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WOL had brood lord infestor. I didn't find that state of the game strategically interesting. Bascially it was camping until zerg got to that point.
HOTS was interesting especially when proleague started the SKT1 Protoss literally made the meta. There was a time when I started really getting involved and laddering that I felt like I understood it. All the games started really going late. Some of the wildest games happened in this era, like the 2 hours gumiho vs losira match with like 20 minutes below 100 supply. Proleague was my favorite tournament of all time. Lower level player often liked the turtle fest. (Unless the got rolled by skill.Hosts)
LOTV was great to see protoss not turtle at some point and wait for late game. But Protoss representation overall has been bad. It's felt like ZvT the entire patch has dominated except Zest and Parting. Innovation games were so consistent and predictable. Korea felt like it's fallen off over time except Byun, Maru, Gumiho, Dark, and Parting. (ye I never felt like Hero has been as good as Parting)
For me the best strategic and mechanical games have been LOTV. I don't like that some maps just typically end up as stomps. The maps have at times been worst in LOTV than the other 2. I felt like after liquid.Bunny left, EU had no strong terrans for a while and then there was 2.0 with a period of new young players that have been super fun. (I.e. Firefly, Nightmare, Reynor, Clem, Jieshi, Trigger, Future, Astrea)
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On July 05 2024 20:40 Creager wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2024 10:21 geokilla wrote:On July 04 2024 22:13 Fango wrote:
HotS did, but not necessarily because the game was always in the best state. We just had a much bigger scene, and Proleague was always the most entertaining Starcraft tournament. Plus the larger WCS circuit, Blizzcon etc I'd like to also add that with HotS, we actually had an early and mid game. Now there's no early game and mid game lasts for about 3 minutes and late game kicks in at 10 minutes. The game is way too fast for it to be entertaining to watch. With Legacy of the Void, the game doesn't feel as entertaining to watch anymore. A lot of players do the same strats as everyone else and it all comes down to who can macro and micro better. I'm sure other players who are more knowledgeable in the game disagree but that's what it feels like when I watch now. I find CS2 and LoL to be more entertaining to watch nowadays, and I was never a LoL fan. Wings was definitely the most entertaining era for me, balance issues and relative skill level (compared to today) aside, especially with the sheer volume of events/tournaments, much better player diversity paired with the general novelty/popularity of the game. I 100% agree that the 12 worker start made the game less entertaining to watch overall.
I think the 12 worker start made the average game more entertaining to watch, but it made strategic depth a high-stakes proxies less of a thing.
We see a much greater variety of openers now, but they all kinda end up the same
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Up until the point where people figured out BL/Infestor, which actually hailed the most cancerous era of all of SC2, i believe WOL was the peak viewing experience. Everything was fresh and exciting, major meta shifts were happening continuously, moments like FruitDealer's first GSL win or MVP vs Squirtle will always remain special in my heart. MLGs, GSTL and many other formats peaked in WOL imo.
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WoL had the highest highs with the enormous fun of the first few years, but also probably the lowest lows with the endless BL-Infestor era. I voted for LotV which I think taken as a whole has had the best and most consistent gameplay, viewer experience, balance, tournaments, player skill, and storylines, but still, nothing in that really hits the sheer fun of the community and experience of early WoL, so I could have gone either way.
HotS is idolized by some but I'm not really sure why, as the gameplay and viewer experience was kind of all over the place with Swarm Host and Blink eras and the scene while there was a ton of content had nothing super exciting or unique going on.
Of course, answers will likely vary a lot based on what each person actually watched and enjoyed and what players and tournaments they were most personally hyped for, as that's probably a bigger determinant than anything else.
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I think hots had one of the most exciting metas of all time whenever TvZ went down the muta ling bane vs bio mine route. It also had some of the worst metas though between raven/SH and blink play in both PvZ and PvT.
I think lotv is one of the most consistently entertaining, but nothing will beat peak hots imo. You had this sense that the scene was at its healthiest and most polished. Wol was more hype and new, but felt unpolished and has aged the worst (just b/c the skill level was so much lower compared to pro play today), while lotv has coincided with a rapidly diminishing scene, which decreases hype (even though the play itself is at its highest level, and games from early lotv have aged very well). The best of hots just manages to lie at the intersection of these two for me, as the goldilocks expansion.
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WoL can't win because of the BL-Infestor vs SoulTrain meta, which coincided with MOBA games overtaking SC2 as e-sports. Terrans were locked out of top level pro play for a year?
20 Infestors spamming Infested terrans with 3-3 upgrades anyone?
Hots was ok, but does anyone really miss the Mothership core and its Nexus click? The Helbat Drop craze was embarrassing, and endless rally pushes in TvZ became boring.
Lotv is the best designed version of the game by far.
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United Kingdom20321 Posts
On July 05 2024 20:27 BisuDagger wrote:
WoL was peak entertainment given all the personalities involved between players, casters, event organizers, and shows in between.
LOTV is peak in game entertainment. The flow to the game has vastly improved over the past couple years.
HoTS is barely memorable. What I remember are just the boring stalemate games.
Wasn't there a single game in a series that took 3 hours of realtime because of swarmhost stalemate draw into replay swarmhost stalemate? :D
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On July 05 2024 21:47 Fango wrote:Show nested quote +On July 05 2024 20:40 Creager wrote:On July 05 2024 10:21 geokilla wrote:On July 04 2024 22:13 Fango wrote:
HotS did, but not necessarily because the game was always in the best state. We just had a much bigger scene, and Proleague was always the most entertaining Starcraft tournament. Plus the larger WCS circuit, Blizzcon etc I'd like to also add that with HotS, we actually had an early and mid game. Now there's no early game and mid game lasts for about 3 minutes and late game kicks in at 10 minutes. The game is way too fast for it to be entertaining to watch. With Legacy of the Void, the game doesn't feel as entertaining to watch anymore. A lot of players do the same strats as everyone else and it all comes down to who can macro and micro better. I'm sure other players who are more knowledgeable in the game disagree but that's what it feels like when I watch now. I find CS2 and LoL to be more entertaining to watch nowadays, and I was never a LoL fan. Wings was definitely the most entertaining era for me, balance issues and relative skill level (compared to today) aside, especially with the sheer volume of events/tournaments, much better player diversity paired with the general novelty/popularity of the game. I 100% agree that the 12 worker start made the game less entertaining to watch overall. I think the 12 worker start made the average game more entertaining to watch, but it made strategic depth a high-stakes proxies less of a thing. We see a much greater variety of openers now, but they all kinda end up the same
Spot on, but exactly how do you define the average game? Both players opting for macro? High-stakes options is exactly what I want to have at the player's disposal, I don't really see the appeal in having diverse openers when everything, the failed 2-base all-in included, can transition into a macro game.
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whatever expansion had the most ling bane muta vs bio. so prolly hots. peak rts. peak esports.
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I remember WoL fondly but mostly because of the personalities, the games weren't that great. In my memory HotS is a dark time with occasional lightnings disrupting the sad, clouded sky. LotV isn't pefrect but it's way closer to perfection than the other two.
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Man I’m gonna get some hate for this one… But I legitimately really enjoyed the GomTvT era of WoL, and a plurality of my favorite SC2 moments are from that time:
Kyrix vs Foxer
Huk vs Idra
Idea vs MMA
DRG vs MMA
Nestea vs Mvp
Mvp vs MMA
Mvp vs Squirtle
It was new it was fresh, and it might’ve been I’m a as shit but damn was it entertaining, for me as a spectator.
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For me: WoL >>> HotS >>> LotV. I just gradually lost interest alongside most of the community and pros.
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WoL > LotV > HotS as a viewer for me.
WoL only problem was the first 5 minutes in each game. It should have started with 10-12 workers.
Daybreak could have been the map of all time if that rock in the middle was indestructible. Because of that destructible rock, the games became stalemate immediately.
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Ok, so the answer would depend on the the question's interpretation. I interpret it as "when did you had the best time watching StarCraft 2?"
And to that my answer is: Proleague.
This was the time when I truly started to understand and appreciate the impact and importance of preparation to the oppenent, map and matchup meta.
Before that I was the "just play noble, straight up game without these early unfair cheese proxy shenanigans!" guy, but then "i stopped worrying and learned to love the $O$" 
On top of that we had the TL fantasy Proleague which even further added spice to the results of the matches.
On the other hand the 12 worker start in LotV killed a lot of early game strategy variance which to this day saddens me. I really miss mixing different forge and gateway openers in PvZ.
So for me it would be HotS > LotV > WoL
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United States33490 Posts
The gameplay might have sucked, but I think first two years of WoL were really fun because of the sheer volume and variety of tournaments. MLG, NASL, DreamHack, IPL, IEM all holding live events with their own unique character... Yeah they were all ruined by BL-Infestor in terms of the actual games, but the vibes were great.
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WoL/HotS easily. Legacy is just not as good of a game. Never was.
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On July 07 2024 05:35 Waxangel wrote:
The gameplay might have sucked, but I think first two years of WoL were really fun because of the sheer volume and variety of tournaments. MLG, NASL, DreamHack, IPL, IEM all holding live events with their own unique character... Yeah they were all ruined by BL-Infestor in terms of the actual games, but the vibes were great.
Yeah, it's hard to argue with this. I think LotV was a much, much better game but the optimism, and having SC2 be THE premier game when streaming and starting a new era of Western esports.
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I think LotV has given us by far the best games, and it did a lot to shore up the pain that was the end of HotS - mech making Byul cry in the GSL was pretty emblematic of how strong mech was after the SH nerf. That being said, I think a lot of people are going to go back to the era that got them into SC2. For me, that was early Heart of the Swarm with muta/ling/bane v biomine and scarlett's incredible rivalry with bomber.
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To me, LoTV brought in the best iteration of sc2. The games are so much more action packed and there are trades and battles going on throughout the game. Rewatching some of the HOTS and WOL games, many matches had literally nothing happening for the first 8-10 minutes while both sides built up their death balls OR one side just straight up cheese and win the game within the first 2 minutes.
That being said, it was much more hyped during WOL. It probably was because the game was new and modern esports was still young, but the crowds were much better. I think had LoTV been the game that was delivered off the bat sc2 would be a much bigger esport.
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United States97276 Posts
HoTS was peak for me outside of really cancerous swarmhost games
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EPT
