EPTDespite the inherent map bias though, Jaedong got completely steamrolled. Had it been Jaedong losing despite putting up an excellent fight, then that might be otherwise. But it's easy to imagine ForGG steamrolling Jaedong on another map.
Jaedong Cheated by maps? - Page 3
| Blogs > Plexa |
|
SerpentFlame
415 Posts
Despite the inherent map bias though, Jaedong got completely steamrolled. Had it been Jaedong losing despite putting up an excellent fight, then that might be otherwise. But it's easy to imagine ForGG steamrolling Jaedong on another map. | ||
|
beetlelisk
Poland2276 Posts
If it's not clear to you right now that the map pool is [i]heavily not-favoring Zergs then I don't know what else will convince you. The question simply has to be, why are these map pools so utterly terrible that even Jaedong, master of the swarm, can't beat a B team rookie on the maps from the pool? I think what killed Jaedong on Colloseum was placement of Spire and Chamber. He tried to be tricky with hiding Lair but I don't think he expected drop. This was the turning point in the game for me, slowed him down enough to fOrGG take that game. I don't understand what happened on Othello, I need to re-watch this one... looked as fOrGG attacked just in right time, knowing Zerg is weak then... wasn't it timing attack when Z switches to Lurkers and doesn't have enough of them? Either way, those Tanks supplemented that greatly. On Tiamat JD went low eco and when it failed he was dead, it was matter of time. So at least 2 of 3 loses in MSL finals can be explained with errors in play and as I don't like Troy too, I don't think loses there can be based on such a small stats as ppl already wrote  +made typo in OP in bold ;PP | ||
Atrioc
United States1865 Posts
On August 10 2008 06:05 beetlelisk wrote: I think what killed Jaedong on Colloseum was placement of Spire and Chamber. He tried to be tricky with hiding Lair but I don't think he expected drop. This was the turning point in the game for me, slowed him down enough to fOrGG take that game. I don't understand what happened on Othello, I need to re-watch this one... looked as fOrGG attacked just in right time, knowing Zerg is weak then... wasn't it timing attack when Z switches to Lurkers and doesn't have enough of them? Either way, those Tanks supplemented that greatly. On Tiamat JD went low eco and when it failed he was dead, it was matter of time. So at least 2 of 3 loses in MSL finals can be explained with errors in play and as I don't like Troy too, I don't think loses there can be based on such a small stats as ppl already wrote +made typo in OP in bold ;PP you are only looking at the most basic of information, the failing of JD's builds, and assuming that if he had chosen something different he would have had a better shot -- when in fact the way the korean training system works that is rarely the case. Jaedong practiced like a madman for these finals, and he didnt do something like "be sneaky on Colosseum" or "go low eco, all-in style" on Tiamat because of a whim -- but because he felt like going straight up on those maps (based on hundreds of practice games) would be suicide and he needed to use shaky, risky builds to try and gain a material advantage. I dont think bluestorm has even changed much in pvz since its change, protoss have figured out the map, they haven't been granted any particular change in the geography that allows them to dominate. Zergs have failed to adapt, Jaedong has failed to adapt, its their failings. Jaedongs awkwardness in his games against forgg and Hwasin through most of his matches with him, can be placed on Jaedongs lack of confidence recently, less so than the maps. Unless you can point out why Tiamat, Othello etc, are so damned impossible for even an incredibly skilled zerg to win, you are simply grasping at straws. Jaedong's lack of confidence is DIRECTLY ATTRIBUTED to the maps. You are just spouting off a bunch of theories with no evidence and making it seem like player's builds and "akwardness" are some innate character flaw and not the result of a near insurmountable map disadvantage. People have pointed out specifically what makes Tiamat imbalanced, the inability for the zerg to safely secure a 3rd gas (i.e. what they need to even hope to withstand the marine/medic onslaught), and Othello -- while more difficult to pinpoint and probably the most balanced of all maps in the pool, has shown in statistics to favor Terran (not only in the obvious 17-10 base stats, but in the far more telling 52 TvT's vs 4 ZvZ's) | ||
|
anotak
United States1537 Posts
On August 10 2008 06:31 Atrioc wrote: you are only looking at the most basic of information, the failing of JD's builds, and assuming that if he had chosen something different he would have had a better shot -- when in fact the way the korean training system works that is rarely the case. Jaedong practiced like a madman for these finals, and he didnt do something like "be sneaky on Colosseum" or "go low eco, all-in style" on Tiamat because of a whim -- but because he felt like going straight up on those maps (based on hundreds of practice games) would be suicide and he needed to use shaky, risky builds to try and gain a material advantage. Jaedong's lack of confidence is DIRECTLY ATTRIBUTED to the maps. You are just spouting off a bunch of theories with no evidence and making it seem like player's builds and "akwardness" are some innate character flaw and not the result of a near insurmountable map disadvantage. People have pointed out specifically what makes Tiamat imbalanced, the inability for the zerg to safely secure a 3rd gas (i.e. what they need to even hope to withstand the marine/medic onslaught), and Othello -- while more difficult to pinpoint and probably the most balanced of all maps in the pool, has shown in statistics to favor Terran (not only in the obvious 17-10 base stats, but in the far more telling 52 TvT's vs 4 ZvZ's) yeah because as we can see from Stork's play in Stork vs. Flash series in Bacchus OSL finals that progamers ALWAYS choose the best builds >_> | ||
Jibba
United States22883 Posts
On August 10 2008 01:56 soccercop wrote: Based on my understanding, I think Jaedong overpractised. I have been watching his vods for the past few months and have noticed Jaedong's eyes dont look as bright as the first first time he played Bisu in the GOM TV S4 MSL . His face looks drained by pressure. I guess the over practise and lack of sleep makes his performance decline. Add to the map imbalance, Jaedong loses more than before. To be honest, Jaedong looks pissed off at everyone he plays. I think it's great. Plexa, I agree with the intent of your article but I think you'd be better off explaining what parts of the map make it imbalanced rather than showing the win/loss records, which are a crappy measure. The 5-3 is the easiest example, because it could very well be 4-4 which would defeat your point, UNLESS you showed which features make it imba. | ||
|
beetlelisk
Poland2276 Posts
On August 10 2008 06:31 Atrioc wrote: you are only looking at the most basic of information, the failing of JD's builds, and assuming that if he had chosen something different he would have had a better shot -- when in fact the way the korean training system works that is rarely the case. Jaedong practiced like a madman for these finals, and he didnt do something like "be sneaky on Colosseum" or "go low eco, all-in style" on Tiamat because of a whim -- but because he felt like going straight up on those maps (based on hundreds of practice games) would be suicide and he needed to use shaky, risky builds to try and gain a material advantage. I remember Lomo raping Jaedong Mutas on Tiamat so this + 2 loses earlier could be reason of his low eco. Problem is those still weren't 'standard' games and it would be nice if (as Jibba wrote) Plexa would write something about imbalances more. Maybe using Seismic Maps thread from Final Edits? Another thing is there were people like thedeadHaji who expected fOrGG to win before those games were played, so map imbalances could be a factor but not the biggest one of 0-3 result. I don't know about other games mentioned in OP and I can see stats don't favor Zergs (I read final stats before play offs? in PL) but maybe exhaustion caused by training and MSL games themselves can explain this. Losing to 0 no matter on what current maps isn't something common for 1st some time ago and 2nd ranked player in KESPA (unless it changed recently?) who has to have good wins versus other pros on the very same maps. In short, I don't think maps themselves decided all those loses. | ||
|
cujo2k
Canada1044 Posts
On August 10 2008 03:34 OneOther wrote: Plexa as much as I love your articles I cannot agree with this one. Did you even watch Jaedong vs han on Blue Storm? JD had a comfortable lead all along, then fucking blew it with horrible attack timing and micro. I wouldn't attribute that to the map...he got outplayed. 3-5 on Troy is HEAVILY Protoss favored? Whaaaaat. Jaedong failed to adapt and went with typical fast hive build every game vs ForGG. Got trashed the same way every game. I have similar feelings here.. Plexa's articles are pretty cool but this one wasn't one of his best(can't all be great =P) I think that Plexa was just asking to be flamed when he made a statement like, "The stats of 3-5 in favor of Protoss clearly show that this map is heavily P>Z." Anyway from what I understand, the only actual difference between the old Blue Storm and the new one is that the minerals have been moved up to help deter mutalisk harassment. But the thing is, in the Han vs JD game - the new change played 0 role in the game.. JD went 5 hatchery scourge -> hydralisks (as he usually does nowadays). JD ended up getting a massive advantage after destroying the zeal/reaver timing attack, but made the mistake of giving Han a sliver of hope and with near flawless control, Han was able to come back and win the game. I don't believe that map imbalance attributed very much at all to that loss. | ||
|
Harem
United States11393 Posts
It turns into an island map and z just gets fucked up the ass no lube on islands against P. Sair/Reaver is incredibly strong on that map | ||
|
Goosey
United States695 Posts
Then you fall off the deep end in OGN conspiracy land. OGN sponsored proteam's star player is a zerg man. With that fact along you would expect OGN to try to make zerg-favored maps, not the other way around. I think the fact of the matter is that there are very subtle things that make maps zerg or protoss favored (terran is usually easier to spot). Just take Hwarangdo for example: when it was revealed the comments on TL ranged from 'zerg graveyard' to 'zerg graveyard' against Protoss. Fast forward and we find a 6-2 ZvP winrate and the lack of natural expo gas is shown to hurt P more than Z. At the same time there is pressure to keep introducing new maps every season and to not just recycle old map concepts with a new face. It is easy to see why this results in the occasional imbalances. And to be perfectly honest, I think Zerg is simply the most brittle to map balances. Terrans and Protoss seem to be able to adapt to various maps and find ways to win, but Zergs seem like there is just one map layout that they can prosper on. | ||
|
ShadowDrgn
United States2497 Posts
On August 10 2008 05:18 SerpentFlame wrote: Unless you can point out something in Othello that makes it highly T biased, I won't be willing to buy it. Everyone's right in saying that there aren't enough official games to have meaningful statistics, but the pros practice thousands of games on these maps. As a result, the races chosen by the proteams to play on each map should give a good indication of how they feel about the balance. In the last PL weekly stats report, Othello had: 9-8 TvP 41 TvT 0-2 PvZ 1 PvP 7-13 ZvT 2 ZvZ In the 83 games on Othello, Terran was sent out 119 times. Protoss 21 times. Zerg 26 times. After thousands of practice games, the proteams chose a terran to play on Othello 72% of the time. You could argue that terran played on Othello a lot because the other maps weren't favorable to them, but terran also had a winning record on blue storm, colosseum, and wuthering heights (two-thirds of the map pool). A quick look at the rosters shows that there aren't more terran players than the other races on proteams. If terran were so dominant, why would teams pay equal numbers of zerg and protoss players? The only reasonable conclusion is that Othello is extremely favorable to terran. | ||
|
Too_MuchZerg
Finland2818 Posts
On August 10 2008 09:13 Goosey wrote: Really interesting writeup, and I will agree with you that the maps are currently not friendly for zerg but.. Then you fall off the deep end in OGN conspiracy land. OGN sponsored proteam's star player is a zerg man. With that fact along you would expect OGN to try to make zerg-favored maps, not the other way around. I think the fact of the matter is that there are very subtle things that make maps zerg or protoss favored (terran is usually easier to spot). Just take Hwarangdo for example: when it was revealed the comments on TL ranged from 'zerg graveyard' to 'zerg graveyard' against Protoss. Fast forward and we find a 6-2 ZvP winrate and the lack of natural expo gas is shown to hurt P more than Z. At the same time there is pressure to keep introducing new maps every season and to not just recycle old map concepts with a new face. It is easy to see why this results in the occasional imbalances. And to be perfectly honest, I think Zerg is simply the most brittle to map balances. Terrans and Protoss seem to be able to adapt to various maps and find ways to win, but Zergs seem like there is just one map layout that they can prosper on. I think hwarangdo was about ZvT what was complained about, ZvP is good if natural doesn't have gas. But this time 2-2 stats are too low to judge map balance. Because of all zerg group at RO16 only one game was played GGplay vs Flash which flash dominated. | ||
|
kpcrew
Korea (South)1071 Posts
hes still number 2 on kespa and number 2 on the powerrank and for good reason. forgg made his way through a bunch of good players and its not like forgg is a chump. he has amazing macro and he let it show. | ||
|
Sentenal
United States12398 Posts
I'm not a zerg player, so I have no idea why Colloseum is bad for ZvT. Same with Othello, how is that an imbalanced map ZvT? And Bluestorm heavily favors Protoss now that it is 1.2? The only change from Bluestorm 1.1 to 1.2, was moving those minerals back, which helps Terran vs Zerg. How does that change change Bluestorm from a slightly Z map, to a heavily P map? I'd say the stats in alot of these cases, is just the Zergs getting outplayed, rather than the maps owning the Zerg. | ||
|
Tinithor
United States1552 Posts
I think much more than the maps being imbalanced, its actually the poor play we've been seeing from zergs lately which is bringing the statistics that suggest imbalance. (Really what about Othello and Colloseum and Athena make them hard for ZvT? Theres a bunch of close gas expos on athena that seem really easy to hold IMO) If you think about it, there are not many strong zerg players nowadays and there are ALOT of strong terrans sooo its pretty obvious that there is going to be a general T>Z trend... | ||
|
eborp
United States266 Posts
For the colosseum imbalance, even though the stats favor terran, its only because better terran players kept facing off against worse zergs. Kwanro lost to Lomo, who is pretty hot right now. Lux lost to Sea, who could basically take a game from anyone. Mind/Flash/Nada beat Calm/Yarnc/Shark respectively. I would consider the better player winning each one of those times. Savior had to play on Longinus 2 and Reverse Temple, two maps with a terran win-rate of over 60%. Neo Araknoid and Hitchhiker were much more zerg friendly, but still not zerg imbalanced. If Jaedong was good enough to be considered "cheated" if he didn't win, then it isn't the maps fault for his loss. Its his own. | ||
|
Ilikestarcraft
Korea (South)17733 Posts
| ||
thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
| ||
|
Letmelose
Korea (South)3227 Posts
In an age where no-name amateur/practice partner gamers are able to defeat top level gamers given enough luck, the smallest of factors can contribute to the victory or defeat of a player, no matter how godly. Now I hate it just like everyone else when there are claims that maps played the biggest factor, because it basically denies the skill involved in the matches (and it doesn't get much better than the skill involved in a BO5 in the finals of the MSL no less). Nobody is denying ForGG's skill here. He came, he saw and he whooped ass. He played an impeccable game and Jaedong looked almost pitiful against him. People make their own luck. Good maps or not, ForGG wouldn't have won if he wasn't up to it (see Hwasin). We witnessed Jaedong unable to answer what a zerg should do against every zerg's nightmare - an excellent terran on a terran favouring map. I wouldn't go as far as to say that Jaedong was cheated out of his MSL victory. Hell, if we're to re-assess every tournament to satisfy our standards of what should have been "fair", history would have had things very different from the way it is now. I'm sure Yellow would like to have a say or two about his "should have been different" finals, but that's life. Is it fair? No. I was so broken hearted by Jaedong's downfall (I left the stage in disgust before the 3rd game even finished) that I took a brief break from Starcraft. Then I looked looked back on the season: teams with strong TvT or PvT players succeeded in the proleague, TvT matches being a definate fix in matches between two teams - a season that basically had decent balance in PvT and ZvP but failed to balance TvZ. But it wasn't the imbalance itself that pissed me off. Hell, there's been BAD maps (Ragnarok, Paradoxx, Neo Ever Forte, R-Point, Geometry etc) and people aren't exactly crazy for more ZvZ (I know for sure that if ZvZ was played as much as TvT was this season, people would be screaming for the mappers' blood) What saddened me was the fact that a relatively bad patch of map pool for zergs came at a time when Jaedong was ready to shine. We're blessed with numerous excellent gamers today, but I feel that Jaedong is the most special of them all. His micro embarasses fellow top zergs like 815, given maps like Katrina, we're left to witness his inhuman multitasking that leaves their opponents scratching their heads wondering what they did wrong. I didn't necessary want Jaedong humiliating other top gamers on zerg friendly maps with a win record of 96.65% or something. I just wanted to witness his genius. Jaedong fumbling with his units not knowing what the hell to do against a terran that actually manages to make most of their advantageous environment is not what I wanted to see. No genius here. Just another zerg getting OWNED by whatever you want to point the finger at - maps, better gaming or mind block. What doesn't destroy you makes you stronger, it's just that Jaedong was destroyed. Ideally, he would have defied the odds like Savior, but seriously, I think we're NEVER going experience such a story from the scene ever again. Whatever the reasons, we had a phenomenally gifted zerg player failing spectacularly against terrans early on in the season, being forced to limit his 1v1 appearances to ZvZ gamers only, forcing his way into the MSL finals only to get wasted by a teammate who knew his limitations as zerg. I think we're being denied from seeing the full extent of his genius here. Just my two cents. | ||
|
Athos
United States2484 Posts
| ||
| ||
