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I haven't seen a thread like this before, so I thought I'd make it -- hopefully you guys like it and add to it. I love the writeups the TL folks do of the Blizzcon players each year, but these would be more focused on what the players do in-game -- if you're seeing a player for the first time or aren't that familiar with him, one of these would give you an idea of what makes them different from a standard player of their race. After all, the beauty of SC2 is that no two players are exactly alike. I'll start with some obvious ones, and obviously feel free to correct me if you think I'm off-base.
Innovation:
Summary: Since coming over from Kespa, Innovation (fka Bogus) has been the most consistent Terran in the world. He's won every major tournament you can think of, with the exception of Blizzcon, and has been a top Terran from HoTS to now.
Playstyle: A pure macro Terran. When talking about Innovation's playstyle, the word "mechanics" is going to be used in the first few sentences. His dead-perfect macro allows him to produce, expand, and get upgrades without skipping a fraction of a second while still having enough brainpower to micro his army effectively. No Terran in the world is better at getting more stuff faster than his opponent than Innovation.
He also has a well-honed sense for timings -- his attacks hit right when his upgrades kick in or his opponent is at a vulnerable point. Although he has occasional periods where his go-to build will be mech-based in TvT or occasionally TvZ, but Innovation's success has mostly come from having lots of units, perfectly placed, with perfect upgrade timings, with more units parading across the map to back them up and provide the killing blow.
Signature Unit/Build: The aforementioned bio timings. There are few things more dangerous in all of SC2 than Innovation at the moment 1/1, combat shields, and stim hit at the exact same time right as his units are about to engage the enemy, and if that push doesn't do the job he's going to come back right as 2/2 hits.
Weaknesses: Innovation's pushes are decisive. If he smells blood in the water, he goes for the kill, and will even pull his SCVs if he thinks they can end the game on his terms. The other side of this coin is that he can get a bit stubborn, and overextend on a defended push instead of going back home and transitioning.
He also isn't the best in the late-game -- when both players are maxed out and have money banked up, his best skills (getting stuff very fast and hitting timings) become irrelevant, and he generally tries to end the game before it gets there instead of going into Ghost/Liberator Range.
And while Innovation does pull out new builds from time to time, his "machine" label does make him a bit predictable. He's probably less likely than any other top Terran to throw out a proxy, he generally doesn't go for fancy drop play (with the exception of his early-game drop harass, which he uses to keep his opponent pinned and allow him to set up his 1/1 timing), and can show an inability to improvise, whether behind in a game or between games in a series.
That's Innovation -- the freight train Terran. You know what he's going to do, but good luck stopping him.
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Northern Ireland16055 Posts
There’s definitely a certain charm to Inno’s machine-like play, really gives him a stylistic identity.
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Maru:
Summary: Maru was one of the few Terrans to find consistent success in HoTS, and was doing well enough in LoTV as a fun-to-watch Terran with superb micro and a penchant for taking risks, winning some tournaments but never quite putting himself in the "best player in the world" conversation, much like his former teammate MarineKing. Then he took his play to another level and won 4 GSLs in a row, which would have made him the unquestioned bonjwa if it wasn't for a certain Finnish Zerg.
Playstyle:
Maru is prodigiously talented. His micro, multitasking, and creativity are second to none. When his macro and decision-making caught up, he went on the most impressive run in the history of Korean Starcraft. Maru can make marines and marauders do backflips, hit a drop from anywhere on the map at any time, and show his opponent a build he wasn't ready for at any given time. This used to get him into a lot of trouble, as he would often take risky engagements at suboptimal timings and rely on his micro to bail him out. Now that he's managing those risks without losing what made him a great player in the first place, he's on another level.
What makes Maru so dangerous is that while everything he does can kill you, holding it off will rarely put you in a position to kill him. He turned a proxy 2-racks into a build he could transition out of with relative comfort, and most of his offense in the mid-game come through multi-pronged attacks, quick-hitting drops, or a quick move with a small army to shave off some units or kill/cancel a fresh expansion. Any one of these things can snowball and win Maru the game if they work, but if they don't, Maru is at home comfortably transitioning.
It's often said that Maru "plays Terran like a Zerg," and that's a fairly accurate assessment. Again, Maru doesn't go for straight-up timing pushes as often as other Terrans (although he has them in his pocket), preferring to harass or use smaller strike forces. Meanwhile, he expands much more rapidly than any other Terran, and absolutely sprints up the tech ladder, with a brand-new composition ready to go if the one he has doesn't get the job done. He has the freedom to do this because of his prodigious micro and multitasking, which constantly keep his opponent pinned on their side of the map in fear that one of them will do critical damage.
Maru's final strength is his creativity -- he's comfortable playing any style and is always at the cutting edge of the meta, if he's not setting the meta himself. He can throw out any style at any time, and this serves him especially well in longer series, especially ones he has time to prepare for. For example, if a 25-minute split-map battle off an econ opening doesn't go his way, he can come right out with a proxy barracks the next game to snag a quick victory.
Weaknesses: "Non-Korean Soil" would seem to be the biggest one -- even when he was carving up the GSL, he had trouble in foreign tournaments, particularly ones played in the "weekender" format. Maybe it's a comfort issue, maybe the GSL format suits him better than the rapid-fire format, who knows. He also still has some of that daredevil in him, and his tendency to pull out a tricky build or high-risk maneuver can cost him games against opponents that shouldn't beat him. His tendency to try and do everything at once can also sometimes backfire, as the rare player who manages to shut him down on all fronts can overwhelm him with a straight-up attack.
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Serral:
Summary:If you're reading this, you know about Serral. The best foreigner of all time, the first player from outside of Korea to be considered as the best in the world (or even the GOAT), has won every tournament that isn't the GSL, including a world championship. If he doesn't win a tournament, he usually goes out in the finals or the top-4. He's Serral.
Playstyle:
As the meme goes, "play like Serral." The joke is that it's easy to say but impossible to do, because he plays textbook zerg, he just does it better than everybody else. He's a lot like Maru in that he's constantly building towards the late-game while consistently throwing out attacks capable of doing critical damage on their own. Serral's ability to push and counterattack while staying on his macro make it very hard to stop him from getting 200 supply with his full tech tree and creep all over the map, at which point he's essentially unbeatable.
Like all great Zergs before him, Serral has a sixth sense for when to turn his larva into drones or attacking units, allowing him to spread out while staying safe. His zergling counterattacks have become legendary -- it seems like lings are in his opponent's base the second they decide to venture out on the map and slow down Serral's growth. And once he gets to the late-game, nobody is better at using Zerg's strength, tech-switching, trading units he can quickly replace with ones his opponent has to build up, and ultimately creating a deathball.
Weaknesses: Italian teenagers. In all seriousness, Serral is a great player more because of his complete lack of weaknesses than one or two overwhelming strengths, although his sense for ling counterattacks is in superpower territory. He plays Zerg how it was designed to be played -- always growing, using the creep to keep himself safe, hitting with swarms of units when the time calls for it, and generally being an infestation you can't get out. He is a bit less likely than some other top zergs to pull out a rush build, and can be a bit predictable in the early game, but just because you can predict something doesn't mean it's not deadly.
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Love this idea, and I think it's a great thing, especially for newer players. I think ideally, though, these reports would all be in the OP as one masterpost; perhaps with a separate section for players that are more up and coming. Overall, great stuff! Keep it up.
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"What makes Maru so dangerous is that while everything he does can kill you, holding it off will rarely put you in a position to kill him." Very well put. I enjoyed this write-up.
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Well, I'm going to try and continue this project -- a lot has happened in the last year+, so there's plenty to get to.
Reynor:
Summary:
Well, Reynor sure did make his mark quickly in a pretty significant way. He made a name for himself as the first EU player capable of actually defeating Serral, and the two of them spent 2019 knocking each other out of premier tournaments in what was/is the best rivalry in SC2 history. From there, Reynor progressed from "the guy who can beat Serral" to "the guy who can beat everyone," and after Katowice he's the reigning world champion.
Playstyle:
Reynor's mechanics are absolutely out of control, and he uses them to play a strangling Zerg style that's a hybrid of the "swarm" style and the ground-pound into late-game style. Nobody spreads creep like Reynor, who keeps two separate command groups of queens dedicated to spreading creep on opposite sides of the map, and his ability to use runbys to keep his opponent on his side of the map while he turns the whole thing purple is second to none. Once he establishes that control, he switches into his signature lurkers, and from there it's only a matter of time before his opponent is overwhelmed and forced to tap out.
Weaknesses:
There aren't very many! Reynor definitely prefers heavy ling/bane into hydra/lurker over every other style, but nobody's really been able to exploit that yet -- Maru was able to take 2 games off him by forcing him into inefficient trades in the supreme late-game, but Reynor was still able to take the other 3 games in that series, so it's not like there's a glaring Achilles heel there. Reynor may very well be the best player in the world right now, and a return to GSL after COVID protocols die down would definitely be something to get hyped about.
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Zest:
Summary:
There are two ways to get to the absolute top of the SC2 scene:
1) Hone your mechanics to the point where hitting perfect macro cycles comes as naturally as breathing, allowing you to use your brainpower on micro, army movement, and strategy
2) Be Zest
Strengths:
As we stand here looking back on Zest's long career, I feel comfortable saying that no player has ever been better between "gg" and "glhf" than Zest. Some players can set a meta, some players can play the established meta better than everyone else, some players (sOs comes to mind) can be successful by throwing out a different off-meta build nearly every game, but Zest has had ridiculous success over his career by CONSISTENTLY:
1) Developing a strategy a step ahead of the current meta
2) Executing that strategy perfectly and using it to abuse on-meta builds until the meta finally shifts to catch up with him
3) Returning to step 1
Yes, his control is fantastic, and yes, he executes his builds beautifully, but the true brilliance of Zest is his ability to get in the lab and come up with a new build or strategy that doesn't rely on trickery or gimmicks to work, and absolutely tearing apart helpless opponents with it until they're able to catch up, at which point it doesn't take long for him to come up with something else.
Weaknesses:
Well, the Zest bank. As mentioned above, Zest has some of the worst macro of any Code S-level pro, and consistently floats 1k+ minerals, but somehow it never seems to slow him down that much. Also, Zest is prone to peaks and valleys, because when his newest strategy does get figured out, Zest generally hits a rough patch trying to force his now-outdated strategy through before he inevitably comes up with something else.
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Clem:
Up until recently, the foreign Terrans able to play at a Code-S level in modern SC2 were:
1) Major
2) Special
3) Juan Lopez
Over the pandemic, Clem established himself as a foreign Terran who can absolutely go toe-to-toe with anybody on the planet (HeroMarine is looking great as well -- no disrespect to Big Gabe over here), and the holy EU trinity of Clem, Reynor, and Serral have consistently been producing classic series.
Clem's playstyle can best be described as "seriously, seriously fast." He's going to get bio units, he's going to put them in medivacs, and he's going to drop them off at your expansions again and again until your brain turns into mush and you type out. Not many tricks, not many giant pushes, not even that many excursions into the main -- just a game of "can you keep up with me?" Not many players can.
Weaknesses:
Like a lot of the best players on this list, Clem is so good at his style that his "weakness" is that he understandably doesn't deviate from it much -- however, when he does run into players who can keep up with his multi-tasking, he does sometimes hit a bit of a plateau. Clem often looks like a younger, Frencher version of Maru in the mid-game, but while Maru ALWAYS tries to get an advantage in the early game (proxy-rax, a 4 widow-mine drop, a pre-stim hit squad, an e-bay block, a larger-than-usual hellion force, or something EXTREMELY greedy at home), Clem is generally confident in his ability to take a straight-up game, which is admirable, but against the best in the world, getting that early-game advantage can be necessary, especially against Zergs who can grow out of control in an "even" game -- Zergs like Reynor and Serral, who Clem runs into as much as just about everyone.
Okay, time for a break -- let me know what you think (I could absolutely have gotten some of this wrong, or a lot of it), please send in your own scouting reports if you have them, and have a great day. The ones I'm planning on doing when I get a second wind are:
Scarlett
DRG
sOs
Byun
Special
However, I'm not calling "dibs" or anything -- if you feel like you know any of their games really well, please send it on in.
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On June 20 2021 10:46 ScrappyRabbit wrote:
Weaknesses:
Well, the Zest bank. As mentioned above, Zest has some of the worst macro of any Code S-level pro, and consistently floats 1k+ minerals, but somehow it never seems to slow him down that much. Also, Zest is prone to peaks and valleys, because when his newest strategy does get figured out, Zest generally hits a rough patch trying to force his now-outdated strategy through before he inevitably comes up with something else.
Zest plays a style that relies on bursting out warp gate units from 10+ gateways at the right moments, so the banking of resources is usually part of the plan.
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Okay, time for a break -- let me know what you think (I could absolutely have gotten some of this wrong, or a lot of it), please send in your own scouting reports if you have them, and have a great day. The ones I'm planning on doing when I get a second wind are:
Scarlett
DRG
sOs
Byun
Special
Hey! I am loving what you are doing with this thread and all are good reads, especially for someone who's been away for the game and coming back to it to learn all the new Pro styles. Can you please add Trap to the list  ?
Cheers!
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On June 20 2021 10:58 ScrappyRabbit wrote:
Clem:
Up until recently, the foreign Terrans able to play at a Code-S level in modern SC2 were:
1) Major
2) Special
3) Juan Lopez
Over the pandemic, Clem established himself as a foreign Terran who can absolutely go toe-to-toe with anybody on the planet (HeroMarine is looking great as well -- no disrespect to Big Gabe over here), and the holy EU trinity of Clem, Reynor, and Serral have consistently been producing classic series.
Clem's playstyle can best be described as "seriously, seriously fast." He's going to get bio units, he's going to put them in medivacs, and he's going to drop them off at your expansions again and again until your brain turns into mush and you type out. Not many tricks, not many giant pushes, not even that many excursions into the main -- just a game of "can you keep up with me?" Not many players can.
Weaknesses:
Like a lot of the best players on this list, Clem is so good at his style that his "weakness" is that he understandably doesn't deviate from it much -- however, when he does run into players who can keep up with his multi-tasking, he does sometimes hit a bit of a plateau. Clem often looks like a younger, Frencher version of Maru in the mid-game, but while Maru ALWAYS tries to get an advantage in the early game (proxy-rax, a 4 widow-mine drop, a pre-stim hit squad, an e-bay block, a larger-than-usual hellion force, or something EXTREMELY greedy at home), Clem is generally confident in his ability to take a straight-up game, which is admirable, but against the best in the world, getting that early-game advantage can be necessary, especially against Zergs who can grow out of control in an "even" game -- Zergs like Reynor and Serral, who Clem runs into as much as just about everyone.
Okay, time for a break -- let me know what you think (I could absolutely have gotten some of this wrong, or a lot of it), please send in your own scouting reports if you have them, and have a great day. The ones I'm planning on doing when I get a second wind are:
Scarlett
DRG
sOs
Byun
Special
However, I'm not calling "dibs" or anything -- if you feel like you know any of their games really well, please send it on in.
Maybe you may add ROGUE, all-time the best accomplished resume player and the GOAT of BO7 offline series into your scouting list?
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Guys, I want there to be multiple contributors to this thread, ideally! Trap and Rogue are incredible, but I don't feel like I have a great handle on what makes them "them," except for "well, they're really good at everything." (I could probably write a little bit on Rogue, but Trap would be an especially hard one to do for me -- he's just so well-rounded.) If you think they deserve a write-up, do a write-up!
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EPT
