[OSL] Ro8 Day 2 - Page 125

Flash is a textbook reactive player, players will try and finish him by switching to carriers or doing proxy/all-ins, and Flash just scans/defends them and wins.

The best way to beat Flash has always been to make him think you are doing something and make him react in a predictable way. The only time Flash has really "lost" was in this way.

The reason players don't do this is because nobody else has the kind of awareness Flash has, you can do a fake, but you can't reliably expect him to react because hes not always going to see it. Flash is the only player who you can reliably count on to see and react to everything you do, which is why hes such a brilliant player.

The other reason is that it requires you to use an execution that is not tailored to your build order. Korean players are so used to having this linear progression, where everything you do sets you up very well for what you will have later.

The reason Flash wins is he is a level above the korean style of have the best build order, execute it perfectly. Flash is now at the level of, see what they have, develop the best counter for it, execute it perfectly.

It doesn't make sense to have a build-order which has nothing to do with your execution. Everytime someone else tries to counter Flash they do it in the wrong way, develop a counter to Flash's build, Flash will just react to that and counter yours and win, because Flash since his inception was the best at making counters and has a higher level of thinking. It feels like every game is just Flash going "oh you I see you are doing this build? I will just counter that". And players just fall for it every time.

Just like to a lot of tight players, it doesn't make sense to all-in with 7-3 offsuit, but that's exactly what is required when playing against a textbook tight player like Flash. Unpredictability and a level of thinking higher than Flash's.

When playing Flash compared to other players its almost like playing Poker. Most korean players are at level 1, What do I have? How can I improve on what I have?. Flash is at level 2 thinking, What do I have? What does he have? Counter what he has. When Flash loses really badly, its often because of level 3 thinking, What do I have? What does he have? What does he think I have? Counter the counter to what he thinks I have.

It is possibly why Protoss was most popular in the West where higher-level thinking was more prevalent. Which makes me really sad NonY ended up leaving estro. He would be the only player to use higher-level thinking in an environment where that would be extremely advantageous.

Eg.
Effort fakes 2 hatch lurker all in, macros on 3 bases and destroys Flash with ultra/defiler.

Bisu double expands while cutting probes and investing all money into an army, Flash does a 2 base timing attack siege-ing the main attack-route thinking that's where Bisu is going to attack. Knowing this was going to happen already, Bisu instead uses superior army control to funnel his entire army down a tiny ramp where Flash had the smallest defenses. Bisu also had a massive army because he wasn't investing in economy at all when he double expanded.

Not many other examples because it doesn't happen too often, but these are the times when Flash not only lost, it was barely even a contest.

Jangbi almost lost game 2, Flash would have won, if Jangbi had not built half his gateways at his 4th. Jangbi had controlled the game to a point where he knew Flash would macro to 200/200 before he would attack, Flash sieged up Jangbi's natural thinking that that would block any reinforcements making it impossible to make a come-back. Unfortunately for Flash, Jangbi just re-macroed at another base and attacked from behind.