[ASL8] Ro8 Day2 Sharp vs Action

On August 06 2019 19:40 Jackal03 wrote:
Sharp situation is terrible, I don't think he can turn around this game

On August 06 2019 20:28 Liquid`Drone wrote:
was a very mismanaged defense on his behalf for sure. if he had more patience with his first 15-20 hydras (just let his base die) and established a proper wide-angled attack I think he could have held.

On August 06 2019 20:42 Terrorbladder wrote:
Sharp not gg'ing?

On August 06 2019 20:40 Jackal03 wrote:
LOL, so many drones sent to sharp natural

On August 06 2019 20:52 Wonk wrote:
this has been such a messy series from both sides. I'm not sure whether it's their playstyles bumping against eachother badly but it seems to be all weaknesses

On August 06 2019 21:26 Xain0n wrote:


It's still possible!

On August 06 2019 21:08 Jackal03 wrote:
game 5 was a huge disapointment.

Well, if action play this sloppy against snow, he will miss the finals

On August 06 2019 21:11 Wonk wrote:
what a weird series. Neither showed their best, it was just an art gallery of weird plays and mistakes. What was up with Sharp not getting irradiate and floating his science facility?

On August 06 2019 21:26 Xain0n wrote:


It's still possible!

On August 06 2019 23:03 Alpha-NP- wrote:
I did not expect Action to win at all. But that just shows how strong he is. We gotta rely on Action and Zero to pick up the Zerg torch.

On August 07 2019 08:22 fearthequeen wrote:
To be fair, finishing off a Terran who is not moving out and committed to defending, is probably the hardest thing in the game. Zergs at this level know that bleeding units into a wall of Terran is the best way to throw a big lead in zvt. That's why zergs tend to just drone up after a successful attack.

I agree that his play was very sloppy, but the decision making/thought process was good.

On August 07 2019 11:32 konadora wrote:
that was in no way a ro8 level of performance

absolutely atrocious lol the less-shittier player advanced

On August 06 2019 23:56 Xain0n wrote:


Have Sacsri and Action already completed military service? If not, they won't last much given they were both born in 1992.

On August 08 2019 06:34 BisuDagger wrote:

I completely agree with you. I finished the games and came to the thread thinking I watched the most fun series in a long time. Mistakes were made, but these games were a nailbiter. I'm sure more people enjoyed these games then let on. There are lots of great posters in this forum that are critical of players, but I rather enjoy hearing their viewpoints even if they aren't my own.

On August 08 2019 06:34 BisuDagger wrote:

I completely agree with you. I finished the games and came to the thread thinking I watched the most fun series in a long time. Mistakes were made, but these games were a nailbiter. I'm sure more people enjoyed these games then let on. There are lots of great posters in this forum that are critical of players, but I rather enjoy hearing their viewpoints even if they aren't my own.

On August 08 2019 14:36 Malinor wrote:


Scrappy games are super fun if the players are playing good StarCraft or it is some Ro32 game.
This is a Ro8 game, the level of play is just not what I expect at this stage.

Actually, I take this back, it is the level of play I expect unfortunately. No matter how much love I have for the game, it is clear to see that these are just ex-pro players, 10 years older without a good training environment.

Watching some new strategies is fun, the execution not so much.

edit: There are still pleasent surprises out there, like Snow's PvT.

On August 08 2019 16:22 TornadoSteve wrote:


Most of the remaining active bw players are playing the best bw of their life, and that include Action and Sharp.
May be not in their last bo5, but they are playing better than they were in the kespa era and this is not even close.

On August 09 2019 03:22 TaardadAiel wrote:
Don't get me wrong, Snow is for me at least in better overall shape than Rain (excluding PvP), but Action's ZvP is really strong. I'd consider Snow vs Action one of the closest matches the current scene has to offer.

On August 09 2019 07:22 Cryoc wrote:
Action has a 5-10 record in ZvP in ASL compared to his now 9-3 record in ZvT, so ZvP is hardly his best matchup in offline leagues. I hope he wins vs Snow, but that doesn't seem too likely.

On August 09 2019 03:17 Jaeyun wrote:
The pool is certainly smaller so there's that, but there is absolutely no denying that the top players today are far more skilled than that of the past simply because Starcraft is a game that builds on itself.

16) Some fans worry that without the support of the fully sponsored pro teams of the KeSPA era, today's aspiring pro Brood War players will never be able to reach the level of the current generation of top players. Do you think these concerns are justified?

hero: Well ... I think I might think that way. But now the star version has a different feeling. When I was in the old association, I saw that the teams were divided and there was not much interaction between them. Nowadays, everyone seems to be getting better by sharing solutions.

Of course, the amount of practice is not as great as before, but now it's enough to compete and try to win. I think it is almost similar to the highest level. The good thing about living in a professional team is that you will be able to practice enough, but I think that the conceptual part will fall.

17) With the return of a lot more BW players, the skill level has risen greatly and some players have went on record to say that they perform better than during the kespa days. Do you believe that the skill level has increased that much despite the lack of teams, practice partners and coaches? Please elaborate.

hero: During the KeSPA days, the concept seemed to be lacking. In my case, I faced protoss mainly on the team, and I could not face much terran and zerg.

These days, it seems that it will not be enough to just be good at BW. So, I think that the lack of things will gradually get better through practice. It is also helpful to learn the concept while watching the first person view of a good gamer. It is a lot different from the KeSPA days.

On August 09 2019 11:55 KamMoye wrote:


If that's your thesis... it's pretty weak as far as theses go.

A game that builds on itself? Unpack what that actually means.

1 It's fairly simple: pros put more focused time in the game back in KeSPA than they do now. 2 That and the players are simply less talented.

3 Even take a guy like Best. Look at his Kespa stats/ranking. Many of his peers are now gone--Bogus, Stats, Kal, so on. Yet he's not doing any better. I don't think he's more skilled now than before. If he was the same level player, he should be a dominant Protoss.

Some have improved. But take someone like Action. He and Stats were KT's 2nd and 3rd best players. 4 Action has less competition now; he was an average or slightly above average player back in the day. Now he's a top Zerg. 5 I mean, yeesh, who are the ten best Zergs/Terrans/Tosses now? Compared to ten years ago? It gets real ugly quick after the t5 in 2019.

On August 09 2019 13:15 fearthequeen wrote:

2 - This is an arbitrary statement. Do you mean they are generally older, and thus slower? Maybe less talented mechanically. Strategically they are more advanced though as has been discussed.

On August 09 2019 12:21 ggsimida wrote:
i think hero explained it well enough in his tl interview 2 years ago

On August 09 2019 07:22 Cryoc wrote:
Action has a 5-10 record in ZvP in ASL compared to his now 9-3 record in ZvT, so ZvP is hardly his best matchup in offline leagues. I hope he wins vs Snow, but that doesn't seem too likely.

On August 09 2019 20:24 JackyVSO wrote:
After watching this match, I'm afraid Action will have the same role next season as Horang2 had this season: The one whose group everyone wants to get in, and the only seed to miss the Ro.8. His performance was a huge contrast to Snow's victory vs Last.
If Action in any way gives Snow a run for his money in the semi final, it will really show how important matchup is compared to general skill.

On August 09 2019 11:55 KamMoye wrote:
If that's your thesis... it's pretty weak as far as theses go.

A game that builds on itself? Unpack what that actually means.

It's fairly simple: pros put more focused time in the game back in KeSPA than they do now. That and the players are simply less talented.

Even take a guy like Best. Look at his Kespa stats/ranking. Many of his peers are now gone--Bogus, Stats, Kal, so on. Yet he's not doing any better. I don't think he's more skilled now than before. If he was the same level player, he should be a dominant Protoss.

On August 10 2019 01:24 KamMoye wrote:
A debate, like a marriage, is only beautiful between two equals.

On August 09 2019 21:00 TornadoSteve wrote:


Speechless. This is so wrong on so many levels I dont even know where to start.
You clearly have no idea what you are talking about, Action is probably the #1 zerg in the world right now. He had a bad day, like everyone does, and still manage to advance to RO4. Oh and by the way, he is probably favorite over Snow in the RO4.

On August 10 2019 01:05 Jaeyun wrote:


What do you mean this is a weak thesis..? I can't quite tell if you're serious - this is literally what makes Starcraft what it is. Skill in Starcraft is largely defined by a combination of mechanics and knowledge. You seem to be placing so much equity into sheer practice hours, and not enough in the knowledge component of the game. If you watched the game throughout the years, you see that strategies developed as a result of optimization, and a response to players over time pushing their boundaries to what they thought was possible.

If you want me to challenge your simple statement that more focused time equates into higher skill, let's take a walk back in history, say, in TvZ.

You know a long time ago, top Z's used to spend all their time going 9 pool into 1 base lurker. This was TOP level play. Let's take your 8-12 hours a day of top level players really, really, really getting good at their 9pool and lurker control with like 2 lurkers and 12 lings. If you saw Soulkey practicing that over and over, and only that, how well do you think that would fare in today's game? Also, do you think he is getting much muta micro practice by only doing that, or learning other timings, practicing his micro, etc.? No. He's not. The game had to evolve and build on itself for people to figure out this wasn't optimal, and therefore, they began switching to other strategies and spent their time there.

Let's flip it and look at it from T's side. They started playing 1 base builds, then slowly optimized into 2 rax + high CC, to 1 rax + high CC, to 1 rax + low CC, and to, now, 1 rax + factory + CC + starport + vessel, living off of like 5 attacking units for 7 minutes. Why do you think the builds slowly went towards that direction? Well, the game built on itself - they took what their predecessors did, and made it better. Not only that, they pushed their boundaries of improving their micro, sim city, and most importantly, their scouting information (this is key), and developed razor thin timings/defenses to make it work. This is an improvement of not only knowledge, but also raw, mechanical skill. It takes WAY more skill to practice 1 rax + low CC (scouting/microing/optimizing) than to sit with 2 barracks on a high ground with the security that you will likely not die to mass lings, which is what pros were spending their 8-12 hours on for a very long time.

I don't deny that there were harder practice schedules back in the KeSPA era, where the game was a real sport and there were lots of people in the pipeline, young and hungry to improve. Yes, that is important, and I do not discount that. There was much greater depth in the talent pool, but it's crazy if you think the top players then are better than the top players now. Sheer practice hours don't directly translate into skill - it might help in that era when everyone else is playing obsolete styles, but as you fast forward, any pro today can pick apart the strategies of old because it's now simple common sense. Ever see that guy on your local ladder playing thousands of games every season but never improving?

Your statement about Best not improving because his stats haven't gotten better makes no sense to me. First of all you can't compare two eras. Second, if everyone else is getting better (at least the top 24-ish), then of course his overall skill is improving but not relative to the competition to be dominant. We're comparing Best today vs. Best of old - I'm pretty sure he'll take his today self than the past.

I don't have a horse in this race but I think it's naive to blindly assume that all of these newer razor thin timings/defenses would hold against the arguably higher late kespa-era (pre-sc2) mechanics that players had back then.

On August 10 2019 05:58 Jaeyun wrote:


Just to clarify as my post may have been a little misleading - I don't deny that there was probably more time to practice mechanics and to execute strategies (though, there were less serious variation to deal with back then than now). With time, study, and practice, the KeSPA players would be able to pull off what is happening today (obviously, since they're doing it now).

What I absolutely disagree with is this notion that the "far superior mechanics" of the past would more than make up from the evolution of knowledge that took many years to develop. To put it simply, if I could pick a team of the top 5 players in the past year and put them against the top 5 players (even if they are the same people) back in any other past era, my team would completely dominate.

Even if this theory that the top players' mechanics are worse is true, and for some players it probably is (but certainly not all), the knowledge would way more than make up for it.

On August 10 2019 01:31 Liquid`Drone wrote:


This was either a very classy way of conceding the argument or a very low class way of walking away from it. :D

On August 10 2019 05:58 Jaeyun wrote:

What I absolutely disagree with is this notion that the "far superior mechanics" of the past would more than make up from the evolution of knowledge that took many years to develop. To put it simply, if I could pick a team of the top 5 players in the past year and put them against the top 5 players (even if they are the same people) back in any other past era, my team would completely dominate.

Even if this theory that the top players' mechanics are worse is true, and for some players it probably is (but certainly not all), the knowledge would way more than make up for it.

[B]On August 10 2019 08:29 BisuDagger wrote:



I'm genuinely curious how good Rain is at PvP. Is he one of the best of all time or are the other protoss players that lacking in PvP skill. Would peak form Kal , Stork, Bisu, or Shuttle loss just as easily or at their Kespa best would they be so good Rain would be mediocre against them. I personally it's a mix. He's definitely one of the best, but I think that he really hasn't been challenged yet. Before Rain and after Kespa PvP was actually a really rare matchup in tournaments and not practiced often. I think the low priority of need to be good at PvP has made everyone but Rain complacent and his brilliant mind is just taking advantage of it.

On August 10 2019 13:49 ggsimida wrote:


"current knowledge" is just slight refinements/variations of old builds. 5rax+1, 111, goliath openings...all these builds that flash pushes for tvz meta over the past few years are nothing really new, their general idea already exist back in modern kespa era...same goes for zerg responses. also the "evolution" only occurs for certain couple matchups, theres basically no change in say, zvz.

the way people describe "current knowledge" here and now is really hyperbolic, making it seem like the meta is completely flipped over with some absolutely revolutionary ideas when there aren't. tvz goliath opening isn't some revolutionary shit.

also for zerg i would pick 08/09 JD over any current zerg player with sole exception of in-form effort maybe. his level of mechanics and execution is just leaguessss above any zerg i seen today and i have no doubt he can adjust his strats on the fly against mere refinements of terran builds that he has already faced numerous times before.

On August 10 2019 15:20 Ethelis wrote:


Goliath openings were never as stable as they are today (at least not in the "prime" KeSPA era). The hardest hitting version of a Goliath build that I remember is the one off 14cc. As we know, 14cc every game isn't stable at all.

As to whether the Goliath is stable because of today's maps might be a topic worth exploring but I get the impression that this isn't the case. I don't really watch sponmatches really so I can't confidently take stance on this.