so this means i'm the closest one to ever beating her right?

anyone want to play some evening? been playing a fair amount recently

Heh, I still remember during MLG Anaheim when you almost beat Scarlett's Protoss (the same Protoss she would soon beat DRG with) but totally threw the game.

Do you still play Z? Maybe we could team up for 2v2 or archon (I don't like playing ZvZ). I play here and there, usually in spurts.

Yep <3 one of my fondest memories. sure!

also i haven't jumped back into ranked yet but can anyone speak to the player quality in the last few years? seems very similar to the people i used to face.

Everyone in platinum and below is terrible, and since I quit every ZvZ it keeps my MMR balanced such that I never have to find out if diamonds are any good!

Katowice day 2 qualifier results!

Bracket 3:
- Zest and Heromarine qualify out of winner's bracket
- NoRegret, GOAT SC2 coach for helping Scarlett reach GSL Ro4, sadly gets eliminated 2-1 2-1 in ZvZs against relative nobodys (Namshar and some guy from the UK)
- Major/Special qualifies in loser's bracket, knocking out Snute and Bunny on the way

Bracket 4:
- Trap and Hurricane qualify out of winner's bracket
- SortOf is eliminated in disappointing fashion (so much for training in Korea), losing 2-0 to Harstem, beating a nobody, then losing 2-0 to Neeb (hard to blame someone for losing to GOAT American though)
- Lots of Korean on Korean violence in this bracket - after being knocked to LB by Harstem 2-1, Soo is eliminated 2-0 by Losira, who is then eliminated by Patience (himself knocked to LB by Hurricane)
- ...but Neeb continues to terrify the world: after losing to Hurricane, Neeb goes on a loser's bracket tear to eliminate SortOf, Ragnarok, Harstem, and Patience to qualify

So, the groups are (round robin, first two on Thursday, last two on Friday):

Group A, "hope you like TvT":
Showtime
Gumiho
Dear
Maru
TY
Special

Group B, "hope you like Koreans":
uThermal
Dark
Innovation
Hurricane
Solar
True

Group C, "hope you like ZvZ":
Impact
Rogue
Nerchio
Serral
Zest
Neeb

Group D, "pay sOs his money":
Elazer
Classic
sOs
Trap
Heromarine
Ryung


Should be fun, lots of talent in each group. #1 in each group is seeded straight to the Ro8, #2 and #3 in each group go into Ro12 to play in to the Ro8.

you seriously still quit every zvz after all this time

u really cant just pick 1 cheese build you run every game?

i made masters playing a creep highway mass queen roach build. it was the stupidest thing ever but i won like 70% of my ZvZs with it.

If I wanted to play competitively then I would absolutely just 13/13 every game or whatever, but I view the artificial depression of my MMR as a feature, not a bug. By quitting every ZvZ I get to a.) not play ZvZ and b.) win 95% of my ZvTs/ZvPs.

that's dumb

to make high masters i actually learned zvz, but still you can make masters with just 1 cheese build. its' fun. people rage. who cant love that?

maybe ill play this game again soon. gotta learn the goofy.

You should stream again, I posted a good ZvT cheese build recently (from Scarlett) you can use. I don't know a good ZvP cheese though...actually, I wonder if the old-ish (from last year) Soo ZvT ravager cheese is good ZvP now that Protoss doesn't have the mothership core anymore? I should try that.

i know 0 about any of the new units from the last expansion, but it's all free now, right? ill install overnight.

Yep!

Builds you need to look out for...
ZvT: decent amount of quick-ish attacks
- rare-ish 1 base factory attacks with mass cyclone (new unit with rapid fire low damage attack, high DPS output though), if you see factory before CC then you'll probably want roaches soon
- I've heard that hellbat-ghost is a thing now but haven't really played against it
- quick liberator (new unit) opens have mostly fallen out of favor but be ready for them when you previously would have expected banshees
- marine tank pushes are kind of a thing again

As long as you don't get blindsided by something you don't expect, you'll be fine playing like you did before with ling/bane/muta vs bio - against mech, roach/hydra/viper is pretty good especially if you can focus on teching up fast and get vipers by the time you max on roach/hydra when their mech isn't super built up yet

ZvP:
- stargate openers are still the most common
- bad players like to build lots of adepts (new unit that can send a "shade" around (which can be canceled) and will teleport to the location of the shade after its timer expires, so they can travel around your bases efficiently mowing down workers) into your worker line, but adepts are low damage against non-light units and squishy vs banes or roaches so you can counter them well as long as you know when it's coming - if you see lots of gates and a twilight it's very likely to be either mass adept (their attack speed is upgraded at twilight) or some kind of charge rush
- mothership core is gone as of December update, replaced with shield battery
- for awhile archon harass from warp prism drops was en vogue but it seems to have fallen out of style
- most common followup after stargate open is robo with lots of gates, feels like immortal + gateway attacks are pretty common (not anything organized like an immo-sentry push, just a bunch of units) but sometimes will turn into colossus and/or warp prism harass
- bad players will sometimes turtle on 3 bases with heavy cannons and try to build a mass carrier army, corruptors have been buffed so you can beat it by taking lots of bases with double spire upgrades and massing corruptors

The common ZvP meta is ling-bane-hydra, which I personally hate because pros will always make compositions that counter it hard (like, immortals and archons) while the Zerg stays on it way too long, but they're good and I'm not so who knows.

You can definitely get to at least diamond by just playing the same you did in HotS as long as you get used to the new units and understand what rushes and compositions you need to look out for. And I guess the other hard thing is getting used to opening timings with the new worker thing (you start with 12 workers, not 6). My standard opening in all matchups if I'm not doing something cheesy is...
14 overlord
14 extractor trick
15 2x drone, rally one to natural
17 drone
18 hatch
17 drone
18 gas
17 drone
18 pool

In ZvP I'll just crank out drones and defend with queens (be careful if they open 2 gate before nexus though, probably means lots of adepts coming soon), in ZvT I'll make an overlord at 20 and pause and make 6 lings when pool finishes to have units to greet a reaper

I guess it's also worth noting that I get cannon rushed occasionally but otherwise proxy cheese is super super rare now

Leave the professional cheese to the professionals. Plat/Diamond is the land of more entertaining cheese.

Pool first into build a hatch behind their wall. Flood lings, enjoy the chaos and platinum tears.

It's both fun and satisfying to watch the Protoss mindgears turn as they decide if they should kill the hatch morphing in their natural, or kill the lings attacking their gateway.

If they have a good wall, you can kill buildings while you avoid taking damage from the zealot and mass more lings. If they micro their zealot poorly, you kill it and cause havoc in their natural, or simply run by it. Don't be scared of a single stalker or adept. By the time those pop, their gateway should be almost dead anyway if you aren't already inside.

If they go Nexus first, you win outright because there's absolutely no way they'll be able to hold the ling pressure without pulling all their probes. They WILL lose important buildings in the wall, or have to spam so many buildings that they can't afford units.

The hatchery finishes 90% of the time, so you'll start a queen and have larvae with which to reinforce. I've never had a game go long enough for a second queen to pop; I've either won by then or the hatch dies, but those broodlings are also clutch.

I will try to bait them to pylon block my natural and third to help with the resource imbalance early on.

Proper ling micro is very important, because most opponents will get an adept out before the wall is completely down. You will be pulling back the low zerglings to go attack something else along the wall. Same for when the zealot comes out to play. Proper micro means you kill it and lose no lings.

This build of course loses to a ramp wall instead of a lowground wall, but the only reason I started doing it was I noticed absolutely nobody does a wall at the top of their ramp any more.

Don't hate it until you've tried it!

The few times I've lost with it is usually because of poor hatch placement, allowing an Adept to cram themselves into a great spot and be effectively immortal.

I assume there's no gas in this? When I think about the timings of the 14/14 gas/pool ZvT rush the hatch (at, like, 22 supply) would be way too late to block their nexus. Might have to mess with timings but that sounds promising.

Gas for ling speed, pull off after. If I see a forge, I put back on gas and prepare to make some roaches if need be.

You WANT their Nexus to go down because that's 400 minerals they won't have for more useful buildings. The hatch doesn't need to go in the traditional spot by their minerals. You place a hatch wherever it fits. Bonus points if you can place it in a section that would otherwise be part of their wall, or causes units from their gateways to have to walk around it to attack your units. Hard to explain in text, but think of gateways near the top of the wall, and a cyber near the bottom. If your hatch prevents an Adept from covering both the cyber and gateways at the same time, you win.

The best part about that hatch is the creep spread when it finishes. He cannot rebuild anything to repair a hole in the wall like your "regular" ling all-in that fails to a Sentry block or just not having quite enough units to break in. The creep buys time for rallied units to reach scary levels while you create the necessary opening.

If the Protoss has excellent decision-making and pulls only the correct number of probes to kill the hatch before it finishes, AND they went for a quick adept, AND they have excellent building placement, you will probably lose. But those players don't exist in Plat/Diamond, so this build is great fun, quick, and always has an excellent chance at success.

Don't give up lings for free! Don't let it die when it could go attack a building in the wall out of range of that adept/stalker. Only need 1 health to do full damage to something that doesn't fight back.

this is great thanks goofy

i decided to play 1 normal 1v1 game to see where im at. i think i still got it.

i had no clue what units he was making (flying units with laser beams that murdered my workers) so i just made hydras and won

lol at my apm. i guess i havent slowed down much.

I played pretty much exactly the same as I did in HotS and did just fine ignoring the new stuff. Tbh, I have not been impressed by any of the new strategies or unit comps that have come around so far. Like, apparently hydra-bane was/is really strong in ZvP, but every game I watched felt like I was watching a WoL Stephano ZvP, just with a different unit comp. Same with roach/ravager in ZvT. It plays out like every other muta-less ZvT build has since the dawn of time, except even worse now since medivacs have the speed boost.

Level of play on the ladder felt lower on average to me, but maybe it was because I was playing unranked? Either way, I'm pretty sure I could breeze to Masters if I had any interest in doing so. And since you were better than me, I'm sure you could too.

Edit: Damn, I didn't think you played that fast. For some reason, I thought you played like Time with like 90 APM.

im playing unranked and just murdering everyone i face doing basic WoL builds (most seem to be gold level?). apparently i havent placed in ranked in 6 years and my last game before today was 4 years ago lol. i guess it's like riding a bike.

i never really played much during hots, although i have some understanding of those units.

Those sound like oracles and those were in HotS you pretender

ok just lost a game because i didnt know certain units could shoot up. i should prob run through some customs on the other races lol.

bro i barely played hots. dont remember much from it except that vipers can make siege tanks not see.

pretty sure i could roach max vs terran and protoss every game to diamond tho. i have no idea what the units do, but these guys cant macro.

Game log, trying fast ling cheese vs Protoss:
Game 1 - opponent went forge first at wall, is completely safe with 1 cannon, I lose
Game 2 - opponent sends early probe scout, makes like 3 gates before core, loses anyway because they're bad but probably could/should have held if they didn't suck
Game 3 - opponent sends early probe scout, tries to fully wall off, I snuck a drone inside first so he sends zealot to attack the hatch at his natural while I break down the pylon/gateway wall faster than he can rebuild it, eventually get through and he has only a zealot + adept
Game 4 - opponent who appears to have gone nexus first hilariously lets the nexus finish despite probe scouting, has 1 pylon powering gate/gate/forge which dies before the gates even finish, had zero chance


Most Ps probe scout so I'm feeling like the odds I catch them throwing down a nexus against pool+gas first are exceptionally low. I'm not sure if I like it much yet, because it feels flippy - depending on the Protoss opening or whether they can wall off correctly (and hold that wall), I can be way behind, whereas using that style of opening in ZvT, it's ahead against ~every Terran opening besides cheesy 1 base factory openings (but most people do rax -> CC and don't scout, so that's rare).

They will all probe scout, but it shouldn't matter honestly. The wheels are already in motion, and early double gateway isn't the end of the world. I've never seen triple gateway, but like you said these guys are probably not very good and you can just outplay them. No core means no ranged units, so you can do whatever you want with fast lings. Kill the wall, run as needed until you can safely get a surround. If I ever saw that, I'd probably put back on gas at home and build a baneling nest. Triple gateway means your hatch almost certainly dies before completion though, so maybe the better play is to just abandon the plan and drop a natural. Dude has 3 gateway and probably a bunch of zealots, which you'll be able to see when they leave his base. You're ahead even with the failed forward hatch, get further ahead.

Did you drop a hatch anyway against the forge? I typically only see that if they planned on cannon rushing me at home, in which case having a drone out on the map to drop a safe expansion somewhere else should mean an easy hold and win. In that case, I drop my natural, which is now obviously somewhat late. They'll cannon it. I immediately drop a third hidden expo with the drone that would've hatched their natural. Drone up at home and drop an evo.

If for some reason they went forge first and don't cannon your natural, well then I guess you got away with 3 early bases (even if one is not ideally positioned) and they have no ability to pressure you, so enjoy your free macro win, but plan ahead for DTs. If they do cannon your natural, you cancel it after his cannons finish and **** him up at home with units produced out of your hidden base and use a dropper overlord if he full walled his natural and built a cannon. I don't know how this would be possible though because that's a LOT of minerals to spend, and during cannon rushes the gateway usually goes down on my side of the map. Your first OL should be at his base though, so you'll know if he full walled before tipping your hand.

I got cannon rushed a fair amount in D1 and it's always the kids copying printf with cannons + robo facilities in my natural. It's easy to stall them and win with a hidden expo used to attack their main while they think I'm contained.

This isn't about playing technically sound SC2. It's about entertaining unorthodox cheese against opponents objectively worse than you. GM-level cheese often assumes GM-level timings and mechanics. If I had either of those, I'd probably not be forever Diamond 1. Well that, and I prefer to win as many games as possible using primarily zerglings. **** roaches and that boring nonsense. This is the true leak in my game.

I reinstalled last night though. Masters here I come.

They can still get probes out if their wall didn't block off and their tech/economy is way ahead of you because of what you sacrificed to get some fast speedlings out. You're super behind in this spot, I think. But, forge fast expand isn't very common anymore.

btw everyone, IEM Katowcie is on!