Sup nerds? It's been an interesting week. While Hot_Bid led the unwashed masses in a desperate bid to free Broodwar from the tyranny of history buffs and Boxer fans, we just sat around reading the comments in both threads over high tea and lolled quietly to ourselves. Of course, we were forced on to the balcony at one point by a raucous rendering of the following, led by HB himself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VR1bOha40U&feature=player_embedded If you do not play this video as you read, you are missing out
We did wave demurely at the bleating crowd, but it was ill received. To the guillotine! came the cry from below, but we just retired inside, checked that our banhammers were safe in their holsters, fixed our monocles in place, and began to go through the TLFEs for the second time that morning. I mean, let's face it, the Final Edits have all along been a way for us to control the proletariat, moulding their minds so they are unable to pursue wisdom in LR threads or reach B on ICCUP, which is now in itself apparently a form of enlightenment. Thanks to the Teamliquid Revolutionist and his progressive ideology, the truth has been exposed, but really, it's not like we care. Plexa read out some of the literature that was being handed out on the street.
"Every educational system is a political means of maintaining or of modifying the appropriation of discourse, with the knowledge and the powers it carries with it. Who said that?"
"Foucault."
"Right. What do they want, riptide?"
"Oh, I don't know, something about current gamers and our condescension. Or maybe they want cheaper bread, who knows?"
"LOL."
It's been quite a week here at Team Liquid. From the tumultuous reception that the two staff columns received, to the weird way in which Proleague went down, we've had a lot to talk about. Of course, the big topic on everyone’s lips has been the balance, or rather the perceived imbalance, in ZvP. This is not unjustifiably so! ZvP winrates have jumped to around 60% which is a truly worrying sign. Furthermore, the number of Protoss actually qualifying for leagues is dwindling while the number of Zergs qualifying has sky rocketed. The easy answer is to blame the maps and say that it’s an issue to be taken up with the mappers for next season. But since we’ve just had a change in map pool – shouldn’t any imbalances have been ironed out in testing? Or at the very least, ZvP not been so radically imbalanced across the board?
Will the two alien species ever find peace? Not likely.
Clearly you can’t just blame the map pool – there is something more to the story. The answer lies in the hands of Jaedong – as everything seems to these days. We would argue that the Zerg race, as a collective whole, have caught up to Jaedong – or are at least within striking distance. By this we mean that other Zergs are now perfectly capable of replicating what Jaedong does – such as Calm, Luxury, Zero, Hyvaa and so on. This was inevitable, since Jaedong has been so successful recently. All that success has educated the Zerg race on how to play against both Protoss and Terran and now we are seeing the results of that education. As a result, on the whole you have a lot more Zerg players who are playing better Starcraft than their Protoss counterparts at all levels, and hence, Zerg players winning more often.
In any case, races ruling eras isn’t anything new. When we had Stork and Bisu at the top of the Progaming world winning all the leagues (or in Stork’s case winning the silver in every league) they created a roadmap for Protoss success. As a result, you saw a number of good Protoss players emerge and the so called “golden age” of Protoss. In retrospect, it seems unfair to call this the era of the Six Dragons since clearly Stork and Bisu were the masterminds behind their successes in this age. Coincidentally, as Bisu and Stork began to stop winning leagues – the 6 Dragons fell off the map and are now are bunch of pushovers. Okay, a little extremist, but players like Jangbi and Best are simply terrible right now – but more on that later.
No more smiles for Protoss in what appears to be the age of the Zerg.
So why didn't the Zerg experience a surge when Jaedong won EVER 2007 and Arena MSL? Well, in truth they sort of did. Luxury came back in full force while there were a few younger Zergs with some real potential. Additionally, July won the OSL and overall the swarm did well. Jaedong was eliminated from both leagues in the latter half of 2008 and didn't really achieve anything (other than a sick proleague record) while Protoss players were rejoicing over Stork finally clinching a gold. Only recently has Jaedong been so wildly successful, and only now is the Zerg so wildly successful.
This wave of Zerg strength can be attributed to the success of Jaedong, but what does this mean for Jaedong? Well over the last few months we’ve seen Jaedong drop an abnormal amount of ZvZ. For instance, he lost to Zero last week (but also beat him in the ace match). What this says is that Zergs are getting better, and getting closer to Jaedong’s skill level - but as it stands at the moment Jaedong is still clearly superior. As I (Plexa) noted in my most recent FE, if you were to find a fault in Jaedong’s game it would be his Strategy. What we would like to argue is that with the overall level of Zerg skill rising, Jaedong won’t be able to stay at the top for much longer without working specifically on this part of his game.
CALM4ROYALROAD - you heard it here first, folks.
But then we turn to Calm, a player with great mechanics and an even better brain (he's called the BRAIN ZERG OK THX), and both of us just get excited. Apart from his series with Backho, he's been playing like a monster recently, and we cant wait to see him topple some heads in the individual leagues. We're not big for calling Royal Roaders before the fact, but think that if anyone can do it this time it's Kim Yoon Hwan. A namesake of both Boxer and Bisu, he's a total shoo-in for the NextBigThing™ so be sure to start mentioning him when you guys derail threads discussing the semantics of bonjwa. If you couldn't tell already we're totally hyped about him, so expect more about this son of the swarm in future editions of Backseat Broodwar.
Now, let’s take a look at how the Terrans are reacting to the wave of super-Zergs coming through at the moment. We think Flash has hit the nail on the hit when it comes to the next step in TvZ strategy – that is unorthodox timings. The reason behind this is that Zergs have learned a set formula for when to cut drones, make mutalisks and whatnot and as a result their builds are often highly inflexible. Dedicating two drones to sunken colonies can be the difference between economic success, and economic failure.
Two games exemplify Flash’s new take of TvZ – go.go vs roro and Flash vs by.hero. The former is an example of how Zergs simply cannot react due to their rigid builds and the latter is an example of Flash at his finest showing off his new found trick to TvZ. It may not be as flashy as Fantasy’s Valks, but this could just prove more effective against Zergs – and possibly against Jaedong. (But what about Calm?) Perhaps this will ensure more rigorous scouting is employed by Zerg in the future?
One more thing that should be noted is that, apparently, Bisu did not prepare to go up against Shine. Instead both him and Really just practiced for each other. Bisu losing to Shine is a big problem, since if Stork can beat ggaemo then surely Bisu can beat Shine. Bisu just prepared the wrong way for that series and obviously paid the price. We don’t think it’s a sign of any wider imbalance since Bisu/Flash/Jaedong are pretty much immune to imbalances, we do think its a clear indication that Bisu is not going to be winning an OSL for a long time.
So what are Protoss trying to do at the moment to counter Zerg? Well not too much. Movie is trying out Reavers in every possible place he can – he’s getting moderate success with that. Most players seem to like using Dark Templar – as can be seen in Backho’s game against Calm and Jangbi’s series against Kwanro. There really isn’t anything that wrong with what strategies the Protoss are employing at the moment – it’s more the basic fundamental mistakes they make. Like, for instance, wasting a group of Zealots on lurkers, or not walling your ramp properly when there is a ling run by. These kinds of things that should be drummed into you when you’re still a C level player just seem to have upped and walked off. Again, this comes from the fact that there is no strong figurehead for Protoss at the moment, hence a lack of direction, hence they all play like confused monkeys.
5 pooled
Actually, there is one thing that Protoss players across the board can do to improve their PvZ - and as far as I can tell, this is the single biggest reason why Protoss lose vs Zerg. Once Protoss secure their fourth expansion they always slack off on defense and begin to lose their mining expansions. This has happened to Pusan, Jangbi, Stork, Kal, Sangho... all within the past few months. Sparing a few Zealots to defend against ling raids isn't such a big deal since losing those mining bases simply loses the game. So please Protoss, stop losing your mining expansions so uselessly, that will drastically increase your winning rate if you manage to do so.
Three players at the moment are playing well below their level – Leta, Jangbi and Yellow[arnc]. Leta failed to qualify for the MSL by failing to Firefist twice in MST. Wait what? Firefist? Yes, when we think of Leta losing to Zergs we usually think those Zergs are top tier like Zero or Jaedong. But Firefist? Sure, Firefist isn’t terrible, but Leta is a class ahead of him – and Leta losing twice to him is unacceptable. Furthermore, HiyA stomped him in TvT and Midas took him out in a very messy encounter. We would recommend watching it though – because seeing Midas win is always worth the watch. Leta however, has begun to show a small signs of recovery like his single-handed defeat of Woongjin - but one set of games isn't enough to alleviate our concerns about his play. We expect more from Leta in the future.
Yarnc has gone 0-4 so far this season, and 0-10 if your count the preseason events. Yarnc is a former OSL finalist – and now look at him?! His game sense is completely shot and he seems completely incapable of doing anything right. He lost to Pure on Heartbreak – a ZvP heaven. He lost to July – a shadow of his former self. He lost to Ruby – a player on ACE. Yarnc’s fail is strong this season – do not expect him to go very far at all.
Jangbi brings up the rear of the fail trio. To be perfectly honest, Jangbi’s PvT has always been his strongest point. But if you look at his series against barracks it is very clear all the magic Jangbi once had has gone. Indeed, the game where he looked the most impressive was the game he lost to Barracks through poor decision making and macro. Furthermore, Jangbi’s PvZ has always been lightyears behind his PvT – and if his PvT is so bad it can barely beat Barracks, then his PvZ must be terrible. And it is. Jangbi vs Kwanro was almost painful to watch as a Protoss player. It seemed as if Jangbi had suddenly forgotten all of the basic strategy you learn to beat Zerg. For instance, Zealots get vaporized by Lurkers. Don’t waste units on Sunk-Spore-Lurk, expand instead! As a result Jangbi is looking so abysmal right now that we really can’t see him coming back anytime soon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEp3ghAyzKU
We think singling out this game is good for two reasons. Firstly, its a really close game and certainly has its moments. Secondly, it shows you how PvZ-strategy-deaf Jangbi has become. Very disappointing. With that said, we definitely think this game is worthy of a recommendation on the grounds that the tension never really dies down.
I (Plexa) came into this week not expecting or planning to comment about Pusan. But I just have to say, that Pusan’s cheese vs Best was brilliant. The gist of it was that Pusan proxy pyloned in Best’s choke on Heartbreak. He then built a gateway inside Best’s main – which was obviously scouted. Best pulls some probes and attacks the gateway. Next, Pusan proxied two gateways outside of Bests main (i.e. in his Natural).
Pusan makes cheese toast.
Best could clearly see this, and once he killed the first gateway then he moved on to take out the next two. The came the brilliant part – Pusan built a forge to make a perfect seal in Best’s choke which locked Best’s probes out of his main. Brilliant. From that Pusan was able to get a macro advantage (by killing off probes and stopping mining) and just pulled miles ahead. Best hung on for a while and made a game of it - but in the end the early deficit had set him back too far. Definitely another game that I would recommend watching if for just the cheese alone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dInY4D-cr50
Horang deserves special mention for his Proleague efforts this week. The poor kid tried to 14Nex against Mind, who proceeded to crush it with ease. So then what does Horang do? One base Carrier. There is nothing sadder than seeing a Protoss attempt to win a game building Carriers off of one base. With that said, Horang tried his best, and failed – but at least we all got a laugh out of it. Incidentally, we’ve now mentioned every game from the WeMade vs Hite series this week; so that was probably a good series to watch (especially since Midas won!).
Darkelf also gets special mention this week for his never-say-die attitude vs Shuttle. Shuttle gained a pretty massive advantage in their game but Darkelf stuck it to him and held his ground. Shuttle ended up playing sloppy and wasting units on Darkelf’s tanks and eventually found himself on the losing end of the game. A pretty nice watch, in an otherwise bland week of games.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq3Wdw9khcg
Well, we suppose fOrGG vs Stork should get some exposure as well. This was the winners match of their MSL group and it was closely fought – fOrGG put up a much better fight than he did against Pusan that’s for sure. When you watch it, just keep an eye out for observers, since in my opinion, Stork’s PvT can be differentiated from others by his used of observers. We know it sounds lame and boring to have your ‘signature’ be observer use, but it reflects Stork’s safe macro play that seems to work for him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1axzyIncdo
OK we've been rambling on like mad men for far too long. We're going to go now. See you next week, and oh, don’t forget to enter the TeamLiquid Pumpkin Carving Contest! We know you'll be carving one anyway for Halloween, so you may as well enter it into the competition, right? You don’t even have to have an SC theme on your entry to be eligible, though why you'd carve anything else is beyond us. With that said, we're outta here. Good games, plebeians, good games!
to say Zergs do good just because of JD is ridicolous. And that calm will walk the RoyalRoad. Got a good laugh about that. Any semi-good protoss in PvZ can stop him. He's that bad.
I like the article, JD certainly did inspire all the zergs as did Bisu earlier. However protoss right now is a stagnant race in both strategy and skill, no not even stagnant, but on the decline.
I don't think that the reason Protoss is struggling is that there is no "Protoss figurehead". The lack of a superior Protoss player is just a product of Protoss struggling and not innovating in general, not a reason for Protoss's struggles in itself. If a Protoss leader did emerge it'd probably be because he figured out some way to beat Zergs on these maps, and that strategy change would be the direct cause of better PvZ play (not the existence of a "figurehead").
I think you explain away maps too easily…yes there's no doubt Protoss players have been playing relatively poorly independently of maps, but new maps obviously does not necessarily mean more balanced maps. And the PL pool is just a disaster for PvZ any way you cut it.
Great read but I disagree with the Calm being smarter than Jaedong line. I think Jaedong's intelligence and strategy is under rated so much. The reason that he looks so incoherent imo is that he plays SO MANY GAMES like nal_ra said in the lilsusie interview, progamers are playing so much they have to go with what works. I think people still overlook the fact that calm ONLY had to practice for the MSL last season while Jaedong had PL Finals(Easily the most important league to teams...duh), The OSL(which he won AND which is a more prestigious tournament) and then the MSL. There is no way he could have thoroughly prepared for all three of those matches to the degree that calm prepared for the MSL.
Now granted Calm has had some great strategies but Jaedong is just as smart, I still don't think I've seen a play as intelligent as what he did vs fantasy with his 4pool faking econ ---> winning the game, since boxer. I would have given up that game and it was most likely a loss for 99.99% of brood war players especially vs an opponent of that calibur but his brains showed through and his 400apm isn't the crutch to lean on in this particular case. Just my 2 cents
i like that you also saw something wrong with Bisu losing to Shine and then Stork stomping ggaemo, which wasn't the maps fault.. what i don't like is that other zerg players are catching up to JD, i want him to be the king for atleast a year more, let's hope he destroys some fellow S-classers tomorrow! sexy writeup, thanks for the recommendations aswell, i think i've missed 1 or 2 of them.
Great article and I agree that the maps are not the main factor that caused the current zerg domination in the zvp, but the maps are certainly the key to balancing the match up again. I keep saying it but if KeSPa decides to turn things around again it surely will happen. Maybe ToTM was not used enough but its a perfect example how you can make a certain race start "sucking" in a MU. Protoss just started every Bo3 match against zerg from 0-1 by default. Just change the pattern drastically and limit the current possibilities. It surely worked on protoss...
Its not that toss must start using something new, like scouts, one base carriers DAs and all other sorts of radical options. Its zerg that must be limited. Shine and Calm are maybe smart players but they are not the pvz experts their record is showing. Jaedong really made quite a revolution regarding the current zvp trends. Having said that I just cant help thinking why are the map makers keeping the current trends for a second season in a row or maybe 3rd season in a row. It takes a simple peak at the MSL race distribution to see that something went horribly wrong
On October 25 2009 00:29 disciple wrote: Great article and I agree that the maps are not the main factor that caused the current zerg domination in the zvp, but the maps are certainly the key to balancing the match up again. I keep saying it but if KeSPa decides to turn things around again it surely will happen. Maybe ToTM was not used enough but its a perfect example how you can make a certain race start "sucking" in a MU. Protoss just started every Bo3 match against zerg from 0-1 by default. Just change the pattern drastically and limit the current possibilities. It surely worked on protoss...
Its not that toss must start using something new, like scouts, one base carriers DAs and all other sorts of radical options. Its zerg that must be limited. Shine and Calm are maybe smart players but they are not the pvz experts their record is showing. Jaedong really made quite a revolution regarding the current zvp trends. Having said that I just cant help thinking why are the map makers keeping the current trends for a second season in a row or maybe 3rd season in a row. It takes a simple peak at the MSL race distribution to see that something went horribly wrong
This will let protoss continue to be stagnant as race. I like what Stork said about protoss just accepting the fate and not working hard on their game, some protoss became slackers starting to even get beat in pvt, if protoss starts to work hard instead of waiting for new maps, the imbalance will be compensated at least somewhat and innovations will come naturally as well. Protoss had always an option to go for cheesy plays on totm and they really didn't try to adapt to the map, the bad map is gone anyway. This race has the biggest room for improvement clearly as far as the average skill concerned, and this situation is the opportunity to improve strategically and skillwise.
Also there is nothing else i would love to see in starcraft more, than a lot of radically unususal protoss play, why would anybody not want that? DAs, pvz arbiters, scouts, various combos, more pvz web, pvz carriers, pvz upgrades, etc, the silliest stuff will work if the opponent is unprepared and was practicing five hours a day versus some standard fe-sair, Backho-Calm is the recent proof, i think protoss strategic research should be encouraged.
The biggest problem with jangbi right now is his macro. His macro is terrible, which is really bad when you play pvt. But honestly, I don't know whats gotten into the protosses. Best is out of the 6 dragon range, backho is just backho, free and kal are just winning then failing, bisu is winning and failing hard at the same time, same goes for stork. Its just not looking bright for the protoss race.
On October 25 2009 00:29 disciple wrote: Great article and I agree that the maps are not the main factor that caused the current zerg domination in the zvp, but the maps are certainly the key to balancing the match up again. I keep saying it but if KeSPa decides to turn things around again it surely will happen. Maybe ToTM was not used enough but its a perfect example how you can make a certain race start "sucking" in a MU. Protoss just started every Bo3 match against zerg from 0-1 by default. Just change the pattern drastically and limit the current possibilities. It surely worked on protoss...
Its not that toss must start using something new, like scouts, one base carriers DAs and all other sorts of radical options. Its zerg that must be limited. Shine and Calm are maybe smart players but they are not the pvz experts their record is showing. Jaedong really made quite a revolution regarding the current zvp trends. Having said that I just cant help thinking why are the map makers keeping the current trends for a second season in a row or maybe 3rd season in a row. It takes a simple peak at the MSL race distribution to see that something went horribly wrong
This will let protoss continue to be stagnant as race. I like what Stork said about protoss just accepting the fate and not working hard on their game, some protoss became slackers starting to even get beat in pvt, if protoss starts to work hard instead of waiting for new maps, the imbalance will be compensated at least somewhat and innovations will come naturally as well. Protoss had always an option to go for cheesy plays on totm and they really didn't try to adapt to the map, the bad map is gone anyway. This race has the biggest room for improvement clearly as far as the average skill concerned, and this situation is the opportunity to improve strategically and skillwise.
Also there is nothing else i would love to see in starcraft more, than a lot of radically unususal protoss play, why would anybody not want that? DAs, pvz arbiters, scouts, various combos, more pvz web, pvz carriers, pvz upgrades, etc, the silliest stuff will work if the opponent is unprepared and was practicing five hours a day versus some standard fe-sair, Backho-Calm is the recent proof, i think protoss strategic research should be encouraged.
Its not like the zerg started using queens on a regular basis or 1 hatch guardian builds of some sort to dominate the protoss so hard again.
A player trying to improve is going to watch the best player of their race. A toss player watching Bisu has to try and copy him as well as figure out what is preventing him from winning more. Zerg players simply have to copy Jaedong and other top zergs since they are already dominating. There is little that needs to be worked out for ZvP, no thinking, just copying.
Great write-up! But to say that Calm is smarter than JD can only be anti-bandwagonism imo. It was also the only point in the article that didn't seem to be properly argued... Thanks a lot for the view tips. But I'd like to add that Stork-ForGG game was, even though very entertaining, kind of scrappy with a lot of mistakes on both parts.
On October 25 2009 00:29 disciple wrote: Great article and I agree that the maps are not the main factor that caused the current zerg domination in the zvp, but the maps are certainly the key to balancing the match up again. I keep saying it but if KeSPa decides to turn things around again it surely will happen. Maybe ToTM was not used enough but its a perfect example how you can make a certain race start "sucking" in a MU. Protoss just started every Bo3 match against zerg from 0-1 by default. Just change the pattern drastically and limit the current possibilities. It surely worked on protoss...
Its not that toss must start using something new, like scouts, one base carriers DAs and all other sorts of radical options. Its zerg that must be limited. Shine and Calm are maybe smart players but they are not the pvz experts their record is showing. Jaedong really made quite a revolution regarding the current zvp trends. Having said that I just cant help thinking why are the map makers keeping the current trends for a second season in a row or maybe 3rd season in a row. It takes a simple peak at the MSL race distribution to see that something went horribly wrong
This will let protoss continue to be stagnant as race. I like what Stork said about protoss just accepting the fate and not working hard on their game, some protoss became slackers starting to even get beat in pvt, if protoss starts to work hard instead of waiting for new maps, the imbalance will be compensated at least somewhat and innovations will come naturally as well. Protoss had always an option to go for cheesy plays on totm and they really didn't try to adapt to the map, the bad map is gone anyway. This race has the biggest room for improvement clearly as far as the average skill concerned, and this situation is the opportunity to improve strategically and skillwise.
Also there is nothing else i would love to see in starcraft more, than a lot of radically unususal protoss play, why would anybody not want that? DAs, pvz arbiters, scouts, various combos, more pvz web, pvz carriers, pvz upgrades, etc, the silliest stuff will work if the opponent is unprepared and was practicing five hours a day versus some standard fe-sair, Backho-Calm is the recent proof, i think protoss strategic research should be encouraged.
Its not like the zerg started using queens on a regular basis or 1 hatch guardian builds of some sort to dominate the protoss so hard again.
Because they are in leading position, they are aggressors due to nature of matchup, most of the time it's protoss that has to adjust to new strats and standards zerg comes up with. It's a dire situation for protoss right now. So why not adjust with creativity and exploration of race potentials? Protoss is still an unexplored race. Similarly, zergs suffer a lot adjusting to all the terran shenanigans, who can throw anything at zerg and still win, the sc history is one long agonizing zerg struggle in zvt. Zerg put to use almost every unit, bug, spell and upgrade pattern there is, as well as the skill of average zerg vastly improved.
All the innovations and rooms for deviations will come naturally after average protoss starts working harder. I understand, it's easy to say such things as a zerg and it's hard to come up with something new, yet solid. But right now it's the good timing for that, since the fresh map pool that will be used for a while isn't looking so good for the protoss.
This is why I love starcraft! It's plot-driven. Jaedong has blazed his own path to the zerg throne. And not too long ago it was thought that he was the supreme leader, bar none. That no one could even HOPE to touch him. However, shockingly, his powers are dwindling, or, other's are catching up and there will be some serious contenders who will challenge him in the future. Calm especially, seems to be smarter than any zerg out there. JD WILL have to sharpen his strategic thinking to keep his dominance up. But it's been what, 3 years now? I think JD may have reached his peak.
I'm looking forward to seeing if Flash's new TvZ timing strategies work against top-tier Zerg players. We'll find out who the pretenders who can only copy Jaedong (and crumble when one timing is unexpected) are, and who can think for themselves and react to unexpected timing. If Flash begins stomping JD and Calm, the Zerg race will be in trouble as all Terrans start copying Flash again.
Seems Stork is giving a half-hearted try at leading the Protoss tactical division, but he doesn't really give the impression that he cares much anymore. Too much WoW, maybe? Still, at least he's playing solid, the same can't be said of Bisu or....ANY other Protoss player.
On October 25 2009 03:02 Elroi wrote: Great write-up! But to say that Calm is smarter than JD can only be anti-bandwagonism imo. It was also the only point in the article that didn't seem to be properly argued... Thanks a lot for the view tips. But I'd like to add that Stork-ForGG game was, even though very entertaining, kind of scrappy with a lot of mistakes on both parts.
And yeah: Pusan fighting!!!
Your "opinion" is seemingly based on blind fanboyism.
Jaedong is an amazing player but innovation was never the guys strong point... ever. Jaedong almost always has issues when different builds are thrown at him. If he has time to prepare... great. If not then his play suffers because of it.
To say otherwise is to ignore the evidence that clearly states this.
Actually, there is one thing that Protoss players across the board can do to improve their PvZ - and as far as I can tell, this is the single biggest reason why Protoss lose vs Zerg. Once Protoss secure their fourth expansion they always slack off on defense and begin to lose their mining expansions.
The single biggest reason???
Most of the time Protoss don't even make it to a 4th expansion, the big problems with PvZ come way before this point in the game. In fact, once Protoss players get to this late game stage, the balance is quite even. It's getting there that's the problem.
Thx great reading. I must say I feel you giving JD to much credit for the whole Z race not that I totally disagree. Meaby the greatest streght of JD lies in his mental abilities and that I feel will keep in the nr 1 Z in a long time, that is something u cant copy.
Actually, there is one thing that Protoss players across the board can do to improve their PvZ - and as far as I can tell, this is the single biggest reason why Protoss lose vs Zerg. Once Protoss secure their fourth expansion they always slack off on defense and begin to lose their mining expansions.
The single biggest reason???
Most of the time Protoss don't even make it to a 4th expansion, the big problems with PvZ come way before this point in the game. In fact, once Protoss players get to this late game stage, the balance is quite even. It's getting there that's the problem.
Totally agree, not sure what the problems are, but I don't think that the main one has anything to do with the 4th expansion. The 3rd expansion seems more important to me but I don't play Protoss.
On October 25 2009 03:02 Elroi wrote: Great write-up! But to say that Calm is smarter than JD can only be anti-bandwagonism imo. It was also the only point in the article that didn't seem to be properly argued... Thanks a lot for the view tips. But I'd like to add that Stork-ForGG game was, even though very entertaining, kind of scrappy with a lot of mistakes on both parts.
And yeah: Pusan fighting!!!
Your "opinion" is seemingly based on blind fanboyism.
Jaedong is an amazing player but innovation was never the guys strong point... ever. Jaedong almost always has issues when different builds are thrown at him. If he has time to prepare... great. If not then his play suffers because of it.
To say otherwise is to ignore the evidence that clearly states this.
It's not more that He reacts more poorly to a new build than most other players, because let's face it, most new builds (Fantasy) are used on him. It's more that Calm's strength is through strong builds and plans like vs Sea on Byzantium 3 and his series vs Jaedong.
I never felt zergs are following Jaedong much at all in terms of ZvP. It's just that zergs are finally using everything in their arsenal, so to speak. Every single imbalanced aspect of ZvP has been used and abused recently. From protoss lack of mobility in the early to faster tech switches to sim-cities against zealots.
If anything, I find Jaedong's ZvP very "standard". Whereas I find Zero, Calm and Effort understand the metagame much more so. And make better decisions in-game.
Actually, there is one thing that Protoss players across the board can do to improve their PvZ - and as far as I can tell, this is the single biggest reason why Protoss lose vs Zerg. Once Protoss secure their fourth expansion they always slack off on defense and begin to lose their mining expansions.
The single biggest reason???
Most of the time Protoss don't even make it to a 4th expansion, the big problems with PvZ come way before this point in the game. In fact, once Protoss players get to this late game stage, the balance is quite even. It's getting there that's the problem.
Totally agree, not sure what the problems are, but I don't think that the main one has anything to do with the 4th expansion. The 3rd expansion seems more important to me but I don't play Protoss.
Okay let me elaborate on this a bit. Watch Jangbi vs Kwanro on fighting spirit (it's linked in the OP). Then watch Pusan vs yCh. And lastly watch Calm vs Sangho
In all three cases you have the Protoss at a fairly significant advantage with a stable economy but the zerg manages to hold on to the late mid game. Then the zerg takes out a mining Protoss expansion with either a drop or a wave of cracklings - both this abusing the lack of mobility of the Protoss in the late game. And then the Zerg wins. I think this is a very serious problem and in all semi-even matches where the game goes onto the late game this always happens and the Zergs always win. There isn't any problem securing the third expansion for some weird reason - which sounds odd I know, I expected that the third would be the critical one. But no, Protoss don't seem to have much problem taking a third anymore =/ it's holding expansions once you have 4 bases i.e. when your bases are very spread out and the Zerg can exploit your lack of mobility.
Great read. Can someone clue me in on what trick Flash uses? Is it just a timing thing? I thought I knew decent TvZ strat and what's diff about his build? Looks like standard 2 rax MM opening to me. Please 'splain.
On October 25 2009 12:28 GuYuTe- wrote: Great read. Can someone clue me in on what trick Flash uses? Is it just a timing thing? I thought I knew decent TvZ strat and what's diff about his build? Looks like standard 2 rax MM opening to me. Please 'splain.
And I agree, that Pusan cheese was nice.
Yeah its a timing thing. If you watched his previous game against By.Hero (and Savior today), you'll see him send out a large "suicidal" squad of medic and marines towards the zerg's base while leaving a bunker in his natural to stop a zergling runby.
Basically it generates time for Flash to mass up turrets and barracks in his base since if the zerg doesn't want to get run over instantly, he needs to deal with the medic and marines with his mutalisks and perhaps even force the constuction of zerglings and sunken colonies.
I love the recommendations this week guys. That and the fact that backho seems to be immune to metagame (seriously...dt zeal? Yes it hit the timing window but...seriously?)
Wow, i cant believe i read it "One more thing that should be noted is that, apparently, Bisu did not prepare to go up against Shine."
I liked to see it written this way. To be honest, you guys know a lot of SC, i love to read your articles. The only fault i see is when you made statements recklessly. Like, because the loss to Shine, you said, in the last article, that it shown Bisus arrogance and cockyness. While it may be true, we dont know for sure, it may be another thing also. Its like saying that of Le Brow because he lost the title. The fans can get very angry if the words are poorly choosen (and in that case they were very poorly chosen).
Its not a matter of opinion, its a matter of respect, like you defended new players/fans should act to the ones like boxer (wich i agree). Using words like you did in this article is more adequate, imo, and reflects better your level of SC knowledge and profissionalism toward it.
I agree that the gap between Jaedong and other zergs has gotten a lot smaller in the past year (still pretty big though).
I think Effort and Calm are gonna rape the world up a lil. Maybe Jaedong and Hyuk, depends if Jaedong puts on his crown and if Hyuk keeps playing well.
About ZvP, I think that the big maps are the biggest issue why zergs are doing well both against protoss and terran. Zerg thrives on big maps, they can expo all over and get their gas count up easily. Protoss can easily be outmacroed on bigger maps PvZ and the endless stream of zerg units will finally run protoss over. Zerg also doom drops, which are hard to defend for protoss when their army is far away. Besides, ZvP has always been slightly imbalanced on the kind of maps used in the pro-gaming circuit.
Terran are also having a hard time on the big maps. For the same reason that zerg likes playing vs protoss on these new maps they also love playing vs terran. Terran aren't that mobile in TvZ and with zerg harassing everywhere and building bases in different corners of the map, it's hard for terran to know what do to, where to attack etc. The map is simply too big for his liking.
PvT is the same. The big maps favor protoss, and the recalls are even more deadly and imba because of terrans army usually being quite far away from home base. Stasis still rules, recall still rules, and invisibility isn't on a timer. Arbiters still rock in other words. They rock too much
Nice read. But also sad to see so much players are failing. But on the good note its mostly protoss players so Im kinda happy about that at least. muwhahahaha
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/pachi/Plexa/bbvol2l.png)
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