Another match, another Terran all kill. In just the first four GSTL matches, we're already up to two all-kills, both of which were 4 - 0 streaks by a starting player. On the previous night, it was Startale's Sound running a number on the hapless NS HoSeo. This time, the perpetrator was Prime's very own ByuN, who played some extremely clinical and well executed Starcraft in all of his games. He took out a trio of SuperNova, San, VINES and even AZUBU's star player Symbol to end the series. ByuN's multitasking and unrelenting aggression broke down his opponents, until he could just roll them over with his superior army in a final engagements.
Machine
The opening game between SuperNova and Byun was fairly one sided, as the Prime Terran used a superior build to propel himself forward in the early game before finishing Supernova off with a marine tank force. Both players opened gas first and Supernova opted for banshees off the back of it. Byun went for the popular marine-widow mine drop in an attempt to do light economic damage and then abusing the scans that had been forced out by following it up with cloak banshees. Supernova lost over half his workers to this harass, while barely doing any damage with his own banshee. Byun took his second and third bases and secured his vital infrastructure while Supernova desparately scrambled to recover. It was not enough, and Byun's much larger marine tank army crushed through the front of Supernova's natural and forced Supernova to GG.
VINES was the next player to be sent out, and he fared no better against Byun's beautifully executed builds. VINES opened with a fast expand, and Byun with reapers to apply light pressure to his Protoss foe. Both players macroed up through the mid game, and Byun moved out at the 9 minute mark with a double drop to pick off some probes where he could. It did much more than that, as Byun's fantastic splitting and micro resulted in him taking out most of VINES' zealots as well as a colossus with only 16 marines and 2 medivacs. It was a fantastic trade which rocketed Byun ahead in the supply count, and the quad drop that followed ended the game decisively in Byun's favour.
Byun's next opponent would be another Protoss, San. Due to the large size of the map Whirlwind, Byun felt comfortable opening with extreme greed, going CC first, two barracks and then another CC. While San was also fast expanding, he failed to punish Byun's greed with the usual stalker and MSC poke, which put him massively behind economically. San, having scouted the third CC with an observer, realised how far behind he was and went up to 7 gateways while adding on a templar archives. San crashed into the Prime Terran's natural with a scary looking force, but Byun's stellar control and worker advantage meant he could afford to pull SCVs and eventually stave off the push. At the same time he had three medivacs of infantry dropping San's main, crippling his infrastructure. VINES was forced into a final, last ditch attack, and GG'd out once it was easily thwarted. Byun took the game, and went on to face Azubu's final hope in Symbol.
Monster
What would end up being the final game of the night started with both players going for standard builds. Byun opted for reaper-hellion while getting up 3 CCs, and Symbol went hatchery first into muta-ling-bane. As his reapers and hellions did their best to be a nuisance to Symbol as well as keep map control, Byun got double upgrades going and the production facilities he required for bio mine. After establishing his own production base, Symbol went for a large early-mid baneling bust timing into ByuN's natural. While Symbol killed around 20 SCV's, Byun stabilised quickly with his 3 CCs and mules, and the game progressed on without much impact.
Having stabizlied, ByuN started to up the temp, dropping in Symbol's main while the rest of his army moved to take out the AZUBU Zerg's incompleted fourth. Byun continually dropped all over the map, while threatening at any moment to run in and snipe another base while Symbol's army was out of position. Symbol endured through the harassment, slowly securing more bases while using swarm hosts and spine crawlers to set up a strong position in the middle of them map. As ByuN continued to drop whenever he could, Symbol made his way to ultralisk tech as his final choice to pair with his swarm hosts.
Symbol slowly started to push across the map, but Byun's relentless drops and small bio runbies were causing him no end of trouble back at home, and his bank was slowly beginning to dwindle while Byun's only grew. Ultimately, Symbol couldn't do worthwhile damage to ByuN when he left his side of the map, and paid the price when ByuN inevitably honed in on undefended expansions and tech buildings. Despite the fact that Symbol's standing army was much larger than Byun's and could win in a head on fight, Byun never let such a fiht occur and by the time Symbol realized he was going to have to force some action, he was already down one base to three, and without a bank behind him.
Once ByuN deemed he had led Symbol bleed out enough, he moved forward with a bio-mine-raven army against Symbol's broodlord-infestor-ultralisk-viper combination. Byun killed off Symbol's last mining base and forced an engagement in the middle of the map. His 20+ widow mines destroyed the infestors and softened the ultralisks to no more than putty, while the seeker missiles added to the firework show lighting up Akilon flats. When the dust settled, Byun stood victorious and he completed the all kill of AZUBU.
Byun played like a beast, to put it simply. He was utterly destroying his opponents by force of sheer speed, exhibiting superior multitasking and micro. At the same time, he was also playing clinical, machine like games where he used clean, well executed builds and strategies to pick his enemies apart. If ByuN keeps up this level of play in the GSTL then Marineking might have some serious comeptition for his ace spot. Even if Byun's inconsistency prevents him from doing well in individual leagues, the glimpse of raw power we saw from him tonight reminds us of what he's capable of when he's on his game.
Monster Despite the fact that Symbol's standing army was much larger than Byun's and could win in a head on fight, Byun never let such a fiht occur and by the time Symbol realized he was going to have to force some action, he was already down one base to three, and without a bank behind him.
I know this isn't big, but you have a little typo here.
Fiht instead of fight.
Regardless, was still a great read. AZUBU disappointed me T__T
It seems the ideal strategy for FGSTL is just to pick a random starting code A or B terran and watch them all-kill. Every team has now played once, and the early trend that has emerged is teams that depend on zergs to do the heavy lifting lose -- FXO (Leenock), MVP (DRG, Sniper), Azubu (Symbol, Violet, BBoong) -- whereas teams weighted to protoss and especially terran prosper -- IM (Squirtle, MC, Mvp, Yoda), AxAcer (MMA, Ryung, Heart), Prime (MKP, Creator, Byun.) Startale is a bit of an exception with Life, Curious, and Bomber the clear top 3, but that is perhaps because Life himself has proven an exception.
Until zergs other than Life learn to play HotS and find an answer to Turbovacs™, they and teams that depend on them will continue to fail hard.
On March 31 2013 10:44 Evil_Sheep wrote: It seems the ideal strategy for FGSTL is just to pick a random starting code A or B terran and watch them all-kill. Every team has now played once, and the early trend that has emerged is teams that depend on zergs to do the heavy lifting lose -- FXO (Leenock), MVP (DRG, Sniper), Azubu (Symbol, Violet, BBoong) -- whereas teams weighted to protoss and especially terran prosper -- IM (Squirtle, MC, Mvp, Yoda), AxAcer (MMA, Ryung, Heart), Prime (MKP, Creator, Byun.) Startale is a bit of an exception with Life, Curious, and Bomber the clear top 3, but that is perhaps because Life himself has proven an exception.
Until zergs other than Life learn to play HotS and find an answer to Turbovacs™, they and teams that depend on them will continue to fail hard.
I don't know if "any random code a or b terran" is a good description of the people doing work in the GSTL. MMA was the best in the world before his slump, and now looks to return to form, and byun is in the top of GM and has made GSL Ro4 ( i believe). The only anomaly is Sound, who was good enough to take 2 at homestory cup and also had the benefit of playing the weakest team in the league.
Life overmakes lings in the early game and is passively aggressive with them - unless you give him too much of an opening. That's why he's able to go toe to toe with medivacs throughout the early-midgame.
On March 31 2013 10:44 Evil_Sheep wrote: It seems the ideal strategy for FGSTL is just to pick a random starting code A or B terran and watch them all-kill. Every team has now played once, and the early trend that has emerged is teams that depend on zergs to do the heavy lifting lose -- FXO (Leenock), MVP (DRG, Sniper), Azubu (Symbol, Violet, BBoong) -- whereas teams weighted to protoss and especially terran prosper -- IM (Squirtle, MC, Mvp, Yoda), AxAcer (MMA, Ryung, Heart), Prime (MKP, Creator, Byun.) Startale is a bit of an exception with Life, Curious, and Bomber the clear top 3, but that is perhaps because Life himself has proven an exception.
Until zergs other than Life learn to play HotS and find an answer to Turbovacs™, they and teams that depend on them will continue to fail hard.
- Violet, Ragnarok, and Byul all did good in the pre-season
- Aside from perhaps FXO I don't think any team is heavily dependent on Zerg, and even then FXO still has Tear and Gumiho (the latter of which didn't play against IM).
- The ace player of MVP is probably still a Zerg (I don't think it's DRG or Sniper though, but can't say this for sure just yet) however, MVP is a team of great depth only eclipsed by IM and on par with Startale at this point in time. Instead of DRG they could have tried Vampire, Lure, or Finale to take out MMA (TvP has always been his worst and his TvZ his best).
- NSHS is just a weak team outside of Jjakji (a terran). Not terribly surprising they got all-killed.
- Azubu's best players are probably their Zergs (and they only used 1 of them vs Prime), but similar to MVP they have rather a robust lineup outside of that. Genius, San, Ganzi, and Supernova at the very least could all be considered comparable players in HotS.
- Startale isn't an exception. They too are a very deep team and Life actually hasn't even lived up to his hype in team leagues since joining Startale.
On March 31 2013 11:09 MVTaylor wrote: Could you please update the god damn fantasy scores, hell, I'll do it if it's that hard.
Sound + 10 Byun + 10
All other PRIME players +1 All other StarTale players +1
StarTale + 8 PRIME + 8
NSH - 2 Azubu - 2
That's it. Done.
Not to bust your bubble or anything, but I think a 4-0 team only gives 6 points instead of 8 (they changed the rules after anyone without KT as their team got slaughtered in the first round of FPL)
On March 31 2013 11:09 MVTaylor wrote: Could you please update the god damn fantasy scores, hell, I'll do it if it's that hard.
Sound + 10 Byun + 10
All other PRIME players +1 All other StarTale players +1
StarTale + 8 PRIME + 8
NSH - 2 Azubu - 2
That's it. Done.
Not to bust your bubble or anything, but I think a 4-0 team only gives 6 points instead of 8 (they changed the rules after anyone without KT as their team got slaughtered in the first round of FPL)
On March 31 2013 10:44 Evil_Sheep wrote: It seems the ideal strategy for FGSTL is just to pick a random starting code A or B terran and watch them all-kill. Every team has now played once, and the early trend that has emerged is teams that depend on zergs to do the heavy lifting lose -- FXO (Leenock), MVP (DRG, Sniper), Azubu (Symbol, Violet, BBoong) -- whereas teams weighted to protoss and especially terran prosper -- IM (Squirtle, MC, Mvp, Yoda), AxAcer (MMA, Ryung, Heart), Prime (MKP, Creator, Byun.) Startale is a bit of an exception with Life, Curious, and Bomber the clear top 3, but that is perhaps because Life himself has proven an exception.
Until zergs other than Life learn to play HotS and find an answer to Turbovacs™, they and teams that depend on them will continue to fail hard.
- Violet, Ragnarok, and Byul all did good in the pre-season
It was the preseason, balance was in flux, teams were in flux, a lot of people were still new to HotS. You can't take the results very seriously.
- Aside from perhaps FXO I don't think any team is heavily dependent on Zerg, and even then FXO still has Tear and Gumiho (the latter of which didn't play against IM). The ace player of MVP is probably still a Zerg (I don't think it's DRG or Sniper though, but can't say this for sure just yet) [...] Azubu's best players are probably their Zergs (and they only used 1 of them vs Prime), but similar to MVP they have rather a robust lineup outside of that.
We basically agree here...FXO, Azubu and MVP's best player(s), and aces, are zergs. Teams depend on their best players to get them results, if your aces and best players are zergs, then you depend on zerg players.
- NSHS is just a weak team outside of Jjakji (a terran). Not terribly surprising they got all-killed.
But by Sound?
- Startale isn't an exception. They too are a very deep team and Life actually hasn't even lived up to his hype in team leagues since joining Startale.
They're an exception to my observation that teams that depend on zergs look weak after the first set of games, and Startale's #1 and 2 of their top 3 are zergs. I'm very curious to see how Startale do because unfortunately Sound was so dominant we never got to see anyone else play.
All in all. Too soon to call just yet.
I'm not saying HotS is imbalanced, I think the metagame is still way too new and there's lots of room to develop. All I'm pointing out is right here and now, terrans are doing well and zergs are going to continue to suffer until they can find some answers. In the first set of games, every team that sent out a zerg lost their match, while every team that didn't send out a zerg won. Leenock, DRG, and Symbol collectively went 0-3 as their team's aces, I don't need to list the accomplishments these players have on their resumes. It's not like GSTL is a special case either, besides Life, zergs have been doing poorly in every HotS premier tournament so far.
If you play FGSTL, my advice would be to sell zerg and buy terran until we see signs that there is a shift in balance.
if you say balance was in flux in beta, i can well say balance is in flux now. we really really do not have the data to see everything
team jjakji, who are all code b, got killed by another code b terran. it's sad and unlikely, but not impossible. remember, qxc did allkill IM and maru allkilled startale, etc
the statement that 'every team that didn't send out a zerg won' is rather meaningless since 2 were starter all-kills...
besides life, the only other decent zerg in premier tournaments has been leenock, and he did lose to a great terran
really, you cannot use these gstl results to justify much
On March 31 2013 14:05 opterown wrote: if you say balance was in flux in beta, i can well say balance is in flux now. we really really do not have the data to see everything
On March 31 2013 13:49 Evil_Sheep wrote: I'm not saying HotS is imbalanced, I think the metagame is still way too new and there's lots of room to develop.
Please read what I say more carefully.
the statement that 'every team that didn't send out a zerg won' is rather meaningless since 2 were starter all-kills...
You don't find it at all remarkable that of 8 teams, the 4 that send out any number of zergs lose and the 4 that send out none win?
really, you cannot use these gstl results to justify much
Taken on their own, no. But we've had more than enough high-level HotS games that some clear patterns have emerged: put simply, terrans are very good, zergs aren't. The GSTL results so far have done nothing to buck that trend, and have only served to reinforce what we already know.
At the risk of repeating myself, I'll say I don't think HotS is imbalanced b/c it's been less than a month and obviously that's not enough time to solve the metagame. There's a good chance zergs are going to come back with some hard-hitting strategies and build orders. Life has already shown what it takes for zerg to win, but so far, no one has come close to being able to walk in his footsteps. I guess it's not all that surprising that nobody else plays like Life. Even back in WoL everyone said that.
It has often seemed in Starcraft that zergs take the longest to adapt to a metagame, going right back to BW. But in the meantime, I'd guess that it's probably frustrating to be a pro zerg right now.