umeu wrote:To be fair, you said this, and hes just giving an example that refutes it.
And, honestly, I'm not at all convinced anyone currently active would beat peak grunt (or peak H2O) even on the current patch and with current knowledge
Im prett sure that that isnt true, though it as diarouga says that adv tapers off after a while as players figure iut whats happening. Like when we were training for pk4 and i beat ryan in otto mirrors and otto vs iro before he figured out a counter.
Yeah I'm not convinced of this. You are talking about specific and abusive build orders, as was diarouga, but those options no longer exist on this patch. I think superior mechanics and decision making might go a long way on this patch, even if you don't know everything about the current meta. Also, consider that this would always be a best of X scenario and there are only so many strategies that will catch a peak grunt off guard. He wasn't just mechanically unmatched, he also had excellent decision making. And you should consider the possibility that current players are unequipped to handle some of the more aggressive builds that were popular back then, because they have no practice against them.
I edited H2O in there afterwards, my initial thought was that grunt was so dominant that I think the idea of him still beating currently active players on the current patch is being dismissed too easily. Ryan wasn't as dominant and focused on 1 very specific build order himself, so yeah his 2008 Japs wouldn't necessarily make it very far nowadays.