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"Good" as in, maybe reach GM? Quite likely, although being in GM already makes you a statistical outlier (200 slots per region in a player base of hundreds of t

"Good" as in, maybe reach GM? Quite likely, although being in GM already makes you a statistical outlier (200 slots per region in a player base of hundreds of thousands). Good enough to challenge a pro? You're seriously underestimating how much hard work the pros are putting in to play at their level - on top of the insane mechanical skill, game knowledge, and experience. Part of the skillset is obviously transferrable to other RTS games (big chunk of the AoE4 ladder was dominated by SC2 GMs early after launch), but playing (and staying) at pro level in SC2 requires much more - it requires consistency. Serral has 7.5K MMR not because he's been taking 20 MMR off a 7.4K player (because there are no 7.4K players), he has 7.5K MMR because he took 1 MMR from 6K players a couple thousand times. 6K is like what, top 50 GM? My bet in Serral v Magnus would be X:0 in a best of (X*2)+1, for any X the players would be willing to suffer through. (Sorry if my numbers are a bit inexact, the new season just started and GM is not open yet.)

bena 4y ago
Yeah. The live element brings something else to the table. It's not only knowing what to do, but being able to execute. I've played Starcraft off and on, mostly through the Brood War days, and never super competitively. My friends and I had a standing Friday night game we'd play. We were ok. My brother-in-law came to stay with us for a while and he had never played Starcraft before but wanted to try it out. So I said, sure, we can 2v2 the computer so you can get a handle on things. We'll play Terran since it's the most like Warcraft. He told me he's played Age of Empires, he knows what RTSs are like. He'll be fine, he wanted to 1v1. I asked him if he was sure because Starcraft was a much faster game than AoE. He said he was sure, it would be fine. So we played. I played a pretty standard build order, sent out my 10th/11th worker as a scout, found his base, saw he was still on his initial set of workers and building a barracks with one of them. So I built my second base on his expansion spot, got it up to speed, built a couple of barracks, and a couple of machine shops, cranked out some marines, medics, and siege tanks, and to top it off, I build a starport and some drop ships. Loaded up the squad and dropped them behind his mineral line, obliterated his economy, then rolled through his base.
- rollcat 4y ago
  That's also why in a tournament (or a showmatch) you'd play the same opponent in a series (like best of 3, best of 5...). I once had a couple friendly games with a dude in masters 3 (that's maybe 1K MMR above me) and... actually won one map. My mechanics are pretty bad, but I have a very decent understanding of the game. He tried something funny - I scouted, responded, and killed him. If it were a best of 1, that was our first map - I would have won the series. This would not happen with Serral. He does lose against other pros, but not against joes. When you face an opponent 1.5K MMR below you, you're putting something like -200MMR on the table if you lose. You can't stay 200-300 MMR above the #2 spot if you ever drop a game like that.
  - bena 4y ago
    Oh yeah. We played with someone who played competitively one time and it was no joke. We couldn't get anything off the ground. It was literally our rec league flag football team going against <INSERT YOUR FAVORITE NFL TEAM HERE>. There's a guy, Stanislav Cifka, who plays (or maybe played at this point, I haven't kept up) competitive Magic: the Gathering who was ranked fairly high in chess at some point (or maybe still is). He wasn't ever the best chess player or best Magic player, but he was pretty good in both. So Magnus could probably eventually do well, but there's a learning curve.

bena 4y ago

Yeah. The live element brings something else to the table. It's not only knowing what to do, but being able to execute. I've played Starcraft off and on, mostly through the Brood War days, and never super competitively. My friends and I had a standing Friday night game we'd play. We were ok. My brother-in-law came to stay with us for a while and he had never played Starcraft before but wanted to try it out. So I said, sure, we can 2v2 the computer so you can get a handle on things. We'll play Terran since it's the most like Warcraft. He told me he's played Age of Empires, he knows what RTSs are like. He'll be fine, he wanted to 1v1. I asked him if he was sure because Starcraft was a much faster game than AoE. He said he was sure, it would be fine. So we played. I played a pretty standard build order, sent out my 10th/11th worker as a scout, found his base, saw he was still on his initial set of workers and building a barracks with one of them. So I built my second base on his expansion spot, got it up to speed, built a couple of barracks, and a couple of machine shops, cranked out some marines, medics, and siege tanks, and to top it off, I build a starport and some drop ships. Loaded up the squad and dropped them behind his mineral line, obliterated his economy, then rolled through his base.

rollcat 4y ago
That's also why in a tournament (or a showmatch) you'd play the same opponent in a series (like best of 3, best of 5...). I once had a couple friendly games with a dude in masters 3 (that's maybe 1K MMR above me) and... actually won one map. My mechanics are pretty bad, but I have a very decent understanding of the game. He tried something funny - I scouted, responded, and killed him. If it were a best of 1, that was our first map - I would have won the series. This would not happen with Serral. He does lose against other pros, but not against joes. When you face an opponent 1.5K MMR below you, you're putting something like -200MMR on the table if you lose. You can't stay 200-300 MMR above the #2 spot if you ever drop a game like that.
- bena 4y ago
  Oh yeah. We played with someone who played competitively one time and it was no joke. We couldn't get anything off the ground. It was literally our rec league flag football team going against <INSERT YOUR FAVORITE NFL TEAM HERE>. There's a guy, Stanislav Cifka, who plays (or maybe played at this point, I haven't kept up) competitive Magic: the Gathering who was ranked fairly high in chess at some point (or maybe still is). He wasn't ever the best chess player or best Magic player, but he was pretty good in both. So Magnus could probably eventually do well, but there's a learning curve.