EPTMech TvZ, by the Numbers - Page 2
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JWD
United States12607 Posts
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BlackMagister
United States5834 Posts
Even though the Mech era has been started by Fantasy we haven't really seen the Fantasy build from anyone expect Fantasy. The whole early vultures to harass, later with dropships, while building goliaths, tanks and valkaries. So why not? The Fantasy build is supposedly what started the mech trend, but is it actually something all Zerg players fear as a possible build against them? Or is it just something that reminded all Terran players that Mech existed so they switched back? | ||
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Rucky
United States717 Posts
On January 25 2009 15:46 Vasoline73 wrote: This. It would be better to count the 200 games prior to Fantasy V GGPlay instead of all of the games.. Yea I wonder how bad it'll be considering in the past, there are those times when terran would beat zerg every single game auto. It was not even funny. Those past results probably dragged the win rate up to the 53% we see. What I mean is zergs have come a long way to become dominant and until recently, zerg was still winning. Would the 200 games prior give a worse winrate compared to the 2000. That'll be interesting. edit: oooh he updated with the prefantasy edit2: LOL i like your post to my post and edit to my edit. So the winrate for tvz is pretty consistent. So terran have been winning with bio. Now they've switched to mech and their win rate remains pretty much the same. It seems builds don't produce results>>>players do? | ||
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JWD
United States12607 Posts
On January 25 2009 16:17 Rucky wrote: Yea I wonder how bad it'll be considering in the past, there are those times when terran would beat zerg every single game auto. It was not even funny. Those past results probably dragged the win rate up to the 53% we see. What I mean is zergs have come a long way to become dominant and until recently, zerg was still winning. Would the 200 games prior give a worse winrate compared to the 2000. That'll be interesting. Ninja edit props ^^ On January 25 2009 16:16 BlackMagister wrote: Even though the Mech era has been started by Fantasy we haven't really seen the Fantasy build from anyone expect Fantasy. The whole early vultures to harass, later with dropships, while building goliaths, tanks and valkaries. So why not? The Fantasy build is supposedly what started the mech trend, but is it actually something all Zerg players fear as a possible build against them? Or is it just something that reminded all Terran players that Mech existed so they switched back? This is a great question, and I don't have the answer. My gut is that the Fantasy build is really quite difficult to pull off if the Zerg is prepared for it, simply because it relies so much on being able to execute that early vulture drop. More standard (no dropship) mech builds are probably more robust in this regard - especially on 4-player maps with long drop distances. | ||
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economist_
Vietnam719 Posts
But if you watch VOD of all games, I think that was considered Edit: okie, never mind | ||
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JWD
United States12607 Posts
On January 25 2009 16:25 economist_ wrote: Sick post. I am wondering whether length of game should be one category here or you included all kinds of game. If the game is too short because either T or Z dies cos of early pressure, or that pressure is hard enough to dictates the use of mech or bio? But if you watch VOD of all games, I think that was considered Read the "method" section, I explain this there. | ||
Heyoka
Katowice25012 Posts
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UbRi
Italy603 Posts
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writer22816
United States5775 Posts
On January 25 2009 14:55 jwd241224 wrote: [i]Even a casual StarCraft fan would notice that since  Fantasy overwhelmed  GGPlay with his revolutionary TvZ build, mechanic TvZ builds have been unprecedently common.Your link for the revolutionary mech build is wrong, i assume you mean this thread? http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=80595 You missed a "5" at the end of the topic id. | ||
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InfeSteD
United States4658 Posts
and holly shit @ UpMagic man! :O Daniel Lee was right! this kid is so bright! | ||
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Kentor
United States5784 Posts
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Plexa
Aotearoa39261 Posts
a) The Map Pool b) A Trend Setter (fantasy) If you look at the common maps today, notably medusa where Terrans seem to like mech a lot more, you see a common formula. Two easy gas expansions, and an easy mineral only. On top of that a natural which is really easy to defend (wallable on medusa). On top of that the other expansions (5th-> onwards) are typically harder to secure due to the geography of the map. In essence, you have all the ingredients necessary for mech to be successful. Mech relies on a strong economic game with an easy to secure 3rd where the Terran can effectively turtle to critical mass then overwhelm the Zerg. Traditionally the Zerg response has been Mutalisk/Zergling for any early breaks, and Muta/Hydra for the late game critical mass break out accompanied with many expansions which allows the Zerg to build up another swarm. Indeed, if you look at the ZvTs on Medusa prior to fantasy's "revolution" you will see that Mech was commonplace e.g. this game in the Ro8. If you changed your analysis to reflect the statistics of the Proleauge 08-09 maps and the Proleague 08 and 08-07 maps you will see that a vast majority of the mech games before fantasy happened on the 08-09 maps as opposed to other seasons. Of course, while a build is strong on a map no one really gives a shit until someone does something amazing with it. That is where fantasy comes in. Fantasy's revolutionary use of Valkyries/dropship vultures drew much attention to mech and essentially placed in the spotlight for everyone to observe. Thus mech was more noted after fantasy than before; despite the fact mech had always been good and valid. After fantasy there comes imitators, thus aiding the spread of mech into the common game. A parallel can be drawn between Bisu and the Fast Expansion. Prior to Bisu's revolution the FE was common place (and had been for at least a year). But once bisu had thrust it into the spotlight with his revolutionary build people took more note of the FE (and complained about it more, just like we are seeing with Mech atm). Indeed these two situations are basically the same. So a summary for the tl;dr people - Fantasy only highlighted the builds use, not the reason why mech is good - Maps are responsible for the success of mech, and consequently its use | ||
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JWD
United States12607 Posts
On January 25 2009 17:43 Kentor wrote: did you use latex to make those graphs and charts Nope, just the same font (Century). Making the charts in LaTeX would have been pretty easy but...the graphs, damn I'd have to really study up for that  .@Plexa: I agree with your post. However, I think the popularity and effectiveness of mech has reached a point where it will be a common, successful build even on maps which, prior to Fantasy, would not have been targets for mech use. For example, Andromeda, which has been around for quite a while, just recently saw its first game of mech TvZ (I'm pretty sure) - it was Mind vs. Calm in the WL and Mind proved that mech was quite effective on this map (which is also good for bio, all the more evidence that mech is becoming a standard choice even on traditionally-bio maps). We have also recently seen instances of mech on Athena and Neo Requiem - I don't ever recall seeing mech games on either of these maps before Fantasy (but someone with more knowledge might correct me here?). Obviously it's impossible to say that mech's popularity is independent of the maps - any trend in SC must be in some way related to the maps as they are an essential part of any game. However, the ubiquity of mech TvZ (high frequency over 179 games + use on old maps + use on new maps) makes me think that people are overestimating the effect of the maps and underestimating the value of the build itself as a standard choice for TvZ. One more thing: to draw a parallel to your Bisu + forge FE comparison, which I think is totally appropriate: do you think that Protosses would be scrambling to find a good position for forge FE on Tears of the Moon, for example, if Bisu hadn't shown the power of the forge FE? Probably not...Tears of the Moon almost seems made specifically to prohibit forge FE. This is just an example of how a build like mech TvZ can become standard enough to encourage players to adapt it even to maps which, prior to the build's popularity, would be seen as "impossible" for that build. | ||
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Ideas
United States8141 Posts
mech killed upmagic! | ||
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Plexa
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On January 25 2009 18:02 jwd241224 wrote: Again, it's not like Andromeda is a particularly bad map for mech @Plexa: I agree with your post. However, I think the popularity and effectiveness of mech has reached a point where it will be a common, successful build even on maps which, prior to Fantasy, would not have been targets for mech use. For example, Andromeda, which has been around for quite a while, just recently saw its first game of mech TvZ (I'm pretty sure) - it was Mind vs. Calm in the WL and Mind proved that mech was quite effective on this map (which is also good for bio, all the more evidence that mech is becoming a standard choice even on traditionally-bio maps). We have also recently seen instances of mech on Athena and Neo Requiem - I don't ever recall seeing mech games on either of these maps before Fantasy (but someone with more knowledge might correct me here?). again it has all the ingredients necessary for mech to be successful. Although, an idea which crossed my mind is that the popularity of mech revolves around the success of Mutalisk harass vs Bio on these maps. The maps in question are typically relatively difficult to defend harass from and perhaps mech gives greater ability to defend due to the greater range and sturdiness of Goliaths. Obviously it's impossible to say that mech's popularity is independent of the maps - any trend in SC must be in some way related to the maps as they are an essential part of any game. However, the ubiquity of mech TvZ (high frequency over 179 games + use on old maps + use on new maps) makes me think that people are overestimating the effect of the maps and underestimating the value of the build itself as a standard choice for TvZ. Given the right map, mech was always the better build to use. A number of such map springs to mind, namely Baekmagoji and Monty Hall (iirc). It's not like this build suddenly appeared over night, and it has always been an alternate option to the standard bio. Like Flash vs Jaedong on Katrina which showed that Mech is still a viable build even against Jaedong. While the build was probably under appreciated until at the very earliest Flash vs Jaedong, it has always been considered a valid alternative. Thus the only reason, imo, for its popularity now is the set of favorable maps. One more thing: to draw a parallel to your Bisu + forge FE comparison, which I think is totally appropriate: do you think that Protosses would be scrambling to find a good position for forge FE on Tears of the Moon, for example, if Bisu hadn't shown the power of the forge FE? Probably not...Tears of the Moon almost seems made specifically to prohibit forge FE. This is just an example of how a build like mech TvZ can become standard enough to encourage players to adapt it even to maps which, prior to the build's popularity, would be seen as "impossible" for that build. Yes, if Bisu had never happened protoss would still try to FE on Tears of the Moon. Pusan was trying to FE on RH3 back in early 2006 which is just as bad for FE as Tears . Bisu didn't showcase the power of forge-fe either; he just highlighted the effectiveness of Corsairs (and consequently DTs) | ||
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StylishVODs
Sweden5331 Posts
Not so much about the fast third and easy accesable 4th etc.. | ||
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StylishVODs
Sweden5331 Posts
On January 25 2009 18:30 Ideas wrote: I hate what mech has done to upmagic. He used to do a bunch of cool cutesy games with crazy strats and such vs Z. Now he just goes plain boring-as-hell mech. mech killed upmagic! imo mech is fun unless you do the upgrade turtle mech :O but i guess really cute bio games are even better.... | ||
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Piste
6180 Posts
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NahLGaE
Korea (South)523 Posts
on a side note, its pretty interesting and surprising (or sad) that hwasin is 3-5 and fbh 4-4 going bionic. hwasin used to be known for his zerg sniping skills with his great timing and control and fbh was supposed to be good at tvz wasnt he? ;o and why is savior listed as 2-1 (+1) mech, 1-2 (-1) bionic, and then 6-1 (0) overal zvt? O_o | ||
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29 fps
United States5724 Posts
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