Spoiler: My analysis of GSL final

On October 20 2012 19:03 HwangjaeTerran wrote:


What, you've never queen that before?

On October 20 2012 19:35 EtherealDeath wrote:


I must confest, I've queen that before.

On October 20 2012 19:36 Loser777 wrote:

I must confest queen I've confest before.

On October 20 2012 18:57 Teoita wrote:
Thanks for the analysis

It was really interesting to see how much mvp went 2fact blueflame to stop Life's lings from getting as much done as they usually do. And it's crazy how Life doesn't die to hellions without roaches.

On October 20 2012 22:32 Big J wrote:
well, I have to disagree about your early game analysis. I don't think hellionheavy openings give you an advantage over lingheavy openings by default. I think you either have to kill a lot of drones with them, or force/kill a lot of lings with it while preserving your hellioncount to get that advantage you are talking about.
Players like Stephano have shown this before, you can really go for those lingstyles against mech, as long as you don't take too much damage economically and maintain enough zerglings (+infestors) to delay Terrans expanding and pushing.

Else I think it's a nice writeup, a few times where I think you hand advantages out too freely, but the part about the vikings instead of more factories on Daybreak is a really interesting perspective.

On October 20 2012 23:17 iaguz wrote:
I got the impression that MVP's 2 fac blue flame build should on paper be extremely good against Lifes ling heavy style, the primary flaw with it in these games was that the 3rd CC comes so late, even if he kills 20-30 drones he hasn't crippled life, Life can recover after he eventually cleans up the hellions. 2nd armoury is also delayed, though armour upgrades mean less then attack upgrades imo. But yea, the hugely delayed 3rd compared to banshee/hellion style is so huge, not to mention it seems junk if they go mass queens or roaches, some of the bigger problems I remember experiencing when I played 1 rax FE into 2 fac blue flames hellion timing. Like a build with 2 base (maybe a 3rd hatch just for more production, no drones, mindgames!) speed tec roaches would just roflstomp this build and it would have been really cool of Life had pulled that one out wildly in the series.

And the vikings are the correct decision as he doesn't have any thors or anything else out to deal with the mutas. The other use for it is he can clear that MOTHERFUCKING overlord that hangs over the natural before you send out the hellions. Perhaps this is wrong and you should just get Starport later after starting 3rd CC, I don't know.

It's an interesting build but I'm not sure if I'll bother messing around with it, I really hate how late the 3rd is, but it seems like an effective solution the speedling 3rd hatch trickery that life seems to have taught all the Korean server Zergs.

Kudos to Life though, playing basically one style and making all the correct adjustments to defeat the best GSL Terran ever.

On October 20 2012 23:26 NB wrote:
I just feel sad that the reason Life win wasnt bc he played well but it was bc MVP played sloppy. ... boy i wanted him to win

On October 21 2012 02:09 Irre wrote:
MVP played far superior, with Life basically just abusing how infestor protects/counters every unit in the game. MVP made some critical small mistakes despite being pretty ahead most games that he lost, and its a real shame that he lost the series. I appreciate that you mentioned the 4th going down in the first game I honestly think no matter what else happened he wins that game fi he had that 4th up for the viking production/reinforcements on his push or for a followup. Those crucial few seconds he didnt repair cost him game 1 IMO. The 3rd cancel on Ohana was pretty much GG. Daybreak was heartbreaking to watch a zerg go 10 pool do nothing, lose tons of drones late 3rd rush muta, do no damage, then just easily win with infestors. MVP should not have spread his army so much but i can see why he felt he had to push. Overall they both played well, I just wish the state of WoL wasn't so grim. After two years, players being so good, it just makes units like Sentry, Infestor, Collosus look so broken and damaging to the integrity of the game.

On October 21 2012 02:35 KawaiiRice wrote:

Almost every game Life opted to make craptons of lings (16~30+) and Mvp killed a bunch of them in the early game while losing none, and was able to kill drones in set 1, 3, 4, 7. Whether or not Life could have droned more heavily and do his style I don't know, but he sacked econ for the lings and this gave Mvp small advantages each game.

On October 21 2012 05:35 BisuDagger wrote:
I'd like to hear about how his heavy ling style and lack of roaches actually freed up tons of gas to invest in heavy tech units.

On October 21 2012 05:02 KawaiiRice wrote:
Losing 30 lings and making 10 drones behind it isn't the same as 10 drones -> 30 lings afterwards. You lose out on money you could have mined obviously.
I'm not going to argue that the style is good or bad (obviously it worked for him O_O!) but in my opinion the way he kept making 20-30 lings on a low drone count (~30-40 drones?) was inefficient and losing them as he did put him at a disadvantage. The disadvantage isn't really hard to overcome though since zerg production is really ridiculous, but it's a disadvantage nonetheless.

On October 21 2012 06:01 Big J wrote:


yes, it's not the same. But the way he plays it - only 1-2 gas taken, no big amount of queens, no ridicolous early third - there isn't a huge initial benefit in droning to 50 early, just due to how many drones you actually need to saturate a base very well (opposed to optimally).
I've played with something similar - before the queen patch, after TLO destroyed MKP and several other (Korean) Terrans with this style (before the queen patch) - where you make 3hatches and superfast double upgrades and try to counter hellions with creep+lingsflanks and stay on a rather low drone count early and it works really well if you can keep the hellion count low.

On October 21 2012 06:14 KawaiiRice wrote:

I'm not sure what you're saying here. I acknowledge that it works for him but it's not the most efficient/macro oriented. Are we saying the same thing?

I suspect this is really bad if Mvp were to do a 2base mech timing instead of expanding and playing passively.

I’m really confused. It seems so vulnerable to a 4 tank + hellion rally.

On October 21 2012 07:01 Big J wrote:


Well, I think that his strategy is actually better than the most macro oriented strategies, because it doesn't overdrone 2bases and then build units to be able to transfer to the third, but rather just skips the oversaturation 2base phase for more zerglings and rather uses the immense zerg production to saturate the third when he is actually safe to do so by building drones, instead of transfering+building.

I mean, if you do the math, you need like 25drones on minerals on two bases+queens to be able to go fulltime zergling or drone production (20drones or 40zerglings per minute), so with 30-40 drones, you have full droning potential + get the upgrades. The only 3 uses you get out of a greater economy at that point are:
1) if you either build up a bank for something (like mutalisks - in those two games he got quite punished a by hellions, because he had to build more drones for that build, so I actually don't think its the best way to go for mutas, but its quite masked well, behind showing his normal style)
2) if you want to build a lot of hatcheries
3) if you want to build units that are more expensive per larva, like roaches or queens or banelings before lair
(*) +10drones for later on

1) and 2) have no immidate return for you either, so the advantages you get over what he is doing are all going to be midgame advantages. Not sure how that would play out, but I think you are onto it in your OP:



3) on the other hand has an immidiate return, but you are basically building more drones to build other units as zerglings. However with the other units (slow roaches, slow banelings, queens, spines), you are mostly forced to stay at home early, so the value of those is dependend on what the opponent does and is in my opinion exactly what a (MVPlike) Terran that goes for banshee/hellion wants, as he is allowed to get a really fast third+Mech going.

(*) is not a huge deal for a zerg with 3-4hatches, as long as his standing army is strong enough to allow for that extra droning. (that's what 1hatch+queen produces in one minute)

On October 21 2012 07:25 KawaiiRice wrote:

Zerg needs 16 drones (max 24) per mineral line and 3 per gas so if Life goes 3 gases he'd need 41 drones for 2base saturation.
You focus a lot on greater economy over immediate returns, but making 20-30 lings early on has a very very very low chance at giving you any sort of return (i.e.: busting the natural with speedlings which failed on Antiga) ; on the other hand, going to at least 50 drones before making the speedlings still allows you to flank hellions, just not bust the natural. Since this would be when hellions start moving out. I see no benefit to making speedlings without at least 40 drones.
But anyway, having lings out early on provides threat and a chance to catch hellions off guard; is it really worth losing minerals (yes, getting drones later is losing potential minerals) for a chance to catch hellions off guard or bust the natural bunker especially against someone like Mvp? I cannot agree. Very rarely does a Terran lose to 6 minute 30 speedlings and certainly not Mvp.

@1 - His 2base muta rush is a specific build, and in it he also made a lot of speedlings.
@2 - He will build a lot of hatcheries anyway unless the game ends before 10 minutes
@3 - Or he can have more money to make a macro hatch or faster fourth should he see T going fast 3rd.

Arguably he doesn't need to play as drone-heavy as possible since lings are free once a Z hits 3 bases but you will still have more of everything in the later stages of the game by droning harder.

On October 21 2012 08:21 Big J wrote:

I think you focus too much on how other strong zergs play the game. I really belive that you don't need those early 10more drones, if you can create a window to drone afterwards. The early lings may or may not pay off directly. But I think they don't hinder you from doing what you want to do at that moment and it feels a little bit like he swaps early game problems - how to keep a bit of mapcontrol against the first hellions, how to make sure that the terran doesn't go incredibly greedy (like 1rax 3CC), how to defend/punish "random" moveouts (like MKP does) - for a little more vulnerability in the midgame.
@1 - yeah, but I think those were the games in which he ended up the furthest behind and in my opinion showed to be his weakest build. I'd even say that he expected Mvp to go bio in those, at least in the Antiga game and therefore was underprepared for the amount of hellions.
@2 - that comment was meant for the early game. I mean, he always built a reasonably early third, he just didn't use it up to the point he had dealt with the hellion thread - which other zerg playstyles can't use too much either.
And a macro hatch is what I meant with "greater midgame advantage" over how he played it. It's not going to help him get the third going faster or strengthen any early allin.
@3 - well, I think the point is that both - denying the third with a high base zergling count - and taking a faster fourth are good moves against a fast third.

About the later stages of the game. The way he plays by looking for trades very aggressively, he doesn't need to care about supply efficiency that much as those other zergs with more passive playstyles do. It allows him to spread Terran opponents really thin in the lategame if they want to have a good amount of bases and therefore his basic units work quite better and he doesn't need those huge broodlord fleets. Look at the way he went broodlords. He builds like 8broodlords and spams corruptors behind. 8broods is quite a low amount in the lategame, but because his opponent doesn't have a lot of army to begin with through the constant trades, blindly building vikings is even a harsher decision, as he is already streched really hard to defend 4bases against ling(/roach)/infestor. I think the supplies are quite telltale. Other zergs usually hit 200/200 with broodlords, I think against Mvp he always hit like 150-160/200 with them - he can afford less, but he doesn't need a big amount of them, because his opponent cannot build counters to them before they are out.
I think the abyssal city game is quite interesting in that regard, because in the game he failed to keep the army supply down and then did not go broods, but instead went for a ling/infestor attack, which only made sense if he either anticipated Mvp to build up counters to broodlords too early, or if he misscalculated and thought he could trade and keep the army down while teching to hive.

I really belive that you don't need those early 10more drones, if you can create a window to drone afterwards. The early lings may or may not pay off directly. But I think they don't hinder you from doing what you want to do at that moment

and it feels a little bit like he swaps early game problems - how to keep a bit of mapcontrol against the first hellions, how to make sure that the terran doesn't go incredibly greedy (like 1rax 3CC), how to defend/punish "random" moveouts (like MKP does) - for a little more vulnerability in the midgame.

About the later stages of the game. The way he plays by looking for trades very aggressively, he doesn't need to care about supply efficiency that much as those other zergs with more passive playstyles do. It allows him to spread Terran opponents really thin in the lategame if they want to have a good amount of bases and therefore his basic units work quite better and he doesn't need those huge broodlord fleets. Look at the way he went broodlords. He builds like 8broodlords and spams corruptors behind. 8broods is quite a low amount in the lategame, but because his opponent doesn't have a lot of army to begin with through the constant trades, blindly building vikings is even a harsher decision, as he is already streched really hard to defend 4bases against ling(/roach)/infestor. I think the supplies are quite telltale. Other zergs usually hit 200/200 with broodlords, I think against Mvp he always hit like 150-160/200 with them - he can afford less, but he doesn't need a big amount of them, because his opponent cannot build counters to them before they are out.
I think the abyssal city game is quite interesting in that regard, because in the game he failed to keep the army supply down and then did not go broods, but instead went for a ling/infestor attack, which only made sense if he either anticipated Mvp to build up counters to broodlords too early, or if he misscalculated and thought he could trade and keep the army down while teching to hive.

On October 21 2012 08:32 KawaiiRice wrote:



you also don't really need those 30 lings at that point but he makes them. the "window to drone" was never a question either. The question is what do those lings give by being made at 30-40 drones that aren't given at 50 drones: nothing.


again making the speedings at 50 drones deals just fine (I believe he did this on Ohana).
1rax 3CC will not be stopped by random speedling spam unless the Terran made the CC at the third (which Mvp did on Ohana).
"random moveouts" in our scenario can only be punished if the opp goes for a marine pressure or if hellions get caught on creep, but with 3 queens and 30 lings at 6~7 minutes hellions will not be on creep unless T does a runby.

to clarify I'm talking mainly about the difference between making lings at ~30-40 drones and ~50 drones. There is no difference in pressure and marginal economic benefit by making lings at 50 drones.

On October 21 2012 08:52 Big J wrote:


I think you overestimate that benefit of the extra 10-20drones. Their returnrate is only 50% as they are the "third drones" on the far away mineral patches on two base with roughly 20minerals/minute income and therefore will take ~2.5mins to pay off their own costs. In 2.5mins a 2base zerg with 30-40drones can create 40 new workers as well if there is no threat (anymore).
Mathematically speaking, 30lings are produced in one minute and cost as much as 10-20drones. The 10-20drones only return 200-400minerals in the next minute, but if you build the lings, secure that third 1minute earlier, the afterwards build 10-20drones will return 400-800minerals in the next minute and even everything out.
So if that lings hinder any form of runbys and thereby allow for an earlier mining at the third, they pay off, without any combat taking place. If a combat takes place, they can even pay off more.
That's of course very theoretical, but I think the principle isn't that wrong. If Life sees a strong hellion attack coming, he can't use the third anyways, if he sees a weak hellion attack coming, he can use the third earlier and have a greater return per drone, instead of a greater dronecount on 2base.

On October 21 2012 02:09 Irre wrote:
MVP played far superior, with Life basically just abusing how infestor protects/counters every unit in the game. MVP made some critical small mistakes despite being pretty ahead most games that he lost, and its a real shame that he lost the series. I appreciate that you mentioned the 4th going down in the first game I honestly think no matter what else happened he wins that game fi he had that 4th up for the viking production/reinforcements on his push or for a followup. Those crucial few seconds he didnt repair cost him game 1 IMO. The 3rd cancel on Ohana was pretty much GG. Daybreak was heartbreaking to watch a zerg go 10 pool do nothing, lose tons of drones late 3rd rush muta, do no damage, then just easily win with infestors. MVP should not have spread his army so much but i can see why he felt he had to push. Overall they both played well, I just wish the state of WoL wasn't so grim. After two years, players being so good, it just makes units like Sentry, Infestor, Collosus look so broken and damaging to the integrity of the game.

On October 21 2012 09:01 KawaiiRice wrote:

I am talking about benefit vs no benefit. Making lings once you have 50 drones is safe. Making lings and then droning is also safe but you already lost the money by making lings first.


edit: actually im not even sure how many drones a z should have when 4 hellions finish o_O 50 might be a bit high, maybe 45 or so?

On October 21 2012 09:09 Doubting wrote:

Life outplayed Mvp very brutally. Mvp's only wins were from cheeses

On October 21 2012 10:12 Fencar wrote:
Great analysis!

Does anyone else feel like Mvp was trying to do too much damage, rather than taking the least damage?

What I mean is, he kept suiciding most of his Hellions in most of his games and kept making Tanks, which is extremely aggressive which is not what Mech is about.

I also feel like everyone underestimates Thors in TvZ. Sure they're not as good as Tanks against Roaches, Lings, and Infestors, but they're not bad either, and are great as support units for Vikings, forcing the Zerg to spread his air, and are far better against tech switches which is what Mvp lost to in G2 after sending many of his Tanks to attack as if they were MM.

On October 21 2012 10:32 vthree wrote:


I would argue that in the current meta, mech v Z is about doing Eco damage early with hellions and pushing out before the Zerg has broodlords/corr/infestors in high number. A maxed mech army still doesn't trade well with that if both sides are spread. The best outcome is probably an even trade and Zerg will rebuild faster. So I actually think mech does have to be aggressive.

On October 21 2012 11:36 Fencar wrote:
I feel like that depends on compositions. (note: lots of theory crafting, just spewing ideas here)

Say there have been no major engagements and both sides are maxed, the Terran opening Hellion/Banshee and the Zerg opening 6 queen in some way, the compositions can vary wildly for both players, but I feel like Mech has the advantage so long as the Mech player doesn't take huge amounts of damage, due to the power of static defenses like PF's, the fact that Mech players usually have huge Mineral banks in the late-game, letting them spend lots of money on relatively cheap Factories with tech labs, and (relatively) cost-effective but supply-inefficient Thors, Hellions, and Banshees, which cost less gas than Tanks.

Alternatively, the Terran can play it like Mvp does, making Vikings and Turrets for AA defense, lots of Tanks, few Thors later, suiciding Hellions, and taking down creep with Banshees rather than killing Drones.

My problem with this is that creep is going to extend no matter what you do, and the time frame in which Banshee harass is effective is very limited. Also, Hellions are great units for a meatshield in the Terran Mech army, since there are so many Zerg units, more splash is always good, especially when it doesn't damage your own units.

I find when playing and watching, Tanks are good in the early and mid game, but only against ground-based armies. As soon as the Zerg gets Air, their effectiveness is heavily diminished when made en-masse, and you have to rely on Vikings and Thors to kill the Air units.

All-in-all, for these reasons I feel like this makes Mvp's style more effective in the early and mid-game, but far less effective in the late-game since he keeps on making Tanks, and has few Hellions, while more Thors in the late-game would be better against tech switches as it has a very strong GtG attack as well as a GtA attack .5 range higher than the Broodlord, plus ability to be repaired.

On October 21 2012 12:11 vthree wrote:


PFs are nullified once BLs are out. And Thors are not great vs BLs unless you have a lot of hellion support. And if you don't have enough tanks, the Zerg can tech switch to roaches which Thors are horrible against.

If you look at game 7, Mvp actually had too many Thors and thus late tanks and he got killed by the roach counter.

On October 21 2012 12:52 Fencar wrote:
At equal or similar supply with even a couple Tanks to support, Thors shred Roaches. It's in the early or mid game when you have less than 80 supply or so of Thor/Tank when Roaches crush you. If you trade okay in a fight aginast Zerg in the late game, then you can always retreat while harassing his bases with easy to replenish Hellions.

PF's are great for delaying as they have a moderately powerful attack, 1500 HP, and 5 armor after being upgraded with the relatively low cost of 550/150, though their build time is enormous. It also says to the Zerg "If you fight me in this area while I have any army here you die" because any Zerglings, Roaches, etc will have to go through that PF in order to get to your army.

Of course you need Tanks early if the Zerg is going for Roaches, but you severely underestiamte Banshees Edit: We forgot about Banshees (standard hellion banshee opener gives you at least 3), which give you ample warning and the ability to defend any point of your base from Roaches, albiet with relatively low DPS due to their double attack and lack of numbers.

On October 21 2012 19:35 r691175002 wrote:
These games did not feel healthy. It really felt like the culmination of terran auto-loss late game. Literally the difference between games Life won and lost was whether he made it to brood lords or not.

This is not a balance whine, it was clear MVP and Life were evenly matched. Early game hellions offset late game brood lords.

Something has gone wrong though. As WoL has gotten more refined it is starting to reveal gaping holes in how the matchups play out. ZvT should not be decided by a timer.

On October 22 2012 00:28 TheAwesomeAll wrote:
I found the monotonic play of mvp pretty questionable. Mech every game, with only 2 build orders over 7 maps. I like the blue flame hellion build, but i think he could have done a better job hard countering life.

On October 21 2012 20:28 Flonomenalz wrote:

They were not evenly matched.

Life outplayed MVP. He got into his head, constantly delaying his pre-Brood timings with the THREAT of runbys. He out micro'd him at key moments when it counted (that lack of Viking split probably lost MVP the series). Sure, it's easy to fungal, but it doesn't take much effort to pre-split Vikings either.

I wish we could have seen MVP incorporate just a few ghosts in the late game for EMP. Why do people think you can beat the best spell caster in the game without using your own spell caster? Ghost vs HT is standard in late game TvP, why are ghosts ignored in TvZ? Just because Snipe isn't OP any more doesn't mean they are useless.

I remember IdrA talking about ghost mech over a year ago and how once Terrans mastered it, it would be imbalanced... maybe I'm just theorycrafting out of my ass here, but have any of the top Terrans in here tried it? I figure it's worth it to get 3-4 rax w/ tech labs, a ghost academy, and get cloak as opposed to going for tight window, pre-Brood timings. With lower amounts of fungals due to EMP, Viking splits and Thor/Hellion Support with repairing scvs... you should be even with BL/Corruptor/Infestor/Queen... right?

Not to mention you can use the tech lab rax for marauders if he switches over to Ultras. But then the issue would be the rauders would lack upgrades...

Hmm Terran upgrades are really tough.

Mvp didn't build banshees in g7 because mutas were already out.

On October 21 2012 20:28 Flonomenalz wrote:

They were not evenly matched.

Life outplayed MVP. He got into his head, constantly delaying his pre-Brood timings with the THREAT of runbys. He out micro'd him at key moments when it counted (that lack of Viking split probably lost MVP the series). Sure, it's easy to fungal, but it doesn't take much effort to pre-split Vikings either.

I wish we could have seen MVP incorporate just a few ghosts in the late game for EMP. Why do people think you can beat the best spell caster in the game without using your own spell caster? Ghost vs HT is standard in late game TvP, why are ghosts ignored in TvZ? Just because Snipe isn't OP any more doesn't mean they are useless.

I remember IdrA talking about ghost mech over a year ago and how once Terrans mastered it, it would be imbalanced... maybe I'm just theorycrafting out of my ass here, but have any of the top Terrans in here tried it? I figure it's worth it to get 3-4 rax w/ tech labs, a ghost academy, and get cloak as opposed to going for tight window, pre-Brood timings. With lower amounts of fungals due to EMP, Viking splits and Thor/Hellion Support with repairing scvs... you should be even with BL/Corruptor/Infestor/Queen... right?

Not to mention you can use the tech lab rax for marauders if he switches over to Ultras. But then the issue would be the rauders would lack upgrades...

Hmm Terran upgrades are really tough.