A really fun TVZ between MMA and stephano with a lot of aggression, small skirmishes and harrasment into a very nice series of final battles. A good showcase of both players strengths that made it very back and forth until the end.
( Game two between them which you can also find on that channel is also pretty damn good)
Later I'll try and find one of the vods of hero or mc using some truly awesome stargate play in PvZ, they can really make pheonix dance ^ -^
I think the last 3/4 games of the GSL finals were pretty damn good. Hadn't watched SC2 for weeks/months and I had the option to play D3, but I wasn't disappointed watching the finals. (Apart from the outcome :D )
what fucking assholes gave my blog a 1 star rating. sheesh. thanks to the people that suggested games. going to watch them soon and see what they're like. so far, i've watched the DRG vs MKP winter arena games and wasn't very entertained either.
PartinG vs Polt Game 1 (only free game). No multi-prong attacks everywhere, but constant action and reinforcements.
PartinG vs MarineKing GSTL Finals was much better, but didn't end well so I wouldn't recommend watching it. Had the same situation but with better micro overall, but worse macro.
DRG vs MMA at blizzcup finals (the last game of the series is arguably the best starcraft 2 game ever played, but the whole series is quite exciting): http://www.gomtv.net/2011blizzardcup/vod/66700
Game 2 of Stephano vs MMA at IPL4 is also very good, i don't really have a link to a vod though.
TvT can lead to very good games, off the top of my head Taeja vs Marineking on Atlantis Spaceship from this season's code s ro16 is pretty good. Not amazing, but a good quality game nontheless http://www.gomtv.net/2012gsls2/vod/67123/?set=4&lang=.
The Leenock vs Jakjj GSL final also is pretty good.
An older game that's really good is HerO vs Idra on Metalopolis at some dreamhack a loong time ago; if you can find the replay it's well worth watching.
As someone that watches both sc2 and bw (i started with sc2), bw is the better spectator game right now. On average, the games are just better simpy because the game is more evolved and the players are better. However, sc2 is really, really improving from what it used to be, and i personally find it fascinating to watch the game and strategies evolve as players get better and better. In some of the games i linked you can see there's definitely potential for sc2 to become as good a game as bw imo. Hell, sometimes i wish i could go back in time to the first season of gsl and win it all because people used to be that bad :D
edit: marineking vs kyrix on shakuras plateau in gsl open season 2 would be cool too i guess; mkp's micro in that series changed tvz forever.
Hmm the recent gsl finals comes to mind. hey if you cant watch sc2 then thats your loss but there are many great games and it is entertaining, at least to me and many others.
On May 20 2012 22:27 masterbreti wrote: To be honest. You really aren't going to see anything comparable to bw highlights in sc2. Sc2 is all deathball vs deathball. Unless its 4 gate vs 4 gate pvp. battles are masses vs masses. Micro isn't really as big of an issue as it was in bw or war3.
to be honest the bw players aren't that good at sc2 yet. Effort looks decent, same with Jangbi. but again, its very old school play.
Too be honest I've watched a lot of GSL and what we saw last night was some of the most dynamic and interesting StarCraft 2 I've seen. It doesn't hold a candle to BW, but it was genuinely refreshing to see a game not decided immediately by a timing attack. Flash vs Effort was a huge let down, but Barracks vs hero and the game before it were both strategically much more complex than most SC2 games ever get to be.
So I mean, either you like what you see here or you shouldn't bother. Maybe come back in 6 months and see what they've done.
And yeah, SC2 pros are gonna have much more crisp timings that might kill the KeSPA league players right now, but IMO it is much better to watch the KeSPA pros develop an SC2 style that is interesting and have time to perfect it rather than throwing them into the fire and forcing them to adapt by copying the best timings of the pros. I think in a season or two you are gonna see BW pros bring a great style to SC2 that may not be the BW we love but at least it isn't as stagnant as SC2 is right now.
On May 20 2012 22:27 masterbreti wrote: To be honest. You really aren't going to see anything comparable to bw highlights in sc2. Sc2 is all deathball vs deathball. Unless its 4 gate vs 4 gate pvp. battles are masses vs masses. Micro isn't really as big of an issue as it was in bw or war3.
Really good SC2 games are definitely rarer than good BW games, but they actually happen if really good players clash. The most interesting/ hyping games for me have been either unique or revolutionary games. My personal favorites (in no particular order) are Idra vs Bomber from MLG Orlando, DRG vs MMA G7 from GSL November and MVP vs Squirtle G5 from 2012 GSL S2. Generally, ZvT ist the matchup that produces the best games, although we have seen great games in every other matchup as well.
You're not going to be impressed if you are not fully aware of what's going and know why something was remarkable. Also knowing the players and what's on the line helps the excitement tremendously. I watch almost every major tournament but get bored by VODs quite easily.
I'm still gonna leave a VOD though as that's what you were requesting
I started a thread about this in SC2 general awhile ago. It went about 15 pages before getting locked, but in the end there were some good recommendations
First off, props for giving it a try. Theres too many people on here that talk constant shit about SC2 and literally know next to nothing about it.
I'm not going to reccomend a particular game or player you should watch, but I definitely would encourage you to watch some GSTL when that starts. The games are almost always at least moderately entertaining and its more fun than watching an individual league. You obviously wouldn't know the teams but you'll definitely pick up on the entertaining and fun players quickly, along with the personalities of the teams.
Best games? Thats hard to decide for a couple of reasons.
Currently, protoss won a lot last night and all because their opponents made bad mistakes and just seem to not understand the game that well. Protoss in SC2 is a funny race. The army is very good in most direct engagements and if controlled properly seems impossible to defeat. However, they have quite possibly the slowest macro of the three races and have gaping holes in their defenses throughout most of the game until they hit particular key tech timings.
For example, protoss is very very weak to drops against terran until there are high templar and storms out. The reason being that it is really hard to split protoss armies properly. Against terran there is a 2 medivac timing and a 4 medivac timing. The two medivac timing is very strong against a protoss who gets greedy and doesn't have good stalker positioning to push away drops. A 4 medivac timing is really strong because without storm the terran has so so many options from 2 base.
He can contain and take a 3rd, he can 4 medivac drop if there is no vision of the drop and they can 2 medivac drop at the main, 1 medivac drop the natural AND can push whatever units he has at the ramp if any into the natural as a pressure.
This kind of thing happens from time to time but the best example would be MVP vs Parting on metropolis. He gets 4 medivacs, and drops the main and parting has nothing to defend the drop. Once protoss is out of position and is being greedy AND 4 medivacs full of units drop the protoss just dies.
This is the thing about sc2. We went through this odd one base phase, then it went to learning to expand and now its moving into a time where timings are super super good because people are learning how to be very greedy. AND NOW people are learning how to read how greedy each person is being and soon i think within the year if it wasn't for HotS the balance between greed, and safety will be discovered. Then will come discovering how to make reads of greed vs safe.
But right now, its certain timings are really really good. Protoss is destroying PvT right now because protoss is being crazy greedy and so is terran but protoss greed is better than terran greed. Some terrans aren't being greedy enough and they also aren't punishing the protoss greed. So right now lategame TvP, the ball is in Terrans court. Parting is the epitomy of protoss greed and he destroys almost all TvP. Except for MVP. MVP wrecked him because he has some solid timings to kill the extreme greed of the protoss player.
Basically, right now in sc2 there are 2 extremes in the metagame. Greedy as FUCK macro into too big an advantage that can be overcome, or clean as hell timing to destroy the extreme greed. The middle ground of safe greedy, and greedy but with tight tight defense timings and execution is rarely seen.
Parting MKP game one in GSTL finals at IPL4 was the closest we've seen. MKP goes for a 2 medivac push and JUST in time Parting gets 2 templar for feedback on the medivacs, making any stim be permanent damage for MKP. The follow up 4 medivac push was making MKP hesitant to push until he got 6 medivacs (4 with good energy, 2 with low energy). When MKP tries to pressure here while taking his 3rd base (i might be remembering the expo timings a little wrong) were timed out alongside storm perfectly and the late ghosts meant that parting could hold off that attack, expand and it moved into a long macro game with a lot of trades along the way until blizzard ruined the game.
And I didn't post vods because i sent you a PM that is 100 times better than having a vod posted here.
On the topic of discussion (slightly), well, LET'S ASK IDRA!
That MMA DRG game was really fucking good (: Now come and watch just some random OSL finals, lets seee, errr, ok! I haven't watched Iris GGplay 2007 in a while, go watch that, esp game 5: Goddam THE TENSION, this is GGPlay coming back down 2-0 to a final 2-2 game. At this point in history, there had NEVER been a ZvT reverse all-kill. Quite back and forth, except the game is more constrained because the map doesn't have as many intricacies to exploit and Zerg don't have hard counters (as in, they don't have siege breaker units).
On May 20 2012 23:22 Angel_ wrote: my question (genuine ignorance coming). Are any of those hype videos from the first two years of broodwar play? - Because of maps, because of constant patching, because of people learning (though some like to claim that the learning curve is much faster for people because they're switching from broodwar/more internet communication/more vods and things/etc...), because people tend to get stuck doing the same thing until they're forced to change (but don't really have to because blizzard pats them on the butt and fixes it for them), because it's still only 2 years old, sc2 is still developing a lot. I don't know if there's anything that's going to genuinely excite a person coming from the peak of development of a game they loved.
Most of these videos are 4-5 years in, but the "macro mentality" that SC2 currently has was only 1-2 years in the making here. BW by this time was patch-stable (no more changes to unit/building stats), players were discovering how powerful a macro-oriented playstyle was, and how applying micro-based positioning and tactics to larger armies yielded better results.
To give a comparison in skill level, a B level iCCup player today would probably be competitive with many pro players from the iloveoov era of 2004-2005.
This is wrong. BW's final (and greatest) balance patch game 2 years, 5 months after the release of BW and 3 years, 1 month after SC proper. For comparison it has been just under 1 year, 10 months since SC2's release.
When the vods come out next week for the mlg arena that just happened there are some truly truly epic and must see games that occured there. Assuming you're still interested then I could dig them up for you.
On May 21 2012 01:37 Chef wrote: Too be honest I've watched a lot of GSL and what we saw last night was some of the most dynamic and interesting StarCraft 2 I've seen. It doesn't hold a candle to BW, but it was genuinely refreshing to see a game not decided immediately by a timing attack. Flash vs Effort was a huge let down, but Barracks vs hero and the game before it were both strategically much more complex than most SC2 games ever get to be.
So I mean, either you like what you see here or you shouldn't bother. Maybe come back in 6 months and see what they've done.
And yeah, SC2 pros are gonna have much more crisp timings that might kill the KeSPA league players right now, but IMO it is much better to watch the KeSPA pros develop an SC2 style that is interesting and have time to perfect it rather than throwing them into the fire and forcing them to adapt by copying the best timings of the pros. I think in a season or two you are gonna see BW pros bring a great style to SC2 that may not be the BW we love but at least it isn't as stagnant as SC2 is right now.
My issue with your statement is that you are essentially saying: "They are not playing the most efficiently, but it's more entertaining that way!" I mean, fair enough, but if I wanted to see entertaining but unpolished play, I can literally just go download 10 NA GM games right now and find entertaining play with weird strategies and odd metagaming all around.
They're going to copy the best timings of the current pros regardless, because their main practice right now in SC2 is through ladder, which is influenced greatly by the GSL and the metagame being developed by the current Code A/S players. I think it was By.Sun who in fact ripped an exact copy of a build that Genius just recently displayed in the GSL and destroyed Jaedong with it last night, while Jaedong tried to play Stephano's roach-based ZvP but without any of the understanding that's necessary for its success, so he just transitioned into getting stomped.
As for my favorite games in SC2 so far, off the top of my head: Parting vs. MKP (not the GSTL games), Parting vs. Polt, Parting vs. Jjakji ... Ace vs. Seed(?) in KSL I think (funny PvP), Taeja vs. Squirtle had some really good games in the Korean Weekly before Squirtle's break-out, TheStC vs. Bomber Game 3 @ MLG, Bomber vs. DRG @ MLG, Ganzi vs. MVP @ MLG, Leenock vs. Jjakji GSL finals, Stephano vs. Kiwikaki (forgot the tourney, probs IPL or something, vortexes and recalls everywhere, first 30 minutes of the game were boring though), DRG vs. MMA.