This has helped many of my fellow german brood war friends. BTW I am also from Germany, but I can still watch Afreeca on Source quality without lag (well I had lag once, but never before and since then).
This has helped many of my fellow german brood war friends. BTW I am also from Germany, but I can still watch Afreeca on Source quality without lag (well I had lag once, but never before and since then).
I second this. I'm in Berlin and this has saved my ass countless times.
They both banned Gold Rush... I wonder the reasoning, are they both just prepared to play standard games or do they just have a reason they don't like the map?
On October 15 2017 19:11 hasuprotoss wrote: They both banned Gold Rush... I wonder the reasoning, are they both just prepared to play standard games or do they just have a reason they don't like the map?
What a good build, Larva knew Rain was going for a gateway expand at the back base and get zealots to block the ramp but with no cannons because Protoss would never expect that.
On October 15 2017 19:21 yOngKIN wrote: BW tournament in 2017? Is this real? Can someone give me a rundown on this tournament? And it says 4, which means there have been 3 others?
On October 15 2017 19:21 yOngKIN wrote: BW tournament in 2017? Is this real? Can someone give me a rundown on this tournament? And it says 4, which means there have been 3 others?
There have been five actually, but the first one was named the 'Vant 36.5 National Starleague' so this season is only the fourth in number.
On October 15 2017 19:11 hasuprotoss wrote: They both banned Gold Rush... I wonder the reasoning, are they both just prepared to play standard games or do they just have a reason they don't like the map?
I saw larva losing to all kinds of tosses on that map. Good Toss map not sure why rain banned. Toss can always scout and no possibility of Hydra bust
On October 15 2017 19:21 yOngKIN wrote: BW tournament in 2017? Is this real? Can someone give me a rundown on this tournament? And it says 4, which means there have been 3 others?
On October 15 2017 19:21 yOngKIN wrote: BW tournament in 2017? Is this real? Can someone give me a rundown on this tournament? And it says 4, which means there have been 3 others?
yes, yes, and broadcasted in eng since season 2/3.
they're finally getting back to their old skill levels. 3rd they weren't there yet, but now im thinking hmm, they're fucking good again, rather than just top players!
Larva is playing proleague now? He used to be B-team partner for Bisu, and quite honestly one of the more promising zergs. I remember his queen plays then. Does he still do them now?
What are the significant changes in BW strat and meta gameplay now? I think I will have a lot to catch up on
On October 15 2017 19:35 yOngKIN wrote: Larva is playing proleague now? He used to be B-team partner for Bisu, and quite honestly one of the more promising zergs. I remember his queen plays then. Does he still do them now?
What are the significant changes in BW strat and meta gameplay now? I think I will have a lot to catch up on
There's no proleague, KeSPA isn't involved with Starcraft anymore, just occasional teamleagues. Most of the competition outside starleagues happens in money matches between streamers sponsored by fans. Larva is top 3 Zerg atm (with EffOrt and Soulkey).
On October 15 2017 19:35 yOngKIN wrote: Larva is playing proleague now? He used to be B-team partner for Bisu, and quite honestly one of the more promising zergs. I remember his queen plays then. Does he still do them now?
What are the significant changes in BW strat and meta gameplay now? I think I will have a lot to catch up on
There's no proleague, KeSPA isn't involved with Starcraft anymore, just occasional teamleagues. Most of the competition outside starleagues happens in money matches between streamers sponsored by fans. Larva is top 3 Zerg atm (with EffOrt and Soulkey).
What about Jaedong?
Damn this made me miss Korea suddenly. Too bad Afreeca is shit with their stream.
On October 15 2017 19:35 yOngKIN wrote: Larva is playing proleague now? He used to be B-team partner for Bisu, and quite honestly one of the more promising zergs. I remember his queen plays then. Does he still do them now?
What are the significant changes in BW strat and meta gameplay now? I think I will have a lot to catch up on
There's no proleague, KeSPA isn't involved with Starcraft anymore, just occasional teamleagues. Most of the competition outside starleagues happens in money matches between streamers sponsored by fans. Larva is top 3 Zerg atm (with EffOrt and Soulkey).
What about Jaedong?
Damn this made me miss Korea suddenly. Too bad Afreeca is shit with their stream.
Jaedong has had issues with his eyes, fingers and wrists for quite a while now and his elimination in this ASL was most likely his last competitive match played.
That game was alright I guess. Rain played well and did what he had to do. Larva played they way I have been seeing him play a lot lately vs toss; sloppy and bad. He needs to step it up or he's getting bounced out of the ASL
On October 15 2017 19:35 yOngKIN wrote: Larva is playing proleague now? He used to be B-team partner for Bisu, and quite honestly one of the more promising zergs. I remember his queen plays then. Does he still do them now?
What are the significant changes in BW strat and meta gameplay now? I think I will have a lot to catch up on
There's no proleague, KeSPA isn't involved with Starcraft anymore, just occasional teamleagues. Most of the competition outside starleagues happens in money matches between streamers sponsored by fans. Larva is top 3 Zerg atm (with EffOrt and Soulkey).
What about Jaedong?
Damn this made me miss Korea suddenly. Too bad Afreeca is shit with their stream.
Jaedong has had issues with his eyes, fingers and wrists for quite a while now and his elimination in this ASL was most likely his last competitive match played.
Oh... What about the rest of the TBLS? Thanks for answering man...
On October 15 2017 19:35 yOngKIN wrote: Larva is playing proleague now? He used to be B-team partner for Bisu, and quite honestly one of the more promising zergs. I remember his queen plays then. Does he still do them now?
What are the significant changes in BW strat and meta gameplay now? I think I will have a lot to catch up on
There's no proleague, KeSPA isn't involved with Starcraft anymore, just occasional teamleagues. Most of the competition outside starleagues happens in money matches between streamers sponsored by fans. Larva is top 3 Zerg atm (with EffOrt and Soulkey).
What about Jaedong?
Damn this made me miss Korea suddenly. Too bad Afreeca is shit with their stream.
Jaedong has had issues with his eyes, fingers and wrists for quite a while now and his elimination in this ASL was most likely his last competitive match played.
Oh... What about the rest of the TBLS? Thanks for answering man...
Flash is still by far the best bw player, Bisu is still pretty good (probably the best protoss...), Stork is pretty meh imo, in the same boat as jaedong
On October 15 2017 19:35 yOngKIN wrote: Larva is playing proleague now? He used to be B-team partner for Bisu, and quite honestly one of the more promising zergs. I remember his queen plays then. Does he still do them now?
What are the significant changes in BW strat and meta gameplay now? I think I will have a lot to catch up on
There's no proleague, KeSPA isn't involved with Starcraft anymore, just occasional teamleagues. Most of the competition outside starleagues happens in money matches between streamers sponsored by fans. Larva is top 3 Zerg atm (with EffOrt and Soulkey).
What about Jaedong?
Damn this made me miss Korea suddenly. Too bad Afreeca is shit with their stream.
Jaedong has had issues with his eyes, fingers and wrists for quite a while now and his elimination in this ASL was most likely his last competitive match played.
Oh... What about the rest of the TBLS? Thanks for answering man...
On October 15 2017 19:47 outscar wrote: That was so clean and precise by Rain. Seems like macro game vs. Rain is tough way. Larva should try some other shenanigans.
I actually think Larva should have played more of a macro game there and take a 5th / get plague out before taking the huge engagements. He thought he could break the 3rd but he was wrong and that was GG. He woulda been better off playing defensively with lurkers and delaying Rains 4th as long as possible with crackling groups (especially given how big that map is. Rain had him straight up too heavily out psid for thosexample aggro hydra/lurk pushes to work)
This stream is killing me. I got excited that a major BW event is on live, but with stream like this, maybe I'll just binge on some vods. Can anyone recommend any good recent games? Are they available on youtube?
This is larva best build on this map in practice. So much better than the closer enclosed single 3rd closer to middle. Larva gets like 6 bases off this
This is analogous to taking a empty main base natural on circuit breaker or FS instead of the closer bases on the sides of the map or mineral only on cb
Larva got his tactics spot on that game imo, he purposely left out the middle bases and got them only when he mined out the rest so he wouldn't have to defend too many locations. What game!!
Honestly can't believe it. What a ZvP, a bit sloppy at times, but given the intensity of the game. Beautiful drop defense by Larva overall, given the pressure that was put on him. I thought the surrender of map control and late center expansion would kill him. Oh, and congrats to the mapmaker, pretty sure that was the kind of game he was going for when designing Gold Rush.
Epic game! Although the recalls were coolI'm not sure they were worth it, he lost a huge chunk of his army killing two essentially mined out bases, and he lost midmap domination
This is such a weird game. Can a zerg enlighten me on why Larva didn't go for more Hive tech units like Ultra? I was hoping something like a JulyZerg style where once you hit 4 gases you start flooding the map with units.
This game it felt like he turtled harder than a Terran
I was a bit sceptical about Gold Rush when I first saw it, but a game like that definitely won me over. Great game, action all over the place. Fun fun. ^__^
Now I hope we get to see Christmas Toss vs Ultras.
Larva used the edges of the map so well, I'm impressed. Building tons of scourges to counter the drops from Rain (which was the right answer from him, trying to harass the edge bases).
On October 15 2017 20:32 t2azor wrote: why doesnt larva finish meleeupgrades? map seemed imbalance AF lol
Pretty sure you need a hive for those upgrades and he never remade his hive.
lair for +2 and he did have hive long enough to get lvl 3 carapace... Isnt melee upgrade pretty integral considering how many lings you gonna make in zvp?
On October 15 2017 20:34 [Fin]Vittu wrote: This is such a weird game. Can a zerg enlighten me on why Larva didn't go for more Hive tech units like Ultra? I was hoping something like a JulyZerg style where once you hit 4 gases you start flooding the map with units.
This game it felt like he turtled harder than a Terran
Because ultras are not as cost effective. The main reason to make them is because they are a good mineral/gas dump. lurker/swarm/ling/hydra is much more cost effective, but so much harder to control. Also rain had map control until the end with a 200/200 deathball. Hard for zerg to swarm the map vs that.
On October 15 2017 20:34 [Fin]Vittu wrote: This is such a weird game. Can a zerg enlighten me on why Larva didn't go for more Hive tech units like Ultra? I was hoping something like a JulyZerg style where once you hit 4 gases you start flooding the map with units.
This game it felt like he turtled harder than a Terran
Ultralisks are shredded by Reaver Archon HT (Dragoon).
On October 15 2017 20:32 jtan wrote: Epic game! Although the recalls were coolI'm not sure they were worth it, he lost a huge chunk of his army killing two essentially mined out bases, and he lost midmap domination
The recalls were definitely worth it. They accomplished things. A subsequent recall of the force that killed Larva's main (which took almost no losses but was then basically trapped) into the bottom expansion right after would've won Rain the game most likely.
Dumping units into the lurker/sunken meat grinder for nothing was what wasn't worth it. The drop play wasn't really doing it either.
On October 15 2017 20:32 t2azor wrote: why doesnt larva finish meleeupgrades? map seemed imbalance AF lol
Pretty sure you need a hive for those upgrades and he never remade his hive.
lair for +2 and he did have hive long enough to get lvl 3 carapace... Isnt melee upgrade pretty integral considering how many lings you gonna make in zvp?
I'm not sure how many evo chambers he built but I'm fairly sure he got +3 range attack so he probably didn't get it/forgot to get it after Rain busted his main/front of his natural.
On October 15 2017 20:34 [Fin]Vittu wrote: This is such a weird game. Can a zerg enlighten me on why Larva didn't go for more Hive tech units like Ultra? I was hoping something like a JulyZerg style where once you hit 4 gases you start flooding the map with units.
This game it felt like he turtled harder than a Terran
Because ultras are not as cost effective. The main reason to make them is because they are a good mineral/gas dump. lurker/swarm/ling/hydra is much more cost effective, but so much harder to control. Also rain had map control until the end with a 200/200 deathball. Hard for zerg to swarm the map vs that.
They are especially not good vs reaver/archon/dragoon. Rain had quite a lot of zealot till the very end though, might have been worth it at one point just to dump a bit of gas. Larva's way was a lot more stylish though.
Ok so tastosis kept saying during mid game that toss has to break the zerg and theres nothing scarier than maxed out zerg. And then at the end they said the problem was Rain kept trying to break Larva (but failed). So which is it? I think its very much the latter especially with how many bases Rain had during the mid game. I think you let the zerg turtle. In a fight without defenders advantage, the toss will trade more efficiently, although zerg can remacro faster. All in all still better than wasting units. I also think recall can be incredibly useful if you really want to break a turtling zerg. Look at how much better the recalls turned out vs charging the front.
On October 15 2017 20:32 PVJ wrote: 51 900 viewers on player streams + 33 000 viewers on the official ASL stream.
Sick!!
How are these numbers compared to the golden era of BW?
On January 29 2010 13:33 konadora wrote: All stats are relative to the time of the broadcast of the finals between Flash and Movie.
- #1 watched show - 1.7% viewership rate for males of age group 13 to 29 (according to AGB Nielson Media Research) - Viewers on PotPlayer: 40,057 - Viewers on official OGN server: 23,403 - Led to server crashes - Total # of viewers: 525,000 - Approx. 8000 people attended the event live - Among the 8000, approx 3000 people had to be moved elsewhere as there was insufficient space in the Olympic Hall, where the event was held - As a result, the event was delayed by 10 minutes - On the Korean search engines, the most searched terms were 'Lee Young Ho', 'OSL Finals', 'OnGameNet' and other related terms - On Korean forums, approximately 3800 posts were made during the games
With these statistics, OGN has promised to continue upgrading their services and thanked all e-sports fans for their continued support and interest.
On August 21 2011 13:42 white_horse wrote:
10-11 Proleague Finals Match Ranks 1st in Viewership
The fervor over e-sports remains unchanged in its 10 year history.
The 2010-11 Shinhan Proleague finals match achieved a viewership of over 1% through Ongamenet’s live broadcast on the 19th.
The finals between the two rival telecommunications corporations recorded an average viewership ratio of 1.777% (16-19 male, TNmS scale) and ranked 1st during its broadcast time on cable TV.
The fact that mass viewership was recorded by teenagers rather than people in their 20’s is evidence that Brood War remains popular in following generations since the first Proleague finals in 2003. The final set between Flash and Best reflected the most response from viewers, achieving a max viewership ratio of 2.514% (21% of males aged 16-19). In other words, 2 out of every 10 male Korean high school students watched the last set of the Proleague final.
The popularity of Proleague continued on the internet as well. From the beginning to the end of the finals match, "Flash", "Action", "Bisu", "Best", "Violet", "Ongamenet", and other Proleague-related subjects reached upper levels on the search bar rankings in individual portal sites. Netizens also showed interest in "Ryu Ji-hye" and "Yellow".
Appropriately living up to his nickname “Final Boss”, Flash was awarded MVP after leading his team to victory with two wins. KT is now the 2nd consecutive winner in Proleague since they twice defeated SKT1 in both the last 09-10 season and the most recent 10-11 season.
On October 15 2017 20:32 PVJ wrote: 51 900 viewers on player streams + 33 000 viewers on the official ASL stream.
Sick!!
How are these numbers compared to the golden era of BW?
Edit: I stand corrected by GTR!
Back then I think there was no reliable way to count view numbers.
"Rogue" foreigner restreamings on livestream (and the other one I forgot the name) never really reached 1000 I guess, at least from what I remember. Also, dont forget that back then stream quality was goddamn awful, we watched laggy 270p restreamings!
If you typed the good ol' "buffer into gg" woud get you banned from the channel! lol
Chatters on Stork's stream were already saying bye to Rain's chances but this Zealot split and now sair harass is pretty great actually. Too bad Larva's drone micro was unbelievably good.
Attacking that lurker + static D field is like attacking into a sieged terran arrmy. Larva could've taken out Rain's base with those lings but decided to ambush instead. Now it's much more difficult and he's getting stormdropped and DTed
I swear, in season 2 they were meh, in season 3 they were at a pretty decent top level, but season 4 they've stepped up a level which wouldn't make their pro-day selves have a cake walk over them.
On October 15 2017 21:08 gngfn wrote: This might be the best series ever by a Zerg in terms of avoiding storm drops. Larva dodged like 90% of them without taking damage.
There were some sick reflex drone pull followed by splits to avoid storm. That reaction time...
On October 15 2017 21:10 traxamillion wrote: Yea literally some of the best ZvP ever. Guys talk about the glory days but compare these games to those for real. This is a higher level
I don't think they were anywhere near as good as they were in the old days last season. Finally this season they're stepping it up.
Big thanks to EsportsJohn for amazing cast. Also big thanks to you, guys, for reporting. I didn't have nerves to watch it live. It's the first time since Kespa days that I was so emotionally involved.
Such an amazing series both macro and mindgames. Long time since ive seen this... and Larva, wow blowing my mind, didnt know he had that type of game. Only sad thing is more foreigners werent able to see it, wish this was on twitch
When I've won LANs and had to do an interview when that was the main competitive match I talked at the speed of light - I'm so focussed in the games, and working so hard and thinking about it all so hard that I can explain everything at a million miles an hour.
Larva playing well and smart took so much pain off the frustrating PvZ problem of cracking open a turtle zerg. It didn't feel cheap at all especially with all that anti-drop tactics he executed.
I don't think it's fair to say Rain was outplayed in the series, and even less fair to complain about the state of pvz. Crossing fields was cheese, on Gladiator Rain was dominating, and the Goldrush game could have gone either way.
Man should open for votes on reccommended games, only way to truly show how amazing they were. Also great casting, Tastless seems to have his mojo back
On October 15 2017 21:19 jtan wrote: I don't think it's fair to say Rain was outplayed in the series, and even less fair to complain about the state of pvz. Crossing fields was cheese, on Gladiator Rain was dominating, and the Goldrush game could have gone either way.
The cheese was well executed. At the pro level, cheese exists and it isn't really something you can discount as a gimmicky win - it's always going to be there if they think they're going to get the win with it.
On October 15 2017 21:20 ThePhan2m wrote: Man should open for votes on reccommended games, only way to truly show how amazing they were. Also great casting, Tastless seems to have his mojo back
apparently the polls are broken, otherwise they would.
I felt Rain could have tried to turtle the mid and bottom bases with cannons, HTs & reavers instead of constantly throwing units away. Think he's not used to playing zergs who turtle hard.
What a fantastic series! bit sad that that we'll be having a lot of ZvZs in the next two weeks, but Larva definitely deserved that win. He played so much better than I've seen him play ever before.
Yea maybe the Ling + drone drill he maybe coulda sniffed out, but who proxy hatches? Haven't seen that in the last couple hundred games I've watched (closest was shine on Andromeda in his quarterfinal last season but that was mid/lategame). Sick hard counter to the ramp block
On October 15 2017 21:19 jtan wrote: I don't think it's fair to say Rain was outplayed in the series, and even less fair to complain about the state of pvz. Crossing fields was cheese, on Gladiator Rain was dominating, and the Goldrush game could have gone either way.
The cheese was well executed. At the pro level, cheese exists and it isn't really something you can discount as a gimmicky win - it's always going to be there if they think they're going to get the win with it.
I agree, I'm just saying that Larva pulling of a clever and well executed cheese build is not the same as outplaying Rain
On October 15 2017 21:26 traxamillion wrote: Yea maybe the Ling + drone drill he maybe coulda sniffed out, but who proxy hatches? Haven't seen that in the last couple hundred games I've watched (closest was shine on Andromeda in his quarterfinal last season but that was mid/lategame). Sick hard counter to the ramp block
Larva's style of macro, rope-a-dope zerg reminds me of Soulkey's more strategic positional game style.... I know rain's PvZ isn't on the level of Bisu's but I swear, even though we saw Rain throwing incredulous amounts of units against those sunks and simcity and fails to break.... somehow I dont know how Bisu manages to break, or win even 70+% of his games in PvZ.... I'm hoping either a Soulkey or Larva vs Bisu match up this ASL...
On October 15 2017 20:38 SlayerS_BunkiE wrote: Ok so tastosis kept saying during mid game that toss has to break the zerg and theres nothing scarier than maxed out zerg. And then at the end they said the problem was Rain kept trying to break Larva (but failed). So which is it? I think its very much the latter especially with how many bases Rain had during the mid game. I think you let the zerg turtle. In a fight without defenders advantage, the toss will trade more efficiently, although zerg can remacro faster. All in all still better than wasting units. I also think recall can be incredibly useful if you really want to break a turtling zerg. Look at how much better the recalls turned out vs charging the front.
As a Protoss player, you can't let Zerg just sit back and macro off 4 bases because eventually the cracklings will just eat you alive, especially with how Larva was consistently using ling runbys, drops, etc. Generally you want to get a big deathball with 4 reavers and a bunch of HT and slowly push the Zerg base until it dies, but Larva did an insane job of consistently killing off observers and delaying the push.
Rain's particular PvZ style revolves around avoiding that frontal push and just dropping all over the place while simultaneously attacking the front. The idea is that you trade some units cost inefficiently at the front, but your drop does the real damage. Rain did a fantastic job of continually putting on the dual pressure and simultaneous attacks, but somehow Larva was able to 1) Clean up the drops, 2) snipe observers, and 3) hold the pressure at the front all at the same time. His level of multitasking was off the charts, and it made Rain look like he was just throwing units away left and right.
On October 15 2017 21:11 c3rberUs wrote: Thanks EsportsJohn for the cast and the reminder!
I like how you kept calm at the sight of arbiters in PvZ like they are used every game lol. GGs
I mean, it makes sense. If you can't break the Zerg with drops, might as well move into arbiters which will move more units more easily + allow you to trade a bit better because of cloak. It was pretty consistent with Rain's game plan, but maybe carriers would have been a better option.
On October 15 2017 21:33 gamapg wrote: Larva's style of macro, rope-a-dope zerg reminds me of Soulkey's more strategic positional game style.... I know rain's PvZ isn't on the level of Bisu's but I swear, even though we saw Rain throwing incredulous amounts of units against those sunks and simcity and fails to break.... somehow I dont know how Bisu manages to break, or win even 70+% of his games in PvZ.... I'm hoping either a Soulkey or Larva vs Bisu match up this ASL...
This was an amazing ZvP series, and the only thing that bums me out slightly about it is that we PROBABLY won't see Bisu face off against an S-Tier Zerg. That being said, maybe Killer will perform and put out another amazing series, or maybe Bisu will make it to finals!
Jeez that reaction time by Larva. How many countless times he sensed incoming HTs right before? Even if Rain hit couple good ones Larva with his drone micro saved like more than half of them. And that hold on both games. Incredible observer snipes. That felt really highest ceiling of zerg skill since JDs domination era.
Rain played incredibly well too. I think he was too stubborn with trying to break zergs nat. But what else he could do when none of harassing worked.
On October 15 2017 21:33 gamapg wrote: Larva's style of macro, rope-a-dope zerg reminds me of Soulkey's more strategic positional game style.... I know rain's PvZ isn't on the level of Bisu's but I swear, even though we saw Rain throwing incredulous amounts of units against those sunks and simcity and fails to break.... somehow I dont know how Bisu manages to break, or win even 70+% of his games in PvZ.... I'm hoping either a Soulkey or Larva vs Bisu match up this ASL...
Im not that much impressed by SK because last bo5 ZvP he faced he cheesed and allined so hard.
On October 15 2017 21:35 EsportsJohn wrote: As a Protoss player, you can't let Zerg just sit back and macro off 4 bases because eventually the cracklings will just eat you alive, especially with how Larva was consistently using ling runbys, drops, etc.
I just cant see it. Cracklings are imba and zerg has more mobility from mass drops. But with reavers and stoms, I cant see how Z can trade more efficiently than P when the latter isnt trying to charge into a well defended area. Equal bases I dont think one has a distinct advantage over the other. At least not so much that its do or die I have to break you or I lose for sure.
To me Rain's real mistake was relying on small shuttle drops for way too long. A full-army recall could have easily ended the game or atleast swing the game into Rain's favor if used earlier.
That being said, Larva played absolutely fantastic and there's no denying he may just be the very best Z right now. So what is there to complain about? It was an amazing series.
What a fantastic series. Larva held so many times by the skin of his teeth, unbelievable. Rain made some errors but I don't feel like he played super bad. Larva was just a bit superior and edged it out in the end. I'm super impressed by Larvas' concentration throughout the longer games. It felt like he never slipped up with the multitasking, which is incredible hard, especially in games that almost reach the 40 minute mark.
On October 15 2017 23:59 Alpha-NP- wrote: I was pretty surprised by how one sided this was. Does Bisu have a better chance to knockout Flash than Jaedong's 2-3 versus Flash in ASL2?
I think Bisu got a chance, yes. He is in better shape than Jaedong and has a similar mindset. Most people are too impressed by Flash when they play him. Too much respect makes you play worse. Bisu and Jaedong don't have that problem.
On October 15 2017 22:05 duke91 wrote: why are you guys talking about compositions? this ain't sc2
But composition is quite important in PvZ for the P...
On October 15 2017 21:14 t2azor wrote: lol ZvP looks broken
zesagi??
zvp has always been broken lol. only bisu can consistently win in that mu
Bisu was ahead of everyone in that MU but I would argue that some other protoss players had good PvZ. Stork and Movie for example. Especially Stork, even if it didn't seem like it compared to his other MU's.
On October 13 2017 04:44 Alpha-NP- wrote: The ro8 has Larva against Rain. Does Larva actually have a chance? I like him in that he is the good villain. Only I don't wanna tune in if Rain is going to newb smack him in a blowout.
I think he is favoured vs Rain actually, especially given his ro16 performance
Larva's coin-flipping zvz results in the RO16 makes him favorable against Rain? What the fuck are you talking about?
Larva isn't even that good.
Next time, consider watching some streams and paying attention to how players are playing before you post a bunch of ignorant stuff. Being an anti-fan or fan is all good, and I fully encourage it, but when you post stuff as off base as "Larva isn't even that good" combined with the audacity to insult other posters, that's not cool. Especially when it comes from a place of total ignorance.
On October 15 2017 21:26 traxamillion wrote: Yea maybe the Ling + drone drill he maybe coulda sniffed out, but who proxy hatches? Haven't seen that in the last couple hundred games I've watched (closest was shine on Andromeda in his quarterfinal last season but that was mid/lategame). Sick hard counter to the ramp block
Shine proxy hatched flash in the finals
Yea he did kinda but it was at a resource base and he droned there so it was more of a hidden expo with dual purpose of facilitating the slow drop
On October 15 2017 22:05 duke91 wrote: why are you guys talking about compositions? this ain't sc2
I'm confused by this statement on multiple levels. What units are being built is a pretty universally important part of RTS games lol, not something that SC2 came up with.
On October 15 2017 23:59 Alpha-NP- wrote: I was pretty surprised by how one sided this was. Does Bisu have a better chance to knockout Flash than Jaedong's 2-3 versus Flash in ASL2?
Let's not get that far ahead of ourselves. That series wasn't THAT one sided. Rain crushed Larva game 2 (admittedly in part because Larva got way overconfident with his attack at Rain's third), and game 3 was a very close game. Larva had 3 times at least where he was in definite danger of losing. Same with game 4 really, both that elevator and the point where Rain stormed the nat and had DTs go noticed while Larva was attacking Rain's 3' could have been bad. I thought Rain was in an OK spot after that to be honest, but then he got a little crazy trying to break Larva then and there.
On October 15 2017 21:19 jtan wrote: I don't think it's fair to say Rain was outplayed in the series, and even less fair to complain about the state of pvz. Crossing fields was cheese, on Gladiator Rain was dominating, and the Goldrush game could have gone either way.
Way too far the other way.
For Game 1, getting cheesed IS getting outplayed. You don't lose without getting outplayed. He knew something was up, couldn't sniff it out and didn't make the right decisions to defend. Flat out didn't play well enough to win.
Game 2 Rain outplayed Larva, I actually thought both were playing VERY well up until Larva's blunder of an overextension at Rain's third. Larva's hydra movements and threat was absolutely insane, some of the best movement I've seen in a long time, and Rain's defense was impeccable. I don't think Larva picked off a single templar with all of that. Unfortunately for what could have been a great game, Larva went and blundered massively attacking Rain's third. He went from a comfortable, even game to getting rolled over. Dumb decision by Larva, and thus he was brutally outplayed by Rain.
Game 3 was close between both. Larva won primarily because his defense was too damn good. Rain tried and tried to harass, but Larva was incredibly on top of it. He missed almost nothing out of what must have been 30+ harass attempts. His scourge positioning and control were about as good as you can imagine. Rain tried hard, and was ahead early on, but Larva's defense was close to "out of this world" good and he thus went on to win.
Game 4, similar story. Larva's defense was incredible. Holding your natural against a giant army while getting elevatored at the same time without even losing drones. That was a jaw dropper, as were some of those drone blocks against zealots. Larva's one blunder was when he went for Rain's third (only a minor blunder in itself imo) and got too focused on that attack thus letting his natural get stormed and DTs go to town on his main. After that, Rain was in a pretty good spot, but then for some reason he also blundered with a huge overextension to kill Larva. After that Larva was way ahead, especially since Rain did a terrible job of blocking expansions at 12' and 9', and all he could really do was try and try to break, but Larva was far enough ahead at that point Rain never had a chance.
On October 16 2017 01:38 Miragee wrote: What a fantastic series. Larva held so many times by the skin of his teeth, unbelievable. Rain made some errors but I don't feel like he played super bad. Larva was just a bit superior and edged it out in the end. I'm super impressed by Larvas' concentration throughout the longer games. It felt like he never slipped up with the multitasking, which is incredible hard, especially in games that almost reach the 40 minute mark.
This I feel is spot on. It was a good series, and the level from both was high; though neither played perfect. Many close moments, and the multitasking by Larva absolutely agree with.
I wish someone who knows Korean could translate a bit what was in this on & off segment after the second map. Was it just banter or some interesting moments there?
On October 16 2017 03:49 ShowTheLights wrote: FUCK Larva and FUCK PvZ
Up 80 supply in Game 3 and 4, can't do shit vs Zerg.
Wow I played much better than my opponent for the first 20 minutes of the game to get to 80 supply up, guess I can't do anything
The mature way to think about is this: being up 80 supply in a pvz is not really that large of an advantage [in certain contexts]. Your not 'playing well to be up 80 supply' if that supply advantage is a gimme.
That was a nice series. I d like to see bisu vs larva. Rain played well but made a couple of bad decisions while larva was an absolute beast (except in game 2)
Man Larva is such an incredible defender. So many times I thought he was going to lose but somehow he'd hang in there... Game 4 did it really come down to just losing observers every time? I thought that with the amount of drone kills that surely Rain was going to pull ahead. But somehow he kept failing to break through.
On October 16 2017 03:49 ShowTheLights wrote: FUCK Larva and FUCK PvZ
Up 80 supply in Game 3 and 4, can't do shit vs Zerg.
Wow I played much better than my opponent for the first 20 minutes of the game to get to 80 supply up, guess I can't do anything
Just going to say that Supply doesn't mean shit in PvZ. If it did and Protoss won everytime they were 80 supply ahead, guess what? Zerg would never win after early game. Thank god it doesn't go by that :D.
This series was really well played by Larva though. I thought game 3 was good, but game 4 was even better imo. Larva lost a shit ton of drones, I thought for sure he was dead and it was going to a game 5. No, somehow he barely defends his bases, deals with DT drops, HT drops, etc all game long beautifully. It was some of the best ZvP I have seen. Dealing with Shuttle harass is hard, but man he does it so amazing.
On October 16 2017 06:13 ortseam wrote: Rain wasn't killing many drones actually, Larva was constantly dodging all the storm drops.
In the final game, Rain killed every drone in the natural and main (3rd/4th?) with a DT/HT drop. It was the single time Larva missed the drop completely.
Lol, I feel like an idiot for doubting Larva in the ZvZ group and in this Ro8. I'm really happy he was able to advance. I felt like Rain kept trying to huff and puff, but he couldn't blow Larva's house down in the last game.
watching game 3 and i feel a bit funny for all the people who was trying to convince me Larva is the man to take down Flash. Larva almost constantly on even bases with protoss, how that can be a macro zerg who will beat flash in BO series lol
I love Larva's fast 3rd turtle zerg to macro while insane defense. I think this is a reliable ZvP meta, as long as the player can be close to perfect in defense and map presence in order to avoid Protoss balling up too much.
I wonder how this will work vs. Terran. Maybe Larva can incorporate some queen play to this and it's golden.
On October 16 2017 08:54 yOngKIN wrote: I love Larva's fast 3rd turtle zerg to macro while insane defense. I think this is a reliable ZvP meta, as long as the player can be close to perfect in defense and map presence in order to avoid Protoss balling up too much.
I wonder how this will work vs. Terran. Maybe Larva can incorporate some queen play to this and it's golden.
Larva could win it all the way.
From my point of view its just the fact Rain plays terrible vs turtle zerg. And he makes more damage to himslef than to harass opponent with that constant suicide of full shuttles.
wellp i guess thats it. I didnt expect rain to lose this but hes not good enough really. He was 2 times 180 vs 100 supply and couldnt win, that is ridicilous (crying imba). In 3rd game with first recall he killed larva tech, then needed to continue with recalls until gg. He was so tilted that instead he continued to attack turtled base defence losing reavers and army all the time and spend all his gas on constant high templar shuttle suicides that made him not have gas for arbiters. So bad
That opening game was ballsy as F by Larva. Not often I see something like that in a pro game. I think he was over excited after that first win and fumbled a bit in game 2.
Game 3 was insane. This Gold Rush map is crazy, I'm loving the games I'm seeing on it so far. Game 4 seemed like a Observer hunting game for Larva. Awesome set of games and I'm glad to see Larva advance to the next stage.
On October 16 2017 08:29 _Animus_ wrote: watching game 3 and i feel a bit funny for all the people who was trying to convince me Larva is the man to take down Flash. Larva almost constantly on even bases with protoss, how that can be a macro zerg who will beat flash in BO series lol
Larva probably won't win against Flash. That would be a true miracle, as it's very clear Flash is on a different level from anyone else. Bisu, Larva, and EffOrt probably have the best chances though; and fortunately two of them remain in the bracket.
That said, Larva didn't need to be ahead bases. He beat Rain pretty comfortably being a base or two down, that's what happens when your defense is that good.
On October 16 2017 08:54 yOngKIN wrote: I love Larva's fast 3rd turtle zerg to macro while insane defense. I think this is a reliable ZvP meta, as long as the player can be close to perfect in defense and map presence in order to avoid Protoss balling up too much.
I wonder how this will work vs. Terran. Maybe Larva can incorporate some queen play to this and it's golden.
Larva could win it all the way.
From my point of view its just the fact Rain plays terrible vs turtle zerg. And he makes more damage to himslef than to harass opponent with that constant suicide of full shuttles.
Rain played pretty well in my opinion. Excellent in the early stages (his defense before Larva's suicide in G2 was an absolutely master class against Larva's own movements), and solid in the later parts. As someone said earlier, that's just Rain's style. He knows Larva's defense, and to a much lesser extent zerg defense in general is too solid to beat just attacking the front. He plays a bounce around style where he harasses zerg greatly to draw army away, create vulnerabilities, and also keep the economy from booming.
I strongly feel this wasn't nearly as much a case of Rain playing bad as it was Larva playing good. It's not like Rain suicided to many shuttles. He was microing most of them, just Larva was faster and on top of every drop, and his scourge control helped shut that down. It's one of those examples where if you saw that at a lower level of play it would happen because protoss is bad and trying to do more than he can, but in this series it was much more Larva just being too good. Many of those shuttles would have escaped or done damage against a lesser zerg.
Game 4 was perhaps his only real weakspot. After killing all the drones at main/nat as larva donated a few groups of lings and lurkers he was in a beautiful position. All he had to do was add reavers to his bases, cannon up, block the expansions at 12',6', and 9' and win comfortably, but it seems he was either too frustrated or didn't have the confidence he could pull that off against Larva.
On October 16 2017 09:11 _Animus_ wrote: wellp i guess thats it. I didnt expect rain to lose this but hes not good enough really. He was 2 times 180 vs 100 supply and couldnt win, that is ridicilous (crying imba). In 3rd game with first recall he killed larva tech, then needed to continue with recalls until gg. He was so tilted that instead he continued to attack turtled base defence losing reavers and army all the time and spend all his gas on constant high templar shuttle suicides that made him not have gas for arbiters. So bad
Again, not bad from Rain. Rain played well. He's doesn't have Bisu's multitask and control though, so going up against a player like Larva can make you look bad. He wanted to recall other bases, but Larva's defense was too good to let any other arbiters in, and Larva started actively hunting other arbiters on the map at that point.
It's worth noting the only tech rain killed was a spawning pool. Killing a hive is meaningless when upgrades are all done and defiler mound is at another base. It wasn't a very valuable recall in my opinion, and honestly if he had recalled a more valuable base (say right side or 6') I think that could well have been a fatal blow to Larva. On the opposite side of the coin though...Larva was paying more attention and had a hell of a lot more scourge there.
On October 16 2017 09:01 RWLabs wrote: Tonight, rain fell.
To be frank though, Rain didn't play very well. He kept bleeding expensive units left and right.
He did, but not because he played poorly. He just doesn't have the impeccable control and mechanics you need to play a style like that against a zerg with defense as absurdly good as Larva's. If you play a harass style and execute it well to the best of your abilities, but are playing against a better player it will always look wasteful and like you're a bit of a hack. That's what happened to Rain here.
Oh, and for anyone that isn't convinced that Larva's ZvP defense is THAT good...it is.
Exhibit A:
Bisu vs Larva
don't watch this too long if you're Protoss
This is "oops I fucked up and can't make anything for 5 minutes" into "oh well who gives a shit. Nobody needs units or more bases". This is from a worse position by FAR than against Rain, going up against a Protoss that is obviously MUCH better than Rain.
Game 4 was perhaps his only real weakspot. After killing all the drones at main/nat as larva donated a few groups of lings and lurkers he was in a beautiful position. All he had to do was add reavers to his bases, cannon up, block the expansions at 12',6', and 9' and win comfortably, but it seems he was either too frustrated or didn't have the confidence he could pull that off against Larva.
I think fatigue might have played into it too... Game 3 was such a long and brutal slug fest. From watching his stream I think Larva actually thrives on those long games, but I'd imagine most players feel a lot of strain managing prolong late game... and to lose on top of that. Flash is another player that has always seemed pretty comfortable in the late game. I sometimes wonder if his style has rubbed off on Larva given the amount they practiced together.
Oh, by the way. I had a good laugh reading back in this thread. Usopsama gave me a good chuckle.
So happy Larva made it through. Against a pretty good Protoss to. I think he might end up against SoulKey in the semis. Either way a ZvZ up next for him. TBH I have no idea how who will win most top level ZvZ games though.
On October 16 2017 09:01 RWLabs wrote: Tonight, rain fell.
To be frank though, Rain didn't play very well. He kept bleeding expensive units left and right.
I don't think Larva gets enough credit for the way he made Rain bleed expensive units.
I do think that Rains decision making was questionable but the way Larva played was insane and Rain didn't expect him to withstand the pressure and harassment as well as he did.
Looking back at the games it is easy to say that he wasted to much doing the same thing over and over with some success but not enough, the amount of shuttles wasted was insane for example.
But, the fact that Larva withstood the onslaught is a very impressive feat and it is easy to say that Rain did the wrong thing but no one new that Larva would be that good with defense and that sharp in dealing with harassment all over the place while keeping up his macro like that.
It isn't a bad tactic to waste some units to tax your opponents apm so that he can't keep up with you, and it was reasonable of Rain to assume that Larva would be a step behind him in that.
But he wasn't.
Rain played great, just didn't recognize how strong Larva was in the areas where he had planned to beat him.
I haven't seen a pro of Rain's caliber brainfart so hard when having a lead and map center control for a couple minutes and just not capitalize on it ever. All the guys had me raging how he kept fumbling with observers not being taken cared of, shuttles carelessly blown out of the sky with reavers,ht,dts in it, and the worst was having like air control earlyl, then just piss it all away in awful exchanges. I dunno Rain just sucked so bad even his storms were terrible, either he wasnt able to pull off a storm due to carelessness, or storm in places then run his army underneath it smh
L_Master that Larva vs Bisu game you linked was insane. Looked like Larva was on the brink of defeat several times but continued to hold on for dear life and wore Bisu out. I loved the last battle in that game, you could just tell by then it was the final battle because it was the only base left with resources.
I certainly thought larva was going to die a few times each in games 3 and 4 but he just kept defending over and over. This series was such a good watch.
Botched execution by Rain and excellent defence by Larva aside, is there a different way to play as Protoss versus turtle Zerg? Must Protoss aggressively harass and break Zerg mid-game, or can Protoss play more conservatively, out-macro Zerg, and win at late game with a maxed out army and bigger bank?
On October 16 2017 11:30 reminisce12 wrote: problem with rain's play
1. always only had 1 obs with the main army and kept getting sniped.
2. kept attking into the zerg wall and getting flanked and bleeding units.
3. non stop harrass with shuttles, hts and dts, kept losing them, most time not doing much.
Second, third, forth this. Rains constantly tried to break Zerg defense witth ONLY ONE OBS in late game while having the generosity of wasting so many resources on shuttle harash. I mean really wtf with this?
On October 16 2017 11:30 reminisce12 wrote: problem with rain's play
1. always only had 1 obs with the main army and kept getting sniped.
2. kept attking into the zerg wall and getting flanked and bleeding units.
3. non stop harrass with shuttles, hts and dts, kept losing them, most time not doing much.
Second, third, forth this. Rains constantly tried to break Zerg defense witth ONLY ONE OBS in late game while having the generosity of wasting so many resources on shuttle harash. I mean really wtf with this?
Good point on number 1. That was poor play, especially in the last game where he was clearly trying to break. Maybe (but not really) you could give him a light pass in the previous games because I'm not sure his intent was really to break Larva, but rather to draw attention away to make drops more effective or fuck up Larva's positioning...but that still doesn't really excuse having just a single obs.
The other two points I've already talked about, and I think that's much more a result of solid play from Larva than poor play from Rain.
On October 16 2017 12:00 NoS-Craig wrote: L_Master that Larva vs Bisu game you linked was insane. Looked like Larva was on the brink of defeat several times but continued to hold on for dear life and wore Bisu out. I loved the last battle in that game, you could just tell by then it was the final battle because it was the only base left with resources.
It's a stupid game, especially knowing how that would feel given I mained toss up until last year, but also a ridiculous and surprisingly entertaining one; and of course the level of play from Larva is crazy. You can argue Bisu didn't play that late game quite right, but it doesn't take away from how damn good that defense had to be to survive.
Great series with clutch defense and overall solid play from Larva. Both Larva and Soulkey could give Flash a run for his money. Hopefully Hero doesn't just ZvZ his way to an 0-3 finals against God.
On October 16 2017 13:01 RKC wrote: Botched execution by Rain and excellent defence by Larva aside, is there a different way to play as Protoss versus turtle Zerg? Must Protoss aggressively harass and break Zerg mid-game, or can Protoss play more conservatively, out-macro Zerg, and win at late game with a maxed out army and bigger bank?
Nope. Protoss can't win unless the player is simply much better. PvZ winrate at high MMR is the lowest in the game at 40% or so. Matchup is broken.
Suiciding on sunkenlurker over and over was the plan for Rain. Should have just camped. Some dark archons, etc It seemed working for a while, but as the game went on he had less and less chance to break. Why not turtle up himself? Instead of drops, just put together a huge archon ball with reavers and split the map. Add some corsairs with web.
On October 16 2017 11:30 reminisce12 wrote: problem with rain's play
1. always only had 1 obs with the main army and kept getting sniped.
2. kept attking into the zerg wall and getting flanked and bleeding units.
3. non stop harrass with shuttles, hts and dts, kept losing them, most time not doing much.
his reaver control was terrible all the time. Thing is he cannot play vs turtle zerg, he doesnt know how. That is obvious, when he have same number of bases, almost double supply and beast macro. If you are macro protoss and gain enough advantage to smash zerg army u go out on map and bust zerg, thats all you do. Instead he go on busting leave his reavers forward and concentrate on flying shuttles for suicide, then he lose both haras shuttles and his reavers at front... His attention was not on the right spots and was rather chaotic so he couldnt achieve a thing. Larva just go on and kill reavers and observers and its a constant circle. Rain had 180 limit larva 100, he had same amount of bases meaning he can macro out enough reinforcement to keep crushing zerg army until forever, so i have 0% of an idea why he just didnt make 2 shttles with reavers, more observers and go bust 1 spot controling and concentrating on that, zerg cant do shit in such disadvantage.
On October 16 2017 18:42 Xeln4g4 wrote: If Rain can not win PvZ playing like this ... no P can on earth. One of the best serie of PvZ imho.
Rain is good, but he's not Bisu, Movie, or even Shuttle PvZ level. I mean Rain was constantly losing his shuttles, reavers, and observers, and he's just not creative enough with his harassment. Game 4 he could have won, but he kept going for these pointless all-ins in the late game.
Really nice series! Sun is ok player but Larva has been super strong for quite some time now so I was pretty surprised that Tastosis predicted him to win. There are better PvZers out there.
When Rain beat Jeadong i was hoping that the next round willbe Rain vs Larva.
I really did't like how Jeadong lost, I felt sorry for him. I remembered that commentators said that Jeadong gave some advices to Larva for ZvZ. I was hoping that will happen for ZvP too.
So in this game that was a bit of Jeadongs head and Larvas hands to beat Rain
On October 16 2017 16:37 THE Sliggy wrote: Nope. Protoss can't win unless the player is simply much better. PvZ winrate at high MMR is the lowest in the game at 40% or so. Matchup is broken.
Scourge play by Larva was insane. A sad day for shuttles and observers alike.
As a casual viewer with little to no grasp on the finer details of PvZ, it seems A BIT broken to me that Z can comfortably turtle until the protoss can muster enough of an army to even attempt a bust and then Z has to snipe specific tech-heavy gas-heavy units like reavers and observers (well, relatively gas-heavy). It's just an impression, please don't call the balance police on me. I suppose it's just a really good refinement of the current meta that causes a temporary slight shift.
Imo Rain should've taken the base in the centre of map, and camp there. Role reversal, force Larva to unburrow his lurkers and attack, that way they are automatically much less valuable. Invest more heavily in Reavers, upgrade reaver capacity, and fucking camp in the middle of map, with 2 gases and bunch of minerals there.
Im gonna do some theorycrafting now, but scourge caused big problems for rain. Maybe he could've researched hallucination, and hallucinated shuttles.
Imo its usually not wise to force penetration on a turtling opponent. Much better to provoke him to have to attack, which makes his static defence pointless. So, like I said, take middle expo, turtle, tech (maybe even to DA or Arbiter).
Can't protoss reopen the gas gates on Gold Rush, by rebuilding the assimilators? Or is the map designed so that you can't rebuild on the gas gates once you've broken them?
On October 16 2017 06:13 ortseam wrote: Rain wasn't killing many drones actually, Larva was constantly dodging all the storm drops.
In the final game, Rain killed every drone in the natural and main (3rd/4th?) with a DT/HT drop. It was the single time Larva missed the drop completely.
Rain almost equalised the game back then. However, he was only sitting on 2 mining bases himself so killing all those drones didn't give him a huge advantage, it brought him back into the game. I was confused at first, too, but when I looked at it again it all made sense.
On October 16 2017 13:01 RKC wrote: Botched execution by Rain and excellent defence by Larva aside, is there a different way to play as Protoss versus turtle Zerg? Must Protoss aggressively harass and break Zerg mid-game, or can Protoss play more conservatively, out-macro Zerg, and win at late game with a maxed out army and bigger bank?
Nope. Protoss can't win unless the player is simply much better. PvZ winrate at high MMR is the lowest in the game at 40% or so. Matchup is broken.
Oh god, why is this SC2 mentality swiping in here? It's annoying. Back in the day we surely had some balance discussion but I feel like there was much less crying over a matchup being broken because of a single series. It was also widely accepted that BW is as close to being 100 % balanced as it gets. It's not perfect, nothing is, but I wouldn't call PvZ broken...
On October 16 2017 11:30 reminisce12 wrote: problem with rain's play
1. always only had 1 obs with the main army and kept getting sniped.
2. kept attking into the zerg wall and getting flanked and bleeding units.
3. non stop harrass with shuttles, hts and dts, kept losing them, most time not doing much.
his reaver control was terrible all the time. Thing is he cannot play vs turtle zerg, he doesnt know how. That is obvious, when he have same number of bases, almost double supply and beast macro. If you are macro protoss and gain enough advantage to smash zerg army u go out on map and bust zerg, thats all you do. Instead he go on busting leave his reavers forward and concentrate on flying shuttles for suicide, then he lose both haras shuttles and his reavers at front... His attention was not on the right spots and was rather chaotic so he couldnt achieve a thing. Larva just go on and kill reavers and observers and its a constant circle. Rain had 180 limit larva 100, he had same amount of bases meaning he can macro out enough reinforcement to keep crushing zerg army until forever, so i have 0% of an idea why he just didnt make 2 shttles with reavers, more observers and go bust 1 spot controling and concentrating on that, zerg cant do shit in such disadvantage.
I think Rain switched to Reavers way too late. Sair/Reaver is pretty good vs this turtle strategy because the protoss can expand rather freely. Unfortunately, Rain continued to lose his Sairs all the time. If you can't maintain a decent Sair count on game after another then it's time to step it up. With a high Sair count and multiple observers he would have broken Larva on more than a few occasions.
The amount of people in this thread who know EXACTLY what Rain did wrong and right is amazing. You know which moves were just pointless and stupid, and you know which moves were alright. If Rain knew this level of wisdom was hiding on teamliquid he could hire you guys as coaches and become the best Protoss ever. L M F A O
On October 17 2017 02:58 ihufa wrote: The amount of people in this thread who know EXACTLY what Rain did wrong and right is amazing. You know which moves were just pointless and stupid, and you know which moves were alright. If Rain knew this level of wisdom was hiding on teamliquid he could hire you guys as coaches and become the best Protoss ever. L M F A O
Except rain makes those moves because he is playing with far from perfect information. All of us "armchair" quarterbacks get the advantage of seeing both sides completely and having time to look at and analyzing the games.
Bigger difference between analyzing players decisions in a Starcraft game versus a chess game. The implication here is that everybody analyzing the game thinks they are smarter than Rain when it comes to SC knowledge, but obviously that's an apples to oranges comparison. Rain played the way he did because had far less information than any viewer was privy too.
On October 17 2017 02:58 ihufa wrote: The amount of people in this thread who know EXACTLY what Rain did wrong and right is amazing. You know which moves were just pointless and stupid, and you know which moves were alright. If Rain knew this level of wisdom was hiding on teamliquid he could hire you guys as coaches and become the best Protoss ever. L M F A O
Except rain makes those moves because he is playing with far from perfect information. All of us "armchair" quarterbacks get the advantage of seeing both sides completely and having time to look at and analyzing the games.
Bigger difference between analyzing players decisions in a Starcraft game versus a chess game. The implication here is that everybody analyzing the game thinks they are smarter than Rain when it comes to SC knowledge, but obviously that's an apples to oranges comparison. Rain played the way he did because had far less information than any viewer was privy too.
Pretty sick games and series overall. Larva was ballsy in the first game, been a while since I've seen a successful drone drill in a pro game. Game 3 was probably the best game of the series imo. Lots of back and forth with Larva defending like a freaking madman, my god. Rain's control was pretty decent and it was interesting to see Larva survive on equal bases in the game. His defense in the series is probably the best I've ever seen.
The last game was in Rain's favour imo but it felt like he kept running into Larva's strong defense hoping to plow through but obviously, that didn't happen lol. Given, I commend Larva for his defense and being able to win this series 3-1. Hopefully, this will convince some folks that Larva isn't some random player who made it here by luck.
These games were just insane macro and defense games. Rain's macro was unreal. The guy always had a shit ton of units. Can't remember the last time I was this awed at someone's macro lol. Maybe Best back in ASL2?
Also, just a little note to everyone here: I hope folks will refrain from blatant balance whining. You're free to discuss what Rain could've done better or what you believe was the cause of his loss but balance whining, saying matchups are broken etc... are warnable offense on here.
To all the people noting the lack of observers, sure it is a huge mistake but I don't think he, like, just forgot to make them in a couple of his production cycles. It was, more like straight consequence of Larva's impeccable defence and having all his shuttle's sniped. (As far as I was aware--) Rain went 1 robo and just always had to make shuttle's instead of obs's which proved to be crucial during his attacks.
Maybe Rain did try too hard with drops but he sure would have had more than one obs in his engagements were it not for Larva's magnet scourges.
On October 17 2017 02:58 ihufa wrote: The amount of people in this thread who know EXACTLY what Rain did wrong and right is amazing. You know which moves were just pointless and stupid, and you know which moves were alright. If Rain knew this level of wisdom was hiding on teamliquid he could hire you guys as coaches and become the best Protoss ever. L M F A O
We are just analyzing a match, no different than what Tasteless and Artosis were doing. What are you on about? We are obviously not pros, and we don't think we are smarter than him. In Teamliquid we always analyze a match and critique someone's play, is this new to you? I'm critical of Rain because I was rooting for him to win, and Larva is a strong Zerg player.
What I felt Rain did wrong, well he was still trying to bust through Larva's main base during the late game, when Larva's 12 o'clock expansion was much more easier to breach.
On October 17 2017 02:58 ihufa wrote: The amount of people in this thread who know EXACTLY what Rain did wrong and right is amazing. You know which moves were just pointless and stupid, and you know which moves were alright. If Rain knew this level of wisdom was hiding on teamliquid he could hire you guys as coaches and become the best Protoss ever. L M F A O
Except rain makes those moves because he is playing with far from perfect information. All of us "armchair" quarterbacks get the advantage of seeing both sides completely and having time to look at and analyzing the games.
Bigger difference between analyzing players decisions in a Starcraft game versus a chess game. The implication here is that everybody analyzing the game thinks they are smarter than Rain when it comes to SC knowledge, but obviously that's an apples to oranges comparison. Rain played the way he did because had far less information than any viewer was privy too.
No one thinks they are smarter than Rain, at least I don't. Yeah obviously there is a difference between analyzing a match from your own pc and playing the actual game and being under pressure. Me just I know the basics, but it's still fun to watch, and I know what's going on. I do compare his PvZ to other protosses such as Shuttle and Movie for example and you can see who does what better.
On October 17 2017 03:38 PVJ wrote: To all the people noting the lack of observers, sure it is a huge mistake but I don't think he, like, just forgot to make them in a couple of his production cycles. It was, more like straight consequence of Larva's impeccable defence and having all his shuttle's sniped. (As far as I was aware--) Rain went 1 robo and just always had to make shuttle's instead of obs's which proved to be crucial during his attacks.
Maybe Rain did try too hard with drops but he sure would have had more than one obs in his engagements were it not for Larva's magnet scourges.
Actually, I know that he had more than one obs at least at one point on FS. When he tried that bust on the natural, I vaguely recall counting 3. One was scouraged, other two must've been picked off by hydras/spores or whatever. This was when he was up almost 80 supply I believe. Much like you said, I think this is more on Larva's impeccable defense rather than Rain's poor play. Hindsight is 20/20 after all.
On October 17 2017 03:38 PVJ wrote: To all the people noting the lack of observers, sure it is a huge mistake but I don't think he, like, just forgot to make them in a couple of his production cycles. It was, more like straight consequence of Larva's impeccable defence and having all his shuttle's sniped. (As far as I was aware--) Rain went 1 robo and just always had to make shuttle's instead of obs's which proved to be crucial during his attacks.
Maybe Rain did try too hard with drops but he sure would have had more than one obs in his engagements were it not for Larva's magnet scourges.
yes at least 2 robos are required to constantly produce obs and reaver, instead he produced mass shuttles and hts, not only he had not enough obs/reaver but he had no gas to make them, because he invested it all in hts that die. hallucinating arbiters and doing recalls was way better way to not only harass but straight kill bases.
No one thinks they are smarter than Rain, at least I don't. Yeah obviously there is a difference between analyzing a match and playing the actual game and being under pressure. Me just I know the basics, but it's still fun to watch, and I know what's going on. I do compare his PvZ to other protosses such as Shuttle and Movie for example and you can see who does what better.
I agree, I don't think anybody really does either. That's in response to ihufa's comment about people saying what Rain did wrong/right. His comment absolutely implies that everyone commenting about Rain/Larva's play thinks they are smarter.
One thing I didn't add in the original response is that a portion of the discussion centers around control. It's absolutely possible to spot good and bad control, and even suggest how they could have been done better. This doesn't imply that any of us could properly coach or improve Rain's play. It's not that hard to look at someone's play and say "oh they need better muta control, or even specifically why the control is off", but it's a whole different level to be able to teach someone to do it correctly.
In the same way even though I can "criticize" a professional golfer that makes a bad swing, even realizing that he made a bad swing because he cleared his hips too fast and got stuck forcing a blocked right shot, doesn't mean that I am a better play, more knowledgeable, or even that I could coach him. It just means it's easier to notice mistakes after the fact when you have full knowledge and as much time as you want to review what happened.
On October 17 2017 03:38 PVJ wrote: To all the people noting the lack of observers, sure it is a huge mistake but I don't think he, like, just forgot to make them in a couple of his production cycles. It was, more like straight consequence of Larva's impeccable defence and having all his shuttle's sniped. (As far as I was aware--) Rain went 1 robo and just always had to make shuttle's instead of obs's which proved to be crucial during his attacks.
Maybe Rain did try too hard with drops but he sure would have had more than one obs in his engagements were it not for Larva's magnet scourges.
Actually, I know that he had more than one obs at least at one point on FS. When he tried that bust on the natural, I vaguely recall counting 3. One was scouraged, other two must've been picked off by hydras/spores or whatever. This was when he was up almost 80 supply I believe. Much like you said, I think this is more on Larva's impeccable defense rather than Rain's poor play. Hindsight is 20/20 after all.
Maybe it is that he just knew Rain's game all too well. I don't recall larva having excessive amounts of scourge, at least not too many times. He anticipated when Rain was going to drop (most of the time), when he needed ground army to flank, when he can build more scourge to kill observers during bust attempts. And man, did he kill those observers. Since I was rooting hard for Rain, I felt utter frustration when every single one of them died. I was praying for a ComSat.
I was thinking "What if Rain just turtles extremely hard and goes Sair/Carrier?"
On October 17 2017 02:16 ArvickHero wrote: Can't protoss reopen the gas gates on Gold Rush, by rebuilding the assimilators? Or is the map designed so that you can't rebuild on the gas gates once you've broken them?
you can't
and if you could that would be protoss imba, since refineries and exctractors are same as geysers (0 pixel holes all sides)
I was thinking that too. It's one of the reasons I hate going super turtle Zerg. Recently I did it and the Protoss came at me with carriers, making me sad because I hate facing carriers .
I think it's a good counter versus a hardcore turtling Zerg.
I skipped work for this incredible PvZ, but I'm not gonna do it for a ZvZ... I'll watch any game that polls will recommend later on, and shall patiently await Bisu vs Flash semi-finals (and anything that comes before it as well I guess hehe).
As a Sc2 fan, I was amazed by Larva's consistent drop defense throughout game 3, but I have to ask, is it usually worth it to by dropping HT and Reavers all the time when zerg has scourge?
I would think that teching to carriers or something would be a better use of money, but I don't know how they play out in BW
On October 17 2017 10:29 nick00bot wrote: As a Sc2 fan, I was amazed by Larva's consistent drop defense throughout game 3, but I have to ask, is it usually worth it to by dropping HT and Reavers all the time when zerg has scourge?
I would think that teching to carriers or something would be a better use of money, but I don't know how they play out in BW
The harrass style was more about drawing as much attention away from the main fights as possible because most of the drop's were happening as he moved his army around. As for teching to carriers, it's usually a resounding no. The advantage of carriers is about the positioning over ledges and hard to reach spots. If Rain had made more sairs to go along with the carriers, then maybe, but zerg has great air defense overall, and more importantly putting so much resources in a slow units doesn't allow for the ability of defending bases very effectively because Cracklings/defiler and tear apart bases so quickly.
Why can't Rain do what Soulkey did to him and just be content with map control and contain the zerg to 4-5 bases while getting the rest of the bases on the map (presumably more than the zerg's) and starve him out? I mean even if Rain army traded all of the time trying to break the sunken walls, why cant he just throw the ball to Larva to try and wrestle map control from the P death ball? Even if the Zerg production is coming from 2 sides of the map, then can't Rain just efficiently split his army to deal with what the Zerg throws at him without sacrificing a contain? Zerg starved him out, why couldn't Protoss do the same to Zerg??
On October 17 2017 10:29 nick00bot wrote: As a Sc2 fan, I was amazed by Larva's consistent drop defense throughout game 3, but I have to ask, is it usually worth it to by dropping HT and Reavers all the time when zerg has scourge?
I would think that teching to carriers or something would be a better use of money, but I don't know how they play out in BW
The harrass style was more about drawing as much attention away from the main fights as possible because most of the drop's were happening as he moved his army around. As for teching to carriers, it's usually a resounding no. The advantage of carriers is about the positioning over ledges and hard to reach spots. If Rain had made more sairs to go along with the carriers, then maybe, but zerg has great air defense overall, and more importantly putting so much resources in a slow units doesn't allow for the ability of defending bases very effectively because Cracklings/defiler and tear apart bases so quickly.
Harass is more about crippling the zerg's economy with non-stop mineral line devastation than a distraction from the busts. The main fights draw attention from the harass more so than vice versa, as ideally the toss catches the zerg off guard and drones don't get pulled on time. If Rain had Bisu-level mulitasking and decision-making, his storm and DT drops would have been more effective. Rain's micro for both his front door busts and harass left a little to be desired, especially compared to, for example, Bisu on his A-game. As mentioned earlier in the thread, there was only one drop that Larva completely missed and that almost swung the game in Rain's favour.
That being said, it seemed like Rain was considerably ahead when his fifth came up and he had 3-4 bases mining. Either reversing the roles by expanding and turtling himself or just straight up busting the zerg defense while storm/DT harassing (like he tried to do) were both valid options, but his execution was a bit lacking and Larva was on top of his scourge defense and drone-pulling.
On October 17 2017 10:43 gamapg wrote: Why can't Rain do what Soulkey did to him and just be content with map control and contain the zerg to 4-5 bases while getting the rest of the bases on the map (presumably more than the zerg's) and starve him out? I mean even if Rain army traded all of the time trying to break the sunken walls, why cant he just throw the ball to Larva to try and wrestle map control from the P death ball? Even if the Zerg production is coming from 2 sides of the map, then can't Rain just efficiently split his army to deal with what the Zerg throws at him without sacrificing a contain? Zerg starved him out, why couldn't Protoss do the same to Zerg??
That is a viable way to play. Why Rain didn't opt for that strategy I'm not sure. Best guess might be that he thought it would be too hard to allocate that much to defense in different places while trying to shut down Larva. That's a hard style for protoss to play, as defending a zerg that's everywhere is usually quite tricky due to zerg mobility, but it's been played somewhat often on maps like fighting spirit, such a style would be significantly harder on a more open map with more bases like Circuit Breaker.
Its worth noting that in ultra lategame situations, like map mined out with 1 base or less remaining Protoss can get ridiculously strong.
On October 17 2017 02:16 ArvickHero wrote: Can't protoss reopen the gas gates on Gold Rush, by rebuilding the assimilators? Or is the map designed so that you can't rebuild on the gas gates once you've broken them?
you can't
and if you could that would be protoss imba, since refineries and exctractors are same as geysers (0 pixel holes all sides)
ah, that's a shame. I feel like games could be really interesting with a reopen mechanic, even if it would be a bit imba. Thanks for finding that out!
Once the Zerg late game truly gets rolling (5+ gas bases), I've scarcely ever seen a Protoss just break into Zerg choke points guarded by lurker/sunken/swam/mass units. I'm talking about after the phase where a greedy Zerg tried to cut corners on their way to a 4-base economy, and in the phase where Zerg is capitalizing on the big economy and can easily afford huge bunches of lurkers. Jaedong, Soulkey, Larva... they always seem able to defend because the Protoss mineral sink (Zealots) is so miserable against Lurkers, whereas the Zerg mineral sink (Zerglings) are actually pretty devastating for the low cost.
It seems to me that if Protoss can't break Zerg while they're still on 4 bases or fewer, they need to stop trying to cram their army into choke points and up ramps and start trying to win on the value of their splash damage units, possibly by playing the game to starvation and holding the last expansion. The story of lategame PvZ, so often, is a story of Protoss being unable to find a good battle, losing all their Zealots to Lurkers, and getting their high-gas units surrounded and wiped out for the GG. Is it wrong to aim for a starvation game once you can see things are headed in that direction?
Edit: Granted, you need to take a *lot* of bases for this to work... You can't starve the Zerg if you've only taken 4 bases. But Rain was pretty good about expanding heavily and, for the most part, defended his bases remarkably well.
Idk why Larva refused to make ultras but it almost cost him big leads in both games. Lucky for him Rain was playing dumb and just kept suiciding his army into his expansion instead of using his map control to split the map.
On October 17 2017 14:04 iamho wrote: Idk why Larva refused to make ultras but it almost cost him big leads in both games. Lucky for him Rain was playing dumb and just kept suiciding his army into his expansion instead of using his map control to split the map.
Ultras are not cost effective vs protoss, no aoe damage and very expensive. Archons, HTs, Reavers & Dragoons do very well against ultras. Plus the fact that if you add in more ultras they bunch up which makes the protoss splash damage even better. Lurkers are much better for defence, have aoe damage, cheaper and if spread out well insanely effective against protoss. I was wondering as well why Zergs don't go for ultras nowadays, and it seems like they have gotten to a point where they can control lurkers effectively even when attacking which explains why.
On October 17 2017 02:16 ArvickHero wrote: Can't protoss reopen the gas gates on Gold Rush, by rebuilding the assimilators? Or is the map designed so that you can't rebuild on the gas gates once you've broken them?
you can't
and if you could that would be protoss imba, since refineries and exctractors are same as geysers (0 pixel holes all sides)
ah, that's a shame. I feel like games could be really interesting with a reopen mechanic, even if it would be a bit imba. Thanks for finding that out!
you can make it reopen by using a buildable tileset terrain below the neutral assimilators. right now you can't build on it because they used an unbuildable terrain below them. but rebuilding into an extractor/refinery only allows certain units to pass by, cus assimilators are smaller than the other two gas buildings.
I think a few dwebs would have allowed him to break through the 11 natural choke in game 4.He was close but just needed something extra.Plus he already had a few sairs on the map.
goddamn I just watched it. EPIC by LARVA. Holy crap he held on by a damn thread and made it work. perfect defense. his scourge use was admirable. such dedicated scourge defense and commitment.
On October 17 2017 02:58 ihufa wrote: The amount of people in this thread who know EXACTLY what Rain did wrong and right is amazing. You know which moves were just pointless and stupid, and you know which moves were alright. If Rain knew this level of wisdom was hiding on teamliquid he could hire you guys as coaches and become the best Protoss ever. L M F A O
On October 17 2017 03:46 Stax736 wrote: We are just analyzing a match, no different than what Tasteless and Artosis were doing. What are you on about? We are obviously not pros, and we don't think we are smarter than him. In Teamliquid we always analyze a match and critique someone's play, is this new to you? I'm critical of Rain because I was rooting for him to win, and Larva is a strong Zerg player. (...) No one thinks they are smarter than Rain, at least I don't. Yeah obviously there is a difference between analyzing a match from your own pc and playing the actual game and being under pressure..
On October 17 2017 03:23 L_Master wrote: Except rain makes those moves because he is playing with far from perfect information. All of us "armchair" quarterbacks get the advantage of seeing both sides completely and having time to look at and analyzing the games.
Bigger difference between analyzing players decisions in a Starcraft game versus a chess game. The implication here is that everybody analyzing the game thinks they are smarter than Rain when it comes to SC knowledge, but obviously that's an apples to oranges comparison. Rain played the way he did because had far less information than any viewer was privy too.
Yeah right, except you might have missed some of the comments in this thread :
On October 16 2017 09:11 _Animus_ wrote: wellp i guess thats it. I didnt expect rain to lose this but hes not good enough really. He was 2 times 180 vs 100 supply and couldnt win, that is ridicilous (crying imba). In 3rd game with first recall he killed larva tech, then needed to continue with recalls until gg. He was so tilted that instead he continued to attack turtled base defence losing reavers and army all the time and spend all his gas on constant high templar shuttle suicides that made him not have gas for arbiters. So bad
Or just now :
On October 17 2017 14:04 iamho wrote: Idk why Larva refused to make ultras but it almost cost him big leads in both games. Lucky for him Rain was playing dumb and just kept suiciding his army into his expansion instead of using his map control to split the map.
To the point where you can even find people trashing Larva on this Bo5 :
On October 16 2017 08:29 _Animus_ wrote: watching game 3 and i feel a bit funny for all the people who was trying to convince me Larva is the man to take down Flash. Larva almost constantly on even bases with protoss, how that can be a macro zerg who will beat flash in BO series lol
Just because ihufa said doesn't exactly apply to you doesn't mean it's plain wrong. I had the exact same feeling reading the thread after the last game, and it's really not uncommon on TL. The only game worth being discussed really is game 3, because that's the type of game, especially half way through the Bo5, where you make the difference in such encounters. Even if Rain is a real pro, the amount of frustration and tilting resulting of that game can be seen in game 4.
So, focusing on game 3: it's really amazing to me that so many very average - or even below that - players would be so confident criticizing the decision making of a player like Rain in a game where he even ended up doing Arbiters (?! Oh yeah, i'm sure you do it very often in your PvZ games), trying to find a solution to the unbreakable Larva's wall. It's fascinating to see how obvious it "should" have been, according to TL, to play that way since about the mid-game despite the fact Arbiters are extremely expensive AND also vulnerable to one of Zerg's most common weapons (scourge). He lost as least one that way actually. And we hadn't seen Arbiters for years at this level of PvZ (afaik, but tastosis mentionned it too).
It's also fascinating to see the amount of talk on the number of Obs as if Rain only had one at any given time. BigFan is the only one i saw pointing out that he actually had 2 on multiple occasions on FS, and i suggest you take a look back at the game on Gold Rush to see what actually happened there. Larva had plenty of scourges avaible to kill multiple obs, because Rain usually had more than one, and not stacked. He even had 3 towards the end of the game and i haven't seen a lot of instances where Rain was pushed back because he had lost his obs (it happened once or twice in game 4 though). Maybe you forgot that at some point Protoss has plenty of storms avaible and dropping them on lurker usually also hits the other units Zerg is sending to defend.
Sure, seeing the Protoss army go over and over into the wall might be hard to understand for some, but it wouldn't be if they watched a bit of stream (talks about Larva's current skill is also is very good way to see who actually follows the game and who is spewing bullshit based on totally obsolete "MuH TBLS" knowledge (half of it)). The PvZ matchup is just working that way currently, and in this defensive macro style Zerg can die at almost any time. Failing to kill an obs, one scourge short, can be equal to direct loss. And because the menace at the entrance is real and requires focus and micro, you can't pay so much attention to the drops Protoss has all the time to plan (which is why we see so much of it). 1 or 2s delay of reaction time on a storm drop = 6-10 workers down. Larva had almost perfect reaction time all along and it was also a big factor in how SoulKey did beat Rain in Ro16.
I don't see how Rain played poorly, at all, in game 3. It was absolute top notch PvZ and far too many people here seemingly have absolutely no idea how good Larva currently is. Had Rain played the exact same game against Jaedong, he wouldn't have received half the criticism he got. Larva may not be very consistent still, but at his best he might just be the best Zerg. Would be funny if hero managed to beat Larva after beating both EffOrt (Ro16) and Soulkey (Ro8) though...
As a last thought, the unbeatable God who just lost 3 - 1 against EffOrt ; the now-official ASL 4 winner (or Bisu) because Rain and Soulkey are out (you people should just focus on Tennis and NBA, upsets apparently are not something you understand, despite Shine in ASL3, despite Last and BeSt out in Ro24, and so on), stated himself during the Ro16 drawing ceremony that the biggest dark horse ("potentially winning despite the odds") in the tournament was Larva.
Maybe try showing some recognition to Larva's talent rather than shitting on Rain.
On October 16 2017 08:29 _Animus_ wrote: watching game 3 and i feel a bit funny for all the people who was trying to convince me Larva is the man to take down Flash. Larva almost constantly on even bases with protoss, how that can be a macro zerg who will beat flash in BO series lol
LOL. You again?
Do you realize that ZvP and ZvT are completely different match ups?
Nowadays Larva's best MU is ZvT (relatively, considering ZvP is easier for the Z). His ZvP is good but his main style of play doesn't match well against a dynamic toss that keeps harassing you on multiple fronts without missing macro rotations and keep his micro at the best level (basically, Rain and Bisu).
Still, in the last game after almost breaking Larva's 3rd base Rain then elevated 8 zeas on Larva's main while attacking his natural and miraculously Larva held that attack. It was amazing. He kept lossing drones at the end of Rain's attempts to break the natural and he managed to keep himself in the game.
Anyways, I remember in the first thread I think there was esportsjohn or his partner saying Light was favorite over Larva; Now, He's already at the r4. Only lost 1 game, IIRC.I said it back then and I kept saying throughout this season that Larva had become a S Level player. And I said that if people play standard against him, they will probably lose on the new maps. And seeing Flash's stream, he's not playing the standard fast expo - 5rax +1 into mech switch against Larva.
On some maps he's not switching to mech at all and on others he opens up with valks or wraiths/ports to keep larva at bay and make he loses scourges to set up some big drops later on and only then make the switch. But on most games he's not playing his standard and so the called "imba" style against freaking larva.
Now, lets hope he doesn't lose to Hero in the pathetic zvz semifinal. Because if hes doesn't choke, he's gonna put up a show against Flash.
(drops are his weakness right now, but considering how he was fast reacting against Rain he's prolly way too focused offline to get caught off guard
On October 16 2017 08:29 _Animus_ wrote: watching game 3 and i feel a bit funny for all the people who was trying to convince me Larva is the man to take down Flash. Larva almost constantly on even bases with protoss, how that can be a macro zerg who will beat flash in BO series lol
LOL. You again?
Do you realize that ZvP and ZvT are completely different match ups?
Nowadays Larva's best MU is ZvT (relatively, considering ZvP is easier for the Z). His ZvP is good but his main style of play doesn't match well against a dynamic toss that keeps harassing you on multiple fronts without missing macro rotations and keep his micro at the best level (basically, Rain and Bisu).
Still, in the last game after almost breaking Larva's 3rd base Rain then elevated 8 zeas on Larva's main while attacking his natural and miraculously Larva held that attack. It was amazing. He kept lossing drones at the end of Rain's attempts to break the natural and he managed to keep himself in the game.
Anyways, I remember in the first thread I think there was esportsjohn or his partner saying Light was favorite over Larva; Now, He's already at the r4. Only lost 1 game, IIRC.I said it back then and I kept saying throughout this season that Larva had become a S Level player. And I said that if people play standard against him, they will probably lose on the new maps. And seeing Flash's stream, he's not playing the standard fast expo - 5rax +1 into mech switch against Larva.
On some maps he's not switching to mech at all and on others he opens up with valks or wraiths/ports to keep larva at bay and make he loses scourges to set up some big drops later on and only then make the switch. But on most games he's not playing his standard and so the called "imba" style against freaking larva.
Now, lets hope he doesn't lose to Hero in the pathetic zvz semifinal. Because if hes doesn't choke, he's gonna put up a show against Flash.
(drops are his weakness right now, but considering how he was fast reacting against Rain he's prolly way too focused offline to get caught off guard
+1 5rax is going out of style because Zerg players are getting more consistent with defending their 3rd base. It's all about faster vessels now.
FlashFTW and I didn't think much of Larva in S3, but we've been hyping him up extensively in S4 as one of the top 3 Zergs, if not the best.
Larva has the best drop defense of any Zerg by far currently. Long, scrappy games are good for him. Short games against prepared builds are his weakness.
On October 16 2017 08:29 _Animus_ wrote: watching game 3 and i feel a bit funny for all the people who was trying to convince me Larva is the man to take down Flash. Larva almost constantly on even bases with protoss, how that can be a macro zerg who will beat flash in BO series lol
LOL. You again?
Do you realize that ZvP and ZvT are completely different match ups?
Nowadays Larva's best MU is ZvT (relatively, considering ZvP is easier for the Z). His ZvP is good but his main style of play doesn't match well against a dynamic toss that keeps harassing you on multiple fronts without missing macro rotations and keep his micro at the best level (basically, Rain and Bisu).
Still, in the last game after almost breaking Larva's 3rd base Rain then elevated 8 zeas on Larva's main while attacking his natural and miraculously Larva held that attack. It was amazing. He kept lossing drones at the end of Rain's attempts to break the natural and he managed to keep himself in the game.
Anyways, I remember in the first thread I think there was esportsjohn or his partner saying Light was favorite over Larva; Now, He's already at the r4. Only lost 1 game, IIRC.I said it back then and I kept saying throughout this season that Larva had become a S Level player. And I said that if people play standard against him, they will probably lose on the new maps. And seeing Flash's stream, he's not playing the standard fast expo - 5rax +1 into mech switch against Larva.
On some maps he's not switching to mech at all and on others he opens up with valks or wraiths/ports to keep larva at bay and make he loses scourges to set up some big drops later on and only then make the switch. But on most games he's not playing his standard and so the called "imba" style against freaking larva.
Now, lets hope he doesn't lose to Hero in the pathetic zvz semifinal. Because if hes doesn't choke, he's gonna put up a show against Flash.
(drops are his weakness right now, but considering how he was fast reacting against Rain he's prolly way too focused offline to get caught off guard
IF soulkey was not choking he had full potential to win vs hero, If last season mind was not choking he was about to break flash at ro16, and if soulkey didnt choked he wouldve killed flash dropships with scourges and win the series in ro4 instead of buging them out, many if's, but just talking is not enough, i need to see larva go up on stage and perform at least on soulkey level against Flash. btw with all that Larva hype hasnt anyone noticed how Soulkey did 10 times better job vs Rain than Larva in any of his games? He left no chance for rain to win making it pretty onesided game.
How about that Bisu vs Killer hype? I have been impressed with Killer. He'll lose but his play has been very solid. I wouldn't care if he won because Flash's next 2 rounds would be TvZ. More fun to watch.
I actually think Killer vs Bisu will be S tier from both side. Let's not forget that Killer was potentially the best zerg in the post kespa scene for a while before leaving for army. I'm sure he has been getting back in shape since his last games (which shown us he was obviously rusty, but still capable of great plays)
On October 22 2017 10:44 sM.Zik wrote: I actually think Killer vs Bisu will be S tier from both side. Let's not forget that Killer was potentially the best zerg in the post kespa scene for a while before leaving for army. I'm sure he has been getting back in shape since his last games (which shown us he was obviously rusty, but still capable of great plays)
The level of play in the direct post era of Kespa was also much lower. Killer dominated because there was nobody around except for Sea.
After watching this series, I think a glaring problem from rain was losing too many sairs. I understand you want big pay off from them early but keeping them alive as long as possible can have huge benefits late game. They could protect his obs and make dt so much more effective.
On October 22 2017 10:44 sM.Zik wrote: I actually think Killer vs Bisu will be S tier from both side. Let's not forget that Killer was potentially the best zerg in the post kespa scene for a while before leaving for army. I'm sure he has been getting back in shape since his last games (which shown us he was obviously rusty, but still capable of great plays)
The level of play in the direct post era of Kespa was also much lower. Killer dominated because there was nobody around except for Sea.
Yup, Killer was a shining beacon in the darkest age of Starcraft, but now there are massive floodlights of players outshining him. Even Shine is probably shinier than Killer and his name probably doesn't even have anything to do with it. As much as I love Mini-dong, it has to be admitted that he has always been a tier or two below the top players.
On October 22 2017 10:44 sM.Zik wrote: I actually think Killer vs Bisu will be S tier from both side. Let's not forget that Killer was potentially the best zerg in the post kespa scene for a while before leaving for army. I'm sure he has been getting back in shape since his last games (which shown us he was obviously rusty, but still capable of great plays)
The level of play in the direct post era of Kespa was also much lower. Killer dominated because there was nobody around except for Sea.
Yup, Killer was a shining beacon in the darkest age of Starcraft, but now there are massive floodlights of players outshining him. Even Shine is probably shinier than Killer and his name probably doesn't even have anything to do with it. As much as I love Mini-dong, it has to be admitted that he has always been a tier or two below the top players.
Killer has been in the military and just recently came out. Give him time to regain his form. Afaik, he was making Ro8 towards the end of pro-BW so he's got the skills for it. He's also one of the only zergs, aside from JD that showed double mutalisk control in a casted game and beat Last with it in SSL.