Even a casual StarCraft fan would notice that since Fantasy overwhelmed GGPlay with his revolutionary TvZ build, mechanic TvZ builds have been unprecedently common. How popular is mech TvZ? How successful is it? On what maps? In the hands of what players? And how much of Zerg's recent troubles against Terran can we attribute to mech TvZ?
In an attempt to answer these questions, I threw together this statistics report.
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This little project is based on a brief examination of each of the 179 Terran versus Zerg games played between (and including) Fantasy's Incruit OSL semifinal series against GGPlay on October 17, 2008 and January 24, 2009. I refer to games from this period as post-Fantasy, and games prior to it as pre-Fantasy. Don't be miffed that I sometimes use the grandiose terms "pre-Fantasy era" and "post-Fantasy" era - if you read this, you'll understand why they're warranted.
Using TLPD, VODs, live report threads, and my memory I classified the Terran's build order choice in each post-Fantasy game as either mech, bio, or other. The first two categories are fairly self-explanatory. The third, other, is for games which were decided before the Terran committed to a typical mech or bio build (i.e. center raxes, wraith builds). Note that six of the 179 games I included (six Terran wins) are from undocumented GOM matches. I was unable to record build order choices for these games, and thus I left them out of any build-related calculations or statistics. Edit: note also that non-mech is bio and other combined.
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Edit: at the request of some posters below, I have added a row labeled "Immediately pre-Fantasy" which displays statistics for the 192 TvZs played immediately preceding Fantasy's series against GGPlay on October 17. The immediately pre-Fantasy TvZ winrate, 60.4%, reveals that Terrans have been whipping Zergs for almost a year now. This raises an interesting question: has the popularity of mech allowed Terran to stay dominant despite more balanced maps and stronger Zerg players, or has mech simply taken the place of bio as top Terrans' weapon of choice in TvZ? I suspect the former more than the latter, but either way the TvZ mech winrate remains relatively high: it's three percentage points above the immediately pre-Fantasy winrate.
According to this OP by PoP (and some quick math), before Fantasy vs. GGPlay Terrans won 53.8% of their 2,808 games versus Zerg. Since Fantasy vs. GGPlay, Terrans have won over 60% of their games vs. Zerg - an obvious increase in winrate.
The fact that Terrans' post-Fantasy non-mech (bio and other) winrate, 56.9%, is also higher than their pre-Fantasy winrate suggests mech isn't solely (or even primarily) responsible for this dip in TvZ balance - however, that post-Fantasy Terrans playing mech have won over 63% of their games (a full 10 percentage points above the pre-Fantasy TvZ winrate) illustrates the power of mech against Zerg. A record of 36-21 is solid to say the least (compared to 58-46 for bio builds).
The "build use rate" column shows the rate at which Terrans chose each build (mech, non-mech, bio, other). Since I wasn't about to slog through pre-Fantasy VODs looking for mech, I can't use these figures to make a statement about the relative popularity of mech in post-Fantasy TvZ. However, mech's build use rate of 32.9% means it's being used in about one out of every three TvZs - a ratio which common sense dictates is probably the highest ever over a 179-game span.
A recent OP in BW by a now-banned user asked the question "mech build now standard?" I think the numbers here have his answer: yes. A build which appears in one of every three games should be considered pretty damn standard. The by map and over time sections both substantiate the claim that not only is mech standard today, but it's likely to become even more popular over the coming months.
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The maps in this chart are sorted by mech use rate, so you can read it as a list of contemporary maps in order of their "mech-ness" (with the caveat that this chart relies on a limited number of observations - for example, I included Plasma's one game mainly in an effort to be complete).
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First note that Terrans have tried mech on every single new map from the post-Fantasy era - evidence of their faith in the build. Even Harmony and Neo Requiem, maps which seem obviously hellish for mech builds, have seen some mech TvZ. This chart means mech TvZ is much more versatile than I had originally suspected, and perhaps even that mech TvZ is not merely a product of a few metal-friendly maps but rather a permanent, game-changing strategy shift.
A few figures here are especially notable. First is Medusa's ridiculous mech winrate: over 70%, 26 points higher than bio's winrate. This chart says Terrans shouldn't even bother with MnM on Medusa - in the post-Fantasy era only Yarnc, Shine[kaL], Saint, and EffOrt have survived metal here. Also note mech's relatively strong performance on the other two Batoo OSL maps, Return of the King and Tears of the Moon. Coupled with Medusa, these maps could make for the first (?) OSL proper without a single game of bio TvZ. These are truly strange times!
Since my knowledge of SC strategy is limited, I won't get too into mech-friendly map characteristics here - with the exception of this thought question: could it be that mapmakers' eagerness to disrupt forge FE PvZ has led to a spat of wide open naturals which are disastrous for defending vulture runbys? In many ways, I think Zerg's recent success against Protoss has come at the cost of vulnerability to mech.
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This first chart is pretty simple: it displays a tally of non-mech TvZs and mech TvZs over the post-Fantasy era.
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For a short time in November (when Proleague and GOM were the only running tournaments), it looked like mech was a novelty build that would always sit backseat to bio - that's changed now that the OSL and MSL are underway. Through December and January, the frequency of mech TvZs has been almost on par with the frequency of bio TvZs.
This second chart compares mech, Terran, and bio winrates over the post-Fantasy era and also displays mech use rate over time.
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As you might have expected based on the first chart, mech use rate has actually increased over the past two months.
Mech's winrate has also increased, albeit marginally, over this period (overall Terran winrate and bio winrate have been fairly stable). This tells us that, not only have Zergs not figured out how to tackle mech TvZ yet, they're actually losing to it more and more often. More mech use and more effective mech use could mean a very dark Starleague season for the Swarm. Where is Coach oov's Zerg counterpart?
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Who are the kings of mech TvZ? This chart shows the top 10 post-Fantasy mech players, ranked by their game differential in mech TvZs.
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Fantasy may have started the metal trend, but UpMagiC deserves almost equal credit for pioneering mech TvZ. His 13 mech games are more than one fifth the total played since Fantasy's OSL semifinal, and many of his wins came at the expense of tough opponents: Jaedong, Luxury, EffOrt, sAviOr, great, and Saint. Furthermore, UpMagiC is responsible for bringing post-Fantasy mech to five new maps - he was the first Terran to play this build on Athena 2 (win vs. great on 12/13), Byzantium 2 (win vs. great on 12/13), Return of the King (win vs. Shine[KaL] on 12/26), Rush Hour 3 (win vs. Luxury on 12/2), and Sin Chupung-Ryeong (win vs. Jaedong on 1/6). Essentially, UpMagiC's play is proof of concept for mech TvZ: this build is formidable across maps and opponents.
Note that this list of Terrans, sorted by performance in mech TvZ, is basically a list of the best all-around Terran players. The point: all of the best Terrans are playing mech, with success. (There's one notable exception: Sea. Sea is 2-4 against Zergs since October 17, and has yet to play a mech game...maybe he should?)
If you look closely and use your thinking cap, you'll figure out Leta has four wins in the other category. These are all wraith builds which sometimes rely partially on factory units, but usually end the game before they become necessary en masse. Keep an eye on Leta's upcoming TvZs - his blend of fast wraiths and mech is an effective variation on more common mech TvZ builds (he's now beaten Luxury twice using wraiths).
One more interesting fact about the Terrans: Fantasy has only played one mech TvZ since losing to EffOrt's three-hatch speedling on Medusa on October 25, just one week after his Incruit OSL semifinal win.
And their opponents? Which Zergs can stand up to the metal onslaught?
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In short, not many. Only six Zergs have winning records against post-Fantasy mech (compared to 16 with losing records), and two of those six are FireFist and ToSky (both 1-0 against mech after fluke wins). The other four are Yarnc, ZerO, sAviOr, and Saint.
Including non-mech games doesn't make the picture much brighter: while 15 Terrans have winning records against Zerg since last October 17, only six Zergs have winning records against Terran (Yarnc, ZerO, Jaedong, ToSky, Calm, July). Yarnc and ZerO are probably Zerg's best hope - they've both shown good play against mech while dominating bio builds.
Most other Zergs - even those with impressive records against bio - have struggled against mech. Why bother to tackle Jaedong (7-2 vs. bio, uses queens) with MnM when you can beat him with mech? It's worked for UpMagiC, Light, and Canata - three players who most likely could not stand up to Jaedong in a traditional TvZ.
Unfortunately for all you Zerg players looking for a scapegoat, there's really no one player that's responsible for Zerg's poor record against mech. Losses to mech are spread quite evenly - perhaps an even distribution of mech games has prevented any one Zerg from mastering the build. If I had to finger anyone for Zerg's awful record against Terran lately (and I have, by including them at the bottom of the above chart), it would probably be FireFist and GGPlay. They've combined for 17 ZvT losses over the past four months...disgusting.
Good stats, however you can't compare 2000+ game's stats to a mere 179. We would have to wait to see the overall mean, in statistics terms, the Law of Large Numbers to find out. And what's non mech? Isn't it mech or bio? Or both?
god damn, I thought that when Day posted that Fantasy revolution TLFE thing that it was just another thing blown out of proportion, I must admit these stats are interesting. I hope some Zerg's can figure out the cure for this mech problem soon, I miss Zerg dominance <3?
Here is for hoping that sAviOr can pioneer the Zerg resurgence :D
An interesting thing to look into is why Jaedong's, Luxury's, EffOrt's and GGplay's play styles lose to mech (if it even is that). However, we'll have to wait til a LOT more games to conclusively know anything, as there are so many extraneous variables.
On January 25 2009 15:26 n.DieJokes wrote: this is awesome thank you so much, but what about the map destination, I was looking for that map above all else
lol great catch, somehow I totally forgot it. (brb ^^)
On January 25 2009 15:10 il0seonpurpose wrote: Good stats, however you can't compare 2000+ game's stats to a mere 179. We would have to wait to see the overall mean, in statistics terms, the Law of Large Numbers to find out. And what's non mech? Isn't it mech or bio? Or both?
This. It would be better to count the 200 games prior to Fantasy V GGPlay instead of all of the games..
On January 25 2009 15:10 il0seonpurpose wrote: Good stats, however you can't compare 2000+ game's stats to a mere 179. We would have to wait to see the overall mean, in statistics terms, the Law of Large Numbers to find out. And what's non mech? Isn't it mech or bio? Or both?
This. It would be better to count the 200 games prior to Fantasy V GGPlay instead of all of the games..
You mean 2000? I don't understand what you are saying though, isn't he seperating the before and after?
Great OP! IMO you cannot compare pre and post mech like you did, because as il0seonpurpose pointed out, you're just glazing over YEARS of changing trends in the MU. Best bet is as suggested, examine ~200 games or maybe just 2-3 months worth of pre-mech games for a more accurate assessment.
Other than that, great job! This has been very informative.
Edit: at the request of some posters below, I have added a row labeled "Immediately pre-Fantasy" which displays statistics for the 192 TvZs played immediately preceding Fantasy's series against GGPlay on October 17. The immediately pre-Fantasy TvZ winrate, 60.4%, reveals that Terrans have been whipping Zergs for almost a year now. This raises an interesting question: has the popularity of mech allowed Terran to stay dominant despite more balanced maps and stronger Zerg players, or has mech simply taken the place of bio as top Terrans' weapon of choice in TvZ? I suspect the former more than the latter, but either way the TvZ mech winrate remains relatively high: it's three percentage points above the immediately pre-Fantasy winrate.
Nice opening post. I skimmed through it and will read it more carefully later, but quick question.
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?
On January 25 2009 15:10 il0seonpurpose wrote: Good stats, however you can't compare 2000+ game's stats to a mere 179. We would have to wait to see the overall mean, in statistics terms, the Law of Large Numbers to find out. And what's non mech? Isn't it mech or bio? Or both?
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?
On January 25 2009 15:10 il0seonpurpose wrote: Good stats, however you can't compare 2000+ game's stats to a mere 179. We would have to wait to see the overall mean, in statistics terms, the Law of Large Numbers to find out. And what's non mech? Isn't it mech or bio? Or both?
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.
Check the OP again! I updated it with the stats you requested.
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.
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 Edit: okie, never mind
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
Thanks a lot for this. I've been wondering what the win rates look like since mech for a while but am too lazy to do any kind of real analysis, this rocks.
great post, something evern greater would be having an overlook between al metch tvzs, and tell us the most used variations, for those who don't whatch progamers, i only know the fantasy build, which is actually pretty complicated, which is the common UpMagic build order instead?
[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?
The thing is that while Mech has indeed become more popular in recent times I would argue that the rise in popularity can be attributed to two main factors; 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
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.
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.
On January 25 2009 18:02 jwd241224 wrote: @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's not like Andromeda is a particularly bad map for mech 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)
I'd say mech on medusa is mainly because there is no ramps, you can wall and lurkers can kill the temples + muta harass is overpowered. Not so much about the fast third and easy accesable 4th etc..
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....
nice writeup. i was just complaining today about how often mech is being used these days and not because im a zerg whiner saying its too easy because i dont think its any easier just a different style but more because tvz was my fav matchup to watch when the classic bionic with tank and vessel support vs lings lurks defiler and later ultra was a really fun and beautiful thing to watch in the best cases. now its getting rarer to see it and see it done well =\
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
Mech is incredibly overpowered as of now. Because mech units and mech army were too powerful, traditional Zerg response would be to mass and abuse Terran mobility. In order to mass, Z needs a great econ early game because thats when it is important for Zerg. By relying on the slow speed of metal army, Zerg could over expand and take lots of bases, acquiring enough gas to spill out mutas, lurkers, ultras, you name it. Then they could simply macro+mass, flank, and tear apart metal army. After the invention of dropship into early mech play (via Fantasy), Zerg could not over expand because Terran units were everywhere. Zerg could not use traditional muta counter to goliaths because of valkirye support. (Valks pull back when they see scourges, goliaths kill those, valkirye goes back to engaging mutas with goliaths)
63% winrate is ridiculous. . .I'm sure Blizzard could not balance the game this much, a game is still human-made after all. They probably had no idea Terrans would start using this strategy with mech 10 years later
On January 26 2009 00:58 AzureEye wrote: Mech is incredibly overpowered as of now. Because mech units and mech army were too powerful, traditional Zerg response would be to mass and abuse Terran mobility. In order to mass, Z needs a great econ early game because thats when it is important for Zerg. By relying on the slow speed of metal army, Zerg could over expand and take lots of bases, acquiring enough gas to spill out mutas, lurkers, ultras, you name it. Then they could simply macro+mass, flank, and tear apart metal army. After the invention of dropship into early mech play (via Fantasy), Zerg could not over expand because Terran units were everywhere. Zerg could not use traditional muta counter to goliaths because of valkirye support. (Valks pull back when they see scourges, goliaths kill those, valkirye goes back to engaging mutas with goliaths)
63% winrate is ridiculous. . .I'm sure Blizzard could not balance the game this much, a game is still human-made after all. They probably had no idea Terrans would start using this strategy with mech 10 years later
its not as simple as that. I'm pretty sure its not imbalanced, zergs just need some time to adjust. People thought ZvP was imbalanced for many years.
On January 25 2009 22:27 NahLGaE wrote: nice writeup. i was just complaining today about how often mech is being used these days and not because im a zerg whiner saying its too easy because i dont think its any easier just a different style but more because tvz was my fav matchup to watch when the classic bionic with tank and vessel support vs lings lurks defiler and later ultra was a really fun and beautiful thing to watch in the best cases. now its getting rarer to see it and see it done well =\
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
In hwasin vs hoejja the commentators said they asked hwasin what he thought about mech before the games and Hwasin said he tried it in his practice games and he thought it was really good but when he started to use bionic again he said he noticed that his timing got a lot worse because of practicing only mech against zerg.
[QUOTE]On January 26 2009 01:12 AnOth3rDAy wrote: [QUOTE]On January 26 2009 00:58 AzureEye wrote: Mech is incredibly overpowered as of now. Because mech units and mech army were too powerful, traditional Zerg response would be to mass and abuse Terran mobility. In order to mass, Z needs a great econ early game because thats when it is important for Zerg. By relying on the slow speed of metal army, Zerg could over expand and take lots of bases, acquiring enough gas to spill out mutas, lurkers, ultras, you name it. Then they could simply macro+mass, flank, and tear apart metal army. After the invention of dropship into early mech play (via Fantasy), Zerg could not over expand because Terran units were everywhere. Zerg could not use traditional muta counter to goliaths because of valkirye support. (Valks pull back when they see scourges, goliaths kill those, valkirye goes back to engaging mutas with goliaths)
63% winrate is ridiculous. . .I'm sure Blizzard could not balance the game this much, a game is still human-made after all. They probably had no idea Terrans would start using this strategy with mech 10 years later[/QUOTE]
its not as simple as that. I'm pretty sure its not imbalanced, zergs just need some time to adjust. People thought ZvP was imbalanced for many years.
It is simpel as that. It has gone a long time now and the winrate is wat to high. One problem lies that T have a lot easier time adjust to new maps v Z because of the Race abilities. It is possible to make the maps for zv mech or bio i belive, but it would probleby hurt the other mu and probleby it would limit the creativity of the maps. Yes it is tru that P stuggled vZ, but so did Z v T at the same level. I have watch the PL for 5 yers and T have always have a better record v Z but it wasent unbalaced.
I think i woulg give it a bit more time to decide but if it countinous the game really need a patch. IMO it would be easier to rebalace the T and make the maps then more T favored v Z. The option to go mech should always be possible but at a higher risk.
On January 26 2009 01:30 sung_moon wrote: amazing OP but i wouldnt put FBH as a mech user
He just happened to be the 10th-ranked Terran in terms of mech game differential. Also, I think it's interesting to see how bio giants are faring in this time of metal TvZ - you'll notice that many of the top Terran players have mediocre bio records but have done well with mech (Fantasy, Hwasin, FBH).
On January 26 2009 00:58 AzureEye wrote: Mech is incredibly overpowered as of now. Because mech units and mech army were too powerful, traditional Zerg response would be to mass and abuse Terran mobility. In order to mass, Z needs a great econ early game because thats when it is important for Zerg. By relying on the slow speed of metal army, Zerg could over expand and take lots of bases, acquiring enough gas to spill out mutas, lurkers, ultras, you name it. Then they could simply macro+mass, flank, and tear apart metal army. After the invention of dropship into early mech play (via Fantasy), Zerg could not over expand because Terran units were everywhere. Zerg could not use traditional muta counter to goliaths because of valkirye support. (Valks pull back when they see scourges, goliaths kill those, valkirye goes back to engaging mutas with goliaths)
63% winrate is ridiculous. . .I'm sure Blizzard could not balance the game this much, a game is still human-made after all. They probably had no idea Terrans would start using this strategy with mech 10 years later
Remember, T>Z has been commonplace for the last year with or without mech. And have you forgotten this game already?
95% of all mech builds are not the fantasy build and most use run-bys to score easy wins.
On January 26 2009 00:58 AzureEye wrote: Mech is incredibly overpowered as of now. Because mech units and mech army were too powerful, traditional Zerg response would be to mass and abuse Terran mobility. In order to mass, Z needs a great econ early game because thats when it is important for Zerg. By relying on the slow speed of metal army, Zerg could over expand and take lots of bases, acquiring enough gas to spill out mutas, lurkers, ultras, you name it. Then they could simply macro+mass, flank, and tear apart metal army. After the invention of dropship into early mech play (via Fantasy), Zerg could not over expand because Terran units were everywhere. Zerg could not use traditional muta counter to goliaths because of valkirye support. (Valks pull back when they see scourges, goliaths kill those, valkirye goes back to engaging mutas with goliaths)
63% winrate is ridiculous. . .I'm sure Blizzard could not balance the game this much, a game is still human-made after all. They probably had no idea Terrans would start using this strategy with mech 10 years later
its not as simple as that. I'm pretty sure its not imbalanced, zergs just need some time to adjust. People thought ZvP was imbalanced for many years.
maps played a huge part in those situations. lurkers on cliffs was a huge reason why toss always had issues with zerg. if you go back to those maps i bet zergs start to do better again.
I'm not sure it's all a function of mech itself. A lot of it is simply a matter of another viable strategy in play that helps the game theory part of the matchup for Terran.
You'll notice bio is still the leading strategy used by a 2-1 ratio. There's a reason for that, and it's not just because progamers are stubborn. Bio is still probably the most sound and stable strategy in this matchup, but because Zergs now have to guard against two very different kinds of play, the game becomes very different.
If someone was to catalog the statistics on all-in proxies, you'd probably find a very high win percentage when that is employed. However, that doesn't mean proxies are unfair and unstoppable. It just works when used in a small percentage of game in order to surprise the opponent.
you really need to look at more than just the statistics when considering stuff like this. even just for the useage by map, alot more goes into it than how strong mech is or even how good the map is for mech. for instance destination and medusa are pretty fuckin horrible for bio tvz because theyre very spread out and muta harass is insanely strong on them, this means that terrans are gonna look for other solutions, mech is the best right now. thats not a very big point in favor of mechanic or an indicator of how good those maps are for mech. in fact the fact that they are very big spread out maps makes them not very good for mech at all, due to the mobility issues, its just not as bad as it is for bio.
also you have to look at the games themselves. yes terrans are winning, alot, with mech. but look at how its happening. well over half the time the zergs let a simple vulture runby kill a bunch of drones and lings, force zerg to make extra units and delay mining time which messes up tech timing, leaving terran in a massively superior position. one big big benefit of mech is that its hard to throw away a lead because your units are so strong when you're able to get alot of them, so these games end up looking like mech is ridiculously overpowered because theres absolutely nothing zerg can do.. but really the game was lost the moment they let 3 speed vults in their base. some people will argue that the fact that early vulture play has been so effective shows that its not so much the zergs fault but just an inherently really strong tactic. thats not the case though, again if you just watch the games the zergs are flat out not responding well. it does not take a genius to know if terran is teching and if they are you need do nothing more than make a handful of hydras and wall your nat as best as possible (with buildings you're gonna need anyway, and maybe a cheap evolution chamber) and you're gonna be prepared for just about any common fac first build. yet zergs refuse to do this, and it accounts for a massive part of those stats that seem so imbalanced.
but even past that most zergs are not properly dealing with mech. mech is very powerful, but it has one massive weakness, nonexistant mobility. so what do zergs do? a large fraction of the time.. they pump ground units off 3-4 bases and go to hive. this is the worst possible thing you can do for a number of reasons. first off terrans only map control until they have a massive army is going to be vultures, mines rape the piss out of hydra ling because hydras dont respond very quickly to mines and if one mine blows up it can take out an entire group of the weak units. also the zergs generally dont mass expand, theyre used to the unit efficiency they have vs bio, with lurkers and defilers. you are not going to win vs mechanic 4 base vs 3 because the units are so much powerful. however this is not an imbalance, it just requires a different response. again the units are extremely powerful, but immobile. mech terran is not going to be running around the map and killing expos all over, they have to keep their army in one bigass slow moving blob. so the zerg is free to expo everywhere to get the resources they need to compete with more efficient units, but they're still stuck in the vs bio mindset, to some degree or another. ggplay vs flash posted earlier here was an excellent demonstration of how to deal with mech, granted it was before the 'mech revolution' but he abused the build quite well.
going mass ground unit also takes away alot of the threat of a counter (and counters are significantly more effective than usual, again because the mech army needs to stay together for max effectiveness, and is not very mobile). drops are an option but they are not nearly as effective as mutas, and they are much more risky because you're 99% gonna lose the units, with mutas you need only fly back out as soon as they respond.
mech is not a bad strategy, but it is not very good either. in the end its going to end up like 2 base reaver->carrier pvt, a gimmicky strategy that works well when it catches your opponent off guard and gets some play time on maps that are bad for straight up tvz, but otherwise drops off the face of the earth once z's start playing intelligently vs it.
i imagine that will generate some questions about how zerg should properly play the mid/long game, so ill copy a post i made in another thread about it
the best way to deal with it is to building wall off vulture runbys then go muta with carapace grades, mass expo and mass muta (terran cant put any pressure at all on you besides the vultures early so you're free to power and expo with every mineral not put into mutas. a handful of hydras helps vs the vultures early on as well, and theyre necessary on maps like desti where the nat cant be completely walled. if terran tries to move out at all the moment hes out of his natural you counter his main with all your mutas, pull out the moment his goliaths get back, if he doesnt come back then you destroy his main and keep pumping mutas/sunken everywhere/keep expoing and running away from his army until you have enough mutas to kill it.
if terran doesnt get aggressive you should start mixing in hydra when you're running 4-5 full bases and have 3+ groups of mutas, but dont cut muta production entirely. its also possible to go hive tech but just taking the entire map and mass hydra muta hardcore seems the most effective. if they try to just keep turtling and taking expos you probably will have to go hive to break them, but they have to invest so much in turret defense and theyre so immobile that theyre never gonna be able to touch your army size unless you engage in a bad position (there is no bad position to engage in on medusa, but be careful of the bridges n stuff on desti)
and never ever ever attack him, ever. you'll only waste units (there are situations where you can do an early timing break, like jaedong vs flash on desti, but on the whole you want to avoid being put into an allin situation like that as its a far lower % than playing the way i suggested). you wait for him to come to you, and even then you delay as long as possible.
Awesome writing lol.. Thats very interesting and that proves that mech is definitly a very efficient overral strategy and not just a surprise trend. What is even more interesting is that it seems thats overall mech is more efficient than bio ( wich made many people think that terran imba>z from time to time).
What is not often said is the fact that people think fantasy re-invented mech whereas : 1) it was said to be OOV coaching 2) Flash was the first , for about something like 1 year to play pure mech vs zergs. If u remember he started with some builds with command first then 2 fact starport gols vessels irradiate ( especially on maps like katrina on longinus). After this i became very fan of this way of playing tvz and it helped me to understand fastly how to play and how awesomely good is "fantasy" build.
On a side note , i have noticed some variations recently with 1 fact followed by a second with more vulture to harrass /sneak into goliaths turets and mass facts. I dont like it and i prefer original " fantasy build".
About counters , from what i noticed from my litle mech experience ; The drop solution is good thing , not a stupîd big all in drop , but just even the threaten of the drop will make terran spending money into turets , delay him . The worst strats for zerg is playing a 3 gas hive for having crap hydra / lurk with crap defilers that most of the time will even not survive to massive tank +2+3 siege to be able to swarm or plague. The best zergs i encoutered were very patient and smart zerg , keeping good eco, expanding and making tons of hydra-ling with sometimes a 3 rd muta force. It makes the game a bit like pvt but z is p and somehow recalls are drops , and if zerg have good macro he can pretty fastly reach 200/200 very fastly with 50/50 hydra ling ratio.
Thanks for your posts IdrA, they're very informative. I agree that stats don't tell the whole story and, as someone who has watched a majority of these mech TvZ games, I also agree that often Zergs make really silly mistakes which lead to wins that don't necessarily reflect the long-term viability of the build (for example GGPlay vs. Iris? on medusa where the vults got behind the minerals...that was sad).
I am still curious why Zergs are having so much trouble with this build even after 4 months of it being quite standard...maybe my faith in the pros' ability to adapt to new strategies is unwarranted?
On January 26 2009 15:42 jwd241224 wrote: Thanks for your posts IdrA, they're very informative. I agree that stats don't tell the whole story and, as someone who has watched a majority of these mech TvZ games, I also agree that often Zergs make really silly mistakes which lead to wins that don't necessarily reflect the long-term viability of the build (for example GGPlay vs. Iris? on medusa where the vults got behind the minerals...that was sad).
I am still curious why Zergs are having so much trouble with this build even after 4 months of it being quite standard...maybe my faith in the pros' ability to adapt to new strategies is unwarranted?
to be honest i dont know the day after light went 1 fac speedvult cc vs effort every zerg on our b team took 10 minutes to figure out good walls at every spot and medusa, and that shit hasnt worked vs them ever since. why proleague z's havent done the same... no clue.
on other maps its a bit more understandable though, medusa you can block with a hatch a sunk a hydra den and an evo, all of which you're gonna need soon anyway except maybe the evo. elsewhere it can be more costly to do a total block, so they try to cut it close and just havent found a good balance yet.
I read all the comments, Just wanted to add some things because yesterday I played 5 tvz's with my best friend on ICCUp. maps were only Medusa. Now what my friend usually does is 1 fact 1 port drop 4 vultures trying to harass my drones, by then I already put safely sunken on my main and natural and have already some hydras being able to defend, then he goes exp mass goliath,tank and sometimes he even goes valkyries. Now I mentioned this because after seeing that Vod and some comments you say you should go mutas, now mutas suck ass vs valkyries.
But I found this strategy to work really well against my friend, either go hydra/lurk drops. harassing his eco and then turn it into mass ultra/hydra/lurk/defiler and 1 queen just cause I love ensarning the slow goliaths. also broodlinging those siege tanks is imba too. I never had a problem expanding and thats where zerg's are superior. Actually I take early natural and at 14th population I go place my 3rd hatch somewhere where I can mine gas also. Taking the 3rd natural isnt appealing to me because my rally point and moving units always sucks and they are wandering around in there.
So basically what Im saying and that had worked for me is go mass hydra/lurk drop then hive tech to ultra/hydra/defiler/lurk. Now Im thinking of our next game to go mass mutas because all T's eventually try to make many tanks vs hydra and what ive seen is the biggest disadvantage on my friends gamestyle is that he doesnt make any good amount of vessels and we all know how irradiate is a kick ass thing vs zerg as is psi-storm. So ill give this mass muta then ultra thing a try and see how it goes tho i think his valks will fuck me up.
Great analysis. I still believe there is a counter to mech which Zerg players have yet to discover and execute effectively. One possible way is to play low tech and mass expand.
On January 29 2009 11:44 peidongyang wrote: NOOO THE SWARM
HOW DO YOU BEAT MECH???
You fast expand
GGPLAY vs FLASH XD
The build Flash used was different from the Fantasy mech build we see today. I don't think you can mindlessly FE as before. I hope a Terran expert can tell us how to counter the neo-mech build
On January 29 2009 11:44 peidongyang wrote: NOOO THE SWARM
HOW DO YOU BEAT MECH???
You fast expand
GGPLAY vs FLASH XD
The build Flash used was different from the Fantasy mech build we see today. I don't think you can mindlessly FE as before. I hope a Terran expert can tell us how to counter the neo-mech build
ToT)Naugrim( together with a few others has formed a special bo against mid game mech pushes. I'll push him to make a guide for it, we'll see
EPT
Fantasy overwhelmed 
GGPlay with his revolutionary TvZ build, mechanic TvZ builds have been unprecedently common. How popular is mech TvZ? How successful is it? On what maps? In the hands of what players? And how much of Zerg's recent troubles against Terran can we attribute to mech TvZ?
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. Thanks for having Post-fantasy era..
