SC2 Pro Tournament Discussion

Day9 & dApollo about mindgames - BWC 2012

Guys, you should be watching NASL.

Seriously. Just... NASL. Guys. You guys. Hey guys.

... NASL.

They're doing a free for all game right now. Rotterdam, Gretorp, Hyun, Golden, Taeja, and Demuslim. It's been completely hilarious.

Day9 is too cool.

This is the most fun I've had watching one single SC2 game in probably months.

Oh, god, lol.

The shot of Hyun with Golden.

This is so good.

*I'm searching for a gif. I know it will happen. It's only a matter of time.

That was hilarious. Sorry.

That free for all was really fun

The finals was not the standard snorefest I was expecting. Really great event overall.

IMAGE(http://i.minus.com/ibhyXYpnYvGEQP.gif)

Here's the 'highlight' of the NASL finals... not a real game, but arguably one of the most entertaining one I've seen yet.

Pikey26 wrote:

Here's the 'highlight' of the NASL finals... not a real game, but arguably one of the most entertaining one I've seen yet.

Totally agree!

Anyone following proleague? I subbed for this season, but I haven't been able to catch any games yet. Are there any in particular I should watch?

Kerplunk wrote:

Anyone following proleague? I subbed for this season, but I haven't been able to catch any games yet. Are there any in particular I should watch?

EGTL's second match, against STX I think, was really good. I've basically only been watching EGTL though. Don't know what else might have been good.

I'm mostly watching for TLEG as well, but I'll watch SKT if I see one of their matches.

Watching EG-TL against STX in Proleague. So far it's very much reminding me of this:

IMAGE(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v282/Thin_J/tumblr_lydyxbtWFn1qexbino1_500.jpg)

Jaedong/Hyvaa in particular is the exact kind of ZvZ game that picture is poking fun at

*Also, match after this is SKT1 against KT Rolster. Third game in that one is Flash/Fantasy. I know zilch about how Fantasy looks in SC2 so far but I'm still excited for it.

*Man, catching up on VODS on my tablet during downtime at work usually means watching with the volume down so I haven't noticed it, but watching live like this, these english casters are terrible. Where did they dig up these guys?

Haha, a very apt comparison. I didn't get to see the first match between HerO and Dear, but I did enjoy watching both TvTs in the match.

As for the casters, I've been tolerating them for now, but perhaps in the future I'll switch to the KR stream instead. Plus, I can't handle SNM's voice at all. No offense to the guy, but every time I hear him I want to rip my ears off.

Kerplunk wrote:

Haha, a very apt comparison. I didn't get to see the first match between HerO and Dear, but I did enjoy watching both TvTs in the match.

As for the casters, I've been tolerating them for now, but perhaps in the future I'll switch to the KR stream instead. Plus, I can't handle SNM's voice at all. No offense to the guy, but every time I hear him I want to rip my ears off.

I don't have a problem with voices or whatever, my problem is just that they have no flow, they stumble over words constantly, and they just say things that are completely wrong way too often.

"These banshees aren't doing any damage at all"

Meanwhile, the guy defending the cloaked banshee harass hasn't been able to use a mule in four minutes because he has to keep scanning to run the banshees out, and only two were built and they're STILL ALIVE.

WHAT THE HELL CASTER GUYS. LEARN SOMETHING.

They do the thing that no caster so weak in game knowledge should ever do which is question what the players are doing instead of just casting what they ARE doing.

And then they fumble around for five minutes without ever actually saying anything.

It's just really bad. Oh, and a link on TL led me to the Korean stream tonight, which seems to be in 720p for free. Wish I hadn't forked up five bucks for it now.

Thin_J wrote:
Kerplunk wrote:

Haha, a very apt comparison. I didn't get to see the first match between HerO and Dear, but I did enjoy watching both TvTs in the match.

As for the casters, I've been tolerating them for now, but perhaps in the future I'll switch to the KR stream instead. Plus, I can't handle SNM's voice at all. No offense to the guy, but every time I hear him I want to rip my ears off.

I don't have a problem with voices or whatever, my problem is just that they have no flow, they stumble over words constantly, and they just say things that are completely wrong way too often.

"These banshees aren't doing any damage at all"

Meanwhile, the guy defending the cloaked banshee harass hasn't been able to use a mule in four minutes because he has to keep scanning to run the banshees out, and only two were built and they're STILL ALIVE.

WHAT THE HELL CASTER GUYS. LEARN SOMETHING.

They do the thing that no caster so weak in game knowledge should ever do which is question what the players are doing instead of just casting what they ARE doing.

And then they fumble around for five minutes without ever actually saying anything.

It's just really bad. Oh, and a link on TL led me to the Korean stream tonight, which seems to be in 720p for free. Wish I hadn't forked up five bucks for it now.

I have to disagree with your assessment of Taeja vs Bogus. The banshees made him, at best, nearly on even footing. There was one scan I saw for certain and didn't hear the telltale sound of others, a few marine kills, and a few SCVs shot down. Map control was ceded quickly and Bogus was roaming around as he pleased. Bogus had his third up faster and was even trying to prevent Taeja's third. There was one big mistake Bogus made which caused him to lose momentum and spin out of control, or rather where Taeja seized control and Bogus didn't turtle fast or hard enough (worthwhile to note Taeja essentially drop proofed his 3 bases as he made ready to move out making that a null threat). When Bogus is trying to get away from Taeja's 3-2 siege tank advantage at Taeja's third (Bogus' 1-1 had just finished so they were even on upgrades) Taeja stimmed with his slightly larger marine count to force the engagement. Bogus is in an awkward position, his tanks are sieged late and Taeja is increasing his marine arc while his superior tank count pounded Bogus' marines (the 50% more firepower matters a lot). Then he collapsed the pocket on the majority of Bogus' tanks and moved to the center. Bogus engaged badly in the center while Taeja microed well, has timely reinforcements and successfully established his third and doesn't let Bogus breathe from there. Bogus' one chance to regain control sees him make an unfortunate choice where he missed denying Taeja's fourth and gets his entire marine army creamed.

silentsod wrote:

I have to disagree with your assessment of Taeja vs Bogus.

Well we'll have to agree to disagree

There were multiple scans and IMO the banshees stayed alive for more than long enough to justify their cost and they kept Bogus' marines in his base instead of doing the damage they needed to do to keep Taeja behind.

And whether we disagree on small details or not, the casters are still just flat wrong about 95% of the time. They just toss bullsh*t out and hope, and then go "Oh woops my bad that was wrong". Go through the broadcast from last night and tell me how many times you hear "Oh sorry my mistake" or other statements like it. It's terrible.

The Korean broadcast is better even without understanding a single lick of Korean. If any of it is wrong I can't tell and at least there's some energy and enthusiasm to it.

Thin_J wrote:
Kerplunk wrote:

Haha, a very apt comparison. I didn't get to see the first match between HerO and Dear, but I did enjoy watching both TvTs in the match.

As for the casters, I've been tolerating them for now, but perhaps in the future I'll switch to the KR stream instead. Plus, I can't handle SNM's voice at all. No offense to the guy, but every time I hear him I want to rip my ears off.

I don't have a problem with voices or whatever, my problem is just that they have no flow, they stumble over words constantly, and they just say things that are completely wrong way too often.

"These banshees aren't doing any damage at all"

Meanwhile, the guy defending the cloaked banshee harass hasn't been able to use a mule in four minutes because he has to keep scanning to run the banshees out, and only two were built and they're STILL ALIVE.

WHAT THE HELL CASTER GUYS. LEARN SOMETHING.

They do the thing that no caster so weak in game knowledge should ever do which is question what the players are doing instead of just casting what they ARE doing.

And then they fumble around for five minutes without ever actually saying anything.

It's just really bad. Oh, and a link on TL led me to the Korean stream tonight, which seems to be in 720p for free. Wish I hadn't forked up five bucks for it now.

I missed the broadcast so I found the official channel from pleague on YouTube where they host VODS of Korean broadcasts.

As someone who speaks Korean pretty decently (could I attend College/high school in Korea? No, but I can communicate in the language with relative comfort otherwise), I've gotta say I finally see why some people are throwing a fuss over how Korean broadcasts are better (though a lot of those guys were comparing them to Tastosis, who I believe easily match the Koreans tit for tat).

The way the Koreans employ three casters, 2 for analytical casting and 1 for color commentary, works really well. They also seem to have great synergy with each other and embrace that chemistry to an extent I've only really seen Tastosis and maybe Bitterdam display in the Western scene (Bitterdam go off on completely off-topic tangents a little too often for my taste). And the prep-work and the background knowledge these guys seem to have and/or are being supplemented with, adds soo much to the overall experience as well. Basically think how Western casters would be if all Ohana jokes were replaced by background information, history, and what mindset/preparations some of these players are coming to these games with.

Until the current casters situation is fixed/improved, I think I am just gonna watch the Korean casters for now.

ps. Maybe sometimes pretend the woman is Artosis if I ever start missing western casters.
pps. Oh yeah it was kinda neat to see how excited the Korean casters were about

Spoiler:

Thorzain and his win, which is a first for a foreigner in the Pro-league for the first time in 7.5 years. The woman was kinda whining about how they wouldn't get to interview him even if he'd won, and then to hear her start to get all giddy when it turned out they would get to interview him after all was quite amusing.

Yeah. The current casting duo is that bad.

Proleague has virtually zero competition right now, but I can see it suffering a bit when GSL starts kicking off again.

Proleague DOES have the price advantage, but if the current casting duo is pretty much what I am paying for, I refuse to fork over a penny. I will just watch the Korean stream instead.

Normally I just wouldn't watch the tournament if the production quality suffered this badly, but god damn it the format/games/maps/players in the proleague is so freakin exciting.

Some hilarious stuff in today's Proleague matches.

Most notably Action's build in his game against Comet and the ridiculous cheese from JYJ against Taeja.

And there's a let's say entertaining start to JYP vs Soo.

*Just got up to discover two interesting bits of news. One, TSL finally disbanded. Looking forward to seeing who picks up Hyun and Symbol. Polt had already jumped ship. According to Slasher not a one of them had salaries. Hope they all find good places to go.

Second, and this actually happened before the TSL news, Parting left Startale. That's less huge news really.

so crushed. so so badly crushed.

Pikey26 wrote:

so crushed. so so badly crushed.

I don't understand *any* of EG-TL's player order decisions. Given the map order, none of them make any sense.

They send a Zerg on Ohana. Stupid.
Then, knowing Antiga is the second map, you waste Hero against Flash on one of the very worst PvT maps in the pool.
Then you throw out Taeja (who would have stood a much better chance on Antiga as its smaller and doesn't let Flash sprawl out like crazy as much as he likes to on bigger maps in TvT) because you have to.
Then you end with JYP, quite possibly the worst pro PvT player in Korea.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT

I agree Taeja should have gone out first or at least second imo.

To be fair, Revival put up one of the better fights. Of the roster, he's probably the only one other than Taeja who could pull off an all-kill. They were probably sending out their strongest in that sense first.

When that gamble didn't pay off, they should have sent out Taeja, who in a TvT could have put up a much better fight than Hero, especially considering Flahs is undefeated in both of the first two match ups EG-TL coach chose to send out (TvP and TvZ), and his only weakness is TvT. Go figure, one of our strongest players, Taeja, put up one of the better fights, even on a map that kinda sucked for his playstyle.

JYP was a terrible pick. Even Jaedong who's still not back at his full BW strength unlike Flash would have put up a better fight. Hell even Thorzain would have been a better choice than JYP (then again he was playing HOTS, I assume he was told he wasn't gonna play this week).

A lot of people said they should lay off the criticisms on the coach, but I really think he's a terrible coach when it comes to assigning line-ups and etc. I really wouldn't be surprised if he got the pink slip before the end of this season (I am hoping, more like). Then again I don't really know how these coach situations work in e-sports all that well. But really, this guy. I swear he's one of those SPL coaches that players talk about that pretty much sit around all day playing solitaire.

Flash looks like he's coming around to reaching the heights he'd reached in BW though, that was sort of the silver lining out of that match.

ps. btw i m talking from the pov of at least beating flash. the match was lost when EGTL forced itself to a corner of one player to pull a reverse all-kill. barring maybe JD, if a player had miraculously beat Flash, the remaining 3 powerhouses would have insured the round closed in Rolster's favor anyhow.

Pikey26 wrote:

A lot of people said they should lay off the criticisms on the coach, but I really think he's a terrible coach when it comes to assigning line-ups and etc. I really wouldn't be surprised if he got the pink slip before the end of this season (I am hoping, more like). Then again I don't really know how these coach situations work in e-sports all that well.

Hwanni isn't the one making the lineup choices is he? He's always there, but they have that other coach guy that's there with him. EG hired Hwanni as a player manager and not as a coach IIRC.

Hwanni always made really good choices for Fnatic in GSTL. I say let him have at it for a couple matches.

*Oh, as a reminder for those not keeping close attention, GSL starts up again today with Up & Downs, including Flash against Jaedong.

Starts in about five minutes!

Trot i believe is the one making decisions.

Some 22 year old no one's heard of.

I really shouldn't speak about this yet because the game is far from over.

But a reallllly nice revenge story shaping up for JD/Flash in the GSL.

Spoiler:

I don't know why, but that felt good to watch. And damn JD looked sooo intense even after that win. He must have had a lot of pent up rage from the all-kill earlier. This is so great.... I think 2013 is gonna be amazing for SC2

Millenium picks up Goswser. People say "Ok, rising talent, good on ya" but otherwise brush it off.

Goswser promptly 3-0's MVP in the RO16 in Iron Squid 2.

Stephano debuts soon for Proleague.. or at least EGTL is playing and he should be in the line up.

whoops triple post. =/