The Greatest Players of All Time

By: Mizenhauer

• 3x World Champion and 22x other Liquipedia-premier tournament wins
• Positive win rate against every top player of his era
• Multiple historically great stretches in terms of raw win rate

Notable Tournament Finishes:

The second place spot on the list goes to Serral, a player who shattered the conventional wisdom on what a player from outside the Korean system could achieve and the degree of dominance that’s possible in the modern age of StarCraft II.

Coming into his prime during an era of extreme difficulty for the so-called “foreigners,” Serral went on to win over twenty Liquipedia-premier tournaments—including two IEM Katowice titles and a WCS Global Championship—while becoming widely acclaimed by his peers as the best player in the world. Even though Serral did not compete in GSL Code S, his tournament results show that no one was better at maximizing success in their given opportunities.

There is no single key to Serral’s greatness, as he has become possibly the most complete player in the history of the game. Possessing extraordinary mechanics, multitasking, scouting, and decision-making, Serral plays an oppressive read-and-react macro style for which there is almost no counterplay.

Overall, Serral has an extremely strong case to be called the Greatest of All Time, and only places runner-up by a slim margin.

Career Overview: The Paradigm Shift

Serral is unlike any other player on this list, rising to become one of the best StarCraft II players ever from outside of Korea’s vaunted esports institutions.

The Finnish Phenom’s career can be divided into two distinct phases: before and after he graduated from high school to play StarCraft II full-time. Serral was active in the competitive scene from as early as 2011, with his first recorded offline games on Aligulac being in that year’s World Cyber Games (WCG) Finland Nationals when he was thirteen years old. From then on, he continued to be quite active in offline tournaments, competing in many of the “open bracket” style tournaments in Europe such as DreamHack Opens, Assembly, and smaller local LANs. Over the years, Serral gradually improved to become the top player in Finland, and then one of the strongest players in the non-Korean scene.

Well, maybe it would be more accurate to say one of the most intriguing players. Despite showing occasional glimmers of brilliance against top players, Serral’s actual tournament results remained rather pedestrian. After becoming age-eligible to compete on the WCS Circuit, he only qualified for three Circuit events between 2014-2016, with a round-of-16 finish being his best result. In terms of standalone LAN events, his best result in this period was a single round-of-8 run at DreamHack Leipzig 2016.

The first clash in a legendary rivalry: Serral vs Smix.

TL.net writer Soularion described this period as such:

“…One day, this fifteen-year-old was going to become one of the best players in the world. He would give the rest of the world hope against the Koreans, but not with cunning and guile—the traditional weapons of the foreigner. No, Serral would become an incarnation of overwhelming power. From the very start, he was a macro player: living by the tech swap, dying by his drones, and taking pride in games which went late.

For a time, that was his weakness. Tournament after tournament, qualifier after qualifier, he played great—up until he lost.”

However, in 2017, we finally saw Serral’s potential “explode,” as the Korean expression goes, going from Europe’s worst-kept ladder secret to a player who could deliver in tournaments. He started off his year with an impressive RO8 finish at IEM Katowice, which was an incredible accomplishment for a non-Korean player at the time. From the very beginning of StarCraft II, Korean region players had ruled the competitive scene with an iron fist. But if the early years featured foreigner heroes such as NaNiwa, HuK, and Stephano who could occasionally fight their way into championship contention, the situation became rapidly hopeless for players outside of Korea over time. By 2015, the competitive disparity had become so extreme that Blizzard felt forced to implement a ‘hard’ region lock to separate Korea and the rest of world, save a handful of events. Even though Serral’s run at Katowice ended in a one-sided, 0-3 loss to elite Zerg Dark in the RO8, he had still made a huge impact by beating the Korean trio of Patience, Zest, and TRUE to reach that point in the first place.

Serral’s graduation from school in June served as an accelerant, as he started playing full-time StarCraft II for the first time. This helped him achieve his career best result by placing second place at WCS Jonkoping (barely losing 3-4 to Neeb in the finals), while he placed RO8 at the three other Circuit events. Even though Serral’s accomplishments were overshadowed by Neeb winning three out of four WCS Circuit events on the year, fans could be justifiably hyped for what would come in 2018.

If Serral’s potential “exploded” in 2017, then there’s no word to describe what happened in 2018. The first half of the year saw Serral build on his momentum from 2017, finally winning his first WCS Circuit event in Leipzig and following it up with top four finishes at the IEM World Championship and the World Electronic Esports Games (WESG). However, the latter two events also showed the (temporary) limits of his growing abilities: he was 3-0’d by Classic in Poland and 3-0’d again by Maru in China. Even if he had become the best foreigner—he was still just a foreigner when he went up against the very best players from Korea.

The summer months saw Serral continue to run the Circuit as he won championships in Austin and Valencia, playing on an entirely different level compared to the rest of the field. This further inflamed the discussion around Serral and what his ceiling might be. He was clearly the best non-Korean the scene had seen since 2012, was completely outclassing his peers on the Circuit, and he had notched several wins against Code S-caliber players in the lower rounds of other tournaments. But did that mean he could actually hang with the true championship contenders in a “tier 1” event? Depending on who you asked, his losses in WESG and IEM could either be proof of his limitations or mere growing pains.

Serral would soon have his say in this debate, but not through social media or the forums. At August’s GSL vs. The World 2018, he let his gameplay do the talking. Serral started off the event with a 3-0 win over Brazil’s Kelazhur, which was to be expected from the reigning king of the WCS Circuit. However, he gave the Korean elitists a jolt in the following round, taking a 3-0 over INnoVation where the Machine barely looked like he had a chance. If one was still not convinced of Serral’s abilities, he defeated Dark—who had thoroughly chastised him at IEM Katowice 2017—by a 3-1 score in the semifinals. In the grand finals, he applied the coup de grace with a 4-3 victory over Stats. The Shield of Aiur had been the best Protoss in the world since late 2016, and had earned his finals berth by beating the then two-time Code S winner Maru in the semis. By beating a top-tier Code S trio of INnoVation, Dark, and Stats to win a championship in Korea, Serral had emphatically silenced his doubters.

To say that the StarCraft II scene was officially put on notice would be an understatement. With his win at GSL vs the World, Serral had forcefully inserted himself into the discussion for best player in the world, something no foreigner had ever done since Stephano in 2012.

After a pit stop in WCS Montreal to complete the first ever Circuit sweep (although he nearly lost in the finals to future rival Reynor), Serral was ready to reach for his ultimate goal: winning the WCS Global Championship.

Although Serral had not played against any Korean players since GSL vs. The World, his convincing performance at that event made him one of the clear championship favorites headed into BlizzCon 2018. The main concern for Serral wasn’t anything objective, but rather a curse grounded in the larger mythos of StarCraft II. Foreign hopes had a long and painful history of falling short in the biggest moments, and even the few that succeeded had never won a tournament of this magnitude. Why should this kid from Pornainen be any different?

However, Serral quickly showed that the ghosts of the past belonged in the past. He advanced through the group stages with wins against sOs and Zest without dropping a single game. His RO8 match was against Dark, a player who had previously been considered the ultimate ‘foreigner-killer.’ But just as in GSL vs. the World, Serral shattered that reputation and took a 3-0 victory. The next series against Rogue—the reigning BlizzCon champion—went the same way. Even though the games were decided by the slimmest of margins and Rogue played inspired StarCraft from start to finish, Serral was too good in the end. Rogue could only take one map off of Serral and conceded the 1-3 loss.

By the time Serral stepped up to play against Stats in the grand finals, there was already a feeling that it would be a coronation. The previous rounds had made it clear that he was playing the game at the highest level since professional StarCraft II had begun, and now he’d have a chance to play his best match-up of ZvP in a seven-game series.

Stats and Serral had gone all the way to game seven when they played at GSL vs. the World (Stats had been the only player to really trouble Serral during this ascendent stretch), but Serral had improved even further in the span of a few months. Serral immediately took all the air out of the series, taking a commanding position with three straight wins. While Stats kept the scoreline respectable by clawing back two points, the final result was never in doubt. Serral closed the series out in game six, finishing a historic world championship journey. After stoically lifting the trophy five times that year, Serra’s ice-cold demeanor finally dropped on the BlizzCon stage. As he held the trophy in his arms, tears started to well in his eyes. Without a shadow of a doubt, he had proved he was the best player in the world.

Becoming the best is one thing. But staying the best? That’s an entirely different challenge. The fact that Serral managed stay at the top of competitive SC2, or at least shared the summit for the next five years, is why he arrived at #2 on this list.

Unrelated aside: the old WCS Circuit trophies were really nice!

Serral began his 2019 campaign by having his reign immediately challenged on multiple fronts, and one of the overarching stories of the year became how the competitive StarCraft II scene tried to ‘fight back’ against such a disruptive force. soO was the first to halt Serral’s momentum, sending him out of IEM Katowice 2019 in the RO8—Serral’s first non-championship finish in nearly a year. The enigmatic INnoVation dealt a follow-up blow shortly after at the WESG main event, looking nothing like the meek Machine from their GSL vs. The World encounter as he took a 4-3 victory in the finals. Serral was knocked down a peg in region-locked competition as well, with the rising prodigy Reynor defeating him to take the WCS Winter: Europe crown. The fighting between Reynor and Serral grew even more fierce as the year went on, and the rivals ultimately ended up splitting WCS Circuit titles two apiece.

In international competitions, Serral hit back during the Summer’s GSL vs. The World 2019, winning the tournament for the second year in a row. However, he looked vulnerable once more at Assembly Summer 2019, where Stats finally got some revenge by knocking Serral out in the semifinals of a tournament played in his home country of Finland.

The big test for Serral and his challengers would come at the year-end 2019 WCS Global Finals. Even though Serral’s aura of invincibility had faded somewhat since 2018, he had still achieved the best overall results of anyone on the year (earning the #1 overall seed) and had remained the most dominant player in terms of in-game performances. TL.net users still picked him as the prohibitive favorite to win, giving him over 50% of the votes in a poll about the eventual champion.

The fans seemed wise indeed during the initial rounds, as Serral blew through his group with a 6-0 map record (this BlizzCon tournament featured BO5 matches in groups), and then swept soO in the quarterfinals to keep his perfect record. However, the bracket draw had put Reynor into the same half as Serral, forcing him to play his most dangerous opponent in the semifinals. The two had traded blows evenly all year, and it was the closest thing to a 50/50 match that Serral could face. Reynor was just slightly better in this particular clash, and he beat Serral 3-2 to deny him a chance at a second consecutive WCS Global Championship.

Serral’s 2020 began with another top four world championship finish, as he fought his way to the IEM Katowice semifinals before bowing out to Zest’s innovative reimagining of Glaive-Adept openers. Back-to-back top four finishes at world championship events would have been a great outcome for almost any other player, but these kinds of results were already starting to feel like a bare minimum for Serral.

Unfortunately, we’ve never seen noted hat aficionado Serral wear this particular item again.

The COVID-19 era of SC2 began immediately after Katowice, forcing the entire non-Korean scene into exclusively online play for a two year period. Other pro players continued to gradually make up ground on Serral during this time, and they limited him to ‘just’ five Liquipedia-premier championships and seven runner-ups during 2020-2021. This was only a downturn compared to the ridiculous eleven Liquipedia-premier tournaments he won in 2018-2019, and there was no doubt that he remained one of the top championship contenders.

However, there was definitely a relative decline in Serral’s standing, and it was not unreasonable for some to believe that he had been surpassed by some of his peers. In particular, Reynor threw a giant hat in the ring to be called the undisputed best player in the world, stringing together a fantastic, five-championship run of tournaments starting in July of 2020 that culminated in his 2021 IEM World Championship. Also, 2020 saw the young French Terran Clem follow in the steps of Serral and Reynor and realize his potential, and become the first player in years to have a clear one-on-one advantage against Serral. The Clem-Reynor duo kept Serral in check in Europe for most of the pandemic era, preventing him from winning a title in five out of the six WCS Europe tournaments held during that time.

The rest of the foreign players also improved in general, as evidenced by how both ShoWTimE and Lambo dealt Serral BO5 losses in major tournaments of the period. Also, players who had performance issues in offline settings were able to play at 100% of their abilities in online events, and we saw players like ByuN, Cure, and Trap all get the better of Serral in tournament playoffs. The nadir for Serral came in the first half of 2021, where he went on his worst tournament stretch since 2017 with a RO12 finish in IEM Katowice (2-3 vs Clem), RO6 in DH Europe Summer (2-3 vs Lambo), RO8 at NeXT Season 1 (1-3 vs Trap), and RO6 in TeamLiquid Starleague 7 (1-4 vs Cure).

However, this mild ‘slump’ would not last for long, and Serral began his ramp-up toward his second world championship starting in the second half of 2021. He won three championships in a short period (DHM Fall, DHM Europe Winter, and NeXT Season 2), and took a trio of runner-up finishes on top of that. While Serral’s final tournament before the 2022 IEM World Championship—DHM Last Chance—ended inauspiciously with a group stage exit, he made that setback look completely irrelevant in Katowice.

IEM Katowice 2022 heralded the return to offline play, and fittingly, the offline tournament king of 2018-2019 won the very first tournament where pro-StarCraft II was back in its ‘natural’ setting. Serral advanced from his RO24 group with a flawless 10-0 record in games, and he continued to run rampant in the playoffs by knocking out Maru 3-1 in the RO8. Rogue seemed like he would be a very dangerous RO4 opponent on paper, as Serral had shown considerable vulnerability in ZvZ during online play—including back-to-back BO7 defeats against Rogue himself in TeamLiquid Starleague 8. However, he had absolutely no problems with Rogue in this offline rematch, taking him out 3-0 in a callback performance from BlizzCon 2018.

That brought Serral face to face with perennial rival Reynor in the finals, with the two Zergs having been nearly dead even against each other during the pandemic era. In a finals worthy of two of the greatest players of the period, the Zerg duo battled all the way to a climactic game seven where Serral prevailed in a late-game brawl to achieve the BlizzCon-IEM World Championship double.

It would probably have been more accurate to give Serral a human skull, but one can imagine the problems with trying to get that through customs.

While Serral had won the IEM World Championship, the resumption of offline play didn’t mean a return to total domination—at least not immediately. The remainder of 2022 saw Serral be the top dog in a scene with ever-increasing depth, with his peers building on their gains from the pandemic. Serral added on two more championships at HomeStory Cup 21 and TSL9, but also found himself getting booted from other tournaments at the unlikely hands of Zoun, Bunny, and HeroMarine. Indeed, the next world championship at IEM Katowice 2023 served as perhaps the greatest demonstration of growing parity in SC2, as the ESL Pro Tour’s #21 ranked player Oliveira went on the underdog run of a lifetime to clinch the championship. As for Serral, he was swept aside by the other upstart performer of the tournament, losing 2-3 to RagnaroK (aka SHIN) in the RO8.

This years-long trend of the rest of the pro scene gaining ground on Serral made his return to hyper-dominance during the 2023/24 EPT season that much more unexpected and impressive. From May of 2023 to February of 2024, Serral won an incredible six out of eight Liquipedia-premier tournaments he participated in, with the final championship in that sequence coming at IEM Katowice 2024. While the tournament technically had its “world championship” moniker removed, it was still world championship caliber in everything but name when considering the strength of roster and prize money involved. In what was arguably the most competitive environment Serral had played in, he achieved one of his best ever tournament results, going 8-0 in matches and 17-1 in maps on his way to a third world championship.

Unlike the previous players on this list, Serral’s story is still ongoing. While much hinges on the future of StarCraft II, if Serral continues to play at this level, then #1 could very well be within his grasp.

Why, yes, this is just a dump of funny photos from HomeStory Cup.

The Tools: The Perfect Reactionary Zerg

Though their peaks were separated by nearly a decade, 2018 Serral was the true successor to 2011 NesTea’s legacy as an invincible, read-and-react Zerg. He was also reminiscent of 2014 Rain, whose defense-first, macro playstyle did not suffer one bit from its predictability.

All three players focused on gathering as much scouting information as possible and responding to their opponents’ actions with ruthless efficiency. Serral also had the benefit of having incredible defensive reaction speed and micro on the rare occasions when he didn’t get a handle on what his opponents were doing, making him an incredibly difficult opponent to ever catch off guard. Combined with his exceptional creep spread, it simply never felt like Serral had to take a fight at a disadvantage.

Like Rain did from 2012 to 2015, Serral gradually evolved from being a one-dimensional defensive rock to an extraordinary all-around player. He added deadly all-ins to his arsenal without making any kind of tradeoff in terms of his macro game, and came to resemble many of the all-time greats in both BW and SC2 in terms of how he can use the threat of either macro play or an all-in to set up the other.

All this combines to produce the closest thing to a perfect player as we’ve ever seen. Leave Serral alone, and he’ll snowball his economy out of control. Attack Serral, and he’ll execute a perfect defense and snowball the game out of control even more quickly. Try to play a turtle game, and he’ll still find a way to lockpick your defense and get Banelings into your mineral lines. And as you’re tying yourself into knots trying to solve this dilemma, he’ll surprise you with a Roach-timing to take a quick victory.

The Numbers: The Greatest Statistical Player of All Time

Online events are noted in italics.
a: GSL tournaments that required in-person qualification (Code S and Super Tournament) and fully region-locked WCS/EPT/DreamHack tournaments were excluded.
b. Used due its acceptance as a common standard in the community, while understanding that LP “Premier” encompasses a very broad range of tournaments in terms of prize money, size, format, and strength of field.

This article series has centered on Korean Individual Leagues as the key metric of greatness, and naturally, Serral’s complete non-participation in such events makes comparing him to the other nine players rather complicated.

One of the main things we can look at is results in tournaments that players from every region had a similar opportunity to compete in. There are a few caveats to go over here: Code S players may not have focused as hard on these events because of Code S (which was more lucrative than the average Liquipedia-premier event until 2023), top Koreans such as Maru and Rogue were more likely to decline the smaller of these events, and European players generally had easier qualification paths given the format of these tournaments.

But, even taking all of that into consideration, Serral is still far and away the most successful player among his peers in these global competitions. If we begin at the very high end with only world championship-caliber events, Serral is tied with Rogue and sOs at three wins. Serral also won seven tournaments that could be considered to be just one tier down, which featured a $10k+ first place prize and had a large number of top players in participation: GSL vs. World 2018 and 2019, four EPT/DreamHack Season Finals (two during the pandemic), and TSL9. Of course, the list of titles balloons out of control when you include the remaining Liquipedia-premier tournaments such as HomeStory Cup and various non-pandemic online events, though these results have to be considered on a case by case basis (within HomeStory Cup alone, the strength of field varies hugely from tournament to tournament). In total, Serral won sixteen of the non-region-locked premier tournaments taken into consideration, which is far higher than TaeJa’s mark of eleven or Maru’s seven. Also, outside of his tournament wins, Serral finished on the podium at an extremely high rate.

[Note: With regards to online events, I consider them differently depending on whether or not they were held during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a normal setting, it would be correct to place more weight on offline events, as we can clearly see how the pressure of playing offline affects certain players. However, the pandemic era was a special exception where the options were to play online or don’t play at all—even the world championship was played online for a year. Because these were the highest stakes tournaments players could play in at the time, these tournaments should be given equal consideration as similar size offline tournaments held during a normal period.]

a: Ties from WTL excluded.
b: May include best-of-one series from Nation Wars, World Team League, or other non-standard format tournaments.

While Serral’s trophy case might be inflated due to his victories in region-locked events, his head-to-head record against top players shows there’s nothing exaggerated about how dominant he was in his prime. Serral has a winning record against almost single one of his contemporaries that could be considered a ‘top’ player, and often the relationship is extremely lop-sided.

The numbers also bear out two-thirds of the curious rock-paper-scissors relationship that many fans have observed, where Serral counters the top Korean players, Reynor and Clem ‘counter’ Serral (as much as anyone can), and the Korean players fare well against Reynor and Clem in turn. Reynor and Clem both had periods where they were actually even or even winning against Serral, but Serral brought the head-to-head records back in his favor over time.

a: While this chart can’t account for the fluctuation of overall competitiveness in the pro SC2 scene, removing non-Korean players helps stabilize it somewhat.
b: May include best-of-one series from Proleague, GSTL, Nation Wars, World Team League, and other non-standard format tournaments.

When it comes to best runs in terms of win-rate, Serral put up some of the wildest stats in StarCraft II history. Serral’s entire run from 2018 to the present compares favorably to a best hits compilation from the other players on the GOAT list (with a guest appearance from Stats). Granted, the strength of the overall SC2 field has fluctuated over time, and a 70% win-rate in 2014 might mean something entirely different from the same number in 2024. But even with that in mind, it’s hard not to be blown away by Serral’s raw numbers.

The Placement

In the previous article in this series, it was mentioned that Rogue has one of the best career resumes of all time with three world championship-tier wins and four Code S titles. When comparing that to Serral’s own three world championships (again, I count IEM Katowice 2024 regardless of its official title) and potpourri of Liquipedia-premier titles, I can see how fans could land on either side of the argument.

Code S versus “weekenders” is an apples to fruit salad comparison, as international events come in every shape, size, and flavor. But even after accounting for the fact that a number of Serral’s trophies came from events that were fully region-locked, had weak player fields, or had some other point going against them, he still had enough high-quality championships left over for me to consider his tournament record to be superior to Rogue’s.

But let’s say their resumes are at a similar level for a second, or that the difference is marginal. Even then, I’d have to give Serral the decisive win in the tiebreaker due to him being indisputably the more consistently dominant player. He possesses a winning head-to-head record against all the best players of his time, and often the numbers are embarrassingly lopsided in his favor. In terms of just overall win-loss records and win-rates, Serral might be the best player ever, and it’s no surprise that many of his peers consider him the GOAT.

Both Rogue and Serral’s careers were astonishing and worthy of serious discussion in the GOAT conversation, and perhaps Rogue could be just as good as Serral for short periods when he had a $100,000+ jackpot in his sights. However, Serral was seemingly at his peak in every single moment, whereas Rogue could be notoriously inconsistent. In the end, Serral’s steady dominance and massive trophy haul give him the #2 place on this list.

The Games

Serral vs Maru: 2018 GSL vs the World – Team Competition (August 5, 2018)

[Click to watch VOD] (01:09:43)

All every StarCraft II fan wanted in 2018 was a Grand Finals between Serral and Maru. Both had dominated their respective regions, with Serral taking down every WCS Event while Maru won every season of Code S held that year. And, while we never got an offline final between the two, they did play at GSL vs The World as part of the team competition.

Even though everyone knew that this was essentially a showmatch, there was something undeniably terrifying about how easily Serral destroyed Maru. Both players decided to play straight-up macro, and Serral proceeded to pick Maru apart. In hindsight, this match was probably more revealing of these two players’ true levels than the Korean elitists on the TL.net forums would like to admit, and it serves as a great representation of Serral’s TvZ during his 2018 rampage.

Serral vs Stats: 2018 WCS Global Finals – Grand Finals, Game 6 (November 3, 2018)

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Stats was the only non-Zerg player that gave Serral even a modicum of trouble during his coronation run in 2018, and it was fitting that they faced off in the finals at the WCS Global Finals. Ahead 3-2, Serral closed out the series in a late game masterclass against the best late-game Protoss in the world. Stats was able to summon a mighty force featuring Tempests, Carriers, Archons, Immortals and High Templars, but Serral’s positioning and army control was sensational as he steadily whittled Stats down to the bone. Say what you will about ZvP balance at the time—Serral was one of the few players who could make a match-up look this hopeless.

Serral vs Reynor: 2022 IEM World Championship, Game 7 (February 27, 2022)

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Zerg vs Zerg is the closest thing Serral has had to a weakness since 2018, which is largely due to the early/mid-game where he can be caught off guard by aggressive moves. When it comes to late-game ZvZ, however, Serral has looked just as dominant as in the other match-ups.

One of the best demonstrations came in the 2022 IEM World Championship finals, where Serral faced off against his friend and rival Reynor in their most high stakes clash ever. Game seven on Curious Minds ended up going long, and the two Zergs completely flipped the ignominious reputation of the match-up by playing a deep, positional chess match that could rival any TvT. In the end, Serral’s constant mindfulness of his win conditions, combined with his superior spellcaster micro, gave him the victory in one of the most thrilling ZvZ games ever played.

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• Source: https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/622558-2-serral-greatest-players-of-all-time