ZvP is imbalanced - Page 28

On October 17 2009 23:42 ghrur wrote:


Put it this way:
Calm JUST won a starleague.
Fantasy couldn't even make it to the Ro16 for that same league.
If Fantasy is S-Class, Calm is too. Nothing more, nothing less.
The rest of that argument was just fallacious slippery slope crap.

On October 18 2009 04:57 Linx_101 wrote:


Funny, I don't remember seeing Calm in the last OSL.
Yet Fantasy made it to the semis and lost to the winner.
Calm isn't S-class period.

On October 17 2009 20:32 nebffa wrote:
people should probably stop splashing the phrase "S-class" around. thats for flash, jaedong, stork, bisu and fantasy. until a player can hang with these guys, they ain't S-class

On October 17 2009 23:24 ix wrote:
7mk I was talking about future top Protoss who are still fairly new, you're listing very experienced Zerg. I also made no comparison to other races, so what's the relevance? If these guys are not the future top P then who is? Bisu and Stork can't carry on for ever. Kal will be Mr. Solid but nothing special.

On October 18 2009 05:45 bumatlarge wrote:
I say Kespa declares a mandatory bo99 between JD and bisu on any maps they wish to use.

The better player does not always win 100% of the time with no exceptions. If that was true, the argument for Calm would be much simpler than that. Calm beat Jaedong, therefore Calm is better than Jaedong.

In the short term (such as one starleague), worse players routinely advance farther than better players. Consider that in the same starleague, Canata, Iris, and Zero advanced farther than Flash and fantasy. Since Flash is S-class, does that make Canata S-class?

Players do not have equally difficult draws. Fantasy lost to Bisu in the ro16. Calm beat forgg in the ro16. Nobody would say the two had equally difficult opponents.

On October 18 2009 11:45 TheYango wrote:

Jaedong would win, EZ. Bisu just isn't as good at long series games.

And of course, Bisu would bitch about map balance, even on the maps he chose.

Well, either way, we must have some arbitrary standards for who is in the S-Class correct? It's either arbitrarily chosen standards or subjective ideals. If it's opinions about who is in the S-class, then back it up. Why is it that Fantasy should be in the S-class but not Calm? What has Fantasy achieved over Calm?

No, but Calm also had to go up against Effort and JD, both of whom had quite impressive ZvZ records at the time. You have to acknowledge the fact that Calm played some very impressive opponents in his run to the MSL too. =/

Anyway, the question is what has fantasy accomplished that sets him a class above calm? What has he accomplished that allows him to be S-Class but doesn't allow calm to be as well?

On October 18 2009 13:06 Chen wrote:
First of all even though this is my first post i have been watching pro Starcraft for about a year now so I'm not a complete and total newb to this.



Well I personally think that to be considered S-class you must either have a 60%+ win rate in that MU or go into any game against another S-class player as at worst a slight underdog. for example Bisu vs Jaedong, I'm reasonably sure that assuming we use balanced maps and not HBR-type toss graveyards, the general consensus is its pretty even, some might call JD a slight favorite and some would say Bisu is the slight favorite. Same with Bisu vs Flash or Flash vs Jaedong. If you put like Calm vs Flash/Bisu on the other hand, most non-fanboys would agree that Calm more than a slight underdog and it would be somewhat of an upset if he won. I'd say that Jaedong Flash Bisu are the only all-around S-class players but some people have like 1 S-class MU that gets them alot of attention.

On your question on what allows Fantasy to be S-class and Calm not, well Fantasy is a god at TvP and TvT, has been for a while with ~62% win rate in both MU's. Same can be said of Storks ridiculous 67% PvT win rate which is definitely S-class. But I just think that Calm hasn't been good long enough to call him S-class. Hes been a solid above average Proleague Zerg and pretty fail in starleagues minus last seasons MSL, and with the likes of luxury and forGG roaming around, 1 SL win isnt really enough justification to put someone on S-class. And although Fantasy hasn't won an OSL, hes finished 2nd twice and made it to the semifinals in his 3rd go at it. And he lost to Stork(Best PvTer in the history of the game) and Jaedong(Best Zerg ever to play the game) 2-3. I mean if he plays anyone but those two he probably wins at least one OSL, although that's conjecture so don't quote me on that. Anyways Fantasy has shown a really high level of play for 3 straight seasons now and that Consistency is better than temporary brilliance and you don't get more consistent than 2nd, 2nd, top 4.

Back to Calm though, hes done really nothing to deserve status as more than normal A-class other than riding ZvZ into an MSL title, and ZvZ is by far the most volatile and random of the 6 MU's in Starcraft. Not to take anything away from Calm as its a pretty big accomplishment to beat JD and Effort back-to-back in any case, but ZvZ at that level is really 50-50 or 55-45 at best with build order playing a huge part (Especially if you are Effort and 12-hatch vs 9-Pool speed 2 games in a row) Plus his 55% win rates in everything are REALLY meh. He's just not great at anything. If Calm can show the same level of play this season as he did last season i think he has an argument (This goes for Effort to, as even though hes 60%+ in ALL his MU's he hasnt really played all that many games and has failed pretty hard in SL's) Like right now there is literally NOTHING that separates Calm from forGG and Luxury except that Calm's win happened more recently so we remember it better.

And i just realized this is completely off-topic from the OP of Z>>>>>>P.

Back to the original topic though, the last few PvZ's I've seen have had the zerg go 3-base mass hydras, make 9 mutas, suicide them to kill some Templar them then A-move Hydras to completely roll the Protoss army. For example Bisu had like 2 control groups of goons plus some decent if not great storms on the Mutas and still lost all his temps and proceeded to get rolled. Hyuk lost all his Mutas, left Stork with a few Templar, threw away all his lurks without killing anything, and still rolled over Stork. I mean it seems like a really simple formula that always works, and if Bisu cant stop Shine from doing and Stork cant stop Hyuk from doing i think there's gotta be something wrong.

On October 19 2009 08:17 zulu_nation8 wrote:


LoL!!~

On October 19 2009 09:34 Noah wrote:
ZvP isn't imbalanced, the current map pool is.

The metagame changes constantly, a year ago Protoss was dominating everything. It's inevitably that one day a Protoss will find a good counter to the mass hydras followed by the HT sniping.

Everyone crying about this has no sense of Starcraft history.

On October 19 2009 09:50 errol1001 wrote:


If you are going to use metagame to claim that you can't call the races imbalanced, then you can't call the maps imbalanced either. I think Rush Hour 3 showed this..

It comes down to finding a counter for the current auto-win strat though, just like how proper zerg walling was the counter to the zealots + 2 archon attack that was beating so many zerg..

On October 19 2009 09:55 AzureEye wrote:
ZvP is one of the better balanced matchups, stop complaining. While I agree that no human-made RTS can perfectly be balanced, its good enough I guess. And there is nothing we can do about it now. (or else I would have written a 20 page analysis essay to Blizzard about how TvZ is imba favor of T lol)

On October 17 2009 23:42 ghrur wrote:


Put it this way:
Calm JUST won a starleague.
Fantasy couldn't even make it to the Ro16 for that same league.
If Fantasy is S-Class, Calm is too. Nothing more, nothing less.
The rest of that argument was just fallacious slippery slope crap.