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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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Yeah what is with all the FORCE? When I was a youngster we used to say things like "defending" and "attacking" or "harassing" On the other hand I can understand that Cool must rightfully be acknowledged to be a Yedi cuz the FORCE is strong with him :-)
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I interpret "forcing" as dictating through aggression or deceit what your opponent will do instead of letting him do what he wants to do. Whether that's teching, turtling, making more units, expanding.
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Terrans are the race that decide with force that Zerg need counter with. If it is the other way around, the Terran is not playing correctly.
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Any chance somebody can link FPVODs from fruitseller here?
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Terrans are the race that decide with force that Zerg need counter with. If it is the other way around, the Terran is not playing correctly
Certainly, that is the way the matchup usually goes.
However, what this thread points out is that that is not how Cool plays.
Cool is very aggressive. One thing I noticed is that he often uses aggression to defend. That is, the enemy will start a push towards Cool's base, and rather than either meeting them in the middle or fighting in his own base, he'd run units around the side and up to the enemy's base, forcing their army to return to defend.
Another thing I picked up on is how much emphasis Cool places on getting a good surround. I mean, every Zerg knows that surrounding is important. But Cool treats it as *essential*. He will happily engage with half an army just to be able to send his other half around the back for a surround. That IdrA style of just running waves and waves of units directly at the enemy and relying on economy to allow him to brute force his way to a victory is the exact opposite of how Cool plays.
The last thing, of course, is baneling drops. I don't think there was a single match where Cool made banelings where he didn't drop them.
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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 would edit that out if i was you
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On October 07 2010 05:36 awesomoecalypse wrote:Show nested quote +Terrans are the race that decide with force that Zerg need counter with. If it is the other way around, the Terran is not playing correctly Certainly, that is the way the matchup usually goes. However, what this thread points out is that that is not how Cool plays. Cool is very aggressive. One thing I noticed is that he often uses aggression to defend. That is, the enemy will start a push towards Cool's base, and rather than either meeting them in the middle or fighting in his own base, he'd run units around the side and up to the enemy's base, forcing their army to return to defend. Another thing I picked up on is how much emphasis Cool places on getting a good surround. I mean, every Zerg knows that surrounding is important. But Cool treats it as *essential*. He will happily engage with half an army just to be able to send his other half around the back for a surround. That IdrA style of just running waves and waves of units directly at the enemy and relying on economy to allow him to brute force his way to a victory is the exact opposite of how Cool plays. The last thing, of course, is baneling drops. I don't think there was a single match where Cool made banelings where he didn't drop them.
Baneling drops are the 3rd flank. Not to mention he does all this whilst fungal growthing the entire mech ball.
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On October 07 2010 04:27 hoovehand wrote:
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.
What excactly is "the metagame"? I see this word getting tossed around a lot around here.
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On October 07 2010 05:36 awesomoecalypse wrote:Show nested quote +Terrans are the race that decide with force that Zerg need counter with. If it is the other way around, the Terran is not playing correctly Cool is very aggressive. One thing I noticed is that he often uses aggression to defend. That is, the enemy will start a push towards Cool's base, and rather than either meeting them in the middle or fighting in his own base, he'd run units around the side and up to the enemy's base, forcing their army to return to defend. Another thing I picked up on is how much emphasis Cool places on getting a good surround. I mean, every Zerg knows that surrounding is important. But Cool treats it as *essential*. He will happily engage with half an army just to be able to send his other half around the back for a surround. That IdrA style of just running waves and waves of units directly at the enemy and relying on economy to allow him to brute force his way to a victory is the exact opposite of how Cool plays. The last thing, of course, is baneling drops. I don't think there was a single match where Cool made banelings where he didn't drop them.
From what I saw, Fruit didn't even HAVE a sizable army in most of his matches to defend until the enemy pushed out... which was usually so late that Fruit had 3-4 bases to pump an army instantly.. I have no idea what he would have done if the terran just attacked with an early thor/bio push around when Fruit takes his 3rd base and has no infestors or ultra out yet. Basically all he had in a lot of matches was a few banelings, a few zerglings, and 5-10 muta.
People who try to emulate Fruit on ladder lose because terrans on ladder do not play as passively as TOP or ITR did in their GSL matches.
You say they played passively because Fruit forced them to do so with "pressure", but putting pressure on terrans (who specialize in defense) is kinda.... difficult.
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Please analyze game 4. I want to know why he lose. Is it because of hydra? You explain why he win but it would give me a clear understand if I can compare it to why he lost game 4.
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Fruit reacted by doing the same. He attempted to do some forcing with mutas but of course he couldn't because of thors
This stood out to me, I think you're missing the importance of those mutalisks a little bit. They did TONS for the match-up. By making 4-5 mutas Fruitdealer is able to essentially say to his opponent, if you don't make turrets or have thor/marine I will win this game because I have mutas. Since Hope had units that can shoot up, Fruit didn't need to make more mutas and could just use his mutas for scouting, light harassment, and what not.
It's essentially Fruit saying, "I want you to have Thors or marines in your unit composition because I feel comfortable fighting those units".
If Fruit didn't make the spire and air units it frees Hope to go with tank/hellion, hellion/marauder, or hellion/tank unit compositions which can be very difficult to handle using a ground only composition. Instead fruit opens the safer infestors or roaches, but makes the spire and puts an ultimatum on his opponent. If his opponent has tried to be greedy with his composition then instead of having the advantage he pretty much instantly loses.
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On October 07 2010 05:43 Jaal wrote:Show nested quote +On October 07 2010 04:27 hoovehand wrote:
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. What excactly is "the metagame"? I see this word getting tossed around a lot around here.
metagame [game behind the game] means the current view of viable strategies and mindgames
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On October 07 2010 05:47 Playboy. wrote:
Please analyze game 4. I want to know why he lose. Is it because of hydra? You explain why he win but it would give me a clear understand if I can compare it to why he lost game 4.
Q: You said you had prepared a special strat for Desert Oasis, what was it?
A: People don't use hydralisks much, so I was going to use them in game four and seven. However I started getting behind in the early game, and Sung-jae hyung started his harass very fast so my plans got messed up. Terran picked an economy heavy build, while I was spending too much gas, which didn't come together well for me. When my opponent starting dominating the game, I knew I was going to lose.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=157567
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I think as Day9 put it "forcing" means making units that kill everything except few certain strategies. You "force" your opponent to do one of these and thus only need to think about how to deal with those strategies, because you win against everything else.
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I got a little carried away with the term forcing.
Forcing for my post can be defined as aggression that results in opponent unit production, map control, and contain.
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I think ur use of the words "force" and "react" are pretty skewed, i dont know if u are trying to sound smarter than you really are or u really think ur use of the words are legit.
Fruit dealer, defends and counters... thats it, we all do that, its not something new and spectacular. He makes the right choices and has amazing game sense, which is why he wins.
Forcing is going muta to FORCE the terran to make marines, which u easily counter with banelings, and to FORCE him to waste money on turrets (also buying time). Defending and attack and then applying some pressure is NOT forcing... its pressure, unless u think you are FORCING him to defend... :S
Defending vs hellions with roaches and then applying pressure doesnt "force" anything nor is it a reaction, its defending an attack and then if u have the units its applying pressure.
He does react well to drops, he reacts to what he scouts, calling defending "reacting" is foolish. Calling general aggression "forcing" is also rather foolish.
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On October 07 2010 06:22 Fodder03 wrote:
I think ur use of the words "force" and "react" are pretty skewed, i dont know if u are trying to sound smarter than you really are or u really think ur use of the words are legit.
; ) you're right. I wrote my post pretty quickly and didn't spend much time proof-reading. When I used the term forcing I let it mean many more things than it actually does.
He does react well to drops, he reacts to what he scouts, calling defending "reacting" is foolish.
Hmm, I disagree. I think zerg while defending is definitely reacting. Like Day9 says, for the most part you want to pump drones and enough units to defend. In that sense, the opponent is forcing what zerg is going to make and when they're going to make it. You're right, though. In order to do that you need good scouting.
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Im sorry if i came off like a dick, not my intention. Just wanted to point out that, defending, aggression, reacting and forcing are all there own separate entitys. I Understood what you meant tho, there is merit to the analysis. It was a good read.
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My take away from Fruitdealer is more focus on a different aspect. Specifically mobility & positioning.
He relies heavily on units which is extreme mobile, and increase their mobility by well spreading out the creep. By spreading the overlords around, he is extremely vigilant about locations of the enemy and where the enemies are going to strike. When attacking, he would never attack from a single front, always from multiple fronts. He sticks with units that are extreme mobile (zergling, baneling w/speed, roach w/speed, infestors), and reduce enemy's mobility (fungal growth). As Nazza stated above, not only does he flank the opponent from left and right, he introduce the additional element of baneling drops from the sky.
To me, he feels more like a general with big picture in mind, where he knows at any given time, straight at head-to-head combat will always result in a loss, that's why he carefully position his opponents and strike when they're at the designate location where he can attack from multiple fronts, winning the battle decisively.
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i definitly agree with the OP.
couple of things i would like to add to support the thesis
1) on game 2/3 He FE (game 3 on gold) , which actually manipulated HT to do agressive drops ("OH no he gets an economical lead i need to stop that . push now!")
so he knew they are comming and he was ready with crawlers ol and even rouches on the other side (brilliant) . he had exactly the defense he knew he would need .
same thing teasing inca with a FE to go 2 gate zelot push and having exactly enough crawlers to stop that.
2) i think mostly against top . early terran effective harras . ("look at that banshi 9 kills , 4 kills on those hellions. top must be in a huge economical advantage! oh wait they are actually even!") he keep macroing up under pressure , he does not over commit to defense .
3) expanding all over the map ,very far distant bases. he knows that his opponent will not use mech army to march around the big map but will opt to use drops . and then he has infestor and queen to clear it up (and not more then that).
4) he can 6 pool you , he will not let you force out bunkering down FE.
5) all his major battles were faught on creep (i got the movement advantage) and NOT at his bases.
he caught people on the move , he flanked , he triend and counter hit them at home . he delayed the battle untill he was ready (drops) . then you will fight his game.
6) he tech to multiple direction abling to switch fast ("are we gonna have broodlings ? oh shit 15 ultras!")
7) was always mobile and agressive , drops / mutas but not 20 mutas about 8 , enough to screw up drops and airplay and force opponent to anti air.
anyhow thanks for the read OP
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The whole OP kinda made me facepalm with the constant [incorrect] use of the word "forcing" instead of pressure. In particular, this section really bothered me:
On October 07 2010 04:06 Gentso wrote: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.
Any competent zerg will use all of their units - you're missing the difference between Fruit and other zergs completely. The major difference that I saw between Fruit and other zergs is in the number of hatcheries and queens he gets very early into the game, and his very efficient defense against early harass.
A key difference between his play and say that of Idra's is in his early hatches (usually 3 hatches on two bases at the same time other zergs rely on only two hatches). He generates enough larva to not need to decide between drones or army units - he can build both, unlike with the two-hatch build. This increased drone count quickly accumulates into the funding for a total of 5 hatcheries leading to a complete macro advantage. Fruit shines in his defense of a large number of bases - this accounted for his win on Delta Quadrant. Other (mostly US/EU) zergs refuse to build that third hatch because its inefficient - however because of the larva count fruit generates, he can produce many more drones to account for it.
The other key difference is fruit's almost guaranteed use of Roaches for early defense. Most zerg will rely on the speedling/spine crawler combination to prevent hellions and reapers, however Fruit makes only a handful of roaches to deal with the harassment. Zergs that are not Fruit and go Roaches usually amass too many roaches (the number to defense the harass without losing a drone) and they fall behind economically - Fruit will just take the hit in drone count from not having enough roaches and simply rebuild drones after the harass is delt with, which because of his early queens and hatcheries, he can rebuild much faster.
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Nice write up, thanks man. I agree that Cool is different from any other Zerg player out there, even though I still don't think he's the best. I think he won simply because his play was so unexpected by his opponents.
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From what I saw, Fruit didn't even HAVE a sizable army in most of his matches to defend until the enemy pushed out... which was usually so late that Fruit had 3-4 bases to pump an army instantly.. I have no idea what he would have done if the terran just attacked with an early thor/bio push around when Fruit takes his 3rd base and has no infestors or ultra out yet. Basically all he had in a lot of matches was a few banelings, a few zerglings, and 5-10 muta.
People who try to emulate Fruit on ladder lose because terrans on ladder do not play as passively as TOP or ITR did in their GSL matches.
THIS.
The most inspiring part of the finals was Fruitdealer's ability to sense what his opponent was going to do, especially where he was going to drop. This doesn't really help educate my zerg play though, as it's not what I have to deal with. I want to see Fruit crush a 2-base mech or mech bio push. How would he deal with 4 thors, 2 tanks and 15 hellions? Sure, you could baneling drop the main or nat, but what if he decides to base trade you?
By making 4-5 mutas Fruitdealer is able to essentially say to his opponent, if you don't make turrets or have thor/marine I will win this game because I have mutas. Since Hope had units that can shoot up, Fruit didn't need to make more mutas and could just use his mutas for scouting, light harassment, and what not.
It's essentially Fruit saying, "I want you to have Thors or marines in your unit composition because I feel comfortable fighting those units".
I understand this, in concept, but...think about it realistically. When was the last time you wanted your opponent to have lots of thors? What are you going to kill them with again? I would love to see Fruit fighting a strong 2-base thor centric push. Any reps out there?
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Maybe he seemed so good cause the terran player hopewhatever never really pressured him every game and let potseller just macro up and expand like crazy before he attacked or tried to. Oh look gold minerals and this terran isn't gonna try to stop me lolololol.
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I didn't watch the whole 7 games yet (only 3 so far), but let me tell ya, fruit dealer made hopetorture look like a low gold player in a gold vs. diamond match.(especially match 3)
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The FruitDealer has advanced the metagame with some nice ideas. The baneling drop on top of a surround with some fungal when possible has shown to be a very powerful move. Creep + Overlords to spot drops and prevent them. Abusing the zerg's superior macro when the enemy fast expands, he double fast expands. His micro is excellent as well. He also found an easy way to defend against siege tanks on the cliff on lost temple. Now he got alot of attention and many progamers who signed up for GSL2 will watch his games and be better prepared against his playstyle.
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it's his gameplay that's really strong that doesn't really have a weakness and if it does, it'll be early pressure which his micro covers up and from cloaked units like the banshees/DTs.
other than that, you will lose to him...I can't see someone's army go straight up and beat a Fruit Dealer
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On October 07 2010 04:27 hoovehand wrote:
i do think that the metagame is too strong atm...
-_-[/QUOTE]
Wtf does that even mean????
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To keep it simple. He expands like a real S class SC1 pro-gamer would and micro his units to force aggression. Seems like most Zerg fails is because they don't expand when they can't attack (or when the opponent focuses on defense), and when they do, they lack the micro and multi-tasking skill to defend.
This is more about timing and "game sense" since all the tricks on how to use units effectively can be used by other progamers. Fruitdealer expands as early and as much as possible.
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On October 07 2010 05:47 Fa1nT wrote:Show nested quote +On October 07 2010 05:36 awesomoecalypse wrote:Terrans are the race that decide with force that Zerg need counter with. If it is the other way around, the Terran is not playing correctly Cool is very aggressive. One thing I noticed is that he often uses aggression to defend. That is, the enemy will start a push towards Cool's base, and rather than either meeting them in the middle or fighting in his own base, he'd run units around the side and up to the enemy's base, forcing their army to return to defend. Another thing I picked up on is how much emphasis Cool places on getting a good surround. I mean, every Zerg knows that surrounding is important. But Cool treats it as *essential*. He will happily engage with half an army just to be able to send his other half around the back for a surround. That IdrA style of just running waves and waves of units directly at the enemy and relying on economy to allow him to brute force his way to a victory is the exact opposite of how Cool plays. The last thing, of course, is baneling drops. I don't think there was a single match where Cool made banelings where he didn't drop them. From what I saw, Fruit didn't even HAVE a sizable army in most of his matches to defend until the enemy pushed out... which was usually so late that Fruit had 3-4 bases to pump an army instantly.. I have no idea what he would have done if the terran just attacked with an early thor/bio push around when Fruit takes his 3rd base and has no infestors or ultra out yet. Basically all he had in a lot of matches was a few banelings, a few zerglings, and 5-10 muta. People who try to emulate Fruit on ladder lose because terrans on ladder do not play as passively as TOP or ITR did in their GSL matches. You say they played passively because Fruit forced them to do so with "pressure", but putting pressure on terrans (who specialize in defense) is kinda.... difficult.
Wait wait wait. did we watch the same games? I dont remember all of the details of each game that well, but from the 4 games Fruitdealer won, there were 2 games where ITR put tanks up on elevation by one of Fruits expos and 1 game where he proxy reapers. How is that "playing passively"?
After he lost the first game (yes he was passive there), he decided to switch it up and play aggressively from the start. Fruitdealer shut them all down, or just ignored and went for the counter attack.
Its very strange. Youd think zerg players would celebrate Fruitdealers non-reactive play style and try to emulate it, but so many of them seem to want so badly for Blizzard to fix all their problems for them that they attribute Fruitdealers victories mainly to ITRs deficiencies.
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Only one thing I realized about Fruitseller was his innovation.
Everyone including IdrA did nothing but whine about Zerg and rigidly never adapted. Fruitseller owned Terran bio with creative baneling drop bombs from overlords during fights and disgusting Fungal play.
Ironically enough, Fruitseller commented ZvP was harder to face, not ZvT.
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Yeah, I don't get the "Terran didn't play aggressively enough" criticism.
ITR did tank drops on two of the most abusive maps that exist for that strategy. He also did proxy reaper.
LiveForever harassed with literally every harassing units Terran has. Cool went for a fast hatchery in one game, and LiveForever straight up killed it with reapers. He then harassed with Hellions and did some econ damage, and then he harassed with cloaked Banshees before Cool had detection and did even more damage. With harassment he straight up killed like 20 drones and a hatchery.
I mean seriously, if that isn't "aggressive", then what the hell is?
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On October 07 2010 15:54 Darkren wrote:Show nested quote +On October 07 2010 04:27 hoovehand wrote:
i do think that the metagame is too strong atm... -_-
Wtf does that even mean????[/QUOTE]
lol, makes me think of the day9 episode where he goes on his "metagame" rant about people who overuse the word "metagame".
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Wtf does that even mean????[/QUOTE]
I think he just mean people are paying way too much attention to what other people are doing. If some player says, "x unit is useless in this matchup", then rather than trying it for themselves and experimenting, they just follow the pack.
Cool is interesting because his play is not what you'd expect, and if you'd gone on the boards and said, "hey guys, I think I'm gonna go 3 hatch on 2 bases, and make like 3 roaches for defense. I know I'll lose a lot of drones, but I'll be droning so hard it won't even matter." Everyone would just say, "stfu n00b, that'd never work." And everyone would be wrong.
Check out Plexa's "Is it viable?" threads on the strategy boards, where he's showing that a lot of units and playstyles people dismiss out of hand are actually surprisingly useful.
"Metagame" is kind of a stupid word. but at the same time, I agree with his general point--the game is still very young. people should not be boxing themselves in with preconceived ideas about what is viable and what isn't. Be willing to experiment and try new things.
Cool was, and he just won 81 grand.
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Calgary25980 Posts
I have a huge problem with this writeup. You start with the foregone conclusion "Of course Zerg is reactionary." Did I miss that article? Any race can be played with a reactionary style. I don't think the racial dynamic is understood enough yet that you can just slap down that statement without justifying it.
Then, you seem to focus on the "reactions" because of race, as opposed to the situations at hand.
Example: Fruitdealer expanded on Lost Temple. HopeTorture did a Tank drop. FruitDealer reacted. FruitDealer killed HopeTorture.
I can easily write this the other way.
Counter-Example: Terran is, of course, the reactionary race. If you don't react perfectly, you will lose. We can see this clearly in game 2. FruitDealer expanded on Lost Temple. This forced HopeTorture to react by playing a 1-base drop build. Unfortunately, he didn't execute it perfectly. After it was defeated, he couldn't react to the Zerg properly and was crushed.
I think the theme of this article is written as a foregone conclusion, and as someone who didn't agree with the initial premise, I didn't feel anything written helped to convince me.
The analysis seems really flimsy to me. It boils down to "FruitDealer is really fucking good. He harasses well. He often counter-attacks after defending." I get no tangibles from this article explaining what he specifically did or why it's so strong.
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I don't think the games with Hopetorture are good examples of ZvT I mean sure Cool is an awesome player but Hopetorture tried to play a macro game with a zerg player.
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Fruitdealer played an expansive style (SC1 Zerg S-class style) and to play against it u really have to be like Flash with his groups of marines threatening every expansion there is, simultaneously. Easier said than done.
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On October 07 2010 04:34 Toxigen wrote:
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!
I must say I absolutely agree with what you wrote here. I myself am a diamond zerg and on watching replays of my loss, it is precisely because I overreacted to harass that I spiraled down into the 'lower income=less troops=less drones made' cycle. I suppose it is the micro that allows for proper defense with very little that sets apart the good players from the pros. Will have to work on the basics of micro and also, map awareness (creep tumors/overlord placements) to improve my game
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Just as a semantic aside, the word 'reactionary' essentially means someone who is opposed to political change. The word you're looking for is 'reactive'.
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I think a lot of it is awareness and ability to react while executing multiple other tasks. In game 1 he stopped 3 drop at once and managed to harass a bit on his own, it was incredible.
I think what amazed me the most his fast expand on Kulas. He built the spine crawlers up against the ledge forcing the terran to drop his tank to the far left of the ledge. Then as soon as the tank started to drop, he had 3 roaches ready to cut him off and deny the harrass.
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On October 08 2010 03:10 NoXious90 wrote:
Just as a semantic aside, the word 'reactionary' essentially means someone who is opposed to political change. The word you're looking for is 'reactive'.
naa... Dude is all about leaving fruit taxes ALONE!!!!
I think watching Day[9]'s review of this noob was very helpful. He really does have a great sense of timing and I have yet to see a player multi-task on the same level as him. The macro and simultaneously executed attacks were so beautiful.
another thing that he really pushes is mind games. in multiple interviews he talks about the importance of being willing to do a risky all in. I think some of the opponents were less brazen early on because they knew he would 6pool if given the chance.
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if the opponent tries to wall in with 1 base or even 2, don't try to break in, resort to expand instead.
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On October 07 2010 05:36 awesomoecalypse wrote:Show nested quote +Terrans are the race that decide with force that Zerg need counter with. If it is the other way around, the Terran is not playing correctly Certainly, that is the way the matchup usually goes. However, what this thread points out is that that is not how Cool plays. Cool is very aggressive. One thing I noticed is that he often uses aggression to defend. That is, the enemy will start a push towards Cool's base, and rather than either meeting them in the middle or fighting in his own base, he'd run units around the side and up to the enemy's base, forcing their army to return to defend. Another thing I picked up on is how much emphasis Cool places on getting a good surround. I mean, every Zerg knows that surrounding is important. But Cool treats it as *essential*. He will happily engage with half an army just to be able to send his other half around the back for a surround. That IdrA style of just running waves and waves of units directly at the enemy and relying on economy to allow him to brute force his way to a victory is the exact opposite of how Cool plays. The last thing, of course, is baneling drops. I don't think there was a single match where Cool made banelings where he didn't drop them.
Good observation. Fruitseller seems like a Careful player who makes Calculated Risks. He knows from experience that pure macro aggressive play will lose because of stronger teran balls and multidrop harassment, so he makes spine crawlers, mobile units (mutaliks, zerglings) and infestors to defend. These units also seem to work marvelously to slow down big pushes/backstab while he waits for his ultralisks to pop out.
Fruitseller keeps his characteristic cool and is always using active agile units to maintain knowledge of what his opponent is doing, poking around to find any weakness in the defenses as he drones up. This also buys him time for the powerful Zerg Tier 3. It allows him to not blindly overreact and keep drone production going until his opponent is ready to move out. Since he has already opened all useful tech options, he can pop out an army of the exact composition he needs to fend off the push.
It is because Terrans are so agressive that he enjoys so much success. In a lot of games he wins essentially by destroying the whole Terran army in one or two waves or getting a great economic advantage by denying harassment (a full dropship is a big investment).
The guy is brilliant and has really done his homework analysing the usual TvZ play (no Ghosts, no Ravens). It's too bad Hydras are mostly useless in that matchup (unless... Marauders+Thors???).
Other things I noticed :
-Very fast expand style, with confidence that he can still defend the early pressure
-3rd Queen on 2 bases pretty often to defend vs banshees, spread creep and heal mutas.
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I have to admit, watching FruitDealer play in the GSL really helped me improve my zerg play. It helped me realise that I too, was making too much army too early and not enough drones, crippling myself later on, and how to watch for my opponents movement. Just wish I could execute it all a tenth as well as he does, but I guess that's the difference between playing a few games a night and spending ten hours a day practicing 
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I want to see some replays of fruitseller vs boxer or nada.
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Match 1 is hardly a good enough analysis. Artosis or Tasteless made the more insightful point that HopeTorture was positioned poorly with the bulk of his army while trying to take out the two expansions.
With proper positioning in the middle FruitDealer wouldn't have been able to save both of them with his reinforcements.
Match 2. HopeTorture didn't do a traditional Terran cliff drop. His biggest mistake was not taking the marines he had available with the tank. If he had done so the spine crawler wouldn't have killed the tank and the Natural expan would've been under so much pressure Fruit Dealer would've been dramatically slower to push out when he did.
MAtch 3. Kulas Ravine was not an example of FruitDealer reacting but forcing. His positioning of his forces to protect the expansion largley dictated how the drop could be done and led to its eventual destruction. It was HopeTorture who had to react and he did it poorly.
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On October 08 2010 01:22 Zeroes wrote:
I don't think the games with Hopetorture are good examples of ZvT I mean sure Cool is an awesome player but Hopetorture tried to play a macro game with a zerg player.
Uh...again. 2 games tank drop, 1 game proxy reaper. How is that not aggressive? How is that a "macro game"? Thats typical Terran early harass/aggression. Stop making excuses.
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I don't want to downplay his level of play, he is a progamer after all, but i think many of you grossly overpraise his ability. I mean, have you considered the argument from the standpoint that his opponents just weren't that good?
I admire his baneling use, but that's really the extent of it. Everything else he does it mostly standard zerg fare. His progamer roots means his macro control is very good, thus appears very elegant.
His real test imo comes in GSL S2. When he goes up against other competent players who are atleast at his level, other progamers such boxer, and those who don't suffer stage fright.
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Please, please, check Cool's BW progaming record:
60% ZvT (including 3-0 vs NaDa)
20% ZvZ
25% ZvP
I tend to be skeptical about style from BW transferring to SC2, but the results of Cool in SC2 seem to confirm that ZvT is really his specialty. So yeah, if he likes it and plays it a lot a lot a lot, then he develops godly timings. Sure, when he defends, he attacks. Day9 (zerg in BW) also recommends that.
And not only for zerg. As Chill pointed out, the other 2 races can be seen from the reactionary perspective too. So, if Cool has godly timing, what stops another race player to develop godly timings? How can this be the measure for zerg superiority, when it's not that zerg-specific.
In short, we say: "he wins zerg because he plays better RTS (timing, sense, reaction etc)", which really, isn't an argument that clarifies how to play zerg better, specifically.
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From my lowly perspective I think that FD has a tendency to all in eco time to time. This helps immensely against passive terrans who do small drops but is extremely dangerous in general if the terran instead decides to do one of the nasty timing pushes they can make in the time window when T3 is not here yet. Terran also sees when he is scouted and can react appropriately; ITR did not do it at all. Winning against predictable oponent is not so hard.
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Why do people think he lost that game because of hydras? Just because hydras suck?
Right as Hopetorture is setting up his army to push through fruit dealer's base, fruit dealer decides to do a HUGE doom drop into Hopeturture's base, splitting his army in half. This costs him the game because he never has quite enough units to break Hopetorture's push, but he gets so close several times and the units he used in the drop would have easily made the difference.
At the same time, the doom drop in Hopetorture's base gets almost no resistence, it would have been just as effective with half the units.
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disagree on game 3 ..
Expanding at the gold first actually forces the terran to react ASAP in order to not get outmacroed, FSeller meanwhile prepared a well thought defense for the predictable (because enforced) drop at the gold ledge
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EPT
