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Maru was playing rather greedy on every map while Oliveira was going 8 rax before 4 cc on maps without an easy defense. He only went to 4 cc quickly on maps like Oceanborn or Ghost River where he, like Maru, fell behind in supply. He also transitioned into ghosts more slowly and played a more stable style by committing to more marauders, earlier. My theory is that Maru can play greedy against every other Zerg on Earth and survive but Serral's macro and understanding is too sharp so he can take advantage of that small transition period and simply kill Maru, and because Maru isn't used to playing against Serral he isn't used to having to deal with that sharp timing, whereas Serral with his gargantuan brain found a consistent abuseable hole in all of Maru's build orders (Rogue killed Maru in a similar fashion in the worst GSL finals of all time, and even Dark has abused that timing to take matches off of Maru before).
Maru is also very predictable and conservative so Serral just needs to create enough units to defend harass while teching/droning as fast as he wants. This also part of why Maru dies so much to runbys. Part of the problem is he just doesn't invest in defending them enough, but part of the problem is that if the Zerg is in no danger and knows the Terran will always walk home to defend, the Zerg can get away with a lot.
The other possibility, and I cannot confirm this without studying replays, would be balance of scans vs mules. It's possible that Terran might need to invest more energy into mules to keep up and Maru might not do that as much, I'm just spitballing with this though.
I think Maru is going to have to learn to better toe the line and commit more to macro and army in the transition from mid to lategame, otherwise he'll continue to die to Zerg maxouts for the rest of his career, or he'll need to actually start playing aggressive (might be impossible with his worsening injuries, dunno). It works vs almost everyone, but Serral is just too good and identified his weakness. Maru has done a similar thing to Solar, a player who can go toe to toe with Clem in macro games but often just rolls over and dies against Maru.
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On June 05 2024 05:40 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2024 05:29 Poopi wrote:On June 05 2024 05:24 Die4Ever wrote:On June 05 2024 04:35 JJH777 wrote:
Has any pro done analysis on the Serral vs Maru finals yet? I'm curious to see high level thoughts on those games. It makes no sense to me that Maru died so easily by the 10 minute mark every single game. Pretty sure it's just a mental breakdown, nothing to do with knowledge or strategy or mechanics There is still analysis to be done by pros though. A lot of them have had access to sport psychologists, so they can have great insights watching the replays of what Maru might have thought at each moment. Even if it ends up as "overall a mental breakdown", there is still value in analyzing it imho. I would be very happy to watch such a video Just in general that’s definitely a content niche I think would be super interesting to listen to
By the way, for those not aware: Serral himself did an almost 2 hour in-depth interview about his 4-0 against Maru at Kato'24 with Pig. It's on Pig's YouTube.
On the one hand, it's extremely instructive. On the other hand, it's also a bit frustrating, because often Serral essentially says (without saying so) that builds or units or strategic moves tend to be strong if you execute or control them with near perfection, as he does.
For example, Serral said about his roach push in game 1, after Pig brought up some wordy strategic justification, just that "It's a good build" (I'm quoting verbatim). By which he sort of means it's good if you execute it and everything else perfectly.
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France12883 Posts
On June 05 2024 07:03 Antithesis wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2024 05:40 WombaT wrote:On June 05 2024 05:29 Poopi wrote:On June 05 2024 05:24 Die4Ever wrote:On June 05 2024 04:35 JJH777 wrote:
Has any pro done analysis on the Serral vs Maru finals yet? I'm curious to see high level thoughts on those games. It makes no sense to me that Maru died so easily by the 10 minute mark every single game. Pretty sure it's just a mental breakdown, nothing to do with knowledge or strategy or mechanics There is still analysis to be done by pros though. A lot of them have had access to sport psychologists, so they can have great insights watching the replays of what Maru might have thought at each moment. Even if it ends up as "overall a mental breakdown", there is still value in analyzing it imho. I would be very happy to watch such a video Just in general that’s definitely a content niche I think would be super interesting to listen to By the way, for those not aware: Serral himself did an almost 2 hour in-depth interview about his 4-0 against Maru at Kato'24 with Pig. It's on Pig's YouTube. On the one hand, it's extremely instructive. On the other hand, it's also a bit frustrating, because often Serral essentially says (without saying so) that builds or units or strategic moves tend to be strong if you execute or control them with near perfection, as he does. For example, Serral said about his roach push in game 1, after Pig brought up some wordy strategic justification, just that "It's a good build" (I'm quoting verbatim). By which he sort of means it's good if you execute it and everything else perfectly.
Which is why I was kinda frustrated with AlphaStar, because in essence, A LOT of starcraft 2 is about execution, and it is pretty difficult to make a match between an AI and an human a fair fight in that regard.
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On June 05 2024 06:59 serendipitous wrote:
Maru was playing rather greedy on every map while Oliveira was going 8 rax before 4 cc on maps without an easy defense. He only went to 4 cc quickly on maps like Oceanborn or Ghost River where he, like Maru, fell behind in supply. He also transitioned into ghosts more slowly and played a more stable style by committing to more marauders, earlier. My theory is that Maru can play greedy against every other Zerg on Earth and survive but Serral's macro and understanding is too sharp so he can take advantage of that small transition period and simply kill Maru, and because Maru isn't used to playing against Serral he isn't used to having to deal with that sharp timing, whereas Serral with his gargantuan brain found a consistent abuseable hole in all of Maru's build orders (Rogue killed Maru in a similar fashion in the worst GSL finals of all time, and even Dark has abused that timing to take matches off of Maru before).
Maru is also very predictable and conservative so Serral just needs to create enough units to defend harass while teching/droning as fast as he wants. This also part of why Maru dies so much to runbys. Part of the problem is he just doesn't invest in defending them enough, but part of the problem is that if the Zerg is in no danger and knows the Terran will always walk home to defend, the Zerg can get away with a lot.
The other possibility, and I cannot confirm this without studying replays, would be balance of scans vs mules. It's possible that Terran might need to invest more energy into mules to keep up and Maru might not do that as much, I'm just spitballing with this though.
I think Maru is going to have to learn to better toe the line and commit more to macro and army in the transition from mid to lategame, otherwise he'll continue to die to Zerg maxouts for the rest of his career, or he'll need to actually start playing aggressive (might be impossible with his worsening injuries, dunno). It works vs almost everyone, but Serral is just too good and identified his weakness. Maru has done a similar thing to Solar, a player who can go toe to toe with Clem in macro games but often just rolls over and dies against Maru.
Your point on scans vs mules is interesting to me because he will scan a tooon in tvt and yet seems to be able to get to late fairly often. I guess he can get away with it in tvt due to defender's advantage but not quite in tvz and just falls behind. My own head cannon is that he needs to practice with rogue a ton strictly on early and late game
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On June 05 2024 06:59 serendipitous wrote:
Maru was playing rather greedy on every map while Oliveira was going 8 rax before 4 cc on maps without an easy defense. He only went to 4 cc quickly on maps like Oceanborn or Ghost River where he, like Maru, fell behind in supply. He also transitioned into ghosts more slowly and played a more stable style by committing to more marauders, earlier. My theory is that Maru can play greedy against every other Zerg on Earth and survive but Serral's macro and understanding is too sharp so he can take advantage of that small transition period and simply kill Maru, and because Maru isn't used to playing against Serral he isn't used to having to deal with that sharp timing, whereas Serral with his gargantuan brain found a consistent abuseable hole in all of Maru's build orders (Rogue killed Maru in a similar fashion in the worst GSL finals of all time, and even Dark has abused that timing to take matches off of Maru before).
Maru is also very predictable and conservative so Serral just needs to create enough units to defend harass while teching/droning as fast as he wants. This also part of why Maru dies so much to runbys. Part of the problem is he just doesn't invest in defending them enough, but part of the problem is that if the Zerg is in no danger and knows the Terran will always walk home to defend, the Zerg can get away with a lot.
The other possibility, and I cannot confirm this without studying replays, would be balance of scans vs mules. It's possible that Terran might need to invest more energy into mules to keep up and Maru might not do that as much, I'm just spitballing with this though.
I think Maru is going to have to learn to better toe the line and commit more to macro and army in the transition from mid to lategame, otherwise he'll continue to die to Zerg maxouts for the rest of his career, or he'll need to actually start playing aggressive (might be impossible with his worsening injuries, dunno). It works vs almost everyone, but Serral is just too good and identified his weakness. Maru has done a similar thing to Solar, a player who can go toe to toe with Clem in macro games but often just rolls over and dies against Maru.
Maru banks CC energy in the midgame and uses it to recover from baneling busts. he throws out the odd scan here and there, but from what I can see he isn't overly concerned about clearing up creep: only that which is on his half of the map. he seems to try and set himself up so that he can mule faraway bases, and hold onto as many minerals as possible in his 3rd / 4th base. this is one of the cornerstones of his vZ style. it's a very conservative way of approaching the matchup.
if you go 8 raxx, you have to MULE your 3rd base pretty heavily. when the marauder aggression on 8 raxx doesn't pay for itself, well suddenly you've mined out your third and are relying more on faraway bases which are more difficult to defend in the long run. turtling with ghosts in the lategame is a lot harder when you're spread out. I'd say that Maru has his reasons for playing the way he did. Maru telegraphed his willingness to turtle towards the lategame and Serral exploited that in the most devastating ways.
I would have liked to see how another korean terran would have performed against Serral in this tournament. GuMiho in particular would have given Serral a harder time. he's the only korean terran who can match the energy of Clem / Oliveira in that matchup
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On June 05 2024 07:03 Antithesis wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2024 05:40 WombaT wrote:On June 05 2024 05:29 Poopi wrote:On June 05 2024 05:24 Die4Ever wrote:On June 05 2024 04:35 JJH777 wrote:
Has any pro done analysis on the Serral vs Maru finals yet? I'm curious to see high level thoughts on those games. It makes no sense to me that Maru died so easily by the 10 minute mark every single game. Pretty sure it's just a mental breakdown, nothing to do with knowledge or strategy or mechanics There is still analysis to be done by pros though. A lot of them have had access to sport psychologists, so they can have great insights watching the replays of what Maru might have thought at each moment. Even if it ends up as "overall a mental breakdown", there is still value in analyzing it imho. I would be very happy to watch such a video Just in general that’s definitely a content niche I think would be super interesting to listen to By the way, for those not aware: Serral himself did an almost 2 hour in-depth interview about his 4-0 against Maru at Kato'24 with Pig. It's on Pig's YouTube. On the one hand, it's extremely instructive. On the other hand, it's also a bit frustrating, because often Serral essentially says (without saying so) that builds or units or strategic moves tend to be strong if you execute or control them with near perfection, as he does. For example, Serral said about his roach push in game 1, after Pig brought up some wordy strategic justification, just that "It's a good build" (I'm quoting verbatim). By which he sort of means it's good if you execute it and everything else perfectly.
Serral's analysis of Serral gameplay is basically: Just play like Serral
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On June 05 2024 17:07 Harris1st wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2024 07:03 Antithesis wrote:On June 05 2024 05:40 WombaT wrote:On June 05 2024 05:29 Poopi wrote:On June 05 2024 05:24 Die4Ever wrote:On June 05 2024 04:35 JJH777 wrote:
Has any pro done analysis on the Serral vs Maru finals yet? I'm curious to see high level thoughts on those games. It makes no sense to me that Maru died so easily by the 10 minute mark every single game. Pretty sure it's just a mental breakdown, nothing to do with knowledge or strategy or mechanics There is still analysis to be done by pros though. A lot of them have had access to sport psychologists, so they can have great insights watching the replays of what Maru might have thought at each moment. Even if it ends up as "overall a mental breakdown", there is still value in analyzing it imho. I would be very happy to watch such a video Just in general that’s definitely a content niche I think would be super interesting to listen to By the way, for those not aware: Serral himself did an almost 2 hour in-depth interview about his 4-0 against Maru at Kato'24 with Pig. It's on Pig's YouTube. On the one hand, it's extremely instructive. On the other hand, it's also a bit frustrating, because often Serral essentially says (without saying so) that builds or units or strategic moves tend to be strong if you execute or control them with near perfection, as he does. For example, Serral said about his roach push in game 1, after Pig brought up some wordy strategic justification, just that "It's a good build" (I'm quoting verbatim). By which he sort of means it's good if you execute it and everything else perfectly. Serral's analysis of Serral gameplay is basically: Just play like Serral
"I just try not to make mistakes." -Serral
Audience: absorbs secret ancient wisdom
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On June 06 2024 03:49 Perceivere wrote:Show nested quote +On June 05 2024 17:07 Harris1st wrote:On June 05 2024 07:03 Antithesis wrote:On June 05 2024 05:40 WombaT wrote:On June 05 2024 05:29 Poopi wrote:On June 05 2024 05:24 Die4Ever wrote:On June 05 2024 04:35 JJH777 wrote:
Has any pro done analysis on the Serral vs Maru finals yet? I'm curious to see high level thoughts on those games. It makes no sense to me that Maru died so easily by the 10 minute mark every single game. Pretty sure it's just a mental breakdown, nothing to do with knowledge or strategy or mechanics There is still analysis to be done by pros though. A lot of them have had access to sport psychologists, so they can have great insights watching the replays of what Maru might have thought at each moment. Even if it ends up as "overall a mental breakdown", there is still value in analyzing it imho. I would be very happy to watch such a video Just in general that’s definitely a content niche I think would be super interesting to listen to By the way, for those not aware: Serral himself did an almost 2 hour in-depth interview about his 4-0 against Maru at Kato'24 with Pig. It's on Pig's YouTube. On the one hand, it's extremely instructive. On the other hand, it's also a bit frustrating, because often Serral essentially says (without saying so) that builds or units or strategic moves tend to be strong if you execute or control them with near perfection, as he does. For example, Serral said about his roach push in game 1, after Pig brought up some wordy strategic justification, just that "It's a good build" (I'm quoting verbatim). By which he sort of means it's good if you execute it and everything else perfectly. Serral's analysis of Serral gameplay is basically: Just play like Serral "I just try not to make mistakes." -Serral Audience: absorbs secret ancient wisdom
Sounds like what people said about Stephano explaining how he wins
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On June 06 2024 04:12 Die4Ever wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2024 03:49 Perceivere wrote:On June 05 2024 17:07 Harris1st wrote:On June 05 2024 07:03 Antithesis wrote:On June 05 2024 05:40 WombaT wrote:On June 05 2024 05:29 Poopi wrote:On June 05 2024 05:24 Die4Ever wrote:On June 05 2024 04:35 JJH777 wrote:
Has any pro done analysis on the Serral vs Maru finals yet? I'm curious to see high level thoughts on those games. It makes no sense to me that Maru died so easily by the 10 minute mark every single game. Pretty sure it's just a mental breakdown, nothing to do with knowledge or strategy or mechanics There is still analysis to be done by pros though. A lot of them have had access to sport psychologists, so they can have great insights watching the replays of what Maru might have thought at each moment. Even if it ends up as "overall a mental breakdown", there is still value in analyzing it imho. I would be very happy to watch such a video Just in general that’s definitely a content niche I think would be super interesting to listen to By the way, for those not aware: Serral himself did an almost 2 hour in-depth interview about his 4-0 against Maru at Kato'24 with Pig. It's on Pig's YouTube. On the one hand, it's extremely instructive. On the other hand, it's also a bit frustrating, because often Serral essentially says (without saying so) that builds or units or strategic moves tend to be strong if you execute or control them with near perfection, as he does. For example, Serral said about his roach push in game 1, after Pig brought up some wordy strategic justification, just that "It's a good build" (I'm quoting verbatim). By which he sort of means it's good if you execute it and everything else perfectly. Serral's analysis of Serral gameplay is basically: Just play like Serral "I just try not to make mistakes." -Serral Audience: absorbs secret ancient wisdom Sounds like what people said about Stephano explaining how he wins
It also sounds a lot like most programers, with a few brilliant exceptions.
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Northern Ireland25331 Posts
Fascinating insight, much obliged!
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really interesting that Oli did so much better against Serral than Maru did, but Oli still has recent losses to Dark, Shin, Solar, even DRG
seems like Maru is better vs every other Zerg than Oli is
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Like everyone else said, thanks for sharing. super interesting
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France12883 Posts
Thank you, incredible insight!
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On June 04 2024 16:02 Harris1st wrote:
So what happened to Protoss this tournament?
Was just taking a look at the brackets and noticing basically every top Protoss got taken out by a Terran (KO-Stage/ Playoffs)
Gumi > Nice
Byun > trigger
Byun > Stats
Spirit > Astrea
Cure > Nightmare
Cure > Classic
Maru > hero
With the only exception of hero > Clem. This is like an 87,5% winrate for TvP at the top end. Thoughts?
"It's the player material"
"Let the meta settle"
"Toss doing fine on lower levels and/or in online tournament X"
Etc.
The race has not been viable on the highest level for years and it's unlikely to change.
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SoCal8910 Posts
catching up on this thread.
i think Artosis published a YouTube video that explained why he thought that Serral was more of a Bonjwa than the GOAT and Oliveira's point about there being no equivalent zerg player for Maru to practice against points to that being truer than ever. he's in his military service and is still in a league of his own for his race.
i wonder if Oli will be able to figure out a way to beat him if he's feeling like the games were close. it's nice to see that he's still taking the game very seriously and looking to improve.
on the flip side, it's really disappointing to hear that pros are losing focus. i've seen more and more a-moving lately and that is not very fun to watch.
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EPT
