Not sure how I feel about making the gas inaccessible to terran and protoss though. I understand something is necessary but that feels kind of lame, like changing unit properties or something
Last edit: 20/03/2018 06:07
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Ryan Neilly United States. Mar 20 2018 06:57. Posts 1631
they gotta keep it as fresh as possible imo
that first ZvT had a lot of great action, loved it
1
Ryan Neilly United States. Mar 20 2018 07:02. Posts 1631
love when they talk about all the past island maps.....
Dire straights and ummm none else are memorable
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blackjacki2 United States. Mar 20 2018 20:06. Posts 2581
Group D
1
WhyYouKickMyDog United States. Mar 20 2018 22:59. Posts 1623
wow, some really cool games from group D
3
PuertoRican United States. Mar 21 2018 07:08. Posts 13039
Mong looks like a bodyguard for the other three guys.
Cool games thus far, new maps always bring out creative cheese until defenses against every attack vector are chunked together in a working adaptive strategy for each race.
Random question for people who kept up with SC more over the years than I did: tasteless and artosis often talk about the 4 best players ever and name Flash, Jaedong, Bisu, and Stork. Why stork? Not just why is he listed alongside the other 3 players who were clearly at the top, but also why is he listed above the other candidates like savior, iloveoov, fantasy, jangbi, or guys like nada who were dominant for long periods of time? An analogy I would use is tennis: instead of saying Roger, Novak, Rafa are the three best ever, someone says the four best ever are Roger, Novak, Rafa, and Murray, and simultaneously places Murray alongside three players he shouldn't be named with and above players like Sampras, Borg, Lendl, and McEnroe which is unclear.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
I was curious about that myself. I would have thought Nada would have been the logical 4th choice.
I'm pretty certain savior would be have been solidly there except he is unmentionable after being so instrumental in the match-fixing scandal.
Liquipedia's take on TaekBangLeeSsang which seems accurate to me. Maybe they refer to them more often because of the absolute level of skill they reached.
I can tell you why they do that with tennis, and it's probably equivalent here in BW, they say Murray is in the big four cause he smashed the other 3 in 1-2 seasons. People ignore previous legends cause tennis is virtually a different game compared to when Sampras played. Skillwise its very likely that Murray is indeed top4 most skilled ones ever, achievements-wise that's a whole different topic.
Generally, though people just prefer to focus on the present and project that into different aspects. It's the same with every sport, its the current players that are "the best ever" etc...
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blackjacki2 United States. Mar 23 2018 19:56. Posts 2581
On March 22 2018 20:32 Daut wrote:
Cool games thus far, new maps always bring out creative cheese until defenses against every attack vector are chunked together in a working adaptive strategy for each race.
Random question for people who kept up with SC more over the years than I did: tasteless and artosis often talk about the 4 best players ever and name Flash, Jaedong, Bisu, and Stork. Why stork? Not just why is he listed alongside the other 3 players who were clearly at the top, but also why is he listed above the other candidates like savior, iloveoov, fantasy, jangbi, or guys like nada who were dominant for long periods of time? An analogy I would use is tennis: instead of saying Roger, Novak, Rafa are the three best ever, someone says the four best ever are Roger, Novak, Rafa, and Murray, and simultaneously places Murray alongside three players he shouldn't be named with and above players like Sampras, Borg, Lendl, and McEnroe which is unclear.
I don't know why they rank stork so highly either and I think the tennis analogy is a good one.
It makes sense from the perspective that he had a long period where he was mostly among the top 5 (notably while the other 3 best ever were dominant) and briefly reached #1 a few times. But if you go by the extended dominance metric then savior, iloveoov, and nada are all better all time greats. And if you go by peak skill level metric, then I think Fantasy is better as he had a higher peak ELO (so did savior, but during an easier time period) and reached #1 at a later point in history while games were still very difficult and was higher ranked from 2010-2012. Fantasy was also 9-13 vs flash and had a winning record vs jangbi.
I'm ok deferring to people who watched actively while it was happening and have thought about this more and giving stork the tiebreaker as he was amongst the top 5 during the hardest era of starcraft for 4-5 years.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
Last edit: 24/03/2018 01:26
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FrinkX United States. Mar 24 2018 16:18. Posts 7561
i was 100% sure the 4th greatest player he was going to say was Boxer
For a more thorough read I usually check what TL's Letmelose has to offer. Here's his perspective on the greatest BW players of all time: link.
After you posed the question I thought briefly about it and the names of iloveoov, savior, fantasy and July came to mind, but surely not Nada's. I admit I haven't personally put too much efforts into thoroughly exploring who might be considered better and why. At a first I thought Tastosis refer to it for their peak skill level reached. Having read the blog and the comments, maybe Artosis and Tasteless refer to TBLS just because of the term's general popularity and perceived easiness for the general audience to get accustomed to. They were topnotch preSC2 and are visible competitors now (although Bisu is now in the military, he competed in the last ASL). Fantasy, iloveoov, July, Boxer and NaDa aren't playing and streaming too much if at all and are close to nowhere to be seen in the competitive scene currently. Savior doesn't sound as a good BW topic to refer to. The Boxer-Nada era perhaps is thought to be "way back ago" and Tastosis think that the general audience might not really comprehend the importance of the players from that era. Perhaps this is why Artosis and Tasteless consider it might be easier on the broader audience to refer to Flash, Jaedong, Bisu and Stork, even though there might be several players that are better than Stork currently.
Letmelose's blog and comments made me lift an eyebrow why Fantasy is placed so low in the ranking and doesn't even appear in the top10 of the Pgr21 one (which is purely based on OSL and MSL performances). Maybe it is due to the fact that his career was relatively short (as mentioned in the comments below). After reading through the blogpost and the subsequent comments the central question might be "Why not NaDa?" and not "Why stork?" if we are to discuss the greatest of all time. To quote the author "One thing is clear to me though. No matter how you cut it. Most number of wins. Most number of titles. Most number of appearances. NaDa stands above all".
Letmelose's perspective seems mostly clearheaded to me. The topic has been updated by him very recently and it involves further discussion regarding stork's career. Overall a worthwhile read on the topic imo.
Enjoy the game
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blackjacki2 United States. Mar 25 2018 18:15. Posts 2581
Sparkle: Z >> T (remains to be seen if Flash can negate the edge), P >= Z, P >= T, although those matchups are closer.
Transistor: P >> T (remains to be seen if Flash can negate the edge), Z >> P. not sure about TvZ since Z has a huge edge during the muta harass portion of the game, but less mid game due to difficulty in stopping Terran from taking a few extra bases, but then possibly big edge late game with Terran probably not being able to go mech with the map setup.
I know nothing about Third World, and Gladiator seems more traditionally balanced (ZvT equal, Z > P, P > T). They are really testing Flash out with the maps. Terran is 1-8 in off race matchups, the only win was when Mind had the center spot on Transistor (easier to defend vs muta harass), Calm over made zerglings which did nothing, Mind had 10 turrets and picked off 3 muta, Calm never made sunkens or drones, and just got ran over. I think overall Zerg will beat Terran on Transistor and Flash is in for some tough matches. I'd guess he's maybe 15% to win the starleague with 16 left instead of 40-60% like usual. He's probably still the most likely person to win, but possible Stork (funny after the discussion about his place in the top 4 all time) or Larva are more likely due to large edges on certain maps.
I like the idea of the island map, but it's just so difficult to balance it. Zerg gets so much gas and Terran really struggles to produce a mobile air army that can counter a Zerg with Devourers and Zerg still struggles with anything Protoss does because max 3/0/0 Corsair is good even vs Devourers. Transistor just seems like a bad map, hard to predict that in advance though.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
Last edit: 26/03/2018 00:44
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blackjacki2 United States. Mar 26 2018 02:42. Posts 2581
It seems like this 2-hatch fast-lair muta rushing zerg might be the new meta in ZvT. When Flash started doing the 1/1/1 build this is what I thought zergs should have done to counter it. Zerg's economy takes a hit because they're only mining minerals with a couple of drones at their natural as they use all of the resources to pump out as many mutas as early as they can, but a lot of times they can do devastating damage to the Terran. A lot of times they can win the game outright. I love it. Previously ZvT was just 15 straight minutes of Zergs trying to not die to 5-rax until they could secure a 3rd, get defilers, and maybe win a hard fought end-game. I felt so bad for Zergs.
On March 26 2018 01:42 blackjacki2 wrote:
It seems like this 2-hatch fast-lair muta rushing zerg might be the new meta in ZvT. When Flash started doing the 1/1/1 build this is what I thought zergs should have done to counter it. Zerg's economy takes a hit because they're only mining minerals with a couple of drones at their natural as they use all of the resources to pump out as many mutas as early as they can, but a lot of times they can do devastating damage to the Terran. A lot of times they can win the game outright. I love it. Previously ZvT was just 15 straight minutes of Zergs trying to not die to 5-rax until they could secure a 3rd, get defilers, and maybe win a hard fought end-game. I felt so bad for Zergs.
It definitely seems like the best build on Transistor. I don't think it's as strong on a map as big as Gladiator or maps without large spaces behind both mineral patches to harass, but it puts a lot of pressure on Terran to both defend against speedlings early and to get 8+ turrets to defend main+natural by time mutas get there. But that said, if Terran can stabilize and get 4 rax marine/medic going quickly, zerg's economy might be shit rendering it somewhat of an all in. But if you drone a little harder early and parlay it into a 3-4 hatch ling/lurker while expanding after ~12 mutas, you can make it work anywhere.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
Last edit: 26/03/2018 02:52
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blackjacki2 United States. Mar 26 2018 03:20. Posts 2581
On March 26 2018 01:42 blackjacki2 wrote:
It seems like this 2-hatch fast-lair muta rushing zerg might be the new meta in ZvT. When Flash started doing the 1/1/1 build this is what I thought zergs should have done to counter it. Zerg's economy takes a hit because they're only mining minerals with a couple of drones at their natural as they use all of the resources to pump out as many mutas as early as they can, but a lot of times they can do devastating damage to the Terran. A lot of times they can win the game outright. I love it. Previously ZvT was just 15 straight minutes of Zergs trying to not die to 5-rax until they could secure a 3rd, get defilers, and maybe win a hard fought end-game. I felt so bad for Zergs.
It definitely seems like the best build on Transistor. I don't think it's as strong on a map as big as Gladiator or maps without large spaces behind both mineral patches to harass, but it puts a lot of pressure on Terran to both defend against speedlings early and to get 8+ turrets to defend main+natural by time mutas get there. But that said, if Terran can stabilize and get 4 rax marine/medic going quickly, zerg's economy might be shit rendering it somewhat of an all in. But if you drone a little harder early and parlay it into a 3-4 hatch ling/lurker while expanding after ~12 mutas, you can make it work anywhere.
Yeah it's somewhat of an all-in because it puts a huge onus on the Zerg to do significant damage because if Terran stabilizes without a lot of damage sustained then it's game over.
I feel like this season we might have a Protoss champion. So many strong Toss's in the Ro16 - stork, shuttle, rain, best, snow, and I think this map pool favors Toss. I think Third World will end up being a Protoss map, too. I think they have an advantage on that map because Gateways are really really cheap compared to hatcheries/factories. Zerg/Terran will have to rely on drops to ferry their armies from either side of the warp gates whereas Protoss can throw down a shit ton of gateways on both sides and produce units as they see fit. Also I think Carriers will be very strong vs Terran on that map. I'm mostly guessing though as I've only seen a couple games played on that map.
On the other hand... if Flash wins this tournament with all these anti-terran maps and while seeing almost all other Terrans getting shut out of even the top 16... holy shit...
Can someone explain the format of ASL in groups cause I really don't get it? There should be 6 matches
not 5
1 & 2 First 2 matches
3. Winners
4. Losers
5. Loser of Winners vs Winner of Losers
6. Winner of Winner vs Winner of 5
Currently there is no point 5. which is kind of ridiculous as the guy that loses number 3. just gets out of the tournament with a score of 1-1 while someone who lost his first match and wins his 2nd could go to the final, dafuck?
On March 26 2018 12:38 Spitfiree wrote:
Can someone explain the format of ASL in groups cause I really don't get it? There should be 6 matches
not 5
1 & 2 First 2 matches
3. Winners
4. Losers
5. Loser of Winners vs Winner of Losers
6. Winner of Winner vs Winner of 5
Currently there is no point 5. which is kind of ridiculous as the guy that loses number 3. just gets out of the tournament with a score of 1-1 while someone who lost his first match and wins his 2nd could go to the final, dafuck?
Its like this:
1 & 2 First 2 matches
3. Winners (one classifies)
4. Losers
5. Loser of Winners vs Winner of Losers (second classified)
This is not necessary -> 6. Winner of Winner vs Winner of 5
On March 26 2018 15:04 lucky331 wrote:
when jaedong?
In 14 h 37 m
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blackjacki2 United States. Mar 26 2018 20:07. Posts 2581
On March 26 2018 12:38 Spitfiree wrote:
Can someone explain the format of ASL in groups cause I really don't get it? There should be 6 matches
not 5
1 & 2 First 2 matches
3. Winners
4. Losers
5. Loser of Winners vs Winner of Losers
6. Winner of Winner vs Winner of 5
Currently there is no point 5. which is kind of ridiculous as the guy that loses number 3. just gets out of the tournament with a score of 1-1 while someone who lost his first match and wins his 2nd could go to the final, dafuck?
There is a point 5. If there was no 5 then how could there be a 6 in your post since match 6 is "winner of 5"?
You have the format exactly right except there is no match 6 that you added in. The loser of "number 3" is not out of the tournament. He plays in match number 5. The winners of matches 3 and 5 go through to the next round. The losers of matches 4 and 5 are out. This format creates 2 players with 2 wins and 2 players with 2 losses. The players with the 2 wins go through and the players with the 2 losses are out.
Couple questions:
1. Is the map order for ro16 going to be different? We didn't get to see Third World once, and Transistor is a completely dogshit map
2. Is the playing order random for ro16? Or does 1 play 2 and 3 play 4? i.e. does Larva play JD because he chose him?
Asking these because I'm not really in agreement with Larva picking JD and think he should have picked a bad protoss, especially given what we saw in group F. ZvP is probably pretty fair on sparkle (maybe even tilted towards zerg), zerg is definitely favored on gladiator, and the other two maps are unclear. Whereas a zvz is probably just flipping coins, it's how he went out of the last starleague...
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
jaedong is the underdog against larva? how did that happen?
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Liquid`Drone Norway. Mar 28 2018 20:55. Posts 3093
going by win rates in sponsored matches I think sparkle is more p >> z than any other. It was like 81% protoss win for a while at least. It not looking like it during asl matches so far is because jaedong played way, way better than mind (also kinda lucked out getting the cybernetics core right before +2 air attack was done - which is a game deciding move in air wars) and because of a risky allin barely working. Imo it should be strongly z >> t strongly p >> z and slightly p > t.
that said they're not playing sparkle in the ro16. They're bringing it back for ro8 - but ro16 is gonna be transistor, third world and gladiator. I think I saw somewhere that it was transistor first then third world then gladiator - but I can't find whatever place that was, so I can't confirm it. Gladiator last for sure though.
From some small amount of stream watching, third world seems really difficult for terran, and good for sair reaver pvz.
lol POKER
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blackjacki2 United States. Mar 29 2018 03:40. Posts 2581
I really like Larva but now I have to root against him -.-
On March 28 2018 19:55 Liquid`Drone wrote:
going by win rates in sponsored matches I think sparkle is more p >> z than any other. It was like 81% protoss win for a while at least. It not looking like it during asl matches so far is because jaedong played way, way better than mind (also kinda lucked out getting the cybernetics core right before +2 air attack was done - which is a game deciding move in air wars) and because of a risky allin barely working. Imo it should be strongly z >> t strongly p >> z and slightly p > t.
that said they're not playing sparkle in the ro16. They're bringing it back for ro8 - but ro16 is gonna be transistor, third world and gladiator. I think I saw somewhere that it was transistor first then third world then gladiator - but I can't find whatever place that was, so I can't confirm it. Gladiator last for sure though.
From some small amount of stream watching, third world seems really difficult for terran, and good for sair reaver pvz.
Artosis: Shout out to Liquid Drone who used to go ensnare on Dire Straits!
*1 group later*
.....OH SHIT JAEDONG GOES ENSNARE ON SPARKLE
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
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Liquid`Drone Norway. Mar 29 2018 11:09. Posts 3093
queens are a must have on island zvp, both ensnare and parasite. I've been saying this for like 17 years :D
I'm pretty stocked about being able to watch what is practically a ~20 year old game that I grew up with, on my big ass TV with HD quality in 2018... 15 year old me would be so jealous... :D, I remember waking up at like 5 AM just to catch some crappy 240p stream when NaDa was crushing fools, and being happy if the stream did not die every 2 minutes or so.
I always thought that I'd watch Brood War no matter how old I got, as long as there was quality content of it out there, and sure enough, here I am, still excited about those "alien thingies and the constantly screaming guys"!
On March 29 2018 10:09 Liquid`Drone wrote:
queens are a must have on island zvp, both ensnare and parasite. I've been saying this for like 17 years :D
Parasite is so sick I'm honestly surprised people dont kill parsisted units, who gives a shit about 1 Corsairs, having info on where they are flying real-time is far more valuable.
btw I like Larva, his cocky character feels like fresh air in a culture where extreme politeness is the norm
Ex-PokerStars Team Pro Online
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Liquid`Drone Norway. Mar 31 2018 01:28. Posts 3093
people who kill off their parasited units really invite you to build 5 queens and parasite shit all the time. There's no great counter for p tbh, but there are two responses that are less bad than keeping them with your army or killing them ; either use them for scouting, with sairs you'll at least often get z to use two scourge on them then - in which case you only lose 25 gas from the trade, or if he's parasiting a lot, stick them in an unimportant region of your base and then bring those units to whatever big engagement requires all your muscle.
also if he parasites ground units like archons or templars, you can stick them inside shuttles! (but generally z should parasite air units anyway cuz that's more important)
it must be better to build a few medics + upgrade the spell i cant remember the name of to take it away than to sacrifice all parasited units for Terran
:D
Last edit: 31/03/2018 09:24
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Liquid`Drone Norway. Mar 31 2018 10:34. Posts 3093
obviously getting restore is good for terran. people generally just store away units until they research it when a unit of theirs gets parasited. generally don't really need more than 1 medic to handle parasites either.
lol POKER
1
blackjacki2 United States. Apr 02 2018 00:04. Posts 2581
Ro16 Group A
youtube video is lagging/skipping. Here's the afreeca link:
On April 02 2018 18:07 Spitfiree wrote:
they really need to improve their recording, the video is stuttering so much especially the last game almost tilted me
They also need to bring Tastosis back for group B. The color commentator was horrendous -- we get it, you play starcraft2 and know nothing about starcraft 1 and have no business being in the booth. The main commentator did an ok job of carrying both of them, but it's not the same as the varsity crew.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
Hero's ZvP and Snow's PvP are beautiful. Snow shuttling over reavers/units to that ledge in game 2 was very impressive, and Hero stomping Snow on Third World was a little eye opening about possible builds on that map.
Season 4 round of 8 was
B1
D2
D1
B2
A2
C1
A1
C2
Group D has 3P/1Z, so at least one and possibly both of Hero/Snow will be very happy with their ro8 matchup.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
Last edit: 03/04/2018 15:56
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blackjacki2 United States. Apr 03 2018 22:51. Posts 2581
Well deserved victories by Hero/Snow. That game 2 shuttle micro by Snow... jesus...
Shout out to Artosis. I love his casting. The way he gasps any time a shuttle might be picked off is hilarious. You can tell how much he loves this game.
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traxamillion United States. Apr 04 2018 01:36. Posts 10468
On March 26 2018 01:42 blackjacki2 wrote:
It seems like this 2-hatch fast-lair muta rushing zerg might be the new meta in ZvT. When Flash started doing the 1/1/1 build this is what I thought zergs should have done to counter it. Zerg's economy takes a hit because they're only mining minerals with a couple of drones at their natural as they use all of the resources to pump out as many mutas as early as they can, but a lot of times they can do devastating damage to the Terran. A lot of times they can win the game outright. I love it. Previously ZvT was just 15 straight minutes of Zergs trying to not die to 5-rax until they could secure a 3rd, get defilers, and maybe win a hard fought end-game. I felt so bad for Zergs.
It definitely seems like the best build on Transistor. I don't think it's as strong on a map as big as Gladiator or maps without large spaces behind both mineral patches to harass, but it puts a lot of pressure on Terran to both defend against speedlings early and to get 8+ turrets to defend main+natural by time mutas get there. But that said, if Terran can stabilize and get 4 rax marine/medic going quickly, zerg's economy might be shit rendering it somewhat of an all in. But if you drone a little harder early and parlay it into a 3-4 hatch ling/lurker while expanding after ~12 mutas, you can make it work anywhere.
2 hatch muta is good on transistor because the bases are so close and there is so much wide open space in the bases
1
traxamillion United States. Apr 04 2018 01:39. Posts 10468
On March 27 2018 17:32 Daut wrote:
Flash picks Mind for his group lol, poor Terran
this was strategic to keep protoss out of their group. they clearly went over it beforehand. Mind picks a zerg and then no matter who that zerg picks for the 4th spot Flash can use his switch power to bring another zerg into their group. No matter what group 1 ends in T T Z Z when flash picks mind.
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traxamillion United States. Apr 04 2018 01:40. Posts 10468
On March 28 2018 02:13 lucky331 wrote:
jaedong is the underdog against larva? how did that happen?
you guys all need to watch group C. First three games have all been AMAZING. completely, completely amazing.
lol POKER
1
blackjacki2 United States. Apr 15 2018 12:58. Posts 2581
On April 15 2018 11:54 Liquid`Drone wrote:
you guys all need to watch group C. First three games have all been AMAZING. completely, completely amazing.
agreed. I might say that the 3 best games of the entire season so far are the 3 first games of this group
ok the last two were actually pretty bad. but the first three- holyshit. :D
really impressed with shuttle. Third world is the most interesting map ever made in brood war and I hope we get to see way more of it.
Agreed with 3 best games of the season. Maybe I jumped the gun on Transistor too quickly, there are some cool aspects to the map when it gets to late game, just been uncommon for players to make it past the 12 minute mark.
Third World PvZ is really interesting -- the transition from sair/reaver to ground army on the isolated portion of the map for protoss to counter zerg expanding everywhere and trying to hold onto 50% of the expansions makes for fun late games.
Have you guys seen any good TvZ on third world on stream? It's hard to get a feel for how much zerg can get away with on the semi-island part of the map while terran is controlling the starting area and pressuring the zerg's natural/main.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
Going 9 pool vs larva seems horrible. Not only does he look very comfortable defending the rushes and getting extra drones, but since he so often goes 12 pool, I think opponents should lean more towards hatch first strategy against him. Maybe 60% 12 hatch, 30% 12 pool, 10% 9 pool is a better approach vs his style, or possibly occasionally going 7 pool if they think he is too aggressive with droning/expanding and think they're at enough of a skill disadvantage to justify cheese.
Glad to see the knockout stage will be fairly balanced: either 3P 3Z 2T or 4P 2Z 2T. Who gets to choose which map is played twice? Coin flip, or by seeding in quarterfinals or something else?
PvZ will lean towards Sparkle.
ZvP will probably go Gladiator, pretty significant sample showing Z>P there, and unclear on the other maps.
PvT will probably lean Gladiator, pretty significant sample showing P>T there, unclear on Sparkle.
TvZ will lean towards Third World, since Gladiator is equal, Sparkle is imbalanced, and Transistor looks tough to deal with muta harass.
ZvT will definitely choose Sparkle,
TvP seems really rough on every map. Losing on Gladiator, probably a slight underdog on Sparkle, slight underdog on Transistor, and they're probably going to have a rough time on Third World dealing with constant harass and late game arbiters/carriers. I guess they'll go Third World due to uncertainty, and ability to turtle up and grab base after base during the mid game, but fuck, for all I know that map is very imbalanced?
All of those map choices could be thrown out if the top guys have a better idea of what races have an edge on Third World. I still don't know what to think about the maps in general this season -- last season had great balanced maps but they were all too similar while this season has creative unique maps but they're not balanced, terrible for terran (particularly against protoss) and have mostly lopsided games. I guess I'd prefer unique maps with uncertainty on balance issues over vanilla maps that we know are balanced, because it gives us a chance to see some phenomenal matches that are unlike anything we've seen in a 20 year old game, so I can't fault the map makers for their efforts.
I posted earlier in the thread how the QF matchups were determined based on RO16 groups, if the same here (AvC, BvD) we get Larva vs Flash QF. If that's the case I'm happy they get to play even though it's earlier in the bracket than their skill levels deem, as I still feel cheated from last starleague that we didn't get Hero vs Bisu or Larva vs Flash at the end.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
Last edit: 15/04/2018 18:21
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FrinkX United States. Apr 15 2018 19:37. Posts 7561
sparkle : z has started doing better zvp, and is winning like 41%. Pvt I initially thought looked rather protoss favored - mass shuttle goon reaver into carrier was beating the mass dropship goliath style that terrans tend to favor tvp island. But after watching Sea wreck Pusan with mass wraith valkyrie - and playing a couple tvps where I did that myself - I've changed my mind. Flash was also 19-3 tvp there at some point. zvt less imbalanced than it seemed at first too, although in theory zerg does dominate, there are some very tight situations, like depending on scourges connecting with valkyries, or hydra drops not being intercepted by wraiths. If Z gets to hive with several secure expansions, they're kinda untouchable. I think overall in 'sponbang' matches, which is the best indicator we have, it's slightly in zerg's favor, but not more than 55-45.
Third world I think is solidly in zerg's favor if zerg plays it correctly. Like terran should not ever win a game after 10 minutes (unless they got a really solid advantage before that). Reason? Zerg basically just has to hold one choke, and then have nydus to the other side of the map. Terran cannot transfer troops between the map-halves with even the remotest of efficiency. Generally tvz on pro level, zergs tend to fall apart when terrans apply pressure to many different areas at the same time - however zerg does not lose a battle where they pay attention and have defilers. Seeing as how T has to choose which half they want to produce units on, zerg can really, really abuse that once they get nydus tech.
At the same time wraith openings can be really strong (zerg struggling a bit with defending the other side expansion as they can't get there with hydras - and also really wanting to establish bases on the other side as soon as they can). All this said; if I were picking a map for playing zvt on out of this map pool, I would pick third world. I would open with a fast expansion in my natural, taking the closest base on the other side of the fence with my third hatchery. Then muta asap - but not very many, just like 8, to handle any possible pressure to the other side. Meanwhile make a bunch of sunkens in the natural, GET QUEENS for broodling to stop any pre-hive tank pressure, then have just a couple lurker defilers to hold any aggression towards that base while transferring into ultra ling defiler from the other side of the map. If you remove the get queen part (they have much better muta micro anyway), I expect that to be how games will play out.
Pvz, sair reaver is way more mobile than anything terran has. It's close. Pvt, terran definitely struggles with shuttle play into carrier. That is kind of a nightmare for terran here, and I'm not sure there's really anything they can do. Kinda expecting terrans to just go 6 fac desperation mode try to kill protoss before they get to change map side. Or busting out ghosts or something crazy.
Gladiator is a fairly balanced map all around. Transistor is highly volatile more so than imbalanced. I think they're both in the 57:43 range in sponbang matches for a couple matchups, which is significant, but it's nothing like pvz sparkle two months ago. (where protosses were winning like 79%)
For reference, I'm still reasonably actively playing the game. Nothing like 15 years ago, but I play a couple games every week, and on pretty high level by nonkorean standards. I am so happy about sparkle and third world. Playing those maps is SO fun. It's completely different from the fighting spirit - circuit breaker macro fests that have dominated brood war for nearly a decade. Instead it rewards good decision making and multitasking, but much less of the attack 5 control groups worth of units into 5 control groups worth of units and duke it out. It's been massively refreshing, I love it.
lol POKER
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blackjacki2 United States. Apr 15 2018 20:43. Posts 2581
Makes sense re: Third World TvZ, nydus far too powerful late game. The only two TvZ games I saw were the ones in the Flash/Mind group, but both zergs struggled to get out of the opening. I guess Terran would just go wraith+marine/med on the main area until zerg hits hive tech and then switch over to mech on the semi-island part, but by that point zerg may be on 5 gas and have a shitload of ling/lurker/ultra under darkswarm. and in PvT I would assume arbiter would be tough on terran also. A combination of storm dropping, and into base recalls alongside carrier harass is really tough to overcome. In theory the narrow fighting areas should make Terran pushes more effective, but I think they just become targets for really effective stasis/storms. I could see EMP use and even ghosts locking down carriers/arbiters being one of terran's better tactics to deal with it.
I was majorly discounting the Sea vs Pusan Sparkle game because it seemed like Pusan was far and away the weakest of the 24 players who made this starleague, but Terran definitely has outs on Sparkle vs protoss. And I thought JD's ZvP game with queens on there was eye opening, but he was pretty lucky to hit the cyber core before the upgrade and snipe a few corsairs. Still, with so much gas available to zerg they can make enough muta/scourge to counter the early sair/reaver, and transition into queen play alongside late game death balls. And obviously, zerg much better at transporting large amounts of ground units between islands due to overlords and nydus.
Gladiator seems very tough for PvZ and TvP. P struggles to stop zerg from grabbing another main, and then mass producing on 5-6 bases. Same for Terran vs Protoss, by the time they push out near 200 supply, protoss can have 5 bases and 15 gates helping throw units at the push alongside stasis. Although, I do remember one game from the Flash vs Bisu semifinal where Bisu was playing perfect for about 15 minutes, then Flash started his 200/200 push and just ran Bisu over. IIRC, Bisu should have had better stasis to slow him down and that would have allowed 5 base econ macro to kick in and win him the game, but after a big battle Flash had a giant ball of units left and Bisu just threw newly produced units 10 at a time at them dying and couldn't stop him.
Where can you see the map statistics for spon matches? I played a few ladder games recently, but the maps were Match Point, Fighting Spirit, Tau Cross, and Destination. Haven't had a chance to try the new ones (other than Transistor which is in the pool), but I don't think I would be able to hang on them with players normally around my playing level with 100 apm speed, a lot of speed required on the islands.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
regarding the jd sparkle game, JD played way, way, better than the protoss, and like you say, the cybernetics core dying was massive. But it was an amazing game by JD either way, he did eveything correctly, and it would be difficult for any protoss to beat a zerg playing that well. But most zergs can't play that well on sparkle. JD isn't the best anymore, but I actually think he had the best zvp sparkle record out of any zerg.
and the pusan sea one - it's definitely true that pusan was massively outplayed by sea. But he also got a solid advantage from the build order. I think the combination of build order disadvantage and just how hard sea crushed him kinda outweighs sea's skill level advantage. Checking it out, flash is currently 25-3 tvp. (39-20 tvz - which on the other hand is quite a bit worse than his stats on other maps. As ridiculous as that is. ) Flash is god - but his general tvp win ratio is more like 67%, so he has been doing quite a bit better on sparkle than on other maps.
http://sponbbang.com/race/ has statistics for the different maps.
I'll translate for the ASL maps (seen from pov of first mentioned race)
Gladiator : pvt 51.4%, zvt 43%, zvp 57%
Transistor: pvt 56.6%, zvt 49.8% zvp 54.5%
Sparkle: pvt 39.2%, zvt 52.2%, zvp 38%
Third world : pvt 46.7%, zvt 40.9%, zvp 43.5%
Some important tidbits; flash plays more sponbang matches than any other terran, by far. There's an 'elo adjusted map %' included on the site, where basically flash's victories are considered less important than other wins because he's significantly ahead of the rest of the pack. If you remove flash from the equation, terran's win % are reduced by a couple % across the board. For example pvt sparkle moves from being 39.8% to 44.3% if you remove flash.
Sparkle also includes different versions of it. They made some alterations, and zerg does like 5% better if you look at stats for the past 2 months specifically (after the newest version was released).
third world stats have much smaller sample sizes than other ones - it's a newer map. Flash is 30-7 tvz there, other terrans are 25-31 combined in tvz. tvp flash is 16-8 - other terrans are 8-13.
Honestly kind of absurd how crazy good he is. I mean the other progamers are also immensely impressive, and for flash to stand out from the pack like that? fkn absurd.
I used to try and mentally justify Flash's ridiculous win % by thinking people played worse vs him, thinking they needed to do something drastic to increase their win % but forgetting that he plays so safe and solid that he nullifies cheese. Then I saw what happened to people who played him straight forward consistently and just got run over like Bisu. It's wild. The only person who consistently impressed me vs him was soulkey -- larva is a bit stronger ZvT in the super late game, but soulkey put more pressure on him during the mid game and found interesting ways to win (like guardians), but he's out of the picture already.
Surprising that T>P on the island maps so far and that ZvT on sparkle is so close.
Where are you playing these maps at?
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
there's a discord for foreign brood war players, I've got some games with players from there. People here who want to involve themselves more in bw / play some games with people can pm me and I'll send you an invite. There's a lively chat during ASL matches / other tournaments, and that's also where I got the link to the sponbbang race stats. Aside from that, playing in tournaments, one tourney a good month ago had sparkle as first map for each round (I won! ) and another last sunday had third world in the map pool, and I got to play a couple zvt games. Even though I lost one of them (against Scan, a korean guy who is basically bottom tier ASL level), it reaffirmed my belief that this is one of the best maps for zvt nowadays.
I think Rain has a fair shot at beating flash. Larva too. Maybe even some other protoss. Nobody is a favorite against him, but Rain might have like a 40% shot if they play.
lol POKER
Last edit: 15/04/2018 22:52
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blackjacki2 United States. Apr 16 2018 03:30. Posts 2581
I think it's ridiculous how much better pros are now than back in the early 2000s. Watch at 1:00:30 of the youtube video. Shuttle drops DTs in Effort's main and Effort runs his drones away before a single drone is killed. This is while he was fighitng zealots with his hydras and maintaining 500 apm. He had no detection in his main, so he didn't see the enemy color on the minimap. All he saw was the blurred movement of the cloaked DT. That happens all the time these days. You can't even walk a DT past an enemy unit without them seeing the cloaked movement. Back in the day DTs would kill packs of lings and workers because they 1 shot them and there was no verbal warning from the game. These days the pros spot it before the DT gets a single kill. I remember Legionairre had a game where he had a DT with 50+ kills or something ridiculous. These days he would be lucky to kill 3 workers of these pros.
On April 16 2018 02:30 blackjacki2 wrote:
I think it's ridiculous how much better pros are now than back in the early 2000s. Watch at 1:00:30 of the youtube video. Shuttle drops DTs in Effort's main and Effort runs his drones away before a single drone is killed. This is while he was fighitng zealots with his hydras and maintaining 500 apm. He had no detection in his main, so he didn't see the enemy color on the minimap. All he saw was the blurred movement of the cloaked DT. That happens all the time these days. You can't even walk a DT past an enemy unit without them seeing the cloaked movement. Back in the day DTs would kill packs of lings and workers because they 1 shot them and there was no verbal warning from the game. These days the pros spot it before the DT gets a single kill. I remember Legionairre had a game where he had a DT with 50+ kills or something ridiculous. These days he would be lucky to kill 3 workers of these pros.
I watched the games without sound this morning in bed to not wake gf, but I noticed same thing. At first I assumed he saw the shuttle and was watching for it, but he did it in both his main and natural -- even knowing that there were 2 DTs dropped and that he only killed one by paying that much attention while multitasking and then seeing the shadow of the DT in his main is completely insane.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
On April 17 2018 02:05 Baalim wrote:
wow amazing games, Shuttle grinded games he should have lost but he just keeps focused when his opponents start to get sloppier
the disruption webs against larva
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
Commentary: "oh my god those corsairs are so grouped up if zerg ensnares one, it ensares all and they cannot run from the scourge"
10s later - zerg ensnares all
corsairs end up cleaning everything
zerg : "gg"
commentary:" we dont know what we're talking about"
did anyone notice action killed his own hydra den in the final game? He attacked it with 2 control groups of hydras while he was being attacked by zealots. Pretty sure it has 850 hp so thats 850 damage he could have put into the zealots. Casters missed it but yhat was a ridiculous blunder.
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blackjacki2 United States. Apr 18 2018 04:06. Posts 2581
On April 18 2018 02:24 Daut wrote:
What's the schedule for knockout stage? Very excited for Flash vs Snow!
did anyone notice action killed his own hydra den in the final game? He attacked it with 2 control groups of hydras while he was being attacked by zealots. Pretty sure it has 850 hp so thats 850 damage he could have put into the zealots. Casters missed it but yhat was a ridiculous blunder.
he's gonna be smacking himself about that game 4 years from now. Seemed like he just.. collapsed. Micro was off in every battle, no colony in the third. And the whole killing the den part obviously a huge mistake. I think zealots were damaging it too though? I really think that was just like 'omg I'm doing it'-offline nerves completely fucking with him. Hard to believe it was the same zerg playing game 1 and game 5.
Like the game on third world, the offensive hatchery was a pretty dumb allin. But his micro was sharp that game, very good scourge engagements etc. But the final game on gladiator was just.. terrible execution all the way.
did anyone notice action killed his own hydra den in the final game? He attacked it with 2 control groups of hydras while he was being attacked by zealots. Pretty sure it has 850 hp so thats 850 damage he could have put into the zealots. Casters missed it but yhat was a ridiculous blunder.
he's gonna be smacking himself about that game 4 years from now. Seemed like he just.. collapsed. Micro was off in every battle, no colony in the third. And the whole killing the den part obviously a huge mistake. I think zealots were damaging it too though? I really think that was just like 'omg I'm doing it'-offline nerves completely fucking with him. Hard to believe it was the same zerg playing game 1 and game 5.
Like the game on third world, the offensive hatchery was a pretty dumb allin. But his micro was sharp that game, very good scourge engagements etc. But the final game on gladiator was just.. terrible execution all the way.
why do you think the proxy hatch was dumb? the map is pretty big and there is a good chance he doesnt get to scout the opponents base before the lings come out
proxy hatch like is dumb because every good protoss knows that this is what a blocked ramp means. I think he was slightly unlucky with the timing of his drone coming to mini's base - I think the building nexus could probably see the drone entering his base, and a drone entering your base without you seeing any more of it is 100% a proxy hatch. But even if he had not seen the drone, when a zerg is wasting minerals blocking a ramp with a drone, it's 100% a tell that something iffy is going on. scouting your main is going to be the first thing you do at that point. I actually think it would have had a better chance at succeeding if he hadn't blocked his ramp - because then it would look more like he was expanding to the other side of the map.
The only way it's not stupid to me is if there was somehow some hidden mindgame, like a bunch of action replays being leaked showing that he was doing a drone block into an entirely different followup. (This is actually not impossible - there was a new patch a couple days before this asl group was played, which through either some bug or oversight enabled people to access replays of the recently played matches of any player who didn't take precautions to hinder it. I know people hurried up and got a couple hundred replays of different players before people had the time to fix the problem.) Without something like that, it's a stupid opening with a very high % of failing, and if it fails, you're dead. Zerg has other allins, like speedilng into 3 hatch hydra or 2 hatch muta, which are both way, way better because they are really difficult to correctly identify AND they have a viable transition even if scouted. Even if the proxy hatch had a 30% chance of going unscouted, and if it gave him a 100% win when that happened (I think this is really generous), he'd have something like 2% at most in games where it was scouted.
Oh i agree 100% on the drone blocking the ramp, I was going to mention it actually, about the drone not leaving afaik Drones leave the base to return mining and overlord is on its way.
Everyone sucks at spoilers lol, half the time I type [spoil] instead of [spoiler], but I think after 24-48 hours it's ok to post normally.
Game 5 was very badly played by action. Attacking his own den, no spore in the third, and bad micro in dealing with harass were giant mistakes, but also why did he even choose that location for his 3rd instead of his 2nd natural? It's just asking for trouble when dealing with post-corsair dt+zealot harass. That said, if you eliminate any 2 of the mistakes he's still a pretty significant dog in the game given how well Rain was playing (late expo hatch too) and the remaining mistakes so he probably shouldn't feel like he threw away a won game or anything like movie did in game 1 vs mini by not dealing with the zealot run bys or storm drops.
Also think the proxy hatch on third world was really dumb, especially in hindsight: like drone said, he barely has any win equity after it's spotted, yet he still fought on pretty well indicating he had good chances in a straight up game -- I think his equity in a normal game was >50%. It's just way too likely to be spotted due to the ramp block and not taking natural. Think it's a better idea on a map like Tau Cross that has a large and weirdly shaped main base that isn't completely scoutable by placing the first 3-4 pylons and doesn't have a 2nd natural that can combine as a defense point for your main.
RO8 looks fun. Predictions:
Rain > Shuttle in 5, but very close series
Hero > Mind in 4
Flash > Snow in 5
Larva > Mini in 4
How do the map selections work? Does the #1 seed get to pick which map is played in games 1 and 5?
I went back and watched a few old dual fpvods of Snow vs Flash -- my god is Snow amazing at PvT. He's extremely live here, maybe even 40-45% given the maps. Check out these games from October:
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
Last edit: 19/04/2018 05:20
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blackjacki2 United States. Apr 19 2018 08:28. Posts 2581
From stream games I've seen it's not too uncommon to see zerg fast expo or even double expo to the other side on Third World while blocking their ramp in ZvP. Maybe Action was hoping Mini would think that and then preoccupy himself with finding the hidden base before he could realize the hidden base was in his own main. I also think Mini's warping Nexus saw the drone sneak into the main. Either way I agree it's a dumb strategy unless you think you're a huge underdog in a straight up game.
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blackjacki2 United States. Apr 19 2018 08:35. Posts 2581
Daut, I believe each player picks a map to "ban" and the banned map can't be played twice. Then I think it's random which of the unbanned maps gets played twice. Not 100% sure.
this draw is like the worst possible for flash. Snow has a very legit chance.
Also I think blackjack is right about the map banning process. Or I know that the first part is right, and I'm also not 100% sure about whether it's random which unbanned map gets played twice.
lol POKER
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NMcNasty United States. Apr 19 2018 18:54. Posts 2039
Never been a big ZvP player but I think it’s my favorite non-Flash matchup to watch. Just amazing that there are so many viable builds (3 stargate corsair!). Just wish zergs would be a little less greedy, seems like there’s a 100% chance you’ll get storm or dt dropped so you need at least one spore(and probably sunken) up at each base before going for sixth hatch.
what I dont get is, why didnt Flash at least attempt to attack him @ start of game 1 there when he had 2 dragoons and a zealot, he couldve checked if tank was up, which it wasnt he couldve done decent damage - no way 3 marines and an scv holds the ramp
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blackjacki2 United States. Apr 20 2018 02:33. Posts 2581
On April 19 2018 21:19 Spitfiree wrote:
what I dont get is, why didnt Flash at least attempt to attack him @ start of game 1 there when he had 2 dragoons and a zealot, he couldve checked if tank was up, which it wasnt he couldve done decent damage - no way 3 marines and an scv holds the ramp
Nah, he's not doing any damage there before tank finishes. At best he is risking his units to kill some marines. His units are valuable especially because he is going 1 gate nexus. Marines become more useless as the game goes on. Flash would happily welcome that trade.
It's funny how quickly opinions shift around. After the last ASL, Flash struggled in some smaller events and on streams against the top zergs and looked unbeatable against protoss. Now he has his 1-1-1 build that seems to steamroll every zerg inside12 minutes, the maps are difficult for TvP, and I'm wondering if he's even a favorite against someone who wasnt even on my radar up until a month ago because his PvZ is so much weaker than his PvP/PvT that he couldnt get past the ro24 in previous starleagues.
This isn't a real prediction, but it will be hilarious if the knockout stage goes like this:
shuttle > rain
hero > mind
larva > mini
snow > flash
hero > shuttle
larva > snow
hero > larva, poor guy loses again deep in an ASL to hero zvz
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
Last edit: 20/04/2018 06:19
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blackjacki2 United States. Apr 20 2018 07:00. Posts 2581
I really like Shuttle. I think he's going to be the #1 Protoss with Bisu gone. He's also the ASL 1 Champion so he knows what it takes to win this tournament. On these maps I think I'd pick him over anyone except Hero.
my predictions
shuttle > rain
hero > mind
larva > mini
flash > Snow
On April 19 2018 21:19 Spitfiree wrote:
what I dont get is, why didnt Flash at least attempt to attack him @ start of game 1 there when he had 2 dragoons and a zealot, he couldve checked if tank was up, which it wasnt he couldve done decent damage - no way 3 marines and an scv holds the ramp
Nah, he's not doing any damage there before tank finishes. At best he is risking his units to kill some marines. His units are valuable especially because he is going 1 gate nexus. Marines become more useless as the game goes on. Flash would happily welcome that trade.
Sorry my bad, wrote the post late, I meant Snow - not Flash, Snow had 2 goons + 1 zealot, while Flash was covering ramp with 3 marines & 1 scv and tank was at around 30% done, so Snow could've potentially gone in and killed a bunch of scvs since Flash will be forced to take them out to block the ramp further, instead he didn't even attempt to do that.
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blackjacki2 United States. Apr 20 2018 11:07. Posts 2581
On April 19 2018 21:19 Spitfiree wrote:
what I dont get is, why didnt Flash at least attempt to attack him @ start of game 1 there when he had 2 dragoons and a zealot, he couldve checked if tank was up, which it wasnt he couldve done decent damage - no way 3 marines and an scv holds the ramp
Nah, he's not doing any damage there before tank finishes. At best he is risking his units to kill some marines. His units are valuable especially because he is going 1 gate nexus. Marines become more useless as the game goes on. Flash would happily welcome that trade.
Sorry my bad, wrote the post late, I meant Snow - not Flash, Snow had 2 goons + 1 zealot, while Flash was covering ramp with 3 marines & 1 scv and tank was at around 30% done, so Snow could've potentially gone in and killed a bunch of scvs since Flash will be forced to take them out to block the ramp further, instead he didn't even attempt to do that.
I got what you meant, but look again. The tank is 75-80% done when the 2nd goon gets there. He can probably kill the marines but his units get softened and the tank that he knows is about to pop out may snipe them. He's going expo himself so he probably doesn't want to invite any counters from his units getting softened or killed.
got it, i still dont have basic understanding of how the game works then, which actually just proves how fckin hard Brood War is considering I was very high lvl warcraft 3 player so I'm decent @ RTSs
highlights:
-Larva beat Flash on Third World. Flash ignored the isolated map switch area and tried to push the starting area. Larva held him off until he got all the bases running on the other side of the map and then Flash got overpowered by a combination of guardians/muta/scourge/defiler/ling/lurker
-Flash steamrolled Larva on Gladiator -- his 1/1/1 build is really something else. Basically he works off 1 rax, 1 factory, 1 starport, delays his expansion slightly, and adapts his strategy based off what opponent is doing. Starts off with vultures/wraiths for mines+harass+scouting, and switches over to tank+vessel into 5 rax medic+marine. Zerg needs at least 2 gases so they can't do one base play, can't really go muta against fast wraith+vessel and a possible switch to goliaths, cant go only hydra because of the mines so you need overlord speed, can't attack right with ovie speed because of the tanks, and can't get a large force of ultra/ling/defiler fast enough to stop the push. Hydra/Queen is an interesting idea, aiming to broodling the tanks and rush in with hydra before flash gets his medic/marine force up, but I haven't seen it work yet and suspect there's a very small timing window for it, especially since Flash has vessel so quick, but it's probably the best counter. I imagine flash could veer off and switch to medic/marine faster if he sees hydra/queen because he has excellent vision of opponent at all times, but at least it gives zerg a chance, possibly forces flash to change strategy, and allows for zerg to control the game
-flash then beat Larva in a late game PvZ on sparkle. Flash would have been an unreal protoss player lol
-Larva beat flash in a really good ZvZ on transistor. Flash would have been an unreal zerg player too lol
cliffs:
flash is the greatest ever, and the fact that he happens to play terran in this universe does not mean that he is not the best player in other areas of the multiverse where he chose a different race.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
On April 20 2018 17:33 Spitfiree wrote:
Is it legal in tournaments to play random? feels like it could give insane advantage on some maps
I'm not 100% sure, but I think at the start of the tournament you have to declare your race. So you can be protoss, zerg, terran, or random, but you can't race pick based on opponent.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
On April 20 2018 16:47 Daut wrote:
Just watched some Flash vs Larva on stream.
highlights:
-Larva beat Flash on Third World. Flash ignored the isolated map switch area and tried to push the starting area. Larva held him off until he got all the bases running on the other side of the map and then Flash got overpowered by a combination of guardians/muta/scourge/defiler/ling/lurker
-Flash steamrolled Larva on Gladiator -- his 1/1/1 build is really something else. Basically he works off 1 rax, 1 factory, 1 starport, delays his expansion slightly, and adapts his strategy based off what opponent is doing. Starts off with vultures/wraiths for mines+harass+scouting, and switches over to tank+vessel into 5 rax medic+marine. Zerg needs at least 2 gases so they can't do one base play, can't really go muta against fast wraith+vessel and a possible switch to goliaths
Can't the zerg go muta +scourge + overlord speed forcing the terran to stay in his base while you gian control of the map?
On April 20 2018 16:47 Daut wrote:
Just watched some Flash vs Larva on stream.
highlights:
-Larva beat Flash on Third World. Flash ignored the isolated map switch area and tried to push the starting area. Larva held him off until he got all the bases running on the other side of the map and then Flash got overpowered by a combination of guardians/muta/scourge/defiler/ling/lurker
-Flash steamrolled Larva on Gladiator -- his 1/1/1 build is really something else. Basically he works off 1 rax, 1 factory, 1 starport, delays his expansion slightly, and adapts his strategy based off what opponent is doing. Starts off with vultures/wraiths for mines+harass+scouting, and switches over to tank+vessel into 5 rax medic+marine. Zerg needs at least 2 gases so they can't do one base play, can't really go muta against fast wraith+vessel and a possible switch to goliaths
Can't the zerg go muta +scourge + overlord speed forcing the terran to stay in his base while you gian control of the map?
Doesn't seem to work. from a post on TL by kogeT:
a. if zerg goes standard 3 hath into 9 mutas, Flash goes for mines and vulture speed + drop + vessel with irradiate at 7:00
b. if zerg goes any type of 2 hath muta, flash commonly replies with cloked wraith with mass turret
c. if zerg goes for mass hydra, flash adds a quick tank (+mines along the way) and adds a drop
d. if zerg goes for mass ling, it's bascially a coin flip (either Flash dies or holds and wins easily). This is tricky as this hits before wraith and many mines on the map, so it comes down to Flash making a bunker in time, getting vulture speed ASAP and trying to hold with scv/wraith/vulture. Ofc with Flash mechanics he is winning most of these games.
e. if zerg lurker/ling all in it's usually too slow as Flash has mines that has to be cleared and just makes 2-3 bunkers to deny any aggresion
After all that, it's always the 5 rax + tank + mass vessel follow up (commonly with a dropship coming just after his 3-4 vessels to attack 3rd), SK terran or mech switch depending on the map. 80% of games end with that 1st big push, as it hits extreamly early and is so strong with 3-4 vessels with irradiate. (Flash usually moves out with 3 tanks, 4 vessels and anything between 12-24 marines at 9:00 mark).
I think what zerg really have to focus on is:
- further investigate the potential of aggresive timings before 7:00 mark and what is the best follow up understanding that mass vessel is on the way
- develop an alternative style that will defend enough vs wraith/vulture drop and optimize the army to defend the 9:00 push - standard 7:00 mutas + lurker/hive just don't cut it. Maybe some kind of 4 hathery mass hydra with some huge lurker wave just before 9:00? Maybe quick 3 bases purely on hydra? As soon as zerg realizes that this is a 12 gas build zerg should probably go much heavier on drone, maybe threaten some mass ling attacks with it and just before 9:00 have his biggest wave of units ready
- develop right reactions to this big 9 minute push. I think what most zergs really struggele is when this timing hit, just before defiler with swarm (even with very quick hive from zerg). Maybe some backstab ideas should be more considered, because zerg just doesn't have enough to fight this at 9:30~ when push is already at the natural
All in all, we've seen what Flash does in a past in so many variations. It's just Flash himself that combined this with his perfect gameplay. Previously one of the more common answers from zerg was to acutally go hydra/lurker, and I haven't seen much of that from pro zergs like Larva / SK / Effort. If I were to try something, I would go standard 3 hath, and as soon I see it's 12 gas from zerg, go 5 hath with 3rd base, and only add lair later to make like 12 lurkers at once before 9:00 push (as you don't need lurkers before that, because 5 rax production has to kick in before terran moves out).
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
I still believe in a hydra/queen timing. obviously haven't tried it against a flash level terran but I've been pretty consistently beating terrans that I would have a very hard time against if I opened 3 hatch muta or whatever doing it.
On April 21 2018 02:55 Baalim wrote:
Yeah I assume it doesnt work I'd just like to see how vulture speed + drops counter mass mutta lol
Larva is using some taylor made builds that rush to defilers to try and counter it, but they don't seem to work. Two of the games in this series show the build, and another shows his Sparkle TvZ which is absurd
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
Last edit: 22/04/2018 07:19
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blackjacki2 United States. Apr 22 2018 10:45. Posts 2581
Ro8 starts in 15 minutes. According to GTR on teamliquid.net this is how maps for Ro8 work
each player can thumb down one of gladiator/sparkle/transistor/third world which means the thumbed down map won't be played twice. then the maps are randomly ordered.
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blackjacki2 United States. Apr 22 2018 10:57. Posts 2581
Rain seems to be looking a bit sloppier on micro/macro mechanics this ASL compared to other protoss who have been looking real sharp like mini and shuttle. That said he got great payoffs on some strategic risks (esp hidden 4th) and overall looked to have really nice decision making on strategy and army movement with good enough mechanics to convert the strategic advantages.. my take
that game 2 seems like an insane mistake to make by Rain, realistically he couldve just put 3 goons and 2 zealots at his ramp and sent everything else to intercept the shuttle ... I really dont expect anyone in ASL to be able to make such a mistake... agree with Romm3l, Rain won cause he basically had a much much better meta game... Shuttle's inability to block the DT in game 3 could be the moment which won/lost the series for him though
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
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
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.
How about late game, assuming you have an advantage after 15 minutes but can't kill zerg and manage to secure your 4th (or 3rd if you dont get corner base)? Turtle your natural, turret your main, and switch over to mech on the other side? Would absolutely love to watch a game get that far, but so far it seems either Terran wins before that or cannot get the 4th base.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
It also seems that way on Sparkle, Flash is just 1-2 levels above every other Terran because nobody else is nearly as good at him at anything but the +1 5rax build. Mind seemingly went in with the mindset that he needed to prevent hero from getting another main because a 6 gas zerg is unbeatable, he worked very hard at scouting and keeping vision over the map and wasn't doing much harassment. Flash goes in with the mindset that he is going to be as efficient as possible -- he bunched his air units up to do more damage and is blind to some areas of the map but uses them to constantly harass, kill workers, kill gas, kill morphing hatcheries, kill scourge, pick off overlords, repair his low health units, and try to overcome a 7-8 gas zerg with 5-6 gas himself. It's insane he can be that efficient and make the map a 50/50 or better against the very best players.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
Daut I disagree with you about Hero's muta micro in game 5 against Mind. It was an exciting game for sure, but he was making mistakes left and right. Countless times that a muta didn't fire, messed up rally twice (at least I think it was a rally mistake and not a muta command mistake). I remember thinking at one point "they must be getting tired, this doesn't look like pro level anymore", although perhaps considering the sheer length of the fight that is an unfair characterization.
On April 26 2018 18:33 HungarianGOD wrote:
Daut I disagree with you about Hero's muta micro in game 5 against Mind. It was an exciting game for sure, but he was making mistakes left and right. Countless times that a muta didn't fire, messed up rally twice (at least I think it was a rally mistake and not a muta command mistake). I remember thinking at one point "they must be getting tired, this doesn't look like pro level anymore", although perhaps considering the sheer length of the fight that is an unfair characterization.
I went back and rewatched it, there were more mistakes than I noticed during first watch, but I still think it was pretty great -- he lost one muta unnecessarily, a few were damaged more than they should have been when chasing a medic, and he had a few idle and not in battle while he was intensely microing and just mashing hotkeys to macro, but overall he managed to pressure Mind incessantly for 8 straight minutes, picked off lots of turrets/scvs/marines and even a medic all while expanding twice to get 4 gas running, constantly spending his money on muta/scourge, and pressure hard enough to keep Mind producing only wraiths/marines/turrets and prevent him from ever making an armory to get goliaths or valks. It wasn't quite as good as I originally thought, but I don't think we can expect much more from someone in a 10 minute long micro battle in an elimination game after 2 hours of grueling starcraft against a top 3 Terran in the world.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
I cant believe Mind couldnt take the base below his main in the 1st game, he was doing great multi-tasking attacks, great but what is the point if you cant hold that base which he should do with ease with tanks above and a bunker or something, it feels as if he actually is lacking the APM of the strategy he tries to do.
Ex-PokerStars Team Pro Online
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blackjacki2 United States. Apr 27 2018 09:47. Posts 2581
On April 27 2018 06:14 Baalim wrote:
I cant believe Mind couldnt take the base below his main in the 1st game, he was doing great multi-tasking attacks, great but what is the point if you cant hold that base which he should do with ease with tanks above and a bunker or something, it feels as if he actually is lacking the APM of the strategy he tries to do.
It's hard to do because herO was expoing like a mad man. herO just needed to stabilize vs the drops/harass in order to win. If Mind let's herO take a breath while he secures an expo he may be just as good as dead anyway.
On April 27 2018 06:14 Baalim wrote:
I cant believe Mind couldnt take the base below his main in the 1st game, he was doing great multi-tasking attacks, great but what is the point if you cant hold that base which he should do with ease with tanks above and a bunker or something, it feels as if he actually is lacking the APM of the strategy he tries to do.
He should have been able to hold off what hero used to prevent the expansion. But if hero brought defilers and dark swarmed the bunkers it would have been very difficult to hold while doing everything else (not apm wise, just splitting forces between defending main from drops, starting area from attacks, and having enough forces to harass hero's new expansions). I agree though, it's bad that hero was able to deny the expo without using a single dark swarm.
I guess what Mind should have done is secure the expansion, tech switch to mech on the other side, and then use mines/tanks to counter swarm.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
I guess what Mind should have done is secure the expansion, tech switch to mech on the other side, and then use mines/tanks to counter swarm.
yeah thats what I mean, I would understand if he was denied by dark swarms but he was denied by silly attacks at one point he has a marines that would have easily held the expansion if they had a single medic but they didnt.
On April 27 2018 08:47 blackjacki2 wrote:
It's hard to do because herO was expoing like a mad man. herO just needed to stabilize vs the drops/harass in order to win. If Mind let's herO take a breath while he secures an expo he may be just as good as dead anyway.
Yeah its hard but it was very clear that he was trying to operate at a pace faster than he can actually play
Ex-PokerStars Team Pro Online
Last edit: 27/04/2018 21:38
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blackjacki2 United States. Apr 29 2018 11:52. Posts 2581
I hate it when I open up the stream post-live and see its only like 100minutes ... you know that whoever wins game 1 wins 3-0 .... Mini wasnt at a disadvantage at any point of the series damn thats pretty sick... also I am ocmpletely clueless about standard strategies and etc @ brood war, but arent lurkers an absolute MUST in game 2 for Larva??
Agree with Spitfiree, Larva needed lurkers in game 3 to help him turtle up both main and 6:00 bases, then try and turtle one of the other mains so he could get 4-6 bases running and hive tech.
I'll defer to Larva on Third World since he practiced a lot there, but I don't think scourge/hydra is an effective counter for sair/reaver, particularly when trying to hold bases in many locations. The sparkle game stood out as a strategic loss -- I think Larva needed to go muta/scourge into devourer instead there. I don't know if it's better to go super fast muta or a standard island build into muta, but muta/scourge seem to hold up well against corsair for a long period of time with the 3rd gas, at least until you can get a few devourers mixed in.
That said, Mini played basically perfect. Pylon blocks into well micro'ed sair/reaver into 6 gate speed zealot on Third World, fantastic build on Gladiator to pressure with fast gateway and survive ling pressure with a very late forge, and then really nice finishing touch with dweb on Sparkle. Larva would have had to play a ton better to have a chance so he probably shouldn't feel too bad, but he definitely played much worse than usual.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
Last edit: 29/04/2018 20:00
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blackjacki2 United States. Apr 29 2018 19:22. Posts 2581
credit to Mini, he played flawlessly all 3 games. Was hoping for a better showing from Larva. 2 of the 3 maps they played seem to favor toss over zerg. Game 2 mini went with a greedy build and completely got away with it so Larva was well behind even if he survived that push.
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blackjacki2 United States. Apr 29 2018 19:29. Posts 2581
I thought we would have a Protoss champion at the start of Ro16 with this map pool. There's probably no 2 better players to stand in the way of that than Flash and hero. I really don't care to see any more PvP so I'm hoping they show up.
very good series by mini, disappointing by larva - but this was an uphill battle from the start. the double offensive pylons on third world was genius - forced larva to take a third which would be pretty much impossible to defend against reaver harassment. You could even see that Larva had timed hydra aggression to coincide with the reaver harassment - but then because the reaver harassment happened so close to mini's natural, bringing the reaver back was no problem. I wonder if he should have just taken bottom right instead when noticing double pylons, but damn, it was a great build to bring out.
Gladiator game was great by mini. going core before forge is not standard - it's a gamble for sure - but he correctly read that Larva was planning on playing it safe and it worked out perfectly. His initial zealots also did slightly more damage than normally, and it snowballed into a solid victory. Larva going lurkers, after the start and the fast core going unpunished, would most likely just have delayed his loss, because there would be no way for him to apply pressure, and seeing how it was cross position and he had taken a third without a fourth base behind it, he was committed to playing unit vs unit. (If zerg takes the natural of another main base as their third hatchery, defending with lurkers makes sense, because then protoss taking a third of their own - which they will be able to do - means it's 3vs4 bases, still alright for zerg. If zerg takes a single third base, they are trying to keep it 3 vs 2 base for longer. )
Sparkle is so strongly toss favored that it takes zerg gambling with an allin that hits pre-scout or vastly outplaying their opponent for it to work. that game was 'fair enough' by larva, but mini didn't make any big mistakes and it ended up being a pretty boring and standard win. I prefer the more air heavy style with fast carepace upgrades and queens myself - but it's an uphill battle no matter what you go for.
One amazing thing - Larva's scourge timing in game 1. That he fucking times the arrival to basically the second his shuttle finishes, that shit is amazing. To be fair - stuff like this is easier to pull off after they added the game timer - but still. Incredible timing.
snow vs flash is very interesting. you guys are a gambling crowd. I heard pinnacle was offering like 4:1 odds for snow victory, and while flash is flash, I just have to say, this is a very, very good offer.. If I had any money available for betting, I'd put it all on him. Seems like the odds-setters went by name recognition without factoring in map balance - Larva was a solid favorite against Mini too, by the same odds-makers, although the consensus among the good players I talked to before the game was that Mini was a big favorite. I mean I think flash probably is a slight favorite for the series because he's flash, but it's more like a 55:45 kind of favorite, not 75-25/80-20 like odds indicate. Third world and Transistor are both good pvt maps, snow is one of the best pvters (especially with the reaver-carrier style which is what you want to do on those maps), flash's tvp is his worst, and they're playing 3 out of 5 games on third world/transistor.
Last I checked Snow was +255 on pinnacle. I'd guess he's >29% to win given it's Flash's worst matchup, good maps for PvT, snow's great at PvT, and these are actually good maps for Snow's skill with shuttles, but I'm not 100% on it just because Flash is such a monster. I don't have access to a pinnacle account, but going to look to make a small wager on Snow.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
Really looking forward to tomorrow's match. I also think that Snow probably has the highest chance of beating Flush, but tbh I don't feel like the odds (+255 = 28.2% Snow wins) are too much off. Flash is just way too good. I think Flash is maybe like 65 - 70% to win it even on those maps.
Liquid`Drone Norway. May 01 2018 13:40. Posts 3093
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.
lol POKER
Last edit: 01/05/2018 17:34
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Liquid`Drone Norway. May 01 2018 14:44. Posts 3093
To me one of the most amazing things about this series is that flash did not move away his scvs when the shuttle flew over them in the game on transistor. Calling the bluff like that was seriously fkn badass.
That point was also kinda the low point of the series, because snow was getting delayed due to forgetting to build pylons. Bw is a tough game where everybody makes mistakes - but progamers should be too good for that during the first 6 minutes. ;p
I cannot believe Flash lost the game on Gladiator. He spotted the early shuttle, he had units at Snow's doorstep and Snow was even contained by his own wall, he killed a bunch of scvs....how do you not defend your one mining base at all and lose 40+ scvs to reaver drops?
What an incredible series. Games 1, 2, 3, and 5 were all awesome. Game 4 was pretty cool too with the fake shuttle, the bluff call while down 2-1 on a Protoss map, and the quick counter push with wraith+new units for drop defense. Agree with drone, I can't recall a series I've enjoyed more.
Snow is the best protoss tactician I've ever seen. He finds resources in every move he makes and is constantly badgering and fucking with Terran players. I know his skill with shuttles and carriers is off the charts, but I find it surprising how big a gap there is between his PvT/PvP and his PvZ -- it might be a 300+ point ELO/MMR difference. Someone as skilled and pressure based as he is should give zergs fits.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
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
Last edit: 01/05/2018 20:38
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blackjacki2 United States. May 01 2018 23:19. Posts 2581
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
I don't think you can make any conclusion from a 2 game sample size. If you look at games 1 and 5 (the games on Third World) - In game 1 Flash went for some cheeky ledge drop that got absolutely decimated putting him way behind and in game 5 Snow played the early game briliantly, first by sneaking a zealot into Flash's main to delay tanks and then by ambushing his natural with a 2 gate goon build to do a ton of damage and delay his expo. Both of those moves in the early game had little to do with the map and honestly I think if Snow had those openings on ANY map he is in a great position to win the games.
I agree with Eri that the map balancing is a bigger issues in the other matchups with this map pool, but I still think this map pool favors P > T, the only question is how much. 43-41 is on the smaller end of sample sizes that we have for those maps. The ELO adjusted winrate on Third World is 55-45 in favor of Protoss. If you look at the 5 maps they played you can say that Transistor is Protoss favored and Sparkle is Terran favored so it's a wash. Gladiator seems pretty even so that's a wash. What's left is Third World and although 55-45 is not a very big edge, it's exacerbated by the fact that Third World is the only map that gets played twice.
I've loved the games on Sparkle and Third World and honestly I'd rather see more maps like these that change up the meta and create new and interesting games than to see maps that simply try to balance every single matchup - which never happens anyway.
Did Snow use any psi storm at all on Gladiator? Or in game 5?
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
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blackjacki2 United States. May 02 2018 00:33. Posts 2581
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.
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Liquid`Drone Norway. May 02 2018 00:37. Posts 3093
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.
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.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
Last edit: 02/05/2018 06:10
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blackjacki2 United States. May 02 2018 10:21. Posts 2581
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
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Liquid`Drone Norway. May 02 2018 12:51. Posts 3093
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. )
lol POKER
Last edit: 02/05/2018 15:26
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NMcNasty United States. May 02 2018 14:59. Posts 2039
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.
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traxamillion United States. May 03 2018 05:39. Posts 10468
On May 02 2018 04:55 Daut wrote:
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.
cloaked wraiths would be a problem for sairs too because he wouldn't be able to make enough sairs to quickly kill the wraiths before the wraiths can snipe the observers. Snow had to put most of his economy into ground units and shuttles.
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blackjacki2 United States. May 04 2018 06:09. Posts 2581
How much of a statement would it be if Hero wins this tournament going through 2 Protosses to win it? ELO adjusted winrate for ZvP on Sparkle is 31.6% and on Third World it's 35.3%. Gladiator is 56.3% in favor of Zerg and Transistor 53.1% in favor of Zerg. 2 of the maps seem to be massively imbalanced against Zerg in the ZvP matchup and it seems the trend has been that Third World gets played twice if it goes to 5 games? (still not entirely sure how maps work). As much as people were saying it would be incredible if Flash won at the start of the season it seems like the true feat will be if Hero can pull this off.
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Liquid`Drone Norway. May 04 2018 12:38. Posts 3093
third world being played twice in the previous 3 rounds was random I think. like no players vetoed it (zergs vetoed sparkle, flash vetoed transistor, protosses vetoed gladiator), and then I think it was just a coinflip going third world's way three times in a row.
Rain vs hero I expect hero to veto sparkle and rain to veto transistor (gladiator is his kind of map) and that it's a 50/50 whether we get third world or gladiator twice.
Realistically can't they just pick 7 maps for the tournament and have 1 player veto 1 so 5 are left..... ? It feels quite dumb to have to re-play the same map especially considering that there is literally 0 chance of balancing a map in an RTS
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Liquid`Drone Norway. May 04 2018 20:34. Posts 3093
Honestly I think that sounds like a smart solution. especially when 2/4 maps are clearly imbalanced in one matchup, there ends up being a 50/50 shot of one of those maps being repeated.
lol POKER
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blackjacki2 United States. May 05 2018 03:29. Posts 2581
I do agree I won too much, and it's a good thing to have new faces and more viewership.
Cmon ... has to be joking. "Sorry for being so much better than everyone and np that you fucked me with the maps - it's all good"
Plus has the viewership really gone up ? Most sports are dominated by a single team/individual and it's not like people stop watching them
Last edit: 05/05/2018 10:55
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Liquid`Drone Norway. May 05 2018 14:12. Posts 3093
the viewership was the highest in a long time during snow vs flash cause people thought there was a good chance flash would lose. Was like 110k watching korean stream and restream. And it was going down last season because there was less excitement cause Flash winning seemed like a given.
You might think he sounds disingenuous about being okay with losing - but he's right in the assessment that Flash losing is good for excitement and viewership numbers. And it's not good for a sport if one person or team looks untouchable many seasons in a row.
What a strategy by Rain in game 1. Gambling on nexus first, double wall in blocking both ramps two zealots wide, noticing no hydras and adding multiple cannons to protect natural muta harass, and then constant zealot/archon pressure with only 1-2 observers all over the map. Really impressive stuff.
Nice build game 2 as well. At first I thought he would double gate on 9 which seemed like an unnecessary risk on a map with a 70% winrate for PvZ, but the one gate into taking ramp into expo into double stargate sair was great.
Have only watched first 3 games so far, but by the time remaining know Rain must win in 4. It will be a little silly if Snow wins this Starleague while not winning a game vs zerg in 2 seasons (not counting the qualifying rounds, which I know nothing about).
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
I feel like Rain losing a few HT in game 3 costed him the game or would've been a clean sweep, pretty sick domination overall... hero's attempt to scourge the corsairs in game 1 was pretty damn good though
mini's game on sparkle gave me cancer. that was literally the worst progamer game ive seen since kingdom walled in his zealots on korhal of ceres in wcg 2004 qualification.
Haven't watched yet, but last night I had a vivid dream about the match. I had a dream within my dream that Mini won 3-0, so after I woke up I placed a large wager on Mini, and then when they played Mini won 3-0 with all 3 games lasting under 8 minutes. Between Snow's horrid play and my bet, there were accusations of match fixing and Snow went to prison.
Funny cause I wasn't really even looking forward to the rest of the starleague.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
On May 10 2018 16:06 whammbot wrote:
PVP is the most cancerous finals matchup. I no longer mind watching TvT (with flash) or ZvZ (with either JD, Effort, Soulkey, Larva)
I don't like ZvZ for a series cause the games all have the same feel. There is some metagame with the RPS nature of going 9 pool/12 pool/12 hatch, but the games are just too similar to each other. PvP is kinda the same, but there's a bit more diversity early and there is the possibility of an end game.
TvT is pretty cool though, and I'd much rather have any non-mirror match than a mirror match series.
NewbSaibot: 18 TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Because FUCK YOU, Daut
Last edit: 10/05/2018 17:49
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Liquid`Drone Norway. May 10 2018 17:52. Posts 3093
imo watchability of a series is something like tvz > zvp > tvp > tvt >>> pvp=zvz
yeah definitely. He lost some mining time and like 6 probes, but Mini's build order was a perfect counter to Snow's and he had a very significant advantage. Snow managed to pick off his shuttle with I think two reavers in it, that was the turning point. The high ground goons were a really nice touch though.
Was funny how Mini made a point out of snow having bad macro, because he really did. Both game 1 and 4 featured him, for whatever reason, floating more than 1000 minerals while being on two bases, and without all that much other stuff going on. Progamers generally don't do that. At the same time, I think it shows how many worse players mis-prioritize, and how important game understanding and unit control is. Snow just reached ASL finals while showcasing macro that honestly isn't much better, if better at all, than my own - it's rare that I float as much money as he did as early as he was floating. Would still lose 20-0.
so Rain is basically gonna 3-0 Snow and the 3rd place match is gonna be much more interesting... can we just have a reset of the season please with other maps ... is ASL only once a year?
Last edit: 10/05/2018 21:46
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blackjacki2 United States. May 10 2018 22:02. Posts 2581
ASL 1 was in June 2016, so this is the 5th season in less than 2 years.
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blackjacki2 United States. May 13 2018 17:17. Posts 2581
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Liquid`Drone Norway. May 13 2018 18:53. Posts 3093
this was fantastic. game 5 might have been the best game of the tournament - and there were many good games.
lol POKER
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blackjacki2 United States. May 13 2018 19:22. Posts 2581
I really hope Third World stays for next ASL
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Liquid`Drone Norway. May 13 2018 19:46. Posts 3093
I hope they make it a ladder map. A blizzard guy was asking on twitter whether people liked third world or polaris rhapsody more, and third world won with 75% of the votes, so I actually think they are planning on including it for next season.
United States. Mar 22 2018 21:32. Posts 8955
) and another last sunday had third world in the map pool, and I got to play a couple zvt games. Even though I lost one of them (against Scan, a korean guy who is basically bottom tier ASL level), it reaffirmed my belief that this is one of the best maps for zvt nowadays.
