BUT ALL THEY CARE ABOUT IS WINNING

^ up there with the fake nerd voices as the most annoying thing tastosis constantly says

Maru vs Soulkey this morning was ridiculous.

Sos got sosd

Hellbats must be getting a nerf soon. Maybe they lose the 'biological' trait so medivacs stop healing? It's straight up stupid that hellbats with a medivac on top of them are basically invulnerable to every early game Zerg unit except roaches and banelings. Queens, lings, and even ****ing spines simply cannot kill them while getting healed.

Catching up on R4 games, so probably a slow pony, but seeing TY's and especially Stork's POVs when the observer PC died was quite a treat to see. It really reinforces what Jaedong's stream demonstrates, which is that Kespa players are so far ahead of everyone else mechanically, including non-Kespa Koreans. It's amazing how much faster and more accurate they are.

link please?

i still think that hyun's FPV is the most impressive i've ever seen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNWP6GkdnWQ

FPV cast starts at about 25 minutes. I haven't seen Hyun's FPV, but he was a Kespa player, too, so I wouldn't be surprised.

thanks!

i love how they troll marineking constantly for not typing GG in english

omg that warpin of 10 zealots in like 1/3 of a second

yeah, like i've said before, it's one of those things where when i watch huk, or even someone like scarlett play, they're obviously really good, but i feel like it's something i could actually do if i completely dedicated myself to it.

but what TY and stork were doing? yeah, no chance.

zest v soulkey i stopped watchign after the blink stalker failed, how did he go on to win?

I can't believe Soo won vs TY. That might be the first game I've ever seen Terran lose with turtle raven mech.

I'll have to rewatch at some point to figure out what Soo did well, but I think the important points are...
- took the entire map, 100 drones, built a massive bank (20k/15k?)
- didn't rely too heavily on swarm hosts, don't think he ever had a massive number or anything, maybe 12-15 max?
- didn't try to force vipers, his opponent went heavy air so he gave up air control
- moved all around the map to try to poke holes wherever TY's air fleet and tanks were not
- pushed creep the whole game even after TY started pushing it back
- liberal use of infested terrans and lings while relying on a primarily ultra-based army

Things TY screwed up on:
- he made 17 vikings against someone who wasn't all that interested in air. You don't need that many, and it certainly hurts his army's ability to, um, win the game when he has like 8 more vikings than he needs that could have been ravens (PDDs/seekers are always good) or banshees (would have been nice in all those fights where his air units were sitting over ultras tearing **** up if some of those air units could actually damage them)
- he failed to simcity very effectively - ultralisk AI is so very bad at getting caught up in building chokes doing nothing while siege tanks rain down on them, TY didn't do a good enough job at walling things off

I also wonder how much the map mattered. I think there's a big contrast between how that game played out on King Sejong versus how Hydra-Hack played out on Overgrowth. On the latter, I think turtle mech is like the most OP as **** strategy there is - Terran can split the map, they have this high ground all the way around to set up their siege lines and simcity planetaries/turrets/etc so that your units cannot do anything (gl trying soo's ultra strategy on that map), then just build up the army they want, move out, and win. On Overgrowth, it's all kind of the same ridge that you're defending with your perimeter, so I think it's harder as a Zerg to pull the Terran's army enough apart (like you can on King SJ by moving between the natural backdoor and the 4th by the watchtower) to really split their army into small enough pieces that you can overwhelm one side of it.

Still, really good game, will have to look back at it at some point and try to learn some things.

The map was definitely a big part of it. It's much harder to split King Sejong Station purely in half. The Terran should really just focus on holding one of either the far left or far right bases on their side in conjunction with the middle high ground base. The smaller the area you need to defend, the better obv. Ceding a 7th base to the Zerg just doesn't even matter because mech is so cost efficient. I'd probably chose the base that's not behind the natural rocks (TY's left side in that game). A defensive PF is enough to hold the rocks at your natural.

One thing I was throwing around in my head while watching Hack/Hydra was to make a suicide squad of 20ish mutas and try to bait the Terran to seeker missile them. Then just turn and fly straight into the raven/viking flock. It's probably not really viable other than as a flashy ending, though. I'm just gonna stick with never voluntarily going that late in ZvT.

Bro do you even SC2 anymore?

the vikings did nothing the entire game

the ravens did very little

he essentially didn't harass and let soo mine the entire map

Not harassing is kind of the point of turtle mech.

btw, bsball, you should definitely watch MKP vs Maru. It's not a good game but you will enjoy it.

After that, watch Cure vs. Salvation, which is a very good TvT.

will do

So my math says that the finals will be

SKT1 vs CJ Entus

Jin Air Green Wings vs KT Rolster

unless CJ Entus wins the Round 4 playoffs, in which case switch CJ and Jin Air.

Gonna be really interesting to see which seven players get fielded here, and how they do it. Bo7 proleague format is way more interesting than Bo5. Obviously probability says you put your best players in your first four matches, but that's just going to mean that if it ever gets down to the 6th-7th match, you're gonna be fielding some interesting players.

FWIW, here's how I'd rank the players on each team respectively, assuming a random opponent from this group of players, and the point at which the player choices start to get iffy....

Jin Air: Maru>SoS>TRUE>Rogue>Cure>Terminator>Avenge

CJ Entus: herO> (barely) >Bbyon>EffOrt> GuMiho>Hydra>Sora>Bunny

KT Rolster: Zest>Flash>Stats>MyuNgSiK>TY>Sleep>Action>hitmaN

SKT1 (lol, this gonna be hard, but I'll try): soO>Rain>Soulkey>Parting>Classic (lol GSL winner)>Dark>ParalyzE

SKT1 has such a massive advantage that it's not funny.

Yeah SKT1's depth ghana crush.

Do they even have Terrans? RIP Fantasy

who do we think wins the skt in house rankings??

i heart the new girl that's been in proleague recently

https://twitter.com/sojunglim/media

why on earth would CJ put out hush, a player bad at PvZ, on MERRY GO ROUND, the map infamous for protoss not being able to take a third base, against a team that has not only fielded a zerg in the last two series, but the same zerg?

Proleague is BACK starting tonight!

Tonight: CJ vs Samsung, Startale-Yoe vs Prime
Tomorrow: KT vs Jin Air, SKT vs MVP

CJ-Samsung is all mirrors so **** that **** (maybe the TvT will be good), STYoe-Prime could be cool with Bomber vs Yoda, Life probably beating Terror so bad that he quits Starcraft forever, and a couple PvZs with Leenock vs Creator and Curious vs Myungsik.

KT-Jin Air is match of the week for sure: Zest vs Maru, TY vs sOs, Flash vs Rogue, Stats vs Cure.

SKT-MVP has Dark vs Marineking, Innovation vs Center, a PvP and Soo stomping Yonghwa. Should be fun.

WELCOME BACK ERRYBODY!

Sweet!

Matchup highlights this week:

Sunday night:
Jin Air-SKT: Cure vs. Dark, Maru vs. Soo, sOs vs. Innovation, Rogue vs. Classic
MVP-KT: MarineKing vs. Stats, Losira vs. Flash
Monday night:
Samsung-Prime: Who the **** is TANGTANG.Prime?????
CJ-STYoe: Byul vs. Hack for some old school action, Hero vs. Curious, Bbyong vs. Life