I believe in flash's genius. I think he will win 3-1. I think people are overestimating the imbalance of the maps. Also flash has had a lot of time to prepare. He is going to show why he is the best player to ever play RTS.
Snow has great reaver micro, but flash has a brain that knows how to specifically shut down reaver play to the exact detail based on any given timing. Sure he might make a mistake and lose, but he will most likely execute it perfectly and you will be behind as a protoss using reavers.
I'd like to add that Flash knows he's playing a protoss in ro4 if he makes it as well. He has basically been playing only tvp on these maps for a long period of time now. I think it will show in the results.
I did not have the chance to follow the start of this season but all this talk seems like most other seasons "yeah Player X is in the form of his life and with this map Flash has no chance".
Is it so this time around? Or just more wishful thinking before God smites them all?
On May 01 2018 18:11 KobraKay wrote: I did not have the chance to follow the start of this season but all this talk seems like most other seasons "yeah Player X is in the form of his life and with this map Flash has no chance".
Is it so this time around? Or just more wishful thinking before God smites them all?
I think it really comes down to that each season someone predicts that flash will make a big mistake, and each time he doesn't; he does exactly what he needs to in order to win(overall, of course no one plays perfectly).
Snow's reaver carrier vs Mind in the last KCM was brutal. He keeps the reaver harass going until there's an unsieged tank he can't get, then drops the reaver in front. Basically never loses the reaver. By holding it outside of the shuttle, it looks like (for Snow...) it outranges the unsieged tanks, so to actually get that damn thing out of the way you have to siege in that "not in range of reaver, in range of siege range", in which case Snow picks up and walks back. That stall for carriers (or sometimes Arbiters and bases) lasts for an insanely long time, and I've seen him get 6 carriers out before some good T's can safely setup a third base and start pushing. Then double reaver MURDERS goliath, so the first engagement is quite satisfying.
On a map like Third World, the mobility advantage of Reaver Carrier will be very hard to deal with. I can't see Flash winning it after carriers are out since Snow will definitely get the "island side". I assume he'll do a big push to take the starting side, Snow will end up on the island side, and then Flash's 4th/5th is planned to be the part of the island that he can defend with tanks from the main bases. Still, roaming carriers will be just too much.
I am curious what Flash has planned for Sparkle though. But Snow just needs a little bit of styling with the reaver and he'll have one of these other maps, setting it up to be a Snow victory in the BO5.
On May 01 2018 18:49 radadaundandan wrote: Flash loses quite a few games on stream on Sparkle - so I predict Flash dropping a game there but still taking the series 3-1. Flash FTW!
I doubt FlaSh wins on Transistor, that's the best PvT map (both Transistor and 3rd world are great for reaver > carrier).
If FlaSh loses on Sparkle i think hes gonna lose 3-1, if he wins on Sparkle it'll go to g5 on 3rd world, imo Snow wins it 3-2.
This is the best chance for flash to get eliminated. I respect flash so much and I kind of wish he wins because we need good terrans badly, but snow is awesome and it would be sick to see him win a close series against the master.
Lol, why Snow just given up before the match start, we need some ballzy protoss to win against Flash. Bisu had chance last time but he is big choker and screwed his game.
I will be pleasantly surprised if this isn't a 3-0 or 3-1 for flash. I think all the games will be close but flash will end up winning them in the end because of his late game prowesses and overall preparation... even if the maps are blatantly unfair.
On May 01 2018 19:04 Essbee wrote: This is the best chance for flash to get eliminated. I respect flash so much and I kind of wish he wins because we need good terrans badly, but snow is awesome and it would be sick to see him win a close series against the master.
Pretty much. Still, imo, flash is the favourite here so him winning wouldn't surprise me lol. Let's go Snow!
On May 01 2018 19:04 Essbee wrote: This is the best chance for flash to get eliminated. I respect flash so much and I kind of wish he wins because we need good terrans badly, but snow is awesome and it would be sick to see him win a close series against the master.
Pretty much. Still, imo, flash is the favourite here so him winning wouldn't surprise me lol. Let's go Snow!
Yeah, like I said a few posts ago, I still expect a 3-0 or a 3-1 for flash. Go go snow!
On May 01 2018 19:34 Peeano wrote: Not enough face cam. We never got a player's face reaction after a big intel reveal or the 13 scv kill scarab for example.
On May 01 2018 19:36 Golgotha wrote: Why didn't flash block that front with Rax and engi? Would have held all day.
After killing snow's third, he should have expected the all-in. Even a noob like me called it. But I don't think he would have held, snow's army was way too big after all the harassing and the economy advantage.
On May 01 2018 19:36 Golgotha wrote: Why didn't flash block that front with Rax and engi? Would have held all day.
probably didn't have the money. He kept losing workers and had to keep making units. Snow did some great plays early on and killed lots of workers etc... so it shows. Given, maybe he thought he didn't need it? Well played by Snow. Maybe this will help him keep composed but Flash is Flash so it wouldn't surprise me if he wasn't that affected by this lol.
On May 01 2018 19:36 Golgotha wrote: Why didn't flash block that front with Rax and engi? Would have held all day.
probably didn't have the money. He kept losing workers and had to keep making units. Snow did some great plays early on and killed lots of workers etc... so it shows. Given, maybe he thought he didn't need it? Well played by Snow. Maybe this will help him keep composed but Flash is Flash so it wouldn't surprise me if he wasn't that affected by this lol.
Yeah you and essbee are right. Flash was harassed like crazy. And I think the carriers would have stopped it anyways.
That game sense scanning all the time holy shit. Snow was scared to move with his shuttles the whole game. And just deserting his 3rd was a great move as well, Snow had a good number of units there doing nothing.
What a game by flash. The difficulty to keep that map control with the wraiths is insane.
Also what's up with SnOw's build? Ultra fast dt drop and hoping to find terran on first try? He was really lucky he found FlaSh on the first try but how good would that build have been had he found Flash second or last? Seems like a true cheese build to me
No other terran could've won in that situation. Not to be too much of a fan boy but it's true. He was just stronger and faster. He did more in the limited time both players were given. He did what brood war is made for. Being faster in a given time. Being smarter in a given time. It was beautiful.
Those 2 first games were masterful. Man, what a treat, flash is still proving how far above other terrans he is. Flash is so entertaining in how well he is able to adapt to just about any disadvantage. That's why I like unfair maps, because THIS happens. Players have to adapt and come with new playstyles, just like jangbi vs fantasy on pathfinder.
Man, Flash was so freaking greedy that game, going for a 3rd cc off 1 fac and 2 port lol. His air control was insane though. All Snow had to do was try to get a shuttle in and he would've slaughtered so many workers. Flash had no ground army at the time but the wraith maneuvering made it so that Snow was too worried to move out. Then of course, he sets up a mini contain and eventually doom drops him. Well played by Flash. Feels like Snow sat back too much after due to Flash's wraith and should've tried a long flight to the main imo.
On May 01 2018 20:06 BigFan wrote: Man, Flash was so freaking greedy that game, going for a 3rd cc off 1 fac and 2 port lol. His air control was insane though. All Snow had to do was try to get a shuttle in and he would've slaughtered so many workers. Flash had no ground army at the time but the wraith maneuvering made it so that Snow was too worried to move out. Then of course, he sets up a mini contain and eventually doom drops him. Well played by Flash. Feels like Snow sat back too much after due to Flash's wraith and should've tried a long flight to the main imo.
Super greedy yes, but he had faith in his very risky wraiths. And it payed off only because of his incredible game sense and diligence with scan. I feel like its not what he planned at all. But he adapted on the fly to what he needed to do to win.
On May 01 2018 20:06 BigFan wrote: Man, Flash was so freaking greedy that game, going for a 3rd cc off 1 fac and 2 port lol. His air control was insane though. All Snow had to do was try to get a shuttle in and he would've slaughtered so many workers. Flash had no ground army at the time but the wraith maneuvering made it so that Snow was too worried to move out. Then of course, he sets up a mini contain and eventually doom drops him. Well played by Flash. Feels like Snow sat back too much after due to Flash's wraith and should've tried a long flight to the main imo.
Super greedy yes, but he had faith in his very risky wraiths. And it payed off only because of his incredible game sense and diligence with scan. I feel like its not what he planned at all. But he adapted on the fly to what he needed to do to win.
yeah, it felt like the same high risk vs high reward of the 1-1-1 in tvz that, again, only flash can pull off effectively.
On May 01 2018 20:11 TheFoReveRwaR wrote: Flash needs to look out for cheese here. If not for that..he wins for sure.
Yeah, I was just thinking about the build Snow did against Last. That was on Gladiator, right? And a sick build too, would love to see how Flash does against it.
On May 01 2018 20:14 Kairo wrote: Did I hear that stat in game 1 correctly, that flash has not lost a BO5 vs protoss on (pricemoney) lan since 2007? Or what was it they said?
As most players will know. Usually when you try this normally you're going to get absolutely destroyed. Fantastic micro by flash to not get wrecked there.
Aw, so well played by flash that game had he just had 1-2 units at his expansion. He threw a great lead by letting single reavers late game repeatedly get 20-30 kills each...
His 3-2 units would have won the game easily had he just put any effort into defending his 4th base
Flash was too indecisive, running back and forth in the middle of the map without either defending properly or fully committing to an attack. Really well played by Snow though (aside from losing some Arbiters unnecessarily).
Hero Reavers, damn. But it was really stubborn of Flash not to leave any sort of defense at that one mining base that he had. Really out of character for him to be honest.
Those hero reavers were entirely something else. Wow. but why did Flash stubbornly refuse to put D at that expansion there? it just got hit again and again and each time it was defenseless, costing him his entire economy until he just stuttered and stopped.
On May 01 2018 20:39 StylishVODs wrote: Aw, so well played by flash that game had he just had 1-2 units at his expansion. He threw a great lead by letting single reavers late game repeatedly get 20-30 kills each...
His 3-2 units would have won the game easily had he just put any effort into defending his 4th base
The thing is. He would have to leave a chunk of units becuase of the reaver control all the time from snow. One reaver repeatedly killed many units, vulutres etc. And flash have by effect of TvP keep his army in the size of critical mass. He also had to worry about arbiter recalls in his main should he also keep units there?
You guys need to stop saying flash just had to leave units.
I agree. Flash needed all his units for the key fights. Thats why the mineral lines were open. Also...of course Snow's reavers can kill 2 Goliaths. He's very good with reavers.
The island map win was exactly becuase Flash believed in his strategy and maphacks. He had no units at home but perfectly used the wraith. It won him the game. This game snow was able to punish that lost him the game. This is always how flash plays. Just so rare that players are able to exploit it.
Snow was behind on ups and on 3 base too long and first recall was desperation. But with that little breathing room he somehow pulled it back with crazy reaver play. I really thought the doom push would end everything. And snow nearly fucked himself with one bad engagement where he lost his 2 arbs. This series is showing how timeless Bw. I remember saying the same shit with razorsuKe during one of the earlier rounds of this season, and now it's happening again. Play is getting elevated. Snow just won in a macro game vs Flash!
On May 01 2018 20:44 Ota Solgryn wrote: The island map win was exactly becuase Flash believed in his strategy and maphacks. He had no units at home but perfectly used the wraith. It won him the game. This game snow was able to punish that lost him the game. This is always how flash plays. Just so rare that players are able to exploit it.
He wasn't even looking for covering against the drops coming in. The top route was completely open. Unlike the game before where Flash was constantly looking for the shuttles.
On May 01 2018 20:41 jtan wrote: I can't believe snow took that, he played with 1-0 vs 3-2 upgrades on 4v4 bases for like 10 minutes, how is that possible??
It's not if terran defends. Terran left his 4th completely open all game.
On May 01 2018 20:45 darktreb wrote: It's funny to see Gladiator called "Flash's map". He's never had much success on it (by his standards). I bet it's one of his least favorite maps.
On May 01 2018 20:45 darktreb wrote: It's funny to see Gladiator called "Flash's map". He's never had much success on it (by his standards). I bet it's one of his least favorite maps.
Yeah, this too. I think Flash's favorite map in this pool is probably actually Sparkle...
On May 01 2018 20:39 StylishVODs wrote: Aw, so well played by flash that game had he just had 1-2 units at his expansion. He threw a great lead by letting single reavers late game repeatedly get 20-30 kills each...
His 3-2 units would have won the game easily had he just put any effort into defending his 4th base
The thing is. He would have to leave a chunk of units becuase of the reaver control all the time from snow. One reaver repeatedly killed many units, vulutres etc. And flash have by effect of TvP keep his army in the size of critical mass. He also had to worry about arbiter recalls in his main should he also keep units there?
You guys need to stop saying flash just had to leave units.
On May 01 2018 20:44 Ota Solgryn wrote: The island map win was exactly becuase Flash believed in his strategy and maphacks. He had no units at home but perfectly used the wraith. It won him the game. This game snow was able to punish that lost him the game. This is always how flash plays. Just so rare that players are able to exploit it.
these two posts. Snow played well with the constant aggression and potential backstabs. Also, Flash had a smaller army and had to keep making units. Snow was doing well enough in engagements overall so having several less units would've costed him even more. Also, this is the way Flash plays. Guess the pressure got to him because he left some units back several times.
On May 01 2018 20:45 darktreb wrote: It's funny to see Gladiator called "Flash's map". He's never had much success on it (by his standards). I bet it's one of his least favorite maps.
Snow literally veto'd Gladiator :D
Oh I know. Says a lot about the map pool. Funny thing is I bet ASL chose Gladiator last season deliberately to be the hardest "standard" map for Flash. And then they doubled down enough to make it the map that gets vetoed in a PvT by the Protoss player.
On May 01 2018 20:33 razorsuKe wrote: I know that looked awesome, but at the time all scvs died, I looked at flash's minerals he was at 2700 LOL
That was Snow, pretty sure
ya, Snow floated 3k at one point lol and he wasn't maxed. He should've taken a fifth but maybe he thought he couldn't defend and wanted to stick to his 4 base count.
On May 01 2018 20:52 AnarchisticObi1 wrote: I love how after every game noobs show up and points out how flash screwed up... and compare to flash they have 1 % understanding of the game.
? I mean you don't need to be as good as Flash to point out his mistakes
On May 01 2018 20:52 AnarchisticObi1 wrote: I love how after every game noobs show up and points out how flash screwed up... and compare to flash they have 1 % understanding of the game.
? I mean you don't need to be as good as Flash to point out his mistakes
ever heart of oppurtunity costs? hindsight bias for everyone
On May 01 2018 20:52 AnarchisticObi1 wrote: I love how after every game noobs show up and points out how flash screwed up... and compare to flash they have 1 % understanding of the game.
? I mean you don't need to be as good as Flash to point out his mistakes
ever heart of oppurtunity costs? hindsight bias for everyone
I dunno, man. I love Flash as much as anyone, but in that game, the third time his 9 o'clock got reaver-raped, maybe it was time to put a little bit of D down... even if it was just a couple of turrets and some mines.
On May 01 2018 20:58 razorsuKe wrote: oh man... I really don't know what going to happen, I can actually see either of them winning! This is going to be inteennnssseeeeee
ya, pretty much. Wish Snow played different last game. He must be feeling a lot of pressure compared to Flash who's been in a similar spot in his overall career.
On May 01 2018 20:52 AnarchisticObi1 wrote: I love how after every game noobs show up and points out how flash screwed up... and compare to flash they have 1 % understanding of the game.
? I mean you don't need to be as good as Flash to point out his mistakes
ever heart of oppurtunity costs? hindsight bias for everyone
I dunno, man. I love Flash as much as anyone, but in that game, the third time his 9 o'clock got reaver-raped, maybe it was time to put a little bit of D down... even if it was just a couple of turrets and some mines.
Next game was the redemption, though. Holy crap.
You need to rewatch the game and see flashs economy. He took a small chance of not building turrets there for a big chance that Snow would not keep remaking reavers (protoss normally never does that). It is not a mistake it is oppotunity cost which is what flash always excells at. Soemtimes it costs him games against players playing their peak game.
The game you just watched was him doing that again and getting the oppotunity right...
On May 01 2018 20:57 TornadoSteve wrote: So glad im watching this live.
This is totally epic.
i'm stupid for not going, damn
LOL I was nearby but we had just hiked for five hours so we went home. I'm dumb.
I had to bring boxes to the uchaegook because i'm going back to canada this friday. That was my last chance to watch bw live (at least for a while), but I was exhausted too lol
On May 01 2018 20:52 AnarchisticObi1 wrote: I love how after every game noobs show up and points out how flash screwed up... and compare to flash they have 1 % understanding of the game.
? I mean you don't need to be as good as Flash to point out his mistakes
ever heart of oppurtunity costs? hindsight bias for everyone
I dunno, man. I love Flash as much as anyone, but in that game, the third time his 9 o'clock got reaver-raped, maybe it was time to put a little bit of D down... even if it was just a couple of turrets and some mines.
Next game was the redemption, though. Holy crap.
You need to rewatch the game and see flashs economy. He took a small chance of not building turrets there for a big chance that Snow would not keep remaking reavers (protoss normally never does that). It is not a mistake it is oppotunity cost which is what flash always excells at. Soemtimes it costs him games against players playing their peak game.
If he'd only gotten successfully reaver-dropped a couple of times, I'd agree.
But it happened. FIVE. TIMES.
I'm sure Napoleon after Waterloo insisted his strategy usually works.
Flash is still the best in the world though. But he can be overly stubborn. See 14CC vs Effort in the OSL Finals.
On May 01 2018 21:29 Terrorbladder wrote: gg, props to Afreeca TO, they made a map that literally allowed Protoss to go both Arbiter+Carrier at no cost
Flash probably should have taken double Transistor over double Third World, which seems pretty clearly the worst map in the pool. Not sure why he preferred Third World given his win rate on it on stream.
Well I was wrong. That first recall from Snow was so well timed. Bought him the time he needed. No way Protoss is going to lose this ASL though with this map line up.
doesn't it just seem like a great terran player just lost due to maps more than anything else? snow played very well but it felt like I just watched the true grandmaster get taken down because of an unfair fight
Feels bad that they had to rely on unfair maps to completely annihilate terran (flash), but damn, it surely proves how great bw is. I'd like to see a more balanced map pool with unfair maps for both side, like FS, CB, Transistor, Sparkle and Third world.
On May 01 2018 18:49 radadaundandan wrote: Flash loses quite a few games on stream on Sparkle - so I predict Flash dropping a game there but still taking the series 3-1. Flash FTW!
I doubt FlaSh wins on Transistor, that's the best PvT map (both Transistor and 3rd world are great for reaver > carrier).
If FlaSh loses on Sparkle i think hes gonna lose 3-1, if he wins on Sparkle it'll go to g5 on 3rd world, imo Snow wins it 3-2.
k guys
that said i expected Flash to win on Gladiator and Snow to win on Transistor
Damn! Is this the end of a 20 year long era of Terran being OP? Don’t want to start a race war, but just look at the race of all championship winners. Anyway, huge props to the map makers this season!
Another upset LOL ... but certainly the fact that these games were available on major bookmakers do not count O_o ... anyway one of best PvT serie ever!!! Had a lot of fun!
On May 01 2018 21:31 gravity wrote: Great series, sad Flash lost though. Maps were unfavourable but he probably could have won if he played a little better.
True champions win on unfavourable maps. True champions had won with unfavourable races in the past
On May 01 2018 21:31 gravity wrote: Great series, sad Flash lost though. Maps were unfavourable but he probably could have won if he played a little better.
True champions win on unfavourable maps. True champions had won with unfavourable races in the past
On May 01 2018 18:49 radadaundandan wrote: Flash loses quite a few games on stream on Sparkle - so I predict Flash dropping a game there but still taking the series 3-1. Flash FTW!
I doubt FlaSh wins on Transistor, that's the best PvT map (both Transistor and 3rd world are great for reaver > carrier).
If FlaSh loses on Sparkle i think hes gonna lose 3-1, if he wins on Sparkle it'll go to g5 on 3rd world, imo Snow wins it 3-2.
On May 01 2018 21:32 superjoppe wrote: Damn! Is this the end of a 20 year long era of Terran being OP? Don’t want to start a race war, but just look at the race of all championship winners. Anyway, huge props to the map makers this season!
Ye thank you map makers for your wonderful maps and let's hope they dont fuck up next season's map pool like the current one
On May 01 2018 21:31 gravity wrote: Great series, sad Flash lost though. Maps were unfavourable but he probably could have won if he played a little better.
True champions win on unfavourable maps. True champions had won with unfavourable races in the past
On May 01 2018 21:32 Xeln4g4 wrote: Another upset LOL ... but certainly the fact that these games were available on major bookmakers do not count O_o ... anyway one of best PvT serie ever!!! Had a lot of fun!
Yeah, Flash is matchfixing now... GTFO Hero must be delighted right now
On May 01 2018 21:31 gravity wrote: Great series, sad Flash lost though. Maps were unfavourable but he probably could have won if he played a little better.
True champions win on unfavourable maps. True champions had won with unfavourable races in the past
On May 01 2018 21:32 Xeln4g4 wrote: Another upset LOL ... but certainly the fact that these games were available on major bookmakers do not count O_o ... anyway one of best PvT serie ever!!! Had a lot of fun!
Did you seriously just try to throw matchfixing shade on this series? Are you for real?
On May 01 2018 21:32 Xeln4g4 wrote: Another upset LOL ... but certainly the fact that these games were available on major bookmakers do not count O_o ... anyway one of best PvT serie ever!!! Had a lot of fun!
End of an Era my ass. Flash will have his fucking revenge. Best series this season. Should have been finals. Is snow good at PvZ and pvp? He better win the whole thing. Then at least God did not die in vain
On May 01 2018 21:32 Xeln4g4 wrote: Another upset LOL ... but certainly the fact that these games were available on major bookmakers do not count O_o ... anyway one of best PvT serie ever!!! Had a lot of fun!
Did you seriously just try to throw matchfixing shade on this series? Are you for real?
Wasn't Xeln4g4 doing this in another thread too? :/
Also, the map pool from last season was actually pretty great, compared to this season's. 7P 7Z 2T in the ro16 and 3P 1Z in the ro4 vs the perfect 2P 1Z 1T in the ro4 from last season.
On May 01 2018 21:31 Mnijykmirl wrote: doesn't it just seem like a great terran player just lost due to maps more than anything else? snow played very well but it felt like I just watched the true grandmaster get taken down because of an unfair fight
Flash lost on the most standard map and won on the most P favored one.
On May 01 2018 21:35 Golgotha wrote: End of an Era my ass. Flash will have his fucking revenge. Best series this season. Should have been finals. Is snow good at PvZ and pvp? He better win the whole thing. Then at least God did not die in vain
Nope, his PvZ isn't close to this. But, he's a PvP and PvT god.
On May 01 2018 21:31 Mnijykmirl wrote: doesn't it just seem like a great terran player just lost due to maps more than anything else? snow played very well but it felt like I just watched the true grandmaster get taken down because of an unfair fight
Flash lost on the most standard map and won on the most P favored one.
Flash is not the true champion, he is "the champion", the player where everything runs aroud, expecially after these comebacks. But I doubt he lost due to "map imbalance", people should respect the winners, the preparation, the mindset, the strategy during the games...
On May 01 2018 21:31 gravity wrote: Great series, sad Flash lost though. Maps were unfavourable but he probably could have won if he played a little better.
True champions win on unfavourable maps. True champions had won with unfavourable races in the past
On May 01 2018 21:31 Mnijykmirl wrote: doesn't it just seem like a great terran player just lost due to maps more than anything else? snow played very well but it felt like I just watched the true grandmaster get taken down because of an unfair fight
Flash lost on the most standard map and won on the most P favored one.
lol yeah third world is such a balanced map /s
Yeah, it's definitely not. 44% PvT in sponmatches? It's too T favored to be in a proper map pool... good thing Snow overcame imbalance!
On May 01 2018 21:31 Mnijykmirl wrote: doesn't it just seem like a great terran player just lost due to maps more than anything else? snow played very well but it felt like I just watched the true grandmaster get taken down because of an unfair fight
Flash lost on the most standard map and won on the most P favored one.
lol yeah third world is such a balanced map /s
Yeah, it's definitely not. 44% PvT in sponmatches? It's too T favored to be in a proper map pool... good thing Snow overcame imbalance!
Hahahaha this was the stat I was hoping for. Their tears are so delicious.
On May 01 2018 21:31 Mnijykmirl wrote: doesn't it just seem like a great terran player just lost due to maps more than anything else? snow played very well but it felt like I just watched the true grandmaster get taken down because of an unfair fight
Flash lost on the most standard map and won on the most P favored one.
lol yeah third world is such a balanced map /s
Yeah, it's definitely not. 44% PvT in sponmatches? It's too T favored to be in a proper map pool... good thing Snow overcame imbalance!
with preparation there's no way this map is balanced, arbiters and carriers are way too effective, as proven in this bo5.
On May 01 2018 21:39 Jackal03 wrote: Flash is not the true champion, he is "the champion", the player where everything runs aroud, expecially after these comebacks. But I doubt he lost due to "map imbalance", people should respect the winners, the preparation, the mindset, the strategy during the games...
Snow played amazingly there is no doubt about that. But that doesn't mean the maps did not play a significant role in the outcome of this series.
On May 01 2018 21:31 Mnijykmirl wrote: doesn't it just seem like a great terran player just lost due to maps more than anything else? snow played very well but it felt like I just watched the true grandmaster get taken down because of an unfair fight
Flash lost on the most standard map and won on the most P favored one.
lol yeah third world is such a balanced map /s
Yeah, it's definitely not. 44% PvT in sponmatches? It's too T favored to be in a proper map pool... good thing Snow overcame imbalance!
Hahahaha this was the stat I was hoping for. Their tears are so delicious.
No tears, I was actually cheering for snow, but nice try
On May 01 2018 21:31 gravity wrote: Great series, sad Flash lost though. Maps were unfavourable but he probably could have won if he played a little better.
True champions win on unfavourable maps. True champions had won with unfavourable races in the past
On May 01 2018 21:31 Mnijykmirl wrote: doesn't it just seem like a great terran player just lost due to maps more than anything else? snow played very well but it felt like I just watched the true grandmaster get taken down because of an unfair fight
Flash lost on the most standard map and won on the most P favored one.
lol yeah third world is such a balanced map /s
Yeah, it's definitely not. 44% PvT in sponmatches? It's too T favored to be in a proper map pool... good thing Snow overcame imbalance!
with preparation there's no way this map is balanced, arbiters and carriers are way too effective, as proven in this bo5.
The massive sample size of literally 2 games definitely overwhelms all the sponsored PvTs played on the map :o
On May 01 2018 21:31 Mnijykmirl wrote: doesn't it just seem like a great terran player just lost due to maps more than anything else? snow played very well but it felt like I just watched the true grandmaster get taken down because of an unfair fight
Flash lost on the most standard map and won on the most P favored one.
lol yeah third world is such a balanced map /s
Yeah, it's definitely not. 44% PvT in sponmatches? It's too T favored to be in a proper map pool... good thing Snow overcame imbalance!
with preparation there's no way this map is balanced, arbiters and carriers are way too effective, as proven in this bo5.
The massive sample size of literally 2 games definitely overwhelms all the sponsored PvTs played on the map :o
meh, it kind of does, i am not one for stats, I think it was clear third world was a protoss map for this bo5 and snow's playstyle, but okay, I guess flash just sucks?
Imo Flash threw the game on gladiator. He was even suply with 3-2 vs 1-0 but let continuous single reavers shut him down due to zero defense. If he had taken that this would have been 3-1.
Third world is just too rough. It's basically a map that is really good for carriers except that terran can't move its units around. I dont really see any non-cheesy way to win that map straight up. Even Flash, god of TvP, had to rely on sneaky hidden exp in both games on third world.
On May 01 2018 21:45 StylishVODs wrote: Imo Flash threw the game on gladiator. He was even suply with 3-2 vs 1-0 but let continuous single reavers shut him down due to zero defense. If he had taken that this would have been 3-1.
Third world is just too rough. It's basically a map that is really good for carriers except that terran can't move its units around. I dont really see any non-cheesy way to win that map straight up. Even Flash, god of TvP, had to rely on sneaky hidden exp in both games on third world.
apparently it's a terran favored map lol, guess the stats says it all!
Snow started out with a masterstroke that caused Flash to lose all of his tanks and have a significantly delayed natural expansion. His desperation hidden base was discovered before it earned him too much of an advantage. He was thrown off his game from the beginning and it cannot be too much of a surprise he eventually lost, regardless of what did him in. When you say "how could the mighty Flash lose on this map if it's not imba", this is why. He was lucky he clawed his way back into it at all.
i dont think that even snow doubts the fact that Flash is the best and he is well aware of the fact, that ASL "rigged" the game against flash. come on it is even called turn around flash put hell of the fight and the serie was awesome. lets hope that hero will win so we have pvz finals and not pvp..
On May 01 2018 21:31 Mnijykmirl wrote: doesn't it just seem like a great terran player just lost due to maps more than anything else? snow played very well but it felt like I just watched the true grandmaster get taken down because of an unfair fight
Flash lost on the most standard map and won on the most P favored one.
lol yeah third world is such a balanced map /s
Yeah, it's definitely not. 44% PvT in sponmatches? It's too T favored to be in a proper map pool... good thing Snow overcame imbalance!
with preparation there's no way this map is balanced, arbiters and carriers are way too effective, as proven in this bo5.
The massive sample size of literally 2 games definitely overwhelms all the sponsored PvTs played on the map :o
Well you can theory-craft as well.
Map is good for carriers for example. So what can terran do?
1) goliaths. but this map doesnt allow goliaths to defend vs carriers without dropships. 2) dropships + goliaths. the map doesn't allow for that kind of playstyle (which for example Sparke does) 3) wraiths. map doesn't allow for wraith play vs protoss on this map due to its half standard nature.
Map is good for arbiters, mainly due to the mobility it offers, mobility that the map doesn't allow for terran without heavy dropship play and we already see that the map isn't great for heavy dropship play.
Given that these two late game strategies are viable (with carriers being the best option in my opinion). Terran seems to have to do one of two things:
1) early win. 2) some sort of cheese (floating stuff, hidden expos)
Early win is really hard due to the distance between the mains and the small choke. Cheese, well it's an option but it's always harder on two player maps, at least for terran.
Through this reasoning you get more information about the map than you get from watching two games I think...
On May 01 2018 21:31 Mnijykmirl wrote: doesn't it just seem like a great terran player just lost due to maps more than anything else? snow played very well but it felt like I just watched the true grandmaster get taken down because of an unfair fight
Flash lost on the most standard map and won on the most P favored one.
lol yeah third world is such a balanced map /s
Yeah, it's definitely not. 44% PvT in sponmatches? It's too T favored to be in a proper map pool... good thing Snow overcame imbalance!
with preparation there's no way this map is balanced, arbiters and carriers are way too effective, as proven in this bo5.
The massive sample size of literally 2 games definitely overwhelms all the sponsored PvTs played on the map :o
Flash just didn't play the map. I don't know how people are overlooking that. Third World is amazing for early T pushes. Using that to grab a lead and then getting a simple third to take the whole right side makes this map have a really high T winrate. Flash tried that in game 1 and lost to micro. As the series went on, he went less Flash-like and started to crawl back into his "standard" instead of playing specifically for every game. In the final game, he played it defensively which is exactly what the map is not good for. Of course, being unbreakable is Flash's MO, but it's also Snow's MO to break defenses. So Flash deliberately did not use his map advantage in order to play where he felt comfortable, and Snow utilized his style (which is well suited for the map in a way that most P are not) to take control of the game.
Flash went in thinking he had 100% on Sparkle against all of the stats, and that proved true. He went in with racial stats on his side on Third World. He went in with great stats on Gladiator. Transistor was his thorn, and he vetoed it. He lost the maps he should've won, and pulled a few victories out with finesse. But in the end, the stats were still on his side yet Snow just played a beautiful series.
ASL maps, clearly all Terran favored, but only mind and flash made it through. I guess terran players are just bad and lazy, people who play protoss are just better...
On May 01 2018 21:31 Mnijykmirl wrote: doesn't it just seem like a great terran player just lost due to maps more than anything else? snow played very well but it felt like I just watched the true grandmaster get taken down because of an unfair fight
Flash lost on the most standard map and won on the most P favored one.
lol yeah third world is such a balanced map /s
Yeah, it's definitely not. 44% PvT in sponmatches? It's too T favored to be in a proper map pool... good thing Snow overcame imbalance!
with preparation there's no way this map is balanced, arbiters and carriers are way too effective, as proven in this bo5.
The massive sample size of literally 2 games definitely overwhelms all the sponsored PvTs played on the map :o
Flash just didn't play the map. I don't know how people are overlooking that. Third World is amazing for early T pushes. Using that to grab a lead and then getting a simple third to take the whole right side makes this map have a really high T winrate. Flash tried that in game 1 and lost to micro. As the series went on, he went less Flash-like and started to crawl back into his "standard" instead of playing specifically for every game. In the final game, he played it defensively which is exactly what the map is not good for. Of course, being unbreakable is Flash's MO, but it's also Snow's MO to break defenses. So Flash deliberately did not use his map advantage in order to play where he felt comfortable, and Snow utilized his style (which is well suited for the map in a way that most P are not) to take control of the game.
Flash went in thinking he had 100% on Sparkle against all of the stats, and that proved true. He went in with racial stats on his side on Third World. He went in with great stats on Gladiator. Transistor was his thorn, and he vetoed it. He lost the maps he should've won, and pulled a few victories out with finesse. But in the end, the stats were still on his side yet Snow just played a beautiful series.
I guess that make sense. Third world is good early game for terran but bad late game. Also, flash tried to push in the first game but the reaver countered the two tanks on the high-ground. I'm not sure what else flash was supposed to do. Snow's reavers were too effective.
I'm pretty sure Flash would have thumbed down Third World after seeing this Arbiter+Carrier style. Just impossible to deal with. Well played by Snow though.
Hero please win cause we do not want a PvP finals.
On May 01 2018 22:02 Dante08 wrote: I'm pretty sure Flash would have thumbed down Third World after seeing this Arbiter+Carrier style. Just impossible to deal with. Well played by Snow though.
Hero please win cause we do not want a PvP finals.
its not new and the most number of times I've seen it was on Circuit Breaker.
A fantastic night of games! A bit of salt, but no empire can last forever. If we'd played 5 games on fighting spirit we'd probably have seen a different result to what we got, yes. Snow showed he wasn't just winning purely because of map advantage by defeating Flash in a standard macro game on Gladiator and the fact that Flash managed to pull a win on a map that's supposed to be very anti-terran shows you can play around anything.
Overall, I'm super happy and very excited that for the first time since ASL1 I can go into the final cheering on my favourite player, and not just the player being fed to flash this season.
There's no such thing as "good for terran early". Any protoss can stop terrans agressive play. It's all about information. Good for early pushes generally means that protoss have to take that into account, it doesn't mean that terran can come up with strategies that protoss have a hard time dealing with if they see it coming, so you cant build your play around it and let protoss ajust while having success consistenly. Any timing push in TvP is a risk for terran. Also the map has really long distances between the naturals so it makes it harder.
On May 01 2018 22:02 Dante08 wrote: I'm pretty sure Flash would have thumbed down Third World after seeing this Arbiter+Carrier style. Just impossible to deal with. Well played by Snow though.
Hero please win cause we do not want a PvP finals.
its not new and the most number of times I've seen it was on Circuit Breaker.
Flash deals with it easily on Circuit Breaker. Third World on the other hand once Protoss gets a mass amount of Carriers how to you fight it?
On May 01 2018 21:31 Mnijykmirl wrote: doesn't it just seem like a great terran player just lost due to maps more than anything else? snow played very well but it felt like I just watched the true grandmaster get taken down because of an unfair fight
Flash lost on the most standard map and won on the most P favored one.
lol yeah third world is such a balanced map /s
Yeah, it's definitely not. 44% PvT in sponmatches? It's too T favored to be in a proper map pool... good thing Snow overcame imbalance!
I'm a little salty that the last Terran in the tournament just got knocked out, but I've gotta admit that Snow won fair and square. He outplayed Flash in all 3 of his victories, and was looking kind of scary on Sparkle too despite losing there. Really good series.
On May 01 2018 21:31 Mnijykmirl wrote: doesn't it just seem like a great terran player just lost due to maps more than anything else? snow played very well but it felt like I just watched the true grandmaster get taken down because of an unfair fight
Flash lost on the most standard map and won on the most P favored one.
lol yeah third world is such a balanced map /s
Yeah, it's definitely not. 44% PvT in sponmatches? It's too T favored to be in a proper map pool... good thing Snow overcame imbalance!
with preparation there's no way this map is balanced, arbiters and carriers are way too effective, as proven in this bo5.
The massive sample size of literally 2 games definitely overwhelms all the sponsored PvTs played on the map :o
Flash just didn't play the map. I don't know how people are overlooking that. Third World is amazing for early T pushes. Using that to grab a lead and then getting a simple third to take the whole right side makes this map have a really high T winrate. Flash tried that in game 1 and lost to micro. As the series went on, he went less Flash-like and started to crawl back into his "standard" instead of playing specifically for every game. In the final game, he played it defensively which is exactly what the map is not good for. Of course, being unbreakable is Flash's MO, but it's also Snow's MO to break defenses. So Flash deliberately did not use his map advantage in order to play where he felt comfortable, and Snow utilized his style (which is well suited for the map in a way that most P are not) to take control of the game.
Flash went in thinking he had 100% on Sparkle against all of the stats, and that proved true. He went in with racial stats on his side on Third World. He went in with great stats on Gladiator. Transistor was his thorn, and he vetoed it. He lost the maps he should've won, and pulled a few victories out with finesse. But in the end, the stats were still on his side yet Snow just played a beautiful series.
Pretty much. People really need to quit whining. Are the maps perfectly balanced? probably not, however, Flash didn't exactly play badly here and Snow aside from a few blunders played fucking superb. I honestly don't think Bisu could've done better here.
On third world, both in game 1 and 5, his early game was out of this world. He stopped that high ground drop in the nick of time and had great reaver micro to boot too. Last game, he snuck a freaking zealot in Flash's base. He knew that Flash would skimp out and played it well, going around the scouting SCV which he kept denying over and over. He delayed the expansion and constantly sniped tanks. He kept the tank count lower even going for that double shuttle drop with dts. Blaming this solely on the maps is doing a huge disservice to Snow who obviously went into this extremely prepared against the GOAT.
Add on the fact that Snow also won a macro game on a "standard" map like Gladiator while Flash won both Sparkle and Transistor and it's not as clear cut as some folks make it out to be. This, much like the Mind vs hero series was fantastic all around. I was constantly on the edge wondering if Snow can actually pull it off so it felt amazing when he finally did. Too bad Mind wasn't able to.
edit: Flash is making bank on stream atm and seems totally fine after that lol.
Isn't it funny to think that fiddling with maps to buff races, when done in secret, killed Warcraft 3 in Korea. Yet done in the open to target one player is totally accepted in Brood War.
On May 01 2018 21:31 Mnijykmirl wrote: doesn't it just seem like a great terran player just lost due to maps more than anything else? snow played very well but it felt like I just watched the true grandmaster get taken down because of an unfair fight
Flash lost on the most standard map and won on the most P favored one.
lol yeah third world is such a balanced map /s
Yeah, it's definitely not. 44% PvT in sponmatches? It's too T favored to be in a proper map pool... good thing Snow overcame imbalance!
On May 01 2018 21:31 Mnijykmirl wrote: doesn't it just seem like a great terran player just lost due to maps more than anything else? snow played very well but it felt like I just watched the true grandmaster get taken down because of an unfair fight
Flash lost on the most standard map and won on the most P favored one.
lol yeah third world is such a balanced map /s
Yeah, it's definitely not. 44% PvT in sponmatches? It's too T favored to be in a proper map pool... good thing Snow overcame imbalance!
On May 01 2018 21:31 Mnijykmirl wrote: doesn't it just seem like a great terran player just lost due to maps more than anything else? snow played very well but it felt like I just watched the true grandmaster get taken down because of an unfair fight
Flash lost on the most standard map and won on the most P favored one.
lol yeah third world is such a balanced map /s
Yeah, it's definitely not. 44% PvT in sponmatches? It's too T favored to be in a proper map pool... good thing Snow overcame imbalance!
I really believe that style that Flash tried in game 1 could have been best, but rather than going for this marine tank drop, just secure main and go mass dropship to threaten all expos in 3rd world + drop to main (due to small ramp) and just take the major part of the map. Carriers are not so scary when you don't have to "fly" between both parts, you can just turret up your main and make regular 200/200 army on the other side. Additionally it's quite easy to defend your main with wall + few tanks + milion turrets.
On May 01 2018 23:01 itsdaniel wrote: Didn't Tasteless say 11 years since Flash was beaten in a BO5???? Excl Amateurs/Sospa, EffOrt did win the final 8 years ago...
I'm wondering for Third World if Terran can just wall off the nat, build all the factories in the third base and cede the whole right side of the map. Seems worth it as there is only 1 base on the right and you can take control of all the bases on the island and not get screwed by carriers flying around.
On May 01 2018 23:01 itsdaniel wrote: Didn't Tasteless say 11 years since Flash was beaten in a BO5???? Excl Amateurs/Sospa, EffOrt did win the final 8 years ago...
I was told about this match by a real life friend that doesn't play starcraft and heard about it from another student. When Flash loses the world goes nuts.
On May 01 2018 23:02 Dante08 wrote: I'm wondering for Third World if Terran can just wall off the nat, build all the factories in the third base and cede the whole right side of the map. Seems worth it as there is only 1 base on the right and you can take control of all the bases on the island and not get screwed by carriers flying around.
I think it's an interesting idea. You can grab four bases with 3 gases on third world and turret up pretty damn well there imo. Getting to that point is probably the hard part but if you can defend the reaver/any early protoss drops, why not?
here are sponbang rates for pvt on the different maps.
third world : 43-41 pvt gladiator: 178-171 pvt sparkle: 100-145 pvt transistor: 164-126 pvt
overall 485-483 pvt.
It's more an issue of Snow's style of play being perfect for these maps than them being 'oh so imbalanced'. Flash is less convincing tvp than tvt and tvz, and snow is one of the players who does the best against him. He lost 2-3 in a super close and tense series. He won the map that does clearly favor protoss, and he lost the 'standard' map where balance isn't a factor.
Zergs can whine about zvp on this map pool, they have a good point. But tvp? It's fine. Snow had exceptionally strong game plans. Flash didn't play perfectly. The final game he actually lost the first marine against the first zealot. Then Snow managed to deceive him with his 2 gate - flash went fast eng bay because he thought it was shuttle or dt play. So many times he wins because he wins the mindgame, in the final game here, he lost it. That's not because of the map.
On May 01 2018 23:01 itsdaniel wrote: Didn't Tasteless say 11 years since Flash was beaten in a BO5???? Excl Amateurs/Sospa, EffOrt did win the final 8 years ago...
On May 01 2018 23:01 itsdaniel wrote: Didn't Tasteless say 11 years since Flash was beaten in a BO5???? Excl Amateurs/Sospa, EffOrt did win the final 8 years ago...
Last beat him 3-0 in the asl1 too
He was talking about Bo5 against Protoss.
Last Protoss to beat flash in a Bo5 was your guy Stork in 2007.
On May 01 2018 21:45 StylishVODs wrote: Imo Flash threw the game on gladiator. He was even suply with 3-2 vs 1-0 but let continuous single reavers shut him down due to zero defense. If he had taken that this would have been 3-1.
Third world is just too rough. It's basically a map that is really good for carriers except that terran can't move its units around. I dont really see any non-cheesy way to win that map straight up. Even Flash, god of TvP, had to rely on sneaky hidden exp in both games on third world.
apparently it's a terran favored map lol, guess the stats says it all!
because flash played half of that stats. No one played that map after they got dqed. There were only mind and flash in ASL
wow the first game snow just had reaaalky perfect plan and timing and destroying this drop on highground at the beggining that was like not even a single mistake it was just delightful!
On May 01 2018 21:45 StylishVODs wrote: Imo Flash threw the game on gladiator. He was even suply with 3-2 vs 1-0 but let continuous single reavers shut him down due to zero defense. If he had taken that this would have been 3-1.
Third world is just too rough. It's basically a map that is really good for carriers except that terran can't move its units around. I dont really see any non-cheesy way to win that map straight up. Even Flash, god of TvP, had to rely on sneaky hidden exp in both games on third world.
apparently it's a terran favored map lol, guess the stats says it all!
because flash played half of that stats. No one played that map after they got dqed. There were only mind and flash in ASL
Nope. The stats that's being mentioned are based on sponmatches, not ASL.
On May 01 2018 21:45 StylishVODs wrote: Imo Flash threw the game on gladiator. He was even suply with 3-2 vs 1-0 but let continuous single reavers shut him down due to zero defense. If he had taken that this would have been 3-1.
Third world is just too rough. It's basically a map that is really good for carriers except that terran can't move its units around. I dont really see any non-cheesy way to win that map straight up. Even Flash, god of TvP, had to rely on sneaky hidden exp in both games on third world.
apparently it's a terran favored map lol, guess the stats says it all!
because flash played half of that stats. No one played that map after they got dqed. There were only mind and flash in ASL
Nope. The stats that's being mentioned are based on sponmatches, not ASL.
yes.. That what i was saying out of all those spon matches flash played the most games accounting for most so stats get inflated for terrans . when it should be 30-40% he makes it 50%. Also reason why people think T is op as well
On May 01 2018 23:17 Liquid`Drone wrote: here are sponbang rates for pvt on the different maps.
third world : 43-41 pvt gladiator: 178-171 pvt sparkle: 100-145 pvt transistor: 164-126 pvt
overall 485-483 pvt.
It's more an issue of Snow's style of play being perfect for these maps than them being 'oh so imbalanced'. Flash is less convincing tvp than tvt and tvz, and snow is one of the players who does the best against him. He lost 2-3 in a super close and tense series. He won the map that does clearly favor protoss, and he lost the 'standard' map where balance isn't a factor.
Zergs can whine about zvp on this map pool, they have a good point. But tvp? It's fine. Snow had exceptionally strong game plans. Flash didn't play perfectly. The final game he actually lost the first marine against the first zealot. Then Snow managed to deceive him with his 2 gate - flash went fast eng bay because he thought it was shuttle or dt play. So many times he wins because he wins the mindgame, in the final game here, he lost it. That's not because of the map.
Absolutely amazing series.
take off flash’s stats off those total stats and you see clearer picture. Now take the best pvter geared towards destroying flash’s style and you get the result
Come to think of it this series wasn't really decided but map imbalance as much as I expected but by 2 key recalls that Snow did and Flash screwing up his usually great arbiter defence.
In game 3 Snow sent an arbiter to Flash's nat and into his main while Flash's army was right outside his 3rd. If Flash emps that or kills the Arbiter he would have been in a great spot and probably won the game.
In game 5 Flash's army is right outside Snow's 3rd when the recall happens. Again if Flash blocks it he's in a great spot as he secured a good position and the carrier count was pretty low.
On May 02 2018 00:05 Dante08 wrote: Come to think of it this series wasn't really decided but map imbalance as much as I expected but by 2 key recalls that Snow did and Flash screwing up his usually great arbiter defence.
In game 3 Snow sent an arbiter to Flash's nat and into his main while Flash's army was right outside his 3rd. If Flash emps that or kills the Arbiter he would have been in a great spot and probably won the game.
In game 5 Flash's army is right outside Snow's 3rd when the recall happens. Again if Flash blocks it he's in a great spot as he secured a good position and the carrier count was pretty low.
ya, Snow had recalls done at just the right time. In both those games, Flash had to turn back to defend and on Gladiator, twice, he left some tanks behind so Snow killed a couple at least. Had Flash defended against the arbiter better, he would've likely won both games and took this series before we got to game 5.
On May 01 2018 23:17 Liquid`Drone wrote: here are sponbang rates for pvt on the different maps.
third world : 43-41 pvt gladiator: 178-171 pvt sparkle: 100-145 pvt transistor: 164-126 pvt
overall 485-483 pvt.
It's more an issue of Snow's style of play being perfect for these maps than them being 'oh so imbalanced'. Flash is less convincing tvp than tvt and tvz, and snow is one of the players who does the best against him. He lost 2-3 in a super close and tense series. He won the map that does clearly favor protoss, and he lost the 'standard' map where balance isn't a factor.
Zergs can whine about zvp on this map pool, they have a good point. But tvp? It's fine. Snow had exceptionally strong game plans. Flash didn't play perfectly. The final game he actually lost the first marine against the first zealot. Then Snow managed to deceive him with his 2 gate - flash went fast eng bay because he thought it was shuttle or dt play. So many times he wins because he wins the mindgame, in the final game here, he lost it. That's not because of the map.
Absolutely amazing series.
take off flash’s stats off those total stats and you see clearer picture. Now take the best pvter geared towards destroying flash’s style and you get the result
the same argument could be made for Snow, he also has an insanely high winrate in Sponbbang matches..
for example on 3rd world FlaSh is 27-12 69.2% vs p, Snow is 18-7 72% vs t
flash does indeed represent a whole lot of the games played on third world and some of the other maps. And if you remove Flash from the equation, then they largely end up looking more p favored and less t favored. What might just be the most 'fair' way of looking at map balance, then ends up being one where you factor the ELO rating of the players involved. sponbbang does this for us ;
ELO adjusted Tvp on all ASL maps (seen from terran pov - bigger than 50% means terran favored, less than 50% means p): Gladiator : 50.3% Transistor : 37.6% Sparkle : 55.1% Third World : 46.2%
Transistor is legit imbalanced. But Flash won that one. Looking at the other maps and including third world twice because it was played twice, gives us an elo adjusted balance rating of 49.45% vs 50.55%. Balance is not the reason why Snow won. Yes, his play is less clean than Flash. His macro is less on point. He's a less impressive player overall. There's no question about all of these three.
But Snow had superior plans for both third world games. In the first game, Flash tried a gutsy quick push which completely failed. In the final game, Snow managed to genuinely trick him. That's the how and why he ended up winning.
On May 02 2018 00:13 Liquid`Drone wrote: flash does indeed represent a whole lot of the games played on third world and some of the other maps. And if you remove Flash from the equation, then they largely end up looking more p favored and less t favored. What might just be the most 'fair' way of looking at map balance, then ends up being one where you factor the ELO rating of the players involved. sponbbang does this for us ;
ELO adjusted Tvp on all ASL maps (seen from terran pov - bigger than 50% means terran favored, less than 50% means p): Gladiator : 50.3% Transistor : 37.6% Sparkle : 55.1% Third World : 46.2%
Transistor is legit imbalanced. But Flash won that one. Looking at the other maps and including third world twice because it was played twice, gives us an elo adjusted balance rating of 49.45% vs 50.55%. Balance is not the reason why Snow won. Yes, his play is less clean than Flash. His macro is less on point. He's a less impressive player overall. There's no question about all of these three.
But Snow had superior plans for both third world games. In the first game, Flash tried a gutsy quick push which completely failed. In the final game, Snow managed to genuinely trick him. That's the how and why he ended up winning.
Hehe wouldn't be a Flash loss without the blames on balance/maps or another excuse. Grats to Snow, did not think he would take it, especially on game 5!
On May 02 2018 00:13 Liquid`Drone wrote: flash does indeed represent a whole lot of the games played on third world and some of the other maps. And if you remove Flash from the equation, then they largely end up looking more p favored and less t favored. What might just be the most 'fair' way of looking at map balance, then ends up being one where you factor the ELO rating of the players involved. sponbbang does this for us ;
ELO adjusted Tvp on all ASL maps (seen from terran pov - bigger than 50% means terran favored, less than 50% means p): Gladiator : 50.3% Transistor : 37.6% Sparkle : 55.1% Third World : 46.2%
Transistor is legit imbalanced. But Flash won that one. Looking at the other maps and including third world twice because it was played twice, gives us an elo adjusted balance rating of 49.45% vs 50.55%. Balance is not the reason why Snow won. Yes, his play is less clean than Flash. His macro is less on point. He's a less impressive player overall. There's no question about all of these three.
But Snow had superior plans for both third world games. In the first game, Flash tried a gutsy quick push which completely failed. In the final game, Snow managed to genuinely trick him. That's the how and why he ended up winning.
I think you'd be hard pressed to find any current player that can actually surpass Flash in these categories lol. Thanks for this nice post!
On May 02 2018 00:22 blade55555 wrote: Hehe wouldn't be a Flash loss without the blames on balance/maps or another excuse. Grats to Snow, did not think he would take it, especially on game 5!
Well, how else do you explain the 7P 7Z and 2T in the ro16? If it isn't the maps, what is it? It's a pretty legit excuse. Maybe the quality of players per race?
I cheered for snow and I think he played extremely well and deserved to win. But if it would have been the asl4 map pool, I'm not sure snow makes it through. That's why I wish we had a more balanced map pool with maps favoring different races so that players have to adapt to the disadvantageous maps. Again, just like jangbi vs fantasy on pathfinder, or the second game of this set, which was on sparkle. I feel like only flash is able to adapt to new maps and playstyles, and even then, he ended up losing because snow is a very good player himself.
On May 02 2018 00:22 blade55555 wrote: Hehe wouldn't be a Flash loss without the blames on balance/maps or another excuse. Grats to Snow, did not think he would take it, especially on game 5!
Well, how else do you explain the 7P 7Z and 2T in the ro16? If it isn't the maps, what is it? It's a pretty legit excuse.
I cheered for snow and I think he played extremely well and deserved to win. But if it would have been the asl4 map pool, I'm not sure snow makes it through. That's why I wish we had a more balanced map pool with maps favoring different races so that players have to adapt to the disadvantageous maps. Again, just like jangbi vs fantasy on pathfinder, or the second game of this set, which was on sparkle. I feel like only flash is able to adapt to new maps and playstyles, and even then, he ended up losing because snow is a very good player himself.
other players couldn't adapt/practice well and sucked? Pardon my language. Seriously, Sea lost to an inactive Movie on Gladiator. Last couldn't adapt and lost also on Gladiator to Snow but first, he lost to Miso on Sparkle and ended up eliminating Mong! sSak wasn't even around this time.
Light played terribly aside from the first x minutes on Sparkle vs Shine and did a failed all-in vs Shuttle on Transistor. Rush got pushed to losers by Mind and then got eliminated by Best on Transistor. Who else is left? Sharp? He's only good at TvT.
On May 02 2018 00:22 blade55555 wrote: Hehe wouldn't be a Flash loss without the blames on balance/maps or another excuse. Grats to Snow, did not think he would take it, especially on game 5!
Well, how else do you explain the 7P 7Z and 2T in the ro16? If it isn't the maps, what is it? It's a pretty legit excuse.
I cheered for snow and I think he played extremely well and deserved to win. But if it would have been the asl4 map pool, I'm not sure snow makes it through. That's why I wish we had a more balanced map pool with maps favoring different races so that players have to adapt to the disadvantageous maps. Again, just like jangbi vs fantasy on pathfinder, or the second game of this set, which was on sparkle. I feel like only flash is able to adapt to new maps and playstyles, and even then, he ended up losing because snow is a very good player himself.
other players couldn't adapt/practice well and sucked? Pardon my language. Seriously, Sea lost to an inactive Movie on Gladiator. Last couldn't adapt and lost also on Gladiator to Snow but first, he lost to Miso on Sparkle and ended up eliminating Mong! sSak wasn't even around this time.
Light played terribly aside from the first x minutes on Sparkle vs Shine and did a failed all-in vs Shuttle on Transistor. Rush got pushed to losers by Mind and then got eliminated by Best on Transistor. Who else is left? Sharp who is imo only great at TvT.
Yeah I guess the quality of players make sense. That's what I was thinking too, because outside of Flash, we only see sparks of Last or Mind. That's about it. Meanwhile, zerg and protoss have plenty of capable players, especially zerg. Remove flash and terran is basically dead :/ I just wish we can have great players on each race so that we can have meaningful rivalries between them again.
I think when one race struggles, the quality of the games obviously diminish, so I am quite thankful we still have flash haha.
On May 02 2018 00:22 blade55555 wrote: Hehe wouldn't be a Flash loss without the blames on balance/maps or another excuse. Grats to Snow, did not think he would take it, especially on game 5!
Well, how else do you explain the 7P 7Z and 2T in the ro16? If it isn't the maps, what is it? It's a pretty legit excuse.
I cheered for snow and I think he played extremely well and deserved to win. But if it would have been the asl4 map pool, I'm not sure snow makes it through. That's why I wish we had a more balanced map pool with maps favoring different races so that players have to adapt to the disadvantageous maps. Again, just like jangbi vs fantasy on pathfinder, or the second game of this set, which was on sparkle. I feel like only flash is able to adapt to new maps and playstyles, and even then, he ended up losing because snow is a very good player himself.
other players couldn't adapt/practice well and sucked? Pardon my language. Seriously, Sea lost to an inactive Movie on Gladiator. Last couldn't adapt and lost also on Gladiator to Snow but first, he lost to Miso on Sparkle and ended up eliminating Mong! sSak wasn't even around this time.
Light played terribly aside from the first x minutes on Sparkle vs Shine and did a failed all-in vs Shuttle on Transistor. Rush got pushed to losers by Mind and then got eliminated by Best on Transistor. Who else is left? Sharp who is imo only great at TvT.
Yeah I guess the quality of players make sense. That's what I was thinking too, because outside of Flash, we only see sparks of Last or Mind. That's about it. Meanwhile, zerg and protoss have plenty of capable players, especially zerg. Remove flash and terran is basically dead :/ I just wish we can have great players on each race so that we can have meaningful rivalries between them again.
I think when one race struggles, the quality of the games obviously diminish, so I am quite thankful we still have flash haha.
Don't get me wrong, I want this too. I really miss seeing TvZ and want more terrans too but this ASL, aside from Mind and Flash, no one else showed up. Also, keep in mind that Last's gf is running a macaron shop and he has wrist pains so there's no doubt that affected his practice (+ mindset possibly).
edit: I'm chuckling at the thought of having 3 Ps all seeded into the next ASL haha. Once hero goes to military, might even become 4. Sad that hero had to eliminate Mind when he's leaving us soon too.
On May 02 2018 00:22 blade55555 wrote: Hehe wouldn't be a Flash loss without the blames on balance/maps or another excuse. Grats to Snow, did not think he would take it, especially on game 5!
Well, how else do you explain the 7P 7Z and 2T in the ro16? If it isn't the maps, what is it? It's a pretty legit excuse.
I cheered for snow and I think he played extremely well and deserved to win. But if it would have been the asl4 map pool, I'm not sure snow makes it through. That's why I wish we had a more balanced map pool with maps favoring different races so that players have to adapt to the disadvantageous maps. Again, just like jangbi vs fantasy on pathfinder, or the second game of this set, which was on sparkle. I feel like only flash is able to adapt to new maps and playstyles, and even then, he ended up losing because snow is a very good player himself.
other players couldn't adapt/practice well and sucked? Pardon my language. Seriously, Sea lost to an inactive Movie on Gladiator. Last couldn't adapt and lost also on Gladiator to Snow but first, he lost to Miso on Sparkle and ended up eliminating Mong! sSak wasn't even around this time.
Light played terribly aside from the first x minutes on Sparkle vs Shine and did a failed all-in vs Shuttle on Transistor. Rush got pushed to losers by Mind and then got eliminated by Best on Transistor. Who else is left? Sharp who is imo only great at TvT.
Yeah I guess the quality of players make sense. That's what I was thinking too, because outside of Flash, we only see sparks of Last or Mind. That's about it. Meanwhile, zerg and protoss have plenty of capable players, especially zerg. Remove flash and terran is basically dead :/ I just wish we can have great players on each race so that we can have meaningful rivalries between them again.
I think when one race struggles, the quality of the games obviously diminish, so I am quite thankful we still have flash haha.
Don't get me wrong, I want this too. I really miss seeing TvZ and want more terrans too but this ASL, aside from Mind and Flash, no one else showed up. Also, keep in mind that Last's gf is running a macaron shop and he has wrist pains so there's no doubt that affected his practice (+ mindset possibly).
edit: I'm chuckling at the thought of having 3 Ps all seeded into the next ASL haha. Once hero goes to military, might even become 4. Sad that hero had to eliminate Mind when he's leaving us soon too.
I didn't know about Last's wrist pains, thanks for that info.
On May 02 2018 01:01 ggsimida wrote: Hero asl5 champion yeaaaa
I won;t count the protosses out on these maps. Also if rain wins I will root for snow to get snow-rain final, but if hero wins, I'll root for mini so we can have an interesting final
Shuttle casting the gladiator game. It's pretty much all expletives towards Snow =) Both him and Last kept fighting over who would win. They are pros but they are also the epitome of an arm chair general. ^^
Shuttle (when Snow lost his two arbiters without a single stasis): "You son of a bitch! What the fuck are you doing?! You son of a bitch! You stupid son of a bitch!"
Shuttle is screams like a little girl when Flash ggs out.
On May 02 2018 00:22 blade55555 wrote: Hehe wouldn't be a Flash loss without the blames on balance/maps or another excuse. Grats to Snow, did not think he would take it, especially on game 5!
Well, how else do you explain the 7P 7Z and 2T in the ro16? If it isn't the maps, what is it? It's a pretty legit excuse.
I cheered for snow and I think he played extremely well and deserved to win. But if it would have been the asl4 map pool, I'm not sure snow makes it through. That's why I wish we had a more balanced map pool with maps favoring different races so that players have to adapt to the disadvantageous maps. Again, just like jangbi vs fantasy on pathfinder, or the second game of this set, which was on sparkle. I feel like only flash is able to adapt to new maps and playstyles, and even then, he ended up losing because snow is a very good player himself.
other players couldn't adapt/practice well and sucked? Pardon my language. Seriously, Sea lost to an inactive Movie on Gladiator. Last couldn't adapt and lost also on Gladiator to Snow but first, he lost to Miso on Sparkle and ended up eliminating Mong! sSak wasn't even around this time.
Light played terribly aside from the first x minutes on Sparkle vs Shine and did a failed all-in vs Shuttle on Transistor. Rush got pushed to losers by Mind and then got eliminated by Best on Transistor. Who else is left? Sharp who is imo only great at TvT.
Yeah I guess the quality of players make sense. That's what I was thinking too, because outside of Flash, we only see sparks of Last or Mind. That's about it. Meanwhile, zerg and protoss have plenty of capable players, especially zerg. Remove flash and terran is basically dead :/ I just wish we can have great players on each race so that we can have meaningful rivalries between them again.
I think when one race struggles, the quality of the games obviously diminish, so I am quite thankful we still have flash haha.
Don't get me wrong, I want this too. I really miss seeing TvZ and want more terrans too but this ASL, aside from Mind and Flash, no one else showed up. Also, keep in mind that Last's gf is running a macaron shop and he has wrist pains so there's no doubt that affected his practice (+ mindset possibly).
edit: I'm chuckling at the thought of having 3 Ps all seeded into the next ASL haha. Once hero goes to military, might even become 4. Sad that hero had to eliminate Mind when he's leaving us soon too.
terran is hard who would’ve known. The race with highest possible skill ceiling and flash is the one who has nearly reached that and people are saying T is op tesagi this or that. I just can’t take them seriously when you clearly see that Terran is really gard even at 2300-2400 level. It truly shines at elite level like 2700-3200 but even at pro level you see terrabs struggling. I hope this season quelled tesagi once and for all.
For those complaining that 3rd world is impossible for Terran vs Protoss (and in every other ro8 thread) 3rd world has a better ELO adjusted winrate for terran according to Sponbbang than Circuit breaker does for protoss against terran. + Show Spoiler +
43-43 overall, adjusted down (probably because Flash's ELO is so high alone) to a 46.2% chance for Terran to win.
If Flash had won with games 1 and 5 on circuit breaker NO ONE would be complaining the maps were impossible, but because the map "looks funny" and Flash lost twice everyone goes nuts.
The games were close, the series was fantastic, and ultimately it wasn't flash who won.
Bummer that Flash lost, but it was his own fault and not map balance. His anti-reaver play was probably the worst I've seen from him ever and he only stopped maybe one or two recalls in the entire series. Credit to Snow for his fantastic gameplan and sensational micro.
I must agree that this is more Flash losing to a great player rather than the maps being unfavorable for terran. Snow played very well, he had a great gameplan for every map, and Flash made a few oversights that cost him a game or two.
On May 02 2018 00:22 blade55555 wrote: Hehe wouldn't be a Flash loss without the blames on balance/maps or another excuse. Grats to Snow, did not think he would take it, especially on game 5!
To be fair, every win or loss in this ASL has been blamed on map imbalance.
I was cheering for Flash, but I'd rather see him lose because his opponent played as well as Snow did today than because his skill was diminishing. Snow played great. I was very impressed. Flash didn't make too many errors (the critical one being his lack of anti-Reaver defense at his 4th base on Gladiator), and he had crystal clear game plans for the new maps that gave him solid chances to win. I was most impressed with the game on Sparkle --- Flash's star sense was with him in that game.
Incidentally, my viewing of this ASL has been cursed --- I started out cheering for Stork, Best, and Jaedong, then for Shuttle, and then for Flash. Right now I'm hoping for Hero. I think he should have a good chance against these Protosses, but they're all in pretty good form right now!
On May 02 2018 03:20 RxMidnight wrote: Bummer that Flash lost, but it was his own fault and not map balance. His anti-reaver play was probably the worst I've seen from him ever and he only stopped maybe one or two recalls in the entire series. Credit to Snow for his fantastic gameplan and sensational micro.
That complete lack of defense (in game 3?) where Snow dropped reavers over and over and killed all his SCVs was depressing. Also, in game 5, watching Flash turn around with his whole army to defend a recall was a bit.................
I think Flash moved out prematurley in game 5 in that last push, the recall was going to come and it decimated his production-line. It was too late to turn back, but it was his only option in that situation to try and salvage the main T_T But sick games overall, I think had it not been for Snow, then Flash would have made it all the way to the end. Ro4 now I predict Rain vs herO = Hero wins and Mini vs Snow = Snow wins. herO vs Snow in the finals with herO taking it ;-) herO is a happy zergling now )
Bad recall and reaver defense is what lost Flash the series. He was running back to defend way too often, and forced into bad engagements. And he was way too stubborn with his expansion in the last game. But very intelligent play overall by Snow, for exploiting many key opportunities.
That series was insanity, soooo good. Especially game 3 (at least I think it was game 3, gladiator). I almost always cheer for Protoss but for whatever reason I found myself sad to see our God Emperor Flash lose an ASL BO5.
Regardless snOw played so well, such sick PvT. I wonder what exactly was going through Flash’s mind when it came to that reaver drop def... though perhaps it was less a conscious strategy and more a blunder to not defend that base more soundly against reaver play after it was clear that Snow was committing to it on some level. In a game like that though even a God can make mistakes.
I don’t recall the strength of Snow’s PvP but either way Mini has his work cut out for him in the RO4. It’s going to be weird having a Flashless finals, but I guess that was kind of the theme of this season in a way lolol. Turnaround achieved.
Agreed. That series was crazy awesome. Snow had a game plan and executed it well, and killed a billion SCVs with his reapers. Flash fought hard and nearly took it anyway. Great games.
On May 02 2018 00:22 blade55555 wrote: Hehe wouldn't be a Flash loss without the blames on balance/maps or another excuse. Grats to Snow, did not think he would take it, especially on game 5!
Well, how else do you explain the 7P 7Z and 2T in the ro16? If it isn't the maps, what is it? It's a pretty legit excuse. Maybe the quality of players per race?
I cheered for snow and I think he played extremely well and deserved to win. But if it would have been the asl4 map pool, I'm not sure snow makes it through. That's why I wish we had a more balanced map pool with maps favoring different races so that players have to adapt to the disadvantageous maps. Again, just like jangbi vs fantasy on pathfinder, or the second game of this set, which was on sparkle. I feel like only flash is able to adapt to new maps and playstyles, and even then, he ended up losing because snow is a very good player himself.
How? It's a sample size of 16 players playing Bo3/Bo1. That statistical variance is huge. You could have perfectly balanced maps for all MUs, and you'd routinely have tournaments with 9P, 3T, 4Z or 8Z, 6P, 2T, etc. Those are not particularly rare combinations.
Terran players had bad days, maybe other races played great, maybe terrans got matched against guys they generally struggle with due to natural playstyle differences, etc.
In order to even think about saying it's the maps you'd need at least several hundred games, and ideally thousands or more to make any relevant conclusion without ridiculous results. Like if 3rd World was 98-2 for PvT that might mean you could make a fairly strong conclusion that 3rd world in legitimately imbalanced.
and snow must be really disappointed to have gotten supply blocked at 42 for like 2 minutes on Transistor.. he went up to 700-800 minerals 2 times in the early game
There really isn't a reason to blame ASL for "fixing" the maps when OSL and MSL always used to do this. It creates excitement and prevents one race from dominating for too long, as long as the maps are reasonably balanced, which they are according to the statistics posted here (except for Transistor).
Besides, when was the last time there was even a map pool that heavily disfavored Terran? Protoss and Zerg have almost always had the short end of the stick when it comes to map balance.
While I'm generally a big fan of these maps (they produce very interesting games, particularly third world and sparkle), there are some significant balance issues. But it's not about pvt. Pvz is a different story - sparkle has elo adjusted zvp of 30.8% and third world has elo adjusted zvp of 34%. When you get those numbers, especially when 3/5 maps are played on maps with those statistics, it ends up being a big deal. But anything in the 45-55 region, that's really not a problem. (although 4 /4 maps having the same 45-55 distribution would also be somewhat of an issue. )
anyway i am here to reiterate that map imbalances (unless extremely skewed like battle royale) is what makes starcraft a truly beautiful and dynamic game. its what makes the gods stand out from the mortals.
On May 02 2018 08:28 Liquid`Drone wrote: While I'm generally a big fan of these maps (they produce very interesting games, particularly third world and sparkle), there are some significant balance issues. But it's not about pvt. Pvz is a different story - sparkle has elo adjusted zvp of 30.8% and third world has elo adjusted zvp of 34%. When you get those numbers, especially when 3/5 maps are played on maps with those statistics, it ends up being a big deal. But anything in the 45-55 region, that's really not a problem. (although 4 /4 maps having the same 45-55 distribution would also be somewhat of an issue. )
Maps used for the round of 16 and above for ASL Seasons 3 and 4 were never bad for the terran race according the the data from online sponsored matches, regardless of the match-ups. Things change, and it is not as if the other races didn't get screwed over in the past.
Prior to this season (based on the data available from May 2017), the worst was terran-versus-protoss on Camelot (sample size of 311 online sponsored matches), with an ELO adjusted win rate of 47.8%, while the other two races had maps with significant ELO adjusted win rate problems, such as zergs on Fighting Spirit (sample size of 6,002 online sponsored matches) having an ELO adjusted win rate of 40.6% versus the terran race.
Statistical likelihood of Flash winning the series based on ELO adjusted win rates against the protoss race for each of the maps:
A) WWW -> For example, Flash chances of winning three games in a row based on the ELO adjusted win rate would be 0.462 x 0.551 x 0.503 = 0.128045 B) WWLW C) WWLLW D) WLWW E) WLWLW F) WLLWW G) LWWW H) LWWLW I) LWLWW J) LLWWW
A+B+C+D+E+F+G+H+I+J = 0.445061
Flash had, roughly speaking, a 44.51% chance of winning the series if he met a player of an equal ELO rating if these happened to be a random online sponsored series.
It was a tough set of circumstances, but there's a lot of outrage based on the popularity of the victims of the less than optimal set of circumstances, rather than the actual level of map imbalance according to the data gathered from online sponsored matches.
For example when Larva played Bisu in ASL Season 4, you can crunch the numbers in the exact same manner from hundreds of online sponsored matches, and get the following expected likelihood of Larva winning a best-of-five series versus Bisu given the order of the maps (Fighting Spirit, Crossing Field, Gold Rush, Gladiator, and Fighting Spirit):
A+B+C+D+E+F+G+H+I+J = 0.448426
Larva had a 44.84% chance of winning the 3rd/4th place decider for ASL Season 4 if he met a protoss player of an equal ELO rating based on the data from online sponsored matches. Despite seemingly similar set of circumstances statistically speaking, there was literally zero outage because it is Bisu winning over Larva, which is what should happen in people's minds. Fighting Spirit has one of the best ELO adjusted expected win rates in the protoss-versus-zerg match-up, but the discussion over the map pool issue never took life, and yet here we are several months later, having pages upon pages of discussion over problematic map pools.
Maps are always going to be an issue, because there is no perfect middle ground as of yet. However, map balance discussion tends to only pop-up when the map imbalance negatively impacts the players people care about. It is not justice if people only want to enforce it only to those who they root for.
Bullshit map pools exist, and they always have, and players have won championships before despite only there being only two representatives of their race in the final 16 (players such as Reach or JangBi come to mind). Flash lost partly due to map pool issues, and partly due to his own short comings (Flash lost a long standard game testing both player's skills on Gladiator, a map that currently has an ELO adjusted win rate that is positive for the terran race in the terran-versus-protoss match-up). The level of outage here is not exactly proportional to the level of map imbalance if the data from online sponsored matches are to be believed.
Such an intense series, maps are crazy and we are getting beautiful games as a result, the way they adapt and interpretate each one of those is mindblowing God is dead and it was awesome, ASL hwaiting.
Even Flash fans should admit this loss is good for the scene and even for Flash himself. Other pros have more motivation, ASL becomes more interesting, Flash has something to work towards. The tesagi BS gets toned down too. Flash winning a 4th ASL would have been the worst outcome imo.
Seriously, all these people talking about map imbalances, as the biggest god damn FlaSh fan out there, I expected FlaSh to lose because of difficult maps, but watching the games, that wasn't the case. He lost because he was outplayed. There were crucial decisions that FlaSh did not execute correctly, most likely because Snow really battered at his mentality with those gosu reavers. Snow played well, stop deflecting and give credit where credit is due. I for one am honestly happy that FlaSh lost so that we can finally have a new champion. And I am excited to see him climb his way back out of qualifiers to the bracket stage in ASL6. Let's enjoy the rest of this ASL knowing that we will have fresh people moving on (except hero and Rain).
On May 02 2018 17:52 FlaShFTW wrote: Seriously, all these people talking about map imbalances, as the biggest god damn FlaSh fan out there, I expected FlaSh to lose because of difficult maps, but watching the games, that wasn't the case. He lost because he was outplayed. There were crucial decisions that FlaSh did not execute correctly, most likely because Snow really battered at his mentality with those gosu reavers. Snow played well, stop deflecting and give credit where credit is due. I for one am honestly happy that FlaSh lost so that we can finally have a new champion. And I am excited to see him climb his way back out of qualifiers to the bracket stage in ASL6. Let's enjoy the rest of this ASL knowing that we will have fresh people moving on (except hero and Rain).
Couldn't agree more. Flash loosing a series and getting eliminated from ASL is such a big deal, and he fell in such a spectacular manner. Maps are kind of crazy and games were formidable, full of tiny mistakes and awesome things, they didn't felt one sided or rigged at any point. There may be a debate about map balance and it could be fun but not like this, this is the oposite of fun. The second the guy who always win loses people talk about map imbalance? yaaawn -__- , on top of that games where super amazing come on!
I really enjoyed this series. I liked on Sparkle when Snow had 3 Robotics Facilities for mass Shuttles. I liked how Flash did not even flinch when Snow did a fake Reaver harass with an empty Shuttle. And Flash's Wraith micro was incredible on Sparkle. I always hated that guy because he wins everything but now I have new found respect for him. Sometimes the better player loses.
Game 1: Flash played a cool build that got punished super badly.. on that game you can't blame the map because Flash played the way he played. If he played a normal 11 or 12 gas he could have smashed that FE totally. And I still think that Flash could have had a very good game considering he got away for quite a while with this 14 CC, if not that 2 tank 8 marine drop.
Game 2: This looked very nice and balanced, both sides had a good winning chance. Hats off to both players.
Game 3: Gladiator def. looked like Snow outplayed Flash. I mean the map is quite difficult for terran again (a lot of ramps, small mains, a lot of space to run around etc.) but Flash got a nice lead and lost it due to harassment and good army movement by snow. A lot of mistakes on both sides but at the end Snow took it nicely.
Game 4: Tranzistor, I think is great for this reaver shuttle play, and Flash knew he has to pull something out quickly. I think that if Snow seen the army Flash would have lost, it's impossible to kill mass dragon reaver with this push, especially pushing high ground. :/ Nevertheless, in that scenario we can't really blame a map as players played to it's adventages.
Game 5: This was the game where we really can say "Third World" imba.. The start of the game was regular, could have happened on any map, and Flash somehow equilized. But the longer game went, the more of "3rd world" snow took, the less chance Flash had. Of course it's still great game by snow but.. it felt like Flash is falling apart because of the map layout.
So all in all.. I would say 2-2 was fair.. final game wasn't fair in a sense that "map" sealed the deal.
What I found kinda funny about game 1 was, that Flash's tank drop was so fast, that Snow's shuttle with the reaver wasn't even on the way to Flash's base and that saved him. The fact that snow went reaver before obs in every game except on Sparkle also helped him out alot on that first game and as well as on Gladiator.
On May 02 2018 17:52 FlaShFTW wrote: Seriously, all these people talking about map imbalances, as the biggest god damn FlaSh fan out there, I expected FlaSh to lose because of difficult maps, but watching the games, that wasn't the case. He lost because he was outplayed. There were crucial decisions that FlaSh did not execute correctly, most likely because Snow really battered at his mentality with those gosu reavers. Snow played well, stop deflecting and give credit where credit is due. I for one am honestly happy that FlaSh lost so that we can finally have a new champion. And I am excited to see him climb his way back out of qualifiers to the bracket stage in ASL6. Let's enjoy the rest of this ASL knowing that we will have fresh people moving on (except hero and Rain).
I think you have to distinguish between different criticisms of the maps. I fully acknowledge that Larva and Flash lost fair and square, despite having wanted both of them to win. My open criticism was exclusively directed at Sparkle when it was horridly and undeniably imbalanced, rendering zerg unplayable. I also complained about the fact that the entire map pool was introduced far too late, which turned into a fixing race against time with the anti-zerg Sparkle and certainly impacted the meta game on this map. Of course some people only complain about imbalances that disadvantage specific players or races, which is hypocritical if they don't also complain in other cases. I agree that this behavior is ridiculous. But the distinction needs to be made because it is undeniable that what happened with the map pool this season was highly unprofessional and should be deemed unacceptable in future tournaments.
Snow won Flash because of Snow stronger than Flash.
Game 1, 2, 3, 4: Flash prepared his super secret units. Game 1: 8 marines + 2 tanks, Game 2: Wraiths, Game 3: I don't know but I think it's special too I can't recognize, Game 4: more 10 marines + 3 tanks.
Game 5: both players prepared their strategy. Snow wanted to press early game with 2 gates and Flash wanted to play normally with 1 factory then take CC second. They couldn't finish game 5 quickly so that's game was really equal. Almost time in the game, both they only use 2 bases, the resources same who win is stronger person.
Thank ASL5 organizers and Snow, Flash very much. Starcraft is really wonderful.
On May 02 2018 23:25 Cryoc wrote: What I found kinda funny about game 1 was, that Flash's tank drop was so fast, that Snow's shuttle with the reaver wasn't even on the way to Flash's base and that saved him. The fact that snow went reaver before obs in every game except on Sparkle also helped him out alot on that first game and as well as on Gladiator.
Flash didn't know that his strategy was too good, enough to beat himself. My heart almost was broken when reaver destroyed Flash's units by the time.
On May 02 2018 23:25 Cryoc wrote: What I found kinda funny about game 1 was, that Flash's tank drop was so fast, that Snow's shuttle with the reaver wasn't even on the way to Flash's base and that saved him. The fact that snow went reaver before obs in every game except on Sparkle also helped him out alot on that first game and as well as on Gladiator.
Tbh feels like 90% of 2500MMR P players go reaver before obs. This is specifically timed to defend 3 tank pushes and also puts early pressure on terran. This 1st obs doesnt really help that much considering that if you scout a timing you can die to it anyway.
On May 02 2018 23:25 Cryoc wrote: What I found kinda funny about game 1 was, that Flash's tank drop was so fast, that Snow's shuttle with the reaver wasn't even on the way to Flash's base and that saved him. The fact that snow went reaver before obs in every game except on Sparkle also helped him out alot on that first game and as well as on Gladiator.
Tbh feels like 90% of 2500MMR P players go reaver before obs. This is specifically timed to defend 3 tank pushes and also puts early pressure on terran. This 1st obs doesnt really help that much considering that if you scout a timing you can die to it anyway.
Interesting to know. At my scrub level, I mostly see obs first.
What the fuck happened. Larva got smashed and Flash didn't make finals? Guess maps finally worked. Snow vs. Hero should be good ending to this madness.
third world balance is bad for zvp. elo adjusted sponbbang rates of 34%. And Sparkle even worse, elo adjusted zvp rate of 30.8%. A lot of the outcome depends on which map ends up being played twice. (assuming hero vetoes sparkle, there's a 50/50 chance of it being third world).
That said, while third world is pretty strongly p > z favored, it's not a map that plays to Rain's strengths. Rain is a macro god with great big engagements. He's not a sair reaver kind of guy. And I have the impression that Hero plays way better on third world than say, Larva did. (Larva being more of a rain type of zerg. ) So this one is pretty open.
Why are we whining about maps? Artosis said this perfectly
"If Flash loses, doesn't say much about him. If Flash wins, says a lot about him"
Flash is still the greatest pro-gamer in the entire world. If ASL returns to a liiiitle more basic maps next season, I bet he would win again. Lets just be happy we got some incredible games.
This thread has turned into a circle jerk where everyone is commenting about how it's ridiculous to say that the result was because of imbalance. Still it's very difficult to find anyone after page 10 who even says this.
People often say that terran isn't slightly favored on the highest level but that troughout the history of the game the greatest players happened to be terran (iloveoov, nada, Boxer, flash).
TO THOSE PEOPLE LET ME REPLY:
isn't it VERY LIKELY that there is no balance problem with current asl maps and protoss players like snow and mini are just better then flash and larva? We can SAFELY ASSUME that they always were better, right? Protoss players were just held back in the past by unbalanced maps that favor weaker terran like flash.
I'll go as far to say: if maps wouldn't have been horrible unbalanced in the past, we'd call 4 protoss players bonjwa instead if terrans!!
On May 03 2018 11:57 Dante08 wrote: Anyone have the list of protosses Flash faced in his 11 year TvP reign? Really interested to see it.
The record is restricted to an offline, best-of-five setting only, and any online tournaments such as DanJJING StarLeague are going to be excluded from the list:
1. 3rd/4th place decider of Daum OGN StarLeague versus Stork
-> 0:3 defeat for Flash
2. Semi-finals of GomTV Invitational versus Anytime
-> 3:1 victory for Flash
3. Semi-finals of Bacchus 2008 OGN StarLeague versus Bisu
-> 3:1 victory for Flash
4. Finals of GomTV Invitational versus Stork
-> 3:2 victory for Flash
5. Finals of Bacchus 2008 OGN StarLeague versus Stork
-> 3:0 victory for Flash
6. Semi-finals of GomTV Classic S1 versus BackHo
-> 3:0 victory for Flash
7. Quarter-finals of NATE MSL versus BeSt
-> 3:0 victory for Flash
8. Finals of EVER 2009 OGN StarLeague versus Movie
-> 3:1 victory for Flash
9. Semi-finals of Korean Air OGN StarLeague S1 versus Pure
-> 3:0 victory for Flash
10. Semi-finals of Hana Daetoo MSL versus free
-> 3:0 victory for Flash
11. Semi-finals of Korean Air OGN StarLeague S2 versus free
-> 3:1 victory for Flash
-------------------------------------------------------------------- Streaming career begins after a hiatus from professional Brood War
12. Finals Sino-Korean Carnival versus Bisu
-> 3:2 victory for Flash
13. Quarter-finals of ASL S1 versus GuemChi
-> 3:1 victory for Flash
14. Semi-finals of ASL S4 versus Bisu
-> 3:1 victory for Flash
15. Quarter-finals of ASL S5 versus SnOw
-> 2:3 defeat for Flash
Excluding best-of-three series, and best-of-five series played in online tournaments, Flash retained an undefeated series streak versus the protoss race for 13 consecutive best-of-five matches, spanning across nearly eleven years.
Unless I am mistaken, this is the longest best-of-five winning streak within a particular match-up (restricted to LAN tournaments only) in the history of the game. NaDa managed 12 consecutive best-of-five series victories versus the zerg race during his peak (the longest streak if you limit the sample to professional Brood War games only), but I don't think anybody even comes close to what Flash did towards the protoss race.
Even Jaedong, who played more best-of-five series versus the protoss race than any other zerg in history, only managed a best-of-five win streak of 11 versus the protoss race (if you include the ASL quarter-finals series versus Stork).
A truly colossal achievement for SnOw, especially since Stork only managed his best-of-five victory in Flash's first ever professional tournament, and BeSt only managed his victory within an online setting.
The only notable protoss player who remained unscathed by Flash's massacre versus the protoss race was JangBi, who remains undefeated versus the terran race within a best-of-five setting (but his win streak versus the terran race is only four series long, then again, I can't think of any protoss players who won five consecutive best-of-fives in a row versus the terran race off the top of my head). A best-of-five series when both players were on form would have been interesting to see.
It is rather interesting that the only best-of-five defeats Flash suffered within a LAN setting over these eleven years were against relatively slower protoss players known for their immaculate reaver and carrier micro-management. Considering the exact opposite of that style is Bisu, known for his faster paced arbiter-centric style, perhaps these players had a stylistic mismatch on top of Bisu not being exactly godlike at the protoss-versus-terran match-up.
On May 03 2018 05:38 DexLy wrote: This thread has turned into a circle jerk where everyone is commenting about how it's ridiculous to say that the result was because of imbalance. Still it's very difficult to find anyone after page 10 who even says this.
Let's take a look at a single page, 24 (admittedly probably one of the higher-density ones).
On May 01 2018 21:31 gravity wrote: Great series, sad Flash lost though. Maps were unfavourable but he probably could have won if he played a little better.
On May 01 2018 21:31 Mnijykmirl wrote: doesn't it just seem like a great terran player just lost due to maps more than anything else? snow played very well but it felt like I just watched the true grandmaster get taken down because of an unfair fight
On May 01 2018 21:33 Gorsameth wrote: Stacking the maps to the max to defeat Flash is 'a taste of their own medicine"?
On May 01 2018 21:32 Essbee wrote: Feels bad that they had to rely on unfair maps to completely annihilate terran (flash)
On May 03 2018 11:57 Dante08 wrote: Anyone have the list of protosses Flash faced in his 11 year TvP reign? Really interested to see it.
The record is restricted to an offline, best-of-five setting only, and any online tournaments such as DanJJING StarLeague are going to be excluded from the list:
1. 3rd/4th place decider of Daum OGN StarLeague versus Stork
-> 0:3 defeat for Flash
2. Semi-finals of GomTV Invitational versus Anytime
-> 3:1 victory for Flash
3. Semi-finals of Bacchus 2008 OGN StarLeague versus Bisu
-> 3:1 victory for Flash
4. Finals of GomTV Invitational versus Stork
-> 3:2 victory for Flash
5. Finals of Bacchus 2008 OGN StarLeague versus Stork
-> 3:0 victory for Flash
6. Semi-finals of GomTV Classic S1 versus BackHo
-> 3:0 victory for Flash
7. Quarter-finals of NATE MSL versus BeSt
-> 3:0 victory for Flash
8. Finals of EVER 2009 OGN StarLeague versus Movie
-> 3:1 victory for Flash
9. Semi-finals of Korean Air OGN StarLeague S1 versus Pure
-> 3:0 victory for Flash
10. Semi-finals of Hana Daetoo MSL versus free
-> 3:0 victory for Flash
11. Semi-finals of Korean Air OGN StarLeague S2 versus free
-> 3:1 victory for Flash
-------------------------------------------------------------------- Streaming career begins after a hiatus from professional Brood War
12. Finals Sino-Korean Carnival versus Bisu
-> 3:2 victory for Flash
13. Quarter-finals of ASL S1 versus GuemChi
-> 3:1 victory for Flash
14. Semi-finals of ASL S4 versus Bisu
-> 3:1 victory for Flash
15. Quarter-finals of ASL S5 versus SnOw
-> 2:3 defeat for Flash
Excluding best-of-three series, and best-of-five series played in online tournaments, Flash retained an undefeated series streak versus the protoss race for 13 consecutive best-of-five matches, spanning across nearly eleven years.
Unless I am mistaken, this is the longest best-of-five winning streak within a particular match-up (restricted to LAN tournaments only) in the history of the game. NaDa managed 12 consecutive best-of-five series victories versus the zerg race during his peak (the longest streak if you limit the sample to professional Brood War games only), but I don't think anybody even comes close to what Flash did towards the protoss race.
Even Jaedong, who played more best-of-five series versus the protoss race than any other zerg in history, only managed a best-of-five win streak of 11 versus the protoss race (if you include the ASL quarter-finals series versus Stork).
A truly colossal achievement for SnOw, especially since Stork only managed his best-of-five victory in Flash's first ever professional tournament, and BeSt only managed his victory within an online setting.
The only notable protoss player who remained unscathed by Flash's massacre versus the protoss race was JangBi, who remains undefeated versus the terran race within a best-of-five setting (but his win streak versus the terran race is only four series long, then again, I can't think of any protoss players who won five consecutive best-of-fives in a row versus the terran race off the top of my head). A best-of-five series when both players were on form would have been interesting to see.
It is rather interesting that the only best-of-five defeats Flash suffered within a LAN setting over these eleven years were against relatively slower protoss players known for their immaculate reaver and carrier micro-management. Considering the exact opposite of that style is Bisu, known for his faster paced arbiter-centric style, perhaps these players had a stylistic mismatch on top of Bisu not being exactly godlike at the protoss-versus-terran match-up.
Absolutely beautiful series. Sublime play from both players. The pinnacle of PvT. Flash's decision-making was questionable though--if he made the decision to play as Protoss or Zerg like he said he would, he would have won 3-0 ezpz in my humble opinion.
On May 01 2018 20:08 Malongo wrote: I don´t get why Snow didn´t get corsairs.
even if he was able to build equal number of corsairs to flash's wraiths, he would lose. the corsairs will die so fast against cloaked and upgraded wraiths
Corsairs slaughter wraiths incredibly fast, it's hard to pick off the observers without half the fleet dying in the meantime. It's doable if it's just one observer, but a good protoss will keep at least two with his aerial fleet if up against wraiths. And a group of like 8 corsairs completely melts a 12 wraith fleet, really, really fast. But he would never get to fight corsair vs wraith. Flash scans constantly and if he saw a couple stargates going up, he would immediately go into valkyrie production.
Somewhere out there, Bisu would be proud. When the time comes for him to watch the VOD of this series, he would be really pleased. Super awesome games!
that SCV transfer from the main to the 3rd in game one was 17 scvs dead even after he was behind. big mistake did not really notice how many he got the first time around. he should have lost at most 2 it's not like he didn't know the reaver was there and he sent all his scvs to the most exposed patch possible
It's amazing that Snow won game 5. Usually when Flash has a stable base late game he would win. And I don't think anybody had that much success using Arbiter recall against Flash either.
Flash still has a chance to get the seed spot for season6 since herO is leaving for armies. So like it happened when bisu left for season5, they will hold a tourny for that spot and Flash is most likely to get it.
flash will definitely be back next season. i am 100% confident he will plow through all the quals of people so hyped to play against him and try to cheese him.. and progamers etc.
Best PvT series in all of ASL, deserves a place in hall of fame. I understand Flash has plenty of the fans and he deserves all of his championships, but one player completely dominating the scene for so long is toxic to the long term viability of brood war. I personally lost interest in competitive brood war due to the predictability of the final result.
I don't agree with the map imbalance argument. For one, most people were probably expecting Flash to lose on Sparkle and on Transistor.
The game on Gladiator was awesome so that definitely wasn't a factor.
Regarding Third World. Snow deserves credit for making smart decisions and good micro/macro to actually get to carriers and arbs. He also kept attacking Flash's large army in middle of map which delayed Flash's push. Even Artosis was shocked that Snow had the balls to hit that army. His carriers and arbs dealt the decisive blow but you have to look at all the things that lead to the final push. Also, Flash could have attacked a minute earlier and possibly won. Or even attack despite the recall in his base. Flash has a tendency to back track. He's been doing that for years and I think that is one of his only weaknesses. Refuses to keep a small defence which would sometimes save him from back tracking.
Starcraft has always been about timing and every race has sweet spots. Protoss has a good early harass. Zerg has a strong mid game (before toss and terran death balls), Terran has a strong late game. In P V T, Toss has a sweet spot with Carriers because Terran anti-air tends to come later.
Thing is, Snow delayed his carriers which was really smart. Had he made them earlier, Flash would have had some extra options. Delaying the carriers stopped a potential all-in attack by Flash (base at bottom right etc). Terran needs to hurt Protoss as it is transitioning to carriers. That didn't happen because Snow delayed the carriers such that he had enough ground units to thwart an all-in. Delaying carriers also messed with Flash's unit composition. He kept making tanks which became a liability once the carriers eventually came out.
On May 02 2018 00:22 blade55555 wrote: Hehe wouldn't be a Flash loss without the blames on balance/maps or another excuse. Grats to Snow, did not think he would take it, especially on game 5!
Well, how else do you explain the 7P 7Z and 2T in the ro16? If it isn't the maps, what is it? It's a pretty legit excuse.
I cheered for snow and I think he played extremely well and deserved to win. But if it would have been the asl4 map pool, I'm not sure snow makes it through. That's why I wish we had a more balanced map pool with maps favoring different races so that players have to adapt to the disadvantageous maps. Again, just like jangbi vs fantasy on pathfinder, or the second game of this set, which was on sparkle. I feel like only flash is able to adapt to new maps and playstyles, and even then, he ended up losing because snow is a very good player himself.
other players couldn't adapt/practice well and sucked? Pardon my language. Seriously, Sea lost to an inactive Movie on Gladiator. Last couldn't adapt and lost also on Gladiator to Snow but first, he lost to Miso on Sparkle and ended up eliminating Mong! sSak wasn't even around this time.
Light played terribly aside from the first x minutes on Sparkle vs Shine and did a failed all-in vs Shuttle on Transistor. Rush got pushed to losers by Mind and then got eliminated by Best on Transistor. Who else is left? Sharp who is imo only great at TvT.
Yeah I guess the quality of players make sense. That's what I was thinking too, because outside of Flash, we only see sparks of Last or Mind. That's about it. Meanwhile, zerg and protoss have plenty of capable players, especially zerg. Remove flash and terran is basically dead :/ I just wish we can have great players on each race so that we can have meaningful rivalries between them again.
I think when one race struggles, the quality of the games obviously diminish, so I am quite thankful we still have flash haha.
Of course it's all about the skill lvl of the players man! , you use Jangbi vs Fantasy on pathfinder to rest your map imbalance case and at the time Fantasy vs protoss, actually, Fantasy vs almost anybody was practically broken, he would have raped any other human that sits in that pc and pick Protoss no metter the map would have been Pathfinder, Python or Fortress, and then Jangbi did it, not by chance or map balance, he then proven he was the best pvt, no wait, the best Protoss and mb the best Bw player of that period time. Map balance is such and easy accusation these days and It's probably due to the weiness and how far from "perfect balance" FS CB many maps are. But lets not get overdriven by it, games are usually good and mostly the better performer ends up victorious. Its not fair to name one of Janbi's feats and put map balance in such high place, we are talking about one of the highest peaks in terms of skill BW as a game reached: Jangbi, The Amlighty . To these day why keep talking and asking about the guy in TL forums eventho he is completely vanished, not because he had great hair but because his gigantic skills have no pair, Pathfinder my ass
On May 06 2018 13:18 orvinreyes wrote: 35 fucking pages. Can't believe this is bigger news than GSL S1 finals
BW ded gaem my ass
BW ded gaem
when flash leaves the game will take a blow but there are still good players. larva and rain are considered 'new blood' aren't they?
tho i really want to see a bw player come out of no where .. any day now..
Mini beat Larva convincingly 3-0 in the round of 8. Mini is the probably the best Toss player right now, even better than Snow. Only player he probably can't beat is Flash. Snow is the Terran killer. Rain and Mini should split their prize money with Snow, they both owe him big time.
Mini does come across as kind of arrogant but it seems justified based on his game play. Larva is arrogant as well but I think he will tone it down after being flogged by Mini. I think Larva got even more cocky after beating Jaedong quite easily but all the games finished early and one of the games was decided with only a couple of drones left for both players.
I'd like to see Larva go a long macro games in a BO5 series against other quality zerg players such as Hero, Jaedong or Action. Larva has a reputation of being a beast in macro but after his easy loss to Mini, be good to get some perspective of where he is at by playing a long Z V Z series against a quality opponent.
On May 02 2018 00:22 blade55555 wrote: Hehe wouldn't be a Flash loss without the blames on balance/maps or another excuse. Grats to Snow, did not think he would take it, especially on game 5!
Well, how else do you explain the 7P 7Z and 2T in the ro16? If it isn't the maps, what is it? It's a pretty legit excuse.
I cheered for snow and I think he played extremely well and deserved to win. But if it would have been the asl4 map pool, I'm not sure snow makes it through. That's why I wish we had a more balanced map pool with maps favoring different races so that players have to adapt to the disadvantageous maps. Again, just like jangbi vs fantasy on pathfinder, or the second game of this set, which was on sparkle. I feel like only flash is able to adapt to new maps and playstyles, and even then, he ended up losing because snow is a very good player himself.
other players couldn't adapt/practice well and sucked? Pardon my language. Seriously, Sea lost to an inactive Movie on Gladiator. Last couldn't adapt and lost also on Gladiator to Snow but first, he lost to Miso on Sparkle and ended up eliminating Mong! sSak wasn't even around this time.
Light played terribly aside from the first x minutes on Sparkle vs Shine and did a failed all-in vs Shuttle on Transistor. Rush got pushed to losers by Mind and then got eliminated by Best on Transistor. Who else is left? Sharp who is imo only great at TvT.
Yeah I guess the quality of players make sense. That's what I was thinking too, because outside of Flash, we only see sparks of Last or Mind. That's about it. Meanwhile, zerg and protoss have plenty of capable players, especially zerg. Remove flash and terran is basically dead :/ I just wish we can have great players on each race so that we can have meaningful rivalries between them again.
I think when one race struggles, the quality of the games obviously diminish, so I am quite thankful we still have flash haha.
Of course it's all about the skill lvl of the players man! , you use Jangbi vs Fantasy on pathfinder to rest your map imbalance case and at the time Fantasy vs protoss, actually, Fantasy vs almost anybody was practically broken, he would have raped any other human that sits in that pc and pick Protoss no metter the map would have been Pathfinder, Python or Fortress, and then Jangbi did it, not by chance or map balance, he then proven he was the best pvt, no wait, the best Protoss and mb the best Bw player of that period time. Map balance is such and easy accusation these days and It's probably due to the weiness and how far from "perfect balance" FS CB many maps are. But lets not get overdriven by it, games are usually good and mostly the better performer ends up victorious. Its not fair to name one of Janbi's feats and put map balance in such high place, we are talking about one of the highest peaks in terms of skill BW as a game reached: Jangbi, The Amlighty . To these day why keep talking and asking about the guy in TL forums eventho he is completely vanished, not because he had great hair but because his gigantic skills have no pair, Pathfinder my ass
That jangbang love! Hahaha. Can’t forget his draw game vs Flash. One of the best PvTers indeed.
Late to the party, but wow! What an incredible series this was!
Snow reaver control was insane throughout the whole series. Also great recalls and drops and insane micro! Two kills on a probe, can't remember ever seeing that at such a high level! Flash showed also some brilliant play. Knowing that the shuttle is a fake in game 4? Are you kidding me!? Or that shuttle hunting in game 2!
Too bad Flash is out but Snow played really brilliantly. I wish there were more standards maps but oh well, the games were still extremely entertaining even in unconventional. I love watching late game PvT and we saw that only in game 3.
On May 16 2018 08:36 Lebesgue wrote: Late to the party, but wow! What an incredible series this was!
Snow reaver control was insane throughout the whole series. Also great recalls and drops and insane micro! Two kills on a probe, can't remember ever seeing that at such a high level! Flash showed also some brilliant play. Knowing that the shuttle is a fake in game 4? Are you kidding me!? Or that shuttle hunting in game 2!
Too bad Flash is out but Snow played really brilliantly. I wish there were more standards maps but oh well, the games were still extremely entertaining even in unconventional. I love watching late game PvT and we saw that only in game 3.
Is it, really? :p
I think the mapmakers went anti-T to the extreme this year, but if Blizzard won't change anything about the balance the mapmakers reign supreme. Nobody except the die hard Flash fans want to see him win every single time, so even though we end up with an all Protoss finals it is at least a more unique situation than Flash steamrolling his way into yet another finals victory.
To the "well players should be better than him" people...yes, players should be able to be better than him. I wonder why there are so many Terran Bonjwas, and no P and 1 Z. Yep, all those T Bonjwas clearly could have had the same results as any race. Statistics be damned, more intelligent people just play T.
On May 16 2018 08:36 Lebesgue wrote: Late to the party, but wow! What an incredible series this was!
Snow reaver control was insane throughout the whole series. Also great recalls and drops and insane micro! Two kills on a probe, can't remember ever seeing that at such a high level! Flash showed also some brilliant play. Knowing that the shuttle is a fake in game 4? Are you kidding me!? Or that shuttle hunting in game 2!
Too bad Flash is out but Snow played really brilliantly. I wish there were more standards maps but oh well, the games were still extremely entertaining even in unconventional. I love watching late game PvT and we saw that only in game 3.
Is it, really? :p
I think the mapmakers went anti-T to the extreme this year, but if Blizzard won't change anything about the balance the mapmakers reign supreme. Nobody except the die hard Flash fans want to see him win every single time, so even though we end up with an all Protoss finals it is at least a more unique situation than Flash steamrolling his way into yet another finals victory.
To the "well players should be better than him" people...yes, players should be able to be better than him. I wonder why there are so many Terran Bonjwas, and no P and 1 Z. Yep, all those T Bonjwas clearly could have had the same results as any race. Statistics be damned, more intelligent people just play T.
I disagree regarding your balance complains. And I hope that Blizzard will not touch BW with any "balancing patches." Whatever small imbalances there are, they can be, and always has been, corrected by maps. The amp-makers went a bit too far with maps unfavored to T. That will be surely corrected in the next ASL.
The game has been proven to be balanceable solely with the map pool and people still talk about changing the balance in the gameplay. Please don't, just keep a varied map pool and bw is gonna be balanced forever. It's simple really.
On May 28 2018 20:45 nimdil wrote: Will Flash win 4th ASL or is ASL like OSL and MSL - you can have only 3? :-.
I think the results are incidental, and caused by entirely different sets of circumstances.
There were over 30 OGN StarLeagues, and over 20 MBC Game StarLeagues over the course of Brood War history, and nobody managed to win a huge bulk of either of these tournaments due to the rapid turn-over rate of talent.
It is different for the AfreecaTV StarLeague, because Flash has already won three out of the five that took place, and it is the same people competing against each other in an incestuous manner without a significant influx of new talent. It is the lack of competitive platform to showcase his dominance that is holding Flash back, rather than the cut throat nature of the available competition.
On May 28 2018 20:45 nimdil wrote: Will Flash win 4th ASL or is ASL like OSL and MSL - you can have only 3? :-.
I think the results are incidental, and caused by entirely different sets of circumstances.
There were over 30 OGN StarLeagues, and over 20 MBC Game StarLeagues over the course of Brood War history, and nobody managed to win a huge bulk of either of these tournaments due to the rapid turn-over rate of talent.
It is different for the AfreecaTV StarLeague, because Flash has already won three out of the five that took place, and it is the same people competing against each other in an incestuous manner without a significant influx of new talent. It is the lack of competitive platform to showcase his dominance that is holding Flash back, rather than the cut throat nature of the available competition.
You took my argument way more seriously than I expected to.
Whether Flash will win 4th ASL or not, at this moment for one reason or the other he won 3 of each OSL/MSL/ASL which is funny as he was just denied 4th ASL.
EPT
Afreeca Starleague Season 5![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/players/424.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/players/652.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://entusgalleries.com/images/players-uniforms/signed-snow.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://puu.sh/Ae5sd/f1b4afb38c.png)
. To these day why keep talking and asking about the guy in TL forums eventho he is completely vanished, not because he had great hair but because his gigantic skills have no pair, Pathfinder my ass
