I was already calling it when people went gaga over him crushing Inno but like I said, he will look nothing like that against Inno playing bio, or Maru/TY/Cure going bio for that matter.
Now, I get it, he played against Zerg and ZvZ is way different and super volatile but 4-0? Anybody expect Rogue to 4-0 TY? No, I think TY beats Stats 4-1 and beats Rogue 4-2. And the same thing would have happened to DRG.
That all being said, I am excited to see him next season. He improved by an insane amount from just last season.
DRG vs Innovation was… weird. Personally I don’t think DRG is the better player in that matchup, but he was the winner. DRG vs Rogue I expected to be a disappointing series, but I’d at least hoped that DRG could make the games close even if they were 4-0.
They weren’t close. Not even a little bit. It was a brutal, one sided slaughter so bad that despite the fact that I expected it to be a crap series, I was still disappointed. DRG’s ZvZ hasn’t been particularly good compared to other GSL Zergs though - he got to the Ro4 basically off the back of non-mirror matches, so seeing him get absolutely wiped by Rogue wasn’t particularly surprising - all the more considering he’s returning from military service.
Personally I just want Taeja to break his TvP struggles and show us how good he really is. His TvT is pretty damn good and his TvZ has been really, really good too. I watched him in the Olimo League the other day, and he nearly took out Dark, and matched him blow for blow in a macro game, ultimately winning that match but losing 2-1 in the end.
DRG has always been a TvZ specialist.
He was the first Zerg to beat ‘godmode’ Innovation in HotS in straight up ling bane vs biomine at a time when Inno’s winrate with the strat was like 90% or something crazy.
I think he’d be favored against TY in the finals (he’s already beaten him once this GSL).
Rogue has also never lost an offline BO7. He’s 8-0 in the things and probably the best long series player SC2 has ever had. While Rogue may not be ‘favored’, I don’t think there’s a player in the world who is outright a favorite against him in a long series. He’s probably the worst opponent someone with DRG’s strengths could have drawn.
DRG won by outmacroing and outplaying Innovation. No build order wins, no cheese, no weird stuff… If winning 3-0 by outmacroing your opponent in standard games doesn’t prove that you’re a better player in that matchup then what will?
The only thing I can think off is Innovation being overhyped based on his reputation and past results…
Game was close… rogue struggled for every win except proxy hatch… drg was ahead and played better but lost from very minor mistakes…
One game he needed evo wall in front of spine. Another game he needed second overlord at natural. Another game he needed muta fight 10 seconds faster… another he needed double spore at gold… if he did this, he would be winner with 4-0 and not rogue…
Were we watching the same series? The games weren’t close at all. Not even a little bit. There wasn’t a single point in time that DRG was ahead in any of those games. Not one.
I’ll admit that; however there’s also a reason we don’t see players going mech anymore, and Innovation decided to go Mech every game. It was painful to watch because contrary to many Zerg’s opinions, Mech just really hasn’t been very good for quite a while.
If both players are playing their best, sure. But Innovation definitely wasn’t, and was playing a composition that wasn’t particularly strong in that matchup at current. Innovation is usually the player who can outmacro and outplay players like Rogue and Serral, but he fell to DRG, who is definitely not the better player among those names.
TBH I’d like to see how many mech games have actually been won this season compared to how many have been lost. We haven’t seen many, and I don’t think we’ve seen one win from mech these days.
Drg played dumb, like in the game he went mutas he went for a spine wall over evo wall, which is half the hp and no broodlings. He also took a ninja third vs queen nydus, even queues up a queen there despite being mineral starved. If he make evo wall and invests in roach warren instead of third he wins I think.
In proxy hatch game, it was holdable even after not being scouted if DRG micro’d better or teched to roaches/banes.
When drg went roach nydus he could’ve just had spores at his third maybe 5 seconds earlier to save it, or try to nydus somewhere in rogue’s main after he sees so many spine.
In muta war game drg played scared and took later 4th, causing him to barely lose muta war.
Rogue won cause drg make really stupid mistakes, it was clear he had the mentality of a hots zerg in that series.
Yes if he build evo wall he win that game. And if he does not take hidden third. Instead makes wave of lings. He was very far ahead. But could not stop roach hammer from smashing his drones…
He had third against rogue who was all in… he needed to stop spine from rooting… and missed queen block when evo wall go down… or he could put second overlord at home to see drone…