I was watching WL (what an amazing change of pace it's given us!) and later reading MSL news when I noticed something odd. Jangbi and Fantasy have squared off twice recently, and both games took similar routes.
Here is their earlier game in the MSL:
And here is their game in the Winner's League (youtube stripped the audio; the torrent of the set with audio is here):
Keeping in mind that I don't play competitive Starcraft, I'm just a spectator, this is what I'm seeing happen in both games:
1. Fantasy executes something brilliant-looking from the Boxer/oov school of being-a-bastard. On Neo-Harmony, he succeeds in shelling Jangbi while Jangbi is contained in his base. On Medusa, he steps it up and actually gains partial control of Jangbi's base.
2. Fantasy's micro is good, but so is Jangbi's. Jangbi also never loses his cool. A lesser player might have typed out in both situations, but not Jangbi (Jangbi never even over-extends when he's winning, he's always totally collected). Because he still has his wits about him, on Neo-Harmony Jangbi executes incredible mine-dragging/zealot-bombing to bust out of his ramp. On Medusa, Fantasy turns up the heat; he knows his playstyle is good, and he knows he can make it work with just a little more juice. In this case, Jangbi appears to just barely hang on - but he hangs on nonetheless. If I were playing, I would have surrendered.
3. Something strange happens. The wind leaves Fantasy's sails. I don't really know what it is I'm seeing. To a naive observer, it looks as though Jangbi escapes the headlock, then turns around and punches Fantasy in the nose, a la "make a bunch of units and attack-move," but I know that isn't really the case.
#3 is the part I'd like to discuss in this thread, as well as the more general ideas behind what's happening in this burgeoning Fantasy-Jangbi saga. It looks to me like Fantasy and his coaches are searching for a way to break the Protoss stranglehold over Broodwar. It almost worked on Neo-Harmony - against a lesser player, it probably would have. It seemed like the game was surely won on Medusa - and once again, if it was anyone other than Jangbi, maybe it would have been.
So here are some possibilities for the identity of this mystery third ingredient:
a. Fantasy should be pressing his advantage, but his choice to back off and expand leaves him vulnerable
b. Jangbi is a better player than Fantasy, and takes away all of Fantasy's momentum
c. Fantasy's strategy is brilliant, but Jangbi recovers because Fantasy's not executing his own plans correctly
d. My assessment as a viewer is incorrect, and Fantasy was setting himself up for failure, because the strategy is not a good strategy
What am I missing here, all you BW experts? I think this is a really interesting microcosm of current professional play, and I'm interested in understanding it.
p.s. thanks to Manifesto7's way awesome MSL news thread for pointing me in the direction of one of these two games. If not for that thread, I'd never have noticed the similarity.
p.p.s. Fantasy and Jangbi also played back in late December, and Fantasy won - Jangbi did not play conservatively the way he did in these two recent games: http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/games/10702_fantasy_vs_JangBi/vod - So, I'm not sure of the psychology here. These last two games may have had nothing to do with their personal history, they may have just selected Jangbi as their guinea pig for new strategies because of his usual play style.
Terran players have a lot of trouble on Medusa. 1) You can't build in the middle because of terrain, meaning that you can't siege your way through building turrets to stop shuttle zealot bombs and detecting DTs. 2) It's hard to defend the choke because it's so wide and rampless. 3) Protoss can get 3 base extremely quickly (one at nat, one behind main). Terrans lag behind in expo count regardless of map, but on Medusa it's even worse.
This combination forces a lot of terrans to go 2fac, as it can be assumed with 95% accuracy that the protoss will fast expand. Light used a 2fac against Bisu on this map and got rolled as well.
2fac is a good early aggression build targetting a fast expo toss. The critical drawback is that if it doesn't work out, the terran will be behind.
The terran strategy wasn't a bad one per se -- it targets a fast expo toss and Jangbi fast expoed. The goal of the 2fac is to do critical damage to the protoss, either make him spend too much money on defense or kill tons of probes. If neither of these goals are met, then the strategy can be considered failed.
That's pretty much what happened -- Jangbi's superb micro and clear-headedness even during that really well-planned harass. He built gateways, he built observatory, he built goons -- he built exactly what he needed to build amidst all the chaos.
Fantasy was screwed as soon as Jangbi's home defense was holding up. He really had no other choice but to expo. He mining at half the rate of the protoss, doesn't have many units. If he were to continue to just build tanks and vultures, it would have also be a certain death. 4 gates crush 2 facs.
What about 3 fac? Well, I don't think one base can support 3fac and even if it could, Jangbi could just add 2 gates using his 2 bases quite easily.
Fantasy had a small window that would determine his fate. He knew Jangbi would fast expo, so up until his tanks were going into Jangbi's main, everything was working to his plan.
Ah, yeah, I should have re-watched them both before making this thread. Even I know that low-econ builds have to inflict damage quickly or they will suddenly become quite useless. So, my attention to #3 is a bit of a red herring. #3 is just Jangbi's economy taking off while Fantasy's lags behind.
Where my attention should really be is on #2. That's the significant part.
In your opinion, which is the real explanation? either Fantasy's rush strategies as seen here are not sufficient to topple a high-level player like Jangbi, OR, Jangbi is showing some really impressive defensive skills and really brilliant plays that saved him? (Jangbi's manual mine-sweeping before observers is really good, I've noticed)
In the age of macro based maps and macro based play style a la oov- all in or aggressive type of plays are becoming more and more obsolete. Players that are FE are learning how to defend more appropriately, and more efficiently. They understand that if they can just survive into the mid game then they have a HUGE advantage, and then just need to close the game.
Don't get me wrong, jangbi was freaking amazing holding off fantasy- and fantasy played well, but it's just not enough anymore. FE > all (and defiantly on medusa)
IMO the only way we are going to see a resurgence of T dominance in TvP is when map makers decide that massive macro maps that have easily assessable 3rds become boring. Because protoss has the advantage inherently when it comes to mining and expoing, maps need to be catered to make sure that this advantage does not get out of hand.
stryker the majority of your post is completely wrong or just fluff.
I have not watched the Harmony game. However, the Medusa game was won for two reasons:
1) Fantasy messed up after a brilliant opener. 2) Jangbi's PvT is really good, easily #2 right now behind Bisu. Fantasy's TvP is decent but Terrans are so bad at TvP right now that #1 Flash and #2 is nobody because the rest all are mediocre. Jangbi is many levels above non-Flash Terrans in that matchup. FYI that game on Chupung-Ryeong was won by Fantasy because Jangbi played poorly and didn't take a decisive midgame advantage, nothing more.
Here's some analysis for the Medusa game:
Fantasy's opener was excellent; normal 2 fact is not very good on that map at all but Fantasy's well conceived build forced Jangbi to defend the high ground, leaving the main wide open for Fantasy to plant down. From here, the damage was enormous. Jangbi lost a lot of probes and goons but he never took the death blow.
The problem was that Fantasy expanded too late, forgot his barracks, and made goliaths plus an engineering bay. He could have expanded earlier and came out way ahead. His harass would've been a lot more damaging though if Jangbi hadn't killed 3 vultures with a shuttle zealot combo and that's what he was counting on I think. To add on top of this, he produced probably 1-2 too many rounds of vultures when he needed to get getting tanks to block the counter. His armory/engineering bay combo was superfluous and robbed him of extra tanks while not saving money. The entire purpose of goliaths is to not get an ebay but Fantasy wasted money and more importantly by making goliaths he did not make tanks. Forgetting to rebuild his barracks was another huge issue that delayed his extra units far too long. Lastly, he did not wall his nat. No excuse for that, simply dumb.
Basically, Fantasy could have made his barracks asap, gotten 2nd addon added tanks, walled, skipped the armory, added 3/4 facts quickly, and he would've won the game.
Jangbi's attack right there was an all-in move. If it failed without doing major damage, Fantasy won. Knowing that, Fantasy should've went to all lengths to blocking it rather than haphazardly throwing stuff down like it's a normal situation.
In direct response to your questions...
2) It's not Jangbi 'hanging on' it's more of Terran cannot flat out win the game versus a player of Jangbi's caliber doing 2 fact on Medusa. It is designed to get a major economic advantage by damaging them while getting your own expansion up unhindered.
3) Not strange at all; Fantasy's time for harass had naturally expired and he needed to solidify his advantage; he didn't do so, Jangbi all-in'ed (necessary), and won.
Thus C is correct. Jangbi made some really nice plays but if Fantasy had played properly after the harass it didn't matter how many nice plays he made Fantasy would've won.
SKT1 coaches have come up with some very interesting strats lately; I'm writing an article about some of them right now.
fantasy is showing he can be a great terran, but I was thinking this couple nights ago he is still missing the last punch the one the Boxer, Oov had in their time. Let's just keep an eye on him... as far as Janbi like you said I wouldve GG long time ago. He kept his cool and amazing army control
Well Fantasy did make some mistakes in both games . On Harmony he left his tanks to close to the edge and dragons could easly kill them from high ground and that made the contain easier to break . Also he should have powered up tanks on Medusa after the vulture harras lost steam and more well placed turrets ....
On the other hand JangBI is easily the best PvT player , he rearly overextends himself , his harras is out of this world he breaks defences and terran pushes easily with whatever he has, and most of all he is calm as hell in what is like a GG situation .
It's silly to say that JangBi defended the 2fac on Medusa well. The fact of the matter is that Fantasy completely outsmarted JangBi. His execution of the build (along with the little back door feint) was pretty flawless. He microed well and basically laid waste to JangBi's main. I mean, damn, JangBi had five probes left when Fantasy was finished with him.
That makes this statement pretty ridiculous, stryker:
That's pretty much what happened -- Jangbi's superb micro and clear-headedness even during that really well-planned harass. He built gateways, he built observatory, he built goons -- he built exactly what he needed to build amidst all the chaos.
The 2fac was a huge success. The problem was Fantasy's follow-up...and JangBi's perfectly executed timing with 5? goons and a reaver. JB certainly won this game, but not because he defended the 2fac well...he completely failed in that respect.
To OP: nice topic
One more thing:
On February 11 2009 04:37 Raithed wrote: the high level games i see on medusa, if the p doesnt 10/15 gate, t always wins. yeah its a shitty map but its playable.
This is a pretty dumb post, considering it's in a thread discussing a game in which the P did not 10/15 gate and the Terran lost. I mean....come on...
On February 11 2009 04:24 Ver wrote: Hope this helps Delerium you had a great post.
It absolutely did help. You answered the main question I had very well. And, you didn't just answer, you also explained the reasons why your answer is correct. Thanks!
After reading your post, I'm very disappointed with Fantasy's lack of follow-through on Medusa. After the way he trounced Tempest, blocking everything with buildings so Tempest couldn't go anywhere, it seems obvious that he should have protected his natural on Medusa against Jangbi in the same way.
On February 11 2009 05:09 jwd241224 wrote: It's silly to say that JangBi defended the 2fac on Medusa well. The fact of the matter is that Fantasy completely outsmarted JangBi. His execution of the build (along with the little back door feint) was pretty flawless. He microed well and basically laid waste to JangBi's main. I mean, damn, JangBi had five probes left when Fantasy was finished with him.
To OP: nice topic
Thanks! As a total newbie and a non-player, I felt very strongly that my first thread should not-suck ; )
When you say Fantasy out-smarted Jangbi, what specifically do you mean? Certainly I noticed that he fared far better trying again against Jangbi on Medusa, and it is an interesting question what the difference was -- why was he so much more successful in the second game than he was in the first? It's been many days since I watched this VOD, so I don't remember what maneuver he performed on Medusa that acted as a feint. Can you give us a timestamp?
On February 11 2009 04:51 raga4ka wrote: Well Fantasy did make some mistakes in both games .
Now that you mention it, I remember that Jangbi was able to break out by firing down upon that tank. Do you think he put it so close because he wanted to shell the gateways, to put time-pressure on Jangbi?
Your comments about what Fantasy did wrong on Medusa mirror Ver's posted above, so that's reassuring.
On February 11 2009 05:09 jwd241224 wrote: It's silly to say that JangBi defended the 2fac on Medusa well. The fact of the matter is that Fantasy completely outsmarted JangBi. His execution of the build (along with the little back door feint) was pretty flawless. He microed well and basically laid waste to JangBi's main. I mean, damn, JangBi had five probes left when Fantasy was finished with him.
To OP: nice topic
Thanks! As a total newbie and a non-player, I felt very strongly that my first thread should not-suck ; )
When you say Fantasy out-smarted Jangbi, what specifically do you mean? Certainly I noticed that he fared far better trying again against Jangbi on Medusa, and it is an interesting question what the difference was -- why was he so much more successful in the second game than he was in the first? It's been many days since I watched this VOD, so I don't remember what maneuver he performed on Medusa that acted as a feint. Can you give us a timestamp?
Check 7:00 in the VOD that's in your OP above. Fantasy destroys the temples with his tanks, making JangBi think he's about to come in the backdoor with his entire 2fac army. JangBi responds by sending 4 goons and one zealot all the way around to the backdoor to defend, leaving only 2 goons at the choke into his main (which is also walled with 2 pylons). However, instead of pushing in the backdoor, Fantasy moves his entire army to JangBi's nat choke, effectively taking most of JB's army out of the battle (notice that he mines the backdoor before he leaves, just so JB can't exit that way and corner Fantasy's army in the Protoss nat). I don't think there's any way Fantasy could have pressed through that tiny choke if he was fighting against 6 goons and 1 zealot (vs. 2 goons). This was the "outsmarting" that led to Fantasy's successful 2fac attack.
EPT
