GSL Code S resumed with its first round-of-sixteen group where defending championship Dark advanced in first place, followed by KeeN who advanced in second.
While Dark had been gleeful about assembling three of the weakest Terrans during July's group selection ceremony, the actual matches turned out to be tougher than he may have expected. KeeN surprised him in the opening match, using the newly improved Ghosts to out-duel him in a split-map war on King's Cove. While Dark did eventually advance with victories over KeeN and FanTaSy, he did not quite live up to his reputation as one of Korea's best late-game players as he struggled against mech play from both opponents.
After his initial, strong showing against Dark, KeeN was able to advance in second place by surviving a close, three-way, Terran vs Terran shootout against FanTaSy and SpeCial (could we call it a Mexican standoff?). Though KeeN was able to celebrate his first Code S quarterfinal appearance in over eight years, it was tempered by somber news as well: After the matches, KeeN announced that this season of Code S would be his last, as his mandatory military service was set to begin shortly.
The Code S Ro16 will resume on Saturday, Aug 31 4:00am GMT (GMT+00:00) with Group B, featuring Trap, Cure, herO, and TY (check out Liquipedia for more information).
Great games. Well worth watching and a lot of fun. Fantasy is getting so close. Won every game he played. Threw every game he played. And then came back after the throw to win a few of them a second time. But not enough. Still. He just needs to throw a little bit less and he’d be so good.
This was a great day of Starcraft and the casters were awesome too.
I am really sad about Fantasy's losses to dark though. It is become really irritating to see Terrans grab massive leads to lose to the late game Zerg death ball. Dark played out of his mind, but it still felt hopefulness for Fantasy once the dream composition hit. I dont usually look forward to patches, but I am not sure the emp buff was enough to make late game enjoyable for viewers rooting for a Terran player.
I wonder if the raven had emp and the ghost had anti armor missiles would be a good exchange of spells.
On August 29 2019 08:24 BisuDagger wrote: This was a great day of Starcraft and the casters were awesome too.
I am really sad about Fantasy's losses to dark though. It is become really irritating to see Terrans grab massive leads to lose to the late game Zerg death ball. Dark played out of his mind, but it still felt hopefulness for Fantasy once the dream composition hit. I dont usually look forward to patches, but I am not sure the emp buff was enough to make late game enjoyable for viewers rooting for a Terran player.
I wonder if the raven had emp and the ghost had anti armor missiles would be a good exchange of spells.
It’s one of those interesting ideas that throws so much convention out of the window that I’m curious how it would work.
Protoss don’t trade all that great without the forge and chrono combo putting them ahead in ups, specifically armour for tanklots, so bio/ghost with the spells swap is essentially an ‘un-upgrade’ in that sense. Would be interesting for sure, my intuition would be that adding anti armour ghosts who share upgrades and production with bio would wreck Protoss. Ravens are already super strong but they’re constrained by needing your Starport for medivacs and other factors.
I like the Raven a lot as a unit currently. My bias as to spellcasters is that adding a few can make your army better, but adding a load makes it worse. So a few Arbiters or defilers vs mass of either or whatever
On August 29 2019 08:24 BisuDagger wrote: This was a great day of Starcraft and the casters were awesome too.
I am really sad about Fantasy's losses to dark though. It is become really irritating to see Terrans grab massive leads to lose to the late game Zerg death ball. Dark played out of his mind, but it still felt hopefulness for Fantasy once the dream composition hit. I dont usually look forward to patches, but I am not sure the emp buff was enough to make late game enjoyable for viewers rooting for a Terran player.
I wonder if the raven had emp and the ghost had anti armor missiles would be a good exchange of spells.
"dark is the better player and played out of his mind, but i'm still angry terran didn't win because reasons"
i always underrate keen in my liquibets. i know he is super good and has been super good for a long time. i picked special over him in this case. would like to see him get deep here. has he ever been to a final in code S? or even a semifinal??
On August 29 2019 10:07 Alejandrisha wrote: i always underrate keen in my liquibets. i know he is super good and has been super good for a long time. i picked special over him in this case. would like to see him get deep here. has he ever been to a final in code S? or even a semifinal??
I mean results wise I really don’t think you’re underrating him, this wound have been his first Ro8 in like 2400 days or something
On August 29 2019 10:07 Alejandrisha wrote: i always underrate keen in my liquibets. i know he is super good and has been super good for a long time. i picked special over him in this case. would like to see him get deep here. has he ever been to a final in code S? or even a semifinal??
I mean results wise I really don’t think you’re underrating him, this wound have been his first Ro8 in like 2400 days or something
yeah i suppose you are right. i think i have the artosis bias. just like cliiiiiiiiiide, artosis loves keen so damn much and i think artosis rents a room in my brain for like 30 cents a month
edit: i think by 'underrate' i meant 'completely dismiss,' in retrospect xD
On August 29 2019 08:24 BisuDagger wrote: This was a great day of Starcraft and the casters were awesome too.
I am really sad about Fantasy's losses to dark though. It is become really irritating to see Terrans grab massive leads to lose to the late game Zerg death ball. Dark played out of his mind, but it still felt hopefulness for Fantasy once the dream composition hit. I dont usually look forward to patches, but I am not sure the emp buff was enough to make late game enjoyable for viewers rooting for a Terran player.
I wonder if the raven had emp and the ghost had anti armor missiles would be a good exchange of spells.
i think you have to accept the fact that fantasy just isn't that good. as an sc2 pro he is pretty much a t2 terran. and by that i mean he is better than every terran in the world besides like 10 of them xD
edit: i would go in to my speculation on why he doesn't play bw anymore but i'm not going to open that can of worms, even with mech having a resurgence vs Z given the map pool
On August 29 2019 08:24 BisuDagger wrote: This was a great day of Starcraft and the casters were awesome too.
I am really sad about Fantasy's losses to dark though. It is become really irritating to see Terrans grab massive leads to lose to the late game Zerg death ball. Dark played out of his mind, but it still felt hopefulness for Fantasy once the dream composition hit. I dont usually look forward to patches, but I am not sure the emp buff was enough to make late game enjoyable for viewers rooting for a Terran player.
I wonder if the raven had emp and the ghost had anti armor missiles would be a good exchange of spells.
"dark is the better player and played out of his mind, but i'm still angry terran didn't win because reasons"
I know you are smart enough to discern what I said. I have a great track record of not balance whining here and a willingness to engage in discussion. And I'm always open for a good discussion over low quality posts of you're feeling up to it.
On August 29 2019 08:24 BisuDagger wrote: This was a great day of Starcraft and the casters were awesome too.
I am really sad about Fantasy's losses to dark though. It is become really irritating to see Terrans grab massive leads to lose to the late game Zerg death ball. Dark played out of his mind, but it still felt hopefulness for Fantasy once the dream composition hit. I dont usually look forward to patches, but I am not sure the emp buff was enough to make late game enjoyable for viewers rooting for a Terran player.
I wonder if the raven had emp and the ghost had anti armor missiles would be a good exchange of spells.
i think you have to accept the fact that fantasy just isn't that good. as an sc2 pro he is pretty much a t2 terran. and by that i mean he is better than every terran in the world besides like 10 of them xD
Keen had the same problem as Fantasy. And many other User and have the same problem against Serral. Playing a perfect game as a Terran player sometimes isn't good enough. It's hard to make sense of it because in most cases Serral really plays brilliantly and makes almost zero mistakes in the late game. But after watching so many TvZs end the same way, after a certain point in the game you just writing the last 20 minutes of the game off as a death animation. I'm not arguing there isn't a way to do it right, but no Terran player, including Maru, has solved this puzzle yet and as a viewer you start to question wether Terran has the tools available to actually solve late game TvZ.
EMP - with upgrade to early to tell
What we see consistently fail: Nukes - hardly does anything except zone and delay Mass viking - bombed/fungaled/Infested Mass Thor - spend to much time fighting broodlings to hit air Battlefield - NP to kill each other
Today: Thor+lib+viking+ghots: Keen's game basically was this and it looked very promising. I am staying hopeful that this build can be reproduced.
I'd love to see some discussion around other option. What compositions are out there we haven't seen yet.
On August 29 2019 08:24 BisuDagger wrote: This was a great day of Starcraft and the casters were awesome too.
I am really sad about Fantasy's losses to dark though. It is become really irritating to see Terrans grab massive leads to lose to the late game Zerg death ball. Dark played out of his mind, but it still felt hopefulness for Fantasy once the dream composition hit. I dont usually look forward to patches, but I am not sure the emp buff was enough to make late game enjoyable for viewers rooting for a Terran player.
I wonder if the raven had emp and the ghost had anti armor missiles would be a good exchange of spells.
"dark is the better player and played out of his mind, but i'm still angry terran didn't win because reasons"
Pretty good reasons. Dark could win with whatever reasonable tools you gave him.
Fantasy used basically every Terran unit in a series, did a lot of cute fun stuff like swapping Viking modes to snipe bases, splitting a Thor/tank mech and somehow managing to outmanoeuvre his opponents with those comps.
Dark played great regardless. BL/Infestor//Corruptor In his hands is borderline unkillable, or Serral’s or w/e
If Zerg didn’t have moveable static D I think the slowness of the comp would make for a super interesting dynamic, you could starve them out and multiprong around it.
If it was a dynamic of picking around the edges that’d be cool, as it often plays out it’s a matter of picking around edges that don’t matter because eventually you have to face the army and just die.
On August 29 2019 08:24 BisuDagger wrote: This was a great day of Starcraft and the casters were awesome too.
I am really sad about Fantasy's losses to dark though. It is become really irritating to see Terrans grab massive leads to lose to the late game Zerg death ball. Dark played out of his mind, but it still felt hopefulness for Fantasy once the dream composition hit. I dont usually look forward to patches, but I am not sure the emp buff was enough to make late game enjoyable for viewers rooting for a Terran player.
I wonder if the raven had emp and the ghost had anti armor missiles would be a good exchange of spells.
i think you have to accept the fact that fantasy just isn't that good. as an sc2 pro he is pretty much a t2 terran. and by that i mean he is better than every terran in the world besides like 10 of them xD
Keen had the same problem as Fantasy. And many other User and have the same problem against Serral. Playing a perfect game as a Terran player sometimes isn't good enough. It's hard to make sense of it because in most cases Serral really plays brilliantly and makes almost zero mistakes in the late game. But after watching so many TvZs end the same way, after a certain point in the game you just writing the last 20 minutes of the game off as a death animation. I'm not arguing there isn't a way to do it right, but no Terran player, including Maru, has solved this puzzle yet and as a viewer you start to question wether Terran has the tools available to actually solve late game TvZ.
EMP - with upgrade to early to tell
What we see consistently fail: Nukes - hardly does anything except zone and delay Mass viking - bombed/fungaled/Infested Mass Thor - spend to much time fighting broodlings to hit air Battlefield - NP to kill each other
Today: Thor+lib+viking+ghots: Keen's game basically was this and it looked very promising. I am staying hopeful that this build can be reproduced.
I'd love to see some discussion around other option. What compositions are out there we haven't seen yet.
I don’t think there’s really A solution, purely because theoretical compositions are just way, way too hard to control. It’s already hard to control 3/4 units with differing characteristics without anything ground based being blocked by broodlings.
Maru demolished Reynor at WCG with a combo of really heavy libs, sieging to nuke infested Terrans and sending BCs in to the fray on top of it.
Haven’t seen it since, it looked interesting for sure. Reynor is in my view relatively bad for his calibre at lategame vT though so it might have been so successful because of that.
As for changes I think you could see some improvement with stuff that would be innocuous to other interactions. Thors with a smaller model and space occupied wouldn’t be stuck as badly, Vikings that were slightly faster or accelerated quicker would give Terrans more options IMO
On August 29 2019 08:24 BisuDagger wrote: This was a great day of Starcraft and the casters were awesome too.
I am really sad about Fantasy's losses to dark though. It is become really irritating to see Terrans grab massive leads to lose to the late game Zerg death ball. Dark played out of his mind, but it still felt hopefulness for Fantasy once the dream composition hit. I dont usually look forward to patches, but I am not sure the emp buff was enough to make late game enjoyable for viewers rooting for a Terran player.
I wonder if the raven had emp and the ghost had anti armor missiles would be a good exchange of spells.
i think you have to accept the fact that fantasy just isn't that good. as an sc2 pro he is pretty much a t2 terran. and by that i mean he is better than every terran in the world besides like 10 of them xD
Keen had the same problem as Fantasy. And many other User and have the same problem against Serral. Playing a perfect game as a Terran player sometimes isn't good enough. It's hard to make sense of it because in most cases Serral really plays brilliantly and makes almost zero mistakes in the late game. But after watching so many TvZs end the same way, after a certain point in the game you just writing the last 20 minutes of the game off as a death animation. I'm not arguing there isn't a way to do it right, but no Terran player, including Maru, has solved this puzzle yet and as a viewer you start to question wether Terran has the tools available to actually solve late game TvZ.
EMP - with upgrade to early to tell
What we see consistently fail: Nukes - hardly does anything except zone and delay Mass viking - bombed/fungaled/Infested Mass Thor - spend to much time fighting broodlings to hit air Battlefield - NP to kill each other
Today: Thor+lib+viking+ghots: Keen's game basically was this and it looked very promising. I am staying hopeful that this build can be reproduced.
I'd love to see some discussion around other option. What compositions are out there we haven't seen yet.
I don’t think there’s really A solution, purely because theoretical compositions are just way, way too hard to control. It’s already hard to control 3/4 units with differing characteristics without anything ground based being blocked by broodlings.
Maru demolished Reynor at WCG with a combo of really heavy libs, sieging to nuke infested Terrans and sending BCs in to the fray on top of it.
Haven’t seen it since, it looked interesting for sure. Reynor is in my view relatively bad for his calibre at lategame vT though so it might have been so successful because of that.
As for changes I think you could see some improvement with stuff that would be innocuous to other interactions. Thors with a smaller model and space occupied wouldn’t be stuck as badly, Vikings that were slightly faster or accelerated quicker would give Terrans more options IMO
What if massive units could crush broodlings in the same manner that they crush forcefields. Thors would still have to take damage to get near broodlords, but it would solve mobility issues without changing the model size.
A lot of fun and exciting matches in this group considering it was designed to be the weakest group with one clear favourite. All the series were close and good.
Fantasy is playing so well. Was really hoping for him to advance, but alas that last game wasn't meant to be. Hoping that he stays motivated and make it far in the next tournament he enters.
On August 29 2019 08:24 BisuDagger wrote: This was a great day of Starcraft and the casters were awesome too.
I am really sad about Fantasy's losses to dark though. It is become really irritating to see Terrans grab massive leads to lose to the late game Zerg death ball. Dark played out of his mind, but it still felt hopefulness for Fantasy once the dream composition hit. I dont usually look forward to patches, but I am not sure the emp buff was enough to make late game enjoyable for viewers rooting for a Terran player.
I wonder if the raven had emp and the ghost had anti armor missiles would be a good exchange of spells.
i think you have to accept the fact that fantasy just isn't that good. as an sc2 pro he is pretty much a t2 terran. and by that i mean he is better than every terran in the world besides like 10 of them xD
Keen had the same problem as Fantasy. And many other User and have the same problem against Serral. Playing a perfect game as a Terran player sometimes isn't good enough. It's hard to make sense of it because in most cases Serral really plays brilliantly and makes almost zero mistakes in the late game. But after watching so many TvZs end the same way, after a certain point in the game you just writing the last 20 minutes of the game off as a death animation. I'm not arguing there isn't a way to do it right, but no Terran player, including Maru, has solved this puzzle yet and as a viewer you start to question wether Terran has the tools available to actually solve late game TvZ.
EMP - with upgrade to early to tell
What we see consistently fail: Nukes - hardly does anything except zone and delay Mass viking - bombed/fungaled/Infested Mass Thor - spend to much time fighting broodlings to hit air Battlefield - NP to kill each other
Today: Thor+lib+viking+ghots: Keen's game basically was this and it looked very promising. I am staying hopeful that this build can be reproduced.
I'd love to see some discussion around other option. What compositions are out there we haven't seen yet.
I don’t think there’s really A solution, purely because theoretical compositions are just way, way too hard to control. It’s already hard to control 3/4 units with differing characteristics without anything ground based being blocked by broodlings.
Maru demolished Reynor at WCG with a combo of really heavy libs, sieging to nuke infested Terrans and sending BCs in to the fray on top of it.
Haven’t seen it since, it looked interesting for sure. Reynor is in my view relatively bad for his calibre at lategame vT though so it might have been so successful because of that.
As for changes I think you could see some improvement with stuff that would be innocuous to other interactions. Thors with a smaller model and space occupied wouldn’t be stuck as badly, Vikings that were slightly faster or accelerated quicker would give Terrans more options IMO
What if massive units could crush broodlings in the same manner that they crush forcefields. Thors would still have to take damage to get near broodlords, but it would solve mobility issues without changing the model size.
I think that maybe the real solution is making massive units unable to be neuraled and possibly make massive units so its unable to be viper pulled but that might be a stretch to do both,but motherships getting pulled is pretty dumb, thors can fight broodlords, ghosts can zone infestors, it's all there, but the big engage and losing half your army to mindcontrol is rough.
I actually like vipers much more then infestors as a unit in late game armys because you dint really mass them, I wish infestors got removed in LOTV.
I like the idea of walking over broodlings but I think the pathing issue is what makes broodlords so great it's kind of their whole reason zerg stops some bullshit low tier cheap units, it makes the other player forced into late game but with infestors it's way to strong. You actually can outrage broodlords and shift command the them with the thors while the hellbats clear the broodlings on Amove, the main problem is when you fight, unless you emp every infestor that's is borrowed you lose due to the mind control.
It's actually a really hard job to do it all while controlling a army, I feel like zerg is close to being terrible without infestor's but I'm not sure I just wish that you couldnt neural an entire mech army because you missed a scan or your raven got sniped, investors just punish so much.
I'm not trying to balance whine I am actually at 100percent win ratio against zerg this season since the buff but I just think that for these top players they always seem to die if the zerg has his infestors and broodlords, and I dont think making thors a more Amove unit is the solution, I think it comes down to making the engage a little harder from the zergs engage, maybe nerf the fuck out of infestors but buff the vipers I'm not sure
On August 29 2019 08:24 BisuDagger wrote: This was a great day of Starcraft and the casters were awesome too.
I am really sad about Fantasy's losses to dark though. It is become really irritating to see Terrans grab massive leads to lose to the late game Zerg death ball. Dark played out of his mind, but it still felt hopefulness for Fantasy once the dream composition hit. I dont usually look forward to patches, but I am not sure the emp buff was enough to make late game enjoyable for viewers rooting for a Terran player.
I wonder if the raven had emp and the ghost had anti armor missiles would be a good exchange of spells.
i think you have to accept the fact that fantasy just isn't that good. as an sc2 pro he is pretty much a t2 terran. and by that i mean he is better than every terran in the world besides like 10 of them xD
Keen had the same problem as Fantasy. And many other User and have the same problem against Serral. Playing a perfect game as a Terran player sometimes isn't good enough. It's hard to make sense of it because in most cases Serral really plays brilliantly and makes almost zero mistakes in the late game. But after watching so many TvZs end the same way, after a certain point in the game you just writing the last 20 minutes of the game off as a death animation. I'm not arguing there isn't a way to do it right, but no Terran player, including Maru, has solved this puzzle yet and as a viewer you start to question wether Terran has the tools available to actually solve late game TvZ.
EMP - with upgrade to early to tell
What we see consistently fail: Nukes - hardly does anything except zone and delay Mass viking - bombed/fungaled/Infested Mass Thor - spend to much time fighting broodlings to hit air Battlefield - NP to kill each other
Today: Thor+lib+viking+ghots: Keen's game basically was this and it looked very promising. I am staying hopeful that this build can be reproduced.
I'd love to see some discussion around other option. What compositions are out there we haven't seen yet.
I don’t think there’s really A solution, purely because theoretical compositions are just way, way too hard to control. It’s already hard to control 3/4 units with differing characteristics without anything ground based being blocked by broodlings.
Maru demolished Reynor at WCG with a combo of really heavy libs, sieging to nuke infested Terrans and sending BCs in to the fray on top of it.
Haven’t seen it since, it looked interesting for sure. Reynor is in my view relatively bad for his calibre at lategame vT though so it might have been so successful because of that.
As for changes I think you could see some improvement with stuff that would be innocuous to other interactions. Thors with a smaller model and space occupied wouldn’t be stuck as badly, Vikings that were slightly faster or accelerated quicker would give Terrans more options IMO
What if massive units could crush broodlings in the same manner that they crush forcefields. Thors would still have to take damage to get near broodlords, but it would solve mobility issues without changing the model size.
I think that maybe the real solution is making massive units unable to be neuraled and possibly make massive units so its unable to be viper pulled but that might be a stretch to do both,but motherships getting pulled is pretty dumb, thors can fight broodlords, ghosts can zone infestors, it's all there, but the big engage and losing half your army to mindcontrol is rough.
I actually like vipers much more then infestors as a unit in late game armys because you dint really mass them, I wish infestors got removed in LOTV.
I like the idea of walking over broodlings but I think the pathing issue is what makes broodlords so great it's kind of their whole reason zerg stops some bullshit low tier cheap units, it makes the other player forced into late game but with infestors it's way to strong. You actually can outrage broodlords and shift command the them with the thors while the hellbats clear the broodlings on Amove, the main problem is when you fight, unless you emp every infestor that's is borrowed you lose due to the mind control.
It's actually a really hard job to do it all while controlling a army, I feel like zerg is close to being terrible without infestor's but I'm not sure I just wish that you couldnt neural an entire mech army because you missed a scan or your raven got sniped, investors just punish so much.
I'm not trying to balance whine I am actually at 100percent win ratio against zerg this season since the buff but I just think that for these top players they always seem to die if the zerg has his infestors and broodlords, and I dont think making thors a more Amove unit is the solution, I think it comes down to making the engage a little harder from the zergs engage, maybe nerf the fuck out of infestors but buff the vipers I'm not sure
Yeah, no neural nor pull on the massive units. What can go wrong? Oh, I know, air toss
Edit - BTW if you manually target BL they have bigger range than Thors. I believe it's 11 vs 12, not sure about the numbers. But BL when manually targetted have bigger range than Thors.
Edit 2: I just check the other thread, it's 13 range for BL if you attack a unit instead of a-moving
On August 29 2019 08:24 BisuDagger wrote: This was a great day of Starcraft and the casters were awesome too.
I am really sad about Fantasy's losses to dark though. It is become really irritating to see Terrans grab massive leads to lose to the late game Zerg death ball. Dark played out of his mind, but it still felt hopefulness for Fantasy once the dream composition hit. I dont usually look forward to patches, but I am not sure the emp buff was enough to make late game enjoyable for viewers rooting for a Terran player.
I wonder if the raven had emp and the ghost had anti armor missiles would be a good exchange of spells.
To be fair I think the most irritating thing in the Dark - Fanta series was the latter not taking advantage of his (massive) leads; Him losing the 2nd game was entirely his own fault. That said I am wary of BL/fester as well. It's hard not to be.
BL/Infestor was absolutely ridiculous before the patch. Afterwards, who knows. Dark showed that it's definitely still very strong, but maybe it's beatable now. We saw lots of Ghosts with mech yesterday, maybe Ghost/BC will become a thing?
Just theorycrafting, but BCs get hardcountered by Infestors and Corruptors, both of which Ghosts counter. Throw in a few Medivacs and you can run away from Ling/Bane that counters Ghosts while the BCs go to town. Maybe add some Liberators and Vikings as stopgaps or staying power. As the game goes later and later, the potential burst damage for massed Ghost/BC gets really high.
I'm very happy for KeeN. He'll probably get stomped in the ro8 but reaching it is great in itself. Tenacity! And hey, Ryung came REALLY far a while back so why not him.
I support Wombat's idea around spore mobility. Maybe it should just cost something, minerals or gas, to reburrow them. That would go towards countering the economic advantage snowball granted by free Z units over long games. Also, it would make strategies like Fantasy's attempted multipronging more viable.
On August 29 2019 08:24 BisuDagger wrote: This was a great day of Starcraft and the casters were awesome too.
I am really sad about Fantasy's losses to dark though. It is become really irritating to see Terrans grab massive leads to lose to the late game Zerg death ball. Dark played out of his mind, but it still felt hopefulness for Fantasy once the dream composition hit. I dont usually look forward to patches, but I am not sure the emp buff was enough to make late game enjoyable for viewers rooting for a Terran player.
I wonder if the raven had emp and the ghost had anti armor missiles would be a good exchange of spells.
i think you have to accept the fact that fantasy just isn't that good. as an sc2 pro he is pretty much a t2 terran. and by that i mean he is better than every terran in the world besides like 10 of them xD
Keen had the same problem as Fantasy. And many other User and have the same problem against Serral. Playing a perfect game as a Terran player sometimes isn't good enough. It's hard to make sense of it because in most cases Serral really plays brilliantly and makes almost zero mistakes in the late game. But after watching so many TvZs end the same way, after a certain point in the game you just writing the last 20 minutes of the game off as a death animation. I'm not arguing there isn't a way to do it right, but no Terran player, including Maru, has solved this puzzle yet and as a viewer you start to question wether Terran has the tools available to actually solve late game TvZ.
EMP - with upgrade to early to tell
What we see consistently fail: Nukes - hardly does anything except zone and delay Mass viking - bombed/fungaled/Infested Mass Thor - spend to much time fighting broodlings to hit air Battlefield - NP to kill each other
Today: Thor+lib+viking+ghots: Keen's game basically was this and it looked very promising. I am staying hopeful that this build can be reproduced.
I'd love to see some discussion around other option. What compositions are out there we haven't seen yet.
I don’t think there’s really A solution, purely because theoretical compositions are just way, way too hard to control. It’s already hard to control 3/4 units with differing characteristics without anything ground based being blocked by broodlings.
Maru demolished Reynor at WCG with a combo of really heavy libs, sieging to nuke infested Terrans and sending BCs in to the fray on top of it.
Haven’t seen it since, it looked interesting for sure. Reynor is in my view relatively bad for his calibre at lategame vT though so it might have been so successful because of that.
As for changes I think you could see some improvement with stuff that would be innocuous to other interactions. Thors with a smaller model and space occupied wouldn’t be stuck as badly, Vikings that were slightly faster or accelerated quicker would give Terrans more options IMO
What if massive units could crush broodlings in the same manner that they crush forcefields. Thors would still have to take damage to get near broodlords, but it would solve mobility issues without changing the model size.
I'm not trying to balance whine I am actually at 100percent win ratio against zerg this season since the buff but I just think that for these top players they always seem to die if the zerg has his infestors and broodlords, and I dont think making thors a more Amove unit is the solution, I think it comes down to making the engage a little harder from the zergs engage, maybe nerf the fuck out of infestors but buff the vipers I'm not sure
Maybe reduce the range of neural by 1 or even 2 to make the infestor have to take more risks to land a good neural. For example if neural range was at least 3 lower than a raven’s detection range than using a raven to sweep in front of BCs would be feasible and that’s less intense and more sustainable than having to scan every half screen of movement. You could make it up to the Zerg by giving queens +1 range on their anti air attack ; )
On August 29 2019 08:24 BisuDagger wrote: I wonder if the raven had emp and the ghost had anti armor missiles would be a good exchange of spells.
The implications of this for TvP would be pretty terrifying considering you generally have a raven way faster than a ghost. Imagine Terran's 2 base pushes on low unit counts and now you EMP their sentries. Not to mention ravens would then be the counter to robo and templar play (though the interaction raven-templar is more favorable for the HT because the raven is an easier target) while ghosts would simply be universally worse.
On August 29 2019 08:24 BisuDagger wrote: I wonder if the raven had emp and the ghost had anti armor missiles would be a good exchange of spells.
The implications of this for TvP would be pretty terrifying considering you generally have a raven way faster than a ghost. Imagine Terran's 2 base pushes on low unit counts and now you EMP their sentries. Not to mention ravens would then be the counter to robo and templar play (though the interaction raven-templar is more favorable for the HT because the raven is an easier target) while ghosts would simply be universally worse.
I think the energy cost would have to be higher or emp would have to be an upgrade on the raven for those reasons. But in late game it would balance out.
On August 29 2019 08:24 BisuDagger wrote: I wonder if the raven had emp and the ghost had anti armor missiles would be a good exchange of spells.
The implications of this for TvP would be pretty terrifying considering you generally have a raven way faster than a ghost. Imagine Terran's 2 base pushes on low unit counts and now you EMP their sentries. Not to mention ravens would then be the counter to robo and templar play (though the interaction raven-templar is more favorable for the HT because the raven is an easier target) while ghosts would simply be universally worse.
I think the energy cost would have to be higher or emp would have to be an upgrade on the raven for those reasons. But in late game it would balance out.
I dunno I think that's just pretty cumbersome. It's a tech lab starport unit with high gas cost. To get the amount of ravens you need to have the ability to EMP everything would take a really long time. And as I said just giving the raven that much focus is something I dislike. Every match-up develops (devolves?) into a massive air battle in the late game. I'd rather not put even more focus on the flying spellcaster. I think ghosts are in a good place.
If anything ravens could be toned down because they dominate TvT to the point build variety is impaired by them.
On August 29 2019 08:24 BisuDagger wrote: This was a great day of Starcraft and the casters were awesome too.
I am really sad about Fantasy's losses to dark though. It is become really irritating to see Terrans grab massive leads to lose to the late game Zerg death ball. Dark played out of his mind, but it still felt hopefulness for Fantasy once the dream composition hit. I dont usually look forward to patches, but I am not sure the emp buff was enough to make late game enjoyable for viewers rooting for a Terran player.
I wonder if the raven had emp and the ghost had anti armor missiles would be a good exchange of spells.
i think you have to accept the fact that fantasy just isn't that good. as an sc2 pro he is pretty much a t2 terran. and by that i mean he is better than every terran in the world besides like 10 of them xD
Keen had the same problem as Fantasy. And many other User and have the same problem against Serral. Playing a perfect game as a Terran player sometimes isn't good enough. It's hard to make sense of it because in most cases Serral really plays brilliantly and makes almost zero mistakes in the late game. But after watching so many TvZs end the same way, after a certain point in the game you just writing the last 20 minutes of the game off as a death animation. I'm not arguing there isn't a way to do it right, but no Terran player, including Maru, has solved this puzzle yet and as a viewer you start to question wether Terran has the tools available to actually solve late game TvZ.
EMP - with upgrade to early to tell
What we see consistently fail: Nukes - hardly does anything except zone and delay Mass viking - bombed/fungaled/Infested Mass Thor - spend to much time fighting broodlings to hit air Battlefield - NP to kill each other
Today: Thor+lib+viking+ghots: Keen's game basically was this and it looked very promising. I am staying hopeful that this build can be reproduced.
I'd love to see some discussion around other option. What compositions are out there we haven't seen yet.
I don’t think there’s really A solution, purely because theoretical compositions are just way, way too hard to control. It’s already hard to control 3/4 units with differing characteristics without anything ground based being blocked by broodlings.
Maru demolished Reynor at WCG with a combo of really heavy libs, sieging to nuke infested Terrans and sending BCs in to the fray on top of it.
Haven’t seen it since, it looked interesting for sure. Reynor is in my view relatively bad for his calibre at lategame vT though so it might have been so successful because of that.
As for changes I think you could see some improvement with stuff that would be innocuous to other interactions. Thors with a smaller model and space occupied wouldn’t be stuck as badly, Vikings that were slightly faster or accelerated quicker would give Terrans more options IMO
What if massive units could crush broodlings in the same manner that they crush forcefields. Thors would still have to take damage to get near broodlords, but it would solve mobility issues without changing the model size.
I think that maybe the real solution is making massive units unable to be neuraled and possibly make massive units so its unable to be viper pulled but that might be a stretch to do both,but motherships getting pulled is pretty dumb, thors can fight broodlords, ghosts can zone infestors, it's all there, but the big engage and losing half your army to mindcontrol is rough.
I actually like vipers much more then infestors as a unit in late game armys because you dint really mass them, I wish infestors got removed in LOTV.
I like the idea of walking over broodlings but I think the pathing issue is what makes broodlords so great it's kind of their whole reason zerg stops some bullshit low tier cheap units, it makes the other player forced into late game but with infestors it's way to strong. You actually can outrage broodlords and shift command the them with the thors while the hellbats clear the broodlings on Amove, the main problem is when you fight, unless you emp every infestor that's is borrowed you lose due to the mind control.
It's actually a really hard job to do it all while controlling a army, I feel like zerg is close to being terrible without infestor's but I'm not sure I just wish that you couldnt neural an entire mech army because you missed a scan or your raven got sniped, investors just punish so much.
I'm not trying to balance whine I am actually at 100percent win ratio against zerg this season since the buff but I just think that for these top players they always seem to die if the zerg has his infestors and broodlords, and I dont think making thors a more Amove unit is the solution, I think it comes down to making the engage a little harder from the zergs engage, maybe nerf the fuck out of infestors but buff the vipers I'm not sure
Yeah, no neural nor pull on the massive units. What can go wrong? Oh, I know, air toss
Edit - BTW if you manually target BL they have bigger range than Thors. I believe it's 11 vs 12, not sure about the numbers. But BL when manually targetted have bigger range than Thors.
Edit 2: I just check the other thread, it's 13 range for BL if you attack a unit instead of a-moving
One or the other should be there but both is kinda insane
Despite everyone crying about Zerg, I think Fantasy threw by letting Zerg just macro up after that dmg. He has a pretty big kill window between 9.30 and 11 minutes, but instead he sits back and lets Dark go to late game. Pretty stupid.
On August 29 2019 08:24 BisuDagger wrote: This was a great day of Starcraft and the casters were awesome too.
I am really sad about Fantasy's losses to dark though. It is become really irritating to see Terrans grab massive leads to lose to the late game Zerg death ball. Dark played out of his mind, but it still felt hopefulness for Fantasy once the dream composition hit. I dont usually look forward to patches, but I am not sure the emp buff was enough to make late game enjoyable for viewers rooting for a Terran player.
I wonder if the raven had emp and the ghost had anti armor missiles would be a good exchange of spells.
i think you have to accept the fact that fantasy just isn't that good. as an sc2 pro he is pretty much a t2 terran. and by that i mean he is better than every terran in the world besides like 10 of them xD
Keen had the same problem as Fantasy. And many other User and have the same problem against Serral. Playing a perfect game as a Terran player sometimes isn't good enough. It's hard to make sense of it because in most cases Serral really plays brilliantly and makes almost zero mistakes in the late game. But after watching so many TvZs end the same way, after a certain point in the game you just writing the last 20 minutes of the game off as a death animation. I'm not arguing there isn't a way to do it right, but no Terran player, including Maru, has solved this puzzle yet and as a viewer you start to question wether Terran has the tools available to actually solve late game TvZ.
EMP - with upgrade to early to tell
What we see consistently fail: Nukes - hardly does anything except zone and delay Mass viking - bombed/fungaled/Infested Mass Thor - spend to much time fighting broodlings to hit air Battlefield - NP to kill each other
Today: Thor+lib+viking+ghots: Keen's game basically was this and it looked very promising. I am staying hopeful that this build can be reproduced.
I'd love to see some discussion around other option. What compositions are out there we haven't seen yet.
I strongly disagree with this.
Top zerg players often lose to Terran players in the lategame.
Including Serral, who lost to Innovation and Gumiho in the late game.
Maru usually wins in the lategame vs Zerg too (see his games vs scarlett in 2019. the WESG one on king's cove scarlett technically won thanks to some weird chinese tournament rule, but maru should have at worst tied. then there was the GSL qualifier one)
Dark lost to Keen in the lategame just now.
Time beat soO in the lategame in GSL vs the World
Heromarine beat elazer's lategame WCS summer
Heromarine vs reynor (i think he did it a couple of times vs reynor, the one i remember was wcs winter though)
special vs reynor in gsl vs the world
these are off the top of my head
Terran lategame is favored over Zerg lategame imo.
It's protoss lategame that is helpless vs Zerg lategame (and tbh protsoss lategame is helpless vs a fleet of BCs too)
For anybody who didnt watch.. check out soul vs reynor from the wcs fall eu qualifiers. Soul goes up 2 - 0 on Reynor..who is argueably a top 3 zerg in the world (for comparison..soul would be lucky to make the top 10 terran list). He ends up losing the series 3 to 2 but wins a couple of late game scenarios with mass BC liberator ghost. The new emp makes it possible to send 2 cloaked ghosts onto creep...send bcs to a corner base to snipe and then emp 15 infestors walking to defend w those 2 ghosts .port ur bcs onto them and win the game. This happened multiple times in the series. Lets wait and watch this now in Maru and TYs hands b4 we go talking about "not enough" please and thanks.
On August 30 2019 13:32 DomeGetta wrote: For anybody who didnt watch.. check out soul vs reynor from the wcs fall eu qualifiers. Soul goes up 2 - 0 on Reynor..who is argueably a top 3 zerg in the world (for comparison..soul would be lucky to make the top 10 terran list). He ends up losing the series 3 to 2 but wins a couple of late game scenarios with mass BC liberator ghost. The new emp makes it possible to send 2 cloaked ghosts onto creep...send bcs to a corner base to snipe and then emp 15 infestors walking to defend w those 2 ghosts .port ur bcs onto them and win the game. This happened multiple times in the series. Lets wait and watch this now in Maru and TYs hands b4 we go talking about "not enough" please and thanks.
Also Reynor showed he's not good in TvZ against Maru. His strengths are elsewhere and he's not a good example for this reason. (similarily you don't want to use Patience for Protoss related stuff or Maru for TvT)
On August 30 2019 13:32 DomeGetta wrote: For anybody who didnt watch.. check out soul vs reynor from the wcs fall eu qualifiers. Soul goes up 2 - 0 on Reynor..who is argueably a top 3 zerg in the world (for comparison..soul would be lucky to make the top 10 terran list). He ends up losing the series 3 to 2 but wins a couple of late game scenarios with mass BC liberator ghost. The new emp makes it possible to send 2 cloaked ghosts onto creep...send bcs to a corner base to snipe and then emp 15 infestors walking to defend w those 2 ghosts .port ur bcs onto them and win the game. This happened multiple times in the series. Lets wait and watch this now in Maru and TYs hands b4 we go talking about "not enough" please and thanks.
Also Reynor showed he's not good in TvZ against Maru. His strengths are elsewhere and he's not a good example for this reason. (similarily you don't want to use Patience for Protoss related stuff or Maru for TvT)
First of all reynor isn’t so bad at TVZ that he loses late game, the hardest phase of the game, to a player of souls level (no offense to soul.
Second of all, watch scarlet vs masa g3 and g4. Masa takes late game off of Scarlett, a late game TVZ savant
Hell we only need to look at dark losing to keen in the late game this very tournament
Too bad about Fantasy. If he played the lategame like Keen he might have taken the series against Dark.
Lategame seems pretty strong for terran with the new emp.
Don't care too much for the BCs into lategame meta. Seems impossible for the Zerg to do any kind of timing and going to BL/Infestor is the only viable strat.
On August 30 2019 19:28 leublix wrote: Too bad about Fantasy. If he played the lategame like Keen he might have taken the series against Dark.
Lategame seems pretty strong for terran with the new emp.
Don't care too much for the BCs into lategame meta. Seems impossible for the Zerg to do any kind of timing and going to BL/Infestor is the only viable strat.
I feel pretty sure timings will be found soon enough. You do give up a lot rushing out bcs.
I am more curious if the Zerg lategame will be solved soon so it becomes less of a turtlefest for the zerg. Atm, Terran CAN kill the 4th with a 2-2 timing, but if they don't, get ready for the 15min death animation.
There should be some kind of BC-blink/Liberator/Ghost/Thor/Cyclone/Raven play combo which could crack the BL/Infestor/Corruptor balls.
On August 30 2019 13:32 DomeGetta wrote: For anybody who didnt watch.. check out soul vs reynor from the wcs fall eu qualifiers. Soul goes up 2 - 0 on Reynor..who is argueably a top 3 zerg in the world (for comparison..soul would be lucky to make the top 10 terran list). He ends up losing the series 3 to 2 but wins a couple of late game scenarios with mass BC liberator ghost. The new emp makes it possible to send 2 cloaked ghosts onto creep...send bcs to a corner base to snipe and then emp 15 infestors walking to defend w those 2 ghosts .port ur bcs onto them and win the game. This happened multiple times in the series. Lets wait and watch this now in Maru and TYs hands b4 we go talking about "not enough" please and thanks.
Also Reynor showed he's not good in TvZ against Maru. His strengths are elsewhere and he's not a good example for this reason. (similarily you don't want to use Patience for Protoss related stuff or Maru for TvT)
First of all reynor isn’t so bad at TVZ that he loses late game, the hardest phase of the game, to a player of souls level (no offense to soul.
Second of all, watch scarlet vs masa g3 and g4. Masa takes late game off of Scarlett, a late game TVZ savant
Hell we only need to look at dark losing to keen in the late game this very tournament
I take it you dont know soul but all he plays and goes for is late game terran, so I would argue it makes perfect sense for him to beat raynor.
On August 30 2019 13:32 DomeGetta wrote: For anybody who didnt watch.. check out soul vs reynor from the wcs fall eu qualifiers. Soul goes up 2 - 0 on Reynor..who is argueably a top 3 zerg in the world (for comparison..soul would be lucky to make the top 10 terran list). He ends up losing the series 3 to 2 but wins a couple of late game scenarios with mass BC liberator ghost. The new emp makes it possible to send 2 cloaked ghosts onto creep...send bcs to a corner base to snipe and then emp 15 infestors walking to defend w those 2 ghosts .port ur bcs onto them and win the game. This happened multiple times in the series. Lets wait and watch this now in Maru and TYs hands b4 we go talking about "not enough" please and thanks.
Also Reynor showed he's not good in TvZ against Maru. His strengths are elsewhere and he's not a good example for this reason. (similarily you don't want to use Patience for Protoss related stuff or Maru for TvT)
First of all reynor isn’t so bad at TVZ that he loses late game, the hardest phase of the game, to a player of souls level (no offense to soul.
Second of all, watch scarlet vs masa g3 and g4. Masa takes late game off of Scarlett, a late game TVZ savant
Hell we only need to look at dark losing to keen in the late game this very tournament
I take it you dont know soul but all he plays and goes for is late game terran, so I would argue it makes perfect sense for him to beat raynor.
Would it make sense for him to beat reynor if infestors were actually unstoppable vs Terran lategame?
It doesnt matter that soul is a lategame guy when there is a pretty big gulf in skill between the two players (and if infestors were truly unstoppable)....it wasnt even once but twice.
and there is a laundry list of Terran players beating Zerg players' infestor comps in the lategame including other significant mismatches like Masa vs Scarlett
On August 30 2019 13:32 DomeGetta wrote: For anybody who didnt watch.. check out soul vs reynor from the wcs fall eu qualifiers. Soul goes up 2 - 0 on Reynor..who is argueably a top 3 zerg in the world (for comparison..soul would be lucky to make the top 10 terran list). He ends up losing the series 3 to 2 but wins a couple of late game scenarios with mass BC liberator ghost. The new emp makes it possible to send 2 cloaked ghosts onto creep...send bcs to a corner base to snipe and then emp 15 infestors walking to defend w those 2 ghosts .port ur bcs onto them and win the game. This happened multiple times in the series. Lets wait and watch this now in Maru and TYs hands b4 we go talking about "not enough" please and thanks.
Also Reynor showed he's not good in TvZ against Maru. His strengths are elsewhere and he's not a good example for this reason. (similarily you don't want to use Patience for Protoss related stuff or Maru for TvT)
First of all reynor isn’t so bad at TVZ that he loses late game, the hardest phase of the game, to a player of souls level (no offense to soul.
Second of all, watch scarlet vs masa g3 and g4. Masa takes late game off of Scarlett, a late game TVZ savant
Hell we only need to look at dark losing to keen in the late game this very tournament
I take it you dont know soul but all he plays and goes for is late game terran, so I would argue it makes perfect sense for him to beat raynor.
Would it make sense for him to beat reynor if infestors were actually unstoppable vs Terran lategame?
It doesnt matter that soul is a lategame guy when there is a pretty big gulf in skill between the two players (and if infestors were truly unstoppable)....it wasnt even once but twice.
and there is a laundry list of Terran players beating Zerg players' infestor comps in the lategame including other significant mismatches like Masa vs Scarlett
Soul is known for having good lategame vZ, hence why a guy like Serral uses him as a practice partner.
Reynor is visibly, as things stand not very good at lategame vT. Good in other phases but not lategame, yet.
A Terran whose speciality is lategame vZ vs a guy who’s not all that great in it? Who the guy who is better than Reynor in non mirror matchups uses as a practice partner in Serral, who has good lategame vT practices with?
On August 30 2019 13:32 DomeGetta wrote: For anybody who didnt watch.. check out soul vs reynor from the wcs fall eu qualifiers. Soul goes up 2 - 0 on Reynor..who is argueably a top 3 zerg in the world (for comparison..soul would be lucky to make the top 10 terran list). He ends up losing the series 3 to 2 but wins a couple of late game scenarios with mass BC liberator ghost. The new emp makes it possible to send 2 cloaked ghosts onto creep...send bcs to a corner base to snipe and then emp 15 infestors walking to defend w those 2 ghosts .port ur bcs onto them and win the game. This happened multiple times in the series. Lets wait and watch this now in Maru and TYs hands b4 we go talking about "not enough" please and thanks.
Also Reynor showed he's not good in TvZ against Maru. His strengths are elsewhere and he's not a good example for this reason. (similarily you don't want to use Patience for Protoss related stuff or Maru for TvT)
First of all reynor isn’t so bad at TVZ that he loses late game, the hardest phase of the game, to a player of souls level (no offense to soul.
Second of all, watch scarlet vs masa g3 and g4. Masa takes late game off of Scarlett, a late game TVZ savant
Hell we only need to look at dark losing to keen in the late game this very tournament
I take it you dont know soul but all he plays and goes for is late game terran, so I would argue it makes perfect sense for him to beat raynor.
Would it make sense for him to beat reynor if infestors were actually unstoppable vs Terran lategame?
It doesnt matter that soul is a lategame guy when there is a pretty big gulf in skill between the two players (and if infestors were truly unstoppable)....it wasnt even once but twice.
and there is a laundry list of Terran players beating Zerg players' infestor comps in the lategame including other significant mismatches like Masa vs Scarlett
Soul is known for having good lategame vZ, hence why a guy like Serral uses him as a practice partner.
Reynor is visibly, as things stand not very good at lategame vT. Good in other phases but not lategame, yet.
A Terran whose speciality is lategame vZ vs a guy who’s not all that great in it? Who the guy who is better than Reynor in non mirror matchups uses as a practice partner in Serral, who has good lategame vT practices with?
Reynor is not good at lategame ZvT considering the caliber of player he is
He's one of the best lategame ZvT players in the world even after being weak in that area for a guy with the mechanics to beat serral in premier tournament bo7s
Even then, you have Masa doing the same thing to Scarlett, who is undoubtedly phenomenal at lategame ZvT.
And Keen doing the same thing to Dark.
Special did the same thing to reynor too in gsl vs the world, and special is no lategame savant
So it's not isolated to Soul vs Reynor
Edit:
just found another one Soul vs Lambo in WCS challenger
Soul was down to like 40 something army supply against a 110 army supply of brood lord infestor corruptor at one time and still pulled through
EPT
![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/GSL/2019/codes3/s3reversalbanner.jpg)
Really excited to see Keen make it back to round of 8 again.
