A State of Starcraft - Page 4

On June 11 2008 18:17 raga4ka wrote:
Not bad i have to disagree with something JD doesn't lack mental state , because of his lost to Flash it is because of his trip to Europe that he didn't practise as much as him this season . He will stay the best zerg and arguably the best player for now . After a game that JD losses , he normaly comes at you even harder .Last season everyone took the first game from JD in the MSL but no one was even 1 game close to eliminate him thats the proof and that is why i will always vote for JD in series Bo5 or Bo3 . Just flash was lucky and skillful enough to take the series in OSL in what he didn't stand out to much with his mech build , but JD was overconfidant at one point and gave it pretty much away with the base and macro advantage he had , i'm sure that he won't make the same mistake . If not this MSL Jaedong will rape the rest of 2008 !!!

On June 11 2008 01:17 HamerD wrote:

wow, I enjoyed reading this just as much as the FE, which of course was 10/10. Ofc plexa you should be going into journalism for a career. You are probably studying english or something. Your articles are involving and rousing, well written stuff.

Ps I would love if there were something about the 'flash's curse' thread that came around awhile ago. About how poor up-and-coming flash was throttled by top tier player after top tier player in tournaments, never getting a break. It's so compelling to think that actually, that stressful competition probably served to fire Flash up to reach for the top all the quicker; and get there.

On June 11 2008 20:53 Plexa wrote:
While this is true, then why did Jaedong throw the game away? Was it really because he was overconfident? Or because he was taken back by being taken out what was familiar to him? While i don't argue that Jaedong is a superior player mechanically, Flash fucked around with his mind and forced Jaedong into an inferior mental position. From there he became frustrated with Flash - he just couldn't seem to crack him.

As i said in the article, the back and forth cheesing in the GSI (especially game 3) shows that Jaedong couldn't find a solution for the mech build and was frustrated. The frustration lead to mistakes and cheese - which never work well together. Jaedong could have won if he had played normally - like he does against any other player - but Flash has him beat on the mind game. Thats why Flash will always beat Jaedong from now on.

On June 12 2008 00:18 Letmelose wrote:


That's a pretty safe bet given the current map pool, and the fact that over time, all zergs, no matter how godly, eventually succumbs to terrans. Would you have said the same if the maps were more favourable to zergs though? I think the odds would change considerably if the current maps were switched with, say, Fantasy and the original Bluestorm. The only reason I rate Flash as the favourite against Jaedong right now is because Jaedong's pure mechanics (the best in the progaming scene in my opinion) alone is no longer enough to give the win against top terrans these days; not with this map pool.

Mind games do play a part, but I think you're underestimating the mental strength of Jaedong here. Jaedong must be one of the WORST player around when it comes to preparation for a BO3, BO5 series. This is enough to wreck anyone's series (as Stork collapsed when Flash got him starting off the wrong footing in the Bacchus OSL finals), but how many times have you seen Jaedong overcome this deficit? It's not just his superior mechanics, his mind control once the series gets going is really something to behold. I don't think Jaedong's the one to cower whatever mind games you think Flash is playing with him.

As for his rather lackluster defeat against Flash in the GSI, Jaedong at the end of last season was getting stretched too thin what with the hectic post season schedule not to mention the MSL, OSL and GSI games to take care of. Frustrated with having to prepare for the various styles Flash brings to his game with such demanding schedule, Jaedong probably brought to the table his poorly planned cheeses.

I don't expect such a repeat because the situation is far different now what with his role in the team being far smaller and his early exit from the OSL. If Jaedong loses a series to Flash this season, it won't be because Flash got to his mind, but because Flash plays better. The thing is, the only stage that the two of them can meet seems to be the MSL finals, the likelihood of the two of them playing a series in the recent future is pretty low. But if they DO meet, it will mean that Jaedong overcame Hwasin, and that'll mean he overcame the map pool. If the two are to meet, my bets will be on Jaedong, frustrated or not. Too bad Hwasin won't allow that to happen though.

Also, I think people are putting way too much focus on Flash overcoming his greatest opponents in Stork, Bisu and to a far lesser extent, Jaedong. They're not the players threatening Flash this season. They were the players who outperformed Flash last season, who are also (with the exception of Jaedong) really not anything of note this season. Players like Best, Lomo and Jangbi are probably more of a threat to Flash's current domination than the familiar faces of last season. In fact, I think Lomo and Best are Flash's biggest threats to his potential dual OSL/MSL triumph. The new wave of protoss and terran players this season could very well end up champions instead of the usual suspects that we predict. I don't see any zerg player winning anything. Zerg players became a non factor as far as champions are concerned the moment mappers turned their backs on them. I see Jaedong fighting on bravely, trying out new things, but really... it's looks like a lost cause. For the time being it looks like it'll be Flash and the new terran and protoss players battling it out for the top spot.

On June 12 2008 03:36 Letmelose wrote:
It took terran progamers nearly two years to fully equip themselves with the tools necessary to counter the four tools that were added to the zerg arsenal almost at the same time: of the mastery of 3 hatchery management, stacked mutalisk control and heavy defiler and nydus canal usage. These tools temporarily allowed the regular zerg players to be on an even footing with the terran gamers and for top zerg players to crush terran players of inferior skill with ease. Now it seems these mappers were extremely uncomfortable with the likes of Kwanro simply mutalisk harassing his opponents to death while they were just FINE with players like Boxer and Casy abusing their mnm control with zerg troops melting like butter.

Just as terran players are coming up with solutions for the zerg refinements with refinements of their own, we have overly ZvZ cautious mappers are saying, "You know what? I think mutalisk harassment is too overpowered these days. I'll just make it like so, and VOILA, no more mutalisk harass, no more buying time and no more free 3rd gas that comes with it as well!"

The sad thing about the progaming scene is, we take terran favouring maps for granted, and automatically despise any zerg favouring map in the slightest. So when we see a 5-1 record for terran on a particular map, we feel at ease. But as soon as zergs turn the tables, we see immediate changes to the map. It gets to a point where any map where zerg doesn't have a hard time against terran is a zerg favouring map. Why do we take it for granted that zerg suffers against terrans? Moreover, why do we take it for granted when we can balance things out with little things that favour the zerg? Well, the reason for that is probably because any map that evens out ZvT must come at the price of imbalancing PvZ (mineral count plays an important factor in both matchups). And protoss always have their whinning taken care of. There's a reason why TvT is the most played mirror, ZvZ is the least (still seems too much though for the regular fan), and why historically and currently, ZvT is the least balanced matchup.

Why whine about the maps now though? Yellow's been through worse. Island maps, no gas naturals and generally maps that wouldn't even allow a zerg to take his natural for free. Because I believe we reached the end of the road as far as evolution goes. Fast expansions for every single race. Zergs NEED free third gas against the fast expanding terran. We can't go back to the old ways and expect 2 hatchery lurker zergling to work. That's how Oov got his monstrous winning streak against zergs. When you have mappers are denying the only method zerg has of getting 3rd gas for free, you get stagnation of the entire race as a whole. Instead of a new Jaedong, we have promising zerg players forced to only play during teamplays because sending a promising terran or protoss player gives you a better chance of winning. We'll end up with teamplay zergs who can't ZvT for crap because it doesn't matter whether you're good at that matchup or not because people only want you to splatter into a pool of blood under the fire of marines.

Enough about the maps, I obviously think it's the only thing keeping Jaedong from being a serious force (as of now he's just a zerg, a very good one, the number one player of a race meant to lose). Give me any pool of maps that zergs have an even record with terrans, and I'm almost certain Jaedong will be the heavy favourite against Flash in a series whatever builds Flash brings into play. The game of Loki was really Flash losing his advantage not because he made any major mistakes but because Jaedong out-multitasked Flash to get himself back to the game once his Hive play kicked in. This game, and the match in Fantasy II certainly left the impression that Jaedong out muscles Flash when it comes to a pure multitasking game. Just like Flash's victories left the impression that Jaedong has trouble dealing with the wide range of strategies Flash utilizes. Could have it gone any other way? Of course. What if Flash had been a little more crisp with his army management? What if Jaedong bought more time to overpower Flash later on instead of engaging with Flash's army so carelessly when it he was mere inches from victory. After their three encounters, I was left with the impression that Jaedong could have won all three series under the right circumstances, but Flash's basic fundamentals seemed too,,, mortal compared to Jaedong to say the reverse. You can only put your opponent off his footing only so many times.

I can say for sure that Jaedong was the busiest player at the end of last season. Flash only had individual leagues to prepare for. Proleague practice schedules, especially one leading upto such important matches are nothing to snuff at. I remember noticing how unpracticed he was for the GSI even when taking into account that it was an "unofficial" tournament. Sure Jaedong wanted to win. But were his cheeses a carefully thought out blow like Flash's inch perfect mech play? I'm almost certain it wasn't. And when you fail to cheese as zerg, the punishment for failing and FAR more servere than it is for terrans. This might have been Jaedong playing into Flash's hands, but the circumstances were very harsh for Jaedong to simply label this as Jaedong mentally collapsing agaisnt Flash.

I think I drifted quite far from the original topic, and should get back to you on whether Flash's games against the likes of Stork and Jaedong took its toll on them this season. For Stork, it certainly looks like it although the accumulation of 2nd place finishes after performing so well throughout the season must have been quite exhausting. His shutout defeat against Flash might have been more of a final straw for him rather than Stork thinking he no longer could defeat Flash. For Jaedong, I'm pretty sure he's practicing hard to prove that it is he, not Flash, who is the number one player on the planet right now. Maps won't let him though. I think I mentioned players like Best and Lomo as an afterthought because people seem to be coming to this foregone conclusion that Flash conquered all and now all players are under his submission. I admit this has very little to do with the topic at hand. I tend to rant about things even if they have little in correlation with the original post... a bit habbit of mine.