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On March 24 2011 04:30 Wren wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2011 03:32 meadbert wrote:
I don't get why there is all this imbalance discussion over a 5 game series. MC beating July does not prove imbalance in PvZ any more than MVP demolishing MKP proved imbalance in TvT.
I'm sure this is just trolling, but I'll point out that it's impossible for a mirror matchup to be imbalanced. This hasn't been a balance discussion anyway, it's been T/P saying Zerg should use more easily-countered cheese and Zerg saying it's easily countered.
It's not trolling--it's the most logical statement he could make.
He means that clearly MVP beating MKP in TvT is not indicative of TvT being imbalanced (because it's a ditto and that would be ridiculous), it just means MVP was the better player. Same way that MC beating July is not indicative of PvZ being imbalanced, just that MC was the better player.
It's ridiculous how anyone can think that a 5-game set can solely indicate balance. MC wins and suddenly people are talking as if force fields have always been imbalanced, and that there's absolutely nothing July could have done to win any of those games.
There's been a lot of balance discussion and it doesn't make sense. People complain there isn't enough interesting micro in this game, but when anything risky is shown to be good, people just want to nerf it instead of learning how to deal with it with the tools they already have and adding a new element of gameplay.
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On March 24 2011 04:36 schiznak wrote:
If you dont know what a terran is doing you are pretty much safe if you make a baneling nest and a third queen, both of which you are gonna be building later on anyways.
Not safe against cloaked banshees.
@[Avarice] some people are going to run to the claim of "imba" even on a single loss or cheese. Most people see them all the same way, as meaningless cries of "wolf."
There's a very significant question at hand that hasn't been answered: Does zerg have a 'safe' opening?
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On March 24 2011 04:30 Wren wrote:
I'm sure this is just trolling, but I'll point out that it's impossible for a mirror matchup to be imbalanced.
well that is not true actually. but the imbalance can be avoided if both sides do the imbalanced stuff...
that certainly doesn't mean it is not imbalanced.
pvp is the best example for that.
Collossus dominates every techpath cause everything else that protoss has sucks or is a gamble build.
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On March 24 2011 05:07 freetgy wrote:
well that is not true actually. but the imbalance can be avoided if both sides do the imbalanced stuff...
that certainly doesn't mean it is not imbalanced.
Pretty sure if both sides can do the same thing, they can't be imbalanced. You know, definition of 'balance' and all that.
+ Show Spoiler [GSTL spoiler] +July proved that it's not the species, but the timings, and he absolutely stomped Slayers_Frozen for forge expanding.
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Thanks OP, you really hit most of the reasons why MC won the finals. I feel it's a wasted exercise, though, as most people who couldn't understand it while watching it will not understand even in this spoon-fed format.
My only comment about the finals is that the more skilled, practiced, prepared and deserving player won, therefore we achieved the correct outcome.
On March 20 2011 15:44 confusedcrib wrote:In order to try and stifle the whines coming out from every SC2 player, I'm making this thread to actually analyze what happened each game, and how you can actually prevent it happening to you, and hopefully gather real analysis on the games from other players! Game One+ Show Spoiler +July opens speedling expand while MC opens with a 4 gate. His 4 gate is ingenious however because he cuts the first wave of units that you would make with a 4 gate to throw down an expansion. This delays his 4 gate for a small amount of time but he has the benefit of two gases and the mind game with his opponent. MC continues to cut probes as if doing a normal 2 gas 4 warp gate and then cancels his expo at the last second, gets one more round of units and rolls July First, had July scouted it, he would have been much better off. July never sacked an overlord in to see what protoss' production was, to his credit, this was the first time this has really been done and Zergs are not used to seeing it. MC won the scouting war because of the originality of the build, in the future it would most likely be scouted.
July did not begin making roaches until the 4 warp gate was half way across the map, and against a 2 gas 4 warp gate, since the push comes 2 minutes later than a 1 gas 4 warp gate, you need to use that extra time to pump roaches. Had July sacked an Overlord at the standard time and had 2 more rounds of production, he would have had 16 extra roaches and been able to easily hold MCs rush and win out in the macro game. Sentries were not the main factor in winning this game, the sentries were just there to convince the 3 gate expand. Had July seen what MC was doing he could have easily won. July opens speedling expand while MC opens 1 gate expand. This means that protoss gets his expo down before Zerg, which any player knows is not a good situation. At this point July has to choose between one base all inning and expanding at a disadvantaged position, he chooses the latter. MC is already far ahead as he did an extremely risky opening and July let it fly. Both players then macro up, it is a two basing protoss vs. a two basing Zerg and MC throws down a 5th and 6th gateway and begins to cut probes shortly thereafter. July then RUSHES hydralisks before even beginning roach burrow or speed. July then scouts a 6 gate and begins pumping roaches immediately, making his investment in the hydralisks worthless and his roach upgrades very delayed for no payoff. MC then attacks at the perfect timing before roach burrow is finished and the third base is finishing and easily takes the win. July rushed for hydralisks, delaying his roach burrow and speed too much. He also scouts the 6 gate too late to begin pumping roaches optimally. You'll notice the moment he scouts the 6 gate 11 roaches are produced and hydra range is canceled, this makes it clear that July is simply reacting as best as he can to a rush he didn't know was coming. Had July done the much more standard roach burrow timing to secure a third base, MCs lack of an observer would have meant a free infinite delay of MCs push, long enough for hydras to come in and easily take the game. The only thing FF did in game 2 was keep the roaches from kiting the 4 zealots of MC, if all of those sentries were other units, July would have still been rolled because of his mediocre roach timing against a perfect 6 wg timing. July opens speedling yet again and MC yet again gets a huge early advantage by getting an unpunished fast expand. MC takes back the economic advantage with an extremely fast third before lair, this allows MC's stargate to inflict some good damage before backing off. July then gets very fast hydralisks yet again, but MC, not expecting overlord drop to be upgraded, builds more cannons at the front and keeps his units there while July is able to Hydralisk drop into the main to secure a win before any colossus are out to deal with Hydras effectively. MC did a risky opener for not playing the colossus standard. MC did not give July a reason not to go pure hydra (i.e. colossus, storm, sometimes chargelots) and so July was able to win with it. MC let him go pure hydra and deserved to lose against it. Without a timing attack before hydras are out or a high tech unit, hydras will be dominant. July opens speedling while MC rushes for dark templar (he states in the interview afterwards that he had his practice partners preemptively get detection, indicating that this was not designed to win or be an all in). July is denied his overlord scout and most likely assumes a three warp gate expand. (Notice that this game July gets some preemptive roaches in case another fake expo 4 gate is coming). July sees the darks coming and immediately begins an evo chamber. July loses several roaches and a queen while MC loses nothing. MC begins blink and +1 attack while July takes a third, staying relatively even in economy with MC. July begins his hydra den a little bit later than what seems to be his standard based on the other games, but he does get his spire extremely quickly for a player not going mutaling. July frantically begins roach burrow and pumping roaches when he sees the high gateway unit count from MC. July engages blink +1 stalkers with pure - no burrow - roaches as his spire completes. July simply doesn't have enough to beat the timing push and gg's July could have easily taken this game as well but he seems to have a real problem with scouting his opponent. First he gets hydras and a spire, neither of which even come into play. Second, the counter to a +1 blink stalker build, similar to what Nazgul did against Idra, is either a lot of hydra's or Burrow roaches with equal upgrades, neither of which July had. Had July gotten faster hydras or committed more to roaches with burrow and tunneling claws he could have won, but instead teched in 2 useless directions against a well refined timing push that requires a very particular response. The FF that match stopped about 4 roaches from coming down the ramp and gave MC in total about 10 roaches. MC would have EASILY won without the sentries, the loss was purely July's fault for not reacting to his opponent. MCs build should also be given credit, as opening DT is a very cool way to do the blink stalker push without delaying it too much July speedling expands while MC forge fast expands without any counter pressure, this does put MC off to a starting advantage. July takes a risk though and gets a very fast third before lair. July is super droning, and looks to be off to a great start. MC again goes for the 6 gate play while again July rushes for Hydralisks instead of roach burrow. July begins roach hydra production but has not begun the critical hydra range upgrade yet. MC begins blink and +2 weapons. Hydralisks never get the plus range upgrade and MC slowly wins with upgraded wg units against severely under upgraded roach hydra. In the end it was MC with +3 weapon gateway units against +1 hydras off creep without range. I think that July felt very pressured that round, MC's aggressive army movement kept bating July's army off of creep and messed with July's mindset of upgrading and droning. MC made it look, through his superb army movement, like a 2 base all in was coming when really he had macro'd up and grabbed a third. Had July played a safer game and stayed on top of upgrades he would have easily won, but he really looked to be on tilt and unfocused. Again MC could have won without sentries or FF. Not to mention because July was engaging off creep without range, the hydras lack of speed was very easy to abuse. July simply was playing sloppy this last game and had he upgraded better he would have been easily able to win since MC never got colossus out. July made some very big mistakes, he didn't scout properly and teched too quickly (or not quickly enough) against builds that require very refined, precise timing to beat. His loss had little to nothing to do with FF or any other protoss goodness, but was purely based on how unrefined his play was. July knew the composition he wanted to have, but did not know how to get there. Also, what should be learned from this series are For Protoss: some very potent Protoss timings and how to do standard builds in interesting ways For Zerg: The importance of scouting and tech timings based upon that scouting.
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On March 20 2011 16:17 MrBitter wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2011 16:13 Active.815 wrote:On March 20 2011 16:05 MrBitter wrote:
So wait... Your analysis is that forcefield was a non-factor in these games?
Seriously?
Are you trolling, or are you really that dense? He's saying its not imba, and while they secured MC's victory they wouldnt've been necessary for him to win because of july's mistakes Then he wasn't watching the same games as the rest of us. The forcefield use, while impressive, was very obviously the defining factor in MC's victory.
The rest of us? Most people are disagreeing with you, not sure what you were watching... Those FF's did not swing anything in MC's favour, he had those games secured and if those sentries were any other units he would have won anyway.
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July proved that it's not the species, but the timings, and he absolutely stomped Slayers_Frozen for forge expanding.
He also killed MC when he forge expanded. July is pretty damn good at punishing risky builds.
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On March 24 2011 05:10 Wren wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2011 05:07 freetgy wrote:
well that is not true actually. but the imbalance can be avoided if both sides do the imbalanced stuff...
that certainly doesn't mean it is not imbalanced. Pretty sure if both sides can do the same thing, they can't be imbalanced. You know, definition of 'balance' and all that. + Show Spoiler [GSTL spoiler] +July proved that it's not the species, but the timings, and he absolutely stomped Slayers_Frozen for forge expanding.
I have yet to see this game but it will be interesting to see him play a more punishing style, as in this series he let MC do whatever he wanted to
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That's actually the key to the series. MC did whatever he wanted, regardless of July. He stepped up his deception to levels I'd not seen in the GSL before, but MC really just shoved his rushes down July's throat. It was a perfect mirror to his massively confident personality.
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You ain't kidding, Losira's playing amazingly well right now. However, he's also not been faced with any of the rushes that won MC games.
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On March 23 2011 15:49 lorkac wrote:
Why is that? Because Zerg don't all in. Why would Protoss or Terran ever worry about an early pool? They assume that it's just a different way for Zerg to macro up. They feel no pressure because it statistically never happens.
I agree - just not with the reason you give, which is that Zerg players are so unimaginative that they've never tried playing aggressively.
I just watched MrBitter play a game that illustrates the point beautifully. Terran 2-raxes, brings some marines and an SCV. Bitter holds it, just, with no economy loss other than that incurred by making lings. He could have lost, right there, if he'd mis-microed - but he didn't.
Terran pushes again with more marines. This time Bitter delays him while roaches pop and stops the attack. Again, it was a close thing and he nearly lost a vital queen - imagine Terran barracks had 100hp each and that's pretty much how vulnerable Zerg production is in the early game. Bitter advances on the Terran base, where there is still no expo, but can't get in because of the solid wall.
Next it's blueflame hellions, which manage to scoot by the forward roaches and cook a few drones before dying to more roaches and queens. Still nothing major accomplished, though.
Then Terran rolls in with four SCV-repaired Thors, with a fifth and sixth on the way. Could just as easily have been Banshees with cloak. They might even have been next on the menu if the Thors hadn't sealed the deal. There was no way Bitter could have seen which was coming, and it would be impossible to prepare for both.
At no point was Bitter even close to being able to put pressure back on his opponent. Literally his only chance to win that game would have come from surviving and denying the expo until the Terran mined out his main.
That is one-base aggression: throwing a hail of assorted shit at your opponent without a care in the world until he misses a beat and folds. If Zerg could do that, you can bet your ass they would be. And they do - or at least I do - in ZvZ. Maybe it's different elsewhere on the ladder but I really enjoy ZvZ: parrying lings and banelings with roaches, timing a roach/baneling attack on his speedling expand, feinting with mutas and then striking when he's blown gas on Hydra... it's short-bus stuff, no doubt, but fun because there isn't that insurmountable-seeming defender's advantage and ever-present threat of sudden unscouted game-ending tech making me huddle in my base fantasising about taking a third and getting a really big load of drones.
I'm sure you're right about Zerg players having a negative mentality. But that's because it's not been like playing Terran, where rushing for pretty much every imaginable tech has turned out to be an awesome strategy. "Let's try rushing for cloaked banshees - wow, he really can't deal with that, can he. Ok, blueflame hellion. Yep, that works. Let's try dropping them... yep, that works too. Reapers - ok, they're actually going to have to take that one off us because it's just too good. Let's do Vikings for a laugh; it can't possibly work, they can't even shoot air-to-ground.... hey look, he's supply-blocked. Ok, let's just rush one tech after another off one base... awesome!"
Don't get me wrong: I appreciate these builds have been really well refined and take skill to execute. But there's just so much that works. Compare that to Zerg's experience: "Ok, let's rush to... oh. He made marines/4-gated me so I'm dead. Guess I'll have to watch what he's doing, tech slowly and try to get ahead in economy." It's remarkable how often I see people on shows like the 12 weeks with the Pros saying "Ideally, you just want to do this with lings." It's like: "Yeah, lings are a bit samey after a while but at least you get a fuck of a lot of them."
I'm sure you're right: there will be great aggressive Zerg builds in there somewhere; builds that will give T and P pause. But they aren't the kind of big, obvious builds you get naturally channelled into, like 4-gate or 'Rush to X'. They'll be something that just seems stupid, like Ultra/Baneling vs mech, or something painfully precise like 'If you make exactly X drones, save Y larvae and build one spinecrawler at Z food, you can hold a 4-gate and punish a 3-gate expand.
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Of course not. His opponents didn't have the luxury of just fiddling their thumbs as they wait for warpgate to finish. He applied pressure, forced mistakes, distracted his opponent's attention.
In other words, he didn't just sit there hoping the best.
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On March 24 2011 10:09 Umpteen wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 15:49 lorkac wrote:
Why is that? Because Zerg don't all in. Why would Protoss or Terran ever worry about an early pool? They assume that it's just a different way for Zerg to macro up. They feel no pressure because it statistically never happens. I agree - just not with the reason you give, which is that Zerg players are so unimaginative that they've never tried playing aggressively. I just watched MrBitter play a game that illustrates the point beautifully. Terran 2-raxes, brings some marines and an SCV. Bitter holds it, just, with no economy loss other than that incurred by making lings. He could have lost, right there, if he'd mis-microed - but he didn't. Terran pushes again with more marines. This time Bitter delays him while roaches pop and stops the attack. Again, it was a close thing and he nearly lost a vital queen - imagine Terran barracks had 100hp each and that's pretty much how vulnerable Zerg production is in the early game. Bitter advances on the Terran base, where there is still no expo, but can't get in because of the solid wall. Next it's blueflame hellions, which manage to scoot by the forward roaches and cook a few drones before dying to more roaches and queens. Still nothing major accomplished, though. Then Terran rolls in with four SCV-repaired Thors, with a fifth and sixth on the way. Could just as easily have been Banshees with cloak. They might even have been next on the menu if the Thors hadn't sealed the deal. There was no way Bitter could have seen which was coming, and it would be impossible to prepare for both. At no point was Bitter even close to being able to put pressure back on his opponent. Literally his only chance to win that game would have come from surviving and denying the expo until the Terran mined out his main. That is one-base aggression: throwing a hail of assorted shit at your opponent without a care in the world until he misses a beat and folds. If Zerg could do that, you can bet your ass they would be. And they do - or at least I do - in ZvZ. Maybe it's different elsewhere on the ladder but I really enjoy ZvZ: parrying lings and banelings with roaches, timing a roach/baneling attack on his speedling expand, feinting with mutas and then striking when he's blown gas on Hydra... it's short-bus stuff, no doubt, but fun because there isn't that insurmountable defender's advantage and ever-present threat of sudden unscouted game-ending tech making me huddle in my base fantasising about taking a third and getting a really big load of drones. I'm sure you're right about Zerg players having a negative mentality. But that's because it's not been like playing Terran, where rushing for pretty much every imaginable tech has turned out to be an awesome strategy. "Let's try rushing for cloaked banshees - wow, he really can't deal with that, can he. Ok, blueflame hellion. Yep, that works. Let's try dropping them... yep, that works too. Reapers - ok, they're actually going to have to take that one off us because it's just too good. Let's do Vikings for a laugh; it can't possibly work, they can't even shoot air-to-ground.... hey look, he's supply-blocked. Ok, let's just rush one tech after another off one base... awesome!" Don't get me wrong: I appreciate these builds have been really well refined and take skill to execute. But there's just so much that works. Compare that to Zerg's experience: "Ok, let's rush to... oh. He made marines/4-gated me so I'm dead. Guess I'll have to watch what he's doing, tech slowly and try to get ahead in economy." It's remarkable how often I see people on shows like the 12 weeks with the Pros saying "Ideally, you just want to do this with lings." It's like: "Yeah, lings are a bit samey after a while but at least you get a fuck of a lot of them." I'm sure you're right: there will be great aggressive Zerg builds in there somewhere; builds that will give T and P pause. But they aren't the kind of big, obvious builds you get naturally channelled into, like 4-gate or 'Rush to X'. They'll be something that just seems stupid, like Ultra/Baneling vs mech.
it's too bad zerg's main form of midgame scouting isn't a detector that drops shapeshifters to allow him to scout 2-3 parts of the opponent's base at once. Otherwise, faking going mech with the blueflames hellions and not using the factories in favor of going banshees would be a stupid idea and people would know that blueflame hellions mean a techlabbed factory that doesn't have siege tech upgraded yet and hence the Terran is forced to make a Thor/scv all in with hellion support ala Boxer vs Zenio.
Yup yup, no way to see the thors coming. Nope.
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Overseers are too late to detect any one-base pressure. So calling them midgame scouters is accurate to the point that it completely negates your point.
Also, how blind do you have to be not to notice that one of "your" units isn't under your control?
It's meaningless to see thors and SCVs coming when you're trying to rebound from constant pressure. You're already deep into crisis mode from the previous rushes, and even perfectly executed recovery isn't going to get you into a good position. A few thors being repaired are gonna do their damage: perfect preparation only allows for them to soften, rather than kill, you.
This sort of pressure is what you saw with Losira in a bunch of his games, they allowed him to keep the entirety of the combat at the other base. It's really hard to lose a game when you're constantly making stuff and using it to hit the other guy at his place. The difference between Zerg and Losira and any douche with Terran is that Zerg needs the economic advantage, while Terran (or Protoss) can pull it off on one-base. So if a Zerg is executing one of these high-economy builds into heavy-pressure (the only way that you can maintain the pressure), and a T or P is going for a rush (be it marines or hellions, or cloak banshees, or anything), the Terran or Protoss is going to be ready way faster.
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On March 24 2011 12:35 Wren wrote:
Overseers are too late to detect any one-base pressure. So calling them midgame scouters is accurate to the point that it completely negates your point.
Also, how blind do you have to be not to notice that one of "your" units isn't under your control?
It's meaningless to see thors and SCVs coming when you're trying to rebound from constant pressure. You're already deep into crisis mode from the previous rushes, and even perfectly executed recovery isn't going to get you into a good position. A few thors being repaired are gonna do their damage: perfect preparation only allows for them to soften, rather than kill, you.
This sort of pressure is what you saw with Losira in a bunch of his games, they allowed him to keep the entirety of the combat at the other base. It's really hard to lose a game when you're constantly making stuff and using it to hit the other guy at his place. The difference between Zerg and Losira and any douche with Terran is that Zerg needs the economic advantage, while Terran (or Protoss) can pull it off on one-base. So if a Zerg is executing one of these high-economy builds into heavy-pressure (the only way that you can maintain the pressure), and a T or P is going for a rush (be it marines or hellions, or cloak banshees, or anything), the Terran or Protoss is going to be ready way faster.
Fine then. If I ever meet Losira I'll tell him he's a punk for being aggressive with zerg because zerg's only option is to 14hatch and whine if a 2rax shows up to apply pressure. I'll tell him Teamliquid doesn't believe his wins count because Zerg are only supposed to drone up and macro and never try more aggressive builds.
No problem man.
Oh, btw, Overseer is lair tech. The same tech you go after when going banelings/roaches in order for them to be fast enough to be actually useful against hellions/thors. Don't blame the race for the player's mistake of making too many drones and not teching enough.
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That's clearly nothing of what I've been saying. I'm saying he's had great success at being aggressive and hasn't had to try to counter the most aggressive T/P builds.
That's right, overseer is lair tech, midgame.
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Seems pretty obvious from first lines of OP text that he's heavily biased. What's the point in trying to say everything is balanced? Game is never completely balanced, and QQ about FF has a lot of ground. MC is great player, but I don't think he can win finals by that clear margin (only losing due to own mistake one game) if game is completely balanced.
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On March 24 2011 14:12 Wren wrote:
That's clearly nothing of what I've been saying. I'm saying he's had great success at being aggressive and hasn't had to try to counter the most aggressive T/P builds.
That's right, overseer is lair tech, midgame.
So you're saying his wins don't really count that much because no one has 4gated him?
(Thor is mid-late game tech btw (which is lower than merely midgame tech), it's Mr. Bitter's fault he didn't keep up with upgrades)
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On March 24 2011 14:21 Ouga wrote:
Seems pretty obvious from first lines of OP text that he's heavily biased. What's the point in trying to say everything is balanced? Game is never completely balanced, and QQ about FF has a lot of ground. MC is great player, but I don't think he can win finals by that clear margin (only losing due to own mistake one game) if game is completely balanced.
MC beating JulyZerg is not grounds for QQ about Forcefield. That's like QQing about Marines just because Boxer beat Kyrix.
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EPT
