EPT
[ASL20] Grand Finals
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BLinD-RawR
ALLEYCAT BLUES50578 Posts
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BLinD-RawR
ALLEYCAT BLUES50578 Posts
hopefully me making this thread early helps. | ||
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SCRVN
104 Posts
ASL Season 8 FlaSh 4-0 Snow ASL Season 20 Soma ?-? Snow Why snOw has to win when he has to play in his weakest matchup? He will cheese in game 1, then sink deeply into regret, can't recover at all. | ||
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Simplistik
2093 Posts
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M3t4PhYzX
Poland4225 Posts
SnOw FIGHTING ! ! !  | ||
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ScoutWBF
Germany628 Posts
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Timebon3s
Norway745 Posts
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
 See you guys tomorrow to LR !  LB on soma ! | ||
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WGT-Baal
France3411 Posts
also GL to my fellow liquibetters vying for first place, we have had a good season, may the best win  | ||
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TornadoSteve
1085 Posts
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44983 Posts
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rotta
5595 Posts
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21939 Posts
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
legend of the fall killer | ||
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CHEONSOYUN
548 Posts
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BisuDagger
Bisutopia19295 Posts
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TMNT
3002 Posts
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NoS-Craig
Australia3121 Posts
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bayagster
Philippines55 Posts
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Toshinou-Kyouko
Philippines387 Posts
won't be surprised if it is soma winning 4-2 | ||
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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HOLYBATS
Turkey745 Posts
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felleN
Australia67 Posts
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Postaljester_
33 Posts
Hopefully snow can matrix out a win. The big question is will soma lose to another 2 gate. | ||
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Zergxhx
China185 Posts
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RogerChillingworth
Chad3063 Posts
finally zerg win 1 | ||
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SkelA
Macedonia13069 Posts
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AttackZerg
United States7465 Posts
I think Soma is a favorite in many ways, but I also think he showed shaky form versus Bisu in the ro4 and his heavy focus on hydra/muta in the middlegame, opens him up to situations where taking a bad fight could get him steam rolled. I have seen Snow play some incredible macro games over the years, and in the super-late game, I have seen go toe-to-toe with greats, so I am feeling like we are about to see a very even match go down. Always rooting for the swarm, but Snow's excellence and capability have really stuck with me. If Soma plays how he did last week, we might see him get beat. Soma is an incredible zerg, just a unique voice in the zerg narrative, he seems to really trust 'zerg' more than any zerg, even soulkey. Meaning, he trusts in zerg always having the ability to meet a timing, and he just finds a way to adapt, it's like he treats bw as chess and zerg is always white with the first move advantage. Sorry for the rant! FKN PUMPED! | ||
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BLinD-RawR
ALLEYCAT BLUES50578 Posts
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/PZ2qK.gif) anyway here's the gif of a kongdance. | ||
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BLinD-RawR
ALLEYCAT BLUES50578 Posts
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gravity
Australia1988 Posts
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Kaal
Djibouti2539 Posts
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Duckvillelol
Australia1253 Posts
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
39% vs 63% | ||
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Toshinou-Kyouko
Philippines387 Posts
yikes | ||
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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Simplistik
2093 Posts
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
In team SSU there are Backho and zelot also! Saw yesterday games between these two | ||
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
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gravity
Australia1988 Posts
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
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gravity
Australia1988 Posts
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gravity
Australia1988 Posts
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gravity
Australia1988 Posts
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
he is ahead imo after that bad drop from soma | ||
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gravity
Australia1988 Posts
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
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Kaal
Djibouti2539 Posts
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gravity
Australia1988 Posts
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Kaal
Djibouti2539 Posts
On October 26 2025 17:44 prosatan wrote: snow has a huge army but he doesn't commit... i mean he cant break sunken+ lurkers in depth with only like 2 ht. | ||
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
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gravity
Australia1988 Posts
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
On October 26 2025 17:44 Kaal wrote: i mean he cant break sunken+ lurkers in depth with only like 2 ht. yeah... good game so far! | ||
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Duckvillelol
Australia1253 Posts
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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gravity
Australia1988 Posts
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
i think snow secured his bottom base | ||
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
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gravity
Australia1988 Posts
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
will be impossible to break with shuttles imo soma got this | ||
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
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gravity
Australia1988 Posts
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
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Kaal
Djibouti2539 Posts
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
On October 26 2025 17:50 gravity wrote: Nydus is going to take it from hard to attack to almost impossible Good call gravity !! | ||
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
he has a very low chance to win i think... | ||
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
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SkelA
Macedonia13069 Posts
He's so late with the bust. | ||
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gravity
Australia1988 Posts
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
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Toshinou-Kyouko
Philippines387 Posts
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
On October 26 2025 17:53 Kraekkling wrote: at 24 minutes snow finally tests somas defences and gets eaten | ||
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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BLinD-RawR
ALLEYCAT BLUES50578 Posts
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Toshinou-Kyouko
Philippines387 Posts
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Kaal
Djibouti2539 Posts
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Rainalcar
Croatia418 Posts
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BLinD-RawR
ALLEYCAT BLUES50578 Posts
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
halucination on shuttles !!! | ||
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
game feels over | ||
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
he doesnt even prevent mining ... | ||
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gravity
Australia1988 Posts
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21939 Posts
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
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gravity
Australia1988 Posts
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
GG Soma takes the first game ! | ||
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Kaal
Djibouti2539 Posts
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gravity
Australia1988 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:00 Gorsameth wrote: So much army spend by Snow to try and get the high ground at 3 o clock and when he gets it nothing actually changes in the game... Maybe he should have included a probe and built cannons there. He had minerals to spare. | ||
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BLinD-RawR
ALLEYCAT BLUES50578 Posts
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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Simplistik
2093 Posts
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Duckvillelol
Australia1253 Posts
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SkelA
Macedonia13069 Posts
All he needed to get an good bust with reavers on his front door around 15 min mark. | ||
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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Rainalcar
Croatia418 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:03 SkelA wrote: Snow was so lost this game. He had such an great start and soma played right into his hand but just he outplayed himself. All he needed to get an good bust with reavers on his front door around 15 min mark. Right, where Z has a backstab base to engulf him, be serious | ||
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Timebon3s
Norway745 Posts
HOWEVER! I think Snow actually will win. Yeah, he lost this map, but he showed how good his multitasking and army controll is. He just need to guess some build orders and he's winning this finale easy. | ||
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SkelA
Macedonia13069 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:06 Rainalcar wrote: Right, where Z has a backstab base to engulf him, be serious Snow had more bases max army the correct tech. Absolutely no chance for zerg to do anything at that timing. | ||
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
we've seen several Protoss do very well with sair/reaver/carrier on this map during the recent weeks in daily pl snow himself won games like this | ||
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Rainalcar
Croatia418 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:10 SkelA wrote: Snow had more bases max army the correct tech. Absolutely no chance for zerg to do anything at that timing. Soma would have stalled him with sunkens and then you would see a hydra lurker pincer. Z economy is too strong for timing attacks on this map. | ||
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Rainalcar
Croatia418 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:12 Kraekkling wrote: lol why tf are ppl complaining about this being a Zerg map we've seen several Protoss do very well with sair/reaver/carrier on this map during the recent weeks in daily pl snow himself won games like this Actually we have seen very seldom such games. And in ASL it was just ugly. | ||
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
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Rainalcar
Croatia418 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:15 Kraekkling wrote: like, why go for gateway units and only attack at 24 minutes? Because he was delayed by going for shuttle island. | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:03 RowdierBob wrote: Zergs have a 60% win rate on roaring currents. Brutal 60% win rate doesn't tell the whole story for ZvP on this map. In online games, Zerg lost mostly due to (a) in early days when strategies hadn't been developed very well, and (b) agressive play (to get a quick win) in early/mid game that sets them back massively. In ASL, Zergs all chose to play defensively which is the correct strategy for Zerg on this map, and they win 100% of the games. | ||
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:16 TMNT wrote: 60% win rate doesn't tell the whole story for ZvP on this map. In online games, Zerg lost mostly due to (a) in early days when strategies hadn't been developed very well, and (b) agressive play (to get a quick win) in early/mid game that sets them back massively. In ASL, Zergs all chose to play defensively which is the correct strategy for Zerg on this map, and they win 100% of the games. the map is at 47.2% WR for Protoss on eloboard... | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:12 Kraekkling wrote: lol why tf are ppl complaining about this being a Zerg map we've seen several Protoss do very well with sair/reaver/carrier on this map during the recent weeks in daily pl snow himself won games like this We actually didn't. I'm keeping track of all the PvZ games on this map recently. Every time Protoss won the game would require a blunder from Zerg in the early/mid game by being too aggressive (like trying to bust the natural) or too greedy (4 Hatch before Pool). If Zergs play defensively, they win like 90% of the times. In ASL where the stake is high, they chose that strategy and won 100% so far. | ||
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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BLinD-RawR
ALLEYCAT BLUES50578 Posts
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
gg 2-0 soma.. | ||
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BLinD-RawR
ALLEYCAT BLUES50578 Posts
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
quick 2-0 | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21939 Posts
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Peeano
Netherlands5176 Posts
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21939 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:26 Peeano wrote: long game where Soma just starved out SnowI missed the first game. I hope it wasn't a Hydra bust as well? | ||
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Timebon3s
Norway745 Posts
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Simplistik
2093 Posts
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Rainalcar
Croatia418 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:26 RowdierBob wrote: Awful zealot harass. Can’t give away those zeals for nothing and expect good things. Soma doing this easy. The problem is that P has to take such risks blind while Z sees everything. The problem is ZvP, a historically perpetually imbalanced matchup. | ||
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:26 Peeano wrote: I missed the first game. I hope it wasn't a Hydra bust as well? First game was very nice Peeano ! second...meh...not so good | ||
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ShloobeR
Korea (South)3819 Posts
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
the only reason to hide it there is to go for the pre-storm 5h bust but yeah, still, hydra is a good unit | ||
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
Maybe I will also add Mini to the list since he has amazing sair micro. | ||
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[sc1f]eonzerg
Belgium6736 Posts
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AttackZerg
United States7465 Posts
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TMNT
3002 Posts
Like, if he sits on his ass, Zerg can choose to Drone up and get away with a few Lings, or go Mutas, then he'll be accused of playing too passively. But if he goes out and gets ambushed, then he commits the mistake of donating the Zealots. Protoss always has to make a blind choice in this matchup. Sometimes it pays off sometimes it doesn't. If only there's a tool to help them make the right decision. | ||
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
Snow - bottom left Soma - top left | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44983 Posts
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Kaal
Djibouti2539 Posts
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Kaal
Djibouti2539 Posts
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
so he isn't afraid of 2 sneaky gates in the middle of the map ! | ||
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
prob 1z into nex | ||
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AttackZerg
United States7465 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:38 Kaal wrote: overpool on this map? He seems to be expecting proxy gate in games 2/3 after opening gamble in game 1. | ||
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ShloobeR
Korea (South)3819 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:36 TMNT wrote: I like how people talk about the Zealot pressure in hindsight. Like, if he sits on his ass, Zerg can choose to Drone up and get away with a few Lings, or go Mutas, then he'll be accused of playing too passively. But if he goes out and gets ambushed, then he commits the mistake of donating the Zealots. Protoss always has to make a blind choice in this matchup. Sometimes it pays off sometimes it doesn't. If only there's a tool to help them make the right decision. Honestly it would have worked better against other zergs but Soma's micro was really good there | ||
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Timebon3s
Norway745 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:36 TMNT wrote: I like how people talk about the Zealot pressure in hindsight. Like, if he sits on his ass, Zerg can choose to Drone up and get away with a few Lings, or go Mutas, then he'll be accused of playing too passively. But if he goes out and gets ambushed, then he commits the mistake of donating the Zealots. Protoss always has to make a blind choice in this matchup. Sometimes it pays off sometimes it doesn't. If only there's a tool to help them make the right decision. Absolutely 100%. | ||
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BLinD-RawR
ALLEYCAT BLUES50578 Posts
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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AttackZerg
United States7465 Posts
5 lings still alive. 450 apm | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44983 Posts
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
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AttackZerg
United States7465 Posts
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
450+ apm for soma ! | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44983 Posts
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
snow looking good this game | ||
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BLinD-RawR
ALLEYCAT BLUES50578 Posts
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44983 Posts
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BLinD-RawR
ALLEYCAT BLUES50578 Posts
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AttackZerg
United States7465 Posts
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44983 Posts
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Duckvillelol
Australia1253 Posts
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ShloobeR
Korea (South)3819 Posts
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AttackZerg
United States7465 Posts
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44983 Posts
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AttackZerg
United States7465 Posts
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
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ShloobeR
Korea (South)3819 Posts
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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Kaal
Djibouti2539 Posts
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44983 Posts
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gravity
Australia1988 Posts
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BLinD-RawR
ALLEYCAT BLUES50578 Posts
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Toshinou-Kyouko
Philippines387 Posts
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
2-1 well played snow ! | ||
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fLyiNgDroNe
Belgium4028 Posts
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AttackZerg
United States7465 Posts
I am proud of Snow? | ||
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Rainalcar
Croatia418 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:42 AttackZerg wrote: His lings are still alive this is insane. No, it's snow probe pulls that are insane | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44983 Posts
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AttackZerg
United States7465 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:51 Rainalcar wrote: No, it's snow probe pulls that are insane I agree! the 2 lings / 3 lings control groups were incredible. But in hindsight, Snow has on fucking fire! | ||
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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Simplistik
2093 Posts
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Peeano
Netherlands5176 Posts
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
Soma played perfectly and then chose to attack the main with a group of mutas when he knew Snow still has Sairs and had already built main cannons. | ||
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Peeano
Netherlands5176 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:54 Simplistik wrote: Amazing how that 5-ling runby didn't win that game. Huh. Yes! Loved to see it | ||
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AttackZerg
United States7465 Posts
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TMNT
3002 Posts
See Best on Ro8 in a similar situation, losing like 5 6 Probes. Snow only lost 1 and that was when Speed finished. And Soma's Ling control wasn't bad either. It was crazy. | ||
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Kaal
Djibouti2539 Posts
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44983 Posts
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44983 Posts
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Kespa1988
65 Posts
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44983 Posts
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BLinD-RawR
ALLEYCAT BLUES50578 Posts
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44983 Posts
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ScoutWBF
Germany628 Posts
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BLinD-RawR
ALLEYCAT BLUES50578 Posts
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44983 Posts
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
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Kaal
Djibouti2539 Posts
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BLinD-RawR
ALLEYCAT BLUES50578 Posts
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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Toshinou-Kyouko
Philippines387 Posts
pvz is truly snow's kryptonite | ||
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fLyiNgDroNe
Belgium4028 Posts
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44983 Posts
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Simplistik
2093 Posts
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ScoutWBF
Germany628 Posts
On October 26 2025 19:02 RowdierBob wrote: Man snow just failed to scout the hydras early enough. Dude had 4 corsairs and didn't see Hydras. | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21939 Posts
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Kespa1988
65 Posts
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44983 Posts
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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Rainalcar
Croatia418 Posts
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SkelA
Macedonia13069 Posts
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44983 Posts
On October 26 2025 19:03 Simplistik wrote: Zerg can apparently do three different all-ins in a row, in the same game... To be fair, it was Snow's game to lose... and he did. | ||
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thezanursic
5497 Posts
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
Cross position and you choose to go early DT? Please. Snow doesn't have it. Soma has played pretty impeccable so far with just the one mistake in the previous game. | ||
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NovaTheFeared
United States7229 Posts
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[sc1f]eonzerg
Belgium6736 Posts
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thezanursic
5497 Posts
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Timebon3s
Norway745 Posts
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
39% WR vs 63% WR | ||
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Rainalcar
Croatia418 Posts
Now he's explaining how Snow just has a poor pvz... If only he were as dominant as... Oo yeah, nobody | ||
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thezanursic
5497 Posts
Bisu gave Soma a good run for his money. Snow is not. | ||
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thezanursic
5497 Posts
On October 26 2025 19:06 Timebon3s wrote: I think Snows best chances at winning ASL is to switch race to Zerg. If Snow only plays Protoss and Terrans he wins an ASL tbh | ||
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Peeano
Netherlands5176 Posts
Seems unfair with how much Zerg can get away with. Makes me curious to hear Bisu's take on this game. | ||
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
Soma was clever though. After snow scouts the spure and no den he quickly switches to hydras while zoning the cairs with scourge to prevent the scouting. | ||
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
I don't need it but I want free shit | ||
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End1ess
Canada74 Posts
On October 26 2025 19:03 ScoutWBF wrote: Dude had 4 corsairs and didn't see Hydras. Bro u need 7 corsairs to run freely in the map. | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
Snow had full map control/vision with his corsairs, and he still botched that game. So disappointing. Notice he killed 2 Overlords (which is 1 more than normally allowed) then had to pull back as Scourges started coming out, and some Corsairs nearly died if not for slick control. From that point as Protoss you have to keep your Sairs back until you accumulate enough of them to fight a potential Orge Zerg gamer. If you move out too early, you'll be called stupid. You talk about "full map control" as if Protoss has map hack. The correct play there? When Zerg decides to do that strategy of "guess which way I'm gonna all in you", the only way is to build Cannons in BOTH nat and main to account for both situations. But Zerg has a 3rd option: I'm just gonna Drone up and leave you behind economically. Like I said, as P you have to guess. Sometimes it pays off sometimes it doesn't. | ||
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
On October 26 2025 19:13 TMNT wrote: Some of the comments here, I swear they don't understand the matchup very well. Like this: Notice he killed 2 Overlords (which is 1 more than normally allowed) then had to pull back as Scourges started coming out, and some Corsairs nearly died if not for slick control. From that point as Protoss you have to keep your Sairs back until you accumulate enough of them to fight a potential Orge Zerg gamer. If you move out too early, you'll be called stupid. You talk about "full map control" as if Protoss has map hack. The correct play there? When Zerg decides to do that strategy of "guess which way I'm gonna all in you", the only way is to build Cannons in BOTH nat and main to account for both situations. But Zerg has a 3rd option: I'm just gonna Drone up and leave you behind economically. Like I said, as P you have to guess. Sometimes it pays off sometimes it doesn't. Hindsight is 20/20 but snow needed to prob sac a cair to get the info he needed. Knowing Soma, he was always going to double up on an all in there. It’s tough though. If he was doing a muta dive and he sacs a cair there to confirm it, that can be a big deal. I feel for Snow. He’s just guessing wrong each time. | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 26 2025 19:04 RowdierBob wrote: As much as PvZ is tough for protosses, Soma is outplaying snow here. Snow thought it would be a muta all in like I did and didn’t bother to keep scouting till it was too late. Yeah but how can you "keep scouting" though? Nvm you just answered above. And yes I agree. The only way is to sneak a Corsair out of the group and go for Soma's base. But even with that there's two situations bad for Protoss that can occur : - the lone Sair gets caught by Scourge, because there's no reliable way to get the scout apart from praying he doesn't see me. - the lone Sair gets caught by the Muta Scourge flock, thus reducing his potency to defend the following Muta all in. There’s fuck all reliable solution really. | ||
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RJBTVYOUTUBE
Netherlands1002 Posts
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superjoppe
Sweden3685 Posts
random online C ranker: I could have won | ||
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
Definitely a test. | ||
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
On October 26 2025 19:20 RJBTVYOUTUBE wrote: SnOw greeded onto the overlords at 3 base that were free to kill, but as a result he didnt get a second full scout on SoMa's bases and was functioning on the spire tech information. He had to let the overlords go after killing one, and go for a second full scout. Only seeing the hydras once out on the map with his zealots killed him. SoMa read SnOw's greed perfectly and confirmed it with his scourge shadowing the zlots. Can we please stop with this? He didn't even align his cannons properly and the 5 zealots he had got stuck in the middle of the map on a map artifact. It was a terrible game altogether, not some 200IQ loss. | ||
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
two ling slips in!! snow should still feel good rn | ||
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Kaal
Djibouti2539 Posts
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
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Kaal
Djibouti2539 Posts
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
zealots going ham | ||
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
hyd den scouted, cannons in place | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44983 Posts
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DarkPlasmaBall
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Kaal
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gravity
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Kraekkling
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incoming timing will be hard to hold for soma | ||
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NovaTheFeared
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Timebon3s
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
goon temp gonna kill him | ||
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1238 Posts
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
You just know Soma is gonna try a realllly dirty all in one of these last two games. Hopefully snow learnt from Bisu. | ||
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superjoppe
Sweden3685 Posts
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Timebon3s
Norway745 Posts
I guess if all the stars align, Protoss can put up a fight xD | ||
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
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TMNT
3002 Posts
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
soma going for a muta timing?! | ||
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
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TMNT
3002 Posts
(I could be wrong this game, maybe he built the Den after the 5th Hatch) | ||
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BLinD-RawR
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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526 Posts
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
On October 26 2025 19:45 BLinD-RawR wrote: this is the kind of game where a DA would be key Yeah. Snow is surprisingly bad at adjusting mid-game. It might be because he is overly defensive. | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21939 Posts
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
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DarkPlasmaBall
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
pushing up that ramp at Snows 3rd while expanding twice behind it lol | ||
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
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Australia13287 Posts
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fLyiNgDroNe
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
i am 90% sure about it ! | ||
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
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526 Posts
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prosatan
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prosatan
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fLyiNgDroNe
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gravity
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BLinD-RawR
ALLEYCAT BLUES50578 Posts
Poll: Recommend Soma vs Snow Game 6? Yes (11) No (9) If you have time (4) 24 total votes Your vote: Recommend Soma vs Snow Game 6? Poll: Recommend Soma vs Snow Game 7? If you have time (11) No (6) Yes (5) 22 total votes Your vote: Recommend Soma vs Snow Game 7? | ||
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[sc1f]eonzerg
Belgium6736 Posts
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
Feel a bit bad for Snow... | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21939 Posts
PvZ is just so rough | ||
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Timebon3s
Norway745 Posts
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prosatan
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fLyiNgDroNe
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Simplistik
2093 Posts
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[sc1f]eonzerg
Belgium6736 Posts
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/LkZe3AR.png) | ||
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Rainalcar
Croatia418 Posts
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
As far as Snow goes. This last game kind of showed that he hit a wall. Clearly he couldn't control his army to the level of his opponent or make the correct decisions when the game was still close to 50/50. The way the best players of the game are round-up right now you cannot be a protoss champion with just being elite at PVP and PVT. Just not enough.. | ||
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Marl
United States694 Posts
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thezanursic
5497 Posts
On October 26 2025 19:57 Timebon3s wrote: Thats it, this game is solved. Protoss just can't beat Zerg. This is untrue, Snow had the lead several times. It is UNFORGIVING, but Snow could have won this series. | ||
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[sc1f]eonzerg
Belgium6736 Posts
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Soulforged
Latvia933 Posts
The 1 sair scout after scourge are out, but before the sairs reach critical mass to roam safely. Relying on zealots or a DT to scout at the same time...can work, but significantly lower success chance. | ||
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
![[image loading]](https://i.ibb.co/sdBgVqKW/9283284-A-5-B5-B-40-A7-8364-089-D2-CA9-CBEE.png) | ||
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
On October 26 2025 20:02 thezanursic wrote: but Snow could have won this series. I have no words here. You are delusional. | ||
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Rainalcar
Croatia418 Posts
User was temp banned for this post. | ||
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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RJBTVYOUTUBE
Netherlands1002 Posts
On October 26 2025 20:04 Soulforged wrote: There was one tactic that Bisu pulled out in his series vs Soma, that I've previously considered and I could see making a small difference in the matchup, at least in the spots that were relevant today. The 1 sair scout after scourge are out, but before the sairs reach critical mass to roam safely. Relying on zealots or a DT to scout at the same time...can work, but significantly lower success chance. Two losses came as a direct result of his corsaies being in the wrong place at the wrong time. One time greeding for overs and missing critical info on hydra bust on time. the other being corsairs greeding for overs in the last game, giving soma the chance to jump his army plus mutas onto snow's army, while snow taking the mineral only third, and sniping templars with a hydra follow up onto the ramp. That fight cost snOw so many templars and dragoons, that he could no longer get a 4th base. | ||
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
P.S: The people saying Soma is just beneficial of the match-up for this title are delusional. He clearly showed you that he is superior to his opponent in the finals. | ||
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Kespa1988
65 Posts
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M3t4PhYzX
Poland4225 Posts
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M3t4PhYzX
Poland4225 Posts
Whatever. | ||
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Bonyth
Poland581 Posts
Also people on TL saying that Snow was at fault for not scouting zerg when he had spire and didn't have 5 corsairs: i hope u are at least aware of the implications, as you are risking life of 1 corsair to get additional info on zerg. U'd think it's just 1 corsair, but i assure u it's a very important corsair. | ||
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RogerChillingworth
Chad3063 Posts
Can't stick around for the balance whine though. | ||
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Crimson)S(hadow
Philippines587 Posts
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21939 Posts
On October 26 2025 20:02 Marl wrote: I can forgive the island map cause Bisu blundered his air army.bisu vs soma was the real finals sadly. fuck that island map. That game 7 tho. that was rough >< | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 26 2025 20:06 Rainalcar wrote: Bisu won that one game after a crazy Soma throw. That's the only reason it went to g7. ZvP is imbalanced. There are so many Zs with dominant win rates. P reaching even 55% is miraculous. User was temp banned for this post. How is he banned for this post lol. This is not something outrageous to say. If the mods don't want "balance whine", a simple message would have sufficed. | ||
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Timebon3s
Norway745 Posts
mod edit: don't be a moron. | ||
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ScoutWBF
Germany628 Posts
On October 26 2025 20:15 Bonyth wrote: 20+ years of protoss underperforming. Yet people still claim protoss was the weaker player. Gotta hope it's PvT next season in the finals. But Terrans also get destroyed by the good Zergs right now. :/ | ||
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Peeano
Netherlands5176 Posts
On October 26 2025 20:20 Crimson)S(hadow wrote: was that a kpop star in the black clothes after game 2? anyone know who it was? I wouldn't know, but if you care enough you can at least provide a screenshot or tinestamped link. | ||
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
As long as he keeps running into the Soukeys/Heros/Somas etc I’m not sure he can win one. | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 26 2025 20:54 ScoutWBF wrote: Gotta hope it's PvT next season in the finals. But Terrans also get destroyed by the good Zergs right now. :/ If it's Flash in the finals there's not much hope for Protoss even for Snow. But probably better than the Zerg as even Soulkey is no match for him now. | ||
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Zergxhx
China185 Posts
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 26 2025 20:10 oxKnu wrote: The real winners on ASL finals day are the fans because we also get a fat online ProLeague series with all the names. P.S: The people saying Soma is just beneficial of the match-up for this title are delusional. He clearly showed you that he is superior to his opponent in the finals. It's not "just", obviously, otherwise BTS could also ZvP his way to ASL champion too. But you don't think having the ability to kill your opponent when they have no reliable way to scout your killing move is not a massive advantage? Today, the first game is a map win for Soma, the Dominator and Polestar games are matchup advantage-based wins, only the Knockout game is a fair and square win for him. On Snow's side, the Radeon game is a fair win, and the Metropolis one is a bit of a BO advantage win for him. How can you claim Soma is a superior player when Snow is a superior player to the best Terrans, who in turn are superior to Soma himself. It's almost there's a second, determining factor that decides that merry go round | ||
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SCRVN
104 Posts
Game 1: SnOw had advantage 99% time of game (he used the strategy that I thinked it's good for him. It's mass ground units), soma throw some times, but still won. Game 2: soma has just killed all zealots then mass Hydras. SnOw has no info anymore, guess wrong, gg. Game 3: SnOw outplayed so much soma by micro, macro, timing attack. Game 4: soma "all in" with 100000 lings but just destroyed only a gate. And then, he built a Spire, spent some redundant money by Scourge, mass Hydras like game 2. Game 5: SnOw played like game 1, it's just a real win. Game 6: soma spamed Hatchery and prevented SnOw did the same. It's fair if Hatchery's cost 400 or Nexus's cost 300, you know? I didn't see any Soma's skills better than SnOw, except how he picked his race. | ||
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barcodejester
51 Posts
It is really baffling that the premier tournament uses wildly unbalanced maps that even an amateur can tell you will be a shit show. | ||
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WGT-Baal
France3411 Posts
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Maks
Ukraine173 Posts
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
On October 26 2025 22:02 TMNT wrote: It's not "just", obviously, otherwise BTS could also ZvP his way to ASL champion too. But you don't think having the ability to kill your opponent when they have no reliable way to scout your killing move is not a massive advantage? Today, the first game is a map win for Soma, the Dominator and Polestar games are matchup advantage-based wins, only the Knockout game is a fair and square win for him. On Snow's side, the Radeon game is a fair win, and the Metropolis one is a bit of a BO advantage win for him. How can you claim Soma is a superior player when Snow is a superior player to the best Terrans, who in turn are superior to Soma himself. It's almost there's a second, determining factor that decides that merry go round I think you are bit blinded by fandom here. Soma can only play against what he is given and I assure you he will most likely be competitive in any match-up to a level higher that what Snow showed today, if you want to play that comparison game. | ||
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
On October 26 2025 23:22 Maks wrote: To me, it’s not just that Zerg are clearly stronger than Protoss — all the non-standard maps from the last few seasons are Zerg-favored too. And it’s not just Protoss struggling; Terrans are feeling the pain as well. This has been discussed many times. The rumour is the guy that has the final say on the maps is a Terran that makes sure the maps are always "safe" of anything that might bother Terran in TvZ. So basically P is left to chance each time. Sometimes it's really bad. (remember Benzene?), sometimes it's random. (like this season). | ||
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
On October 26 2025 20:15 Bonyth wrote: 20+ years of protoss underperforming. Yet people still claim protoss was the weaker player. Also people on TL saying that Snow was at fault for not scouting zerg when he had spire and didn't have 5 corsairs: i hope u are at least aware of the implications, as you are risking life of 1 corsair to get additional info on zerg. U'd think it's just 1 corsair, but i assure u it's a very important corsair. Cmon, even Snow would be disappointed in his performance today. The Snow of 2-3 seasons ago had stronger PvZ than this. This illusion that he played well today is a bit crazy imo. | ||
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[sc1f]eonzerg
Belgium6736 Posts
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Cricketer12
United States13990 Posts
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 26 2025 23:34 oxKnu wrote: I think you are bit blinded by fandom here. Soma can only play against what he is given and I assure you he will most likely be competitive in any match-up to a level higher that what Snow showed today, if you want to play that comparison game. You can assure me but facts don't agree with that statement. He's 61% against Protoss but 51% against Terran this year. He's negative vs Flash (45%) and Light (46%), while at exactly 50% vs Rush and Royal. Compare that to his record against Protoss: 53% vs Snow, 57% vs Bisu, 57% vs Mini, 78% vs Best. You can't look at that and tell me the matchup factor doesn't play a significant role. But the more important point is: when you look at all 3 matchups, you can in no way see in the other two the same phenomenon you see in ZvP, in which one race is constantly busted by the other in a "Guess what I'm gonna do? Gotcha!" manner. And it has been going on for 20 years! Win more games like the Knockout one today, or the BlitzY one between Soulkey vs Snow a couple of seasons ago, then Zerg can disregard the matchup advantage argument. | ||
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VioleTAK
4339 Posts
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
On October 26 2025 23:36 oxKnu wrote: This has been discussed many times. The rumour is the guy that has the final say on the maps is a Terran that makes sure the maps are always "safe" of anything that might bother Terran in TvZ. So basically P is left to chance each time. Sometimes it's really bad. (remember Benzene?), sometimes it's random. (like this season). the truth is that it's impossible to predict how maps will play out we just don't know beforehand even for maps that were specifically designed to help some race in a matchup, the outcome can't be determined it's just not possible to have sufficient high level, high stakes games before the maps get used in leagues there is no conspiracy | ||
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
you had a 39% WR snow in his worst matchup vs a 63% WR soma in his best matchup the 4-2 result is as consistent as you could possibly get with these stats | ||
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Ideas
United States8141 Posts
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
On October 27 2025 00:59 Kraekkling wrote: the truth is that it's impossible to predict how maps will play out we just don't know beforehand even for maps that were specifically designed to help some race in a matchup, the outcome can't be determined it's just not possible to have sufficient high level, high stakes games before the maps get used in leagues there is no conspiracy I didn't say there was a conspiracy, I said that there is a constant preference for a particular set of maps, for a particular race. | ||
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RJBTVYOUTUBE
Netherlands1002 Posts
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Crimson)S(hadow
Philippines587 Posts
On October 26 2025 20:54 Peeano wrote: I wouldn't know, but if you care enough you can at least provide a screenshot or tinestamped link. https://www.sooplive.com/video/174358?sec=6043 at 1:40:43 | ||
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
Interestingly, KnockOut is the only map where Protoss retains a positive win rate, data sample is small though. Still, a very terran friendly map pool... ![[image loading]](https://i.ibb.co/Y48n0zhV/maps.png) | ||
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G5
United States2913 Posts
Even the forced follow-up makes me mad because even if a Protoss holds, the correct play is to just 2 base all-in after the hold. Everyone praises Bisu for playing so well in the last series and all he did was try not to die and 2 base all-in. That's the match up now a days and it's still just hard AF for Protoss to win. Also, I agree with Bonyth when he says he doesn't understand how Protoss can underperform (specifically vs Zerg) throughout the history of a 25+ year old game and people still say it's a player skill reason as to why they're failing vs Zerg. Like all Protoss players are just morons and bad players and can't figure shit out. Map makers have honestly never made life easier for Protoss players against Zergs, with wallable naturals on basically every map etc. and Protoss players still by in large fail. TvP has a similar issue with Protoss but the MU design allows for Terrans to not die as much or fall drastically behind as much in the early game in TvP than P does against Z. I dunno... This series just made me mad. I think Soma plays ZvP how it should be played and the reality of what it looks like just pisses me off lol. Also, I get I may be banned for this (and w/e), but why are we temp banning people for balance whining? It's a gaming forum. Balance whining is such a huge part of a gaming forum. People expressing their views and frustrations with a match up seems natural on a gaming forum. It just seems so unhinged to ban someone over them expressing their views in good faith. I just think that's one of the dumbest takes a gaming forum administration could conjure up. | ||
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RogerChillingworth
Chad3063 Posts
On October 27 2025 01:46 G5 wrote: Honestly, watching this series just made me mad. Zerg just has so many advantages against Protoss. They can just all-in over and over. If one fails, follow it up with another all-in. It's so difficult as Protoss to scout / keep on top of it. Even the forced follow-up makes me mad because even if a Protoss holds, the correct play is to just 2 base all-in after the hold. Everyone praises Bisu for playing so well in the last series and all he did was try not to die and 2 base all-in. That's the match up now a days and it's still just hard AF for Protoss to win. Also, I agree with Bonyth when he says he doesn't understand how Protoss can underperform (specifically vs Zerg) throughout the history of a 25+ year old game and people still say it's a player skill reason as to why they're failing vs Zerg. Like all Protoss players are just morons and bad players and can't figure shit out. Map makers have honestly never made life easier for Protoss players against Zergs, with wallable naturals on basically every map etc. and Protoss players still by in large fail. TvP has a similar issue with Protoss but the MU design allows for Terrans to not die as much or fall drastically behind as much in the early game in TvP than P does against Z. I dunno... This series just made me mad. I think Soma plays ZvP how it should be played and the reality of what it looks like just pisses me off lol. Also, I get I may be banned for this (and w/e), but why are we temp banning people for balance whining? It's a gaming forum. Balance whining is such a huge part of a gaming forum. People expressing their views and frustrations with a match up seems natural on a gaming forum. It just seems so unhinged to ban someone over them expressing their views in good faith. I just think that's one of the dumbest takes a gaming forum administration could conjure up. Hmmm... do you expect a patch? Do you expect the people in charge of making those decisions to make the correct ones, and to only change exactly what is needed and then leave the game alone? It feels likely that either balance complaints ruin the game with shitty patches that turn it into a Frankenstein's monster, or they do nothing and undermine the achievement of the winning player. But I don't understand what people think is going to happen from endlessly arguing about it on a forum. And I'm not sure I'd agree that gaming forums are for balance arguments. It's like the worst aspect of these forums and always has been. Especially since 90% of people who contribute don't play the game. Like I don't see any arguments stating that hydra and ling busts are fun to watch and necessarily make for ggs. But the reality of the next step is the difficult one. Do people really want to open pandora's box and patch the game, or is it just venting? edit: idk why i suggested random dumb changes, totally the antithesis of my point lol | ||
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Ideas
United States8141 Posts
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Destroyer
Czech Republic937 Posts
I find this absolutely stunning, finally a non professional player has won, end of an era and a new beginning. It is interesting how zergs learned to use specific units over the years like queens, terrans learned to use valkyries, but protoss players are in most cases stubborn and simply wont use the dark archons for games and situations that are perfect for them (and would swing the victory). | ||
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
Lol, this is such a tired narrative. | ||
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
On October 27 2025 01:39 Kraekkling wrote: For the current map pool, overall there is a bias for Z>=P at sth like 53-47. Interestingly, KnockOut is the only map where Protoss retains a positive win rate, data sample is small though. Still, a very terran friendly map pool... Like I was saying, the current race balance will change whenever mapmakers go "Fuck Terran". | ||
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RogerChillingworth
Chad3063 Posts
It'd be nice to blow the top off that shit and just let the map creativity flow. | ||
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BisuDagger
Bisutopia19295 Posts
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Timebon3s
Norway745 Posts
On October 27 2025 01:46 G5 wrote: Also, I get I may be banned for this (and w/e), but why are we temp banning people for balance whining? It's a gaming forum. Balance whining is such a huge part of a gaming forum. People expressing their views and frustrations with a match up seems natural on a gaming forum. It just seems so unhinged to ban someone over them expressing their views in good faith. I just think that's one of the dumbest takes a gaming forum administration could conjure up. Yeah, WTF was that? Totally uncalled for. | ||
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
On October 27 2025 03:14 BisuDagger wrote: The good I get from this finals is that Bisu was really the second best player in this tournament. I haven’t felt this positive about his performance since proleague. Hopefully he can take the crown back from Zerg next season. If ASL was PvZ and PvP only then Bisu would look and feel like Flash. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:02 Duckvillelol wrote: Really Z favoured map which is always in consideration - but that felt like a very "flat" strategy from Snow to me. I don't really understand what the theory of victory is there? Obviously with the map itself it's hard to get the strategy down but that game just felt so all over the place in terms of what the objectives were. It is capture the ground bases, then rut out the enemy from the islands. Since Snow was so late to start for the first objective he never completed the second. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:03 RowdierBob wrote: Zergs have a 60% win rate on roaring currents. Brutal Not because protoss does themselves any favours, they just don't know how to play the game. Zealot legs and archons. I haven't seen a single protoss play it correctly. | ||
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Vasoline73
United States7815 Posts
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doktordingerdonger
1 Post
But yall focus solely on the results of a BO7. Maybe, just maybe yall shouldnt look at averages but at variances (or other moments), where protoss have little skill expression at the top 1 or something like that, which may explain why overall protoss does well winrate wise but suck ass in finals. | ||
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Sabu113
United States11075 Posts
On October 27 2025 03:31 oxKnu wrote: If ASL was PvZ and PvP only then Bisu would look and feel like Flash. The only protoss who ever looks convincing against zerg is mini. NO one else ever looks good. At this point they need to just fix the maps with a serious eye to PvZ. | ||
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WGT-Baal
France3411 Posts
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:14 Rainalcar wrote: Soma would have stalled him with sunkens and then you would see a hydra lurker pincer. Z economy is too strong for timing attacks on this map. It is because protoss doesn't make the same sort of ninja expos that zerg does so often. What is to stop protoss from taking the 11th, or 5th and only making 9 probes, no pylons what so ever. Let's go over the basics: nexus takes 75s, making 9 probes takes only 100.8s including your expanding probe. By your 9th probe you have already harvested at 50% efficiency which brings you 30s closer to break even point. 52s and you are printing money. 75+100.8+52.2=228s. You are telling me you don't have 3:48 in the midgame to hustle a victory. I don't believe you. | ||
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
On October 27 2025 03:14 BisuDagger wrote: The good I get from this finals is that Bisu was really the second best player in this tournament. I haven’t felt this positive about his performance since proleague. Hopefully he can take the crown back from Zerg next season. Snow would've wrecked Bisu PvP. I think the issue with the top four Ps (Bisu, Mini, Snow, Best) is all of them have a pretty weak MU that stops them going all the way. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:27 Gorsameth wrote: long game where Soma just starved out Snow I guess nobody informed Snow that mains have less resources. He treated the map like islands are main and mains are lategame expos. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:41 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Snow's probes and mineral-gathering are getting disrupted by Soma's lings, even though the zealots are doing a decent job of preventing kills per se. It is incredible we are watching soma innovate a counter to protoss FE bullshit. Zergling harass nullifies early expo economy boost for protoss. A first live, on air counter to blind FE counter by zerg. Wow! Finals really delivered. PS: I'm very sorry. I thought you talked about game 6. | ||
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CHEONSOYUN
548 Posts
he knows how to ignore zealots and cannon fire | ||
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Marl
United States694 Posts
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:53 RowdierBob wrote: Soma had that. Just had to keep pumping hydra instead of making the muta switch. No way, protoss wins at ground army engage every time. Snow had a happy accident. His bases were secure in a trident formation with no loose stragglers. If only he kept making more of the same, but a broken clock is right only twice a day. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 26 2025 18:57 TMNT wrote: Feels like some people may underestimate the importance of that Ling harass vs Zealot chasing/Probe pull at the beginning on the outcome of the game. See Best on Ro8 in a similar situation, losing like 5 6 Probes. Snow only lost 1 and that was when Speed finished. And Soma's Ling control wasn't bad either. It was crazy. Looking back at the game, I thought it was game 6(2) that came before game 3. Snow did hold it the first time, but Soma really innovated a counter to blind FE at game 6. Those two games are just top tier. I wish they were back to back because they look so good when viewed together. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 26 2025 19:02 RowdierBob wrote: Man snow just failed to scout the hydras early enough. It is scary how he mis-scouted two games out of four by that point. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 26 2025 19:05 oxKnu wrote: Ok, that was a poor loss. Just out of position the whole time. Missed rally points. Zealots getting stuck on map artifacts, awful wall design etc etc Cross position and you choose to go early DT? Please. Snow doesn't have it. Soma has played pretty impeccable so far with just the one mistake in the previous game. I think it should be clear walls don't work like protoss players aim to. They are walling themselves in, instead of walling zerg out. Walls should only work if your army is outside and zerg would try to do a backstab and you swoop in with your army and do a backstab yourself. Practically setting up a trap for zerg to walk into. As it stands, neither your units can go out so fast for an ambush, nor can your army spread to take away the brunt of the attack. Static defences are static. You need more mobility to amplify your frontline unit cycling. | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 26 2025 19:06 Timebon3s wrote: I think Snows best chances at winning ASL is to switch race to Zerg. That is the kind of attitude that is causing you to lose games. Drop FE, your win rates will soar. Whatever you think works, doesn't actually work. Even bisu has a better luck and he does this open-base overcommit bait for zerg to trip up on with fantastic accuracy. You don't need to dig your own grave with FE wall-ins, be more proactive. Last season both bisu and mini played vs hero, both were very successful with early game aggro. I think mini was even better in mid game. Too bad they didn't make it into the finals. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 26 2025 19:07 thezanursic wrote: How can Snow be so good at PvT and PvP and suck so bad at PvZ. Bisu gave Soma a good run for his money. Snow is not. People are biased. Last season they called snow's game with SK at Ro4 true finals, this season they got their finals wish and it still didn't deliver on their promises. Mind blown: bisu's game at Ro4 was BETTER than last season's Ro4 game. Change my mind. We had many celebrated players elevate this ASL season that did not make it into the finals. I stand by my conviction they deserved it more to be here. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 26 2025 19:09 Peeano wrote: Killing gateway, probes of minerals long enough. Then too many sairs (or not enough to force effectively psi block). Snow's simcity kinda sucked. Seems unfair with how much Zerg can get away with. Makes me curious to hear Bisu's take on this game. It is stupid to see protoss players choke their natural. I mean it is not like zerg needs more mobility, but you do! | ||
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Uldridge
Belgium4936 Posts
He macros like no other, doesn't give a fuck about losing units for his set priorities and just sweeps house. What a monster. As long as Protoss can't find an answer to his hydra/muta tech bamboozling, he'll just keep doing it. Your move Protoss. Only thing I'm a little sour on is that we see less unit variation, but that's all. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 26 2025 19:13 TMNT wrote: Some of the comments here, I swear they don't understand the matchup very well. Like this: Notice he killed 2 Overlords (which is 1 more than normally allowed) then had to pull back as Scourges started coming out, and some Corsairs nearly died if not for slick control. From that point as Protoss you have to keep your Sairs back until you accumulate enough of them to fight a potential Orge Zerg gamer. If you move out too early, you'll be called stupid. You talk about "full map control" as if Protoss has map hack. The correct play there? When Zerg decides to do that strategy of "guess which way I'm gonna all in you", the only way is to build Cannons in BOTH nat and main to account for both situations. But Zerg has a 3rd option: I'm just gonna Drone up and leave you behind economically. Like I said, as P you have to guess. Sometimes it pays off sometimes it doesn't. It is hilarious to watch you act out normal while still not knowing how to play. The wall in puts you at a disadvantage. The only way it can work is if both you and your enemy are at equal ground. If you wall yourself in, you give 3 quarters of the attack surface to your enemy. Only if you have a second outside perimeter army can you engage an oncoming hydrabust. You can never collect enough attack surface holding one side of the choke West vs. North+East+South. Even if you had reavers, zerg would still have enough mobility to move in. Only if you had a sizable zealot force outside the choke that had a deterrant effect on the zerg to not engage the outside army did you have a chance to come in from the South, or the East. | ||
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
On October 27 2025 04:54 RowdierBob wrote: Snow would've wrecked Bisu PvP. I think the issue with the top four Ps (Bisu, Mini, Snow, Best) is all of them have a pretty weak MU that stops them going all the way. Disagree there. Sure, because of his reaver micro Snow will always be the favorite but Bisu knows a lot of tricks and actually has a killer instinct in that match-up. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 26 2025 19:43 BLinD-RawR wrote: oh snow didn't do the crazy thing and try to just push with the zealots anyway. That would be a move out of Best's playbook. | ||
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
On October 27 2025 05:51 mtcn77 wrote: I think it should be clear walls don't work like protoss players aim to. They are walling themselves in, instead of walling zerg out. Walls should only work if your army is outside and zerg would try to do a backstab and you swoop in with your army and do a backstab yourself. Practically setting up a trap for zerg to walk into. As it stands, neither your units can go out so fast for an ambush, nor can your army spread to take away the brunt of the attack. Static defences are static. You need more mobility to amplify your frontline unit cycling. Ok, I have to ask. What the fuck is this? Is this AI-generated? This doesn't make any kind of sense. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 27 2025 06:31 oxKnu wrote: Ok, I have to ask. What the fuck is this? Is this AI-generated? This doesn't make any kind of sense. What is not making any sense is Snow making blind FE wall-in counters like it is some genius strategy and losing regardless. I'm just trying to explain to noobs how similar this is to julyzerg vs the Rock. Don't tell me that game is AI generated, too. That game coined the term sauron zerg. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 26 2025 20:02 Marl wrote: bisu vs soma was the real finals sadly. fuck that island map. Don't blame the map. It is prototypical Snow fashion - who picks that map if you'll lose. Only Snow... I had been vocal that map should be the decider. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 26 2025 20:04 Soulforged wrote: There was one tactic that Bisu pulled out in his series vs Soma, that I've previously considered and I could see making a small difference in the matchup, at least in the spots that were relevant today. The 1 sair scout after scourge are out, but before the sairs reach critical mass to roam safely. Relying on zealots or a DT to scout at the same time...can work, but significantly lower success chance. Now imagine: no corsairs. Mind blown! Protoss players should reconsider what they think they know for certain. Corsairs are a waste of early game opportunity. Make gateway units like players did 20 years ago. They falsely believe they are so innovative playing corsair openers when it was a bisu first and they are only being complacent. Bisu opens with corsairs just as many games as he does zealot rushes. Best does more zealot rushes. Mini does even more zealot rushes. If you want antiair you have archons. | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21939 Posts
On October 27 2025 06:31 oxKnu wrote: No there are actually some people on here who think they know better then the entire Protoss pro-scene.Ok, I have to ask. What the fuck is this? Is this AI-generated? This doesn't make any kind of sense. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 26 2025 20:06 Rainalcar wrote: Bisu won that one game after a crazy Soma throw. That's the only reason it went to g7. ZvP is imbalanced. There are so many Zs with dominant win rates. P reaching even 55% is miraculous. User was temp banned for this post. Mods: can I have a wish? I want to hear his side of the story. You didn't temp ban TMNT for stating the same "crazy throw" delusion at Motive vs Queen thread. I think this dude deserves the same treatment. It might be obvious to us after the fact that Bisu stood firm 3-4 vs 2-4 better than his hero. I just want to put some sense into him by talking it through. I think we have to narrate this ongoing protoss delusion. They don't know who their real heroes are. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 27 2025 06:55 Gorsameth wrote: No there are actually some people on here who think they know better then the entire Protoss pro-scene. Who were those who assumed a legend of the fall victory? I'm not assuming to know better than your pro-scene. It is a well established fact at this point. Stop making excuses. | ||
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[sc1f]eonzerg
Belgium6736 Posts
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 27 2025 07:01 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote: Thinking about the series. We didnt see a single defiler the whole series. Game 1 we saw Guardians from Soma.proly the only hive tech that was used the whole series. Im not even sure he did adrenaline. Also, at the time people were saying defilers beat queens everytime... we didn't see queens too, but larva wasn't playing today. It is ironic zerg has so much to give, but protoss are at a standstill. They need to reinvent themselves, hopefully next season. | ||
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XenOsky
Chile2282 Posts
absolutly shocking, nobody saw that coming... | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 26 2025 20:55 RowdierBob wrote: Still can’t believe JYJ and Royal have fluked into winning ASLs by getting charmed brackets that didn’t have any protosses and Snow for all his brilliance in PvT and PvP can’t get over the S-tier Zerg hump. As long as he keeps running into the Soukeys/Heros/Somas etc I’m not sure he can win one. Both won against Soulkey. Don't forget that. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 26 2025 22:07 SCRVN wrote: Actually, I am so sad when I am about to say the truth, the series should be SnOw 6:0 soma today, people've watched this one, they would agree with me. Game 1: SnOw had advantage 99% time of game (he used the strategy that I thinked it's good for him. It's mass ground units), soma throw some times, but still won. Game 2: soma has just killed all zealots then mass Hydras. SnOw has no info anymore, guess wrong, gg. Game 3: SnOw outplayed so much soma by micro, macro, timing attack. Game 4: soma "all in" with 100000 lings but just destroyed only a gate. And then, he built a Spire, spent some redundant money by Scourge, mass Hydras like game 2. Game 5: SnOw played like game 1, it's just a real win. Game 6: soma spamed Hatchery and prevented SnOw did the same. It's fair if Hatchery's cost 400 or Nexus's cost 300, you know? I didn't see any Soma's skills better than SnOw, except how he picked his race. Do you want an honest answer? Because I'm going to give an honest answer if this isn't one of those echo chamber balance whines. | ||
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[sc1f]eonzerg
Belgium6736 Posts
Btw After 4 seasons of SK domination i can see the fatigue of zerg winning. I still advocate for standard maps and not make it harder for zerg cuz ladder is hell already lol. | ||
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Soulforged
Latvia933 Posts
As a Protoss, if you're fast enough relative to your opponent, you will have scouting information. If you aren't, you have to resort to stuff like: - BO opener advantage allowing you to cover everything - trickery to get your scouting, like hiding or sneaking a probe/zealot - to mind games/knowing your opponent/blind guesses All of the above on a given day may or may not work well. I'd even say that because of this factor, a player like Snow may be a much better and stable bet against an average zerg pro, than someone like Mini...but if I had to pick between the two of them someone to take out the actual top zerg in a series, I'd go with Mini. And of course Bisu's PvZ is on another level unless the others are in their peak peak form. I think it is telling that against Bisu, Soma had to resort to 2 base all-ins a lot, where Z actually can deny scouting, but the gamble has much less of a transition. That wasn't necessary against Snow. Peak Snow a while back was fun to watch because he'd literally kill mutas with predictive storms, no corsairs necessary. But he's not peaking now and it is hard to bring out that type of insane form in an offline setting, anyway. He's much better at home. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 26 2025 22:16 barcodejester wrote: it will be interesting to see what free win for zerg map they will come up with next season but i am willing to bet there will be one. It is really baffling that the premier tournament uses wildly unbalanced maps that even an amateur can tell you will be a shit show. It just separates the wheat from the chaff. If you think it is unbalanced then why was it snow's first pick? It makes no sense if you were to consider this viewpoint. | ||
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
On October 27 2025 07:01 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote: Thinking about the series. We didnt see a single defiler the whole series. Game 1 we saw Guardians from Soma.proly the only hive tech that was used the whole series. Im not even sure he did adrenaline. yep same with soma vs bisu, never went to late | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 27 2025 06:14 Uldridge wrote: Soma displaying quintessential Zerg play here. Absolute hyperaggression and no fear. Insane. He macros like no other, doesn't give a fuck about losing units for his set priorities and just sweeps house. What a monster. As long as Protoss can't find an answer to his hydra/muta tech bamboozling, he'll just keep doing it. Your move Protoss. Only thing I'm a little sour on is that we see less unit variation, but that's all. It is like the most boring players get the furthest in the tournament and people are angry for the wrong reasons. True? Brilliant. Went the shortest. Mini? Spectacular for a protoss. Next in line. Larva? Stunning. He went queens before defilers, even. Couldn't take a standard protoss. Bisu? Magnificent, though irregular at times. Snow? Everybody loves him. I think love triumps results, so he better win they hope. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 27 2025 05:58 TMNT wrote: Jeez this dude just going through the whole thread to reply to everyone Look, I know you are prejudiced, but looking at it from my perspective, you cannot overlook no one has anything substantial to come up with on my rapid fire posts, you should know I assume it is because I stand convicted that I am right. I think this tourney system is the cause and effect of what we are seeing. Like I said a few posts back, Soulkey loses two games in Ro4 and grants two title victories to Royal and JyJ. I think this is what we should discuss rather than whether soma deserved to win because what is done is done. If we do that, maybe we can discuss a points based system to determine this season's winner, rather than who granted a finals pass to the title to whom like it is today. I want protoss to win just as anybody. PS: let's assume barracks played soma and bisu played snow. We could easily see a snow win. If you think this is fair, don't change a thing. User was warned for this post | ||
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
On October 27 2025 07:27 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote: JYJ and Royal winning ASL shows to you that luck is also so important for this kind of tournament lol. Jesus i havent seen JYJ in proleagues or anything really since he won the ASL. And Royal idk if it is the maps that just dont favour him no more or what but the guy is really mid these days. And i cant help but thinking how neither Soma or Snow sneak an ASL win those seasons is unreal. Btw After 4 seasons of SK domination i can see the fatigue of zerg winning. I still advocate for standard maps and not make it harder for zerg cuz ladder is hell already lol. Royal played zero protosses; JYJ played just one (2 games against Stork in the ro24, he went 1-1). Both had an insane level of bracket luck to win. If Snow only had to play PvP and PvT he’d prob have at least ASLs. Best probably would’ve snagged one too. Bisu not so sure. His PvT can be a bit shaky. | ||
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Highways
Australia6105 Posts
Soma is a hydra bust noob also | ||
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TornadoSteve
1085 Posts
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Brett
Australia3821 Posts
On October 27 2025 01:46 G5 wrote: Also, I agree with Bonyth when he says he doesn't understand how Protoss can underperform (specifically vs Zerg) throughout the history of a 25+ year old game and people still say it's a player skill reason as to why they're failing vs Zerg. Like all Protoss players are just morons and bad players and can't figure shit out. Map makers have honestly never made life easier for Protoss players against Zergs, with wallable naturals on basically every map etc. and Protoss players still by in large fail. Updated since my ASL 17 post: In the history of BW starleagues (MSL, OSL, ASL), protoss has won 17 finals, terran 34, and zerg 30 (including ASL 20). If you look at results from just the past 20 years, protoss has won 10 (3 in ASL), terran 26 (8 in ASL) and zerg 30 (9 in ASL) ZvP finals results: 12:2 The two protoss finals wins vs zerg were in 2000 (Garimto beat Skelton) and 2006/7 (Bisu beat Savior). LOL | ||
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gravity
Australia1988 Posts
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Avidkeystamper
United States8556 Posts
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SCRVN
104 Posts
On October 27 2025 07:23 mtcn77 wrote:Do you want an honest answer? Because I'm going to give an honest answer if this isn't one of those echo chamber balance whines. Yes, I really would like to know | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 27 2025 09:18 Brett wrote: Updated since my ASL 17 post: In the history of BW starleagues (MSL, OSL, ASL), protoss has won 17 finals, terran 34, and zerg 30 (including ASL 20). If you look at results from just the past 20 years, protoss has won 10 (3 in ASL), terran 26 (8 in ASL) and zerg 30 (9 in ASL) ZvP finals results: 12:2 The two protoss finals wins vs zerg were in 2000 (Garimto beat Skelton) and 2006/7 (Bisu beat Savior). LOL The same finals where bisu invented corsair dt. I think the question is why protosses haven't moved on a bit from 2006. | ||
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TornadoSteve
1085 Posts
User was warned for this post | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 27 2025 09:23 gravity wrote: In the likely absence of any balance changes, I wonder if what might work would be matchup-specific map pools - so you could find the few maps that are balanced for ZvP and only use those ones for that matchup, without having to worry about how they affect Terran. This would require banning Random but that seems like a small price to pay given how rare it is. There's no downside to this, but what should have been done 10 years ago will never be done now, because BW is run by Koreans and ASL is single-handedly run by one guy who was a Terran ex-pro. In addition, ASL is the playing field of the same group of 16-32 players whose main job is streamer. The winners will be happy for a few days and the losers will be upset for a few days but ultimately what they care most now, especially since they're all in their mid-30s, is how many balloons they gather each month from their stream. There's simply not enough motivation to make such a radical change like that. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + 1. map: zerg gets all 4 ground bases while protoss makes reaver, then ground army and gets the island. It should all be in reverse. Protoss should get all 4 ground bases and take out zerg's ground bases, not like moving out and retreating at the bridge like snow did. 2. map: FE build order auto defeat. You cannot win from this. Protoss and early map control are one and the same. Notice soma didn't even make mutas. Zerg has overlords, let them slowly crawl into your space. Do not give them map control like snow did AND 6 zealot 1 corsair gifts that do nothing in the early game. You know a random expo takes only 400 minerals? In a map like dominator, there is zero chance zerg can scout every main. Use your map control advantage. A random expo takes 75 seconds to make the nexus, 100.8 seconds 8 probes, 52 seconds thereafter to break even. Don't tell me you cannot hide a base for 52 seconds, once it has been operational. 3. map is a victory, so I'll pass. 4. map: again FE build order auto loss after giving full scout at 3 minutes while snow having zero scouting info at 3, or 8 minutes, apart from 6 minutes with a corsair. You cannot recover from giving full map control to zerg when you are cross spawn giving full flow of information in zerg control. Force zerg to make mutalisks, force them to make lurkers. Hit them with a bigger ground army. None were present in the game. 5. map: is again a victory, so I'll pass. 6. map: by this point soma is so much in control, he even stops FE making an early economy win for protoss by stopping early mining. | ||
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Simplistik
2093 Posts
On October 27 2025 07:01 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote: Thinking about the series. We didnt see a single defiler the whole series. Game 1 we saw Guardians from Soma.proly the only hive tech that was used the whole series. Im not even sure he did adrenaline. I think this is probably why the series felt so bland. | ||
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BLinD-RawR
ALLEYCAT BLUES50578 Posts
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SCRVN
104 Posts
On October 27 2025 10:48 mtcn77 wrote: + Show Spoiler + 1. map: zerg gets all 4 ground bases while protoss makes reaver, then ground army and gets the island. It should all be in reverse. Protoss should get all 4 ground bases and take out zerg's ground bases, not like moving out and retreating at the bridge like snow did. 2. map: FE build order auto defeat. You cannot win from this. Protoss and early map control are one and the same. Notice soma didn't even make mutas. Zerg has overlords, let them slowly crawl into your space. Do not give them map control like snow did AND 6 zealot 1 corsair gifts that do nothing in the early game. You know a random expo takes only 400 minerals? In a map like dominator, there is zero chance zerg can scout every main. Use your map control advantage. A random expo takes 75 seconds to make the nexus, 100.8 seconds 8 probes, 52 seconds thereafter to break even. Don't tell me you cannot hide a base for 52 seconds, once it has been operational. 3. map is a victory, so I'll pass. 4. map: again FE build order auto loss after giving full scout at 3 minutes while snow having zero scouting info at 3, or 8 minutes, apart from 6 minutes with a corsair. You cannot recover from giving full map control to zerg when you are cross spawn giving full flow of information in zerg control. Force zerg to make mutalisks, force them to make lurkers. Hit them with a bigger ground army. None were present in the game. 5. map: is again a victory, so I'll pass. 6. map: by this point soma is so much in control, he even stops FE making an early economy win for protoss by stopping early mining. I don't think you are better than SnOw, why he didn't know what you know? The weak point of Protoss can't cover all build order from Zerg. It's not SnOw's fault. soma lost all lings, still won; SnOw lost all zealots, lost; soma has no info, still won; SnOw has no info, lost. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 27 2025 13:01 SCRVN wrote: I don't think you are better than SnOw, why he didn't know what you know? The weak point of Protoss can't cover all build order from Zerg. It's not SnOw's fault. soma lost all lings, still won; SnOw lost all zealots, lost; soma has no info, still won; SnOw has no info, lost. Okay, you got me. I really believed you would have listened for once. I guess you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Which brings me: you know, 1 stargate 1 corsair is the same amount of gas as a templar archive? I'm sure first corsair is as game breaking as having proper aoe. | ||
FlaShFTW
United States10227 Posts
On October 27 2025 13:33 mtcn77 wrote: Okay, you got me. I really believed you would have listened for once. I guess you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Which brings me: you know, 1 stargate 1 corsair is the same amount of gas as a templar archive? I'm sure first corsair is as game breaking as having proper aoe. Congratulations, you made a BUILDING and mutas are now flying into your base and you have no stargate to make corsairs. Or even if you made the templar, there's something called MICRO where the mutalisks move out from under storm even if you hit it right on them. But I suppose hoping for your Zerg opponent to momentarily lose all motor functions or have their mouse disconnect is about the best strategy for Protoss to reliably beat Zerg these days. Idk, call all the pro Protoss players stupid, but maybe... just maybe, that corsair and stargate are useful for something. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 27 2025 14:01 FlaShFTW wrote: Congratulations, you made a BUILDING and mutas are now flying into your base and you have no stargate to make corsairs. Or even if you made the templar, there's something called MICRO where the mutalisks move out from under storm even if you hit it right on them. But I suppose hoping for your Zerg opponent to momentarily lose all motor functions or have their mouse disconnect is about the best strategy for Protoss to reliably beat Zerg these days. Idk, call all the pro Protoss players stupid, but maybe... just maybe, that corsair and stargate are useful for something. I meant the archon. | ||
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SCRVN
104 Posts
I look at how fast Hydras/Lings are being bought, run and how slow DTs/Cannon are being bought, finish. It's so painful for Protoss. Zerg is always active and Protoss is always passive. Zerg actively picks this build too, Protoss passively prays for not a Hydra bust too. It's a big difference between two race, and Zerg 99% gets ahead one or more steps on the opponents. | ||
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
I dunno what meta shifts are available in PvZ though. I used to be a believer in Dark Archons and still think they have potential. But I reckon you need 2-3 of them to make them really effective and that’s a huge investment when you’ve gotta be teching to storm, obs goon range etc too. I don’t think DAs are necessarily a great counter to Soma’s style either. There weren’t many occasions yesterday you can point too where DAs would’ve solved the issue. I think one of the big issues is that Zergs control all the information in the matchup due to speedlings and overlords (early game) and later with scourge and speed ovies. This is what leads to the guessing game for Ps. Ps seem to have their best success when they can set the game flow early with zeal pressure or speed zeal timings. Mini and Bisu are really good at it whereas Best and Snow struggle a bit more. I dunno. They do need to try something new though. The quick expand into Cair seems a bit stale and predictable. | ||
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
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SCRVN
104 Posts
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iopq
United States998 Posts
On October 27 2025 14:40 RowdierBob wrote: I think one of the big issues is that Zergs control all the information in the matchup due to speedlings and overlords (early game) and later with scourge and speed ovies. This is what leads to the guessing game for Ps. So the way I've seen stronger Protosses deal with it is keeping the probe alive as long as possible and sending another one by clicking the mineral. If the choke is blocked by a million zerglings and you can't mineral walk through, send a lot of zealots before speed is done (in the base before 5 minutes). If the zerg can clean them up and still deny scouting by blocking the ramp, just add some cannons since the Zerg is so dedicated to making a ton of units to start. Then your corsair goes in the hydra path to the Zerg base and checks initially, and you start +1 air. If you see spire make 6+ corsair and then clean up scouting overlords. Hope that helps. | ||
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RJBTVYOUTUBE
Netherlands1002 Posts
On October 27 2025 08:28 RowdierBob wrote: Royal played zero protosses; JYJ played just one (2 games against Stork in the ro24, he went 1-1). Both had an insane level of bracket luck to win. If Snow only had to play PvP and PvT he’d prob have at least ASLs. Best probably would’ve snagged one too. Bisu not so sure. His PvT can be a bit shaky. JyJ's Bracket luck is overstated. He was legitimately the best Terran for a very short period of time. He practiced the hardest and played the most out of all the terrans at that time and it paid off for him. After winning that ASL his activity plummeted to like 10% of what it used to be. He just regressed back to a worse form and never put in the time and effort since then to get his form back. And I dont think we will see Soulkey get his form back either. Soulkey shows no signs of wanting to get back to his prime and neither does JyJ. | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 27 2025 16:18 iopq wrote: So the way I've seen stronger Protosses deal with it is keeping the probe alive as long as possible and sending another one by clicking the mineral. If the choke is blocked by a million zerglings and you can't mineral walk through, send a lot of zealots before speed is done (in the base before 5 minutes). If the zerg can clean them up and still deny scouting by blocking the ramp, just add some cannons since the Zerg is so dedicated to making a ton of units to start. Then your corsair goes in the hydra path to the Zerg base and checks initially, and you start +1 air. If you see spire make 6+ corsair and then clean up scouting overlords. Hope that helps. This is not a solution. This is exactly how Protoss dies to Hydra bust lol. First of all you don't have "a lot" of Zealots before 5 mins. You have "a few". So the move out has to be worth it. If your Zealots die to Lings, you have nothing to block the Hydras from jumping on your Cannons 1 minute later, which was exactly what happened to Snow on Dominator and Polestar. The only reliable way to fix Hydra bust is to increase the upgrade time for Hydra range or decrease the building time for Cannon. The latter is in the same principle with TvZ: Zerg doesn't know if Terran will go for a MM bust until they move out, but a Sunken finishing in 24s instead of 32s for Cannons help massively. | ||
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Peeano
Netherlands5176 Posts
Bringing back Bo5 instead of Bo7 (why do we even have Bo7 before the finals lol?) would be the best way to make imba match ups a bit more "fair". | ||
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RJBTVYOUTUBE
Netherlands1002 Posts
On October 27 2025 20:23 Peeano wrote: Decreasing Cannon build time is not an option because it would change cannon rush a lot. I wouldn't be surprised if sunkens build quicker to combat cannon rush, or if it's just another happy little accident that BW was blessed with. Bringing back Bo5 instead of Bo7 (why do we even have Bo7 before the finals lol?) would be the best way to make imba match ups a bit more "fair". no. They have to stick to bo7s. The issue lies in wacky maps. And SnOw also just made mistakes. His mistakes dont make zerg overpowered. It was just Soma and Soma alone who broke through a zerg this season. No others zergs did well, beside Larva. Past seasons it was JUST Soulkeu doing well. | ||
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
This can be solved with just maps imo, by just making mappool strictly optimized for PvZ. However that's such a delicate task that it would most likely root out even more discourse and arguing. Best solution is this: - make cannon build time lower This would have the most immediate effect on eliminating a lot of the early shenanigans WITHOUT disrupting other match-ups and other aspects of PvZ itself. Any other change would have too many implications throught the match-ups and different map layouts. Mid to late game PvZ is actually quite well balanced even FS-inspired Terran favored maps thus allowing that ASL mapmaker to continue his life-long obsession. | ||
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[sc1f]eonzerg
Belgium6736 Posts
Look at the last 10 ASLs I cant help but think is really hard to get something as balanced as this. ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/Ts4I4oD.png) 4 zvp finals 1 zvz final funny enough Hero and SK were the only zerg players to make it to the round of 8 1 zvt final 2 pvt final 2 tvt finals appearance in finals Terran : 5 zerg finals : 6 protoss: 6 I think if anything Terran is the one affected the most. And im sorry but When you are basically playing a final and the score gets to 3-3 game 7 is pretty much like in football going to penalties. Anything can happen really. I was checking season 15 bracket then i saw Mind freaking beat Best in his best matchup. So no only Snow and Soma were missing a huge opportunity to win ASL but Best also blunder super hard vs Mind. And lets no forget Best could have been the Champion over Sk aswell. SO many games he just did w.e. And i know people call bs when i say this but brother the freaking maps has never been this good for protoss. Anyone that play this game knows this shit. You know whats actually funny ? Death Valley was actually good for protoss. But i imagine since most of the players didnt want to practise that shit You will see the protoss doing 2 gateways to get over it.. And btw the strange part from Terran no doing well in ASL is actually interesting cuz in proleague they doing fairly well. Im not sure if it is About those players no performing offline. I coulnt believe my eyes when i Saw how bad Light was doing vs Larva. You will see online how every terran basically farm ballons vs him. Anyway the reality is that we are minority here on TL. Is no like mapmakers will take our feedback or anything lol. I mean i have to be honest that i expected the Island map to be really punishing for zerg this season. Specially with the low minerals mechanics. I wonder if the map make it to the next season to explore even more mineral/gaz reduction to bring different playstyles. | ||
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Soulforged
Latvia933 Posts
Sunkens build faster because the drone cost is covered upfront both in mineral and time. (And also the creep colony portion is 1.5x faster than the mineral cost would imply). Bunkers are same as shield battery, they builds as if they costed 75 minerals. Sunkens - including drone cost - build as if they cost 150 and not 175. Cannons build as if they cost 125. So it is pretty fair across the board, just the drone cost is baked in for the sunkens. What makes hydra / muta deadly is the fact that you can save up to 3 larva. I remember Bonyth mentioning that it'd be nice to be able to see what is hatching in eggs, and that seems like the most elegant solution to me, if we did have to have a patch. But nah, not happening. It's not that hard to make a decent map for P. 10 mineral patch mains and open ground 3rd/4th with easy wall on natural, please, ideally on a 2player map. | ||
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Ideas
United States8141 Posts
On October 27 2025 21:12 oxKnu wrote: The finals record poster earlier in this thread in ZvP tells you everything you need to know about the state of the game. It's not completely impossible for P to win but since this has been a topic of discussion for decades now I think it would be nice for Blizzard to actually make a change for this specific match-up. Obviously the game is balanced enough in other aspects but there are ways to alleviate some of this non-sense we are subjected to each ASL. This can be solved with just maps imo, by just making mappool strictly optimized for PvZ. However that's such a delicate task that it would most likely root out even more discourse and arguing. Best solution is this: - make cannon build time lower This would have the most immediate effect on eliminating a lot of the early shenanigans WITHOUT disrupting other match-ups and other aspects of PvZ itself. Any other change would have too many implications throught the match-ups and different map layouts. Mid to late game PvZ is actually quite well balanced even FS-inspired Terran favored maps thus allowing that ASL mapmaker to continue his life-long obsession. you can probably find 100s of threads on TL throughout the years of people suggesting balance changes for PvZ. But it's not ever going to happen. More realistically maps can change to help out the match-up though. Seems like Knockout was pretty successful balance-wise, would love to see the natural trenches implemented in other maps. speaking of maps: I think I'm ready to put Radeon out to pasture. It was a solid map for a while but I think the meta is pretty stale on it now. Same with Dominator. | ||
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[sc1f]eonzerg
Belgium6736 Posts
On October 27 2025 19:33 RJBTVYOUTUBE wrote: JyJ's Bracket luck is overstated. He was legitimately the best Terran for a very short period of time. He practiced the hardest and played the most out of all the terrans at that time and it paid off for him. After winning that ASL his activity plummeted to like 10% of what it used to be. He just regressed back to a worse form and never put in the time and effort since then to get his form back. And I dont think we will see Soulkey get his form back either. Soulkey shows no signs of wanting to get back to his prime and neither does JyJ. Well SK already won 4 ASLs. Cant blame him. He has 5 championships total post Kespa. And i imagine he doesnt really the money anymore ? LOL so maybe he can relax for a bit atleast. Also take in mind ASL just finished. New maps are yet to come. So all in all the only thing he can do right now is to do the university girls thing. And if league of legends is making him happy and it is working for his stream then that is really good for him. If FlaSh happen to to play the next ASL things will get very interesting. a clash of Soma vs FlaSh or FlaSh vs Snow will be peak for sure. | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 27 2025 21:40 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote: each time a zerg win we get the same bs of always. Look at the last 10 ASLs I cant help but think is really hard to get something as balanced as this. 4 zvp finals 1 zvz final funny enough Hero and SK were the only zerg players to make it to the round of 8 1 zvt final 2 pvt final 2 tvt finals appearance in finals Terran : 5 zerg finals : 6 protoss: 6 I think if anything Terran is the one affected the most. And im sorry but When you are basically playing a final and the score gets to 3-3 game 7 is pretty much like in football going to penalties. Anything can happen really. I was checking season 15 bracket then i saw Mind freaking beat Best in his best matchup. So no only Snow and Soma were missing a huge opportunity to win ASL but Best also blunder super hard vs Mind. And lets no forget Best could have been the Champion over Sk aswell. SO many games he just did w.e. And i know people call bs when i say this but brother the freaking maps has never been this good for protoss. Anyone that play this game knows this shit. You know whats actually funny ? Death Valley was actually good for protoss. But i imagine since most of the players didnt want to practise that shit You will see the protoss doing 2 gateways to get over it.. And btw the strange part from Terran no doing well in ASL is actually interesting cuz in proleague they doing fairly well. Im not sure if it is About those players no performing offline. I coulnt believe my eyes when i Saw how bad Light was doing vs Larva. You will see online how every terran basically farm ballons vs him. Anyway the reality is that we are minority here on TL. Is no like mapmakers will take our feedback or anything lol. I mean i have to be honest that i expected the Island map to be really punishing for zerg this season. Specially with the low minerals mechanics. I wonder if the map make it to the next season to explore even more mineral/gaz reduction to bring different playstyles. It's 7 7 6 for final appearances (you know it should add up to 20 right?) but it's just minor correction anyway. If you go back more to the entire 20 seasons, it becomes 16 13 11, a bit more lopsided although I guess you can argue the effect of Flash. But it's still inconsequential. The point is you can't base your entire argument on a "what if" like that. What if Best beat Mind? He would have gone on and won that ASL instead of JYJ? Probably. But you can also say what if Soma didn't lose to fucking Ample in that same tournament so he could have gone deeper and eaten Best alive. What if Mini's 12 Nexus got scouted first by Rush or 9 Pool'd by Queen? Protoss wouldn't have had their 3rd ASL either. What if Snow didn't narrowly beat Flash in ASL5 so Rain couldn't have won his ASL? A lot of "what ifs" over the course of 20 seasons. Upsets occur for all 3 races here and there. You can't use what if for a single race and leave out the others like that and say "look, in this hypothetical situation it's all balanced". | ||
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[sc1f]eonzerg
Belgium6736 Posts
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CHEONSOYUN
548 Posts
so he has to lose pvz that is balanced! | ||
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M3t4PhYzX
Poland4225 Posts
On October 27 2025 09:18 Brett wrote: Updated since my ASL 17 post: In the history of BW starleagues (MSL, OSL, ASL), protoss has won 17 finals, terran 34, and zerg 30 (including ASL 20). If you look at results from just the past 20 years, protoss has won 10 (3 in ASL), terran 26 (8 in ASL) and zerg 30 (9 in ASL) ZvP finals results: 12:2 The two protoss finals wins vs zerg were in 2000 (Garimto beat Skelton) and 2006/7 (Bisu beat Savior). LOL Yeah.. Numbers don't lie. This is just sad. -.- | ||
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kidcrash
United States623 Posts
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FlaShFTW
United States10227 Posts
Yes, the historically stupid, fat ass Archon that, while having the same range as a muta, can get outmicroed by a muta which can just fly around your base killing all your shit while the archon squirms around in in your buildings yearning to hit the mutas. It's ok to just say you don't play the game mate and that you're just an armchair theorycrafter. Just don't pretend like your strategic insight holds any weight. | ||
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Timebon3s
Norway745 Posts
On October 27 2025 23:45 M3t4PhYzX wrote: Yeah.. Numbers don't lie. This is just sad. -.- Yeah, it sucks that protoss loses all the time and yeah, I am a big fan of Snow. But what concerns me the most, is that it feels detrimental to Brood War as an esport. I really hope this doesn't have a rippling effect in that new players simply opt out of playing the race so we just end up with terrans and zergs in the years to come. I guess the only thing that can even it out is different maps. Mabye more maps with double gas in main or something. This is the only game that's worth following and I love it so much that it hope things will even out. And I love all you BW fans as well <3 Yeah we disagree a lot, but this community is the best there is :D | ||
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FlaShFTW
United States10227 Posts
On October 27 2025 21:40 Soulforged wrote: Building and unit build time generally is line with their mineral cost. Defensive structures though are the main exception to those, clearly tweaked around. Sunkens build faster because the drone cost is covered upfront both in mineral and time. (And also the creep colony portion is 1.5x faster than the mineral cost would imply). Bunkers are same as shield battery, they builds as if they costed 75 minerals. Sunkens - including drone cost - build as if they cost 150 and not 175. Cannons build as if they cost 125. So it is pretty fair across the board, just the drone cost is baked in for the sunkens. What makes hydra / muta deadly is the fact that you can save up to 3 larva. I remember Bonyth mentioning that it'd be nice to be able to see what is hatching in eggs, and that seems like the most elegant solution to me, if we did have to have a patch. But nah, not happening. It's not that hard to make a decent map for P. 10 mineral patch mains and open ground 3rd/4th with easy wall on natural, please, ideally on a 2player map. I wonder if the Knock Out ditch concept will be put into more maps and become standard, as it was one of the few maps where the game got past the sort of coin-flip stage of is it muta, or is it hydra bust, and we actually saw a prolonged game. I also wonder if we might just see the return of ramped naturals like Roaring Current/Tempest as that seems to help with Protoss defending against hydra bust as well. The side effect of course is that ling/lurker busts in TvZ goes down and Terran pushes in TvP get a little worse. I do wish that more standard 2p maps were common rather than the slew of 4p maps we always have. Out of 7 maps, I think the best breakdown would be 2 2p, 2 3p, 2 4p, and then an experimental map. Instead, we have 1 2p, 1 3p, 4 4p, and one experimental. | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 27 2025 21:44 Ideas wrote: you can probably find 100s of threads on TL throughout the years of people suggesting balance changes for PvZ. But it's not ever going to happen. More realistically maps can change to help out the match-up though. Seems like Knockout was pretty successful balance-wise, would love to see the natural trenches implemented in other maps. speaking of maps: I think I'm ready to put Radeon out to pasture. It was a solid map for a while but I think the meta is pretty stale on it now. Same with Dominator. Yeah any suggestions for a balance patch is moot anyway, since it's not gonna happen. It's just for theory crafting pov. The main reason that PvZ balance often ignites heated discussions and most whining instead of other matchups, especially when the ZvT win rate looks even more absurdly unbalanced, is the nature of the gameplay: - It feels unfair for the Protoss to be killed outright for something they can't have a reliable way to take matters into their own hands. - It feels extremely unfair when you also consider the fact that Zerg can do one all-in, fail, then still have another chance with another all-in, like in the Polestar game. And god knows if that fails again, the 3rd all-in with Muta can still come. The Zerg can 100% be the better player to the P, but if the Z beats the P with such a game, then that game is no indication of him being the better player. One game like that in a Bo5/7 is already one game too many, let alone two. We see cheeses and gambles in other matchups too, BBS, 99 Gate, 4 Pool, you name it. But none of them is consistently used as a mainstream strategy like Hydra bust. Many people like to think all races are balanced in power. They're not. Maps create such relative balance. The size of the natural entrance that allows fast expand for P is the single reason why that matchup is playable. But it's quite apparent for so long that this standard map template is still unfair to Protoss from a strategic pov. If you can't give them the ability to obtain information through ability patches, then make their punishment less severe through maps. The trench in Knockout would be a good starting point to experiment. Make it the default design. Forget about the FS, Polypoid, Vermeer, Radeon, Polestar etc. Maps should be derived from Knockout with that trench the must have feature. And see how it goes. | ||
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evilfatsh1t
Australia8760 Posts
yeah soma did what he had to do to win. doesnt change the fact that the way he plays leaves a bitter taste in the mouth if youre a protoss user. such unfun games to watch and to play | ||
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FlaShFTW
United States10227 Posts
On October 28 2025 00:34 TMNT wrote: Yeah any suggestions for a balance patch is moot anyway, since it's not gonna happen. It's just for theory crafting pov. The main reason that PvZ balance often ignites heated discussions and most whining instead of other matchups, especially when the ZvT win rate looks even more absurdly unbalanced, is the nature of the gameplay: - It feels unfair for the Protoss to be killed outright for something they can't have a reliable way to take matters into their own hands. - It feels extremely unfair when you also consider the fact that Zerg can do one all-in, fail, then still have another chance with another all-in, like in the Polestar game. And god knows if that fails again, the 3rd all-in with Muta can still come. The Zerg can 100% be the better player to the P, but if the Z beats the P with such a game, then that game is no indication of him being the better player. One game like that in a Bo5/7 is already one game too many, let alone two. We see cheeses and gambles in other matchups too, BBS, 99 Gate, 4 Pool, you name it. But none of them is consistently used as a mainstream strategy like Hydra bust. Many people like to think all races are balanced in power. They're not. Maps create such relative balance. The size of the natural entrance that allows fast expand for P is the single reason why that matchup is playable. But it's quite apparent for so long that this standard map template is still unfair to Protoss from a strategic pov. If you can't give them the ability to obtain information through ability patches, then make their punishment less severe through maps. The trench in Knockout would be a good starting point to experiment. Make it the default design. Forget about the FS, Polypoid, Vermeer, Radeon, Polestar etc. Maps should be derived from Knockout with that trench the must have feature. And see how it goes. Do you think the trench benefits Terran or Zerg more in TvZ. While lurker busts get weaker supposedly, so too does marine busting. Might be more beneficial to Zerg statistically. I do agree, we should start there with future map design and I think Knock Out largely has shown the success of the concept. Though for some reason the TP winrate is horrific for Protoss. | ||
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prosatan
Romania8481 Posts
On October 28 2025 00:14 Timebon3s wrote: Yeah, it sucks that protoss loses all the time and yeah, I am a big fan of Snow. But what concerns me the most, is that it feels detrimental to Brood War as an esport. I really hope this doesn't have a rippling effect in that new players simply opt out of playing the race so we just end up with terrans and zergs in the years to come. I guess the only thing that can even it out is different maps. Mabye more maps with double gas in main or something. This is the only game that's worth following and I love it so much that it hope things will even out. And I love all you BW fans as well <3 Yeah we disagree a lot, but this community is the best there is :D Love you all !!  | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 28 2025 00:49 FlaShFTW wrote: Do you think the trench benefits Terran or Zerg more in TvZ. While lurker busts get weaker supposedly, so too does marine busting. Might be more beneficial to Zerg statistically. I do agree, we should start there with future map design and I think Knock Out largely has shown the success of the concept. Though for some reason the TP winrate is horrific for Protoss. For any other matchup, the effect of the trench is not so obvious compared to Hydra bust, so it's hard to tell. What I guess is it would benefit Zerg more because the amount of times I saw a big group of MM busting through Zerg's sunkens is way higher than the amount of times I saw a Lurker bust. So in that sense it would fix the abysmal ZvT win rate too. Just see 47% ZvT on Knockout compared to 39% on Polestar (no wonder why Artosis said Polestar is one of the best maps lol). PvT on Knockout is horrible not because of the trench itself, but because of the features outside of it, so that can easily be fixed. | ||
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
what's up with people calling it "all-in" when zerg makes any units whatsoever with the intention to attack or pressure or force some sort of response lol if someone can "all-in" several times in a row then obviously they weren't "all-in" in the first place especially making early hydras in ZvP shouldn't be called "all-in" because the required amount of resources for defensive cannons mostly becomes dead weight later into the game and it's not like those "all-ins" failed spectacularly without doing any damage... when protoss has to pull 10 workers for one minute that's at least 50x10=500 lost minerals, so like 10 supply worth of units... call it a timing or pressure instead, because that's what it usually is. remember when 2h muta ZvT was considered all-in? | ||
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FlaShFTW
United States10227 Posts
On October 28 2025 01:42 Kraekkling wrote: well maybe just stop calling it "all-in" then? what's up with people calling it "all-in" when zerg makes any units whatsoever with the intention to attack or pressure or force some sort of response lol if someone can "all-in" several times in a row then obviously they weren't "all-in" in the first place especially making early hydras in ZvP shouldn't be called "all-in" because the required amount of resources for defensive cannons mostly becomes dead weight later into the game and it's not like those "all-ins" failed spectacularly without doing any damage... when protoss has to pull 10 workers for one minute that's at least 50x10=500 lost minerals, so like 10 supply worth of units... call it a timing or pressure instead, because that's what it usually is. remember when 2h muta ZvT was considered all-in? Hawk says that after going 3h spire, into fast 2nd gas, hydra den, 4th hatch all at once delays 5th hatch significantly and puts Zerg into a very disadvantaged position where unless they get damage done with their option, Protoss's mid game push is near unstoppable. So it might as well be an all-in with that style. That being said, 973 or hydra bust variants as you said I would agree are not all-in but rather aggressive pressure builds that have other ways to transition into mid game macro. But the existence of the coin flippy nature of dropping both spire and hydra den at the same time definitely feels sort of all-in, or at least it's about as extreme of a commitment as going 10-10-10 in TvP. I wonder if Protoss in a series should start responding to that with either only going 2 stargate, or some kind of 3-6 gate mass speedlot pressure and skipping stargate entirely. I wonder if going back to making the early goon like back in the day (2 zealot into goon) is an idea that Protoss could use to deny that overlord scout, since it feels like trying to cover all options is practically impossible for the current Protoss meta. | ||
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iFU.pauline
France1653 Posts
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 28 2025 01:42 Kraekkling wrote: well maybe just stop calling it "all-in" then? what's up with people calling it "all-in" when zerg makes any units whatsoever with the intention to attack or pressure or force some sort of response lol if someone can "all-in" several times in a row then obviously they weren't "all-in" in the first place especially making early hydras in ZvP shouldn't be called "all-in" because the required amount of resources for defensive cannons mostly becomes dead weight later into the game and it's not like those "all-ins" failed spectacularly without doing any damage... when protoss has to pull 10 workers for one minute that's at least 50x10=500 lost minerals, so like 10 supply worth of units... call it a timing or pressure instead, because that's what it usually is. remember when 2h muta ZvT was considered all-in? I sort of agree with this notion actually. I guess it's just a lazy way to label things. But what does it solve if we stop calling it "all-in" though? A terminology issue? The root of the issue is it's a move with (a) potential to kill immediately and (b) some sacrifice of your own economy. How do you call a Protoss who builds 3 Gates before Nexus in PvT, or a Terran who builds 2 Barracks before CC in TvZ? Probably not an all-in right, because they build their Nexus/CC. But the amount of units they can produce from those structures at that point in time has some potential to kill their opponent outright, with one key difference to the Hydra bust: the potential to kill of the Hydra bust is far stronger. Would be nice if Protoss can heal Cannons in the same way Terran can with Bunkers, maybe by recharging it with SB. Because in that case, defending the kill move becomes a skill issue, mostly about reaction time, just like how you pull Probes to prevent Ling bust or SCVs to prevent Dragoon bust, not an information issue. | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 28 2025 02:04 iFU.pauline wrote: Gotta be a question on why it took so long for SnOw to make templar/storm early game to deny these hydra push. He clearly lost 2 games believing his sair + dt play would cut it. Only had he go for storm upgrade early on, none of these pushes would have worked. Yes. Why dont Protoss players go for storm upgrade earlier to stop Hydra bust. Are they stupid? Should always have 2 storms already to cast at 7th minute. Seriously, is this the first time you watch a PvZ? | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21939 Posts
On October 28 2025 02:04 iFU.pauline wrote: Because the Zerg has a much easier time switching between muta and hydra (hence why they drop spire and den) and if your going early storm Zerg will see the lack of sairs and do a muta switch?Gotta be a question on why it took so long for SnOw to make templar/storm early game to deny these hydra push. He clearly lost 2 games believing his sair + dt play would cut it. Only had he go for storm upgrade early on, none of these pushes would have worked. | ||
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iFU.pauline
France1653 Posts
On October 28 2025 02:12 TMNT wrote: Yes. Why dont Protoss players go for storm upgrade earlier to stop Hydra bust. Are they stupid? Should always have 2 storms already to cast at 7th minute. Seriously, is this the first time you watch a PvZ? No, it's not the first time you little shit, but it seems that it clearly could be yours. If protoss sees you going for hydra bust on 5 hatch, motherfucker will be waiting for you with 4 templars at the 8th minute. SnOw baited on his sair dt play and miserably failed coze he faced a better player. That reasoning makes more sense than all your unbalanced theories crap about pvz. Ho btw, if a zerg could all-in and still have an other chance, shouldn't we call that "not an all-in"? Right Einstein? So please, how about you make an account and exploit the unbalance pvz match up by grinding your way up just doing hydra bust see how far you go. | ||
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
dropping both spire and hydra den at the same time definitely feels sort of all-in, or at least it's about as extreme of a commitment as going 10-10-10 in TvP. This is imo a quite wrong assessment. The earlier someone starts to cut corners in their build, the more all-in it is. When the build optimization implies cutting corners at 2 minutes, it's a much much bigger sacrifice than cutting corners after 4-5 minutes of macro-oriented play. But what does it solve if we stop calling it "all-in" though? Using proper assessments and terminology allows people to understand whats going on and to have a better and more concise discussion on what happened and why. | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 28 2025 03:08 iFU.pauline wrote: No, it's not the first time you little shit, but it seems that it clearly could be yours. If protoss sees you going for hydra bust on 5 hatch, motherfucker will be waiting for you with 4 templars at the 8th minute. SnOw baited on his sair dt play and miserably failed coze he faced a better player. That reasoning makes more sense than all your unbalanced theories crap about pvz. Ho btw, if a zerg could all-in and still have an other chance, shouldn't we call that "not an all-in"? Right Einstein? So please, how about you make an account and exploit the unbalance pvz match up by grinding your way up just doing hydra bust see how far you go. My bad, I didn't realize we are playing in single mode with the target of having storm as soon as possible after a fast expansion. Because apparently that's the level of play you're at. Notice how absolutely no one in this thread has ever suggested that Snow dying to Hydra bust in those games is because of late storm? That should be the obvious red flag for you to realize how stupid your opnion is. That you are suggesting Snow should have storm available at that point, let alone 4 HTs in the 8th minute, shows your understanding of the game is at a level that makes me look like the Einstein of Starcraft for real. Now let me break in down for you in numbers: in the Dominator game, the bust occurs at 7:45, which means to have storm available by that time, you have to start the research at 6:30. And Snow only started his Archive at 6:40 and the first DT only came out during the bust and you accused him of Sair DT bait play lmao. And that doesn't even account for the fact that he saw both Spire and Den so why should he cut Corsairs to rush for storm? Go fucking find me a pro PvZ game where the storm research is started at 6:30 and we're talking. | ||
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[sc1f]eonzerg
Belgium6736 Posts
Something interesting also is that Protoss is doing better on Pole star compared to Radeon. But the game sample size is smaller for polestar. Another thing that surprise me is the Apocalypse stats. They are almost at 50% for pvz. From the all modern maps i felt that one just one of the most enjoyable to play from recent times. No crazy mechanics. Very standard indeed. Base on that WR i think the mindgames were too strong for Snow to deal with. He for sure should have went the Mini Road and try out of the box stuff.. Specially in a final would have been cool to test Soma nerves in tricky situations. | ||
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XenOsky
Chile2282 Posts
On October 28 2025 06:31 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote: Jesus i checked eloboard Snow wr vs Soma is at 38.8% . I honestly didnt know it was this bad lol. This final was David vs Goliath pretty much. Something interesting also is that Protoss is doing better on Pole star compared to Radeon. But the game sample size is smaller for polestar. Another thing that surprise me is the Apocalypse stats. They are almost at 50% for pvz. From the all modern maps i felt that one just one of the most enjoyable to play from recent times. No crazy mechanics. Very standard indeed. Base on that WR i think the mindgames were too strong for Snow to deal with. He for sure should have went the Mini Road and try out of the box stuff.. Specially in a final would have been cool to test Soma nerves in tricky situations. either that or zvp is not balanced at highest level of play... who knows | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 28 2025 06:31 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote: Jesus i checked eloboard Snow wr vs Soma is at 38.8% . I honestly didnt know it was this bad lol. This final was David vs Goliath pretty much. Something interesting also is that Protoss is doing better on Pole star compared to Radeon. But the game sample size is smaller for polestar. Another thing that surprise me is the Apocalypse stats. They are almost at 50% for pvz. From the all modern maps i felt that one just one of the most enjoyable to play from recent times. No crazy mechanics. Very standard indeed. Base on that WR i think the mindgames were too strong for Snow to deal with. He for sure should have went the Mini Road and try out of the box stuff.. Specially in a final would have been cool to test Soma nerves in tricky situations. The 38% is his all time win rate, including vs pre-military Soma (2021-2023), which was very bad. It was no secret. It's better vs post-military Soma (2025) at 47% although it can go down a bit in the future because of the rusty period of Soma after his return. It is no secret either that Snow's PvZ has improved a lot during that time, to the point that he's on par with Bisu now (there was some period in the past few years that he was even better than Bisu. As for the maps, surely the experience in whatever level you are is different to ASL level. | ||
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sc2turtlepants
44 Posts
soma shows up at 7:20 with a hydra bust on 53 supply. Snow has 4 Corsairs, 3 zealots, and 66 supply. Subtract out his standing army and you have 52 workers! He can't have more than 4 supply of units in production because he is on 2 base with 1 gateway and 1 stargate, so 48 probes on the low end. In SC2 we call this greed. Whether he saw the corner of the hydra den at this point with either the corsair scout or zealot is immaterial - he has access to tons of soma's ZvP games and can see him dropping simultaneous Den and Spire game after game, so he should know he needs to do his diligence with his scouting or prep for both possibilities, not poke with a single corsair then go home and wait till he has 4 more ready. I'm getting into the weeds a bit and I don't mean to criticize Snow, the dude's a god. I don't understand the rationale behind the 4 zealot pressure or some of his other moves this series that came back to bite him and I don't pretend to. What I'm critiquing is the armchair analysis here that says there's literally no way Snow could have survived. He could have not gifted 4 zealots at 6 mins, or made his cannons earlier (he has money), or stopped making corsairs after he scouted the hydra bust, or made more than 2 production structures, and that's not to mention the different openers he could have gone for because his opener was already good vs 9 hatch. In my viewing, Snow played greedy and soma punished. And it was close, not a landslide. Why do we act like zerg is the only race that has a choice whether to build workers or not? | ||
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
On October 28 2025 00:09 kidcrash wrote: The way you Nerf hydra busts without buffing a cannon rush is to change the size of protoss buildings while warping in so they receive less damage from explosive units. This way, things like lings, zealots and marines still do the same amount of damage while a cannon is warping in. I think is an unneeded over-complication. And cannon rushes are not something that Zerg cannot defend against. They get to scout it instantly, there are multiple ways to get out of it. I think the only real solution is a single-target change and in order for that to work it cannot be for a unit since those have an effect on all aspects of the game state and also other match-ups. There are two good options: - cannon build time - cannon increased shield/armor when finished at least 50% These are limited buffs that do not affect Zerg except in stopping them having too many early all-ins and semi-allins, which no one likes at a competitive level. Pick whichever option is best against Zerg and not too dominating against Vultures and you have a win. People are underestimating how much more difficult having decent maps for P against Z is. | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 28 2025 07:39 sc2turtlepants wrote: Fairly new to BW forums, been watching ASL since season 5 as well as some other BW tournies like KCM - why does no one talk about worker production or cutting workers in BW when it comes to Protoss and Terran? I've seen just so much whining about Zerg being OP the last few seasons, but there seems to be a disconnect. When they lose it's always 'their fault' but when they win it's cause they're busted - ignoring what actually happened in-game. Let's look at Game 2: soma shows up at 7:20 with a hydra bust on 53 supply. Snow has 4 Corsairs, 3 zealots, and 66 supply. Subtract out his standing army and you have 52 workers! He can't have more than 4 supply of units in production because he is on 2 base with 1 gateway and 1 stargate, so 48 probes on the low end. In SC2 we call this greed. Whether he saw the corner of the hydra den at this point with either the corsair scout or zealot is immaterial - he has access to tons of soma's ZvP games and can see him dropping simultaneous Den and Spire game after game, so he should know he needs to do his diligence with his scouting or prep for both possibilities, not poke with a single corsair then go home and wait till he has 4 more ready. I'm getting into the weeds a bit and I don't mean to criticize Snow, the dude's a god. I don't understand the rationale behind the 4 zealot pressure or some of his other moves this series that came back to bite him and I don't pretend to. What I'm critiquing is the armchair analysis here that says there's literally no way Snow could have survived. He could have not gifted 4 zealots at 6 mins, or made his cannons earlier (he has money), or stopped making corsairs after he scouted the hydra bust, or made more than 2 production structures, and that's not to mention the different openers he could have gone for because his opener was already good vs 9 hatch. In my viewing, Snow played greedy and soma punished. And it was close, not a landslide. Why do we act like zerg is the only race that has a choice whether to build workers or not? A few people already answered that: you can't prep for all possibilities as Protoss. Not at this level, nor should you. What you are suggesting is something like to interrupt probe production, build extra cannons at both main and nat to be safe, keep zealots at home to block hydra bust. Yes that gives you safety against both possibilities, but there's a third one: Zerg is dropping a 4th base somewhere and/or droning like crazy. In that case you're just sacking your own economy AND having a tons of deadweight in static defense. In that game Snow's probe saw the Spire at 5:00 (Soma's mistake - he shouldn't have let the probe in anyway) so it's a very normal move for zealots to move out afterwards, because you know hydras can't be there once the zealots arrive at Zerg's base. You're speaking under the assumption that Snow knew Soma dropped both Spire and Den, but he didn't. Soma could very well play a normal game, or go Orge Zerg gamer. That's the advantage of Zerg. There's not a reliable way to tell a zealot move out from Protoss in this phase of the game is a good or bad idea, that's why we say Protoss always has to take risk in this match up. And zealots are not like vultures who can turn around once they see no opportunities. Regarding the probe count, that's normal number from constant probe production from 2 Nexus, which is BW economic 101 stuff. You want to reach saturation immediately once you have your 3rd Nexus, just like Terran with their 3rd CC. But honestly, I don't know if cutting probe would help. Say you are only on 40 probes at that point in the game instead of 48, that gives you an extra 400 minerals, so you can build 2 extra cannons for Hydra and 1 extra in main for Muta, or something like that. In that case, even if Zerg does intend to go for the bust, he could just back off and macro, while you're stuck at the situation I described in the first paragraph. | ||
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Villainiquity
2 Posts
On October 27 2025 09:18 Brett wrote: Updated since my ASL 17 post: In the history of BW starleagues (MSL, OSL, ASL), protoss has won 17 finals, terran 34, and zerg 30 (including ASL 20). If you look at results from just the past 20 years, protoss has won 10 (3 in ASL), terran 26 (8 in ASL) and zerg 30 (9 in ASL) ZvP finals results: 12:2 The two protoss finals wins vs zerg were in 2000 (Garimto beat Skelton) and 2006/7 (Bisu beat Savior). LOL ZvP finals 12:2 record is brutal. That's proof for me ZvP is unfair at highest level. I wonder if Blizzard won't balance patch, can UMS be used? (make two DTs merge faster? i feel maelstrom is the key ability to counter Z, maybe make it cheaper, idk - affects ZvP mostly, not PvT). Also I find TMNT's takes the most knowledgeable, with articulate responses. | ||
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
On October 28 2025 07:39 sc2turtlepants wrote: Fairly new to BW forums, been watching ASL since season 5 as well as some other BW tournies like KCM - why does no one talk about worker production or cutting workers in BW when it comes to Protoss and Terran? I've seen just so much whining about Zerg being OP the last few seasons, but there seems to be a disconnect. When they lose it's always 'their fault' but when they win it's cause they're busted - ignoring what actually happened in-game. Let's look at Game 2: soma shows up at 7:20 with a hydra bust on 53 supply. Snow has 4 Corsairs, 3 zealots, and 66 supply. Subtract out his standing army and you have 52 workers! He can't have more than 4 supply of units in production because he is on 2 base with 1 gateway and 1 stargate, so 48 probes on the low end. In SC2 we call this greed. Whether he saw the corner of the hydra den at this point with either the corsair scout or zealot is immaterial - he has access to tons of soma's ZvP games and can see him dropping simultaneous Den and Spire game after game, so he should know he needs to do his diligence with his scouting or prep for both possibilities, not poke with a single corsair then go home and wait till he has 4 more ready. I'm getting into the weeds a bit and I don't mean to criticize Snow, the dude's a god. I don't understand the rationale behind the 4 zealot pressure or some of his other moves this series that came back to bite him and I don't pretend to. What I'm critiquing is the armchair analysis here that says there's literally no way Snow could have survived. He could have not gifted 4 zealots at 6 mins, or made his cannons earlier (he has money), or stopped making corsairs after he scouted the hydra bust, or made more than 2 production structures, and that's not to mention the different openers he could have gone for because his opener was already good vs 9 hatch. In my viewing, Snow played greedy and soma punished. And it was close, not a landslide. Why do we act like zerg is the only race that has a choice whether to build workers or not? Reasonable post. I think this is one of those things that make Bisu so good in PvZ - he usually anticipates whatever tech switch or cheese could be thrown at him by Zergs and makes an extra cannon here and there. + Show Spoiler + btw you shouldn't try too hard to argue with some people, the armchair experts you mentioned have infinite energy to defend any decision made by the losing player with near religious conviction. its always the matchup and the maps and blizzard pls!! balance patch this 30 year old game!! zergs always have 1k/1k banked and can make muta at any time!! zerg always know whether protoss has 44 or 48 probes so they can just expand!! protoss needs 60 probes on 2 base because they might take a third 5 minutes later!!! bullshit zerg make units and attak honorable protooss very unfair!! zerg free win race blizzard pls nerf | ||
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Katkishka
United States657 Posts
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JMave
Singapore1806 Posts
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 28 2025 09:17 Kraekkling wrote: Reasonable post. I think this is one of those things that make Bisu so good in PvZ - he usually anticipates whatever tech switch or cheese could be thrown at him by Zergs and makes an extra cannon here and there. + Show Spoiler + btw you shouldn't try too hard to argue with some people, the armchair experts you mentioned have infinite energy to defend any decision made by the losing player with near religious conviction. its always the matchup and the maps and blizzard pls!! balance patch this 30 year old game!! zergs always have 1k/1k banked and can make muta at any time!! zerg always know whether protoss has 44 or 48 probes so they can just expand!! protoss needs 60 probes on 2 base because they might take a third 5 minutes later!!! bullshit zerg make units and attak honorable protooss very unfair!! zerg free win race blizzard pls nerf Anticipation. Just like how Bisu died from Mutas on Radeon a week ago, or should have died if not for Soma throwing the game himself on Dominator. Or like how he died to the Double Den switch from Soulkey a few seasons ago. Or like how he died to the cancelled Lair into Hydra bust from Soulkey a few seasons before that. I don't know where you get the "Bisu usually makes an extra cannon here and there" from. No Protoss does that because there's no principles to do that, unless we're talking about blind guess. In fact Bisu usually gets the minumum amount of cannons needed, so he often ends up in the probe-pulling, last ditch effort like in the Dominator game last week. If he dies to hydra bust less than other Protosses, it could only be because of his early game zealot control that sets Zergs back a lot more than they would like that the hydra bust becomes less potent. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 28 2025 08:25 TMNT wrote: A few people already answered that: you can't prep for all possibilities as Protoss. Not at this level, nor should you. What you are suggesting is something like to interrupt probe production, build extra cannons at both main and nat to be safe, keep zealots at home to block hydra bust. Yes that gives you safety against both possibilities, but there's a third one: Zerg is dropping a 4th base somewhere and/or droning like crazy. In that case you're just sacking your own economy AND having a tons of deadweight in static defense. In that game Snow's probe saw the Spire at 5:00 (Soma's mistake - he shouldn't have let the probe in anyway) so it's a very normal move for zealots to move out afterwards, because you know hydras can't be there once the zealots arrive at Zerg's base. You're speaking under the assumption that Snow knew Soma dropped both Spire and Den, but he didn't. Soma could very well play a normal game, or go Orge Zerg gamer. That's the advantage of Zerg. There's not a reliable way to tell a zealot move out from Protoss in this phase of the game is a good or bad idea, that's why we say Protoss always has to take risk in this match up. And zealots are not like vultures who can turn around once they see no opportunities. Regarding the probe count, that's normal number from constant probe production from 2 Nexus, which is BW economic 101 stuff. You want to reach saturation immediately once you have your 3rd Nexus, just like Terran with their 3rd CC. But honestly, I don't know if cutting probe would help. Say you are only on 40 probes at that point in the game instead of 48, that gives you an extra 400 minerals, so you can build 2 extra cannons for Hydra and 1 extra in main for Muta, or something like that. In that case, even if Zerg does intend to go for the bust, he could just back off and macro, while you're stuck at the situation I described in the first paragraph. Dude, stop with this unverified blind assumption that protoss always wins with late game economic nonsense. You argued to death every decision shuttle did vs queen trying to upend the verdict that shuttle won decisively, that instead queen had it until he lost. You cannot argue there is a difference between pvz that when protoss does two nexus pushes they are risky for protoss, but when zerg does it that it is unstoppable and blizzard should patch it. The balance is just right where it needs to be, it is your bad decision making that is weighing heavy on your judgement. 973 is no less rewarding than two base protoss pushes that Shuttle demonstrated last season that you ignore are possible. Forget everything you say. This is the only way to play for protoss. This is not an accident. It is just that people like you think they know better than the game results. Protoss can demonstrate the same pushes against terran with 6+ dragoons. It is also possible against zerg, however you have blinded yourself to midgame pushes entirely, clinging stubbornly to failed late game pushes. Sometimes you have to be snow vs effort, but there are times that FAILS and you have to look elsewhere for a win. Luck favors the brave. | ||
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kidcrash
United States623 Posts
On October 28 2025 09:21 Katkishka wrote: Asking for balance patches is asking for trouble. Let players solve the issues themselves as they always have, or worst case start using maps that are better for PvZ. We've been saying this for sooooo long now. It's always "fix the maps next season". I was in this camp too, and for a long time. How long are you content waiting for? Genuinely asking because this game won't be around forever, and we've been waiting for maps to fix PvZ for a long long time. . | ||
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kidcrash
United States623 Posts
On October 28 2025 07:44 oxKnu wrote: I think is an unneeded over-complication. And cannon rushes are not something that Zerg cannot defend against. They get to scout it instantly, there are multiple ways to get out of it. I think the only real solution is a single-target change and in order for that to work it cannot be for a unit since those have an effect on all aspects of the game state and also other match-ups. There are two good options: - cannon build time - cannon increased shield/armor when finished at least 50% These are limited buffs that do not affect Zerg except in stopping them having too many early all-ins and semi-allins, which no one likes at a competitive level. Pick whichever option is best against Zerg and not too dominating against Vultures and you have a win. People are underestimating how much more difficult having decent maps for P against Z is. I don't see how the first option doesn't led canon rushing being absolutely brutal. And the second option seems more convoluted than my suggestion. It's literally just changing the unit size of the building while warping in. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 28 2025 00:13 FlaShFTW wrote: Yes, the historically stupid, fat ass Archon that, while having the same range as a muta, can get outmicroed by a muta which can just fly around your base killing all your shit while the archon squirms around in in your buildings yearning to hit the mutas. It's ok to just say you don't play the game mate and that you're just an armchair theorycrafter. Just don't pretend like your strategic insight holds any weight. That last paragraph is straight what I'm going up against. Last season, people called me wrong that hallucinations would never work. Yet, this season Snow did make hallucinated shuttles in Roaring Currents. He also made archons, but I brought up hallucinations because it was totally outside the playbook for armchair knowitalls. It's not that I don't believe this is possible, it is because you don't believe it possible. When you make an assumption to the contrary of what pros believe to be true, you are the naysayer. Just stick to wins, not people like yourselves opinions and leave me out of it. None of you will be able to silence me until protoss starts winning and you better get used to playing the right way instead of advocating the wrong way. | ||
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Sabu113
United States11075 Posts
On October 28 2025 09:21 Katkishka wrote: Asking for balance patches is asking for trouble. Let players solve the issues themselves as they always have, or worst case start using maps that are better for PvZ. I mean 2013 5 hatch hydra was a horrible horrible time. They did find a decent solution 6 years on but the robust volatility of Zerg is such a huge advantage in every final. | ||
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FlaShFTW
United States10227 Posts
On October 28 2025 12:13 mtcn77 wrote: That last paragraph is straight what I'm going up against. Last season, people called me wrong that hallucinations would never work. Yet, this season Snow did make hallucinated shuttles in Roaring Currents. He also made archons, but I brought up hallucinations because it was totally outside the playbook for armchair knowitalls. It's not that I don't believe this is possible, it is because you don't believe it possible. When you make an assumption to the contrary of what pros believe to be true, you are the naysayer. Just stick to wins, not people like yourselves opinions and leave me out of it. None of you will be able to silence me until protoss starts winning and you better get used to playing the right way instead of advocating the wrong way. Using a lost game where the hallucinations did practically nothing is a great way to make your point. But please, by all means, keep going. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 28 2025 15:13 FlaShFTW wrote: Using a lost game where the hallucinations did practically nothing is a great way to make your point. But please, by all means, keep going. Lost game, on "grand finals" played by none other than everyone's favourite protoss loser. I can't believe you were cheering for a faker who held back since the first game, if you really believe that. It must be really bleak to hold snow to such a standard that his disappointment of his fans means only he didn't really play up to his usual self. This is a very single minded stubborn attitude. Look I'm not the one arguing protoss players should copy games Bisu invented in 2006 and hoping to win at 2025 riding on bisu's royal road. You have to be crazy to think builds Bisu invented, like FE, can be surpasses by copycats in retrospect. It just doesn't happen. You have to surprise your opponent. Soma wasn't surprised even to think mutalisks were necessary. If you want to win, you have to break out of the mold. I congratulate snow did this, just as I congratulate larva. If you break out of the mold you-so-successfully cast yourself into by cannonising bisu builds into the standard and only successful way of playing pvz; "You will have nothing and you will be happy." It is time we look to the future, not the past. PS: what I mean:+ Show Spoiler + On October 15 2025 10:50 mtcn77 wrote: You give the island maps to zerg. You don't make air. Stop playing pvz like it is zvz. You don't have to have air in order to bust zerg. On October 18 2025 03:47 mtcn77 wrote: Protoss players might be trying too hard to be perfectionists. Yes, zerg will dive at your army with mutalisks and try to hunt HTs. I said make archons and just weather zerg skirmishes until you can march on zerg creep, then your army will pay off. Nothing zerg has by this point can compare to zealots and archons. If zerg is smart it will stay behind with hydralisks waiting. | ||
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konadora
Singapore66356 Posts
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 28 2025 15:37 mtcn77 wrote: Lost game, on "grand finals" played by none other than everyone's favourite protoss loser. I can't believe you were cheering for a faker who held back since the first game, if you really believe that. It must be really bleak to hold snow to such a standard that his disappointment of his fans means only he didn't really play up to his usual self. This is a very single minded stubborn attitude. Look I'm not the one arguing protoss players should copy games Bisu invented in 2006 and hoping to win at 2025 riding on bisu's royal road. You have to be crazy to think builds Bisu invented, like FE, can be surpasses by copycats in retrospect. It just doesn't happen. You have to surprise your opponent. Soma wasn't surprised even to think mutalisks were necessary. If you want to win, you have to break out of the mold. I congratulate snow did this, just as I congratulate larva. If you break out of the mold you-so-successfully cast yourself into by cannonising bisu builds into the standard and only successful way of playing pvz; "You will have nothing and you will be happy." It is time we look to the future, not the past. PS: what I mean:+ Show Spoiler + On October 15 2025 10:50 mtcn77 wrote: You give the island maps to zerg. You don't make air. Stop playing pvz like it is zvz. You don't have to have air in order to bust zerg. On October 18 2025 03:47 mtcn77 wrote: Protoss players might be trying too hard to be perfectionists. Yes, zerg will dive at your army with mutalisks and try to hunt HTs. I said make archons and just weather zerg skirmishes until you can march on zerg creep, then your army will pay off. Nothing zerg has by this point can compare to zealots and archons. If zerg is smart it will stay behind with hydralisks waiting. I'll take the bait and ask again, for the sake of clarity : What exactly is the correct PvZ strategy to play in order to achieve victory, that you keep talking about? Can you clarify, i.e. do we fast expand, which units to make, when is the timing push? | ||
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Biff The Understudy
France7917 Posts
On October 28 2025 16:36 TMNT wrote: I'll take the bait and ask again, for the sake of clarity : What exactly is the correct PvZ strategy to play in order to achieve victory, that you keep talking about? Can you clarify, i.e. do we fast expand, which units to make, when is the timing push? Good night, sweet thread. | ||
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felleN
Australia67 Posts
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
Don't worry, I won't respond since he didn't read the spoiler. | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 28 2025 17:33 mtcn77 wrote: Don't worry, I won't respond since he didn't read the spoiler. I obviously did but don't think making zealots and archons and attack Zerg is your entire strategy. Hell in the very same post you even acknowledged that Zerg will wait with Hydras and that would absolutely destroys the zealot archon combo. But then you just stopped. It's like you're making a strategy to fail, not to win. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 28 2025 18:22 TMNT wrote: I obviously did but don't think making zealots and archons and attack Zerg is your entire strategy. Hell in the very same post you even acknowledged that Zerg will wait with Hydras and that would absolutely destroys the zealot archon combo. But then you just stopped. It's like you're making a strategy to fail, not to win. No, I meant a smart zerg would not engage you with muta rush in that sentence. That would actually open the way for your expedition force without repercussion. You won't have to anticipate mutalisks at your base because I said it right there. Zerg will be making hydralisks since they are cheaper. That will provide the perfect cover for you to go ahead and attack the zerg. If you back out like snow, it is on you. If you move like shuttle, you are a hero. | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 28 2025 18:47 mtcn77 wrote: No, I meant a smart zerg would not engage you with muta rush in that sentence. That would actually open the way for your expedition force without repercussion. You won't have to anticipate mutalisks at your base because I said it right there. Zerg will be making hydralisks since they are cheaper. That will provide the perfect cover for you to go ahead and attack the zerg. If you back out like snow, it is on you. If you move like shuttle, you are a hero. So your idea is to remove Stargate totally from PvZ, make Archons to deal with potential Mutas, and use all the resources for ground army? Congrats you've just escaped D rank. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 28 2025 19:39 TMNT wrote: So your idea is to remove Stargate totally from PvZ, make Archons to deal with potential Mutas, and use all the resources for ground army? Congrats you've just escaped D rank. I just said that is how larva plays roaring currents. Soma makes even less. Change my mind. | ||
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RJBTVYOUTUBE
Netherlands1002 Posts
On October 28 2025 17:18 felleN wrote: Snow defiently didn't show his best form in the finals and soma looked like he was in beast mode so congrats to soma. I think next season we need to see more maps that aren't so zerg favored. See you guys next season. this is actually true. SnOw was not in his best form, but that is somewhat his own responsibility. SnOw has decreased his activity right after his ASL19 loss. He does Chinese spons, KCM, and proleague. He reduced his ladder activity and stopped playing small sponsor games completely. His activity is down by like 50%. Other pros have noted SnOw was not in his best form vs barracks. among pros it is a known fact. SnOw is still the best protoss even in his current form, but there used to be a bigger gap with the other protoss'. His PvZ suffered the most from his reduced activity, because Larva, Queen and SoMa are still pushing hard at developing the zerg optimizations and mind games on Soulkey's Meta. But SnOw due to his lack of activity is not doing the same for Protoss. He used to create his own counter meta but is now behind on the progress. | ||
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sc2turtlepants
44 Posts
On October 28 2025 08:25 TMNT wrote: Regarding the probe count, that's normal number from constant probe production from 2 Nexus, which is BW economic 101 stuff. You want to reach saturation immediately once you have your 3rd Nexus, just like Terran with their 3rd CC. But honestly, I don't know if cutting probe would help. Say you are only on 40 probes at that point in the game instead of 48, that gives you an extra 400 minerals, so you can build 2 extra cannons for Hydra and 1 extra in main for Muta, or something like that. In that case, even if Zerg does intend to go for the bust, he could just back off and macro, while you're stuck at the situation I described in the first paragraph. I've gotta push back a bit on this. 2 extra cannons absolutely makes a difference in that defense. In this game he doesn't even need to cut workers to afford it - he has ~300 minerals to spare after scouting the hydra attack and a probe sitting at the front after dropping the first few cannons, and he doesn't scoot around to the top side to make a few more. He has another 150/100 tied up in another corsair that won't add anything to his defense. You keep acting like soma has a magic 8-ball and makes the perfect decision without scouting in every scenario but that's not how RTS games with fog of war function. Snow had options to make soma guess (and potentially guess wrong) and he didn't use them, he just chose greed every time. My point isn't that I know how to hold a hydra bust better than Snow, my point is that when Zerg get busted in ZvT because they made too few sunkens everyone points out how greedy they were trying to be, but when Snow tries to hold a 3 hatch hydra bust with 3 cannons and 2 zealots every acts like soma's play/Z=OP is the problem. | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 28 2025 20:22 sc2turtlepants wrote: I've gotta push back a bit on this. 2 extra cannons absolutely makes a difference in that defense. In this game he doesn't even need to cut workers to afford it - he has ~300 minerals to spare after scouting the hydra attack and a probe sitting at the front after dropping the first few cannons, and he doesn't scoot around to the top side to make a few more. He has another 150/100 tied up in another corsair that won't add anything to his defense. You keep acting like soma has a magic 8-ball and makes the perfect decision without scouting in every scenario but that's not how RTS games with fog of war function. Snow had options to make soma guess (and potentially guess wrong) and he didn't use them, he just chose greed every time. My point isn't that I know how to hold a hydra bust better than Snow, my point is that when Zerg get busted in ZvT because they made too few sunkens everyone points out how greedy they were trying to be, but when Snow tries to hold a 3 hatch hydra bust with 3 cannons and 2 zealots every acts like soma's play/Z=OP is the problem. What are you talking about (in the bold part)? Snow initially had 2 cannons (as it should be). After the 4 zealot pressure he saw Den, thus he warped in 4 more. The bust started with 4 cannons already finished and 3 warping. He didn't greed on cannons, some of them just didn't finish quickly enough. And this is about just as usual as any Hydra bust attempt you'll see at this level. Zerg does, and should do, the same in marine bust: get the right amount of sunkens and drone pull if needed. The "everyone" that criticizes them for being greedy is just wrong. Unless you're saying Protoss should always have 7-8 cannons ready BEFORE the Hydras arrive, then I guarantee you can't find a game like that at pro level, unless the situation is Protoss knows for sure Zerg will throw everything at him, or Protoss already secures a huge lead that throwing away 1000 mineral for deadweight is okay. Also don't get the part when you said Snow had options to make Soma guess? What do you mean by that? If you build excessive cannons, Zerg can see it and decide to back off, no? Where is the guessing part? Also, none of the above discussion deals with the information part. No one is saying the level of information discrepancy in this matchup is magic 8-ball vs blind guy. But you can't deny that Zerg has huge information advantage compared to Protoss in this matchup, and that advantage can lead to a killing blow, which occurs way way more often in PvZ than in any other matchup. I made that point so many times: if it's just something normal, you'd see in the other two matchups something similar. You don't. | ||
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Soulforged
Latvia933 Posts
No one made that distinction for hydras and cannons. Best moves P have are scouting it early, winning time with the wall and zealots and probe pulls, and occasionally making some cannons blindly and cancelling them depending on scouting. The TLDR is that map makers almost never cared about P. Edit: To be fair, there are some nice points in the maps for P, such as we finally got the easy to wall naturals, more horizontal chokes, occasional nice-to-cannon-rush natural lineup, and gaps in the minerals for zealots to sit in. Those are all nice and should be acknowledged. Just not helping with the lack of scouting much. Alternative routes to get a worker inside main such as mineralwalk usually help. 10 mineral patches in main make P timings more crisp and easier to defend everything(or to put pressure and avoid having to defend). The highground nat, obviously. These are pretty rare map features. | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 28 2025 21:14 Soulforged wrote: Rush distances are considered imbalanced by map makers, if Z cannot make creep+sunken reactively on terran bio move out. If they have to place creep colonies in advance, that's considered too hard for Z No one made that distinction for hydras and cannons. Best moves P have are scouting it early, winning time with the wall and zealots and probe pulls, and occasionally making some cannons blindly and cancelling them depending on scouting. The TLDR is that map makers almost never cared about P. Yes. this is a very good point. The standardized map size and rush distance make everyone forget about this and take it for granted. A sunken finishes in 24s from the drone, which is about the time (maybe slightly less) the bio force moves accross the map. Zerg can only react once they see the bio moves out. There's no way to know beforehand. If somehow the standard rush distance were 20s or so, Zerg would be fucked. Still the same game, same race, but we would probably be in a different world where Soulkey's genius couldn't get him past Ro16. I wonder in such case we can call it a skill issue by Zerg players, or can we blame the imbalance? We just don't realize we're in a similar situation with Protoss (albeit the extent is much less severe obviously). | ||
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Soft_General_5023
79 Posts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sKSjehypE8 The title says "Is it because I am a Protoss?" LOL But in video, by auto translation he said he lost because he played badly but also said he was unlucky, maybe he meant imbalance. Would be nice to have proper translation by Korean speaker. | ||
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Simplistik
2093 Posts
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foxmeep
Australia2337 Posts
Edit: Polestar was legit D rank play. What is that building placement lol. | ||
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Soft_General_5023
79 Posts
Snow going for DTs every time was a braindead move, Soma was too well prepared for it. ![[image loading]](https://imgur.com/a/vJ0RDCV) imgur.com Agree! Soma did 1 sunken 1 overlord a few hydras at his expo at 5h in last game. Every zerg should do that to protect against DT. | ||
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RogerChillingworth
Chad3063 Posts
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
On October 28 2025 12:07 kidcrash wrote: I don't see how the first option doesn't led canon rushing being absolutely brutal. And the second option seems more convoluted than my suggestion. It's literally just changing the unit size of the building while warping in. Define brutal. Making zerg build a couple of lings early is not "brutal". Sometimes I get the feeling we have a Stockholm Syndrome going around when it comes to balance changes. Of course the other side has to adjust, that's the whole point. | ||
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
On October 28 2025 15:42 konadora wrote: balance cannot and will not happen to BW. the only way things will move forward are with creative new builds that have been prevalent throughout key balance turning points in the history of BW (FD, Bisu Build, Fantasy Build, Mech Switch, etc) and maps. Those creative builds don't seem to be happening in PvZ anytime soon. As a matter of fact, 20 years to a T. Is that large enough of a sample? | ||
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TornadoSteve
1085 Posts
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TornadoSteve
1085 Posts
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[sc1f]eonzerg
Belgium6736 Posts
in the round of 8 from 3 zergs only 1 survived. Mini was eliminated by a terran with an insane proxy barracks all in that was luck enough to be placed next to his base. Could have been 3 protoss in semis. We got 2 of them. No only that but Bisu was so close to make it to the finals if it wasnt for the failed zealot block to his sim city. Yet we are talking about all that bs. Imbalanced yeah.. We should be praising Soma an amateur player for making history and here we are complaining about him abusing x stuff. When in reality is just him putting the time in to master areas from the game and optimizations that no a single zerg is close to that. Honestly is sad. | ||
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SCRVN
104 Posts
On October 28 2025 22:51 Simplistik wrote: We'd need a proper translation, but unlucky can be many things. Spawning positions, build orders, scouting patterns... Unlucky when I was a child, I didn't realize my race not good. | ||
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foxmeep
Australia2337 Posts
On October 29 2025 00:47 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote: For the record. Not a single protoss was eliminated by zerg in the round of 16 in the round of 8 from 3 zergs only 1 survived. Mini was eliminated by a terran with an insane proxy barracks all in that was luck enough to be placed next to his base. Could have been 3 protoss in semis. We got 2 of them. No only that but Bisu was so close to make it to the finals if it wasnt for the failed zealot block to his sim city. Yet we are talking about all that bs. Imbalanced yeah.. We should be praising Soma an amateur player for making history and here we are complaining about him abusing x stuff. When in reality is just him putting the time in to master areas from the game and optimizations that no a single zerg is close to that. Honestly is sad. The fact that Bisu got to make a come back on Dominator shows the power of storm in PvZ. Zerg never wins from behind, ever. But imba matchup. The other Zergs also got owned 4-1. Soma is a beast in the matchup he's a master between switching between making units and drones. The fact he never played Kespa era is truly amazing. | ||
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Barneyk
Sweden310 Posts
Soma played fantastic and was really greedy in a way that Snow was never able to punish. When he was aggressive he seemed to have a much stronger economy behind it than usual so even when Snow deflected the aggression he had a macro machine behind it so Snow couldn't benefit as much. Soma made the matchup look unfair, but the matchup is only unfair due to how good Soma is and how his style and strengths counter Snow. Snow did some things really well but Soma was simply the better player here. | ||
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ShowTheLights
Korea (South)1699 Posts
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ShowTheLights
Korea (South)1699 Posts
On October 29 2025 02:05 Barneyk wrote: This finals was a bit disappointing, I think Snow choked a bit with Somas playstyle making him uncomfortable. Soma played fantastic and was really greedy in a way that Snow was never able to punish. When he was aggressive he seemed to have a much stronger economy behind it than usual so even when Snow deflected the aggression he had a macro machine behind it so Snow couldn't benefit as much. Soma made the matchup look unfair, but the matchup is only unfair due to how good Soma is and how his style and strengths counter Snow. Snow did some things really well but Soma was simply the better player here. Snow choking in a big game? Noooo wayyyyy FUCK HYDRA BUST ZvP is so fucking stupid Zerg controls way too much of the tempo of early game , fake hydra bust is just as strong Fuck hydra bust Soma is a fraud champion like Royal or jyj | ||
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ShowTheLights
Korea (South)1699 Posts
On October 26 2025 19:56 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote: Let it grasp that a fucking amateur just won ASL. LET IT GRAPS . I DARE YOU TO SLEEP ON SOMAS NAME AGAIN YOU DOUBTERS. THE NEW ZERG KING HAS ARRIVED HOLY SHIT WOWWWWW HYDRA BUST SO SKILLED OMG HOLY SHIT He got ahead 2 games with fake hydra bust and won 2 games with hydra bust. But no lets talk about the new "zerg king" | ||
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Kanzzer
5 Posts
On October 28 2025 21:14 Soulforged wrote: Rush distances are considered imbalanced by map makers, if Z cannot make creep+sunken reactively on terran bio move out. If they have to place creep colonies in advance, that's considered too hard for Z No one made that distinction for hydras and cannons. Best moves P have are scouting it early, winning time with the wall and zealots and probe pulls, and occasionally making some cannons blindly and cancelling them depending on scouting. The TLDR is that map makers almost never cared about P. Edit: To be fair, there are some nice points in the maps for P, such as we finally got the easy to wall naturals, more horizontal chokes, occasional nice-to-cannon-rush natural lineup, and gaps in the minerals for zealots to sit in. Those are all nice and should be acknowledged. Just not helping with the lack of scouting much. Alternative routes to get a worker inside main such as mineralwalk usually help. 10 mineral patches in main make P timings more crisp and easier to defend everything(or to put pressure and avoid having to defend). The highground nat, obviously. These are pretty rare map features. Great points! You should make a thread about this, and maybe tagging the resident mapmakers on this forums for considerations. Freakling, Jukado, CrystalDrag and others. | ||
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Barneyk
Sweden310 Posts
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evilfatsh1t
Australia8760 Posts
On October 29 2025 02:36 Barneyk wrote: It is still hard to grasp how JYJ and Royal has ASL wins when Best, Bisu, Snow, Hero doesn't lol. this is just asking for a tesagi response. fuck it. lets really dissect the imbalances in starcraft. it sucks to be protoss against zerg. it sucks to be zerg against terran. it sucks to be protoss against terran. wait..what? zerg kinda imba but terran really imba. end thread also on that snow vid, him being unlucky was in relation to spawn positions. he had specific builds/game plans prepared for very specific spawn locations. throughout the entire series he didnt get the spawn he wanted in any of his games, and so he got tilted and 12 nex game 5 or whatever it was. he doesnt think he was playing very well, but if he had luck on his side then there would be a way to come back into games despite the poor performances. he rues that he didnt even have luck on his side to make up for his worse than usual performance (due to his own nerves). and a viewer specifically asks him about pvz balance to which he replies basically "ohhhh shut up. i was simply the worse player. there were games i could have won still if i played it better". although to be fair, not a single pro is going to seriously discuss the issue of balance, especially with their viewers (except the gigachad that is stork). | ||
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evilfatsh1t
Australia8760 Posts
the more games you have to play to win the more the law of averages is gonna work in zergs favour. pvz is like 2 guys playing poker, except the zerg player always knows whats behind one of the protoss' cards. is protoss never going to win any hands? no. but you play enough rounds zerg is going to come out on top. | ||
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Ze'ev
112 Posts
edit: as histories best reaver player, snow should've leaned into reaver and harass play more. ofc maybe he had intentions cuz half the games just ended with soma walking across the map and pew pewing cannons. so boring. | ||
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Nirli
Bulgaria377 Posts
It's soma the shark vs Snow the slug, can't expect anything else in a tournament setting. I see people mentioning Bisu - he's had his due boys, he's the anti-Jaedong, always shows up, nobody expects him to advance but he does. | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 29 2025 00:47 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote: For the record. Not a single protoss was eliminated by zerg in the round of 16 in the round of 8 from 3 zergs only 1 survived. Mini was eliminated by a terran with an insane proxy barracks all in that was luck enough to be placed next to his base. Could have been 3 protoss in semis. We got 2 of them. No only that but Bisu was so close to make it to the finals if it wasnt for the failed zealot block to his sim city. Yet we are talking about all that bs. Imbalanced yeah.. We should be praising Soma an amateur player for making history and here we are complaining about him abusing x stuff. When in reality is just him putting the time in to master areas from the game and optimizations that no a single zerg is close to that. Honestly is sad. I like how you always use the "what if" argument but only from the Protoss side. It's the definition of bias. For example, Bisu was so close to the finals with the zealot block, but he was also so close to getting 1-4'd by Soma (with a single win by the 2 Gate cheese) if not for Soma throwing the Dominator game himself. Why the other side of that argument is not taken into account? I said it many times, it's not the result (who beats whom) that matters. It's the manner of the win/loss that matters. If Snow lost 4 games to Soma just like in the Knockout game, I would have no complaint. The Uldomok game is a map loss. It's a one off thing, so we can put that aside. The true bs is the two hydra bust game. You've never addressed that advantage of Zerg or pointed out how to deal with it in a reliable way from the Protoss side. Tell me, why every Zerg player has much better win rate in ZvP than ZvT? Doesn't that mean ZvP is easier than ZvT, which means T>Z>P? Or do you think ZvP is balanced and Z players just happens to be better than P players, but at the same time, T players are not better than Z players but the T race is imba. How does that work out as far as logic is concerned lol? | ||
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goody153
44224 Posts
Also disappointed in another protoss in Roaring Currents. Sometimes it looks like they are just mass clicking and mass making stuff Cant lie this is definitely disappointing finals. On October 28 2025 09:06 Villainiquity wrote: ZvP finals 12:2 record is brutal. That's proof for me ZvP is unfair at highest level. I wonder if Blizzard won't balance patch, can UMS be used? (make two DTs merge faster? i feel maelstrom is the key ability to counter Z, maybe make it cheaper, idk - affects ZvP mostly, not PvT). I'd rather not blizzard handle any balance if starcraft 2 is any indication Just give more protoss favored maps if zerg is so skewed in performance vs them anyways. Basically same logic why most maps have only one opening towards the main base and even when there are two there is some catch like destructable terrain or something Cause zerglings are busted ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am not seeing any angle where Zerg isnt favored vs Protoss in the matchup at the highest levels tbqh. Just make more inherently favorable protoss maps is the solution. Dont touch balance The highground 2nd bases forever sounds like a good idea to shut most hydra busts up. It would only take actual all-in unscouted hydra busts should work This is coming from a perspective of a nonprotoss player. | ||
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[sc1f]eonzerg
Belgium6736 Posts
Remember when 973 reached an 80% WR in the hands of queen and everyone screamed that the build destroyed zerg vs protoss ? How many times 973 was used in semis or finals ? How comes Jaedong and Effort and Hero And Queen arent using the so called unbeatable builds that you all claim Soma uses and are unstoppable ? When are we going to actually take player peformance as factor in a freaking Final ? Never i guess. Yo that is so easy. so each season we got like x number of protoss x number of zergs and terrans. And then we got a round of 8 most of the time with 2 zergs and for some crazy reason zvp is busted. Yeah sure. I always found interesting that we keep shittin on players doing a whole amazing season and then we end up with balance claims. So why the hell arent we getting each season a zerg vs zerg final. or 4-5 zerg in the round of 8. TMNT you dont play starcraft. So telling you how to hold those builds first of all is going to be useless cuz you are not going to agree with it. Second After all the energy i wasted explaining The Queen vs Shuttle situation and how people werent giving enough credit to shuttle i told myself i will no waste such energy on TL again. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 28 2025 23:00 foxmeep wrote: I don't disagree PvZ is difficult to play but Soma is a master at managing his economy while putting on/faking pressure. The fact is he simply played better. Snow going for DTs every time was a braindead move, Soma was too well prepared for it. If Snow ever had more than 2 zealots alive to tank for cannons and early legs he wouldn't have died to hydra bust. Bisu nearly beat Soma if not for some random air map which clearly carrier/sair while a nice idea gets shit on by devourers/muta, and a zergling runby he could have blocked. Edit: Polestar was legit D rank play. What is that building placement lol. One thing often mentioned, but forgotten here is mineral boosting. Soma does it quite efficiently every time. I wonder, what is the protoss response to that? Do protoss players boost every game? I calculated the whole hydralisk tech tree takes 201s starting from the pool. If you add a hatchery as well*, in 276 you can have your 16 hydra midgame push. The proper response to that is teching up to templar archives and researching zealot legs, however I cannot work out the math from 1 gate. 2 gate from the start is essential. You make 11 zealots, 2HTs into 1 archon by the time zealot legs are completed. Btw, I only gave that example because 16H and 11Z+1A are cost equivalent in their tech trees. However, 11Z+1A takes only 233.5 seconds. You have a 40 second lead on the hydrabust which is why I assume the current meta response is incorrect. PS: my assumption that my math is correct is because it only takes 2450/750 for zerg to do that tech tree and 16hydras, while 2550/750 for 11Z+1A protoss. A single 9 probe single base collects 619.5 minerals per minute. In 4:36 you can easily make that mark. *=I made a mistake here. You don't need the second hatchery. That brings the rush down to 201, but you finish zealot legs at 198 so it still checks out at an earlier spot. I included the hatchery for frame of reference. You can spawn it like an expansion and have all proceeds go to upgrading it with no effect on the rush. This goes like a 1 base strategy from both zerg and protoss. I hope to include the same expansion point for protoss. | ||
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Heartland
Sweden24591 Posts
None of that detracts from soma's performance which was clean, aggressive and strong. Well played. | ||
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foxmeep
Australia2337 Posts
Both times he had dog shit sim city, slow cannons (yes they were slightly slow every time don't act like he made them "on time"). He under produced zealots and lost 4 of them both times for literally zero damage. Hint: zealots take half damage from hydras. If you don't have them your cannons melt. ZvP was 15-26 in ASL if you remove that stupid air map from the stats. There were plenty of games hydra bust got held easy. Hardly an unwinnable matchup. You people should be mad at Snow for playing like garbage. That's the real disappointment here. | ||
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Ze'ev
112 Posts
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sc2turtlepants
44 Posts
On October 29 2025 05:54 foxmeep wrote: It's really not hard to see if you have one eye and half a brain why Snow lost to the two hydra busts. Both times he had dog shit sim city, slow cannons (yes they were slightly slow every time don't act like he made them "on time"). He under produced zealots and lost 4 of them both times for literally zero damage. Hint: zealots take half damage from hydras. If you don't have them your cannons melt. ZvP was 15-26 in ASL if you remove that stupid air map from the stats. There were plenty of games hydra bust got held easy. Hardly an unwinnable matchup. You people should be mad at Snow for playing like garbage. That's the real disappointment here. Spitting facts here. I mean look at game 5 - Snow was on top of his shit that game, made cannons to stop the hydras, soma immediately goes back into droning (which is supposed to be THE unstoppable zerg counter to cannon-making according to some in this thread) and then Z dies 5 minutes later. Snow didn't play his best, soma was on point, and zergs die to protoss all the time in the ASL. It's been 1 or 2 zergs making deep runs the last few seasons while the rest die early. No zerg except Soulkey and soma have survived the ro8 in the last 3 seasons. On October 29 2025 00:47 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote: When in reality is just him putting the time in to master areas from the game and optimizations that no a single zerg is close to that. This Soulkey slander shall not stand. | ||
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CHEONSOYUN
548 Posts
snow is a weak pvz player and didn’t prepare anything special besides roaring currents, and didn’t have an answer for soma’s hydralisk timings relying on cannons which are static defense + having difficulties with fog of war is pretty shit for protoss, but snow was outplayed by soma 10x | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 29 2025 08:12 sc2turtlepants wrote: Spitting facts here. I mean look at game 5 - Snow was on top of his shit that game, made cannons to stop the hydras, soma immediately goes back into droning (which is supposed to be THE unstoppable zerg counter to cannon-making according to some in this thread) and then Z dies 5 minutes later. Terrible read of the game. See if people can't assess the state of these games properly, the discussion is going nowhere because of misunderstanding after misunderstanding. Firstly, in game 5 (Metropolis) and game 2 (Dominator), BOTH TIMES Snow put down 4 cannons on top of the 2 he already had. So how come you accuse him of greed in game 2 and but praise him in game 5? Secondly, and more importantly, you are not aware of how far Snow was ahead in game 5. He got away with 12 Nexus, then the same 4-zealot pressure this time worked way better than game 2 (because Soma's Lings were way out of position): drones being pull left and right, better trade with lings, even got a couple of drones. That put Snow in a position where he can afford a bit more caution, especially when it was match point. But even so, he still put down the same amount of cannons he put in game 2, and he cancelled 1 later! After that, the DT at Soma's 3rd base put him even more behind, which led to the kill 5 minutes later like you said (also 5 mins is a long time in BW). | ||
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Lazyer
United States365 Posts
Back to cheering for Barracks in ASL21 It'll be interesting if Flash feels like he can finally join in again. | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 29 2025 04:53 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote: if pvz is so unfavored how comes last 5 seasons it has come to a single zerg doing all the job ? It's 2, not 1. And Hero was denied by Soulkey himself. So it's 3. Larva and Queen (x2) also won before. In the last 12 seasons, it's 8 Zerg titles and 4 different champions. Overall in ASL history, the only tier 1 Zerg who hasn't won is Hero, who was also runner-up twice (Action and JD can't be considered tier 1). So how many more do you want so they can all do the job? Plus, you realize your first and second statements aren't really related right? Are there only two races and one matchup? Could it possibly be that some Zergs were eliminated by Terran and Zerg themselves? Larva, Soma, and Effort were all inactive before this season lol. Is that because of PvZ? For the ones who did play, just this season: Soulkey died to Barracks and Effort, Hero choked to Royal and BTS. Last season: Hero died to Rush, JD to Light. Is that Protoss' fault? I said it many times already: it's not one or two results over 1 or 2 seasons that matters. It's the manner a player lose/win in some certain games that matters. If all PvZ's are like the Knockout one this time, or the Snow vs Soulkey on Blitzy a while ago, I would never have any complaint about PvZ. | ||
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ShowTheLights
Korea (South)1699 Posts
On October 29 2025 02:36 Barneyk wrote: It is still hard to grasp how JYJ and Royal has ASL wins when Best, Bisu, Snow, Hero doesn't lol. add soma to that list of fraud champions won with 2 hydra busts and 2 fake hydra busts into get super ahead fucking bullshit | ||
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foxmeep
Australia2337 Posts
On October 29 2025 09:50 TMNT wrote: Terrible read of the game. See if people can't assess the state of these games properly, the discussion is going nowhere because of misunderstanding after misunderstanding. Firstly, in game 5 (Metropolis) and game 2 (Dominator), BOTH TIMES Snow put down 4 cannons on top of the 2 he already had. So how come you accuse him of greed in game 2 and but praise him in game 5? Secondly, and more importantly, you are not aware of how far Snow was ahead in game 5. He got away with 12 Nexus, then the same 4-zealot pressure this time worked way better than game 2 (because Soma's Lings were way out of position): drones being pull left and right, better trade with lings, even got a couple of drones. That put Snow in a position where he can afford a bit more caution, especially when it was match point. But even so, he still put down the same amount of cannons he put in game 2, and he cancelled 1 later! After that, the DT at Soma's 3rd base put him even more behind, which led to the kill 5 minutes later like you said (also 5 mins is a long time in BW). That's a funny looking 4 extra cannons. https://imgur.com/a/OV5iak7 You lose 4 zealots like he did, see a hydra pop, you know you are dying if you don't instantly throw down 4 cannons, which he most certainly did not do. Can Zerg fake and go back to droning? Sure. But you're fkn dead if he just goes hydras. Bisu literally showed P can win from behind. Take the small loss and play from behind. Or take the game loss... shrug. Guess what happens when Zerg fks up his muta micro and loses mutas? Terran A moves and Zerg dies, or you throw up 3-4 sunks. Guess what happens when T fks up his early timing attack, he turtles or dies while P gets 2 more Nexus. You refuse to accept that the entire game is played on a razor's edge, just for some reason hydra bust shouldn't require the correct response. If you watch the replay in the VOD after losing his last zealot and seeing a hydra, he makes another 10 probes, for a total of 52 vs 29 drones. If that's not greed I don't know what fucking is. He's LITERALLY MAKING PROBES while hydras are killing his base. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 29 2025 11:06 ShowTheLights wrote: add soma to that list of fraud champions won with 2 hydra busts and 2 fake hydra busts into get super ahead fucking bullshit How could you forget shuttle? -Add him to the long line of fraud champions, but in fact true heroes. I mean, why do we need more than one title? PS: I admit, I enjoyed ASL seasons with fraud champions more. | ||
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evilfatsh1t
Australia8760 Posts
On October 29 2025 11:57 foxmeep wrote: That's a funny looking 4 extra cannons. https://imgur.com/a/OV5iak7 You lose 4 zealots like he did, see a hydra pop, you know you are dying if you don't instantly throw down 4 cannons, which he most certainly did not do. Can Zerg fake and go back to droning? Sure. But you're fkn dead if he just goes hydras. Bisu literally showed P can win from behind. Take the small loss and play from behind. Or take the game loss... shrug. Guess what happens when Zerg fks up his muta micro and loses mutas? Terran A moves and Zerg dies, or you throw up 3-4 sunks. Guess what happens when T fks up his early timing attack, he turtles or dies while P gets 2 more Nexus. You refuse to accept that the entire game is played on a razor's edge, just for some reason hydra bust shouldn't require the correct response. If you watch the replay in the VOD after losing his last zealot and seeing a hydra, he makes another 10 probes, for a total of 52 vs 29 drones. If that's not greed I don't know what fucking is. He's LITERALLY MAKING PROBES while hydras are killing his base. your comparisons to muta or early terran fact timings just show you dont understand the critical point tmnt is making when it comes to pvz. up to 11 mutas in tvz isnt an all in. depending on the games, even spawning more mutas to sustain a full control group is still not considered an all in. terran putting up 6 turrets in base isnt an over investment in defense. the game state is fairly even and more importantly, terran knows the mutas are coming thanks to scans. terran early fact pushes (eg. 2 fact) are considered all in. if it fails, terran is supposed to lose because their econ is behind and turtling is just a prayer. also, its much easier to tell when an early rush is coming. a probe scout may see gas and know its a fact opening, you might see a high marine count, or at worst your dragoons will meet the push coming out and you give yourself as much time to react while microing dragoons to chip away at terran units' hp. for pvz however, hydra busts have enough firepower to outright kill you just like any other all in, except if it fails, zerg can still eco off the back of it. theres no definitive way to know whether zerg is producing hydras or not until your first corsair comes out, and by then the hydras are already walking towards your base. the issue is the fact that protoss has to play completely blind to zerg's build and either react late after scouting with corsairs, or take a guess out of 3 options (hydra, muta, econ). the problem isnt that protoss has to build cannons to defend hydras. the problem is that its difficult to even optimally defend because its straight up impossible to know if its coming until your corsair comes out unless the zerg fucks up and lets you scout for free, and EVEN if you defend optimally youre at best only slightly ahead of zerg because of the massive amount of resources you had to put down in static defense and the high likelihood that your forge got destroyed and your upgrades are late now anyway. the cherry on top is you completely stop corsair production once you see hydras because you dont have money for corsairs, and so now at any given point in the game zerg has the option to make 7 mutas if they wish and go around sniping your only hope for victory for free (your hts). if we go even deeper into the pvz mind games, protoss has to be careful not to throw down 4-5 cannons at once when he scouts the first hydras. assuming protoss already has 2 cannons up, the optimal number of cannons you want at the earliest timing for hydras is 4, meaning you only spawn in 2 cannons at the beginning. from there you put down more cannons if you see with your corsairs that zerg is continuing to spawn hydras. if you immediately invest in up to 5-6 cannons from the very beginning, zergs just fake the bust, settle for breaking the gate/forge and just drone up immediately. if you fail to continue to scout with your sair or any other unit whether zerg is reinforcing the initial group of hydras, you risk dying to a bust because you only put down 4 cannons or investing in the extra cannons only to find out that zerg had droned up instead. all of the priority in the early game is with zerg and the worst part about is how blind protoss has to be in dealing with all of that while zerg gets to do whatever he pleases with very little risk. | ||
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Jealous
10224 Posts
On October 29 2025 12:54 evilfatsh1t wrote: your comparisons to muta or early terran fact timings just show you dont understand the critical point tmnt is making when it comes to pvz. up to 11 mutas in tvz isnt an all in. depending on the games, even spawning more mutas to sustain a full control group is still not considered an all in. terran putting up 6 turrets in base isnt an over investment in defense. the game state is fairly even and more importantly, terran knows the mutas are coming thanks to scans. terran early fact pushes (eg. 2 fact) are considered all in. if it fails, terran is supposed to lose because their econ is behind and turtling is just a prayer. also, its much easier to tell when an early rush is coming. a probe scout may see gas and know its a fact opening, you might see a high marine count, or at worst your dragoons will meet the push coming out and you give yourself as much time to react while microing dragoons to chip away at terran units' hp. for pvz however, hydra busts have enough firepower to outright kill you just like any other all in, except if it fails, zerg can still eco off the back of it. theres no definitive way to know whether zerg is producing hydras or not until your first corsair comes out, and by then the hydras are already walking towards your base. the issue is the fact that protoss has to play completely blind to zerg's build and either react late after scouting with corsairs, or take a guess out of 3 options (hydra, muta, econ). the problem isnt that protoss has to build cannons to defend hydras. the problem is that its difficult to even optimally defend because its straight up impossible to know if its coming until your corsair comes out unless the zerg fucks up and lets you scout for free, and EVEN if you defend optimally youre at best only slightly ahead of zerg because of the massive amount of resources you had to put down in static defense and the high likelihood that your forge got destroyed and your upgrades are late now anyway. the cherry on top is you completely stop corsair production once you see hydras because you dont have money for corsairs, and so now at any given point in the game zerg has the option to make 7 mutas if they wish and go around sniping your only hope for victory for free (your hts). if we go even deeper into the pvz mind games, protoss has to be careful not to throw down 4-5 cannons at once when he scouts the first hydras. assuming protoss already has 2 cannons up, the optimal number of cannons you want at the earliest timing for hydras is 4, meaning you only spawn in 2 cannons at the beginning. from there you put down more cannons if you see with your corsairs that zerg is continuing to spawn hydras. if you immediately invest in up to 5-6 cannons from the very beginning, zergs just fake the bust, settle for breaking the gate/forge and just drone up immediately. if you fail to continue to scout with your sair or any other unit whether zerg is reinforcing the initial group of hydras, you risk dying to a bust because you only put down 4 cannons or investing in the extra cannons only to find out that zerg had droned up instead. all of the priority in the early game is with zerg and the worst part about is how blind protoss has to be in dealing with all of that while zerg gets to do whatever he pleases with very little risk. This shit hurt to read, I kept getting PTSD flashbacks. Keeping your first Probe alive in Zerg's base until Sair, having to check nat gas timing while doing so, having to grind in multitask trainer to do it. Having to go double scout because of the sheer amount of Pool-first builds at the start of a ladder season. Losing your Probe and seeing Hydra Den with its dying breath and then they cancel and go Lair and you look like a fucking moron when they catch you going Cannons at the nat Pylon. | ||
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Puosu
6990 Posts
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Kanzzer
5 Posts
In your opinion, going forward, what are the maps that at least came close to accounting for PvZ early game (without breaking the other two matchups of course), that mapmakers should revisit and implement some of the ideas? Do you think KNOCKOUT has done a good enough job at least, being the "modern Circuit Breaker"? | ||
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sas.Sziky
Hungary303 Posts
On October 29 2025 04:53 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote: if pvz is so unfavored how comes last 5 seasons it has come to a single zerg doing all the job ? Remember when 973 reached an 80% WR in the hands of queen and everyone screamed that the build destroyed zerg vs protoss ? How many times 973 was used in semis or finals ? How comes Jaedong and Effort and Hero And Queen arent using the so called unbeatable builds that you all claim Soma uses and are unstoppable ? When are we going to actually take player peformance as factor in a freaking Final ? Never i guess. Yo that is so easy. so each season we got like x number of protoss x number of zergs and terrans. And then we got a round of 8 most of the time with 2 zergs and for some crazy reason zvp is busted. Yeah sure. I always found interesting that we keep shittin on players doing a whole amazing season and then we end up with balance claims. So why the hell arent we getting each season a zerg vs zerg final. or 4-5 zerg in the round of 8. TMNT you dont play starcraft. So telling you how to hold those builds first of all is going to be useless cuz you are not going to agree with it. Second After all the energy i wasted explaining The Queen vs Shuttle situation and how people werent giving enough credit to shuttle i told myself i will no waste such energy on TL again. well the best what you can do it is just not answer. Basically people are here crazy when they say anything is imba after the Bisu vs soma series they are just cleary dont understand the game and here beucase of own frustrating nothing else as always. i think u figured out when any zerg progamer lost a game vs any protoss progamer( doesnt really matter skill and etc He just write 4 pages what zerg did wrong, when zerg win its just simply zerg so imba ) What do you want do with a person like that? | ||
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Dante08
Singapore4138 Posts
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Dante08
Singapore4138 Posts
On October 29 2025 10:17 TMNT wrote: It's 2, not 1. And Hero was denied by Soulkey himself. So it's 3. Larva and Queen (x2) also won before. In the last 12 seasons, it's 8 Zerg titles and 4 different champions. Overall in ASL history, the only tier 1 Zerg who hasn't won is Hero, who was also runner-up twice (Action and JD can't be considered tier 1). So how many more do you want so they can all do the job? Plus, you realize your first and second statements aren't really related right? Are there only two races and one matchup? Could it possibly be that some Zergs were eliminated by Terran and Zerg themselves? Larva, Soma, and Effort were all inactive before this season lol. Is that because of PvZ? For the ones who did play, just this season: Soulkey died to Barracks and Effort, Hero choked to Royal and BTS. Last season: Hero died to Rush, JD to Light. Is that Protoss' fault? I said it many times already: it's not one or two results over 1 or 2 seasons that matters. It's the manner a player lose/win in some certain games that matters. If all PvZ's are like the Knockout one this time, or the Snow vs Soulkey on Blitzy a while ago, I would never have any complaint about PvZ. Bisu choked if not it would have been a PvP finals. PvZ is problematic but no where near as bad as some people make it out to be. I would argue TvZ is in a worst state at the top level, even Light is having trouble in the matchup. PvZ is at 56.5% for ASL 20 while TvZ is at 25%! Also somehow Protoss can’t win on roaring currents which theoretically is Protoss favoured, you have Bisu building flying units but omitting psy storm, and you have Snow treating the matchup like a land map and made dragoons and zealots to just sit around. | ||
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[sc1f]eonzerg
Belgium6736 Posts
On October 29 2025 10:17 TMNT wrote: It's 2, not 1. And Hero was denied by Soulkey himself. So it's 3. Larva and Queen (x2) also won before. In the last 12 seasons, it's 8 Zerg titles and 4 different champions. Overall in ASL history, the only tier 1 Zerg who hasn't won is Hero, who was also runner-up twice (Action and JD can't be considered tier 1). So how many more do you want so they can all do the job? Plus, you realize your first and second statements aren't really related right? Are there only two races and one matchup? Could it possibly be that some Zergs were eliminated by Terran and Zerg themselves? Larva, Soma, and Effort were all inactive before this season lol. Is that because of PvZ? For the ones who did play, just this season: Soulkey died to Barracks and Effort, Hero choked to Royal and BTS. Last season: Hero died to Rush, JD to Light. Is that Protoss' fault? I said it many times already: it's not one or two results over 1 or 2 seasons that matters. It's the manner a player lose/win in some certain games that matters. If all PvZ's are like the Knockout one this time, or the Snow vs Soulkey on Blitzy a while ago, I would never have any complaint about PvZ. Larva doing it doesnt change too much still represent one individual winning the championship. There is a reason i didnt include hero on it. ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/PgpLZm9.png) Do you see 4 protoss players in this bracket. Guess what. Hero didnt play any of them. Protoss and terran eliminated 2 protoss while SK eliminated the other 2. Beating meaning 3-2 and Snow that historically a trash pvz player 4-2. Yeah Snow is trash at pvz. And was even trasher back then. And his WR is 38% vs Soma. Let it wraps. Dont you love stats ? 38% 38%. No one in the freakin world would expect a guy with 38% to beat his opponent apart from you. Why the hell arent we seeing a fucll bracket of zergs instead of seeing JD QUeen actions etc being eliminated and playing zerg vs zerg finals ? But no we are here arguing that a guy with 38% is losing cuz he doesnt know how to scout. You know whats funny ? The other day Jadong played vs SNow on Dominator. Jaedong went with a huge drop while attacking SNow third. Snow without any scouting no info nothing. SPlit all his zealots to third while sedning all the dragoons to the main blindly. When Jaedong saw the rep he asked the chat how the hell he knew about drop ? . So on top of SNow being a shocker. A trash pvz player. Also terrible vs Soma with a 38% wr he is also a terrible offline player. And is not something new. Snow online is almost godlike. Offline has been mediocre for years. DO you remember when he had a 97% WR vs Royal ? Then he played in ASL for elimination and droped the ball like always and got eliminated ? Haha yeah. Keep crying about the stuff you cry. PD_ is the last time i answer to anything on TL atm cuz i have an eye infection and this website doesnt have a dark mode.. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 29 2025 17:07 Dante08 wrote: Bisu choked if not it would have been a PvP finals. PvZ is problematic but no where near as bad as some people make it out to be. I would argue TvZ is in a worst state at the top level, even Light is having trouble in the matchup. PvZ is at 56.5% for ASL 20 while TvZ is at 25%! Also somehow Protoss can’t win on roaring currents which theoretically is Protoss favoured, you have Bisu building flying units but omitting psy storm, and you have Snow treating the matchup like a land map and made dragoons and zealots to just sit around. I have one objection: snow didn't play like it is a ground map. He made reavers, corsairs, zealots and dragoons. What he should have done might seem like more ground based like what he makes at the end of this map. Though, it is still not polished enough. He still carried through with corsairs. You have to hit the zerg right before it can spread to the islands to ensure a ground based victory. | ||
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Whalecore
Norway1111 Posts
Honestly I think his style is hurting him here in a BO7 format. You feel it in every game that he gravitates to getting into the lategame grindy w aoe units mode, and Soma read and exploited it perfectly in almost every game. Making sure that the road to get into that stage was very hard. Imo. there is hope for Protoss in ASL with someone like Bisu who can add more aggro and unpredictability in a series. Or if Snow adds some more of the other Protoss style into his play. I think a super-archon of Snow/Bisu/Best playing style would probably be SoulKey level. So if they adopt more of each others' strengths, there is hope. Protoss fighting! | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 29 2025 17:07 Dante08 wrote: Bisu choked if not it would have been a PvP finals. PvZ is problematic but no where near as bad as some people make it out to be. I would argue TvZ is in a worst state at the top level, even Light is having trouble in the matchup. PvZ is at 56.5% for ASL 20 while TvZ is at 25%! Also somehow Protoss can’t win on roaring currents which theoretically is Protoss favoured, you have Bisu building flying units but omitting psy storm, and you have Snow treating the matchup like a land map and made dragoons and zealots to just sit around. Roaring Currents is not theoretically P favored. You just got your theory wrong. Probably because most people just see "ahh island, must be Protoss favored". We even have a Zerg supporter here (Zeev I think), who has detailed why it's actually Z favored. You think we can all here think "what if I add this unit or that unit in the mix" and pros can't? They probably have tested those ideas many times behind the stream and they just didn't work out, most likely because you can't afford everything at once. Notice how Bisu got into a Corsair Carrier fleet and only had like 2 Reavers and 1 Zealot on the ground for the majority of the game? Again, you can't use the "what if... could have been" argument. Did I just not point out that Soma also "choked" in the Dominator game otherwise it would have been 4-1 to him? You can't lay down a hypothetical situation and use it as evidence to support your argument. Also TvZ has its problems too, but not in the direction you think. It's actually T favored. You can't take the win rate of a single ASL, or even multiple ASLs, as evidence of matchup imbalances, because of (a) sample size and (b) the format of the tournament. Here's an example to demonstrate why: if you only have Bonyth and Dewalt as Protoss in a BSL tournament, the win rate of P will be close to 100% lol. Then if you add you and me in it, the win rate goes down to 80% or something (because we will play way less games than Bonyth and Dewalt). So that 100 or 80% win rate can't be indications that Protoss is OP. Now look at this ASL: we only have the usual top 4 Ps, plus Stork and Paralyze as cannon fodders in Ro24, so the amount of times a top tier P beats a lower tier Z or T is way more than the reverse case. That's actually what happened in the Snow vs Effort and Bisu vs Larva matchup. As good as Effort and Larva are, they are still in the tier 1.5 (top of K League, bottom half of Major Proleague) and can't compare with the likes of Soulkey, Soma, Hero, even Queen (at least as of now, as they just have returned this season). So you got 4-1 and 4-1. | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 29 2025 17:38 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote: Larva doing it doesnt change too much still represent one individual winning the championship. There is a reason i didnt include hero on it. Do you see 4 protoss players in this bracket. Guess what. Hero didnt play any of them. Protoss and terran eliminated 2 protoss while SK eliminated the other 2. Beating meaning 3-2 and Snow that historically a trash pvz player 4-2. Yeah Snow is trash at pvz. And was even trasher back then. And his WR is 38% vs Soma. Let it wraps. Dont you love stats ? 38% 38%. No one in the freakin world would expect a guy with 38% to beat his opponent apart from you. Why the hell arent we seeing a fucll bracket of zergs instead of seeing JD QUeen actions etc being eliminated and playing zerg vs zerg finals ? But no we are here arguing that a guy with 38% is losing cuz he doesnt know how to scout. You know whats funny ? The other day Jadong played vs SNow on Dominator. Jaedong went with a huge drop while attacking SNow third. Snow without any scouting no info nothing. SPlit all his zealots to third while sedning all the dragoons to the main blindly. When Jaedong saw the rep he asked the chat how the hell he knew about drop ? . So on top of SNow being a shocker. A trash pvz player. Also terrible vs Soma with a 38% wr he is also a terrible offline player. And is not something new. Snow online is almost godlike. Offline has been mediocre for years. DO you remember when he had a 97% WR vs Royal ? Then he played in ASL for elimination and droped the ball like always and got eliminated ? Haha yeah. Keep crying about the stuff you cry. PD_ is the last time i answer to anything on TL atm cuz i have an eye infection and this website doesnt have a dark mode.. Are you fucking kidding me? I literally broke down to you in a previous post that the 38% is the life time win rate but the win rate vs post-military Soma is 47%. What kind of argument is this? It's like "Bob weighs 50kg", "No it was 3 years ago, now he weighs 75kg and can take on his opponent", "No look, he weighs 50kg". It's mental. It's so frustrating that many people just don't get facts straight or don't have a solid methodology to their reasoning in these conversations. You the leading figure of it. But to be honest, this post from you feels like a rage bait troll post more than anything, from a self-confessed "Protoss hater" (your word not mine), that I wouldn't bother reading the rest of the post. Snow a trash PvZ player ? Yeah I would agree if we're talking about prior season 15 or something lol. But after that? Absolutely troll post. Funny you used him beating Effort 4-1 to show that "Snow all good, Protoss all good", then when the narrative has to be spinned into "Snow's trash", you manipulated a stat to prove. So basically, whatever that suits your agenda. | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 29 2025 11:57 foxmeep wrote: That's a funny looking 4 extra cannons. https://imgur.com/a/OV5iak7 You lose 4 zealots like he did, see a hydra pop, you know you are dying if you don't instantly throw down 4 cannons, which he most certainly did not do. Can Zerg fake and go back to droning? Sure. But you're fkn dead if he just goes hydras. Bisu literally showed P can win from behind. Take the small loss and play from behind. Or take the game loss... shrug. Guess what happens when Zerg fks up his muta micro and loses mutas? Terran A moves and Zerg dies, or you throw up 3-4 sunks. Guess what happens when T fks up his early timing attack, he turtles or dies while P gets 2 more Nexus. You refuse to accept that the entire game is played on a razor's edge, just for some reason hydra bust shouldn't require the correct response. If you watch the replay in the VOD after losing his last zealot and seeing a hydra, he makes another 10 probes, for a total of 52 vs 29 drones. If that's not greed I don't know what fucking is. He's LITERALLY MAKING PROBES while hydras are killing his base. He put down the other two cannons after your screenshot. When the bust started, he had 4 cannons ready with 3 more warping. I think that's a fair amount. You see that amount very often in every Hydra bust defense. I can agree that he should have stopped making probes after seeing the hydra in front of his base though. Bisu the other day also had 4 cannons and 2 zealots with only 1 warping, at 46 probes and his 2 Nexus were blinking too, but the situation was different, it was later in the game with a Hydra switch after Muta. When did I refuse to accept that the game is played on a razors edge? In fact that's exactly what I would say. That's what they have to do to win at this level, not CPL where they teach you to build extra cannons "just in case". And that's exactly why Snow (and Bisu) played on the thin edge with their number or cannons. The problem is you're talking from a place of hindsight and you just assume Protoss has to play to perfection just to get to a 50/50 game, or even "take a loss and play from behind" lol. You've just answered yourself right there. Why Protoss has to play like that in the first place? Does Zerg play perfectly? In other matchups, if you let the worker get in your base, your plan is exposed and it's likely not gonna work. In PvZ, or the Dominator game for example, Soma let the probe slip into his base and saw the Spire, a mistake he shouldn't have made anyway. He didn't play perfectly there. What's the repercussion for that? Nothing. Only in PvZ, one race can see the entire tech of the other and still doesn't know what will be thrown at them. And that thing is not even a harassment tool like a Reaver, it's something that can kill you immediately. Also note that I never said PvZ unplayable. I would just like you guys to address/acknowledge that information disadvantage. If Zergs play like Soma all the time (building both Spire and Den), Protosses will just blindly put cannons everywhere. But of course they won't and they will keep Protoss guessing. See the problem there? You're not supposed to guess to stay in the game. It's unfair. You should be provided with a reliable tool to defend. If it can't be done via scouting (like seeing what's in the eggs), it has to be done by giving Protoss enough reaction time (like reducing cannon build time, or allowing a repair mechanism like Terran), or by reducing the potency of the bust (high ground nat). Protoss is given nothing. I asked that question before: if rush distance was reduced and Zerg couldn't get sunkens up when he sees the MM moves out, would you call that unfair? I would, and I would demand a change for Zerg to be not at that huge disadvantage against Terran. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 29 2025 18:54 TMNT wrote: He put down the other two cannons after your screenshot. When the bust started, he had 4 cannons ready with 3 more warping. I think that's a fair amount. You see that amount very often in every Hydra bust defense. I can agree that he should have stopped making probes after seeing the hydra in front of his base though. Bisu the other day also had 4 cannons and 2 zealots with only 1 warping, at 46 probes and his 2 Nexus were blinking too, but the situation was different, it was later in the game with a Hydra switch after Muta. When did I refuse to accept that the game is played on a razors edge? In fact that's exactly what I would say. That's what they have to do to win at this level, not CPL where they teach you to build extra cannons "just in case". And that's exactly why Snow (and Bisu) played on the thin edge with their number or cannons. The problem is you're talking from a place of hindsight and you just assume Protoss has to play to perfection just to get to a 50/50 game, or even "take a loss and play from behind" lol. You've just answered yourself right there. Why Protoss has to play like that in the first place? Does Zerg play perfectly? In other matchups, if you let the worker get in your base, your plan is exposed and it's likely not gonna work. In PvZ, or the Dominator game for example, Soma let the probe slip into his base and saw the Spire, a mistake he shouldn't have made anyway. He, didn't play perfectly there. What's the repercussion for that? Nothing. Only in PvZ, one race can see the entire tech of the other and still doesn't know what will be thrown at them. And that thing is not even a harassment tool like a Reaver, it's something that can kill you immediately. Also note that I never said PvZ unplayable. I would just like you guys to address/acknowledge that information disadvantage. If Zergs play like Soma all the time (building both Spire and Den), Protosses will just blindly put cannons everywhere. But of course they won't and they will keep Protoss guessing. See the problem there? You're not supposed to guess to stay in the game. It's unfair. You should be provided with a reliable tool to defend. If it can't be done via scouting (like seeing what's in the eggs), it has to be done by giving Protoss enough reaction time (like reducing cannon build time, or allowing a repair mechanism like Terran), or by reducing the potency of the bust (high ground nat). Protoss is given nothing. I asked that question before: if rush distance was reduced and Zerg couldn't get sunkens up when he sees the MM moves out, would you call that unfair? I would, and I would demand a change for Zerg to be not at that huge disadvantage against Terran. You cannot foil hydra pushes with 1 gate. I just posted a disclaimer on that. I didn't get to use the second hatchery. That was just a placeholder for your second base after the rush is over. | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 29 2025 12:54 evilfatsh1t wrote: if we go even deeper into the pvz mind games, protoss has to be careful not to throw down 4-5 cannons at once when he scouts the first hydras. assuming protoss already has 2 cannons up, the optimal number of cannons you want at the earliest timing for hydras is 4, meaning you only spawn in 2 cannons at the beginning. from there you put down more cannons if you see with your corsairs that zerg is continuing to spawn hydras. if you immediately invest in up to 5-6 cannons from the very beginning, zergs just fake the bust, settle for breaking the gate/forge and just drone up immediately. if you fail to continue to scout with your sair or any other unit whether zerg is reinforcing the initial group of hydras, you risk dying to a bust because you only put down 4 cannons or investing in the extra cannons only to find out that zerg had droned up instead. I feel like this paragraph should be pinned on every thread discussing PvZ. This is clearly astute observations from someone who understands the thin edge of PvZ at the top level. Our Zerg supporters here either argue based on the experience at their level, or don't watch and understand enough of this matchup at top level in modern time. Like the one guy who suggested Protoss should have 4 HTs with storm at 8th minute (hah). If the solution is simply "see hydras, put down 4 more cannons", then the amount of times P dies to hydra busts should be similar to the amount of times Z dies to MM bust. It's not. Also, if upon seeing a Support Bay, Terran has to invest ~1000 minerals in Turrets, while losing their Armory for free, then maybe the game is actually balanced, but not by good solution. | ||
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Dante08
Singapore4138 Posts
On October 29 2025 17:55 TMNT wrote: Roaring Currents is not theoretically P favored. You just got your theory wrong. Probably because most people just see "ahh island, must be Protoss favored". We even have a Zerg supporter here (Zeev I think), who has detailed why it's actually Z favored. You think we can all here think "what if I add this unit or that unit in the mix" and pros can't? They probably have tested those ideas many times behind the stream and they just didn't work out, most likely because you can't afford everything at once. Notice how Bisu got into a Corsair Carrier fleet and only had like 2 Reavers and 1 Zealot on the ground for the majority of the game? Again, you can't use the "what if... could have been" argument. Did I just not point out that Soma also "choked" in the Dominator game otherwise it would have been 4-1 to him? You can't lay down a hypothetical situation and use it as evidence to support your argument. Also TvZ has its problems too, but not in the direction you think. It's actually T favored. You can't take the win rate of a single ASL, or even multiple ASLs, as evidence of matchup imbalances, because of (a) sample size and (b) the format of the tournament. Here's an example to demonstrate why: if you only have Bonyth and Dewalt as Protoss in a BSL tournament, the win rate of P will be close to 100% lol. Then if you add you and me in it, the win rate goes down to 80% or something (because we will play way less games than Bonyth and Dewalt). So that 100 or 80% win rate can't be indications that Protoss is OP. Now look at this ASL: we only have the usual top 4 Ps, plus Stork and Paralyze as cannon fodders in Ro24, so the amount of times a top tier P beats a lower tier Z or T is way more than the reverse case. That's actually what happened in the Snow vs Effort and Bisu vs Larva matchup. As good as Effort and Larva are, they are still in the tier 1.5 (top of K League, bottom half of Major Proleague) and can't compare with the likes of Soulkey, Soma, Hero, even Queen (at least as of now, as they just have returned this season). So you got 4-1 and 4-1. Maybe Roaring Currents is not theoretically P favoured, but anyone who watched the games would agree the Protosses got out strategized and there were fixed the Protosses could have done to have a better chance of winning. I’m only talking about the matchups at the highest level (ASL) and the current metagame, where some people would complain PvZ is massively imbalanced but that’s not the case. Terrans recently have struggled equally or even more vs Zerg. Regarding your last paragraph aren’t you cherry picking stats based on the results of one tournament? | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 29 2025 19:22 Dante08 wrote: Regarding your last paragraph aren’t you cherry picking stats based on the results of one tournament? No it's literally you who just did it, when you said PvZ and TvZ this ASL are at 56% and 25% therefore P>Z and Z>T. What I did was explain to you why that 56% and 25% can't be interpreted into anything due to the sample size and format issues. You can say you were cherry picking stats (probably unintentionally) and I just explained to you that's not the correct way to look at it. | ||
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evilfatsh1t
Australia8760 Posts
On October 29 2025 19:06 mtcn77 wrote: You cannot foil hydra pushes with 1 gate. I just posted a disclaimer on that. I didn't get to use the second hatchery. That was just a placeholder for your second base after the rush is over. this post, like 99% of all your posts, makes literally zero sense. not only is your first sentence ridiculous, because many hydra busts live or die depending on cannon count, not gateway count, but the point about 1 gate has no relevance to anything tmnt said in his post. then you talk about a second hatchery which also makes no sense and has nothing to do with anything. wtf is a 2nd hatchery a placeholder for? wat? just stop posting man | ||
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Maks
Ukraine173 Posts
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Maks
Ukraine173 Posts
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 29 2025 20:17 evilfatsh1t wrote: this post, like 99% of all your posts, makes literally zero sense. not only is your first sentence ridiculous, because many hydra busts live or die depending on cannon count, not gateway count, but the point about 1 gate has no relevance to anything tmnt said in his post. then you talk about a second hatchery which also makes no sense and has nothing to do with anything. wtf is a 2nd hatchery a placeholder for? wat? just stop posting man It is from my last post #535 where I discuss a possible equivalent cost army composition. 1 gate can't possibly make enough zealots to thwart a 16 hydralisk push, or can you fight 16 hydralisk with just 6 zealots? I didn't assume you could, zerg would just crush your army. However, I also assumed what if I make the 2nd hatchery in time - that is a wild assumption making the hatchery and spawning pool tech tree simultaneously - you can make 21 hydralisks, not 16. That is how many larvae 2 hatcheries can make. However, in order to make 21 hydralisks, you'd have to spend more minerals and vespene gas, so 16 hydralisk push can finish in a similar timeframe to 11 zealot counter push, but 21 hydralisk cannot. You'd have to start from a bigger economy to finish the 21 hydralisk push, else you need to spend 2925/875, instead of 2450/750 for zerg. 9 drones harvest roughly 620 minerals per minute, so I assume you need more than 4:36 if we trace a straight mining rate. You'd need to start the rush later than 9 drones on minerals which would throw off the timing, like 15 pool instead of 12 pool/hatch if you want to complete in the same 4:36 start to finish time frame and starting from a later point isn't a rush any more. I just assume if it will take more time to harvest for 21 hydralisks, it should be out of the question it can be finished in a similar time frame, because obviously I'm assuming both protoss and zerg have similar drone and probes in trying to outplay each other. | ||
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Dante08
Singapore4138 Posts
On October 29 2025 21:12 Maks wrote: This is why I’ve never seen Flash as the strongest player in StarCraft history. It’s impossible to tell where his skill ends and Terran’s dominance begins. Best Terran of all time? Yes. Best player? That’s debatable. Ok this has got to be a troll post | ||
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Dante08
Singapore4138 Posts
On October 29 2025 19:44 TMNT wrote: No it's literally you who just did it, when you said PvZ and TvZ this ASL are at 56% and 25% therefore P>Z and Z>T. What I did was explain to you why that 56% and 25% can't be interpreted into anything due to the sample size and format issues. You can say you were cherry picking stats (probably unintentionally) and I just explained to you that's not the correct way to look at it. What I meant was PvZ isn’t as bad as people are making it out to be. Yes it’s a hard matchup but at the absolute top level Terrans have been struggling vs Zerg as well. I just highlighted the stats this ASL which I agree is not indicative of balance as a whole but does paint a picture of the current meta. Anyway if Bisu had pulled probes in game 7 we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. Imo Snow just didn’t play that well and Soma’s style is a nightmare for him. Snow likes to play stably into mid-late game but Soma kept throwing tricks at him which seriously messed with his mindset. I think he got rattled so bad that even his cannon placement on game 4 was screwed up. | ||
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evilfatsh1t
Australia8760 Posts
On October 29 2025 21:36 mtcn77 wrote: It is from my last post #535 where I discuss a possible equivalent cost army composition. 1 gate can't possibly make enough zealots to thwart a 16 hydralisk push, or can you fight 16 hydralisk with just 6 zealots? I didn't assume you could, zerg would just crush your army. However, I also assumed what if I make the 2nd hatchery in time - that is a wild assumption making the hatchery and spawning pool tech tree simultaneously - you can make 21 hydralisks, not 16. That is how many larvae 2 hatcheries can make. However, in order to make 21 hydralisks, you'd have to spend more minerals and vespene gas, so 16 hydralisk push can finish in a similar timeframe to 11 zealot counter push, but 21 hydralisk cannot. You'd have to start from a bigger economy to finish the 21 hydralisk push, else you need to spend 2925/875, instead of 2450/750 for zerg. 9 drones harvest roughly 620 minerals per minute, so I assume you need more than 4:36 if we trace a straight mining rate. You'd need to start the rush later than 9 drones on minerals which would throw off the timing, like 15 pool instead of 12 pool/hatch if you want to complete in the same 4:36 start to finish time frame and starting from a later point isn't a rush any more. I just assume if it will take more time to harvest for 21 hydralisks, it should be out of the question it can be finished in a similar time frame, because obviously I'm assuming both protoss and zerg have similar drone and probes in trying to outplay each other. WTF are you on about? why in the world would you imagine a scenario where the correct response to a "16 hydra bust" is having 11 zealots and 1 archon? and your justification for this is because the total cost of everything up til that point is equal on both sides? do you even play the game? fucking hell this is stupid. basically to sum up everything youve been spewing the entire thread is "the best way to play pvz is to play 2 gate hardcore zealot". youre either a 10/10 ragebaiter or you should just be banned from the bw section entirely | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 29 2025 23:16 evilfatsh1t wrote: WTF are you on about? why in the world would you imagine a scenario where the correct response to a "16 hydra bust" is having 11 zealots and 1 archon? and your justification for this is because the total cost of everything up til that point is equal on both sides? do you even play the game? fucking hell this is stupid. basically to sum up everything youve been spewing the entire thread is "the best way to play pvz is to play 2 gate hardcore zealot". youre either a 10/10 ragebaiter or you should just be banned from the bw section entirely I'm discussing high level play. We just witnessed soma play some games without making a mutalisk. I think you are missing the point. | ||
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evilfatsh1t
Australia8760 Posts
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 29 2025 23:32 evilfatsh1t wrote: theres absolutely nothing close to being high level found in any of your posts mate. its not even level. just completely lopsided capsizing mess Yes, and you are stuck discussing balance with no understanding why you just don't have the army numbers to counter a single hatchery hydralisk rush. It couldn't get more stupid than this. PS: what is lopsided capsizing? Is this AI speaking? | ||
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Artas1984
135 Posts
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/4brBZMp.jpeg) Soma just casually wins an ASL after coming back from military - what a talent! | ||
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evilfatsh1t
Australia8760 Posts
On October 29 2025 23:45 mtcn77 wrote: Yes, and you are stuck discussing balance with no understanding why you just don't have the army numbers to counter a single hatchery hydralisk rush. It couldn't get more stupid than this. PS: what is lopsided capsizing? Is this AI speaking? last i checked hydra busts didnt come out of one hatchery. your entire argument is that pvz should be played off a 2 gate opening because it obviously produces enough units to deal with a hydra bust. well no fucking shit. the problem is when zerg sees you going 2 gates they dont hydra bust anymore. are you incapable of understanding that players react to certain things? why in the world would a zerg hydra bust a protoss that opened with 2 gates ????????? what an absolute clown. stop embarrassing yourself and just shut up seriously | ||
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HC_Rain
2 Posts
On October 29 2025 00:47 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote: For the record. Not a single protoss was eliminated by zerg in the round of 16 in the round of 8 from 3 zergs only 1 survived. Mini was eliminated by a terran with an insane proxy barracks all in that was luck enough to be placed next to his base. Could have been 3 protoss in semis. We got 2 of them. No only that but Bisu was so close to make it to the finals if it wasnt for the failed zealot block to his sim city. Yet we are talking about all that bs. Imbalanced yeah.. We should be praising Soma an amateur player for making history and here we are complaining about him abusing x stuff. When in reality is just him putting the time in to master areas from the game and optimizations that no a single zerg is close to that. Honestly is sad. This is my second post here, and probably the last. I have never played Starcraft in multiplayer; but I have watched thousands of games since 2009. I surely am far more uninformed and less knowledgeable compared to a semi-pro like yourself. So please, take a bit of your time and indulge me.... Four years ago (my first post here) I asked here how come no ones sees the glaring imbalance of early game PvZ. If the Zerg knows what it is doing, it will deny the Protoss scout for two minutes or more, between the probe/zealot dying and the corsair coming in. For myself- an unknowleadgeable noob- this seems an enormous amount of time for a competitive RTS. And, combined with the volatility of the Zerg race in terms of early game rush opportunities, it means that a Protoss player of similar skill will start with a huge disadvantage in any 'Best of X' series. And the reply I received here four years ago was akin to your argument above. Before Soma, it was Soulkey... and the answer here was that Soulkey is a superior player, imbalance of ZvP has nothing to do with him beating Protoss at the highest level left and right. And before Soulkey, it was Zero. Same remarks- he is just a better player, early-game ZvP is not imbalanced. Who was it before Zero- Larva? Effort? The answer was always the same- do not touch balance, fix it via map design, stop complaining, ZvP is fine.... even though two decades worth of statistics show otherwise. Hell, even top Koreean Zerg players in their interviews mention it, directly or not. And here we are, years later, exactly at the same point. And it wouldn't matter as much, if long-term this would not hurt the game that we all love, regardless of their favorite race. If the game will slowly fade because the community does not act at all, is completely obtuse in terms of a simple balance patch (so what if 25 years have passed,I ask- shouldn't you try to rectify something glaringly obvious?) and pretends everything is fine.... well then, I don't think it will matter what race one or another plays or favors. But maybe I am completely wrong, even obtuse in my thinking, and you are right. You are the professional after all. In this case, please do something for the whole community and the many who think like I do. Please take a bit of your training time, play Protoss, and show all of us how Protoss can consistently survive early-game PvZ! I am not saying this to be sarcastic. I really mean it- who knows, maybe something significant will come out of it? I don't expect you to challenge Korean pros, just people with a similar skill level. All Protoss pros, people like Bisu, Rain, Best, Mini, Snow etc. have so far failed to solve early-game PvZ in a consistent manner. If you manage that, I am sure the entire community would be grateful. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 30 2025 00:15 evilfatsh1t wrote: last i checked hydra busts didnt come out of one hatchery. your entire argument is that pvz should be played off a 2 gate opening because it obviously produces enough units to deal with a hydra bust. well no fucking shit. the problem is when zerg sees you going 2 gates they dont hydra bust anymore. are you incapable of understanding that players react to certain things? why in the world would a zerg hydra bust a protoss that opened with 2 gates ????????? what an absolute clown. stop embarrassing yourself and just shut up seriously I know. That is why I just checked to verify if people have reasonable expectations. I just took 1 hatchery and asked how much it would take the protoss to counter 1 hatchery. If you cannot accept my summary, be oblivious making photon cannons and typing gg in grand finals. | ||
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evilfatsh1t
Australia8760 Posts
the only problems i have with this asl and pvz in general is that there are some players (mainly zergs) that dont acknowledge their advantage. if all they have to say about the matchup is "herp derp git gud noob", then thats just stupid. the second problem for me is just a dislike for the way soma specifically plays the matchup. i cant fault him too much because to be fair to him, its his first ever major competitive win. i can understand that his priorities are simply to win and nothing else. however i cant feel too happy for him when he got there by abusing the most broken part of the matchup and overall reducing the quality of entertainment. i dont have any specific evidence of this, but id bet my house on the fact that in the kespa days, pros were encouraged to not just play to win, but play to entertain. at the end of the day, the fans entertainment is the most important thing and thats why we didnt see cheese rushes left and right from every race in every match by pros just trying to squeeze out wins. thats why players like flash had an incredibly bad reputation in his early days, because he had a higher tendency to cheese rush players. the best sc games are long with multiple bases, multiple large army engagements, multiple tech trees etc. were not in the kespa days anymore where stakeholders may be reminding players about the entertainment factor but i think all the ex pros have this mindset just instilled within them. the only exception is soma, because he obviously didnt have a proper kespa career and maybe didnt get a chance to learn this side of the job. and this isnt to say that ex pros would never cheese rush, because obviously they still do. but i gotta say its no coincidence that soma plays the dirtiest and least entertaining pvz, and its no coincidence that his wins over bisu and snow were met with the worst reception out of any major zvp win. game 7 of bisu vs soma in particular was widely considered to be an absolutely awful end to an otherwise intense series. the way soma plays just isnt fun to watch | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 30 2025 00:39 evilfatsh1t wrote: personally i dont think brood war should receive a balance patch. despite the obvious unique disadvantage protoss faces only in pvz, i think its more likely that a balance patch would be more disastrous to the matchup and the entire game than it would actually fix the problem. the only problems i have with this asl and pvz in general is that there are some players (mainly zergs) that dont acknowledge their advantage. if all they have to say about the matchup is "herp derp git gud noob", then thats just stupid. the second problem for me is just a dislike for the way soma specifically plays the matchup. i cant fault him too much because to be fair to him, its his first ever major competitive win. i can understand that his priorities are simply to win and nothing else. however i cant feel too happy for him when he got there by abusing the most broken part of the matchup and overall reducing the quality of entertainment. i dont have any specific evidence of this, but id bet my house on the fact that in the kespa days, pros were encouraged to not just play to win, but play to entertain. at the end of the day, the fans entertainment is the most important thing and thats why we didnt see cheese rushes left and right from every race in every match by pros just trying to squeeze out wins. thats why players like flash had an incredibly bad reputation in his early days, because he had a higher tendency to cheese rush players. the best sc games are long with multiple bases, multiple large army engagements, multiple tech trees etc. were not in the kespa days anymore where stakeholders may be reminding players about the entertainment factor but i think all the ex pros have this mindset just instilled within them. the only exception is soma, because he obviously didnt have a proper kespa career and maybe didnt get a chance to learn this side of the job. and this isnt to say that ex pros would never cheese rush, because obviously they still do. but i gotta say its no coincidence that soma plays the dirtiest and least entertaining pvz, and its no coincidence that his wins over bisu and snow were met with the worst reception out of any major zvp win. game 7 of bisu vs soma in particular was widely considered to be an absolutely awful end to an otherwise intense series. the way soma plays just isnt fun to watch You know there is no difference in losing due to missed scouting a base, or a build order. Motive vs rush and soulkey vs effort is no different than losing to hydrabust. Stop wisecrack builds if you can't defend the simplest build in the game, in my opinion. Make 2 gate, you just answered your own problem in your previous post without actually realising. | ||
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Kraekkling
526 Posts
On October 30 2025 00:39 evilfatsh1t wrote: personally i dont think brood war should receive a balance patch. despite the obvious unique disadvantage protoss faces only in pvz, i think its more likely that a balance patch would be more disastrous to the matchup and the entire game than it would actually fix the problem. the only problems i have with this asl and pvz in general is that there are some players (mainly zergs) that dont acknowledge their advantage. if all they have to say about the matchup is "herp derp git gud noob", then thats just stupid. the second problem for me is just a dislike for the way soma specifically plays the matchup. i cant fault him too much because to be fair to him, its his first ever major competitive win. i can understand that his priorities are simply to win and nothing else. however i cant feel too happy for him when he got there by abusing the most broken part of the matchup and overall reducing the quality of entertainment. i dont have any specific evidence of this, but id bet my house on the fact that in the kespa days, pros were encouraged to not just play to win, but play to entertain. at the end of the day, the fans entertainment is the most important thing and thats why we didnt see cheese rushes left and right from every race in every match by pros just trying to squeeze out wins. thats why players like flash had an incredibly bad reputation in his early days, because he had a higher tendency to cheese rush players. the best sc games are long with multiple bases, multiple large army engagements, multiple tech trees etc. were not in the kespa days anymore where stakeholders may be reminding players about the entertainment factor but i think all the ex pros have this mindset just instilled within them. the only exception is soma, because he obviously didnt have a proper kespa career and maybe didnt get a chance to learn this side of the job. and this isnt to say that ex pros would never cheese rush, because obviously they still do. but i gotta say its no coincidence that soma plays the dirtiest and least entertaining pvz, and its no coincidence that his wins over bisu and snow were met with the worst reception out of any major zvp win. game 7 of bisu vs soma in particular was widely considered to be an absolutely awful end to an otherwise intense series. the way soma plays just isnt fun to watch imo zerg strength in ZvP has two peaks - early aggression and trix with tech switches - cost efficient defiler-centric late game soma seems very focused on the first one right now, while soulkey exclusively went for the second one, when he really needed to win people were just as mad about SK because "he just sat there until defilers" just read any of the threads when SK played vs P during previous seasons, it's exactly the same complaints about his play style, even though he did the complete opposite of the way soma plays does noone remember people commenting how SK "didn't hydra bust a single time that series" lol | ||
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Ze'ev
112 Posts
On October 30 2025 00:19 HC_Rain wrote: Whats the stats on zvp that bear out this imbalance again? People throw this shit around but I know they dont have some macro set of data they are pulling from. The last ones I saw years back had zvp at like 52% across all of broodwar history? It's not some huge statistical imbalance.This is my second post here, and probably the last. I have never played Starcraft in multiplayer; but I have watched thousands of games since 2009. I surely am far more uninformed and less knowledgeable compared to a semi-pro like yourself. So please, take a bit of your time and indulge me.... Four years ago (my first post here) I asked here how come no ones sees the glaring imbalance of early game PvZ. If the Zerg knows what it is doing, it will deny the Protoss scout for two minutes or more, between the probe/zealot dying and the corsair coming in. For myself- an unknowleadgeable noob- this seems an enormous amount of time for a competitive RTS. And, combined with the volatility of the Zerg race in terms of early game rush opportunities, it means that a Protoss player of similar skill will start with a huge disadvantage in any 'Best of X' series. And the reply I received here four years ago was akin to your argument above. Before Soma, it was Soulkey... and the answer here was that Soulkey is a superior player, imbalance of ZvP has nothing to do with him beating Protoss at the highest level left and right. And before Soulkey, it was Zero. Same remarks- he is just a better player, early-game ZvP is not imbalanced. Who was it before Zero- Larva? Effort? The answer was always the same- do not touch balance, fix it via map design, stop complaining, ZvP is fine.... even though two decades worth of statistics show otherwise. Hell, even top Koreean Zerg players in their interviews mention it, directly or not. And here we are, years later, exactly at the same point. And it wouldn't matter as much, if long-term this would not hurt the game that we all love, regardless of their favorite race. If the game will slowly fade because the community does not act at all, is completely obtuse in terms of a simple balance patch (so what if 25 years have passed,I ask- shouldn't you try to rectify something glaringly obvious?) and pretends everything is fine.... well then, I don't think it will matter what race one or another plays or favors. But maybe I am completely wrong, even obtuse in my thinking, and you are right. You are the professional after all. In this case, please do something for the whole community and the many who think like I do. Please take a bit of your training time, play Protoss, and show all of us how Protoss can consistently survive early-game PvZ! I am not saying this to be sarcastic. I really mean it- who knows, maybe something significant will come out of it? I don't expect you to challenge Korean pros, just people with a similar skill level. All Protoss pros, people like Bisu, Rain, Best, Mini, Snow etc. have so far failed to solve early-game PvZ in a consistent manner. If you manage that, I am sure the entire community would be grateful. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
pros were encouraged to not just play to win, but play to entertain I know you are crazy when you describe pros are delivering entertainment like matchfixing scandal that were shunned in Korean culture. Players left their careers for what happened. Even flash got shunned for an unrelated deception. | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 30 2025 01:21 Ze'ev wrote: Whats the stats on zvp that bear out this imbalance again? People throw this shit around but I know they dont have some macro set of data they are pulling from. The last ones I saw years back had zvp at like 52% across all of broodwar history? It's not some huge statistical imbalance. ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/kYeSj1v.png) Kespa (2001-2012): 54.7% over ~10k games ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/gLkYquO.png) Eloboard (2021-now): 52.4% over ~27k games Kespa overall is worse for Protoss, maybe because the period pre-Bisu is taken into account (edit: actually not true, just look at the progression of the two curves on the chart). There are also data covering the 2017-2021 period (recorded by sponbbang but the site is dead now) which points to similar percentage too. There're probably some screenshots on TL but I guess theres no need to find. I'd say 52-54% is pretty significant given the sample size is in the range of 50k+ lol. | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 30 2025 00:15 evilfatsh1t wrote: last i checked hydra busts didnt come out of one hatchery. your entire argument is that pvz should be played off a 2 gate opening because it obviously produces enough units to deal with a hydra bust. well no fucking shit. the problem is when zerg sees you going 2 gates they dont hydra bust anymore. are you incapable of understanding that players react to certain things? why in the world would a zerg hydra bust a protoss that opened with 2 gates ????????? what an absolute clown. stop embarrassing yourself and just shut up seriously Even if he doesn't have that intention (in that case he's just a very weird person), the way he posts has turned himself into a troll or a ragebaiter. Sometimes I respond to him because I'm curious to decipher his language. Otherwise there's no value in it. As you see most people by now are just ignoring his posts. But sometimes we have new members or long time no see posters returning to the forum, so they fall into the trap, just like you did here. If mods don't do anything about this guy, it's best everyone just ignores him. | ||
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Maks
Ukraine173 Posts
Without SonicTV BJ Starleague (OSL + MSL + KSL + ASL): Protoss: 16 wins (~19.75%) Zerg: 30 wins (~37%) Terran: 35 wins (~43.2%) Total StarLeagues: 81 Including SonicTV BJ Starleague (SSL): Protoss: 19 wins (20.43%) Zerg: 35 wins (37.63%) Terran: 39 wins (41.94%) Total StarLeagues: 93 Instead of the expected 33% win rate, Protoss consistently sits at around 20%. This is a significant underperformance, and the primary explanation is balance issues. | ||
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Maks
Ukraine173 Posts
1/12 (7.69%) excluding SSL (SonicTV BJ Starleague) 2/13 (13.33%) including SSL (SonicTV BJ Starleague) It’s no surprise that Bisu secured both of these wins—first against sAviOr and later against herO. | ||
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Maks
Ukraine173 Posts
The reality is that you can’t judge a player’s skill without considering race balance. For example, why should I consider Flash a stronger player than Bisu if Flash never had to deal with insane PvZ matchup where Protoss had only a 45% win rate? | ||
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sc2turtlepants
44 Posts
On October 30 2025 03:45 Maks wrote: The reality is that you can’t judge a player’s skill without considering race balance. For example, why should I consider Flash a stronger player than Bisu if Flash never had to deal with insane PvZ matchup where Protoss had only a 45% win rate? To put this another way, why consider Flash stronger than JD or SoulKey when Flash never had to deal with the ZvZ coinflip meta? How many more golds would SK have if he didn't have the ZvZ mirror matchup to contend with? When only 1 race produces (non-matchfixing) bonjwas, how balanced can your game be? On October 29 2025 09:50 TMNT wrote: Firstly, in game 5 (Metropolis) and game 2 (Dominator), BOTH TIMES Snow put down 4 cannons on top of the 2 he already had. So how come you accuse him of greed in game 2 and but praise him in game 5? imgur doesn't wanna let me upload images, but you claiming the 2+2 warping cannons Snow had when hydras arrived on Dominator = the 5 cannons he had up (plus the one he cancelled right before it finished, but could have had) on Metropolis before hydras left soma's base is pure comedy. In another comment on this thread you made the claim that zerg can just switch to droning if you build cannons and get a free eco win....well soma did just that on Metropolis and he died 5 minutes later, well after his 'free eco' had time to kick in. Of course the rest of the game matters, that's what the rest of us have been saying! That was the only notable DT in the series and it did well, but they were still within 8 supply shortly before Snow pushed out so it wasn't exactly game-ending. You're acting like hydra busts are broken and in a rock-paper-scissors match zerg wins every time while ignoring the game in this very series which disproves your claims. Keeping up with your mental gymnastics is hurting my brain. See you guys in the next ASL thread! | ||
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M2
Bulgaria4131 Posts
On October 30 2025 03:11 Maks wrote: StarLeague Victories Since Patch 1.08 (May 20, 2001): Without SonicTV BJ Starleague (OSL + MSL + KSL + ASL): Protoss: 16 wins (~19.75%) Zerg: 30 wins (~37%) Terran: 35 wins (~43.2%) Total StarLeagues: 81 Including SonicTV BJ Starleague (SSL): Protoss: 19 wins (20.43%) Zerg: 35 wins (37.63%) Terran: 39 wins (41.94%) Total StarLeagues: 93 Instead of the expected 33% win rate, Protoss consistently sits at around 20%. This is a significant underperformance, and the primary explanation is balance issues. Yeah rationally this should close the subject | ||
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Rainalcar
Croatia418 Posts
Speaking of the greatest player among all races makes no sense. Only per race. Flash is indeed the greatest terran, but it's impossible to know how good he would be if he had played Z or P. Historically, based on success alone, there is a clear pattern of T>Z>>P. Look at KCM too - it is a P disaster. Anyway. Sth is wrong with brood war balance, since forever, making it a game of 2.5 races in terms of achieving greatness instead of 3. This is not good for the scene, or interest. New strong P players are non existent. Fans are getting into ZvP finals fully expecting a Z win. True, TvZ is also somewhat imbalanced, and T always had it easiest, but ZvP feels so depressing, and worse, predictably boring, almost a lost cause. Lastly, to mods. Shame on you for the ban. I am here to point out the truth, and as ugly as it may be, it's still the truth. I am not here to whine, but to point to problems that I believe have the potential to end brood war. And that would be a colossal shame. I've been listening how maps will solve things stuff for years, and it never happened. More extreme measures are needed if we can't solve this with maps. Change armor type of warping cannons. Make egg content visible. Make the hydra den show animation when upgrading. Something. The idea that such a small change would break the game is crazy. What is the worst to happen? 40% P champions vs 30 Z and T? We have been living with roughly 20 P 45 T 35 Z for an eternity which is seemingly for many this holy grail of balance. But it isn't. Act or fade, it's as simple as that. | ||
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Rainalcar
Croatia418 Posts
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RowdierBob
Australia13287 Posts
* PvZ has an imbalance. It's not huge, but it's there. * Soma outplayed Snow in this final. | ||
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ruhtraeel
Canada123 Posts
He's gonna have to prove it in a couple more long series against Terran for me to be convinced, because he's historically gotten stomped by Terrans IMO right now there's no clear gosu bonjwa Soulkey is still weaker against Z Soma still has to prove his ZvT I thought Effort was getting close, but recently his ZvP has been lacking (lost against Mini and Snow) Snow keeps losing to Z | ||
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oxKnu
1238 Posts
The statistics posted on this very page are nauseating. Had no idea the race imbalance was this bad. Kind of makes you wonder how PvZ would look like without Bisu. I think if Bisu was not around we would've had a balance patch by now. (minor, like the ones I suggested). | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 30 2025 04:54 sc2turtlepants wrote: imgur doesn't wanna let me upload images, but you claiming the 2+2 warping cannons Snow had when hydras arrived on Dominator = the 5 cannons he had up (plus the one he cancelled right before it finished, but could have had) on Metropolis before hydras left soma's base is pure comedy. In another comment on this thread you made the claim that zerg can just switch to droning if you build cannons and get a free eco win....well soma did just that on Metropolis and he died 5 minutes later, well after his 'free eco' had time to kick in. Of course the rest of the game matters, that's what the rest of us have been saying! That was the only notable DT in the series and it did well, but they were still within 8 supply shortly before Snow pushed out so it wasn't exactly game-ending. You're acting like hydra busts are broken and in a rock-paper-scissors match zerg wins every time while ignoring the game in this very series which disproves your claims. Keeping up with your mental gymnastics is hurting my brain. See you guys in the next ASL thread! Dude, you have no idea how progamers build cannons for a Hydra bust, and generally very weak understanding of this matchup. Read evil's post earlier to learn about BW, or go back to SC2: + Show Spoiler + if we go even deeper into the pvz mind games, protoss has to be careful not to throw down 4-5 cannons at once when he scouts the first hydras. assuming protoss already has 2 cannons up, the optimal number of cannons you want at the earliest timing for hydras is 4, meaning you only spawn in 2 cannons at the beginning. from there you put down more cannons if you see with your corsairs that zerg is continuing to spawn hydras. if you immediately invest in up to 5-6 cannons from the very beginning, zergs just fake the bust, settle for breaking the gate/forge and just drone up immediately. if you fail to continue to scout with your sair or any other unit whether zerg is reinforcing the initial group of hydras, you risk dying to a bust because you only put down 4 cannons or investing in the extra cannons only to find out that zerg had droned up instead. Here are more evidences for you. This is Bisu vs Soma one week earlier: ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/1hNPnN6.jpeg) This is Snow vs Soma on that exact same spawn location lol: ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/luYZZ0S.jpeg) The bust timing is 1 min apart because in the Bisu's game Soma goes for a switch from Muta (another ZvP imba tactic, this dude just stays on sub-30 drones and flips between all-ins lol, people praising him for this kind of play is like an indirect insult to Soulkey). But look at the staggering similarities there: in both cases Zerg has ~30 army supply and Protoss has 18 army supply, in both cases Protoss has 4 cannons ready (exactly like evil said)., but Bisu only has 1 cannon warping, while Snow has 3 and he also has 1 more zealot, which means Snow can't be too wrong here. So how did Bisu holds but Snow doesn't? This I can't be entirely sure but maybe because in Snow's case, Soma has some extra lings, and maybe Bisu's cannon placement is better (I'm leaning more towards this), or maybe Soma reinforces better vs Snow. But the bottom line is as Protoss you don't just have 6 cannons ready for Hydras. Now in the Metropolis game: ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/NeWFzzh.jpeg) Same principle here: he original has 2, adds 4 more gradually, then lets 3 finishes and cancels 1. He even has 1 at the back of the nat to defend Mutas (which is built long before). The reason Snow was more cautious in this game, I explained to you already, but I don't know why you only quoted the first part of my post, while there's a second part, in which I even stressed out "more importantly". Is this how you lot Zerg supporters argue? In this game: - Snow is already ahead thanks to the opening (12 Nexus) - Snow is even more ahead thanks to the 4 Zealot pressure - Snow is far ahead after the DT harass Need proof? At 7:42 on Metropolis, Soma is supply blocked at 52/52. Compare that to the same time on Dominator when he's at 59/61. Even more interesting, at 8:11, his supply goes down to 50/36 (DT harass). Notice that his build (3H Lair into both Spire and Den) is not a good econ build in the first place, then it meets a 12 Nexus opening, then he gets his drones killed, his mining disrupted heavily, supply blocked, 3rd base shut down totally by one DT. As I said, you have no idea how far behind Soma was in this game. And "within 8 supply" lol. This right here shows your lack of understanding. Yes there's one second like that at 10:40, because Snow queues two units in his Gateways, that's why 15s later the gap jumps up to 20 and consistenly maintains at 20-30 for the rest of the game (40 after the Mutas eat one storm). That's how he rolled Soma. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 30 2025 02:42 TMNT wrote: Even if he doesn't have that intention (in that case he's just a very weird person), the way he posts has turned himself into a troll or a ragebaiter. Sometimes I respond to him because I'm curious to decipher his language. Otherwise there's no value in it. As you see most people by now are just ignoring his posts. But sometimes we have new members or long time no see posters returning to the forum, so they fall into the trap, just like you did here. If mods don't do anything about this guy, it's best everyone just ignores him. Its alarming you are holding sides with a person whose belief is that during kespa era players were encouraged to matchfix and he already says he has no proof, but the fact he is blinded to the consequences of that is totally shocking to the level of delusion you team up with. Again, nobody responds to posts I make since I post basic stuff for your understanding. However you keep ignoring the precipice that pvz is no different than any other matchup where when one side slips up and messes up the build order, it is a game ending defeat at the initial part of the game. Yet, you keep talking like there is fundamentals lost on me what the FE build establishes that should tilt the tide in protoss favor. Is it stealth? No, zerg can see your build from the outset and provided there is a counter to the FE build which there is, they take it and strongarm the protoss into defeat. Is it economy? Protoss players lose a lot in the event that zerg can slip zerglings into the base as it happened on game 6. You can still keep the early natural and lose due to zerglings picking up probes and preventing them to make up for the sunken cost of the build. Is it the army? I said it again and funny enough you have repeated in your last post protoss has only ~9 zealots while zerg can have +15 hydralisks at 7:42-8:46 minute mark. This is unsustainable in army composition perspective. Like I said: you have to prove what is exceptional about this FE build that it breaks the rules of the game to put protoss in the lead when every indication leads us to believe it is behind. On October 30 2025 09:38 TMNT wrote: In this game: - Snow is already ahead thanks to the opening (12 Nexus) - Snow is even more ahead thanks to the 4 Zealot pressure - Snow is far ahead after the DT harass All this is not true. All that zerg sees is FE and sunk cost while zerg is mobile. | ||
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Jealous
10224 Posts
On October 30 2025 10:06 mtcn77 wrote: Its alarming you are holding sides with a person whose belief is that during kespa era players were encouraged to matchfix and he already says he has no proof, but the fact he is blinded to the consequences of that is totally shocking to the level of delusion you team up with. Again, nobody responds to posts I make since I post basic stuff for your understanding. However you keep ignoring the precipice that pvz is no different than any other matchup where when one side slips up and messes up the build order, it is a game ending defeat at the initial part of the game. Yet, you keep talking like there is fundamentals lost on me what the FE build establishes that should tilt the tide in protoss favor. Is it stealth? No, zerg can see your build from the outset and provided there is a counter to the FE build which there is, they take it and strongarm the protoss into defeat. Is it economy? Protoss players lose a lot in the event that zerg can slip zerglings into the base as it happened on game 6. You can still keep the early natural and lose due to zerglings picking up probes and preventing them to make up for the sunken cost of the build. Is it the army? I said it again and funny enough you have repeated in your last post protoss has only ~9 zealots while zerg can have +15 hydralisks at 7:42-8:46 minute mark. This is unsustainable in army composition perspective. Like I said: you have to prove what is exceptional about this FE build that it breaks the rules of the game to put protoss in the lead when every indication leads us to believe it is behind. All this is not true. All that zerg sees is FE and sunk cost while zerg is mobile. Actually, no one has to prove anything to someone who doesn't even play the game and thus has no concrete experience which informs their opinion. It's actually you who has to provide proof of why 2 Gate (or anything else) is actually viable and not your personal pipe dream when every pro Protoss whose livelihood depends on their ability to win the game is doing FE. You see all progamers going for FE in PvZ and you think: "Well, all progamers must be misinformed, they didn't think of my totally original idea of going 2 Gate" (which has been phased out early in BW's professional meta). If you had ever played the game at even a middling amateur level, you would know that 2 Gate openings are even more easily abused by Z and are effectively all-in cheese against Zergs who have two brain cells to rub together. But, because you are a living, breathing example of the Dunning-Kruger effect, you speak with absolute confidence about things you have close to 0 understanding of, and have 0 ability to budge off of your misaligned ideas. Tactfully avoiding any introspection or requests of proof, you fall back on "I'm 40 years old and don't play the game, but I spent a hundred hours of watching Pro VODs (which I didn't understand), so that means my ideas are sound and revolutionary." If you watched 100 hours of people building houses with Korean commentary, would you feel comfortable giving people advice on how to build a house despite never picking up a hammer or drafting a blue print? Given your behavior on TL, I imagine you'd be telling people that they are stupid for building roofs after walls because that requires people to climb ladders, which isn't safe. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 30 2025 10:47 Jealous wrote: Actually, no one has to prove anything to someone who doesn't even play the game and thus has no concrete experience which informs their opinion. It's actually you who has to provide proof of why 2 Gate (or anything else) is actually viable and not your personal pipe dream when every pro Protoss whose livelihood depends on their ability to win the game is doing FE. You see all progamers going for FE in PvZ and you think: "Well, all progamers must be misinformed, they didn't think of my totally original idea of going 2 Gate" (which has been phased out early in BW's professional meta). If you had ever played the game at even a middling amateur level, you would know that 2 Gate openings are even more easily abused by Z and are effectively all-in cheese against Zergs who have two brain cells to rub together. But, because you are a living, breathing example of the Dunning-Kruger effect, you speak with absolute confidence about things you have close to 0 understanding of, and have 0 ability to budge off of your misaligned ideas. Tactfully avoiding any introspection or requests of proof, you fall back on "I'm 40 years old and don't play the game, but I spent a hundred hours of watching Pro VODs (which I didn't understand), so that means my ideas are sound and revolutionary." If you watched 100 hours of people building houses with Korean commentary, would you feel comfortable giving people advice on how to build a house despite never picking up a hammer or drafting a blue print? Given your behavior on TL, I imagine you'd be telling people that they are stupid for building roofs after walls because that requires people to climb ladders, which isn't safe. Okay, you have literally argued with a straw man. I still ask the same question, but no personal attacks please: where exactly in the game does FE put you ahead? A starcraft answer please and please start with premises your friend has provided: 7:42-8:42 you only have 9 zealots and are trying to defend against 15 hydralisks. Go on, I beg you. PS: I'm not responding to section in bold eventhough it is also incorrect just to keep attention on the first argument. Let's shoot ourselves in the foot Bisu totally annihilated soma with this build in their 3rd game for the sake of the argument. Let's hide it from our attention eventhough how absurd it would be trying to find that very answer. Go on, school me on that. Oh, and mind you you are not challenging my intellect, but also Bisu, the creator of modern pvz. | ||
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Jealous
10224 Posts
On October 30 2025 10:57 mtcn77 wrote: Okay, you have literally argued with a straw man. I still ask the same question, but no personal attacks please: where exactly in the game does FE put you ahead? A starcraft answer please and please start with premises your friend has provided: 7:42-8:42 you only have 9 zealots and are trying to defend against 15 hydralisks. Go on, I beg you. You have a 2 gas, 2 mineral economy which allows you to adapt to Zerg's tech which 1 mineral line, which a 1 gas economy would not allow you to do (since you can't afford +1 Air, +1 Ground, Zealot Speed, Templar Archives, and a Stargate off of 1 base economy). You also have secured valuable ground on the map early on, which would be nearly impossible to do without Templar or Reaver if you start on a 1 base hold-ramp scenario. Also, given sufficient but relatively equal numbers, Hydralisks will win a fight against Zealots due to kiting micro. Not that it matters, since any Zerg who is not stupid will likely tech to Muta or Lurker with sim city defense against your shitty 2 Gate opener, thereby neutering any numbers advantage you think you may have built with a 2 Gate opener. Unlike you, I have played 2 Gate in PvZ dozens of time, with wins and losses both on ladder and in relatively low-level tournaments, all of which have exposed me to these issues and dynamics personally. ETA: ^ I posted that before I saw your addition, yes I saw this one-off game done once in the past year where the Protoss barely made it "work" (though, notably, not at all how you described it to work). I'd need to see more than one data point to humor this idea. | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
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Jealous
10224 Posts
On October 30 2025 11:09 mtcn77 wrote: Bisu actually defeated soma so hard in that game, soma alt f4'ed in in the end, lol. Yea I've seen people alt+QQ to 5 Pool also, doesn't make it an actually viable long-term approach to winning in Starcraft on a professional level consistently. This is why "meta" exists; the second Bisu starts doing 2 Gate every game is the same moment where his professional PvZ career will quickly die and end, because when it is a known and expected option, it is hard-countered by 2001-tier ZvP knowledge and understanding. Perhaps you would benefit from watching the OSL finals/semi-finals in chronological succession to see the development of the "meta" and thus the communal understanding of what works, doesn't work, and why (which you clearly lack). | ||
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mtcn77
Turkey616 Posts
On October 30 2025 11:05 Jealous wrote: ETA: ^ I posted that before I saw your addition, yes I saw this one-off game done once in the past year where the Protoss barely made it "work" (though, notably, not at all how you described it to work). I'd need to see more than one data point to humor this idea. Not before you say you are sorry I proved you wrong. Honestly it is not my responsibility to teach you what you know to be false is indeed true. You asked, I provided. Say thanks and I'm sorry, or I don't continue going out of my way to prove what proof is available. At least you are not a troll, like the rest of the counterarguers here, so I salute you for that. You argue fair. | ||
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Sabu113
United States11075 Posts
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M2
Bulgaria4131 Posts
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Barneyk
Sweden310 Posts
On October 29 2025 11:06 ShowTheLights wrote: add soma to that list of fraud champions won with 2 hydra busts and 2 fake hydra busts into get super ahead fucking bullshit Soma played great this entire season and has been a top tier zerg for a very long time, well deserved ASL champion. The series was dissapointing in a lot of ways but Snow did make mistakes and had bad reads on the game whereas Soma had great reads and played much stronger. Snow picking roaring currents as his first map and then not really having a strong plan for it was so weird to see. I thought he had something special planned and then he just didn't. There where openings for him that he didn't take. His hydra bust defensive sim city was poor and combined with losing zealots for free and not replenishing them quick enough it just makes hydra busting easy. I think there is a weakness to Protoss compared to T and Z at the highest level balance wise, something that is hard to fix. But among top Protoss players we also have some fumbling going on, both Snow and Best has under-performed in finals for example. | ||
ImbaTosS
United Kingdom1695 Posts
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Dante08
Singapore4138 Posts
On October 30 2025 03:45 Maks wrote: The reality is that you can’t judge a player’s skill without considering race balance. For example, why should I consider Flash a stronger player than Bisu if Flash never had to deal with insane PvZ matchup where Protoss had only a 45% win rate? Ok I can’t even begin to contemplate how you arrived at this conclusion other than pure balance whine. Flash is statistically the best player pre and post Kespa and his dominance extends to non-tournament games as well where he often has more than 70% winrate. If Terran is so strong explain why no other player matches his winrate? | ||
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Bonyth
Poland581 Posts
On October 30 2025 18:58 Dante08 wrote: Ok I can’t even begin to contemplate how you arrived at this conclusion other than pure balance whine. Flash is statistically the best player pre and post Kespa and his dominance extends to non-tournament games as well where he often has more than 70% winrate. If Terran is so strong explain why no other player matches his winrate? Simple reasoning. Flash is the best terran player, and this alone is enough to also be the best starcraft player, given how terrans have the edge over other races statistically (above 50% win rate). Why other terrans aren't as successfull? Because someone has to be the best of their own race. Other terrans are successful enough to have more titles without Flash than whole protoss race. | ||
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TMNT
3002 Posts
On October 30 2025 11:29 Sabu113 wrote: Actually, if Flash is coming back I would love to see him just playing Protoss to see his PvZ. Literally the only one who makes the match up look like the protoss has initiative is Mini. We got a preview in ASL10, and it's not so pretty. He wasn't able to hold a cross spawn 9 pool in which the first 6 lings ran to the wrong base anyway, let the lings into main, then lost a Nexus for free because he couldn't handle the multitasking and cancel in in time. Not saying every game he might play as Protoss would be like this, but this shit is always bound to happen for Protoss every now and then. Not every race can sit behind a wall and shoot with guns. | ||
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RJBTVYOUTUBE
Netherlands1002 Posts
Also SnOw just has to increase his activity and he will look a lot sharper. His decision making is solid, but there are multitasking issues when his activity is low. | ||
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sas.Sziky
Hungary303 Posts
On October 30 2025 03:45 Maks wrote: The reality is that you can’t judge a player’s skill without considering race balance. For example, why should I consider Flash a stronger player than Bisu if Flash never had to deal with insane PvZ matchup where Protoss had only a 45% win rate? i love Bisu,Jaedong and Flash ( i dont care what they race is ) . But i know its hard but when u try to be fair then: Flash best starcraft 1 player ( maybe because he is Terran ) but you also think z>p then Jaedong ( he has minimus same skill than Flash,BIsu has ) why worst than Bisu with mapple defense practice ? i mean even when Bisu almost only played ums was better then hard practicing Jaedong. But ok it is not means anything. Another question Flash,Jaedong and why better in SC2 ? i mean Bisu not played SC2 ( maybe he would be better and etc who knows) and the another example why Soulkey was so succesful in SC2 while Snow not ? that you don't recognize Flash as the best player thats simple disrespecting same as all Protoss who cant aggre that. | ||
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RJBTVYOUTUBE
Netherlands1002 Posts
But Light right after losing the KSL qualifiers, went on to become the 2nd best Terran and would go on to win KSL4 using his anti-protoss expertise from those three months of being a Protoss himself. | ||
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![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/players/5219.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/players/652.jpg)
Roaring Currents
