On April 13 2020 14:56 Djabanete wrote: I'm impressed at how many people in this thread know more about TvZ builds than Flash.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to question why he went for the build he did when there seem to be other options as well. After all, most of us are noobs at the game in comparison.
I totally agree with questioning. I have some questions myself, and I'd love to hear Flash or another progamer talk about the ins and outs of the match we just saw.
Some people take it a step too far by saying "If he'd just done XYZ he would have won 3-0" as if Flash had never thought of doing XYZ.
Edit: You could turn the question around by saying: I assume Flash was winning in practice (or in his head) using his Polypoid and Hitchhiker strategies. What did Zero do so unusually well that Flash's strategies looked easy to counter? We could look at it from the Zerg perspective rather than the Terran perspective.
pretty sure Flash is going to explain his semis on his stream. I thoroughly enjoyed the series, all the mind games and deception, it was a nail biter. i know it wasn't a back and forth 40min games with defilers and mass vessels, but broodwar is not about late game, and with that the series were extremely high level.
Thinking Flash lost because of build orders means to NOT watch the whole picture... Flash lost because of bad tactical decision and poor micro.
Actually Flash's BOs are on paper good counters to 2h muta, BETTER than 2rax builds (or any other build like 111 of full mech). With 2rax builds you can't do nothing until vessels are out, just turtle in base and hope to not die, and by the time they do (at least 10:00, supposing your first vessel is not sniped!) zerg has 3/4 bases and you are been harrassed hard the whole time. From this position if zerg does not make mistakes is a zerg win the majority of time... this is how powerful is the 2h muta revolution by Zero! 111 is too fragile and biomech seems better than full mech vs 2h muta. Flash is looking forward at the new meta in order to beat those strong super aggressive 2h muta whom succeed to mantain map control for such a long time (in the same way he tried to innovate with 1-1-1 when he thought full bio was about to be figured out by zergs) and both biomech and biovalks are good counters right now.
Keeping that in mind, we can try to understand tactical/micro mistakes by Flash. We take game 2 as an example:
Game 2 (@09:05): Flash knew mutalisks leaving his base and are coming back. He has now 2 options: 1) Pull the trigger anyway, while the sunkens are in progress 2) Pull a bit back and regroup with reinforces Flash takes the riskiest choice, maybe because he thought he already had suffered too much damage in mainbase. And he lost the engage (and the game with it). Now there is just one question we should ask ourselves: Could Flash have won this engage with a better micro? The engage starts at 09:17 and Flash decide to not micro at all until 09:28 (when the engage is probably already lost). Could have Flash do better? Could the marines be moved a bit behind goliaths to be in a safe position? (you want to tank with goliath and do dps with marines) Or should he patrol-move goliaths backwards?
If the answer is: no, he could not have won this engage in any way, then probably he should pull back -> tactical/"decision making" mistake. If the anwser is: yes, he could have won this engage, then he was a -> micro mistake (anyway, Zero strategic plan, tactical decisions and mechanics were superb in this game).
That's IMHO the way we should reason about those games, not just blaiming build orders.
On April 13 2020 17:34 Zaibakk wrote: Game 2 (@09:05): Flash knew mutalisks leaving his base and are coming back. He has now 2 options: 1) Pull the trigger anyway, while the sunkens are in progress 2) Pull a bit back and regroup with reinforces Flash takes the riskiest choice, maybe because he thought he already had suffered too much damage in mainbase. And he lost the engage (and the game with it). Now there is just one question we should ask ourselves: Could Flash have won this engage with a better micro? The engage starts at 09:17 and Flash decide to not micro at all until 09:28 (when the engage is probably already lost). Could have Flash do better? Could the marines be moved a bit behind goliaths to be in a safe position? (you want to tank with goliath and do dps with marines) Or should he patrol-move goliaths backwards?
The whole time between 9:17 and 9:28 his screen was on the battlefield. He was on 350APM during that time. My wild guess is that he used that APM to micro.
In that game he tried to use the build that Sorry pioneered. Sorry used that build a couple of times and won comfortably. The idea of the build is to let zerg guess if the terran will go mech or will switch to bio after first few goliaths. Flash tried to use it again, after it failed for him against Action. It failed for him again.
Part of the reason is obviously the ultra-short distance between spawning positions. And that's the bad feature of that map. Depending on the starting positions it can be comfortable or very hard to tvz. Though terran is a very flexible race and given enough time they will probably figure out a build that allows them to survive the first 10 minutes in those spawning positions.
At several points in the last game those mutas were very damaged. How much did cancelling the control tower (if at all) or losing the first (or second) Valk affect his ability to engage. If he had one extra valk would he have just been able to build up a critical mass and mopped up the mutas?
On April 13 2020 13:10 RowdierBob wrote: Flash’s valk builds were really strong and the two games he won were very one sided.
But it was risky with only one gas on hitchhiker. I think he prob would’ve been better going mass bio rather than tanks. Could’ve hit a nice timing up the middle.
But the key move in this game was zero sniping the drop ship. That swing the momentum his way. If that gets into zero’s base it harms his eco enough that flash gets his third up and crushes the mid to late game.
those 2 tanks were quite a headscratcher . i was very surprised that he didn't win the game where he opened with 2 factories then transitioned to bio. his push was very strong and zero was prepared for mech only until the push was moving and the 2 sunks just barely saved him. after that game i was like wow flash can lose..
Pretty easy to win game 2 when your decision making tree between either backstabbing or defending was reduced to both choices because of close air distance that allowed him to attack AND defend basically at once. One cross spawn or standard map with corner mains Zero would've had to defend or commit to backstab and the game would've extended longer.
Valk build is trash, somehow Zero countered it by just building more mutas lmfao. The timing is really awful when Zero just takes fast 3rd behind the muta and valk push comes out so slow because you have to wait for 2-3 valks before pushing. If the whole point of your build is to counter muta and they just build more muta, it's not working. Wished he would just do standard 2 rax for a game but guess not.
??? 2 hatch muta into fast 3rd base relies on mutalisks. Game 1 and 4 are as standard as zvt today is. Its not like zerg can just build 4 sunkens, hydraden, lurker aspect and build lurkers with 2 hatch. Zergs need mutalisks to keep terran back while building economy with third gas.
Yeah, I know it relies on mutas. So a buidl that FlaSh designed that revolves around countering mutas... lost to more mutas. That's why the valk build seems so bad because how do you lose to the very thing you're trying to counter. It's like if Protoss goes 2 stargate corsairs and Zerg just builds more mutas to counter.
On April 13 2020 13:10 RowdierBob wrote: Flash’s valk builds were really strong and the two games he won were very one sided.
But it was risky with only one gas on hitchhiker. I think he prob would’ve been better going mass bio rather than tanks. Could’ve hit a nice timing up the middle.
But the key move in this game was zero sniping the drop ship. That swing the momentum his way. If that gets into zero’s base it harms his eco enough that flash gets his third up and crushes the mid to late game.
those 2 tanks were quite a headscratcher . i was very surprised that he didn't win the game where he opened with 2 factories then transitioned to bio. his push was very strong and zero was prepared for mech only until the push was moving and the 2 sunks just barely saved him. after that game i was like wow flash can lose..
Pretty easy to win game 2 when your decision making tree between either backstabbing or defending was reduced to both choices because of close air distance that allowed him to attack AND defend basically at once. One cross spawn or standard map with corner mains Zero would've had to defend or commit to backstab and the game would've extended longer.
Valk build is trash, somehow Zero countered it by just building more mutas lmfao. The timing is really awful when Zero just takes fast 3rd behind the muta and valk push comes out so slow because you have to wait for 2-3 valks before pushing. If the whole point of your build is to counter muta and they just build more muta, it's not working. Wished he would just do standard 2 rax for a game but guess not.
??? 2 hatch muta into fast 3rd base relies on mutalisks. Game 1 and 4 are as standard as zvt today is. Its not like zerg can just build 4 sunkens, hydraden, lurker aspect and build lurkers with 2 hatch. Zergs need mutalisks to keep terran back while building economy with third gas.
Yeah, I know it relies on mutas. So a buidl that FlaSh designed that revolves around countering mutas... lost to more mutas.
Only that it didn't. Can you please watch the games again? Flash lost g2 with goliath-marine and game 4 to lurkers (with goliath again). He only lost vs mutas with valkyries in g5 and I think we can chase down quite a few reasons why that happened (people already did in this thread). So Flash won 2 games with valks (g1 and 3) vs mutas and lost 1. I have no idea how anyone can come to the conclusion that the valk build sucks just from this series...
On April 13 2020 13:10 RowdierBob wrote: Flash’s valk builds were really strong and the two games he won were very one sided.
But it was risky with only one gas on hitchhiker. I think he prob would’ve been better going mass bio rather than tanks. Could’ve hit a nice timing up the middle.
But the key move in this game was zero sniping the drop ship. That swing the momentum his way. If that gets into zero’s base it harms his eco enough that flash gets his third up and crushes the mid to late game.
those 2 tanks were quite a headscratcher . i was very surprised that he didn't win the game where he opened with 2 factories then transitioned to bio. his push was very strong and zero was prepared for mech only until the push was moving and the 2 sunks just barely saved him. after that game i was like wow flash can lose..
Pretty easy to win game 2 when your decision making tree between either backstabbing or defending was reduced to both choices because of close air distance that allowed him to attack AND defend basically at once. One cross spawn or standard map with corner mains Zero would've had to defend or commit to backstab and the game would've extended longer.
Valk build is trash, somehow Zero countered it by just building more mutas lmfao. The timing is really awful when Zero just takes fast 3rd behind the muta and valk push comes out so slow because you have to wait for 2-3 valks before pushing. If the whole point of your build is to counter muta and they just build more muta, it's not working. Wished he would just do standard 2 rax for a game but guess not.
??? 2 hatch muta into fast 3rd base relies on mutalisks. Game 1 and 4 are as standard as zvt today is. Its not like zerg can just build 4 sunkens, hydraden, lurker aspect and build lurkers with 2 hatch. Zergs need mutalisks to keep terran back while building economy with third gas.
Yeah, I know it relies on mutas. So a buidl that FlaSh designed that revolves around countering mutas... lost to more mutas. That's why the valk build seems so bad because how do you lose to the very thing you're trying to counter. It's like if Protoss goes 2 stargate corsairs and Zerg just builds more mutas to counter.
Maybe I then missed something, because in matchpoint Zero got rolled, he even had +1 on mutas. Same in game 4, Zero even got jump on m&m and was still crushed. Hitchiker was upphill battle, and Zero played amazingly with stalling the push, sniping dropship and backstabbing with lings. And Flash had only 1 gas. To me this optimization when you delay academy and rush to star port seems quite good compared how much every terran struggles against Soulkey, Soma and Zero when playing 2 rax academy.
If Zero has to play Light in the finals it will be interesting to see Zero have to play against a completely different bio-based style of play. Even on hitchhiker, Light has tended to play 8 rax and proxy Factory most games. It will be a very entertaining matchup. That is why I hope Light knocks out Soma.
On April 13 2020 13:10 RowdierBob wrote: Flash’s valk builds were really strong and the two games he won were very one sided.
But it was risky with only one gas on hitchhiker. I think he prob would’ve been better going mass bio rather than tanks. Could’ve hit a nice timing up the middle.
But the key move in this game was zero sniping the drop ship. That swing the momentum his way. If that gets into zero’s base it harms his eco enough that flash gets his third up and crushes the mid to late game.
those 2 tanks were quite a headscratcher . i was very surprised that he didn't win the game where he opened with 2 factories then transitioned to bio. his push was very strong and zero was prepared for mech only until the push was moving and the 2 sunks just barely saved him. after that game i was like wow flash can lose..
Pretty easy to win game 2 when your decision making tree between either backstabbing or defending was reduced to both choices because of close air distance that allowed him to attack AND defend basically at once. One cross spawn or standard map with corner mains Zero would've had to defend or commit to backstab and the game would've extended longer.
Valk build is trash, somehow Zero countered it by just building more mutas lmfao. The timing is really awful when Zero just takes fast 3rd behind the muta and valk push comes out so slow because you have to wait for 2-3 valks before pushing. If the whole point of your build is to counter muta and they just build more muta, it's not working. Wished he would just do standard 2 rax for a game but guess not.
??? 2 hatch muta into fast 3rd base relies on mutalisks. Game 1 and 4 are as standard as zvt today is. Its not like zerg can just build 4 sunkens, hydraden, lurker aspect and build lurkers with 2 hatch. Zergs need mutalisks to keep terran back while building economy with third gas.
Yeah, I know it relies on mutas. So a buidl that FlaSh designed that revolves around countering mutas... lost to more mutas.
Only that it didn't. Can you please watch the games again? Flash lost g2 with goliath-marine and game 4 to lurkers (with goliath again). He only lost vs mutas with valkyries in g5 and I think we can chase down quite a few reasons why that happened (people already did in this thread). So Flash won 2 games with valks (g1 and 3) vs mutas and lost 1. I have no idea how anyone can come to the conclusion that the valk build sucks just from this series...
He's extremely confused because we've had several people mention this and I asked him what he was talking about in my previous post too. Flash won 2/3 games with valks and lost game 5 due to a host of reasons.
On April 13 2020 13:10 RowdierBob wrote: Flash’s valk builds were really strong and the two games he won were very one sided.
But it was risky with only one gas on hitchhiker. I think he prob would’ve been better going mass bio rather than tanks. Could’ve hit a nice timing up the middle.
But the key move in this game was zero sniping the drop ship. That swing the momentum his way. If that gets into zero’s base it harms his eco enough that flash gets his third up and crushes the mid to late game.
those 2 tanks were quite a headscratcher . i was very surprised that he didn't win the game where he opened with 2 factories then transitioned to bio. his push was very strong and zero was prepared for mech only until the push was moving and the 2 sunks just barely saved him. after that game i was like wow flash can lose..
Pretty easy to win game 2 when your decision making tree between either backstabbing or defending was reduced to both choices because of close air distance that allowed him to attack AND defend basically at once. One cross spawn or standard map with corner mains Zero would've had to defend or commit to backstab and the game would've extended longer.
Valk build is trash, somehow Zero countered it by just building more mutas lmfao. The timing is really awful when Zero just takes fast 3rd behind the muta and valk push comes out so slow because you have to wait for 2-3 valks before pushing. If the whole point of your build is to counter muta and they just build more muta, it's not working. Wished he would just do standard 2 rax for a game but guess not.
??? 2 hatch muta into fast 3rd base relies on mutalisks. Game 1 and 4 are as standard as zvt today is. Its not like zerg can just build 4 sunkens, hydraden, lurker aspect and build lurkers with 2 hatch. Zergs need mutalisks to keep terran back while building economy with third gas.
Yeah, I know it relies on mutas. So a buidl that FlaSh designed that revolves around countering mutas... lost to more mutas. That's why the valk build seems so bad because how do you lose to the very thing you're trying to counter. It's like if Protoss goes 2 stargate corsairs and Zerg just builds more mutas to counter.
Maybe I then missed something, because in matchpoint Zero got rolled, he even had +1 on mutas. Same in game 4, Zero even got jump on m&m and was still crushed. Hitchiker was upphill battle, and Zero played amazingly with stalling the push, sniping dropship and backstabbing with lings. And Flash had only 1 gas. To me this optimization when you delay academy and rush to star port seems quite good compared how much every terran struggles against Soulkey, Soma and Zero when playing 2 rax academy.
I have never seen burrow play to work when its used to ambush terran army. I honestly feel that any zerg trying it is trolling.
On April 13 2020 13:10 RowdierBob wrote: Flash’s valk builds were really strong and the two games he won were very one sided.
But it was risky with only one gas on hitchhiker. I think he prob would’ve been better going mass bio rather than tanks. Could’ve hit a nice timing up the middle.
But the key move in this game was zero sniping the drop ship. That swing the momentum his way. If that gets into zero’s base it harms his eco enough that flash gets his third up and crushes the mid to late game.
those 2 tanks were quite a headscratcher . i was very surprised that he didn't win the game where he opened with 2 factories then transitioned to bio. his push was very strong and zero was prepared for mech only until the push was moving and the 2 sunks just barely saved him. after that game i was like wow flash can lose..
Pretty easy to win game 2 when your decision making tree between either backstabbing or defending was reduced to both choices because of close air distance that allowed him to attack AND defend basically at once. One cross spawn or standard map with corner mains Zero would've had to defend or commit to backstab and the game would've extended longer.
Valk build is trash, somehow Zero countered it by just building more mutas lmfao. The timing is really awful when Zero just takes fast 3rd behind the muta and valk push comes out so slow because you have to wait for 2-3 valks before pushing. If the whole point of your build is to counter muta and they just build more muta, it's not working. Wished he would just do standard 2 rax for a game but guess not.
??? 2 hatch muta into fast 3rd base relies on mutalisks. Game 1 and 4 are as standard as zvt today is. Its not like zerg can just build 4 sunkens, hydraden, lurker aspect and build lurkers with 2 hatch. Zergs need mutalisks to keep terran back while building economy with third gas.
Yeah, I know it relies on mutas. So a buidl that FlaSh designed that revolves around countering mutas... lost to more mutas. That's why the valk build seems so bad because how do you lose to the very thing you're trying to counter. It's like if Protoss goes 2 stargate corsairs and Zerg just builds more mutas to counter.
Maybe I then missed something, because in matchpoint Zero got rolled, he even had +1 on mutas. Same in game 4, Zero even got jump on m&m and was still crushed. Hitchiker was upphill battle, and Zero played amazingly with stalling the push, sniping dropship and backstabbing with lings. And Flash had only 1 gas. To me this optimization when you delay academy and rush to star port seems quite good compared how much every terran struggles against Soulkey, Soma and Zero when playing 2 rax academy.
I have never seen burrow play to work when its used to ambush terran army. I honestly feel that any zerg trying it is trolling.
I think in this case there were also just way too little lings though. Although I do think he should have attacked with the muta first to let them tank at least some of the dmg and perhaps try to abuse Flash's attempts to micro instead of the lings just pretty much insta-dying.
On April 13 2020 13:10 RowdierBob wrote: Flash’s valk builds were really strong and the two games he won were very one sided.
But it was risky with only one gas on hitchhiker. I think he prob would’ve been better going mass bio rather than tanks. Could’ve hit a nice timing up the middle.
But the key move in this game was zero sniping the drop ship. That swing the momentum his way. If that gets into zero’s base it harms his eco enough that flash gets his third up and crushes the mid to late game.
those 2 tanks were quite a headscratcher . i was very surprised that he didn't win the game where he opened with 2 factories then transitioned to bio. his push was very strong and zero was prepared for mech only until the push was moving and the 2 sunks just barely saved him. after that game i was like wow flash can lose..
Pretty easy to win game 2 when your decision making tree between either backstabbing or defending was reduced to both choices because of close air distance that allowed him to attack AND defend basically at once. One cross spawn or standard map with corner mains Zero would've had to defend or commit to backstab and the game would've extended longer.
Valk build is trash, somehow Zero countered it by just building more mutas lmfao. The timing is really awful when Zero just takes fast 3rd behind the muta and valk push comes out so slow because you have to wait for 2-3 valks before pushing. If the whole point of your build is to counter muta and they just build more muta, it's not working. Wished he would just do standard 2 rax for a game but guess not.
??? 2 hatch muta into fast 3rd base relies on mutalisks. Game 1 and 4 are as standard as zvt today is. Its not like zerg can just build 4 sunkens, hydraden, lurker aspect and build lurkers with 2 hatch. Zergs need mutalisks to keep terran back while building economy with third gas.
Yeah, I know it relies on mutas. So a buidl that FlaSh designed that revolves around countering mutas... lost to more mutas. That's why the valk build seems so bad because how do you lose to the very thing you're trying to counter. It's like if Protoss goes 2 stargate corsairs and Zerg just builds more mutas to counter.
Flash owning Zero, just like on Sunday games 1 & 3
Now in game 5 along with other reasons, to me it seemed his build was not refined enough, plus he made uncharacteristic decisions like: - showing the first marine when he was hiding the barrack, then it was easy for Zero to exclude a number of other builds - subpar valk and group control in game 5, marines not routed, especially for his usual play. - Not last, expecting lurkers and making tanks instead of more marines, which off course is all due to great mind games and play of Zero
Anyhow well deserved and really happy to see Zero in the final! (same time upset as Flash fan)
Flash owning Zero, just like on Sunday games 1 & 3
Now in game 5 along with other reasons, to me it seemed his build was not refined enough, plus he made uncharacteristic decisions like: - showing the first marine when he was hiding the barrack, then it was easy for Zero to exclude a number of other builds - subpar valk and group control in game 5, marines not routed, especially for his usual play. - Not last, expecting lurkers and making tanks instead of more marines, which off course is all due to great mind games and play of Zero
Anyhow well deserved and really happy to see Zero in the final! (same time upset as Flash fan)
I'm not sure if the tanks were just for lurkers, what is he gonna do without tanks? If Zero would just sunken up there's no way you're gonna break that with just m&m on that map and it's the only easy route to go to his part of the map. You basically have to either drop or go through the temples if mid is blocked.
Also don't think showing the first marine was a very big deal? What would be different if he didnt? I don't think it would change much at all. The overlord basically scouted the path from the Z base to the T base, so he certainly wouldn't be afraid of proxies. I don't think there's really anything that could surprise him or kill him without having time to react (and thus cause Zero to overreact in some way).
Flash owning Zero, just like on Sunday games 1 & 3
Now in game 5 along with other reasons, to me it seemed his build was not refined enough, plus he made uncharacteristic decisions like: - showing the first marine when he was hiding the barrack, then it was easy for Zero to exclude a number of other builds - subpar valk and group control in game 5, marines not routed, especially for his usual play. - Not last, expecting lurkers and making tanks instead of more marines, which off course is all due to great mind games and play of Zero
Anyhow well deserved and really happy to see Zero in the final! (same time upset as Flash fan)
The tanks make sense when you look at it from his perspective. He was planning to push down the middle it seems. You can assume this from the fact that he didn't bother to kill the temples. When you consider this, if ZerO had gone lurkers, mnm would die a painful death due to the narrow middle. Having said that, ZerO didn't go lurkers, but he did get a den then canceled it. If Flash scouted it building with a scan and figured lurkers (2 would hold that middle indefinitely), he needed either tanks or vessels to combat them or to leave much sooner to set up a mini-contain with mnm outside the exp where he would've had a chance to at least micro (wasn't gonna do this). Seeing as you can't make vessels since his gameplan is to make valks for the muta threat which Flash correctly identifies, the only option left is to make several tanks so he made 3 and pushed with some mnm and 3 valks. That's a strong army.
As to why he didn't continue sieging the exp, my guess is that he figured that his supply line was exposed and he'll get tanks picked off with mutas while ZerO would just keep building more sunkens. This was the same scenario in GGPlay vs Hwasin (or maybe it was Iris) and GGPlay came out on top in that scenario. I agree that his control wasn't the usual in the last game. Plus, ZerO tried to bait him and used the map to his advantage, including the zerglings taking out the mineral only which was big as well as the snipe on the dropship right as it moved out. Flash was confident in his build at least.
In terms of showing the first marine, it was important for him to prevent the drone from entering his main so hiding it feels kinda useless since as you said, he had to reveal the marine regardless. Granted, I can't remember when the drone scouted (it did, right? haha) but if it was an earlier rax, likely would've hit earlier I believe.
EPT
and .... well.. win obviously 
