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Hey y'all,
For those of you who are unaware, Morrow just won IEM, taking down Idra, Dimaga, TLO, Huk, and Artosis all along the way. The replays of all this can be found in this thread http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=145398 . Watch his games. With the exception of the Tarsen series, his games are unbelievable.
TvP
Morrow abused the "new TLO TvP," aka getting Banshees reasonably quickly and holding the ground with Marines, Marauders, and some mix of Factory units. This kind of opening let Morrow get a fast FE and Huk spent the rest of the game on his back foot. The name of the game is 'aggression;' Morrow never let Huk feel comfortable and his macro made Huk look like a run of the mill Diamond player. I have rarely seen such a skill gap in a match. It is quite clear that Huk's relative inexperience in RTS made MorroW's win all the easier.
Previously, TvP seemed to be defined by going Mech or Bio, but by opening heavy Marines, the quick Raven punishes Stalker heavy openings, and the Banshees represent all kinds of problems. It also means that Void Rays are pretty much out of the question; the Marines with the fast Stim are very strong and multiple Starport mean that Vikings are never far away.
TvT
Morrow lost very sharply to Tarson because of his trademarked 1 Rax Reaper FE was old news and everyone played to beat it. Even so, Morrow won a great series over TLO in a TvT with nothing that could be called stereotypical except that they did usually get at least 1 of each unit production facility. These two top players showed that TvT is wide open currently, whether you open Reapers, Marauders, Marine/Hellion, Marine/Tank, Banshees, the list goes on. TvT, as long as you can stop a quick Bio push or quick Banshee, your strategy can be viable.
The winning builds typically open Fact-Port (I will not call it 1/1/1) but we also saw strong Tech barracks openings. The critical factor for Morrow's victory came with holding back until he could roar up and take map control and hold onto it for dear life. Medivacs have been the Starport unit of choice, 4 marauders can stim down CCs or Factories in no time or tons of SCVs.
TvZ
There are infinite threads talking about the 5 Rax Reaper nonsense, so I will skip that. Morrow showed no respect for Artosis as a player, Bunkering the bottom of his ramp in 2 straight games, stopping the FE and allowing him to just out macro the Zerg. A quick Barracks followed by a pair of ramp Bunkers allowed a ton of time to get up 4-5 Barracks and eventually expand even before the Zerg player does. This style may be very successful against weaker Zergs, as MorroW showcased. Against Dimaga, MorroW won game 1 in style with insane micro in a standard Marine Tank push. His losses occurred any time he tried to get cute with Banshees.
TvZ, it seems that even Banelings aren't enough to just straight up beat Marine heavy builds. The real losses only occurred when Banelings were backed heavily by Mutas or Ultras, but even there, Morrow did very well for himself.
Watch the replays. MorroW's insane aggressive strategies, micro, and unbelievable macro is quite a ways above more popular SC2 "pros" and is educational for everyone.
Thoughts?
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i fucking hate when people say fast FE. i also hate it when people say a player got his FE after getting banshees mmm and a few factory units. wtf gives? do you know what a fe is?
secondly morrow is a korean pro who plays terran what the hell did you expect lol. the top players in sc2 right now are good but there, on average, on par with b/A- iccup players at best.
User was temp banned for this post.
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Okay for 1) I was typing quickly, so whoops.
And 2) He is Swedish. Well done.
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I wouldn't say unbelievable, his series vs Dimaga and Idra were very intense and entertaining tho.
Honestly I thought he was donezo vs Dimaga, but he was able to come from behind and pull out the series.
Felt like he played really solid vs all mu's but honestly I feel he's def below STC skill wise.
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On August 23 2010 12:04 charlie420247 wrote:
secondly morrow is a korean pro who plays terran what the hell did you expect lol. the top players in sc2 right now are good but there, on average, on par with b/A- iccup players at best.
LOL. I love when people make posts like this.
I didn't watch live and hadn't planned to, but I might at least look over the games now. Sounds interesting
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The way OP described Morrow's play makes me cower in fear. Definitely going to check out the replays.
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Big surprise. OP terran wins.
User was temp banned for this post.
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On August 23 2010 12:04 charlie420247 wrote:
i fucking hate when people say fast FE. i also hate it when people say a player got his FE after getting banshees mmm and a few factory units. wtf gives? do you know what a fe is?
secondly morrow is a korean pro who plays terran what the hell did you expect lol. the top players in sc2 right now are good but there, on average, on par with b/A- iccup players at best.
did you just say that morrow is korean?
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On August 23 2010 14:10 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2010 12:04 charlie420247 wrote:
i fucking hate when people say fast FE. i also hate it when people say a player got his FE after getting banshees mmm and a few factory units. wtf gives? do you know what a fe is?
secondly morrow is a korean pro who plays terran what the hell did you expect lol. the top players in sc2 right now are good but there, on average, on par with b/A- iccup players at best. did you just say that morrow is korean?
He's one of those curly blonde haired koreans, they're new.
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Honestly, TY original poster, that was interesting for me to read. I think charlie had his panties in a bunch
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On August 23 2010 14:08 Dogsi wrote:
Big surprise. OP terran wins.
thank you for your input mr. I've made 11 posts, where likely all of them say terran is OP.
lol morrow korean. also, Idra showed that 5 rax reaper is beatable, but he made a lot of mistakes that slowly allowed Morrow to outmacro him, which is completely ridiculous.
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personally, I think there is a lot to learn from every player/match almost from that tourney. And having Day9 there commentating just makes it easier. Though I wanted to hit appolo with a shoe sometimes : / Anyhow, was a lot of things to take in, all from Idra beating reapers and getting beaten by it, to the nice infestor play, (was it TLO?)
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On August 23 2010 14:37 Buffy wrote:
personally, I think there is a lot to learn from every player/match almost from that tourney. And having Day9 there commentating just makes it easier. Though I wanted to hit appolo with a shoe sometimes : / Anyhow, was a lot of things to take in, all from Idra beating reapers and getting beaten by it, to the nice infestor play, (was it TLO?)
how is this contributing at all?
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Oh shit guys watch out.. Morrow switched races, he's now playing as korean.
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Here's a long post in case your view of this series is something along the lines of: "oh shit morrow is korean." Also, thanks to the posters who provide the thoughts like "terran OP." Really helpful guys.
I wasn't really an IdrA fan until after watching the IEM finals. People seem to focus an exceptional amount on MorroW's play, which didn't seem like anything special to me besides spamming reapers from 5 rax. I chose to focus on IdrA's play, which was much more impressive to me since it's probably equal if not even more helpful to review the loser's play just as much as the winner's.
In Game 1 IdrA was essentially caught off guard by the mass amount of reapers. All he had when MorroW began his aggression were lings, which obviously are atrocious against mass reapers. This game just looks like IdrA playing standard while MorroW does an aggressive BO and pressures IdrA's standard play into submission.
Game 2 it really looks like MorroW's aggression was later since IdrA doesn't do any large build order changes but when the reapers start trying to harass IdrA basically has roaches out and even if you micro and kill a few roaches (which basically takes forever) you're not really doing anything useful. Spending 500/500 to kill like maybe five roaches (375/125) doesn't really get you anywhere fast.
The harassment basically did absolutely nothing in Game 2 and IdrA was able to get some creep spread out and then get the roach speed upgrade, essentially ending the usefulness of reapers completely. Obviously MorroW starts pounding some marauders, but IdrA throws down a spire at around 10 minutes and proceeds to dominate MorroW. This is the only game we see mutas from IdrA and also the only win in the series. I don't really think this is a coincidence. This five barracks reaper build invests extremely heavily to harass and if it is ineffective like in game 2 then you pretty much only have the option of pounding marauders and marines since you've already thrown down 5+ tech lab barracks and are behind on basically everything (stim/combatshield/+1/vacs). If mutas come out you are pretty screwed. From the time the mutas pop it's pretty much textbook ZvT domination and MorroW knows he's pretty behind so he just does a pointless allin with SCVs, since it's not 15 minutes into the game and banelings won't instantly kill all of them. The ghost transition was cute but if you're on two gas and pounding ghosts and marines you better have some seriously strong micro if you think that is actually going to work.against roach/bane/muta/infestor.
Game 3 is the momentum game, whoever wins this is obviously up 2-1 in the tournament while the loser has to play defensively in game 4. The openings are the exact same as they have been for the first two but the reapers' effectiveness is pretty much the same as Game 2. What's the difference between game 3 and game 2 then? At 10 minutes instead of throwing down a spire, IdrA has just pretty much started building an extractor at his nat. He is really behind on gas and basically allows MorroW too much time to recover from his econ-trashing opening. His CC hasn't even landed at 10 minutes. At 11 minutes IdrA throws down a baneling nest behind his natural (he still doesn't have the 2nd extractor at his nat). Thirty seconds later MorroW scans the baneilng nest and does a great play, killing it at 12 minutes before it finishes, setting back IdrA a huge amount. I was pretty disappointed when IdrA threw down the baneling nest at 11 minutes instead of a spire, but he got the 2nd gas in his main extremely late and his 3rd gas at his nat late too so it's not like he could even keep up muta production.
Let's take a look at one thing now. Obviously MorroW's baneling nest jack was a great play, but if we go back to Game 3 and take a look at where IdrA places his spire, we'll see that the spire is in a GREAT position. It's next to the ramp and it would be suicide for reapers to get there since they basically have to walk through IdrA's army. MorroW actually did scan the spire as well so it's not like he didn't know it was there. From this we pretty much learn two major things: actually get gas so you can tech and don't put your tech blatantly where it can get killed. You see it in game 3 here, you see it in tester vs STC game 2.
Obviously IdrA's mindset was rattled by MorroW's build order in game 3, which I thought was surprising since he basically crushed MorroW in game 2 and had the momentum. It really looks like IdrA was thinking something like "wow this dude's doing the same retarded shit three games in a row? what a ******" and then getting thrown off his game. Obviously this is a great mindgame by MorroW which was the direct set up for Game 4.
Game 4: IdrA gets unlucky and doesn't scout a timing attack. The only thing that matters here is MorroW's great transition from spamming the same build order three games in a row to a massive timing attack to take a 3-1 win in the finals. MorroW shows excellent BO5 play here and took the win.
To me this series was more of a testament to how good IdrA really is (could be) than anything else. He pretty much crushed MorroW in game 2. This wasn't exactly unexpected since we can take a look at the maps: in game 1 IdrA's nat was pretty much wide open up front combined with his unfamiliarity with the 5RR BO. Game 2 on metalop had IdrA's nat pretty much away from T, which is usually extremely hard to deal with for the T in that type of spawn location since Z can take the nat and the third so easily and expand away from T and it looked like textbook Z win. Game 3 IdrA's defense was still solid like Game 2, but it looked to me like his mindset wasn't at 100% and got behind on gas/tech, exactly what harassment is supposed to do to your econ.
MorroW definitely brought in a new strategy. I don't personally like how badly it crushes your econ but it's definitely suited against a heavy macro player like IdrA to throw him off his game. I'm not entirely sure if it's imbalanced but it's pretty clear that it works better on some maps than others and with the essentially trashy map design we have currently I don't like to call things imbalanced until there's actually been a lot of games played with the strategy.
I'm gonna be honest though, IdrA took out sSKS in a best of five in king of beta tournament, capping it with a nearly flawless display in game 5. I honestly think there's no way MorroW can beat sSKS in tournament so I'm inclined to consider IdrA a stronger player overall. I don't actually like IdrA's arrogance, but I can see how that makes for better drama...
gg to both players.
If you actually read this post, then thanks for your time.
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On August 23 2010 12:04 charlie420247 wrote:
i fucking hate when people say fast FE. i also hate it when people say a player got his FE after getting banshees mmm and a few factory units. wtf gives? do you know what a fe is?
secondly morrow is a korean pro who plays terran what the hell did you expect lol. the top players in sc2 right now are good but there, on average, on par with b/A- iccup players at best.
"There" does not equal "they're" my friend. Critique your own grammar as well as you critique others'.
@ OP: I thought Morrow played well, but I don't believe that his play in its current form will last. He will have to undergo an evolution of strategy in order to survive future balancing and tuning as well as meta-game changes.
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On August 23 2010 15:55 Crushgroove wrote:
"There" does not equal "they're" my friend. Critique your own grammar as well as you critique others'.
u ned 2 put a koma after "they're" liek dis: "There" does not equal "they're", my friend. plis critiq ur own gramer as well as u critiq otherz, smrt kid!
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Nice read all around. xPrac, same thoughts.
The thing I can't fathom, and maybe someone can help me out with this, is why did IdrA put his Ultra Cavern at his third, which was on MorroW's side of the map? I don't think it was game-breaking, but still, I've watched this from him and some other top-ish Zerg. Why place important tech buildings in hard to defend areas? (besides hiding from scouts/scans)
Other curious puzzlements that befuddle me include:
Why didn't IdrA change his build to something a little faster to counter this?
Why wasn't an Evo Chamber getting Carapace right away? Speed Roaches plus 1 armor = 4(-2)x2 = 4 damage per Reaper. Sounds like something IdrA would think through and wish for, but even as a snap decision would have helped a ton.
On August 23 2010 15:55 Crushgroove wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2010 12:04 charlie420247 wrote:
i fucking hate when people say fast FE. i also hate it when people say a player got his FE after getting banshees mmm and a few factory units. wtf gives? do you know what a fe is?
secondly morrow is a korean pro who plays terran what the hell did you expect lol. the top players in sc2 right now are good but there, on average, on par with b/A- iccup players at best. "There" does not equal "they're" my friend. Critique your own grammar as well as you critique others'. @ OP: I thought Morrow played well, but I don't believe that his play in its current form will last. He will have to undergo an evolution of strategy in order to survive future balancing and tuning as well as meta-game changes.
His point isn't about grammar. It's about usage of a term. And he's absolutely correct. An FE is an FE when it's fast. Not after 10+ minutes. Then it's just an expansion.
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EPT
