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Could it be a valid strategy for pro players such as ShowTime, Heromarine, or even someone like Hero or Maru, to train ZvZ and use it as an off-race against Serral?
Obviously, they'd never be favored against Serral in a ZvZ, but they don't need to have a winning advantage for this move to make sense -- they just need better odds than they'd get with their main race. And considering that Serral went 7-1 against ShowTime + Maru but went 4-3 against Solar + Reynor (only in ZvZ games), it's very plausible to me that getting a good enough ZvZ is totally doable for all of these players.
ZvZ is a super volatile match-up, and if ShowTime can just get his win percentage up to 30% against Serral, that's already better than Aligulac projects his PvZ against Serral.
Do any Zerg players have some insight on how much work / time it would take a top tier player like Maru to get pro-level ZvZ up to the level of someone like DRG?
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We should just allow players to have race vetoes
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Bisutopia19239 Posts
On September 06 2022 04:21 shindiginit wrote:
We should just allow players to have race vetoes
I prefer player vetoes. Veto three players at the start of the tournament. Facing them results in automatic victory.
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I think it would take a tremendous (impossible) effort, to get on a ZvZ level to beat Serral for any non-zerg pro-player. Serral is the best ZvZ player on this planet at the moment, according to aligulac. In April this year he had the highest aligulac ranking of all time for the ZvZ matchup.
Even if Maru (or any other top professional) is a good offrace player (reaching 6.5k and more regularly), there are soooo many timings / little things in every (especially in ZvZ) matchup that - in order to beat serral - you would have to spend every day for the next months only practicing ZvZ. During this time you would neglect your practice with your main race against the other races. And don't forget: Being the very best terran on this planet is making Maru a lot of bucks. And even being "die Mauer" of protoss is making ShowTime a decent living. The amount of time practicing ZvZ would never pay off. Who would you even practice against (and would realistically practice with those guys)?
I mean you see it with Reynor. He is one of the most mechanically gifted players ever. And he has a deep understanding of the game. But even he does, after months of hardcore PvZ practice, some "easy to avoid / almost stupid" mistakes. (Not snipping the overlord on map 1 in TSL Winners Semis vs Serral, whoever watched the match knows what I mean). This guy is 20 years old and can easily learn from these mistakes and become a force to be reckoned with. But Showtime on the other hand is already a little older. Realistically speaking he has 3-4 more years of progaming in him. Besides from asking themselves the question how much longer you can make a good buck playing starcraft - every player will ask themselves if it is worth to put effort into switching races.
History has repeatadly shown us, that there has never been a player, that can play two races on a top 5-10 worldclass level (Well, let's take Reynors Toss out of this equation, he might and shall prove me wrong).
If you want to win a local championship against your buddies, that are 200-500 MMR above you, I'd say go for the race change. 12 Pool them in a ZvZ, make a DT Rush in PvP or play some cheesey cannon rush. But you are assuming some offrace can outsmart "Galaxy-Brain" Serral. Look at for example Lambo. Easily a TOP 5 Zerg of the World. He is Someone with MAYBE?! the deepest understanding of the ZvZ matchup in the world and he doesn't really beat Serral on a regular basis. How realistic is it for Maru, Showtime.... really anyone offracing to become a better ZvZ player than Lambo? Dare I say become better than Serral. If - at the same time - said player had to put a high amount of practice in his mainrace.
One last argument: Reynor changed his Race AWAY from Zerg - almost exclusivly for the ZvZ matchup. According to aligulac he is the second best ZvZ player atm. And not even he is confident in beating Serral with his Zerg (and hasn't done yet with his Protoss).
But if I (dia level all 3 races) had to beat serral only 1 time in a BO 999, I would probably 12 pool drone rush every game :D.
Well TLDR: Practicing Offrace ZvZ to get on a level to beat Serral will never ever payoff for any pro.
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1. Offracing is extremely hard, Reynor is the best offracer of all time and outside of online cups it has hurt him more than it's helped him. Maybe one day this will change.
2. Serral's ZvZ is extremely good, it's only a weakness relative to his other matchups. Afaik since 2019, his only non Dark/Reynor/Rogue losses in the MU are a bo5 to Lambo, a bo5 to Elazer, and 2 bo3 to DRG (I might be forgetting 1 or 2 matches, but the broader point still stands.) Serral's lost as many (probably more) matches to non top 3 Terran/Protoss in that same time period.
Can't imagine it being a good idea for any pro.
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So the counter arguments I"m seeing are basically
1. off racing is hard
2. Serral is REALLY REALLY good at ZvZ.
I agree with both of these, but these arguments don't address the crux of my argument -- you don't need better ZvZ than Serral, you just need to have a win percentage that's better than your default win percentage against serral (i.e. 30% for someone like ShowTime).
So it's not a matter of having Serral level ZvZ, it's rather a matter of having Solar or DRG level ZvZ.
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But to get a Solar or DRG level ZvZ you would always neglect your main race practice. The tradeoff for a 30% ZvZ winrate vs serral is a drop from a 70% mainrace overall winrate to a 68% mainrace overall winrate, which hurts you way more, than losing against serral.
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Bisutopia19239 Posts
On September 06 2022 05:26 FamesCorv wrote:
But to get a Solar or DRG level ZvZ you would always neglect your main race practice. The tradeoff for a 30% ZvZ winrate vs serral is a drop from a 70% mainrace overall winrate to a 68% mainrace overall winrate, which hurts you way more, than losing against serral.
In a double elimination tournament, it’d be better to just forfeit against any Zerg opponents in the upper bracket and hope when you make it to the finals Zerg players managed to defeat Serral before you got there.
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To Op's question, we've never really seen Hero's PvZ against Serral as of late have we? Probably could've if he was able to beat Maru in lower bracket at TSL 9 because I think if he did he'd be able to get past Byun, Lambo, Reynor and Showtime.
As for other pros offracing to Zerg in hopes of beating Serral. I really don't how know viable that is, who is known to at least have a good enough offrace TO ZERG itself to actually win throwaway games in in things like ESL Opens or qualifiers. Maru and Reynor have offraced as Protoss itself just for fun or possibly as a viable alternate race to play in the future (moreso for Reynor than Maru). Even Serral himself has offraced as Terran just for fun or 2v2 or FFA's as well, but offracing as Zerg seems like such a rarity if not unheard of.
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I like the idea that you either have to offrace cheese Serral or just don't win a tournament. Good thing there is no goat though
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France12880 Posts
Since the community is able to patch the game / propose patches, their best bet would be to actually patch the game instead of trying to practice another race and the mirror match-up on top of that.
I have no doubt Maru should be able to beat any player in the world / be the favorite
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People is overreacting over a 3-1 result. LMAO I though OP was a troll
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Sorry, but if Solar and Reynor do not manage to win their ZvZ Series against Serral (maybe Reynor doesn't count though, he went 2:2), a offrace ShoWTimE won't win either.
But I think it has already been stated, yeah :D
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getting your winrate up to 30% against one player doesn't really help you. you're still almost certainly going to lose the match against them, while tanking your main race skill against everyone else.
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I really like the fact that switching races is starting to be considered part of SC2 grand strategy (if only on a theoretical level, for most). The race you play is but a means to an end, and if switching race gets you better results, then why not consider it?
It also puts balance discussions in a different light. When a DOTA hero is nerfed, you try a different hero. When a counterstrike rifle is nerfed, you try a different rifle. When your SC race gets a nerf, why not consider playing a different race?
Of course I realise that for most players the small benefit of switching will not outweigh the huge cost of learning a new race. So after brief consideration they'll decide not to switch. Perfectly fine decision. But for certain pro-gamers who have a solid offrace, that gap might be smaller. In Reynor we now have a player who can play 2 races on the highest level. Maybe one day we'll see a player who can master 3 races? The times they are a-changing, and I'm delighted we can be there as spectators.
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EPT
