Difference between korean and non-korean terrans - Page 13

On February 22 2012 12:51 LaLuSh wrote:
For me the biggest difference is army movement and aggressiveness. Koreans constantly move armies in a better and more intense way and attain better map control. They fight for xelnaga 5x as much as foreigners. They constantly use medivacs with a purpose, as a distraction to gain position with their main army, while foreigners send them more randomly and uncoordinated.

But since ukrainian terrans are #2 in the world after Korea, I should focus on what I think is the difference between you and the best korean terrans. And I think the difference is contained in army movement.

Top koreans move their armies in a much braver manner than foreigners. More intense. They fight for map control by being in your face with intensive army movement. I take west xelnaga tower? They stim 5 marine and send there. But at the same time they think about my reaction (with my main army) and move to east xelnaga tower with their main army to create another threat. They take east tower but back off again instantly and move again to another tower. Then they drop, 1-2 places, BAM main army moves forward where vision is secured, marines picked up again by medivac perfectly and are on standby for another drop. Zerg sees main army outside his base or expos and panics. Now I need to divide my army to defend 2 drops and do giant attack on terran main army.

My point is not that foreigners can't play like I explain above. But that a top korean moves his army 2x as much as a foreigner. A top korean fights for xelnaga maybe 5x as much as a foreigner terran. That's at least what it feels like when I played them.

Best army movement in a foreigner terran is Kas. He is a very "in your face"-style player with strange unexpected army movements. Sometimes they are idiotic but they are at the same time very intensive in their frequency. This high frequency and instensity eventually forces a mistake from the zerg. A player like Kas who is top foreigner when it comes to army movement has maybe 15-20 chances in a TvZ game to force a critical mistake from the zerg player. If you compare to most other top foreigners with passive movements and huge attacks at mostly predictable timings, they will perhaps only have half the chances Kas has to find a good opportunity, opening or timing to break the zerg.

A lot of the stuff Kas does (talking about the way he sends attacks) seems stupid and risky to me when watching replays. But it works because there is such a high intensity in the attacks and because he thinks a lot about vision and smart army movements. Only problem with Kas is he dies too much vs. stupid zergs who do random unexplicable shit back to him. But I didn't play him in many months, so perhaps he morphed into a korean by now.

On February 22 2012 18:54 TheBanana wrote:


I have to quote this just to say it's a very intelligent and constructive post.

On February 22 2012 19:05 masterbreti wrote:


I'm going to have to requote is too.

Really insightful and really in depth. Quite unlike LaLush to be honest.

but he is correct. Terrans are very unique in Korea compared to their foreigner counterparts. They fight for every single inch, unlike Foreigners who don't nearly as much.

On February 22 2012 19:15 Bagi wrote:

Huh? I can remember many intelligent posts made by Lalush, for example when he compared the way mining bases work in BW and SC2 and how expanding gives you a smaller benefit.

Just because a guy is BM doesn't mean he's stupid.

On February 22 2012 20:27 pbkim wrote:
I have to disagree that mechnics/micro are the biggest denominator that distinguishes Korean terrans from a lot of foreigner terrans, although they indeed play a huge role especially for terran vs. other race match-ups.
I know NA players who can split marines like crazy, yet substandard even compared to a lot of elite foreigner terrans.
As a coach of a team myself, I have analyzed a lot of replays from Korean terrans, not to say that I'm 100% right on this, and I found that the biggest difference between Koreans and foreigners is the way they practice, not necessarily how much they practice.

To be more specific, it comes a lot down to understanding of the build, not necessarily memorizing 100 different BOs. It is pretty simple to follow certain build orders if you take some time memorizing it, and simply do it on the game over and over - you will eventually get used to it. Let's say, you went single rax expand, and opponent counters you with blink stalkers + observer timing attack.

You play as you have always played, 2 more rax after throwing down the second cc , getting 2 gas immediately after, engineering bay at 6min mark second tech-lab/reactor at 7:10~20. Oops, blink stalker comes in to your main base, and demolishes everything. If the timing attack by protoss is done properly, you will have 0 chance to survive out of doing the exact same build order. It's how the current game is designed. However, some better terrans will react by throwing down 3 additional rax following your CC when 2 gases were found on their first scout, pokes in second scv in at 5:10-5:30 mark see if opponent has his natrual expo up, and hopefully see protoss unit composition.

If the good terrans get lucky and sees protoss with a couple of stalkers, but no sentry, they will immediately start producing units while throwing down 2 techlabs, since its most likely to be Blink Stalker type of timing rush. (VR/Dts are still options but usually protoss either gets a sentry at the ramp or 1 or maybe 2 stalkers so they get the perfect timing to start up whichever he goes for) Although this example is the baisc of the basics, its still the same for higher level players, surprisingly.

One day, I asked one of my Korean players what do Korean coaches teach him when he's there first besides cleaning bathroom. He said, "Umm, well, they have you practice basically one build over and over, so you can react to certain build/situation properly." I believe the biggest problem with the way foreigners(usually terrans) practice is that they assume they know how to perfectly react to things. Unfortunately, this is not the case for a lot of foreigners. Yes, they will surely hold different types of agression coming from their opponents, but at pro-level, its just much more than that.

Sometimes, your opponent will trick you to make you assume that he's going to do a certain build, and then, use the builds that works against what you will do after seeing that, if not counters it. What Koreans are good at, is accurately narrowing down the possible follow-ups under what they have seen to defend more effectively, based on "educated guess" off their practice experience.

Many foreigner terrans, on the other hand, would either take a plain out assumption that relies more on luck, or be overly obsessed. Okay, now actually moving on to our main topic, "but why only foreigner terrans?" It's because Terrans are supposed to be the initiatives of the game, bam, bazinga! Terran 101! Or in Terran for dumbers, it is written that, nowadays, terran needs to be aggressive and put some sort of pressure early on to not lose. For instance, when you do certain type of build, and somehow opponent takes advantage of it by either being greedy, or aggressive, then your timing is off by huge margin than you will ever imagine.

By I mean timing-is-off, I'm not talking about the actual game clock, but either your unit count will be lower at certain timings, or your opponent will have more army to defend your agression. Let's say you saw 1 gate and 1 gas, and you see core being cbed. And you expect 4 gate. So you throw down bunch of bunkers and, sit and wait. And you don't see any protoss army around your bases at 6:30 min mark. You felt something is wrong, scanned his natural, and there's Nexus with 100 probes mining it. Because of the bunkers you've thrown down, you weren't able to build the barracks/factory at the right timing so you get typical 2 medivacs + MM at 11:00 that was supposed to be around 9:00 mark. Then, obviously, you're way behind. Again, I used an example on the basic of basics. And you will not be as effective as when you attack at the right timing, eventhough your micro is as insane as MKP.

Unlike Zerg or Protoss, Terran is a race that gets affected more even by small mistakes like not countinously producing SCVs, or getting supply blocked because Terran produce units one by one with nothing like chrono boost. A lot of foreigner terrans get messed up with these because they are less capable of making the right guesses. Beyond that, Koreans practice the same build over so many times, so that they know how to play properly even after making a wrong guess. Another important thing to note that, this good understanding of builds (a.k.a good practice) explains higher map presence/agressiveness of Korean terrans.

Take a look at TSL Polt's brilliant TVP. Unlike stereotypical "Korean Terran", he doesn't do anything like storming drops that require superior multi-tasking. Instead, he plays with purposes. He's very, very, very, and very good at priortizing things correctly. Polt is an amzingly brilliant player that he knows what to expect from any kind of his opening. Let's say, he went usual maka style 2 rax that he enjoys to do against Protoss. Protoss 1 gate expand, but still is able to react properly against 2 rax because the protoss found the second rax being built-up with his first probe scout. Polt knows that he can't finish off the protoss, especially knowing that his opponent is GM on Korean Server. Instead, he gives pressure, possibly take out a small number of probes or even sentries, but he pulls right back off which a lot of many foreigner terrans don't do. Polt knows that if he loses all his unit there, eventhough he takes out a couple of stalkers, he will lose the map control+pressure that protoss might feel if Polt keeps his unit because Protoss can't see terran's base until the protoss gets observer. A lot of threads here discuss about how Korean Terrans are being aggressive and this is exactly where it comes from-understand what you're doing so you make right decisions. Foreigners, indeed, are agressive. Yet, in their mind only.

They can't be aggressive on the actual game when losing units, or don't hit at right timing that the opponent is ready to deal with any sort of your attack. To wrap it up, I agree with a lot of threads here on that micro/mechanics are important because they work as devices that strengthen those timing attacks, or make you have more unit counts on the map that you keep stay on agressive. Fundamentally, however, it really has it in the understanding of the builds/knowing the purposes, which is learned through the correct practice method.

On February 22 2012 20:56 Satiinifi wrote:
Or maybe it is the zergs and protoss have been less effective in past and are slowly catching up, imagine if every single protoss player played macro games since start like more terrans and zergs did instead of 4gating and 1base allinning the first 2k games.

On February 22 2012 20:56 Satiinifi wrote:
Or maybe it is the zergs and protoss have been less effective in past and are slowly catching up, imagine if every single protoss player played macro games since start like more terrans and zergs did instead of 4gating and 1base allinning the first 2k games.

On February 22 2012 20:48 shizna wrote:

lately i've been watching a lot of polt's stream, and indeed he's unbelievably good.

but he doesn't use drops? dude... he drops all the time. the way his drops differ from your average pro terran is that when he drops he simultaneously pokes the front door with bio ball, snipes 3rd, or splits his army and does both in addition to the drop.

then most importantly - when toss finally gets reorganized, polt picks up his drop and regroups with the retreating main army. instead of the usual lax multi-tasking where you just leave a couple of idle medivacs behind the toss base to come in later.

meanwhile polt has added multiple planetary fortresses, therefore he's not too bothered about losing some workers to HT/zealot harrass warp-ins because he's a couple of bases up and the harrass can be cleared up quite cost effectively with 2-3 marauders.

when toss is zealot heavy, polt can always fall back to a planetary fortress. this leads to the exact same protoss response in almost every super late game situation. toss decides to skip the PF's and goes for polt's main... polt sends a group to snipe protoss nexuses and meanwhile traps the protoss army in his main - with zealots bodged on the ramp it's a free win even with half a bio ball.

On February 22 2012 21:23 pbkim wrote:


By no mean I'm saying polt isn't drop heavy player. My point is that his multi-tasking, or micro (altho indeed they are good) are not the biggest factor that win him games. Honestly, his multi-tasking isn't the best. Like you have mentioned, his abusive style is what wins him games, which shows his good understanding of utilizing terran's strength.

On February 22 2012 21:35 SpeakNow wrote:
I saw a interview with MVP long time ago. The interviewer asked the question about how to play terran EFFECTIVELY. MVP answered "Keep your money low and your opponents money low. That is when MULES will really help you."

Maby the answer maby as simple as that??

I will try to find the interview. I think it was with Artosis when he did all the korean house videos. Could be wrong but i will try to find it.

On February 22 2012 21:12 Satiinifi wrote:
I just dont understand why so many protoss complain when they lost so much in past in macro games, naturally their macro was shit if they played half as much macro games as terrans. Even now when there seems to be like 60% of players in ladder protoss, they actually play 60% of games 1-2base in mirror.