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On December 08 2011 16:54 Mortality wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2011 16:00 lizzard_warish wrote:On December 08 2011 06:40 KamMoye wrote:On December 08 2011 05:57 L_Master wrote:
ZerO's inconsistency doesn't seem to be a slumpy inconsistency. It just all of a sudden he'll have a game where he looks pathetic (Stork v ZerO for instance). Then he follows it up by just rolling Flash nbd. On any given day you don't know if top zerg ZerO or B- iccup ZerO is gonna show up. Your perception is that he's inconsistent. But now he's not "slumpy" inconsistent? Why does it matter how he loses or wins? You weren't a little surprised when the stats showed SK goes on losing streaks more often than Zero? I sure was considering what everyone repeats like a robot: "ZerO's so inconsistent!" It just goes to show you that if something is repeated enough times you are more likely to believe it. But that doesn't make it any more likely to be true. Again, I see no evidence that he's significant more inconsistent than any other player. People just need to realize their perceptions are colored and if they want to be accurate instead of a talking head they need to go to greater lengths to challenge their perceptions. What someone said earlier in this thread is absolutely right. Soulkey may be more entertaining than Zero or other top Zergs, or flashier, but if Hydra or Zero plays Bogus and rolls him, in many fans' minds that's not as impressive as the performance SK just displayed. Soulkey's performance is going to stick out in a way that Zero beating Bogus (this is a hypothetical, LDO) cleanly isn't. It is interesting to me that though the stats don't reflect it both many here on TL, the coaches, and his fellow teammates tend to believe that SK's strongest match-up is ZvT. Perhaps that comes from seeing his insane lategame play and assuming he must be fantastic at the match-up overall.
I heavily discount what people on TL say about most players because they are (in my experience) rarely nuanced in their opinions. A couple of times I have challenged the popular narrative, delved into the numbers, and find out that the narrative is at best lazy and at worst complete hogwash. (One recent example is that thread by Bibbit, giving an ode to Hiya. He mentions the Hiya v Free game, which, while incredibly entertaining, actually wasn't a great display of skill by Hiya. Day9 broke it down much better than I, so I am mostly parroting an authority, but I thought he made good points: Hiya should've made 2 Starports instead of 3 and played a bit too gimmicky for his own good. Free kept his composure, massed units and just rolled over him when the time was right. But the wacky play leads to a narrative that clouds the truth instead of elucidating it. And Hiya is one of my favorite Terrans; I just value accuracy more than a neat story.) I haven't seen any of his teammates and coaches flat-out say his vT is his best matchup. I've only been following BW for three years so correct me if I'm wrong. Do you even watch BW? How could you possibly think Zero isnt widly inconsistent? Granted his ZVP/ZVT actually ARE fairly consistent, and thats never been a large criticism of him [though he does tend to spaz out there more than he should given his enormous talent]. The criticism comes from his zvz. He literally goes something like 15-2 against top zvz's, loses a match, and then goes like 2-15 before repeating the cycle all over again. Sometimes in the midst of getting raped by any and all zergs he comes across he equally flails against a protoss or a terran, and thus the impression is born. Zero comes in one day good, and goes out the next playing terribly. In all truth its his zvz thats so inconsistent, the impression simply builds on his off days with his other matchups. It's more of an impression than anything. Most players go through ups and downs; SC players are very streaky. It depends a lot on current metagame trends + momentum + current map pool (every player has strong maps, weak maps, etc.). In Zero's case, his ZvZ fluctuates more based on metagame and maps than other top Zergs because he's more of a strategic player. Would you care to actually point the change of the zerg metagame, how and where he fell behind? Because...I've been a zerg player throughout the entire period, and there really was no metagame shift outside of an increased popularity in 12pool into a spore turtle. The maps remained largely the same in general variance, large and small, so that Zero wouldn't be getting beaten down on a particular style of zvz hes poor at [early game lings/late game muta]. In fact, Zero is KNOWN for having the strongest zvz muta micro in the game bar none, and I've flatly seen him fail hard at it during his downstreaks. Your assertion that Zero is more of a strategical player...perhaps in general inclination, and yet, the majority of his games he still relies on a very text book macro style. Hes very mechanical, certainly far and away better than your average a teamer- players who he was entirely incapable of doing ANYTHING against in his multiple failstreaks. So, I'm skeptical of your position.
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Zero is known for having the strongest muta micro bar none? What planet are you living on? His muta micro is good, but it's absolutely not the strongest in the world.
Changes in popularity of builds ARE metagame shifts, just fyi. And timings never stay exactly constant, although trying to force me into going back through history and lining up timing shifts with Zero's peaks and falls is more than I'm willing to give to this argument (most likely if I have to go into that level of detail you won't believe my opinion regardless). But, just to illustrate how timing has changed, overpool gas didn't become popular until the Savior era (he played a key role in popularizing it, as a matter of fact), and 12 pool used to mean either 12 pool gas (which was thought of as a "hard counter" to 9 pool) or 12 pool expand, which was a build I don't recall seeing prior to about 2004. The current 12 pool -> exp -> gas originated only 3-4 years ago. Over -> gas is also fairly recent, and already we see that it has lost popularity to the point where it's not really considered. 12 hatch for a while was (almost) completely out of the question as overpool became standard, but Effort played a key role in bringing in back during his initial run in 2009; however it didn't fully return to the standard arsenal until 12 pooling took over as the "standard" safe build.
So, it's not like Zerg vs Zerg metagame is static. Actually, I think PvT/TvP metagame is much more static even though it's much easier to talk about evolution of build orders and timing. The difference is that in PvT/TvP, the fundamental strategy of 90% of all games has remained the same for over a decade, even if the builds used to get there are different, whereas ZvZ used to be almost literally a game of rock-paper-scissors against any opponent of the same skill, but has evolved so that players understand the subtle ramifications of a 2 zergling difference or a 5 second improved timing in ling speed and can make up for build order disadvantages (hence allowing for JvZ to even exist -- even just 6 years ago it would have been literally impossible for someone to maintain those kinds of win rates no matter how skilled).
Subtle map changes can mean HUGE differences, and in ZvZ one of those huge differences is in scouting since ZvZ forces you to make key decisions with even less information than usual. And in particular, I noted Triathlon as a strength for Zero, which was one of the most unique maps we've had in years. As for the maps where I mentioned Zero as seeming weaker, they are both maps where ling backstab plays a larger role.
Zero is just a textbook macro player? Uhm, what? Have you confused Zero with Hydra all of a sudden? Maybe, because Hydra also has better muta micro than Zero too. As a matter of fact Zero is known for his unusual choices in unit usage (especially queens, hence his nickname "Young Prince"), his hive tech usage in ZvZ (with abnormally high frequency compared to other Zergs), and abnormal timings. Calling Zero a "textbook macro player" is like calling iloveoov a "textbook macro player;" the word "macro" is right but the "textbook" is totally wrong.
His mechanics are fine for an "average" A-teamer, sure, but not for a top 3 Zerg, which he is.
I absolutely don't know where you get some of these ideas from...
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That was very disappointing from Hyvaa
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On December 08 2011 03:39 KamMoye wrote:SK's played 54 matches v Terran.
The Terran's he's faced with a 60% win-rate:
BaBy x1
Sea x1
Light x2
Flash x4
Leta x7
That's 15 of his 54 matches, which isn't anywhere near two-thirds. What the heck? Why are you repeating something ad nauseam without even bothering to check it? That makes it sound like you have an agenda.
He went 2-5 v Leta, 0-4 v Flash, 0-2 v Light, 1-0 v Sea, 0-1 v Baby. Three wins, 12 losses. Dump those results and he's 25-15, giving him a 62.5% winning percentage. That took a whole lot of cherry-picking to get us there, though -- a 13% winning percentage against players who average out to, off my head, about a 63-64% win-rate in the matchup means SK lost significantly more often than you would expect him to. Small sample size, sure, but maybe he's just outclassed versus the best Terrans.
Is Zero?
He's faced those guys 28 times since January 1, 2009. (Arbitrary cut-off point on my point. -shrugs-) He's won 11 times and lost 17 times. That's a poor 39.2% win-rate, which, although far from ideal, is still three times better than Soulkey's win-rate against the same elite Terrans.
Your post got me interested, so I went and looked at how various well-known Zerg players have done against the best TvZers (I picked people whose names I remembered, who were active and over 60%, or retired and so close to 60% that they were probably over during their 'real' playing years):
+ Show Spoiler + Baby Boxer Casy Control Flash fOrGG Hwasin iloveoov Leta Light Midas NaDa Sea XellOs Wins Losses Total Percent
FYellOw 1 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 4 3 1 3 4 4 3 0 0 0 2 2 0 2 6 3 6 4 4 1 34 22 56 60.71%
Jaedong 6 3 1 0 1 4 0 2 23 21 1 4 6 6 2 1 6 1 12 11 6 0 3 1 12 7 2 1 81 62 143 56.64%
sAviOr 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 2 5 0 2 5 6 6 0 1 1 3 3 6 5 5 5 0 3 0 0 31 32 63 49.21%
RorO 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 5 1 1 1 0 0 0 2 1 2 4 1 0 0 0 2 1 1 0 12 13 25 48.00%
GGPlay 0 0 2 1 3 1 1 0 5 5 2 3 4 3 1 1 0 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 3 3 0 1 24 26 50 48.00%
ZerO 2 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 4 7 1 1 3 2 1 1 2 0 0 0 4 2 14 13 1 4 5 9 37 41 78 47.44%
EffOrt 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 8 4 4 2 2 0 0 0 2 2 6 2 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 19 22 41 46.34%
GoRush 1 0 2 6 0 1 1 2 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 4 0 2 1 6 2 3 11 10 5 4 10 6 36 46 82 43.90%
July 0 1 2 3 3 4 3 4 0 4 1 1 4 4 12 13 0 0 1 1 5 3 2 8 2 2 6 5 41 53 94 43.62%
Calm 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 4 6 3 1 0 0 1 0 1 7 2 3 0 2 0 0 4 2 0 0 16 23 39 41.03%
YellOw 0 0 19 24 3 4 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 5 2 5 0 2 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 28 41 69 40.58%
ChoJJa 0 0 6 11 2 4 4 4 0 0 1 0 0 1 2 3 0 0 0 1 1 5 11 18 1 3 8 11 36 61 97 37.11%
Soulkey 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 0 2 1 1 1 0 0 0 2 0 0 5 10 15 33.33%
Hydra 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 5 0 2 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 7 0 0 0 1 3 3 0 0 8 19 27 29.63%
Luxury 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 2 2 1 2 3 5 1 1 3 5 2 2 1 1 1 0 3 3 2 1 20 23 43 46.51%
14 8 36 48 16 20 11 12 51 76 17 26 33 34 31 29 20 27 31 51 31 26 55 61 44 41 38 35
22 84 36 23 127 43 67 60 47 82 57 116 85 73
36.36% 57.14% 55.56% 52.17% 59.84% 60.47% 50.75% 48.33% 57.45% 62.20% 45.61% 52.59% 48.24% 47.95%
Ignore Luxury being out of order; I forgot to reorder the data before I posted and I'm too lazy to reformat. :|
It's obviously not perfect, for a number of reasons (overlap of eras means some of these Zerg players played some of these players well past their prime, when a win didn't mean as much relatively speaking, is a big one; a dearth of data for older players (I seem to remember reading that savior was like 11 - X against iloveoov, for instance) is another), but I thought it was interesting for what it was.
And as an aside, I think it highlights what makes me hesitant about considering Hydra the next top Zerg (KeSPA notwithstanding); I think that if you look at previous titleholders (e.g. Jaedong, Savior, July, Yellow), it is probably true that any of them during their peak were probably around 50 - 60% against other top Terrans of their era.
Anyway, hopefully someone else finds this interesting / still looks at this topic!
Edit: Apologies, but unfortunately it displayed correctly for me when I previewed the post, but once I posted it it didn't display correctly. It might display correctly if one goes to preview, or it might just be a function of my having a particularly wide monitor. Sorry. =\
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Savior's record against Oov counted non-standard leagues. It was 11-3 IIRC.
Counting special leagues, I know for a fact that Yellow will go up and I'm pretty sure Savior will too.
Some criticisms about your method (and I realize these are difficult issues to address properly, so I'm not faulting you):
You haven't distinguished between playing a 60% win Terran at his peak and playing him at the twilight of his career. For example, a huge bonus in Yellow's corner is that IIRC he was the very first Zerg player to defeat NaDa in a series. At the time NaDa's TvZ win rate was "only" around 70%, but he had never lost a series vs Zerg in his life (he was known for going WLW because he had this predictable habit of "win first game = rush second game"), so that was a really big deal.
Similarly, you have to consider that a Zerg in the twilight of his career is not going to do as well. Savior used to flatten every Terran on the planet at a time when T >>> Z (iirc Oov was over 80% win rate, NaDa, Boxer, Midas over 70%, Casy up around 70% as well, Xellos over 60%, even Goodfriend was 60%), but at the end of his career he was struggling against mediocre opponents.
Also, you have to consider how heavily a Zerg is studied. I'd argue that Savior/Jaedong/Yellow at 50% is more powerful than Yarnc at 60% because Savior/JD/Yellow were the trendsetters, the guys EVERYBODY was studying, whereas Yarnc was just a Zerg with good ZvT who never managed to reach the very top. It's much harder to defeat an opponent who has spent the past 3 months studying your strategies than it is to defeat an opponent who only started looking at your play a few days ago, if even that.
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Soulkey's game was amazing. Truly amazing multitasking!
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On December 11 2011 03:01 Mortality wrote:Some criticisms about your method (and I realize these are difficult issues to address properly, so I'm not faulting you):
You haven't distinguished between playing a 60% win Terran at his peak and playing him at the twilight of his career. For example, a huge bonus in Yellow's corner is that IIRC he was the very first Zerg player to defeat NaDa in a series. At the time NaDa's TvZ win rate was "only" around 70%, but he had never lost a series vs Zerg in his life (he was known for going WLW because he had this predictable habit of "win first game = rush second game"), so that was a really big deal.
Similarly, you have to consider that a Zerg in the twilight of his career is not going to do as well. Savior used to flatten every Terran on the planet at a time when T >>> Z (iirc Oov was over 80% win rate, NaDa, Boxer, Midas over 70%, Casy up around 70% as well, Xellos over 60%, even Goodfriend was 60%), but at the end of his career he was struggling against mediocre opponents.
Also, you have to consider how heavily a Zerg is studied. I'd argue that Savior/Jaedong/Yellow at 50% is more powerful than Yarnc at 60% because Savior/JD/Yellow were the trendsetters, the guys EVERYBODY was studying, whereas Yarnc was just a Zerg with good ZvT who never managed to reach the very top. It's much harder to defeat an opponent who has spent the past 3 months studying your strategies than it is to defeat an opponent who only started looking at your play a few days ago, if even that.
Heh.
I actually had you in mind when I was mentioning some of those weaknesses (and some of the others you listed that I didn't) since I know that taking it at face value is going to be misleading and I figured you'd be the first one to point it out! I think that the data itself is fine; it just requires a proper understanding of context, as the data doesn't simply speak for itself clearly.
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ZerO = Zerg version of Stork.
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joohyunee
Korea (South)1087 Posts
On December 08 2011 16:00 lizzard_warish wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2011 06:40 KamMoye wrote:On December 08 2011 05:57 L_Master wrote:
ZerO's inconsistency doesn't seem to be a slumpy inconsistency. It just all of a sudden he'll have a game where he looks pathetic (Stork v ZerO for instance). Then he follows it up by just rolling Flash nbd. On any given day you don't know if top zerg ZerO or B- iccup ZerO is gonna show up. Your perception is that he's inconsistent. But now he's not "slumpy" inconsistent? Why does it matter how he loses or wins? You weren't a little surprised when the stats showed SK goes on losing streaks more often than Zero? I sure was considering what everyone repeats like a robot: "ZerO's so inconsistent!" It just goes to show you that if something is repeated enough times you are more likely to believe it. But that doesn't make it any more likely to be true. Again, I see no evidence that he's significant more inconsistent than any other player. People just need to realize their perceptions are colored and if they want to be accurate instead of a talking head they need to go to greater lengths to challenge their perceptions. What someone said earlier in this thread is absolutely right. Soulkey may be more entertaining than Zero or other top Zergs, or flashier, but if Hydra or Zero plays Bogus and rolls him, in many fans' minds that's not as impressive as the performance SK just displayed. Soulkey's performance is going to stick out in a way that Zero beating Bogus (this is a hypothetical, LDO) cleanly isn't. It is interesting to me that though the stats don't reflect it both many here on TL, the coaches, and his fellow teammates tend to believe that SK's strongest match-up is ZvT. Perhaps that comes from seeing his insane lategame play and assuming he must be fantastic at the match-up overall.
I heavily discount what people on TL say about most players because they are (in my experience) rarely nuanced in their opinions. A couple of times I have challenged the popular narrative, delved into the numbers, and find out that the narrative is at best lazy and at worst complete hogwash. (One recent example is that thread by Bibbit, giving an ode to Hiya. He mentions the Hiya v Free game, which, while incredibly entertaining, actually wasn't a great display of skill by Hiya. Day9 broke it down much better than I, so I am mostly parroting an authority, but I thought he made good points: Hiya should've made 2 Starports instead of 3 and played a bit too gimmicky for his own good. Free kept his composure, massed units and just rolled over him when the time was right. But the wacky play leads to a narrative that clouds the truth instead of elucidating it. And Hiya is one of my favorite Terrans; I just value accuracy more than a neat story.) I haven't seen any of his teammates and coaches flat-out say his vT is his best matchup. I've only been following BW for three years so correct me if I'm wrong. Do you even watch BW? How could you possibly think Zero isnt widly inconsistent? Granted his ZVP/ZVT actually ARE fairly consistent, and thats never been a large criticism of him [though he does tend to spaz out there more than he should given his enormous talent]. The criticism comes from his zvz. He literally goes something like 15-2 against top zvz's, loses a match, and then goes like 2-15 before repeating the cycle all over again. Sometimes in the midst of getting raped by any and all zergs he comes across he equally flails against a protoss or a terran, and thus the impression is born. Zero comes in one day good, and goes out the next playing terribly. In all truth its his zvz thats so inconsistent, the impression simply builds on his off days with his other matchups.
I don't think Zero is inconsistent. I think he's just streaky - going on GREAT streaks and then some terrible ones too.
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EPT
