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[PL Spoilers] Introduction/Hite vs STX questions

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Base
Profile Blog Joined October 2008
United States36 Posts
June 06 2010 07:37 GMT
#1
So a quick introduction, since this is my first blog post.

I am an extremely bad broodwar (and sc2 player). On good days I succeed in keeping my money below 1000 5 minutes into the game, but those days are exceedingly rare. I do however like to watch the Korean games and try to understand what's happening. I might never even come close to doing that, but I'd like to get a clearer picture of what runs through the minds of the players. It makes watching more fun for me. So I was hoping the upper-level players (and to be upper-level to me you'd have to be like D+) could weigh in and answer some of the questions I have. But beware, my questions very rarely stop >_>. Hopefully it will also be of use to the other people out there like me trying to better understand the game. There may be some things that are beyond my grasp since I do not have good playing experience, but I hope that's not too frequent.

With that out of the way, let's move on to the game that puzzled me today.

Kal vs Horang2, the ace match of Hite vs. STX. Presumably Kal was sent out instead of Calm or Shuttle because STX assumed that Leta would be playing the ace match for Hite. Leta seems to do well overall, certainly better than the other members of Hite. However, he has a bit of a weak matchup in his TvP, as he usually sits around the 50% mark there. Therefore the natural move for hite would be to send out Horang2, who at least statistically is a strong PvP player.

This decision isn't quite so obvious since the map obviously plays a huge factor. Unfortuantely the spare data on Grand Line means nothing and my map analysis is quite subpar, so I really can't make many useful comments on the decision. At the very least I can say that TvP looks difficult given the large distance to a third gas and the several million paths that a protoss army can take around the map.

Here's a random question that just popped into my head: do the islands on this map favor protoss or terran in a PvT? Could it be the third gas that the terran is looking for? After all, since double armory play requires a fast starport for the upgrades, couldn't you fit a dropship into that, use it to harass, and try to claim the island? This sounds slightly suspicious, as a competent protoss player probably will not simply allow you to turret up an island for free.

Looking at pro games, the most recent map to feature islands was Ultimatum (staying away from Outsider since that's so weird), which had a total of 6 TvP games (3-3, found here: Games). Looking at them, one was Flash vs Best, where Best attempted to take his third on the island and died to Flash's massive 6 factory timing push. Terran won again in Hwasin vs Guemchi, although according to the LR thread Guemchi succeeded in flying a shuttle full of 3 dts into turrets. Probably can throw that one out. I can't quite work out what happened in Stork vs Canata (the final game that Terran won). It looks like Stork attempted some sort of 2base carrier, which Canata scouted and rolled over. In the games where Protoss emerged victorious, Kal beat Hwasin on a failed BBS, Best beat Canata using 12nex -> 2base reaver -> 2base carrier and used this to take the island. Finally, Best took out ForGG after a failed midgame biomech push. Not sure how much can be gleaned from such a game. All in all, it looks like the protoss controlled the islands despite the extra incentive that Ultimatum offers for Terran to get a dropship - the cliffable natural. But I digress ...

Back to the game that I actually was planning on asking questions about, Kal vs Horang2. Whether or not it was the right decision given the map, I cannot comment further on. So we have a PvP, and Horang2, the supposed PvP expert, chooses a rather unorthodox opening: He expands after one gate.

Even though I do not know much, there is something I'd like to point out here. Progamers are not stupid. In fact, they are a lot better than any of us at Starcraft. We might question their in-game decisions; they are, after all, made in the heat of the moment. But when a player who was clearly selected to snipe another opens up with something unorthodox, there must be some solid thinking behind it. That's the main reason I'm so curious about it.

When thinking about fast expand PvP, two games come to mind. Neither is particularly similar to this one, but whatever. One is Stork vs Kal on Byzantium 2 (Link). Quick game summary: Kal tries to 14nex and defend with cannons, Stork builds a proxy robotics facility and walks a reaver to Kal's front, outranging the cannons and easily winning. The other game was Bisu vs Jangbi on Destination (Link), where Bisu expanded after one gate and one core (and a really sweet manner pylon). He held off Jangbi's 2gate robo pressure using the bridges of Destination suffering some probe losses, but appeared to emerge with the economic advantage. Horang2's nexus was after one gate, and Grand Line does not appear to have any bridges for his defense.

This is what Horang2 knows: He knows that the center is buildable, so proxy gates are a possibility. On top of that I think this makes a crossmap scout just as likely as a traditional scout. Again, since the center is buildable, he also knows that what Stork did to Kal (and what Kal ended up doing to him) is a possibility - to build production facilities in the middle of the map that negates the reinforcement time.

From this perspective, the luck factor of the game turned out reasonably well for Horang2. I don't think he expected some super-late scout from Kal on a 4-player map with a buildable center, and he even got cross positions. Yes he was scouted first, but with a cross map spawn and a traditional scout you're most likely to get scouted second anyway.

Horang2's plan looked like it revolved around defense of the nexus with cannons. Nothing Kal did was out of the ordinary or brilliant; he simply made lots of units. He went up to 3 gateways fairly quickly, added a robo and observer far sooner than he needed (his observer spotted Horang2's citadel of adun warping in), and won easily anyway. Horang2's plan was clearly dt-proof, but it did not appear to hold off much else. His 3 gates (naturally) came slower than Kal's so he simply did not have enough time to produce an equivalent army. He put up something like 4 total cannons which are not too effective against dragoons and were even shot at while they were warping in. Even a proxy robo, as in the Stork-Kal game, seems like it would've led to an easy victory.

So what was Horang2's plan? Maybe the early scout threw him off and the few seconds that Kal had to deviate from his normal build really did cost him the game. Does anyone have any experience with this 1-gate expand strategy? It does not appear that it gains any benefit from the map, or the opponent (Like Flash used to be known for scouting late, etc.). I'm pretty lost on this and I was wondering if anyone had an explanation.

Thanks in advance for any help you guys might have.

*****
Empyrean
Profile Blog Joined September 2004
16986 Posts
June 06 2010 07:44 GMT
#2
Horang2 probably realized he didn't stand a chance against Kal and attempted to more or less hail mary his game.
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Megalisk
Profile Blog Joined October 2008
United States6095 Posts
June 06 2010 07:48 GMT
#3
The strat that horang2 tried is very uncommon, as it is known FE in PvP usually gets destroyed handily. Frankly he just tried to get lucky, but no amount of luck, even the fact that he got cross positions, could save him. It was a bad build.
Tear stained american saints and dirty guitar dreams across a universe of desert and blue sky , gas station coffee love letters and two dollar pistol kisses from thirty five dollar hotel room stationary .
Scarecrow
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
Korea (South)9172 Posts
June 06 2010 07:50 GMT
#4
On June 06 2010 16:44 Empyrean wrote:
Horang2 probably realized he didn't stand a chance against Kal and attempted to more or less hail mary his game.

Horang2 is ridiculously good at PvP wtf are you on about?
Yhamm is the god of predictions
Rostam
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
United States2552 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-06-06 07:55:54
June 06 2010 07:55 GMT
#5
On June 06 2010 16:44 Empyrean wrote:
Horang2 probably realized he didn't stand a chance against Kal and attempted to more or less hail mary his game.


He just beat Kal in the round 4 Hite vs STX match like a month ago.
BW forever || Thall
Ideas
Profile Blog Joined April 2008
United States8097 Posts
June 06 2010 07:59 GMT
#6
he was probably hoping that kal was anticipating horang2 to be confident in playing a straight-up game vs kal so horang2 went ahead and tried to gain a really early advantage hoping that kal wouldnt expect it. It was a big gamble and it didnt pay off. he probably would of looked badass if it did though.

also to answer your other question I'm quite sure that islands favor protoss much more than terran. reaver openings are already common and the early shuttle can be used to take a quick island base, and also it's much easier for protoss to attack/defend islands that it is for terran. photon cannons are much better at defending islands than turrets are, and then in the late game protoss usually get arbitors any way which are AMAZINGLY good vs islands expansions (since terran cannot possibly reinforce an island in time). This is one of the big reasons (very hard to defend island expos from recall) why there were so few TvTs on outsider lol.
Free Palestine
Carnivorous Sheep
Profile Blog Joined November 2008
Baa?21242 Posts
June 06 2010 08:08 GMT
#7
1) Terran defense relies heavily on tanks, and Turrets alone aren't gonna hold out very long to any sort of dedicated assault. Stationing troops on the island is going to leave your main army weaker, and it's not like you can station a critical mass of tanks on such a small island. Seems like it generally favors Protoss.

2) The Forge-Cannons seemed like a reactionary move to Kal's aggression, and not a part of Horang2's initial plan, which basically consisted of hoping Kal does a standard opening, doesn't scout it right away, and just overwhelming Kal with economic advantage later on. Huge gamble, didn't pay off as Kal crushed it handily with the proper response.
TranslatorBaa!
Base
Profile Blog Joined October 2008
United States36 Posts
June 06 2010 08:15 GMT
#8
On June 06 2010 16:59 Ideas wrote:
he was probably hoping that kal was anticipating horang2 to be confident in playing a straight-up game vs kal so horang2 went ahead and tried to gain a really early advantage hoping that kal wouldnt expect it. It was a big gamble and it didnt pay off. he probably would of looked badass if it did though.

also to answer your other question I'm quite sure that islands favor protoss much more than terran. reaver openings are already common and the early shuttle can be used to take a quick island base, and also it's much easier for protoss to attack/defend islands that it is for terran. photon cannons are much better at defending islands than turrets are, and then in the late game protoss usually get arbitors any way which are AMAZINGLY good vs islands expansions (since terran cannot possibly reinforce an island in time). This is one of the big reasons (very hard to defend island expos from recall) why there were so few TvTs on outsider lol.


I can understand horang2 taking a gamble, but even gambles have to have some sort of possible positive outcome. What was he looking for? What did Kal do that Horang2 didn't anticipate or hoped he wouldn't? The only thing I can think of is the scout.

When thinking about islands in protoss vs terran I did consider recalls, but I wasn't entirely sure. It seemed slightly less clear-cut than I originally thought. If a terran is set up on an island, he's probably got some nice turret defense on the side of the island that he doesn't control. So to recall the island, protoss sacrifices the arbiter. On top of that, he doesn't have a way to get off the island ... so he requires another recall. Is that actually cost effective?

Also, I'm not sure what you mean when you're talking about Outsider. The original Outsider saw a fair number of TvTs (more than PvP, less than ZvZ) and Terrans had a positive record in both TvZ and TvP. Something clearly changed in Outsider SE (not sure what?), but anyway, Outsider is a really weird map. Hard to say what was going on, if anyone can give a brief explanation that would be cool.
GHOSTCLAW
Profile Blog Joined February 2008
United States17042 Posts
June 06 2010 08:28 GMT
#9
Outsider SE has like 500 less minerals in one of the main mineral patches.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=103641
PhotographerLiquipedia. Drop me a pm if you've got questions/need help.
Niton
Profile Blog Joined March 2009
United States2395 Posts
June 06 2010 10:27 GMT
#10
On June 06 2010 17:28 GHOSTCLAW wrote:
Outsider SE has like 500 less minerals in one of the main mineral patches.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=103641


Actually, Outsider SE has an additional mineral patch worth 500 minerals - this change was made, if I remember correctly, to help the Protoss early game by allowing them to play a 2-gate opening?
tree.hugger: Coming off of [(T)fantasy v. (T)Really] into [(T)Barracks v. (T)MVP] is like coming out of Manhattan into New Jersey. You just have to speed up and ignore it.
writer22816
Profile Blog Joined September 2008
United States5775 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-06-06 10:58:04
June 06 2010 10:57 GMT
#11
On June 06 2010 17:15 Base wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 06 2010 16:59 Ideas wrote:
he was probably hoping that kal was anticipating horang2 to be confident in playing a straight-up game vs kal so horang2 went ahead and tried to gain a really early advantage hoping that kal wouldnt expect it. It was a big gamble and it didnt pay off. he probably would of looked badass if it did though.

also to answer your other question I'm quite sure that islands favor protoss much more than terran. reaver openings are already common and the early shuttle can be used to take a quick island base, and also it's much easier for protoss to attack/defend islands that it is for terran. photon cannons are much better at defending islands than turrets are, and then in the late game protoss usually get arbitors any way which are AMAZINGLY good vs islands expansions (since terran cannot possibly reinforce an island in time). This is one of the big reasons (very hard to defend island expos from recall) why there were so few TvTs on outsider lol.


I can understand horang2 taking a gamble, but even gambles have to have some sort of possible positive outcome. What was he looking for? What did Kal do that Horang2 didn't anticipate or hoped he wouldn't? The only thing I can think of is the scout.


Horang2 cut probes the moment he got his expansion up to quickly add gates and get units and if Kal hadn't scouted cross positions first then it's very likely that Horang2 would have gotten enough units up to defend by the time Kal was able to mount an attack.
8/4/12 never forget, never forgive.
Trezeguet
Profile Blog Joined January 2009
United States2656 Posts
June 06 2010 15:08 GMT
#12
Horang2 seemed to hope to not have to play Kal straight up since he is sooo gooood. He went for an economic cheese and blah.
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