SC Dojo

Hey all,

As many of you might be aware, today are the GSL Super Tournament #2 qualifiers. This is an extremely important day, as its the last big SC2 tournament for Korea currently scheduled this year, and will decide the last 2 spots at the World Championships for the Koreans.

You can watch for updates (although I don’t think anything is actually streamed) here: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/2017_StarCraft_II_World_Championship_Series_Korea/Standings

Cheers to Liquipedia. Best thing on the internet, period. The following screen shots are from their pages.

Here are the players qualified already for Blizzcon from Korea:

Here are the players who still can qualify for the final 2 spots:

IF ANY OF:

ByuN, Maru, Solar, aLive, Classic and Rogue do NOT qualify for ST#2, they are out of the running for the WCS World Championships.

Here’s the points breakdown for ST#2:

1st - 1,500 points

2nd - 1,050 points

3rd/4th - 675 points

5th-8th - 450 points

9th-16th - 225 points

Home stretch for herO:

If herO qualifies for ST#2, he is almost 100% locked for Blizzcon. ByuN would have to get 1st place and sOs 2nd place, specifically, to knock him out of contention.

sOs is pre-qualified for ST#2:

EDIT: Apparently sOs doesn’t get the 225 because of the invite, but he is still in the ro16.

OK! That about does it. I’ll give a full update when the qualifiers are over and the bracket is drawn as to each and every scenario for whoever is left over.

You can see all of the changes here: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/20975163

When reading the “Major Changes” coming for StarCraft 2 later this year, the first thing that jumped out at me are how different Protoss vs Terran will look. This blog will go into some detail on my thoughts about how those changes could impact the matchup.

Widow Mine change:

- Widow Mines are now revealed while Sentinel Missile is on cooldown.

Let’s think about early game TvP for a moment. Currently, there is a choice to make. Do I keep my Oracle out on the map or send it home to defend vs drops? Do I risk flying in not knowing where mines are? If I lose that Oracle, I’m going to be really hurting at home. What if the Terran made a proxy Factory and Starport? Maybe I should go for a Robo so I can clean up mass Mines more easily.

Now, none of these decisions matter any more for Protoss. In fact, I’m already planning on opening Twilight every single game now. The power of the Widow Mine’s consistent cloak in the early game has truly been powerful. You simply must have detection – Observers or Oracles – no matter what.

With this change, though, Protoss players will simply trade a Probe for a Widow Mine, and happily go about their day.

Now, this all sounds really silly when I outline it like this. What I wrote above is an outline of what this change does alone in our current version of LotV. In our current version, this would be a brutal change for for Terrans. The thing is, we have to look at it in context of all of the upcoming changes, and this change, in particular (with regards to Terran vs Protoss), has amazing synergy with other changes.

First lets look at the Mothership Core, its purpose, and its removal.

I think that many non-Protoss players are happy to see the Mothership Core go, and that many Protoss players are scared of the same prospect.

What is the function of the Mothership Core? Why does Protoss need such a tool?

The Mothership Core was introduced to help shore up early game Protoss defence. The Protoss race, from the get-go, has been about teching up before macroing. If you make more than a handful of Gateway units before going higher up the tech tree, this generally means that you are going all-in, as the Gateway units simply don’t scale well without upgrades or splash damage.

So, if we look at the current role of the Mothership Core in Protoss vs Terran, it will generally help you (with good positioning of Pylons), to defend your bases early game with a minimum of Gateway units while getting out Robo tech, or an Oracle, or maybe even an upgrade like Blink.

The Protoss army has always thrived on working together (a nice way of saying Deathball). While, sure, you could have little harassment groups around the map trying to get things done, if your army isn’t all together and you run into your opponent’s army, you are in a lot of trouble. These types of armies in general are not as mobile as most Terran and Zerg armies, making it a bit scary to move around the map. Counter attacks could come quickly and do lots of damage. This, again, is where the Mothership Core helps out. By leaving an inexpensive unit at home, you would have some degree of defence vs incoming counter attacks, giving you some extra mobility on the map.

So now we have the Mothership Core on the way out. In it’s place is the Nexus, full of new abilities:

Chrono Boost

- Cost: 50 Energy - Duration: 10 seconds - Effect: Boosts a building’s work rate by 100%.

Mass Recall

- Cost: 100 Energy - Effect: After 4 seconds all units in target area are teleported to the Nexus. Units are unable to move or attack during this time.

Shield Recharge

- Cost: 1 Energy per 3 shield restored - Range: 8 - Has autocast functionality - Can be cast on units or structures

All I’ll say about the new Chrono Boost ability for now is that it is infinitely more interesting than the Chrono Boost that we’ve been working with lately. There are actual decisions to be made and APM/Rhythms to be used.

Now let’s talk about the Shield Recharge ability.

I love this ability. It is a fantastic idea. In a world without the Mothership Core OR Shield Recharge, Protoss would be forced to make lots of Gateway units nonstop, making sure they always have enough to simply beat what’s coming at them. This would make a horrible situation where everything you do is stifled. It would kind of look like games on Ulrena, if you remember that map, where Protoss would be extra heavy on Gateway units, waiting for an attack that might never come, thus forcing aggressive builds to utilize those units before their value sank too low in comparison to better scaling from the opponent’s units.

So, here we are with the new Shield Recharge. Now, whether your opponent is dropping with a Medivac into your main base or attacking your front with Roaches, you have some support for your early Gateway army. Defence won’t be a single click of a button that makes it mathematically unwise for your opponent to continue his attack, but rather micro-based. Stalkers, Adepts and Zealots fighting, sometimes kiting, being healed as they are focus fired down. I think that it will be extremely hard for anyone to argue that this will be less entertaining or less fun for either side when compared to the Mothership Core.

I also find it really cool that it will work with Cannons as well. You won’t necessarily have to have units at each base to defend vs smaller attacks in the mid and late game.

So now let’s look at Mass Recall:

- Cost: 100 Energy - Effect: After 4 seconds all units in target area are teleported to the Nexus. Units are unable to move or attack during this time.

It probably isn’t worthwhile to compare this ability with the current Mass Recall on the Mothership Core. The new version is unquestionably better.

Mass Recall probably won’t be used very much in the early game, as it definitely requires a high mana cost, but as the game becomes longer, it should be an extremely strong aspect of Protoss - adding a huge amount of mobility.

And a quick look at the new Stalker:

- Increased Stalker’s Particle Disruptor weapon from 10 (14 vs armored) to 15 (21 vs armored) - Increased Particle Disruptor’s weapon period from 1.03 to 1.54 - Particle Disruptor now gets +2 damage per weapon upgrade, up from +1

The new Stalker will maintain approximately the same DPS throughout the game, but will take over (in conjunction with the Nexus’ new abilities) the defensive roll that the Mothership Core used to have.

One of the problems in early game PvT since the Siege Tank buffs (as well as Liberators in general) was that making Stalkers early on in a defensive manner could be detrimental. For instance, the original Protoss defensive opening of Blink/Observer, was almost completely killed off by the presence of early Tank pushes. You would simply not have the damage or health to fight off a well executed attack from Terran, and thus the build went into obscurity. This forced Protoss into builds based off of a tech unit (most often the Oracle) to slow the Terran down, so that you could buy time to crush an early push all at once. Now:

1. You don’t necessarily need early detection to deal with Widow Mines. 2. The Nexus can heal up lots of damage on your Stalkers. 3. Initial (first volley) damage output from Stalkers are greatly increased.

When you put all of these changes together, Protoss vs Terran, from the Protoss perspective, looks a lot different. - You are no longer forced into either Stargate or Robo for macro openings - You are no longer forced to control the early game with just 2-3 specialized units (Mothership Core, Oracle, Phoenix, etc)

These make me think that early game PvT will likely consist of making a few defensive Stalkers while getting a Twilight Council and a Forge or two. Without an overwhelming need for early detection, Protoss can focus on getting ahead on upgrades and having much higher mobility with a larger and stronger early army than ever before. The more we see the matchup skew towards this, the less each individual unit will matter (unlike now with a huge importance on the specialized units).

I think that the direction of Protoss splash actually supports my notions of the new direction of the race:

Disruptor changes

Purification Nova - Purification Nova now detonates on contact with enemy units (not structures) - Purification Nova still lasts 2 seconds before detonating - Damage reduced from 145 (+55 shields) to 135 (+25 shields) - Cooldown reduced from 21 to 18 - When dropped from a Warp Prism the Disruptor’s Purification Nova will be set to a brief cooldown. As it felt a little too strong vs worker lines otherwise.

Quicker cooldown, but much easier to micro against. Less giant swings due to overwhelming splash damage. The cooldown when dropped from a Warp Prism is shocking, to be honest. This was never and to this day is not a problem in professional play. I don’t think that this was on anyone’s list of things that felt too strong agains worker lines. I disagree with this change wholeheartedly. Disruptor Drops are no longer a viable strategy with this change. Even the other change about contact with enemy units would have nerfed them already, but this is insane overkill.

Colossus changes

- Damage changed from 12 to 10 (15 vs Light) - Damage per upgrade changed from 1 to 1 (+1 vs Light) - Range increased from 6 to 7 - Upgrade: Extended Thermal Lance - Range upgrade decreased from +3 to +2 - Cost decreased from 200 / 200 to 150 / 150

Obviously Colossus will shred Marines even harder than before, and it’s nice to make base range a bit longer as well as Thermal Lance a bit cheaper. That being said, this doesn’t seem like a buff or a nerf to me. Just a slight change in roll, from something that you will always just blindly make, to something that you think about whether or not you want. I might be slightly wrong due to numbers, but it seems like that’s the intended direction at least.

I do want to, for a moment, mention the Ghost change:

- Cloak is now available by default on Ghosts - Ghosts now start with 50 energy instead of 75 - Moebius Reactor is re-added to the Ghost Academy. It provides +25 starting energy to Ghosts

If, in fact, the Protoss meta does shift as I think it will, Ghosts could be a pretty cool way to keep things in check. Starting with Cloak makes the fast Ghost rushes (that we barely ever see) more reasonable, and just in general force Protoss to not skip detection all game long. I think it’s a solid idea.

From the Terran side, most of the changes don’t seem to greatly effect the TvP matchup. The Widow Mine change is pretty big for the early game. The fix to Liberator vision was probably called for a while ago. The Cyclone initial volley will help push out harass a bit better, which is a good thing. But overall, there’s not a whole lot there. Of course, as Protoss’s overall play changes some, Terran players will have to adjust accordingly. That’s just common sense.

The overall feel that I get from these changes on the Protoss side of things is that the early game will become less volatile, and the basic Protoss army will feel stronger and more mobile. Mid-game map control could easily become Protoss favoured. In short, this new PvT looks like it will be a lot more like the flavour of PvT in StarCraft 1. Based on the overwhelming majority of comments that I’ve read online about the flavour of Protoss in SC2 in the past several years, I would think people will be happy about this general direction.

In closing:

Having the Nexus enable Gateway units (alongside the higher Stalker damage) to be useful on defence in the early game without making them overpowered offensively is awesome and should make the game more enjoyable for everyone, whether playing or spectating.

BONUS!! Here’s some stuff I don’t like at all from the changes:

High Templar

- Added Psi Blast weapon - Range: 6 - Damage: 4 - Attack period: 1.25

This is so weird. The stated reason is that it will make them easier to control, not running into battle to die.

Who is attack moving their High Templars into battle and losing them like that? This is not and cannot be a change for the pro level, and that I don’t like.

HT attack isn’t the only change like this:

“While we don’t want to make Protoss ability gameplay any more complicated we wanted to try making Observers more useful for ladder players. Currently Observers are selected with the select all army button (F2 by default) which can often bring Observers out of position and to their untimely demise. While we’d like to keep observers in this selection, we are considering adding the ability to ‘deploy’ your observer for increased vision range in exchange for being unable to move.

New ability: Surveillance Mode The observer is unable to move and gains 25% more vision”

Let me rewrite this one - “We noticed that people are bad at StarCraft. Many players have developed bad habits and are too lazy to fix them, so we are going to make those bad habits less bad.”

As a turtley macro player, I’m very excited to have 25% more vision on my Observers. This isn’t the right reason to give me that, though. I disagree with the change, but more so with the stated reason for the change. If you want to use the “easy button” to play StarCraft, then that’s a drawback you should have to deal with. Learn to play more cleanly and you will lose less Observers.

Same opinion on the Overseer change which is exactly the same.

The Four Horsemen It should come as no surprise that all of the Four Horsemen will be playing at IEM Shanghai. What is a surprise, though, is that 3 of them are in the same group. Group D stands for Death. It's easy to feel bad for Trust who has to battle his way through INnoVation, Expert_ByuN and JinAir_Maru, but I'm sure Terran players will find a way not to, on the account that he's Protoss and all.

The Zerg short-list If you had to name the world's best Zergs, it would go something like this:

soO, the complete package of Zerg, 6 time GSL Finalist

Dark, the most aggressive macro player maybe ever, SSL Champion and Blizzcon runner-up

LFT_ByuL, the mechanic god, INnoVation's counter-part for the Zerg race, 4 time combined GSL/SSL runner-up

Splyce_Solar, the meta-changer, SSL Champion

JinAir_Rogue, the long-time up and comer "sexy Zerg", who's time may have finally come, Korean Ladder #1 dominator

Well, IEM Shanghai will showcase 4 of those names, with only ByuL being unable to make the cut.

This year's GSL Champions

Splyce_Stats and PsiStorm_GuMiho will both be competing in Shanghai. In the same group. You're welcome.

The Chinese hopefuls

China has an extremely strong and passionate StarCraft II scene. Sadly, we only get glimpses of it, due to many of their tournaments being Chinese-cast only on Chinese streaming sites, Visa issues, and the difficulty of cross-server play.

Luckily we get the chance to see 2 of their very best in action, in front of their home-field crowd. TIME, the incredible rising star of China, who we just got to see put up some fantastic games in GSL Code S (being the first Chinese player to play in GSL in many, many years) will be in the incredibly hard Group C. We will also get to see a preview of the GSL vs the World invited player, iAsonu, a household name of the Chinese scene.

Perhaps the hottest player on earth right now

The one and only Super Tournament champion, ROOT's very own herO. This man is absolutely on fire, absolutely demolishing his competition in his recent matches. Not only one of the favourites of IEM Shanghai, but of GSL Code S this season as well.

And of course, the Groups:

Group A TY Dark Bunny PenguiN

Group B Stats GuMiho Rogue iAsonu

Group C soO herO Solar TIME

Group D INnoVation Maru ByuN Trust

Make sure you catch all the action starting at: 9:40am Thursday 27th - Sunday 30th, Shanghai time

On: http://www.Twitch.tv/esl_sc2

At IEM Katowice I was pretty outspoken about the need for Protoss players to transition out of Adept/Phoenix play in PvT as the game became longer. herO's play in the group stage was a great example of the limitations of the Adept/Phoenix composition. In many of his games he would have what amounted to a decent lead and eventually get grinded down by remaining on the early/mid game composition for too long.

Some Protosses, most notably Stats, were attempting to transition out of Adept/Phoenix, but that transition was not yet fully vetted. In both games during which he opened with Adept/Phoenix strategies against TY in the finals of Katowice, Stats attempted to transition out. In both of these games (game 2 on Proxima Station and game 3 on Abyssal Reef), Stats followed up the opening with Blink and Psi Storm, and in both of these games TY defeated him. Stats hung up the strategy for the rest of the tournament, as TY was clearly more prepared for these situations than he was.

2 Weeks Later...

IEM Katowice ended on March 5th. Let's fast forward almost 2 weeks later to March 18th. On this day, herO and Stats both showed identical transitions from the strong Adept/Phoenix early/mid game into a full blown, teched out late game.

herO vs Bunny @ Abyssal Reef - SHOUTcraft Kings March - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aADlJZtuA5o&feature=youtu.be&t=612

Stats vs Ryung @ Abyssal Reef - GSL Code S ro4 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDaXcaURBZA&feature=youtu.be&t=730

Stats vs Ryung @ Cactus Valley - GSL Code S ro4 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDaXcaURBZA&feature=youtu.be&t=3322

Here is a brief outline of their important changes to the transition of Adept/Phoenix into the late game:(please note that for these rules to hold, Terran should have taken a 3rd base and not taken or inflicted critical damage, i.e, a "normal" game)

- The transition happens in the area of 70-80 Army Supply for Protoss (40ish on ground units - mostly Adepts, 20ish on Mothership Core / Oracle / 7-8 Phoenix / Prism). Around this time the game is shifting. Either you have done enough damage that Terran is scrambling, or Terran is turtling well enough on 3 bases that you will get diminished returns upon any further attacks.

- The transition itself is into a 2nd Robotics, Colossus Tech, and THEN a 4th base. The second Forge and Blink can come around this time as well.

3 Weeks Later...

Now, strategies do not stop evolving in a game like StarCraft 2. As shown above, Adept / Phoenix went from no transitions / bad transitions into a highly regular and strong follow-up strategy in under 2 weeks time. Protoss vs Terran and Terran vs Protoss are, of course, still evolving. Certain base concepts of RTS will always apply, and as people use them in different ways or with different emphasis-es the metagame will continue to evolve.

Let's fast forward again, from March 18th, where a completely solid transition was showcased for Phoenix Adept, to almost 3 weeks later during GSL Super Tournament. As you probably already know, herO won this tournament, mostly on the back of his outrageously strong PvT. The two matches that I want to talk about are the ones which he had in the ro8 and Finals, against GuMiho and aLive, respectively. 

herO's Adept / Phoenix vs GuMiho - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhTGuHQGdto

Overall Score: 1-1

GuMiho's loss on Newkirk Precinct:

In this game, and overall in the series, GuMiho plays against herO's strong Pylon rush opener. Instead of the popular Gas before Barracks which is used to get your Factory and Reactor out right after your Reaper, GuMiho instead goes for a Barracks first. With this he skips the Reactor for a little bit and instead makes 3 Marines immediately, which do a fantastic job of shutting down the aggression.

GuMiho uses a "GuMiho moveout", as I call it in my head. He, like many other Terrans, will move out with a couple of Medivacs, some Marines, and 2-3 Widow Mines. Unlike many other Terrans, he won't engage with it. A key to understanding Adept/Phoenix is to understand that they WANT this fight. Adept/Phoenix is strong in small skirmishes, and especially strong against Marines. The lower the supplies, the stronger Adept/Phoenix becomes. GuMiho will not give you this fight. He will pretend that he is going to, often times baiting out an Overcharge. Then he will retreat over his Widow Mines, hoping that you will chase and lose a couple Phoenixes. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The most important thing is that he makes it back home, not having donated his units towards a Protoss victory. Screen Shot below.

Behind this, GuMiho is just massing up on 2 bases. The push distance on Newkirk Precinct between GuMiho's natural and herO's 3rd is very short, which makes this a strong choice of strategy for the map. He is making sure to make Liberators, Marauders and Widow Mines. His push will begin around 110 Army Supply. The 110-130 Terran Army Supply range, generally speaking, is where Adept/Phoenix will start to deteriorate in value. Remember, Adepts are like Roaches. They can be scary, but the higher your supply, the less you have to worry about them. Here is a screen shot of the armies as GuMiho starts his push.

Now, I need to mention about herO's lack of transition here. GuMiho has forced this. As I mentioned above when talking about the transition into Colossus tech, it is used when Terran has 3 bases and has basically shut down harassment. In this game, GuMiho has remained on 2 bases, has lost very little so far, and feigned pressure multiple times. herO has been forced to remain on Adept/Phoenix. GuMiho would have some serious kill potential if he tried to skimp on units at any time in this game so far.

GuMiho sets up a pretty awesome looking push:

herO begins to push it back:

herO continues to chase but GuMiho rallies in and turns any time he feels advantaged (getting most units out of range of Adepts, over mines, etc.)

This approach from GuMiho is really quite brilliant. While he does eventually lose the game, he comes very close to defeating herO, and perhaps with a few different moves a bit later, does.

And just to cut off anyone who wants to say "oh, yeah, see! GuMiho played so awesomely and in a way you say is strategically sound, and Adept/Phoenix still beat him!" , I have this to say:GuMiho is a great player, but being upset that herO beat him with Adept/Phoenix is like being upset that Maru beat Trap with Marine/Marauder.

GuMiho's win on Echo:

GuMiho again, as he did on Newkirk Precinct, opens with Barracks - Gas, making sure to minimize damage from any Pylon rushes.

GuMiho again uses the "GuMiho moveout".

herO tagged the army in their encounter on Newkirk Precinct when the Mines were with it. This time GuMiho kept them behind and pre-burrowed:

He then waited around a bit longer and successfully baited herO into them. Remember, Protoss WANTS to fight right now. GuMiho uses this want against him.

Now even though these first two moves I bring up are similar to the other Adept / Phoenix game, the overall strategies of both players have changed. GuMiho decided to take a much faster 3rd CC, and herO had also taken a faster 3rd Nexus -- right after his Oracle, before adding additional Gateways. herO also grabbed an early Prism this game, and decided to try to kill GuMiho outright. GuMiho sat back defending, sending only a single Medivac onto the map to drop Mines while he was being harassed by the Phoenixes at his main base.

Now herO, taking a 4th base, is trying to kill a turtling GuMiho, who is taking a 3rd base.

What is wrong with this picture for Protoss? He has shaded in to a nice GuMiho arc. Many of his Adepts are not firing. Also, GuMiho has not actually lost basically any units this game. There is no real reason why a defensive GuMiho should die to herO's attack. What is herO trying to achieve? Even if he pushes the army to retreat, what is gained? There are no SCVs at the 3rd base yet, the best he can do is trade some units for units. Now, to be fair, he's lost some Probes to the Mine drop, and his initial Prism didn't work out. He could feel like he needs to take some risks to even up the game, which is reasonable. Still,  GuMiho defends this push very well, targeting down as many Phoenixes as possible.

After defending the a bit longer, GuMiho, not having sent countless drops out to their own doom, not having wasted units in skirmishes that the Adept/Phoenix player wants to take, moves out once again around 110 supply.

This push rolls through herO. There are lots of different reasons that herO may have chosen to play extra aggressively on this map, and just because he lost doesn't necessarily mean that he was wrong in doing so. StarCraft is complicated like that. This game, though, is a perfect example of the need for Phoenix/Adept players to transition vs a well defended 3 base Terran who knows what he's doing.

herO's Adept / Phoenix vs aLive - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds6ymGrIMMQ

Overall Score: 3-1

herO went 1-1 vs GuMiho with Adept/Phoenix play, and could have easily gone 0-2. So why, against a better Terran player in aLive, did he go 3-1? Let's take a look at the causes of aLive's losses.

aLive's loss on Echo:

aLive uses a different opening on Echo from anything we normally see in TvP right now. He opens with a Barracks first and skips making a Reaper, or any units. Instead he gets a fast Reactor while expanding, followed by a second Barracks and a Factory. This will allow aLive to have a much higher Marine count early on than most common builds in the matchup.

Next, at 3:25, aLive scouts a ridiculously fast Nexus. This Nexus is so fast that it's before the Oracle. This fast scout my account for what happens next, but there's no way to tell for sure.

aLive scans and sees a Stargate building an Oracle. It's actually the second Oracle. The first Oracle is almost to his base. He moves out at this point with a sizable Marine force, a Mine and a Medivac.

Of course with no units at home the Oracle flies in and does critical damage.

My guess is that aLive thought with how fast the Nexus was that herO maybe went 3rd base into a Stargate, which would maybe make him think that his scan reveal the first Oracle. Otherwise why would he leave his base completely unguarded vs an incoming Oracle? He just wouldn't.

aLive's push doesn't end up doing any damage. He splits up all of his units and then herO deals with them in two groups instead of fighting against them all at once. If aLive had kept them together its certain he would have at minimum killed the 3rd base. Regardless, he lost 10 SCVs to the first Oracle before 5 minutes into the game and did nothing of note with his initial push. This game isn't as much a loss to Adept / Phoenix as it is a loss to an undefended Oracle. If a Protoss loses 10 Probes to the first Mine Drop, normally it isn't the follow-up kill that gets complained about. It's the Mine Drop.

aLive's loss on Daybreak:

This game opens pretty well for aLive. herO expands quickly and immediately tries harassing with 2 Adepts, and an Oracle. He even brings a Phoenix across to tank Mine hits so the Oracle can get more damage. aLive deflects everything just about as perfectly as you can, taking minimal damage.

The next real action occurs as aLive is moving out. He goes across the map with a similar army to what GuMiho uses in the "GuMiho moveout". 3 Mines, 20 Marines, and 2 Medivacs. He's headed towards the 3rd base. On his way there, herO is harassing with his Phoenixes in aLive's natural. aLive sees this as an opportunity to get into an aggressive position.

herO doesn't see this incoming attack until the last second, but immediately brings all of his units and warps in on location. Note the army supplies right now: 52 vs 53.

Here is the engagement about to happen. Do 3 Mines, 20 Marines and 2 Medivacs beat 15 Adepts and 6 Phoenixes/1 Oracle? Even just comparing the supplies, or the army cost of these two armies... in no world does aLive's army ever win here.

At the pro level, Protoss wins this every single time. This particular time, aLive micros really well and herO is a bit off, even missing a pickup on a Mine. aLive actually ends up sniping off a few Phoenixes that make this fight not as bad as it could have been and often is.

Phoenix / Adept, as I've been saying throughout this article, is very strong in the early and mid game. We are all used to Terran being stronger in small skirmishes at small supplies than Protoss or Zerg, but Phoenix/Adept turns the tables on that. Attacks like this are, in my view, the primary reason that Terrans have a hard time against Adept/Phoenix.

This next drop happens right as aLive's previous attack was being cleaned up. 7 Marines, 2 Mines and 2 Medivacs are sent into herO's natural. I really like the fundamentals that aLive is showing here.

First, herO's Phoenixes are in aLive's natural, so aLive hits the 3rd. Then as all those units are getting cleaned up, aLive hits herO's natural to do damage while he's out of position. These are the types of moves that make aLive so damn good. This play shows aLive's multi-tasking prowess. I seriously think that the first attack at the 3rd base was a mistake, but based on the fact that he did that attack, this attack is a good idea. (for the record he ends up killing 8 Probes, 1 Oracle, costs a bit of lost mining time and unpowering 4 gates for slightly over the build time of a Pylon.)

OK, so now comes aLive's biggest mistake in this game, and what probably actually ended up costing him the game overall. aLive has traded ARMY for ECONOMY (and some tech units, i.e ~3 Phoenixes and an Oracle). When you trade ARMY for ECONOMY, that means that you now have LESS ARMY and your opponent has LESS ECONOMY. We can reword this to say that your opponent has a SUPERIOR ARMY.

As a StarCraft player, the moments after you trade your ARMY for ECONOMY are the moments during which you are most vulnerable. It inevitably means that your opponent should be looking to use this new ARMY ADVANTAGE. This is when you should be most fearful of a counter attack. herO knows that aLive just spent a lot of units to deal damage to him, but that herO didn't lose very many units at all. So here we have herO gathering his forces to see if he can punish aLive at all.

Here's what aLive is up to:

aLive, again, has a much smaller army. 24 Army Supply down. Not only that, but he has absolutely NO pressure on the map. Maybe if he had a Medivac in herO's main base or something, maybe then herO would be at home trying to clean stuff up. Instead we have aLive doing nothing but expanding after losing lots of units to injure herO's economy. This is the one time you can be certain of an incoming attack.

To aLive's credit, when he sees herO incoming, he wastes no time getting behind his Depot Wall and pulling SCVs to repair. Within seconds, though, aLive loses 15 workers and much of his bio force. aLive's economy advantage turns into a disadvantage, and the army supplies equalize:

This is a good spot for an Adept/Phoenix player. Adept/Phoenix wants to fight at lower supplies against Terran. Bigger economy = more production of Adept/Phoenix = easier to continually trade vs Terran. Continual aggressive trades with Adept/Phoenix is exactly what herO is going for.

The rest of this game is just wild. aLive does a great job fighting against herO, especially as his army becomes more technical. As his Maruader and Mine counts grow, aLive takes better and better fights. The game becomes an extremely down and dirty one, full of multitasking, harassment and micro -- with both players showing a great quality in skill.

aLive's loss on Cactus Valley:

This game starts out very different from the others. herO does a 66% chance of working Proxy Stargate and nails it, being very close to aLive's base. He sends the Mothership Core over and does a Pylon rush while flying in 2 Oracles. While he destroys the front Depots and Reactor, aLive's Reaper actually gets 5-6 Probe Kills over in herO's base.

herO takes a 3rd base while aLive defends his relentless harassment. With 2 Oracles and 3-4 Phoenixes, herO is able to pick off a a few units and SCVs, but then pulls back into a defensive arc around aLive's base, watching for any leaving harassment:

This is a great move to protect his economy back home. aLive has already invested heavily into tech units, so only a technical harassment threatens the almost unit-less (still on one gateway) herO. As herO adds on his tech and aLive becomes a bit too strong to contain so forwardly, herO pulls back into another arc around his home bases.

Now this game, aLive has been very much on top of his defense. He hasn't taken too much damage despite some really flashy harassment from herO. He's also gone up to 5 Barracks without a 3rd CC. The game is looking, strategically, a bit more like GuMiho's play on Newkirk Precinct.

As aLive's complexity grows, he begins to push out a bit and starts his 3rd CC. He is posturing though, and doesn't commit to an actual fight:

When herO scouts that aLive is making a 3rd CC and continues to turtle, giving away no units for free, herO decides to transition from Phoenix / Adept, knowing that the composition is doomed vs such play:

This is a very important moment in understanding the mind of herO while playing Phoenix/Adept. For a long time aLive was just sitting on 2 bases while building his army complexity. That is, for a long time, aLive was playing like GuMiho on Newkirk Precinct. herO was unable to do anything but continue making as strong an army as he could so that he could fight at the moment that aLive would come out. When herO sees that there is, in fact, a 3rd CC on the way, he sees that aLive is not going to be allin when he attacks. Thus, herO must transition. His main goal from here out is to not to fully engage until he has an army complex enough to fight against what aLive is making.

herO (I think accidentally) lets a shade finish at the wall-in, and aLive having a sufficiently large and complex army, in addition to seeing the Adepts close by and without their Shade cooldown active, takes the opportunity to move out. Notice the army supply once again for aLive:

Here is where it gets a bit messy. In this next screen shot, herO has just shaded the rest of his Adepts away, having some shaved off by aLive chasing. herO, knowing that he MUST buy time for this huge investment into Colossus, gathers all of his Phoenix together behind aLive's army which is in the center of the map:

Here is the moment that aLive turned back around to head towards herO again:

If aLive had not turned around, had he ignored the Phoenixes going back towards his base, he would be entering the 3rd base at this moment, with the Colossi half way done, the Phoenixes across the map, and the Adepts in the natural.

Now when aLive gets there, the Colossi are out and the Phoenixes are back. Another Warp-in round is occurring. Most importantly, perhaps, is that herO has jumped up a whole level of complexity. aLive's army right now is perfectly suited to fight against Adept/Phoenix, but has nothing to really deal with the Colossi:

They do a lot of trading in this battle, but aLive does not kill the base. So was chasing the Phoenixes back and regrouping with some important Liberators and Widow Mines a mistake? This is where the complexity of the game makes me uncomfortable in saying a simple "yes".  The further we get into a tight game of StarCraft, the harder it becomes to be critical of some of the more complicated moves the players make. On top of that, we are getting very few games right now that progress so well to this stage.

I do want to say that I think that this game, more than any other, is a testament to herO's skill and adaptability in the matchup and with the strategy in question.

In Closing

I do not think that this article has all the answers or clearly states exactly how you should or should not play against Phoenix / Adept as Terran, or even exactly how to play with Phoenix / Adept from the Protoss side. 

I do however think that this article shows many of the concepts and ideas that are being misunderstood about the Phoenix / Adept matchup against Terran at the moment. I think overall the Protoss side of understanding of this strategy is a bit more advanced than the Terran side currently, but that will swing over time, as it always does. It also seems to me, at least from the many, many games which I watch and study, that Terrans sometimes misunderstand their roll as the defender in early/mid game when playing against the strategy (as throughout the history of SC2, Terran has almost always been the aggressor, this is certainly a strange feeling change for at least some players).

Balance-wise, my gut tells me that this strategy will not prove to be imbalanced as play advances in the coming weeks. I'm fine being wrong with that, but to find out for sure we will need some more time for Terrans to continue to adapt to the strategy. 

Alexander "Neeb" Sunderhaft won the KeSPA Cup. Mikolaj "Elazer" Ogonowski, Tobias "ShoWTimE" Sieber and the aforementioned Neeb all made it into the round of 8 at Blizzcon. This is a wild time to be a StarCraft fan, as the foreigners continue to close the gap against the Korean programmers, making their mark more and more.

And now, Sasha "Scarlett" Hostyn has qualified for the longest standing and most prestigious tournament in all of StarCraft II, the GSL Code S. While this is certainly an impressive feat, Scarlett's entire story in the GSL has not unfolded yet, so I'd like to take this time to look back on the history of foreigners (non-Koreans) in GSL.

GSL started just after the official release of SC2, all the way back in August of 2010. It was an exciting time, the start of the first Korean league in the sequel to the game that really started esports. Immediately great attention was given to the GSL, and many top Non-Korean players decided to attempt to make their name by traveling to Korea to compete.

The First Era - Open Seasons 1-3

The Open Seasons were like the Wild West of GSL. StarCraft II was an untamed land, one full of strategies and mechanics yet to be discovered. There was a pretty good understanding of who the top players were at the time, but really anything could happen as the game was not even close to mapped out at the time. To add to the craziness, the first 3 seasons were known as "Open" for a reason. There were no seeds, and the brackets started at 64 players. This means that during the open qualifiers, there were 64 spots up for grabs to get into the GSL. That is a LOT of spots, which both allowed almost every top player to qualify, but also let in a lot of randoms who had some strange strategies or easy brackets.

Open Season 1

The first qualifier for GSL was announced very last minute, but still 4 non-Koreans were able to make it into the main tournament. 

Trevor "TorcH" Housten made it only as far as the round of 64, losing to a Protoss player who, little did we know, would several seasons later become a surprise powerhouse: Cho Won "San" Kang.

Dan "Artosis" Stemkoski (me, lol!) also only made it into the round of 64. There I played a pretty poor series against a Protoss player and lost 1-2. This was of course with Zerg, my original race in SC2.

Dario "Liquid`TLO" Wunsch also qualified for the first GSL Open Season, and certainly did a good job there as well. He took out Kang Ho "LosirA" Hwang, who is still a top professional Zerg to this day, with a 2-0 score, and then lost to Yoo Jong "Hyperdub" Kim in the round of 32, a well known Terran of the time, 1-2. By the way, this was all playing Terran, the race TLO started out with.

The favourite of the Non-Koreans (and truthfully, one of the overall favourites of the whole tournament), Greg "IdrA" Fields didn't preform as well as anyone expected in the first season. After handily dispatching a Terran player in the round of 64, he lost to Yung Soo "NettiePrime" Jun 1-2 in the round of 32. 

Thus ended a very underwhelming Open Season 1 for a hopeful foreigner scene.

Open Season 2

Season 2 had repeat qualifiers in TLO and IdrA, as well as a new one in Yi "Loner" Dai, the Chinese Terran (who would soon later go on to get 2nd at the first StarCraft II Blizzcon tournament).

TLO had a harder season this time, hitting Sang Ho "Killer" Shin AKA SangHo, an experienced StarCraft 1 pro who had just switched over. He went out in the round of 64.

IdrA had a much better run this time. He took out 2 Terrans before losing to Jung Min "Zenio" Choi in the round of 16.

Loner had a pretty impressive in his first GSL, first taking out the current world champion, Hyun Woo "ByuN" Byun (who played Protoss at the time and was known as Bleach), followed by a victory over a Zerg player before losing to the Emperor himself, Yo Hwan "BoxeR" Lim.

2 rounds of 16 was certainly a much better showing for the foreigners, but nothing compared to what the 3rd season had in store...

Open Season 3

Some truly heavy hitters came out of the woodwork this season. 

Hayder "Liquid`HayprO" Hussein made it in but instantly fell to the cheesiest player in the history of StarCraft, Nam Kyu "BitByBitPrime" Kim.

IdrA, Jos "Liquid`ret" de Kroon, and Chia Cheng "Sen" Yang all fared a bit better than HayprO and made it to the round of 32 before falling. Notably Sen's run was cut short by the previous season's champion, Jae Duk "NesTea" Lim, who mentioned multiple times that he felt Sen was easily top Korean level.

Pretty underwhelming for a brand new game with the best RTS talent outside of Korea trying their best to overcome the history of Korean dominance. Enter Jonathan "Liquid`Jinro" Walsh.

Jinro had already tried the previous 2 seasons to qualify for the GSL. Despite many weaker players making it into the GSL, Jinro was only able to make it to the ro8 in both previous qualifier attempts. 3rd time's a charm.

In the round of 64, Jinro took out the strong Zerg player Jin Yung "Drug" Kwun 2-1. Sadly, he would be going up against the 5th race, the ultimate legend from WarCraft III, Jae Ho "Moon" Jang, in the round of 32. Sadly for Moon, that is. 2-0 for Jinro. Well, in the round of 16, which is as far as any non-Korean had made it so far, he would have to play Seong Hun "Polt" Choi. Yes, that Polt. Polt, by the way, had already taken down BoxeR in the previous round. Oh, never mind, no problem. Jinro wins 2-0. Well round of 8 is pretty damn good. But now he was going up against Hyung Seop "Choya" Lee, who had already taken out He Who Would Be The Greatest That There Ever Was, Jong Hyun "Mvp" Jung. Jinro clutched that round out as well, with a 3-2 score. Round of 4. This would be where Jinro was stopped, by none other than the Boss Toss, Min Chul "MC" Jang. MC crushed Jinro 4-0, and would go on to give a 4-1 victory against Seo Yong "Rain" Park in the Finals. MC would also go on to be the biggest money winner EVER, even to this day, when he is retired and coaching a League of Legends team. Not a bad player to go out against.

Just to get this out of the way, these large 64 spot GSLs were the ONLY times that foreigners ever qualified for the GSL through an open bracket. Every single participation in the GSL after Open Season 3 (which started in November of 2010) by a foreigner was seed-based. Until, that is, Scarlett won her qualifying group this past week.

The Second Era - Rapid Fire GSL Code S

2011 had 7 GSL Code S tournaments. 2012 had 5 GSL Code S tournaments.

  GSL January 2011

Loner and ret both played in Code A and both lost to Jung Hwan "Cezanne" Kim. ret in the first round, Loner in the second.

Jinro and IdrA were in Code S, where they were both put into Group H. The star foreigners were both able to eek it out, forcing Sang Cheol "Ensnare" Kim and Hyung Joo "Check" Lee into the Up and Down matches.

The round of 16 groups were absolutely brutal for both players. IdrA was in a group with the legendary Yoon Yeol "NaDa" Lee, the Blizzcon Champion Min Soo "Genius" Jeong, and one of the strongest players of early StarCraft II, Kyu Jong "Clide" Han. Despite this, IdrA advanced in first place to the round of 8.

Jinro's group was no less scary. Sung Je "Rainbow" Kim, the runner-up of Open Season 1. MC, the Boss Toss and defending champion. And last but certainly not least, the legendary Jung Hoon "MarineKingPrime" Lee, who was the runner up to Open Season 2. No prob Bob. Jinro gets out cleanly in 2nd place, moving on to the round of 8 with IdrA. Or should I say against IdrA?

Having not played against each other enough, what being in the same ro32 group and all, IdrA and Jinro faced off in the round of 8, to see if IdrA would become the most successful foreigner in GSL history, or if Jinro would run far out of his range. Jinro came out on top, securing his second top 4 in a row. Here he would fall to MarineKing once again, 1-3. 

A remarkable season for the non-Koreans, and a statement to be sure. Spoiler alert: this greatness would never be matched again.

GSL March 2011

This was a sad time, the time when IdrA, after many years living in Korea decided it was time to move back to America. With that, Jinro would be the only foreign player in Code S this season. 

It started out well for Jinro, beating down a group containing RainBow, Polt and Check to finish in first place. Once he reached the round of 16 (now a bracket), he was taken out by Hong Wook "HongUnPrime" Ahn, a Protoss of some note in early SC2.

There was also quite a handful of foreigners in Code A this season. Loner, HayprO, ret and Andrew "mOOnGLaDe" Pender all lost immediately in the round of 32.

This though, was Chris "HuK" Loranger's big breakout moment. HuK was seeded into the Code A and was able to take down Won Pyo "Curious" Lee and Dong Hyun "Revival" Kim, two extremely strong Zergs before losing to LosirA in the round of 8. This gave HuK a spot in the Up and Down matches. After losing to Joon Hyuk "InCa" Song, a previous GSL Finalist, HuK managed to take down Choya in a close series and gain a spot in the next GSL Code S.

GSL May 2011

HuK and Jinro were all that was left going into the GSL May season. Neither were able to make it out of their round of 32 groups. Jinro beat San but lost to both Nestea and Clide. HuK wasn't able to take any victories, losing once again to InCa as well as to the God Of War himself, Sung Joon "JulyZerg" Park. These disappointing performances forced both into the Up and Down matches. Jinro lost to both Jong Hwan "CoCa" Choi and Zenio, while HuK was able to take out Seong Won "MMA" Mun and advance back into Code S.

GSL July 2011

Due to a partnership between MLG and GSL, Shawn "Sheth" Simon was given a Code A spot for this season. Showing great skill he was able to take down San in the first round, but did lose in the next round to the strong Protoss, Sang Jun "Puzzle" Kim.

Jinro met a similar fate. After winning the first round of Code A against an unknown Protoss, he fell to the strong Terran player Dae Jin "asd" Lee, who had taken down fan favourite BoxeR in the previous round. Thanks asd.

Meanwhile in Code S, HuK was having a strong showing. He topped his ro32 group which included Polt, Killer and Lee Seok "aLive" Han. It was a much tougher round of 16 though, as HuK faced off against his close friend MC. HuK was crushed here but at least secured the next season of Code S on the back of this performance.

GSL August 2011

There were 4 new foreigner seeds for Code A this season due to the MLG / GSL partnership: 

Marcus "ThorZaIN" EklofJohan 

"NaNiwa" Lucchesi

Jian Carlo "Fenix" Morayra Alejo 

And Kim "SaSe" Hammar

All 4 players, as well as Jinro who was in Code A once again, lost in the round of 32 in Code A. Only ThorZaIN was able to take a map.

Similarly to GSL July, though, HuK was having a great time up in Code S. First he got out of his ro32 group in second place. Out of Killer, Ji Sung "Bomber" Choi and Dong Hwan "viOLet" Kim, only Bomber was able to take him down. As one of 4 Protosses in the round of 16, HuK got a deadly opponent indeed. A bonjwa of StarCraft 1, NaDa. HuK managed to take down his opponent 2-1, but that's where his run would end. His next opponent was Mvp. HuK lost 0-3 there, but who can blame him? Mvp was just hitting his stride as the strongest player in the history of the game.

GSL October 2011

NaNiwa and SaSe both remained in Korea and gave Code A another go. It didn't go very well, as both Swedish Protosses fell in the first round to Korean Zerg players. Joining them, and fairing a bit better though, was fellow Swede Jeffery "SjoW" Brusi. SjoW did manage to win his first round against Han Eol "MaKa" Kwak, but then promptly lost to the Code A Gate Keeper himself, Curious.

Meanwhile, due to his strong showing in the previous Code S season, HuK was once again the only foreigner representation in the most prestigious league in the world. He ended up in 3rd place in his ro32 Group, having lost to asd and Joon Yong "Virus" Park, but having taken down Zenio at least.

GSL November 2011

HuK fights on in Code S. Put into group C with Clide, JulyZerg and Puzzle, HuK takes first place with a clean 2-0. In the round of 16 groups, though, he gets a devastatingly hard group. The Creator Of The Universe, NesTea, along with MMA and Dong Nyoung "Leenock" Lee. No laughing matter. HuK manages a win against Leenock but loses against both NesTea and MMA, getting 3rd place. This loss in the ro16 immediately seeded HuK into the Code A ro24, where he would face Kyu Seok "KeeN" Hwang. With a 0-2 loss, HuK was off to the Up and Down matches. His group was played less than 2 weeks later. Unable to secure a top 2 spot, HuK was relegated to Code A.

SaSe and Naniwa, once again, stayed in Korea to fight the good fight. Both dropped in the first round of Code A with 0-2 scores.

GSL 2012 - Season 1

A welcome surprise occurred with the new year's first GSL season. The return of IdrA. Kind of. Both IdrA and Sen were seeded directly into GSL Code S this season, much to the delight of the fans. They didn't fair too well, though. Sen ended up with a 0-4 map score and immediately was eliminated. IdrA, in what could be called the group of death (containing NesTea AND Mvp) fell out in last place as well, taking only a single map.

Code A was chock-full of foreigners this season: HuK returned, of course. Two still-famous Chinese pros also came to Korea: Xiang "MacSed" Hu and Lei "XiGua" Wang. IdrA and Sen, who were eliminated early on in Code S were also back to battle it out.

It didn't go well. IdrA lost 0-2. HuK lost 1-2. XiGua lost 1-2. MacSed? 0-2. Only Sen was able to take his series, but fell immediately in the next round.

GSL 2012 - Season 2

Only HuK and NaNiwa remained to fight on. HuK had to start out in the Up and Down matches, which still consisted of 6 man groups with the top 2 advancing to Code S. Heartbreakingly, HuK got 3rd place in his group and had to go into Code A. Here he lost in the first round to Young Il "Hack" Kim, being completely eliminated from the GSL.

NaNiwa was given a seed directly into Code S, where he made an extremely impressive run. First he topped his round of 32 group which included Dong Won "Ryung" Kim, Puzzle, and Mvp himself. Naniwa dropped only a single map. The round of 16 groups, somehow, went even better. With a flawless victory, Naniwa won the group over Young Jin "SuperNova" Kim, Virus and Genius.

This put NaNiwa into a fabled land: the GSL Code S round of 8 bracket. Here his opponent was Mvp, the eventual champion of the tournament. NaNiwa fell 1-3.

GSL 2012 - Season 3

HuK was now completely out of the GSL. NaNiwa remained in Code S due to his high placement, and ThorZaIN was back due to a seed, this time directly into Code S. Sadly, ThorZaIN wasn't able to capitalize upon his seed in the same way that Naniwa had in the previous season, falling out of a strong group containing Hyun Woo "Squirtle" Park, Byung Jae "GuMiho" Koh, and Keen. His 3rd place finish put him into the Code A round of 32 against Jin Young "JYP" Park, where he ended up falling 1-2.

NaNiwa though, wasn't done making his mark on Code S. In a group containing NesTea, Hyun Woo "Creator" Jang and Yeon Sik "TheStC" Choi, NaNiwa got out in second place right behind NesTea. The round of 16 groups went just as well for Naniwa, getting 2nd place to ByuN, beating out both Genius and KeeN. Again NaNiwa found himself in the round of 8, and again he found himself eliminated by a legend. This time it was Soo Ho "DRG" Park who took him out with a 3-2 score.

GSL 2012 - Season 4

Season 4 brought a new seed: Grzegorz "MaNa" Komincz was put directly into the Up and Down matches. In a 5 man group containing Ji Hoon "jjakji" Jung, Seok Hyun "HyuN" Ko, KeeN and Bomber, MaNa was able to secure 2nd place (to Bomber) and move on to the Code S. Code S didn't go so well for MaNa. His group was maybe the most ridiculous of the year, though, so 4th place with a 1-4 map score really wasn't that bad. Who was in the group? Oh, only Mvp, MMA and Young Seo "TaeJa" Yun.

Naniwa had similar results in his ro32 group, going 1-4 total against Squirtle, Min Hyuk "Heart" Kim and Tae Hoon "Sniper" Kwon. His drop down to Code A was similarly rough, losing 0-2 to a Protoss player.

These results meant that GSL 2012 - Season 5 would have not a single foreigner playing in it.

The Third Era - The End of Hope

GSL 2013 - Season 1

The Up and Down matches this season had both HuK and Manuel "Grubby" Schenkhuizen seeded in. Grubby ended up losing each and every map in his 6 man group and was immediately eliminated. HuK, on the other hand, managed to get top 2, just behind NesTea. This seeded him directly into Code S, where he and Ilyes "Stephano" Satouri (also seeded) would be the last foreigners to play in the tournament until Scarlett's debut.

HuK was placed into another tough group with Bomber, GuMiho and Sniper. Only able to win a single map, HuK fell out of GSL Code S for the last time.

Stephano didn't fare much better. With DRG and Shin Hyung "INnoVation" Lee topping the group, Stephano was only able to beat out Hack, losing to INnoVation 1-2 in the decider match of the group.

With both players in Code A, we would witness the unceremonious exit of foreigners from GSL. HuK lost in the first round 0-2 to Young Han "Shine" Lee. Stephano, seeded one round higher due to his 3rd place group finish, lost 1-2 to Jae Wook "Flying" Shin.

7pm KST Sunday / Monday / Tuesday 

Twitch:

http://www.Twitch.tv/GSL

AfreecaTV:

http://afreeca.tv/36855042

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK5eBtuoj_HkdXKHNmBLAXg

The ASL is starting up once again, and it's stupidly stacked. Let me tell you who's playing and why you are a FOOL if you do not watch this tournament. The prime of StarCraft: Brood War lasted until StarCraft 2 was released. At that point, money and talent were siphoned away from the original. It hit a very low point but never completely died, and is now reviving strongly here in Korea. This season literally looks as if we took a time machine back to the very best days of StarCraft 1. Here's some examples:

4 of the 6 Dragons have returned.

Protoss was always underrepresented at the pinnacle of SC1 competitive play. During this time, there were 6 Protosses, nicknamed the "6 Dragons" who were head-and-shoulders above every other Protoss in the world. They were:

Bisu

Stork

JjangBi

free

BeSt

and KaL

Bisu, Stork, free and BeSt are all in this tournament. Ridiculous.

The best 2 Zergs are both present.

The best 2 Zergs from the prime of StarCraft 1 are both here. JaeDong and EffOrt. WTF. So that means we already have 4 of the best 6 Protoss (including the actual top 2, Bisu and Stork) as well as the best 2 Zergs.

The best Gamer of all time has qualified.

And not only that, Flash is also dominating the Fish server ladder. Very few players have been able to hold their own against him so far.

The most aggressive Terran you will ever see is, surprisingly to me, back!

Lots of you will not know who Iris is, but you should. He was a fantastic Terran player that really had his own style. I always thought of him as the "Fireman Terran"...because in situations where other Terrans would run away, he would run forward. Dark Swarm comes up? Screw retreating. Stim and run through. He is a pleasure to watch. You won't regret following this Terran.

Perhaps the "smartest" Terran is still going strong.

If there was a player I could liken to Nestea from the prime years of SC1, it would have to be Mind. His deep understanding of the game showed up brilliantly back in the day, when he dismantled Bisu who was on his way to Bonjwa status. Mind was probably my favorite Terran player (I was a Terran in SC1) of the era, even in a world with Flash and FantaSy.

StarCraft 2 Champions Return to their Roots.

Rain. Yes, that Rain. The Rain that had the most perfect defensive macro play of any Protoss in the history of StarCraft 2, was originally a SC1 player. He was an up and comer still when he switched to StarCraft 2, where he became easily one of the best of all time. He retired after winning multiple titles, but now is suddenly back to his original love, StarCraft 1.

Soulkey was already having some pretty damn good results in SC1 before going to SC2, but in SC2 he really left his mark, very notably with a reverse-all kill on INnoVation in the GSL Finals. Soulkey is killing it on the Fish server ladder, already ranked as 6th place.

Of course, the top 4 from the last ASL...

3 of these 4 were not top players before StarCraft 2 came out, but they stayed the course and have worked hard to achieve their spots amongst the elite (Last, Sharp, and the champion Eyewater AKA Shuttle). It will be interesting to see where they end up in the rankings with some serious champions returning to full activity. Sea already was a top tier Terran, and will no doubt continue to preform very well amongst the old crew.

Also, a great supporting cast...

Any player who can make it into the ASL is already one of the strongest gamers on earth, and I don't mean to downplay these guys. GuemChi, by.hero, Movie and Light were all fantastic progamers back in the day. Many of the others were around but had less success. It takes, literally, years of being a SC1 progamer before you are even expected to begin posting results. Maybe its some of these guys' times now. We'll see.

In closing,

First I want to say that I am loving the new patch. I've played a bunch of games on it and am quite enjoying figuring out what feels like a new expansion sometimes. I've played almost exclusively Protoss in the new patch so far, so it will be through that lens. Here are some of my thoughts on things I actually got to try out some:

Tempest Redesign

So, I don't think that this is as much of a redesign as it is a nerf. I think that it's a good thing that the Tempest is being changed as well. If you look at it's roll in all 3 matchups, massing it can be pretty insane late game. PvPs can turn into pure Tempest vs Tempest battles, which are absolutely not fun at all, even for me. That will absolutely not happen anymore. PvT the Tempest can still be made to kill off Liberators without much change there. Before though, you could just whittle a Terran player down, constantly poking his army late game. I think it was probably pretty lame to play against as a Terran player, so it's probably good to cut that back. Also, on the off chance that your Terran opponent went mech before this patch, Tempests countered it pretty hard. In pre-patch PvZ, Protoss could make an unbeatable army which had a backbone of Tempests in the extreme late game. Go watch some Neeb PvZs if you are unfamiliar with this. 

So yeah, I think that it's good to change the Tempest. This might have been too much though. The combination of greatly decreased range vs ground AND +2 supply makes it completely unmassable (a good thing). Really it's the range vs ground that was the problem vs everything pre-patch, and that's probably still the case. I don't think that the gigantic increase in supply is really called for right now. The Tempest will only be a support unit, and to have to eat up that much supply is pretty wild for a support unit like this.

The new ability "Disruption Blast" I haven't been able to play around with much. Since it's a support-unit now, I haven't been in charge of when I make them (it's for my opponent to get advanced ballistics or brood lords before I make them). When I have used Disruption Blast, I felt that the "low" range (lol 10 range is low? wtf? well it is when you have such an expensive flying unit casting for...) and slow cast time (...forever) made it pretty tough to get results with. My current thoughts are maybe it will find a place as a zoning tool or perhaps it will be useful vs mech, such as siege tanks and thors. Still withholding judgement, though it feels like it will be a while before people have it figured out.

Adept Shades Go Blind

It's really, really hard to scout with Adepts right now. Like... really hard. I understand the thought that the decreased vision will make Adept attacks extremely risky to pull off (just keep your units right out of their vision range and kill them when they shade in), but I really thought the Adept in the early game had a great place like the Reaper, just to get you some scouting intel while giving you something to possibly do a teensy bit of damage with. The scouting is greatly missed for Protoss right now. It will take everyone some time to get used to I think.

Carriers

They feel like SC1 Carriers a lot more. A bit risky to make, but pay off well. Huge damage. Fun to use. Very much enjoying them. I think there will be a lot of whining about the Carrier in the next few weeks, but that's just because people have to get used to them being used a lot. They feel extremely strong at the moment. Everyone needs more time before we figure out exactly how strong they will end up being. My guess is quite strong.

SC1 Siege Tanks

Yep, that's what they feel like when being hit with them from the Protoss end of it. Really cool and really fun. 

Cyclone

The changes on this are so massive, it feels like a completely new unit. The numbers may still need to be tweaked. I think there will be some really powerful all-ins created in the next few days which will be a pain to learn how to build. The loss of it's strong anti-air is pretty significant. Should be lots of Stargates being built vs Terran because of this.

I do have to be a bit critical of it's design right now. It feels bland. It's this unit made out of your factory (thus, a "mech" unit), but it doesn't seem that much like a mech unit. It just kinda does some set damage and has decent mobility. It seems like the combination of the Hellion / Cyclone / Widowmine in TvP mech is all together trying to replace the Vulture and Spidermine from StarCraft 1. Think about it. You make these units to harass with and stay alive while trying to get into your better units. I dunno it just makes sense to me. Weird that it takes 3 units in TvP to fulfill the roll of 1 unit and an upgrade for it from SC1. Its not a perfect comparison but it feels like what's going on.

All that being said, I am having fun playing against Cyclones so far. It's hilarious and surprising how quickly they kill Stalkers, but with solid micro and unit positioning you can deal with them. 

New Hydras

Just a prediction here: I think that we will see the return of Phoenix / Colossus due to this change. Yeah, no strong opinions on anything else as of yet. If you haven't tried the new patch yet, I definitely would recommend it. This could be the last time SC2 is shaken up this strongly, and it can be really fun discovering things on your own!

READ IT HERE:

https://illiteracyhasdownsides.com/2016/08/21/the-professionalization-of-real-time-strategy-games/

Artosis thoughts on article (read if you like it):

Another fantastic piece of content by brownbear. Definitely read it. It will make you smarter. Follow him here on twitter: https://twitter.com/brownbear_47

I love the whole article, and it really reminds me of something that I read many many years ago, (I think in “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki) about learning something new. The jist of it was to study the vocabulary first. When you know and understand the vocabulary, learning the new topic becomes a lot easier. I’ve used this tactic ever since.

For instance, when I decided to start casting Heroes of the Storm, I had never played a MOBA style game before. All together I may have half-watched a couple of DOTA games from The International, and about 2 minutes of League of Legends or so. When I turned on a stream, watched a casted game, or tried to read an article, it was as if it was in a different language. So what I did was, I wrote down every single word that I was not 100% sure of the definition of (things like CC, split push, stun, root, and soooooooo many more), and then asked for friends and progamers to define them. (Thanks Sheth! S2). This greatly sped up my learning in the game, as I could actually have conversations, and break down what professionals were saying. I’ve used this same method when studying other things like financial stuff as well. Definitely would recommend using this approach to anyone.

brownbear touches upon some good points about missing vocabulary within StarCraft. For instance, there is no good way to describe the frustration of having to deal with something like a Liberator, where the Terran player just shift clicks it in to siege, and then is done with it. Of course, the defending player must actually move the Probes/Drones/SCVs, and then bring units over to kill it. Upon reading this I tried to think of my own commentary and what I normally say about this exact situation. Some of the ways I describe it normally are terms such as “taxing his multitasking” or “trading army for economy” or maybe I even sometimes say something about the tempo or time gains of the situation. Definitely it’s mentioned as harassment and taking control of the game, forcing your opponent to react, using active units, etc. But there is no specific word. Am I just dancing around this specific move with concepts? Is that wrong or is that a good thing? Now I’m not saying that we should just go out and name this type of move. Just some stuff the article definitely made me think about.

One last thing that he kinda brought up, about the difficulty of the phrases used and who knows/understands them. I think that obviously this is an issue for new people entering the scene. I think it’s an issue everywhere, though. As an example, I recently became quite interested in Tennis. I was reading some stuff about it and had to look up things like “second serve” and a few others. I guess growing up I just wasn’t subjected to enough of the sport as a kid to have the built in knowledge of all the lingo, whereas I definitely was subjected to enough in Basketball, and would never have to look up a word or phrase. Esports is kind of similar. If you’ve played and watched some StarCraft, you are going to understand the lingo. If not, it’s going to be a lot harder. But what about the fact that we just don’t have words for everything yet? I guess as new technologies and feats of skill occur in sports, they occasionally have to add a word or phrase to the vocabulary of the game. Meanwhile over here in esports, we started from scratch much more recently. As understanding deepens, as concepts are discussed, we are slowly but surely filling in these holes with words.

Parfait, an old friend of mine from back when I played Age of Empires 3 just released this video about Age of Empires vs StarCraft.

Absolutely loved this comparison of the 2 RTS franchises. A very well done video. Definitely suggest anyone who loves RTS games to check it out!

Any time that I see a new variant to an old build pop up in professional StarCraft 2, it immediately makes me think of the awesome ways in which this strategy came about. From there I always start thinking abut the lessons that can be taught about the basics and fundamentals of RTS by using this new strategy or build as an example. It's hard to make a concrete article about such things, especially since the meta moves along so quickly. So yeah, with all that in mind, here's a little series of articles that I will put up from time to time. meta ramblings. Here we go!:

Travel time across the map is one of the most important aspects of StarCraft, or any RTS, to take into consideration. It is a big part of the defender's advantage. Think back to all the Roach vs Roach ZvZs that you have watched. One player would get an advantage and start attacking his opponent. Eventually his opponent (the defender) would take the advantage in this attack, despite starting at a deficit. This is mostly based off of the proximity of the defender's rallying units vs the distance of his opponent's units. Another good example of travel time in ZvZ would be Mutalisk vs Roach. The Mutalisk player would prefer to not have creep (and might even pick off tumors) whereas the Roach player absolutely needs the have creep. The creep will reduce the travel time of the Roaches across the map, whereas the Mutas are unaffected. Pretty basic stuff, but very powerful if understood and executed upon. So now I want to talk about a new build order that has just popped up that is completely based off of understanding travel time and how it affects the game. PvP has a pretty solved early game. 90%+ of professional games open up with 2 Gateways which make either Adepts or Stalkers. From there it can branch off into a lot of different ways, but at least this beginning part is just about as standard as can be. (little aside: the only other stuff you will see with any real regularity at the pro level would be very map specific. for instance, on Dusk Towers, because of the ease of expanding to your back natural, you will see all manner of builds with 1 gate or whatever. On Frost you will see Nexus First sometimes, as it gives a big advantage probably 2/3rds of the time. The strategy that I'm talking about was engineered for the more standard types of maps that we have, such as Frozen Temple, King Sejong Station, etc. That's not to say that it can't be used on other maps, just that it's full power is on these "standard" 2 player maps.)

GET TO THE BUILD TOSIS.ok ok. SO. This build has been pioneered by the Afreeca Freecs (at least in televised games). Oops, time for a little side story again. So sorry! We see a lot of styles and strategies rise suddenly within teams. If the lead player of a race on a team starts to play a certain way and find success, often times the players below him will follow suit. For instance, GuMiho's Tank style in TvP was picked up by the rest of MVP, and it was heavily showcased in one night of Proleague (wrote an article partly pertaining to this here: https://t.co/orAhcAH54U). It was created as a way to combat the heavy Gateway style of Zest, who passed it on to the rest of the KT Protosses. Look at Trust, for instance. He is a mini-Zest, hair and all. He's pretty deadly too, considering how sharply he has Zest's style and build down in PvT. Helps to sit next to him, eh? (I kind of think of them as the big zombie that carries and throws the little zombie in Plants vs Zombies. Trust won't win the GSL, but he will fuck up your sunflowers if you aren't careful).

OK, seriously now, back to what this is actually supposed to be about. The Afreeca Protosses. Super and Patience. These guys have debuted a new opener in PvP that is really cool, and I think has a lot of potential as it becomes a bit more refined.

Super showed it vs Classic in game 1 on King Sejong Station during SSL Group C. I suggest you read the rest of this first and then watch the VODs, but here's the link anyways: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l423_-8nVw

Patience showed it the very next day vs Dear in game 1 on King Sejong Station and game 2 on Frozen Temple in the GSL Code S Group H. Here's the VOD link: https://www.twitch.tv/gsl/v/80598323?t=00h37m18s

sOs did a lighter shade of this vs Zest on Frozen Temple during the Proleague Finals: https://www.twitch.tv/esl_sc2/v/80942494?t=00h23m05salthough the bridge between what the Afreeca Protosses did and what sOs did is kind of like the line between what sOs did and expanding "pretty fast". Nothing's written in stone in StarCraft, and builds blend into each other based upon safety, greed, feel, etc. Builds are finger painting. As soon as a drop of green goes into your orange, your orange isn't exactly orange anymore, is it? But it still looks pretty damn orange.

SERIOUSLY HERE IS WHAT IT IS:As I said above, the very beginning of PvP is mapped out very well on more standard maps. 2 Gates, make a couple units, (Adepts or Stalkers), then the build diverges. Before the units get out, you have a Probe in their base generally that sees that yes, in fact, they are doing exactly what you are doing.

So, what Super and Patience have done is to combine this opening with the fastest Nexus possible, without opening up any obvious holes in their early game. 

Here are the main points of their play:

 - Same build order until unit production begins.

 - Still scouting with Probe to see if anything is off (this is important, they can easily back out of their plans if anything is amiss).

 - Get Mothership Core right away. Start Zealots in your gateway. (this is important, everything will look perfectly normal to the scouting Probe).

 - Mothership Core will make sure the Probe has no idea what you are doing, it has to run.

 - Cancel whatever was in your Gateways. Build a Nexus.

 - Immediately start 2 Stalkers.

YEAH! So back to travel time. 2 Adepts immediately made by your opponent (which are faster than Stalkers, so that's the time stamp you are looking at), shading across the map, will arrive as your 2 Stalkers are popping out. Thus you have a Mothership Core and 2 Stalkers to defend against them. Your opponent's build is most likely "normal", as he scouted yours which looked completely normal. Because of the across map travel time, the 2 additional units that your opponent has on you will not give any real advantage unit-wise to him until Warpgate is done. By then you will have a lot more to work with, like defensive pylons, and only a couple units less (most likely) than your opponent.

I just watched an awesome PvT match that I think everyone can learn from. MC vs GuMiho @ Dusk Towers. (VOD here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd0vTZGHdjs )

The game opens as commonly as you could imagine. MC takes a very standard Protoss fast expand, while scouting out the Reaper expand into tech that GuMiho has planned. Importantly, MC sneaks in a Probe that should allow him to guess that a reasonably fast 3rd CC will be on the way. Nothing really out of the ordinary.

From here, MC's build goes as it probably would have anyways, into the ever-standard Robo/Twilight with Blink and 2 more gates. The Protoss standard from here is to pressure with Blink Stalkers while taking a 3rd base. GuMiho plants a Widow Mine that more and more Terrans have been using over the past 2 weeks as the meta stabilizes:

It's within the path that the units will walk through, and in a semi-random location. Protoss cannot simply walk into Mordor. I mean babysit their army the whole way across the map. Also with the speed difference of Observers, there is just no way that this won't kill a Stalker. I suggest that every Terran player does this if their reaper scouts Stalkers instead of Adepts on it's second run-in to the Protoss base. I also suggest that Protoss players start randomizing their path a little bit more as this is growing in popularity. For instance on Dusk Towers, attack move through your opponent's path.  Anyways, of course he gets a Stalker with this.

Now this next part was pretty interesting to me from MC. MC adds a Forge before his 3rd base. Now, he's the Boss Toss. There has to be a reason for such an early Forge here. Then I remembered who he was playing against.

GuMiho has a very specific style in TvP. He absolutely loves Siege Tank play vs Protoss.

Let's talk about Tankivac/Marine play in TvP. After that gross little era at the beginning of Legacy of the Void where not one Terran aside from TY could reliably win vs heavy Adept play, a new style arose upon the back of Zest. The mass Gateway army, of mostly Stalkers and Adepts came to the forefront. This style, as we all know, is super-mobile, and very powerful. It is the true standard of macro PvT. SO, that means that something has to come along and challenge it in a real way. Tank/Marine is one of the best ways to do so. GuMiho is one of the real strategic leaders of Tank play in TvP. We can jump back all the way to the beginning of May to find him leading his team into the new style: (all from one night of Proleague! what a night!)

Super vs GumihO @ Orbital Shipyard PvT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KaBqx3J_S4

Patience vs Ryung @ King Sejong Station PvT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPKMDxlLEFI

Super vs GumihO @ Lerilak Crest PvT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvxeovbni5Q

It's not exactly the same as we see used in this game, or now in general, but these were amongst the very first professional TvP games played in Korea with the mindset of beating the Gateway-centric Protoss Army with a Tank-based force. 

SO... MC has an unusually early Forge. He scouts GuMiho's base seconds after starting it and the Observer confirms that Tanks are in production. Standard GuMiho. Let's move on.

MC gets his 3rd Nexus started just a tad later than normal. Gets his +1 attack going quite ab it faster than normal. And gets his 4th gas certainly much faster than a normal Gateway style will. GuMiho in the meantime is just producing his Tanks, Marines, Medivacs, Upgrades. He's on course for where he wants to be. He's taken almost 0 damage this game so far. Even catches and kills the Prism. Looking good!(By the way, the second MC takes fire on his Prism from a Viking and realizes it, he starts another one. This is important guys. I mean just in general. Like really, seriously. This is one of the main differences between top Protosses and the best Protosses. The best will always remake that Prism immediately.)

So MC and GuMiho have their production explosions (mass Gateway//Barracks building) at about the same time. Immediately thereafter. Now, if you are following a Zest build order, you probably tried to make a 4th Nexus here before your Gateways. Oh, sorry, unless you are Zest, you are about to die to GuMiho's first push. This is where MC's brilliance is shown. He's playing the player and he's playing his scouting intel. After these Gateways, MC immediately starts a 2nd Robo and a Robotics Support Bay. And remember that Forge? +2 already on the way. Having that "aha!" moment yet? The counter to Siege Tanks has always been Colossus. Colossus play just shreds Siege Tank / Bio armies. Colossus also got a recent buff. They attack faster now. That +2 attack is a devastating upgrade for the Colossus. From here we will need to fast forward a bit. Harassment occurs on both sides. This is normal. Both of them just added on their production for their 3 base economies. To attack now before that production kicks in would be silly, so harassment is the name of the game. Trying to get some damage, keep your opponent busy while you power up. Lots of little scuffles, etc. Here's an important part: MC is NOT in a rush to get his 4th base up. Zest would be mining from it at full saturation right now, but MC is just chilling on 3 bases. In fact, GuMiho's 4th will finish before MC's will even start. MC's only focus right now is to not bleed off any army until he has his 4 Colossus out. Why? Because he's going to be at a huge advantage army-wise.

so close so close!

OK, here we go!

Both players are maxed with the same army supply and worker counts. Yes, some of GuMiho's army is on the way still, and yes he has 2 more Armor upgrades than the Boss Toss, but trust me, none of that matters here. MC has out strategized him fully. Now, MC does win the battle. He beats up GuMiho pretty hard here, but he makes a mistake that ends up costing him.

MC shades onto the bio army which runs way back. Great move from GuMiho running back there by the way. GuMiho still has some units in the front, and that's what the Colossus are firing upon. That is a metric shit-ton of damage that those four +2 Attack Colossus are outputting onto a Siege tank and a Marauder or two. In the mean-time, the entire "tanking" (read, damage-soaking) portion of his army is battling a Marine/Marauder/Medivac army that has 2 more upgrades than it does. MC wins the battle, yes, but loses many Adepts. Maybe this is a move to try and prevent GuMiho from getting out with any of his units, but it comes into contrast with MC's next move.

MC immediately counter-attacks here. He killed GuMiho's army, so seems OK, right? It doesn't go well. MC loses absolutely everything. All his Colossus perish here. The problem is, GuMiho is of course not going to continue on Siege Tank production. Marine/Marauder is now going to be the damage-dealing bulk of his army. MC has just lost all of his damage-soaking Adepts, and is counter attacking with a very, very soft army. A solid spread of Marine/Marauder crush through the Stalkers and make quick work of the unprotected Colossus. MC thought he had kill potential, but it cost him the game.

From here GuMiho wins pretty easily with lots of solid drop harassment.

Overall, I think that MC played a brilliant game.Just 1-2 mistakes ended up costing him a game that I think he was far more prepared for than GuMiho was. He played the player, he scouted and did an awesome counter-strategy. I will definitely be adding this to my arsenal. And you should too. 

P.S,

if you are looking for some more Colossus PvT games, check out these:

Gumiho vs Classic TvP @ Dusk Towers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiLxQdVwSbA

Classic vs Gumiho PvT @ Dusk Towers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DSpPVKBBwU

I wanted to write a quick little blog post about a trend we are seeing in TvT right now. Early on, I very much liked the 2 base TvT style using Marine / Tank / Medivac. Keep aggressive, utilize those mobile tanks, and float your main CC to your 3rd base when you are ready. Recently I've begun to change my opinion on the strength of this opener recently, though...at least on some maps.

Let's take a look at Cure vs Reality from Proleague on Lerilak Crest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9iIKxuExx4

and we will compare that with Maru vs INnoVation on Ruins of Seras  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xRp1z3-2oA

Both games have one player going for a Reaper expand (Reality and INnoVation) into an expansion, with a tech follow-up. Definitely a great opener and a very popular one as well.

Both games also have the challenger (Cure, Maru) opening up with 1 base tech involving some amount of harassment. This includes Cloaked Banshees in both games.

OK, so let me run you through the next steps for each side:

Early Game Defender (the player with the faster expansion, Reality and INnoVation)

 - Produce Vikings, Tanks for Defense

 - Add on one Engineering Bay for upgrades (2 doesn't make sense for a build going for 2 base aggression)

- Add Barracks to utilize your swell in minerals from having an earlier expansion

Early Game Aggressor (the player with the faster tech, Cure and Maru)

 - Harass as much as possible with early tech units

 - Add on 2 Command Centers to make up for how much faster opponent had first one

 - Add on 2 Engineering Bays for upgrades (1 doesn't make sense for a build with a 3 base economy)

OK, so stick with me here. As the early harassment is fended off, the early upgrades of the fast expander start to come online, and the mineral advantage from the faster base starts to pay off in the form of additional Marines, the roles of these players within the game swaps.

Reality and INnoVation become the Mid Game Aggressors

and, of course,

Cure and Maru become the Mid Game Defenders

OK, here we are in the mid game. Time for some damage put on to those early tech into 3 CC players! Let's take a look at the Unit tabs, both of these screen shots taken seconds before the fighting begins:

CURE (RED) vs REALITY (BLUE)

Notice the important differences:

 - Cure has a higher SCV count, as he's made the 3rd CC and is pushing ahead in economy.

 - Reality has more Marines (23 more at this moment), as he's made the earlier expansion, and thus gained extra minerals, which go into Marines, strengthening his army.

 - They have the same amount of Siege Tanks.

MARU (RED) vs INNOVATION (BLUE)

Notice the important differences:

 - Maru has a higher SCV count, as he's made the 3rd CC and is pushing ahead in economy.

 - INnoVation has more Marines (21 more at this moment), as he's made the earlier expansion, and thus gained extra minerals, which go into Marines, strengthening his army.

 - They have the same amount of Siege Tanks.

Natural differences according to the opening build orders that they used. The important part to look at is the Siege Tank count. The Siege Tank is the most important unit in TvT, and if one player has an advantage on them, that player is likely to have an advantage in the game itself. It makes sense that the Siege Tank count is lined up. One player in each game did, in fact, get earlier tech buildings. These buildings were used for early game harassment units though, not for Siege Tanks. Around the time that the faster expander starts Siege Tanks, the tech player is pretty much ending his production of harassment based units and is starting Siege Tanks as well. So here we are with the same amount of Siege Tanks on both sides.

While it's definitely true that Legacy of the Void's addition of Medivacs picking up Siege Tanks made them much better at attacking than before, as professionals get better and better, they understand how to utilize defender's advantage with them as well. Being on the defensive here, on many maps, is going to be a position which is doable for a professional. This extra boost in Marine count, while it obviously makes your army stronger, doesn't mean that you can get in through an entrenched position. Reality vs Cure is a great example of this. It almost doesn't matter how many Marines that Reality has, if they try to walk through Lerilak Crest's tiny chokes, they are going to be blown up before their greater numbers matter.

The thing is, the 2 base player -has- to do something. This is the "power spike" of his build. This is when he has an advantage. Backing off and making a later 3rd CC is not going to catch you up that well. Your opponent also has an additional Engineering Bay, and thus will be well ahead on upgrades when he's ready to move out.

So now that I've told you that the 2 base player -has- to do something, I'm going to go back on that, and show that this is is where INnoVation went wrong in his game. 

When INnoVation was ready for his attack, he scanned the 3rd base area. Maru hadn't even landed his 3rd CC yet! Now, Ruins of Seras is a very different map from Lerilak Crest. On Lerilak Crest, Cure was able to build his CC at his 3rd base and mine from it instantly, as it's back in a pocket with a choke with destructible rocks in front of it. Ruins of Seras has a much more wide open 3rd base. It has a lot of angles that you can attack from. In his game vs Maru, INnoVation was not detoured from Maru's lack of a 3rd base. INnoVation (rightly) realized that he had an advantage at this point in the game, and he (wrongly) decided to push that advantage at the moment of it's greatest power (unit-count wise) over Maru. INnoVation pulled an old-school MarineKing here. He dropped into a defensive 2 base player. There was no need. Maru's build -requires- that he is mining from a 3rd base to properly have an advantage in the later stages of the game. With such an army disadvantage, Maru had no chance of taking his 3rd base with INnoVation's massive army right outside his door, especially with the amount of attackable surface area that Ruins of Seras's 3rd base has.

If we super simplify this, there are three periods, with the players taking different risks in each.

If the tech opener (Cure, Maru) don't do damage in the early game, they are taking the risk of taking damage in the mid game. But then they get another opportunity to hurt their opponents in the late-mid game.

The expand opener (Reality, INnoVation) are taking two risks if we continue this forward. Early game they must defend well (not too hard) and not take too much damage. They then have an opportunity in the mid-game to deal damage. If they do not deal sufficient damage, they are behind in the late-mid game against their opponents who have additional upgrades and economy.

Flying Siege Tanks. Keep it in.

I have TOO MANY thoughts on this to put down on paper. This is going to be all over the place. Here we go with my feeble attempt:

ARGUMENT #1: MECH

I doubt anyone loves mech more than me. Pretty sure its an unhealthy obsession.  

TvP and MechTerran vs Protoss mech in SC1 is one of my favorite things ever. Building up the Most Powerful Unit Composition In The Game (R), a composition where each individual unit is very weak, but as you defend well and work your way to higher supplies, you gain power. In the early game, you are normally on the defense. You must quickly rush up your tech tree and defend carefully, one misstep will spell disaster. Slowly but surely, you push the map. You constantly reposition your army in response to your opponent's unit movements. You have actual fronts which you must reinforce like in a real war. Eventually when you smell weakness, you unsiege and make a big move, whether it's a killing move or just gaining more ground. You protect your flanks. You push the map. You zone out areas with cost effecient setups that deter enemy movement in that area. During all this you are harassing, trying to hurt your opponent any way you can, all while not using too many of your units, which would make your main defensive army too weak. It is a defensive playstyle where you are weak early in the game, but become stronger and stronger, eventually wearing your opponent down.

SC2 Wings of Liberty and SC2 Heart of the Swarm Terran has more of a Starship Troopers (the book, not the movie) feel. You are super mobile, dropping all over the place, utilizing multitasking and tactics to find or force holes into your opponent's play.

ANYWAYS, people are concerned, I guess, about the lack of mech strategies being used in Legacy of the Void right now. From Blizzard:

"Currently in the game, Terran bio-play can have the fire power of Siege Tanks without sacrificing mobility. This seems to be a main reason to play bio instead of mech. By removing this ability (picking up Siege Tanks in Siege Mode with a Medivac), and giving more strength to the Siege Tank, we wonder if we can have this clear distinction between the two playstyles appear once again."

Mech doesn't have to necessarily mean "an army composed of only mechanical units". It just so happens that when the phrase was invented, the units being used were all mechanical. Mech is more of a playstyle than anything.

TY used mech to beat Patience in what the community agreed was one of the the best games of Legacy of the Void yet. Here's the link: http://www.twitch.tv/gsl/v/36539719?t=03h26m44s 

This game consisted of TY desperately trying to hold on vs an incredibly aggressive Protoss player. TY slowly but surely pushed out into the map, taking more bases. He defended his flanks. He moved his army in accordance with his enemy, defending where he pushed. He set up zones that would be very difficult to attack to deter Patience from attacking certain areas. Over time TY's Liberator count grew and grew, and his entrenched positions become stronger and stronger. This game definitely felt to me more like mech than anything I've seen in a long time. TvT and Mech

It's hard to liken TvT in SC1 to SC2 in the same way I did above for TvP, and that's because TvT was always mech vs mech, with the power of Siege Tanks reigning supreme. TvT was a positional game, taking a conceding certain areas around the map, setting up areas that would be impossible to attack. I don't think that this is what Blizzard or the fans are looking for. Rather, I think that people are looking for the choice between bio and mech, and then, of course, the clash between the two, as we had in WoL and HotS. Well then, you are in luck!

Journey used mech in a close game vs Keen in a TvT: http://www.twitch.tv/gsl/v/36908466?t=02h23m19s

To date, this is the only professional Korean game where we've seen a full-on mech strategy in a TvT in LotV. Journey successfully went up to 4 bases, defending all aspects of Keen's bio-centric play. He ended up losing when both were going more heavily into Sky Terran with a poor attack and over-committal. It wasn't a perfect game or anything, but it was certainly the first step towards a more diverse set of armies being available for use in TvT. Don't forget that developing less aggressive styles takes MUCH, MUCH longer than aggressive styles. TvZ and Mech

This one is really complicated. Not going to bring up SC1 at all. Rather going to bring up HotS mech TvZ, because that has a lot to do with what's going on here in LotV.

Mech was becoming a real problem towards the end of HotS for Zerg. Without the Swarm Host to constantly push back Terran in long games, turtle mech became super powered.

If you want a refresher on what this looked like, check out Flash vs Curious from GSL Season 3 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fskDHXB3Gl4

Right at the end we had Byul vs INnoVation in the finals of the same Code S: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLtTnN3GOmk

Here's a statement for you: If Parasitic Bomb existed in HotS, Byul would be a GSL champion. Not to mention that Point Defense Drone is vastly changed. And Nydus Worms open up no matter what. And I haven't even gotten into the differences in the cores of HotS and LotV. Ok, maybe we should talk about that next.

ARGUMENT #2: Legacy of the Void is completely different from Heart of the Swarm. We're playing StarCraft 3, folks.

In early January, I started writing a blog post about why Legacy of the Void is so good. It felt incomplete, and didn't quite cover my feelings completely, as I'm still figuring it all out, so I never posted it. But here it is, as it is a good supplement to what I'm about to write:

"There's always been an argument about StarCraft 1 and StarCraft 2. Which is better? Which is more fun? Which was better balanced? Which is a better eSport. I've written and said a lot in the past about these subjects, so I won't go into much depth about them here. But I needed to bring this up to show why Legacy of the Void is so damn good.

StarCraft 1 is a game of mechanics. You fight against the game itself to make as many units as you possibly can, while microing as well as you can with very limiting control groups. The comeback mechanic is based in how hard it is to do everything that needs doing. If you get behind in a Terran vs Protoss, for instance, and the Protoss has 5 bases, while you are stuck on 3, you might decide that to come back you need a Dropship. Yes, Protoss has way more bases and is in a leading position, but that means that his economy is more spread out, and thus more susceptible to harassment. By sending out a Dropship in one direction, and Vultures in another, you can start to pick apart the leading player. Some nice laying of mines in front of a far - off base to slow down incoming defensive units will buy you some time to kill Probes. Meanwhile the Dropship will hit another area far away, splitting Protoss's attention.

StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm are games of strategy. NesTea was the first person I heard verbalize this. In essence, he said, that SC2 was about decision making. He was absolutely right. It's very much about knowing your decision trees. The player who understands more should win based off of knowing what to do next. In WoL and HotS, the comeback mechanics were based off of understanding the next branch of what to do. Here's an example:

You are Zerg. You got way ahead with the army-crushing unit composition of Infestor / Ling / Ultra.

If you choose to attack and kill your opponent, go to option A).

If you choose to sit back and wait for your opponent to leave, go to option B).

A) Your Ultras get their AI messed with due to smart building placements and deal no damage for their cost. Your lings shuffle in to attack almost single file. Your Infestors throw out useless Infested Terrans because they do not keep up with your army for an attack, and then die. Your opponent now can come back.

B) Your opponent continues to try to harass you around the map. You easily clean up each attack with Fungals, Lings, and a bit of static defense. Eventually your opponent leaves his safe area, and you get a decent engagement with your expensive Ling / Ultra / Infestor army. He shouldn't have come onto your Creep. GG you win!

Yeah, its a bit over simplified, but there are thousands of examples just like these on how comebacks actually occur. (and yes there are exceptions to both games and all these situations.)

Now this, of course, doesn't mean that SC1 is a better game than SC2 or anything like that. This is one small aspect of the game. According to this one aspect, SC1 was, in general terms, very taxing on your speed. This was partially due to the fact that you were very spread out, and thus your opponent had more places to attack. SC2 was more about making correct decisions with the correct units to lock your opponent out of any possibility of winning. I think that most of the arguments from people that SC1 was/is a better game than SC2 were based, in some way, over this difference in the two. As someone who personally has been there for the full life of both games, I can certainly say that I derived a lot of pleasure from that "overstretched" feeling while playing SC1.

Legacy of the Void gives me that feeling again. I feel like there's too much to do. I feel like there are endless areas for improvement of play. I feel like perfect games are forever away. And it feels amazing."

One of the hardest things to do as a commentator is to take what I think in my head and summarize it so it doesn't become ridiculously long like this brain spill of a blog you are reading right here. Here's a new attempt to try to summarize some of the key differences between Legacy of the Void and Heart of the Swarm:

Legacy of the Void has improved harassment AND improved defender's advantage. 3 basing in LotV = 2 basing in HotS. This isn't just because of having less economy per base. That does something else that I'll talk about in a minute. Lots of units in LotV are amazing at defending but harder to attack with.

Adepts are fantastic at harassment. They also do quite well defending. Think about a Terran trying to drop a Protoss. If Adepts are there, you may as well not bother. Trying to finish off a Terran with an army heavily depending on Adepts in is very difficult. (yes I know that there are timing attacks specifically with adepts, that's not what I'm talking about). For a big army using Adepts as the tanking units, their short range makes you walk into your opponent's defensive position. Attacking into Planetaries, Liberators, Widow Mines, Marine/Maruader arcs, Lurkers, Roach/Hydra arcs are all cost inefficient with the Adept. It's a better move to utilize them in another way.

Oracles are a great harassment unit. We know that already. In LotV their ability to tag armies is being used more and more. This is often used in a defensive way: monitoring where the army is so that it cannot catch you off guard with an attack. Stasis Wards are also gaining increased usage, slowing down enemy attacks. The Oracle is a very good defensive unit.

Disrupters are good harassment units. It's kind of like a Reaver Drop. Very expensive, but can gain huge rewards if done well. Moreso, Disrupters are strong defensive units. How many PvPs have you seen where one Protoss gets way ahead of his opponent and tries to end the game, only to be hugely punished by defensive Disurpters? Now conversely, how many times have you seen a Protoss trying to attack into a player of any race with Disrupters, and having that player dodge every shot? The player who is attacking is committing, thus making the defensive Disrupter extremely strong. The player who is defending is reacting. Being like water, as Bruce Lee would say. Wax on, wax off, as Mr. Miyagi would say. The Disrupter is not nearly as strong on the offense as the defense.

Lurkers are about as good defense as you can find. Breaking a strong Lurker Defense is literally not worth the time and energy. You may as well go around. It is a no-man's land. Yet, if you try to attack with the Lurkers, it's much like the Disrupters. Your opponent will continually kite and move out of the way of these Lurkers.

Liberators are in the exact same boat as the Lurkers in the defense / offense comparison. Of course, they are very good harassment tools as well.

Widow Mines are the same.

Cyclones are great defensive units. One of the strongest ways to keep a Warp Prism or Medivac or Banshee or Oracle out of your base. 

Ghosts, High Templars, Infestors. All MUCH easier to use successfully defensively when your opponent is attacking you.

You are going to force your way through this choke? Yes, please walk through my Corrosive Biles.

Oh you're dropping my main? It's OK, I have a DT there. Have fun scanning every time you drop. Of course, DTs are amazing at harassment also. Ever try to attack directly into an army with DTs? Yeah. No.

The list goes on and on. There are so many harassment options. So many units function better defensively than offensively. (NOTE: I'm talking offensively for game winning moves which involve actual armies, not harassment. Also note: YES, you can attack with all of these units, and in fact, some of the most powerful attacks will involve them. It's just not easy. They pay off quicker defensively.)

So yes, the defender's advantage (in Army vs Army) is much larger in LotV than ever before. If you kill someone when you are on 3 bases, its because harassment went way too right, or you have a powerful timing attack that your opponent is not ready for. Thus, 3 basing LotV = 2 basing HotS.

OK, back to this: less economy per base.

So, we have improved harassment. We have improved defender's advantage. But we also have less economy. We have to expand more. This is absolutely KEY to why LotV is so good. You are forced, more quickly than ever, to expand if you want to win. You can't sit on 3 bases defending perfectly a'la Rain's HotS Protoss. We already went over how killing on 3 bases is basically the same thing as 2 basing in HotS. So here we are, expanding more quickly to a 4th base. This spreads us out more. Sure, we have GREAT ways to defend vs a large army. We have Disrupters and Lurkers and Liberators which make death traps for anyone wanting to attack. These units are extremely weak vs harassment though. Have you ever tried to stop a Medivac Drop with a Disrupter or a Lurker or a Liberator? Laugh Out Loud. 

So we can't really just roll over each other, even if we have a bigger army. And we are forced to expand further and further out earlier and earlier. Which of course means, we have less and less to defend these areas with. Truthfully, we have better tools for harassing our opponents than for defending against their harassment.

OK, let's put this all together. Legacy of the Void forces us to harass more. It forces us to have a more mobile army. LotV resists against full-on mech play. It resists against slow games. LotV pushes us towards more fights, more engagements, more damage on both sides. The days of perfect Rain games are gone. These are the scrappy days of LotV. Siegevacs add mobility to the most immobile unit in the game. Siegevacs also turn this unit into one which can harass. The unit now fits perfectly into Legacy of the Void. Let's not turn it into another Void Ray. "One of the hardest things to do as a commentator is to take what I think in my head and summarize it so it doesn't become ridiculously long like this brain spill of a blog you are reading right here. Here's a new attempt to try to summarize some of the key differences between Legacy of the Void and Heart of the Swarm" - The 'tosis, 2016

Hey all, just wanted to talk about tactics of a standard ZvP push real quick. Classic recently played 2 of the best Zergs in the world on Lerilak Crest, both times using the same general style. Both Zergs played against him with the same general style as well. One game Classic won, one game he lost. While there are a lot of factors in both games, in my mind the overall Zerg defeat // victory was decided by how and where they attacked with their first big Lurker push.

Just to outline the flow of the games, in both Classic goes for some Phoenixes into Charge / Storm / Immortal type of play. Very standard currently in the PvZ meta. Also, Classic, being the WinToss, knows that he must engage a Lurker based army out in front of his base. While it's all fine and good to fight vs Roach / Hydra near your Nexus, if you do the same vs Lurkers, you are dead meat. You must make them "siege" and "unsiege" as many times as possible, whittling the army down however possible. Anyways, let's look at the exact attacks of both players.

CURIOUS VS CLASSIC @ LERILAK CREST 

Notice: 

- Classic makes sure to engages in front of his 4th base. 

- Curious must burrow, meanwhile taking a bit of damage.

Now, DARK VS CLASSIC @ LERILAK CREST

Notice:

 - Classic makes sure to engages in front of his 4th base.

 - Dark must burrow, meanwhile taking a bit of damage.

Similar stuff. Classic is doing the correct response of slowing both down. Both are trying to see if they can damage Classic in any way. Now let's look tactically how Dark has made a much better move by looking at the mini-maps. CURIOUS'S MINIMAP:

The black line with a circle on it represents one unburrow - move to get into a position to actually threaten Classic with damage. The Pinkish-Purpleish line represents where Curious can attack if he succeeds in moving to that black circle.

DARK'S MINIMAP:

Once again, the black line and circle represent one unborrow move to get into a position to actually threaten Classic with damage. The Pinkish-Purpleish lines represent where Dark can attack if he succeeds in moving forward.

Dark positions his army into a position he cuts off circulation for Classic. Classic now also has to defend 3 locations.Curious, on the other hand, positions his army into a position where he can only attack forward into 1 base. This is much easier for Classic to defend against, and allows him lots of freedom with his attention.

I'm sure its easy to guess, but Curious loses his game, and Dark wins his. I just love being able to compare 2 games close in time by the same player in the same position and see where it went right or wrong, it can really crystallize understanding about a topic.

Oh, and if you wanted to check out these games (both really good ones I would recommend!), here are the YouTube links:

CLASSIC VS CURIOUS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1LGveZirNg

CLASSIC VS DARK: