On May 19 2012 03:38 CrazyBirdman wrote: @IntoTheWow: I already asked this in the Flash interview thread but it washed away but Protoss complains, so I take my chance here. Proleague seems to be very important in the BW scene, much more important than teamleagues in SC2. Was this always like that and what is more important, Starleague or Proleague? Personally I love teamleagues because they are great for rivalries and new rising stars as well. By the way, thanks for doing that, great initiative to bring the communitys together. I recently(a few month ago or so)I tried watching some BW and even though I did not really understood what was going on I enjoyed reading live reports(how surprising readable they are compared to the fast SC2 ones!) and trying to figure out what was going on.
Well, of course for any player, the biggest thing he can achieve is winning a Starleague (or 3 of them to get a golden mouse). But, that's not within reach for most players. There's few players that are really good in every match up and can go against several opponents to win it all.
Of course "flukes" occur and sometimes not so solid players get a starleague (Casy, Hydra, July for this third OSL).
Proleague gives not so well known players a place to make their mark. It also lets them lose nerves for playing live.
There's lots of stories about some players being very good at practice, but choking because of the live setup (sKyHigh for example. I think this was also the case for MC), so sometimes you see a new player being sent and losing on PL a lot. The coaches know is playing good on practice sessions and in-house tourneys, so that's sometimes a sign of talent. We could see some of that on the opening day: players not known for their BW career being sent in the first weeks would gives a way to measure their SC2 skill!
Going back to the question, I guess it mostly depends on the players and what he can expect from his career, so it's not sent on stone. Bisu has no OSLs, but he won MSLs and he's a monster in Proleague, for example, that doesn't make him bad.
Proleague means you can go against anything, any race, any player (thought you can sometimes guess who's coming out based on maps), while OSL means the most controlled environment in which 2 players can study and play each other, with predefined maps and order.
That's why you often see more prepared builds on single leagues, designed to counter another player's style. On proleague that doesn't happen as often, but it does happen a lot in ACE matches and during the playoffs.
Personally I like PL way more. It creates more stories and I get to see not so well known players, which I love!
On May 19 2012 03:32 Zealously wrote: @IntoTheWow: I've never really watched BW aside from a few Starleague games here and there and half a dozen-or-so Proleague games, so I'd appreciate anything you can give me. A short summarization of a few match-ups would be greatly appreciated, but your personal outlook on the upcoming season would be as well. I really want to try to get into BW here - , I don't believe I'll get any in-depth knowledge in time, but better now than never eh?
corumjhaelen's explanation is pretty much spot on.
I don't think we can't expect much evolving in this season, since with the Proleague merge, players have to divide their focus on practicing two different games, and I don't how much we can get from it.
We saw the most changes in:
TvT: Used to be more ground based, now there's more wraith+valkirie attacks being player in the lategame. TvZ: Mech transitions are way more common nowadays. PvZ: Changes in the use of corsair + zealot pushed to secure the Protoss third.
I forgot to mention that it wasn't always like that. Some time ago, single leagues were considered the most important thing hands down. And it still are to some point. When people compared players they usually go for trophies "X golds, Y 2nd finished", rather than "40 wins during proleague". But I guess that's because it's easier to name trophies as achievements than how much you helped your team during Proleague.
Except for Flash, he carried KT to victory too many times not to mention it. People often joke about how frustrated Flash is, because he wins every game, but still loses cause his teammates can't help him.
Same joke was done over and over for Jaedong, whose old team (Hwaseung OZ, now merged with MBC to form Team 8) featured him winning one match, and his team losing 1-3 for him.
Well seeing as samsung has the most wemade players and KT is already done I'll do the small preview on them.
Samsung KHAN The 2008 proleague champions and third place finishers last season samsung khan is a team to be feared, with an incredible one-two punch of stork and jangbi leading the way backed up wemade's "Fuck your anti team" duo of shine and roro and a nice supporting cast from the likes of grape, turn and reality they are a team who can beat anyone and have shown to be worthy of a proleague championship making them a team to always keep an eye on. + Show Spoiler [Key Players] +
Stork The most well known silver miner since yellow and incruit OSL champion he's been widely regarded at the number 2 protoss behind Bisu since the protoss revolution, his most well known matchup is PvT where he is often regarded alongside team mate jangbi to be the best PvT player in the land his other MU's are just as good with great PvP and PvZ which makes him a versatile player who is almost always samsung khan's ace alongside fellow protoss dragon jangbi JangBi The reigning OSL champion and fellow silver miner to stork his best match up is also PvT where he made his name from his strong usage of psi storm (For a SC2 comparison think parting, always nailing the storms which zone out the terran and maximise damage he can win battles in an absurd fashion using flawless storm placements) like stork he's strong in the other match ups and shares the role as team ace. Shine One of the most infamous zergs in BW, primarily notorious for his tendency to suddenly go all in and beat players who people think will curb stomp him in particular bisu where he's been knocked out of star leagues by 3 hatch hydra busts which inexplicably catch players off guard no matter how well known it is, his ZvZ is also some of the best out there with an excellent +60% ZvZ winrate being attributed to excellent muta control which makes mass muta wins another speciality of shine he may not be the first player you think of when you say a "good zerg" but he knows how to get the wins RorO The other WeMade zerg with shine, well known for being regarded as a bad player by the community and then destroying anti teams in the fantasy pro league by simply winning too damn much (Yet people never learn their lesson and roro continues to be high in anti team lists to this day), he's a much more solid and well rounded zerg than his WeMade counterpart despite a lower win rate, he's a player who many see on an upwards spiral closing out his last season on wemade with an epic victory over bisu that highlights his skill and despite his struggles at the start of the season he's still a zerg to be contended with and nowhere near your fantasy anti team. Grape Grape is a pretty good protoss, I don't have too much to write about him he's currently in the OSL RO16 and has a win notched up he's had his ups and downs making the MSL RO8 in the past but struggling to match that peak overall he's a pretty good player who you will probably see often ready to play his heart out and can take wins off good players when he wants to. TurN and Reality I decided to lump turn and reality together mostly because samsung's terrans aren't the most remarkable players out there, they're not trainwrecks or a massive liability but since firebathero left for air force ace terrans hasn't been a calling card for samsung, despite that both posted good results and have contrasting styles, reality is well... a terran he makes stuff, micros marines, sieges tanks and all that good stuff he gets the job done in a workmanship manner and at the end of the day victory is the most important thing. Turn on the other hand is a stranger card, to summarise him he's a terran who does not give a damn, he will kill best with marines as he damn well pleases his games aren't the cleanest but his scrappy play allows him to post the results he wants and if you enjoy funky borderline cheesy play turn is right up your alley, he doesn't play the cleanest or best game of starcraft but he plays a damn good one.
Wow this took much longer than I thought it would be I hope you guys enjoy this.
only addendum to above is that you should make a comment about supplies & upgrades in bw compared to sc2 (base expansion kind of covered in the descriptions above, but can clarify). A lot of sc2 people who watch bw will be all "zerg has 120 supply against terran 150? lol terran's way ahead" but that't not the case. Also in sc2 you compare economy by equal bases but bw it is entirely different. Economy and upgrade addendums (feel free to correct me; I'm not a high level player myself):
tvz: zerg pretty much doesn't reach max. They expand more than terran as they need few drones for minerals but need gas; on any resource counter you'll see a zerg floating a lot of minerals but have low gas because zerg's good units (Defilers, ultras, scourge, mutas even lurkers, upgrades) are gas intensive--it's not that they aren't macroing well. Typical is to see 2 base terran vs 3/4 gas zerg (and terran tries to take third base eventually). Zerg needs the third gas unless they are doing 2 base aggressive play. Zerg wants to fight position battles with swarm/lurkers/good muta control rather than sc2 zerg style by trying to overwhelm the terran with like 100 ling/baneling or 10 infestors + a lot of stuff (though they can do this early game with lots of lings/mutalisks or late game if they get ultra/ling/defiler).
Air upgrades for zerg are rarely gotten in zvt unless they plan to commit heavily to mutalisk. Terrans often try to get good map presence with 1/1 or 2/2 bio army and then switch to mech and upgrade that (partially since 5 carapace ultras are so strong, you need to have either denied gas well or have the stronger mech to fight ultras; ultralisks and defilers will beat a bio army easily if you didn't deny the zerg's gas well). Zerg wants carapace upgrades, but can choose if they want to get melee upgrades, range upgrades (for lurkers), or both depending how they want to play. If they are going ultra/ling they'll get melee, but if they want mainly lurker/defiler they can get range upgrades.
Zerg will generally want to go for 3/3/3. Terran will go like 1/1 or 2/2 for bio and then switch into mech and upgrade that to 3/3 with current metagame of faster mech transitions. They used to get 3/3 bio and do that everytime.
A popular build by flash taht is upgrade based now is 1 rax expo -> fast ebay (before academy) for +1 attack. The +1 attack finishes when 3 hatch muta arrives and you can fight them extremely well. Generally it's like a 1 rax expo -> ebay -> academy + reach 5 rax -> try to deny third gas/kill zerg with fast 1/0 and a lot of marines.
A more standard build is 1 rax expo -> academy first -> 4 rax with factory and starport. Make tanks and vessels and have 4 rax and play from there. Pretty much everyone goes 1 rax expo or like a 14cc (command center first). Some recent games have had fast science vessel rushes though, and sometimes people do "valkonic" play which is kind of rush the starport to get valkryies to killed mutalisks. Valkryies, like corsairs, do splash damage to air units and are extremely effective against the stacked mutalisks. All are 1 rax expo builds though. mech play from the start is rarer (especially not on these maps) and I doubt we will see 2 port wraith (analgous to 2 port banshee but infinitely more cool) as I don't think the progamers will be as confident in their micro for 2 port wraith as they have to constantly adjust between unit movement speeds between the two games. Also it's not as good for these maps.
pvz: the protoss wants a third gas. On a map like neo electric circuit you may see something like a best vs hoejja where best was completely owned despite having 3 bases: he only had 2 gas and a mineral only. Templars are gas intensive (As well as I guess getting up a fleet of corsairs/dragoons to fight lurker). A huge aspect is that observers will be sniped so that lurkers can contain protoss.
Protoss wants +1 attack immediately as zealots 2 shot lings (it's part of forge fast expand obviously). Often you will see 3/0/0 protoss army as attack is more important--you don't just get 1/1 then 2/2 then 3/3. Zerg I don't really now the upgrade situation, but carapace and ranged attack (for hydras/lurkers) is much more common than melee attack. Ling/defiler/ultra is used late game but most pvzs recently mainly revolve around lurker/hydra contains/plays. Plus lurker defiler works well.
Protoss sometimes gets +1 air attack for corsairs (especially if they go corsair reaver) and zerg often gets +1 air carapace so that overlord's don't die as fast and so that scourge can more easily snipe observers/corsairs/shuttles before dying. A lurker contain is hard to break out of as the zerg can snipe the observers.
pvt: protoss will expand more than the terran, as protoss's probes mine more minerals and they can afford to. You'll probably often see a 5 base protoss vs 3 base terran on the types of maps that are in bw gameplay (jade, neo electric circuit). Protoss just needs some gas for arbiter/templar tech and terran just needs enough gas to produce tanks. Dragoons/zealots and vultures are both mainly mineral intensive so it's not a clear distinction of "3 gas > 2 gas" or something. But protosses do want 3 gas for arbiter/templar tech unless they are rushing 2 base arbiter or carrier (rarer nowadays, and especially on such large maps as those that will be used).
Protoss pretty much only upgrades weapons, as shields/armor is kind of worthless to the firepower of tanks/mines. Terran will often do "2/1" pushes i.e. push out across the map when 2 attack and 1 armor is done for the mech army. If you see goliath vs carrier it is important for the goliaths to have 3 attack and 2 or 3 armor. Carriers are uncommon on these big open maps though (unfortunately won't see carriers much T_T).
protoss maxes faster than terran and remaxes faster. You often see recalls and stuff as the protoss will be willing to throw away units (with its 5 base mineral income) and repump units to overwhelm the defensive terran.
tvt: gas is the important factor in this matchup. Don't think "it's 5 base vs 3 base!" if it is 3 gas vs 3 gas. tvt people can probably get the jist of it as it is largely analagous (tank/vulture positioning battle into mass wraiths nowadays; sometimes dropship play). Just watch fantasy vs flash from proleague grand finals--it exhibits some wonkiness (especially as fantasy kind of ran into flash tank lines multiple times thinking he could just overpower flash) but shows positioning well and drop play vs wraith play. *edit* I'm going to throw in a comparison to leta vs flash from 2011 playoffs as it shows the more outdated goliath/battlecruiser type of play that has gotten pretty much completely replaced by mass wraith in the past year or so. You can see mass wraith vs battlecruiser/goliath again in the hiya highlight video thread in a game between flash and hiya, where hiya went mass wraith style. It's in the video and is also in the battle report by Bibbit (in the spoiler).
Armor upgrades are unimportant for tank, but the 2nd weapon upgrade (2/0) is critical as tanks 2 shot other tanks at that point. Since mass wraith transition is so much more popular these days than a ton of dropship play often you will see terrans players start to upgrade air weapons/armor earlier than they previously used to to prepare for the switch.
If a player is upgrading armor for mech (1/1 tanks -> 2/2 tanks) it may show they plan to use goliaths vs wraiths rather than go mass wraith themselves. Often you see 2/0 tanks. 3 armories often used to get like 3/0 ground units and 1/1 air units. 2/1 tanks still one shot each other so it's unimportant to get armor upgrades.
zvz: another gas matchup, but it's a pretty easy matchup to understand. Least dynamic matchup economy wise. There are ling battles and then there are mutalisk battles. You want the second gas to build mutalisks. A zerg with 2 gas >>> 1 gas.
Sometimes players get +1 air attack or defense. +1 air attack is more common if they want to kill scourge faster or if it's a zvz where the opponent made spore colonies. +1 carapace helps with big muta vs muta battle (which is what zvz is).
pvp: it's base vs base analogous afaik. 3 gas > 2 gas as you can get more templar/archons/reavers but speed zealots are always good, so being behind in gas you can just go a lot of speed zealots. You can make up being behind in resources with good shuttle play with reavers/storm drops.
Upgrades roughly analogous to sc2 (get 1/1 -> 2/2, etc). This matchup you can understand the economy most similar to "equivalent base, equivalent upgrades" as in sc2.
On May 19 2012 11:59 a176 wrote: I think it would be wise to have the BW Liquipedia strat pages open for the matches so you can follow along and understand some of the builds.
I will also try to give a general idea of the Matchups in Broodwar: TvT: Mechanic is the only way to play the matchup, it results into tank lines vs tank lines. Vultures are nice for harassment and early map control with mines, and goliaths (replaced by thors in sc2) protect tanks from either wraiths (like banshees but anti air is better than air to ground attack) or drops. TvT is usually a long match up, and late game involves lots of dropships or lately mass wraiths. TvP: Mechanic is also the standard way to play against lots of zealots and goons with arbiters and templars from the Protoss. Terran needs less bases and usually pushes from 3 base at around 160 supply. The Protoss has at that moment 4-5 bases and tries to disrupt Terran economy before he can push out, using reavers early game or other attacks like recalls mid to late game. What usually happens is that Terran kills the Protoss 1st army as Terran is much more cost effective, so it the game comes down whether the terran can shut down Toss production/economy before Toss can remax and kill Terran's army. Toss can also use carriers but it is not that common. TvZ. Terran usually expands early after the Zerg. Zerg goes quickly for mutas to contain the terran while getting his 3rd gas (which is really the key of zvt) and lurkers. Terran tries to tech fast to defend mutas, usually valkyries (aoe dmg) and vessels (using irradiate which is a aoe damage over time). Usually terran pushes with bio to pressure zerg and zerg stalls until he gets defilers and pushes back to take 4th with swarm. Terran meanwhile takes more expos and lately switches completely to mech. The match up is very back and forth. PvZ: Comes down to 2 base FFE vs 3 base. Protoss goes for sairs to scout while zerg gets scourge to defend. Zerg can opt to go for mutas and later into hydra/lurker or directly into the latter. The match up involves lots of multitasking from the Protoss to harass the Zerg, with reavers, zealots, DTs or storm drops and from the Zerg to defend those. Storms are what keeps the Toss alive, if there are no good storms, then Zerg can easily overrun with pure hydras. Thats why hydra busts are common (Bisu failing to one in the OSL prelims) + Show Spoiler +
T.T
PvP: Usually comes down to harass as well from storm drops and reavers. Reaver/shuttle micro is really important. This match up varies a lot because of the BOs from the players. Usually late game is goon/zealots/archon/templar with maybe reavers. ZvZ: Is probably the most luck base match up, usually there are 3 BOs which have and adv against the others. 9 pool >9 pool speed> 12 hatch> 9 pool. It is a very low economic match up i would say usually 9 drones per player. where the main units are lings, mutas ,scourge and drons ofc, it is very rare to see any other unit. usually there are lots of ling skirmishes early game and then later comes down to muta/scourge vs muta/scourge with whoever has better micro. It is really micro intensive, and the micro zergs are able to do is just stunning most of the times. Muta is common while the spore way (get expo + defend into most of the times mutas) is a bit less common. Hive ZvZ is nevertheless really entertaining but very rare.
On May 19 2012 12:20 Obelisco wrote: I will also try to give a general idea of the Matchups in Broodwar: TvT: Mechanic is the only way to play the matchup, it results into tank lines vs tank lines. Vultures are nice for harassment and early map control with mines, and goliaths (replaced by thors in sc2) protect tanks from either wraiths (like banshees but anti air is better than air to ground attack) or drops. TvT is usually a long match up, and late game involves lots of dropships or lately mass wraiths. TvP: Mechanic is also the standard way to play against lots of zealots and goons with arbiters and templars from the Protoss. Terran needs less bases and usually pushes from 3 base at around 160 supply. The Protoss has at that moment 4-5 bases and tries to disrupt Terran economy before he can push out, using reavers early game or other attacks like recalls mid to late game. What usually happens is that Terran kills the Protoss 1st army as Terran is much more cost effective, so it the game comes down whether the terran can shut down Toss production/economy before Toss can remax and kill Terran's army. Toss can also use carriers but it is not that common. TvZ. Terran usually expands early after the Zerg. Zerg goes quickly for mutas to contain the terran while getting his 3rd gas (which is really the key of zvt) and lurkers. Terran tries to tech fast to defend mutas, usually valkyries (aoe dmg) and vessels (using irradiate which is a aoe damage over time). Usually terran pushes with bio to pressure zerg and zerg stalls until he gets defilers and pushes back to take 4th with swarm. Terran meanwhile takes more expos and lately switches completely to mech. The match up is very back and forth. PvZ: Comes down to 2 base FFE vs 3 base. Protoss goes for sairs to scout while zerg gets scourge to defend. Zerg can opt to go for mutas and later into hydra/lurker or directly into the latter. The match up involves lots of multitasking from the Protoss to harass the Zerg, with reavers, zealots, DTs or storm drops and from the Zerg to defend those. Storms are what keeps the Toss alive, if there are no good storms, then Zerg can easily overrun with pure hydras. Thats why hydra busts are common (Bisu failing to one in the OSL prelims) + Show Spoiler +
T.T
PvP: Usually comes down to harass as well from storm drops and reavers. Reaver/shuttle micro is really important. This match up varies a lot because of the BOs from the players. Usually late game is goon/zealots/archon/templar with maybe reavers. ZvZ: Is probably the most luck base match up, usually there are 3 BOs which have and adv against the others. 9 pool >9 pool speed> 12 hatch> 9 pool. It is a very low economic match up i would say usually 9 drones per player. where the main units are lings, mutas ,scourge and drons ofc, it is very rare to see any other unit. usually there are lots of ling skirmishes early game and then later comes down to muta/scourge vs muta/scourge with whoever has better micro. It is really micro intensive, and the micro zergs are able to do is just stunning most of the times. Muta is common while the spore way (get expo + defend into most of the times mutas) is a bit less common. Hive ZvZ is nevertheless really entertaining but very rare.
@Pokebunny, maybe those can help?, edit: ugh, clicked post instead of edit
I posted mine in the OP, tell me what you think or if there are any inaccuracies in what I wrote. Overall it seems pretty similar, although I focused more on bio tvz than mech.
EPT
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Terran Strategy
