Peoeple seem to still doubt Snow's current PvZ skills.
He's been performing consistently well in PvZ lately at least in online matches.
1. In the last KCM season finals, Snow has beaten all four Zerg's in a row (including Soma) to carry his team to victory. 2. San Pao Championship - he beat hero in the finals in Bo5. 3. Consistently good performance against Zergs in Bo9 Ultimate battles
I also watch Snow's Youtube membership lectures on PvZ. He has a really deep understanding of PvZ matchups and know how to "paint a broad picture" when it comes to gameplan, by taking into account things like at which point it will be most difficult for the zerg to repel his attack due to supply block early game, etc.
Anyway, regarding why PvZ is so hard to win in a high prize pool tournaments like ASL, there are just so many ways in which Zerg can trick toss. As toss, you need to watch out for so many things going wrong suddenly like Ling all in, Hydra bust, fast Hydra drop inside main, fast Lurker rush, Muta rush, especially in the first 10 mins of the game.
Because corsair can't always scout early enough on time, toss has to rely a lot on intuition to make the correct decision on whether the opponent is going all in any of these or whether they are going economy management mode with lots of drones instead.
Also, Zerg can always get one free win in Best of X matchups by going ling all in off toss because it's just so hard to predict and prepare for amongst a number of other variables.
So that's why I say PvZ requires luck for Toss since Zerg can always hide their intention and do crazy aggro openers that are impossible to predict unless you are a psychic.
On May 25 2023 08:03 XenOsky wrote: there is no toss bonjwa because protoss needs to attack in order to create an advantage, meanwhile zergs and terran can just sit there and take things slowly.
after mid game, protoss losses a ton of value armywise.
Terran must always attack vs Zerg, must often attack vs Protoss, and carriers exist.
But that's where the disparity lies. T and P both have to attack Z to prevent their outrageous late game power. But T only have to attack P 33% of the time (Carrier build). And even in that case, P don't really sit and defend in their base like what T usually do against P. It's more like P trying to stall T to survive before the Carriers are out in sufficient number, much like Z trying to stall T to get Defilers out.
On top of that, the disparity in army power is probably most significant in TvP. Late game TvZ and PvZ there are differences in army power, but not to the degree that one army totally decimates the other like TvP. Once again, you can see why we have T>Z and Z>P, but P are not really > T (due to that late game army power disparity) to complete the symmetry.
As G5 said, the imbalance is only slightly, but enough to create a trend over significant amount of time.
On May 25 2023 08:03 XenOsky wrote: there is no toss bonjwa because protoss needs to attack in order to create an advantage, meanwhile zergs and terran can just sit there and take things slowly.
after mid game, protoss losses a ton of value armywise.
Terran must always attack vs Zerg, must often attack vs Protoss, and carriers exist.
But that's where the disparity lies. T and P both have to attack Z to prevent their outrageous late game power. But T only have to attack P 33% of the time (Carrier build). And even in that case, P don't really sit and defend in their base like what T usually do against P. It's more like P trying to stall T to survive before the Carriers are out in sufficient number, much like Z trying to stall T to get Defilers out.
On top of that, the disparity in army power is probably most significant in TvP. Late game TvZ and PvZ there are differences in army power, but not to the degree that one army totally decimates the other like TvP. Once again, you can see why we have T>Z and Z>P, but P are not really > T (due to that late game army power disparity) to complete the symmetry.
As G5 said, the imbalance is only slightly, but enough to create a trend over significant amount of time.
Not sure what you mean here. If you let P expand all map as T you will have a severe disadvantage. P can rebuild its base anywhere on the map and still be capable.
In TvP you need to block expansions just as much as a PvZ or TvZ.
In that sense TvP is 100% attack or you lose the game. You cant camp forever which you seem to imply unless there are carriers.
On May 25 2023 08:03 XenOsky wrote: there is no toss bonjwa because protoss needs to attack in order to create an advantage, meanwhile zergs and terran can just sit there and take things slowly.
after mid game, protoss losses a ton of value armywise.
Terran must always attack vs Zerg, must often attack vs Protoss, and carriers exist.
But that's where the disparity lies. T and P both have to attack Z to prevent their outrageous late game power. But T only have to attack P 33% of the time (Carrier build). And even in that case, P don't really sit and defend in their base like what T usually do against P. It's more like P trying to stall T to survive before the Carriers are out in sufficient number, much like Z trying to stall T to get Defilers out.
On top of that, the disparity in army power is probably most significant in TvP. Late game TvZ and PvZ there are differences in army power, but not to the degree that one army totally decimates the other like TvP. Once again, you can see why we have T>Z and Z>P, but P are not really > T (due to that late game army power disparity) to complete the symmetry.
As G5 said, the imbalance is only slightly, but enough to create a trend over significant amount of time.
Terran must attack in many more situations than against carriers, but yeah, you can play a more defensive style if you want to. It's not the most common style though, and it's better on some maps than on others. On most maps, you can't just immediately go to defensive split map play without doing some big push first.
Having to attack or not having to attack doesn't matter for balance though. Terran had to attack Zerg since ancient times, and the matchup was still Terran favoured. If you have to attack but your attack is overpowered, then your race is advantaged.
On May 25 2023 08:03 XenOsky wrote: there is no toss bonjwa because protoss needs to attack in order to create an advantage, meanwhile zergs and terran can just sit there and take things slowly.
after mid game, protoss losses a ton of value armywise.
Terran must always attack vs Zerg, must often attack vs Protoss, and carriers exist.
But that's where the disparity lies. T and P both have to attack Z to prevent their outrageous late game power. But T only have to attack P 33% of the time (Carrier build). And even in that case, P don't really sit and defend in their base like what T usually do against P. It's more like P trying to stall T to survive before the Carriers are out in sufficient number, much like Z trying to stall T to get Defilers out.
On top of that, the disparity in army power is probably most significant in TvP. Late game TvZ and PvZ there are differences in army power, but not to the degree that one army totally decimates the other like TvP. Once again, you can see why we have T>Z and Z>P, but P are not really > T (due to that late game army power disparity) to complete the symmetry.
As G5 said, the imbalance is only slightly, but enough to create a trend over significant amount of time.
Not sure what you mean here. If you let P expand all map as T you will have a severe disadvantage. P can rebuild its base anywhere on the map and still be capable.
In TvP you need to block expansions just as much as a PvZ or TvZ.
In that sense TvP is 100% attack or you lose the game. You cant camp forever which you seem to imply unless there are carriers.
In that "sense" all races have to attack because to win the game you have to destroy all buildings of your enemy. But we're not taking it literally like that are we?
In TvP, excluding Carrier build, when you have 2 bases, P are supposed to have 3. Likewise, 3 for 4-5, 4 for 6-7, 5 for 8-9 etc. In some cases when T are on 5 bases P can take rest of the map and T are still able to win.
When we talk about "P have to attack" it almost exclusively means during the mid game (mentioned already by Xenosky) until T have 4 bases. No one means T can camp forever on 3-4 bases and let P take all the 12 remaining bases.
Here's another way to put it: If you let T and P both grow freely but in a sustainable manner (not taking extra bases which are out of your capability to protect, for example P having 6 bases at 10th minute on 100 supplies is not sustainable, T taking the 3rd base off 1 Tank is not sustainable), no fights, no harassments, etc. T will kill P later on out of sheer force from their mech army. Therefore, P have to do some sorts of attack to disrupt T's rate of growth. It's a must for Protoss. But it's only an option for Terran.
If the game did not have a 200 supply cap for both races then it could be another story, but Protoss always max first so there's always the need for them to attack first, otherwise they can't grow bigger (in terms of army power) but their enemies can. And we all know at 200/200 Protoss is the worst.
On May 25 2023 08:03 XenOsky wrote: there is no toss bonjwa because protoss needs to attack in order to create an advantage, meanwhile zergs and terran can just sit there and take things slowly.
after mid game, protoss losses a ton of value armywise.
Terran must always attack vs Zerg, must often attack vs Protoss, and carriers exist.
But that's where the disparity lies. T and P both have to attack Z to prevent their outrageous late game power. But T only have to attack P 33% of the time (Carrier build). And even in that case, P don't really sit and defend in their base like what T usually do against P. It's more like P trying to stall T to survive before the Carriers are out in sufficient number, much like Z trying to stall T to get Defilers out.
On top of that, the disparity in army power is probably most significant in TvP. Late game TvZ and PvZ there are differences in army power, but not to the degree that one army totally decimates the other like TvP. Once again, you can see why we have T>Z and Z>P, but P are not really > T (due to that late game army power disparity) to complete the symmetry.
As G5 said, the imbalance is only slightly, but enough to create a trend over significant amount of time.
Terran must attack in many more situations than against carriers, but yeah, you can play a more defensive style if you want to. It's not the most common style though, and it's better on some maps than on others. On most maps, you can't just immediately go to defensive split map play without doing some big push first.
Having to attack or not having to attack doesn't matter for balance though. Terran had to attack Zerg since ancient times, and the matchup was still Terran favoured. If you have to attack but your attack is overpowered, then your race is advantaged.
In TvZ, T have to attack but still are favored, because it's related to my second point there: Terran's late game army is not significantly underpowered compared to Zerg (but we dont have that in the case of P vs T). Late game TvZ is kinda back and forth fighting, not one army running away from the other because they will get totally decimated if they try to clash head-on like PvT.
Also disagree that T must attack in many situations in TvP. There are two must-attack situations: 12 Nexus and Carrier. The rest (FD, 3 Tanks, 5 Tanks, 4-6 Fac. etc.) are just options/styles. Vulture drop is also an option. And Vulture map control doesn't count as attack.
Light had 2 games recently in Proleagues against Best and Mini, 45 minutes each, in which he was both on 4 bases while the two Protosses already took all 3 corners of the map and on 8-9 bases. Light eventually won both.
The reasons why X race is favoured is ultimately just speculation as no explanation can be proven or disproven, and I can argue with you over why I think things are how they are. I think that Protoss and Terran can both play offensively or defensively, but that certain situations force the other side to attack. I think that in this regard, they are quite even. T can't play passive split map on a map with too many expansions, and a Protoss, even one who's going carriers, has to make a move against a split mapping Terran on some cramped two player map.
I don't agree that Protoss has the weakest 200/200 either. They can, depending on the game state, but they can also have the strongest. It is feasible and practical to max out on lots of reavers, archons, and HT, which is not inferior to the Zerg equivalent at all. Carriers + arbiters + HT make an ultimate army in PvT as well, if you can make it to it, and even without carriers, if you have enough arbiters, it is possible to actually beat a maxed Terran army if you win the micro battle, especially if you attack him when he's moving so that he doesn't have a perfect entrenched position. You can provoke movement from him by expanding.
What we can't argue over is the winrate. PvT is a balanced matchup based on winrates, if we play on the right maps. There are many maps that are very close to 50% in PvT, such as Butter, Sylphid, Retro, and Eclipse.
In the previous ASL map pool, PvT wasn't a problem. The most T favoured TvP map was Vermeer, but Protoss had 76 which was even more P favoured in PvT.
On May 26 2023 00:04 vOdToasT wrote: The reasons why X race is favoured is ultimately just speculation as no explanation can be proven or disproven, and I can argue with you over why I think things are how they are. I think that Protoss and Terran can both play offensively or defensively, but that certain situations force the other side to attack. I think that in this regard, they are quite even. T can't play passive split map on a map with too many expansions, and a Protoss, even one who's going carriers, has to make a move against a split mapping Terran on some cramped two player map.
What we can't argue over is the winrate. PvT is a balanced matchup based on winrates, if we play on the right maps. There are many maps that are very close to 50% in PvT, such as Butter, Sylphid, Retro, and Eclipse.
In the previous ASL map pool, PvT wasn't a problem. The most T favoured TvP map was Vermeer, but Protoss had 76 which was even more P favoured in PvT.
No, I never said PvT was not balanced. I always stress it's something like T>Z>P=T.
What I tried to explain in the above posts is that it should be T>Z>P>T (perfect symmetry), but because P has to attack T first (midgame) to get advantage (in most cases) AND late game army P < late game army T, so we don't have P>T but we have P=T instead.
Ok, well, I don't agree that Z inherently beats P either. In the previous ASL map pool, there were many 55%ers for ZvP, but I can name maps that were P favoured in ZvP as well. The two I can immediately think of are Blue Storm and Bloody Ridge, because when I was a P user, I picked them in a tournament that allowed every iCCup map to be chosen, to give myself the best odds against a top foreign Zerg of the time.
On May 26 2023 00:04 vOdToasT wrote: I don't agree that Protoss has the weakest 200/200 either. They can, depending on the game state, but they can also have the strongest. It is feasible and practical to max out on lots of reavers, archons, and HT, which is not inferior to the Zerg equivalent at all. Carriers + arbiters + HT make an ultimate army in PvT as well, if you can make it to it, and even without carriers, if you have enough arbiters, it is possible to actually beat a maxed Terran army if you win the micro battle, especially if you attack him when he's moving so that he doesn't have a perfect entrenched position. You can provoke movement from him by expanding.
But this is pure theoretical stuff, as if you type "show me the money" and build all those units at will.
In reality, P almost never get to that kind of 200/200 army (200/200 Reaver Archon HT or 200/200 Carrier Arbiter HT). And if they ever do, it probably means they are so far ahead that they can kill the enemy long before they get to that composition. It's like Snow getting to 200/200 Scouts to massacre Artosis. He can never build 200/200 Scouts against Light can he?
You can say the same for Terran and Zerg. 200 Ultralisks or 200 BCs probably kill everything as well. But it's not realistic.
The weakest 200/200 I mentioned obviously mean a probable 200/200 in the current meta. For example, Gateway tier 1 units + Shuttle HT + maybe an Arbiter.
On May 26 2023 00:04 vOdToasT wrote: I don't agree that Protoss has the weakest 200/200 either. They can, depending on the game state, but they can also have the strongest. It is feasible and practical to max out on lots of reavers, archons, and HT, which is not inferior to the Zerg equivalent at all. Carriers + arbiters + HT make an ultimate army in PvT as well, if you can make it to it, and even without carriers, if you have enough arbiters, it is possible to actually beat a maxed Terran army if you win the micro battle, especially if you attack him when he's moving so that he doesn't have a perfect entrenched position. You can provoke movement from him by expanding.
But this is pure theoretical stuff, as if you type "show me the money" and build all those units at will.
In reality, P almost never get to that kind of 200/200 army (200/200 Reaver Archon HT or 200/200 Carrier Arbiter HT). And if they ever do, it probably means they are so far ahead that they can kill the enemy long before they get to that composition. It's like Snow getting to 200/200 Scouts to massacre Artosis. He can't never build 200/200 Scouts against Light can he?
The weakest 200/200 I mentioned obviously mean a probable 200/200 in the current meta. For example, Gateway tier 1 units + Shuttle HT + maybe an Arbiter.
I can show you a VOD of Free getting a reaver archon army against Jaedong, and I did it myself often. It was my way to capitalise on being ahead due to a better midgame. I did a lategame reaver transition.
It is true that in a currently popular style, the maxed out army that you will get is weak, because that style is to attack with gateway units, eventually supported by a few templar, and to rely on having more psi than T has supply. However, this is not the only way to play. When massed arbiters were popular, what I described more commonly occurred. You could see how far ahead each side was ahead by counting the number of arbiters and comparing it to the number of vessels.
On May 26 2023 00:04 vOdToasT wrote: I don't agree that Protoss has the weakest 200/200 either. They can, depending on the game state, but they can also have the strongest. It is feasible and practical to max out on lots of reavers, archons, and HT, which is not inferior to the Zerg equivalent at all. Carriers + arbiters + HT make an ultimate army in PvT as well, if you can make it to it, and even without carriers, if you have enough arbiters, it is possible to actually beat a maxed Terran army if you win the micro battle, especially if you attack him when he's moving so that he doesn't have a perfect entrenched position. You can provoke movement from him by expanding.
But this is pure theoretical stuff, as if you type "show me the money" and build all those units at will.
In reality, P almost never get to that kind of 200/200 army (200/200 Reaver Archon HT or 200/200 Carrier Arbiter HT). And if they ever do, it probably means they are so far ahead that they can kill the enemy long before they get to that composition. It's like Snow getting to 200/200 Scouts to massacre Artosis. He can't never build 200/200 Scouts against Light can he?
The weakest 200/200 I mentioned obviously mean a probable 200/200 in the current meta. For example, Gateway tier 1 units + Shuttle HT + maybe an Arbiter.
I can show you a VOD of Free getting a reaver archon army against Jaedong, and I did it myself often. It was my way to capitalise on being ahead due to a better midgame. I did a lategame reaver transition.
But (a) was he on 200/200?, (b) was he already ahead in the mid game, and (c) how many games like that do you often see?
Maybe we need to set some ground rule first: 200/200 in the first max out. No way P can get to that composition in the first max out.
This match between Snow and Jaedong is a good example of how he handles some of the early game difficulties. Spoilers since it's from just a few weeks ago.
Snow handily wins the games where Jaedong tries an all-in (with zerglings or hydras), but loses most of the other games. I think this shows that protoss players don't have to be afraid of all-in builds. The challenge comes mostly from safe openings with or without early game pressure. The transition into a playable mid game from a standard opening is what protoss players are struggling with.
The final game is an example of a successful transition for protoss with good winning chances. At around 1h 32m Snow loses his main army but still manages to win the game (without ever harassing Jaedong's drone lines). This one game doesn't prove that protoss is equally matched against zerg in the late game, but it does show that there's no need to lose hope during that phase. Reavers are really powerful.
I mean.. not to crush down on you too hard but one game (same with series btw) does not prove anything at all.
At this point it is pretty clear that considering the professional map pool (OSL,MSL,Pro League, ASL, ect..) Terran is overall slightly a more powerful race than Zerg or Protoss.
It is completely insane too assume, that by a sheer coincidence in a game with millions of players "the most gifted players all chose to be Terran"..
whoever believes that really needs a reality check..
On May 27 2023 05:07 MaGic~PhiL wrote: I mean.. not to crush down on you too hard but one game (same with series btw) does not prove anything at all.
At this point it is pretty clear that considering the professional map pool (OSL,MSL,Pro League, ASL, ect..) Terran is overall slightly a more powerful race than Zerg or Protoss.
It is completely insane too assume, that by a sheer coincidence in a game with millions of players "the most gifted players all chose to be Terran"..
whoever believes that really needs a reality check..
I literally said the same thing that it doesn't prove anything.
I'm not here to debate protoss balance, the arguments go nowhere. I'm offering ideas and solutions to those who are interested in that instead of complaining.
EPT
is there any good translation for bonjwa?
