In the ASL interview it didn't seem like he wanted to play Random. I think he just wants to take some pressure off himself by not maining the race he's famous for (so it's less disappointment for fans if he loses) and maybe he perceives Terran to be a more mechanically (and thus harder on his arm and shoulder) race to play, so he'd rather go for a race that can win more purely through strategy and mind games. Even his TvTs this season he didn't want to play one hour TvTs, he expressly said he was going to try to make them short before they even started.
I think it's kinda silly to worry about Random being imbalanced at a top level. But I do think people perceive random vs a person who chose race to be much more volatile, which could create a player whose games all look like ZvZ no matter who they play against. 12h vs 12pool, similar feeling people have when they play protoss and one base vs expanding random zerg. But the longer the game goes on the harder it is for the random player to be well prepared vs a variety of tactics and stratagems (which further pushes the idea that random players are incentivized to end games quickly with cheeses or economic leads for one timing). Anyway, we've never seen it so it's all theorycraft what would happen. Just like a new and weird map seems like it has one dominant way to play, as soon as it gets 100 games that way changes. If we're too conservative about this stuff we get boring decisions like every game being played on FS and that's also bad for the spectator.
I'd kinda love to see an off brand random only tournament though, because rvr usually leads to a lot of one base shenanigans that are quite fun. Of course it's not so fun when one player gets their normal main race and the other their off race. Would be cool to make a UMS map maybe, where you get either one of your two off races but never your main. Not so hard to do... select your main race, at the start of the game it replaces your town hall and peons with one of the two races you didn't pick.
People complaining that ONE PLAYER would get the advantage from going random. Guess what? Other players should be better then to use that advantage. Get over it lmfao imagine trying to ban someone for being too good.
On April 20 2020 06:23 FlaShFTW wrote: People complaining that ONE PLAYER would get the advantage from going random. Guess what? Other players should be better then to use that advantage. Get over it lmfao imagine trying to ban someone for being too good.
this is the day and age we live in unfortunately feelsbadman
On April 20 2020 06:23 FlaShFTW wrote: People complaining that ONE PLAYER would get the advantage from going random. Guess what? Other players should be better then to use that advantage. Get over it lmfao imagine trying to ban someone for being too good.
I'm kinda surprised that you didn't think people would complain about this, the game is over 20 years old and people have always complained about racepicking and randoming, and always will.
I'm gonna be honest, Flash is gonna get his butt whooped if he plays anything other than T. Of course he's the best player in the world but taking games off progamers on ladder is not way equivalent to taking sets in ASL. He would be lucky to get passed group stages.
That being said I really hope he switches to P or goes Random. I think it would be really exciting to see what would happen. I think they should experiment with removing the random ban and also allow players to choose race in between games and opponents. It would add a new dimension to the game. For all we know the 'vs R meta' just needs to be explored a bit. R might be strong on 4 player maps but its weaker on 2 player maps. Maybe players will just start scouting earlier or developing totally new builds that are more resilient to R. Or maybe they will counter by choosing R themselves lol. The only way we can know is if we see it.
On April 20 2020 07:13 puppykiller wrote: I'm gonna be honest, Flash is gonna get his butt whooped if he plays anything other than T. Of course he's the best player in the world but taking games off progamers on ladder is not way equivalent to taking sets in ASL. He would be lucky to get passed group stages.
That being said I really hope he switches to P or goes Random. I think it would be really exciting to see what would happen. I think they should experiment with removing the random ban and also allow players to choose race in between games and opponents. It would add a new dimension to the game. For all we know the 'vs R meta' just needs to be explored a bit. R might be strong on 4 player maps but its weaker on 2 player maps. Maybe players will just start scouting earlier or developing totally new builds that are more resilient to R. Or maybe they will counter by choosing R themselves lol. The only way we can know is if we see it.
Hes been going vs other pros with offrace and has been doing pretty decent for while
i will lose alot of respect for Flash if he wants an early advantage in a game by hiding his race. and handicap his opponents like that (not knowing how to open forced to play safe and have to prep 3 matchups vs flash per map that is CRAZY! random should be banned from tournaments for so many reasons )
Flash's raign will continue! My electric romeo, lets go! Flash fighting!
There are only 2 protosses in top 25 ladder players. Rest is all zerg and terran. So protoss is far from overpowered at the top level. This makes me even more surprised that Flash would consider maining protoss.
Also flash's youtube page has a big "Random" logo at the top now, so it looks like random it is, rather than protoss or zerg
top ladder does NOT display balance..
its just a matter who is pushing ladder for progamers currently protoss pros are chilling at ladder games.
On April 20 2020 07:41 onlystar wrote: i will lose alot of respect for Flash if he wants an early advantage in a game by hiding his race. and handicap his opponents like that (not knowing how to open forced to play safe and have to prep 3 matchups vs flash per map that is CRAZY! random should be banned from tournaments for so many reasons )
I doubt he's doing it explicitly for the advantage, I think he's doing it because he knows that his offraces are better than most top players' main races, and that he has a decent chance of winning a starleague as random, which would be an unprecedented achievement. I doubt anyone would bat an eye if Zero or Rain decided they were going to random. With Flash it's a different story, because he's demonstrated that he's at least top 10 in the world with any race. No one else had shown that they can play consistently at the top level with any race.
The preparation aspect is not as crippling as you make it sound, because Flash also has to prepare three builds per map. He doesn't know what race he's going to get either. That said, it is much easier for a random player to select an optimal build than it is for the non-random player, because the random player is going to know the exact build they will choose from the start of the game, and the non-random player has to open generically until they are able to scout, which is almost never optimal and results in either an economic disadvantage or early game vulnerability.
it does not matter why he is doing it or his reasons are legitimate or not. its about the unfair advantage that is an undeniable disadvantage that occurs from the start of the game when a racepicker has to play vs a random player
ZvZ godly micro optimization ZvT knows how to defeat his own T ZvP TvT Best at it TvP Best at it TvZ Best at it PvP godly micro/optimization PvT Knows how to defeat his own T PvZ
That just leaves ZvP and PvZ as the questionable matchups in my opinion. But him being S+ he probably already knows how to play those matchups like Effort/Soulkey/Zero and Bisu do. Whether he has the multitask of Bisu or cleverness of Effort we will see when he plays in the tournament.
Regardless, it hasn't been demonstrated that random is/isn't an advantage at the pro level. Sure, we can theorycraft about its potential based on our scrub tier understanding of the game (and I personally think that in Flash's case it is an advantage), but it hasn't been seen professionally since the early 2000's. If the golden child of Brood War wants to play random, it's going to attract tons of viewers to ASL in a way that the same old Terran Flash won't. Afreeca is not going to ban random without seeing a single game simply based on speculation about its strength. And, as their choice of maps has shown, they're willing to try new things without any guarantee that they are balanced or fair. They're a business, and their viewer count always takes precedent over balance.
On April 20 2020 08:13 Alpha-NP- wrote: ZvZ godly micro optimization ZvT knows how to defeat his own T ZvP TvT Best at it TvP Best at it TvZ Best at it PvP godly micro/optimization PvT Knows how to defeat his own T PvZ
That just leaves ZvP and PvZ as the questionable matchups in my opinion. But him being S+ he probably already knows how to play those matchups like Effort/Soulkey/Zero and Bisu do. Whether he has the multitask of Bisu or cleverness of Effort we will see when he plays in the tournament.
He did really well with Protoss on ladder, which means he must have faced a lot of good Zergs to get there, but that still doesn't give us much information about how well he'll play in an offline environment. It makes sense that he might struggle there, because ZvP and PvZ are the matchups in which he's had the least competitive experience.
On April 19 2020 23:40 arbiter_md wrote: I don't think it's fair towards other players to choose random, unless random means him saying his race in the chat at the beginning of the game. So, the other player could plan how to play before scouting him.
I REALLY don't get why people say it's not fair. You handicap yourself but needing to familiarize ALL 9 matchups instead of just 3 which outweighs the slight advantage of the opponent not knowing your race for the start of the game.
I don't get this sentiment. Agree with it or not, I still get it. To a lot of people the scenarios of a) one person being worse at the matchup and trying to win with a trick or b) being as good or better at the matchup and having a significant advantage from the first second is not an interesting dilemma.
Anyone going random in the ASL strikes me as really diminishing the value of preparation on either side. Maybe its not a horrible thing but I don't see any positives after the initial novelty wears off.
Amazing that people are complaining about this. Of course, people complaining is a hallmark of BW.
Flash already beat the game as Terran. It's not like the question will be "well sure you can win as random, but what would happen if you stick with one race?".
The game is >20 years old. Let's see something cool!
Personally I think Flash is going to get stomped once people have some time to think about how to play vs. Random. And I'm a huge Flash fan. I think this is way harder than people are making it out to be.
It will be funny if he gets T a disproportionate amount (imagine he gets T twice in a BO3) to keep him alive in earlier stages of a tournament.
EPT
