his 2023 defeat against Oliveira.. He didn’t do what sOs, ROgue or Serral did: Go to a big stage, where the best of the world compete and win. The same is true for Innovation. Both Maru and him falter when competition from outside of Korea is present/when the big stage calls. Also both have lower win rates vs the top players and less achievements. To anyone arguing sOs: sOs, who is a 2 time world champion, only has 5 premier tournament wins. If you consider Rogue and Serral, who also are in the debate, sOs falls short. The same holds true as for Innovation and Maru. Less achievements, less dominance. Rogue has won 11 premier tournaments from 2017 to 2022. He, as well as Serral, won 2 Worlds. Now let’s bring Serral into the equation. Out of his 23 premier tournament wins which span from 2018 to 2023, 18 are with Korean participation, Serral won 2 World Championships. Him and Rogue in my opinion are the only two players who are consistent and showed up when the best of the world are present. They have achieved similar high end feats. BUT: Serral has way more Premier Tournament wins (with Korean participation and yet even more without) and was more dominant in his win rates and records versus other Korean players. To people arguing that Serral never won a GSL. So what? He played the best of the best from GSL and defeated them time and again (see record vs these players and overall win rate vs Koreans above). Does anyone seriously believe Serral would not have won the GSL if he was born Korean? And at the same taking Premier titles away from players who now claim them? If anything, Serral's dominance would have been EVEN MORE apparent. Plus Serral even went to Korea twice and both times won the GSL vs Worlds where the best of the GSL participated. That argument sounds a little bit like this: Real Madrid (Serral) who defeated all Premier League teams (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool etc.) in the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) is not better than Liverpool because it never played in the Premier League. The argument is absurd. The Premier League (Korea) sends its best teams (Maru, Dark, Rogue) to the Champions League (GSL vs World, World Championship, etc.) and these best teams get beaten by Madrid (Serral). No one in their right mind would argue that Madrid isn’t the best team in the world, simply because it didn't play versus Wolverhampton. Anyways, these are my thoughts.

[@OnigoroshiZero]

@@marcelbenner993 Facts. And GSL is irrelevant since at least 2019, so it's not even a point for argument.

[@oscarhellberg]

The argument would be that serral didn't really arrive until Sc2 was on a downhill path and not as popular or competitive. Personally, I think life was the best but we all know what happened. However, there has never been anyone as dominant as Serral has been for the last couple years. @@marcelbenner993

[@alanclw6024]

​@marcelbenner993 Come on now. Just because hebis white and has played a on a ping of 15ms over his Koreans adversary on a ping of 250ms, does not mean you have to sniff on his ballsweat everyday 🤡🤡🤡

[@alanclw6024]

​@@OnigoroshiZero Fornsomeone who is too scared to participate into GSL or any face to face tournaments. The white supre.macists crowd sure like to sniff his arse crack

[@asdfasdf-mn8iu]

At 1:04:50, serral missclicked his one zergling to attack his other zergling that killed the SCVs there, creating a weird-looking conga-line of units attacking each other :D :D

[@snowblind1985]

Basically serral is almost a cerebrate. Aggressive expands, constant swarm pressure at the edge of creep, great creep spread and multi prong peek a boo/ hit and runs. The og definition of Zerg

[@wedgeantilles8575]

First game: I am confused what Maru was thinking with the Widow-Mine drop. A drop without anything going on - what did he expect to happen? How low does he rate Serrals skill? He should know that Serral would be more than capable of deflecting this attack - making the attack a waste of ressources that Maru could have spent better, shouldn't he? Maru made some VERY questionable build orders in this tournament. Build orders that led to him being behind and loosing games

[@tigera6]

Maru just cant keep it inside his pants, it feels like he HAS to do something weird to throw his opponent off, while the truth is he can just play standard like Clem most of the time. He literally 2-0 Serral a couple days before this playing a very standard and clean game, main with Bio Mines into mass Libs. But he just made a hard switch in this match into mass Tanks and even throw in a Mech Banshee game when its completely unnecessary.

[@anthonylaine6111]

Serrall est vraiment le dieux de StarCraft !!! C'est incroyable !!!

[@axa6503]

Serral is scary

[@waggerdagger2831]

The pros always do one thing, that I think is a waste every time. Look at 54:57 - why does Serral retreat the lings, and have them all die for nothing, instead of just letting them contunue killing workers? He would have gotten 1 or 2 more, instead of 0... The pros all do it, and everytime I see it I think the same thing "just leave them, they gonna die anyways"

[@bigprank3964]

The answer to your question comes when you look at Serrals games in broader context. Firstly, he doesn't see what we see. We see that the opponent has units standing in the retreat path of the lings but Serral mostly sees fog of war. Secondly, he looks at his lings for a split second and reacts intuitively and asap, which sometimes results in non-optimal play for a single runby, while he prioritizes other things like drones, units, upgrades, buildings, creep. It can be more optimal 90% of the time to not optimize microing a runby and look at other stuff instead. Thirdly, over 1000 games, retreating a ling runby might for example result in some lings surviving 670 times and all lings dying 330 times, which in Serrals opinion is good enough to result in his muscle memory deciding this way in those situations So while you are right in that he could get more damage out of some runbys by not retreating them, the retreats might be better on average. And even if the retreats are worse on average, Serrals intuition thinks that retreats are better on average. Serrals intuition might be wrong more often than not, or it might be right more often than not. It very likely is mostly right if you consider that he has imperfect information and reaction times, and that he wins most of his games In conclusion: Serral retreats his lings because he thinks it is better to do so on average in the situations he does it in and because he doesn't lose games because he kills 1 or 2 less workers with some runbys. If he started losing games directly because of it, i'm sure he would start paying slightly more attention to his runbys and would try to kill 1 or 2 more workers with them every time it looks like they are gonna die anyways

[@PiGCasts]

solid explanation

[@asdfasdf-mn8iu]

Serral doesn't see the units on the top of the ramp. Usually serral is very very good at pulling back his units at the right time to lose almost none, he's about the least greedy player of most of the pros. This is a bad example because it backfired, usually moves like that save serral probably 50-100 zerglings over the course of a game and also have the opponent worry about the units coming back to harass.

[@TlcforFree]

Best caster hands down 🔥

[@khanhmai5006]

Thor is the best at doing blocking other team units 😂

[@analogGigabyte]

Serral is the Michael Jordan of SC2

[@sfinterfisher1107]

Epic battle, pretty close the second one!

[@DiegoBragion]

terrans whinning are priceless...

[@tigera6]

Same as Zerg whinning wden Serral lost to Clem and Maru earlier.

[@tungnse]

@@tigera6 Lol, what now? Maru 4-0 ed by serral, each game 10 minutes. What a rape. XD

[@samuelcrane8686]

great work PiG, doing Aussies proud!

[@Tonius126]

Old man Serral still got it.

[@alanclw6024]

Not to mention that in every single tounament Serral has won against Koreans, the latter have been playing against him between 1am to 4am. Gotta give the white boy some advantages

[@Tonius126]

@@alanclw6024 they knew what they were signing up for several weeks in advance. Lol. It also happens vice versa. TLDR: Protoss need a buff.

[@brandonhargis4104]

You act as if 1 am to 4 am are not peak nerd gaming hours lol @@alanclw6024

[@GalaxybearBoss]

Serral is too OP, i nvr see him lose. GOAT of SC2

[@rebounders]

Serral has, for all of history, used ling runbys to destroy Maru, and still, to this day, Maru doesn't just prepare for it. it's so annoying and stupid.

[@tigera6]

its easier said than done. You should see how Dark and Solar made Clem rage-quit with ling runby.

[@giammaucapeokgaming752]

This Serral guy is not bad with this videogame..

[@mrherrada797]

i like how serral used to be all defensive player

[@kingsgambit7098]

Don't get me wrong. Rts games can require you to think deeply about build orders, but in an actual game, it is all practical decisions. Every minute matters and under that kind of time pressure good choices triumph those who try to play perfect most of the time.

[@OnigoroshiZero]

Serral makes Maru look like a Platinum player a lot of times. For every map Maru takes, Serral wins 2-3 entire series. And then you have Maru's fanboys that can't even distinguish reality from their fantasies, and are crying tears of joy while talking like Maru is the GOAT once every year when Maru takes a bo3 from Serral.

[@RoKDavE]

Zerg is absolutely ridiculous sometimes, how you can waste so many units and resources and still win is ridiculous

[@sakesaurus]

Serral looked so unhappy at the end of game 1😅

[@Deroxated]

Why no BCs in game 2 ?

[@anthonylaine6111]

Car trop chère et surtout serral est très bon contre eux 😉

[@ethanb7657]

Bc against mass corruptor and infestors…good luck with that. You’re also going to be trading away Vikings/libs or thors for that heavy supply and the resulting comp is going to die terribly

[@angelcleofeefoelctorab7498]

i got CHILLS!

[@shiiiitstain]

WHAT A GAME

[@MikeJones-dw1zl]

That second game was crazy, I was cheering for maru.

[@joelevans638]

I used to watch Lowko's SC2 casts all the time, but since I discovered PiG I can't really go back now. No disrespect to Lowko, but he seems to miss a lot of important action and doesn't provide as much gameplay commentary. I watched a game he cast as well as you and difference was night and day.

[@samuelcrane8686]

amazing gameplay

[@troy3423]

ghosts are op tho.

[@marquinocompaniados5099]

The reason why Clem is above Maru is Clem always have a small attack on different part of map even he is struggling upfront. His widowmine macro is insane. Maru is too good not until almost all units of Terran balanced. Both Maru and Serral are my favorite so whoever wins still kicks my heart out. 😂

[@darfboony824]

Yep i missed those days that maru always plays multiple prong attacks. After his injury he is just not the same.

[@tigera6]

No, Clem is about making magic with his frontal army and just out-trade the opponent to death. Hes not trying to attack on different part of the map with the exception of widow mines drop/Libs harassment. Maru doent play that style, or rather he cant, but he playing a more greedy style with more workers and try to outmine the Zerg, and when that fails he switch into turtling mode. And Clem just got beaten by Dark and Solar in the same tournament, so I dont think hes above Maru yet.

[@darfboony824]

@@tigera6 well maru was playing multi prong very impossible to micro army a few years ago. That was when clem was not on his prime yet. i think that clem learned a lot from maru in His earlier years... Im curious though why maru is not playing the same cheesey style he played from the past years.

[@tigera6]

@@darfboony824 Since his shoulder injury a couple years ago, Maru has stopped playing the micro-intensive style, and switch into the more defensive style. As for while Maru has stopped playing cheesy, I think thats what his reputation has done to him. He has proxied so much now that his opponent just blind scout, or they would just all-in against Maru first. Dark/Solar and even Serral has killed Maru with their own cheese like Roach all-in or bane bust. And while I do agree that Clem has taken things from Maru, he has said a couple times that its Cure who Clem learned from the most, as in the style and choice of build.

[@LingBaneHydra]

This is what happens when the fake GOAT find the REAL one. lol

[@INS1cells]

Game of the year?

[@RomainLagrange1]

no third game ? or not a bo5 ?

[@DiegoBragion]

u missed one buddy

[@rodrigomaldonado5280]

Maru is Goat, but he’s playing Serral :v

[@gurkankaraali9608]

baneling's power should definitely be reduced. Micro controlling Terran and Protoss is more difficult than Zerg. Baneling is unleashed on the enemy with less control, it's not fair. That's why the two armies cannot fight each other properly. The game definitely needs an upgrade.

[@nogamenolife1113]

Yeah, Banelings should definitely be banned or nerfed to make the races more balanced. It doesn't make sense that 16 workers can be eliminated in an instant with no effort. How do you recover from that?

[@gurkankaraali9608]

@@nogamenolife1113 I totally agree. They collapse the entire economy with almost no effort. There is no such thing in Terran and Protoss.

[@Mo3hre]

The 420 expansion!

[@nogamenolife1113]

Am I the only one who thinks Banelings should be banned or nerfed? There's no Zerg player who doesn't abuse their destructive power throughout the match. It doesn't make sense that 16 workers can be eliminated in an instant with practically no effort. Without that unit, all races would be much more balanced.

[@SSMWRX11]

Maru seem to have lost his flare.

[@ditch_magnet]

idk what you're talking about, he looked great in game 2. it could have gone either way.

[@SSMWRX11]

@@ditch_magnet To you

[@ditch_magnet]

@@SSMWRX11 he took serral to the end of his bank and very nearly won that final engagement. It's not like serral was making massive mistakes. If you can go toe to toe with serral using a complex endgame caster army like that, nobody can call you washed up.

[@M0ebius]

After winning his 7th GSL last year it feels like hes just been coasting. Hopefully hes gonna ramp back up for the World Championship though.

[@SSMWRX11]

awww.. so sweet@@ditch_magnet

[@zimone8835]

Bring back seeker missiles. Raven too nerfed.... Ghost and Mech is just Too difficult to control, Even for Maru...

[@sshreddderr9409]

lol, serral basically did everything at the end as perfectly as he could have, and still would have lost if it wasnt for him barely mining enough from holding that base. at that point, you are really just complaining about ZvT lategame being winnable at all for the zerg.

[@zimone8835]

@@sshreddderr9409 The zerg won 3-0..... With just mainly Speedlings, Banelings harassment while Macroing like crazy.

[@sshreddderr9409]

​@@zimone8835and? thats not an argument, thats just how the game works. thats how you would expect any zerg to play, winning or loosing.

[@wedgeantilles8575]

rofl, yeah, 3 control groups is WAY too much for terrans. Serral just plays in another league than Maru. He is the WAY better player. That he struggles against Maru after the latest patch is just a sign that TERRAN is slightly too strong. If balance is not an issue, the better player wins. And Serral is the far superior player. For him NOT winning against Maru is insane.

[@asdfasdf-mn8iu]

Quite honestly, ghost mech at that point is set up libs -> you're done. set up tanks, inch them forward -> you're done. Control rest of army except vikings in one big clump, have hellbats in front, control vikings and split them up a tiny bit -> you're done. The only real micro needed there is ghosts EMPing. Meanwhile, the zerg needs to control his broods, vipers/corruptors, infestors, potentially queens and spores, has no vision (T can scan all the time) which is a huge factor and whenever they run the infestors in a clump, they all get EMPed or killed, whenever they let the broods walk forward a bit, they get shredded by the thors or sniped by ghosts. The army comp by maru is a lot easier to play than serrals. Maru had a big disadvantage in that game 2 in that he was setting himself up in a choke. Usually that's good for T, but not if it's thors vs. air army, because then the thors cannot all fight while air ignores chokes.

[@testony522]

maru goat? never

[@tigera6]

He can win the coming IEM, and the World Championship in Aug, you would still say never?

[@somebody1828]

Saying spoiler alert after spoiling it. Nice one

[@PiGCasts]

It was posted 10 days earlier and is important context for this series :). The "spoiler alert" is a joke making fun of people who will always be upset by every spoiler and want me to commentate every single game in a contextless void

[@somebody1828]

@@PiGCasts That is very funny and smart. Good job

[@mattevans8090]

FIRST

[@OSU2010]

Terran so much harder to use, and they need to nerf Zerg just way to OP they get to control the entire map and apply pressure for free.

[@shiiiitstain]

yeah the hotkey to siege tanks is really tough to press

[@officialCannisMajoris]

I don’t play starcraft at all. But I do know that zerg is overbuffed! Blizzard devs actually wanted zerg to be the strongest race in sc2. Player skill has less impact then patch notes. Just like warcraft 3 was last year

[@rylandqualls5908]

I wish pig would be less critical

[@Whattheheck_78]

Zerg the most OP at all imagine you kill bunch of zergs but if you check the total cap same it 199 what the heck how could you win if like that? Delete Starcraft

[@segcykel]

they are in production

[@wedgeantilles8575]

Poor boy, did somebody steal your teddy bear? Or why the crying?

[@nathanielsmith9400]

Zerg definitely has advantage because you can get a lot more units (low cost) with the same supply and cover more of the map. Once you have enough banelings you can a+move and see your opponent struggle. Protoss seems the most disadvantaged due to their high cost (though powerful) units that are low mobile. While Terran can op to play Bio for more mobility, Protoss seems to be stuck with "Mech" style to be more effective against their opponent. Both Terran & Protoss also have to spend a lot on infrastructure that the Zerg race do not.

[@OnigoroshiZero]

Skill issue in Maru's side. Imagine having an army with 12-15 of the most broken unit in RTS history (Ghosts), and still lose...

[@Tonius126]

these Terran complain about Zerg yet goes quiet when Protoss needing a buff is brought up. smh