Game Analysis: Snute vs Flash
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VanSCPurge
United States169 Posts
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digmouse
China6270 Posts
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Gwavajuice
France1810 Posts
On November 20 2014 15:17 VanSCPurge wrote: This writeup is really cool, and I love how thought out the strategy is... but, didn't Snute get crushed 3-0 by Flash at HSC much more recently? To be fair, Flash kinda crushed everybody in HSC X, except Parting. Nice article TLstrategy thanks. I also apreciate that you take time to write these articles and put the amount of work it deserves. Reacting to games from the day before wouldn't allow such in-depth analysis... | ||
Edpayasugo
United Kingdom2206 Posts
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VanSCPurge
United States169 Posts
On November 20 2014 17:26 Gwavajuice wrote: To be fair, Flash kinda crushed everybody in HSC X, except Parting. Nice article TLstrategy thanks. I also apreciate that you take time to write these articles and put the amount of work it deserves. Reacting to games from the day before wouldn't allow such in-depth analysis... He almost defeated PartinG too! Haha I guess I just felt a little silly reading through it after having seen their HSC matches. I do agree, however, that the writeup is really good. There was obviously a lot of effort put into it. The strategy itself is a very interesting twist on TvZ as well. | ||
tar
Germany991 Posts
Playing Zerg must become boring at some point, right? *hint*hint* | ||
hewo
Norway119 Posts
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Tzyx
Northern Ireland280 Posts
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EsportsJohn
United States4882 Posts
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BigRedDog
461 Posts
On November 21 2014 03:12 SC2John wrote: I apologize to everyone that this is like two months late, but I've been extraordinarily busy, and we had to delay quite a bit because of Blizzcon and the massive amount of work that went into making those articles. I understand this article is not nearly as amazing after Flash wailed on everyone at HSC. However, I hope everyone can take this article for what it is: an in-depth look at SH play in ZvT and how early-game pressure affects that setup (or any Zerg setup at all, really). A lot of the ideas about SH play are still applicable, and as we have new maps in January, it's quite possible to see a resurgence of this style in the new map pool. Thanks dude..your write up shows the diff meta game we can have when playing ZvT. Most ZvT tends to be expand as much and as far as you can, get hive and get ultras before you ran out of gas from poor trades. Your last part really point out how Snute discarded those concepts and create fresh builds based on Swarm Host as a stepping stone to Hive. | ||
quirinus
Croatia2489 Posts
No need to apologize. | ||
Evil_Sheep
Canada902 Posts
But after watching a bunch of SH games mostly from snute but also from others that tried against high-level Koreans, I think it does not work out in practise. I think IF the terran does not react correctly and continues to play as if it's a "standard" zvt they will often lose. That is, trying to win a battle of attrition, remaining behind in bases behind zerg, cutting workers to max army supply, continually trying to push a SH-camped 4th base. The correct response is the same as in pvz: do not directly engage the SH army, move all around to harass the expansions on the edge, and take a ton of bases that SH cannot pressure. If the terran does that, then they usually win. Why I think SH works in zvp but not in zvt is down to many factors, but the main one is mobility. The protoss response to SH is to build the ultimate deathball full of tempests and colossus which are virtually as slow and immobile as the SH, therefore SH can move around the map in tandem with the protoss deathball to deflect the protoss attacks. However stimmed bio is extremely fast, and of course, combined with the turbovacs can constantly attack the zerg from places they can't react quickly enough with SH. The terran player can continuously be harassing the zerg, dealing damage, killing workers and hatches, and nullifying the SH's cost efficiency. The second major problem with SH which I did not initially consider is actually that their DPS is very low but only becomes substantial over time. A large terran stimmed midgame army supported by medivacs has extremely high DPS and can actually take a straight fight against a SH-supported zerg army for short periods of time without too much difficulty. The terran can stim and melt one wave of locusts, then charge and either be on top of the naked SH and scan to wipe them out, or just take down the base if they retreat. Meanwhile all the gas spent on SH's means there aren't enough other units (mutas and banes) to defend and you are waiting an eternity for the next wave of locusts to spawn when your base is already dead. I don't think SH is the answer in zvt and never will be without balance changes. On paper it looks good but in practise it doesn't succeed. Snute won that one game with SH against Flash but there are many more examples where he and other zergs switched to SH and lost as a result. SH can win games in zvt but only if the terran lacks practise against SH and doesn't respond correctly, or it can win in situations where standard muta/ling/bane would've also won the same or better. That is why we haven't seen SH become more than an occasional experiment in zvt, and even its main proponent, Snute, didn't bother trying it once in his recent rematch vs Flash at HSC. | ||
Kazahk
United States385 Posts
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Lobotomist
United States1541 Posts
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xtorn
4060 Posts
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F34RI355
United States1 Post
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nedro
21 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + didn't carry over to the article, I think. + Show Spoiler + Really good writing though, thanks TL Strat! | ||
EsportsJohn
United States4882 Posts
On November 21 2014 13:29 Evil_Sheep wrote: I have to say I disagree with this article. I also initially thought Snute's SH's were a great idea in theory to counter terran: they're a very strong defensive unit, extremely cost-effective, can control large spaces on the map, can safely and for free set off widow mines which are proving the bane of zerg right now, and in the long battle of attrition that zvt often turns out to be, having a unit that spawns "free" units that can trade with the terrans minerals (marine/bio) seems to make eminent sense. We've seen how effective SH is in zvp so it makes total sense to try to translate this abuseable unit into a matchup where zergs are currently struggling with standard approaches. But after watching a bunch of SH games mostly from snute but also from others that tried against high-level Koreans, I think it does not work out in practise. I think IF the terran does not react correctly and continues to play as if it's a "standard" zvt they will often lose. That is, trying to win a battle of attrition, remaining behind in bases behind zerg, cutting workers to max army supply, continually trying to push a SH-camped 4th base. The correct response is the same as in pvz: do not directly engage the SH army, move all around to harass the expansions on the edge, and take a ton of bases that SH cannot pressure. If the terran does that, then they usually win. Why I think SH works in zvp but not in zvt is down to many factors, but the main one is mobility. The protoss response to SH is to build the ultimate deathball full of tempests and colossus which are virtually as slow and immobile as the SH, therefore SH can move around the map in tandem with the protoss deathball to deflect the protoss attacks. However stimmed bio is extremely fast, and of course, combined with the turbovacs can constantly attack the zerg from places they can't react quickly enough with SH. The terran player can continuously be harassing the zerg, dealing damage, killing workers and hatches, and nullifying the SH's cost efficiency. The second major problem with SH which I did not initially consider is actually that their DPS is very low but only becomes substantial over time. A large terran stimmed midgame army supported by medivacs has extremely high DPS and can actually take a straight fight against a SH-supported zerg army for short periods of time without too much difficulty. The terran can stim and melt one wave of locusts, then charge and either be on top of the naked SH and scan to wipe them out, or just take down the base if they retreat. Meanwhile all the gas spent on SH's means there aren't enough other units (mutas and banes) to defend and you are waiting an eternity for the next wave of locusts to spawn when your base is already dead. I don't think SH is the answer in zvt and never will be without balance changes. On paper it looks good but in practise it doesn't succeed. Snute won that one game with SH against Flash but there are many more examples where he and other zergs switched to SH and lost as a result. SH can win games in zvt but only if the terran lacks practise against SH and doesn't respond correctly, or it can win in situations where standard muta/ling/bane would've also won the same or better. That is why we haven't seen SH become more than an occasional experiment in zvt, and even its main proponent, Snute, didn't bother trying it once in his recent rematch vs Flash at HSC. Finally got the passion back to reply to this. First of all, I think this style is still highly experimental and unrefined, so everything we say about its viability is still theorycraft. That said, I think the logic is too strong to deny: if you use swarm hosts as a stepping stone to hive, you can take bases much more slowly and throw down an immense amount of static defense to cover the bases you do have, and once you have that base + hive, you can transition into the more standard ultra/baneling/muta army we typically see in the late game. I think a lot of the problems with people adding swarm hosts into their composition is that they do it at the wrong time. Like going hive, you have to be ahead and have space in order to do it. If the Terran is constantly pressuring, you have to stay on muta/ling/bling until you have the time to add on the swarm hosts. In other words, if you're diverting the gas you would normally use for hive into swarm hosts, you really shouldn't be short on mutas/banelings. Another big point to make is that this style tends to do better against the thor/hellbat amove mix rather than biomine. Since biomine is so much more mobile and less "deathbally" than thor/hellbat/bio, it can simply drop everywhere and keep up the pressure, and no amount of mutalisk or ling/bling counterattacks will be able to stop the pressure. On the other hand, thor/hellbat tends to travel in a big ball and just save up for a big maxed out push, so you can buy a lot of time with counterattacks and preventing the Terran player from moving out comfortably. We'll have to see how things evolve. It's improbable at this point that it will catch on and become the new meta. But the ideas behind it are genius, and I think it's a huge development in the understanding of Zerg as a whole. | ||
Rus_Brain
Russian Federation1888 Posts
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wmb
Sweden282 Posts
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