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On April 06 2020 07:37 oshibori_probe wrote:
I haven't read the 9 other pages so forgive me... but what in the world was stork thinking with ferrying his units to the center on inner coven while Light double expanded?
It struck me as a move you'd see on a map like 815 that was strikingly inferior and much more apm intensive than just opening up a pathway to the center where he can have a better way of dealing with basically anything light could be doing. Yes, stork didn't know what Light was doing but I can't think of a single scenario where you'd want your army in the center without a retreat path. Is it even that much faster for an attack than having your goons and reaver kill the neutral buildings?
Scenario: Light pushes into the center with a ground force at a specific pre-carrier timing, then contains the Protoss (by marching from the center down the spoke that leads to the Protoss base) in a tighter and tighter siege that's impossible to break because you'd be fighting into a narrow corridor. Better to cut off the push with goon/reaver *before* it gets into the center, so the Terran push is constricted by a choke point and the Protoss force is fanned out. Of course, in this scenario you want to leave as many buildings intact as possible, so even in the case where the engagement goes badly, Terran still needs to waste precious time breaking buildings.
Edit: BTW, that is how every TvP I've seen on the map (just a handful) has been approached, including two games by Light.
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United States4883 Posts
On April 07 2020 02:08 Djabanete wrote:
G2 Light was expecting more of Stork's push-break to come from the high ground. Light's tank clump was good at shooting high-ground targets in that situation. Light wanted to avoid the problem where only few tanks are positioned to fire at high ground, the Protoss player bites off just the front of the push, and tanks have to be repositioned to fire at high ground, repeat again and again until the Protoss player has bought enough time. Light wanted the push to be effective in a hurry, so he made sure a lot of tanks were aiming at high ground in order to force the engagement to happen asap. Stork countered him by sweeping in from the low ground.
It's not like Light doesn't know what he's doing in TvP. Seemed to me like he knew what he was doing every single game.
I think it was still pretty surprising, especially considering the way that Stork approaches pushes in PvT. Whenever a push comes, Stork always works to insert a group of goons + obs between the main army and the Terran's natural. From there, he can do the ZvT tactic of threatening counterattacks, cutting off reinforcements, and slowing down the push until he has enough from both sides to crush the force out on the map with a complete surround. Light inexplicably did all of the work for Stork by giving him a free surround. It might have been different if he snuck the vultures around to lay mines on the back side of his push before pushing up the ramp, but that timing combined with the full information on where Stork's primary force was positioned was...odd.
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United States4883 Posts
On April 06 2020 16:41 Djabanete wrote:
Game 3... incredible.
Light was really impressive in games 4 and 5. His mentality was rock-solid, and he showed creativity in his approach to both games. His strategy on Inner Coven clearly was more than Stork was ready to handle. Stork either didn't know about those greedy, greedy bases or didn't know how to touch them. And in game 5 the greed paid off again --- Light expanded to his third and fourth at the same time. This is how Bo5 series are won: keep a strong attitude and bring something special that the opponent isn't ready for. I was cheering for Stork (and that game 3... wow) but today Light played like a champ. I would feel fine saying Light is the favorite to win the tournament based on his mentality, preparation, and skills, but... there's Flash.
Edit: I have never seen a Protoss be *as* ready to trade bases while playing fast carriers as Stork was. My impression was that Light did not expect Stork to take game 3, and that Stork pushed new limits in terms of carrier tactics. Stork went into game 3 *planning* to sacrifice his natural! It's not like he could possibly have expected Light not to push, right? So he must have intended all along to lose his natural to the push, and just make up the deficit by counterattacking and then pincering the push. And then he sacrificed his natural again later for the win. Usually players use their carriers to *defend* against the push and then rebound if they succeed in the defense. But they often don't succeed in the defense, and then it's game over. Stork aimed to take the game to a different place, and he was clearly planning to win much of the Bo5 playing his carriers in this aggressive, base-trading way.
It's an interesting thought experiment. 1-base carrier with 6+ carrier will beat 1-base mech. And since the push usually comes pretty early, you still have plenty of mining in your main base to replace interceptors for the next 5 min. If Terran decides to abandon the push and go home to play defensively, you just expand and gain the economic advantage back. In reality, as long as you don't lose the probes, you're only losing like 600 minerals whereas the Terran player is sacrificing tons of minerals into turrets and units to push that can get picked off for mostly free by the carriers. (I do also want to mention the brilliant bio switch by Light in G3 as well. Given that the Protoss player is pretty much locked into spending all of their money on interceptors and a few gateway units, a bio switch makes a ton of sense.)
I've thought about it a lot, but I think you can counter this sort of tactic by just taking a free CC anywhere on the map. At that point, the Protoss is so starved for money that they have to invest everything into interceptors and a few dragoons for defense, so they can't send anything out on the map to stop you from expanding. Light was obviously flustered by Stork's movements, even in G1, and I think it manifested itself quite clearly in his extraordinarily late 3rd CC timings, even when he had the advantage.
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Maybe! But the Protoss also gets their natural back after pincering the push... I dunno. I think Stork looked really confident that this was the right line of play, so I assume he worked something out during practice.
G2: Yeah, what you say is right. I'm just casting about for an explanation for Light's clumped tank positioning because he's Light, and he must have had something in mind. I think he wanted to maximize firepower onto the high ground so that the push could not be dislodged from the high ground.
Also maybe he expected the goon force to attack his third or nat instead of engaging the tanks?
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Agreed with EsportsJohn that that bio switch in the third set was the most intriguing single element of the match. If it had come ~1min sooner, then it would have been inspired. All the same, very interesting line of thinking from Light.
Everyone is talking (and rightly so) about Stork's base-trade calculus, but the positional war in the first set, while less viscerally stimulating, offered its own subtle rewards.
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The first game was basically the same style, only it didn't end up working. It was exciting to watch though.
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A Light vs Bisu semi-final would he awesome. Light is not the best TvP player and Bisu is not the best PvT player. Pretty even right? And they are both legends and S class players. So no telling how close the games would be.
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I want Light to beat Flash so badly.
Too bad I don't believe it has >10% chance of happening.
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TLADT24920 Posts
This was a really amazing series. Only thing I would've liked better is for Light to not suicide his army at Stork's exp in game 2 on MP and for Stork to not throw his army at such a defensive position in the last game. Those are my two biggest complaints I feel. Game 3 on Neo Sylphid was really great, especially with how Stork played it smart with his carriers. I might be mistaken, but I think the bio switch was only because Light was banking and was improvised? That's at least the impression I got what I watched that game. Still, it was a nice idea.
Game 4 was fantastic all around. Light could've had some better micro or drops, but overall, the way he played the game reminded me of Flash's game vs Snow in ASL5 on Sparkle with the way Flash used his wraith to make sure Snow couldn't just expand and move out as he liked while he expanded and built his army to his liking. In this case, Light kept Stork "pinned" down while he mass expanded towards the top of the map.
All in all, a good fun series and I feel like it could've gone either way. Light did take a risk when he did that double expand in the last game, but sneaking in such a strategy is advisable imo in a best of series.
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EPT
