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Captain Peabody
United States3128 Posts
Zest gave us the most frustrating Protoss performance in years, but his ability to keep at it and keep getting in people's heads and keep winning was pretty unbelievable. gj for him also. Just a really good tournament imo and all the more impressive given the poor conditions of online play. | ||
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12129 Posts
On March 03 2021 07:16 Slydie wrote: This has to be one of the worst tournaments to use as an argument for balance changes. Zerg was the least represented race in the RO24 lineup (6Z, 7P, 9T), and the race split stayed close to perfect throughout the playoffs. The results were almost a bit too balanced! If some matchup is not interesting to watch is a different issue. At this moment if* the game is not balanced it affects IMO less than 10 people in the world. For the rest the game looks pretty balanced. So that's why I personally would love to see pros tackling the fact about the amount of zerg WC titles. *And that's a pretty big if. (I honestly don't think it's a balance issue, IMO it is a design issue) Not sure if actually anyone reasonably accused the balance of the game, but I haven't read all the posts. | ||
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Captain Peabody
United States3128 Posts
On March 03 2021 08:20 deacon.frost wrote: At this moment if* the game is not balanced it affects IMO less than 10 people in the world. For the rest the game looks pretty balanced. So that's why I personally would love to see pros tackling the fact about the amount of zerg WC titles. *And that's a pretty big if. (I honestly don't think it's a balance issue, IMO it is a design issue) Not sure if actually anyone reasonably accused the balance of the game, but I haven't read all the posts. I think the main thing I took away from this tournament is that play and styles and builds in most major matchups are still pretty unstable and far from figured out, even at the very top. We're not in a jaedong-flash bw meta. it is I think pretty clear tho by this point that the races really do favor different types of play and players, and that divergence is only gonna get larger over time. I think what I really would like to see is more attempts at map balancing now that it seems like we won't be seeing frequent patches any more. ofc that assumes that someone can figure out a way to get the map pool updated. | ||
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12129 Posts
On March 03 2021 09:05 Captain Peabody wrote: I think the main thing I took away from this tournament is that play and styles and builds in most major matchups are still pretty unstable and far from figured out, even at the very top. We're not in a jaedong-flash bw meta. it is I think pretty clear tho by this point that the races really do favor different types of play and players, and that divergence is only gonna get larger over time. I think what I really would like to see is more attempts at map balancing now that it seems like we won't be seeing frequent patches any more. ofc that assumes that someone can figure out a way to get the map pool updated. What balancing? And how will you get these map on the ladder?  | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26703 Posts
On March 03 2021 08:20 deacon.frost wrote: At this moment if* the game is not balanced it affects IMO less than 10 people in the world. For the rest the game looks pretty balanced. So that's why I personally would love to see pros tackling the fact about the amount of zerg WC titles. *And that's a pretty big if. (I honestly don't think it's a balance issue, IMO it is a design issue) Not sure if actually anyone reasonably accused the balance of the game, but I haven't read all the posts. It’s interesting to ponder, I’d like to hear what the pros think. Here are a few of my uneducated thoughts. It’s still quite a small sample size anyway, so I’ll point that out here, but I mean Zerg is the reactive race most suited to deep runs at a weekend tournament. You do see a difference in results in a preparation situation in GSL where players can plan new and novel and really tight gameplans, and a big weekender where yes you can plan but not to the same degree, and it’s not as if all the Zergs you might hit play identically either. You can only have so many builds in your pocket. Trap actually broke WombaT’s Law recently enough at Last Chance but I think it largely still holds. Namely a Protoss who has to play more than one Zerg in playoffs with bo5+ sets will almost invariably die in the final to the other Zerg. Specifically in weekend tournaments, you generally can’t show your toolkit and bag of tricks and have your opponent not counter you later, outside of a super P favoured meta. Stats and Zest respectively at the two Katowice’s prior to this one are notable victims. Classic’s last Blizzcon where he was already throwing out craziness to scrape past Rogue etc. Sometimes things are just fortunate given where they fall in the cycle too, given the last few years. I’m struggling to recall exactly when but you guys probably know the period, where there was a period where PvZ robo all-ins briefly were back in vogue and Zergs left right and centre were falling victim to the denizens of Aiur. Of course, this state of affairs didn’t last long and Zergs figured out good responses, but who knows what happens if that brief meta shift occurs around a World Championship rather than enabling a lot of upsets at a Super Tournament? Being a bit Protoss biased but another pertinent factor I feel is right at the top, top level Zerg players have tended to have a good shot against both Protoss and Zerg, on average over the last few years. They may have particular strengths but none of the current Zerg big four are bad at either interracial matchup. Either through chosen style or whatever, specifically in a weekender environment I don’t think that’s so much the case in the contenders from the other races. TY and Inno aren’t exactly too hot against Protoss, Trap before his current form was a vT monster and decidedly less so vZ, Stats had periods of stellar vZ while his vT slipped etc. Whether it’s a balance thing or a quirk of individual styles, you kind of need the good vZ players of each of the non-Zerg players to avoid being sniped by players who are strong vs them, in a way I don’t think you really have quite so much with the top Zergs. | ||
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Kitai
United States880 Posts
Edit: I liked WombaT's point about Zerg's reactionary design being better suited to weekenders than the other races. It would help to explain why players like Reynor and Serral can dominate the WCS circuit while someone like Maru can dominate GSL the whole year but see a lot less success in weekenders. | ||
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MarianoSC2
Slovakia1855 Posts
On March 03 2021 14:44 Kitai wrote: I agree with Deacon.Frost here - the fact is that if you go back the last 3-4 years and look at premier tournaments, an absurd amount of them are won by Zerg. I don't recall noticing big racial imbalances (in terms of number of players) in the early stages of the tournament, but somehow a Zerg would manage to take the trophy in more than 50% of them. It seems like too high of a percentage to be statistically insignificant, especially over such a long period of time. Edit: I liked WombaT's point about Zerg's reactionary design being better suited to weekenders than the other races. It would help to explain why players like Reynor and Serral can dominate the WCS circuit while someone like Maru can dominate GSL the whole year but see a lot less success in weekenders. Yes both are great points but they just slightly touch the main problem with Zerg who no one wants to talk about, yet it has to be very apparent by now to everyone. Zerg is simply broken by design. You wont ever have a truly balanced and fair game, if one of the races has a higher skill cap then the others. Not on the pro level. Its the same as if in some olympic sport, some of the athletes got better equipment to do their thing (would be outrages, here we pretend its okay). That is the answer to the question why we have so many Zerg champions. Because on the top level, lets say we have 10-15 players who are close to each other in term of skill and almost evenly matched. Its only natural that the ones playing the "best" race will have the most success. Lets have a look at why the situation is unfair: - Zerg is a race which does not need to attack at all until mid/late game. Attacking is harder than defending on the highest level - Zerg has an early game unit which is very beefy, ranged, and cheap so they can mass it and do not really thing about what they need to build to defend any sort of aggression from the other races - Zerg needs to be dealt damage by other races, otherwise, in an even game where everyone just sits back and macroes up, Zerg gets massively ahead with their superior economy by design. That itself is an error in the matrix. Add to that that if the other races dont do any damage or very little they just die unless they play like Maru and Zerg makes mistakes. Completely unfair - Zerg is the most versatile race in the game. In addition to their superior economy and macro by design, they can expand the most easily. They have both the fastest units in the game (ling) and the best siege units (lurker, brood). Even if under pressure and the opponent seemingly gets very solid attacks in, they can still rely on backstabs or insta get units in different places on the map with Nydus This wont ever get fixed, because no one will redesign the game at this point, but we really should talk about it more. Its very natural that as all players get better and closer to their skill ceiling, the top of the top pros with the best tools start to win more and it is happening here for years. I dont really thing this can be resolved with nerfing or buffing a couple of units, but lets at least not ignore it... | ||
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stilt
France2755 Posts
You guys probably don't play anymore, the ladder is flooded with protoss. A lot of gm/top masters are completely fedbup with this state and you just wanna make it worst lol. The state is pretty unhealthy for the younger generation (arrogfire, Yakov, wannabebyun) If you take only into account the top 10 then, rogue got shredded by Maru, Serral lost to Clem and Reynor's run is a serie of really cluth 3-2 with especially Maru screwing up every openings, would hardly call an imbalance there. The lurkers comments are pretty ridiculous, for a unit with "no weakness" I can find a bunch (notice that reynor who is probably the best lurkers players couldn't break maru with it) _ it needs to be en masse to be effective (a single tank can deal with a runby of baneling, a single lurker doesn't cover anything), you better have 5-6 of them before they start to be usefull. _ it needs 2 hive upgrads to be operationnal and maximizng his strenght necessites the use of viper, another 200 gaz cost spellcaster. To get this, the zerg has to rush the comp by holding the T with ineffective trade, getting a power spike once you have them since pretty fair considering the risk that present the tech, investing time and ressources produces reward, that's normal. _ It actually gets countered pretty hard when the T set up double facto tank/ghost prod as showed by maru, byun, TY hence the transition on bl. As far as generalities like "reactive race, 90 drones, fastest units" well, being salty about speedling is pretty pathetic (do you realyze they have to be fast because they have 35 hp and are melee units ?) but that's the same bs consistently repeated since 2010, the meta has been decided by concrete stuffs since then. | ||
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12129 Posts
On March 03 2021 21:10 stilt wrote: Fortunately, the one probationner who works per time on sc2 doesn't read tl. You guys probably don't play anymore, the ladder is flooded with protoss. A lot of gm/top masters are completely fedbup with this state and you just wanna make it worst lol. The state is pretty unhealthy for the younger generation (arrogfire, Yakov, wannabebyun) If you take only into account the top 10 then, rogue got shredded by Maru, Serral lost to Clem and Reynor's run is a serie of really cluth 3-2 with especially Maru screwing up every openings, would hardly call an imbalance there. The lurkers comments are pretty ridiculous, for a unit with "no weakness" I can find a bunch (notice that reynor who is probably the best lurkers players couldn't break maru with it) _ it needs to be en masse to be effective (a single tank can deal with a runby of baneling, a single lurker doesn't cover anything), you better have 5-6 of them before they start to be usefull. _ it needs 2 hive upgrads to be operationnal and maximizng his strenght necessites the use of viper, another 200 gaz cost spellcaster. To get this, the zerg has to rush the comp by holding the T with ineffective trade, getting a power spike once you have them since pretty fair considering the risk that present the tech, investing time and ressources produces reward, that's normal. _ It actually gets countered pretty hard when the T set up double facto tank/ghost prod as showed by maru, byun, TY hence the transition on bl. As far as generalities like "reactive race, 90 drones, fastest units" well, being salty about speedling is pretty pathetic (do you realyze they have to be fast because they have 35 hp and are melee units ?) but that's the same bs consistently repeated since 2010, the meta has been decided by concrete stuffs since then. At the same time Zerg won most of the premiere titles, all the world championship in the last almost 4 years now. Doesn't seem very normal. Arguing by ladder is not a great thing either. And it's not just somebody pulling Flash and winning everything left and right. soO, Serral, Reynor, Dark and Rogue. 5 different players, but all of them zergs. Why? Different meta, different map pool, yet all the champs are zergs. Edit> And before you start with the nonsense of "Zergs are just better" - Code S, super tournament. If the game is balanced and the players are good there should be at least one non zerg WC in the period we're talking about . TY won 2 Code S titles. Maru won 4 Code S titles. Trap won something finally. Stats won some shit. And yet here we are, all WC titles are owned by a Zerg. Edit 2> and since it appears the game is balanced for the lower 99,999 % playerbase either the game isn't balanced for the top10 or ... and that's the thing the top level analysis should answer as we ask for | ||
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LTCM
174 Posts
Queen builds from spawning pool. Doesn't delay the first queen but limits massing them. Forces zerg to choose between early eco explosion and speed lings. Keeps creep spread in-check and provides better differentiation for players who specialize in it. Game would become close to balanced overnight. | ||
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Ciaus_Dronu
South Africa1848 Posts
On March 03 2021 22:04 deacon.frost wrote: Edit 2> and since it appears the game is balanced for the lower 99,999 % playerbase either the game isn't balanced for the top10 or ... and that's the thing the top level analysis should answer as we ask for Half of GM is Protoss. I'm not entirely sure it's accurate to say the game is balanced for everyone outside the top 10. | ||
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12129 Posts
On March 03 2021 23:01 Ciaus_Dronu wrote: Half of GM is Protoss. I'm not entirely sure it's accurate to say the game is balanced for everyone outside the top 10. And yet 0 WC titles. I wonder why. Editus> Argument via ladder isn't exactly great especially when I'm talking about WC/Code S titles And all I want is a high level analysis "why". | ||
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dbRic1203
Germany2655 Posts
Nothing completly new, but still a fun chat nevertheless: | ||
[Phantom]
Mexico2170 Posts
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JJH777
United States4417 Posts
On March 04 2021 05:38 [Phantom] wrote: Do you guys think if Reynor and Serral were not Zerg, would they be world champions? There is no doubt in my mind that they would not be world champions if they were T/P players. I'm also very confident that the Zerg record in world championship events would still stand even if Reynor/Serral never got to top Korean level. Dark would have won this IEM and Rogue would have won the Blizzcon that Serral won. Dark also would have gotten 2nd place or won in the WESG Serral lost to Inno. | ||
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Highways
Australia6106 Posts
Too bad no more SC2 balance patches because unless Zerg screws up hard, Terran or Protoss are not beating them User was warned for this post | ||
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Xain0n
Italy3963 Posts
On March 04 2021 08:38 JJH777 wrote: There is no doubt in my mind that they would not be world champions if they were T/P players. I'm also very confident that the Zerg record in world championship events would still stand even if Reynor/Serral never got to top Korean level. Dark would have won this IEM and Rogue would have won the Blizzcon that Serral won. Dark also would have gotten 2nd place or won in the WESG Serral lost to Inno. Your dislike of non korean players is well known, there should also be no doubt in anyone's mind that your opinion on this topic might be one of the least objective. Do you think Dark or Rogue playing T/P would be world champions? I know for sure that Serral playing Terran and Reynor playing Protoss(he's ranked pretty high on the EU ladder with his offrace) would be very good players but I don't know if they could go as far as winning BlizzCon or Katowice, probably not. However, it would most likely be the same for the previous world championship holders playing races other than Zerg. As for Zerg inevitably winning those titles even without Serral and Reynor, let me disagree. Dark's ZvP wasn't tested at all during Katowice, we know for sure he has been consistently losing to Trap in these last months but since Trap's ZvP was by far the best we can't say how he would fared against Zest; not to mention that Dark's 8-0 against Terran was probably one of the shakiest clean sheets I have ever seen, it could have easily been a 5-3 with better play from his opponents, why are you so convinced he would have beaten Maru? In any of case, Dark was the most convincing player seen in the groupstage so he could be seen as the favorite if we remove Reynor. As for Rogue at BlizzCon 2018, I don't think so. At the time Serral was just much better than any other Zerg and Stats showed that he could compete against him in a bo7 twice; PvZ was quite balanced and and its playstyle ideal for Stats, he would have had an edge over Rogue. On March 04 2021 09:45 Highways wrote: Zerg is such a joke race it's not even funny Too bad no more SC2 balance patches because unless Zerg screws up hard, Terran or Protoss are not beating them For someone proclaiming himself to be the #1 Terran hater, you are well positioned among the ranks of Zerg haters as well; that's quite an accomplishment, I'm impressed! | ||
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jalstar
United States8198 Posts
On March 04 2021 05:38 [Phantom] wrote: Do you guys think if Reynor and Serral were not Zerg, would they be world champions? I don't think Zerg is OP but I think it's the best race for how most foreigners approach the game: trying to come up with a flow chart for the game that will win every time or almost every time. Koreans in general are more willing to flip weighted coins and switch between strategies that win most of the time, keeping the opponent off guard, which is the ideal way to play Terran or Protoss. | ||
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JJH777
United States4417 Posts
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26703 Posts
I kind of think of it more like tennis, or golf, where there’s 4 majors a year that have that prestige. Katowice, formerly Blizzcon and the 3 GSLs a year would crudely fit that. The problem we have now is that we’ve got 2 players who’d be instant championship contenders not playing in 3 majors of the year (not to mention Clem and others I think would be competitive), so that’s really not ideal. Katowice/Blizzcon don’t quite have, IMO quite the cachet to be the singular tournament that defines greatness, like an Olympics may be in some sports, but given a decreasing talent pool GSL is missing too many big hitters for a combination of Katowice/GSL performance to be a barometer of who’s had the best year or w/e. For balance I don’t think it’s that necessarily relevant that Zergs have won all these WC, could be a quirk from a small sample size. On the other hand the frequent counter of Terran having pretty good recent GSL form so balance is fine, one the format clearly does seem to impact that a bit with prep, and two, well 2/4 of the world’s elite Zergs (and it’s a clear higher tier with Dark/Rogue for Kr and Serral/Reynor for EU) aren’t participating. For me anyway Reynor was on the brink in multiple series, I think if Maru takes him out and likely dispatches Zest who looked sloppy against Clem. But if Zest’s weirdly effective vT worked against Maru I wouldn’t be crazy surprised. Either way you’re one set (and Maru really did both botch and get unlucky on match point) from a Terran or Zerg world champion. To the eye test anyway, Zerg is still obviously strong but it’s not what it was. Going back to the time of Trap’s 2 GSL final losses, Zest’s Katowice loss and the Blizzcon following, PvZ looked basically unwinnable in terms of taking home a tournament. You could win a series in it sure, especially in Bo3 but when it came to latter stages and Bo7, especially if you’d already faced off a Zerg and had to show your best bag of tricks, you’d lose to another top Zerg. I don’t think this last season has really felt like that, so it’s certainly an improvement. | ||
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