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HomeStory Cup XXII - Page 5

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Tournaments
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Athenau
Profile Joined March 2015
571 Posts
Last Edited: 2022-12-18 23:40:02
December 18 2022 23:38 GMT
#81
On December 19 2022 08:14 JJH777 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 19 2022 05:05 Nakajin wrote:
On December 19 2022 04:56 Charoisaur wrote:
On December 19 2022 04:51 tigera6 wrote:
Now Byun and Astrea need to fight it out and then lose to Reynor so that Zerg has no excuse to roll out the patch at least until IEM is finished.

there was no reason to buff Zerg anyway even before this tournament. Another Zerg winner won't change anything. Certain people just want Zerg to dominate


I feel like at this point it's just straight up hubris to imagine anyone care enough about SC2 esport to organize a conspiracy about it.


I don't think it's a conspiracy. I think the issue is that the people balancing the game and organizing events for it want to believe that Serral is the best person to ever touch the game and acknowledging that Zerg has spent the last few years weakens his claim to that title dramatically. So rather than acknowledging that they just say Zerg is fine or even underpowered and Serral and the all other Zergs that have won events are just that much better than T/P players. Which leads to balance patches like this one.


7/14 premier tournament wins from five different Zergs, and 13/28 finalists this year. And somehow this isn't enough--amazing.
Antithesis
Profile Joined August 2010
Germany1230 Posts
December 18 2022 23:49 GMT
#82
Amazing tournament, as always! Congratulations to Reynor and many thanks to TakeTV.

They really succeeded in crafting a beautiful cozy winter atmosphere.
Mutation complete.
Nakajin
Profile Blog Joined September 2014
Canada8989 Posts
Last Edited: 2022-12-19 00:36:54
December 19 2022 00:34 GMT
#83
On December 19 2022 05:19 Charoisaur wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 19 2022 05:05 Nakajin wrote:
On December 19 2022 04:56 Charoisaur wrote:
On December 19 2022 04:51 tigera6 wrote:
Now Byun and Astrea need to fight it out and then lose to Reynor so that Zerg has no excuse to roll out the patch at least until IEM is finished.

there was no reason to buff Zerg anyway even before this tournament. Another Zerg winner won't change anything. Certain people just want Zerg to dominate


I feel like at this point it's just straight up hubris to imagine anyone care enough about SC2 esport to organize a conspiracy about it.

the people making money from SC2 esport certainly care about it


But who's that in 2022 really? Obviously, you have the casters and the players but outside of that? There's Alex007 at ESL and maybe one or two persons around him, the rest of the production guys would work there anyway on other projects. Maybe management at ESL care a bit about SC2 numbers, but it's definitely just another contract amongst their long list of product.
Then you have the GSL and the Afreeca TV staff and the WTL guys, but it's not them you are talking about. And we are left with...a couple of team managers (maybe) and the AlphaX guys and that's it?

And finally Blizzard of course, after all, they are the ones pumping money in the scene. Well, they haven't put out a SC2 product in half a decade, most if not all of the RTS dev team is out, and they just did their first patch in years that was essentially crowd sourced to the community. It's a bit silly to imagine that anyone working there has the game knowledge or is allowed the time to analyze how a 0.33 speed upgrade to the BL will play out in relation to a sensor tower vision radius nerf.

So we're pretty much just accusing Alex007, someone who has dedicated a decade of his life to doing Ukranian rebroadcast and organizing the eastern-european scene, of having come into the job at ESL with the secret plan (or secret order whatever) to craft an elaborate balance patch so that one of two players (Serral or Reynor, but also not Dark, Solar or Ragnarok) would win the next world championship, in order to maybe marginally increase viewership numbers in order to maybe convince an executive at Activision to resign on a financing deal for 23-24.

Or, we could choose the much more uplifting option that a bunch of people who really, really, like Starcraft and wish it continue, put a bunch of ideas together and convinced Blizz to actually put it into the game. Maybe it'll be good for the balance, maybe not but I find it a bit sad to throw them under the bus out of nowhere.
Writerhttp://i.imgur.com/9p6ufcB.jpg
Poopi
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
France12909 Posts
December 19 2022 01:22 GMT
#84
On December 19 2022 09:34 Nakajin wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 19 2022 05:19 Charoisaur wrote:
On December 19 2022 05:05 Nakajin wrote:
On December 19 2022 04:56 Charoisaur wrote:
On December 19 2022 04:51 tigera6 wrote:
Now Byun and Astrea need to fight it out and then lose to Reynor so that Zerg has no excuse to roll out the patch at least until IEM is finished.

there was no reason to buff Zerg anyway even before this tournament. Another Zerg winner won't change anything. Certain people just want Zerg to dominate


I feel like at this point it's just straight up hubris to imagine anyone care enough about SC2 esport to organize a conspiracy about it.

the people making money from SC2 esport certainly care about it


But who's that in 2022 really? Obviously, you have the casters and the players but outside of that? There's Alex007 at ESL and maybe one or two persons around him, the rest of the production guys would work there anyway on other projects. Maybe management at ESL care a bit about SC2 numbers, but it's definitely just another contract amongst their long list of product.
Then you have the GSL and the Afreeca TV staff and the WTL guys, but it's not them you are talking about. And we are left with...a couple of team managers (maybe) and the AlphaX guys and that's it?

And finally Blizzard of course, after all, they are the ones pumping money in the scene. Well, they haven't put out a SC2 product in half a decade, most if not all of the RTS dev team is out, and they just did their first patch in years that was essentially crowd sourced to the community. It's a bit silly to imagine that anyone working there has the game knowledge or is allowed the time to analyze how a 0.33 speed upgrade to the BL will play out in relation to a sensor tower vision radius nerf.

So we're pretty much just accusing Alex007, someone who has dedicated a decade of his life to doing Ukranian rebroadcast and organizing the eastern-european scene, of having come into the job at ESL with the secret plan (or secret order whatever) to craft an elaborate balance patch so that one of two players (Serral or Reynor, but also not Dark, Solar or Ragnarok) would win the next world championship, in order to maybe marginally increase viewership numbers in order to maybe convince an executive at Activision to resign on a financing deal for 23-24.

Or, we could choose the much more uplifting option that a bunch of people who really, really, like Starcraft and wish it continue, put a bunch of ideas together and convinced Blizz to actually put it into the game. Maybe it'll be good for the balance, maybe not but I find it a bit sad to throw them under the bus out of nowhere.

I did not look at each of the pages of the PTR topic about the latest balance patch, but iirc the gameheart mod dev (who was not part of Blizzard but took some functions in it with his work) said that the balance council (thus the players from the foreign community) did not know about all the proposed changes in that PTR patch.
In that case, I think it is a similar case as the mapmakers community: some of them despise the players / don’t wanna take balance into account when making maps.

Ultimately though, you are right about the uplifting part: we should be very very very thankful (even if thanksgiving is done for this year) about StarCraft 2 still getting support after so many years.
On the other hand, the PTR / balance topic got way more posts than this awesome HSC on TLnet, so even though we should stay positive, having some negative reactions to things like patches and stuff means people still care about the game, which is a good thing .

There are more appropriate places to discuss these things than this topic I guess, but I am not sure we have the luxury to do that (nor the need?) with that level of activity?

Either way, although I only watched on Saturday and Sunday after the football World Cup, this tournament was very entertaining.
ByuN confirmed his good form (beating Maru was not a fluke after all ) and once again that he is a « wolf in sheep clothing », while the Protosses such as Zoun and Astrea were brilliant!

Ggs
WriterMaru
BelethielQT
Profile Joined August 2022
90 Posts
Last Edited: 2022-12-19 01:38:43
December 19 2022 01:30 GMT
#85

BelethielQT
Profile Joined August 2022
90 Posts
December 19 2022 01:36 GMT
#86
On December 19 2022 10:30 BelethielQT wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 19 2022 08:14 JJH777 wrote:
On December 19 2022 05:05 Nakajin wrote:
On December 19 2022 04:56 Charoisaur wrote:
On December 19 2022 04:51 tigera6 wrote:
Now Byun and Astrea need to fight it out and then lose to Reynor so that Zerg has no excuse to roll out the patch at least until IEM is finished.

there was no reason to buff Zerg anyway even before this tournament. Another Zerg winner won't change anything. Certain people just want Zerg to dominate


I feel like at this point it's just straight up hubris to imagine anyone care enough about SC2 esport to organize a conspiracy about it.


I don't think it's a conspiracy. I think the issue is that the people balancing the game and organizing events for it want to believe that Serral is the best person to ever touch the game and acknowledging that Zerg has spent the last few years as the best race weakens his claim to that title dramatically. So rather than acknowledging that they just say Zerg is fine or even underpowered and Serral and the all other Zergs that have won events are just that much better than T/P players. Which leads to balance patches like this one.


Mad serral hater

TossHeroes
Profile Joined February 2022
281 Posts
Last Edited: 2022-12-19 02:33:49
December 19 2022 02:28 GMT
#87
Of course the usual terran fan boys complaining about balance in a home story cup thread instead or the balance thread

I did enjoy Astrea rekting Byun though in clown feata style

NA holds against Korea
Athenau
Profile Joined March 2015
571 Posts
December 19 2022 04:05 GMT
#88
On December 19 2022 11:28 TossHeroes wrote:
Of course the usual terran fan boys complaining about balance in a home story cup thread instead or the balance thread

I did enjoy Astrea rekting Byun though in clown feata style

NA holds against Korea

Since you call people fanboys regardless of the thread, I'm not sure why anyone should care.
tigera6
Profile Joined March 2021
3465 Posts
December 19 2022 04:14 GMT
#89
Had to watch the Grand Final through VOD, but Reynor just out-micro Astrea so hard in the entire series. Reynor lings were picking up unit after unit for free and the Muta ran circle around the slow Carriers in that game 4. 5-6 Phoenix would shut down the Muta but Astrea kept building and losing Carriers was not great.

On December 19 2022 11:28 TossHeroes wrote:
Of course the usual terran fan boys complaining about balance in a home story cup thread instead or the balance thread

I did enjoy Astrea rekting Byun though in clown feata style

NA holds against Korea

Typica Toss and Serral fanboy response.

dysenterymd
Profile Joined January 2019
1250 Posts
December 19 2022 15:58 GMT
#90
On December 19 2022 13:14 tigera6 wrote:
Had to watch the Grand Final through VOD, but Reynor just out-micro Astrea so hard in the entire series. Reynor lings were picking up unit after unit for free and the Muta ran circle around the slow Carriers in that game 4. 5-6 Phoenix would shut down the Muta but Astrea kept building and losing Carriers was not great.

Yeah, Astrea seemed to get the good end of the build order RPS but just couldn't execute, probably a mix of nerves and tiredness from playing so many games. With the rate he's improving and his current level I do feel like he has the capacity to win an international event at some point though, he's arguably the #2 Toss right now though still obviously far behind herO.
Serral | Inno | sOs | soO | Has | Classic
Poopi
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
France12909 Posts
December 19 2022 16:08 GMT
#91
On December 20 2022 00:58 dysenterymd wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 19 2022 13:14 tigera6 wrote:
Had to watch the Grand Final through VOD, but Reynor just out-micro Astrea so hard in the entire series. Reynor lings were picking up unit after unit for free and the Muta ran circle around the slow Carriers in that game 4. 5-6 Phoenix would shut down the Muta but Astrea kept building and losing Carriers was not great.

Yeah, Astrea seemed to get the good end of the build order RPS but just couldn't execute, probably a mix of nerves and tiredness from playing so many games. With the rate he's improving and his current level I do feel like he has the capacity to win an international event at some point though, he's arguably the #2 Toss right now though still obviously far behind herO.

You are hurting a lot of MaxPax fans feelings right now, even though you are probably right about Astrea being #2 toss
WriterMaru
tlnetuser108
Profile Joined October 2022
83 Posts
December 24 2022 16:35 GMT
#92
I can gladly say that after this latest HSC, the only non-Koream contender for GOAT is Reynor. It always has been. I honestly can't think of any other non-Korean that can be considered GOAT... not even Clem whos the 2nd best non-Korean after Reynor.
BronzeKnee
Profile Joined March 2011
United States5219 Posts
Last Edited: 2022-12-26 19:30:16
December 26 2022 19:29 GMT
#93
On December 25 2022 01:35 tlnetuser108 wrote:
I can gladly say that after this latest HSC, the only non-Koream contender for GOAT is Reynor. It always has been. I honestly can't think of any other non-Korean that can be considered GOAT... not even Clem whos the 2nd best non-Korean after Reynor.


Stephano is the best ever for non-Koreans, there is no question. He won tournaments against the very best Koreans when the Team Houses were still open and redefined the meta. Winning against Koreans today is lesser achievement.

Serral is #2.
Nakajin
Profile Blog Joined September 2014
Canada8989 Posts
Last Edited: 2022-12-27 01:39:32
December 27 2022 01:39 GMT
#94
On December 27 2022 04:29 BronzeKnee wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 25 2022 01:35 tlnetuser108 wrote:
I can gladly say that after this latest HSC, the only non-Koream contender for GOAT is Reynor. It always has been. I honestly can't think of any other non-Korean that can be considered GOAT... not even Clem whos the 2nd best non-Korean after Reynor.


Stephano is the best ever for non-Koreans, there is no question. He won tournaments against the very best Koreans when the Team Houses were still open and redefined the meta. Winning against Koreans today is lesser achievement.

Serral is #2.


Stephano never won tournaments against the very best Koreans and lost to other European all the times. At best he won one trophy beating beating MC and Alicia just as they were about to fade into obscurity with the Kespa switch.

Serral litteraly went 8 months without losing a series.
Writerhttp://i.imgur.com/9p6ufcB.jpg
dysenterymd
Profile Joined January 2019
1250 Posts
Last Edited: 2022-12-27 08:21:14
December 27 2022 08:19 GMT
#95
On December 27 2022 10:39 Nakajin wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 27 2022 04:29 BronzeKnee wrote:
On December 25 2022 01:35 tlnetuser108 wrote:
I can gladly say that after this latest HSC, the only non-Koream contender for GOAT is Reynor. It always has been. I honestly can't think of any other non-Korean that can be considered GOAT... not even Clem whos the 2nd best non-Korean after Reynor.


Stephano is the best ever for non-Koreans, there is no question. He won tournaments against the very best Koreans when the Team Houses were still open and redefined the meta. Winning against Koreans today is lesser achievement.

Serral is #2.


Stephano never won tournaments against the very best Koreans and lost to other European all the times. At best he won one trophy beating beating MC and Alicia just as they were about to fade into obscurity with the Kespa switch.

Serral litteraly went 8 months without losing a series.

I think Serral > Reynor > Neeb > Stephano is pretty clearly the pecking order for best non-Koreans of all time, after that are probably Snute, Naniwa, Clem and maybe Scarlett in some order?
Serral | Inno | sOs | soO | Has | Classic
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