[ASL4] Ro8 Preview Pt. 2- Bisu and Flash Killers - Page 2

On October 22 2017 21:44 BigFan wrote:
^ please use the edit button next time for that earlier triple post lol. We usually action for that but rather avoid having to do so ^^

On October 22 2017 21:07 SlayerS_BunkiE wrote:
I am curious to know now who is right regarding the Larva vs Rain series. Disregarding Kwark's harsh comments, did Rain play the series that badly? A lot of people found that series entertaining, but that doesnt necessarily mean that Rain didnt play bad.

Despite me being a Terran player who has absolutely no idea how to play PvZ, I strongly disagreed with a lot of more knowledgeable fellow posters that Rain had to kill Larva during that game or risk being overrun by a 4 base Zerg. And Kwark seems to share the same opinion -- and to an even greater degree by saying that Rain had "already won". I just thought that Rain wouldnt be at a disadvantage even if he doesnt break Larva.

If Kwark really thought Rain screwed up the games that badly, I can understand the harsh words he had to say. I would like to know though (just to improve my understanding of PvZ), how badly did Rain screw up? You have Kwark on one end saying he had no idea how to play PvZ (at least vs a turtle zerg). And the others saying he did what he needed to do but Larva played amazing defense. I am tilting towards Kwark's analysis. These busts look impressive when they work but a really good player is one who can gauge whether they would succeed or not. If you always just go for the bust and they just work most of the time on account of being that much better than your opponent, its no longer that impressive.

I would like to stress that I also was very impressed with Larva's defense. Its just that Rain played straight into his hands by apparently playing the only way he knows how.

On October 22 2017 20:07 bigmetazltank wrote:


Storm drops' purpose is two-fold. Its to kill the economy, yes, but its also there to help slow down the zerg/mess with their macro by forcing them to spend a macro cycle building drones rather than offensive units. I dunno the number but it feels like a very high percentage of Bisu's storm drops happen around the time he's planning or had a big army engage.

The problem with Rain's storm drops are that they don't really achieve the second purpose because Larva had a huge number of hatches and didn't really play a game that depended on a strong economy. Namely because Rain wasn't doing anything with his map control after Larva said "go ahead, take it I don't plan on having a huge standing army". All Larva really needed was enough income to support base defense because of Rain's constant aggression.

So there wasn't any reason for Rain to actually keep doing storm drops. All he's doing is throwing 300/300 to kill like 8 drones...which given the number of bases and Larva's playstyle doesn't achieve a whole lot except make Larva mine out slower. We've seen a lot of protoss players throw games away by constantly doing storm drops only to end up starving themselves out because the protoss fails to secure enough mining bases while counter-intuitively helping the zerg mine out slower.

All the credit to Larva for some good play and in-series decision making (dude quickly figured out to straight turtle) but Kwark, while needlessly telling him to quit Starcraft, is pretty right in his assessment. Rain did was the equivalent of the Houston Rocket's offense - you're going to bust most teams in the regular season but you're going to die in the post-season because teams know your offensive is one dimensional and is extremely tiring to execute correctly. That's basically what happened here.

On October 22 2017 23:30 Broodwar4lyf wrote:
Rain's play was garbage. He's a good player who beats top 10 guys when he's in form. But the guy who showed up played reckless, careless and just terrible. Even if he won the series nothing would change how his mistakes did not look like a top BW player sorry. It's tough beating a successfully turtling Zerg but Larva was by no means doing anything BUT that during a long period which any top player of Rain's caliber would at least have capitalized on. Even the commentators were doing their best not to say that he was playing terribly. Watch the games again

On October 22 2017 23:55 letian wrote:

Can you please tell us what exactly was "reckless, careless and just terrible" in Rain's play? Honestly, I am amused to find out Also, what was that exactly that "any top player would have capitalized on" against Larva?

On October 23 2017 00:56 KwarK wrote:

Rain had the games 110% in the bag by having map control, an insurmountable economic and army advantage, and control of all the remaining expansion sites. But instead of taking them, putting cannons, ht, reavers and so forth at them, and simply waiting for Larva to mine out, he went allin trying to break Larva.

It was reckless because the upside of the attacks, if they worked, was winning a won game slightly sooner. Whereas the downside, if they failed, was potentially losing the game.

On October 23 2017 02:18 Ganfei2 wrote:
I think Kwark's analysis is entirely right. Also, enough with the tired argument that a commentator cannot possibly assess what a progamer did wrong in a game. No, Kwark doesn't need to translate it to Korean and send it to Rain. Think about how silly that statement is. Rain did play poorly. Progamers aren't infallible beings.

Anyone with an understanding of what they're watching would be throwing their hands up asking why Rain is suiciding 200/200 armies into huge static defense against a Zerg that is doing nothing but turtling, while the P has complete map control, a huge supply advantage, and untaken expansions all over the place. Rain's play reminded me of my own, i.e. impatience is my greatest weakness.

The "quit starcraft" etc. comments are a bit much but I don't think it's serious. I assume Rain will learn from his mistakes. I have no doubt he's analyzed the replays and come to many of the same conclusions that Kwark himself did.

On October 23 2017 01:27 letian wrote:

Well, maybe we can translate this into Korean and send to Rain because he probably thinks it wasn't that close. Hell, he might even thank you for pointing out his mistakes.

On October 23 2017 02:18 Ganfei2 wrote:

Anyone with an understanding of what they're watching would be throwing their hands up asking why Rain is suiciding 200/200 armies into huge static defense against a Zerg that is doing nothing but turtling, while the P has complete map control, a huge supply advantage, and untaken expansions all over the place. Rain's play reminded me of my own, i.e. impatience is my greatest weakness.

On October 22 2017 23:08 letian wrote:
The battle report basically can be summed up by "Rain, you played bad because you didn't win". If this is what you want, you're in the right place I guess.

On October 23 2017 03:47 letian wrote:
It's pretty simple. This is not a personal blog (in which case it would be totally ok) but a community site.

Anyone else with his 5 cents on how Rain played poorly because he didn't win?

On October 23 2017 04:32 Netto. wrote:
Especially considering zergs 200/200 is much scarier than protoss 200/200.

Therefore I think Rain made good decision to try and break Larva.

On October 22 2017 18:57 Heartland wrote:
My god this was a big post. Maybe you should have considered splitting it in two? It was a very nice set of battlereports and good info on the Bisu/Killer game too!

On October 23 2017 04:03 KwarK wrote:
Imagine a TvP in which the Terran opened one base wallin into siege tanks and missile turrets above their ramp. If the Protoss were to go one base mass dragoons trying to break that would you ask that I applaud the Terran's sick holds? And if the Protoss were to keep attacking in the same futile way while the Terran slowly massed battlecruisers, would you insist that I focus more on what the Terran was doing right than the Protoss was doing wrong?

Larva got himself into a position with no map control, a smaller army, a weaker economy, and basically no chance of turning games 3 and 4 into a victory without serious help from his opponent. Take game 3. Larva had two mining bases, no map control, a smaller army, and no control over any of the untaken bases. Then Rain decided to recall most of his army up to a high ground with no resources where the only exit was down a narrow ramp into mass sunkens, and leave them up there for the entire rest of the game. Larva didn't trick him into doing that. Larva didn't kill his arbiters to prevent him from recalling them back down. Larva didn't put scourge to stop shuttles evacuating Rain's army. Rain decided that he needed to put his army where the resources weren't and leave it up there.