KRS playoffs Day 1 on 2/7 19:00 KST

On February 07 2018 12:29 The_Red_Viper wrote:
Sadly no Rain :/

On February 07 2018 19:06 Essbee wrote:
what's kcm's stream url?

On February 07 2018 19:18 sc19980331 wrote:
Game 1
Snow vs Shinee

On February 07 2018 19:30 M2 wrote:
am I the only one who cannot load the KCM's stream?

On February 07 2018 19:37 KoveN- wrote:


not loading for me either

On February 07 2018 20:26 Essbee wrote:
crazy game, but he should have went for carriers again lol

On February 07 2018 20:32 M2 wrote:

I think he could not afford carriers coz he got behind from early mistakes and used arbiters to try to get back into the game, this is why he went for 2 starports too I think, to catch up on high tech units, due to the early mistakes.

On February 07 2018 21:54 M2 wrote:
Well I was rooting for the protoss but anyway since protoss doesn't have ace players anymore, terran vs zerg final will be probably way more interesting and unpredictable

On February 07 2018 21:52 tanngard wrote:
I have no idea how flash can dominate like that. But even so, arbiters seems to not be enough anymore. I see protoss losing all the time with arbiters. Its like the skill ceiling for arbiter play is much lower than what is the case for controlling a terran army. Which means that terrans have room to develop their skills even further and further, while protoss are stuck with their slow arbiters. It would be really interesting to see some stats on carriers vs arbiters right now. Carriers seems to me to be viable, but they really blow compared to arbiters in entertainment value imo. Nothing better than intense arbiter games, while carrier play either tend to fall flat on its ass or simply roll over goliaths if they reach critical amount (there is some even games though). I'm just bummed out about the state of protoss right now. Dont even get me started on pvz...

On February 07 2018 21:59 M2 wrote:

I am not saying that protoss is equal to terrans and zergs, I also think that the race is a bit underwhelming on a pro level, however, I think that the bigger issue is that protoss no longer has ace players like flash, last, soulkey and larva. Bisu was probably the last one, Stork never managed to really come back, Rain doesnt put effort in it, the rest were always medicore, for pro players I mean.

On February 07 2018 21:58 tanngard wrote:

Why blame it on the skill of protoss players, rather than looking at the mechanics of the game? Forget about tesagi, there should be a word for how hard it is to dominate with protoss.

On February 07 2018 21:59 M2 wrote:

I am not saying that protoss is equal to terrans and zergs, I also think that the race is a bit underwhelming on a pro level, however, I think that the bigger issue is that protoss no longer has ace players like flash, last, soulkey and larva. Bisu was probably the last one, Stork never managed to really come back, Rain doesnt put effort in it, the rest were always medicore, for a pro players I mean.

On February 07 2018 22:04 Essbee wrote:
The state of both protoss and terran is pretty sad atm, but terran has flash at least. But terran players do seem to care about the game, we see them practicing often. But zergs are rocking, and this last match should go in zerg's favor. I don't think terrans can go through the likes of larva, jd, soulkey and effort. Terrans need flash to dominate, and he can, so I'm looking forward to this final match but I expect the zerg team to win. I was rooting for protoss, but I feel like the terran team has at least a chance. I can't imagine the protoss team having the slightest chance vs the zergs, but I could be mistaken.

On February 07 2018 22:09 tanngard wrote:

Essbee, do you know about the ELO rankings? I would say terran is the strongest performing race right now: http://sponbbang.com/bj/?month=2017-09&race=전체&map_id=0&order=ELO

On February 07 2018 22:06 tanngard wrote:

But you have to ask yourself the question why player slike last, soulkey and larva managed to become ace players. Because they certainly wasn't before? Why isnt rain putting in the effort?

On February 07 2018 22:05 M2 wrote:

As I just wrote, I think its both, but we need ace players vs ace players to assess how much protoss as a race is lacking, hard to judge when medicore players play vs Flash. For example in TvZ when we watched Last vs Larva finals we could see more accurately to what extend TvZ is really balanced, assuming that broodwar balance has always been about the best of the best.

On February 07 2018 22:12 M2 wrote:

yeah could be the race, but protoss race had its ace players in the past, who were able to dominate and were obviously better than the rest of the protosses, so it could be just luck (unluck) that the race has nothing left. Also, since, there is no fresh blood coming into BW, it was only natural that one of the races will fall off first.

On February 07 2018 22:14 tanngard wrote:

Part of my dismay about the state of pvt is not the balance per se, but my worry about the viability of arbiters. To me, watching carrier play is nothing compared to how fun arbiter play is.

On February 07 2018 22:15 Essbee wrote:


Protoss did surprinsigly well in the last KRS, terran was the weak link. I think flash didn't participate at that time, that might have been why, but the overall record of the terran team was truly putrid.

But yeah, terrans seem to be doing pretty good now. Btw, I've said before that they should drastically change the mappool. Maps like CB and FS seem to favor terrans pretty badly in Tvp, especially CB. Maybe tanngard has some more stats on this.

On February 07 2018 22:19 tanngard wrote:

It would be interesting to see stats on maps from sponmatches. I dont know how to find them right now. A problem with balancing with maps, is that its hard to get both way for protoss. The maps were protoss does better vs terran, they do worse against zerg and vice versa. This is what i have heard.

On February 07 2018 22:16 Essbee wrote:


I agree with you, and it's sad because carriers seem to be the only way to win pvt atm lol (at least for today).

On February 07 2018 22:23 tanngard wrote:

I'm glad i am not alone. I hope there is room for them to improve still with arbiters. I guess we can comfort ourselves that life has for the most part been hard for protoss always. Its nothing new for us protoss fans. We are never spoiled with championships, so noone is as happy when we finally win as us :-)

On February 07 2018 22:31 Essbee wrote:


I really think the secret lies in the way protoss players could potentially marry their use of HTs and arbiters. Jangbi did this so well in his engagements. Being able to use stasis and storms perfectly is so difficult, but I think it's the way to make the arbiters work again.

Best was close with some nice storms but I guess it requires more than that. Like M2 was saying, if protosses had that one "ace" player (flash level) being able to pull this off, it would make tvp so entertaining once again, I think it's doable but I don't feel like someone like stork with his now 200 apm could pull this off, even though he was so good in the past

On February 07 2018 22:44 tanngard wrote:

This is a good point and marries well with the idea about the importance of skill ceilings. There is room for improvement here more than just with improvement of arbiter control alone. But i think, around the time jangbi was having brilliant storms vs tanks, terrans were not as effecient in their late game army control as now? Look at how terrans are able to split up their tanks to surgically snipe multiple protoss expansions in one big sweep. This is a skill they have perfected the last two years i think. 2 years ago you didnt need to have arbiters AND storms i think. But lately i have been seeing more storms coupled with arbiters, like you mention. Its so difficult because you have to control 2 spell casters and you dont want throw storms on units that are already stasised and vice versa.

I would love to see a jangbi comeback, but i dont want to put pressure on him to perform like he could in the past. We all know how difficult it is.

On February 07 2018 23:20 Essbee wrote:


Yeah I don't think Jangbi will be able to reach that level again, but some progamers were saying that during practice sessions, Jangbi was the most impressive protoss, but he could hardly reach that kind of success on tv. But what you said about terran players sniping expansions left and right... yeah... they are doing pretty well with this approach, I think maybe that's why carriers work so well? Because they can pick off isolated groups much easier than with arbiters + hts? Anyway, it's interesting to think about.

On February 08 2018 02:03 StylishVODs wrote:
Whats with all the imbalance talk? Best just beat flash in a Bo5 in DSL and here it was 4:3 in favor of terran. Arbiters are still viable, just need to play better. As for PvZ, Bisu still owned PvZ. Again, just need to get better.