EPTAbout the Blog:
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How successful will this blog be? Only time will tell.
Why does my opinion matter? It doesn't. My opinion is being used as a medium to provide people with a space to objectively comment upon the professional Starcraft II gamers in a dignified and professional manner.
What I would like to see come from this blog series: interesting and respectful discussion from TL.net members from around the world.
What I would not like to see in this blog series: disrespectful character sniping, or disdainful remarks. Feel free to post that stuff on the forums, or on a different website, or start your own blog. But here, we will comment about the players we discuss in a dignified way.
The Rules of Engagement:
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- Negative remarks are allowed, but they should be well worded (Non-English speakers are okay, don't fret if you don't speak English well) and constructive.
- Hardcore analysis of the players as people shouldn't be done unless you've met this player in real life, and you have known him/her personally for some significant amount of time.
- Your comments should show some amount of intelligent thought. "lol idra is mad" will get you banned from my blog.
Now, the topic for today:
EG.IdrA
Greg "IdrA" Fields, also called the Gracken, is a professional Zerg player (formerly a Terran player in Starcraft: Broodwar) who has previously qualified as a GSL "Code S" player. His outstanding knowledge of the game, quick reaction time, and amazing game sense drives him to well deserved victories in tournaments. I am sure this introduction was not necessary, because love him or hate him, we all know who IdrA is.
The Man
It would be nearly impossible to discuss this amazing player without diving into the controversy head-on; IdrA is known to be a little BM (bad mannered). Everyone is familiar with the famous "IdrA rage". Today I will openly declare my approval of his "BM". What you call bad manners, IdrA calls the open expression of truth and emotion. To single out IdrA because he refuses to restrain himself is highly prejudiced. We all get frustrated when we lose games, sometimes more frustrated than other times, and a lot of players just suck it up and say "gg".
There have been multiple occasions when IdrA channels his anger and his frustration into a really aggressive build, which secures him a win. But there have been times when his rage has cost him an important game (IdrA vs. HuK at MLG Dallas 2011, Hallucinated void rays). But ultimately IdrA's frustration is just expressed in ways that other players pretend they don't want to do. Reputation, for whatever reason, means a lot in E-Sports right now, and no one would dare stain their good name with a bad reputation.
Truth be told, we all occasionally want to give a good "Fuck you" to the enemy. Because IdrA is not so obsessed with his public image (i.e. vanity) he is willing to do this. In this sense, he is a hero for the underdog, the player who isn't IdrA, who isn't Chargelot, but rather is Greg Fields and Jesse Spillane (that's me). He doesn't represent himself as EG.IdrA, professional Starcraft II player, he represents himself as Greg Fields, human gamer. That is an attitude I'd like to see more from people. I want to know that KiWiKaKi (random name) actually has feelings. Perhaps professional gaming would not be such an impenetrable field if more gamers represented themselves the way IdrA does, as simply himself.
Zerg is Underpowered
IdrA, as he said in State of the Game: Episode 37, believes that Zerg have an innate design flaw which has begun to wreak havoc upon the Zerg vs. Terran/Protoss metagame. Since both Terran and Protoss wall-off against Zerg every game, Zerg cannot get any information related to the build of their opponent.
In a sense, IdrA is correct. A reasonably timed scout will hit a wall, and an early scout will see nothing noteworthy. Also, any decent player will have Stalkers/Sentries/Marines blocking an Overlord scout.
His argument continues when he says the only way to win without flipping a coin (i.e. guessing, estimating, having a 50% chance to win or lose, etc.) is to either scout the enemy build, or to have an all purpose defense. Since there is not such thing as an "all purpose" defense, and Zerg cannot truly scout any skillful player, it is then impossible for Zerg to be truly even with the other races.
The famous Sean "Day[9]" Plott attempted to reconcile IdrA's argument by saying he was looking at the situation through too-small of a lens, and that there is no true "imbalance", but being the shout caster that he is, he tried to shout cast his argument, and therefore it was not as articulate as it could have been.
I will attempt to reconcile IdrA's argument through the same lens Day[9] was, or at least my perception of his lens. This information shouldn't be treated as a heavy counter to IdrA's logic, as I am a Protoss player gone Terran (
My Idea:
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What Day[9] was saying is that perhaps scout and all purpose defense are not the only two choices. Following this logic I will provide a strategy based on my understanding of Zerg and reactive builds.
When facing a Terran player who has walled-off and is not showing his cards, there are actually very few ways he can go after a certain amount of time has passed. If he has not Banshee harassed, or Hellion harassed by about the 7:00 mark, it's fair to say he's going heavy 1base mech all in, or a shameful attempt at Battlecruiser rushing. He can't be going Bioball because that is an aggressive style of play. Anyone who turtles and goes Bioball will lose anyways, so that is a non-issue.
Banshee and Hellion harass before the 7 minute mark also gives away vital information. Better than a scout drone. They give away their builds. If a Terran makes Blue Flame Hellions (BFH) it is a safe bet that he will not be making cloaked Banshees, but rather will continue to tech with his factory. Tanks are the go-to unit from the factory when fighting Zerg, until the Zerg counters with Mutas in which case he will produce Thors.
Early Banshee harass points towards Bioball drops, and relatively late mech.
But one can easily counter all of this logic by saying "it's still a coin flip". This is where reaction comes in. Roaches cost 75/25 and take 27 seconds to build. Zerglings cost 50/0, and take 25 seconds to build. These are pretty small times, and low prices, all things considered.
Against a 1-base Terran the Zerg player should choose to tech up to roaches quickly into expand, or expand quickly into roach tech(obviously). The key point here is that the Zerg player should limit drone production to a pre-determined number, and begin to save up larva and money. Yes, coinflip defenses will need to be placed. An early Spinecrawler or two will help a lot, and lets face it you'd get them anyway. Having Overlords near the enemy base, along their attack path, is necessary. When the Overlord scouts the push out the Zerg player will gain the information he needs to choose the correct units to produce. The correct combination of Lings and Roaches can then be produced from the stored larva and money.
This type of strategy may work best when mixed with Spanishiwa's No Gas FE. It is certainly unnatural to save money or larva early on. But to make a reaction build, it is necessary. 25-27 seconds after spotting the enemy forces, the Zerg player will have his molded counter prepared. The longer it takes the Terran to push out, the higher the tech and upgrades the Zerg should get. Since both air and ground attack upgrades benefit Broodlords, and the Zerg player will probably start an upgrade before they have units following this reaction logic, they should be the end goal of this strategy in a long game, unless the Terran's build hard counters Broodlords, in which case Melee units (Ultralisks) can still be used in their stead.
Since Hydras are expensive and take forever to build, the primary Anti-Air defense should be queens and thus more than one per base is recommended. If no air harass is incoming, then the Zerg has a fantastic setup for early creep spread.
This type of build is not a counter to heavy early aggression, and should never be considered for a normal (not turtling) bioball terran.
When facing a Terran player who has walled-off and is not showing his cards, there are actually very few ways he can go after a certain amount of time has passed. If he has not Banshee harassed, or Hellion harassed by about the 7:00 mark, it's fair to say he's going heavy 1base mech all in, or a shameful attempt at Battlecruiser rushing. He can't be going Bioball because that is an aggressive style of play. Anyone who turtles and goes Bioball will lose anyways, so that is a non-issue.
Banshee and Hellion harass before the 7 minute mark also gives away vital information. Better than a scout drone. They give away their builds. If a Terran makes Blue Flame Hellions (BFH) it is a safe bet that he will not be making cloaked Banshees, but rather will continue to tech with his factory. Tanks are the go-to unit from the factory when fighting Zerg, until the Zerg counters with Mutas in which case he will produce Thors.
Early Banshee harass points towards Bioball drops, and relatively late mech.
But one can easily counter all of this logic by saying "it's still a coin flip". This is where reaction comes in. Roaches cost 75/25 and take 27 seconds to build. Zerglings cost 50/0, and take 25 seconds to build. These are pretty small times, and low prices, all things considered.
Against a 1-base Terran the Zerg player should choose to tech up to roaches quickly into expand, or expand quickly into roach tech(obviously). The key point here is that the Zerg player should limit drone production to a pre-determined number, and begin to save up larva and money. Yes, coinflip defenses will need to be placed. An early Spinecrawler or two will help a lot, and lets face it you'd get them anyway. Having Overlords near the enemy base, along their attack path, is necessary. When the Overlord scouts the push out the Zerg player will gain the information he needs to choose the correct units to produce. The correct combination of Lings and Roaches can then be produced from the stored larva and money.
This type of strategy may work best when mixed with Spanishiwa's No Gas FE. It is certainly unnatural to save money or larva early on. But to make a reaction build, it is necessary. 25-27 seconds after spotting the enemy forces, the Zerg player will have his molded counter prepared. The longer it takes the Terran to push out, the higher the tech and upgrades the Zerg should get. Since both air and ground attack upgrades benefit Broodlords, and the Zerg player will probably start an upgrade before they have units following this reaction logic, they should be the end goal of this strategy in a long game, unless the Terran's build hard counters Broodlords, in which case Melee units (Ultralisks) can still be used in their stead.
Since Hydras are expensive and take forever to build, the primary Anti-Air defense should be queens and thus more than one per base is recommended. If no air harass is incoming, then the Zerg has a fantastic setup for early creep spread.
This type of build is not a counter to heavy early aggression, and should never be considered for a normal (not turtling) bioball terran.
Conclusion
EG.IdrA, though outspoken, is a remarkably good player with a great amount of game knowledge, proven by his struggle for 1st place in the NA Grand Masters league, and his recent success (spoiler alert) in the IPL. The problems he has brought up with the Zerg race are more of a failure caused by the metagame than it is a design issue, but that does not mean the problems aren't real. This attention grabbing super-beast has gotten upwards of 18k viewers while streaming only his laddering games, and successfully dragged in 20k viewers to episode 37 of State of the Game. This rising star has only one place to go: straight upward.
Comments? Questions? Feedback? Challenges? Do you agree or disagree? Let the whole world know. Provide a response, but please read the section entitled "The Rules of Engagement".
Edited to fix factual error regarding Boxer.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fWvhn.jpg)
It's not as bad as television makes it look. 
