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United States889 Posts
Note: I understand this is super long. I've defined what each section is about so if you're only interested in one section you can read that. Also, I'd like to say that most of this is based on my counting and data sheets I assembled, which are subject to my error. If you see any mistakes, please point them out. Finally, in my last article, 2nd Triumvirate, I explained how indebted I am to the TLPD. Now, I would revise that to being equivalent to about 30 bailouts. TL rocks.
State of the Swarm
Truly, these are dark days for the swarm. The Taek-Bang Era has dawned. The Six Dragons have awoken. The arch-enemies of the Swarm have risen--2008 has seen the Golden Age of Protoss. fantasy's hands and iloveoov's genius have enabled the once retards of TvZ to start a Zerg genocide. Witness Light, who was on a dramatic display of TvZ ineptitude, going 2-7 (dropping games to players of equally inept notoriety, like Hyuk and Rumble), and then beginning a remarkable reversal after the new mech build, going 5-0 (sparing RorO and FireFist the mech humiliation, but it doesn't take much more than a scary grimace to make them GG anyway). A number of new(ish) maps have turned out to be Zerg graveyards (Plasma [10-4 all opponents], Troy [12-5], Colosseum II [20-11], and Wuthering Heights, with only 1 victory for Zerg [43 TvTs!]). The Classic S2 has no Zergs left in contention. It seems like every Proleague match features the ritual sacrifice of a Zerg rookie, delivered handsomely into the jaws of Bisu or Kal, and each OSL group showcases a new Zerg humiliation at the ends of vZ assassins like Hwasin and UpMagiC.
But there is good news. Jaedong, and more surprisingly July, have brought home StarLeague wins. Luxury bested a dragon to win WCG, July gave an epic beat down to a dragon for a Golden Mouse, and the blood of Flash (Classic S1), and two dragons (Stork in the EVER OSL and Kal in GOM MSL S4) are on Jaedong's hands.
2008 has been a year of challenges and struggles for the Zerg broods. The question is, was it a bad year for Zerg, or was it a good year? There's evidence on either side. This article attempts to give the background necessary to discuss that question. I have a number of questions I will be trying to answer here. I specifically want to know what the affect of the new mech build has had on TvZ (first spoiler), and what the Golden Age of Protoss means for the previously expected Z>P (second spoiler). I will also address the influx of Zerg rookies, what that means for the future of Zerg strategy, and who to bet on, and who not to (third spoiler). So here it is, the State of the Swarm report.
+ Show Spoiler +That the new mech build is a TvZ cure-all is pure fantasy.In case you're wondering, the TLPDized fantasy is intended, and is a dumb play on. Based on an aggregate of all games since the start of BroodWar to some time Last year, which is on a spreadsheet on my other computer, and based on conventional wisdom (Z>P, T>Z, P>T), the background rates of win percentages for the non-mirror matchups for Zergs are: ~60% ZvP, and ~44% ZvT. The ZvT figure is based on an aggregate of 36 entries in the individual leagues of TLPD. So, compare this to the win percentages for the year 2008 through the games of January 10th, 2009, from all leagues: ZvP ~51.1%; ~ZvT 42%. Compared to the background rates, this is dramatic. Particularly, the ZvP is startling, but consistent with the arrival of the Golden age of Protoss. The ZvT is interesting, in that the introduction of the mech build (while admittedly late) to the game in 2008, has seemed to manifest itself in a short amount of time in ZvT. Let me examine this further by taking a look at the ZvT win percentages for leagues leading up to the introduction of the mech build, to see if the mech build in fact is in the cause of the discrepancy in the TvZ rate: * 2008 Proleague R2 - 6-3 * 2008 Minor League - 12-12 * 2008 Proleague - 21-35 * STX Masters - 4-2 * 2008-'09 Proleague (Only games pre-10-17-08) - 5-9 * ODT 2007 (2008 games) - 6-2 * GOM MSL S4 - 12-13 * Bacchus OSL - 6-7 * OSC 2008 - 3-7 * 14th Survivor - 7-13 * Star Invitational - 5-5 * EVER OSL - 6-4 * Arena MSL - 6-15 * WCG Korea - 4-4 * Incruit OSL - 7-11 * 15th Survivor - 5-13 * Club Day MSL - 7-5 * Classic Season 2 - 6-12 This comes out to a total ZvT record for all 2008 games pre-mech build to be: 128-172, or ~42.6%. So, it is clear that 2008 was already a year of decline in ZvT win rates before the introduction of the mech build. Now, let us juxtapose this with the win percentages of games after the mech build. Here are the figures for all games played in TvZ from 10-17-08 (the date of the fantasy v GGPlay series) onward to January 10th: * 2008-'09 Proleague (post 10-17-08) - 41-55 * Classic Season 2 - 12-16 * 16th Survivor - 8-16 * Batoo OSL - 5-8 The total ZvT record for all games post 10-17-08 is, then: 66-95, or ~41%. Now, I have not bothered to sift through every TvZ VOD post-10-17-08 to sort out which ones used a mech build or some variant thereof, and then count the wins and losses. Pragmatically speaking, I haven't that kind of time, nor the inclination, for as much as I love the matchup, I think the mech build has ruined its beauty and made it too similar to ZvP. I also find sifting through the TLPD and playing with numbers much more appealing than watching 161 VODs. All of that is to say, I cannot claim for sure that the mech build has resulted in the ~1.6% dip in the Zerg win rate. I can claim that with even less certainty because I have no idea what caused the Zerg win rate to drop those few points from its background rate in the first place. There are any number of explanations, because the win rate was already falling. If I was asked what the most likely cause of the the post 10-17-08 dip was, I would say that it was pure chance. This, however, is a point of debate. I understand that I have neglected to establish what kind of a move is statistically significant in BroodWar between years/events/tournaments. This is most pragmatically measured by looking at the number of games affected. In this case, the 1.6% translates to ~2.5 games. Clearly, this is insignificant. The forced conclusion, of this, then, is that the mech build has not had a dramatic affect on Zerg win rates, and thus has not had a dramatic affect on the matchup. Now, again, you can cry fowl on me because I have admitted myself that I have not looked through every VOD, I cannot know for sure if every single player who has gone mech has not lost (or, for that matter, won). While this may be true, my goal was to establish if the mech build has had a dramatic affect on the matchup as a whole, which it provably has not. With that having been said, it is probably a better conclusion to say that there are too few data to know for sure. If Zerg win rates continue to decline, and the mech build gains in popularity and use, perhaps it will be possible to claim that the mech build has resulted in fewer games won for Zerg. At present, however, it is safe to claim either no affect, or too few data.
+ Show Spoiler +Last StandWhat toll has the Golden Age of Protoss taken on the Zerg swarm? First, look at the background rate vs. the present rate: 60% v 51%. That's over the year that this change has happened. First, I'll do the short answer. A difference of approximately 9%, over the course of 426 games played translates to 38.34 more games going in favor of Protoss than Zerg. This is quite significant. There is perhaps no better example for this than the Classic Season 2, where below average TvZ (59.6%) more than combined and compensated with ZvP (43.1%) to completely eliminate the Zerg from the league. With that question easily and quickly answered, my curiosity has turned to the dragons, free, Kal, JangBi, Stork, Bisu, and BeSt. Is is possible that the rampaging affects of these giants has combined for a good part of the change? It doesn't seem so far fetched. These players are staples of individual leagues and see considerable time in Proleague. The Club Day MSL fielded 5 of them in the round of 8, and one became the champion. The Incruit OSL saw 3 of them (and only one Zerg) in the round of 8. All of them made it to the Ro16 in the Classic S2, and 3 of them still remain. Here are some facts: * Bisu is 7-1 in Proleague vs. Zergs, steamrolling YellOw[ArnC], by.hero, Luxury, Calm, and EffOrt. His only loss was to Jaedong (and there's no shame in that). * Stork is 3-2 in Proleague vs. Zergs, defeating GGPlay, ZerO, and Luxury and losing to Calm and type-b. * BeSt is 4-3 in Proleague vs. Zergs, winning over Shark, ZerO, RorO, and sAviOr. BeSt is also the weakest dragon against Zerg. * Kal is 7-2 in Proleague vs. Zergs, most notably defeating Luxury and Jaedong. * JangBi is 2-3, losing to EffOrt, Shine[kaL] and hyvaa. * free is 6-1, only losing to Saint. Combined, the dragons are 29-12 in Proleague against Zerg. That's an astonishing 70%. Looking down the list, however, it does not seem so good to combine these win rates. After all, they range from an astonishing 87.5% for Bisu to a mediocre 40% for JangBi. With such a range, to combine them seems somewhat dishonest. But let's also look at their individual league results vZerg starting with the Incruit OSL, Club Day MSL, the Classic S2, Lost Saga MSL and Batoo OSL. Essentially, the leagues start with and since they have been called dragons. * Bisu is 8-5. * Stork is 5-1. * BeSt is 4-2. * Kal is 4-2. * JangBi is 6-0. * free is 4-2. Look at these against the Proleague stats. The performances of the dragons appear complementary between individual and team leagues. The dismal JangBi in Proleague is at 100% winrate in individual leagues. Stork's middling 60% is now ~83%. The least changed is BeSt, whose PvZ continues to be his worst matchup. Once again, combining them, the dragons are 31-12, an even more astonishing 72%. Okay, so the dragons are ripping and tearing through Zergs like paper. That much is true. But it's not enough to claim for sure that the dragons are the exclusive cause, or even the leading cause, for a 9% drop in Zerg win rates. What needs to be established for this to be claimed with accuracy is that Protoss who are not the dragons are struggling just as much (or hopefully worse) against Zerg. The trouble here is that I could easily doctor this to make my point. I could pick a bunch of rookies who, in particular, have sucked against Zerg and say 'Well, damn, looks like I'm right again!' I'm going to resist that urge, and say that I'm going to pick as many Protoss players as I can who have played in at least two of the leagues that the dragons have, and compare their results to the dragons. The idea is that the exact competition is somewhat controlled, and the circumstances (maps, pressure situations) are also controlled. Also, that would establish that the players are not bad players, as they would have had to qualify for at least two of the leagues. It turns out there are a couple of players for whom these standards are true: BackHo, Much, Tester, and HerO. * BackHo is 3-4. * Much is 2-2. * Tester is 2-3. * HerO is 2-3. I don't really think that I need to enumerate the differences in the record and percentages (for the record, it's 42.8%). So how about players who aren't spectacular in the individual leagues? Like, Say, Pusan and SangHo? Well, Pusan is 4-0 this ProLeague, but among his victims are two ACE players, the Zerg problem child Kwanro, and hyvaa. SangHo is 8-5 in his last 13 vZs, a 61% win rate. I could spend my time disparaging SangHo's victims too, but I don't feel so much of a need to. How about Anytime and Rock, two other staples of Proleague? Admittedly, they are both slumping (although Rock's committment to mediocrity has always been life-long). Anytime is sitting at 1-3 this Proleague and 7-3 through the year, and Rock is a dismal 4-8 since January of '08. The only stone left unturned, then, are the Protoss rookies. These I would very much like to investigate, but being that they are rookies, they have played far too few games (a) for their win percentages to be accurate representations of their skill in the matchup and (b) for their wins to contribute to an overview of the matchup. So I'm left to explain the success of Anytime and SangHo in 2008 if I want to say that it is the dragons in the end that have caused the dip in Zerg win rates, and then one more thing to explain after that, which I'll get to. Now, explaining SangHo: 8-5, defeating acknowledged ZvP travesties MuMyung, RorO (twice), and Study. He also defeated JoJoBa in JoJoBa's first recorded games. SangHo's impressive victories are numbered 2, defeating Jaedong and ZerO. SangHo also had the benefits of Plasma, Byzantium, Colosseum II, and Medusa. SangHo also managed to lose to OversKy, newbie JoJoBa, Yarnc's less than impressive ZvP, and great. Now I'm not going to try to and establish SangHo's ZvP success as pure circumstantial, lucky, or purely attributed to favored maps and poor opponents. To claim that would be entirely untrue. However, it is important to note the disparity between SangHo's winrate and the dragon's, 61% to ~71%. Fortunately, Anytime's success is more easily explained. His 6 game PvZ winstreak to start 2008 starred a dramatically slumping sAviOr, complete newbie besga, ZerO, and a vP failure in Kwanro as his victims. Twice he slaughtered sAviOr, once on Baekmagoji, once on the horribly imbalanced Katrina. Complete newbie besga fell victim as much to Anytime's pushes as he did to Loki II's sickening 4-9 ZvP record. Anytime did beat oDin fair and square though. Now, the tour de force of this explanation is the following. I've counted the number of games won and lost by the dragons pre- and through 2008. It turns out that the dragons brought home exactly 28 more games for Protoss in 2008 than they had from years before. Recall that 38.34 is the number of games more brought in for Protoss in 2008 than in years before. You'll notice that 28 is not 38.34. However, I never pretended to establish that the dragons are the singular cause for the drop in zerg winrates. Given that other players, with some exceptions, have been returning rather middling results, and the dragons have increased their PvZ winrates by approximately 10%, it is not outrageous to say that 6.5% (28's relation to 38.34 in respect to the 9% difference) of the 9% drop in win rates could be exclusively the result of the Protoss dragons. Now, I cannot claim this with perfect accuracy. Doubtless, the results of other Protoss players pre- and through 2008, in sufficient number, could possibly be made to show an increase of 38 wins. I understand that I have nothing concrete to connect these 28 wins with the requisite 38 extra in question, but it is my strong suspicion that this is the case. However, I am open to other opinions on this matter. Tangentially related, I want to introduce the hope of the Swarm to end this era of tyrants. I present to you: The Dragon Slayers: July: 5-2 (3-0 v Best, 2-2 v Bisu) in the last year, and Jaedong 17-7 (damn). Also tangentially related, to end the era of vicious acorns, maGma has blessedly volunteered for the task. maGma isØ-Ø lifetime against acorns.
+ Show Spoiler +The Insight of Casey StengelCasey Stengel was a baseball player, famous for saying this: "See that kid over there? He's 20 years old. In 10 years, he's got a chance to be a star. Now, see that other kid over there? He's 20 too. In 10 years, he's got a chance to be 30." If there's one thing that's struck me during the Proleague over 2008, it's the sheer number of new faces for the Zerg race. Names like by.hero, type-b, EffOrt, by.great, Shine[kaL], hyvaa, HoeJJa, Juni, ZerO, RorO, and s2 have all made their debuts recently and are quickly becoming staples of the rosters of their respective teams. Even more players, like Clay, Robbie, Modesty, and others have played their first games in 2008. This may not be unique among the new blood entering the scene, but it does have many implications for the future of the Swarm. Each one of the players named have had success, many of them have had more failures in 2008 than successes, but almost every career upon entering the scene becomes that way. So who should you Liquibet on? Who should you cheer for? Who will make your eyes bleed as you watch? Unlike the rest of this article, the following section is mostly my opinion. But, before I get to the newbies, let's look over the veterans. There are some things that may surprise you. Let me start with this one. 1. GGPlay was miserable in 2008. His sour record (25-26 since the start of the year) was clearly one of the reasons why CJ dumped him (although he has improved somewhat since joining the Stars). 2. July still kicks butt. His 10-4 Proleague record is one of the more impressive records for Zerg right now, even if perceptions are that Calm has him trumped. For the record, July went 33-24 in '08. Calm went 30-25. How about that? 3. OversKy is perplexing. With everyone on ACE constantly failing around him, this guy has managed to go 16-18 in the year. He's trumped SangHo, ZerO, Jaedong, Canata, and FrOzean twice. I hope he keeps playing after his Airforce days, because I really like him. Note: I called GGPlay miserable for a better win percentage than OversKy. I know this. It's because OversKy is on a crappy team with reduced practice everything, and GGPlay is on a good team with excellent practice everything. It's the factor of expectations. It doesn't surprise anyone that MuMyung sucks. 4. Jaedong went (I only counted once, and there were a lot of games. I may be off by one or two) 81-41 in 2008. Most valuable Zerg? You bet. 5. It breaks my heart to say it, but the twins are over-hyped. Luxury went 49-39 in '08, YellOw[ArnC] a sad 28-28. YellOw[ArnC] is carrying OGN on his back? Try Leta. 6. There's absolutely nothing to say about sAviOr in 2008. That story belongs to 2009. I'm still holding on to this despite two losses... That takes care of the old guys, basically the only Zergs who've seen more than a few Proleagues. I'm being honest about that. Most of the Zergs seeing a lot of games these days are newbies. Some are good. Some will be good. Some are bad, but might be good. But most are very, very bad. Let's start with the good, the five I'm calling up. 1. EffOrt. CJ's new workhorse. They're putting everything they have into this kid. His record in 2008 was very promising, 22-15. This guy has not been given an easy workload, and he's improving rapidly. Look at his games from Classic 1 to Classic 2. He's only going to get better. 2. ZerO. This kid is the reaL deal, and I'm calling it--he's going to be the Zerg Leta soon. What he really needs is mentoring, and I don't think GGPlay is the guy to do it. In a bit, a couple months maybe, he's going to explode. 3. by.hero. His games against Bisu were impressive, but he's quietly been doing work for some time now. He's in both leagues, and more important he has the guidance of July and Calm. He won't go much farther this year, I don't think. Next year, though, look out. 4. Saint. Saint isn't exactly new, but winning is certainly new to him. This is my hunch bet. He's going to get better, and he's going to gain confidence. MBCGame is putting a lot into him. All that playing time is going to translate into considerable improvement, I think. Of course, there's plenty of disagreement. 5. type-b. Last Starleague go-round, I didn't believe it. He seemed like a one-hit wonder (circa Thezerg), but his Proleague performance has been...unexpected. Unlike Thezerg, who decided to drink a giant can of how to suck at StarCraft, type-b took his lucky Starleague runs and won some Proleague games against good players, like Stork, Hwasin, Light, Really, and YellOw[ArnC]. He may not be great now, but he'll get there. Now for the five down, down, down. 1. s2. I just hate it when this guy plays. It's like being repeatedly propositioned by Richard Simmons for 'cuddling lessons.' SKT rolls over and accepts a loss in the Zerg slot whenever s2 is in the lineup. Of course, then SKT buys Thezerg, which means they accept a more expensive loss in the Zerg slot. 2. Thezerg. Did you see how excited he was when he beat LuCifer? It's like he couldn't believe it himself that he'd actually won a game. To tell the truth, neither did I. Don't forget the 1-9 he went 8-19-08 and 12-19-08. Wins against that sack of medicority Shark and Mr. Minor League LuCifer aren't going to save him from his Destiny at the bottom of the SKT Zerg lineup. What I don't get is why they never play GoRush. He actually made it out of the qualifiers! 3. RorO. 2-11 between 11-16-08 and 12-24-08. But I can understand WeMade's incredible desire to try someone else out when keke is their only other option. 4. keke. See a pattern? The guy who stinks, and the guy brought in to replace him. While keke isn't as bad as the others on this list, since he has recieved more playing time, he's done nothing with it, and still continued his relentless march to being nothing exceptional. His main selling points were his Neo Requiem ZvT wins. Whoop. Dee. Doo. 5. FireFist. 10-11 isn't going to get you a spot in the lineup on a team with the arguably better Haran, 815 and HoeJJa, and then the definitely better Luxury. FireFist isn't going to suffer from getting worse, but is rather going to suffer from not being played for being worse than Haran and 815 and not as young and promising as HoeJJa. Don't sue me if I'm wrong, but feel free to disagree. So that's that. The State of the Swarm report. The mech build hasn't decimated the Zerg, but the Golden Age of Protoss has. The Zerg old guard are putting up unconvincing results, excepting a few, and as such, I expect that the new promising Zerg players are going to lead the Swarm out of this troubling time in StarCraft history. Cross your fingers for EffOrt for OSL champion. I am.
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Very interesting information, although in my opinion you should put titles above your spoilers too.
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If July or Jaedong didnt exist imagine how abysmal the years zvp % would be. They are going have to carry the swarm by themselves with maby some assistance from EffOrt.
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Very good write up, its about time someone put this data out there. This is exactly the type of write ups that need to be made more often good job Arrian.
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United States13896 Posts
The TvZ analysis was expected, but nevertheless very insightful. Mech play has it's advantages, but it isn't the cause for TvZ imbalance lately. it's purely that we don't have enough quality Zergs to combat the hordes of Terrans out there. Here's to hoping that will change though.
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I think a Zerg is going to win either the MSL or the OSL. The whole dragon thing is pretty blown out of proportion. Although, it is scary that as of right now only 2 zergs are in the Ro16 in the OSL right now (although that is only because July, Jaedong, and the twins haven't played in their group yet).
For a while, Roro looked fucking GOOD(esp. in ZvZ). I dunno what happened feel bad for him (same with thezerg, those OSL games vs hwasin were fucking PIMP)
I'd say Effort is most likely to be the "next big" zerg, but I don't see Jaedong giving up his spot any time soon. It seems every time JD gets into a mini-slump of his, he re-emerges even stronger than before.
Personally I'm hoping that under the guidance of July, By.hero becomes the "next big" zerg :D (or July wins a 4th OSL)
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Wow, this was a very informative post and great read. The factual information you put in along with the opinionated statements at the end are really nice. This is a great contribution analyzing this period for Zerg right now. The 5 "new up and coming Zergs" you put are really the 5 that I am the most excited about, and I'm really hoping for EffOrt to do well (although for some reason my intuition tells me he doesn't have that certain "star" aura about him that makes a great player and keeps them at the top). Hopefully I'm wrong though. I also can't wait for Oversky to come out of ACE and return to playing on a normal team if he is going to, his surprisingly good results for his situation are impressive, and he exhibits some very excellent, entertaining games oftentimes. A very clever and creative player.
The 9% drop in ZvP win rate is absolutely stunning, and 72% win rate for the dragons is... -_-;; I really hope that Zerg will be able to get out of this slump period Thank you so much for this analysis, it was a very VERY great read!
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I love playing Zerg :D Yes, we need some kind of anti-dragon build. Im sure a good look at some July and Jaedong replays will reveal a lot. Im, again, going to be hoping against hope for sAviOr vs Bisu. you neve know when youre going to see something amazing in starcraft :D
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Wow, I must say, very well written. I love the writing style... I envy you T__T
Makes me want to play Zerg, kekekeke
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United States40776 Posts
I still believe it's the ridiculous TvZ winrate which is hurting them most. The dragons are some of the best players in the world right now but they're not unbeatable. Good zergs, and I mean julyish not just Jaedong, can take games off them. The problem is that no zergs but Jaedong survive the terran favoured maps right now because every half decent terran can beat all but the best zerg.
But sick writeup anyway. The stats were new to me and very interesting. Learned a lot. Thanks man.
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Valhalla18444 Posts
On January 13 2009 16:35 Kwark wrote: I still believe it's the ridiculous TvZ winrate which is hurting them most. The dragons are some of the best players in the world right now but they're not unbeatable. Good zergs, and I mean julyish not just Jaedong, can take games off them. The problem is that no zergs but Jaedong survive the terran favoured maps right now because every half decent terran can beat all but the best zerg.
But sick writeup anyway. The stats were new to me and very interesting. Learned a lot. Thanks man.
every zerg player except jaedong is making horrific newbie mistakes
effort is playing a shitload better on average than yarnc or luxury, despite the fact that he is nowhere near as good as those two play sometimes
it's not the maps, the current top zergs are fucking terrible
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I think July's -I mean by.hero's- games versus Bisu were the only recent ray of light in an otherwise dark zerg time. As much as I'm a CJ fan I'm just not convinced by Effort. I'm worried his back to back ace match losses will deflate him too much.
Hopefully we'll start to see some individual league magic out of the STX zergs and Jaedong.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
Cool post I've checked the stats myself as well and checked some sample points. Notably, since Jaedong came to power the ZvT winrate dropped off rapidly. But ZvT suffered immensely from December (they were something like 2-14 for the first half against terran of something). But they made up ground prior to the mech build and immediately after the mech build and in the latter half of december.
ZvP winrate climbed in the late part of the year iirc and splitting the year in half show a number of players turning it around (namely Yarnc)
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On January 13 2009 16:45 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2009 16:35 Kwark wrote: I still believe it's the ridiculous TvZ winrate which is hurting them most. The dragons are some of the best players in the world right now but they're not unbeatable. Good zergs, and I mean julyish not just Jaedong, can take games off them. The problem is that no zergs but Jaedong survive the terran favoured maps right now because every half decent terran can beat all but the best zerg.
But sick writeup anyway. The stats were new to me and very interesting. Learned a lot. Thanks man. every zerg player except jaedong is making horrific newbie mistakes effort is playing a shitload better on average than yarnc or luxury, despite the fact that he is nowhere near as good as those two play sometimes it's not the maps, the current top zergs are fucking terrible i agree with this sentiment 100%. its not just a problem of the maps or the builds, its that the current non-jaedong zerg progamers are a bunch of wimps and its been the case since savior's days
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Julys osl run where is probably where alot of the zvp inflation came from considering he won like what 15 zvps during the osl?
I really think the hope for the swarm lies in EffOrt, Jaedong and the STX zergs. Another potential option is sAviOr coming out of his slump atleast enough to remember the basics of zvp jeez >65% zvp zergs dont lose to Young, Spear or even BeSt
EDIT: Just to clarify i did intentially leave out the twins i just dont see promise in them i think theyl both finish their careers with no titles and around a 50-55% win rate, then again for this day in zerg age thats very good sad to say.
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In my observation the Zerg winrate has been in decline ever since the fall of savior. Protosses were now using much more effective builds (thanks revolutionist) and Terrans were becoming increasingly proficient against the traditional savior 3 hatch muta. I recall an interview from a while back in which savior said that Terrans were slowly getting harder and harder to beat.
What we have seen in my opinion is the other races taking the initiative away from Zerg forcing them to be the ones struggling to adapt and since then it has been once thing after another the most recent being ofcourse the Fantasy build but also the +1 Zelot Archon push which is tailored to counter the fast spire/den build which was pioneered by Jaedong most particually in the final against stork, which is effective against Cosair heavy play that dominated the period.
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On January 13 2009 18:09 Choros wrote: In my observation the Zerg winrate has been in decline ever since the fall of savior. Protosses were now using much more effective builds (thanks revolutionist) and Terrans were becoming increasingly proficient against the traditional savior 3 hatch muta. I recall an interview from a while back in which savior said that Terrans were slowly getting harder and harder to beat.
What we have seen in my opinion is the other races taking the initiative away from Zerg forcing them to be the ones struggling to adapt and since then it has been once thing after another the most recent being ofcourse the Fantasy build but also the +1 Zelot Archon push which is tailored to counter the fast spire/den build which was pioneered by Jaedong most particually in the final against stork, which is effective against Cosair heavy play that dominated the period.
Ok its just important to say i really dont think Jaedong pioneered anything, personally i find him extremely unoriginal but he just does it better than almost anyone else.
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On January 13 2009 17:27 SoMuchBetter wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2009 16:45 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote:On January 13 2009 16:35 Kwark wrote: I still believe it's the ridiculous TvZ winrate which is hurting them most. The dragons are some of the best players in the world right now but they're not unbeatable. Good zergs, and I mean julyish not just Jaedong, can take games off them. The problem is that no zergs but Jaedong survive the terran favoured maps right now because every half decent terran can beat all but the best zerg.
But sick writeup anyway. The stats were new to me and very interesting. Learned a lot. Thanks man. every zerg player except jaedong is making horrific newbie mistakes effort is playing a shitload better on average than yarnc or luxury, despite the fact that he is nowhere near as good as those two play sometimes it's not the maps, the current top zergs are fucking terrible i agree with this sentiment 100%. its not just a problem of the maps or the builds, its that the current non-jaedong zerg progamers are a bunch of wimps and its been the case since savior's days I agree that we have seen some pretty weak play generally but I think that the poor play is greatly exacerbated and made increasingly obvious but the brutal efficiency and deadly nature of the play being employed but their adversaries at this point which no one has been able to deal with. Jaedong dealt with Cosair heavy play but Protoss moved on without a hitch. Even Jaedong today can only win through mind blowing micro but without the strategic advantage to underpin that even he has been struggling. Hopefully some Zerg will carry out a much needed counter revolution soon.
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On January 13 2009 18:11 Kuja900 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2009 18:09 Choros wrote: In my observation the Zerg winrate has been in decline ever since the fall of savior. Protosses were now using much more effective builds (thanks revolutionist) and Terrans were becoming increasingly proficient against the traditional savior 3 hatch muta. I recall an interview from a while back in which savior said that Terrans were slowly getting harder and harder to beat.
What we have seen in my opinion is the other races taking the initiative away from Zerg forcing them to be the ones struggling to adapt and since then it has been once thing after another the most recent being ofcourse the Fantasy build but also the +1 Zelot Archon push which is tailored to counter the fast spire/den build which was pioneered by Jaedong most particually in the final against stork, which is effective against Cosair heavy play that dominated the period. Ok its just important to say i really dont think Jaedong pioneered anything, personally i find him extremely unoriginal but he just does it better than almost anyone else. You could be right the inovation that I credit him for is simply going for fast spire and den at the same time so you go straight into scourge to help with the initial cosair than into mass hydra. Your right that this is far from the counter revolution Zergs need.
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On January 13 2009 18:15 Choros wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2009 18:11 Kuja900 wrote:On January 13 2009 18:09 Choros wrote: In my observation the Zerg winrate has been in decline ever since the fall of savior. Protosses were now using much more effective builds (thanks revolutionist) and Terrans were becoming increasingly proficient against the traditional savior 3 hatch muta. I recall an interview from a while back in which savior said that Terrans were slowly getting harder and harder to beat.
What we have seen in my opinion is the other races taking the initiative away from Zerg forcing them to be the ones struggling to adapt and since then it has been once thing after another the most recent being ofcourse the Fantasy build but also the +1 Zelot Archon push which is tailored to counter the fast spire/den build which was pioneered by Jaedong most particually in the final against stork, which is effective against Cosair heavy play that dominated the period. Ok its just important to say i really dont think Jaedong pioneered anything, personally i find him extremely unoriginal but he just does it better than almost anyone else. You could be right the inovation that I credit him for is simply going for fast spire and den at the same time so you go straight into scourge to help with the initial cosair than into mass hydra. Your right that this is far from the counter revolution Zergs need.
Well since July did it before Jaedong and made it popular, Id say there is a pretty good chance of me being right lol.
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Still looking to EffOrt to be the new hope of the swarm. He's been playing amazing games and the kid looks better every time he plays.
This guy literally rolls anyone whose not S-class. While he has lost back to back ace matches, they were certainly nothing to be ashamed of. He barely lost an epic game vs. Bisu, who played flawless PvZ. He lost to Flash on destination to an IMO pretty cheesy bunker rush into mech build.
In fact, in his entire 2008 pro career, he's pretty much lost to nothing but the top gamers. In his last 20 or so games, he's only dropped sets to Bisu, Flash, Jaedong, Light, and Best. For all of 2008, the only losses he has that haven't come from S-class players were to go.go (who has decent TvZ,) great (with ZvZ being great's only good matchup,) and Hwasin, who even while slumping has very dangerous TvZ.
He's beaten the likes of Kal and Jangbi, fantasy, FBH and sea, and has only lost 3 ZvZs to Jaedong, Lux, and great who are 80%, 65%, and 75% vs Z respectively.
CJ has been depending on him a lot lately and so far he is responding well to the pressure. Looking forward to some great things from him in 2009!
Edit: I have to agree with Kuja about JD. With the exception of his recent queen usage I don't think he's done much in the way of creativity. He plays the same builds every other Zerg does, his mechanics are just superior and he plays them better. Combine Jaedong's mechanics with July's metagame sense, and you got yourself an unbeatable Zerg.
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It took July to get the swarm to beat their most hated enemy Oov, the first time, and maybe July can topple over the Dragons this time. That being said, I Really hope type-b finds his Killer instinct. That's Really what the zerg has been missing, that lone Wolf Killer instinct. July and Jaedong have it. maGma showed some signs of being the same way as July is in meta game so we'll see. I have my eyes on type-b and maGma.
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Nice post. You know, I never thought people blamed the mech build for the decline of zergs, but rather the maps and lack of talent which makes is Z < T AND Z < P.
Anyway, one thing I'd like to note is just how few zergs are capable of playing the lategame. I swear so often the zerg will open up with an advantage, contain the terran/protoss, reach hive, and then just squander the lead because he can't multi-task and just gets his bases killed off and loses. It seems the wins all come from early hydra/ling breaks rather than a methodical, macro game. it reeks a lack understanding of late-game zerg play, and relies more on strict, mechanical timing rushes which doesn't always work. Then they have nothing to fall back on.
On a side note, I'd like to make a special mention to a young zerg in his 2nd season of play, and is 9-3 for Samsung Khan, which of course is a better PL record than all but Effort among the 5 good zergs mentioned.
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I really want to see something from magma, but hes 21 and in terms of progamers thats old. He is dangerously close to squandering whatever talent he may have this coming starleague may be his last shot to make something of himself. He doesnt have much time left and I really want to see him do something.
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I just Blame the twins and especially Luxury...
But 2009/late 2008 does not look that bad?
Stables?
Jaedong... He's not invincible but he is still the favorite against ... everyone?...
July... Equaled his alltime winning streak, beat Firebathero (his ZvT finally getting on track?), being as good in ZvP as ever (seriously, he is taking non S-Class Protosses to school... I mean, most of his P-Enemies just look like they are not even in the same league).
Effort... Getting better and better. If he loses a game the game was most probably close and his enemy S-Class... If he just gets a bit better he will be a real force.
The big ? for me are:
Luxury? Slumping, slumping hard.
Yarnc? He's not terrible by any means but to *carry* Zerg he has to do more (like winning against good Protoss...).
Savior? It's 2009 but...
Calm? Fantastic first Proleague round, *meh* second round... Up or down?
Magma? Has finally shown up... Let's see if he can pull off a *by.hero* and send Bisu into a slump or at least make the second place :p
By.Hero? Dropping bisu out of the MSL? Yay... But he has to proof himself. We don't see him that often because they already have good Zergs. To actually see this guy more often In proleague Calm or July have to slump (or by.hero just showing ridiculous training victorys).
Zero? He is a BIG ? for me. That stupid loss to FBH really showed that he is still not here to stay (at least in my book).
By.great? Is he really that good or will he go the way of Calm?
... and some more (type-b?)
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On January 13 2009 17:27 SoMuchBetter wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2009 16:45 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote:On January 13 2009 16:35 Kwark wrote: I still believe it's the ridiculous TvZ winrate which is hurting them most. The dragons are some of the best players in the world right now but they're not unbeatable. Good zergs, and I mean julyish not just Jaedong, can take games off them. The problem is that no zergs but Jaedong survive the terran favoured maps right now because every half decent terran can beat all but the best zerg.
But sick writeup anyway. The stats were new to me and very interesting. Learned a lot. Thanks man. every zerg player except jaedong is making horrific newbie mistakes effort is playing a shitload better on average than yarnc or luxury, despite the fact that he is nowhere near as good as those two play sometimes it's not the maps, the current top zergs are fucking terrible i agree with this sentiment 100%. its not just a problem of the maps or the builds, its that the current non-jaedong zerg progamers are a bunch of wimps and its been the case since savior's days No, they tried to emulate Jaedong's style which simply cannot be done by anyone but him. They needed a Bisu/Midas to carry on from Savior in revolutionizing macro Zerg (following from Ra/Oov for P/T)
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As of now,
1) Zergs can't win against terrans. The 3 hatchery build has been countered. There is no "stable" build that a zerg can use, and the maps aren't exactly helping zergs out. Every other match-up has a "standard build" like forge expansion or 1 factory expansion, but zergs have NO builds in ZvT that gives them a managable start. 2) Terrans not only countered the "standard zerg play", but countered it in numerous ways each requiring a different response from the zergs. It's like protosses before Nal Ra popularized FE, completely clueless with the numerous cards that zergs have. Well, looking at the statitistics it has become even worse than that. 3) Zergs can't even win properly against protoss now that the match-up has become pretty much balanced with the new tricks protoss has up their sleaves and the maps which make sure that these skills can be used (save for a few maps which protoss complain non-stop about). 4) Add the fact that 2v2 was played until quite recently, most zergs ended up practicing their zergling and mutalisk/scourge control only (the only things that matter in 2v2 and ZvZ, which happened to be the only games zergs could shine in). 5) Just like the recent wave of protoss friendly maps ended up producing fine protoss players unafraid of the zerg and terrans, the recent trend of zerg being crapped on has resulted in, surprise surprise, shortage of zerg talent compared to the other races.
Sure zergs still have Jaedong, the only zerg who is consistently a force in the individual leagues and the proleague regardless of the maps or trends, but that's more of a testament to Jaedong than anything else. His out of the world mechanics is the only thing that's allowing him to keep up with the cream of the crop right now. His godly mechanics only comes into full light in a match-up with no racial imbalance, ZvZ. The other aspects of his game are top notch also, but alas is not enough to turn the tides in the ever hopeless fight against terrans.
To those who say zergs don't have enough "creativity", let's see how well the other races deal with things when the times get rough. Bisu blamed his OSL exit on the maps saying he couldn't FE on the Tears of the Moon and that other builds were useless against the zergs. Zergs have basically come up every trick in the book from no lurker into ultra-ling play, 2 hatch mutalisks and going lurkers first, only to find out NONE of these gave them a steady winning rate against terrans. Yet everyone seems to be content on saying "I know things are a little rough, but try queens". No changes in the maps, well, except fixing "undefendable" cliffs against mutalisk harass perhaps.
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I'm still in disbelief how by.great can be good vZ. His vP and vT seem to me to be made up of poor battle micro coupled with good multitask and macro. It doesn't seem like the skills that would lead itself very well to a strong ZvZ. Other than that he is certainly not bad.
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On January 13 2009 20:13 Velr wrote: You are an angry man :D
Yeah it sucks when Jaedong being so damned good is the only thing keeping the playing field a resemblance of a battle between the three races. He is a one man army. Kinda like when Reach was the only protoss fighting for his race's honour (only to get beaten soundly by one of the top zergs later on) the time protoss really hit rock bottom.
You know what happened afterwards? Changes in maps. Maps like Ever Forte and Longinus that gave protosses a break. Maps with more minerals that basically said "here you go protoss, now go win".
Just a couple of maps which actually make ZvT playable wouldn't hurt would it? But when a zerg friendly map like Raid Assault gets used, protoss players wouldn't even TOUCH the map. And the map got so much complaints from the teams that it got removed from the map pool. When crappy maps like Geometry or Wuthering Heights got made, endless TvT didn't get it removed. But when a map that produces a lot of ZvZ get used and a couple protosses say that "it's too hard against zerg", it gets ousted immediately.
Every season there seems to be a couple of maps that favour terrans or protosses and gets used for a reasonable length of time. But for zergs, it's either being crapped on, or getting that one map like Blue Storm. Hey, at least, there always seems to be one zerg that keeps the whole race alive right? And at least we won't see any ZvZ finals. PvPs and TvTs we can deal with, but god forbid a ZvZ finals takes place. One player from zerg doing good at a time will do.
I don't mean to come to come off as a angry, emotional drama queen, but DANG does the current "baby sit the protoss and screw the zergs" policy suck balls.
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Listen to Letmelose, he knows what's going on. Couldn't have said it better myself.
And the problem with the "hey, Protoss used to suck years ago too" comparison is that years ago, SC wasn't nearly as mapped out as it is today. There was still a lot of room for improvement in almost every area from micro to macro to map balance. Now, the probability of things ever changing is much lower, and unfortunately most people still seem to swear that current SC, on the current maps, is 100% balanced despite Zergs doing really bad and Protoss doing really well at the moment.
I also think that one big problem is that Z has no real stable builds... it's always adaption every second into the game (sure all races have to adapt, but as Z you have to adapt so fast to new situations and if you made a tiny mistake or timing error you'll be punished extremely hard for it).
And, of course, there are "no" comebacks possible (as in: it's ridiculously unlikely for a Z to make a comeback vs T or P whereas T or P do manage to make a comeback surprisingly often). This is probably because once an army is knocking at your door, Z is dead, whereas T and P can often defend (barely, but they do) with the reinforcements coming out of their ~8+ gates/fax/rax - Z units coming out of hatcheries from all over the map aren't of much help at defending the main base when it is overrun. Zerg doesn't have the central location of where all units come from, and their individual units are so weak that they're only useful in large groups whereas P and T have individually strong units which can hold their own for a while, especially when defending at a ramp.
The recent queen hype is, I guess, more of a desperate attempt for Zs to "steal" a win because it's likely that the opponent hasn't practiced much against queen builds in recent times. I can almost guarantee you that once Ts practice against queen builds they will (once again) be useless, and they'll roll the Z with timing attacks, and after that Zs will once again play without queens because they desperately need to pump out 2-4 more lurkers (at the cost of 1-3 queens + ensnare) in midgame.
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Zerg is was 61-46 vs P as of the last proleague update. It's not all over guys.
Alot of the Zerg struggles were coming from the starleagues, which were almost the direct result of shitty maps(plasma/byz). Just look in the proleague where the maps are much more balanced. Zerg is 43-50 against terran, which is a damn good stat considering how new all these neo-metal builds are, and the overall slight t>z trend of stats over the years.. And they are actually +15 against protoss.
Zerg just ran into 2 extremely hard builds to deal with in a span of a month, the +1 speedlot archon push, and the new terran metal builds, combine that with some unfavorable maps, and you get the recent zerg slump.
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Zero is frustratingly inconsistent, but I too have hope that he can put it together.
Live for the swarm!
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On January 14 2009 00:14 Jaksiel wrote: Zero is frustratingly inconsistent, but I too have hope that he can put it together.
Live for the swarm! I think that every day there's more and more evidence that zero was just overachieving the first half of this round, rather than underachieving these last 3-4 weeks.
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Russian Federation4447 Posts
I'm a zerg player.
I was following the scene since HOT-Forever vs Sync.
The current zerg "slump" is nothing compared to the beginning years when zerg never won a thing. Check the MSL / OSL, finals, it was only in 2004, 4 years after the start of the OSL, did a zerg win it.
Terrans were obliterating zergs left / right / center.
Today is A LOT better than how it used to be.
I'd say stop complaining.
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Russian Federation4447 Posts
Julyzerg / Gorush was the beginning of the zerg emergence, savior brought zerg to completely new heights, Jaedong showed the world how it can be perfected.
Right now, zergs just need to re-adapt their strategies, that's all.
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I'm calling Yarnc to make it big this year . From time to time he plays incredible , like his comeback vs Sea and versus Kal . The rape he delivered to SangHO an Andromeda ( which i think is one of his most dominant performance in ZvP ) and that he beat Kal makes me think that there is hope for his ZvP , and his ZvZ seems untouchable from time to time too . If he can consistantly produce this results he'll make it somewhere in the leagues .
His game versus Sea was ridiculous . After he lost 4 - 5 drones to a semi successful bunker rush he continued to rape Sea with well executed ling/lurker attacks . And it took him exactly 2 minutes with muta harras to kill all of Sea's defences and make him GG and made muta harras seem very imbalanced .
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Instead of just 'stop complaining' how about reading Letmelose's actual technical posts on the matter and discussing it. Do people think its still possible for an evolution in play? I mean they must be practicing many builds, but is it possible we have reached the point where T/P have found the perfect way to play against Z, and the only way they lose is by mistakes? If its true maybe we'll see matters get even worse as more T/P reach the skill level to pull the builds off perfectly. It gives me hope even the top T/P players still drop a few games, but even in those games to me it still seems like Z is on the brink on losing.
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On January 14 2009 01:23 infinity2k9 wrote: Instead of just 'stop complaining' how about reading Letmelose's actual technical posts on the matter and discussing it. Do people think its still possible for an evolution in play? I mean they must be practicing many builds, but is it possible we have reached the point where T/P have found the perfect way to play against Z, and the only way they lose is by mistakes? If its true maybe we'll see matters get even worse as more T/P reach the skill level to pull the builds off perfectly. It gives me hope even the top T/P players still drop a few games, but even in those games to me it still seems like Z is on the brink on losing.
To you maybe it seems that Zerg is about to lose ....and no T/P have not found " the perfect way " to play versus Zergs . And it is pretty stupid to say that they only lose by mistakes , because everyone loses by making some sort of mistake ...
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You don't need to take things so literally..I don't mean exactly 100% perfect but builds that cannot really be improved anymore. And that its clear that when Z makes minor mistakes they get run over immediately with no comeback while P especially can take setbacks and still win.
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On January 13 2009 18:11 Kuja900 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2009 18:09 Choros wrote: In my observation the Zerg winrate has been in decline ever since the fall of savior. Protosses were now using much more effective builds (thanks revolutionist) and Terrans were becoming increasingly proficient against the traditional savior 3 hatch muta. I recall an interview from a while back in which savior said that Terrans were slowly getting harder and harder to beat.
What we have seen in my opinion is the other races taking the initiative away from Zerg forcing them to be the ones struggling to adapt and since then it has been once thing after another the most recent being ofcourse the Fantasy build but also the +1 Zelot Archon push which is tailored to counter the fast spire/den build which was pioneered by Jaedong most particually in the final against stork, which is effective against Cosair heavy play that dominated the period. Ok its just important to say i really dont think Jaedong pioneered anything, personally i find him extremely unoriginal but he just does it better than almost anyone else. Arguably, he introduced effective queens in ZvT...
Though other than that, I agree with you completely. However, he does what he does in such a dominating and convincing style and way, he cannot be ignored.
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On January 13 2009 16:45 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2009 16:35 Kwark wrote: I still believe it's the ridiculous TvZ winrate which is hurting them most. The dragons are some of the best players in the world right now but they're not unbeatable. Good zergs, and I mean julyish not just Jaedong, can take games off them. The problem is that no zergs but Jaedong survive the terran favoured maps right now because every half decent terran can beat all but the best zerg.
But sick writeup anyway. The stats were new to me and very interesting. Learned a lot. Thanks man. every zerg player except jaedong is making horrific newbie mistakes effort is playing a shitload better on average than yarnc or luxury, despite the fact that he is nowhere near as good as those two play sometimes it's not the maps, the current top zergs are fucking terrible
No. The truth is ZvT is a lot harder than TvZ. It always has been and always will be. Terrans can sit in their base and build turrets and move their MnM around and still have their base visible for macroing. It's a lot easier than to trying to micro mutalisks around while macroing on the other side of the map. One slip and all your mutas go bye-bye and you're basically fucked. TvZ is so much more forgiving of mistakes. I was just watching a game skyhigh vs a samsung zerg where skyhigh tried a sunken break and lost all his MnM. Then he left some MnM out on the middle of the map, they got surrounded by mutaling and he lost all of them. After all that rapage he was still able to go on and easily win the game. Now, admittedly the zerg made a bad mistake by not getting units through a nydus canal in time and lost an expansion but the point is that the terran get away with losing big groups of units early in the game while almost any major mistake by a zerg means a big chance of a loss. No terran player will admit this of course. It's funny when you look at a map like blue storm (one of the few where zerg could get more wins) nobody had a problem with labeling it imbalanced. But whenever terrans are owning on a map (like destination TvZ: 25-11 ,69.4%) it's never the map it's always just that 'zerg are playing badly'.
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On January 14 2009 00:49 lgdDante wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2009 00:14 Jaksiel wrote: Zero is frustratingly inconsistent, but I too have hope that he can put it together.
Live for the swarm! I think that every day there's more and more evidence that zero was just overachieving the first half of this round, rather than underachieving these last 3-4 weeks.
Hence...inconsistent. I'm not really sure what you're arguing against.
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On January 14 2009 01:49 PH wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2009 18:11 Kuja900 wrote:On January 13 2009 18:09 Choros wrote: In my observation the Zerg winrate has been in decline ever since the fall of savior. Protosses were now using much more effective builds (thanks revolutionist) and Terrans were becoming increasingly proficient against the traditional savior 3 hatch muta. I recall an interview from a while back in which savior said that Terrans were slowly getting harder and harder to beat.
What we have seen in my opinion is the other races taking the initiative away from Zerg forcing them to be the ones struggling to adapt and since then it has been once thing after another the most recent being ofcourse the Fantasy build but also the +1 Zelot Archon push which is tailored to counter the fast spire/den build which was pioneered by Jaedong most particually in the final against stork, which is effective against Cosair heavy play that dominated the period. Ok its just important to say i really dont think Jaedong pioneered anything, personally i find him extremely unoriginal but he just does it better than almost anyone else. Arguably, he introduced effective queens in ZvT... Though other than that, I agree with you completely. However, he does what he does in such a dominating and convincing style and way, he cannot be ignored.
Arguably, Zergs already knew what Queen's could do, just weren't capable of the micro.
Jaedong himself has talked about how hard it is to micro a full army + defilers + queens. I think he's the only person with an APM capable of doing it.
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On January 13 2009 19:48 Letmelose wrote: As of now,
1) Zergs can't win against terrans. The 3 hatchery build has been countered. There is no "stable" build that a zerg can use, and the maps aren't exactly helping zergs out. Every other match-up has a "standard build" like forge expansion or 1 factory expansion, but zergs have NO builds in ZvT that gives them a managable start. 2) Terrans not only countered the "standard zerg play", but countered it in numerous ways each requiring a different response from the zergs. It's like protosses before Nal Ra popularized FE, completely clueless with the numerous cards that zergs have. Well, looking at the statitistics it has become even worse than that. 3) Zergs can't even win properly against protoss now that the match-up has become pretty much balanced with the new tricks protoss has up their sleaves and the maps which make sure that these skills can be used (save for a few maps which protoss complain non-stop about). 4) Add the fact that 2v2 was played until quite recently, most zergs ended up practicing their zergling and mutalisk/scourge control only (the only things that matter in 2v2 and ZvZ, which happened to be the only games zergs could shine in). 5) Just like the recent wave of protoss friendly maps ended up producing fine protoss players unafraid of the zerg and terrans, the recent trend of zerg being crapped on has resulted in, surprise surprise, shortage of zerg talent compared to the other races.
Sure zergs still have Jaedong, the only zerg who is consistently a force in the individual leagues and the proleague regardless of the maps or trends, but that's more of a testament to Jaedong than anything else. His out of the world mechanics is the only thing that's allowing him to keep up with the cream of the crop right now. His godly mechanics only comes into full light in a match-up with no racial imbalance, ZvZ. The other aspects of his game are top notch also, but alas is not enough to turn the tides in the ever hopeless fight against terrans.
To those who say zergs don't have enough "creativity", let's see how well the other races deal with things when the times get rough. Bisu blamed his OSL exit on the maps saying he couldn't FE on the Tears of the Moon and that other builds were useless against the zergs. Zergs have basically come up every trick in the book from no lurker into ultra-ling play, 2 hatch mutalisks and going lurkers first, only to find out NONE of these gave them a steady winning rate against terrans. Yet everyone seems to be content on saying "I know things are a little rough, but try queens". No changes in the maps, well, except fixing "undefendable" cliffs against mutalisk harass perhaps. Zerg's don't adapt, maps aren't as bad for Zerg's as they're made out to be, Andromeda is still consistantly used and that massively favors Z vs P, Destination is gradually becoming a Zerg dominated map ZvP, Chupung isn't that terrible for Zerg and as stated earlier the Zerg's don't need a special build or anything they need to work on their mid-game and late game mechanics. I mean go watch FBH vs Zero on Destination, there was no map imbalance there, no race imbalance, nothing except Zero failing to macro and micro which is becoming a common trend for all Zerg's ZvT.
And to the guy that mentioned blue storm, during the emergence of Jaedong's muta micro and other Zerg's stepped up their micro the natural on the original Blue Storm was a haven for them, and it's not that TvZ is more forgiving (it is slightly but a good zerg should be able to capitalize on the mistakes of his opponent) it's that Terrans, for years, have had excellent macro/micro. Terran doesn't lend itself to being a creative race and it doesn't reward itself for creativity like Protoss/and Zerg does but having excellent mechanics with Terran rewards it much more than it does with Protoss and Zerg.
Also, going 2 hatch variation each ZvT isn't exactly helping Zerg and that build is accountable for many of the losses that Zerg has taken in the past 6 months.
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United States2186 Posts
These stupid imbalance judgments are overwhelming.
If you say ZvT is imbalanced, there is exactly one person to blame (well two if you consider ancient BW). No, it's not Blizzard, and no, it's not the mapmakers.
iloveoov
He alone made Terran this good. The early 2 rax acad cc. The updated 14cc and 1 rax cc. The mech builds. All are because of him. It is these builds that make T>Z, not anything else. In the two years of Zerg glory, Savior held everything together with an equal skill in improving the Zerg side of the matchup. But he never created a more effective setup against 1 rax cc and instead kept on winning for himself due to his tactics.
So why hasn't Zerg held their own? Because Jaedong is not Savior. JD is an incredible player, full of passion, and has arguably the best set of mechanics in history. But aside from the very recent trend of Queens, he has done nothing to change ZvT, so Zergs keep playing the same way they did over 2 years ago while Terrans have been continually updating their builds. 2 hatch muta is a bandaid fix and has already lost its supremacy thanks to oov's mech. With this in mind, it is only logical that T is winning so much over Z and any map where Z is equal or better against T is absurdly imbalanced (i,e Medusa).
But anyway there are a whole other set of reasons why Zergs are sucking: they've forgotten a lot of what Savior taught them. I'll be expanding on some of these points in an upcoming article.
About Zero: his ZvT is REALLY good. Up until Jaedong started with queens I considered it better than JD himself (temporarily of course since JD was semi-slumping). His games against Flash and Sea showed the first signs of a Zerg with the intelligence level of Savior, and up until he made the Yellowish move to all-in FBH whe he had the game won he would have trumped 3 of the best curret TvZers in decisive fashion. But sadly he lacks in every other matchup and got stuck in the worst group possible in the MSL (no terrans + Bisu). When/if he will break out remains to be seen, but his ZvT is for real.
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On January 14 2009 01:23 infinity2k9 wrote: Instead of just 'stop complaining' how about reading Letmelose's actual technical posts on the matter and discussing it. Do people think its still possible for an evolution in play? I mean they must be practicing many builds, but is it possible we have reached the point where T/P have found the perfect way to play against Z, and the only way they lose is by mistakes? If its true maybe we'll see matters get even worse as more T/P reach the skill level to pull the builds off perfectly. It gives me hope even the top T/P players still drop a few games, but even in those games to me it still seems like Z is on the brink on losing.
you know what this reminds me off? savior-era. everyone said "pvz is so imba", there where even people who build special maps to test, if starcraft could be patched so that pvz was no longer imba. and the reason they did this was, because starcraft was played out, there would not be any revolution because after 8 years the perfect way to play zvp has been found. i think starcraft is a game, that evolves all the time and will never stop to evolve. it is so complex, there will never be a way to play it perfectly, not even close (look at "normal" sports like high jump. its complexity, compared to starcraft, is a joke and still the perfect technique was developed 60 years after the first olympic games). as during the time of savior protoss had a crisis, now zerg has a crisis. we will get over it, the game evolves and the overmind will succed once again if we wait long enough
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I like the current state of the swarm. Protoss innovation is on the rise lately it seems.. I like what im seeing so far a LOT, and obviously maps do have something to do with it as well some are really difficult for certain matchups.
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On January 14 2009 01:47 infinity2k9 wrote: You don't need to take things so literally..I don't mean exactly 100% perfect but builds that cannot really be improved anymore. And that its clear that when Z makes minor mistakes they get run over immediately with no comeback while P especially can take setbacks and still win.
Watch Yellow[Arnc] vs Kal and Yellow[Arnc] vs Sea . The guy started out horrible , but continued to rape them after that .
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I would say that Terran has it easyer against Zerg and that Zerg has in both matchups has more *moments* than the enemy to completly throw the game. But it's not as if Terran and Toss don't have such moments at all.
Just wait... If this topic in 2010 is still hot, then we can whine :p
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The current Zerg situation reminds me a lot of Protoss a year a half ago or so. Bisu was the only Protoss that was really good at PvZ, and then... Free, kind of. After that the skill level fell off a cliff, and no one was really worth discussing.
Then Kal came out of nowhere, Stork got better at the matchup (Savior's decline also helped), Jangbi finally found some nerves, and Best hit the ground running. Suddenly just being better than the mediocre Protoss isn't good enough, and Zergs aren't looking so good.
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really great post.
i like by.hero a lot zvp.
jaedong/july for zvt.
jaedong for zvz
jaedong for all matchups really: this guy's such a god
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good article but I have zero faith in ZerO
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On January 14 2009 03:52 d_so wrote: jaedong/july for zvt.
.... Has July won anything recently except against FBH?
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Great write-up, a lot of effort went into this, I can tell o: Was a very interesting read, read the whole thing. 5/5.
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On January 14 2009 03:56 Velr wrote:.... Has July won anything recently except against FBH?
YO BUT HIS QUEEN ALMOST TOOK THAT CC???????????
neways point taken smart guy
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Thanks for the great article. Great read, and thanks for the time.
As for zerg: Creativity is not an option. It just cannot happen. Zerg's don't have many units from which to play with. The only way zergs could "get creative" is something along the lines of how zergs economy is developed, and managed, well that is what i think at least.
Don't belive me about the unit numbers? take a look: + Show Spoiler +We will start with zerg:
Drone, Overlord, Zergling, Hydralisk, Lurker, Mutalisk, Scourge, Guardian, Devourer, Defiler, Queen, Ultralisk (I am not going to count Infested terrans, or broodlings- because you never have a chance to use them.)
So in total: 12 (however i am being generous here, counting Devourers and Queens. Frankly you just don't see these units consistently in games.)
Now Terran:
SCV, Marine, Firebat, Ghost, Medic, Vulture, Goliath, Tank, Battle Cruiser, Science Vessel, Wraith, Drop ship, Valkyrie.
In total: 13 (Not a large gap, however notice how terran units are more specialized, and can be used for a specific task. Carrying that over to zerg play, the specialization just isn't there. Zergling and Hydra are cannon fodder essentially, and have a very broad use.)
Now Protoss:
Probe, Zealot, Dragoon, High Templar, Dark Templar, Archon, Dark Archon, Reaver, Corsair, Scout, Carrier, observer, Shuddle, Arbiter.
In total: 14 However Dark Archons and Scout are certainly not used on a regular basis. But once again, notice how the protoss units have more specialized roles than zergs.
I believe that that specialization that Terran and Protoss players enjoy is what is giving them the edge in the current metagame. Zerg has to simply juggle the same "one size fits all" Type of unit.
Zerg has only 1 ground to air, and 1 air to ground (minus guardians- but hey those are used sparingly, and at least not until late game.)
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On January 14 2009 03:05 Ver wrote: These stupid imbalance judgments are overwhelming.
If you say ZvT is imbalanced, there is exactly one person to blame (well two if you consider ancient BW). No, it's not Blizzard, and no, it's not the mapmakers.
iloveoov
He alone made Terran this good. The early 2 rax acad cc. The updated 14cc and 1 rax cc. The mech builds. All are because of him. It is these builds that make T>Z, not anything else. In the two years of Zerg glory, Savior held everything together with an equal skill in improving the Zerg side of the matchup. But he never created a more effective setup against 1 rax cc and instead kept on winning for himself due to his tactics.
So why hasn't Zerg held their own? Because Jaedong is not Savior. JD is an incredible player, full of passion, and has arguably the best set of mechanics in history. But aside from the very recent trend of Queens, he has done nothing to change ZvT, so Zergs keep playing the same way they did over 2 years ago while Terrans have been continually updating their builds. 2 hatch muta is a bandaid fix and has already lost its supremacy thanks to oov's mech. With this in mind, it is only logical that T is winning so much over Z and any map where Z is equal or better against T is absurdly imbalanced (i,e Medusa).
But anyway there are a whole other set of reasons why Zergs are sucking: they've forgotten a lot of what Savior taught them. I'll be expanding on some of these points in an upcoming article.
About Zero: his ZvT is REALLY good. Up until Jaedong started with queens I considered it better than JD himself (temporarily of course since JD was semi-slumping). His games against Flash and Sea showed the first signs of a Zerg with the intelligence level of Savior, and up until he made the Yellowish move to all-in FBH whe he had the game won he would have trumped 3 of the best curret TvZers in decisive fashion. But sadly he lacks in every other matchup and got stuck in the worst group possible in the MSL (no terrans + Bisu). When/if he will break out remains to be seen, but his ZvT is for real. oh please please never leave the strategy forum
you are awesome.
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On January 14 2009 04:11 d_so wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2009 03:56 Velr wrote:On January 14 2009 03:52 d_so wrote: jaedong/july for zvt.
.... Has July won anything recently except against FBH? YO BUT HIS QUEEN ALMOST TOOK THAT CC??????????? neways point taken smart guy
:D... Sorry to crush your world
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What people are wondering: Why zerg is slumping? Map? Players? Builds? My Simple Answer: The reason why I love zerg. I love zerg because everyone thinks it's the weakest race which in terms of units is true.
There were statements about how zerg is the least forgiving race. Comebacks are very difficult. The reason for this is because of cost efficiency. With high hit point units like Terran Mech and all protoss units, they are consistently dealing damage until their last hitpoints go to 0. And with mnm, they can never die theoretically with medics. So T and P units are much more cost efficient. That allows them to make mistakes and come back in a game. Since cost efficiency is an advantage used to make up for mistakes, what if T and P don't make any mistakes? That puts T and P at an advantage from the start.
Now I'm not saying all this as complaining. I'm actually saying if people were to blame zerg being weak because they are ZERG then don't play zerg. That's like telling blizzard to change zerg to be a more competent race which means zerg is no longer the zerg I LOVE.
I got class. maybe more later.
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Nice post. It was a good read in the sense of getting my head wrapped around the general progaming scene in terms of Zerg. Also confirmed some of my original fears and hunches.
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On January 14 2009 04:39 Velr wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2009 04:11 d_so wrote:On January 14 2009 03:56 Velr wrote:On January 14 2009 03:52 d_so wrote: jaedong/july for zvt.
.... Has July won anything recently except against FBH? YO BUT HIS QUEEN ALMOST TOOK THAT CC??????????? neways point taken smart guy :D... Sorry to crush your world
i'll survive.
also gotta say if savior can't remember his own "lessons" it's hard to expect players to follow said lessons.
i don't think any player, as a representative of their race, has shriveled up into a little bitchball quite like savior. if you're gonna spend the majority of your time making empty promises and thanking fans for sticking with you, after a while people are going to realize you just suck.
which leads me to micro, a quality savior seems to struggle most at. a big reason why i chose july for zvt is because this MU depends more on micro ability than any other besides zvz. units like queens only reinforce the need for zergs to be able to micro well, and july's micro seems top notch.
if anything, jaedong's use of queens is revolutionary because it demonstrates tangible, game-altering results for great micro. ultimately, it's my opinion that zerg's revival won't fall under any sort of BO alteration, but in the emphasis of this very difficult quality.
still, i'm interested in your future post
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Very nice write up. Good job.
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Zerg is just underpowered. A case in point: Bisu vs Effort. Effort played like 5x better than bisu, but still he lost the game ;(
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United States17042 Posts
Just by the zergs, it looks like both wemade and skt should be looking to pick up oversky after he gets out of ace xD
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On January 14 2009 00:56 Tien wrote: I'm a zerg player.
I was following the scene since HOT-Forever vs Sync.
The current zerg "slump" is nothing compared to the beginning years when zerg never won a thing. Check the MSL / OSL, finals, it was only in 2004, 4 years after the start of the OSL, did a zerg win it.
Terrans were obliterating zergs left / right / center.
Today is A LOT better than how it used to be.
I'd say stop complaining.
This is an example of how much Zergs have been getting thrashed over the years. I too have been following the progaming scene since a very long time ago and I truly believe that TvZ, Terran has an advantage.
On January 14 2009 01:57 tomatriedes wrote: No. The truth is ZvT is a lot harder than TvZ. It always has been and always will be. Terrans can sit in their base and build turrets and move their MnM around and still have their base visible for macroing. It's a lot easier than to trying to micro mutalisks around while macroing on the other side of the map. One slip and all your mutas go bye-bye and you're basically fucked. TvZ is so much more forgiving of mistakes. I was just watching a game skyhigh vs a samsung zerg where skyhigh tried a sunken break and lost all his MnM. Then he left some MnM out on the middle of the map, they got surrounded by mutaling and he lost all of them. After all that rapage he was still able to go on and easily win the game. Now, admittedly the zerg made a bad mistake by not getting units through a nydus canal in time and lost an expansion but the point is that the terran get away with losing big groups of units early in the game while almost any major mistake by a zerg means a big chance of a loss. No terran player will admit this of course. It's funny when you look at a map like blue storm (one of the few where zerg could get more wins) nobody had a problem with labeling it imbalanced. But whenever terrans are owning on a map (like destination TvZ: 25-11 ,69.4%) it's never the map it's always just that 'zerg are playing badly'.
Although I agree with what you say, its not really about how hard it is to play a race, its more about how fair and equal is everything. The true power of Terrans lies in their cost efficiency, which they can abuse and get less punished for losing their main army. Firebats and medics cost too little gas, therefore, T can build up vessels incredibly and irradiate everything. Terran metal upgrades are unproportional, 3 attack upgrades = 15 more damage for siege tanks, which is not right for the amount of supply it costs and its longest range. This makes T mech incredibly powerful. Add to the fact that 3 powerful scouting mines come FREE with a 75 cost vulture and you get the idea that Terrans dont need many expansions to compete with other races. Not to mention the fact that current Z army which cannot attack air, cannot damage CC if its lifted. This makes it even harder to destroy T expos. Starcraft is all about gaining resources and using them
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On January 14 2009 05:14 d_so wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2009 04:39 Velr wrote:On January 14 2009 04:11 d_so wrote:On January 14 2009 03:56 Velr wrote:On January 14 2009 03:52 d_so wrote: jaedong/july for zvt.
.... Has July won anything recently except against FBH? YO BUT HIS QUEEN ALMOST TOOK THAT CC??????????? neways point taken smart guy :D... Sorry to crush your world i'll survive. ....
I'm the first to jump a July ZvT revolution bandwagon
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On January 13 2009 14:46 Kuja900 wrote:If July or Jaedong didnt exist imagine how abysmal the years zvp % would be. They are going have to carry the swarm by themselves with maby some assistance from EffOrt.
and by.great.
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United States1865 Posts
On January 14 2009 00:56 Tien wrote: I'm a zerg player.
I was following the scene since HOT-Forever vs Sync.
The current zerg "slump" is nothing compared to the beginning years when zerg never won a thing. Check the MSL / OSL, finals, it was only in 2004, 4 years after the start of the OSL, did a zerg win it.
Terrans were obliterating zergs left / right / center.
Today is A LOT better than how it used to be.
I'd say stop complaining.
I dont really agree with most of your post, becuase looking at how hard we had in the past just to become complacent with the present is something I disagree with here and in all cases in life.
HOWEVER, you are absolutely correct with your first sentence, haha. I was watching old KPGA reps of YellOw vs Boxer and HOT vs NaDa and just being amazed at how little the zergs could really do. They made a bunch of lings and tried to stall the Terran until a medium-sized ball of marines, medics and tanks showed up (without a vessel most times!) and shelled the shit out of their natural sunkens, killed all their lurkers and lings, and won. It was a repeated theme throughout all the games I watched and Z's couldnt really do shit about it.
Funny stuff.
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On January 14 2009 03:05 Ver wrote: These stupid imbalance judgments are overwhelming.
If you say ZvT is imbalanced, there is exactly one person to blame (well two if you consider ancient BW). No, it's not Blizzard, and no, it's not the mapmakers.
iloveoov
He alone made Terran this good. The early 2 rax acad cc. The updated 14cc and 1 rax cc. The mech builds. All are because of him. It is these builds that make T>Z, not anything else. In the two years of Zerg glory, Savior held everything together with an equal skill in improving the Zerg side of the matchup. But he never created a more effective setup against 1 rax cc and instead kept on winning for himself due to his tactics.
So why hasn't Zerg held their own? Because Jaedong is not Savior. JD is an incredible player, full of passion, and has arguably the best set of mechanics in history. But aside from the very recent trend of Queens, he has done nothing to change ZvT, so Zergs keep playing the same way they did over 2 years ago while Terrans have been continually updating their builds. 2 hatch muta is a bandaid fix and has already lost its supremacy thanks to oov's mech. With this in mind, it is only logical that T is winning so much over Z and any map where Z is equal or better against T is absurdly imbalanced (i,e Medusa).
But anyway there are a whole other set of reasons why Zergs are sucking: they've forgotten a lot of what Savior taught them. I'll be expanding on some of these points in an upcoming article.
About Zero: his ZvT is REALLY good. Up until Jaedong started with queens I considered it better than JD himself (temporarily of course since JD was semi-slumping). His games against Flash and Sea showed the first signs of a Zerg with the intelligence level of Savior, and up until he made the Yellowish move to all-in FBH whe he had the game won he would have trumped 3 of the best curret TvZers in decisive fashion. But sadly he lacks in every other matchup and got stuck in the worst group possible in the MSL (no terrans + Bisu). When/if he will break out remains to be seen, but his ZvT is for real.
Best post of this thread, and more evidence supporting iloveoov as the most influential person in Starcraft history.
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United States32499 Posts
i'd be careful about making ANY sort of statement about mech in TvZ until you dissect the games that were played using the build.
In fact, there was a post on pgr21.com where someone actually DID go and dig up the stats for mech vs zerg games: http://www.pgr21.com/zboard4/zboard.php?id=free2&page=1&sn1=&divpage=6&sn=off&ss=on&sc=on&keyword=¸ÞÄ«´Ð&select_arrange=headnum&desc=asc&no=36547
The result is that terran is 27-16 vs zerg as metal, or about 62%. So the results for the non-metal games (margin of error for games that ended before build was established), the TvZ record would be 68-50, or about 58%.
Another thing from that post to consider: If you add up Upmagic, Flash, Forgg, Fantasy, and Light's stats, they are 23-3 as mech vs zerg. Without them, mech is only 4-13 against zerg.
Conclusion? I'm not quite sure... Oh, and great write-up :D
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I can't believe you forgot maGma : (
other then that, I pretty much agree with your player predictions! Although I don't think you give Arnc enough credit, his play has boomed so much at the end of 2008.
Most of his losses were form the start of 2008
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ZerO :'(
His ZvT is insane.
The rest is rather dismal.
Why, though? Who in the stars house plays a decent terran? PianO? Surely practicing against free should be quite beneficial?
I have hope. The kid's good.
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If you look at the last 40 zvp proleague matches in the TLPD it actually shows zerg is 25-15 : D
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I'm very impressed by this OP. THanks.
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this could be the year of the hydralisk
+ Show Spoiler + Just ask By.herO!!! He could have used some more tech, but i got no problem with a straight up swarm!!! too many players get by on their reputation alone, for years no one would attack sAviOr early just because his reputation was so intimidating, you dont wanna go get your ass handed to you. same with Bisu, he survives, a lot of early game i think, on reputation alone. deserved or not.
gratz to hero for going balls out on him. LOVED it.
(recent OSL result)
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+ Show Spoiler +If you looked at by.hero vs bsiu game 1 it was more like: Bisu: "I don't give a fuck about this map i play my total standart and do not even adjust my cannon placement the slighest bit." By.Hero: "Cool, thanks". It took no genious to win game 1 But game 2 was cool... Masshydra... Good old days returning... Who needs Hive anyway
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On January 14 2009 11:01 Waxangel wrote:i'd be careful about making ANY sort of statement about mech in TvZ until you dissect the games that were played using the build. In fact, there was a post on pgr21.com where someone actually DID go and dig up the stats for mech vs zerg games: The result is that terran is 27-16 vs zerg as metal, or about 62%. So the results for the non-metal games (margin of error for games that ended before build was established), the TvZ record would be 68-50, or about 58%. Another thing from that post to consider: If you add up Upmagic, Flash, Forgg, Fantasy, and Light's stats, they are 23-3 as mech vs zerg. Without them, mech is only 4-13 against zerg. Conclusion? I'm not quite sure... Oh, and great write-up :D
So you subtract all the goodplayers and only count the crappy players records lol....
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On January 14 2009 16:40 Velr wrote:+ Show Spoiler +If you looked at by.hero vs bsiu game 1 it was more like: Bisu: "I don't give a fuck about this map i play my total standart and do not even adjust my cannon placement the slighest bit." By.Hero: "Cool, thanks". It took no genious to win game 1 But game 2 was cool... Masshydra... Good old days returning... Who needs Hive anyway
yeah seriously hero played balls to the walls. doom drops + hydra ftw
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Sweden33719 Posts
4. Jaedong went (I only counted once, and there were a lot of games. I may be off by one or two) 81-41 in 2008. Most valuable Zerg? You bet. You know you can set a timeframe for the games in the TLPD right? IE Jan 01 2008 to Dec 31 2008, then you don't have to count
Excellent write-up, and I agree with most conclusions. Things like Savior going from a killing machine to a chump at ZvP, Stork going from a BARELY 50% PvZ to an at least decent level, really did help statistics.
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dragons hate hydralisk >.<
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On January 14 2009 02:13 Jaksiel wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2009 00:49 lgdDante wrote:On January 14 2009 00:14 Jaksiel wrote: Zero is frustratingly inconsistent, but I too have hope that he can put it together.
Live for the swarm! I think that every day there's more and more evidence that zero was just overachieving the first half of this round, rather than underachieving these last 3-4 weeks. Hence...inconsistent. I'm not really sure what you're arguing against. That's not being inconsistent, it's over achieving for a short period of time. Just because he is now playing more around his normal level doesn't make him inconsistent, just not as good as we all thought he was a few weeks ago.
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United States6978 Posts
get the fuck out to the guy who said zerg has a harder time coming back than terran and toss.
Toss and Zerg can harass BIG TIME, you also have great spellcasters that affect general areas. Only way for T to come back is to try to get someone to attack you or exp and hope they dont find it. If they just sit back and exp theres nothing you can do.
IMO zergs just need to abuse more, and macro harder ala the early savior days, especially vs mech. I dont get why mutas are made vs protoss either....seems like a huge waste when they FE. The zerg ends up being unable to harass and just gets run over by mass zeal anyway.
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On January 15 2009 23:14 Sadist wrote: get the fuck out to the guy who said zerg has a harder time coming back than terran and toss.
Toss and Zerg can harass BIG TIME, you also have great spellcasters that affect general areas. Only way for T to come back is to try to get someone to attack you or exp and hope they dont find it. If they just sit back and exp theres nothing you can do.
IMO zergs just need to abuse more, and macro harder ala the early savior days, especially vs mech. I dont get why mutas are made vs protoss either....seems like a huge waste when they FE. The zerg ends up being unable to harass and just gets run over by mass zeal anyway.
lol
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On January 15 2009 23:14 Sadist wrote: get the fuck out to the guy who said zerg has a harder time coming back than terran and toss.
Toss and Zerg can harass BIG TIME, you also have great spellcasters that affect general areas. Only way for T to come back is to try to get someone to attack you or exp and hope they dont find it. If they just sit back and exp theres nothing you can do.
IMO zergs just need to abuse more, and macro harder ala the early savior days, especially vs mech. I dont get why mutas are made vs protoss either....seems like a huge waste when they FE. The zerg ends up being unable to harass and just gets run over by mass zeal anyway.
You get the fuck out. Watch some games. Terrans can bunker rush and fail, sunken break and fail, lose two dropships and fail and still comeback and win comfortably. In ZvT zerg is far more heavily punished by mistakes. If you can't see that then you're either blind or irretrievably terran-biased.
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Toss and Zerg can harass BIG TIME, you also have great spellcasters that affect general areas. Only way for T to come back is to try to get someone to attack you or exp and hope they dont find it. If they just sit back and exp theres nothing you can do.
rofl..
Ever heard of: M&M drops or Vulture harass?
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On January 15 2009 23:14 Sadist wrote: get the fuck out to the guy who said zerg has a harder time coming back than terran and toss.
Toss and Zerg can harass BIG TIME, you also have great spellcasters that affect general areas. Only way for T to come back is to try to get someone to attack you or exp and hope they dont find it. If they just sit back and exp theres nothing you can do.
IMO zergs just need to abuse more, and macro harder ala the early savior days, especially vs mech. I dont get why mutas are made vs protoss either....seems like a huge waste when they FE. The zerg ends up being unable to harass and just gets run over by mass zeal anyway.
wtf
great write up!
the Swarm will definitely own 2009 with EffOrt (and ok.. Savior) leading the way ^^
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It seems that there will be plenty of zergs in the Ro16 for both the MSL and the OSL. The maps have changed to favor zerg, especially Tears of the Moon which prevents the FE build. A certain zerg-killing master is no longer around.
The swarm should be fine this time around. Hopefully we'll actually get to see some TvZs and PvZs this time around in the starleagues.
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United States6978 Posts
On January 16 2009 00:46 Velr wrote:Show nested quote +Toss and Zerg can harass BIG TIME, you also have great spellcasters that affect general areas. Only way for T to come back is to try to get someone to attack you or exp and hope they dont find it. If they just sit back and exp theres nothing you can do. rofl.. Ever heard of: M&M drops or Vulture harass?
ever heard of muta and goon + cannon?
its very difficult to harass as terran, and if they set up a defense you really cant do shit, whereas reaver or muta can almost ALWAYS pick shit off.
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On January 16 2009 01:37 Sadist wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2009 00:46 Velr wrote:Toss and Zerg can harass BIG TIME, you also have great spellcasters that affect general areas. Only way for T to come back is to try to get someone to attack you or exp and hope they dont find it. If they just sit back and exp theres nothing you can do. rofl.. Ever heard of: M&M drops or Vulture harass? ever heard of muta and goon + cannon? its very difficult to harass as terran, and if they set up a defense you really cant do shit, whereas reaver or muta can almost ALWAYS pick shit off. Troll, The topic wasn't even complaining, unlike you.
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ehhh he's probably better than all of you combined
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you people are just bandwagon flamers
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Russian Federation4333 Posts
This thread needs a bump.
Considering the events in the starleagues and WL, I think it's safe to say that our state is very fucking good.
+ Show Spoiler [ racewar spoiler] +owned that too. Bisu vs Savior
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Bisu does not suck, lol.
People are so ridiculous sometimes.
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