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Reynor plays Zerg against Protoss and Terran, but chooses Protoss (the majority of the time recently), against Zerg. There was recently an interesting discussion which took place as a result of Reynor asking GSL to suspend their one race rule, and GSL, after asking the players, denied Reynor’s request.
Reynor has been an incredibly talented player, and seeing him explore, and be successful with, a new Macro, 12+ gateway heavy style has been very enjoyable. Personally, I prefer watching PvZ versus ZvZ, but I understand there are plenty of people who would disagree with me.
This has opened an interesting dialogue in the community, with some agreeing and disagreeing with the decision.
Some highlights of the discussion from this afternoon’s GFUEL Gladiator’s Cup
“Race swapping mid-series opens up scenarios where player A prefers X race against Player B's Y Race but Player B would then rather pick Z against Player A's X which would Player A would rather pick Y etc...
“Reynor's off racing is forcing tournaments to set clear rules for switching races. It's only unfair if the rules are not clear to both competitors (for example preparing for the wrong race, or vetoing the wrong map). As long as the rules are clear then neither player has an advantage”.
“it would be one of the cases that has to be regulated while still allowing people to play races they want, so probably declaring races beforehand or to the admin before they pick them on the map. It would create an interesting mind game in itself (is my opponent going to play A or B, and what I should pick then?) aka a bit of game theory like in poker”
“In that case, both blind picking a race is the solution. That's the future when more players start to play multiple races in RTS, I believe.”
Ciaus_Dronu concisely explains the issue with race swapping after map picks and vetoes.
Swapping series to series with race commit before vetoes - fine.
Swapping mid series - not fine.
I like angry_maia's idea of having a "main" race - and if you want to swap you have to be the one to declare and allow your opponent to counter. Even if only because it allows you the chance of reasonable counter-prep.
I think fixed race per series is important, in part because of map balance (choosing a race for each map when the maps are not all 50/50 for each matchup seems silly to me), and in part to encourage solid prep.
Personally, I am of the opinion that player’s should be able to pick races for specific match ups, but race swapping mid-series seems a bit too far, but I recognize that may be overly traditionalist view.
So, do people agree with the GSL? How exactly should the community standardize race picking? Is a standard even needed across tournaments?
Poll: How should Players pick races for a tournament/seriesContemporary: Permit race swapping for specific series (101) 64% Traditionalist: One race for One tournament (GSL included) (47) 30% Other (10) 6% 158 total votes Your vote: How should Players pick races for a tournament/series (Vote): Traditionalist: One race for One tournament (GSL included)
(Vote): Contemporary: Permit race swapping for specific series
(Vote): Other
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Canada8989 Posts
I would at least permit race swapping for specific series, but I'm not too worried about allowing players to switch races in a series. If a player does a bit research on their opponent, they should be able to know if they are able to play multiple races and do their preparation and their map veto in consequence (especially since the race-switcher list is currently a single name).
It's the same as style for me, you do your veto taking into consideration that a player tend to play certain compositions or builds, if he bust something else, your veto and preparation can backfire.
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I just think it's cheap more than anything to have race switching mid-series. "Oh, it's not working like I wanted? Well let me fall back to my main race then."
If you're gonna clown around, be a man and commit to your clowning for the entire series in advance.
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If you wanna swap races, do it, before, after, during...
There s nothing more idiot that add a rule which discourage pro player of playing differently and with each races.
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Blindly selecting the race would basically be deciding via a coinflip who gets an advantage which is not what I want to see from an RTS.
In the current pro scene this scenario is unlikely to occur but I still don't think a potentially problematic rule should be maintained just to benefit 1 player.
If more players would do it like Reynor it would become problematic.
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As things go right now, it seems nonsensical to prevent players like Reynor from offracing in any form, for several reasons. First of all, how is this different from playing certain builds against certain opponents? Should we also prevent Byun from hitting zergs with a 211 because he is particularly good at it? It seems to me that if a player is willing to put the work in to be world class in two different races, they should be rewarded with that advantage, much like if a player finds something sneaky about a map or hides a build.
Reynor playing protoss has also been one of the most interesting storylines SC2 has had in a long time. Its driving viewership harder than we have seen in a while, and that is worth a lot - especially as we are seeing Reynor lose with it as much as he wins. At this point, Reynor runs in EPT Cups and other events against top zergs are must-watch TV - will he play Zerg? Toss? Some combination? In a game as old as this, storylines that drive viewership are hard to come by. Banning that out because of some nebulous sense of fairness (and I'm not of the camp that believes it is unfair that Reynor has trained for months to improve his protoss on top of his zerg to get to this point) deprives us of something pretty special
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France12906 Posts
Switching mid series should not be allowed since it messes up with the vetoes, but swapping race during a tournament could be allowed and I wouldn’t have a problem with it as long as the opponents know which race they meet early enough.
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Canada8989 Posts
On August 21 2022 03:53 Charoisaur wrote:
Blindly selecting the race would basically be deciding via a coinflip who gets an advantage which is not what I want to see from an RTS.
In the current pro scene this scenario is unlikely to occur but I still don't think a potentially problematic rule should be maintained just to benefit 1 player.
If more players would do it like Reynor it would become problematic.
We have plenty of build order scenarios that are as close as it get to auto-win, the possibility to race swap get you at most a slight map or match up advantage with full information before hand that can perfectly be nullified if your opponent plays better than you (as the last 20 something years of Starcraft as demonstrated) plus it ask that you learn another race. In a game where we can get nexus first versus proxy-marauder it seems excessive to forbid players from taking risk that actually need a huge amount of practice behind it.
If we really want to avoid the blind pick we could do it the FGC way (loser get to swap, winner don't) but it seems excessive to me.
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Still how are you going to deal with 2 players wanting to swap race depending on the opponents race? Forcing them to main race in that case?
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On August 21 2022 04:22 darklycid wrote:
Still how are you going to deal with 2 players wanting to swap race depending on the opponents race? Forcing them to main race in that case?
This is not a unique problem to Starcraft, in fighting game communities the solution is often something like, winner picks and declares first and must stay their pick, loser can counter pick. The only issue is the first map which is usually done as a blind pick. I wouldn't mind seeing something similar in SC2 so after any given game in a match you have loser pick map (if not already decided), winner pick race then loser pick race.
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With the loss of audience and users diversity, at lot of narratives on this website are a bunch conspiracy theories like blizz/esl are racists or match up are rigged in favor of foreigners. Even if the said organization is dumping a shitload of money into gsl since the very beginning.
So yeah a lot of users are obviously displeased when they're seeing a foreigner offracing with decent success against the best korean zerg no matter how high the level of the serie can be.
Rather than praises for mastering two races it was all about reynor trolling, abusing loophole, unfairness (he only used zerg once and lost) as if it was so easy, after 12 years, no one did it to this extent in international tournament which is quite logic as the vast majority of pro loses at least 500mmr when offracing but for sure switching race is actually broken. We learn everyday I guess.
Anyway, the fairness question is just bs, if maru or herO had been doing it they would receive nothing but compliments and they should.
All in all, if people weren't made stupid by fanboytism around race irl, this trend would be better accepted as it puts accent on the player skill rather than the race.
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On August 21 2022 04:22 darklycid wrote:
Still how are you going to deal with 2 players wanting to swap race depending on the opponents race? Forcing them to main race in that case?
Maybe a bit complicated, but here's one way to do it. Each player must have a default race (i.e. Reynor Zerg).
Any time player A plays player B, either player has the option of initiating a race switch. They announce the race they wanna switch to, at which point the other player has the option of either accepting (and the game starts) or countering with a race switch of their own. This continues, but you are never allowed to switch to a given race more than once, meaning that at most 3 rounds of this will occur.
A few examples:
Reynor vs Solar:
Reynor initiates with P (making it PvZ)
Solar counters with T (making this a PvT)
Reynor counters with T (making a TvT)
Solar counters with P (makint it TvP). At this point no more switching allowed at all since they've gone through all possibilities.
Reynor vs Maru
Reynor initiates with P (making PvT)
Maru accepts, so PvT it is.
This system means that trying to race switch immediately removes your option of playing your main race. Finally, if two race switchers come across each other, they can just flip a coin to see who gets to initiate the race switching first.
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France12906 Posts
On August 21 2022 05:22 stilt wrote:
With the loss of audience and users diversity, at lot of narratives on this website are a bunch conspiracy theories like blizz/esl are racists or match up are rigged in favor of foreigners. Even if the said organization is dumping a shitload of money into gsl since the very beginning.
So yeah a lot of users are obviously displeased when they're seeing a foreigner offracing with decent success against the best korean zerg no matter how high the level of the serie can be.
Rather than praises for mastering two races it was all about reynor trolling, abusing loophole, unfairness (he only used zerg once and lost) as if it was so easy, after 12 years, no one did it to this extent in international tournament which is quite logic as the vast majority of pro loses at least 500mmr when offracing but for sure switching race is actually broken. We learn everyday I guess.
Anyway, the fairness question is just bs, if maru or herO had been doing it they would receive nothing but compliments and they should.
All in all, if people weren't made stupid by fanboytism around race irl, this trend would be better accepted as it puts accent on the player skill rather than the race.
Idk, I wouldn’t like Maru to play protoss or zerg even though he has excellent off race, I find his terran way more fun.
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I have 0 issues with race swapping so long as it's done before map vetoes happen. If it's a long term tournament like GSL, then they will have to make their decision before the match happens (like a week beforehand) so their opponents are aware of what to prepare for.
It's not that complicated. What would be controversial about this system?
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In tournaments like GSL where you can prepare very specific strats for your opponent it makes sense not to allow race swaps. In weekend tournaments I don't think it impacts anything that deeply.
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Northern Ireland26223 Posts
I think it's reasonable if a player sticks to it. Swapping mid-series messes with vetoes etc
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It's a competition. Why shouldn't you be allowed to use any and all resources in your arsenal? Any race at any time should be legal. It's like saying you can't 12 pool mid-series, either do it all series or not at all.
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SC2 has evolved more into the game of skill in recent years, meaning it depend on the mechanical skill as well as the tactical awareness of the player during game. Thats why when a player win, he is almost always consider as "better", at least at that moment, rather than "luckier". SC2 doesnt have much of "randomness" in their game play mechanic like AoE, even the map pool has been streamlined into that direction.
In that light, having offracing throw some "randomness" into the game that not all players are welcomed to, especially if the choice of the off-race is only revealed 1 minutes before the game start. IMO, the map veto should also be where players declare their race if off-racing is allowed.
As for Reynor case, yes its very cool to see him playing PvZ in a couple of tournaments, and I have no problem with him keep doing it for better viewership, but we also need to understand that Reynor wants to do it because he believe that would improve his chance of winning. That means hes not playing PvZ as a "handicap" for himself but that was an advantage, so we dont really need to give him more advantage by not allowing the opponent to know the race beforehand.
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I haven’t followed SC in a decade, but my belief is that any player should be allowed to play any race at any time. Since the vast majority of my esports experience is with Dota 2, I would absolutely hate any kind of rule that would prohibit, for instance, a hard carry from swapping roles with a support for a match to throw off an opponent. It should be expected of elite professional players to be prepared for any scenario that their opponent(s) throw at them.
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Preparation is what makes tournaments interesting to watch, for me at least. Seeing what players have come up with based on studying their opponents, trying to predict how they will play, and what is best against them, specifically, even if it's off-meta. When a player can arbitrarily change race, it invalidates all of that preparation. I might as well watch a random ladder game. Prep goes out the window and, with it, a lot of the more creative builds the player might otherwise have brought.
GSL has always had more of a focus on prep due to the over all longer timescale of the tournament, so even more than other tournaments, allowing switching around over the course of the tournament would result in the tournament missing its main appeal.
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EPT
