So I've played another ~70 games on the KR server. This is in masters league playing against Masters level opponents, so no shitty "I do timing attack and transition into fail" players. So far...
Korean Zergs still seem to be bad. They're really aggressive, but in dumb ways. Recently I've been tuning a TvZ reaper opening and it's hard to measure it's effectiveness when about half the Zergs on KR throw roaches at me. Because clearly the best response when you scout a Terran's capacity to make Marauders is to attack him with a unit that gets shat on by Marauders. I mean, I'll take your ladder points and all, but please play the game with the skill and intensity your people are renowned for!
Taiwan Protoss are greedy. A typical Taiwan DT opening has them building 1 stalker, then their tech and 2 more gateways. And I'll still die to it because I"m stupid and always assume there's a sentry guarding the ramp, even though all I have to do is walk up and win the ******* game. I've been losing to those little fuckers and it bothers me.
Chargelot/Archon is obnoxious. Requires swift Ghost transition and perfect application. But what I'm thinking I should do when fighting mass chargelot is to try and hug a cliff edge or some sort of terrain wall and try and crawl along it whilst stutter stepping the mob. This makes the opposing Zealots clump up most satisfactorily for me. I dunno, worth a thought.
Korean Protoss are incredibly diverse with their strategies and tech switches. Playing against them is typically frustrating, as any read could easily turn into something else and I feel like I have to spend a lot of the game trying to detect and optimally counter what's about to hit me. At least medivacs are still fun! Micro, micro, micro...
Korean Terrans love their mech play. It's all they seem to do these days! So I've scrapped marine/tank for the time being and have experimented a touch with mech but I've come to realise that there exists a food chain in TvT. Marine/Tank > Mech > Sky Terran > Marine/tank. So I adapted a build I took from Drewbies stream where I get some blue flames and a viking and a raven and an expansion, felt out the opposing terrans build and then just went Sky Terran in response. Result? Huge success! Air control is pivotal for Mech terran so when it's taken from them they cannot deal with it. This I learned from playing mech vs another mech terran and one of us got air control going, the loser just can't move his units out, gets his tanks outranged hard and it's just not a comfortable spot.
But whilst playing Sky terran (hellion/banshee/raven/viking, splash some dropships and get some BC's later) is fun and very strong against mech it's not going to work indefinitely when the metagame rolls around a bit. In fact I suspect that TvT is going to turn into a really intense and diverse matchup involving a lot of tech switching, transitions and scouting, and really abusing all sorts of interesting dynamics and timings. Expect mech to stay for a bit and never truly cycle out of favour but it will be overcome by terrans who understand the sky terran tech switch and can remain a step ahead.
Taiwan improved. A lot. SEA clans like nGen and aLt smashed 'em around in a few clan wars but our nation wars the other day was a harsh wake up call. Get to it lads! We have to be better then them at least!
Re: UPDATED MAH JOURNAL, iaguz vs kr/taiwan blog 2
Lol i'm with you on the Toss senty thing, I always ditch the early poke just because when I see a sentry I just back off, cbf trying to go up there and ill just tech or do some risky opener because it seems more safe
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