EPT
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MSL Ro4 Match A
November 8th, 2007
Match A - Savior vs Mind
Game 1 - Blue Storm
Game 2 - Loki II
Game 3 - Zodiac
Game 4 - Python
Game 5 - Blue Storm
Results
+ Show Spoiler +
Match A - Savior 2 - 3 Mind
Game 1 - Savior < Mind on Blue Storm
Game 2 - Savior > Mind on Loki II
Game 3 - Savior > Mind on Zodiac
Game 4 - Savior < Mind on Python
Game 5 - Savior < Mind on Blue Storm
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Game 1 - Savior < Mind on Blue Storm
Game 2 - Savior > Mind on Loki II
Game 3 - Savior > Mind on Zodiac
Game 4 - Savior < Mind on Python
Game 5 - Savior < Mind on Blue Storm
Savior vs Mind. In 2006, during Savior's prime, I would have bet my cello on Savior pummeling this relatively unknown terran to a pulp. But due to his recent show of, dare I say it, imperfect play, it's left me and many savior fans wondering if the Maestro's reign is coming to a close. I opened my GOM Player, confident in Savior, yet slightly fearful.
Game 1 - Savior vs Mind on Blue Storm
Savior's opening strategy was... dangerous, to say the least. Opening with 2 hatch speedlings, he attempts to hurt Mind early on, but fails to do any critical damage. He then switches to lair tech while taking an expanion at 12, where Mind will hopefully miss.
His balsy expansion at 12 was actually a fairly nice move, considering his set back from failing to do much damage with a 2 hatch build, and he does tech to hive and guardians, beautifally dismantling Mind's attack on the 12 expansion.
But his play from then on was, somewhat disappointing. Deciding to use his position at 12 as a drop-off point, he succeeds in carrying off defilers and lurkers to Mind's base... except Mind had a similar scenario. Soon we find both player's main bases under heavy fire, Mind's base being chopped up by lurkers under swarm and Savior's base taking heavy fire from mnm dropped by a couple of dropships. Both players clear out their bases eventually, but Savior's entire tech has fallen, while Mind's base, though on fire, had relatively little damage.
With Mind having the same amount of expansions as Savior... if not, more. He simply overpowers Savior with his superior tech, forcing The Maestro to his knees.
Game 2 - Savior vs Mind on Loki II
Compared to the action packed game 1, this game was really quite the opposite. Mind, apparently having been unprepared on this map, opens with a proxy BBS rush. Savior scouts Mind's base to see almost no SCVs, and pools before hatches. Mind tries the marine rush, and predictable Savior has no trouble ripping it apart with lings. Mind types out soon after, practically throwing away his hard earned 1-0 lead.
Game 3 - Savior vs Mind on Zodiac
Savior fans will love this game. Both players open rather passively. Savior gathers a few speedlings after droning up a bit, while Mind gathers some mnm. Mind moves out with a fair size, while Savior maneuvers his lings around Mind's units, looking for an opening. Having his ramp blocked by firebats, Mind decides to ignore the invading lings at his nat and stim into Savior's sunken line, which seemed like it may just fall. But Savior's lings, realizing the danger frantically runs back and defends the mnm rush.
From there it goes downhill for Mind. Mutalisks take flight, wreaking havoc in Mind's defenseless base, and minutes later Mind can only watch as his nat and base become swamped by muta/lings. The Maestro takes a 2-1 lead.
Game 4 - Savior vs Mind on Python
A basic story for a basic map. That pretty much sums up this game. Both players open with a fast expansion build, Savior gathering mutas from 3 hatch and harrassing while taking an expansion and teching to lurkers... Mind putting up turrets for the mutalisks, getting +1 and moving out with his mnm+tank+vessel combo. Both players dancing around the middle of the map, waiting for the other to take the first move.
In the end Mind's well spread marines emerge victorious from Savior's double sided attack, mainly due to Savior wasting away zerglings and mutalisks to a poorly executed empty-base counter attack that he decided to abandon halfway. In the end Mind simply out-played Savior, fair and square... nothing more.
Game 5 - Savior vs Mind on Blue Storm
And now back to the field that started it all. Savior and Mind land in the same spots as game 1, and both open normally, yet again. The game turns favorably for Mind as he succeeds to destroy Savior's first expo attempt at 6, microing his mnm and tank force around Savior's lurker/ling army, despite having fallen victim to a slightly missplaced hold-lurker trap.
Savior, teching to hive attempts to level with field with defiler/lurker/ling, but Mind refuses to fall back, just barely winning battle after battle. Savior succeeds in sniping a dropship attempting to fly into his main, but his worries are far from over as Mind's main forces roll across the map, eyes set on the expansion at 11. While Savior frantically sends units to save it, a second dropship flies into his main base, succeeding in doing a bit more damage. While Savior clears up the mess, Mind once again moves towards 11 with his units. Savior transports his units once agian through the nydus canal, but Mind's vessels become too much for his small defense, and the expansion falls.
But Mind wasn't done. As the screen pans down south, the crowd and commentators let out a gasp as 3 menacing dropships safely land into Savior's main, raising up the buildings into flames.
With his base crippled, his defenses blasted wide open, and no army for the Maestro to orchestrate, Savior accepts defeat, failing to please his fans who so desparately awaited his return to the throne.
Overall Analysis:
Mind played very nicely, especially in Game 5. But I'm sure almost everyone will agree that Savior just isn't himself anymore. No one puts it better than Day[9]:
+ Show Spoiler +
On November 09 2007 09:16 Day[9] wrote:
I disagree with a majority of the previous posts.
Whenever a player who is as strong as savior starts losing, so many people in the community begin to claim that "Savior's play has been solved" or, more generally, blame the build order used by savior. Its much simpler than that; Savior's build(s) is/are perfectly fine, and arguably brilliant; However, his fundamentals and small decisions, especially in the midgame, are inconsistent w/ the logic of his build(s) and are costing him games.
There is absolutely nothing wrong w/ the fast defiler technique used/abused by Savior. In fact, I'd argue that his overall play style (3 hatch opening to 3rd gas to hive) is one of the most standard ZvT flows around (its very flexible for different maps). So, why is savior losing? Lets look at some of the weaknesses and strengths of the fast hive play in ZvT.
Weaknesses of a fast hive style play: you are fairly low on unit count in the midgame due to cost of the fast tech. Consequently, its critical that you play a defensive, harrassment driven, patient, and non confrontational style in the midgame. This involves placing lurkers strategically to prevent M&M from running around the map, harassing well w/ mutalisks, and delaying the push as long as possible until those defilers pop out. If a terran begins to push out w/ a standard 4 tank 1 vessel 30 M&M army, you absolutely CANNOT confront the army right as it leaves. Zerg must wait until the LAST second (ie the army is seiging outside your natural) and THEN attack it, for ONLY then does zerg have enough units to take the army down. Think of Savior vs Oov on Ride of Valkyries, Savior vs Iris on Longinus II (OSL semis), Savior vs Hwasin on Longinus II. hell think of Savior vs ANY strong terran about a year ago. Savior was extremely patient when taking down the critical first push. Savior would slowly delay the push w/ mutalisks and lurkers, and then place lurkers behind to stop reinforcements. Eventually, savior would take down the push, but almsot 95% of the time, this occured at Savior's front doorstep, NOT in the middle of the map, and DEFINITELY not right as terran left home.
Strengths of fast hive: Fast hive is intrinstically a momentum play. That is, you cannot play to win in the midgame stages (remember, you have no units!), but by getting defilers quickly you can massively swing the game into your favor in the late game stages. In other words, a fast hive zerg WANTS to play a long game. Fast hiving is equivalent to saying "i'm better at playing long games than my terran opponent." Again, our old school dominant savior seemed to say this before every ZvT. Almost all his games were won after 15 minutes w/ hive tech playing a critical role. Savior would play a brilliant defensive game w/ excellent positioning of units and force terran to overextend himself. Think of Nada vs Savior of Longinus II in Game 1 of the OSL finals. Nada had complete map control throughout most of the game, but savior kept a strong defensive positioning w/ defilers and lurkers. Eventually, nada had to take outlying expansions (the double gas high ground expoes), and Savior smashed them w/ drops, end eventually won after a solid 25 minute battle. There was never any pivotal central battle. Any battle in the middle occurred after Savior already had the advantage.
However, look at Savior's recent games! The only real opportunity for the fast hive style to win early is once the mutalisk harass pops. We saw Savior smash Cloud on Blue Storm in this exact way. However, if you can't take the win there, and you are going for fast hive, DONT TRY TO WIN UNTIL AFTER THE HIVE. In Savior's games against mind, when mutalisk harass didn't work, Savior simply made strings of fundamentally weak and inconsistent decisions. Savior was unusually aggressive and impatient (as TheFoReveRwaR mentioned). Lurkers were weakly positioned (especially on blue storm) and Mind took out lurkers 2-3 at a time here and there. When you are fast-hiving, it is CRITICAL that you not throw away lurkers in this fashion. 2-3 lurkers are an ESSENTIAL part of the mid game stages. Savior would assault clumps of marines w/ weak mutalisk micro. Savior didn't do his trademark "burrow 3 lurkers to prevent reinforcement." Savior seemed to be trying to force the win at odd times. For example, in Game 4 on Python, Savior's counter attack fails miserably, yet Savior's attempt at killing mind's main army only failed somewhat badly. Theoretically, Savior could have waited for Mind's main force to reach the @9 natural, and THEN crunched it (a la Savior vs Iris on Longinus II). As some have mentioned, Savior's even appeared to be having sloppy macro, arguably the most important fundamental in Starcraft
I mean honestly, you can still see the brilliance in Savior's BUILDS even when he loses. On blue storm, taking the @12 expansion was a GENIUS move. In addition to being reasonably easily defendable, fast hiving makes the @12 expo a guaranteed dropoff point directly into the terran main. Had savior not made so many mistakes in the midgame, Mind would have had 0 chance of keeping his main alive in the later stages. But, again, Savior threw the momentum of the fast hive away by playing so sloppily in the midgame.
In short, its not that "Savior is becoming reliant on fast hive to win." Rather, its that "Savior assumes that once he gets a hive, he cannot lose." Savior is acting like he has everything in each game: enough mutalisks to harass aggressively and kill ANY amount of marines, enough units to confront and win any battle he pleases, enough "will" to control the game. Savior seems to assume that just because 2 lurkers are THERE that a group of M&M will run in fear instead of stimming and killing. Having won so much for 3 years, Savior has probably sub consciously convinced himself that he can win SIMPLY because of a fast hive, forgetting that his solid fundamentals and patience are what contributed to his success, not JUST the build itself. Hopefully if Savior can cool his head and focus on consistently making strong, cautious, correct decisions, we will see the return of the Maestro that every Zerg user remembers and loves
.
I disagree with a majority of the previous posts.
Whenever a player who is as strong as savior starts losing, so many people in the community begin to claim that "Savior's play has been solved" or, more generally, blame the build order used by savior. Its much simpler than that; Savior's build(s) is/are perfectly fine, and arguably brilliant; However, his fundamentals and small decisions, especially in the midgame, are inconsistent w/ the logic of his build(s) and are costing him games.
There is absolutely nothing wrong w/ the fast defiler technique used/abused by Savior. In fact, I'd argue that his overall play style (3 hatch opening to 3rd gas to hive) is one of the most standard ZvT flows around (its very flexible for different maps). So, why is savior losing? Lets look at some of the weaknesses and strengths of the fast hive play in ZvT.
Weaknesses of a fast hive style play: you are fairly low on unit count in the midgame due to cost of the fast tech. Consequently, its critical that you play a defensive, harrassment driven, patient, and non confrontational style in the midgame. This involves placing lurkers strategically to prevent M&M from running around the map, harassing well w/ mutalisks, and delaying the push as long as possible until those defilers pop out. If a terran begins to push out w/ a standard 4 tank 1 vessel 30 M&M army, you absolutely CANNOT confront the army right as it leaves. Zerg must wait until the LAST second (ie the army is seiging outside your natural) and THEN attack it, for ONLY then does zerg have enough units to take the army down. Think of Savior vs Oov on Ride of Valkyries, Savior vs Iris on Longinus II (OSL semis), Savior vs Hwasin on Longinus II. hell think of Savior vs ANY strong terran about a year ago. Savior was extremely patient when taking down the critical first push. Savior would slowly delay the push w/ mutalisks and lurkers, and then place lurkers behind to stop reinforcements. Eventually, savior would take down the push, but almsot 95% of the time, this occured at Savior's front doorstep, NOT in the middle of the map, and DEFINITELY not right as terran left home.
Strengths of fast hive: Fast hive is intrinstically a momentum play. That is, you cannot play to win in the midgame stages (remember, you have no units!), but by getting defilers quickly you can massively swing the game into your favor in the late game stages. In other words, a fast hive zerg WANTS to play a long game. Fast hiving is equivalent to saying "i'm better at playing long games than my terran opponent." Again, our old school dominant savior seemed to say this before every ZvT. Almost all his games were won after 15 minutes w/ hive tech playing a critical role. Savior would play a brilliant defensive game w/ excellent positioning of units and force terran to overextend himself. Think of Nada vs Savior of Longinus II in Game 1 of the OSL finals. Nada had complete map control throughout most of the game, but savior kept a strong defensive positioning w/ defilers and lurkers. Eventually, nada had to take outlying expansions (the double gas high ground expoes), and Savior smashed them w/ drops, end eventually won after a solid 25 minute battle. There was never any pivotal central battle. Any battle in the middle occurred after Savior already had the advantage.
However, look at Savior's recent games! The only real opportunity for the fast hive style to win early is once the mutalisk harass pops. We saw Savior smash Cloud on Blue Storm in this exact way. However, if you can't take the win there, and you are going for fast hive, DONT TRY TO WIN UNTIL AFTER THE HIVE. In Savior's games against mind, when mutalisk harass didn't work, Savior simply made strings of fundamentally weak and inconsistent decisions. Savior was unusually aggressive and impatient (as TheFoReveRwaR mentioned). Lurkers were weakly positioned (especially on blue storm) and Mind took out lurkers 2-3 at a time here and there. When you are fast-hiving, it is CRITICAL that you not throw away lurkers in this fashion. 2-3 lurkers are an ESSENTIAL part of the mid game stages. Savior would assault clumps of marines w/ weak mutalisk micro. Savior didn't do his trademark "burrow 3 lurkers to prevent reinforcement." Savior seemed to be trying to force the win at odd times. For example, in Game 4 on Python, Savior's counter attack fails miserably, yet Savior's attempt at killing mind's main army only failed somewhat badly. Theoretically, Savior could have waited for Mind's main force to reach the @9 natural, and THEN crunched it (a la Savior vs Iris on Longinus II). As some have mentioned, Savior's even appeared to be having sloppy macro, arguably the most important fundamental in Starcraft
I mean honestly, you can still see the brilliance in Savior's BUILDS even when he loses. On blue storm, taking the @12 expansion was a GENIUS move. In addition to being reasonably easily defendable, fast hiving makes the @12 expo a guaranteed dropoff point directly into the terran main. Had savior not made so many mistakes in the midgame, Mind would have had 0 chance of keeping his main alive in the later stages. But, again, Savior threw the momentum of the fast hive away by playing so sloppily in the midgame.
In short, its not that "Savior is becoming reliant on fast hive to win." Rather, its that "Savior assumes that once he gets a hive, he cannot lose." Savior is acting like he has everything in each game: enough mutalisks to harass aggressively and kill ANY amount of marines, enough units to confront and win any battle he pleases, enough "will" to control the game. Savior seems to assume that just because 2 lurkers are THERE that a group of M&M will run in fear instead of stimming and killing. Having won so much for 3 years, Savior has probably sub consciously convinced himself that he can win SIMPLY because of a fast hive, forgetting that his solid fundamentals and patience are what contributed to his success, not JUST the build itself. Hopefully if Savior can cool his head and focus on consistently making strong, cautious, correct decisions, we will see the return of the Maestro that every Zerg user remembers and loves
.
