My only complaint in the whole series is that Soulkey's mutalisk micro is frankly terrible. Only decent time was game 5 when he was going in to snipe turrets
This took me by surprise in game 5. All of a sudden his muta control is good.. if just for a moment. Thought it was according to his plan, changing up his tempo. Then i got dissapointed when i saw guardians.. since it kinda slows the tempo down, still an enjoyable game 5 and the strategy with guardians+mass lings seemed to have potential actually. Him losing quite a few drones to some vultures at his third hit him quite big i believe.
My only complaint in the whole series is that Soulkey's mutalisk micro is frankly terrible. Only decent time was game 5 when he was going in to snipe turrets
This took me by surprise in game 5. All of a sudden his muta control is good.. if just for a moment. Thought it was according to his plan, changing up his tempo. Then i got dissapointed when i saw guardians.. since it kinda slows the tempo down, still an enjoyable game 5 and the strategy with guardians+mass lings seemed to have potential actually. Him losing quite a few drones to some vultures at his third hit him quite big i believe.
yep, if you watched his micro throughout the series, it varies so so much. Game 1, he caught 5 marines with 6 zerglings with an amazing surround and he had great surrounds in game 4, same with the small bits in game 2 then you see his mutalisk micro in all his other games - game 5 and you wonder why he doesn't bother to micro them. If you are going mutas, you have to force the terran to keep relocating, moving around etc... It kinda makes me mad lol because you know that his macro is solid and his micro can be too but I have no clue why he neglected his mutas throughout most of the series. Even on Outsider, aside from a small dip into Flash's exp, his mutalisks were just flying around the base. Sure, maybe he meant to intercept drops but this was before Flash had dropships out then he lost them all to the mnm when Flash went for the bust.
This series was incredible. Successful 4pool. Soulkey with a great build on Andromeda. The outsider game where flash barely scraped by. All culminating in in a very tense game 5. As soulkey gg'd, we let out a huge sigh of relief and so did flash. Flash's control and decision making seemed worse than it usually is and so he only managed to win by the smallest of razor thin margins.
I may be miss-remembering, but isn't Andromeda the biggest map in the professional scene since 2008? Is Circuit Breaker bigger? I could've sworn Andromeda was the biggest.
On May 29 2017 19:37 Qikz wrote: I may be miss-remembering, but isn't Andromeda the biggest map in the professional scene since 2008? Is Circuit Breaker bigger? I could've sworn Andromeda was the biggest.
Andromeda is bigger I think but it has the in base mineral only which sure makes it feel bigger and play bigger even if it isn't.
On May 29 2017 16:29 BigFan wrote: I think the scourge micro was intentional. That dance was great lol. I think it's easy to point and say, noob, micro better. In truth, if you don't control your scourge, they'll pause as they change directions so I think Soulkey was trying to prevent that from happening. Just so happened that Flash's micro was on point to dodge them and Soulkey might also mismicroed at times there.
He did anti micro, he pulled back the sourges from flying towards the dropship, then he passed a STOPPED dropship intentionally... Its scourge vs dropship, there is no excuse for failing that hard.
On May 29 2017 06:08 Miragee wrote: In terms of pure mechanical skill, Soulkey came closer to beat Flash than JD last season imho.
I would argue with that. JD came up with some clever builds which actually won him games last season and mechanically performed way better than Soulkey who could not even scourge control properly and relied on sunkens and muta tech in all his games. This is not how you win against Flash. Seriously guys, what happened to you critical thinking?
As much as I love JD, but in his games vs Flash he severely lacked mechanical skill. He could edge out wins with strategies but not with his enormous macro and multi-tasking he used to have back in the day. Soulkey indeed had some terrible scourge control but his macro was far stronger than JD's.
And again, G3 Soulkey was ahead quite a bit. Then he threw the game when Flash hit the only timing he had. 2 minutes longer and that game would have looked the same as game 4.
On May 29 2017 06:08 Miragee wrote: In terms of pure mechanical skill, Soulkey came closer to beat Flash than JD last season imho.
I would argue with that. JD came up with some clever builds which actually won him games last season and mechanically performed way better than Soulkey who could not even scourge control properly and relied on sunkens and muta tech in all his games. This is not how you win against Flash. Seriously guys, what happened to you critical thinking?
2 minutes longer and that game would have looked the same as game 4.
That can be said almost about every Flash game against any top zerg
On May 29 2017 19:37 Qikz wrote: I may be miss-remembering, but isn't Andromeda the biggest map in the professional scene since 2008? Is Circuit Breaker bigger? I could've sworn Andromeda was the biggest.
Basically all 4 player maps are 128x128. Andromeda looks sorta big because you have a 3 base economy basically with just your main and nat which makes rush distances bigger. Soulkey also went for the island expo which meant he didn't have to extend his ground defense at all for the third gas.
if i would have gotten 1 cent from every person who said "map X is bigger than map Y", even though they have the same size, i would be a millionaire. some things just stay the same even after all those years.....
On May 30 2017 00:05 Bakuryu wrote: if i would have gotten 1 cent from every person who said "map X is bigger than map Y", even though they have the same size, i would be a millionaire. some things just stay the same even after all those years.....
hmm, usually when I say map size I mean distance between bases.
First off, I'm pretty new to BW and I have absolutely NO player experience, I just watch and read a lot recently.
That being said, the most heated discussion is about the following:
No lurkers on Outsider Bad scourge micro on Outsider Morphing guardians relatively unprotected on CB game 2 Overall SK performance
So, please, correct me everywhere I'm wrong.
G3 on Outsider was a pretty obvious (to the observer) mad dash for mass hive tech - i.e. fully upgraded defilers, ultras, cracklings. After Flash had a solid early game advantage, slowing down SK's economy a lot, how the game turned out was not wholly unexpected. SK eventually got the double gas base, so he needed mostly time for that economy to really kick in. I don't really think lurker tech would've bought him more time than the (failed) muta harass in midgame; lurkers are static, he would've got like 6 of them, and Flash was already on 2 ports, having the opportunity to switch between dropships and science vessels. Defending SK's main, double gas and natural all at the same time with 6 lurkers does not seem plausible. He didn't need many vessels, because there were no lurkers; not vice versa. Early game terran pressure - sick firebat play! - was the main factor in that game, I think. Because of it SK was later forced to lose drones, i.e. larva and economy, for static D for ONE of his bases against an opponent that went two port. Muta harass arguably is a better time-waster and can earn better map control from what I've seen in the games I've watched, it just didn't this time.
The scourge micro issue I cannot address properly, since I haven't had to micro neither dropships nor scourge. Even so, I think it was mostly a product of great dropship micro AND wrong anticipation on SK's part, SK assuming chinese triangle or whatever from Flash and trying to anticipate his moves, move-commanding the scourge instead of attacking the dropship directly and falling victim to AI glitches. Apropos, I suppose that kind of micro can - and has been, heavily - be practiced on both sides. Doesn't seem like an improvised solution.
The guardians were morphed in a hurry, possibly part mistake and part timing, because they were ultima ratio. Flash defended the 9pool speed with inhumane ease and had the upper hand for most of the game, losing some ground when SK killed a bunch of MnM on the ramp above the bridges to the natural. SK most likely knew his build was scouted, he can hear scans after all. Time was working against him.
Overall, I don't consider the series to be horrible. SK fared quite well on Andromeda, denying the 4th and forcing Flash on SK Terran. Had a pretty solid plan on Outsider, I think, but subpar muta micro and great early pressure from Flash failed him, and had a nice cheesy (really an allin) build on CB for game 5. And I personally wonder if he chose to 4pool on Camelot not only because of the short rush distance, but because he was wary of some sort of cheese from Flash - which Flash actually did. Incorporating such stuff in your plan for a bo5 is not a sign of helplessness in my eyes. Besides, no zerg has had better results against Flash in offline matches recently. And I caught several games between them on stream, with SoulKey beating him a good percentage of the time. Comparing old-time pros and matches to the present has mostly sentimental value anyway. We should enjoy what we can. Sorry for the long post.
On May 30 2017 00:05 Bakuryu wrote: if i would have gotten 1 cent from every person who said "map X is bigger than map Y", even though they have the same size, i would be a millionaire. some things just stay the same even after all those years.....
When people say "bigger" they are usually not just talking about the actual size of the map, but rush distances, number of bases etc all factors into what makes a map "bigger" or "smaller" even though the actual physical size of the square is the same.
On May 29 2017 15:01 juvenal wrote: letian is wrong, everybody else is right.
On May 29 2017 02:40 letian wrote: For some strange reason he was sitting on pure mm whole time.
I guess you missed the teamleague game where SoulKey demolished Flash's mech practically with ease. I feel like most your statements are baseless. Like, walk in the park series for Flash - what series did you watch?
Don't nitpick my text. That was more an emotional evaluation. Soulkey crumbled under pressure and played worse that he usually does, didn't have any clever builds and on top poor execution of the "prepared" ones. So, if you like this kind of play you either a Flash fan and attempt to give him some credit or have a strange taste in ZvT games.
mate most of the people enjoyed the series and deem it worthy of its hype. So it's either all of us have strange taste in ZvT or you do, what do you reckon is more plausible.
"The majority is right". Good for me I guess. I prefer good mechanics and interesting builds in ZvT, none of those were demonstrated (except when Soulkey defended push on Outsider and then still lost drones). Flash played on point on the other hand, that's the only thing I enjoyed I think.
When it comes to the definition of strange, the majority really is write. If the majority of people like these types of ZvT's you can't really say their taste is strange can you? After all the definition is unusual/rarely seen.
What I can't figure out from your posts is that you have basically said FlaSh played quality starcraft, and constantly stated how pitiful Soulkey's showing was. This contrasts to the results of the games, where FlaSh handily beat SK in two, SK handily beat Flash in two, and the deciding game was an exceedingly close nailbiter that could have just as easily gone in SK's favor with a marginally later scan, better morphing spot, etc.
It just doesn't really jive that the greatest BW player of all time, playing a matchup known to be challenging for zerg, could play very solid starcraft, and come perilously close to losing against a zerg playing terribly.
On May 30 2017 02:13 TaardadAiel wrote: First off, I'm pretty new to BW and I have absolutely NO player experience, I just watch and read a lot recently.
On a side note, I'm just wondering, do you do BW commentary? Because you're certainly qualified if you wish to pursue it.
EPT
