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Hello Teamliquid!
I am Taronar, I have been a lurker for quite a while now, but today I would like to request your attention for something interesting that caught my interests. Even though this thread has a fancy title, this is in no way a balance whine. There are some minor spoilers about Red Bull Battlegrounds, don't read any further when you don't want these spoiled!
Everyone who saw the Scarlett's games in the Red Bull Battle Grounds should have noticed something really impressive. Where average peoples build up a huge Deathball which destroys enemies with a sweep (Protoss DeathBall, MMMM, Ling-Bling-Muta) Scarlett played a different style of ZvX. Let me give you some examples.
In the glorious game 3 vs Bomber, Scarlett is nearly starved and has one all-inish moment which can win her the game if she executes her move perfectly, which she does, twice in a row. She uses burrowedbanelings for maximum efficiency in the Ultra-lategame which completely destroys Bombers Marine force.
This move was impressive, but maybe not even the greatest example of what I meant.
In the next series Scarlett is up against sOs. Though the VODS are not yet up, I would really recommend this series. Though I will not try to spoil to much. At some point, Scarlett is up against a huge airfleet of Protoss. In reaction she gets infestors. Normally we would see 6-10 infestors for chainfungal. Instead Scarlett picks up 2 infestors.
I wonder. Why did she only get 2 infestors. Why did she put all her money on landing 1 or 2 key fungals?
Eventually she hits one of the best fungals and therefor kills most of sOs's airfleet with remaining corruptor/hydra. Eventually winning the game. Basically on the back of these 2 fungals.
Is this a new shift in the metagame? Or am I just staring into an illusion?
~Taronar
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I like your allusion to the illusion of hallucination.
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On November 25 2013 08:44 Mahavishnu wrote:
I like your allusion to the illusion of hallucination.
haha, i liked the way you phrased that. <3
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Better player use abilities better. She could have spammed 6 fungals and have most of them miss, or wait for the perfect opportunity (and only require 1 or 2).
It's like whether terran's decied to blanket EMP or only strategically use 1 or 2. The better players only use 1 or 2, people like me, who suck, will just spam it to make sure I hit everything.
Basically, why use more than you have to?
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I actually don't understand what you are asking exactly in the question at the end. I didn't see the games today, but
In the glorious game 3 vs Bomber, Scarlett is nearly starved and has one all-inish moment which can win her the game if she executes her move perfectly, which she does, twice in a row. She uses burrowedbanelings for maximum efficiency in the Ultra-lategame which completely destroys Bombers Marine force.
This doesn't sound like it has anything to do with the metagame. It's not like she wouldn't have built up a big muta/ling/bane ball if she had the economy, but you clearly mentioned she didn't, so she meticulously placed some burrowed banelings in key positions to get a lucky hit off. She didn't really have any better choice.
I didn't see the games, so I can't comment on the infestor thing, as that could depend on a lot of stuff. But regardless, I don't think one player making only 2 infestors in one game in one series could suddenly depict a metagame shift.
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@Grobyc
What I try to illustrate is that a lot of players build a whole bunch of "money units" which take up quite a lot of supply which results in a weaker "main army". Should we see a shift to fewer support units in favor of more army units?
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I am confused what this reference to a shift in the metagame is. Zergs have never been a deathball race. They have always relied on fast, cheap, weak, low supply units. MMMM and ling/bane/muta aren't deathball armies either. They are constantly trading type of armies.
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On November 25 2013 09:18 KingofGods wrote:
Zergs have never been a deathball race.
Did you completely miss the end of WoL?
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On November 25 2013 09:02 Taronar wrote:
@Grobyc
What I try to illustrate is that a lot of players build a whole bunch of "money units" which take up quite a lot of supply which results in a weaker "main army". Should we see a shift to fewer support units in favor of more army units?
The fast 3/3 ultra build has been known for a long time as one where you don't want to over make infestors (more than 5-6 was considered too much, not sure about nowadays) as you need the gas for ultras. It's not really a new thing that players are getting better with specialist units and not building too many. People have gotten better at spending money wisely, like with JD's larvae saving.
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On November 25 2013 09:20 HolyArrow wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2013 09:18 KingofGods wrote:
Zergs have never been a deathball race. Did you completely miss the end of WoL?
Everyone's late game is deathball anyway. It's just that it's reached too fast in some match ups and gets boring.
I wish super late game was something you felt like you "earned," like in Mvp Squirtle g5, rather than something gotten relatively quickly off of 4 bases. I was always excited at the prospect of seeing carriers after a 5th base in PvZ, back in WoL, but the deathball play leading up to that was less interesting. In short, I wish the deathball was something you had to work harder at taking lots of bases to achieve.
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On November 25 2013 09:02 Taronar wrote:
@Grobyc
What I try to illustrate is that a lot of players build a whole bunch of "money units" which take up quite a lot of supply which results in a weaker "main army". Should we see a shift to fewer support units in favor of more army units?
I still don't understand your basis for that though. This was one game, one matchup, one player, that changed one thing. It's all heavily dependent on the matchup and army composition you are playing and playing against. In this case, I'd basically agree with what Zenbrez said. Can't create a basis for a metagame shift off one game though.
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people have been getting infestor against mass phoenix for months, you go muta, they go mass phoenix, you get infestor to fungal the phoenix and then kill them with the muta. This is not an unbeatable air army from sos, its alot of phoenix thats all. Scarlett did the correct response very well nonetheless but it's far from new.
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Well, honestly, infestors are pretty weak right now. The projectile-based fungal and the roughly worthless infested terrans make it sort of lackluster, but it has its uses. Going against phoenixes is definitely one of them, since they revolve around kiting. And since Scarlett was going air, it'd be silly to make a large number of them since they cost 150 gas.
I really don't think there's any shift in the metagame though. Mutas are pretty common in every matchup right now and the addition of a couple key infestors doesn't really change much.
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United Kingdom20326 Posts
On November 25 2013 09:20 HolyArrow wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2013 09:18 KingofGods wrote:
Zergs have never been a deathball race. Did you completely miss the end of WoL?
Not just the end
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EPT
