EPTSBENU SC2 Starleague 2015 Season 2
S2SL Main Event
Ro4
herO vs Dream
Brackets on Liquipedia
Starcraft II Starleague
On A Warm Summer Day
by banjoetheredskin
Up in the Northern Hemisphere, especially in Korea, things are starting to heat up. It’s not just the temperature of late spring as the transition to summer begins, but also the intensity of the competition as the individual leagues progress to the playoff stages. The Sbenu StarCraft II Starleague has reached the semifinals, and the first match is a tantalizing one of two players in full blossom. On one side sits CJ.
herO, a perennial top Protoss currently making a case for best in Korea. On the other is SKT.
Dream, a Terran whose astronomical rise has left him only with Maru to surpass for best Terran. To whet your appetite for this sweltering vernal showdown, herO’s and Dream’s playstyles shall be discussed in terms of a favorite warm weather treat.The flavor of herO’s games is like the classic vanilla chocolate twist in soft serve ice cream. He plays the standard, vanilla version of PvT about half the time, designed to combat most anything Terrans can throw at him. With superb army control and accompanying tactical brilliance that would make Sun Tzu proud, herO gets away with being predictable in PvT more than in the other matchups because he is just so solid. He often prefers to delay the gases at his third and max out on colossus, blink stalkers, and chargelots to be more secure against scv pulls. His most common openings are blink into robo and robo first. However, in addition to this bland yet popular and successful style, herO employs an idiosyncrasy seemingly designed around players like Maru. He puts a spin on Protoss normalcy with variations that rely on doing damage. Primarily this is applied with dark templars, as he used four forms of blink/dark templar against Maru in the Round of 8. Sometimes he will committedly poke with three gateways and blink while taking an earlier third, and even more infrequently he’ll mix in an immortal allin (of the variety that defeats even Maru) or proxy stargate. A complete Protoss in that regard, herO has dominated in the matchup for a long time because of his ability to do anything, and do it well. Knowing his opponent, however, herO will likely focus on his vanilla. Unless he chooses to prepare more specifically to maps or builds—for which he is not known—he will probably only give a taste of chocolate.
What flavor of ice cream do you buy when one of your family members likes chocolate, another likes strawberry, and you like vanilla? You get Dream’s playstyle [E/N: Not to be confused with a violent family argument]. Well-rounded and well-refined, Dream’s TvP is a fearsome combination of strategic flexibility comparable to a yoga guru and better mechanics than Auto Zone. He is equally capable and equally willing to utilize the three major styles of Terran against Protoss, thereby effectively dealing with any Protoss the way Neapolitan ice cream caters to different tastes. Parallel to herO’s conventionality, Dream’s vanilla bio play into a frighteningly adept ghost viking late game is reminiscent of (but never quite as good as) TaeJa in his prime. Not far off is the standard bio play of the strawberry variety, in which Dream ends games much quicker with a scv pull. And finally, the Terran chocolate comes in the form of a hyper-aggressive style attributed to and popularized by Maru, which we like to call “the head-bashing style”. It is characterized by dedicated early harassment and a flurry of drops in the mid-game. Dream is versatile in his attack-oriented openings, regularly switching up between marine mine, marine hellion, and marine marauder pressure builds when he decides not to play standard. Although not quite as good as Maru’s, Dream’s phenomenal multitasking and game sense permit him to transition from these attacks into the Pachycephalosaurus Terran method of operation. This proclivity for working the entire spectrum is what has elevated Dream to a definitive second best TvP player in the world. Dream is also intelligent with his preparation, and with some good note-taking and theorycrafting he should be able to adjust and tailor a style specifically to beat herO.
Normally that would be sufficient to discuss the games at hand, but a largely unprecedented factor will exist today to confound the analysis and predictions. Dream and herO played in a GSL group together just a day ago. They squared off in the first match and did not meet again. Somewhat surprisingly, herO was the one to throw wrenches as he played some intelligent mind games against Dream, who chose to play standard for the series. The first map was Deadwing, where herO often plays greedy with a nexus first and quick third. Naturally, Dream also expanded first, and was punished sorely by herO’s proxy stargate and follow-up two base colossus allin. The second map was Expedition Lost, where herO immortal busted Maru out of S2SL in the Round of 8. It was the only map in that series on which herO did not play his blink/dark templar style, so he decided to use it this time against Dream. It worked wonders, and Dream took so much damage that he could never recover despite a few overconfidence blunders from herO.
What to take away from all this is that hitherto herO has been somewhat underestimated for his preparation. Critics will often cite herO’s series against sOs, Zest, Classic, or Bbyong to contradict this claim, but the crux is that he let himself be countered. In his strategic selection against Dream, herO ensured that no counter play could end the game before he had the opportunity to demonstrate the power of his particular plan. Dream clearly looked out-strategized, and that leads to two possible conclusions. Either herO has taken and will continue to take Dream very seriously as an opponent for whom it is worth studying and adjusting, or Dream is saving everything for the more significant best of seven.
All things considered, this should be an incredibly close, high-level match. Two of the very best players in the world are playing a long series in matchups at which they excel. But in an unexpected turn of events, both players dropped out of their GSL Round of 16 group. Dream bombed out 0-4 at the hands of his current opponent herO and the ZvT monster ByuL, while herO fell to two Zergs in Curious and his teammate ByuL. Each player’s morale will likely be lower than normal, his ego still stinging from the major disappointment. A psychological resoluteness may be just as influential as any well-calculated build when the series drags out.
Predictions
herO’s multifaceted PvT continues to impress me, even when I start to think that he will become too predictable. Dream is also, of course, extremely adaptable and potent with a number of styles, and more than good enough to become nearly unstoppable once the initiative is his. However, I think herO has an overall edge when it comes to both tossing in a surprise build, like the proxy oracle into colossus allin he did in GSL, and the effectiveness of his distinctive style. Rather than rehearse builds specifically to counter his opponents, he generally prefers to tailor his own style to fit better against them. If herO is allowed to execute the builds he frequently does and still crush his opponent as easily as he did Dream yesterday, I don’t see what Dream could do to stop him. Yet, herO’s main weakness will still be taking early damage when he’s the one trying to deal it, and if Dream can succeed in thwarting the main objective of herO’s strategies, he can and will be able to win with any flavor he so desires.
herO 4-2 Dream
