It may be hard to believe, but Rogue has long been one of my favorite players. I glommed onto Jin Air pretty quickly after Maru joined and, since I play Zerg, Rogue instantly caught my attention. He wasn’t the best Zerg out there—and he seemed incapable of getting past the Ro8 in Code S—but boy was he fun. Years later, I still consider him one the most entertaining players in StarCraft history and my personal favorite when it comes to shenanigans. In honor of his GOAT article, I decided to share a few of my personal favorite Rogue masterpieces/disasters.
I’ve mentioned the game where Rogue breaks out swarm hosts against herO despite the fact that they were almost never used in competitive player, so here’s another game where Rogue makes swarm hosts when no one else will. This time he’s playing against Dark in a ZvZ on Dusk Towers.
herO is far and away the biggest victim of Rogue’s nonsense. This is one of Rogue’s earliest conquests, as he cooked up another spicy swarm host build.
This delight came during the height of HotS mech (aka the second half of 2015), but it reminds me of when I was learning to play and someone would tell me a unit was good and I’d just spam it in the next game. That’s what Rogue did with Vipers, breaking Bbyong’s defenses with a viper count that had never before been seen in Proleague.
Rogue proxy hatches against Classic.
Rogue proxy hatches against Classic again…
You’ve heard of a proxy hatch? How about four in one game? Disclaimer: No Classic’s were harmed in the making of this video.
I know it’s hard to believe, but Zerg air armies can be both fun and engaging. Watch as Rogue employs a peculiar composition against the normally unflappable Rain.
So, Rogue decides to proxy hatch on Odyssey. I personally think this is a great idea which is why I suggested soO do the build in the Code S final against GuMiho, but Rogue can’t just do a normal build with a pretty decent win rate. He has to do something absurdly complicated instead. With one of Stats’ probes patrolling in his main and natural, Rogue places a hatchery in the corner of his main, cancels it and puts down a spawning pool. The story Rogue is trying to sell is that he took one or both gold bases and that is why the spawning pool hasn’t been scouted (assuming Stats don’t scout it by chance).
The funny part of all this madness is that Stats’ probe scouts the proxied hatchery immediately after Rogue’s Roach Warren starts. When the camera shifts to Rogue, his Roach Warren is right next to the spawning pool, with both of them off creep. This may seem insignificant, but it does come into play in a back and forth low eco affair that gets wonkier by the minute.
Rogue and Shine combine for one of the more amusing basetrades I’ve seen in my life (and in a matchup where you rarely see them)!
This is a bit of an aside, but this is the game that resulted in MyuNgSik crying in the booth against Maru.
“The Box Art” game has always been one of my favorites. I’m not entirely sure what Rogue was going for with his tech switches, but anyone who has an army of 3 mutalisks, 2 ultras, 7 vipers and two queens is A-Okay in my book. Anyway, watch as Rogue shows us how StarCraft II was meant to be played (just like that viking in the Hots trailer).
Muta vs muta was always the worst style of ZvZ. True Zergs play roach vs roach, but they do occasionally lapse into the objectively worse playstyle. Rogue realizes the error of his ways against soO just in time to create a massive ground air tailor made to defeat mutas.
On February 27 2024 23:18 WombaT wrote: Man I’m really looking forward to checking this out after I clear the recommended VoDs from the main GOAT list
All vods from the Goat list will be posted in an article which will be coming out after all ten entries are done. This should save people some time as they won't have to open and reopen threads to find said games.
Thank you. I hope you do the same for following Serral and Maru post. There's no way you could summarize their play style with like 3 games in the article.
I like that it includes some games Rogue actually lost, and that's important I think. For these GOAT level players, the games they lost are often some of the best ones because that means their opponents also elevated themselves to same or higher level in order to beat them, which means you get to watch some absolute highest level plays, and you get to see how GOATs fights back with all they have in desperate situations.
Makes you wonder why proxy hatches never became meta.
Rogue was one of my favourite players during HotS and seeing all these games again reminds me of why. Although he became someone I disliked watching when he started actually winning championships :D
I dunno what they were smoking in the Jin Air house but between Rogue, Maru, and sOs, those guys know how to make Starcraft fun to watch. The craziest highlight reels you'll see. Would be great to get more of these lists
All of these games are gems, I will be doing a watching party with a buddy of mine of all these great « old » games
I am still surprised that Rogue couldn’t find success earlier in his career, given how strong he became afterwards His creativity allowed him to beat Maru during the raven patch with brute force when Serral couldn’t find a way to « theoretically » beat it. His series vs Dark also were often super entertaining
I remember one particularly series against Scarlett It was insanely scrappy, whacky and somtimes outright Bad. On the end Rogue won by the slimest of margins and afterwards declared in his mind it was a clean sweep. Can t remember where it was played though Also can t remember if it was a bo3 or bo5 Anyone else remember that clown Fiesta? It was absolutly hilarious
On February 28 2024 03:06 Fango wrote: Makes you wonder why proxy hatches never became meta.
Rogue was one of my favourite players during HotS and seeing all these games again reminds me of why. Although he became someone I disliked watching when he started actually winning championships :D
I dunno what they were smoking in the Jin Air house but between Rogue, Maru, and sOs, those guys know how to make Starcraft fun to watch. The craziest highlight reels you'll see. Would be great to get more of these lists
it has (had?) a lot to do with how the early game has changed over the years, especially with more workers at the beginning of the game. HOTS proxy hatch was peak entertainment on the ladder for me.
On February 28 2024 03:06 Fango wrote: Makes you wonder why proxy hatches never became meta.
Rogue was one of my favourite players during HotS and seeing all these games again reminds me of why. Although he became someone I disliked watching when he started actually winning championships :D
I dunno what they were smoking in the Jin Air house but between Rogue, Maru, and sOs, those guys know how to make Starcraft fun to watch. The craziest highlight reels you'll see. Would be great to get more of these lists
it has (had?) a lot to do with how the early game has changed over the years, especially with more workers at the beginning of the game. HOTS proxy hatch was peak entertainment on the ladder for me.
As someone who has a lifetime 10% win rate against Protoss (at least it feels that way), there was a window in 2018-19 where proxy hatching was grossly overpowered (since i could actually beat protoss for once my mmr went from 4500ish to 4900). I won a master swan open by proxying in 6 of my last 7 wins against multiple races by either doing the spine/ling all in or the ravager version. The former version is better if there isn't a ramp to go up, whereas the latter did better going up ramps, but Battery overcharge really did a number of the build. Protoss went from being unable to deal with it if your first two spines successfully popped, to just spamming batteries and holding it with ease.
EPT
