EPT1. Who were the real troopers of MLG Columbus?
A few players deserve recognition for playing tons and tons of games. These are players who simply played the most games.
First we have oGsMC who played an astonishing 26 games this weekend going 19 and 7. Second with 20 games are the players SjoW and ThorZain with Sjow going 9 and 11 and ThorZain going 13 and 7. If you are curious, the winner MMA went 14 and 2, Losira went 12 and 4, and Idra went 10 and 8.
2. Build Orders:
Analyzing the build orders of the entire tournament a few very successful build orders came through:
Protoss:
PvP: Not many of these this tournament sadly, the standard (Gateway, Gas, Core, Gas) was the most used going 5 and 4. Different openings that were successful but only once used were the standard but getting your 2nd pylon after building your core, and Gateway, Gas, Core, Gate.
PvT: Best openers seem to be this 1 gas opener (Gateway, gas, core) followed likely by an early attack, and an expand based build (Gate, gas, core, nexus). Notable the most tried is the standard (gateway, gas, core, gas), but in PvT went 9-13 suggesting it might not be as effective as these new openings.
PvZ: The standard Gate, gas, core, gas just lost against Zerg, going 5 and 8. Successful PvZ builds that worked was the forge fast expand, but the Zergs were showing that they are adapting to it. Cannon rushing was sadly successful at MLG as well as quick rushes for air. Seems though that the forge fast expand overall did the best vs Zerg.
Terran:
TvP: The 1 rax fast expand followed by 2 more rax was by far the best opener at MLG, going 10 and 4 vs Protoss. In two instances a 2 rax pressure build did work.
TvT: Not too surprisingly the Marine Tank build showed itself to be a dominant beast in TvT. with 1 rax 1 factory followed by an expansion working well as well. I don't think that without watching all the replays there's a ton to learn from TvT this time.
TvZ: The 2rax pressure did amazing at MLG not losing a single time against Zerg the five time is showed up. Besides that and oen instance of a rax fast expand, Terran got pretty badly bloodied overall vs Zerg at MLG. Terran pros are likely going to be hard at work to combat Zerg for the next big event.
Zerg:
ZvP: ZvP was essentially rewritten during MLG, with many successful strategies combating Protoss coming unveiled for the first time and really there was no standards that really worked. First of all, hatch first builds worked only 2 times in ZvP, so Pool first seems to just be the way of the matchup (Both times they worked one was with many crawlers and one with roaches soon after). Double expanding was also quite common in winning BOs for Zerg. Others involved many early roaches being successful as the response to that early Protoss air harass.
ZvT: Hatchery first was very successful vs Terran. Most successful being Hatch, pool, crawler, 1 or 2 gases, lair. Also notable was a large use of Roaches and not just Ling Baneling in early game. Maybe I am out of touch but that rang new to me. One of the most interesting build orders involves beating the Terran and then GGing before he can
ZvZ: In ZvZ as well Hatch first won out over pool first. There are slightly more who went Banelings either before or instead of Roaches, but many got both early.
3. Maps:
Maps by Popularity:
Metalopolis - 45
Shakuras Plateau - 45
Tal'Darim Altar - 37
Shattered Temple - 34
Xel'Naga Caverns - 33
Testbug - 14 (I love this map btw)
Typhon Peaks - 11
Race Win Percentages by Map:
Metalopolis P:42% T:48% Z:55%
Shakuras Plateau: P:42% T:52% Z:51%
Shattered Temple P: 72%(JJJJEEEZUZ) T:38% Z:56%
Tal'Darim Altar: P:52% T:42% Z:57%
Testbug: P:42% T:33% Z:66%
Typhon Peaks: P:33% T:66% Z:40%
Xel'Naga Caverns: P:46% T:50% Z:52%
It seems the best map for Protoss is Shattered Temple, for Terran is Typhon Peaks, and for Zerg is Testbug. The most balanced map seems to be Xel'Naga Caverns and the least balanced seems to be Typhon Peaks.
4. APM:
Top-10 Average APMs:
1. SeleCT (376)
2. Losira (364)
3. ViBE (354)
4. MMA (352)
5. MC (340)
6. July (320)
7. KawaiiRice (308)
8. mOoNan (288)
9. MorroW (286)
10. Fenix (283)
I won't be rude so I am not naming names, but the lowest APM recorded was 141.
I hope you found this little blip of data interesting.
