[ASL9] 3rd Place Match

On April 19 2020 19:02 lamarine wrote:
do 3rd-4th place matches affect anything other than prize money?

On April 19 2020 19:05 PVJ wrote:
Hitchhiker~~~

Is this Bo5? or Bo7 as the finals?

On April 19 2020 19:19 Geographer wrote:
And this what happens when Flash plays standard. He rolls to a win.

On April 19 2020 19:34 Argonauta wrote:
This map is so Terran favorable it is boring to watch the slaughter

On April 19 2020 19:35 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
This is what I don't understand about game 5 Flash vs Zero on Hitchhiker, was how Zero knew Flash had a ninja base. Flash could had gone one base wraiths or any number of things and Zero wouldn't had infrastructure to react to it till mutas came out.

On April 19 2020 19:38 Miragee wrote:


I don't think Zero knew. He only spotted it with the mutas.

On April 19 2020 19:42 Dangermousecatdog wrote:

That's the thing I don't understand. Zero knew somehow. I watched the game again and I can't figure it out. Zero would had died if Flash had done anything other than that hidden expo. He did half hearted scout for the fac position, but it could had been anywhere. Maybe there was something like number of marines at the ramp.

On April 19 2020 19:45 ChriS-X wrote:
will this be a 3-0?

On April 19 2020 18:56 BisuDagger wrote:
Can anyone recall the last time he lost to two different players in a row? His loss here would be ground breaking.

On April 19 2020 19:44 Morbidius wrote:
The bad games are coming in, its the price we must pay for the awesome semis and RO8.

On April 19 2020 19:45 Geographer wrote:
Why didn't Soma park three hydras on the side of the base where the vultures were streaming in from? Or move the drones to the natural?

On April 19 2020 19:35 Rainalcar wrote:
This map... Seriously. It's a copy-paste from a couple of rounds ago. It's a joke. Don't even try to say how Soma should have done this or that. I'm just baffled that Flash took a mineral CC vs Zero instead of doing this. He would probably be in the final by now.

On April 19 2020 19:50 M3t4PhYzX wrote:

what are you even talking about..? just plug the damn hole on the right side of your base.. I mean how hard was that to do?

Like seriously.. this might have been the worse reaction to a situation by any pro player I've seen like ever.. Ouch.

On April 19 2020 19:51 Ej_ wrote:

just plug the hole guys, even a D rank could stop FlaSh vulture/wraith multitasking

On April 19 2020 19:51 Ej_ wrote:

just plug the hole guys, even a D rank could stop FlaSh vulture/wraith multitasking

On April 19 2020 19:53 Rainalcar wrote:


Except we had the same thing just recently. Did you see that?

On April 19 2020 19:53 Puosu wrote:
shoulda plugged the hole with an ultralisk imo

On April 19 2020 19:55 prosatan wrote:

hahaha nice one !!

On April 19 2020 19:53 Puosu wrote:
shoulda plugged the hole with an ultralisk imo

On April 19 2020 20:00 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
Yeah, the reaction the the proxy fac seems poor. But every game with a proxy fac on hitchhiker has been like this strangely enough. Maybe there is something that plays out in practice game that we do not know?

On April 19 2020 20:14 Snorkels wrote:
Flash going with those viking strats when it matters and just plays normal here. Welp. Good morning/day crew.

On April 19 2020 20:13 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
So Flash chooses to play seriously in the third placement match instead of the semi-finals.

On April 19 2020 20:19 outscar wrote:
At least FlaSh doesn't need to go to qualifiers once again, auto seed to ro16. Hope he will switch race, that will make him even the greatest of the greatest.

On April 19 2020 20:16 Terrorbladder wrote:
He wants all medals. Gold, Silver acquired, now Bronze.

On April 19 2020 20:22 att wrote:

He just spreads these stupid rumors like oh its going to be my last asl, or oh im going to play protoss from now on. Its stupid mindgames, and he needs to be called out on doing that crap, cause its not cool

On April 20 2020 09:21 darktreb wrote:
"Every game on Hitchhiker is like this"

^ said by people who have seen two games total on Hitchhiker that went like this.

On April 20 2020 09:49 Kaolla wrote:


exactly, Hitchhiker is fine, but these "low eco" maps are getting voted out because the produce bad games due to players playing macro games and fucking up. Not every game should open with a free expansion for both players. Zergs (or any players) have a great chance if terran plays 1 base , yea it requires more attention early game but thats what the game is like. Used to be ages like this, but it seems these days if its not a 2 base opening its a bad map and imbalance blabla... Really shitty. I welcome maps like these. Break the macro meta which is somewhat boring (imo).

On April 20 2020 09:49 Kaolla wrote:
hat the game is like. Used to be ages like this, but it seems these days if its not a 2 base opening its a bad map and imbalance blabla... Really shitty. I welcome maps like these. Break the macro meta which is somewhat boring (imo).

On April 20 2020 11:05 ggsimida wrote:


its imbalanced because thanks to that opening and the overall layout of that nat theres so many ways terran can take advantage with 111 its not even funny. its recognizing this map is inherently abusive in a certain way and forces certain race to only play in a certain way that arbitrarily restrictive thanks to the map and consequently unfun (for the zerg at least).

On April 20 2020 11:08 RKC wrote:


But a map which allows the Zerg to easily take a 2nd (or even 3rd) base also 'forces' Terran or Protoss to play a certain way. Perhaps maps can never be perfectly balanced for all matchups, which is why the map pool should have different type of maps to balance a BO3-BO5 series.

On April 20 2020 17:23 RKC wrote:
Is Hitchhiker favoured for Terran in TvZ? G2 where Soma nearly made a comeback from early losses showed one great advantage Zerg has in delaying timing pushes: the valley of death. Sure, the distance between bases are short, but the cliffs on both sides of the main central path allows mutas to keep sniping marines. Imagine being Terran lacking vision of the cliffs - it's absolutely heart-stopping trying to anticipate and micro against muta attacks (makes a good action Alien-like movie scene too!).

Also, the reason why pro gamers veto 'weird' maps every season could be the complexity and extra hassle of learning specific BOs and timings. Doesn't necessarily mean the map itself is imbalance. In fact, Flash lost on Hitchhiker against Zero, and won the Protoss-favoured map against Snow in the ASL where he bowed out early. The difficulty is not so much winning on a funky map, but preparing the series as a whole.

So having a diverse map pool tests players' ability to prepare and execute multiple strats in a series - which is a good thing.

On April 20 2020 11:04 RKC wrote:


Exactly. I don't see why it should be the norm for players to get a 'free' 2nd base. Bases, even main bases, should have second exits and/or be surrounded by cliffs. This allows for early game scouting for Terran and Protoss, too. I feel that Zergs have a somewhat unfair advantage in early-game scouting (hence, they can execute busts and fake bust more easily).

It's not realistic that bases are arbitrarily 'walled off' by some invisible screen. A strategy-based game should be based on real warfare as much as possible.

Of course, this may unbalance certain matchups. But if Terran can siege up cliffs with tanks, Zergs can muta harass or siege up with guardians. Zerg have viable strats even on 'low econ' (fast defilers).

We should have more dynamic maps to freshen up the meta.

On April 20 2020 11:04 RKC wrote:


Exactly. I don't see why it should be the norm for players to get a 'free' 2nd base. Bases, even main bases, should have second exits and/or be surrounded by cliffs. This allows for early game scouting for Terran and Protoss, too. I feel that Zergs have a somewhat unfair advantage in early-game scouting (hence, they can execute busts and fake bust more easily).

It's not realistic that bases are arbitrarily 'walled off' by some invisible screen. A strategy-based game should be based on real warfare as much as possible.

Of course, this may unbalance certain matchups. But if Terran can siege up cliffs with tanks, Zergs can muta harass or siege up with guardians. Zerg have viable strats even on 'low econ' (fast defilers).

We should have more dynamic maps to freshen up the meta.

On April 20 2020 19:12 fLyiNgDroNe wrote:


Have been saying this for years. Every time the player that opens FE gets rushed people get mad, while the truth is that opening FE is a risk (although this risk is negligibly small on certain maps/matches), so maps like that do exploit this.
1 base/ low eco play is possible however hard it might be. I thoroughly enjoyed Hitchhiker there should be more maps like that. Balance will be of question when a lot of games are played and OP strategies are formed.

On April 20 2020 22:47 Barneyk wrote:
I can't believe so many are complaining about the maps when Soma played so poorly in the first 2 games.

Losing all his lings for almost nothing in the first engage and then running all his lurkers into a widely spread terran army just makes no sense to me. He was doing well with muta harass and putting Flash into a position where he had to play it safe and waste quite a lot on turrets etc. while he double expanded.

Terrible engages made Flash just steamroll him.

In the 2nd game I don't understand how he let so many vultures through, 1 sunken to cover the mineral line and 3 hydras blocking the choke or something is a bit wasteful but running his hydras around like headless chicken for 10 minutes was just awful to watch.

Truly disappointing series, Soma probably got flustered and choked because he was nowhere near the level he has played at throughout this season.

People saying that Flash would've done to Queen what he did here to Soma if he played standard just baffles me, Queen played so damn well in his games.

On April 21 2020 00:14 RKC wrote:
To be fair, Soma probably didn't expect Flash to keep spamming vultures - but instead to transition to starport or tank-marine push, perhaps? The way Flash (deliberately or thoughtlessly) sent vultures one-by-one would indicate such a transition (someone planning to invest in X number of vultures would more likely send X vultures in mass all at once). Maybe some meta trickery going on?

On April 21 2020 19:05 Ej_ wrote:
A single sunken colony costs 175 minerals and cannot protect entire mineral line from vulture harass.