On February 16 2012 02:12 SpecFire wrote: Goddamnit. MMA so unlucky, being sick in this GSL and jet lag in previous vs Oz.
Gahh. This was MMA's. Alive so lucky MMA was sick. MMA didnt play well at all
Go Jang Min Chul. MCMCMC
yea right....aLive 2-0ed GanZi and PuMa this week.
guess they were wearing a mask too, what a shame, aLive happens to meet players who are actually cursed....
*yawn*
Not trying to discredit Alive, I think he is a great player... but 2-0'ing Ganzi and Puma is not the same as beating MMA(Who many consider best Terran in the world right now!). I personally think MMA at his best > Alive at his best.
All that being said Alive did still play great and has a good chance to get to the finals or even win this season
MMA has best TvZ, but he can lose in a mirror to guys like Polt and aLive
his TvP is weaker than Gumiho, Polt or aLive I think.
Overall he is the second most successful Terran, no doubt, but how much more danage aLive and Gumiho can do the upcoming weeks or months remains to be seen....
Polt lost to creator prime ... i don't think mma's tvp is weaker than polts.
On February 15 2012 23:07 babylon wrote: Fnatic made such a good choice picking up aLive. What a beast.
Oh yeah...taking into account that his problem was consistency/nerves, it seems they picked him up at exactly the right time.
It really does seem as if a happy aLive is the deadliest aLive. He's been crushing through everything since he got off of TSL. I'm of a mind to just say that it shows how you don't really need to be on a Korean team a la BW era to do well, esp. given that MC and aLive (both on foreigner teams, with MC basically being a solo player) are just beasting their way through.
Pretty bad day, the games weren't that good. Artorsis hyped up Alive way too much. Puzzle played so crappy. MMA was sloppy but I guess he was sick. Gumiho is pretty good especially in game 1, just throwing units everywhere round after round like a Zerg lol.
On February 16 2012 02:12 SpecFire wrote: Goddamnit. MMA so unlucky, being sick in this GSL and jet lag in previous vs Oz.
Gahh. This was MMA's. Alive so lucky MMA was sick. MMA didnt play well at all
Go Jang Min Chul. MCMCMC
yea right....aLive 2-0ed GanZi and PuMa this week.
guess they were wearing a mask too, what a shame, aLive happens to meet players who are actually cursed....
*yawn*
Not trying to discredit Alive, I think he is a great player... but 2-0'ing Ganzi and Puma is not the same as beating MMA(Who many consider best Terran in the world right now!). I personally think MMA at his best > Alive at his best.
All that being said Alive did still play great and has a good chance to get to the finals or even win this season
MMA has best TvZ, but he can lose in a mirror to guys like Polt and aLive
his TvP is weaker than Gumiho, Polt or aLive I think.
Overall he is the second most successful Terran, no doubt, but how much more danage aLive and Gumiho can do the upcoming weeks or months remains to be seen....
Polt lost to creator prime ... i don't think mma's tvp is weaker than polts.
Polt's TvP isnt only better than MMA's TvP.
its A LOT of better than MMA's TvP.
yea, and he was also said to be " ill " that day, when he lost to Creator.
The usual Polt still stomps pretty much any Protoss, just look at his stats, man. They speak for themself.
On February 16 2012 00:53 FuzzyJAM wrote: I don't get why people, including Artosis, think game one of Alive v MMA was an "auto turret rush". Opening Raven is incredibly safe (good against Marauders and Banshees, the only real threat early game if you have a bunker and will be getting early siege mode) and leads into mech play very well by giving the potential for the much needed PDD and also giving air dominance straight off as you then start to produce Vikings. You can see the scan coming up just before the Raven finished, which led Alive to make a Banshee next (as opposed to a Viking) as he saw no Banshees would be coming. At that point, he killed a bunch of Marines almost for free as MMA was out of position and not paying enough attention, realised he had killed enough to just go kill MMA (already saw no bunker I believe, and if not he could always retreat), and proceeded to do so. He used all the units he had, including his Raven, whose only use against Marines is auto turrets. Not an auto turret rush, just a fairly normalish build (seen in the GSL multiple times) which was turned into an unlooked for early win with an attack capitalising on MMA's mistake. Not a "metagame shift" or whatever else, either.
I mean, I'm no pro player, but I think this analysis is pretty reasonable. If someone disagrees, I'd be interested to see why they think it really was an auto turret rush and more than willing to concede if there's something I've missed.
Anyway. . .overall not great semi-finals. Not awful either, but I hope tomorrow provides better games.
You do realize that there are people that all they do is listen to Artosis right?
Hah.
Well, yeah, I guess that's it. Still, you'd think some people would have noted Raven openings before considering they're not uncommon.
Alive's build looked really awesome and unique. It's not so much that he went for a Raven opening, it's the fact that he went for a Marine group with 1 Hellion then a Raven for auto-turrets, and attacked at a strange timing (when most people are either getting more Barracks like MMA, getting up their second Orbital or getting tech, eg Banshees).
I'm close to positive that attack was not intended at the start. It was a poke with his Marines/Hellion (not too unusual) which opened an opportunity to kill.
In game 1 imo, MMA just needed to play out as a ZvT in defending that Raven build. You have the worker advantage with a second Orbital Command when your enemy arrives at your base that early with a raven, helion, and marines. Pull a ton of scv's and stop it dead before it snowballs. The snowball already began with the first marines dying, but still, just pull a ton of workers like a zerg defending 2 rax. It really did feel like something he hasn't experienced before, but as Day[9] similarly mentioned on his recent TLO ZvT daily, you can rule things out based on the gas you see your enemy spend. That's probably why aLive's siege mode was so late, and there was a glimmer of home when MMA killed the one tank.
Game 3: I have no idea why MMA didn't keep his base safe with detection. He'd already scouted gas first and had a mineral advantage, other than losing 6 scv's. He took unnecessary risks, such as when his raven and viking were out of position to intercept the first banshee, but aLive happened to go from the northwest instead of the south.
Game 4--banshees again. MMA could have avoided most of that damage simply building 2 more turrets, one at the natural, and one more (third overall) in the main. He was ahead after defending that marauder rush. He showed that he likes to use as little as possible to keep his economy strong by using only 4 scv's for the surround of the marauder. After that, he was ahead and could easily afford to buy some extra missile turrets.
His scan of aLive's base showed the double gas and late CC. He seemed afraid that it was a 3rd CC and he needed to keep pace by playing greedy himself, but when he finished that engineering bay, I was sure that banshees wouldn't hurt as much as they did. The one turret he built seemed designed to prevent any scv damage by repelling the banshee, but people know that MMA will skimp on defense, or that it's at least worth checking out, and sure enough aLive found plenty of room to kill scvs outside of turret range. The follow up BFH drop was just icing on the cake. That alone wouldn't be huge, but after the 15 scvs killed by banshees, ouch.
In short, if MMA played safe, he probably would have won, at least if he wasn't sick. It would have been way more even.
Congrats to aLive, who is really good and probably deserves more fan love, but right now he's just November's Oz, which, among other things, means he's not a one hit wonder. He still has to win GSL or at least make a close finals, to deserve some of the Artosis hype that will probably happen during the ro4 and on SotG. On that note, Artosis made a reasonable excuse for Mvp after October GS: Blizzcon. If he can't do that for an obviously sick MMA, I'll be rather disappointed but not very surprised. I know he's a fan of safe play and MMA doesn't always play safe.
MMA's history is a winning/losing cycle, but it's generally been upward:
Team League Mvp Lose to HuK/MKP in up/downs Another Team league MVP + Columbus MLG champion 4-0'd by Polt in ST finals, get knocked out of code A by Puzzle 2nd place Anaheim MLG for code S beaten by Polt again in ro16, looking shaky once again October GSL over Mvp November loses ro8 to Oz Blizzard Cup, IEM Kiev, GSTL 3 wins ro8 loss to aLive
If history is any indication, MMA will lose a little bit more, then come back strong, or he'll just come back strong. I'm really depressed about his performance, but I will always cheer for him. This is just another opportunity to learn. I can see how if he hadn't seen that game 1 build before, he'd be busy thinking about it instead of making snap decisions like pulling most of his scv's to defend. Heck even if it took him only 30 seconds to figure out what was going on, that's more than enough time to lose, and I've been thinking about it for hours. That's the toughness of that level of competition, and of the game in general. It really was a great build for aLive, but I wonder how effective it will be if it becomes more known. According to someone moderating Boxer's stream chat, MMA may begin streaming now that GSL is over for him. I hope he quickly gets well.
On February 15 2012 23:07 babylon wrote: Fnatic made such a good choice picking up aLive. What a beast.
Oh yeah...taking into account that his problem was consistency/nerves, it seems they picked him up at exactly the right time.
It really does seem as if a happy aLive is the deadliest aLive. He's been crushing through everything since he got off of TSL. I'm of a mind to just say that it shows how you don't really need to be on a Korean team a la BW era to do well, esp. given that MC and aLive (both on foreigner teams, with MC basically being a solo player) are just beasting their way through.
I want to see aLive vs. Parting. ^^;
It's because, unlike BW, players nowadays don't just play with people on their teams. They might practice more intimately and cohesively, but if you are smart enough, you don't really need that so much. I guess there is also the added benefit for aLive and MC that players from different teams are willing to play with them because a) they are already damn good, b) they are well known/liked and are close to other people without being in a team, and c) they don't play in GSTL so there is no need to prepare as often for that player in particular - a small part of it, but still a factor.
Being in a team is still useful. You get motivation, routine, intimacy ( ), moral support, a stable working environment etc. But it isn't absolutely necessary for success.
On February 15 2012 23:07 babylon wrote: Fnatic made such a good choice picking up aLive. What a beast.
Oh yeah...taking into account that his problem was consistency/nerves, it seems they picked him up at exactly the right time.
It really does seem as if a happy aLive is the deadliest aLive. He's been crushing through everything since he got off of TSL. I'm of a mind to just say that it shows how you don't really need to be on a Korean team a la BW era to do well, esp. given that MC and aLive (both on foreigner teams, with MC basically being a solo player) are just beasting their way through.
I want to see aLive vs. Parting. ^^;
Well to be fair, both aLive and MC just recently left their respective Korean teams and they are still IN Korea with the very real benefits of playing on the KR Ladder (not a joke like EU/NA/SEA; Players such as MKP have said that they do practice alot on ladder) and playing with other pros as practice partners. Many players have said in interviews how they practice with many players including ones from other KR teams so it's not a stretch to assume that aLive and MC are still doing the same. I think we need to see where these 2 players are in a few months before making calls like that.
predicting SK and fnatic to build up super strong lineups and be the dominant teams like in Counter Strike.
Big teams like Samsung, KTF, SKT etc arent looking to be interested in making their moves at all, current SC2 Korean teams are so lacking of support and sponsors, it looks like the korean scene of WC3 (back in 2003-2006).
Good koreans want high salarys, it will be a natural step to join big international teams, unless big korean companys step into the scene this year.
On February 15 2012 23:07 babylon wrote: Fnatic made such a good choice picking up aLive. What a beast.
Oh yeah...taking into account that his problem was consistency/nerves, it seems they picked him up at exactly the right time.
It really does seem as if a happy aLive is the deadliest aLive. He's been crushing through everything since he got off of TSL. I'm of a mind to just say that it shows how you don't really need to be on a Korean team a la BW era to do well, esp. given that MC and aLive (both on foreigner teams, with MC basically being a solo player) are just beasting their way through.
I want to see aLive vs. Parting. ^^;
Well to be fair, both aLive and MC just recently left their respective Korean teams and they are still IN Korea with the very real benefits of playing on the KR Ladder (not a joke like EU/NA/SEA; Players such as MKP have said that they do practice alot on ladder) and playing with other pros as practice partners. Many players have said in interviews how they practice with many players including ones from other KR teams so it's not a stretch to assume that aLive and MC are still doing the same. I think we need to see where these 2 players are in a few months before making calls like that.
I think that being in Korea is a must, but I don't think that being on a Korean team is a must at this moment in time. aLive has, for whatever reason, been tearing a new one out of people ever since he left TSL (practicing with the same people he practiced with before, with the only difference being that he's finally off TSL which he's wanted for months now) and MC certainly isn't lacking for practice atm (and clearly he doesn't think being on a Korean team is worth ... well, not having a substantial salary for). I imagine if you have a good work ethic, there's no reason for you not to be on a foreigner team. The only thing you lose is presumably the coaching, which could be detrimental, but if you can analyze your replays and pinpoint your own weaknesses, then I think going to a foreign team is a good call.
GodofWar said that he thinks the scene's shaping up like what it was in the earlier years of War3 (before China really started destroying people) with the top-tier Koreans basically being supported by foreign teams, and I agree with him. The system's looking remarkably similar.
On February 16 2012 02:12 SpecFire wrote: Goddamnit. MMA so unlucky, being sick in this GSL and jet lag in previous vs Oz.
Gahh. This was MMA's. Alive so lucky MMA was sick. MMA didnt play well at all
Go Jang Min Chul. MCMCMC
yea right....aLive 2-0ed GanZi and PuMa this week.
guess they were wearing a mask too, what a shame, aLive happens to meet players who are actually cursed....
*yawn*
Not trying to discredit Alive, I think he is a great player... but 2-0'ing Ganzi and Puma is not the same as beating MMA(Who many consider best Terran in the world right now!). I personally think MMA at his best > Alive at his best.
All that being said Alive did still play great and has a good chance to get to the finals or even win this season
MMA has best TvZ, but he can lose in a mirror to guys like Polt and aLive
his TvP is weaker than Gumiho, Polt or aLive I think.
Overall he is the second most successful Terran, no doubt, but how much more danage aLive and Gumiho can do the upcoming weeks or months remains to be seen....
Polt lost to creator prime ... i don't think mma's tvp is weaker than polts.
Polt's TvP isnt only better than MMA's TvP.
its A LOT of better than MMA's TvP.
At the same time, Creator does have really good PvT
On February 16 2012 02:12 SpecFire wrote: Goddamnit. MMA so unlucky, being sick in this GSL and jet lag in previous vs Oz.
Gahh. This was MMA's. Alive so lucky MMA was sick. MMA didnt play well at all
Alive has shown much better play than MMA lately, and many predicted him to win. Absolutely no luck involved here.
MMA just recently won a GSL, Blizzcup, and IEM Kiev all in pretty dominating fashion, except Blizzcup. MMA also boasts the best TvZ in the world. How has alive been showing much better play when the farthest hes gotten is round of 8 and he proceeded to lose 3-0 to leenock?