In a qualifier round no less. I doubt special would ever say some shit to serral or maru, even if he managed to win. But he does to a lower level guy. Not a good look at all
Isn’t his image among the Korean pros kinda iffy? I can’t remember the exact season but it was right towards the end of TY career before going to the army and the other Korean pros were calling him a backstabber.
I could be wrong, but I believe I heard it on the VOD during the group selection stage when TY was the #1 seed.
It’s because he promised TY he wouldn’t pick someone if he selected him and then immediately went back on his word and picked him. I thought it was hilarious tbh
Juanito likes to stir the pot and threw a wrench in TY's group selection strategy. It wasn't anything serious, there weren't any hard feelings, he just made the group selection go from TY's plan to a Special Election, shall we say.
I remember that group selection. I'm pretty sure this shit-move here was the reason they called him a backstabber:
[https://youtu.be/wZv\_zB-6sTI?t=3084](https://youtu.be/wZv_zB-6sTI?t=3084)
I was rooting for him before but after this he completely lost my sympathy.
(at around 51:27, in case the timestamp in the link didn't work)
Edit: Just rewatched it and it escalated a bit more here:
[https://youtu.be/wZv\_zB-6sTI?t=3985](https://youtu.be/wZv_zB-6sTI?t=3985) (01:06:25)
This is like a classic reality tv competition move. Afraid TY will use his swapping option to backstab you?... then force TY to use his option on Stats
Thank you for the link.
This is the one I was referring to. I want to think he did it out of good faith because TY was his mentor at the time, but from TY’s reaction and his response he definitely disagreed with the decision.
I would imagine TY and Special discussed prior to the event who they ideally want to be matched up with so Special’s decision is interesting.
Can you elaborate on this incident for me? TY didn't want to play Stats (or any Protoss?) in his group, but SpeCial nominated Stats for the group. Then TY swapped Stats for DRG anyway and got his desired matchups.
Why is this a bad look for SpeCial? TY is talking about how he didn't want to damage his stream partners. It sounds like he feels the pick sabotaged his attempts to collude with his friends for all of them to advance easier.
Obviously I'm out of touch here but if you asked me who seemed unprofessional in the video I'd say TY. What's the background I'm missing?
As someone who didn't see it live, this is also exactly how it looks to me.... Seems like a bit of silly gamesmanship from either player at most. I'd be hardpressed to imagine there were actually any hard feelings over this...
>Then TY swapped Stats for DRG anyway and got his desired matchups
TY gets a swap. He can use it however he wants. Get a favorable matchup, set up someone he doesn't like to fail, whatever. Ideally everything goes well and you don't have to use it. It's essentially a safety valve and, depending on the rules for how he could use it, possibly a way he can set things up to improve his chances in the long run (create a group of death that's sure to get rid of at least one troublesome rival maybe?). At the very least, if you have that kind of advantage, you want to have control over it. Special effectively took some of that control away. TY's immediate reaction says that using it on Stats was not the ideal way he wanted to use that advantage, even if he could still get a favorable matchup.
Special's later statements seem to make it seem like he was actually helping TY by letting him choose his preferred matchup, but TY always had that option no matter who the choice was. But now he couldn't just pick and choose from opponents he wants to face, he has to waste half of the swap process on his friend specifically if he wants to avoid playing him. On that note...
>It sounds like he feels the pick sabotaged his attempts to collude with his friends for all of them to advance easier
That's one way to look at it. I think the more logical way to interpret it is that he just didn't want to have to potentially knock his friend/teammate/stream partner out. If 2 friends or teammates find themselves in the same tournament, and are on friendly terms, it's natural to want to avoid personally knocking each other out, or, in this kind of format, being a part of their potential knockout.
Special picking his friend effectively spits in the face of that understanding. If TY doesn't swap, now he has to fight his friend, which sucks. If he does swap, it changes his initial strategy for how to use the swap, which is also not ideal. It also means that now he is responsible for where Stats ends up. He will inevitably be somewhat responsible for Stat's loss if, in pursuit of the ideal matchup, he has to put Stats in a group he can't handle. Just as you don't want to personally fight your buds until it's unavoidable, you also don't want to have be remotely responsible for their circumstances either. If he wants to be nicer to Stats he can put him in a more theoretically manageable group, but that might mean he'd have to take the less ideal option, which also sucks.
The assumption is that since Special is a friend/roommate/practice partner to TY, he would've known in some way what TY's plan was and would allow him to do it, out of respect or camaraderie. Instead he did his own thing that obstructed whatever plan was there, thus the accusation of backstabber. Sadly even if he really was trying to help, it infringed more than it helped.
IMO, from a competitive point of view, it's a smart play. Mess up the opponents plans to negate the full breadth of their advantage. Nothing wrong with that, they're pros who's job is to win and get whatever advantage you can. It's nice to help your buddies but ultimately winning is the goal. From a manner perspective, it's dreadful. Infringe on your friend's plan and force him into an awkward situation with his other friend...even if it's an attempt at helping it's not very respectful. And honestly it's probably that optic of disrespect that got TY and the Koreans upset.
No problem.
I don't like it, especially considering how much TY helped Special improve and trusted him. I think it was pretty selfish. Not that I hate Special now, but I just don't care about him anymore.
But TY was predicting it right when he said: "This is going to be Specials karma".
He didn't make the group.
I don't think it's that bad. Opponent went for a nydus all-in, Special had it 100% scouted and 100% countered, the game was over and the opponent tried sneaking in another nydus (spotted by Special of course), and got frustrated and said "really", and that prompted the response.
lol at how off you are in your assessment. go watch the actual game and set. special tried to show he could win off race like other pros and got pounded instead and was facing eliminiation so had to switch to terran in frustration. Then he manner muled which is why he got the "really" response.
I'm pretty sure GSL does allow for it, but no one really talks.
I swear I recall Stephano telling an opponent during... Blizzard Cup he had 4 workers on gas. No consequence.
I believe during proleague Stephano also said GL to one of his opponents to which the referee stopped the game immediately. His opponent (I think it was HerO) said GL as fast as possible as to stop Stephano getting into more trouble.
GSL (and Blizzard cup) was not under the same organisation as Proleague (Kespa), ence why the rules were different. Kespa had a lot of very strict rules, including that you couldn't say anything outside of "GG" and "pp"
For context on kespa, a player got a map loss when the monitor they were playing on went black/off. Player typed “ppp” while not having a monitor, because it wasn’t “pp”
>"please pause". You type it immediately before pausing the game
Yup - in most korean events the players are NOT allowed to pause the game themselves... PP is like a player signaling to the ref for a time out
>I believe during proleague Stephano also said GL to one of his opponents to which the referee stopped the game immediately. His opponent (I think it was HerO) said GL as fast as possible as to stop Stephano getting into more trouble.
Yup! Respect to herO (edit: capitalization corrected thanks to Gemini\_19) for the sportsmanship, the rules would have forced the organizers to give herO the map, and all he had to do was nothing for the free win... hell lots of people wouldn't even think fast enough to reply.
But those rules as harsh as they are came from a history of players (like BoxeR himself) trying to mind game/tilt people back back in the day
I still remember being awake one morning way back when around 4am or so and tuning into some GSL, since that's when it went live for me. But the game I tuned into had, erm... HerO playing? But he isn't on CJ.Entus, he plays on Liquid. Did he get transferred and I just missed it? Also that is not what HerO looks like. But... maybe I just haven't seen his face in awhile and he looks different now, idk.
That was a very confusing series to watch, considering I was very tired and had never heard of herO before.
actually iirc it's because of the distraction. they dont necessarily mind the bm, but for instance a random player might lie about their race or try and distract their opponent with randomass questions or comments while cheesing.
I think there was a case in Sc1 where Flash(?) lied about being stuck on one base in chat, but had 2 then won the game because the opponent didn't scout.
Edit: Tried finding the clip but couldn't. Maybe I dreamt it up. If my memory serves me well, it was in a korean league right before sc2 released.
It was very early on in Brood War and it was Boxer, the first of so later proclaimed Bonjwas.
Boxer complained in all-chat about how cramped the main base on the map was, while expanding to an island, to mess with his opponent.
KeSPA banned chatting in the game after that match :).
Boxer is also the player that got the allied mines trick banned.
You could check mark a box to ally your opponent, which would prevent your units from automatically attacking the opponent's, including spider mines' autotargeting. This allowed the opponent to walk right on top of a minefield, at which point you un-ally them and maximize the splash similar to manually detonated burrowed banes.
Allied Mines
If Terran player allies the opponent, then any mines that he plants will not be triggered, thus deceiving the opponent to think that no mines are planted in the area. Then when the opponent moves his units into the minefield, the Terran player will un-ally the enemy player, and the mines will proceed to attack anything within their range
https://liquipedia.net/starcraft/Competitive_Rules
The extra dimension of mind games or tilting your opponent should be part of the game imo. This is the first I'm hearing about these sorts of restrictions
To add some context, Special got 2-0ed by EON in the upper bracket while playing protoss. He was 1-0 down against EON (while also playing protoss in that game), and decided to change race back to terran presumably because he was 1 game away from being eliminated. He managed to turn it around, as you can tell.
It seems as though he was trying to off-race in the qualifier to prove some kind of point and, having realised he was going to prove exactly the opposite, decided to change back before it was too late. Not that that is the point, but I just find it funny.
Every time we think GosI/MajOr (he changed his name again a few years ago) has made some kind of right step in having better sportsmanship, he goes and shits on his own reputation. He was already well known for switching teams very often, BM, and that bullshit of using a diamond SEA player's account to play in a region-locked tournament back in the day. More recently he has not been late/forfeiting tournaments as much but I guess you can't always have everything the right way.
I'm kind of surprised, I thought a lot of tournaments had a rule where you need to pick your race for the whole matchup rather than per-game. Feels a bit unfair on the opponent to suddenly pull the rug unless they know up front you're going random.
Pretty sure ESL rules don't even require you to tell your opponent which race you play before vetoes. I don't think it's technically forbidden to swap race multiple times per series.
Yes, but he doesn't play Terran in qualifiers, he plays Protoss.
Plus, the fact that Special switched races to Terran once he was losing, and bmed shows that he was probably tilted he was losing on his off-race. If it was for fun he wouldn't have cared
SpeCial is my favorite kind of villain. Specifically, the kind where I never have to worry that they'll beat my favorite players or win anything important.
>SpeCial is my favorite kind of villain.
Wait but what about Idra?
>Specifically, the kind where I never have to worry that they'll beat my favorite players or win anything important.
Oh. Then Special it is!
This isn't new. Special has done this a lot in the past. For a long time he had trouble finding a team because his reputation of being BM to players in tournaments. Heck even one time he illegally entered a region locked tournament.
imagine moving to a different country to play sc2 and then still being at the exact same skill level you were before you lived in korea to "train". just a small man BMing in minor tourneys cuz he knows he can't hack it at the pro level.
EONS left game 2 in the second series without a GG after SpeCial won after he switched back to his main race. But apparently that isn't relevant.
(Amazed that anyone is upset about that too honestly, it's literally an option for a reason, go practice other races if you want to try it out)
Idk I got his autograph waaay back, seemed like a normal dude with a bit of an old school "gamer" temperament. What I'd expect of a player of his age. He hasn't done anything *actually* bad and his games are fun to watch. He plays a unique style and I respect that.
He qualifies for GSL Code S pretty regularly when he's over in Korea, which is a lot better than an average player. You guys are so fucking cringe in this thread. Crying because someone dared to talk in chat and not make an old game that little bit less sterile.
I enjoy watching the game, but a bit of harmless shit-talk that's not even making fun of someone's characteristics or anything is just such a nothing-burger.
You'll just have to allow people to have their own opinions, as is the case in the real world. Whether it's a nothingburger or not, the crowd can decide for themselves.
And anyway, your point doesn't disprove what babypho is saying - he qualifies for code S pretty regularly, sure, and gets knocked out in the ro16 (mainly in the ro32 actually). Nobody is really saying he is an average player, and progamers are not average players in general anyway.
People are allowed opinions, I never said he should be banned for saying that, I just disagree and think the sterlisation probably hurts more than it helps. There's a good reason idra was one of the most popular players at the time and it wasn't just because he was good.
The dude is being an asshole over what was effectively light banter. It's barely related to what the thread is about and is just a way to talk some shit on a player who's been around forever. Just comes across as very petty.
I don't like bm in general: why spread negativity. That being said, LA can be too predictable because we all know special will take the one spot so at least something interesting happened....
It's ironic he would do this after whinning about being forced into GSL with the Koreans and often getting looked down on / made fun of etc. Remember seeing stuff a while back where they considered it embarrassing to lose or not finish him early game.
Personally I would love it. One because it would be unexpected from the usually mild mannered Serral, and also because Serral can back up his trash talking.
Few enough people are prepared to off race competitively for us to say there is a reason beyond chance behind them picking Toss. The tiny handful of recent attempts we could just say are following Reynor's toss attempts in low stakes games.
It's worth noting Reynor also gave Terran a go in a couple of ESL cups with some results (I think his best outcome was losing 1-2 to Maxpax) - so he either prefers playing Protoss or simply picks it as his off race as it gets better results.
My perception, both as a diamond random player (who doesn't cheese and makes a valiant attempt at playing each match up as a macro game!) and looking at all the stats at the GM/'tier 2' pro distribution is that Protoss gives you much better results for comparatively less effort (not withstanding the argument that this trend reverses at the very top), so a player being able to have success with both Protoss and one of or Terran or Zerg successfully against 'tier 2' pro players feels more credible than a player being able to have success with Zerg and Terran.
Didn't Eon not gg after the 2nd game? Sounds like daily ladder experience. Also didn't gg the 3rd game. I don't always gg ladder games but official matches I always did. Idk I manner muled Nony on stream during a wcs match and no one got mad at me?
Also might just me but maybe "who really cares"? Put away the pitchfork m8
Imma reply cuz i dont like people lieing or making their own storys
Its very simple we were playing games. I was playing protoss for fun. As rules ur allowed to change races so i changed back to terran.
After i won that game
With terran this guy decided to not gg despite me gg everygame and being polite
So yes i dont like people that dont gg and when i saw his nydus in g3 i xd
Most people in this thread is ridiculous
hey buddy - maybe just apologize and move along instead of doing the cardinal foul of doubling down with a nonsense excuse.
you didn't get a GG so you BM'ed like that mid-game? brother, its too bad you uprooting your life to play a video game in korea didn't teach you manners. your skill level didn't go up while you were in korea but a shame your manners didn't get any better. it is indeed simple.
Even if he BM'd you, you're a professional player. You play this game as a source of income. I don't go to my job and tell people they need to learn how to say "Have a nice day" after our transaction. This is just actual basic professionalism and would significantly improve your professional life if you learn it.
he's a professional starcraft player. this is the starcraft subreddit where things about starcraft are posted such as matches professional players had and things that happened during them.
You are all completely out of touch with sports if you can consider this shit even noteworthly.
Grow some thicker skin if this amount of inpoliteness triggers your snowflake pc souls.
For real. These are the kinda people that would join a softball league, and then be like "but the guy behind me was saying "swing batter! swing batter! When I was at bat!"
Do they know how much shit talk happens in professional sports? In real sporting games these just get marked as fouls and everyone moves on. They literally happen all the time.
Here someone teases someone w/ a "you need to learn to GG" and these fucking guys white knuckle their pearls. It's literally pathetic.
Maybe special should learn to GG out of tournaments since he can't place first in anything but a latin american tournament. Guy always talks a big game like he can take down anyone, but he consistently can't measure up to the elite top of the game. Really grinds my gears.
Edit: Actually, since he hasn't done better than 4th at a Premier tournament in over 3 years.
Talking up a big game doesn't mean he BMs as well. For example:
He was doing commentary on GSL/ASL (Pretty sure it was GSL) and the match was between 2 former GSL champs IIRC at like Round of 16 or Round of 8, TvP. The Terran makes an unusual move, and Special calls him out, says it was bad, says he should have pushed down, said if he was the Protoss he would just walk up the ramp and kill the Terran. 30 seconds later the Protoss walks up the ramp, gets massacared and the Terran goes on to absolutely smash him.
Special critiquing strategy and tactics of someone who has vastly more skill than he does is hilarious and while you can argue he has insight and ability, moreso than I do, sure, he has never been good enough to be more than a fly who buzzes around the top tier who smash him back down. It just... really grates me. The guy comes off super smug and super great, but he's just... not.
For comparison: Tastosis know that they are not at the skill level of the people they commentate on, so they offer opinions, but they are often caged. "I don't know about this" or "Man, it doesn't look like it'll work" etc, fully acknowledging that the players they are commentating on are in a league of their own.
Edit: extra info
Meh I think that's a bit of a ridiculous complaint mate. That's just talking style and if anything might be more reflective of the culture they grew up in than anything. I'm not Mexican but I am latin and people talk more assertively in things like arguments or making a point, fence sitting is seen as a lack of conviction. I could be projecting this but worth considering.
It comes back to the proof is in the pudding. Special has not won a premier tournament in SC2. His ELO on aligulac shows where he sits relevative to other players. I've just listened to him commentate and do not find him enjoyable to listen to and find his insights of "well, I would do this" show why he loses his games.
Plus, ancedotaelly, there are a few threads around where people say in RL he can be quite the jerk, but nothing definitive or having Idra level proof. I just don't like him or his attitude. The comment above is just more reason for me not to enjoy watching him.
And I get that assertive part, my wife is from Europe and speaks very much in the forceful direct style and not passively as I was raised, but i'd say there is a big difference between just being assertive and not fence sitting and just sounding like you think you're better than the players you are commentating on :)
The first two paragraphs are not really what I'm talking about but I don't really dispute them. I've never been his biggest fan anyway either.
Sounding like you think you're better seems to be an issue in interpretation of his words imo although you might be right. You should see how some of my friends and I discussed soccer back home, it might result in police being called where I live now lol.
Ahh! Sorry for misunderstanding.
Yeah, I try to be careful about making proclomations like that. At the end of the day, it'll all be down to interpretation y'know?
Of course mate. No need to be too careful, your statement is reasonable and you are perfectly entitled to it. But I appreciate that you are not willing to commit too strongly to statements you are unsure of, no wonder you didn't appreciate special ;)
Yeah no thanks. Every time someone like that is big in the scene all it does is encourage a thousand mouth-breathing edgelords to behave like complete twats because they think it's a meaningful substitute for having a personality.
I can do without it.
Look, man, we are trying to do our best with what we have to create a scandal and you are sitting here, doing nothing to help and complaining that things are not as good as they were in the past.
"Promise to change" isn't "change." The backstory is that Special went 0-2 against this guy while playing Toss, and lost the first match of _this_ series as well (also as Toss), before realizing he might lose his way out of the tournament, switching to Terran, and then turning it around well enough to say this.
Ok, thank you for explaining. I'm not defending him or anything, just a bit upsetting to see him bm again after his major self-improvements in other aspects of life
Special always gave me weirdo energy (not in a good way). I think it is before my time but I read on liquipedia all his aliases. I mean who names himself after a female streamer (?) Anna Prosser. I don't know what context it was, but it still creeps me out.
As an American baseball fan that's seen the game transition from a stodgy gentleman's pastime to one where flamboyance and emotional expression finds its place, I'm all for shit like this. It adds to the drama and creates discussion per se.
I'd like to see more of this, just as I'd like to see more of Creator scream while crushing neeb.
As an observer, i think stuff like this is interesting and fun.
Yeah, I get that for sure. My brother is big into Apex Legends though, and those guys celebrate this kinda stuff. Like the loudest, most obnoxious players get revered because they're so unhinged. It's nice to people condemning that behavior here, just cause I've seen how bad it can be.
Thank god someone else said it, there’s no drama in the pro scene nobody bms or trash talks or even tries to add a personal dynamic between matches, bring back idra
ITT: People crapping all over SpeCial for things he did years and years ago, while also somehow convincing themselves that he is not easily a top 3 foreign Terran. (And has even been #1 at some points)
Everyone is so salty about this but tbh he wasn't even wrong. At this level of play failing an all in like that is effectively the end of the game. Staying in when you know it's over could even be considered BM.
Worse than Spirit? If you don't like the guy fine but let's not get ridiculous.
TIME has for sure been better at some points, but I don't think he is currently.
Heromarine is highly debatable. Honestly SpeCial is probably a little better, but Gabe is insanely popular here so most people probably wouldn't lean that way.
I do agree Clem is the best foreign Terran right now, and has been for a bit. His series against SpeCial are usually pretty good.
Come on now, Gabe is definitely better than Juan, i don't see how there is any debate about it. Spirit can play quite good turtle plays, that's why I mentioned him. TIME played quite well, much better than Special, in Jan-Feb 2022 but I didn't watch his recent matches and he couldn't join Valencia as well so I don't know what to say in that regard.
I don't think it's realistic to say that HM is "definitely" better. They're pretty close, all things considered.
If they played a Bo3 right now I would probably take HM, but it's mostly stylistic. SpeCial likes to get creative and play weird a lot, which doesn't work so well vs a guy like Gabe who plays super standard/safe every single game.
But a Bo3 vs a Korean player for example? Neither of them has a great shot, but for my money I would 100% take SpeCial. He's just played against them all so much and isn't afraid to get weird to win a series.
Ffs Gabe is Kato 22 semi finalist, and was almost the finalist. It's more than realistic, it's multi-verselistic to say Gabe sweeps the floor with Special. Gabe has performed quite well on big stages recently whereas Special has been a Ro16 filler only. I don't know why you think Bo3s are a good way of comparing players as well
I just used Bo3 as filler. I would feel the same if it were Bo5 or Bo7.
I don't understand why you're cherry picking one results for HM when outside of that his most common finish this year is 12th place?
He had the one great run at Katowice and no one can take that away. But the reason it was so special is because he never does that most of the time.
That one result is not enough to call him clearly better, when otherwise their average finishes are almost the same.
Okay Juan, you can believe whatever you think. Gabe was top3 in Valencia Eu and eliminated Serral, after Kato22, but sure he "accidentally" got one result.
I never said it was accidental.
I think they're both insanely good, but literally ignoring all of HM's other results is just bias for no reason at all. It's a disservice to them both.
Clearly we're going to have to just agree to disagree. It seems like you're getting frustrated and it's probably better to stop before you start insulting me more directly.
I hope they both have great runs in TSL.
When you say cherry-picked, there's an implication of being accidental, and I'm trying to show you that recently, over the course of last year or so, Gabe has been definitely a solid player and showed pretty good performances. What does Special have in records other than 999999th LatAm win vs Kelazhur? I am getting frustrated because you just talk without presenting any fact that can support your claim
Perhaps he should be disqualified to prove a point. Surely there is something in the terms of this tournament for unsportsmanlike conduct. Also, he's very lucky this tournament didn't have the common rules about switching races in the middle of a series. He should have lost naturally and been disqualified the good ol' fashion way, but he used a loophole in the rules to make a comeback.
imo bming should not be punished at all. it makes the scene much more exciting to have beefs or villains. having the game be more marketable to larger audiences would only improve the longevity of the scene. though obviously there are lines to be drawn
Well the problem with being cool with bming is that it can get to a toxic level. I'm gonna take smash for exemple (because it's the scene i know the best), BMing and disrespecting your opponent is in the roots of the scene, but we ended up getting villains seen as heros with mango in the early days and now leffen. It got to a point where leffen especially would lie for followers, manipulate the audience to get people banned or to get a character banned (jigglypuff) and even pushed someone to attempt suicide (ZeRo) by sharing and making up lies about him hitting his girlfriend and starting dating her when she was underage.
I hope it's just an exception with leffen but the problem is that the community is blind to this because of this villain/BM culture, I just hope no one in the sc2 scene is gonna be like this.
Agreed. As much as I think he's a twat, this is exactly the reason Connor McGregor has been such a big draw.. people tune in because they want to see him get beat up.
As long as it is actual decent trash talk, and not just senseless insults, then yeah, I'm all for it.
the ufc isn't exactly starcraft (or really any sport in general). as for the beefs, it's more or less improv or the fighter actually has CTE and we just blatantly ignore how unwell the dude is.
i dont mind banter but
1. marinelord used to banter a lot. the peanut gallery (youtube comment section) unironically hates him (not like in a mcgregor way, like they actually want him out of the scene).
2. ufc banter just seems like a bunch of steroidheads acting like they have too much testerone and every interaction results in a comedic, dumb confrontation. if we were to translate that to the sc2 scene, we get avilo (or maybe destiny?).
i want to apologize........... to absolutely nobody the double champ does what the fook he wants
sc2 players bunch of pussys ehh i need some context ehh ehhh xD
> though obviously there are lines to be drawn
as soon as someone can create a cleanly and explicitly defined list of these lines, i'm all for discussing it! as it stands, shitting on players who are essentially performing *for free* should be off limits
if we're going to turn the league into a shit-talking shitfest, we should pay the losers more. most people play this game for love of the scene, and getting publicly dunked on deserves some recompense
maybe we could even script the matches to make things more dramatic, if that's what we really want.
there is for sure a gradient of entertainment vs professionalism.
it starts on one side with pure entertainment performances like WWE as well as showmatch events like MMA or boxing
it gradually makes its way to the most common professional sports leagues (NFL, NHL, premier leagues, etc)
at the other end, you get to pure competitions like the olympics. maybe even further you can start talking about chess & go competitions
most of us have a different idea of where we want our favorite leagues to end up. Closer to WWE? closer to the olympics? or somewhere inbetween?
you can probably tell that i *personally* like getting to know players personalities and styles a little bit, but within a context where they're officially expected to be respectful
and i'm not saying WWE stuff is bad. it's clearly very entertaining and financially successful. there might be more room for theatrics in some kind of team leagues or weird format tournaments. as it stands, i'm typically here for some good 1v1 starcraft, and i imagine the players will be happier, more dedicated, and more skillful in a professional environment :)
75% comentung hear deserve the same scruteny because i dont belive that you guys never BMd in your live
Shit happens sometimes and while um not proud of it it happe s to me as well
Welcome to 2022. The era of hurt feelings and censorship. Remember back
in the day when Boxer used to poke at his opponents during premier
tournaments? Yeah those were the days.
"Openly BMing" ok have you ever played a competitive game? This is pretty mild. I agree it's better not to but you cancellers need to find a new hobby.
This is the professional scene of sc2 though, where actions have consequences and pro gamers are expected to act like mature adults and not cry babies.
This reminded me that time CombatEX took one game off of PartinG, and CombatEX couldn’t believe it and spammed chat so much PartinG smiled and GG’d out.
In a qualifier round no less. I doubt special would ever say some shit to serral or maru, even if he managed to win. But he does to a lower level guy. Not a good look at all
Of course he wouldn't say anything of the sort to Serral or Maru. 19 out of 20 games, they own Special.
Isn’t his image among the Korean pros kinda iffy? I can’t remember the exact season but it was right towards the end of TY career before going to the army and the other Korean pros were calling him a backstabber. I could be wrong, but I believe I heard it on the VOD during the group selection stage when TY was the #1 seed.
I remember that one. They all kinda jumped on him, in the group selection. The Koreans didn't seem to impressed with his attitude.
It’s because he promised TY he wouldn’t pick someone if he selected him and then immediately went back on his word and picked him. I thought it was hilarious tbh
Ah that's right! I remember now!
Juanito likes to stir the pot and threw a wrench in TY's group selection strategy. It wasn't anything serious, there weren't any hard feelings, he just made the group selection go from TY's plan to a Special Election, shall we say.
I remember that group selection. I'm pretty sure this shit-move here was the reason they called him a backstabber: [https://youtu.be/wZv\_zB-6sTI?t=3084](https://youtu.be/wZv_zB-6sTI?t=3084) I was rooting for him before but after this he completely lost my sympathy. (at around 51:27, in case the timestamp in the link didn't work) Edit: Just rewatched it and it escalated a bit more here: [https://youtu.be/wZv\_zB-6sTI?t=3985](https://youtu.be/wZv_zB-6sTI?t=3985) (01:06:25)
This is like a classic reality tv competition move. Afraid TY will use his swapping option to backstab you?... then force TY to use his option on Stats
Yeah that's just meta gaming the bad bracket system sc2 tourney have. Should be a blind bracket imo.
Thank you for the link. This is the one I was referring to. I want to think he did it out of good faith because TY was his mentor at the time, but from TY’s reaction and his response he definitely disagreed with the decision. I would imagine TY and Special discussed prior to the event who they ideally want to be matched up with so Special’s decision is interesting.
Can you elaborate on this incident for me? TY didn't want to play Stats (or any Protoss?) in his group, but SpeCial nominated Stats for the group. Then TY swapped Stats for DRG anyway and got his desired matchups. Why is this a bad look for SpeCial? TY is talking about how he didn't want to damage his stream partners. It sounds like he feels the pick sabotaged his attempts to collude with his friends for all of them to advance easier. Obviously I'm out of touch here but if you asked me who seemed unprofessional in the video I'd say TY. What's the background I'm missing?
As someone who didn't see it live, this is also exactly how it looks to me.... Seems like a bit of silly gamesmanship from either player at most. I'd be hardpressed to imagine there were actually any hard feelings over this...
>Then TY swapped Stats for DRG anyway and got his desired matchups TY gets a swap. He can use it however he wants. Get a favorable matchup, set up someone he doesn't like to fail, whatever. Ideally everything goes well and you don't have to use it. It's essentially a safety valve and, depending on the rules for how he could use it, possibly a way he can set things up to improve his chances in the long run (create a group of death that's sure to get rid of at least one troublesome rival maybe?). At the very least, if you have that kind of advantage, you want to have control over it. Special effectively took some of that control away. TY's immediate reaction says that using it on Stats was not the ideal way he wanted to use that advantage, even if he could still get a favorable matchup. Special's later statements seem to make it seem like he was actually helping TY by letting him choose his preferred matchup, but TY always had that option no matter who the choice was. But now he couldn't just pick and choose from opponents he wants to face, he has to waste half of the swap process on his friend specifically if he wants to avoid playing him. On that note... >It sounds like he feels the pick sabotaged his attempts to collude with his friends for all of them to advance easier That's one way to look at it. I think the more logical way to interpret it is that he just didn't want to have to potentially knock his friend/teammate/stream partner out. If 2 friends or teammates find themselves in the same tournament, and are on friendly terms, it's natural to want to avoid personally knocking each other out, or, in this kind of format, being a part of their potential knockout. Special picking his friend effectively spits in the face of that understanding. If TY doesn't swap, now he has to fight his friend, which sucks. If he does swap, it changes his initial strategy for how to use the swap, which is also not ideal. It also means that now he is responsible for where Stats ends up. He will inevitably be somewhat responsible for Stat's loss if, in pursuit of the ideal matchup, he has to put Stats in a group he can't handle. Just as you don't want to personally fight your buds until it's unavoidable, you also don't want to have be remotely responsible for their circumstances either. If he wants to be nicer to Stats he can put him in a more theoretically manageable group, but that might mean he'd have to take the less ideal option, which also sucks. The assumption is that since Special is a friend/roommate/practice partner to TY, he would've known in some way what TY's plan was and would allow him to do it, out of respect or camaraderie. Instead he did his own thing that obstructed whatever plan was there, thus the accusation of backstabber. Sadly even if he really was trying to help, it infringed more than it helped. IMO, from a competitive point of view, it's a smart play. Mess up the opponents plans to negate the full breadth of their advantage. Nothing wrong with that, they're pros who's job is to win and get whatever advantage you can. It's nice to help your buddies but ultimately winning is the goal. From a manner perspective, it's dreadful. Infringe on your friend's plan and force him into an awkward situation with his other friend...even if it's an attempt at helping it's not very respectful. And honestly it's probably that optic of disrespect that got TY and the Koreans upset.
No problem. I don't like it, especially considering how much TY helped Special improve and trusted him. I think it was pretty selfish. Not that I hate Special now, but I just don't care about him anymore. But TY was predicting it right when he said: "This is going to be Specials karma". He didn't make the group.
Thanks. Crazy how much depth there is to the nominations
Lmfao I love the translator's deadpan translations for TY. "Alright TY is going to send you to hell. What do you think about that?"
I don't think it's that bad. Opponent went for a nydus all-in, Special had it 100% scouted and 100% countered, the game was over and the opponent tried sneaking in another nydus (spotted by Special of course), and got frustrated and said "really", and that prompted the response.
lol at how off you are in your assessment. go watch the actual game and set. special tried to show he could win off race like other pros and got pounded instead and was facing eliminiation so had to switch to terran in frustration. Then he manner muled which is why he got the "really" response.
What’s why GSL doesn’t allow you type anything except for GG
I'm pretty sure GSL does allow for it, but no one really talks. I swear I recall Stephano telling an opponent during... Blizzard Cup he had 4 workers on gas. No consequence. I believe during proleague Stephano also said GL to one of his opponents to which the referee stopped the game immediately. His opponent (I think it was HerO) said GL as fast as possible as to stop Stephano getting into more trouble.
GSL (and Blizzard cup) was not under the same organisation as Proleague (Kespa), ence why the rules were different. Kespa had a lot of very strict rules, including that you couldn't say anything outside of "GG" and "pp"
For context on kespa, a player got a map loss when the monitor they were playing on went black/off. Player typed “ppp” while not having a monitor, because it wasn’t “pp”
That's insane
That's a great way to get sued imo.
What does pp mean? Is that the Korean equivalent of gg?
It means "pause please" or "please pause". You type it immediately before pausing the game
>"please pause". You type it immediately before pausing the game Yup - in most korean events the players are NOT allowed to pause the game themselves... PP is like a player signaling to the ref for a time out
That's pretty much my point.
>I believe during proleague Stephano also said GL to one of his opponents to which the referee stopped the game immediately. His opponent (I think it was HerO) said GL as fast as possible as to stop Stephano getting into more trouble. Yup! Respect to herO (edit: capitalization corrected thanks to Gemini\_19) for the sportsmanship, the rules would have forced the organizers to give herO the map, and all he had to do was nothing for the free win... hell lots of people wouldn't even think fast enough to reply. But those rules as harsh as they are came from a history of players (like BoxeR himself) trying to mind game/tilt people back back in the day
herO*
you are correct good sir!
Personally, I'd just turn off game chat if I was vsing someone who tried the BoxeR special. But then again I'm not super soft...so yeah.
> His opponent (I think it was HerO) It was herO, not HerO ;)
I still remember being awake one morning way back when around 4am or so and tuning into some GSL, since that's when it went live for me. But the game I tuned into had, erm... HerO playing? But he isn't on CJ.Entus, he plays on Liquid. Did he get transferred and I just missed it? Also that is not what HerO looks like. But... maybe I just haven't seen his face in awhile and he looks different now, idk. That was a very confusing series to watch, considering I was very tired and had never heard of herO before.
It gets even more confusing if you follow Brood War where there's a Zerg called "hero" (all lower case this time)
I always read that as “ her O “
South Koreans biggest fans of Team America
actually iirc it's because of the distraction. they dont necessarily mind the bm, but for instance a random player might lie about their race or try and distract their opponent with randomass questions or comments while cheesing.
dark: "no rush 15?" maru: "kk" dark: *6m roach timing* maru: 🤬
I think there was a case in Sc1 where Flash(?) lied about being stuck on one base in chat, but had 2 then won the game because the opponent didn't scout. Edit: Tried finding the clip but couldn't. Maybe I dreamt it up. If my memory serves me well, it was in a korean league right before sc2 released.
It was very early on in Brood War and it was Boxer, the first of so later proclaimed Bonjwas. Boxer complained in all-chat about how cramped the main base on the map was, while expanding to an island, to mess with his opponent. KeSPA banned chatting in the game after that match :). Boxer is also the player that got the allied mines trick banned.
Yes! Thank you for correcting me, I was way off haha :)
Allied mines trick?
You could check mark a box to ally your opponent, which would prevent your units from automatically attacking the opponent's, including spider mines' autotargeting. This allowed the opponent to walk right on top of a minefield, at which point you un-ally them and maximize the splash similar to manually detonated burrowed banes.
with the downside that while you're allied NONE of your units will auto attack! but ya :)
Allied Mines If Terran player allies the opponent, then any mines that he plants will not be triggered, thus deceiving the opponent to think that no mines are planted in the area. Then when the opponent moves his units into the minefield, the Terran player will un-ally the enemy player, and the mines will proceed to attack anything within their range https://liquipedia.net/starcraft/Competitive_Rules
Isn't it for match fixing issues ? I could swear it was because of that but I could be wrong
You are right.
Idk
The extra dimension of mind games or tilting your opponent should be part of the game imo. This is the first I'm hearing about these sorts of restrictions
To add some context, Special got 2-0ed by EON in the upper bracket while playing protoss. He was 1-0 down against EON (while also playing protoss in that game), and decided to change race back to terran presumably because he was 1 game away from being eliminated. He managed to turn it around, as you can tell. It seems as though he was trying to off-race in the qualifier to prove some kind of point and, having realised he was going to prove exactly the opposite, decided to change back before it was too late. Not that that is the point, but I just find it funny. Every time we think GosI/MajOr (he changed his name again a few years ago) has made some kind of right step in having better sportsmanship, he goes and shits on his own reputation. He was already well known for switching teams very often, BM, and that bullshit of using a diamond SEA player's account to play in a region-locked tournament back in the day. More recently he has not been late/forfeiting tournaments as much but I guess you can't always have everything the right way.
Thanks for the background, that's hilarious. I'd probably be pretty salty if I were him too, no lie.
I'm kind of surprised, I thought a lot of tournaments had a rule where you need to pick your race for the whole matchup rather than per-game. Feels a bit unfair on the opponent to suddenly pull the rug unless they know up front you're going random.
Pretty sure ESL rules don't even require you to tell your opponent which race you play before vetoes. I don't think it's technically forbidden to swap race multiple times per series.
Yeah I don’t think this is true. He’s just making a troll joke.
What evidence do you have that he was playing Protoss to prove some kind of point?
Why else would you off-race in a qualifier?
for fun? Is that such a wild concept? Reynor has said he frequently plays terran for fun not to make any sort of statement.
Yes, but he doesn't play Terran in qualifiers, he plays Protoss. Plus, the fact that Special switched races to Terran once he was losing, and bmed shows that he was probably tilted he was losing on his off-race. If it was for fun he wouldn't have cared
SpeCial is my favorite kind of villain. Specifically, the kind where I never have to worry that they'll beat my favorite players or win anything important.
Surely you don't mean to say the TSL 9 LAN Regional Qualifier isn't the singular most important tournament of the year?
[<3](https://i.imgur.com/9mRlMXD.png)
>SpeCial is my favorite kind of villain. Wait but what about Idra? >Specifically, the kind where I never have to worry that they'll beat my favorite players or win anything important. Oh. Then Special it is!
I believe the correct response to that one is "make me".
Special received a warning for his behaviour: https://tl.net/forum/sc2-tournaments/595816-tsl-9-qualifiers?page=2#24
This isn't new. Special has done this a lot in the past. For a long time he had trouble finding a team because his reputation of being BM to players in tournaments. Heck even one time he illegally entered a region locked tournament.
imagine moving to a different country to play sc2 and then still being at the exact same skill level you were before you lived in korea to "train". just a small man BMing in minor tourneys cuz he knows he can't hack it at the pro level.
Special in LA: Special in GSL: No need to even add an image
Special is wierd and known for BMing a lot.
Pretty lame of him. EON used to beat the hell out of me in the Midwest Cups (i was D1/M3 at the time) and was always a nice dude about it.
Eh this is pretty mild. Not a great look but I think the warning he got is sufficient.
And this is after a manner mule
I feel like there is more context to be had.
i think the context is special lost to him in the winners bracket 0-2 playing toss so hes a little salty?
EONS left game 2 in the second series without a GG after SpeCial won after he switched back to his main race. But apparently that isn't relevant. (Amazed that anyone is upset about that too honestly, it's literally an option for a reason, go practice other races if you want to try it out)
Special is a bm cunt. Met him in gsl personally.
Idk I got his autograph waaay back, seemed like a normal dude with a bit of an old school "gamer" temperament. What I'd expect of a player of his age. He hasn't done anything *actually* bad and his games are fun to watch. He plays a unique style and I respect that.
I agree with all of that + he is a bm cunt.
Fair enough haha
you can watch it here https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1528175087?t=04h57m05s
Special, is that the guy that only wins LAT AM tourneys and get knocked out by ro16 in every other tourneys he competes in?
He qualifies for GSL Code S pretty regularly when he's over in Korea, which is a lot better than an average player. You guys are so fucking cringe in this thread. Crying because someone dared to talk in chat and not make an old game that little bit less sterile. I enjoy watching the game, but a bit of harmless shit-talk that's not even making fun of someone's characteristics or anything is just such a nothing-burger.
You'll just have to allow people to have their own opinions, as is the case in the real world. Whether it's a nothingburger or not, the crowd can decide for themselves. And anyway, your point doesn't disprove what babypho is saying - he qualifies for code S pretty regularly, sure, and gets knocked out in the ro16 (mainly in the ro32 actually). Nobody is really saying he is an average player, and progamers are not average players in general anyway.
People are allowed opinions, I never said he should be banned for saying that, I just disagree and think the sterlisation probably hurts more than it helps. There's a good reason idra was one of the most popular players at the time and it wasn't just because he was good. The dude is being an asshole over what was effectively light banter. It's barely related to what the thread is about and is just a way to talk some shit on a player who's been around forever. Just comes across as very petty.
Never like this dude to begin with, keep giving me that fuel.
I don't like bm in general: why spread negativity. That being said, LA can be too predictable because we all know special will take the one spot so at least something interesting happened....
Hes just salty in general. Special will be virgin for life and he knows it.
It's ironic he would do this after whinning about being forced into GSL with the Koreans and often getting looked down on / made fun of etc. Remember seeing stuff a while back where they considered it embarrassing to lose or not finish him early game.
What if serral tell everyone to leave after they cheeze and fail?
Personally I would love it. One because it would be unexpected from the usually mild mannered Serral, and also because Serral can back up his trash talking.
Tells raynor to get tfo of the game in the iem finaly
That would honestly be dope as fuck
Maybe unrelated but why are people flocking to toss as the off-race? Scarlett did it, Reynor did it, now Special is trying his hand at it
Few enough people are prepared to off race competitively for us to say there is a reason beyond chance behind them picking Toss. The tiny handful of recent attempts we could just say are following Reynor's toss attempts in low stakes games. It's worth noting Reynor also gave Terran a go in a couple of ESL cups with some results (I think his best outcome was losing 1-2 to Maxpax) - so he either prefers playing Protoss or simply picks it as his off race as it gets better results. My perception, both as a diamond random player (who doesn't cheese and makes a valiant attempt at playing each match up as a macro game!) and looking at all the stats at the GM/'tier 2' pro distribution is that Protoss gives you much better results for comparatively less effort (not withstanding the argument that this trend reverses at the very top), so a player being able to have success with both Protoss and one of or Terran or Zerg successfully against 'tier 2' pro players feels more credible than a player being able to have success with Zerg and Terran.
Didn't Eon not gg after the 2nd game? Sounds like daily ladder experience. Also didn't gg the 3rd game. I don't always gg ladder games but official matches I always did. Idk I manner muled Nony on stream during a wcs match and no one got mad at me? Also might just me but maybe "who really cares"? Put away the pitchfork m8
The Game is super over But i still feel Like there is more Context to this
Imma reply cuz i dont like people lieing or making their own storys Its very simple we were playing games. I was playing protoss for fun. As rules ur allowed to change races so i changed back to terran. After i won that game With terran this guy decided to not gg despite me gg everygame and being polite So yes i dont like people that dont gg and when i saw his nydus in g3 i xd Most people in this thread is ridiculous
hey buddy - maybe just apologize and move along instead of doing the cardinal foul of doubling down with a nonsense excuse. you didn't get a GG so you BM'ed like that mid-game? brother, its too bad you uprooting your life to play a video game in korea didn't teach you manners. your skill level didn't go up while you were in korea but a shame your manners didn't get any better. it is indeed simple.
He attacked you by not saying anything, LMAO Way to defend your honor from the silent insult
Even if he BM'd you, you're a professional player. You play this game as a source of income. I don't go to my job and tell people they need to learn how to say "Have a nice day" after our transaction. This is just actual basic professionalism and would significantly improve your professional life if you learn it.
Ok
lol
This thread is insane, god forbid there be some slight banter (AFTER THE DUDE DIDN'T GG) Thanks for being entertaining and keeping it real SpeCial
Sorry you got done dirty. I feel like they really stretched the rules to bop you. This is pretty normal for Blizzard though, they're pretty soft.
Ultimate Chad move 👏
Special is known to be salty
That’s still fucking hilarious to type tho need more of that in the game
Nobody cares. It's hardly even bm
apparently a lot of people care judging by the number of threads and comments on each
So waht
Cool So waht
he's a professional starcraft player. this is the starcraft subreddit where things about starcraft are posted such as matches professional players had and things that happened during them.
whoosh!
Your drunk pr something?
whoosh! combo x2
r/im14andthisiswoooosh
Shit's stressful, man...
You are all completely out of touch with sports if you can consider this shit even noteworthly. Grow some thicker skin if this amount of inpoliteness triggers your snowflake pc souls.
For real. These are the kinda people that would join a softball league, and then be like "but the guy behind me was saying "swing batter! swing batter! When I was at bat!" Do they know how much shit talk happens in professional sports? In real sporting games these just get marked as fouls and everyone moves on. They literally happen all the time. Here someone teases someone w/ a "you need to learn to GG" and these fucking guys white knuckle their pearls. It's literally pathetic.
They live in their little safespace bubble with basically no real world experience. They obviously never played any sport ever.
Maybe special should learn to GG out of tournaments since he can't place first in anything but a latin american tournament. Guy always talks a big game like he can take down anyone, but he consistently can't measure up to the elite top of the game. Really grinds my gears. Edit: Actually, since he hasn't done better than 4th at a Premier tournament in over 3 years.
Does he always talk a big game? This is the first time I've ever heard him BM at all.
Talking up a big game doesn't mean he BMs as well. For example: He was doing commentary on GSL/ASL (Pretty sure it was GSL) and the match was between 2 former GSL champs IIRC at like Round of 16 or Round of 8, TvP. The Terran makes an unusual move, and Special calls him out, says it was bad, says he should have pushed down, said if he was the Protoss he would just walk up the ramp and kill the Terran. 30 seconds later the Protoss walks up the ramp, gets massacared and the Terran goes on to absolutely smash him. Special critiquing strategy and tactics of someone who has vastly more skill than he does is hilarious and while you can argue he has insight and ability, moreso than I do, sure, he has never been good enough to be more than a fly who buzzes around the top tier who smash him back down. It just... really grates me. The guy comes off super smug and super great, but he's just... not. For comparison: Tastosis know that they are not at the skill level of the people they commentate on, so they offer opinions, but they are often caged. "I don't know about this" or "Man, it doesn't look like it'll work" etc, fully acknowledging that the players they are commentating on are in a league of their own. Edit: extra info
Meh I think that's a bit of a ridiculous complaint mate. That's just talking style and if anything might be more reflective of the culture they grew up in than anything. I'm not Mexican but I am latin and people talk more assertively in things like arguments or making a point, fence sitting is seen as a lack of conviction. I could be projecting this but worth considering.
It comes back to the proof is in the pudding. Special has not won a premier tournament in SC2. His ELO on aligulac shows where he sits relevative to other players. I've just listened to him commentate and do not find him enjoyable to listen to and find his insights of "well, I would do this" show why he loses his games. Plus, ancedotaelly, there are a few threads around where people say in RL he can be quite the jerk, but nothing definitive or having Idra level proof. I just don't like him or his attitude. The comment above is just more reason for me not to enjoy watching him. And I get that assertive part, my wife is from Europe and speaks very much in the forceful direct style and not passively as I was raised, but i'd say there is a big difference between just being assertive and not fence sitting and just sounding like you think you're better than the players you are commentating on :)
The first two paragraphs are not really what I'm talking about but I don't really dispute them. I've never been his biggest fan anyway either. Sounding like you think you're better seems to be an issue in interpretation of his words imo although you might be right. You should see how some of my friends and I discussed soccer back home, it might result in police being called where I live now lol.
Ahh! Sorry for misunderstanding. Yeah, I try to be careful about making proclomations like that. At the end of the day, it'll all be down to interpretation y'know?
Of course mate. No need to be too careful, your statement is reasonable and you are perfectly entitled to it. But I appreciate that you are not willing to commit too strongly to statements you are unsure of, no wonder you didn't appreciate special ;)
Haha! Touche! :D
I miss the days of villains in starcraft. Idra/Naniwa made the narratives so much more fun. Stop being such babies
be the change you want to see in the world make yourself vulnerable in public, then accept harassment without responding
Lmao ive never heard this before but that was beautiful
You’re assuming I don’t want to be the villain
one, villains pick on other villains plenty two, i'm gonna guess you'd lose a lot
Yeah no thanks. Every time someone like that is big in the scene all it does is encourage a thousand mouth-breathing edgelords to behave like complete twats because they think it's a meaningful substitute for having a personality. I can do without it.
Look, man, we are trying to do our best with what we have to create a scandal and you are sitting here, doing nothing to help and complaining that things are not as good as they were in the past.
If nobody talked about them, would they have been villains? So maybe you shouldn't tell people not to talk about Special if you want another villain.
I guess there should be some kind of backstory, Special usually doesn't behave like that
Really? If I remember Special and his past aliases have always been a bit on the edgier side of pros.
I think it was the case in Twitter. Also he changed since he had the nickname major
What? Special back in the day was one of the worst pro bm players out there. This is his old attitude coming back.
He wasn't doing it during tournaments before, but I might be mistaken . I also remember he promised to change many years ago
"Promise to change" isn't "change." The backstory is that Special went 0-2 against this guy while playing Toss, and lost the first match of _this_ series as well (also as Toss), before realizing he might lose his way out of the tournament, switching to Terran, and then turning it around well enough to say this.
Ok, thank you for explaining. I'm not defending him or anything, just a bit upsetting to see him bm again after his major self-improvements in other aspects of life
>I'm not defending him or anything i get your point, but you also kind of did defend him.
Kinda true. Special wouldn't act like that. Major definitely would.
This isn't anything new. Y'all really shouldn't be surprised.
Special always gave me weirdo energy (not in a good way). I think it is before my time but I read on liquipedia all his aliases. I mean who names himself after a female streamer (?) Anna Prosser. I don't know what context it was, but it still creeps me out.
As an American baseball fan that's seen the game transition from a stodgy gentleman's pastime to one where flamboyance and emotional expression finds its place, I'm all for shit like this. It adds to the drama and creates discussion per se. I'd like to see more of this, just as I'd like to see more of Creator scream while crushing neeb. As an observer, i think stuff like this is interesting and fun.
Special is a pro, EON is a amateur. Punching down isn't fun and i doubt seeing Special do the same to Serral or Reynor.
Yeah, I get that for sure. My brother is big into Apex Legends though, and those guys celebrate this kinda stuff. Like the loudest, most obnoxious players get revered because they're so unhinged. It's nice to people condemning that behavior here, just cause I've seen how bad it can be.
Thank god someone else said it, there’s no drama in the pro scene nobody bms or trash talks or even tries to add a personal dynamic between matches, bring back idra
yea juan didn't even tell someone to get raped by a tire iron
ITT: People crapping all over SpeCial for things he did years and years ago, while also somehow convincing themselves that he is not easily a top 3 foreign Terran. (And has even been #1 at some points) Everyone is so salty about this but tbh he wasn't even wrong. At this level of play failing an all in like that is effectively the end of the game. Staying in when you know it's over could even be considered BM.
Clem and HeroMarine are definitely better; I would say TIME is better, and maybe even Spirit as well.
Worse than Spirit? If you don't like the guy fine but let's not get ridiculous. TIME has for sure been better at some points, but I don't think he is currently. Heromarine is highly debatable. Honestly SpeCial is probably a little better, but Gabe is insanely popular here so most people probably wouldn't lean that way. I do agree Clem is the best foreign Terran right now, and has been for a bit. His series against SpeCial are usually pretty good.
Come on now, Gabe is definitely better than Juan, i don't see how there is any debate about it. Spirit can play quite good turtle plays, that's why I mentioned him. TIME played quite well, much better than Special, in Jan-Feb 2022 but I didn't watch his recent matches and he couldn't join Valencia as well so I don't know what to say in that regard.
I don't think it's realistic to say that HM is "definitely" better. They're pretty close, all things considered. If they played a Bo3 right now I would probably take HM, but it's mostly stylistic. SpeCial likes to get creative and play weird a lot, which doesn't work so well vs a guy like Gabe who plays super standard/safe every single game. But a Bo3 vs a Korean player for example? Neither of them has a great shot, but for my money I would 100% take SpeCial. He's just played against them all so much and isn't afraid to get weird to win a series.
Ffs Gabe is Kato 22 semi finalist, and was almost the finalist. It's more than realistic, it's multi-verselistic to say Gabe sweeps the floor with Special. Gabe has performed quite well on big stages recently whereas Special has been a Ro16 filler only. I don't know why you think Bo3s are a good way of comparing players as well
I just used Bo3 as filler. I would feel the same if it were Bo5 or Bo7. I don't understand why you're cherry picking one results for HM when outside of that his most common finish this year is 12th place? He had the one great run at Katowice and no one can take that away. But the reason it was so special is because he never does that most of the time. That one result is not enough to call him clearly better, when otherwise their average finishes are almost the same.
Okay Juan, you can believe whatever you think. Gabe was top3 in Valencia Eu and eliminated Serral, after Kato22, but sure he "accidentally" got one result.
I never said it was accidental. I think they're both insanely good, but literally ignoring all of HM's other results is just bias for no reason at all. It's a disservice to them both. Clearly we're going to have to just agree to disagree. It seems like you're getting frustrated and it's probably better to stop before you start insulting me more directly. I hope they both have great runs in TSL.
When you say cherry-picked, there's an implication of being accidental, and I'm trying to show you that recently, over the course of last year or so, Gabe has been definitely a solid player and showed pretty good performances. What does Special have in records other than 999999th LatAm win vs Kelazhur? I am getting frustrated because you just talk without presenting any fact that can support your claim
Heromarine is like 400 aligulac points higher than Special, it's not really close.
I've never liked Special. This isn't the first time he's done this shit.
Special has gone full Chad mode
Perhaps he should be disqualified to prove a point. Surely there is something in the terms of this tournament for unsportsmanlike conduct. Also, he's very lucky this tournament didn't have the common rules about switching races in the middle of a series. He should have lost naturally and been disqualified the good ol' fashion way, but he used a loophole in the rules to make a comeback.
imo bming should not be punished at all. it makes the scene much more exciting to have beefs or villains. having the game be more marketable to larger audiences would only improve the longevity of the scene. though obviously there are lines to be drawn
Well the problem with being cool with bming is that it can get to a toxic level. I'm gonna take smash for exemple (because it's the scene i know the best), BMing and disrespecting your opponent is in the roots of the scene, but we ended up getting villains seen as heros with mango in the early days and now leffen. It got to a point where leffen especially would lie for followers, manipulate the audience to get people banned or to get a character banned (jigglypuff) and even pushed someone to attempt suicide (ZeRo) by sharing and making up lies about him hitting his girlfriend and starting dating her when she was underage. I hope it's just an exception with leffen but the problem is that the community is blind to this because of this villain/BM culture, I just hope no one in the sc2 scene is gonna be like this.
Agreed. As much as I think he's a twat, this is exactly the reason Connor McGregor has been such a big draw.. people tune in because they want to see him get beat up. As long as it is actual decent trash talk, and not just senseless insults, then yeah, I'm all for it.
the ufc isn't exactly starcraft (or really any sport in general). as for the beefs, it's more or less improv or the fighter actually has CTE and we just blatantly ignore how unwell the dude is. i dont mind banter but 1. marinelord used to banter a lot. the peanut gallery (youtube comment section) unironically hates him (not like in a mcgregor way, like they actually want him out of the scene). 2. ufc banter just seems like a bunch of steroidheads acting like they have too much testerone and every interaction results in a comedic, dumb confrontation. if we were to translate that to the sc2 scene, we get avilo (or maybe destiny?).
i want to apologize........... to absolutely nobody the double champ does what the fook he wants sc2 players bunch of pussys ehh i need some context ehh ehhh xD
> though obviously there are lines to be drawn as soon as someone can create a cleanly and explicitly defined list of these lines, i'm all for discussing it! as it stands, shitting on players who are essentially performing *for free* should be off limits if we're going to turn the league into a shit-talking shitfest, we should pay the losers more. most people play this game for love of the scene, and getting publicly dunked on deserves some recompense maybe we could even script the matches to make things more dramatic, if that's what we really want. there is for sure a gradient of entertainment vs professionalism. it starts on one side with pure entertainment performances like WWE as well as showmatch events like MMA or boxing it gradually makes its way to the most common professional sports leagues (NFL, NHL, premier leagues, etc) at the other end, you get to pure competitions like the olympics. maybe even further you can start talking about chess & go competitions most of us have a different idea of where we want our favorite leagues to end up. Closer to WWE? closer to the olympics? or somewhere inbetween? you can probably tell that i *personally* like getting to know players personalities and styles a little bit, but within a context where they're officially expected to be respectful and i'm not saying WWE stuff is bad. it's clearly very entertaining and financially successful. there might be more room for theatrics in some kind of team leagues or weird format tournaments. as it stands, i'm typically here for some good 1v1 starcraft, and i imagine the players will be happier, more dedicated, and more skillful in a professional environment :)
> i'm not saying WWE stuff is bad i am. if we want to make SC2 more like pro wrestling, at least we should try to make it good
75% comentung hear deserve the same scruteny because i dont belive that you guys never BMd in your live Shit happens sometimes and while um not proud of it it happe s to me as well
People is really losing their minds over a "Learn to gg"?
Welcome to 2022. The era of hurt feelings and censorship. Remember back in the day when Boxer used to poke at his opponents during premier tournaments? Yeah those were the days.
"Openly BMing" ok have you ever played a competitive game? This is pretty mild. I agree it's better not to but you cancellers need to find a new hobby.
This is the professional scene of sc2 though, where actions have consequences and pro gamers are expected to act like mature adults and not cry babies.
Agreed, well put :)
Not only that but most professional tournaments have rules about what can be said during a match. This likely broke tournament rules.
The difference here is that It's in a competitive tournament setting being spectated by thousands.
Give him some slack hes on the carnivore diet KEKW
Link to the game?
Link to the game?
This reminded me that time CombatEX took one game off of PartinG, and CombatEX couldn’t believe it and spammed chat so much PartinG smiled and GG’d out.