I admit, I was cheering for TaeJa at MLG Summer Arena the whole way, and felt he was clearly the best player there. But coming into MLG Summer Championships in Raleigh, there's someone else I can't help thinking about, another player who played beautifully at Summer Arena. The wonderful wizard himself, Oz, enters group C holding a #1 seed. And waiting on the other side of the bracket, holding the group's other top seed, is the opponent against whom Oz worked his most fantastic magic: Stephano.
A little backstory first.
Over a month ago, backstage at NASL Season 3 finals, I sat staring at a tiny screen as Stephano tore apart SlayerS_Alicia in the finals. Just the day before, the French Zerg had shredded the two most iconic PvZ players in the world, MC and HerO, leaving the result of the finals as a foregone conclusion. No amount of sentry-immortal-archon toilet-colossus deathball shenanigans would've been able to save the dependable but overmatched SlayerS_Alicia in that situation. As the M83 faded and I packed up my bag in the half-light of the players area, I remember thinking of only one thing; if MC and HerO were unable to solve Stephano, than who could? More importantly, how could they do it?
Was it even possible?
***
There are two basic, overarching elements to Mill.Stephano's play. The first is straightforward and widely imitated. If you get an advantage against Stephano, he will play extremely safely with static defenses or low tech units, and rush tech structures at the extreme expense of army and economy. Occasionally we see Stephano marooned on two bases, using infestors to secure his third, and getting broodlords from there. This is in contrast with other zergs who often enter the BL phase with a bank, to whom the excess money is a nice cushion, but not all that necessary. Stephano has shown that if push comes to shove, get the broodlords first, and use those to secure your bank later.
The second element of Stephano's play is even more crucial. A huge percentage of Stephano's wins follow a similar script. The Protoss prepares an attack; sentry-immortal, void-ray eight gate, etc. This attack moves out, and at one point, fairly early on in the attack, it is overwhelmed by roach-ling. The Protoss is then in a hole, after which Stephano either kills them then and there with waves of roachs and zerglings, or else techs rapidly to broodlord-infestor and stomps his opponent down with the Zerg death cloud.
It's tempting to blame the Protoss in these situations, or else credit Stephano's seeming unparalleled macro and positioning skills. Indeed, none of this could happen without both Protoss' misplaced confidence, and Stephano's own prodigious mechanics contributing to some degree. But the real reason why this works, and why this pattern continues again and again, is because Stephano powerfully abuses the way Protosses have been conditioned to play by almost every other Zerg. By default, most Protoss players imagine themselves playing the phantom Liquid`Ret. [This is unfair to Ret, who plays more similarly to Stephano than is usually understood. However, his popular image is the easiest way to illustrate this example.] They assume that there is a supremacy of the economy; that a Zerg will prioritize building drones until the last possible second, and that the Zerg will aim to hold the Protoss attack by the slimmest of possible of margins. What this means for the Protoss attack is that there is only danger in miss-control, and that the act of attacking itself is a relatively risk-free endeavor. The widely-held assumptions we make about the importance of the economy is a Brood War mentality, (perhaps best encapsulated by the 'If you're ahead, get more ahead' mantra) and Stephano has abused it roundly. The difference is that for Stephano, the utter annihilation of the Protoss army is of much greater importance. The extra 5-10 drones can wait, instead, if that larva is spent on units before the attack even moves out, Stephano can kill off an attack the moment it moves into the open, usually setting the Protoss impossibly behind.
The implications are very straight-forward. What are commonplace and safe pokes and prods against most droning Zergs are opportunities to lose when you play Stephano. The metagame establishes a certain way of playing out a map and Stephano gleefully turns it into a forest of anti-timings.
Standard Stephano. Protoss players should avert their eyes.
Which brings us to our hero. Over the course of the MLG Arena weekend, Fnatic's ace Protoss Oz played Stephano on two occasions, taking the first series 2-1 and then taking the extended series with two more victories to post a 4-1 final score. Against a player who had looked untouchable in ZvP just a week before, Oz's domination was a huge shock. Was Stephano badly off his game? Is Oz secretly a better PvZ player than SK.MC and Liquid`HerO? It's impossible to confirm or rule out either of those explanations, but whatever the case, the games provided a much clearer blueprint for how to defeat the seemingly invincible Stephano. A handsome amount of creativity was involved, but in the end, Oz was just cerebral.
I don't mean Oz's gateway FE's, though they were beautiful. [Re-Watch the Series!] That style of play has already been shown to be viable by many others. SaSe's double gateway, +1 zealot, third base before core build, for example, is a work of art. NonY's toolbox of traditional gateway first builds also deserves mention. Gateway FE's aren't Oz's innovation, nor the silver bullet against Stephano. The really remarkable thing about Oz's play against the Frenchman wasn't his deviation from forge-FE, but the way he conducted himself in the games themselves, in which he took everything that we know about Stephano's style and reactions, and turned it against him.
To begin, Oz never risked his army unless he held an overwhelming advantage of some kind. Consider the fourth game overall, on Metropolis, in which Oz went for a super-fast +2 blink attack. Stephano was well aware of the strategy, yet wasn't quite aware of Oz's troop movements, and in the crucial battle of the game, Oz baited Stephano off creep and then sandwiched a slice of his roach army, killing it at no cost. It's remarkable how ordinary Stephano looks here. Without the ability to to bring to bear decisive force and engineer a single battle, Stephano suddenly looked like any other Zerg; fruitlessly defending Protoss aggression, but chronically just short on roaches and lings.
Throughout the series, Oz was a paradox; acting both aggressively and gun shy. He frequently moved mid-map, danced a bit on the creep, and then went home. In doing so, he forced Stephano to commit to defense, but this being Stephano, it was often over-defense, and that set the zerg even further behind. But if we ran these games in a parallel universe where Oz was less careful, we would've seen Oz move out, follow through with the attack, and get crushed by Stephano's deliberate overwhelming defense. It's clear to see that the real advantage that Oz gained was that he simply kept his army alive. This would allow him to pull a similar movement a short while later, but with more units, enough to crush the army that Stephano had made to counter the earlier phantom attack. This kind of maneuvering is quite simple; casters reference it all the time, usually to put a silver lining on a failed attack ("Well, he did force Kwanro to make a lot of units there, Dustin"). But the manner in which Oz executed it was deliberately tailored for the opponent. Not a moment longer than necessary did Oz expose himself to risk on Stephano's side of the map.
The pinnacle of Oz's performance against Stephano was the final game on Cloud Kingdom. It illustrated Oz putting on a lot of pressure with feints, but it also showed that you can still attack. By abusing Stephano's reliance on low-tech defenses, Oz had a tremendous amount of success at putting pressure back on Stephano.
Everythng that happened in that game occurred precisely because Oz intended it. He began the game by concealing his zealot numbers and chronoboosting out +1. Stephano responded with lings, not correctly understanding the composition he faced, and when he tried to counter, he only saw four stalkers blocking the wall. Oz added a twilight and got +2 and zealot charge. With sentries in the mix, and with Stephano having been juked into mass lings, Oz turned Stephano's formula on its head. The Zerg not only had over-committed to defense, but to precisely the wrong defense, which made canceling Stephano's third base trivially easy for Oz. When behind, Stephano proceeded exactly as you would expect; teching to infestors and later using their power to jump start his economy. But this is exactly as Oz was backing off, taking his own third, and getting storm. Once again, Oz was armed with the perfect composition, and ahead in army and economy!
Oz's plan was like an onion; as the game progressed, we discovered additional layers. Stephano predictably sat on his three bases and got brood lords, while Oz added gateways, his fourth, and robo tech. At the traditional 'pre-broodlord' timing, Oz struck Stephano's third, completely wiping it out, and trading armies. But as his zealots evaporated, Oz simply remaxed with stalker-colossus; exactly the right composition to deal with Stephano's broodlord turtling! The game would continue, for a handful more minutes, in part because Oz decided to end the game in style with mass carriers, and also because Stephano is good at being safe. But at no point of the game, save for the start, was the outcome in any doubt.
***
When I watch Stephano's games, I have this inevitable feeling that Stephano will somehow find a way. He never leaves an opportunity begging, and he is more diligent than anyone else in his map control. In that way, he reminds me of a BW player who has figured out the game to a great degree, and is suddenly free to experiment with the little stuff that matters within the parameters of the game. Once you know the rules, you can break them more effectively than anyone else. That's what Stephano does.
It's also why Oz's play was so refreshing. Oz didn't 'solve' Stephano like PuMa 'solved' countless Protosses by bulldozing them with 1/1/1, or how Fruitdealer 'solved' ZvT by roach rushing in GSL1. Oz's solution for Stephano was much more elegant and refined; it was a nod from one master to another that it would take more than the usual magic to take him down. Think Fantasy vs GGPlay. Even when Oz's builds were all-in or took huge risks, they were precisely calibrated ones. That's why we all wade through the often murky world of Starcraft II. Once in a while, someone comes to a tournament inspired, and reaches for the intricate and beautiful future that Starcraft II deserves.
Though formidable players like Grubby and viOLet are standing in the way, you can't help but feel Stephano and Oz are destined to meet again. Probably because they're in the same group. I didn't ask for these powers. We can only hope that Stephano will have learned from their past meeting, come with an adjusted game, and show us what a conversation between masters looks like.
Writer: tree.hugger Graphics: Fishuu, Meko, and shiroiusagi. Editor: Waxangel
I didn't actually get to watch his games versus Stephano because I slept in, but when I read about how the games went my mind was blown and I was really happy for the guy. He needs more coverage, he's a wonderful player!
I love those Stephano rivalries, against Polt, Violet and Oz. They make you take interest in Koreans you might have overlooked as just another strong player of their race, and most importantly make my champion better
On August 23 2012 19:28 bittman wrote: Does each writer get an article like this?
I mean, I really like the article. It would be so great if a big tournament was hyped with a strong piece by a few writers leading up to it.
What I'm saying, as always, is: I <3 articles =P
I am not part of the writing staff so I don't know how they work exactly, but I can tell you that StarCraft is our passion and we naturally put more time into the tournaments and players we are most passionate about.
So I guess as readers, we just need to give positive feedback and reinforcements to our writers, so we can see more awesome articles like this one
Nice to see Oz get a spotlight like this - he really deserved it with his play at MLG - phenomenal amd beautiful. I can't wait to see how he does in the upcoming MLG
Stephano is overrated, send him to Korea and he will do like all the rest, spend a few seasons near the top and then into Code A, Naniwa will head there soon, he has already gotten 2 seasons in code S but he will soon go to code A
On August 23 2012 20:31 LeviathanDK wrote: Stephano is overrated, send him to Korea and he will do like all the rest, spend a few seasons near the top and then into Code A, Naniwa will head there soon, he has already gotten 2 seasons in code S but he will soon go to code A
Can't we have a nice thread, with very interesting takes on the game at the highest level, without haters?
Please, try just once. If you think Stephano is overrated, fine. But do you have to write it in this thread?
On August 23 2012 20:31 LeviathanDK wrote: Stephano is overrated, send him to Korea and he will do like all the rest, spend a few seasons near the top and then into Code A, Naniwa will head there soon, he has already gotten 2 seasons in code S but he will soon go to code A
So achieving two RO8's in a row is nothing ? God I don't know what you foreigners haters want :D
On August 23 2012 19:28 bittman wrote: Does each writer get an article like this?
I mean, I really like the article. It would be so great if a big tournament was hyped with a strong piece by a few writers leading up to it.
What I'm saying, as always, is: I <3 articles =P
I am not part of the writing staff so I don't know how they work exactly, but I can tell you that StarCraft is our passion and we naturally put more time into the tournaments and players we are most passionate about.
So I guess as readers, we just need to give positive feedback and reinforcements to our writers, so we can see more awesome articles like this one
This is false. Treehugger only likes Snute. No one else matters to him.
On August 23 2012 19:28 bittman wrote: Does each writer get an article like this?
I mean, I really like the article. It would be so great if a big tournament was hyped with a strong piece by a few writers leading up to it.
What I'm saying, as always, is: I <3 articles =P
I am not part of the writing staff so I don't know how they work exactly, but I can tell you that StarCraft is our passion and we naturally put more time into the tournaments and players we are most passionate about.
So I guess as readers, we just need to give positive feedback and reinforcements to our writers, so we can see more awesome articles like this one
This is false. Treehugger only likes Snute. No one else matters to him.
80% of the reason Oz won those games lies in unit control. The other 20% comes from Stephano making mistakes in unit composition, which lead to Oz (in game 2) being able to counter attack while Stephano couldn't do anything with a pure broodlord/infestor army, and Oz's wisdom to know that attacking a Zerg in the late game doesn't mean he's all in.
Oz's innovative playstyle and creativity is why he's one of my favourite players to watch. So interesting to see his play analyzed like this. Good article.
Awesome post, a good read. I still think taeja is the best player at this event, bar none, but i enjoyed the look back at one of the best performances of sc2.
Did MLG choose not to advertise a countdown on the top right this time around? Seems this article (which is FANTASTIC) is the only hype for the tournament. This article makes me want to watch the tournament throughout, not just watching HerO and TaeJa storm through!
Oz is just awesome at preparing for a specific opponent. Just sometimes, I believe he ocasionally over-thinks stuff (I still remember him going nexus first in a PvP... ) and he could be more stable in terms of results.
But the thing is... if Oz dictates the game, you are likely to die. I hope he wins something big, he's a real treat to watch.
Great article, nice writing and interesting insight, but there's one point missing. Stephano simply didn't play very well the whole tournament. Dubious macro, many (more than usual^^) supply-blocks and wrong decisions seemed to be the name of the game. I think the Metropolis-game is a great example.
Oz gets an early advantage by blocking S's expansion and Stephano follows it up by neglecting to scout the entire map (like we usually see him do), which allows Oz to plant a pylon north of S's fifth. However, an overlord-scout spots the gates and the twilight council in Oz's base and S knows exactly what is coming. From there it is his game to loose. But he messes up - he runs slow roaches and splings halfway across the map towards ozs natural, turns around when he realizes that the natural is undefended (meaning that Ozs army is on the map), finally detects that Oz has moved to S's fourth and then very indecisively moves a handful of roaches back and fourth towards a group of stalkers positioned north of S's fifth base. His roaches are eventually caught in a pincer-move between the two forces of Oz, while the rest of the army is idling by the rocks connecting S's third and fourth. From that point on the rest of the game is something close to a formality. Not a great game from S by any measure. More decisiveness could have led to an attack on the unprotected natural of Oz or to an attack with the roaches on either small force of Ozs army. It would have either drawn a million forcefields, which would have made the following attack from Oz much less potent, or it would have pushed and killed the few stalkers, possibly even taken out the pylon to the north of S's fifth.
That is not to take anything away from Oz, who clearly outplayed Stephano on the occasion, but it is part of the picture. Another is, of course, that while Oz knew about Stephanos play, Stephano didn't know about Oz's.
It'll be interesting to see if Stephano has gotten back in shape while in Korea (from the improvement visible while watching his stream from the TSL-house, it seems so) and also, if he can break the P dominance in the PvZ-matchup that we're seeing in Korea at the moment. Despite the mellow reception of the list of participants, I think this will be a great tournament.
Good stuff writers ...Best sc2 tourney related stuff I have read in a while. It also got me hyped up (never watched their first series, will soon tho).
I still think it boils down to stephano "solved" protoss so he takes a safe quick 3rd when toss forge FE, gets up a few more workers then them because he can make them faster. Then makes mass roach ling to either defend his economic advantage or deny a quick protoss 3rd depending on what the toss decides to do. He check for the 3rd and 4th gas for toss at 6 minutes to see if its a 6 gate or something and then just stops the drone phase for units phase slightly faster and gets ling speed if the gases were not taken. If they were he just goes for lair and does his usual thing. Then yes if he cant keep his 3rd or if he cant deny the toss 3rd he techs to infestors and then broodlords. Thats practically what I see everytime.
I don't think Protoss have a "hard counter" to this as such but Oz just outsmarted and outplayed Stephano. If they meet again I really doubt that Stephano will come out with something brilliant and innovative that redefines starcraft2 as we know it. If he wins it will probably because Oz didn't play well enough vs stephano vs P. Or because Oz once again felt that he had to come up with something brilliant again just to win a PvZ and he did not consider some little detail.
I'm hoping for another stephano - polt rivalry, where they both win/lose against each other multiple times. It's awesome to see. Nice read btw, well written!
On August 23 2012 19:28 bittman wrote: Does each writer get an article like this?
I mean, I really like the article. It would be so great if a big tournament was hyped with a strong piece by a few writers leading up to it.
What I'm saying, as always, is: I <3 articles =P
I am not part of the writing staff so I don't know how they work exactly, but I can tell you that StarCraft is our passion and we naturally put more time into the tournaments and players we are most passionate about.
So I guess as readers, we just need to give positive feedback and reinforcements to our writers, so we can see more awesome articles like this one
This is false. Treehugger only likes Snute. No one else matters to him.
Fantastic! I really love this preview as a look at two premier players going head to head. Also, I do not believe that Stephano only plays the one style (although I think you identified his overarching trends correctly), and like you I believe that he will be able to overcome the box Oz put him in last tournament. Even with some of the less well known and less popular people now being brought into the group stage by not having the KESPA players, I think this is going to be a fantastic tournament.
On August 23 2012 19:28 bittman wrote: Does each writer get an article like this?
I mean, I really like the article. It would be so great if a big tournament was hyped with a strong piece by a few writers leading up to it.
What I'm saying, as always, is: I <3 articles =P
I am not part of the writing staff so I don't know how they work exactly, but I can tell you that StarCraft is our passion and we naturally put more time into the tournaments and players we are most passionate about.
So I guess as readers, we just need to give positive feedback and reinforcements to our writers, so we can see more awesome articles like this one
This is false. Treehugger only likes Snute. No one else matters to him.
truth
Oh hi Wax, how is the recap of IEM going along? ;D
Amazing article , the best I've read in a while! I have to agree with all obsversation , but couldn't have find them myself. It's not only what is said but also how it's said which is amazing. Such an amazing work! Please do more of this
TreeHugger you do such a good job of relaying your passion. It's incredible! I am excited to see some Oz vs Stephano this weekend because of this article.
lol i'm glad you referenced Fantasy's beautiful mech build ;;
the fast vulture/dropship harass buying time for fast expansion was just wonderfully and meticulously planned. he just knew how to make sure that all the pieces in his build interlocked in such a beautiful way.
On August 24 2012 05:16 ticklishmusic wrote: So Stephano metagame'd normal Protoss players
But then Oz metagame'd Stephano.
Lol
it's not so much metagaming, as it is having a deeper understanding of the game, and using that to create your own style and sets of logics to justify your style.
Really nice to see featured articles covering strategy. This sort of stuff used to be a lot more common in the BW days but it seems TL's SC2 coverage focuses more on previews and hype. Hoping for more of these in the future. Loved the shout out to Fantasy vs GGplay.
Great article, I remember watching those games and being really impressed by Oz because he was making it look easy, but I didnt know how he was doing it. Thanks for explaining his beautiful pvstepahno to a stubborn t player.
The quality of editorials in a forum has improved marvelously since I was in high school. I used to look down on articles as a 17 year old high school fool. And yet now, as a graduate student who marks the papers of undergrads, I find myself gleefully enjoying this piece.
great article! this analysis pieced out my jumbled internal notions/feelings on stephanos play style; upon reading this I was "dude wtf obviously thats what stephano does." but i could never write it. haha.
Being 'gun-shy' would describe Nightend perfectly Didn't watch the Oz vs Stephano series though, so I can't really comment much, other than a nice read indeed.Can't say I like Oz because his PvP is lackluster since it requires skill to succeed at it.
Stephano was out of shape at the MLG arena. You could say well he just won NASL he must had been in shape right? No Stephano won because even if his mechanics was sloppy at the time he still knew exactly what Hero,MC, Alicia brought to the table. Oz brought something new that Stephano at the time didn't had the correct responds for because of his current form that was quite horrible. Even Stephano said so himself he played incredible bad
Stephano is just coming back from a boot camp in Korea. He looked amazing on stream. His mechanics are back and he just seems faster and better. If he meet Oz its going to be a slaughter. Oz don't got a chance vs Stephano. 2-0 easy peasy. The problem for Stephano is not Oz the problem is Violet its a match as a fan that's really scares me
On August 24 2012 13:47 Benjamin99 wrote: Stephano was out of shape at the MLG arena. You could say well he just won NASL he must had been in shape right? No Stephano won because even if his mechanics was sloppy at the time he still knew exactly what Hero,MC, Alicia brought to the table. Oz brought something new that Stephano at the time didn't had the correct responds for because of his current form that was quite horrible. Even Stephano said so himself he played incredible bad
Stephano is just coming back from a boot camp in Korea. He looked amazing on stream. His mechanics are back and he just seems faster and better. If he meet Oz its going to be a slaughter. Oz don't got a chance vs Stephano. 2-0 easy peasy. The problem for Stephano is not Oz the problem is Violet its a match as a fan that's really scares me
Counting out Oz in PvZ sure makes you look clueless and without much knowledge about players strengths or weaknesses.
You do know that Oz basically kills viOlet and Leenock all the time they play? (among other known Zergs)
A great read! Deep insight that both hype the upcoming tournament and inspire us to play (us protosses at least ^^).
I agree with what some people say, that some more of these articles would be great before bigger tournaments. But at the same time, it's not always that you can find this kind of rivalry/occurrences/name it. I really dont like when it's obvious that a writer has looked everywhere to find something inspiring to write about, just to end up with the usual (example: ) Nestea vs Naniwa hype.
But thats one of the main things that makes a writer good huh? How often he finds something truly inspiring to write about? So I say: Keep these coming, as long as they are as genuine as this article felt for me!
On August 24 2012 13:47 Benjamin99 wrote: Stephano was out of shape at the MLG arena. You could say well he just won NASL he must had been in shape right? No Stephano won because even if his mechanics was sloppy at the time he still knew exactly what Hero,MC, Alicia brought to the table. Oz brought something new that Stephano at the time didn't had the correct responds for because of his current form that was quite horrible. Even Stephano said so himself he played incredible bad
Stephano is just coming back from a boot camp in Korea. He looked amazing on stream. His mechanics are back and he just seems faster and better. If he meet Oz its going to be a slaughter. Oz don't got a chance vs Stephano. 2-0 easy peasy. The problem for Stephano is not Oz the problem is Violet its a match as a fan that's really scares me
Counting out Oz in PvZ sure makes you look clueless and without much knowledge about players strengths or weaknesses.
You do know that Oz basically kills viOlet and Leenock all the time they play? (among other known Zergs)
Oz just lost to Targa and adelscott in IEM. Trust me when he face Stephano this time its going to be a beatdown.
On August 24 2012 13:47 Benjamin99 wrote: Stephano was out of shape at the MLG arena. You could say well he just won NASL he must had been in shape right? No Stephano won because even if his mechanics was sloppy at the time he still knew exactly what Hero,MC, Alicia brought to the table. Oz brought something new that Stephano at the time didn't had the correct responds for because of his current form that was quite horrible. Even Stephano said so himself he played incredible bad
Stephano is just coming back from a boot camp in Korea. He looked amazing on stream. His mechanics are back and he just seems faster and better. If he meet Oz its going to be a slaughter. Oz don't got a chance vs Stephano. 2-0 easy peasy. The problem for Stephano is not Oz the problem is Violet its a match as a fan that's really scares me
Counting out Oz in PvZ sure makes you look clueless and without much knowledge about players strengths or weaknesses.
You do know that Oz basically kills viOlet and Leenock all the time they play? (among other known Zergs)
Oz just lost to Targa and adelscott in IEM. Trust me when he face Stephano this time its going to be a beatdown.
Doesnt mean as much as one might think.
I see Oz doing great things when the level is very high, on the other side his inconsistency makes him getting kind of lazy when playing a row of games vs unknown (for him) foreigners. I guess he is the type of player who prefers preparation.