Mvp was the most high-profile Brood War player to switch games at that point, being the only regular Proleague rotation player to make the leap. Considering that reputation, his first tournament was a disappointment as he finished in the RO32 of the 64-player tournament. Open Season 3 was similarly unremarkable, though Mvp improved slightly for an RO16 finish (most notably beating IdrA on the way).
His results were unremarkable. But I argue if you look at his gameplay he looked far far better than anyone else in 2010.
Watch Open Season 2 and how he plays TvZ in contrast to how terrans otherwise played Sc2. His style of gameplay was more similar to how it was played in 2011 whereas other terrans opened 1base Nukedrops (marineking) or BC rushes.
He knew how to play bio and macroplay such as splitting bio which he was the first one to demonstrate on the stage (although marineking popularized it).
However, he was definitely quite vulnerable to all-ins in 2010 as he hadn't quite nailed all parts of the game. But fundamentally speaking he was by far the best terran player in the early stage of Sc2.
The reason I rank him so highly is that almost noone in the first year of Sc2 understood how to play the game. MVP did and paved the way for a lot of terran playersr.
Even how to think about mixing builds together. If you wanna go for an early-in, your initial part of the build need to look similar to how you play the stand macro game. Similarly if you wanna greed, it needs to look similarly on the outside to how you play a solid game. MVP was the only terran player who understood that concept for the first 1½ year of WOL.
Mvp losing to all-ins and stuff despite being able to play macro games better than most players at the time is why it’s so funny when people think random masters of today would be able to win the GSLs from WoL. Sure, current top players would have a shot. Random low GMs might get extremely lucky but ultimately having learned to play LotV with bazillion QoL changes, free 2nd base and barely any real potent 1 base threat is not enough to just go back in time and win an open season. The most exciting thing about GSL back then was the « hidden » monsters like Bomber. Every KR player would label him and MKP (iirc) as ladder gods, yet Bomber needed so much time to qualify.
MMA managing to hang on with Mvp (and Polt with his Super Tournament win) were a big deal back then, it was no small feat. The competition was fierce despite kespa not switching yet
I've probably seen a thousand different cheeses during WoL on the Korean ladder. A lot of them have been capable to take a game away from you in a bo3 qualifier if not properly scouted. It was a slugfest compared to todays macro heaven. And trust me, you do not want to pick a fight with a random Korean GM in low eco-micro wars. You will lose.
I'm also a big fan of this theoretical scenario in which you can travel back in time to the open seasons. I think for one season, my chances might be okay because I could use broken builds in each match that just haven't been discovered yet. Which Zerg or Protoss in S1 would have been able to stop a perfectly executed good old 4-Gate? After a series, you'd have to pick something else, but I do believe there's enough stuff that you could pull through as a high masters/low GM player nowadays.
But you're right, maybe I'm completely delusional. Making it through the qualifiers would definitely already be an incredibly difficult hurdle as the random cheesy sh1t you have to deal with may well throw off some of the most stable players when you have to fight your way through so much of it. So while I agree that the mechanics of the pros then were certainly better than today's random masters players', the build orders and actual strategies you could bring to a format where you have time to prepare may have you pull through. Perhaps you could just 4 Gate your way through the qualifiers, too, I don't know.
I mean even if you look at MKP’s godlike splitting in those days relatively speaking versus now and what even decent GMs are doing, the knowledge gap does manifest mechanically too.
I think back to the 1/1/1 phase and how brutal that was at the time, but it ended up that 1 gate expands had their eco kick in early enough that you could just counter it by having more stuff. Which in turn saw the meta shift away from 3 gate expos/aggression into that being a very stock opener.
Perhaps the maps were too bad different to apply every development that occurred in the next year or so, but you could definitely at least adapt some of these concepts. You could also exploit everything that was broken but unexplored at this time.
Protoss players didn’t really frequently use warp prisms for quite some time, San Zenith was the first guy to really exploit Khaydarin Amulet, and when he did it got almost immediately nerfed. You could probably make hay with that. Or in smaller eco, scrappier games something like dual Immortal in a prism would be a pain in the arse, or a variant of the DT into Archon drop.
Add to that just minor optimisations like rapid fire hotkey setups and the like and you have a veritable fuckton of advantages.
This scenario especially appeals to me because presumably this person returns back to their own time at some stage, so it would be like Byun’s period of absence on steroids! Who was this guy, how was he so ahead of the curve? Where did he go?! And like a decade later he’d just be casually laddering and folks would keep badgering him if he was the same guy that just casually won a GSL and disappeared.
On February 22 2024 16:03 EEk1TwEEk wrote: And now we have Dark, Rogue, Serral and Maru lefy With all due respect, a player who showed dominant performance for only 3 years +/- shouldn't be in the list
Agree , GOAT has the words All Time in it that Status is impossible to reach for only playing a handfull Tournaments in just 2 years
This was a pleasant surprise. I assumed the metrics favored a long career a little too much for Mvp to be this high up, but I honestly agree with this placement. His career, especially the 2012 GSL run and that WCS match against INnoVation, were inspiring.
On February 22 2024 16:03 EEk1TwEEk wrote: And now we have Dark, Rogue, Serral and Maru lefy With all due respect, a player who showed dominant performance for only 3 years +/- shouldn't be in the list
Agree , GOAT has the words All Time in it that Status is impossible to reach for only playing a handfull Tournaments in just 2 years
Well, that's why three players have passed Mvp in the ten years since his retirement.
On February 21 2024 10:57 Fighter wrote: I wonder if Life is eligible for these lists or if he's too verboten.
He should be but considering we also need to fit Rogue, Maru and Serral, I can't see Life. Unless Serral will be discarded for never properly competing in GSL. Honestly still am surprised Parting is not in.
On February 21 2024 10:57 Fighter wrote: I wonder if Life is eligible for these lists or if he's too verboten.
He should be but considering we also need to fit Rogue, Maru and Serral, I can't see Life. Unless Serral will be discarded for never properly competing in GSL. Honestly still am surprised Parting is not in.
Mizenhauer has on multiple occasions stated that Life hasn't made the list both due to the scandal and him not fitting the criteria for a top 10 spot anyway.
On February 21 2024 10:57 Fighter wrote: I wonder if Life is eligible for these lists or if he's too verboten.
He should be but considering we also need to fit Rogue, Maru and Serral, I can't see Life. Unless Serral will be discarded for never properly competing in GSL. Honestly still am surprised Parting is not in.
Mizenhauer has on multiple occasions stated that Life hasn't made the list both due to the scandal and him not fitting the criteria for a top 10 spot anyway.
Mvp was the most high-profile Brood War player to switch games at that point, being the only regular Proleague rotation player to make the leap. Considering that reputation, his first tournament was a disappointment as he finished in the RO32 of the 64-player tournament. Open Season 3 was similarly unremarkable, though Mvp improved slightly for an RO16 finish (most notably beating IdrA on the way).
His results were unremarkable. But I argue if you look at his gameplay he looked far far better than anyone else in 2010.
Watch Open Season 2 and how he plays TvZ in contrast to how terrans otherwise played Sc2. His style of gameplay was more similar to how it was played in 2011 whereas other terrans opened 1base Nukedrops (marineking) or BC rushes.
He knew how to play bio and macroplay such as splitting bio which he was the first one to demonstrate on the stage (although marineking popularized it).
However, he was definitely quite vulnerable to all-ins in 2010 as he hadn't quite nailed all parts of the game. But fundamentally speaking he was by far the best terran player in the early stage of Sc2.
The reason I rank him so highly is that almost noone in the first year of Sc2 understood how to play the game. MVP did and paved the way for a lot of terran playersr.
Even how to think about mixing builds together. If you wanna go for an early-in, your initial part of the build need to look similar to how you play the stand macro game. Similarly if you wanna greed, it needs to look similarly on the outside to how you play a solid game. MVP was the only terran player who understood that concept for the first 1½ year of WOL.
Mvp losing to all-ins and stuff despite being able to play macro games better than most players at the time is why it’s so funny when people think random masters of today would be able to win the GSLs from WoL. Sure, current top players would have a shot. Random low GMs might get extremely lucky but ultimately having learned to play LotV with bazillion QoL changes, free 2nd base and barely any real potent 1 base threat is not enough to just go back in time and win an open season. The most exciting thing about GSL back then was the « hidden » monsters like Bomber. Every KR player would label him and MKP (iirc) as ladder gods, yet Bomber needed so much time to qualify.
MMA managing to hang on with Mvp (and Polt with his Super Tournament win) were a big deal back then, it was no small feat. The competition was fierce despite kespa not switching yet
I mean random masters player have a fundamentally much better understanding on how to play Starcraft than any GSL players (bar MVP/Nestea) in 2010. However, they would unquestionably lose to a lot of all-ins without specific practice in on the match/patch etc.
However, I think you do underestimate just how "stupid" players were back then. Terrans didn't even realize that opening hellions in TvZ were a must. This was pre-queen range buff. Queens had 3 range, they couldn't do anything. Hellions were insanely overpowered early TvZ. It took until mid 2011 before reactor first hellion (before expo) became the standard. Before that, terrans would still do terrible 1base all ins or other random cheeses.
If I could teleport myself back - with a few weeks of practice on the maps/patch - I put myself as one of the favorites to win any of the first 3 GSL seasons - even though my APM is much lower than the top competitors.
WoL was a much less mechanical demanding game than Sc2 today and terran was incredibly imbalanced in 2010. As long as you have a solid build, how do you even lose on maps like Lost Temple and Steppes of War as terran with like 150 effective APM and a solid understanding of the game + builds? At least TvZ should be unloseable. TvP, yes you do need some decent ghost/viking control to win late game, but protosses back then were terrible as well (bar MC).
But if you know how to do a fast 1base gasless expo in TvP (which is safe if you know how to do it right), you get a massive econ advantage in every TvP, and I think you win as well with 150 EAPM against everyone in that matchup.
Anyway, that's an offtopic. My original point was that every terran in 2010 had no clue what they were doing, didn't understand Starcraft fundamentals at all. MVP was the only one one in early Starcraft who demonstrated how to think about playing terran. Although in 2010 he was still somewhat raw. And I think he gets as little too praise for speeding up the learnings of all terrans in early WoL.
I know Jinro got praised a lot for being one of the only "macro terrans" in early WoL, but his macro-gameplay was weird and kind of "cheesy". Jinro relied massively on build-order-surprises to get ahead early in order to play an "imo" inefficienct macrotype of gameplay.
I’m still working on my time machine so hopefully someone can settle this once and for all!
Agreed, you could say the same about Idra too. Certainly a macro player, but it was kind of all he did and he was a bit vulnerable to certain styles. Where for Mvp it was eventually a resilient platform where he could execute a lot of gameplans from.
Idra may well have been the best Sc2 player in the first few months post release and late beta. However, he had a completely wrong mentality for how to think about Starcraft, and I am not just thinking about early GG timing.
His mentality was "I need to defend, build an army, and then attack and then I should win". Whereas execution of micro and how to trade, or even how to accurately time your attack.
So while MVP early on was a bit "raw" but had the correct idea on how to play the game, Idra wasn't raw early Sc2, but was mechanically vastly better than almost everyone else and knew the basics of the game better than other of the better BW players who switched. However, he gradually got worse as he never really "understood" how to win games after everyone learned the basics.
I also think 2012-zerg era mased how bad he had become at that point in time. Without zerg being so OP in that era he would likely have retired earlier.
Mvp was the most high-profile Brood War player to switch games at that point, being the only regular Proleague rotation player to make the leap. Considering that reputation, his first tournament was a disappointment as he finished in the RO32 of the 64-player tournament. Open Season 3 was similarly unremarkable, though Mvp improved slightly for an RO16 finish (most notably beating IdrA on the way).
His results were unremarkable. But I argue if you look at his gameplay he looked far far better than anyone else in 2010.
Watch Open Season 2 and how he plays TvZ in contrast to how terrans otherwise played Sc2. His style of gameplay was more similar to how it was played in 2011 whereas other terrans opened 1base Nukedrops (marineking) or BC rushes.
He knew how to play bio and macroplay such as splitting bio which he was the first one to demonstrate on the stage (although marineking popularized it).
However, he was definitely quite vulnerable to all-ins in 2010 as he hadn't quite nailed all parts of the game. But fundamentally speaking he was by far the best terran player in the early stage of Sc2.
The reason I rank him so highly is that almost noone in the first year of Sc2 understood how to play the game. MVP did and paved the way for a lot of terran playersr.
Even how to think about mixing builds together. If you wanna go for an early-in, your initial part of the build need to look similar to how you play the stand macro game. Similarly if you wanna greed, it needs to look similarly on the outside to how you play a solid game. MVP was the only terran player who understood that concept for the first 1½ year of WOL.
Mvp losing to all-ins and stuff despite being able to play macro games better than most players at the time is why it’s so funny when people think random masters of today would be able to win the GSLs from WoL. Sure, current top players would have a shot. Random low GMs might get extremely lucky but ultimately having learned to play LotV with bazillion QoL changes, free 2nd base and barely any real potent 1 base threat is not enough to just go back in time and win an open season. The most exciting thing about GSL back then was the « hidden » monsters like Bomber. Every KR player would label him and MKP (iirc) as ladder gods, yet Bomber needed so much time to qualify.
MMA managing to hang on with Mvp (and Polt with his Super Tournament win) were a big deal back then, it was no small feat. The competition was fierce despite kespa not switching yet
I've probably seen a thousand different cheeses during WoL on the Korean ladder. A lot of them have been capable to take a game away from you in a bo3 qualifier if not properly scouted. It was a slugfest compared to todays macro heaven. And trust me, you do not want to pick a fight with a random Korean GM in low eco-micro wars. You will lose.
I think the major problem (from terran perspective) is that they simply didn't know how to play safe. However, early-mid-2011 it got pretty obvious how terrans were supposed to get safely into macro games. But 2010 terrans didn't know that and aside from Blistering Sands - it imo had nothing to with the map-pool but rather a lack of understanding of the basics.
I think the bigger problem is that terrans back then had the idea that the race was bad late game and was "supposed to cheese/all-in". So that was the entire focus of the race. Plus winning games by doing early allins as opposed to properly learning how to play macro was harder so players were rewarded short-term for not properly learning the game.
That's why MVP stood out so much in open season 2 and season 3 (from the eye test) despite his results not being that great, because he actually wanted to properly play the game.
As an example of terrible terran openers in 2010. 1 base nuke drop. And on map 2 we open Maurauders vs zerg (???). This was a finalist btw.
Mvp was the most high-profile Brood War player to switch games at that point, being the only regular Proleague rotation player to make the leap. Considering that reputation, his first tournament was a disappointment as he finished in the RO32 of the 64-player tournament. Open Season 3 was similarly unremarkable, though Mvp improved slightly for an RO16 finish (most notably beating IdrA on the way).
His results were unremarkable. But I argue if you look at his gameplay he looked far far better than anyone else in 2010.
Watch Open Season 2 and how he plays TvZ in contrast to how terrans otherwise played Sc2. His style of gameplay was more similar to how it was played in 2011 whereas other terrans opened 1base Nukedrops (marineking) or BC rushes.
He knew how to play bio and macroplay such as splitting bio which he was the first one to demonstrate on the stage (although marineking popularized it).
However, he was definitely quite vulnerable to all-ins in 2010 as he hadn't quite nailed all parts of the game. But fundamentally speaking he was by far the best terran player in the early stage of Sc2.
The reason I rank him so highly is that almost noone in the first year of Sc2 understood how to play the game. MVP did and paved the way for a lot of terran playersr.
Even how to think about mixing builds together. If you wanna go for an early-in, your initial part of the build need to look similar to how you play the stand macro game. Similarly if you wanna greed, it needs to look similarly on the outside to how you play a solid game. MVP was the only terran player who understood that concept for the first 1½ year of WOL.
Mvp losing to all-ins and stuff despite being able to play macro games better than most players at the time is why it’s so funny when people think random masters of today would be able to win the GSLs from WoL. Sure, current top players would have a shot. Random low GMs might get extremely lucky but ultimately having learned to play LotV with bazillion QoL changes, free 2nd base and barely any real potent 1 base threat is not enough to just go back in time and win an open season. The most exciting thing about GSL back then was the « hidden » monsters like Bomber. Every KR player would label him and MKP (iirc) as ladder gods, yet Bomber needed so much time to qualify.
MMA managing to hang on with Mvp (and Polt with his Super Tournament win) were a big deal back then, it was no small feat. The competition was fierce despite kespa not switching yet
I mean random masters player have a fundamentally much better understanding on how to play Starcraft than any GSL players (bar MVP/Nestea) in 2010. However, they would unquestionably lose to a lot of all-ins without specific practice in on the match/patch etc.
However, I think you do underestimate just how "stupid" players were back then. Terrans didn't even realize that opening hellions in TvZ were a must. This was pre-queen range buff. Queens had 3 range, they couldn't do anything. Hellions were insanely overpowered early TvZ. It took until mid 2011 before reactor first hellion (before expo) became the standard. Before that, terrans would still do terrible 1base all ins or other random cheeses.
If I could teleport myself back - with a few weeks of practice on the maps/patch - I put myself as one of the favorites to win any of the first 3 GSL seasons - even though my APM is much lower than the top competitors.
WoL was a much less mechanical demanding game than Sc2 today and terran was incredibly imbalanced in 2010. As long as you have a solid build, how do you even lose on maps like Lost Temple and Steppes of War as terran with like 150 effective APM and a solid understanding of the game + builds? At least TvZ should be unloseable. TvP, yes you do need some decent ghost/viking control to win late game, but protosses back then were terrible as well (bar MC).
But if you know how to do a fast 1base gasless expo in TvP (which is safe if you know how to do it right), you get a massive econ advantage in every TvP, and I think you win as well with 150 EAPM against everyone in that matchup.
Anyway, that's an offtopic. My original point was that every terran in 2010 had no clue what they were doing, didn't understand Starcraft fundamentals at all. MVP was the only one one in early Starcraft who demonstrated how to think about playing terran. Although in 2010 he was still somewhat raw. And I think he gets as little too praise for speeding up the learnings of all terrans in early WoL.
I know Jinro got praised a lot for being one of the only "macro terrans" in early WoL, but his macro-gameplay was weird and kind of "cheesy". Jinro relied massively on build-order-surprises to get ahead early in order to play an "imo" inefficienct macrotype of gameplay.
I’m still working on my time machine so hopefully someone can settle this once and for all!
Agreed, you could say the same about Idra too. Certainly a macro player, but it was kind of all he did and he was a bit vulnerable to certain styles. Where for Mvp it was eventually a resilient platform where he could execute a lot of gameplans from.
Idra may well have been the best Sc2 player in the first few months post release and late beta. However, he had a completely wrong mentality for how to think about Starcraft, and I am not just thinking about early GG timing.
His mentality was "I need to defend, build an army, and then attack and then I should win". Whereas execution of micro and how to trade, or even how to accurately time your attack.
So while MVP early on was a bit "raw" but had the correct idea on how to play the game, Idra wasn't raw early Sc2, but was mechanically vastly better than almost everyone else and knew the basics of the game better than other of the better BW players who switched. However, he gradually got worse as he never really "understood" how to win games after everyone learned the basics.
I also think 2012-zerg era mased how bad he had become at that point in time. Without zerg being so OP in that era he would likely have retired earlier.
Idra’s problem was he had a pre-conceived notion of how the game was meant to be ‘correctly’ played. Which was more abstract and theoretical.
Mvp played what he saw or developed ultimately.
Idra was an incredibly talented player, with a crippling psychological flaw (honestly one I 100% share, albeit elsewhere) where he liked certainty, if I do x, y should be the result. Which made him a pretty damn inflexible player.
Idra was in ways actually right to GG to MMA that time, realistically if MMA hadn’t actually killed his CC, which is so unlikely that there’s few comparable examples throughout SC2 history.
I saw an interview catchup recently with him and was quite happy to see he’s doing well, seems way more chilled and in a field (pun intended) that suits him. Happy to see it, I think trying to compete in a brutally competitive game just didn’t dovetail all that well with his personality.
Of all the pros I had any interactions with at Dreamhack Winter 2011, and sharing a smoke break with my all-time favourite HerO of the Liquid variety was nice, the Grack was probably the most engaging, interesting guy to talk to.
Mvp was the most high-profile Brood War player to switch games at that point, being the only regular Proleague rotation player to make the leap. Considering that reputation, his first tournament was a disappointment as he finished in the RO32 of the 64-player tournament. Open Season 3 was similarly unremarkable, though Mvp improved slightly for an RO16 finish (most notably beating IdrA on the way).
His results were unremarkable. But I argue if you look at his gameplay he looked far far better than anyone else in 2010.
Watch Open Season 2 and how he plays TvZ in contrast to how terrans otherwise played Sc2. His style of gameplay was more similar to how it was played in 2011 whereas other terrans opened 1base Nukedrops (marineking) or BC rushes.
He knew how to play bio and macroplay such as splitting bio which he was the first one to demonstrate on the stage (although marineking popularized it).
However, he was definitely quite vulnerable to all-ins in 2010 as he hadn't quite nailed all parts of the game. But fundamentally speaking he was by far the best terran player in the early stage of Sc2.
The reason I rank him so highly is that almost noone in the first year of Sc2 understood how to play the game. MVP did and paved the way for a lot of terran playersr.
Even how to think about mixing builds together. If you wanna go for an early-in, your initial part of the build need to look similar to how you play the stand macro game. Similarly if you wanna greed, it needs to look similarly on the outside to how you play a solid game. MVP was the only terran player who understood that concept for the first 1½ year of WOL.
Mvp losing to all-ins and stuff despite being able to play macro games better than most players at the time is why it’s so funny when people think random masters of today would be able to win the GSLs from WoL. Sure, current top players would have a shot. Random low GMs might get extremely lucky but ultimately having learned to play LotV with bazillion QoL changes, free 2nd base and barely any real potent 1 base threat is not enough to just go back in time and win an open season. The most exciting thing about GSL back then was the « hidden » monsters like Bomber. Every KR player would label him and MKP (iirc) as ladder gods, yet Bomber needed so much time to qualify.
MMA managing to hang on with Mvp (and Polt with his Super Tournament win) were a big deal back then, it was no small feat. The competition was fierce despite kespa not switching yet
I mean random masters player have a fundamentally much better understanding on how to play Starcraft than any GSL players (bar MVP/Nestea) in 2010. However, they would unquestionably lose to a lot of all-ins without specific practice in on the match/patch etc.
However, I think you do underestimate just how "stupid" players were back then. Terrans didn't even realize that opening hellions in TvZ were a must. This was pre-queen range buff. Queens had 3 range, they couldn't do anything. Hellions were insanely overpowered early TvZ. It took until mid 2011 before reactor first hellion (before expo) became the standard. Before that, terrans would still do terrible 1base all ins or other random cheeses.
If I could teleport myself back - with a few weeks of practice on the maps/patch - I put myself as one of the favorites to win any of the first 3 GSL seasons - even though my APM is much lower than the top competitors.
WoL was a much less mechanical demanding game than Sc2 today and terran was incredibly imbalanced in 2010. As long as you have a solid build, how do you even lose on maps like Lost Temple and Steppes of War as terran with like 150 effective APM and a solid understanding of the game + builds? At least TvZ should be unloseable. TvP, yes you do need some decent ghost/viking control to win late game, but protosses back then were terrible as well (bar MC).
But if you know how to do a fast 1base gasless expo in TvP (which is safe if you know how to do it right), you get a massive econ advantage in every TvP, and I think you win as well with 150 EAPM against everyone in that matchup.
Anyway, that's an offtopic. My original point was that every terran in 2010 had no clue what they were doing, didn't understand Starcraft fundamentals at all. MVP was the only one one in early Starcraft who demonstrated how to think about playing terran. Although in 2010 he was still somewhat raw. And I think he gets as little too praise for speeding up the learnings of all terrans in early WoL.
I know Jinro got praised a lot for being one of the only "macro terrans" in early WoL, but his macro-gameplay was weird and kind of "cheesy". Jinro relied massively on build-order-surprises to get ahead early in order to play an "imo" inefficienct macrotype of gameplay.
I’m still working on my time machine so hopefully someone can settle this once and for all!
Agreed, you could say the same about Idra too. Certainly a macro player, but it was kind of all he did and he was a bit vulnerable to certain styles. Where for Mvp it was eventually a resilient platform where he could execute a lot of gameplans from.
Idra may well have been the best Sc2 player in the first few months post release and late beta. However, he had a completely wrong mentality for how to think about Starcraft, and I am not just thinking about early GG timing.
His mentality was "I need to defend, build an army, and then attack and then I should win". Whereas execution of micro and how to trade, or even how to accurately time your attack.
So while MVP early on was a bit "raw" but had the correct idea on how to play the game, Idra wasn't raw early Sc2, but was mechanically vastly better than almost everyone else and knew the basics of the game better than other of the better BW players who switched. However, he gradually got worse as he never really "understood" how to win games after everyone learned the basics.
I also think 2012-zerg era mased how bad he had become at that point in time. Without zerg being so OP in that era he would likely have retired earlier.
Idra’s problem was he had a pre-conceived notion of how the game was meant to be ‘correctly’ played. Which was more abstract and theoretical.
Mvp played what he saw or developed ultimately.
Idra was an incredibly talented player, with a crippling psychological flaw (honestly one I 100% share, albeit elsewhere) where he liked certainty, if I do x, y should be the result. Which made him a pretty damn inflexible player.
Idra was in ways actually right to GG to MMA that time, realistically if MMA hadn’t actually killed his CC, which is so unlikely that there’s few comparable examples throughout SC2 history.
I saw an interview catchup recently with him and was quite happy to see he’s doing well, seems way more chilled and in a field (pun intended) that suits him. Happy to see it, I think trying to compete in a brutally competitive game just didn’t dovetail all that well with his personality.
Of all the pros I had any interactions with at Dreamhack Winter 2011, and sharing a smoke break with my all-time favourite HerO of the Liquid variety was nice, the Grack was probably the most engaging, interesting guy to talk to.
Cool, do you remember where you saw that video? I was and still am a bit of a Gracken fanboy.
I agree with your and Hider's analysis of Idra's mindset, though. I also think that he simply was not as good as he thought he was in several areas of the game. For example, his late-game army control was comparatively weak even at the time, and it was clear that he believed that once he had survived until the lategame, he just deserved to win, with him frequently a-moving too bluntly.
But it must be added that the effects of Idra's mindset were exacerbated by the fact that zerg was severely underpowered a good part of the time when he was most active. As Hider has pointed out, the irony of the situation was that terran in the early years of WoL could win in TvZ with a great range of hard-to-scout and deadly cheeses and all-ins, but in actuality terran was also perfectly viable in the lategame, as MVP and others have shown. So zergs were often in the situation of having had to avoid a series of potential insta-losses only to enter into an even fight.
Mvp was the most high-profile Brood War player to switch games at that point, being the only regular Proleague rotation player to make the leap. Considering that reputation, his first tournament was a disappointment as he finished in the RO32 of the 64-player tournament. Open Season 3 was similarly unremarkable, though Mvp improved slightly for an RO16 finish (most notably beating IdrA on the way).
His results were unremarkable. But I argue if you look at his gameplay he looked far far better than anyone else in 2010.
Watch Open Season 2 and how he plays TvZ in contrast to how terrans otherwise played Sc2. His style of gameplay was more similar to how it was played in 2011 whereas other terrans opened 1base Nukedrops (marineking) or BC rushes.
He knew how to play bio and macroplay such as splitting bio which he was the first one to demonstrate on the stage (although marineking popularized it).
However, he was definitely quite vulnerable to all-ins in 2010 as he hadn't quite nailed all parts of the game. But fundamentally speaking he was by far the best terran player in the early stage of Sc2.
The reason I rank him so highly is that almost noone in the first year of Sc2 understood how to play the game. MVP did and paved the way for a lot of terran playersr.
Even how to think about mixing builds together. If you wanna go for an early-in, your initial part of the build need to look similar to how you play the stand macro game. Similarly if you wanna greed, it needs to look similarly on the outside to how you play a solid game. MVP was the only terran player who understood that concept for the first 1½ year of WOL.
Mvp losing to all-ins and stuff despite being able to play macro games better than most players at the time is why it’s so funny when people think random masters of today would be able to win the GSLs from WoL. Sure, current top players would have a shot. Random low GMs might get extremely lucky but ultimately having learned to play LotV with bazillion QoL changes, free 2nd base and barely any real potent 1 base threat is not enough to just go back in time and win an open season. The most exciting thing about GSL back then was the « hidden » monsters like Bomber. Every KR player would label him and MKP (iirc) as ladder gods, yet Bomber needed so much time to qualify.
MMA managing to hang on with Mvp (and Polt with his Super Tournament win) were a big deal back then, it was no small feat. The competition was fierce despite kespa not switching yet
I mean random masters player have a fundamentally much better understanding on how to play Starcraft than any GSL players (bar MVP/Nestea) in 2010. However, they would unquestionably lose to a lot of all-ins without specific practice in on the match/patch etc.
However, I think you do underestimate just how "stupid" players were back then. Terrans didn't even realize that opening hellions in TvZ were a must. This was pre-queen range buff. Queens had 3 range, they couldn't do anything. Hellions were insanely overpowered early TvZ. It took until mid 2011 before reactor first hellion (before expo) became the standard. Before that, terrans would still do terrible 1base all ins or other random cheeses.
If I could teleport myself back - with a few weeks of practice on the maps/patch - I put myself as one of the favorites to win any of the first 3 GSL seasons - even though my APM is much lower than the top competitors.
WoL was a much less mechanical demanding game than Sc2 today and terran was incredibly imbalanced in 2010. As long as you have a solid build, how do you even lose on maps like Lost Temple and Steppes of War as terran with like 150 effective APM and a solid understanding of the game + builds? At least TvZ should be unloseable. TvP, yes you do need some decent ghost/viking control to win late game, but protosses back then were terrible as well (bar MC).
But if you know how to do a fast 1base gasless expo in TvP (which is safe if you know how to do it right), you get a massive econ advantage in every TvP, and I think you win as well with 150 EAPM against everyone in that matchup.
Anyway, that's an offtopic. My original point was that every terran in 2010 had no clue what they were doing, didn't understand Starcraft fundamentals at all. MVP was the only one one in early Starcraft who demonstrated how to think about playing terran. Although in 2010 he was still somewhat raw. And I think he gets as little too praise for speeding up the learnings of all terrans in early WoL.
I know Jinro got praised a lot for being one of the only "macro terrans" in early WoL, but his macro-gameplay was weird and kind of "cheesy". Jinro relied massively on build-order-surprises to get ahead early in order to play an "imo" inefficienct macrotype of gameplay.
I’m still working on my time machine so hopefully someone can settle this once and for all!
Agreed, you could say the same about Idra too. Certainly a macro player, but it was kind of all he did and he was a bit vulnerable to certain styles. Where for Mvp it was eventually a resilient platform where he could execute a lot of gameplans from.
Idra may well have been the best Sc2 player in the first few months post release and late beta. However, he had a completely wrong mentality for how to think about Starcraft, and I am not just thinking about early GG timing.
His mentality was "I need to defend, build an army, and then attack and then I should win". Whereas execution of micro and how to trade, or even how to accurately time your attack.
So while MVP early on was a bit "raw" but had the correct idea on how to play the game, Idra wasn't raw early Sc2, but was mechanically vastly better than almost everyone else and knew the basics of the game better than other of the better BW players who switched. However, he gradually got worse as he never really "understood" how to win games after everyone learned the basics.
I also think 2012-zerg era mased how bad he had become at that point in time. Without zerg being so OP in that era he would likely have retired earlier.
Idra’s problem was he had a pre-conceived notion of how the game was meant to be ‘correctly’ played. Which was more abstract and theoretical.
Mvp played what he saw or developed ultimately.
Idra was an incredibly talented player, with a crippling psychological flaw (honestly one I 100% share, albeit elsewhere) where he liked certainty, if I do x, y should be the result. Which made him a pretty damn inflexible player.
Idra was in ways actually right to GG to MMA that time, realistically if MMA hadn’t actually killed his CC, which is so unlikely that there’s few comparable examples throughout SC2 history.
I saw an interview catchup recently with him and was quite happy to see he’s doing well, seems way more chilled and in a field (pun intended) that suits him. Happy to see it, I think trying to compete in a brutally competitive game just didn’t dovetail all that well with his personality.
Of all the pros I had any interactions with at Dreamhack Winter 2011, and sharing a smoke break with my all-time favourite HerO of the Liquid variety was nice, the Grack was probably the most engaging, interesting guy to talk to.
Cool, do you remember where you saw that video? I was and still am a bit of a Gracken fanboy.
I agree with your and Hider's analysis of Idra's mindset, though. I also think that he simply was not as good as he thought he was in several areas of the game. For example, his late-game army control was comparatively weak even at the time, and it was clear that he believed that once he had survived until the lategame, he just deserved to win, with him frequently a-moving too bluntly.
But it must be added that the effects of Idra's mindset were exacerbated by the fact that zerg was severely underpowered a good part of the time when he was most active. As Hider has pointed out, the irony of the situation was that terran in the early years of WoL could win in TvZ with a great range of hard-to-scout and deadly cheeses and all-ins, but in actuality terran was also perfectly viable in the lategame, as MVP and others have shown. So zergs were often in the situation of having had to avoid a series of potential insta-losses only to enter into an even fight.
I can’t recall where I saw it, merely that I know it exists!
There’s a State of the Game where he does make a rather good point. Either Zerg has to have good scouting options, or be able to play relatively blindly and be safe. You don’t need both, but you need 1, and that was a blooming good point. One of those two things has to be true for the reactive/defensive macro race to work properly.
I think a player of Idra’s skill set, ideas about the game etc would have been way more prosperous in later day SC2 than when he was actually playing
Mvp was the most high-profile Brood War player to switch games at that point, being the only regular Proleague rotation player to make the leap. Considering that reputation, his first tournament was a disappointment as he finished in the RO32 of the 64-player tournament. Open Season 3 was similarly unremarkable, though Mvp improved slightly for an RO16 finish (most notably beating IdrA on the way).
His results were unremarkable. But I argue if you look at his gameplay he looked far far better than anyone else in 2010.
Watch Open Season 2 and how he plays TvZ in contrast to how terrans otherwise played Sc2. His style of gameplay was more similar to how it was played in 2011 whereas other terrans opened 1base Nukedrops (marineking) or BC rushes.
He knew how to play bio and macroplay such as splitting bio which he was the first one to demonstrate on the stage (although marineking popularized it).
However, he was definitely quite vulnerable to all-ins in 2010 as he hadn't quite nailed all parts of the game. But fundamentally speaking he was by far the best terran player in the early stage of Sc2.
The reason I rank him so highly is that almost noone in the first year of Sc2 understood how to play the game. MVP did and paved the way for a lot of terran playersr.
Even how to think about mixing builds together. If you wanna go for an early-in, your initial part of the build need to look similar to how you play the stand macro game. Similarly if you wanna greed, it needs to look similarly on the outside to how you play a solid game. MVP was the only terran player who understood that concept for the first 1½ year of WOL.
Mvp losing to all-ins and stuff despite being able to play macro games better than most players at the time is why it’s so funny when people think random masters of today would be able to win the GSLs from WoL. Sure, current top players would have a shot. Random low GMs might get extremely lucky but ultimately having learned to play LotV with bazillion QoL changes, free 2nd base and barely any real potent 1 base threat is not enough to just go back in time and win an open season. The most exciting thing about GSL back then was the « hidden » monsters like Bomber. Every KR player would label him and MKP (iirc) as ladder gods, yet Bomber needed so much time to qualify.
MMA managing to hang on with Mvp (and Polt with his Super Tournament win) were a big deal back then, it was no small feat. The competition was fierce despite kespa not switching yet
I mean random masters player have a fundamentally much better understanding on how to play Starcraft than any GSL players (bar MVP/Nestea) in 2010. However, they would unquestionably lose to a lot of all-ins without specific practice in on the match/patch etc.
However, I think you do underestimate just how "stupid" players were back then. Terrans didn't even realize that opening hellions in TvZ were a must. This was pre-queen range buff. Queens had 3 range, they couldn't do anything. Hellions were insanely overpowered early TvZ. It took until mid 2011 before reactor first hellion (before expo) became the standard. Before that, terrans would still do terrible 1base all ins or other random cheeses.
If I could teleport myself back - with a few weeks of practice on the maps/patch - I put myself as one of the favorites to win any of the first 3 GSL seasons - even though my APM is much lower than the top competitors.
WoL was a much less mechanical demanding game than Sc2 today and terran was incredibly imbalanced in 2010. As long as you have a solid build, how do you even lose on maps like Lost Temple and Steppes of War as terran with like 150 effective APM and a solid understanding of the game + builds? At least TvZ should be unloseable. TvP, yes you do need some decent ghost/viking control to win late game, but protosses back then were terrible as well (bar MC).
But if you know how to do a fast 1base gasless expo in TvP (which is safe if you know how to do it right), you get a massive econ advantage in every TvP, and I think you win as well with 150 EAPM against everyone in that matchup.
Anyway, that's an offtopic. My original point was that every terran in 2010 had no clue what they were doing, didn't understand Starcraft fundamentals at all. MVP was the only one one in early Starcraft who demonstrated how to think about playing terran. Although in 2010 he was still somewhat raw. And I think he gets as little too praise for speeding up the learnings of all terrans in early WoL.
I know Jinro got praised a lot for being one of the only "macro terrans" in early WoL, but his macro-gameplay was weird and kind of "cheesy". Jinro relied massively on build-order-surprises to get ahead early in order to play an "imo" inefficienct macrotype of gameplay.
I’m still working on my time machine so hopefully someone can settle this once and for all!
Agreed, you could say the same about Idra too. Certainly a macro player, but it was kind of all he did and he was a bit vulnerable to certain styles. Where for Mvp it was eventually a resilient platform where he could execute a lot of gameplans from.
Idra may well have been the best Sc2 player in the first few months post release and late beta. However, he had a completely wrong mentality for how to think about Starcraft, and I am not just thinking about early GG timing.
His mentality was "I need to defend, build an army, and then attack and then I should win". Whereas execution of micro and how to trade, or even how to accurately time your attack.
So while MVP early on was a bit "raw" but had the correct idea on how to play the game, Idra wasn't raw early Sc2, but was mechanically vastly better than almost everyone else and knew the basics of the game better than other of the better BW players who switched. However, he gradually got worse as he never really "understood" how to win games after everyone learned the basics.
I also think 2012-zerg era mased how bad he had become at that point in time. Without zerg being so OP in that era he would likely have retired earlier.
Idra’s problem was he had a pre-conceived notion of how the game was meant to be ‘correctly’ played. Which was more abstract and theoretical.
Mvp played what he saw or developed ultimately.
Idra was an incredibly talented player, with a crippling psychological flaw (honestly one I 100% share, albeit elsewhere) where he liked certainty, if I do x, y should be the result. Which made him a pretty damn inflexible player.
Idra was in ways actually right to GG to MMA that time, realistically if MMA hadn’t actually killed his CC, which is so unlikely that there’s few comparable examples throughout SC2 history.
I saw an interview catchup recently with him and was quite happy to see he’s doing well, seems way more chilled and in a field (pun intended) that suits him. Happy to see it, I think trying to compete in a brutally competitive game just didn’t dovetail all that well with his personality.
Of all the pros I had any interactions with at Dreamhack Winter 2011, and sharing a smoke break with my all-time favourite HerO of the Liquid variety was nice, the Grack was probably the most engaging, interesting guy to talk to.
It's interesting how everyone who knew the gracken said he had a vastly different in-person vs online persona. I can relate, always been really mild-mannered IRL, but man did I used to rage and tilt hard back in the day. I used to rationalize it like it was only because I cared so much, but it wound up being a big hindrance to actual improvement. In hindsight, being an IdrA fan probably reinforced my bad habits.
Mvp was the most high-profile Brood War player to switch games at that point, being the only regular Proleague rotation player to make the leap. Considering that reputation, his first tournament was a disappointment as he finished in the RO32 of the 64-player tournament. Open Season 3 was similarly unremarkable, though Mvp improved slightly for an RO16 finish (most notably beating IdrA on the way).
His results were unremarkable. But I argue if you look at his gameplay he looked far far better than anyone else in 2010.
Watch Open Season 2 and how he plays TvZ in contrast to how terrans otherwise played Sc2. His style of gameplay was more similar to how it was played in 2011 whereas other terrans opened 1base Nukedrops (marineking) or BC rushes.
He knew how to play bio and macroplay such as splitting bio which he was the first one to demonstrate on the stage (although marineking popularized it).
However, he was definitely quite vulnerable to all-ins in 2010 as he hadn't quite nailed all parts of the game. But fundamentally speaking he was by far the best terran player in the early stage of Sc2.
The reason I rank him so highly is that almost noone in the first year of Sc2 understood how to play the game. MVP did and paved the way for a lot of terran playersr.
Even how to think about mixing builds together. If you wanna go for an early-in, your initial part of the build need to look similar to how you play the stand macro game. Similarly if you wanna greed, it needs to look similarly on the outside to how you play a solid game. MVP was the only terran player who understood that concept for the first 1½ year of WOL.
Mvp losing to all-ins and stuff despite being able to play macro games better than most players at the time is why it’s so funny when people think random masters of today would be able to win the GSLs from WoL. Sure, current top players would have a shot. Random low GMs might get extremely lucky but ultimately having learned to play LotV with bazillion QoL changes, free 2nd base and barely any real potent 1 base threat is not enough to just go back in time and win an open season. The most exciting thing about GSL back then was the « hidden » monsters like Bomber. Every KR player would label him and MKP (iirc) as ladder gods, yet Bomber needed so much time to qualify.
MMA managing to hang on with Mvp (and Polt with his Super Tournament win) were a big deal back then, it was no small feat. The competition was fierce despite kespa not switching yet
I've probably seen a thousand different cheeses during WoL on the Korean ladder. A lot of them have been capable to take a game away from you in a bo3 qualifier if not properly scouted. It was a slugfest compared to todays macro heaven. And trust me, you do not want to pick a fight with a random Korean GM in low eco-micro wars. You will lose.
I think the major problem (from terran perspective) is that they simply didn't know how to play safe. However, early-mid-2011 it got pretty obvious how terrans were supposed to get safely into macro games. But 2010 terrans didn't know that and aside from Blistering Sands - it imo had nothing to with the map-pool but rather a lack of understanding of the basics.
I think the bigger problem is that terrans back then had the idea that the race was bad late game and was "supposed to cheese/all-in". So that was the entire focus of the race. Plus winning games by doing early allins as opposed to properly learning how to play macro was harder so players were rewarded short-term for not properly learning the game.
That's why MVP stood out so much in open season 2 and season 3 (from the eye test) despite his results not being that great, because he actually wanted to properly play the game.
As an example of terrible terran openers in 2010. 1 base nuke drop. And on map 2 we open Maurauders vs zerg (???). This was a finalist btw.
Mvp was the most high-profile Brood War player to switch games at that point, being the only regular Proleague rotation player to make the leap. Considering that reputation, his first tournament was a disappointment as he finished in the RO32 of the 64-player tournament. Open Season 3 was similarly unremarkable, though Mvp improved slightly for an RO16 finish (most notably beating IdrA on the way).
His results were unremarkable. But I argue if you look at his gameplay he looked far far better than anyone else in 2010.
Watch Open Season 2 and how he plays TvZ in contrast to how terrans otherwise played Sc2. His style of gameplay was more similar to how it was played in 2011 whereas other terrans opened 1base Nukedrops (marineking) or BC rushes.
He knew how to play bio and macroplay such as splitting bio which he was the first one to demonstrate on the stage (although marineking popularized it).
However, he was definitely quite vulnerable to all-ins in 2010 as he hadn't quite nailed all parts of the game. But fundamentally speaking he was by far the best terran player in the early stage of Sc2.
The reason I rank him so highly is that almost noone in the first year of Sc2 understood how to play the game. MVP did and paved the way for a lot of terran playersr.
Even how to think about mixing builds together. If you wanna go for an early-in, your initial part of the build need to look similar to how you play the stand macro game. Similarly if you wanna greed, it needs to look similarly on the outside to how you play a solid game. MVP was the only terran player who understood that concept for the first 1½ year of WOL.
Mvp losing to all-ins and stuff despite being able to play macro games better than most players at the time is why it’s so funny when people think random masters of today would be able to win the GSLs from WoL. Sure, current top players would have a shot. Random low GMs might get extremely lucky but ultimately having learned to play LotV with bazillion QoL changes, free 2nd base and barely any real potent 1 base threat is not enough to just go back in time and win an open season. The most exciting thing about GSL back then was the « hidden » monsters like Bomber. Every KR player would label him and MKP (iirc) as ladder gods, yet Bomber needed so much time to qualify.
MMA managing to hang on with Mvp (and Polt with his Super Tournament win) were a big deal back then, it was no small feat. The competition was fierce despite kespa not switching yet
I've probably seen a thousand different cheeses during WoL on the Korean ladder. A lot of them have been capable to take a game away from you in a bo3 qualifier if not properly scouted. It was a slugfest compared to todays macro heaven. And trust me, you do not want to pick a fight with a random Korean GM in low eco-micro wars. You will lose.
I think the major problem (from terran perspective) is that they simply didn't know how to play safe. However, early-mid-2011 it got pretty obvious how terrans were supposed to get safely into macro games. But 2010 terrans didn't know that and aside from Blistering Sands - it imo had nothing to with the map-pool but rather a lack of understanding of the basics.
I think the bigger problem is that terrans back then had the idea that the race was bad late game and was "supposed to cheese/all-in". So that was the entire focus of the race. Plus winning games by doing early allins as opposed to properly learning how to play macro was harder so players were rewarded short-term for not properly learning the game.
That's why MVP stood out so much in open season 2 and season 3 (from the eye test) despite his results not being that great, because he actually wanted to properly play the game.
As an example of terrible terran openers in 2010. 1 base nuke drop. And on map 2 we open Maurauders vs zerg (???). This was a finalist btw.
Those games were so bad it’s quite entertaining. It’s like watching current platium players playing each other
The one thing I worry about in these theories is that they don't take APM into account. I'm a washed up 280 apm Zerg, but soO can play terran at 400 apm. You'd have a huge strategy advantage and that might be too much to overcome, but I wonder if our present selves would be hindered by people moving their cameras quickly.
Mvp was the most high-profile Brood War player to switch games at that point, being the only regular Proleague rotation player to make the leap. Considering that reputation, his first tournament was a disappointment as he finished in the RO32 of the 64-player tournament. Open Season 3 was similarly unremarkable, though Mvp improved slightly for an RO16 finish (most notably beating IdrA on the way).
His results were unremarkable. But I argue if you look at his gameplay he looked far far better than anyone else in 2010.
Watch Open Season 2 and how he plays TvZ in contrast to how terrans otherwise played Sc2. His style of gameplay was more similar to how it was played in 2011 whereas other terrans opened 1base Nukedrops (marineking) or BC rushes.
He knew how to play bio and macroplay such as splitting bio which he was the first one to demonstrate on the stage (although marineking popularized it).
However, he was definitely quite vulnerable to all-ins in 2010 as he hadn't quite nailed all parts of the game. But fundamentally speaking he was by far the best terran player in the early stage of Sc2.
The reason I rank him so highly is that almost noone in the first year of Sc2 understood how to play the game. MVP did and paved the way for a lot of terran playersr.
Even how to think about mixing builds together. If you wanna go for an early-in, your initial part of the build need to look similar to how you play the stand macro game. Similarly if you wanna greed, it needs to look similarly on the outside to how you play a solid game. MVP was the only terran player who understood that concept for the first 1½ year of WOL.
Mvp losing to all-ins and stuff despite being able to play macro games better than most players at the time is why it’s so funny when people think random masters of today would be able to win the GSLs from WoL. Sure, current top players would have a shot. Random low GMs might get extremely lucky but ultimately having learned to play LotV with bazillion QoL changes, free 2nd base and barely any real potent 1 base threat is not enough to just go back in time and win an open season. The most exciting thing about GSL back then was the « hidden » monsters like Bomber. Every KR player would label him and MKP (iirc) as ladder gods, yet Bomber needed so much time to qualify.
MMA managing to hang on with Mvp (and Polt with his Super Tournament win) were a big deal back then, it was no small feat. The competition was fierce despite kespa not switching yet
I mean random masters player have a fundamentally much better understanding on how to play Starcraft than any GSL players (bar MVP/Nestea) in 2010. However, they would unquestionably lose to a lot of all-ins without specific practice in on the match/patch etc.
However, I think you do underestimate just how "stupid" players were back then. Terrans didn't even realize that opening hellions in TvZ were a must. This was pre-queen range buff. Queens had 3 range, they couldn't do anything. Hellions were insanely overpowered early TvZ. It took until mid 2011 before reactor first hellion (before expo) became the standard. Before that, terrans would still do terrible 1base all ins or other random cheeses.
If I could teleport myself back - with a few weeks of practice on the maps/patch - I put myself as one of the favorites to win any of the first 3 GSL seasons - even though my APM is much lower than the top competitors.
WoL was a much less mechanical demanding game than Sc2 today and terran was incredibly imbalanced in 2010. As long as you have a solid build, how do you even lose on maps like Lost Temple and Steppes of War as terran with like 150 effective APM and a solid understanding of the game + builds? At least TvZ should be unloseable. TvP, yes you do need some decent ghost/viking control to win late game, but protosses back then were terrible as well (bar MC).
But if you know how to do a fast 1base gasless expo in TvP (which is safe if you know how to do it right), you get a massive econ advantage in every TvP, and I think you win as well with 150 EAPM against everyone in that matchup.
Anyway, that's an offtopic. My original point was that every terran in 2010 had no clue what they were doing, didn't understand Starcraft fundamentals at all. MVP was the only one one in early Starcraft who demonstrated how to think about playing terran. Although in 2010 he was still somewhat raw. And I think he gets as little too praise for speeding up the learnings of all terrans in early WoL.
I know Jinro got praised a lot for being one of the only "macro terrans" in early WoL, but his macro-gameplay was weird and kind of "cheesy". Jinro relied massively on build-order-surprises to get ahead early in order to play an "imo" inefficienct macrotype of gameplay.
I’m still working on my time machine so hopefully someone can settle this once and for all!
Agreed, you could say the same about Idra too. Certainly a macro player, but it was kind of all he did and he was a bit vulnerable to certain styles. Where for Mvp it was eventually a resilient platform where he could execute a lot of gameplans from.
Idra may well have been the best Sc2 player in the first few months post release and late beta. However, he had a completely wrong mentality for how to think about Starcraft, and I am not just thinking about early GG timing.
His mentality was "I need to defend, build an army, and then attack and then I should win". Whereas execution of micro and how to trade, or even how to accurately time your attack.
So while MVP early on was a bit "raw" but had the correct idea on how to play the game, Idra wasn't raw early Sc2, but was mechanically vastly better than almost everyone else and knew the basics of the game better than other of the better BW players who switched. However, he gradually got worse as he never really "understood" how to win games after everyone learned the basics.
I also think 2012-zerg era mased how bad he had become at that point in time. Without zerg being so OP in that era he would likely have retired earlier.
Idra’s problem was he had a pre-conceived notion of how the game was meant to be ‘correctly’ played. Which was more abstract and theoretical.
Mvp played what he saw or developed ultimately.
Idra was an incredibly talented player, with a crippling psychological flaw (honestly one I 100% share, albeit elsewhere) where he liked certainty, if I do x, y should be the result. Which made him a pretty damn inflexible player.
Idra was in ways actually right to GG to MMA that time, realistically if MMA hadn’t actually killed his CC, which is so unlikely that there’s few comparable examples throughout SC2 history.
I saw an interview catchup recently with him and was quite happy to see he’s doing well, seems way more chilled and in a field (pun intended) that suits him. Happy to see it, I think trying to compete in a brutally competitive game just didn’t dovetail all that well with his personality.
Of all the pros I had any interactions with at Dreamhack Winter 2011, and sharing a smoke break with my all-time favourite HerO of the Liquid variety was nice, the Grack was probably the most engaging, interesting guy to talk to.
Cool, do you remember where you saw that video? I was and still am a bit of a Gracken fanboy.
I agree with your and Hider's analysis of Idra's mindset, though. I also think that he simply was not as good as he thought he was in several areas of the game. For example, his late-game army control was comparatively weak even at the time, and it was clear that he believed that once he had survived until the lategame, he just deserved to win, with him frequently a-moving too bluntly.
But it must be added that the effects of Idra's mindset were exacerbated by the fact that zerg was severely underpowered a good part of the time when he was most active. As Hider has pointed out, the irony of the situation was that terran in the early years of WoL could win in TvZ with a great range of hard-to-scout and deadly cheeses and all-ins, but in actuality terran was also perfectly viable in the lategame, as MVP and others have shown. So zergs were often in the situation of having had to avoid a series of potential insta-losses only to enter into an even fight.
I can’t recall where I saw it, merely that I know it exists!
There’s a State of the Game where he does make a rather good point. Either Zerg has to have good scouting options, or be able to play relatively blindly and be safe. You don’t need both, but you need 1, and that was a blooming good point. One of those two things has to be true for the reactive/defensive macro race to work properly.
I think a player of Idra’s skill set, ideas about the game etc would have been way more prosperous in later day SC2 than when he was actually playing
With queens and overlord pillars, Zerg basically has had both for years!
I do miss all the weird all-ins of early SC2 (not just early WOL, even in HOTS it felt like there was more room for creative all ins.) Then again, a lot of openings were killed by the 12 worker start, and in retrospect the 6 worker start felt like a waste of time in 90% of games. Also don't want players dying to hard to scout builds all the time... I do feel like the game has become too macro-oriented in most match-ups when neither player messes up (ZvZ and PvP are big exceptions to that trend.) Striking the right balance between short and long games is difficult in practice though, and having too many long games is an improvement over too many short games/build order wins.
Mvp was the most high-profile Brood War player to switch games at that point, being the only regular Proleague rotation player to make the leap. Considering that reputation, his first tournament was a disappointment as he finished in the RO32 of the 64-player tournament. Open Season 3 was similarly unremarkable, though Mvp improved slightly for an RO16 finish (most notably beating IdrA on the way).
His results were unremarkable. But I argue if you look at his gameplay he looked far far better than anyone else in 2010.
Watch Open Season 2 and how he plays TvZ in contrast to how terrans otherwise played Sc2. His style of gameplay was more similar to how it was played in 2011 whereas other terrans opened 1base Nukedrops (marineking) or BC rushes.
He knew how to play bio and macroplay such as splitting bio which he was the first one to demonstrate on the stage (although marineking popularized it).
However, he was definitely quite vulnerable to all-ins in 2010 as he hadn't quite nailed all parts of the game. But fundamentally speaking he was by far the best terran player in the early stage of Sc2.
The reason I rank him so highly is that almost noone in the first year of Sc2 understood how to play the game. MVP did and paved the way for a lot of terran playersr.
Even how to think about mixing builds together. If you wanna go for an early-in, your initial part of the build need to look similar to how you play the stand macro game. Similarly if you wanna greed, it needs to look similarly on the outside to how you play a solid game. MVP was the only terran player who understood that concept for the first 1½ year of WOL.
Mvp losing to all-ins and stuff despite being able to play macro games better than most players at the time is why it’s so funny when people think random masters of today would be able to win the GSLs from WoL. Sure, current top players would have a shot. Random low GMs might get extremely lucky but ultimately having learned to play LotV with bazillion QoL changes, free 2nd base and barely any real potent 1 base threat is not enough to just go back in time and win an open season. The most exciting thing about GSL back then was the « hidden » monsters like Bomber. Every KR player would label him and MKP (iirc) as ladder gods, yet Bomber needed so much time to qualify.
MMA managing to hang on with Mvp (and Polt with his Super Tournament win) were a big deal back then, it was no small feat. The competition was fierce despite kespa not switching yet
I mean random masters player have a fundamentally much better understanding on how to play Starcraft than any GSL players (bar MVP/Nestea) in 2010. However, they would unquestionably lose to a lot of all-ins without specific practice in on the match/patch etc.
However, I think you do underestimate just how "stupid" players were back then. Terrans didn't even realize that opening hellions in TvZ were a must. This was pre-queen range buff. Queens had 3 range, they couldn't do anything. Hellions were insanely overpowered early TvZ. It took until mid 2011 before reactor first hellion (before expo) became the standard. Before that, terrans would still do terrible 1base all ins or other random cheeses.
If I could teleport myself back - with a few weeks of practice on the maps/patch - I put myself as one of the favorites to win any of the first 3 GSL seasons - even though my APM is much lower than the top competitors.
WoL was a much less mechanical demanding game than Sc2 today and terran was incredibly imbalanced in 2010. As long as you have a solid build, how do you even lose on maps like Lost Temple and Steppes of War as terran with like 150 effective APM and a solid understanding of the game + builds? At least TvZ should be unloseable. TvP, yes you do need some decent ghost/viking control to win late game, but protosses back then were terrible as well (bar MC).
But if you know how to do a fast 1base gasless expo in TvP (which is safe if you know how to do it right), you get a massive econ advantage in every TvP, and I think you win as well with 150 EAPM against everyone in that matchup.
Anyway, that's an offtopic. My original point was that every terran in 2010 had no clue what they were doing, didn't understand Starcraft fundamentals at all. MVP was the only one one in early Starcraft who demonstrated how to think about playing terran. Although in 2010 he was still somewhat raw. And I think he gets as little too praise for speeding up the learnings of all terrans in early WoL.
I know Jinro got praised a lot for being one of the only "macro terrans" in early WoL, but his macro-gameplay was weird and kind of "cheesy". Jinro relied massively on build-order-surprises to get ahead early in order to play an "imo" inefficienct macrotype of gameplay.
I’m still working on my time machine so hopefully someone can settle this once and for all!
Agreed, you could say the same about Idra too. Certainly a macro player, but it was kind of all he did and he was a bit vulnerable to certain styles. Where for Mvp it was eventually a resilient platform where he could execute a lot of gameplans from.
Idra may well have been the best Sc2 player in the first few months post release and late beta. However, he had a completely wrong mentality for how to think about Starcraft, and I am not just thinking about early GG timing.
His mentality was "I need to defend, build an army, and then attack and then I should win". Whereas execution of micro and how to trade, or even how to accurately time your attack.
So while MVP early on was a bit "raw" but had the correct idea on how to play the game, Idra wasn't raw early Sc2, but was mechanically vastly better than almost everyone else and knew the basics of the game better than other of the better BW players who switched. However, he gradually got worse as he never really "understood" how to win games after everyone learned the basics.
I also think 2012-zerg era mased how bad he had become at that point in time. Without zerg being so OP in that era he would likely have retired earlier.
Idra’s problem was he had a pre-conceived notion of how the game was meant to be ‘correctly’ played. Which was more abstract and theoretical.
Mvp played what he saw or developed ultimately.
Idra was an incredibly talented player, with a crippling psychological flaw (honestly one I 100% share, albeit elsewhere) where he liked certainty, if I do x, y should be the result. Which made him a pretty damn inflexible player.
Idra was in ways actually right to GG to MMA that time, realistically if MMA hadn’t actually killed his CC, which is so unlikely that there’s few comparable examples throughout SC2 history.
I saw an interview catchup recently with him and was quite happy to see he’s doing well, seems way more chilled and in a field (pun intended) that suits him. Happy to see it, I think trying to compete in a brutally competitive game just didn’t dovetail all that well with his personality.
Of all the pros I had any interactions with at Dreamhack Winter 2011, and sharing a smoke break with my all-time favourite HerO of the Liquid variety was nice, the Grack was probably the most engaging, interesting guy to talk to.
Cool, do you remember where you saw that video? I was and still am a bit of a Gracken fanboy.
I agree with your and Hider's analysis of Idra's mindset, though. I also think that he simply was not as good as he thought he was in several areas of the game. For example, his late-game army control was comparatively weak even at the time, and it was clear that he believed that once he had survived until the lategame, he just deserved to win, with him frequently a-moving too bluntly.
But it must be added that the effects of Idra's mindset were exacerbated by the fact that zerg was severely underpowered a good part of the time when he was most active. As Hider has pointed out, the irony of the situation was that terran in the early years of WoL could win in TvZ with a great range of hard-to-scout and deadly cheeses and all-ins, but in actuality terran was also perfectly viable in the lategame, as MVP and others have shown. So zergs were often in the situation of having had to avoid a series of potential insta-losses only to enter into an even fight.
I can’t recall where I saw it, merely that I know it exists!
There’s a State of the Game where he does make a rather good point. Either Zerg has to have good scouting options, or be able to play relatively blindly and be safe. You don’t need both, but you need 1, and that was a blooming good point. One of those two things has to be true for the reactive/defensive macro race to work properly.
I think a player of Idra’s skill set, ideas about the game etc would have been way more prosperous in later day SC2 than when he was actually playing
With queens and overlord pillars, Zerg basically has had both for years!
I do miss all the weird all-ins of early SC2 (not just early WOL, even in HOTS it felt like there was more room for creative all ins.) Then again, a lot of openings were killed by the 12 worker start, and in retrospect the 6 worker start felt like a waste of time in 90% of games. Also don't want players dying to hard to scout builds all the time... I do feel like the game has become too macro-oriented in most match-ups when neither player messes up (ZvZ and PvP are big exceptions to that trend.) Striking the right balance between short and long games is difficult in practice though, and having too many long games is an improvement over too many short games/build order wins.
Yeah i remember a several month period in GSL a couple years ago, where at some point i just realized like... wow most games literally end with the first push, and most games have 1 player doing some early-mid push on the opponent's third. It would just be over after that with no back and forth and it was really sad.
Now SC2 seems to really be reaching new heights the last year or so, and most games we see are these macro games where players get tons of bases and throw lots of armies at each other and trade trade trade. I think this is much better, though I do think that a 9-10 worker start would have been much better now that we know what 12 worker start does.
12 worker start favors Zerg a little too much, gets rid of a little too many openers, and accelerates the game to taking half the map a little too fast. Like it sucks that 12 worker start means that you hit that max efficiency of 16 workers on minerals so early. Back then with 6 worker start it was nice to have all these variations like 11 gas first, or 12 gas first, 12 rax 12 gas, or 12 rax 13 gas, 12 rax 1-2 marines before reactor vs going reaper first, 1 rax FE into double gas, whether to open 1 or 2 or heck 3 reaper first before expanding in TvZ... etc. They were small variations of each other, but had significant pros/cons and also made you have to scout not just the opening but scout again a little later to see if it's still the thing you think they're going for. Now scouting is a little simpler and more straightforward figuring out what they're going for, and unfortunately lost a bit of that cool part of the game.
Again I think it's better to not start with 6 workers, even if it gets rid of some crazy early proxies or rushes like a 1 rax proxy reaper at 8 supply, or 2 rax proxy reaper at 8 supply, etc. But it sucks that we made such a big jump that even the variations in gas timings became significantly reduced, there's much less choice when mineral mining efficiency drops to half after 16 workers on minerals.
And of course the other huge downside to 12 worker start - it led to us getting rid of 3 and 4 player maps. Huge. 9-10 worker start would probably have let you scout early enough.
Mvp was the most high-profile Brood War player to switch games at that point, being the only regular Proleague rotation player to make the leap. Considering that reputation, his first tournament was a disappointment as he finished in the RO32 of the 64-player tournament. Open Season 3 was similarly unremarkable, though Mvp improved slightly for an RO16 finish (most notably beating IdrA on the way).
His results were unremarkable. But I argue if you look at his gameplay he looked far far better than anyone else in 2010.
Watch Open Season 2 and how he plays TvZ in contrast to how terrans otherwise played Sc2. His style of gameplay was more similar to how it was played in 2011 whereas other terrans opened 1base Nukedrops (marineking) or BC rushes.
He knew how to play bio and macroplay such as splitting bio which he was the first one to demonstrate on the stage (although marineking popularized it).
However, he was definitely quite vulnerable to all-ins in 2010 as he hadn't quite nailed all parts of the game. But fundamentally speaking he was by far the best terran player in the early stage of Sc2.
The reason I rank him so highly is that almost noone in the first year of Sc2 understood how to play the game. MVP did and paved the way for a lot of terran playersr.
Even how to think about mixing builds together. If you wanna go for an early-in, your initial part of the build need to look similar to how you play the stand macro game. Similarly if you wanna greed, it needs to look similarly on the outside to how you play a solid game. MVP was the only terran player who understood that concept for the first 1½ year of WOL.
Mvp losing to all-ins and stuff despite being able to play macro games better than most players at the time is why it’s so funny when people think random masters of today would be able to win the GSLs from WoL. Sure, current top players would have a shot. Random low GMs might get extremely lucky but ultimately having learned to play LotV with bazillion QoL changes, free 2nd base and barely any real potent 1 base threat is not enough to just go back in time and win an open season. The most exciting thing about GSL back then was the « hidden » monsters like Bomber. Every KR player would label him and MKP (iirc) as ladder gods, yet Bomber needed so much time to qualify.
MMA managing to hang on with Mvp (and Polt with his Super Tournament win) were a big deal back then, it was no small feat. The competition was fierce despite kespa not switching yet
I've probably seen a thousand different cheeses during WoL on the Korean ladder. A lot of them have been capable to take a game away from you in a bo3 qualifier if not properly scouted. It was a slugfest compared to todays macro heaven. And trust me, you do not want to pick a fight with a random Korean GM in low eco-micro wars. You will lose.
I think the major problem (from terran perspective) is that they simply didn't know how to play safe. However, early-mid-2011 it got pretty obvious how terrans were supposed to get safely into macro games. But 2010 terrans didn't know that and aside from Blistering Sands - it imo had nothing to with the map-pool but rather a lack of understanding of the basics.
I think the bigger problem is that terrans back then had the idea that the race was bad late game and was "supposed to cheese/all-in". So that was the entire focus of the race. Plus winning games by doing early allins as opposed to properly learning how to play macro was harder so players were rewarded short-term for not properly learning the game.
That's why MVP stood out so much in open season 2 and season 3 (from the eye test) despite his results not being that great, because he actually wanted to properly play the game.
As an example of terrible terran openers in 2010. 1 base nuke drop. And on map 2 we open Maurauders vs zerg (???). This was a finalist btw.
Mvp was the most high-profile Brood War player to switch games at that point, being the only regular Proleague rotation player to make the leap. Considering that reputation, his first tournament was a disappointment as he finished in the RO32 of the 64-player tournament. Open Season 3 was similarly unremarkable, though Mvp improved slightly for an RO16 finish (most notably beating IdrA on the way).
His results were unremarkable. But I argue if you look at his gameplay he looked far far better than anyone else in 2010.
Watch Open Season 2 and how he plays TvZ in contrast to how terrans otherwise played Sc2. His style of gameplay was more similar to how it was played in 2011 whereas other terrans opened 1base Nukedrops (marineking) or BC rushes.
He knew how to play bio and macroplay such as splitting bio which he was the first one to demonstrate on the stage (although marineking popularized it).
However, he was definitely quite vulnerable to all-ins in 2010 as he hadn't quite nailed all parts of the game. But fundamentally speaking he was by far the best terran player in the early stage of Sc2.
The reason I rank him so highly is that almost noone in the first year of Sc2 understood how to play the game. MVP did and paved the way for a lot of terran playersr.
Even how to think about mixing builds together. If you wanna go for an early-in, your initial part of the build need to look similar to how you play the stand macro game. Similarly if you wanna greed, it needs to look similarly on the outside to how you play a solid game. MVP was the only terran player who understood that concept for the first 1½ year of WOL.
Mvp losing to all-ins and stuff despite being able to play macro games better than most players at the time is why it’s so funny when people think random masters of today would be able to win the GSLs from WoL. Sure, current top players would have a shot. Random low GMs might get extremely lucky but ultimately having learned to play LotV with bazillion QoL changes, free 2nd base and barely any real potent 1 base threat is not enough to just go back in time and win an open season. The most exciting thing about GSL back then was the « hidden » monsters like Bomber. Every KR player would label him and MKP (iirc) as ladder gods, yet Bomber needed so much time to qualify.
MMA managing to hang on with Mvp (and Polt with his Super Tournament win) were a big deal back then, it was no small feat. The competition was fierce despite kespa not switching yet
I've probably seen a thousand different cheeses during WoL on the Korean ladder. A lot of them have been capable to take a game away from you in a bo3 qualifier if not properly scouted. It was a slugfest compared to todays macro heaven. And trust me, you do not want to pick a fight with a random Korean GM in low eco-micro wars. You will lose.
I think the major problem (from terran perspective) is that they simply didn't know how to play safe. However, early-mid-2011 it got pretty obvious how terrans were supposed to get safely into macro games. But 2010 terrans didn't know that and aside from Blistering Sands - it imo had nothing to with the map-pool but rather a lack of understanding of the basics.
I think the bigger problem is that terrans back then had the idea that the race was bad late game and was "supposed to cheese/all-in". So that was the entire focus of the race. Plus winning games by doing early allins as opposed to properly learning how to play macro was harder so players were rewarded short-term for not properly learning the game.
That's why MVP stood out so much in open season 2 and season 3 (from the eye test) despite his results not being that great, because he actually wanted to properly play the game.
As an example of terrible terran openers in 2010. 1 base nuke drop. And on map 2 we open Maurauders vs zerg (???). This was a finalist btw.
lol at 20:05 Artosis saying burrowed banelings are gonna starting forcing ravens out, we're still waiting 14 years later!
pretty cool game by Mvp, I still like watching those old matches
It'll take another year before burrowed infestors start forcing ravens out, and then maybe in 2026 we'll see serral somehow fit burrowed banelings in ontop of the million other amazing things he already does, and then in 2028 we'll finally see Artosis was right!!
On February 21 2024 09:02 Pentarp wrote: Why are we only looking at tournament results?
Look at the single-handed impact of Mvp in getting ghost snipe nerfed into oblivion. No other player can boast a massive balance change based only on their performance.
ByuN being a reaper patch terran caused some big nerfs and Scarlett got that disgusting unbeatable elevator ling build nerfed as well. I'd say both of those were more obnoxious as Mvp is way better than either.
ByuN was able to beat Serral in epic macro games after coming back from the military, there is no world (even if mvp happened to be younger and didn't have health issues) in which Mvp would have been able to do the same on LotV in 2020. I mean I like mvp as much as any terran fan, and he might be higher than ByuN in a GOAT list, but in a best player of all time list, ByuN has reached highs mvp could not ever reach simply mechanically speaking.
I mean aside from the obvious injury, and military service, I don't think it's provable Mvp couldn't do it, not sure why you would think this. Byun was competing when Mvp was around too and wasn't able to see nearly as much success as Mvp did. Even just on Byun's team, Prime, MarineKing was the actual ace of the team. I don't think it's fair to say an immortal Mvp wouldn't have been able to improve as much or keep up.
Polt is another similar player from that era, or Bomber or Taeja a little after. (all 3 of them seeing success after the KeSPA switch, like at the season finals or Blizzcon, and Taeja came back from the military and immediately had a 2-3 to Serral at a Homestory Cup)
It's never easy for an old dog to learn new tricks, but Mvp did learn new tricks with his injury and he reinvented himself.
EPT
