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I'll start off witth his quote from a Bowder interview.
Joystiq: You were saying that the way Korea plays Zerg is completely different than the way we play it here. Why is that?
Dustin Browder: There's really no way to know. It could be a variety of factors. It could be a skill level difference between the regions. In that particular case, that wouldn't be a huge surprise considering the enthusiasm with which that community plays StarCraft in particular, let alone real time strategy games. More likely, it's just a change in the macro game. Like they just are playing with slightly different unit mixes than we're used to playing and the counters do exist, but they're just not getting used in the same way. But we don't know. We don't know. We're just going to have to wait and see how it all shakes out. When I was talking about this with Rob Pardo the other day, he says, "Oh, you won't know if that game's balanced for a year." That doesn't make sense to me. We certainly saw this, throughout Brood War and beyond, that the game would change frequently in the hands of the users.
That's why it's so important for us to keep up with them and be making patches, not only through the beta process, getting it as tight as we can during the beta, but also after we launch, maintaining contact with them, maintaining contact with the product and making sure we know what's going on out there, that we're playing as well, we can see what's happening and be able to make and react to changes as they're required as we go forward. We've been sometimes successful in the past, sometimes not as successful. It's something we obviously want to maintain and keep going with. You certainly see that WoW is keeping up, I think, with pretty frequent content updates and we'd like to do the same thing with StarCraft 2. It's one of the reasons we're excited about the three products as well. It sort of keeps us in the same space with fans for a longer period of time.
Basically, I'm wondering if we're missing something.
I understand Koreans in general are much more skilled (on average) then NA/EU. So please refrain from posting things like "micro/macro" etc etc
I believe the main difference has to be unit combinations, what do YOU think?
Unfortunately I do not know how to type Han Gul, therefor I am unable to locate any VOD's/Replays etc
I'm hoping collectively we can shed some light on this issue and see if the way the Koreans play Zerg, is in fact better then how we play it.
This thread is not meant to be speculative by any means, but together I believe if anything we should be able to decipher the Koreans method of dominating (on their server at least) the other races, from what I hear the win percentage of Zerg is much much higher then 50%
If anyone wants to contribute to the discussion feel free.
VOD's and or replays would be very beneficial.
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Dunno how reliable it is but someone on B.net who claimed to be familiar with the Korean playstyle told me that Korean zergs are all about fast muta into more muta into broodlords into win. Having tried to stop broodlords in a TvZ I can see why if they could get them on a regular basis how they would be near impossilbe to stop in the hands of an expert.
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I wouldn't be surprised if it was down to quite a few people winning games based more on great mechanics than anything else (such as a particular strategy).
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Watch Artosis' stream.
I've only made a couple observations, but Artosis researches burrow and Ventral Sacks each game. He does drops and uses infesters all the time. I remember watching Day9's cast on the collegiate all stars matches in the games where SUGGY was playing Joseki I believe. Day9 saw the infesters and immediate thought "fungal growth". I saw Artosis the other night use infestors to take over the thor, try to kill the medivac, but fail, then kill the thor with the zerglings while it was MC'd.
While Day9 was thinking "oh fungal growth", because of what I saw I thought hey, MC the thor, and he did. I'm not saying or claiming day9's knowledge is obselete or even incomplete, I just think because I've seen certain tactics used in different regions I can see the benefit of using 1 ability over another.
There are a few more things, but I get too sidetracked cause the chat in Artosis' stream is hillarious! Also, I don't claim that all zergs play like this, I mean we've seen IdrA play and he's supposed to be one of the top zergs in Korea.
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So far there is no proof that Korean Zergs are better than other Zergs (not even mechanically). And judging from Artosis' stream and some replays I really doubt that they are significantly stronger. It could be that the Terrans and Protosses are worse, or the Zerg domination is just because of the different styles.
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Neural parasiting thors is standard on all servers, from what I've seen.
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mechanics:
if played well zerg has the best "macro mechanics" in the queen larvae vomit.
if you can constantly macro drones or army (depending on situation) while keeping up with tech switches, upgrades, and not fighting battles you could lose, etc then you will do well as zerg. koreans multitask abilities and game sense are both empirically better than others' and so we have zerg dominating in asia since these virtues are rewarded most with the zerg race. the same is true in china.
and
tactics:
many drops constantly, baneling micro, infestor use, mass expos,.
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On SCTV they were talking about how zerg go heavy spine crawlers for map control and go fast muta for harass, and because zerg have the most vintage (scbw) feel to them, it's an easier transition for people who have already played in pro leagues.
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Example of Korean Zergs --> watch Idra or Artosis play Z. Very solid macro oriented play (Machine also plays similar style, though he is US), usually based on outproducing their opponent rather than cheesing, etc.
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lol main difference is unit combo..
but it really is just superior macro mechanics at this point, the top korean players are all ex-pro(and practice like pros still!) so their macro is already enough to defeat you with the crazy macro fest that is zerg.
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Is it news to people that standard play is called standard play because it has a tendency to work?
I think the reason the roaches got hit so hard with the nerf stick was that it was displacing good macro based play as being the standard build order. Personally, I also find zerg to be the easiest race to macro with; being able to hotkey multiple hatcheries = my dream come true.
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the key to their success are use of infested terrans ofcourse.
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the difference is that last season average korean had like 600 games played in platina while europe had at most 500.
take dimaga for example. He used new strats last zotac and placed second, but you could clearly see that he was totally winging it. How many games do you think he's practiced those strats? 20? 10?
Less?
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It's all about mechanics and macro.
Why is Zerg the by far most played race in Korea by all the good players? Because as Z, you can play standard and solid macro-games and win by having superior Mechanics, not just by cheesing, ruhsing or timing-attacks, which is just the way to play the other 2 races if you want to win.
It surely has nothing to do with Unit-combination or some weird strategies, they are just former SC-Pro's that have extremely good Mechanics.
It's just a difference in playstyles, with solid macrobuilds just being better than cheesey stuff and timing-attacks if you have good mechanics and because this playstyle heavily favours Zerg atm, they choose Zerg. Why do you think ppl like Idra and Artosis are playing Zerg? They hate cheese because they know it's just not a solid build and it requires no skill, you can pretty much toss a coin when you play those builds, with solid BO's that are macro-oriented and are able to counter those builds if you scout right, you'll just always be at an advantage and you can rely on your skill, other than the lack of scouting/stupidity of your opponent.
Why is Zerg better at this playstyle than the other races?
- They are the strongest Macro-race, because they can pump drones so fast and switch to Massing Units if they have to.
- They have the easiest time taking additional expansions and defending them, with queens, decent "Static"-defense that isn't even all that static and incresed speed on the creep..
- They are the best race at defending against cheese with Queens being able to shoot in the Air, being able to switch Unit-compositions faster than any other race, very good scouting options with Overlords and very fast Units which can be used to counterattack and/or defend very fast.
- Also, their Units like Hydra are very versatile and extremely good at defending, especially with additional speed on the creep and they get their observer automatically at T2, without having to go a certain techroute which limits you in the Unit-composition you're able to play.
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Probably koreans are trying to play zerg in a macro game with toss and terran, and getting massively outdroned. You have to apply pressure to zerg ... They are plenty beatable - we've seen it happen in replays.
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I noticed from Korean Z replays a tendency to slightly late expand, as in get the pool up, get a few roaches or lings or maybe get to lair and then expand, whereas in EU servers most Zs go for a variation of 14 pool 15 hatch or 15 pool 16 hatch, etc. From then on, it seemed pretty similar with a more masterful macro.
Oh, and they definitely use spire crawlers way more. Very common to see a wall of them in front of the natural while there is a flourishing zerg community behind with mass drones.
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I haven't seen many Korean replays, but some of their Zerg players seem to use more diverse unit selections. Of the Korean reps that I have seen, there definitely seems to be more baneling usage, and sometimes even ultralisks!
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I personally dont know that much about the difference but I have heard from some fairly reliable sources that zerg is just so strong over on the asia server. I also have really enjoyed watching some korean replays from a pretty major website called ygosu.com. Their sc2 replay section isn't bad and its all koreans so you can see exactly how they play
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in my opinion the asian server Z player are more solid = playing the macro game.
while the asian T/P player may try the same and cant keep up.
i play Z only and love the big macro game too. the magic is to macro so hard and only get as much defense you need to barely hold of early harras and midgame timepush. and every game i dont get presured early or some kind of cheese i didnt scout there is a point where is think: "yeah no harras/attack until now! this game is won!"
now take into account asian Z players great skills/exp = they will be far more better at perdicting just how much they need to hold off while macroing hard.
maybe its also that asian T/P players arent that good/used to harras and strong presure = dominating macro wise is much easier for Z.
ofc thats just a feeling but seeing artosis and idra nearly always playing macro heavy builds im sure im not off by far.
Zira
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EPT
