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GSL Spoilers for the matches last night.
I don't watch OSL, but I think Rain's probably the best example when people talked about how good the mechanics of KeSPA players are. I guess why I'm impressed by him can be summarized with 2 parts.
1. How Rain deals with harassment
Drop harass is a core part of TvP play. And how Rain dealt with it against both Taeja and Polt really showed that drop harass can really be mitigated, and that it too often does way more damage than it should.
The answer sounds so intuitive. Photon cannons to zone out Medivac drops, and a High Templar to Storm or Feedback Medivacs. He did this nearly every game, and Polt really had to do some maneuvering to get drops to be effective. How many times in even recent memory have we seen Medivac drops do so much damage to either economy or Tech? We see Probe kills and sometimes even Nexus snipes via Medivac drop in almost every TvP. Tech-wise, Puma comes to mind on how he somehow manages to always snipe Twilight Councils just before Charge finishes with very alarming consistency. Just watch some of his NASL games.
Even if Photon Cannons and High Templar are pricey, being able to effectively mine from bases is incredibly important to Protoss because their army with Colossus and Templar are stronger than Terran's most of the time on even bases. Heck, it can sometimes be hard to destroy a Protoss army with Terran even if Terran is 1 base ahead. Harder against Rain because of number 2.
2. How Rain is constantly harassing the Terran
Rain is probably not the only player to do this, but this was really highlighted in the games yesterday. Somehow, Rain was able to run his Zealots by in nearly every game, and in nearly every game, the Terran seemed unfamiliar with how to effectively deal with it. At this point in time, a lot of Protoss don't seem to be dedicating resources to running Zealots by from a Proxy Pylon or Warp Prism. It almost seemed like second nature for Rain to simply warp a couple Charge Zealots and run them into the mineral line. And as a Terran player, it seemed almost comical as to how effective it kept being and how Polt and Taeja couldn't seem to deal with it effectively due to how few Protoss do it. Seems like Terrans should start putting a Bunker up at the 3rd and surround it with Depots, much like how they deal with Zergling run-byes.
Of course, his Zealot run-byes weren't anywhere near as impressive as his Storm drops. Many times within the games he played yesterday, Rain would simply load 2 High Templars (or 1 High Templar with enough energy for 2 Storms in some cases) into a Speed Warp Prism and just devastate a mineral line. Even against Missile Turrets, he wasn't afraid to go in. Even if the Warp Prism was destroyed, he still managed to unload the cargo nearly EVERY time. 2 Storms are enough to cover an entire mineral line, and will destroy every SCV if the Terran isn't paying attention. Which they usually weren't, because Storm drops in PvT aren't something you deal with often. Probably because most Protoss players think the Speed Warp Prism and Templar are too much of an investment. Heck, he then merges them into an Archon, and even warps in Zealots when he can for even more base damage, due to knowing that the army was out of position. If even Turret Rings can't effectively stop Storm drops, more Terrans might be forced to utilized Sensor Towers and a Viking to stop them.
Effective economic harass is very painful for Terrans to have to deal with, since the Protoss main army is already often stronger. Against Rain, it's even more painful due to, again, how hard it is for Terrans to deal harassment damage back because of how well Rain deals with drops.
In general, Rain utilized Templars fantastically for base defense and base harass. And then, of course, he also used them fantastically as part of the main army. Even when compared to long-time GSL players, Rain has some of the best Storms I've seen. Rain's now Top 8 in GSL on his first freaking try, and is probably the best example of how much potential the KeSPA players have in someday making the E-sports Federation players obsolete.
 
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GRAND OLD AMERICA16375 Posts
Well I was also impressed by Rain's play, I wouldn't neccessarily say make the ESF players obsolete, but rather gives them the motivation to either keep up with the KeSPA players or to surpass them still. We are coming to the point in which denoting a player's skill level based on his group affiliation is nothing more than words.
But Jaedong, why you lose T_T
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On September 20 2012 07:34 amazingxkcd wrote:
Well I was also impressed by Rain's play, I wouldn't neccessarily say make the ESF players obsolete, but rather gives them the motivation to either keep up with the KeSPA players or to surpass them still.
POTENTIAL is the key word I used here.
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yeah remember all the hype about ForGG? where is that dude now again?
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On September 20 2012 09:26 B.I.G. wrote:
yeah remember all the hype about ForGG? where is that dude now again?
This is not a good or even relevant argument against the OP. He's talking about progamers currently playing for Kespa teams--not ones that peaked years ago, fell into a permanent slump and play from their own home.
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I play Terran and those zealot warp ins made me cry. They are such a pain in the ass.
Rain is good.
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On September 20 2012 10:25 SnipedSoul wrote:
I play Terran and those zealot warp ins made me cry. They are such a pain in the ass.
Rain is good.
A Bunker at the 3rd in the mid-late game is good. Or pretty much at any bases that aren't Planetaries. Surround it with Supply Depots if you want, similar to how you deal with Zerglings. What really made is cry is that both Taeja and Polt did nothing to build any defenses against them, despite the fact that Rain did it nearly every game.
Constantly blanketing the mineral lines with Storms made me cry more. Especially the one drop where Missile Turrets destroyed the Warp Prism, and it still unloaded its Cargo.
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Really nice blog post here.I have to agree with you, Rain is really a breath of fresh air for the current metagame for P against T, it was a pleasure watching him rip through his group
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So basically he does what I said protosses should be doing like 1 year ago - cannon rings with templar patrolling inside. It's amazing how good this is yet some protosses still refuse to do it.
Anyways, turtle templar protoss style with fast 3/3 has always been the strongest and most abusive PvT style, with warp prisms included. I'm not surprised a kespa player realized this and got amazing at it.
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On September 20 2012 09:57 rift wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2012 09:26 B.I.G. wrote:
yeah remember all the hype about ForGG? where is that dude now again? This is not a good or even relevant argument against the OP. He's talking about progamers currently playing for Kespa teams--not ones that peaked years ago, fell into a permanent slump and play from their own home.
You cant deny that every few months the community gets all hyped up about a promise of change like "omg foreigners are catching up to koreans!" just because Huk was doing good. Now we have Kespa players where mostly just Rain is really doing well but the rest has yet to impress.
Gotta see it before I join that hype train.
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For the one who did not see those matches yet, the main concept of Rain play is to not revolved around Collosus play in PvT. He instead use his robo producing time frame to build many observers and warp prisms, plus some immortals.
The observers (like 4-5 on the map at a time) help defending against drop and give him a solid map awarness.
The warp prisms allows him to make constant harass (ht drop + zealot warpings). It's not like one drop per game as you usually see from P in PvT but rather like a drop per minute.
He obvioulsy rely on HT for AoE. And he builds a lot of them, like you could see 12 of them in the main army. He also park 1 or 2 on each base to prevent drop.
Sure there is not much gas left for stalkers and blink, but anti-air is not realy an issue, since for the moment T don't go starport heavy if there is no collosus.
This kind of play require almost perfect reaction time to leverage those HT (especially in defense), but Rain won both of his games against Taeja without any serious engagement.
It has been a long time I didn't see such entertaining PvX matches.
Brillant !
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On September 21 2012 00:07 Haiku-Fr wrote:
For the one who did not see those matches yet, the main concept of Rain play is to not revolved around Collosus play in PvT. He instead use his robo producing time frame to build many observers and warp prisms, plus some immortals.
The observers (like 4-5 on the map at a time) help defending against drop and give him a solid map awarness.
The warp prisms allows him to make constant harass (ht drop + zealot warpings). It's not like one drop per game as you usually see from P in PvT but rather like a drop per minute.
He obvioulsy rely on HT for AoE. And he builds a lot of them, like you could see 12 of them in the main army. He also park 1 or 2 on each base to prevent drop.
Sure there is not much gas left for stalkers and blink, but anti-air is not realy an issue, since for the moment T don't go starport heavy if there is no collosus.
This kind of play require almost perfect reaction time to leverage those HT (especially in defense), but Rain won both of his games against Taeja without any serious engagement.
It has been a long time I didn't see such entertaining PvX matches.
Brillant !
Free Stream makes it hard for me to see the minimap and how many Observers he makes, so thank you for explaining it.
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i was never impressed with a protoss player as much as i am with rain now
his decision making and multitasking are just better than anyone's
killing guys without even engaging their armies straight up
sure hero is the most creative player of all (maybe, when he is streaming - when not under pressure)
sure squirtle has better plans than anyone (3 terrans in my group? ok, i'll just do the same opening into 5 different builds and kill them all)
sure mc has hot the best micro and the biggest balls
but this guy.... man...
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EPT
