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What people are wondering: Why zerg is slumping? Map? Players? Builds?
My Simple Answer: The reason why I love zerg. I love zerg because everyone thinks it's the weakest race which in terms of units is true.
There were statements about how zerg is the least forgiving race. Comebacks are very difficult. The reason for this is because of cost efficiency. With high hit point units like Terran Mech and all protoss units, they are consistently dealing damage until their last hitpoints go to 0. And with mnm, they can never die theoretically with medics. So T and P units are much more cost efficient. That allows them to make mistakes and come back in a game. Since cost efficiency is an advantage used to make up for mistakes, what if T and P don't make any mistakes? That puts T and P at an advantage from the start.
Now I'm not saying all this as complaining. I'm actually saying if people were to blame zerg being weak because they are ZERG then don't play zerg. That's like telling blizzard to change zerg to be a more competent race which means zerg is no longer the zerg I LOVE.
I got class. maybe more later.
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Nice post. It was a good read in the sense of getting my head wrapped around the general progaming scene in terms of Zerg. Also confirmed some of my original fears and hunches.
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On January 14 2009 04:39 Velr wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2009 04:11 d_so wrote:On January 14 2009 03:56 Velr wrote:On January 14 2009 03:52 d_so wrote:
jaedong/july for zvt.
.... Has July won anything recently except against FBH? YO BUT HIS QUEEN ALMOST TOOK THAT CC??????????? neways point taken smart guy :D... Sorry to crush your world 
i'll survive.
also gotta say if savior can't remember his own "lessons" it's hard to expect players to follow said lessons.
i don't think any player, as a representative of their race, has shriveled up into a little bitchball quite like savior. if you're gonna spend the majority of your time making empty promises and thanking fans for sticking with you, after a while people are going to realize you just suck.
which leads me to micro, a quality savior seems to struggle most at. a big reason why i chose july for zvt is because this MU depends more on micro ability than any other besides zvz. units like queens only reinforce the need for zergs to be able to micro well, and july's micro seems top notch.
if anything, jaedong's use of queens is revolutionary because it demonstrates tangible, game-altering results for great micro. ultimately, it's my opinion that zerg's revival won't fall under any sort of BO alteration, but in the emphasis of this very difficult quality.
still, i'm interested in your future post
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Very nice write up. Good job.
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Zerg is just underpowered. A case in point: Bisu vs Effort. Effort played like 5x better than bisu, but still he lost the game ;(
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United States17042 Posts
Just by the zergs, it looks like both wemade and skt should be looking to pick up oversky after he gets out of ace xD
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On January 14 2009 00:56 Tien wrote:
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.
This is an example of how much Zergs have been getting thrashed over the years. I too have been following the progaming scene since a very long time ago and I truly believe that TvZ, Terran has an advantage.
On January 14 2009 01:57 tomatriedes wrote:
No. The truth is ZvT is a lot harder than TvZ. It always has been and always will be. Terrans can sit in their base and build turrets and move their MnM around and still have their base visible for macroing. It's a lot easier than to trying to micro mutalisks around while macroing on the other side of the map. One slip and all your mutas go bye-bye and you're basically fucked. TvZ is so much more forgiving of mistakes.
I was just watching a game skyhigh vs a samsung zerg where skyhigh tried a sunken break and lost all his MnM. Then he left some MnM out on the middle of the map, they got surrounded by mutaling and he lost all of them. After all that rapage he was still able to go on and easily win the game. Now, admittedly the zerg made a bad mistake by not getting units through a nydus canal in time and lost an expansion but the point is that the terran get away with losing big groups of units early in the game while almost any major mistake by a zerg means a big chance of a loss.
No terran player will admit this of course. It's funny when you look at a map like blue storm (one of the few where zerg could get more wins) nobody had a problem with labeling it imbalanced. But whenever terrans are owning on a map (like destination TvZ: 25-11 ,69.4%) it's never the map it's always just that 'zerg are playing badly'.
Although I agree with what you say, its not really about how hard it is to play a race, its more about how fair and equal is everything. The true power of Terrans lies in their cost efficiency, which they can abuse and get less punished for losing their main army. Firebats and medics cost too little gas, therefore, T can build up vessels incredibly and irradiate everything. Terran metal upgrades are unproportional, 3 attack upgrades = 15 more damage for siege tanks, which is not right for the amount of supply it costs and its longest range. This makes T mech incredibly powerful. Add to the fact that 3 powerful scouting mines come FREE with a 75 cost vulture and you get the idea that Terrans dont need many expansions to compete with other races. Not to mention the fact that current Z army which cannot attack air, cannot damage CC if its lifted. This makes it even harder to destroy T expos. Starcraft is all about gaining resources and using them
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On January 14 2009 05:14 d_so wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2009 04:39 Velr wrote:On January 14 2009 04:11 d_so wrote:On January 14 2009 03:56 Velr wrote:On January 14 2009 03:52 d_so wrote:
jaedong/july for zvt.
.... Has July won anything recently except against FBH? YO BUT HIS QUEEN ALMOST TOOK THAT CC??????????? neways point taken smart guy :D... Sorry to crush your world i'll survive. ....
I'm the first to jump a July ZvT revolution bandwagon 
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On January 13 2009 14:46 Kuja900 wrote:If  July or Jaedong didnt exist imagine how abysmal the years zvp % would be. They are going have to carry the swarm by themselves with maby some assistance from EffOrt.
and by.great.
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United States1865 Posts
On January 14 2009 00:56 Tien wrote:
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.
I dont really agree with most of your post, becuase looking at how hard we had in the past just to become complacent with the present is something I disagree with here and in all cases in life.
HOWEVER, you are absolutely correct with your first sentence, haha. I was watching old KPGA reps of YellOw vs Boxer and HOT vs NaDa and just being amazed at how little the zergs could really do. They made a bunch of lings and tried to stall the Terran until a medium-sized ball of marines, medics and tanks showed up (without a vessel most times!) and shelled the shit out of their natural sunkens, killed all their lurkers and lings, and won. It was a repeated theme throughout all the games I watched and Z's couldnt really do shit about it.
Funny stuff.
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On January 14 2009 03:05 Ver wrote:
These stupid imbalance judgments are overwhelming.
If you say ZvT is imbalanced, there is exactly one person to blame (well two if you consider ancient BW). No, it's not Blizzard, and no, it's not the mapmakers.
iloveoov
He alone made Terran this good. The early 2 rax acad cc. The updated 14cc and 1 rax cc. The mech builds. All are because of him. It is these builds that make T>Z, not anything else. In the two years of Zerg glory, Savior held everything together with an equal skill in improving the Zerg side of the matchup. But he never created a more effective setup against 1 rax cc and instead kept on winning for himself due to his tactics.
So why hasn't Zerg held their own? Because Jaedong is not Savior. JD is an incredible player, full of passion, and has arguably the best set of mechanics in history. But aside from the very recent trend of Queens, he has done nothing to change ZvT, so Zergs keep playing the same way they did over 2 years ago while Terrans have been continually updating their builds. 2 hatch muta is a bandaid fix and has already lost its supremacy thanks to oov's mech. With this in mind, it is only logical that T is winning so much over Z and any map where Z is equal or better against T is absurdly imbalanced (i,e Medusa).
But anyway there are a whole other set of reasons why Zergs are sucking: they've forgotten a lot of what Savior taught them. I'll be expanding on some of these points in an upcoming article.
About Zero: his ZvT is REALLY good. Up until Jaedong started with queens I considered it better than JD himself (temporarily of course since JD was semi-slumping). His games against Flash and Sea showed the first signs of a Zerg with the intelligence level of Savior, and up until he made the Yellowish move to all-in FBH whe he had the game won he would have trumped 3 of the best curret TvZers in decisive fashion. But sadly he lacks in every other matchup and got stuck in the worst group possible in the MSL (no terrans + Bisu). When/if he will break out remains to be seen, but his ZvT is for real.
Best post of this thread, and more evidence supporting iloveoov as the most influential person in Starcraft history.
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United States33389 Posts
i'd be careful about making ANY sort of statement about mech in TvZ until you dissect the games that were played using the build.
In fact, there was a post on pgr21.com where someone actually DID go and dig up the stats for mech vs zerg games: http://www.pgr21.com/zboard4/zboard.php?id=free2&page=1&sn1=&divpage=6&sn=off&ss=on&sc=on&keyword=¸ÞÄ«´Ð&select_arrange=headnum&desc=asc&no=36547
The result is that terran is 27-16 vs zerg as metal, or about 62%. So the results for the non-metal games (margin of error for games that ended before build was established), the TvZ record would be 68-50, or about 58%.
Another thing from that post to consider: If you add up Upmagic, Flash, Forgg, Fantasy, and Light's stats, they are 23-3 as mech vs zerg. Without them, mech is only 4-13 against zerg.
Conclusion? I'm not quite sure... Oh, and great write-up :D
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I can't believe you forgot maGma : (
other then that, I pretty much agree with your player predictions! Although I don't think you give Arnc enough credit, his play has boomed so much at the end of 2008.
Most of his losses were form the start of 2008
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ZerO :'(
His ZvT is insane.
The rest is rather dismal.
Why, though? Who in the stars house plays a decent terran? PianO? Surely practicing against free should be quite beneficial?
I have hope. The kid's good.
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If you look at the last 40 zvp proleague matches in the TLPD it actually shows zerg is 25-15 : D
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I'm very impressed by this OP. THanks.
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this could be the year of the hydralisk
+ Show Spoiler +
Just ask By.herO!!!
He could have used some more tech, but i got no problem with a straight up swarm!!! too many players get by on their reputation alone, for years no one would attack sAviOr early just because his reputation was so intimidating, you dont wanna go get your ass handed to you. same with Bisu, he survives, a lot of early game i think, on reputation alone. deserved or not.
gratz to hero for going balls out on him. LOVED it.
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+ Show Spoiler +If you looked at by.hero vs bsiu game 1 it was more like: Bisu: "I don't give a fuck about this map i play my total standart and do not even adjust my cannon placement the slighest bit." By.Hero: "Cool, thanks". It took no genious to win game 1 But game 2 was cool... Masshydra... Good old days returning... Who needs Hive anyway
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On January 14 2009 11:01 Waxangel wrote:i'd be careful about making ANY sort of statement about mech in TvZ until you dissect the games that were played using the build. In fact, there was a post on pgr21.com where someone actually DID go and dig up the stats for mech vs zerg games: The result is that terran is 27-16 vs zerg as metal, or about 62%. So the results for the non-metal games (margin of error for games that ended before build was established), the TvZ record would be 68-50, or about 58%. Another thing from that post to consider: If you add up Upmagic, Flash, Forgg, Fantasy, and Light's stats, they are 23-3 as mech vs zerg. Without them, mech is only 4-13 against zerg. Conclusion? I'm not quite sure... Oh, and great write-up :D
So you subtract all the goodplayers and only count the crappy players records lol....
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On January 14 2009 16:40 Velr wrote:+ Show Spoiler +If you looked at by.hero vs bsiu game 1 it was more like: Bisu: "I don't give a fuck about this map i play my total standart and do not even adjust my cannon placement the slighest bit." By.Hero: "Cool, thanks". It took no genious to win game 1 But game 2 was cool... Masshydra... Good old days returning... Who needs Hive anyway
yeah seriously hero played balls to the walls. doom drops + hydra ftw
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EPT
