What? 
how about warcraft I?
5 zergs in quarterfinals of IEM Katowice 2023!
I always love posts like this because it gives me the ability to contrast my own prediction against those of other people. Since there were so many zergs in the round of 8, it must have been quite the shock that the finals were a TvT finals. Except, I predicted exactly that. TvZ favors terran because of the Ghost but it’s difficult to control properly meaning only top terrans can utilize it well, and the recent patch gave terran and zerg the advantage over protoss in a variety of changes. Zergs would sail through every Protoss opponent, and the same is true for Terran except fewer terrans would make it to later stages due to the exclusivity of the ghost control giving zergs an advantage against all terran opponents EXCEPT top terrans. Ergo, the round of 8 would be dominated by zerg but the finals would be dominated by terran. That was my prediction here on the forum. You can look it up.
My theory also correctly describes the TvZ win-rates for this tournament which were 53% in zerg’s favor and the PvT win-rates which were 59% in Terran’s favor. It just feels great to be galaxy-brained.
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I assume that this was targeted at me, though I’m not sure if the spelling of the name Maro is a deliberate misspelling of Miro, or an accidental one. If it isn’t targeted at me, then I apologise for answering in place of this “Maro” you were talking to. If it is, why the hostility?
I know I commented on Crane’s balance suggestions about the Raven; my responses were (if memory serves me correctly, and it may not be) based on the foundation that he (Crane) was suggesting the reimplementation of Corvid reactor, under the assumption that in doing so he was taking away them starting with 75 energy.
I did not realise that the new (current) raven no longer started with 75 energy as had previously been alluded to in the first set of proposed patch notes, and erroneously believed that this was still part of the new Raven’s changes, to which Crane corrected me on. Upon being presented with new information, I changed my mind, instead willing to see Crane’s proposal first hand.
Frankly speaking, I do believe the raven is in a significantly better spot (though AAM’s armour reduction being reduced to 2 from 3 was somewhat of a surprise), having played with it in addition to seeing some pro level games with it as well.
However, I would still like to see Auto Turret removed in favour of another supporting spell to make the raven a true support caster - if only because I dislike the concept of free units as it is.
I didn’t make any comments about ultras and Lurkers, so far as I am aware, though I am aware that Terranic has done so.
Before this tournament, the only thing they cared about was first-place finishes. I pointed out that Protoss have the most second-place finishes of any race in premier tournaments. That was irrelevant according to them. Now the round of 8 means everything even though a TvT finals happened. These people are fire-breathing hypocrites. They are the reason the block feature exists. I haven’t read a single one of Miro’s nor Sentry’s nor Kelthar’s posts in over a year. The bytes spent storing their nonsense are wasted. I wouldn’t waste a second of time reading any of it. You could spend your time more wisely by talking to ChatGPT. Literally.
I wish the SC2 forums were more like reddit. If you block someone, they can’t see your account nor your posts, and definitely can’t reply to you. When you block someone, it’s like the other person doesn’t even exist anymore. That’s how the SC2 forums should be. Instead, they can still see your posts, respond to your posts, post in your threads, and, most importantly, they can flag your posts. You wouldn’t believe the comments I’ve had removed. It’s absolutely ridiculous. I once had a guy insulting me left and right, violating every rule of the code of conduct, and I made a sarcastic reply about how popular I was that I was getting so much attention, and I was the one who was banned. It was amazing. That’s the problem with moderation that relies on users to flag other users. It’s obviously going to be abused. So, if you block them, just be warned that they will probably still flag every post you make.
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Who is this top terran exactly? Prior to this you were saying that Maru has no chance against Serral even before the ghost nerfs which in your own words were so easy even an ape could use them. You should have just said Ooga booga…
Innovation. Please see:
Their historical win/loss record definitely gives that impression. Serral has a 60% win-rate vs Maru. Maru certainly couldn’t stand up to Serral a few years back. Innovation could, but not Maru. One series on a new balance patch and new maps doesn’t really undo the trend over the past several years. With a 40% win-rate, you can still win a series on occasion, especially if maps haven’t been figured out yet.
On the new balance patch, Zerg is favored against terran with the exception of the top terrans and that trend is crystal clear. Protoss got nuked all around. That means lots of zergs, a few terrans, and a terran winning the event. That was the likely outcome, and I was right. That was clearly going to be the case based on the balance patch. I was a little unsure if TvZ would favor Zerg just because of the map pool, but my gut said it did and this tournament showed a positive ZvT win-rate.
I was clapping 5500 mmr terran players with ultras despite the smaller map pool. Before, a 4800 mmr player would rapid fire snipe and I’d instantly lose the game. So, yeah, ZvT favors zerg. That’s a huge shift in my ZvT performance.
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You predicted Innovation would win IEM?
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No, I figured it would be won by a Korean terran; probably someone from the top 5 in korea.
Just acknowledge Clem is a korean level terran.
Clem is garbage, sorry. He’s the epitome of the “click fast, not smart” class of terrans who think they can stutter-step out of every problem.
What was amazing about Innovation was that his micro wasn’t the best. It was still good, but it wasn’t amazing. Innovation had such an intense control over games that when he was behind he was the one still dictating everything that was happening in the game. There was one series in WCS vs TY where Innovation was down 40 supply and yet TY was losing the game. Innovation literally rewrote the rules of SC2 with his immense skill. It literally didn’t matter that he had a smaller army when he was securing positions out on the map that were denying bases and forcing bad trades that drastically outweighed the army supply differences. How do you do that with a smaller army? That’s the question, good sir. I would love to ask him one day.
If I had to put my finger on it, he was much better at predicting what units to make out of his starport. The way he lined up what units he needed with the timings across the map was incredible. Liberators showed up when the opponent had tanks. Vikings showed up when the opponent had liberators. I don’t believe in psychics, but Innovation is the closest thing this planet has ever seen to a real psychic. He would know how things were going to trade and how many vikings to make before toggling to liberators. It’s just crazy.
I guess he was a lot like me. Here I am, “Oh, yeah. IEM? I’ve already seen it. Oh, it hasn’t happened yet? Oh well, a terran will win and zerg will dominate the quarter finals.” Like magic, it was so. Maybe psychics do exist. Nah, the game is dead and it’s so predictable and monotonous that there is nothing new under the sun and the outcomes are so obvious a flipping ape could tell you what was going to happen. Just give him a banana and let him point it at a variety of options. 
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Zergs underperformed against Protoss this tournament. I’m pretty sure you were preaching doom and gloom, this patch helped Terran lots more than it helped Toss/Zerg and the pro feedback supports this.
Ya terran players successfully distracted everyone from talking about the lib 25 gas reduction.
Would you like a 25 gas reduction on Lurkers or Disruptors too? Because that is fairly reasonable.
-25 gas cost on lurkers is reasonable?
SCREW IT DUDE, I’M PULLIN THE TRIGGER
https://imgur.com/a/qY1bSOd
But how ? It was 50/50 in Main Event and slightly p favored in group stage but in fact its the Most balanced stat Out of all percantages. It Had Overall 47.1%. pvt was Overall 37% and tvz was 45.7%
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Cuz you threw your hat in with the majority of the community in hysterics over minor buffs to zerg’s worst units while trying to paint buffs to your own race as nerfs or negligible. This community was talking about someone as beloved as harstem as if he were controlled by the zerg cabal because he had the audacity to disagree with the community’s portrayal of the patch, that scarlett and lambo are personally to blame for guaranteeing another zvz finals when a plethora of pros have said that every pro was invited to participate, that serral matchfixed vs ragnarok because of an idra gg timing. It has passed light-hearted quips and is bordering on defamation at this point.
I remember you in particular were saying how cyclones were nerfed because now they’re worse vs bc’s, like can’t you get at least 4 vikings out by that time anyway? The comment on ravens was just the last straw for my patience with you, I really have no intention of pursuing discussion with people that think having 3-1-1 distribution for the top 5 players is definitive evidence of imbalance.
https://imgur.com/a/PJsS2a9
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There was a Hydralisk buff and an Ultralisk buff. Who, other than Thrasher, was complaining about either of those?
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All of which I had nothing to do with and said nothing about, other than understanding the point of view of those who believe there was a Zerg cabal, though I don’t believe in it myself and frankly think the notion rather silly.
Frankly speaking, I really don’t think getting a faster, more microable hydra is a minor buff, though I don’t think it’s unwarranted either - just something to be careful of given the popularity of LBH into Lurkers. More options isn’t a bad thing.
The Ultra size decrease has been something people have asked for for years (and something I fully support).
The Broodlord move speed is noticeably faster - not fast per-se, but noticeably faster, which makes reacting with them much more viable. The Broodling nerf by comparison is, frankly speaking, quite minor because most of the time Broodlings won’t survive the full length of their timed life-span anyway.
I still believe it’s generally nerf against most things. Against a BC rush, Cyclones were your early response to them if you scouted that they were going BCs. The change makes them significantly worse vs BCs. It also makes them worse vs almost every single unit they were actively a counter for outside of specifically muta transitions, queens - though how often that was a factor I don’t know, ravagers and Phoenix -Though I will admit that in tandem with the ravager morph time, the change seriously harms Ravager rushes.
Against most things the Cyclone was buffed against, you generally don’t want to be targeting them in the first place anyway, and most of them the buff has such a minor effect that it really isn’t worth the trade off because the unit excels at dealing with high hp units most effectively, and the majority of those are armoured - this is particularly pertinent for dealing with corruptors vs Zerg. And frankly speaking, almost everything Protoss. Stalkers, immortals, colossus, disruptors, warp prisms, tempests, carriers, void-rays (being particularly important as they were one of the crucial ways to deal with Void Ray rushes in the interim between getting enough vikings up - though much less of a factor now due to the relative scarcity of said rushes) - Cyclones are worse against all of them.
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Man you are such a troll, wtf are you talking about?
How many Zergs were in the round of 8, and how many protoss? 5 and 1. Zerg had 5x more players in the round of 8. ZERgS unDERPerfoRMED agaInST proToSS tHiS toURnaMEnt
Just another piece of evidence to add to the sky-high pile that shows pro players are talking out of their rear 99.9% of the time. SC2 pro play is 99% about mechanics and, because of this, pro play will select for players who are strong mechanically, meaning pro players are going to be intellectual midgets. Some of them were saying this was a “protoss patch” aka it was buffing toss; some of them were whining about the baneling; some of them were saying Zerg is OP because “muh serral wins muh tournament”. I can’t even begin to describe just how insane these ideas are. The opinions of these people are irrelevant as far as I am concerned.
There were smart people in SC2 way-back-when. But, those people used their tournament winnings to pay for college. I am speaking of the Idras and Hydras and Polts of SC2. The people who continue to cling, desperately, to a video game, as they age, are not smart people. Just stating the facts here.
Idra was definitely one of the smartest pro players. He knew Zerg couldn’t scout worth a darn literally years before they buffed the ever living crap out of the overlord. They hit it with movement speed buffs, upgrade buffs, then moved the upgrade to hatchery tech. How was Idra rewarded for his superb game understanding? He lost almost every tournament he entered, and was constantly mocked & derided. SC2 does not reward intelligence – it punishes it – SC2 rewards APM spam. SC2 is about mindless clicking.
Contrast Idra against someone like Neuro. Lmao. Don’t even get me started. Zerg could have a 0% win-rate and be hit with another massive wave of nerfs and Neuro would still be like “Oh well I guess I deserve to be in bronze league! #Respect!”. That kind of attitude is exactly what society brainwashes people with to keep them from rocking the boat. With the boat stable, the people who are currently favored by society’s systems continue to benefit from society. This can be applied to any level of granularity within society. It governs the largest corporations and the most powerful politicians and the lowly McDonalds employees. It’s all about “shut up, don’t ask any questions. If you do, YOU are the bad guy! Shame on you for using your brain to find a conclusion that wasn’t approved by us. How do we approve it? Oh, well, we decide if it’s good for us and if so then you are OK to think it. If we don’t like it, then YOU are ‘disrespectful’ and YOU are a ‘conspiracy theorist’ and YOU are a ‘blah blah blah’”. 
. Society uses guilt and shame as a compliance mechanism. If they are trying to guilt trip you, then you should immediately assume they are trying to take advantage of you in some manner. Social movements built around guilt are nothing more than a compliance mechanism for someone, somewhere, to make a lot of money from people who are overly sensitive and a tad bit gullible.