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Northern Ireland24974 Posts
On August 17 2024 06:50 Nasigil1 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2024 06:44 WombaT wrote:
How the fuck does Serral trade vaguely evenly with Maru, in the 80/90 ballpark at times when seemingly everyone else is lucky to get 60/70 once he’s set up? Most Zerg will trade at least 50% worse than Maru when they go to late game. You'd see unit lose difference to be something like 35k vs 53k. Serral is the only one that's capable of trading evenly with Maru in late game, and this is probably the best one he did. The difference was within 10% in the end.
Yeah it’s pretty crazy.
I guess because Zerg have won plenty in recent years I think it goes under the radar a little that just as Maru has a historic rep for being able to do things that other Terrans simply can’t do, I think Serral has shown something similar with his Zerg peers
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Was this the best day of StarCraft matches of all time? Even the 3-0's that happened were proper upsets or slugfests. I cant remember the last time nearly every series was a banger
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Wowza... Serral just deciding to be dramatic yesterday and storming back in wild fashion. Maru getting relegated down is such a tough road in that basement. Best of luck to everyone on Saturday! :O
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Northern Ireland24974 Posts
On August 17 2024 07:28 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2024 07:24 Nasigil1 wrote:On August 17 2024 07:19 Hider wrote:On August 17 2024 07:08 Zzzapper wrote:On August 17 2024 07:03 Charoisaur wrote:On August 17 2024 06:54 tigera6 wrote:On August 17 2024 06:44 Charoisaur wrote:On August 17 2024 06:41 tigera6 wrote:
Maru threw away too many resources on tanks, they are weak against ling bane without Bio support and Alcyone is a huge map to cover. Its better off to just make PF to defend the important point, or combine them with less tank used. He was still in a winning position imo before he threw his army away on creep Nah, it was close to even at most, Serral traded effciently enough that he could drag the game out more minutes easily. Hard to say. Against any other Zerg I'd say Maru wins 100% from that position but with Serral you have to expect he's taking good engagements Fair but I'd argue that's because Maru is the best Terran in the world in that kind of spot. It's a relatively even position but Maru is simply better when the opponent is not Serral You have an average zerg against an equally skilled terran and zerg wins the vast majority of the time. I think Serral has larger army value than Maru, much bigger bank, more activebases. Zerg can switch into mobile composition easily major battle. Terrran can't. If you put up someone like Cure against Solar - I don't know how Cure wins this besides some major fuckup by Solar. Maru has nothing in his composition that can beat Hydra/bling with only 2 tanks. His army composition is intended to beat broods/infestor - but that's it, but blings can simply run him over, even off-creep. Maybe Maru should consider not losing 10 tanks to a simple ling runby. Clem beat Serral in an epic game on this exact same map last time in Atlanta, even with the same starting position and say turtle Ghost Mech style. Maru should look at that game to see how it's done. Yes that was the real mistake by Maru - it was way too easy for Serral to do a simple ling runby and the next 3 minutes Maru completely collapsed afterwards. Had any other top zerg played there against Maru they would have kept attacking and game would have ended 2-3 minutes after. It was 200 + 5k/3k bank vs 170 supply, no bank with a terran trying to acquire new expansions.
These guys have an internal gauge of game state way beyond us mortals, but I don’t think even a Serral could keep accurate track of Maru’s likely bank and supply in such frenetic games.
There’s also the possibility of the ‘screw it I’m gonna bleed out and lose the way this game is going, I’ll not replace workers and build a giant army to try and all-in’ move. We’ve seen that march across the map before. Or Zergs attacking into a huge 150/160+ supply army and lose to a big counter.
It wasn’t the sexiest or most exciting way to play it out, but a pretty judicious one. As someone once said ‘when ahead, get more ahead’
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Northern Ireland24974 Posts
On August 17 2024 08:31 Husyelt wrote:
Was this the best day of StarCraft matches of all time? Even the 3-0's that happened were proper upsets or slugfests. I cant remember the last time nearly every series was a banger
Some great matches by nearly all accounts for sure, but mang that format kinda took the sting out of some of them for me.
It’s almost everything I dislike, a lot of games with no real stakes (realistically anyway), quite a few almost immediate rematches, actively unfair on some of the participants.
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14-1 versus Maru the last 12 games in of an offline tournament is very impressive.
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On August 17 2024 08:34 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2024 07:28 Hider wrote:On August 17 2024 07:24 Nasigil1 wrote:On August 17 2024 07:19 Hider wrote:On August 17 2024 07:08 Zzzapper wrote:On August 17 2024 07:03 Charoisaur wrote:On August 17 2024 06:54 tigera6 wrote:On August 17 2024 06:44 Charoisaur wrote:On August 17 2024 06:41 tigera6 wrote:
Maru threw away too many resources on tanks, they are weak against ling bane without Bio support and Alcyone is a huge map to cover. Its better off to just make PF to defend the important point, or combine them with less tank used. He was still in a winning position imo before he threw his army away on creep Nah, it was close to even at most, Serral traded effciently enough that he could drag the game out more minutes easily. Hard to say. Against any other Zerg I'd say Maru wins 100% from that position but with Serral you have to expect he's taking good engagements Fair but I'd argue that's because Maru is the best Terran in the world in that kind of spot. It's a relatively even position but Maru is simply better when the opponent is not Serral You have an average zerg against an equally skilled terran and zerg wins the vast majority of the time. I think Serral has larger army value than Maru, much bigger bank, more activebases. Zerg can switch into mobile composition easily major battle. Terrran can't. If you put up someone like Cure against Solar - I don't know how Cure wins this besides some major fuckup by Solar. Maru has nothing in his composition that can beat Hydra/bling with only 2 tanks. His army composition is intended to beat broods/infestor - but that's it, but blings can simply run him over, even off-creep. Maybe Maru should consider not losing 10 tanks to a simple ling runby. Clem beat Serral in an epic game on this exact same map last time in Atlanta, even with the same starting position and say turtle Ghost Mech style. Maru should look at that game to see how it's done. Yes that was the real mistake by Maru - it was way too easy for Serral to do a simple ling runby and the next 3 minutes Maru completely collapsed afterwards. Had any other top zerg played there against Maru they would have kept attacking and game would have ended 2-3 minutes after. It was 200 + 5k/3k bank vs 170 supply, no bank with a terran trying to acquire new expansions. These guys have an internal gauge of game state way beyond us mortals, but I don’t think even a Serral could keep accurate track of Maru’s likely bank and supply in such frenetic games. There’s also the possibility of the ‘screw it I’m gonna bleed out and lose the way this game is going, I’ll not replace workers and build a giant army to try and all-in’ move. We’ve seen that march across the map before. Or Zergs attacking into a huge 150/160+ supply army and lose to a big counter. It wasn’t the sexiest or most exciting way to play it out, but a pretty judicious one. As someone once said ‘when ahead, get more ahead’
Agree. That’s why Serral is a tier above his peers
How many times have we witness other Zergs lose in this exact situation, where they constantly keep throwing and attacking into a well turtle terran base. Biggest offender of this is reynor and solar
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Maru just isn't used to zergs trading evenly against him. If he plays like that he beats 100% of Korean zergs.
Even Dark doesn't bother with going lategame against him. He beats him with roaches or nydus.
At least he has a chance to make the final, had he beaten Dark he would have just lost to Serral in the ro4.
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On August 17 2024 09:28 Fango wrote:
Maru just isn't used to zergs trading evenly against him. If he plays like that he beats 100% of Korean zergs.
Even Dark doesn't bother with going lategame against him. He beats him with roaches or nydus.
At least he has a chance to make the final, had he beaten Dark he would have just lost to Serral in the ro4.
He Just needs to throw His normal gameplan out vs serral, it doesnt Work in a bo5.
Idk If He can still Play Like His past self/clem again or If that Speed Just isnt in him anymore but He needs to Change Something Up vs serral.
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On August 17 2024 09:44 darklycid wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2024 09:28 Fango wrote:
Maru just isn't used to zergs trading evenly against him. If he plays like that he beats 100% of Korean zergs.
Even Dark doesn't bother with going lategame against him. He beats him with roaches or nydus.
At least he has a chance to make the final, had he beaten Dark he would have just lost to Serral in the ro4. He Just needs to throw His normal gameplan out vs serral, it doesnt Work in a bo5. Idk If He can still Play Like His past self/clem again or If that Speed Just isnt in him anymore but He needs to Change Something Up vs serral.
Probably worried about killing his shoulder too much to play a fast style
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Northern Ireland24974 Posts
On August 17 2024 09:10 Blitzball04 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2024 08:34 WombaT wrote:On August 17 2024 07:28 Hider wrote:On August 17 2024 07:24 Nasigil1 wrote:On August 17 2024 07:19 Hider wrote:On August 17 2024 07:08 Zzzapper wrote:On August 17 2024 07:03 Charoisaur wrote:On August 17 2024 06:54 tigera6 wrote:On August 17 2024 06:44 Charoisaur wrote:On August 17 2024 06:41 tigera6 wrote:
Maru threw away too many resources on tanks, they are weak against ling bane without Bio support and Alcyone is a huge map to cover. Its better off to just make PF to defend the important point, or combine them with less tank used. He was still in a winning position imo before he threw his army away on creep Nah, it was close to even at most, Serral traded effciently enough that he could drag the game out more minutes easily. Hard to say. Against any other Zerg I'd say Maru wins 100% from that position but with Serral you have to expect he's taking good engagements Fair but I'd argue that's because Maru is the best Terran in the world in that kind of spot. It's a relatively even position but Maru is simply better when the opponent is not Serral You have an average zerg against an equally skilled terran and zerg wins the vast majority of the time. I think Serral has larger army value than Maru, much bigger bank, more activebases. Zerg can switch into mobile composition easily major battle. Terrran can't. If you put up someone like Cure against Solar - I don't know how Cure wins this besides some major fuckup by Solar. Maru has nothing in his composition that can beat Hydra/bling with only 2 tanks. His army composition is intended to beat broods/infestor - but that's it, but blings can simply run him over, even off-creep. Maybe Maru should consider not losing 10 tanks to a simple ling runby. Clem beat Serral in an epic game on this exact same map last time in Atlanta, even with the same starting position and say turtle Ghost Mech style. Maru should look at that game to see how it's done. Yes that was the real mistake by Maru - it was way too easy for Serral to do a simple ling runby and the next 3 minutes Maru completely collapsed afterwards. Had any other top zerg played there against Maru they would have kept attacking and game would have ended 2-3 minutes after. It was 200 + 5k/3k bank vs 170 supply, no bank with a terran trying to acquire new expansions. These guys have an internal gauge of game state way beyond us mortals, but I don’t think even a Serral could keep accurate track of Maru’s likely bank and supply in such frenetic games. There’s also the possibility of the ‘screw it I’m gonna bleed out and lose the way this game is going, I’ll not replace workers and build a giant army to try and all-in’ move. We’ve seen that march across the map before. Or Zergs attacking into a huge 150/160+ supply army and lose to a big counter. It wasn’t the sexiest or most exciting way to play it out, but a pretty judicious one. As someone once said ‘when ahead, get more ahead’ Agree. That’s why Serral is a tier above his peers How many times have we witness other Zergs lose in this exact situation, where they constantly keep throwing and attacking into a well turtle terran base. Biggest offender of this is reynor and solar
Aye, plus Maru has pretty decent success against Solar doing big timing pushes too. Hence their head-to-head looking as it does.
I feel Reynor, while he can still beat Maru does have a quite similar problem in that matchup that Maru has with Serral actually.
His usual game is good enough to reliably beat any other Terran going, then he runs into Maru’s turtle game and hits a brick wall. Which nobody else plays nearly as well.
At least with Clem there is a pretty simple answer. He plays like many a Terran but well, faster and cleaner when he’s on. So, play faster and cleaner too. Easier said than done of course!
Maru poses a very different set of challenges and there’s not really an obvious ‘Maru lite’ to grind practice with. I mean nobody has ever come close to Maru’s consistent excellence in being extremely economic while still being rock solid defensively.
I guess it’s a testament to quite how good Serral and Maru are that it’s hard to even prep for them!
Would be interesting to see what the matchups would all look like in a hypothetical world where top pros were forced to all practice with each other. We saw Oliveira really benefit when he last faced Serral from them grinding a lot, but interestingly enough I don’t think his TvZ in general versus other players jumped up a level. He just figured out ways to really give Serral trouble
Would be fascinating to see what some of these matchups would look like if they had 100/200 high level practice games going
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Northern Ireland24974 Posts
On August 17 2024 06:51 Brutaxilos wrote:
Was game 1 on Crimson Court the "unbeatable" ZvT build that Serral was hyped about?
I wonder. If one did have some kinda ‘unbeatable’ pocket build do you drop it in the phase of the tournament where you’re playing for a Ro4 seeding and still have extra lives, or save it for when we’re in sudden death fighting for the tournament proper?
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Went back to check the VOD, before Maru tapped out in the end, the unit lost was actually in favor of Zerg slightly. It was lik e 78.7k loss for Zerg and 78.8k loss for Terran.
This is one of the most mind-blowing fact about this game. I didn't know this is possible in a high level ZvT, let alone against Maru, the greatest late game TvZ player in history, known for always trading efficiently in his favor.
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Btw: With his performance alone, Clem might secure Team Liquid a huge payout. His points might secure second place behind Falcons, bringing in 4 million dollar for his team.
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On August 17 2024 10:41 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2024 06:51 Brutaxilos wrote:
Was game 1 on Crimson Court the "unbeatable" ZvT build that Serral was hyped about? I wonder. If one did have some kinda ‘unbeatable’ pocket build do you drop it in the phase of the tournament where you’re playing for a Ro4 seeding and still have extra lives, or save it for when we’re in sudden death fighting for the tournament proper?
I think Serral should be very confident in the top 4, longer series should favour him. Serral vs Dark is close overall, but offline Serral has beaten Dark pretty consistently even if the games are close. Clem would be hard for Serral (though imo despite how the bo5 yesterday went it's probably 50-50), but there's a pretty good chance that herO or Maru wins the knockout bracket and destroys Clem in the semis, and Serral is probably very confident in a bo9 v Maru. Avoiding the knockout bracket and an elimination bo3 against Solar or Reynor (or hell, even Shin) is most important for his tournament odds.
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Northern Ireland24974 Posts
On August 17 2024 10:41 Nasigil1 wrote:
Went back to check the VOD, before Maru tapped out in the end, the unit lost was actually in favor of Zerg slightly. It was lik e 78.7k loss for Zerg and 78.8k loss for Terran.
This is one of the most mind-blowing fact about this game. I didn't know this is possible in a high level ZvT, let alone against Maru, the greatest late game TvZ player in history, known for always trading efficiently in his favor.
True although I tend to prefer looking at the trades before the game is actually decided. Just by the nature of the game, once you break the back of your opponent you will often see hugely one-sided trades.
In the same way in war, especially in the olden days the casualties can be pretty modest until one side retreats and then, oh boy. A pretty even battle can become a one-sided slaughter after the fact.
Even still, crazy impressive. He was still pretty close even before that.
It’s pretty mind-boggling, if we look at their Radhuset game at Katowice, still my game of the year for pure quality of play from both players. Serral nailed multiple, multiple absolute money fungals with the now-nerfed sharkfestor in that set, generally followed up by ling/bane getting on top of Maru’s valuable units, even ghosts.
That last set tonight, Serral traded better I believe, I may be wrong, but if not it was damn close.
Serral wasn’t the only guy using the tactic, but he clearly worked on it a lot specifically to counter Maru’s style and make the trades less brutal. Resetting, or at least reducing the ghost count from hitting critical mass is a huge facet in taking on Maru’s style, and that tactic greatly affected Maru’s ability to retain them.
How Serral is able to trade equivalently on this patch, having joined the hallowed ranks of ‘players who basically single-handedly got something nerfed’, on a map that isn’t nearly as Zerg-favoured as Radushet was is mental stuff.
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Northern Ireland24974 Posts
On August 17 2024 10:52 Balnazza wrote:
Btw: With his performance alone, Clem might secure Team Liquid a huge payout. His points might secure second place behind Falcons, bringing in 4 million dollar for his team.
How do the team payouts work? I vaguely remember reading that for the big payouts it was done on a kind of ‘win at least one event + how the rest of your guys do’ basis but I may be wrong on that
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On August 17 2024 11:08 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2024 10:41 Nasigil1 wrote:
Went back to check the VOD, before Maru tapped out in the end, the unit lost was actually in favor of Zerg slightly. It was lik e 78.7k loss for Zerg and 78.8k loss for Terran.
This is one of the most mind-blowing fact about this game. I didn't know this is possible in a high level ZvT, let alone against Maru, the greatest late game TvZ player in history, known for always trading efficiently in his favor. True although I tend to prefer looking at the trades before the game is actually decided. Just by the nature of the game, once you break the back of your opponent you will often see hugely one-sided trades. In the same way in war, especially in the olden days the casualties can be pretty modest until one side retreats and then, oh boy. A pretty even battle can become a one-sided slaughter after the fact. Even still, crazy impressive. He was still pretty close even before that. It’s pretty mind-boggling, if we look at their Radhuset game at Katowice, still my game of the year for pure quality of play from both players. Serral nailed multiple, multiple absolute money fungals with the now-nerfed sharkfestor in that set, generally followed up by ling/bane getting on top of Maru’s valuable units, even ghosts. That last set tonight, Serral traded better I believe, I may be wrong, but if not it was damn close. Serral wasn’t the only guy using the tactic, but he clearly worked on it a lot specifically to counter Maru’s style and make the trades less brutal. Resetting, or at least reducing the ghost count from hitting critical mass is a huge facet in taking on Maru’s style, and that tactic greatly affected Maru’s ability to retain them. How Serral is able to trade equivalently on this patch, having joined the hallowed ranks of ‘players who basically single-handedly got something nerfed’, on a map that isn’t nearly as Zerg-favoured as Radushet was is mental stuff.
The last few small engagements after Maru lost his main army and Serral started to clean up the battlefield did skewed the numbers a little bit, but even before that, the difference was within 10% in Terran's favor for the majority of the game, while usually it's around 30-50% in high level late game TvZ.
By 22 minute mark, the observer showed that Maru has lost 30 tanks and 25 Ghosts(how did that happened?), he lost 5000 more gas than Zerg, and the game went on for another 13 minutes. I believe he lost close to 50 tanks and Ghost in the end. Mind-blowing numbers.
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On August 17 2024 08:53 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2024 08:31 Husyelt wrote:
Was this the best day of StarCraft matches of all time? Even the 3-0's that happened were proper upsets or slugfests. I cant remember the last time nearly every series was a banger Some great matches by nearly all accounts for sure, but mang that format kinda took the sting out of some of them for me. It’s almost everything I dislike, a lot of games with no real stakes (realistically anyway), quite a few almost immediate rematches, actively unfair on some of the participants.
I still don't mind the current format, but after seeing how things have played out I think a gauntlet style knockout bracket would have been better if they didn't have the weird extra 2 players to insert, which threw everything off drastically and probably why they went with the current format.
I'm sure there are at least two players there that may feel like they don't have a chance at winning the tournament at large or even possibly their groups so it does suck from that standpoint, since you're actually incentivized to not show any games or builds and are just going for the next tier of prize money which is 11th+.
On another note the amount of games that went to max supply and nearly mined out was a bit alarming. Thankfully everyone for the most part was trying to press or create an advantage so it didn't result in stalemate-esque situations. I'm not entirely sure the best way to go about deterring that game state. My knee jerk is to raise the supply cap by 50 or 100 for 1v1 and see how it plays out.
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Very efficient game4 from Serral. Would be nice knowing how much more minerals/gas he mined. Had less resources lost at the end
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EPT
