EPT[ASL4] Grand Finals Flash vs Hero - Page 31
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Starlightsun
United States1405 Posts
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fko
2 Posts
Watch the mini map, how he starts moving the marines away in a line towards Hero's natural and Hero's reaction to move the mutas away from the 2 lurkers guarding the ramp, so it can intercept the marines somewhere in the middle on the map, while they move in a line. See how Hero moves the mutas in a "confused" pattern, as he is surprised that the interception is not occurring where he was expecting it would. In the meanwhile, the marines turned towards the ramp. The mutas were still chasing air, when the marines were charging up the ramp. That move from Flash, while waiting for the +1 armor, was pure genius out of Sun Tzu's - Art of War! To not just sit idle waiting for the +1 armor, but to throw a feint to shake off the mutas so that the 2 lurkers remain without support. That's the kind of in-the-moment decision and mind games, that separates Flash from the rest... | ||
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sephiria
106 Posts
Are there any information on that already or are we being kept in the dark? | ||
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SlayerS_BunkiE
Canada1706 Posts
And maybe he doesn't have a particular style or unit that would be associated with Flash specifically, but as FlashFTW has pointed out, he's just that good with everything. Flash has said in interviews that one of his eureka moments was being able to properly decide on where to dedicate his attention/apm. There will be occasions where you see Flash dedicate his entire apm into controlling units, and I swear most times it looks better than Terran players who are known to be good with those units. And saying his style is boring really sounds like throwback from the days where all Flash would do was turtle and outmacro his opponent. He currently has a ridiculously aggressive, almost borderline reckless TvZ style. His ASL TvT series with Mind/Last was anything but boring (especially vs Last). I would agree that if you want more uncertainty on who would win, then watching Flash could be boring. But his style itself really isn't boring, not anymore, or at the very least only more boring if you were comparing him to someone like Boxer, who is the ultimate showman. | ||
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Maks
Ukraine167 Posts
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PVJ
Hungary5211 Posts
On November 15 2017 07:02 fko wrote: It's amazing to me that in 31 pages there was only one reference to the amazing feint in game 4, when Flash busted the ramp. Watch the mini map, how he starts moving the marines away in a line towards Hero's natural and Hero's reaction to move the mutas away from the 2 lurkers guarding the ramp, so it can intercept the marines somewhere in the middle on the map, while they move in a line. See how Hero moves the mutas in a "confused" pattern, as he is surprised that the interception is not occurring where he was expecting it would. In the meanwhile, the marines turned towards the ramp. The mutas were still chasing air, when the marines were charging up the ramp. That move from Flash, while waiting for the +1 armor, was pure genius out of Sun Tzu's - Art of War! To not just sit idle waiting for the +1 armor, but to throw a feint to shake off the mutas so that the 2 lurkers remain without support. That's the kind of in-the-moment decision and mind games, that separates Flash from the rest... Nice observation. | ||
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jinjin5000
Korea (South)1357 Posts
https://imgur.com/a/DjJFx Monster text: 3rd asl win flash: I became way too strong cyan dude: Fucking tesagy orange: Thats a problem blue dude: hes too good Flash: does overwhelming power look that boring? text: maybe I should switch races | ||
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_Animus_
Bulgaria1064 Posts
On November 15 2017 07:45 SlayerS_BunkiE wrote: And saying his style is boring really sounds like throwback from the days where all Flash would do was turtle and outmacro his opponent. . I was Flash antifan during this period of his career, he was the most boring player for real. However his current style still doesnt amaze me, as other progamers can do. His style became too abusive making the game not that great to watch either. Apart form his game understanding he have that robot calm mind, which let him have greater concentration and clearer decision making compared to the other players. I have never seen this guy choke, not even once! I dont know if its the talent to understanding the game or that strong nerves which make him so dominant. | ||
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Letmelose
Korea (South)3227 Posts
On November 15 2017 04:32 FlaShFTW wrote: I would argue that FlaSh doesn't have a specific unit that he excels at, rather he has mastered the micro of almost every unit. His marine micro is incredible stellar, with his spreads vs lurkers and his reaction time to muta harass in TvZ as one example. His vulture micro is also quite good, though not as good as fantasy's. His goliath control vs air units is second-to-none. He even shows pretty decent wraith micro in the finals vs hero. So overall, I would argue that FlaSh is so good with every unit that it makes it look like nothing stands out to him. He doesn't have a special unit because all of his units are special. It's like the DOTA reference of every hero being overpowered therefore no hero is overpowered. In addition, his understanding of build orders and timings are immaculate. While you cannot visualize his builds as well and his understanding of each matchup and what to do in every specific situation, I think it is elegant to watch perfection being played. It is a subtle art to witness what he does, and although at face value it might look boring because everything of his is so optimized that there is almost no glaring hole in his play, can you really fault that to him? His goal is to win and to win means to do everything in your power to maximize your chance of winning and minimize your chance of losing. While to some that might be stupid and boring, to me it is the epitome of beautiful starcraft. Same with Chess in a way (although beautiful combinations and lines lead to spectacular finishes), a lot of games might look quite boring to you, with generally whoever is the better player by a slight bit using their positional advantage to slowly starve out the oponent until they are forced into a bad move. It might look boring, but the positional play is what is beautiful to watch as well, with all the pieces working in tandem to create a good position with no weaknesses. I'm trying to categorize Flash here, not questioning his abilities as a whole. Quite clearly, one does not achieve the things Flash did with significant exploitable deficiencies. Flash has mastered almost all aspects of competitive Brood War to a level that is extremely difficult to exploit whether his opponent happens to be a master tactician, a funky strategist, a multi-tasking god, or a micro-management extraordinaire. However, it clearly does not mean that Flash has mastered all these aspects to a level that is beyond everybody else. That would be being intellectually dishonest, in my opinion. There's a world of difference between players winning through their unmatched mastery of units, breaking down the game to its RPG elements, such as the likes of BoxeR, Leta, and FanTaSy have done with their signature units, and being very good at making the units do what one intends to do with them. The former breaks the expected standard for what can be done with a certain number of units, while the latter is simply keeping things at a crisp level of execution. Nobody here is accusing Flash of having subpar micro-management, but rather, RPG level micro-management mastery that was seen in other superlative players such as Stork, or Jaedong at their peaks was not replicated in Flash. Flash is not alone in this department. iloveoov never relied thoroughly on his raw execution, sAviOr had a clean grasp of most mechanical plays needed from the zerg race, but was never the one to dedicate himself towards that sort of craft. Like I mentioned before, the two words I associate with Flash is optimization off impeccable real-time decision making, and constant pressuring off the leads he creates with his optimizations. Neither are heavily reliant on micro-management, Flash pulls off oppressive pressuring off good map movement and positioning, rather than impossible to replicate raw execution at any given moment. Again, it is a player trait that I'm trying to get across here. Another thing is that while Flash does divide his attention and mental resources fabulously, in a manner which presents him with the highest odds of victory, he doesn't really set himself apart from the rest when the game breaks down to a a battle of raw execution. NaDa, another genius at the game, was fantastic at timing attacks, and extreme late game situations, where the core of the game broke down to raw execution. NaDa would have never won against dOnGraE if his battlecruiser micro-management was simply up to par with other competent terran players of his era. NaDa was exceptional at differentiating himself from the rest in terms of raw execution, whether it was early game, or extreme late game. Flash, on the other hand, has a tendency to struggle more when the game becomes mostly about raw execution, it's not that he is bad at it by any means, but it is apparent that he does not differentiate himself from the rest in a manner that could be seen with some of other all-time greats with this particular aspect of the game. Extreme late game battlecruiser battles with nothing else to focus on, or early game micro-management warfare where the level attention required from minimal number of key units soars through the roof is not where Flash shines the most. While Flash's micro-management in tandem with his other exceptional skillsets at the game is indeed quite the work of art at times, the argument that Flash is somehow untouchable in the micro-management department due to his mastery of all the units available in the game is erroneous in my opinion. I have seen Flash playing micro-management UMS with his viewers, and against other ex-professionals. It is not a matter of being familiar with the UMS itself, because I have seen professionals micro-manage units in the most inefficient manner due to their unfamiliarity with the circumstances, but still come out victorious due to their raw execution. Flash simply loses straight up versus random viewers of his stream, and is often one of the worst performing ex-professionals when they gather together to play micro-management UMS maps, alongside BeSt, who also tends to be more of a cerebral player rather than a raw mechanical beast (his exceptional macro-management is the product of extremely well thought out build optimization, and probe count optimization, rather than a product of insane eAPM numbers). This is Flash's second to none anti-air goliath micro-management in display. I just singled this out, since this was what you brought up as the epitome of Flash's micro-management abilities compared to other top terran players throughout the years. This isn't the kind of skillset that guarantees victories, but just watch Flash trying to space his attack animations, and tell me with a straight face that this is the greatest goliath micro-management user of all-time bar none. + Show Spoiler + I have never thought Flash's goliath micro-managament by itself was the greatest of all-time. Exactly what is so mechanically jaw dropping about literally dozens of fully upgraded goliaths shooting carriers down like flies? What sets apart Flash is the ability to create situations that doesn't force his hand to create miracles out his units, not the actual miracle making itself. We have other legendary players for that specific department. I'm not saying micro-management abilities alone win you games (case in point, Flash alongside numerous other legendary players who built up their legacy without godlike micro-management). There is beauty to be found in every single Brood War legend out there, and the magic of the game is that these gods have all have reached that point through various means. Micro-management is just one of many aspects of the craft that can be mastered to lethal doses for the opposing player, and I personally think Flash has mastered it to a level that allows him to deny getting abused effectively by the very best micro-managament players of all-time, without himself quite being in that category. I have always personally enjoyed the sort of players who bring their units to life, and overcome all-odds through sheer will power and the manipulation of the units on screen beyond their predicted potential. July was one. Jaedong was another. Out of the protoss players, I have always liked JangBi the best out of the more recent players, despite his huge flaws as a competitive gamer. Out of the terran players, I thought Leta's mastery of wraiths was second-to-none, and thoroughly enjoyed his exploits. It's just a tendency I have as a viewer, and I adamantly disagree with your statements that my perception of Flash is somehow clouded by Flash being somehow so good with the sheer micro-management aspect of every single terran unit in existence, that everything he does seems commonplace. If that truly was the case, Flash would be by far my favourite terran player of all-time, regardless of his success rate. Being able to make the impossible happen with every single unit composition imagineable is like a fairy tale come to life for me. I personally don't see it with Flash. To make a footballing analogy, the legendary defender Paolo Maldini once said the following: "If I have to make a tackle then I have already made a mistake.” Sure Maldini was indeed a beast even on mano-a-mano situations, but the thing that elevated him even beyond his ridiculously high individual defensive capabilities was his subtle positional play, and intelligent organization of the defensive line. Flash's gaming philosophy seems to match the above the quote somewhat: "If I have to make an unlikely outplay then I have already made a mistake." I'll add one more point of reference to make myself clear, and avoid any chance of confusion. Both Flash and FanTaSy were impeccable in the terran-versus-protoss match-up. FanTaSy actively seeked out potential outplays with his vultures, and have worked on that specific craft to a demi-god status. Flash doesn't force himself to do anything with his vultures, and uses them sparingly in order to preserve them for later use, when the sheer number of his vultures often make his timing attacks much more frightening. Both players get the maximum return from the terran unit known as vultures, but it is FanTaSy that brings to life the RPG element that can be discovered within vultures due to the innate outplay potential that available in the unit. It's just an philosophical take on a multi-faceted competitive craft, and I don't think you need to force the narrative that Flash was somehow the best at everything, and it was his results alone that somehow made me unable to fully appreciate his games on a visceral level. I have my preferences on gaming styles, and Flash does not belong in the category of my fancy. I'm by no means an expert, but I am a connoisseur of my own preferences when it comes to competitive Brood War. | ||
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Barneyk
Sweden304 Posts
On November 15 2017 07:02 fko wrote: It's amazing to me that in 31 pages there was only one reference to the amazing feint in game 4, when Flash busted the ramp. Watch the mini map, how he starts moving the marines away in a line towards Hero's natural and Hero's reaction to move the mutas away from the 2 lurkers guarding the ramp, so it can intercept the marines somewhere in the middle on the map, while they move in a line. See how Hero moves the mutas in a "confused" pattern, as he is surprised that the interception is not occurring where he was expecting it would. In the meanwhile, the marines turned towards the ramp. The mutas were still chasing air, when the marines were charging up the ramp. That move from Flash, while waiting for the +1 armor, was pure genius out of Sun Tzu's - Art of War! To not just sit idle waiting for the +1 armor, but to throw a feint to shake off the mutas so that the 2 lurkers remain without support. That's the kind of in-the-moment decision and mind games, that separates Flash from the rest... This is something that Jaedong has talked about quite a lot, how Flash moves his units in ways that confuse you and you are never sure about what he is going to do. When you see his vision it doesn't look like much, but from an opponents perspective it is just plain hell to play against. Every player does some of it, but Flash does it all the time and it is mentally challenging to play against. And I think there is a lot of stuff that Flash does that we commoners just can't see and appreciate enough. Flash really doesn't get credit enough for all the things he does, I feel almost offended reading how he is just a machine executing basic strategies, there is so many detail and nuances to his play. It does get a bit stale watching him win so dominantly, but that is also because there is a lack of talent at the absolute top. The skill gap between The top 3 players at the moment and the ones outside the top 10 seem a lot bigger now than it was during the kespa era. And we don't have coaches and teams and working on specific strategies and whatnot. I hope the sport continues to grow and we can see some new blood and some more organized training and mentorship or whatnot. | ||
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Miragee
8381 Posts
On November 15 2017 11:48 Barneyk wrote: This is something that Jaedong has talked about quite a lot, how Flash moves his units in ways that confuse you and you are never sure about what he is going to do. When you see his vision it doesn't look like much, but from an opponents perspective it is just plain hell to play against. Every player does some of it, but Flash does it all the time and it is mentally challenging to play against. And I think there is a lot of stuff that Flash does that we commoners just can't see and appreciate enough. Flash really doesn't get credit enough for all the things he does, I feel almost offended reading how he is just a machine executing basic strategies, there is so many detail and nuances to his play. It does get a bit stale watching him win so dominantly, but that is also because there is a lack of talent at the absolute top. The skill gap between The top 3 players at the moment and the ones outside the top 10 seem a lot bigger now than it was during the kespa era. And we don't have coaches and teams and working on specific strategies and whatnot. I hope the sport continues to grow and we can see some new blood and some more organized training and mentorship or whatnot. I don't want to make a long post because Letmelose has, once again, written down my exact thoughts perfectly. I just wanted to say that the skill gap between the S-Class and the A-Class was quite big back then, too. But there were whole teams with coaches that came up with strategies to snipe the S-Class players which makes a big difference in how we perceived things compared to now. | ||
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Foxxan
Sweden3427 Posts
ZvZ anyone? Where the buildoutcome has to much impact and where building 1 or maybe 2 extra drones might be to big of a rng outcome as well. Larva, the best zvt player in the tournament/maybe even in the world(?) Loses perhaps because of the RNG in the zvz matchup? Is this okay, really, you think so? Saying you dont wanna patch the game because of blizzard doesnt make it right to have the game as it is either way. | ||
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Miragee
8381 Posts
On November 15 2017 13:57 Foxxan wrote: For people that say watching flash is boring because he wins to much and to the same people that dont wanna patch the game. ZvZ anyone? Where the buildoutcome has to much impact and where building 1 or maybe 2 extra drones might be to big of a rng outcome as well. Larva, the best zvt player in the tournament/maybe even in the world(?) Loses perhaps because of the RNG in the zvz matchup? Is this okay, really, you think so? Saying you dont wanna patch the game because of blizzard doesnt make it right to have the game as it is either way. There is no denying that ZvZ is stupid although Jaedong proved that the match-ups inherent base on luck can be overcome. The problem with patching something to "fix" ZvZ will break another part of the game. Once you start there is no end to it. See SC2. Out of curiosity: What would you change to "fix" ZvZ? For me, TvT is the only mirror that's a normal match up. The other two races, especially zerg, are much too volatile to have a decent mirror. | ||
FlaShFTW
United States9925 Posts
On November 15 2017 14:28 Miragee wrote: There is no denying that ZvZ is stupid although Jaedong proved that the match-ups inherent base on luck can be overcome. The problem with patching something to "fix" ZvZ will break another part of the game. Once you start there is no end to it. See SC2. Out of curiosity: What would you change to "fix" ZvZ? For me, TvT is the only mirror that's a normal match up. The other two races, especially zerg, are much too volatile to have a decent mirror. i order to change one matchup, you have to change how much damage the units of race A deal against other units of race A. Some people proposed that hydras did normal damage to mutas or bonus to increase hydra play, which would diversify the meta. | ||
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chuDr3t4
Russian Federation483 Posts
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niteReloaded
Croatia5281 Posts
He invented 'half' of modern T timings I feel like. He'll just recognize a window and attack. Or recognize a window, and make a BO around it. His timing sense is the best there ever was, and like I said, it's not about even just recognizing timings in current meta, it's recognizing timings that aren't meta yet, but he 'proves them' and they become meta. And a bunch of situational timings that don't fall in the category of meta. And I feel he is fearless. I don't remember feeling fear in his play or insecurity. He goes for the move that feels best, and doesn't seem scared of being wrong. And he's usually right. | ||
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Foxxan
Sweden3427 Posts
On November 15 2017 14:28 Miragee wrote: There is no denying that ZvZ is stupid although Jaedong proved that the match-ups inherent base on luck can be overcome. The problem with patching something to "fix" ZvZ will break another part of the game. Once you start there is no end to it. See SC2. Out of curiosity: What would you change to "fix" ZvZ? For me, TvT is the only mirror that's a normal match up. The other two races, especially zerg, are much too volatile to have a decent mirror. Agree. Not sure how much merit my suggestions have but here they are: Scourge; Makes it move faster when close to biological air units. Only affects zvz. Cant think of anything else that seems "solid" on paper atleast. Offtopic; Personally i wouldnt mind a bigger patch that adresses things such as more viable to fight each other, and more moves to open up someone as well. Ex, recall down to 100 mana, 8limit unit recall. | ||
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XiaoJoyce-
China2908 Posts
On November 15 2017 09:15 _Animus_ wrote: I was Flash antifan during this period of his career, he was the most boring player for real. However his current style still doesnt amaze me, as other progamers can do. His style became too abusive making the game not that great to watch either. Apart form his game understanding he have that robot calm mind, which let him have greater concentration and clearer decision making compared to the other players. I have never seen this guy choke, not even once! I dont know if its the talent to understanding the game or that strong nerves which make him so dominant. He said it is hard work. I'm not sure if he work as hard as the time before, but I still believe it is his effort put in to achieve where he is now. In TinyLand translation video. Flash said Nada is pure genius he is nowhere compare to him although many said he has talent. But he experience it before that hardwork always beat talent. His 1st hand experience. It is sad his SC2 career cannot compare to SCBW, but I still feel it is good. There is couple of silver that is 1 game away. Like the 2 MLG he lose to Life ,...(Is it 1 game away?) . And there is the 1 final he lose to Parting... | ||
BigFan
TLADT24920 Posts
On November 15 2017 20:29 niteReloaded wrote: Flash's 'signature move' is IMO attacking at weird timings. He invented 'half' of modern T timings I feel like. He'll just recognize a window and attack. Or recognize a window, and make a BO around it. His timing sense is the best there ever was, and like I said, it's not about even just recognizing timings in current meta, it's recognizing timings that aren't meta yet, but he 'proves them' and they become meta. And a bunch of situational timings that don't fall in the category of meta. And I feel he is fearless. I don't remember feeling fear in his play or insecurity. He goes for the move that feels best, and doesn't seem scared of being wrong. And he's usually right. Honestly, he's only able to do this because he's invested so much time into the game so he knows what he's able to get away with etc... Personally, I agree that Flash's style isn't really flashy or anything. He's just an extremely extremely extremely solid player who understands the matchups like no other and knows how to cut corners and what he can get away with. He's also pretty smart imo. He feinted against hero in the last game to draw the mutas away then busted the ramp. He predicted how hero will play in game 2 with the 2 hatch and even figured that hero will at least go hatch first in game 1 so he 8 rax'd. Aka, the guy really considers the maps that he plays on, his opponents' strategies and his own. Add that to unreal macro and that crazy understanding from earlier and well, he's the best for a reason. I would have to agree with letmelose that Flash isn't someone who microes like a madman. There's been instances where he's been outmicroed. He still has pretty good micro but that goliath video leaves a lot to be desired lol. As a terran player, I'm mostly flabbergasted at some of the decisions that he makes at times watching his fpv. His mind is always on macro but he'll dedicate enough focus on his army or some other important task. There's a reason why he also invented and can pull off 14cc. | ||
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TaardadAiel
Bulgaria750 Posts
Continuing the football analogy, there was a great defensive midfielder who played for Arsenal - Gilberto Silva. His nickname was "The invisible wall". Half the game you wouldn't hear the commentator mention him by name, a great tackle here and there, a nice pass here and there, but still the opposition would not be allowed to take any initiative, even if they were controlling the ball, simply because of the way he positioning himself and communicating with the rest of the defense. Most people who like big, aggressive defenders with great tackles or air control would call him "nothing special", maybe boring to watch. All people who like creative midfielders and offensive players who would score/assist out of nothing with a brilliant technical play or a defense-splitting pass would call him boring. His opponents didn't like playing against him at all, though. He could be technically proficient, should need arise, but he was remarkably good at not allowing to be put in such a position in the first place. | ||
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