Category Archives: analysis

Assembly Winter 2012 shows how imba Polt is

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Julie and I watched Polt v. Stephano in the ASUS ROG Assembly Winter 2012 finals (replays) over lunch earlier today, and it was pretty phenomenal. Polt managed to win 4-1 after losing the first game, and he was in terrifying positions in each game. From huge Baneling hits in his main base mineral line to Mutas unchecked at an expo where he had dropped all of his MULEs, it felt like he was always on the edge of defeat. Some may interpret the games as a sign of how imbalanced Terran is to come back in situations like that, but I think a better read is that Polt wasn’t quite that far behind, and Polt himself is imba.

I apparently am a fan of Stephano v. Terran series, and this is no exception. He pulled out some new tricks, and I’m still amazed that even though he managed to do pretty much what he wanted in a lot of those games, he still lost. If it were anyone other than Polt, he would’ve had it, but with Tank positioning and Marine splits and target fire like that, there’s not much you can really do.

meanysc2 on reddit made an interesting observation earlier:

one thing I have realized about stephano as I have been watching his ROG games is that he uses his infestor eggs very cleverly. It is widely known that he pops those eggs out to absorb tank fires but there are a lot of times when he just throws 3 out and not attack. I have realized that this is to see how many tanks there are at least in range of the position that the egg is in. You’ll see that he throws the egg in different position of the field. He will only attack when he knows that he has got the right amount of lings to win the push. I’m kind of surprised that none of the casters who have obviously seen more games than me have realized this.

I myself hadn’t noticed this either. I knew about the Tank shots thing (basically, you get to discount 1 round of Tank shots while your Zerglings run in), but the positioning gauge is also interesting. That sort of play is far beyond my own ability to take advantage of, much less perform, but something it’s something to think about.

So congrats to Polt. Although I usually cheer on other Zerg players, Polt was just working so hard in those games. I couldn’t help but be a fan.

Advice on Arranged 3v3 Ladder

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Just played placement matches with Julie and my friend Jordan, and we went 3-2 to get placed into gold league. I’m pretty happy with that and thought they both played pretty well.

Quick observation: in 3v3, there are 2 main strategies: rushes, and air. In 2 games, we got rushed. In 3 games, we were attacked by air (1 banshee, 1 phoenix, 1 muta). So if you don’t get rushed, get defense in your mineral line soon.

Working with Ultralisks

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“I go ultras when I’m really far ahead and I want to lose”

– Destiny

Since FruitDealer in GSL1, ultralisks have been a really sad story for Zerg. I don’t think I’ve ever seriously built them, and I haven’t been impressed with them in pro play. I just caught Jjakji v. Nerchio on Daybreak in the IPL Fight Club (game 5, maybe?), where Nerchio stuck with ling/infestor/ultralisk, and it was very sad.

The commentators really hit the point correctly in that ultralisks don’t work on a map with narrow paths: they block each other too much, and lings can’t slide by either. Jjakji really compounded the problem by building Orbital Commands and PFs everywhere to further constrain movement. Instead, Nerchio had to fight up ramps, through chokes, and into sniping ghosts and the mass of the Terran army.

Another problem I noticed, in this game and the last one on Shattered Temple, was that Jjakji was always retaining his medivac count. When Artosis was streaming and reviewing his play during the holiday season, he really focused on the point of chasing down and killing medivacs after engagements. Marines and marauders are comparatively cheap to medivacs: make Terran players rebuild those medivacs and tighten them up on gas a little bit. It was just sad to see double fungals go off on huge clumps of marines and fail to kill any of them because 8 medivacs were ready to heal them up.

What does give me hope is Zerg using better mobility in these circumstances. One thing Nerchio did really well was small ling counter-attacks and run-bys, and he actually cleared out Jjakji’s buildings in his main. That sort of mobility, from the speed of units, overlord drops, or nydus play, can help Zerg avoid those unfavorable engagements in the middle.

The best inspiration about this type of play comes from Mystic, who pulls Chita in every direction in this ZvP on Metalopolis. He can be everywhere at once, dodging the Protoss death ball and saving units by retreating into Nydus Worms. The game is a little old, but it’s truly phenomenal and was an early inspiration for me on how cool Nydus play can be.

Replay

Casted by HD




Stephano’s muta-less ZvT

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My Starcraft separation continues amidst other things in life, but I did get to watch 2 or 3 games from the SHOUTcraft Invitational 4 finals this weekend between Stephano (Z) and Thorzain (T). My opinion of Thorzain goes up and down, but he has already participated in one of the best ZvT finals I’ve ever watched against DRG in the Dreamhack Valencia finals (VODs here). That series was traditional Marine-Medivac-Tank against Ling-Baneling-Muta and really showed how back and forth it could be.

The Stephano-Thorzain series (VODs here), however, shows how Stephano completely blows that matchup apart. Best I could tell, Thorzain played it by the book: early hellion pressure while expanding, transition into marine-tank with some early pressure, and then into the midgame. Stephano completely crushed this by going for a ling-infestor composition with a lot of lings early. This did a few things for him:

  • the tank count never got very high because Stephano had so many lings out. When the first push came, he just kept pumping lings. Without a sufficient number of tanks, Thorzain was always vulnerable
  • to make them less vulnerable and more effective, Thorzain spread his tanks. When he did this, Stephano used Infested Terran bombs to have the tanks splash and kill themselves
  • with low tank counts, Thorzain’s marines were vulnerable to fungals and banelings, and that completely opened up the game
  • since Stephano had the infestation pit and not a particularly heavy commitment to the midgame, he got Hive quickly and started tier 3 before Thorzain could really ever build his perfect composition

SC2NoobSchool appears to have a tutorial about this style, though I admittedly haven’t watched it myself. I’m not really sure how terran is expected to deal with this, as Thorzain even stuck by hellions a little longer in a few games, to no avail, as the ridiculous ling count always got a surround.

We’ll see how popular this style gets as we get back into tournament season.