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IEM: We Have a Winner

Posted by Lasse "Enron" Engen 1 year ago

How do you spell 'the best player in the world'? MorroW. Stefan "MorroW" Andersson amazingly won the grand final of the Intel Extreme Masters at Gamescom 3-1 over IdrA.

It took them four games, and the young, Swedish Terran player came out on the top after amazingly taking down IdrA 3-1 in the grand final for Intel Extreme Masters at Gamescom.

“

I thought that if I went for reapers all the first games I could fake a reaper rush in the final game” - Morrow

That was what MorroW said after the games, and it worked out very well. With brilliant reaper micro, especially in the first game, and going for reapers all of the first three matches he tricked IdrA into believing he was going for reapers also in the final game at Steppes of War, making a Tech Lab to his barracks and hiding a factory in the back of his main.

Greg "IdrA" Fields sacrificed an overlord to find out what was going on, but MorroW hid his marauders and hellions well, and could eventually celebrate a well performed, and timed push which made him the winner of IEM Global Challenge.

Comments \ Paging

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comments

#101

pombaa 1 year ago

Gj Morrow :)
Congratz

#102

Nebaz 1 year ago

FUCKING YES, GOOD JOB MORROW, AND HAHAHAH @ idra, xaxaxaxa

#103

HyTemplar 1 year ago

gj gj morrow.
before the tournament iv been a bit skepticallyl about morrow but hes officially in my euro terra top 3 now. definately.beating TLO and idra is big.
morrow with 2 girls its a picture for the gods lol

#104

Seiju 1 year ago

I have to admit : MorroW is a cool guy who wrote a lovely story in this tournament with this last minute wild-card and his wonderful course. I'm waiting for the next guy who'll be able to successively beat TLO, Dimaga and IdrA. I'm very happy for him.

On the other side, like a lot of people I see in IdrA quite an arrogant guy with an inappropriate state of mind for his level.

But even so, I still felt bad for him while seeing him sacrifice this overlord, like a blind all-inin' in despair. Of course it's great mind play by MorroW. But the decisive game of the grand final should not be played on the fear of some imba hidden rush. It's not worthy of esport, it's not worthy of what SC2 should be.

MorroW did well, he's not to incriminate at all. There's a tournament, you have to do what's necessary to win, what he did with impressive professionalism, and also sportsmanship, by recognizing the advantages he had. But it has been a good indicator of SC2's current limits in terms of balance, and that's what investors will see when debatting of the opportunity of supporting Starcraft II competitions or not.

Blizzard, or rather Activision, is far too confident in its power and credibility, being with players or investors. They seem to believe that because it's Starcraft, because it's a Blizzard game, success is guaranteed. Hence no LAN mode, KesPA conflict, and now tangible signs of improper balance at least at pro level, and probably below. All races and all stages of the game are concerned. It can't wait for months.
Edit : oh and I almost forgot the already numerous stability issues, like the overheating bug or mysterious crashes in competition like for Dimaga yesterday...

#105

geeko 1 year ago

So sad people can't respect the winner.

Terran might be OP, but Zerg might be OP too.
Maybe Idra just is a mediocre player who is abusing Zerg to do well in tournaments?

Grats to MorroW, well deserved win.

#106

Horus 1 year ago

I wanted to see Idra Rage Dammit

#107

odin.ve 1 year ago

#3 I was thinking about the same.
Congrats Morrow

#108

Seiju 1 year ago

#105
Of course Morrow fully deserves his win. But to summarize :

- MorroW (#1) explains reapers rush is pretty imba vs Zerg and briliantly demonstrates it.
- IdrA (#2) is supporting the same point of view for a long time.
- Dimaga (#3) is holding the suspense on his intention to eventually switch from Z to T.

The full podium. At this stage we might at least begin to think that "respecting the winners" is also a matter of according consideration to what they have to say about the game.
And I can't see why this would lower MorroW's deserve in any case. It's two completely separated things...

#109

Alamo 1 year ago

Gj Morrow, you will end up with the best, too bad you aint born in 91 and is able to fully invest in the game (he is still in school probably, last year).

#110

Tykor 1 year ago

NICE BUILDOVER IDRA COULD NEVER GUESSED. no wait

#111

homesmasher 1 year ago

Im torn by this, im sad idra lost, but im happy the terran won, so people wont go like "eeeh actually, i believe zerg is the op"

edit: and its quite obviuse idra is a better player, and as the game progresses, and becomes more balanced idra will race away from people like morrow, but with this balance its funny to see people like morrow have a chance

#112

homesmasher 1 year ago

#63 its because korean's is actually worse players overall then the european's (and maybe americans) most of em aim to finnish the opponent early, with some cheesy style of play (often refered to as early harass) but the fact is that these "early harasses" costs them a lot, and indeed puts the zerg player ahead, even tho he staid on 1 base, as the game progresses koreans will propebly become the better players, due to the time and effort they put it, but as it is now, their style of play have turned the game to a 15min long game mostly, and thus a totaly different game (meaning players such as idra crushes them all if he can survive first 10-15min)

#113

uggeh 1 year ago

gw!

#114

PeterZerg 1 year ago

Hey Guys,

I visited GamesCom and was impressed of IdrA's various facial emotions, just awesome

#115

ssi.bal-listic 1 year ago

How do you spell 'the best player in the world'? MorroW.
Wtf? definetly do not agree. This tournament didnt even have players from Korea and Asia.
Best player in the world right now is Tester. no offense but not some amateur european kid

#116

kOoZiN 1 year ago

#114 hahah

Gratz Morrow

#117

NiNo 1 year ago

vods? :<

#118

Fimbulwinter 1 year ago

@100:
I have no idea what I am talking about? Because you are the mastermind that reads people's behaviour? Morrow agreed on reaper being used vs the "better" player dimaga because anyone would have said this... If I would have won against Dimaga, which was a better player in BW than myself (which isn't hard ;D) than I would have said something like this as well, just to seem like a nice guy who isn't arrogant at all after his wins. It's common sense that people tend to make themselves look worse than they are after great wins. That's just sportsmanship, you respect your enemy, that's all...
And the last push, was the counter to the 20 hatch build of Idra, nothing more... look BW replays when TEH strats came out. (like "bisubuild") Nobody knew what to do against it, it was the perfect counter to the strats of zerg of that time... Better example is the Fantasybuild ;D, it's the perfect counter to 3 hatch muta, but it worked only once, that's it, after that everybody knew that it's waiting out there but won't work because players knew about it... Same goes for sc2, it just takes time.
But yes, Terran has a lot of strats against zerg. And why they have a lots of strats? Because they can't win a straight up game against it. They have to invent something. Zerg just needs to put up expansions and get their (I admit) hard decision making done. They don't do something new, always fast expansion, then massing one unit... which can't work, and look up the games in the last week... 4 Units win against terran? Mutas, lings, infestors and banelings. Don't tell me that terran can do a-click against it... It's just a real matchup when this comes into play.

#119

MarK0000 1 year ago

114 is win!

#120

Zeddo 1 year ago

So much QQ about terran being OP, what about mass mutalisks nowadays? Thors cant do shit due to the magic box trick, vikings are balls against mutalisks if you dont outnumber them, which is hard against Zergs that can build about 10 mutalisks at the same time when they have expanded well. Banelings also OP if you know how to control them, but many zerg players fail at it.

Zerg players are just mad because they cant zergling harass due to the blocking in the ramps by terran, or being outplayed by reapers.

GG morrow you played very well

#121

peterra 1 year ago

It obviously takes a war3 player to explain the players what's going on :P

First of all I will make an easy statement and argument vs. all of the terran players who are telling the zerg players "just try new stuff and play another strategy so you'll for sure win".

In another forum some terran player said the following lines:
"Idra has a wooden playstyle. He plays every game the same and if he doesn't win he whines OP terran, Idra just doesn't ever try anything out of the box, just does the same and expects to win"

I wanna take arguments like these down right now. Listen to me this once: why doesn't zerg go out of the box? Because any terran/protoss player with a working mind will counteract it. Zerg is very very limited due to very very poor early game. I scream to get this expansion, it limits the possibilities in my early game so so much. I've got 3 initial (4 initial if you count queens in) units to use in the early game. Doesn't matter which of these units I try I cannot be aggressive. That's just like that. Zerg needs to wait for a HUGE mistake of opponent in the early game in order to benefit something about it. Like on steppes of war, most of terran players play ONE SINGLE marine and straight away start something which is like a tier2 unit for zerg. That's something i call "a risktech" which should be something that i can punish him about. Well as a zerg even if i did my fastest possible "rush" with zerglings - (outcluding six pool/eight pool zerglings which is a huge risk anyway) when i reach terran or protoss he has walled himself in. Hehe nice, of course a racial advantage, shit zerg can't do anything but fall back to original strategy. I cannot punish him for going one marine to defend only, no way. I will just have to sit under that ramp and start expanding. When terran feels good he will just walk out of his base.

I mean what sort of thing i should do? What do you terrans want me to do? Imho the whole sadness of being zerg starts in the middle game. There're certain things I am forced to do, no matter does it fulfill my standards or does it pass to my playstyle. Zerg mirror is the only matchup where expanding early is not always REQUIRED. Otherwise blockbases just LIMIT so much of zerg. So we will be falling back to our original plan to fast expand. So the next thing will 100% be that terran / protoss gets the edge: now they have to be aggressive. There're ton of different timings which all seem to work so damn well vs. zerg. Zerg needs all this scouted. On the other hand Zerg cannot block bases like protoss and terran so it's always easier to scout zerg as well, not to talk about that how easy it is to expect when he has like 4 things he can do what he is gonna do. How do you surprice someone going risk early game with zerg? How? there's a blockbuild, i use banelings to destroy it off but even while i am developing banelings he has already figured out how to counter it or added enough units to defend.

Zerg is simply in one word: expectable. Now most of people are praising how INNOVATIVE thelittleone is. Even when he was still playing random I kept a tough eye on him looking how he is innovative. Imho when he played zerg he was just like any zerg on the field. He prolly produced 3rd queen to spread creep faster or stuff like that but otherwise what he did was just like things dimaga and idra do. Even this super innovative terran player TLO - I admit he is really innovative with terran - could not find any strats out of the box for the zerg.

When terran and protoss players start telling me how to get "surprices" and "innovations" done with zerg I will instantly stop screaming about the options those races have. But atm no one is really offering solutions for zerg. Imho the obvious difference to original Starcraft is the fact most of the maps have only one or two ramps into a base. Terran and protoss players benefit these kinds of things just so much more than zerg. Zerg always has a wide open base in the early game which can be accessed in so many different ways. Not to talk about that protoss for example has all the necessary tools to seperate the bases of zerg (hi force field on the ramp)

These ramps and maplayouts just serve the two other races so much more heavily than zerg. Of course I understand zerg is meant to be like that as well but not this radical. In the early game I feel like I am in a box vs. terran and 2gate protoss: they've all options wide open while I will do my best to keep all those possibilities in my mind and i try my best to adapt to it. I am adapting to what they are doing. They are the aggressors and I am the one answering to that. Zerg mirror is the only matchup where I can surprice another player. In the two other matchups, dream on. They know what i am up to, it's just a matter of that do i know what they are up to. That's what the pros are talking about with zerg you just wait for a critical error of your opponent. You don't try to cause your opponent to make an error, you just wait for him to do the error (like running into a base where i've mass banelings in 4 different corners)

I don't think terran is a skilless race or protoss needs any less skill than zerg, i just think those races have way more options and possibilities to surprice me than i've to surprice them. Most of players playing random say that their worst race is zerg and their best is terran. Or at least the ones I've heard. Dunno is it a coincidence or the truth. Idra, Dimaga and many many other zerg players play that expectable and safe way just for the fact they feel like it's the only way to go. And Dimaga tried so much, just follow some of his games that are uploaded, the guy seriously keeps trying to surprice his opponent, keeps trying to come up with new early game playing that could possible give him some edge for the lategame. But Zerg's absolutely nr1 problem is that it's so easy to harass him. So easy to make him run after your units all around the map and so easy to snipe him in the early game. Especially terran is like designed to do this: reapers, hellions. They do so much damage if you miss them. And most of terran players expand meanwhile, many protoss players go 3 gateways and push just after your expansion is finished and if you don't have 3 towers standing there it's gg right there. Most of good players EXPAND while doing these snipe attacks to zerg. Zerg mainly even knows that this exe is going up but they can just watch it happen, because the only answer you've is adding more expansions yourself. Destroying this expansion, hell not.

Look at these games morrow and idra player: in every game except the last idra quite much scouted everything morrow was up to. He scouted everything possible. Meanwhile morrow didn't actually scout idra at all: he just trusted idra does all the same stuff every zerg player always does and relied on that. Why idra did everything as most of zerg players would was because he lacked options to do it differently.

Imho zerg early game needs help, the mid game and late games are alright. But the early game - especially how easy it is to outsmart zerg in the early game, it has to stop or zerg must be given at least some equal possibilities. All zerg surprices lay within two things atm: either get overlords (200/200 upgrade + 100/100 for their speed and load units in and drop them) or get a nydus worm 200/200 - sad it costs so much for that how easy it is to scout :(

This is what I think: i don't wanna take anything away from terran or protoss but somehow zerg should have some more options early game to at least be dangerous.

I am sorry for the wall guys :(

#122

oMegA 1 year ago

I believe we are missing the point here, plz dudes congratulate Morrow, and stop arguing for once.

Plus

This quote says everything about THE FINALS

"I thought that if I went for reapers all the first games I could fake a reaper rush in the final game” - Morrow

Idra lost 2 of 3 games against the same freaking build ! Where is the credit on that??

Congratz to Morrow!

#123

s4smessias 1 year ago

they really look like giant nerds, both of 'em :D
But gz to morrow - rly nice micro with his reapers even tho' he said he sucked to it :P

#124

RAGE.Artunit 1 year ago

#26 Yea morrow well deserved it and hes really good :). But hes not a broodwar legend. ^^

#125

Fimbulwinter 1 year ago

Nonesense arguments... it's not about hiding tech only or loosing to the same strat over and over again... In sc1 you see the same strats every game, and they win most games with the same strats, like in Wc3 where everbody plays always the same game, just better or worse. That's it. Sometimes it's just bad luck, or something else, not paying attention 1 second which can make the difference.