On October 25 2023 22:12 besanmilk wrote: I don't think the reason Protoss struggled vs top zergs in Bo7 is because the top Protosses were just all bad at PvZ compared to their PvT and PvP.
Thanks, wise words.
Top protoss players in HotS like Zest, sOs, Classic, fell off heavily in LotV. Zerg is widely considered to have been OP for at least a couple years of LotV around 2018-2020. It's still possible that the races are still imbalanced if an imbalance existed just a couple years ago. Protoss results vs Zerg in Bo7 has been poor for a while in LotV. All of these are pretty much facts, i don't know if anyone would want to dispute these.
I don't want to hear anyone say that protoss is underperforming because the top protoss players are gone. They were here for 6-7 years of LotV! They've been underperforming. I still haven't seen any argument addressing this.
sOs won 3 world championships in HotS, a 3 year game. He won 0 premieres in 6 years of LotV. Zest won 4 premiere tournies in HotS 2014-2015 including a world championship. He won only 4 premiere tournies in 7 years of LotV, and 2 of those premieres were only HSC's with low prize pools, not GSL events or world championships. Classic won 3 premiere tournies in HotS, only 2 in 6 years of LotV.
On October 25 2023 22:12 besanmilk wrote: I don't think the reason Protoss struggled vs top zergs in Bo7 is because the top Protosses were just all bad at PvZ compared to their PvT and PvP.
Thanks, wise words.
Top protoss players in HotS like Zest, sOs, Classic, fell off heavily in LotV. Zerg is widely considered to have been OP for at least a couple years of LotV around 2018-2020. It's still possible that the races are still imbalanced if an imbalance existed just a couple years ago. Protoss results vs Zerg in Bo7 has been poor for a while in LotV. All of these are pretty much facts, i don't know if anyone would want to dispute these.
I don't want to hear anyone say that protoss is underperforming because the top protoss players are gone. They were here for 6-7 years of LotV! They've been underperforming. I still haven't seen any argument addressing this.
sOs won 3 world championships in HotS, a 3 year game. He won 0 premieres in 6 years of LotV. Zest won 4 premiere tournies in HotS 2014-2015 including a world championship. He won only 4 premiere tournies in 7 years of LotV, and 2 of those premieres were only HSC's with low prize pools, not GSL events or world championships. Classic won 3 premiere tournies in HotS, only 2 in 6 years of LotV.
Stats won 0 premier tournaments in HotS, 5 in LotV. Trap won 1 premier tournament in HotS, 6 in LotV.
On October 25 2023 22:12 besanmilk wrote: I don't think the reason Protoss struggled vs top zergs in Bo7 is because the top Protosses were just all bad at PvZ compared to their PvT and PvP.
Thanks, wise words.
Top protoss players in HotS like Zest, sOs, Classic, fell off heavily in LotV. Zerg is widely considered to have been OP for at least a couple years of LotV around 2018-2020. It's still possible that the races are still imbalanced if an imbalance existed just a couple years ago. Protoss results vs Zerg in Bo7 has been poor for a while in LotV. All of these are pretty much facts, i don't know if anyone would want to dispute these.
I don't want to hear anyone say that protoss is underperforming because the top protoss players are gone. They were here for 6-7 years of LotV! They've been underperforming. I still haven't seen any argument addressing this.
sOs won 3 world championships in HotS, a 3 year game. He won 0 premieres in 6 years of LotV. Zest won 4 premiere tournies in HotS 2014-2015 including a world championship. He won only 4 premiere tournies in 7 years of LotV, and 2 of those premieres were only HSC's with low prize pools, not GSL events or world championships. Classic won 3 premiere tournies in HotS, only 2 in 6 years of LotV.
Zest was even better in LotV than HotS imo, he had great results. sOs is the only protoss who performed significantly worse in LotV than HotS, and that is explained easily by the fact that LotV is more reliant on good mechanics, whereas sOs skillset was mostly mindgames and strategy, with relatively weak mechanics. He is kind of GuMiho but as protoss, or Rogue who is a trickster but Rogue still had good mechanics.
GuMiho managed to win a GSL in LotV, but iirc he knew his mechanics were bad, so he specifically trained them by relearning stuff (similarly to how a basketball player could try a more improved way to shoot, which would make him perform worse for some time, until he gets better again), and managed to get decent results through that process. It's very probable sOs had won enough World Championships not to bother doing that, he might have found more success if he tried, but we'll never know Source for GuMiho: starts around 2mn30, he talks about lowering his mouse speed, trying to stop pressing "junk" hotkeys etc. Basically admit that he was not as gifted mechanically as players like INno or ByuN, and had to adapt
On October 25 2023 22:12 besanmilk wrote: I don't think the reason Protoss struggled vs top zergs in Bo7 is because the top Protosses were just all bad at PvZ compared to their PvT and PvP.
Thanks, wise words.
Top protoss players in HotS like Zest, sOs, Classic, fell off heavily in LotV. Zerg is widely considered to have been OP for at least a couple years of LotV around 2018-2020. It's still possible that the races are still imbalanced if an imbalance existed just a couple years ago. Protoss results vs Zerg in Bo7 has been poor for a while in LotV. All of these are pretty much facts, i don't know if anyone would want to dispute these.
I don't want to hear anyone say that protoss is underperforming because the top protoss players are gone. They were here for 6-7 years of LotV! They've been underperforming. I still haven't seen any argument addressing this.
sOs won 3 world championships in HotS, a 3 year game. He won 0 premieres in 6 years of LotV. Zest won 4 premiere tournies in HotS 2014-2015 including a world championship. He won only 4 premiere tournies in 7 years of LotV, and 2 of those premieres were only HSC's with low prize pools, not GSL events or world championships. Classic won 3 premiere tournies in HotS, only 2 in 6 years of LotV.
Stats won 0 premier tournaments in HotS, 5 in LotV. Trap won 1 premier tournament in HotS, 6 in LotV.
I'm specifically addressing the argument that "top protoss players", defined by their legacy and achievements before the modern era (where Protoss may or may not be weaker), are gone and that's why Protoss is underperforming. At least that's what I interpret that argument to be referring to.
Of course there can be protosses who actually are playing better in LotV than in HotS, due to improving as a player in general. They also might not have improved, and maybe Protoss really is fine and LotV just helped some protosses. We don't know for sure.
But for players who we can define as "top protosses" or some of the best players in SC2, based off of their skill and achievements in older eras, such as Zest and sOs, those players dropped off in terms of premiere tourny wins. It could also just be that LotV didn't help them, we don't know.
However what we do know, is that the very top Terrans and Zergs in older eras like HotS, were still top players in LotV. Such as Maru, Innovation, and Dark. And Zerg also has rising top players in LotV like Rogue, Serral, and Reynor. For Protoss in LotV, they seem to be a much more mixed bag and thus seem to have been affected more. We also know that Protoss has been doing worse than Terran and Zerg overall in LotV, even with top protosses from older eras like Zest and sOs playing, as well as newer rising Protoss like Stats and Trap.
I think I'm bad at wording this but i hope you get what I mean. What is a fact, and not an argument, is that Protoss has been underperforming at the top top level, in terms of the total # of premiere tournaments won in LotV. So the burden of proof is on the people who want to explain it away as "top protoss players are gone". I'm not trying to prove something that is already backed by statistics, but poke a hole in an argument with no concrete evidence.
On October 25 2023 22:12 besanmilk wrote: I don't think the reason Protoss struggled vs top zergs in Bo7 is because the top Protosses were just all bad at PvZ compared to their PvT and PvP.
Thanks, wise words.
Top protoss players in HotS like Zest, sOs, Classic, fell off heavily in LotV. Zerg is widely considered to have been OP for at least a couple years of LotV around 2018-2020. It's still possible that the races are still imbalanced if an imbalance existed just a couple years ago. Protoss results vs Zerg in Bo7 has been poor for a while in LotV. All of these are pretty much facts, i don't know if anyone would want to dispute these.
I don't want to hear anyone say that protoss is underperforming because the top protoss players are gone. They were here for 6-7 years of LotV! They've been underperforming. I still haven't seen any argument addressing this.
sOs won 3 world championships in HotS, a 3 year game. He won 0 premieres in 6 years of LotV. Zest won 4 premiere tournies in HotS 2014-2015 including a world championship. He won only 4 premiere tournies in 7 years of LotV, and 2 of those premieres were only HSC's with low prize pools, not GSL events or world championships. Classic won 3 premiere tournies in HotS, only 2 in 6 years of LotV.
Zest was even better in LotV than HotS imo, he had great results. sOs is the only protoss who performed significantly worse in LotV than HotS, and that is explained easily by the fact that LotV is more reliant on good mechanics, whereas sOs skillset was mostly mindgames and strategy, with relatively weak mechanics. He is kind of GuMiho but as protoss, or Rogue who is a trickster but Rogue still had good mechanics.
GuMiho managed to win a GSL in LotV, but iirc he knew his mechanics were bad, so he specifically trained them by relearning stuff (similarly to how a basketball player could try a more improved way to shoot, which would make him perform worse for some time, until he gets better again), and managed to get decent results through that process. It's very probable sOs had won enough World Championships not to bother doing that, he might have found more success if he tried, but we'll never know Source for GuMiho:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIba0FInuOs starts around 2mn30, he talks about lowering his mouse speed, trying to stop pressing "junk" hotkeys etc. Basically admit that he was not as gifted mechanically as players like INno or ByuN, and had to adapt
Thanks for the interview, it's interesting.
As for Zest having better results in LotV, there were a few years that I wasn't watching, so I don't have an opinion formed on how much skill he had or how prominent he felt. I'm mainly going off of 1st place finishes which he seems to have much less of in LotV. I remembered he felt dominant or like a top player (not just top protoss) in HotS. By the time i started watching LotV, he seemed like a regular GSL player with an occasional deep tournament run at IEM Katowice or GSL. I never felt he was on the top tier like Maru Rogue Dark who you regularly expect to get top 4 and grow their trophy list. By the time he won that one GSL Super before retiring, people were surprised at his resurgence rather than feeling "ah Zest is a top player and he racked up another win as usual". I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.
As for sOs having weak mechanics and LotV relying more on good mechanics, if part of Protoss in older eras was that you could win or do well without strong mechanics, and it's harder in LotV, then that means Protoss got weaker overall doesn't it? Unless if it's compensated by Protoss getting more rewarded in LotV for good mechanics, more than Terran and Zerg got in LotV.
What you fail to take into account is time/age. Players like Serral or Reynor didn't pop up because Zerg suddenly got so much better, but because these players only started playing full-time in LotV. Just a reminder: Two years before Serral crushed the world at Blizzcon, we all celebrated Elazer as THE foreign hope as the first foreigner to reach the Semifinals at the WCS Grand Finals. But he never quite reached that level again, which makes it more of an outliner.
Currently, for LotV, these are the standings for Races in Premier tournaments: Race: 1st place - 2th place - Number of Finals reached - Number of Players
Of course not all Premier events are equally important, but this is just as a basis. First of all, it does seem like Protoss struggle to close out finals, since it is the only race that lost more finals than it won. Protoss also has the fewest wins, even though they have more final-appearances than terran. So maybe Protoss do struggle in Bo7.
But this also shows that Protoss isn't fundamentally unbalanced compared to the other two - because in that case, Protoss wouldn't have reached so many finals. Also interestingly to note: Zerg has much more wins, but more than half of these are just Serral, Reynor and Rogue. Three out of the four players who even won 10 or more Premier events in LotV (the fourth one being Maru ofc). So it is not like Zerg is dominant across the board, these three are just far ahead of the curve. Dark trails a bit behind and do you know who the fifth most succesful Zerg in LotV is after that? Scarlett/Solar. Not exactly world-class material. The fifth best (performing) Terran would be Cure btw, the fifth best Protoss herO.
I would argue from that what I've been saying all along: Zerg doesn't have much depth in its lineup, but is extremly blessed on the very top. Protoss and Terran have deeper lineups, but struggle to inch out at the top. Which by a stastistic based on only 128 tournaments feels very realistic to base more on skill than on balance
On October 27 2023 00:38 Athenau wrote: Oh, are we back to the "top zergs are better" again?
It’s hard to argue with Serral really, but also his particular skill set incredibly suits that race. Serral can’t really play his style with Terran, and even less so with Protoss.
It’s still a daft argument for me, it’s been apparent for so, so long that Protoss at the very bleeding edge of the game just doesn’t expand and scale mechanically as much as the other two races do. And it’s relative advantage in trickery and optimised timings gets lessened the more stable and figured out the game gets.
I mean I think we can underestimate quite how good even the lower tier of top end pros are, and how long they’ve played and ingrained habits and knowledge. I still am quite surprised how few players at this stage have actually tried race switching. Be it out of frustration, or boredom and wanting a new challenge.
On October 27 2023 00:27 Balnazza wrote: What you fail to take into account is time/age. Players like Serral or Reynor didn't pop up because Zerg suddenly got so much better, but because these players only started playing full-time in LotV. Just a reminder: Two years before Serral crushed the world at Blizzcon, we all celebrated Elazer as THE foreign hope as the first foreigner to reach the Semifinals at the WCS Grand Finals. But he never quite reached that level again, which makes it more of an outliner.
Currently, for LotV, these are the standings for Races in Premier tournaments: Race: 1st place - 2th place - Number of Finals reached - Number of Players
Of course not all Premier events are equally important, but this is just as a basis. First of all, it does seem like Protoss struggle to close out finals, since it is the only race that lost more finals than it won. Protoss also has the fewest wins, even though they have more final-appearances than terran. So maybe Protoss do struggle in Bo7.
But this also shows that Protoss isn't fundamentally unbalanced compared to the other two - because in that case, Protoss wouldn't have reached so many finals. Also interestingly to note: Zerg has much more wins, but more than half of these are just Serral, Reynor and Rogue. Three out of the four players who even won 10 or more Premier events in LotV (the fourth one being Maru ofc). So it is not like Zerg is dominant across the board, these three are just far ahead of the curve. Dark trails a bit behind and do you know who the fifth most succesful Zerg in LotV is after that? Scarlett/Solar. Not exactly world-class material. The fifth best (performing) Terran would be Cure btw, the fifth best Protoss herO.
I would argue from that what I've been saying all along: Zerg doesn't have much depth in its lineup, but is extremly blessed on the very top. Protoss and Terran have deeper lineups, but struggle to inch out at the top. Which by a stastistic based on only 128 tournaments feels very realistic to base more on skill than on balance
Thanks for your insight, it's well put and written.
I didn't know that Protoss won that many premieres or appeared in so many finals of premieres. I suppose my perception that they didn't win as many premieres is just because I mainly watch GSL and world championships. I suppose the GSL scene may be a small sample size of players after all.
Good points about the Zerg lineup also not being as deep. They are very heavy on the top tier players, and then there is a small gap where the high tier is thin or missing. It could be just that there's a lack of players with the skill to fill that gap, or perhaps it's part of the Zerg race that imperfect play is more punishing than P/T, and perfect play is more rewarding for Zerg than P/T.
I do believe just from watching and my perception of "skill", that Serral for example is extremely solid and ambitious in ways that other top Terrans/Protoss aren't quite. And that Zerg's results are definitely also partly due to the top zerg's skill, not purely balance.
I do also believe that Zest/sOs struggling in LotV indicates Protoss has weakened in some ways. Like Wombat said, trick strategies become less potent the older a game gets and the more things get figured out. I think this effect has impacted players like Zest who comes up with unique builds, and sOs who relies heavily on tricks and making ballsy plays to punish small holes. LotV is also arguably more macro oriented because of the increased worker start and economy, which doesn't play to sOs strength, but also may have further weakened the Protoss race's strength at making trick strategies or early strategies. I do also think that Protoss doesn't scale as well macro-wise at the very late game, which is punishing since LotV is more macro oriented and games get to the late game with huge economies more often. No mass OCs, no mass larvae and mass mobile static defense and mass energy units. 2 Recalls is nice, and mass battery/canon is nice, but not quite the same.
I do also think Protoss is very punishing and hard. Not necessarily weaker in potential, but perhaps just harder to play at the top top level. So maybe it's not a race imbalance but just the difficulty. And that Protoss may suffer specifically in a long series like Bo7. But it's true also that Protoss may benefit from weekender tournaments or short tournies with less prep time like GSL Super. Protoss may struggle at Code S but they seem fine in GSL Supers.
On October 27 2023 00:27 Balnazza wrote: What you fail to take into account is time/age. Players like Serral or Reynor didn't pop up because Zerg suddenly got so much better, but because these players only started playing full-time in LotV. Just a reminder: Two years before Serral crushed the world at Blizzcon, we all celebrated Elazer as THE foreign hope as the first foreigner to reach the Semifinals at the WCS Grand Finals. But he never quite reached that level again, which makes it more of an outliner.
Currently, for LotV, these are the standings for Races in Premier tournaments: Race: 1st place - 2th place - Number of Finals reached - Number of Players
Of course not all Premier events are equally important, but this is just as a basis. First of all, it does seem like Protoss struggle to close out finals, since it is the only race that lost more finals than it won. Protoss also has the fewest wins, even though they have more final-appearances than terran. So maybe Protoss do struggle in Bo7.
But this also shows that Protoss isn't fundamentally unbalanced compared to the other two - because in that case, Protoss wouldn't have reached so many finals. Also interestingly to note: Zerg has much more wins, but more than half of these are just Serral, Reynor and Rogue. Three out of the four players who even won 10 or more Premier events in LotV (the fourth one being Maru ofc). So it is not like Zerg is dominant across the board, these three are just far ahead of the curve. Dark trails a bit behind and do you know who the fifth most succesful Zerg in LotV is after that? Scarlett/Solar. Not exactly world-class material. The fifth best (performing) Terran would be Cure btw, the fifth best Protoss herO.
I would argue from that what I've been saying all along: Zerg doesn't have much depth in its lineup, but is extremly blessed on the very top. Protoss and Terran have deeper lineups, but struggle to inch out at the top. Which by a stastistic based on only 128 tournaments feels very realistic to base more on skill than on balance
Thanks for your insight, it's well put and written.
I didn't know that Protoss won that many premieres or appeared in so many finals of premieres. I suppose my perception that they didn't win as many premieres is just because I mainly watch GSL and world championships. I suppose the GSL scene may be a small sample size of players after all.
In these two events Protoss is doing particularly bad, yes. Overall the statistic I presented is a bit overblown because for years the WCS NA was counting as a Premier event, so Neeb inflated the number of wins. Though again, is Neeb really THAT much better than Scarlett (for example) to counter-balance a race that supposedly is severly underpowered? But I guess it would be fun to expand the concept, like adding all the regionals to the statistic. I kinda feel like Zerg would feel a bit underwhelming, considering the regional dominance of players like Special or Has.
On October 27 2023 00:27 Balnazza wrote: What you fail to take into account is time/age. Players like Serral or Reynor didn't pop up because Zerg suddenly got so much better, but because these players only started playing full-time in LotV. Just a reminder: Two years before Serral crushed the world at Blizzcon, we all celebrated Elazer as THE foreign hope as the first foreigner to reach the Semifinals at the WCS Grand Finals. But he never quite reached that level again, which makes it more of an outliner.
Currently, for LotV, these are the standings for Races in Premier tournaments: Race: 1st place - 2th place - Number of Finals reached - Number of Players
Of course not all Premier events are equally important, but this is just as a basis. First of all, it does seem like Protoss struggle to close out finals, since it is the only race that lost more finals than it won. Protoss also has the fewest wins, even though they have more final-appearances than terran. So maybe Protoss do struggle in Bo7.
But this also shows that Protoss isn't fundamentally unbalanced compared to the other two - because in that case, Protoss wouldn't have reached so many finals. Also interestingly to note: Zerg has much more wins, but more than half of these are just Serral, Reynor and Rogue. Three out of the four players who even won 10 or more Premier events in LotV (the fourth one being Maru ofc). So it is not like Zerg is dominant across the board, these three are just far ahead of the curve. Dark trails a bit behind and do you know who the fifth most succesful Zerg in LotV is after that? Scarlett/Solar. Not exactly world-class material. The fifth best (performing) Terran would be Cure btw, the fifth best Protoss herO.
I would argue from that what I've been saying all along: Zerg doesn't have much depth in its lineup, but is extremly blessed on the very top. Protoss and Terran have deeper lineups, but struggle to inch out at the top. Which by a stastistic based on only 128 tournaments feels very realistic to base more on skill than on balance
Thanks for your insight, it's well put and written.
I didn't know that Protoss won that many premieres or appeared in so many finals of premieres. I suppose my perception that they didn't win as many premieres is just because I mainly watch GSL and world championships. I suppose the GSL scene may be a small sample size of players after all.
In these two events Protoss is doing particularly bad, yes. Overall the statistic I presented is a bit overblown because for years the WCS NA was counting as a Premier event, so Neeb inflated the number of wins. Though again, is Neeb really THAT much better than Scarlett (for example) to counter-balance a race that supposedly is severly underpowered? But I guess it would be fun to expand the concept, like adding all the regionals to the statistic. I kinda feel like Zerg would feel a bit underwhelming, considering the regional dominance of players like Special or Has.
Neeb was like a savant. Shy, kind of awkward but damn good at what he does. When Protoss was in a good spot, he was winning 3/4 regionals and winning in Korea. His lack of results thereafter is simply a result of Protoss being too weak. He used to be notorious for not commenting on balance but I remember him breaking at one point and admitting Zerg was OP during an interview.
The mechanical aspect of the game is always overstated.
The last time Protoss was the leading race on aligulac, was when Rain played in HotS and PartinG was on it right before that. This is because at this time Protoss was the macro race, they won the majority of late games.
At the absolute top level it is less about mechanics and more about knowing your opponent, because at this stage you run into the same dudes all the time. The more you play, the more the players figure each other out. And so it is logical that the late game race is heavily rewarded by this, because you can only throw so many spanners in the work. At this stage of LotV there are also less patches and map pool changes, so it only gets easier.
On October 27 2023 00:27 Balnazza wrote: What you fail to take into account is time/age. Players like Serral or Reynor didn't pop up because Zerg suddenly got so much better, but because these players only started playing full-time in LotV. Just a reminder: Two years before Serral crushed the world at Blizzcon, we all celebrated Elazer as THE foreign hope as the first foreigner to reach the Semifinals at the WCS Grand Finals. But he never quite reached that level again, which makes it more of an outliner.
Currently, for LotV, these are the standings for Races in Premier tournaments: Race: 1st place - 2th place - Number of Finals reached - Number of Players
Of course not all Premier events are equally important, but this is just as a basis. First of all, it does seem like Protoss struggle to close out finals, since it is the only race that lost more finals than it won. Protoss also has the fewest wins, even though they have more final-appearances than terran. So maybe Protoss do struggle in Bo7.
But this also shows that Protoss isn't fundamentally unbalanced compared to the other two - because in that case, Protoss wouldn't have reached so many finals. Also interestingly to note: Zerg has much more wins, but more than half of these are just Serral, Reynor and Rogue. Three out of the four players who even won 10 or more Premier events in LotV (the fourth one being Maru ofc). So it is not like Zerg is dominant across the board, these three are just far ahead of the curve. Dark trails a bit behind and do you know who the fifth most succesful Zerg in LotV is after that? Scarlett/Solar. Not exactly world-class material. The fifth best (performing) Terran would be Cure btw, the fifth best Protoss herO.
I would argue from that what I've been saying all along: Zerg doesn't have much depth in its lineup, but is extremly blessed on the very top. Protoss and Terran have deeper lineups, but struggle to inch out at the top. Which by a stastistic based on only 128 tournaments feels very realistic to base more on skill than on balance
Thanks for your insight, it's well put and written.
I didn't know that Protoss won that many premieres or appeared in so many finals of premieres. I suppose my perception that they didn't win as many premieres is just because I mainly watch GSL and world championships. I suppose the GSL scene may be a small sample size of players after all.
In these two events Protoss is doing particularly bad, yes. Overall the statistic I presented is a bit overblown because for years the WCS NA was counting as a Premier event, so Neeb inflated the number of wins. Though again, is Neeb really THAT much better than Scarlett (for example) to counter-balance a race that supposedly is severly underpowered? But I guess it would be fun to expand the concept, like adding all the regionals to the statistic. I kinda feel like Zerg would feel a bit underwhelming, considering the regional dominance of players like Special or Has.
Neeb was like a savant. Shy, kind of awkward but damn good at what he does. When Protoss was in a good spot, he was winning 3/4 regionals and winning in Korea. His lack of results thereafter is simply a result of Protoss being too weak. He used to be notorious for not commenting on balance but I remember him breaking at one point and admitting Zerg was OP during an interview.
Neeb thrived with a certain style, in a certain meta. This is not to downplay his skill but he was always more of a stock passive macro kind of guy. It’s been a while since Protoss really fit that style, a guy like Showtime clearly suffers from it despite clearly being a very, very skilled player.
As to sOs who people also mentioned, his decline is basically entirely down to LoTV and the sped up eco/tech ramp up. He was never a mechanical god, no slouch ofc, nobody at that level is but he isn’t a Trap or a herO. He did most of his absolute best work in the early/midgame of HoTS, where mind games were much more effective because you couldn’t fill your tech tree to counter most eventualities, as you can in Legacy.
On October 28 2023 16:55 ejozl wrote: The mechanical aspect of the game is always overstated.
The last time Protoss was the leading race on aligulac, was when Rain played in HotS and PartinG was on it right before that. This is because at this time Protoss was the macro race, they won the majority of late games.
At the absolute top level it is less about mechanics and more about knowing your opponent, because at this stage you run into the same dudes all the time. The more you play, the more the players figure each other out. And so it is logical that the late game race is heavily rewarded by this, because you can only throw so many spanners in the work. At this stage of LotV there are also less patches and map pool changes, so it only gets easier.
I’m not sure how it’s overstated. Maru is the best Terran mechanically, and is the best Terran overall. Cure and Clem are monsters mechanically and are up there, Bunny has great mechanics. Serral/Reynor/Dark are the best for Zerg and consequently are the best Zergs, and guys like Rag, DRG and Solar are no slouches.
Protoss is probably the race that benefits most from other skills other than raw mechanics, but even then I’d say Classic and herO are both up there as both the best Protoss players and have the strongest mechanics.
Or the period you alluded to, people forget Parting was a mechanical macro monster in his earlier career, and Rain is one of the strongest Protosses mechanically we’ve ever had, and hell he went and won an ASL in BW pretty quickly.
Of course the game isn’t all about mechanics, otherwise it’d be much less compelling. But usually the top dogs have top mechanics, as well as those other skills. You do have the odd fellow like Gumiho who does lag a bit in pure raw mechanics but still competes at the top level through strategic and tactical insight.
EPT
