On September 14 2013 04:58 MtlGuitarist97 wrote: I'm not sure if Life will be able to regain his old form. I hope that he can, but I don't realistically think he can compete with the likes of Bomber, TaeJa, Flash, INnoVation, or JD.
Bomber has seen slumps way worse than Life, Taeja is hardly worth being mentionned as a top 5 player (may want to replace him with soulkey or rain), JD is only doing so well because playing outside of Korea, and is still far from GSL championship level...
Yeah, no, Life can. Innovation may be trouble, but he beat MVP when everyone thought it was impossible and listed him as best player in the world. So who know?
Bomber has been in slumps that are bad, but he's not in one right now. TaeJa is definitely a top 5 player, I don't know what you're smoking (and neither Rain nor Soulkey are at DH, I don't know why I'd bring them up in a conversation about DH). JD also beat Rain, MC, and First, three of the top protoss players at the moment. He also beat Scarlett who's insanely good at ZvZ.
He also beat Mvp when Mvp's wrists were basically destroyed and when Zerg was...uhhh...OP (don't want to bring up balance but it's kind of widely accepted that Zerg was strong in WoL). He narrowly beat Mvp when Mvp was seriously injured and hasn't really reached any height of that sort since then. Winning MLG was cool and all, but has he really done anything else noteworthy?
1st place GSL 1st place MLG 1st place Blizzard Cup 1st place Iron Squid 1st place MLG
He did some noteworthy things that become even more noteworthy, because that's the longest streak of domination I can remember in sc2.
MVP didn't win Iron Squid, MMA did. MVP's kryptonite.
Life's ZvT prior to the Queen (and overlord, I guess) buff: 49-57 (~46% winning percentage). Life's ZvT prior to the Queen buff: 54-19: (~74%). That's an enormous increase and it's not as though he was getting good at the matchup right before the patch either. From January 1st 2012 up to the Queen patch, he was 20-28. That's an arbitrary period, but you get similar results for other time spans.
His ZvP went from 52-36 (around 60%) to 54-19 and his ZvZ fell from 40-11 to 42-25 (around 78% to about 63%).
He was facing a very different group of players in the two periods (harder in the second period), but that shouldn't have a huge impact on his results by race. While he's immensely talented, the numbers make it hard to avoid the conclusion that he was not good at ZvT prior to the Queen patch making it easy for Zerg to deflect much of Terran's early aggression.
On September 14 2013 15:11 braller wrote: Life's ZvT prior to the Queen (and overlord, I guess) buff: 49-57 (~46% winning percentage). Life's ZvT prior to the Queen buff: 54-19: (~74%). That's an enormous increase and it's not as though he was getting good at the matchup right before the patch either. From January 1st 2012 up to the Queen patch, he was 20-28. That's an arbitrary period, but you get similar results for other time spans.
His ZvP went from 52-36 (around 60%) to 54-19 and his ZvZ fell from 40-11 to 42-25 (around 78% to about 63%).
He was facing a very different group of players in the two periods (harder in the second period), but that shouldn't have a huge impact on his results by race. While he's immensely talented, the numbers make it hard to avoid the conclusion that he was not good at ZvT prior to the Queen patch making it easy for Zerg to deflect much of Terran's early aggression.
You don't even have the proper statistics to support your claims: TLPD is a very bad resource as it doesn't record all the games. Life's actual ZvT record between 1/1/2012 and 5/9/2012 was 52-39 and he had a 54% winrate (83-70) in the matchup prior to the queen patch.
On September 14 2013 10:00 Jerom wrote: This recent very big slump of Life makes me believe that Life might in fact have been a patch zerg
User was warned for this post
This. Just because Life plays interesting aggressive Zerg style doesn't mean he did not benefit greatly from the OPness of Zerg. Infestors saved his ass so many times in his series agains Mvp , one infestor killed like 6 vikings.
P.S. : I will never forgive Life for taking that 5th trophy of Mvp.
I love MVP and wanted to see him win, but get real. Life was the better player that tournament and it was a surprise MVP took that to game 7 and nearly won in the first place.
Yeah Infestors helped, but so did his insane creep, magical lings that always seemed to do damage (still the best out there), and his great macro. I distinctly remember at least 2 games where Life would apply aggression so well and keep MVP so distracted, that by the time he'd move out for that inevitable thor/tank pre-BL timing Life would already have several broods. He never even got vikings.
Saying Life is a patchzerg is like saying Bogus was a hellbat-Terran.
On September 14 2013 10:00 Jerom wrote: This recent very big slump of Life makes me believe that Life might in fact have been a patch zerg
User was warned for this post
This. Just because Life plays interesting aggressive Zerg style doesn't mean he did not benefit greatly from the OPness of Zerg. Infestors saved his ass so many times in his series agains Mvp , one infestor killed like 6 vikings.
P.S. : I will never forgive Life for taking that 5th trophy of Mvp.
I love MVP and wanted to see him win, but get real. Life was the better player that tournament and it was a surprise MVP took that to game 7 and nearly won in the first place.
Yeah Infestors helped, but so did his insane creep, magical lings that always seemed to do damage (still the best out there), and his great macro. I distinctly remember at least 2 games where Life would apply aggression so well and keep MVP so distracted, that by the time he'd move out for that inevitable thor/tank pre-BL timing Life would already have several broods. He never even got vikings.
I like Life too but if Zerg wasn't a jokity joke Mvp would have won that finals, he nearly did with how the game was and how good Life was.
On September 14 2013 15:11 braller wrote: Life's ZvT prior to the Queen (and overlord, I guess) buff: 49-57 (~46% winning percentage). Life's ZvT prior to the Queen buff: 54-19: (~74%). That's an enormous increase and it's not as though he was getting good at the matchup right before the patch either. From January 1st 2012 up to the Queen patch, he was 20-28. That's an arbitrary period, but you get similar results for other time spans.
His ZvP went from 52-36 (around 60%) to 54-19 and his ZvZ fell from 40-11 to 42-25 (around 78% to about 63%).
He was facing a very different group of players in the two periods (harder in the second period), but that shouldn't have a huge impact on his results by race. While he's immensely talented, the numbers make it hard to avoid the conclusion that he was not good at ZvT prior to the Queen patch making it easy for Zerg to deflect much of Terran's early aggression.
You don't even have the proper statistics to support your claims: TLPD is a very bad resource as it doesn't record all the games. Life's actual ZvT record between 1/1/2012 and 5/9/2012 was 52-39 and he had a 54% winrate (83-70) in the matchup prior to the queen patch.
I was just using TLPD KR numbers. The combined numbers are similar to what you posted, though they do feature three more losses (TLPD invented three losses?).
On September 14 2013 15:11 braller wrote: Life's ZvT prior to the Queen (and overlord, I guess) buff: 49-57 (~46% winning percentage). Life's ZvT prior to the Queen buff: 54-19: (~74%). That's an enormous increase and it's not as though he was getting good at the matchup right before the patch either. From January 1st 2012 up to the Queen patch, he was 20-28. That's an arbitrary period, but you get similar results for other time spans.
His ZvP went from 52-36 (around 60%) to 54-19 and his ZvZ fell from 40-11 to 42-25 (around 78% to about 63%).
He was facing a very different group of players in the two periods (harder in the second period), but that shouldn't have a huge impact on his results by race. While he's immensely talented, the numbers make it hard to avoid the conclusion that he was not good at ZvT prior to the Queen patch making it easy for Zerg to deflect much of Terran's early aggression.
You don't even have the proper statistics to support your claims: TLPD is a very bad resource as it doesn't record all the games. Life's actual ZvT record between 1/1/2012 and 5/9/2012 was 52-39 and he had a 54% winrate (83-70) in the matchup prior to the queen patch.
On September 14 2013 15:11 braller wrote: Life's ZvT prior to the Queen (and overlord, I guess) buff: 49-57 (~46% winning percentage). Life's ZvT prior to the Queen buff: 54-19: (~74%). That's an enormous increase and it's not as though he was getting good at the matchup right before the patch either. From January 1st 2012 up to the Queen patch, he was 20-28. That's an arbitrary period, but you get similar results for other time spans.
His ZvP went from 52-36 (around 60%) to 54-19 and his ZvZ fell from 40-11 to 42-25 (around 78% to about 63%).
He was facing a very different group of players in the two periods (harder in the second period), but that shouldn't have a huge impact on his results by race. While he's immensely talented, the numbers make it hard to avoid the conclusion that he was not good at ZvT prior to the Queen patch making it easy for Zerg to deflect much of Terran's early aggression.
You don't even have the proper statistics to support your claims: TLPD is a very bad resource as it doesn't record all the games. Life's actual ZvT record between 1/1/2012 and 5/9/2012 was 52-39 and he had a 54% winrate (83-70) in the matchup prior to the queen patch.
On September 14 2013 15:11 braller wrote: That's an enormous increase and it's not as though he was getting good at the matchup right before the patch either.
That's actually not true watching his games. Life was actually one of my hipster predictions to make code S by the end of the year at the start of 2012, and it wasn't until just prior to the queen patch did he really start to pick up speed. Check out his Iron Squid run. I'll tell you from remembering those games, Life was looking pretty damn good in ZvT against the likes of MMA and Jjakji who were regarded as two of the best TvZ players in the world at the time. I distinctly remember some of his games in that tournament of champions online tournament as well (prior to IPL4), namely a game on Cloud Kingdom against Supernova (I think this one was actually listed in the top 2012 games article by TL).
On September 14 2013 15:11 braller wrote: Life's ZvT prior to the Queen (and overlord, I guess) buff: 49-57 (~46% winning percentage). Life's ZvT prior to the Queen buff: 54-19: (~74%). That's an enormous increase and it's not as though he was getting good at the matchup right before the patch either. From January 1st 2012 up to the Queen patch, he was 20-28. That's an arbitrary period, but you get similar results for other time spans.
His ZvP went from 52-36 (around 60%) to 54-19 and his ZvZ fell from 40-11 to 42-25 (around 78% to about 63%).
He was facing a very different group of players in the two periods (harder in the second period), but that shouldn't have a huge impact on his results by race. While he's immensely talented, the numbers make it hard to avoid the conclusion that he was not good at ZvT prior to the Queen patch making it easy for Zerg to deflect much of Terran's early aggression.
You don't even have the proper statistics to support your claims: TLPD is a very bad resource as it doesn't record all the games. Life's actual ZvT record between 1/1/2012 and 5/9/2012 was 52-39 and he had a 54% winrate (83-70) in the matchup prior to the queen patch.
On September 14 2013 15:11 braller wrote: That's an enormous increase and it's not as though he was getting good at the matchup right before the patch either.
That's actually not true watching his games. Life was actually one of my hipster predictions to make code S by the end of the year at the start of 2012, and it wasn't until just prior to the queen patch did he really start to pick up speed. Check out his Iron Squid run. I'll tell you from remembering those games, Life was looking pretty damn good in ZvT against the likes of MMA and Jjakji who were regarded as two of the best TvZ players in the world at the time. I distinctly remember some of his games in that tournament of champions online tournament as well (prior to IPL4), namely a game on Cloud Kingdom against Supernova (I think this one was actually listed in the top 2012 games article by TL).
Life improved because he started practicing full time with Startale as far as I know.
On September 14 2013 15:11 braller wrote: Life's ZvT prior to the Queen (and overlord, I guess) buff: 49-57 (~46% winning percentage). Life's ZvT prior to the Queen buff: 54-19: (~74%). That's an enormous increase and it's not as though he was getting good at the matchup right before the patch either. From January 1st 2012 up to the Queen patch, he was 20-28. That's an arbitrary period, but you get similar results for other time spans.
His ZvP went from 52-36 (around 60%) to 54-19 and his ZvZ fell from 40-11 to 42-25 (around 78% to about 63%).
He was facing a very different group of players in the two periods (harder in the second period), but that shouldn't have a huge impact on his results by race. While he's immensely talented, the numbers make it hard to avoid the conclusion that he was not good at ZvT prior to the Queen patch making it easy for Zerg to deflect much of Terran's early aggression.
Right, just a few things I need to point out:
Your numbers are wrong (at the very least incomplete). You say "he wasn't getting better at ZvT", what do you base this on? Did you watch his Korean Weekly games, for example? Iron Squid qualifiers? Tournament of Champions? After the Queen patch he suddenly became sick at ZvT, right? Did his zergling-style show up out of nowhere because he now had better queens and if so, why could no one else match the style or the winrate he obtained post-Queen patch? ZvT winrates went up after the queen patch, yes, but if he "wasn't good", why did he become better than the Zergs who were already good at ZvT, given the same tools? He started practising with Startale around that time, right after the Zenex-ST merge. Think about that.
On September 14 2013 19:36 FrostedMiniWheats wrote:
On September 14 2013 19:26 AyaaLa wrote:
On September 14 2013 15:27 CosmicSpiral wrote:
On September 14 2013 15:11 braller wrote: Life's ZvT prior to the Queen (and overlord, I guess) buff: 49-57 (~46% winning percentage). Life's ZvT prior to the Queen buff: 54-19: (~74%). That's an enormous increase and it's not as though he was getting good at the matchup right before the patch either. From January 1st 2012 up to the Queen patch, he was 20-28. That's an arbitrary period, but you get similar results for other time spans.
His ZvP went from 52-36 (around 60%) to 54-19 and his ZvZ fell from 40-11 to 42-25 (around 78% to about 63%).
He was facing a very different group of players in the two periods (harder in the second period), but that shouldn't have a huge impact on his results by race. While he's immensely talented, the numbers make it hard to avoid the conclusion that he was not good at ZvT prior to the Queen patch making it easy for Zerg to deflect much of Terran's early aggression.
You don't even have the proper statistics to support your claims: TLPD is a very bad resource as it doesn't record all the games. Life's actual ZvT record between 1/1/2012 and 5/9/2012 was 52-39 and he had a 54% winrate (83-70) in the matchup prior to the queen patch.
On September 14 2013 15:11 braller wrote: That's an enormous increase and it's not as though he was getting good at the matchup right before the patch either.
That's actually not true watching his games. Life was actually one of my hipster predictions to make code S by the end of the year at the start of 2012, and it wasn't until just prior to the queen patch did he really start to pick up speed. Check out his Iron Squid run. I'll tell you from remembering those games, Life was looking pretty damn good in ZvT against the likes of MMA and Jjakji who were regarded as two of the best TvZ players in the world at the time. I distinctly remember some of his games in that tournament of champions online tournament as well (prior to IPL4), namely a game on Cloud Kingdom against Supernova (I think this one was actually listed in the top 2012 games article by TL).
Life improved because he started practicing full time with Startale as far as I know.
Oh right. I forgot Life also was on the struggling Zenex that hemorrhaged talent prior to the patch as well. Joining Startale only adds to the argument in his favor.
of course life benefited from the queen change, as did many other zergs. but i think the main factor for him being almost invincible in zvt was the fact that he had amazing infestor usage. i distinctly remember one game against marine king on ohana where he took a game-losing amount of much damage early on and actually had no way of coming back...but he made about 5 infestors and with burrow, kept popping up/fungalling/spamming infested terrans (off 2-base while marineking had his third) and actually managed to come back and win the game, was quite disgusting to watch lol.
against mvp's strong style of mech use he would send his ling/b-ling army to counter when mvp moves out whilst using his infestors to mass fungal the mech army to stall/kill the army. this infestor retention whilst causing free damage was too much for terrans (because it was broken as fuck). leenock was another that had smart infestor (+broodlord) control and i remember multiple games where he would have his third denied over and over and still manage to comeback off 2 base against a 3/4 base terran because of the power of the infestor (and broodlord). look what happened to leenock now, he has disappeared just like life...sad stuff.
on the other hand, you can see how well drg is doing now, he never relied on broken strats. hopefully he continues to dominate with ling/bling/muta because that will always be more fun to watch.
On September 15 2013 00:01 TheOne26 wrote: of course life benefited from the queen change, as did many other zergs. but i think the main factor for him being almost invincible in zvt was the fact that he had amazing infestor usage. i distinctly remember one game against marine king on ohana where he took a game-losing amount of much damage early on and actually had no way of coming back...but he made about 5 infestors and with burrow, kept popping up/fungalling/spamming infested terrans (off 2-base while marineking had his third) and actually managed to come back and win the game, was quite disgusting to watch lol.
against mvp's strong style of mech use he would send his ling/b-ling army to counter when mvp moves out whilst using his infestors to mass fungal the mech army to stall/kill the army. this infestor retention whilst causing free damage was too much for terrans (because it was broken as fuck). leenock was another that had smart infestor (+broodlord) control and i remember multiple games where he would have his third denied over and over and still manage to comeback off 2 base against a 3/4 base terran because of the power of the infestor (and broodlord). look what happened to leenock now, he has disappeared just like life...sad stuff.
on the other hand, you can see how well drg is doing now, he never relied on broken strats. hopefully he continues to dominate with ling/bling/muta because that will always be more fun to watch.
EPT
Also.. Life, make it happen! :D
