[Spoilers] Empire.viOLet's Play at IEM Sao Paulo

Arisen

United States2382 Posts

February 14 2012 20:02 GMT

I'm not the kind who watches a lot of tournaments. I feel bad about not supporting good tourneys with my stream views, but my passion lies in playing rather than spectating. As luck would have it, though, I was feeling under the weather this past weekend, so I decided to tune in to the IEM Sao Paulo tournament. I was really rooting for DeMu and Ret, but my eye got caught by (Z)

Empire.viOLet, and I must say that I'm really impressed by his play. viOLet does a lot of things in his play that a lot of top level zergs aren't currently doing, which is really cool.

Gosu

Zerglings are really good, and just because you CAN make a drone, doesn't mean you should

viOLet's Key to Success!

One thing that I see a lot of in viOLet's play is phenomenal use of zerglings. In any matchup at pretty much any time, there is probably a group of 16 or so (sometimes more) zerglings out on the map ready and poised to punish an out of position army. You always have to think twice before you push viOlet, because if you're not covered back home, he's going to fuck your shit up.

It's really cool to watch viOlet play, because zerg so often on the pro scene is about rushing to 80 or so drones and then burying the opponent in a massive wave of units or (more often recently) tech. viOLet, however, often delays his economy to put some units out there. While traditional zerg wisdom tells us that we should scrape by on as few units as possible and making units instead of drones in scenarios where you CAN make a drone is bad, viOLet shows us that that's not true.

In the Finals, Supernova opens up double reactor on TDA; an opening that applies sick pressure and can sometimes pretty easily take a game off a zerg and forces zerg to make a lot of queens/spines or roaches. Not viOLet, however. With quick speed and about 16 early lings (that most zergs would have made drones) viOLet counters into Supernova's main

The hellions need to pull back to defend the base, keeping him far away from viOLet's half of the map; no need for a ton of extra defense, and allowing him to force creep spread while making a lot of drones behind and score some easy SCV kills and a full scout. Worth 8 larvae? I think so.

This trend continues throughout almost all viOLet's play. You can say it's all luck that the zerglings just so happen to be good, but we see time and time again, just a few units out on the map are devastatingly good against early aggression and allows you to scout, a commodity a lot of zergs don't often get.

In the same series, we see supernova do something else really agressive; a lot of hellions and banshees to open up with a double expand. MVP does this sort of thing all the time. To quote IdrA, "MVP has the most abusive agression plus double expand play I've ever seen in my life." I've lost to this play a lot of times; You feel so pinned back and you don't know what's going on behind it. Let's see how viOLet deals with it.

This type of play from terran usually leads to zerg sitting in his natural with 1 creep tumor, saving energy for transfuse, spine crawlers all around, and the zerg panicked. Is he going to drop those hellions, he has a starport after all? Is he going all in? Maybe you try to run a ling out and it gets roasted by hellions. Do I make drones or units? Not viOLet. He aggressively takes the map with his units. viOLet scouts a lot of hellions with his lings and responds with some roaches. He never lets the hellions contain him; there are lings out on the map, what's he going to do? If he goes for the contain supernova could get his natural cancelled, he could lose a lot of scv's, etc. He needs to be able to intercept those lings. With a great aggressive opening, terran has only poked at a zerg for a moment and has zero vision. viOLet gets a fast third, spreads his creep and makes a ton of drones versus a build designed specifically around NOT letting zerg do those things. Supernova is forced to pull SCV's in case viOLet commits into his natural and has to cancel his third.

viOLet is quick to make some early units in ZvP as well. You almost never see a zerg making more than 1 or 2 larvae's worth of units versus FFE; conventional thought is so based on getting 70 drones, super late gas, and using your huge amount of drones to deny expanding and to keep the protoss in his base while you expand/tech. Not viOLet, in the series versus portugar, we see him making about 16 speed zerglings on Antiga right after his natural comes out.

After a small poke into portugar's natural, I proceed to witness one of the most one sided ZvP's I've ever seen

Say what you want about luck, but making these early units FORCES the protoss to do things he doesn't want to do. More cannons, pulled probes, more pylons, etc. All the while you're right in his face, getting good scouting, and not allowing him to pull shenanigans. Here's what happens when you don't respond well as a protoss.

From moment one

Till the moment the last ling dies, you have full scouting and control over that base. 16 lings; 8 larvae killed 13 probes, 2 pylons, 2 stalkers and stopped mining (for the most part) for ~2:30 seconds, including Portugar's gas. As a result, viOLet is up 20 drones, and is way ahead.

Delay that shit

So, we've seen how aggressively viOLet goes after map control. What does he use it for? All sorts of stuff. This is a bit more common, but viOLet is extraordinary at delaying pushes with his center control. In another game with Portugar, viOLet is going for 2 base muta and he scouts a pretty scary timing push coming as mutas are being morphed, and some spines nearing completion.

He really doesn't want to engage here, because he wants to dump all his money into mutas.

A threatened counter is enough to force the army back

Buying viOLet 30 seconds of safety. This is exactly the time he needs to make more mutas and get them across the map; portugar has to abandon the push. Eventually viOLet batters him apart and contains Portugar on 2 base, and he's forced to go allin.

Here comes the base trade

And there goes any chance of it working.

By aggressively keeping this center control, viOLet can control protoss aggression in particular extremely well. By denying the probe that is going to build a proxy pylon, he's denying the real strength of protoss gateway based aggression; the ability to instantly reinforce.

Obviously, though, simmilar tactics are very effective in ZvT as well. Just putting some units in between the terran push which relies on slow units, forces terran to make a hard decision; pull back and give zerg more time or commit to an attack, leading to...

Counterattacking

Another strong (and related) concept viOLet really abuses is counterattacks. Zerg isn't necessarily the strongest in a straight up fight (excluding BL/infestor/corrupter), but has amazing speed (ditto). Obviously viOLet isn't the only zerg who counterattacks by any means, but I'm almost always seeing him ready and eager to counter, which leads to some great scenarios.

A pretty common sight in viOLet games. viOLet uses his center control to always keep a group of units ready to counter.

Here's the push

viOLet dives in again getting a full scout and dealing a good amount of damage. It also sets up this...

Looking away for even a second can mean disaster in ZvT. viOLet's amoved lings allow him to catch Supernova's tanks un-sieged with his infestors, and quickly dispatches it

And then moves right back into position to counter.

Especially versus terran, if the opponent dictates a fight, rarely will you ever win. Muta/ling/bane is great at map control, but isn't great attacking into seiged tanks. Luckily for viOLet, he's trained with Europeans.

Like Darkforce and a few other European zergs have shown us, you just don't have to engage. If Terran wants to commit to killing a hachery, zerg is going to trade for Terran's natural.

So often you see zerg concentrating on setting up that good surround and trying to break the push. Both styles are viable, but countering makes for such fun games and often leads to really favorable trades for zergs.

viOLet is a really safe player

It seems that a lot of people acquaint aggressive with unsafe. viOLet is extremely aggressive and at the same time such a safe player. Nowhere is this more evident than in his ZvZ. There are so many small things that viOLet does to avoid those "coin flip" situations so many zergs complain about.

This small blip during viOLet's game versus Ret made me so happy. He makes 2 actions to send a drone out to gain vision of the sliver of creep that his hatch doesn't give vision of and sends it right back to his minerals. I've lost a few games to a spine outside of vision (we even saw this tactic in IdrA vs Sen NASL season 1). viOLet trades maybe 2 minerals worth of mining time to completely avoid the chance of an insta-loss; and so often no one ever checks for this. 99 times out of 100 it doesn't matter, but that 1 in 100 makes it all worth it.

Another pretty extraordinary thing about viOLet's ZvZ in Sao Paulo was how little he 15 hatched. I think in the entire tournament, he only hatch firsted (versus zerg) 1 time, even playing against Ret, the most notoriously greedy zerg on the planet. The dichotomy between 14/14 and 15 hatch is what leads so many to say that ZvZ is rock papers scissors. While yes, 14/14 isn't quite as economical as 15 hatch, viOLet abuses the strengths of the build; he uses his fast speedlings to even the playing field and wins with pure skill, not relying on a risky move to gain a free advantage.

Since viOLet places so much emphasis on his play to getting some units on the map early, he can use these to buy a little bit of safety as well. Have you ever gotten your backdoor seiged on Shak when the rocks weren't down? Nightmare, huh? Not viOLet. There are so many little things viOLet does that avoid his opponent getting a free advantage. One thing that rings true to me is something I heard Day9 say a long time ago; "the hallmark of a good player isn't someone who tries to win, it's someone who tries to not lose." While we see very strong zerg players like IdrA or Ret sometimes die because they didn't do something small in favor of a free advantage, viOLet opts to buy that safety and forgo that free advantage, which makes his wins all the more impressive.

His Crisis Management is RIDICULOUS

Watching viOLet play is also really cool because this guy has rediculous crisis management. I always see him take the least damage possible in pretty much any bad scenario.

Ask just about any zerg what the most frightening opening from protoss you can play against and I feel like 9/10 people will say the +1 Zealot Voidray pressure build. Zealots are so good in this early stage in the matchup and so are voidrays. You're relying on as few units as possible to deal with a really scary army. In the game versus Real on Dual Sight, we see a really good version of this push where Real actually gets a pylon in viOLet's main while warping in at the third and main with voidrays going all over the place viOLet showed off his multitask and crisis management. Despite 15 zealots being warped in around the map with only a small amount of roaches are on the map at all times...

viOLet loses no drones. I don't envy anyone playing viOLet because he's one of those rare players that can absorb just about anything you throw at him and then throw it back on you 10 fold; this is why really good aggressive zergs are SO cool. You get that feeling that there's nothing in the game the other guy could have done about it the whole game; viOLet was 100% in control of the game.

One thing you hear zergs say all the time is that it's super risky to not open up mutas versus terran to get at least a few to shut down drops. In the series versus supernova, viOLet is excellent at controlling drops with only some speedlings. At one point there are 3 dropships around the map on TDA with viOLet having 4 groups of speedlings around (3 for drops, 1 for countering). It's just so powerfully cool to see viOLet controlling the game; he gives me that feeling I get when I watch DRG own a terran or MVP dominate a zerg. You just feel like nothing his opponent can do at any time to effect his fate.

He's Going in for the Kill

One thing you'll hear about another really popular type of player is that they see kill sequences. This is a common critique of SK.MC; he does a lot of 2 base allins, but he's very successful because he scouts something and he's already designing his timing to kill his opponent. While he doesn't do this quite as much, viOLet is very willing to design an allin based on something that's happening in the game. In the game versus portugar where he gets in the main, he knows he denies a lot of gas being mined, so he knows this is going to work because he can't have enough sentries/units to deny his banelings

and work it does

I really appreciate a player being super safe and winning in the lategame, but it's also really scary when a player knows when/how he can kill you and will do that thing. It also really makes for some exciting games!

Unconventional Strategies

While viOLet's straight up play is so good, he also does a lot of things out of the box that are extremely effective. One thing about zergs in the current metagame is that just about every game ends in broodlords because ultras aren't that great. We've heard this so many times; ultras are how you lose a game. viOLet shows us that we can use ultras.

You can go ultras REAL good

But it's not so simple as "this guy goes ultras lategame", because he's not that predictable. He does different things in different games. How many times have you seen IdrA go muta/ling into Broodlord/Infestor? Just about every game; you just don't know what you're going up against when you play viOLet, except you know it's going to be really good.

Another cool thing viOLet does is aggressive use of burrowed banelings. I'm so surprised when I don't see pro zergs using this. Forcing scans as a terran pushes is a phenomenal advantage. Another great use of burrowed banelings is during counterattacks. We so often see viOLet moving in for the counter, and taking an action to burrow 2 banelings during the attack forces a scan and if missed leads to some spectacular results.

Even in ZvZ, viOLet does that little something extra to make his play awesome to watch; drop play. So often do we see the midgame where either there are waves of roaches crashing into eachother or they are sitting in their natural while there are infestors going around the map trying to do something annoying enough to gain an advantage. viOLet makes his play in ZvZ FEEL like zerg.

Why do I only see this in ZvP!?

Baneling bombs, dual pronged roach burrow drops/backstabs, and all kinds of fun multitasking stuff makes viOLet FEEL like a zerg player rather than a protoss player playing with zerg. His army is never in one place; it's using his speed/numbers to spread his opponent out.

Fast thirds are optional, not mandatory

One last thing I want to touch on regarding viOLet's play is how often he opts for 2 base tech rather than fast three base. There's this presumption from zergs out there that we can't go 2 base tech, because we'll be way behind if we don't do a lot of damage. That's just not true. We've seen viOLet open up 2 base tech into a third the majority of his games in IEM Sao Paulo and thrash just about everyone.

How often do these small pushouts with some chronoboosted zealots really mess with zerg's builds? Not with fast speed. Maybe your not at such a big economic advantage, but you can play it out and still be in a really good spot if you are doing things correctly.

We constantly see viOLet taking significantly later thirds than we typically see, but almost always comes out on equal or greater footing than his opponent

It's so great to see zergs playing other styles, and it really makes viOLet's play engaging.

Thanks for reading! I apologize for a probably really poorly written article, but I really hope some people check out viOLet. Is he the best zerg on the planet? No, probably not, but he is really good and shows us different stuff and is really exciting to watch, which makes him noteworthy in my book.

Check viOLet out!
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MooMooMugi

United States10531 Posts

February 14 2012 20:08 GMT

viOlet is a truly impressive player, surprised me by handily beating SuperNova in that intense finals. What more can you expect from a ex-GSL CodeS player?

IGotPlayguuu

Italy660 Posts

February 14 2012 20:11 GMT

Wow really good read! Violet play was outstanding at IEM

zul

Germany5427 Posts

February 14 2012 20:14 GMT

great post. viOlet surely gave his name some extra weight through IEM Sao Paulo.

Azurues

Malaysia5612 Posts

February 14 2012 20:18 GMT

Just show how much zerg player has been improving out of the NesTea shell. Really glad violet won especially for his new team. Sad for the old team though haha

Bagration

United States18282 Posts

February 14 2012 20:21 GMT

Kind of ironic that he was an ex-Code S player but still slipped under the radar until recently.

milesfacade

United Kingdom799 Posts

February 14 2012 20:28 GMT

A truly fantastic read, I love these kinds of write-ups especially for such unique player as violet. Will try to put some of your points into action

ROOTIllusion

United States1060 Posts

February 14 2012 20:29 GMT

me and violet super buds <3 he so good

Cokefreak

Finland8094 Posts

February 14 2012 20:29 GMT

Such a nice read, well done

Nagano

United States1157 Posts

February 14 2012 20:29 GMT

#10

Engaging writing, good job

Violet was fun and entertaining to watch, that's why I loved seeing him play.

NeMeSiS3

Canada2972 Posts

February 14 2012 20:31 GMT

#11

: P I'll tell you one thing, this was an amazing post.

I like how he was hand chosen to go into one of the top 4 Code S players brackets (before the new bracket set up) and the reason was "because he didn't belong" and got smashed into Code A, but he's really shown that he is Code S class...

Violet fan for life.

Trevoc

United States145 Posts

February 14 2012 20:35 GMT

#12

This guy spent two weeks in my town in Texas while preparing for MLG Providence and even since then he has improved exponentially. He streamed for about 10 hours a day while here in the States.. I can only imagine that his work ethic has driven him to excel greatly. <3 viOlet!

GreEny K

Germany7312 Posts

February 14 2012 20:35 GMT

#13

Great post, I have to say. I do love viOlet's play.

TheSwamp

United States1497 Posts

February 14 2012 20:38 GMT

#14

I love these types of posts. Great job!

teddyoojo

Germany22369 Posts

February 14 2012 20:38 GMT

#15

some of the things you say just dont make sense. you say violet is unpredictable because he uses ultras vs terran when noone else does. in fact its really common to go ling infestor into pretty fast ultralisks.

FallDownMarigold

United States3710 Posts

February 14 2012 20:42 GMT

#16

Real solid post buddy. Looks like you spent a good amount of time getting those pics organized - thanks for the breakdown of his play. I've actually been a fan of viOLet for a while, so something like this is so nice to have. His fanclub should link to this post somewhere up at the top!

Micket

United Kingdom2163 Posts

February 14 2012 20:43 GMT

#17

I would say Violets biggest strengths is his mechanics. He has probably got the best macro in the foreign scene. I remember seeing him in GSL not too impressed, especially vs MVP - he did a 1 base roach rush on Terminus. But now his play all makes sense, and is diverse enough that you can't pin him on a style, which is really really cool.

Arisen

United States2382 Posts

February 14 2012 20:47 GMT

#18

On February 15 2012 05:38 teddyoojo wrote:
some of the things you say just dont make sense. you say violet is unpredictable because he uses ultras vs terran when noone else does. in fact its really common to go ling infestor into pretty fast ultralisks.

No. I said he does a lot of different things in his games which makes him unpredictable. We see someone like Stephano do something simmilar to what viOLet does in this game on TDA all the time; infestor ling into quick hive. We see other zergs like IdrA or ret go muta/ling into delayed BL/infestor almost every game. violet mixes it up; he does a mix between the 2 popular styles (and ling/infestor into BL is a lot more common than into ultras), and also throws up nydus worm play, roach/ling, etc, etc, etc