EPTI found a relatively new article recently on BvZ (wfbrood) and decided to translate it, given that PvZ isn't nearly the same as it was back in November when I translated the earlier article. Both are still worth reading though, imo.
This article doesn't analyze his strategy nearly as in-depth, but it's great if only because it gives us a glimpse of what's going on in Bisu's head when he plays PvZ.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/I2cWz.jpg)
The PvZ Revolutionist! Bisu is known for his excellent PvZ, with precise attacks and dazzling harassment!
"Protoss have historically fared poorly against Zerg, but somehow you seem to have this matchup solved?"
Bisu responds. "Just play as well as you can, hahaha."
"Please! T.T"
"Alright then. The most important thing is..."
Bisu, the best PvZ player in the universe.
As SKT's ace player and its representative Protoss, Bisu has an excellent PvZ winrate, leaving everyone in awe - how else would he be praised as "Taek Shin" by his fellow progamers? Of course, as a Protoss that the others look up to, he is also the target for Zerg snipers. Recently KT's Action tried and failed, continuing a trend in which ZvP specialists say they "want to play against Bisu". The result? Much as expected [T/N: keep in mind this was written before the OSL Preliminaries T_T]
If only looking at PvZ, in the 10-11 Proleague Bisu has gone 28-4, an 87% winrate. In 2011, he has only lost 3 times in 22 PvZs. His overall record is also astonishing - 169 matches, going 119-50, 70.4%. [T/N: I fail at math]
With such results, it's easy to understand such a Protoss saying "I've been lucky, facing Zergs consistently." Most Zergs, when faced with Protoss, consider themselves lucky, but this attitude is null when Bisu is involved.
Ever since his debut in 2005, Bisu has stayed on top of PvZ. How does he do it? In recent interviews, when asked this question, he responds, "just practice". But after some probing, Bisu relented a little bit and unveiled a glimpse of his secret, hoping that fellow Protoss would listen carefully.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/0Nrf2.jpg)
Bisu's keys to victory: Unit hotkeying, Corsair control, and expanding.
"I'm not going to tell most people how I do it in PvZ".
Surprisingly, the first thing Bisu discusses is "hotkeying". While he won't reveal all his secrets here, Bisu has his own system for hotkeying that hasn't changed much since his days as an amateur - much like a restaurant's "secret recipe".
"Those were the days of Lost Temple. The prevailing Zerg strategy of the day was the frustrating Mass Hydra. I found it difficult to defeat this composition at the time so I thought about it for awhile, and carefully adjusted the way I hotkeyed my control groups. The style I use now is what I created then. The key is putting High Templar, observers, Dragoons, etc. into their own groups."
Bisu is known for his handspeed and APM even among the pros, with smooth and precise control. Our reporter observed Bisu's first-person view before, and was speechless - it was simply incredible.
Next is "corsair control". It appears that Bisu is quite fond of corsairs. Thinking back to his first MSL championship - his corsairs were like sharp daggers cutting easily through the universe. Indeed, the answer is: corsairs.
"Corsairs provide you the advantage of consistent scouting the opponent, allowing you to formulate a response. Mutalisks are strong units, but if the Zerg is Hydra-heavy,then you just have to go Overlord-hunting. I feel that once you accumulate critical mass, they're invincible. And so I use corsairs with much confidence, and they work well with me."
In actuality, Bisu's style is difficult to emulate - particularly for amateurs - largely because of his corsair control. Hearing him say, "Just use corsairs like I do" is similar to hearing a great artist say, "Just draw like I do, isn't that easy?" Whether or not one is capable of learning his secrets is a mind-turner.
Afterwards, when asked "is harassment the key?", Bisu shakes his head. "I don't really advocate harassing much now. [T/N: really? O_O] Zerg has perfected their anti-harassment defenses" he says. "The key is expansion timing." Though Bisu plays a bit differently than he used to, no longer hitting hard with DT drops or reaver harassment, he still expands at will, utilizing small numbers of zealots complementing Corsair pressure.
To put it simply, Bisu's point is that combining smart unit hotkeying, corsair scouting, and expansion timing is necessary to defeat the Zerg. Of course, that would leave the average Protoss rather unsatisfied. So, one more thing. When asked what his favorite unit aside from the corsair was, Bisu responded, "I like DTs too... but really, probes!" Aha. Here we have a key to understanding Bisu's PvZ.
Bisu emphasizes that the information gleamed with his probe scout is as vital as that from corsairs, in keeping tabs on the opponent and responding correctly. After confirming with Bisu and organizing his responses a bit, we have this: probes are critical in scouting Hatchery-level Zerg, corsairs for Lair-level, "high-tech units" for Hive-level. And expansion timing is important.
Does Bisu have any Zerg he struggles against? "Sorry, none at the moment".
Our reporter asks Bisu, who has revealed his secrets as well as he can, a careful question.
"Do you find aggressive Zergs harder to play against, or macro-Zergs?"
Against the former, just hold them off and you can win. Against macro-Zergs, use the scouting information you get from your corsairs and respond correctly, so it's easy too."
While in retrospect, it seemed a foolish question, our reporter asks another silly question.
"Even so, which Zerg player to you find a tough opponent?" [T/N: SHINE?]
"At the moment, no one. I just have confidence in my PvZ."
Among veteran players, Bisu is one of the humble ones. But part of his charm comes through his sincerity. The combination of humbleness and sincerity forms a very special form of charm, and that's what makes Bisu appealing. He does not say that he doesn't find Zergs challenging, not because of arrogance, but because it is pretty much the truth.
In closing... in the history of StarCraft, there have been a number of excellent Protoss players. It's hard to rank them. But one thing's for certain - one can say with utmost confidence who the best PvZ player of all time, with no hesitation. "The Revolutionist".
[T/N: Basically, it seems smart hotkey usage, allowing for storms when and where you need them, plus complete scouting information is how Bisu does it. Good scouting tells you when it's safe to expand and when you should attack, and the distinct hotkeys make it easier for you to execute your attack. Personally, I have this bad habit of putting my goons, obs, and HT into the same control group for the ease of moving around the map, but then I tend to lose my obs easily, and find it hard to select and storm with HT fast enough. A difference in things to focus on, I suppose?]
Source: wfbrood
EDIT: Excellent further elaboration on BvZ by Infernal!
+ Show Spoiler +
Well that article was less than I expected it to be.
Basically it just was a longer writeup than usual that says: some of Bisu's biggest strenghts in PvZ are his saircontrol, probecontrol and hilarious multitasking. I won't even count that "control group" thingy as it is obvious to put goon/temp in same group and zealots seperately. Literally every Protoss over C does that. I could write a lot more about Bisu's PvZ because as far as that gets as a foreigner [and obviously a lot worse] my style really IS Bisu's style in PvZ because he's the guy I taught myself everything off. Also he is the main reason why I love sairs.
It's really so much more to his PvZ than most people even can understand, it's kind of hard to explain.
Bisu never misses a probe, pylon or anything, even the way he sets up his workers follows the same setup. And that's where the magic already starts.
How many games you saw Bisu hitting with ~8 Zealots and even +1 on those when the Zerg literally had 10 lings and 1 sunken, leaving you wondering why a Progamer does play like a little C+ noobek?
It's just that timing, seriously, Bisu is not innovative when it comes down to "creating" own buildorders - in fact the atual Bisu build should becalled the "DaezanG build" - but in perfectionizing them.
And be sure he's hilariously good at it.
So good that it leaves Zergs wondering how the FUCKING hell this guy could attack nearly 5 seconds faster than ANY other Protoss they ever play, even his sairs seem to always net atleast 2 overlord kills; sometimes a lot more.
It really really shows how good his buildorders are, you can't copy them and make them work as he does either. It's a perfect mix of timing, knowledge of how to abuse this very timing window to the maximum and the control to actually make all of this happen.
Imagine Stork - the arguably 2nd best person in PvZ to hit at his first zealstrike with at lets say 7:25? Well then progamers would be used to have this strike hit at say 7:27 because their practice partners are not Stork. Now Imagine Bisu. He's gonna hit them at 7:23 instead. 4 seconds are WORLDS in terms of buildorders.
The one thing I really have to agree with the OP's article with is the speed that is Bisu. You can't do the things he does if you're not that fast. Normal people do slight macro mistakes while harassing with the Zeals, keeping the sairs active 24/7 and expanding.
Obviously, there's lot's of things to do in this period of time. However, you could give Bisu twice as much to do and he'd still sit there and do it with a smile on his face. Atleast in PvZ.
He also has the sickest storming of them all in PvZ, which kind of comes naturally to you if you love PvZ tho, personally after 1,5 year in ToT), my storming was absurd good as well [funny note about it is that you'd fail completely against "bad" players sometimes trying to predict their movements], but the level of storming Bisu performs is sometimes seriously "imba".
You often think wtf, this guy seems to know where the opponent will go before he even moved, eh?
Erase the seem. He DOES know. That's what 10.000++++ PvZ do for you.
That's already one part where Bisu's biggest strenght really shines through. Game sense. This guy has senses they're better than your knowledge with a fucking maphack turned on.
Bisu keeps saying scout a lot with your sair. I think some people misunderstand that a lot.
We foreigners think of scouting as in: check opponents base for tech structures.
The most obvious scouting timing is before scourge pop and slightly after again to confirm no tech switch has been done.
There's 2-3 more such timings later on and that's about it with his actual "scouting"!
The rest he does with sairs is mapcontrol and ovi-harass which isn't actual "scouting" for tech but rather he to constantly keep track off the movement of your opponent!
Bisu most definitely always knows in which area the opposing army is currently residing in and adjusts his own army position according to information, if he has control of the middle.
This whole part is often totally overlooked - but that's all part of what a progamer considers "scouting".
I guess his macro needs little "explanation", he's just better at making units than almost every other Protoss (except Best, the waster) in PvZ - which is as the OP kind of explained - based on his expansion timings that allows him to always have some more units at a given time.
Reaver timing is incredibly important in PvZ nowadays btw - not something that hard to pull of tho.
The thing hardest to explain about Bisu is his decision making, he always knows when to retreat and when to engage a fight, with some of the most delicious micro on earth when actually doing so.
This is part of the reason why Bisu's decision making sometimes might seem a little odd and creates a lot of "wtf" moments. He perfectly knows on how to engage a line of lurkers with zealots so that only very few ones - except if the Zerg target fires - of them will hurt which makes him often plow through lines of those as if they we're nothing.
To even see and notice such things even in a VOD is hard for an untrained eye, now imagine how fucking hard it is to pull that off especially when you have 3 other controlgroups of units to micro, storms to put up, observers to dance and macro to do meanwhile...
Without being able to perform such micro actions simultaneously it's not really possible to do the decisions he does because if you can't - the correct decision for Bisu might just be the worst one possible for you.
To sum it up, if you want to be even nearly as good as Bisu in PvZ get used to the thought to have to play 10k of games against the very best Zergs of the world, then you might be able to understand but still not replicate the "how" he does it.
I could go on writing more and more on Bisu, but people might end up taking this as a personal love letter to Kim Taek Yong himself if so.
Basically it just was a longer writeup than usual that says: some of Bisu's biggest strenghts in PvZ are his saircontrol, probecontrol and hilarious multitasking. I won't even count that "control group" thingy as it is obvious to put goon/temp in same group and zealots seperately. Literally every Protoss over C does that. I could write a lot more about Bisu's PvZ because as far as that gets as a foreigner [and obviously a lot worse] my style really IS Bisu's style in PvZ because he's the guy I taught myself everything off. Also he is the main reason why I love sairs.
It's really so much more to his PvZ than most people even can understand, it's kind of hard to explain.
Bisu never misses a probe, pylon or anything, even the way he sets up his workers follows the same setup. And that's where the magic already starts.
How many games you saw Bisu hitting with ~8 Zealots and even +1 on those when the Zerg literally had 10 lings and 1 sunken, leaving you wondering why a Progamer does play like a little C+ noobek?
It's just that timing, seriously, Bisu is not innovative when it comes down to "creating" own buildorders - in fact the atual Bisu build should becalled the "DaezanG build" - but in perfectionizing them.
And be sure he's hilariously good at it.
So good that it leaves Zergs wondering how the FUCKING hell this guy could attack nearly 5 seconds faster than ANY other Protoss they ever play, even his sairs seem to always net atleast 2 overlord kills; sometimes a lot more.
It really really shows how good his buildorders are, you can't copy them and make them work as he does either. It's a perfect mix of timing, knowledge of how to abuse this very timing window to the maximum and the control to actually make all of this happen.
Imagine Stork - the arguably 2nd best person in PvZ to hit at his first zealstrike with at lets say 7:25? Well then progamers would be used to have this strike hit at say 7:27 because their practice partners are not Stork. Now Imagine Bisu. He's gonna hit them at 7:23 instead. 4 seconds are WORLDS in terms of buildorders.
The one thing I really have to agree with the OP's article with is the speed that is Bisu. You can't do the things he does if you're not that fast. Normal people do slight macro mistakes while harassing with the Zeals, keeping the sairs active 24/7 and expanding.
Obviously, there's lot's of things to do in this period of time. However, you could give Bisu twice as much to do and he'd still sit there and do it with a smile on his face. Atleast in PvZ.
He also has the sickest storming of them all in PvZ, which kind of comes naturally to you if you love PvZ tho, personally after 1,5 year in ToT), my storming was absurd good as well [funny note about it is that you'd fail completely against "bad" players sometimes trying to predict their movements], but the level of storming Bisu performs is sometimes seriously "imba".
You often think wtf, this guy seems to know where the opponent will go before he even moved, eh?
Erase the seem. He DOES know. That's what 10.000++++ PvZ do for you.
That's already one part where Bisu's biggest strenght really shines through. Game sense. This guy has senses they're better than your knowledge with a fucking maphack turned on.
Bisu keeps saying scout a lot with your sair. I think some people misunderstand that a lot.
We foreigners think of scouting as in: check opponents base for tech structures.
The most obvious scouting timing is before scourge pop and slightly after again to confirm no tech switch has been done.
There's 2-3 more such timings later on and that's about it with his actual "scouting"!
The rest he does with sairs is mapcontrol and ovi-harass which isn't actual "scouting" for tech but rather he to constantly keep track off the movement of your opponent!
Bisu most definitely always knows in which area the opposing army is currently residing in and adjusts his own army position according to information, if he has control of the middle.
This whole part is often totally overlooked - but that's all part of what a progamer considers "scouting".
I guess his macro needs little "explanation", he's just better at making units than almost every other Protoss (except Best, the waster) in PvZ - which is as the OP kind of explained - based on his expansion timings that allows him to always have some more units at a given time.
Reaver timing is incredibly important in PvZ nowadays btw - not something that hard to pull of tho.
The thing hardest to explain about Bisu is his decision making, he always knows when to retreat and when to engage a fight, with some of the most delicious micro on earth when actually doing so.
This is part of the reason why Bisu's decision making sometimes might seem a little odd and creates a lot of "wtf" moments. He perfectly knows on how to engage a line of lurkers with zealots so that only very few ones - except if the Zerg target fires - of them will hurt which makes him often plow through lines of those as if they we're nothing.
To even see and notice such things even in a VOD is hard for an untrained eye, now imagine how fucking hard it is to pull that off especially when you have 3 other controlgroups of units to micro, storms to put up, observers to dance and macro to do meanwhile...
Without being able to perform such micro actions simultaneously it's not really possible to do the decisions he does because if you can't - the correct decision for Bisu might just be the worst one possible for you.
To sum it up, if you want to be even nearly as good as Bisu in PvZ get used to the thought to have to play 10k of games against the very best Zergs of the world, then you might be able to understand but still not replicate the "how" he does it.
I could go on writing more and more on Bisu, but people might end up taking this as a personal love letter to Kim Taek Yong himself if so.
His unit control is really what makes him so effective, it seems like he sees out of all of his units' eyes at once. 
