On October 21 2020 09:08 Ideas wrote: Someone PLEASE explain to me why it wouldn't be a good idea for a protoss in Snow's position in game 1 (large econ, zerg using lots of lurkers for defense, snow still has 6-8 corsairs) to get dweb to help bust lurkers? I understand fleet beacon and dweb costs a bit of cash, but how many zeal/goon/templar did he waste trying to attack into those lurkers?
another problem with dweb on lurkers is that zealots wont be able to kill them since the zealots would also be under the d-web. I think Tastosis hit the nail on the head, arbiter recall is the way to go
This was a pretty interesting series. That first game reminds me so much of Soulkey vs Rain on Crossing Field in ASL4. Soulkey played the match in a similar way and never let Rain get even close, much in the same way that Soma did. Been ages since I've watched it, but it was pretty impressive to see. For anyone else, here's the vod:
Game 2 was just the usual Plasma madness though I feel like the result was due to Snow's unwillingness to do a better block. He basically waited until the eggs were broken and the units were through before he reacted. I can understand why he did it though, tough. Game 3 was just a bad block after a great opening. A sad ending to his ASL10 run. Hopefully he comes back even better next season!
On October 21 2020 12:52 Magic Powers wrote: Snow played well, people who bash him don't have the slightest clue how much went into Soma's preparation and it's also very disrespectful towards Soma to claim Snow played poorly. Of course he made mistakes, every pro makes mistakes. Sometimes you lose because you get caught off-guard or because of an understandable error in judgement, not neccessarily because you royally messed up as some people are saying.
In game 1 Snow got outclassed, it's as simple as that. He wasn't able to figure out a strong response to Soma's strategy and lost as a result. A lot of professional games look like that. Ask Flash, he's the master of outclassing his competition.
In game 2 Snow looked like he was quite well prepared but something went wrong with his preparation, or maybe the specific movement from Soma's units flowing in didn't go the way Snow expected. It looked like he could've prepared a little better for this, but anyone who thinks this is easy has no idea how complex the map is strategically. If you misjudge your opponent you can easily fall for a secret preparation.
In game 3 I can't really explain Snow's thought process, maybe he truly misjudged the situation. Maybe zerg really only had the option of massing zerglings.
This probably makes for one poor decision, all his other plays are quite understandable. People need to calm their tits, in a bo5 anything can happen. Since when can a very good pro not simply get outplayed these days? Sheesh. People didn't say that stuff about Savior either when he got steamrolled by Bisu who made him look like a chobo on that famous day (and he even openly announced long before the match that he'd be using his DT strategy, yet Savior still lost to it).
The backseat gamers in here every time a pro loses a bo5 lmao...
Pretty much agree with this. Seems like there are a lot of ASL champions on the Team Liquid forums.
Game 1 Soma took ZvP to the next level and anticipated that Snow was going to play Standard, he did and had not yet innovated a strategy to beat what Soma had brought for that map, something that is not easily done on the fly. People saying, "he should just do this, make arbiters, dweb, use reavers etc", it isn't that simple at this level of play, nor is there any guarantee that it would necessarily work or be enough to turn the game into a win for Snow.
Game 2 Soma didn't let Snow play the game he wanted to play. His strategy hit Snow before Snow could take the initiative. A very simple and effective way to win. It threw Snow off and he had to make many awkward choices that cost him too much and couldn't recover against the Lurker play.
Game 3 Was just a small micro mistake and maybe didn't read the situation quickly enough but that's enough to lose early in Brood War. Snow's mentality was probably not in a good place at this point either. Not much to take away or look into this game.
People trashing Snow are very disrespectful to Soma's preparation and performance and to Snow's ability. Soma proved he has become a very strong Zerg in his own right and shouldn't be scoffed at, he has clearly improved immensely.
Edit: And just to add, I think Soma out-micro'd Snow consistently across all 3 games.
On October 21 2020 05:51 Djabanete wrote: I didn't think Snow played that badly.
G1: Soma got a lot of mileage from the weird placement of his third. Snow built a lot of cannons thinking that Soma was going for low-economy muta pressure, but instead there were few mutas and a third base. By the time Snow scouted the third, Soma was already able to blockade Snow with lurkers. Snow is used to fighting lurker containment magnificently with goon+storm, but his economic deficit was pretty big since he only got his third and fourth bases going when Soma had his fourth and fifth bases going. I assume there's some reason he didn't get reavers; maybe the map is too big and open, I dunno. (By contrast, on Eclipse, reavers are great at contesting that last base in the upper left.) To me it looked like Snow playing a "big PvZ" style that generally serves him well, but Soma used a mind game early on to stay ahead on macro all the time.
G2: Hard to analyze. Snow used his units well and showed especially good micro against the first lurker bust. I thought he'd won when two lurkers died going in and the third lurker died with only 4 kills. Maybe Snow thought he'd won too. I dunno what he did wrong --- something about cannon placement and timing, rather than unit control? --- but few players react 100% optimally in weird situations.
G3: One tiny screw-up in micro and it's over. The moment I noticed was when the zealot in charge of the left side of the gateway was too far down to hit the lings that were hitting the gateway.
I wouldn't give Snow too terrible a grade over this. Remember that Soma 3-0'd Bisu last season and made him look bad, too. Soma plays mind games and he's good at them.
Korean fans have given nicknames to players like the Emperor or the Tyrant. In my mind, Soma is the Sorcerer. Confusion descends on his opponents; they don't know if the five mutas they're seeing are the heralds of 15 more mutas to come, or if instead Soma is building a third and a fourth in some weird location and building drones. Whichever it is, the five mutas somehow do twice as much damage as they're supposed to.
I totally misremembered the Bisu match, thanks for the correction.
As for what "koreans" think, there is a gulf between pros and fans. Fans are not necessarily fair-minded. I'm not able to follow your link atm.
BW is a game where you can easily look bad when you lose, that's all.
I agree. You will look horribly bad when you loose a game. Saying Snow played bad equals to saying "Soma just got lucky".
In general, I think Snow is overrated in this forum. Soma 3-0 Snow in ASL 10, Flash 4-0 Snow in ASL 8, Rain 4-0 and 3-1 Snow in KSL 3 and 4, respectively. A great programmer cannot continuously loose like this.
I just saw the games and wow, Soma is just too good for Snow to handle him. He played macro, he played cheese, he was forced to ling bust - he did everything great. Reminds me of effort tbh. I love him, he really seems to be on the path of becoming the best current player.
On October 21 2020 12:52 Magic Powers wrote: Snow played well, people who bash him don't have the slightest clue how much went into Soma's preparation and it's also very disrespectful towards Soma to claim Snow played poorly. Of course he made mistakes, every pro makes mistakes. Sometimes you lose because you get caught off-guard or because of an understandable error in judgement, not neccessarily because you royally messed up as some people are saying.
People trashing Snow are very disrespectful to Soma's preparation and performance and to Snow's ability. Soma proved he has become a very strong Zerg in his own right and shouldn't be scoffed at, he has clearly improved immensely.
I've seen this happen so many times on TL. Every time someone played well, the (Big) fans + Show Spoiler +
:D
of the losing player focus on how their player played poorly instead of giving proper credit to the winning player.
I think in game 2 Snow expected Soma to go for his natural. His plan was to throw up the Pylons at the last moment to block the Lurker ling flood. But Soma reacted quickly by going straight for Snow's base, which by default isn't a great idea because it only takes one Zealot on that small ramp to delay things a lot.
Even then, if Snow had reacted instantly, he could have stuffed up the ramp for a few more seconds with Probes (yes Lurkers kill them quickly, but even just forcing another burrow and unburrow might have been enough). This could have been huge as Soma only ended up with one half alive Lurker surviving in the main, but that one Lurker delayed mining for ages.
It seemed that also threw off Reaver timing, and that Snow was counting on getting Reavers with Cannons up to hold.
On October 20 2020 20:54 ggsimida wrote: game 1 just makes me yearn for old bisu. soma actually lost air control towards the mid-lategame (although soma dropped focus on it probably he knows hes up against snow who wouldn't be able to take advantage of it), his 6 and 12 expos was scantily defended. soma has shown that he reacts rather lately to harass and does not seem as great on the multitasking front. bisu on the hotseat would really have punished soma for those. oh and pretty willing to make reavers in lategame too like others have pointed out how they are vital.
soma not great on the multitasking front? guy has 370apm as zerg ô_Ô
oh look another person who equates apm with ability to multitask or just trolling. bye.
unless it is fake apm it is almost literally the definition of multitasking
instead of being a defensive douche you could bring arguments precisely why u think that somas multitasking is weak; I just completely disagree with ur sentiment
APM is not multitasking. After whatever base level of apm you need to multitask, which all pros easily surpass, the ability to multitask and the ill-defined ability to out mulititask another player is a separate skill altogether. Don't confuse a measurement for the skill itself.
On October 21 2020 17:35 JieXian wrote: Daaamn I'm so impressed with Soma right now. I'm extra happy to know that a relative newcomer has managed to attain this level of skill.
On October 21 2020 12:52 Magic Powers wrote: Snow played well, people who bash him don't have the slightest clue how much went into Soma's preparation and it's also very disrespectful towards Soma to claim Snow played poorly. Of course he made mistakes, every pro makes mistakes. Sometimes you lose because you get caught off-guard or because of an understandable error in judgement, not neccessarily because you royally messed up as some people are saying.
People trashing Snow are very disrespectful to Soma's preparation and performance and to Snow's ability. Soma proved he has become a very strong Zerg in his own right and shouldn't be scoffed at, he has clearly improved immensely.
I've seen this happen so many times on TL. Every time someone played well, the (Big) fans + Show Spoiler +
:D
of the losing player focus on how their player played poorly instead of giving proper credit to the winning player.
For myself I dont mean to downplay Soma or bash Snow, I just find it puzzling that player who is ranked top 7 in sponrankings loses in such manner. Soma is incredible player with amateur background, of course he is and is to be praised unlike any other player post-kespa.
On October 21 2020 09:39 Nukid wrote: FlaSh will have a tough time against Soma. He need to get terran at least 2 time in order to win. In Z vs Z he mights take a game off Soma if buld order is in his favor. P vs Z I don't see him taking a game off Soma.
Thats what so sick about it: he can and probably will take a game off soma in pvz
On October 21 2020 05:51 Djabanete wrote: I didn't think Snow played that badly.
G1: Soma got a lot of mileage from the weird placement of his third. Snow built a lot of cannons thinking that Soma was going for low-economy muta pressure, but instead there were few mutas and a third base. By the time Snow scouted the third, Soma was already able to blockade Snow with lurkers. Snow is used to fighting lurker containment magnificently with goon+storm, but his economic deficit was pretty big since he only got his third and fourth bases going when Soma had his fourth and fifth bases going. I assume there's some reason he didn't get reavers; maybe the map is too big and open, I dunno. (By contrast, on Eclipse, reavers are great at contesting that last base in the upper left.) To me it looked like Snow playing a "big PvZ" style that generally serves him well, but Soma used a mind game early on to stay ahead on macro all the time.
G2: Hard to analyze. Snow used his units well and showed especially good micro against the first lurker bust. I thought he'd won when two lurkers died going in and the third lurker died with only 4 kills. Maybe Snow thought he'd won too. I dunno what he did wrong --- something about cannon placement and timing, rather than unit control? --- but few players react 100% optimally in weird situations.
G3: One tiny screw-up in micro and it's over. The moment I noticed was when the zealot in charge of the left side of the gateway was too far down to hit the lings that were hitting the gateway.
I wouldn't give Snow too terrible a grade over this. Remember that Soma 3-0'd Bisu last season and made him look bad, too. Soma plays mind games and he's good at them.
Korean fans have given nicknames to players like the Emperor or the Tyrant. In my mind, Soma is the Sorcerer. Confusion descends on his opponents; they don't know if the five mutas they're seeing are the heralds of 15 more mutas to come, or if instead Soma is building a third and a fourth in some weird location and building drones. Whichever it is, the five mutas somehow do twice as much damage as they're supposed to.
I totally misremembered the Bisu match, thanks for the correction.
As for what "koreans" think, there is a gulf between pros and fans. Fans are not necessarily fair-minded. I'm not able to follow your link atm.
BW is a game where you can easily look bad when you lose, that's all.
I agree. You will look horribly bad when you loose a game. Saying Snow played bad equals to saying "Soma just got lucky".
In general, I think Snow is overrated in this forum. Soma 3-0 Snow in ASL 10, Flash 4-0 Snow in ASL 8, Rain 4-0 and 3-1 Snow in KSL 3 and 4, respectively. A great programmer cannot continuously loose like this.
He's made it to the finals of ASL twice. Which is more than anyone but Flash.
Right now PvZ is tough. And it's Snow's worst matchup. And Soma was the worst opponent he could have gotten. So I don't think his "loose"ing means he's secretly terrible. Just a bit uneven and certainly unlucky.
Curious to see how Flash does. I thought he'd die as soon as he hit a top tier Zerg, but his performance improved a lot after TEN. Still, Soma will be a real challenge.
On October 21 2020 05:51 Djabanete wrote: I didn't think Snow played that badly.
G1: Soma got a lot of mileage from the weird placement of his third. Snow built a lot of cannons thinking that Soma was going for low-economy muta pressure, but instead there were few mutas and a third base. By the time Snow scouted the third, Soma was already able to blockade Snow with lurkers. Snow is used to fighting lurker containment magnificently with goon+storm, but his economic deficit was pretty big since he only got his third and fourth bases going when Soma had his fourth and fifth bases going. I assume there's some reason he didn't get reavers; maybe the map is too big and open, I dunno. (By contrast, on Eclipse, reavers are great at contesting that last base in the upper left.) To me it looked like Snow playing a "big PvZ" style that generally serves him well, but Soma used a mind game early on to stay ahead on macro all the time.
G2: Hard to analyze. Snow used his units well and showed especially good micro against the first lurker bust. I thought he'd won when two lurkers died going in and the third lurker died with only 4 kills. Maybe Snow thought he'd won too. I dunno what he did wrong --- something about cannon placement and timing, rather than unit control? --- but few players react 100% optimally in weird situations.
G3: One tiny screw-up in micro and it's over. The moment I noticed was when the zealot in charge of the left side of the gateway was too far down to hit the lings that were hitting the gateway.
I wouldn't give Snow too terrible a grade over this. Remember that Soma 3-0'd Bisu last season and made him look bad, too. Soma plays mind games and he's good at them.
Korean fans have given nicknames to players like the Emperor or the Tyrant. In my mind, Soma is the Sorcerer. Confusion descends on his opponents; they don't know if the five mutas they're seeing are the heralds of 15 more mutas to come, or if instead Soma is building a third and a fourth in some weird location and building drones. Whichever it is, the five mutas somehow do twice as much damage as they're supposed to.
I totally misremembered the Bisu match, thanks for the correction.
As for what "koreans" think, there is a gulf between pros and fans. Fans are not necessarily fair-minded. I'm not able to follow your link atm.
BW is a game where you can easily look bad when you lose, that's all.
I agree. You will look horribly bad when you loose a game. Saying Snow played bad equals to saying "Soma just got lucky".
In general, I think Snow is overrated in this forum. Soma 3-0 Snow in ASL 10, Flash 4-0 Snow in ASL 8, Rain 4-0 and 3-1 Snow in KSL 3 and 4, respectively. A great programmer cannot continuously loose like this.
He's made it to the finals of ASL twice. Which is more than anyone but Flash.
Right now PvZ is tough. And it's Snow's worst matchup. And Soma was the worst opponent he could have gotten. So I don't think his "loose"ing means he's secretly terrible. Just a bit uneven and certainly unlucky.
Curious to see how Flash does. I thought he'd die as soon as he hit a top tier Zerg, but his performance improved a lot after TEN. Still, Soma will be a real challenge.
Snow was eliminated at Round 16 three times as well ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Another toss player such as Rain does not have such an unstable record. Rain participated ASL only 3 times, he won 1, and made to quarter final and semi final in the other two seasons. .
I did not say Snow is bad, he is just not that hyped.
On October 21 2020 05:51 Djabanete wrote: I didn't think Snow played that badly.
G1: Soma got a lot of mileage from the weird placement of his third. Snow built a lot of cannons thinking that Soma was going for low-economy muta pressure, but instead there were few mutas and a third base. By the time Snow scouted the third, Soma was already able to blockade Snow with lurkers. Snow is used to fighting lurker containment magnificently with goon+storm, but his economic deficit was pretty big since he only got his third and fourth bases going when Soma had his fourth and fifth bases going. I assume there's some reason he didn't get reavers; maybe the map is too big and open, I dunno. (By contrast, on Eclipse, reavers are great at contesting that last base in the upper left.) To me it looked like Snow playing a "big PvZ" style that generally serves him well, but Soma used a mind game early on to stay ahead on macro all the time.
G2: Hard to analyze. Snow used his units well and showed especially good micro against the first lurker bust. I thought he'd won when two lurkers died going in and the third lurker died with only 4 kills. Maybe Snow thought he'd won too. I dunno what he did wrong --- something about cannon placement and timing, rather than unit control? --- but few players react 100% optimally in weird situations.
G3: One tiny screw-up in micro and it's over. The moment I noticed was when the zealot in charge of the left side of the gateway was too far down to hit the lings that were hitting the gateway.
I wouldn't give Snow too terrible a grade over this. Remember that Soma 3-0'd Bisu last season and made him look bad, too. Soma plays mind games and he's good at them.
Korean fans have given nicknames to players like the Emperor or the Tyrant. In my mind, Soma is the Sorcerer. Confusion descends on his opponents; they don't know if the five mutas they're seeing are the heralds of 15 more mutas to come, or if instead Soma is building a third and a fourth in some weird location and building drones. Whichever it is, the five mutas somehow do twice as much damage as they're supposed to.
I totally misremembered the Bisu match, thanks for the correction.
As for what "koreans" think, there is a gulf between pros and fans. Fans are not necessarily fair-minded. I'm not able to follow your link atm.
BW is a game where you can easily look bad when you lose, that's all.
I agree. You will look horribly bad when you loose a game. Saying Snow played bad equals to saying "Soma just got lucky".
In general, I think Snow is overrated in this forum. Soma 3-0 Snow in ASL 10, Flash 4-0 Snow in ASL 8, Rain 4-0 and 3-1 Snow in KSL 3 and 4, respectively. A great programmer cannot continuously loose like this.
He's made it to the finals of ASL twice. Which is more than anyone but Flash.
Right now PvZ is tough. And it's Snow's worst matchup. And Soma was the worst opponent he could have gotten. So I don't think his "loose"ing means he's secretly terrible. Just a bit uneven and certainly unlucky.
Curious to see how Flash does. I thought he'd die as soon as he hit a top tier Zerg, but his performance improved a lot after TEN. Still, Soma will be a real challenge.
Snow was eliminated at Round 16 three times as well ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Another toss player such as Rain does not have such an unstable record. Rain participated ASL only 3 times, he won 1, and made to quarter final and semi final in the other two seasons. .
I did not say Snow is bad, he is just not that hyped.
I mean, with Best consistently choking offline, Snow is the only real Protoss hope, so the hype is understandable. But to each his own.
Rain at his prime was good only in PvP. Snow at his prime was good only at PvNon-Flash-T. Both were over hyped. I have a small hope on Best since he improved his PvZ in recent months, but otherwise this is not a good time for protosses.