On July 26 2025 00:31 Nasigil1 wrote: Where are those "no it's not just Serral" people? Why can't Solar use those super OP spell casters to destroy Cure?
Yeah, a starker demonstration of the fact that Serral is a level above every other Zerg than what we just witnessed is hard to imagine. Cure beating Solar 4-0 but himself losing to Serral 0-4.
Anyway, the top 3 is now one Terran, one Protoss, and one Zerg. Balanced game?
Matchup is a thing, or you are saying Serral would beat Solar 4-0 had they met?
On July 26 2025 00:45 goswser wrote: The only terran Serral really loses to for several years now is Clem. Basically no other zerg can make the matchup look like he does, it's just he's that much better at ZvT than everyone else.
The crazy thing is it’s not even his best matchup historically.
On July 26 2025 00:46 Elentos wrote: Solar's Illuminati triangle is already gone, are they gonna put his mouse and keyboard into the hydraulic press now?
crush his glasses and send him back to Korea with a wedgie
On July 26 2025 00:43 Brutaxilos wrote: Man Cure really was a beast in TvZ, Serral's just too good.
People thought he was bad at TvZ because he kinda was in 2023-2024, but from what I have seen Cure has improved a lot in the match-up in 2025 That’s why those games were so close vs Serral at times Not enough for Serral but enough for Solar, especially since Solar is weirdly better style wise versus Clem than versus the other KR terrans usually
On July 26 2025 00:31 Nasigil1 wrote: Where are those "no it's not just Serral" people? Why can't Solar use those super OP spell casters to destroy Cure?
Yeah, a starker demonstration of the fact that Serral is a level above every other Zerg than what we just witnessed is hard to imagine. Cure beating Solar 4-0 but himself losing to Serral 0-4.
Anyway, the top 3 is now one Terran, one Protoss, and one Zerg. Balanced game?
Matchup is a thing, or you are saying Serral would beat Solar 4-0 had they met?
No, I am saying Serral's ZvT is a level above Solar's, and that of any other Zerg.
On July 25 2025 03:33 WombaT wrote: Terrans and balance whining, name a more iconic combination…
protoss apologists and 25,211 TL.net posts + zero ladder games played since 2011?
LOL hear that WombaT? You're a Protoss apologist now. That's rich.
Guess this one isn't aware of how many times you've cracked the whip on the Protoss who were balance whining over the last 4-5 years.
I swear by Almighty God that I will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I have witnessed the WombaT, in the flesh, pint in hand, laughing his ass off about how stupid Khaydarin Amulet was in WoL. now we have the exact same shit patched back into the game and apparently it's ok
It's not the same thing, that's not helping your argument.
If you want to complain about Nexus Recharge there's plenty you can say about it without saying that it's the same thing as Khaydarian Amulet. That kind of hyperbole just makes people stop taking what you say seriously.
you're right of course. bad comparison! amulet is nowhere near as dumb as Energy Overcharge. Amulet was only 1 insta-storm. energy overcharge is 2 insta-storms!
Khaydarian Amulet was infinite instant storms anywhere on the map, as long as you had resources to warp in more High Templar. In late game situations with both players banking resources, this was highly problematic.
Energy Overcharge is two instant storms close to a Nexus, and then you have to wait for the cooldown.
They're not the same.
infinite storms, as long as you had infinite resources. well guess what? you had very finite resources in WoL. early WoL economy looked a lot closer to Warcraft 3 than it does to modern-day sc2
Khaydarian Amulet existed in a version of the game where you had, at best, 2 comfortable expansions within your sphere of control. you're talking about really old maps like Tal'Darim Altar and Xel'Naga Caverns, on which the 3rd base could be considered a lategame / endgame economy.
in reality, protoss players of this era rarely ever reached a lategame of any description. the meta was instead dominated by gateway all-ins and aggressive terran all-ins. games were usually decided by breaking or holding a natural expansion. incredibly rare that you'd ever see 3-base vs 3-base
this is what "infinite storm" looked like in lategame WoL:
a casual review of era matches should persuade you that every high templar on the field is precious, even with the Amulet upgrade. I certainly don't remember seeing anypro or MC expending 6+ storms to kill a single pesky medivac floating in their deadspace. that would have been an extravagant waste of energy within the limits of a WoL economy.
in modern-day sc2, it is no longer a "waste" to use high templars like that. it's completely legitimate to spend psi storm on tiny victories. high templar energy is not a precious resource that you have to think too long and hard about. apparently, it is also not game-ending to clump up your high templar and eat perfect EMPs.
despite the fact that terran had robust counter-play in the shape of the old ghost, Amulet was still deemed too problematic to exist in the game.
what is the counter-play to energy overcharge? sneak into your opponent's base with a ghost and EMP their nexus?
On July 25 2025 08:51 WombaT wrote:
On July 25 2025 04:38 SHODAN wrote:
On July 25 2025 04:32 Vindicare605 wrote:
On July 25 2025 04:28 SHODAN wrote:
On July 25 2025 04:20 Vindicare605 wrote:
On July 25 2025 03:45 SHODAN wrote:
On July 25 2025 03:33 WombaT wrote: Terrans and balance whining, name a more iconic combination…
protoss apologists and 25,211 TL.net posts + zero ladder games played since 2011?
LOL hear that WombaT? You're a Protoss apologist now. That's rich.
Guess this one isn't aware of how many times you've cracked the whip on the Protoss who were balance whining over the last 4-5 years.
I swear by Almighty God that I will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I have witnessed the WombaT, in the flesh, pint in hand, laughing his ass off about how stupid Khaydarin Amulet was in WoL. now we have the exact same shit patched back into the game and apparently it's ok
It's not the same thing, that's not helping your argument.
If you want to complain about Nexus Recharge there's plenty you can say about it without saying that it's the same thing as Khaydarian Amulet. That kind of hyperbole just makes people stop taking what you say seriously.
you're right of course. bad comparison! amulet is nowhere near as dumb as Energy Overcharge. Amulet was only 1 insta-storm. energy overcharge is 2 insta-storms!
Khaydarin Amulet was manly as fuck at least. Stupid, but manly. I quite like the bio/templar dance of death, but it’s one of those that gets messier with scale, and absolutely brutal when the army comps get filled out.
I think energy overcharge is looking overtuned, in both PvT and PvZ. I do, however like the general idea over battery overcharge.
We do have to consider what it’s replacing, and why that exists too. Toss has long been the only faction that frequently needs static defence, or gimmicky abilities to hold pushes despite having their whole army at home.
We’re perhaps not seeing or speaking about the negative impacts of that removal, because Toss are making hay with these heavy Templar styles, but they are there, and would be may more apparent if they get over-nerfed.
So I’d generally be in favour of a recalibration, it’s really just a matter of where the sweet spot is and how to get there.
The viability of reliably early stormy boy openers, halluc gathering info, I think are fine, just they’re currently, well, too much. It’s less the availability of some juicy storms, it’s storms for days. It’s seemingly a permanent hallucinated phoenix dandering around the place.
I love my risk/reward mechanics, as anyone who’s ever read my many, many ‘gateways should be better than warpgates’ rants that usually segue into rants about Warpgate gimping Protoss can attest. But
Why not nerf a unit that is overcharged in some way? Two possibilities could be (just spitballing), something like: 1. A unit that is overcharged has a debuff applied that causes it to lose, not gain energy for a period. 2. Alternatively a unit has a debuff applied that just causes it not to regenerate energy for a period. This could be a timer from when it’s recharged initially, or it could be from when it first expends mana.
I think this potentially keeps it situationally very powerful, but weakness it as a catch-all solution.
You want to recharge a Sentry to do some scouting, you can choose to do that, but you may not have that Guardian Shield at a critical moment.
You can overcharge a bunch of temps to hold a push, but you might not be able to immediately counter-attack with your debuffed Temps.
If you want to overcharge an Oracle or two to hunt some pesky workers, you can overcharge its pulsar beam and bring some pain. But maybe you aren’t quite as free to spam stasis traps around, or have as much for defensive holds.
As I said, very early spitballing, in general I like potent mechanics, but in an RTS game I like them to have some kinda downside ideally. I don’t think the downside of expending Nexus energy is a particularly big one. If Chrono scaled better, then we’re really talking trade offs but I don’t think we’re going to ever see my proposed Chrono buffs :p
the previous balance council seemed to be filled with knowledgeable characters. problem is, they didn't earn any of that knowledge for themselves. Harstem, Pig and others weren't in the room for legacy balance discussions from the game's long history, and therefore lacked some of the hindsight and wisdom that had been realized under the long-standing Blizzard dev team. to paraphrase Malcolm from Jurassic Park: their power didn't require any discipline to attain. who among the balance council would have noticed that some West African frogs are known to spontaneously change sex in a single sex environment? "protoss bullshit... finds a way."
competitive sc2 has outgrown the fundamentals that it was built on. as you say: burst damage and AoE damage abilities get messier with scale, and absolutely brutal when the army comps get filled out. I also think the same messy scaling applies to things like map control. once you have a map covered in creep, or (the old) widow mines, or swarming with high templars, it feels almost impossible to do anything about it. the explosiveness and one-sidedness of sc2 is part of the game's identity. I also believe it's the reason why it fell off so sharply. sc2 burned way too brightly for its own good. watching cracked bio balls + widow mines melting an army (or a worker line) in a micro-second was fun in the beginning. watching storms melt armies (or worker lines) in a micro-second is fun for a while. but it gets old real fast, and I feel that the current storm meta is another chapter of sc2's long sickness: the chronic "terrible, terrible damage" fatigue. I'm completely desensitized to psi storm, to the point psi storms fill me with the same level of excitement as watching a peon chop wood.
I think anyone who truly has their ear to the ground in the sc2 community can sense the negativity towards the state of the game - one that goes far beyond the usual balance whining. have you noticed the unprecedented levels of visible frustration from the pros during this EWC? every time I look at Reynor, Byun or Clem on cam, they are grimly muttering to themselves, grimacing or rolling their eyes. Astrea also seemed to be tilted out of his mind. a few of the typically stoic Korean pros have taken to twitter to vent about their least favourite units to play against. an outside observer might easily assume that they aren't having much fun, except that the casters do a phenomenal job of painting a calm veneer over the proceedings.
competition is the ecstasy of victory and the agony of defeat. when the game stops feeling competitive, then both of those feelings are lost and replaced with tedium. the skillfulness of your opponent's efforts should be plain, obvious and satisfying. when the outcome start to feel "too easy" (as it has constantly been throughout this EWC), or when the games seem to be decided long before gg is called, then it's no fun for anyone. there have been way too many one-sided stomps in this tournament.
I have long been in favour of a radical re-calibration of competitive 1v1. a heavily modded version of sc2 is the best way to secure sc2's future. one idea that I don't see mentioned often is the implementation of a formation toggle. that in itself would completely change the way sc2 is played. imagine how much easier it would be to accommodate powerful AoE damage abilities if players had a 1-button control to automatically spread their army into Brood War style clumps? of course, there should be upsides and downsides to using it. with formation enabled, all units in the control group might take a movement speed debuff. I also agree with radical changes to stuff like warp gate that introduces a penalty (or risk / reward) for using it. sc2 needs a more robust decision-making tree in order to have any integrity as an actual strategy game. for now, it's stuck being an explosive real-time shooter wrapped in a real-time strategy game skin.
WC3 has a pretty settled meta too, and isn’t as well balanced.
I was under the same impression until recently. turns out, w3 is astonishingly well-balanced
(it won't let me directly link grandmaster MMR - have to click it yourself)
I've mainly been watching orc games. Lyn is all over the place with his strategy. he's recently started playing blade master as 3rd hero against human, which is a wild meta shift. his solution to pallyrifle has also been constantly evolving over the past couple of months
I guess it’s almost inevitable given they pushed the boat out to 4 factions, overall balance is pretty solid if we’re averaging out ladder MMRs. It’s not quite as balanced in terms of every matchup as BW or SC2, but it’s still pretty good
On July 26 2025 00:31 Nasigil1 wrote: Where are those "no it's not just Serral" people? Why can't Solar use those super OP spell casters to destroy Cure?
Yeah, a starker demonstration of the fact that Serral is a level above every other Zerg than what we just witnessed is hard to imagine. Cure beating Solar 4-0 but himself losing to Serral 0-4.
Anyway, the top 3 is now one Terran, one Protoss, and one Zerg. Balanced game?
Matchup is a thing, or you are saying Serral would beat Solar 4-0 had they met?
What a dumb comparison. Comparing zvz to zvt
Matchup is not a thing in tvz. The matchup is very limited and the better player ALWAYs win in that matchup. Let’s not pretend cure is at Serral’s level. Serral rival has always been Clem and zvz
On July 26 2025 00:46 Elentos wrote: Solar's Illuminati triangle is already gone, are they gonna put his mouse and keyboard into the hydraulic press now?
crush his glasses and send him back to Korea with a wedgie
On July 26 2025 00:51 ssg wrote: Solar did not belong top 4
I mean fault is on herO for choking / not having good PvZ in this meta compared to Classic? But Solar is strong in ZvZ so he would have looked better vs Serral, Unlucky bracket for him But Yeah seeing Solar at top 4, I think Maru would have done better vs Classic and a rematch vs Cure
On July 25 2025 03:33 WombaT wrote: Terrans and balance whining, name a more iconic combination…
protoss apologists and 25,211 TL.net posts + zero ladder games played since 2011?
LOL hear that WombaT? You're a Protoss apologist now. That's rich.
Guess this one isn't aware of how many times you've cracked the whip on the Protoss who were balance whining over the last 4-5 years.
I swear by Almighty God that I will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I have witnessed the WombaT, in the flesh, pint in hand, laughing his ass off about how stupid Khaydarin Amulet was in WoL. now we have the exact same shit patched back into the game and apparently it's ok
It's not the same thing, that's not helping your argument.
If you want to complain about Nexus Recharge there's plenty you can say about it without saying that it's the same thing as Khaydarian Amulet. That kind of hyperbole just makes people stop taking what you say seriously.
you're right of course. bad comparison! amulet is nowhere near as dumb as Energy Overcharge. Amulet was only 1 insta-storm. energy overcharge is 2 insta-storms!
Khaydarian Amulet was infinite instant storms anywhere on the map, as long as you had resources to warp in more High Templar. In late game situations with both players banking resources, this was highly problematic.
Energy Overcharge is two instant storms close to a Nexus, and then you have to wait for the cooldown.
They're not the same.
infinite storms, as long as you had infinite resources. well guess what? you had very finite resources in WoL. early WoL economy looked a lot closer to Warcraft 3 than it does to modern-day sc2
Khaydarian Amulet existed in a version of the game where you had, at best, 2 comfortable expansions within your sphere of control. you're talking about really old maps like Tal'Darim Altar and Xel'Naga Caverns, on which the 3rd base could be considered a lategame / endgame economy.
in reality, protoss players of this era rarely ever reached a lategame of any description. the meta was instead dominated by gateway all-ins and aggressive terran all-ins. games were usually decided by breaking or holding a natural expansion. incredibly rare that you'd ever see 3-base vs 3-base
this is what "infinite storm" looked like in lategame WoL:
On July 26 2025 00:43 Brutaxilos wrote: Man Cure really was a beast in TvZ, Serral's just too good.
People thought he was bad at TvZ because he kinda was in 2023-2024, but from what I have seen Cure has improved a lot in the match-up in 2025 That’s why those games were so close vs Serral at times Not enough for Serral but enough for Solar, especially since Solar is weirdly better style wise versus Clem than versus the other KR terrans usually
Meh think making claims for last year needs an asterisk, Like Artosis mentioned in the interview, the maps were so egregiously Terran favored (Crimson court LOL, Amphion, etc.) that you really can't fault anyone for underperforming. Also you can't fault Clem for taking advantage of the the time.
On July 26 2025 00:51 ssg wrote: Solar did not belong top 4
? Solar looked amazing in pretty much all of his series. He played extremely solid.
Top 8 could have literally shaped out differently depending on the bracket, which is why I think having such a prize gap for 2nd - 8th is a silly.
We got really lucky to get a Serral Classic finals since it's hard to argue that they aren't the best two there. They very easily could have met prior and one of them would be "top 4".
EPT
