10-1 in the Avalon MSL. That's 91%. The sole loss coming against Jaedong in ZvZ, and with 7 of 11 games against the two of the hottest players at the time. This image proves that Calm's disappointing performance in the Proleague playoffs is an anomaly. It shows Calm's true potential. He was always a third tier ace, a player not considered on the level of Bisu or Flash or Jaedong or even Effort or Fantasy or Leta. But now, who knows? It's one thing to beat a good player in a series -- everyone has a bad day. It's an entirely different thing to beat the two best Zergs in consecutive Bo5 series when ZvZ isn't your best matchup. Now, Calm could very well be better than Fantasy, better than Leta, better than Effort. He could be what a deep STX team needs most: a reliable closer capable of contending with other top tier aces.
I've been wrong twice thus far about this kid (to be fair, so has the majority of fans). Nobody expect him to beat Effort or Jaedong. But Calm did. Nothing can take that away, including the "Jaedong had to practice!" excuse makers. In his way stand two CJ players. Calm would be a slight favorite over Iris and a definite favorite over Kwanro. Right now, it's Calm's MSL to lose.
Calm opens overpool while Jaedong opens 12-pool. Both players proceed to take their naturals and send lings at each other, passing without seeing each other. Calm 's lings score a few drone kills but Jaedong's do as well, and Jaedong remains ahead in drone count due to the openings. Calm attempts a ling attack as Jaedong's spire completes, but mutas spawn in time. Both players have relatively equal muta flocks, but Jaedong is ahead in drones and lings, and as the muta fight happens, uses those lings to kill all of Calm's natural drones. Jaedong eventually wins the muta fight with some nice anti-scourge micro, and Calm GG's.
Calm opens 9-pool while Jaedong opens 12-pool. Jaedong gets a fast natural hatchery, and when Calm's lings arrive, Jaedong loses a critical zergling (sent out to scout) and is forced to pull two drones. Calm's lair finishes earlier, and he adds a second hatchery in his main. Calm's spire completes, and Jaedong hasn't started his spire, instead opting to turtle with spores, making two per mineral line. It's a tricky build from Calm because Jaedong doesn't see the second hatchery and doesn't adjust his ling numbers accordingly. As a result, when Calm attacks Jaedong's nat, Jaedong cannot defend Calm's ground army, especially with Calm's mutas scoring free hits on any reinforcing lings rallied from Jaedong's main. Calm eventually just runs Jaedong over with muta ling.
Jaedong opens 9-pool while Calm does a hybrid overgas-pool build. As a result, Calm's lair is significantly faster, but he is forced to lay a sunken when Jaedong catches him 8 lings vs 6 lings on Calm's ramp. Jaedong breaks in with speedlings a nice semicircle attack formation. Calm loses a few drones, and Jaedong is ahead 10-9 on workers, with speed, and a slightly later spire. The players trade their ling armies, but Calm's scourge arrive just in time in Jaedong's main to catch two of his three hatching mutalisks, giving him a slight gas advantage. Jaedong expands to his natural, while Calm continues to massing mutas off one hatch.
Calm's muta flock looks slightly larger, but Jaedong has scourges. When it cuts to Calm's FPV, his true plan is revealed: he researched muta attack upgrade, and absolutely destroys Jaedong's muta flock with +1 attack, something that is rarely used in a muta fight by the player on one hatchery and one base. Calm wins the muta fight easily and Jaedong taps out.
Calm opens 9-pool while Jaedong opens 12-pool, again going for the early natural expansion. Calm's lings get speed, and he attacks the morphing hatch. Calm then uses a really ingenious trick, attacking the hatch with only 6 of his 8 lings (hiding two off the side). Jaedong sees this and brings six slow lings down from his choke, and Calm quickly surrounds, getting in a few key hits and wins the ling fight decisively with very nice micro, forcing Jaedong to cancel his natural hatch, build a sunken, and drone drill continuously. Jaedong sneaks out three lings but Calm has enough lings to defend. Calm's spire finishes, and Jaedong attempts a ling attack, but Calm defends nicely. Calm's mutas spawn, and Jaedong is forced to build an evo and spore. For those keeping score, sunken + spore + evo = 425 minerals and lost mining time. Calm takes his natural while continuing to mass mutas. Jaedong can't really do anything but mass for a last ditch desperation attack, but Calm's muta count is just too much. When Jaedong's attack fails, he GGs.
And the fanboys scream, Jaedong would have won if he had more time to practice! Well, yes and no. It's almost certain Jaedong would have done better. But would he really have won the series? Would more practice allow Jaedong to predict Calm's +1 air attack build or hidden hatchery? Would more practice make Jaedong recognize that Calm hid two lings on Heartbreak? We'll never know for sure. But I don't deal with what-ifs. Jaedong had a build order advantage in three of the four games and was even BO-wise in the other, yet he lost 1-3. Calm outplayed Jaedong so thoroughly in this series that these unlucky disadvantages -- usually deadly against a player of LJD's caliber -- didn't matter.
Calm won with a combination of superior micro, execution, and creativity. The ling micro, the build order choices, the hidden units, the +1 air attack -- all these pale to Calm's belief that he could win this series. Calm did not panic after the first game when everyone thought it would be an easy 3-0 for Jaedong. Calm didn't let up after evening the series 1-1 or going up 2-1. So many times before, players have faced Jaedong with fear, but not this time. Yes, Calm celebrated like he won the lottery after the series. Yes, he was reduced to tears in the back room when he thought about how hard he worked to achieve this. Yes, he still has one more Bo5 to play. But the first step to becoming a Jaedong-level player is to truly believe you're at that level. And right now, Calm believes.
Player / Matchup / Last 10 / Last 3 Months / Head-to-Head Iris / TvZ / 8-2 (10-5 with prelims) / 6-4 (3-1 with prelims) / 0-0 Kwanro / ZvT / 5-5 / 9-6 (11-7 with prelims) / 0-0
Teammate Bo5 series are so impossibly hard to predict. While Iris' recent 3-0 of Effort in GOM and Kwanro's 0-2 in Proleague playoffs to unheralded Samsung player Miracle may lead you to believe that Iris is a big favorite in this series, it's actually completely up in the air. Kwanro has always been known as one of CJ's best players in their team rankings, only to have his potential disappear on TV. Recently it seemed Kwanro finally broke through, doing very well in Proleague and individual leagues. Coach Cho put him in the stacked CJ lineup repeatedly in PL playoffs. Then Kwanro choked badly against Miracle, almost costing CJ the series. Which Kwanro will show up this week? Nobody truly knows how the tiny fireball Zerg will respond to playing against his teammate. This type of match could be more pressure for Kwanro (its the farthest he's gotten in a league), or it could be no pressure at all (he plays Iris on a daily basis). If I had to make a prediction, I'll stick with the general rule that when teammates play, Terran > Zerg. Familiarity with style benefits the Terran player in TvZ far more. Iris 3-1 Kwanro.
Calm was simply too good. He had a counter to anything that JD did. I would like to see a rematch again. I have a feeling that Calm vs JD is something like Fantasy vs JD while Effort vs JD is something like Flash vs JD.
And I think that Iris will 3-0 Kwanro, still haven't seen anything special from him. It'd be ironic that if the one time you predict Calm to be the favorite, he loses.
Great write-up, I agree that Iris is going to beat Kwanro, especially since Kwanro's heavy aggression style is matched by Iris's and Iris is most certainly used to dealing with Kwanro from practice. With that given, I think Kwanro is not as deep a player as Iris in terms of style or late-game potential.
Looking forward to Iris vs. Calm finals. Major props to Calm for this league.
And where on earth did calm come from...wow. Those games had even hardcore ZvZ haters feeling like the matchup may reward preparation far more than anyone anticipated, including Jaedong.
Since Calm is clearly not as accomplished as JD, but "Jaedong had to practice!" doesn't explain the series very well, all I can say is that Calm seems to have advanced ZvZ series-play further than anyone else has before. JD vs by.hero looked (to me) like a triumph of game sense over much-trumpeted high APM. JD vs Calm looked like series preparation. ZvZ Bo5 is rare and mostly uncharted strategical territory.
Great write-up, looking forward to the intra-CJ match. ^_^ Dno who to root for, I'm a fan of both. :/ Guess Iris because he 's older and his title is long overdue. As long as the games are epic I'm happy though.
I'm so stoked that Calm is actually in the final, I really thought he was fucked when the brackets were drawn up and he had Effort AND Jaedong on his side. Holy shit this really is his MSL.
On August 19 2009 14:07 AzureEye wrote: Seriously Calm deserves this MSL after beating JD
This MSL is Iris'. He's practically broken his own curse by finally being in a ridiculously epic bo5 in which he actually won. We had Iris vs Savior and Iris vs GGPlay before, wherein he was on the losing end. Nothing can erase that series vs Bisu though. We can only hope that he brings us two more amazing TvZ bo5s to follow that up. This has been one of the more exciting MSLs in recent memory, and it would be amazing if it stayed that way.
What? Are we watching the same Starcraft? I've always seen Calm as a top Zerg and when he was in his prime he was raping nerds left and right. Probably the best ZvT EVER.
On August 19 2009 20:36 Loanshark wrote: Calm better than Fantasy Leta Effort my ass.
Why don't we make him bonjwa like right now?
Calm could be better than those players. I didn't say he was. Are you saying there's 0 chance that he's better than them?
Fanboys don't like it when you question their favorite player(s) lol. While I'm really disappointed he dismantled LJD so thoroughly, I'm pumped to see Calm play this through.
Calm, Kwanro and Iris. Who would have thought it would come down to these three players? Regardless of who will win in the end, it is still hard to imagine any of the three holding up an MSL trophy. Yet, that is the reality we will face in the end.
Calm`s chances of becoming a Royal Roader entirely depend on who wins in the Iris vs. Kwanro match. If Kwanro wins, then Calm will be a strong favourite to take the title since he can ride the momentum of beating Jaedong. However, if Iris wins, then it will be Iris who will hold the momentum coming off from a successful TvZ series. Plus, Iris has historically done well in TvZ (although it is not his best matchup).
However, I agree that if Iris wants to win a StarLeague, he has to do it now or he might never get it.
You have to realize that despite dismantling Effort and JD to get here, Calm's best matchup is arguably ZvT. I guess we can make an argument for it being ZvZ after this MSL run, but he has been strong in ZvT for a very long time. At the very least it wont' be his weak matchup, so to say that if he has to face a T he'll lose is ridiculous.
I guess we'll see how Calm plays vs Zerg when he doesn't have a lot of time to prepare for it (like he did vs Effort and JD) tonight when he plays vs Luxury in WCG. I think if he shows the same dominance an argument could be made that he turned his worst MU into his best one over this MSL.
I would be pretty happy if either Calm or Iris won, but even though Calm is on STX, I think I'd be a little happier to see Iris win. He's been so close before. I'd feel really bad for him if he got this close again and couldn't pull it out.
On August 20 2009 04:40 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: You have to realize that despite dismantling Effort and JD to get here, Calm's best matchup is arguably ZvT. I guess we can make an argument for it being ZvZ after this MSL run, but he has been strong in ZvT for a very long time. At the very least it wont' be his weak matchup, so to say that if he has to face a T he'll lose is ridiculous.
That was not my point at all. Of course he will not automatically lose if he faces Iris. My point was that he still has better chances against Kwanro then against Iris, since he practiced his ZvZ for his match against Jaedong.
I'll stick with the general rule that when teammates play, Terran > Zerg
Savior? :p
Great read though, really hoping for Iris to win today so that we can see an epic TvZ
actually, where does this come from?
Besides Iris beating Effort, I can't think of that rule showing up at all. Typeb > leta, yarnc > gogo, hero>hwasin. the only "recent" one besides iris > effort that I can think of is forgg > Jaedong and flash > hoejja (but I dont think that should count ) :O
hmm... I remember a time around a year or so ago (?) when calm and kwanro were the next big zergs, but it didn't pan out... guess their time is now. except iris > kwanro AND calm hopefully :D
I'll stick with the general rule that when teammates play, Terran > Zerg
Savior? :p
Great read though, really hoping for Iris to win today so that we can see an epic TvZ
actually, where does this come from?
Besides Iris beating Effort, I can't think of that rule showing up at all. Typeb > leta, yarnc > gogo, hero>hwasin. the only "recent" one besides iris > effort that I can think of is forgg > Jaedong and flash > hoejja (but I dont think that should count ) :O
There was also an interview where I think it was Savior? who said in teammate battles, it favors the Terran.
Calm has practised ONLY for the MSL. Jaedong had Proleague, OSL, MSL and WCG (which he probably didn't practise alot for). He is not on the same level as Jaedong overall. Maybe close zvz atm but not overall. That being said, I still think he is top 10 in the world atm in pure skill. Obviously he's even better than that in statistics but short time statistics doesn't equal actual skill level.
It'l be fun to see how far Calm can go in the next seasons as this probably boosts his confidence a bunch. Hoping to see him take it all home.
On August 20 2009 14:34 StarBrift wrote: Calm has practised ONLY for the MSL. Jaedong had Proleague, OSL, MSL and WCG (which he probably didn't practise alot for). He is not on the same level as Jaedong overall. Maybe close zvz atm but not overall. That being said, I still think he is top 10 in the world atm in pure skill. Obviously he's even better than that in statistics but short time statistics doesn't equal actual skill level.
It'l be fun to see how far Calm can go in the next seasons as this probably boosts his confidence a bunch. Hoping to see him take it all home.
proleague was already over for a while before their game, and calm is in wcg as well
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/alffla/avalonMSLbanner_copy.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Hot_Bid/AvalonMSL/CalmRecord.png)
Overpool Bad Attack Micro < 
Iris vs 
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