On October 25 2024 04:59 Artas1984 wrote:
What a shit show of a season this has been so far - SSL. I can't even force myself to watch the last game. I do respect Rain for being so bald and taking huge risks in the tournament with the builds - this is a trait of a REAL champion, having confidence to make decisions like that, but obviously it can not work for the majority of time.

From what i've seen Rain did not take this SSL seriously. When he said things like ''i am not sure what is my skill level now is'' it seemed like he was not taking this season seriously after all, despite talking about practicing SC and quitting LoL.

Rain was indeed taking this season seriously

From 910's behind-the-scenes video, Rain was genuinely bummed out at losing

Rain said he prepared a ton for the match, skipping several days of streaming to practice (in reality he actually stopped streaming a day earlier than Sharp to practice offline)

Rain explained that he probably overthought and overcooked his strategies during prep which wound up working against him. On reflection he thought he should have just done something more normal on Minstrel but he overthought it

Another example of overcooking is Rain saying in Game 4 (Radeon) he would have normally sent his dragoon up the map and scouted Sharp's ridiculous marine cheese early, but he reasoned that because he did DTs twice already, he would play mind games with Sharp and not send the dragoon. Later Sharp comes into the video and says he only sent the marines because he saw the dragoon didn't come, and he correctly predicted that Rain was trying to play mind games due to his earlier DT builds. After hearing that, Rain and Soulkey were impressed and said that was a deserved loss (Rain originally had thought the loss was BS luck)

When pressed by 910 about next participating season, Rain didn't commit to playing

(begins around 16:36 mark)

Ikirouta

Finland727 Posts

October 25 2024 10:59 GMT

#122

This season has been insanely fun, games have been great.

gravity

Australia1732 Posts

October 25 2024 11:32 GMT

#123

Another example of overcooking is Rain saying in Game 4 (Radeon) he would have normally sent his dragoon up the map and scouted Sharp's ridiculous marine cheese early, but he reasoned that because he did DTs twice already, he would play mind games with Sharp and not send the dragoon. Later Sharp comes into the video and says he only sent the marines because he saw the dragoon didn't come, and he correctly predicted that Rain was trying to play mind games due to his earlier DT builds. After hearing that, Rain and Soulkey were impressed and said that was a deserved loss (Rain originally had thought the loss was BS luck)

Interesting - we don't normally hear about these kind of decisions just by watching.

RJBTVYOUTUBE

Netherlands495 Posts

October 25 2024 11:40 GMT

#124

On October 25 2024 09:18 redknights wrote:

Show nested quote +

(begins around 16:36 mark)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsyILPdbsdY&t=996s

Rain also played more ladder than the others to get his mechanics sharpened and his timings correct. He has 500+- ladder games this season. Sharp was surprisingly one of the less active players for various reasons.

interesting to hear rain went too deep into trying to mind game. implies there is a limit to how hard one can try to mindgame because at some point you will mind game yourself.

Barneyk

Sweden304 Posts

October 26 2024 20:07 GMT

#125

I am so glad that Sharp won and I am rooting for him so hard in the finals!

But as others have said, this is probably the worst season of Starcraft since the return with ASL1.

Are the maps bad? I haven't really gotten a good feel for any of the maps played this season, non have consistently produced good games. And Monty Hall sucks, most other crazy maps have been a lot more fun, like 76 was pretty cool. Even Sparkle was a better map with more interesting and fun games.

I feel like so many players under-performed and played poorly as well this season.

Soulkey is looking like a god damn galaxy brain player this season though and that is cool to see.

Sharp is looking really sharp in his play, he seems to be doing almost everything right. Really impressive play from him.

So it hasn't been all bad and sub par Starcraft is still pretty damn good!

But not really a great season to have has first rebranded tournament!

Simplistik

1891 Posts

October 28 2024 19:18 GMT

#126

I don't think it's the maps.

For some reason lots of people have been approaching the games perhaps somewhat more strategically than in previous seasons, trying to get an advantage with surprising builds. And the thing is that this is risky. And a small micro error can end the game. So we've seen a bunch of shorter games.