EPT[IEM 2021] Katowice World Championship - Championship Sund…
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Slydie
1930 Posts
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Beelzebub1
1004 Posts
This in a nutshell, don't get me wrong I stand by my statement that I'm not totally sold on these 2 gate passive SG openers but no matter how good the strategy is if you are predictable and getting read like a book then it's probably not going to go well for you. | ||
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onPHYRE
Bulgaria923 Posts
On March 01 2021 20:54 MarianoSC2 wrote: - Yes, it was very surprising Zest took 2 maps with ping/lags in ZvP BO7 played at 5AM while already staying up all night. All the more BO7 finals in big tournaments always being easy walk overs for Zerg - Not on purpose, it was obvious his shoulder started to hurt, his macro was slowing down and his decision making was very poor in the last 3 series. Reynor was lucky to have those wins gifted to him by Maru and circumstances - Yes, all of them displayed much better play than Reynor who got into the finals with 17:11 map score and was extremely lucky to scrape through some of the wins on numerous occasions. Even against Stats he was not the better player and Stats should have won game 4. But somehow against Reynor all these top players screwed up big time in decisive moments. That is on them, not Reynor being the best. Do you remember how Serral won Blizzcon? Even I had to admit there that he was the best player in the world and dominated everyone by quite a big margin. But here, this, it was nothing but a fluke, sorry... I can’t dignify anything you said with an actual response - I’ll leave that to other people as nothing you wrote above is even worth me wasting energy on. I will say that if this was a troll attempt you could have done much better (and I pray it was). | ||
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Swisslink
2954 Posts
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26265 Posts
On March 01 2021 14:11 Teoita wrote: Cheers  Also I'll add that going by Aligulac (so take with a grain of salt ofc), PvZ win rate this month was just over 53%. That's the highest it's ever been since February 2011, right before the dreaded infestor buff. Since that buff, there have only been two months when the win rate was above 50%: December 2018 and February 2019. Which is why I still think that The Great Book of Protoss Bullshit is the finest article I've ever written.The finest article ever written full stop. Good breakdown of the 2 SG build up there and it’s relative flexibility vs other openers by the way. Shame TL Strategy isn’t too active these days but I can understand why that’s the case. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26265 Posts
On March 01 2021 23:55 Slydie wrote: I saw a bit of Lambo's stream, and it was super interesting! It is not often you get to hear why winning a championship is actually a team effort. In chess, it is the same thing. Reynor is a fantastic executioner, but his team did a lot of work in analyzing his opponents, coming up with counter strategies and scrim. Maybe the format was good for Reynor, he could prepare, but not pro-league style, which the Koreans do better. His opponents seemed to be pretty predictable. That was a fascinating stream with some good insight, Reynor had a veritable team of both coaches and practice partners behind him. Alas my question either wasn’t seen or ignored but I was curious if Europe’s other contingent were part of this practice group or did something similar. Definitely seemed a real concerted effort to bring the championship back into European hands, certainly via Reynor but possibly just via whoever too. | ||
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MyLovelyLurker
France756 Posts
On March 02 2021 01:03 WombaT wrote: That was a fascinating stream with some good insight, Reynor had a veritable team of both coaches and practice partners behind him. Alas my question either wasn’t seen or ignored but I was curious if Europe’s other contingent were part of this practice group or did something similar. Definitely seemed a real concerted effort to bring the championship back into European hands, certainly via Reynor but possibly just via whoever too. This, I wish Lambo's stream yesterday and Elazer's today were required viewing before posting here. Literally you could hear Reynor today in a replay going 'Zest went full Zest' ad-lib about attacking style - everything has been thoroughly analyzed, dissected and prepared for. The 'bUt iT's tHe pInG' or 'KoReAnS dIdNt cArE' low-info takes look all the sillier after that, and Reynor's victory all the more deserved and logical, in light of such teamwork. | ||
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fLyiNgDroNe
Belgium4041 Posts
On March 02 2021 01:24 MyLovelyLurker wrote: This, I wish Lambo's stream yesterday and Elazer's today were required viewing before posting here. Literally you could hear Reynor today in a replay going 'Zest went full Zest' ad-lib about attacking style - everything has been thoroughly analyzed, dissected and prepared for. The 'bUt iT's tHe pInG' or 'KoReAnS dIdNt cArE' low-info takes look all the sillier after that, and Reynor's victory all the more deserved and logical, in light of such teamwork. Yes, would be cool if TL make a featured post about this with links to VODs of both Lambo's and Elazer's streams for people to fact check their hypothesis which they sell as facts. Wishful thinking this called, right? | ||
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Athenau
571 Posts
On March 02 2021 00:23 Beelzebub1 wrote: "His opponents seemed to be pretty predictable." This in a nutshell, don't get me wrong I stand by my statement that I'm not totally sold on these 2 gate passive SG openers but no matter how good the strategy is if you are predictable and getting read like a book then it's probably not going to go well for you. I dunno, the dynamic of "P and T have to keep coming up with new ways to force aggression and the Z has to keep coming up with ways to defend, but if there's no aggression or the aggression is defended Z is hugely ahead" seems pretty unfair to me at this point. The fact that Zerg gets such a big advantage in a passive game, especially with these new super-high drone-count styles feels untenable long term. It's even worse because the mass queen defense covers such a huge range of aggressive openers and can immediately transition into explosive droning + creep spread once the aggression is over. TvZ has been even or Z favored for the past year, and has dropped as low as 46.51%. PvZ has been Z favored for 10 out of the last 12 months. http://aligulac.com/misc/balance/ | ||
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[PkF] Wire
France24238 Posts
On March 02 2021 01:24 MyLovelyLurker wrote: This, I wish Lambo's stream yesterday and Elazer's today were required viewing before posting here. Literally you could hear Reynor today in a replay going 'Zest went full Zest' ad-lib about attacking style - everything has been thoroughly analyzed, dissected and prepared for. The 'bUt iT's tHe pInG' or 'KoReAnS dIdNt cArE' low-info takes look all the sillier after that, and Reynor's victory all the more deserved and logical, in light of such teamwork. wholeheartedly agree, and yes fantastic insight into high level sc2 | ||
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dbRic1203
Germany2655 Posts
On March 02 2021 02:14 Athenau wrote: I dunno, the dynamic of "P and T have to keep coming up with new ways to force aggression and the Z has to keep coming up with ways to defend, but if there's no aggression or the aggression is defended Z is hugely ahead" seems pretty unfair to me at this point. The fact that Zerg gets such a big advantage in a passive game, especially with these new super-high drone-count styles feels untenable long term. It's even worse because the mass queen defense covers such a huge range of aggressive openers and can immediately transition into explosive droning + creep spread once the aggression is over. TvZ has been even or Z favored for the past year, and has dropped as low as 46.51%. PvZ has been Z favored for 10 out of the last 12 months. http://aligulac.com/misc/balance/ Maru smashed Reynor in the first two maps, where he played super passive turtle style, despite massive mid game leads by the Zerg. Did you even watch the games? | ||
Poopi
France12909 Posts
On March 02 2021 06:13 dbRic1203 wrote: Maru smashed Reynor in the first two maps, where he played super passive turtle style, despite massive mid game leads by the Zerg. Did you even watch the games? Well deciding to do a 100 drones game on a map with such low bases count against the best defender in the world is probably a bad idea, no wonder it went wrong. | ||
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Athenau
571 Posts
On March 02 2021 06:13 dbRic1203 wrote: Maru smashed Reynor in the first two maps, where he played super passive turtle style, despite massive mid game leads by the Zerg. Did you even watch the games? Yes, I watched those two games. I would definitely not call those two games a "smashing", in game one it was Reynor repeatedly headbutting Maru's ghosts, tanks and planetaries until he ran out of money. There was no need to play that way, he had complete freedom to do what he wanted after his midgame, and that Terran style is pretty exploitable by a earlier broodlord transition, see Serral vs Byun in TSL6 or Maru vs Solar earlier in the tournament (where Solar had the game won until he derped and got his entire army nuked). In game two Reynor did transition, but it was after he'd already traded way worse and Maru had split the map. There was also the pretty significant period after Reynor had his 5th sniped where they were on equal bases. I don't think this is going to be the typical way this scenario gets played out in the future. Regardless, the "massive midgame lead" is the problem. If the T/P doesn't do damage early on or decides to play passive, they have to resign themselves to playing from behind and hope they can grind out a win in the lategame. This is not a healthy dynamic. I think both the ghost/tank style and the P air deathball will be figured out at some point and then shit will hit the fan. | ||
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[Phantom]
Mexico2170 Posts
Lurkers have insane damage per second, and are hard to kill because both the damage they deal and the range they have. This makes them very cost efficient, in a race that was supposed to not be cost efficient. It worked in BW but that was a different game. Here are the supposed disadvantages or drawbacks of the lurker. It's costly. Has to burrow to attack this should make it inmobile. Since they can't move while burrowed you can go around them. Since they can't move AoE or other siege units are good against them. They stack in a narrow line so that you can split and deal with them easier. Here's how it works in reality: Zerg has gotten so much better at defending and getting 90 drones that the cost is not a problem. Furthermore they are so cost efficient that they pay themselves very easily allowing you to mass other things or easily transition. They are very mobile. Excuse me if I'm wrong but they are the second fastest ground zerg unit after the zerlgling, aren't they? This enables you to reposition them easily. You cannot "move around them" because conveniently they have a range upgrade that ensures that no matter where you come from, they can cover a base or a position in the map. They are good against Protoss siege units because they have such a high dps, and such a high range with the upgrade, that they kill any Protoss siege and aoe unit before they die. In terms of costs effectiveness lurkers counter every single ground Protoss unit. Their narrow aoe is not a drawback because units clump much more in StarCraft 2 than in BW and Protoss units are relatively bad if they split. They do need to burrow to attack which takes time making them vulnerable. Good thing there's an upgrade that makes burrow basically instant. So, in general I think the lurker in it's current form shouldn't be a zerg unit, they are too cost efficient for that. But ok they need siege they need aoe it's ok. But the two upgrades? It seems someone at blizzard was like: how can a lurker be countered? Some siege units can outrange it? You can go through another side taking advantage of the fact they would need to reposition? They take time burrowing so you can catch them off guard? Well let's make them super fast, have incredible range and be able to burrow instantly. It's as if someone took a look at the HT, a unit that's completely fine, and went "what are their drawbacks" and then made them have an upgrade that makes them very fast and start with full energy. Doesn't make any sense. Teotia already explained some of why pros go Stargate, I'll add to it: if they get lurkers and you have not started your transition to mass air, you just lose. Stargate is good because many zerg units don't hit air and that gives you some form of map control. If you mix that with aoe you might have just enough to survive the mid to get to the lategame. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26265 Posts
When compared to tanks especially, which clearly have disadvantages in that they are slow to deploy/disengage and deal friendly splash. You only have to look at how they're used in games, it's not just zoning and being defensively strong units, they're fast enough in both movement and burrowing that the likes of Reynor run them right into Terran armies and burrow at their feet and it still works. That just feels a bit bonkers, even if on a balance sense they're actually OK in vT I think, Terran benefit from splitting in a way Protoss armies tend not to and Terran have tools to punish stray lurkers from range with tanks and ghosts. Protoss on the other hand suffer from the aforementioned lack of punchy DPS and by (generally) how bad Protoss armies are when splitting. Terran can hit you all over the place so you have you split your army accordingly, vs Protoss outside of Zealot warpins you can babysit your lurkers with your main, generally much larger force and approach the Toss player who's camping with a few batteries and just siege them up. Then you have a unit that basically outranges and outdamages breathing down your neck that has almost no weaknesses if played competently against anything Protoss has on the ground. I mean it burrows and moves so quickly it's difficult to even punish really badly controlled lurkers or misrallied ones. Even after a resounding Protoss engagement Lurkers can actually flee pretty damn quickly too! It's as much down to the long-standing dynamics of how PvZ works as it is the unit itself. I don't think it's lack of real weaknesses is a particularly big deal in vT or Zerg mirror because in those matchups both players will tend to have equivalent supplies and there's a lot of skirmishing all over the map. PvZ you're initially doing something to slow the Zerg and if you're not doing a push you don't want much army on the map and it gets to that phase where you're trying to hold a maxed push at a pretty sizeable supply deficit around one of your bases. In that scenario the lurker really comes into its own, if you can get it and the rest of your army in a good position when you're pushing it's really, really difficult to dislodge it. | ||
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Kitai
United States880 Posts
On March 01 2021 22:41 Harris1st wrote: ROFL - Both players have the same ping - That's why Maru said in his interview that he feels good and has no pain - They were better so they lost. Makes total sense You are absolutely ridiculous EDIT: You forgot to mention that this was a holiday tournament and Koreans don't really care about it  Lol. He also forgot to mention that Maru, Zest, and Dark were all hiding their best builds for GSL. Obviously. Oh, and Zest found out in the middle of the final that his friend's mother's co-worker's niece's bus driver died so he was devastated and distracted for the last few games. | ||
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Beelzebub1
1004 Posts
I think an Adaptive Talon nerf would be appropriate, or a slight reduction in range on Seismic Spines. | ||
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Harris1st
Germany7089 Posts
Terran has Ghost, Tanks, Libs and Scan. Picking off Lurkers should not be that hard. Protoss has Disruptors and Tempest. Maybe the transition should be base more about that and not directly Storm/ Carrier if the Zerg goes (mass) Lurker. 4(5?) Tempest are cheap, build fast, move fast and can one-shot Lurkers. I always feel Protoss make themselves particular vulnerable when switching from mostly ground directly to Carrier About the finals: Well, obviously gateway units suck against Lurkers. Yes even 30+ Zestlots from different directions. Thats like attacking with mass Zergling against Archons. They don't care In hindsight I feel Parting would have been the stronger PvZ player and made the finals way more thrilling | ||
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12129 Posts
On March 02 2021 01:24 MyLovelyLurker wrote: This, I wish Lambo's stream yesterday and Elazer's today were required viewing before posting here. Literally you could hear Reynor today in a replay going 'Zest went full Zest' ad-lib about attacking style - everything has been thoroughly analyzed, dissected and prepared for. The 'bUt iT's tHe pInG' or 'KoReAnS dIdNt cArE' low-info takes look all the sillier after that, and Reynor's victory all the more deserved and logical, in light of such teamwork. I would rather love to see a proper pro analyzation of why every world champion in the past almost 4 years is a zerg. What lead to the zerg victories. What changed in the meta/map pool/balance, that lead to other players not being able to take the victory. Sure, we can speculate all days long, but we';re not high level enough. Why is everybody avoiding this theme, it's an interesting topic to be tackled. One race rules the game highest tournaments - it doesn't seem to be a balance issue, it's not that one player is dominating all the time. Why zergs? Edit> if they like this theme, the next one can be Terrans & Code S Edit 2> if the past 7 Champions League winners would be 5 teams from England, everybody and their mother would try to analyze why is that. (I know that most of the titles went to Spain, but 2 clubs) On March 02 2021 17:18 Harris1st wrote: Dunno about Lurkers Terran has Ghost, Tanks, Libs and Scan. Picking off Lurkers should not be that hard. Protoss has Disruptors and Tempest. Maybe the transition should be base more about that and not directly Storm/ Carrier if the Zerg goes (mass) Lurker. 4(5?) Tempest are cheap, build fast, move fast and can one-shot Lurkers. I always feel Protoss make themselves particular vulnerable when switching from mostly ground directly to Carrier About the finals: Well, obviously gateway units suck against Lurkers. Yes even 30+ Zestlots from different directions. Thats like attacking with mass Zergling against Archons. They don't care In hindsight I feel Parting would have been the stronger PvZ player and made the finals way more thrilling Ghost isn't a reliable counter IMO. Same range as hive lurkers, damage breaks the ability. Doesn't one shot lurkers(IIRC). | ||
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Slydie
1930 Posts
The results were almost a bit too balanced! If some matchup is not interesting to watch is a different issue. | ||
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