[ASL9] Ro8 Day 1 - Page 16

On March 31 2020 04:29 Djabanete wrote:
Flash lost games 1 and 3 (“lost the macro games”) because at key moments he thought Action would hit him with aggression or an all-in, and Action macroed instead. Action faked him out. The reason it looked like Flash “played badly” is that nobody ever fakes Flash out. Well, this is what it looks like.

Game 1 Flash had to worry about a speedling bust after losing his vulture, and he built multiple bunkers to be safe, but the bust never came. Then he was preparing against mutas, but instead of building a big pack of mutas, Action just built 3 mutas and then droned up on 3 bases. When Flash was ready to fight, Action’s army was bigger and more upgraded than Flash was ready to deal with. Basically Flash was tricked into taking an overly defensive/slow approach in the hopes of an unbeatable midgame, but by macroing at the right time, Action beat the unbeatable midgame. (The biomech push is all about having an unbeatable midgame.)

Game 3, Flash seemed to still be thinking about Game 2, where he crushed a Lurker all-in. Game 3 he scanned the hydra den and then turtled up. But again, the aggression didn’t come and instead Action was expanding and teching rapidly. It took Flash forever to find that third base.

Action won those “macro” games because, through trickery, he entering the “macro” phase of the games with a huge advantage. (Edit: and his execution was good. Flash beats you from a disadvantage if your execution is faulty.)

Again, nobody ever tricks Flash, but Action managed. It was a really impressive series.

On March 31 2020 04:29 Djabanete wrote:
Flash lost games 1 and 3 (“lost the macro games”) because at key moments he thought Action would hit him with aggression or an all-in, and Action macroed instead. Action faked him out. The reason it looked like Flash “played badly” is that nobody ever fakes Flash out. Well, this is what it looks like.

Game 1 Flash had to worry about a speedling bust after losing his vulture, and he built multiple bunkers to be safe, but the bust never came. Then he was preparing against mutas, but instead of building a big pack of mutas, Action just built 3 mutas and then droned up on 3 bases. When Flash was ready to fight, Action’s army was bigger and more upgraded than Flash was ready to deal with. Basically Flash was tricked into taking an overly defensive/slow approach in the hopes of an unbeatable midgame, but by macroing at the right time, Action beat the unbeatable midgame. (The biomech push is all about having an unbeatable midgame.)

Game 3, Flash seemed to still be thinking about Game 2, where he crushed a Lurker all-in. Game 3 he scanned the hydra den and then turtled up. But again, the aggression didn’t come and instead Action was expanding and teching rapidly. It took Flash forever to find that third base.

Action won those “macro” games because, through trickery, he entering the “macro” phase of the games with a huge advantage. (Edit: and his execution was good. Flash beats you from a disadvantage if your execution is faulty.)

Again, nobody ever tricks Flash, but Action managed. It was a really impressive series.

On March 31 2020 07:35 darktreb wrote:
In some ways, I think Effort's most impressive game was his Proleague win over Flash *after* Effort had recently beat Flash 3-2 in OSL. That was the game on Fighting Spirit where Effort tricks Flash into expecting a Lurker all-in, since everyone still considered Flash the better "standard" or "macro" player in spite of the OSL win (Effort's wins were short games). Effort made an early Hydra Den (which Flash saw, possibly set up deliberately), and positioned things like he was prepping an all-in bust. Flash made extra Bunkers and hunkered down.

On March 31 2020 09:29 Sigrun wrote:

Do you happen to have a link to the VOD of this game?

On March 31 2020 09:21 Djabanete wrote:
>> darktreb wrote: Action was such an underdog that Flash was too cautious

I’m inclined to agree, it looked a bit like Flash thought that Action would feel forced to be highly aggressive by his position as an underdog, and that if he (Flash) could just weather the storm, he’d win. Action found the counter to that approach. But to keep the fear alive, he had to actually be aggressive in some games, which cost him...

As for Flash losing vessels, maybe (?) he could have been more careful, but Flash has always prioritized irradiating defilers in the middle of the map before they reach his expansions. If he’s at a disadvantage in ground forces it’s hard for the vessels to do that job without sometimes getting sniped. The key is to keep the Dark Swarm as far away from the expansion as possible, and if a vessel kills a defiler and then trades for two scourges, I guess that’s not too awful (?).

On March 31 2020 09:29 Sigrun wrote:

Do you happen to have a link to the VOD of this game?

On March 30 2020 11:59 mcgormack wrote:
My (fun and not very serious) personal theory on why Flash lost two games today and didn't play at his best capacity : He had sudden needs to go to the bathroom, and that's why he instantly and oddly got up and left after some/every game.

... it's got to happen to some players sometimes, right?

More seriously, I really gained a lot of respect for Action in this tournament. He has improved quite a lot since the last year, it probably also helps that the Zerg competition is much narrower this year.

On March 31 2020 04:20 EsportsJohn wrote:
I take it back, it was a good series. Further analysis revealed some pretty awesome stuff.

1. Action overall played really really great. His moving drone shots were unbelievable, his macro was on point, he was doing a lot of brilliant savior-esque positioning of his lings/lurkers/mutas during pushes, and his decision making was hella quick on the fly. Great builds, great execution, great adaptation to Flash. One of the things that stood out to me was in Game 4 on Neo Sylphid when Action unburrowed his lurkers and ran just as Flash stimmed his spread marines and scanned the area.

2. Speaking of Neo Sylphid, Action got a 7:30 hive holy fuck. His initial ling attack did so much damage, you can see that he takes great care of his few lings left and lurkers knowing that they are his only defense against a bio attack. At the time that he's teching to hive, he literally has 3 drones in his natural, and they're mining gas. The delay of Flash's army is so unreal.

3. Game 4 is actually very interesting. While on the surface it looks like Action just went for a failed ling allin that was badly executed, it was actually just Flash massively outplaying him. So many questions plagued me while watching this. Why did Action dive the bunker with his first set of lings? Was Flash's scout of the followup an accident? What was the vulture doing throughout all of this?

The series of events is as follows: Flash's SCV sees the drone going out to the 3rd then notices that Action makes a 3rd hatch in his base. The SCV is then killed in the main just out of vision of the spire starting, so he follows up with a vulture scout, which immediately runs to the 3rd base to confirm if Action is playing a crazy 4 hatch opening with a hidden base. The observer didn't catch it, but Flash actually sees the first set of lings in Action's natural with his vulture and sends it all the way the fuck back home. Action, thinking he's being clever with his movement, runs all the way around the map to avoid the vulture that should be in the middle of the map looking for lings, checking the 3rd, etc. Thinking he's outsmarted the vulture and seeing only a single goliath out front, Action makes the decision to all-in the bunker so that his followup lings can run it down...BUT surprise, there's a vulture there too. This moment is INCREDIBLY close (like less than 100 HP), but the extra DPS from the vulture prevents the bunker from going down. Following this failed attack, Flash assumes one of three things: either his opponent is making mutalisks or going for a followup attack with lings or lurkers (because he never scouts the tech, and his academy is hella late with the goliath build. There's no need to scout for a 3rd since Action can't afford it, so the vulture just does some light scouting around his natural to clear out stray lings and/or check for any followup attacks. THIS PART IS NOT LUCK. After that, the game was pretty much over. I wish Action had stayed in the game a little later, maybe taken a hidden 3rd or something, but I think when he saw the goliaths and marine counts already high, he knew he couldn't hold or delay a followup attack for long enough to get a 3rd up AND saturate his mineral lines AND get his tech up to defend. There just wasn't enough going for him at that point, and the double bunker up front meant that a bust wasn't an option. Well played by Flash, god tier read.

4. Game 5 was also very weird. Action's defense against the bunker rush was...odd. Had Flash made the first bunker in range of the ramp, it woulda been an insta-gg, and even the way it did go was really a knife's edge defense. Instead Action beat it with 0 drone losses, so it was really really good for him. Skill I guess? The followup defense was super sick from Action catching the first vulture while scouting down mid with a ling. After the initial defense, he decides to pull all of his lings to pressure Flash's ramp (which only had a few marines) while defending any vulture shenanigans with the hydras. And honestly, it was really close again, but there was a gap in the hydras, and Flash took advantage of it. From there, Flash just honestly outplayed the hell out of Action and gained such a huge worker advantage that it didn't even matter how many advantages Action got out of the first 4 minutes.

I still think that Flash played subpar in the first set of games, especially in the late game, but the overall series was very high level. Action played some really immense games, and the ones he lost were honestly just a hair's breadth from going the other way. Sorry I called it trash.

On April 04 2020 05:25 PVJ wrote:



Indeed it was great read.

There are usually recaps at the beginning of the previews you mention. The previous to last one featured an amazing article of the Stork v Larva Ro16 series, I'd recommend you that as well if you've liked this:
https://tl.net/forum/brood-war/557939-asl9-ro16-preview-pt-2-apocalypse-now