Discuss the magnificent performance of Soulkey, who has won his fourth ASL in a row earlier today. Given that the meta is much more brutal now than it was in the KeSPA era, with less emphasis on economy and more on aggression, this is definitely the most impressive Zerg performance of all time.

Old thread: >>2000273

thanks for fucking spoiling it for me dude

>>2048397

Spoiler: there's a fifth one on the way!

>>2048326 (OP)
buddy, he plays zerg lol. maybe if he won as an actually challenging race rather than the most OP race at prolevel then i'd agree. also i imagine mapmakers will still make all maps zerg favored next season.

Best played like a B rank protoss all series and Soulkey still could barely win. I think the day a protoss player with more than 80 IQ is born the other races will never win again

>>2049033

Alternatively: P is so overpowered that all P players can be autistic brutes and still be competitive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvX2NwIJ6AU

Potential common sense balance changes to bring Z on par with the other two races:

1. More hive upgrades. Something like hydra armor and lurker range.
2. Addressing the production issue. Something like lair and hive tech give one extra larva per hatchery.
3. At least one building advantage. Something like enemy units cannot use abilities and spells on creep.

first disingenuous balance posting, now spoiler posting. Please get help OP, whatever mental illness you have, it's treatable

Kneel.

>suggesting even more buffs for the most OP race in broodwar and starcraft 2
zergniggers really need to get their terminal skill issue treated

>>2049213
zerg's "barracks" will still cost 500 minerals though

Orange Cloud is OP

>>2050265
>literally ZDS

>>2049207

Artless is up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuA-zF5D0No

>>2049492
>>2049990
>mfw terrannies will 41% when flash gets soulkeyed in the groups

>>2050265
>>2050296

Soulkey Won with a Mutalisk Timing Attack but our Fact-Checkers Previously Scanned and Found a Hydralisk Den in His Main-a-Lago. This is the 43rd Build Order Lie that He has Made in this Series so Far.

>>2050265
>>2050296
>>2051478

Bonjwa at Flip-Flopping. Soulkey Threatened to Bust with No Fewer than Fifteen Hydralisks. He Didn't. Here's What You Should Know. (Subscriptions to Aiur Today ensure quicker forge rebuilds)

>>2050265
>>2050296
>>2051478
>>2051979

All Zergs Agree on Hatchery Before Pool—except Soulkey. Marines and Zealots Are Angry.

still havent watched the finale since it was spoiled. i hear the games are good, but knowing the final result ruins it all.

>>2053249
if best had won i'd watch all of it but soulkey again is uninteresting

>>2053249
>>2053268
was hype watching it go to game 7
shame you guys missed out by getting spoiled

does it feel bad that Best lost? he was one game away.

>>2053249
>>2053268
>>2053275
>>2053546
>the ABSOLUTE state of tossers

>>2053689
i play terran though.

>>2053689
i don't even play the game though.

>>2053546
I didn't expect him to actually get close honestly, soulkey seemed invincible this whole season but made a bunch of mistakes, and he looked beatable against snow too. Feels like the best protosses are finally catching up to him and it's a matter of time before he happens to lose a match.
Terran on the other hand is done for lol

>>2053546
Protoss losing always feels good

>>2053838
Flash will win next season

>>2054239
nah, all the maps will be anti-terran maps for some reason rather than anti-zerg.

>>2054242

Maps in general are already anti-Zerg since P and T can wall and Z cannot. A normalization of maps would entail things like: naturals that cannot be walled, naturals that are further away from the main so T and P cannot defend two bases with one wall, naturals with neutral creep at the choke so Z can wall, more destructible doodads all over the map that permanently close paths to punish T and P staying on two bases forever, etc.

>>2054353
kek. i like how you dont even try to hide it.

i hate all of the naturals having no space to do anything so mutalisks can rape workers

death valley is the only zerg map this season and it's the designated joke map
>muh metropolis
bad for zerg because of short rush distance

>>2054615
Saying soulkey won because of maps is wild. Yeah man, the greatest player in the world, maybe of all time, he only won because of the map pool bro trust me. It's only four times in a row with four different map pools, it's just map bias.
Afreeca prompts an AI song with "break the wall" as the season's theme and bro thinks they wanted to rig it so soulkey wins

>only zerg map
>every map lets mutas kill workers for free
>every map gives free places to park your overlords so you dont have to really scout
>ur gay
huh

>>2054615

It was picked by Snow and Best.

>>2054428
>>2054646

What does this mean? How would any map prevent this? Can you draw it in paint?

>>2054821
this map forces zerg to spawn in the bottom right corner of the map in an island base. there is a death zone preventing the zerg from leaving their base for 5 minutes. zerg gets 1 mineral patch with no gas.

>>2054823

After seeing that Best fumble on Death Valley (pre-brain timing attack from Soulkey?), yeah...this is par for the course.

Can someone shop a group of marines with the troonjak face (hanging or otherwise), with "oooh yeah" and "that's the stuff" erratically pasted a dozen times all over them, and a couple of medics with this tradwifejak face, with their energy values almost depleted, implying that they cannot cast restoration, i.e. cannot restore the marines' genitals? Thank you. Optional: assorted Zerg units in the background with the grinning neowojak face with the trimmed beard.

>>2055094
no

>>2055094
what the hell is wrong with you

>>2055094
Here you go.

This thread is fucking awful, you people should be ashamed of yourselves besmirching the reputation of a good game with faggotry like this.

>>2054817
Best thought he could ape his way to victory with lol2gate and was throughly bamboozled. I don't remember what Snow did on that map t b h

>>2054817
They both thought "surely I will win because my planning is superior", not realizing a map where 3 supply of zerg units can turn your main into an island base is, in fact, a zerg map

>>2055641

Terrannies should be ashamed of themselves for besmirching the game by playing Terran.

How did this map make it in? I've been literally shaking all season. Does Korea have no sensitivity consultants to make sure broodwar is a safe and inclusive space for bipocs such as myself?

>>2055641
Blame the resident /vst/ schizo.

>>2056370
as the resident national socialist that is not what you think it is

>>2056370
as the resident national zionist this is exactly what you think it is

>>2056370
High tier nazi sorcerer here. What low tier grunts don't know is that the swastika is actually a celestial body always displayed in the night sky, by the stars rotating around polaris, the pole star. Because it's only visible from the northern hemisphere, this grants superior northern races our hyperborean magic aura. Koreans actually have the same aryan ancestors so their genetic blood memory drove them to craft this map in the celestial swastika's mystic image. Hope this helps.

Shouldn't ghosts be a counter to mutas since they are designated small?

>>2056700
I'm sure you're kidding but it's understated how fucking shit ghosts are
Ghosts require you to build six tech buildings before you can produce a single one, and they don't even start with cloak
Imagine if zerg could only build their defiler mound after building an ultralisk cavern first, and then the defiler mound required a special upgrade to produce defilers, and they also had to research dark swarm. And the defiler had a zergling's stats, instead of 80 health and 1 base armor

>>2056700
no because ghosts deal concussive damage and mutas are medium sized. So they deal 25% damage on top of being very gas expensive

>>2054239
I'm no expert, but Soulkey really dictates the game so much, I'm not sure if Flash can do anything

>>2056734
Mutas are small, but it doesn't matter anyway. concussive is purely worse than normal damage, it doesn't deal more damage to small units, it's just a nerf vs everything else
Ghosts could deal quadruple damage to mutas and they still wouldn't be a counter, because 5 mutas can arrive at your base in 6 minutes while your ghosts aren't even made yet

>>2056700
Too expensive/too much tech needed. You need science facility for ghosts, which already gives you a better counter, (vessel). By the time you could produce enough ghosts to matter, mutas are already a non-issue.

For what it's worth, micro training maps have teached me mass ghosts do kinda wreck mutas.

>>2056700

Mutas die to marines and are hard countered by one unit (not unit type, literally one vessel) in the early game.

>>2057572
Mutas haven't been hard countered by irradiate for ages. Zergs are too good at microing and splitting, making vessels before valkyries may as well be considered greed now. If you see a terran base under attack and the only thing that can save them is coming from their blinking starport, and it's not a valkyrie, they're done for

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljkHcQTVXVE
ssak deals a shitload of damage in this game, gets four vessels with full energy vs. spire tech only, then dies. Attacks a muta-based army with the unit that's supposed to counter mutas and gets destroyed.

>>2057755

There was one irradiate on the mutas and they weren't stacked. He wasted the energy irradiating a scourge (???) and casting matrix. Soma still didn't engage with the mutas afterward.

>>2057878
>and they weren't stacked.
That's basically the point. It used to be that if you landed one or two irradiates the stack of mutas melted. Now they just don't, they either unstack them or instasplit the irradiated muta and it's fine. Of course he fumbled the attempted kill move anyway but it shows why the old irradiate tactic feels more like a "gotcha" move nowadays. If those were valkyries instead of vessels he'd have simply wiped the mutas, still would've lost for other reasons but yeah.
I'm not saying vessels are bad of course, you always prefer to have as many as you can use in the long term, it just no longer feels like they're the anti-muta unit. As micro naturally improves over time, Terrans got better with valkyries and zergs got better against vessels simultaneously.

you guys are retarded

>>2059296
thank you

>>2058523

The vessel cries out in pain as it irradiates you.

>>2057755
>making vessels before valkyries may as well be considered greed now
terrankeks are absolutely delusional

why does starcraft attract the most schizos of all rts games?

>>2060193
>20 years of i maek marine
>oh my reddit d00d i'm gettin the super duper nerd chillerinos in my prostatino at this pipest playerinooos LOLZZZZZZZZZZ
>zergchad wins FOUR asls in a row when the game is at its hardest
>w-w-w-w-why does starcraft attract the most schizos of all rts games?

>>2060193
>terran
schizophrenics, psychotics, bipolars
>zerg
turbo autists and incels
>protoss
dudebros and chads

>>2061739

Terrannies: bpd, narcissists, borderlines (i.e. trannies)
Zergs: schizoids (so-called psychotics in psychoanalysis)
Protoss: autists, extremely dim normies

bump

it's ogre

*comes up from the depths*
heh time to get my ass banned on a blue board

toot is this the end

fuck him, bro

well we're gonna need a new home
this aint gonna work

friday the thirteenth strikes again...

none of you nigs added me offsite how am i gonna get the new board

does this mean the sites not coming back....

he just dumped us off at a time when not many were online
with no warning, without a chance to set up our new home first

what the fuck is wrong with toot

reminder that i created a backup board and posted the link on 162 many times
knew that toot gave up given that he wouldnt bother fixing the delay on replies

the creator becomes our destroyer.... how ironic....

>>2066468
post the sauce!!!

ok im in the new site i found the bookmark

guess were posting on the ziicord

okay guess im leaving forever and taking my good posts since no one wants to invite me

ww3 started and toot just drops us like a hot potato

>>2066468
i dont remember the link man

someone post the link im done with toot being a crying pissy cunt all the time

lol scv2 is way better without the nolinkers bozos. IQ really increased

the site is back up btw i think toot was joking around

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKWm_xb5IMo
>soulkey must be stopped
>the maps arent even that anti-zerg
huh

>>2069724

See: >>2054353

>>2070122
bro, your sunken colony?

>>2070122
>"zergs can't wall" he says, transforming his 1 supply hydralisks and 0 supply larvae into units with 10 armor to form instant walls like age of empires buildings

play a season on only the maps BW shipped with. all of them.

>>2060191
bugfixed valks are just that busted

>>2070318
in all sorts of competitive games there's stuff like this where the best of the best do it, but the rest of us don't

>>2070318
>can only do this 10 minutes in
>at that point your opponent already has storm
>doesn't work vs terran anyway because maps have fuckhuge ramps now and marines just walk past the eggs
Meanwhile terran full walls with his first 3 buildings and is 100% safe while also fucking you with bunkers and vultures

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEyTy2y-FF8

Terrannies will NEVER be ok if Flash returns and loses to Soulkey in the ASL. Granted, this is a shitty online format with minimal stakes so not representative of either player's skills.

i only post in this thread now so that the lonely zerg whiner can have a friend

>>2074414
jesus christ this guy's voice is awful

i hate reavers so much its unreal

i love reavers so much its unreal

>>2075207

PROTOSS = BUGS
DRAGOON = BUG
REAVER = BUG
CORSAIR = BUG
CARRIER = BUG

Common sense balance changes, nothing major (adding/removing units):

T:

1. Medics cannot heal units while either of them is receiving damage.
2. Spider mine damage reduced by 50%.
3. Irradiate damage reduced by 50%.
4. Bunker cost increased to 250 minerals.
5. Turret cost increased to 100 minerals.
6. Repair must now be researched. Requires machine shop.
7. Command center cannot be lifted.

P:

1. Zealot hp and shields reduced to 50/75.
2. Dragoon range now implicit, shields increased to 100.
3. Psi storm range reduced to 8.
4. Scarab path finding fixed, duds fixed.

T and P:

1. Cloaked units are no longer invincible and can be manually killed.

Z:

1. Hydralisk damage changed to normal.
2. Lurker burrow time reduced by 50%.
3. New hive tech upgrades like adrenal glands: hydralisk movement speed upgrade, to a speed of about 6, and lurker range upgrade, to a range of 8.
4. Enemy attacks can now miss burrowed units, as if they were attacking uphill.
5. A sweeping 50-50 change to the greater spire, guardians, devourers: all costs and build times reduced by 50%, all hp, speed, damage, and rate of fire increased by 50%.
6. Ultralisks gain splash damage.
7. Lair makes all hatcheries produce 4 larva, and hive 5 larva.
8. Maximum creep spread of all buildings doubled.
9. Creep reduces enemy spell effectiveness by 50%.
10. All building hp increased by 50%.

man this guy doesnt give up lol. you killed the thread long ago with your retardation but i guess you must continue

This game doesn't get more fun the better you get at it, it's just more and more busywork you're forced to deal with. Without autistic Koreans game would have unironically died decades ago.

>>2078137

Soulkey won. Terrannies lost. Tossers lost.

>>2078153
someone needs to design an RTS that's as fun to play as brood war is to watch. I have some ideas, like a unit AI with "simulated micro" where units deplete a global mana resource every time they do something intelligent on their own and units in focus are prioritized. also replace the minimap with a much larger "schematic view" which is interactive and allows various functions, with less space reserved for the high-detail sprite or 3d gameplay view.

also the economy could work completely differently with no harvester units (workers could still make buildings though), the main way to gain value is by whittling down your opponents army and econ mechanics are just a way to reinforce or evolve to a different comp with relatively little scaling up. remember, chess starts with a full board of pieces and ends with just a few, there's no reason RTS has to commit to being the total opposite.

>>2078153
As you get better at spinning plates you have to spin more plates, this means there's diminishing returns on micro because your attention/screen can only be in one place at a time. If you remove that aspect then those same autistic Koreans suddenly level up 500% as they can now dedicate their massive APM purely to unit control, and the game would be even less fun for you

>>2078294
I assure you it would not.

>>2049207
They're probably going to scream something stupid, something with "decimate" in it. Apparently the 90s started the trend where "literally" meant "figuratively" so it only stands to reason they'd eschew its literal meaning in lieu of the 90s kid inversion retardation.

they should have updated the building sprites to show when they're building/upgrading
fuck zerg

>>2078137
unironically stopped posting in these threads due to this one dumb fucking schizo nigger. If I was a janny I'd ban that faggot forever and keep banning him every time he came back. We unironically need to start gatekeeping this board.

>>2078749
that would be a change that could maybe make zerg like .15% less good, i doubt seeing an evo chamber pulsating would terribly affect things

>>2079225
it's more about consistency than actual balance

>>2078860

See: >>2078183

Average Terranny: https://www.twitch.tv/artosis/clip/CarefulSavoryEagleAMPEnergyCherry-IhGOpicZbDcpPrMz?filter=clips&range=7d&sort=time

>>2079555
grim

>>2079555
I can't believe he didn't get banned after dropping a hard R like that

Has there ever been an infest command center game in pro play? Asking as someone who is almost done with the campaign and that's about all the starcraft I know. Also what should I watch to know if watching competitive brood ward might actually appeal to me, I watch some other esports, mostly league, so I'm kind of interested to see if I want actually get into brood war.

>>2080090
It's rare at pro level but it has happened. Usually when zerg is playing vs mech terran you get queens anyway, so might as well infest. There was also one famous game back in the day were Zero used it vs a protoss player in a map that had a neutral CC you could infest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaGtjWL5mZo

>what should I watch to know if watching competitive brood ward might actually appeal to me
Check out ASL, that's the biggest current league. Last season just wrapped up a couple of weeks ago. There's also KCM race wars and Ultimate Battle going on more frequently, plus daily proleagues but that might be harder to get into if you don't understand Korean. You can check out old Kespa era (pre-SC2) games if you don't mind potato quality. And also the old Pimpest Plays compilations if you want a taste of early 2000's Starcraft.

>>2080090
also https://www.youtube.com/@ArtosisCasts
Artosis uploads a cast of pro players pretty well every day, sometimes from tournaments/showmatches, sometimes just ladder games

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ttdGT9_wxQ

TERRANNY ARE YOU OK?

>>2083405
This is old news though? We've known that he won't play unless his wrist heals for like a year now

>>2083529
>24 hours ago
>oh my reddit flasherino is retvrning AAAAA mom get the camera I CAN'T WAIT 2 SEE HMI BONJWHOOPING SOULKEY IN AN EPIIIIIIIC SHOWDOWN LIEK BATMAN VS IRONMAN LOOOOLZZZ D00D PUT *clam emoji* TEH *clam emoji* PIMPEST *clam emoji* PLAYS *clam emoji* RIGHT *clam emoji* IN *clam emoji* MY *clam emoji* PROSTATE1111
>now
>th-th-th-this is o-old news th-though?

>>2083701
uh oh tossnigger melty...

>>2080090
Jesus Christ, those were the "pro players?" I COULD FUCKING BEAT THEM.

>>2083405
>promises he'll come back later
nothingburger

do you guys think there's any way soulkey loses this ASL? he never has to fight any zergs due to group selection and these maps arent even that bad for zerg overall.

>>2083816
he had two 4-3s last time so yeah, he could lose. he's great at surprising people on new maps though, if they want him to lose it should be all old maps.

>>2083816
The lack of ZvZ is partly down to luck. Soma just so happened to take his military service, Effort just so happened to retire, Queen just so happened to shit the bed several times, Larva hasn't come back yet if ever. Soulkey's run has happened during a time when the zerg race is missing some of its best players. Hero is the only serious zerg challenger and he narrowly beat him 4-3 in the finals a few seasons ago. fewer strong zergs = lower odds of zerg in ro8/ro4/finals, regardless of what he does in the group selection.

>>2083816
Soulkey isn't exactly unbeatable, vs Snow and vs Best were both very close series and this season's maps are looking good for Protoss. Terrans have been looking pretty shit lately without Flash. Personally, I'm interested in seeing how Soma and Effort will do, considering they just came back.

bump

>he bumped
why... you shouldve let it die...

Basedence vessels will never recover.

>>2078099

Fantastic.

>>2078099

Please tell us more! We are in need of your superior intellect.

>>2097861
why reply to your own posts to bump your own thread? you've already killed all discussion of starcraft, is that not enough lol?

starcraft needs a popular vtuber to stay alive

>>2097861

I have given the matter some consideration, and will sketch some SC3 ideas.

>>2069724
Low eco maps are pure shit for zerg whatcha talking about, everything about zerg is needing to expand due to needing gas, hatcheries for units and how much it costs to get to the good zerg units.
I really really really hope they don't do anything retarded for the next ASL. Protoss and Terran just needs to gitgud

>>2100346
zerg is the most OP race and has been since release
there's a reason why everyone got anti-zerg units in brood war

>>2100875
Zerg received the biggest nerfs with larva change and SP price increase and then everyone got anti-muta tech, medics, crazy strong units and meanwhile Zerg got useless units like devos

>>2100877
>t.

>>2100877
>got useless units
>lurkers

>anti muta tech
>valkyrie come much later than mutas, do half damage to them, and are crazy expensive
o I am laffin

>>2100974
Science vessels got huge buffs which is why SK Terran became meta

>>2100974

Lurkers die to marines, even in large numbers. 125 gas vs. NO gas. Impossible to trade cost-effectively.

>>2100894
>needing a t3 unit constantly casting a 0 damage spell just you don't die to t1 terranny units
>this means zerg is.....OVERpowered XD

>>2100974
>valkyrie come much later than mutas, do half damage to them, and are crazy expensive
>3 valkyries (375 gas) can kill 12 mutas (1200 gas)

Terranny math.

>>2101143
>>2101146
>>2101149
why make 3 different posts

>>2101155

Why maek marine?

>>2101143

Just how bad is this? Well:

12 lurkers = 1500 gas
1500 gas = 60 (SIXTY) medics

Therefore, 12 dead lurkers, a common sight in ZvT, would have to kill 60 medics worth of m&m control groups, let's make it 2 medics per group, so 30 (THIRTY) groups, JUST TO BREAK EVEN. Abysmal.

>>2101574
1 defiler costs 150 gas and solos 200 supply of medics and marines lol

>>2101810
technically the defiler doesn't solo them because plague can't kill units

>>2101810

Defilers die almost immediately to irradiate. Its average lifespan is on par with t1 units. This is why you don't see more than two defilers on screen at the same time (compare with vessels, 12 or more on screen at the same time, or templars, 5 or 6).