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Casters and Zerg

Blogs > SiskosGoatee
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SiskosGoatee
Profile Blog Joined May 2012
Albania1482 Posts
September 06 2013 12:13 GMT
#1
Disclaimer: I'm not a Zerg player, I'm a random player, Z is on average my weakest race though my ZvZ is statistically better than my TvT and PvZ.

Having just watched DRG vs Innovation, it becomes kind of apparent that casters seem to just not know what to say about Zerg. Yes, DRG played like an olympian vs Innovation but that's all they are saying. They are at no point actually commenting on what makes his play so great except creep spread.

Zerg actually has to micro, a small forgotten truth.

For some reason, casters never comment on Zerg micro excellence, almost never. Where every other Zerg falls to Innovation's vaunted biominepushes, DRG holds strong, why is that? In all those three games I counted one major mine hit on banes which was not even in an engagement, the banes were just running past a mine and boom. DRG's banes are always split into different directions, there are no 'clumps' of banelings in his army, there are banelings spread throughout it, one mine cannot take down his entire baneling force and he constantly baits them with lings, he targets them down with mutas, the lings wrap around the marines etc, but casters never comment on this.

We constantly see casters go wild about marines sniping banelings in the middle of engagements. Why can't casters go wild over mutas sniping mines in the middle of engagements?

We constantly see casters go wild about amazing marine splits, why can't casters go wild over amazing baneling splits?

For some reason, in almost every ZvT engagement casters only talk about what the Terran is doing in any detail. They leave the Zerg's part to 'And here DRG COOOMES!' No shit I can see that, point out to me that he focusses mines, point out to me how well split his banes are. Scarlett was performing some exceptional mine focussing against bomber with mutas and it barely got a mention. And this is focussing a 5 range unit with a 3 range unit, not a melee unit with a 5 range unit.

Most paradoxally, casters do remark on 'great fungals', which is more a mistake of the Terran than anything, anyone can land a 'great fungals' if T walks a clump of marines within range of an infestor and just sits there.

People have argued to me it's because Zerg micro is hard to spot because it's a clusterfuck of units, maybe, but I saw Wolf pointing out that Innovation was re-targeting mines against Leenock to stom them from wassting charge before he would go to the length of praising Leenock's mine focussing skills. I honestly have no clue why casters almost collectively seem to refuse to ever even discuss Zerg micro. Even when Zerg micros well they say 'The Zerg is getting a great engagement here', almost implying it was some kind of external factor so they don't have to use the word 'micro' in relation to Zerg. How often is the word 'micro' used to talk about a Zerg anyway? Is TumescentPie secretly the head of the illuminati who has replaced all casters with androids and pulls the strings?

A thing about Stephano which casters always neglected to mention was the excellence of his micro. Stephano at his height to me can be summed up with great star sense, great map awareness, and great micro. His macro mechanics actually were kind of flawed and he got supply blocked a lot but his micro was superb, he was always able to maximize the amount of units firing in his army. Back when most Zergs would not use ultralisks because they would 'derp', Stephano took his organic dragoons and forced them to not derp in ways no one understood back then.

ZvZ, more misunderstood than my 14 year old cousin and his fringe

Another thing is ZvZ. Casters seem to be completely not even trying to explain the thought process of the players in ZvZ. They do so fine in ZvT or ZvP wheren Apollo can talk for days on end how a Zerg player knows what timing is coming due to the time assimilators are taken. But in ZvZ casters seem to be particularly hestitant to even acknowledge the fact that high level Zerg players are contantly checking each other's mineral saturation with ovies to make their decision from it or from the time gasses are taken. THey barely ever point out that when 2 lings run into a base, the gas will always get clicked to see how much is mined. They don't seem to talk at all about in what ways Zergs know what attacks are coming in ZvZ and consequently a lot of people even on a pretty solid level on the ladder have no clue about ZvZ and treat it like a gamble because analytical casters never told them how to gather information like in ZvP and ZvT.

Not only casters, but also observers. Observers are always keen to point out overlord vision and if a scouting overlord has seen the twilight council being chronoed with player vision, but they never point out the vision of the ovie behind the mineral line pointing out to players 'Hey, he's checking if there are drones here, he sees there aren't, he knows a mass ling all in is coming, that is why he's starting two spines and morphing banes'.

Casters don't really highlight decisions like 'Oh, he has no baneling nest, that means I an get a quicker third', stuff like that is virtually never talked about in ZvZ,, casters seem to talk about it as f all these timings are completely random while ZvZ is an utter reactionary matchup whle they will go in great detail analysing the third timings in ZvT and ZvZ. I can't imagine it's ignorance why they don't do it. Apollo is a pretty high level Zerg player. Just like I can't imagine they aren't actually seeing that Scarlett is focussig down every mine. They just... don't talk about it for some reason. A reason I am bereft of understanding to.

***
WCS Apartheid cometh, all hail the casual audience, death to merit and hard work.
DusTerr
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
2520 Posts
September 06 2013 13:03 GMT
#2
watch more khaldor
Eggi
Profile Blog Joined December 2012
478 Posts
September 06 2013 13:43 GMT
#3
when a zerg attacks, you cant always tell whether its the player microing or the AI.
To much swarm.


"WOW HE really micro zergling #3/150 really well"-said no one ever


source: high master Z

SiskosGoatee
Profile Blog Joined May 2012
Albania1482 Posts
September 06 2013 13:49 GMT
#4
On September 06 2013 22:43 Eggi wrote:
when a zerg attacks, you cant always tell whether its the player microing or the AI.
To much swarm.


"WOW HE really micro zergling #3/150 really well"-said no one ever


source: high master Z

Hey, if I can see it and if casters can see that innovation is re-targeting his widow mines...

You have to be pretty blind to miss people focussing down mines with mutas but t never gets mention as if it automatically happens.
WCS Apartheid cometh, all hail the casual audience, death to merit and hard work.
Yonnua
Profile Blog Joined October 2011
United Kingdom2331 Posts
September 06 2013 14:52 GMT
#5
On September 06 2013 22:49 SiskosGoatee wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 06 2013 22:43 Eggi wrote:
when a zerg attacks, you cant always tell whether its the player microing or the AI.
To much swarm.


"WOW HE really micro zergling #3/150 really well"-said no one ever


source: high master Z

Hey, if I can see it and if casters can see that innovation is re-targeting his widow mines...

You have to be pretty blind to miss people focussing down mines with mutas but t never gets mention as if it automatically happens.


Except Artosis and Tasteless did mention the mine focusing several times. True, they didn't mention baneling splitting, but claiming that no caster ever gives zerg any credit is completely untrue.
LRSL 2014 Finalist! PartinG | Mvp | Bomber | Creator | NaNiwa | herO
Kitai
Profile Joined June 2012
United States873 Posts
September 06 2013 15:52 GMT
#6
I agree that casters seem to hype up protoss and terran micro more than zerg micro. I think it has more to do with crowd pleasing than anything, as terran and protoss have more flashy abilities that are more easily visible to an inexperienced viewer.

It's easier to get hyped about excellent bio splitting than a good spread of banelings.
It's more exciting to talk about a mine re-targeting and exploding on a huge clump of units than it is to talk about a good angle of attack from zerglings.
Storms, forcefields, blink, and fungals are flashier and easier to scream about than positioning your ultralisks just right, even though the skill level isn't any higher.

Casters' jobs are to excite the masses, not the high level players. Good zerg micro is harder to point out on the fly, and doesn't have the same flashiness and flair of protoss and terran micro, and I think that's why the announcers focus less on it.
"You know, I don't care if soO got 100 second places in a row. Anyone who doesn't think that he's going to win blizzcon watching this series is a fool" - Artosis, Blizzcon 2014 soO vs TaeJa
munchmunch
Profile Joined October 2010
Canada789 Posts
September 06 2013 21:09 GMT
#7
Well said, this is something that has annoyed me for a long time. I think it also goes the other way as well, a game where a terran makes a little micro mistake can get talked about for years. But get a zerg who a-moves and loses, and it's "I just don't see what the zerg can do in that situation."
vaL4r
Profile Joined May 2010
Germany240 Posts
September 07 2013 01:10 GMT
#8
I find convincing zvt against top terrans soo cool and impressive because zerg has to keep up with so much stuff in order to not fall to terrran midgame aggression or be forced into passivity.

To paraphrase: producing (inject asdfgh!), paying attention to army movements, maintining vision, maintaining creep, moving the fast zerg army around in multiple groups without suiciding into mines, having enough banelings, chasing medivacs, clearing mines and while doing all this still finding ways to actually attack terrans bases (something DRG does very well, it's easy for zergs to feel overwhelmed and fall into a defensive mindset, which gives terran much more room to pre-setup their potentially crazy-costefficient army all the time) ..so yeah zvt is really cool and imho lots of fun.

I am sure Tastosis knows.. would it be better if this was talked about more? Doesn't matter to me much,I play zerg I can see DongRaeGu's fantastic play;
You need to play starcraft with a light heart. If you play with a heavy heart, you can't win. -NaDa
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