[GSL 2019] Season 2 - Quarterfinals Day 1 - Page 18

On June 06 2019 09:15 sudete wrote:
The funniest thing that is being said is that inno played perfectly. He was way cleaner in those alphaX and olimoleague games against classic (5-1) and trap (3-1). I guess online inno is beyond perfect now

On June 06 2019 08:41 Anc13nt wrote:
Honestly, I don't think Protoss is that op. It's more like Zerg and Protoss are strong while Terran is bad. Terran was great in 2017 but PvT has been bad for Terran since 2018. Zerg never did well in GSL so I wouldn't blame poor Zerg performance purely on balance. If Maru didn't exist, Terran would be so bad it's hilarious whereas Protoss without Stats and Zerg without Dark would suffer badly but would still have a few top players.

On June 06 2019 13:50 ZigguratOfUr wrote:


Why do you think Zerg is strong? If you look solely at this GSL and other recent results PvZ seems harder for zerg than PvT is for terran.

On June 06 2019 14:42 Anc13nt wrote:


honestly, I'm mainly basing it off of Aligulac stats. Korean zerg have been historically at GSL so I don't think it's the best indication of zerg doing bad. In WESG and IEM they are still doing fine. Also, while WCS is not as competitive, I think foreign zerg like Reynor and Serral are at a comparable skill level with other Korean zerg so if you include the foreigners into the discussion of racial balance, the zerg race gets the biggest boost. Rogue might have fallen off but there's still Dark, soO and Serral (maybe also Reynor) doing very well. Whereas for terran only top 10 player I'd argue is Maru. Gumiho, TY and Inno are still good but i'm reluctant to consider them as top 10 players.

Overall, I admit Zerg is only doing ok whereas Protoss is doing the best so I will walk back on saying both Zerg and Protoss are strong. I still believe the balance isn't much worse than 2017 when terran dominated or in 2018 when zerg seemed to be the best race overall.

On June 06 2019 08:41 Anc13nt wrote:
Honestly, I don't think Protoss is that op. It's more like Zerg and Protoss are strong while Terran is bad. Terran was great in 2017 but PvT has been bad for Terran since 2018. Zerg never did well in GSL so I wouldn't blame poor Zerg performance purely on balance. If Maru didn't exist, Terran would be so bad it's hilarious whereas Protoss without Stats and Zerg without Dark would suffer badly but would still have a few top players.

On June 06 2019 16:21 deacon.frost wrote:

Yeah, when the qualifiers have mostly zergs then it looks like zergs are doing fine(WESG). The next time we can use some Zerg weekly - look, Zerg won, everything's fine.

FYI The last international result with Koreans allowed made Reynor place 29-36 at Katowice. He's not exactly the good Zerg you're looking for in the terms of comparison to Koreans considering soO won the whole thing and how far Dark & Solar get. Maybe in the future when he's more stable in the result department.

Zerg is underrepresented in the Korean competition for more than 2 seasons. And the Terrans were underrepresented recently too but since MAru was winning Code S titles nobody cared. The game isn't balanced, if you don't play enough PvT the numbers can pretend they're balanced.

If you go from the premise the game is balanced then there should be equal-ish balance of players. And sorry not sorry, but if you would name to many people some of the RO16 Protosses and over whom they advanced many people would tell you it's impossible.

It's not just maps(previous map pool was very anti-terran), it's the game desibgn and balance. Aligulac isn't allpowerful tool. And you're rather to dismiss good players as being bad and bad players as miraculously getting good than going into - something is wrong? Seriously? Even when you look at the state of the current PvZ? (also WCS doesn't have that good Protosses so it may shift the global numbers)

Edit> Also I don't know what were Zergs historically at GSL, but let me introduce to soO with his multiple final appearances in a row which was just quite recently beaten by Maru. It held for years... He is zerg. So I guess historically they were strong?

On June 06 2019 22:28 Moonerz wrote:
One of the weirdest things to me is that Zest and Stats arguably two of the best Toss to ever do it haven't made any results this year (in Korea).

Without a league like Proleague giving us constant games it is so hard to get an accurate picture of what is really going on in terms of balance.

On June 06 2019 16:37 Tyrhanius wrote:

Zerg didn't do well in GSL, mostly because the area where they were strong were really short, and didn't last enough for a GSL.

For example, Rogue had good results with hydras, but they split them again before he could reach GSL finals.

Same with drop overlord, they nerfed it a few days before the semi-final of the GSL, an both zerg were eliminated. Nyndus nerf happenned really fast, etc...

On the meantime, it took age to have the proxy reaper nerf, and Byun eliminated Dark twice during this area. Could he have done that without reapers ? I doubt it.

After, they reworked tanks, and started the Innovation area. Also TY, and gumiho did great this time, actually the best result of their carrer, as they never won a premier tournament before.

And after, Maru domination started, and Maru could enjoyed the mass raven enough to win a GSL. It got nerfed, but he got buffs to other things. And the strange part is where was Maru when Byun, Innovation, gumiho were winning if he were that good ?

It looks like that some Terran have some prefered playstyle and depending on the meta/balance one different terran performed.
But zerg on the other side have never got a period of time long enough where they can enjoy "to be OP", like T did.

Also there is the Serral effect, where you see balance team nerfing zerg in order to lower the gap between Serral and other players in the foreigner scene.

So sure, when the best T Serral usually fight is uthermal or special, or the best P protoss Neeb or showtime, nerfing zerg doesn't seem to affect much Serral results.

But when Dark/soo fight Innovation/Maru, or Classic/Stats, it's way different, and it makes kor Zerg impossible to compete vs P/T in korea because they're no such a skill gap like between Serral and the foreigners players.

On June 06 2019 22:28 Moonerz wrote:
One of the weirdest things to me is that Zest and Stats arguably two of the best Toss to ever do it haven't made any results this year (in Korea).

Without a league like Proleague giving us constant games it is so hard to get an accurate picture of what is really going on in terms of balance.

On June 06 2019 21:22 Wombat_NI wrote:

In theory yes, if Korea had a more vibrant scene with new blood and new talent coming through. Some people will say that and be wrong and would have you think all these long standing title winning Protoss players with good pro league records all suck and Protoss their opponents.

Distribution isn’t that terrible at the Ro32 anyway, but for it to be good down the line Terrans really need their ‘big 4’ to all be in shape at the same time, which never seems to happen, or have some of the next tier of Terrans have really good runs and a few of the big guys to be in shape.

There’s nothing that really stands out reading over the results and having watched the games as crazy, Patience coming out first and Rogue and Ty losing first on paper yeah but they seemed reasonably watching how everyone played on the day.

Protoss are a daunting gauntlet to run for sure though, it’s also the most varied race in styles by a distance. Cure is kind of like Maru, just a bit worse (who isn’t?), Patience does not play like Stats but worse, it’s like playing two totally different players. So groups with multiple Protoss become really difficult to prep for.

PvZ seems to have the most actual issues, or at least has the most underwhelming matches, but I don’t see how you fix those without making Zerg just straight up too strong. Classic has been winning vZs these last two seasons vs good Zergs with really tight prepped builds to the maps laid out in advance. If Zergs can more reliably play reactively against the tightest prepped builds, or even worse be blindly safe to most, then the less tight versions that don’t cut every corner you see in weekenders they’ll absolutely crush those.

I’d absolutely like things to be more competitive and have Zergs break their GSL duck for sure, I’m just wary of making them too outright strong.

On June 07 2019 01:15 deacon.frost wrote:

Stats got 2nd place at IEM? And this season the group of death. Also it seems the cheesy toss is on a rise more than standard toss.

Not sure what happened to Zest, maybe he stopped taking SC2 seriously? But his fall from the top is a long term thing now.


The fact that ZErgs in Korea are punished because of WCS split - that's accepted.

The issue is when good players are defeated by players who are worse and it's not just one loss. It was seen at IEM. It was seen at ST. It was seen at Code S. Yes, it doesn't seem as Protoss being OP but at the same time it appears as it's mostly Protoss who gets the benefit. So there is an issue, the question is how to fix and where it is.

And Terran numbers are not good at any competition. Sure, Maru may have fallen asleep on his money, but TY? Gumi? Inno? Every Terran gone bad at the same time? What a coincidence (I don't believe in coincidence that much)

On June 07 2019 07:33 Need wrote:
Jesus Christ that soO vs Classic series... Protoss is just bullying Zerg at this point. Did Classic even take a third in the entire series?