ASL Season 5 - Page 9

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that 1st map is terrible

Man the maps are just not fair for terrans. And I'm a zerg fan.

cool games though

Fantastic series, wp both!

that sparkle shuttle hunting was incredible

stats for the maps played in tvp matchup when korean pros are playing :

third world : 43-41 pvt
gladiator: 178-171 pvt
sparkle: 100-145 pvt
transistor: 164-126 pvt

overall 485-483 pvt. That's pretty fkn balanced. Balance is a big factor for zvp, somewhat of a factor for tvz, but tvp it's fine. I know this is a slight contradiction of my previous post where I advocated for betting snow, partially due to the maps, but I really meant that they play to his particular skillsets more than that they are anti- terran overall in tvp.

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On May 01 2018 18:53 Spitfiree wrote: + Show Spoiler + feels like a greed call on Gladiator lost the whole series for Flash... - cant he just leave 3 goliaths there and defend his top left base??? ... then again it was just the 3rd game so things might've gone otherwise pretty cool series overall... I don't think statistics matter much in terms of map being overpwered, if someone like flash loses twice to the same opponent vs same end units with seemlessly no hope to counter on the same map, the map is most likely overpowered towards the other race... no? you can't just stick statistics in RTS without taking the skill level of the players in mind, furthermore even if equally skilled players, which are worse than flash/snow play, the outcome still doesn't matter... that being said, statistics just dont matter here

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Did Snow use any psi storm at all on Gladiator? Or in game 5?

On May 01 2018 23:28 Daut wrote: Did Snow use any psi storm at all on Gladiator? Or in game 5?

pretty sure he didn't.

yeah Snow is much more of a reaver kind of guy. except for late game pvz, it's normally one or the other. And Snow does differ from most p's in that he actually keeps building reavers after the first 1-2.

I hated the fact snow made a lot of unforced errors but still .... You can't do that against Flash wtf

that bluffcall is one of the coolest things I've seen in a BW game.

Something I didn't think of earlier...why did Flash take his 4th base at 9:00 instead of 6:00 on Gladiator? The 9:00 ramp is further away from his choke, and against someone who loves shuttle play you want less travel distance. I'm just really perplexed by that game, it was very un-Flash like.

Game 1 was tough. I like Flash's build, and like the idea of attacking the ledge vs an early expansion in general, but it's really tough to survive with 1 factory against snow who you know is going reavers.
Game 2 was amazing. Flash overcomes Snow finding him right away with the fastest DT drop possible and then executes a perfect containment with wraiths. You guys think there were any options with Snow throwing up a stargate for some sairs? Or terrible idea because valks wreck sairs?
Game 3 was really fun, but I still don't get how Flash played that poorly (like a 2300 ELO instead of a 2500) from the 8 minute mark on.
Game 4 was cool for a short game. Agree with baal, the bluff catch was the coolest thing I can recall in a BW game. Especially to think it was on a map you're an underdog on when down 1-2, what a fucking genius this guy is.
Game 5 was a very cool build by Snow. The early zealot pressure and the 2 gate before robo really threw Flash off, and it was tough to overcome the early disadvantage, but he made a game out of it. Just a very hard map for Terran to play from behind with carriers looming.

Really fun series. I usually always root for the protoss player, but it would have been nice to have a PvZ and PvT in the semis rather than 3 protoss players. At least mini vs snow will be more fun than rain vs shuttle.

Pusan tried to use corsair vs Sea in Ro24 in very similar game (fast DT drop vs 2 starport wraith openings) and yeah, Sea just added some valks and the sairs got wrecked

As far as Sparkle goes, I was theorycrafting quite a bit with other good sparkle players.

My opinions; The dt drop is a bad build order against someone as good as Flash. The fact that he found him on the first location and that Flash was doing the worst possible build against it - and that even then, the outcome was 'at most even, probably slightly behind' (I think tastosis were wrong in evaluating how the game was looking) shows how poor of a BO it is.

But at the same time, that's probably indicative of Snow's desperation. He wouldn't do this build if he thought he had a decent counter to the Fast Expand+2 starport wraith / valk if up against sair opening. At first, all terrans were doing mass goliath dropship style. When that was the preferred play, p could do mass shuttle+dragoon+reaver (like 3 robotics so you get plenty of reavers) into carrier and it was pretty balanced, maybe even p favored. But ever since the 2 starport opening became favored, that seems significantly worse.

Now, after opening with the dt drop, going into stargate play just isn't an option. His expansion is late and he's already double teched off one gas. No way he can get enough sairs to contest aerial dominance. What I am however thinking, is that doing a FE of his own with a fast robotic to expand to another main, that should actually be viable against the 2 starport opening. It does not work against mass drop style of play - then you can't hold your other main - but the 2 starport opening isn't really able to put on any significant pressure for a good while. Then you basically need to make gateways on both locations, play defensively, and from managing to secure 4 gas, that's where counter-air play becomes an option - because if you're on 4 gas, you can go into sair+carrier.

In terms of air, sairs >> wraiths >> carriers >> valks >> sairs. I think it also becomes better for protoss the more upgrades both have. (Mostly because it allows sairs to survive a bit longer against valk fire, which makes it less likely that there are still wraiths around without any sairs to kill them). But iunno. Flash has otherwordly recon. He might be good enough with his first small wraith fleet that managing to sneak out probes to establish another main is just too difficult. (The thing is that taking another main means that if he wants to contest that with wraiths, shuttles from your main will in turn be free to drop his main - so it creates openings for counter drops - which, going mass wraith, he's not really equipped to handle if they actually succeed in unloading, aside from sniping obs, but usually quite some damage will be dealt either way. )

Probably the highest level TvP I’ve ever seen. Would have liked to see more expansion and base protection from Flash in game 3 but no real other glaring mistakes. Snow just accumulated slightly more overall benefit from small tactical moves, like sending zealot around scouting school in game five and diving in to make favorable goon/tank trades. Solid reaver and arbiter usage all series long.