On February 18 2020 16:34 blooblooblahblah wrote:
If you've watched Lambo analyse Korean ZvZs, a lot of his criticisms come from unoptimised play rather than just "Koreans all in too much". For example, he would question why Impact would morph 4 defensive banelings in a situation that he scouted which would never have required those extra 2 banes which is a huge gas commitment. It often seems that Koreans (and this isn't exclusive to koreans) can sometimes gloss over refining the details of their ZvZ builds for optimal play, which is understandable considering it has been a fairly uncommon matchup in recent years in Korea (and on the flip side, it's extremely common in Europe). Obviously, Koreans are more aggressive in ZvZ (+tend to use riskier builds) but it's not like every Europe ZvZ is an economical game.
It reminds me of when Parting was able to get into a terran's base at HSC and was able to see just the one gas that basically guarantees a 3CC, yet when they asked him about it he paid no mind to it and basically said he doesn't know terran builds lol (and the casters went on to question why he didn't play greedy or go for double forge when he "knew" it was 3CC). Not completely relevant to the ZvZ thing but it was a funny moment when you realise that even our pro players aren't playing extremely nuanced a lot of the time. I'm sure Parting could've identified it as a 3CC build if he was just observing the game but it goes to show that when you're in-game, even the pros can do things that are "objectively" not optimal.
Anyone at Lambo's level could analyse any zerg's game and pick out many "objective inefficiencies" in their play. That isn't him suggesting he's better than them or even that he could beat them. If that's what you take out of this interview, then you should probably drink some tea. As long as it's not personal attacks, it's refreshing to see open criticism/discussion of the best players . It's healthy for the growth of the overall skill level of sc2 if people aren't so blindly ignorant to the flaws that can constantly occur in high lvl sc2, especially since our casters aren't quite high enough level to be able to point them out themselves to the viewers, in every matchup.
It’s part of what makes Starcraft a fun game to watch.
IdrA famously leaving the game against MMA because he ‘correctly’ analysed that he couldn’t win from that spot, not knowing he’d killed his own CC. Zest’s baffling macro flubs, or herO’s consistent ability to win games from sub-optimal and weird positions.
I wonder if there’s an element of Korean pride about learning from the foreign scene, or how much language barriers come into play too.