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An Opinion Piece #6![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/userfiles/17318.jpg?1254589689) Gather 'round children while uncle Chef rambles to himself
At the risk of unoriginality
After a Jaedong vs Flash finals, the forums would be filled with every Tom, Dick, and Mary making a new thread for each of their opinions. I think for Great vs Hydra, however, we will sadly see less discussion. I don't like it when there are a million threads of people saying the same thing, but I don't like it when people don't want to talk about it at all.
There are a number of reasons why people might not be talking... Chalk it up to the players participating, or the lack of YouTube VODs on the popular channels, or the slow torrent. Those are all possible reasons, but I think the real problems were the unfairly negative stigmas about ZvZ.
Some might call it disappointing
And some might have been expecting exactly this result. I belonged to the party that wanted to see Great's revolution. I really like Hydra as a player normally, but today he was an enemy of the revolution. Any enemy of the revolution, is an enemy of mine—so I told those who were watching with me. Believe me, I was pumped for these finals and those games were very exciting for me.
So why the lack of feedback? Maybe it's going to sound obnoxious, but I am going to blame the way hype is getting buried on TL. How long was the article for the FINALS of the MSL up for on the front page (in that nice, clickable picture)? A few hours? I don't actually know, because despite checking this site quite often, I didn't see it until after the fact. Instead it got buried under some random announcements for preliminaries of SC2. Is that the way this site is going? I have to admit, it is disappointing for me.
The contents of the article were just as sad. A half-hearted attempt to hype the MSL finals, which included saying 'ZvZ is boring, but maybe this one won't be!' Maybe the authors of that article were just trying to be honest, but I think calling ZvZ boring could have been omitted. There was so much to like about this finals. The romantic notion of Great's attempt to change ZvZ, the incredible micro mechanics of Hydra, the defender of the old style, vs the revolutionary. It was fucking cool. Then you read the first few replies to the down-tempo article, and they say things like 'I might not even watch this, since it's ZvZ.'
ZvZ is fun to watch
But people need to know how to watch it. Unlike Korea we don't have the benefit of former progamers to tell us what's going on. We have a bunch of people on the forums who think every ZvZ is the same and decide to tell everyone that, so that it becomes the popular opinion. I don't believe that's true, but if anyone was going to make a big change, one that wasn't going to be possible to ignore, it was Great. The subtleties in ZvZ can sometimes be hard to appreciate for the uninitiated, but Hive tech is not subtle.
How many ZvZ finals have there been in the history of BW? Why did everyone groan so loudly? It is such a rare event, such a wonderful opportunity to see what kind of ZvZ will come out of a finals, I wonder how the stigma foreigners have for ZvZ could be so powerful? How much pressure is on the players already, before adding into the mix the most high tension matchup in BroodWar? Every click is life or death, and neither player can afford a lapse in concentration. These games were a lot of fun to watch, even excluding the Hive tech game. It's the one time when everyone is hyper aware of everything in the game. The time when you can't just tell yourself 'it's just another game,' but you are on the edge of your seat trying to take in everything the players are thinking. What can I say to people who dismiss a ZvZ finals without even watching it? I'm disappointed.
Enough negativity
I didn't begin this with the intention of being upset with the community's reaction to a ZvZ finals. I began it with the intention of talking about the future of ZvZ. Hydra played really well this series and won it fair and square. He defended the old way. But he didn't defend it without losing the first set to Hive tech. That means that Great's quest to change ZvZ is far from over.
If you have any sense, you're going to be watching Great's ZvZs closely from now on. I suspect that it's still his intention to change the matchup, and that although he couldn't beat Hydra this time, his Hive tech style is going to give many another Zerg a run for their money. After all, how did he lose the last three games? It wasn't during a switch to Hive tech.
You might say that in the one game where Great switched to Hive tech, he was already doing quite well and could have won off his Lair. You might be right. But I think the Hive switch was safer. It was safer, and it was showmanship. I call that a winning combination, so I don't see Great giving up on it anytime soon.
Do these players have a name yet?
Some pessimistic people said before the match that this series would be really unpopular since Great and Hydra are both relatively new names. I think the power of those words was more damaging than the power of the fact. So what if Great and Hydra weren't known before this? Guess whose games I'm looking out for next season. Guess whose name is going to jump out at me in the proleagues. Great and Hydra, them's whose. Their names are solidified in my mind. I'm not going to forget them.
BroodWar almost never has no names get to the finals. I thought it was really exciting and interesting that two relative rookies were battling it out. Oh, Flash/Bisu/Jaedong/Stork/Kal etc etc didn't get in the finals? I'd call that amazing. I am holding myself back from making an SC2 reference. I will not be tempted into comparing the scenes. But I think you can guess exactly what I'm thinking. This is uncommon for BroodWar, and isn't something to be lamented. It's not going to happen every finals from now on. This was really interesting.
As always,
BW FOREVER~! Let's not let the changes of policy in this site keep us from enjoying the greatest game. People should be excited for the whole week leading up to the finals. I was, and I know many others were. But we need to share that excitement with the people who are not so familiar with the scene. Let's not waste the next final idly, and let it be known that we love BroodWar, ZvZ, TvT, and emerging talents included 
 
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Well for me the real final was Jaedong vs Hydra and i was hyped.
Great vs Hydra ? Eh not so much.
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10387 Posts
On February 20 2011 10:09 Chef wrote:
So why the lack of feedback? Maybe it's going to sound obnoxious, but I am going to blame the way hype is getting buried on TL. How long was the article for the FINALS of the MSL up for on the front page (in that nice, clickable picture)? A few hours? I don't actually know, because despite checking this site quite often, I didn't see it until after the fact. Instead it got buried under some random announcements for preliminaries of SC2. Is that the way this site is going? I have to admit, it is disappointing for me.
Whole heartedly agree with this statement. We hardly even get a PL writeup now and then, despite the great games and impressive play that goes on in each match. In fact, did the OSL even get a finals/pre-finals writeup? Checking, I don't think so....
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T.O.P.
Hong Kong4685 Posts
TL is focused on SC2 because the majority of the site's visitors come for SC2 nowadays. It's just the new TL.
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I don't think that means users care more about random prelims vs a finals. There should be a million strat threads talking about the validity of Hive tech ZvZ, but BW is getting pushed under the rug by TL's propaganda machine 
Oh my God, Zero betrayed the revolution and helped Hydra practice. I am SO mad!
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Views and interest from the public has nothing to do with quality of anything. You're going to find much more discussion online about Lady GaGa than you will a cool indie band or something because a lot more money is pumped into the Lady GaGa phenomenon. Yeah, I just compared SC2 to Lady GaGa.
But anyway, to the final. I've commentated for a couple years, and I've come to realize why people dislike ZvZ. 50 percent of the time, it represents rock/paper/scissors and sometimes just plain luck. Nobody wants a game to be won with luck unless it's hilarious. ZvZ games are rarely hilarious.
It's sometimes hard to even commentate on the matchup, because the strategy is so slim. It's not like the other matchups where you'll have many various builds playing off of one another. It's lightning fast and all about reaction. Instead of the general laying down the battle map and directing operations, it feels more like two soldiers running at eachother on the battlefieldd, yelling and shooting randomly.
Of course, this isn't always the case, but the exceptions are so rare that it would take a very large meta-game shift to kindle interest in ZvZ from the masses. Look at how excited everyone was about the first game of the finals and you'll see what I mean.
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I think that ZvZ is rock paper sissors is a misconception. Everyone tells that lie. It hasn't been true for like 6 years.
The proof? I don't know, 65% + win ratings that some players have it that matchup? JvZ? Is Jaedong just so good he overcomes huge disadvantages? No, he just knows how to react to different build orders. The only real 'you're so dead' builds in this matchup are 9 pool vs 12 hatch that gets scouted fast. Which is the equivalent of getting 6pooled when going command centre before barracks, it's really not that common.
ZvZ needs more than a play-by-play commentator can offer. I'm sure lots of people like what you do and I'm happy you provide entertainment for so many people, but sometimes SC really does require an expert. Maybe if more of those Shark ZvZ articles get translated, you will have some material to work with that you were previously unaware.
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ZvZ is fun to watch
But people need to know how to watch it. Unlike Korea we don't have the benefit of former progamers to tell us what's going on. We have a bunch of people on the forums who think every ZvZ is the same and decide to tell everyone that, so that it becomes the popular opinion. I don't believe that's true, but if anyone was going to make a big change, one that wasn't going to be possible to ignore, it was Great. The subtleties in ZvZ can sometimes be hard to appreciate for the uninitiated, but Hive tech is not subtle.
How many ZvZ finals have there been in the history of BW? Why did everyone groan so loudly? It is such a rare event, such a wonderful opportunity to see what kind of ZvZ will come out of a finals, I wonder how the stigma foreigners have for ZvZ could be so powerful? How much pressure is on the players already, before adding into the mix the most high tension matchup in BroodWar? Every click is life or death, and neither player can afford a lapse in concentration. These games were a lot of fun to watch, even excluding the Hive tech game. It's the one time when everyone is hyper aware of everything in the game. The time when you can't just tell yourself 'it's just another game,' but you are on the edge of your seat trying to take in everything the players are thinking. What can I say to people who dismiss a ZvZ finals without even watching it? I'm disappointed
I agree with this so much, ZvZ gets so much hate; but I find most ZvZ's to be quite interesting due to subtleties and the general intensity and knife edge balance of the match. Sure you can get some build order type disparity for the matches, but for me those games are still fun because of the "oh shit, can he defend this, well he live?!" situation that occurs.
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You just need more games of ZvZ to go until hive tech. It is used, but most of the ZvZ's hinge on ling and muta control to the extent if you falter at one you will lose the game very quickly.
The Finals were okay to me, the fans were into it, but it also seemed to be a very small crowd at the same time from the top angle shot. People expect it to be Flash and/or Jaedong in the finals and the hype is lost because they are not in it(just like any sport with their superstars not being in the big game). It was good for these two players and I am glad we got to see something different.
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Chef sent me a PM but i think it would have been more appropriate to just quote me and answer so i will just post it here:
Did your final have fireworks and players coming down giant elevators from no where? I don't think so
Haha, I see what you mean, but Great/Zero vs Hydra/Jaedong... It was old vs new, and both sides pitting forth their best man for the battle. If it had been Great/Hydra Jaedong/Zero, we might not have gotten to see that culminate into the finals, giving the new zerg enough time to practice. I thought it was a good opportunity that guaranteed action.
I also think people really play down Great... His insight into ZvZ is really stunning. The 4th match was a bit of bad luck (or good meta game by hydra), but we got to see cool moves and I think Great was worthy of that finals.
Well to be honest i don't have the time to watch many games nowadays, and i even if i had more time well i think i would still skip most of the mediocre games.
That's why i only watch the recommended games ( can't often watch live ) and semi / finals or maybe a random game between two well known players.
I didn't really follow the recent rise of Hydra so before the semi final preview thread he was just another random Cj Z for me and still in the shadow of Effort. However i was so hyped when i found that he had that sick ZvZ win ratio over his last games. I was hyped because he was facing JD, the best ZvZ player for 3 years.
Don't get me wrong i knew it would be some short games with muta/ling/scourge. I didn't want to watch the semi to see something new, some sort of hive tech with queens, dark swarm and funky stuff.
I was convinced that both players would play standard because they are confident in their ability to outmicro their opponent. So i was hyped because the winner would be crowned best ZvZer.
After Hydra win i read the final preview and well after looking at the TLPD and the stats of Great i knew he had almost no chance vs Hydra because let's be honest JD got demolished. I don't really care about the score and games 3/4 where JD won with tricky ling play. What i mean is that Hydra was convincing and showed that he has superior control and after game 2 he was already the superior player for me.
So when you have the guy who just destroyed the #1 guy it is hard to get hyped when he is facing a guy with decent but not great ( lol ) stats and known for his unorthodox strats even if the writers had tried their best ( and i think they did ).
I'm a nonbeliever and i didn't even watch the final 
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On February 20 2011 10:46 Chef wrote:
I think that ZvZ is rock paper sissors is a misconception. Everyone tells that lie. It hasn't been true for like 6 years.
The proof? I don't know, 65% + win ratings that some players have it that matchup? JvZ? Is Jaedong just so good he overcomes huge disadvantages? No, he just knows how to react to different build orders. The only real 'you're so dead' builds in this matchup are 9 pool vs 12 hatch that gets scouted fast. Which is the equivalent of getting 6pooled when going command centre before barracks, it's really not that common.
ZvZ needs more than a play-by-play commentator can offer. I'm sure lots of people like what you do and I'm happy you provide entertainment for so many people, but sometimes SC really does require an expert. Maybe if more of those Shark ZvZ articles get translated, you will have some material to work with that you were previously unaware.
Shark wrote the articles he did because he knew how little interest people had in the match-up, and I can tell that's why you wrote this blog, too! But, an increase in interest won't come from articles or blogs like this. It has to come from the game itself. I could read books and books of information on ZvZ and comment on each larva and what it's doing, how it affects things.... but in the end, it wouldn't help people get interested. In fact, it would probably be more boring! We just won't see broader interest in the match-up until it changes significantly.
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I think your right about zvz requiring a diffrent kind of commentary, but we also don't have any commentators that can illuminate the subtletiess of zvz.
In general I perfer very insightful and specific commentary (though you can only find it in a few youtube videos that are specificly meant to teach players to better understand a matchup), but as a terran player it's really hard to will myself to commit to care about how zvz works.
I can find boring tvp tvt and tvz interesting becuase as a terran I can constantly discover more about the matchups I play. Zvp i can enjoy the "epic games" but when it comes to zvz or pvp, unless it progresses to a certain sort of exciting late game, it lacks the visual spectical and flair that the non-mirror matchups have. It seems weird to have to teach yourself how to have to care enough to enjoy a game as I would have to with zvz.
I was excited for the finals by all means (thanks to the drama of hive vs lair) but aside from the first set in which you could really see the impact of the tech choices and expansion timings play out, the later sets mostly resembled and unintelligable magic trick to a non-zerg player.
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I was kind of excited for this finals. I'm new to BW(as in just started watching around December) and I've really liked Hydra. Great was my hope, both because he's on Khan and because he's trying to revolutionize a matchup, but Entus is my second favorite and anyway I expected Hydra to take it 3-1, just as he did. When the finals came around, I was kind of pumped to see if I was right about how they would turn out, or if ZvZ would get turned upside down by a crazy hive-laden series featuring two players who I really like.
It didn't happen. I didn't enjoy the finals. The hive tech game wasn't too bad, but otherwise, I just can't watch ZvZ. I can understand ZvZ insofar as I can understand any matchup, meaning that I have a basic grasp on what each player's goal is and I know, very generally, the paths they can use to get there. Things like cool micro tricks and the importance of larva usage are things that come intuitively to me. I know they're out there, even if I can't always pin down exactly how they're affecting a given game at a given time. I feel like, as a spectator, I've fulfilled all the obligations I need to fulfill to give ZvZ a fair shot.
Still don't like it. It's boring. I don't want to see it. I'm sorry that SC2 coverage is apparently suffocating BW, but I can't blame anyone for being more interested in TSL3 than Great v Hydra.
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On February 20 2011 11:39 puppykiller wrote:
I think your right about zvz requiring a diffrent kind of commentary, but we also don't have any commentators that can illuminate the subtletiess of zvz.
If I had a good mic, and I had the time to practice casting enough to actually be decent to listen to, I definitely have the ability to give insight. It's just a lot of work to be a commentator, and unless you're paid it's too huge a time investment (at least for me, when I have many goals outside of StarCraft).
I think there are a lot of people left in the BW community that still understand this game, it's just that casters tend to be people who like watching, rather than people who like playing. Those people have a harder time understand what's actually happening.
(This isn't to say I'm massively good at SC. Only that I have the game sense that only veterans of this game seem to have. Game sense that can't be acquired when you can't imagine what a player can and can't see, and how that affects the decisions a player can make.)
I dunno. There are people that only see the unit compositions in games. They think every PvT is the same because Terran gets vultures and tanks, while protoss gets zealots and dragoons. They're only excited by the idea that sometimes protoss gets arbs, and other times he gets carriers. Sometimes Terran gets drop ships, and sometimes he gets quick goliaths. For these people, they start to think all StarCraft games are basically the same and that it's only down to who has better macro or micro. Those are the people that watch StarCraft less and less. Those are the people that suffer from casters who can't offer anymore than 'usually terran goes mech vs toss, and bio vs zerg.' Is every game of Go the same because all they do is put stones down and eventually one player loses? Or do you need some sense of the strategy to enjoy watching a game like that?
I want to make BroodWar exciting for these people too. I want them to see beyond just the unit compositions, or 'one players lings died and the other's didn't.' It is difficult to do when there are so many inane obstacles people who don't know much about the game are putting up. Vets need to set the record straight
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I enjoyed watching the MSL final. I think Great lost it by over talking about his zvz revolution (probably launched and forced by MSL to promote the finals?). He tried too hard to be creative that he kind of lost focus on the basics. That first game was brilliant but did you see how Hydra adapted his play to perfectly counter that same strategy on the second game?
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Well I find ZVZ the worst to watch when I don't care about the players playing but when I do, its my favorite matchup because it gets my NERVES so tight. In this case, I was rooting for Great and I almost had a heart attack when he moved his drone to 12 hatch after seeing Hyrda's 9 pool+speed.
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At the end of the day Great isn't the one doing the most to change ZvZ. Players like Soulkey were having much more memorable moments over the last however many months. All of the hype for Zero versus Great ended up being both absurd and unnecessary when Zero ended up winning the only hive tech game. I don't have anything against Great but there are better players to pin your hopes on.
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On February 20 2011 11:06 NukeTheStars wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 10:46 Chef wrote:
I think that ZvZ is rock paper sissors is a misconception. Everyone tells that lie. It hasn't been true for like 6 years.
The proof? I don't know, 65% + win ratings that some players have it that matchup? JvZ? Is Jaedong just so good he overcomes huge disadvantages? No, he just knows how to react to different build orders. The only real 'you're so dead' builds in this matchup are 9 pool vs 12 hatch that gets scouted fast. Which is the equivalent of getting 6pooled when going command centre before barracks, it's really not that common.
ZvZ needs more than a play-by-play commentator can offer. I'm sure lots of people like what you do and I'm happy you provide entertainment for so many people, but sometimes SC really does require an expert. Maybe if more of those Shark ZvZ articles get translated, you will have some material to work with that you were previously unaware. Shark wrote the articles he did because he knew how little interest people had in the match-up, and I can tell that's why you wrote this blog, too! But, an increase in interest won't come from articles or blogs like this. It has to come from the game itself. I could read books and books of information on ZvZ and comment on each larva and what it's doing, how it affects things.... but in the end, it wouldn't help people get interested. In fact, it would probably be more boring! We just won't see broader interest in the match-up until it changes significantly.
You have in backwards, Shark wrote the articles because he knows from years of experience and beyond any doubt that ZvZ is fascinating. The interest will only come from articles like that, people aren't interested in ZvZ because they don't understand whats going. ZvZ feels random without understanding; viewers see one person won and one person lost without knowing what to praise or be impressed by or what flaws to point out. I'm going to break the 11th commandment here but to make a starcraft to not starcraft analogy, imagine a stunningly beautiful mathematical proof. The kind that just reeks brilliance and then show to someone not fluent in the notation. It'll look impressive and it might be interesting to note how we could start at point A and get to point B but they'll never get that full appreciation until you walk them through it step by step and translate whats happening.
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On February 20 2011 10:09 Chef wrote:
So why the lack of feedback? Maybe it's going to sound obnoxious, but I am going to blame the way hype is getting buried on TL. How long was the article for the FINALS of the MSL up for on the front page (in that nice, clickable picture)? A few hours? I don't actually know, because despite checking this site quite often, I didn't see it until after the fact. Instead it got buried under some random announcements for preliminaries of SC2. Is that the way this site is going? I have to admit, it is disappointing for me.
Yeah, I'm always getting bombarded with worthless SC2 news that I don't even give a shit about. Maybe there should be a separate news section as well since I keep missing some BW news like you do.
Anyway, the ZvZ Finals was actually better than I expected. I think Hydra deserved this win from the way he has been playing recently.
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As a 13 year old kid who is an avid BW fan, I really hate how other people my age love SC2 so much because of its graphics and because they think BW is an "old game".
I agree that the hype was short-lived on the front page. Maybe that needs to be changed.
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EPT
