After reading classicyellow83's post about the top 5 players in April, I noticed that Larva performed quite well relative to other Zerg players against the top 5. That made me curious to see how he has improved since classicyellow83 began making these posts. I went back and checked his monthly results against Bisu, Last, and FlaSh in particular from June 2016 to now (April 2017). Below in the first spoiler are the data I collected. For each month the number of games Larva won is on the left, and the number of games each of the top players won is on the right.
Current Cumulative Win Ratio (Total Larva Wins/Total Games From June 2016 - April 2017) Larva vs. Bisu: 30/113 = 0.265 Larva vs. Last: 44/169 = 0.260 Larva vs. FlaSh: 59/216 = 0.273
EDIT: I forgot to mention this means Larva wins roughly 1 game out of 4 against each of them on average.
If we plot the cumulative win ratio (CWR) versus month, we get the following graphs.
Note that the x-axis represents months after June 2016, and the y-axis represents Larva's cumulative win ratio to that point since June 2016. Just to be clear,
0 - June 2016 1 - July 2016 2 - August 2016 3 - September 2016 4 - October 2016 5 - November 2016 6 - December 2016 7 - January 2017 8 - February 2017 9 - March 2017 10 - April 2017
As you can see, he has improved significantly against Bisu, Last, and FlaSh since June 2016. It appears he had a New Year's resolution to become really great because he's played many more games against them since the start of 2017. People in the community seem to bash him for inflating the top players' stats, saying he'll never be that good, but I think he's seriously trying hard to improve. Despite constantly losing to these guys and getting frustrated, he never gives up and continues to get better. Honestly I think he is an inspiration. I'll update this post later when more data becomes available.
It's funny, at first he was inflating people's stats, but now he's actually making them worse. He's by going 10-19 he lowered Bisu's PvZ winrate. By going 16-35 against Flash, he made Flash's TvZ the lowest winrate matchup.
Sure, he has a losing record against all of the top players, but he's losing less to them than the field. I noticed this trend too, so I started watching his VODs.
I'm so sad Larva dropped at ASL group stages, I like his play and really wanted to see him in boX match. I wonder if he had done better if he was feeling better. Sometimes his ZvT is phenomenal and joy to watch, tho sometimes it's the opposite :D
I was watching some of Larva's games vs Last on CB and there was one game where he completely smashed Last with his first 11 mutas + zerglings. And the next game was a long macro game which he won with queens+ultra/ling+defliers. This guy is much better than people give him credit for.
On a more serious note, truly is an inspiration. Makes me feel so dumb for internally raging at some B- player who whooped my ass and playing like 10 games a week wondering why I'm still shit rofl.
Larva is great at practicing vs better players in a sense that he will find ways to improve and ultimately come up with a better gameplay vs that practice partner.
This was very clean when Bisu joined afreeca hè would crush larva 16-1 +/- larva kept fightingNd improved, later than on afreeca Bisu showed weakness in his pvz mu he dropped like 5 games vs a C level zerg Who splits the map and Will turtle hard until defiler is out only then to fight under darkswarm, Bisu at that time did all the wrong things to handle that type of zerg play ( taking center and investing into cannons ) while the center is an easy target for darkswarm 3-3 lurk ling defiler.
Around that time alot of epic 40min close games were played. Between larva & bisu where larva would adjust his style and always 4base split map vs Bisu in the end larva would win Some Bo3s even evening out scores more than before, not bad for a B-teamer vs the godly protoss
Larva is currently my favorite player and the first stream I open whenever I see him streaming. Massing games like no one, plays on incredibly high level, and his after-the-game antics are fun as hell (basically, way, way watered down version of TerrOr).
I really wish he would do well in official tournaments as well, but he never seems to play as good as he plays on his stream.
It's really weird. When I first saw Larva on ASL season 1 and 2 I was wondering how he got through. Then I found that he was actually a great player online with a bad case of stage nerves.
But for Last/Flash, if you take away the first 2 datapoints for each, the slope looks statistically insignificant and within error bounds so far. (I'm not a statistician so I can't comment on how much data you need for a >95% confidence interval, but I don't think we're there yet).
That being said I definitely hope for continued improvement. IIRC he was one of the "Gods of the Practice Room" right?
Thanks for posting, OP! (And thanks to iopq for pointing out that Larva is actually performing better than the field against top players in some instances.)
You've got to respect that practice ethic! Losing again and again is hard. Go Larva!
does the thumbs down gesture have a different meaning in korea than in the west? Ive seen it before from korean pros and found it odd. In Canada it means no or bad, thumbs up is yes or good.
Also i have a ton of respect for larvas resilience in practice, just wish he would play better on stage
On May 09 2017 09:02 FyRe_DragOn wrote: does the thumbs down gesture have a different meaning in korea than in the west? Ive seen it before from korean pros and found it odd. In Canada it means no or bad, thumbs up is yes or good.
Also i have a ton of respect for larvas resilience in practice, just wish he would play better on stage
Holy jeez, I didn't realize so many Larva fans were around. I guess this thread is dedicated to you guys.
On May 09 2017 04:43 thedeadhaji wrote: He's definitely improved vs Bisu.
But for Last/Flash, if you take away the first 2 datapoints for each, the slope looks statistically insignificant and within error bounds so far. (I'm not a statistician so I can't comment on how much data you need for a >95% confidence interval, but I don't think we're there yet).
That being said I definitely hope for continued improvement. IIRC he was one of the "Gods of the Practice Room" right?
Haha, you have a good point. From the graphs we can see that against Last and FlaSh, Larva pretty much has the same win ratio now as he did 7 months ago. The only thing that's changed is his win ratio against Bisu, which I think is a good thing. It'd suck if he got better vs. P and his skills vs. T suffered as a result. I feel like the opposite happened in the first 3 months: his win ratio against terran shot up but he lost 0:16 to Bisu, which made his win ratio vs. P plummet.
Anyways, I can't wait to see what happens next. From what people are saying, Larva seems to be crushing Terrans now, so I don't expect his vs. T win ratio to stay the same much longer. We'll see.
Yeah I think after Jaedong he is my favourite zerg player and as you mentioned he is very inspiring. What I like about him is that maybe he is not the most talented out there, but he is definitely a very hard worker. Right now he got beaten by Bisu 3-0. After that the standard 1 minute mental breakdown followed and he immediately asked Bisu for another set of games.
He keeps playing those best guys no matter how many times he loses and his winrates are slowly going up and up each month... and man some of those games vs Flash or Last are so brilliant that I think even Effort or Jaedong aren't capable of playing like that.
I wish one day he will be able to perform like this in offline tournament and join the top guys.
Nice thread, I love Larva! As mentioned, he seems to only do well off stream. His best result was back in the SSL days where he made the finals but lost to Killer. He's also beaten quite a bit of players and has been improving a lot. Hope he becomes a beast in offline because he deserves it!
If u like watching ZvT along with Larva i recommend Effort. It feels like he uses some new kind of muta micro technique which gives his mutas some extra range. He has an insane ZvT record lately and the highest APM around.
Maybe it feels like it, but there is no micro technique which would give you extra range (apart from the goons vs bunker scenario - that issue is because the bunker`s target area is an imperfect circle-like area). My bet is that he is plain and simply better at it than others / or he improved. PS.: Does the sunken bug still works?
On May 11 2017 19:26 toriak wrote: If u like watching ZvT along with Larva i recommend Effort. It feels like he uses some new kind of muta micro technique which gives his mutas some extra range. He has an insane ZvT record lately and the highest APM around.
It is the move-command technique that Jaedong needs to improve on. Larva is really good with this aswell.
Curious, was that a known technique back in 09-2010? I don't remember ever hearing about an extra range technique for mutas, would be curious if this was known since then as well or if that was a newer thing.
Not sure if it was known or not but I don't think it was used that much. Doesn't give extra range, just the ability to target fire at max range if applied correctly. Much like a targetted patrol attack.
You just a-click BEHIND the marine instead of in front of it, which makes muta micro feel smoother. I think it has something to do with mutas decelerating right before arriving, which a-click behind the target avoids because you basically command it to fly a longer distance.
This I observed around when Effort started streaming, how he always a-clicks behind marines which doesn't seem effective to me but for some reason, mutas instantly shoot (and more importantly always shoot, while a-click before the marine may prompt mutas to not shoot at all before you retreat), which because it is more reliable way to do it you can be 'more' greedy with pulling back, hence it 'appears' as if efforts mutas have longer range. Definitely a little harder to pull off since you have to travel a little bit longer with the mouse.
Example: For instance you are already near a marine with your mutas, but your mutas have to reangle if you are close and not facing the marine. Usually here they decelerate a little which is hard to see. This happens if you a-click before the marine. Instead you should a-click behind the marine so they won't decelerate.
edit: Though Effort also uses it with hold command. So he right click move command his mutas way behind the marine ball, and when he feels has enough distance to shoot against marines, he hold commands. This is effective if you feel like or need to kill a marine ball fast enough. For picking up single marines a-click behind
On May 09 2017 04:43 thedeadhaji wrote: He's definitely improved vs Bisu.
But for Last/Flash, if you take away the first 2 datapoints for each, the slope looks statistically insignificant and within error bounds so far. (I'm not a statistician so I can't comment on how much data you need for a >95% confidence interval, but I don't think we're there yet).
That being said I definitely hope for continued improvement. IIRC he was one of the "Gods of the Practice Room" right?
idk if Larva was one of the practice gods, maybe you're thinking of magma from estro? I think larva was a sought after semi pro though, iirc he had the best record in one of those kespa rookie drafts (i could be recalling this incorrectly lol)
what is most insane is that he is kind of constantly attack for 30+ mins of game and wins. Terran rarely drops him becuase they dont have the time or resourses it seems. I am not sure how he does it.
The thing is, he not just wins, he (to use a overused frase) makes it look relatively easy vs the two best tvz players. He almost never seems to be too pressured, just does his things and wins.
The thing is, he not just wins, he (to use a overused frase) makes it look relatively easy vs the two best tvz players. He almost never seems to be too pressured, just does his things and wins.
On May 14 2017 00:53 duke91 wrote: So what does he do different? Haven't watched the games yet. Any smart adjustment he does?
maximizes eco with muta micro while making few lurkers to defend his bases. With his mutas still alive he harrasses more and more sniping vultures from mining or preventing terran from expanding. Them he suddenly makes either mutas or lurkers to even kill terran or constrain them while expanding triple times totatling his base to 6 bases. He makes 3 additional hatcheries ar 3rd and makes mass ultras defilers lings and starts breaking terran defense at center and slaughters terran with millions of swarms. After that tank line break up he proceeds to make millions of lings that swarm onto either main or far 4th gas to seal the game. note you need insane mechanics and eapm to pull this off
He's the kind of guy who would could possibly be really useful in teamleagues whilst never being able to shine through in the individual leagues. I always felt bad for such players!
On May 14 2017 00:53 duke91 wrote: So what does he do different? Haven't watched the games yet. Any smart adjustment he does?
Im not sure exactly how it works, but he saves mutas to clear mines vultures for one thing (normally players like JD etc "suicide" their last 5 mutas to kill wear down a few extra marines, Larva just saves them for later or slight map control to prevent expanding sniping scvs forcing terran to send a certain force of marines and medics. And Larva just sends the mutas away then).
Another thing he does is using lings better but this is the part Im not sure how, maybe he learnt a trick or two from protoss. Whenever he sends lings across maps he is very careful about where the mine field is and then he lets 1-3 lings keep running to the place he attacks and pulls back the rest. But I am not sure how becuase it goes so fast but he often manages to clear entire fields like this even killing vultures in the process. Very effective and not very time consuming for him. Again to make the JD analogy, JD just send lings 1by1 across the map and "hopes" they clear some mines. Then if he is lucky he will have a free path to the terran bases, but often some mines are missed and he loses his defilers, lurkers, ultras to it. Larva almost NEVER lose anything but lings.
Hey guys, I got into BW recently due to the advent of SC:R and I love it. It is truly an amazingly deep RTS and I can see why people say it's balance shouldn't be touched.
I've been watching Larva's games and indeed, he's been playing a brilliant counter-strategy to 5 rax. I noticed that in the early game, he neutralizes T's map control by being aggressive, catching marines with good flanks and doing a lot of hit and runs in the nat and main, pressuring T to keep units home instead of going out and stopping the third. Then he gets his third and lurker+swarm, and uses it to delay T's army at critical areas while quickly expanding behind it.
Meanwhile he continues to harass and occupy T around the map with lurker+swarm and smart use of his mutas. He keeps his mutas alive to fight vultures, forcing vultures to stay around the slower marines instead of controlling the map. He also uses his mutas to clear mine fields and hit expansions, slowing T's macro and forcing T to spread his units out and invest in more turrets for every new base. Then his own macro kicks in and he runs through T's thinned defense with lings and ultras.
Larva just seems to have 5 rax completely figured out, and it's no surprise that JD, Effort, are watching his play closely.
Larva just won a crazy game against Last on Andromeda! Some oversights here and there that could've made him lose, but overall his play was excellent. I love watching him play
WOW what a game he has just won against Flash on Camelot !!!!
Long macro game vs Flash's mech on terran favored map and he did it. Fantastic queen + muta combo with constant action. Top level of play. He has EASILY the best ZvT right now imo.
This game is a must see. What's your first thought about Queens in ZvT? Sloppy micro? Dying idle queens by goliaths? 10 broodlings on one unit? Forget all that and watch how Larva uses them against Flash. Beautiful.
Edit: game starts at 36m30s if the link wouldn't work.
On May 11 2017 23:30 duke91 wrote: edit: Though Effort also uses it with hold command. So he right click move command his mutas way behind the marine ball, and when he feels has enough distance to shoot against marines, he hold commands. This is effective if you feel like or need to kill a marine ball fast enough. For picking up single marines a-click behind
Yeah plays almost perfectly right now. Flash really struggles to win vs him. Earlier when he had beat flash and got a lot of balloons he was pretending to be dragoon. Hilarious guy :D
On May 19 2017 01:37 Amanebak wrote: What is it when a guy in the sea pop up at the lower part of the screen and a korean female voice says something, during streaming?
I think its when he receives a donation (balloons or something in afreeca). Yeah I saw the dragoon and it was hilarious (even though I didn't understand one word he was saying)
On May 19 2017 01:34 Netto. wrote: Yeah plays almost perfectly right now. Flash really struggles to win vs him. Earlier when he had beat flash and got a lot of balloons he was pretending to be dragoon. Hilarious guy :D
On May 19 2017 01:37 Amanebak wrote: What is it when a guy in the sea pop up at the lower part of the screen and a korean female voice says something, during streaming?
This game is a must see. What's your first thought about Queens in ZvT? Sloppy micro? Dying idle queens by goliaths? 10 broodlings on one unit? Forget all that and watch how Larva uses them against Flash. Beautiful.
Edit: game starts at 36m30s if the link wouldn't work.
What a gameee! That game was absolutely historical and groundbreaking in my humble opinion . Does anyone see it too? I think it's happening, the bw space-time is bending once more, time will tell sooner than later dw. For the moment I'm calling it and making it my quote.
Yeah I've seen several of his games in the past few days that have just been awesome. The use of Queens is amazing. In fact I don't see how he could win without them. He keeps them alive the whole game and abuses the tanks and Goliath's with them.
On May 19 2017 04:15 KaRnaGe[cF] wrote: Yeah I've seen several of his games in the past few days that have just been awesome. The use of Queens is amazing. In fact I don't see how he could win without them. He keeps them alive the whole game and abuses the tanks and Goliath's with them.
I think he's really perfecting their timing and use on the battlefield. It's always seemed to me that Zerg players are like "welp he went mech let's save up and hopefully mass queens will pay off". But larva is integrating them into his play as a solid strategy and making them a staple in his army.
He's turning it into a science, and what a mad scientist he is...
On May 19 2017 04:15 KaRnaGe[cF] wrote: Yeah I've seen several of his games in the past few days that have just been awesome. The use of Queens is amazing. In fact I don't see how he could win without them. He keeps them alive the whole game and abuses the tanks and Goliath's with them.
I think he's really perfecting their timing and use on the battlefield. It's always seemed to me that Zerg players are like "welp he went mech let's save up and hopefully mass queens will pay off". But larva is integrating them into his play as a solid strategy and making them a staple in his army.
He's turning it into a science, and what a mad scientist he is...
Larva is really showing the strength of Zerg in long games. Terran just cannot break through Dark Swarm, and Queens feel like a super version of Plague, completely erasing tanks and goliaths. And his mechanics are just sublime. He is the only Zerg I've seen who can really wreak havoc all over the map.
This game is a must see. What's your first thought about Queens in ZvT? Sloppy micro? Dying idle queens by goliaths? 10 broodlings on one unit? Forget all that and watch how Larva uses them against Flash. Beautiful.
Edit: game starts at 36m30s if the link wouldn't work.
On May 19 2017 01:37 Amanebak wrote: What is it when a guy in the sea pop up at the lower part of the screen and a korean female voice says something, during streaming?
On May 19 2017 01:37 Amanebak wrote: What is it when a guy in the sea pop up at the lower part of the screen and a korean female voice says something, during streaming?
text to speech donation messages
That guy is Larva if you didn't notice.
I wasn't sure about that.
I was watching a game Larva vs Last and at one point there was a vulture sliding backwards. It looked funny to me. I may find it if anyone is interested...
On May 19 2017 04:15 KaRnaGe[cF] wrote: Yeah I've seen several of his games in the past few days that have just been awesome. The use of Queens is amazing. In fact I don't see how he could win without them. He keeps them alive the whole game and abuses the tanks and Goliath's with them.
I think he's really perfecting their timing and use on the battlefield. It's always seemed to me that Zerg players are like "welp he went mech let's save up and hopefully mass queens will pay off". But larva is integrating them into his play as a solid strategy and making them a staple in his army.
He's turning it into a science, and what a mad scientist he is...
I would say Effort was the one to conserve and continously use queens throughout the game in zvt first i believe, some time after he returned from SC2 in early 2015. Zero was the one to start using them back in late 2010, as the first player to successfully deal with the unbeatable mech revolution in 2010, but i dont think he perfected them like Effort did. I might be wrong on that, i would have to go back to 2011-2012 vods and watch Zero games again to see how he developed them. Or maybe someone here can just tell us if they know.
Zero in post-kespa i feel has more moved away from queens, leaving it to Effort to develop their use. Larva is definitively inspired by Effort in his queen tactics. But Larva might become even better than him again and its very impressive how he has developed.
I'm saying it Larva has the best ZvT now. Flash and Last are having trouble beating him. And it's amazing considering his win rate vs the two last month.
Seeing LARVA, of all zergs, coming up with such a brilliant playstyle is why I am so happy to still be able to watch high level bw in 2017. It's seriously crazy that he's able to make queens appear to be an op unit. How he's sniping the goliaths and then coming in with mutas is so awesome lol, tanks can't do anything.
The game really nicely displays Larva dynamically changing his composition.
Right at the start of late mech T is usually on 1 machine shop just going mass vult and mining the map: At this point larva makes quite a lot of hydras to clear the mines and take on vult groups with the help of speed ovis and plague while lurker, ling, dark swarm keep the remaining m&m in check.
Later when the T adds more machine shops and more tanks come out he waits for his queens to have energy while fighting mostly with ling defiler and some hydras and lurks.
After he reduced the vessel count he plays the muta switch.
After the mutas killed a lot of the tanks and cleared a lot of the mines in the mid of the map and T's composition is increasingly goliath heavy, Larva starts building ultras.
On May 19 2017 13:02 REDBLUEGREEN wrote: The game really nicely displays Larva dynamically changing his composition.
Right at the start of late mech T is usually on 1 machine shop just going mass vult and mining the map: At this point larva makes quite a lot of hydras to clear the mines and take on vult groups with the help of speed ovis and plague while lurker, ling, dark swarm keep the remaining m&m in check.
Later when the T adds more machine shops and more tanks come out he waits for his queens to have energy while fighting mostly with ling defiler and some hydras and lurks.
After he reduced the vessel count he plays the muta switch.
After the mutas killed a lot of the tanks and cleared a lot of the mines in the mid of the map and T's composition is increasingly goliath heavy, Larva starts building ultras.
Really nice game!
Yes, it is very sweet to see how he twist the army composition to match what terran has at the differents stages of the game. Hydras vs early vult mine was very cool to see and worked perfectly in this game but the queen usage is the most balance breaking innovation this game features, and it does it in such a grapic manner. This game just ilustrates so well what the impact the queen does in this match up is: it just doesnt metter how big terran economy is, how many factories he has and how good/fast/or-close-to reinforcements his push is, when T loses 10/15 tanks all at once, Terran's push just ceases to exist. Other aspect to this build I see is that this style relies heavily on where and wether Terran can build turrets on the maps or not, they could really complicate that kind of queen abuse
On May 19 2017 13:02 REDBLUEGREEN wrote: The game really nicely displays Larva dynamically changing his composition.
Right at the start of late mech T is usually on 1 machine shop just going mass vult and mining the map: At this point larva makes quite a lot of hydras to clear the mines and take on vult groups with the help of speed ovis and plague while lurker, ling, dark swarm keep the remaining m&m in check.
Later when the T adds more machine shops and more tanks come out he waits for his queens to have energy while fighting mostly with ling defiler and some hydras and lurks.
After he reduced the vessel count he plays the muta switch.
After the mutas killed a lot of the tanks and cleared a lot of the mines in the mid of the map and T's composition is increasingly goliath heavy, Larva starts building ultras.
Really nice game!
Other aspect to this build I see is that this style relies heavily on where and wether Terran can build turrets on the maps or not, they could really complicate that kind of queen abuse
That Larva game is insane, I have not seen such good anti-mech play especially with the queen usage and tech switches. Flash even tried to combine MnM in at one point because of the unit composition that kept changing.
Does anyone think that although it seems counter-intuitive having the Terran right at your front bases on Camelot or any map is actually adventurous for the Z due to closeness to hatches.. as opposed to trying to engage over the entire width of a map like FS. Every new macro round Flash reinforced was countered so he could not build up enough units in one place - Larva can utilize a variety of units straight into the battle.
Also check Larva's supply count, keeping it so high all of the time. Little micro skills in the midst of battle such as overlords to draw fire away from queens.
I was wondering if in future Z might try Queens and ensnare vs the bio before the mech switch to slow it down and start the queen count up for broodling in later game. But i'm not sure if the timings work out that way. At least with this style its not a single reveal and single broodling attack to beat a push.
The game on Camelot was very interesting, especially the muta switch after he already built queens was very surprising to me, seeing that Flash still had a considerable amount of vessels and some bio. But it worked out. Still the more important part was probably that he was able to go 3 hatch on 3 bases with Flash knowing but unable to counter it. Otherwise Larva would have never been able to get such a good economy and build so many queens and mutas without dieing.
On May 19 2017 21:01 Cryoc wrote: The game on Camelot was very interesting, especially the muta switch after he already built queens was very surprising to me, seeing that Flash still had a considerable amount of vessels and some bio. But it worked out. Still the more important part was probably that he was able to go 3 hatch on 3 bases with Flash knowing but unable to counter it. Otherwise Larva would have never been able to get such a good economy and build so many queens and mutas without dieing.
Yes I forgot to mention this, actually forgot it happened at all, but can someone explain how he was able to do this? I can't check right now but it seemed like he went 3 hatch before pool unless I'm remembering it wrong. I mean, if the forward rax and marine/scv/bunker push is so strong, why would he even opt to go for an exposed third hatch like this in the first place?
It was nice by Last to counter Queens and Mutas with Valks, it worked too. They even survived a plague, however his army was too immobile and couldn't withstand the continuous 2 pronged attack of Larva without doing any damage to his economy.
Yeah he Last tries to use valkyries more, but it just doesn't seem to work. Now terrans have problems beating Larva :D Who would have thought that it will be Larva who figures terrans out and beat them consistently...
On May 20 2017 00:27 Netto. wrote: Yeah he Last tries to use valkyries more, but it just doesn't seem to work. Now terrans have problems beating Larva :D Who would have thought that it will be Larva who figures terrans out and beat them consistently...
Larva just lost twice to last but first game was close, second was quite rough. He's able to get a third gas easier though which is great and I love his aggressive style!
Haha, Larva raging again. Unfortunately he hasn't been on his A game. He keeps making careless mistakes and he hasn't been doing some of the neat little things he's done in past games. Perhaps it's time to call it a night.
On May 20 2017 00:50 L_Master wrote: Effort was using queens quite a bit a year or two ago, but that went out of favor with him.
Anyone know why, and what Larva is now doing differently to have better luck with them?
If you go queens w/o ultras the Terran can hit a timing with mech before you have queen upgrades while you're still on lurk/def/ling (usually around 16min). Queens are still used in long attrition wars but zerg have had more success trying to break the Terran's 4th with a 2/2 or 3/3 timing before mech upgrades get too high, so you don't see queens as often.
Larva appears to be making good progress in desk banging and screaming his head off. Also doing hand stands on his chair and falling off it. I wonder what shiba means. He seems to say that a lot.
On May 20 2017 00:50 L_Master wrote: Effort was using queens quite a bit a year or two ago, but that went out of favor with him.
Anyone know why, and what Larva is now doing differently to have better luck with them?
I haven't seen how Effort used Queens and I might be totally wrong about this, but it seems that Larva has been making them work through his style of attrition warfare. He abuses the power of lurker+swarm to prevent Terran attacks while slowly expanding his control across the map. It's almost impossible for Terran to penetrate his swarm/scourge defense, and while the Terran army is stuck in place trying to get around the swarms, his Queens slowly whittle them down. Eventually he secures the victory because his tools are so much more cost effective than Terran's in the late game.
On May 20 2017 01:18 Essbee wrote: Why does he rage so much when he loses though haha
Last dancing on stream :D
it was bo5 for 5000 ballons
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh :p
But he doesn't really need those balloons, does he?
well it's like 350 dollars right? Would have been a pretty good money for playing max 5 games.
if you check the exchange rate, it's about $447
but it's really interesting watching Larva, because you're like "oh, this would work against a worse Terran, definitely, but it's Flash so..." and then it works anyway
On May 19 2017 21:01 Cryoc wrote: The game on Camelot was very interesting, especially the muta switch after he already built queens was very surprising to me, seeing that Flash still had a considerable amount of vessels and some bio. But it worked out. Still the more important part was probably that he was able to go 3 hatch on 3 bases with Flash knowing but unable to counter it. Otherwise Larva would have never been able to get such a good economy and build so many queens and mutas without dieing.
Yes I forgot to mention this, actually forgot it happened at all, but can someone explain how he was able to do this? I can't check right now but it seemed like he went 3 hatch before pool unless I'm remembering it wrong. I mean, if the forward rax and marine/scv/bunker push is so strong, why would he even opt to go for an exposed third hatch like this in the first place?
It seems he just did the well known 12hat-11pool-13hat putting the 3rd hat on the 3rd gas expo, it gets tricky for the obvious reason that when marine medic pushes out zerg has to defend at 2 differents locations, so its either more sunks or more lings or very tight muta/lurk timing or a little of all those things together.
On May 19 2017 19:13 infinity2k17 wrote: Also check Larva's supply count, keeping it so high all of the time. Little micro skills in the midst of battle such as
I think the main reason Larva's supply was so high is cuz he had a "supply bank" of 16/18 queens all the game not because he had actually much more hydra/ling/lurk, etc. And this is crucial to point out because it really seems that in a zerg vs mech combat is much more important that the terran has few tanks(/or gols as we surprisingly saw) than zerg having huge army. It happened once and once again during that game, once 10/12 broodlings hit and decimate T army zerg justproceed to do a kind of regular but very tactical attack.
overlords to draw fire away from queens.
No. Units with "Attack move" command (like goliaths in this case) will always attack queens over overlords when both in range. Overlords are sent in the front because broodling spell has insanse range, much bigger than queen's sight range, and u want your queens to get as little near the goliaths as possible.
I was wondering if in future Z might try Queens and ensnare vs the bio before the mech switch to slow it down and start the queen count up for broodling in later game. But i'm not sure if the timings work out that way. At least with this style its not a single reveal and single broodling attack to beat a push.
I dont think that is goin to ve very easy to do, u can't just skip on lurkers or mutalisks too hard because otherwise terran just kills ur 3rd or gets too big. I think the key is try to mantain the game pace of the game as similar as the standar zvt as possible: some ling, some sunk, muta timing to defend first mm push, then harass with mut/mut-ling map control all that is possible, then lurk on time to stop mm critical mass and then defiler asap. Almost all the same BUUUT zerg has to find or create windows to spare some larvas on queens while everything else goes on. To make this possible zerg has to ideally make that 3rd hat on the 3rd gas and take that gas as fast as ur eco allows it (as Larva does).
On May 20 2017 00:50 L_Master wrote: Effort was using queens quite a bit a year or two ago, but that went out of favor with him.
Anyone know why, and what Larva is now doing differently to have better luck with them?
In the game vs flash that valaki linked a few pages back he used them to great effect together with mutas. The queens swoop in and remove goliaths and the mutas cleans up the tanks. Eventual vessels are easy to snipe when the anti-air is gone too.
When Flash responded with a heavy goliath composition Larva switched to ground army with defiler backup. He played in a really relaxed way, insane!
Anyone knows whats up with the SK terran trend right now? Double starport before a later mech swith, I've seen flash and last doing it lately.
On May 20 2017 00:50 L_Master wrote: Effort was using queens quite a bit a year or two ago, but that went out of favor with him.
Anyone know why, and what Larva is now doing differently to have better luck with them?
In the game vs flash that valaki linked a few pages back he used them to great effect together with mutas. The queens swoop in and remove goliaths and the mutas cleans up the tanks. Eventual vessels are easy to snipe when the anti-air is gone too.
When Flash responded with a heavy goliath composition Larva switched to ground army with defiler backup. He played in a really relaxed way, insane!
Anyone knows whats up with the SK terran trend right now? Double starport before a later mech swith, I've seen flash and last doing it lately.
I think they've been doing this to try and counter the low lurker count and fast hive play from zergs knowing that they can't really hit a Zerg because of nydus, swarms, sunks and lurks. Use science vessels to keep the number of defilers and lurkers low so the Zerg can't do much and then the transition seems to be vultures with mines over the map to secure their 3rd/4th/5th expansions as they build up a large enough tank/gol force to move out.
On May 20 2017 00:50 L_Master wrote: Effort was using queens quite a bit a year or two ago, but that went out of favor with him.
Anyone know why, and what Larva is now doing differently to have better luck with them?
In the game vs flash that valaki linked a few pages back he used them to great effect together with mutas. The queens swoop in and remove goliaths and the mutas cleans up the tanks. Eventual vessels are easy to snipe when the anti-air is gone too.
When Flash responded with a heavy goliath composition Larva switched to ground army with defiler backup. He played in a really relaxed way, insane!
Anyone knows whats up with the SK terran trend right now? Double starport before a later mech swith, I've seen flash and last doing it lately.
You can do damage with mass drops because lurker/defiler has a difficult time defending marines running all over the base - it's better at holding chokes
So we're seeing SK Terran, but more for mass dropships and some Science Vessels rather than Science Vessel clouds we've seen before.
It's a bit sad to see that everybody seemingly have forgotten about Killer (since he went to the army) when it comes to queen's usage. I remember back then (Sonic era) how amazing he was at cloning, never seen anybody do it faster (or maybe it was hero). You can see it at the very beginning of this video (amazing channel btw, totally unknown ?) :
Also interesting to watch how they do it "faster" than Larva : at 4:04 you can see that hero creates 6 or 7 groups with the same queens, so it saves the mandatory shift click part of the cloning sequence (and he does the last 3/4 standard).
On May 19 2017 19:13 infinity2k17 wrote: I was wondering if in future Z might try Queens and ensnare vs the bio before the mech switch to slow it down and start the queen count up for broodling in later game. But i'm not sure if the timings work out that way.
It's near impossible to use queen that way at the highest level. You need all the gaz avaible for Muta/Lurkers + reaching Hive/swarm tech (which is costly gaz wise). A queen + Ensnare search would be 200/200 for a single ensnare once the queen reaches 100E. Timing is already often hard for Protoss with Psy Storm, this is 10 times worse.
The biggest issue with queens from what i've seen - and i'm not sure why Flash or Last aren't using it more - is EMP. Usually queens are packed in a corner of the map waiting for the energy to stack, a single EMP is enough to cancel everything instantly. And it's only 100E too. The new variations of using valkyries is interesting though because it allows for hunting Overlords as well... but a single plague and they're gone.
Back to Larva, here is a very intense game of early zergling agression vs a proxy factory from Flash : great to watch
I think EMP's are not very useful, mostly because queens are so fast and they're parked way back, vessels are slow and very vulnerable. To make matters worse, Larva likes to disarm vessels even further with parasite. Of course all other responses terran has to queens also have downsides. Personally, I think one of the best ideas is to build wraiths to snipe queens. They have the element of surprise on their side. They can also snipe other stuff, create chaos and keep zerg on his toes. Downside: Plague, ensnare, hydras and spores are very accessible counters. Also, big gas investment.
On May 21 2017 09:02 Magic Powers wrote: I think EMP's are not very useful, mostly because queens are so fast and they're parked way back, vessels are slow and very vulnerable. To make matters worse, Larva likes to disarm vessels even further with parasite. Of course all other responses terran has to queens also have downsides. Personally, I think one of the best ideas is to build wraiths to snipe queens. They have the element of surprise on their side. They can also snipe other stuff, create chaos and keep zerg on his toes. Downside: Plague, ensnare, hydras and spores are very accessible counters. Also, big gas investment.
No need to find any counter to queens. If terran can't win if Z got enough queens, then he deserves to lose. Easy as that.
On May 21 2017 09:02 Magic Powers wrote: I think EMP's are not very useful, mostly because queens are so fast and they're parked way back, vessels are slow and very vulnerable. To make matters worse, Larva likes to disarm vessels even further with parasite. Of course all other responses terran has to queens also have downsides. Personally, I think one of the best ideas is to build wraiths to snipe queens. They have the element of surprise on their side. They can also snipe other stuff, create chaos and keep zerg on his toes. Downside: Plague, ensnare, hydras and spores are very accessible counters. Also, big gas investment.
No need to find any counter to queens. If terran can't win if Z got enough queens, then he deserves to lose. Easy as that.
I feel as if it is somewhat comparable to letting a Terran get a huge amount of science vessels, although obviously there are some big differences. In a way, queens are zergs' science vessels :0
On May 21 2017 09:02 Magic Powers wrote: I think EMP's are not very useful, mostly because queens are so fast and they're parked way back, vessels are slow and very vulnerable. To make matters worse, Larva likes to disarm vessels even further with parasite. Of course all other responses terran has to queens also have downsides. Personally, I think one of the best ideas is to build wraiths to snipe queens. They have the element of surprise on their side. They can also snipe other stuff, create chaos and keep zerg on his toes. Downside: Plague, ensnare, hydras and spores are very accessible counters. Also, big gas investment.
No need to find any counter to queens. If terran can't win if Z got enough queens, then he deserves to lose. Easy as that.
I feel as if it is somewhat comparable to letting a Terran get a huge amount of science vessels, although obviously there are some big differences. In a way, queens are zergs' science vessels :0
Gotta agree with that , I don't see any easy counter to queen, wraiths would be fun to watch but at the same tame awesomely countered by ensare 100%, just as u said, like with vessels for terran I think it's gonna be a more a micromanagment and gameplay issue for each game to see how many queens Z can store and how well he uses them.
I can see Emp not working so easly also, zerg can still put queen in the further corner of his map and also spread them 1 epm away from each other, like you may want to do with tanks vs stasis.
This game is a must see. What's your first thought about Queens in ZvT? Sloppy micro? Dying idle queens by goliaths? 10 broodlings on one unit? Forget all that and watch how Larva uses them against Flash. Beautiful.
Edit: game starts at 36m30s if the link wouldn't work.
No. Units with "Attack move" command (like goliaths in this case) will always attack queens over overlords when both in range. Overlords are sent in the front because broodling spell has insanse range, much bigger than queen's sight range, and u want your queens to get as little near the goliaths as possible.
On top of that, he also sent the overlords in early so that he had vision over the targets while he was cloning the queens. Having the queens back in his main base not only makes them safe, it also gives you enough travel time to clone 11 queens without using a billion separate hotkeys. You could see how it was straining his mouse speed to do it, only time in the VOD where I actually saw some misclicks. Although that may just be crappy me not paying enough attention otherwise.
On May 21 2017 09:02 Magic Powers wrote: I think EMP's are not very useful, mostly because queens are so fast and they're parked way back, vessels are slow and very vulnerable. To make matters worse, Larva likes to disarm vessels even further with parasite. Of course all other responses terran has to queens also have downsides. Personally, I think one of the best ideas is to build wraiths to snipe queens. They have the element of surprise on their side. They can also snipe other stuff, create chaos and keep zerg on his toes. Downside: Plague, ensnare, hydras and spores are very accessible counters. Also, big gas investment.
No need to find any counter to queens. If terran can't win if Z got enough queens, then he deserves to lose. Easy as that.
I feel as if it is somewhat comparable to letting a Terran get a huge amount of science vessels, although obviously there are some big differences. In a way, queens are zergs' science vessels :0
Best way to counter queens is so switch back to bio. Meta change incoming --> bio to mech and back to bio again :D
I hope this whole thing become so refined that Terran wont find a solution to this, as well as no terran and even flash or last being unable to break 50 winrate vs Z. I wish every Terran to experience this pain Z players confronted in the past years, where they in the end have to resort to mass medic blind against queens or some bullshit.
Just think about it what 8 years ago ppl would have thought about todays ZvT of going absolutely batshit insane compositions and tactics. I wish every terran that kind of despair.
On May 21 2017 13:24 duke91 wrote: I hope this whole thing become so refined that Terran wont find a solution to this, as well as no terran and even flash or last being unable to break 50 winrate vs Z. I wish every Terran to experience this pain Z players confronted in the past years, where they in the end have to resort to mass medic blind against queens or some bullshit.
Just think about it what 8 years ago ppl would have thought about todays ZvT of going absolutely batshit insane compositions and tactics. I wish every terran that kind of despair.
Blinding the scouting overlords would actually make it very hard to clone the queens. Also would allow cloaked wraiths to snipe the queens. I so want to see that now. :D
As impressive as that game was from Larva, I don't think he would've won with that style on any other ASL map. He gave up map control because of those queens but was able to stay on even bases with Flash because there were so few bases on the map. On a bigger map Flash would've just used his map control to take a bunch more bases and win with overwhelming economic advantage.
On May 21 2017 14:39 iamho wrote: As impressive as that game was from Larva, I don't think he would've won with that style on any other ASL map. He gave up map control because of those queens but was able to stay on even bases with Flash because there were so few bases on the map. On a bigger map Flash would've just used his map control to take a bunch more bases and win with overwhelming economic advantage.
Flash did this and lost to soulkey because of the superior mobility of zerg + drops on top of the tanks.
On May 21 2017 13:24 duke91 wrote: I hope this whole thing become so refined that Terran wont find a solution to this, as well as no terran and even flash or last being unable to break 50 winrate vs Z. I wish every Terran to experience this pain Z players confronted in the past years, where they in the end have to resort to mass medic blind against queens or some bullshit.
Just think about it what 8 years ago ppl would have thought about todays ZvT of going absolutely batshit insane compositions and tactics. I wish every terran that kind of despair.
On May 21 2017 09:02 Magic Powers wrote: I think EMP's are not very useful, mostly because queens are so fast and they're parked way back, vessels are slow and very vulnerable. To make matters worse, Larva likes to disarm vessels even further with parasite. Of course all other responses terran has to queens also have downsides. Personally, I think one of the best ideas is to build wraiths to snipe queens. They have the element of surprise on their side. They can also snipe other stuff, create chaos and keep zerg on his toes. Downside: Plague, ensnare, hydras and spores are very accessible counters. Also, big gas investment.
No need to find any counter to queens. If terran can't win if Z got enough queens, then he deserves to lose. Easy as that.
I feel as if it is somewhat comparable to letting a Terran get a huge amount of science vessels, although obviously there are some big differences. In a way, queens are zergs' science vessels :0
Best way to counter queens is so switch back to bio. Meta change incoming --> bio to mech and back to bio again :D
Switching back to bio sounds cool! Zergs would start using Queens to ensnare as they would have nothing else to do with them
Flash looks really frustrated. His pride seems hurt from losing to larva too much. Hope he gains something from this and dominates once again. BTW Does anyone think only z/T are evolving constantly? metawise
On May 22 2017 09:59 Shinokuki wrote: Flash looks really frustrated. His pride seems hurt from losing to larva too much. Hope he gains something from this and dominates once again. BTW Does anyone think only z/T are evolving constantly? metawise
Flash getting a taste of his own medicine. I want Flash to have that kind of frustration for the next 5 years to come.
On May 22 2017 09:59 Shinokuki wrote: Flash looks really frustrated. His pride seems hurt from losing to larva too much. Hope he gains something from this and dominates once again. BTW Does anyone think only z/T are evolving constantly? metawise
Flash getting a taste of his own medicine. I want Flash to have that kind of frustration for the next 5 years to come.
As much as I love Flash, I don't even get that excited for his games anymore lol. I expect him to win an overwhelming majority of the time, especially in these leagues.
Now Jaedong on the other hand... knowing that he was the best Zerg at one point but is struggling right now makes me really want to root for him all the time and see him regain his dominance. If he doesn't I would just feel sad.
But what I find most amazing is that the game even in 2017 is experiencing meta changes.
I think larva should give a shot to Shine's 3 hatch lurker+hydra+guardian build, as Shine rarely gets a change to play with best Terran players. With this new guardian build, Shine is able to get 9 guardians at 10 min mark. At this point, Terran can't get enough wraith to counter this build, so I really want to see how flash reacts to his guardian build. In my opinion, this is the most promising build to replace Savior's 3 hatch muta.
On May 22 2017 15:01 yewbow wrote: I think larva should give a shot to Shine's 3 hatch lurker+hydra+guardian build, as Shine rarely gets a change to play with best Terran players. With this new guardian build, Shine is able to get 9 guardians at 10 min mark. At this point, Terran can't get enough wraith to counter this build, so I really want to see how flash reacts to his guardian build. In my opinion, this is the most promising build to replace Savior's 3 hatch muta.
Are you getting this from shines stream or something? 9 guardians is a lot of gas
On May 22 2017 15:01 yewbow wrote: I think larva should give a shot to Shine's 3 hatch lurker+hydra+guardian build, as Shine rarely gets a change to play with best Terran players. With this new guardian build, Shine is able to get 9 guardians at 10 min mark. At this point, Terran can't get enough wraith to counter this build, so I really want to see how flash reacts to his guardian build. In my opinion, this is the most promising build to replace Savior's 3 hatch muta.
The problem is vs Flash or Last you probably won't be able to sneak your 3rd hatch at a gas like Shine did vs Mong. Having early 3 gas is essential to this build.
On May 22 2017 15:01 yewbow wrote: I think larva should give a shot to Shine's 3 hatch lurker+hydra+guardian build, as Shine rarely gets a change to play with best Terran players. With this new guardian build, Shine is able to get 9 guardians at 10 min mark. At this point, Terran can't get enough wraith to counter this build, so I really want to see how flash reacts to his guardian build. In my opinion, this is the most promising build to replace Savior's 3 hatch muta.
Are you getting this from shines stream or something? 9 guardians is a lot of gas
No. From ASL and KCM team match. You can check And another KCM match May 19, http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/KCM_Legend_Match if you can find VOD for this one. Shine beat Mong twice with this build. If you can find the VOD of that KCM match, you'll see that the clock shows at 10:30 shine has 9 guardians.
First, he makes an early 3rd base. Instead of using mutas, he uses lurkers to defend. The downside of early 3rd base are 2 folds 1, it's hard to defend it using muta and lings. 2, lurkers can defend it but due to lurkers' bad mobility, it's hard to expand 4rd. Shines' new guardian solves these 2 problems. Guardians can be more aggressive and deal more damage to Terran than lurkers. Because Shine skips muta, he can get to hive pretty early. The early 3rd base also gives him extra gas. That's why he can get 9 guardians so early. Then Shine pushes out with 9 guardians + 12 hydras + 4 or 5 lurkers. At this point, if Terran goes by standard builds, it's impossible to get enough wraiths. With hydras cleaning wraiths, guardians are unstoppable. In that KCM match, Shine was so confident with this build that he even didn't care of losing his main base when he got enough guardians.
On May 22 2017 17:08 Highgamer wrote: Well it's as old as BW... and not really that great of an "idea" if there is a spell in the game specifically put in for only this exact action xD
The formatting in my post makes it seem like I'm really excited for the queen usage lol but I meant the game was beautiful. I love watching Larva play.
On May 22 2017 09:59 Shinokuki wrote: Flash looks really frustrated. His pride seems hurt from losing to larva too much. Hope he gains something from this and dominates once again. BTW Does anyone think only z/T are evolving constantly? metawise
Flash getting a taste of his own medicine. I want Flash to have that kind of frustration for the next 5 years to come.
Speaking of, was Flash the only bonjwa to have KeSPA's map transition be favorable to him? I remember when Oov got big they were making Zerg favored maps, and when MJY got big the map pool was an absolute and complete death zone for Zerg with Hitchhiker and Monty Hall.
2009/2010 marketing for BW was crazy. And it's imprinted so hard into people's mind that it's like 2011 onward never happened in terms of player development.
Always knew Larva had huge potential and a strong personal drive to win, he just never seemed to get it going in tournaments. Nice to see that he's improving the way he is.
http://imgur.com/a/tEj4e That's like 5 up and running expansions for Last against Larva's 3? I just couldn't believe its possible to come back from that. Larva is in a scary form, I mean Last seemed to make everything right, even building good amount of valks to counter queens.
Larva must have build-up a ton of confidence by now, at least on ZvT and ZvP (seeing how he beat Shuttle in the other series, thanks for sharing _vk_!).
That's like 5 up and running expansions for Last against Larva's 3? I just couldn't believe its possible to come back from that. Larva is in a scary form, I mean Last seemed to make everything right, even building good amount of valks to counter queens.
Larva must have build-up a ton of confidence by now, at least on ZvT and ZvP (seeing how he beat Shuttle in the other series, thanks for sharing _vk_!).
Can't wait for him to play in the next ASL.
unfortunately for some reason he cannot play like this on stage. the next asl will be totally screwed up by blizzard anyways.
That's like 5 up and running expansions for Last against Larva's 3? I just couldn't believe its possible to come back from that. Larva is in a scary form, I mean Last seemed to make everything right, even building good amount of valks to counter queens.
Larva must have build-up a ton of confidence by now, at least on ZvT and ZvP (seeing how he beat Shuttle in the other series, thanks for sharing _vk_!).
Can't wait for him to play in the next ASL.
unfortunately for some reason he cannot play like this on stage. the next asl will be totally screwed up by blizzard anyways.
they will force to use the "new patch" again i guess
Yeah, so?
A few people on here are very against it and probably haven't tried it since it first came out (it was buggy from what I read, I didn't start until 18.3 I think) so they are assuming it's still awful like when it was first released.
I played on the most recent version last night and had no issues with lag, control, hotkeys etc. I was surprised by the skill level of the players I played. Of course I only wanted to play people with a low amount of losses, but still. The average skill level seemed to be = to that of iccup if not higher in the games that I played.
On May 27 2017 13:34 sickkungen wrote: Ah yeah, thats why they still use 1.16, they just love 1.18 too much to use it?
and you have no idea what you are talking about. The only reason they are on 1.16 is because of ASL. Once ASL is over pros have said they will immediately make the switch...
and you have no idea what you are talking about. The only reason they are on 1.16 is because of ASL. Once ASL is over pros have said they will immediately make the switch...
Larva seemed way off his game. His early game play was uncharacteristically poor, bad scouting and being way too greedy, and he kept getting punished for it. His series vs Flash the day before was much better (if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it, it was pushing the TvZ meta).
On May 28 2017 06:19 Trillwill wrote: Larva seemed way off his game. His early game play was uncharacteristically poor, bad scouting and being way too greedy, and he kept getting punished for it. His series vs Flash the day before was much better (if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it, it was pushing the TvZ meta).
Does larva post his FPVODs? I know flash does but I'd want to see larva
On May 27 2017 08:22 Shinokuki wrote: 1.18 is superior to 1.16 now. i dont get people who say otherwise. You probably didn't play the latest patch. Flash and Jd love it btw
On May 28 2017 06:19 Trillwill wrote: Larva seemed way off his game. His early game play was uncharacteristically poor, bad scouting and being way too greedy, and he kept getting punished for it. His series vs Flash the day before was much better (if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it, it was pushing the TvZ meta).
Does larva post his FPVODs? I know flash does but I'd want to see larva
On May 31 2017 12:51 Trillwill wrote: Amazing set of games vs Last today. Queens, valkyries, 200/200 Zerg, and Larva in form. ZvT at its finest. Starting at 1:25:00
On May 31 2017 12:51 Trillwill wrote: Amazing set of games vs Last today. Queens, valkyries, 200/200 Zerg, and Larva in form. ZvT at its finest. Starting at 1:25:00
You better watch those games. Perfection.
That single game is soooo inspirational for me... man, it really is beautiful. I also, strongly recommend people to see this game, specially anyone who ever played and liked the zerg race.
Queens usage is proving to be VERY good in soo many ways. To add to the list of superdooper features I already think and said it has there is also the way this build so smootly forces T to add more and more goliaths (aka T worst unit) to his army... and oh yes, that means less and less vultures, waphaw!
Larva's rise to the top is so much fun to watch I hope he becomes #1 But I just have to say, he's got severe anger issues :D And his fans/haters love getting under his skin, too.
and you have no idea what you are talking about. The only reason they are on 1.16 is because of ASL. Once ASL is over pros have said they will immediately make the switch...
source ?
They all switched to 1.18 as soon as ASL started using it and as soon as they stopped using it they reverted back to 1.16 aswell.
I know for sure JD has said the game feels more responsive on 1.18.
After Larva's loss to JD, he beat the crap out of his keyboard and Pikachu doll then cried on the floor for 5 minutes until someone donated him 10 002 balloons (that's like 800 dollars?!). Then he cried some more out of gratitude.
This stream is just nuts. Frankly I'm a bit worried how excessive his behavior could get since people seem to reward his crazy after-game antics.
i dont find funny a guy smashing devices.but maybe is cuz i did born in a country(Cuba) where we dont have the luxury to joke like this. and it is obv and act,right after he did it he was looking the chat for ballons.
On June 03 2017 20:01 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote: i dont find funny a guy smashing devices.but maybe is cuz i did born in a country(Cuba) where we dont have the luxury to joke like this. and it is obv and act,right after he did it he was looking the chat for ballons.
well they need to make a living somehow... they are entertainers man, they are funny, but i think britney is funny too.
On June 03 2017 20:01 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote: i dont find funny a guy smashing devices.but maybe is cuz i did born in a country(Cuba) where we dont have the luxury to joke like this. and it is obv and act,right after he did it he was looking the chat for ballons.
Think of it as an investment. Sure he breaks things but he gets balloons for it. I wonder if he can write all that stuff off as a business expense come tax season.
He used to throw chairs against his wall but I guess that became too cost prohibitive.
Incredible performance by Larva today. Beating Flash in two straight 30+ minute games. When he is on fire he looks invincible, no matter what Flash throws at him.
On June 13 2017 23:11 Netto. wrote: Incredible performance by Larva today. Beating Flash in two straight 30+ minute games. When he is on fire he looks invincible, no matter what Flash throws at him.
i cant help but that game execution he did in the last game i thought i was watching a machine,if someone told me 1 year ago that larva will be that good... i send him an ambulance or something
I would love to see out of the games lost vs Last and Flash, how many were bunker rushes or some kind of all-in from them. Looking at Larva's playstyle he can get overly greedy sometimes and just lose to a rush. If he can refine that area of his play I'm sure the stats will be much better.
Just an example yesterday vs Mong on blue storm, he scouted a wall in and early gas but chose to build his sunken way too late and ended up getting wrecked by vultures.
Yeah, I really don't see a way protoss beating him past early game. His economy is mostly untouched through the games, but other than that, if he gets past the early game without much losses, he's pretty much unbeatable
A different visualisation of the winrate development. No cumulative winrates, and with a crude uncertainty estimate.
I think the code is available here: www.r-fiddle.org. Just press "run code". Should be straightforward to add new data points and rerun. Also support for more opponents if it gets to that.
If that r-fiddle link doesn't work, attaching code here as well, that you can copy paste into r-fiddle or any R session anywhere. Data is included in the code and easy enough to add new data points.
#this function extracts data and adds it to the plot. addOpponent = function(opponent, col='black', xshift=0) { win = sapply(months, function(month) month[[opponent]]$win) loss = sapply(months, function(month) month[[opponent]]$loss) rate = win/(win+loss) error = sqrt(pmin(win, loss))/(win+loss)
Larva has become the Zerg version of Last. Last is probably better than FlaSh online, and almost unbeatable most of the time.. Larva is in the same position just for Zerg, probably the best online Zerg in the world at the moment.
(Well, FlaSh is probably better than Last, but you know what I mean)
On June 15 2017 20:22 fLyiNgDroNe wrote: is there a resource to recognize player's names? im watching larva's stream but has no idea who those players he plays against are.
On June 15 2017 20:22 fLyiNgDroNe wrote: is there a resource to recognize player's names? im watching larva's stream but has no idea who those players he plays against are.
On June 16 2017 09:58 Disregard wrote: Against Flash in a macro game on CB about 2 days ago, that was entertaining. If only ASL 3 was like that, sigh....
There was one game against Last think 5 days ago where went full on sauron Zerg with wave after wave of units against Last and finally broke him. Amazing really.
Lmao this game vs Flash. Not one moment it looked like Flash has barely any chance of winning. How do you deal with this kind of lategame? You can't even take one of his bases or harass them. At the end, he was just sitting on 5k minerals and 2k gas with 20 queens and constantly casting broodling on 5-6 tanks per minute while attacking 2 fronts with lings and ultras.
Looks like Larva makes 24 hour stream again. And starts off by beating Flash in another spectacular ZvT...
Well I think there is a reason he became so good. He is streaming everyday like at least 10 hours, now switching to 24 hour streams playing/watching BW. He is practicing like in Kespa days or even more. Not afraid to lose against those top guys, just spamming game after game. I don't know if he is so passionate or just wants to win ASL so badly :D but he is on the right track.
On June 16 2017 15:54 valaki wrote: Lmao this game vs Flash. Not one moment it looked like Flash has barely any chance of winning. How do you deal with this kind of lategame? You can't even take one of his bases or harass them. At the end, he was just sitting on 5k minerals and 2k gas with 20 queens and constantly casting broodling on 5-6 tanks per minute while attacking 2 fronts with lings and ultras.
On June 18 2017 23:44 Netto. wrote: I think Larva has just evolved from Pikachu to Raichu, because he is doing 100 hours stream O.O Or from Larva to ultralisk
On June 16 2017 15:55 Netto. wrote: Looks like Larva makes 24 hour stream again. And starts off by beating Flash in another spectacular ZvT...
Well I think there is a reason he became so good. He is streaming everyday like at least 10 hours, now switching to 24 hour streams playing/watching BW. He is practicing like in Kespa days or even more. Not afraid to lose against those top guys, just spamming game after game. I don't know if he is so passionate or just wants to win ASL so badly :D but he is on the right track.
Larva was really good back then too on post KeSPA era, was at finals on one of Sonic starleague where he ultimately lost to dominating player of that time Killer. He's now married and needs to feed his baby so he's trying even more hard. If he will overcome his offline mentality he has a good chance on ro8 spot. Mostly I saw about his ZvT on this thread but how about his ZvP? Can he defeat his nemesis Bisu if they will meet again?
Larva is the best ZvTer and ZvPer right now, his main enemy is his nerves for ASL4. Btw there are recent vBisu games on his channel, pretty good (part 2 should be on related):
https://youtu.be/0J2b37tbC5w?t=10m40ss Flash is making way and distracting with a group of mnm for a double drop. Larva definitely knew when and where those two dropships were coming. Flash needs new tricks
larva just had his own ggaemo moment against rush, he was in a very commanding lead, just needed to attack with his mass lurker/ling to win, then he lost like 8 lurkers to mines instantly. somebody please gif that!!!!!
On June 19 2017 19:28 Netto. wrote: He just received 30000 ballons from one guy and reset the timer to 100 hours again. It will be over 5 days of nonstop streaming.
How many balloons on an australian dollar? Google doesnt do the conversion from balloons like with other currencies.
On June 16 2017 15:54 valaki wrote: Lmao this game vs Flash. Not one moment it looked like Flash has barely any chance of winning. How do you deal with this kind of lategame? You can't even take one of his bases or harass them. At the end, he was just sitting on 5k minerals and 2k gas with 20 queens and constantly casting broodling on 5-6 tanks per minute while attacking 2 fronts with lings and ultras.
I mean its a cool game and well played by Larva, but he got ahead in the early game and the advantage kept snowballing. Still impressive as hell to win against Flash and an awesome game to watch. Makes me want to learn Zerg :O
On June 19 2017 19:28 Netto. wrote: He just received 30000 ballons from one guy and reset the timer to 100 hours again. It will be over 5 days of nonstop streaming.
How many balloons on an australian dollar? Google doesnt do the conversion from balloons like with other currencies.
1 balloon = 100KRW. it's 3608AUD but Afreeca takes either 20% or 40% I think.
On June 19 2017 19:28 Netto. wrote: He just received 30000 ballons from one guy and reset the timer to 100 hours again. It will be over 5 days of nonstop streaming.
How many balloons on an australian dollar? Google doesnt do the conversion from balloons like with other currencies.
1 balloon = 100KRW. it's 3608AUD but Afreeca takes either 20% or 40% I think.
That's a lot! :o
And about 10 balloons on a dollar, good to know, thanks!
Larva went on a splurging spree not long ago, I think he bought LV bags for his wife and some other expensive stuff for his family. He's making bank and most likely a partner streamer since he's quite popular.
On June 19 2017 18:49 Bakuryu wrote: larva just had his own ggaemo moment against rush, he was in a very commanding lead, just needed to attack with his mass lurker/ling to win, then he lost like 8 lurkers to mines instantly. somebody please gif that!!!!!
On June 19 2017 18:49 Bakuryu wrote: larva just had his own ggaemo moment against rush, he was in a very commanding lead, just needed to attack with his mass lurker/ling to win, then he lost like 8 lurkers to mines instantly. somebody please gif that!!!!!
On June 19 2017 18:49 Bakuryu wrote: larva just had his own ggaemo moment against rush, he was in a very commanding lead, just needed to attack with his mass lurker/ling to win, then he lost like 8 lurkers to mines instantly. somebody please gif that!!!!!
hehe ya, like it didn't matter that he lost all those.
On June 22 2017 02:22 JungleTerrain wrote: Larva the next Bonjwa.
who woulda thought
Though this is said mostly in jest, I do hope that Larva manages to qualify and make it to the upper stages of the next ASL. He deserves recognition for how well he's been playing. I remember back even during the Sonic era, he was helping out Sonic with preparation (from what I could tell and such). Despite his antics, he's pretty passionate about the game and has some of the better mutalisk micro among zergs too.
I'm not exaggerating when I say that I've never seen a single BW player who's playstyle seemed this besieging to me. Larva is like a dragon breathing down the knight's neck. He uses every chance he gets to put more pressure, yet he's also disciplined and flees at the right time, and his ability to defend multiple bases is uncanny. Not just that Larva has already been giving top pros a run for their money, he's actually still climbing the ranks, still improving his winrate, still plugging holes in his game, it's almost unbelievable.
One thing that I find that he can still improve is his ZvT anti-eraser defense. I think he needs to upgrade burrow sooner because I see him losing games to that tactic. If he fixes that and other such things I'm pretty sure he'll soon be an even match for Last - or he could even surpass him.
On June 19 2017 18:49 Bakuryu wrote: larva just had his own ggaemo moment against rush, he was in a very commanding lead, just needed to attack with his mass lurker/ling to win, then he lost like 8 lurkers to mines instantly. somebody please gif that!!!!!
thank you, you make my day :D watching lurkers and defiler die to mines makes me happy
Haha why, you're a zerg after all! Is it just not a composition you like seeing zergs using against mines? :D
because the instant you see the mines unborrow, you know you will lose your lurker/defiler. Your reflex to save your units with micro will not help. Even panic burrow or swarm/plague will not save your precious unit. you can only shout NOOOO! in disbelief and watch for 1,5 seconds how the ruthless spidermine hunts down its prey.
On April 27 2017 23:56 Bakuryu wrote: "It is going to happen, and no matter what you wish. No matter where you go, No matter how you squirrel. There is nothing you can do... to stop it!" Exhaustion, Frustration, Despair. i just love to see Zerg suffer.
On June 22 2017 01:48 Netto. wrote: Larva has just all-killed team consisting of Flash, JD and Bisu.
Holy fck! Someone send him balloons !
sounds like we have a volunteer! He beat JD on Alternative, 2011 map that barely saw much play and then Flash on Outsider I believe. Not sure about Bisu, missed it.
On June 19 2017 18:49 Bakuryu wrote: larva just had his own ggaemo moment against rush, he was in a very commanding lead, just needed to attack with his mass lurker/ling to win, then he lost like 8 lurkers to mines instantly. somebody please gif that!!!!!
thank you, you make my day :D watching lurkers and defiler die to mines makes me happy
Haha why, you're a zerg after all! Is it just not a composition you like seeing zergs using against mines? :D
because the instant you see the mines unborrow, you know you will lose your lurker/defiler. Your reflex to save your units with micro will not help. Even panic burrow or swarm/plague will not save your precious unit. you can only shout NOOOO! in disbelief and watch for 1,5 seconds how the ruthless spidermine hunts down its prey.
On April 27 2017 23:56 Bakuryu wrote: "It is going to happen, and no matter what you wish. No matter where you go, No matter how you squirrel. There is nothing you can do... to stop it!" Exhaustion, Frustration, Despair. i just love to see Zerg suffer.
Haha savage! But I know for sure this feeling you are talking about, you try but indeed it does nothing!
On June 22 2017 05:29 Magic Powers wrote: I'm not exaggerating when I say that I've never seen a single BW player who's playstyle seemed this besieging to me. Larva is like a dragon breathing down the knight's neck. He uses every chance he gets to put more pressure, yet he's also disciplined and flees at the right time, and his ability to defend multiple bases is uncanny. Not just that Larva has already been giving top pros a run for their money, he's actually still climbing the ranks, still improving his winrate, still plugging holes in his game, it's almost unbelievable.
One thing that I find that he can still improve is his ZvT anti-eraser defense. I think he needs to upgrade burrow sooner because I see him losing games to that tactic. If he fixes that and other such things I'm pretty sure he'll soon be an even match for Last - or he could even surpass him.
On June 19 2017 19:28 Netto. wrote: He just received 30000 ballons from one guy and reset the timer to 100 hours again. It will be over 5 days of nonstop streaming.
Larva getting 30k Ballons :
Going back at this day, games weren't posted i think :
On June 13 2017 23:11 Netto. wrote: Incredible performance by Larva today. Beating Flash in two straight 30+ minute games. When he is on fire he looks invincible, no matter what Flash throws at him.
(starts 1h32)
(up until 1h38)
Starts with 2 - 0 for FlaSh, in two short games, then :
Larva wins 2 very long macro games, followed by a quick third win with heavy muta micro. Then there's a game (second video, one hour mark) where he manages to reboot a FlaSh firebat early agression, before leaving because he has connection problems seemingly (not sure if he was ahead, could've been 4 - 2). Games n°7 is again a quick Muta win for Larva and n°8 is this one :
On June 14 2017 00:10 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote: 8 drophsips trying to land.Larva:not gonna happen.
So in the end, 5 - 3 for Larva that could (should ?) have been 6 - 2. He got 2 x 5000 ballons following this serie btw (1:40:50)
On June 22 2017 07:39 Magic Powers wrote: I think Last is currently better at TvZ than Flash.
I will say FlaSh has significantly better results in ASL and other tournaments, consistently is higher in the month Afreeca Top 5 rankings in each MU, etc. Unless there is something I'm missing, the statistics clearly indicate FlaSh is better.
That said, I'm more than happy to hear from a subjective standpoint what Last is doing to make his TvZ feels stronger than FlaSh's.
It's just a feeling I get from watching them play in recent weeks. Just my personal opinion, nothing objective. And I'm only talking about TvZ, in the other matchups I think Flash is better.
On June 22 2017 07:39 Magic Powers wrote: I think Last is currently better at TvZ than Flash.
I will say FlaSh has significantly better results in ASL and other tournaments, consistently is higher in the month Afreeca Top 5 rankings in each MU, etc. Unless there is something I'm missing, the statistics clearly indicate FlaSh is better.
That said, I'm more than happy to hear from a subjective standpoint what Last is doing to make his TvZ feels stronger than FlaSh's.
some people are just better than some people because of styles. Larva's style may be good vs flash's
Anybody else got lag with the Afreeca streams? Just signed in to ask about this, since it really bothers me that I am not able to properly watch any of the Afreeca streams for days.
On June 22 2017 07:39 Magic Powers wrote: I think Last is currently better at TvZ than Flash.
I will say FlaSh has significantly better results in ASL and other tournaments, consistently is higher in the month Afreeca Top 5 rankings in each MU, etc. Unless there is something I'm missing, the statistics clearly indicate FlaSh is better.
That said, I'm more than happy to hear from a subjective standpoint what Last is doing to make his TvZ feels stronger than FlaSh's.
some people are just better than some people because of styles. Larva's style may be good vs flash's
On June 23 2017 16:50 Erlembald wrote: Anybody else got lag with the Afreeca streams? Just signed in to ask about this, since it really bothers me that I am not able to properly watch any of the Afreeca streams for days.
Do you view them directly on play.afreeca.com or just the TeamLiquid embedded one? I always click "View on Afreeca" and lower the video quality from "Source" to "High" so I don't get stuttering/buffering problems.
On June 24 2017 10:34 Disregard wrote: Larva has great mechanics so he can definitely match Flash. But I still feel JD has the superior micro and strategic sense.
only the strategy part. JD is inferior to larva basically. Get JD to play Flash/Last 100-200 games per month and watch his win rate drop 10-20%
On June 24 2017 10:34 Disregard wrote: Larva has great mechanics so he can definitely match Flash. But I still feel JD has the superior micro and strategic sense.
only the strategy part. JD is inferior to larva basically. Get JD to play Flash/Last 100-200 games per month and watch his win rate drop 10-20%
Larva is an inspiration, but if Jaedong played as much as him he'd be way ahead, imo.
On June 24 2017 10:34 Disregard wrote: Larva has great mechanics so he can definitely match Flash. But I still feel JD has the superior micro and strategic sense.
only the strategy part. JD is inferior to larva basically. Get JD to play Flash/Last 100-200 games per month and watch his win rate drop 10-20%
Larva is an inspiration, but if Jaedong played as much as him he'd be way ahead, imo.
Jaedong is more talented but Larva is way smarter these days. Yeah I wish JD would play more games though.
Is there somewhere please how afreeca system works? ok we have exchange rate, but how someone acumulated 30k baloons? and why he doesnt keep it and gives it to larva?
On June 25 2017 04:37 AnarchisticObi1 wrote: Is there somewhere please how afreeca system works? ok we have exchange rate, but how someone acumulated 30k baloons? and why he doesnt keep it and gives it to larva?
It's like a donation, they buy balloons solely to give them.
On June 25 2017 04:37 AnarchisticObi1 wrote: Is there somewhere please how afreeca system works? ok we have exchange rate, but how someone acumulated 30k baloons? and why he doesnt keep it and gives it to larva?
It's like a donation, they buy balloons solely to give them.
so how much does cost 30k balloons? i can imagine a lot
well i just could not believe that someone would give away such amount... and there were two exchange rates and possibly you could gain baloons some other way... so right on..
On June 25 2017 07:57 AnarchisticObi1 wrote: well i just could not believe that someone would give away such amount... and there were two exchange rates and possibly you could gain baloons some other way... so right on..
Why not? I believe you haven't followed CS:GO at all, there was a guy called motar2k (search that on youtube) where he donated top streamers with like 1k-20k$. I remember pashaBiceps getting 5k$ and 15k$ in donations in the same day from him.
On June 25 2017 07:57 AnarchisticObi1 wrote: well i just could not believe that someone would give away such amount... and there were two exchange rates and possibly you could gain baloons some other way... so right on..
Huge donations are not uncommon for popular streamers. I mean just search on YouTube for "twitch donations" or something like that and I'm sure you'll find some examples. Some people just have THAT much money to throw around. I feel like most of the people that do that do not actually work for their money (or they make a ton of money), but are rather rich kids with wealthy parents that say "here's $100,000, do what you want it".
ROFL just watched Larva vs Last, Last is winning and floats his CC into Larva's main, Larva starts raging but keeps playing on, Last builds an SCV with the floated CC and builds a manner CC in Larva's main and Larva absolutely loses it. Smashes his keyboard into pieces before say GG and proceeds to off his stream. Someone needs to upload the VOD when it comes out, too hilarious.
On June 26 2017 02:06 Dante08 wrote: ROFL just watched Larva vs Last, Last is winning and floats his CC into Larva's main, Larva starts raging but keeps playing on, Last builds an SCV with the floated CC and builds a manner CC in Larva's main and Larva absolutely loses it. Smashes his keyboard into pieces before say GG and proceeds to off his stream. Someone needs to upload the VOD when it comes out, too hilarious.
bahaha can't believe I missed this. Someone please upload and link!
Also Last watched the VOD of larva's stream when larva was flashing his keyboard. He played classical music to it and mimed being a director with wooden sticks lol
On June 24 2017 10:34 Disregard wrote: Larva has great mechanics so he can definitely match Flash. But I still feel JD has the superior micro and strategic sense.
only the strategy part. JD is inferior to larva basically. Get JD to play Flash/Last 100-200 games per month and watch his win rate drop 10-20%
Larva is an inspiration, but if Jaedong played as much as him he'd be way ahead, imo.
Jaedong is more talented but Larva is way smarter these days. Yeah I wish JD would play more games though.
Isn't it because of hand/wrist issues that prevents Jaedong from playing as much as he wants to?
On June 24 2017 10:34 Disregard wrote: Larva has great mechanics so he can definitely match Flash. But I still feel JD has the superior micro and strategic sense.
only the strategy part. JD is inferior to larva basically. Get JD to play Flash/Last 100-200 games per month and watch his win rate drop 10-20%
Larva is an inspiration, but if Jaedong played as much as him he'd be way ahead, imo.
Jaedong is more talented but Larva is way smarter these days. Yeah I wish JD would play more games though.
Isn't it because of hand/wrist issues that prevents Jaedong from playing as much as he wants to?
Well thats topic for another discussion. Larva playing smarter/better is just obvious from watching streams right now.
Don't get me wrong - I agree that if Jeadong were doing 120 hour streams like Larva does then he would be much much better. But that's simply not the case and we have to deal with it. The reason doesn't really matter in my opinion.
On June 26 2017 02:31 Klairg wrote: Also Last watched the VOD of larva's stream when larva was flashing his keyboard. He played classical music to it and mimed being a director with wooden sticks lol
On June 24 2017 10:34 Disregard wrote: Larva has great mechanics so he can definitely match Flash. But I still feel JD has the superior micro and strategic sense.
Not true. Some of the stuff Larva does I don't see anyone else do.
For example: Flash does an unsuccessful sunken break. Larva throws down queen's nest before hydra den because he thinks he can still hold third without lurkers.
I've NEVER seen people do this before. I've seen crazy Zerg where people skip lurkers completely, but not "let me get Hive faster to make sure I can get swarm and nydus out and fortify my advantage" type of play with lurkers.
What is really interesting about Larva recent ZvT, is he's phasing out ultras more and more. I remember games where he won late game with pure ling and the random muta switch (all of these with defiler/queen support of course). His main and 3rd usually have like 12 hatcheries late game, it's crazy
Larva rage is best rage, that's some Terror shit right there. Last is annoying the shit out of him. But you can't win AlphaGo even you're doing 100 hour stream because Last himself plays shit ton of games with his at least 5 smurfs, guy is robotic - when he loses no emotion, nothing at all.
On June 26 2017 08:52 outscar wrote: Larva rage is best rage, that's some Terror shit right there. Last is annoying the shit out of him. But you can't win AlphaGo even you're doing 100 hour stream because Last himself plays shit ton of games with his at least 5 smurfs, guy is robotic - when he loses no emotion, nothing at all.
I think at some point that's probably negatively effecting him. Clearly massive practice works, but even then you need some time to process, digest, and refresh the mind.
On June 26 2017 08:52 outscar wrote: Larva rage is best rage, that's some Terror shit right there. Last is annoying the shit out of him. But you can't win AlphaGo even you're doing 100 hour stream because Last himself plays shit ton of games with his at least 5 smurfs, guy is robotic - when he loses no emotion, nothing at all.
I think at some point that's probably negatively effecting him. Clearly massive practice works, but even then you need some time to process, digest, and refresh the mind.
He did say that he had been analyzing Last and Flash's plays to look for any opening/weakness. He also said he analyzes his play.
More importantly, At this level, zvt is all about mechanics. Flash, after losing to larva in long macro game, said that he needs to up his mechanics to do what he wants to do.
On June 26 2017 08:52 outscar wrote: Larva rage is best rage, that's some Terror shit right there. Last is annoying the shit out of him. But you can't win AlphaGo even you're doing 100 hour stream because Last himself plays shit ton of games with his at least 5 smurfs, guy is robotic - when he loses no emotion, nothing at all.
I think at some point that's probably negatively effecting him. Clearly massive practice works, but even then you need some time to process, digest, and refresh the mind.
thing is, that includes sleeping and other life necessities. I could be wrong but I doubt he's playing 12 hours sessions straight etc...
On June 26 2017 08:52 outscar wrote: Larva rage is best rage, that's some Terror shit right there. Last is annoying the shit out of him. But you can't win AlphaGo even you're doing 100 hour stream because Last himself plays shit ton of games with his at least 5 smurfs, guy is robotic - when he loses no emotion, nothing at all.
I think at some point that's probably negatively effecting him. Clearly massive practice works, but even then you need some time to process, digest, and refresh the mind.
thing is, that includes sleeping and other life necessities. I could be wrong but I doubt he's playing 12 hours sessions straight etc...
I think you would be suprised. Of course he was sleeping and there were some breaks during the day because he is human after all. However I tried to tune in as much as possible and everytime I loaded the stream some BW content was going on - either him playing or spectating others game. He truly practiced a lot recently.
On June 26 2017 08:21 ortseam wrote: Effort has been doing this for a couple of years.
What is really interesting about Larva recent ZvT, is he's phasing out ultras more and more. I remember games where he won late game with pure ling and the random muta switch (all of these with defiler/queen support of course). His main and 3rd usually have like 12 hatcheries late game, it's crazy
Effort's decision making is dumb as hell, though. Larva will frequently do stuff like just make 6 lurkers, 2 defilers and then a bazillion drones. How he doesn't die is beyond me. Then suddenly he surprises his opponent with an explosion of units. Once he went lurker/defiler into straight 20+ queens. No ultra until later. Effort for some reason can't pull off droning his 4 bases that quickly. You see this with foreign players like Eonzerg that have good mechanics - he just doesn't have as many drones as Larva does at the same stage of the game.
Effort has great mechanics, probably the best in the game. He just can't pull off the Sauron Zerg infinity lings style Larva does in the late game - he doesn't keep on massing expansions and drones to get to that point.
On May 08 2017 16:31 onlystar wrote: Larva is great at practicing vs better players in a sense that he will find ways to improve and ultimately come up with a better gameplay vs that practice partner.
This was very clean when Bisu joined afreeca hè would crush larva 16-1 +/- larva kept fightingNd improved, later than on afreeca Bisu showed weakness in his pvz mu he dropped like 5 games vs a C level zerg Who splits the map and Will turtle hard until defiler is out only then to fight under darkswarm, Bisu at that time did all the wrong things to handle that type of zerg play ( taking center and investing into cannons ) while the center is an easy target for darkswarm 3-3 lurk ling defiler.
Around that time alot of epic 40min close games were played. Between larva & bisu where larva would adjust his style and always 4base split map vs Bisu in the end larva would win Some Bo3s even evening out scores more than before, not bad for a B-teamer vs the godly protoss
It used to be like that for Larva. Nowadays, Larva seems to beat anyone not named last/flash/jd/bisu relatively easy. He also has the most wins this mont at 180 i think.
On June 26 2017 08:52 outscar wrote: Larva rage is best rage, that's some Terror shit right there. Last is annoying the shit out of him. But you can't win AlphaGo even you're doing 100 hour stream because Last himself plays shit ton of games with his at least 5 smurfs, guy is robotic - when he loses no emotion, nothing at all.
I think at some point that's probably negatively effecting him. Clearly massive practice works, but even then you need some time to process, digest, and refresh the mind.
Keep in mind he's a streamer, so some of this rage is definitely part of a manufactured personality. It's true he may be mad/rage a bit after a loss, but this level of rage is clearly for entertainment. People will be more inclined to tune in, and more inclined to donate. It's win win for him.
On June 27 2017 02:55 CatalysT. wrote: Larva just went and took a pee mid match versus last...he is a madman. Of course he went on to crush him with ease.
On June 27 2017 03:01 Netto. wrote: Yeah I saw it, it was crazy :D He just got a little ahead so decided to go to bathrooom without even pausing a game and still won.
larva for you, so confident lol. Imagine if Last decided to drop right then and there and he left, came back to his main and 4th empty haha
On June 26 2017 08:52 outscar wrote: Larva rage is best rage, that's some Terror shit right there. Last is annoying the shit out of him. But you can't win AlphaGo even you're doing 100 hour stream because Last himself plays shit ton of games with his at least 5 smurfs, guy is robotic - when he loses no emotion, nothing at all.
I think at some point that's probably negatively effecting him. Clearly massive practice works, but even then you need some time to process, digest, and refresh the mind.
Keep in mind he's a streamer, so some of this rage is definitely part of a manufactured personality. It's true he may be mad/rage a bit after a loss, but this level of rage is clearly for entertainment. People will be more inclined to tune in, and more inclined to donate. It's win win for him.
Oh I didn't mean the rage. I meant just playing utterly nonstop BW for days on end. It's one of those things that can be good practice, but I suspect towards the end you can be a bit overloaded and not playing your best; similar to an athletic state of overtraining.
Can benefit long term, but the end of big practice sessions you're rarely at your sharpest.
On June 26 2017 08:52 outscar wrote: Larva rage is best rage, that's some Terror shit right there. Last is annoying the shit out of him. But you can't win AlphaGo even you're doing 100 hour stream because Last himself plays shit ton of games with his at least 5 smurfs, guy is robotic - when he loses no emotion, nothing at all.
I think at some point that's probably negatively effecting him. Clearly massive practice works, but even then you need some time to process, digest, and refresh the mind.
thing is, that includes sleeping and other life necessities. I could be wrong but I doubt he's playing 12 hours sessions straight etc...
12 hours straight, probably not no. What I'm getting at though is that if he is really doing what I'd think of as 24/7 BW he is : playing BW, eating, sleeping, personal hygiene. Not much else.
It's the fact that any time you're doing anything your mind is engaged on BW. Liken it to athletic training a little bit. At the end of your lifting or running session you're a bit fatigued, and wouldn't lift your best or run your fastest times...you've just trained hard. Larva's been drilling his mind on BW with no appreciable breaks for a few days, he won't be at his best condition after a long session like...but given some time to rest up, switch focus, and digest the sessions he can come back stronger than before (assuming he didn't play so fatigued he stopped trying or was practicing some very bad habits; but not likely to be the case if he is still doing fine vs Flash/Last).
Lets say he can't play his best starcraft due to mental fatigue. It doesn't matter since there isn't a tournament he is trying to win the next day and instead he is putting up an entertainment stream for the sake of money, which is where your training analogy falls apart completely.
On June 27 2017 08:18 Dangermousecatdog wrote: Lets say he can't play his best starcraft due to mental fatigue. It doesn't matter since there isn't a tournament he is trying to win the next day and instead he is putting up an entertainment stream for the sake of money, which is where your training analogy falls apart completely.
Yea, I I absolutely agree with what you wrote. I'm not talking at all about tournaments, nor saying it matters in any way that he can't play his best starcraft on this given day, as you point out he doesn't need to be in peak shape for any reason right now. Very unsure what you think I'm arguing or what you think my analogy is.
I made the initial comment a day or two ago just throwing out an explanation for why Larva might have been looking a little sloppy in a few of those sets versus Last where Last was messing around manner CCing him and such...mental fatigue from nonstop BW certainly could be a contributing factor.
On June 26 2017 08:52 outscar wrote: Larva rage is best rage, that's some Terror shit right there. Last is annoying the shit out of him. But you can't win AlphaGo even you're doing 100 hour stream because Last himself plays shit ton of games with his at least 5 smurfs, guy is robotic - when he loses no emotion, nothing at all.
I think at some point that's probably negatively effecting him. Clearly massive practice works, but even then you need some time to process, digest, and refresh the mind.
Keep in mind he's a streamer, so some of this rage is definitely part of a manufactured personality. It's true he may be mad/rage a bit after a loss, but this level of rage is clearly for entertainment. People will be more inclined to tune in, and more inclined to donate. It's win win for him.
Oh I didn't mean the rage. I meant just playing utterly nonstop BW for days on end. It's one of those things that can be good practice, but I suspect towards the end you can be a bit overloaded and not playing your best; similar to an athletic state of overtraining.
Can benefit long term, but the end of big practice sessions you're rarely at your sharpest.
On June 26 2017 08:52 outscar wrote: Larva rage is best rage, that's some Terror shit right there. Last is annoying the shit out of him. But you can't win AlphaGo even you're doing 100 hour stream because Last himself plays shit ton of games with his at least 5 smurfs, guy is robotic - when he loses no emotion, nothing at all.
I think at some point that's probably negatively effecting him. Clearly massive practice works, but even then you need some time to process, digest, and refresh the mind.
thing is, that includes sleeping and other life necessities. I could be wrong but I doubt he's playing 12 hours sessions straight etc...
12 hours straight, probably not no. What I'm getting at though is that if he is really doing what I'd think of as 24/7 BW he is : playing BW, eating, sleeping, personal hygiene. Not much else.
It's the fact that any time you're doing anything your mind is engaged on BW. Liken it to athletic training a little bit. At the end of your lifting or running session you're a bit fatigued, and wouldn't lift your best or run your fastest times...you've just trained hard. Larva's been drilling his mind on BW with no appreciable breaks for a few days, he won't be at his best condition after a long session like...but given some time to rest up, switch focus, and digest the sessions he can come back stronger than before (assuming he didn't play so fatigued he stopped trying or was practicing some very bad habits; but not likely to be the case if he is still doing fine vs Flash/Last).
yep, I don't disagree with you. Was just saying that he's not sitting there playing BW straight for that long lol so at least he has time to recharge a bit. For all I know, he may even be taking mini naps or sleeping for 10hours at a time and between eating and hygiene, he plays max 12 hours. I'm sure that he's played just as much during the team environment of SKT T1 so I think he can handle it. The games vs Last were great lol.
Seems that Larva is trying something new. After clearing mine and tank lines with mutas and lings and lurkers, he makes a lot of hydras to push directly into the main base. It's not working, but could be an interesting beginning of a new strat to counter the eco mech shift.
On June 28 2017 01:48 Dangermousecatdog wrote: Seems that Larva is trying something new. After clearing mine and tank lines with mutas and lings and lurkers, he makes a lot of hydras to push directly into the main base. It's not working, but could be an interesting beginning of a new strat to counter the eco mech shift.
I'm excited to see them playing something other than CB even if its FS lol. Also, is how background that of Flash and Last in ATB? lol.
On June 28 2017 01:48 Dangermousecatdog wrote: Seems that Larva is trying something new. After clearing mine and tank lines with mutas and lings and lurkers, he makes a lot of hydras to push directly into the main base. It's not working, but could be an interesting beginning of a new strat to counter the eco mech shift.
JD did it correctly vs Last a week ago. Larva probably watched the game.
Yeah I was going to say the same thing. I saw Jaedong do that vs Last in 3-4 games and in each one (that I saw) Jaedong crushed Last. Looked very strong.
On June 22 2017 07:39 Magic Powers wrote: I think Last is currently better at TvZ than Flash.
I will say FlaSh has significantly better results in ASL and other tournaments, consistently is higher in the month Afreeca Top 5 rankings in each MU, etc. Unless there is something I'm missing, the statistics clearly indicate FlaSh is better.
That said, I'm more than happy to hear from a subjective standpoint what Last is doing to make his TvZ feels stronger than FlaSh's.
On June 22 2017 07:39 Magic Powers wrote: I think Last is currently better at TvZ than Flash.
I will say FlaSh has significantly better results in ASL and other tournaments, consistently is higher in the month Afreeca Top 5 rankings in each MU, etc. Unless there is something I'm missing, the statistics clearly indicate FlaSh is better.
That said, I'm more than happy to hear from a subjective standpoint what Last is doing to make his TvZ feels stronger than FlaSh's.
holy shit, is anyone watching this moment? Last beat Larva on HBR Larva rages and smashes his keyboard Then he realizes his computer has been fucked (HUGE artifacts showing up on the monitor) and cries some more All while Last is doing hand motions similar to conducting an orchestra
Yeah I watched that hahaha Larva has got some serious rage issues. After he smashed his keyboard he pulled another new one out of the box. He must have like 20 of them.
On June 22 2017 07:39 Magic Powers wrote: I think Last is currently better at TvZ than Flash.
I will say FlaSh has significantly better results in ASL and other tournaments, consistently is higher in the month Afreeca Top 5 rankings in each MU, etc. Unless there is something I'm missing, the statistics clearly indicate FlaSh is better.
That said, I'm more than happy to hear from a subjective standpoint what Last is doing to make his TvZ feels stronger than FlaSh's.
Lol does 10,000 balloons worth smashing keyboard and monitor for it? You lose balloons + equipment. Also checked out JD's stream he's really bad nowadays, lost straight 4 games vs. Last, he can't even stop 1 rax pressure and loses like 90% times when his sunken line breaks.
On June 29 2017 06:03 outscar wrote: Lol does 10,000 balloons worth smashing keyboard and monitor for it? You lose balloons + equipment. Also checked out JD's stream he's really bad nowadays, lost straight 4 games vs. Last, he can't even stop 1 rax pressure and loses like 90% times when his sunken line breaks.
he 6-3 Last a few days ago. Why can't people see that he is in training mode, where he does overly risky things to see if he gets away with it?
On May 09 2017 22:29 sickkungen wrote: Hong9 just allkilled Shine, Bisu and Best 3-0 in a team battle between players who didn't qualify vs players who did ^^
Do you have a link to the stream video? Or a replay?
On June 29 2017 06:03 outscar wrote: Lol does 10,000 balloons worth smashing keyboard and monitor for it? You lose balloons + equipment. Also checked out JD's stream he's really bad nowadays, lost straight 4 games vs. Last, he can't even stop 1 rax pressure and loses like 90% times when his sunken line breaks.
Usually if your sunken line breaks you do lose. Ling floods from the hatches won't stop even a small bio ball and your natural will go down fast and it's always over when that happens. If your sunkens go down but you hold and still have your muta that is one thing and you are fine
On July 11 2017 01:13 iopq wrote: Did he just beat jaedong with Terran? LOL
Not the first time. One or two days ago I already saw they played tvz, then pvz with Larva being t and p, ended with 1-1 tvz 0-1 pvz. But probably they didn't play serious, chatting all the time. tvz that Larva won was pretty decent and long. You can see games here
Also Larva beat pcs[name], A ranked 42-10 zerg tvz pvz multiple times. Seems he usually starts his gaming sessions with offracing.
So who is playing under Jaedong name, playing vs Shuttle now, just beat him. Real Jaedong also streaming now and its not him. I guess Larva beat that fake Jaedong tvz before.
Does anyone else go queens before ultras in ZvT? I've seen Larva do this successfully multiple times - if he doesn't die it's usually really effective because the Terran ends up bleeding all his tanks and gets overwhelmed with Ultra/ling eventually.
You know I wonder what his wife thinks about him sleeping on stream. I think it sounds funny, especially at first, but wouldn't she get tired of it after some time? If my SO (assuming they were a streamer) spent several nights sleeping alone just to stream I'd be like wtf? Just stream during the day. Come to bed babe.
But Idk, I suppose she understands the streamer life
On August 14 2017 23:08 blade55555 wrote: Must have been messing around, I see him use the new graphics almost always. He's back to new graphics right now.
HOLY SHIT, LARVA IS INHUMAN. Even though I knew he was going to win, I was still gripped by the suspense due to the intensity of the last 15 minutes of the game 13 minutes into the VOD. Professional level ZvT is inhuman
Larva is becoming legendary ZvT.. geez. I just wish he used burrow a bit more (thats my fav) but clearly he knows best.
Just theorycrafting, but what about playing larva style (nydus farbase) but once you get that big bank going, making like 2 spores at each base? clearly sci vessels disrupted his play a ton from the delifers.. I'm not saying make spores over units but I feel like that game would be way more comfortable for Larva if he could stop the sci vessels getting in close range of that 1 oclock natural.. Kinda reminding myself of the old SC2 2012 style of like mass spine/spores because its free supply (minus the drone).. Lame play? Sure, but it would make a difference IMO.
On August 29 2017 15:29 SnowfaLL wrote: Larva is becoming legendary ZvT.. geez. I just wish he used burrow a bit more (thats my fav) but clearly he knows best.
Just theorycrafting, but what about playing larva style (nydus farbase) but once you get that big bank going, making like 2 spores at each base? clearly sci vessels disrupted his play a ton from the delifers.. I'm not saying make spores over units but I feel like that game would be way more comfortable for Larva if he could stop the sci vessels getting in close range of that 1 oclock natural.. Kinda reminding myself of the old SC2 2012 style of like mass spine/spores because its free supply (minus the drone).. Lame play? Sure, but it would make a difference IMO.
You answered Your own question Sir
Spore is not free , It's drone +75 mins for creep + 50 mins for spore.Losing a drone = losing mining time. 2x spore = 10 lings (plus mining time+100 minerals for drones) where spores are pretty useless vs drops and vessels...I mean in best case scenario You're gonna kill 1 vessel before Terran irradiates all what he wants to ? Terran can always d-matrix one vessel to take dmg.I havent seen the video yet so I dont know the exact situation but that's my opinion . Eraser ? Burrow is much more efficient imo
oh and PS: It's called sunken in SC:R/BW , not spine
Edit : oh well , I've missunderstood Your sentence.In terms of supply it is free
On August 29 2017 15:29 SnowfaLL wrote: Larva is becoming legendary ZvT.. geez. I just wish he used burrow a bit more (thats my fav) but clearly he knows best.
Just theorycrafting, but what about playing larva style (nydus farbase) but once you get that big bank going, making like 2 spores at each base? clearly sci vessels disrupted his play a ton from the delifers.. I'm not saying make spores over units but I feel like that game would be way more comfortable for Larva if he could stop the sci vessels getting in close range of that 1 oclock natural.. Kinda reminding myself of the old SC2 2012 style of like mass spine/spores because its free supply (minus the drone).. Lame play? Sure, but it would make a difference IMO.
Most zergs get a spore at their nat and their fourth (third's nat) so if terran's vessels are plagued he won't be able to irradiate rallied units. If his vessels aren't plagued it wouldn't matter if you had 2 spores or not because they would just irradiate your units and move away after so one is enough.
If you're talking about making a spore in your main for stuff like vessel self-irradiate(eraser trick) its kind of a waste to be honest. The times where zergs usually get erased is when they're already behind so they won't have the luxury to just make 2 spores at each main. Burrow would be a better choice against it.
On August 29 2017 15:29 SnowfaLL wrote: Larva is becoming legendary ZvT.. geez. I just wish he used burrow a bit more (thats my fav) but clearly he knows best.
Just theorycrafting, but what about playing larva style (nydus farbase) but once you get that big bank going, making like 2 spores at each base? clearly sci vessels disrupted his play a ton from the delifers.. I'm not saying make spores over units but I feel like that game would be way more comfortable for Larva if he could stop the sci vessels getting in close range of that 1 oclock natural.. Kinda reminding myself of the old SC2 2012 style of like mass spine/spores because its free supply (minus the drone).. Lame play? Sure, but it would make a difference IMO.
You answered Your own question Sir
Spore is not free , It's drone +75 mins for creep + 50 mins for spore.Losing a drone = losing mining time. 2x spore = 10 lings (plus mining time+100 minerals for drones) where spores are pretty useless vs drops and vessels...I mean in best case scenario You're gonna kill 1 vessel before Terran irradiates all what he wants to ? Terran can always d-matrix one vessel to take dmg.I havent seen the video yet so I dont know the exact situation but that's my opinion . Eraser ? Burrow is much more efficient imo
oh and PS: It's called sunken in SC:R/BW , not spine
Edit : oh well , I've missunderstood Your sentence.In terms of supply it is free
I meant when the game gets to that point where zergs are floating ~1000+ minerals, and getting near the 175+ supply range. Making and using a drone or two for spores are worth it IMO at that stage, but obviously not earlygame.
I was mentioning spines in relation to the SC2 style that was popular back then.. obviously its sunken in BW, but the only time you see sunkens is to defend the MM timing usually. I've seen some zergs do what I'm saying; ironically a recent SC2 player like Ret (yes I know he has a bw history) I've seen build his expos with 3-4 sunkens and spores - which defends against drop harass and vessels pretty decently, at least buying time for reinforcements. I just think its a safer way that zergs could maintain lategame bases for minimal cost (minerals/drone usage, but not supply which is the main issue lategame) - whatever i'm not a zerg player anymore so I won't explore it but maybe someone will.
starting at around 9:20 video time: its hard to imagine Larva could come back from that. Last and Larva both have 2 bases and then Last drops m&m to Larvas main to kill ton of drones (I count about 12-15). I was expecting him to gg straight up. I think Larva has forgot how to lose ZvT. What a beast!
Who is the other person playing on his stream, why are they tag-teaming with the other person sleeping in the background, and where are they streaming from? A basement?
I was about to ask what's happening on Larva's stream too. Didn't watch it but saw 19 k viewers. Which is crazy even though earlier today I already saw BeSt having 15 k when they streamed a toss-bootcamp with Britney and Rain (obviously Britney bringing the viewers in mostly I guess).
That's terror afaik. He's the big boss of afreeca streamers, able to pull in so many viewers (I think I've seen/heard of at least 50k) lol. Not sure what they are doing though, taking turns practicing for ASL quals?
On August 31 2017 03:27 BigFan wrote: That's terror afaik. He's the big boss of afreeca streamers, able to pull in so many viewers (I think I've seen/heard of at least 50k) lol. Not sure what they are doing though, taking turns practicing for ASL quals?
Yeah its Terror, its funny because Larva is like a milder version of him haha. This dude would throw spaghetti sauce on himself, and scream while pouring soy sauce on his head.
On September 01 2017 13:10 NickHotS wrote: Larva currently streaming in his Conor McGregor outfit, and just shouted "FUCKING MAYWEATHER!" during a game.
LOL he is ridiculous.
Say hello to Larva McGregor.
Edit: Here's another one haha. This was after he had just beat Bisu.
Here's an update on Larva's performance according to http://스폰빵.com.
Against Bisu
July 2017: 2W - 3L (40%) August 2017: 9W - 11L (45%) September 2017: 6W - 4L (60%)
Current Cumulative Win Ratio Against Bisu: 76/204 = 37.3%
Against Last
July 2017: 19W - 18L (51.4%) August 2017: 9W - 2L (81.8%) September 2017: 10W - 4L (71.4%)
Current Cumulative Win Ratio Against Last: 140/391 = 35.8%
Against FlaSh
July 2017: 11W - 27L (28.9%) August 2017: 2W - 3L (40%) September 2017: 3W - 7L (30%)
Current Cumulative Win Ratio Against FlaSh: 113/370 = 30.5%
Larva's finally showing some dominance over Last. On the other hand, he hasn't gotten any better against FlaSh in months. A victory against FlaSh in a bo5 in the ASL 4 doesn't seem to be likely.
Spectacular game by Larva against Flash on FS from today stream:
There wasn't a single second when Flash could somehow threaten Larva. He was controlling the game right form the start. Actually I think Flash made some mistakes in this game. But still Larvas play was incredible. God I hope they will meet each other in ASL. Like in finals or something.
There wasn't a single second when Flash could somehow threaten Larva. He was controlling the game right form the start. Actually I think Flash made some mistakes in this game. But still Larvas play was incredible. God I hope they will meet each other in ASL. Like in finals or something.
this is the kind of play that I want Larva to bring up at ASL. If he's able to play as relaxed and confident, I think he'll make it much much further than most. He just needs to stay composed.
There wasn't a single second when Flash could somehow threaten Larva. He was controlling the game right form the start. Actually I think Flash made some mistakes in this game. But still Larvas play was incredible. God I hope they will meet each other in ASL. Like in finals or something.
this is the kind of play that I want Larva to bring up at ASL. If he's able to play as relaxed and confident, I think he'll make it much much further than most. He just needs to stay composed.
Maybe now that he has adopted his new "Larva McGreggor" persona he will find it easier to relax. It is possible that having a persona and goofing around so much actually helps him feel a little more detached and carefree in his games? I doubt this is intentional but it could very well be an incidental bonus to the wacky antics.
Larva was finally upset. Sad news all around. Was hoping for a Flash/Bisu vs Larva finals :/ Having said that, if Bisu upsets Flash, we can get that for third place and the finals can still be a little closer so cmon Bisu!
Larva was finally upset. Sad news all around. Was hoping for a Flash/Bisu vs Larva finals :/ Having said that, if Bisu upsets Flash, we can get that for third place and the finals can still be a little closer so cmon Bisu!
Larva is the best both evil and cute perfect esports hero EDIT: cant believe people get legitimately offended by his showmanship, whatever that is. lol, we live in weird times.
On December 04 2017 15:59 outscar wrote: Ladies and gentleman! Lemme introduce you THE GOD OF BM - Larva McGregor. I'm gonnna highlight things he did on Zotac Cup showmatch.
The moments were pretty funny but anyone who thinks Geoff was legit salty clearly hasn’t watched him in anything. He was trolling him. His straight face humor is pretty well known. All in all a great tournament. Sucks that legend was the butt of the joke but pretty clear larva didn’t intend to insult him. Unfortunately he won’t be invited back to any other zotac stuff.
Yea, it's something you saw Larva doing a bunch a few years ago, where he would absolute went apeshit on his stream regulary anyways (similar to Terror). But it's still nuts he would do it in an official tournament match lol. Never forget :D
I watched a ZvZ where larva teched to hive and got out defilers to plague stacked mutas. Haven't been able to watch many games recently, is this something people do now in ZvZ? Was so much more fun to watch than just ling/muta. He went mass hydra after defliers, and even used some lurkers to defend against cracklings.
On December 13 2017 04:28 Starlightsun wrote: I watched a ZvZ where larva teched to hive and got out defilers to plague stacked mutas. Haven't been able to watch many games recently, is this something people do now in ZvZ? Was so much more fun to watch than just ling/muta. He went mass hydra after defliers, and even used some lurkers to defend against cracklings.
I think since this ASL season has passed most pros are just trolling/having fun on ladder. I often see Effort going for 2 base Nydus rushes in ZvZ and several high level players are going random on ladder.
On December 13 2017 04:28 Starlightsun wrote: I watched a ZvZ where larva teched to hive and got out defilers to plague stacked mutas. Haven't been able to watch many games recently, is this something people do now in ZvZ? Was so much more fun to watch than just ling/muta. He went mass hydra after defliers, and even used some lurkers to defend against cracklings.
I think since this ASL season has passed most pros are just trolling/having fun on ladder. I often see Effort going for 2 base Nydus rushes in ZvZ and several high level players are going random on ladder.
Oh I see. Too bad seemed like a cool strat... could wipe out all your opponents mutas with a single defiler. Have to survive that long though..
On December 13 2017 04:28 Starlightsun wrote: I watched a ZvZ where larva teched to hive and got out defilers to plague stacked mutas. Haven't been able to watch many games recently, is this something people do now in ZvZ? Was so much more fun to watch than just ling/muta. He went mass hydra after defliers, and even used some lurkers to defend against cracklings.
I think since this ASL season has passed most pros are just trolling/having fun on ladder. I often see Effort going for 2 base Nydus rushes in ZvZ and several high level players are going random on ladder.
On December 13 2017 04:28 Starlightsun wrote: I watched a ZvZ where larva teched to hive and got out defilers to plague stacked mutas. Haven't been able to watch many games recently, is this something people do now in ZvZ? Was so much more fun to watch than just ling/muta. He went mass hydra after defliers, and even used some lurkers to defend against cracklings.
I think since this ASL season has passed most pros are just trolling/having fun on ladder. I often see Effort going for 2 base Nydus rushes in ZvZ and several high level players are going random on ladder.
Vods?
Definitely would like to see those games
I tried to find them but Efforts vods are 10 hours long and my net is to slow .
On December 22 2017 19:44 Fumapl wrote: Larva crying when his baby fell on her face while sitting was both the saddest and the funniest thing I saw in a while. I'm torn :/
On December 22 2017 19:44 Fumapl wrote: Larva crying when his baby fell on her face while sitting was both the saddest and the funniest thing I saw in a while. I'm torn :/
I have only been watching his korhal vods for about two weeks now but he is getting faster all the time even in that small amount of time. his play is damn impressive. i just wish there was more new blood like this in the kr scene
Larva and Flash played another cool game today. It is very unorthodox, different from standard ZvT, and it is very hard to tell who is going to win until last second :D I recommend it to everyone.
On December 28 2017 07:56 Netto. wrote: Larva and Flash played another cool game today. It is very unorthodox, different from standard ZvT, and it is very hard to tell who is going to win until last second :D I recommend it to everyone.
Larva said he put his overlord on top of Flash's bunker on purpose during the attempted nat bust so Flash wouldn't be able to repair the bunker. Even though it didn't do much that was so smart by Larva.
Its crazy how one moment can change a game so much. It begins with the first attempted drop in Flash's natural that caught his attention, then the drop in Flash's main that killed all his scvs, after that the dropship snipe, followed by the morphing lurks that killed Flash's marines while his attention was on the second attempted drop on his nat and finally with the game winner where Larva snipes all of Flash's vessels.
this game was ridiculously good and shows that the matchup is quite balanced imo: + Show Spoiler +
Yes, Larva managed to get his third up but Flash expanded like a madman, even holding more bases than Larva and adding another 4/5 facs on top of the 7 in his main. I kept watching the supply count and his bank. After every engagement in the late game, he was either maxed or close to max and at one point had a 3k/2k+ bank. He was making good decisions overall and his macro overall was extremely solid. In other words, he was on his game but so was Larva. Maybe if the game was a lot more drop heavy, Larva would've fared worse, however, I truly believe that if the game could be played perfectly, ZvT is quite balanced, if not in the zerg's favour due to the nature of the larva system and all. Thanks for sharing!
On December 28 2017 07:56 Netto. wrote: Larva and Flash played another cool game today. It is very unorthodox, different from standard ZvT, and it is very hard to tell who is going to win until last second :D I recommend it to everyone.
Yeah, Larva won a few games but then it all went downhill. Rush's aggressive, uncompromising style paid off. I guess you could say Larva got cRUSHed ^^
I think he lost 9 consecutive games on Fighting Spirit. Seriously it was amazing from Rush.
Afterwards they switched to Circuit Breakers and Larva won 2-1 I think.
Fighting Spirit is indeed heavily favored for Terran but still I was surprised. Rush did a lot of rushes (yay!!), but where he destroyed Larva was mostly when he eliminated his usual expansion routes by timing attacks perfectly (all with Marine & Medic).
Larva got rushed and cRushed as someone said. His lategame is godly but he needs to improve his early game too. I saw many stupid losses from him, especially vs. Last.
On January 05 2018 06:14 outscar wrote: Larva got rushed and cRushed as someone said. His lategame is godly but he needs to improve his early game too. I saw many stupid losses from him, especially vs. Last.
Happens to every single Zerg in the world
Like Effort losing to a bunker rush, Jaedong getting rekt by a vulture run-by, etc.
It's really funny how quickly Larva's ZvT late game revolution has turned things around. Just half a year ago we thought terran dominates the late game, now we know it's zerg who forces terran's cards. And in response to that many terrans including Flash have gotten very aggressive and tricky in the early/mid game.
On January 12 2018 00:15 seNsiX wrote: Highly recommend Larva vs. Mini on Match Point from Group D of the DSL 2. Really close game the whole way through, very exciting to watch.
On January 12 2018 00:15 seNsiX wrote: Highly recommend Larva vs. Mini on Match Point from Group D of the DSL 2. Really close game the whole way through, very exciting to watch.
Thanks! Any chance for a link?
On January 12 2018 08:10 Netto. wrote: I am not sue ir it is the game he is talking about, but Larva has a game on Matching Point vs Mini from DSL(I think?) from 3 days ago so it must be it
On January 12 2018 00:15 seNsiX wrote: Highly recommend Larva vs. Mini on Match Point from Group D of the DSL 2. Really close game the whole way through, very exciting to watch.
On January 12 2018 08:10 Netto. wrote: I am not sue ir it is the game he is talking about, but Larva has a game on Matching Point vs Mini from DSL(I think?) from 3 days ago so it must be it
That's the one, yeah! There's also this link from the Small VOD thread 2.0 that's shown from the perspective of an observer with Korean commentary:
Looking at how he builds and cancels sunkens & evo chambers, it feels like he knows exactly what kind of defensive structures are needed at any given moment based on such variables as enemy marine distance to natural and mutalisk hatching time. In the end he only used 3 drones for sunks & lost some lings while wiping out most of Flash's army, leaving his mutas to reign supreme.
On March 10 2018 01:30 oxKnu wrote: Larva is destroying Flash right now on stream. A string of about 5 wins up until now (Transistor, Sparkle, Gladiator included).
The dude really has a way of improving. He was so shaky on these maps a few weeks ago.
I saw the games on Sparkle. They are beautiful. I never thought Larva would play that good and clever.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/jBFRPJn.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/m8Jurq2.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/hFSqN2P.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/AB5lxZD.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/1MBcyGU.jpg)
. Does anyone see it too? I think it's happening, the bw space-time is bending once more, time will tell sooner than later dw.
well written, sir! 
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ycWrRqm.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/0hmp96B.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/PrRQzbl.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/qnv2uiQ.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Hj8OIIh.png)
![[image loading]](https://giant.gfycat.com/WateryDisgustingIndianpalmsquirrel.gif)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ZZ8UahI.jpg)
Larva v <Neo Jade> 
Bisu![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/5j7qSpc.jpg)
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