GSL vs. The World became WCS Seoul as Elazer and Serral locked in an all-Circuit Zerg final on day three of the tournament. After achieving what seemed like a fluke upset against Dark in the Ro16, #8 ranked Circuit play Elazer extended his underdog run by defeating TIME and Neeb to reach the grand finals. Meanwhile, Serral resumed his Korean-beating ways after previously losing to Stats at ASUS ROG Summer, reaching the GSL vs. The World finals by beating TY, Trap, and Classic in consecutive matches.
GSL vs. The World 2019 will conclude on August 18th with the best-of-seven grand finals between Serral and Elazer, preceded by a Proleague-style team match between Team Dark and Team Serral.
Team Dark: Dark, Reynor, Stats, TIME, TY, SpeCial, soO, HeroMarine Team Serral: Serral, Maru, ShoWTimE, Classic, Elazer, Trap, Neeb, FanTaSy
So what we needed for the historic moment of having the first non-korean final in a korean-based tournament was to get YouTube polish people vote for players instead of the StarCraft community?
Elazer's been pretty impresive, I thought Neeb would beat him and prevent a ZvZ finals. I usually don't enjoy watching ZvZ but Serral impressed me in his ZvZs last year, so I hope tomorrow's games are insane
Serral is so much better than other zergs that its hard to call him a patchzerg. But it's fair to say he's been assisted by Z literally the whole time he's been winning.
PvZ has sucked consistently since 4.0. Just because BL/infestor right now is ugly to watch doesn't mean the matchup was good last year
On August 18 2019 01:40 HeroSandro wrote: Elazer and Serral where the only Zergs that won their Ro16 match.
So? Serral is obviously a patchzerg carried by OP infestors and that stupid race goddamn I love Korea and kpop
Pretty much this but unironically, except for the kpop part.
Calling Serral a patchzerg is quite interesting. Balance whine is off the roof at the moment. There used to be a thread for it...
When Zerg wasn't at the top last year he looked worse than Reynor did against Maru, at least Reynor seemed to almost break Maru a couple times.
On August 18 2019 01:54 Fango wrote: Serral is so much better than other zergs that its hard to call him a patchzerg. But it's fair to say he's been assisted by Z literally the whole time he's been winning.
PvZ has sucked consistently since 4.0. Just because BL/infestor right now is ugly to watch doesn't mean the matchup was good last year
The whole game has sucked a lot since 4.0,from Ravens, to proxies, to the return of the immortal allin, blink builds and Broodlord infestor. Its like they picked the worst metas from every matchup in the history of SC2 and decided to make them the standard. We've literally seen every cancerous strategy making a comeback in 1 year and 8 months.
On August 18 2019 01:40 HeroSandro wrote: Elazer and Serral where the only Zergs that won their Ro16 match.
So? Serral is obviously a patchzerg carried by OP infestors and that stupid race goddamn I love Korea and kpop
Pretty much this but unironically, except for the kpop part.
Calling Serral a patchzerg is quite interesting. Balance whine is off the roof at the moment. There used to be a thread for it...
When Zerg wasn't at the top last year he looked worse than Reynor did against Maru, at least Reynor seemed to almost break Maru a couple times.
You mean at the IEM? Your proof that Serral is a patchzerg is that he lost agains Maru and someone else looked better than him? That is some hardcore evidence! Serral has been winning almost everything for over a year now, and people keep coming up with excuses for why he is not that good. Has not played against koreans, has not played against korean terrans, has not played against Maru, WCS does not count, lost against player X and now that he is a patchzerg. With these standards only player who is not a patch-anything is Fruitdealer. Edit: can we have some bans for all the balance whine going on? Some salt is ok, but this is quite heavy stuff.
It's not the dream way to beat korea players, especially the third game of serral to classic, classic do his best but he lose because of the Infestor imba. Tell me, if you design a perfect tactics but you lose just because of the infestor, it can be called just? The blz designer do nothing but destory this game.
On August 18 2019 01:40 HeroSandro wrote: Elazer and Serral where the only Zergs that won their Ro16 match.
So? Serral is obviously a patchzerg carried by OP infestors and that stupid race goddamn I love Korea and kpop
Pretty much this but unironically, except for the kpop part.
Calling Serral a patchzerg is quite interesting. Balance whine is off the roof at the moment. There used to be a thread for it...
When Zerg wasn't at the top last year he looked worse than Reynor did against Maru, at least Reynor seemed to almost break Maru a couple times.
You mean at the IEM? Your proof that Serral is a patchzerg is that he lost agains Maru and someone else looked better than him? That is some hardcore evidence! Serral has been winning almost everything for over a year now, and people keep coming up with excuses for why he is not that good. Has not played against koreans, has not played against korean terrans, has not played against Maru, WCS does not count, lost against player X and now that he is a patchzerg. With these standards only player who is not a patch-anything is Fruitdealer. Edit: can we have some bans for all the balance whine going on? Some salt is ok, but this is quite heavy stuff.
Serral didn't win against FruitDealer. If this isn't a proof that he IS a patchzerg, I don't know what to say anymore.
On August 18 2019 01:40 HeroSandro wrote: Elazer and Serral where the only Zergs that won their Ro16 match.
So? Serral is obviously a patchzerg carried by OP infestors and that stupid race goddamn I love Korea and kpop
Pretty much this but unironically, except for the kpop part.
Calling Serral a patchzerg is quite interesting. Balance whine is off the roof at the moment. There used to be a thread for it...
When Zerg wasn't at the top last year he looked worse than Reynor did against Maru, at least Reynor seemed to almost break Maru a couple times.
You mean at the IEM? Your proof that Serral is a patchzerg is that he lost agains Maru and someone else looked better than him? That is some hardcore evidence! Serral has been winning almost everything for over a year now, and people keep coming up with excuses for why he is not that good. Has not played against koreans, has not played against korean terrans, has not played against Maru, WCS does not count, lost against player X and now that he is a patchzerg. With these standards only player who is not a patch-anything is Fruitdealer. Edit: can we have some bans for all the balance whine going on? Some salt is ok, but this is quite heavy stuff.
Serral didn't win against FruitDealer. If this isn't a proof that he IS a patchzerg, I don't know what to say anymore.
On August 18 2019 01:40 HeroSandro wrote: Elazer and Serral where the only Zergs that won their Ro16 match.
So? Serral is obviously a patchzerg carried by OP infestors and that stupid race goddamn I love Korea and kpop
Pretty much this but unironically, except for the kpop part.
Calling Serral a patchzerg is quite interesting. Balance whine is off the roof at the moment. There used to be a thread for it...
When Zerg wasn't at the top last year he looked worse than Reynor did against Maru, at least Reynor seemed to almost break Maru a couple times.
Reynor never looked like he almost broke Maru tbh. He got smacked 3-0 at wesg, and 4-0 at wcg. The only time Reynor took a game was losing 1-2 in GSL where he held of the shitty 211 allin that Maru was doing every game. Serral would have won that game as well.
On August 18 2019 01:40 HeroSandro wrote: Elazer and Serral where the only Zergs that won their Ro16 match.
So? Serral is obviously a patchzerg carried by OP infestors and that stupid race goddamn I love Korea and kpop
Pretty much this but unironically, except for the kpop part.
Calling Serral a patchzerg is quite interesting. Balance whine is off the roof at the moment. There used to be a thread for it...
When Zerg wasn't at the top last year he looked worse than Reynor did against Maru, at least Reynor seemed to almost break Maru a couple times.
You mean at the IEM? Your proof that Serral is a patchzerg is that he lost agains Maru and someone else looked better than him? That is some hardcore evidence! Serral has been winning almost everything for over a year now, and people keep coming up with excuses for why he is not that good. Has not played against koreans, has not played against korean terrans, has not played against Maru, WCS does not count, lost against player X and now that he is a patchzerg. With these standards only player who is not a patch-anything is Fruitdealer. Edit: can we have some bans for all the balance whine going on? Some salt is ok, but this is quite heavy stuff.
Serral didn't win against FruitDealer. If this isn't a proof that he IS a patchzerg, I don't know what to say anymore.
Next Power rank: Serral #2 Fruitdealer #1 Serral just isn't good enough. If he was he would go back in time and beat the real #1. Congratulations to Fruitdealer for his HISTORIC moment. The first player to reach #1 after retirement and not playing!
IDK wtf happened to cause the double post. RIP formatting
I have to say ZvZ finals have always been pretty sick during the last year, so I think it's gonna be great. But I still would've prefered a korean player vs Serral.
Anyway, the team match will be extremely interesting, that's usually a great show and feels so nostalgic .
On August 18 2019 01:11 Fango wrote: Conspiracy theory: Zerg becoming broken and terran being trash is intentional by blizzard to buff foreigners and lessen korean dominance.
Make sense. Also fun fact in the last two expansion there has been a total of 39 premiers tournaments finals with at least 1 foreigner, of these 39, 36 had at least 1 zerg, the exeptions beeing uThermal-Neeb in Shanghai, Neeb-Trap in Kespa Cup and Lilbow-Mana in Poland.
Zerg continues to dominate 2019. Its hilarious how whiners don't realize zerg is the strongest race because they're blinded by their own low level ladder struggles against protoss.
On August 18 2019 02:25 NinjaNight wrote: Zerg continues to dominate 2019. Its hilarious how whiners don't realize zerg is the strongest race because they're blinded by their own low level ladder struggles against protoss.
I think it's also the serral bias factor. If it wasn't a foreign zerg having this level of success a lot more of the community would agree how bad the current state of the game is for T/P.
It's funny how Tasteless talked about how all Koreans were mad and this news was the 1st issue in Korea when Serral won last year GvsW.
But the true fact in Korea is that there was not even a single news article about GvsW final after 1 hour of Serral vs Stats. And most of ppl in Korea didnt even realize there was GvsW going on in sc2. xDDDD Even those small group of sc2 community in Korea only congratulated Serral's victory, and nobody seemed mad about foreigner's victory in Korea. (In fact, I only saw foreigners were the only ones getting mad whenever Koreans dominate in the past)
I wonder why Tasteless wants to make up wrong information about Korea all the time recently. Maybe cuz he's stressed out whenever Korea won over the past years? But come on, I thought he is a professional caster.
On August 18 2019 02:33 narusensei22 wrote: It's funny how Tasteless talked about how all Koreans were mad and this news was the 1st issue in Korea when Serral won last year GvsW.
But the true fact in Korea is that there was not even a single news article about GvsW final after 1 hour of Serral vs Stats. And most of ppl in Korea didnt even realize there was GvsW going on in sc2. xDDDD Even those small group of sc2 community in Korea only congratulated Serral's victory, and nobody seemed mad about foreigner's victory in Korea. (In fact, I only saw foreigners were the only ones getting mad whenever Koreans dominate in the past)
I wonder why Tasteless wants to make up wrong information about Korea all the time recently. Maybe cuz he's stressed out whenever Korea won over the past years? But come on, I thought he is a professional caster.
I thought he said it was #1 trending on some platform, not national mourning day in Korea
Just came here to say how OP the BL + infestors combo is... Not only bad for players, bad for audience as well as zergs just try their best to turtle half an hour for these units.
On August 18 2019 02:33 narusensei22 wrote: It's funny how Tasteless talked about how all Koreans were mad and this news was the 1st issue in Korea when Serral won last year GvsW.
But the true fact in Korea is that there was not even a single news article about GvsW final after 1 hour of Serral vs Stats. And most of ppl in Korea didnt even realize there was GvsW going on in sc2. xDDDD Even those small group of sc2 community in Korea only congratulated Serral's victory, and nobody seemed mad about foreigner's victory in Korea. (In fact, I only saw foreigners were the only ones getting mad whenever Koreans dominate in the past)
I wonder why Tasteless wants to make up wrong information about Korea all the time recently. Maybe cuz he's stressed out whenever Korea won over the past years? But come on, I thought he is a professional caster.
I forgot the name, but I think he was talking about that big korean news forum where things trend like they do on Twitter and not about actual news channels or newspaper articles. I think GSL vs The World was at the top when Serral won.
But I don't remember Koreans being upset or mad, instead they were congratulating Serral and excited about a non-korean being that good.
If Zerg is so OP why did soO get rolled by Time and Reynor get rolled by Special?.. why can't people just let that shit go and admit these two have had a fantastic tournament off their own skill.
Breakout tournament for Elazer and continued dominance by Serral, don't discredit them. Korea had every opportunity to win this - the gap has closed and pretending that GSL is the only tournament that matters is no longer a reasonable way to assess skill in a post-Kespa era. Clearly not all of the best players in the world are in Korea anymore.
Congratulations and looking forward to the finals.
On August 18 2019 02:40 Dave4 wrote: If Zerg is so OP why did soO get rolled by Time and Reynor get rolled by Special?.. why can't people just let that shit go and admit these two have had a fantastic tournament off their own skill. .
Korean Zergs don't tend to play late game (or not good at), that's part of the reason why European zergs are doing so much better these days.
On August 18 2019 02:40 Dave4 wrote: If Zerg is so OP why did soO get rolled by Time and Reynor get rolled by Special?.. why can't people just let that shit go and admit these two have had a fantastic tournament off their own skill.
Breakout tournament for Elazer and continued dominance by Serral, don't discredit them. Korea had every opportunity to win this - the gap has closed and pretending that GSL is the only tournament that matters is no longer a reasonable way to assess skill in a post-Kespa era. Clearly not all of the best players in the world are in Korea anymore.
Congratulations and looking forward to the finals.
Let them cope buddy, they're hurting so we need to be understanding to their pain
I think terran is OP because of GomTvT. Protoss is a race of BS, and should be nerfed to the ground. Maru is a bad player, because he can't face Serral. MVP was bad and zerg is a-move race and stuff. Better join the whine-train....
There's a poll in Chinese SC2 community about the opness of infestors after matches between Neeb and Elazer. Basically 95% vote for that infestors is imbalance in both zvp and zvt matchup.
On August 18 2019 02:40 Dave4 wrote: If Zerg is so OP why did soO get rolled by Time and Reynor get rolled by Special?.. why can't people just let that shit go and admit these two have had a fantastic tournament off their own skill.
Breakout tournament for Elazer and continued dominance by Serral, don't discredit them. Korea had every opportunity to win this - the gap has closed and pretending that GSL is the only tournament that matters is no longer a reasonable way to assess skill in a post-Kespa era. Clearly not all of the best players in the world are in Korea anymore.
Congratulations and looking forward to the finals.
Watching the Time vs Elazer match showed why for me. Terran up 2 bases at 8 bases, and can't close it out because BL-Infestor. I'm pretty sure no one is impressed by the state of the Z lategame. Infestors are simply too strong.
That said, EU zergs played better than the KR zergs this tourney. Honestly, KR dominated BW because of the culture, the teamhouse environment, and the superior internet access. Nowadays, internet is leveled out, and team houses have been all but eliminated. So, other players mimic the pertinent cultural aspects and they can play as well as Koreans. Gratz to Elazer and Serral.
Lol at all those who whine about zerg but don't see that korean zergs had no chance while the european zergs advanced. It's totally about the race though!
I hope the protoss nerfs will be effective. Poor terrans almost all get kicked out by protosses. Zerg has better methods to deal with toss.
On August 18 2019 02:52 Doink wrote: Lol at all those who whine about zerg but don't see that korean zergs had no chance while the european zergs advanced. It's totally about the race though!
Dark lost in a ZvZ. And soO had no business playing in this tournament. He literally said a month or so ago that he doesn't know how to play with infestors.
Put Ragnarok, Rogue, or Solar in this event and you'd see a lot of Bl/infestor wins. Or even just put Dark against protoss or terran.
On August 18 2019 02:40 Dave4 wrote: If Zerg is so OP why did soO get rolled by Time and Reynor get rolled by Special?.. why can't people just let that shit go and admit these two have had a fantastic tournament off their own skill.
Breakout tournament for Elazer and continued dominance by Serral, don't discredit them. Korea had every opportunity to win this - the gap has closed and pretending that GSL is the only tournament that matters is no longer a reasonable way to assess skill in a post-Kespa era. Clearly not all of the best players in the world are in Korea anymore.
Congratulations and looking forward to the finals.
Watching the Time vs Elazer match showed why for me. Terran up 2 bases at 8 bases, and can't close it out because BL-Infestor. I'm pretty sure no one is impressed by the state of the Z lategame. Infestors are simply too strong.
That said, EU zergs played better than the KR zergs this tourney. Honestly, KR dominated BW because of the culture, the teamhouse environment, and the superior internet access. Nowadays, internet is leveled out, and team houses have been all but eliminated. So, other players mimic the pertinent cultural aspects and they can play as well as Koreans. Gratz to Elazer and Serral.
Actually TIME posted in Chinese SC2 community after he lost the game. He said though he made many mistakes, infestors just too hard to deal with in late tvz game.
i always cheer for the underdog race, but with Zerg being so overrepresented at the top i find it very hard to cheer for zerg players and calling serral the true best player in the world. he is the best with the current balance yes.
it was much easier to cheer for maru when he was the only T in ro16 in one of the gsls he won, and the only Terran in ro8 of the WESG he won.
i think Zerg lategame need a bigger nerf then what it is currently getting. cause watching zergs lategame just destroying every other lategame comp gets really boring.
What also pains me is how much the Korean scene has fallen. Yes the lock helped for the foreigner scene, it helped for viewership, and overall it was probably a good move but still... It feels unfair.
The gameplay is still good and fun to watch. The game is still very fun to play. The problem is people like to complain about protoss 24/7 and refuse to acknowledge zerg. It's getting really old and annoying. A few of the right tweaks could place the game exactly where it should be.
People like to complain about Protoss, because... what was the PvT winrate this tournament?
How many Protosses did we have in the ro8 last 2 GSL's?
It's very very warranted.
The Zerg late game whine is also warranted, and IT is getting heavily nerfed, I agree maybe it's not enough, but I don't think Protoss changes are enough either.
On August 18 2019 03:09 Vanadiel wrote: What also pains me is how much the Korean scene has fallen. Yes the lock helped for the foreigner scene, it helped for viewership, and overall it was probably a good move but still... It feels unfair.
It served its purpose now it's time to get rid of it since the foreigners have closed the skill gap. Just don't leave it longer than it should be there.
I didn't watch the games today and nobody is talking about Special against Classic and Stats against Neeb. Can someone tell me how it went ? Thank you!
Concerning Elazer and Serral finals, I believe it can be a very good one. No matter the balance discussion, gg to both of them and gg to all Circuit players for one of the best tournament against Korean players ever.
Winfestor complaints : general agreement, zerg players just ask what would be their win con without those, it's a fair whine =>balanced
Terrans whining : most people are tired of this shit => imbalanced whine, grow up terrans, swallow your tears and raise your head
Protoss whining : they don't even dare, sad zealot is forgotten but deep in the heart of every SC2 player there is a crybaby waiting to be unleashed => wait&see
Stats has became the menace to Serral. If Serral can beat other Top Korean (and foreigner) Protosses with result 3:1 or 3:2 (Bo5) like, but still lose them matches too, I can't see any critical imbalance at the Top Level.
Does casual diamond and master ladder players perform routinely those kind of Serralishque infestor endgames with over 50% win rate what The God-King himself can pull out of his sleeve?
What a freaking whinefest everywhere, lol. And for what really ? Lets do some recap.
At start there was 5 zergs, 5 protoss and 6 terrans in this tournament. Then there were 4 protoss, 2 zergs and 2 terrans at top8 of this tournament. From that, 2 protoss and 2 zergs advanced. Special/Classic was close one, Serral mostly stomped Trap, Neeb won stats (wow!), and Elazer won Time (didnt see). In all but Serral/Trap, matches were decided by skill and mistakes, like it should be. Same goes with Serrals match except he was 1-2 classes better than Trap so it was kinda one-sided. No significant balance problems there. What goes on to Elazer, at least in his series against both Neeb and Dark they were kinda unorthodox games with lots of mistakes for both sides. I dont think race affected in those results at all. Better and perhaps bit luckier player won in each series. Serral then beat Classic in their match by being better. Was very entertaining match till the end.
Yes, infestors are strong atm, but they do not affect every single zerg match as people seem to whine about. And calling Serral "patchzerg" is so not funny anymore. It belongs to the 2017 so let it die already. I bet if he played any other race seriously, he would be just as dominant as he is now. Nobody seems to remember retarded proxy-rax- era or Protoss every single game all-in bs-eras ? Infestors may have to be adjusted somehow, but nobody seems to make any suggestions instead of shouting whines everywhere, even when there was 0 infestors used in the match.
On August 18 2019 01:56 Morbidius wrote: The whole game has sucked a lot since 4.0,from Ravens, to proxies, to the return of the immortal allin, blink builds and Broodlord infestor. Its like they picked the worst metas from every matchup in the history of SC2 and decided to make them the standard. We've literally seen every cancerous strategy making a comeback in 1 year and 8 months.
Although bit exaggerated, this has a glimpse of truth in it. It would definitely be nice to see game shifting to whole another direction. But has the SC2 been played through ? And since it hasnt had anything new attached to it in such a long time, it tends to go back to its roots where every race had its peak moments. Hopefully not though.
Zerg is simply way too strong in every MU. But nerf Protoss, great idea... Every tourney is won by Z, many finals are ZvZ. But Z is fine, yeah ,,l,, -.-
On August 18 2019 03:57 UnLarva wrote: On The top level ZvP seems to be pretty balanced.
Stats has became the menace to Serral. If Serral can beat other Top Korean (and foreigner) Protosses with result 3:1 or 3:2 (Bo5) like, but still lose them matches too, I can't see any critical imbalance at the Top Level.
Does casual diamond and master ladder players perform routinely those kind of Serralishque infestor endgames with over 50% win rate what The God-King himself can pull out of his sleeve?
GG for both finalists. 100% deserved for both.
it's not only serral who can play infestors, he's simply the best zerg so he gets to lategame most often and handles it the best. i think it's a bit busted in endgame for Z. on dia/master ladder it's less common and yeah it's harder to pull off, but at top levels where players are accustomed to rapid fire spellcasting and focus fire it is a very hard army to beat.
i think the upcoming nerfs are appropriate, and toss are also adapting well with stuff like disruptor play against infestors (similar to what terrans are doing with libs), so i don't think it's in a terrible spot going forward. but the balance whine comes from a place of small truth. i don't think all the toxic comments are necessary, but a lot of people agree mass brood lord infestor deathballs wiping expensive armies over and over aren't usually what we want to see
imo a minor imbalance in a specific part of the game, definitely being exaggerated by many. even lategame is still okay when you have broods fighting tempests, but when the infestor numbers are above 10 the game starts looking and feeling quite absurd. feels like mass raven
Whiners, just play zerg if it's so easy to win. There is so much money to earn, and by the looks of it, it's easy money if you play zerg and make some infestors, right?
Honestly, I think the balance is ok but zerg definitely is the best in late game. Feels to me like the room for error is a lot smaller for the other races during late game. What Morbidius said about how they are trying to bring back pretty bad metas I think is a good point. I don't know why they would want to buff nydus, immortal push and Broodlord+Infestor. That even sounds like a recipe for disaster.
That said, I think the tournament has shown that the foreign scene has improved a lot, even though I do believe that this is an outlier overall.
On August 18 2019 04:37 MockHamill wrote: The game is mostly balanced, terran is just slightly too weak in early mid game in TvP and Zerg is slightly too strong in the late game.
But I think we the coming patch with: 1. Nerfed infested terrans 2. Improved stim timing 3. Improved late game EMP 4. Slightly nerfed warp prisms.
The game will be close to balanced.
Only gglord nerf and winfestor further nerf needed. then I agree
If zerg can survive protoss's early and mid-game, zerg deserves to have a lategame advantage. That said, the current advantage is slightly a bit too much, but that's going to be addressed by the next patch. Versus terran, the early and mid-game is a bit less difficult to survive for zerg, so zerg's lategame advantage is currently even more unwarranted than in ZvP. That, too, will be addressed.
At the highest level of competition, early and mid-game protoss is stupidly strong, which is why despite all of this anti-zerg balance whine, protoss has been enjoying the most tournament success, overall, out of all 3 races. Even in this tournament, protoss was over-represented in the quarter and semi-finals. Yet, somehow, all the of the balance whine is being focused entirely on zerg.
On August 18 2019 05:58 tigon_ridge wrote: If zerg can survive protoss's early and mid-game, zerg deserves to have a lategame advantage. That said, the current advantage is slightly a bit too much, but that's going to be addressed by the next patch. Versus terran, the early and mid-game is a bit less difficult to survive for zerg, so zerg's lategame advantage is currently even more unwarranted than in ZvP. That, too, will be addressed.
At the highest level of competition, early and mid-game protoss is stupidly strong, which is why despite all of this anti-zerg balance whine, protoss has been enjoying the most tournament success, overall, out of all 3 races. Even in this tournament, protoss was over-represented in the quarter and semi-finals. Yet, somehow, all the of the balance whine is being focused entirely on zerg.
fair point. I guess people whine about zerg because Serral makes zerg look op lol.
Who would have thought Elazer would make it to the finals. I bet he is overjoyed. The fact that two foreigners beat out all the Koreans is pretty cool. I would love to have seen Maru do better though. Nobody really wanted a mirror match. But Elazer beat Dark, maybe he can beat Serral. That would be something.
High level ZvZ is one of the most entertaining matchups to watch. It's so fast-paced and action-packed, and can be really complex; perhaps not in unit compositions variety, but certainly decision making.
when Maru abused ravens they were nerfed into the ground so quickly, but now infestors look even worse and it's taking forever to get even a small nerf
On August 18 2019 06:35 Die4Ever wrote: when Maru abused ravens they were nerfed into the ground so quickly, but now infestors look even worse and it's taking forever to get even a small nerf
Also note that it was literally only Maru doing well with terran during that patch. The two tournaments he won with ravens both had him as the only terran in the ro8. Terran was under-represented in every event.
On August 18 2019 06:32 tigon_ridge wrote: High level ZvZ is one of the most entertaining matchups to watch. It's so fast-paced and action-packed, and can be really complex; perhaps not in unit compositions variety, but certainly decision making.
ZvZ is really good these days compared to a lot of SC2 history, PvP is too IMO. It’s a bit weird but there’s a lot of dynamic decision making, it’s not x build vs y build.
On August 18 2019 06:35 Die4Ever wrote: when Maru abused ravens they were nerfed into the ground so quickly, but now infestors look even worse and it's taking forever to get even a small nerf
Also note that it was literally only Maru doing well with terran during that patch. The two tournaments he won with ravens both had him as the only terran in the ro8. Terran was under-represented in every event.
Sometimes I wonder if Blizzard is turning a blind eye on purpose I mean they could've released the balance patch they had before this tournament instead of holding it for no reason
Infestor is hard to use below pro level and not every pro uses it in every game that went to late game. If not the infestor zerg would hardly have any answer vs mass air late game army compositions. Slighlty nerfig IT might balance it more but nerfing infestor to the ground would make (AGAIN) zerg late game army laughable. In the current meta post raven nerf&BC buff T shouldn't be complaining while on the other hand P is a little bit worse in the late game although we have seen that it's still doable and developping meta (thanks stats).
Really, can we have longer periods without patches every few months? I really want to see the metagame developping by the players and if something feels broken like mass raven/blink era/whatever else in the past we could see some small adjustments.
My idea for making things better would be reversing HT nerf rather than nerfing infestor.
On August 18 2019 06:35 Die4Ever wrote: when Maru abused ravens they were nerfed into the ground so quickly, but now infestors look even worse and it's taking forever to get even a small nerf
thats what i wonder about aswell. he was the only terran in RO8 of both Gsl and WESG of that patch if memory serves me right. meanwhile we have 5ish zergs doing good with infestors. which seems equally broken at the current balance.
How many of you actually had a ZvZ as a likely final? It was such a longshot for Elazer to make it, and he barely got there, if Zerg was really this imbalanced wouldn't more people be predicting ZvZ?
If we get a ZvZ final in GSL or 5 Zergs in GSL RO8 I think the whine is warranted, but infestors are already getting nerfed and Zerg didn't actually overperform that much.
Now take a good look at map winrates for GSL vs World.
TvZ => 57.1% (14 W 8 L)
ZvP => 69.2% (9 W 4 L) (6 wins by Serral, 2 Losses from Serral)
PvT => 75% ( 16 W 4 L) - Terrans won ZERO matches vs Protoss.
That's a fair point actually, it's really hard to make many assumptions based on one tournament, we can always go back to other high-end tournaments... GSL S2/Asus ROG/GSL ST/HSC were definitely not Zerg dominated, some other race dominated a few of those pretty hard.
Also I don't think Stats bopping Maru 3-0 like it was nothing an expected result, but then again he's just one person, might have been having an off day.
On August 18 2019 01:11 Fango wrote: Conspiracy theory: Zerg becoming broken and terran being trash is intentional by blizzard to buff foreigners and lessen korean dominance.
Make sense. Also fun fact in the last two expansion there has been a total of 39 premiers tournaments finals with at least 1 foreigner, of these 39, 36 had at least 1 zerg, the exeptions beeing uThermal-Neeb in Shanghai, Neeb-Trap in Kespa Cup and Lilbow-Mana in Poland.
On August 18 2019 06:32 tigon_ridge wrote: High level ZvZ is one of the most entertaining matchups to watch. It's so fast-paced and action-packed, and can be really complex; perhaps not in unit compositions variety, but certainly decision making.
ZvZ, regardless of skill level, is the most boring matchup in the game.
On August 18 2019 01:11 Fango wrote: Conspiracy theory: Zerg becoming broken and terran being trash is intentional by blizzard to buff foreigners and lessen korean dominance.
Make sense. Also fun fact in the last two expansion there has been a total of 39 premiers tournaments finals with at least 1 foreigner, of these 39, 36 had at least 1 zerg, the exeptions beeing uThermal-Neeb in Shanghai, Neeb-Trap in Kespa Cup and Lilbow-Mana in Poland.
One thing that this event has already achieved is that everyone should be looking forward to Blizzcon as Koreans vs the world event, because the world has shown that it isn't just Serral and Reynor or Neeb that can beat Koreans. I wasn't expecting this to be shown this way, but with other non-Koreans consistently reaching Ro4/8 over time. To my view top 8 of WCS has been nearly same level as top 8 Koreans in PvZ,ZvP, PvP and ZvZ at least; and could have achieved more recognised wins, but odds that several of top 8 of WCS would achieve those match wins at same time were slimmer.
I don't really like this much of balance whine/complaining near new patch. Infested Terran is being addressed. I don't like Neural Parasite as mechanic( Serral vs Trap IEM 2018 ), but too heavy and many changes mid year is bad, because pros focus on current. Especially late game changes will not be tested enough, because it isn't reached too seldom. Still I hope we will see first version of post Blizzcon patch, that includes some kind of Infestor rework, before GSL S3 and WCS Montreal concludes.
If Serral loses to Elazer like how he lost 2-4 to Reynor, it'll be something to talk about, which is one reason why I'll have to watch. Elazer has been on a tear this event, so I'm expecting him to perform at least as well as Reynor, vs Serral. It'll be very interesting to see if Serral repeats his mistakes vs Reynor at WCS Summer.
Korean Zergs don't tend to play late game (or not good at), that's part of the reason why European zergs are doing so much better these days.
Why would Korean Zergs ignore an important aspect of their play. It would be like a soccer team that don’t like kicking corners or a basketball team that doesn’t like shooting three pointers.
So can we eliminate Region Lock once and for all now? There's hardly any argument left in favor for it. Foreigners have proven once and for all they can reach the same peaks as Koreans and locking out top Koreans hardly does any favors for the Foreign scene anymore. It's seriously a huge disservice that there are so much fewer tournaments that fans of Korean players can watch anymore.
On August 18 2019 08:41 Brutaxilos wrote: So can we eliminate Region Lock once and for all now? There's hardly any argument left in favor for it. Foreigners have proven once and for all they can reach the same peaks as Koreans and locking out top Koreans hardly does any favors for the Foreign scene anymore. It's seriously a huge disservice that there are so much fewer tournaments that fans of Korean players can watch anymore.
one tournament doesnt show that the foreigners are on their level. and it still hurts the foreign scene because all of the Ro-32 and Ro-16 wcs players wont be able to beat the koreans
On August 18 2019 08:41 Brutaxilos wrote: So can we eliminate Region Lock once and for all now? There's hardly any argument left in favor for it. Foreigners have proven once and for all they can reach the same peaks as Koreans and locking out top Koreans hardly does any favors for the Foreign scene anymore. It's seriously a huge disservice that there are so much fewer tournaments that fans of Korean players can watch anymore.
one tournament doesnt show that the foreigners are on their level. and it still hurts the foreign scene because all of the Ro-32 and Ro-16 wcs players wont be able to beat the koreans
What's the difference for Ro32/Ro16 WCS players losing to Koreans vs losing to Serral/Neeb/Special etc.?
On August 18 2019 08:41 Brutaxilos wrote: So can we eliminate Region Lock once and for all now? There's hardly any argument left in favor for it. Foreigners have proven once and for all they can reach the same peaks as Koreans and locking out top Koreans hardly does any favors for the Foreign scene anymore. It's seriously a huge disservice that there are so much fewer tournaments that fans of Korean players can watch anymore.
one tournament doesnt show that the foreigners are on their level. and it still hurts the foreign scene because all of the Ro-32 and Ro-16 wcs players wont be able to beat the koreans
What's the difference for Ro32/Ro16 WCS players losing to Koreans vs losing to Serral/Neeb/Special etc.?
were talking about the region lock and if the legion lock were to be lifted and the koreans do come over to the wcs tournanments, while yes the top foreigners have shown they can compete against the koreans the foreingers that usually place around the Ro-32 and Ro-16. imo suffer because they get knocked out of the tournaments.
On August 18 2019 08:41 Brutaxilos wrote: So can we eliminate Region Lock once and for all now? There's hardly any argument left in favor for it. Foreigners have proven once and for all they can reach the same peaks as Koreans and locking out top Koreans hardly does any favors for the Foreign scene anymore. It's seriously a huge disservice that there are so much fewer tournaments that fans of Korean players can watch anymore.
one tournament doesnt show that the foreigners are on their level. and it still hurts the foreign scene because all of the Ro-32 and Ro-16 wcs players wont be able to beat the koreans
What's the difference for Ro32/Ro16 WCS players losing to Koreans vs losing to Serral/Neeb/Special etc.?
were talking about the region lock and if the legion lock were to be lifted and the koreans do come over to the wcs tournanments, while yes the top foreigners have shown they can compete against the koreans the foreingers that usually place around the Ro-32 and Ro-16. imo suffer because they get knocked out of the tournaments.
What's wrong with Ro32/Ro16 players getting knocked out of tournaments? Isn't Special/Neeb/Scarlett doing the same thing to Ro32 level Koreans in GSL?
On August 18 2019 08:41 Brutaxilos wrote: So can we eliminate Region Lock once and for all now? There's hardly any argument left in favor for it. Foreigners have proven once and for all they can reach the same peaks as Koreans and locking out top Koreans hardly does any favors for the Foreign scene anymore. It's seriously a huge disservice that there are so much fewer tournaments that fans of Korean players can watch anymore.
one tournament doesnt show that the foreigners are on their level. and it still hurts the foreign scene because all of the Ro-32 and Ro-16 wcs players wont be able to beat the koreans
What's the difference for Ro32/Ro16 WCS players losing to Koreans vs losing to Serral/Neeb/Special etc.?
were talking about the region lock and if the legion lock were to be lifted and the koreans do come over to the wcs tournanments, while yes the top foreigners have shown they can compete against the koreans the foreingers that usually place around the Ro-32 and Ro-16. imo suffer because they get knocked out of the tournaments.
What's wrong with Ro32/Ro16 players getting knocked out of tournaments? Isn't Special/Neeb/Scarlett doing the same thing to Ro32 level Koreans in GSL?
I've been the biggest GSL fan but it was always a bit sad to see the Koreans secretly look down on the foreigners.
Now it's no longer Serral standing out as an anomaly. Other foreigners regularly beat the best Koreans these days, or at least give them a run for their money. TY, Trap, Stats, Classic, soO...legendary Koreans all dead at the hands of foreigners.
Some highlights for me: - The moment yesterday when Classic-Special were tied 2-2 where it was so close to being an all-foreigner semi-finals. What?! Imagine 4 foreigners battling it out at the usual playground in the middle of Seoul where the best Koreans have been doing their thing for years. Just amazing. The Koreans can only look on haplessly as the foreigners have taken over their stage. - People getting excited about a Terran almost usurping Serral and that Terran wasn't even Korean (TIME vs Serral at Asus ROG). Against Serral--after TIME's performance at Asus RoG, INno's performance at IEM and TY's performance at HomeStory cup, I'm pretty much over the whole Maru vs Serral hypetrain. - Elazer making it to the tournament as a vote-hoarding laughing stock and putting all his naysayers in their places with some epic performances. He's a nice bloke who's clearly quite skilled and deserves respect. - Neeb smashing Stats, Elazer smashing Dark, TIME smashing soO. Korea's best Ps and Zs taken out by different non-Serral foreigners with ease.
My favourite players are still certain Koreans. I'll probably still follow GSL more closely than WCS due to my attachment to the players and regular visits to the GSL studios. But I can't help but feel a renewed zest for the SC scene globally. Things have really come alive this year.
I hope Afreeca runs more GSL vs the Worlds in the future, these events are just so amazing.
This thread is pure madness, the amount of whine and salt reminds me of those of Twitch's chat: korean elitists, Terran suprematists, Protoss haters, ZvZ negationists, people who think Broodlords are too good and that Infestors are as op as they were in 2012...simply pathetic.
Sc2's balance this year hasn't been especially bad AND we have a patch coming out in mere days that's addressing the majority of the problems in addiction to buffing Terran for free, how pointless could it be to complain now? Balance had little to do with results in this tournament and I also want to remind you that Serral was the only Zerg winning Premier tournaments when he was invincible last year while Infestors were not even meta.
On August 18 2019 09:31 Xain0n wrote: This thread is pure madness, the amount of whine and salt reminds me of those of Twitch's chat: korean elitists, Terran suprematists, Protoss haters, ZvZ negationists, people who think Broodlords are too good and that Infestors are as op as they were in 2012...simply pathetic.
Sc2's balance this year hasn't been especially bad AND we have a patch coming out in mere days that's addressing the majority of the problems in addiction to buffing Terran for free, how pointless could it be to complain now? Balance had little to do with results in this tournament and I also want to remind you that Serral was the only Zerg winning Premier tournaments when he was invincible last year when Infestors were not even meta.
You’re a monster. TIME and Special going 6-0 against soO and Reynor is just them playing the master race well, if they subsequently lose it’s balance though
In all honesty did anyone else feel like Maru legitimately threw? Because he truly played like, seriously bad. Allowed oracles to hit the same spot like 4 times. Tried to drop the same spot 3 times in a row instead of somewhere else. Like...literally it was stupid.
On August 18 2019 10:31 Wyrd wrote: In all honesty did anyone else feel like Maru legitimately threw? Because he truly played like, seriously bad. Allowed oracles to hit the same spot like 4 times. Tried to drop the same spot 3 times in a row instead of somewhere else. Like...literally it was stupid.
it didn't seem like his heart was in it, we'll see how he does in his GSL group maybe he's been spending his time practicing the new patch
On August 18 2019 11:09 ShiveryMoon wrote: INFESTORS COME AND WARN ME FIX YOUR SHIT GAME
Would a warning be enough, I wonder?
How many sets were even settled by infestor lategame today anyway? :S
Seriously...
These insta-whiners would be in pure hell if they only had BW to play. Imagine being forced to get good at the game instead of expecting daddy Blizzard to fix all the owies for you?
On August 18 2019 11:09 ShiveryMoon wrote: INFESTORS COME AND WARN ME FIX YOUR SHIT GAME
Would a warning be enough, I wonder?
How many sets were even settled by infestor lategame today anyway? :S
Seriously...
These insta-whiners would be in pure hell if they only had BW to play. Imagine being forced to get good at the game instead of expecting daddy Blizzard to fix all the owies for you?
I’m confused really. Maybe not the utmost quality of play ever seen, some of the most nailbiting series and drama I’ve seen in ages. Neeb somehow scraping back into the game vs Elazer in set 4 with a weird attack and DTs, Elazer then somehow recovering from the dead. Special grinding out set 4 against Classic and taking it to the rubber with a series of great engagements.
Plenty of great series today. I do think Infestors are a bit silly in the lategame but they didn’t even hugely factor into tons of the games today, that were also a historic day of triumph from the foreign scene.
Not really sure why some people can’t just enjoy at least some of the Starcraft without throwing a shitfit if their race doesn’t win a particular match
On August 18 2019 10:31 Wyrd wrote: In all honesty did anyone else feel like Maru legitimately threw? Because he truly played like, seriously bad. Allowed oracles to hit the same spot like 4 times. Tried to drop the same spot 3 times in a row instead of somewhere else. Like...literally it was stupid.
If you've been a Maru fan for long enough, you probably have seen him make similar decisions and win. Having said that, his play did look pretty bad. I can't tell if it's because he's really giving 100% for his GSL prep, or if he's just in super bad form, or both. He hasn't exactly looked to be in tip-top shape in his last couple GSL showings.
No one wants to see another zvz final. Again. Another. Zvz final. What is this WCS EU? Please fix glasstoss. You force. Toss to only be able to beat zerg by having godlike control on immortals. Yet keep nickel and diming on everything. Now they cost 275. All zerg does easily abuses and beats toss. Same thing on ladder
On August 18 2019 09:31 Xain0n wrote: This thread is pure madness, the amount of whine and salt reminds me of those of Twitch's chat: korean elitists, Terran suprematists, Protoss haters, ZvZ negationists, people who think Broodlords are too good and that Infestors are as op as they were in 2012...simply pathetic.
Sc2's balance this year hasn't been especially bad AND we have a patch coming out in mere days that's addressing the majority of the problems in addiction to buffing Terran for free, how pointless could it be to complain now? Balance had little to do with results in this tournament and I also want to remind you that Serral was the only Zerg winning Premier tournaments when he was invincible last year while Infestors were not even meta.
Exactly this. "buff terran for free" thats the most important part. I honestly can't see them losing late game vs zerg now after IT nerf. Issues with ZvP in late game should be fixed by buffing protoss not nerfing zerg. Eg HT nerf removal or something else.
On August 18 2019 07:23 terribleplayer1 wrote: Why so much whine about Zerg out of the sudden?
How many of you actually had a ZvZ as a likely final? It was such a longshot for Elazer to make it, and he barely got there, if Zerg was really this imbalanced wouldn't more people be predicting ZvZ?
If we get a ZvZ final in GSL or 5 Zergs in GSL RO8 I think the whine is warranted, but infestors are already getting nerfed and Zerg didn't actually overperform that much.
Now take a good look at map winrates for GSL vs World.
TvZ => 57.1% (14 W 8 L)
ZvP => 69.2% (9 W 4 L) (6 wins by Serral, 2 Losses from Serral)
PvT => 75% ( 16 W 4 L) - Terrans won ZERO matches vs Protoss.
Zerg was already dominating premier tournaments this year with twice or over twice as many of both finalists and runner ups than both the other races and now we have another zerg finalist and another zerg runner-up.
Korean Zergs don't tend to play late game (or not good at), that's part of the reason why European zergs are doing so much better these days.
Why would Korean Zergs ignore an important aspect of their play. It would be like a soccer team that don’t like kicking corners or a basketball team that doesn’t like shooting three pointers.
No idea but to some extenct they do. It's like the sh play, the european style in late game was a lot about turtling with a lot of static D, sh, viper, infestors and queens but in 2014, very few korean if any did that, soO never did and it's bad because once the late game is reached it was the only way to counter the skytoss. They only played sh in a agressive stance because they were always trying to close the game before the late game or then they were headbutting and losing like this disguting soO vs Zest on alterazim. Only Life wasn't so stubborn, after some rough defeats, he played this style and proceed to win zvp late game. That was he wasn't only a agressive zerg but a player with a superior approach in comparaison of his peers.
Why is this swarm of people here to complain of infestors now? Did they figure it out late? It's not like every Zerg game, not even ZvP, was decided by infestors. It's really annoying!
On August 18 2019 04:37 MockHamill wrote: The game is mostly balanced, terran is just slightly too weak in early mid game in TvP and Zerg is slightly too strong in the late game.
But I think we the coming patch with: 1. Nerfed infested terrans 2. Improved stim timing 3. Improved late game EMP 4. Slightly nerfed warp prisms.
The game will be close to balanced.
Stop making sense!
Also, I feel the game would have to change a lot for Serral not to be the best player. Being the best in SC2 has always meany being the best at exploiting the strengths of your race, whichever that might be.
My terran glasses tends to find that T usually has to outplay their opponent by a huge margin to win progames but at least it is possible to win!
And people said that Maru era was as competitive as innovation 😂. That his gsl streak was impressive. Lol now Koreans are bunch of newbies. Boring game no competition and I’m a Zerg player. It’s all happening again as when savior was banned in sc and life banned in sc2. History is a circle
Almost 8 pages of thread discussion. All balance rages have a warning. But this is the real thing: People is getting angry because of the imbalance state of the zerg race and they get new buffs, and the only strategies that can counter it get a big nerf with cheaper scout and nerfed drops from protoss.
I don´t understand the direction of these changes honestly, just make the community more angry or what.
AW - Swarmhost were reverted after 2 years absolutely destroying the matches.
On August 18 2019 18:33 Majick wrote: SC2 community in a nutshell:
Korean Zerg wins: "Woah, what a god! Bonjwa!!11 Unbeatable beast! OMGG he is sooo good!" Foreign Zerg wins: "Infestor good unit"
I see you missed the zerg imba complaints when Rogue won blizzcon and Katowice. There was even a rather well known article published about how he was a patchzerg
Look I haven’t thought infestors are broken (the problem is that Protoss late game is too weak after carrier feedback and tempest nerf imo) but what am I supposed to say when guys like serral and solar repeatedly say that infestors are OP in major interviews?
Congrats to the Rest of the World for finally significantly beating Koreans! To whoever is in charge in Blizzard, you can now start allowing Koreans to WCS. It's now clear that all of the world has caught up with Korea, some (new fans) say they are even better than them! WCS will certainly be very interesting to watch!
On August 18 2019 17:31 Xain0n wrote: Why is this swarm of people here to complain of infestors now? Did they figure it out late? It's not like every Zerg game, not even ZvP, was decided by infestors. It's really annoying!
But if you look at late game competition, can you name one or two strategies that can counter the you-know-what-zerg-unit-combo-im-talking-about?
On August 18 2019 17:31 Xain0n wrote: Why is this swarm of people here to complain of infestors now? Did they figure it out late? It's not like every Zerg game, not even ZvP, was decided by infestors. It's really annoying!
But if you look at late game competition, can you name one or two strategies that can counter the you-know-what-zerg-unit-combo-im-talking-about?
If you play it better than TIME did against Elazer, you should be fine with ghost nukes(TIME is already top korean level in the early/mid game but I guess he should focus more on his lategame), or with BCS Libs like Maru did; in any of case, it's pointless to complain when balance changes have already been decided and the new patch is coming in a few days.
EPT
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