(i picked this section as it deals with the strategy and the metagame as well as the shifts in metagame in KR and EU)
I was just watching an interview with Mana who recently moved to Korea to live in the GOM house and participate in the GSL.
There is one thing that he said that made me wonder and start the discussion on this forum. Mana Speaks about Korean terrans being soo much better than the European ones. He Said that Korean diamond players are as good as high master players in Europe. Now this is a big deal. And no im not talking about koreans being better than foreigners as we all knew that for ages.
Is there something that the EU/NA players are missing? I mean how come there is such a huge gap between the korean terrans and us.Maybe there is some one out there that played on a korean ladder and knows the answer to this. Is it just the fact that they are more agro than we are? I myself im a mid diamond terran and i try to be as aggressive as possible in game but sometimes i feel like im overdoing it... which leads to a sour lose.
Next thing i wanted to talk about is the korean metagame, i have seen an interview today with InControll this time, and he talks about this amazing 3 gate timing push which he never seen before because no one on the NA ladder does it. I mean.... how are Koreans comming up with these funky builds.To me it feels like we are trying to mimic what the Koreans are doing. I myself have been playing the same style of TvT for over 6 months at this stage, the same would be said for TvP. How can a player like me, or in this case any other master or high diamond player come up with his own build which will catch his enemy off guard?And what do you guys think is the difference between the way Koreans play terran and the way we Koreans play terran here in Europe.
I think Korean's have a more competitive environment. They would be more exposed to the Korean SC2 scene, so would be more inspired to practice more. Also, having the top players in the world on the same ladder as you will help. Top players make the almost top players better. They make people slightly below them better.
Making a new strat is all about not giving a shit about ladder points. :D Think of something. Do it. Work? Try it again. Work this time? Who cares. Improve it until it does. Or until you want to shoot a kitten with poisoned bullets.
On August 26 2012 23:54 ma70 wrote: Koreans practice more. That's it. Of course, there are just some with natural talent.
Of course they do, but look at the difference between EU Z and P and KR Z and P, now look at the EU T and at the KR T, I mean on one side you got guys able to compete consistently against the top KR ( Stephano / NaNiwa ) and on the other side you've got plenty of average Terrans, some way better but not showing results ( Kas i'm looking at you ) and then only 1 Terran that actually wins stuff, Thorzain.
There has to be something else than just practice because I doubt the Terrans practice less than the Zergs and Protoss ( Kas 13k5 games on the ladder kekeke ), maybe it's in the mentality or because of the mechanics required that are too much, but there's something
Koreans started sc2 with an advantage, most top SC2 pros were BW players... not great BW players, but pros living in team houses none the less. So they had a higher density of good players to start with and add on top of that the practice regiments they brought over from BW.
I play on the korean server, I am in diamond on EU/US and was in plat on KR but I didn't play for a couple seasons on KR and re placed in Silver, I play mostly top8 gold players and my god can they play. If i met a gold player on any other server I would just rush them and win in 6 mins, on korea tho the quality of players is just a lot higher. They have a higher density of good players than just about anywhere else.
The reason why diamond players on KR are high master anywhere else is because to be in master you have to be in the top 2% of players and as KR server has such a density of good players, being in that top 2% is stupidly difficult. I am willing to bet that GM in korea is taken up almost exclusively by pros and their smurf accounts, there probably isn't many non pro players (and by pro I mean real pro's on one of the big teams) in korea GM like there are in EU/US. Same goes for master, most of that top 2% is probably taken up by pro's who can't make it in to GM, B teamers and semi-pro's. Hell I'd be willing to bet there are some pro's who are only diamond if they don't ladder much.
A higher density of good players with whom you can practice produces even more good players. I just wish I didn't have half a sec latency to korea, then I might be able to play my best and improve more rapidly ;p
Terran is a harder race, not everyone can play at a good level. Toss and Zerg do not need skill at all, they just need knowledge and everything is fine, thats why you dont see big difference betwen foreigners and koreans.
ofcourse its not practice... i mean look at kas's profile.
Me myself have been living like a progammer during the summer :D, i mean 8 hours of playing a day, (from 9-23) with brakes tranings etc etc, and the biggest improvement was from going top plat to going mid diamond :D i mean come on there is something im doing terribly wrong, im justr trying to understand, what is it that we Europeans and Americans do differently.
I feel it's just due to mentality of foreign Terrans. I'm in masters EU as protoss and nearly 100% of my PvT's are when T's 1 rax expand. I've seen a lot of KR terrans' get gas and do proxy 2 rax's and marauder proxy's etc. which make the whole ladder of toss's play a lot more safe.
Speaking from personal experience Terran mechanics are way way way more complicated than Protoss (no mechanics required) or Zerg (hit injects). The whole concept of having a macro cycle seems to evade Terrans.
That is to say, you need to have a very strict structure to your multitasking as Terran, and just playing the game won't get you there. The macro cycle concept has not been popularised outside of KR I believe.
On August 27 2012 00:17 Bonneyi wrote: ofcourse its not practice... i mean look at kas's profile.
Me myself have been living like a progammer during the summer :D, i mean 8 hours of playing a day, (from 9-23) with brakes tranings etc etc, and the biggest improvement was from going top plat to going mid diamond :D i mean come on there is something im doing terribly wrong, im justr trying to understand, what is it that we Europeans and Americans do differently.
Dear god, I would shoot myself if all I could do is plat to diamond playing 8 hours a day for a summer. I play like 5 hours a week maybe for mid masters.
On August 27 2012 00:17 Bonneyi wrote: ofcourse its not practice... i mean look at kas's profile.
Me myself have been living like a progammer during the summer :D, i mean 8 hours of playing a day, (from 9-23) with brakes tranings etc etc, and the biggest improvement was from going top plat to going mid diamond :D i mean come on there is something im doing terribly wrong, im justr trying to understand, what is it that we Europeans and Americans do differently.
Dear god, I would shoot myself if all I could do is plat to diamond playing 8 hours a day for a summer. I play like 5 hours a week maybe for mid masters.
Cool story man, now I hope you weren't just pointlessly trying to trash that guy, were you ? Because FYI, nobody has got mad skillzzz and if it's what he takes him, then you should just respect it and at least try not to sound like you're braging about your 1337 skillz.
I personally am in plat and I struggle to get out of there while i've played 2hrs a day for a month.
And on topic : I think it's definitely the mentality of the players after all, just look at the real talk with IdrA, when it was the BW days, pros were trainin 12hrs a day, and even though they clearly train less today, he says that the EU/US training is just innefecient, which I think is a problem of players but also of teams. If teams want the best out of their players then they have to set up some rules, and also, laddering on NA/EU is prolly not the best source of practice ever, but I guess it's all most of the players have ! :/
Yeah, i also believe the fact that due to broodwar being such a phenomena in KR, lots of people played it, even if not on a proffesional level, while the pro scene wasn't as developed in EU for example, and in consequence the fanbase was smaller as well. So while EU casual gamers played Counter or other games, i bet lots of koreeans just got better and better in Starcraft. Why do you think Blizzard chose KR to announce Starcraft 2? And how emythrel has pointed out, there are lots of pro's over there, and they have monopol over GM league and the top half of the master divisions. So yeah, i beat getting there is really hard
I think the reason that they have lots of different cheeses that take a while to bleed on to the European or American server is because a lot of the time pros will try out weird cheesy builds to try and improve their micro as well as find out potential timings that can be exploited in their opponents build.
On August 27 2012 01:51 kollin wrote: I think the reason that they have lots of different cheeses that take a while to bleed on to the European or American server is because a lot of the time pros will try out weird cheesy builds to try and improve their micro as well as find out potential timings that can be exploited in their opponents build.
100% agree. Terran as a race has the largest arsenal of cheese and the strongest cheese. Protoss and Zerg players on NA/EU don't have to worry about dealing with that cheese, because the Terrans over here don't think it's a good idea for whatever reason. Therefore, we can use a ton of greedy builds and score EZPZ wins because we don't have to think about scouting etc. as much. It's really easy to beat a player if you know what they're going to be doing ahead of time, and on NA/EU, P and Z players know that the Terrans aren't going to be doing much beyond macro games and a couple of simple pressure or all-in builds. If foreign Terrans started using cheese more, then they'd be able to score more wins versus P and T.
Korea is the cheesiest server. Korea is the strongest server. This is not entirely coincidence.
On August 27 2012 01:51 kollin wrote: I think the reason that they have lots of different cheeses that take a while to bleed on to the European or American server is because a lot of the time pros will try out weird cheesy builds to try and improve their micro as well as find out potential timings that can be exploited in their opponents build.
100% agree. Terran as a race has the largest arsenal of cheese and the strongest cheese. Protoss and Zerg players on NA/EU don't have to worry about dealing with that cheese, because the Terrans over here don't think it's a good idea for whatever reason. Therefore, we can use a ton of greedy builds and score EZPZ wins because we don't have to think about scouting etc. as much. It's really easy to beat a player if you know what they're going to be doing ahead of time, and on NA/EU, P and Z players know that the Terrans aren't going to be doing much beyond macro games and a couple of simple pressure or all-in builds. If foreign Terrans started using cheese more, then they'd be able to score more wins versus P and T.
Korea is the cheesiest server. Korea is the strongest server. This is not entirely coincidence.
On other ladders, attacking before 3 bases reaps a lot of BM. On KR, it's common and not as badly seen. I think this mentality has a lot to do with Korean success - and early aggression benefits terran way more than protoss or zerg.
Also, terran has a way higher skill ceiling and rewards skill a lot more ; if you're better at terran than your terran friend, the difference will be a lot more obvious than with a similar protoss or zerg skill gap. Think about how much stuff terrans have to do, and how cost effective they can be.
Creating a build is no small feet, everyone wants to be the one to create the ultimate build which everyone uses, but it just doesn't happen that way. Its not even 'Pros make new builds' because there are plenty of pros who can't make a new build for their life, and for good reason. A good, viable build, especially a macro build (all ins are easier to make but usually also easier to stop) can really only be made by those who basically have a perfect understanding of the game and insane mechanics to pull off the build, and there are very very very few people who really understand the game to such an extent.
For the 99.99% we will be following builds or be designing horrible builds that aren't viable at top levels of play. Sad reality, but it is reality.
EPT
