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On January 13 2009 18:15 Choros wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2009 18:11 Kuja900 wrote:On January 13 2009 18:09 Choros wrote:
In my observation the Zerg winrate has been in decline ever since the fall of savior. Protosses were now using much more effective builds (thanks revolutionist) and Terrans were becoming increasingly proficient against the traditional savior 3 hatch muta. I recall an interview from a while back in which savior said that Terrans were slowly getting harder and harder to beat.
What we have seen in my opinion is the other races taking the initiative away from Zerg forcing them to be the ones struggling to adapt and since then it has been once thing after another the most recent being ofcourse the Fantasy build but also the +1 Zelot Archon push which is tailored to counter the fast spire/den build which was pioneered by Jaedong most particually in the final against stork, which is effective against Cosair heavy play that dominated the period. Ok its just important to say i really dont think Jaedong pioneered anything, personally i find him extremely unoriginal but he just does it better than almost anyone else. You could be right the inovation that I credit him for is simply going for fast spire and den at the same time so you go straight into scourge to help with the initial cosair than into mass hydra. Your right that this is far from the counter revolution Zergs need.
Well since July did it before Jaedong and made it popular, Id say there is a pretty good chance of me being right lol.
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Still looking to EffOrt to be the new hope of the swarm. He's been playing amazing games and the kid looks better every time he plays.
This guy literally rolls anyone whose not S-class. While he has lost back to back ace matches, they were certainly nothing to be ashamed of. He barely lost an epic game vs. Bisu, who played flawless PvZ. He lost to Flash on destination to an IMO pretty cheesy bunker rush into mech build.
In fact, in his entire 2008 pro career, he's pretty much lost to nothing but the top gamers. In his last 20 or so games, he's only dropped sets to Bisu, Flash, Jaedong, Light, and Best. For all of 2008, the only losses he has that haven't come from S-class players were to go.go (who has decent TvZ,) great (with ZvZ being great's only good matchup,) and Hwasin, who even while slumping has very dangerous TvZ.
He's beaten the likes of Kal and Jangbi, fantasy, FBH and sea, and has only lost 3 ZvZs to Jaedong, Lux, and great who are 80%, 65%, and 75% vs Z respectively.
CJ has been depending on him a lot lately and so far he is responding well to the pressure. Looking forward to some great things from him in 2009!
Edit: I have to agree with Kuja about JD. With the exception of his recent queen usage I don't think he's done much in the way of creativity. He plays the same builds every other Zerg does, his mechanics are just superior and he plays them better. Combine Jaedong's mechanics with July's metagame sense, and you got yourself an unbeatable Zerg.
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It took  July to get the swarm to beat their most hated enemy  Oov, the first time, and maybe July can topple over the Dragons this time. That being said, I Really hope type-b finds his Killer instinct. That's Really what the zerg has been missing, that lone Wolf Killer instinct. July and Jaedong have it. maGma showed some signs of being the same way as July is in meta game so we'll see. I have my eyes on type-b and maGma.
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Nice post. You know, I never thought people blamed the mech build for the decline of zergs, but rather the maps and lack of talent which makes is Z < T AND Z < P.
Anyway, one thing I'd like to note is just how few zergs are capable of playing the lategame. I swear so often the zerg will open up with an advantage, contain the terran/protoss, reach hive, and then just squander the lead because he can't multi-task and just gets his bases killed off and loses. It seems the wins all come from early hydra/ling breaks rather than a methodical, macro game. it reeks a lack understanding of late-game zerg play, and relies more on strict, mechanical timing rushes which doesn't always work. Then they have nothing to fall back on.
On a side note, I'd like to make a special mention to a young zerg in his 2nd season of play, and is 9-3 for Samsung Khan, which of course is a better PL record than all but Effort among the 5 good zergs mentioned.
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I really want to see something from magma, but hes 21 and in terms of progamers thats old. He is dangerously close to squandering whatever talent he may have this coming starleague may be his last shot to make something of himself. He doesnt have much time left and I really want to see him do something.
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I just Blame the twins and especially Luxury...
But 2009/late 2008 does not look that bad?
Stables?
Jaedong... He's not invincible but he is still the favorite against ... everyone?...
July... Equaled his alltime winning streak, beat Firebathero (his ZvT finally getting on track?), being as good in ZvP as ever (seriously, he is taking non S-Class Protosses to school... I mean, most of his P-Enemies just look like they are not even in the same league).
Effort... Getting better and better. If he loses a game the game was most probably close and his enemy S-Class... If he just gets a bit better he will be a real force.
The big ? for me are:
Luxury? Slumping, slumping hard.
Yarnc? He's not terrible by any means but to *carry* Zerg he has to do more (like winning against good Protoss...).
Savior? It's 2009 but...
Calm? Fantastic first Proleague round, *meh* second round... Up or down?
Magma? Has finally shown up... Let's see if he can pull off a *by.hero* and send Bisu into a slump or at least make the second place :p
By.Hero? Dropping bisu out of the MSL? Yay... But he has to proof himself. We don't see him that often because they already have good Zergs. To actually see this guy more often In proleague Calm or July have to slump (or by.hero just showing ridiculous training victorys).
Zero? He is a BIG ? for me. That stupid loss to FBH really showed that he is still not here to stay (at least in my book).
By.great? Is he really that good or will he go the way of Calm?
... and some more (type-b?)
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On January 13 2009 17:27 SoMuchBetter wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2009 16:45 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote:On January 13 2009 16:35 Kwark wrote:
I still believe it's the ridiculous TvZ winrate which is hurting them most. The dragons are some of the best players in the world right now but they're not unbeatable. Good zergs, and I mean julyish not just Jaedong, can take games off them. The problem is that no zergs but Jaedong survive the terran favoured maps right now because every half decent terran can beat all but the best zerg.
But sick writeup anyway. The stats were new to me and very interesting. Learned a lot.
Thanks man. every zerg player except jaedong is making horrific newbie mistakes effort is playing a shitload better on average than yarnc or luxury, despite the fact that he is nowhere near as good as those two play sometimes it's not the maps, the current top zergs are fucking terrible i agree with this sentiment 100%. its not just a problem of the maps or the builds, its that the current non-jaedong zerg progamers are a bunch of wimps and its been the case since savior's days No, they tried to emulate Jaedong's style which simply cannot be done by anyone but him. They needed a Bisu/Midas to carry on from Savior in revolutionizing macro Zerg (following from Ra/Oov for P/T)
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As of now,
1) Zergs can't win against terrans. The 3 hatchery build has been countered. There is no "stable" build that a zerg can use, and the maps aren't exactly helping zergs out. Every other match-up has a "standard build" like forge expansion or 1 factory expansion, but zergs have NO builds in ZvT that gives them a managable start.
2) Terrans not only countered the "standard zerg play", but countered it in numerous ways each requiring a different response from the zergs. It's like protosses before Nal Ra popularized FE, completely clueless with the numerous cards that zergs have. Well, looking at the statitistics it has become even worse than that.
3) Zergs can't even win properly against protoss now that the match-up has become pretty much balanced with the new tricks protoss has up their sleaves and the maps which make sure that these skills can be used (save for a few maps which protoss complain non-stop about).
4) Add the fact that 2v2 was played until quite recently, most zergs ended up practicing their zergling and mutalisk/scourge control only (the only things that matter in 2v2 and ZvZ, which happened to be the only games zergs could shine in).
5) Just like the recent wave of protoss friendly maps ended up producing fine protoss players unafraid of the zerg and terrans, the recent trend of zerg being crapped on has resulted in, surprise surprise, shortage of zerg talent compared to the other races.
Sure zergs still have Jaedong, the only zerg who is consistently a force in the individual leagues and the proleague regardless of the maps or trends, but that's more of a testament to Jaedong than anything else. His out of the world mechanics is the only thing that's allowing him to keep up with the cream of the crop right now. His godly mechanics only comes into full light in a match-up with no racial imbalance, ZvZ. The other aspects of his game are top notch also, but alas is not enough to turn the tides in the ever hopeless fight against terrans.
To those who say zergs don't have enough "creativity", let's see how well the other races deal with things when the times get rough. Bisu blamed his OSL exit on the maps saying he couldn't FE on the Tears of the Moon and that other builds were useless against the zergs.
Zergs have basically come up every trick in the book from no lurker into ultra-ling play, 2 hatch mutalisks and going lurkers first, only to find out NONE of these gave them a steady winning rate against terrans. Yet everyone seems to be content on saying "I know things are a little rough, but try queens". No changes in the maps, well, except fixing "undefendable" cliffs against mutalisk harass perhaps.
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I'm still in disbelief how by.great can be good vZ. His vP and vT seem to me to be made up of poor battle micro coupled with good multitask and macro. It doesn't seem like the skills that would lead itself very well to a strong ZvZ. Other than that he is certainly not bad.
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On January 13 2009 20:13 Velr wrote:
You are an angry man :D
Yeah it sucks when Jaedong being so damned good is the only thing keeping the playing field a resemblance of a battle between the three races. He is a one man army. Kinda like when Reach was the only protoss fighting for his race's honour (only to get beaten soundly by one of the top zergs later on) the time protoss really hit rock bottom.
You know what happened afterwards? Changes in maps. Maps like Ever Forte and Longinus that gave protosses a break. Maps with more minerals that basically said "here you go protoss, now go win".
Just a couple of maps which actually make ZvT playable wouldn't hurt would it? But when a zerg friendly map like Raid Assault gets used, protoss players wouldn't even TOUCH the map. And the map got so much complaints from the teams that it got removed from the map pool. When crappy maps like Geometry or Wuthering Heights got made, endless TvT didn't get it removed. But when a map that produces a lot of ZvZ get used and a couple protosses say that "it's too hard against zerg", it gets ousted immediately.
Every season there seems to be a couple of maps that favour terrans or protosses and gets used for a reasonable length of time. But for zergs, it's either being crapped on, or getting that one map like Blue Storm. Hey, at least, there always seems to be one zerg that keeps the whole race alive right? And at least we won't see any ZvZ finals. PvPs and TvTs we can deal with, but god forbid a ZvZ finals takes place. One player from zerg doing good at a time will do.
I don't mean to come to come off as a angry, emotional drama queen, but DANG does the current "baby sit the protoss and screw the zergs" policy suck balls.
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Listen to Letmelose, he knows what's going on. 
Couldn't have said it better myself.
And the problem with the "hey, Protoss used to suck years ago too" comparison is that years ago, SC wasn't nearly as mapped out as it is today. There was still a lot of room for improvement in almost every area from micro to macro to map balance.
Now, the probability of things ever changing is much lower, and unfortunately most people still seem to swear that current SC, on the current maps, is 100% balanced despite Zergs doing really bad and Protoss doing really well at the moment.
I also think that one big problem is that Z has no real stable builds... it's always adaption every second into the game (sure all races have to adapt, but as Z you have to adapt so fast to new situations and if you made a tiny mistake or timing error you'll be punished extremely hard for it).
And, of course, there are "no" comebacks possible (as in: it's ridiculously unlikely for a Z to make a comeback vs T or P whereas T or P do manage to make a comeback surprisingly often).
This is probably because once an army is knocking at your door, Z is dead, whereas T and P can often defend (barely, but they do) with the reinforcements coming out of their ~8+ gates/fax/rax - Z units coming out of hatcheries from all over the map aren't of much help at defending the main base when it is overrun. Zerg doesn't have the central location of where all units come from, and their individual units are so weak that they're only useful in large groups whereas P and T have individually strong units which can hold their own for a while, especially when defending at a ramp.
The recent queen hype is, I guess, more of a desperate attempt for Zs to "steal" a win because it's likely that the opponent hasn't practiced much against queen builds in recent times.
I can almost guarantee you that once Ts practice against queen builds they will (once again) be useless, and they'll roll the Z with timing attacks, and after that Zs will once again play without queens because they desperately need to pump out 2-4 more lurkers (at the cost of 1-3 queens + ensnare) in midgame.
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Zerg is was 61-46 vs P as of the last proleague update. It's not all over guys.
Alot of the Zerg struggles were coming from the starleagues, which were almost the direct result of shitty maps(plasma/byz). Just look in the proleague where the maps are much more balanced. Zerg is 43-50 against terran, which is a damn good stat considering how new all these neo-metal builds are, and the overall slight t>z trend of stats over the years.. And they are actually +15 against protoss.
Zerg just ran into 2 extremely hard builds to deal with in a span of a month, the +1 speedlot archon push, and the new terran metal builds, combine that with some unfavorable maps, and you get the recent zerg slump.
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Zero is frustratingly inconsistent, but I too have hope that he can put it together.
Live for the swarm!
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On January 14 2009 00:14 Jaksiel wrote:
Zero is frustratingly inconsistent, but I too have hope that he can put it together.
Live for the swarm!
I think that every day there's more and more evidence that zero was just overachieving the first half of this round, rather than underachieving these last 3-4 weeks.
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Russian Federation4447 Posts
I'm a zerg player.
I was following the scene since HOT-Forever vs Sync.
The current zerg "slump" is nothing compared to the beginning years when zerg never won a thing. Check the MSL / OSL, finals, it was only in 2004, 4 years after the start of the OSL, did a zerg win it.
Terrans were obliterating zergs left / right / center.
Today is A LOT better than how it used to be.
I'd say stop complaining.
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Russian Federation4447 Posts
Julyzerg / Gorush was the beginning of the zerg emergence, savior brought zerg to completely new heights, Jaedong showed the world how it can be perfected.
Right now, zergs just need to re-adapt their strategies, that's all.
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I'm calling Yarnc to make it big this year . From time to time he plays incredible , like his comeback vs Sea and versus Kal . The rape he delivered to SangHO an Andromeda ( which i think is one of his most dominant performance in ZvP ) and that he beat Kal makes me think that there is hope for his ZvP , and his ZvZ seems untouchable from time to time too . If he can consistantly produce this results he'll make it somewhere in the leagues .
His game versus Sea was ridiculous . After he lost 4 - 5 drones to a semi successful bunker rush he continued to rape Sea with well executed ling/lurker attacks . And it took him exactly 2 minutes with muta harras to kill all of Sea's defences and make him GG and made muta harras seem very imbalanced .
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Instead of just 'stop complaining' how about reading Letmelose's actual technical posts on the matter and discussing it. Do people think its still possible for an evolution in play? I mean they must be practicing many builds, but is it possible we have reached the point where T/P have found the perfect way to play against Z, and the only way they lose is by mistakes? If its true maybe we'll see matters get even worse as more T/P reach the skill level to pull the builds off perfectly. It gives me hope even the top T/P players still drop a few games, but even in those games to me it still seems like Z is on the brink on losing.
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On January 14 2009 01:23 infinity2k9 wrote:
Instead of just 'stop complaining' how about reading Letmelose's actual technical posts on the matter and discussing it. Do people think its still possible for an evolution in play? I mean they must be practicing many builds, but is it possible we have reached the point where T/P have found the perfect way to play against Z, and the only way they lose is by mistakes? If its true maybe we'll see matters get even worse as more T/P reach the skill level to pull the builds off perfectly. It gives me hope even the top T/P players still drop a few games, but even in those games to me it still seems like Z is on the brink on losing.
To you maybe it seems that Zerg is about to lose ....and no T/P have not found " the perfect way " to play versus Zergs . And it is pretty stupid to say that they only lose by mistakes , because everyone loses by making some sort of mistake ...
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EPT
