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Backseat Broodwar - Vol. 3
October 31st, 2009 13:25 GMT
It's finally ready! Thanks Silversky
We're back, sportsfans, and what better way to begin this roundup than to talk about stuff that went down today? Love it or hate it, IEF is one of the rare opportunities where the foreign and Korean Broodwar communities get to meet and mingle, and if the news trickling in from Suwon is anything to go by, mingle (and might we add, massacre) they did. While some big upsets did go down at the event, the highlight for us here at TL was watching our own Chill and Midian take to the stage and win some games.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/riptide/misc/ief_chill.jpg) Seen here at IEF, Chill takes a break from the games to read the ZvP imba thread in total.
Actually, what on earth is going on over at IEF? Just have a look at some of these results; G5 > Boxer, White-Ra > Boxer, PJ > Effort, Jaystar > Bisu?? There are some seriously mucked up things going on over there. We'll have to wait until our on ground correspondents to fill us in on what is actually going on over there before we jump to conclusions. Anyway, the top four ended up being Idra, Terror, Stork and PJ with most of the elimination bracket to be played out tomorrow.
Foreign SC has never been something we've focused a lot on here at TL. In general, our coverage teams focus exclusively on Korean Broodwar. Just because we don't cover the little foreign tourneys though doesn't mean that we aren't interested in non-Korean Starcraft. No, we do think that tournaments outside Korea can be pretty awesome if run well. In fact, a while ago we ran the biggest one ever, had a ball doing it.
Wishful thinking aside though, the next week is going to be pretty sparse as far as Proleague goes. With four teams having a rest week (we sometimes wish we had a rest week), the lineups are noticeably bland when compared to the rare dynamite we experienced in the last few days, and OSL and MSL notwithstanding our calendar would have ended up looking at least a little bare. However, thanks to Day[9].tv, our events list is looking a lot more interesting. Armed with years of Broodwar experience and a passion for casting, Day[9] joined staff this week as a part of an ongoing effort to rid the world of bad strategical advice. Joining Chill and the Liquipedia team on the mission to rid the world of faulty build orders and bad timings, Sean will be continuing his strategy casts while helping around the house with a few other projects. Glad to have you Day - it's about time!
OK, enough home and home news - let's look at Seoul.
There is a buzz lingering around the proscene at the moment around the little Zerg that couldn’t, but now can. Of course, we're talking about SKT1’s pride and joy – HyuK. HyuK has been doing phenomenally well this season – defeating the likes of Jaedong and Effort which allowed SKT to roll over Hwaseung and CJ with a cool 3-0. So what’s the deal with HyuK? Why is there so much hype? Basically the hype comes from the fact he is able to pull off key victories in ZvZ and his winrate has been amazing over the past two months. Awesome.
But really, Is all this hype justified? Backseat Broodwar is proud to reveal that no, the hype is not justified. What we have here is the perfect conditions for HyuK to survive. The heavy bias towards Zerg in the map pool results in a lot of ZvZs being played in proleague. That means that he’s pretty much exclusively playing ZvZ – which he happens to be good at (the kid has some pretty sick Mutalisk control). Couple that with Jaedong making some key mistakes against him and Hyuk making the MSL, you have the illusion that Hyuk has suddenly become something great over night.
Actually, let’s take a look at his MST run. He defeated Backho on Byzantium – which has terrible Z>P bias, 25-14 in favour of Zerg to be precise. And as we all know, Backho isn’t exactly known for his PvZ (despite putting up a good show against Calm). He then lost to Hwasin, in a pretty poor game to be blunt. Then caught a break with hitting Hoejja on the river, which allowed him to abuse his insanely good ZvZ to get through to the MSL.
Hyuk, as far as we are concerned, is a one matchup wonder catching a break with a good set of Zerg maps which is allowing him to hit lots of Zerg – boosting his streakiness. The moment he hits a decent Protoss (on a semi balanced map) or a half-way competent Terran Hyuk is done for. If you try to make a case that his ZvP is good – then just look at his games compared to other Zergs, they’re not that impressive and the single biggest reason why he’s scraping by in that matchup is because of the maps and Zergling runbys.
The hype has been misplaced, and a truly talented Zerg is emerging but has been clouded by waves of “ZvP imba” threads. The hype HyuK is receiving rightfully belongs with Shine. Yes, this WeMade Fox Zerg is the next big up and comer for the swarm. If you want to talk about streaks – look at Shines prelims results; he lost a single game and qualified for both the OSL Round 1 and the MST. Furthermore, he went on to qualify for both the OSL and MSL – the one of three people to do so so far (others are in both leagues, but are there because of seeding and whatnot. Hwasin and Stork are the other peeople to qualify into both).
Maybe you want to make a case that Shine too is abusing ZvZ and the good maps vs Protoss. This is completely not the case. Sure there may have been some help from the maps when he was able to overcome Bisu in the OSL – but the bottom line is that Shine’s games there were impressive, maps or not. Furthermore, he played pretty damn well against Really and put up some impressive games. While he hasn’t faced any serious ZvZ competition recently, he is 16-7 all time vs Zerg which is pretty damn good.
Let’s look at the MSL – he came up against Light on Byzantium first up. Now, Byzantium is a pretty terrible map so far as balance goes, its 22-30 in favour of Terran over Zerg. With that said, Shine took it to Light and in a long drawn out close game, Shine came off second best. Taking the loss in his stride, he then proceeded to decimate Skyhigh with perfect Mutalisk control on Heartbreak (perfectly balanced TvZ by the way) and then defeated Violet using a brilliant combination of Parasite and Broodling. Indeed, the Shine/Violet game is one of the best games this year and shows exactly why Shine has so much potential.
Just watch over the coming weeks as the OSL and MSL truly start to get going and Hyuk’s luck starts to run out and Shine makes it through to the next level. You heard it here first in Backseat Broodwar.
Another things which ticked off the Backseat Broodwar ‘omfg imba’ alarm is the use of Recall in PvT. Now I (Plexa) am a Protoss player. I love Arbiters a bit more than your average joe. Indeed, I would go as far as to say they are my favourite unit in all of Broodwar. But there is something devastatingly wrong when 2 Recalls can completely turn the tide of a game. Three examples of this in the past week – Jaehoon vs Firebathero, Pusan vs Mind and Guemchi vs Hwasin.
Let’s look at Jaehoon vs Firebathero first. Now this is an outstanding game, and we’ll be recommending it below, but let’s look at the bit that important to the discussion. Firebathero has a huge advantage and is pushing hard into Jaehoons natural. He has got Jaehoon completely contained – and disallowed him to take a 2nd expansion. With two bases each, Firebathero has an economic advantage in addition to his positional advantage. Furthermore, the players have about even supply which means, once again, that Firebathero has the advantage. The only thing going for Jaehoon is that he has Arbiter tech – so he’s got the Tech advantage.
Then what happens? Jaehoon recalls one group of units into Firebathero’s main and completely turns the tide of the game. The strength of this recall was in the fact that FBH’s units were all dedicated to the contain and the map (Eye of the Storm) is a massive map meaning the units took ages to get back. Jaehoons units destroy FBH’s main and give Jaehoon a massive advantage. Now Jaehoon being Jaehoon, he fumbles away the advantage and loses anyway – but the point is the power of that single Recall was incredible – more powerful than a nuke that’s for sure. Surely there is something wrong here?
Example 2: Pusan vs Mind. This one actually starts out differently. Pusan has a pretty good advantage over Mind on Heartbreak Ridge. He decides to go recalling but his first recall recalls right into a huge bunch of mines and his army is obliterated. Pusan is now significantly behind in units and Mind pushes out as we expected him to do. Pusan can barely fend off Mind – and Mind uses this to solidify his economic position. Then what happens? Pusan recalls into Minds main – avoiding mines this time – and takes control of the game. Pusan rides this to victory. Mind couldn’t get back to defend in time since the map is so large, and his army all the way out defending his expansions. Again, recall is the game breaking move.
One more example, albeit not the best example! Guemchi is basically lost against Hwasin who has simply dominated him throughout the game, and the series. A last ditch recall by Guemchi deals a disproportionate amount of damage to Hwasin’s main. The map is El Nino, so again the map is quite large, so Hwasin can’t get back to defend in time. Despite doing lots of damage, once Guemchi’s units are dead his economy is so bad he can’t fight Hwasin anymore and he taps out. The point to this example is the disproportionate amount of damage that a recall can do.
Recall is being employed incredibly effectively recently. And the single biggest reason why is because the maps are designed in such a way that it takes a long time for a Terran’s army to come home and save the Terrans main from annihilation.
Terrans are playing this wrong – especially when they have many expansions on the map. Now let us take you back to a time when Arbiters were first coming to prominence – these were the days of R-Point and Forte, and when Pusan/Stork/Anytime were answering the newly invented fd build. On R-Point, especially during its later life, when PvT went to the late game you typically saw the map split in half with the Protoss going Arbiters with a heavy ground army, and the Terran maxing out to 200/200 with 3-3. Two things regularly happened;
1) The Protoss would recall and the Terran would defend
2) The Protoss would recall and the Terran would counter
Very simple options. However, in the case of (1) more often than not the Protoss player would win whereas in the case of (2) the Terran player would more than likely win.
When a Protoss recalls he is dedicating a large portion of his army to the attack so what he needs to do with that recall, really, is stall for time (and do damage in the process). When a Terran retreats to defend the recall the Protoss breathes a sigh of relief as he now has about 1 minute to rebuild his army and charge at the Terran again. We cannot stress enough how important time is when recalls are used.
Now, if the Terran instead decides to counter attack what happens? Well the Protoss has not successfully stalled for time, and the Recall has basically split his army in half. Since the Terran has not split his army – he can roll over half the Protoss army easily – and then move on to take out the production facilities. This is risky, and you commit to an elimination race, but the very fact that the Protoss has split his army when recalling gives you the edge when you attack. Furthermore, when you do end up fighting the recalled units (after you’ve ploughed each other’s mains) you will have the advantage since you have a concentrated army vs half an army.
Terran players are reacting wrong. On large maps you give the Protoss too much time to recover if you try to defend – what you really want to be doing is counter attacking. If Mind had decided to counter attack against Pusan – the game probably would have ended right then and there. If Firebathero had pushed all in to Jaehoons natural he probably would have taken the game right there and then. Maybe Hwasin did play it right thought in defending, but nevertheless, counterattacking would have also resulting in Guemchi conceding.
So please Terran’s in Korea. Realise that if a Protoss recalls you, a counter attack is probably the better option. At the very least, you’ll produce an entertaining game.
What else is new this week? Actually, that’s put very badly, since what’s new this past week has been old. Titans of old have returned to the forefront of Progaming once again. Savior has just coasted into the MSL going 2-0 over han and Upmagic. Sure Zerg have been getting a boost lately, but Savior back in the MSL makes it seem like everything is right with the world once again. Oh and the way Savior handled UpMagic’s proxy barracks was brilliant – it was cool, calm, collected and effective. Full credit to Savior for that excellent defence.
Boxer has also returned to the limelight after he annihilated Killer with Nuclear warheads. Ho ho ho, yes, that is a game that should be mandatory viewing for any fan of Progaming. Indeed, it is linked and recommended below. Stork went up against Gorush on Outsider – for the first time since their amazing encounter on Neo Requiem in the SKY 05 Proleague Playoffs. Their encounter was also a great game, but also brought back memories from yesteryear. If you haven’t watched Stork vs Gorush on Requiem yet, here’s the vod.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPoMIn8WBHw&feature=player_embedded
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/Backseat_Broodwar/hwaseunghouse.jpg) By Sadistx
So there is one last issue that we really need to touch on here, and that's the issue of Hwaseung and Jaedong. After the FA crisis its perfectly reasonable to assume that the Hwaseung management crew realised how fickle their relationship with Jaedong actually is and how dependent they are on him. That and the many statements Jaedong's parents made about Jaedong being overworked. Their response this season? Work on the rest of the team so that Hwaseung is no longer a one man team. As a result we've seen them put out Perfectman and Killer in the lineup over ggaemo and Backho to get them experience and, hopefully, results.
Now another consequence of this decision is that Jaedong isn't playing Hwaseungs Aces anymore. What? Hwaseung, you realise that him not playing pretty much means you're going to be losing games, right? As a result, Hwaseung just lost to ACE of all teams. Indeed, the decision to not play Jaedong annoys anyone with Jaedong on their fantasy team which in turn, hurts the Hwaseung fan base.
Unfortunately Hwaseung fans, Backseat Broodwar approves with the Hwaseung managements Coaching strategy in this case. The fact they are losing games are just growing pains that the team has to go through if it wants to be competitive down the line. This is a strategy designed to have payouts in the long term, and thus in six months time they will still be a force, even if Jaedong slumps, since they are going to have players with experience in high pressure situations.
The future of Hwaseung - believe it!
Furthermore, this strategy has been employed before by some of the best coaches in the business. Particularly, Coach Ha of MBC (then Pirates of Space) in 2005. POS where one game away from making the playoffs, literally, and instead of playing Pusan or July who would have pretty much guaranteed victory for the team, the played Sea in the Ace match. This isn't Sea the beast we know and love, but rather Sea the inexperienced 15 year old gamer - and he was put out in the most important game of the entire season for POS. What happened? Sea lost. And POS did not make the playoffs.
Why would Coach Ha voluntarily sacrifice an entire season for this stunt? Well firstly, whats the point of going to the post season if your team doesn't have the depth to be competitive? Back then Pusan and July were all that was holding the team together, with no support from other games, there was no way they could win a best of seven. And secondly, it developed character in Sea and gave him invaluable experience. Indeed, a year later in the 2006 Proleague Grand Finals between MBC and SKT, the score was tied 3-3. Who did MBC turn to? They turned to Sea, and he defeated GoRush - winning MBC the title. The excellent foresight of Coach Ha to play Sea a year earlier resulted in MBC winning the big prize a year later. Hwaseung is employing the same strategy now. So despite the frustration it brings to the fans, this is a necessary move to make for Hwaseung's success.
So yes, what games can Backseat Broodwar recommend to you from the past week? Four games have stood out amongst the pool. As already mentioned, Jaehoon vs Firebathero is an absolute must watch. It starts off as a mediocre PvT, then the recall sets the game afloat and it becomes anyone’s for the taking. This game will be immortalised as one of the games of the year. Incidentally, this was the 2000th game to be played on OGN – how very fitting!
+ Show Spoiler +Furthermore it will be immortalised as the “FBH Vulture Save” game. Seriously, those vultures were sick. Definitely worth the watch for this unconventional ending.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNF0jpGuaYA&feature=player_embedded
Boxer vs Killer goes without saying. If you have no watched this yet, and you choose to skip over this VOD, you are not a true Broodwar fan at heart. You are a phony.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE3V34acd9w&feature=player_embedded
Violet vs Shine also makes the list this week. Indeed, it would probably make the list as one of the best games of the year (Iris vs Bisu still beats it though!). This game isn’t error free, not by a long shot. Violet’s harass could have been better – although it was highly effective. Shine played it pretty well, but only just hung in there to the end game. Both players ripped out unconventional units – both DAs and Queens reared their heads here. The ending is pretty sweet, and is one of the few times Zergs have come out of a semi-stalemate positions with a win – and full credit to Shine for being able to convert this to a win.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfq3Q3E8ywU&feature=player_embedded
Lastly we have Stork vs Gorush. Its no where near the magnitude of their 2005 encounter, but when was the last time you saw a real Sair/Reaver in action? Incidentally, Stork has the second best Sair/Reaver of all time hands down (behind Nal_ra of course). This sounds really peculiar at first, but having been a Stork fan since 2005 I (Plexa) can safely say that when the man chooses to use Sair/Reaver, the game is always great. Particularly, Stork’s Corsairs are x1.5 as effective as your average Protoss – and as July noted in his OSL Finals Interview; Corsairs are way more scary than Reavers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hiUxxrFLo0&feature=player_embedded
And that’s all this week from the guys behind the driving seat. Be sure to have an excellent week. I’m sure that just like the past week produced more amazing moments than the week before, this week will deliver even more great moments to remember for a lifetime. One last rant before we go – STUPID PROLEAGUE SCHEDULE NOT HAVING SKT/KTF/STX/HITE PLAY THIS WEEK. Ahem... Yea, we really like Fantasy Proleague.
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konadora
Singapore66153 Posts
Great read
(before anyone says it, I just finished reading this when this was published :p)
Could have talked more about sAviOr though, especially winning ZvZs o.o
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Good read 
Should've showed the Effort vs Luxury game, one of the best ZvZ in a long time imo.
Sick play by Effort.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
I really thought that Effort/Lux was just another above average ZvZ =/
I can recall way better ZvZs tbh!
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Very nice info, I missed the stork vs gorush game, off to watch that now.
This was posted just as I was really really bored too, perfect timing! <3
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I loveeeee backseat broodwar.
Excellent write up. I am so happy Oz is trying to build depth, they have real potential.
Edit: (That doesn't mean its easy to swallow a loss to ACE, for the greater good.) Also, AMAZING banner.
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On October 31 2009 22:58 Plexa wrote:
I really thought that Effort/Lux was just another above average ZvZ =/
I can recall way better ZvZs tbh!
Itt's not my favorite ever but i think it was great.
The way he just constantly kept sacrificing lings/mutas to keep his economy dead while protecting with spores was so smart imo
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Awesome. Very, very good read.
Hwaseung House is still lol-worthy. Cheers 
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9070 Posts
Does Killer have the same potential as Sea? I dont think so. Even if he has, he might be doing good in practice sessions again because of the friendly map pool, which at some point will change. In any case, Killer has a long way to walk ahead of him
Thanks for the great read
EDIT: the banner is awesome
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pripple
Finland1714 Posts
i sure hope Oz has some big plan behind all this, and they are not just plain failing ;< i think JD could have used the moraleboost winning the ACE against DarkElf after losing 2 ZvZ's last week (my fantasyteam sure as hell needed it atleast)
hopefully you're right about Shine, i find watching him play much more enjoyable than watching Hyuk, maybe that has to do something with my antiSKT1 attitude though.
thanks for the recommendations, i've missed Stork vs GoRush somehow. great read once again!
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Another fun read, and the games you talked about were amazing.
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I've really admire Boxer although now is not his time, but his performance is very unbelievable..
I am a Chengdu citizen,if you want to know about chengdu's food and hotel ,please visit my website :http://www.zeratul.cn ,thank you!
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WCG2009 in Chengduhttp://www.zeratul.cn
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User was temporarily banned for this post.
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konadora
Singapore66153 Posts
On October 31 2009 23:24 skgoo wrote:
I've really admire Boxer although now is not his time, but his performance is very unbelievable..
I am a Chengdu citizen,if you want to know about chengdu's food and hotel ,please visit my website :http://www.zeratul.cn ,thank you!
no i don't want to know about it, don't ad sites plz
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Niiiiiceeee article,  Shine > Hyuk and contrasting MBC and Hwaseung Oz : D
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Great read with a lot of insight, Plexa. Quite some exciting games this week, eh? One general recommendation that definitely is worth adding is basically every game Flash has played. He is taking terran to a new level, which is amazing to witness despite the one-sidedness. Seeing what other terrans strive for come to life in the most beautifully executed fashion (time after time, no less) is worth watching. His series against HoGiL as a whole could have been a riveting two games from the OSL finals. Both players play spectacular broodwar and I'll argue Hogil would have taken the series against any other terran - were it not Flash. The multitasking, the timing and control - like a dance.
Regarding arbiters in TvP, one thing I noticed from games this week (or just recently) is Light's great anti-arbiter play. Yeah he still lost one here or there but the example I want to bring up is his game against Violet in the MSL. The man takes a a recall and stasis on his own choke early on and proceeds to tank hallucination fakes into actual recalls most of the game. He preempts many of those, then proceeded to dropship, expand, and push simultaneously afterward. He takes down a 5-base, sauron-status toss down in one fell swoop - while taking care of the arbiter threat. Violet had even built a second cybernetics core to dual-upgrade carriers only to realize his economy has just suffered so suddenly he can't afford them. While not as successful against mOvie in the OSL, this game is how every terran should play against arbs imho.
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Sick write up ^__^. Enjoyable as usual. I too agree that hwaseung strategy will do them better in the long run, just its better to develop their tosses/terrans before their zergs I suppose since JD can handle it for some time. Violet vs Shine is the best PvZ in this year and I doubt anything will come soon to top it, not the highest game quality, but you arent watching Bisu/JD/Effort here, but its a lot more innovative/stylish and fun, everyone must watch it.
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Great read and I especially agree with the change in line up Hwaseung OZ is adopting. I had similar thoughts!
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United States4796 Posts
Excellent article! sAviOr better keep this streak up...
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Best volume yet! Thanks so much for speaking on the HyuK and Shine issue. I gained a lot of insight there.
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Great write up and all....
But no love for FlaSh?
Seriously?
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 01 2009 00:45 EniraM(CA) wrote:
Great write up and all....
But no love for FlaSh?
Seriously?
I'll be blunt. Flash is doing exactly what I expect of him, to me his success isn't anything miraculous, rather it is just Flash doing business as usual. When leagues kick up and we have some real games to talk about then trust me, you'll hear a lot about flash haha
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I thought OSL Group G Flash/Hogil 1set was amazing in terms of how amazingly beastly Flash played while being sick as a dog. I mean Hogil played the game of his life and Flash just trounced him at every turn.
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Awesome Awesome Awesome. Great job with the article! I agree with your analysis of Hwaseungs strategy/technique or whatever you call it. Growing pains can hurt, and im sure Jaedong is frustrated thus far. But I dont think thatll keep him down for long.
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On November 01 2009 00:52 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2009 00:45 EniraM(CA) wrote:
Great write up and all....
But no love for FlaSh?
Seriously? I'll be blunt. Flash is doing exactly what I expect of him, to me his success isn't anything miraculous, rather it is just Flash doing business as usual. When leagues kick up and we have some real games to talk about then trust me, you'll hear a lot about flash haha
Hahah yeah you might be right about that. I think it's due to the fact that he has such high expectations. Flash business as usual is playing great games imo.
Mostly I was thinking about the FlaSh/HogiL series. Which showed some amazing play.
But there were a lot of good games latley.
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Katowice25012 Posts
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good job, awesome banner silversky :D
savior didnt beat han though, he beat guemchi and upmagic.
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great work as always plexa.
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What an interesting read. You two covered a lot of topics well. With personality too.
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Very entertaining read thanks! I manage to watch most of the vods already but will watch the rest today.
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The FBH vs Jaehoon was just an interesting game, imo, becuse both played so bad that you could never know how it was going to end. Lets face it any decent terran would have stomped Jaehoon - arbeiter or no arbeiter - with that rush unscouted. And a decent protoss would never have lost the advantage that Jaehoon had after the recalls.
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i dont understand why the boxer - killer game is recommended. i mean ok it's boxer wow yeah, but the game itself is terrible terrible terrible. i don't watch a lot of tvz but this is by far the worst i've seen in a looong time and i seriously don't wanna know what boxers winrate in inhouse games is
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excelltent read!
this week was amazing, and i can say that next week will probably be shit in comparison.
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WHAT TEH FUCK BISU LOST TO JAYSTAR?
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motbob
United States12546 Posts
OK. Maybe Terrans were able to counter in response to recalls in the past since arbiters usually only came out on many bases. But with faster and faster arb tech, Terrans who counter run into the problem of having their comsats sniped. If it's 2 base vs 2 base when Protoss recalls, you can see that the strategy of killing the comsats and then pumping DTs would be very effective.
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 Movie is in both leagues too...
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Hwaseung House always makes me laugh :p
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United States11390 Posts
Completely agree with your thoughts on Hyuk and Shine. <3
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Good read
LOL @ the Hwaseung House
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I actually agree with the opinion concerning Hwaseung. Sending other people out for ace is the only way they'll stop coasting off of Jaedong. And obviously it's better to do this in R1 rather than later.
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Shine has been doing well, but I guess I've been more impressed with Hyuk because of how late in his career he's been able to make a break. He's 22 years old now, and in a field of energetic and competitive 16-18 year olds, being able to have the drive to stick with it all these years with no results to show for it and young kids beating you left and finally, FINALLY having all that practice pay off makes me really want to cheer for Hyuk. I don't think I'm particularly a fan of Hyuk in any way, shape, or form, but I'm really happy to see this guy succeed.
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On November 01 2009 03:39 Sorrow wrote:
WHAT TEH FUCK BISU LOST TO JAYSTAR?
As shown in his interview about the IEF, he didn't think very much of the skill level of the foreigners. Not surprisingly, once again Bisu shows that he is his own enemy.
Effort also played disappointingly as the leaked (?) rep packs showed some pretty silly decision making, which I am sure he would not do in the proleague. That may have been a result from overconfidence in his micro.
If overconfidence is the reason Bisu and Effort dropped games against the top foreigners, then its not surprising that Stork is doing well if we consider how self degrading he appears to be.
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Let's see here. Killer lost both of his ACE matches, got nuked by Boxer and allowed SKT to 3-0 them. He is on a losing streak in the proleague even though he is apparently Jaedong's backup.
Like Flash said during his interview, the skill level that a player demonstrates in the practice house is greatly different from what they are able to bring out on television. It all has to do with mindset and a player's nerve.
Considering that Cho is sending Killer out so frequently, it can be assumed that Killer is a practice house monster. The problem is, these series of disasters are destroying Killer's mentality. Any person who directly caused their team to lose two vital matches and fail the expectation of all of his teammates and coach would likely enter a huge slump and develop TV-phobia.
I really think what Coach Cho doing right now is counterproductive. He is throwing an inexperienced player into high pressure situation. I think that he should just focus on Hiya and Lomo. Both are pretty decent, have experience with being under pressure and had their moments. Perhaps with the right push, they can shine.
P.S. Backho is a hopeless cause. After observing Backho v.s. Reach, I advocate Perfectman for Oz Protoss Ace.
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I've finally watched enough games to make coherent discussion about the players and game trends. First time in awhile, actually.
Hyuk - I agree with you on this one. Although ZvZ is his best match-up, even his ZvT and ZvP is streaky. Even if he goes on to win the next 3 MSLs and an OSL, I'll be waiting for the good old inconsistent Hyuk to return.
Shine - He might have outplayed Bisu, beat Violet once. I'm still waiting to see if he's the real deal or not in the next round of the MSL and OSL. I say he's not.
TvP - the small pathways and the non-open exteriors of maps really encourage super quick tech two 2 base Arbiters. Destination was designed like this; 2 base arbiters kept Terran to 2 (if you were able to lock them into their base that fast) or Terran would grab his third and Protoss can double expand. Good T's will figure out how to play against this eventually.
Jaedong's losing is dare I say, slumping? I find it hard to believe. While BW (and Zerg) has changed a lot, Jaedong has always dominated. Part of me wishes Jaedong doesn't slump (even though he's an anti-hero in my mind) because he's been so consistent. If Jaedong slumps now, Lecaf could be bottom of the standings in no time at all and Coach Oz's attempts will be late and in vain.
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excellent read. many thanks
i agree with you on the part about recalls PvT, but when I try to counter the toss keeps delaying my attack as long as possible while reinforcing his defense, but terran is unable to reinforce because his factories in his main are dying. its a great idea to build factories at other bases late game, but that usually doesn't happen until you have your 4th/5th base or so, and it is very possible that recalls go off before that.
also, i knew a HH like that was coming, so good xD
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No way. Shine might be statistically better over Hyuk, but he lacks killer eyes. He lacks killer intent, he lacks the x-factor; something which Hyuk however has in abundance. I'm convinced that Shine has no more potential than, say, Type-b. He is not even on the level of Forgg, Mind and GGplay, the one hit wonders. While I see Hyuk getting only better and better, eventually solving his vs terran to make it bearable, I don't think Shine will get any farther then he is now. I see Hyuk to get at least to Firebathero level, more then enough for SKT1, and if he's smart enough, he can reach much higher levels.
Haha, I'm not sure that I agree with myself, but there you go, a little opposition won't hurt the Backseat Crew!
(excellent article, Plexa and co)
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ughh 8 days until the next KT game
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It's a shame the reaver part of Stork's corsair/reaver was an absolute failure, but that should just prove to the toss players out there that corsairs are ridiculously strong even by themselves and should not be thrown away on a whim. Hell, almost the same type of game was played in free vs Modesty this week. Free's reaver does a bit of damage, but ultimately the corsairs run around stealing the show.
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Someone post the video where incontrol picks his name for his bracket lol
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Throwing in another vote for needing to include Lux/Effort as a game of the week, it's not often that you see a top player that baffled in a mirror match. Watch it again, Plexa, you will appreciate it
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This article gave me a good reality check on Hyuk - it was so easy hopping on the "HvZ" bandwagon. Nevertheless, my trade of FBH for Hyuk is paying off nicely and I hope Hyuk continues his hot streak!
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the thing with hyuk is that he was once considered one of the worst progamers, ever. If you look at his TLPD page, he had like 20% win rate before July, and after July, his win rate jumped to 80%. It doesn't really matter that his zvt and zvp isn't top notch so far, because he's fundamentally changed, and if he could make his zvz go from pathetic to s-class, he can become a good player in all MUs, period. I don't think anyone in the history of progaming has been shown capable of such drastic level of skill improvement that hyuk did, and for that alone, I think he will prove to be much greater than shine in the future.
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Great write up !
Only point of contention is that FBH screwed up a push into Jaehoon's natural. That really screwed him as he didn't have much of an army to defend or counter into Jaehoon.
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I wish I had the time to watch all those VODs (most of them again).
Whatever I'll find the time. I regret now ripping my PC out of the wall...
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i thought effort vs lux was great just in how effort split his mutas like he would zerglings, i think we're going to see more zergs emulate this guerilla style muta instead of bulking up for the game deciding muta matchup
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Holy crap, I can't believe how many overlord did Stork killed when played against GoRush 0.o . Nice writeup btw.
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Good point with part about not sending JD to ace matches, but honestly - if team expects Ace match vs OZ they will have their ace training vZ. So why send other Zerg in place of Jaedong? Wouldn't it be better to send P or T then? Yes, maps favor Z this season, but also many of them favor T, so why not send Lomo or HiyA?
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United States17042 Posts
great games to choose, especially the fbh jaehoon game.
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dont agree, hyuk roxxxxx!!!!!!!!
i dont make any hype around hyuk, as it happens zvz is my fav mu and hyuk is gg
no boring shine sh1t, gg
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United States10328 Posts
hahaha I love this column
in other news hwaseung house not by atrioc = blasphemy
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On October 31 2009 22:35 konadora wrote:
Great read
(before anyone says it, I just finished reading this when this was published :p)
Could have talked more about sAviOr though, especially winning ZvZs o.o
ya for sure.
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I definately agree about recall being way too strong PvT right now. I thought the exact same things about the games you mentioned and because the maps are so big, terran has a hard time dealing with recall. Also recall is disproportionately easy to pull of considering the huge damage it many times does.
The solution you offer that is terran pushing into the protoss main is so-so imo, because it relies on many assumptions:
That terrans army actually is that concentrated and that he protoss won't be able to stop him with arbiters/stasis and a decent amout of units. Terran basically will need to roll protoss remaining troops hard which is not something you can expect to happen. Also protoss might build or already have many gateways in other places of the map and also have a couple of other bases up and running which makes him still have a decent economy, while terrans economy might be devastated after the recall (if he didn't send any units to take care of it).
Protoss can wear down a terran army quite well with the use of DT:s and running lines of zealots into his units and with comsats possibly being destroyed due to the protoss recall, detection might be a huge issue.
Also the fact that many of the new maps are big makes possibly protoss have bases in other places on the map that are quite far away from terrans main army that is engaging his main. So protoss can easily recover due to the large distances between bases. But this is of course if it's late game and not just mid game where protoss might not have that many bases.
I definately agree that countering the protoss is a possible solution but it's a very risky one and it's not safe at all. So basically there's not really a good way to react to recalls for Terrans atm without building huge defense in your base in the form of a million turrets and lay mines all over. Also the fact that terran units need to be microed and that small mistakes in unit composition and position can make protoss win against his concentrated force makes it also quite risky.
I think the bottomline is that the recall thing is so good because of the current big maps. It's too easy to pull off and like you said, totally turns the game around in situations where protoss shouldn't be able to come back that easily.
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So what's up with the new shirts?
EDIT: Were there just several of the new designs made to check em out? Looks good.
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PJ didn't get 4th, White-Ra did
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Plexa -
You mentioned Byzantium having terrible Z>P imbalance. It piqued my curiosity and I ran a little statistical analysis on the 25-14 figure since it's a relatively small sample size. Turns out that just based on the numbers alone it's quite unlikely (less than 3-4% chance) to have just been due to chance. So just on those numbers alone (and ignoring the details of who actually played those 39 games and what THEIR matchup statistics are) it probably ranges somewhere from slightly imbalanced to horribly imbalanced. Anyway it got me thinking, it would be an awesome thing if someone more experienced than myself could add specific imbalances to the liquipedia pages of these maps. I mean sure, okay, Byzantium is imbalanced. What does that mean to a zerg or protoss player looking to maximize his advantages on that map? It would be awesome if I could look up a map and find a somewhat detailed analysis that allows me to understand how better players exploit the uniqueness of the map. As it is now, most of the map pages look pretty barren aside from a picture and some very vague information.
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why is it a surprise when PJ wins? he has been a WCG finalist before and irrc used to live/train/play in korea as well.
that guy is just as good as leta or any other B+ class progammer.
The top tier chinese don't have a proscene on TV etc..but they have been train just as long and hard as the koreans.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/SilverskY/BackseatBroodwar.jpg)
![[image loading]](/staff/Plexa/Backseat_Broodwar/hyuk.jpg)
![[image loading]](/staff/Plexa/Backseat_Broodwar/shine2.jpg)
![[image loading]](/staff/Plexa/Backseat_Broodwar/shine.png)
![[image loading]](/staff/Plexa/Backseat_Broodwar/recall.jpg)
![[image loading]](/staff/Plexa/Backseat_Broodwar/savior.jpg)
![[image loading]](/staff/Plexa/Backseat_Broodwar/killer.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img81.imageshack.us/i/whatb.jpg/)
