Korea has the best players in the world. Fully agree. Korea has more skilled terrans then zergs and protosses. Also agree. Even though maps become more and more anti-terran, every patch nerfs terrans they still continue to dominate korean scene, not so much as it was - but still as best race. IPL 4 qualifiers show it clearly.
Let's take non-korea. I can name you a thon of protosses and zergs which became better very fast in last few months but can't name any terran. In fact terrans of non-korea really struggle a lot. Let's take a look for example at last week tournaments: http://goodgame.ru/news.php?ocd=view&id=12612#comments 17 tournaments. Terrans won 1 and made 4 people in finals. That's all.
Honestly in trying to become better i try to analyze many replays from non-korea terrans, but i find nothing new, which can help me to win. So there is my question. What are we doing SO WRONG, that we struggle a lot even against non-korean protosses and zergs, while our korean race-mates manage to dominate against strongest players of other races?
Things I tend to notice, is that the koreans use a lot more micro, I see much less impressive marine splitting from foreigners than I do from the koreans. Besides that, the koreans also seem to be more threatening with their units than foreigners. Koreans will keep poking units around the opponents bases, not necessarily going in to risk losing units, but enough to keep the opponent scared, and on the occasional moment they notice a weakness, go for some damage. Foreigners like to be less active and more defensive with their units.
Second, I see a LOT more build variety from korean terrans. They all seem to know like 15 solid allins, and can do 2-4 decent macro strategies at any given time. (This moreso in TvT and TvZ than for TvP.) Foreign players seem to have fewer builds they like to use often, and fewer allins or timing pushes.
The third thing, which I'm less sure about, is korean terrans seem to expand far more aggressively than the foreigners. The koreans seem much more comfortable taking quicker 4th+ bases than what I tend to notice from foreigners. This kind of goes in hand with being more active with units they have, as it gains them more map control, and lets them be safer taking even more bases.
hmm, when i see korean terrans ( for TvP ) play, i see way more different 1-1-1 openings with solid transitions into a late game bio play. for example gumiho. foreign terrans tend do play gasless fe nearly every game. but thats just how i see it.....
On February 21 2012 18:07 MyLastSerenade wrote: hmm, when i see korean terrans ( for TvP ) play, i see way more different 1-1-1 openings with solid transitions into a late game bio play. for example gumiho. foreign terrans tend do play gasless fe nearly every game. but thats just how i see it.....
thats just gumiho fucking with puzzles head thats not standard play and theres nothing wrong with 1 rax gasless expo still very likely the best opening in TvP
^^This is the first game of three in which MKP just dominates TL opponents with incredible macro/aggression early on. His multi-tasking allows him to expand and make a huge amount of units while building workers and remaining threatening with his units, and he just rolls through his first three opponents with early pushes. Although he hits at awkward timings, even if the opponents had fully expected the attack and been ready for it, I still think that he would have come out ahead in all of the engagements. Was incredible to see to me,
I think Korean Terran players are still dominating GSL is because those players have been playing GSL since last year. Their experiences in the player booth gives them undisputed advantage. In most offline tournaments, Terran are not winning many tournaments because there is no environment disadvantage.
As for how are these Korean Terran players playing besides experience in offline tournaments. Most non mirror Terran match ups have been some timing attacks or all ins that don't require much late game. Take EGPuma for example, he 1-2 base timing attack vs protoss almost every single game. Yes, he mix in with some 1 Rax FEs, but majorities of his victories are because of heavy harassment into 1-2 base timing attacks. As MC would put it, "You want to win tournaments? Timing Attack! Timing Attack!"
Major difference between Foreign Terrans and Korean Terrans is that Koreans focus micro micro micro/ timing attack while foreign Terrans tries macro macro / long games. And if Patch 1.4.3 goes through, it will just force all Terran players go 1 or 2 base all ins because late game is just totally headhurt (yeah, no chance in late game).
On February 21 2012 18:18 iaguz wrote: Wait is that Eugin Oparyshev Strelok or some other Strelok?
He's the real deal.
Like others have said I think it can be pinpointed to two things: aggression and micro. Foreigners just have a more passive playstyle, and this applies to protoss and zergs players as well. Terran just happens to be less effective that way, you need to find ways to be aggressive to succeed as terran.
Mentality, Koreans play is "in de face", if its not working they still try it until it works. There is no point in time when you are idle, you move, search for weakness if you find it you strike. Build orders aside, its all about fingers. Non korean terrans still play semi passive game build around build order counters, while it of course happens in KR too (counters) they are mitigating the effect of BO counters or amplyfing them by micro/macro/map awarness. Its also good to know that Koreans generally tend to havily meta-game each other in Korean leagues.
When i watch Terran play (all of them) i can almost always say, at this point in time he could also be dropping an expo or expanding, but most of them still dont have mechanics to do so, Terrans will get stronger when they figure out their mental timings, SC2 is build around certain triggers, there are many small timing windows that soon every high level terran will start to notice, including non-Koreans, however Koreans will figure out them first, because they have a collective metagame, when someone figures out something all of them catch up, because they have to. Happened in BW happens now. I think Terran still have a large window of improvement, Zerg not so much (Leenock plays quite optimal zvt for example).
Easy answer: Multitasking, you have to be able to properly split marines and macro, start grinding low tech core play. Terran micro is very risk/reward scenario like, 1 mistake can be an equivalent of losing the game (FF/bane). Try to play risky and dont do mistakes, seems hard but thats how it is.
On February 21 2012 18:16 VPFaith wrote: I think Korean Terran players are still dominating GSL is because those players have been playing GSL since last year. Their experiences in the player booth gives them undisputed advantage. In most offline tournaments, Terran are not winning many tournaments because there is no environment disadvantage.
As for how are these Korean Terran players playing besides experience in offline tournaments. Most non mirror Terran match ups have been some timing attacks or all ins that don't require much late game. Take EGPuma for example, he 1-2 base timing attack vs protoss almost every single game. Yes, he mix in with some 1 Rax FEs, but majorities of his victories are because of heavy harassment into 1-2 base timing attacks. As MC would put it, "You want to win tournaments? Timing Attack! Timing Attack!"
Major difference between Foreign Terrans and Korean Terrans is that Koreans focus micro micro micro/ timing attack while foreign Terrans tries macro macro / long games. And if Patch 1.4.3 goes through, it will just force all Terran players go 1 or 2 base all ins because late game is just totally headhurt (yeah, no chance in late game).
I want to state how wrong you are about korean terrans doing only all ins. They do timing attacks, but that is how terran has always been. In all the zvt's I play they play macro based into the late game, drop a lot, always know where the zerg army is so they don't just get their army rolled over because they didn't know where it was. I rarely see terrans all inning tvz now of days in GSL or in personal playing them on the kr ladder.
In tvz anyway a lot of korean terrans go 3 base and expand more aggressively then foreigner terrans do while being aggressive. I can't comment on tvp as I don't play either of those races.
Why they seem to be so much superior to foreign terrans is the fact that their micro is amazing, they expand more aggressively and drop a lot. They will do a multi pronged drop while attacking you with their main force. Their macro is spot on to, you can kill a whole army and not be able to kill them because they already have another big army at their natural. Idk its crazy seeing what a korean terran can do with his army not only cost effectively, but their macro and multi tasking as well.
Personally I just think the top korean terrans are incredibly good, better than their korean zerg and protoss contemporaries. I don't think it is quite so clear cut now days in terms of korean terrans > every foreigner however. The way the game is atm even top korean terrans can lose to above average foreign protosses at tournaments (and it has been happening).
I know what you mean though. There hasn't been a non korean terran who has had that meteoric rise to greatness ( ) like Nani, HuK, Stephano have been able to experience. I'm looking forward to the ASUS ROG Winter 2012 tournament before giving up on non korean terrans completely though. Its been a long time since we've seen beasts from the east like yourself, Happy, BRAT_OK and Kas at a tournament so it will be an interesting watch. Shame about the groups of death for Kas and Happy though...
Beat 2x Protoss to advance or beat 1 Protoss + Puma/Stephano...
If the non korean terrans get smashed at that tourny then I'd be inclined to say that the problem is that terran is being balanced based on the performance of the top koreans (i.e. nerfed every patch) and only those select few top koreans (who are the best SC2 players, nevermind terran players) can make it work. So my answer to what you guys are doing wrong would be "not much". To try and quantify it a bit I would say that the korean terrans are better at executing agressive, micro intensive strategies whilst being on top of their macro. With foreign terrans it seems to be that they do really good micro and float resources (a bit like Jinro when he does harass heavy play) or they have good macro but sometimes lack the micro (Kas when he's just hurling thousands of units at his oponent xD)
Outside of the terrans at the ASUS tourny I'm not sure what other foreign hopes we have. ThorzaIN, DeMusliM, MajOr/nOnge?
On February 21 2012 18:16 VPFaith wrote: Take EGPuma for example, he 1-2 base timing attack vs protoss almost every single game. Yes, he mix in with some 1 Rax FEs, but majorities of his victories are because of heavy harassment into 1-2 base timing attacks. As MC would put it, "You want to win tournaments? Timing Attack! Timing Attack!"
But such play is very unsafe. I mean if zerg/protoss knows you will do that - you are done. Do you propose just to rely on mixing strategies that he doesn't know how exactly you will all-in him? because 2 base attack is same all-in as 1 base in high level.
Terran is very strong at the highest level for two main reasons. 1. Terran benefits the most from extreme multitasking. If you have a spare 400apm, you can always marine split, always drop and get away, always stutter step well, you can get 15 kills with a banshee and get away with 5hp, you always can repair hurt units and always salvage buildings just in time. Almost every unit in the Terran army becomes exponentially stronger the better you can control it. Therefor, players that have very high APM and multitasking achieve a level of cost efficiency that is very difficult to match by lower level players. The other prong of my theory is actually very simple. Terran is typically the safest from cheese, and are very hard to attack directly if they are turtling. A higher average cost efficiency produced by excellent control combined with the ability to play very safe if turtling could lead to the highest level Terrans having the most stability as well as becoming exponentially stronger as multitasking and unit control skill increases.
This is just my theory based on watching GSL, playing games on the NA ladder and casually training.
Solution: Examine ways to make the other races more "micro-able". While some micro is needed for Z/P at the moment, it is not nearly as beneficial as extreme micro is for T. Instead of playing with damage numbers, analyze the unit design. Make units attack twice as fast but do the same overall DPS. Allow more units to cancel their attack to move away while still doing damage similar to the marine. These types of changes are obviously targeted solely at the highest level. A-moved roaches will do the same overall DPS in bronze as they will Korea GM, however if they shot twice as quickly they would be a hell of a lot more microable, despite doing the same overall DPS. This would allow additional functionality from players that have the APM to micro their army while maintaining production while not effecting the lowest leagues in the slightest as overall damage output stays the same.
For being able to more safely attack Terran when in a lead situation, new siege units should be explored for HOTS.
On February 21 2012 18:07 Verator wrote: Things I tend to notice, is that the koreans use a lot more micro, I see much less impressive marine splitting from foreigners than I do from the koreans. Besides that, the koreans also seem to be more threatening with their units than foreigners. Koreans will keep poking units around the opponents bases, not necessarily going in to risk losing units, but enough to keep the opponent scared, and on the occasional moment they notice a weakness, go for some damage. Foreigners like to be less active and more defensive with their units.
Second, I see a LOT more build variety from korean terrans. They all seem to know like 15 solid allins, and can do 2-4 decent macro strategies at any given time. (This moreso in TvT and TvZ than for TvP.) Foreign players seem to have fewer builds they like to use often, and fewer allins or timing pushes.
The third thing, which I'm less sure about, is korean terrans seem to expand far more aggressively than the foreigners. The koreans seem much more comfortable taking quicker 4th+ bases than what I tend to notice from foreigners. This kind of goes in hand with being more active with units they have, as it gains them more map control, and lets them be safer taking even more bases.
A lot of good points here.
In addition it seems that the western players tend to be boxed in by an intellectual approach to the game. You will not completely benefit from practice if you simply confine yourself into what is an "intellectually assumed" possibility/ viability. Korean players are vanguards. They consider the intellectual aspect but do not limit themselves to it. They go out try something thats considered unviable and try to make it viable. Stop siting and think about something and try to push the envolope of whats possible and not possible. Best example: Alive. The guy went and looked at mech TvT and said this style is weak in the early parts and I need something to bolster an aggressive attack. Well he found out that raven auto turrets are good for that purpose!
A good questions to ask is as follows: How can I best resolve an issue in the game with the most efficiency without resorting to something tech tree orientedor game system oriented (e.g. Change the system /Balance !)?
Koreans also, as metioned, do not hesistate to go for the kill. This whole notion of the "elegant" macro game is something foreign players subscribe to - to the point that they have lost their instinct to go for the kill if the opportunity presents itself. This in turn makes them very predictable in matches. Also they loose that psychological effect on their opponent. Simply stated, a pure macro player isnt as uncomfortable to play in a tournament versus a player that is known to go for the kill if they see you made a mistake. Koreans, except for a few exceptions, have that edge over their non-korean counterparts. Too much "playing it safe" makes you dull.
Im an immigrant from the east so ive noticed this, not only in SC2 but in the cultural aspect of things too. Some people try to credit this to race. Its not. Its the difference in the cultures of the west vs the east.
On February 21 2012 18:16 VPFaith wrote: Take EGPuma for example, he 1-2 base timing attack vs protoss almost every single game. Yes, he mix in with some 1 Rax FEs, but majorities of his victories are because of heavy harassment into 1-2 base timing attacks. As MC would put it, "You want to win tournaments? Timing Attack! Timing Attack!"
But such play is very unsafe. I mean if zerg/protoss knows you will do that - you are done. Do you propose just to rely on mixing strategies that he doesn't know how exactly you will all-in him? because 2 base attack is same all-in as 1 base in high level.
When you are playing in offline tournament, your mind functions differently because of many factors. The audience, computer set up, and who you are facing up against and more... Any of these factors can result in a bad decision. Yes, the player doing the all-in will take a great risk, but knowing if the timing attack is concealed well is key. And know if timing is scouted, what then? what decision is next leads to the result of the game. This is where the Koreans shine because most of them practise to these kind of situations, discuss with coaches, and practise non-stop in similar situations. For example, MarinekingPrime, always win most base trade situations or dire situations when 1 slight mistake will cost the game. As for foreign Terran players, we just focus too much on improving macro mechanics and fail in situations when the prepared strategies did not go as planned.
Koreans on the other hand, they train in critical situations when game did not go as planned. Foreigners do not have such advantage.
Like say Proxy Thor Push on Calm before the Storm vs Protoss, if the proxy is found, what is next? Or when the first Thor died, then what? Things like these are rarely discussed in the foreign community because we never take the time to analyze how to save bad situations into a well executed one that has a follow up. It's hard!
koreans drop WAAAAAAAAAAAAY more than non-koreans. it almost seems like they are dropping constantly. and they have the micro to make those drops more efficent than non-koreans.
Let's just say what everyone is thinking and what I feel is the OP is hinting at. Terran is harder to play. It's the race where your skill doesn't match your success, whereas with Z or P, where that relationship is linear.
Blizzard doesn't account for this, and more likely, they really don't care. What they do care about is the literal X vs Y win percentage, and at only the highest tier of skill, ie not you.
Terran relies very much on good micro and multitasking, thats hard for us europeans and even more harder for americans. Thats why foreign-zergs and tosses have more success outside of korea and terrans in korea.
I think korean terrans spend more time mapping out ultra-specific details about their timing attacks and possible outcomes. Maybe they emphasize decision-making and specific knowledge over raw "mechanics"? I feel like an obsession with the mechanical aspect of the game over the strategic aspect plagues many foreigners.
I feel that The True strength of the terran race is in its ability to apply pressure and harass with a multitude of openings and eventually divide and conqueor with so many different types of harassment going on at once, with the main force always on the outskirts waiting for the right moment to either to damage or destroy the protoss. The foreign scene plays terran too passively as if it was too was protoss minus the late game superiority, and then question why the protoss deathball is so strong. You are taking protoss head on when that is one of its greatest strengths. Pushing out with the first 2 medivacs and dropping 8 supply once or twice isnt enough if you are sitting on a 3 base economy all game vs an even level protoss opponent who is also 3 based. Koreans take full advantage of the versitily (unpredictable strategies), early game harassment potential, and then turn the advantage they gain no matter how big or small into a powerfull timing or a very specific army composition for the macro game. They put the protoss players in very micro intensive and difficult situations where sending too little or too many units to handle any one threat results in damage being taken somewhere else. This is what is necesary in order to build up the kind of lead that would allow a bioball to beat a deathball.
In Conclusion, Koreans play terran like a well oiled machine, dictating the pace of the game and using skillfull multipronged harassment/aggresion leading into powerfull timings and build orders, the way it was meant to be. Foreign terrans fall into a comfortable build or two, play too predictably/passively and attempt to win the game by fighting armies head on in the later stages of the game.
On February 21 2012 18:46 MafiaCheese wrote: I feel that The True strength of the terran race is in its ability to apply pressure and harass with a multitude of openings and eventually divide and conqueor with so many different types of harassment going on at once, with the main force always on the outskirts waiting for the right moment to either to damage or destroy the protoss. The foreign scene plays terran too passively as if it was too was protoss minus the late game superiority, and then question why the protoss deathball is so strong. You are taking protoss head on when that is one of its greatest strengths. Pushing out with the first 2 medivacs and dropping 8 supply once or twice isnt enough if you are sitting on a 3 base economy all game vs an even level protoss opponent who is also 3 based. Koreans take full advantage of the versitily (unpredictable strategies), early game harassment potential, and then turn the advantage they gain no matter how big or small into a powerfull timing or a very specific army composition for the macro game. They put the protoss players in very micro intensive and difficult situations where sending too little or too many units to handle any one threat results in damage being taken somewhere else. This is what is necesary in order to build up the kind of lead that would allow a bioball to beat a deathball.
In Conclusion, Koreans play terran like a well oiled machine, dictating the pace of the game and using skillfull multipronged harassment/aggresion leading into powerfull timings and build orders, the way it was meant to be. Foreign terrans fall into a comfortable build or two, play too predictably/passively and attempt to win the game by fighting armies head on in the later stages of the game.
from what I see the difference lies in details. When comparing korean harassment with foreigner harassment, the korean harassment always does damage, whereas the foreigner drops/helions/banshees regularly get killed before doing anything. at the same time they dont mess up their macro and that`s the hard part. By doing so they pick apart their opponents slowly, but steady.
Korean terrans win alot more in GSL because they can analize their opponent and pick him apart. If terran knows what you do they can be VERY strong, exploiting 100 diffrent timings.
In non-korea terran case we get rolled over because we can't prepare against so many cheese and diffrent styles, on ladder and in tournaments. The timings are too sharp edge to be pulled off on a fly in a torunament where you play 5-10 games/day. MMA just picks his opponents apart with his builds. 75% of his wins are build order wins and he is the best terran in the world. He dosen't REALLY need thost build order wins to be really good but imo thats what makes a champion in GSL.
Im struggling near GM vs zerg and protoss and I basicly win because I follow the metagame and understand faster than others what I need to do to win not because I copy the builds/styles of PRO players in GSL( only thing i realize is that cheese is still the most effective way to play on ladder as terran). The builds/styles in GSL have been figured out and they can be easely coutered even by ladder players, thats why you need to drasticily change your strat and make it look like lets say: vs Z reactor hellion opening, or vs P trick him you are doing a 1-1-1.
P.S. the nerfs are getting way too much to deal with for terran. We still win because timings work not because T is op in late game. They nerf ghost? Really? T losees the most in late game if we don't get a definitive advantage in early-mid game.
On February 21 2012 18:33 Mr. Nefarious wrote: Terran is very strong at the highest level for two main reasons. 1. Terran benefits the most from extreme multitasking. If you have a spare 400apm, you can always marine split, always drop and get away, always stutter step well, you can get 15 kills with a banshee and get away with 5hp, you always can repair hurt units and always salvage buildings just in time. Almost every unit in the Terran army becomes exponentially stronger the better you can control it. Therefor, players that have very high APM and multitasking achieve a level of cost efficiency that is very difficult to match by lower level players. The other prong of my theory is actually very simple. Terran is typically the safest from cheese, and are very hard to attack directly if they are turtling. A higher average cost efficiency produced by excellent control combined with the ability to play very safe if turtling could lead to the highest level Terrans having the most stability as well as becoming exponentially stronger as multitasking and unit control skill increases.
This is just my theory based on watching GSL, playing games on the NA ladder and casually training.
Solution: Examine ways to make the other races more "micro-able". While some micro is needed for Z/P at the moment, it is not nearly as beneficial as extreme micro is for T. Instead of playing with damage numbers, analyze the unit design. Make units attack twice as fast but do the same overall DPS. Allow more units to cancel their attack to move away while still doing damage similar to the marine. These types of changes are obviously targeted solely at the highest level. A-moved roaches will do the same overall DPS in bronze as they will Korea GM, however if they shot twice as quickly they would be a hell of a lot more microable, despite doing the same overall DPS. This would allow additional functionality from players that have the APM to micro their army while maintaining production while not effecting the lowest leagues in the slightest as overall damage output stays the same.
I would agree with this completely.
To me, Terran is the race that - by far - benefits from better mechanics. - Positioning, stutter step, spreading - Multiple drops and controlling them, stimming, target firing, getting away, aborting at the right times. - Target firing in general (tanks on banelings, marines on mutas, hellions on banelings, or where to get the best worker shots etc). - Stimming the right amount of units (just a few, everything, etc). - Making the right decisions (get into the medivac, or lose the units in exchange for that building that is upgrading... fail if I don't get the building, win if I do).
In comparison, protoss in most situations harass by throwing away units (I can spare 1 dt, or 4 or 8 zealots now, I'll warp them in here, and hope they do something here), while zerg is constantly moving around a clump of units, and not microing on the individual level too much.
But the point is, microing on the individual level, isn't really beneficial for the other races too much. I mean, yes, controlling your banelings, target firing with mutas, but it's not a lot compared to what Terran can do with stuff that actually gives them an advantage).
Protoss have blink stalkers, which allows them to greatly benefit from better mechanics, but other than that ... not so much.
So the reason seems to me to be that Terrans aren't doing so good, probably because they are a lot more passive. Korean terrans seem very dedicated to map control, aggressively expanding, and leaving little to no units at home - going with the assumption that building placement, depots + 1 bunker and 2 turrets make the orbital safe from 'anything' that isn't a base race, etc.
I note that playing 'standard' ZvT in the GSL, the Terran will most often have the supply lead on Zergs. And that's the best zergs in the world. I think that studying how they consistently do that in macro games would be a real indication of why they are doing so much better than foreigners.
I believe Terran is actually even stronger than terran in BW on paper if played perfectly, the "organic" style of play from terran should be able to demolish both zerg and toss, you limit your scans, so you get already an edge in economy, all your informations are provided by your aggresive moves (that are still safe given the knowledge of timings). You should calculate how many units zerg can have given how many minerals he mined (click on mineral), how many larvae he has (queen, hatcheries, energy on queens/number of creep tumors). You have to know how your opponent works, so you dont need to double check your knowledge with scans, scans cost you, if terran dont scan and play macro heavy, with perfect macro he will be ahead in economy, you only should scan if you know the opponent is severely limiting the information you can get, but most of information can be aquired by simple mathematic and knowledge of timings. Yes thats the future, but thats what everyone should strive for.
On February 21 2012 18:49 Ucs wrote: Korean terrans win alot more in GSL because they can analize their opponent and pick him apart. If terran knows what you do they can be VERY strong, exploiting 100 diffrent timings.
MMA just picks his opponents apart with his builds. 75% of his wins are build order wins and he is the best terran in the world.
Don't you see the contradiction here? The best terran in the world just 'does his builds' but all korean terrans just win because they analyze their opponents and pick them apart? As if the other races aren't trying the same ...
Terran is just way harder to master than the other races, but when you got all the multitasking and apm it requieres you can be a beast with it. Unfortunately against protoss it doesn't matter so much how good you play, because in the end Protoss will just roll you anyways, which also can be seen in GSL alot recently.
And yeah I think MMA actually wins because of his skill and sick multitasking and multi prongued attacks and not because of special Builds. IMMVP would be more of the player who has very good build orders to either set up a solid game or to get ready for a deadly timing push.
On February 21 2012 18:49 Ucs wrote: Korean terrans win alot more in GSL because they can analize their opponent and pick him apart. If terran knows what you do they can be VERY strong, exploiting 100 diffrent timings.
MMA just picks his opponents apart with his builds. 75% of his wins are build order wins and he is the best terran in the world.
Don't you see the contradiction here? The best terran in the world just 'does his builds' but all korean terrans just win because they analyze their opponents and pick them apart? As if the other races aren't trying the same ...
How is that a contradiction? korean terrans analyze their opponents and pick them appart. MMA does that and wins 75% of his games with build order wins aka timing attacks that just kill his opponents outright.
Zerg dosent care about replays beacuse they just have to defend and know the GENERAL style of their opponent. I can't say the same for protoss but they usually just have to pick either a aggresive stance(6 gate timing/whatever timing) or a defensive strategy(don't atatck untill you have a advantage like upgrades/tech/economy) for a opponent. After they decide that they just roll with it. (im talking about TvZ and TvP now)
On February 21 2012 18:56 nface wrote: Terran is just way harder to master than the other races, but when you got all the multitasking and apm it requieres you can be a beast with it. Unfortunately against protoss it doesn't matter so much how good you play, because in the end Protoss will just roll you anyways, which also can be seen in GSL alot recently.
And yeah I think MMA actually wins because of his skill and sick multitasking and multi prongued attacks and not because of special Builds. IMMVP would be more of the player who has very good build orders to either set up a solid game or to get ready for a deadly timing push.
I think complaining - specifically - about Protoss being overpowered, should be called 'pulling an Idra'
Btw, I agree with you - in both matchups, about Protoss
Seems like Starcraft 2 isnt as easy as most Pro's seem to think (foreign pro's mostly). I think i saw Morrow say something about this in an other topic. I also agree that terran is a bit harder then the other 2 races, but on the other hand its a much MUCH more rewarding race for players who can multitask like a BOSS. Hence why the korean terrans are putting on better results then there foreing counterparts.
On February 21 2012 18:07 Verator wrote: Things I tend to notice, is that the koreans use a lot more micro, I see much less impressive marine splitting from foreigners than I do from the koreans. Besides that, the koreans also seem to be more threatening with their units than foreigners. Koreans will keep poking units around the opponents bases, not necessarily going in to risk losing units, but enough to keep the opponent scared, and on the occasional moment they notice a weakness, go for some damage. Foreigners like to be less active and more defensive with their units.
I agree very much this. Well said.
Another thing is that it seems like Koreans know a lot more what exactly they can or can't do with their builds. Along with this they seem to have really good game sense. For example I feel like I often see foreign Terrans fall to pressure builds and such, because they aren't aware of an incoming attack despite scouting indicators of an attack, and thus don't prepare properly.
Another thing is their creativity, when it comes to passing by enemy defenses, which relates to what Verator said. If some foreign terrans scout a lot of sentries for example on Shakura's Plateau at the natural they'll just back off and do something else, while I often see Korean terrans do some impressive micro in order to get all their army lifted up into the main only using two medivacs, and they can seemingly pull it off due to their high game knowledge/skill(is it too risky, and executing it).
When it comes to build orders it seems like a guy like Polt has a few builds he sticks too. MVP has a ton of different of builds, but I've seen him using them all several times over the last year or so. MMA seems to develop new strategies with his teammates for each final he's in, but still has a few staple builds and so on. So I guess build orders aren't that important, as long as you have a few that work. ^.^
The game is being balanced around the actual play (and the players) we see. Ladder statistics show that there are more Terrans in the high leagues (Master, GM), from which proplayers and tournament competitors come. So in a region with high Terran population like Korea, Terran should have more competitors and tournament winners than in other regions. Even if the TerranKorea vs TerranInternationally is only by 2-5%, this also means that the other races are being played more by 2-5%, which should statistically lead to a 4-10% disparity. (assuming somewhat compareable winrates in Korea and International for Terran)
http://sc2ranks.com/stats/region/master/1/all http://sc2ranks.com/stats/region/grandmaster/1/all http://imgur.com/a/hQHYS (note that all of those statistics are flawed and we should only take trends from them; f.e the Korean RaceDistribution Statistics are mixed with Taiwan; the winrate statistics have rather small samplesizes and often feature games of pros vs nonpros - which the pro usually wins independent of balance - so the winrates tend to be closer to 50-50 than they should be...)
This is probably not the only reason, but at least a big one in my opinion!
Strelok. I think you really need to see how these Koreans play.
The biggest difference I've seen is how they act in the matchups. Each Terran had a sort of unique style that is small and subtle, but varies to each player, its much like a trademark. Sort of a sign of who is playing.
plus each teamhouse is almost like a mini conference. for example: mkp sits beside byun in the prime teamhouse. They are able to talk about each game and bounce ideas off each other. this leads to better builds and better gameplay overall.
On February 21 2012 18:49 Ucs wrote: Korean terrans win alot more in GSL because they can analize their opponent and pick him apart. If terran knows what you do they can be VERY strong, exploiting 100 diffrent timings.
MMA just picks his opponents apart with his builds. 75% of his wins are build order wins and he is the best terran in the world.
Don't you see the contradiction here? The best terran in the world just 'does his builds' but all korean terrans just win because they analyze their opponents and pick them apart? As if the other races aren't trying the same ...
How is that a contradiction? korean terrans analyze their opponents and pick them appart. MMA does that and wins 75% of his games with build order wins aka timing attacks that just kill his opponents outright.
Zerg dosent care about replays beacuse they just have to defend and know the GENERAL style of their opponent. I can't say the same for protoss but they usually just have to pick either a aggresive stance(6 gate timing/whatever timing) or a defensive strategy(don't atatck untill you have a advantage like upgrades/tech/economy) for a opponent. After they decide that they just roll with it. (im talking about TvZ and TvP now)
Well, I can tell you that I have analyzed a lot of games and replays, and it is so much easier to get a handle on what the protoss is doing, because they are limited in a way that Terran is not. Their timings are pretty much 8:00, 8:30, 9:30, 10:00 and 10:30 - depending on the nr of gas, and whether or not you can scout any gas at 7:00 (assuming forge expand).
Terran, you have to be lucky to even get into his base to see if he took any gas (because of the wall with the incomplete second supply depot), and 4 initial marines can keep you from scouting pretty much anything (except whether or not his expansion is taken at all) - and if you take a risk with your overlords, they often get picked up by marines without scouting anything.
In addition, Terrans have timing windows from 4:00 (3 scv, 1 marine - 2 rax) to 3rd OC started at 6:00, and if you don't scout either, you very likely lose to them because the response is so different.
I would definitively say that - after trying to analyze a lot of replays, and games in the GSL, playing against terran feels very much like playing in the dark.
In ZvZ and ZvP, normally, I can check the replay and see 'if I had done this correctly, or scouted better, I would have gone ahead ... often in ZvT, I can see 'well, I did the wrong thing' but not clearly how I should have known what was the right thing.
at least from my experience, terrans at the top of na ladder play a completely different style of tvp.
they play as though they have no stake if toss can get on three bases and take more risks to stop this from happening. they play much more risky with drops, poking and dropping when a kr terran never would.
they open with odd openings trying to take toss off guard with a weird composition or timing that the toss doesn't see or doesn't know exactly how to prepare for. this can consist of hellion marauder, either with 1 factory with a reactor and 2 tech labbed rax or sometimes even 2 reactor factory with 1 tech lab rax.
there seems to be a greater inclination to go all in against nexus first or 1 gate expand, either with showing no gas and proceeding to scv marine all-in instead of going 1 rax cc, or when going gas, do a reactor-tech lab 2 rax to hit a sharp bio timing with an scv pull rather than expanding off of a single rax with an addon
na terrans also seem to add on ghosts much later if they are playing less aggressively off of 2 bases, unless it's to hit some kind of ghost timing. i rarely see ghosts added timely in order to secure a 3rd or just move into the mid-late game with additional ghost tech. they seem to just love their bio+medivac and either play extremely heavy 2 base with bio or expand behind risky drop play and multi prong threats.
this philosophy of tvp is pretty short-sighted and really only benefits from a toss making mistakes rather than the terran playing exceptionally well. in that sense, you're going to see less terrans at the top because the good protosses will be able to parry the harrass and thus do quite well against a terran that is slow to move towards stronger unit comps
Without looking into it too much (part of the problem), I genuinely believe terran is a micro race and much of the terran from the west are too passive/longer game oriented. We need to micro our race!
They take the good maps, you know thoses with double dmg marines .
As far as build order goes, I think the best is MKP or MvP, can make anything from the dirtiest cheese to the extremely greedy style and safe openings. It makes you unpredictable, and prevent your opponent from cutting corners (if I had to face MKP, I would be scrared because I would have no idea of what to do).
A big difference between Korean and foreigner is the agresivity/passivity. Foreigners are WAY more passive, and result in longer games, and letting the opponent in his comfort zone. The weird thing about this is that foreigner seems to be better decisionmaking-wise in the very late game than korean, because mosty of their game goes to that point so they knwop what to do, whereas korean kill their opponent way faster in average. Sometimes in korea a Bo5 of TvT don't see late game, wheras in EU of you have GoOdy (he's awesome but that's an other story) you're sure it will last 1-2h min.
koreans terrans know how to force the opponent to make mistakes with early aggression and multitasking throughout the game. Foreigners aren't that clinical with their drops and their army. (imo korean terrans can see weaknesses only by scouting 1/10 of the opponent) Another thing is they use bio + support in every matchup, so unimportant what matchup they train, their micro will get better in every matchup. If I see a korean terran use mech (because of lag or anything else) it just looks painful.
I also would argue the other korean races, just get outmicroed as they seem to be happy with getting their t3 composition. But not controlling it except from the pure basics (chargelots not on auto are rawr). Which suddenly turns a low tech heavy style that should be cost inefficient but should give you more advantages to make up for the higher cost into a style that gives you an advantage by still losing the same resources as your opponent.
And some matches you see a tech drop just when the zerg is in the middle of the map losing their pool and greater spire. Thats what i call timing snipes. And the ones that can beat the korean terrans are the ones that play a bit more unpredictable or don't let the terran force them to make mistakes.
terran was considered op in the younger stages, so alot more terrans in korea. Terran evolved just way faster there and then there was this mistake of making maps more open, so the poor zerg could fight better. Well to bad zerg and toss go deathball now and terran bio benefits so hugely from the open maps. At the end all comes down to the terran being able to micro super effective against the opponent and prevent them from getting their composition. And blizzard just changed at the wrong spots. If the micro makes something to good, why would you nerf the macro, just make it easier to micro for the opponent for example. Sure it gets you what you want, but you hurt the people lacking the micro more then those with the micro.
-I'd say better micro -Better multitasking -More aggressive -Willing to take the most dangerous risks (they have the do or die mentality) -Diverse in builds
Korean terrans are hard to predict and to play or prepare for, way more then non korean terrans. Also all those points seem to reward Terran more then even the other races, specialy the multi herass and drop play by high multitasking terrans, it's so effective.
Korean Terrans are better than foreign counterparts in every goddamn aspect of the game. And foreigners in general suffer from a chronic indecisiveness, lack of killing instinct and a tendency to follow dumb arbitrary rules such as "No cheese", "playing the game the correct way", "no exploiting timings" and "NR10", among others.
as whiny as it sounds terran is just harder and koreans are just better so the difference is bigger between foreign terran and korean terran than its with the other races. being good with terran actually makes a huge difference. and no, im not brainlessly whining because im not good enough to blame balance anyway.
On February 21 2012 19:17 FeyFey wrote: wrong spots. If the micro makes something to good, why would you nerf the macro, just make it easier to micro for the opponent for example. Sure it gets you what you want, but you hurt the people lacking the micro more then those with the micro.
The problem isn't that the other races (exception: blink stalkers) have micro mechanics that are too hard.
The problem is that the other races (exception: blink stalkers) don't benefit from micro in the same way that Terrans do.
If the game should be more 'equal' for foreigners with lesser mechanics, marine marauder micro would need to be nerfed - or the units of the other races redesigned to allow for greater benefits from micro and decision making with smaller clumps of units.
I don't think it's for a lot of the reasons mentioned here. Foreign terrans have the mechanics and aggression and really good strategies, easily sufficient for foreign non-terrans. I think KR terrans have much better preparation, mindgames and adaptability, three things I hardly see foreign terrans do when I watch their streams.
Honestly in trying to become better i try to analyze many replays from non-korea terrans
If you know that korean terrans are way better, then why don't you try learning from THEM?
you know how hard it is to get Korean terran replays. its pretty dang hard. unless you watch stream vods and such, its hard to get good replays of Korean terrans.
On February 21 2012 19:17 FeyFey wrote: wrong spots. If the micro makes something to good, why would you nerf the macro, just make it easier to micro for the opponent for example. Sure it gets you what you want, but you hurt the people lacking the micro more then those with the micro.
The problem isn't that the other races (exception: blink stalkers) have micro mechanics that are too hard.
The problem is that the other races (exception: blink stalkers) don't benefit from micro in the same way that Terrans do.
If the game should be more 'equal' for foreigners with lesser mechanics, marine marauder micro would need to be nerfed - or the units of the other races redesigned to allow for greater benefits from micro and decision making with smaller clumps of units.
I partly agree, but your descriptions come down to some PvT and ZvT scenarios. Similar range (and/or speed) units like Zerglings and Banelings and Zealots and Roaches often allow for a lot of micro and we do see such mirco especially in ZvZ and PvP, but also in PvZ where you have to micro stalkers vs slowlings early, or roaches vs zealots all the time. It's pretty much the always existent rangeadvantage (paired with the superhigh firepower) of Terran, that just makes any direct combat micro less beneficial.
Nevertheless, I think that the game is quite balanced around the same amount of control and multitasking in nonmirror MUs. There are quite a lot of things that Ps and Zs can do to greatly influence the outcome of games, during a battle. Not to mention that click spam micro like ball kiting or blinking (or burrow micro in the few very rare low amount monoroach vs monoroach scenarios where it makes sense) is by no means "harder" than precision micro like spells (especially high level force fields).
korean drops are insanely scary. The marines from the drop ship almost looks like they can fly into the mineral lines. not only do they drop while the drop ship is moving (if the base has no defence), the marines dropped also are stimmed right away. and they are better at abusing some positioning, the TvT feels so different in Korea than elsewhere
On February 21 2012 18:46 MafiaCheese wrote: I feel that The True strength of the terran race is in its ability to apply pressure and harass with a multitude of openings and eventually divide and conqueor with so many different types of harassment going on at once, with the main force always on the outskirts waiting for the right moment to either to damage or destroy the protoss. The foreign scene plays terran too passively as if it was too was protoss minus the late game superiority, and then question why the protoss deathball is so strong. You are taking protoss head on when that is one of its greatest strengths. Pushing out with the first 2 medivacs and dropping 8 supply once or twice isnt enough if you are sitting on a 3 base economy all game vs an even level protoss opponent who is also 3 based. Koreans take full advantage of the versitily (unpredictable strategies), early game harassment potential, and then turn the advantage they gain no matter how big or small into a powerfull timing or a very specific army composition for the macro game. They put the protoss players in very micro intensive and difficult situations where sending too little or too many units to handle any one threat results in damage being taken somewhere else. This is what is necesary in order to build up the kind of lead that would allow a bioball to beat a deathball.
In Conclusion, Koreans play terran like a well oiled machine, dictating the pace of the game and using skillfull multipronged harassment/aggresion leading into powerfull timings and build orders, the way it was meant to be. Foreign terrans fall into a comfortable build or two, play too predictably/passively and attempt to win the game by fighting armies head on in the later stages of the game.
Mafia, you are totally correct.
The problem really is that both zerg and protoss can just sit whilst terran needs to be constantly aggressive. This results into terran just being harder to play but also having a higher skill cap so the foreigner terrans kinda fail.
On February 21 2012 18:46 MafiaCheese wrote: I feel that The True strength of the terran race is in its ability to apply pressure and harass with a multitude of openings and eventually divide and conqueor with so many different types of harassment going on at once, with the main force always on the outskirts waiting for the right moment to either to damage or destroy the protoss. The foreign scene plays terran too passively as if it was too was protoss minus the late game superiority, and then question why the protoss deathball is so strong. You are taking protoss head on when that is one of its greatest strengths. Pushing out with the first 2 medivacs and dropping 8 supply once or twice isnt enough if you are sitting on a 3 base economy all game vs an even level protoss opponent who is also 3 based. Koreans take full advantage of the versitily (unpredictable strategies), early game harassment potential, and then turn the advantage they gain no matter how big or small into a powerfull timing or a very specific army composition for the macro game. They put the protoss players in very micro intensive and difficult situations where sending too little or too many units to handle any one threat results in damage being taken somewhere else. This is what is necesary in order to build up the kind of lead that would allow a bioball to beat a deathball.
In Conclusion, Koreans play terran like a well oiled machine, dictating the pace of the game and using skillfull multipronged harassment/aggresion leading into powerfull timings and build orders, the way it was meant to be. Foreign terrans fall into a comfortable build or two, play too predictably/passively and attempt to win the game by fighting armies head on in the later stages of the game.
Mafia, you are totally correct.
The problem really is that both zerg and protoss can just sit whilst terran needs to be constantly aggressive. This results into terran just being harder to play but also having a higher skill cap so the foreigner terrans kinda fail.
ZvT the Zerg will lose if he 'sits' on 2, later 3 bases vs a 3 base terran and isn't aggressive. Which is why the 6:00 3rd orbital command build is used quite a bit.
On February 21 2012 20:02 IdrA wrote: terran benefits the most from good multitasking. koreans practice a lot more, multitasking benefits a lot from practice.
rocket science
I think even beyond that, terran can force mistakes more than the other races as a result of good multi-tasking.
To be successful as terran you need to practice more than the other races, which kinda sucks but it's like that, so think about the last game during the beginning of the other game it will gain time, practice more to be less sloppy.
When you watch korean terrans, you'll very very rarely see obvious sloppiness. Whether you are looking at their ressources count, barracks production (except few terrans who still are sloppy on this point) or battle / harass micro, they'll always be on top of every aspect of the game, no matter if they are attacking like madman or anything. You don't see this from foreign terrans, there will always be sloppiness in their play, but the greatest compensate this with very good skills (ThorZain just seem to know everything about the game, Kas I didn't watch him play enough yet but the results speak for themselves).
It sucks for foreign terrans because they won't be able to be as successful as the P/Z pros but that's the way it is.
On February 21 2012 18:46 MafiaCheese wrote: I feel that The True strength of the terran race is in its ability to apply pressure and harass with a multitude of openings and eventually divide and conqueor with so many different types of harassment going on at once, with the main force always on the outskirts waiting for the right moment to either to damage or destroy the protoss. The foreign scene plays terran too passively as if it was too was protoss minus the late game superiority, and then question why the protoss deathball is so strong. You are taking protoss head on when that is one of its greatest strengths. Pushing out with the first 2 medivacs and dropping 8 supply once or twice isnt enough if you are sitting on a 3 base economy all game vs an even level protoss opponent who is also 3 based. Koreans take full advantage of the versitily (unpredictable strategies), early game harassment potential, and then turn the advantage they gain no matter how big or small into a powerfull timing or a very specific army composition for the macro game. They put the protoss players in very micro intensive and difficult situations where sending too little or too many units to handle any one threat results in damage being taken somewhere else. This is what is necesary in order to build up the kind of lead that would allow a bioball to beat a deathball.
In Conclusion, Koreans play terran like a well oiled machine, dictating the pace of the game and using skillfull multipronged harassment/aggresion leading into powerfull timings and build orders, the way it was meant to be. Foreign terrans fall into a comfortable build or two, play too predictably/passively and attempt to win the game by fighting armies head on in the later stages of the game.
Mafia, you are totally correct.
The problem really is that both zerg and protoss can just sit whilst terran needs to be constantly aggressive. This results into terran just being harder to play but also having a higher skill cap so the foreigner terrans kinda fail.
terran doesn't simply need to be constantly aggressive. it can afford to be moreso than the other races. with how people are playing, terran is the best at dropping while maintaining a strong enough presence on the map, because comps like bioball and marine/tank can be extremely cost efficient if positioned and/or controlled well. its drops are also the most devastating for how cheap they are. muta/bling/ling play seems to be the only comp that rivals any variety of comps terran can drop with because of how quickly mutas can reinforce if the opponent tries to push out. maybe all that makes the terran race harder? i don't know. it certainly means terrans need to take the initiative and force reactions from their opponents, which korean terrans seem to be doing very well.
On February 21 2012 20:10 Poopi wrote: To be successful as terran you need to practice more than the other races, which kinda sucks but it's like that, so think about the last game during the beginning of the other game it will gain time, practice more to be less sloppy.
When you watch korean terrans, you'll very very rarely see obvious sloppiness. Whether you are looking at their ressources count, barracks production (except few terrans who still are sloppy on this point) or battle / harass micro, they'll always be on top of every aspect of the game, no matter if they are attacking like madman or anything. You don't see this from foreign terrans, there will always be sloppiness in their play, but the greatest compensate this with very good skills (ThorZain just seem to know everything about the game, Kas I didn't watch him play enough yet but the results speak for themselves).
It sucks for foreign terrans because they won't be able to be as successful as the P/Z pros but that's the way it is
Bullshit, back then when HuK won his MLGs and Dreamhack he was working harder than any other foreigner. He is Protoss but it does not matter. To do well at the highest level, you need to train relentlessly, whatever race you picked.
On February 21 2012 18:42 LRObot wrote: Let's just say what everyone is thinking and what I feel is the OP is hinting at. Terran is harder to play. It's the race where your skill doesn't match your success, whereas with Z or P, where that relationship is linear.
Blizzard doesn't account for this, and more likely, they really don't care. What they do care about is the literal X vs Y win percentage, and at only the highest tier of skill, ie not you.
On February 21 2012 18:42 LRObot wrote: Let's just say what everyone is thinking and what I feel is the OP is hinting at. Terran is harder to play. It's the race where your skill doesn't match your success, whereas with Z or P, where that relationship is linear.
Blizzard doesn't account for this, and more likely, they really don't care. What they do care about is the literal X vs Y win percentage, and at only the highest tier of skill, ie not you.
No, what every terran players is thinking.
yeah... also this particular whine "race X is harder" has been stolen from Zergs, who used this all the time a year or so ago. Not to mention that it is still somewhat hidden in complaints like that of DRG and NesTea in the twitter war with MC. Or when people like Idra complain about lesser skilled Protoss and Terran players doing well.
They play more and in a better environment than foreigner terrans. With this comes better mechanics, better micro and macro, better understanding of the game, they learn the "correct" timings that you can't learn on EU and NA because the players you play there don't know what the fuck they are doing so their "timings" are way off.
They can also do what they want to do because of the multitasking they can do. You see them taking aggressive 3rd/4th, always having dropships in the air, controlling 1-2 drops while moving out on the map clearing creep and taking a good position on the map or even just pushing while the opponent has to deal with the drops and macro at the same time.
On February 21 2012 17:59 Strelok wrote: What are we doing SO WRONG, that we struggle a lot even against non-korean protosses and zergs, while our korean race-mates manage to dominate against strongest players of other races?
>> Get more APM ( to micro/macro and stuff ) ( 100 more at least ) >> Learn 30 more BO >> build more marines >> ??? >> profit
Korean Terrans all seem very comfortable whenever I watch them.
Their opening build orders (and they'll often to do a wide variety of them and different styles), execution and follow ups all seem very relaxed and almost mechanical.
are we sure that korean terrans aren't just better players than korean zerg/protoss for the most part?
it makes sense... terran were clearly the best race from way back, the new wave of serious players coming accross from broodwar etc were more likely to pick up the most successful race. i think it's pretty hard to argue this point when you have such incredibly talented terran players like mvp, mma, marineking, taeja, jjakji, polt, ganji, NADA AND BOXER.
obviously this would explain why korean terran win more tournaments. but also how the korean protoss/zerg become better at dealing with good terran... so it becomes even more difficult for non-korean terrans to beat korean protoss/zerg. the foreigner scene can easily watch these replays and pick up these effective anti-terran builds from korean protoss/zergs quite easily.
On February 21 2012 20:29 Gamegene wrote: Korean Terrans all seem very comfortable whenever I watch them.
Their opening build orders (and they'll often to do a wide variety of them and different styles), execution and follow ups all seem very relaxed and almost mechanical.
On February 21 2012 20:29 Gamegene wrote: Korean Terrans all seem very comfortable whenever I watch them.
Their opening build orders (and they'll often to do a wide variety of them and different styles), execution and follow ups all seem very relaxed and almost mechanical.
Those saying that Terran is harder at the highest level, bullshit.
There is far fewer in the foreign scene who actually play terran, for whatever reason it doesn't seem to be as interesting as some other races. And as someone already stated, terran is the race that has the most options, but foreigners don't tend to use them all to the same extent as koreans do. Foreign Terrans is very very limited in terms of different builds that they can do/want to do. That is like, not wanting to make use of your most important feature of the race
In general, European like "turtle fest" strategies and gamestyle (like Kas' 1 rax FE every single game, or every european TvT ending up killing its viewers of boredom), and it's not what Terran is the best at, simply put. Koreans have a much higher sense of the agression and unpredictability, honed by their countless hours of practice on their ladder.
Just look at MKP's match history on his multiple KR account (I can tell you, I have a TW account so I can look at this). One game it's a 14 CC against zerg, the other it's a double proxy rax against Terran, you litterally can never know what he's going to do against you, even if he's most likely the better player. Foreigners somehow think that the better player should always play for the longer game and shit and playing safe, but while this mindset can work with Protoss and certainly with Zerg, it's doesn't really translate well with Terran.
Also, I think that Terran is the race that performs better if you allow its player to study their opponent beforehand, to find some flaw to abuse with a precise build order/proxy placement. That's why Terran players do decently well at the GSL, while not performing as well in short live events like MLGs or Dreamhack.
So my advice would be: vary up your build orders, sometimes mix in very agressive shit even if you're not forced to, foreign Terran are too turtlish.
About mechanics and multitasking, I don't really think it's the problem, foreigners do have decent mechanics (not on par with MMA, MVP or MKP's, but certainly comparable to the average low Code A player). And you even got players like Sjow or Goody, who are slower than your average master Protoss (*wink*), but can still win small tournaments in Europe. So I don't think mechanics are the big factor, at least not unless you want to challenge the top of the world.
On February 21 2012 18:46 MafiaCheese wrote: I feel that The True strength of the terran race is in its ability to apply pressure and harass with a multitude of openings and eventually divide and conqueor with so many different types of harassment going on at once, with the main force always on the outskirts waiting for the right moment to either to damage or destroy the protoss. The foreign scene plays terran too passively as if it was too was protoss minus the late game superiority, and then question why the protoss deathball is so strong. You are taking protoss head on when that is one of its greatest strengths. Pushing out with the first 2 medivacs and dropping 8 supply once or twice isnt enough if you are sitting on a 3 base economy all game vs an even level protoss opponent who is also 3 based. Koreans take full advantage of the versitily (unpredictable strategies), early game harassment potential, and then turn the advantage they gain no matter how big or small into a powerfull timing or a very specific army composition for the macro game. They put the protoss players in very micro intensive and difficult situations where sending too little or too many units to handle any one threat results in damage being taken somewhere else. This is what is necesary in order to build up the kind of lead that would allow a bioball to beat a deathball.
In Conclusion, Koreans play terran like a well oiled machine, dictating the pace of the game and using skillfull multipronged harassment/aggresion leading into powerfull timings and build orders, the way it was meant to be. Foreign terrans fall into a comfortable build or two, play too predictably/passively and attempt to win the game by fighting armies head on in the later stages of the game.
Mafia, you are totally correct.
The problem really is that both zerg and protoss can just sit whilst terran needs to be constantly aggressive. This results into terran just being harder to play but also having a higher skill cap so the foreigner terrans kinda fail.
the thing is, what you say doesnt logically follow from what mafia said. if protoss has the 'best' 200 ball > terran harrases with drops and stuff > strength of 200 ball is irrelevant, protoss must harras and drop and stuff. so in a game where we all seem to agree that actually sitting back at turtling isnt good for any race you have to evaluate the drop potential of all races.
i think the problem is that protoss are trying to be 'cute' with their drops, in the sense that hurr durr lets just go 4 sentries and kill 3 scvs and then leave. the mobility of blink stalkers with a warp prism is obscene, yet we just havent seen it. or on the other hand the efficiency of 8 lings in an overlord. 1 of the main points brought up before is that bio leads to shit choices for the protoss, 10 supply of stuff will rarely clean up a drop, meaning the terran ball will be relatively stronger while the drop goes on, well theres no 4 supply of units that can kill 8 lings, and with the differences in infrastructure, zerg always has spare minerals.
its not as simple as terran has a higher skill cap. i think the one thing you could say is that terran bio 'seems' to be the easiest to escape with, but again we still have basically never seen a protoss drop blink stalkers so i dont know.
On February 21 2012 20:37 Cinim wrote: And as someone already stated, terran is the race that has the most options, but foreigners don't tend to use them all to the same extent as koreans do. Foreign Terrans is very very limited in terms of different builds that they can do/want to do. That is like, not wanting to make use of your most important feature of the race
In game Terran does have a lot of options, but once you go for a certain style it is very hard to transition correctly without sacrificing supply, economy and efficiency.
And... it's not like Korean Terrans are doing anything different, they're just doing it better which is a clear distinction. Besides the creative all ins that they all seem to have, 90% of them will play standard, but execute it perfectly.
On February 21 2012 20:37 Cinim wrote: Those saying that Terran is harder at the highest level, bullshit.
There is far fewer in the foreign scene who actually play terran, for whatever reason it doesn't seem to be as interesting as some other races. And as someone already stated, terran is the race that has the most options, but foreigners don't tend to use them all to the same extent as koreans do. Foreign Terrans is very very limited in terms of different builds that they can do/want to do. That is like, not wanting to make use of your most important feature of the race
in other words, foreigner terrans don't all-in as much?
if there are less terrans, then the serious terrans would have MORE zerg/protoss players to practice against and less terran, which should make them better. therefore, your comment doesn't really explain how foreign terran are statistically getting worse and worse relative to the protoss/zerg rate of improvement.
On February 21 2012 20:41 ZenithM wrote: In general, European like "turtle fest" strategies and gamestyle (like Kas' 1 rax FE every single game, or every european TvT ending up killing its viewers of boredom), and it's not what Terran is the best at, simply put. Koreans have a much higher sense of the agression and unpredictability, honed by their countless hours of practice on their ladder.
Just look at MKP's match history on his multiple KR account (I can tell you, I have a TW account so I can look at this). One game it's a 14 CC against zerg, the other it's a double proxy rax against Terran, you litterally can never know what he's going to do against you, even if he's most likely the better player. Foreigners somehow think that the better player should always play for the longer game and shit and playing safe, but while this mindset can work with Protoss and certainly with Zerg, it's doesn't really translate well with Terran.
Also, I think that Terran is the race that performs better if you allow its player to study their opponent beforehand, to find some flaw to abuse with a precise build order/proxy placement. That's why Terran players do decently well at the GSL, while not performing as well in short live events like MLGs or Dreamhack.
So my advice would be: vary up your build orders, sometimes mix in very agressive shit even if you're not forced to, foreign Terran are too turtlish.
About mechanics and multitasking, I don't really think it's the problem, foreigners do have decent mechanics (not on par with MMA, MVP or MKP's, but certainly comparable to the average low Code A player). And you even got players like Sjow or Goody, who are slower than your average master Protoss (*wink*), but can still win small tournaments in Europe. So I don't think mechanics are the big factor, at least not unless you want to challenge the top of the world.
There's a reason why plat-masters terrans are struggling significantly more than zergs or protosses in the same division, and I highly doubt that they are all worse players. They just have to do a lot more during the game. Foreign pro terrans obviously have more APM than these plat-masters, but they still are nowhere near what is required to beat their zergs and tosses.
On February 21 2012 20:37 Cinim wrote: Those saying that Terran is harder at the highest level, bullshit.
There is far fewer in the foreign scene who actually play terran, for whatever reason it doesn't seem to be as interesting as some other races. And as someone already stated, terran is the race that has the most options, but foreigners don't tend to use them all to the same extent as koreans do. Foreign Terrans is very very limited in terms of different builds that they can do/want to do. That is like, not wanting to make use of your most important feature of the race
in other words, foreigner terrans don't all-in as much?
if there are less terrans, then the serious terrans would have MORE zerg/protoss players to practice against and less terran. therefore, your comment doesn't really explain how foreign terran are statistically getting worse and worse relative to the protoss/zerg rate of improvement.
Yes it does, because if you have less Terrans overall in a distribution, then you have less Terrans in a tournament (by percent) and therefore less Terrans will win tournaments. And because of less Terrans in the distribution, this makes that there are more Zerg and Protoss players, which means more of them will compete in tournaments (by percent) and therefore more of them will win tournaments.
the game is balanced around actual games, not around games*(some factor of how many people should actually be toplevel). If it was this way (meaning with a statistical theory of skill behind the players), the game would need some huge Protoss buffs and huge Zerg nerfs.
KR terrans domin8 because 2 bonjwas, 1 A-teamer, 1 Starleague winner on top of that SlayerS has INFINITY terrans. Polt who somehow can play StarCraft2 win tournaments and go in university of seoul ( i think thats the best university in KR?) . Tons of players with potential which feed from each other and just get better. What about other races what do they have ? Zerg has Nestea ok and DRG they are fine and Leenock maybe but Leenock decision making is kinda meh. What about Protoss Genius, SK.2Base and Hero maybe PartinG and Puzzle too. If you watch how TvX evolves just because T has more of the bettter players is amazing. I watched PartinG dominate people with his fast 3 base then 7gate bust like for a week then comes Supernova and metagames him with 1RAX 2CC's and almost wins the game then after 2-3 days Puzzle tries the same build and Gumiho was like : pff this is so last week. Comes out with some weird looking push with marines and tanks and just rolls him. After that game everybody knows how to stop that build. Even in TvT there are so many builds and deversions and fakes which makes the matchup even more skill-based dependent. Also i think because there so many difficlties to overcome as T in the matchups KR T's just push their units to the limit to gain max advantage. I think non-kr T will get there also Kas is playing good beasty and happy just give them time.
On February 21 2012 20:49 IMPrime wrote: Basically multitasking/APM.
There's a reason why plat-masters terrans are struggling significantly more than zergs or protosses in the same division, and I highly doubt that they are all worse players. They just have to do a lot more during the game. Foreign pro terrans obviously have more APM than these plat-masters, but they still are nowhere near what is required to beat their zergs and tosses.
Korean terrans have the APM to utilize the units
A somewhat relevant claim backed up by a very shitty and false reason. At "plat-masters", Terran's winrates are the same as every other race, it's 50%, that's just how it is, they don't struggle more. You could improve and get faster/have more APM, it still won't help you much on the ladder, you'll still get your 50% winrate, so to those players: just play the game and don't go comparing yourselves to players of Strelok's caliber thinking that what you experience is somehow related.
The thing with terran is that its perfect for gsl - Terran is the best race for an opponent you know. You can dictate the flow. Prepared builds are much stronger with terran.
I mean when I saw Strelok play passive vs idra in the ipl (I think) he got smashed, when I believe he should have been being aggressive.
Even bomber at his peak who played extremely macro oriented had constant pressure in marines. But hey mvp and bomber made standard tvz work, setting up for the lategame and just taking the win.
The problem is that foreigners suck at tvz same as foreigners are so shit pvz. While their korean counterparts dominate. Foreign timings have been figured out by zerg, big staples are the hellion is explored and the quick third vs forge fast expand.
The metagame is just in zergs favor. Foreigner terrans really don't play korean, for example jijkakis constant ''passive'' aggression is non existant with foreigners. The bad terrans will do random drops and push out at 200/200.
Good terrans will push out at a good timing, use drops to distract the mutas and take out a base.
Korean terrans will have since the getgo done fakepushes, poked and proded which has made the zerg feel scared.
You have to make zerg scared of drops, mass hellion allin, mass marine allin etc. But fuck foreigners are terrible, when I meet tarson or merz they are the same terrans but just do it all better.
The only terrans that are doing it right is east europeans like greedy kas, happy and swedish thorzain. I can rant another hour on how there isn't a single good foreigner mech player to date.
On February 21 2012 20:49 IMPrime wrote: Basically multitasking/APM.
There's a reason why plat-masters terrans are struggling significantly more than zergs or protosses in the same division, and I highly doubt that they are all worse players. They just have to do a lot more during the game. Foreign pro terrans obviously have more APM than these plat-masters, but they still are nowhere near what is required to beat their zergs and tosses.
Korean terrans have the APM to utilize the units
A somewhat relevant claim backed up by a very shitty and false reason. At "plat-masters", Terran's winrates are the same as every other race, it's 50%, that's just how it is, they don't struggle more. You could improve and get faster/have more APM, it still won't help you much on the ladder, you'll still get your 50% winrate, so to those players: just play the game and don't go comparing yourselves to players of Strelok's caliber thinking that what you experience is somehow related.
Lol like you knew anything about the struggle of terrans. Just watch the top 25 of each master division, there will be a lot more P/Z than T. Just do it (dunno if you can watch the last season stats)... It's a known fact that there are less T diamond/master
On February 21 2012 20:49 IMPrime wrote: Basically multitasking/APM.
There's a reason why plat-masters terrans are struggling significantly more than zergs or protosses in the same division, and I highly doubt that they are all worse players. They just have to do a lot more during the game. Foreign pro terrans obviously have more APM than these plat-masters, but they still are nowhere near what is required to beat their zergs and tosses.
Korean terrans have the APM to utilize the units
A somewhat relevant claim backed up by a very shitty and false reason. At "plat-masters", Terran's winrates are the same as every other race, it's 50%, that's just how it is, they don't struggle more. You could improve and get faster/have more APM, it still won't help you much on the ladder, you'll still get your 50% winrate, so to those players: just play the game and don't go comparing yourselves to players of Strelok's caliber thinking that what you experience is somehow related.
Lol like you knew anything about the struggle of terrans. Just watch the top 25 of each master division, there will be a lot more P/Z than T. Just do it (dunno if you can watch the last season stats)... It's a known fact that there are less T diamond/master
I think a lot of it is due to the GSL format. Terran has so many different crazy builds and openers that can be tailored to counter a specific player's style or opener. When you give a terran a week to prepare for their opponent, they can utilize the diversity of terran units to beat specific players.
This is one of things that always made me angry about playing terran, the maps and patches are made to try and balance the winrates in the GSL because it is considered the highest level of play even though the format inherently favors the race that benefits the most from preparation. Foreign tournaments don't use this format so that is why very few terrans win them and when they do it is a usually a korean who just outclasses everyone else.
On February 21 2012 20:49 IMPrime wrote: Basically multitasking/APM.
There's a reason why plat-masters terrans are struggling significantly more than zergs or protosses in the same division, and I highly doubt that they are all worse players. They just have to do a lot more during the game. Foreign pro terrans obviously have more APM than these plat-masters, but they still are nowhere near what is required to beat their zergs and tosses.
Korean terrans have the APM to utilize the units
A somewhat relevant claim backed up by a very shitty and false reason. At "plat-masters", Terran's winrates are the same as every other race, it's 50%, that's just how it is, they don't struggle more. You could improve and get faster/have more APM, it still won't help you much on the ladder, you'll still get your 50% winrate, so to those players: just play the game and don't go comparing yourselves to players of Strelok's caliber thinking that what you experience is somehow related.
Lol like you knew anything about the struggle of terrans. Just watch the top 25 of each master division, there will be a lot more P/Z than T. Just do it (dunno if you can watch the last season stats)... It's a known fact that there are less T diamond/master
Ok I'll bite. Look at those stats: http://www.sc2ranks.com/stats/league/eu/1/all/0/141 or those http://www.sc2ranks.com/stats/league/eu/1/all/0/142 Look at all leagues. Do you see a pattern? Yeah, way less Terrans, like you said. Do you really think the "Terran is harder" can be backed up by stats that show exactly the same thing from Master down to Gold? Do we have to look at gold players on ladder to answer Strelok's question? Terran is overall less played, at every level, but that doesn't really have anything to do with this thread.
On February 21 2012 20:49 IMPrime wrote: Basically multitasking/APM.
There's a reason why plat-masters terrans are struggling significantly more than zergs or protosses in the same division, and I highly doubt that they are all worse players. They just have to do a lot more during the game. Foreign pro terrans obviously have more APM than these plat-masters, but they still are nowhere near what is required to beat their zergs and tosses.
Korean terrans have the APM to utilize the units
A somewhat relevant claim backed up by a very shitty and false reason. At "plat-masters", Terran's winrates are the same as every other race, it's 50%, that's just how it is, they don't struggle more. You could improve and get faster/have more APM, it still won't help you much on the ladder, you'll still get your 50% winrate, so to those players: just play the game and don't go comparing yourselves to players of Strelok's caliber thinking that what you experience is somehow related.
Lol like you knew anything about the struggle of terrans. Just watch the top 25 of each master division, there will be a lot more P/Z than T. Just do it (dunno if you can watch the last season stats)... It's a known fact that there are less T diamond/master
And you can check the last patches as well. I guess the Terran count is decreasing... it's still above the Zerg count.
What the huck are these stats? XD. I said top 25 of each master division, aka somewhat active players, there are a bunch of players in 50-100 that have less than 10 games played. edit : and yeah this has to do with this thread, that means that terrans from diamond to foreign terrans don't have the same success as their P/Z counterparts. But if koreans terrans still manage to win it's ok, it's only the foreign T that are fucked but at least the balance is ok at the highest lvl. (but will it be with the next patch?) I feel sorry for all the foreign terrans that struggle so much though :/
On February 21 2012 20:49 IMPrime wrote: Basically multitasking/APM.
There's a reason why plat-masters terrans are struggling significantly more than zergs or protosses in the same division, and I highly doubt that they are all worse players. They just have to do a lot more during the game. Foreign pro terrans obviously have more APM than these plat-masters, but they still are nowhere near what is required to beat their zergs and tosses.
Korean terrans have the APM to utilize the units
A somewhat relevant claim backed up by a very shitty and false reason. At "plat-masters", Terran's winrates are the same as every other race, it's 50%, that's just how it is, they don't struggle more. You could improve and get faster/have more APM, it still won't help you much on the ladder, you'll still get your 50% winrate, so to those players: just play the game and don't go comparing yourselves to players of Strelok's caliber thinking that what you experience is somehow related.
Lol like you knew anything about the struggle of terrans. Just watch the top 25 of each master division, there will be a lot more P/Z than T. Just do it (dunno if you can watch the last season stats)... It's a known fact that there are less T diamond/master
On February 21 2012 20:49 IMPrime wrote: Basically multitasking/APM.
There's a reason why plat-masters terrans are struggling significantly more than zergs or protosses in the same division, and I highly doubt that they are all worse players. They just have to do a lot more during the game. Foreign pro terrans obviously have more APM than these plat-masters, but they still are nowhere near what is required to beat their zergs and tosses.
Korean terrans have the APM to utilize the units
A somewhat relevant claim backed up by a very shitty and false reason. At "plat-masters", Terran's winrates are the same as every other race, it's 50%, that's just how it is, they don't struggle more. You could improve and get faster/have more APM, it still won't help you much on the ladder, you'll still get your 50% winrate, so to those players: just play the game and don't go comparing yourselves to players of Strelok's caliber thinking that what you experience is somehow related.
Lol like you knew anything about the struggle of terrans. Just watch the top 25 of each master division, there will be a lot more P/Z than T. Just do it (dunno if you can watch the last season stats)... It's a known fact that there are less T diamond/master
And you can check the last patches as well. I guess the Terran count is decreasing... it's still above the Zerg count.
What the huck are these stats? XD. I said top 25 of each master division, aka somewhat active players, there are a bunch of players in 50-100 that have less than 10 games played.
Well, under the "assumption" that you get to grandmaster after being top25 master and master after being top25 diamond, your top25 are included in those stats. (that's why I posted GM in the first place )
On February 21 2012 20:49 IMPrime wrote: Basically multitasking/APM.
There's a reason why plat-masters terrans are struggling significantly more than zergs or protosses in the same division, and I highly doubt that they are all worse players. They just have to do a lot more during the game. Foreign pro terrans obviously have more APM than these plat-masters, but they still are nowhere near what is required to beat their zergs and tosses.
Korean terrans have the APM to utilize the units
A somewhat relevant claim backed up by a very shitty and false reason. At "plat-masters", Terran's winrates are the same as every other race, it's 50%, that's just how it is, they don't struggle more. You could improve and get faster/have more APM, it still won't help you much on the ladder, you'll still get your 50% winrate, so to those players: just play the game and don't go comparing yourselves to players of Strelok's caliber thinking that what you experience is somehow related.
Lol like you knew anything about the struggle of terrans. Just watch the top 25 of each master division, there will be a lot more P/Z than T. Just do it (dunno if you can watch the last season stats)... It's a known fact that there are less T diamond/master
And you can check the last patches as well. I guess the Terran count is decreasing... it's still above the Zerg count.
What the huck are these stats? XD. I said top 25 of each master division, aka somewhat active players, there are a bunch of players in 50-100 that have less than 10 games played. edit : and yeah this has to do with this thread, that means that terrans from diamond to foreign terrans don't have the same success as their P/Z counterparts. But if koreans terrans still manage to win it's ok, it's only the foreign T that are fucked but at least the balance is ok at the highest lvl. (but will it be with the next patch?) I feel sorry for all the foreign terrans that struggle so much though :/
I'm sorry, it's just that I don't see how you can equally judge diamond and foreign pro struggles. What can of evidence do you have to say that diamond Terrans struggle much more than their P and Z counterparts? Winrates? I say: 50%. Number of players? Yeah, there are less Terrans. Like in every fucking league above silver. APM? Gameplay? Well, we have no data :/
So that's why I say: don't mix up the leagues like that. It sounds to me that you relate that thread a bit too much to your personal ladder experience. It even sounds a bit whiny in fact, but whatever.
On February 21 2012 20:49 IMPrime wrote: Basically multitasking/APM.
There's a reason why plat-masters terrans are struggling significantly more than zergs or protosses in the same division, and I highly doubt that they are all worse players. They just have to do a lot more during the game. Foreign pro terrans obviously have more APM than these plat-masters, but they still are nowhere near what is required to beat their zergs and tosses.
Korean terrans have the APM to utilize the units
A somewhat relevant claim backed up by a very shitty and false reason. At "plat-masters", Terran's winrates are the same as every other race, it's 50%, that's just how it is, they don't struggle more. You could improve and get faster/have more APM, it still won't help you much on the ladder, you'll still get your 50% winrate, so to those players: just play the game and don't go comparing yourselves to players of Strelok's caliber thinking that what you experience is somehow related.
Lol like you knew anything about the struggle of terrans. Just watch the top 25 of each master division, there will be a lot more P/Z than T. Just do it (dunno if you can watch the last season stats)... It's a known fact that there are less T diamond/master
that's weird... Region stats for 341,879 teams from the Master 1v1 brackets, is what is written over mine...
Edit: I guess Region + League as I did, doesn't work properly. So sorry for the wrong stats, I guess Terran is least played (if those stats work properly).
I think korean builds are a temporary measure that allowed to patch the holes.
Terrans ship is sinking. Nothing changed fundamentally. After some period terrans will be moved out from korean leagues
Blizz should make fundamental changes to TvP / TvZ matchup. See terran win rate after 20 minute. Terran should win or take an economical advantage to just have chances in late game. Koreans are just trying to play before 20 minute.
This won't help much but Korean terran players are just better at every single aspect. They have better macro, much faster multi tasking, and I think the two biggest differences are their far superior decision making and their by far better micro. I feel some of this is their internet speed, yes thats right. I want everyone to go try bio splitting with your crappy internet then go try it in offline mode, you will look like a gsl champ in comparison. Its well known that korea has incredible internet. Obviously thats not the sole reason as to why they have such better micro but I really do believe it makes a difference. I realize someone will flame me or take what I said out of context, just throwing it out there before it happens.
Korean Ps Ts and Zs are better than the europeans, it's not just the terran race that is "hard to master", plz, dropping is not hard, good marine splitting comes with a fast and precise mouse hand, it's not just the terran race that has to be precise, seems like this thread is full of terrans full of themselves
I'm former T, playing P now, it's actually harder to micro with protoss units because they're big and pretty weak in small numbers (stalker vs marauder for example), also warp prisms aren't nearly as good as medivacs. he's defending his natural? np load a medivac and elevator then wait 30 seconds for him to decide what units to send to the stimmed drop that kills everything if you accidentally send 1 less unit that you needed to
On February 21 2012 21:29 [7x]laV wrote: I think korean builds are a temporary measure that allowed to patch the holes.
Terrans ship is sinking. Nothing changed fundamentally. After some period terrans will be moved out from korean leagues
Blizz should make fundamental changes to TvP / TvZ matchup. See terran win rate after 20 minute. Terran should win or take an economical advantage to just have chances in late game. Koreans are just trying to play before 20 minute.
that's low lvl trolling there son, you got to do better.
Why don't top korean terran stream? MVP, MMA, Jjakji, alive, sc, happy, marineking, ganzi, keen(some might stream once in a blue moon) why don't they stream? Only terrans in Code A/S that stream regulary are Bomber, Fin and (not sure on this one) Nada.
Even when they don't have games (they are out of GSL/other competition) they don't ever stream. Terrans in korea study their opponent and figure out timings and flaws and how to hide/trick opponent. Thats how the ratio of wins stays in terran favor. You can't do that on ladder or in any other tournament(gsl has 1 week or even more from the moment you find out who your opponent is and the actual match). So since you can't study your opponent you can either decide to randomly do a timing that usually works for you(in TvZ) and hope it works or you can go macro mode,but, you usually get stomped because you can't compete with zerg in macro(14 drones at a time yo, mules are good but not that good). Same thing goes with TvP at the moment but the diffrence is you don't get outclassed in economy but in tech and in upgrades(cut corners to get ahead in upgrades/tech and u get stomped by random 6 gate push, don't cut corners and get stomped by superior upgrades).
Its not all as grim as it sounds but what i want to point out is that terran has no way to be constant in winning without studing your opponent. Zerg can just defend for the first 10 mins and win,nothing fancy or strategically awesome, just pure defend. Protoss only needs to keep the terran honest and not let him cut corners and he probably wins with better upgrades/tech. People keep saying drops/micro win the games for terran but drops have been figured out in TvZ and TvP. Spines/blink/feedback/fungal/mutas all make drop play basicly outdated strategy for terran. It just got figured out so well since every terran did it. Now GSL players barely do it anymore in TvP or TvZ. Its just not worth it anymore versus competent players.
On February 21 2012 21:29 [7x]laV wrote: I think korean builds are a temporary measure that allowed to patch the holes.
Terrans ship is sinking. Nothing changed fundamentally. After some period terrans will be moved out from korean leagues
Blizz should make fundamental changes to TvP / TvZ matchup. See terran win rate after 20 minute. Terran should win or take an economical advantage to just have chances in late game. Koreans are just trying to play before 20 minute.
that's low lvl trolling there son, you got to do better.
Thats just my opinion, you can agree with it, or not
Im not gosu but european gml so it can take place here
Terran is the race that benefits the most from having a good team as practice partners.
Since terran usually have the initiative during the game, the most important things for them are strategy and execution.
To have solid (and new) strategies, you need a good team. To improve your execution, you need good practice partners to repeat the same thing over and over.
Basically, terran is the race that benefits the most from being in a korean pro team.
On the other hand, zerg as the reactive race is the race that needs a team the least (look at Stephano: mostly ladder). So it's really not surprising that we have zergs>protoss>terrans in the foreign scene.
On February 21 2012 20:49 IMPrime wrote: Basically multitasking/APM.
There's a reason why plat-masters terrans are struggling significantly more than zergs or protosses in the same division, and I highly doubt that they are all worse players. They just have to do a lot more during the game. Foreign pro terrans obviously have more APM than these plat-masters, but they still are nowhere near what is required to beat their zergs and tosses.
Korean terrans have the APM to utilize the units
A somewhat relevant claim backed up by a very shitty and false reason. At "plat-masters", Terran's winrates are the same as every other race, it's 50%, that's just how it is, they don't struggle more. You could improve and get faster/have more APM, it still won't help you much on the ladder, you'll still get your 50% winrate, so to those players: just play the game and don't go comparing yourselves to players of Strelok's caliber thinking that what you experience is somehow related.
Lol like you knew anything about the struggle of terrans. Just watch the top 25 of each master division, there will be a lot more P/Z than T. Just do it (dunno if you can watch the last season stats)... It's a known fact that there are less T diamond/master
that's weird... Region stats for 341,879 teams from the Master 1v1 brackets, is what is written over mine...
Edit: I guess Region + League as I did, doesn't work properly. So sorry for the wrong stats, I guess Terran is least played (if those stats work properly).
i dont know what ur trying to say. it says "League stats for 338,716 teams from 1v1 brackets in all regions." and terran has 37% in bronze
Strelok! :-) I like Ukranian players a lot, in my opinion the best in the world after Korea, same goes in CS with NaVi!
What you're doing wrong: Koreans practice ~2 hours per day more than you. That gives them slightly better macro, slightly better micro, slightly better multitasking, APM, timings, strategies etc. With more practice, you will play like Koreans.
Strategically what I lack from EU Terrans is what Ive been saying from the start, from even back in Brood War: You're passive! Look at SlayerS MMA, nobody represents Korean Terrans better than MMA, he is always doing something, he always has a plan, a device, a way to win the game and he is working tirelessly to win. EU terrans sit in their base, macro, play safe, maybe 1-2 drops per game and want to win! No man, you have to work hard, drop, harass, build bunkers in opponents base, elevator drop, nukes, banshees, hellion drops, use every tool you've got.
#2: Don't get stuck on "game-balance" thinking. If Terran is weak against Protoss in lategame, drop/timing push and end game earlier. Like SK.MC said back when Mutalisks were too strong vs. Protoss: Go Stargate Phoenix and prevent Zerg from making mutalisks (while the Europeans QQ that mutalisk OP). If Zerg Broodlords are too strong, end the game before Broodlords. If it's raining outside, use a raincoat. If there is lightning outside, move away from the tree. Think like this.
Exactly everything, that the European commentator will tell you not to do because" it's too risky", is exactly what you should do and need to do if you want to play like the Korean Terrans.
I think the preparation that the GSL system allows is a crucial factor. In a different setting like IEM Supernova looked like a foreigner Terran. As already mentioned Foreigners do not have a lot of follow up agression after their first wave of hellions. A good example of it are players like Happy and Kas who tend to turtle in midgame to get the economy up. But this allows the Zerg to get a swarm of mutas or infestors and the Toss will mostly reach 2/2 upgrades plus storm at which it becomes easier for Z/P to deal with terran.
This will probably sound stupid coming from a gold leaguer. Buuut does it now all come down to hard work??
I don't think there is something special about the korean gene that gives them 400apm. The difference i have noticed is the 8-10hours of training a day against other people who want to train 8-10hrs a day. Weather it be for Terran/Zerg/Toss.
You may find 1-2 foreigner willing to train 8-10hrs a day but who is he going to train with them for 8-10hrs outside of korea??
I suppose its like the wolf climbing the mountain for food rather than the 1 that is already there. The 1 climbing the mountain is more hungrier. In this case the food is salary/money. Koreans only income as we know is the GSL placings. Survival of the fittest. In the SC2 scence Koreans are definitely the fittest due to circumstance!!
i watch A LOT of games and the biggest difference, the reason why korean terrans win (at least vs zerg) is, their incredible macro... they are literatelly rallying units over to the zerg base, often times having equal the supply and containing the zerg on 2 or 3 base, while expanding themselves or just ending the game, because most zergs can't keep up with the constant aggression. They trade armies over and over again with marine/tank, while getting a superior economy (zerg can't make units AND drones at the same time vs this kind of playstyle, because they would fall apart) obviously for this kind of strategy you need top notch micro as well.
Imo terran is the race that benefits the most from multi tasking, which koreans are v good at. Judging their success from the GSL is not the best way, since the GSL incorporates a lot of meta gaming and carefully prepared strategies for particular opponents. That said, I do not think foreign terrans struggle, its just that there are fewer of them. Thorzain is well respected by korean terrans, and kas has had good showings in tournaments. Empire seems to be the hub of many strong foreign terrans. Anytime these players face off against korean terrans, one must remember there is a lot more information available on the foreign terran rather than the korean one. This makes meta gaming them easier, since most european terrans do prefer a stable way of playing. Does this make them worse than Korean terrans? No, its just that koreans are v willing to gamble at times where foreigners normally wouldn't. In tournament settings, they take a lot more risks and have specific builds that really wouldn't work anywhere else. This isn't being better at the game per se, its having a better competitive mind set.
Koreans probably don't use shitty ladder to practice.
Someone tell me I'm an idiot if I'm wrong but I would imagine Koreans have a more structure practice schedule where they can practice one build in one matchup in one map repeatedly until they perfect it.
I honestly can't imagine how playing ladder and getting random matchups on random maps, some of which aren't even played in tournament, is useful to properly developing your skill.
I never understood the double standards when it comes to terran.
Zergs are doing poorly in the GSL, but got a couple of heroes, fruitdealer and nestea. Doing poorly everywhere else. Zerg is weak.
Protoss are doing poorly in the GSL, but got a couple of heroes, namely MC. Doing poorly everywhere else. Protoss is weak.
Terrans are doing poorly in the GSL, although arguably less so right now, but got a couple of heroes, namely MVP/MMA. They're doing poorly everywhere else. Terran is fine
Zergs are beating terrans to the ground with infestor broodlord so such a degree where David Kim is quoted saying that it might be to strong, but nothing changes. Terrans eventually start using ghosts to deal with it. Ghosts get nerfed. Why is it that the ghost part of the equation was considered to be the problem? Was it factually proven that zergs had no answer for it? Did they even get any time to practice against it?
There's literally like three terrans carrying the entire race in the GSL right now, because they are miles ahead of everyone else in skill. Everywhere else terrans are having mediocre results at best, but the race still gets nerfed like there was some sort of rampant terran swarm swallowing every tournament. I think it's bizarre that the game can be balanced around such a small tournament where no where else is the terran dominance as prominent or even existent.
That said, there aren't many foreign terrans that are playing impressively right now, but the question is why terran still keeps getting nerfed. Where do blizzard get their data from? The five GSL games where MVP killed some random code S zerg with snipes?
The two things I think are the biggest differences between korean and foreign terrans is variation and micro. The korean style has a huge amount of different styles and small deviations that throw people offguard and rarely becomes predictable. Even though their often risky it tends to favour you to take them even if your statically better than your opponent.
The other I always seem to notice is the micro especially marine-splitting where the best koreans often win or lose simply because of it. As well as the small engagements in TvP with ghosts vs templar for example. Its the little things it feels like.
Koreans in general just play less passive ranging from all in builds to just mid game and late game aggression. Seriously, name one foreign terran who is as relentless as a korean. When they get a lead, they think "ok, I'm gonna try to end this as soon as possible" which should be the right way of thinking because you don't want it to go late against either race. Every time I see a foreigner take a lead, but otherwise fail to get a gg, they back off and regroup while expanding and sometimes it gets into that scenario where they gave them too much time and there's no choice but to go to the late game evenly.
As a protoss player i don't quite get the Terran nerf vs. Zerg. I'd like to see the metagame sort that out by itself, as I'm sure it would over time.
PvT on the other hand, i don't get all the whining. It's a well known fact that the protoss needs to do damage and cripple the zerg before making 75 drones and maxing around 12-13 minutes. If we don't do damage, and let the zerg drone up - we are dead.Simple as that. No whine. TvP is something along those lines. If you let the protoss build the deathball, max 200/200 without much interruption, chances are you're going to die unless you land some pretty epic EMPs.
In the end, i feel that a lot of foreign terrans play their race as if they where protoss. Problem is: they are not! They are not supposed to max out and fight the deathball head on, hoping to crush their army. That's just not how it works.
On February 21 2012 18:16 VPFaith wrote: Take EGPuma for example, he 1-2 base timing attack vs protoss almost every single game. Yes, he mix in with some 1 Rax FEs, but majorities of his victories are because of heavy harassment into 1-2 base timing attacks. As MC would put it, "You want to win tournaments? Timing Attack! Timing Attack!"
But such play is very unsafe. I mean if zerg/protoss knows you will do that - you are done. Do you propose just to rely on mixing strategies that he doesn't know how exactly you will all-in him? because 2 base attack is same all-in as 1 base in high level.
I think a lot european terrans try to play to much 1 rax fe. While koreans also mix in a lot of timing attacks, be it 2 rax, 1-1-1, 3rax or just 1 marine 2 rauder pressure into expand. I always felt that playing versus 1 rax fe is easiest, because you know what you are facing. That is why I really dislike playing vs people like naama, Kas and Satiini. They switch up their play quite a lot. You never know what is going to come. Hope it helps you!
It's not in the Koreans playstyle, its in their refinement and crispness of their builds. Most Korean Terrans have a different playstyle, they aren't all hyper-agressive.
Everything they do, no matter how they play is so much more tight and refined, not to mention they're far ahead on the metagame and they got the Korean server to practice on, which has much better players in general then EU and NA.
On February 21 2012 22:28 Dalavita wrote: I never understood the double standards when it comes to terran.
Zergs are doing poorly in the GSL, but got a couple of heroes, fruitdealer and nestea. Doing poorly everywhere else. Zerg is weak.
Protoss are doing poorly in the GSL, but got a couple of heroes, namely MC. Doing poorly everywhere else. Protoss is weak.
Terrans are doing poorly in the GSL, although arguably less so right now, but got a couple of heroes, namely MVP/MMA. They're doing poorly everywhere else. Terran is fine
The difference being, terran now has 50% win rate in TvP and TvZ.
And back when Z and P were dong poorly, their win rates were like 30-40%.
On February 21 2012 20:49 IMPrime wrote: Basically multitasking/APM.
There's a reason why plat-masters terrans are struggling significantly more than zergs or protosses in the same division, and I highly doubt that they are all worse players. They just have to do a lot more during the game. Foreign pro terrans obviously have more APM than these plat-masters, but they still are nowhere near what is required to beat their zergs and tosses.
Korean terrans have the APM to utilize the units
A somewhat relevant claim backed up by a very shitty and false reason. At "plat-masters", Terran's winrates are the same as every other race, it's 50%, that's just how it is, they don't struggle more. You could improve and get faster/have more APM, it still won't help you much on the ladder, you'll still get your 50% winrate, so to those players: just play the game and don't go comparing yourselves to players of Strelok's caliber thinking that what you experience is somehow related.
Lol like you knew anything about the struggle of terrans. Just watch the top 25 of each master division, there will be a lot more P/Z than T. Just do it (dunno if you can watch the last season stats)... It's a known fact that there are less T diamond/master
that's weird... Region stats for 341,879 teams from the Master 1v1 brackets, is what is written over mine...
Edit: I guess Region + League as I did, doesn't work properly. So sorry for the wrong stats, I guess Terran is least played (if those stats work properly).
i dont know what ur trying to say. it says "League stats for 338,716 teams from 1v1 brackets in all regions." and terran has 37% in bronze
I meant it's written over the stats I posted. I sorted by region and then added the option league. Seems like this doesn't work and I only get region + overall stats instead of region+league stats.
your stats are league+region(global) and seem to be working.
On February 21 2012 22:28 Dalavita wrote:There's literally like three terrans carrying the entire race in the GSL right now, because they are miles ahead of everyone else in skill. Everywhere else terrans are having mediocre results at best
It's funny to say that because terran is the only race that is not carried by just 2-3 player. Just look at the TLDP there is 5 terran in the top 6, and that does not count Jjikaji, SuperNova or bomber (yeah I know he's in code B, but he can still all-kill some team) that are arugably quite good. If you look at the zerg it's pretty much DRG, nestea and leenock, with curious and BBongBBong beeing decent too.
On February 21 2012 18:16 VPFaith wrote: Take EGPuma for example, he 1-2 base timing attack vs protoss almost every single game. Yes, he mix in with some 1 Rax FEs, but majorities of his victories are because of heavy harassment into 1-2 base timing attacks. As MC would put it, "You want to win tournaments? Timing Attack! Timing Attack!"
But such play is very unsafe. I mean if zerg/protoss knows you will do that - you are done. Do you propose just to rely on mixing strategies that he doesn't know how exactly you will all-in him? because 2 base attack is same all-in as 1 base in high level.
If you think you shouldn't make 1-2 bases timings attacks because it's "unsafe", it's a part of the problem. Nothing is safe if your opponent knows it, the play considered to be "safe" get punished by greedy play. If you mix your builds (ex : adding a banshee, sometimes cloacked or not,...) and your general style of play (greedy, safe, cheesy), your opponent will have to rely on scouting (and not just on knowing what you like to do) to know what's up, and if he can't (or you trick him), it's a free win. The advantage is that this way he will prepare to thing that you won't do and not cut as many corners as he would do otherwise. Just look at MKP on the ladder, he's doing a lot of 1 base builds but he got a sick winrate (vs the best korean players).
But this mental attidute punish more terran than other races because it's easier to win in lategame with P and Z, and terran all-in are just better and harder to scout.
"Strategically what I lack from EU Terrans is what Ive been saying from the start, from even back in Brood War: You're passive! Look at SlayerS MMA, nobody represents Korean Terrans better than MMA, he is always doing something, he always has a plan, a device, a way to win the game and he is working tirelessly to win. EU terrans sit in their base, macro, play safe, maybe 1-2 drops per game and want to win! No man, you have to work hard, drop, harass, build bunkers in opponents base, elevator drop, nukes, banshees, hellion drops, use every tool you've got."
That my fellow TL'er is the diffrence between knowing what your opponent will do and not knowing. When MMA does something he knows its got a preatty high chance of success. Whatever he chooses to do, he does for a reason. He saw a flaw in his opponents play and goes for it. No spore? Go bansehe, no early gas, go elevator play, not enough gateway with expand? Early push. and so on and so forth.
As the game develops and the meta game changes all these harras methods keep getting more and more figured out and deal less damage/less efective or just have a lower chance of success(banshee dont kill 100 workers anymore with good micro and hellions dont incinerate mineral lines like in early GSL seasons). Terrans usually roll the dice and hope for the best when doing a harras because you cannon know what your oponents style is outside GSL, so you can figure him out and take him apart. Not doing anything with your harras means that you lost the game when playing terran. Sure the game dosen't end right there and then but you probably have a VERY slim chance of catching up.
On February 21 2012 23:10 Ucs wrote: "Strategically what I lack from EU Terrans is what Ive been saying from the start, from even back in Brood War: You're passive! Look at SlayerS MMA, nobody represents Korean Terrans better than MMA, he is always doing something, he always has a plan, a device, a way to win the game and he is working tirelessly to win. EU terrans sit in their base, macro, play safe, maybe 1-2 drops per game and want to win! No man, you have to work hard, drop, harass, build bunkers in opponents base, elevator drop, nukes, banshees, hellion drops, use every tool you've got."
That my fellow TL'er is the diffrence between knowing what your opponent will do and not knowing. When MMA does something he knows its got a preatty high chance of success. Whatever he chooses to do, he does for a reason. He saw a flaw in his opponents play and goes for it. No spore? Go bansehe, no early gas, go elevator play, not enough gateway with expand? Early push. and so on and so forth.
As the game develops and the meta game changes all these harras methods keep getting more and more figured out and deal less damage/less efective or just have a lower chance of success(banshee dont kill 100 workers anymore with good micro and hellions dont incinerate mineral lines like in early GSL seasons). Terrans usually roll the dice and hope for the best when doing a harras because you cannon know what your oponents style is, so you can figure him out and take him apart.
Its more complicated than that. If you want to play a korean style of tvz you have to do think about a shitton of different stuff. Its not as black/white as many TL make it out to be.
On February 21 2012 22:28 Dalavita wrote: I never understood the double standards when it comes to terran.
Zergs are doing poorly in the GSL, but got a couple of heroes, fruitdealer and nestea. Doing poorly everywhere else. Zerg is weak.
Protoss are doing poorly in the GSL, but got a couple of heroes, namely MC. Doing poorly everywhere else. Protoss is weak.
Terrans are doing poorly in the GSL, although arguably less so right now, but got a couple of heroes, namely MVP/MMA. They're doing poorly everywhere else. Terran is fine
Zergs are beating terrans to the ground with infestor broodlord so such a degree where David Kim is quoted saying that it might be to strong, but nothing changes. Terrans eventually start using ghosts to deal with it. Ghosts get nerfed. Why is it that the ghost part of the equation was considered to be the problem? Was it factually proven that zergs had no answer for it? Did they even get any time to practice against it?
There's literally like three terrans carrying the entire race in the GSL right now, because they are miles ahead of everyone else in skill. Everywhere else terrans are having mediocre results at best, but the race still gets nerfed like there was some sort of rampant terran swarm swallowing every tournament. I think it's bizarre that the game can be balanced around such a small tournament where no where else is the terran dominance as prominent or even existent.
That said, there aren't many foreign terrans that are playing impressively right now, but the question is why terran still keeps getting nerfed. Where do blizzard get their data from? The five GSL games where MVP killed some random code S zerg with snipes?
there have always been a good number of terrans makes it to the RO8 Code S, except for this session. and the thing about snipe isn't it is being too good (well, I would say it is because it lets you trade energy for a whole broodlord/ultra which is quite expensive in a really cost efficient way) but it stops zerg from breaking the PF split map situation.
On February 21 2012 17:59 Strelok wrote: Korea has the best players in the world. Fully agree. Korea has more skilled terrans then zergs and protosses. Also agree. Even though maps become more and more anti-terran, every patch nerfs terrans they still continue to dominate korean scene, not so much as it was - but still as best race. IPL 4 qualifiers show it clearly.
Let's take non-korea. I can name you a thon of protosses and zergs which became better very fast in last few months but can't name any terran. In fact terrans of non-korea really struggle a lot. Let's take a look for example at last week tournaments: http://goodgame.ru/news.php?ocd=view&id=12612#comments 17 tournaments. Terrans won 1 and made 4 people in finals. That's all.
Honestly in trying to become better i try to analyze many replays from non-korea terrans, but i find nothing new, which can help me to win. So there is my question. What are we doing SO WRONG, that we struggle a lot even against non-korean protosses and zergs, while our korean race-mates manage to dominate against strongest players of other races?
If that is truly the case is has to be: A) Something all Korean progamers do, or are better at than Western players. --This goes for T/P/Z, we must assume that Korean progamers are on average equally skilled across the three races. B) Whatever A is, it favors Terran
The only thing i can think of is micro / army control. It's something Korean players are better at than Western players, and imo terran is THE race that benefits the most from good army control, especially in the lategame where you face T3 Z/P and strong AoE spells / units.
Oh the whim I'd say Korean Terrans (and players in general) have better macro and decision making and multitasking is what really counts at the high level where they play
i think foreigners often underestimate the importance of creep vs no creep and often make mistakes when it comes to judging positions. for example, they feel they need to push from 3 bases against a lair tech zerg when its completely unnecessary to do so.
On February 21 2012 23:33 DarKFoRcE wrote: i think foreigners often underestimate the importance of creep vs no creep and often make mistakes when it comes to judging positions. for example, they feel they need to push from 3 bases against a lair tech zerg when its completely unnecessary to do so.
also, their mechanics are often inferior.
That's great, but the mechanics of foreign zerg and protoss players are also inferior. Terran just has a higher skill cap/harder to play and foreigners don't practice enough to benefit from it.
On February 21 2012 23:33 DarKFoRcE wrote: i think foreigners often underestimate the importance of creep vs no creep and often make mistakes when it comes to judging positions. for example, they feel they need to push from 3 bases against a lair tech zerg when its completely unnecessary to do so.
also, their mechanics are often inferior.
Are you sure? I have not seen that many games of you lately but I have not seen anybody making as much creep as you do. In the GSL as well.
On February 21 2012 23:23 Powerstrike wrote: Lately even Korean terrans are struggling + I've noticed they do a lot of timing attacks if they fail - qq-gg
Not necessarily. Maybe team MVP is just better than they should be.
On February 21 2012 22:28 Dalavita wrote: I never understood the double standards when it comes to terran.
Zergs are doing poorly in the GSL, but got a couple of heroes, fruitdealer and nestea. Doing poorly everywhere else. Zerg is weak.
Protoss are doing poorly in the GSL, but got a couple of heroes, namely MC. Doing poorly everywhere else. Protoss is weak.
Terrans are doing poorly in the GSL, although arguably less so right now, but got a couple of heroes, namely MVP/MMA. They're doing poorly everywhere else. Terran is fine
there have always been a good number of terrans makes it to the RO8 Code S, except for this session. and the thing about snipe isn't it is being too good (well, I would say it is because it lets you trade energy for a whole broodlord/ultra which is quite expensive in a really cost efficient way) but it stops zerg from breaking the PF split map situation.
This season in the GSL: Semis: 2 terran (alive and gumiho - one who beat MMA 3-1 so obviously he must suck because MMA and MvP are the only ones carrying the race?), 1 protoss, 1 zerg. Quarters: 3 terran, 4 protoss, 1 zerg. Round of 16: 8 terran, 5 protoss, 3 zerg.
In what weird reality is it that you people are living where the Terran is doing poorly in the GSL? "Arguable less right now" ? "Except for this season" ?
This season it is not completely TvT everywhere and absolute domination by Terran - but they are still the race doing the best. So far.
My sentiments echo those of people before for the most part I think.
I strongly believe Terran is the better race of the three for skilled players right now, Terran gives the best options for controlling space and map awareness, and except for 1a: Deathball v Deathball battles Terran units are exponentially better relative to the multitasking and micro of their pilot (the other races units tend to have less reward for skill imo) The interaction of MULEs and SCVs with regards to maximising the potential of fast/numerous expansions and keeping up sufficient army/ harass pressure is also a definite strength of Terran. For these reasons I think Terran will continue to be dominant in Korea and Korean Terrans will continue to be better than foreigners.
Upon reading the above it sounded like a balance whine and I'd like to state that that is not the case. The aggressive Korean play-style is best suited to what Terran does best. Most of the best foreigners are Zerg because the, seeming, foreign preference for passive macro is best suited to Zerg. Z and P still need a lot of figuring out and most of the innovation we have seen has been the result of Terran or Blizzard forcing the issue.
TLDR: Koreans play Terran properly, foreigners usually don't.
Btw, I have to point out that "better macro" will never be a reason to explain a skill differential in professional SC2. The reason is: SC2 mechanics are easy and any master (even diamond) player can macro as well as a korean pro against a Very Easy computer. It's doing macro PLUS all the other things you have to do to win against a skillful opponent which is hard and make the game interesting to play.
I think when people say "better macro" about pro players, they probably mean "better multitasking".
It's not the same for "Better micro" however, I feel like people in SC2 can really have better raw micro than their opponent ^^.
On February 21 2012 23:33 DarKFoRcE wrote: i think foreigners often underestimate the importance of creep vs no creep and often make mistakes when it comes to judging positions. for example, they feel they need to push from 3 bases against a lair tech zerg when its completely unnecessary to do so.
also, their mechanics are often inferior.
That's great, but the mechanics of foreign zerg and protoss players are also inferior. Terran just has a higher skill cap/harder to play and foreigners don't practice enough to benefit from it.
im just explaining the major differences that i have noticed from playing against koreans. they always have more stuff than their european counterparts. i think terran has a higher "skillcap" in that regard because there is so many things you can do.
I have to say that i see the crying from terrans out of korea on a very high niveau. I mean if i look the play of sorry to say even you strelok, i see not that difference then the koreans have. Everything seems expected and easy to counter. Seems like terran learned in the start of the game that if they just play SOLID they will win but now they have to do things like zerg and protoss always had to, be smart try unexpected things etc etc and for now i not see nonkoreans terrans do anything near
its not only "better macro" or "better decicions" it really seems like terrans need to learn to play another way of playing sc2 but it will come to nonterrans too ... i see idra as example cry about SO many things that darkforce just nullify by making good creep etc etc players should just be more creative
terrans hardest race to play, highest skills cap on a clock in both non-mirrors need to do early aggression or you're behind most taxing multitasking: banshee/hellion/medivac harass hardest macro: managing addons, etc difficult micro: tank positioning, ghosts
only koreans + few select foreigners (thorzain, kas, happy) are skilled enough to play at level to match other races
On February 21 2012 23:47 fcb10 wrote: terrans hardest race to play on a clock in both non-mirrors need to do early aggression or you're behind most taxing multitasking: banshee/hellion harass hardest macro: managing addons, etc difficult micro: tank positioning
only koreans + few select foreigners (thorzain, kas, happy) are skilled enough to play at level to match other races
well thats what every race say ... tvp the protoss players wont agree that terran is the easier race to play, sometime it feels cause they have different times when their armys are good but overall ... when i see the "normal" ladderplayer (low grandmaster high master) the terrans seems to win with a much smaller amount of tactics and builds
Yeah, macro is also a really big deal for Terrans. I remember seeing some games from Alive in what I think was the ESV grand prix some weeks ago versus a Zerg whose name escapes me momentarily. This was played on Crux Daybreak I believe. Anyhow, after securing a (slightly risky) third base he never drops below 150 supply even as he loses entire armies to a Zerg ball of infestor, brood lord and lings with a few corruptors to defend against vikings.
He's pushed all the way back to his natural but his crazy reinforcements allows him to fight back and as the infestors run out of energy his rallied marine forces stim forward to pick off more and more brood lords until the push is cleared. After a similar fight in the middle where Zerg is remaxed he wins the battle and eventually the game since Zerg is out of money to rebuild. It almost felt stupid from time to time how Alive never ever died and always had an army to deal with things even as he lost engagements and never ran out of money or units. I do think Zerg could've harassed more and had better engagements but a strong macro Terran is very overpowering mid to late-game if he has a solid economic footing.
On February 21 2012 23:47 fcb10 wrote: terrans hardest race to play on a clock in both non-mirrors need to do early aggression or you're behind most taxing multitasking: banshee/hellion harass hardest macro: managing addons, etc difficult micro: tank positioning
only koreans + few select foreigners (thorzain, kas, happy) are skilled enough to play at level to match other races
well thats what every race say ... tvp the protoss players wont agree that terran is the easier race to play, sometime it feels cause they have different times when their armys are good but overall ... when i see the "normal" ladderplayer (low grandmaster high master) the terrans seems to win with a much smaller amount of tactics and builds
lol... once protoss gets 3base colossi + ht tech out, terrans cannot win and its becoming easier and easier for protosses to get to that stage now that the various terran aggression timings are figured out coming from a protoss player, recently it seems like the only reason i lose tvp is due to my own mistakes
So lately a lot more Korean Terran pro players have been streaming such as; Polt, Boxer, Nada, ForGG and Bomber and I have been watching them. First of all I would like to say that these players are awesome.
The main difference between Non Korean and Korean Terrans is the Koreans really play a scrappy highly aggressive style of Terran, constantly poking at opponent, looking for weaknesses, harrassing and in the back of all of this their macro will be as good as a most other pro players who just macro in base putting hardly any pressure on opponent. So really their success is coming down to them multitasking like bosses and giving themselves the edge in games.
On February 21 2012 22:28 Dalavita wrote: I never understood the double standards when it comes to terran.
Zergs are doing poorly in the GSL, but got a couple of heroes, fruitdealer and nestea. Doing poorly everywhere else. Zerg is weak.
Protoss are doing poorly in the GSL, but got a couple of heroes, namely MC. Doing poorly everywhere else. Protoss is weak.
Terrans are doing poorly in the GSL, although arguably less so right now, but got a couple of heroes, namely MVP/MMA. They're doing poorly everywhere else. Terran is fine
Zergs are beating terrans to the ground with infestor broodlord so such a degree where David Kim is quoted saying that it might be to strong, but nothing changes. Terrans eventually start using ghosts to deal with it. Ghosts get nerfed. Why is it that the ghost part of the equation was considered to be the problem? Was it factually proven that zergs had no answer for it? Did they even get any time to practice against it?
There's literally like three terrans carrying the entire race in the GSL right now, because they are miles ahead of everyone else in skill. Everywhere else terrans are having mediocre results at best, but the race still gets nerfed like there was some sort of rampant terran swarm swallowing every tournament. I think it's bizarre that the game can be balanced around such a small tournament where no where else is the terran dominance as prominent or even existent.
That said, there aren't many foreign terrans that are playing impressively right now, but the question is why terran still keeps getting nerfed. Where do blizzard get their data from? The five GSL games where MVP killed some random code S zerg with snipes?
When over 2/3 of the best tournament in the world is 1race, there is something wrong going on here. Who cares who wins everywhere else, people will always look at GSL far and formost and for a good reason. You simply will see the highest lvl of play there.
Terran is just a little different from the other races at the moment, it also happens to suit the Korean playstyle the best. When designing an RTS to appeal to the mainstream, you can't have every race be a macro race with a strong late game - it ends in mass turtling. One day, Blizzard basically decided that as a Terran your job is to make the game as scrappy as possible and disrupt your opponent's flow using any kind of "cheese" you want, stealing little advantages, and then finishing it with the lead you've gained by combining all those little advantages. You are the unstoppable force, and your opponent is the immovable object.
To carry out this task Terrans have been given the most cost effective and powerful units for small group engagements and a dropship+medic combo, so they can stretch their opponents defense. The downside is your lategame isn't as powerful. If you don't want to play that way you should change race until HotS, as these are fundamental design principles of Terran. When foreign Terrans go straight macro they are throwing away all the advantages of their race, and I believe koreans understand this.
A foreign terran hasn't won a major tournament in over a year. I would say that Korean Terran players are just better than their zerg or protoss counterparts, but people throw a shitstorm when that is suggested.
Even though they'll be the first to say foreign Terran's are worse than their zerg and protoss counterparts.
I really think if GSL didn't exist Terran would not be receiving nerf after nerf TT
On February 22 2012 00:06 AnalThermometer wrote: Terran is just a little different from the other races at the moment, it also happens to suit the Korean playstyle the best. When designing an RTS to appeal to the mainstream, you can't have every race be a macro race with a strong late game - it ends in mass turtling. One day, Blizzard basically decided that as a Terran your job is to make the game as scrappy as possible and disrupt your opponent's flow using any kind of "cheese" you want, stealing little advantages, and then finishing it with the lead you've gained by combining all those little advantages. You are the unstoppable force, and your opponent is the immovable object.
To carry out this task Terrans have been given the most cost effective and powerful units for small group engagements and a dropship+medic combo, so they can stretch their opponents defense. The downside is your lategame isn't as powerful. If you don't want to play that way you should change race until HotS, as that is the fundamental design of the race. When foreign Terrans go straight macro they are throwing away all the advantages of their race, and I believe koreans understand this.
I don't really think Blizzard decided anything or what Terran is currently corresponds to their "vision" or something. It just ended up like this, and Terran players have to adapt or switch. Or wait until HOTS, which should introduce more herp derpish gameplay for Terran, and not so much for Protoss. Should balance out all the "Protoss ez vs T :'(:'(:'(" we have heard these days.
Now i don't have any evidence to back this up, but i think that korea has more people that are serious about the game, even at like a plat level, which may be closer to a diamond level in NA, and i also think that since terran was so strong when game was first released a lot chose terran so they could win and now they are really skilled and they happen to chose terran.
On February 21 2012 22:28 Dalavita wrote: I never understood the double standards when it comes to terran.
Zergs are doing poorly in the GSL, but got a couple of heroes, fruitdealer and nestea. Doing poorly everywhere else. Zerg is weak.
Protoss are doing poorly in the GSL, but got a couple of heroes, namely MC. Doing poorly everywhere else. Protoss is weak.
Terrans are doing poorly in the GSL, although arguably less so right now, but got a couple of heroes, namely MVP/MMA. They're doing poorly everywhere else. Terran is fine
there have always been a good number of terrans makes it to the RO8 Code S, except for this session. and the thing about snipe isn't it is being too good (well, I would say it is because it lets you trade energy for a whole broodlord/ultra which is quite expensive in a really cost efficient way) but it stops zerg from breaking the PF split map situation.
This season in the GSL: Semis: 2 terran (alive and gumiho - one who beat MMA 3-1 so obviously he must suck because MMA and MvP are the only ones carrying the race?), 1 protoss, 1 zerg. Quarters: 3 terran, 4 protoss, 1 zerg. Round of 16: 8 terran, 5 protoss, 3 zerg.
In what weird reality is it that you people are living where the Terran is doing poorly in the GSL? "Arguable less right now" ? "Except for this season" ?
This season it is not completely TvT everywhere and absolute domination by Terran - but they are still the race doing the best. So far.
Argue based on reality please.
If there are ever less than 4 terrans in the GSL semi-finals, they are doing poorly. Come on man, everyone knows that.
Terran is simply the most mechanically demanding race to play. There are no 1a units like the broodlord/ultra/ling/bane/collosus/chargelot. Every unit you field, even the ever so OP marine will only be cost efficient if you manage the unit well. In most cases your marines will die in droves if not controlled properly. Terran has the most fragile army and the slowest rate of reproduction which means 1 lapse in judgement or 1 err in scouting will cost you not only your army but the game. Terran also can't camp their base and macro because your maxed army will be nutted on by a maxed P/Z army and so you are constantly on the clock and pressed to do economic damage through harass and timing attacks. Inability to multitask like a BW god and macro flawlessly while dropping/attacking two or more locations means that you are inevitably falling behind the longer the game runs. If you make a mistake while attempting this, you will generally lose.
So yea, the few 5-10 (being generous) Korean Terrans that can effectively play with 300 APM are doing fine. The rest of the world will have to wait until HOTS when Terran gets their own 1a units -.-
It's just that half of the Korean pros are Terran because T was OP for a long time. (and because they kept their BW race, which mostly was terran too) Now balance is pretty good, but all these pros are still Terran. That's why T still looks OP in korea.
@ OP, you used the stunning sample size of a full week of some weekly cups and 2 IPL4 qualifiers... One of which was won by a korean, so it's not relavant to this "Becoming better very fast" is also very subjective, what if I subjectively say that Happy improved a ton in the last months? He's second in foreigner TLPD right now, so he at least wins more than before. Even if you'd say he didn't improve at all, it'd still look to me as if he did, just based on results.
I know everyone is convinced their race is the hardest, absolutely underpowered, etc, but if you just stop for a moment and think about what the hell you are posting, even you should see that your arguments are nonsense: Irrelevant statistics and your general feeling that there are no up-and-coming T players in the foreign scene...
Well, enjoy the short phase where you can whine about Terran, P and T seem to be doing very well now in korea, so soon the next Zerg-whine phase will begin. And soon after, the next race will whine. And this gets very stale.
I'm fairly certain that this stems from the application of disciplined Korean game mechanics being best utilized as Terran. What I mean to say is, extremely adept micromanagement (bioball, etc) and multitasking skill (several drops at once, keeping up with macro, etc) empowers a Terran more than it would Protoss or Zerg. It's just a matter of the playstyle and mentality being compatible with the race by nature.
Either that or, to be exhaustively considerate, Koreans find Terran more interesting/aesthetically appealing/for non-mechanical purposes, nicer than the other races, so by proportion there are a greater number of Terrans, and for this reason we see more of them succeed.
On February 22 2012 00:27 Dandel Ion wrote: It's just that half of the Korean pros are Terran because T was OP for a long time. (and because they kept their BW race, which mostly was terran too) Now balance is pretty good, but all these pros are still Terran. That's why T still looks OP in korea.
@ OP, you used the stunning sample size of a full week of some weekly cups and 2 IPL4 qualifiers... One of which was won by a korean, so it's not relavant to this "Becoming better very fast" is also very subjective, what if I subjectively say that Happy improved a ton in the last months? He's second in foreigner TLPD right now, so he at least wins more than before. Even if you'd say he didn't improve at all, it'd still look to me as if he did, just based on results.
I know everyone is convinced their race is the hardest, absolutely underpowered, etc, but if you just stop for a moment and think about what the hell you are posting, even you should see that your arguments are nonsense: Irrelevant statistics and your general feeling that there are no up-and-coming T players in the foreign scene...
Well, enjoy the short phase where you can whine about Terran, P and T seem to be doing very well now in korea, so soon the next Zerg-whine phase will begin. And soon after, the next race will whine. And this gets very stale.
In Code S, terran is imba. In bronze, it's the hardest race. Looks like foreign pros are closer to bronze than code S.
I am kiddin but I'm not just trolling, terran seems to be the most difficult race to play, but also the most powerful when you master it. And it looks like the lower the level the more difficult it is to win with terran. I guess the main reason is micro
IMO - Terran strength is based on crisp timing windows and abusing multi-pronged attacks / drops. Korean multi-tasking is better and their build orders are more refined. I think that is why you see Korean terran dominance continue.
Well.. not so much dominance, but continued solid results.
On February 22 2012 00:44 SolidMustard wrote: In Code S, terran is imba. In bronze, it's the hardest race. Looks like foreign pros are closer to bronze than code S.
I am kiddin but I'm not just trolling, terran seems to be the most difficult race to play, but also the most powerful when you master it. And it looks like the lower the level the more difficult it is to win with terran. I guess the main reason is micro
Blizzard did a REALLY poor job balancing the three races around the skill gradient.
On February 22 2012 00:44 SolidMustard wrote: In Code S, terran is imba. In bronze, it's the hardest race. Looks like foreign pros are closer to bronze than code S.
I am kiddin but I'm not just trolling, terran seems to be the most difficult race to play, but also the most powerful when you master it. And it looks like the lower the level the more difficult it is to win with terran. I guess the main reason is micro
Blizzard did a REALLY poor job balancing the three races around the skill gradient.
so, how do you determine skill again? I mean, do you have anything that is even somehow statistically relevant to back this claim up?
On February 22 2012 00:44 SolidMustard wrote: In Code S, terran is imba. In bronze, it's the hardest race. Looks like foreign pros are closer to bronze than code S.
I am kiddin but I'm not just trolling, terran seems to be the most difficult race to play, but also the most powerful when you master it. And it looks like the lower the level the more difficult it is to win with terran. I guess the main reason is micro
Blizzard did a REALLY poor job balancing the three races around the skill gradient.
so, how do you determine skill again? I mean, do you have anything that is even somehow statistically relevant to back this claim up?
It's completely unquantifiable. That's the problem.
drop drop drop and never stop if you saw supernova at IEM sao paulo, that was what brought him to the final. because besides that his play wasnt very outstanding tbh
or just nuke every game and make it your trademark play. then start streaming and make monies. people love nukes!
On February 21 2012 22:23 how2TL wrote: Koreans probably don't use shitty ladder to practice.
Someone tell me I'm an idiot if I'm wrong but I would imagine Koreans have a more structure practice schedule where they can practice one build in one matchup in one map repeatedly until they perfect it.
I honestly can't imagine how playing ladder and getting random matchups on random maps, some of which aren't even played in tournament, is useful to properly developing your skill.
It's up to the player really. If you ever watch Fin/Polt/Bomber stream, they're always laddering.
Bomber mentioned on Fin's stream once that Fin only uses the ladder to practice mechanics, which is why you often see all-ins on his stream.
On the other hand, Polt practices the same 2-3 build orders in each matchup constantly on ladder. He's using the same basic builds constantly to build better mechanics as referenced in this post.
i'll be honest and say , i dont really know . But when i watch a korean terran i see very agressive play, when i watch a foreign terran such as kas or strelock. I see guys that are more than comfortable sitting in there bases like the other races "macroing up".
If anybody watches polt stream, the guy is just a fucking beastttttttttttttttttttt.. yesterday he owned up so many good players on the korean ladder including Alive who is still in the gsl. Polt relies on extremely good macro/micro and multitasking.
On February 21 2012 22:28 Dalavita wrote: I never understood the double standards when it comes to terran.
Zergs are doing poorly in the GSL, but got a couple of heroes, fruitdealer and nestea. Doing poorly everywhere else. Zerg is weak.
Protoss are doing poorly in the GSL, but got a couple of heroes, namely MC. Doing poorly everywhere else. Protoss is weak.
Terrans are doing poorly in the GSL, although arguably less so right now, but got a couple of heroes, namely MVP/MMA. They're doing poorly everywhere else. Terran is fine
there have always been a good number of terrans makes it to the RO8 Code S, except for this session. and the thing about snipe isn't it is being too good (well, I would say it is because it lets you trade energy for a whole broodlord/ultra which is quite expensive in a really cost efficient way) but it stops zerg from breaking the PF split map situation.
This season in the GSL: Semis: 2 terran (alive and gumiho - one who beat MMA 3-1 so obviously he must suck because MMA and MvP are the only ones carrying the race?), 1 protoss, 1 zerg. Quarters: 3 terran, 4 protoss, 1 zerg. Round of 16: 8 terran, 5 protoss, 3 zerg.
In what weird reality is it that you people are living where the Terran is doing poorly in the GSL? "Arguable less right now" ? "Except for this season" ?
This season it is not completely TvT everywhere and absolute domination by Terran - but they are still the race doing the best. So far.
Argue based on reality please.
If there are ever less than 4 terrans in the GSL semi-finals, they are doing poorly. Come on man, everyone knows that.
Well, say what you want, Dalavita has a point. You guys fail to take into account the fact that there are simply more terran than other races among korean players. So the question is not "how many players in Ro8 are terrans ?" it's more about win rates.
This season, there were 8 protoss in Ro32, and 4 of them were in Ro8. There were 15 Terrans in Ro32 and only 3 in Ro8. How is it possible to deny that terrans did NOT do that well this season? At least they clearly not did as well as the protoss players. Zergs... well they're still having a hard time, let's face it
On February 21 2012 22:28 Dalavita wrote: I never understood the double standards when it comes to terran.
Zergs are doing poorly in the GSL, but got a couple of heroes, fruitdealer and nestea. Doing poorly everywhere else. Zerg is weak.
Protoss are doing poorly in the GSL, but got a couple of heroes, namely MC. Doing poorly everywhere else. Protoss is weak.
Terrans are doing poorly in the GSL, although arguably less so right now, but got a couple of heroes, namely MVP/MMA. They're doing poorly everywhere else. Terran is fine
there have always been a good number of terrans makes it to the RO8 Code S, except for this session. and the thing about snipe isn't it is being too good (well, I would say it is because it lets you trade energy for a whole broodlord/ultra which is quite expensive in a really cost efficient way) but it stops zerg from breaking the PF split map situation.
This season in the GSL: Semis: 2 terran (alive and gumiho - one who beat MMA 3-1 so obviously he must suck because MMA and MvP are the only ones carrying the race?), 1 protoss, 1 zerg. Quarters: 3 terran, 4 protoss, 1 zerg. Round of 16: 8 terran, 5 protoss, 3 zerg.
In what weird reality is it that you people are living where the Terran is doing poorly in the GSL? "Arguable less right now" ? "Except for this season" ?
This season it is not completely TvT everywhere and absolute domination by Terran - but they are still the race doing the best. So far.
Argue based on reality please.
If there are ever less than 4 terrans in the GSL semi-finals, they are doing poorly. Come on man, everyone knows that.
Well, say what you want, Dalavita has a point. You guys fail to take into account the fact that there are simply more terran than other races among korean players. So the question is not "how many players in Ro8 are terrans ?" it's more about win rates.
This season, there were 8 protoss in Ro32, and 4 of them were in Ro8. There were 15 Terrans in Ro32 and only 3 in Ro8. How is it possible to deny that terrans did NOT do that well this season? At least they clearly not did as well as the protoss players. Zergs... well they're still having a hard time, let's face it
Yes and no. Of course there should statistically be more Terrans than Protoss players, but on the other hand, it's too small of a samplesize to really make this claim based upon one GSL. Not to mention that due to the GOM formatchanges there should be some players falling out that have competed for a longer time in the GSL now (which means a lot of Terrans), and new players (of all races) should take their places. More Terrans dropping out than coming in should be the trend for the next seasons - if the game is balanced. (because Terran simply was and is overrepresented. There are more Terrans, but it's not like the 50% Terran 25% Protoss 25%Zerg representation of this GSL was representative for the race distribution) But well, it's only a trend. We might also have an increase of Terrans at somepoint.
On February 22 2012 00:44 SolidMustard wrote: In Code S, terran is imba. In bronze, it's the hardest race. Looks like foreign pros are closer to bronze than code S.
I am kiddin but I'm not just trolling, terran seems to be the most difficult race to play, but also the most powerful when you master it. And it looks like the lower the level the more difficult it is to win with terran. I guess the main reason is micro
Blizzard did a REALLY poor job balancing the three races around the skill gradient.
Why would races be ever balanced around the skill gradient? In brood war protoss was ages easier than any other race on ICCUP D rank level, no one bitched about that, it was just a fact. In a game with 3 diverse races they will always be imbalanced on lower levels with some being harder and others being easier. eSports should always be balanced on the highest level of play and not across all leagues, the only way to achieve that is to dumb down the game, the modern shooter genre shows that that will only lead to dumb and boring games. I love how people bitch about starcraft 2, or terran, being to hard, when in reality most masters players would probably be somewhere around C level in brood war given the time they are willing to put in.
OT: Terran is the race that is the most about exact builds out of all of them, koreans are known to put in more time/effort to improve thus they have crisper and better timed builds than foreigners, thus the difference between korean and foreign terrans is higher than they between foreign and korean zergs where exact builds are less important.
It seems like all the arguments about multitasking, APM, build orders, aggression, etc... all point to something said at the very beginning of the thread, which is that Korean terrans are much better at dictating the pace of the game.
Did a quick search for 111 in this thread and I didn't see it. Now I can't speak for every terran out there, but one I can say is when i watched tournaments, mostly GSL and MLG to be fair, a lot of the times it was the Korean Terran's 111'ing and the EU terrans not.
For current MU in PvT it seems to be in the P favour globally (recent code A and Code S results, seems to me most of the toss were knocked out by toss so far ). Otherwise, traditionally strong PvT'ers in Mana and White-Ra have had less trouble against Korean Terrans (Mainly Puma and Nada, both known for PvT) than korean toss for that matter. (where nada and puma established there rep for strong PvT)
Another aspect is that Koreans 111'd more frequiently in tournaments that what i've seen foreignerrs do (possibly as EU P have had to deal with 111 for a while longer (I 1st found it on diamond EU ladder about 3 months b4 it became really really popular)). Whereas, on the otherhand, foreigner terrans, when they attempted to pull off the 111 (demuslim vs some korean P at MLG) seemed unfamiliar with the build and hesitant to use it, despite its success.
tl;dr Korean terran's had an easier time of things vs P coz they all 111'd, where foreigner terrans were hesitant to do so. (Some) Foreigner protoss's were better dealing with 111 than korean P in a scattered showing.
And, lastly, I think the best EU zerg's have better control than some of the zergs in GSL as well. (not DRG and leenock, but Nesteas muta control vs genius was very meh, whereas Stephano vs DRG and Dimaga vs JYP (at least as far as i know at the end he did) and Dimaga vs July showed some very very tight control, better in some cases by a hair.)
Disclaimer:Yes, these are scattered games spread over a long period I am talking about, but sadly I don't know every match Mana has played vs Korean Terrans offhand, tho of the two or three i remember, Mana won 2, and can't remember the result of the 3rd. Also white-ra beat Puma the day before he won dreamhack in a Bo3 IIRC, as the reference to his strength in PvT.
On February 21 2012 20:56 Severus_ wrote: Polt who somehow can play StarCraft2 win tournaments and go in university of seoul ( i think thats the best university in KR?) .
I'm so tired of everyone quoting about how Polt is so great to balance Seoul University with SC2. Yes, getting in to that school is super impressive considering you're competing with a bunch of other students who put in 100hr study weeks to ace the entrance exams. But people who don't know the Korean school system don't realize that once you're in, its an easy ride to the finish. You could skip most of your classes which I'm sure Polt does, and as long as you matriculate with a ok average, you're fine. If you're in the right faculty, the classes are easy, and its a straight road to a cushy job at Samsung, Hyundai, LG, Kookmin, KEB, etc....
Hell, Ivy league universities are tough to get in but once you get inside, its cruise control to graduating magna or summa cum laude I can tell you, especially if you study for a crap major like economics or some other liberal arts crap. Especially if you've gone through a rigorous East Asian education system.
Same with biz school. I hear that law/medical schools are a little more difficult though.
On February 22 2012 03:03 openbox1 wrote: Ivy league universities are tough to get in but once you get inside, its cruise control to graduating magna or summa cum laude I can tell you, especially if you study for a crap major like economics or some other liberal arts crap.
I object... Economics isnt that easy... Or at least not this side. M.Com Economics, Final Year...
Hell, Ivy league universities are tough to get in but once you get inside, its cruise control to graduating magna or summa cum laude I can tell you, especially if you study for a crap major like economics or some other liberal arts crap. Especially if you've gone through a rigorous East Asian education system.
Assuming you are referring to economics specifically, you should know that the field of Economics as in Finance, Financial Engineering, Accounting, Marketing, Supply chain, HRM are very different. Not to mention the difference between undergraduate, postgraduate and PHD. These things are a lot of very different things.
i do belive most foreign players play * scared* that is they hesitate they re think things and get in the way of themselves. so its a mind set not skill . in my opinion with that said however there are exceptions . like thorzain, naniwa,dimaga, grubby and stephano an some other euro players they can and have beaten koreans before and will again.
On February 21 2012 20:02 IdrA wrote: terran benefits the most from good multitasking. koreans practice a lot more, multitasking benefits a lot from practice.
rocket science
This pretty much clears it up for me. All the theories about why terrans are doing poorly and their win rates have not dropped that much.(this is the moment where you go to SCranks and pull some random , cherry picked stats to prove me wrong) I see thread after thread posting how terran is so much harder than the other two races. How the skill curve for terran has a hard climb, but not for Koreans because they are better for some reason. Yet, few make the next leap and say "Damn, I should be more like them. Give me those replays." Instead, its about how horrible the game is and how their opponents beat them with far less skill.
Now this is not all terrans. Some are really set on getting better and do not turn to inbalance every time they lose. I love playing against them and maybe they will be the only terrans left after a while. I'm not sure that is really a bad thing.
On February 22 2012 03:03 openbox1 wrote: Ivy league universities are tough to get in but once you get inside, its cruise control to graduating magna or summa cum laude I can tell you, especially if you study for a crap major like economics or some other liberal arts crap.
I object... Economics isnt that easy... Or at least not this side. M.Com Economics, Final Year...
How did you reach the conclusion that this person have a clue about what he is talking about?
On February 21 2012 17:59 Strelok wrote: Korea has the best players in the world. Fully agree. Korea has more skilled terrans then zergs and protosses. Also agree. Even though maps become more and more anti-terran, every patch nerfs terrans they still continue to dominate korean scene, not so much as it was - but still as best race. IPL 4 qualifiers show it clearly.
Let's take non-korea. I can name you a thon of protosses and zergs which became better very fast in last few months but can't name any terran. In fact terrans of non-korea really struggle a lot. Let's take a look for example at last week tournaments: http://goodgame.ru/news.php?ocd=view&id=12612#comments 17 tournaments. Terrans won 1 and made 4 people in finals. That's all.
Honestly in trying to become better i try to analyze many replays from non-korea terrans, but i find nothing new, which can help me to win. So there is my question. What are we doing SO WRONG, that we struggle a lot even against non-korean protosses and zergs, while our korean race-mates manage to dominate against strongest players of other races?
Well, this is an interesting question.
The first thing I would say is that Korean terrans are currently struggling against Korean protosses. Not in the sense that they cannot win games, but they feel like the TvP matchup is very rigid and that the opportunity for winning a game changes drastically according to what tech the protoss has available. A lot more could (and should) be said about how protoss gameplay in the matchup has changed over the last 3-4 months but...that would take forever to describe. I don't know if KR terrans are actually dominating the scene, I don't know the proper racial distribution among the professional scene.
A lot of people have already mentioned important points in what separates KR terrans from foreign terrans:
- Korean players in general are far more willing to get aggressive in the early-mid game if they believe they can exploit a weakness in their opponent's play. Often they win because they successfully anticipate their enemies' plans and do build orders that counter them; other times they mindgame their opponents over an entire series and slowly get the necessary edges to win. - Terran is the race that benefits the most from aggressive multitasking in the early-mid game. - KR terrans in general are far more aggressive throughout the entire game. They actively try to force mistakes, caught their opponents off-guard, and relentless harass so they can dictate the pace of the game. - KR terrans have a variety of builds they can draw from depending on the situation, all practiced extensively so they can be executed whenever needed. - Terran is the race that can tech the fastest, which opens up a lot more usable builds in the early-mid game. - The terran bio army + tanks, with proper micro and positioning, can be the most cost-efficient army in the entire game.
Narrower and more timing windows in heuristics, greater confidence and ability in a constant multi-pronged fluid map presence, more already capable players to discuss with, and the time to gain an coalesce all of that knowledge and develop the ability to make use of it on a consistent basis.
i don't think you really need korean like apm to play terran properly. i watch sjow's stream, he's not fast but he can still play terran very well. his play is methodical and smooth. i do think you need to be as fast as those Koreans if you want to compete with them since you pretty much cannot have any glaring weakness against someone on that caliber. with that said i hate how blizzard only balance around the GSL level, and some of those terran nerfs are just downright disgusting. If it weren't those Koreans, terran wouldn't be getting nerfs after nerfs. do you really think terran warrants so many nerfs outside the GSL?
In general koreans have better mechanics. terran requires finer mechanics at the top level.
Terran comes down to positioning when it gets down to it, whether you go bio or mech. However, if you have really great mechanics, you can fudge it and pretend (completely fucking up in TvP and engaging the protoss directly, messing up the emps, but then kiting for infinity and living the engagement without losing all your stuff, opposed to just waiting, slowly starving him, making him attack you, and engaging correctly).
The problem is, this fudging either works PERFECTLY, or doesn't at all. Terran are slowly learning that positioning is the key to everything for terran, but for the time being, and in the past until this point, korean terran have been able to get by with great mechanics and aggression, while foreign terran can't.
you have to factor in everything else that differentiates foreigners and koreans in general, but when you factor them in, they really just compound the problem for terran because of HOW terran work.
On February 21 2012 20:56 Severus_ wrote: Polt who somehow can play StarCraft2 win tournaments and go in university of seoul ( i think thats the best university in KR?) .
I'm so tired of everyone quoting about how Polt is so great to balance Seoul University with SC2. Yes, getting in to that school is super impressive considering you're competing with a bunch of other students who put in 100hr study weeks to ace the entrance exams. But people who don't know the Korean school system don't realize that once you're in, its an easy ride to the finish. You could skip most of your classes which I'm sure Polt does, and as long as you matriculate with a ok average, you're fine. If you're in the right faculty, the classes are easy, and its a straight road to a cushy job at Samsung, Hyundai, LG, Kookmin, KEB, etc....
Hell, Ivy league universities are tough to get in but once you get inside, its cruise control to graduating magna or summa cum laude I can tell you, especially if you study for a crap major like economics or some other liberal arts crap. Especially if you've gone through a rigorous East Asian education system.
Same with biz school. I hear that law/medical schools are a little more difficult though.
Oh look, this guy is an expert on Korean Universities!
Must have been said a thousand times in the forum but I'll say it again:
Koreans have the required multitasking proficiency to use terran to its potential, whereas foreigners do not. While varied builds also matter, as in the case of ThorZaIN who makes amazing builds, the koreans who can multitask the best (MMA, MVP, Jjakji) are exceptionally good terrans.
I didn't follow BW but I hear that besides the few top terrans that terran does badly ? I suppose that supports this theory since terran is relatively unchanged from BW in essence.
On February 21 2012 20:02 IdrA wrote: terran benefits the most from good multitasking. koreans practice a lot more, multitasking benefits a lot from practice.
rocket science
This pretty much clears it up for me. All the theories about why terrans are doing poorly and their win rates have not dropped that much.(this is the moment where you go to SCranks and pull some random , cherry picked stats to prove me wrong) I see thread after thread posting how terran is so much harder than the other two races. How the skill curve for terran has a hard climb, but not for Koreans because they are better for some reason. Yet, few make the next leap and say "Damn, I should be more like them. Give me those replays." Instead, its about how horrible the game is and how their opponents beat them with far less skill.
Now this is not all terrans. Some are really set on getting better and do not turn to inbalance every time they lose. I love playing against them and maybe they will be the only terrans left after a while. I'm not sure that is really a bad thing.
Thats why i love watching Kas play, even as a Protoss.
Every time im watching an euro toss streaming and he plays Kas, it amazes me how much stuff Kas produces in such short period.
I think marine/tank openings will be more common in PvT.
Honestly for TvZ the biggest thing is- THEY NEVER unsiege all their tanks, while foreigner terrans seem to never siege in time, specificaly Strelok infact, most TvZ i have seen him lose is because of bad tank unsieging.
Also- foreigners seem to not utilize terran buildings in mutch-ups, way less aggresive bunkers when pushing with 150 food, way less landing the factory to bait zealot charge on it instead of bio, way less creating artifitial choke points in the middle of the map with buildings
Imo, the Korean terrans are all excellent at controlling the flow of the game in their favor. It's really hard to explain how they do it but there is something weird in how in control of the game they always are, even if they aren't playing particularly aggressive. It's something that I can't quite wrap my finger around..
The foreigner terrans often seem quite submissive, in some weird way.
I think that one of the most important point to answer this question is to look at spellcasters and endgame ; and more precisely to look at spellcasters' AoEs.
While High Templars and Infestors AoEs are effective against *most* armies, Ghosts' AoE (aka Emp) sole role is to counter other spellcasters (and remove some shield to protoss armies, but 3 or 4 ghosts will not whipe a whole protoss ball while their protoss counterpart can demolish a whole bioball).
Given infinite APM this would not be a problem and it would be far more *balanced*, but this is the real world and here come the point stated by many others in this thread: Koreans have more APM and are able to micro better, particularly their ghosts for terrans. Probably the reason why they have more success.
Nerfing all AoEs (even EMP) across the board would probably lead to better balance and more interesting games (seeing a whole army being Fugaled/EMPed/Stormed because of 1 sec attention drop leading to a worse player to win is not fun, at least for me).
On February 22 2012 09:00 Bidj wrote: I think that one of the most important point to answer this question is to look at spellcasters and endgame ; and more precisely to look at spellcasters' AoEs.
While High Templars and Infestors AoEs are effective against *most* armies, Ghosts' AoE (aka Emp) sole role is to counter other spellcasters (and remove some shield to protoss armies, but 3 or 4 ghosts will not whipe a whole protoss ball while their protoss counterpart can demolish a whole bioball).
Given infinite APM this would not be a problem and it would be far more *balanced*, but this is the real world and here come the point stated by many others in this thread: Koreans have more APM and are able to micro better, particularly their ghosts for terrans. Probably the reason why they have more success.
Nerfing all AoEs (even EMP) across the board would probably lead to better balance and more interesting games (seeing a whole army being Fugaled/EMPed/Stormed because of 1 sec attention drop leading to a worse player to win is not fun, at least for me).
Huh, what? How does any of this explain why Korean terrans are better than foreigner terrans? How does controlling a single unit better like Ghost suddenly make the difference between MMA and Thorzain for example. That's just silly. :p
Huk, Stephano, Naniwa all believe that they can be the best, while it seems like "most top terrans" don't attempt to surpass, let's say MVP and MMA.
Also, apart from the usual "koreans practice more/multitask better" I think they play a lot more forceful. Hmm ... I guess, what I mean is, that the korean terrans hit you mentally, while the foreign ones doesn't. They deny you "your understanding" of the game, and fake you/cheese you/eco cheese you/play standard/whatever, and thus you fall off your balance.
Also, a couple months ago all the whine was on terrans and 1/1/1. Now it's protoss and their "imba lategame". I wonder what will be next.
On February 21 2012 18:10 KAmaKAsa wrote: Koreans are better and the hardest race to play at the highest level is terran then protoss then zerg
go back to bronze. and my answer is that Korean Terrans are not afraid to allin, and because their execution is probably better than the foreigners, well the allins are more succesfull and so is terrans in general. Im probably wrong but thats my take on it.
On February 21 2012 18:10 KAmaKAsa wrote: Koreans are better and the hardest race to play at the highest level is terran then protoss then zerg
go back to bronze. and my answer is that Korean Terrans are not afraid to allin, and because their execution is probably better than the foreigners, well the allins are more succesfull and so is terrans in general. Im probably wrong but thats my take on it.
It's good that you're comfortable being wrong like that
Koreans simply play better across the board. They practice more and they get more out of their practice because they practice with a higher level of competition.
On February 22 2012 09:00 Bidj wrote: I think that one of the most important point to answer this question is to look at spellcasters and endgame ; and more precisely to look at spellcasters' AoEs.
While High Templars and Infestors AoEs are effective against *most* armies, Ghosts' AoE (aka Emp) sole role is to counter other spellcasters (and remove some shield to protoss armies, but 3 or 4 ghosts will not whipe a whole protoss ball while their protoss counterpart can demolish a whole bioball).
Given infinite APM this would not be a problem and it would be far more *balanced*, but this is the real world and here come the point stated by many others in this thread: Koreans have more APM and are able to micro better, particularly their ghosts for terrans. Probably the reason why they have more success.
Nerfing all AoEs (even EMP) across the board would probably lead to better balance and more interesting games (seeing a whole army being Fugaled/EMPed/Stormed because of 1 sec attention drop leading to a worse player to win is not fun, at least for me).
Huh, what? How does any of this explain why Korean terrans are better than foreigner terrans? How does controlling a single unit better like Ghost suddenly make the difference between MMA and Thorzain for example. That's just silly. :p
I probably worded it very poorly but to answer your example, controlling this single unit named ghost better is the difference between having your whole army whiped by Storms (Thorzain) or not (MMA).
Koreans simply play better across the board. They practice more and they get more out of their practice because they practice with a higher level of competition.
This point, while being probably true, as already been posted 50 times in this thread and does not explain AT ALL while there is a difference in winrates between Koreans' and Foreigners' TvZ and TvP.
hhmmmmhmhmhmhmm, I think I'm here to solve the case! well maybe not but I'm really confident about my answer since ive been playing around with this idea for a long time.
Terran isn't harder or more complicated. The skill ceiling is higher. With perfect terran micro I can win battles I shouldnt win. With perfect zerg micro I will just make sure i dont lose everything to one tank shot but its just not the same skill-reward kind of trade. I think the only way to solve this terran being nerfed to death and only korean terrans can keep up is give zerg or portoss and equal way to raise their skill ceiling. If i can micro my mutas while he has to micro his marines in a battle of cost efficienty suddenly this becomes an equal trade. If toss needs to micro his zealots instead of them all just auto charging in this becomes a battle of how good does toss charge his zealots and how well does terran stutter step. Tho in PvT theres the ghost vs templar. I think this trade is okay-ish in PvT as in you still have the viking focus fire with stalkers the collosus pull back and the forcefields but for ZvT this is just terrible I feel so powerless when fighting a battle the outcome of it is 80% dependend on how well does terran focus fire and split. Wich means my same amount of ling bane will kill all the foreign tank pushes but suddenly i play against a korean who split just slightly better or macros while splitting slightly better and i lose the game.
The problem wont resolve untill we have equal skill ceilings where zerg isnt only about when do i drone and how well do i inject. I now also have to micro this or that. I'm sorry but i'm going to make a broodwar refference. It was so incredibly hard to micro and macro that game balance only mattered so much the better player would usually win by decision making and mechanics. While in starcraft because the ui is so friendly and the skill ceilings are lower suddenly these huge balance gaps and weird race statistics for every area pop up. Blizzard has 2 options: Add skill ceiling to the game or just agree to one race eventually beating everything. However silly this may sound there will never be perfect balance because the way the three races work. So to make this a long lasting esport there will have to be things the pro player can do to improve while for example a low league player wont have trouble with.
On February 22 2012 09:38 cLunAsTyY wrote: hhmmmmhmhmhmhmm, I think I'm here to solve the case! well maybe not but I'm really confident about my answer since ive been playing around with this idea for a long time.
Terran isn't harder or more complicated. The skill ceiling is higher. With perfect terran micro I can win battles I shouldnt win. With perfect zerg micro I will just make sure i dont lose everything to one tank shot but its just not the same skill-reward kind of trade. I think the only way to solve this terran being nerfed to death and only korean terrans can keep up is give zerg or portoss and equal way to raise their skill ceiling. If i can micro my mutas while he has to micro his marines in a battle of cost efficienty suddenly this becomes an equal trade. If toss needs to micro his zealots instead of them all just auto charging in this becomes a battle of how good does toss charge his zealots and how well does terran stutter step. Tho in PvT theres the ghost vs templar. I think this trade is okay-ish in PvT as in you still have the viking focus fire with stalkers the collosus pull back and the forcefields but for ZvT this is just terrible I feel so powerless when fighting a battle the outcome of it is 80% dependend on how well does terran focus fire and split. Wich means my same amount of ling bane will kill all the foreign tank pushes but suddenly i play against a korean who split just slightly better or macros while splitting slightly better and i lose the game.
The problem wont resolve untill we have equal skill ceilings where zerg isnt only about when do i drone and how well do i inject. I now also have to micro this or that. I'm sorry but i'm going to make a broodwar refference. It was so incredibly hard to micro and macro that game balance only mattered so much the better player would usually win by decision making and mechanics. While in starcraft because the ui is so friendly and the skill ceilings are lower suddenly these huge balance gaps and weird race statistics for every area pop up. Blizzard has 2 options: Add skill ceiling to the game or just agree to one race eventually beating everything. However silly this may sound there will never be perfect balance because the way the three races work. So to make this a long lasting esport there will have to be things the pro player can do to improve while for example a low league player wont have trouble with.
Great post, a lot of ppl think about this topic and immediately start looking at only Terran. You have to consider the other races as well, What do they have to pull off compared to a Terran.
Watching the MKP example (page 1) is a great example of a very high skill ceiling Terran play that only the koreans seem capable of (consistently like... the last two years). Now of course you can copy the style of this play, hit your timings and be aggressive, but my question and this sounds weird because the OP is a pro player...
Can you match this skill ceiling Strelok? Can you harass perfectly while macroing while hitting timings spot on every time? Can you have 10 builds prepped for every MU and hit them spot on every time with very minimal errors? Can you do this every game in a bo3 or bo5?
When watching Foreign players do Z or P vs T it seems quite opposite, big mistakes aside, I see a lot less clutch 400 apm play being required for them to succeed.
Now obviously, Ive seen foreigners do some amazing things with Terran, I remember a MLG last summer where Major did a sick 3 prong attack vs a toss perfectly. But I have yet to see a Foreign Terran consistently pull off insane micro/insane macro for an entire tournament, I only see a couple highlights. But nothing like the Korean T's that have been raping since release.
What makes it sadder, is you can ask the same questions to a Master league or lower leagues Terrans and the situation is way worse, even at Masters level, doing the clutch 400 apm play that Terran requires compared to Z or P is really hard
It's the most microable race and Koreans have high APM to do it.
Look at their units. All the infantryman with stim. Dropships. Ghosts. Banshee w cloak, Tanks. etc - all require crazy micro to use properly. Protoss has some like blink or FF or HT but most are just 1A and retreat micro. Zerg basically every unit is 1A retreat. Notice how good foreign Zergs are?
Terran benefits more from good practice and foreign progamers aren't organized enough to play the race at the same level as zerg and protoss. Also with the last patch I believe korean terrans will have a lot of trouble aswell.
On February 22 2012 10:10 aTnClouD wrote: Terran benefits more from good practice and foreign progamers aren't organized enough to play the race at the same level as zerg and protoss. Also with the last patch I believe korean terrans will have a lot of trouble aswell.
Thats another really interesting perspective on the issue, never thought of that.
They just have way better mechanics.The koreans are always microing something, and almost never look in their base except for split seconds to throw down more depots or build more production buildings. They know where the other guy's army is at all times, and can micro battles perfectly. It's quite amazing to watch them do all this stuff so quickly. Foreign terrans though, are a lot slower. Think about it. Sjow, Thorzain, Goody, even Kas are known for having low apm. They are amazing strategists, and thus they are able to do pretty well for themselves outside of korea, but koreans have the same great strategic minds, AND they're able to execute perfectly.
On February 22 2012 10:00 tdt wrote: It's the most microable race and Koreans have high APM to do it.
Look at their units. All the infantryman with stim. Dropships. Ghosts. Banshee w cloak, Tanks. etc - all require crazy micro to use properly. Protoss has some like blink or FF or HT but most are just 1A and retreat micro. Zerg basically every unit is 1A retreat. Notice how good foreign Zergs are?
On February 22 2012 10:00 tdt wrote: It's the most microable race and Koreans have high APM to do it.
Look at their units. All the infantryman with stim. Dropships. Ghosts. Banshee w cloak, Tanks. etc - all require crazy micro to use properly. Protoss has some like blink or FF or HT but most are just 1A and retreat micro. Zerg basically every unit is 1A retreat. Notice how good foreign Zergs are?
That...
Was pretty accurate lol
This doesnt mean that zerg is necesarely easier but you could say that zergs can win more on a game sense / theory game while terran HAS to win it in multitasking or rather mechanics. In an ideal world both would be viable. But unfortunately were not there yet. This would mean that foreigners are maybe stronger at game sense and tactics and koreans often focus on mechanics. This would also match the foreign zergs/toss win vs korean terrans but foreign terrans cant win.
Also maybe once weve practiced another year foreign terrans will have caught up they might not start destroying tourneys like lets say a stephano right now but atleast theyll be able to take games of koreans. In the end every player has a max potential and it seems the way that koreans have a very clean and fast method to reach this quick where as foreigners are a bit more scrappy in their practice. So maybe it just takes some time to catch up. Tho this is by no means accurate theres a good chance koreans will keep leaping ahead. Well just have to wait for the expansions and hope they will balance the race skill ceilings a bit better.
I think europeans players practice style is the problem, when Korean terrans hit a tricky build on ladder they keep playing against that build in customs until they've figured out the answer. When eu players play against a tricky build they watch a replay and then they cue up next ladder game. I feel Koreans have a bigger emphasise on execution also, keep executing a certain build in a certain scenario until its perfected.
I don't know why the Kor-non kor race balance is so different. It's a really hard question, and one that informs a lot of the questionable balance decisions blizzard has been making.
Race design in sc2 is the real elephant in the room for the game and I think that is what is being implied here. You can make all the excuses for why foreign terrans arent good compared to foreign protoss/zerg, but the issue lies in race design problems in sc2... yet there is nothing we can do about it, i just wish that people would stop trying to make excuses for blizzard and demand they actually do something about it.
I refuse to accept that the foreign players that have beaten top koreans in tournaments would have done so if they were terran players. as a dumb example yet a poignant one, MKP had to nuke his whole damn army to lose to one of NAs top terrans. yet getting a little too greedy or making a small micro mistake would lose him a match or series to a top NA protoss or zerg.
On February 22 2012 10:00 tdt wrote: It's the most microable race and Koreans have high APM to do it.
Look at their units. All the infantryman with stim. Dropships. Ghosts. Banshee w cloak, Tanks. etc - all require crazy micro to use properly. Protoss has some like blink or FF or HT but most are just 1A and retreat micro. Zerg basically every unit is 1A retreat. Notice how good foreign Zergs are?
I too agree with this.
Terran as a race has an incredible ability to punish mistakes. Not watching your minimap? Hellion runby. Stim drop snipes tech. Not scouting? Cloakshees. Tech switch through reactor/tech lab switching. Not watching you army? Siege tanks just ripped it apart from the high ground. Not pressuring enough? Mule spam (don't have to use scan).
But really, only Korean players on very rigorous practice schedules to keep their game sense in tip-top shape have the ability to abuse all of these options to their fullest effect. Foreigners might recognize some timings and the larger mistakes, but Koreans, with their generally very high APM, will exploit ALL of your mistakes, hitting you from multiple sides at once.
Zerg player getting too much map control? Mass drops and hellion runbies to keep him in his base, all the while sieging the center to take control back. Protoss player giving you trouble? Stim drop to snipe tech with 2 reactored hellions in a different expansion. Then still manage to hit a nice timing window and stop the toss from taking their next base.
It's the different ways in which they use the aggressive capabilities of their race that separate Korean terrans from foreigners.
Agree with everyone talking about Terran micro. The race is by far the best design when talking about skill ceiling. It provides way more utility than Protoss and Zerg and allows for more complicated play and complex strategy. Imagine if splitting Zerg units made a difference or stutter-step was as big of a deal for Protoss. When I off-race Terran I find that my focus is mostly on army control but when I'm on my main account as Zerg my lifeline is based on solid macro and expanding. The only Zerg units that are microable with any real result are mutas and infestors. Lings, roaches, banes, hydras, corrupters, ultras and broodlords all have almost no real micro for a couple of reasons. The first is that many are melee units and the only objective is to be right up next to the target. The second is based on mobility. Hydras, corrupters, ultras and broodlords are all limited by mobility in some fashion (either being slow, large or both). Consequently, these are almost always single use units and fill niche roles in many cases. Lings and roaches seem to be the only catchall units that aren't micro-intensive.
There isn't such thing as an a-move Terran unit besides maybe BCs and this comes back down to mobility. This is why Korean Terran's will always have to be nerfed in WoL. It's because their skill is dictating how good the race is, not the race's balance. This is why I think HotS is going to be amazing for Zerg. With the addition of two micro-intensive units in the Viper and potentially the Swarm Host we should see a much more dynamic Zerg race. Protoss still hang in the balance and the only thing that has been done to help the race is to change how strong units are. As result, the high level players have less chance to maximize Zerg and Protoss. I think the addition of micro based units is something that will help level the game out in this regard and we'll likely start seeing nerfs for the other two races as top-tiered Koreans use skill to increase each unit's effectiveness.
In comparison to foreigners, the Korean work ethic is just better. There might be individual foreign players with comparable training schedules to Koreans but teams aren't the same for foreign players. If there were more team houses that operated as intensely as a Korean team house then I would imagine foreign players, Terran in particular, would have the ability to squeeze every ounce of usefulness from their units as well.
Honestly I think Koreans are based more on Timing Attacks in TvP. They seem to try to end the game before the 15 minute mark. I feel that the Terran army gets weaker vs. Protoss after the 18ish minute mark when 3-3 hits, and Protoss likely has Charge/HTs and Col in production. It forces too many units from Terran, you have to halt Medivac production, make sure you have Ghost Academy, and upgrading Mobius Reactor and Cloak. On top of that Terran will typically have 6-8 Barracks w/ 5-6 Tech Labs. Slows Marauder Production, and takes lots of gas. Soon when 3-3 hits Terran is still likely behind on Upgrades, has to deal w/ Storms, Archon, Chargelot, and Colosuss. So w/ low Medivac count, and needing around 10-14 Vikings to effectively deflect the Colosuss before they do significant splash damage to the Terran Bio. On top of that Ghosts are required to be near the front to keep HTs from Getting their storm off before EMP, thus making them VERY vulnerable to Chargelots if they have 1 Ob. I fell that Terran really relies on the Protoss player to make a mistake in the late game. This is my opinion of TvP, and I've been preaching it for quite sometime now, and my theory proved me even more correct when MarineKing gave a similar opinion on GSL's Off The Record.
I think that someone should do some investigating and see Terran's win rate after the 15 Minute mark in TvP. Maybe check all the games from MLG Columbus to Providence, also see stats from GSL, and other leagues where there are top tiered Koreans and Foreigners compete. This is definitely something worth looking into. I have a feeling that Terran's win rate drops to around 35% after the 15 minute mark.
TvZ I feel the same about. Mutas push Terran towards a couple Thors, thus limiting the Tank production. If Terran isn't careful the Thor can easily be taking out via Magic Boxing Mutas. Once Infestors hit and Hive tech finishes Terran is in trouble, especially after the recent patch(they really should have just removed scroll click, and not nerf Ghosts). Once again w/ Medivac production grinding to a halt, and Vikings come into play. On top of that you are making Ghosts, trying to keep a constant flow of Tanks, expanding, and trying to be aggressive as possible. All of this can be difficult to handle even at the highest of levels. Its a match up that I feel Zerg has to make the mistake for Terran to get the upper hand in the late game. Terran can be very strong in the early game, but that early aggression can also be stopped quite quickly and easily by Zerg. That is why I think more Foreigners prefer to do early CC builds in the MU. It seems safer, but I feel positions on the maps can play too much of a role in going FE.
Just my opinion of the MU, and I am sure I'll get plenty of hate for it :D
On February 22 2012 11:11 Grohg wrote: There isn't such thing as an a-move Terran unit besides maybe BCs and this comes back down to mobility. This is why Korean Terran's will always have to be nerfed in WoL. It's because their skill is dictating how good the race is, not the race's balance. This is why I think HotS is going to be amazing for Zerg. With the addition of two micro-intensive units in the Viper and potentially the Swarm Host we should see a much more dynamic Zerg race. Protoss still hang in the balance and the only thing that has been done to help the race is to change how strong units are. As result, the high level players have less chance to maximize Zerg and Protoss. I think the addition of micro based units is something that will help level the game out in this regard and we'll likely start seeing nerfs for the other two races as top-tiered Koreans use skill to increase each unit's effectiveness.
Micro-intensive units? I'm sorry but what?
Viper micro currently consist of throwing down 1-2 clouds at the start of the fight. Swarm hosts seem literally impossible to micro, you just set a rally point for the locusts and thats it.
Ultralisk charge and moving burrowed banes mean those units will actually need less micro. If things stay the way they are, zerg will actually be EASIER to play.
On February 22 2012 11:11 Grohg wrote: There isn't such thing as an a-move Terran unit besides maybe BCs and this comes back down to mobility. This is why Korean Terran's will always have to be nerfed in WoL. It's because their skill is dictating how good the race is, not the race's balance. This is why I think HotS is going to be amazing for Zerg. With the addition of two micro-intensive units in the Viper and potentially the Swarm Host we should see a much more dynamic Zerg race. Protoss still hang in the balance and the only thing that has been done to help the race is to change how strong units are. As result, the high level players have less chance to maximize Zerg and Protoss. I think the addition of micro based units is something that will help level the game out in this regard and we'll likely start seeing nerfs for the other two races as top-tiered Koreans use skill to increase each unit's effectiveness.
Micro-intensive units? I'm sorry but what?
Viper micro currently consist of throwing down 1-2 clouds at the start of the fight. Swarm hosts seem literally impossible to micro, you just set a rally point for the locusts and thats it.
Ultralisk charge and moving burrowed banes mean those units will actually need less micro. If things stay the way they are, zerg will actually be EASIER to play.
I don't think you understand that you wont' just burrow the swarm host and let their units go. You will want to control when they go, where they go, and not let them get surrounded kind of like the lurker in that aspect.
I mean by your logic in BW there wasn't lurker micro, it was just burrow and watch their spines hit enemy units which isn't true at all.
Same with the viper/defiler. Both require micro you are just looking at it to simple. Actually re-reading your post I am pretty sure you don't know what you are talking about -_-.
I understand that these units are more strategic and take more careful use and planning that most zerg units, however that is not the same as micro intensive. Marines are micro intensive, hellions are micro intensive. You probably have to keep a constant eye on your swarm host so that it doesnt get sniped, but there really isn't much micro involved once it is burrowed, other than retreating if needed. That does not require excellent mechanics to pull off the way a marine split does. A lurker comparision is kinda stupid since lurkers only had pretty short range and an AOE attack that depended largely on positioning, whereas swarm hosts seem like siege units that are meant to be kept out of harms way just spitting out units.
Actually, the more I look at these units the more I think they just force the terran opponent to react with, you guessed it, more micro. Vipers and swarmhosts force you to constantly reposition your army, which is easier said than done when siege tanks are involved. Burrow-charging ultralisks mean that the terran needs to have perfect control to get a cost effective trade, unless ultras get nerfed heavily and you can just tank them with your own units.
Korean Terrans just abuse their multi-tasking and micro capabilities, and they as a whole are totally devoted to all-out aggression. NOT all-in, but always poking and prodding, and if they find even the smallest weakness or gap they can exploit, they'll attack and cause damage. I think foreign players are too regimented in their timings and gameplay. Whenever I watch Thorzain play (not to shit on his play, spoon terran's a wrecking ball), he has a set of really predictable attacks he likes to do such as waiting for 4 medivacs and +1, and then attacking another Terran. But whenever I watch Taeja or MMA play, they seem to throw units everywhere. In TvZ, the moment MMA gets his first medivac he starts dropping, and he continues to drop regardless of the consequences, whereas Thorzain will wait for more medivacs or tanks and then drop.
On February 22 2012 11:11 Grohg wrote: There isn't such thing as an a-move Terran unit besides maybe BCs and this comes back down to mobility. This is why Korean Terran's will always have to be nerfed in WoL. It's because their skill is dictating how good the race is, not the race's balance. This is why I think HotS is going to be amazing for Zerg. With the addition of two micro-intensive units in the Viper and potentially the Swarm Host we should see a much more dynamic Zerg race. Protoss still hang in the balance and the only thing that has been done to help the race is to change how strong units are. As result, the high level players have less chance to maximize Zerg and Protoss. I think the addition of micro based units is something that will help level the game out in this regard and we'll likely start seeing nerfs for the other two races as top-tiered Koreans use skill to increase each unit's effectiveness.
Micro-intensive units? I'm sorry but what?
Viper micro currently consist of throwing down 1-2 clouds at the start of the fight. Swarm hosts seem literally impossible to micro, you just set a rally point for the locusts and thats it.
Ultralisk charge and moving burrowed banes mean those units will actually need less micro. If things stay the way they are, zerg will actually be EASIER to play.
I don't think you understand that you wont' just burrow the swarm host and let their units go. You will want to control when they go, where they go, and not let them get surrounded kind of like the lurker in that aspect.
I mean by your logic in BW there wasn't lurker micro, it was just burrow and watch their spines hit enemy units which isn't true at all.
Same with the viper/defiler. Both require micro you are just looking at it to simple. Actually re-reading your post I am pretty sure you don't know what you are talking about -_-.
From what we seen of the swarm host, the locusts are way to slow for any decent micro. So you run to an enemy army while on fire, burrow your swarm host and then those sloooow things pop up and your opponent can basically focus fire them down. Lurker could run in burrow, and kept attacking at a decent speed.
People will just eventually come to terms that Terran isn't a viable race for the overwhelming percentage of players. The only people successful with it are ex A-level broodwar players pretty much.
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.
One part of the problem lies in the lategame. unfortunately, lets face it, terran is the weakest race in the lategame. Both zerg and protoss have features that give a superstrong lategame. For Protoss it is Warpgate with the ability to almost instaremax and for Zerg it is a vioelet map full of creep and hundreds of larva that allow for relatively fast remaxes and even more brutal techswitches from broodlord to ultra for example. The only really great thing for terrans in lategame is sacrificing scvs and building orbitals. Planetarys are pretty much useless vs 3/3 armies. Here an interestig thread to how races do in endgame compared to earlygame:Thread I think that foreigners tend to be players that have their own style that they want to carry on to the end game for a "sure" win. The koreans and im talking about the code S pros tend to favor a lot more harrasment playstyles and timing attacks, that surprisingly also take sick amounts of micro to pull off, but more often than not end the game in the midgame.
Also a foreign teran will have a much harder time to invent the same good thoughtout builds that the collective genius of a a SlayersTeam house can create.
Last but not least there is micro: Terran doesnt have melee units to begin with.Melee units need the fewest babysitting of all units: you attack and if u lose you retreat. Ranged units have to run from melee units (Zergling zealot ultra [also banelings]) . if they dont run the battle produces a miserable result for the ranged units. As terran has no melee units to tank vs other melee units the terran army has to run and stutter step a lot which requires more practice and apm. About splash units: Terran have the siege tank which again needs a lot of babysitting because you have to siege and unsiege and also if you unsiege all at onetime you just lose. protoos and zerg have walking splashunits baneling ultra and coloss and also spellcasters that destroy terrans army if not perfectly split.
Hence terran needs a higher amount of clicks and actions in battles to be costeffective. This favours korean terran because of the special "Korean blood: u gain double apm" ability.
here is the problem: If played perfectly terran is stronger than the other races: perfect marine splits could potentially defeat every zerg and also medivacs provide the ability for players to shine with insane multitasking.
Thats why we still see many korean terrans do so well in Code S where players have hours and hours of practice for their micro and also, importantly, compared to foreign pros who farm their money in playhem dailys and zotacs other weeklys etc.. the GSL players have weeks to practie builds that are perfect for a specific -map and play of your oponnent- scenario which gives terrans better opportunities to pull off well thoughtout allins that can deny a zerg or protoss a comfortable late game.
I don't think it has anything to do with korean play more agressive than others. I have seen the game that MVP played really passive and really save but still win.In fact Most of his games are like that. He know what he is doing. Many terran players including me just want to drop/harass for the sake of drop and don't do any damage. MVP knows what he should do at every stage of game and he can excute it really well. I don't agree that you have to play like MMA to win a game as terran too except maybe TvP at this state. I think it's all about mechanic. Korean terrans just have much better mechanic than foreigners. I see foreigners terran do the same strats as korean all the time but it just doesn't work.
Interesting topic. My observation is that foreigners (and not just Terran players) seem to be caught up in this mentality of trying to play a theoretically perfect game, where their opponent never had an opportunity to kill them and where they never risked overextending with any aggression of their own. It's actually quite a pervasive attitude in the international SC2 community that anything risky or unsafe is somehow a "cheesy" or improper way of playing the game, and you see it from pro players and non-players alike.
Korean players (again, not just the Terrans), in contrast, seem to see the game as one of taking calculated risks, and are perfectly comfortable playing in a way that is not at all safe as long as they believe, based on their many thousands of games of experience taking risks and having risks taken against them, that the potential reward outweighs the risk. I'm not privy to the details of foreigners practice regimens, but I wonder if in practice, they generally play too passively and conservatively to develop this game sense for when certain risks are worth taking and when they are not. In tournament games, most foreigners seem to usually (if not overwhelmingly) play a very passive, conservative, risk-averse style, and when they do go all in, it is usually a very basic prepared all-in that they were intending to do from the start of the game, and very often, the all-in does not appear very practiced. In contrast, much Korean play revolves around executing builds that can branch into different possible timings or all-ins depending on what the player is able to scout and what he thinks his opponent is thinking. Because Koreans have so much experience playing aggressively and taking calculated risks, they seem to have a sense for when a particular attack--whether it's just a small poke or a complete all-in--is likely enough to be successful that it's a smart risk to take, and similarly they have a sense for the opportunity to take smart economic risks, not as a specifically prepared strategy but as a reaction to what they see from their opponent in-game.
So what does this have to do with Terran in particular? I think the answer is that Terran benefit most from this kind of unpredictable, risky style of play. It allows them to put their opponent in the position where they feel like they are playing a guessing game. It makes them nervous, uncertain, and forces mistakes. And it helps them get substantially ahead or end the game before Zerg and Protoss are able to create their most cost-efficient endgame unit compositions, which Terrans (even Korean Terrans) are struggling to overcome right now.
As for what you should do about it and how you can fix it? It's hard because the majority of the protosses and zergs you will play and practice with will do strange and stupid builds with suboptimal execution. It's hard to practice "intensity" vs. this kind of opposition.
They will not challenge you once you've taken control of that xelnaga watch tower. They will not react to your play or your army movement but instead do the same build and same attacks that they always do and did. So how can you practice intensive play when you already have control of the xelnaga tower, and already have map control without the oppnent challening you? So how can you practice army movement when your opponent is too stupid to notice, and when it is smarter or more effective for you to just wait for them to kill themselves by doing a nonsensical attack on you?
You could practice these things with stephano, nerchio and ret maybe. The rest would not be intensive enough for you to gain speed from.
On February 22 2012 08:47 dgwow wrote: Must have been said a thousand times in the forum but I'll say it again:
Koreans have the required multitasking proficiency to use terran to its potential, whereas foreigners do not. While varied builds also matter, as in the case of ThorZaIN who makes amazing builds, the koreans who can multitask the best (MMA, MVP, Jjakji) are exceptionally good terrans.
I didn't follow BW but I hear that besides the few top terrans that terran does badly ? I suppose that supports this theory since terran is relatively unchanged from BW in essence.
I have my own pet theory for why foreign T struggles against Zerg. Which is kind of from the same multi-task angle.
I think everyone accepts that Zerg for instance will have a supply lead going into 3 bases (especially since they're supposed to take that 3rd earlier).
The solution to this has roughly been: * all-in (4 gate, marine - scv) * timing attack (3 tank push, ect) * harass the hell out of them (reactored hellions, cloaked banshees, drops) * macro like your life depends on it
I feel that for the 4th one; Protoss could get away with turtled into a max-ed out deathball, while only Korean Terran makes a concerted attempt to keep that supply gap from getting out of control just with macro (as opposed to relying on slowing down the Zerg economy). This is while doing all the other things people in the thread have mentioned (being active on the map, clearing towers, map control, not being caught out of position, ect).
I'll admit I don't watch a lot of the European / NA scene, but when I do; I feel that foreign Terrans really concede a big supply deficit against Zerg. I've seen some IPL games where the Terran was 40 supply behind the Zerg on 3 bases, and that was considered 'ok'. When I watch GSL / GSTL it seems like Korean Terrans by contrast are much more capable of keeping up with Zerg supply (not saying Korean Terrans stay even; but that if they fall behind 30+ supply without anything happening they are considered to have been outplayed and in an unwinnable situation).
While it's easy to focus on MMA or even Gumiho's aggressive drop play; I'm more impressed by how little it effects their ability to defend a counterattack. I mean if you keep donating 10, 20 supply each drop you better be macro-ing well back home or you will be pretty opening your front door to a counter attack.
Of course advantages at micro help with this a lot too. Being able to split makes banelings less effective obviously; but if you do it really well, it means you can force the trade to be in your favor resource wise. Likewise, being good with drops will allow you to harass the Zerg economy, which means you have less macro-ing to do to keep up.
I'm not sure how to quantify the Korean micro advantage; but I do know that watching IPL I've seen Korean Terrans keep a constant supply lead against Foreign Zergs; so it's easy to say that Korean Terrans are just leaps and bounds ahead of Foreign Terrans macro wise.
Then again, this is just my observations; not actual analysis of replays and all.
I think this is a good thread to ask you (lot of high level players gathered in this thread).
I play on low level (gold) and most of this discussion doesn't even apply to me since games are decided in one big 1-A battle in gold league.
But my question is:
Mech "seems" like a non-micro alternative playstyle to terran. Why doesn't mech work on high level play vs zerg (or does it?) and specially vs protoss.
Looking from the low level perspective, there are so much aoe spellcasters from protoss an immidiate observation from my pov is "why not go mech where all the spellcaster would be useless to thors/tanks/hellions"?
I haven't really come to the point where mech doesn't work. In gold level mech always work
On February 22 2012 16:44 papaz wrote: C C C C C Combo breaker.
I think this is a good thread to ask you (lot of high level players gathered in this thread).
I play on low level (gold) and most of this discussion doesn't even apply to me since games are decided in one big 1-A battle in gold league.
But my question is:
Mech "seems" like a non-micro alternative playstyle to terran. Why doesn't mech work on high level play vs zerg (or does it?) and specially vs protoss.
Looking from the low level perspective, there are so much aoe spellcasters from protoss an immidiate observation from my pov is "why not go mech where all the spellcaster would be useless to thors/tanks/hellions"?
I haven't really come to the point where mech doesn't work. In gold level mech always work
Mech is immobile, so good players can exploit that fairly easily and also they are way better at getting the right unit compositions. And against protoss zealot/archon/immortal wrecks mech.
I actually didn't notice it till you said it. I think thorzain has always been pretty solid and naama is improving a lot but I don't think up to korean standard since they are without a doubt the best. Personally I think the best concentration of great zergs are in Europe and the best concentration of good protoss players are in NA and the best concentration of terrans are in korea. Its an interesting thing about play styles between contenents. It would be an interesting study to do on race success from people from different regions.
On February 22 2012 16:44 papaz wrote: C C C C C Combo breaker.
I think this is a good thread to ask you (lot of high level players gathered in this thread).
I play on low level (gold) and most of this discussion doesn't even apply to me since games are decided in one big 1-A battle in gold league.
But my question is:
Mech "seems" like a non-micro alternative playstyle to terran. Why doesn't mech work on high level play vs zerg (or does it?) and specially vs protoss.
Looking from the low level perspective, there are so much aoe spellcasters from protoss an immidiate observation from my pov is "why not go mech where all the spellcaster would be useless to thors/tanks/hellions"?
I haven't really come to the point where mech doesn't work. In gold level mech always work
It works against Zerg, but it's map specific, and far less forgiving than a normal marine-tank army, so it's perceived as being less robust when you play against strong players. Protoss has too many units that do incredibly well against mech in general, so bio is still the only viable style at a high level of play.
--
Also, on the topic at hand, I think the main distinguishing factor between most korean terrans (minus Mvp, he's kind of an exception - what with the whole 'several levels above everyone' thing) and foreign terrans is to do with style.
The best comparison that crystallises this IMO is between sC, from team MVP, and Thorzain. It's not just that sC's more aggressive - he's more EVERYTHING. Never letting up on the pressure and forcing mistakes is what has worked the best for Terran thus far in SC2, and koreans have been the first to realise this. Playing a slow, chess-like macro game as Terran gives the opponent more room to breathe because he's not constantly under pressure, which is not what wins games most often.
So the statement is basically that Korean terrans excel because of aggression, and their superior mechanics for multitasking. But that raises the question: What about Mvp? Or Bomber? Neither of these guys play hyper-aggressive styles. (Mvp might not be a good example because he tends to play solid and safe in the early-midgame then go bonkers aggressive with multitasking in the lategame - but let's just assume he's playing his usual safe style) Yet, at their peaks, they were so far above the competition (excluding each other, obviously) that they would go on absurd winning streaks against other top koreans and make it look easy. What are they doing so different?
On February 22 2012 17:02 FlukyS wrote: I actually didn't notice it till you said it. I think thorzain has always been pretty solid and naama is improving a lot but I don't think up to korean standard since they are without a doubt the best. Personally I think the best concentration of great zergs are in Europe and the best concentration of good protoss players are in NA and the best concentration of terrans are in korea. Its an interesting thing about play styles between contenents. It would be an interesting study to do on race success from people from different regions.
The best concentration of all races are in Korea, and it's not even close.
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.
This post needs more love.
Even as a spectator who hardly knows all the subtle purposes of army movement I notice Koreans (of all races) actively being on the map a lot more than foreigners. Foreigners often seem very content with giving up map control, sit in their base, do their build and (hopefully) reacting in time to any attack/harass the opponent does, only to eventually move out at some certain timing. Koreans seem to consantly be looking to take advantage wherever an opportunity opens, where foreigners mostly want to react and defend until their build is complete.
Or maybe put another nice way: Koreans play more to win, foreigners play more to not lose.
On February 22 2012 16:44 papaz wrote: C C C C C Combo breaker.
I think this is a good thread to ask you (lot of high level players gathered in this thread).
I play on low level (gold) and most of this discussion doesn't even apply to me since games are decided in one big 1-A battle in gold league.
But my question is:
Mech "seems" like a non-micro alternative playstyle to terran. Why doesn't mech work on high level play vs zerg (or does it?) and specially vs protoss.
Looking from the low level perspective, there are so much aoe spellcasters from protoss an immidiate observation from my pov is "why not go mech where all the spellcaster would be useless to thors/tanks/hellions"?
I haven't really come to the point where mech doesn't work. In gold level mech always work
It works against Zerg, but it's map specific, and far less forgiving than a normal marine-tank army, so it's perceived as being less robust when you play against strong players. Protoss has too many units that do incredibly well against mech in general, so bio is still the only viable style at a high level of play.
--
Also, on the topic at hand, I think the main distinguishing factor between most korean terrans (minus Mvp, he's kind of an exception - what with the whole 'several levels above everyone' thing) and foreign terrans is to do with style.
The best comparison that crystallises this IMO is between sC, from team MVP, and Thorzain. It's not just that sC's more aggressive - he's more EVERYTHING. Never letting up on the pressure and forcing mistakes is what has worked the best for Terran thus far in SC2, and koreans have been the first to realise this. Playing a slow, chess-like macro game as Terran gives the opponent more room to breathe because he's not constantly under pressure, which is not what wins games most often.
So the statement is basically that Korean terrans excel because of aggression, and their superior mechanics for multitasking. But that raises the question: What about Mvp? Or Bomber? Neither of these guys play hyper-aggressive styles. (Mvp might not be a good example because he tends to play solid and safe in the early-midgame then go bonkers aggressive with multitasking in the lategame - but let's just assume he's playing his usual safe style) Yet, at their peaks, they were so far above the competition (excluding each other, obviously) that they would go on absurd winning streaks against other top koreans and make it look easy. What are they doing so different?
I dunno. Thoughts?
That's actually a really good question... I guess I'll attempt to answer it based on my limited viewing of Bomber's games. I'll limit this to TvT. Both Bomber and MVP seem to excel at early defense. It's been said time and time again, but these two guys were the best of the original 'macro Terrans' in GSL. They didn't lose units for free and they always played safely. In a lot of MVP and Bomber's mid 2011 games, they would turtle for a large portion of the early game, putting down bunkers and not devote themselves to any major attacks. At most, they pressure with marines and tanks, while keeping the main portion of their army at home. Instead, they would harass, typically with dropships, banshees, or reapers, and try to get an economic advantage over their opponents, while defending well at home against opponents who would always use aggression to try to break the front. Tastosis once said that MVP was so ridiculously largely because of his immaculate defense and his ability to hold any kind of attack his opponents threw at him in the early/mid game, which would only add on to his lead. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think MVP and Bomber knew that there were lots of aggressive players out there, so they decided to play it safe and let the opponents attack them. When they did, they would crush the attack, and then gain advantages there. Eventually, these small advantages would snowball and lead to aggressive mid/late game attacks when they felt that they had a sufficient lead. There dominance lies in the fact that their defense is so good and they can thus stave off any attacks with minimal losses. Just my 2 cents, with most assumptions based off of MVP's games.
On February 22 2012 16:44 papaz wrote: C C C C C Combo breaker.
I think this is a good thread to ask you (lot of high level players gathered in this thread).
I play on low level (gold) and most of this discussion doesn't even apply to me since games are decided in one big 1-A battle in gold league.
But my question is:
Mech "seems" like a non-micro alternative playstyle to terran. Why doesn't mech work on high level play vs zerg (or does it?) and specially vs protoss.
Looking from the low level perspective, there are so much aoe spellcasters from protoss an immidiate observation from my pov is "why not go mech where all the spellcaster would be useless to thors/tanks/hellions"?
I haven't really come to the point where mech doesn't work. In gold level mech always work
The simple answer is Charge Zealots. HT's also work very well against Banshee, BC's & Thor. You can drop energy on banshee but it not perfect.
On February 22 2012 16:44 papaz wrote: Mech "seems" like a non-micro alternative playstyle to terran. Why doesn't mech work on high level play vs zerg (or does it?) and specially vs protoss.
Looking from the low level perspective, there are so much aoe spellcasters from protoss an immidiate observation from my pov is "why not go mech where all the spellcaster would be useless to thors/tanks/hellions"?
I haven't really come to the point where mech doesn't work. In gold level mech always work
Mech is arguably a style that foreigners could have more success with, because it requires lower APM and is more macro- and positioning-based than the extremely fast and multi-tasking based bio play. If you want proof, just look at Goody, one of the slowest players but still quite successful.
The thing about mech is that just less powerful than bio-based play, at least in WoL. Its hard to be safe with in TvT, sucks against air in TvZ and sucks against everything in TvP. The good part is that HOTS seems to be looking to fix all that, with all the new units coming out of the factory probably making mech a much better alternative. For all we know, this "problem" of terran being harder to play might not even exist in HOTS.
are you using ur location keys f2 f3 f4 f5? i see almost (90%) of the korean pros use them alot. alot of foreign pros dont use them alot, eventhough alot of them try but still they tend to click on the minimap alot. why do i think its a good point? well i feel koreans are superior in their multitask. whenever i see koreans harass with units their money never gets up above 400mins while switching around buildings and stuff. watching alot of foreigners i feel like they are having some problems with it. when they are doing a medivac drop out of their 1-1-1 with hellion/marines against zerg i often see their minerals going above 800minerals, cuz they are so focust on their micro and they click much more often on the minimap what makes their game look very hectic. so as a result foreign terran playser became very very passive.
overall i just feel like korean terrans are much better at harassing and controlling the game than foreigners due to their superior mechanics.
On February 22 2012 16:44 papaz wrote: C C C C C Combo breaker.
I think this is a good thread to ask you (lot of high level players gathered in this thread).
I play on low level (gold) and most of this discussion doesn't even apply to me since games are decided in one big 1-A battle in gold league.
But my question is:
Mech "seems" like a non-micro alternative playstyle to terran. Why doesn't mech work on high level play vs zerg (or does it?) and specially vs protoss.
Looking from the low level perspective, there are so much aoe spellcasters from protoss an immidiate observation from my pov is "why not go mech where all the spellcaster would be useless to thors/tanks/hellions"?
I haven't really come to the point where mech doesn't work. In gold level mech always work
It works against Zerg, but it's map specific, and far less forgiving than a normal marine-tank army, so it's perceived as being less robust when you play against strong players. Protoss has too many units that do incredibly well against mech in general, so bio is still the only viable style at a high level of play.
--
Also, on the topic at hand, I think the main distinguishing factor between most korean terrans (minus Mvp, he's kind of an exception - what with the whole 'several levels above everyone' thing) and foreign terrans is to do with style.
The best comparison that crystallises this IMO is between sC, from team MVP, and Thorzain. It's not just that sC's more aggressive - he's more EVERYTHING. Never letting up on the pressure and forcing mistakes is what has worked the best for Terran thus far in SC2, and koreans have been the first to realise this. Playing a slow, chess-like macro game as Terran gives the opponent more room to breathe because he's not constantly under pressure, which is not what wins games most often.
So the statement is basically that Korean terrans excel because of aggression, and their superior mechanics for multitasking. But that raises the question: What about Mvp? Or Bomber? Neither of these guys play hyper-aggressive styles. (Mvp might not be a good example because he tends to play solid and safe in the early-midgame then go bonkers aggressive with multitasking in the lategame - but let's just assume he's playing his usual safe style) Yet, at their peaks, they were so far above the competition (excluding each other, obviously) that they would go on absurd winning streaks against other top koreans and make it look easy. What are they doing so different?
I dunno. Thoughts?
That's actually a really good question... I guess I'll attempt to answer it based on my limited viewing of Bomber's games. I'll limit this to TvT. Both Bomber and MVP seem to excel at early defense. It's been said time and time again, but these two guys were the best of the original 'macro Terrans' in GSL. They didn't lose units for free and they always played safely. In a lot of MVP and Bomber's mid 2011 games, they would turtle for a large portion of the early game, putting down bunkers and not devote themselves to any major attacks. At most, they pressure with marines and tanks, while keeping the main portion of their army at home. Instead, they would harass, typically with dropships, banshees, or reapers, and try to get an economic advantage over their opponents, while defending well at home against opponents who would always use aggression to try to break the front. Tastosis once said that MVP was so ridiculously largely because of his immaculate defense and his ability to hold any kind of attack his opponents threw at him in the early/mid game, which would only add on to his lead. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think MVP and Bomber knew that there were lots of aggressive players out there, so they decided to play it safe and let the opponents attack them. When they did, they would crush the attack, and then gain advantages there. Eventually, these small advantages would snowball and lead to aggressive mid/late game attacks when they felt that they had a sufficient lead. There dominance lies in the fact that their defense is so good and they can thus stave off any attacks with minimal losses. Just my 2 cents, with most assumptions based off of MVP's games.
That's actually a great point - their TvT success is based in large part on their response to the style they were playing against - very aggressive korean terrans. Defending well gives you the automatic edge in these situations. TvZ and TvP, though? TvP for Bomber, in particular, was always kinda incomprehensible for me - he would stay passive and play a lategame-oriented style straight up, without even trying to commit to any big damage early. Looking at today's situation, though (Terran whine about protoss lategame imba, etc) - how did he do that?
As for Mvp, his TvP was actually really special and unique. He virtually used marine/tank as a composition in the early-midgame, often building up to a crippling timing to get a significant lead (all too often straight up killing the opponent) and would then transition into a 'normal' macro game - except he was ahead because of the timing push he did. That always fascinated me, because it was as though he knew something no one else did - Terran doesn't have to deal with crazy protoss lategame potential as long as you move into the lategame with a lead and leverage that lead. And that marine/tank attacks off of 2 base were a great way to get that lead.
Meh. Just some thoughts. TvZ especially is the tough nut to crack, but since these macro terrans demonstrated that T can absolutely stay even - in fact, slightly ahead - of Z in supply while on even economy, even while being aggressive (see:MMA).
On February 22 2012 16:44 papaz wrote: Mech "seems" like a non-micro alternative playstyle to terran. Why doesn't mech work on high level play vs zerg (or does it?) and specially vs protoss.
Looking from the low level perspective, there are so much aoe spellcasters from protoss an immidiate observation from my pov is "why not go mech where all the spellcaster would be useless to thors/tanks/hellions"?
I haven't really come to the point where mech doesn't work. In gold level mech always work
Mech is arguably a style that foreigners could have more success with, because it requires lower APM and is more macro- and positioning-based than the extremely fast and multi-tasking based bio play. If you want proof, just look at Goody, one of the slowest players but still quite successful.
Goody, by the way, doesn't play mech in TvP anymore. He's said that it's just not good enough and plays bio in TvP these days.
Personally I think its just mechanics, yes their is Polt who is very slow, but he is somewhat of an exception because he understands the game so clearly. If you look however, he has been doing very poorly lately and I cant help but wonder if his slow speed finally caught up to him as everyone continually gets faster.
Just the other day I watched Taeja hold off like 50 banelings with a few marines, his micro and multitasking blew me away. I think as Terran those two things, micro and multitask really determine how good you can get. You can be super smart like Polt, but to be MVP and win every tournament, you need to be smart AND you need stupid good mechanics.
Frankly I do think that Terran has a much much higher skillcap than the other two races (just IMO) and so because of this Korean zergs and Protosses are much closer in "skill" to their foreign counterparts. You'll see people like Sheth take out Koreans like JYP and people like Naniwa take out koreans all the time, but you rarely see foreign Terrans (except maybe Kas/thorzain) take out top koreans.
On February 22 2012 16:44 papaz wrote: C C C C C Combo breaker.
I think this is a good thread to ask you (lot of high level players gathered in this thread).
I play on low level (gold) and most of this discussion doesn't even apply to me since games are decided in one big 1-A battle in gold league.
But my question is:
Mech "seems" like a non-micro alternative playstyle to terran. Why doesn't mech work on high level play vs zerg (or does it?) and specially vs protoss.
Looking from the low level perspective, there are so much aoe spellcasters from protoss an immidiate observation from my pov is "why not go mech where all the spellcaster would be useless to thors/tanks/hellions"?
I haven't really come to the point where mech doesn't work. In gold level mech always work
Mech has a bunch of problems vs Protoss that either have not been solved, or are not solveable. Goody played Mech vs Protoss and he switched to MMM because he thinks it is better, but he still says that Mech is doable, but you have to play very slow and methodical and slowpush with a maxed army and PFs... unless some Pros show some solid macro games, I don't think it is viable for anything else but some mixed in 2base cheeses. (though it is possible that a 2base cheese develops into a long game)
And if you play it vs good zergs, you will find out that just because it doesn't look impressivly difficult, getting out everything in time and matching an opponents economy and composition with such a defensive style is pretty hard. Just think about that: it took high level Zs and Ps a lot of time (and some balance changes) to figure their turtle styles out and get them to ~50% winrate vs T. So if you want to play Mech vs (good) Zergs, you will have like 5 people worldwide from which you can copy it... Also Mech being passive is not really true. Just like mutas you should always be on the map with hellions. Just because you don't win the game with those moves, doesn't mean that they are not important or demanding
Foreigners all suck dick because there's no incentive not to. This isn't unique to terran, terran just happens to be the one race that you wouldn't win 1/100 tourneys 1aing every time.
Also someone should take stats from a couple MLGs and GSLs about win %s of TvZ/TvP after 20, 30, 40 minutes, which just reinforces what I said about 1aing. I know there was a thread awhile back with this for a single MLG, but it'd be nice to have more so it's obvious.
Terran have most harassive units. Take reaper for example, you can get just one and be anoying for pretty long time, not even talking about banshee which can be cloaked, ranged, and flying, or hellions, who can kill any amount of workers within seconds. Add stim marine drops, with its insane DPS + medivacs, who are only dropships that increase army power.
In terms of balancing, these are not only posibilities, they also have its MUST inside. These possibilities are what makes TvP allins really strong, but their MUST makes lategame become weaker. In order to make it clearer, imagine you make your own RTS with 2 races. In one of them have way better harassive posibilities, they cannot be equaly good in other things. And to be honest, In (ab)using harassive possibilies of terran race to their limits, foreigners are really way way worse than Koreans, and they tend to forget harass is not only possibility, it is also must.
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.
I have to quote this just to say it's a very intelligent and constructive post.
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.
I have to quote this just to say it's a very intelligent and constructive post.
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 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.
I have to quote this just to say it's a very intelligent and constructive post.
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.
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 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.
I have to quote this just to say it's a very intelligent and constructive post.
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.
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.
Auctally I was meaning to be lighthearted about it. I guess it wasn't taken that way haha, respect to LaLush though for the post.
maybe blizzard can make the balance changes on different servers separately, that way, we wouldn't be affected by KR/ GSL results. i think that's the only why do make 50% win rate across the globe. tbh i think it makes lots of sense.....
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 20:27 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.
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.
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.
Your stream yesterday, "hyvä starcrafti". I think you nailed the issue there.
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.
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.
This comment reminded me of something I wanted to post about how I feel foreigners approach SC2.
Imagine a scenario where one guy had played so many macro games that he eventually found the "perfect" gameplan which had no weaknesses, it was so solid it could respond to anything as long as the player was competent. The guy starts beating very high level pros all the time.
What happens next? Every cheesy Korean player drops their all ins and start using this unbeatable build.. but now everyone is back to square one. It becomes a game of raw mechanics, which Koreans are spending 8+ hours a day practicing.
It seems like foreigners are waiting for this perfect build to come along which eliminates all cheese, or they want to find this perfect build and use it to become the best. Meanwhile Koreans are 4gating, creating various 2 base all ins, playing unsafe, etc. - but also WINNING tournaments. The point is that as soon as this perfect gameplan comes along which eliminates cheese the Koreans can pick it up and be as good as the guy who created it within a week or two. Don't sit around waiting for this perfect gameplan.
Just play the style which is winning -right now- until it gets figured out, and move on when the next trend comes along. That's how the Koreans treated 4gate.
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.
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.
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.
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.
yeah... the multi-pronged attacking doesn't necessarily need good multi-tasking because it's basically just a-moving and stimming 3 small bio balls individually.
but it definitely is a great example of how to take advantage of the most basic terran principle - the power of the medivac in 'mini battles'.
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.
Even if people can get arround the extremely steep learning curve of the Terran race , you get rewarded with extremely one dimensional play . No mater how you open it ends up being the same mid-late style over and over in non mirror matchups . All in or timing attacks !!! When ever normal play gets integrated into late game , it gets nerfed to hell
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.
wow, that's probably the best way summarize the toplevel Terran styles. MVP is a Genius
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.
Yeah because Terrans were only playing macro games at the beginning. True dat. Their build did not rely on all inning on 1 base at all. No, we definitely didn't ever see that.
Ooook sorry i did not provide link to my previous post. Here it is. Was trying to find it.
Sooo MVP says "You have to play aggressive. You should not let your opponent grow up. You shold play really low mineral. Both you and your opponent should play on low mineral."
"Both when you and your opponent are having a hard time with mining situations. The MULES will actually help you a lot. Provide you with more units to kill your opponent."
"You have to keep harrassing them. Just have to be agressive."
Link is below
Sorry i am gold league. But i thought it was interesting and simple what MVP said.
On February 22 2012 21:45 SpeakNow wrote: Ooook sorry i did not provide link to my previous post. Here it is. Was trying to find it.
Sooo MVP says "You have to play aggressive. You should not let your opponent grow up. You shold play really low mineral. Both you and your opponent should play on low mineral."
"Both when you and your opponent are having a hard time with mining situations. The MULES will actually help you a lot. Provide you with more units to kill your opponent."
"You have to keep harrassing them. Just have to be agressive."
On February 22 2012 17:09 Epoch wrote: The best concentration of all races are in Korea, and it's not even close.
Nope completely wrong and warped view on things. Of course nestea, leenock, losira and drg are some of the best on any day but really if you think Stephano, Nerchio, Delphi, Ret, TLO, Morrow and Dimaga aren't excellent players who can't compete against top level koreans you are one of those people I either think is 1. a troll or 2. a person who just is really short sightedly following the thread that koreans can't be stopped when it comes to starcraft.
I would even guess that Zergs from EU have won more prize money than any one else in SC2 (thanks to Stephano mainly but doesn't make it an invalid point).
On February 22 2012 17:09 Epoch wrote: The best concentration of all races are in Korea, and it's not even close.
Nope completely wrong and warped view on things. Of course nestea, leenock, losira and drg are some of the best on any day but really if you think Stephano, Nerchio, Delphi, Ret, TLO, Morrow and Dimaga aren't excellent players who can't compete against top level koreans you are one of those people I either think is 1. a troll or 2. a person who just is really short sightedly following the thread that koreans can't be stopped when it comes to starcraft.
I would even guess that Zergs from EU have won more prize money than any one else in SC2 (thanks to Stephano mainly but doesn't make it an invalid point).
Ignoring your first paragraph, your statement about winning prize money is wrong to such a degree that it casts doubt on how much you actually know about the Korean scene.
On February 21 2012 18:16 VPFaith wrote: Take EGPuma for example, he 1-2 base timing attack vs protoss almost every single game. Yes, he mix in with some 1 Rax FEs, but majorities of his victories are because of heavy harassment into 1-2 base timing attacks. As MC would put it, "You want to win tournaments? Timing Attack! Timing Attack!"
But such play is very unsafe. I mean if zerg/protoss knows you will do that - you are done. Do you propose just to rely on mixing strategies that he doesn't know how exactly you will all-in him? because 2 base attack is same all-in as 1 base in high level.
When you are playing in offline tournament, your mind functions differently because of many factors. The audience, computer set up, and who you are facing up against and more... Any of these factors can result in a bad decision. Yes, the player doing the all-in will take a great risk, but knowing if the timing attack is concealed well is key. And know if timing is scouted, what then? what decision is next leads to the result of the game. This is where the Koreans shine because most of them practise to these kind of situations, discuss with coaches, and practise non-stop in similar situations. For example, MarinekingPrime, always win most base trade situations or dire situations when 1 slight mistake will cost the game. As for foreign Terran players, we just focus too much on improving macro mechanics and fail in situations when the prepared strategies did not go as planned.
Koreans on the other hand, they train in critical situations when game did not go as planned. Foreigners do not have such advantage.
Like say Proxy Thor Push on Calm before the Storm vs Protoss, if the proxy is found, what is next? Or when the first Thor died, then what? Things like these are rarely discussed in the foreign community because we never take the time to analyze how to save bad situations into a well executed one that has a follow up. It's hard!
This is such a good post.
I hate, absolutely hate the prevalent foreign mindset that some how "Macro is good." I think it's a mindset that hold players back, especially when it comes to such a young game as SC2.
Even thought "safe" and "macro" oriented play is a good choice for the significantly stronger player; amongst evenly matched opponents a risky play-style has a significant advantage if the "safe" player is at all predictable. Risky play forces "safe" play from your opponent to be MORE "safe", where as safe, predictable play allows your opponent to gain advantages at low levels of risk exposure.
You never know what a Korean Terran is doing, they have such a breadth of all-ins and they often use it just to get a Best of X advantage in mind games.
1 rax gasless expo --> cloaked banshees blindly isn't the safest build in the world, but in a BoX series it tells the protoss that if he's gonna go fast 3 nexus --> 8 gate, he's gonna get punished (Gumiho vs. Puzzle).
On February 22 2012 17:09 Epoch wrote: The best concentration of all races are in Korea, and it's not even close.
Nope completely wrong and warped view on things. Of course nestea, leenock, losira and drg are some of the best on any day but really if you think Stephano, Nerchio, Delphi, Ret, TLO, Morrow and Dimaga aren't excellent players who can't compete against top level koreans you are one of those people I either think is 1. a troll or 2. a person who just is really short sightedly following the thread that koreans can't be stopped when it comes to starcraft.
I would even guess that Zergs from EU have won more prize money than any one else in SC2 (thanks to Stephano mainly but doesn't make it an invalid point).
You're listing players that on their best day could take a couple game off Koreans and comparing them to korean players that have dominated in a league which no foreigner except Huk has found sustained success in?
No, Sorry. You're the one with a completely warped view on things.
I think that the korean terrans, aside from having better mechanics and "multitasking", all share one thing-- their aggression without losing units carelessly. These terran players push all of their units to the limit, forcing the most gain with the least amount of loss. They get it when it comes to knowing how and when to push out on the field with units so that they don't lose them without huge benefit, or at all even. For example, they always seem to be everywhere in a TvP with their bio, which allows them to take advantage of any weak spot in the Protoss defense. They only do this after they get stim or medivacs, as forcefield would force the inefficient loss of units. To be honest, the only foreigner who I have seen do this with success is ProTech, the former top 2v2 player, who played zerg (for crying out loud!).
On February 22 2012 17:09 Epoch wrote: The best concentration of all races are in Korea, and it's not even close.
Nope completely wrong and warped view on things. Of course nestea, leenock, losira and drg are some of the best on any day but really if you think Stephano, Nerchio, Delphi, Ret, TLO, Morrow and Dimaga aren't excellent players who can't compete against top level koreans you are one of those people I either think is 1. a troll or 2. a person who just is really short sightedly following the thread that koreans can't be stopped when it comes to starcraft.
I would even guess that Zergs from EU have won more prize money than any one else in SC2 (thanks to Stephano mainly but doesn't make it an invalid point).
Ignoring your first paragraph, your statement about winning prize money is wrong to such a degree that it casts doubt on how much you actually know about the Korean scene.
You're listing players that on their best day could take a couple game off Koreans and comparing them to korean players that have dominated in a league which no foreigner except Huk has found sustained success in?
No, Sorry. You're the one with a completely warped view on things.
Well if you hold an event in korea you hardly expect every good player to pick up and leave to compete in it. People have responsibilities at home or maybe they just don't want to head to a completely different culture with a different language. There has never been any event that has had every good pro player its always mix and match of players like this weekend there is mlg and assembly and the iron squid and the players are split between those events. You can say GSL is the be all and end all of everything in SC2 but you would be very wrong like Stephano hasn't played there does that mean he is worse than nestea? The answer is no.
On February 23 2012 08:07 wklbishop wrote:
Ignoring your first paragraph, your statement about winning prize money is wrong to such a degree that it casts doubt on how much you actually know about the Korean scene.
EDIT: Let me correct myself, rather than Korean scene, more like those Korean terrans that this thread is talking about.
Well Stephano made the biggest single prize last year from IPL, to correct myself for a second here I am guessing but if you think about the events outside of korea and add up the prize money it would be pretty even between koreans and non koreans so I retract that statement.
You're listing players that on their best day could take a couple game off Koreans and comparing them to korean players that have dominated in a league which no foreigner except Huk has found sustained success in?
No, Sorry. You're the one with a completely warped view on things.
Well if you hold an event in korea you hardly expect every good player to pick up and leave to compete in it. People have responsibilities at home or maybe they just don't want to head to a completely different culture with a different language. There has never been any event that has had every good pro player its always mix and match of players like this weekend there is mlg and assembly and the iron squid and the players are split between those events. You can say GSL is the be all and end all of everything in SC2 but you would be very wrong like Stephano hasn't played there does that mean he is worse than nestea? The answer is no.
Ignoring your first paragraph, your statement about winning prize money is wrong to such a degree that it casts doubt on how much you actually know about the Korean scene.
EDIT: Let me correct myself, rather than Korean scene, more like those Korean terrans that this thread is talking about.
Well Stephano made the biggest single prize last year from IPL, to correct myself for a second here I am guessing but if you think about the events outside of korea and add up the prize money it would be pretty even between koreans and non koreans so I retract that statement.
Stephano and Naniwa might be the only big name foreigners that have yet to compete actively in the GSL. However, they both got knocked out of the first round of Blizzard Cup, which was a Korean/Gom tournament.
It's possible that both could have some success in the GSL, it's also very possible that both would get knocked out of the first round of Code A in the same way that Idra, Huk, Sase, Sheth, Sen, Select, and Morrow have all been knocked out recently.
It's one thing to go knock out Koreans that have yet to study your play at IPL, its another thing when you've become famous (as stephano has now) and your replays are readily available for study and the unknown korean from Code B studies your every replay with a coach to find any edge they can. Can Stephano survive in GSL? Who knows, but until its proven otherwise, foreigners are having trouble holding a spot there despite all the free seeds that Gom gives out.
Yup army movement and control is what makes the difference the thing is whenever you first try to move around bravely with your army you get crushed a thousand times before you master it. It's like a terran tries to move his army around taldarim like MMA does he just get crushed when caught unsieged or whatever so then the terran player that tries this goes ''i guess i shouldnt have my army in the middle of the map like that'' wich ultimately creates the terran playstyle that is weaker than the one of the koreans. This reminds me of a comment day9 made about how huk plays his matchups. Huk feigns alot of agression wich allows him to cut corners this is why huk is better than most foreigners even though his builds arent out of the ordinary.
I like how almost no one feigns pushes on eu server, I play very high masters and the terrans i see never fake push and expand or fake push then push a few minute later with a higher siege tank count. It just seems that if you dont see direct results you wont do it. The reason you could give for koreans that ARE doing this is that their zerg buddies from the team house they practice 10 hours a day in will dude try to move your army here and there or do this and that. Also if one player of the team gets it the other players will soon pick up on it in a team situation. I think terran has to step it up after all the nerfs. Before this push used to always kill zerg, zerg adapts, terran still tries the way of executing pushes.
Well Stephano made the biggest single prize last year from IPL, to correct myself for a second here I am guessing but if you think about the events outside of korea and add up the prize money it would be pretty even between koreans and non koreans so I retract that statement.
wtf korea has one tournament and the rest of the world has hundreds. would there be in all these tournames koreans it would be not even.
Very few foreign players of any race combine being aggressive with being macro centric. Almost all foreign players are extremely passive and turtly (Ret, Idra, Kas, Happy, Strelok, Socke, Stephano, Morrow, HasuObs, Thorzain) with the exception of a small number of cheesy players (Naama, Elfi).
Where as Korean Terran all play like MVP, Bomber, MKP and MMA who are very aggressive all the time and never just spend all game sat in their base until max but neither are they flat out all inning and cheesing when they get aggressive.
I think foreign Terran's are too passive (except for the game where they intend to cheese) which doesn't suit the race.
I also think foreign Terran's have poor micro compared to Koreans across all races and this shows the most for Terran as they are the most micro centric race.