The skill difference between maru and rogue is immeasurable…
What I see is a superhuman machine who knows the game like the back of his hand, and who plays abusively in every way he can (except switching to a race that is viable and not terran) in terms of harass, strategy, expanding etc. VS someone who isn’t nearly as good and even made complete noob mistakes that, let’s be honest, you could never, ever imagine maru making if the roles were swapped.
Rogue could have won every single one of those games by 1. going into lings instead of roaches after maru failed his cheese and in the hardwire LE game he should have not thrown away lurkers into liberators and just went for broodlord infestor… or gone for ultras.
TvZ is the worst possible job the devs could have done in terms of balance, so don’t even dream of playing mech or else they’ll beat you even without swarmhosts. But still you might have a better chance with mech seeing as how incredibly weak bio is so you might want to take your chances that you will catch them off guard with mech, but either way zerg has the better economy, better map control, much better late game, a-move armies that can automatically win the game every time they are used, infinitely better cheese potential, takes no micro, sees everything you do and can apply pressure however they want, the second you make any weakness (like expanding too early) you get obliterated. Meanwhile the zerg can lose 16 drones and re-make them instantly.
It’s a nightmare where you’re forced to apply pressure or deal damage every minute or else they snowball out of control.
Actually think about it, how is it fair for terran to have zero effective cheeses that end the game - and zero cheeses that can’t easily be countered by queens and overlord scouting, while zerg has a million cheeses that automatically end the game even against the best bio player in the world, and the best mech player also loses to nyduses, it’s not unequivocally horrible game design.
Prove me wrong, become better than maru… but that will never happen.
That’s not where zerg’s win conditions end, as the final game shows you can also just attack many spots at a time and it’s practically impossible to deal with, while being literally impossible to deal with if you play mech. It can even be impossible to take your 5th base at all with mech if the zerg knows how to creep spread and counter your units.
As a reminder, swarmhosts are able to make a free, extremely high damage unit that also isn’t restricted by having to move on the ground. This objectively guts mech because either you unsiege your tanks and lose to roaches/hydras/lings or you lose them to locusts landing on them. The only counter is going for an extreme amount of hellbats which just doesn’t help if the zerg knows what they are doing because then after your smaller amount of tanks and thors get blinding clouded, the hellbats can’t beat the roaches, hydras or… yeah, the ultimate tanky insane damage dealing god-mode unit to top off this god-mode race: the ultralisk.
Speed banshees don’t counter them because 1. they’re a huge investment and 2. they can be countered by the SH running back into the nydus or countered by hydras shooting them down. That’s it, it’s that simple to make SH work despite being a literal win condition to make it work against mech. The only other counter is to go ghost and hope to snipe them because the opponent isn’t looking which will never happen.
All you need to win against terran is to utilize your tools well and not be caught completely off guard while preventing them from expanding. If 3 rax in TvP just make shield batteries in a spot where they can’t reach them. If ghost rush in TvP just scout everything and rush out an observer ASAP… but if you go mech and get roach ravager rushed you simply lose. Same as maru vs serral game 1 on 2000 atmospheres. If you think you’re not pre-destined to lose against a Z or P who plays abusive (e.g. just warp in a bunch of DTs then focus orbitals and snipe the raven after the terran moves out) you’re just platinum and think you can tell way better players how to play. There’s in fact no counterplay to roach aggression (even as bio, as the previous rogue vs maru finals shows us), lurkers in your main base, DTs, early gateway units etc.
The geniuses at blizzard couldn’t bother making the game more than a “terran makes this, so the other 2 races have this, so they win if they make it” clown fiesta. But at least watching cure get stomped for being naive enough to think he can win with terran was good.
