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On November 30 2021 02:12 Vindicare605 wrote:
Missed on Dark and Trap. Trap has definitely fallen from his streak of being the most elite Protoss in the world. Dark vs Rogue is always a toss up.
Either way. Not doing good on my bets this season at all.
Probably going to be another Maru vs Rogue final.
As much as I love all these tournaments seemingly every week, the conundrum is we're at a point where its basically the usual suspects who win these tournaments.
In any given tournament it's just bet on Maru/Rogue/Serral/Dark/Trap very high chance one of those guys wins it all.
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On November 30 2021 20:21 deacon.frost wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2021 20:12 Poopi wrote:On November 30 2021 19:28 Vindicare605 wrote:On November 30 2021 14:54 JJH777 wrote:On November 30 2021 08:51 Xain0n wrote:
Before the rise(in chronological order) of Rogue, Serral, Dark(who was already world class in 2016 but had collected significantly second places than successes) and Reynor, Zerg was by far the race with the least victories at "Premier" level; if we exclude the first BL Infestor era in 2012, Zerg as a race had never really been dominant in Sc2.
Zerg really needed an influx of new top tier players capable of actually winning championships; the real problem was the second BL Infestor era in 2019 which, coupled with very unwise nerfs to Protoss, lead to months of nauseating domination.
Zerg have also enjoyed favourable map pools in these last years of LoTV, with some notable exceptions in 2020.
Except Zerg was already the most successful race by a significant amount of prize money even before Rogues 2017 run. Zerg has been at best balanced and at worst OP for 90% of SC2s lifespan. They have never spent any significant amount of time being underpowered aside from 2010 and the first half of 2011. The only reason Zerg hasn't dominated even harder is because soO is a Kong and Life got banned. Oh there you go introducing measurable facts into an argument I thought was already lock solid measurable. How dare you? Even if there WERE tiny situations where Zerg was at a disadvantage, Blizzard didn't let that slip for long. The Blink meta vs Terran. Infestor Broodlord. The fact the queen needed to be nerfed 3 fucking times in the most recent balance patch..... NYDUS WORMS! HELLO! All point to a clear bias in how and when the game gets patched. Protoss has an OP build against Zerg? 2-3 months. Zerg has an obvious overpowered late game vs Protoss complete with a unit combination you already were FORCED to nerf 10 fucking years ago? We'll just let this ride out till the end of the year. The standards are completely lopsided. And the facts prove it, when you look at the data. I'm sick of trying to convince people of the bias. It's there in black and white if someone actually WANTS to find it. Zerg got VERY preferential treatment in terms of Balance Patches for a VERY long while. I watched a niche Terran build that Slayers team introduced get gutted in ONE WEEKENED because it embarassed the hell out of the foreign Zerg players at that tournament. I watched that happen. Zerg has been protected. FOR A LONG TIME. From the long arm of the balance nerf bat. I've seen it for a long time. It's about time that ended. What would be the reason though? We were a lot to think 2019 happened because blizzard wanted foreigners to succeed, did they think Serral and Reynor would be the most likely to profit of advantages because terran was too hard for foreigners? Or were foreign protoss players not as marketable? But indeed, I can accept that 2012 was a "mistake" and since HotS was in development, they could not focus too much in time on it. But LotV is the last extension so 2019 is not fortuitous. If you think it's about the foreigner conspiracy, long time the best foreigners were zergs and foreigners were mostly Protoss or Zergs, rarely Special  I don't think they've done this on purpose though, well, I mean the foreigner purpose. I may be wrong though.
Oh please, they might not do it anymore (because Blizzard doesn't even promote the game anymore) but they DEFINITELY were doing it in 2012.
Scarlett and Stephano are beating Koreans! That's all anyone cared about, that was all the narrative was about. It didn't matter HOW they were doing it, just that they were doing it and that the gap was closing.
That's all Blizzard would promote and that's all the casters would ever talk about.
Nevermind how you have horrific ZvZ finals in GSL with fucking Sniper of all people winning Code S or IPL finals where you have Brood Lord vs Brood Lord fights. Does anyone else remember that shit?!
There's a reason we have a nickname for "Patch Zergs" and not for any other race.
That shit used to be BLATANT. There's a reason I'm still pissed about it. Blizzard marketed their own game during the era that is widely considered to be the most broken on the backs of promoting foreigners defeating Koreans. I was there, I saw it. We all saw it.
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On November 30 2021 20:37 royalroadweed wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2021 19:28 Vindicare605 wrote:On November 30 2021 14:54 JJH777 wrote:On November 30 2021 08:51 Xain0n wrote:
Before the rise(in chronological order) of Rogue, Serral, Dark(who was already world class in 2016 but had collected significantly second places than successes) and Reynor, Zerg was by far the race with the least victories at "Premier" level; if we exclude the first BL Infestor era in 2012, Zerg as a race had never really been dominant in Sc2.
Zerg really needed an influx of new top tier players capable of actually winning championships; the real problem was the second BL Infestor era in 2019 which, coupled with very unwise nerfs to Protoss, lead to months of nauseating domination.
Zerg have also enjoyed favourable map pools in these last years of LoTV, with some notable exceptions in 2020.
Except Zerg was already the most successful race by a significant amount of prize money even before Rogues 2017 run. Zerg has been at best balanced and at worst OP for 90% of SC2s lifespan. They have never spent any significant amount of time being underpowered aside from 2010 and the first half of 2011. The only reason Zerg hasn't dominated even harder is because soO is a Kong and Life got banned. Oh there you go introducing measurable facts into an argument I thought was already lock solid measurable. How dare you? Even if there WERE tiny situations where Zerg was at a disadvantage, Blizzard didn't let that slip for long. The Blink meta vs Terran. Infestor Broodlord. The fact the queen needed to be nerfed 3 fucking times in the most recent balance patch..... NYDUS WORMS! HELLO! All point to a clear bias in how and when the game gets patched. Protoss has an OP build against Zerg? 2-3 months. Zerg has an obvious overpowered late game vs Protoss complete with a unit combination you already were FORCED to nerf 10 fucking years ago? We'll just let this ride out till the end of the year. The standards are completely lopsided. And the facts prove it, when you look at the data. I'm sick of trying to convince people of the bias. It's there in black and white if someone actually WANTS to find it. Zerg got VERY preferential treatment in terms of Balance Patches for a VERY long while. I watched a niche Terran build that Slayers team introduced get gutted in ONE WEEKENED because it embarassed the hell out of the foreign Zerg players at that tournament. I watched that happen. Zerg has been protected. FOR A LONG TIME. From the long arm of the balance nerf bat. I've seen it for a long time. It's about time that ended. I don't think there's any nefarious reason why this is. Its just that with protoss and terran there's often an obvious and singular broken unit that's overpowered. Like warhounds or adepts. With zerg its less obvious because it often not how strong a unit is but how easily that unit enables zerg greed. For example, I don't think BL-Infestor was really the problem in '12. Nothing really changed with those units prior to 2012. It was the +2 queen range that broke the match up. Even the most recent BL-infestor era I think the main culprit (at least for TvZ) was the +5 baneling hp. Though I have to say that, notwithstanding the hellbat era, it does seem like terran is nerfed exceedingly swiftly based on singular players or teams without really any time for the meta to adjust. Blue Flame, Snipe, Ravens all seemed like they were nerfed like a week later. Reapers were nerfed because of a singular player (maybe 2 players since uthermal was able to replicate some of byun's success in europe). Then there's random nerfs like the WM splash decrease in hots that end up having to be reverted.
No the primary reason for the 2019 Broodlord Infestor Meta was the fact they reintroduced upgrades applying to Infested Terrans. That and the map pool enabling Zerg greed because we can't forget that the maps are a big part of the story here.
But 2019 is special in my head for another reason. We saw how broken Nydus Worms were at IEM Katowice when they DEVASTATED pretty much every PvZ match throughout the entire tournament. That was in February and March of 2019.
They weren't nerfed until JANUARY of 2020. Blizzard saw how busted the Nydus was, how they were being used and they let that shit sit and fester for 3/4 of an entire year. They could have EASILY tweaked the numbers on that a LOT sooner. But nope. They just let it sit.
Think how fast Warp Prisms got nerfed when the remastered Immortal Sentry all in was being a menace in 2018? Look how fast that was. They let Nydus Worms sit for 9 fucking months. The Broodlord Infestor meta was only a thing during the latter half of that year. Nydus Worms they knew about in fucking FEBRUARY!
Ugh. 2019 pisses me off even more than 2012 does in a lot of ways. You would have thought they would have learned their lessons from 2012 and they didn't have the excuse of "we're working on HoTS" this time. Absolutely no reason that should have been as bad as it was for as long as it was.
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France12911 Posts
On December 01 2021 05:41 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2021 20:21 deacon.frost wrote:On November 30 2021 20:12 Poopi wrote:On November 30 2021 19:28 Vindicare605 wrote:On November 30 2021 14:54 JJH777 wrote:On November 30 2021 08:51 Xain0n wrote:
Before the rise(in chronological order) of Rogue, Serral, Dark(who was already world class in 2016 but had collected significantly second places than successes) and Reynor, Zerg was by far the race with the least victories at "Premier" level; if we exclude the first BL Infestor era in 2012, Zerg as a race had never really been dominant in Sc2.
Zerg really needed an influx of new top tier players capable of actually winning championships; the real problem was the second BL Infestor era in 2019 which, coupled with very unwise nerfs to Protoss, lead to months of nauseating domination.
Zerg have also enjoyed favourable map pools in these last years of LoTV, with some notable exceptions in 2020.
Except Zerg was already the most successful race by a significant amount of prize money even before Rogues 2017 run. Zerg has been at best balanced and at worst OP for 90% of SC2s lifespan. They have never spent any significant amount of time being underpowered aside from 2010 and the first half of 2011. The only reason Zerg hasn't dominated even harder is because soO is a Kong and Life got banned. Oh there you go introducing measurable facts into an argument I thought was already lock solid measurable. How dare you? Even if there WERE tiny situations where Zerg was at a disadvantage, Blizzard didn't let that slip for long. The Blink meta vs Terran. Infestor Broodlord. The fact the queen needed to be nerfed 3 fucking times in the most recent balance patch..... NYDUS WORMS! HELLO! All point to a clear bias in how and when the game gets patched. Protoss has an OP build against Zerg? 2-3 months. Zerg has an obvious overpowered late game vs Protoss complete with a unit combination you already were FORCED to nerf 10 fucking years ago? We'll just let this ride out till the end of the year. The standards are completely lopsided. And the facts prove it, when you look at the data. I'm sick of trying to convince people of the bias. It's there in black and white if someone actually WANTS to find it. Zerg got VERY preferential treatment in terms of Balance Patches for a VERY long while. I watched a niche Terran build that Slayers team introduced get gutted in ONE WEEKENED because it embarassed the hell out of the foreign Zerg players at that tournament. I watched that happen. Zerg has been protected. FOR A LONG TIME. From the long arm of the balance nerf bat. I've seen it for a long time. It's about time that ended. What would be the reason though? We were a lot to think 2019 happened because blizzard wanted foreigners to succeed, did they think Serral and Reynor would be the most likely to profit of advantages because terran was too hard for foreigners? Or were foreign protoss players not as marketable? But indeed, I can accept that 2012 was a "mistake" and since HotS was in development, they could not focus too much in time on it. But LotV is the last extension so 2019 is not fortuitous. If you think it's about the foreigner conspiracy, long time the best foreigners were zergs and foreigners were mostly Protoss or Zergs, rarely Special I don't think they've done this on purpose though, well, I mean the foreigner purpose. I may be wrong though. Oh please, they might not do it anymore (because Blizzard doesn't even promote the game anymore) but they DEFINITELY were doing it in 2012. Scarlett and Stephano are beating Koreans! That's all anyone cared about, that was all the narrative was about. It didn't matter HOW they were doing it, just that they were doing it and that the gap was closing. That's all Blizzard would promote and that's all the casters would ever talk about. Nevermind how you have horrific ZvZ finals in GSL with fucking Sniper of all people winning Code S or IPL finals where you have Brood Lord vs Brood Lord fights. Does anyone else remember that shit?! There's a reason we have a nickname for "Patch Zergs" and not for any other race. That shit used to be BLATANT. There's a reason I'm still pissed about it. Blizzard marketed their own game during the era that is widely considered to be the most broken on the backs of promoting foreigners defeating Koreans. I was there, I saw it. We all saw it.
Stephano was no patch zerg though. He took advantage of the race ultimately (you don't really have a choice) but he won tournaments before BL/Infestor and shaped the meta so much in every match-up (except maybe ZvZ?).
I agree that 2019 felt worse from Blizzard than 2012 though, it was even more blatant and should not have been a thing after 2012 already happened.
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On December 01 2021 07:16 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2021 05:41 Vindicare605 wrote:On November 30 2021 20:21 deacon.frost wrote:On November 30 2021 20:12 Poopi wrote:On November 30 2021 19:28 Vindicare605 wrote:On November 30 2021 14:54 JJH777 wrote:On November 30 2021 08:51 Xain0n wrote:
Before the rise(in chronological order) of Rogue, Serral, Dark(who was already world class in 2016 but had collected significantly second places than successes) and Reynor, Zerg was by far the race with the least victories at "Premier" level; if we exclude the first BL Infestor era in 2012, Zerg as a race had never really been dominant in Sc2.
Zerg really needed an influx of new top tier players capable of actually winning championships; the real problem was the second BL Infestor era in 2019 which, coupled with very unwise nerfs to Protoss, lead to months of nauseating domination.
Zerg have also enjoyed favourable map pools in these last years of LoTV, with some notable exceptions in 2020.
Except Zerg was already the most successful race by a significant amount of prize money even before Rogues 2017 run. Zerg has been at best balanced and at worst OP for 90% of SC2s lifespan. They have never spent any significant amount of time being underpowered aside from 2010 and the first half of 2011. The only reason Zerg hasn't dominated even harder is because soO is a Kong and Life got banned. Oh there you go introducing measurable facts into an argument I thought was already lock solid measurable. How dare you? Even if there WERE tiny situations where Zerg was at a disadvantage, Blizzard didn't let that slip for long. The Blink meta vs Terran. Infestor Broodlord. The fact the queen needed to be nerfed 3 fucking times in the most recent balance patch..... NYDUS WORMS! HELLO! All point to a clear bias in how and when the game gets patched. Protoss has an OP build against Zerg? 2-3 months. Zerg has an obvious overpowered late game vs Protoss complete with a unit combination you already were FORCED to nerf 10 fucking years ago? We'll just let this ride out till the end of the year. The standards are completely lopsided. And the facts prove it, when you look at the data. I'm sick of trying to convince people of the bias. It's there in black and white if someone actually WANTS to find it. Zerg got VERY preferential treatment in terms of Balance Patches for a VERY long while. I watched a niche Terran build that Slayers team introduced get gutted in ONE WEEKENED because it embarassed the hell out of the foreign Zerg players at that tournament. I watched that happen. Zerg has been protected. FOR A LONG TIME. From the long arm of the balance nerf bat. I've seen it for a long time. It's about time that ended. What would be the reason though? We were a lot to think 2019 happened because blizzard wanted foreigners to succeed, did they think Serral and Reynor would be the most likely to profit of advantages because terran was too hard for foreigners? Or were foreign protoss players not as marketable? But indeed, I can accept that 2012 was a "mistake" and since HotS was in development, they could not focus too much in time on it. But LotV is the last extension so 2019 is not fortuitous. If you think it's about the foreigner conspiracy, long time the best foreigners were zergs and foreigners were mostly Protoss or Zergs, rarely Special I don't think they've done this on purpose though, well, I mean the foreigner purpose. I may be wrong though. Oh please, they might not do it anymore (because Blizzard doesn't even promote the game anymore) but they DEFINITELY were doing it in 2012. Scarlett and Stephano are beating Koreans! That's all anyone cared about, that was all the narrative was about. It didn't matter HOW they were doing it, just that they were doing it and that the gap was closing. That's all Blizzard would promote and that's all the casters would ever talk about. Nevermind how you have horrific ZvZ finals in GSL with fucking Sniper of all people winning Code S or IPL finals where you have Brood Lord vs Brood Lord fights. Does anyone else remember that shit?! There's a reason we have a nickname for "Patch Zergs" and not for any other race. That shit used to be BLATANT. There's a reason I'm still pissed about it. Blizzard marketed their own game during the era that is widely considered to be the most broken on the backs of promoting foreigners defeating Koreans. I was there, I saw it. We all saw it. Stephano was no patch zerg though. He took advantage of the race ultimately (you don't really have a choice) but he won tournaments before BL/Infestor and shaped the meta so much in every match-up (except maybe ZvZ?). I agree that 2019 felt worse from Blizzard than 2012 though, it was even more blatant and should not have been a thing after 2012 already happened.
I know. I often throw Stephano into the mix because of the narrative but he definitely deserved to not be called a Patch Zerg. I absolutely loved how celebrated he was back then, when he was first winning (although the Roach Max was pretty brutal for a while until the map pool evolved) but then when Broodlord Infestor came along it made everything feel cheap after a while which was another reason I fucking hated it.
When Stephano first started winning it was a huge accomplishment. When every Zerg started winning because the game was busted it was just because the game was busted it didn't matter anymore to me whether or not the gap was closing because there was a much bigger problem to fix before I would care.
What kills me about 2012 ultimately is that WoL was at the peak of its popularity and watching Broodlord Infestor turned off a LOT of people when the game SHOULD have kept growing from that point. That was 6-9 months of the most boring Starcraft you could ever play or watch and that was when the game was at the peak of its popularity and Blizzard just shrugged it off and said "HoTS will fix it." Yea too bad the tournaments are still paying out big bucks and all of that money is just going to whichever player has the best ZvZ or which Protoss can land the luckiest Archon toilet (which was also a thing back then.)
At least by 2019 the game wasn't growing anymore and the narrative was a little different. Everyone was pissed at the end of 2019 and no one was trying to make excuses for it at that point.
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Canada8989 Posts
On December 01 2021 05:41 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2021 20:21 deacon.frost wrote:On November 30 2021 20:12 Poopi wrote:On November 30 2021 19:28 Vindicare605 wrote:On November 30 2021 14:54 JJH777 wrote:On November 30 2021 08:51 Xain0n wrote:
Before the rise(in chronological order) of Rogue, Serral, Dark(who was already world class in 2016 but had collected significantly second places than successes) and Reynor, Zerg was by far the race with the least victories at "Premier" level; if we exclude the first BL Infestor era in 2012, Zerg as a race had never really been dominant in Sc2.
Zerg really needed an influx of new top tier players capable of actually winning championships; the real problem was the second BL Infestor era in 2019 which, coupled with very unwise nerfs to Protoss, lead to months of nauseating domination.
Zerg have also enjoyed favourable map pools in these last years of LoTV, with some notable exceptions in 2020.
Except Zerg was already the most successful race by a significant amount of prize money even before Rogues 2017 run. Zerg has been at best balanced and at worst OP for 90% of SC2s lifespan. They have never spent any significant amount of time being underpowered aside from 2010 and the first half of 2011. The only reason Zerg hasn't dominated even harder is because soO is a Kong and Life got banned. Oh there you go introducing measurable facts into an argument I thought was already lock solid measurable. How dare you? Even if there WERE tiny situations where Zerg was at a disadvantage, Blizzard didn't let that slip for long. The Blink meta vs Terran. Infestor Broodlord. The fact the queen needed to be nerfed 3 fucking times in the most recent balance patch..... NYDUS WORMS! HELLO! All point to a clear bias in how and when the game gets patched. Protoss has an OP build against Zerg? 2-3 months. Zerg has an obvious overpowered late game vs Protoss complete with a unit combination you already were FORCED to nerf 10 fucking years ago? We'll just let this ride out till the end of the year. The standards are completely lopsided. And the facts prove it, when you look at the data. I'm sick of trying to convince people of the bias. It's there in black and white if someone actually WANTS to find it. Zerg got VERY preferential treatment in terms of Balance Patches for a VERY long while. I watched a niche Terran build that Slayers team introduced get gutted in ONE WEEKENED because it embarassed the hell out of the foreign Zerg players at that tournament. I watched that happen. Zerg has been protected. FOR A LONG TIME. From the long arm of the balance nerf bat. I've seen it for a long time. It's about time that ended. What would be the reason though? We were a lot to think 2019 happened because blizzard wanted foreigners to succeed, did they think Serral and Reynor would be the most likely to profit of advantages because terran was too hard for foreigners? Or were foreign protoss players not as marketable? But indeed, I can accept that 2012 was a "mistake" and since HotS was in development, they could not focus too much in time on it. But LotV is the last extension so 2019 is not fortuitous. If you think it's about the foreigner conspiracy, long time the best foreigners were zergs and foreigners were mostly Protoss or Zergs, rarely Special I don't think they've done this on purpose though, well, I mean the foreigner purpose. I may be wrong though. Oh please, they might not do it anymore (because Blizzard doesn't even promote the game anymore) but they DEFINITELY were doing it in 2012. Scarlett and Stephano are beating Koreans! That's all anyone cared about, that was all the narrative was about. It didn't matter HOW they were doing it, just that they were doing it and that the gap was closing. That's all Blizzard would promote and that's all the casters would ever talk about. Nevermind how you have horrific ZvZ finals in GSL with fucking Sniper of all people winning Code S or IPL finals where you have Brood Lord vs Brood Lord fights. Does anyone else remember that shit?! There's a reason we have a nickname for "Patch Zergs" and not for any other race. That shit used to be BLATANT. There's a reason I'm still pissed about it. Blizzard marketed their own game during the era that is widely considered to be the most broken on the backs of promoting foreigners defeating Koreans. I was there, I saw it. We all saw it.
2011 (or 2010 for that matter) was a much better year than 2012 for foreigners and there's pretty much zero reason before BL infestor to think that foreigners would do better if zerg was better. Thorzain had just won DH Stockolm and Huk, Naniwa and Mana were all in the conversation for best foreigner.
Stephano and Scarlett became champion because of the WCS format that was region locked if the balance was different it would maybe have been other people but foreigners all the same. Stephano did ok vs Korean (no better than in 2011, arguably worst than Nani or Huk in 2011) and Scarlett did pretty much jack shit against them saved for one Iron Squid run. No other patch zerg won vs korean with any kind of regularity.
Even if it was all a conspiracy (wich I don't beleive for a second) it would have been a pretty stupid and innefectual one.
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On December 01 2021 08:18 Nakajin wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2021 05:41 Vindicare605 wrote:On November 30 2021 20:21 deacon.frost wrote:On November 30 2021 20:12 Poopi wrote:On November 30 2021 19:28 Vindicare605 wrote:On November 30 2021 14:54 JJH777 wrote:On November 30 2021 08:51 Xain0n wrote:
Before the rise(in chronological order) of Rogue, Serral, Dark(who was already world class in 2016 but had collected significantly second places than successes) and Reynor, Zerg was by far the race with the least victories at "Premier" level; if we exclude the first BL Infestor era in 2012, Zerg as a race had never really been dominant in Sc2.
Zerg really needed an influx of new top tier players capable of actually winning championships; the real problem was the second BL Infestor era in 2019 which, coupled with very unwise nerfs to Protoss, lead to months of nauseating domination.
Zerg have also enjoyed favourable map pools in these last years of LoTV, with some notable exceptions in 2020.
Except Zerg was already the most successful race by a significant amount of prize money even before Rogues 2017 run. Zerg has been at best balanced and at worst OP for 90% of SC2s lifespan. They have never spent any significant amount of time being underpowered aside from 2010 and the first half of 2011. The only reason Zerg hasn't dominated even harder is because soO is a Kong and Life got banned. Oh there you go introducing measurable facts into an argument I thought was already lock solid measurable. How dare you? Even if there WERE tiny situations where Zerg was at a disadvantage, Blizzard didn't let that slip for long. The Blink meta vs Terran. Infestor Broodlord. The fact the queen needed to be nerfed 3 fucking times in the most recent balance patch..... NYDUS WORMS! HELLO! All point to a clear bias in how and when the game gets patched. Protoss has an OP build against Zerg? 2-3 months. Zerg has an obvious overpowered late game vs Protoss complete with a unit combination you already were FORCED to nerf 10 fucking years ago? We'll just let this ride out till the end of the year. The standards are completely lopsided. And the facts prove it, when you look at the data. I'm sick of trying to convince people of the bias. It's there in black and white if someone actually WANTS to find it. Zerg got VERY preferential treatment in terms of Balance Patches for a VERY long while. I watched a niche Terran build that Slayers team introduced get gutted in ONE WEEKENED because it embarassed the hell out of the foreign Zerg players at that tournament. I watched that happen. Zerg has been protected. FOR A LONG TIME. From the long arm of the balance nerf bat. I've seen it for a long time. It's about time that ended. What would be the reason though? We were a lot to think 2019 happened because blizzard wanted foreigners to succeed, did they think Serral and Reynor would be the most likely to profit of advantages because terran was too hard for foreigners? Or were foreign protoss players not as marketable? But indeed, I can accept that 2012 was a "mistake" and since HotS was in development, they could not focus too much in time on it. But LotV is the last extension so 2019 is not fortuitous. If you think it's about the foreigner conspiracy, long time the best foreigners were zergs and foreigners were mostly Protoss or Zergs, rarely Special I don't think they've done this on purpose though, well, I mean the foreigner purpose. I may be wrong though. Oh please, they might not do it anymore (because Blizzard doesn't even promote the game anymore) but they DEFINITELY were doing it in 2012. Scarlett and Stephano are beating Koreans! That's all anyone cared about, that was all the narrative was about. It didn't matter HOW they were doing it, just that they were doing it and that the gap was closing. That's all Blizzard would promote and that's all the casters would ever talk about. Nevermind how you have horrific ZvZ finals in GSL with fucking Sniper of all people winning Code S or IPL finals where you have Brood Lord vs Brood Lord fights. Does anyone else remember that shit?! There's a reason we have a nickname for "Patch Zergs" and not for any other race. That shit used to be BLATANT. There's a reason I'm still pissed about it. Blizzard marketed their own game during the era that is widely considered to be the most broken on the backs of promoting foreigners defeating Koreans. I was there, I saw it. We all saw it. 2011 (or 2010 for that matter) was a much better year than 2012 for foreigners and there's pretty much zero reason before BL infestor to think that foreigners would do better if zerg was better. Thorzain had just won DH Stockolm and Huk, Naniwa and Mana were all in the conversation for best foreigner. Stephano and Scarlett became champion because of the WCS format that was region locked if the balance was different it would maybe have been other people but foreigners all the same. Stephano did ok vs Korean (no better than in 2011, arguably worst than Nani or Huk in 2011) and Scarlett did pretty much jack shit against them. No other patch zerg won vs korean with any kind of regularity. Even if it was all a conspiracy (wich I don't beleive for a second) it would have been a pretty stupid and innefectual one.
2010 and 2011 had more foreigner success because GSL players weren't traveling to foreign events yet. Every time one of the powerhouses of the GSL made an appearance in those tournaments they'd win. Stephano was the first player to show he could actually kick it with the best the GSL had to offer.
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Canada8989 Posts
On December 01 2021 08:26 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2021 08:18 Nakajin wrote:On December 01 2021 05:41 Vindicare605 wrote:On November 30 2021 20:21 deacon.frost wrote:On November 30 2021 20:12 Poopi wrote:On November 30 2021 19:28 Vindicare605 wrote:On November 30 2021 14:54 JJH777 wrote:On November 30 2021 08:51 Xain0n wrote:
Before the rise(in chronological order) of Rogue, Serral, Dark(who was already world class in 2016 but had collected significantly second places than successes) and Reynor, Zerg was by far the race with the least victories at "Premier" level; if we exclude the first BL Infestor era in 2012, Zerg as a race had never really been dominant in Sc2.
Zerg really needed an influx of new top tier players capable of actually winning championships; the real problem was the second BL Infestor era in 2019 which, coupled with very unwise nerfs to Protoss, lead to months of nauseating domination.
Zerg have also enjoyed favourable map pools in these last years of LoTV, with some notable exceptions in 2020.
Except Zerg was already the most successful race by a significant amount of prize money even before Rogues 2017 run. Zerg has been at best balanced and at worst OP for 90% of SC2s lifespan. They have never spent any significant amount of time being underpowered aside from 2010 and the first half of 2011. The only reason Zerg hasn't dominated even harder is because soO is a Kong and Life got banned. Oh there you go introducing measurable facts into an argument I thought was already lock solid measurable. How dare you? Even if there WERE tiny situations where Zerg was at a disadvantage, Blizzard didn't let that slip for long. The Blink meta vs Terran. Infestor Broodlord. The fact the queen needed to be nerfed 3 fucking times in the most recent balance patch..... NYDUS WORMS! HELLO! All point to a clear bias in how and when the game gets patched. Protoss has an OP build against Zerg? 2-3 months. Zerg has an obvious overpowered late game vs Protoss complete with a unit combination you already were FORCED to nerf 10 fucking years ago? We'll just let this ride out till the end of the year. The standards are completely lopsided. And the facts prove it, when you look at the data. I'm sick of trying to convince people of the bias. It's there in black and white if someone actually WANTS to find it. Zerg got VERY preferential treatment in terms of Balance Patches for a VERY long while. I watched a niche Terran build that Slayers team introduced get gutted in ONE WEEKENED because it embarassed the hell out of the foreign Zerg players at that tournament. I watched that happen. Zerg has been protected. FOR A LONG TIME. From the long arm of the balance nerf bat. I've seen it for a long time. It's about time that ended. What would be the reason though? We were a lot to think 2019 happened because blizzard wanted foreigners to succeed, did they think Serral and Reynor would be the most likely to profit of advantages because terran was too hard for foreigners? Or were foreign protoss players not as marketable? But indeed, I can accept that 2012 was a "mistake" and since HotS was in development, they could not focus too much in time on it. But LotV is the last extension so 2019 is not fortuitous. If you think it's about the foreigner conspiracy, long time the best foreigners were zergs and foreigners were mostly Protoss or Zergs, rarely Special I don't think they've done this on purpose though, well, I mean the foreigner purpose. I may be wrong though. Oh please, they might not do it anymore (because Blizzard doesn't even promote the game anymore) but they DEFINITELY were doing it in 2012. Scarlett and Stephano are beating Koreans! That's all anyone cared about, that was all the narrative was about. It didn't matter HOW they were doing it, just that they were doing it and that the gap was closing. That's all Blizzard would promote and that's all the casters would ever talk about. Nevermind how you have horrific ZvZ finals in GSL with fucking Sniper of all people winning Code S or IPL finals where you have Brood Lord vs Brood Lord fights. Does anyone else remember that shit?! There's a reason we have a nickname for "Patch Zergs" and not for any other race. That shit used to be BLATANT. There's a reason I'm still pissed about it. Blizzard marketed their own game during the era that is widely considered to be the most broken on the backs of promoting foreigners defeating Koreans. I was there, I saw it. We all saw it. 2011 (or 2010 for that matter) was a much better year than 2012 for foreigners and there's pretty much zero reason before BL infestor to think that foreigners would do better if zerg was better. Thorzain had just won DH Stockolm and Huk, Naniwa and Mana were all in the conversation for best foreigner. Stephano and Scarlett became champion because of the WCS format that was region locked if the balance was different it would maybe have been other people but foreigners all the same. Stephano did ok vs Korean (no better than in 2011, arguably worst than Nani or Huk in 2011) and Scarlett did pretty much jack shit against them. No other patch zerg won vs korean with any kind of regularity. Even if it was all a conspiracy (wich I don't beleive for a second) it would have been a pretty stupid and innefectual one. 2010 and 2011 had more foreigner success because GSL players weren't traveling to foreign events yet. Every time one of the powerhouses of the GSL made an appearance in those tournaments they'd win. Stephano was the first player to show he could actually kick it with the best the GSL had to offer.
Ya off course but certainly that didn't change one bit in 2012, foreigner were getting their asses handed to them during the BL infestor days, that's not saying thay they a few patch zerg didn't score a couple zvp win vs Koreans they wouldn't have otherwise, but as a whole foreigners were as far as ever from winning tournaments at that point. (Partly because the competition became harder like you said) No one patched the game in the hope that Lowely could get a top 16 results instead of a top 32.
If Blizz had kept BL infestor to help foreigners it would imply that foreigners were doing at least decently good, or at least better than if one or the other two race was better, which there's just no reason to think.
Casters overhype foreigners cause that's what they do, they hyped Scarlett when the ling-muta-bane became super good for zerg, they hyped Snute when Searmhost were a thing, they hyped Lilbow when Protoss was dominant, they hype UT and Kelazhue when it was reaper time, ect...
(Incidently, I would still argue that foreigners did better in 2011 compared to Korean all thing being equal, but that's nether here nor there)
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The first BL Infestor era was, in a way, worse since it made
obscure mid tier pros capable of winning big titles and gifted topX placements to players who were unknown before and would accolplish nothing afterwards; this happened in Korea as well as outside of it.
Stephano was winning the year before BL Infestors were a thing and in 2011 Code S players had alredy started to travel overseas; if anything, KeSpa players hadn't made the switch yet.
At Katowice 2019 Nydus was already a very strong strat but Protoss were capable of dealing with it well.
Stats went to the finals by beating Dark and he lost because he choked hard.
The second BL Infestor era followed the nerfs to Protoss' early game tools and it made the strongest Zerg players almost unbeatable but didn't change unkown players into top tier ones; it was still oppressive and Blizzard should have reacted after a couple of tournaments instead of waiting for BlizzCon to come.
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On December 01 2021 09:35 Xain0n wrote:
The first BL Infestor era was, in a way, worse since it made
obscure mid tier pros capable of winning big titles and gifted topX placements to players who were unknown before and would accolplish nothing afterwards; this happened in Korea as well as outside of it.
Stephano was winning the year before BL Infestors were a thing and in 2011 Code S players had alredy started to travel overseas; if anything, KeSpa players hadn't made the switch yet.
At Katowice 2019 Nydus was already a very strong strat but Protoss were capable of dealing with it well.
Stats went to the finals by beating Dark and he lost because he choked hard.
The second BL Infestor era followed the nerfs to Protoss' early game tools and it made the strongest Zerg players almost unbeatable but didn't change unkown players into top tier ones; it was still oppressive and Blizzard should have reacted after a couple of tournaments instead of waiting for BlizzCon to come.
The fact didn't Blizzard didn't react isn't as damning to me as the disparity in how they responded with the Warp Prism not very long before.
Warp Prism micro was creating problems and Protoss was winning as a result of it. That shit didn't last more than a couple of months before Warp Prisms got a nerf 2 actually, both in price and in pick up range. For comparison's sake, how long was the Blink Meta vs Terran a thing before THAT finally got a nerf? Correct me if I'm wrong but it feels like it lasted a HELL of a lot longer.
Nydus Worms and Broodlord Infestor was allowed to be a thing for 6 months or longer? Really? Why? Why is it always ZERG that takes forever to get their just desserts when Terran and Protoss get nerfed so fucking fast all the god damn time?
The only reasonable complaints that Zerg players have had over the years that I can remember, that were not solved quickly were Forcefields and Battlecruiser tactical jump. Both of which were either eliminated via indirect nerfs (Ravagers) or gutted via patches later and neither of those problems were anywhere NEAR as dominant as Infestor Broodlord was TWICE in the meta.
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