Match-fixing accusations are taken very seriously on TL. Do NOT make any kind of match-fixing accusation unless you have proof. The "shady" things that a player did in-game does not count as proof.
Wow, Sharp is looking very strong, while Rain is looking surprisingly week. Sharp has been doing a lot of meditation lately, and it seems to work. I know a lot of other people who have become just better people due to meditation. Really interesting.
I have a hard time seeing Rain doing well in upcoming tournaments tbh, esp since he went 0-4 vs JD too in KSL.
On September 19 2018 18:00 A.Alm wrote: ---SPOILERS---
Wow, Sharp is looking very strong, while Rain is looking surprisingly week. Sharp has been doing a lot of meditation lately, and it seems to work. I know a lot of other people who have become just better people due to meditation. Really interesting.
I have a hard time seeing Rain doing well in upcoming tournaments tbh, esp since he went 0-4 vs JD too in KSL.
I think you are being a bit to harsh on Rain, he really messed up, getting the dragoon stuck on the ramp surrounded by SCVs, and was really unlucky with his probe drill in his game vs Sharp.
In his other games I thought he was playing so damn good at times, the way he expanded at the same time as he was attacking and just overall being great with his overall macro play. But I don't know what he was thinking taking so many bad engagements against Sea and making that game feel a lot closer than it needed to be.
And yes, I know that is the strategy in that kind of a game, when he had so much more income than Sea he could take bad trades like that and starve Sea out. And it worked. But there were a few times where he left himself to exposed and he took some really bad engagements. He said he was disappointed about it himself in the interview. And it is hard to take good engagements when you spend so much time and effort keeping your macro up, and it worked out pretty decisively in the end.
Beating Mind and Sea is really good and I don't think Rain looked weak at all.
That last game was so weird. If Rain saturated his bottom right bases he would have run Sea over ages ago. Instead there were only a handful of probes there and he kept throwing his units away. The worst engagement was the recall at the nat right next to the Terran army.That did not make any sense whatsoever, if he recalls the main it deals so much more damage. Maybe he was afraid the Arbiter would get emp'ed but it's way better than losing your whole army.
On September 19 2018 19:49 Dante08 wrote: That last game was so weird. If Rain saturated his bottom right bases he would have run Sea over ages ago. Instead there were only a handful of probes there and he kept throwing his units away. The worst engagement was the recall at the nat right next to the Terran army.That did not make any sense whatsoever, if he recalls the main it deals so much more damage. Maybe he was afraid the Arbiter would get emp'ed but it's way better than losing your whole army.
Yeah that recall definitely wasn't what he wanted. The interesting thing though is that even though they were both maxed out when that recall went off, after the fighting was done Rain had a supply lead of 174 to 162. Sea never maxed out again after that and Rain pretty much never dropped below 170 supply.
On September 19 2018 10:04 SlayerS_BunkiE wrote: Had to drop off before Rain vs Sea, but was really unimpressed with Rain vs Mind. His suicide of units that evened out supplies was pretty atrocious. He had the advantage so he could afford the mistake. And I dont buy that it wasnt a mistake. Even if you are looking to trade inefficiently, there are plenty of opportunities to do so when the T moves out. In the meantime you can expand further and build up a bank. Well, it wasnt that bad.. its always tricky assessing when an attack will work or not; which is what separates those with good game sense from those who dont. I should probably give Rain a break but its hard to give him the benefit of the doubt when he does it so many times vs Zerg. And it sounds like he sort of did it again vs Sea too. Would have to watch it though.
Waiting for the Terran to move out to trade inefficiently sounds like a good way to get steamrolled. Having a bank isn't going to save you then.
On September 19 2018 04:41 nurle wrote: Im sorry, but Rapid shouldn't cast sc1. He might be a great sc2 caster. But he doesn't know what hes talking about. Contradicting his cocasters and even himself all the time. And tiny details is missed every time. This noregret guy tho is awesome.
i agree 100%
he is lacking basic bw knowledge:
In game 1 he didn't know why Rain build the pilon nest to the minerals while the probe was reatreating... speaking about some proxy options while it was to have vision of minerals outside the base so he can probe-drill. That was a cool move they would be able to speak about, but they were unable because of not knowing that is important.
also in the Sea vs Sharp game they were keep saying that the situation is even, never mentioned and maybe noticed that Sharp was 1 base up for a really long period and that he was splitting the map better.
in the final game they thought Sea is in advantage... it was just 1-2 minutes before he died. Rain had a much better economy for so long.
On September 19 2018 19:49 Dante08 wrote: That last game was so weird. If Rain saturated his bottom right bases he would have run Sea over ages ago. Instead there were only a handful of probes there and he kept throwing his units away. The worst engagement was the recall at the nat right next to the Terran army.That did not make any sense whatsoever, if he recalls the main it deals so much more damage. Maybe he was afraid the Arbiter would get emp'ed but it's way better than losing your whole army.
In my opinion, Rain should have for no reason whatsoever done anything with bottom right. He had two gates there and was semi-saturated, this base was bait.
Remember when he desperately counterpushed at the 6 o'clocked after the botched offensive recall (decent idea in keeping with his overall strategy, bad execution - he got flustered because his arbiters were under fire and recalled terribly), so Sea had to backtrack to save his 4th? Right then Rain had the 12 and adjacent mineral only, and they were a big part of his income.
Think about Sea pushing after a bad recall or particularly inefficient trade, defending his 4th and then destroying the bottom right? This is a Terran dream, you can mine pretty well to stall reinforcements from top right and push into bottom right. He didn't need that base and Sea knew it, he never pushed in that direction.
On September 19 2018 10:04 SlayerS_BunkiE wrote: Had to drop off before Rain vs Sea, but was really unimpressed with Rain vs Mind. His suicide of units that evened out supplies was pretty atrocious. He had the advantage so he could afford the mistake. And I dont buy that it wasnt a mistake. Even if you are looking to trade inefficiently, there are plenty of opportunities to do so when the T moves out. In the meantime you can expand further and build up a bank. Well, it wasnt that bad.. its always tricky assessing when an attack will work or not; which is what separates those with good game sense from those who dont. I should probably give Rain a break but its hard to give him the benefit of the doubt when he does it so many times vs Zerg. And it sounds like he sort of did it again vs Sea too. Would have to watch it though.
Waiting for the Terran to move out to trade inefficiently sounds like a good way to get steamrolled. Having a bank isn't going to save you then.
I humbly disagree. Suiciding into sieged tanks in a Terran base would be an even quicker way. This was figured out when all Flash did was defend with no map control or the threat of pushing out before max. P realized they can take over the map and build many gateways in various locations and remax in the blink of an eye. Granted not a lot of Ps can actually execute this, but it was the best way to beat Flash back then.. Flash lost a lot of games to this strat and had to level up his game sense and timing in order to punish Protosses for expanding too much / too soon. Obviously I'm not saying never attack a Terran in his base and always wait for him to move out. Rain did a great great job knowing that Mind had too little (and no vultures) when taking his third, and this attack is what got Rain the lead in the first place. Again, maybe I shouldnt be too hard on Rain, but it seems like he has a very real tendency to attack when maxed regardless of the situation. He had such good sense in the mid game and then it's usually the opposite in late game. It almost seems that he doesnt believe there is an option to NOT attack when maxed.
So what's the alternative to attacking when Protoss is maxed out besides expanding and teching (which Rain did) whilst the Terran is not actively expanding, pushing out or even fighting for map control (which Sea wasn't doing)?
On September 19 2018 19:49 Dante08 wrote: That last game was so weird. If Rain saturated his bottom right bases he would have run Sea over ages ago. Instead there were only a handful of probes there and he kept throwing his units away. The worst engagement was the recall at the nat right next to the Terran army.That did not make any sense whatsoever, if he recalls the main it deals so much more damage. Maybe he was afraid the Arbiter would get emp'ed but it's way better than losing your whole army.
In my opinion, Rain should have for no reason whatsoever done anything with bottom right. He had two gates there and was semi-saturated, this base was bait.
Remember when he desperately counterpushed at the 6 o'clocked after the botched offensive recall (decent idea in keeping with his overall strategy, bad execution - he got flustered because his arbiters were under fire and recalled terribly), so Sea had to backtrack to save his 4th? Right then Rain had the 12 and adjacent mineral only, and they were a big part of his income.
Think about Sea pushing after a bad recall or particularly inefficient trade, defending his 4th and then destroying the bottom right? This is a Terran dream, you can mine pretty well to stall reinforcements from top right and push into bottom right. He didn't need that base and Sea knew it, he never pushed in that direction.
Rain is a smart guy.
Rain definitely needed that base, at one point in the game he was only on 3 mining bases which is not enough to keep throwing units away like he did.
Also there's no reason why Protoss wouldn't saturate a base with probes + gateways, it takes Terran ages to push up into a main with gateways + cannons and if Sea really attacked bottom right Rain could easily take top left. Sea never pushed bottom right because he was stuck in his base the whole time and when he did manage to push out, he needed to push towards 3 o'clock because his new base was there (4th didn't have much minerals left).
He just played below his usual standard but still won as he is still superior to Sea in this matchup.
On September 20 2018 12:06 RKC wrote: So what's the alternative to attacking when Protoss is maxed out besides expanding and teching (which Rain did) whilst the Terran is not actively expanding, pushing out or even fighting for map control (which Sea wasn't doing)?
But hey, Rain won and he had the game under control, I think he knew what he was doing. But as he said himself, he wasn't that happy with a lot of the engagements.
But it takes so much skill to have good engagements when you are macroing that much at the same time, and he seemed to spend more apm on keeping the macro up than he did in the engagements, that is a valid strategy.
I think Rains macro and army movement is insane. He just played so different, esp compared to snow & mini. I much prefer watching them, because they always make reavers and they are abs nuts with em hehe.
On September 19 2018 15:51 reincremate wrote: Rain stupidly suiciding his armies is nothing new. He's blessed with strong mechanics but has comparatively poor decision-making that is sometimes hilariously bad, which is probably the result of too much time spent looking at titties and not enough time spent practicing. Here's a prime example of very Rain-esque play (ASL4 Ro8 Rain vs Larva Game 4): Not hating on the dude or anything, as I find his play entertaining to watch, but if he runs into Flash this time around, he's going to get stomped by superior preparation and overall gamesense.
I remember that game. I was so pissed at Rain's play.
You say he's going to get stomped, but Rain has a better record vs Flash online and they're always macro games. I know online is online but Rain definitely has the skills to beat Flash in a BO5.
Sharp taking first place was definitely not on anyone's mind but that's what happens when you are scouted going nexus first. Still, it's been such a long time since we've seen TvT that it was nice to see really long macro games. Same goes for those long macro TvPs that were on display in this group. Sylphid has surprisingly lead to some cool games.