Tastosis Casting and Misanalysis - Page 10

On August 11 2011 20:46 Kraznaya wrote:
If you have any idea at all how SC2 works, it doesn’t take any effort at all to figure out which player Artosis is rooting for when you listen to him cast a game. He always has a rooting interest, and he will relentlessly note the “brilliance” of his anointed player while harping on his “uncertainty” about the choices of his disfavored side. This was plaintively obvious in Group D, when Artosis’s totem pole of preferred players ran something to the tune of Alicia = Nada > Coca > Keen. At the inception of Keen’s first game, Artosis immediately labeled Keen as the “by far the weakest player in the group.”

Now, not only is that an erroneous statement (I’ll get to Artosis’s fast eroding knowledge of the Korean scene in general later, especially with regards to players who have not been in Code S long term), but Keen just beat Coca in Code A in Code A July and did an epic ceremony to back it up to boot.

Artosis continued on to criticize Keen’s strategic choices, which consisted of hellion harassment off 2 base into a marine tank timing push designed to kill Coca’s third. Now, Artosis’s criticisms may have had some validity if they were playing on a Terran favored map, but they were playing on Bel Shir Beach, home of the 30% TvZ winrate, the bane of Jinro, and a map where it is nearly impossible for Terran to secure a third against Zerg, not to mention a fourth. Keen rolled the dice on a 2 base timing because he basically had no other choice, and played a hard fought game in which he ultimately lost. Interestingly, while Tasteless had a somewhat higher opinion of Keen prior to the game, praising him at the inception as a “scrappy player,” he was soon echoing Artosis’s sentiments and nitpicking every flaw in Keen’s play, presumably due to his lack of ability to win a TvZ on Zerg Shir Beach.

Before discussing Artosis’s mangling of analyzing Keen’s next game against Alicia, we first must contrast it by looking at a game with two players that Artosis respects, Nada vs Alicia. Alicia is well known for being one of Artosis’s pets, but Nada is a BW Legend, the Genius Terran (NOT the Renaissance Terran, for the love of all that is good and holy), and commands respect. Nada did a twist on the infamous TvP 1/1/1 all in, disguising his build as a marauder expand before switching add ons to arrive at the essential components for marine, tank, and banshee production. This was a creative build by Nada, but not anything that hasn’t been attempted before (for more disguised 1/1/1 all in builds, see MKP’s final against Sase at CPL China, where he opened marine octodrop + 3 hellion runby and fake 2 rax -> reactor cancel into 1/1/1 builds).

Nevertheless, Artosis continually praised Nada on the genius of his build, holding it as an example of good creative play. This actually isn’t a problem for Artosis when viewed in and of itself, but when you contrast how he analyzes this build to a disguised build by a player he dislikes, the bias is clear.

In the loser’s match between Keen and Alicia, Keen opened with a very unusual build after having scouted Alicia on close air positions Metalopolis and seeing Alicia take 2 gas. Having opened with the standard build for a 1 rax gasless FE, Keen opted to lay down 2 more rax for a total of 3 rax no gas upon completion of his orbital. Having seen this, Artosis immediately pounced on Keen and labeled him as a “sneaky player” trying to “sneak” his way past a “much better” player in Alicia by attempting an all in. Even after Keen followed up by planting a CC (thus making it a 3 naked rax expand), Artosis continued to label his build an all in and wondered why Keen didn’t bring all his scvs when he poked with his group of marines.

3 naked rax into an expand is clearly not an all in. In order to do a marine scv all in, you need to either bitbybit with your first 2 rax and hit immediately, or go up to 5 or 6 rax like TLO famously did against Idra. In terms of similar builds, it is closest to a 2 rax pressure into expand (zatic build, used very often by Polt in the GSL Super Tournament), or the 3 gate into expand that Protosses do. In fact, 3 naked rax is in effect the exact same amount of production structures as a standard Terran 2 rax (1 reactor and 1 tech lab). The build is designed to poke and pressure your opponent, denying an expansion with bunkers if he attempts to greedily expand too early, while remaining safe against all forms of pressure so that you yourself can take an expansion.

Why did Keen opt for this unusual 3 naked rax into expansion? Because he made a calculated read based on his scouting, opponent, and map. The game was played on Metalopolis close air positions, spots ideal for void ray play, a strong build against 1 rax gasless FE. Alicia is well known for void ray all ins (see his game against MKP in GSL July’s Code S group stage), and Keen scouted that Alicia had gone for two gas. In that position, it was a good read by Keen to expect a 3 gate void ray all in, against which he would have been miles ahead with his multitude of marines and ready expansion. However, upon seeing the fact that he was not harassed by void rays, Keen smartly used the ability of his build to pressure fast expansions to deny Alicia’s expansion. The fact that he was able to get up the ramp and kill a few sentries and probes was just gravy, and the build would have succeeded in denying Alicia’s expansion even if that had not happened. Keen continued to show savvy reactive play when he immediately threw down an engineering bay upon seeing Alicia’s low sentry count despite the quick two gas and lack of void rays, and killed all of Alicia’s DTs and wiped the floor with him for the rest of the (short) game.

Obviously, mistakes happen during casting. In fact, while watching the game, I initially assumed the same as Artosis when I saw Keen lay down 2 raxes after his orbital finished. However, when Keen did not lay down additional raxes and continued to bank up money, it was obvious that that was a gun ho assessment and he was planning somewhat different. However, Artosis never changed his diagnosis of the situation, continuing to label Keen’s build an “all-in” long after it clearly wasn’t, and only backtracked after Keen’s initial marine poke by justifying his analysis and saying he was “transitioning out of an all in.” Given that Artosis often has very tight strategic reads on positions, particularly in games with players he likes, such as Nada vs Alicia, I feel like his misanalysis was colored by his biases against Keen and toward Alicia, and his preconceived notions of Keen as a player, something that’s backed up by the rather unequal vocabulary that he uses to describe the two. Thus, with Artosis, the root of his misanalysis while casting generally comes from his biases. His biases, in turn, are often a product of his ignorance about players, especially new players just beginning to make a splash on the scene.

On August 14 2011 23:26 flowSthead wrote:
Judging by liquipedia edits, on the 7th of June Jeymuelli adds Renaissance Nerd as a nickname for Nada (checked by DivinO), so it is a valid nickname for NaDa.

On August 15 2011 00:16 rauk wrote:


i can add in "lame wuss" under muhammad ali's nicknames on wikipedia but that doesn't mean it's a legitimate nickname. nada is either genius terran or otter terran, no one calls him anything else.

On August 15 2011 00:16 rauk wrote:


i can add in "lame wuss" under muhammad ali's nicknames on wikipedia but that doesn't mean it's a legitimate nickname. nada is either genius terran or otter terran, no one calls him anything else.

On August 11 2011 20:46 Kraznaya wrote:
If you have any idea at all how SC2 works, it doesn’t take any effort at all to figure out which player Artosis is rooting for when you listen to him cast a game. He always has a rooting interest, and he will relentlessly note the “brilliance” of his anointed player while harping on his “uncertainty” about the choices of his disfavored side. This was plaintively obvious in Group D, when Artosis’s totem pole of preferred players ran something to the tune of Alicia = Nada > Coca > Keen. At the inception of Keen’s first game, Artosis immediately labeled Keen as the “by far the weakest player in the group.” Now, not only is that an erroneous statement (I’ll get to Artosis’s fast eroding knowledge of the Korean scene in general later, especially with regards to players who have not been in Code S long term), but Keen just beat Coca in Code A in Code A July and did an epic ceremony to back it up to boot. Artosis continued on to criticize Keen’s strategic choices, which consisted of hellion harassment off 2 base into a marine tank timing push designed to kill Coca’s third. Now, Artosis’s criticisms may have had some validity if they were playing on a Terran favored map, but they were playing on Bel Shir Beach, home of the 30% TvZ winrate, the bane of Jinro, and a map where it is nearly impossible for Terran to secure a third against Zerg, not to mention a fourth. Keen rolled the dice on a 2 base timing because he basically had no other choice, and played a hard fought game in which he ultimately lost. Interestingly, while Tasteless had a somewhat higher opinion of Keen prior to the game, praising him at the inception as a “scrappy player,” he was soon echoing Artosis’s sentiments and nitpicking every flaw in Keen’s play, presumably due to his lack of ability to win a TvZ on Zerg Shir Beach.

Before discussing Artosis’s mangling of analyzing Keen’s next game against Alicia, we first must contrast it by looking at a game with two players that Artosis respects, Nada vs Alicia. Alicia is well known for being one of Artosis’s pets, but Nada is a BW Legend, the Genius Terran (NOT the Renaissance Terran, for the love of all that is good and holy), and commands respect. Nada did a twist on the infamous TvP 1/1/1 all in, disguising his build as a marauder expand before switching add ons to arrive at the essential components for marine, tank, and banshee production. This was a creative build by Nada, but not anything that hasn’t been attempted before (for more disguised 1/1/1 all in builds, see MKP’s final against Sase at CPL China, where he opened marine octodrop + 3 hellion runby and fake 2 rax -> reactor cancel into 1/1/1 builds).

Nevertheless, Artosis continually praised Nada on the genius of his build, holding it as an example of good creative play. This actually isn’t a problem for Artosis when viewed in and of itself, but when you contrast how he analyzes this build to a disguised build by a player he dislikes, the bias is clear.

In the loser’s match between Keen and Alicia, Keen opened with a very unusual build after having scouted Alicia on close air positions Metalopolis and seeing Alicia take 2 gas. Having opened with the standard build for a 1 rax gasless FE, Keen opted to lay down 2 more rax for a total of 3 rax no gas upon completion of his orbital. Having seen this, Artosis immediately pounced on Keen and labeled him as a “sneaky player” trying to “sneak” his way past a “much better” player in Alicia by attempting an all in. Even after Keen followed up by planting a CC (thus making it a 3 naked rax expand), Artosis continued to label his build an all in and wondered why Keen didn’t bring all his scvs when he poked with his group of marines.

3 naked rax into an expand is clearly not an all in. In order to do a marine scv all in, you need to either bitbybit with your first 2 rax and hit immediately, or go up to 5 or 6 rax like TLO famously did against Idra. In terms of similar builds, it is closest to a 2 rax pressure into expand (zatic build, used very often by Polt in the GSL Super Tournament), or the 3 gate into expand that Protosses do. In fact, 3 naked rax is in effect the exact same amount of production structures as a standard Terran 2 rax (1 reactor and 1 tech lab). The build is designed to poke and pressure your opponent, denying an expansion with bunkers if he attempts to greedily expand too early, while remaining safe against all forms of pressure so that you yourself can take an expansion.

Why did Keen opt for this unusual 3 naked rax into expansion? Because he made a calculated read based on his scouting, opponent, and map. The game was played on Metalopolis close air positions, spots ideal for void ray play, a strong build against 1 rax gasless FE. Alicia is well known for void ray all ins (see his game against MKP in GSL July’s Code S group stage), and Keen scouted that Alicia had gone for two gas. In that position, it was a good read by Keen to expect a 3 gate void ray all in, against which he would have been miles ahead with his multitude of marines and ready expansion. However, upon seeing the fact that he was not harassed by void rays, Keen smartly used the ability of his build to pressure fast expansions to deny Alicia’s expansion. The fact that he was able to get up the ramp and kill a few sentries and probes was just gravy, and the build would have succeeded in denying Alicia’s expansion even if that had not happened. Keen continued to show savvy reactive play when he immediately threw down an engineering bay upon seeing Alicia’s low sentry count despite the quick two gas and lack of void rays, and killed all of Alicia’s DTs and wiped the floor with him for the rest of the (short) game.

Obviously, mistakes happen during casting. In fact, while watching the game, I initially assumed the same as Artosis when I saw Keen lay down 2 raxes after his orbital finished. However, when Keen did not lay down additional raxes and continued to bank up money, it was obvious that that was a gun ho assessment and he was planning somewhat different. However, Artosis never changed his diagnosis of the situation, continuing to label Keen’s build an “all-in” long after it clearly wasn’t, and only backtracked after Keen’s initial marine poke by justifying his analysis and saying he was “transitioning out of an all in.” Given that Artosis often has very tight strategic reads on positions, particularly in games with players he likes, such as Nada vs Alicia, I feel like his misanalysis was colored by his biases against Keen and toward Alicia, and his preconceived notions of Keen as a player, something that’s backed up by the rather unequal vocabulary that he uses to describe the two. Thus, with Artosis, the root of his misanalysis while casting generally comes from his biases. His biases, in turn, are often a product of his ignorance about players, especially new players just beginning to make a splash on the scene.

And that’s the last fault of Tastosis. They no longer have any finger on the pulse of the Korean SC2 scene, on what is going on the Korean ladder and who’s making a name for himself in Code A, GSTL, or even Korean Iccup Weeklys. Back in the Open Seasons, this was much more excusable, given the less structured nature of the scene and lesser expectations for good reporting. Now, though, we have people like Wolf (note: yes, Wolf has his own biases and misanalyses, but that’s another story for another day) giving us inside info on the inner workings of FXO-fOu, and all their practice partners and ladder opponents (which cover the entire scene). Coupled with the rather astounding lack of knowledge that Tastosis have of what’s going on in tournaments below Code S (I’m pretty certain that I watch more Korean SC2 games than they do at this point, and that’s part of their job), and you have casters with flawed impressions of what’s actually going on in the scene. This puts a hamper on their analysis, and makes their impressions of the metagame feel very dated as a result. Add that to the fact that Artosis tends to do a much better analyzing players who he knows and isn’t biased against, and you have a real cause for improvement in their casting.

On August 23 2011 20:17 Kraznaya wrote:


So Artosis, what do you think of Keen now?

On August 23 2011 21:45 KeksX wrote:

NO.
If other casters are completely bad and have no clue about the game whatsoever they are FREAKING BALLERS,
but if artosis / tasteless make a mistake they are EFFIN TERRIBLE!
If you think anything else you're just a fanboy!!

On August 23 2011 20:19 TDN4 wrote:
Smart people would agree with you completely, but fanboyism often overshadows facts, especially on TL