[ASL7] Semifinal A - Mini vs EffOrt

On March 03 2019 16:30 NoS-Craig wrote:
I can't see Mini winning this one. I'm not looking forward to a 3-0 stomp so hopefully Mini makes it a competitive series at least.

On March 03 2019 17:56 oEkY wrote:
Mini recently played a lot of pvz ladder games with an 1 base 1 gate fast reaver build, so i'm really curious to see if he got the guts to play something like that in an ASL semifinal against someone like Effort as well

On March 03 2019 19:28 nojok wrote:
Really mini? That's not what we want, you are killing starcraft.

On March 03 2019 19:34 mechzdeus wrote:
Getting ads for Friends watching Broodwar in 2019

On March 03 2019 19:28 nojok wrote:
Really mini? That's not what we want, you are killing starcraft.

On March 03 2019 19:40 goody153 wrote:
if mini actually wins this series

we might end up with a pvp finals (which i don't remember ever happening lately) as last prolly will get smashed by rain like the usual

On March 03 2019 19:49 RJGooner wrote:
What the hell was Effort doing? How do you not immediately throw down sunkens after seeing 4 gateways?

On March 03 2019 19:52 sM.Zik wrote:
Damn I enjoy watching Mini PvZ

On March 03 2019 19:53 keit wrote:
all I was hoping for was that it wouldn't just be a steamroll for either player..

come on effort

On March 03 2019 19:54 goody153 wrote:

yeah i actually thought this would at least be competitive given the players and their MU

On March 03 2019 20:02 KwarK wrote:
I still feel like Mini's style is easily beatable, the question now is whether it's beatable by Effort while not responding to scouting info.

On March 03 2019 20:20 BLinD-RawR wrote:
This next set is going to be so hard for EffOrt

block chain is a shitshow for ZvP

On March 03 2019 20:36 maybenexttime wrote:


Zerg solidarity.

On March 03 2019 19:01 sM.Zik wrote:
Mini has good PvZ but I think Effort takes this 3-2, but wouldnt be schoked if its a 3-0 after Mini mentality breaks down.

On March 03 2019 20:55 nojok wrote:
GG

Go last, save us from PvP!

On March 03 2019 20:56 Jackal03 wrote:
my god, i can only hope last beats rain, else we're gonna have another shitty finals

On March 03 2019 20:59 PanoRaMa wrote:
Really wanted EffOrt in the finals, but he was fated to lose on the anniversary of the Revolution, the day an up and coming PvZ savant beat the #1 in the world.

On March 03 2019 20:58 Dante08 wrote:
Effort tried to be too smart in the games he lost. Why keep going muta?

On March 03 2019 21:04 Wonk wrote:
I'm wondering what Mini can do to prepare for this series because I've never been hugely impressed by his PvT or PvP.

On March 03 2019 20:59 goody153 wrote:

mini is a beast and so is rain .. i would love any of them in the finals

but not together .. pvp is the least fun MU by a margin

On March 03 2019 21:01 Jackal03 wrote:
if rain wins, the 3rd place match will be more interesting than the finals

On March 03 2019 21:06 Kaolla wrote:


Mini is a lucky guy and not quite a beast at all. I mean, he wins vs Calm who played like shit and today's Effort was also pretty poor... All wins today are pretty much early game wins and effort even scouts exactly what he's doing 2/3 losses and he still manages to fuck up badly. Just a poor series in general in my opinion or at least I definitely did not feel any of the games were really that good (except for maybe game 3, but Effort also played super sloppy in that imo)...

On March 03 2019 21:23 xccam wrote:

Surprisingly every time the unexpected player wins, it's "luck" rather than any skill...

On March 03 2019 21:38 Kaolla wrote:


Well maybe not really luck, but I mean any other (pro) protoss using the same builds would have won these games. I feel Mini just didn't do anything special really and it was mostly Effort that lost the games. So yea, I feel tonight's games were not that great at all and a 3-2 series isn't automatically a great series. I guess we don't all have to agree on that

On March 03 2019 21:06 Kaolla wrote:


Mini is a lucky guy and not quite a beast at all. I mean, he wins vs Calm who played like shit and today's Effort was also pretty poor... All wins today are pretty much early game wins and effort even scouts exactly what he's doing 2/3 losses and he still manages to fuck up badly. Just a poor series in general in my opinion or at least I definitely did not feel any of the games were really that good (except for maybe game 3, but Effort also played super sloppy in that imo)...

On March 03 2019 22:02 ggsimida wrote:
just realised mini has only played pvz for the entirety of this tourney so far, including his wildcard seed match against action. being able to concentrate on only 1 type of matchup must be pretty comforting too.

On March 03 2019 21:01 oxKnu wrote:


Because Z's are used to getting free wins by just going Mutas for such a long time, along with Z's not caring what P usually does in the matchup in terms of BO. It's hard to beat old habits.

On March 03 2019 22:22 M2 wrote:

I would agree with this completely if it was anything but PvZ. I think any protoss but Bisu will prefer to face different race every game than facing only zergs

On March 04 2019 02:47 BisuDagger wrote:
Great games by Mini. Rain has got to be really happy about this result too. Based on stats alone this would be a free win finals.

On March 04 2019 03:24 Disregard wrote:


I cannot imagine how emotionally devastating that will be to Mini... To be 3-0'ed by Rain.

On March 03 2019 20:59 Nyovne wrote:
Great last 2 games but FFFFFFFUUUUUUUAAAAAAAARRRRRRKKKKKKKKKKKK damned pvp finals. Hate that shit with a passion. Even prefer a zvz series with the hope for at least 1 lategame zvz in there somewhere ;P.

On March 04 2019 09:12 Ty2 wrote:
I'm pulling for Last all the way now that Effort is out. The man deserves it!

On March 04 2019 11:34 Li_Xin wrote:

But he killed Jaedong...

On March 03 2019 22:44 Dante08 wrote:


I'll credit to Mini though, instead of building Corsairs when he saw Mutas he built Archons + dragoons which I seldom see and Effort was totally caught off guard. There were a few times in the series where he just flew mutas and a ton of scourge in with no Corsairs to snipe lol.

On March 03 2019 20:59 Nyovne wrote:
Great last 2 games but FFFFFFFUUUUUUUAAAAAAAARRRRRRKKKKKKKKKKKK damned pvp finals. Hate that shit with a passion. Even prefer a zvz series with the hope for at least 1 lategame zvz in there somewhere ;P.

On March 04 2019 13:04 L_Master wrote:
Huh? Rain v Last hasn't been played....

On March 04 2019 16:47 JoinTheRain wrote:

Everyone just assumes Rain will steamroll Last and do the same to Mini; they don't seem to recall Sharp beat him in a convincing fashion TvP Bo5 and I would not say Last is worse than Sharp. Just like they expected Effort to do with Mini, I guess. I am not saying it's impossible for Rain to smash Last but he will to bring his absolute A game in order to do so.
But anyway - this is why the game is so enjoyable to me - to predict the outcome of uncertain events based on past performance is so shaky and unreliable.

On March 03 2019 21:49 arbiter_md wrote:


Just think about it - we didn't see one storm today, in 5 PvZ games!

On March 05 2019 00:41 JieXian wrote:


Yeah that's interesting to note. I was rooting for effort especially since he could stomp rain or last but damn Mini played very well and deserved the win. There's a good reason why larva voted for mini too I suppose.

I'm terrible at ZvP so I don't know, was effort's reaction to his scouting of mini's builds bad? (Eg game 5) Did mini outsmart him or did effort not play as well as he should have?

Bigfan, please just shut up about Flash already

On March 04 2019 13:04 L_Master wrote:


Huh? Rain v Last hasn't been played....

On March 05 2019 06:43 KamMoye wrote:
Unless it's Flash v X, top pro v top pro is never worse than 3:1 for an upset. Anyone who thinks this is a tremendously huge upset isn't paying attention to the scene. There were many people who acted like effort was guaranteed finals. Just like now there are many acting like Rain can't lose. They're just hiding their ignorance through faux confidence. Well played and well deserved to Mini.

On March 04 2019 23:06 BigFan wrote:
This series was just great. To the untrained eye, it'd feel like EffOrt underperformed and there's a possibility that he did in some games, but Mini played the series so well with the way he utilized his units to their best and varied up his style in each game. In game 1, we saw his fantastic zealot micro and a great opener that stunned EffOrt from the start. Game 2 saw the 4 gate speedlot +1 attack, and while EffOrt held the first wave, he was not prepared to hold future ones especially since he went mutas and Mini did a fantastic job of splitting the units up. Game 3 was great defense by EffOrt and then Mini fumbling in the trees so that the mutas closed in on the reavers (his last chance to do something since he almost mined out on 2 bases) then game 4 was a nice shuttle snipe from EffOrt, albeit a bit lucky when he got the first scourge hit. Only Larva seems to pull this stuff off consistently.

So, yes, the victory was well deserved, but in some games, it felt like Flash didn't play like himself. Maybe he was a bit nervous, felt like it when watching the interview early on. He also kept sticking to the same idea. He knows that EffOrt knows this, and kept going at it. The Flash I know wouldn't try to be that predictive imo...

On March 05 2019 10:47 JieXian wrote:
Regarding why Effort went muta again and again, my hypothesis is that he might face Rain in the finals and he was playing in a particular way in preparation for that. What do you think?

On March 05 2019 16:46 Ota Solgryn wrote:


So funny, now that it isnt Flash you can suddenly acknowledge a player making a favorite "look" bad but actually is just playing bettter. Im still salty about you phrasing when Effort beat Flash and you somehow made the conclusion that Flash was having a bad day.

On March 06 2019 04:01 Alpha-NP- wrote:
Anyone else notice that Effort used Burrow against Mini’s Sair-Reaver? Effort is so showy when he plays it is amazing.

On March 07 2019 01:36 KamMoye wrote:
Stress makes players perform worse. Flash is rarely stressed or tested, so forcing him under that kind of stress takes tremendous skill and preparation from the opponent. Most people who have seriously competed and accomplished anything realize that, and that's why no one cares if someone is "playing bad"--no one at that level ever just "plays bad"--their opponent made them.

It's human nature to rationalize. If you wanted to make excuses after the fact, you shouldn't of competed in the first place.

On March 07 2019 10:36 darktreb wrote:
One reason people overestimated Effort is because they naturally translate his results against Flash to how he should perform against others.

This overlooks how Effort is uniquely good at playing against Flash. Flash has insane game sense and in-game reads. Effort takes advantage of this better than anyone, because he knows he can count on Flash to notice something no one else would.

Ironically, Effort is less good at playing against almost everyone else precisely because they are less good at Starcraft than Flash.

Of course, Effort is still an incredibly good player, and that's why he still wins at a very high rate. But he is able to become a different level of player only against Flash, due to the unique combination of their respective strengths.

On March 07 2019 01:36 KamMoye wrote:
Stress makes players perform worse. Flash is rarely stressed or tested, so forcing him under that kind of stress takes tremendous skill and preparation from the opponent. Most people who have seriously competed and accomplished anything realize that, and that's why no one cares if someone is "playing bad"--no one at that level ever just "plays bad"--their opponent made them.

It's human nature to rationalize. If you wanted to make excuses after the fact, you shouldn't of competed in the first place.

On March 07 2019 10:36 darktreb wrote:
One reason people overestimated Effort is because they naturally translate his results against Flash to how he should perform against others.

This overlooks how Effort is uniquely good at playing against Flash. Flash has insane game sense and in-game reads. Effort takes advantage of this better than anyone, because he knows he can count on Flash to notice something no one else would.

Ironically, Effort is less good at playing against almost everyone else precisely because they are less good at Starcraft than Flash.

Of course, Effort is still an incredibly good player, and that's why he still wins at a very high rate. But he is able to become a different level of player only against Flash, due to the unique combination of their respective strengths.

On March 09 2019 01:13 Xain0n wrote:
If Last plays on his ro4 and ro8 level he should be able to prevail, otherwise Mini will do it.

On March 09 2019 01:04 SC_ar wrote:
Anybody believe that Mini can actually beat Last?