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Those of you who enjoyed my previous translation regarding "BvZ" can find it here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=170973
I 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.
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On June 21 2011 16:59 Funnytoss wrote: Among veteran players, Bisu is one of the humble ones.
sorry, what? :D :D
gj btw. appreciate it!
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Russian Federation4405 Posts
== Hard Counters == * [[5 pool]]
:D
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United Kingdom16710 Posts
On June 21 2011 17:15 _Quasar_ wrote: == Hard Counters == * [[5 pool]]
:D Add OSL zergs to that list. ^^;;
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74% career PvZ... damn that is good.
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How to play BvZ! - Have 400 EAPM and impeccable decision making. Quite simple, really.
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Russian Federation905 Posts
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On June 21 2011 17:58 Sovetsky Soyuz wrote:Hard Counter: Shine Not really...no. He has been losing all the recent matches to Bisu.
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i love reading articles about bisu. makes me love him more :3
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On June 21 2011 18:13 chisuri wrote:Not really...no. He has been losing all the recent matches to Bisu.
bisu:
5-5 against shine 9-5 against jaedong 3-4 against zero
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On June 21 2011 17:58 Sovetsky Soyuz wrote:Hard Counter: hyvaa
Fixed
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It's sad that we don't see too much harassment from Bisu lately, but he's replaced it with a much more stable and consistent style: Good decision making.
His understanding of PvZ is clearly a level above the rest, but when it comes down to it it's actually not that complicated: Good scouting, sound decision making. Easier said than done though, I suppose. His unit control is really what makes him so effective, it seems like he sees out of all of his units' eyes at once.
Hyvva was unfortunate, but really, no one has a 100% win rate in any match up. Hyvva played some pretty flawless vP. It's much better for someones losses to come from great play from his opponents, rather than inconsistent floundering.
I do find it funny that it keeps happening in the OSL though.
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Since JD is also a throwover, hes being too honest. :D I thought Bisu was reserved.
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For exceeding where all others have failed so hard... greatest player ever!
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119-50 cannot be 74.4%.. there is a mistake there. 150-50 is just 0.6% higher, and it's 31 more wins straight lol. Anyway, I really hope Jaedong can soon make Bisu say 'lol no zerg bothers me of course.. except JD but is that really not obvious enough that I have to mention it?'
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Thanks for the translation. Interesting read re KTY.
I'm sure the hotkeys help, but for me it's his scouting and decision-making that are his strengths (though not in the 3rd Hyvaa game the other night when he decided to double expo..still, everybody's human).
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Thanks for the translation.
While Bisu's new style of PvZ is working wonders for him, harassment based strategies are much more fun to watch.
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Among veteran players, Bisu is one of the humble ones.
Because there are no OSL wins to be proud of
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On June 21 2011 21:46 Caos2 wrote: Thanks for the translation.
While Bisu's new style of PvZ is working wonders for him, harassment based strategies are much more fun to watch. Really? I find it utterly boring when the protoss flies a shuttle around for 10 minutes and kills some drones, then loses pathetically when he suddenly realizes he has no army while the zerg starts streaming cracklings from five bases. Bisu's way of out-muscling zergs is a beautiful thing to watch.
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[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. I think I'd interpret that as meaning you want your Zealots in a separate control group so you can use them properly. They're a very powerful unit but most Protoss clump them up with their whole army, which means their aggregate of attack is much lower. It's kind of like how Terran make medic walls to block lings at the front.
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On June 21 2011 22:09 Chef wrote:Show nested quote +[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. I think I'd interpret that as meaning you want your Zealots in a separate control group so you can use them properly. They're a very powerful unit but most Protoss clump them up with their whole army, which means their aggregate of attack is much lower. It's kind of like how Terran make medic walls to block lings at the front.
The zealots are definitely in a different control group much like you have it in PvT, but having the HT in their own group makes it easier to smartcast. I know when I attack move my group of goon+obs+HT, what happens is that the obs go too far forward and get sniped, and as my goons stop to engage the HT just keep on walking forward and I end up getting maybe 3 storms off max before they all die. Having them all in different control groups (or at least, with some overlap) makes for tougher army control, but more effectiveness if you can do it right.
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Thanks for the translation!
Will start working on my Bisufication, no one will stop me in the ladder.
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iNfeRnaL
Germany1908 Posts
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.
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Japan11286 Posts
Well, bisu didn't say that much because he can't just give the secrets of BvZ to some random guy. Its like giving a guy in the street, launch codes for a nuke.
I will now pwn zergs left and right now that I have been..... enlightened XD
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iNfeRnaL
Germany1908 Posts
On June 21 2011 23:02 c3rberUs wrote: ...now that I have been..... enlightened XD chances are nobody might see you if so...
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On June 21 2011 22:52 iNfeRnaL wrote: 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. Nothing wrong with that, its Bisu, gods gift to BW after all.
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On June 21 2011 23:19 Oystein wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 22:52 iNfeRnaL wrote: 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. Nothing wrong with that, its Bisu, gods gift to BW after all.
Bisu: Winning the battles, losing the war.
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Thanks so much for the writeup Infernal.
I started translating it once I saw the title, and I was initially a little let down by how deceptively simple it appeared to be, but after some deeper thought I realized that really, those are the keys that separate him from the rest, though your analysis of his precise BOs is quite on too. I definitely wanted to elaborate more on the article because I felt that words like "scouting" didn't accurately capture what he was talking about. Like you said, there's so much more to his PvZ that has to be experienced, but I didn't feel it was my place as translator to put that in, but rather (as you did, quite well) dig deeper in the comments.
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Amazing writeup Infernal.
To sum it up, nobody can play the same style than Bisu in PvZ because it requires GODLY multitasking. Infernal pointed out several of Bisu qualities, but PvZ is such a dynamic matchup, with so many things happening at a given time, that you just can't be an amazing player without amazing multitasking, no matter how good your game sense, understanding of the game or whatever is.
Bisu being such an outstading player with such poor results only makes it obvious to me how fragile the protoss race is.
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The "how to play" part is funny because I'm sure lots of other professional Protoss players have the idea but simply cannot make it happen due to lacking something (be it multitask prowess, game sense, or whatnot). Much more the average Toss player hehehe
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On June 22 2011 00:01 lone_hydra wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 23:19 Oystein wrote:On June 21 2011 22:52 iNfeRnaL wrote: 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. Nothing wrong with that, its Bisu, gods gift to BW after all. Bisu: Winning the battles, losing the war.
I hate you so much for being right
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Hard Counter Hyvaa? Hard counter is Stork. I think stork has gone 6-0 against Bisu in past 6 games.
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Bisutopia19257 Posts
One of the best articles on TL. I approve! Go BISU!!!!
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Thank you for the writeup Infernal. I learned almost nothing from the original article; I understood just why Bisu succeeds in PvZ from your post.
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holy hell, this is exactly what i need... Gona re work on my hotkeys system...
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If his map control, game sense, and scouting is so good in PvZ, why doesn't this skill translate to PvT? Isn't PvZ more multitasking oriented while PvT more positionally oriented, and if he has good positioning in PvZ, then why not in PvT?
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Thanks for translating! Bisu's PvZ is so mystifying!
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iNfeRnaL
Germany1908 Posts
On June 22 2011 06:46 Raz0r wrote: If his map control, game sense, and scouting is so good in PvZ, why doesn't this skill translate to PvT? Isn't PvZ more multitasking oriented while PvT more positionally oriented, and if he has good positioning in PvZ, then why not in PvT? PvT unit control is very very different from PvZ - such is positioning, believe me. Bisu isn't patient enough that's his biggest weakness - and unfortunately in PvT you really need to be patient sometimes.
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On June 22 2011 02:14 Release wrote: Hard Counter Hyvaa? Hard counter is Stork. I think stork has gone 6-0 against Bisu in past 6 games. Because we're talking about his PvZ and Stork obviously plays Z, right?
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On June 21 2011 23:19 Oystein wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 22:52 iNfeRnaL wrote: 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. Nothing wrong with that, its Bisu, gods gift to BW after all.
When did Bisu became Flash's gift to BW?!
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3030 Posts
Thanks for translation. Very interesting to read.
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On June 22 2011 06:46 Raz0r wrote: If his map control, game sense, and scouting is so good in PvZ, why doesn't this skill translate to PvT? Isn't PvZ more multitasking oriented while PvT more positionally oriented, and if he has good positioning in PvZ, then why not in PvT? He suicides into tanks far too often to be successful, makes errors like stasis at the front which creates wall between tanks at back and his army, etc.
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On June 22 2011 06:46 Raz0r wrote: If his map control, game sense, and scouting is so good in PvZ, why doesn't this skill translate to PvT? Isn't PvZ more multitasking oriented while PvT more positionally oriented, and if he has good positioning in PvZ, then why not in PvT?
because bisu is most notorious for his multitasking and harass. zergs usually have 3 bases all over the map and are forced to focus on defending them
on the other hand, terrans just need to plant mines and siege up in their main and their nat, and harass damage will be minimal.
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On June 22 2011 06:46 Raz0r wrote: If his map control, game sense, and scouting is so good in PvZ, why doesn't this skill translate to PvT? Isn't PvZ more multitasking oriented while PvT more positionally oriented, and if he has good positioning in PvZ, then why not in PvT?
I remember there was an interview in which Bisu talked about PvT being somewhat difficult because he found it hard to keep tabs on what the Terran was doing, since turrets limit information greatly. Since that's such a key to his play in PvZ, that could be one reason for the lack of success in the PvT matchup. If you watch Stork's replays, you'll notice that his observer placement is excellent, and that's something Bisu should definitely learn from him.
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On June 21 2011 22:52 iNfeRnaL wrote: 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.
I also love bisu, nothing wrong to send him love letters. Also that I learned to p v z watching ur vods from TSL1.
Just wanted to add on how awesome/different bisu and his p v z is. His main strength is that his scouting and multitasking allow him to do stuff that other protosses just can't do. It all starts from early game. If zerg doesn't have more than 4 lings he will send out his first zea to one natural while lings are chasing probes in the other. If zerg notices and pumps 2-4 more lings be sure bisu will know about it and pull his zea back, delaying zerg's eco a bit. That is the kind of small things that eventually build up into his awesome timings.
Later in the game, he will send a zea raid somewhere just to distract, while at the same time he is doing a templar drop AND taking a 3rd, which he can safely do because zerg will be too busy to even notice. His insane multitasking allows him to do that without piling up any money. If it is not safe to expand he will know and put down more gates and push for a timing atack which will most likely be successful.
Basically he scouts very well, which allows him to make very good decisions, and because of his insane multi tasking he can pull more elaborated strategies than other protosses (i.e harras in 2 places while expanding)
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I'm just going to write a bit of an analysis on his vZ and why it's not as clear-cut as it seems. All opinions of course and i'd be happy to hear if you think otherwise.
Firstly let's note ZerO beat him very cleanly and squarely recently even at a disadvantage. So the simple answer is, just play better. My first point is: even Bisu's vZ isn't THAT perfect it just appears he overwhelms so many inferior opponents with mechanics, but just like his vT it still breaks down somewhat when it comes to unit composition, tactical positioning and other little things, definitely mistakes sometimes strategy wise. Also his admittedly excellent stats are padded by the fact he just constantly gets to play weak Zerg's in PL, and probably gets his choice of map and matchup in proleague always planned well ahead of time. So you have a situation where the single best well practiced PvZ just has a constant line-up of victims to smash through. Because of his position on SKT1 he's immediately in a good place to be stomping Zergs.
Now onto my second point, if we are to talk about beating him (even if there is no special trick). Let's first discuss why he wins so easily much of the time. Imo it's because most zerg's cannot handle a heavy upgraded group or sairs being constantly micro'd while Bisu is also maintaining good army comp, movement, spells AND macro/expanding/scouting. Most Protoss can only do 2 of 3, while Bisu is maybe the ONLY Protoss who can do this to it's full degree. I'm going to consider those 3 elements the main part of a Bisu-style corsair heavy PvZ. Other P because of their abilities either make too many mistakes for this to be a strong enough strategy, or they pick strategies which only need heavily 2/3 elements to lessen the mechanical difficultly. My theory for PvZ is execution of the 3 elements at once and how much they are being used to their potential.
As an aside I might write a theory of these 3 elements sometime as it makes perfect sense to me; as how some players use prehaps the majority of their might in just 1 element like Horang2 (macro) to gain wins, while others like Snow use sometimes just (multitask/harass). Every Protoss imo has their own ratio between the 3 elements. (depending on what build order they use too).
I'm not going to extend on my elements Theory for Zerg because it doesn't suit their style at all. For a long time the multitask/harass element (we'll call it 3) was the cause of PvZ domination. Most above average Z's eventually managed to counter 3 generally quite well and swing the favor back. Now back to Bisu, his overall elements have all improved while no other P shows the same signs of improvement. When a Zerg plays Bisu in a standard game they simply have not had the practice standard or experience in trying to deal with a P who has an all around consistent elements. They are used to practicing against people making big harass mistakes, fail on macro or cannot keep their army composition correct. If Bisu ever gets to a BO with a Zerg and the more BO PvZ's we see in the future hopefully the more other players evolve and catch up to his level.
Also as a quick strategical idea, maybe just as a hypothetical someone could use some kind of unexpected ensnare timing and catch the sairs totally offguard, then immediately switch to air dominance. I dunno what all the timings would be like but the general game plan i guess would be to hold as best you can as normal, lull him into his normal air dominance (and keep the fake threat up with mutalisks still existing), then suddenly hit him at the right time, take air dominance, muta harass everywhere maybe even go to greater spire and go really crazy? :D
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iNfeRnaL
Germany1908 Posts
On June 22 2011 08:50 infinity2k9 wrote: .........
Some nice theorycraft included, nothing more nothing less..  The thread isn't called how to beat BvZ, tho!
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On June 22 2011 06:59 Dagon wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2011 23:19 Oystein wrote:On June 21 2011 22:52 iNfeRnaL wrote: 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. Nothing wrong with that, its Bisu, gods gift to BW after all. When did Bisu became Flash's gift to BW?!
EEEW
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Enjoyed the translation and response, thansk!
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Excellent interview. Gave me a bit of motivation to play again. Fun fun game, definitly want to work on "standard" PvZ
This whole thread is good so I'll add my two cents on scouting:
I'll start with a short link: http://www.equipped.org/21-76/ch1.pdf
It's the introduction chapter of the US Army's survival guide and it contains a lot of psychological information that can help a RTS gamer.
Starts with an acronym:
"S - Size up the situation U - Use all your senses, undue haste makes waste R - Rember where you are V - Vanquish fear and panic I - Improvise V - Value living A - Act like the natives L - Live by wits, Learn basic skills"
While not all perfectly translate to a virtual game world, the information contained in each heading really helped my ability to "scout" and to handle "stressers".
Like Infernal said, most people don't know what scouting is and consider knowing what units are coming to be sufficent information. In BW where initial positioning determines so much of how you will micro. Look at your guys, look at the map and it's various pathways for armies to move, chokes to hold and ramps to block, etcetc. Are your melee units free to run at the enemy or do they have to run around your own forces to engage? Are your ranged units arced properly and do they have some room to back-step micro? Can you retreat quickly (bisu's "hotkeys" all help him do this shit)? Most importantly: do you know when, where and how the enemy is going to engage you? If you do then you have an advantage going into battle.
Each race has various different ways to do it but it's important. As a toss I keep my first probe alives as long as possible and then go with a second probe probably around 3:30 making pylons and keeping intel up slightly more than the game demands. But really, the biggest problem I see with most players today and scouting happens after this early game phase and when they get to command observers. They get an obs and don't actually scout their opponant. They kinda plop it into their opponants main and then forget about it (maybe) and I think this is what infernal was getting to. Just seeing buildings isn't fully utilizing an invisible flying machine but this is getting too protoss specific (although I guess it's a Bisu thread)
Hrm, done for now. Remember kids you can always get better!
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I think in terms of vZ, Bisu is probably one of those guys that really understands every detail of it. I was really impressed with a few games I watched where he actually prioritised zealot speed over +1 and attacked even before +1 was done.
The real magic about him is really the ability to be at so many places at one go and optimising every single advantage. I am very impressed with his initial probe scouting as well as corsair movement. Probably control that I've not ever seen in any P player.
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10387 Posts
Infinity2k9, Zero wasn't disadvantaged vs Bisu in that Neo Aztec game, especially since he deflected every attack by Bisu. Even if Protoss has 4-5 bases against a 4base turtle Zerg, he'll lose if he fails deny the fifth/sixth base of Zerg (unless Protoss is able to secure more bases himself), because Zerg is just much more efficient w/ its resource usage with that particular strategy.
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On June 24 2011 00:54 JMave wrote: I think in terms of vZ, Bisu is probably one of those guys that really understands every detail of it. I was really impressed with a few games I watched where he actually prioritised zealot speed over +1 and attacked even before +1 was done.
The real magic about him is really the ability to be at so many places at one go and optimising every single advantage. I am very impressed with his initial probe scouting as well as corsair movement. Probably control that I've not ever seen in any P player.
+1 Is explicitly meant to get an edge on zerglings, If the opponent is not depending on them much it is normal to prioritize speed over it imho.
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Ask Bisu how to play PvT. He'll probably just sadly shake his head and reply "I don't even know anymore..."
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On June 23 2011 21:51 iNfeRnaL wrote:Some nice theorycraft included, nothing more nothing less..  The thread isn't called how to beat BvZ, tho!
Yeah sorry i dunno why i wrote it when it's not actually related. Other P's playing like this is more important than beating it.
On June 24 2011 04:01 ArvickHero wrote: Infinity2k9, Zero wasn't disadvantaged vs Bisu in that Neo Aztec game, especially since he deflected every attack by Bisu. Even if Protoss has 4-5 bases against a 4base turtle Zerg, he'll lose if he fails deny the fifth/sixth base of Zerg (unless Protoss is able to secure more bases himself), because Zerg is just much more efficient w/ its resource usage with that particular strategy.
Well regardless of how the strategy played out, can you really say it's not a disadvantage to have equal or less bases as a Zerg for a long period of time? Of course Bisu threw away any benefit with his constant attacks up the ramp. But theoretically it still was an advantage wasn't it? He could have turtled himself then went reaver/archon free-style or something with that huge amount of gas.
I see the game as ZerO taking advantage from well defend 4th base opening, which was slowly being broken away until it went way over to Bisu's side, then it got to a point where it snapped straight way back into ZerO's favour.
![[image loading]](http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/4756/zerobisu.png)
This is sort of how i felt advantage was, roughly no science here haha.
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On June 24 2011 04:24 ninazerg wrote: Ask Bisu how to play PvT. He'll probably just sadly shake his head and reply "I don't even know anymore..."
Are you one of those guys that just cling to the old "Bisu sucks vT" stuffs w/o actually watching the games?
When was the last time u see him lose to a non-Flash T?
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On June 24 2011 08:40 ffreakk wrote:Show nested quote +On June 24 2011 04:24 ninazerg wrote: Ask Bisu how to play PvT. He'll probably just sadly shake his head and reply "I don't even know anymore..." Are you one of those guys that just cling to the old "Bisu sucks vT" stuffs w/o actually watching the games? When was the last time u see him lose to a non-Flash T?
March 14th!
/answering a rhetorical question
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"Just use corsairs like I do" is similar to hearing a great artist say, "Just draw like I do, isn't that easy?"
Best Part - EVER !!!
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Why is Bisu "Not Ranked" on the ELO board? o.O
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