It wasn’t only Byun, you could see reapers everywhere, from ladder to any tournament game, even in tvt.True the best player at that was byun, but other terran players followed him, with less sucess, but it was meta. Now, lurkers in zvt isn’t really meta at least for now, maybe in months the strat will be.
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Byun was the only Terran with TY in WCS 2016.
Reaper was not op, Byun was just a god.
But Blizzard prefer listen cry zerg sadly.
But when Zerg is OP. Blizzard don’t patch this OP race even after 4 years.
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Erh, Diogenex, I do respect most of your opinions, but there… I do play against that frequently personally, at a plat-diam level. Most of the lurker play I’ve seen in PvZ and ZvZ were at pro level… but in TvZ, at my small little level, it’s not the ZvT go-to composition, but I can’t say it’s rare.
Terran players to this day: IT’S ONLY BYUN, HE’S SO GOOD HE GOT REAPERS NERFED TWICE
uthermal: hold my beer while I proxy 3 rax reaper my way to winning a tournament that I didn’t actually qualify for
byun: now that reapers aren’t broken anymore I’m not winning anymore
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I don’t play against lurker that much with T, maybe it’s luck but for me its rare. Lurker in pvz, yes, it’s pretty normal and when I play Z I go lurker 50% of the time.
Once he showed how dominant the strategy was, other terrans followed? Just like when Reynor jumps to the best ZvT player in the world the ladder plebs will follow? Pro tip they’ve already caught on, blizzard explicitly stated they wanted lurkers to replace broodlords and they’ve done so in a completely new match up. It’s not like it hasn’t also happened to:
Neeb with disruptors in 2016 PvP
Maru with ravens early 2018
Serral with burrowed roaches in ZvZ
Zest with adepts in 2020
Zest with DTs in TvP 2020
Has with mass oracles
rogue with swarm host/nydus
I can go on and on…
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If they have caught up, then we should see more lurker play.
and we do… should i get the stats up for you? It’s more popular in ZvT than ZvP…
are these stats over 25% lurker usage or just below 10%.
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If you’re going to use arbitrary guidelines, I hope you follow that logic all the way to include other units.
Its not arbitrary, I think some composition must be used at least in 1/3 of the games to be considered normal/standard, below that is what I consider rare/niche unusual.
Good to know disruptors, void rays, colossus, carriers, mothership, tempests, broodlords, vipers, swarm hosts, lurkers, infestors and ultralisks are rare/niche/unusual in PvZ.
Stats are stats, also you must keep in mind the metagame, in pvz it’s rare to see that lategame with carriers and stuff, usually the game is played around early timings-mid pushes and end fast probably around the minute 12-14, so you won’t see carriers, ultras, blords…and swarmhost like it or not, are kinda rare, you see them in some games but it’s not the usual unit.
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I feel they pay the price in other aspects rather than mobility. For once, they are the only siege unit that is absolutely defenceless if not in siege mode. For second, their mobility is greatly influenced by the presence of creep, so it is not a constant. And zerg as a race has the most territory to cover so their siege units need to be able to navigate quicker to say defend bases, in this case broodlords are flying units and lurkers are fast.
They have unique advantages and disadvantages compared to other siege units, and many of those advantages are locked behind a long tech path and several upgrades.
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Taking into account game length and metagame helps my argument even more. Once you account for mech being 50% of games and from there only a percentage go to the late game and then from there Zerg still has other options to contend with lurkers they easily reach your arbitrary 25% of viable games. With all these precursors lurkers are more popular in TvZ than a bunch of units in the other matchups. Maybe Stephano can keep throwing games going ultras against bio which Zerg players then take and say ultras are trash so… what does that leave us with? Broods? lol… I think ladder Zergs just want their a-move 8 armour ultras back when lurkers offer far more for just a little bit of effort.
You say PvZ is all about midgame attacks to end the game fast that usually is indicative of one race wanting to end the game early… dodge the lategame of lurker + viper maybe?
I do hear what you’re saying. Asymmetrical design is asymmetrical.
However, the argument of the “more territory” to cover is only true before lategame, where all the races are forced to reach for far away bases. And “more to cover” doesn’t requires the siege units to be fast, otherwise their positional power wouldn’t come with a choice requirement to offset it. I mean if tanks were just as fast, it would become impossible for hydralisks/roach/MMM based army to use their slower mobility against them.
Now, let’s say that, considering the Zerg can’t recall, and has lesser map control means (obs/sensor towers), a bonus speed in their territory would be a nice asset to offset that. And that’s where the creeping skills and the bonus vision/speed that come with it do justify themselves. Yet, as all Zerg units, the lurker benefits from that. So, that defensive bonus is already there to begin with.
My criticism regarding the lurker, is that not only it has that arguably justified defensive speed bonus, but that that superior speed + sieging speed also applies offensively. And that, while the lurker isn’t more fragile than the other races counterparts, rather the contrary. This leads to the Zerg being able to ignore the opponent’s siege units, to walk through, and siege right under their noses. And that, that isn’t good design for a siege unit, IMO.
What I would suggest regarding that, is that, just like the siege tank after the (equally nonsensical) tankivac, the lurker gets tweaked to be more conform to a siege unit fantasy : less mobility (at least offensively), but more stopping power.
- Inbuilt seismic spines upgrade (8-> 10 range by default)
- But 3.15 displacement speed off creep (4.20 on creep) ; and Adaptative talons upgrade applies only to burrow speed.
That way it’d keep its specificity with the fastest sieging/unsieging speed of the game (so handy to dodge biles in ZvZ), but wouldn’t be as good at just ignoring an opponent’s already defended position when going for an offensive.
Nonetheless before this to be suggested, I’d like to observe a bit more how the other zergs will react to the recent highlight of that strategy in high level ZvT. I have the feeling most did in fact never see it as an option, and that we will see more of it. Clem reacted with tanks ± liberators, ghosts and scans ; but ravens, more air could also be an option. Maybe it’ll feel different in other hands. Despite having my own idea on how it applies at a lesser level, I’d want to see more of this in players with different styles.
It’s a quite underused ZvT composition since the meta shifted from LBH to LBM//RR, due to the hydralisk nerf. However the lurker itself wasn’t nerfed, and when you’re facing extra-agressive bio terran players, it has the double advantage of halting both his army progression (since he can’t just stim-in above a certain amount of lurkers) and his economy since they’re often on 3 orbitals, expand slowly on their side, and thus often need the mules to keep-on trading. I think the reason it’s not often played is because the hydralisk isn’t the go-to option right now, but what Reynor interestingly highlighted is that you can go for a mostly lings banes base, and still prepare a lurker bases composition for your lategame. 
The hting is, does it even need to be tweaked in the first place?
Z winrates are actually fine, and it was a close series with Clem having won the previous one. Lurkers are probably just fine. And there will be backlash, because there are 24 whine threads everytime a zerg player usses whatever unit…
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That’s why I’m saying that more observation is needed. Until recently ZvT lurkers were a ladder thing, now with the exposure they received we should see more of them in the metagame, which should allow to get a more global idea.
As for whine threads creations, there must be a dozen every day. Though the devs might read some parts of it, I think the probability of a nerf would increase if the strategy became a bit too popular in tournaments (just like in the oracle’s case for example). Whine threads alone won’t influence them, IMO. 
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scan…, liberator, ghost like you’re supposed to, or stop running into them. They cost so much to get upgraded, and come from a bad investment. LBM would rather do RR, or switch to broods or ultras. Lurkers die so often.
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I meant more backlash from US zerg players.
Its pretty irritating to try to discuss something and, after having had to deal with “Maru didn’t win hard enough” threads by the dozen, the “lurkers are OP” flavour of the month. Like, after the first day, there were 4 separate ones. Its disgusting. How can anybody expect any constructive discussion to be had with that situatation?
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