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I'd like to start a blog series about the professional players we've come to know and love (and/or hate), and discuss in detail my opinion about them as people, players, and professionals.
About the Blog:
+ Show Spoiler +
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:
+ Show Spoiler +- 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 (IdrA now hates me), and my information is based primarily on watching professional Zerg players.
My Idea:
+ Show Spoiler +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.
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.
 
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Disagree.... Sorry but saying GG is not something about the goodness or badness of your soul...
Its a starcraft culture thing. Something which Greg should understand being the E-sport senior he is.
I dont think he shud GG evry game on ladder. Just when he plays against people he knows and also on televised and torney games.
I think thats Tylers policy atleast and I like it.
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On May 06 2011 20:45 SushilS wrote:
Disagree.... Sorry but saying GG is not something about the goodness or badness of your soul...
Its a starcraft culture thing. Something which Greg should understand being the E-sport senior he is.
I dont think he shud GG evry game on ladder. Just when he plays against people he knows and also on televised and torney games.
I think thats Tylers policy atleast and I like it.
And that's not an entirely unfair belief. It is a part of the culture of the game, and that does make IdrA deviant. Which is why he gains bad rep, not so much because not GG'ing or letting himself say whatever he wants is necessarily a bad thing, just because it's different from everyone else.
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On May 06 2011 20:45 SushilS wrote:
Disagree.... Sorry but saying GG is not something about the goodness or badness of your soul...
Its a starcraft culture thing. Something which Greg should understand being the E-sport senior he is.
I dont think he shud GG evry game on ladder. Just when he plays against people he knows and also on televised and torney games.
I think thats Tylers policy atleast and I like it.
BW Professionals in Korea were forced to type GG before leaving, that's not "culture" to me, it's rules you have to follow.
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On May 06 2011 20:58 Tschis wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2011 20:45 SushilS wrote:
Disagree.... Sorry but saying GG is not something about the goodness or badness of your soul...
Its a starcraft culture thing. Something which Greg should understand being the E-sport senior he is.
I dont think he shud GG evry game on ladder. Just when he plays against people he knows and also on televised and torney games.
I think thats Tylers policy atleast and I like it. BW Professionals in Korea were forced to type GG before leaving, that's not "culture" to me, it's rules you have to follow.
That's quite interesting, actually. I didn't know that.
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Netherlands45349 Posts
There is a clear difference between showing your emotions and being a immature person, sure he might be showing his emotions, Idra is one of the faces of the foreign SC2 community, do you really want that to be an person who acts the way he does?I mean I like Idra, I like his play, I like his insight, he is a goodplayer and I even agree with him on the Zerg imbalances and that Zerg is not nearly the race was that it was in BW but still. As one of the main faces of SC2 I find it rather annoying
Ow yeah, if you think Boxer is a robot then you are soooooooo far off, you have not watched a single game of Brood War, his ceremonies, his humanity, his tears (especially that one time that his pupil,I loveOov beat him). So please, do not put Boxer as emotionless as frankly that is an insult to him, the community and E-sports.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fWvhn.jpg)
If this guy is a robot then I don't know what you call a robot.
One of the most beloved and hated progamers of all time is Firebathero, this guy used to do cermonies all the time etc, and was BM to the max, but he did it if he won, he did it when he beat his opponent, he humiliated his opponent when his opponent lost. Idra however does it whenever he loses aswell, which is a bit sad. That being said I still do think that he is an amazing player and that his attitude might just be a flaw, but that is oke, but you should understand then why he gets so much hate.
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I want to say that I did pull out Boxer and KiWiKaKi at random. They were the first two names that popped into my head. I should have done more research into Boxer before making such a blatant statement, and that is now something I've learned for the future should this blog continue. This is a learning process for me, being the first blog of a potential series.
So I do apologize, Kipsate.
I believe, I can't confirm this obviously, that IdrA's post-lose BM is based on the idea that he lost BECAUSE of the flaws in the Zerg race he has pointed out. So he believes he is the better player, but only lost because of the flaws.
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IdrA is a great player, there is no denying that. I just hope he doesn't take his current manners with him after he grows out of playing SC2. There are just some situations you can't BM yourself out of.
I think he is hurting himself with the whole ZvP-imba attitude though. He just needs to find a strategy that works against the current protoss metagame (3gate sentry expand mostly), and start using that.
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Keep it down to earth guys. There's a lot of hype around Idra at the moment because 1) he is performing very well 2) his viewer count when streaming is extremely large. I think you should calm down and enjoy his play. You don't have to agree with or judge everything the man does.
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On May 06 2011 21:13 Mactator wrote:
Keep it down to earth guys. There's a lot of hype around Idra at the moment because 1) he is performing very well 2) his viewer count when streaming is extremely large. I think you should calm down and enjoy his play. You don't have to agree with or judge everything the man does.
Very true. Not to completely dismiss them, but an insult is only what the insulted make of it. Deviance is also only what the compliant make of it. If we all relaxed about him in general, we could definitely learn a lot about the Zerg race and metagame, and appreciate some really great play.
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On May 06 2011 20:58 Tschis wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2011 20:45 SushilS wrote:
Disagree.... Sorry but saying GG is not something about the goodness or badness of your soul...
Its a starcraft culture thing. Something which Greg should understand being the E-sport senior he is.
I dont think he shud GG evry game on ladder. Just when he plays against people he knows and also on televised and torney games.
I think thats Tylers policy atleast and I like it. BW Professionals in Korea were forced to type GG before leaving, that's not "culture" to me, it's rules you have to follow.
There was no rule saying you had to type GG in BW.
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United States17042 Posts
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On May 06 2011 20:45 SushilS wrote:
Disagree.... Sorry but saying GG is not something about the goodness or badness of your soul...
Its a starcraft culture thing. Something which Greg should understand being the E-sport senior he is.
I dont think he shud GG evry game on ladder.
Like with the jazz musicians: you have to know the rules in order to break them properly
---
About the idea with reading your opponent by way of the timings... that's not really something that is exclusive to Zerg. All of the other races have ways of getting into the opposition's base (Observers, Comsats, for example). If Zerg only has something that all of the other races have... do you see where I'm going with this?
PS: Idra is from fucking Jersey. Have you ever met a person from New Jersey? You'd understand his behavior if you did.
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Netherlands45349 Posts
On May 06 2011 21:25 rkffhk wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2011 20:45 SushilS wrote:
Disagree.... Sorry but saying GG is not something about the goodness or badness of your soul...
Its a starcraft culture thing. Something which Greg should understand being the E-sport senior he is.
I dont think he shud GG evry game on ladder. Like with the jazz musicians: you have to know the rules in order to break them properly --- About the idea with reading your opponent by way of the timings... that's not really something that is exclusive to Zerg. All of the other races have ways of getting into the opposition's base (Observers, Comsats, for example). If Zerg only has something that all of the other races have... do you see where I'm going with this? PS: Idra is from fucking Jersey. Have you ever met a person from New Jersey? You'd understand his behavior if you did.
In before someone makes a Jersey Shore photoshop with Idra in it.
Ow yeah, what I hate the most is that people find his atittude acceptable(Especially his fans, evident by the amount of whine, pages of bans etc). It is disgusting that such an atittude should be acceptable in the current era, but that might just be my opinion.
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On May 06 2011 21:18 loveeholicce wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2011 20:58 Tschis wrote:On May 06 2011 20:45 SushilS wrote:
Disagree.... Sorry but saying GG is not something about the goodness or badness of your soul...
Its a starcraft culture thing. Something which Greg should understand being the E-sport senior he is.
I dont think he shud GG evry game on ladder. Just when he plays against people he knows and also on televised and torney games.
I think thats Tylers policy atleast and I like it. BW Professionals in Korea were forced to type GG before leaving, that's not "culture" to me, it's rules you have to follow. There was no rule saying you had to type GG in BW.
I vaguely recall Nada exiting a game without typing gg in proleague once, and his team subsequently receiving penalty points for that. Maybe they've changed it since then.
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On May 06 2011 21:18 loveeholicce wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2011 20:58 Tschis wrote:On May 06 2011 20:45 SushilS wrote:
Disagree.... Sorry but saying GG is not something about the goodness or badness of your soul...
Its a starcraft culture thing. Something which Greg should understand being the E-sport senior he is.
I dont think he shud GG evry game on ladder. Just when he plays against people he knows and also on televised and torney games.
I think thats Tylers policy atleast and I like it. BW Professionals in Korea were forced to type GG before leaving, that's not "culture" to me, it's rules you have to follow. There was no rule saying you had to type GG in BW.
◆ After change
Section 13, Declaration of acceptance of loss
Only 'gg (lower casing in English), GG (caps in English)' will be accepted as declarations of acceptance of loss. Typing anything else to declare acceptance of loss will result in a disqualification and a warning. (With effect from 11th April 2009)
Source
NOTE: this is for KeSPA sanctioned Brood War matches.
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On May 06 2011 21:35 Hikko wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2011 21:18 loveeholicce wrote:On May 06 2011 20:58 Tschis wrote:On May 06 2011 20:45 SushilS wrote:
Disagree.... Sorry but saying GG is not something about the goodness or badness of your soul...
Its a starcraft culture thing. Something which Greg should understand being the E-sport senior he is.
I dont think he shud GG evry game on ladder. Just when he plays against people he knows and also on televised and torney games.
I think thats Tylers policy atleast and I like it. BW Professionals in Korea were forced to type GG before leaving, that's not "culture" to me, it's rules you have to follow. There was no rule saying you had to type GG in BW. Show nested quote +◆ After change
Section 13, Declaration of acceptance of loss
Only 'gg (lower casing in English), GG (caps in English)' will be accepted as declarations of acceptance of loss. Typing anything else to declare acceptance of loss will result in a disqualification and a warning. (With effect from 11th April 2009) SourceNOTE: this is for KeSPA sanctioned Brood War matches.
Hm, that rule just prevented ww, zizi yo, gg yo etc etc. It doesn't say typing gg is actually required, but typing anything other than gg/GG/ppp would get you disqualified.
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On May 06 2011 21:25 rkffhk wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2011 20:45 SushilS wrote:
Disagree.... Sorry but saying GG is not something about the goodness or badness of your soul...
Its a starcraft culture thing. Something which Greg should understand being the E-sport senior he is.
I dont think he shud GG evry game on ladder. Like with the jazz musicians: you have to know the rules in order to break them properly --- About the idea with reading your opponent by way of the timings... that's not really something that is exclusive to Zerg. All of the other races have ways of getting into the opposition's base (Observers, Comsats, for example). If Zerg only has something that all of the other races have... do you see where I'm going with this? PS: Idra is from fucking Jersey. Have you ever met a person from New Jersey? You'd understand his behavior if you did.
I'm from Jersey.  It's not as bad as television makes it look.
@GHOSTCLAW
Covers the introduction.
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On May 06 2011 21:25 rkffhk wrote:
.....
PS: Idra is from fucking Jersey. Have you ever met a person from New Jersey? You'd understand his behavior if you did.
That's a colored statement. Guess everybody is saying that about everyone who is not living in their local community. Usually people are friendly when you get to know them :-). Btw. people who play starcraft are pretty intelligent so I don't see where this girlish drama comes from. gg or not gg in ladder games - who gives a shit?
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On May 06 2011 21:25 rkffhk wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2011 20:45 SushilS wrote:
Disagree.... Sorry but saying GG is not something about the goodness or badness of your soul...
Its a starcraft culture thing. Something which Greg should understand being the E-sport senior he is.
I dont think he shud GG evry game on ladder. Like with the jazz musicians: you have to know the rules in order to break them properly --- About the idea with reading your opponent by way of the timings... that's not really something that is exclusive to Zerg. All of the other races have ways of getting into the opposition's base (Observers, Comsats, for example). If Zerg only has something that all of the other races have... do you see where I'm going with this? PS: Idra is from fucking Jersey. Have you ever met a person from New Jersey? You'd understand his behavior if you did.
What is that supposed to mean, exactly? I'm from New Jersey. Do elaborate. Please.
Anyways, on topic: I think IdrA's a great player, and that's what I value most when it comes to wanting to see a great game. His personality makes me find him interesting, and as long as he abides by any tournament rules, then I see no reason why he should or shouldn't have to say gg or anything like that. I say gg out of personal preference and respect, but you don't automatically owe anyone respect just because you played against them in a computer game. It's not like companies won't sponsor him unless he becomes super good-mannered; they know his motif.
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On May 06 2011 22:16 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2011 21:25 rkffhk wrote:On May 06 2011 20:45 SushilS wrote:
Disagree.... Sorry but saying GG is not something about the goodness or badness of your soul...
Its a starcraft culture thing. Something which Greg should understand being the E-sport senior he is.
I dont think he shud GG evry game on ladder. Like with the jazz musicians: you have to know the rules in order to break them properly --- About the idea with reading your opponent by way of the timings... that's not really something that is exclusive to Zerg. All of the other races have ways of getting into the opposition's base (Observers, Comsats, for example). If Zerg only has something that all of the other races have... do you see where I'm going with this? PS: Idra is from fucking Jersey. Have you ever met a person from New Jersey? You'd understand his behavior if you did. What is that supposed to mean, exactly? I'm from New Jersey. Do elaborate. Please. Anyways, on topic: I think IdrA's a great player, and that's what I value most when it comes to wanting to see a great game. His personality makes me find him interesting, and as long as he abides by any tournament rules, then I see no reason why he should or shouldn't have to say gg or anything like that. I say gg out of personal preference and respect, but you don't automatically owe anyone respect just because you played against them in a computer game. It's not like companies won't sponsor him unless he becomes super good-mannered; they know his motif.
I wish this was Facebook, cause I'd like this post.
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On May 06 2011 21:38 hifriend wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2011 21:35 Hikko wrote:On May 06 2011 21:18 loveeholicce wrote:On May 06 2011 20:58 Tschis wrote:On May 06 2011 20:45 SushilS wrote:
Disagree.... Sorry but saying GG is not something about the goodness or badness of your soul...
Its a starcraft culture thing. Something which Greg should understand being the E-sport senior he is.
I dont think he shud GG evry game on ladder. Just when he plays against people he knows and also on televised and torney games.
I think thats Tylers policy atleast and I like it. BW Professionals in Korea were forced to type GG before leaving, that's not "culture" to me, it's rules you have to follow. There was no rule saying you had to type GG in BW. ◆ After change
Section 13, Declaration of acceptance of loss
Only 'gg (lower casing in English), GG (caps in English)' will be accepted as declarations of acceptance of loss. Typing anything else to declare acceptance of loss will result in a disqualification and a warning. (With effect from 11th April 2009) SourceNOTE: this is for KeSPA sanctioned Brood War matches. Hm, that rule just prevented ww, zizi yo, gg yo etc etc. It doesn't say typing gg is actually required, but typing anything other than gg/GG/ppp would get you disqualified.
Yea, that wat I was thinking. I remember Zero vs Really on Eye of the Storm last year Really left without typing anything and was never penalized for it. In the interview he just said he was mad and completely forgot lol
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On May 06 2011 21:31 Kipsate wrote:
In before someone makes a Jersey Shore photoshop with Idra in it.
Ow yeah, what I hate the most is that people find his atittude acceptable(Especially his fans, evident by the amount of whine, pages of bans etc). It is disgusting that such an atittude should be acceptable in the current era, but that might just be my opinion.
This. A thousand times this.
I really have a lot less issues with Idra himself than I have with the worrying community trend of accepting and even encouraging that behaviour.
What the OP calls caring about one's public image and even "vanity" is what is generally known as sportsmanship and respect. Trying to interpret these values as something negative while at the same time promoting the cheap "dramatainment" trends is doing a disservice to this community.
Whether you like it or not, TL existed for a long time and Starcraft community as a whole had somewhat higher standards than that. So why come here and promote something that's pretty much the exact opposite of those standards?
Do you go around chess communities and promote rivalries, passion for the game and "personality" in the sense of trash talking before and after games too? Of course not.
So don't do it here either.
There will always be players who aren't the nicest guys around, there were many in Brood War as well (Idra was there too and with an even worse attitude). But the community as a whole decies whether those players will be treated as black sheep (for all their mastery of the game) or as modern day rockstars. Unfortunately, the latter is an overwhelming trend recently.
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Hyrule19051 Posts
On May 06 2011 21:25 rkffhk wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2011 20:45 SushilS wrote:
Disagree.... Sorry but saying GG is not something about the goodness or badness of your soul...
Its a starcraft culture thing. Something which Greg should understand being the E-sport senior he is.
I dont think he shud GG evry game on ladder. Like with the jazz musicians: you have to know the rules in order to break them properly --- About the idea with reading your opponent by way of the timings... that's not really something that is exclusive to Zerg. All of the other races have ways of getting into the opposition's base (Observers, Comsats, for example). If Zerg only has something that all of the other races have... do you see where I'm going with this? PS: Idra is from fucking Jersey. Have you ever met a person from New Jersey? You'd understand his behavior if you did.
What the fuck is wrong with Jersey?
I agree with Idra's point of view about Zerg having shit for scouting, but I'm not going to get into that because I have no damn clue how to fix it.
That having been said, I'm fine with most of his remarks. He gets emotional and says what he thinks. Sometimes he goes too far, but so does everyone. Putting him up on a pedestal and demanding he be courteous at all times is entirely unreasonable.
As for people encouraging him, you should diversify. Due to Korea's influence on the StarCraft scene, we have a more strict etiquette regarding behavior. In just about every other gaming community, Idra would be considered extremely softcore and actually quite polite.
And finally, back to the scouting thing. Zerg doesn't have something the other races have because Zerg ISN'T those other races. That's the driving principal behind the game, and why it's so good. If you want homogenization, go play C&C.
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From where he stands at the top of a steep mountain, even if you are a fraction below him in skill it would appear to idra like you are a mile below him.
That's his point of view. He won't give you respect until you earn it, and earning it would be tough.
He simply calls things as he sees them with brutal honesty. Lesser pros' like cruncher, certainly not a terrible player, of course appears terrible to Idra. Mountain analogy. If idra had to go on record, he'd imply it's not a terrible difference, but relative to where he is, you could understand the word "terrible".
So; when he spends most of his time on his stream citing every player doing continually stupid moves or playing in a terrible fashion, you have to understand he means it not to be derogatory, but that's literally his vision.
Now the part that gets way out of hand is the TL element. He generates 15-20k viewers on his streams, by far the most people following him out of every professional. You have people now who take what he thinks and twists it; to cite that he is actually venomous towards people with intent to be malice. Sure, on the occasion he will insult someone through venting his frustration, but in general he still keeps it relative to the truth he sees.
So recently he is banned through one of his vented insults; fair enough. I expect most people would be banned in similar fashion (although his reputation & popularity cause special attention from moderators, as there are other regular posts in similar style which sometimes go without punishment).
Saying that, he has been repeatedly moderated and given incredible leeway because any "average" user would have had a life time ban much sooner. So it swings both ways which you could call "fair" in a loose sense.
Now I address your problem: you believe that the behaviour is unacceptable to a high degree.
I can only suggest you reexamine your analysis on his behaviour. If you truly believes that he is a unsporting individual who's nature is to hurt and cause malice on the part of people below him, I don't think you gave him the benefit of the doubt to begin with.
Put simply: it's not a big deal so don't make it out to be one. He can choose who he respects and who he doesn't, that is his right. Not many people can say they are in the same calibre of his skill level, but I'm certain if they are Idra would respect them as his peer.
While entertaining for alot of people, when he openly disrespects someone he ties it in with brutal honesty ( most of the time; I'm should hope he means nothing with "waste of life". )
If it's something that bothers you, don't follow his streams. Don't follow his fan club, don't keep up with his twitter. The moderators will moderate if he steps out of line on TL forums, if he says something untoward in a live platform like on SOTG you bet that his colleagues there would step in; especially his teammates who openly know his character 100x better an any of us.
Finally; as for Black sheep or Rockstar ?
He's Idra, he gets treated as Idra. Its up to you to find it entertaining, or be upset with it, but by all means don't be upset if people don't agree with you on either. As I said before, it's not a big deal so don't make an issue out of it.
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On May 06 2011 21:31 Kipsate wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2011 21:25 rkffhk wrote:On May 06 2011 20:45 SushilS wrote:
Disagree.... Sorry but saying GG is not something about the goodness or badness of your soul...
Its a starcraft culture thing. Something which Greg should understand being the E-sport senior he is.
I dont think he shud GG evry game on ladder. Like with the jazz musicians: you have to know the rules in order to break them properly --- About the idea with reading your opponent by way of the timings... that's not really something that is exclusive to Zerg. All of the other races have ways of getting into the opposition's base (Observers, Comsats, for example). If Zerg only has something that all of the other races have... do you see where I'm going with this? PS: Idra is from fucking Jersey. Have you ever met a person from New Jersey? You'd understand his behavior if you did. In before someone makes a Jersey Shore photoshop with Idra in it.
As requested
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/s5Npn.jpg)
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Hyrule19051 Posts
On May 06 2011 23:48 Geovu wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2011 21:31 Kipsate wrote:On May 06 2011 21:25 rkffhk wrote:On May 06 2011 20:45 SushilS wrote:
Disagree.... Sorry but saying GG is not something about the goodness or badness of your soul...
Its a starcraft culture thing. Something which Greg should understand being the E-sport senior he is.
I dont think he shud GG evry game on ladder. Like with the jazz musicians: you have to know the rules in order to break them properly --- About the idea with reading your opponent by way of the timings... that's not really something that is exclusive to Zerg. All of the other races have ways of getting into the opposition's base (Observers, Comsats, for example). If Zerg only has something that all of the other races have... do you see where I'm going with this? PS: Idra is from fucking Jersey. Have you ever met a person from New Jersey? You'd understand his behavior if you did. In before someone makes a Jersey Shore photoshop with Idra in it. As requested + Show Spoiler +
What's most annoying about Jersey Shore is that all of those fools (except 2) were brought in from New York -.- One is from Jersey and another from Rhode Island.
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This is like all the parents complaining about Tiger Woods "betraying his position as a role model."
Greg is a professional gamer.
His job is to beat other people at Starcraft II.
If you want to make him anything else in your eyes, that's your own decision and any issues that may arise from that decision are your own, not his.
Just like Tiger's job is to hit the ball in the hole, and his personal life is his own business, so is Greg's attitude.
It's amazing that everyone feels so entitled to judge people over the internet, especially as fans of someone. His rage and "bm" have been popularized ad infinitum by people like Husky and countless others looking to increase their stock by singling him out.
Greg is a great guy that I've had the pleasure to hang out with on multiple occasions. All of this conjecture and spirited debate about his "character" is sickening.
Judge his play, judge his attitude ingame, whatever you want, but you're kidding yourself if you believe that it's appropriate to open up a debate about him as a person.
I'm amazed this wasn't locked immediately.
It really shows the hypocrisy of TL that personal attacks aren't tolerated, but a thread opened to discuss a professional player as a human being is A-OK.
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On May 07 2011 00:13 zeru wrote:
It's not personally attacking him. It's discussing him.
I have a question for you though, would you like it if every single pro had the same attitude towards the game and acted the same way as idra? Do you think it would be good for the community or do you think the community would turn into shit?
His character isn't up for discussion any more than your or mine is. His job is to play the game, not be the person you want him to be. Past that it's your choice to be a fan of his or not.
As far as your question, I don't really care.
I played competitive counter-strike 1.6 for a long time, and one of the stunning differences between CS and SC is that SC generally skews towards a nerdier population from the asian roots, hence the prevalence of "manner."
CS is much like any other competitive event. There is shit talking. People get emotional.
Most sports/competitions/events are this way.
SC is an anamoly in that sense.
I don't think it would do any damage to the popularity or skill of the game. Might it shatter this glass castle that has been built around the oh-so-famous TL "I'm not touching you" routine?
Probably.
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9070 Posts
On May 07 2011 00:08 natelikewhoa wrote:
This is like all the parents complaining about Tiger Woods "betraying his position as a role model."
Greg is a professional gamer.
His job is to beat other people at Starcraft II.
If you want to make him anything else in your eyes, that's your own decision and any issues that may arise from that decision are your own, not his.
Just like Tiger's job is to hit the ball in the hole, and his personal life is his own business, so is Greg's attitude.
It's amazing that everyone feels so entitled to judge people over the internet, especially as fans of someone. His rage and "bm" have been popularized ad infinitum by people like Husky and countless others looking to increase their stock by singling him out.
Greg is a great guy that I've had the pleasure to hang out with on multiple occasions. All of this conjecture and spirited debate about his "character" is sickening.
Judge his play, judge his attitude ingame, whatever you want, but you're kidding yourself if you believe that it's appropriate to open up a debate about him as a person.
I'm amazed this wasn't locked immediately.
It really shows the hypocrisy of TL that personal attacks aren't tolerated, but a thread opened to discuss a professional player as a human being is A-OK.
O_O Tiger Woods is playing a gentlemen's sport and his "job" is not only to hit the ball but to promote and represent the values of the scene he is involved in. Golf circles are very conservative and preserved their traditions quite well for many decades. I could only relate it to the Sumo in Japan, where the Sumo wrestlers must wear traditional kimonos in public and have a specific hair cut. Getting in public scandal is absolute out of question and is career ending. Sure, the Sumo is quite an extreme example and is closely related to the local culture, but implying that Tiger Wood's job is to hit the ball and his personal life is no one's business is wrong.
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On May 07 2011 00:47 disciple wrote:
O_O Tiger Woods is playing a gentlemen's sport and his "job" is not only to hit the ball but to promote and represent the values of the scene he is involved in. Golf circles are very conservative and preserved their traditions quite well for many decades. I could only relate it to the Sumo in Japan, where the Sumo wrestlers must wear traditional kimonos in public and have a specific hair cut. Getting in public scandal is absolute out of question and is career ending. Sure, the Sumo is quite an extreme example and is closely related to the local culture, but implying that Tiger Wood's job is to hit the ball and his personal life is no one's business is wrong.
My dad went to college on a full ride golf scholarship when golf wasn't even as big as it is now.
Golf is a gentleman's sport as much as owning a plantation is.
Just because you hold the standards of the event to a certain level of respect and the formality of the play does not mean that someone's conduct off the course is up for review.
John Daly chainsmoked and drank constantly on tour, and many others have a history of being degenerates.
They were good at golf.
I can't even imagine how many alcoholic angry drunk golfers were/are on tour.
Get out of fairytale land.
It's not your business. If he goes on TV and says "I'm the best human ever," then sure, call him out when he cheats on his wife.
But any conjecture about his morals or personality or character are just that, conjecture, which is the point I was relating to this blog and the discussion of Greg as a person.
It's not your business. You're a fan. You exist as a consumer of the entertainment Tiger/Greg/others provide.
Past that, it's not your business.
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Additionally if you don't approve of his actions, then just don't watch him.
Don't watch his stream, don't youtube videos of him raging, don't comment on his skill vs. QQing as you perceive it.
Just stop and you will have made your position very clear.
The fact that you and everyone else ranting/raving about his character won't stop shows just how foolish this all is.
Just sit back and enjoy the show.
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On May 07 2011 01:03 zeru wrote:
I'm talking about his negative impact on the community in general and how the attitude he has creates negativity, irrationality and ignorance among his fans, those won't disappear by not watching him.
I completely disagree and believe that saying that greg's attitude causes negativity, irrationality, and ignorance among fans is foolish at best.
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9070 Posts
On May 07 2011 00:51 natelikewhoa wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2011 00:47 disciple wrote:
O_O Tiger Woods is playing a gentlemen's sport and his "job" is not only to hit the ball but to promote and represent the values of the scene he is involved in. Golf circles are very conservative and preserved their traditions quite well for many decades. I could only relate it to the Sumo in Japan, where the Sumo wrestlers must wear traditional kimonos in public and have a specific hair cut. Getting in public scandal is absolute out of question and is career ending. Sure, the Sumo is quite an extreme example and is closely related to the local culture, but implying that Tiger Wood's job is to hit the ball and his personal life is no one's business is wrong.
My dad went to college on a full ride golf scholarship when golf wasn't even as big as it is now. Golf is a gentleman's sport as much as owning a plantation is. Just because you hold the standards of the event to a certain level of respect and the formality of the play does not mean that someone's conduct off the course is up for review. John Daly chainsmoked and drank constantly on tour, and many others have a history of being degenerates. They were good at golf. I can't even imagine how many alcoholic angry drunk golfers were/are on tour. Get out of fairytale land. It's not your business. If he goes on TV and says "I'm the best human ever," then sure, call him out when he cheats on his wife. But any conjecture about his morals or personality or character are just that, conjecture, which is the point I was relating to this blog and the discussion of Greg as a person. It's not your business. You're a fan. You exist as a consumer of the entertainment Tiger/Greg/others provide. Past that, it's not your business.
I'm not a fan only, I care a lot more about this site and the community in general than the common fan. This is our house and I want our house to be clean and shining. Having different personalities is of course great, but setting Idra's attitude as standard and looking up to him as a role model is totally unacceptable. Many fans who enjoy his play and his personality will adopt his behavior as something totally normal and OK to express yourself and your opinion on the game, your opponents and the community in general. Will it be ok if we all called our opponents "waste of life" ? Sure Idra's behavior makes things interesting but sometimes he is way out of line and ppl look up to him. Thats the whole problem
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On May 07 2011 01:14 disciple wrote:
I'm not a fan only, I care a lot more about this site and the community in general than the common fan. This is our house and I want our house to be clean and shining. Having different personalities is of course great, but setting Idra's attitude as standard and looking up to him as a role model is totally unacceptable. Many fans who enjoy his play and his personality will adopt his behavior as something totally normal and OK to express yourself and your opinion on the game, your opponents and the community in general. Will it be ok if we all called our opponents "waste of life" ? Sure Idra's behavior makes things interesting but sometimes he is way out of line and ppl look up to him. Thats the whole problem
He's not a role model.
That's the problem with parents whining about Tiger, and that's the problem with people whining about Idra.
He's a Starcraft player. His job is to win games. He's very good at his job. If you want to see him as a role model for a good Starcraft player then that would be logical.
Looking up to him as a role model as a person is nowhere near any form of rational thought, and is completely indicative of the problem with the fan->competitor relationship today.
I already posted my views on shit-talking and bm/manner/etc.
You sound foolish trying to project this sense of idealistic community.
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9070 Posts
But you straight up fail to realize there is fundamental difference between who we are RL and how we act in game environment or over the message boards. I could not care less if Idra is a nice guy and you are having a great time hanging out with him. I don't care if he was as cool as Nelson Mandela. Idra's RL personality means absolutely nothing.
I was talking about his attitude as a player inside and out the game. I guess if you want to pick Idra as a RL role model, good for you, but I was referring to adopting his manners as a player and setting them as a common standard. There's nothing idealistic about showing respect to your opponent and the community in general. I'm not trying to project any sense of idealistic community. If you think its ok to act like a jerk, or having success is a good excuse to act like one, you got it wrong.
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IdrA is the John McEnroe of SC2.
John McEnroe was known for being childish and whiny on the tennis court... but at the same time, he was one of the best tennis players of all time. (Of all time, says Kanye!)
It's important to recognize that you can be a fan of a player's playstyle/ technique/ strategy/ ability and separately be (or not be) a fan of that person's personality.
Most people thought John McEnroe was a douchebag or a whiner. They also would just as well agree that he was a great tennis player.
Most people think that IdrA is kind of a douchebag or a whiner. They also would just as well agree that he's a great SC2 player.
Granted, his personality may hold him back a little. Case in point: his stubbornness and beliefs regarding imbalance caused him to auto-leave vs. HuK's hallucinated void rays, rather than check out the situation more in-depth first. However, he's still an amazing player.
I'd also like to point out that I think he occasionally brings up some valid arguments (like some of the ones against Day[9] on SotG), but his reputation is so overwhelmingly negative that some people just write off any comment he makes as an illegitimate QQ (which is a logical fallacy known as "poisoning the well").
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he brings some flavor to the scene, bad manners, shit talking, arrogance, w/e its quite typical in most competitive hobbies or sports.
If you find his behavior in-game to be that repulsive then don't watch his games.
Go watch the Caps 24/7 Pens series on HBO where they follow the Washington Capitals and the Pittsburgh Penguins around for a few weeks, all mic'd up... theres a lot of shit talking going on before games, and on the ice, but the spectators don't normally get to hear it... It's different in SC because all of the communicating is done via typing, so the public gets to see it all.
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On May 07 2011 02:44 mesohawny wrote:
he brings some flavor to the scene, bad manners, shit talking, arrogance, w/e its quite typical in most competitive hobbies or sports.
If you find his behavior in-game to be that repulsive then don't watch his games.
Go watch the Caps 24/7 Pens series on HBO where they follow the Washington Capitals and the Pittsburgh Penguins around for a few weeks, all mic'd up... theres a lot of shit talking going on before games, and on the ice, but the spectators don't normally get to hear it... It's different in SC because all of the communicating is done via typing, so the public gets to see it all.
^ someone who gets it
ever watched NFL Network Inside the NFL?
ever been to a live cs tournament?
rugby?
soccer?
baseball?
etc etc etc etc
stop whining and play the game
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On May 07 2011 03:02 zeru wrote:
The reason you think your arguments are correct is because you are talking about something different from others. You think we don't like him because of his behavior in game. But if you bothered to read the posts you will realize it's more to it than just that.
I've addressed that point/stance multiple times in this thread.
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On May 07 2011 03:34 zeru wrote:
What you have done is drawn incorrect analogies and avoided the question i asked, which is different.
You don't like him because he threatens your/TL's idea of what the "community" should be.
Newsflash: This isn't broodwar. There is no longer a stranglehold on the "community" solely because it's so condensed. The community has expanded.
You don't set the standards.
If the vast majority of fans are casual fans who just want to see big battles and fun explosions (as seen from the popularity of Husky/HD's casts), then guess what, that's the community, not your idealistic bastion of self-importance.
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Furthermore, the vast majority of fans of ANY sport WANT to see conflict.
The whole point of sporting is conflict, advancement, and competition.
Trying to force some sense of overly strict normality and calm into a situation made to be explicitly contentious is foolish and silly.
Get over it, or go watch badminton.
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Speed overseers would work in theory. Then overseer, then speed ovies, regular ovies, lings.
Maybe I just suck as a Masters player, Zerg scouts me all the time with their speed ovies coming in at funky angles.
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On May 07 2011 03:45 zeru wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2011 03:42 natelikewhoa wrote:
Furthermore, the vast majority of fans of ANY sport WANT to see conflict.
The whole point of sporting is conflict, advancement, and competition.
Trying to force some sense of overly strict normality and calm into a situation made to be explicitly contentious is foolish and silly.
Get over it, or go watch badminton. So, will you answer the question if you would like it if every person in the community acted like idra and do you think it would be better for the community in general if they did? Do you think the SC2 community would be taken more serious, so that there would be more interest from the real world, from bigger sponsors than there currently are if it was like that?
I replied to that a full page ago.
I don't know how many times I have to tell you that.
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On May 07 2011 03:50 zeru wrote:Yes, you said you don't care, which is why i asked if you would answer it now. But you probably know how stupid you would sound if you answered yes to any of those questions which is why you won't directly discuss them. You're basically on the edge of arguing from ignorance  .
I don't think it would do any damage to the popularity or skill of the game. Might it shatter this glass castle that has been built around the oh-so-famous TL "I'm not touching you" routine?
Probably.
I don't think it would do any damage to the popularity or skill of the game. Might it shatter this glass castle that has been built around the oh-so-famous TL "I'm not touching you" routine?
Probably.
I don't think it would do any damage to the popularity or skill of the game. Might it shatter this glass castle that has been built around the oh-so-famous TL "I'm not touching you" routine?
Probably.
I don't think it would do any damage to the popularity or skill of the game. Might it shatter this glass castle that has been built around the oh-so-famous TL "I'm not touching you" routine?
Probably.
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The reasons why competitive gaming won't be going mainstream anytime soon have nothing to do with Greg's attitude.
In fact, his attitude probably is more in line with what would work in a competitive gaming atmosphere more than anything.
Any time Halo or CS:Source in the case of the CGS were broadcasted, there was a huge emphasis on shit-talking and competitive nature and drama.
Think of the ultimate gamer show. So much emphasis on shit-talking, drama, and other things outside of the gameplay.
The idea that shit-talking and "bm" will ruin SC's chances at becoming a legitimate sport in the mainstream perspective is infantile.
It has nothing to do with its success or not.
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If you honestly think that a mainstream market cares AT ALL about the "community" and mutual respect of the players, you're more foolish than I previously thought.
There are so many more important variables and market dynamics in play than "bm" and player attitudes.
It's not about taken seriously because of bm or respect, it's about commanding an audience.
SC2 is a joke in any modern marketplace.
More people will sit through ads to watch Maury than they would SC2.
Just how it is.
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On May 07 2011 04:03 zeru wrote:
I don't care about starcraft going mainstream, i have no illusions, it's a video game and it's format would never fit on TV, but that doesn't mean it can't be like korea where huge coorporations own teams, where ALL the players do it for a job and have really good salary. No, I'm not saying people need to be boring robots like in korea for it to become like that here.
You still are talking about something completely different, you're looking at the surface of things while I'm looking deeper down. That's the problem with your arguments, you are too simplistic sadly. I don't care that idra shows personality, it's not at all what I'm talking about. Immaturity and ignorance is the problem in my eyes with idra, and the impact those have on the community as his voice gets heard and people think it's an awesome idea to agree with him. Those are different from personality.
lol okay
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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.
This is the most naive thing Ive ever read. Please do not attempt to belittle Mr. Plott, the idea that he is just a "shout caster", is misleading. He is an analyst, with more StarCraft experience than you or frankly almost anybody else. This is disrespectful towards him, and I'd think that even Idra would agree, as I'm sure they have immense respect for each other. What happened on Idra was throwing examples out in what seemed like an emotional state, such as Zerg cant blank, whats the answer Day[9]. Day[9]s point is that in order to truly study the issue of balance, you need more than a simple blog post, or a few direct questions. You need to spend hours, completely unattached from ANY race, with lots of data, and so on. The meta game could radically shift eventually to prove Idra wrong or right. At this moment at least there is no way to really understand balance.
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On May 07 2011 04:03 zeru wrote:
I don't care about starcraft going mainstream, i have no illusions, it's a video game and it's format would never fit on TV, but that doesn't mean it can't be like korea where huge coorporations own teams, where ALL the players do it for a job and have really good salary. No, I'm not saying people need to be boring robots like in korea for it to become like that here.
You still are talking about something completely different, you're looking at the surface of things while I'm looking deeper down. That's the problem with your arguments, you are too simplistic sadly. I don't care that idra shows personality, it's not at all what I'm talking about. Immaturity and ignorance is the problem in my eyes with idra, and the impact those have on the community as his voice gets heard and people think it's an awesome idea to agree with him. Those are different from personality.
It's not that I'm not understanding your argument; It's that I just disagree with you and you don't like my answer.
As I said in my first posts: SC is a game. Greg is a player. You are a fan complaining about his attitude because you think it poisons his fans who will adopt his "bm" attitude and "immaturity" as you describe it, thereby ruining, in your opinion, the community.
Your pedantic tone really shows how snide and selfish your argument is.
SC2 is not Brood War. It is not a tightknit circle of players/fans/TL neckbeard admins focused solely on their interest and way of interaction.
It's a dynamic atmosphere with a new fanbase that wants to see emotion and the occasional bm.
As I've said a million times, stop clinging to what you want or think the community should be and how the players should act, and go with it.
If you don't like it, go back to ICCUP and rage when koreans bm you.
User was banned for this post.
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Idra isn't right, and his argument is absolutely ridiculous. So zerg can't easily scout the tech choice of the opponent early in the game. Well guess what, it's even harder for protoss!
The shit that idra is complaining about, well protoss has the exact same issues! Like, literally the exact same issues. He is so biased and is so dumb about it.
Lately I have been reading so much stupid shit about sc2 on these forums. Slowly over time it's gotten worse and worse. It's getting to where there is so much of it I just can't handle it. Idra definitely doesn't help things in that department.
The absolute worst is how many posts there now are saying how "idra made day9 look bad" or something to that extent. How? How did he make him look bad? Day9 avoided the argument entirely, how does that make him look bad? Jesus, they're the same type of people who vote for the politician with the most attack ads.
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On May 07 2011 04:15 travis wrote:
Idra isn't right, and his argument is absolutely ridiculous. So zerg can't easily scout the tech choice of the opponent early in the game. Well guess what, it's even harder for protoss!
The shit that idra is complaining about, well protoss has the exact same issues! Like, literally the exact same issues. He is so biased and is so dumb about it.
Lately I have been reading so much stupid shit about sc2 on these forums. Slowly over time it's gotten worse and worse. It's getting to where there is so much of it I just can't handle it. Idra definitely doesn't help things in that department.
The absolute worst is how many posts there now are saying how "idra made day9 look bad" or something to that extent. How? How did he make him look bad? Day9 avoided the argument entirely, how does that make him look bad? Jesus, they're the same type of people who vote for the politician with the most attack ads.
I don't want to put words in Idra's mouth but I assume his complaint about early game scouting is tied to the argument that zerg doesn't have a solid general defensive build. The idea being that an investment into too many lings and spine crawlers will put you at a loss if your opponent isn't aggressive since these units cannot cost efficiently attack a defensive protoss/terran (walloffs/sentries etc...) and of course you're missing out on drones. Hallucination is also a pretty good solution to scouting it would seem.
Of course, I play terran so take that for what it's worth.
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On May 07 2011 04:26 Glaven wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2011 04:15 travis wrote:
Idra isn't right, and his argument is absolutely ridiculous. So zerg can't easily scout the tech choice of the opponent early in the game. Well guess what, it's even harder for protoss!
The shit that idra is complaining about, well protoss has the exact same issues! Like, literally the exact same issues. He is so biased and is so dumb about it.
Lately I have been reading so much stupid shit about sc2 on these forums. Slowly over time it's gotten worse and worse. It's getting to where there is so much of it I just can't handle it. Idra definitely doesn't help things in that department.
The absolute worst is how many posts there now are saying how "idra made day9 look bad" or something to that extent. How? How did he make him look bad? Day9 avoided the argument entirely, how does that make him look bad? Jesus, they're the same type of people who vote for the politician with the most attack ads. I don't want to put words in Idra's mouth but I assume his complaint about early game scouting is tied to the argument that zerg doesn't have a solid general defensive build. The idea being that an investment into too many lings and spine crawlers will put you at a loss if your opponent isn't aggressive since these units cannot cost efficiently attack a defensive protoss/terran (walloffs/sentries etc...) and of course you're missing out on drones. Hallucination is also a pretty good solution to scouting it would seem. Of course, I play terran so take that for what it's worth.
You're right, but his argument is horribly flawed. He insists that this massive luck-factor put zergs at a huge disadvantage when it comes to consistent winning. But this massive luck-factor exists just as much for protoss.
protoss doesn't have a solid general defensive build that puts them in decent shape on most maps either. you cannot both be totally safe defensively AND keep up with a zerg in economy, which is actually the EXACT SAME THING that idra complains about from a zerg perspective. and it's actually even harder for protoss to detect when zerg is going all-in or putting on heavy pressure than it is for zerg to detect when protoss is doing it.
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Before I say anything, let this be known this is all in my opinion.
Gracken, you are my favorite zerg, probably the best zerg in the world. My heart goes out to you in every match you play. <3
Now in reference to the new SOTG ep. 37. I think the problem w/ zerg is that the zerg community is in this weird ass limbo where Zergs are having a tough trying to deal w/ early scouting, and odd meta game choices.(protoss was in the same spot before the 2 patches that nerfed um) Now, for Idra to call it "imba" or "underpowered" is pretty a ignorant comment, that's assuming that Idra some how has this innate knowledge of all possible gameplay choices for zerg, protoss, and terran, and knows that zerg is in the short end of the stick. I think what day9 was trying to say was that, we don't know, and that idra doesn't know as well, and that until this game has been played out in all possible directions, and all possible way, that there's no way of actually knowing if zerg is "underpowered". What we can deduce from current play is that "zergs' are having a tough time dealing w/ discovering opponent tech. Now Idra was asking the wrong question "how do i scout him with my overlord?" Maybe its not about scouting the building tech, maybe its about scouting unit build, for example in PvT, If you see a stalker built before a sentry there's a good chance that theres some form of tech behind it (early robo, or dt tech rush). You already get a lot of information off of that w/o even seeing the buildings. And tyler made a great point to idra about "maybe you don't need an all around defense build, maybe you only need a build that can defend 4 out of the possible 5 builds they're going, and you've got a good chance of winning".
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Netherlands45349 Posts
On May 07 2011 04:31 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2011 04:26 Glaven wrote:On May 07 2011 04:15 travis wrote:
Idra isn't right, and his argument is absolutely ridiculous. So zerg can't easily scout the tech choice of the opponent early in the game. Well guess what, it's even harder for protoss!
The shit that idra is complaining about, well protoss has the exact same issues! Like, literally the exact same issues. He is so biased and is so dumb about it.
Lately I have been reading so much stupid shit about sc2 on these forums. Slowly over time it's gotten worse and worse. It's getting to where there is so much of it I just can't handle it. Idra definitely doesn't help things in that department.
The absolute worst is how many posts there now are saying how "idra made day9 look bad" or something to that extent. How? How did he make him look bad? Day9 avoided the argument entirely, how does that make him look bad? Jesus, they're the same type of people who vote for the politician with the most attack ads. I don't want to put words in Idra's mouth but I assume his complaint about early game scouting is tied to the argument that zerg doesn't have a solid general defensive build. The idea being that an investment into too many lings and spine crawlers will put you at a loss if your opponent isn't aggressive since these units cannot cost efficiently attack a defensive protoss/terran (walloffs/sentries etc...) and of course you're missing out on drones. Hallucination is also a pretty good solution to scouting it would seem. Of course, I play terran so take that for what it's worth. You're right, but his argument is horribly flawed. He insists that this massive luck-factor put zergs at a huge disadvantage when it comes to consistent winning. But this massive luck-factor exists just as much for protoss. protoss doesn't have a solid general defensive build that puts them in decent shape on most maps either. you cannot both be totally safe defensively AND keep up with a zerg in economy, which is actually the EXACT SAME THING that idra complains about from a zerg perspective. and it's actually even harder for protoss to detect when zerg is going all-in or putting on heavy pressure than it is for zerg to detect when protoss is doing it.
The Forge FE is relativly safe versus anything the Zerg can do, whereas the Zerg will always have to take risks when a 4gate might emerge or not.
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On May 07 2011 04:15 travis wrote:
Idra isn't right, and his argument is absolutely ridiculous. So zerg can't easily scout the tech choice of the opponent early in the game. Well guess what, it's even harder for protoss!
The shit that idra is complaining about, well protoss has the exact same issues! Like, literally the exact same issues. He is so biased and is so dumb about it.
Regardless of my opinions of Idra, you're not being fair to his statements. His argument is that it's impossible to scout early for zerg, AND because Zerg doesn't have a good defensive build that doesn't put them signifigantly behind economically and offensively, it's more of a coin flip for them than the other two races.
Protoss (I won't speak for terran as I don't play the race) does have "safe" builds that are relatively okay vs a wide variety of builds, that can be easily transitioned out of once you arrive at your scouting options (aka: once you've gotten an observer, hallucination, etc). When I 3 gate expand or 2 gate/robo expand, i'm safe vs most anything you can throw at me.
His issue was that zerg does not have a safe catch all build that can be used up until the point where viable scouting becomes available. As a result a zerg has to essentially guess in the early game about his opponent. Sometimes they guess right and can stomp their opponent, and other times they guess incorrectly and die, or get unreasonable behind economically.
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On May 07 2011 04:35 Kipsate wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2011 04:31 travis wrote:On May 07 2011 04:26 Glaven wrote:On May 07 2011 04:15 travis wrote:
Idra isn't right, and his argument is absolutely ridiculous. So zerg can't easily scout the tech choice of the opponent early in the game. Well guess what, it's even harder for protoss!
The shit that idra is complaining about, well protoss has the exact same issues! Like, literally the exact same issues. He is so biased and is so dumb about it.
Lately I have been reading so much stupid shit about sc2 on these forums. Slowly over time it's gotten worse and worse. It's getting to where there is so much of it I just can't handle it. Idra definitely doesn't help things in that department.
The absolute worst is how many posts there now are saying how "idra made day9 look bad" or something to that extent. How? How did he make him look bad? Day9 avoided the argument entirely, how does that make him look bad? Jesus, they're the same type of people who vote for the politician with the most attack ads. I don't want to put words in Idra's mouth but I assume his complaint about early game scouting is tied to the argument that zerg doesn't have a solid general defensive build. The idea being that an investment into too many lings and spine crawlers will put you at a loss if your opponent isn't aggressive since these units cannot cost efficiently attack a defensive protoss/terran (walloffs/sentries etc...) and of course you're missing out on drones. Hallucination is also a pretty good solution to scouting it would seem. Of course, I play terran so take that for what it's worth. You're right, but his argument is horribly flawed. He insists that this massive luck-factor put zergs at a huge disadvantage when it comes to consistent winning. But this massive luck-factor exists just as much for protoss. protoss doesn't have a solid general defensive build that puts them in decent shape on most maps either. you cannot both be totally safe defensively AND keep up with a zerg in economy, which is actually the EXACT SAME THING that idra complains about from a zerg perspective. and it's actually even harder for protoss to detect when zerg is going all-in or putting on heavy pressure than it is for zerg to detect when protoss is doing it. The Forge FE is relativly safe versus anything the Zerg can do, whereas the Zerg will always have to take risks when a 4gate might emerge or not.
Forge FE is safe if u are very defensive... how defensive you need to be is a guessing game. And if you are too defensive and the zerg makes 4 lings into 3 bases only drones you are now behind. It's largely a guessing game on both sides. That's his complaint and it's correct but the problem is he is so goddamn biased he makes it out to only be a zerg thing.
Idra acts like a player can play a certain way and if he plays well he will win vs anything that zerg does, and it just isn't true at all.
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On May 06 2011 21:25 rkffhk wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2011 20:45 SushilS wrote:
Disagree.... Sorry but saying GG is not something about the goodness or badness of your soul...
Its a starcraft culture thing. Something which Greg should understand being the E-sport senior he is.
I dont think he shud GG evry game on ladder. Like with the jazz musicians: you have to know the rules in order to break them properly --- About the idea with reading your opponent by way of the timings... that's not really something that is exclusive to Zerg. All of the other races have ways of getting into the opposition's base (Observers, Comsats, for example). If Zerg only has something that all of the other races have... do you see where I'm going with this? PS: Idra is from fucking Jersey. Have you ever met a person from New Jersey? You'd understand his behavior if you did.
Idra is from michigan btw
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On May 07 2011 04:40 Oceaniax wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2011 04:15 travis wrote:
Idra isn't right, and his argument is absolutely ridiculous. So zerg can't easily scout the tech choice of the opponent early in the game. Well guess what, it's even harder for protoss!
The shit that idra is complaining about, well protoss has the exact same issues! Like, literally the exact same issues. He is so biased and is so dumb about it. Regardless of my opinions of Idra, you're not being fair to his statements. His argument is that it's impossible to scout early for zerg, AND because Zerg doesn't have a good defensive build that doesn't put them signifigantly behind economically and offensively, it's more of a coin flip for them than the other two races. Protoss (I won't speak for terran as I don't play the race) does have "safe" builds that are relatively okay vs a wide variety of builds, that can be easily transitioned out of once you arrive at your scouting options (aka: once you've gotten an observer, hallucination, etc). When I 3 gate expand or 2 gate/robo expand, i'm safe vs most anything you can throw at me.
3gate expand can hold off most everything, 2gate robo can't at all. ling/roach allin will get u easily.
3gate expand is fine defensively but what if the zerg only droned? what kind of position does that leave you in? is that not a luck factor right there that can go either for or against you?
His issue was that zerg does not have a safe catch all build that can be used up until the point where viable scouting becomes available. As a result a zerg has to essentially guess in the early game about his opponent. Sometimes they guess right and can stomp their opponent, and other times they guess incorrectly and die, or get unreasonable behind economically.
zerg absolutely does, they just have to sacrifice economy, and idra doesn't want to do that. I have seen countless games of huk (who plays well regardless of what anyone says), where the zerg applies quick pressure with lings or even/ling roach, kills lots of protoss units or forces cancel on expansion, and then the zerg is still ahead in economy in mid game! this happens a lot. it's also happened in gsl games from julyzerg and nestea plenty of times.
I've also seen games of huk where he didn't apply enough pressure, because he used a protoss "safe defensively" build, and the zerg had droned extremely hard, and in the mid game huk was devastatingly overwhelmed.
idra just doesn't want to have risk involved and he doesn't want to play mindgames but sadly what he wants doesn't matter there is luck involved in this game and mindgames is a big part of it.
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"3gate expand can hold off most everything, 2gate robo can't at all."
I didn't think I needed to go into such minutia with my response, but when I said 2g 1r, I was referring to PvT.
"3gate expand is fine defensively but what if the zerg only droned?"
Which is why protoss traditionally do some light pressure at the front to assure that a greedy zerg is punished. There are definetely some maps where it's harder to pressure with 3g expand, but on most maps currently played, with good forcefield control, You can be safe pressuring with sentry/zealot as long as you don't overcommit or get too greedy yourself.
"zerg absolutely does, they just have to sacrifice economy, and idra doesn't want to do that. I have seen countless games of huk (who plays well regardless of what anyone says), where the zerg applies quick pressure with lings or even/ling roach, kills lots of protoss units or forces cancel on expansion, and then the zerg is still ahead in economy in mid game! this happens a lot. it's also happened in gsl games from julyzerg and nestea plenty of times. "
It's true. the problem in this is if a zerg commits to units early game and the pressure DOESN'T work, they're behind economically by a signifigant margin. When I pressure with 3 gate robo, I am not taking that risk if the zerg commited to units or defenses and i'm not able to get in and do damage.
"idra just doesn't want to have risk involved and he doesn't want to play mindgames but sadly what he wants doesn't matter there is luck involved in this game and mindgames is a big part of it."
Good players want to mitigate risk. I've played table top games at a very high competitive level for years, and the most important aspect of my strategies always involves mitigating risk. Why? Because I believe i'm better than my opponent, and I feel like in alot of circumstances their only way to beat me is to use risky strategies that (in reference to table top games, quite literally) are just rolling the dice.
Unless "safe" builds develop for all the races where a good player can sacrifice an advantage for safety and not be grossly behind his opponent, high level competitors will always have a valid right to complain (no one wants to devote tons of time and effort to practicing a game when too much luck is involved, where you feel that your effort is being outshadowed by the luck of the draw).
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Some pretty good discussion thus-far. It got a little heated and someone got banned -- from TL.net, not from my blog. Again, that's not the kind of thing I want to happen. Lets just keep it cool, respect each other, and discuss this in a nice, level tone.
I definitely like to see the people who disagree with me voicing their opinions, so keep it coming.
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I wrote earlier about Idra's issue w/ "balance", now about his "attitude". Personally I think its fine, his lack of "gg" is something I actually like. "gg" means "good game", if the game wasn't good, don't fucking "gg". Derp. "gg" is something that needs to be earned, not something handed out like participation certificate for elementary school competition. The current use of gg has been so fucking diluted its almost a pointless sentiment to say.
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+ Show Spoiler +On May 07 2011 04:51 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2011 04:40 Oceaniax wrote:On May 07 2011 04:15 travis wrote:
Idra isn't right, and his argument is absolutely ridiculous. So zerg can't easily scout the tech choice of the opponent early in the game. Well guess what, it's even harder for protoss!
The shit that idra is complaining about, well protoss has the exact same issues! Like, literally the exact same issues. He is so biased and is so dumb about it. Regardless of my opinions of Idra, you're not being fair to his statements. His argument is that it's impossible to scout early for zerg, AND because Zerg doesn't have a good defensive build that doesn't put them signifigantly behind economically and offensively, it's more of a coin flip for them than the other two races. Protoss (I won't speak for terran as I don't play the race) does have "safe" builds that are relatively okay vs a wide variety of builds, that can be easily transitioned out of once you arrive at your scouting options (aka: once you've gotten an observer, hallucination, etc). When I 3 gate expand or 2 gate/robo expand, i'm safe vs most anything you can throw at me. 3gate expand can hold off most everything, 2gate robo can't at all. ling/roach allin will get u easily. 3gate expand is fine defensively but what if the zerg only droned? what kind of position does that leave you in? is that not a luck factor right there that can go either for or against you? Show nested quote +
His issue was that zerg does not have a safe catch all build that can be used up until the point where viable scouting becomes available. As a result a zerg has to essentially guess in the early game about his opponent. Sometimes they guess right and can stomp their opponent, and other times they guess incorrectly and die, or get unreasonable behind economically.
zerg absolutely does, they just have to sacrifice economy, and idra doesn't want to do that. I have seen countless games of huk (who plays well regardless of what anyone says), where the zerg applies quick pressure with lings or even/ling roach, kills lots of protoss units or forces cancel on expansion, and then the zerg is still ahead in economy in mid game! this happens a lot. it's also happened in gsl games from julyzerg and nestea plenty of times. I've also seen games of huk where he didn't apply enough pressure, because he used a protoss "safe defensively" build, and the zerg had droned extremely hard, and in the mid game huk was devastatingly overwhelmed. idra just doesn't want to have risk involved and he doesn't want to play mindgames but sadly what he wants doesn't matter there is luck involved in this game and mindgames is a big part of it.
If you 3 gate FE'd and he only drones, wouldn't you have the option of putting on a lot of pressure which would presumably equalize the situation because you have the option to fall back on an expo?
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On May 07 2011 04:15 travis wrote:
Idra isn't right, and his argument is absolutely ridiculous. So zerg can't easily scout the tech choice of the opponent early in the game. Well guess what, it's even harder for protoss!
The shit that idra is complaining about, well protoss has the exact same issues! Like, literally the exact same issues. He is so biased and is so dumb about it.
Lately I have been reading so much stupid shit about sc2 on these forums. Slowly over time it's gotten worse and worse. It's getting to where there is so much of it I just can't handle it. Idra definitely doesn't help things in that department.
The absolute worst is how many posts there now are saying how "idra made day9 look bad" or something to that extent. How? How did he make him look bad? Day9 avoided the argument entirely, how does that make him look bad? Jesus, they're the same type of people who vote for the politician with the most attack ads.
Truer words have never been spoken. Not only are there flaws in IdrA's argument, he can't even present it without coming off in a negative way, despite accepting that zergs are actually adapting quite well.
From everything he said, it feels like he just wants a game that's balanced in such a way that "he shouldn't be losing to these people", because he thinks 3 years of korean bw practice entitle him to win everything in the western hemisphere, ever.
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On May 07 2011 08:51 Sadistx wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2011 04:15 travis wrote:
Idra isn't right, and his argument is absolutely ridiculous. So zerg can't easily scout the tech choice of the opponent early in the game. Well guess what, it's even harder for protoss!
The shit that idra is complaining about, well protoss has the exact same issues! Like, literally the exact same issues. He is so biased and is so dumb about it.
Lately I have been reading so much stupid shit about sc2 on these forums. Slowly over time it's gotten worse and worse. It's getting to where there is so much of it I just can't handle it. Idra definitely doesn't help things in that department.
The absolute worst is how many posts there now are saying how "idra made day9 look bad" or something to that extent. How? How did he make him look bad? Day9 avoided the argument entirely, how does that make him look bad? Jesus, they're the same type of people who vote for the politician with the most attack ads. Truer words have never been spoken. Not only are there flaws in IdrA's argument, he can't even present it without coming off in a negative way, despite accepting that zergs are actually adapting quite well. From everything he said, it feels like he just wants a game that's balanced in such a way that "he shouldn't be losing to these people", because he thinks 3 years of korean bw practice entitle him to win everything in the western hemisphere, ever.
To be fair, we Protoss players can get observers, which are insanely cheap nowadays. If the Zerg want to scout, they will have to upgrade Overlord speed and suicide the Overlord. So, at least that portion of the argument, is still in favor of the Protoss.
Again, this is about tip-top leagues and professional play, where slow Overlords will be killed before they can see anything.
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On May 07 2011 01:14 natelikewhoa wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2011 01:03 zeru wrote:
I'm talking about his negative impact on the community in general and how the attitude he has creates negativity, irrationality and ignorance among his fans, those won't disappear by not watching him. I completely disagree and believe that saying that greg's attitude causes negativity, irrationality, and ignorance among fans is foolish at best.
Sorry but you can see the influence of it all over this site. People cite IdrA and use him as an example all the time.
People seem to get the impression that he's doing it to be a character or something, yet he bm's even in private games with no one watching. Before SC2 release most people had a negative perception of him cause he said some foolish stuff when he lost and was pointlessly bm to amateur opponents when he was a pro playing 12 hours a day. Now he's somehow looked up as a hero to some people, for basically being a dick. Talking about perceived imbalance is one thing. Disrespecting opponents is another, and it's unnecessary.
You can speak your mind without resorting to being an asshole.
And about the imbalance IdrA seems to want to just play Terran in BW. Yet he complained about that too. Even with perfectly fine scouting i remember the ridiculous posts he made complaining that F91 was tricking him with 'bad' strategies that shouldn't be done and that's why he lost.
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Oh lord I support the man then he tries to coup TL.net
Actually. I don't care. Don't want to get involved. This blog was posted before any of this even went down. For the record, he said:
wont be streaming for 2 days as i have been banned from tl for insulting cruncher, everyone pm Chill if this upsets you
That is a call to arms, and from my understanding he's been banned a thousand times. It's whatever. Day[9] blog coming up in the next couple of days.
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