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Lings of Liberty: The Rise of the Patchzergs - Page 58

Forum Index > SC2 General
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WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland25771 Posts
December 05 2012 11:40 GMT
#1141
Grubby's also beaten his fair share of Koreans man, and bar a brief stay in the ogs house he's not been training much in Korea
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
plogamer
Profile Blog Joined January 2012
Canada3132 Posts
December 05 2012 11:52 GMT
#1142
On December 05 2012 20:22 m0ck wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 05 2012 20:08 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:01 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 19:44 Wombat_NI wrote:
100% agreed.

'Patchzergs' styles are a manifestation of design problems, but that have merely been put into bigger focus with the Queen patch. Hell, if you want to address that, reverting the Queen patch would do a better job. It mightn't solve everything, but I mean would Zerg suffer to anywhere near the same degree if it was reverted, than Terrans have suffered since it was added?

Yes, let's go back to coin-flip bling-wars and roach-busts against hellion and quick 3CCs. So great.

Wombat, you have to get a grip. If one zerg is imbalanced, all zergs are imbalanced, and the zerg players you like who aren't winning simply are not good enough. DRG plays infestor and BL too, he just doesn't win with it. If Scarlett & Vortix are patch-zergs, Life, Sniper & Symbol are patch-zergs. That is the biggest problem of this article, the implication of "Korea = master race" and that if foreign players are winning, there's a patch-problem. Never mind that the graphs are meaningless as absolutes (what is the relation between the number of matches played and matches won?). Never mind that the foreign zerg-players were always better than the foreign terrans, even when the patch-terrans were running rampant. Never mind that to this day, zerg is still the least represented race in GSL overall.

But then, there is no reason to confront those issues. After all, it's all irony anyways. It's not just balance-whine, it's cowardly balance-whine.


Zerg foreigners were always better? Huk, Thorzain, White Ra, without even thinking about it, off the top of my head.

If zerg foreigners have improved, all foreigners should improve. Unless they are in completely different teams, drink different water, or something else that would magically make only the zergs better.

If you cannot acknowledge the fact that Koreans are better at SC2 (mainly due to Broodwar's effect of progaming in the Korean scene), then you are ignorant of the fact that Korean zergs are still beating foreign zergs. While non-zerg Koreans magically cannot beat zergs, foreign or Korean.

Obviously there are more Korean players at the top level. There are more professional players. And there are more Korean players with the mechanics necessary to play at the top level. I never claimed otherwise.

It is also true that early in the life of the game, naniwa, thorzain and white-ra had a bigger impact than today. What is characteristic of those players? They are all below or just above ~200 APM players. What has hurt them more than anything is the focus on late-game, which is more APM intensive. They can't keep up. Stephano, Nerchio & Vortix? All 300+ APM.

But, when Korean zergs where getting hammered, the foreign zergs still did comparatively better.

As for foreign zergs beating Korean zergs: Snute beat Life just this weekend, Stephano beat Life and DRG. Vortix beat revival 3-0 last weekend. Foreign zergs have no problem beating Korean zergs.


You realize that Zerg apm is inflated right? 300/60 = 5 actions per second that comes from making tons of units at once due to banked larvae mechanics. Anyway, even if we reject this premise:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=268783

Read this thread and find that Zergs always had higher apm than Terran or Toss. These 200 apm players were able to perform despite the apm gap, now they suddently cant?
FrostedMiniWheats
Profile Joined August 2010
United States30730 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-12-05 12:04:22
December 05 2012 12:01 GMT
#1143
On December 05 2012 20:08 plogamer wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 05 2012 20:01 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 19:44 Wombat_NI wrote:
100% agreed.

'Patchzergs' styles are a manifestation of design problems, but that have merely been put into bigger focus with the Queen patch. Hell, if you want to address that, reverting the Queen patch would do a better job. It mightn't solve everything, but I mean would Zerg suffer to anywhere near the same degree if it was reverted, than Terrans have suffered since it was added?

Yes, let's go back to coin-flip bling-wars and roach-busts against hellion and quick 3CCs. So great.

Wombat, you have to get a grip. If one zerg is imbalanced, all zergs are imbalanced, and the zerg players you like who aren't winning simply are not good enough. DRG plays infestor and BL too, he just doesn't win with it. If Scarlett & Vortix are patch-zergs, Life, Sniper & Symbol are patch-zergs. That is the biggest problem of this article, the implication of "Korea = master race" and that if foreign players are winning, there's a patch-problem. Never mind that the graphs are meaningless as absolutes (what is the relation between the number of matches played and matches won?). Never mind that the foreign zerg-players were always better than the foreign terrans, even when the patch-terrans were running rampant. Never mind that to this day, zerg is still the least represented race in GSL overall.

But then, there is no reason to confront those issues. After all, it's all irony anyways. It's not just balance-whine, it's cowardly balance-whine.


Zerg foreigners were always better? Huk, Thorzain, White Ra, without even thinking about it, off the top of my head.

If zerg foreigners have improved, all foreigners should improve. Unless they are in completely different teams, drink different water, or something else that would magically make only the zergs better.


While I will admit foreign Zergs should not be doing as well as they are against Koreans these days. Foreigners of all races have improved as well.

Also, I'm very adamant that Zerg foreigners overall have been better even as early as 2010-early 2011. Let's list a few notables long before the so called era of the "patchzergs" (forgive me if I miss a few it's been a long time). Bolded the really good ones in their respective times.

Terran: Jinro, Thorzain, Demuslim, Lucifron, Kas, Goody, Cloud, Beastyqt, Fenix, TLO (late beta, and early 2010)
Morrow, Brat_ok, qxc, Strelok, Loner

Protoss: Naniwa, Huk, Mana, Whitera, Elfi, ToD, Sase, Hasuobs, Nightend, Socke, Kiwikaki

Zerg: Stephano, Idra, Ret, Sen, Dimaga, Nerchio, Sheth, Xigua, Moonglade, Haypro, Morrow, Darkforce

Terran imo has the most notable players, but...look at all the bold on the zerg side. Really, ask yourself. Are the bolds truly not deserving as such? Have they not had killer results or played some sick sc2 at one point or another? Are not most of them still relevant? Zergs are the best foreigners, always have been.
NesTea | Mvp | MC | Leenock | Losira | Gumiho | DRG | Taeja | Jinro | Stephano | Thorzain | Sen | Idra |Polt | Bomber | Symbol | Squirtle | Fantasy | Jaedong | Maru | sOs | Seed | ByuN | ByuL | Neeb| Scarlett | Rogue | IM forever
m0ck
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
4194 Posts
December 05 2012 12:04 GMT
#1144
On December 05 2012 20:52 plogamer wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 05 2012 20:22 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:08 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:01 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 19:44 Wombat_NI wrote:
100% agreed.

'Patchzergs' styles are a manifestation of design problems, but that have merely been put into bigger focus with the Queen patch. Hell, if you want to address that, reverting the Queen patch would do a better job. It mightn't solve everything, but I mean would Zerg suffer to anywhere near the same degree if it was reverted, than Terrans have suffered since it was added?

Yes, let's go back to coin-flip bling-wars and roach-busts against hellion and quick 3CCs. So great.

Wombat, you have to get a grip. If one zerg is imbalanced, all zergs are imbalanced, and the zerg players you like who aren't winning simply are not good enough. DRG plays infestor and BL too, he just doesn't win with it. If Scarlett & Vortix are patch-zergs, Life, Sniper & Symbol are patch-zergs. That is the biggest problem of this article, the implication of "Korea = master race" and that if foreign players are winning, there's a patch-problem. Never mind that the graphs are meaningless as absolutes (what is the relation between the number of matches played and matches won?). Never mind that the foreign zerg-players were always better than the foreign terrans, even when the patch-terrans were running rampant. Never mind that to this day, zerg is still the least represented race in GSL overall.

But then, there is no reason to confront those issues. After all, it's all irony anyways. It's not just balance-whine, it's cowardly balance-whine.


Zerg foreigners were always better? Huk, Thorzain, White Ra, without even thinking about it, off the top of my head.

If zerg foreigners have improved, all foreigners should improve. Unless they are in completely different teams, drink different water, or something else that would magically make only the zergs better.

If you cannot acknowledge the fact that Koreans are better at SC2 (mainly due to Broodwar's effect of progaming in the Korean scene), then you are ignorant of the fact that Korean zergs are still beating foreign zergs. While non-zerg Koreans magically cannot beat zergs, foreign or Korean.

Obviously there are more Korean players at the top level. There are more professional players. And there are more Korean players with the mechanics necessary to play at the top level. I never claimed otherwise.

It is also true that early in the life of the game, naniwa, thorzain and white-ra had a bigger impact than today. What is characteristic of those players? They are all below or just above ~200 APM players. What has hurt them more than anything is the focus on late-game, which is more APM intensive. They can't keep up. Stephano, Nerchio & Vortix? All 300+ APM.

But, when Korean zergs where getting hammered, the foreign zergs still did comparatively better.

As for foreign zergs beating Korean zergs: Snute beat Life just this weekend, Stephano beat Life and DRG. Vortix beat revival 3-0 last weekend. Foreign zergs have no problem beating Korean zergs.


You realize that Zerg apm is inflated right? 300/60 = 5 actions per second that comes from making tons of units at once due to banked larvae mechanics. Anyway, even if we reject this premise:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=268783

Read this thread and find that Zergs always had higher apm than Terran or Toss. These 200 apm players were able to perform despite the apm gap, now they suddently cant?

Without a doubt, part of the difference in APM between players is race-dependent. But I don't think it is a coincidence that the most successful players in SC2 overall are almost all fast players (300+ APM) - including MC.

Throughout the history of SC2, late-game has become more and more important. Late-game is the most APM-intensive. Thus, the development of the meta-game has favored some rather than others. But picking out individual players is probably not the best way of show-casing it, there are many reasons for why a player succeeds and fails. My bad.
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland25771 Posts
December 05 2012 12:14 GMT
#1145
On December 05 2012 21:04 m0ck wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 05 2012 20:52 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:22 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:08 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:01 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 19:44 Wombat_NI wrote:
100% agreed.

'Patchzergs' styles are a manifestation of design problems, but that have merely been put into bigger focus with the Queen patch. Hell, if you want to address that, reverting the Queen patch would do a better job. It mightn't solve everything, but I mean would Zerg suffer to anywhere near the same degree if it was reverted, than Terrans have suffered since it was added?

Yes, let's go back to coin-flip bling-wars and roach-busts against hellion and quick 3CCs. So great.

Wombat, you have to get a grip. If one zerg is imbalanced, all zergs are imbalanced, and the zerg players you like who aren't winning simply are not good enough. DRG plays infestor and BL too, he just doesn't win with it. If Scarlett & Vortix are patch-zergs, Life, Sniper & Symbol are patch-zergs. That is the biggest problem of this article, the implication of "Korea = master race" and that if foreign players are winning, there's a patch-problem. Never mind that the graphs are meaningless as absolutes (what is the relation between the number of matches played and matches won?). Never mind that the foreign zerg-players were always better than the foreign terrans, even when the patch-terrans were running rampant. Never mind that to this day, zerg is still the least represented race in GSL overall.

But then, there is no reason to confront those issues. After all, it's all irony anyways. It's not just balance-whine, it's cowardly balance-whine.


Zerg foreigners were always better? Huk, Thorzain, White Ra, without even thinking about it, off the top of my head.

If zerg foreigners have improved, all foreigners should improve. Unless they are in completely different teams, drink different water, or something else that would magically make only the zergs better.

If you cannot acknowledge the fact that Koreans are better at SC2 (mainly due to Broodwar's effect of progaming in the Korean scene), then you are ignorant of the fact that Korean zergs are still beating foreign zergs. While non-zerg Koreans magically cannot beat zergs, foreign or Korean.

Obviously there are more Korean players at the top level. There are more professional players. And there are more Korean players with the mechanics necessary to play at the top level. I never claimed otherwise.

It is also true that early in the life of the game, naniwa, thorzain and white-ra had a bigger impact than today. What is characteristic of those players? They are all below or just above ~200 APM players. What has hurt them more than anything is the focus on late-game, which is more APM intensive. They can't keep up. Stephano, Nerchio & Vortix? All 300+ APM.

But, when Korean zergs where getting hammered, the foreign zergs still did comparatively better.

As for foreign zergs beating Korean zergs: Snute beat Life just this weekend, Stephano beat Life and DRG. Vortix beat revival 3-0 last weekend. Foreign zergs have no problem beating Korean zergs.


You realize that Zerg apm is inflated right? 300/60 = 5 actions per second that comes from making tons of units at once due to banked larvae mechanics. Anyway, even if we reject this premise:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=268783

Read this thread and find that Zergs always had higher apm than Terran or Toss. These 200 apm players were able to perform despite the apm gap, now they suddently cant?

Without a doubt, part of the difference in APM between players is race-dependent. But I don't think it is a coincidence that the most successful players in SC2 overall are almost all fast players (300+ APM) - including MC.

Throughout the history of SC2, late-game has become more and more important. Late-game is the most APM-intensive. Thus, the development of the meta-game has favored some rather than others. But picking out individual players is probably not the best way of show-casing it, there are many reasons for why a player succeeds and fails. My bad.

Consider my earlier talk of DRG Mock, I still can't figure it out

Nestea, you can at least figure out why he fell off. His strategical insight and gamesense have always been good, his mechanics have never been particularly amazing. Now, even though his strategical strengths are still there, his mechanical flaws are being more exposed, as they should be by good players.

DRG doesn't fit this pattern either, it's quite confusing to me. DRG is still good of course, but I just think instinctively that he should be doing better if you consider the jumps many other Zergs have made.
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
plogamer
Profile Blog Joined January 2012
Canada3132 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-12-05 12:20:38
December 05 2012 12:19 GMT
#1146
On December 05 2012 21:04 m0ck wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 05 2012 20:52 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:22 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:08 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:01 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 19:44 Wombat_NI wrote:
100% agreed.

'Patchzergs' styles are a manifestation of design problems, but that have merely been put into bigger focus with the Queen patch. Hell, if you want to address that, reverting the Queen patch would do a better job. It mightn't solve everything, but I mean would Zerg suffer to anywhere near the same degree if it was reverted, than Terrans have suffered since it was added?

Yes, let's go back to coin-flip bling-wars and roach-busts against hellion and quick 3CCs. So great.

Wombat, you have to get a grip. If one zerg is imbalanced, all zergs are imbalanced, and the zerg players you like who aren't winning simply are not good enough. DRG plays infestor and BL too, he just doesn't win with it. If Scarlett & Vortix are patch-zergs, Life, Sniper & Symbol are patch-zergs. That is the biggest problem of this article, the implication of "Korea = master race" and that if foreign players are winning, there's a patch-problem. Never mind that the graphs are meaningless as absolutes (what is the relation between the number of matches played and matches won?). Never mind that the foreign zerg-players were always better than the foreign terrans, even when the patch-terrans were running rampant. Never mind that to this day, zerg is still the least represented race in GSL overall.

But then, there is no reason to confront those issues. After all, it's all irony anyways. It's not just balance-whine, it's cowardly balance-whine.


Zerg foreigners were always better? Huk, Thorzain, White Ra, without even thinking about it, off the top of my head.

If zerg foreigners have improved, all foreigners should improve. Unless they are in completely different teams, drink different water, or something else that would magically make only the zergs better.

If you cannot acknowledge the fact that Koreans are better at SC2 (mainly due to Broodwar's effect of progaming in the Korean scene), then you are ignorant of the fact that Korean zergs are still beating foreign zergs. While non-zerg Koreans magically cannot beat zergs, foreign or Korean.

Obviously there are more Korean players at the top level. There are more professional players. And there are more Korean players with the mechanics necessary to play at the top level. I never claimed otherwise.

It is also true that early in the life of the game, naniwa, thorzain and white-ra had a bigger impact than today. What is characteristic of those players? They are all below or just above ~200 APM players. What has hurt them more than anything is the focus on late-game, which is more APM intensive. They can't keep up. Stephano, Nerchio & Vortix? All 300+ APM.

But, when Korean zergs where getting hammered, the foreign zergs still did comparatively better.

As for foreign zergs beating Korean zergs: Snute beat Life just this weekend, Stephano beat Life and DRG. Vortix beat revival 3-0 last weekend. Foreign zergs have no problem beating Korean zergs.


You realize that Zerg apm is inflated right? 300/60 = 5 actions per second that comes from making tons of units at once due to banked larvae mechanics. Anyway, even if we reject this premise:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=268783

Read this thread and find that Zergs always had higher apm than Terran or Toss. These 200 apm players were able to perform despite the apm gap, now they suddently cant?

Without a doubt, part of the difference in APM between players is race-dependent. But I don't think it is a coincidence that the most successful players in SC2 overall are almost all fast players (300+ APM) - including MC.

Throughout the history of SC2, late-game has become more and more important. Late-game is the most APM-intensive. Thus, the development of the meta-game has favored some rather than others. But picking out individual players is probably not the best way of show-casing it, there are many reasons for why a player succeeds and fails. My bad.


Late game appears less APM intensive for Zergs as a matter of fact. Aside from taking advantage of huge production causing inflating, a slow broodlord army is less intensive than a faster ling/bling/muta. Injects of course increase, but not by much. Early 3 hatch means 3 injects. Later bases add 1 inject each. Maybe a macro hatch. Even with 6 bases total, that would just be twice as many apm for injects.

I must be missing something, please do enlighten.
Big J
Profile Joined March 2011
Austria16289 Posts
December 05 2012 12:22 GMT
#1147
On December 05 2012 21:14 Wombat_NI wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 05 2012 21:04 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:52 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:22 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:08 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:01 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 19:44 Wombat_NI wrote:
100% agreed.

'Patchzergs' styles are a manifestation of design problems, but that have merely been put into bigger focus with the Queen patch. Hell, if you want to address that, reverting the Queen patch would do a better job. It mightn't solve everything, but I mean would Zerg suffer to anywhere near the same degree if it was reverted, than Terrans have suffered since it was added?

Yes, let's go back to coin-flip bling-wars and roach-busts against hellion and quick 3CCs. So great.

Wombat, you have to get a grip. If one zerg is imbalanced, all zergs are imbalanced, and the zerg players you like who aren't winning simply are not good enough. DRG plays infestor and BL too, he just doesn't win with it. If Scarlett & Vortix are patch-zergs, Life, Sniper & Symbol are patch-zergs. That is the biggest problem of this article, the implication of "Korea = master race" and that if foreign players are winning, there's a patch-problem. Never mind that the graphs are meaningless as absolutes (what is the relation between the number of matches played and matches won?). Never mind that the foreign zerg-players were always better than the foreign terrans, even when the patch-terrans were running rampant. Never mind that to this day, zerg is still the least represented race in GSL overall.

But then, there is no reason to confront those issues. After all, it's all irony anyways. It's not just balance-whine, it's cowardly balance-whine.


Zerg foreigners were always better? Huk, Thorzain, White Ra, without even thinking about it, off the top of my head.

If zerg foreigners have improved, all foreigners should improve. Unless they are in completely different teams, drink different water, or something else that would magically make only the zergs better.

If you cannot acknowledge the fact that Koreans are better at SC2 (mainly due to Broodwar's effect of progaming in the Korean scene), then you are ignorant of the fact that Korean zergs are still beating foreign zergs. While non-zerg Koreans magically cannot beat zergs, foreign or Korean.

Obviously there are more Korean players at the top level. There are more professional players. And there are more Korean players with the mechanics necessary to play at the top level. I never claimed otherwise.

It is also true that early in the life of the game, naniwa, thorzain and white-ra had a bigger impact than today. What is characteristic of those players? They are all below or just above ~200 APM players. What has hurt them more than anything is the focus on late-game, which is more APM intensive. They can't keep up. Stephano, Nerchio & Vortix? All 300+ APM.

But, when Korean zergs where getting hammered, the foreign zergs still did comparatively better.

As for foreign zergs beating Korean zergs: Snute beat Life just this weekend, Stephano beat Life and DRG. Vortix beat revival 3-0 last weekend. Foreign zergs have no problem beating Korean zergs.


You realize that Zerg apm is inflated right? 300/60 = 5 actions per second that comes from making tons of units at once due to banked larvae mechanics. Anyway, even if we reject this premise:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=268783

Read this thread and find that Zergs always had higher apm than Terran or Toss. These 200 apm players were able to perform despite the apm gap, now they suddently cant?

Without a doubt, part of the difference in APM between players is race-dependent. But I don't think it is a coincidence that the most successful players in SC2 overall are almost all fast players (300+ APM) - including MC.

Throughout the history of SC2, late-game has become more and more important. Late-game is the most APM-intensive. Thus, the development of the meta-game has favored some rather than others. But picking out individual players is probably not the best way of show-casing it, there are many reasons for why a player succeeds and fails. My bad.

Consider my earlier talk of DRG Mock, I still can't figure it out

Nestea, you can at least figure out why he fell off. His strategical insight and gamesense have always been good, his mechanics have never been particularly amazing. Now, even though his strategical strengths are still there, his mechanical flaws are being more exposed, as they should be by good players.

DRG doesn't fit this pattern either, it's quite confusing to me. DRG is still good of course, but I just think instinctively that he should be doing better if you consider the jumps many other Zergs have made.


Just watch him play. What builds does he use? Does he do Infestor turtle? Does he do mass roach etc?
He doesn't. The last times I saw him, he played mutas blindly in vP and vT. He is still playing the same style that he played in 2011 and the beginning of 2012... just that Ps/Ts builds have been refined to counter those styles.
m0ck
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
4194 Posts
December 05 2012 12:29 GMT
#1148
On December 05 2012 21:14 Wombat_NI wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 05 2012 21:04 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:52 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:22 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:08 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:01 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 19:44 Wombat_NI wrote:
100% agreed.

'Patchzergs' styles are a manifestation of design problems, but that have merely been put into bigger focus with the Queen patch. Hell, if you want to address that, reverting the Queen patch would do a better job. It mightn't solve everything, but I mean would Zerg suffer to anywhere near the same degree if it was reverted, than Terrans have suffered since it was added?

Yes, let's go back to coin-flip bling-wars and roach-busts against hellion and quick 3CCs. So great.

Wombat, you have to get a grip. If one zerg is imbalanced, all zergs are imbalanced, and the zerg players you like who aren't winning simply are not good enough. DRG plays infestor and BL too, he just doesn't win with it. If Scarlett & Vortix are patch-zergs, Life, Sniper & Symbol are patch-zergs. That is the biggest problem of this article, the implication of "Korea = master race" and that if foreign players are winning, there's a patch-problem. Never mind that the graphs are meaningless as absolutes (what is the relation between the number of matches played and matches won?). Never mind that the foreign zerg-players were always better than the foreign terrans, even when the patch-terrans were running rampant. Never mind that to this day, zerg is still the least represented race in GSL overall.

But then, there is no reason to confront those issues. After all, it's all irony anyways. It's not just balance-whine, it's cowardly balance-whine.


Zerg foreigners were always better? Huk, Thorzain, White Ra, without even thinking about it, off the top of my head.

If zerg foreigners have improved, all foreigners should improve. Unless they are in completely different teams, drink different water, or something else that would magically make only the zergs better.

If you cannot acknowledge the fact that Koreans are better at SC2 (mainly due to Broodwar's effect of progaming in the Korean scene), then you are ignorant of the fact that Korean zergs are still beating foreign zergs. While non-zerg Koreans magically cannot beat zergs, foreign or Korean.

Obviously there are more Korean players at the top level. There are more professional players. And there are more Korean players with the mechanics necessary to play at the top level. I never claimed otherwise.

It is also true that early in the life of the game, naniwa, thorzain and white-ra had a bigger impact than today. What is characteristic of those players? They are all below or just above ~200 APM players. What has hurt them more than anything is the focus on late-game, which is more APM intensive. They can't keep up. Stephano, Nerchio & Vortix? All 300+ APM.

But, when Korean zergs where getting hammered, the foreign zergs still did comparatively better.

As for foreign zergs beating Korean zergs: Snute beat Life just this weekend, Stephano beat Life and DRG. Vortix beat revival 3-0 last weekend. Foreign zergs have no problem beating Korean zergs.


You realize that Zerg apm is inflated right? 300/60 = 5 actions per second that comes from making tons of units at once due to banked larvae mechanics. Anyway, even if we reject this premise:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=268783

Read this thread and find that Zergs always had higher apm than Terran or Toss. These 200 apm players were able to perform despite the apm gap, now they suddently cant?

Without a doubt, part of the difference in APM between players is race-dependent. But I don't think it is a coincidence that the most successful players in SC2 overall are almost all fast players (300+ APM) - including MC.

Throughout the history of SC2, late-game has become more and more important. Late-game is the most APM-intensive. Thus, the development of the meta-game has favored some rather than others. But picking out individual players is probably not the best way of show-casing it, there are many reasons for why a player succeeds and fails. My bad.

Consider my earlier talk of DRG Mock, I still can't figure it out

Nestea, you can at least figure out why he fell off. His strategical insight and gamesense have always been good, his mechanics have never been particularly amazing. Now, even though his strategical strengths are still there, his mechanical flaws are being more exposed, as they should be by good players.

DRG doesn't fit this pattern either, it's quite confusing to me. DRG is still good of course, but I just think instinctively that he should be doing better if you consider the jumps many other Zergs have made.

Yeah, I agree he is a strange case. His multi-tasking is strong, he is very fast, he was always very good against terran. But players do drop in and out of form, unrelated to how their race is doing. Their timings and decisions are slightly off, and they may simply hit a streak of bad luck. Sometimes the inevitable risks that players take in matches work out, sometimes they don't. I gamble quite a lot on SC2, and you come to learn how it is a property of probability that streaks (winning and loosing) are part of the game, no matter how well you make your decisions.

Still, who would have guessed a year ago, that Ryung would beat DRG in the GSL ro16 at a time when zerg is at its strongest and terran at its weakest? It is perplexing.
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland25771 Posts
December 05 2012 12:34 GMT
#1149
On December 05 2012 21:22 Big J wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 05 2012 21:14 Wombat_NI wrote:
On December 05 2012 21:04 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:52 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:22 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:08 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:01 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 19:44 Wombat_NI wrote:
100% agreed.

'Patchzergs' styles are a manifestation of design problems, but that have merely been put into bigger focus with the Queen patch. Hell, if you want to address that, reverting the Queen patch would do a better job. It mightn't solve everything, but I mean would Zerg suffer to anywhere near the same degree if it was reverted, than Terrans have suffered since it was added?

Yes, let's go back to coin-flip bling-wars and roach-busts against hellion and quick 3CCs. So great.

Wombat, you have to get a grip. If one zerg is imbalanced, all zergs are imbalanced, and the zerg players you like who aren't winning simply are not good enough. DRG plays infestor and BL too, he just doesn't win with it. If Scarlett & Vortix are patch-zergs, Life, Sniper & Symbol are patch-zergs. That is the biggest problem of this article, the implication of "Korea = master race" and that if foreign players are winning, there's a patch-problem. Never mind that the graphs are meaningless as absolutes (what is the relation between the number of matches played and matches won?). Never mind that the foreign zerg-players were always better than the foreign terrans, even when the patch-terrans were running rampant. Never mind that to this day, zerg is still the least represented race in GSL overall.

But then, there is no reason to confront those issues. After all, it's all irony anyways. It's not just balance-whine, it's cowardly balance-whine.


Zerg foreigners were always better? Huk, Thorzain, White Ra, without even thinking about it, off the top of my head.

If zerg foreigners have improved, all foreigners should improve. Unless they are in completely different teams, drink different water, or something else that would magically make only the zergs better.

If you cannot acknowledge the fact that Koreans are better at SC2 (mainly due to Broodwar's effect of progaming in the Korean scene), then you are ignorant of the fact that Korean zergs are still beating foreign zergs. While non-zerg Koreans magically cannot beat zergs, foreign or Korean.

Obviously there are more Korean players at the top level. There are more professional players. And there are more Korean players with the mechanics necessary to play at the top level. I never claimed otherwise.

It is also true that early in the life of the game, naniwa, thorzain and white-ra had a bigger impact than today. What is characteristic of those players? They are all below or just above ~200 APM players. What has hurt them more than anything is the focus on late-game, which is more APM intensive. They can't keep up. Stephano, Nerchio & Vortix? All 300+ APM.

But, when Korean zergs where getting hammered, the foreign zergs still did comparatively better.

As for foreign zergs beating Korean zergs: Snute beat Life just this weekend, Stephano beat Life and DRG. Vortix beat revival 3-0 last weekend. Foreign zergs have no problem beating Korean zergs.


You realize that Zerg apm is inflated right? 300/60 = 5 actions per second that comes from making tons of units at once due to banked larvae mechanics. Anyway, even if we reject this premise:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=268783

Read this thread and find that Zergs always had higher apm than Terran or Toss. These 200 apm players were able to perform despite the apm gap, now they suddently cant?

Without a doubt, part of the difference in APM between players is race-dependent. But I don't think it is a coincidence that the most successful players in SC2 overall are almost all fast players (300+ APM) - including MC.

Throughout the history of SC2, late-game has become more and more important. Late-game is the most APM-intensive. Thus, the development of the meta-game has favored some rather than others. But picking out individual players is probably not the best way of show-casing it, there are many reasons for why a player succeeds and fails. My bad.

Consider my earlier talk of DRG Mock, I still can't figure it out

Nestea, you can at least figure out why he fell off. His strategical insight and gamesense have always been good, his mechanics have never been particularly amazing. Now, even though his strategical strengths are still there, his mechanical flaws are being more exposed, as they should be by good players.

DRG doesn't fit this pattern either, it's quite confusing to me. DRG is still good of course, but I just think instinctively that he should be doing better if you consider the jumps many other Zergs have made.


Just watch him play. What builds does he use? Does he do Infestor turtle? Does he do mass roach etc?
He doesn't. The last times I saw him, he played mutas blindly in vP and vT. He is still playing the same style that he played in 2011 and the beginning of 2012... just that Ps/Ts builds have been refined to counter those styles.

1. I feel he plays vP primarily with a roach-centric style, into Infestors into BL. He does mix in mutas more than others.
2. Even if so, unless other players are blind countering him, he should still be having success by 'metagaming'. You can see players who have builds that are much weaker to Muta play, because they are constructing their strats around the Infestor-centric styles.
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland25771 Posts
December 05 2012 12:36 GMT
#1150
On December 05 2012 21:29 m0ck wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 05 2012 21:14 Wombat_NI wrote:
On December 05 2012 21:04 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:52 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:22 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:08 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:01 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 19:44 Wombat_NI wrote:
100% agreed.

'Patchzergs' styles are a manifestation of design problems, but that have merely been put into bigger focus with the Queen patch. Hell, if you want to address that, reverting the Queen patch would do a better job. It mightn't solve everything, but I mean would Zerg suffer to anywhere near the same degree if it was reverted, than Terrans have suffered since it was added?

Yes, let's go back to coin-flip bling-wars and roach-busts against hellion and quick 3CCs. So great.

Wombat, you have to get a grip. If one zerg is imbalanced, all zergs are imbalanced, and the zerg players you like who aren't winning simply are not good enough. DRG plays infestor and BL too, he just doesn't win with it. If Scarlett & Vortix are patch-zergs, Life, Sniper & Symbol are patch-zergs. That is the biggest problem of this article, the implication of "Korea = master race" and that if foreign players are winning, there's a patch-problem. Never mind that the graphs are meaningless as absolutes (what is the relation between the number of matches played and matches won?). Never mind that the foreign zerg-players were always better than the foreign terrans, even when the patch-terrans were running rampant. Never mind that to this day, zerg is still the least represented race in GSL overall.

But then, there is no reason to confront those issues. After all, it's all irony anyways. It's not just balance-whine, it's cowardly balance-whine.


Zerg foreigners were always better? Huk, Thorzain, White Ra, without even thinking about it, off the top of my head.

If zerg foreigners have improved, all foreigners should improve. Unless they are in completely different teams, drink different water, or something else that would magically make only the zergs better.

If you cannot acknowledge the fact that Koreans are better at SC2 (mainly due to Broodwar's effect of progaming in the Korean scene), then you are ignorant of the fact that Korean zergs are still beating foreign zergs. While non-zerg Koreans magically cannot beat zergs, foreign or Korean.

Obviously there are more Korean players at the top level. There are more professional players. And there are more Korean players with the mechanics necessary to play at the top level. I never claimed otherwise.

It is also true that early in the life of the game, naniwa, thorzain and white-ra had a bigger impact than today. What is characteristic of those players? They are all below or just above ~200 APM players. What has hurt them more than anything is the focus on late-game, which is more APM intensive. They can't keep up. Stephano, Nerchio & Vortix? All 300+ APM.

But, when Korean zergs where getting hammered, the foreign zergs still did comparatively better.

As for foreign zergs beating Korean zergs: Snute beat Life just this weekend, Stephano beat Life and DRG. Vortix beat revival 3-0 last weekend. Foreign zergs have no problem beating Korean zergs.


You realize that Zerg apm is inflated right? 300/60 = 5 actions per second that comes from making tons of units at once due to banked larvae mechanics. Anyway, even if we reject this premise:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=268783

Read this thread and find that Zergs always had higher apm than Terran or Toss. These 200 apm players were able to perform despite the apm gap, now they suddently cant?

Without a doubt, part of the difference in APM between players is race-dependent. But I don't think it is a coincidence that the most successful players in SC2 overall are almost all fast players (300+ APM) - including MC.

Throughout the history of SC2, late-game has become more and more important. Late-game is the most APM-intensive. Thus, the development of the meta-game has favored some rather than others. But picking out individual players is probably not the best way of show-casing it, there are many reasons for why a player succeeds and fails. My bad.

Consider my earlier talk of DRG Mock, I still can't figure it out

Nestea, you can at least figure out why he fell off. His strategical insight and gamesense have always been good, his mechanics have never been particularly amazing. Now, even though his strategical strengths are still there, his mechanical flaws are being more exposed, as they should be by good players.

DRG doesn't fit this pattern either, it's quite confusing to me. DRG is still good of course, but I just think instinctively that he should be doing better if you consider the jumps many other Zergs have made.

Yeah, I agree he is a strange case. His multi-tasking is strong, he is very fast, he was always very good against terran. But players do drop in and out of form, unrelated to how their race is doing. Their timings and decisions are slightly off, and they may simply hit a streak of bad luck. Sometimes the inevitable risks that players take in matches work out, sometimes they don't. I gamble quite a lot on SC2, and you come to learn how it is a property of probability that streaks (winning and loosing) are part of the game, no matter how well you make your decisions.

Still, who would have guessed a year ago, that Ryung would beat DRG in the GSL ro16 at a time when zerg is at its strongest and terran at its weakest? It is perplexing.

You 100% address why this is kind of strange. Players should naturally fall off, or ebb and flow at the highest level, in DRG's case that's the GSL really.

However, DRG should still be stomping every single foreign tournament that he enters, or at least until he plays against S-class Koreans.
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
m0ck
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
4194 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-12-05 12:47:58
December 05 2012 12:39 GMT
#1151
On December 05 2012 21:19 plogamer wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 05 2012 21:04 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:52 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:22 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:08 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:01 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 19:44 Wombat_NI wrote:
100% agreed.

'Patchzergs' styles are a manifestation of design problems, but that have merely been put into bigger focus with the Queen patch. Hell, if you want to address that, reverting the Queen patch would do a better job. It mightn't solve everything, but I mean would Zerg suffer to anywhere near the same degree if it was reverted, than Terrans have suffered since it was added?

Yes, let's go back to coin-flip bling-wars and roach-busts against hellion and quick 3CCs. So great.

Wombat, you have to get a grip. If one zerg is imbalanced, all zergs are imbalanced, and the zerg players you like who aren't winning simply are not good enough. DRG plays infestor and BL too, he just doesn't win with it. If Scarlett & Vortix are patch-zergs, Life, Sniper & Symbol are patch-zergs. That is the biggest problem of this article, the implication of "Korea = master race" and that if foreign players are winning, there's a patch-problem. Never mind that the graphs are meaningless as absolutes (what is the relation between the number of matches played and matches won?). Never mind that the foreign zerg-players were always better than the foreign terrans, even when the patch-terrans were running rampant. Never mind that to this day, zerg is still the least represented race in GSL overall.

But then, there is no reason to confront those issues. After all, it's all irony anyways. It's not just balance-whine, it's cowardly balance-whine.


Zerg foreigners were always better? Huk, Thorzain, White Ra, without even thinking about it, off the top of my head.

If zerg foreigners have improved, all foreigners should improve. Unless they are in completely different teams, drink different water, or something else that would magically make only the zergs better.

If you cannot acknowledge the fact that Koreans are better at SC2 (mainly due to Broodwar's effect of progaming in the Korean scene), then you are ignorant of the fact that Korean zergs are still beating foreign zergs. While non-zerg Koreans magically cannot beat zergs, foreign or Korean.

Obviously there are more Korean players at the top level. There are more professional players. And there are more Korean players with the mechanics necessary to play at the top level. I never claimed otherwise.

It is also true that early in the life of the game, naniwa, thorzain and white-ra had a bigger impact than today. What is characteristic of those players? They are all below or just above ~200 APM players. What has hurt them more than anything is the focus on late-game, which is more APM intensive. They can't keep up. Stephano, Nerchio & Vortix? All 300+ APM.

But, when Korean zergs where getting hammered, the foreign zergs still did comparatively better.

As for foreign zergs beating Korean zergs: Snute beat Life just this weekend, Stephano beat Life and DRG. Vortix beat revival 3-0 last weekend. Foreign zergs have no problem beating Korean zergs.


You realize that Zerg apm is inflated right? 300/60 = 5 actions per second that comes from making tons of units at once due to banked larvae mechanics. Anyway, even if we reject this premise:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=268783

Read this thread and find that Zergs always had higher apm than Terran or Toss. These 200 apm players were able to perform despite the apm gap, now they suddently cant?

Without a doubt, part of the difference in APM between players is race-dependent. But I don't think it is a coincidence that the most successful players in SC2 overall are almost all fast players (300+ APM) - including MC.

Throughout the history of SC2, late-game has become more and more important. Late-game is the most APM-intensive. Thus, the development of the meta-game has favored some rather than others. But picking out individual players is probably not the best way of show-casing it, there are many reasons for why a player succeeds and fails. My bad.


Late game appears less APM intensive for Zergs as a matter of fact. Aside from taking advantage of huge production causing inflating, a slow broodlord army is less intensive than a faster ling/bling/muta. Injects of course increase, but not by much. Early 3 hatch means 3 injects. Later bases add 1 inject each. Maybe a macro hatch. Even with 6 bases total, that would just be twice as many apm for injects.

I must be missing something, please do enlighten.

Well, go watch a replay in-eyes that goes into late-game

The silent/dormant periods don't necessarily have to be more taxing in the late-game, but what usually happens is that the players have better opportunities for challenging the multi-tasking of each-other. Drops, run-bys and counter-attacks are far more common later in the game - if the players have the speed to make them happen.
m0ck
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
4194 Posts
December 05 2012 12:47 GMT
#1152
On December 05 2012 21:36 Wombat_NI wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 05 2012 21:29 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 21:14 Wombat_NI wrote:
On December 05 2012 21:04 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:52 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:22 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:08 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:01 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 19:44 Wombat_NI wrote:
100% agreed.

'Patchzergs' styles are a manifestation of design problems, but that have merely been put into bigger focus with the Queen patch. Hell, if you want to address that, reverting the Queen patch would do a better job. It mightn't solve everything, but I mean would Zerg suffer to anywhere near the same degree if it was reverted, than Terrans have suffered since it was added?

Yes, let's go back to coin-flip bling-wars and roach-busts against hellion and quick 3CCs. So great.

Wombat, you have to get a grip. If one zerg is imbalanced, all zergs are imbalanced, and the zerg players you like who aren't winning simply are not good enough. DRG plays infestor and BL too, he just doesn't win with it. If Scarlett & Vortix are patch-zergs, Life, Sniper & Symbol are patch-zergs. That is the biggest problem of this article, the implication of "Korea = master race" and that if foreign players are winning, there's a patch-problem. Never mind that the graphs are meaningless as absolutes (what is the relation between the number of matches played and matches won?). Never mind that the foreign zerg-players were always better than the foreign terrans, even when the patch-terrans were running rampant. Never mind that to this day, zerg is still the least represented race in GSL overall.

But then, there is no reason to confront those issues. After all, it's all irony anyways. It's not just balance-whine, it's cowardly balance-whine.


Zerg foreigners were always better? Huk, Thorzain, White Ra, without even thinking about it, off the top of my head.

If zerg foreigners have improved, all foreigners should improve. Unless they are in completely different teams, drink different water, or something else that would magically make only the zergs better.

If you cannot acknowledge the fact that Koreans are better at SC2 (mainly due to Broodwar's effect of progaming in the Korean scene), then you are ignorant of the fact that Korean zergs are still beating foreign zergs. While non-zerg Koreans magically cannot beat zergs, foreign or Korean.

Obviously there are more Korean players at the top level. There are more professional players. And there are more Korean players with the mechanics necessary to play at the top level. I never claimed otherwise.

It is also true that early in the life of the game, naniwa, thorzain and white-ra had a bigger impact than today. What is characteristic of those players? They are all below or just above ~200 APM players. What has hurt them more than anything is the focus on late-game, which is more APM intensive. They can't keep up. Stephano, Nerchio & Vortix? All 300+ APM.

But, when Korean zergs where getting hammered, the foreign zergs still did comparatively better.

As for foreign zergs beating Korean zergs: Snute beat Life just this weekend, Stephano beat Life and DRG. Vortix beat revival 3-0 last weekend. Foreign zergs have no problem beating Korean zergs.


You realize that Zerg apm is inflated right? 300/60 = 5 actions per second that comes from making tons of units at once due to banked larvae mechanics. Anyway, even if we reject this premise:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=268783

Read this thread and find that Zergs always had higher apm than Terran or Toss. These 200 apm players were able to perform despite the apm gap, now they suddently cant?

Without a doubt, part of the difference in APM between players is race-dependent. But I don't think it is a coincidence that the most successful players in SC2 overall are almost all fast players (300+ APM) - including MC.

Throughout the history of SC2, late-game has become more and more important. Late-game is the most APM-intensive. Thus, the development of the meta-game has favored some rather than others. But picking out individual players is probably not the best way of show-casing it, there are many reasons for why a player succeeds and fails. My bad.

Consider my earlier talk of DRG Mock, I still can't figure it out

Nestea, you can at least figure out why he fell off. His strategical insight and gamesense have always been good, his mechanics have never been particularly amazing. Now, even though his strategical strengths are still there, his mechanical flaws are being more exposed, as they should be by good players.

DRG doesn't fit this pattern either, it's quite confusing to me. DRG is still good of course, but I just think instinctively that he should be doing better if you consider the jumps many other Zergs have made.

Yeah, I agree he is a strange case. His multi-tasking is strong, he is very fast, he was always very good against terran. But players do drop in and out of form, unrelated to how their race is doing. Their timings and decisions are slightly off, and they may simply hit a streak of bad luck. Sometimes the inevitable risks that players take in matches work out, sometimes they don't. I gamble quite a lot on SC2, and you come to learn how it is a property of probability that streaks (winning and loosing) are part of the game, no matter how well you make your decisions.

Still, who would have guessed a year ago, that Ryung would beat DRG in the GSL ro16 at a time when zerg is at its strongest and terran at its weakest? It is perplexing.

You 100% address why this is kind of strange. Players should naturally fall off, or ebb and flow at the highest level, in DRG's case that's the GSL really.

However, DRG should still be stomping every single foreign tournament that he enters, or at least until he plays against S-class Koreans.

Part of it is probably also just that the "slower" learners are catching up. It is increasingly hard to be much better than your opponent at the highest level. And the highest level includes quite a lot of players.
Thalandros
Profile Blog Joined July 2012
Netherlands1151 Posts
December 05 2012 13:04 GMT
#1153
I don't think all you say is justified, and especially pointing at some of the players is just bad. You do have some points though (Which we don't really need another thread for, I mean, we've had 100000, another whine isn't going to change Blizzard's plan.) and while I do agree with some of your points: You bring it way too personal.
|| ''I think we have all experienced passion that is not in any sense reasonable.'' ||
plogamer
Profile Blog Joined January 2012
Canada3132 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-12-05 13:09:37
December 05 2012 13:04 GMT
#1154
On December 05 2012 21:39 m0ck wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 05 2012 21:19 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 21:04 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:52 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:22 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:08 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:01 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 19:44 Wombat_NI wrote:
100% agreed.

'Patchzergs' styles are a manifestation of design problems, but that have merely been put into bigger focus with the Queen patch. Hell, if you want to address that, reverting the Queen patch would do a better job. It mightn't solve everything, but I mean would Zerg suffer to anywhere near the same degree if it was reverted, than Terrans have suffered since it was added?

Yes, let's go back to coin-flip bling-wars and roach-busts against hellion and quick 3CCs. So great.

Wombat, you have to get a grip. If one zerg is imbalanced, all zergs are imbalanced, and the zerg players you like who aren't winning simply are not good enough. DRG plays infestor and BL too, he just doesn't win with it. If Scarlett & Vortix are patch-zergs, Life, Sniper & Symbol are patch-zergs. That is the biggest problem of this article, the implication of "Korea = master race" and that if foreign players are winning, there's a patch-problem. Never mind that the graphs are meaningless as absolutes (what is the relation between the number of matches played and matches won?). Never mind that the foreign zerg-players were always better than the foreign terrans, even when the patch-terrans were running rampant. Never mind that to this day, zerg is still the least represented race in GSL overall.

But then, there is no reason to confront those issues. After all, it's all irony anyways. It's not just balance-whine, it's cowardly balance-whine.


Zerg foreigners were always better? Huk, Thorzain, White Ra, without even thinking about it, off the top of my head.

If zerg foreigners have improved, all foreigners should improve. Unless they are in completely different teams, drink different water, or something else that would magically make only the zergs better.

If you cannot acknowledge the fact that Koreans are better at SC2 (mainly due to Broodwar's effect of progaming in the Korean scene), then you are ignorant of the fact that Korean zergs are still beating foreign zergs. While non-zerg Koreans magically cannot beat zergs, foreign or Korean.

Obviously there are more Korean players at the top level. There are more professional players. And there are more Korean players with the mechanics necessary to play at the top level. I never claimed otherwise.

It is also true that early in the life of the game, naniwa, thorzain and white-ra had a bigger impact than today. What is characteristic of those players? They are all below or just above ~200 APM players. What has hurt them more than anything is the focus on late-game, which is more APM intensive. They can't keep up. Stephano, Nerchio & Vortix? All 300+ APM.

But, when Korean zergs where getting hammered, the foreign zergs still did comparatively better.

As for foreign zergs beating Korean zergs: Snute beat Life just this weekend, Stephano beat Life and DRG. Vortix beat revival 3-0 last weekend. Foreign zergs have no problem beating Korean zergs.


You realize that Zerg apm is inflated right? 300/60 = 5 actions per second that comes from making tons of units at once due to banked larvae mechanics. Anyway, even if we reject this premise:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=268783

Read this thread and find that Zergs always had higher apm than Terran or Toss. These 200 apm players were able to perform despite the apm gap, now they suddently cant?

Without a doubt, part of the difference in APM between players is race-dependent. But I don't think it is a coincidence that the most successful players in SC2 overall are almost all fast players (300+ APM) - including MC.

Throughout the history of SC2, late-game has become more and more important. Late-game is the most APM-intensive. Thus, the development of the meta-game has favored some rather than others. But picking out individual players is probably not the best way of show-casing it, there are many reasons for why a player succeeds and fails. My bad.


Late game appears less APM intensive for Zergs as a matter of fact. Aside from taking advantage of huge production causing inflating, a slow broodlord army is less intensive than a faster ling/bling/muta. Injects of course increase, but not by much. Early 3 hatch means 3 injects. Later bases add 1 inject each. Maybe a macro hatch. Even with 6 bases total, that would just be twice as many apm for injects.

I must be missing something, please do enlighten.

Well, go watch a replay in-eyes that goes into late-game

The silent/dormant periods don't necessarily have to be more taxing in the late-game, but what usually happens is that the players have better opportunities for challenging the multi-tasking of each-other. Drops, run-bys and counter-attacks are far more common later in the game - if the players have the speed to make them happen.


I do watch pro player streams. Supporting revival as I type this right now.

Drops happen mid-game from what I see, before BL/infestor, with roach drops against mech etc. Run-bys and counter attacks also happen mid-game more often than lategame before the BL/infestor deathball.

If those are the reasons why lategame zerg is more apm intensive, then we are looking at very different games.

I did see a game where Life was brilliantly multitasking and taking apart my cutie Scarlett with roaches taking out tons and tons of drones. But alas, Scarlett has the wisdom of making twice as many infestors where as Life has a more balanced composition of Broods/corruptors/infestors.

Fungal + infested Terran ftw. Life barely scrapped a win as a result. A clear example of why your argument about APM and multitasking actually is not in favour of foreign zergs. Stephano being exception of course, that crazy French.

/edit

Ultimately, you are assuming that APM = multitasking. It could just be spam. I watch enough games and follow SC2 enough that I know foreign zergs don't do nearly as much drops, run-bys and counterattacks in the lategame as you claim.
ineversmile
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States583 Posts
December 05 2012 13:23 GMT
#1155
I lost a lot of respect for Ver for the OP of this thread. I know it's supposed to be satire, and I know it probably took a good bit of work to put together, but so many things were taken out of context. So much misinformation, it makes me sick.
Nostradamus.146@AM, Nostradamus.398@KR, Nostradamus.922@EU http://www.teamliquid.net/blog/ins
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland25771 Posts
December 05 2012 13:24 GMT
#1156
On December 05 2012 22:04 plogamer wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 05 2012 21:39 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 21:19 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 21:04 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:52 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:22 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:08 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:01 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 19:44 Wombat_NI wrote:
100% agreed.

'Patchzergs' styles are a manifestation of design problems, but that have merely been put into bigger focus with the Queen patch. Hell, if you want to address that, reverting the Queen patch would do a better job. It mightn't solve everything, but I mean would Zerg suffer to anywhere near the same degree if it was reverted, than Terrans have suffered since it was added?

Yes, let's go back to coin-flip bling-wars and roach-busts against hellion and quick 3CCs. So great.

Wombat, you have to get a grip. If one zerg is imbalanced, all zergs are imbalanced, and the zerg players you like who aren't winning simply are not good enough. DRG plays infestor and BL too, he just doesn't win with it. If Scarlett & Vortix are patch-zergs, Life, Sniper & Symbol are patch-zergs. That is the biggest problem of this article, the implication of "Korea = master race" and that if foreign players are winning, there's a patch-problem. Never mind that the graphs are meaningless as absolutes (what is the relation between the number of matches played and matches won?). Never mind that the foreign zerg-players were always better than the foreign terrans, even when the patch-terrans were running rampant. Never mind that to this day, zerg is still the least represented race in GSL overall.

But then, there is no reason to confront those issues. After all, it's all irony anyways. It's not just balance-whine, it's cowardly balance-whine.


Zerg foreigners were always better? Huk, Thorzain, White Ra, without even thinking about it, off the top of my head.

If zerg foreigners have improved, all foreigners should improve. Unless they are in completely different teams, drink different water, or something else that would magically make only the zergs better.

If you cannot acknowledge the fact that Koreans are better at SC2 (mainly due to Broodwar's effect of progaming in the Korean scene), then you are ignorant of the fact that Korean zergs are still beating foreign zergs. While non-zerg Koreans magically cannot beat zergs, foreign or Korean.

Obviously there are more Korean players at the top level. There are more professional players. And there are more Korean players with the mechanics necessary to play at the top level. I never claimed otherwise.

It is also true that early in the life of the game, naniwa, thorzain and white-ra had a bigger impact than today. What is characteristic of those players? They are all below or just above ~200 APM players. What has hurt them more than anything is the focus on late-game, which is more APM intensive. They can't keep up. Stephano, Nerchio & Vortix? All 300+ APM.

But, when Korean zergs where getting hammered, the foreign zergs still did comparatively better.

As for foreign zergs beating Korean zergs: Snute beat Life just this weekend, Stephano beat Life and DRG. Vortix beat revival 3-0 last weekend. Foreign zergs have no problem beating Korean zergs.


You realize that Zerg apm is inflated right? 300/60 = 5 actions per second that comes from making tons of units at once due to banked larvae mechanics. Anyway, even if we reject this premise:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=268783

Read this thread and find that Zergs always had higher apm than Terran or Toss. These 200 apm players were able to perform despite the apm gap, now they suddently cant?

Without a doubt, part of the difference in APM between players is race-dependent. But I don't think it is a coincidence that the most successful players in SC2 overall are almost all fast players (300+ APM) - including MC.

Throughout the history of SC2, late-game has become more and more important. Late-game is the most APM-intensive. Thus, the development of the meta-game has favored some rather than others. But picking out individual players is probably not the best way of show-casing it, there are many reasons for why a player succeeds and fails. My bad.


Late game appears less APM intensive for Zergs as a matter of fact. Aside from taking advantage of huge production causing inflating, a slow broodlord army is less intensive than a faster ling/bling/muta. Injects of course increase, but not by much. Early 3 hatch means 3 injects. Later bases add 1 inject each. Maybe a macro hatch. Even with 6 bases total, that would just be twice as many apm for injects.

I must be missing something, please do enlighten.

Well, go watch a replay in-eyes that goes into late-game

The silent/dormant periods don't necessarily have to be more taxing in the late-game, but what usually happens is that the players have better opportunities for challenging the multi-tasking of each-other. Drops, run-bys and counter-attacks are far more common later in the game - if the players have the speed to make them happen.


I do watch pro player streams. Supporting revival as I type this right now.

Drops happen mid-game from what I see, before BL/infestor, with roach drops against mech etc. Run-bys and counter attacks also happen mid-game more often than lategame before the BL/infestor deathball.

If those are the reasons why lategame zerg is more apm intensive, then we are looking at very different games.

I did see a game where Life was brilliantly multitasking and taking apart my cutie Scarlett with roaches taking out tons and tons of drones. But alas, Scarlett has the wisdom of making twice as many infestors where as Life has a more balanced composition of Broods/corruptors/infestors.

Fungal + infested Terran ftw. Life barely scrapped a win as a result. A clear example of why your argument about APM and multitasking actually is not in favour of foreign zergs. Stephano being exception of course, that crazy French.

/edit

Ultimately, you are assuming that APM = multitasking. It could just be spam. I watch enough games and follow SC2 enough that I know foreign zergs don't do nearly as much drops, run-bys and counterattacks in the lategame as you claim.

Defensive multitasking is as hard, if not harder than offensive multitasking regardless of APM considerations

That said, agree with the rest.
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
andreida
Profile Joined October 2012
Romania18 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-12-05 13:33:10
December 05 2012 13:31 GMT
#1157
Judging by some ppl's response to this thread you can tell the rage quitters in-game.
People should just loosen up a little,the way it is today the game imo (infestor LOL),is broken.Let's hope blizzard makes what it takes to lead us to the most balanced rts ever.Hey one can hope right?Until then i'll still play the game and watch tourneys.

Nice read tough,but as some said most of the ppl won't get it.
EtherealDeath
Profile Blog Joined July 2007
United States8366 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-12-05 13:47:14
December 05 2012 13:46 GMT
#1158
On December 05 2012 21:04 m0ck wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 05 2012 20:52 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:22 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:08 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:01 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 19:44 Wombat_NI wrote:
100% agreed.

'Patchzergs' styles are a manifestation of design problems, but that have merely been put into bigger focus with the Queen patch. Hell, if you want to address that, reverting the Queen patch would do a better job. It mightn't solve everything, but I mean would Zerg suffer to anywhere near the same degree if it was reverted, than Terrans have suffered since it was added?

Yes, let's go back to coin-flip bling-wars and roach-busts against hellion and quick 3CCs. So great.

Wombat, you have to get a grip. If one zerg is imbalanced, all zergs are imbalanced, and the zerg players you like who aren't winning simply are not good enough. DRG plays infestor and BL too, he just doesn't win with it. If Scarlett & Vortix are patch-zergs, Life, Sniper & Symbol are patch-zergs. That is the biggest problem of this article, the implication of "Korea = master race" and that if foreign players are winning, there's a patch-problem. Never mind that the graphs are meaningless as absolutes (what is the relation between the number of matches played and matches won?). Never mind that the foreign zerg-players were always better than the foreign terrans, even when the patch-terrans were running rampant. Never mind that to this day, zerg is still the least represented race in GSL overall.

But then, there is no reason to confront those issues. After all, it's all irony anyways. It's not just balance-whine, it's cowardly balance-whine.


Zerg foreigners were always better? Huk, Thorzain, White Ra, without even thinking about it, off the top of my head.

If zerg foreigners have improved, all foreigners should improve. Unless they are in completely different teams, drink different water, or something else that would magically make only the zergs better.

If you cannot acknowledge the fact that Koreans are better at SC2 (mainly due to Broodwar's effect of progaming in the Korean scene), then you are ignorant of the fact that Korean zergs are still beating foreign zergs. While non-zerg Koreans magically cannot beat zergs, foreign or Korean.

Obviously there are more Korean players at the top level. There are more professional players. And there are more Korean players with the mechanics necessary to play at the top level. I never claimed otherwise.

It is also true that early in the life of the game, naniwa, thorzain and white-ra had a bigger impact than today. What is characteristic of those players? They are all below or just above ~200 APM players. What has hurt them more than anything is the focus on late-game, which is more APM intensive. They can't keep up. Stephano, Nerchio & Vortix? All 300+ APM.

But, when Korean zergs where getting hammered, the foreign zergs still did comparatively better.

As for foreign zergs beating Korean zergs: Snute beat Life just this weekend, Stephano beat Life and DRG. Vortix beat revival 3-0 last weekend. Foreign zergs have no problem beating Korean zergs.


You realize that Zerg apm is inflated right? 300/60 = 5 actions per second that comes from making tons of units at once due to banked larvae mechanics. Anyway, even if we reject this premise:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=268783

Read this thread and find that Zergs always had higher apm than Terran or Toss. These 200 apm players were able to perform despite the apm gap, now they suddently cant?

Without a doubt, part of the difference in APM between players is race-dependent. But I don't think it is a coincidence that the most successful players in SC2 overall are almost all fast players (300+ APM) - including MC.

Throughout the history of SC2, late-game has become more and more important. Late-game is the most APM-intensive. Thus, the development of the meta-game has favored some rather than others. But picking out individual players is probably not the best way of show-casing it, there are many reasons for why a player succeeds and fails. My bad.

Zerg apm is just easier though. The macro mechanic is a huge APM boost, then running around small groups of lings is actually useful and really anyone can do it, and that boosts your apm.

Now of course data sets of 1 are meaningless, but from my own experience playing all 3 races, the APM between them is really pointless. It's just a different way of playing. For instance, my main race is protoss.

Protoss avg apm: ~190-210
Terran avg apm ~220-240
Zerg avg apm ~250-290

My % redundancy also decreases as apm increases across races, so I have both a higher EAPM and a higher EAPM % as zerg than I do with protoss (redunancy in tryhard zerg towards the top end of the avg, which is 290, is about 30%).
m0ck
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
4194 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-12-05 14:27:22
December 05 2012 14:05 GMT
#1159
On December 05 2012 22:04 plogamer wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 05 2012 21:39 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 21:19 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 21:04 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:52 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:22 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:08 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:01 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 19:44 Wombat_NI wrote:
100% agreed.

'Patchzergs' styles are a manifestation of design problems, but that have merely been put into bigger focus with the Queen patch. Hell, if you want to address that, reverting the Queen patch would do a better job. It mightn't solve everything, but I mean would Zerg suffer to anywhere near the same degree if it was reverted, than Terrans have suffered since it was added?

Yes, let's go back to coin-flip bling-wars and roach-busts against hellion and quick 3CCs. So great.

Wombat, you have to get a grip. If one zerg is imbalanced, all zergs are imbalanced, and the zerg players you like who aren't winning simply are not good enough. DRG plays infestor and BL too, he just doesn't win with it. If Scarlett & Vortix are patch-zergs, Life, Sniper & Symbol are patch-zergs. That is the biggest problem of this article, the implication of "Korea = master race" and that if foreign players are winning, there's a patch-problem. Never mind that the graphs are meaningless as absolutes (what is the relation between the number of matches played and matches won?). Never mind that the foreign zerg-players were always better than the foreign terrans, even when the patch-terrans were running rampant. Never mind that to this day, zerg is still the least represented race in GSL overall.

But then, there is no reason to confront those issues. After all, it's all irony anyways. It's not just balance-whine, it's cowardly balance-whine.


Zerg foreigners were always better? Huk, Thorzain, White Ra, without even thinking about it, off the top of my head.

If zerg foreigners have improved, all foreigners should improve. Unless they are in completely different teams, drink different water, or something else that would magically make only the zergs better.

If you cannot acknowledge the fact that Koreans are better at SC2 (mainly due to Broodwar's effect of progaming in the Korean scene), then you are ignorant of the fact that Korean zergs are still beating foreign zergs. While non-zerg Koreans magically cannot beat zergs, foreign or Korean.

Obviously there are more Korean players at the top level. There are more professional players. And there are more Korean players with the mechanics necessary to play at the top level. I never claimed otherwise.

It is also true that early in the life of the game, naniwa, thorzain and white-ra had a bigger impact than today. What is characteristic of those players? They are all below or just above ~200 APM players. What has hurt them more than anything is the focus on late-game, which is more APM intensive. They can't keep up. Stephano, Nerchio & Vortix? All 300+ APM.

But, when Korean zergs where getting hammered, the foreign zergs still did comparatively better.

As for foreign zergs beating Korean zergs: Snute beat Life just this weekend, Stephano beat Life and DRG. Vortix beat revival 3-0 last weekend. Foreign zergs have no problem beating Korean zergs.


You realize that Zerg apm is inflated right? 300/60 = 5 actions per second that comes from making tons of units at once due to banked larvae mechanics. Anyway, even if we reject this premise:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=268783

Read this thread and find that Zergs always had higher apm than Terran or Toss. These 200 apm players were able to perform despite the apm gap, now they suddently cant?

Without a doubt, part of the difference in APM between players is race-dependent. But I don't think it is a coincidence that the most successful players in SC2 overall are almost all fast players (300+ APM) - including MC.

Throughout the history of SC2, late-game has become more and more important. Late-game is the most APM-intensive. Thus, the development of the meta-game has favored some rather than others. But picking out individual players is probably not the best way of show-casing it, there are many reasons for why a player succeeds and fails. My bad.


Late game appears less APM intensive for Zergs as a matter of fact. Aside from taking advantage of huge production causing inflating, a slow broodlord army is less intensive than a faster ling/bling/muta. Injects of course increase, but not by much. Early 3 hatch means 3 injects. Later bases add 1 inject each. Maybe a macro hatch. Even with 6 bases total, that would just be twice as many apm for injects.

I must be missing something, please do enlighten.

Well, go watch a replay in-eyes that goes into late-game

The silent/dormant periods don't necessarily have to be more taxing in the late-game, but what usually happens is that the players have better opportunities for challenging the multi-tasking of each-other. Drops, run-bys and counter-attacks are far more common later in the game - if the players have the speed to make them happen.


I do watch pro player streams. Supporting revival as I type this right now.

Drops happen mid-game from what I see, before BL/infestor, with roach drops against mech etc. Run-bys and counter attacks also happen mid-game more often than lategame before the BL/infestor deathball.

If those are the reasons why lategame zerg is more apm intensive, then we are looking at very different games.

I did see a game where Life was brilliantly multitasking and taking apart my cutie Scarlett with roaches taking out tons and tons of drones. But alas, Scarlett has the wisdom of making twice as many infestors where as Life has a more balanced composition of Broods/corruptors/infestors.

Fungal + infested Terran ftw. Life barely scrapped a win as a result. A clear example of why your argument about APM and multitasking actually is not in favour of foreign zergs. Stephano being exception of course, that crazy French.

/edit

Ultimately, you are assuming that APM = multitasking. It could just be spam. I watch enough games and follow SC2 enough that I know foreign zergs don't do nearly as much drops, run-bys and counterattacks in the lategame as you claim.

A couple of things.

No, I'm not assuming that APM = multi-tasking, but it seems silly to me to presume that they are unrelated. Again: The most successful players in SC2 have been fast players/high APM players.

I don't agree that drops, multi-pronged attacks et al happens more in the mid-game, but there's an issue of definition. One of the ways in which terran players win against BLs, and why BLs are vulnerable on the larger maps, is the potential for run-bys and drops that expose the weakness of the slow speed of BLs/forces the zerg-player to split up his army. And before you say "Oh, like that is so hard to deal with?", just remember how the best players in world have died to that scenario over and over again. There are more things to do and your attention have more places to go in the late-game. So, maybe you miss the red dot on the mini-map. The drop lands. And it cascades from there.

Yes, Life quite clearly did better multi-tasking than Scarlett in that game. So did DRG in the game where they both went mutas and Scarlett won. But unless your multi-tasking puts you in a winning position, your multi-tasking is not successful. These players don't play to look good and lose, they play to win. And the Koreans do that better than anyone. I think you're showing a Korean bias. Life is very good at early harass, but he very often uses that advantage to go infestor->BLs (though sometimes he builds 7-8-9 mutas on his way there). What happened when he got behind against Stephano? Mass infestor.

In any case, I think we have differing views about the quality of some different players, but it's very subjective and we probably won't agree. To me, Ret is a good example of a slowish zerg player who falters in the late-game (~230 APM). How many times have seen ret die after BLs are out?
m0ck
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
4194 Posts
December 05 2012 14:14 GMT
#1160
On December 05 2012 22:46 EtherealDeath wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 05 2012 21:04 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:52 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:22 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:08 plogamer wrote:
On December 05 2012 20:01 m0ck wrote:
On December 05 2012 19:44 Wombat_NI wrote:
100% agreed.

'Patchzergs' styles are a manifestation of design problems, but that have merely been put into bigger focus with the Queen patch. Hell, if you want to address that, reverting the Queen patch would do a better job. It mightn't solve everything, but I mean would Zerg suffer to anywhere near the same degree if it was reverted, than Terrans have suffered since it was added?

Yes, let's go back to coin-flip bling-wars and roach-busts against hellion and quick 3CCs. So great.

Wombat, you have to get a grip. If one zerg is imbalanced, all zergs are imbalanced, and the zerg players you like who aren't winning simply are not good enough. DRG plays infestor and BL too, he just doesn't win with it. If Scarlett & Vortix are patch-zergs, Life, Sniper & Symbol are patch-zergs. That is the biggest problem of this article, the implication of "Korea = master race" and that if foreign players are winning, there's a patch-problem. Never mind that the graphs are meaningless as absolutes (what is the relation between the number of matches played and matches won?). Never mind that the foreign zerg-players were always better than the foreign terrans, even when the patch-terrans were running rampant. Never mind that to this day, zerg is still the least represented race in GSL overall.

But then, there is no reason to confront those issues. After all, it's all irony anyways. It's not just balance-whine, it's cowardly balance-whine.


Zerg foreigners were always better? Huk, Thorzain, White Ra, without even thinking about it, off the top of my head.

If zerg foreigners have improved, all foreigners should improve. Unless they are in completely different teams, drink different water, or something else that would magically make only the zergs better.

If you cannot acknowledge the fact that Koreans are better at SC2 (mainly due to Broodwar's effect of progaming in the Korean scene), then you are ignorant of the fact that Korean zergs are still beating foreign zergs. While non-zerg Koreans magically cannot beat zergs, foreign or Korean.

Obviously there are more Korean players at the top level. There are more professional players. And there are more Korean players with the mechanics necessary to play at the top level. I never claimed otherwise.

It is also true that early in the life of the game, naniwa, thorzain and white-ra had a bigger impact than today. What is characteristic of those players? They are all below or just above ~200 APM players. What has hurt them more than anything is the focus on late-game, which is more APM intensive. They can't keep up. Stephano, Nerchio & Vortix? All 300+ APM.

But, when Korean zergs where getting hammered, the foreign zergs still did comparatively better.

As for foreign zergs beating Korean zergs: Snute beat Life just this weekend, Stephano beat Life and DRG. Vortix beat revival 3-0 last weekend. Foreign zergs have no problem beating Korean zergs.


You realize that Zerg apm is inflated right? 300/60 = 5 actions per second that comes from making tons of units at once due to banked larvae mechanics. Anyway, even if we reject this premise:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=268783

Read this thread and find that Zergs always had higher apm than Terran or Toss. These 200 apm players were able to perform despite the apm gap, now they suddently cant?

Without a doubt, part of the difference in APM between players is race-dependent. But I don't think it is a coincidence that the most successful players in SC2 overall are almost all fast players (300+ APM) - including MC.

Throughout the history of SC2, late-game has become more and more important. Late-game is the most APM-intensive. Thus, the development of the meta-game has favored some rather than others. But picking out individual players is probably not the best way of show-casing it, there are many reasons for why a player succeeds and fails. My bad.

Zerg apm is just easier though. The macro mechanic is a huge APM boost, then running around small groups of lings is actually useful and really anyone can do it, and that boosts your apm.

Now of course data sets of 1 are meaningless, but from my own experience playing all 3 races, the APM between them is really pointless. It's just a different way of playing. For instance, my main race is protoss.

Protoss avg apm: ~190-210
Terran avg apm ~220-240
Zerg avg apm ~250-290

My % redundancy also decreases as apm increases across races, so I have both a higher EAPM and a higher EAPM % as zerg than I do with protoss (redunancy in tryhard zerg towards the top end of the avg, which is 290, is about 30%).

The reason I think APM is interesting is that it is one of the few objective criteria we have for judging players. We lack game-statistics! ^^

As I wrote, there is no doubt that part of the difference between players in APM is due to the race they play. But it seems silly to me to ignore a 100+ APM difference between players. It is certainly not the end-all quality for judging players. Fast hands on their own won't do very much at all. But I think slow hands limits the situations in which you can be successful, and puts a very real limit on what you can achieve.
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