Big SC2 professional fan, particularly GSL. For years I’ve been watching GSL & Tastosis and they always say stuff that insinuates zerglings cost nothing.
“nice free stalker pick-off”
“oh wow he took out those hellions for free”
“gets a free cancel on that base”
“wipe out those reinforcing marines for nothing”
Yeah, he surrounded and killed the hellions. Yeah, he picked off the reinforcing marines. Yeah, he got a cancel on the base… but in all these situations, dozens of lings died, its hardly free.
I’ve seen artosis call scenarios “free” when the zerg player loses 12-16 lings.
12 - 16 lings isn’t free, that’s 300 to 400 minerals and 6 - 8 larvae.
Larvae is limited and minerals need to be mined, so whats with this idea that if you kill something with lings you get it for ‘free’?
Its almost like artosis thinks lings don’t cost anything; it drives me nuts. Wish they used the Shopify trade app in GSL.
Wish he’d stop using the term ‘free’ to describe zerglings.
It’s true that the language is to say he least misleading (normally is downright manipulating).
If that is uses exclusively for a single race then it is a disgrace.
If it is used in general than it simply means that the trade was more advantageous than it would be expected in a normal interaction.
But i agree, people should watch their mouth from uttering incendiary stupidities.
The reason why this is said is due to the way the Zerg race is designed.
Zerg units, especially in comparison to Terran and Protoss units are relatively cheap, and ineffective on a cost-to-cost ratio. When a cheap unit(s) manages to pick off an expensive unit(s) from another race, the Zerg gains two big advantages:
They are able to make up the cost of those minerals and larva spent on Zerglings to now make more drones. This effect can snowball because many drones can be spawned at once.
In the case of hellions getting picked off for ‘free’, this essentially kills Terran’s timing attack, which is mainly aimed at killing drones, and allows Zerg to drone up for ‘free’, hence where the name comes from. Zerg’s biggest issue is deciding when to make drones and when to make units. When a good ‘pick off’ happens, the choice is very clear: make drones.
In effect, it’s not the Zerglings that are free, but how much they can pay for themselves over the course of a game which makes them free, because those types of good trades for the Zerg favour creating huge amounts of drones which will benefit Zerg going into the Mid and Late game.
Protip: In English, the figure of speech “getting something for free” does not necessarily equate to actually getting an item, event, or service for free. Rather, it implies that the benefit of the exchange in comparison to the cost is so disproportionally in favor of benefit, that it approaches being free connotationally (though in depth analysis can oft prove otherwise).
I aleays understood it like that,you as Z always make some lings,you scout and do things around the map with them,you assume them as a part of the build cost so as long as you are getting value from them it is considered free.
And usually getting a cc/hatch/nexus cancel is usually avery good thing or even killing a stalker that shouldnt have died.
How do you watch this game for years and not realize what he means? I’m also genuinely surprised no one explained it better. But in everyone’s half-defense, I think Artosis does tend to exaggerate sometimes when he says things are picked off “for free.”
In the defense of the caster, the other (about) half of the times, he really means “for free.” I’ll go off the examples you’ve put in:
My guess is lings get a wrap around a few stalkers. Yes, those are genuine free pick-offs. This is common game terminology to say you get something for free when you lose nothing but gain everything. Not a single ling is lost.
I’ve seen this scenario many times. The lings get a wrap around the hellions, the hellions die very quick. Yes this is also a free pickup. The hellions died without doing any damage. How can you get anymore free than that?
I’ve seen this situation many times too. The lings just flat out cancel a base without any contesting. What do you not get about this being free? I don’t think any of the casters commonly say it’s a free trade when a huge amount of the lings get blasted at the cost of one base, but I think we can all agree we’ve seen lings cancel a base and there’s no marines/zealots/other lings to defend that base.
This is common game terminology that even exists outside of SC2. Essentially, the player takes a trade that goes (nearly) uncontested, giving the player a “free” advantage.
Yea, CollegeWings nailed it. An Immortal usually would blast 3 Stalkers with no problem, but if 18 Stalkers would ambush the same Immortal and would blink-focus him they would kill the Immortal “for free” (and a couple of Carriers for that matter).
You started well but messed it up during the way. If 2-3 (50-75 mineral) died killing a Stalker 125/50 (a 400% trade) than Artosis is fully justified in saying that.
I’m half for you. I think he does sometimes exaggerate it (generally and broadly speaking). Just wanted to describe the full picture to cover the other half. I think he does something similar with marine drops and zealot runbys. I don’t keep close track of what casters say sometimes because I just zone them out and watch the game itself
Yes, Zerglings cost minerals, but they’re cheap. Each one costs 25 minerals and is made in a pair for 50 total. Its not a lot.
Context is important as well. If you surround and kill 6-8 helions that have hit your drone line and killed several drones, its definitely not for free. Remember, the aim for the zerglings is to prevent economic damage early on. If you’re spending a small amount of money to prevent yourself from losing income and they succeed in helping you not take economic damage, then the opponent did sack their units for “free” because they invested into getting damage done to slow the zerg down unsuccessfully, even though the lings themselves aren’t free. For a trade to not be free in this instance, you would have to trade well above the mineral cost of the zerglings for it to be even, because of the purpose of the units at that particular time in the game, and thus force the zerg to expend exuberant amounts of money and larvae to defend something that could otherwise have gone into economy.
And that doesn’t even consider the gas cost spent on whatever unit is attacking that the lings have to defend against. Gas is, by nature inherently more valuable when talking about how well something trades with another thing. If you trade 20 zerglings for a single thor, that thor was effectively lost for free because of how expensive the gas cost is.
I agree “free” is not the right word. But as Babayaga says, it’s different.
Are lings “free” is also situation dependent. at 5+ base has some larvae and mineral. in early game or chaotic situations not.
simply the example of Miro. Early game zerg 3 base, but only 2 bases have drones. you have little minerals, little larvae, then you want to build as zerg actually only drones then ling are not free.
Terran has parallel production. for hellion T needs no gas and no upgrade. therefore the loss of hellions is not so bad.