[GSL 2021] Code S - Grand Finals

On July 30 2021 06:36 Zambrah wrote:
Id say Im surprised by Protoss is not allowed to win GSL, it is the law.

On July 30 2021 07:05 Cricketer12 wrote:
How the hell did everyone miss the LR for this?

On July 30 2021 07:05 Cricketer12 wrote:
How the hell did everyone miss the LR for this?

On July 30 2021 07:24 argonautdice wrote:
I just found out from Liquipedia that out of 8 GSL since 2019, Trap has always made the playoff. He has 2 Ro8, 3 Ro4, and 3 second places. He's insanely consistent in being a championship contender but never the champion It's almost as tragic as soO's 6 GSL silvers.

On July 30 2021 08:09 [PkF] Wire wrote:

the palindrome pattern of the last GSLs Artosis pointed out during the broadcast is also pretty amazing :

Dark - Rogue - TY - Rogue - TY - Rogue - Dark

and I didn't check but I'm pretty confident that's the longest we got. Prolonging the pattern would bring us back to Maru 4peat, so if you're a Maru fan, believe in the palindrome !

On July 30 2021 06:37 LHK wrote:
Completely unrelated, I read that Blizzard has reached out to pros asking for feedback towards a new balance patch -- Any thoughts as to what you'd like to see changed if/when we get a new patch?

On July 30 2021 08:06 [Phantom] wrote:


I must keep saying this: Zerg is just too versatile.

On July 30 2021 12:26 Vindicare605 wrote:


Trap is very good, maybe even AMAZING at PvT. He sucks vs Zerg. I've been saying it for years. He falls apart in PvZ, and his big weakness in every match up is his mental ability to handle pressure, so he goes on tilt worse in that match up than he does in the others.

Dark is ruthless and seems to NEVER go on tilt. He's just better championship material than Trap is. PvZ is also one of if not his best match up (debatable with ZvZ) if you want to knock out Dark, you better do it with a Terran because he eats Protoss for breakfast.

On July 30 2021 12:32 VamosSC wrote:
Zerg has won the last 5 WCS and the last 6 IEM events, the two biggest tourneys. Also, Zerg has won and incredible 7 out of 10 Blizz-Con/Wcs World championships. I think they can handle being nerfed. Honestly to deny that there are any balance issues with Zerg is to bury your head in the sand and not seek to improve the game. Is it too late to come up with solutions?

And do we have a community so averse to candid balance discussion that the conversation can't even be had openly and honestly?

It certainly seems like it, because I feel anything I say will be either censored or drowned out with the usual call "toss IMBA" .

On July 30 2021 10:33 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:


I agree with the design flaws of Lurker being able to reposition so quickly with the help of the upgrade. It's crazy to see Zergs bum rush your army/base with Lurkers. That should be more risky of a move. Lurkers are too mobile. Instead of being a unit that holds positions and works well defensively, it's also very versatile offensively, and being able to move forward as easily as it does and siege a position does allow for games to end a bit suddenly. We don't want the game to be too punishing, we want games to be able to play out as longer macro games given close enough skill levels.

I also really really agree with the Viper. Abduct really has no place in LotV. It's going against the goals that LotV set and made big leaps towards. The initial need for the Viper and its abilities was to help fight and discourage deathballs, because this was way back in a time when WoL (especially Protoss) was very deathbally. So Viper was introduced in HotS to help pull big units and kill them off.

Now, LotV has done a good job making macro games more spread out across the map and spanning multiple bases, and also getting armies to be more split up and doing things around the map. LotV has also done a good job making moving your army around the map and engaging less committal. Being too scared to poke or engage in WoL, beacuse once the engage starts you can't back up, was 1 of the huge reasons why games were so deathbally.

Now, what does Viper and Abduct do? It allows you to pull units for basically free, punishing players for poking or being active with their army. It's not an interesting unit and helps to negate positional play. Abduct is an instant cast and can't be interrupted. It also pulls the unit almost instantly. All these traits together, in combination with being able to just recharge energy by sucking HP from buildings, really makes for a poorly designed and uninteresting ability. (Consuming building HP isn't even a big deal because you can just Transfuse or spend a little minerals to make Evos/Hatches).

Even if PvZ is balanced (I'm not a pro so I don't know), Abduct is a very anti-hype ability to watch as a spectator. It FEELS so unfair seeing a Zerg get to Lurker+Viper when the Protoss has only reached only Colossus (if they chose that over Storm or Air), and just getting free snipes on Colossus. It's so anticlimactic and it feels like shit as a player too.

I think changing Abduct and/or nerfing Consume would be really good. Make it so that Abduct pulls units in not as instantly, so that you can snipe/kill them off to stop the pull mid-way. Or make it so that Abduct specifically doesn't pull Massive units instantly, or maybe it can pull them instantly but only half the distance so it's not a guaranteed kill. Or maybe Abduct itself doesn't cast as instantly, and you're allowed to Feedback to stop it before it starts to pull. Or other similar ideas. For Consume, I don't know if it's really necessary at all, but I agree with raising the cooldown or reducing the amount of energy you gain. It doesn't feel like Viper using its energy up has enough weight or commitment. Because after a big fight they can Consume and they'll have energy again to defend any counter attack. Even if you think Abduct should stay the way it is, please at least nerf Consume... I didn't even know that you're allowed to recharge all the energy you want with it. Wouldn't recharging say 100 energy already be quite nice? I know Zerg is supposed to have powerful spellcasters to manipulate the battlefield (both true in BW and SC2), but it feels overkill.

For Queen, capping the energy at 150 or 175 instead of 200 might be an interesting change too to reduce lategame mass Queens' power.

A few months ago, when it seemed PvZ was in a really bad state, I was advocating for changes to Viper/Abduct and Lurkers. Because often times it seems Zerg would just roll Protoss with Ravagers before they have enough strong tech units, or Protoss might be ahead but Zerg is still able to double tech to both Viper and Lurker and just beat the Protoss army in the most lame way (pulling Colossus). After the Void buff, it seems it helped a lot and PvZ is in a pretty healthy state, but I didn't realize that it's probably the Lurker being so good that Protoss has been discouraged from sticking to ground armies in the lategame. (Or maybe it's also that Abduct makes Colossus not worth it anymore?). Though I think the armies we see lategame are fine, Golden Armada is iconic for Protoss and they support it with Templar and Robo tech. But it would be nice if Protoss didn't feel forced to go Air so often in the early-mid game.

Sorry for the balance post, hope it's OK.

On July 30 2021 12:38 VamosSC wrote:



Its not like you're whining, You are trying to propose solutions and get to the root of the problem.

I see it this way in 2021 in regards to PvZ.

Protoss ground simply can't compete with Zerg once the game gets to a certain point. The gateway units are not very efficient, and the Zerg can massive outproduce them. If the toss ever gets a foothold, Lurkers are the ultimate death sentence for any toss trying to play ground. This forces the Protoss to go for a late game mass air army, which is actually perhaps too strong (especially at lower levels than the very top). This desire to turtle and mass air leads to very boring, passive games.

The solution (in my eyes) Is for Protoss ground to somehow be more viable, while making the Skytoss death ball perhaps a bit weaker. Solutions that promote more dynamic play, and less camping to get up to that "perfect composition".

On July 30 2021 13:22 Vindicare605 wrote:


Yea if anything it's the opposite in TvP. Terran relies heavily on air units: Medivacs, Vikings, Liberators, Ravens and even in ultra late game Battlecruisers.

On the ground Terran gets absolutely massacred by Protoss ground unless they go pure Mech and even then.

On July 30 2021 12:38 VamosSC wrote:



Its not like you're whining, You are trying to propose solutions and get to the root of the problem.

I see it this way in 2021 in regards to PvZ.

Protoss ground simply can't compete with Zerg once the game gets to a certain point. The gateway units are not very efficient, and the Zerg can massive outproduce them. If the toss ever gets a foothold, Lurkers are the ultimate death sentence for any toss trying to play ground. This forces the Protoss to go for a late game mass air army, which is actually perhaps too strong (especially at lower levels than the very top). This desire to turtle and mass air leads to very boring, passive games.

The solution (in my eyes) Is for Protoss ground to somehow be more viable, while making the Skytoss death ball perhaps a bit weaker. Solutions that promote more dynamic play, and less camping to get up to that "perfect composition".

On July 30 2021 15:45 [Phantom] wrote:
I think I was misunderstood or explained myself incorrectly in my post from the previous page. I said Protons should Not be buffed as I think it's already strong vs Terran, and instead Zerg should be nerfed in ways that help Protists build variety.

For what is worth, I do think Dark deserved to win.

As For this:

"I think it's nonsense that Zerg is too versatile. Zerg have a few approved builds, Terran even fewer, whereas Protoss have so many viable combinations and openers that you have to constantly scout to make sure you're not being mind gamed."

I'm not sure. Outside of DTs you're only scouting the way you should scout any race. In ZvP that is: is the Protoss going adepts, disruptors or VR?

Zerg has baneling bust, ravager bust, 12 pool, queen walks, roach hydra lurker, muta, ling hydra, infestor Roach Hydra, Nydus all in. Zerg doesn't have as many units as other races, but they are very versatile in their gameplay. Protoss builds are very restrictive and the gameplay is too.

On July 30 2021 15:59 Garbo1 wrote:


You've listed a bunch of Zerg builds, most of which are mid game pushes. As far as early game pushes, is protoss going adept, disruptor, voidray? What about Oracle, phoenix, blink stalker, DT, Cannon rush? Each one of these requires a different counter and can needs to be countered instinctively with just the right combination of units, and each one can be achieved in early game and needs to be scouted to be able to counter.

Zerg with larva can build all at once to counter quickly enough, Terran are just abused if they get it wrong.

On July 30 2021 17:45 SharkStarcraft wrote:
What a surprise, a one sided PvZ finals... at least Trap was barely able to win the map where he held the hatchery tech queen walk without losing a single probe... this matchup is as fucked as ever

On July 30 2021 09:56 Vindicare605 wrote:
Super Tournaments are routinely dominated by them and Protoss wins plenty just about everywhere else. The problem is Trap. The dude just IS NOT cut out to be a consistent champion.

On July 30 2021 22:23 Fanatic-Templar wrote:


That's lovely. Trap is the only Protoss to have won a Premier tournament that doesn't have 'NA' on it since Classic went to the military. If he's not 'cut out to be a consistent champion' then Protoss is in deep trouble, because Trap is carrying Protoss harder than Maru ever had to carry Terran.

On July 30 2021 22:53 Poopi wrote:

This is objectively false though?

On July 30 2021 22:53 Poopi wrote:Protoss won the most in 2021 prize money (Winnings/2021), and Trap is not first protoss so far (close 2nd though), at 58k$. 58/376 is approximately 15.4% of protoss earnings won by Trap.
For a comparison, Maru in 2018 won 371k$ out of 939k$ terran earnings that year. This is an absurdly high 371/939=~40% of the total earnings of his race. Serral won 471k$/1.522m$ in total for zerg, which is approximately 31%. (https://liquipedia.net/starcraft2/Winnings/2018)

On July 30 2021 23:44 Poopi wrote:
Using earnings as a metric is actually very good:

On July 30 2021 23:44 Poopi wrote:Yes Maru won Code S (all of them) and WESG in 2018, so what? That's precisely (partly) why he carried his race far more than Trap -> without him terrans would not have won nearly as much,

On July 30 2021 23:44 Poopi wrote:especially considering that he did not win these tournaments beating another terran in the finals: if he lost in the finals, the money would not have gone to another terran.

On July 30 2021 23:44 Poopi wrote:About your third point, what better metric then? Please do it, I would be very surprised if you found one in which Trap is carrying protoss more than Maru carried terran in similar time period (you are talking about Classic departure to now, I am talking about Maru whole 2018 and maybe even early 2019, should be a similar amount of time).

On July 30 2021 23:44 Poopi wrote:Oh, finally:

I am talking about the Trap carrying protoss harder than Maru carried terran.

On July 31 2021 02:48 JJH777 wrote:
Trap is definitely carrying Toss in some ways right now but it's really not comparable to what Maru did in 2018. Without Maru Terran in 2018 would have had the worst year a race has ever had in the history of SC2. Toss would take a noticable performance hit without Trap but they still would have won super tournaments and Zest would have still had his IEM run.

On July 31 2021 02:48 JJH777 wrote:
Maru in 2018 vs Trap currently in terms of carrying their race is really not even worthy of discussion. Maru in 2018 was the most a player has ever carried their race in SC2 and will never be surpassed. Maru was literally the last Terran or tied for last Terran in every single event he played in that year. Trap has already failed to be the last Toss standing several times this year.

On July 31 2021 03:09 QOGQOG wrote:

Without Trap: zero wins in actual premiers. I guess you're counting PvP mirrors in finals as guaranteed wins for Protoss even though without Trap they might not have been mirrors? If you apply that logic to 2018, Terran would have still won a Code S (since TY also made the finals).

Look, Maru dominating GSL at a time when Zerg was basically unstoppable was and is impressive and he was definitely carrying. But Trap's been doing the same (or, at any rate, a similar) thing for longer—Innovation won two tournaments in 2019, more than Maru, and 2017 was a great year for Terran even without Maru doing much, with TY, Innovation, and Gumiho all winning big tournaments. The most recent "good" year for Protoss was when exactly? One win each for Classic and Stats in tier two tournaments for 2019? 2018 same story? 2017 was the last actual good showing.

On July 30 2021 16:22 tigera6 wrote:

Yeah, seriously, I mean Trap was simply playing too standard, with 2 Oracles into Adepts in to DTs into Ground army push, he has played that same way in PvZ for almost 3 months or something. There are loads of other builds that Zest has shown against Reynor and Serral, but Trap didnt choose to do anything of those, because they are harder to transition out of. Hell, I remember Trap took a game from Dark in GSL Final 2 years ago with Cannon Rush, but he chose to not do that this time around.

Trap didnt choose to do anything of those, because they are harder to transition out of.

On July 31 2021 07:37 ShowTheLights wrote:
Trap once again shown he is so overrated

He will never win a Code S

On July 31 2021 03:42 JJH777 wrote:


The difference for me is that Toss is doing just fine in overall tournament representation this year and that doesn't change much without Trap. Only the victories change. Losing Maru in 2018 changes both Terran victories and their overall representation dramatically. Besides TY in 2 GSLs Maru was the only Terran who made ro4s that year. Several major tournaments would not have had a T player in the playoff stages. Parting, Zoun, Zest and Stats have all made good runs recently.

On July 30 2021 22:23 Fanatic-Templar wrote:


That's lovely. Trap is the only Protoss to have won a Premier tournament that doesn't have 'NA' on it since Classic went to the military. If he's not 'cut out to be a consistent champion' then Protoss is in deep trouble, because Trap is carrying Protoss harder than Maru ever had to carry Terran.

On July 31 2021 01:16 egrimm wrote:
GG WP Dark.
Tbh I was a bit surprised by the amount of mistakes Trap did during this finals and also that he did not try to shake up things with less standard play.
Oh well, better player (on that day) won.
Saying that, I still do not like the state of PvZ. Even if not unbalanced the reliance on heavy air play from P and Queen, viper, lurker camp combo is just sad to watch. I miss the hydra ling bane vs immo zealot archon meta.

On July 31 2021 08:28 Morbidius wrote:

In PvP finals coming from brackets filled with Protoss, if it wasn't Trap it would be Stats, Zest or Zoun. You should not even mention this choke artist in the same sentence as 2018 Maru.

On July 31 2021 00:11 BisuDagger wrote:

Tastosis were already removed from live English casts of ASL in SC1. The last thing I'd want is for the Afreeca Team to see a massive drop in English viewers and use that as an excuse to cut their casting time down. Sure the blackout proved a big point, but I hate that it potentially severely punished the GSL stream, Afreeca Crew, and the players who have nothing to do with Blizzard Culture.

On July 31 2021 10:13 Fanatic-Templar wrote:


You can imagine Stats, Zest and Zoun winning as much as you like. In the real world, they haven't.

On July 30 2021 08:06 [Phantom] wrote:


TL was shutdown for a day in support of actiBlizz staff.

I must keep saying this: Zerg is just too versatile. M They have too many strategies and you need to account for alm of them limiting Protons builda. On top of that Nydia is completely dumb. "oh they saw the nydus, I'll guess is just make five more". I'm not even convinced Trap could have stopped that push even if dark just had the Nydus at the front.

There's also that other game where trap was about to win, and then suddenly two vipers come out of nowhere kill 3 colossus AND still have energy for blinding cloud.

Or how Queens are and make everything else immortal.

Protoss won't win a major tournament as long as they have two viable builds and Zerg is still so versatile.

Want to know the reason why Protoss still do the terrible adept build? It's not because the pros think it's good. It's because if they do the same strategy all games they will lose even harder, so they need to mix it up. And if for some reason you don't scout the adepts, it can still work Ok compared to most other Protoss builds. It at least gets some drone kills. Still, that doesn't make it good, but necessary. This is a result of years of nerfing different Protoss early agression strategies. (Some deservingly, some not).

Basically: Protists needs some buffs to help build variety. Or Zerg needs some nerfs to help Protoss have some build variety.

Because Protoss is fairly strong against Terran in the Late game, Zerg should be nerfed. I think at least 1 or 2 of these would help a lot:

[*]Nerf queen max energy so they don't have infinite transfuses.
[*]Nerf the Lurker. It's too cost efficient for a race that's supposed not to be and basically counters all Protoss ground units. I suggest removing at least one of the two completely asinine Hive upgrades that eliminate their counterplay, forcing the protoss into Air every game, which is a big problem when it comes to build variety.

(Basically lurker weakness is having to reposition and not being able to move while burrowed which limits their effective range and zoning. This is completely negated by their instant burrow and extra range upgrade. Which is dumb even as a concept. This limits ground based counterplay, forcing protists into Air every game).

[*]Remove Abduct, it's a totally unnecessary ability in LotV. Useful in HotS, overkill now.
[*]Remove vipers energy Regen ability. They might as well have infinite energy at the moment. Almost as broken as Kaydarin Amulet High Templars in WoL. At least put a limit to the amount of energy they can recover (Recover up to 100 energy, instead of all the energy you want, for example).
[*]Change energy cost of Viper abilities.
[*]Increase the cost of the nydus, or have a cap of 1-2 max.


I would honestly just remove Nydus. Just like the Mother ship core it should have never existed. But alas, not going to happen.

I think one or two of those proposed Nerfs would help the matchup a lot without affecting TvZ or PvT considerably.

On July 31 2021 03:59 [Phantom] wrote:


To address this and the previous post, making oracles when going Stargate is as much as a build as going observer when going robo, as in not at all. If you're going Stargate you're going to need detection, so you're a going to get at least one Oracle. It can harass, yes, but all air can. That's the role of Stargate in the early/mid in PvZ, if you notice all those units give Protoss some form or map control and harass. The only exception are proxy oracle builds but they are not really used in PvZ.

Blink all ins haven't worked in a long time. Phoenix openings have been out of meta and in all the GSL matches I've seen in the last year where they were used the Protoss lost (which were like 3 games total, but feel free to provide examples).



But that's a big part of the problem, isn't it? One of the reasons Stargate Openings are used is because it's the only tech tree that gives you some form of map control, and it's the only tech tree that can deal cost efficiently with lurkers, so if you're going to need them in the late game might as well start now.

If you start with twilight/robo, you will have a good opportunity to push after the time the Zerg set up his third and before/during the time he is making his fourth. After that you just hope disruptors can buy you enough time to transition to air. And then comes the vipers. You will notice this in all PvZ. It's basically scripted honestly.

Again, I think Dark deserved to win. It's just that I wish protoss had more options and I feel the queens being so strong, and then the lurkers and vipers later on, basically force protoss into a very specific path, which makes them bad in bo7.

On July 31 2021 09:58 BisuDagger wrote:

Yeah. People are hating way to hard on Trap. He is losing to the best Korean Zergs and Terrans. His choke factor against players below his tier level is almost non-existent. If Trap won the GSL today he’d be in the conversation for top 3 Protoss of all time, that’s how close he is at the moment.

On July 31 2021 11:47 Morbidius wrote:

To make things worse, Blizzard doesn't even give a fuck about their game, let alone about a forum with a couple dozen people posting. Can't imagine this blackout is ''making a point'' or helping when its on a forum about a game in which they don't bother with swapping in maps that were already made for them and uploaded on their servers. Its a ''fuck you'' to the posters, not to Blizzard.


Its not about them winning, its about Trap ''carrying the race''. Its bullshit to say he is carrying the race on his back and that Protoss would not win without him when every single of his wins in Korea were PvP finals.

On July 31 2021 20:57 Fanatic-Templar wrote:


If it's bullshit, I'm sure you can name a Premier tournament without NA in the title that was won by a non-imaginary, non-Trap Protoss.

On July 31 2021 20:57 Fanatic-Templar wrote:


If it's bullshit, I'm sure you can name a Premier tournament without NA in the title that was won by a non-imaginary, non-Trap Protoss.

On July 31 2021 21:10 Morbidius wrote:

I'm sure you can name a Korean tournament that would not be won by Protoss had Trap lost in the finals.

On July 31 2021 21:28 tigera6 wrote:


I guess you think Zest, Parting, Zoun are simply just terrible Toss player or something? You know that, you are right, screw that 2 time latest IEM-Finalist, or the Top 4 IEM this year. Hell, lets take winning some 25-30k prize pool tournament over the 2 x runner up of the Wolrd Champision with 500k prize pool. Real expert opinion you got there.

On July 31 2021 21:38 Poopi wrote:

Zest top 2 at IEM is a better result than winning tier 2 tournaments though. Oh and if you seek « premier tournaments », the first thing they talk about to define it is how big the prize money is .

On July 31 2021 22:00 Fanatic-Templar wrote:


Easily. GSL 2021 S2.
You still haven't answered mine though.



The only way this post is even remotely close to coherence is if you're calling Ty a just terrible Terran player. Are you?



I'll start caring about "top 2" when Soo's 6 GSL silvers are given comparable respect to Maru's 4 GSL golds.

On July 31 2021 23:37 tigera6 wrote:


Huh? Has anyone called Trap a "terrible" player?

On July 31 2021 23:37 tigera6 wrote:I guess you dont understand there are levels to this then? You dont have to be either "carry the whole race" or "being terrible".

On July 31 2021 21:28 tigera6 wrote:


I guess you think Zest, Parting, Zoun are simply just terrible Toss player or something? You know that, you are right, screw that 2 time latest IEM-Finalist, or the Top 4 IEM this year. Hell, lets take winning some 25-30k prize pool tournament over the 2 x runner up of the Wolrd Champision with 500k prize pool. Real expert opinion you got there.

On July 31 2021 23:43 Charoisaur wrote:

They are!!?? Almost everyone considers soO an all-time great

On August 01 2021 00:00 Fanatic-Templar wrote:


You called Zoun, Zest and Stats just terrible players for not winning any Premiers despite decent runs. So this is like how Ty was a terrible player for not winning any premiers in 2018 despite decent runs. Or Innovation for that matter. I'm comparing Trap's carrying to Maru's, why do you suddenly pretend he's an analogy for Ty?





Amazing. From "If you think winning is better than losing, that means you think Zoun, Zest and Stats are simply just terrible Protoss" to "Don't you understand there are levels between carrying your whole race and being a terrible player" in just a single post.

Even you realise your argument was completely absurd. I wish you'd reach these epiphanies before posting.



Possible I've missed it. Link please.

On July 31 2021 08:44 Garbo1 wrote:


Wait, wasn't the Hydra Ling Bane era where Zerg was completely unstoppable vs Protoss??

On August 01 2021 01:28 tigera6 wrote:

I would suggest you to improve your reading skill, or you simply missing the CLEAR AND OBVIOUS sacasm in my post. The point was, YOU acting like Trap was the only one carrying the Toss in the last 2 years

On August 01 2021 01:28 tigera6 wrote:I have not tried to make the comparison of Maru vs Trap in term of how they "carry the race", because that doesnt really matter in my opinion.

On July 30 2021 22:23 Fanatic-Templar wrote:


That's lovely. Trap is the only Protoss to have won a Premier tournament that doesn't have 'NA' on it since Classic went to the military. If he's not 'cut out to be a consistent champion' then Protoss is in deep trouble, because Trap is carrying Protoss harder than Maru ever had to carry Terran.

On July 30 2021 23:34 Fanatic-Templar wrote:
2: You can clearly see that the Premiers Maru won in 2018 were worth a lot more money than the ones Trap wins in 2020-2021. First place in WESG alone was worth 200,000$, which is more than half what the entire Protoss race has won in the entirety of 2021. No shit Maru's share of prize money is "absurdly high". Prize money distribution is not affected by player performance but by tournament organisers. This, incidentally, is why we don't use earnings to gauge performance.

On July 31 2021 02:05 Fanatic-Templar wrote:
Well, in that case, Maru winning his GSLs in 2018 is not much of an achievement, after all GSL is a tournament with almost no foreigners, and in 2018 foreigners outperformed Koreans (using earnings, which is a very good metric). What prestige is there in winning such weak tournaments?

On July 31 2021 02:05 Fanatic-Templar wrote:
How does that indicate Maru carried his race more than Trap? Trap's the only Protoss to have won a premier outside NA since 2019. Without him, Protoss would have won nothing in two years. Almost literally, the last one was Stats' win in the first weekend of August 2019.

On July 31 2021 02:05 Fanatic-Templar wrote:
Certainly. It's the one I used when I brought up the subject in the first place, unsurprisingly enough. Trap is the only Protoss to have won a premier tournament since Trap in August 2019. That's 24 months, and counting since there's still been no non-Trap Protoss champion. Maru was the only Terran to win a premier tournament between Innovation's GSL vs. the World in August 2017 and his WESG in March 2019, which is a bit less than 20 months. Do you disagree that 24 months+ is longer than 20 months?

On July 31 2021 03:24 Fanatic-Templar wrote:
That's certainly a valid way of looking at it. I still say Trap's carrying Protoss harder because as a fan who wants to see Protoss win, I've had to depend on him for longer than Terrans had to depend on Maru, but I understand that not everyone prioritises the same elements here. I'm certainly not the one who went and claimed this to be objective.

On July 31 2021 21:28 tigera6 wrote:
I guess you think Zest, Parting, Zoun are simply just terrible Toss player or something? You know that, you are right, screw that 2 time latest IEM-Finalist, or the Top 4 IEM this year. Hell, lets take winning some 25-30k prize pool tournament over the 2 x runner up of the Wolrd Champision with 500k prize pool. Real expert opinion you got there.

On August 01 2021 02:08 egrimm wrote:

At the beginning, yes. But after some time toss learned to play the game better, hold position zealots behind archons, tech to storm safely etc. Similarly as with adepts all-ins in PvZ, zergs fot much better at defending them.
Also I miss this meta PvZ meta mostly because it was much more enjoyable to play/watch even if it might have been hard to win as toss player.

On August 01 2021 03:10 WombaT wrote:

It’s fluctuated over the years, and is generally a pretty awful matchup, but yeah I would say PvZ was probably harder for the Protoss in that era, but the matches as an observer did have more of a flow to them.

On July 31 2021 22:00 Fanatic-Templar wrote:


Easily. GSL 2021 S2.
You still haven't answered mine though.



The only way this post is even remotely close to coherence is if you're calling Ty a just terrible Terran player. Are you?



I'll start caring about "top 2" when Soo's 6 GSL silvers are given comparable respect to Maru's 4 GSL golds.

On August 01 2021 23:59 Poopi wrote:

I don’t see why we would be comparing soO’s silvers in Code S versus Maru’s wins though. They are the same tournament, obviously winning is better than being second in that case (but top 2 in such a tournament is a good achievement as well, and 6 total is great). I was comparing a top 2 at IEM / world championship to a 1st place in « tier 2 » tournament.

On August 01 2021 02:54 Fanatic-Templar wrote:




I would suggest YOU improve YOUR reading skills. I didn't say Trap was the only one carrying the Toss in the last 2 years, I said that Trap has been carrying Protoss harder than Maru ever did Terran, so it was false to claim that Trap "wasn't cut out to be a consistent champion" and that that was the reason Protoss had poor results. Look:



Maybe you just missed it? You know, despite replying to it? I wonder if this comparison ever comes up again?











Oh look, it comes up consistently. So if you're not interested in how Trap and Maru compare as far as "carrying the race", then what the hell are you even doing here? This was an ongoing argument that YOU decided to jump into. Did your reading comprehension not allow you to figure out what you were talking about before you decided to share your idiotic, aggressive and condescending opinion? Look at this:



This is your response to a question asking for a Premier won by a non-Trap Protoss. "I guess you just think not winning Premier tournaments makes someone just terrible", "Screw that finalist and top 4 player", "Real expert opinion you got there". You need to invent idiotic arguments and pretend I'm the one claiming them because you've got literally nothing of substance to contribute. Real aggressive there for someone who isn't even interested in the argument taking place. And so bad you'd denounce that "Guess Zest, Parting and Zoun are simply just terrible Toss" line in your very next post.

I've no interest in inane histrionics so if you want to continue this argument, try making a better response.

On August 01 2021 16:43 egrimm wrote:

I must say that I actually always kind of liked PvZ more than rest of community. I like the ebb and flow of tech switches and build orders. My favorite part was early game openings in Hots with plethora of different builds both races could go for. Fast forge expand, gate expand, nexus forge, nexus gate, 6pool, 9pool etc.
I loved to watch how they clashed, remember Life vs sOs finals?
But yeah, matchup right now is not pretty mostly because of army compositions both races aim for and how these armies interact with each other. Carrier/void leads to death balls and slows the game, whereas queen, viper, lurker is insanely efficient to a point the oponent just stops attacking altogether and you have a stalemate.
Hopefully something changes for a better with or without the patch.

On August 01 2021 02:54 Fanatic-Templar wrote:
I've no interest in inane histrionics so if you want to continue this argument, try making a better response.

On August 02 2021 10:56 tigera6 wrote:

Dude, your points are all over the place. You was claiming Trap as the ONLY one carrying Protoss race for the last 2 years, now you talked your way out of it? And then you saying ME trashing all Protoss players? WTF? Clearly I stated that it was a SACASTIC remark, and you still accusing me over it? Are you serious?
My whole point was, Protoss is not a trash race, and they have been doing fairly well in the last 2 years, and there are MORE than just Trap that doing work for the race. If you have no problem with that, then I am good.
And I was NOT the one who bring up Trap vs Maru, it was someone else in the forum, please reply to the correct person with the correct point, you are losing basic debate point and still getting clearly defensive over it.

On August 02 2021 20:02 WombaT wrote:

I feel HoTS and WoL had the better eco flow to them, but Protoss lacked some of the map control units they have in Legacy, and Zerg had some lategame comps Protoss didn’t have the tools to break, by and large.

Now the eco flow is worse for this matchup, but Protoss does have more tools. Outside of dedicated cheese Zerg get up to 3 base saturation most games and there’s not much of an early game, then we’re into a dynamic of Protoss does a timing push that works or it doesn’t, or Zerg do some kind of all-in bust on the third that either works or it doesn’t, or both races turtle to passive lategame comps. I think those changes affected PvZ the most, and coincidentally I think the skipping of much of the early game in Legacy probably hurt a player like sOs more than most as he did a lot of clever work there.

There are certainly interesting aspects to it, but to me they always feel more intriguing than enthralling as they’re so often mindgames and gambles that succeed or fail not largely based on if they’re picked up on, but almost entirely.

But hey, it’s an asymmetric game and it’s one matchup at the end of the day. Having races that are very distinct is part of the game’s appeal, I just don’t think the characteristics of Zerg and Protoss mesh all that well when they’re put head-to-head

On August 03 2021 02:50 Agh wrote:
poor rogue, looses out on $4000 and 200 points because of rng.

On August 03 2021 02:50 Agh wrote:
poor rogue, looses out on $4000 and 200 points because of rng.