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So this guy who I've never heard of before and who apparently is pretty good at WC3 started playing SC2 three weeks ago and is now competing in some European tournies.
WC3 players are known to be pretty smart about unit movement and how they engage in battles and he certainly doesn't disappoint. Granted I've only seen his games vs Teeler and Sarens, 2 old-school BW players, but he certainly held his own against the 2.
While he showed weak macro (probes'n'pylons) throughout, the way he was able to frequently force his opponents into uncomfortable do-or-die situations was very impressive for someone so new to SC2.
The only mistakes I've seen him to were easily explainable by lack of experience, f.e. in g1 where he had a way superior army of 10 carriers, 1 mothership + a few templar, archons and stalkers against 6 vikings, 1 PF, and about 30 MM + 3 ghosts.
But I don't think 3 weeks are enough to prepare a new player for PvT mined-out 80 minute endgame.
He already has a very good understanding of army management and is always eager to counter-attack, something even the likes of Tyler have shown to have trouble with. I think this ability to always think on your feet and not try to brute-force a situation is a great asset for any player and something that is almost impossible to learn once you've grown familiar with a game.
The best example for this is IdrA (who I've, mind you, watched almost all tournament & stream games of). He almost always attacks his opponent head-on and if you study his losses you will find that almost all of them can be attributed to some stupid attack in an unfavorable position and off-creep (which is apparently synonymous to IMBALANCE to him).
I'm not very often impressed by new players (especially not ones coming from WC3 :D) but I think Grubby shows a lot of potential, being able to put up such a good fight against top-of-the-line players after only 3 weeks of practice. If he continues to practice and goes SC2 full-time - instead of trying to do both - I'm 100% confident that he will start taking titles very soon. I'm definitely looking forward to his future games :D
I'll update this post with some of his VODs as I find them. Here are some posts from the LR thread.
On February 12 2011 10:10 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:Interesting there are people out there disappointed with Grubbys performance. Guy went 1-2 with one of Europes better Terrans and almost beat him after only a few weeks of dedication to SC2. I thought Tyler and Sarens were going to roll him solely based on lack of experience. Positively surprised 
On February 12 2011 09:57 4of8 wrote:
I mean Grubby is playing this game for around a 3-4 weeks and nearly beats Sarens in a BO3(WTF). In fact without this huge fail attack in the end there was no way for Sarens for a comeback. Give him another 3-4 weeks and he will crush everyone like he did in WC3.
On February 12 2011 10:02 GenoZStriker wrote:"SarenS said Grubby played well, considering that he only got started with Starcraft II for 3 weeks. We’ll take that as a praise. Here, they are looking at the replay together." According to Cassandra.
Oh and btw, everyone who keeps mentioning g3 vs sarens, he essentially had the game won after he murdered sarens expo but in the end it didnt matter because he had the chance to get 2nd in the group (and advance) lost after he went 1-1 and it was past 1am after 90 minutes of constant playing.
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Russian Federation124 Posts
LMFAO i could only wish Incontrol will see this
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Nice read man. I'm sure he'd appreciate this a lot. As much as I would have loved to see him beat SarenS, that last part on Jungle Basin somewhat showed that he was not sure what he had to do and just attacked thinking that his stronger army would break through.
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I was very impressed by Grubby's play aswell, he showed (at least for me) a couple of ideas I've haven't really seen before. It makes me look forward to when Grubby starts playing SC2 full time and gets solid in this game, hopefully be able to be a pioneer in SC2.
This comes from a fanboy since a few hours back, I never followed WC3
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I'd love to have seen Incontrol cast that game.
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Give him a month or two and he'll be ripping up as one of Europe's best.
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Grubby has been playing sc2 for more than 3 weeks. With that said I felt his play against sarens was not up to par. He made many many critical errors and it seemed like he did not particularly know what he was doing at all times. For example the 1.5 hour game he did not have a plan and did not know how to react, and later in the series just fell apart with poor builds and mechanics. Half the time I was shouting at my screen like "Omfg what are you doing!". The game on jungle basin made me cry, He had a perfect opportunity when his lance and 3rd colossus popped out, and he did nothing. Terran did not have vikings yet and he threw the game away. He sac'd his expansion with 3 colossus with thermal lance to a medivac of mnm, complete waste. Very poor decision making. He just is not that strong of a player currently and really needs to mass game to get used to a variety of situations. Watching him play made me angry.
His games against Nony were also quite frustrating. The one game on basin where he had gotten 2robo colossus, and just decided to run up into nonies natural and die was hard to watch. He had colossus on the way, would have gotten ahead in colossus count and threw that game away too. Two games he could have been ahead of nony quite substantially and he threw them away. This poor decision making is probably due to lack of focus on SC2.
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He's not that good yet, but he definitely has the chance of being very, very good. He needs to work a lot on his macro and decision making, but his micro is already better than a lot of other players. If he commits all of his time to SC2, I expect him to do extremely well.
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Grubby is quite good indeed!
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On February 12 2011 11:02 SladeR wrote:
Grubby has been playing sc2 for more than 3 weeks. With that said I felt his play against sarens was not up to par. He made many many critical errors and it seemed like he did not particularly know what he was doing at all times. For example the 1.5 hour game he did not have a plan and did not know how to react, and later in the series just fell apart with poor builds and mechanics. Half the time I was shouting at my screen like "Omfg what are you doing!".
could u last that long vs those kind of players?
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I hope he starts to play more so he will become a beast.
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It's not like he doesn't have the practice partners to succeed and yeah, he's been playing a lot longer than 3 weeks. He's been putting more time and effort into the game. That is for sure. He still has a lot of hurdles to overcome like Mad Frog.
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On February 12 2011 11:02 SladeR wrote:
Grubby has been playing sc2 for more than 3 weeks. With that said I felt his play against sarens was not up to par. He made many many critical errors and it seemed like he did not particularly know what he was doing at all times. For example the 1.5 hour game he did not have a plan and did not know how to react, and later in the series just fell apart with poor builds and mechanics. Half the time I was shouting at my screen like "Omfg what are you doing!".
I hope that replay can get released so you can view it in grubby's vision. He had no way of telling how big sarens's army really was and didn't want to fight near PF or turrets. I think he had a very impressive showing these 2 games. Loved that micro against the bunker rush. IRC chat blew up when that happened.
If you compare that 200/200 fight vs the one he had vs sterling, he had way more production facilities, and did a great tech switch when he saw the number of marauders the terran had. His templar play is very impressive with the ghost feedback. I freaking screamed when he sacrificed his probes and used that to feedback 3 medivacs. That was a pimp move right there.
It feels like he's still exploring how to use stalker and zealot effectively. His 4 gate was very weak. Maybe he should practice that a little.
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The best example for this is IdrA (who I've, mind you, watched almost all tournament & stream games of). He almost always attacks his opponent head-on and if you study his losses you will find that almost all of them can be attributed to some stupid attack in an unfavorable position and off-creep (which is apparently synonymous to IMBALANCE to him).
I think your original post would be a lot better if you didn't include parts like this. Not only is it completely wrong, but all you're going to do is have people derail the thread to discuss it.
I agree on the topic of Grubby though. He had some really creative plays going on that I haven't seen many players do. Watching his matches, it's extremely obvious that he lacks experience. With that in mind it makes some of his plays even more exciting to see. The way he was dancing his colossi, high templar, carriers, and blink stalkers around on lost temple was especially impressive, considering he hasn't even figured out not to push down a ramp against tanks yet.
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On February 12 2011 11:02 SladeR wrote:
Grubby has been playing sc2 for more than 3 weeks. With that said I felt his play against sarens was not up to par. He made many many critical errors and it seemed like he did not particularly know what he was doing at all times. For example the 1.5 hour game he did not have a plan and did not know how to react, and later in the series just fell apart with poor builds and mechanics. Half the time I was shouting at my screen like "Omfg what are you doing!". The game on jungle basin made me cry, He had a perfect opportunity when his lance and 3rd colossus popped out, and he did nothing. Terran did not have vikings yet and he threw the game away. He sac'd his expansion with 3 colossus with thermal lance, complete waste. Very poor decision making. He just is not that strong of a player currently and really needs to mass game to get used to a variety of situations. Watching him play made me angry.
You didn't read OP's post, Grubby has been playing for 3 weeks dude, you are being way too harsh on him
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Grubby was playing in beta, and a little on release. Maybe started playing competitively 3 weeks ago. Or started putting more time and effort into the game at the time of 3 weeks ago. But he has played a good amount previously.
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It feels trite to point out that Grubby's play has flaws. The games today don't interest me much, regardless of how good or badly he did; he's been playing for such a relatively short amount of time that I can't imagine it really setting the tone for his SC2 career. In fact, unless he shocks me with unimaginable gosu powers at some point, I'm not sure I'm going to take his skill level and rate of advancement as representative until he decides to stop splitting his time between WC3 and SC2.
One last thing: Of course any WC3 player will be at least decent if they put their mind to the game. They share with Brood War players one of the biggest and important qualities that you need to be a truly successful progamer: the willingness to work hard as fuck.
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On February 12 2011 11:02 SladeR wrote:
Grubby has been playing sc2 for more than 3 weeks. With that said I felt his play against sarens was not up to par. He made many many critical errors and it seemed like he did not particularly know what he was doing at all times. For example the 1.5 hour game he did not have a plan and did not know how to react, and later in the series just fell apart with poor builds and mechanics. Half the time I was shouting at my screen like "Omfg what are you doing!". The game on jungle basin made me cry, He had a perfect opportunity when his lance and 3rd colossus popped out, and he did nothing. Terran did not have vikings yet and he threw the game away. He sac'd his expansion with 3 colossus with thermal lance to a medivac of mnm, complete waste. Very poor decision making. He just is not that strong of a player currently and really needs to mass game to get used to a variety of situations. Watching him play made me angry.
His games against Nony were also quite frustrating. The one game on basin where he had gotten 2robo colossus, and just decided to run up into nonies natural and die was hard to watch. He had colossus on the way, would have gotten ahead in colossus count and threw that game away too. Two games he could have been ahead of nony quite substantially and he threw them away. This poor decision making is probably due to lack of focus on SC2. casually playing the game when you aren't practicing for major wc3 tournaments and actually putting full pro effort practice into a game is completely different.
None the less you are right he made huge mistakes in those games that cost him the series. But he had a chance/advantage in alot of the games he lost today. If he figures out how to take full advantage when he gets one he will not lose those games.
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I really want to see Grubby do well in SC2, he just seems like such a likeable guy in every way..
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Ether way he hasn't been playing everyday since release like everyone else. Yes he has room to improve but so does everyone. with more practice i think he will be a really good player.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.fragster.de/de/esport/starcraft-2/artikel/11/01/Bilder/format/grubby-auf-den-ngl-finals-550x140.png)
![[image loading]](http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lghbzjlsNM1qgzq96o1_500.jpg)
