The StarCraft II thread

[Otolia]

That was Polt.

[Kinetic]

Who's Polt?

[TheButtonmen]

Can't tell if serious or hilarious joke.....

[Kinetic]

The latter

[AGar]

afaik WCG korea doesnt count as a starleague so MKP could win it and still be part of the kong line (I think)

Yes.

[Otolia]

Don't critizice Polt, he is studying at a very good university while being a pro player. He might not be the best terran out there but he certainly has a very good level.

[Kinetic]

/facepalm

I'm not criticizing him, its a joke that no one knows who he is or rather, he doesn't get any recognition despite being as good as he is.

[AGar]

I thought it was a joke that he's completely fallen off the map.

[Ellibereth]

Polt's taking an year off from uni.
and his stream is wonderful.

talking about streaming
HIYAAAAAA

[AGar]

<3 HiyA. I really want to see him end up on a BW team, not transition to SC2.

Also, fOrGG. Wow.

[redFF]

Yeah fOrGG crushed Sage. It's pretty scary because I considered Sage to be one of the best players mechanically. The good bw pros are going to crush everyone :/

[AGar]

Yep.

But.

BW4Lyfe.

[Otolia]

Yeah fOrGG crushed Sage. It's pretty scary because I considered Sage to be one of the best players mechanically. The good bw pros are going to crush everyone :/

How is forGG any different from one of the many goods terrans out there ? The matchup is still favouring Terran despite Creator's double forge build.

The good BW pros are going to be just that, good. Nothing out of the ordinary. Only the best BW players will actually be dominant enough to win tournaments on a regular basis.

[AGar]

How is forGG any different from one of the many goods terrans out there ?

I don't think you understand. A player who just picked up the game inside of the past 3-4 months just demolished a player who not only has been active in the scene for over a year now, and is considered one of the better Protoss players out there. And he got dismantled. With near perfect mechanics and execution.

And fOrGG, while an MSL champion, is one of the lesser BW pros.

Pretty much everyone should be very afraid.

[Otolia]

forGG had an impressive win and so did Curious last Code A and he didn't pass the Ro32 in Code S in November. He even had a hard time against TheStC in Code A. I praise your divinatory abilities AGar but I think you will be proven wrong.

[Kinetic]

I agree that BW Pros are going to do well, however, because of the nature of SC2, I truly don't believe they will dominate the scene as is being predicted for three reasons.

First, SC2 is not a complete game. It won't be for at least 2-3 years, after plenty of patches. Hell, there are going to be two MAJOR shake ups with Heart and Legacy. I don't believe the change will be as big as the shift from SC1 to SC2, but it will likely be at least a year after Legacy is dropped before we have a solid, almost complete game. Remember, the first recognized "bonjwa" Boxer, didn't arrive until about 2001-2002, about 3 years after SC and BW had been first put on sale. The scene had plenty of time to develop before a clear "favorite" showed itself. I don't believe it will take that long for an SC2 bonjwa, but to expect one before Legacy is dropped would be rather premature. The two that are closest to that distinction right now MVP and Nestea still have plenty of holes in their game.

Second, the "limit" on "hard-skill" is lower in SC2, allowing more strategic play to surface. Because of this, players from BW who were so good

because

their hard skills were so far ahead of everyone else won't be as far ahead. That isn't to say those aspects aren't important, hell Fin(forGG) vs Sage shows that we still haven't quite met that limit yet. But everyone, from the top pros to the lowest Bronze player admits that SC2 is "easier" than SC1. Just change rally points in SC2 compared to SC1.

Third, SC2 requires slightly different skill sets and rewards different skills. If SC1 were 60% practiced skills and 40% strategy (numbers out my ass) than SC2 is more like 60% strategy and 40% practiced skill. Players who did well in SC1 will still do well in SC2, but there is room for new players who have talents more aligned to SC2 to rise up.

[Papa Zito]

Today on the way home I passed a run-down sports bar with a sign that said:


Barcraft
Saturday 5PM
MLG
Vietnamese Sandwiches


And I was like wow really that's a thing?

[Claus]

Guys, can anyone give me some hints on how to deal with ultralisks in TvZ? In this matchup I usually do a very vanilla marine/tank/medivac build on 2 base - push - 3 base - try to contain, and this has been working ok if my macro is equal to my opponent's. However if they go ultra, specially in early/mid game, I usually lose, even if the macro levels seem the same.

Should I increase the tank/marine ratio? Any scouting tips for ultras? I suck at anything that is TOO micro intensive. Thanks for the input!

[Nuwen]

Ghosts.

[DeathRowKitty]

Ghosts.

This. Also has the benefit of killing brood lords if they tech switch. If you just need to kill ultras, marauders are good too.

[Gammagooey]

Get a few maruaders. Stimmed marauders can kill ultras retarded fast given how much easier they are to get.

Ghosts are also good but maruaders will make the zerg call terran op before leaving.

[Otolia]

Get a few maruaders. Stimmed marauders can kill ultras retarded fast given how much easier they are to get.

Ghosts are also good but maruaders will make the zerg call terran op before leaving.

Late game terran is OP. As is Pure Mech vs Zerg.

[AGar]

Remember, the first recognized "bonjwa" Boxer, didn't arrive until about 2001-2002, about 3 years after SC and BW had been first put on sale. The scene had plenty of time to develop before a clear "favorite" showed itself. I don't believe it will take that long for an SC2 bonjwa, but to expect one before Legacy is dropped would be rather premature.

1. BoxeR was not known as "bonjwa" during his reign. Bonjwa started and ended with MJY, and was retroactively applied to BoxeR, NaDa and oov. Even now, Flash is simply referred to as God Young Ho, and not bonjwa, although he displays a dominance that parallels theirs.
2. BW's pro-scene only started in late 99, and BoxeR was a force in early 2001, if you only look at OSL/MSL.
3. BW's pro-scene started from scratch. The SC2 pro-scene is somewhat of a carryover from BW in many ways, and has much of the infrastructure and overarching concepts (macro, multitasking) coming over pre-developed.

Second, the "limit" on "hard-skill" is lower in SC2, allowing more strategic play to surface. Because of this, players from BW who were so good because their hard skills were so far ahead of everyone else won't be as far ahead. That isn't to say those aspects aren't important, hell Fin(forGG) vs Sage shows that we still haven't quite met that limit yet. But everyone, from the top pros to the lowest Bronze player admits that SC2 is "easier" than SC1. Just change rally points in SC2 compared to SC1.

hird, SC2 requires slightly different skill sets and rewards different skills. If SC1 were 60% practiced skills and 40% strategy (numbers out my ass) than SC2 is more like 60% strategy and 40% practiced skill. Players who did well in SC1 will still do well in SC2, but there is room for new players who have talents more aligned to SC2 to rise up.

There will be cookie-cutter pros that do not hold up as well, as their mechanics will not overpower. But to think that most of the top tier pros are going to fail because it is 60/40 instead of 40/60 is foolish. The top players (basically Top 8-16 in MSL/OSL) execute on a strategic level far above the rest of the field, who rely solely on mechanics. If anything, this will only benefit these players. A player like Flash, or Bisu, or Jaedong, or even someone lesser-known like Calm or Mind, will prevail even moreso because they have to focus less time on honing absolute 100% perfect mechanics and can spend more time focusing on strategic improvements. But eventually - like BW - SC2 will hit a point of climax, where the metagame will no longer make great shifts and mechanics will carry you most of the way, with only minute on the fly decision making being a difference maker, and not overcoming sheer mechanical prowess.

[Kinetic]

Remember, the first recognized "bonjwa" Boxer, didn't arrive until about 2001-2002, about 3 years after SC and BW had been first put on sale. The scene had plenty of time to develop before a clear "favorite" showed itself. I don't believe it will take that long for an SC2 bonjwa, but to expect one before Legacy is dropped would be rather premature.

1. BoxeR was not known as "bonjwa" during his reign. Bonjwa started and ended with MJY, and was retroactively applied to BoxeR, NaDa and oov. Even now, Flash is simply referred to as God Young Ho, and not bonjwa, although he displays a dominance that parallels theirs.
2. BW's pro-scene only started in late 99, and BoxeR was a force in early 2001, if you only look at OSL/MSL.
3. BW's pro-scene started from scratch. The SC2 pro-scene is somewhat of a carryover from BW in many ways, and has much of the infrastructure and overarching concepts (macro, multitasking) coming over pre-developed.

I agree with 1, I wasn't trying to say otherwise. Only that he was the first "recognized" one, even if done afterwards. As for 2, while true, the game was out and being played competitively before that. It did take a while to build it up, but nonetheless. As for 3, I was trying to account for that as well in my points, but things are fundamentally different between now and then. I would argue that because the scene started from scratch it allowed players to be more dominant than nowadays with a much more even playing ground among everyone. And I really think the expansions are going to throw quite a wrench into any stability of the scene until they are all out. Even after that, with Blizzard we will see a LOT of early patches, but I'm willing to bet patches (while they will still be released) will start to slow probably around a year or two after the release of Legacy. That is when things will really start, and by then there won't be a BW scene.

Second, the "limit" on "hard-skill" is lower in SC2, allowing more strategic play to surface. Because of this, players from BW who were so good because their hard skills were so far ahead of everyone else won't be as far ahead. That isn't to say those aspects aren't important, hell Fin(forGG) vs Sage shows that we still haven't quite met that limit yet. But everyone, from the top pros to the lowest Bronze player admits that SC2 is "easier" than SC1. Just change rally points in SC2 compared to SC1.

hird, SC2 requires slightly different skill sets and rewards different skills. If SC1 were 60% practiced skills and 40% strategy (numbers out my ass) than SC2 is more like 60% strategy and 40% practiced skill. Players who did well in SC1 will still do well in SC2, but there is room for new players who have talents more aligned to SC2 to rise up.

There will be cookie-cutter pros that do not hold up as well, as their mechanics will not overpower. But to think that most of the top tier pros are going to fail because it is 60/40 instead of 40/60 is foolish. The top players (basically Top 8-16 in MSL/OSL) execute on a strategic level far above the rest of the field, who rely solely on mechanics. If anything, this will only benefit these players. A player like Flash, or Bisu, or Jaedong, or even someone lesser-known like Calm or Mind, will prevail even moreso because they have to focus less time on honing absolute 100% perfect mechanics and can spend more time focusing on strategic improvements. But eventually - like BW - SC2 will hit a point of climax, where the metagame will no longer make great shifts and mechanics will carry you most of the way, with only minute on the fly decision making being a difference maker, and not overcoming sheer mechanical prowess.

I don't believe I ever said that the top tier pros were going to fail. I didn't say that at all, and I agree it would be a foolish position to hold. I believe what I said was they wouldn't dominate in the same way as they did in SC1. If I didn't say it like that, I apologize, but that is what I meant.

The argument I'm making is that Flash/Bisu/Jaedong are all amazing players, no doubt. I have nothing but respect. I just refuse to sign on to the belief that once they switch all future tournaments will be simply won by one of them (or Calm or Hydra or Fantasy, etc etc etc). I am sure they will win some tournaments, I just don't really expect their domination to be anywhere near as complete in SC2 as it was in BW. They are different games to the point where I fully expect that we will see "new players" come up who are more adept to the specifics of SC2. (I use "new players" to mean not necessarily players we've never heard of, but more specifically players that may not have been as good in SC1 or W3 or another game, but it could include players whose first game is SC2)

[Kinetic]

Terran is OP because they have the most options and their ability to tech switch efficiently. It is more expensive for Protoss or Zerg to tech switch (most difficult for Protoss I believe, as they sometimes need an entirely new line of buildings, while zerg generally just need a new building and their production is limited by the number of queens/hatcheries). When Zerg/Protoss get more options available, and they are easier to reach (either by simply more units, or better allocated units) a lot of "Terran is OP" will go away.

I don't believe there is anything that needs to change with Terran, and I don't really think anything needs to be "buffed" with Z or P, there just are fewer options at all levels for P and Z and that needs to be fixed.