[ASL3] Ro16 Group D - Page 24

On May 10 2017 01:17 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I thought last played an insanely impressive game. No matter the screen focused on, he was controlling the units. mines fucking everywhere. And absurdly quick 6 bases. Jaedong started out kinda weak, had a really great midgame where for a while it looked like he could edge out a win, then he collapsed a little towards the end, as he ended up losing his last 12 mutas almost for free (0 attack muta vs 2/3 goliath just doesnt work).

His strategy during the mid game was fine, at that point he was dropping a lot, with defiler and lurker, but later on he stopped building any lurkers (despite last having few vessels) and that's just kinda stupid imo. swarm+lurker+ling+drop+scourge is where its at.

Don't like the balance complains. Last is top 2 terran, Jaedong played a close and hard fought awesome game against him which really could have gone the other way. I thought both players were really impressive but Last even more so, good games.. I guess maybe the map pool can take some adjustment but.. I don't at all feel like this was a game where jaedong lost 'because of imbalance'.

On May 09 2017 22:17 SirGlinG wrote:



Yeah I agree! It's ridicilous how much balance talk that comes up here. Was zvp imba during saviors era? Should they have patched the game then? Was Pvz imba when Bisu turned that all around? Should protoss been nerfed two months after zerg should have been nerfed? (Not questioning u, just putting up some general rhetorical questions for people who seem to believe that 50/50/50 is the only and ultimate goal of a rts game, that patches should meddle with the natural process of the players finding new ways to counter strong shit. It's not that fun when anyone can beat anyone, stuff gets nerfed. I hope TL can remain this way, not normalize questioning of balance. That can be in certain threads for it where people add their arguments, stats for it but in these other threads we discuss the game as it is. Blaming balance is just to give up. Bw is still developing new strats, like this one. Why would this one be " Die Endlösung"? Vultures has always been this strong.

And it's important to remember that we're discussing just one game in which Zerg used one build order. There's always been eras of races being stronger than others, bonjwas taking over with a new style and talent, making people forget how to beat them and giving their race a lot of power and good ideas. Like an answer sheet to it's times current meta.

JD went for three hatch muta. There are other build orders with other timing windows and follow ups. And JD could have won this game if he made better decisions. So I don't think it's time to fully rule out his game here but he did end up in a big disadvantage in late midgame because of his buildorder.

The streaming situation and people not living in a teamhouse with other top players of the other races, talking, helping eachother with how to counter new dominating strats is gonna slow down the process of countering this mech play though. I'd put my money on shine doing some weird nice shit, probably failing but showing a way u can face it ( if mong goes mech). Sauron zerg is dead now though, a new one has to rise from the ashes. A phoenix zerg saving the race. (It's shine btw...)

On May 10 2017 01:47 Ej_ wrote:
Looks like TvT finals again :x

On May 10 2017 01:47 Jacenoob wrote:


I find TL's almost religious belief in SC balance odd. Yeah Bisu revolutionized PvZ, but so what? What makes you think the same thing can happen again for ZvT? And what if the opposite happens and Terran actually gets even stronger? All we have is current data and currently TvZ is absolutely broken on many maps to the point of 75%-85% matchups.

And there are also historical examples of the opposite. In SC2 during the BL-Infestor era we had the same arguments. The same people recalling Bisu's revolution and saying the metagame will fix itself and TL mods wildly swinging the banhammer at everyone who suggested that the constant Z domination over months with Sniper and Roro winning GSL's might have to do with a balance issue. And we all know how that turned out.

On May 10 2017 01:46 LRM)TechnicS wrote:

Last started out with CC first which alone translated easily into being plenty ahead from then on. He exploited this by going for a very quick mnm bust which almost succeeded which put him even further ahead because Jaedong had to place 4 sunks, lose mining time for drones and even losing some drones in the proccess. Only then Last was able to proceed into the relatively quick 6 bases without being denied. With how the game went - the 6 bases were not absurdly quick, at least in my book.

The fact that from being so far ahead Last took so much damage and let the game prolong for so long (and it even had that one moment where Jaedong looked ahead) means that Last could have played significantly better. He seemed rather sloppy to lose many workers and armies at different points of the game imo where he could have easily avoided such damage.

Last is a great player, no doubt about that. IMO he is probably the best TvZ in the world right now (or on par with Flash's) and fighting against that should be the hardest thing a zerg can face. But it was Last's game to lose and he took way longer than needed to secure the win which doesn't speak well for the skills he presented in this game alone imo. I really am impressed by him as a player, but this game specifically doesn't do it for me as it seemingly did for you.

On May 10 2017 01:47 Jacenoob wrote:


I find TL's almost religious belief in SC balance odd. Yeah Bisu revolutionized PvZ, but so what? What makes you think the same thing can happen again for ZvT? And what if the opposite happens and Terran actually gets even stronger? All we have is current data and currently TvZ is absolutely broken on many maps to the point of 75%-85% matchups.

And there are also historical examples of the opposite. In SC2 during the BL-Infestor era we had the same arguments. The same people recalling Bisu's revolution and saying the metagame will fix itself and TL mods wildly swinging the banhammer at everyone who suggested that the constant Z domination over months with Sniper and Roro winning GSL's might have to do with a balance issue. And we all know how that turned out.

On May 10 2017 02:31 Liquid`Drone wrote:


I thought jaedong's midgame semi-comeback was more due to him playing amazingly well at that point than about last playing poorly.

On May 10 2017 02:31 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I also think the game was so frantic that it's impossible to not make mistakes, and that when last makes mistakes, it's more likely to be due to jaedong being everywhere than about last just slacking off or suddenly not performing at the best of his abilities or whatever.

On May 10 2017 02:41 darktreb wrote:
People are making this into a false dichotomy between "BW is perfectly balanced on every map" and "JD deserved to lose for not playing perfectly".

TvZ probably isn't "perfectly" balanced right now. Jaedong didn't play that great, especially past the 20 minute mark. Both can be true - I think both are true.

What's definitely true is that Jaedong could have won this game had he played better, and not in "everything perfect god mode" ways, but in ways that are completely reasonable to expect for an elite Zerg player. I bet Effort, Soulkey, Zero, perhaps hero, and perhaps Larva (when not on stage) win that game if they get into the position Jaedong did right after the late game Muta switch.

Nobody thinks BW is balanced on every map. But better players can beat worse players most of the time, on most maps. The thing is though, Last is the better player right now. Using this of all games as the prime example of TvZ imba is asinine. There are so many better examples.

I've been watching Jaedong since 2006. One of Jaedong's weaknesses has always been his propensity for aggression (which is also one of his greatest strengths), and relatively mediocre game sense / late game decision making for a person who is probably the second greatest player of all time. Jaedong generally wins off of a combination of hyper aggression, and amazing mechanics. He was always able to scrape advantages other players couldn't, both because they didn't have the mechanics, and because they didn't have the balls.

The problem is this playstyle is so damn effective that Jaedong never developed quite as good of "sloppy game" game sense. He still won a ton of these games because he was almost always the better player, and superior mechanics and killer instinct are still worth a lot in a sloppy game. But as soon as it looks like "attack attack attack" will work, his natural instinct is to go with that route, even if there's a better route.

In this game, that situation came up after the Muta switch. He got a lot of value out of the Mutas, but he could have gotten FAR more value out of them by keeping them alive instead of throwing them away at the top left. If he keeps ~10 Mutas alive and harasses / flanks with them constantly, while taking both mineral only bases and perhaps even 3 o'clock, then he probably wins. This would have been Soulkey's instinct, and probably Effort's and Larva's as well.

This is the stable way to win ZvT on Circuit Breaker once you have a brief late game advantage, because if you take both Mineral only bases, not only is the 6 o'clock gas buffered a bit, but each harass is proportionally less damaging for the very straightforward reason that when an expo is harassed when you're on 6-7 base, it's less damaging than when you're on 4-5 base.

Once Jaedong lost the Mutas, all of a sudden Last could again march all the way down to the high ground outside of one of the mineral only bases. There was very little flanking, partly because Jaedong couldn't afford it having burned like 2000 / 2000 on Mutas. For all of Jaedong's great Lurker drop harass in the beginning of the late game, where was a Defiler and a Lurker under swarm to interrupt the flow of Terran units?

All of this is very hard to do, but what is also getting ignored is how great Last played after the 20 minute mark. It definitely wasn't a great game by him in the first 20 minutes, but whereas a lot of Terrans would have crumbled or gotten passive, Last kept pumping out units and kept going to the high ground. It's really scary to move out as Terran when you don't have the full death ball put together, but Last kept doing it super effectively (though again would have been less effective with the threat of Mutas).

Also, while Vultures are super strong, it does take a ton of work to lay mines over and over again. This is why the mineral only bases on CB benefit Zerg more than Terran. For Zerg, it just means infinity cracklings, which take very little effort to use. You can throw 6-24 cracklings at some expo on A-move in the late game and there's a decent chance they do damage. Sure they might all blow up to one mine, but Terran has to keep laying those mines.

Problem is, Jaedong just never stabilized those mineral-only bases, in spite of the advantage they provide for Zerg in late game ZvT.

Now you might say, "Jaedong badly wanted to kill top left, because if he doesn't it's really hard". I agree. But throwing Mutas only doesn't work. Mutas do like no damage to buildings, and as long as there are a few Factories up there, eventually enough 3-3 Goliaths will pop. It's like in PvT, as soon as the Zealots die, pull back the Dragoons. Here, as soon as you're down to just Mutas, pull them back because they are 10x more valuable as harass / flank / just being annoying, than slowing chipping away at Factories while Goliaths come out 3 at a time. This is a very straightforward concept. I'm not saying I "know better" than Jaedong - he surely knows this too, but his attack instincts are just too much sometimes in the heat of a game.

On May 10 2017 02:41 darktreb wrote:
People are making this into a false dichotomy between "BW is perfectly balanced on every map" and "JD deserved to lose for not playing perfectly".

TvZ probably isn't "perfectly" balanced right now. Jaedong didn't play that great, especially past the 20 minute mark. Both can be true - I think both are true.

What's definitely true is that Jaedong could have won this game had he played better, and not in "everything perfect god mode" ways, but in ways that are completely reasonable to expect for an elite Zerg player. I bet Effort, Soulkey, Zero, perhaps hero, and perhaps Larva (when not on stage) win that game if they get into the position Jaedong did right after the late game Muta switch.

Nobody thinks BW is balanced on every map. But better players can beat worse players most of the time, on most maps. The thing is though, Last is the better player right now. Using this of all games as the prime example of TvZ imba is asinine. There are so many better examples.

I've been watching Jaedong since 2006. One of Jaedong's weaknesses has always been his propensity for aggression (which is also one of his greatest strengths), and relatively mediocre game sense / late game decision making for a person who is probably the second greatest player of all time. Jaedong generally wins off of a combination of hyper aggression, and amazing mechanics. He was always able to scrape advantages other players couldn't, both because they didn't have the mechanics, and because they didn't have the balls.

The problem is this playstyle is so damn effective that Jaedong never developed quite as good of "sloppy game" game sense. He still won a ton of these games because he was almost always the better player, and superior mechanics and killer instinct are still worth a lot in a sloppy game. But as soon as it looks like "attack attack attack" will work, his natural instinct is to go with that route, even if there's a better route.

In this game, that situation came up after the Muta switch. He got a lot of value out of the Mutas, but he could have gotten FAR more value out of them by keeping them alive instead of throwing them away at the top left. If he keeps ~10 Mutas alive and harasses / flanks with them constantly, while taking both mineral only bases and perhaps even 3 o'clock, then he probably wins. This would have been Soulkey's instinct, and probably Effort's and Larva's as well.

This is the stable way to win ZvT on Circuit Breaker once you have a brief late game advantage, because if you take both Mineral only bases, not only is the 6 o'clock gas buffered a bit, but each harass is proportionally less damaging for the very straightforward reason that when an expo is harassed when you're on 6-7 base, it's less damaging than when you're on 4-5 base.

Once Jaedong lost the Mutas, all of a sudden Last could again march all the way down to the high ground outside of one of the mineral only bases. There was very little flanking, partly because Jaedong couldn't afford it having burned like 2000 / 2000 on Mutas. For all of Jaedong's great Lurker drop harass in the beginning of the late game, where was a Defiler and a Lurker under swarm to interrupt the flow of Terran units?

All of this is very hard to do, but what is also getting ignored is how great Last played after the 20 minute mark. It definitely wasn't a great game by him in the first 20 minutes, but whereas a lot of Terrans would have crumbled or gotten passive, Last kept pumping out units and kept going to the high ground. It's really scary to move out as Terran when you don't have the full death ball put together, but Last kept doing it super effectively (though again would have been less effective with the threat of Mutas).

Also, while Vultures are super strong, it does take a ton of work to lay mines over and over again. This is why the mineral only bases on CB benefit Zerg more than Terran. For Zerg, it just means infinity cracklings, which take very little effort to use. You can throw 6-24 cracklings at some expo on A-move in the late game and there's a decent chance they do damage. Sure they might all blow up to one mine, but Terran has to keep laying those mines.

Problem is, Jaedong just never stabilized those mineral-only bases, in spite of the advantage they provide for Zerg in late game ZvT.

Now you might say, "Jaedong badly wanted to kill top left, because if he doesn't it's really hard". I agree. But throwing Mutas only doesn't work. Mutas do like no damage to buildings, and as long as there are a few Factories up there, eventually enough 3-3 Goliaths will pop. It's like in PvT, as soon as the Zealots die, pull back the Dragoons. Here, as soon as you're down to just Mutas, pull them back because they are 10x more valuable as harass / flank / just being annoying, than slowing chipping away at Factories while Goliaths come out 3 at a time. This is a very straightforward concept. I'm not saying I "know better" than Jaedong - he surely knows this too, but his attack instincts are just too much sometimes in the heat of a game.