[ASL9] Ro8 Preview Pt 2: War on Shakuras

[ASL9] Ro8 Preview Pt 2: War on Shakuras - Page 2

Timebon3s

Norway613 Posts

April 05 2020 09:18 GMT

#21

These articles are so good, thanks so much for doing this and helping bw stay alive. This has been my favourite thing for so long <3 bw

user80269

20 Posts

April 05 2020 09:25 GMT

#22

is there any better esport? or english language esport write up?

thank you for doing justice to this great community. we're very lucky to have you!

BeaSteR

Sweden328 Posts

April 05 2020 09:54 GMT

#23

Not sure who to root for... as a Terran I tend to root for my race but seeing old school Stork I think I will cheer for him today

PVJ

Hungary5212 Posts

April 05 2020 10:13 GMT

#24

On April 05 2020 16:28 RKC wrote:

Show nested quote +

On April 05 2020 15:40 EsportsJohn wrote:

On April 05 2020 11:34 RKC wrote:
Great write-up!

I haven't really followed Stork's games. Seems like he's a solid grinder-type of player (as opposed to Bisu).

How does his play compare to similar solid players like Rain and Best (especially in PvT)? Has his playstyle changed post-KeSPA?

Well, Stork has definitely fallen under the radar in post-Kespa days after a pretty lackluster SC2 career, and now he has a family too. But he's actually topped his groups in the ASL pretty consistently before getting battered by Jaedong or in a PvP. His results are very Stork-like (good but no one ever talks about them because he never actually looks like he's going to win the tournament):

ASL2 - 2-0 in Ro24 and Ro16 with wins over Rush, free, Light, and GuemChi, annihilated 3-0 by Jaedong
ASL3 - Bombed out in the Ro24 against Pusan and GuemChi (NotLikeThis)
ASL4 - 2-1 in Ro24 in that weird group that sSak won, got destroyed by Jaedong and Rain in the Ro16 group of death
ASL5 - 2-0 in Ro24 against GuemChi and Horang2, went on to lose PvPs to Best and Snow
KSL1 - Struggled against a primarily PvP group with Best and Horang2
ASL6 - Bombed out in the Ro24 against Mong and (future champ) Effort
KSL3 - Finally overcame JD and Last 3-0 in Bo5 in the Ro16, beat Best 3-0 in the Ro8, and then got rekt by Mini's hot streak (but it wouldn't have mattered because there was no way he could beat Rain the finals anyway).
ASL8 - 2-0 in the Ro24 against Clam and Sharp, lost once again in the Ro16 to an all PvP group with Best, Snow, and Rain
KSL4 - Not a good tournament for Stork, his whole group was super cringe (Modesty/Mind/Mini doing weird stuff)
ASL9 - 2-0, 2-0 bb leggo

As you can see, he's been near the top for a while with a few really notably bad performances. I think he's mellowed out considerably now that he has a family and doesn't practice much compared to the other progamers. He's still the same sort of player that kind of manages to do everything pretty well though, and even though he's been really sloppy at times, his play looks like its tightened up significantly in the last few months. If he plays like he did the other day against Flash, he's better than Rain and Best at PvT (it's always been his strongest matchup). There's no telling if that's consistent though. Hoping for a really good series

Wow! Thanks for the chronology!

The preview mentions that Stork prefers carriers over arbiter in late-game PvT. Is his carrier play as good as peak Jangbi at OSL? Also, how about his reaver drop and stormu micro play?

Stork is above average in all those. He popularised Arbiter and Carrier builds for late-game PvT. He might not have the finest execution but he is so intelligent and so good with gathering information that he knows when and where to use those. He was also beast in PvP due to his reaver usage. Nowadays he goes reaver into carrier builds often as far as I saw on his stream and had good handle on vT matchup with this tech. For starter you can watch some of his recommended games on Liquipedia