A new balance patch may have been introduced at HomeStory Cup XX, but the tournament still ended with a very familiar final as Serral defeated Reynor to win his third consecutive HSC championship. Fighting his way up from the losers' bracket, Serral won two consecutive series against Reynor to lift the championship trophy, avenging his loss against Reynor in the BlizzCon semifinals and improving to 4-3 in major tournament matches against his rival on the year.
Though the grand final series score read Serral 2, Reynor 0, the path to the championship was hardly smooth for the Finnish Phenom. Serral just barely managed to nullify Reynor's winners' bracket advantage with a 3-2 victory in the first half of the finals. Game five on Acropolis was a particularly tense match, with Serral pushed to the brink of defeat on several occasions before barely taking down Reynor in a double-masterclass of late-game ZvZ.
After resetting the bracket, Serral was immediately put on the ropes in the deciding, best-of-three series. Fighting in a Roach-Ravager mirror on Disco Bloodbath, Serral found himself out-Serraled by Reynor's multitasking and harassment—featuring the bedeviling use of Roach drops—and went down 0-1 to start. However, Serral tied the series up with an equally impressive victory in game two, using Muta-Ling-Bane to pick apart Reynor's ground-based army before his defenses could become fully entrenched. With the championship on the line in game three, Reynor decided to go for Mutalisks himself. Unfortunately for Reynor, Serral sniffed out this intent in time to go for Corruptor-Roach, which gave him the edge he needed claim the final GG of the series and tournament.
In the post-match interview, Serral coyly dodged questions about whether or not he took his rivalry with Reynor more 'personally' than other matches, but acknowledged that the young Italian had pushed him outside his comfort zone in ZvZ and presented a difficult challenge.
Following the trophy presentation, Serral was invited by tournament organizer Take to make a celebratory dive into the nearby pool. Serral responded in the most Serral-esque way possible, calmly and efficiently stepping into the water—after which he was immediately followed by a by a throng of fans splashing in around him. It was an apt way to end the tournament, as it fulfilled the age-old pact of StarCraft: the players showed good games, and the fans brought their cheer.
Kong? Not for long: While Reynor suffered his third straight runner-up finish after WCS Fall and the 2019 Global Finals, it seems inevitable he'll return to his championship-winning ways in the future. Though Reynor under-performed at a number of earlier international events in 2019, he redeemed himself at the WCS Global Finals by defeating herO, Trap, and Serral on his way to a 2nd place finish. He proved his prowess again at HSC XX, taking playoff wins off Cure (3-2), Zest (3-0), and INnoVation (3-0) to reach the grand finals with a winners bracket advantage. Despite Reynor's finals loss to Serral, their overall record on the year (4-3 in favor of Serral in major tournaments) and content of their games suggests there's barely anything separating the two rivals, with either one capable of triumphing over the other on any given day. While it's unclear what format SC2 esports will take in 2020, one can easily envision Reynor lifting trophies once more.
Deep end of the pool: While the WCS Circuit is undeniably top-heavy, there's considerable depth in the tier beneath Serral and Reynor. Among the Circuit's Global finals representatives, TIME, HeroMarine, and Elazer were unable to survive the group stages at HSC XX. In their place, MaNa, uThermal, and Clem—none of whom came particularly close to BlizzCon contention in 2019—saw themselves making playoff runs.
MaNa was the stand-out player from this group, earning a top eight finish on the back of a series of impressive results. The Polish Protoss defeated SpeCial (3-0) and TaeJa (3-2) in the playoffs, and earned 1-1 ties against INnoVation, Reynor, and PartinG in the group stage. After MaNa's finals run in WCS Austin 2018, it was another example of how one never knows when he could make a surprising underdog run out of nowhere. And it's not just MaNa—that possibilities seems to exist for many players from the Circuit.
Korea Rides Again? 3rd and 4th place in the tournament went to INnoVation and Zest—both players who notably missed the Korean cutoff for the Global Finals. And while they certainly gave encouraging performances, fans should be cautious in interpreting these results. Perhaps they've been reinvigorated by the new patch and will soon return to championship form—or maybe this is just false hope before GSL Ro32 elimination. Given their erratic form and results throughout 2019, either could be the case.
While enthusiasm for Zest was somewhat staid by his 0-3 losses to both Reynor and Serral, INnoVation's performance was more intriguing. He managed to defeat 3-1 in their upper bracket match, a faint callback to his 4-3 victory over Serral in the WESG finals earlier this year. Unfortunately for Terran fans, INnoVation's subsequent 0-3 loss to Serral in their losers bracket rematch dampened hopes for the return of a fully-engaged, fully-powered Machine Terran.
Everything else: We'd be remiss to leave off without mentioning at least a few of the things that happened outside the actual competition at HSC XX. While the tournament was fascinating for anyone looking for a first impression of the new patch, the TakeTV crew put a strong focus on making HSC XX a celebration of everything surrounding the game.
First off, it was held at a gigantic, indoor water park, not-so-subtly sending the message that this was just as much a party as it was a competition. StarCraft luminaries ranging from Mike Morhaime to White-Ra attended in person, while David Kim and MC checked in via internet video. ShoWTimE took home a whopping $2 for winning the 'fastest-one-down-the-waterslide' tournament, while TLO won a more discrete sum at the traditional poker tournament. Tribute videos were made for the greatest stewards of the infamous Krefeld Couch, beginning with the late iNcontroL to kick off the show and moving on to ToD, DeMusliM, and RotterdaM.
Hey Kappa was performed live once more, replete with an 'NASL sound guy' technical error that couldn't have been more perfect if it had been scripted. The celebratory aura was so strong that RotterdaM finally caved in to years of requests for 'shirtless Rotti,' before being quietly upstaged by shirtless Artosis during the closing ceremonies (who provided it gratis without years of fan-clamoring).
I like to imagine there was someone at the Tropical Islands, an outsider to StarCraft but perhaps not to gaming, just looking on in utter confusion. An esports tournament held in a German water park in the middle of November (with an awful lot of Korean being spoken for some reason), with the co-founders of Twitch and Blizzard randomly in attendance, with a live rap performance of an internet meme song, with the head organizer breaking down in tears at least twice before it was all over—Wait, what?
And, said outsider would have wondered aloud "Man, I have no idea what's going, but these guys sure know how to have a helluva good time. I wonder how all this started?" At which point, Take, who happened to be walking by, draped an arm over his shoulder and started to say "Well, it's a long story..."
This tournament was really something special. It really was in a way a celebration of Starcraft. (I must admit that I got choked up at least a half a dozen times while watching) Not to mention that we got another epic Serral-Reynor match. Big thanks to everyone who worked so hard to put this tournament on
I'm probably the 5th biggest Serral fan, but Reynor put up an extremely satisfying show also, performing as well as he did during Blizzcon, if not better. Massive kudos to the Italian teenager for bringing out the best of Serral and himself.
Huge thanks to Dennis Gehlen for his dedication, professionalism, and willingness to listen to members of the community, particularly regarding tournament format. This easily could've been Reynor's trophy if you had stuck with the older, worse grand final format. In fact, the results suggest that that would have been the case.
Morhaime to White-Ra attended in person, while David Kim and MC checked in via internet video. ShoWTimE took home a whopping $2 for winning the 'fastest-one-down-the-waterslide' tournament,
Should be $2K right?
Sad to see PartinG go out so early in the tournament. Was hoping to see him back to his winning ways.
Weird feeling. Never seen generally more calm, happy aftermath reactions of a tournament in the internet. Level of balance whining is down despite Zergs once again stole the show. Serral fans are seemingly collectively feeling little bit shamed for Serral's win because Reynor was so incredibly great and would've very well deserved to win the tournament too by his performances. Terrans and Protosses, and generally all who hate mirror matchups, but particularly ZvZ seems behaving and commenting in way that they all are arrived to the consensus opinion: "ZvZ is soooooooooo ZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZzzzzzz-zzz....., but Serral vs Reynor... that is totally something else". Things probably will change back to "normal" soon enough, but I've never witnessed more serene, friendly, and pleased SC2 community as a whole online before.
That level Great the HSC XX was. We want more, we want more, we want more.... :D
On November 25 2019 17:46 UnLarva wrote: Weird feeling. Never seen generally more calm, happy aftermath reactions of a tournament in the internet. Level of balance whining is down despite Zergs once again stole the show. Serral fans are seemingly collectively feeling little bit shamed for Serral's win because Reynor was so incredibly great and would've very well deserved to win the tournament too by his performances. Terrans and Protosses, and generally all who hate mirror matchups, but particularly ZvZ seems behaving and commenting in way that they all are arrived to the consensus opinion: "ZvZ is soooooooooo ZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZzzzzzz-zzz....., but Serral vs Reynor... that is totally something else". Things probably will change back to "normal" soon enough, but I've never witnessed more serene, friendly, and pleased SC2 community as a whole online before.
That level Great the HSC XX was. We want more, we want more, we want more.... :D
Morhaime to White-Ra attended in person, while David Kim and MC checked in via internet video. ShoWTimE took home a whopping $2 for winning the 'fastest-one-down-the-waterslide' tournament,
Should be $2K right?
Sad to see PartinG go out so early in the tournament. Was hoping to see him back to his winning ways.
Nope. $2.
Watch these two clips, the second one was one of the outros after the tournament:
On November 25 2019 17:46 UnLarva wrote: Weird feeling. Never seen generally more calm, happy aftermath reactions of a tournament in the internet. Level of balance whining is down despite Zergs once again stole the show. Serral fans are seemingly collectively feeling little bit shamed for Serral's win because Reynor was so incredibly great and would've very well deserved to win the tournament too by his performances. Terrans and Protosses, and generally all who hate mirror matchups, but particularly ZvZ seems behaving and commenting in way that they all are arrived to the consensus opinion: "ZvZ is soooooooooo ZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZzzzzzz-zzz....., but Serral vs Reynor... that is totally something else". Things probably will change back to "normal" soon enough, but I've never witnessed more serene, friendly, and pleased SC2 community as a whole online before.
That level Great the HSC XX was. We want more, we want more, we want more.... :D
I did see a bit of whining on the part of some koreaboos and general balance whiners, but yeah all in all the results were pretty non-controversial. I'm also still a bit disappointed by the lack of respect and recognition Reynor deserves. Well, no wonder there's a lack of fresh blood; here's a guy not even old enough to vote, and he's wreaking havoc upon some of the best—and hardly anyone acknowledges him as top 10 in the world. Maybe the community doesn't deserve to see new SC2 talents.
What a performance from the top two especially, although Mana’s run was also nice to see, what a tournament. I shall ensure I have a valid passport for the next one.
While focus tends to be on the head to head with Serral, for me the significant factor from the past while is Reynor is starting to smack down good Koreans consistently outside of mirror, which bodes well for the future of the rivalry too. Katowice hype for me was already almost at breaking point but now has upped it even more.
Man, what an event. Hard to even put in words. I'll probably regret forever not attending this, but watching it all is the next best thing, I guess. Anyways, thanks to everyone involved for making it possible - fantastic work!
It was mentioned during the finals, but I have to agree with the point that Reynor actually looked more dangerous than Serral on average during the tournament for the first time (to me at least), which is pretty fucking scary. Glad we have such a rivalry going on (and with games such as these, who can complain about ZvZ?).
I was half expecting Dark to be flown in via an airship blasting the Imperial March after the Grand Finals to take on the winner... but I guess TaKe had to leave a bit of room to grow.
On November 25 2019 17:46 UnLarva wrote: Weird feeling. Never seen generally more calm, happy aftermath reactions of a tournament in the internet. Level of balance whining is down despite Zergs once again stole the show. Serral fans are seemingly collectively feeling little bit shamed for Serral's win because Reynor was so incredibly great and would've very well deserved to win the tournament too by his performances. Terrans and Protosses, and generally all who hate mirror matchups, but particularly ZvZ seems behaving and commenting in way that they all are arrived to the consensus opinion: "ZvZ is soooooooooo ZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZzzzzzz-zzz....., but Serral vs Reynor... that is totally something else". Things probably will change back to "normal" soon enough, but I've never witnessed more serene, friendly, and pleased SC2 community as a whole online before.
That level Great the HSC XX was. We want more, we want more, we want more.... :D
I did see a bit of whining on the part of some koreaboos and general balance whiners, but yeah all in all the results were pretty non-controversial. I'm also still a bit disappointed by the lack of respect and recognition Reynor deserves. Well, no wonder there's a lack of fresh blood; here's a guy not even old enough to vote, and he's wreaking havoc upon some of the best—and hardly anyone acknowledges him as top 10 in the world. Maybe the community doesn't deserve to see new SC2 talents.
Indeed. Reynor doesn't get enough love he deserves. Someone, somewhere in the reddit commented that there haven't ever been more accomplished 17 years old player in SC-scene. At least now its pretty clear that if there was long period of time when Serral was considered as "Bottle neck" and "Ultimate test" for all players trying to win a top tournament, now there are two bottle necks and tests one must pass to get to the goal.
Together as training partners and friends they form so tight bottle neck that saying like "Going full foreigner" get new meaning these days. You really have to go 'full foreigner' to get past that test in the future, Top Koreans included. Together they can bring the game, ZvZ especially, to the new, unprecedented, stratospheric layers of existence. They are each others best patch to get adapted.
As Serral fan, I honestly think that Reynor's potential top ceiling is at higher level than Serral's, and saying that with rather high feelings of confidence too. Reynor deserves all the love and hype he can get. The Real SC2 prodigy he is.
On November 25 2019 19:31 digmouse wrote: Side question: were they playing with the balance test mod, or is there just an option in custom games now?
They made an extra mod for it, if I recall correctly (to have all the new changes + the correct observer UI).
Yeah, exactly, because they used that "HSC-Mod" they could even fix a bug overnight. IIrc it had something to do with the BC stun while tactical jump is loading
On November 25 2019 19:31 digmouse wrote: Side question: were they playing with the balance test mod, or is there just an option in custom games now?
They made an extra mod for it, if I recall correctly (to have all the new changes + the correct observer UI).
Yeah, exactly, because they used that "HSC-Mod" they could even fix a bug overnight. IIrc it had something to do with the BC stun while tactical jump is loading
It was significantly more severe than that, abducts would just put BC tactical jump on cool down, regardless of whether it was being used at all or in stun mode.
I regret no going so much right now, just because my vacation budget for this year was all used up already but I should have gone anyway full YOLO mode :D
Last 8 matches on the tournament, where is supossed to have the best level of play, almost everything is 3-0 from the zerg side. Maybe is the most entertaining matchup but thinking that Serral and Reynor are there Only for their skills is probably the best example of lack of game knowledge.
I mean, at a level of play of innovation or Trap, look like there´s nothing they can do to win a single game (Inno done it once), it´s clearly a problem of balance, design or whatever...
On November 25 2019 21:42 EESCLuna wrote: Last 8 matches on the tournament, where is supossed to have the best level of play, almost everything is 3-0 from the zerg side. Maybe is the most entertaining matchup but thinking that Serral and Reynor are there Only for their skills is probably the best example of lack of game knowledge.
I mean, at a level of play of innovation or Trap, look like there´s nothing they can do to win a single game (Inno done it once), it´s clearly a problem of balance, design or whatever...
I even miss WCS without region lock...
Your comment exemplifies the dunning kruger effect pretty much perfectly. Zest took out solar 3-1 and soO 2-0; and Trap beat solar 2-0. So, you have a pretty funny definition of "almost everything." Inno was almost even with Serral in maps. But you're apparently overflowing with game knowledge though, so you at least have that going for ya.
A great event and the first time we had a full non korean final since koreans were invited in significant numbers.
Reynor actually looked as scary in this event as he is in WCS, annihilating Innovation and Zest(especially against the latter Reynor looked better than Serral, if Zest didn't hesitate he would have probably been up 2-1 in the three maps they played); coupled with his performance at BlizzCon, I think we are safe to say he is a top player right now, certainly top 10 material.
I was glad to see Clem playing competitive series against koreans, even if he lost. I hope he will keep improving along with the new wave of uprising players like Astrea, Future, Goblin and Skillous.
Any pro's talking about balance after the event? Toss looks pretty weak against zerg in every stage of the game Or maybe toss nowadays are weak players?
On November 25 2019 22:45 samAel1 wrote: Any pro's talking about balance after the event? Toss looks pretty weak against zerg in every stage of the game Or maybe toss nowadays are weak players?
We just had a pretty major balance patch and big Zerg nerfs were most of that. Pros are probably feeling out the new meta before judging after one tournament.
On November 25 2019 16:17 tigon_ridge wrote: Huge thanks to Dennis Gehlen for his dedication, professionalism, and willingness to listen to members of the community, particularly regarding tournament format. This easily could've been Reynor's trophy if you had stuck with the older, worse grand final format. In fact, the results suggest that that would have been the case.
This is only really true since Reynor wins 1 game before Serral wins the last two, had it been the old format, but with a bo9 instead it would've panned out the exact same as it did today. I think bo9 is rly smth we should do a lot more in SC2.
That said, I think the new format is actually horrible in all of the cases where Serral does not go 3:2. Reynor can win 3:0 and Grand Finals is over that's horrible. Serral can win 3:0 the first series, then lose 2-1, he would've gone 4-2, but lost. That is a travesty, I hope they don't stick to this format.
Extended Series is a meme, but it rly does make sense, though it's probably a lot easier to just go with the 1-0 favour for winners bracket winner.
On November 25 2019 22:45 samAel1 wrote: Any pro's talking about balance after the event? Toss looks pretty weak against zerg in every stage of the game Or maybe toss nowadays are weak players?
There are rather comprehensive lists already in the net for why exactly all kind balance whining is absolutely too premature concerning still yet oncoming patch and the results of this particular tournament. Worth to go, seek and check yourself.
Not the first time I say this, but sooner the ladder and all tournaments start force players play as Random in top level competitive scene, sooner we get rid of most of unconstructive balance crying, and sooner we all (= The whole CS2 scene) will get more objective perception whom are the best players of the game.
For some mysterious reasons, that approach seems to be rather unpopular even if it would be most easiest way to balance things properly, permanently, and constructively. As If every player must learn play with every races, possible technical balance issues will get rendered out of considerations with that arrangement.
The real universal SC2 skill and talent would be easy to see and determine, by all. In circumstances of diminishing resources and input to the game by Blizzard Inc. it is highly questionable can they ever fix the balance to a point it would be statistically even over whole scene in every matchups and levels of competition before a grey corporate exec just decide "Ok. that's about that. That shall be the abandonware version of SC2". Such version will likely be left unbalanced in various ways. In that case long term problematics just fade a way if everyone play Random.
This tournament was impressive and epic in every way possible. New standard for SC2 tournament for the future.
On November 25 2019 22:45 samAel1 wrote: Any pro's talking about balance after the event? Toss looks pretty weak against zerg in every stage of the game Or maybe toss nowadays are weak players?
There are rather comprehensive lists already in the net for why exactly all kind balance whining is absolutely too premature concerning still yet oncoming patch and the results of this particular tournament. Worth to go, seek and check yourself.
Not the first time I say this, but sooner the ladder and all tournaments start force players play as Random in top level competitive scene, sooner we get rid of most of unconstructive balance crying, and sooner we all (= The whole CS2 scene) will get more objective perception whom are the best players of the game.
For some mysterious reasons, that approach seems to be rather unpopular even if it would be most easiest way to balance things properly, permanently, and constructively. As If every player must learn play with every races, possible technical balance issues will get rendered out of considerations with that arrangement.
The real universal SC2 skill and talent would be easy to see and determine, by all. In circumstances of diminishing resources and input to the game by Blizzard Inc. it is highly questionable can they ever fix the balance to a point it would be statistically even over whole scene in every matchups and levels of competition before a grey corporate exec just deside "Ok. that's about that. That shall be the abandonware version of SC2". Such version will likely be left unbalanced in various ways. In that case long term problematics just fade a way if everyone play Random.
This tournament was impressive and epic in every way possible. New standard for SC2 tournament for the future.
Very interesting point of view.
From my side, as I play as low diamond toss game isnt unbalanced (even thought I always loose to late game mech, Im not crying about that ) but when Im watching pros late game PvZ... Its really painful to watch bl-corr-inf-n-shit in every high level game beating toss like a b*tch Im out of ideas how to balance it tho
On November 25 2019 22:45 samAel1 wrote: Any pro's talking about balance after the event? Toss looks pretty weak against zerg in every stage of the game Or maybe toss nowadays are weak players?
There are rather comprehensive lists already in the net for why exactly all kind balance whining is absolutely too premature concerning still yet oncoming patch and the results of this particular tournament. Worth to go, seek and check yourself.
Not the first time I say this, but sooner the ladder and all tournaments start force players play as Random in top level competitive scene, sooner we get rid of most of unconstructive balance crying, and sooner we all (= The whole CS2 scene) will get more objective perception whom are the best players of the game.
For some mysterious reasons, that approach seems to be rather unpopular even if it would be most easiest way to balance things properly, permanently, and constructively. As If every player must learn play with every races, possible technical balance issues will get rendered out of considerations with that arrangement.
The real universal SC2 skill and talent would be easy to see and determine, by all. In circumstances of diminishing resources and input to the game by Blizzard Inc. it is highly questionable can they ever fix the balance to a point it would be statistically even over whole scene in every matchups and levels of competition before a grey corporate exec just deside "Ok. that's about that. That shall be the abandonware version of SC2". Such version will likely be left unbalanced in various ways. In that case long term problematics just fade a way if everyone play Random.
This tournament was impressive and epic in every way possible. New standard for SC2 tournament for the future.
Very interesting point of view.
From my side, as I play as low diamond toss game isnt unbalanced (even thought I always loose to late game mech, Im not crying about that ) but when Im watching pros late game PvZ... Its really painful to watch bl-corr-inf-n-shit in every high level game beating toss like a b*tch Im out of ideas how to balance it tho
But then, if one race was perceived as better than the other 2, and as an exanple, a player in a bo3 got lucky and with it for 2 or 3 times ina row - and his adversary didn't, people would say that the series was won out of luck and not skill.
True. But then there could be also different kind tournament brackets and arrangements in the ladder to remedy these kind "luck"/RNG related things. For example a groups of a tournament would be smaller for allowing more games between players for that they must play mirrors against each other from both sides of that matchup, as example. Or on Ladder, for example, if "luck" makes you play 'too much' Protoss, then your chance to get Protoss for next game is lowered accordingly.
Its certainly easier to fix any tournament bracket system than it is to fix technical balance issues arising from the coding of the game.
On November 25 2019 22:45 samAel1 wrote: Any pro's talking about balance after the event? Toss looks pretty weak against zerg in every stage of the game Or maybe toss nowadays are weak players?
There are rather comprehensive lists already in the net for why exactly all kind balance whining is absolutely too premature concerning still yet oncoming patch and the results of this particular tournament. Worth to go, seek and check yourself.
Not the first time I say this, but sooner the ladder and all tournaments start force players play as Random in top level competitive scene, sooner we get rid of most of unconstructive balance crying, and sooner we all (= The whole CS2 scene) will get more objective perception whom are the best players of the game.
For some mysterious reasons, that approach seems to be rather unpopular even if it would be most easiest way to balance things properly, permanently, and constructively. As If every player must learn play with every races, possible technical balance issues will get rendered out of considerations with that arrangement.
The real universal SC2 skill and talent would be easy to see and determine, by all. In circumstances of diminishing resources and input to the game by Blizzard Inc. it is highly questionable can they ever fix the balance to a point it would be statistically even over whole scene in every matchups and levels of competition before a grey corporate exec just deside "Ok. that's about that. That shall be the abandonware version of SC2". Such version will likely be left unbalanced in various ways. In that case long term problematics just fade a way if everyone play Random.
This tournament was impressive and epic in every way possible. New standard for SC2 tournament for the future.
Very interesting point of view.
From my side, as I play as low diamond toss game isnt unbalanced (even thought I always loose to late game mech, Im not crying about that ) but when Im watching pros late game PvZ... Its really painful to watch bl-corr-inf-n-shit in every high level game beating toss like a b*tch Im out of ideas how to balance it tho
Well, these are the late game tier 3 units of Zerg... I feel most of the games were not won cause of the army clash but also what was going on everywhere. Serral and Reynor defended runbys almost perfectly every time while doing damage with ling/ bling/ roach squads themselves and slowly sucked the life from their opponents. Don't forget Zerg invest HEEEEAAAAVY into static defense while Protoss and Terran skip out on those very often. Imagine a Protoss builds 40+ canons and shield batteries on the front and in defense of runbys like Zerg do with Spores and Spines
Congrats to Serral, and for Reynor for such an amazing performance. Shame I missed this, sounded like it was awesome. Here's to a fantastic 2020 for SC2!.
What a great show! Wish to go there some time in the future. Congratulations for Serral and Raynor for taking the top spots!
To the small minority who whine about Zerg, remember that Serral and Raynor are amazing players. The other Zergs did not do well, except for soO but really it's soO he is one of the greatest and most consistent of all time. Raynor and Serral were the best players this tournament and in a balanced patch it makes sense that they meet in the finals. As a terran player I'd love for a terran player to be the best, but that just isn't the case right now.
Look at the top of the groups: 4 Zerg, 6 Terran, 6 Protoss. In a tournament with 11 Zergs, 12 Terran and 9 Protoss. 50% of Terran made it to the play offs, 67% of Protoss and 36% of Zergs. Terran has a winning% vs Zerg in this tournament (52%) and protoss is almost exactly equal.
And to the Korean elitists, you don't have to worry! Koreans smashed this tournament except for Serral and Raynor. Don't worry about them falling off, there are only two that can consistently challenge them (let's be real, Bunny falling out in group stages isn't an indication of anything).
So everyone can be happy, Serral and Raynor fanboys, Balance whiners, Korean elitists and the community at large! :-)
The was the most special tournament I have been to in 10 years of going to SC2 events. I am so happy that I got to be part of HSC and this HSCXX especially. What an amazing celebration of Starcraft and this amazing community.
I have no particular complains about Bo5 / Bo5+Bo3 system when using double elimination. It's much better than just +1 map for a Winner brackets winner in the finals. After all a loser finalist was already 'eliminated' once when he drops to the losers bracket. Elimimated player really need/should/must reset the score before he can reach to the final, deciding games. No problems what ever with that, but for ensuring that really best players in the tournament will reach to Ro4, there should be more internal 'control' in how many ways that can happen, IMO.
Is there any realistic (by time constraints set by the reality itself and players, audiences, and tournament organisers' well-being) ways to make it so that there would be a chance for a loser bracket player to rise to the winner bracket by their game performances during a tournament? Already eliminated player could for example rise back to upper bracket if winning 2 or 3 consecutive matches, but having to match against the dropping player (at that latest moment someone drops) in Bo1 or Bo3? That would mean also something in the lower bracket then if once eliminated dropping player happens to lose to that uprising consecutive loser bracket winner. Maybe something like direct swap with the worst loser bracket player measured by map score in their entirety that far in that tournament. Loser would just drop out of contention (even if being a winner of his/hers last match) in that case.
The point of these thoughts is to seek a format that maximize the likelihood for best players being in last matches of the tournament, allowing more chances for tactical throws short term to get as far as possible, but also making it possible to recover from a one bad match or sub-par group performance that put a player to lower bracket, before the finals.
Current system is fine overall, but it potentially makes a player who loses his/hers first playoffs match look much more accomplished if he/she manage to make it to the finals, than player who made an uninterrupted, but considerably shorter upper bracket winning streak into the finals.
That's how I see Serral's meta endgame now. It was not that bad decision to throw a series against Inno if that can help to avoid meeting Reynor too soon, lol. For Note, that was same meta strategy Maru has used in the past in his apparent fear of Serral, tho failing in it this far.
On November 26 2019 01:36 UnLarva wrote: I have no particular complains about Bo5 / Bo5+Bo3 system when using double elimination. It's much better than just +1 map for a Winner brackets winner in the finals. After all a loser finalist was already 'eliminated' once when he drops to the losers bracket. Elimimated player really need/should/must reset the score before he can reach to the final, deciding games. No problems what ever with that, but for ensuring that really best players in the tournament will reach to Ro4, there should be more internal 'control' in how many ways that can happen, IMO.
Is there any realistic (by time constraints set by the reality itself and players, audiences, and tournament organisers' well-being) ways to make it so that there would be a chance for a loser bracket player to rise to the winner bracket by their game performances during a tournament? Already eliminated player could for example rise back to upper bracket if winning 2 or 3 consecutive matches, but having to match against the dropping player (at that latest moment someone drops) in Bo1 or Bo3? That would mean also something in the lower bracket then if once eliminated dropping player happens to lose to that uprising consecutive loser bracket winner. Maybe something like direct swap with the worst loser bracket player measured by map score in their entirety that far in that tournament. Loser would just drop out of contention (even if being a winner of his/hers last match) in that case.
The point of these thoughts is to seek a format that maximize the likelihood for best players being in last matches of the tournament, allowing more chances for tactical throws short term to get as far as possible, but also making it possible to recover from a one bad match or sub-par group performance that put a player to lower bracket, before the finals.
Current system is fine overall, but it potentially makes a player who loses his/hers first playoffs match look much more accomplished if he/she manage to make it to the finals, than player who made an uninterrupted, but considerably shorter upper bracket winning streak into the finals.
That's how I see Serral's meta endgame now. It was not that bad decision to throw a series against Inno if that can help to avoid meeting Reynor too soon, lol. For Note, that was same meta strategy Maru has used in the past in his apparent fear of Serral, tho failing in it this far.
Elimination brackets are never going to be 100% "fair". If you want the "right" order for every single player, you need a giant round robin group, probably with each player facing each other multiple times. Like in German soccer there is an league (=giant round robin group) and a cup (=single elimination bracket) wich are two completly different formats. A giant round robin group would just not work that well as a SC2 tournament. Blizz tried that with WCS Winter this year and the comunity over all wasn t that happy. I still remember, that Reynor got straight in the final by finishing 1st in the round robin and everyone was complaining, that there were no built up for that.
On November 26 2019 01:36 UnLarva wrote: I have no particular complains about Bo5 / Bo5+Bo3 system when using double elimination. It's much better than just +1 map for a Winner brackets winner in the finals. After all a loser finalist was already 'eliminated' once when he drops to the losers bracket. Elimimated player really need/should/must reset the score before he can reach to the final, deciding games. No problems what ever with that, but for ensuring that really best players in the tournament will reach to Ro4, there should be more internal 'control' in how many ways that can happen, IMO.
Is there any realistic (by time constraints set by the reality itself and players, audiences, and tournament organisers' well-being) ways to make it so that there would be a chance for a loser bracket player to rise to the winner bracket by their game performances during a tournament? Already eliminated player could for example rise back to upper bracket if winning 2 or 3 consecutive matches, but having to match against the dropping player (at that latest moment someone drops) in Bo1 or Bo3? That would mean also something in the lower bracket then if once eliminated dropping player happens to lose to that uprising consecutive loser bracket winner. Maybe something like direct swap with the worst loser bracket player measured by map score in their entirety that far in that tournament. Loser would just drop out of contention (even if being a winner of his/hers last match) in that case.
The point of these thoughts is to seek a format that maximize the likelihood for best players being in last matches of the tournament, allowing more chances for tactical throws short term to get as far as possible, but also making it possible to recover from a one bad match or sub-par group performance that put a player to lower bracket, before the finals.
Current system is fine overall, but it potentially makes a player who loses his/hers first playoffs match look much more accomplished if he/she manage to make it to the finals, than player who made an uninterrupted, but considerably shorter upper bracket winning streak into the finals.
That's how I see Serral's meta endgame now. It was not that bad decision to throw a series against Inno if that can help to avoid meeting Reynor too soon, lol. For Note, that was same meta strategy Maru has used in the past in his apparent fear of Serral, tho failing in it this far.
Elimination brackets are never going to be 100% "fair". If you want the "right" order for every single player, you need a giant round robin group, probably with each player facing each other multiple times. Like in German soccer there is an league (=giant round robin group) and a cup (=single elimination bracket) wich are two completly different formats. A giant round robin group would just not work that well as a SC2 tournament. Blizz tried that with WCS Winter this year and the comunity over all wasn t that happy. I still remember, that Reynor got straight in the final by finishing 1st in the round robin and everyone was complaining, that there were no built up for that.
I really liked that format, though. Oh, well... People prefer drama and excitement over substance, unfortunately.
On November 26 2019 01:36 UnLarva wrote: I have no particular complains about Bo5 / Bo5+Bo3 system when using double elimination. It's much better than just +1 map for a Winner brackets winner in the finals. After all a loser finalist was already 'eliminated' once when he drops to the losers bracket. Elimimated player really need/should/must reset the score before he can reach to the final, deciding games. No problems what ever with that, but for ensuring that really best players in the tournament will reach to Ro4, there should be more internal 'control' in how many ways that can happen, IMO.
Is there any realistic (by time constraints set by the reality itself and players, audiences, and tournament organisers' well-being) ways to make it so that there would be a chance for a loser bracket player to rise to the winner bracket by their game performances during a tournament? Already eliminated player could for example rise back to upper bracket if winning 2 or 3 consecutive matches, but having to match against the dropping player (at that latest moment someone drops) in Bo1 or Bo3? That would mean also something in the lower bracket then if once eliminated dropping player happens to lose to that uprising consecutive loser bracket winner. Maybe something like direct swap with the worst loser bracket player measured by map score in their entirety that far in that tournament. Loser would just drop out of contention (even if being a winner of his/hers last match) in that case.
The point of these thoughts is to seek a format that maximize the likelihood for best players being in last matches of the tournament, allowing more chances for tactical throws short term to get as far as possible, but also making it possible to recover from a one bad match or sub-par group performance that put a player to lower bracket, before the finals.
Current system is fine overall, but it potentially makes a player who loses his/hers first playoffs match look much more accomplished if he/she manage to make it to the finals, than player who made an uninterrupted, but considerably shorter upper bracket winning streak into the finals.
That's how I see Serral's meta endgame now. It was not that bad decision to throw a series against Inno if that can help to avoid meeting Reynor too soon, lol. For Note, that was same meta strategy Maru has used in the past in his apparent fear of Serral, tho failing in it this far.
Elimination brackets are never going to be 100% "fair". If you want the "right" order for every single player, you need a giant round robin group, probably with each player facing each other multiple times. Like in German soccer there is an league (=giant round robin group) and a cup (=single elimination bracket) wich are two completly different formats. A giant round robin group would just not work that well as a SC2 tournament. Blizz tried that with WCS Winter this year and the comunity over all wasn t that happy. I still remember, that Reynor got straight in the final by finishing 1st in the round robin and everyone was complaining, that there were no built up for that.
I really liked that format, though. Oh, well... People prefer drama and excitement over substance, unfortunately.
I really really like that format too, and I loath artificial drama (not counting moments of pathological drunkenness). For me it all is pretty much about the defense of that substance, and the integrity of the talent against bullshitters and cying-for-vainers. Structures, habits, customs, and conventions can be easily chanced to UN-support those ill-spirited phenoms and perpetual whiners, but this require that people clearly recognize where and whom are carrying that substance, and what are general out-of-game frameworks that can even theoretically happen. In-game.
On November 26 2019 00:58 Facenapalm wrote: Guys, what about HuK's Best Game Award? Are we supposed to vote for the best game? If so, when and where can I vote?
They are still choosing some of the best games and then they will share how the community can vote on social media soon!
On November 26 2019 01:36 UnLarva wrote: I have no particular complains about Bo5 / Bo5+Bo3 system when using double elimination. It's much better than just +1 map for a Winner brackets winner in the finals. After all a loser finalist was already 'eliminated' once when he drops to the losers bracket. Elimimated player really need/should/must reset the score before he can reach to the final, deciding games. No problems what ever with that, but for ensuring that really best players in the tournament will reach to Ro4, there should be more internal 'control' in how many ways that can happen, IMO.
Is there any realistic (by time constraints set by the reality itself and players, audiences, and tournament organisers' well-being) ways to make it so that there would be a chance for a loser bracket player to rise to the winner bracket by their game performances during a tournament? Already eliminated player could for example rise back to upper bracket if winning 2 or 3 consecutive matches, but having to match against the dropping player (at that latest moment someone drops) in Bo1 or Bo3? That would mean also something in the lower bracket then if once eliminated dropping player happens to lose to that uprising consecutive loser bracket winner. Maybe something like direct swap with the worst loser bracket player measured by map score in their entirety that far in that tournament. Loser would just drop out of contention (even if being a winner of his/hers last match) in that case.
The point of these thoughts is to seek a format that maximize the likelihood for best players being in last matches of the tournament, allowing more chances for tactical throws short term to get as far as possible, but also making it possible to recover from a one bad match or sub-par group performance that put a player to lower bracket, before the finals.
Current system is fine overall, but it potentially makes a player who loses his/hers first playoffs match look much more accomplished if he/she manage to make it to the finals, than player who made an uninterrupted, but considerably shorter upper bracket winning streak into the finals.
That's how I see Serral's meta endgame now. It was not that bad decision to throw a series against Inno if that can help to avoid meeting Reynor too soon, lol. For Note, that was same meta strategy Maru has used in the past in his apparent fear of Serral, tho failing in it this far.
Elimination brackets are never going to be 100% "fair". If you want the "right" order for every single player, you need a giant round robin group, probably with each player facing each other multiple times. Like in German soccer there is an league (=giant round robin group) and a cup (=single elimination bracket) wich are two completly different formats. A giant round robin group would just not work that well as a SC2 tournament. Blizz tried that with WCS Winter this year and the comunity over all wasn t that happy. I still remember, that Reynor got straight in the final by finishing 1st in the round robin and everyone was complaining, that there were no built up for that.
I really liked that format, though. Oh, well... People prefer drama and excitement over substance, unfortunately.
I really really like that format too, and I loath artificial drama (not counting moments of pathological drunkenness). For me it all is pretty much about the defense of that substance, and the integrity of the talent against bullshitters and cying-for-vainers. Structures, habits, customs, and conventions can be easily chanced to UN-support those ill-spirited phenoms and perpetual whiners, but this require that people clearly recognize where and whom are carrying that substance, and what are general out-of-game frameworks that can even theoretically happen. In-game.
HSC XXI should go random.
Sorry, I got completely lost after your first sentence...
On November 26 2019 01:36 UnLarva wrote: I have no particular complains about Bo5 / Bo5+Bo3 system when using double elimination. It's much better than just +1 map for a Winner brackets winner in the finals. After all a loser finalist was already 'eliminated' once when he drops to the losers bracket. Elimimated player really need/should/must reset the score before he can reach to the final, deciding games. No problems what ever with that, but for ensuring that really best players in the tournament will reach to Ro4, there should be more internal 'control' in how many ways that can happen, IMO.
Is there any realistic (by time constraints set by the reality itself and players, audiences, and tournament organisers' well-being) ways to make it so that there would be a chance for a loser bracket player to rise to the winner bracket by their game performances during a tournament? Already eliminated player could for example rise back to upper bracket if winning 2 or 3 consecutive matches, but having to match against the dropping player (at that latest moment someone drops) in Bo1 or Bo3? That would mean also something in the lower bracket then if once eliminated dropping player happens to lose to that uprising consecutive loser bracket winner. Maybe something like direct swap with the worst loser bracket player measured by map score in their entirety that far in that tournament. Loser would just drop out of contention (even if being a winner of his/hers last match) in that case.
The point of these thoughts is to seek a format that maximize the likelihood for best players being in last matches of the tournament, allowing more chances for tactical throws short term to get as far as possible, but also making it possible to recover from a one bad match or sub-par group performance that put a player to lower bracket, before the finals.
Current system is fine overall, but it potentially makes a player who loses his/hers first playoffs match look much more accomplished if he/she manage to make it to the finals, than player who made an uninterrupted, but considerably shorter upper bracket winning streak into the finals.
That's how I see Serral's meta endgame now. It was not that bad decision to throw a series against Inno if that can help to avoid meeting Reynor too soon, lol. For Note, that was same meta strategy Maru has used in the past in his apparent fear of Serral, tho failing in it this far.
Elimination brackets are never going to be 100% "fair". If you want the "right" order for every single player, you need a giant round robin group, probably with each player facing each other multiple times. Like in German soccer there is an league (=giant round robin group) and a cup (=single elimination bracket) wich are two completly different formats. A giant round robin group would just not work that well as a SC2 tournament. Blizz tried that with WCS Winter this year and the comunity over all wasn t that happy. I still remember, that Reynor got straight in the final by finishing 1st in the round robin and everyone was complaining, that there were no built up for that.
I really liked that format, though. Oh, well... People prefer drama and excitement over substance, unfortunately.
I really really like that format too, and I loath artificial drama (not counting moments of pathological drunkenness). For me it all is pretty much about the defense of that substance, and the integrity of the talent against bullshitters and cying-for-vainers. Structures, habits, customs, and conventions can be easily chanced to UN-support those ill-spirited phenoms and perpetual whiners, but this require that people clearly recognize where and whom are carrying that substance, and what are general out-of-game frameworks that can even theoretically happen. In-game.
HSC XXI should go random.
Sorry, I got completely lost after your first sentence...
Lol. Only in 6-cans-upmood.
Risking now against potential spamming, and not going to repeat what I think about 'Randomness' of future SC2.
In all scenarios where you have 3 options to play with, you will fare well against specialists of only 1 option. Damn, you need do only above average with all 3 options to be statistically better than any of 1-option specialist. If you can handle with one option at top level, and you're very good with two other options as well, your chances against average agents of mediocrity are very good. If you must choose one option in a circumstances where all options are intimately interrelated, its impossible to reach the peak level performances in any of those 3 options without knowing also 2 others.
The Case of a SC2 player's trilemma. Currently. Why not set it as default?
Those are best players of SC2 that can handle with that trilemma best, knowing all out-of-preferred-race strats, paradigms, meta, history, legends, tricks, wibes and jives...
Its huge mental leap, like armstrongs on moons, but its also most obvious leap to be taken in this era of twilight of Blizzard back up'd game of SC2.
Go random now, thank yourself later you did it then.
On November 26 2019 01:36 UnLarva wrote: I have no particular complains about Bo5 / Bo5+Bo3 system when using double elimination. It's much better than just +1 map for a Winner brackets winner in the finals. After all a loser finalist was already 'eliminated' once when he drops to the losers bracket. Elimimated player really need/should/must reset the score before he can reach to the final, deciding games. No problems what ever with that, but for ensuring that really best players in the tournament will reach to Ro4, there should be more internal 'control' in how many ways that can happen, IMO.
Is there any realistic (by time constraints set by the reality itself and players, audiences, and tournament organisers' well-being) ways to make it so that there would be a chance for a loser bracket player to rise to the winner bracket by their game performances during a tournament? Already eliminated player could for example rise back to upper bracket if winning 2 or 3 consecutive matches, but having to match against the dropping player (at that latest moment someone drops) in Bo1 or Bo3? That would mean also something in the lower bracket then if once eliminated dropping player happens to lose to that uprising consecutive loser bracket winner. Maybe something like direct swap with the worst loser bracket player measured by map score in their entirety that far in that tournament. Loser would just drop out of contention (even if being a winner of his/hers last match) in that case.
The point of these thoughts is to seek a format that maximize the likelihood for best players being in last matches of the tournament, allowing more chances for tactical throws short term to get as far as possible, but also making it possible to recover from a one bad match or sub-par group performance that put a player to lower bracket, before the finals.
Current system is fine overall, but it potentially makes a player who loses his/hers first playoffs match look much more accomplished if he/she manage to make it to the finals, than player who made an uninterrupted, but considerably shorter upper bracket winning streak into the finals.
That's how I see Serral's meta endgame now. It was not that bad decision to throw a series against Inno if that can help to avoid meeting Reynor too soon, lol. For Note, that was same meta strategy Maru has used in the past in his apparent fear of Serral, tho failing in it this far.
Elimination brackets are never going to be 100% "fair". If you want the "right" order for every single player, you need a giant round robin group, probably with each player facing each other multiple times. Like in German soccer there is an league (=giant round robin group) and a cup (=single elimination bracket) wich are two completly different formats. A giant round robin group would just not work that well as a SC2 tournament. Blizz tried that with WCS Winter this year and the comunity over all wasn t that happy. I still remember, that Reynor got straight in the final by finishing 1st in the round robin and everyone was complaining, that there were no built up for that.
I really liked that format, though. Oh, well... People prefer drama and excitement over substance, unfortunately.
I really really like that format too, and I loath artificial drama (not counting moments of pathological drunkenness). For me it all is pretty much about the defense of that substance, and the integrity of the talent against bullshitters and cying-for-vainers. Structures, habits, customs, and conventions can be easily chanced to UN-support those ill-spirited phenoms and perpetual whiners, but this require that people clearly recognize where and whom are carrying that substance, and what are general out-of-game frameworks that can even theoretically happen. In-game.
HSC XXI should go random.
Sorry, I got completely lost after your first sentence...
Lol. Only in 6-cans-upmood.
Risking now against potential spamming, and not going to repeat what I think about 'Randomness' of future SC2.
In all scenarios where you have 3 options to play with, you will fare well against specialists of only 1 option. Damn, you need do only above average with all 3 options to be statistically better than any of 1-option specialist. If you can handle with one option at top level, and you're very good with two other options as well, your chances against average agents of mediocrity are very good. If you must choose one option in a circumstances where all options are intimately interrelated, its impossible to reach the peak level performances in any of those 3 options without knowing also 2 others.
The Case of a SC2 player's trilemma. Currently. Why not set it as default?
Those are best players of SC2 that can handle with that trilemma best, knowing all out-of-preferred-race strats, paradigms, meta, history, legends, tricks, wibes and jives...
Its huge mental leap, like armstrongs on moons, but its also most obvious leap to be taken in this era of twilight of Blizzard back up'd game of SC2.
Go random now, thank yourself later you did it then.
I'd would like to see Scarlett i this format. Best moment of SC2 for me was she off racing and beating DRG as a Toss.
On November 26 2019 01:36 UnLarva wrote: I have no particular complains about Bo5 / Bo5+Bo3 system when using double elimination. It's much better than just +1 map for a Winner brackets winner in the finals. After all a loser finalist was already 'eliminated' once when he drops to the losers bracket. Elimimated player really need/should/must reset the score before he can reach to the final, deciding games. No problems what ever with that, but for ensuring that really best players in the tournament will reach to Ro4, there should be more internal 'control' in how many ways that can happen, IMO.
Is there any realistic (by time constraints set by the reality itself and players, audiences, and tournament organisers' well-being) ways to make it so that there would be a chance for a loser bracket player to rise to the winner bracket by their game performances during a tournament? Already eliminated player could for example rise back to upper bracket if winning 2 or 3 consecutive matches, but having to match against the dropping player (at that latest moment someone drops) in Bo1 or Bo3? That would mean also something in the lower bracket then if once eliminated dropping player happens to lose to that uprising consecutive loser bracket winner. Maybe something like direct swap with the worst loser bracket player measured by map score in their entirety that far in that tournament. Loser would just drop out of contention (even if being a winner of his/hers last match) in that case.
The point of these thoughts is to seek a format that maximize the likelihood for best players being in last matches of the tournament, allowing more chances for tactical throws short term to get as far as possible, but also making it possible to recover from a one bad match or sub-par group performance that put a player to lower bracket, before the finals.
Current system is fine overall, but it potentially makes a player who loses his/hers first playoffs match look much more accomplished if he/she manage to make it to the finals, than player who made an uninterrupted, but considerably shorter upper bracket winning streak into the finals.
That's how I see Serral's meta endgame now. It was not that bad decision to throw a series against Inno if that can help to avoid meeting Reynor too soon, lol. For Note, that was same meta strategy Maru has used in the past in his apparent fear of Serral, tho failing in it this far.
Elimination brackets are never going to be 100% "fair". If you want the "right" order for every single player, you need a giant round robin group, probably with each player facing each other multiple times. Like in German soccer there is an league (=giant round robin group) and a cup (=single elimination bracket) wich are two completly different formats. A giant round robin group would just not work that well as a SC2 tournament. Blizz tried that with WCS Winter this year and the comunity over all wasn t that happy. I still remember, that Reynor got straight in the final by finishing 1st in the round robin and everyone was complaining, that there were no built up for that.
I really liked that format, though. Oh, well... People prefer drama and excitement over substance, unfortunately.
I really really like that format too, and I loath artificial drama (not counting moments of pathological drunkenness). For me it all is pretty much about the defense of that substance, and the integrity of the talent against bullshitters and cying-for-vainers. Structures, habits, customs, and conventions can be easily chanced to UN-support those ill-spirited phenoms and perpetual whiners, but this require that people clearly recognize where and whom are carrying that substance, and what are general out-of-game frameworks that can even theoretically happen. In-game.
HSC XXI should go random.
Sorry, I got completely lost after your first sentence...
Lol. Only in 6-cans-upmood.
Risking now against potential spamming, and not going to repeat what I think about 'Randomness' of future SC2.
In all scenarios where you have 3 options to play with, you will fare well against specialists of only 1 option. Damn, you need do only above average with all 3 options to be statistically better than any of 1-option specialist. If you can handle with one option at top level, and you're very good with two other options as well, your chances against average agents of mediocrity are very good. If you must choose one option in a circumstances where all options are intimately interrelated, its impossible to reach the peak level performances in any of those 3 options without knowing also 2 others.
The Case of a SC2 player's trilemma. Currently. Why not set it as default?
Those are best players of SC2 that can handle with that trilemma best, knowing all out-of-preferred-race strats, paradigms, meta, history, legends, tricks, wibes and jives...
Its huge mental leap, like armstrongs on moons, but its also most obvious leap to be taken in this era of twilight of Blizzard back up'd game of SC2.
Go random now, thank yourself later you did it then.
Random is trash, I would love the option to ‘roll a random race’ when laddering but really hate actual random gameplay. I hate facing random, I also hate facing others as random.
There’s no amount of strategic improvisation that can overcome the really, really early decisions you have to make and it makes everything horrendously wonky.
On November 26 2019 01:36 UnLarva wrote: I have no particular complains about Bo5 / Bo5+Bo3 system when using double elimination. It's much better than just +1 map for a Winner brackets winner in the finals. After all a loser finalist was already 'eliminated' once when he drops to the losers bracket. Elimimated player really need/should/must reset the score before he can reach to the final, deciding games. No problems what ever with that, but for ensuring that really best players in the tournament will reach to Ro4, there should be more internal 'control' in how many ways that can happen, IMO.
Is there any realistic (by time constraints set by the reality itself and players, audiences, and tournament organisers' well-being) ways to make it so that there would be a chance for a loser bracket player to rise to the winner bracket by their game performances during a tournament? Already eliminated player could for example rise back to upper bracket if winning 2 or 3 consecutive matches, but having to match against the dropping player (at that latest moment someone drops) in Bo1 or Bo3? That would mean also something in the lower bracket then if once eliminated dropping player happens to lose to that uprising consecutive loser bracket winner. Maybe something like direct swap with the worst loser bracket player measured by map score in their entirety that far in that tournament. Loser would just drop out of contention (even if being a winner of his/hers last match) in that case.
The point of these thoughts is to seek a format that maximize the likelihood for best players being in last matches of the tournament, allowing more chances for tactical throws short term to get as far as possible, but also making it possible to recover from a one bad match or sub-par group performance that put a player to lower bracket, before the finals.
Current system is fine overall, but it potentially makes a player who loses his/hers first playoffs match look much more accomplished if he/she manage to make it to the finals, than player who made an uninterrupted, but considerably shorter upper bracket winning streak into the finals.
That's how I see Serral's meta endgame now. It was not that bad decision to throw a series against Inno if that can help to avoid meeting Reynor too soon, lol. For Note, that was same meta strategy Maru has used in the past in his apparent fear of Serral, tho failing in it this far.
Elimination brackets are never going to be 100% "fair". If you want the "right" order for every single player, you need a giant round robin group, probably with each player facing each other multiple times. Like in German soccer there is an league (=giant round robin group) and a cup (=single elimination bracket) wich are two completly different formats. A giant round robin group would just not work that well as a SC2 tournament. Blizz tried that with WCS Winter this year and the comunity over all wasn t that happy. I still remember, that Reynor got straight in the final by finishing 1st in the round robin and everyone was complaining, that there were no built up for that.
I really liked that format, though. Oh, well... People prefer drama and excitement over substance, unfortunately.
I really really like that format too, and I loath artificial drama (not counting moments of pathological drunkenness). For me it all is pretty much about the defense of that substance, and the integrity of the talent against bullshitters and cying-for-vainers. Structures, habits, customs, and conventions can be easily chanced to UN-support those ill-spirited phenoms and perpetual whiners, but this require that people clearly recognize where and whom are carrying that substance, and what are general out-of-game frameworks that can even theoretically happen. In-game.
HSC XXI should go random.
Sorry, I got completely lost after your first sentence...
Lol. Only in 6-cans-upmood.
Risking now against potential spamming, and not going to repeat what I think about 'Randomness' of future SC2.
In all scenarios where you have 3 options to play with, you will fare well against specialists of only 1 option. Damn, you need do only above average with all 3 options to be statistically better than any of 1-option specialist. If you can handle with one option at top level, and you're very good with two other options as well, your chances against average agents of mediocrity are very good. If you must choose one option in a circumstances where all options are intimately interrelated, its impossible to reach the peak level performances in any of those 3 options without knowing also 2 others.
The Case of a SC2 player's trilemma. Currently. Why not set it as default?
Those are best players of SC2 that can handle with that trilemma best, knowing all out-of-preferred-race strats, paradigms, meta, history, legends, tricks, wibes and jives...
Its huge mental leap, like armstrongs on moons, but its also most obvious leap to be taken in this era of twilight of Blizzard back up'd game of SC2.
Go random now, thank yourself later you did it then.
Random is trash, I would love the option to ‘roll a random race’ when laddering but really hate actual random gameplay. I hate facing random, I also hate facing others as random.
There’s no amount of strategic improvisation that can overcome the really, really early decisions you have to make and it makes everything horrendously wonky.
I respect your opinion.
But, in circumstances where every player would be on equal standings race-wise, meta would develop much faster likely being also much more complex. Strats would be discussed much more in-depth because all serious players would get motivational boost to play and test good strats and all variations of them. "Anarchists" could prevail in that kind of meta. Material for new innovations would pile up faster. Whiners could look at a mirror (concrete one, at a wall) then and see only their whining faces staring at them, something that would drastically decrease an amount of stupid spam in all relevant threads and debates. Being bad is not bad thing, you can improve. But you cannot ever improve in anything if you can easily transfer your own fault to elsewhere. In 'All-Random' SC2 future you cannot do that as known imbalances would be known by everyone, and skills and theory needed to adapt to those imbalances would be under discussions, and important part of SC2 meta itself.
Decisions you would make then during early game would still measure something about you as a player of race T, P, or Z. But you couldn't ever just transfer your bad game play decisions to imaginary 'upper level' as they would be faults in the game. Meta itself would accept that there are some faults in the game.
Best understanding of meta across all races would become a deciding factor at the top level SC2 among overall skills of play.
+ Whole competitive scene would be much more cool! Dennis! Make it happen!
On November 26 2019 01:36 UnLarva wrote: I have no particular complains about Bo5 / Bo5+Bo3 system when using double elimination. It's much better than just +1 map for a Winner brackets winner in the finals. After all a loser finalist was already 'eliminated' once when he drops to the losers bracket. Elimimated player really need/should/must reset the score before he can reach to the final, deciding games. No problems what ever with that, but for ensuring that really best players in the tournament will reach to Ro4, there should be more internal 'control' in how many ways that can happen, IMO.
Is there any realistic (by time constraints set by the reality itself and players, audiences, and tournament organisers' well-being) ways to make it so that there would be a chance for a loser bracket player to rise to the winner bracket by their game performances during a tournament? Already eliminated player could for example rise back to upper bracket if winning 2 or 3 consecutive matches, but having to match against the dropping player (at that latest moment someone drops) in Bo1 or Bo3? That would mean also something in the lower bracket then if once eliminated dropping player happens to lose to that uprising consecutive loser bracket winner. Maybe something like direct swap with the worst loser bracket player measured by map score in their entirety that far in that tournament. Loser would just drop out of contention (even if being a winner of his/hers last match) in that case.
The point of these thoughts is to seek a format that maximize the likelihood for best players being in last matches of the tournament, allowing more chances for tactical throws short term to get as far as possible, but also making it possible to recover from a one bad match or sub-par group performance that put a player to lower bracket, before the finals.
Current system is fine overall, but it potentially makes a player who loses his/hers first playoffs match look much more accomplished if he/she manage to make it to the finals, than player who made an uninterrupted, but considerably shorter upper bracket winning streak into the finals.
That's how I see Serral's meta endgame now. It was not that bad decision to throw a series against Inno if that can help to avoid meeting Reynor too soon, lol. For Note, that was same meta strategy Maru has used in the past in his apparent fear of Serral, tho failing in it this far.
Elimination brackets are never going to be 100% "fair". If you want the "right" order for every single player, you need a giant round robin group, probably with each player facing each other multiple times. Like in German soccer there is an league (=giant round robin group) and a cup (=single elimination bracket) wich are two completly different formats. A giant round robin group would just not work that well as a SC2 tournament. Blizz tried that with WCS Winter this year and the comunity over all wasn t that happy. I still remember, that Reynor got straight in the final by finishing 1st in the round robin and everyone was complaining, that there were no built up for that.
I really liked that format, though. Oh, well... People prefer drama and excitement over substance, unfortunately.
I really really like that format too, and I loath artificial drama (not counting moments of pathological drunkenness). For me it all is pretty much about the defense of that substance, and the integrity of the talent against bullshitters and cying-for-vainers. Structures, habits, customs, and conventions can be easily chanced to UN-support those ill-spirited phenoms and perpetual whiners, but this require that people clearly recognize where and whom are carrying that substance, and what are general out-of-game frameworks that can even theoretically happen. In-game.
HSC XXI should go random.
Sorry, I got completely lost after your first sentence...
Lol. Only in 6-cans-upmood.
Risking now against potential spamming, and not going to repeat what I think about 'Randomness' of future SC2.
In all scenarios where you have 3 options to play with, you will fare well against specialists of only 1 option. Damn, you need do only above average with all 3 options to be statistically better than any of 1-option specialist. If you can handle with one option at top level, and you're very good with two other options as well, your chances against average agents of mediocrity are very good. If you must choose one option in a circumstances where all options are intimately interrelated, its impossible to reach the peak level performances in any of those 3 options without knowing also 2 others.
The Case of a SC2 player's trilemma. Currently. Why not set it as default?
Those are best players of SC2 that can handle with that trilemma best, knowing all out-of-preferred-race strats, paradigms, meta, history, legends, tricks, wibes and jives...
Its huge mental leap, like armstrongs on moons, but its also most obvious leap to be taken in this era of twilight of Blizzard back up'd game of SC2.
Go random now, thank yourself later you did it then.
Random is trash, I would love the option to ‘roll a random race’ when laddering but really hate actual random gameplay. I hate facing random, I also hate facing others as random.
There’s no amount of strategic improvisation that can overcome the really, really early decisions you have to make and it makes everything horrendously wonky.
I respect your opinion.
But, in circumstances where every player would be on equal standings race-wise, meta would develop much faster likely being also much more complex. Strats would be discussed much more in-depth because all serious players would get motivational boost to play and test good strats and all variations of them. "Anarchists" could prevail in that kind of meta. Material for new innovations would pile up faster. Whiners could look at a mirror (concrete on, at a wall) then and see only their whining faces staring at them, something that would drastically decrease an amount of stupid spam in all relevant threads and debates. Being bad is not bad thing, you can improve. But you cannot ever improve in anything if you can easily transfer your own fault to elsewhere. In 'All-Random' SC2 future you cannot do that as known imbalances would be known by everyone, and skills and theory needed to adapt to those imbalances would be under discussions, and important part of SC2 meta itself.
Decisions you would make then during early game would still measure something about you as a player of race T, P, or Z. But you couldn't ever just transfer your bad game play decisions to imaginary 'upper level' as they would be faults in the game. Meta itself would accept that there some faults in the game.
Best understanding of meta across all races would become a deciding factor at the top level SC2 among overall skills of play.
You can absolutely do that, my desire is for the option to roll random but your opponent to know what race you’re playing, then you can really test yourself across all three races.
I don’t think random where the random is unknown advances anything really.
Regardless of how creative you are, you need to wall against Zerg and you need that pylon down really early to do so. Before you scout, unless you do such an early scout that it’s not really optimal as a vZ build.
You do not want to wall in such a fashion against Protoss, where you want the wall above your ramp, and you don’t want to initially wall vT at your natural (but such a wall can be good vs Hellions)
Really dislike these kind of dynamics and they make for stupid games. Most random players on ladder just do stupid builds based on that lack of information, and on the flip side people who want to play random to try and play all 9 matchups ‘legit’ don’t really get the opportunity because opponents do outright bad catch-all builds when it’s vs random, even if you tell them your race (which I do) sometimes they don’t believe you.
If not the only way to play random, an option to play ‘revealed random’ should 100% exist as an option for these reasons.
As an aside I’d love more options in terms of matchmaking and I don’t get why they’re not there.
There should be a ‘3 shoot’ option where you pick 3 matchups and ladder, which would be cool, or variants thereof. Anyone maining a race only had 3 matchups to worry about so picking 3 matchups wouldn’t be too unfair or anything, or unrepresentative.
Basically since forever I’ve been good at PvT and TvP and enjoyed TvZ a ton. I’ve been a passable PvP player and always, always a terrible PvZ player (my vT and vZ have consistently been 70 and 30 across expansions and patches). I’ve had a long gap out playing and am not sure if I want to return as Protoss or Terran yet, and I’d like to try both. Alas I don’t have the time to get competent at 6 matchups right now in my life, whereas this form of race-picking I’d totally dig.
Maybe not have it factor into your actual ladder ranking but feed into your MMR in certain matchups etc, that way people couldn’t just pick their top 3 matchups and abuse it to get inflated ratings.
On November 25 2019 17:46 UnLarva wrote: Weird feeling. Never seen generally more calm, happy aftermath reactions of a tournament in the internet. Level of balance whining is down despite Zergs once again stole the show. Serral fans are seemingly collectively feeling little bit shamed for Serral's win because Reynor was so incredibly great and would've very well deserved to win the tournament too by his performances. Terrans and Protosses, and generally all who hate mirror matchups, but particularly ZvZ seems behaving and commenting in way that they all are arrived to the consensus opinion: "ZvZ is soooooooooo ZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZzzzzzz-zzz....., but Serral vs Reynor... that is totally something else". Things probably will change back to "normal" soon enough, but I've never witnessed more serene, friendly, and pleased SC2 community as a whole online before.
That level Great the HSC XX was. We want more, we want more, we want more.... :D
I did see a bit of whining on the part of some koreaboos and general balance whiners, but yeah all in all the results were pretty non-controversial. I'm also still a bit disappointed by the lack of respect and recognition Reynor deserves. Well, no wonder there's a lack of fresh blood; here's a guy not even old enough to vote, and he's wreaking havoc upon some of the best—and hardly anyone acknowledges him as top 10 in the world. Maybe the community doesn't deserve to see new SC2 talents.
Indeed. Reynor doesn't get enough love he deserves. Someone, somewhere in the reddit commented that there haven't ever been more accomplished 17 years old player in SC-scene. At least now its pretty clear that if there was long period of time when Serral was considered as "Bottle neck" and "Ultimate test" for all players trying to win a top tournament, now there are two bottle necks and tests one must pass to get to the goal.
Together as training partners and friends they form so tight bottle neck that saying like "Going full foreigner" get new meaning these days. You really have to go 'full foreigner' to get past that test in the future, Top Koreans included. Together they can bring the game, ZvZ especially, to the new, unprecedented, stratospheric layers of existence. They are each others best patch to get adapted.
As Serral fan, I honestly think that Reynor's potential top ceiling is at higher level than Serral's, and saying that with rather high feelings of confidence too. Reynor deserves all the love and hype he can get. The Real SC2 prodigy he is.
In StarCraft 2. In Brood War, Flash had won 3 StarLeague titles by the time he was 17, if I'm not mistaken.
But Reynor does seem quite mature for his age. He definitely has great potential. As one of the commentators noted, Reynor's ego does not seem to get in the way of his development. Whenever someone points out a mistake in his play, he swiftly corrects it.
Beside the insanely great story line with Mana being a surprise once again, with having Serral brought down to the lower bracket only to face Reynor in the grand finals, and going through the maximum number of game possible, having Mike fucking Morhaime showing up, having Take almost crying when he started things off with remembering Incontrol, this tournament had something which many other lack:
Heart.
Bly, TLO, Showtime. That alone sounds great. But Artosis was there, too. Rotterdam finally shirtless.
Yes there were great games. Above all, the atmosphere was fantastic, even for guys like me not being there in person and just watching the stream. It all came together.
I watched the original Homestory Cup and HSC2 in full, when it happened, on stream. With HSC3 it became much bigger and I only watched parts from then on. Now this HSC20 was something which echoes trough esport history. Done by fans for fans.
On November 25 2019 17:46 UnLarva wrote: Weird feeling. Never seen generally more calm, happy aftermath reactions of a tournament in the internet. Level of balance whining is down despite Zergs once again stole the show. Serral fans are seemingly collectively feeling little bit shamed for Serral's win because Reynor was so incredibly great and would've very well deserved to win the tournament too by his performances. Terrans and Protosses, and generally all who hate mirror matchups, but particularly ZvZ seems behaving and commenting in way that they all are arrived to the consensus opinion: "ZvZ is soooooooooo ZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZzzzzzz-zzz....., but Serral vs Reynor... that is totally something else". Things probably will change back to "normal" soon enough, but I've never witnessed more serene, friendly, and pleased SC2 community as a whole online before.
That level Great the HSC XX was. We want more, we want more, we want more.... :D
I did see a bit of whining on the part of some koreaboos and general balance whiners, but yeah all in all the results were pretty non-controversial. I'm also still a bit disappointed by the lack of respect and recognition Reynor deserves. Well, no wonder there's a lack of fresh blood; here's a guy not even old enough to vote, and he's wreaking havoc upon some of the best—and hardly anyone acknowledges him as top 10 in the world. Maybe the community doesn't deserve to see new SC2 talents.
Indeed. Reynor doesn't get enough love he deserves. Someone, somewhere in the reddit commented that there haven't ever been more accomplished 17 years old player in SC-scene. At least now its pretty clear that if there was long period of time when Serral was considered as "Bottle neck" and "Ultimate test" for all players trying to win a top tournament, now there are two bottle necks and tests one must pass to get to the goal.
Together as training partners and friends they form so tight bottle neck that saying like "Going full foreigner" get new meaning these days. You really have to go 'full foreigner' to get past that test in the future, Top Koreans included. Together they can bring the game, ZvZ especially, to the new, unprecedented, stratospheric layers of existence. They are each others best patch to get adapted.
As Serral fan, I honestly think that Reynor's potential top ceiling is at higher level than Serral's, and saying that with rather high feelings of confidence too. Reynor deserves all the love and hype he can get. The Real SC2 prodigy he is.
In StarCraft 2. In Brood War, Flash had won 3 StarLeague titles by the time he was 17, if I'm not mistaken.
But Reynor does seem quite mature for his age. He definitely has great potential. As one of the commentators noted, Reynor's ego does not seem to get in the way of his development. Whenever someone points out a mistake in his play, he swiftly corrects it.
His ceiling may be higher, I’m skeptical. I can see Reynor hitting the odd crazy peak, I’m not sure he’ll ever be as relentlessly consistently performing like Serral does though, but then again I don’t think anyone really has in SC2 thus far quite like Serral.
Serral reminds me of Flash in that his motivation levels in climbing the mountain and being at the top of the mountain remain seemingly the same. There are far more players who go through peaks and troughs, or fall off entirely once they conquer their white whale than players who seemingly are always hunting theirs, which I think is what sets a Serral or a Flash apart.
Before people freak out, no Serral isn’t as dominant as Flash, but I think their mentalities are pretty similarly atypical.
On November 25 2019 17:46 UnLarva wrote: Weird feeling. Never seen generally more calm, happy aftermath reactions of a tournament in the internet. Level of balance whining is down despite Zergs once again stole the show. Serral fans are seemingly collectively feeling little bit shamed for Serral's win because Reynor was so incredibly great and would've very well deserved to win the tournament too by his performances. Terrans and Protosses, and generally all who hate mirror matchups, but particularly ZvZ seems behaving and commenting in way that they all are arrived to the consensus opinion: "ZvZ is soooooooooo ZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZzzzzzz-zzz....., but Serral vs Reynor... that is totally something else". Things probably will change back to "normal" soon enough, but I've never witnessed more serene, friendly, and pleased SC2 community as a whole online before.
That level Great the HSC XX was. We want more, we want more, we want more.... :D
I did see a bit of whining on the part of some koreaboos and general balance whiners, but yeah all in all the results were pretty non-controversial. I'm also still a bit disappointed by the lack of respect and recognition Reynor deserves. Well, no wonder there's a lack of fresh blood; here's a guy not even old enough to vote, and he's wreaking havoc upon some of the best—and hardly anyone acknowledges him as top 10 in the world. Maybe the community doesn't deserve to see new SC2 talents.
Indeed. Reynor doesn't get enough love he deserves. Someone, somewhere in the reddit commented that there haven't ever been more accomplished 17 years old player in SC-scene. At least now its pretty clear that if there was long period of time when Serral was considered as "Bottle neck" and "Ultimate test" for all players trying to win a top tournament, now there are two bottle necks and tests one must pass to get to the goal.
Together as training partners and friends they form so tight bottle neck that saying like "Going full foreigner" get new meaning these days. You really have to go 'full foreigner' to get past that test in the future, Top Koreans included. Together they can bring the game, ZvZ especially, to the new, unprecedented, stratospheric layers of existence. They are each others best patch to get adapted.
As Serral fan, I honestly think that Reynor's potential top ceiling is at higher level than Serral's, and saying that with rather high feelings of confidence too. Reynor deserves all the love and hype he can get. The Real SC2 prodigy he is.
In StarCraft 2. In Brood War, Flash had won 3 StarLeague titles by the time he was 17, if I'm not mistaken.
But Reynor does seem quite mature for his age. He definitely has great potential. As one of the commentators noted, Reynor's ego does not seem to get in the way of his development. Whenever someone points out a mistake in his play, he swiftly corrects it.
His ceiling may be higher, I’m skeptical. I can see Reynor hitting the odd crazy peak, I’m not sure he’ll ever be as relentlessly consistently performing like Serral does though, but then again I don’t think anyone really has in SC2 thus far quite like Serral.
Serral reminds me of Flash in that his motivation levels in climbing the mountain and being at the top of the mountain remain seemingly the same. There are far more players who go through peaks and troughs, or fall off entirely once they conquer their white whale than players who seemingly are always hunting theirs, which I think is what sets a Serral or a Flash apart.
Before people freak out, no Serral isn’t as dominant as Flash, but I think their mentalities are pretty similarly atypical.
Serral is the best "weekend" player ever, no debate, period. His ability to keep his comprehension is totally another level than any other one's. Reynor is lucky, Serral will ultimately teach to him also that part of the art, for the love of the game, not for his own benefits. Reynor is already the biggest psychological menace of Serral's tournament success, and that says a lot about the player of his age.
You're right. Serral is as consistent as SC2 can be, but that doesn't mean Reynor cannot become consistent too. The best start by consistency and result to the SC2 top level competition in the history of the game is rather promising start.
And for him, nobody can accuse that his level of competition isn't enough high for further developments in consistency, and skill.
On November 25 2019 17:46 UnLarva wrote: Weird feeling. Never seen generally more calm, happy aftermath reactions of a tournament in the internet. Level of balance whining is down despite Zergs once again stole the show. Serral fans are seemingly collectively feeling little bit shamed for Serral's win because Reynor was so incredibly great and would've very well deserved to win the tournament too by his performances. Terrans and Protosses, and generally all who hate mirror matchups, but particularly ZvZ seems behaving and commenting in way that they all are arrived to the consensus opinion: "ZvZ is soooooooooo ZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZzzzzzz-zzz....., but Serral vs Reynor... that is totally something else". Things probably will change back to "normal" soon enough, but I've never witnessed more serene, friendly, and pleased SC2 community as a whole online before.
That level Great the HSC XX was. We want more, we want more, we want more.... :D
I did see a bit of whining on the part of some koreaboos and general balance whiners, but yeah all in all the results were pretty non-controversial. I'm also still a bit disappointed by the lack of respect and recognition Reynor deserves. Well, no wonder there's a lack of fresh blood; here's a guy not even old enough to vote, and he's wreaking havoc upon some of the best—and hardly anyone acknowledges him as top 10 in the world. Maybe the community doesn't deserve to see new SC2 talents.
Indeed. Reynor doesn't get enough love he deserves. Someone, somewhere in the reddit commented that there haven't ever been more accomplished 17 years old player in SC-scene. At least now its pretty clear that if there was long period of time when Serral was considered as "Bottle neck" and "Ultimate test" for all players trying to win a top tournament, now there are two bottle necks and tests one must pass to get to the goal.
Together as training partners and friends they form so tight bottle neck that saying like "Going full foreigner" get new meaning these days. You really have to go 'full foreigner' to get past that test in the future, Top Koreans included. Together they can bring the game, ZvZ especially, to the new, unprecedented, stratospheric layers of existence. They are each others best patch to get adapted.
As Serral fan, I honestly think that Reynor's potential top ceiling is at higher level than Serral's, and saying that with rather high feelings of confidence too. Reynor deserves all the love and hype he can get. The Real SC2 prodigy he is.
In StarCraft 2. In Brood War, Flash had won 3 StarLeague titles by the time he was 17, if I'm not mistaken.
But Reynor does seem quite mature for his age. He definitely has great potential. As one of the commentators noted, Reynor's ego does not seem to get in the way of his development. Whenever someone points out a mistake in his play, he swiftly corrects it.
His ceiling may be higher, I’m skeptical. I can see Reynor hitting the odd crazy peak, I’m not sure he’ll ever be as relentlessly consistently performing like Serral does though, but then again I don’t think anyone really has in SC2 thus far quite like Serral.
Serral reminds me of Flash in that his motivation levels in climbing the mountain and being at the top of the mountain remain seemingly the same. There are far more players who go through peaks and troughs, or fall off entirely once they conquer their white whale than players who seemingly are always hunting theirs, which I think is what sets a Serral or a Flash apart.
Before people freak out, no Serral isn’t as dominant as Flash, but I think their mentalities are pretty similarly atypical.
Serral is the best "weekend" player ever, no debate, period. His ability to keep his comprehension is totally another level than any other one's. Reynor is lucky, Serral will ultimately teach to him also that part of the art, for the love of the game, not for his own benefits. Reynor is already the biggest psychological menace of Serral's tournament success, and that says a lot about the player of his age.
You're right. Serral is as consistent as SC2 can be, but that doesn't mean Reynor cannot become consistent too. The best start by consistency and result to the SC2 top level competition in the history of the game is rather promising start.
And for him, nobody can accuse that his level of competition isn't enough high for further developments in consistency, and skill.
Even when Jinro was making a Ro4 in GSL, or Stephano was doing his thing they weren’t nearly as dominant over the foreign scene than Serral was, who was also doing the same vs good Koreans.
I feel Serral’s sheer consistency even if it’s ‘only’ at the WCS level is a bit underrated because no ‘best foreigner’ has been close to as dominant or consistent vs other foreigners.
I'm on the reynor hype train. It think his problem is mental and he is slowly getting better at that, as he matures. Don't be surprised when he gets to plough through the scene like Serral or even better. Even more excitingly, he can enter GSL .. unlike Serral who very likely won't.
I like to imagine there was someone at the Tropical Islands, an outsider to StarCraft but perhaps not to gaming, just looking on in utter confusion. An esports tournament held in a German water park in the middle of November (with an awful lot of Korean being spoken for some reason), with the co-founders of Twitch and Blizzard randomly in attendance, with a live rap performance of an internet meme song, with the head organizer breaking down in tears at least twice before it was all over—Wait, what?
And, said outsider would have wondered aloud "Man, I have no idea what's going, but these guys sure know how to have a helluva good time. I wonder how all this started?" At which point, Take, who happened to be walking by, draped an arm over his shoulder and started to say "Well, it's a long story..." FacebookI like to imagine there was someone at the Tropical Islands, an outsider to StarCraft but perhaps not to gaming, just looking on in utter confusion. An esports tournament held in a German water park in the middle of November (with an awful lot of Korean being spoken for some reason), with the co-founders of Twitch and Blizzard randomly in attendance, with a live rap performance of an internet meme song, with the head organizer breaking down in tears at least twice before it was all over—Wait, what?
And, said outsider would have wondered aloud "Man, I have no idea what's going, but these guys sure know how to have a helluva good time. I wonder how all this started?" At which point, Take, who happened to be walking by, draped an arm over his shoulder and started to say "Well, it's a long story..." Facebook
i love this, had to think of Takes stream back in the days,very well written...
Congratulations to Serral. As an old fan of INnoVation, I was actually very happy to see him beat Serral 3-1 in the victors group. It was a pity to lose the next match against Reynor and Serral by a big score. Although his age is very old for a player who has experienced KeSpa, I as a Terran would like to see him achieve more.
I would be remiss if I did not add to the general consensus: this tournament really was beyond incredible. Everything was simply perfection, from the players, the caster, the crowd, the special guests, the actual games, and of course last but not least, the production.
I personally had tapered my expectations for production to not be on the level of TaKe's studio, yet I was blown away by how smooth everything was, whether it be the games, the interviews, the consistently fun and entertaining (and sometimes emotional) side content, or the general event and how it unfolded.
This very well go down the history books as SC2's greatest tournament- thank you to ALL who have no doubt worked months upon months to pull it off
On November 25 2019 17:46 UnLarva wrote: Weird feeling. Never seen generally more calm, happy aftermath reactions of a tournament in the internet. Level of balance whining is down despite Zergs once again stole the show. Serral fans are seemingly collectively feeling little bit shamed for Serral's win because Reynor was so incredibly great and would've very well deserved to win the tournament too by his performances. Terrans and Protosses, and generally all who hate mirror matchups, but particularly ZvZ seems behaving and commenting in way that they all are arrived to the consensus opinion: "ZvZ is soooooooooo ZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZzzzzzz-zzz....., but Serral vs Reynor... that is totally something else". Things probably will change back to "normal" soon enough, but I've never witnessed more serene, friendly, and pleased SC2 community as a whole online before.
That level Great the HSC XX was. We want more, we want more, we want more.... :D
I did see a bit of whining on the part of some koreaboos and general balance whiners, but yeah all in all the results were pretty non-controversial. I'm also still a bit disappointed by the lack of respect and recognition Reynor deserves. Well, no wonder there's a lack of fresh blood; here's a guy not even old enough to vote, and he's wreaking havoc upon some of the best—and hardly anyone acknowledges him as top 10 in the world. Maybe the community doesn't deserve to see new SC2 talents.
I wouldn't disagree with you unless Zergs weren't winning everything under the sun in the last 12-24 months. I don't know if you remember a Zerg called "JonnyRecco" (close to Reynor age) who was pretty much claimed a patch Zerg by the end of WoL because BL/Infestor was so ridiculous. We are getting to the same point.
Hopefully the patch changes it up a bit but I feel Reynor has (unfairly) fallen into this category. I mean, there are Koreans that practice 24/7 and have years of experience over him and it just keeps being another ZvZ finals with a kid (like you said) under 18. Maybe he is a savant; however, I find it far too coincidental that you have a Zerg final time and time again.
Throw him out there, like a Maru, who had 4 Zergs and 3 Protoss in the Ro8. See how he does when he is the only one standing, then he will get more respect.
On November 25 2019 17:46 UnLarva wrote: Weird feeling. Never seen generally more calm, happy aftermath reactions of a tournament in the internet. Level of balance whining is down despite Zergs once again stole the show. Serral fans are seemingly collectively feeling little bit shamed for Serral's win because Reynor was so incredibly great and would've very well deserved to win the tournament too by his performances. Terrans and Protosses, and generally all who hate mirror matchups, but particularly ZvZ seems behaving and commenting in way that they all are arrived to the consensus opinion: "ZvZ is soooooooooo ZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZzzzzzz-zzz....., but Serral vs Reynor... that is totally something else". Things probably will change back to "normal" soon enough, but I've never witnessed more serene, friendly, and pleased SC2 community as a whole online before.
That level Great the HSC XX was. We want more, we want more, we want more.... :D
I did see a bit of whining on the part of some koreaboos and general balance whiners, but yeah all in all the results were pretty non-controversial. I'm also still a bit disappointed by the lack of respect and recognition Reynor deserves. Well, no wonder there's a lack of fresh blood; here's a guy not even old enough to vote, and he's wreaking havoc upon some of the best—and hardly anyone acknowledges him as top 10 in the world. Maybe the community doesn't deserve to see new SC2 talents.
I wouldn't disagree with you unless Zergs weren't winning everything under the sun in the last 12-24 months. I don't know if you remember a Zerg called "JohnnyRecco" (close to Reynor age) who was pretty much claimed a patch Zerg by the end of WoL because BL/Infestor was so ridiculous. We are getting to the same point.
Hopefully the patch changes it up a bit but I feel Reynor has (unfairly) fallen into this category. I mean, there are Koreans that practice 24/7 and have years of experience over him and it just keeps being another ZvZ finals with a kid (like you said) under 18. Maybe he is a savant; however, I find it far too coincidental that you have a Zerg final time and time again.
Throw him out there, like a Maru, who had 4 Zergs and 3 Protoss in the Ro8. See how he does when he is the only one standing, then he will get more respect.
PS: GREAT SHOW TAKE!
Irrelevant red herring. No one is saying Zerg wasn't favored for the past year or two. The fact is, Reynor had been consistently performing better than every Zerg except for the top 3-4. He'd been crushing even other zergs, including Serral at times. Even if Maru is the only terran in a playoff, it doesn't mean terran is gimped; it could just mean he's the only terran performing well. People need to stop with that fallacy. The fact that zerg was favored as a race doesn't mean that the best zergs weren't also more skilled than players of other races. You can call it a coincidence or simply zerg being patch-boosted or whatever, but whenever I see Serral and Reynor go head to head, I see some epic ZvZ with amazing multiprong action that you can't ever get from anyone but players with the utmost skill.
On November 25 2019 17:46 UnLarva wrote: Weird feeling. Never seen generally more calm, happy aftermath reactions of a tournament in the internet. Level of balance whining is down despite Zergs once again stole the show. Serral fans are seemingly collectively feeling little bit shamed for Serral's win because Reynor was so incredibly great and would've very well deserved to win the tournament too by his performances. Terrans and Protosses, and generally all who hate mirror matchups, but particularly ZvZ seems behaving and commenting in way that they all are arrived to the consensus opinion: "ZvZ is soooooooooo ZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZzzzzzz-zzz....., but Serral vs Reynor... that is totally something else". Things probably will change back to "normal" soon enough, but I've never witnessed more serene, friendly, and pleased SC2 community as a whole online before.
That level Great the HSC XX was. We want more, we want more, we want more.... :D
I did see a bit of whining on the part of some koreaboos and general balance whiners, but yeah all in all the results were pretty non-controversial. I'm also still a bit disappointed by the lack of respect and recognition Reynor deserves. Well, no wonder there's a lack of fresh blood; here's a guy not even old enough to vote, and he's wreaking havoc upon some of the best—and hardly anyone acknowledges him as top 10 in the world. Maybe the community doesn't deserve to see new SC2 talents.
I wouldn't disagree with you unless Zergs weren't winning everything under the sun in the last 12-24 months. I don't know if you remember a Zerg called "JonnyRecco" (close to Reynor age) who was pretty much claimed a patch Zerg by the end of WoL because BL/Infestor was so ridiculous. We are getting to the same point.
Hopefully the patch changes it up a bit but I feel Reynor has (unfairly) fallen into this category. I mean, there are Koreans that practice 24/7 and have years of experience over him and it just keeps being another ZvZ finals with a kid (like you said) under 18. Maybe he is a savant; however, I find it far too coincidental that you have a Zerg final time and time again.
Throw him out there, like a Maru, who had 4 Zergs and 3 Protoss in the Ro8. See how he does when he is the only one standing, then he will get more respect.
PS: GREAT SHOW TAKE!
I recall Solar and soO beeing there as well. Funny how they weren't in the finals... but Reynor was. Must be pure coincidence
On November 25 2019 17:46 UnLarva wrote: Weird feeling. Never seen generally more calm, happy aftermath reactions of a tournament in the internet. Level of balance whining is down despite Zergs once again stole the show. Serral fans are seemingly collectively feeling little bit shamed for Serral's win because Reynor was so incredibly great and would've very well deserved to win the tournament too by his performances. Terrans and Protosses, and generally all who hate mirror matchups, but particularly ZvZ seems behaving and commenting in way that they all are arrived to the consensus opinion: "ZvZ is soooooooooo ZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZzzzzzz-zzz....., but Serral vs Reynor... that is totally something else". Things probably will change back to "normal" soon enough, but I've never witnessed more serene, friendly, and pleased SC2 community as a whole online before.
That level Great the HSC XX was. We want more, we want more, we want more.... :D
I did see a bit of whining on the part of some koreaboos and general balance whiners, but yeah all in all the results were pretty non-controversial. I'm also still a bit disappointed by the lack of respect and recognition Reynor deserves. Well, no wonder there's a lack of fresh blood; here's a guy not even old enough to vote, and he's wreaking havoc upon some of the best—and hardly anyone acknowledges him as top 10 in the world. Maybe the community doesn't deserve to see new SC2 talents.
I wouldn't disagree with you unless Zergs weren't winning everything under the sun in the last 12-24 months. I don't know if you remember a Zerg called "JohnnyRecco" (close to Reynor age) who was pretty much claimed a patch Zerg by the end of WoL because BL/Infestor was so ridiculous. We are getting to the same point.
Hopefully the patch changes it up a bit but I feel Reynor has (unfairly) fallen into this category. I mean, there are Koreans that practice 24/7 and have years of experience over him and it just keeps being another ZvZ finals with a kid (like you said) under 18. Maybe he is a savant; however, I find it far too coincidental that you have a Zerg final time and time again.
Throw him out there, like a Maru, who had 4 Zergs and 3 Protoss in the Ro8. See how he does when he is the only one standing, then he will get more respect.
PS: GREAT SHOW TAKE!
Irrelevant red herring. No one is saying Zerg wasn't favored for the past year or two. The fact is, Reynor had been consistently performing better than every Zerg except for the top 3-4. He'd been crushing even other zergs, including Serral at times. Even if Maru is the only terran in a playoff, it doesn't mean terran is gimped; it could just mean he's the only terran performing well. People need to stop with that fallacy. The fact that zerg was favored as a race doesn't mean that the best zergs weren't also more skilled than players of other races. You can call it a coincidence or simply zerg being patch-boosted or whatever, but whenever I see Serral and Reynor go head to head, I see some epic ZvZ with amazing multiprong action that you can't ever get from anyone but players with the utmost skill.
Ok, so Maru is the only Terran in ro8 because he is the only Terran that performs well. While for Zerg, it just happens to be the race that most of the "best performers" are playing. Is that what you mean?
On November 25 2019 17:46 UnLarva wrote: Weird feeling. Never seen generally more calm, happy aftermath reactions of a tournament in the internet. Level of balance whining is down despite Zergs once again stole the show. Serral fans are seemingly collectively feeling little bit shamed for Serral's win because Reynor was so incredibly great and would've very well deserved to win the tournament too by his performances. Terrans and Protosses, and generally all who hate mirror matchups, but particularly ZvZ seems behaving and commenting in way that they all are arrived to the consensus opinion: "ZvZ is soooooooooo ZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZzzzzzz-zzz....., but Serral vs Reynor... that is totally something else". Things probably will change back to "normal" soon enough, but I've never witnessed more serene, friendly, and pleased SC2 community as a whole online before.
That level Great the HSC XX was. We want more, we want more, we want more.... :D
I did see a bit of whining on the part of some koreaboos and general balance whiners, but yeah all in all the results were pretty non-controversial. I'm also still a bit disappointed by the lack of respect and recognition Reynor deserves. Well, no wonder there's a lack of fresh blood; here's a guy not even old enough to vote, and he's wreaking havoc upon some of the best—and hardly anyone acknowledges him as top 10 in the world. Maybe the community doesn't deserve to see new SC2 talents.
I wouldn't disagree with you unless Zergs weren't winning everything under the sun in the last 12-24 months. I don't know if you remember a Zerg called "JohnnyRecco" (close to Reynor age) who was pretty much claimed a patch Zerg by the end of WoL because BL/Infestor was so ridiculous. We are getting to the same point.
Hopefully the patch changes it up a bit but I feel Reynor has (unfairly) fallen into this category. I mean, there are Koreans that practice 24/7 and have years of experience over him and it just keeps being another ZvZ finals with a kid (like you said) under 18. Maybe he is a savant; however, I find it far too coincidental that you have a Zerg final time and time again.
Throw him out there, like a Maru, who had 4 Zergs and 3 Protoss in the Ro8. See how he does when he is the only one standing, then he will get more respect.
PS: GREAT SHOW TAKE!
Irrelevant red herring. No one is saying Zerg wasn't favored for the past year or two. The fact is, Reynor had been consistently performing better than every Zerg except for the top 3-4. He'd been crushing even other zergs, including Serral at times. Even if Maru is the only terran in a playoff, it doesn't mean terran is gimped; it could just mean he's the only terran performing well. People need to stop with that fallacy. The fact that zerg was favored as a race doesn't mean that the best zergs weren't also more skilled than players of other races. You can call it a coincidence or simply zerg being patch-boosted or whatever, but whenever I see Serral and Reynor go head to head, I see some epic ZvZ with amazing multiprong action that you can't ever get from anyone but players with the utmost skill.
Ok, so Maru is the only Terran in ro8 because he is the only Terran that performs well. While for Zerg, it just happens to be the race that most of the "best performers" are playing. Is that what you mean?
It was clearly implied as a possibility, not necessarily an actual reality. The fallacies being pointed out are:
1. Player X is only impressive if he's successful with a weak race, and players succeeding with a strong race aren't worthy of mention. 2. Race A must be gimped by imbalance if a disproportionately small number of players of that race survive group stages, while Race B is boosted by imbalance if they're disproportionately represented into the playoff, or finals.
On November 25 2019 17:46 UnLarva wrote: Weird feeling. Never seen generally more calm, happy aftermath reactions of a tournament in the internet. Level of balance whining is down despite Zergs once again stole the show. Serral fans are seemingly collectively feeling little bit shamed for Serral's win because Reynor was so incredibly great and would've very well deserved to win the tournament too by his performances. Terrans and Protosses, and generally all who hate mirror matchups, but particularly ZvZ seems behaving and commenting in way that they all are arrived to the consensus opinion: "ZvZ is soooooooooo ZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZzzzzzz-zzz....., but Serral vs Reynor... that is totally something else". Things probably will change back to "normal" soon enough, but I've never witnessed more serene, friendly, and pleased SC2 community as a whole online before.
That level Great the HSC XX was. We want more, we want more, we want more.... :D
I did see a bit of whining on the part of some koreaboos and general balance whiners, but yeah all in all the results were pretty non-controversial. I'm also still a bit disappointed by the lack of respect and recognition Reynor deserves. Well, no wonder there's a lack of fresh blood; here's a guy not even old enough to vote, and he's wreaking havoc upon some of the best—and hardly anyone acknowledges him as top 10 in the world. Maybe the community doesn't deserve to see new SC2 talents.
I wouldn't disagree with you unless Zergs weren't winning everything under the sun in the last 12-24 months. I don't know if you remember a Zerg called "JohnnyRecco" (close to Reynor age) who was pretty much claimed a patch Zerg by the end of WoL because BL/Infestor was so ridiculous. We are getting to the same point.
Hopefully the patch changes it up a bit but I feel Reynor has (unfairly) fallen into this category. I mean, there are Koreans that practice 24/7 and have years of experience over him and it just keeps being another ZvZ finals with a kid (like you said) under 18. Maybe he is a savant; however, I find it far too coincidental that you have a Zerg final time and time again.
Throw him out there, like a Maru, who had 4 Zergs and 3 Protoss in the Ro8. See how he does when he is the only one standing, then he will get more respect.
PS: GREAT SHOW TAKE!
Irrelevant red herring. No one is saying Zerg wasn't favored for the past year or two. The fact is, Reynor had been consistently performing better than every Zerg except for the top 3-4. He'd been crushing even other zergs, including Serral at times. Even if Maru is the only terran in a playoff, it doesn't mean terran is gimped; it could just mean he's the only terran performing well. People need to stop with that fallacy. The fact that zerg was favored as a race doesn't mean that the best zergs weren't also more skilled than players of other races. You can call it a coincidence or simply zerg being patch-boosted or whatever, but whenever I see Serral and Reynor go head to head, I see some epic ZvZ with amazing multiprong action that you can't ever get from anyone but players with the utmost skill.
Ok, so Maru is the only Terran in ro8 because he is the only Terran that performs well. While for Zerg, it just happens to be the race that most of the "best performers" are playing. Is that what you mean?
Map Statistics for HomeStoryCup 20 (Liquipedia): Terran vs Zerg: 51.9 % Zerg vs Protoss: 49.3 % Protoss vs Terran: 65.2 %
You can think there is a balance issue, and Reynor and Serral finished in the top 2 for a balance advantage. Your choice. The data above are telling me a different story, and i believe Reynor and Serral were the better players.
On November 25 2019 17:46 UnLarva wrote: Weird feeling. Never seen generally more calm, happy aftermath reactions of a tournament in the internet. Level of balance whining is down despite Zergs once again stole the show. Serral fans are seemingly collectively feeling little bit shamed for Serral's win because Reynor was so incredibly great and would've very well deserved to win the tournament too by his performances. Terrans and Protosses, and generally all who hate mirror matchups, but particularly ZvZ seems behaving and commenting in way that they all are arrived to the consensus opinion: "ZvZ is soooooooooo ZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZzzzzzz-zzz....., but Serral vs Reynor... that is totally something else". Things probably will change back to "normal" soon enough, but I've never witnessed more serene, friendly, and pleased SC2 community as a whole online before.
That level Great the HSC XX was. We want more, we want more, we want more.... :D
I did see a bit of whining on the part of some koreaboos and general balance whiners, but yeah all in all the results were pretty non-controversial. I'm also still a bit disappointed by the lack of respect and recognition Reynor deserves. Well, no wonder there's a lack of fresh blood; here's a guy not even old enough to vote, and he's wreaking havoc upon some of the best—and hardly anyone acknowledges him as top 10 in the world. Maybe the community doesn't deserve to see new SC2 talents.
I wouldn't disagree with you unless Zergs weren't winning everything under the sun in the last 12-24 months. I don't know if you remember a Zerg called "JohnnyRecco" (close to Reynor age) who was pretty much claimed a patch Zerg by the end of WoL because BL/Infestor was so ridiculous. We are getting to the same point.
Hopefully the patch changes it up a bit but I feel Reynor has (unfairly) fallen into this category. I mean, there are Koreans that practice 24/7 and have years of experience over him and it just keeps being another ZvZ finals with a kid (like you said) under 18. Maybe he is a savant; however, I find it far too coincidental that you have a Zerg final time and time again.
Throw him out there, like a Maru, who had 4 Zergs and 3 Protoss in the Ro8. See how he does when he is the only one standing, then he will get more respect.
PS: GREAT SHOW TAKE!
Irrelevant red herring. No one is saying Zerg wasn't favored for the past year or two. The fact is, Reynor had been consistently performing better than every Zerg except for the top 3-4. He'd been crushing even other zergs, including Serral at times. Even if Maru is the only terran in a playoff, it doesn't mean terran is gimped; it could just mean he's the only terran performing well. People need to stop with that fallacy. The fact that zerg was favored as a race doesn't mean that the best zergs weren't also more skilled than players of other races. You can call it a coincidence or simply zerg being patch-boosted or whatever, but whenever I see Serral and Reynor go head to head, I see some epic ZvZ with amazing multiprong action that you can't ever get from anyone but players with the utmost skill.
Ok, so Maru is the only Terran in ro8 because he is the only Terran that performs well. While for Zerg, it just happens to be the race that most of the "best performers" are playing. Is that what you mean?
Map Statistics for HomeStoryCup 20 (Liquipedia): Terran vs Zerg: 51.9 % Zerg vs Protoss: 49.3 % Protoss vs Terran: 65.2 %
You can think there is a balance issue, and Reynor and Serral finished in the top 2 for a balance advantage. Your choice. The data above are telling me a different story, and i believe Reynor and Serral were the better players.
The result isn't exactly perfect map sample, is it? By this results we would have to replace following maps: Acropolis, Winter's Gate, Ephemeron, World of Sleepers, Triton, Thunderbird and Disco Bloodbath Which would leave us with exactly 0 maps. And I just took huge extremes in the W/R for every MU (e.g. Acropolis and its 64 % TvZ, 67 % PvT, Disco 73 % PvT etc.)
Also I would dare to say that the most weak players(generally) were zergs. Bly, SortOf, TLO, Zanster and Denver are not big favorits for a good placement. No offense to the players. Or maybe it's just my poor knowledge of foreing players
On November 25 2019 17:46 UnLarva wrote: Weird feeling. Never seen generally more calm, happy aftermath reactions of a tournament in the internet. Level of balance whining is down despite Zergs once again stole the show. Serral fans are seemingly collectively feeling little bit shamed for Serral's win because Reynor was so incredibly great and would've very well deserved to win the tournament too by his performances. Terrans and Protosses, and generally all who hate mirror matchups, but particularly ZvZ seems behaving and commenting in way that they all are arrived to the consensus opinion: "ZvZ is soooooooooo ZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZzzzzzz-zzz....., but Serral vs Reynor... that is totally something else". Things probably will change back to "normal" soon enough, but I've never witnessed more serene, friendly, and pleased SC2 community as a whole online before.
That level Great the HSC XX was. We want more, we want more, we want more.... :D
I did see a bit of whining on the part of some koreaboos and general balance whiners, but yeah all in all the results were pretty non-controversial. I'm also still a bit disappointed by the lack of respect and recognition Reynor deserves. Well, no wonder there's a lack of fresh blood; here's a guy not even old enough to vote, and he's wreaking havoc upon some of the best—and hardly anyone acknowledges him as top 10 in the world. Maybe the community doesn't deserve to see new SC2 talents.
I wouldn't disagree with you unless Zergs weren't winning everything under the sun in the last 12-24 months. I don't know if you remember a Zerg called "JohnnyRecco" (close to Reynor age) who was pretty much claimed a patch Zerg by the end of WoL because BL/Infestor was so ridiculous. We are getting to the same point.
Hopefully the patch changes it up a bit but I feel Reynor has (unfairly) fallen into this category. I mean, there are Koreans that practice 24/7 and have years of experience over him and it just keeps being another ZvZ finals with a kid (like you said) under 18. Maybe he is a savant; however, I find it far too coincidental that you have a Zerg final time and time again.
Throw him out there, like a Maru, who had 4 Zergs and 3 Protoss in the Ro8. See how he does when he is the only one standing, then he will get more respect.
PS: GREAT SHOW TAKE!
Irrelevant red herring. No one is saying Zerg wasn't favored for the past year or two. The fact is, Reynor had been consistently performing better than every Zerg except for the top 3-4. He'd been crushing even other zergs, including Serral at times. Even if Maru is the only terran in a playoff, it doesn't mean terran is gimped; it could just mean he's the only terran performing well. People need to stop with that fallacy. The fact that zerg was favored as a race doesn't mean that the best zergs weren't also more skilled than players of other races. You can call it a coincidence or simply zerg being patch-boosted or whatever, but whenever I see Serral and Reynor go head to head, I see some epic ZvZ with amazing multiprong action that you can't ever get from anyone but players with the utmost skill.
Ok, so Maru is the only Terran in ro8 because he is the only Terran that performs well. While for Zerg, it just happens to be the race that most of the "best performers" are playing. Is that what you mean?
Map Statistics for HomeStoryCup 20 (Liquipedia): Terran vs Zerg: 51.9 % Zerg vs Protoss: 49.3 % Protoss vs Terran: 65.2 %
You can think there is a balance issue, and Reynor and Serral finished in the top 2 for a balance advantage. Your choice. The data above are telling me a different story, and i believe Reynor and Serral were the better players.
The result isn't exactly perfect map sample, is it? By this results we would have to replace following maps: Acropolis, Winter's Gate, Ephemeron, World of Sleepers, Triton, Thunderbird and Disco Bloodbath Which would leave us with exactly 0 maps. And I just took huge extremes in the W/R for every MU (e.g. Acropolis and its 64 % TvZ, 67 % PvT, Disco 73 % PvT etc.)
Also I would dare to say that the most weak players(generally) were zergs. Bly, SortOf, TLO, Zanster and Denver are not big favorits for a good placement. No offense to the players. Or maybe it's just my poor knowledge of foreing players
Gold medal in mental gymnastics.
In what world are MarineLorD, SouL and Kelazhur more favored? Or Hellraiser, Harstem and MaNa? There were weaker players and stronger players for all races.
As someone else pointed out, we didn’t see soO, Solar or Elazer in the finals. We saw Reynor and Serral. This is because they are without a doubt two of the best players regardless of race. When Taeja and Mvp dominated it for a while people would discuss how often Terran won championships. They must be OP. No the best player just happened to be that race. This is also the case here.
None of the data so far supports this patch being imbalanced. The “champion” being Zerg shows much more support to Serral (Reynor can be included in the discussion) being the best player.
On November 25 2019 17:46 UnLarva wrote: Weird feeling. Never seen generally more calm, happy aftermath reactions of a tournament in the internet. Level of balance whining is down despite Zergs once again stole the show. Serral fans are seemingly collectively feeling little bit shamed for Serral's win because Reynor was so incredibly great and would've very well deserved to win the tournament too by his performances. Terrans and Protosses, and generally all who hate mirror matchups, but particularly ZvZ seems behaving and commenting in way that they all are arrived to the consensus opinion: "ZvZ is soooooooooo ZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZzzzzzz-zzz....., but Serral vs Reynor... that is totally something else". Things probably will change back to "normal" soon enough, but I've never witnessed more serene, friendly, and pleased SC2 community as a whole online before.
That level Great the HSC XX was. We want more, we want more, we want more.... :D
I did see a bit of whining on the part of some koreaboos and general balance whiners, but yeah all in all the results were pretty non-controversial. I'm also still a bit disappointed by the lack of respect and recognition Reynor deserves. Well, no wonder there's a lack of fresh blood; here's a guy not even old enough to vote, and he's wreaking havoc upon some of the best—and hardly anyone acknowledges him as top 10 in the world. Maybe the community doesn't deserve to see new SC2 talents.
I wouldn't disagree with you unless Zergs weren't winning everything under the sun in the last 12-24 months. I don't know if you remember a Zerg called "JohnnyRecco" (close to Reynor age) who was pretty much claimed a patch Zerg by the end of WoL because BL/Infestor was so ridiculous. We are getting to the same point.
Hopefully the patch changes it up a bit but I feel Reynor has (unfairly) fallen into this category. I mean, there are Koreans that practice 24/7 and have years of experience over him and it just keeps being another ZvZ finals with a kid (like you said) under 18. Maybe he is a savant; however, I find it far too coincidental that you have a Zerg final time and time again.
Throw him out there, like a Maru, who had 4 Zergs and 3 Protoss in the Ro8. See how he does when he is the only one standing, then he will get more respect.
PS: GREAT SHOW TAKE!
Irrelevant red herring. No one is saying Zerg wasn't favored for the past year or two. The fact is, Reynor had been consistently performing better than every Zerg except for the top 3-4. He'd been crushing even other zergs, including Serral at times. Even if Maru is the only terran in a playoff, it doesn't mean terran is gimped; it could just mean he's the only terran performing well. People need to stop with that fallacy. The fact that zerg was favored as a race doesn't mean that the best zergs weren't also more skilled than players of other races. You can call it a coincidence or simply zerg being patch-boosted or whatever, but whenever I see Serral and Reynor go head to head, I see some epic ZvZ with amazing multiprong action that you can't ever get from anyone but players with the utmost skill.
Ok, so Maru is the only Terran in ro8 because he is the only Terran that performs well. While for Zerg, it just happens to be the race that most of the "best performers" are playing. Is that what you mean?
It was clearly implied as a possibility, not necessarily an actual reality. The fallacies being pointed out are:
1. Player X is only impressive if he's successful with a weak race, and players succeeding with a strong race aren't worthy of mention. 2. Race A must be gimped by imbalance if a disproportionately small number of players of that race survive group stages, while Race B is boosted by imbalance if they're disproportionately represented into the playoff, or finals.
A race is definitely OP if it has all the best 3 players in the world for a decent amount of time: Serral, Dark, Rogue are definitely top 3 at the moment. Come on, are Protoss and Terran players that bad? Are Maru, Classic, Stats all that bad? They got swept by the top Zergs that made them look terrible, sure you can point of many of their mistakes, but it was all about the facts that Zerg players can get away with their mistake easily.
If only Serral wins title after title then he's surely the best player and it has nothing to do with balance. But no, i'm seeing he and Reynor dominating WCS while Dark and Rogue are dominating GSL. Not only they won, they destroyed non-Zerg opponents they played and I'm sure other top Protoss and Terran are not lazy in practicing.
On November 25 2019 17:46 UnLarva wrote: Weird feeling. Never seen generally more calm, happy aftermath reactions of a tournament in the internet. Level of balance whining is down despite Zergs once again stole the show. Serral fans are seemingly collectively feeling little bit shamed for Serral's win because Reynor was so incredibly great and would've very well deserved to win the tournament too by his performances. Terrans and Protosses, and generally all who hate mirror matchups, but particularly ZvZ seems behaving and commenting in way that they all are arrived to the consensus opinion: "ZvZ is soooooooooo ZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZzzzzzz-zzz....., but Serral vs Reynor... that is totally something else". Things probably will change back to "normal" soon enough, but I've never witnessed more serene, friendly, and pleased SC2 community as a whole online before.
That level Great the HSC XX was. We want more, we want more, we want more.... :D
I did see a bit of whining on the part of some koreaboos and general balance whiners, but yeah all in all the results were pretty non-controversial. I'm also still a bit disappointed by the lack of respect and recognition Reynor deserves. Well, no wonder there's a lack of fresh blood; here's a guy not even old enough to vote, and he's wreaking havoc upon some of the best—and hardly anyone acknowledges him as top 10 in the world. Maybe the community doesn't deserve to see new SC2 talents.
I wouldn't disagree with you unless Zergs weren't winning everything under the sun in the last 12-24 months. I don't know if you remember a Zerg called "JohnnyRecco" (close to Reynor age) who was pretty much claimed a patch Zerg by the end of WoL because BL/Infestor was so ridiculous. We are getting to the same point.
Hopefully the patch changes it up a bit but I feel Reynor has (unfairly) fallen into this category. I mean, there are Koreans that practice 24/7 and have years of experience over him and it just keeps being another ZvZ finals with a kid (like you said) under 18. Maybe he is a savant; however, I find it far too coincidental that you have a Zerg final time and time again.
Throw him out there, like a Maru, who had 4 Zergs and 3 Protoss in the Ro8. See how he does when he is the only one standing, then he will get more respect.
PS: GREAT SHOW TAKE!
Irrelevant red herring. No one is saying Zerg wasn't favored for the past year or two. The fact is, Reynor had been consistently performing better than every Zerg except for the top 3-4. He'd been crushing even other zergs, including Serral at times. Even if Maru is the only terran in a playoff, it doesn't mean terran is gimped; it could just mean he's the only terran performing well. People need to stop with that fallacy. The fact that zerg was favored as a race doesn't mean that the best zergs weren't also more skilled than players of other races. You can call it a coincidence or simply zerg being patch-boosted or whatever, but whenever I see Serral and Reynor go head to head, I see some epic ZvZ with amazing multiprong action that you can't ever get from anyone but players with the utmost skill.
Ok, so Maru is the only Terran in ro8 because he is the only Terran that performs well. While for Zerg, it just happens to be the race that most of the "best performers" are playing. Is that what you mean?
Map Statistics for HomeStoryCup 20 (Liquipedia): Terran vs Zerg: 51.9 % Zerg vs Protoss: 49.3 % Protoss vs Terran: 65.2 %
You can think there is a balance issue, and Reynor and Serral finished in the top 2 for a balance advantage. Your choice. The data above are telling me a different story, and i believe Reynor and Serral were the better players.
The result isn't exactly perfect map sample, is it? By this results we would have to replace following maps: Acropolis, Winter's Gate, Ephemeron, World of Sleepers, Triton, Thunderbird and Disco Bloodbath Which would leave us with exactly 0 maps. And I just took huge extremes in the W/R for every MU (e.g. Acropolis and its 64 % TvZ, 67 % PvT, Disco 73 % PvT etc.)
Also I would dare to say that the most weak players(generally) were zergs. Bly, SortOf, TLO, Zanster and Denver are not big favorits for a good placement. No offense to the players. Or maybe it's just my poor knowledge of foreing players
Gold medal in mental gymnastics.
In what world are MarineLorD, SouL and Kelazhur more favored? Or Hellraiser, Harstem and MaNa? There were weaker players and stronger players for all races.
As someone else pointed out, we didn’t see soO, Solar or Elazer in the finals. We saw Reynor and Serral. This is because they are without a doubt two of the best players regardless of race. When Taeja and Mvp dominated it for a while people would discuss how often Terran won championships. They must be OP. No the best player just happened to be that race. This is also the case here.
None of the data so far supports this patch being imbalanced. The “champion” being Zerg shows much more support to Serral (Reynor can be included in the discussion) being the best player.
I think drawing conclusions this early on a mod of the patch that was actually bugged (the BC/abduct thing) would be pretty mental.
HSC is a fantastic tournament but it has the biggest skill gap in its players out of all the Premiers by a distance outside of WESG probably. There’s an (increasing and gj for Take etc in doing this) smattering of real S class Koreans, Serral who is of that calibre, Reynor who has joined that tier, some top foreigners and a mix of fan favourite Koreans who’ve history at HSC like Taeja etc and some foreigners who aren’t at the top table there.
Trap for example I think for my money has the outright best PvT around, and those who disagree would still tend to put him in the top 3. I don’t think it says much about PvT if he’s stomping all but the best Terrans in the world, or TvP specialists.
We’ll have to see. There were Zergs complaining on day 1 of the tournament that Zerg couldn’t win lategame vP anymore, and by day 3 Protoss were complaining that vZ is still an imbalanced matchup.
On November 25 2019 17:46 UnLarva wrote: Weird feeling. Never seen generally more calm, happy aftermath reactions of a tournament in the internet. Level of balance whining is down despite Zergs once again stole the show. Serral fans are seemingly collectively feeling little bit shamed for Serral's win because Reynor was so incredibly great and would've very well deserved to win the tournament too by his performances. Terrans and Protosses, and generally all who hate mirror matchups, but particularly ZvZ seems behaving and commenting in way that they all are arrived to the consensus opinion: "ZvZ is soooooooooo ZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZzzzzzz-zzz....., but Serral vs Reynor... that is totally something else". Things probably will change back to "normal" soon enough, but I've never witnessed more serene, friendly, and pleased SC2 community as a whole online before.
That level Great the HSC XX was. We want more, we want more, we want more.... :D
I did see a bit of whining on the part of some koreaboos and general balance whiners, but yeah all in all the results were pretty non-controversial. I'm also still a bit disappointed by the lack of respect and recognition Reynor deserves. Well, no wonder there's a lack of fresh blood; here's a guy not even old enough to vote, and he's wreaking havoc upon some of the best—and hardly anyone acknowledges him as top 10 in the world. Maybe the community doesn't deserve to see new SC2 talents.
I wouldn't disagree with you unless Zergs weren't winning everything under the sun in the last 12-24 months. I don't know if you remember a Zerg called "JohnnyRecco" (close to Reynor age) who was pretty much claimed a patch Zerg by the end of WoL because BL/Infestor was so ridiculous. We are getting to the same point.
Hopefully the patch changes it up a bit but I feel Reynor has (unfairly) fallen into this category. I mean, there are Koreans that practice 24/7 and have years of experience over him and it just keeps being another ZvZ finals with a kid (like you said) under 18. Maybe he is a savant; however, I find it far too coincidental that you have a Zerg final time and time again.
Throw him out there, like a Maru, who had 4 Zergs and 3 Protoss in the Ro8. See how he does when he is the only one standing, then he will get more respect.
PS: GREAT SHOW TAKE!
Irrelevant red herring. No one is saying Zerg wasn't favored for the past year or two. The fact is, Reynor had been consistently performing better than every Zerg except for the top 3-4. He'd been crushing even other zergs, including Serral at times. Even if Maru is the only terran in a playoff, it doesn't mean terran is gimped; it could just mean he's the only terran performing well. People need to stop with that fallacy. The fact that zerg was favored as a race doesn't mean that the best zergs weren't also more skilled than players of other races. You can call it a coincidence or simply zerg being patch-boosted or whatever, but whenever I see Serral and Reynor go head to head, I see some epic ZvZ with amazing multiprong action that you can't ever get from anyone but players with the utmost skill.
Ok, so Maru is the only Terran in ro8 because he is the only Terran that performs well. While for Zerg, it just happens to be the race that most of the "best performers" are playing. Is that what you mean?
It was clearly implied as a possibility, not necessarily an actual reality. The fallacies being pointed out are:
1. Player X is only impressive if he's successful with a weak race, and players succeeding with a strong race aren't worthy of mention. 2. Race A must be gimped by imbalance if a disproportionately small number of players of that race survive group stages, while Race B is boosted by imbalance if they're disproportionately represented into the playoff, or finals.
A race is definitely OP if it has all the best 3 players in the world for a decent amount of time: Serral, Dark, Rogue are definitely top 3 at the moment. Come on, are Protoss and Terran players that bad? Are Maru, Classic, Stats all that bad? They got swept by the top Zergs that made them look terrible, sure you can point of many of their mistakes, but it was all about the facts that Zerg players can get away with their mistake easily.
If only Serral wins title after title then he's surely the best player and it has nothing to do with balance. But no, i'm seeing he and Reynor dominating WCS while Dark and Rogue are dominating GSL. Not only they won, they destroyed non-Zerg opponents they played and I'm sure other top Protoss and Terran are not lazy in practicing.
For starters, your condition for an OP race is completely arbitrary. Secondly, all you've pointed out is that there are in fact a lot of dominant zergs. To jump to the conclusion that zerg is OP because there are more OP zergs than players of other races is where you used fallacious reasoning. I couldn't care less (as far as balance is concerned) if the entire top20 list is completely filled with zergs given that they all deserve to be there. I'm much more interested in analyzing games to see where dynamics are clearly imbalanced. In having done so, I have already stated many times my agreement with the general consensus that Zerg has indeed been generally favored. That, however, has absolutely zero bearing on how skilled the top zergs are. Trying to balance a game based solely on the distribution of wins among the races for the most prominent pros is a recipe for disaster. You may end up punishing a handful of players for just being extremely talented at the game. It's much better to analyze and improve the mechanics of the game than to look at who is most dominant.
On November 25 2019 17:46 UnLarva wrote: Weird feeling. Never seen generally more calm, happy aftermath reactions of a tournament in the internet. Level of balance whining is down despite Zergs once again stole the show. Serral fans are seemingly collectively feeling little bit shamed for Serral's win because Reynor was so incredibly great and would've very well deserved to win the tournament too by his performances. Terrans and Protosses, and generally all who hate mirror matchups, but particularly ZvZ seems behaving and commenting in way that they all are arrived to the consensus opinion: "ZvZ is soooooooooo ZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZzzzzzz-zzz....., but Serral vs Reynor... that is totally something else". Things probably will change back to "normal" soon enough, but I've never witnessed more serene, friendly, and pleased SC2 community as a whole online before.
That level Great the HSC XX was. We want more, we want more, we want more.... :D
I did see a bit of whining on the part of some koreaboos and general balance whiners, but yeah all in all the results were pretty non-controversial. I'm also still a bit disappointed by the lack of respect and recognition Reynor deserves. Well, no wonder there's a lack of fresh blood; here's a guy not even old enough to vote, and he's wreaking havoc upon some of the best—and hardly anyone acknowledges him as top 10 in the world. Maybe the community doesn't deserve to see new SC2 talents.
I wouldn't disagree with you unless Zergs weren't winning everything under the sun in the last 12-24 months. I don't know if you remember a Zerg called "JohnnyRecco" (close to Reynor age) who was pretty much claimed a patch Zerg by the end of WoL because BL/Infestor was so ridiculous. We are getting to the same point.
Hopefully the patch changes it up a bit but I feel Reynor has (unfairly) fallen into this category. I mean, there are Koreans that practice 24/7 and have years of experience over him and it just keeps being another ZvZ finals with a kid (like you said) under 18. Maybe he is a savant; however, I find it far too coincidental that you have a Zerg final time and time again.
Throw him out there, like a Maru, who had 4 Zergs and 3 Protoss in the Ro8. See how he does when he is the only one standing, then he will get more respect.
PS: GREAT SHOW TAKE!
Irrelevant red herring. No one is saying Zerg wasn't favored for the past year or two. The fact is, Reynor had been consistently performing better than every Zerg except for the top 3-4. He'd been crushing even other zergs, including Serral at times. Even if Maru is the only terran in a playoff, it doesn't mean terran is gimped; it could just mean he's the only terran performing well. People need to stop with that fallacy. The fact that zerg was favored as a race doesn't mean that the best zergs weren't also more skilled than players of other races. You can call it a coincidence or simply zerg being patch-boosted or whatever, but whenever I see Serral and Reynor go head to head, I see some epic ZvZ with amazing multiprong action that you can't ever get from anyone but players with the utmost skill.
Ok, so Maru is the only Terran in ro8 because he is the only Terran that performs well. While for Zerg, it just happens to be the race that most of the "best performers" are playing. Is that what you mean?
It was clearly implied as a possibility, not necessarily an actual reality. The fallacies being pointed out are:
1. Player X is only impressive if he's successful with a weak race, and players succeeding with a strong race aren't worthy of mention. 2. Race A must be gimped by imbalance if a disproportionately small number of players of that race survive group stages, while Race B is boosted by imbalance if they're disproportionately represented into the playoff, or finals.
A race is definitely OP if it has all the best 3 players in the world for a decent amount of time: Serral, Dark, Rogue are definitely top 3 at the moment. Come on, are Protoss and Terran players that bad? Are Maru, Classic, Stats all that bad? They got swept by the top Zergs that made them look terrible, sure you can point of many of their mistakes, but it was all about the facts that Zerg players can get away with their mistake easily.
If only Serral wins title after title then he's surely the best player and it has nothing to do with balance. But no, i'm seeing he and Reynor dominating WCS while Dark and Rogue are dominating GSL. Not only they won, they destroyed non-Zerg opponents they played and I'm sure other top Protoss and Terran are not lazy in practicing.
For starters, your condition for an OP race is completely arbitrary. Secondly, all you've pointed out is that there are in fact a lot of dominant zergs. To jump to the conclusion that zerg is OP because there are more OP zergs than players of other races is where you used fallacious reasoning. I couldn't care less (as far as balance is concerned) if the entire top20 list is completely filled with zergs given that they all deserve to be there. I'm much more interested in analyzing games to see where dynamics are clearly imbalanced. In having done so, I have already stated many times my agreement with the general consensus that Zerg has indeed been generally favored. That, however, has absolutely zero bearing on how skilled the top zergs are. Trying to balance a game based solely on the distribution of wins among the races for the most prominent pros is a recipe for disaster. You may end up punishing a handful of players for just being extremely talented at the game. It's much better to analyze and improve the mechanics of the game than to look at who is most dominant.
It's an "IF" that never would happen in a balance game. If all races are balance, there is no reason that literally all the top players are playing the same race. If your "20 best players" deserve to be all in the top 20 of the game, then it's surely the RACE that make them deserve. SC2 is the game when you lose, you look bad no matter how good you are and imo it makes you think all the current top Zerg deserve to be on top of the world. Yes maybe 1 or 2 players (rarely) but 3 or even 4? No way it would happen if it wasn't for the race. My point is I don't think all of Dark, Serral, Rogue or Reynor deserve to achieve that many titles in the past 2 years over the fellow non-Zerg pros, they are talented for sure but so are other guys. If we have a Terran-favored meta for 2 years, we would have Maru, TY, Inno smashing every tournaments and many people (like you) would claim that they all deserve to be there. Probability & Mathematic statistics is not that hard to understand, too much of anything is unbalance.
On November 25 2019 17:46 UnLarva wrote: Weird feeling. Never seen generally more calm, happy aftermath reactions of a tournament in the internet. Level of balance whining is down despite Zergs once again stole the show. Serral fans are seemingly collectively feeling little bit shamed for Serral's win because Reynor was so incredibly great and would've very well deserved to win the tournament too by his performances. Terrans and Protosses, and generally all who hate mirror matchups, but particularly ZvZ seems behaving and commenting in way that they all are arrived to the consensus opinion: "ZvZ is soooooooooo ZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZzzzzzz-zzz....., but Serral vs Reynor... that is totally something else". Things probably will change back to "normal" soon enough, but I've never witnessed more serene, friendly, and pleased SC2 community as a whole online before.
That level Great the HSC XX was. We want more, we want more, we want more.... :D
I did see a bit of whining on the part of some koreaboos and general balance whiners, but yeah all in all the results were pretty non-controversial. I'm also still a bit disappointed by the lack of respect and recognition Reynor deserves. Well, no wonder there's a lack of fresh blood; here's a guy not even old enough to vote, and he's wreaking havoc upon some of the best—and hardly anyone acknowledges him as top 10 in the world. Maybe the community doesn't deserve to see new SC2 talents.
I wouldn't disagree with you unless Zergs weren't winning everything under the sun in the last 12-24 months. I don't know if you remember a Zerg called "JohnnyRecco" (close to Reynor age) who was pretty much claimed a patch Zerg by the end of WoL because BL/Infestor was so ridiculous. We are getting to the same point.
Hopefully the patch changes it up a bit but I feel Reynor has (unfairly) fallen into this category. I mean, there are Koreans that practice 24/7 and have years of experience over him and it just keeps being another ZvZ finals with a kid (like you said) under 18. Maybe he is a savant; however, I find it far too coincidental that you have a Zerg final time and time again.
Throw him out there, like a Maru, who had 4 Zergs and 3 Protoss in the Ro8. See how he does when he is the only one standing, then he will get more respect.
PS: GREAT SHOW TAKE!
Irrelevant red herring. No one is saying Zerg wasn't favored for the past year or two. The fact is, Reynor had been consistently performing better than every Zerg except for the top 3-4. He'd been crushing even other zergs, including Serral at times. Even if Maru is the only terran in a playoff, it doesn't mean terran is gimped; it could just mean he's the only terran performing well. People need to stop with that fallacy. The fact that zerg was favored as a race doesn't mean that the best zergs weren't also more skilled than players of other races. You can call it a coincidence or simply zerg being patch-boosted or whatever, but whenever I see Serral and Reynor go head to head, I see some epic ZvZ with amazing multiprong action that you can't ever get from anyone but players with the utmost skill.
Ok, so Maru is the only Terran in ro8 because he is the only Terran that performs well. While for Zerg, it just happens to be the race that most of the "best performers" are playing. Is that what you mean?
It was clearly implied as a possibility, not necessarily an actual reality. The fallacies being pointed out are:
1. Player X is only impressive if he's successful with a weak race, and players succeeding with a strong race aren't worthy of mention. 2. Race A must be gimped by imbalance if a disproportionately small number of players of that race survive group stages, while Race B is boosted by imbalance if they're disproportionately represented into the playoff, or finals.
A race is definitely OP if it has all the best 3 players in the world for a decent amount of time: Serral, Dark, Rogue are definitely top 3 at the moment. Come on, are Protoss and Terran players that bad? Are Maru, Classic, Stats all that bad? They got swept by the top Zergs that made them look terrible, sure you can point of many of their mistakes, but it was all about the facts that Zerg players can get away with their mistake easily.
If only Serral wins title after title then he's surely the best player and it has nothing to do with balance. But no, i'm seeing he and Reynor dominating WCS while Dark and Rogue are dominating GSL. Not only they won, they destroyed non-Zerg opponents they played and I'm sure other top Protoss and Terran are not lazy in practicing.
For starters, your condition for an OP race is completely arbitrary. Secondly, all you've pointed out is that there are in fact a lot of dominant zergs. To jump to the conclusion that zerg is OP because there are more OP zergs than players of other races is where you used fallacious reasoning. I couldn't care less (as far as balance is concerned) if the entire top20 list is completely filled with zergs given that they all deserve to be there. I'm much more interested in analyzing games to see where dynamics are clearly imbalanced. In having done so, I have already stated many times my agreement with the general consensus that Zerg has indeed been generally favored. That, however, has absolutely zero bearing on how skilled the top zergs are. Trying to balance a game based solely on the distribution of wins among the races for the most prominent pros is a recipe for disaster. You may end up punishing a handful of players for just being extremely talented at the game. It's much better to analyze and improve the mechanics of the game than to look at who is most dominant.
It's an "IF" that never would happen in a balance game. If all races are balance, there is no reason that literally all the top players are playing the same race. If your "20 best players" deserve to be all in the top 20 of the game, then it's surely the RACE that make them deserve. SC2 is the game when you lose, you look bad no matter how good you are and imo it makes you think all the current top Zerg deserve to be on top of the world. Yes maybe 1 or 2 players (rarely) but 3 or even 4? No way it would happen if it wasn't for the race. My point is I don't think all of Dark, Serral, Rogue or Reynor deserve to achieve that many titles in the past 2 years over the fellow non-Zerg pros, they are talented for sure but so are other guys. If we have a Terran-favored meta for 2 years, we would have Maru, TY, Inno smashing every tournaments and many people (like you) would claim that they all deserve to be there. Probability & Mathematic statistics is not that hard to understand, too much of anything is unbalance.
What are you basing your probability and mathematics on here though?
There really aren’t a huge amount of real ‘S class’ players currently active in the game, which is quite a small sample size to expect racial parity to be a factor.
On November 25 2019 17:46 UnLarva wrote: Weird feeling. Never seen generally more calm, happy aftermath reactions of a tournament in the internet. Level of balance whining is down despite Zergs once again stole the show. Serral fans are seemingly collectively feeling little bit shamed for Serral's win because Reynor was so incredibly great and would've very well deserved to win the tournament too by his performances. Terrans and Protosses, and generally all who hate mirror matchups, but particularly ZvZ seems behaving and commenting in way that they all are arrived to the consensus opinion: "ZvZ is soooooooooo ZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZzzzzzz-zzz....., but Serral vs Reynor... that is totally something else". Things probably will change back to "normal" soon enough, but I've never witnessed more serene, friendly, and pleased SC2 community as a whole online before.
That level Great the HSC XX was. We want more, we want more, we want more.... :D
I did see a bit of whining on the part of some koreaboos and general balance whiners, but yeah all in all the results were pretty non-controversial. I'm also still a bit disappointed by the lack of respect and recognition Reynor deserves. Well, no wonder there's a lack of fresh blood; here's a guy not even old enough to vote, and he's wreaking havoc upon some of the best—and hardly anyone acknowledges him as top 10 in the world. Maybe the community doesn't deserve to see new SC2 talents.
I wouldn't disagree with you unless Zergs weren't winning everything under the sun in the last 12-24 months. I don't know if you remember a Zerg called "JohnnyRecco" (close to Reynor age) who was pretty much claimed a patch Zerg by the end of WoL because BL/Infestor was so ridiculous. We are getting to the same point.
Hopefully the patch changes it up a bit but I feel Reynor has (unfairly) fallen into this category. I mean, there are Koreans that practice 24/7 and have years of experience over him and it just keeps being another ZvZ finals with a kid (like you said) under 18. Maybe he is a savant; however, I find it far too coincidental that you have a Zerg final time and time again.
Throw him out there, like a Maru, who had 4 Zergs and 3 Protoss in the Ro8. See how he does when he is the only one standing, then he will get more respect.
PS: GREAT SHOW TAKE!
Irrelevant red herring. No one is saying Zerg wasn't favored for the past year or two. The fact is, Reynor had been consistently performing better than every Zerg except for the top 3-4. He'd been crushing even other zergs, including Serral at times. Even if Maru is the only terran in a playoff, it doesn't mean terran is gimped; it could just mean he's the only terran performing well. People need to stop with that fallacy. The fact that zerg was favored as a race doesn't mean that the best zergs weren't also more skilled than players of other races. You can call it a coincidence or simply zerg being patch-boosted or whatever, but whenever I see Serral and Reynor go head to head, I see some epic ZvZ with amazing multiprong action that you can't ever get from anyone but players with the utmost skill.
Ok, so Maru is the only Terran in ro8 because he is the only Terran that performs well. While for Zerg, it just happens to be the race that most of the "best performers" are playing. Is that what you mean?
Map Statistics for HomeStoryCup 20 (Liquipedia): Terran vs Zerg: 51.9 % Zerg vs Protoss: 49.3 % Protoss vs Terran: 65.2 %
You can think there is a balance issue, and Reynor and Serral finished in the top 2 for a balance advantage. Your choice. The data above are telling me a different story, and i believe Reynor and Serral were the better players.
Both Soo and Solar are still great players in Korean scene, and have not even fared close to what Reynor and Serral have in the past year.
Your comment exemplifies the dunning kruger effect pretty much perfectly. Zest took out solar 3-1 and soO 2-0; and Trap beat solar 2-0. So, you have a pretty funny definition of "almost everything." Inno was almost even with Serral in maps. But you're apparently overflowing with game knowledge though, so you at least have that going for ya.
Yeah, when you say Solar and soO are at the same level of serral and reynor it´s funny too
Your comment exemplifies the dunning kruger effect pretty much perfectly. Zest took out solar 3-1 and soO 2-0; and Trap beat solar 2-0. So, you have a pretty funny definition of "almost everything." Inno was almost even with Serral in maps. But you're apparently overflowing with game knowledge though, so you at least have that going for ya.
Yeah, when you say Solar and soO are at the same level of serral and reynor it´s funny too
I gues, that IS the point. Serral and Reynor are on a completly different level, than any one else, that was at HSC20. Serral is playing pretty much perfect and is more precise than anyone else and judges situations realy realy good. Reynor is faster than any one else and is forcing mistakes out of his opponents, they wouldn t do otherwise. Just Dark, Maru, Classic and Rogue on a good day can keep up with that.
Your comment exemplifies the dunning kruger effect pretty much perfectly. Zest took out solar 3-1 and soO 2-0; and Trap beat solar 2-0. So, you have a pretty funny definition of "almost everything." Inno was almost even with Serral in maps. But you're apparently overflowing with game knowledge though, so you at least have that going for ya.
Yeah, when you say Solar and soO are at the same level of serral and reynor it´s funny too
I gues, that IS the point. Serral and Reynor are on a completly different level, than any one else, that was at HSC20. Serral is playing pretty much perfect and is more precise than anyone else and judges situations realy realy good. Reynor is faster than any one else and is forcing mistakes out of his opponents, they wouldn t do otherwise. Just Dark, Maru, Classic and Rogue on a good day can keep up with that.
I agree. I am starting to believe that the number 1 and number 2 players in the world are Serral and Reynor. No Korean is a skilled as Serral and few, if any, are on Reynors level.
Your comment exemplifies the dunning kruger effect pretty much perfectly. Zest took out solar 3-1 and soO 2-0; and Trap beat solar 2-0. So, you have a pretty funny definition of "almost everything." Inno was almost even with Serral in maps. But you're apparently overflowing with game knowledge though, so you at least have that going for ya.
Yeah, when you say Solar and soO are at the same level of serral and reynor it´s funny too
I gues, that IS the point. Serral and Reynor are on a completly different level, than any one else, that was at HSC20. Serral is playing pretty much perfect and is more precise than anyone else and judges situations realy realy good. Reynor is faster than any one else and is forcing mistakes out of his opponents, they wouldn t do otherwise. Just Dark, Maru, Classic and Rogue on a good day can keep up with that.
I agree. I am starting to believe that the number 1 and number 2 players in the world are Serral and Reynor. No Korean is a skilled as Serral and few, if any, are on Reynors level.
If it was relevant at WESG that Serral was sick I believe its worth to mention that with one eye swollen and infected, it should at least be mentioned that INnoVation wasn't on top health-wise.
Your comment exemplifies the dunning kruger effect pretty much perfectly. Zest took out solar 3-1 and soO 2-0; and Trap beat solar 2-0. So, you have a pretty funny definition of "almost everything." Inno was almost even with Serral in maps. But you're apparently overflowing with game knowledge though, so you at least have that going for ya.
Yeah, when you say Solar and soO are at the same level of serral and reynor it´s funny too
I gues, that IS the point. Serral and Reynor are on a completly different level, than any one else, that was at HSC20. Serral is playing pretty much perfect and is more precise than anyone else and judges situations realy realy good. Reynor is faster than any one else and is forcing mistakes out of his opponents, they wouldn t do otherwise. Just Dark, Maru, Classic and Rogue on a good day can keep up with that.
I agree. I am starting to believe that the number 1 and number 2 players in the world are Serral and Reynor. No Korean is a skilled as Serral and few, if any, are on Reynors level.
If it was relevant at WESG that Serral was sick I believe its worth to mention that with one eye swollen and infected, it should at least be mentioned that INnoVation wasn't on top health-wise.
-Naruto
Nonsense. Terrans are essentially space pirates anyway.
On November 25 2019 16:23 MockHamill wrote: It was a fantastic tournament, much better than Blizzcon. Tournaments should never try to do everything in a single day.
Also Special may be the best commentator in the game, apart from being the best foreigner Terran.
Special definitely best commentator for Terran balance whiners.
co-caster: what zerg unit is good? special: all of them co-caster: what zerg unit is weak? special: none of them co-caster: what terran unit is strong? special: none of them co-caster: what terran unit is weak? special: all of them
On November 25 2019 16:23 MockHamill wrote: It was a fantastic tournament, much better than Blizzcon. Tournaments should never try to do everything in a single day.
Also Special may be the best commentator in the game, apart from being the best foreigner Terran.
Special definitely best commentator for Terran balance whiners.
co-caster: what zerg unit is good? special: all of them co-caster: what zerg unit is weak? special: none of them co-caster: what terran unit is strong? special: none of them co-caster: what terran unit is weak? special: all of them
XD
Yes he has a perfect understanding of the game which makes him an even better commentator.
On November 25 2019 16:23 MockHamill wrote: It was a fantastic tournament, much better than Blizzcon. Tournaments should never try to do everything in a single day.
Also Special may be the best commentator in the game, apart from being the best foreigner Terran.
Special definitely best commentator for Terran balance whiners.
co-caster: what zerg unit is good? special: all of them co-caster: what zerg unit is weak? special: none of them co-caster: what terran unit is strong? special: none of them co-caster: what terran unit is weak? special: all of them
XD
Yes he has a perfect understanding of the game which makes him an even better commentator.
How he commented the Inno vs Serral game where Inno went 3base all in was great! It was awesome to have a guy who knew so much about what goes on in preparation for specific builds.
On November 25 2019 16:23 MockHamill wrote: It was a fantastic tournament, much better than Blizzcon. Tournaments should never try to do everything in a single day.
Also Special may be the best commentator in the game, apart from being the best foreigner Terran.
Special definitely best commentator for Terran balance whiners.
co-caster: what zerg unit is good? special: all of them co-caster: what zerg unit is weak? special: none of them co-caster: what terran unit is strong? special: none of them co-caster: what terran unit is weak? special: all of them
XD
Yes he has a perfect understanding of the game which makes him an even better commentator.
How he commented the Inno vs Serral game where Inno went 3base all in was great! It was awesome to have a guy who knew so much about what goes on in preparation for specific builds.
Also Papi BC❤️
I love when Special is breaking things down, great insight and at total odds with some of his almost cartoonish levels of balance whine other times.
Your comment exemplifies the dunning kruger effect pretty much perfectly. Zest took out solar 3-1 and soO 2-0; and Trap beat solar 2-0. So, you have a pretty funny definition of "almost everything." Inno was almost even with Serral in maps. But you're apparently overflowing with game knowledge though, so you at least have that going for ya.
Yeah, when you say Solar and soO are at the same level of serral and reynor it´s funny too
I gues, that IS the point. Serral and Reynor are on a completly different level, than any one else, that was at HSC20. Serral is playing pretty much perfect and is more precise than anyone else and judges situations realy realy good. Reynor is faster than any one else and is forcing mistakes out of his opponents, they wouldn t do otherwise. Just Dark, Maru, Classic and Rogue on a good day can keep up with that.
I agree. I am starting to believe that the number 1 and number 2 players in the world are Serral and Reynor. No Korean is a skilled as Serral and few, if any, are on Reynors level.
No disrespect to Reynor who has taken some huge strides this past year but Maru destroyed him at WESG and he got rolled by Dark at blizzcon. I still think hes a little behind Serral/Dark/Maru/Stats.
Your comment exemplifies the dunning kruger effect pretty much perfectly. Zest took out solar 3-1 and soO 2-0; and Trap beat solar 2-0. So, you have a pretty funny definition of "almost everything." Inno was almost even with Serral in maps. But you're apparently overflowing with game knowledge though, so you at least have that going for ya.
Yeah, when you say Solar and soO are at the same level of serral and reynor it´s funny too
I gues, that IS the point. Serral and Reynor are on a completly different level, than any one else, that was at HSC20. Serral is playing pretty much perfect and is more precise than anyone else and judges situations realy realy good. Reynor is faster than any one else and is forcing mistakes out of his opponents, they wouldn t do otherwise. Just Dark, Maru, Classic and Rogue on a good day can keep up with that.
I agree. I am starting to believe that the number 1 and number 2 players in the world are Serral and Reynor. No Korean is a skilled as Serral and few, if any, are on Reynors level.
No disrespect to Reynor who has taken some huge strides this past year but Maru destroyed him at WESG and he got rolled by Dark at blizzcon. But i still think hes a little behind Serral/Dark/Maru/Stats.
HSC, the latest tournament, showed Reynor on a brand new level, especially when paired with korean players(3-0 Zest, 3-0 Inno); however, I wouldn't go as far as Mockhamill.
Your comment exemplifies the dunning kruger effect pretty much perfectly. Zest took out solar 3-1 and soO 2-0; and Trap beat solar 2-0. So, you have a pretty funny definition of "almost everything." Inno was almost even with Serral in maps. But you're apparently overflowing with game knowledge though, so you at least have that going for ya.
Yeah, when you say Solar and soO are at the same level of serral and reynor it´s funny too
I gues, that IS the point. Serral and Reynor are on a completly different level, than any one else, that was at HSC20. Serral is playing pretty much perfect and is more precise than anyone else and judges situations realy realy good. Reynor is faster than any one else and is forcing mistakes out of his opponents, they wouldn t do otherwise. Just Dark, Maru, Classic and Rogue on a good day can keep up with that.
I agree. I am starting to believe that the number 1 and number 2 players in the world are Serral and Reynor. No Korean is a skilled as Serral and few, if any, are on Reynors level.
No disrespect to Reynor who has taken some huge strides this past year but Maru destroyed him at WESG and he got rolled by Dark at blizzcon. But i still think hes a little behind Serral/Dark/Maru/Stats.
HSC, the latest tournament, showed Reynor on a brand new level, especially when paired with korean players(3-0 Zest, 3-0 Inno); however, I wouldn't go as far as Mockhamill.
Thats true but its a new patch so I dont read too much into those results especially when a lot of players admitted to not practicing too much on it.
Your comment exemplifies the dunning kruger effect pretty much perfectly. Zest took out solar 3-1 and soO 2-0; and Trap beat solar 2-0. So, you have a pretty funny definition of "almost everything." Inno was almost even with Serral in maps. But you're apparently overflowing with game knowledge though, so you at least have that going for ya.
Yeah, when you say Solar and soO are at the same level of serral and reynor it´s funny too
I gues, that IS the point. Serral and Reynor are on a completly different level, than any one else, that was at HSC20. Serral is playing pretty much perfect and is more precise than anyone else and judges situations realy realy good. Reynor is faster than any one else and is forcing mistakes out of his opponents, they wouldn t do otherwise. Just Dark, Maru, Classic and Rogue on a good day can keep up with that.
I agree. I am starting to believe that the number 1 and number 2 players in the world are Serral and Reynor. No Korean is a skilled as Serral and few, if any, are on Reynors level.
No disrespect to Reynor who has taken some huge strides this past year but Maru destroyed him at WESG and he got rolled by Dark at blizzcon. I still think hes a little behind Serral/Dark/Maru/Stats.
Stats really hasn’t done a huge amount for quite a while now. Maru too if we’re being honest. Didn’t really do much in the Super Tournaments, or GSL vs the World and got stomped at Blizzcon. Which sure it’s Dark, and that’s a tough draw but he dropped a series to TIME too.
Dark for sure is above/equal to the two main European Zergs
Serral is crazy consistent and always is. Reynor seems to have stepped up to another level in terms of not just going toe to toe with Serral but in beating good Koreans consistently in the last few months
Your comment exemplifies the dunning kruger effect pretty much perfectly. Zest took out solar 3-1 and soO 2-0; and Trap beat solar 2-0. So, you have a pretty funny definition of "almost everything." Inno was almost even with Serral in maps. But you're apparently overflowing with game knowledge though, so you at least have that going for ya.
Yeah, when you say Solar and soO are at the same level of serral and reynor it´s funny too
I gues, that IS the point. Serral and Reynor are on a completly different level, than any one else, that was at HSC20. Serral is playing pretty much perfect and is more precise than anyone else and judges situations realy realy good. Reynor is faster than any one else and is forcing mistakes out of his opponents, they wouldn t do otherwise. Just Dark, Maru, Classic and Rogue on a good day can keep up with that.
I agree. I am starting to believe that the number 1 and number 2 players in the world are Serral and Reynor. No Korean is a skilled as Serral and few, if any, are on Reynors level.
No disrespect to Reynor who has taken some huge strides this past year but Maru destroyed him at WESG and he got rolled by Dark at blizzcon. I still think hes a little behind Serral/Dark/Maru/Stats.
Stats really hasn’t done a huge amount for quite a while now. Maru too if we’re being honest. Didn’t really do much in the Super Tournaments, or GSL vs the World and got stomped at Blizzcon. Which sure it’s Dark, and that’s a tough draw but he dropped a series to TIME too.
Dark for sure is above/equal to the two main European Zergs
Serral is crazy consistent and always is. Reynor seems to have stepped up to another level in terms of not just going toe to toe with Serral but in beating good Koreans consistently in the last few months
I agree Stats didn't do so hot last year. I think quite a bit of it was the fact that Protoss late game was not on the same level as zerg, whats the point of being the shield of aiur if lategame P was weak overall. Same with Maru terrans performed poorly all year, he won a GSL + WESG but not much else of note, but he did thrash Reynor which is why imo its premature to put Reynor on that same level right now
Your comment exemplifies the dunning kruger effect pretty much perfectly. Zest took out solar 3-1 and soO 2-0; and Trap beat solar 2-0. So, you have a pretty funny definition of "almost everything." Inno was almost even with Serral in maps. But you're apparently overflowing with game knowledge though, so you at least have that going for ya.
Yeah, when you say Solar and soO are at the same level of serral and reynor it´s funny too
I gues, that IS the point. Serral and Reynor are on a completly different level, than any one else, that was at HSC20. Serral is playing pretty much perfect and is more precise than anyone else and judges situations realy realy good. Reynor is faster than any one else and is forcing mistakes out of his opponents, they wouldn t do otherwise. Just Dark, Maru, Classic and Rogue on a good day can keep up with that.
I agree. I am starting to believe that the number 1 and number 2 players in the world are Serral and Reynor. No Korean is a skilled as Serral and few, if any, are on Reynors level.
No disrespect to Reynor who has taken some huge strides this past year but Maru destroyed him at WESG and he got rolled by Dark at blizzcon. I still think hes a little behind Serral/Dark/Maru/Stats.
Stats really hasn’t done a huge amount for quite a while now. Maru too if we’re being honest. Didn’t really do much in the Super Tournaments, or GSL vs the World and got stomped at Blizzcon. Which sure it’s Dark, and that’s a tough draw but he dropped a series to TIME too.
Dark for sure is above/equal to the two main European Zergs
Serral is crazy consistent and always is. Reynor seems to have stepped up to another level in terms of not just going toe to toe with Serral but in beating good Koreans consistently in the last few months
I agree Stats didn't do so hot last year. I think quite a bit of it was the fact that Protoss late game was not on the same level as zerg, whats the point of being the shield of aiur if lategame P was weak overall. Same with Maru terrans performed poorly all year, he won a GSL + WESG but not much else of note, but he did thrash Reynor which is why imo its premature to put Reynor on that same level right now
What happened months ago should not be indicative of Reynor's current level; Dark's ZvZ would be worse than Elazer's if we judged by the same metric.
On a side note, how can Maru beating someone in TvZ mean that said player is necessarily worse? Isn't Maru a god who has the best TvZ in the world and his victory kind of expected? If Reynor is not that great because he lost to Maru, Maru isn't that great either.
HSC tournaments don't matter. Players just get show up and get drunk and play SC2 and have a good time. If everyone was sober and serious, I can guarantee that the results would have been different.
On December 26 2019 16:22 fgonzo wrote: HSC tournaments don't matter. Players just get show up and get drunk and play SC2 and have a good time. If everyone was sober and serious, I can guarantee that the results would have been different.
Yes, because everyone who loses to Serral has to be drunk?
On December 26 2019 16:22 fgonzo wrote: HSC tournaments don't matter. Players just get show up and get drunk and play SC2 and have a good time. If everyone was sober and serious, I can guarantee that the results would have been different.
Idk Serral winner and Reynor runner up is pretty typical in major tournaments
On December 26 2019 16:22 fgonzo wrote: HSC tournaments don't matter. Players just get show up and get drunk and play SC2 and have a good time. If everyone was sober and serious, I can guarantee that the results would have been different.
HSC XX was so great I can't even be mad at the obvious bait necro
EPT
![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/homestorycup/hscxxbracket.png)
INnoVation and 
Or maybe toss nowadays are weak players?
) but when Im watching pros late game PvZ... Its really painful to watch bl-corr-inf-n-shit in every high level game beating toss like a b*tch 
Which would leave us with exactly 0 maps. And I just took huge extremes in the W/R for every MU 
(e.g. Acropolis and its 64 % TvZ, 67 % PvT, Disco 73 % PvT etc.)
