Bellum Gens Elite: Stara Zagora 2025 - Page 3

On June 06 2025 21:37 Tsubbi wrote:
Serral struggling vs Zoun, zvp is really something else nowadays

On June 06 2025 22:09 MJG wrote:
In the first game, Serral made a composition for fighting Skytoss with ground support, but he was playing against Groundtoss with sky support. Making too many Corruptors cost him the game.

In the second game, Zoun showed some amazing micro in the final engagement. The Storms were brilliant, especially to stop the Zergling surround that came in from behind, and so was the Blink micro.

So I'd say Zoun was a bit lucky in Game 1 because Serral made a rare macro mistake, but Game 2 was all on Zoun's micro.

On June 06 2025 23:14 Ciaus237 wrote:
ZvP everywhere below the top 10 players is fucking abysmal. The only reason it looks less unambiguously stupid for the top Zergs is because the skill stratification among the top players is crazy large. I.e., even with a large balance shift, you only get a small change in the top pool of players and their performance.

The matchup is very imbalanced, and has been since energy overcharge. At the absolute top level there just aren't enough players anymore that you'll get a BL-infestor Zerg or early WoL Terran type one-race lockout.

On June 06 2025 23:29 darklycid wrote:

I think the bigger issue is that zvp aint much fun in the way it plays out (also imo it isnt very imbalanced if you have monday cups without herO/maxpax zvp aint looking too bad.

On June 06 2025 23:01 WombaT wrote:
I’m still unsure what I think of ZvP balance right now. I’m so used to Serral being basically invincible that it feels odd that even he is sometimes struggling.

Equally, that series he, especially in game 1 it felt he was making mistakes and oversights that 100% should cost you the game. Whether he forgot it, or chose not to get it, not having adrenal was a bad state of affairs.

If it wasn’t Serral, I’d probably not even be asking questions, but it is Serral and ZvP, which does make me wonder.

In previous metas, it felt like Serral either scouted well or read Protoss players like a book from intuition and Starsense and was basically invincible. Guys like Dark and Reynor were super scary in the matchup, but not quite as good at making those reads every time.

My old crude calculation was Serral > herO = other top ZvPers > Most other players. Now it feels way more volatile

Now I’m finding even Serral is making bad reads way more often. It could just be his current shape, but I think an alternative explanation is that current ZvP isn’t a matter of read and react, but read and cut a corner somewhere, or gamble a bit.

Make the right call and cut the right corner, and you can get Reynor stomping herO 3-0. Make the wrong ones and it’s a Serral 0-2 Zoun.

As I said I’m not sure at all, we’ve had a strange off season with not a huge amount to go off.

I think last patch was sorta decent for PvZ. Serral gonna Serral but it’s Serral ZvP, IMO the strongest matchup in SC2 history, and below that you had a lot of 50/50 matchups below him.

TvZ feels in a pretty decent spot, where Clem on form is invincible, Maru gets close but it’s pretty 50/50 with the rest of the field.

I think we basically had that in ZvP last patch, perhaps the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction.

On June 06 2025 23:34 dysenterymd wrote:

I do think some of Serral's struggles right now are that he's too confident in his late game. Serral is still very good at the late game, but this meta is not like past metas where Serral would probably win if he just made it to the late game alive. Mixing in a few more aggressive builds would help him a lot.

Makes sense that after almost always winning late game for 7 years Serral would still keep trying though.

On June 06 2025 23:51 tigera6 wrote:
Most Zerg dont play straight up lategame ZvP these days, they rely on timings and tech switch to win the mid-game. Dark was one of the few who was willing to play lategame ZvP without relying on Corrupters, but he also got destroyed by top Protoss players.