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On April 08 2020 09:44 RKC wrote:If he's such a macro god, why he didn't play more straight-up games? In poker, the stronger player would lean more towards safe low-ball low-variance play (playing more hands, not over-betting too much, avoiding pre-flop all-ins, etc.). But Soma choose to play risky builds that would put him in a great disadvantage if scouted correctly (there was some discussion about 'outplay' in the previous pages - in my view, 'outplaying' means utterly dominating the other player in almost all aspects of a game e.g. Federer winning straight sets 6-3 against a rank 50 player in a Grand Slam
more respect for soma
The build orders he chose in those particular games had nothing to do with preparation, it was a reaction (He adapted to the situation beautifully in most games such as killing the 1st scouting probe almost immediatly opened him a door ,etc)
Also, dont forget that even if Soma is extremely good overall, the protoss against him is papabeesu. Pretty sure hes more than happy to avoid a long macro game against him, like any other zerg on the planet.
I think Bisu played poorly, as expected. And Soma just did what he needed to.
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Holy shit I just watched the games. As a Zerg player and a Bisu fan I was torn on who would win, but I am not surprised that Soma would want to avoid a long game vs Bisu and he pull it off. Great games and I'm looking forward for his match vs Light!
We need to see Pusan's take on this
jinjin?? ^_^
On April 07 2020 23:31 BisuDagger wrote:
Let's take the focus off cannons:
Game 1: Bisu lost way too many zealots in the early game. In every PvZ, after 2 early Zealots are lost the counter in my head starts going off. You can't trade 3 or more zealots pre-hyrda bust to only lings. It is a guaranteed bargain for the zerg every time. Those loses cost him the game, not the cannons.
Game 2: Soma out smarted Bisu. One of the most genius things he did was spread his scourge to the top left corner of match point. Remember when that first corsair was running from scourge, took a left turn and immediately got hit by a scourge forcing the corsair back down again? The scourge placement blocked Bisu from flying to the top left before heading back to his main. Later Bisu had what SC2 games call an F2 moment. Bisu had 4 zealots in a control group. He split two to scout the top left base, but then control group ordered his zealots to the other side of the map. Bisu failed to see it twice with major credit to Soma.
Game 3-4: We know how that went
Game 5: Bisu saved his zealots and you immediately see the major difference in defense. Bisu's huge mistake was building a robo and a templar archives. If Bisu skips robo, it leaves him gas for a faster templar archives into a faster DT. It also leaves him minerals for a crucial extra cannon. Then he invested in a shuttle instead of an extra cannon again. The double high tech is what ultimately killed him in that game. The DT that did major damage to Soma traveled by ground and proved that Bisu didn't need the shuttle to make the hold.
Argue about cannons all you want, but there were many other factors that left Bisu too weak to win.
Thanks for the analysis. I still don't understand why Mr 892 played to greedily in Game 4 by going for the DT drop tech.
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United States4883 Posts
On April 08 2020 13:43 kaspa84 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2020 13:07 EsportsJohn wrote:On April 08 2020 12:31 Moopower wrote:On April 07 2020 23:31 BisuDagger wrote:
Let's take the focus off cannons:
Game 1: Bisu lost way too many zealots in the early game. In every PvZ, after 2 early Zealots are lost the counter in my head starts going off. You can't trade 3 or more zealots pre-hyrda bust to only lings. It is a guaranteed bargain for the zerg every time. Those loses cost him the game, not the cannons.
Game 2: Soma out smarted Bisu. One of the most genius things he did was spread his scourge to the top left corner of match point. Remember when that first corsair was running from scourge, took a left turn and immediately got hit by a scourge forcing the corsair back down again? The scourge placement blocked Bisu from flying to the top left before heading back to his main. Later Bisu had what SC2 games call an F2 moment. Bisu had 4 zealots in a control group. He split two to scout the top left base, but then control group ordered his zealots to the other side of the map. Bisu failed to see it twice with major credit to Soma.
Game 3-4: We know how that went
Game 5: Bisu saved his zealots and you immediately see the major difference in defense. Bisu's huge mistake was building a robo and a templar archives. If Bisu skips robo, it leaves him gas for a faster templar archives into a faster DT. It also leaves him minerals for a crucial extra cannon. Then he invested in a shuttle instead of an extra cannon again. The double high tech is what ultimately killed him in that game. The DT that did major damage to Soma traveled by ground and proved that Bisu didn't need the shuttle to make the hold.
Argue about cannons all you want, but there were many other factors that left Bisu too weak to win. I agree Bisu made mistakes that cost him the game ultimately. However I will say the margin of error is certainly pretty thin when it comes to PvZ. Bisu should have saw that hydra in game while the zealot was at his third base in game 1 hydra bust but Bisu didn't seem to react to the hydra and probably was focused on multitasking and didn't see the hydra until later when the other zealots got picked off in the middle of the map. If Bisu pulled probes sooner and had them actually in front of the cannons ready to stop hydras from sniping the cannons so quick, he would've held. So those 2 crucial mistakes cost him the game. I'd still argue that PvZ is still favored to Zerg. That's why historically we always see protoss losing to zerg all ins. There's always too much to anticipate and in the opposite match ups like TvP, Protoss is the aggressor in what Terran has to react while Protoss has the bag of builds. However Terran's defense is so much more robust and effective that even if Terran is caught off guard, Protoss builds usually never end the game outright but the game can continue with some healthy margins. To keep Zerg in check in the meta, I'd argue it would be nice if Zerg's hydralisk speed and atk range upgrades cost a bit more or took slightly longer to research. It doesn't affect TvZ or ZvZ at all, so doing so would help out protoss in the no scouting period between getting probes denied by speedlings and 1st corsair. I mean think about if Zerg had perfect control of his speedlings and zoned out any probes trying to scout. How is Protoss expected to scout the Zerg without relying on Zerg to make a mistake? The times where we do see Protoss scouting zerg in time it is usually due to the Zerg player not on top of zoning the map and denying scouting. With the movement speed of the lings vs probes/zealots. This is achievable to absolute denial of any scouting, provided they play well/perfectly. If they just changed hydra upgrades slightly that will give Protoss a little extra breathing room to scout in time. The risk is not balanced with rewards. Usually when you do an all in type of strategy you should lose or be in huge disadvantage if it doesn't work. But here we see Zerg can continue a perfectly normal game even after Protoss defends this without losing too many probes. When you scout a cheese rush strat you understand that when you don't scout it you can lose outright or win if you scout it. That's high risk high reward type situation. Here in the Zerg's perspective, it's relatively low risk (continue regular game) if it doesn't work vs winning outright. I think you're vastly underestimating how close the last game was. Soma had 6 drones left. He had 0 gas income. If his last push hadn't broken through the cannons, it would have been a Zerg loss. Bisu fucked up several minor things that all added up to him not being able to hold the push (the primary one being his zealots being out of position and still on hold when Soma attacked in the first time because he was microing his zealot at the 3rd base), but there was never a world where Soma transitions to a solid macro game after Bisu holds. I basically agree with everything Moopower said, except that Hydra nerfing would affect TvZ by making Vulture/Wraith early harassment better. Yeah, Bisu did make mistakes, but the whole point is that P margin for error is so much smaller than Zerg's. And the fact that game 5 was close doesn't change that fact, but is another evidence of it, since Soma made a huge blunder losing lots of drones to a DT (or maybe he even didnt care?) but Bisu only made small mistakes and lost anyway.
I don't think you're getting it. The margin for error is super slim for Zerg too. We saw that in G3 when Soma went for a risky all-in which failed and then immediately GG'd. Either it works and we get people complaining that ZvP is unfair and impossible to play or it fails and everyone says "Wow, that Zerg player was an idiot." The truth is sharp timings are incredibly mercurial in nature because they are sharp.
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On the whole margin for error thing: From my standpoint as a long-time fan but not a good player, it does look like P has less margin for error than Z at a certain point in the game.
In the moment when Z is threatening P’s front door with hydras — when Z is first having the chance to pick off the gateway and forge and P is trying to decide how to defend — Z has options. Z can attack or expand or choose a middle-of-road approach. P has to match their defenses to a perfect degree. If P defends too much, they’ll never get onto the map and they’ll never take a third. If P defends too little, they’ll lose immediately. I’m not saying there’s no chance for P to win this game-within-a-game. There’s a happy medium where P is safe: not too safe, just barely safe. P can come out ahead if they defend to the perfect degree, I’m sure, and they can especially come out ahead if Z miscalculates and risks it all on an attack that goes poorly.
But... in my totally anecdotal and personal viewing experience, P seems to miscalculate more often than Z in this moment. Somehow it seems like Z is holding more of the cards. When I’m cheering for the P, I’m thinking, OK, we could lose right now. When I’m cheering for the Z, I’m thinking, OK, this is all going according to plan.
That’s not an opinion on overall matchup balance. Theoretically a matchup can be 50-50 even if certain circumstances favor one side over the other. But this is my impression over watching years of BW: there’s a moment in “standard” PvZ where P is sweating bullets and having a hard time scouting, and Z is fine and can check the cannon count pretty easily by sacrificing one zergling. And it’s hard for P to counterattack while the pressure is on — sure, Soma’s loss of all drones at his main in game 5 was an understandable error and an example of a good counterattack by Bisu, but it was also unforced and avoidable.
Overall it’s hard to shake the impression that there’s a burden on P not to lose, whereas Z can dictate the pace. If everyone played perfectly, the burden to keep pace and respond correctly wouldn’t be a burden. To me the “hard” matchups in BW (PvZ, ZvT, TvP) come down to that: There are times when one side has a disproportionate burden to not lose, the other side can set the pace, and nobody can respond perfectly all the time. Except Flash. And Flash is why there are only two “hard” matchups left.
Edit: Some people have posted valuable PvZ insights in this thread. To any skilled players with more info to share, I’m all ears.
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It's fairly likely that Soma's overall strat was "don't let Bisu go late-game, kill Bisu whenever a window of opportunity opens". Which Soma executed quite well, considering some of his builds may have been adapted on the fly (e.g. going double expo after gaining some favourable early trades).
Still, the games were razor-thin close - Soma showed some nervy misplays, and Bisu had some lapses as well.
So now I'm wondering - Did Soma over-estimate Bisu? Did Soma really have to resort to so many tricky plays (given Bisu's current form, not his peak and potential)? Should Soma have played safer from the start (or adjusted to safer builds midway upon realising his tricky builds aren't all that necessary to beat Bisu and may instead push Bisu into a corner to be more aggressive and unpredictable, hence forcing the entire series to be more coin-flippy?)
Bear in mind that Bisu got tricky and cheesy as well throwing in a cannon rush, and the DT-shuttle in G5 was a brilliant but rather do-or-die strat (the investment lessens cannons at home).
So both players were trying to find quick ways to end the games. It ended up scrappy, due to both sides. A brawl. A slug-fest. Which to me, seems rather odd when both players can equally play strong in the late-game (as opposed to a Bisu v Shine matchup).
Yes, I suppose most ZvP usually turned out this way. But is this really how high-level PvZ between equally strong opponents look like?
(Again, no disrespect to Soma and Bisu. Just genuine questions from a noob trying to appreciate the game and meta better!)
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On April 09 2020 08:54 Djabanete wrote:
On the whole margin for error thing: From my standpoint as a long-time fan but not a good player, it does look like P has less margin for error than Z at a certain point in the game.
In the moment when Z is threatening P’s front door with hydras — when Z is first having the chance to pick off the gateway and forge and P is trying to decide how to defend — Z has options. Z can attack or expand or choose a middle-of-road approach. P has to match their defenses to a perfect degree. If P defends too much, they’ll never get onto the map and they’ll never take a third. If P defends too little, they’ll lose immediately. I’m not saying there’s no chance for P to win this game-within-a-game. There’s a happy medium where P is safe: not too safe, just barely safe. P can come out ahead if they defend to the perfect degree, I’m sure, and they can especially come out ahead if Z miscalculates and risks it all on an attack that goes poorly.
But... in my totally anecdotal and personal viewing experience, P seems to miscalculate more often than Z in this moment. Somehow it seems like Z is holding more of the cards. When I’m cheering for the P, I’m thinking, OK, we could lose right now. When I’m cheering for the Z, I’m thinking, OK, this is all going according to plan.
That’s not an opinion on overall matchup balance. Theoretically a matchup can be 50-50 even if certain circumstances favor one side over the other. But this is my impression over watching years of BW: there’s a moment in “standard” PvZ where P is sweating bullets and having a hard time scouting, and Z is fine and can check the cannon count pretty easily by sacrificing one zergling. And it’s hard for P to counterattack while the pressure is on — sure, Soma’s loss of all drones at his main in game 5 was an understandable error and an example of a good counterattack by Bisu, but it was also unforced and avoidable.
Overall it’s hard to shake the impression that there’s a burden on P not to lose, whereas Z can dictate the pace. If everyone played perfectly, the burden to keep pace and respond correctly wouldn’t be a burden. To me the “hard” matchups in BW (PvZ, ZvT, TvP) come down to that: There are times when one side has a disproportionate burden to not lose, the other side can set the pace, and nobody can respond perfectly all the time. Except Flash. And Flash is why there are only two “hard” matchups left.
Edit: Some people have posted valuable PvZ insights in this thread. To any skilled players with more info to share, I’m all ears.
Yes, this perfectly sums up my anecdotal perspective of PvZ as well, which makes me empathise with Protoss more.
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If both players think they have the edge in a “standard” macro game where neither side takes risks, one of them must be wrong.
There’s always an incentive for the less secure player to make risky moves.
There’s always a need for even the most excellent and secure player to mix in risky moves, so as not to become predictable.
And in high-stakes matches, it’s always advantageous to practice and use unexpected strategies. If you take your opponent onto terrain that’s known to you and unfamiliar to them, not only do you have an edge, but the edge is maximized if the opponent is nervous and becomes flustered because of the stakes. Or if you think you’re the one who might get nervous, it’s equally useful to force the match to occur on specific terrain you’ve prepared for. That’s the opposite of doing a “safe” build, which enables you to adapt to to most challenges if you can think on your feet.
So whether you’re stronger or weaker, there are a lot of reasons to take risks.
Edit: Also, when you think of a player with a high win rate like Bisu, it’s tempting to think they can “just do what they always do” to win, but the truth is that they take risks like everyone else and the win rate is a product of correct calculations and good execution. A 70% win rate (for example) is a 70% win rate *with* risks included, not proof that risks don’t need to be taken.
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On April 09 2020 09:06 RKC wrote:
It's fairly likely that Soma's overall strat was "don't let Bisu go late-game, kill Bisu whenever a window of opportunity opens". Which Soma executed quite well, considering some of his builds may have been adapted on the fly (e.g. going double expo after gaining some favourable early trades).
Still, the games were razor-thin close - Soma showed some nervy misplays, and Bisu had some lapses as well.
So now I'm wondering - Did Soma over-estimate Bisu? Did Soma really have to resort to so many tricky plays (given Bisu's current form, not his peak and potential)? Should Soma have played safer from the start (or adjusted to safer builds midway upon realising his tricky builds aren't all that necessary to beat Bisu and may instead push Bisu into a corner to be more aggressive and unpredictable, hence forcing the entire series to be more coin-flippy?)
Bear in mind that Bisu got tricky and cheesy as well throwing in a cannon rush, and the DT-shuttle in G5 was a brilliant but rather do-or-die strat (the investment lessens cannons at home).
So both players were trying to find quick ways to end the games. It ended up scrappy, due to both sides. A brawl. A slug-fest. Which to me, seems rather odd when both players can equally play strong in the late-game (as opposed to a Bisu v Shine matchup).
Yes, I suppose most ZvP usually turned out this way. But is this really how high-level PvZ between equally strong opponents look like?
(Again, no disrespect to Soma and Bisu. Just genuine questions from a noob trying to appreciate the game and meta better!)
Don't think the strat is ever - "don't let Bisu go late-game".
They're just strategical moves..... Remember when Flash 3-0'ed Stork in an OSL finals by cheesing every game although he had just won against Stork in MSL just few weeks before? Is it because Flash was afraid of going late-game against Stork? No.
Its a Real Time "Strategy" game. You have a strategy to put your opponent off guard and put them out of their comfort zone, you do that and u screw up their normal game..... that's how bw works. So it ends up with, who was able to produce and execute the strategies they prepared for before the games....
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On April 09 2020 08:15 EsportsJohn wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2020 13:43 kaspa84 wrote:On April 08 2020 13:07 EsportsJohn wrote:On April 08 2020 12:31 Moopower wrote:On April 07 2020 23:31 BisuDagger wrote:
Let's take the focus off cannons:
Game 1: Bisu lost way too many zealots in the early game. In every PvZ, after 2 early Zealots are lost the counter in my head starts going off. You can't trade 3 or more zealots pre-hyrda bust to only lings. It is a guaranteed bargain for the zerg every time. Those loses cost him the game, not the cannons.
Game 2: Soma out smarted Bisu. One of the most genius things he did was spread his scourge to the top left corner of match point. Remember when that first corsair was running from scourge, took a left turn and immediately got hit by a scourge forcing the corsair back down again? The scourge placement blocked Bisu from flying to the top left before heading back to his main. Later Bisu had what SC2 games call an F2 moment. Bisu had 4 zealots in a control group. He split two to scout the top left base, but then control group ordered his zealots to the other side of the map. Bisu failed to see it twice with major credit to Soma.
Game 3-4: We know how that went
Game 5: Bisu saved his zealots and you immediately see the major difference in defense. Bisu's huge mistake was building a robo and a templar archives. If Bisu skips robo, it leaves him gas for a faster templar archives into a faster DT. It also leaves him minerals for a crucial extra cannon. Then he invested in a shuttle instead of an extra cannon again. The double high tech is what ultimately killed him in that game. The DT that did major damage to Soma traveled by ground and proved that Bisu didn't need the shuttle to make the hold.
Argue about cannons all you want, but there were many other factors that left Bisu too weak to win. I agree Bisu made mistakes that cost him the game ultimately. However I will say the margin of error is certainly pretty thin when it comes to PvZ. Bisu should have saw that hydra in game while the zealot was at his third base in game 1 hydra bust but Bisu didn't seem to react to the hydra and probably was focused on multitasking and didn't see the hydra until later when the other zealots got picked off in the middle of the map. If Bisu pulled probes sooner and had them actually in front of the cannons ready to stop hydras from sniping the cannons so quick, he would've held. So those 2 crucial mistakes cost him the game. I'd still argue that PvZ is still favored to Zerg. That's why historically we always see protoss losing to zerg all ins. There's always too much to anticipate and in the opposite match ups like TvP, Protoss is the aggressor in what Terran has to react while Protoss has the bag of builds. However Terran's defense is so much more robust and effective that even if Terran is caught off guard, Protoss builds usually never end the game outright but the game can continue with some healthy margins. To keep Zerg in check in the meta, I'd argue it would be nice if Zerg's hydralisk speed and atk range upgrades cost a bit more or took slightly longer to research. It doesn't affect TvZ or ZvZ at all, so doing so would help out protoss in the no scouting period between getting probes denied by speedlings and 1st corsair. I mean think about if Zerg had perfect control of his speedlings and zoned out any probes trying to scout. How is Protoss expected to scout the Zerg without relying on Zerg to make a mistake? The times where we do see Protoss scouting zerg in time it is usually due to the Zerg player not on top of zoning the map and denying scouting. With the movement speed of the lings vs probes/zealots. This is achievable to absolute denial of any scouting, provided they play well/perfectly. If they just changed hydra upgrades slightly that will give Protoss a little extra breathing room to scout in time. The risk is not balanced with rewards. Usually when you do an all in type of strategy you should lose or be in huge disadvantage if it doesn't work. But here we see Zerg can continue a perfectly normal game even after Protoss defends this without losing too many probes. When you scout a cheese rush strat you understand that when you don't scout it you can lose outright or win if you scout it. That's high risk high reward type situation. Here in the Zerg's perspective, it's relatively low risk (continue regular game) if it doesn't work vs winning outright. I think you're vastly underestimating how close the last game was. Soma had 6 drones left. He had 0 gas income. If his last push hadn't broken through the cannons, it would have been a Zerg loss. Bisu fucked up several minor things that all added up to him not being able to hold the push (the primary one being his zealots being out of position and still on hold when Soma attacked in the first time because he was microing his zealot at the 3rd base), but there was never a world where Soma transitions to a solid macro game after Bisu holds. I basically agree with everything Moopower said, except that Hydra nerfing would affect TvZ by making Vulture/Wraith early harassment better. Yeah, Bisu did make mistakes, but the whole point is that P margin for error is so much smaller than Zerg's. And the fact that game 5 was close doesn't change that fact, but is another evidence of it, since Soma made a huge blunder losing lots of drones to a DT (or maybe he even didnt care?) but Bisu only made small mistakes and lost anyway. I don't think you're getting it. The margin for error is super slim for Zerg too. We saw that in G3 when Soma went for a risky all-in which failed and then immediately GG'd. Either it works and we get people complaining that ZvP is unfair and impossible to play or it fails and everyone says "Wow, that Zerg player was an idiot." The truth is sharp timings are incredibly mercurial in nature because they are sharp.
No, Game 3 when Soma went for an all in type build, that was a high risk high reward play. 3 Hatch hydra in particular is where I'm saying there's relatively low risk high reward. If your all in build gets scouted you should be expected to lose or at least be in a huge disadvantage. We don't see much of a margin of opportunity for Protoss to scout 3 hatch hydra busts in time consistently where the Zerg zones out probe/zealot scouts perfectly. 3 hatch hydra isn't an all -in type of build anymore like it used to be because of how precise zerg progamers have been with droning and sniping cannons quickly and forcing protoss to sacrifice probes just to defend.
Game 5 where it was pretty close, was due to a blunder by soma. He did not anticipate dt drop and let bisu massacre his drones. That's why it was closer than it should've been. However I will say if Bisu decided to play it safer and just defend the hydra bust by getting storm instead of spreading himself too thin with both robo and templar tech, the game would've been different. Bisu made some crucial mistakes that cost him the game ultimately but that's not the point. The argument is the margin of error on the Protoss side is small and disadvantaged in PvZ.
I don't see any TvZ game where having hydra upgrades researched a few seconds later would've made a huge difference against mech strategies. There aren't vulture harassments that can be abused if hydras don't get ranged atk or speed faster because of sim city. So having hydra upgrades taking a little bit longer would not affect any other match up other than PvZ. By the time Zerg in ZvT against mech gets OL speed, having hydra upgrade take slightly longer would not affect moving out on the map at all.
Also for arguments saying that Protoss should hide probes around the map to sneak a scout in, is basically saying you're hoping the Zerg plays inoptimally or has to make a mistake for Protoss to get a chance. If they are determined to deny your probe/zealot scouting, a high caliber zerg will not let you see their hydras until it is time. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, speedlings are so much faster than probes/zealots that the margin for zerg to find your scouting probe is very large and they can catch up fast enough to deny. A watchful zerg would've seen you try to sneak out probes from your natural anyways and would be on the lookout for the missing probe. We saw this before in KSL I think season 2 or 3. It was Rain vs JD. Rain was trying to push out with some zealots to try to get some scouting intel. The critical mistake that Rain did in that game was that he left his cannon wall open and didn't plug in with probes to replace after the zealots left. Rain didn't anticipate a large speedling group to sneak back but it cost him the game because by the time he warped in new cannons the speedlings bought JD enough time for his hydras to do serious economic dmg so even Rain held barely he was severely behind. And even if Rain used his zealots to try to scout and blocked wall with probes, if JD decided to mop up those 5-6 zealots moving out on the map he could've done so easily or Rain would've had to back off and retreat and be denied any scouting intel. Until +1 atk, or splash dmg with a better army composition, zealots trade inefficiently against cheap zerglings. Which is why Protoss scouting options are limited until corsair.
Zerg has a lot of choices while Protoss has a critical lack of intel that often cost them games. Terran units all have range so they will always be able to defend normally even if caught off guard initially. But Protoss units don't, dragoons suck vs every zerg unit unless supported by a good mix of zealots and hts. Corsairs don't come fast enough to scout zerg if Protoss opens zealot pressure. There are so many holes in Protoss's arsenal that can be abused by zerg because they need time to tech up for obs, against lurkers, or cannons in main and sairs against muta play or cannons at the front against hydra bust. I'm not saying anything other than hydra busting is hard to stop because unlike hydra busts, they are all high risk/ high reward strategies. Meaning if Protoss defends successfully, they are significantly ahead. 3 hatch hydra is the only build in my opinion that can be between an all in build and a transition into a long macro game depending on how much Zerg forced Protoss to spend on cannons and sacrificing probes.
Should Protoss players be punished for a small micro mistake where their 1st few zealots took one too many hits that they are denied scouting and map control until they get up to corsair and risk losing to a hydra bust? This is the slim margin of error of Protoss. They have to play near perfectly in order to have a chance if Zerg is determined to play mind games with hydra busting.
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United States4883 Posts
On April 09 2020 08:54 Djabanete wrote:
On the whole margin for error thing: From my standpoint as a long-time fan but not a good player, it does look like P has less margin for error than Z at a certain point in the game.
In the moment when Z is threatening P’s front door with hydras — when Z is first having the chance to pick off the gateway and forge and P is trying to decide how to defend — Z has options. Z can attack or expand or choose a middle-of-road approach. P has to match their defenses to a perfect degree. If P defends too much, they’ll never get onto the map and they’ll never take a third. If P defends too little, they’ll lose immediately. I’m not saying there’s no chance for P to win this game-within-a-game. There’s a happy medium where P is safe: not too safe, just barely safe. P can come out ahead if they defend to the perfect degree, I’m sure, and they can especially come out ahead if Z miscalculates and risks it all on an attack that goes poorly.
But... in my totally anecdotal and personal viewing experience, P seems to miscalculate more often than Z in this moment. Somehow it seems like Z is holding more of the cards. When I’m cheering for the P, I’m thinking, OK, we could lose right now. When I’m cheering for the Z, I’m thinking, OK, this is all going according to plan.
That’s not an opinion on overall matchup balance. Theoretically a matchup can be 50-50 even if certain circumstances favor one side over the other. But this is my impression over watching years of BW: there’s a moment in “standard” PvZ where P is sweating bullets and having a hard time scouting, and Z is fine and can check the cannon count pretty easily by sacrificing one zergling. And it’s hard for P to counterattack while the pressure is on — sure, Soma’s loss of all drones at his main in game 5 was an understandable error and an example of a good counterattack by Bisu, but it was also unforced and avoidable.
Overall it’s hard to shake the impression that there’s a burden on P not to lose, whereas Z can dictate the pace. If everyone played perfectly, the burden to keep pace and respond correctly wouldn’t be a burden. To me the “hard” matchups in BW (PvZ, ZvT, TvP) come down to that: There are times when one side has a disproportionate burden to not lose, the other side can set the pace, and nobody can respond perfectly all the time. Except Flash. And Flash is why there are only two “hard” matchups left.
Edit: Some people have posted valuable PvZ insights in this thread. To any skilled players with more info to share, I’m all ears.
This is what we call "burden of execution" in gaming theory. It means that, at that point in the game, in that game state, Zerg has the ability to force the Protoss player to play more precisely than them. This is similar to a Zerg defending a bunker rush with drones until lings can come out; in that scenario, every drone loss for the Zerg player is crucial, and if Terran manages to drop down a bunker and keep all their marines alive before lings come out, the Zerg player effectively loses. It's easier for the Terran to amove marines and block compared to drone drilling, carefully finding surrounds, and clicking injured drones back to minerals on a different screen. If Zerg defends it, Terran is behind and suddenly the burden of execution has shifted to them to play catch up.
Protoss has ways to shift the burden of execution back toward Zerg. There have been aggro gate openings, sair/DT, sair/speedlot, weird double stargate builds, reaver openings. All of them force the burden of execution back onto the Zerg by forcing them to build precise wall offs, spend their larva properly, and move their units to the proper places to defend while having basically 0 vision out on the map. If Zerg doesn't protect their overlords correctly, corsairs alone can end the game. I think it's important to note that in both of these scenarios, the outcome is based on skill. If doing a hydra bust was a blanket 50/50 chance to win between players of a similar skill level who are both playing optimally (aka not greedy), then it would be a problem.
It's true that while Zerg has map control, they have more flexibility to tech into whatever they want and/or expand (compared to Protoss, who is more or less locked into whatever tech they chose and now can either add gates or expand) BUT...that's the whole point of the race, dude. Larva economy is designed to make Zerg more flexible in how they spend their money into tech and army. The downside to these attacks is that they can't lose their original units while pressuring if they want to play a macro game behind it. The major concern for the Zerg here is lack of larva to catch up in economy (drones) vs replenish your army. Zerg players have gotten much better at retaining their aggro units and delaying intelligently while they catch up in economy and tech so that they have the larva to spend on army again. It looks easy because it's being done so well.
The only reason we're talking about this is because the meta has shifted back toward aggressive Zerg openings. Back when gate expands where first becoming common, Zergs were dropping left and right to zealot harass which placed the burden of execution on the Zerg player to micro their lings perfectly and prevent the zealots from wedging themselves into good corners. Every time hydra busts become common again, we have the same discussion, and every time it happens, Protoss players find an answer for it. When the 9734 build came around a few months ago, we did the same thing. When Protoss players are winning again, the Z imbalance whine will die down. And then we'll do this again the next time hydra busts come around.
P.S. I know LS is not a popular name in this community, but his general insight into how game stages flow into one another is really valuable. Though he bases his opinions on perfect, optimal play, the way he describes the "burden of execution" in LoL games is intelligent and keeps viewers on track with what we should expect each player to do given the current play state.
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United States4883 Posts
On April 09 2020 12:24 Moopower wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2020 08:15 EsportsJohn wrote:On April 08 2020 13:43 kaspa84 wrote:On April 08 2020 13:07 EsportsJohn wrote:On April 08 2020 12:31 Moopower wrote:On April 07 2020 23:31 BisuDagger wrote:
Let's take the focus off cannons:
Game 1: Bisu lost way too many zealots in the early game. In every PvZ, after 2 early Zealots are lost the counter in my head starts going off. You can't trade 3 or more zealots pre-hyrda bust to only lings. It is a guaranteed bargain for the zerg every time. Those loses cost him the game, not the cannons.
Game 2: Soma out smarted Bisu. One of the most genius things he did was spread his scourge to the top left corner of match point. Remember when that first corsair was running from scourge, took a left turn and immediately got hit by a scourge forcing the corsair back down again? The scourge placement blocked Bisu from flying to the top left before heading back to his main. Later Bisu had what SC2 games call an F2 moment. Bisu had 4 zealots in a control group. He split two to scout the top left base, but then control group ordered his zealots to the other side of the map. Bisu failed to see it twice with major credit to Soma.
Game 3-4: We know how that went
Game 5: Bisu saved his zealots and you immediately see the major difference in defense. Bisu's huge mistake was building a robo and a templar archives. If Bisu skips robo, it leaves him gas for a faster templar archives into a faster DT. It also leaves him minerals for a crucial extra cannon. Then he invested in a shuttle instead of an extra cannon again. The double high tech is what ultimately killed him in that game. The DT that did major damage to Soma traveled by ground and proved that Bisu didn't need the shuttle to make the hold.
Argue about cannons all you want, but there were many other factors that left Bisu too weak to win. I agree Bisu made mistakes that cost him the game ultimately. However I will say the margin of error is certainly pretty thin when it comes to PvZ. Bisu should have saw that hydra in game while the zealot was at his third base in game 1 hydra bust but Bisu didn't seem to react to the hydra and probably was focused on multitasking and didn't see the hydra until later when the other zealots got picked off in the middle of the map. If Bisu pulled probes sooner and had them actually in front of the cannons ready to stop hydras from sniping the cannons so quick, he would've held. So those 2 crucial mistakes cost him the game. I'd still argue that PvZ is still favored to Zerg. That's why historically we always see protoss losing to zerg all ins. There's always too much to anticipate and in the opposite match ups like TvP, Protoss is the aggressor in what Terran has to react while Protoss has the bag of builds. However Terran's defense is so much more robust and effective that even if Terran is caught off guard, Protoss builds usually never end the game outright but the game can continue with some healthy margins. To keep Zerg in check in the meta, I'd argue it would be nice if Zerg's hydralisk speed and atk range upgrades cost a bit more or took slightly longer to research. It doesn't affect TvZ or ZvZ at all, so doing so would help out protoss in the no scouting period between getting probes denied by speedlings and 1st corsair. I mean think about if Zerg had perfect control of his speedlings and zoned out any probes trying to scout. How is Protoss expected to scout the Zerg without relying on Zerg to make a mistake? The times where we do see Protoss scouting zerg in time it is usually due to the Zerg player not on top of zoning the map and denying scouting. With the movement speed of the lings vs probes/zealots. This is achievable to absolute denial of any scouting, provided they play well/perfectly. If they just changed hydra upgrades slightly that will give Protoss a little extra breathing room to scout in time. The risk is not balanced with rewards. Usually when you do an all in type of strategy you should lose or be in huge disadvantage if it doesn't work. But here we see Zerg can continue a perfectly normal game even after Protoss defends this without losing too many probes. When you scout a cheese rush strat you understand that when you don't scout it you can lose outright or win if you scout it. That's high risk high reward type situation. Here in the Zerg's perspective, it's relatively low risk (continue regular game) if it doesn't work vs winning outright. I think you're vastly underestimating how close the last game was. Soma had 6 drones left. He had 0 gas income. If his last push hadn't broken through the cannons, it would have been a Zerg loss. Bisu fucked up several minor things that all added up to him not being able to hold the push (the primary one being his zealots being out of position and still on hold when Soma attacked in the first time because he was microing his zealot at the 3rd base), but there was never a world where Soma transitions to a solid macro game after Bisu holds. I basically agree with everything Moopower said, except that Hydra nerfing would affect TvZ by making Vulture/Wraith early harassment better. Yeah, Bisu did make mistakes, but the whole point is that P margin for error is so much smaller than Zerg's. And the fact that game 5 was close doesn't change that fact, but is another evidence of it, since Soma made a huge blunder losing lots of drones to a DT (or maybe he even didnt care?) but Bisu only made small mistakes and lost anyway. I don't think you're getting it. The margin for error is super slim for Zerg too. We saw that in G3 when Soma went for a risky all-in which failed and then immediately GG'd. Either it works and we get people complaining that ZvP is unfair and impossible to play or it fails and everyone says "Wow, that Zerg player was an idiot." The truth is sharp timings are incredibly mercurial in nature because they are sharp. No, Game 3 when Soma went for an all in type build, that was a high risk high reward play. 3 Hatch hydra in particular is where I'm saying there's relatively low risk high reward. If your all in build gets scouted you should be expected to lose or at least be in a huge disadvantage. We don't see much of a margin of opportunity for Protoss to scout 3 hatch hydra busts in time consistently where the Zerg zones out probe/zealot scouts perfectly. 3 hatch hydra isn't an all -in type of build anymore like it used to be because of how precise zerg progamers have been with droning and sniping cannons quickly and forcing protoss to sacrifice probes just to defend. Game 5 where it was pretty close, was due to a blunder by soma. He did not anticipate dt drop and let bisu massacre his drones. That's why it was closer than it should've been. However I will say if Bisu decided to play it safer and just defend the hydra bust by getting storm instead of spreading himself too thin with both robo and templar tech, the game would've been different. Bisu made some crucial mistakes that cost him the game ultimately but that's not the point. The argument is the margin of error on the Protoss side is small and disadvantaged in PvZ. I don't see any TvZ game where having hydra upgrades researched a few seconds later would've made a huge difference against mech strategies. There aren't vulture harassments that can be abused if hydras don't get ranged atk or speed faster because of sim city. So having hydra upgrades taking a little bit longer would not affect any other match up other than PvZ. By the time Zerg in ZvT against mech gets OL speed, having hydra upgrade take slightly longer would not affect moving out on the map at all. Also for arguments saying that Protoss should hide probes around the map to sneak a scout in, is basically saying you're hoping the Zerg plays inoptimally or has to make a mistake for Protoss to get a chance. If they are determined to deny your probe/zealot scouting, a high caliber zerg will not let you see their hydras until it is time. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, speedlings are so much faster than probes/zealots that the margin for zerg to find your scouting probe is very large and they can catch up fast enough to deny. A watchful zerg would've seen you try to sneak out probes from your natural anyways and would be on the lookout for the missing probe. We saw this before in KSL I think season 2 or 3. It was Rain vs JD. Rain was trying to push out with some zealots to try to get some scouting intel. The critical mistake that Rain did in that game was that he left his cannon wall open and didn't plug in with probes to replace after the zealots left. Rain didn't anticipate a large speedling group to sneak back but it cost him the game because by the time he warped in new cannons the speedlings bought JD enough time for his hydras to do serious economic dmg so even Rain held barely he was severely behind. And even if Rain used his zealots to try to scout and blocked wall with probes, if JD decided to mop up those 5-6 zealots moving out on the map he could've done so easily or Rain would've had to back off and retreat and be denied any scouting intel. Until +1 atk, or splash dmg with a better army composition, zealots trade inefficiently against cheap zerglings. Which is why Protoss scouting options are limited until corsair. Zerg has a lot of choices while Protoss has a critical lack of intel that often cost them games. Terran units all have range so they will always be able to defend normally even if caught off guard initially. But Protoss units don't, dragoons suck vs every zerg unit unless supported by a good mix of zealots and hts. Corsairs don't come fast enough to scout zerg if Protoss opens zealot pressure. There are so many holes in Protoss's arsenal that can be abused by zerg because they need time to tech up for obs, against lurkers, or cannons in main and sairs against muta play or cannons at the front against hydra bust. I'm not saying anything other than hydra busting is hard to stop because unlike hydra busts, they are all high risk/ high reward strategies. Meaning if Protoss defends successfully, they are significantly ahead. 3 hatch hydra is the only build in my opinion that can be between an all in build and a transition into a long macro game depending on how much Zerg forced Protoss to spend on cannons and sacrificing probes.
Let's just say I disagree. Remember when 1-1-1 was an all-in build?
Should Protoss players be punished for a small micro mistake where their 1st few zealots took one too many hits that they are denied scouting and map control until they get up to corsair and risk losing to a hydra bust? This is the slim margin of error of Protoss. They have to play near perfectly in order to have a chance if Zerg is determined to play mind games with hydra busting.
This is wayyyyy over-exaggerated.
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On April 09 2020 09:12 RKC wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2020 08:54 Djabanete wrote:
On the whole margin for error thing: From my standpoint as a long-time fan but not a good player, it does look like P has less margin for error than Z at a certain point in the game.
In the moment when Z is threatening P’s front door with hydras — when Z is first having the chance to pick off the gateway and forge and P is trying to decide how to defend — Z has options. Z can attack or expand or choose a middle-of-road approach. P has to match their defenses to a perfect degree. If P defends too much, they’ll never get onto the map and they’ll never take a third. If P defends too little, they’ll lose immediately. I’m not saying there’s no chance for P to win this game-within-a-game. There’s a happy medium where P is safe: not too safe, just barely safe. P can come out ahead if they defend to the perfect degree, I’m sure, and they can especially come out ahead if Z miscalculates and risks it all on an attack that goes poorly.
But... in my totally anecdotal and personal viewing experience, P seems to miscalculate more often than Z in this moment. Somehow it seems like Z is holding more of the cards. When I’m cheering for the P, I’m thinking, OK, we could lose right now. When I’m cheering for the Z, I’m thinking, OK, this is all going according to plan.
That’s not an opinion on overall matchup balance. Theoretically a matchup can be 50-50 even if certain circumstances favor one side over the other. But this is my impression over watching years of BW: there’s a moment in “standard” PvZ where P is sweating bullets and having a hard time scouting, and Z is fine and can check the cannon count pretty easily by sacrificing one zergling. And it’s hard for P to counterattack while the pressure is on — sure, Soma’s loss of all drones at his main in game 5 was an understandable error and an example of a good counterattack by Bisu, but it was also unforced and avoidable.
Overall it’s hard to shake the impression that there’s a burden on P not to lose, whereas Z can dictate the pace. If everyone played perfectly, the burden to keep pace and respond correctly wouldn’t be a burden. To me the “hard” matchups in BW (PvZ, ZvT, TvP) come down to that: There are times when one side has a disproportionate burden to not lose, the other side can set the pace, and nobody can respond perfectly all the time. Except Flash. And Flash is why there are only two “hard” matchups left.
Edit: Some people have posted valuable PvZ insights in this thread. To any skilled players with more info to share, I’m all ears. Yes, this perfectly sums up my anecdotal perspective of PvZ as well, which makes me empathise with Protoss more.
Mine as well.
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On April 09 2020 19:53 Rainalcar wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2020 09:12 RKC wrote:On April 09 2020 08:54 Djabanete wrote:
On the whole margin for error thing: From my standpoint as a long-time fan but not a good player, it does look like P has less margin for error than Z at a certain point in the game.
In the moment when Z is threatening P’s front door with hydras — when Z is first having the chance to pick off the gateway and forge and P is trying to decide how to defend — Z has options. Z can attack or expand or choose a middle-of-road approach. P has to match their defenses to a perfect degree. If P defends too much, they’ll never get onto the map and they’ll never take a third. If P defends too little, they’ll lose immediately. I’m not saying there’s no chance for P to win this game-within-a-game. There’s a happy medium where P is safe: not too safe, just barely safe. P can come out ahead if they defend to the perfect degree, I’m sure, and they can especially come out ahead if Z miscalculates and risks it all on an attack that goes poorly.
But... in my totally anecdotal and personal viewing experience, P seems to miscalculate more often than Z in this moment. Somehow it seems like Z is holding more of the cards. When I’m cheering for the P, I’m thinking, OK, we could lose right now. When I’m cheering for the Z, I’m thinking, OK, this is all going according to plan.
That’s not an opinion on overall matchup balance. Theoretically a matchup can be 50-50 even if certain circumstances favor one side over the other. But this is my impression over watching years of BW: there’s a moment in “standard” PvZ where P is sweating bullets and having a hard time scouting, and Z is fine and can check the cannon count pretty easily by sacrificing one zergling. And it’s hard for P to counterattack while the pressure is on — sure, Soma’s loss of all drones at his main in game 5 was an understandable error and an example of a good counterattack by Bisu, but it was also unforced and avoidable.
Overall it’s hard to shake the impression that there’s a burden on P not to lose, whereas Z can dictate the pace. If everyone played perfectly, the burden to keep pace and respond correctly wouldn’t be a burden. To me the “hard” matchups in BW (PvZ, ZvT, TvP) come down to that: There are times when one side has a disproportionate burden to not lose, the other side can set the pace, and nobody can respond perfectly all the time. Except Flash. And Flash is why there are only two “hard” matchups left.
Edit: Some people have posted valuable PvZ insights in this thread. To any skilled players with more info to share, I’m all ears. Yes, this perfectly sums up my anecdotal perspective of PvZ as well, which makes me empathise with Protoss more. Mine as well.
My anecdotal Zerg experience is totally different. If you invest in hydras and upgrades, you're going to be way behind on workers. If you don't deal massive damage, you are behind. There is no: make lots of hydras before first corsair and then do nothing and drone up to an equal economy.
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On April 09 2020 20:07 Sr18 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2020 19:53 Rainalcar wrote:On April 09 2020 09:12 RKC wrote:On April 09 2020 08:54 Djabanete wrote:
On the whole margin for error thing: From my standpoint as a long-time fan but not a good player, it does look like P has less margin for error than Z at a certain point in the game.
In the moment when Z is threatening P’s front door with hydras — when Z is first having the chance to pick off the gateway and forge and P is trying to decide how to defend — Z has options. Z can attack or expand or choose a middle-of-road approach. P has to match their defenses to a perfect degree. If P defends too much, they’ll never get onto the map and they’ll never take a third. If P defends too little, they’ll lose immediately. I’m not saying there’s no chance for P to win this game-within-a-game. There’s a happy medium where P is safe: not too safe, just barely safe. P can come out ahead if they defend to the perfect degree, I’m sure, and they can especially come out ahead if Z miscalculates and risks it all on an attack that goes poorly.
But... in my totally anecdotal and personal viewing experience, P seems to miscalculate more often than Z in this moment. Somehow it seems like Z is holding more of the cards. When I’m cheering for the P, I’m thinking, OK, we could lose right now. When I’m cheering for the Z, I’m thinking, OK, this is all going according to plan.
That’s not an opinion on overall matchup balance. Theoretically a matchup can be 50-50 even if certain circumstances favor one side over the other. But this is my impression over watching years of BW: there’s a moment in “standard” PvZ where P is sweating bullets and having a hard time scouting, and Z is fine and can check the cannon count pretty easily by sacrificing one zergling. And it’s hard for P to counterattack while the pressure is on — sure, Soma’s loss of all drones at his main in game 5 was an understandable error and an example of a good counterattack by Bisu, but it was also unforced and avoidable.
Overall it’s hard to shake the impression that there’s a burden on P not to lose, whereas Z can dictate the pace. If everyone played perfectly, the burden to keep pace and respond correctly wouldn’t be a burden. To me the “hard” matchups in BW (PvZ, ZvT, TvP) come down to that: There are times when one side has a disproportionate burden to not lose, the other side can set the pace, and nobody can respond perfectly all the time. Except Flash. And Flash is why there are only two “hard” matchups left.
Edit: Some people have posted valuable PvZ insights in this thread. To any skilled players with more info to share, I’m all ears. Yes, this perfectly sums up my anecdotal perspective of PvZ as well, which makes me empathise with Protoss more. Mine as well. My anecdotal Zerg experience is totally different. If you invest in hydras and upgrades, you're going to be way behind on workers. If you don't deal massive damage, you are behind. There is no: make lots of hydras before first corsair and then do nothing and drone up to an equal economy.
This is kinda what Soma did in game 1 with 9734, but Bisu died to the initial hydra pressure anyway
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On April 09 2020 20:07 Sr18 wrote:
My anecdotal Zerg experience is totally different. If you invest in hydras and upgrades, you're going to be way behind on workers. If you don't deal massive damage, you are behind. There is no: make lots of hydras before first corsair and then do nothing and drone up to an equal economy.
This was maybe true before the 9734 build was popularized.
Even if you as Zerg put so many larva and resources into hydras and upgrades, if you see the protoss make a lot of cannons so a hydra bust is to risky to try you can start to drone up because Protoss won't be able to push out fast enough to punish you since they put so much minerals into cannons and not gateways.
The hydras you built and upgrades is enough to defend against what protoss can push out with.
Of course I am oversimplifying the game a lot here, but saying there is no "make lots of hydras before first corsair and then do nothing and drone up to an equal economy" is weird when that is pretty much what the 9734 build is about.
If they don't build enough cannons, bust it. If they do build enough cannons, drone up. There is a lot more to it of course, but I think you are just flat out wrong.
EDIT: And to add a comment about balance, how the meta shifts and depending on maps etc. I don't see a balance problem per se, but Zerg is a tricky and narrow matchup for protoss. Especially since cracklings and dark swarm makes the lategame something you want to avoid as well.
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On April 09 2020 20:40 Barneyk wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2020 20:07 Sr18 wrote:
My anecdotal Zerg experience is totally different. If you invest in hydras and upgrades, you're going to be way behind on workers. If you don't deal massive damage, you are behind. There is no: make lots of hydras before first corsair and then do nothing and drone up to an equal economy.
This was maybe true before the 9734 build was popularized. Even if you as Zerg put so many larva and resources into hydras and upgrades, if you see the protoss make a lot of cannons so a hydra bust is to risky to try you can start to drone up because Protoss won't be able to push out fast enough to punish you since they put so much minerals into cannons and not gateways. The hydras you built and upgrades is enough to defend against what protoss can push out with. Of course I am oversimplifying the game a lot here, but saying there is no "make lots of hydras before first corsair and then do nothing and drone up to an equal economy" is weird when that is pretty much what the 9734 build is about. If they don't build enough cannons, bust it. If they do build enough cannons, drone up. There is a lot more to it of course, but I think you are just flat out wrong. EDIT: And to add a comment about balance, how the meta shifts and depending on maps etc. I don't see a balance problem per se, but Zerg is a tricky and narrow matchup for protoss. Especially since cracklings and dark swarm makes the lategame something you want to avoid as well.
Please forgive my noobness...
But what the hell is the 9734 build?!?
(Surely the build must have a cooler nickname  )
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United States4883 Posts
On April 09 2020 21:27 RKC wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2020 20:40 Barneyk wrote:On April 09 2020 20:07 Sr18 wrote:
My anecdotal Zerg experience is totally different. If you invest in hydras and upgrades, you're going to be way behind on workers. If you don't deal massive damage, you are behind. There is no: make lots of hydras before first corsair and then do nothing and drone up to an equal economy.
This was maybe true before the 9734 build was popularized. Even if you as Zerg put so many larva and resources into hydras and upgrades, if you see the protoss make a lot of cannons so a hydra bust is to risky to try you can start to drone up because Protoss won't be able to push out fast enough to punish you since they put so much minerals into cannons and not gateways. The hydras you built and upgrades is enough to defend against what protoss can push out with. Of course I am oversimplifying the game a lot here, but saying there is no "make lots of hydras before first corsair and then do nothing and drone up to an equal economy" is weird when that is pretty much what the 9734 build is about. If they don't build enough cannons, bust it. If they do build enough cannons, drone up. There is a lot more to it of course, but I think you are just flat out wrong. EDIT: And to add a comment about balance, how the meta shifts and depending on maps etc. I don't see a balance problem per se, but Zerg is a tricky and narrow matchup for protoss. Especially since cracklings and dark swarm makes the lategame something you want to avoid as well. Please forgive my noobness... But what the hell is the 9734 build?!? (Surely the build must have a cooler nickname )
Not entirely sure what all the numbers refer to, but it's basically a fake 3-hatch hydra bust where you make only enough hydras to pressure the front and kill off the gateway/forge while droning up and taking a 4th base. It's a difficult build for Protoss to deal with because they have to take the hydra threat seriously and they can't get much scouting info except for corsair scouts. It shuts down a lot of P tech builds like sair/DT and forces them to play heavy 2-base with a lot of gateways.
The downside is that Zerg doesn't have a lot of extra larva to work with until they get up to 5 hatches, so really aggressive options like sair/speedlot or goon/reaver timings can work exceptionally well. If Zerg loses that first set of hydras for free, they basically have 0 pressure on the Protoss.
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The etymology of 9734 is:
9 drones at the main
7 drones at the natural
3 drones at the third
Take a 4th
If you don't take a 4th it's just the 973 build
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On April 09 2020 23:06 EsportsJohn wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2020 21:27 RKC wrote:On April 09 2020 20:40 Barneyk wrote:On April 09 2020 20:07 Sr18 wrote:
My anecdotal Zerg experience is totally different. If you invest in hydras and upgrades, you're going to be way behind on workers. If you don't deal massive damage, you are behind. There is no: make lots of hydras before first corsair and then do nothing and drone up to an equal economy.
This was maybe true before the 9734 build was popularized. Even if you as Zerg put so many larva and resources into hydras and upgrades, if you see the protoss make a lot of cannons so a hydra bust is to risky to try you can start to drone up because Protoss won't be able to push out fast enough to punish you since they put so much minerals into cannons and not gateways. The hydras you built and upgrades is enough to defend against what protoss can push out with. Of course I am oversimplifying the game a lot here, but saying there is no "make lots of hydras before first corsair and then do nothing and drone up to an equal economy" is weird when that is pretty much what the 9734 build is about. If they don't build enough cannons, bust it. If they do build enough cannons, drone up. There is a lot more to it of course, but I think you are just flat out wrong. EDIT: And to add a comment about balance, how the meta shifts and depending on maps etc. I don't see a balance problem per se, but Zerg is a tricky and narrow matchup for protoss. Especially since cracklings and dark swarm makes the lategame something you want to avoid as well. Please forgive my noobness... But what the hell is the 9734 build?!? (Surely the build must have a cooler nickname ) Not entirely sure what all the numbers refer to
It's the drone count at main, nat, 3rd (& 4th) before massing Hydra.
And I'm glad for this build. The days of taking 3rd at another nat then die to speedlot archon push was not very fun as Zerg player.
Also the Protoss race is flexible af so I'm sure they'll come up with something in a couple of months.
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On April 09 2020 20:40 Barneyk wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2020 20:07 Sr18 wrote:
My anecdotal Zerg experience is totally different. If you invest in hydras and upgrades, you're going to be way behind on workers. If you don't deal massive damage, you are behind. There is no: make lots of hydras before first corsair and then do nothing and drone up to an equal economy.
This was maybe true before the 9734 build was popularized. Even if you as Zerg put so many larva and resources into hydras and upgrades, if you see the protoss make a lot of cannons so a hydra bust is to risky to try you can start to drone up because Protoss won't be able to push out fast enough to punish you since they put so much minerals into cannons and not gateways. The hydras you built and upgrades is enough to defend against what protoss can push out with. Of course I am oversimplifying the game a lot here, but saying there is no "make lots of hydras before first corsair and then do nothing and drone up to an equal economy" is weird when that is pretty much what the 9734 build is about. If they don't build enough cannons, bust it. If they do build enough cannons, drone up. There is a lot more to it of course, but I think you are just flat out wrong. EDIT: And to add a comment about balance, how the meta shifts and depending on maps etc. I don't see a balance problem per se, but Zerg is a tricky and narrow matchup for protoss. Especially since cracklings and dark swarm makes the lategame something you want to avoid as well.
This. The most that P can get from the situation is a chance to win, which, depending on the flow of the game, can be above, but also below 50%. The worst that can happen to P is instant loss. P doesn't have depth at this point of the game for a meta shift - the only way to defend against hydras is cannons; and cannon number cannot be hidden while hydras or their numbers can be hidden. Forge FE doesn't provide many options to counter this, while 1base builds or proxy gates have a small window to succeed vZ.
I don't agree, however, with delaying hydra upgrades as a solution. A slightly faster cannon warp-in could affect the balance even less and work quite well.
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EPT
