TvZ I can at least understand the complaints, there were multiple series involving top players of their respective races that ended convincingly in zerg’s favour. Notable series include dark vs clem, ragnarok vs cure, and serral vs byun.
In game 1 of the latter series byun looked to be pulling serral apart with his continuous attack at serral’s third, but a last minute surround was able to route the attack and give serral the advantage. I think byun would have won this game if he didn’t lose his first 2 medivacs as most of his bio was in the red and medivacs out of energy when serral dived onto it. However the other 2 games did look a little stompy.
That said I don’t think it’s hopeless for the terran either: special was able to convincingly beat solar 2-1 with bio, battle mech has seen some wins, and of course a few degenerate bc builds are being utilized with mixed results. All in all I guess you could argue the hydra speed buff tipped the scales in zerg’s favour, and maybe even a lurker change should be made in consideration of the snipe nerf. Still let’s not forget the mental gymnastics used by terran players to try and convince us the cyclone changes were a nerf or those used by protoss players to claim 7% movespeed on hydras is gamebreaking while 11% movespeed on sentries is barely worth mentioning.
PvZ however does not have much of a leg to stand on, with the gasket exploding at dark, one of the top 2 zergs in korea for half a decade, beating creator, a ro16 toss infamous for choking under pressure. To all those saying dark of all players is a patch zerg or won by imbalance, some of dark’s results from HOTS include going 3-1 vs taeja, 3-0 vs maru, 3-0 vs life all on LAN. In the last year he’s gotten 2nd at gsl st and won DH valencia with a 3-2 win over hero and 4-3 win over maru. That’s not to say creator is a bad player, he got to semis in valencia before falling 3-1 to maru and lost 2-4 to rogue in gsl s1 last year, however dark is without a doubt the favourite here.
We can move to game analysis as well and the decisions justify the results. G1 not much to say, if toss doesn’t scout/deny the first nydus then they have to all-in from a disadvantageous position, even so it was pretty close. Dark lost g2 and g3 in deserved fashion, g2 his mass drop got crushed and retreating dropperlords/roaches cleaned up while his simultaneous attack on creator’s third was denied. G3 his cheese was poorly executed: mined out the wrong mineral fields and let 2 adepts get into his main without units in position. However creator was not exempt from mistakes either, letting 10 lings into his base that could have been prevented with a hold position stalker and getting 3 batteries biled down together. Dark arced his ravagers and picked off the frontal wall but in the end he’s a 1 base zerg against a 2 base toss.
G4 was creator’s game to lose, he got into an early lead with the double pylon block at dark’s natural that caused him to make 5 overlords at 3 minutes. But dark was also playing extremely safe anticipating an adept timing, maybe the lone phoenix tipped him off or he just knows how creator thinks, and that is exactly what creator did with 17 adepts hitting at 7 minutes that dark has been preparing for minutes prior. He had a spine at his third, a pack of lings, and both banes and roaches popping while creator’s attack was spotted a few seconds advance by creep on the south side. He could’ve hit a normal adept timing, he could’ve shaved a few queens and lings and pulled back, but he finished the second shade and trades out most of his army for 2 drones and a handful of ling/bane.
G5 dark had 2 drones idle for 15 seconds at 5 minutes in the game, meanwhile creator sees a 30+ baneling runby morphing on the other side of the map and sends a single colossus that is out of position to deal with it, ends up losing 18 probes. He eventually loses that colossus for free to roach ravager, his oracles to biles, and doesn’t remake the battery at his third or start one at his fourth. 2 minutes later he proceeds to get his fourth sniped by ling bane that he combats with 6 immortals and 1 colossus meanwhile the rest of his archons and colossi are battling the roach ravager at his 3rd, all the while he pumps out 3 phoenix when he already has a void to clear ovies. Even still he had a chance if he warped in sentries and had a battery at his natural or if he recalled 3s earlier in the base trade.
Jfc this of all series was not one that was decided by imbalance. Hell you could make a better claim for imbalance in astrea vs reynor but then again that would actually require some semblance of game knowledge from the fanatics that behave like stunted manchildren on reddit and twitch. And terran players, don’t go ruining my sympathies for you by complaining about gumiho’s 1 base all-in vs solar where he lost 3 tanks unnecessarily followed by both banshees.
/end rant
i cant even express how wrong that is. If i can see showtime losing to a zerg that has 6.5k mmr with only hydras then yes the unit is at least decent. Now its even stronger. Zerg whiners created the myth about hydras being bad. But guess what? They arent bad at all. They get played in every matchup and is useful in every of them and do their job pretty good.