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I think there's some truth to the notion that Terran played perfectly is the strongest, but that's just a consequence of the way the two races are designed/have evolved.
Zerg is the best race for exploiting attention asymmetry. They have so many explosive tools that can punish you for not looking or looking in the wrong place, so their win condition a lot of the time is to cause chaos and snowball any momentary lapse on the part of their opponent into an overwhelming victory.
Terran, as a consequence of being composed almost entirely of ranged glass cannons, is more about using attention as a resource for their own units to grind out efficiency, and ultimately win by attrition.
TL;DR version: Zerg's gameplan is to force mistakes, while Terran is rewarded more for not making mistakes. Historically the former has been much more consistent in securing wins at the top level, but when someone pulls off the occasional miracle run like Clem did here, it looks unstoppable, but no player has ever been able to play at that pitch for long.
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France13023 Posts
On August 19 2024 06:37 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2024 06:30 ZeroByte13 wrote:On August 19 2024 06:25 Perceivere wrote:
That said, I honestly don't know what Serral (or any other zerg) can do heretofore against a peak-condition Clem. Probably hope for some crazy luck with BO + maps advantage, and pray they never make a significant mistake. Exactly the same has been said many times about Serral when he was at his peak. Super-strong players at their peak make their race look unfair. Who could do anything against Oliveira on that single day when he won his WC? But it was just one day. We'll see if today's performance was one-off or a sign of new era with Clem's domination. I like Clem a lot and I'm very happy he won but I'd bet on the former. Exactly, after IEM Katowice people said Zerg played like that is 100% unbeatable, now it's suddenly terran. Feel like people always just remember the most recent tournament and forget everything else
Wasn’t infestor nerfed after IEM though?
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On August 19 2024 07:09 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2024 06:37 Charoisaur wrote:On August 19 2024 06:30 ZeroByte13 wrote:On August 19 2024 06:25 Perceivere wrote:
That said, I honestly don't know what Serral (or any other zerg) can do heretofore against a peak-condition Clem. Probably hope for some crazy luck with BO + maps advantage, and pray they never make a significant mistake. Exactly the same has been said many times about Serral when he was at his peak. Super-strong players at their peak make their race look unfair. Who could do anything against Oliveira on that single day when he won his WC? But it was just one day. We'll see if today's performance was one-off or a sign of new era with Clem's domination. I like Clem a lot and I'm very happy he won but I'd bet on the former. Exactly, after IEM Katowice people said Zerg played like that is 100% unbeatable, now it's suddenly terran. Feel like people always just remember the most recent tournament and forget everything else Wasn’t infestor nerfed after IEM though?
They got slightly easier to see burrowed in exchange for a +1 range buff on fungal. I think most people would agree that's overall a buff. Also in the same patch widow mines and Liberators got nerfed
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On August 19 2024 04:18 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2024 03:23 JJH777 wrote:On August 19 2024 03:19 kajtarp wrote:On August 19 2024 02:54 tigera6 wrote:On August 19 2024 02:52 Avicularia wrote:
GJ Clem, amazing play.
But Ghosts are problematic to balance. They are bad for almost all terrans in the world, but for those few who have AI like control - they is no counter.
I think the best idea would be to put hard limit of how many ghosts can be made at once, say 10 most. Another idea would be to lower their base attack, but buff survivability vs banes. It would help regular players, but then some units would start to counter them more (e.g. lings). If you want to take the power from the Ghost away, then give that to something else. Tanks and Libs are strong defensively, but sucks to use against Spellcaster because of their immobility. Bio will be all-killed with a damn Fungal shot, Mech/Sky Mech are completely useless as well. Ghost nerf is long overdue friend, and i'm not saying it because Clem won this tournament. I thought Ghost are the most OP unit in the game 1 year ago, 2 years ago, 3 years ago, 4 years ago etc. etc. I would also hope protoss gets some buff aswell, but oh well. SC2 is at the end of its lifecycle and i doubt it would receive any future patch let alone a major one. If the ghost has been so OP for 4+ years why has Zerg still won the vast majority of events during that time? Many of the event wins weren't even Serral. I’d wager this is less a case of having an issue with actual balance for many, and one of ‘I don’t like how this interaction feels’. The Ghost in TvZ especially is just so damn good against basically everything, it’s reminiscent of older iterations of the infestor. One main difference is it’s only really Maru or Clem who really consistently get to those phases of the game and execute well, versus well, basically every half-decent Zerg. I think many concede that Terran need certain late game tools. Plus it’s not really a pure Ghost issue IMO. They fit into the puzzle of course. They cover some holes, who in turn cover their holes and voila. Vipers are excellent, also arguably too good against things like tanks, but they get zoned out by EMP and snipe. In turn it becomes a real gamble to even try to break a dug-in position They also come in a phase where one of their big weaknesses is pretty mitigated. When being aggressive they are vulnerable to a flank of things like crackings and especially banes getting on top of them. Except this rarely happens to the best because they have so many scans to burn. And if shit hits the fan, you may be able to cloak and escape if overseers aren’t around or get sniped. There’s also a history in SC2’s design, whether devs outright admit it or not (IiRC this is on-record) where units are absolutely designed to counter other specific units or compositions. Unless you’re very lucky, or your game is very simplistic, I think this creates a damn high chance of you ending up with some composition that counters basically anything conceivable another faction can utilise. Vipers are anti-mech units in all but name, albeit they’ve other utility. Unless they’re mispositioned, or you can zone them effectively, they don’t have a great set of counter play. Enter the Ghost, who’s an incredibly effective counter unit to that. But then, what’s the Zerg’s next shuffle of the deck? There really isn’t one in terms of compositions. You can win the eco battle of attrition and find holes where the Terran isn’t, but you’ve not got much in your toolkit to fight remotely cost-effectively. I dunno what the answer is, but it’s patently obvious that vipers are too strong against tanks, which is balanced out by Ghosts, but then those compositions become too strong. It’s the natural culmination of x unit counters y unit. To clarify, it’s less a pure balance issue as a feel issue and I’m not taking away from Clem’s win at all. I have few ideas, most of them bad :p I wonder if their anti-caster ability should be single-target rather than AoE. EMP can remain as a Protoss shield destroyer. Makes it slightly harder to wipe casters energy, but still something that is doable. I think without further balance changes elsewhere the Ghost kinda vaguely needs to do what it currently does, absolutely.
One of the biggest issues with ghost is there is zero counter plays against it as a zerg. Ghost counters everything Zerg has later game which are supposed to help the Zerg “finish” the game. Such as ultra lurkers broodlords. However snipe counter all of them, to make matters worst they have emp on top of it to counter infestor and viper.
Imagine if or Protoss can basically mass one invisible unit that counters everything the other race has.
The main thing we learned from this tournament is that mass ghost and liberator is literally instant win against toss and Zergs. Currently toss and Zerg don’t have the tools to deal with it
User was temp banned for this post.
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Seems like Serral has been using the same tactics to stay dominate for a long time, but every once in a while, someone comes along to push evolution forward.
It'll be interesting to see if Serral is able to find a way to regain his dominance.
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On August 19 2024 07:27 Lunareste wrote:
Seems like Serral has been using the same tactics to stay dominate for a long time, but every once in a while, someone comes along to push evolution forward.
It'll be interesting to see if Serral is able to find a way to regain his dominance.
To be fair all the Zergs nerfs were aimed towards Serral directly rather than the race itself. You can say the nerfs finally caught up and nerfed him down to his peers. Or you can say a terran finally learned how to use ghost / libs. But the truth is probably somewhere in between
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To add to the conversation, I'd say medivac hot-pickups have become a big part of the issue alongside ghosts in TvZ. Even when units are surrounded and fungal-ed, ghosts and marauders can tank until the fungal expires and then instantly evac. Zerg has nothing that can close and dps fast enough to counter that micro, and the skill level has reached a level where those hot pickups can happen 10/10 times. IMO the council should consider adding a pickup delay, similar to the drop delay (albeit it should probably be faster than dropping)
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Northern Ireland27477 Posts
On August 19 2024 07:27 Lunareste wrote:
Seems like Serral has been using the same tactics to stay dominate for a long time, but every once in a while, someone comes along to push evolution forward.
It'll be interesting to see if Serral is able to find a way to regain his dominance.
He won’t lose it until Clem consistently shows this kind of form. Maybe he will!
Maybe Clem starts beating Serral every time they meet, they do still have to meet frequently for Clem to truly dethrone Serral. Kind of like Maru in reverse where Maru has been more consistent than anyone bar Serral for a decent period, but at present struggles to hang with Serral when they directly face off.
Serral did get roundly stomped today and perhaps it’s the changing of the guard, equally Serral is still rocking a truly absurd 2024, 3 titles in a row including Katowice, and still made the grand finals here. ZvT isn’t even his best matchup, as absurd as that sounds to say. His relative Achilles’ heel of ZvZ is still less of a hindrance than Clem’s TvT.
I mean I like many thought Reynor could be that consistent thorn in Serral’s side, but he’s further off doing that now than he was a few years ago, and he’s won big, big titles too
I’m not being down on Clem, he’s a thrilling talent but replicating what Serral has accomplished is just a tall, tall order. Nobody’s really come that close over the kind of timeframes we’ve seen.
I think what we’re likely to see is maybe Serral’s dominance replaced by more players trading titles, which could be fun stuff indeed. Serral may drop out more frequently if he runs into Clem. Which helps someone like Maru out who you’d likely favour in that matchup. Or Reynor who (maybe not exactly) goes pretty 50-50 against Clem and their styles seem to better match. Which maybe opens things up for herO who’s been on an absolute tear in PvZ recently, so long as that Z isn’t Serral.
That could be a pretty bright next period indeed for us viewers if it goes that way
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On August 19 2024 07:27 Blitzball04 wrote:
The main thing we learned from this tournament is that mass ghost and liberator is literally instant win against toss and Zergs. Currently toss and Zerg don’t have the tools to deal with it Only for one terran player, and only for this one tournament where he went God-mode.
Too early to panic. Something tells me it won't last, even without any additional nerfs.
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Great showing by Clem. Biggest paycheck in his entire professional career and life thus far.
Having watched/played the game since 2010, makes sense that Terran has the highest ceiling. I felt like the one word to describe each race is:
- Zerg: Dominance
- Protoss: Tactics
- Terran: Aggression
Clem really showed the highest height in the game. Honestly the newest "Best in the world", though not yet GOAT. Hoping the competitive scene will gain traction back, for him to get a chance to prove he might just be the GOAT in a few years winning consistently.
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Northern Ireland27477 Posts
On August 19 2024 07:17 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2024 07:09 Poopi wrote:On August 19 2024 06:37 Charoisaur wrote:On August 19 2024 06:30 ZeroByte13 wrote:On August 19 2024 06:25 Perceivere wrote:
That said, I honestly don't know what Serral (or any other zerg) can do heretofore against a peak-condition Clem. Probably hope for some crazy luck with BO + maps advantage, and pray they never make a significant mistake. Exactly the same has been said many times about Serral when he was at his peak. Super-strong players at their peak make their race look unfair. Who could do anything against Oliveira on that single day when he won his WC? But it was just one day. We'll see if today's performance was one-off or a sign of new era with Clem's domination. I like Clem a lot and I'm very happy he won but I'd bet on the former. Exactly, after IEM Katowice people said Zerg played like that is 100% unbeatable, now it's suddenly terran. Feel like people always just remember the most recent tournament and forget everything else Wasn’t infestor nerfed after IEM though? They got slightly easier to see burrowed in exchange for a +1 range buff on fungal. I think most people would agree that's overall a buff. Also in the same patch widow mines and Liberators got nerfed
It’s probably a buff for other things, or at a lower level of play. But a nerf to a player like Serral versus a player like Clem, or a Maru versus Reynor.
Also wasn’t there a minor cast delay on unburrow added, or is that my fevered imagination?
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On August 19 2024 06:52 Athenau wrote:
I think there's some truth to the notion that Terran played perfectly is the strongest, but that's just a consequence of the way the two races are designed/have evolved.
Zerg is the best race for exploiting attention asymmetry. They have so many explosive tools that can punish you for not looking or looking in the wrong place, so their win condition a lot of the time is to cause chaos and snowball any momentary lapse on the part of their opponent into an overwhelming victory.
Terran, as a consequence of being composed almost entirely of ranged glass cannons, is more about using attention as a resource for their own units to grind out efficiency, and ultimately win by attrition.
TL;DR version: Zerg's gameplan is to force mistakes, while Terran is rewarded more for not making mistakes. Historically the former has been much more consistent in securing wins at the top level, but when someone pulls off the occasional miracle run like Clem did here, it looks unstoppable, but no player has ever been able to play at that pitch for long.
I can't lie I think the exact opposite of this, imo terran is the weakest race when played perfectly. A lot of terran strategy relies on executing better than the defensive player, which you're not going to be able to do if your opponent plays a perfect defense. The best terran, Clem, is always in your face playing aggressively trying to force mistakes, and there has never been a defensive terran player in the same way that there is Serral, Stats/Rain.
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When Serral went 20-1 in map score on the way to his IEM Katowice win (beating Clem and Maru 3-0 and 4-0 respectively), many Terrans were balance whining and the Zergs says that it's about skill. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, why not attribute it to Clem's amazing skill.
Btw, it was not only amazing skill - Clem showcased immense preparation + innovations such as his defence against roach/ravager and hatchery snipes.
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On August 19 2024 10:16 Azzur wrote:
When Serral went 20-1 in map score on the way to his IEM Katowice win (beating Clem and Maru 3-0 and 4-0 respectively), many Terrans were balance whining and the Zergs says that it's about skill. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, why not attribute it to Clem's amazing skill.
Btw, it was not only amazing skill - Clem showcased immense preparation + innovations such as his defence against roach/ravager and hatchery snipes.
Crazy thing about Zerg complaints right now is that Reynor took Clem to game 5 and absolutely could have won that series and who knows what happens from there. At Kato Serral didn't struggle with a single Terran.
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Clem played absolutely amazing - but what a disappointing final day with all three series being a sweep
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On August 18 2024 04:14 Husyelt wrote:
alright ive seen enough, this has been the greatest tournament of all time, every fricken match has been entertaining and competitive with some monster mode moments each day
i in fact had not seen enough, lol what a finals day. i can only hope Clem's leveling up, means the pro scene will do the same thing it did when Maru and Serral went monster mode in 2018**.
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Northern Ireland27477 Posts
On August 19 2024 09:33 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2024 06:52 Athenau wrote:
I think there's some truth to the notion that Terran played perfectly is the strongest, but that's just a consequence of the way the two races are designed/have evolved.
Zerg is the best race for exploiting attention asymmetry. They have so many explosive tools that can punish you for not looking or looking in the wrong place, so their win condition a lot of the time is to cause chaos and snowball any momentary lapse on the part of their opponent into an overwhelming victory.
Terran, as a consequence of being composed almost entirely of ranged glass cannons, is more about using attention as a resource for their own units to grind out efficiency, and ultimately win by attrition.
TL;DR version: Zerg's gameplan is to force mistakes, while Terran is rewarded more for not making mistakes. Historically the former has been much more consistent in securing wins at the top level, but when someone pulls off the occasional miracle run like Clem did here, it looks unstoppable, but no player has ever been able to play at that pitch for long. I can't lie I think the exact opposite of this, imo terran is the weakest race when played perfectly. A lot of terran strategy relies on executing better than the defensive player, which you're not going to be able to do if your opponent plays a perfect defense. The best terran, Clem, is always in your face playing aggressively trying to force mistakes, and there has never been a defensive terran player in the same way that there is Serral, Stats/Rain.
It’s not a straight case of perfect defence > perfect defence just because Terran simply have a higher ceiling of what they can do micro wise.
MMM is also very potent even in quite small numbers and can do a ton of damage quickly if there is a gap in the defence.
I like a bit of asymmetric design, but as great as SC2 is I feel it was a mistake to make one race so, so microable compared to the other factions, and hopefully not one future RTS developers repeat. It also brings a bunch of associated problems and frustrations in balancing it out.
Serral didn’t even make too many big blunders today, or even a huge amount of small ones he just couldn’t really touch a Clem playing like a maniac, and fair play to Clem.
If there’s a unit that best illustrates what I’m talking about, it’s gotta be the disruptor. For us plebs, hell even lower tier but decent pro players these are fearsome globes of doom, zooming in and blowing up big chunks of your army.
When Clem is playing and he’s on it, they’re seemingly harmless beach balls wafting lazily in the breeze. He so rarely eats even moderate hits, and there’s not really much a Toss can do at the other side in terms of aiming them better.
There’s this historic pattern all throughout SC2 really where Terrans (like everyone else) just get better, and eventually a small handful (and it’s rarely more, and not every game) can make the other race’s tools look impotent.
It can be fun, awesome to watch and really inspirational stuff. Like when Maru decided vikings were for scrubs and started killing big toss armies with MMM surrounds and balls of steel.
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On August 19 2024 10:58 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2024 09:33 Nebuchad wrote:On August 19 2024 06:52 Athenau wrote:
I think there's some truth to the notion that Terran played perfectly is the strongest, but that's just a consequence of the way the two races are designed/have evolved.
Zerg is the best race for exploiting attention asymmetry. They have so many explosive tools that can punish you for not looking or looking in the wrong place, so their win condition a lot of the time is to cause chaos and snowball any momentary lapse on the part of their opponent into an overwhelming victory.
Terran, as a consequence of being composed almost entirely of ranged glass cannons, is more about using attention as a resource for their own units to grind out efficiency, and ultimately win by attrition.
TL;DR version: Zerg's gameplan is to force mistakes, while Terran is rewarded more for not making mistakes. Historically the former has been much more consistent in securing wins at the top level, but when someone pulls off the occasional miracle run like Clem did here, it looks unstoppable, but no player has ever been able to play at that pitch for long. I can't lie I think the exact opposite of this, imo terran is the weakest race when played perfectly. A lot of terran strategy relies on executing better than the defensive player, which you're not going to be able to do if your opponent plays a perfect defense. The best terran, Clem, is always in your face playing aggressively trying to force mistakes, and there has never been a defensive terran player in the same way that there is Serral, Stats/Rain. It’s not a straight case of perfect defence > perfect defence just because Terran simply have a higher ceiling of what they can do micro wise. MMM is also very potent even in quite small numbers and can do a ton of damage quickly if there is a gap in the defence. I like a bit of asymmetric design, but as great as SC2 is I feel it was a mistake to make one race so, so microable compared to the other factions, and hopefully not one future RTS developers repeat. It also brings a bunch of associated problems and frustrations in balancing it out. Serral didn’t even make too many big blunders today, or even a huge amount of small ones he just couldn’t really touch a Clem playing like a maniac, and fair play to Clem. If there’s a unit that best illustrates what I’m talking about, it’s gotta be the disruptor. For us plebs, hell even lower tier but decent pro players these are fearsome globes of doom, zooming in and blowing up big chunks of your army. When Clem is playing and he’s on it, they’re seemingly harmless beach balls wafting lazily in the breeze. He so rarely eats even moderate hits, and there’s not really much a Toss can do at the other side in terms of aiming them better. There’s this historic pattern all throughout SC2 really where Terrans (like everyone else) just get better, and eventually a small handful (and it’s rarely more, and not every game) can make the other race’s tools look impotent. It can be fun, awesome to watch and really inspirational stuff. Like when Maru decided vikings were for scrubs and started killing big toss armies with MMM surrounds and balls of steel.
This is mostly academic cause obviously nobody is going to play perfectly, but I think the disruptor is a good example because at human level you can see that the ball is often just sent in a direction, and then the terran dodges it (or not). At perfect play the ball would be controlled every time and it would be controlled perfectly, and you wouldn't really be able to dodge it and continue to chase the army in the way that Clem does.
That's the blessing and the curse of terran, their units have more micro potential so they can get more out of them, but that also means that the rest of the game has to be designed around that stupid design decision. If we're all playing perfect and getting the most out of our units even when those units are harder to perfectly micro, like disruptors and blink stalkers, then the advantage of getting more from your units due to them being easier to micro well is nullified.
Edit: and assuming Serral played in the same way he always plays, I disagree that he made no mistakes. Strategically he has always been very predictable, but that was never punished because he was good enough to win most of the time even though everyone knew what he was doing. If people have comparable level to him and he's still doing exactly what they expect, he should be losing, that's how strategy games should work.
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On August 19 2024 10:58 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2024 09:33 Nebuchad wrote:On August 19 2024 06:52 Athenau wrote:
I think there's some truth to the notion that Terran played perfectly is the strongest, but that's just a consequence of the way the two races are designed/have evolved.
Zerg is the best race for exploiting attention asymmetry. They have so many explosive tools that can punish you for not looking or looking in the wrong place, so their win condition a lot of the time is to cause chaos and snowball any momentary lapse on the part of their opponent into an overwhelming victory.
Terran, as a consequence of being composed almost entirely of ranged glass cannons, is more about using attention as a resource for their own units to grind out efficiency, and ultimately win by attrition.
TL;DR version: Zerg's gameplan is to force mistakes, while Terran is rewarded more for not making mistakes. Historically the former has been much more consistent in securing wins at the top level, but when someone pulls off the occasional miracle run like Clem did here, it looks unstoppable, but no player has ever been able to play at that pitch for long. I can't lie I think the exact opposite of this, imo terran is the weakest race when played perfectly. A lot of terran strategy relies on executing better than the defensive player, which you're not going to be able to do if your opponent plays a perfect defense. The best terran, Clem, is always in your face playing aggressively trying to force mistakes, and there has never been a defensive terran player in the same way that there is Serral, Stats/Rain. It’s not a straight case of perfect defence > perfect defence just because Terran simply have a higher ceiling of what they can do micro wise. MMM is also very potent even in quite small numbers and can do a ton of damage quickly if there is a gap in the defence. I like a bit of asymmetric design, but as great as SC2 is I feel it was a mistake to make one race so, so microable compared to the other factions, and hopefully not one future RTS developers repeat. It also brings a bunch of associated problems and frustrations in balancing it out. Serral didn’t even make too many big blunders today, or even a huge amount of small ones he just couldn’t really touch a Clem playing like a maniac, and fair play to Clem. If there’s a unit that best illustrates what I’m talking about, it’s gotta be the disruptor. For us plebs, hell even lower tier but decent pro players these are fearsome globes of doom, zooming in and blowing up big chunks of your army. When Clem is playing and he’s on it, they’re seemingly harmless beach balls wafting lazily in the breeze. He so rarely eats even moderate hits, and there’s not really much a Toss can do at the other side in terms of aiming them better. There’s this historic pattern all throughout SC2 really where Terrans (like everyone else) just get better, and eventually a small handful (and it’s rarely more, and not every game) can make the other race’s tools look impotent. It can be fun, awesome to watch and really inspirational stuff. Like when Maru decided vikings were for scrubs and started killing big toss armies with MMM surrounds and balls of steel.
For sure re: disruptors
Against a top player like Clem, they just do like literally nothing and there's simply no "better play" for Toss
That's why Protoss has always struggled at the pro scene all these years except for a brief period
Their units are generally expensive, slow and/or clunky to micro which means the absolute ceiling is naturally inherently lower in comparison.
But I don't even know what can be done to be honest at this stage.. I do kind of feel like the Collosus could use a small buff somewhere as a bandaid, since its way too late to redesign anything.
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EPT
