basically a disappointing series. Was not impressed by Rain - the game he lost was absolutely horrid (not reacting to the reaver in his base and losing his own shuttle the way he did), and I felt the games he won was just as much shuttle's fault. Game on sparkle was the only decent game - and in that one, I liked Rain's play quite a lot.
the next matchups look great though. one tvz, one zvp and one tvp, all featuring top dogs, all of them having third world as map 1+5 and sparkle as one of the first three.
The map orders were already chosen for the other RO8 games? Excited to see more Third World So far I've basically only watched PvP and PvZ on it (discounting the first two TvZ played there in Flash's RO16 group because map was less played then), pumped to see lots of TvZ and PvT there.
Edit: Why don't the observers ally one player and toggle shift+tab to make allies green and enemies red? Orange vs yellow protoss on Sparkle is unforgivable.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
On April 22 2018 22:51 Daut wrote:
Why don't the observers ally one player and toggle shift+tab to make allies green and enemies red? Orange vs yellow protoss on Sparkle is unforgivable.
Yea that was shitty. I think sometimes they do it though, not sure why not here.
there is a light at the end of the tunnel... (but sometimes the tunnel is long and deep as hell)
I don't understand Shuttle's build on Gladiator. I've played a little PvP on Gladiator, and there are 3 main strategies -- 3 gate goon, 1 gate reaver, and dt. Going 2 gate goon and delayed reaver while not really building much out of the 2nd gate and getting a late observer is asking to get contained by 3 gate goon, asking to get contained by 1 gate reaver, and asking to let DT in your base. I just...don't understand the build at all.
Gladiator PvP is about keeping a probe in your opponent's base as long as possible and getting lots of intel so you don't get directly countered by strategy, and Shuttle prematurely left the base before Rain even makes his 3rd pylon or had a goon pop. Getting an extra 10 seconds of sight and sacrificing the probe to make sure a 3rd pylon or robo goes down is important. I absolutely hate the way shuttle played that game.
That said, it was pretty bad luck to not get an early mind control off on Third World, and pretty bad luck to not find the hidden expo on transistor when he sent out a probe towards that side of the map to scout. Also, and obviously this isnt really the case, but when Rain builds a nexus, 15 probes, an assimilator, a couple pylons, and 8-10 photons at the expand, how much is he gaining from that expo? The base has 12k in minerals, he mined about half of them (6k), paid like 3k for the base setup, and shuttle was very efficient with the fighting (Rain was flicking lots of ineffective zealots towards Shuttle's main and Shuttle won every battle before the last) and hurt his economy with a storm drop too. Basically, even though Rain had the extra base, I don't think he was ahead and the arbiter won him the game -- simultaneously taking 20 supply out of a fight and creating a choke that shuttle's units couldn't get down created a game ending fight. If anything, having that extra gas that allowed him to afford the arbiter is what won him the game, not the minerals from the expo.
Echo the statements above about Rain, think he played pretty poorly and just won with better strategy/approach. Moving all his units to defend a 1 goon wide choke lol, extremely bad battles/micro in game 1, bad micro in game 3 (getting his goons flanked on the map), and he was basically just dropping units in Shuttle's sim city and the reavers did all the work in game 4. I don't think he did anything impressive (for someone his level) mechanically, but he played brilliantly. He's gonna have to play a lot better against hero or mind.
Not a great round of games, the Transistor game was very good, the others subpar. Pretty excited for the other 3 matchups, and think we are very likely to not see another mirror matchup the rest of the Starleague
the build itself is not that bad, however continuing with it when your opponent feints with unranged goons when you have range finished (even though your range research wasn't that fast) should ring alarm bells. That's a huge blunder noone on this level should ever make.
My favourite line is Bet/Fold. I bet, you fold.
1
blackjacki2 United States. Apr 23 2018 03:49. Posts 2581
I don't understand Shuttle's build on Gladiator. I've played a little PvP on Gladiator, and there are 3 main strategies -- 3 gate goon, 1 gate reaver, and dt. Going 2 gate goon and delayed reaver while not really building much out of the 2nd gate and getting a late observer is asking to get contained by 3 gate goon, asking to get contained by 1 gate reaver, and asking to let DT in your base. I just...don't understand the build at all.
Gladiator PvP is about keeping a probe in your opponent's base as long as possible and getting lots of intel so you don't get directly countered by strategy, and Shuttle prematurely left the base before Rain even makes his 3rd pylon or had a goon pop. Getting an extra 10 seconds of sight and sacrificing the probe to make sure a 3rd pylon or robo goes down is important. I absolutely hate the way shuttle played that game.
That said, it was pretty bad luck to not get an early mind control off on Third World, and pretty bad luck to not find the hidden expo on transistor when he sent out a probe towards that side of the map to scout. Also, and obviously this isnt really the case, but when Rain builds a nexus, 15 probes, an assimilator, a couple pylons, and 8-10 photons at the expand, how much is he gaining from that expo? The base has 12k in minerals, he mined about half of them (6k), paid like 3k for the base setup, and shuttle was very efficient with the fighting (Rain was flicking lots of ineffective zealots towards Shuttle's main and Shuttle won every battle before the last) and hurt his economy with a storm drop too. Basically, even though Rain had the extra base, I don't think he was ahead and the arbiter won him the game -- simultaneously taking 20 supply out of a fight and creating a choke that shuttle's units couldn't get down created a game ending fight. If anything, having that extra gas that allowed him to afford the arbiter is what won him the game, not the minerals from the expo.
Echo the statements above about Rain, think he played pretty poorly and just won with better strategy/approach. Moving all his units to defend a 1 goon wide choke lol, extremely bad battles/micro in game 1, bad micro in game 3 (getting his goons flanked on the map), and he was basically just dropping units in Shuttle's sim city and the reavers did all the work in game 4. I don't think he did anything impressive (for someone his level) mechanically, but he played brilliantly. He's gonna have to play a lot better against hero or mind.
Not a great round of games, the Transistor game was very good, the others subpar. Pretty excited for the other 3 matchups, and think we are very likely to not see another mirror matchup the rest of the Starleague
I actually really liked the way Rain played Game 1. He spent a lot of money on useless cannons at his hidden expo, but he did that when he was maxed out and banking up extra money so it didn't really affect his economy much. I think he had a pretty significant macro advantage the entire game. I also think he intentionally took a lot of unfavorable trades to keep the pressure on Shuttle, to keep his army size down, and to keep him off the map. I think the only way Rain loses that game is if Shuttle makes a giant ball of units and is able to dominate an engagement so well that he can continue to march on and destroy Rain's base. So I think Rain was forcing the issue to keep Shuttle's ball down so even though Shuttle won every single engagement he only had a few units left over which was not a threat to Rain. I think the longer the game goes on the bigger Rain's macro advantage gets and the smaller his probability of losing gets.
It's kind of like when I play a game of chess and my opponent blunders away a piece and gives me a huge advantage. I could use that advantage to create an even more dominating position but instead I usually try to trade as much as I can even though trading might not be the best play I can make. I know the only way I lose is if I make a blunder and the more simplified the game gets the less likely I am to blunder and the more likely I am to win. It's basically a 0% chance of losing king+pawn vs king+pawn+another piece so I'd rather just get to that endgame instead of just trying to play optimally. Of course that's also because I'm not confident in my play, and perhaps Rain is not confident in his play.
I don't understand Shuttle's build on Gladiator. I've played a little PvP on Gladiator, and there are 3 main strategies -- 3 gate goon, 1 gate reaver, and dt. Going 2 gate goon and delayed reaver while not really building much out of the 2nd gate and getting a late observer is asking to get contained by 3 gate goon, asking to get contained by 1 gate reaver, and asking to let DT in your base. I just...don't understand the build at all.
Gladiator PvP is about keeping a probe in your opponent's base as long as possible and getting lots of intel so you don't get directly countered by strategy, and Shuttle prematurely left the base before Rain even makes his 3rd pylon or had a goon pop. Getting an extra 10 seconds of sight and sacrificing the probe to make sure a 3rd pylon or robo goes down is important. I absolutely hate the way shuttle played that game.
That said, it was pretty bad luck to not get an early mind control off on Third World, and pretty bad luck to not find the hidden expo on transistor when he sent out a probe towards that side of the map to scout. Also, and obviously this isnt really the case, but when Rain builds a nexus, 15 probes, an assimilator, a couple pylons, and 8-10 photons at the expand, how much is he gaining from that expo? The base has 12k in minerals, he mined about half of them (6k), paid like 3k for the base setup, and shuttle was very efficient with the fighting (Rain was flicking lots of ineffective zealots towards Shuttle's main and Shuttle won every battle before the last) and hurt his economy with a storm drop too. Basically, even though Rain had the extra base, I don't think he was ahead and the arbiter won him the game -- simultaneously taking 20 supply out of a fight and creating a choke that shuttle's units couldn't get down created a game ending fight. If anything, having that extra gas that allowed him to afford the arbiter is what won him the game, not the minerals from the expo.
Echo the statements above about Rain, think he played pretty poorly and just won with better strategy/approach. Moving all his units to defend a 1 goon wide choke lol, extremely bad battles/micro in game 1, bad micro in game 3 (getting his goons flanked on the map), and he was basically just dropping units in Shuttle's sim city and the reavers did all the work in game 4. I don't think he did anything impressive (for someone his level) mechanically, but he played brilliantly. He's gonna have to play a lot better against hero or mind.
Not a great round of games, the Transistor game was very good, the others subpar. Pretty excited for the other 3 matchups, and think we are very likely to not see another mirror matchup the rest of the Starleague
I actually really liked the way Rain played Game 1. He spent a lot of money on useless cannons at his hidden expo, but he did that when he was maxed out and banking up extra money so it didn't really affect his economy much. I think he had a pretty significant macro advantage the entire game. I also think he intentionally took a lot of unfavorable trades to keep the pressure on Shuttle, to keep his army size down, and to keep him off the map. I think the only way Rain loses that game is if Shuttle makes a giant ball of units and is able to dominate an engagement so well that he can continue to march on and destroy Rain's base. So I think Rain was forcing the issue to keep Shuttle's ball down so even though Shuttle won every single engagement he only had a few units left over which was not a threat to Rain. I think the longer the game goes on the bigger Rain's macro advantage gets and the smaller his probability of losing gets.
It's kind of like when I play a game of chess and my opponent blunders away a piece and gives me a huge advantage. I could use that advantage to create an even more dominating position but instead I usually try to trade as much as I can even though trading might not be the best play I can make. I know the only way I lose is if I make a blunder and the more simplified the game gets the less likely I am to blunder and the more likely I am to win. It's basically a 0% chance of losing king+pawn vs king+pawn+another piece so I'd rather just get to that endgame instead of just trying to play optimally. Of course that's also because I'm not confident in my play, and perhaps Rain is not confident in his play.
It was definitely a brilliantly constructed strategy -- early expo and keep your opponent busy all over the map to avoid getting run over before your economy is strong enough to overtake your opponent. But to use your chess analogy, I'd say it's more like your opponent blundered a minor piece early and then in an effort to trade down, you sac an exchange and now your opponent gave up two minor pieces for a rook and you're theoretically ahead, but may have a difficult time holding once it gets to late game and he has connected rooks.
I think Rain was just a little too inefficient with his trades by running up two different ramps plus taking shots while retreating, and if shuttle was a little more diligent (defend ramp with dts and less zealots, control other side of map, more storm drops) he could have had a 4th base up and running soon after Rain due to perceived good trading. At the end of the day, the hidden expo gave him a large amount of extra gas which ultimately allowed him to get arbiters and win the game, so it worked, but especially adding in the benefit of hindsight, his micro/control was definitely off this series.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
Last edit: 23/04/2018 04:08
1
blackjacki2 United States. Apr 24 2018 09:33. Posts 2581
I don't understand Shuttle's build on Gladiator. I've played a little PvP on Gladiator, and there are 3 main strategies -- 3 gate goon, 1 gate reaver, and dt. Going 2 gate goon and delayed reaver while not really building much out of the 2nd gate and getting a late observer is asking to get contained by 3 gate goon, asking to get contained by 1 gate reaver, and asking to let DT in your base. I just...don't understand the build at all.
Gladiator PvP is about keeping a probe in your opponent's base as long as possible and getting lots of intel so you don't get directly countered by strategy, and Shuttle prematurely left the base before Rain even makes his 3rd pylon or had a goon pop. Getting an extra 10 seconds of sight and sacrificing the probe to make sure a 3rd pylon or robo goes down is important. I absolutely hate the way shuttle played that game.
That said, it was pretty bad luck to not get an early mind control off on Third World, and pretty bad luck to not find the hidden expo on transistor when he sent out a probe towards that side of the map to scout. Also, and obviously this isnt really the case, but when Rain builds a nexus, 15 probes, an assimilator, a couple pylons, and 8-10 photons at the expand, how much is he gaining from that expo? The base has 12k in minerals, he mined about half of them (6k), paid like 3k for the base setup, and shuttle was very efficient with the fighting (Rain was flicking lots of ineffective zealots towards Shuttle's main and Shuttle won every battle before the last) and hurt his economy with a storm drop too. Basically, even though Rain had the extra base, I don't think he was ahead and the arbiter won him the game -- simultaneously taking 20 supply out of a fight and creating a choke that shuttle's units couldn't get down created a game ending fight. If anything, having that extra gas that allowed him to afford the arbiter is what won him the game, not the minerals from the expo.
Echo the statements above about Rain, think he played pretty poorly and just won with better strategy/approach. Moving all his units to defend a 1 goon wide choke lol, extremely bad battles/micro in game 1, bad micro in game 3 (getting his goons flanked on the map), and he was basically just dropping units in Shuttle's sim city and the reavers did all the work in game 4. I don't think he did anything impressive (for someone his level) mechanically, but he played brilliantly. He's gonna have to play a lot better against hero or mind.
Not a great round of games, the Transistor game was very good, the others subpar. Pretty excited for the other 3 matchups, and think we are very likely to not see another mirror matchup the rest of the Starleague
I actually really liked the way Rain played Game 1. He spent a lot of money on useless cannons at his hidden expo, but he did that when he was maxed out and banking up extra money so it didn't really affect his economy much. I think he had a pretty significant macro advantage the entire game. I also think he intentionally took a lot of unfavorable trades to keep the pressure on Shuttle, to keep his army size down, and to keep him off the map. I think the only way Rain loses that game is if Shuttle makes a giant ball of units and is able to dominate an engagement so well that he can continue to march on and destroy Rain's base. So I think Rain was forcing the issue to keep Shuttle's ball down so even though Shuttle won every single engagement he only had a few units left over which was not a threat to Rain. I think the longer the game goes on the bigger Rain's macro advantage gets and the smaller his probability of losing gets.
It's kind of like when I play a game of chess and my opponent blunders away a piece and gives me a huge advantage. I could use that advantage to create an even more dominating position but instead I usually try to trade as much as I can even though trading might not be the best play I can make. I know the only way I lose is if I make a blunder and the more simplified the game gets the less likely I am to blunder and the more likely I am to win. It's basically a 0% chance of losing king+pawn vs king+pawn+another piece so I'd rather just get to that endgame instead of just trying to play optimally. Of course that's also because I'm not confident in my play, and perhaps Rain is not confident in his play.
It was definitely a brilliantly constructed strategy -- early expo and keep your opponent busy all over the map to avoid getting run over before your economy is strong enough to overtake your opponent. But to use your chess analogy, I'd say it's more like your opponent blundered a minor piece early and then in an effort to trade down, you sac an exchange and now your opponent gave up two minor pieces for a rook and you're theoretically ahead, but may have a difficult time holding once it gets to late game and he has connected rooks.
I think Rain was just a little too inefficient with his trades by running up two different ramps plus taking shots while retreating, and if shuttle was a little more diligent (defend ramp with dts and less zealots, control other side of map, more storm drops) he could have had a 4th base up and running soon after Rain due to perceived good trading. At the end of the day, the hidden expo gave him a large amount of extra gas which ultimately allowed him to get arbiters and win the game, so it worked, but especially adding in the benefit of hindsight, his micro/control was definitely off this series.
yeah that's probably a better analogy, but i still don't think Rain was ever under any threat of losing that game, even without the arbiters. He had a good upgrade advantage over Shuttle too with 2/2/0 vs 2/0/0.
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blackjacki2 United States. Apr 24 2018 11:53. Posts 2581
Feel bad for Mind -- outplayed him in every game except game 5 and games 1/3/5 were just on semi imbalanced maps. I didn't catch what map Hero vetoed but Mind is unlucky to lose the flip and have Third World for game 5. Take nothing away from hero though, he played great too, just think Mind was better overall but couldn't overcome the slight imbalance in Third World and heavy imbalance on Sparkle.
Really fun series though, my favorite moments were mostly in game 1 -- the hydra feint attack by hero, the tanks on the ledge, the high/low/behind mineral drops to attack hero's 2nd natural, at one point Mind irradiated a scourge and the splash killed the other scourge that were trying to get a vessel, the swarms/plague preventing Mind's 2nd natural.
The TvZ didn't disappoint, hopefully the ZvP and PvT deliver too.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
Last edit: 24/04/2018 17:43
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NMcNasty United States. Apr 24 2018 19:31. Posts 2039
Great games. Healthy mix of strategy from both players. Hero deservedly edged it out with solid micro and patient play. He took his defense very seriously against 2port wraith, and perhaps Mind over committed a bit in both 3 and 5.
Some additional thoughts:
-Sparkle seems pretty imbalanced in ZvT, but credit to hero for putting on a master class in how to take advantage of it. No gambling on muta vs wraith games early, no gambling on drops getting picked off, just played defensive, found a way to get 6 gas, and then the game was over.
-hero's muta micro in game 5 was absolutely insane. that muta vs wraith battle lasted almost 10 minutes and he didn't make a single mistake. it was exhausting to watch, I can't imagine how he felt playing it
-third world isn't quite as imbalanced as sparkle as mind had chances but it required close to perfect play to win -- Mind made a few too many blunders to pull off wins given how well hero played. not targeting the natural hatchery, medics slow to arrive to the first push, and losing a shitload of vessels makes it difficult to win game 1, and blundering a few wraiths early made it very hard to win game 5.
The metagame was a really fun subgame of the series:
-hero blocking the ramp, placing his 3rd hatch in his main, then going hydra to counter the build that counters muta openings
-hero faking the hydra rush to force mind to put up some static defense and then pulling back and focusing on economy/expanding
-hero going hatch hatch pool in game 2 while pulling 2 drones to force mind to pull scvs
-mind dropping everywhere on different ledges and placing the rest of his army between hero's mutas and his drop to try and pick it off
I would love to watch a bo13+ between these two on all the major maps in bw nowadays (fighting spirit, skull desert, circuit breaker, longinus, tau cross, neo jade, match point, destination, third world, sparkle, gladiator, transistor, crossing field) where loser picks next map and no map can be played twice. I might try to set up a match between them and offer some prizes, would be cool to give back when ive basically taken in starcraft for free for 20 years lol.
Drone, any leans on what's best for Terran on third world? I liked mind's build in game 5, it just leaves so little room for error.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
Last edit: 25/04/2018 01:24
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blackjacki2 United States. Apr 25 2018 04:00. Posts 2581
Does anyone know any links to videos of Flash playing TvZ on Sparkle?
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WhyYouKickMyDog United States. Apr 25 2018 05:12. Posts 1623
On April 25 2018 03:00 blackjacki2 wrote:
Does anyone know any links to videos of Flash playing TvZ on Sparkle?
On April 25 2018 03:00 blackjacki2 wrote:
Does anyone know any links to videos of Flash playing TvZ on Sparkle?
I haven't watched the second game yet, but LOL he plays basically perfect the first game and doesn't win.
The second game he plays even better and it takes 40 minutes to overcome Larva mindlessly dropping hydras and attack moving muta/devourer at him.
Yeah, it's pretty brutal. Seems like his strategy is basically to claim as much as the map as he can until it's mined out and then win with the infinite value or yamato and iraddiate. So it's basically him fighting tooth and nail for 40 minutes straight to maybe survive and scrape out a victory or B) he just loses
tvz third world is like, flash knows how to do it, other terrans don't. Reason is largely that it's a total 1-1-1 map and Flash is much better at 1-1-1 than any other. (other terrans are closer to flash level when doing +1 5 rax into mech circuit breaker style, but 1-1-1 nobody else has really nailed the way flash does it. )
My impression is still that if zerg plays a reasonably flawless game (not that they execute all the macro and micro perfectly, but that they don't make timing mistakes or building placement mistakes that allow fast vultures to kill them) they should hold and win. But terran opening with vulture into wraith, alternating between getting 3 speed vultures and going 2 port wraith, sometimes a faster expand with valkyrie followup, sometimes follow up with a 7 rine 1 medic drop, all of this depending on whether z is doing 2 hatch muta, 3 hatch muta taking one base on the other side, more passive 3 hatch hydra.. Terran has a lot of viable variations that require different counters from zerg's side, and zerg is blind against cloaked wraiths for quite some time. So basically terran's main hope is to be so unpredictable that zerg can't hold against every variation, and then abuse whatever hole is left in their defense - there's virtually always something.
United States. Apr 22 2018 23:51. Posts 8955
