So I just finished watching this show called "뒷담화" and it's a show of Kim Carrier, Um Jae Kyung, Nal_rA and Kingdom talking about the current issues and buzz of the esports scene. This came up last week but I just finished watching it now and I just heard a very interesting segment of the show; it was Kingdom talking about Bisu. The show itself is 30 minutes long and there are more interesting parts but this was something I think everyone should atleast read once. Very interesting and I'll get more done later~ Have fun
Kim Carrier : I've been doing this show over 3 seasons and I think it's been a while since we had so much to eat like today.
Um-Jae-Kyung : So the big topic of today is that during the RO36 OSL, two of the TaekBangLeeSsang; Bisu and Jaedong has dropped out from the league. And another thing that became an issue was the Bisu was sent on a paid vacation by SKT since he dropped.
rA : A paid vacation?
Kim Carrier : Yep a paid vacation. Anyways if we compare the Bisu of 2010 to the Bisu of 2009, it's almost shocking to see how much of a difference there is between the two. At 2009 Bisu was tearing up not only individual leagues but proleague too. As of now, he looks like just another “Protoss.”
Kingdom : When Bisu transferred to SKT that was around the same time I started coaching for SKT. But even during my early coaching career Bisu's performance in proleague wasn't that good either. Whenever we would send bisu off to play he would always lose and mess-up during the games... I guess we could say his current state was somewhat similar to the state he was in 2 years ago. And when this was happening 2 years ago, Park Young Woon (Head coach of SKT) said “let's give him some time.” However the deal was even though he was on break, Bisu would have come with us to every live game and watch his teammates play. The reason for this was that if Bisu wasn't on the proleague benches, the opposing teams won't sacrifice more practice time for Bisu. At 2008, SKT blocked the journalists from making an article about Bisu's “vacation”. But this time, Bisu's vacation article was released. When I first saw the article the first thing I thought to myself was “Wow this might be beyond repair for Bisu.”
Kim Carrier : The thing is Kingdom worked with Bisu side by side for a long time so he can make these exact judgments. But from a spectator's standpoint, we don't see Bisu's smooth and brilliant plays anymore. If we watch his recent games and his older games, everything he does now is looks so predictable and bland. Not to mention Bisu's greatest strength; his ability to Multi-task seems to have faded away into the darkness. His plays are too rough and... I guess blocky.
Kingdom : Bisu started playing incredibly standard and predictable around an year ago if I recall correctly. As the coach for both Best and Bisu if I compare the two together, Bisu was not that good at making Build Orders at all. In fact, Best was a much better at making new strategies and build orders for his games. Best was very good at making transitioning build orders and new and exciting build orders to throw off his opponents. But on the other hand Bisu had a really hard time changing his strategies and trying out new things. What Bisu was good at doing was copying and modifying builds Stork and Kal used previously to win games and making it better.
Kim Carrier : Wow actually come to think of it I think you're totally right on this one. The thing is, Stork is an absolutely brilliant build order maker. The builds and strategies he prepares for his opponents are jaw-dropping. But when we look at Bisu we don't see any of that. Bisu's greatest strength always was and always will be his unparallelled ability to multitask.
Kingdom : I agree!
Kim Carrier : If we look at Bisu's prime so to speak, it was the time when a player with great multitasking ability could do incredibly well. However if we look at our current era of starcraft, multitasking will only get you so far. And now Bisu's multitasking turned into a 'standard' in starcraft.
Kingdom : I agree. If we look back Bisu's games almost every build he used was “the safest and the best.” Many people ask “How can someone be so good when they only play standard”. Bisu practices for a very long time. For a while, he defined the phrase “Sleep and Practice” in the SKT house. And to preserve time so he could practice more, he started reviewing over his strategies during the game not outside the game. While most players review over their strategies and build orders after watching VODs or Replays, Bisu did this during his game. Because of his natural talent to multitask everything, his hand movement and screen transitioning speed was so fast. It was jaw-dropping to watch him play. And this was why he was so good at PvZ! Because Zerg players had no idea how to catch up to Bisu. The Zerg players couldn't react as much and they couldn't figure out what was going on. But at the same time, this was why Bisu's PvT was always lacking compared to his other two Match Ups. The thing is a Terran player could defend what they had at a small ground. However a Zerg player has to defend their bases over long long distances. Because of this, the common Zerg player didn't have the concentration and speed to defend everything. That is why a Bisu styled harass was so good; because he can attack 3 difference places at once with the Zerg player having a hard to defending even one. And that is the reason why I found Bisu's PvT lacking compared to his PvZ, because he couldn't do his style of play on terrans.
Kim Carrier : This OSL Bisu dropped his games against Go.Go. And last time, Bisu dropped because of Go.Go. And let's be totally honest, Go.Go's TvP is horrendous. Even if we exclude the data his TvP is known to be pretty bad. And when Bisu lost, it got me thinking; did Bisu get overconfident when he played against Go.Go?
Kingdom : Go.Go said it during his winner's interview that “Whenever Bisu plays against a player who is a lot worse than he is, he starts to play incredibly safe. And since there is a huge difference between us I decided to gamble with all my build orders.” So yes, I do believe Bisu tends to underestimate his opponents time to time. I mean if we look at Bisu's early proleague performance this season, he started losing to all these new guys. And if we look at all of these games, Bisu played almost too safely. New Players on the otherhand, will always play risky for they really want to win a game and they really want to make a name for themselves.
rA : You know... Go.Go's TvP is actually really really good.
Kim Carrier : ?
Um-Jae-Kyung : ?
Kingdom : ?
Kim Carrier : Are you saying this because he practiced with you for your revenge match?
Um-Jae-Kyung : No no, I mean Go.Go's TvP could have improved a lot over time. We are wrong to judge
Everyone bursts out laughing
Kingdom : To sum things up, I believe one of the core reasons for Bisu's slump comes from his ridiculously safe and predictable plays he's been doing.
I hope he comes back to tear it up after his vacation. As a serious Bisu fan it makes me happy when he does really well (also a serious NaDa and sAviOr fan).
Kingdom : Bisu started playing incredibly standard and predictable around an year ago if I recall correctly. As the coach for both Best and Bisu if I compare the two together, Bisu was not that good at making Build Orders at all. In fact, Best was a much better player and making new strategies and build orders for his games. Best was very good at making transitioning build orders and new and exciting build orders to throw off his opponents. But on the other hand Bisu had a really hard time changing his strategies and trying out new things. What Bisu was good at doing was copying and modifying builds Stork and Kal used previously to win games and making it better.
slight typo. In fact, best was a much better at not and.
Cheers for the translation Mr Hoon. Everyone who translates for us is so golden. Such a sweet service for the rest of the community. You're a champ.
Such an interesting larger issue to think about. Mechanics versus creativity, multitasking vs mind games, assimilation vs ingenuity. It's interesting to see this sort of analysis about one player's strengths and weaknesses. Makes you wonder about other player's relative skills and then think about your own and what attracts you to certain play-styles and even practice styles.
On March 28 2010 20:50 Balfazar wrote: I have always noticed that when Stork wins with a nice new build I see Bisu using it soon after, glad to see it confirmed by the commentators.
it maybe true that bisu copies others, but how many have copied his bisu build ^^
On March 28 2010 20:50 Balfazar wrote: I have Always noticed that when Stork wins with a Nice new build I see Bisu using it soon after, glad to see it confirmed by the commentators.
it maybe True that Bisu copies others, but how many have copied his Bisu build ^^
The type of playstyle describe in the op kinda matches what Bisu's personality seems like on TV.
And it seems like Kingdom and Bisu don't really have a good relationship. He had nothing good to say about Bisu nor did he give any encouragement.
edit: lol, i read over it and kingdom did say he was great at multitasking and it's not the whole thing so kingdom might've sounded nicer in the other parts
very interesting insight, but it sounds like kingdom doesnt really think much of bisu´s overall ability as a player. basically he says that bisu is an inferior strategist that was only dominating for a while because he was so far ahead of almost every1 else in mechanics and multitasking; making up for his lacking strategical insight by copying the build orders of others.
a similar reasoning could be applied for jaedongs diminished dominance this season: he might not be a bad strategist, but he isnt an outstanding one either. what distinguished him from every1 else, in particular in zvz, were his impeccable mechanics. since the general mechanical skill of pretty much every progamer has increased a lot during the last 9 months, in particular among the newcomers of this season, his dominance has diminished.
maybe the time for mechanical players is over. this could also be seen as the reason why flash is the dominator at the moment: he combines the same near-perfect mechanics that seem so common these days with great strategical insight and the best gamesense ever witnessed in professional sc. maybe the great success of jaedong and bisu during the preceding season has stimulated a surge of focus on mechanics during the summer which resulted in the mechanical skill gap narrowing, while many of the lesser and/or new players havent devoted the same effort to their strategies. a typical example for this theory could be stork: with the obvious increase in mechanical skill, he shut down the biggest flaw of his game and once again put himself into the position to make good use of his brilliant build orders.
On March 28 2010 21:05 gokai wrote: The type of playstyle describe in the op kinda matches what Bisu's personality seems like on TV.
And it seems like Kingdom and Bisu don't really have a good relationship. He had nothing good to say about Bisu nor did he give any encouragement.
edit: lol, i read over it and kingdom did say he was great at multitasking and it's not the whole thing so kingdom might've sounded nicer in the other parts
On the contrary, Kingdom is the most SKT biased commentator evarrrr Whenever bisu played and he commentated he would hype bisu up so hard it would come to a point where it was ridiculous. The same applies with rA as he would get so pumped whenever Flash wins lol.
The tone of this discussion was not 'omg bisu iz inferior', if you watch the video and understand korean (I know you guys can't I'm sorry I couldn't deliver this onto the OP it's really hard ) it was Kingdom being really worried for bisu; like a father watching his son fall apart after losing his mary jane.
And about the harsh language; cultural differences. He isn't saying this in bad blood, rather a constructive criticism type language. If I try to tone it down a little the whole thing would lose meaning
On March 28 2010 22:19 Garnet wrote: So has Bisu ever invented anything???
No, not really. He showed how powerful sair/dt and forge expanding came be and therefore popularized it but it was really DaezanG and rA who invented them. These two had limited success at changing the metagame with these builds because rA was too inconsistent and too busy being the dreamer to actually push the idea of forge expanding forward and DaezanG lacked the mechanics to pull off sair/dt correctly.
This is a really interesting discussion about Bisu... in particular, I hope that Stork continues to play strongly, to show the starcraft world that you don't need to practice 12 hours a day on mechanics to be competitive, but come up with good strategies. This is only based on Stork's recent interviews where he reads manga/plays wow
BeSt could be really brilliant in practice but another safe player in live games, as he is also a very mechanical player. Another option is that while it seems like BeSt does 1 build per year he might have a lot of subtle build order changes and improvements. Maybe he is the one who adapts and figures out the other gamers build orders and makes refinements and Bisu just uses what BeSt gives him. Just speculation of course, which I guess unless someone actually asks Kingdom that's about all we can do in regards to that comment.
On March 28 2010 23:23 Confuse wrote: This is a really interesting discussion about Bisu... in particular, I hope that Stork continues to play strongly, to show the starcraft world that you don't need to practice 12 hours a day on mechanics to be competitive, but come up with good strategies. This is only based on Stork's recent interviews where he reads manga/plays wow
Stork's recent interviews are saying he practices all night...
Nal_ra plays go.go and beats him in his attempt to comeback. Watch the subs by our great TL team to know more. Go.go is known for horrible 35% winrate TvP, and like 25% w/o Bisu.
On March 28 2010 23:23 Confuse wrote: This is a really interesting discussion about Bisu... in particular, I hope that Stork continues to play strongly, to show the starcraft world that you don't need to practice 12 hours a day on mechanics to be competitive, but come up with good strategies. This is only based on Stork's recent interviews where he reads manga/plays wow
Those interviews were in the offseason. Or the vacation season where most teams were actually off. 12 hours of practice is the standard and most players that are actually good practice much more than that. When he started to become good again he started practicing way more than those days where he was slumping for a short while.
As a whole the protoss race has been weak and not performing well. Stork, Bisu, and Kal, who are the top 3 tosses only have a A-class record of 57.5% winrate over their last 40 games, and that shows you how the race is performing overall. Which is not good, but again this game works in cycles, and a year ago the terrans where in the exact same situation, and see how they are performing now.
Thanks for the translation MrHoon, definitely interesting. Did not expect the part about Best considering how robotic his PvT is.
Best being more creative than Bisu? Are there slight variations to 2 base arbs every game that I can't pick out or something? Well whatever. Interesting analysis. <3 Hoonie.
On March 28 2010 18:49 MrHoon wrote: Kingdom : I agree. If we look back Bisu's games almost every build he used was “the safest and the best.” Many people ask “How can someone be so good when they only play standard”. Bisu practices for a very long time. For a while, he defined the phrase “Sleep and Practice” in the SKT house. And to preserve time so he could practice more, he starts reviewing over his strategies during the game not outside the game. While most players review over their strategies and build orders after watching VODs or Replays, Bisu did this during his game. Because of his natural talent to multitask everything, his hand movement and screen transitioning speed was so fast. It was jaw-dropping to watch him play.
Shit Bisu's so good at multi-tasking he reviews his strategies while he's playing.. :o
lol the commentators' analysis seems a bit off in places. bisu won WCG 2009 pretty handily, and yeah he's not looked as good since then, but he's only played 19 games in 2010 and his "slump" winrate is 50%. Bisu is fine, he's just not as dominant anymore. Other players are catching up to where the differences aren't as pronounced.
The only player who seems immune to this parity is flash, who is raping everyone left and right.
On March 29 2010 03:48 jodogohoo wrote: Isn't Idra also like this? Almost 99% of Idra's games are safe, rax cc builds.
i think kingdom wanted to say that bisu is passive and makes one cannon more then necessary, getting that bunch units unnecessary before taking the expo etc, because he thinks he will roll his opponent anyway easy in a pure macrogame. unfortunately he puts his self behind in the earlygame that way =( so not safe like the idra way to get into macro mode (with beeing open to get cheesed BUT) with an early economical advantage. bisu is more like the opposite, going into macro mode with a disadvantage and knowing that.
On March 29 2010 05:34 integral wrote: lol the commentators' analysis seems a bit off in places. bisu won WCG 2009 pretty handily, and yeah he's not looked as good since then, but he's only played 19 games in 2010 and his "slump" winrate is 50%. Bisu is fine, he's just not as dominant anymore. Other players are catching up to where the differences aren't as pronounced.
The only player who seems immune to this parity is flash, who is raping everyone left and right.
Did you mean WCG Korea? Where the "1st place" game is basically meaningless because you go on regardless?
The only player who seems immune to this parity is flash, who is raping everyone left and right.[/
And what did Flash do between OSL wins? All players succumb to the metagame. Flash wasn't killing any protosses back when no terran could beat protoss. Nowadays, TvP is actually pretty good unless the protoss is Stork.
The only person IMO that really stayed consistent over the years is Jaedong.
On March 29 2010 05:34 integral wrote: lol the commentators' analysis seems a bit off in places. bisu won WCG 2009 pretty handily, and yeah he's not looked as good since then, but he's only played 19 games in 2010 and his "slump" winrate is 50%. Bisu is fine, he's just not as dominant anymore. Other players are catching up to where the differences aren't as pronounced.
The only player who seems immune to this parity is flash, who is raping everyone left and right.
Did you mean WCG Korea? Where the "1st place" game is basically meaningless because you go on regardless?
The only player who seems immune to this parity is flash, who is raping everyone left and right.[/
And what did Flash do between OSL wins? All players succumb to the metagame. Flash wasn't killing any protosses back when no terran could beat protoss. Nowadays, TvP is actually pretty good unless the protoss is Stork.
The only person IMO that really stayed consistent over the years is Jaedong.
WCG Korea was actually a pretty good demonstration. Despite that there is little prestige associated with it, Bisu nonetheless demonstrated solid skill during WCG Korea. He did defeat Flash and Stork very convincingly. How can anybody forget his goon micro against Flash? In his two games against Stork, Bisu was somehow always just one single step ahead.
That WCG Korea was really a turning point. After it, Bisu started slumping, Stork returned to S-class gameplaying, and Flash started raping. Jaedong was still Jaedong.
As for consistency, Flash's "slump" between his OSL victories were overblown. He had bad luck, too much pressure, but nonetheless maintained S-class gameplay with consistency in the proleague. His mentality is at least as strong as Jaedong's.
Only one mentions the most amazing part: Bisu watches replays while he plays people.
Flash is kind of the opposite of Bisu by playing the same way: he plays very safe but dominates weaker opponents, but he has problems vs great players. The problem is that Stork is the only great toss right now (come on, Movie pvt).
Flash's strongest point is his game sense. As he expressed during his winner interview against Movie, he did not even prepare a specific build order, but rather played in accordance to his game sense and change his build orders accordingly. That ability to adapt in seconds distinguished him from other S-class players (a fine example is Flash v.s. Kwanro. Flash's instantaneous response of a Mech tech switch after the horror fail opening was just incredible). That and also the "special system" that he developed for himself for hotkeys and stuff according to one of his interviews. His perfect understanding of the game (as seen by his rumored strength in off-racing) and adaptability allows him to construct special build orders on his own. Flash is literally an one man army. He is equipped with everything. Even without a coach, he'd dominate. (Hery helped a lot, of course. Nobody can reach the top completely alone)
As we have seen in Savior's case, this game sense won't last forever. Flash will slump eventually, but he will always remain a top tier player due to his strong natural mechanics, creativity with build orders and whatever system that he was talking about.
As for Bisu, his strength is multi-tasking skill and mechanics. However, players are catching up and able to react to his multi-tasking abilities now. There is a limitation to the reaction speed of a human player. It seems that some of the players are starting to catch up to that level after additional years of practice. Due to Bisu's lack of creativity when it comes to build orders (and probably imagination in general), a strong Protoss coach is a necessity to do the brain work for him. Kingdom's departure left a serious hole in Bisu's arsenal. I also suspect Bisu is more prone to psychological trauma than Flash and Jaedong due to a slightly weaker mentality. Cheer leading support is pretty much necessary.
On March 29 2010 11:30 dukethegold wrote: That and also the "special system" that he developed for himself for hotkeys and stuff according to one of his interviews.
Can u point to this interview? Or if it was a brief mention, can you summarize it at least?
As for Bisu, his strength is multi-tasking skill and mechanics. However, players are catching up and able to react to his multi-tasking abilities now. There is a limitation to the reaction speed of a human player. It seems that some of the players are starting to catch up to that level after additional years of practice. Due to Bisu's lack of creativity when it comes to build orders (and probably imagination in general), a strong Protoss coach is a necessity to do the brain work for him. Kingdom's departure left a serious hole in Bisu's arsenal. I also suspect Bisu is more prone to psychological trauma than Flash and Jaedong due to a slightly weaker mentality. Cheer leading support is pretty much necessary.
I don't think people have necessarily caught up to Bisu's multitasking abilities, as he's one of the best regardless of race. But it use to be that he could play standard, against a superior build order, and plow his way through on the foundations of his macro alone. The silver lining here, though, seems to be that if Bisu could get some help with his BOs then he could pick up where he left off.
On March 29 2010 11:30 dukethegold wrote: That and also the "special system" that he developed for himself for hotkeys and stuff according to one of his interviews.
Can u point to this interview? Or if it was a brief mention, can you summarize it at least?
As for Bisu, his strength is multi-tasking skill and mechanics. However, players are catching up and able to react to his multi-tasking abilities now. There is a limitation to the reaction speed of a human player. It seems that some of the players are starting to catch up to that level after additional years of practice. Due to Bisu's lack of creativity when it comes to build orders (and probably imagination in general), a strong Protoss coach is a necessity to do the brain work for him. Kingdom's departure left a serious hole in Bisu's arsenal. I also suspect Bisu is more prone to psychological trauma than Flash and Jaedong due to a slightly weaker mentality. Cheer leading support is pretty much necessary.
I don't think people have necessarily caught up to Bisu's multitasking abilities, as he's one of the best regardless of race. But it use to be that he could play standard, against a superior build order, and plow his way through on the foundations of his macro alone. The silver lining here, though, seems to be that if Bisu could get some help with his BOs then he could pick up where he left off.
This is the interview: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=113506 Actually, he only briefly mentioned that he has a "special way" of managing his build that other players can't copy. It left the impression in me that he has a special system of management. I don't know why I said hotkeys.
As for Bisu. I don't know. I watched his 3rd set against go.go. It was pretty frustrating to watch. He should have smelled something wrong when go.go started pumping marines. His goon also goon danced right outside of go.go's main's choke for a while and retreated a little bit later rather than attempt to scout out go.go strategy (which he could have easily done since go.go was starting to push his force out of the choke). I really think he underestimated go.go there and plain lacked the game sense that Flash got.
Hmmm didn't Bisu invent that 2 gate speedlot timing attack which he showcased against Jaedong during Allstars? I don't ever recall seeing the build used before Bisu used it.
On March 29 2010 03:48 jodogohoo wrote: Isn't Idra also like this? Almost 99% of Idra's games are safe, rax cc builds.
i think kingdom wanted to say that bisu is passive and makes one cannon more then necessary, getting that bunch units unnecessary before taking the expo etc, because he thinks he will roll his opponent anyway easy in a pure macrogame. unfortunately he puts his self behind in the earlygame that way =( so not safe like the idra way to get into macro mode (with beeing open to get cheesed BUT) with an early economical advantage. bisu is more like the opposite, going into macro mode with a disadvantage and knowing that.
well, bisu does happen to be one of the players that gets cheesed the most, lol
he got 4/5 pooled like what, 7 times? and flash knocked him out of 2007 osl with double cheese
It's the same thing as the Savior "slump:" Bisu hasn't gotten any worse, the competition has just been steadily improving. Then comes the subsequent psychological missteps that fool one into thinking that he could be "worse." Kim and Kingdom can see this as well (how insane multitasking is now just "standard").
Bisu getting knocked out of the OSL is not new, and I say he's still a force in proleague; it's the REST of SKT that's making this whole thing worse, the team being quite inept without Bisu and only adding pressure.
On March 29 2010 15:46 MountainDewJunkie wrote: It's the same thing as the Savior "slump:" Bisu hasn't gotten any worse, the competition has just been steadily improving. Then comes the subsequent psychological missteps that fool one into thinking that he could be "worse." Kim and Kingdom can see this as well (how insane multitasking is now just "standard").
Bisu getting knocked out of the OSL is not new, and I say he's still a force in proleague; it's the REST of SKT that's making this whole thing worse, the team being quite inept without Bisu and only adding pressure.
You are wrong in that Bisu is not getting worse. It's not his mechanics that is taking the biggest hit, his mechanics are still simply fantastic and so is his macro. It's just his decision making and micro have been really horrible lately.
On March 29 2010 15:46 MountainDewJunkie wrote: It's the same thing as the Savior "slump:" Bisu hasn't gotten any worse, the competition has just been steadily improving. Then comes the subsequent psychological missteps that fool one into thinking that he could be "worse." Kim and Kingdom can see this as well (how insane multitasking is now just "standard").
Bisu getting knocked out of the OSL is not new, and I say he's still a force in proleague; it's the REST of SKT that's making this whole thing worse, the team being quite inept without Bisu and only adding pressure.
You are wrong in that Bisu is not getting worse. It's not his mechanics that is taking the biggest hit, his mechanics are still simply fantastic and so is his macro. It's just his decision making and micro have been really horrible lately.
No one said he is. But the thing is, Bisu never "reinvented" himself.
Stork was slumping hard, complained about zerg imba, then what did he do? He started working out(always good in terms of energy), came out with a ton of new strategies for PvZ, realized that zerg players have improved, raised his APM, and now he's arguably the best PvZ player in the game.
Flash for a long time was an S-class player who just seem to always come up short. And what does he do? He tried early game aggressions reminiscent of his early career. And likely with the help of ForGG, started using an assortment of 2-base timing pushes which were simply insane to counter given his decision-making. Now Flash is more or less invincible.
The point is you can't play a certain way forever. Because people will eventually catch up. And Bisu needs to figure that out and reinvent himself again. Add nuances to his game that will keep his opponents guessing.
This is so true. I've seen many games from Bisu, where he does his corsair/DT, or some other ineffective opening build, get punished by his opponent, plays at disadvantage, then Bisu comes back during mid/late game with superior mechanics.
I am an all time Bisu fan, IMO if Bisu's build can be more effective, he'd be finally win an OSL.
On March 29 2010 20:28 oo_xerox wrote: Isnt flash style also very predictable?
much much less so than Bisu. Think about his MBC all kill a few days ago for example, in his TvTs he went for super greedy builds, even though hes the most ridiculous TvT monster ever, that's because he doesn't underestimate his opponents and still wants to get every little advantage he can get. People flame him when he goes 14cc or when he builds the absolute minimum of turrets vs Z but his wanting to get every tiny advantage even against inferior players is what lets him have such a ridiculously high win rate imo.
And just think of the stuff he has been doing lately, in ZvT he came up with the goliath flash build, then he went for his imba 3 hatch denial play, now he likes to do what fantasy/midas did with the bio -> mech transition. In TvP he's developed a new timing push. All these innovations make it really hard for other players and make him much less predictable than Bisu.
this makes his early exits from starleagues make sense he does get knocked out often by newer players that play riskier builds to take advantage of his play. i hope he comes back though, he's an excellent player.
The commentators are saying Bisu is losing because he's playing it safe, while his newer, younger opponents are going for all-ins and succeed.
How do you defend yourself from all-in cheese? By playing safe, right? Scouting thoroughly, making the proper amount of defense, and not cutting corners.
So now, playing safe against all-in is BAD? What are you supposed to do to counter cheese then?
By all conventional SC:BW theory, Bisu has the perfect idea: he's better than his opponents in raw skill and mechanics. The only way he'll lose is to some cheese that he isn't ready for. So, he plays super-safe, defends against the cheese, then moves to late game where his superior skill takes over.
BUT, according to everyone in this thread and the commentators, aiming for a long-term macro game doesn't favor the player with better skill now?
On March 30 2010 06:02 madcow305 wrote: I'm at a loss here:
The commentators are saying Bisu is losing because he's playing it safe, while his newer, younger opponents are going for all-ins and succeed.
How do you defend yourself from all-in cheese? By playing safe, right? Scouting thoroughly, making the proper amount of defense, and not cutting corners.
So now, playing safe against all-in is BAD? What are you supposed to do to counter cheese then?
By all conventional SC:BW theory, Bisu has the perfect idea: he's better than his opponents in raw skill and mechanics. The only way he'll lose is to some cheese that he isn't ready for. So, he plays super-safe, defends against the cheese, then moves to late game where his superior skill takes over.
BUT, according to everyone in this thread and the commentators, aiming for a long-term macro game doesn't favor the player with better skill now?
You're switching your definition of safe here.
By playing safe, it means to not commit to a certain timing window. That is to say, the player is neither ruining his econ for defense nor doing an early expand for late game advantage. More or less, it's playing standard.
Bisu is not committing to defend against cheese because he's not willing to sack his econ for one time defense (hello shine). Nor is he willing to go for extremely risky build in the opening to gain econ advantage in the mid and late game.
I do think Bisu's control is slipping. I watched his control vs. Modesty and go.go compared to some of his 2009 games vs. Flash and Jaedong and he was losing units in those games the Bisu we love will never lose. The play just does not seem so fluid and smooth like it did before.
Everyone may have gotten slightly better, but I think Bisu's reason for slumpage is his own play, not an increase in metagame level., especially after comparing games. I blame it on the stress and depression and his fear of cheese.
I do still believe he has it in him to come back better than ever but he needs to overcome a huge mental obstacle which is especially tough for someone of Bisu's personality.
On March 29 2010 20:28 oo_xerox wrote: Isnt flash style also very predictable?
Also wanted to add this from the OSL Take Off News article " The icing on the cake? Flash loves to cheese. Before he was known for his overall domination, fans called him “that cheap-ass kid.” (There was a popular webcomic that depicted progamers as warriors in physical combat. Flash was portrayed as a fighter who took a baseball bat to the back side of his opponent’s head before the bell rang) He hasn’t put away those bunker rushing skills he honed early in his career. Flash might be the very best in the game at mixing standard and cheesy play at a golden ratio. He cheeses just enough so that his opponents are always nervous about opening with a greedy build against him. And at the same time Flash can always seem to entice someone into cutting corners, upon which they are quickly punished. "
Wait in the past couple of month, have we EVER see Bisu going into super late game that passes the 30 mins mark? I haven't. But guys we have to remember the game of Idra vs NonY. Idra clearly have superior mechanics and multitask but NonY still manage to blow him out of the water. Now Bisu might be in the same situation as Idra.
I'm personally of the opinion that Bisu's play itself has been slipping. Of course everyone else is certainly getting better, but if you look at Bisu's games across later 2009 and early 2010, it's clear that he's not displaying the type of control that he's renown for. I would imagine that even with his safe play, if his mechanics were just up to his normal standards, then he'd be winning much more games than he has recently.
wow....kingdom has absolutely no reservations about completely ripping into bisu. it's funny to hear all these comments after bisu has been heralded for so long for being a revolutionist and creative in his build orders
Why would they hide bisu's vacation from the press? Its not like it was announced mid-season, did SKT even have a chance to qualify for the playoffs when this was announced?
On March 30 2010 06:02 madcow305 wrote: I'm at a loss here:
The commentators are saying Bisu is losing because he's playing it safe, while his newer, younger opponents are going for all-ins and succeed.
How do you defend yourself from all-in cheese? By playing safe, right? Scouting thoroughly, making the proper amount of defense, and not cutting corners.
So now, playing safe against all-in is BAD? What are you supposed to do to counter cheese then?
By all conventional SC:BW theory, Bisu has the perfect idea: he's better than his opponents in raw skill and mechanics. The only way he'll lose is to some cheese that he isn't ready for. So, he plays super-safe, defends against the cheese, then moves to late game where his superior skill takes over.
BUT, according to everyone in this thread and the commentators, aiming for a long-term macro game doesn't favor the player with better skill now?
Playing safe as in extremely standard, and super standard builds are safe because they do not completely commit to anything. If you play like this every game then your opponents can exploit you with crafted all-in builds that are tempered to specifically work against what you do, or they can exploit you by playing greedier because they know you won't be able to do anything about it. In example, if a T goes 1rax fe every single TvZ, a Zerg can exploit it by going 3hatch before pool. If a Terran goes siege expand every single TvP, then a Protoss can go 12nexus. If a Zerg goes 12hatch 11pool every ZvT, then a Terran can go 14cc, etc.
go.go took this to the extremes with his recent games against Bisu. Even though go.go's TvP is balls compared to Bisu's PvT skills, by the way go.go abused Bisu with his opening builds was gross.
On March 30 2010 06:02 madcow305 wrote: I'm at a loss here:
The commentators are saying Bisu is losing because he's playing it safe, while his newer, younger opponents are going for all-ins and succeed.
How do you defend yourself from all-in cheese? By playing safe, right? Scouting thoroughly, making the proper amount of defense, and not cutting corners.
So now, playing safe against all-in is BAD? What are you supposed to do to counter cheese then?
By all conventional SC:BW theory, Bisu has the perfect idea: he's better than his opponents in raw skill and mechanics. The only way he'll lose is to some cheese that he isn't ready for. So, he plays super-safe, defends against the cheese, then moves to late game where his superior skill takes over.
BUT, according to everyone in this thread and the commentators, aiming for a long-term macro game doesn't favor the player with better skill now?
Playing safe as in extremely standard, and super standard builds are safe because they do not completely commit to anything. If you play like this every game then your opponents can exploit you with crafted all-in builds that are tempered to specifically work against what you do, or they can exploit you by playing greedier because they know you won't be able to do anything about it. In example, if a T goes 1rax fe every single TvZ, a Zerg can exploit it by going 3hatch before pool. If a Terran goes siege expand every single TvP, then a Protoss can go 12nexus. If a Zerg goes 12hatch 11pool every ZvT, then a Terran can go 14cc, etc.
go.go took this to the extremes with his recent games against Bisu. Even though go.go's TvP is balls compared to Bisu's PvT skills, by the way go.go abused Bisu with his opening builds was gross.
So, if I'm understanding this correctly, here's what you guys are saying:
Even if you know you're more skilled and a better player than your opponent, you can't always hope to play safe and take it to the late game where your superior macro wins the game.
Sometimes, even against opponents you know you're better than, you still have to go for cheesey, all-in builds, simply to keep your opponents honest.
So, the answer to success is that sometimes Flash must play like Flash, and every once in a while he must play like Kwanro?
Then, the answer to Bisu's slump is to just have him cheese more, in a random and unpredictable fashion, so people can't get a read on his build orders and design sniping BOs when him?
Somehow, I doubt it's as simple as this. If it were, I'm sure someone on the SKT1 team would have figured it out by now. His coach could just order him to mix in proxy double gate in a game or two of proleague or the MSL/OSL.
There must be some fundamental aspect to Bisu's play that is slipping, besides simply not using all-in build orders.
On March 30 2010 06:02 madcow305 wrote: I'm at a loss here:
The commentators are saying Bisu is losing because he's playing it safe, while his newer, younger opponents are going for all-ins and succeed.
How do you defend yourself from all-in cheese? By playing safe, right? Scouting thoroughly, making the proper amount of defense, and not cutting corners.
So now, playing safe against all-in is BAD? What are you supposed to do to counter cheese then?
By all conventional SC:BW theory, Bisu has the perfect idea: he's better than his opponents in raw skill and mechanics. The only way he'll lose is to some cheese that he isn't ready for. So, he plays super-safe, defends against the cheese, then moves to late game where his superior skill takes over.
BUT, according to everyone in this thread and the commentators, aiming for a long-term macro game doesn't favor the player with better skill now?
Playing safe as in extremely standard, and super standard builds are safe because they do not completely commit to anything. If you play like this every game then your opponents can exploit you with crafted all-in builds that are tempered to specifically work against what you do, or they can exploit you by playing greedier because they know you won't be able to do anything about it. In example, if a T goes 1rax fe every single TvZ, a Zerg can exploit it by going 3hatch before pool. If a Terran goes siege expand every single TvP, then a Protoss can go 12nexus. If a Zerg goes 12hatch 11pool every ZvT, then a Terran can go 14cc, etc.
go.go took this to the extremes with his recent games against Bisu. Even though go.go's TvP is balls compared to Bisu's PvT skills, by the way go.go abused Bisu with his opening builds was gross.
So, if I'm understanding this correctly, here's what you guys are saying:
Even if you know you're more skilled and a better player than your opponent, you can't always hope to play safe and take it to the late game where your superior macro wins the game.
Sometimes, even against opponents you know you're better than, you still have to go for cheesey, all-in builds, simply to keep your opponents honest.
So, the answer to success is that sometimes Flash must play like Flash, and every once in a while he must play like Kwanro?
Then, the answer to Bisu's slump is to just have him cheese more, in a random and unpredictable fashion, so people can't get a read on his build orders and design sniping BOs when him?
Somehow, I doubt it's as simple as this. If it were, I'm sure someone on the SKT1 team would have figured it out by now. His coach could just order him to mix in proxy double gate in a game or two of proleague or the MSL/OSL.
There must be some fundamental aspect to Bisu's play that is slipping, besides simply not using all-in build orders.
You are seem to think that there are only safe builds and all-in or cheese builds, when there are actually many levels between the two. Bisu plays too safe, but that does not mean he isn't proxy gating. It just means that he will not cut probes for a timing attack, or skip a production cycle to get a fast third nexus. There are a lot of ways to play less safe without being all-in.
You know what's weird about all this talk of Bisu playing safe? It's that his most troublesome matchup is PvT. And guess who has the safest, most technical style of PvT in the world? Stork, who also happens to be the best at it.
I think the problem with Bisu playing safe is simply that he lacks the management to pull it off. He lacks Stork and Flash's impeccable late game decision-making and map awareness. So in that sense he stops playing to his strengths at times when he's playing safe. I would even say this about Jaedong, who I feel is at his best when he's on the offensive. Gotta use that APM advantage to your benefit.
I always thought of Bisu (and Jaedong) as a person who mostly tends to copy good builds and plays from others and focus on executing them extremely well. Stork always looked like the more creative player (and especially his PvT understanding has always looked better).
I love Bisu's playstyle though, it's exciting IMO. He's my favorite player for that reason and for his successful career. Even when he plays a predictable build, he or his opponent makes it exciting for me. I hope he starts owning again, it's his turn now that Flash has delivered what had been expected of him for some time.
Im really anxious to see his level of play in his MSL group. If he cant perform in his best matchup then Im not sure how well he will do in PvZ or his "achilles heel" PvT. After watching him in Hyungjoons show, you can really tell his personality isnt very outgoing and he takes every loss hard so hopefully we can see him dominate again or at least be a contender.
On March 31 2010 01:55 skronch wrote: wow....kingdom has absolutely no reservations about completely ripping into bisu. it's funny to hear all these comments after bisu has been heralded for so long for being a revolutionist and creative in his build orders
he was only revolutionist and creative for one set. that set against savior oh so long ago. but now, he's been rather...bland.
with the level of bisu's multitasking, i think playing safe takes some of the advantages away. basically, playing safe gives less skilled players more an advantage over their level of play while the same safe play takes some of the advantage from players like bisu, with the result of equalizing the skills of two players who are on the opposite side of the spectrum.
it's not that bisu is losing because he plays safe, he could just as well lose if he were to take risks.
Bisu wasnt playing bad. he already won that game, but then he somehow lost this. it remembered me of those games against Iris some seasons before. being a bit lucky, he could have been in the finals. but those mistakes or wrong decisions or whatever...
On April 08 2010 22:41 imperator-xy wrote: Bisu wasnt playing bad. he already won that game, but then he somehow lost this. it remembered me of those games against Iris some seasons before. being a bit lucky, he could have been in the finals. but those mistakes or wrong decisions or whatever...
Bisu was playing bad, Movie should have won the first game if it wasnt for dts.
He did, the only thing that saved him from the 1st game is 2x luck. You watch the game later and you will realised. He just got lucky at a very critical time. It was not planned or timed. The old bisu would probably timed these 2 attacks..
On April 08 2010 22:41 imperator-xy wrote: Bisu wasnt playing bad. he already won that game, but then he somehow lost this. it remembered me of those games against Iris some seasons before. being a bit lucky, he could have been in the finals. but those mistakes or wrong decisions or whatever...
Bisu was playing bad, Movie should have won the first game if it wasnt for dts.
i couldnt fully watch game 1, but in his second game against movie he was literally the old bisu until a certain time. then he started sucking and lost that big advantage that he had to have turned into a win.
On March 29 2010 15:46 MountainDewJunkie wrote: It's the same thing as the Savior "slump:" Bisu hasn't gotten any worse, the competition has just been steadily improving. Then comes the subsequent psychological missteps that fool one into thinking that he could be "worse." Kim and Kingdom can see this as well (how insane multitasking is now just "standard").
Bisu getting knocked out of the OSL is not new, and I say he's still a force in proleague; it's the REST of SKT that's making this whole thing worse, the team being quite inept without Bisu and only adding pressure.
You are wrong in that Bisu is not getting worse. It's not his mechanics that is taking the biggest hit, his mechanics are still simply fantastic and so is his macro. It's just his decision making and micro have been really horrible lately.
No one said he is. But the thing is, Bisu never "reinvented" himself.
Stork was slumping hard, complained about zerg imba, then what did he do? He started working out(always good in terms of energy), came out with a ton of new strategies for PvZ, realized that zerg players have improved, raised his APM, and now he's arguably the best PvZ player in the game.
Flash for a long time was an S-class player who just seem to always come up short. And what does he do? He tried early game aggressions reminiscent of his early career. And likely with the help of ForGG, started using an assortment of 2-base timing pushes which were simply insane to counter given his decision-making. Now Flash is more or less invincible.
The point is you can't play a certain way forever. Because people will eventually catch up. And Bisu needs to figure that out and reinvent himself again. Add nuances to his game that will keep his opponents guessing.
Bisu's decision making in his 2nd game was lacking. If he played a bit more conservative and conserved his units and resources instead of trying to counter push after the first battle he would have been at such a large advantage. And thats not even mentioning those reavers he should have sniped. >_<
IMO it's more a question of overconfidence than lacking game sense. Two years ago, Bisu could probably get away with a lot more risk-taking because he had better micro and multitask than everyone else. He's still really good, but some of those risks don't pay off any more. Watching him play against Movie in game 3 made me think that if he just played a bit safer, he'd win for sure, but it looked like he was doing things that he thought would because they used to work, and they didn't. (I mean things like moving out with a smaller army than his opponent... maybe he's expecting to win the micro battle, but Movie just forced him back and inflicted losses which compounded the problem. Bisu was ahead in gateway count the whole time but always had fewer units anyway because each engagement favored Movie.)
On March 29 2010 05:34 integral wrote: lol the commentators' analysis seems a bit off in places. bisu won WCG 2009 pretty handily, and yeah he's not looked as good since then, but he's only played 19 games in 2010 and his "slump" winrate is 50%. Bisu is fine, he's just not as dominant anymore. Other players are catching up to where the differences aren't as pronounced.
The only player who seems immune to this parity is flash, who is raping everyone left and right.
50% isn't "fine" for a top player who was in a discussion with the bonjwas. 50% = congrats, wanna play in proleague now?
Whatever, This MSL is looking so shitty, Bisu does not need nor want this MSL anyways. He will lead the team to proleague finals again. Bisu is not gonna turn up like Savior.
I am not in denial. I am not in denial. I am not in denial.
At least he got rid of the supersaiyan wanna be hair. So thats a +.
On April 09 2010 04:21 lone_hydra wrote: Whatever, This MSL is looking so shitty, Bisu does not need nor want this MSL anyways. He will lead the team to proleague finals again. Bisu is not gonna turn up like Savior.
I am not in denial. I am not in denial. I am not in denial.
At least he got rid of the supersaiyan wanna be hair. So thats a +.
On April 09 2010 10:00 Slow Motion wrote: Kingdom : "What Bisu was good at doing was copying and modifying builds Stork and Kal used previously to win games and making it better."
Wait, isn't this all Stork and Kal's fault? Christ, get some better build orders for Bisu to use, you lazy noobs.
EPT
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