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Please do not read on if you don't want to be spoiled, and if you think you want to be spoiled, still don't read on because you should instead watch what was really an incredible match.
I'll be honest, going into today's matches I was much, much, much more excited for IdrA vs Jinro than Nada vs MKP, but the second match ended up being incredibly exciting. I had no real "preference" for which player won. Game 1's finish was so tense, I was actually getting the physical signs of being nervous myself after MKP re-landed his CC, at that point I realized all 3 results were still possible (an expression much more common in chess), when before the commentators had convinced me that only 2 were possible (in chess, you really want to be playing for only 2 results when you can).
Game 3 was also awesome, but not quite as cool, watch them out of order if you've already been spoiled. But the mule really changes the game from a high level in a way that both me and the commentators clearly didn't understand. If terran has a floating OC, he's never technically out of the game as long as there are still minerals and gas left on the map.
One thing the commentators failed to mention though during game 1 was that since Nada didn't have a CC, when he landed his starport MKP actually could see it on his mini-map since Nada was being revealed I think. Actually pretty game changing, and not clear why he landed it in the first place.
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What it felt like to me was that nada had a pretty strong hold on the games (set 1 & 3) in general but fell apart after and during the base trades. Much due to mkp's mobile rine composition but also I suspect mkp has a tendency to aim for those scenarios whereas in normal games they are quite uncommon, so chances are mkp had a much better plan and more practice in that sense.
Some disappointing micro mistakes in nada's play like untimely attacks at the wrong place and forgetting vital sieges, but overall I think he had much stronger macro and should have won had he been more familiar with the whole base trade thing. Oh and the fact that he didn't even attempt to lift off his cc's the second time was plain ridiculous. T_T
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On January 20 2011 03:10 hifriend wrote: What it felt like to me was that nada had a pretty strong hold on the games (set 1 & 3) in general but fell apart after and during the base trades. Much due to mkp's mobile rine composition but also I suspect mkp has a tendency to aim for those scenarios whereas in normal games they are quite uncommon, so chances are mkp had a much better plan and more practice in that sense.
Some disappointing micro mistakes in nada's play like untimely attacks at the wrong place and forgetting vital sieges, but overall I think he had much stronger macro and should have won had he been more familiar with the whole base trade thing. Oh and the fact that he didn't even attempt to lift off his cc's the second time was plain ridiculous. T_T I would think the player with more experience would have a pretty big advantage in "weird" scenarios, but I guess there are stylistic dependencies. It's even possible Nada did have an advantage of experience, but it got washed out in the noise of the crazy games. I actually kind of got the feeling that the first 2 games tilted Nada pretty badly, he was doing very strange "overly safe" stuff in g3 that's just bad, it's like the type of thing you would only do to a player you're incapable of losing to by so much you really don't have to do that, and that's clearly not the case with MKP, I think just by game 3 he was in his head. He ended up ahead in game 3, but it was much closer than his lead in game 1 and I think the tilt was still affecting him.
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I don't see how Nada could have ever won unless MarineKing gives him the game. He sees the starport land if Nada ever tries to go for a viking, then he has no army to stop marineking from just landing his CC for a draw with his bigger army to protect it. Even if he wasn't paying attention and a viking starts plucking away at his buildings he can just land them for a draw. Meanwhile Marineking can kill down his army without Nada knowing and be hiding supply depots like he was doing. Nada had no way to win that game unless Marineking lets him kill his entire army first
If anything it was a good example of why the reveal system (or a draw system for that matter) shouldn't be in custom games and only be a ladder function.
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On January 20 2011 03:40 floor exercise wrote: I don't see how Nada could have ever won unless MarineKing gives him the game. He sees the starport land if Nada ever tries to go for a viking, then he has no army to stop marineking from just landing his CC for a draw with his bigger army to protect it. Even if he wasn't paying attention and a viking starts plucking away at his buildings he can just land them for a draw. Meanwhile Marineking can kill down his army without Nada knowing and be hiding supply depots like he was doing. Nada had no way to win that game unless Marineking lets him kill his entire army first
If anything it was a good example of why the reveal system (or a draw system for that matter) shouldn't be in custom games and only be a ladder function.
Obviously Nada couldn't win unless Marineking gave him the game, but Marineking also couldn't win unless nada gave him the game. Nada should have scouted the borders of the map and found the single flying command center. Put a medivac on follow and it's never going to escape. MKP now has no way to make a scv/depots and nadas army was way superior before he started killing his shit. I don't see why he didn't try to go for a draw or something, really bad play by nada imo.
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I went off on my twitter about how Artosis was wrong, and that creating a viking is a 100% guaranteed loss by Nada.
If Nada created a viking he'd have a 6 food army to support it, and like you mentioned, MKP knows that the viking will be done. If he brings the viking anywhere near MKP's structures, then MKP will land them and support it with his ~18 food army, enough to kill anything nada could ever create from then on
Without a command center, MKP was in control of the game no matter what, the whole time they're saying Nada is 99.9% going to win, he was in reality at a maybe 5% chance on winning, assuming MKP has no game sense and no strategy, that is what separates the top end korean pros from average players. MKP knows as long as he has a CC and an army larger than 8 food, he will win.
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On January 20 2011 04:15 ZlaSHeR wrote: I went off on my twitter about how Artosis was wrong, and that creating a viking is a 100% guaranteed loss by Nada.
If Nada created a viking he'd have a 6 food army to support it, and like you mentioned, MKP knows that the viking will be done. If he brings the viking anywhere near MKP's structures, then MKP will land them and support it with his ~18 food army, enough to kill anything nada could ever create from then on
Without a command center, MKP was in control of the game no matter what, the whole time they're saying Nada is 99.9% going to win, he was in reality at a maybe 5% chance on winning, assuming MKP has no game sense and no strategy, that is what separates the top end korean pros from average players. MKP knows as long as he has a CC and an army larger than 8 food, he will win. Agreed 100%
The only way Nada wins that is if he somehow traps MKP's army. It seemed to me like he realized that too.
I'm wondering if revealing should be mutual. Like if your buildings are getting revealed so do your opponents, but maybe an option for the person with a CC to choose reveal all or reveal none (only get to choose once?). As it stands, I see no reason Nada should be at a strategic disadvantage in that situation. Then again, since it doesn't affect balance, it just is the way the game plays and it was pretty awesome as is. It's absolutely impossible the way it is IN PRACTICE in Nada's situation, you're playing so blind for such a long period of time while your opponent always knows he'll find out if you're doing something.
Another possibility: "Tournament Mode" for custom games. This would turn off building reveal altogether (really only important for ladder games). I actually don't like building reveal, it's a terrible mechanic, but it's 100% necessary for ladder games.
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On January 20 2011 04:15 ZlaSHeR wrote: I went off on my twitter about how Artosis was wrong, and that creating a viking is a 100% guaranteed loss by Nada.
If Nada created a viking he'd have a 6 food army to support it, and like you mentioned, MKP knows that the viking will be done. If he brings the viking anywhere near MKP's structures, then MKP will land them and support it with his ~18 food army, enough to kill anything nada could ever create from then on
Without a command center, MKP was in control of the game no matter what, the whole time they're saying Nada is 99.9% going to win, he was in reality at a maybe 5% chance on winning, assuming MKP has no game sense and no strategy, that is what separates the top end korean pros from average players. MKP knows as long as he has a CC and an army larger than 8 food, he will win. In reality, that just constitutes a draw. Nada chose to act which is a real shame because it cost him the game. If instead he had just made damn sure that cc never got to land it would obviously have been deemed a draw eventually, and even if in theory mkp still could have won it just isn't realistic with such a food differential.
If you think about it, the only way MKP could have possibly won that game would have been if nada decided to afk for at least a couple of minutes..
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I feel like structures being revealed because you lack a CC is like kicking you when you're already down. MKP got to be sneaky since he saved one of his CC's, and Nada didn't because he was being revealed. That's really what it came down to. If both players were revealed it would have been a draw, if neither were revealed it could have gone either way.
Really, MKP already had a huge advantage just by having the CC, all Nada had to do was park his army just outside where the CC was floating and he could have forced a draw.
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On January 20 2011 03:40 floor exercise wrote: I don't see how Nada could have ever won unless MarineKing gives him the game. He sees the starport land if Nada ever tries to go for a viking, then he has no army to stop marineking from just landing his CC for a draw with his bigger army to protect it. Even if he wasn't paying attention and a viking starts plucking away at his buildings he can just land them for a draw. Meanwhile Marineking can kill down his army without Nada knowing and be hiding supply depots like he was doing. Nada had no way to win that game unless Marineking lets him kill his entire army first
If anything it was a good example of why the reveal system (or a draw system for that matter) shouldn't be in custom games and only be a ladder function.
IMO the whole viking idea is pretty stupid. Nada's army was 100% stronger than MarineKing's, and as long as he kept patrolling the map he could eventually whittle down MKP's army, even if it took an hour. And then, he could build a viking at his leisure. The audience might be bored, but he'd win. A single viking is weak as shit and it won't be able to kill a command center before it lands and is surrounded by marines.
Nada's decision to kill his medivacs lost him the first game.
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Nada did scout the CC when he caught upto marineking's army and mk ran away into the corner; nada followed with his own medivacs (where the cc was). the problem was nada failed to leave a marine there to watch it ... he was too busy trying to corner MK's significantly smaller force so he could get that viking.
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Nada 100% lost BOTH games because of his own mistakes. He could have very easily drawn the first game (and MKP did make several mistakes that could have led to a Nada win) and he had roughly 3-4 chances to win game 3 that he threw away every single time.
I disagree strongly with what players earlier have said about Marineking being in control of game 1 because of the CC. This is false. Nada had the game until he made the mistake of killing his own units and trying to get a viking. He should have been more patient and killed Marineking's units, or just waited out the draw.
In game 1:
1. Nada had more units. He knew this, and he knew MKP had a command center and that MKP could see all of his buildings. What Nada should have done is find MKP's CC. He never did that. He never once knew where MKP's CC was, despite passing it several times both on the ground and with his medivacs. If he knew where it was, he could have had a medivac follow it and prevent the possibility of it landing without him knowing.
Nada also had more than enough marines to run one to each of the expansions. Instead, he seemed to make the assumption that MKP's command center was with his barracks, and he only sent out 2-3 units to the top expansions. Even so, he didn't spot the top right expansion very well.
2. Nada knew where MKP's army was the entire time, yet he didn't follow it very well. If he had followed it better he could have killed it on more than one occasion.
3. Nada chose to start killing his own units within MKP's vision. I can't stress how unbelievably stupid that move was. Marineking knew exactly when Nada was killing his own units, and that's exactly when he decided to land the command center, because he had more than 8 marines himself. When Nada began killing his own marines, MKP knew that he would only need about 5 marines alive in order to stop Nada (since medivacs heal, and Nada could have only max 8 marines and 1 SCV while trying to get that viking)
In Game 3:
1. Nada was again impatient. Had he sieged up in a proper position even once, he could have stopped Marineking's army dead cold. There is nothing 40 marines can do against 10 sieged tanks and 20 marines.
2. When the basetrade was completed, Nada lost his gamesense. He made a horrible decision to kill MKP as soon as possible when he had scouted around and ensured that MKP had not landed his CC.
3. Nada made the inexplicable choice to split his army into 3, while sending the largest chunk (consisting mostly of tanks) to the top left where the starports were. This made no sense. MKP beautifully took advantage of this by destroying Nada's small force at MKP's CC and then Nada was suddenly behind in army.
4. Nada did not defend his base at MKP's natural. Had he just left his tanks there in siege mode, started macroing, perhaps put a second CC in MKP's main, and play out the game instead of panicking and trying to kill MKP outright, Nada would have won after 5-6 minutes. MKP was behind and he knew it, and so he stalled out and tried to force Nada to make mistakes. Nada took the bait and lost.
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I just re-watched it with true hindsight: MKP should've have killed off his units when he did, it was a free option, but his army was much stronger at that point so he should have tried to trade armies, THEN land his CC, then CALL down mules, THEN win the game, but when he did land he was at no risk of losing as nada had no supply left he would never be able to build a viking and in that way MKP played it a million times better. Nada really made a poor decision to kill his own units leaving himself with a weaker army.
I don't totally blame Nada, it's incredibly tough to play this those weird situations. It was possible for nada to win for some short period of time, but he needed to defend his depot for that to be possible, he needed to split off one medivac and find the CC. The draw mechanic kind of ruined it though, he should have sat and thought for quite a while and he would've figured it all out, but it's difficult with so little time and the adrenaline running.
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I was frustrated that Nada did not siege his tanks. In the first game especially, he chose to siege only tank. He clearly had the option to seige up all of it, and this would have killed enough of MKP's army to not be much of a threat to seiged tanks at Nada's main. This was the biggest issue, but after seeing him run around with siegeless tanks for crucial parts of the third game really put me over the edge.
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