Few thought this could happen. Few thought it was possible. He had fallen down to Code B, had not won a tournament in months, and looked out of sorts in his games. There were whispers of his renewed commitment and practice regime, but few had seen evidence to suggest that he could win. And yet, once again, he found a way. Life—against all odds; against the "best player in the world"; against the best PvZ in the world; against the most successful player ever; and against the only repeat BlizzCon finalist ever—found a way to win BlizzCon.
It was an eventful weekend of Starcraft as Blizzard made a host of announcements regarding the future of the game:
Game 1: Nimbus Both players opted for expansion first on the greed-friendly map. Anticipating a stargate build from Classic, MMA built a quick engineering bay, establishing the proper defenses to take zero damage from Classic's oracle. Classic followed up with colossus tech and looked poised to take a third when he was dropped from the game. During the downtime, much like yesterday, the players sat idly in their booths while the TL Writers' chat collaborated on some fan fiction. No more than an hour and 10 minutes later, the game resumed with Classic starting his third. MMA pressured the third while dropping Classic's natural, only to find a growing number of phoenixes. MMA continued to take small engagements, eventually catching all of the phoenixes with good target firing. Classic abandoned the phoenix route and switched into blink stalkers, but before he could balance enough stalkers with zealots to tank, MMA pressed hard with a marauder and viking heavy army to crush through and take the first game.
15:46 : "Lichter is newb" makes his triumphant return [3:46:37 PM] reduce.entropy: Sniper contemplates [3:46:40 PM] reduce.entropy: why he retired [3:46:41 PM] CosmicSpiral: 15:47 : Classic picks his nose delicately, hesitantly [3:47:17 PM] CosmicSpiral: 15:48 : Scarlett feels an ill wind stir behind her back. She spins around, but nothing's there. [3:47:26 PM] Soularion: except Yuzhe's eyes [3:47:31 PM] Joe A: 15:49 yuzhe is crying in a bathroom [3:47:34 PM] Michael "peanuts" Hathaway: Wait, Scarlett's in the crowd? [3:48:02 PM] Soularion: 15:50 life puns are heavy in the audience [3:48:08 PM] reduce.entropy: yuzhe keeps calling scarlett different names [3:48:27 PM] CosmicSpiral: 15:50 : Organizers find Zest chewing on the power cords. When asked the reason behind his bizarre behavior, he growls. [3:48:53 PM] reduce.entropy: 15:55 : Khaldor called in to calm down Zest [3:49:02 PM] reduce.entropy: He takes a Van gogh painting [3:49:15 PM] reduce.entropy: and oth of them take off their coat, take off their shirt, put on their coat all while staring at van gogh painting [3:50:03 PM] CosmicSpiral: 15:56 A smattering of dust, shaped in the form of a human, is found in the bathroom. After much investigation, police confirm it was an unfortunate bystander who glimpsed Innovation outside of his flesh suit. [3:50:43 PM] reduce.entropy: mvc3players congregate outside blizzcon to meet the robot with a human face
Game 2: King Sejong Station MMA chose an aggressive hellion plus marine drop build on the second map to deal some counter damage to the expected oracle. After fending off the oracle and drawing out a photon overcharge, MMA attacked again and managed to kill 12 workers. Classic took a fairly quick third behind his phoenix colossus transition. Both players, having maxed out, began to dance for position to take a favorable engagement. MMA managed to bait the phoenixes into widow mines, killing about half of them. Recognizing his enormous advantage as a window of opportunity, MMA made the snap decision of pulling two thirds of his workers. However, he botched the attack with poor positioning fighting up a ramp, his SCVs getting stuck behind his army as six colossi beamed fiery death upon his army. Yet Classic refused to capitalize on his 45 worker lead and finish the Acer terran off, opting to sit back and tech up while taking his half of the map. MMA clawed his way back, taking multiple favorable big fights with good viking positioning and ghost micro. But Classic retained his economic lead, compounding it with ubiquitous zealot harass. Once again reduced to just a few workers, MMA mustered up a final push. Though it battered Classic within an inch of death, MMA's attack sputtered and the Acer terran was forced to concede the game.
Game 3: Overgrowth Classic opened with a fairly standard gateway expand, with MMA used a reaper expand. MMA poked at Classic, first with his reaper, then with a pair of hellions. Classic calmly repelled the attacks, losing only a handful of probes as he threw down a robo and a forge. A drop from MMA would deal a small amount of damage which gave him some room to breathe as he threw down his third base. At 13 minutes, Classic warped in a fast templar archives, while MMA started to position himself in front of Classic's natural. MMA pulled the boys, baiting out all of Classic's storms on the ramp, and then pushed into his third to take out the remainder of Classic's army. Classic tried to hold with a pack of templar in his main, but MMA's army was too large and too powerful to be repelled.
Game 4: Merry Go Round MMA opened economically with a CC first, while Classic again opted for a gateway opener. The followup, however, was a stargate before the SKT Protoss constructed his nexus. A scan from MMA revealed Classic's plan, and he responded with quick missile turrets. A kill on Classic's oracle allowed MMA to safely enter a macro phase, pumping out bio, medivacs and fast upgrades as Classic began his transition into phoenix/templar/zealot. An attempted drop was warded away after MMA scanned and saw a group of phoenixes in Classic's main. Classic pursued, only to be caught by MMA's main force and pushed back. After several zealots and phoenixes were eaten up by the bio, archons finally pushed MMA back. Both players then focused on rebuilding their armies with their fresh 3rd bases, though Classic still appeared to be behind. A drop from MMA soon cleaned up the majority of Classic's remaining phoenixes, as well as several workers, leaving Classic gasping for air and running out of time. The terran seized the opportunity and rushed into Classic's third with an all-too-large group of bio units, annihilating the protoss army. A final push into the natural secured MMA his second spot in the finals of a tournament hosted at Blizzcon, where he would await the winner of Taeja vs Life.
★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (2)
7%
29 total votes
Your vote: Recommend MMA vs Classic Game 1?
(Vote): ★ - Do not see this game no matter what (Vote): ★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (Vote): ★★★ - Good game (Vote): ★★★★ - Highly recommended game (Vote): ★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year
Poll: Recommend MMA vs Classic Game 2?
★★★★ - Highly recommended game (27)
41%
★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year (17)
26%
★★★ - Good game (14)
21%
★ - Do not see this game no matter what (4)
6%
★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (4)
6%
66 total votes
Your vote: Recommend MMA vs Classic Game 2?
(Vote): ★ - Do not see this game no matter what (Vote): ★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (Vote): ★★★ - Good game (Vote): ★★★★ - Highly recommended game (Vote): ★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year
Poll: Recommend MMA vs Classic Game 3?
★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (24)
48%
★★★ - Good game (11)
22%
★★★★ - Highly recommended game (7)
14%
★ - Do not see this game no matter what (6)
12%
★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year (2)
4%
50 total votes
Your vote: Recommend MMA vs Classic Game 3?
(Vote): ★ - Do not see this game no matter what (Vote): ★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (Vote): ★★★ - Good game (Vote): ★★★★ - Highly recommended game (Vote): ★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year
Poll: Recommend MMA vs Classic Game 4?
★★★ - Good game (9)
56%
★★★★ - Highly recommended game (4)
25%
★ - Do not see this game no matter what (2)
13%
★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year (1)
6%
★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (0)
0%
16 total votes
Your vote: Recommend MMA vs Classic Game 4?
(Vote): ★ - Do not see this game no matter what (Vote): ★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (Vote): ★★★ - Good game (Vote): ★★★★ - Highly recommended game (Vote): ★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year
Poll: Recommend MMA vs Classic Game 5?
★★★ - Good game (6)
50%
★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (3)
25%
★ - Do not see this game no matter what (2)
17%
★★★★ - Highly recommended game (1)
8%
★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year (0)
0%
12 total votes
Your vote: Recommend MMA vs Classic Game 5?
(Vote): ★ - Do not see this game no matter what (Vote): ★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (Vote): ★★★ - Good game (Vote): ★★★★ - Highly recommended game (Vote): ★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year
Game 1: Nimbus As the stage flashed to set the show, both players went into their first game of the day. It was the next chapter in a rivalry that had decided many tournaments in the past. Life approached it with obvious, almost uncharacteristic care, positioning his queens with gentle watch and macroing up at a decent yet not aggressive pace. Meanwhile, TaeJa went for his favourite build on Nimbus. Getting a CC first and delaying his gasses, he greedily macro'd before going into a large hellbat/marine/medivac/mine push with +1/+1. While Life looked well-prepared with little reason to worry at first, he took a couple of bad trades that were harshly punished by TaeJa. A confusing fight without banes sealed his fate and gave the Liquid Terran his first win of the series, in a way that made Life look both helpless and lost.
Game 2: King Sejong Station Although there is much to be said about this game, it would be easiest and kindest of us to make this recommendation: go watch this game. No, seriously. You will not be disappointed. It's the best game of Life vs Taeja.
Game 3: Deadwing After the chaos that was the second game (Have you watched it? Yes? Good. No? Go watch it. Seriously), TaeJa decided to go for trickery again. Facing the difficulty that is cross spawn Deadwing, TaeJa chose an early tank drop across the rocks, in the position where lings and queens could not normally reach. However Life once again showed that he was capable of out-thinking the Liquid Terran. Not only did he anticipate what TaeJa was going to do and stopped it, Life went for an enormous swell of lings and banelings to try and smash his way into the natural. While TaeJa managed to scout the banelings just in time to react ahead of time, it was still a little too late: Life crashed into the wall with the writhing mass of zerglings and banelings that have won him so many games in the past. Despite some of his trademark great splits, Taeja did not have enough in the face of Life's swarm, and the Royal Roader earned a surprising 2-1 advantage.
Game 4: Overgrowth This time, the trickery traded hands. Life went for a (this time unprovoked) proxy hatch outside the Terran natural on Overgrowth, while TaeJa went CC first. With a couple of bunkers, TaeJa greedily tried to hold both the natural and the main, and Life set up his ling/bane attack. Through a combination of excellent bunker hopping and questionable decision making by Life, TaeJa managed to hold on to his natural—albeit barely. Despite the fact that TaeJa was bleeding, Life was left practically dead, on one base and behind in workers. With attempts at standard macro play by both players, TaeJa merely pushed forward and pressed his economic advantage, slaughtering the StarTale Zerg with intelligent hellbat zoning to tie it up 2-2.
Game 5: Merry Go Round With the stakes as high as they could ever be, both players played out a greedy game of chess, with Life building three hatches before his pool and TaeJa responding with a quick 3rd CC. With upgrades being added on, it seemed like the fifth game would be an excellent macro game to end the series between the prodigies. However, Life was too crafty to simply play TaeJa's game. In an initially perplexing move, he pushed with queens and lings counter-clockwise across the map, catching TaeJa completely off guard and picking off his entire army. Taken completely aback by the unexpected turn of events, Taeja did his best to hold on. Even with his army surrounded and lings swarming into his natural with no remorse, TaeJa did not give up. He took a deep breath and pushed the zerg back inch by inch despite having his third blocked by creep. But the Ling King would not be stopped. With creep coating the entire distance between the two players, Life yet again caught TaeJa off guard with his constant parries and counters. With no way to engage Life off creep as the zerg's army crept closer and his own disadvantage growing worse, Taeja decided that it was over. He tapped out, his dreams of a crown to close out a career as indisputable king of weekend tournaments shattered. Life had risen once more, yet his road was not over.
★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (19)
44%
★★★ - Good game (14)
33%
★ - Do not see this game no matter what (5)
12%
★★★★ - Highly recommended game (4)
9%
★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year (1)
2%
43 total votes
Your vote: Recommend Life vs TaeJa Game 1?
(Vote): ★ - Do not see this game no matter what (Vote): ★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (Vote): ★★★ - Good game (Vote): ★★★★ - Highly recommended game (Vote): ★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year
Poll: Recommend Life vs TaeJa Game 2?
★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year (270)
96%
★★★★ - Highly recommended game (7)
2%
★ - Do not see this game no matter what (3)
1%
★★★ - Good game (1)
0%
★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (0)
0%
281 total votes
Your vote: Recommend Life vs TaeJa Game 2?
(Vote): ★ - Do not see this game no matter what (Vote): ★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (Vote): ★★★ - Good game (Vote): ★★★★ - Highly recommended game (Vote): ★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year
Poll: Recommend Life vs TaeJa Game 3?
★★★★ - Highly recommended game (32)
46%
★★★ - Good game (19)
27%
★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year (11)
16%
★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (7)
10%
★ - Do not see this game no matter what (1)
1%
70 total votes
Your vote: Recommend Life vs TaeJa Game 3?
(Vote): ★ - Do not see this game no matter what (Vote): ★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (Vote): ★★★ - Good game (Vote): ★★★★ - Highly recommended game (Vote): ★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year
Poll: Recommend Life vs TaeJa Game 4?
★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year (35)
43%
★★★★ - Highly recommended game (22)
27%
★★★ - Good game (16)
20%
★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (7)
9%
★ - Do not see this game no matter what (1)
1%
81 total votes
Your vote: Recommend Life vs TaeJa Game 4?
(Vote): ★ - Do not see this game no matter what (Vote): ★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (Vote): ★★★ - Good game (Vote): ★★★★ - Highly recommended game (Vote): ★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year
Poll: Recommend Life vs TaeJa Game 5?
★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year (64)
50%
★★★★ - Highly recommended game (42)
33%
★★★ - Good game (14)
11%
★ - Do not see this game no matter what (4)
3%
★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (4)
3%
128 total votes
Your vote: Recommend Life vs TaeJa Game 5?
(Vote): ★ - Do not see this game no matter what (Vote): ★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (Vote): ★★★ - Good game (Vote): ★★★★ - Highly recommended game (Vote): ★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year
MMA opened gas first, while Life opted for an economic hatch/gas/pool. A successful scout allowed MMA to pick off a handful of Life's units. The Acer player continued to poke at Life's third while shutting down Life's scouting attempts. At 9 minutes, MMA struck Life's third with a hellbat/marine push. Despite the strength of the attack, Life pushed back the assault without losing a single drone. With the pressure on Life, MMA focused on his economy, taking his 3rd at 11:45, as well as throwing down additional raxes. Life's mutas popped out just in time to push back MMA's drops. In the first true engagement in the middle of the map, MMA microed his army back into his reinforcements, letting him take some favorable trades. Life forced MMA to take a defensive posture with a muta runby in his main, killing off numerous SCVs. After dancing around the middle of the map, Life pushed into MMA's third with a mass of banelings and wiped out the terran army. MMA attempted to micro his remaining units, but the flood of zerg was too much to handle. Life wins, Zealously faints.
★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (4)
8%
★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year (4)
8%
★ - Do not see this game no matter what (1)
2%
49 total votes
Your vote: Recommend Grand Finals Game 1?
(Vote): ★ - Do not see this game no matter what (Vote): ★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (Vote): ★★★ - Good game (Vote): ★★★★ - Highly recommended game (Vote): ★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year
MMA showed us that he too has balls of steel as he opened CC first in the face of one of the world's most aggressive players. Funnily enough, Life decided not play aggressively, instead choosing a steady economic build. After poking at MMA's natural, he continued with a 3rd hatch. MMA attempted a drop, but was warded off by a large pack of lings in both the natural and the main. Life morphed a baneling nest and positioned a large mass of ling's outside MMA's bases. With a quick surround, Life busted MMA's natural with a mass of banes. A steady stream of lings and other banes forced a gg out of MMA.
★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (14)
48%
★★★★ - Highly recommended game (6)
21%
★★★ - Good game (5)
17%
★ - Do not see this game no matter what (3)
10%
★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year (1)
3%
29 total votes
Your vote: Recommend Grand Finals Game 2?
(Vote): ★ - Do not see this game no matter what (Vote): ★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (Vote): ★★★ - Good game (Vote): ★★★★ - Highly recommended game (Vote): ★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year
MMA opened with his trusty reaper expand, while Life started with a hatch first. After both players scouted each other, Life built a 3rd base and 2 evo chambers, while MMA queued a smattering of hellions. MMA pushed out with a two pronged widow mine drop, taking out a few drones and a queen. Unfazed, Life calmly resumed his production and rallied more drones to his third, while starting a 4th as if nothing had even happened. Unsatisfied with his position, MMA refused to expand to a 3rd; he had aggression in his mind and his army supply surged. A drop on the narrow ledge above Life's natural cleaned up 13 drones as lings and banelings failed to reach the drop contingent, and it put Life in a dangerous disadvantage. Soon thereafter, MMA began marching his train of bio across the map. With the two forces combined, MMA stormed into the natural and microed his hellbats beautifully to take out Life's baneling force. Without any splash damage, Life was forced to tap out soon afterwards.
★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (5)
13%
★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year (5)
13%
★ - Do not see this game no matter what (4)
10%
39 total votes
Your vote: Recommend Grand Finals Game 3?
(Vote): ★ - Do not see this game no matter what (Vote): ★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (Vote): ★★★ - Good game (Vote): ★★★★ - Highly recommended game (Vote): ★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year
Life opened greedy, with a three hatch into gas opening. MMA's CC first into reaper was less greedy, though not aggressive enough to exploit Life's build. With a hellion followup to protect his double ebay, MMA pressured Life to stay on his half of the map. MMA continued to pump out units. Life took a 3rd and began a macro hatch in his natural, expecting the game to continue in a normal fashion. MMA prodded with a potential drop, but was pushed back by a swell of zerglings. After he went for a push in the center of the map, he was repelled again, but not before taking out the 4th base. Life attempted to counterattack, but was also stopped by a marine/tank unit at the natural. Another push from MMA looked promising at first, but it ended abruptly as it was caught off-guard by Life's forces scouting around the map. With most of his army suddenly and surprisingly dead, MMA reeled in panicked attempts to reconstruct some manner of defense. It was not to be, however, as the large pack of mutas was quick to dispatch the rest of MMA's army, and Life secured his 3rd win.
★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (6)
15%
★ - Do not see this game no matter what (2)
5%
★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year (1)
3%
39 total votes
Your vote: Recommend Grand Finals Game 4?
(Vote): ★ - Do not see this game no matter what (Vote): ★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (Vote): ★★★ - Good game (Vote): ★★★★ - Highly recommended game (Vote): ★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year
Life opened pool first, while MMA opted for his favored reaper expand. Life poked at MMA's natural with his lings, but did not do much significant damage. MMA responded with some pressure from his reapers, and threw down a 3rd CC. Life, recognizing terran's greed, placed a baneling nest and took another gas. MMA was able to scout the nest, but threw down two ebays instead of bunkers. With glorious zerg micro, Life navigated his lings to the bottom of MMA's would-be third, morphing a mass of banelings. When MMA finally saw the attack, he realized that everything hinged on his ability to defend. He tried his best to hold off the incoming attack, but a poor wall and an underwhelming army did little against Life's much larger one and quickly fell to the might of the swarm. MMA tried his best to micro his way out of defeat, but couldn't deal with the sheer amount of damage Life's banelings had dealt him. A look of grave disappointment flushed his face as he surrendered the last game of the 2014 WCS Grand Finals to Life.
★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (12)
32%
★ - Do not see this game no matter what (9)
24%
★★★ - Good game (9)
24%
★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year (4)
11%
★★★★ - Highly recommended game (3)
8%
37 total votes
Your vote: Recommend Grand Finals Game 5?
(Vote): ★ - Do not see this game no matter what (Vote): ★★ - Not recommended unless you have nothing better to do (Vote): ★★★ - Good game (Vote): ★★★★ - Highly recommended game (Vote): ★★★★★ - One of the best games of the year
since people never actually read the intro, i'm just gonna repeat that this is just the recap thread. expect other stuff when zealously wakes up from his drunken orgasmic stupor
On November 10 2014 15:41 lichter wrote: since people never actually read the intro, i'm just gonna repeat that this is just the recap thread. expect other stuff when zealously wakes up from his drunken orgasmic stupor
you're assuming he went to sleep instead of creating a very long brag thread that is perfectly crafted to not seem completely in-your-face.
On November 10 2014 15:41 lichter wrote: since people never actually read the intro, i'm just gonna repeat that this is just the recap thread. expect other stuff when zealously wakes up from his drunken orgasmic stupor
you're assuming he went to sleep instead of creating a very long brag thread that is perfectly crafted to not seem completely in-your-face.
When he makes a brag thread expect it to be in your face.
Life is by no means the most skilled player in the world, I wouldn't even put him in the top ten. But he did what he needed when he needed to and at least for a while he's the best.
I think this shaped up more or less how I expected a weekend tournament to go. The best weekend warriors won against the seasoned WCS seasonal players, proving once again how there are different types of amazing as far as players go.
On November 10 2014 15:59 LongShot27 wrote: Life is by no means the most skilled player in the world, I wouldn't even put him in the top ten. But he did what he needed when he needed to and at least for a while he's the best.
It's too bad the most skilled players aren't good enough to win when it matters
On November 10 2014 15:59 LongShot27 wrote: Life is by no means the most skilled player in the world, I wouldn't even put him in the top ten. But he did what he needed when he needed to and at least for a while he's the best.
Isn't doing what you need when you need to the definition of a skilled player?
Just watched the VOD of the 2nd game between Life and Taeja. The opening of Life was very cool and gave him an advantage. But his midgame was pretty bad to be honest. He threw away units left and right without killing anything. Until the small basetrade happened and Life somehow defended Taeja's attack, I felt like Taeja was winning.
On November 10 2014 15:59 LongShot27 wrote: Life is by no means the most skilled player in the world, I wouldn't even put him in the top ten. But he did what he needed when he needed to and at least for a while he's the best.
It's too bad the most skilled players aren't good enough to win when it matters
On November 10 2014 15:59 LongShot27 wrote: Life is by no means the most skilled player in the world, I wouldn't even put him in the top ten. But he did what he needed when he needed to and at least for a while he's the best.
No, IMO that's Taeja. And he got completely picked apart by Life's multitasking and decision making. (Except in that 4th game) And he did it with nothing else but ling/bling/muta, a combination that has suffered heavily from the Terran buffs in efficiency. I was awed. I think you're vastly undervalueing Life.
Looks like we're heading back to the good ol' trio of TaejA, Life and Parting. It was those guys that was on the top of each of their respective races, when WoL got to a point where the metagame didn't change as much. Due to their insane mechanics and indepth knowledge of the game. Of course kespa players confuse things and Parting is not exactly dominating at the moment, but I predict an upswing by him.
On November 10 2014 19:22 ejozl wrote: Looks like we're heading back to the good ol' trio of TaejA, Life and Parting. It was those guys that was on the top of each of their respective races, when WoL got to a point where the metagame didn't change as much. Due to their insane mechanics and indepth knowledge of the game. Of course kespa players confuse things and Parting is not exactly dominating at the moment, but I predict an upswing by him.
TaeJa is retiring and I'm not convinced PartinG will be back to its WoL level (yeah, the soul train lost efficiency)
On November 10 2014 15:59 LongShot27 wrote: Life is by no means the most skilled player in the world, I wouldn't even put him in the top ten. But he did what he needed when he needed to and at least for a while he's the best.
On November 10 2014 15:59 LongShot27 wrote: Life is by no means the most skilled player in the world, I wouldn't even put him in the top ten. But he did what he needed when he needed to and at least for a while he's the best.
I think he reads the game better than most other players. He showed that in almost all the games, as he was rarely caught off guard (game 1 against Taeja and Game 3 against MMA he was though). Even in chaotic games as Game 2 against Taeja he knew what he had to do to come back from a disadvantage, while Taeja seemed rather uncertain in his attempts to attack.
On November 10 2014 17:12 HolydaKing wrote: Just watched the VOD of the 2nd game between Life and Taeja. The opening of Life was very cool and gave him an advantage. But his midgame was pretty bad to be honest. He threw away units left and right without killing anything. Until the small basetrade happened and Life somehow defended Taeja's attack, I felt like Taeja was winning.
I don't know if the opening really gave him a huge advantage (I'd assume he expected a proxy 2-rax, not a reaper opening :-P ). He might have been ahead in economy etc., but because of the opening, the Mutalisks were insanely late and the one drop in his main was quite hard to deal with, imo. And I think he played decently in the midgame, Zerg struggle at this stage of the game in general, but somehow he defended Taeja's attacks while still being able to harass with Mutalisks and Banelings - and that was really impressive, imo. Especially the one Baneling attack where he killed like... 60 workers was just sick.
Its odd that people keep forgetting the truth mentioned by Dear last year "I don't know about any other day, but today I'm the champion of the world.". Life played the BEST out of all the 16 players, and he sustained his level of mechanical and psychological play to win the championship, just like sOs did last year. Haters gonna hate, but there is no reason to crap on Life and say hes not top 10 in your list or whatever. Don't piss off Zealously as well
pretty much you can win a weekend tournament, but that's not indicative of long term skill, consider that all the starleagues have staggered finals. no one will take world champ chess seriously for example if you play 3-4 games in one day.
kudos to life being able to pull out cheeses after cheeses and still managed to win the series. taeja should be proud that life didnt even try to play normal games against him lol
it seems to me that in those big games, the players who play more cheesy have an advantage over straight up macro players. think about it, we had three world champion. First we had parting with his soultrain, then sOs with his cannonrushs and proxy oracles and now life with banelingbusts and proxy hatches. I have the feeling that when the pressure is so high, cheesy players just have an advantage above macro players.
On the other hand, one could say Life's opponents couldn't even survive into "normal" macro games against him. Personally I find it a bit puzzling that people still rate lategame ability higher than aggression after all the split map turtlefests we've seen again and again in SC2. Macro games can be every bit as boring as cheese, and the boredom last longer by definition.
Props to Life for not Swarmhosting the finals. That being said yes I think MMA and Taeja had the superior mechanics but Life had the best response and fastest decision making.
On November 10 2014 15:59 LongShot27 wrote: Life is by no means the most skilled player in the world, I wouldn't even put him in the top ten. But he did what he needed when he needed to and at least for a while he's the best.
Life is actually the most skilled player in the world. His macro, timings and game sense is out of this world. Evidence: He is the world champion.
I feel bad for soO. I feel like Taeja is the only player he would've lost to in this tournament given how their styles match up (maybe Zest too). Taeja is such a monster in standard macro games that it takes someone like Life to defeat him. I'm also pretty sure soO would crush Life's zvz - soO's best and Life's worst match up. It's funny how the randomness of match-ups goes some way to deciding the winner.
Also, I'm sure most would agree Taeja vs. Life was the real final given how much more stacked lower bracket was. Such a great series. Congrats Life!!!!
On November 10 2014 15:41 lichter wrote: since people never actually read the intro, i'm just gonna repeat that this is just the recap thread. expect other stuff when zealously wakes up from his drunken orgasmic stupor
It was mega sad to see Taeja not winning his last big tourney even playing godlike (even TvT), but anyways the tourney was fun after all that shit of "not stand a chance on GSL" he smashed both the champion and the soOcond place of the most recent tournament and watching the rest of KeSPA gods barely reaching the Top 4 was priceless.
On November 10 2014 15:59 LongShot27 wrote: Life is by no means the most skilled player in the world, I wouldn't even put him in the top ten. But he did what he needed when he needed to and at least for a while he's the best.
The fucking ignorance.
And apparently you and everyone else is fucking illiterate.
On November 10 2014 23:47 Charoisaur wrote: it seems to me that in those big games, the players who play more cheesy have an advantage over straight up macro players. think about it, we had three world champion. First we had parting with his soultrain, then sOs with his cannonrushs and proxy oracles and now life with banelingbusts and proxy hatches. I have the feeling that when the pressure is so high, cheesy players just have an advantage above macro players.
Who is a better player that can only play the same thing all the time (Rain, Happy) or those who can play in any way (Life, SOS) ?
Predictable players will always be weaker than cheesy ones, how can one prepare for something unexpected? Competitive gaming is not ladder those who win may win by any means necessary and they do. If you were in Life's shoes what would you do? Go straight macro for 5 games vs Taeja. when Zergs are considered to be weaker against terran these days? Life is no fool. He knew his enemy and himself.
On November 10 2014 15:59 LongShot27 wrote: Life is by no means the most skilled player in the world, I wouldn't even put him in the top ten. But he did what he needed when he needed to and at least for a while he's the best.
The fucking ignorance.
And apparently you and everyone else is fucking illiterate.
User was warned for this post
You're welcome to elaborate on your original claim. I interpreted it as you saying that Life does not posses the raw skill required to place among the top 10 players in the world, but I would dispute that claim as well as say that simply "raw skill" (probably what you think of as mechanics) does not make a champion or even a good player. Doing what it takes to win is part of the game, and I think it's meaningless to hold the terms apart.
Life was incredible - I can't believe folks are demeaning his play. The games vs. Taeja were probably the best TvZ I've seen all year. I say this as a guy living in Estonia at the moment, so you can believe the games had to be good for me to stay up till god-knows-when in the morning to watch 'em.
life isn't nearly good enough to beat taeja in straight up games.
he knew that.
which is why he countered taeja's play with creativity and brainsmarts. which was the right thing to do honestly. i mean, you can try beating a bear in a fist fight, but nobody will remember you as a hero or smart.
what i want to say with that is, life deserved the win. it wasn't pretty, but taeja failed to paly it safe against life, who literally played cheesy aggression 4 out of 5 games. i mean, you could try to adapt to that.
On November 11 2014 03:43 Tanzklaue wrote: life isn't nearly good enough to beat taeja in straight up games.
he knew that.
which is why he countered taeja's play with creativity and brainsmarts. which was the right thing to do honestly. i mean, you can try beating a bear in a fist fight, but nobody will remember you as a hero or smart.
what i want to say with that is, life deserved the win. it wasn't pretty, but taeja failed to paly it safe against life, who literally played cheesy aggression 4 out of 5 games. i mean, you could try to adapt to that.
While game 2 began in a very strange fashion, I would still argue that all of the abilities Life displayed in that game made it clear that he has a good chance to beat Taeja even in a mostly straight-up game. The game mostly normalized once Taeja got past the initial proxy hatch shenanigans, and it definitely wasn't strange enough after that to call it off-the-wall weird. Sure, he might not regularly beat him in NR15, but he definitely can.
On November 10 2014 23:58 Pegas wrote: Props to Life for not Swarmhosting the finals. That being said yes I think MMA and Taeja had the superior mechanics but Life had the best response and fastest decision making.
MMA's superior mechanics???? WHAT THE HELL? Stupidest thing I've read on this thread.
Life vs MMA is proof that the top bracket of the tournament was the weakest shit known to man.
Life beat Zest, San (who cares) and Taeja, before completely wiping the floor with MMA. The guy had no chance at all whatsoever in the least. It was watching 2 different caliber of players. I can't believe 3 of the 5 announcers picked MMA to win. It's clear if you watched any of the games in the finals that the only reason he's in Blizzcon is because he's not playing in Korea.
Don't put Taeja and MMA in the same level ever please and thank you.
On November 11 2014 03:43 Tanzklaue wrote: life isn't nearly good enough to beat taeja in straight up games.
he knew that.
which is why he countered taeja's play with creativity and brainsmarts. which was the right thing to do honestly. i mean, you can try beating a bear in a fist fight, but nobody will remember you as a hero or smart.
what i want to say with that is, life deserved the win. it wasn't pretty, but taeja failed to paly it safe against life, who literally played cheesy aggression 4 out of 5 games. i mean, you could try to adapt to that.
While game 2 began in a very strange fashion, I would still argue that all of the abilities Life displayed in that game made it clear that he has a good chance to beat Taeja even in a mostly straight-up game. The game mostly normalized once Taeja got past the initial proxy hatch shenanigans, and it definitely wasn't strange enough after that to call it off-the-wall weird. Sure, he might not regularly beat him in NR15, but he definitely can.
ofc he can, but you can also pull games 1 and 4 for examples of taeja being as flawless as innovation at the height of his power.
like, if this blizzcon showed anything, then that when everything is on the line, anyone who is good can beat anyone else who is good.
On November 10 2014 23:58 Pegas wrote: Props to Life for not Swarmhosting the finals. That being said yes I think MMA and Taeja had the superior mechanics but Life had the best response and fastest decision making.
MMA's superior mechanics???? WHAT THE HELL? Stupidest thing I've read on this thread.
Life vs MMA is proof that the top bracket of the tournament was the weakest shit known to man.
Life beat Zest, San (who cares) and Taeja, before completely wiping the floor with MMA. The guy had no chance at all whatsoever in the least. It was watching 2 different caliber of players. I can't believe 3 of the 5 announcers picked MMA to win. It's clear if you watched any of the games in the finals that the only reason he's in Blizzcon is because he's not playing in Korea.
Don't put Taeja and MMA in the same level ever please and thank you.
MMA crushed bomber and classic (also stardust who is no slouch) to reach the finals. classic and bomber were 2 of the favourites to win the whole thing.
On November 10 2014 23:58 Pegas wrote: Props to Life for not Swarmhosting the finals. That being said yes I think MMA and Taeja had the superior mechanics but Life had the best response and fastest decision making.
MMA's superior mechanics???? WHAT THE HELL? Stupidest thing I've read on this thread.
Life vs MMA is proof that the top bracket of the tournament was the weakest shit known to man.
Life beat Zest, San (who cares) and Taeja, before completely wiping the floor with MMA. The guy had no chance at all whatsoever in the least. It was watching 2 different caliber of players. I can't believe 3 of the 5 announcers picked MMA to win. It's clear if you watched any of the games in the finals that the only reason he's in Blizzcon is because he's not playing in Korea.
Don't put Taeja and MMA in the same level ever please and thank you.
MMA crushed bomber and classic (also stardust who is no slouch) to reach the finals. classic and bomber were 2 of the favourites to win the whole thing.
I'll admit Bomber, but Classic a favorite? Not sure. Given that Bomber, herO, soO, Innovation, Zest and Taeja were already considered legitimate threats for the championship, throwing in Classic means we might as well throw in most of the attending players.
On November 10 2014 23:58 Pegas wrote: Props to Life for not Swarmhosting the finals. That being said yes I think MMA and Taeja had the superior mechanics but Life had the best response and fastest decision making.
MMA's superior mechanics???? WHAT THE HELL? Stupidest thing I've read on this thread.
Life vs MMA is proof that the top bracket of the tournament was the weakest shit known to man.
Life beat Zest, San (who cares) and Taeja, before completely wiping the floor with MMA. The guy had no chance at all whatsoever in the least. It was watching 2 different caliber of players. I can't believe 3 of the 5 announcers picked MMA to win. It's clear if you watched any of the games in the finals that the only reason he's in Blizzcon is because he's not playing in Korea.
Don't put Taeja and MMA in the same level ever please and thank you.
MMA crushed bomber and classic (also stardust who is no slouch) to reach the finals. classic and bomber were 2 of the favourites to win the whole thing.
I'll admit Bomber, but Classic a favorite? Not sure. Given that Bomber, herO, soO, Innovation, Zest and Taeja were already considered legitimate threats for the championship, throwing in Classic means we might as well throw in most of the attending players.
classic is a bit of a stretch, but by the semifinals it was clear that he definitely was no joke, beating polt and hero.
On November 11 2014 03:43 Tanzklaue wrote: life isn't nearly good enough to beat taeja in straight up games.
he knew that.
which is why he countered taeja's play with creativity and brainsmarts. which was the right thing to do honestly. i mean, you can try beating a bear in a fist fight, but nobody will remember you as a hero or smart.
what i want to say with that is, life deserved the win. it wasn't pretty, but taeja failed to paly it safe against life, who literally played cheesy aggression 4 out of 5 games. i mean, you could try to adapt to that.
You could also say that TaeJa isn't nearly good enough to beat Life in non-straight up games then. The fact that a player doesn't play accordingly to what your standards of "straight-up" or "macro" are doesn't mean he's bad and saying that he is is total bullshit. Starcraft II is a strategy game, not a button-clicking game. Life won with both his strategic mind and his mechanics. Implying he's not on the level of the best players of this game in one of those dimensions is what I'd call... controversial
Life deserved the win, but i have to say, i agree with the point (dont remember who it was), that the final should've been on Sunday. MMA played so terrible and you could see after game 1 on MMA's face how desperate he was. If he had time to prepare his TvZ, I think the final wouldn't have been so one sided as it was, it would've been more closer and greater series like the Taeja vs soO and Taeja vs Life series. Almost in every games MMA tried to do 2 base all ins/pushes instead to play macro games, which he usually does vs Zergs. In game 1 he could've killed many drones with the 4-5 marines+1 hellbat, instead he went to the second hatch and killed only 2 queens. In game 2 he tried to do a tank, marine push with the lack of information about Life's strategy/ even Life's playstyle. In game 3 he won it only because Life didn't scout and knew what MMA was up to. If he knew it, he would've won it easily. But it was strong timing. In game 4 MMA should've pushed earlier, if he wants to do 2 base timing. He pushed so late, Life's 4th was even up. Usually MMA won't make such mistakes. In game 5 he saw the baneling nest, and if he knew how aggressive Life plays, he would've done more bunkers and earlier. Well we could all see the lack of preparation of TvZ on MMA. Well like someone said, Life played vs Taeja, and he had 1 day to prepare his ZvT. Well so it was deserved win for Life, but only because MMA wasn't prepared.
On November 11 2014 03:43 Tanzklaue wrote: life isn't nearly good enough to beat taeja in straight up games.
he knew that.
which is why he countered taeja's play with creativity and brainsmarts. which was the right thing to do honestly. i mean, you can try beating a bear in a fist fight, but nobody will remember you as a hero or smart.
what i want to say with that is, life deserved the win. it wasn't pretty, but taeja failed to paly it safe against life, who literally played cheesy aggression 4 out of 5 games. i mean, you could try to adapt to that.
You could also say that TaeJa isn't nearly good enough to beat Life in non-straight up games then. The fact that a player doesn't play accordingly to what your standards of "straight-up" or "macro" are doesn't mean he's bad and saying that he is is total bullshit. Starcraft II is a strategy game, not a button-clicking game. Life won with both his strategic mind and his mechanics. Implying he's not on the level of the best players of this game in one of those dimensions is what I'd call... controversial
did you even read the rest of my post where i said that life deserved to win because he was the smarter man and taeja refused to adapt, thus making life superior to taeja?
On November 10 2014 23:58 Pegas wrote: Props to Life for not Swarmhosting the finals. That being said yes I think MMA and Taeja had the superior mechanics but Life had the best response and fastest decision making.
MMA's superior mechanics???? WHAT THE HELL? Stupidest thing I've read on this thread.
Life vs MMA is proof that the top bracket of the tournament was the weakest shit known to man.
Life beat Zest, San (who cares) and Taeja, before completely wiping the floor with MMA. The guy had no chance at all whatsoever in the least. It was watching 2 different caliber of players. I can't believe 3 of the 5 announcers picked MMA to win. It's clear if you watched any of the games in the finals that the only reason he's in Blizzcon is because he's not playing in Korea.
Don't put Taeja and MMA in the same level ever please and thank you.
MMA crushed bomber and classic (also stardust who is no slouch) to reach the finals. classic and bomber were 2 of the favourites to win the whole thing.
I'll admit Bomber, but Classic a favorite? Not sure. Given that Bomber, herO, soO, Innovation, Zest and Taeja were already considered legitimate threats for the championship, throwing in Classic means we might as well throw in most of the attending players.
classic is a bit of a stretch, but by the semifinals it was clear that he definitely was no joke, beating polt and hero.
In Hero vs Classic I felt it was more Hero going on tilt because of the delays than Classic beating Hero. I mean seriously who attacks up a ramp seeing superior numbers and still tries to blink micro... that was just bad.
On November 11 2014 03:43 Tanzklaue wrote: life isn't nearly good enough to beat taeja in straight up games.
he knew that.
which is why he countered taeja's play with creativity and brainsmarts. which was the right thing to do honestly. i mean, you can try beating a bear in a fist fight, but nobody will remember you as a hero or smart.
what i want to say with that is, life deserved the win. it wasn't pretty, but taeja failed to paly it safe against life, who literally played cheesy aggression 4 out of 5 games. i mean, you could try to adapt to that.
You could also say that TaeJa isn't nearly good enough to beat Life in non-straight up games then. The fact that a player doesn't play accordingly to what your standards of "straight-up" or "macro" are doesn't mean he's bad and saying that he is is total bullshit. Starcraft II is a strategy game, not a button-clicking game. Life won with both his strategic mind and his mechanics. Implying he's not on the level of the best players of this game in one of those dimensions is what I'd call... controversial
did you even read the rest of my post where i said that life deserved to win because he was the smarter man and taeja refused to adapt, thus making life superior to taeja?
I did, but your first sentence make it sound like TaeJa is a better player than Life overall. Which I deny, because except in case of obvious racial imbalance, the better player is the one who wins. Sorry if my post sounded harsh or rude though, I'm just a bit angry seeing all the posts saying Life doesn't deserve his victory, so I may have overreacted when responding to yours.
On November 11 2014 04:20 TsogiMaster wrote: Life deserved the win, but i have to say, i agree with the point (dont remember who it was), that the final should've been on Sunday. MMA played so terrible and you could see after game 1 on MMA's face how desperate he was. If he had time to prepare his TvZ, I think the final wouldn't have been so one sided as it was, it would've been more closer and greater series like the Taeja vs soO and Taeja vs Life series. Almost in every games MMA tried to do 2 base all ins/pushes instead to play macro games, which he usually does vs Zergs. In game 1 he could've killed many drones with the 4-5 marines+1 hellbat, instead he went to the second hatch and killed only 2 queens. In game 2 he tried to do a tank, marine push with the lack of information about Life's strategy/ even Life's playstyle. In game 3 he won it only because Life didn't scout and knew what MMA was up to. If he knew it, he would've won it easily. But it was strong timing. In game 4 MMA should've pushed earlier, if he wants to do 2 base timing. He pushed so late, Life's 4th was even up. Usually MMA won't make such mistakes. In game 5 he saw the baneling nest, and if he knew how aggressive Life plays, he would've done more bunkers and earlier. Well we could all see the lack of preparation of TvZ on MMA. Well like someone said, Life played vs Taeja, and he had 1 day to prepare his ZvT. Well so it was deserved win for Life, but only because MMA wasn't prepared.
You could argue that he should have already has his TvZ prepared in the couple weeks timespan he had before Blizzcon to practice all 3 matchups (especially considering there was a 50% chance he'd see Jaedong if MMA won his first match). I agree that momentum was more in Life's favor because they didn't have a day break but that's what all players need to acknowledge when they agree to enter a tournament. Especially since I consider Life one of those players who are unphased when conditions ingame or outside the game are not ideal.
I never once felt that Life was caught off-guard by anything his opponents were doing the entire tournament. His scouting and game-sense is what got him his money.
MMA seemed outclassed in the finals. Tired maybe? Still very impressive by MMA to become the only two-time Blizzcon finalist, so props to him.
On November 11 2014 03:43 Tanzklaue wrote: life isn't nearly good enough to beat taeja in straight up games.
he knew that.
which is why he countered taeja's play with creativity and brainsmarts. which was the right thing to do honestly. i mean, you can try beating a bear in a fist fight, but nobody will remember you as a hero or smart.
what i want to say with that is, life deserved the win. it wasn't pretty, but taeja failed to paly it safe against life, who literally played cheesy aggression 4 out of 5 games. i mean, you could try to adapt to that.
You could also say that TaeJa isn't nearly good enough to beat Life in non-straight up games then. The fact that a player doesn't play accordingly to what your standards of "straight-up" or "macro" are doesn't mean he's bad and saying that he is is total bullshit. Starcraft II is a strategy game, not a button-clicking game. Life won with both his strategic mind and his mechanics. Implying he's not on the level of the best players of this game in one of those dimensions is what I'd call... controversial
did you even read the rest of my post where i said that life deserved to win because he was the smarter man and taeja refused to adapt, thus making life superior to taeja?
I did, but your first sentence make it sound like TaeJa is a better player than Life overall. Which I deny, because except in case of obvious racial imbalance, the better player is the one who wins. Sorry if my post sounded harsh or rude though, I'm just a bit angry seeing all the posts saying Life doesn't deserve his victory, so I may have overreacted when responding to yours.
If the better player always won, cheese wouldn't exist
On November 10 2014 23:58 Pegas wrote: Props to Life for not Swarmhosting the finals. That being said yes I think MMA and Taeja had the superior mechanics but Life had the best response and fastest decision making.
MMA's superior mechanics???? WHAT THE HELL? Stupidest thing I've read on this thread.
Life vs MMA is proof that the top bracket of the tournament was the weakest shit known to man.
Life beat Zest, San (who cares) and Taeja, before completely wiping the floor with MMA. The guy had no chance at all whatsoever in the least. It was watching 2 different caliber of players. I can't believe 3 of the 5 announcers picked MMA to win. It's clear if you watched any of the games in the finals that the only reason he's in Blizzcon is because he's not playing in Korea.
Don't put Taeja and MMA in the same level ever please and thank you.
On November 10 2014 23:58 Pegas wrote: Props to Life for not Swarmhosting the finals. That being said yes I think MMA and Taeja had the superior mechanics but Life had the best response and fastest decision making.
MMA's superior mechanics???? WHAT THE HELL? Stupidest thing I've read on this thread.
Life vs MMA is proof that the top bracket of the tournament was the weakest shit known to man.
Life beat Zest, San (who cares) and Taeja, before completely wiping the floor with MMA. The guy had no chance at all whatsoever in the least. It was watching 2 different caliber of players. I can't believe 3 of the 5 announcers picked MMA to win. It's clear if you watched any of the games in the finals that the only reason he's in Blizzcon is because he's not playing in Korea.
Don't put Taeja and MMA in the same level ever please and thank you.
MMA crushed bomber and classic (also stardust who is no slouch) to reach the finals. classic and bomber were 2 of the favourites to win the whole thing.
So MMA has better mechanics than Life?? Does anyone agree with this? Life only beat MMA through trickery and non-standard play? Everything looked standard to me.
MMA beat Bomber using 3-Viking build that Bomber couldn't adjust for.
Following Proleague and GSL, the only legitimate contenders at the beginning of the tournament were Zest, Taeja, Innovation and soO - no one from the top bracket. Maybe herO...but that's a big maybe for anyone following the Korean scene. Bomber is in the category of "could beat any of the KR region pros...but would be an underdog" MMA is in the "if he wins against any KR code S player I'll be shocked" - I was shocked he beat Classic. But after rewatching R32 season 3 GSL...classic is serious code A material at this point.
Top bracket was pretty trash - Polt is a heart favorite but he's not top tier. Stardust!? MC?! Jaedong?! Classic?! MMA?! None of these players had any sort of shot. herO and Bomber were LONG odds.
Basically what I'm saying is San > Stardust, Zest >>>>>> Classic, Taeja > Bomber during Blizzcon...Life came through the hard way, and it showed in the finals - 4-1 and wasn't close.
On November 10 2014 23:58 Pegas wrote: Props to Life for not Swarmhosting the finals. That being said yes I think MMA and Taeja had the superior mechanics but Life had the best response and fastest decision making.
MMA's superior mechanics???? WHAT THE HELL? Stupidest thing I've read on this thread.
Life vs MMA is proof that the top bracket of the tournament was the weakest shit known to man.
Life beat Zest, San (who cares) and Taeja, before completely wiping the floor with MMA. The guy had no chance at all whatsoever in the least. It was watching 2 different caliber of players. I can't believe 3 of the 5 announcers picked MMA to win. It's clear if you watched any of the games in the finals that the only reason he's in Blizzcon is because he's not playing in Korea.
Don't put Taeja and MMA in the same level ever please and thank you.
I love you. You're pretty harsh but to an extent I agree.
Whaaaat? San was undefeated against Zerg in offline tournaments until he met the wonderkid...
On November 10 2014 23:58 Pegas wrote: Props to Life for not Swarmhosting the finals. That being said yes I think MMA and Taeja had the superior mechanics but Life had the best response and fastest decision making.
MMA's superior mechanics???? WHAT THE HELL? Stupidest thing I've read on this thread.
Life vs MMA is proof that the top bracket of the tournament was the weakest shit known to man.
Life beat Zest, San (who cares) and Taeja, before completely wiping the floor with MMA. The guy had no chance at all whatsoever in the least. It was watching 2 different caliber of players. I can't believe 3 of the 5 announcers picked MMA to win. It's clear if you watched any of the games in the finals that the only reason he's in Blizzcon is because he's not playing in Korea.
Don't put Taeja and MMA in the same level ever please and thank you.
I love you. You're pretty harsh but to an extent I agree.
Whaaaat? San was undefeated against Zerg in offline tournaments until he met the wonderkid...
Didn't really mean that part, mostly everything he said about MMA. San is the zerg killer, very true.
On November 11 2014 03:43 Tanzklaue wrote: life isn't nearly good enough to beat taeja in straight up games.
he knew that.
which is why he countered taeja's play with creativity and brainsmarts. which was the right thing to do honestly. i mean, you can try beating a bear in a fist fight, but nobody will remember you as a hero or smart.
what i want to say with that is, life deserved the win. it wasn't pretty, but taeja failed to paly it safe against life, who literally played cheesy aggression 4 out of 5 games. i mean, you could try to adapt to that.
You could also say that TaeJa isn't nearly good enough to beat Life in non-straight up games then. The fact that a player doesn't play accordingly to what your standards of "straight-up" or "macro" are doesn't mean he's bad and saying that he is is total bullshit. Starcraft II is a strategy game, not a button-clicking game. Life won with both his strategic mind and his mechanics. Implying he's not on the level of the best players of this game in one of those dimensions is what I'd call... controversial
did you even read the rest of my post where i said that life deserved to win because he was the smarter man and taeja refused to adapt, thus making life superior to taeja?
I did, but your first sentence make it sound like TaeJa is a better player than Life overall. Which I deny, because except in case of obvious racial imbalance, the better player is the one who wins. Sorry if my post sounded harsh or rude though, I'm just a bit angry seeing all the posts saying Life doesn't deserve his victory, so I may have overreacted when responding to yours.
If the better player always won, cheese wouldn't exist
The better player is the one that knows when to cheese, not the one that never does
On November 11 2014 03:43 Tanzklaue wrote: life isn't nearly good enough to beat taeja in straight up games.
he knew that.
which is why he countered taeja's play with creativity and brainsmarts. which was the right thing to do honestly. i mean, you can try beating a bear in a fist fight, but nobody will remember you as a hero or smart.
what i want to say with that is, life deserved the win. it wasn't pretty, but taeja failed to paly it safe against life, who literally played cheesy aggression 4 out of 5 games. i mean, you could try to adapt to that.
You could also say that TaeJa isn't nearly good enough to beat Life in non-straight up games then. The fact that a player doesn't play accordingly to what your standards of "straight-up" or "macro" are doesn't mean he's bad and saying that he is is total bullshit. Starcraft II is a strategy game, not a button-clicking game. Life won with both his strategic mind and his mechanics. Implying he's not on the level of the best players of this game in one of those dimensions is what I'd call... controversial
did you even read the rest of my post where i said that life deserved to win because he was the smarter man and taeja refused to adapt, thus making life superior to taeja?
I did, but your first sentence make it sound like TaeJa is a better player than Life overall. Which I deny, because except in case of obvious racial imbalance, the better player is the one who wins. Sorry if my post sounded harsh or rude though, I'm just a bit angry seeing all the posts saying Life doesn't deserve his victory, so I may have overreacted when responding to yours.
If the better player always won, cheese wouldn't exist
LOL, cheese is a part of the game man. It is as legit as a straight macro game, both are preferences of strategy...
On November 10 2014 23:58 Pegas wrote: Props to Life for not Swarmhosting the finals. That being said yes I think MMA and Taeja had the superior mechanics but Life had the best response and fastest decision making.
MMA's superior mechanics???? WHAT THE HELL? Stupidest thing I've read on this thread.
Life vs MMA is proof that the top bracket of the tournament was the weakest shit known to man.
Life beat Zest, San (who cares) and Taeja, before completely wiping the floor with MMA. The guy had no chance at all whatsoever in the least. It was watching 2 different caliber of players. I can't believe 3 of the 5 announcers picked MMA to win. It's clear if you watched any of the games in the finals that the only reason he's in Blizzcon is because he's not playing in Korea.
Don't put Taeja and MMA in the same level ever please and thank you.
I love you. You're pretty harsh but to an extent I agree.
Whaaaat? San was undefeated against Zerg in offline tournaments until he met the wonderkid...
Looking at his record is incredible, but looking at his games...he's not the strongest player mechanically or decision making-wise. I think any top-tier KR Code S zerg could beat San given time to prepare. No explanation for Life's dismal record before Blizzcon vs San - haven't seen the games either. But watching Life vs San was like watching Ali beat up a highschool kid.
On November 10 2014 23:58 Pegas wrote: Props to Life for not Swarmhosting the finals. That being said yes I think MMA and Taeja had the superior mechanics but Life had the best response and fastest decision making.
MMA's superior mechanics???? WHAT THE HELL? Stupidest thing I've read on this thread.
Life vs MMA is proof that the top bracket of the tournament was the weakest shit known to man.
Life beat Zest, San (who cares) and Taeja, before completely wiping the floor with MMA. The guy had no chance at all whatsoever in the least. It was watching 2 different caliber of players. I can't believe 3 of the 5 announcers picked MMA to win. It's clear if you watched any of the games in the finals that the only reason he's in Blizzcon is because he's not playing in Korea.
Don't put Taeja and MMA in the same level ever please and thank you.
MMA crushed bomber and classic (also stardust who is no slouch) to reach the finals. classic and bomber were 2 of the favourites to win the whole thing.
So MMA has better mechanics than Life?? Does anyone agree with this? Life only beat MMA through trickery and non-standard play? Everything looked standard to me.
MMA beat Bomber using 3-Viking build that Bomber couldn't adjust for.
Following Proleague and GSL, the only legitimate contenders at the beginning of the tournament were Zest, Taeja, Innovation and soO - no one from the top bracket. Maybe herO...but that's a big maybe for anyone following the Korean scene. Bomber is in the category of "could beat any of the KR region pros...but would be an underdog" MMA is in the "if he wins against any KR code S player I'll be shocked" - I was shocked he beat Classic. But after rewatching R32 season 3 GSL...classic is serious code A material at this point.
Top bracket was pretty trash - Polt is a heart favorite but he's not top tier. Stardust!? MC?! Jaedong?! Classic?! MMA?! None of these players had any sort of shot. herO and Bomber were LONG odds.
Basically what I'm saying is San > Stardust, Zest >>>>>> Classic, Taeja > Bomber during Blizzcon...Life came through the hard way, and it showed in the finals - 4-1 and wasn't close.
LoL, Bomber is same level as Taeja or even better.(in TvT definitely), and I cant believe how many people seeing MMA as so bad player. MMA is capable to beat any code S player. Like I said before he had surely no practice on his TvZ matchup, otherwise he would've won vs Life.
On November 10 2014 23:58 Pegas wrote: Props to Life for not Swarmhosting the finals. That being said yes I think MMA and Taeja had the superior mechanics but Life had the best response and fastest decision making.
MMA's superior mechanics???? WHAT THE HELL? Stupidest thing I've read on this thread.
Life vs MMA is proof that the top bracket of the tournament was the weakest shit known to man.
Life beat Zest, San (who cares) and Taeja, before completely wiping the floor with MMA. The guy had no chance at all whatsoever in the least. It was watching 2 different caliber of players. I can't believe 3 of the 5 announcers picked MMA to win. It's clear if you watched any of the games in the finals that the only reason he's in Blizzcon is because he's not playing in Korea.
Don't put Taeja and MMA in the same level ever please and thank you.
I love you. You're pretty harsh but I agree.
You are out of your mind - you don't make the finals of 4 premier tournaments in 2014 without top tier mechanics. MMA and Taeja are top tier players: don't be ridiculous
On November 10 2014 23:58 Pegas wrote: Props to Life for not Swarmhosting the finals. That being said yes I think MMA and Taeja had the superior mechanics but Life had the best response and fastest decision making.
MMA's superior mechanics???? WHAT THE HELL? Stupidest thing I've read on this thread.
Life vs MMA is proof that the top bracket of the tournament was the weakest shit known to man.
Life beat Zest, San (who cares) and Taeja, before completely wiping the floor with MMA. The guy had no chance at all whatsoever in the least. It was watching 2 different caliber of players. I can't believe 3 of the 5 announcers picked MMA to win. It's clear if you watched any of the games in the finals that the only reason he's in Blizzcon is because he's not playing in Korea.
Don't put Taeja and MMA in the same level ever please and thank you.
MMA crushed bomber and classic (also stardust who is no slouch) to reach the finals. classic and bomber were 2 of the favourites to win the whole thing.
I'll admit Bomber, but Classic a favorite? Not sure. Given that Bomber, herO, soO, Innovation, Zest and Taeja were already considered legitimate threats for the championship, throwing in Classic means we might as well throw in most of the attending players.
Well, it is Blizzcon. I thought everyone except Jaedong, Jjakji, Stardust and San had a decent chance of taking it.
On November 10 2014 23:58 Pegas wrote: Props to Life for not Swarmhosting the finals. That being said yes I think MMA and Taeja had the superior mechanics but Life had the best response and fastest decision making.
MMA's superior mechanics???? WHAT THE HELL? Stupidest thing I've read on this thread.
Life vs MMA is proof that the top bracket of the tournament was the weakest shit known to man.
Life beat Zest, San (who cares) and Taeja, before completely wiping the floor with MMA. The guy had no chance at all whatsoever in the least. It was watching 2 different caliber of players. I can't believe 3 of the 5 announcers picked MMA to win. It's clear if you watched any of the games in the finals that the only reason he's in Blizzcon is because he's not playing in Korea.
Don't put Taeja and MMA in the same level ever please and thank you.
MMA crushed bomber and classic (also stardust who is no slouch) to reach the finals. classic and bomber were 2 of the favourites to win the whole thing.
So MMA has better mechanics than Life?? Does anyone agree with this? Life only beat MMA through trickery and non-standard play? Everything looked standard to me.
MMA beat Bomber using 3-Viking build that Bomber couldn't adjust for.
Following Proleague and GSL, the only legitimate contenders at the beginning of the tournament were Zest, Taeja, Innovation and soO - no one from the top bracket. Maybe herO...but that's a big maybe for anyone following the Korean scene. Bomber is in the category of "could beat any of the KR region pros...but would be an underdog" MMA is in the "if he wins against any KR code S player I'll be shocked" - I was shocked he beat Classic. But after rewatching R32 season 3 GSL...classic is serious code A material at this point.
Top bracket was pretty trash - Polt is a heart favorite but he's not top tier. Stardust!? MC?! Jaedong?! Classic?! MMA?! None of these players had any sort of shot. herO and Bomber were LONG odds.
Basically what I'm saying is San > Stardust, Zest >>>>>> Classic, Taeja > Bomber during Blizzcon...Life came through the hard way, and it showed in the finals - 4-1 and wasn't close.
LoL, Bomber is same level as Taeja or even better.(in TvT definitely), and I cant believe how many people seeing MMA as so bad player. MMA is capable to beat any code S player. Like I said before he had surely no practice on his TvZ matchup, otherwise he would've won vs Life.
Why do you think a player who proved himself off in his knowledge of TvZ timings and so inept at defending the most rudimentary of aggression would be able to beat a player that just took out Taeja (whose kill list includes soO, Solar, Life, and every other Zerg in the universe) with an additional day of practice?
On November 10 2014 23:58 Pegas wrote: Props to Life for not Swarmhosting the finals. That being said yes I think MMA and Taeja had the superior mechanics but Life had the best response and fastest decision making.
MMA's superior mechanics???? WHAT THE HELL? Stupidest thing I've read on this thread.
Life vs MMA is proof that the top bracket of the tournament was the weakest shit known to man.
Life beat Zest, San (who cares) and Taeja, before completely wiping the floor with MMA. The guy had no chance at all whatsoever in the least. It was watching 2 different caliber of players. I can't believe 3 of the 5 announcers picked MMA to win. It's clear if you watched any of the games in the finals that the only reason he's in Blizzcon is because he's not playing in Korea.
Don't put Taeja and MMA in the same level ever please and thank you.
MMA crushed bomber and classic (also stardust who is no slouch) to reach the finals. classic and bomber were 2 of the favourites to win the whole thing.
So MMA has better mechanics than Life?? Does anyone agree with this? Life only beat MMA through trickery and non-standard play? Everything looked standard to me.
MMA beat Bomber using 3-Viking build that Bomber couldn't adjust for.
Following Proleague and GSL, the only legitimate contenders at the beginning of the tournament were Zest, Taeja, Innovation and soO - no one from the top bracket. Maybe herO...but that's a big maybe for anyone following the Korean scene. Bomber is in the category of "could beat any of the KR region pros...but would be an underdog" MMA is in the "if he wins against any KR code S player I'll be shocked" - I was shocked he beat Classic. But after rewatching R32 season 3 GSL...classic is serious code A material at this point.
Top bracket was pretty trash - Polt is a heart favorite but he's not top tier. Stardust!? MC?! Jaedong?! Classic?! MMA?! None of these players had any sort of shot. herO and Bomber were LONG odds.
Basically what I'm saying is San > Stardust, Zest >>>>>> Classic, Taeja > Bomber during Blizzcon...Life came through the hard way, and it showed in the finals - 4-1 and wasn't close.
LoL, Bomber is same level as Taeja or even better.(in TvT definitely), and I cant believe how many people seeing MMA as so bad player. MMA is capable to beat any code S player. Like I said before he had surely no practice on his TvZ matchup, otherwise he would've won vs Life.
Why do you think a player who proved himself off in his knowledge of TvZ timings and so inept at defending the most rudimentary of aggression would be able to beat a player that just took out Taeja (whose kill list includes soO, Solar, Life, and every other Zerg in the universe) with an additional day of practice?
LoL? MMA's best matchup was TvZ, but recently almost in every tournaments he hadn't to play any Zergs, almost only vs P or T. With that 1 day, he beated Classic easily, and MMA is well know for his good preparations vs his current opponnents. If he knew, he was playing vs Life, i am 100% sure, the finals were 4-3 to either side, not so one sided as it was. Seems people who only follow Koreans scene and think Code S players are much better than the NA or EU koreans, have no idea how good MMA, Bomber are. I think only Taeja is accepted as good player, if i read the comments. Sadly MMA is so underrated, I am pretty sure, if he had harder bracket and lost in the final, he would still be for most people a bad player who has no chance vs Code S player.
On November 10 2014 23:58 Pegas wrote: Props to Life for not Swarmhosting the finals. That being said yes I think MMA and Taeja had the superior mechanics but Life had the best response and fastest decision making.
MMA's superior mechanics???? WHAT THE HELL? Stupidest thing I've read on this thread.
Life vs MMA is proof that the top bracket of the tournament was the weakest shit known to man.
Life beat Zest, San (who cares) and Taeja, before completely wiping the floor with MMA. The guy had no chance at all whatsoever in the least. It was watching 2 different caliber of players. I can't believe 3 of the 5 announcers picked MMA to win. It's clear if you watched any of the games in the finals that the only reason he's in Blizzcon is because he's not playing in Korea.
Don't put Taeja and MMA in the same level ever please and thank you.
MMA crushed bomber and classic (also stardust who is no slouch) to reach the finals. classic and bomber were 2 of the favourites to win the whole thing.
So MMA has better mechanics than Life?? Does anyone agree with this? Life only beat MMA through trickery and non-standard play? Everything looked standard to me.
MMA beat Bomber using 3-Viking build that Bomber couldn't adjust for.
Following Proleague and GSL, the only legitimate contenders at the beginning of the tournament were Zest, Taeja, Innovation and soO - no one from the top bracket. Maybe herO...but that's a big maybe for anyone following the Korean scene. Bomber is in the category of "could beat any of the KR region pros...but would be an underdog" MMA is in the "if he wins against any KR code S player I'll be shocked" - I was shocked he beat Classic. But after rewatching R32 season 3 GSL...classic is serious code A material at this point.
Top bracket was pretty trash - Polt is a heart favorite but he's not top tier. Stardust!? MC?! Jaedong?! Classic?! MMA?! None of these players had any sort of shot. herO and Bomber were LONG odds.
Basically what I'm saying is San > Stardust, Zest >>>>>> Classic, Taeja > Bomber during Blizzcon...Life came through the hard way, and it showed in the finals - 4-1 and wasn't close.
LoL, Bomber is same level as Taeja or even better.(in TvT definitely), and I cant believe how many people seeing MMA as so bad player. MMA is capable to beat any code S player. Like I said before he had surely no practice on his TvZ matchup, otherwise he would've won vs Life.
Why do you think a player who proved himself off in his knowledge of TvZ timings and so inept at defending the most rudimentary of aggression would be able to beat a player that just took out Taeja (whose kill list includes soO, Solar, Life, and every other Zerg in the universe) with an additional day of practice?
LoL? MMA's best matchup was TvZ, but recently almost in every tournaments he hadn't to play any Zergs, almost only vs P or T. With that 1 day, he beated Classic easily, and MMA is well know for his good preparations vs his current opponnents. If he knew, he was playing vs Life, i am 100% sure, the finals were 4-3 to either side, not so one sided as it was. Seems people who only follow Koreans scene and think Code S players are much better than the NA or EU koreans, have no idea how good MMA, Bomber are. I think only Taeja is accepted as good player, if i read the comments. Sadly MMA is so underrated, I am pretty sure, if he had harder bracket and lost in the final, he would still be for most people a bad player who has no chance vs Code S player.
If you watched Life's games against Zest and San (and even to some extent Taeja), you would find that the same kind of preparation you think MMA is so impressive in is something Life also masters. I get that you think we're criminally underrating MMA, but he really showed nothing in the finals to imply that he was (is) anywhere near Taeja's level in the matchup.
On November 10 2014 23:58 Pegas wrote: Props to Life for not Swarmhosting the finals. That being said yes I think MMA and Taeja had the superior mechanics but Life had the best response and fastest decision making.
MMA's superior mechanics???? WHAT THE HELL? Stupidest thing I've read on this thread.
Life vs MMA is proof that the top bracket of the tournament was the weakest shit known to man.
Life beat Zest, San (who cares) and Taeja, before completely wiping the floor with MMA. The guy had no chance at all whatsoever in the least. It was watching 2 different caliber of players. I can't believe 3 of the 5 announcers picked MMA to win. It's clear if you watched any of the games in the finals that the only reason he's in Blizzcon is because he's not playing in Korea.
Don't put Taeja and MMA in the same level ever please and thank you.
MMA crushed bomber and classic (also stardust who is no slouch) to reach the finals. classic and bomber were 2 of the favourites to win the whole thing.
So MMA has better mechanics than Life?? Does anyone agree with this? Life only beat MMA through trickery and non-standard play? Everything looked standard to me.
MMA beat Bomber using 3-Viking build that Bomber couldn't adjust for.
Following Proleague and GSL, the only legitimate contenders at the beginning of the tournament were Zest, Taeja, Innovation and soO - no one from the top bracket. Maybe herO...but that's a big maybe for anyone following the Korean scene. Bomber is in the category of "could beat any of the KR region pros...but would be an underdog" MMA is in the "if he wins against any KR code S player I'll be shocked" - I was shocked he beat Classic. But after rewatching R32 season 3 GSL...classic is serious code A material at this point.
Top bracket was pretty trash - Polt is a heart favorite but he's not top tier. Stardust!? MC?! Jaedong?! Classic?! MMA?! None of these players had any sort of shot. herO and Bomber were LONG odds.
Basically what I'm saying is San > Stardust, Zest >>>>>> Classic, Taeja > Bomber during Blizzcon...Life came through the hard way, and it showed in the finals - 4-1 and wasn't close.
LoL, Bomber is same level as Taeja or even better.(in TvT definitely), and I cant believe how many people seeing MMA as so bad player. MMA is capable to beat any code S player. Like I said before he had surely no practice on his TvZ matchup, otherwise he would've won vs Life.
Why do you think a player who proved himself off in his knowledge of TvZ timings and so inept at defending the most rudimentary of aggression would be able to beat a player that just took out Taeja (whose kill list includes soO, Solar, Life, and every other Zerg in the universe) with an additional day of practice?
LoL? MMA's best matchup was TvZ, but recently almost in every tournaments he hadn't to play any Zergs, almost only vs P or T. With that 1 day, he beated Classic easily, and MMA is well know for his good preparations vs his current opponnents. If he knew, he was playing vs Life, i am 100% sure, the finals were 4-3 to either side, not so one sided as it was. Seems people who only follow Koreans scene and think Code S players are much better than the NA or EU koreans, have no idea how good MMA, Bomber are. I think only Taeja is accepted as good player, if i read the comments. Sadly MMA is so underrated, I am pretty sure, if he had harder bracket and lost in the final, he would still be for most people a bad player who has no chance vs Code S player.
You only seem to think MMA benefits from an extra day of practice, yet Life would have played better TvZ in that case as well. I feel his win against Zest and how he beat San proves this. Zest was preparing in general, while Life was preparing for Zest, and you could just tell that Life was countering what Zest was doing while Zest just tried to play standard. The fact it even got to game 5 was, to me, proof of how dominating Zest's PvZ is in general, that he can win 2 out of 5 games against a Zerg like Life, even when being countered. MMA played great, but he beat Stardust (also EU), then beat Bomber who apparently told people he had a bad day beforehand (this is not me trying to take away credit from MMA who played great that match, but on the highest level this does make a difference), then Classic who is definitely no slouch, but it doesn't compare to beating Zest/San in ZvP followed by Taeja in ZvT, which are 3 of the players with the best vZ on the planet.
But even beforehand, people were saying that the lower bracket was tougher, and the games proved it. The key difference is not in the numbers of how many maps they won/lost, but how amazing the games in the lower bracket were. Zest vs. Life, Taeja vs. soO, Taeja vs. Innovation, Taeja vs. Life, were, in some order, the top 4 series of Blizzcon to me. The way Innovation/Life straight up killed Hyun/San while the latter just killed jjakji showed the difference in class pretty well. To me Taeja & Life were the two best players at this tournament. The way they beat their opponents to the semi-finals, showed how incredible these guys are when they have the right motivation. I feel this all culminated into game 2 of their series, where they both showed amazing class, but in the end Life won that. I have no doubt in my mind that if Taeja won that series, he would go on to beat MMA too. It might have been closer, but Taeja has been proving since 2012 he can beat (almost) anyone when he's on point, and he was in this tournament.
I don't even know why you think it's so controversial how amazing Life played in this tournament. We know the guy had probably the most dominating run ever at the end of WoL. Not even MMA at the end of 2011 seemed as dominating, though he was close. I also don't believe MMA would get crushed in GSL, as he's playing really well in general, but that doesn't mean he would just beat anyone with more preparation time. You could even argue he benefited from this lack of preparation time against Classic, who he countered pretty hard with his mine-play, to which Classic had no answer. At Blizzcon, Life showed how he went on that insane 19-0 offline bo5+ streak. You don't just get there with superior mechanics, as Innovation's 0-4 to Maru & 3-4 to Soulkey showed when he was "the best player in the world". I don't get the sense any of Life's map wins were flukes, and with how close the games were, I'm pretty sure that if we repeat the entire tournament we'd end up with two different finalists. But we may never know. What we do know is that Life, like sOs last year, played a series of amazing games over the course of last week and to me it felt like he was playing like a "best player in the world" should.
On November 10 2014 23:58 Pegas wrote: Props to Life for not Swarmhosting the finals. That being said yes I think MMA and Taeja had the superior mechanics but Life had the best response and fastest decision making.
MMA's superior mechanics???? WHAT THE HELL? Stupidest thing I've read on this thread.
Life vs MMA is proof that the top bracket of the tournament was the weakest shit known to man.
Life beat Zest, San (who cares) and Taeja, before completely wiping the floor with MMA. The guy had no chance at all whatsoever in the least. It was watching 2 different caliber of players. I can't believe 3 of the 5 announcers picked MMA to win. It's clear if you watched any of the games in the finals that the only reason he's in Blizzcon is because he's not playing in Korea.
Don't put Taeja and MMA in the same level ever please and thank you.
MMA crushed bomber and classic (also stardust who is no slouch) to reach the finals. classic and bomber were 2 of the favourites to win the whole thing.
So MMA has better mechanics than Life?? Does anyone agree with this? Life only beat MMA through trickery and non-standard play? Everything looked standard to me.
MMA beat Bomber using 3-Viking build that Bomber couldn't adjust for.
Following Proleague and GSL, the only legitimate contenders at the beginning of the tournament were Zest, Taeja, Innovation and soO - no one from the top bracket. Maybe herO...but that's a big maybe for anyone following the Korean scene. Bomber is in the category of "could beat any of the KR region pros...but would be an underdog" MMA is in the "if he wins against any KR code S player I'll be shocked" - I was shocked he beat Classic. But after rewatching R32 season 3 GSL...classic is serious code A material at this point.
Top bracket was pretty trash - Polt is a heart favorite but he's not top tier. Stardust!? MC?! Jaedong?! Classic?! MMA?! None of these players had any sort of shot. herO and Bomber were LONG odds.
Basically what I'm saying is San > Stardust, Zest >>>>>> Classic, Taeja > Bomber during Blizzcon...Life came through the hard way, and it showed in the finals - 4-1 and wasn't close.
LoL, Bomber is same level as Taeja or even better.(in TvT definitely), and I cant believe how many people seeing MMA as so bad player. MMA is capable to beat any code S player. Like I said before he had surely no practice on his TvZ matchup, otherwise he would've won vs Life.
Why do you think a player who proved himself off in his knowledge of TvZ timings and so inept at defending the most rudimentary of aggression would be able to beat a player that just took out Taeja (whose kill list includes soO, Solar, Life, and every other Zerg in the universe) with an additional day of practice?
LoL? MMA's best matchup was TvZ, but recently almost in every tournaments he hadn't to play any Zergs, almost only vs P or T. With that 1 day, he beated Classic easily, and MMA is well know for his good preparations vs his current opponnents. If he knew, he was playing vs Life, i am 100% sure, the finals were 4-3 to either side, not so one sided as it was. Seems people who only follow Koreans scene and think Code S players are much better than the NA or EU koreans, have no idea how good MMA, Bomber are. I think only Taeja is accepted as good player, if i read the comments. Sadly MMA is so underrated, I am pretty sure, if he had harder bracket and lost in the final, he would still be for most people a bad player who has no chance vs Code S player.
If you watched Life's games against Zest and San (and even to some extent Taeja), you would find that the same kind of preparation you think MMA is so impressive in is something Life also masters. I get that you think we're criminally underrating MMA, but he really showed nothing in the finals to imply that he was (is) anywhere near Taeja's level in the matchup.
Like i said, Life DESERVED to win, It was really ONE SIDED, and MMA disappointed many people, but the point is MMA had literally no TvZ preparation, you could see that during the games, he did so many mistakes, and his face told everything, he didnt know what to do, was trying to do desperately 2 base all ins. If he had dat 1 day preparation it would've been different story, and Taeja had enough Zerg opponnents, to practice, which MMA hadn't. WCS EU finals he only played vs Golden. DH Moscow, only good Zerg player was Snute and like he said there, he STUDIED Snute and made that twice that 11/11 proxy raxes. If he studied Life aswell, for a player like him, 1 day is enough to prepare many BOs. So Life owned him because of MMA's lack of preparation.
Life is and has always been to me the best player in the world skill-wise. Even when he wasn't winning as much as he did before, I've alwais considered him slightly ahead of everyone else.
My favourite players have always been the players that were open to the community by speaking english (Polt, MC) or because I felt close to them (either because they were on Millenium, french players, foreign hopes or for complete random reasons). There are only two players that I've been willing to support only because of their skill and that's Life and TaeJa.
On November 10 2014 23:58 Pegas wrote: Props to Life for not Swarmhosting the finals. That being said yes I think MMA and Taeja had the superior mechanics but Life had the best response and fastest decision making.
MMA's superior mechanics???? WHAT THE HELL? Stupidest thing I've read on this thread.
Life vs MMA is proof that the top bracket of the tournament was the weakest shit known to man.
Life beat Zest, San (who cares) and Taeja, before completely wiping the floor with MMA. The guy had no chance at all whatsoever in the least. It was watching 2 different caliber of players. I can't believe 3 of the 5 announcers picked MMA to win. It's clear if you watched any of the games in the finals that the only reason he's in Blizzcon is because he's not playing in Korea.
Don't put Taeja and MMA in the same level ever please and thank you.
MMA crushed bomber and classic (also stardust who is no slouch) to reach the finals. classic and bomber were 2 of the favourites to win the whole thing.
So MMA has better mechanics than Life?? Does anyone agree with this? Life only beat MMA through trickery and non-standard play? Everything looked standard to me.
MMA beat Bomber using 3-Viking build that Bomber couldn't adjust for.
Following Proleague and GSL, the only legitimate contenders at the beginning of the tournament were Zest, Taeja, Innovation and soO - no one from the top bracket. Maybe herO...but that's a big maybe for anyone following the Korean scene. Bomber is in the category of "could beat any of the KR region pros...but would be an underdog" MMA is in the "if he wins against any KR code S player I'll be shocked" - I was shocked he beat Classic. But after rewatching R32 season 3 GSL...classic is serious code A material at this point.
Top bracket was pretty trash - Polt is a heart favorite but he's not top tier. Stardust!? MC?! Jaedong?! Classic?! MMA?! None of these players had any sort of shot. herO and Bomber were LONG odds.
Basically what I'm saying is San > Stardust, Zest >>>>>> Classic, Taeja > Bomber during Blizzcon...Life came through the hard way, and it showed in the finals - 4-1 and wasn't close.
LoL, Bomber is same level as Taeja or even better.(in TvT definitely), and I cant believe how many people seeing MMA as so bad player. MMA is capable to beat any code S player. Like I said before he had surely no practice on his TvZ matchup, otherwise he would've won vs Life.
Why do you think a player who proved himself off in his knowledge of TvZ timings and so inept at defending the most rudimentary of aggression would be able to beat a player that just took out Taeja (whose kill list includes soO, Solar, Life, and every other Zerg in the universe) with an additional day of practice?
LoL? MMA's best matchup was TvZ, but recently almost in every tournaments he hadn't to play any Zergs, almost only vs P or T. With that 1 day, he beated Classic easily, and MMA is well know for his good preparations vs his current opponnents. If he knew, he was playing vs Life, i am 100% sure, the finals were 4-3 to either side, not so one sided as it was. Seems people who only follow Koreans scene and think Code S players are much better than the NA or EU koreans, have no idea how good MMA, Bomber are. I think only Taeja is accepted as good player, if i read the comments. Sadly MMA is so underrated, I am pretty sure, if he had harder bracket and lost in the final, he would still be for most people a bad player who has no chance vs Code S player.
You only seem to think MMA benefits from an extra day of practice, yet Life would have played better TvZ in that case as well. I feel his win against Zest and how he beat San proves this. Zest was preparing in general, while Life was preparing for Zest, and you could just tell that Life was countering what Zest was doing while Zest just tried to play standard. The fact it even got to game 5 was, to me, proof of how dominating Zest's PvZ is in general, that he can win 2 out of 5 games against a Zerg like Life, even when being countered. MMA played great, but he beat Stardust (also EU), then beat Bomber who apparently told people he had a bad day beforehand (this is not me trying to take away credit from MMA who played great that match, but on the highest level this does make a difference), then Classic who is definitely no slouch, but it doesn't compare to beating Zest/San in ZvP followed by Taeja in ZvT, which are 3 of the players with the best vZ on the planet.
But even beforehand, people were saying that the lower bracket was tougher, and the games proved it. The key difference is not in the numbers of how many maps they won/lost, but how amazing the games in the lower bracket were. Zest vs. Life, Taeja vs. soO, Taeja vs. Innovation, Taeja vs. Life, were, in some order, the top 4 series of Blizzcon to me. The way Innovation/Life straight up killed Hyun/San while the latter just killed jjakji showed the difference in class pretty well. To me Taeja & Life were the two best players at this tournament. The way they beat their opponents to the semi-finals, showed how incredible these guys are when they have the right motivation. I feel this all culminated into game 2 of their series, where they both showed amazing class, but in the end Life won that. I have no doubt in my mind that if Taeja won that series, he would go on to beat MMA too. It might have been closer, but Taeja has been proving since 2012 he can beat (almost) anyone when he's on point, and he was in this tournament.
I don't even know why you think it's so controversial how amazing Life played in this tournament. We know the guy had probably the most dominating run ever at the end of WoL. Not even MMA at the end of 2011 seemed as dominating, though he was close. At Blizzcon, he showed how he went on that insane 19-0 offline bo5+ streak. You don't just get there with superior mechanics, as Innovation's 0-4 to Maru & 3-4 to Soulkey showed when he was "the best player in the world". I don't get the sense any of Life's map wins were flukes, and with how close the games were, I'm pretty sure that if we repeat the entire tournament we'd end up with two different finalists. But we may never know. What we do know is that Life, like sOs last year, played a series of amazing games over the course of last week and to me it felt like he was playing like a "best player in the world" should.
How will Life prepare more to a player who had recently almost no TvZ games? He had enough preparation to his ZvT, while MMA had none. Thats why it saw so one sided, if both had 1 day, it wouldn't have been so one sided as it was. Bomber has better score vs Taeja in TvT and Taeja already said in IEM Toronto his TvT is worst matchup, while MMA had so many TvTs recently come on He beat Yoda, jjakji, ForGG(considered as best TvT player), and now Bomber, who has crazy TvT, beating Polt so many times in so short time(Red Bull, WCS NA...)and beating GSL semifinalist Cure with 4-0. If Taeja got to the final, MMA had better chance to win than vs Life.
On November 10 2014 23:58 Pegas wrote: Props to Life for not Swarmhosting the finals. That being said yes I think MMA and Taeja had the superior mechanics but Life had the best response and fastest decision making.
MMA's superior mechanics???? WHAT THE HELL? Stupidest thing I've read on this thread.
Life vs MMA is proof that the top bracket of the tournament was the weakest shit known to man.
Life beat Zest, San (who cares) and Taeja, before completely wiping the floor with MMA. The guy had no chance at all whatsoever in the least. It was watching 2 different caliber of players. I can't believe 3 of the 5 announcers picked MMA to win. It's clear if you watched any of the games in the finals that the only reason he's in Blizzcon is because he's not playing in Korea.
Don't put Taeja and MMA in the same level ever please and thank you.
MMA crushed bomber and classic (also stardust who is no slouch) to reach the finals. classic and bomber were 2 of the favourites to win the whole thing.
So MMA has better mechanics than Life?? Does anyone agree with this? Life only beat MMA through trickery and non-standard play? Everything looked standard to me.
MMA beat Bomber using 3-Viking build that Bomber couldn't adjust for.
Following Proleague and GSL, the only legitimate contenders at the beginning of the tournament were Zest, Taeja, Innovation and soO - no one from the top bracket. Maybe herO...but that's a big maybe for anyone following the Korean scene. Bomber is in the category of "could beat any of the KR region pros...but would be an underdog" MMA is in the "if he wins against any KR code S player I'll be shocked" - I was shocked he beat Classic. But after rewatching R32 season 3 GSL...classic is serious code A material at this point.
Top bracket was pretty trash - Polt is a heart favorite but he's not top tier. Stardust!? MC?! Jaedong?! Classic?! MMA?! None of these players had any sort of shot. herO and Bomber were LONG odds.
Basically what I'm saying is San > Stardust, Zest >>>>>> Classic, Taeja > Bomber during Blizzcon...Life came through the hard way, and it showed in the finals - 4-1 and wasn't close.
LoL, Bomber is same level as Taeja or even better.(in TvT definitely), and I cant believe how many people seeing MMA as so bad player. MMA is capable to beat any code S player. Like I said before he had surely no practice on his TvZ matchup, otherwise he would've won vs Life.
Why do you think a player who proved himself off in his knowledge of TvZ timings and so inept at defending the most rudimentary of aggression would be able to beat a player that just took out Taeja (whose kill list includes soO, Solar, Life, and every other Zerg in the universe) with an additional day of practice?
LoL? MMA's best matchup was TvZ, but recently almost in every tournaments he hadn't to play any Zergs, almost only vs P or T. With that 1 day, he beated Classic easily, and MMA is well know for his good preparations vs his current opponnents. If he knew, he was playing vs Life, i am 100% sure, the finals were 4-3 to either side, not so one sided as it was. Seems people who only follow Koreans scene and think Code S players are much better than the NA or EU koreans, have no idea how good MMA, Bomber are. I think only Taeja is accepted as good player, if i read the comments. Sadly MMA is so underrated, I am pretty sure, if he had harder bracket and lost in the final, he would still be for most people a bad player who has no chance vs Code S player.
You only seem to think MMA benefits from an extra day of practice, yet Life would have played better TvZ in that case as well. I feel his win against Zest and how he beat San proves this. Zest was preparing in general, while Life was preparing for Zest, and you could just tell that Life was countering what Zest was doing while Zest just tried to play standard. The fact it even got to game 5 was, to me, proof of how dominating Zest's PvZ is in general, that he can win 2 out of 5 games against a Zerg like Life, even when being countered. MMA played great, but he beat Stardust (also EU), then beat Bomber who apparently told people he had a bad day beforehand (this is not me trying to take away credit from MMA who played great that match, but on the highest level this does make a difference), then Classic who is definitely no slouch, but it doesn't compare to beating Zest/San in ZvP followed by Taeja in ZvT, which are 3 of the players with the best vZ on the planet.
But even beforehand, people were saying that the lower bracket was tougher, and the games proved it. The key difference is not in the numbers of how many maps they won/lost, but how amazing the games in the lower bracket were. Zest vs. Life, Taeja vs. soO, Taeja vs. Innovation, Taeja vs. Life, were, in some order, the top 4 series of Blizzcon to me. The way Innovation/Life straight up killed Hyun/San while the latter just killed jjakji showed the difference in class pretty well. To me Taeja & Life were the two best players at this tournament. The way they beat their opponents to the semi-finals, showed how incredible these guys are when they have the right motivation. I feel this all culminated into game 2 of their series, where they both showed amazing class, but in the end Life won that. I have no doubt in my mind that if Taeja won that series, he would go on to beat MMA too. It might have been closer, but Taeja has been proving since 2012 he can beat (almost) anyone when he's on point, and he was in this tournament.
I don't even know why you think it's so controversial how amazing Life played in this tournament. We know the guy had probably the most dominating run ever at the end of WoL. Not even MMA at the end of 2011 seemed as dominating, though he was close. At Blizzcon, he showed how he went on that insane 19-0 offline bo5+ streak. You don't just get there with superior mechanics, as Innovation's 0-4 to Maru & 3-4 to Soulkey showed when he was "the best player in the world". I don't get the sense any of Life's map wins were flukes, and with how close the games were, I'm pretty sure that if we repeat the entire tournament we'd end up with two different finalists. But we may never know. What we do know is that Life, like sOs last year, played a series of amazing games over the course of last week and to me it felt like he was playing like a "best player in the world" should.
How will Life prepare more to a player who had recently almost no TvZ games? He had enough preparation to his ZvT, while MMA had none. Thats why it saw so one sided, if both had 1 day, it wouldn't have been so one sided as it was. Bomber has better score vs Taeja in TvT and Taeja already said in IEM Toronto his TvT is worst matchup, while MMA had so many TvTs recently come on He beat Yoda, jjakji, ForGG(considered as best TvT player), and now Bomber, who has crazy TvT, beating Polt so many times in so short time(Red Bull, WCS NA...)and beating GSL semifinalist Cure with 4-0. If Taeja got to the final, MMA had better chance to win than vs Life.
No question MMA had no vZ prep (a very underrated aspect that I'm surprised the commentators did not mention). He probably thought his chances of facing a Z were 1000:1. Also MMA is not the strongest player mentally, which clearly showed in his games vs Life. Playing against Life in the finals is nerve-racking enough; playing against him with no Z prep has to be really tough (unless you're as mentally tough as Life, who isn't phased by anything apparently =P)
Still, let's not kid ourselves - Taeja > MMA, and if Life could beat Taeja, he could likely beat MMA, even if MMA had all the prep time in the world.
Funny how we are all debating about skill in a tournament entirely made of the elite of players. I'm a Taeja fan and I was sure as hell he would have won, but Life managed to outsmart him and deserves all the credit for that. Seriously, the only game I've seen where raw skill was somehow out of context was the one where Classic 2gated herO... without his opponent scouting (which is alctually a good game since it proves once again that knowing your opponent already wins you half of the battle). Life played smart, Life played incredibly well. Winning against Zest, against San (lol to whoever lol'd to San, btw - the Man's PvZ is sick and this match only proved that Life has finally solved San's approach to the matchup, a sick feat), against Taeja and MMA is a testament to his ability.
I think it's insane for people trying to make the point that Life is not one of the top skilled players. The guy's record of huge tournament wins speaks for itself really. Just because he hasn't been on a dominant run right before this tournament doesn't mean he isn't a top player skill wise. Every top player, even really dominant ones like MVP or MC, have had bad runs or dropped out of relevance at times.
The way Life played at Blizzcon makes me think he'd be a pretty awesome poker player too, he'd probably be good at reading his opponents and knowing when to bluff or call the bluffs of others.
The way Life played at Blizzcon makes me think he'd be a pretty awesome poker player too, he'd probably be good at reading his opponents and knowing when to bluff or call the bluffs of others.
His mind games were what impressed me the most. He really got under his opponents' skin and forced them into uncharacteristic mistakes. After getting sick of watching Taeja win so many tournaments and nearly losing hope in starcraft as an entertaining "e-sport", it was beautiful to watch Life vanquish him, especially towards the end of such a riveting Game 2 where Life displayed such razor precision controlling his mutalisks. This moment really demonstrated the kid's ability to remain calm under pressure where any other Zerg player would have fallen.
And on the biggest stage -- battling for a trophy that's worth more than all of Taeja's tournaments wins this year combined.
I suppose this proves the game is balanced -- yet Zerg is such a fragile race and really only potent in the hands of a genius like Life.
On November 10 2014 23:58 Pegas wrote: Props to Life for not Swarmhosting the finals. That being said yes I think MMA and Taeja had the superior mechanics but Life had the best response and fastest decision making.
MMA's superior mechanics???? WHAT THE HELL? Stupidest thing I've read on this thread.
Life vs MMA is proof that the top bracket of the tournament was the weakest shit known to man.
Life beat Zest, San (who cares) and Taeja, before completely wiping the floor with MMA. The guy had no chance at all whatsoever in the least. It was watching 2 different caliber of players. I can't believe 3 of the 5 announcers picked MMA to win. It's clear if you watched any of the games in the finals that the only reason he's in Blizzcon is because he's not playing in Korea.
Don't put Taeja and MMA in the same level ever please and thank you.
MMA crushed bomber and classic (also stardust who is no slouch) to reach the finals. classic and bomber were 2 of the favourites to win the whole thing.
So MMA has better mechanics than Life?? Does anyone agree with this? Life only beat MMA through trickery and non-standard play? Everything looked standard to me.
MMA beat Bomber using 3-Viking build that Bomber couldn't adjust for.
Following Proleague and GSL, the only legitimate contenders at the beginning of the tournament were Zest, Taeja, Innovation and soO - no one from the top bracket. Maybe herO...but that's a big maybe for anyone following the Korean scene. Bomber is in the category of "could beat any of the KR region pros...but would be an underdog" MMA is in the "if he wins against any KR code S player I'll be shocked" - I was shocked he beat Classic. But after rewatching R32 season 3 GSL...classic is serious code A material at this point.
Top bracket was pretty trash - Polt is a heart favorite but he's not top tier. Stardust!? MC?! Jaedong?! Classic?! MMA?! None of these players had any sort of shot. herO and Bomber were LONG odds.
Basically what I'm saying is San > Stardust, Zest >>>>>> Classic, Taeja > Bomber during Blizzcon...Life came through the hard way, and it showed in the finals - 4-1 and wasn't close.
LoL, Bomber is same level as Taeja or even better.(in TvT definitely), and I cant believe how many people seeing MMA as so bad player. MMA is capable to beat any code S player. Like I said before he had surely no practice on his TvZ matchup, otherwise he would've won vs Life.
Why do you think a player who proved himself off in his knowledge of TvZ timings and so inept at defending the most rudimentary of aggression would be able to beat a player that just took out Taeja (whose kill list includes soO, Solar, Life, and every other Zerg in the universe) with an additional day of practice?
LoL? MMA's best matchup was TvZ, but recently almost in every tournaments he hadn't to play any Zergs, almost only vs P or T. With that 1 day, he beated Classic easily, and MMA is well know for his good preparations vs his current opponnents. If he knew, he was playing vs Life, i am 100% sure, the finals were 4-3 to either side, not so one sided as it was. Seems people who only follow Koreans scene and think Code S players are much better than the NA or EU koreans, have no idea how good MMA, Bomber are. I think only Taeja is accepted as good player, if i read the comments. Sadly MMA is so underrated, I am pretty sure, if he had harder bracket and lost in the final, he would still be for most people a bad player who has no chance vs Code S player.
You only seem to think MMA benefits from an extra day of practice, yet Life would have played better TvZ in that case as well. I feel his win against Zest and how he beat San proves this. Zest was preparing in general, while Life was preparing for Zest, and you could just tell that Life was countering what Zest was doing while Zest just tried to play standard. The fact it even got to game 5 was, to me, proof of how dominating Zest's PvZ is in general, that he can win 2 out of 5 games against a Zerg like Life, even when being countered. MMA played great, but he beat Stardust (also EU), then beat Bomber who apparently told people he had a bad day beforehand (this is not me trying to take away credit from MMA who played great that match, but on the highest level this does make a difference), then Classic who is definitely no slouch, but it doesn't compare to beating Zest/San in ZvP followed by Taeja in ZvT, which are 3 of the players with the best vZ on the planet.
But even beforehand, people were saying that the lower bracket was tougher, and the games proved it. The key difference is not in the numbers of how many maps they won/lost, but how amazing the games in the lower bracket were. Zest vs. Life, Taeja vs. soO, Taeja vs. Innovation, Taeja vs. Life, were, in some order, the top 4 series of Blizzcon to me. The way Innovation/Life straight up killed Hyun/San while the latter just killed jjakji showed the difference in class pretty well. To me Taeja & Life were the two best players at this tournament. The way they beat their opponents to the semi-finals, showed how incredible these guys are when they have the right motivation. I feel this all culminated into game 2 of their series, where they both showed amazing class, but in the end Life won that. I have no doubt in my mind that if Taeja won that series, he would go on to beat MMA too. It might have been closer, but Taeja has been proving since 2012 he can beat (almost) anyone when he's on point, and he was in this tournament.
I don't even know why you think it's so controversial how amazing Life played in this tournament. We know the guy had probably the most dominating run ever at the end of WoL. Not even MMA at the end of 2011 seemed as dominating, though he was close. At Blizzcon, he showed how he went on that insane 19-0 offline bo5+ streak. You don't just get there with superior mechanics, as Innovation's 0-4 to Maru & 3-4 to Soulkey showed when he was "the best player in the world". I don't get the sense any of Life's map wins were flukes, and with how close the games were, I'm pretty sure that if we repeat the entire tournament we'd end up with two different finalists. But we may never know. What we do know is that Life, like sOs last year, played a series of amazing games over the course of last week and to me it felt like he was playing like a "best player in the world" should.
How will Life prepare more to a player who had recently almost no TvZ games? He had enough preparation to his ZvT, while MMA had none. Thats why it saw so one sided, if both had 1 day, it wouldn't have been so one sided as it was. Bomber has better score vs Taeja in TvT and Taeja already said in IEM Toronto his TvT is worst matchup, while MMA had so many TvTs recently come on He beat Yoda, jjakji, ForGG(considered as best TvT player), and now Bomber, who has crazy TvT, beating Polt so many times in so short time(Red Bull, WCS NA...)and beating GSL semifinalist Cure with 4-0. If Taeja got to the final, MMA had better chance to win than vs Life.
Tsogi, I don't know where you were in 2013 but here are just a few of Jaedong's tournament results: Dreamhack Summer ro8 vs T (Lucifron) win semis vs T (Taeja) win finals vs P (Stardust) loss
Dreamhack Valencia ro8 vs P (JYP) win semis vs P (Stardust) win <- he handily beat Stardust this time finals vs Z (Hyun) loss
WCS AM ro8 vs P (Jim) win semis vs Z (Scarlett) win finals vs T (Polt) loss
WCS Season 2 Grand Finals Group A vs P (Rain) win vs P (MC) win ro8 vs P (Naniwa) win semis vs P (First) win finals vs T (Bomber) loss
See the pattern? This kind of thing has been going on FOREVER. It's just the way things are. It's part of Starcraft (3 races makes this happen often). I was a little salty about some of these too especially because in most of these cases Jaedong played the 2nd semifinal meaning he had 0 preparation time at all going into the final, but do you really expect tournaments to run a whole extra day just for a grand finals? MMA actually had time to watch Life vs Taeja and plan his own strategies but all we saw from him were some weak timing attacks and even weaker standard play while Life played a strong standard game and went for busts when he knew they would work. One could also argue that San, being a PvZ specialist, should have easily beat Life in game 3. It was the exact same map and strategy that Life used against Zest and lost just a week beforehand. Despite an entire week of preparation San still lost. There's no guarantee that MMA would have played any better even with more time to prepare and it would be silly to dedicate a whole extra day to a grand finals. Again this is just the way things are, get over it and move on.
On November 11 2014 03:43 Tanzklaue wrote: life isn't nearly good enough to beat taeja in straight up games.
he knew that.
which is why he countered taeja's play with creativity and brainsmarts. which was the right thing to do honestly. i mean, you can try beating a bear in a fist fight, but nobody will remember you as a hero or smart.
what i want to say with that is, life deserved the win. it wasn't pretty, but taeja failed to paly it safe against life, who literally played cheesy aggression 4 out of 5 games. i mean, you could try to adapt to that.
You could also say that TaeJa isn't nearly good enough to beat Life in non-straight up games then. The fact that a player doesn't play accordingly to what your standards of "straight-up" or "macro" are doesn't mean he's bad and saying that he is is total bullshit. Starcraft II is a strategy game, not a button-clicking game. Life won with both his strategic mind and his mechanics. Implying he's not on the level of the best players of this game in one of those dimensions is what I'd call... controversial
did you even read the rest of my post where i said that life deserved to win because he was the smarter man and taeja refused to adapt, thus making life superior to taeja?
I did, but your first sentence make it sound like TaeJa is a better player than Life overall. Which I deny, because except in case of obvious racial imbalance, the better player is the one who wins. Sorry if my post sounded harsh or rude though, I'm just a bit angry seeing all the posts saying Life doesn't deserve his victory, so I may have overreacted when responding to yours.
If the better player always won, cheese wouldn't exist
Sorry to be a bit late, but cheese is a legit part of the game, you know. Or, to loosely quote Nazgul (I can't find the original post, sorry), cheese is a word used by people unable to adapt to strategic variance
On November 10 2014 23:58 Pegas wrote: Props to Life for not Swarmhosting the finals. That being said yes I think MMA and Taeja had the superior mechanics but Life had the best response and fastest decision making.
MMA's superior mechanics???? WHAT THE HELL? Stupidest thing I've read on this thread.
Life vs MMA is proof that the top bracket of the tournament was the weakest shit known to man.
Life beat Zest, San (who cares) and Taeja, before completely wiping the floor with MMA. The guy had no chance at all whatsoever in the least. It was watching 2 different caliber of players. I can't believe 3 of the 5 announcers picked MMA to win. It's clear if you watched any of the games in the finals that the only reason he's in Blizzcon is because he's not playing in Korea.
Don't put Taeja and MMA in the same level ever please and thank you.
MMA crushed bomber and classic (also stardust who is no slouch) to reach the finals. classic and bomber were 2 of the favourites to win the whole thing.
So MMA has better mechanics than Life?? Does anyone agree with this? Life only beat MMA through trickery and non-standard play? Everything looked standard to me.
MMA beat Bomber using 3-Viking build that Bomber couldn't adjust for.
Following Proleague and GSL, the only legitimate contenders at the beginning of the tournament were Zest, Taeja, Innovation and soO - no one from the top bracket. Maybe herO...but that's a big maybe for anyone following the Korean scene. Bomber is in the category of "could beat any of the KR region pros...but would be an underdog" MMA is in the "if he wins against any KR code S player I'll be shocked" - I was shocked he beat Classic. But after rewatching R32 season 3 GSL...classic is serious code A material at this point.
Top bracket was pretty trash - Polt is a heart favorite but he's not top tier. Stardust!? MC?! Jaedong?! Classic?! MMA?! None of these players had any sort of shot. herO and Bomber were LONG odds.
Basically what I'm saying is San > Stardust, Zest >>>>>> Classic, Taeja > Bomber during Blizzcon...Life came through the hard way, and it showed in the finals - 4-1 and wasn't close.
LoL, Bomber is same level as Taeja or even better.(in TvT definitely), and I cant believe how many people seeing MMA as so bad player. MMA is capable to beat any code S player. Like I said before he had surely no practice on his TvZ matchup, otherwise he would've won vs Life.
Why do you think a player who proved himself off in his knowledge of TvZ timings and so inept at defending the most rudimentary of aggression would be able to beat a player that just took out Taeja (whose kill list includes soO, Solar, Life, and every other Zerg in the universe) with an additional day of practice?
LoL? MMA's best matchup was TvZ, but recently almost in every tournaments he hadn't to play any Zergs, almost only vs P or T. With that 1 day, he beated Classic easily, and MMA is well know for his good preparations vs his current opponnents. If he knew, he was playing vs Life, i am 100% sure, the finals were 4-3 to either side, not so one sided as it was. Seems people who only follow Koreans scene and think Code S players are much better than the NA or EU koreans, have no idea how good MMA, Bomber are. I think only Taeja is accepted as good player, if i read the comments. Sadly MMA is so underrated, I am pretty sure, if he had harder bracket and lost in the final, he would still be for most people a bad player who has no chance vs Code S player.
You only seem to think MMA benefits from an extra day of practice, yet Life would have played better TvZ in that case as well. I feel his win against Zest and how he beat San proves this. Zest was preparing in general, while Life was preparing for Zest, and you could just tell that Life was countering what Zest was doing while Zest just tried to play standard. The fact it even got to game 5 was, to me, proof of how dominating Zest's PvZ is in general, that he can win 2 out of 5 games against a Zerg like Life, even when being countered. MMA played great, but he beat Stardust (also EU), then beat Bomber who apparently told people he had a bad day beforehand (this is not me trying to take away credit from MMA who played great that match, but on the highest level this does make a difference), then Classic who is definitely no slouch, but it doesn't compare to beating Zest/San in ZvP followed by Taeja in ZvT, which are 3 of the players with the best vZ on the planet.
But even beforehand, people were saying that the lower bracket was tougher, and the games proved it. The key difference is not in the numbers of how many maps they won/lost, but how amazing the games in the lower bracket were. Zest vs. Life, Taeja vs. soO, Taeja vs. Innovation, Taeja vs. Life, were, in some order, the top 4 series of Blizzcon to me. The way Innovation/Life straight up killed Hyun/San while the latter just killed jjakji showed the difference in class pretty well. To me Taeja & Life were the two best players at this tournament. The way they beat their opponents to the semi-finals, showed how incredible these guys are when they have the right motivation. I feel this all culminated into game 2 of their series, where they both showed amazing class, but in the end Life won that. I have no doubt in my mind that if Taeja won that series, he would go on to beat MMA too. It might have been closer, but Taeja has been proving since 2012 he can beat (almost) anyone when he's on point, and he was in this tournament.
I don't even know why you think it's so controversial how amazing Life played in this tournament. We know the guy had probably the most dominating run ever at the end of WoL. Not even MMA at the end of 2011 seemed as dominating, though he was close. At Blizzcon, he showed how he went on that insane 19-0 offline bo5+ streak. You don't just get there with superior mechanics, as Innovation's 0-4 to Maru & 3-4 to Soulkey showed when he was "the best player in the world". I don't get the sense any of Life's map wins were flukes, and with how close the games were, I'm pretty sure that if we repeat the entire tournament we'd end up with two different finalists. But we may never know. What we do know is that Life, like sOs last year, played a series of amazing games over the course of last week and to me it felt like he was playing like a "best player in the world" should.
How will Life prepare more to a player who had recently almost no TvZ games? He had enough preparation to his ZvT, while MMA had none. Thats why it saw so one sided, if both had 1 day, it wouldn't have been so one sided as it was. Bomber has better score vs Taeja in TvT and Taeja already said in IEM Toronto his TvT is worst matchup, while MMA had so many TvTs recently come on He beat Yoda, jjakji, ForGG(considered as best TvT player), and now Bomber, who has crazy TvT, beating Polt so many times in so short time(Red Bull, WCS NA...)and beating GSL semifinalist Cure with 4-0. If Taeja got to the final, MMA had better chance to win than vs Life.
Tsogi, I don't know where you were in 2013 but here are just a few of Jaedong's tournament results: Dreamhack Summer ro8 vs T (Lucifron) win semis vs T (Taeja) win finals vs P (Stardust) loss
Dreamhack Valencia ro8 vs P (JYP) win semis vs P (Stardust) win <- he handily beat Stardust this time finals vs Z (Hyun) loss
WCS AM ro8 vs P (Jim) win semis vs Z (Scarlett) win finals vs T (Polt) loss
WCS Season 2 Grand Finals Group A vs P (Rain) win vs P (MC) win ro8 vs P (Naniwa) win semis vs P (First) win finals vs T (Bomber) loss
See the pattern? This kind of thing has been going on FOREVER. It's just the way things are. It's part of Starcraft (3 races makes this happen often). I was a little salty about some of these too especially because in most of these cases Jaedong played the 2nd semifinal meaning he had 0 preparation time at all going into the final, but do you really expect tournaments to run a whole extra day just for a grand finals? MMA actually had time to watch Life vs Taeja and plan his own strategies but all we saw from him were some weak timing attacks and even weaker standard play while Life played a strong standard game and went for busts when he knew they would work. One could also argue that San, being a PvZ specialist, should have easily beat Life in game 3. It was the exact same map and strategy that Life used against Zest and lost just a week beforehand. Despite an entire week of preparation San still lost. There's no guarantee that MMA would have played any better even with more time to prepare and it would be silly to dedicate a whole extra day to a grand finals. Again this is just the way things are, get over it and move on.
Dreamhack, IEM are different story, JD had group stages, where he had to prepare for 3 all races. And you guys really understand how much 1 day can make, at this high level, right? MMA would ve been mentally and in case TvZ playstyle in different level, and i am writing almost in every posts here, that Life deserved the win, cant understand why people thinking I am underrating Life, but well like I said that 1 day would ve changed MMAs mindset completely, and thinking MMA seeing Life vs Taeja would help him is wrong, yes he is seeing Lifes playstyle, but not playing TvZ matches recently, it wont help much. Gsl, Kespa Cups havent that only final day not just so, it is made, so the players could prepare for their oponnents.
MMA's superior mechanics???? WHAT THE HELL? Stupidest thing I've read on this thread.
Life vs MMA is proof that the top bracket of the tournament was the weakest shit known to man.
Life beat Zest, San (who cares) and Taeja, before completely wiping the floor with MMA. The guy had no chance at all whatsoever in the least. It was watching 2 different caliber of players. I can't believe 3 of the 5 announcers picked MMA to win. It's clear if you watched any of the games in the finals that the only reason he's in Blizzcon is because he's not playing in Korea.
Don't put Taeja and MMA in the same level ever please and thank you.
MMA crushed bomber and classic (also stardust who is no slouch) to reach the finals. classic and bomber were 2 of the favourites to win the whole thing.
So MMA has better mechanics than Life?? Does anyone agree with this? Life only beat MMA through trickery and non-standard play? Everything looked standard to me.
MMA beat Bomber using 3-Viking build that Bomber couldn't adjust for.
Following Proleague and GSL, the only legitimate contenders at the beginning of the tournament were Zest, Taeja, Innovation and soO - no one from the top bracket. Maybe herO...but that's a big maybe for anyone following the Korean scene. Bomber is in the category of "could beat any of the KR region pros...but would be an underdog" MMA is in the "if he wins against any KR code S player I'll be shocked" - I was shocked he beat Classic. But after rewatching R32 season 3 GSL...classic is serious code A material at this point.
Top bracket was pretty trash - Polt is a heart favorite but he's not top tier. Stardust!? MC?! Jaedong?! Classic?! MMA?! None of these players had any sort of shot. herO and Bomber were LONG odds.
Basically what I'm saying is San > Stardust, Zest >>>>>> Classic, Taeja > Bomber during Blizzcon...Life came through the hard way, and it showed in the finals - 4-1 and wasn't close.
LoL, Bomber is same level as Taeja or even better.(in TvT definitely), and I cant believe how many people seeing MMA as so bad player. MMA is capable to beat any code S player. Like I said before he had surely no practice on his TvZ matchup, otherwise he would've won vs Life.
Why do you think a player who proved himself off in his knowledge of TvZ timings and so inept at defending the most rudimentary of aggression would be able to beat a player that just took out Taeja (whose kill list includes soO, Solar, Life, and every other Zerg in the universe) with an additional day of practice?
LoL? MMA's best matchup was TvZ, but recently almost in every tournaments he hadn't to play any Zergs, almost only vs P or T. With that 1 day, he beated Classic easily, and MMA is well know for his good preparations vs his current opponnents. If he knew, he was playing vs Life, i am 100% sure, the finals were 4-3 to either side, not so one sided as it was. Seems people who only follow Koreans scene and think Code S players are much better than the NA or EU koreans, have no idea how good MMA, Bomber are. I think only Taeja is accepted as good player, if i read the comments. Sadly MMA is so underrated, I am pretty sure, if he had harder bracket and lost in the final, he would still be for most people a bad player who has no chance vs Code S player.
You only seem to think MMA benefits from an extra day of practice, yet Life would have played better TvZ in that case as well. I feel his win against Zest and how he beat San proves this. Zest was preparing in general, while Life was preparing for Zest, and you could just tell that Life was countering what Zest was doing while Zest just tried to play standard. The fact it even got to game 5 was, to me, proof of how dominating Zest's PvZ is in general, that he can win 2 out of 5 games against a Zerg like Life, even when being countered. MMA played great, but he beat Stardust (also EU), then beat Bomber who apparently told people he had a bad day beforehand (this is not me trying to take away credit from MMA who played great that match, but on the highest level this does make a difference), then Classic who is definitely no slouch, but it doesn't compare to beating Zest/San in ZvP followed by Taeja in ZvT, which are 3 of the players with the best vZ on the planet.
But even beforehand, people were saying that the lower bracket was tougher, and the games proved it. The key difference is not in the numbers of how many maps they won/lost, but how amazing the games in the lower bracket were. Zest vs. Life, Taeja vs. soO, Taeja vs. Innovation, Taeja vs. Life, were, in some order, the top 4 series of Blizzcon to me. The way Innovation/Life straight up killed Hyun/San while the latter just killed jjakji showed the difference in class pretty well. To me Taeja & Life were the two best players at this tournament. The way they beat their opponents to the semi-finals, showed how incredible these guys are when they have the right motivation. I feel this all culminated into game 2 of their series, where they both showed amazing class, but in the end Life won that. I have no doubt in my mind that if Taeja won that series, he would go on to beat MMA too. It might have been closer, but Taeja has been proving since 2012 he can beat (almost) anyone when he's on point, and he was in this tournament.
I don't even know why you think it's so controversial how amazing Life played in this tournament. We know the guy had probably the most dominating run ever at the end of WoL. Not even MMA at the end of 2011 seemed as dominating, though he was close. At Blizzcon, he showed how he went on that insane 19-0 offline bo5+ streak. You don't just get there with superior mechanics, as Innovation's 0-4 to Maru & 3-4 to Soulkey showed when he was "the best player in the world". I don't get the sense any of Life's map wins were flukes, and with how close the games were, I'm pretty sure that if we repeat the entire tournament we'd end up with two different finalists. But we may never know. What we do know is that Life, like sOs last year, played a series of amazing games over the course of last week and to me it felt like he was playing like a "best player in the world" should.
How will Life prepare more to a player who had recently almost no TvZ games? He had enough preparation to his ZvT, while MMA had none. Thats why it saw so one sided, if both had 1 day, it wouldn't have been so one sided as it was. Bomber has better score vs Taeja in TvT and Taeja already said in IEM Toronto his TvT is worst matchup, while MMA had so many TvTs recently come on He beat Yoda, jjakji, ForGG(considered as best TvT player), and now Bomber, who has crazy TvT, beating Polt so many times in so short time(Red Bull, WCS NA...)and beating GSL semifinalist Cure with 4-0. If Taeja got to the final, MMA had better chance to win than vs Life.
Tsogi, I don't know where you were in 2013 but here are just a few of Jaedong's tournament results: Dreamhack Summer ro8 vs T (Lucifron) win semis vs T (Taeja) win finals vs P (Stardust) loss
Dreamhack Valencia ro8 vs P (JYP) win semis vs P (Stardust) win <- he handily beat Stardust this time finals vs Z (Hyun) loss
WCS AM ro8 vs P (Jim) win semis vs Z (Scarlett) win finals vs T (Polt) loss
WCS Season 2 Grand Finals Group A vs P (Rain) win vs P (MC) win ro8 vs P (Naniwa) win semis vs P (First) win finals vs T (Bomber) loss
See the pattern? This kind of thing has been going on FOREVER. It's just the way things are. It's part of Starcraft (3 races makes this happen often). I was a little salty about some of these too especially because in most of these cases Jaedong played the 2nd semifinal meaning he had 0 preparation time at all going into the final, but do you really expect tournaments to run a whole extra day just for a grand finals? MMA actually had time to watch Life vs Taeja and plan his own strategies but all we saw from him were some weak timing attacks and even weaker standard play while Life played a strong standard game and went for busts when he knew they would work. One could also argue that San, being a PvZ specialist, should have easily beat Life in game 3. It was the exact same map and strategy that Life used against Zest and lost just a week beforehand. Despite an entire week of preparation San still lost. There's no guarantee that MMA would have played any better even with more time to prepare and it would be silly to dedicate a whole extra day to a grand finals. Again this is just the way things are, get over it and move on.
Dreamhack, IEM are different story, JD had group stages, where he had to prepare for 3 all races. And you guys really understand how much 1 day can make, at this high level, right? MMA would ve been mentally and in case TvZ playstyle in different level, and i am writing almost in every posts here, that Life deserved the win, cant understand why people thinking I am underrating Life, but well like I said that 1 day would ve changed MMAs mindset completely, and thinking MMA seeing Life vs Taeja would help him is wrong, yes he is seeing Lifes playstyle, but not playing TvZ matches recently, it wont help much. Gsl, Kespa Cups havent that only final day not just so, it is made, so the players could prepare for their oponnents.
MMA didn't prepare himself for TvZ which is only his underrating of Zs. Well, almost everyone was expecting all TvZs would be won by T, well, Taeja didn't deliver, so we can blame Taeja, right?
If his TvZ was the least played, he should play it more, no? There were some really good zergs in the lower bracket, I mean soO... the one who was aiming for silver. Oh, I get it now!!! MMA was thinking that soO wins the lower bracket and chokes in the finals, so why to prepare TvZ. HOW CLEVER! He saved time preparing for soO and then Life happens... :D
This discussion is pointless. Life found the way, as he does
expected a weird TvT Finals, but when Life won against Taeja I thought the Finals would look like this. If you are alone with your Race, thats usually an advantage especially in the Finals. And Life was not only the only Zerg in the Ro8 he also has his special playstyle. But thats part of asymmetrical balanced games. And Life came madly prepared to punish anyone that didn't have him on the radar as an opponent. Need a 3 days Blizzcon next year. But then the Ro16 should rather be on the first day heh.
Am I the only one bothered by the fact that everyone referes to MMA as having won at blizzcon? Did everyone forget that on that year, it was Mvp that won the blizzcon against nestea and what MMA actually won was the GSL at blizzcon.
On November 12 2014 04:51 vitruvia wrote: How did kespa player get rekt this hard?! Aren't they supposed to win everything against non kespa players?
KeSPA players succeed in their ability to prepare for a matchup or a player. HUGE props to Life for out-preparing for Zest and San.
I feel like when you factor in weekend tournaments, travel, jet-lag, unpredictability you start to see which players really emerge from the fire. Players like TaeJa and Life can stand under the pressure of long tournaments and matchups they didn't prepare for as well.
On November 12 2014 01:01 cpower wrote: I think its safe to say the top three players for each race are: Zest, Taeja and soO
Zest is good at pvp. Taeja is good at Dreamhacks. soO is good at getting second.
pvp is good enough when there are 6 toss in top 8 taeja is good at beating big name players like zest, innovation, soo, rain, etc soo is good at everything but cheesing
On November 10 2014 23:58 Pegas wrote: Props to Life for not Swarmhosting the finals. That being said yes I think MMA and Taeja had the superior mechanics but Life had the best response and fastest decision making.
MMA's superior mechanics???? WHAT THE HELL? Stupidest thing I've read on this thread.
Life vs MMA is proof that the top bracket of the tournament was the weakest shit known to man.
Life beat Zest, San (who cares) and Taeja, before completely wiping the floor with MMA. The guy had no chance at all whatsoever in the least. It was watching 2 different caliber of players. I can't believe 3 of the 5 announcers picked MMA to win. It's clear if you watched any of the games in the finals that the only reason he's in Blizzcon is because he's not playing in Korea.
Don't put Taeja and MMA in the same level ever please and thank you.
MMA crushed bomber and classic (also stardust who is no slouch) to reach the finals. classic and bomber were 2 of the favourites to win the whole thing.
So MMA has better mechanics than Life?? Does anyone agree with this? Life only beat MMA through trickery and non-standard play? Everything looked standard to me.
MMA beat Bomber using 3-Viking build that Bomber couldn't adjust for.
Following Proleague and GSL, the only legitimate contenders at the beginning of the tournament were Zest, Taeja, Innovation and soO - no one from the top bracket. Maybe herO...but that's a big maybe for anyone following the Korean scene. Bomber is in the category of "could beat any of the KR region pros...but would be an underdog" MMA is in the "if he wins against any KR code S player I'll be shocked" - I was shocked he beat Classic. But after rewatching R32 season 3 GSL...classic is serious code A material at this point.
Top bracket was pretty trash - Polt is a heart favorite but he's not top tier. Stardust!? MC?! Jaedong?! Classic?! MMA?! None of these players had any sort of shot. herO and Bomber were LONG odds.
Basically what I'm saying is San > Stardust, Zest >>>>>> Classic, Taeja > Bomber during Blizzcon...Life came through the hard way, and it showed in the finals - 4-1 and wasn't close.
LoL, Bomber is same level as Taeja or even better.(in TvT definitely), and I cant believe how many people seeing MMA as so bad player. MMA is capable to beat any code S player. Like I said before he had surely no practice on his TvZ matchup, otherwise he would've won vs Life.
Why do you think a player who proved himself off in his knowledge of TvZ timings and so inept at defending the most rudimentary of aggression would be able to beat a player that just took out Taeja (whose kill list includes soO, Solar, Life, and every other Zerg in the universe) with an additional day of practice?
LoL? MMA's best matchup was TvZ, but recently almost in every tournaments he hadn't to play any Zergs, almost only vs P or T. With that 1 day, he beated Classic easily, and MMA is well know for his good preparations vs his current opponnents. If he knew, he was playing vs Life, i am 100% sure, the finals were 4-3 to either side, not so one sided as it was. Seems people who only follow Koreans scene and think Code S players are much better than the NA or EU koreans, have no idea how good MMA, Bomber are. I think only Taeja is accepted as good player, if i read the comments. Sadly MMA is so underrated, I am pretty sure, if he had harder bracket and lost in the final, he would still be for most people a bad player who has no chance vs Code S player.
If you watched Life's games against Zest and San (and even to some extent Taeja), you would find that the same kind of preparation you think MMA is so impressive in is something Life also masters. I get that you think we're criminally underrating MMA, but he really showed nothing in the finals to imply that he was (is) anywhere near Taeja's level in the matchup.
Like i said, Life DESERVED to win, It was really ONE SIDED, and MMA disappointed many people, but the point is MMA had literally no TvZ preparation, you could see that during the games, he did so many mistakes, and his face told everything, he didnt know what to do, was trying to do desperately 2 base all ins. If he had dat 1 day preparation it would've been different story, and Taeja had enough Zerg opponnents, to practice, which MMA hadn't. WCS EU finals he only played vs Golden. DH Moscow, only good Zerg player was Snute and like he said there, he STUDIED Snute and made that twice that 11/11 proxy raxes. If he studied Life aswell, for a player like him, 1 day is enough to prepare many BOs. So Life owned him because of MMA's lack of preparation.
Definitely not. It's like you didn't even watch that series. It wasn't a matter of no preparation - it's a matter of skill.
Again, MMA beat Bomber who was the only worthy opponent, but he did it through 3-viking TvT, which Bomber couldn't adjust for. I'm not saying it's trickery, but I'm saying it's not due to overwhelming mechanics but a tactic.
Life beat Zest and San in macro games, destroyed Taeja (and got destroyed) in macro and micro games. MMA and *ANYONE* who came from the top bracket had no chance against whoever came up out of the bottom bracket.
All 4 tournament favorites were in the bottom bracket, the top bracket having a winner would have been a total shocker.
Even MC said "If Classic, then MMA OK, but if herO, then no way" - and guess what, MMA got lucky that Classic won the PvP coin flip.
You simply CANNOT compare premier league achievements across regions. CANNOT. NO. It's a different league. The skill level IS as different as NFL vs College or Premier League vs Division 1.
Edit: and nothing against Snute but I cannot believe you just compared Life to Snute. Double edit: 11/11 rax isn't hard to hold. There's only so many strategies you can do. Life has been playing the SAME for 2.5 years - if you haven't figured him out, you cannot figure him out. It's the same as Taeja. Just because you know how he's going to play doesn't mean you can win.
On November 10 2014 19:22 ejozl wrote: Looks like we're heading back to the good ol' trio of TaejA, Life and Parting. It was those guys that was on the top of each of their respective races, when WoL got to a point where the metagame didn't change as much. Due to their insane mechanics and indepth knowledge of the game. Of course kespa players confuse things and Parting is not exactly dominating at the moment, but I predict an upswing by him.
TaeJa is retiring and I'm not convinced PartinG will be back to its WoL level (yeah, the soul train lost efficiency)
Calling you out! Dat HSC finals, such impressive play from Parting, the highest level TvP finals we've seen and perhaps the best!
On November 10 2014 19:22 ejozl wrote: Looks like we're heading back to the good ol' trio of TaejA, Life and Parting. It was those guys that was on the top of each of their respective races, when WoL got to a point where the metagame didn't change as much. Due to their insane mechanics and indepth knowledge of the game. Of course kespa players confuse things and Parting is not exactly dominating at the moment, but I predict an upswing by him.
TaeJa is retiring and I'm not convinced PartinG will be back to its WoL level (yeah, the soul train lost efficiency)
Calling you out! Dat HSC finals, such impressive play from Parting, the highest level TvP finals we've seen and perhaps the best!
On November 10 2014 19:22 ejozl wrote: Looks like we're heading back to the good ol' trio of TaejA, Life and Parting. It was those guys that was on the top of each of their respective races, when WoL got to a point where the metagame didn't change as much. Due to their insane mechanics and indepth knowledge of the game. Of course kespa players confuse things and Parting is not exactly dominating at the moment, but I predict an upswing by him.
TaeJa is retiring and I'm not convinced PartinG will be back to its WoL level (yeah, the soul train lost efficiency)
Calling you out! Dat HSC finals, such impressive play from Parting, the highest level TvP finals we've seen and perhaps the best!
EPT
1 Terrans 
0 Protoss 
1 Zerg
MMA pressed hard with a marauder and viking heavy army to crush through and take the first game. 
Classic within an inch of death, MMA's attack sputtered and the Acer terran was forced to concede the game. 
Life vs Taeja.
Back then when I was kid nerds have some lifting practice when transporting CRT to LANs ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/hMImiby.png)
Life <3 
