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Hello everybody,
Like many of you, I'm constantly amazed at how Fruitdealer is able to win so decisively as zerg at this present state of the game. I've been a fan of his since August and I've analyzed each of his replays multiple times, and I believe I can provide a good analysis on how he plays and how he wins the way he does. If you don't want a big analysis, skip to the conclusion for the TLDR version.
edit:: When I wrote this post I overused the word "Forcing". Sorry, if you're going to read this all please interpret this word as aggression that results in opponent unit production, map control, and contain.
I decided to share my thoughts on this as a result of yesterday's Day9 daily, which was when to drone and not to drone. That concept is a core component of Fruitdealer's play. Furthermore, there's another extremely important concept that Day9 also described, which is forcing and reacting. I believe that Fruitdealer has taken these concepts and utilizes them in a way that other zergs haven't caught onto yet. Day9's description of forcing/response can be seen here at the 20:30min mark http://day9tv.blip.tv/file/3873603/
Of course, Zerg is a reactionary race. The only really effective way that zerg can do any forcing early on is some kind of very early pool. Otherwise, zerg is left playing a reactionary game (most of the time. Terran and Protoss have a huge number of builds that are designed to attribute a great deal of forcing onto zerg in the early to mid game. Examples include two gate, four gate, hellion harass, reapers, bunker rushes, cannon rushes, etc. In most cases, there aren't any 'builds' zerg can really do to the same effect.
The reason Fruitdealer is so good is because if his firm grasp on the concept of forcing/reacting. However, what sets him apart from other zergs is his ability to effectively react and immediately being forcing. I'll use the GSL final games and analyze them in order to illustrate what I'm trying to say.
Match 1 was on Deltra Quadrant. Fruit and Hope both elected to play hugely reactionary games. In most cases, Terran will elect to do some kind of build that results in heaving forcing. However, hopetorture didn't. Like in any game, Fruit made zerglings to scout and to react to early pressure created by hopetorture, but all that really came was one helion which was beautifully stopped by Fruit. Because Hopetorture elected to go pure macro, Fruit reacted by doing the same. He attempted to do some forcing with mutas but of course he couldn't because of thors. Let's fast forward to when Hope starts doing some forcing. Hope attempted forcing through multiple drops, but Fruit reacted superbly well. He even isolated marines onto a random ledge at one point. Fast forward some more to when Hope decides to force his entire army onto Fruit. Fruit was in full reaction mode, he killed off the marine attack on one expo, and fended off the attack on other. Finally, he stopped the main force of tanks. Now in classic Fruitdealer style he immediately starts forcing. He already dropped ultras onto many of Hope's expansions, and continued doing so. But Fruit reacted so well earlier on that he was able to pretty much stampede all of Hope had. That game wasn't the greatest example but now onto the second game.
Match 2 was on Lost Temple and Fruit decided to 14 hatch leaving him in a spot where he'll have to play completely reactionary. In traditional Terran fashion, Hope went for the tank drop on the natural. Fruit's reaction was amazing, using queens and spine crawlers to fend it off. Now this is where Fruit becomes unique to other zerg players. After reacting, Fruit immediately starts forcing. Instead of using his first batch of mutas to react to the tank drop, he attacked with them and began forcing map control. As of that point, Fruit was in control and was able to become the forcer for the rest of the game with his mutalisks. Of course, it helps that Fruit is a genius at timing and anticipation. While forcing he sniped medivacs with mutas. Another unique forcing attribute from Fruit happened in that game. In many cases while in 'forcing mode', Fruit does baneling drops on mineral lines. What seperates Fruit from other zergs is his style of forcing. Instead of amassing a standard army he did multiple drops, snipes, and other things that Terrans shouldn't have to expect yet. Again, Fruit reacted and forced beautifully.
Match 3 was on Kulas. Again he fast expanded, but this time to the gold. Anytime you fast expand you're going have to react. As you would expect, Fruitdealer reacted beautifully, using roaches to help defend a tank drop. By now this concept should be easily predictable, Fruitdealer began forcing. That Nydus worm was an out of this world bit of forcing that ended up winning the game. In most cases Fruit would probably begin forcing with some roaches or a zergling/baneling bust.
I'm going to skip Match 4 because I really haven't analyzed it much. : P
I'm going to keep Match 5 short. Fruit 14 hatched, reacted amazingly to a proxy reaper attack, and immediately began forcing. This time it was more classic Fruitdealer, he started forcing with roaches and zerglings. It was more effective than it should have been as he killed two barracks. Fruitdealer never stopped forcing from there, though. He followed up with Mutalisks and baneling drops until he won.
Conclusion?
Fruit uses gosu micro and timing expertise to react and then immediately start forcing in unique ways that most players will never expect. In other games Fruit reacts more standardly. Stopping helions with roaches and then forcing with them, for example. To tie it in with Day9's daily, his timing lets him really maximize the amount of drones he gets versus units. His forcing is untraditional of other zergs which catches his opponents completely off guard. By analyzing his replays I've noticed a lot of forcing trends he does after reacting. Most of the time he'll force with what he has after a reaction, which is usually roaches and zerglings. If his opponent is doing something unorthodox, like a fast expand, he'll do mass zergling/baneling attacks. Ugh and other stuff I can't really remember. But most zergs after reacted don't start forcing, and continue to react by playing macro heavy. And that's about it.
I hope I wasn't too repetitive and that my thoughts will actually help some people by reading it. Thanks for reading if you made it all the way.
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On October 07 2010 04:06 Gentso wrote:
Like many of you, I'm constantly amazed at how Fruitdealer is able to win so decisively as zerg at this present state of the game.
I TL:DR'ed after there. I wouldn't say zerg is completely fine but with Siege tank nerf it seems that Zerg are close to equal footing (if not equal) with protoss and close to Terran. Look at top 200 ladders for proof, Zerg is on the rise.
Fruitseller is amazing either way, whether he is Zerg, Terran or Protoss it shouldn't matter. He is one of the strongest players around and thats baller but don't say he overcome huge imbalance because while I respect most peoples opinion on this sort of subject I think Zerg is fine now, hence why we are seeing alot more coming out of the woodworks.
Also, I'm zerg so there isn't any bias so please don't throw it at me.
Finally, Fruitseller fighting!
User was temp banned for this post.
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On October 07 2010 04:14 Mecha_cl wrote:Show nested quote +On October 07 2010 04:06 Gentso wrote:
Like many of you, I'm constantly amazed at how Fruitdealer is able to win so decisively as zerg at this present state of the game.
I TL:DR'ed after there. I wouldn't say zerg is completely fine but with Siege tank nerf it seems that Zerg are close to equal footing (if not equal) with protoss and close to Terran. Look at top 200 ladders for proof, Zerg is on the rise. Fruitseller is amazing either way, whether he is Zerg, Terran or Protoss it shouldn't matter. He is one of the strongest players around and thats baller but don't say he overcome huge imbalance because while I respect most peoples opinion on this sort of subject I think Zerg is fine now, hence why we are seeing alot more coming out of the woodworks. Also, I'm zerg so there isn't any bias so please don't throw it at me. Finally, Fruitseller fighting!
Hey man, I'm not necessarily talking about balance. I guess I mean more of the 'metagame' in that ZvT is played usually in a way where Terran win.
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Great post! I will definetly use these concepts in my games!
On October 07 2010 04:14 Mecha_cl wrote:Show nested quote +On October 07 2010 04:06 Gentso wrote:
Like many of you, I'm constantly amazed at how Fruitdealer is able to win so decisively as zerg at this present state of the game.
I TL:DR'ed after there. I wouldn't say zerg is completely fine but with Siege tank nerf it seems that Zerg are close to equal footing (if not equal) with protoss and close to Terran. Look at top 200 ladders for proof, Zerg is on the rise. Fruitseller is amazing either way, whether he is Zerg, Terran or Protoss it shouldn't matter. He is one of the strongest players around and thats baller but don't say he overcome huge imbalance because while I respect most peoples opinion on this sort of subject I think Zerg is fine now, hence why we are seeing alot more coming out of the woodworks. Also, I'm zerg so there isn't any bias so please don't throw it at me. Finally, Fruitseller fighting!
-_- read what the OP has to say before posting, jesus. Don't turn this into a balance thread.
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i do think that the metagame is too strong atm... people refuse to think for themselves.
"WTF SOME 1500 DIAMOND GUY COMPLAINED ABOUT PLANETARY FORTRESS!!! THAT MUST MEAN ITS IMBALANCED!!!!".. then they go play their bronze league match and BM some guy who happened to win while having a planetary fortress up.
the most successful players seem to be the unorthodox... tester, rainbow and cool are all very unique style... they're rock solid, but it's the ability to think outside the box which takes them to the next level.
User was warned for this post
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Devil Fruit
Like Luffy Strawhat, Fruit Dealer is a fruit user. His fruit allows him to have superb game sense with other hidden power. You can analyze his gameplay all day long but you can never be like Fruit dealer.
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Fruitdealer certainly does have a way of putting his opponents in a perpetual backpedal. Personally, I'd like to see some of his practice games that he talks about. I think Tester might have an answer to his current style since Fruitdealer stated he only wins something like 10% of games against his friends.
On October 07 2010 04:27 hoovehand wrote:
i do think that the metagame is too strong atm...
-_-
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These are all pretty basic in Broodwar... but, yes, Zerg needs to alternate between periods of droning with minimal defense and 'forcing' periods of pumping units + aggression.
I'll also note that by not relying on hydras to solve his problems, Fruitdealer had a greater opportunity for mobile counteraggression.
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I've really gotta say I didn't really pay attention to exactly how much Fruitseller not only:
1. Gets away with droning under pressure (i.e., making the least necessary amount of units, beforehand, to defend harassment and pushes)
But also:
2. Doesn't get bullied or intimidated into making an army when he doesn't need to (and also has no fear of taking a 3rd and 4th even with a very small army)
...until I watched Day9's recent daily about drone timings. I had to admit, even as a diamond Zerg, I've had a lot of games where I felt I lost because I "made too many drones and not enough army" when the EXACT opposite was most likely the cause of my defeat.
I should have been making more drones EARLIER and making more army LATER instead of getting intimidated by good harassment into wasting larvae on army I didn't really need too soon (on top of losing drones to harassment). It's a dangerous spiral!
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fruitdealer is just amazing.
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FruitDealer's timing of drone/units, reaction to Terran aggression and ability to snipe tanks, and blow up bio-balls, won him the series.
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fruit really showed how to deal with high ground exploitation, my mind was blown at how absolutely consistent and refined every counter to the high ground drop was. The made tvz on kulas ravine almost look fair O_O
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From what I saw and with very limted personal experience, there are a few things in Cool's playstyle that are definitely insane:
-amazing tingling spider sense, eg. game 2 on Lost Temple he was absolutely everywhere and abused the mutalisks to the extreme.
-uncanny decision making skills: we saw in some games that he can instantly react to any kind of threat (all-in, rush). The Nydus worm counter attack was in game 3 on Kulas was pure genius.
-insane macro; I would love to see replays but from the vods Cool seems to have reached a perfect balance between drones and army production.
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Does anybody know where I could pick up a bunch of Fruit Dealer / Cool replays? The more recent the better. It would be awesome to have a replay pack so we could figure this guy out a bit more.
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On October 07 2010 04:14 Mecha_cl wrote:Show nested quote +On October 07 2010 04:06 Gentso wrote:
Like many of you, I'm constantly amazed at how Fruitdealer is able to win so decisively as zerg at this present state of the game.
I TL:DR'ed
And I did it there (not really, I read posts before I reply to them).
The OP's post is great and has barely anything at all to do with balance.
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On October 07 2010 04:34 Toxigen wrote:
I should have been making more drones EARLIER and making more army LATER instead of getting intimidated by good harassment into wasting larvae on army I didn't really need too soon (on top of losing drones to harassment). It's a dangerous spiral!
Yeah, this is the core of Zerg philosophy. It's also why harass is so damn good against us (and it's no surprise that Terrans with all their harass options are particularly scary).
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Don't ignore match 4! It might help refine your conclusion.
1. Did it come down to a poor reaction (hydras) by fruitdealer?
2. Was his usual timing messed up by the unique aggression from hopetorture?
An analysis of his loss would give insight into what fruitdealer's core strategy relies on.
And are we calling him fruitseller now? Dealer makes him sound like a badass .
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On October 07 2010 04:57 Magnamus wrote:
Don't ignore match 4! It might help refine your conclusion.
1. Did it come down to a poor reaction (hydras) by fruitdealer?
2. Was his usual timing messed up by the unique aggression from hopetorture?
An analysis of his loss would give insight into what fruitdealer's core strategy relies on.
And are we calling him fruitseller now? Dealer makes him sound like a badass .
About game 4 only thing i can say is that he planned to make Hydralisks in game 4 and 7. Turned out that they were not very effective in game 4.
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On October 07 2010 04:57 Magnamus wrote:
Don't ignore match 4! It might help refine your conclusion.
1. Did it come down to a poor reaction (hydras) by fruitdealer?
2. Was his usual timing messed up by the unique aggression from hopetorture?
An analysis of his loss would give insight into what fruitdealer's core strategy relies on.
And are we calling him fruitseller now? Dealer makes him sound like a badass .
I haven't yet watched game 4 it ins entirety. I will though, and I'll try to give you an update sometime later today perhaps. And I don't know if it's dealer or seller. I say both.
On another note, I found the daily where Day9 explains the concept of forcing. I'll link it here and edit my post.
http://day9tv.blip.tv/file/3873603/ - starting around 20:30 in
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OP, you use the term "forcing" a lot. I'm not very familiar with this kind of usage for the word? I mean in the context it's not really too difficult to figure out, but sometimes it's kind of confusing what you mean.
Forcing, as in forcing pressure on the opponent? Applying force?
Or like, forcing your opponent to make tech decisions?
Aggression?
Anyways I agree, FruitDealer's gameplay is very strong, and he really takes control over his opponent, which is odd to see from a Zerg in SC2. 
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EPT
