Every assimilator is also 3 probes. So for every assimilator that you would normally take, you need to build 3 less probes. I suspect that's a large part of it, because that's a significant part of expanding that you don't need to do anymore.
@@52flyingbicycles I think the time it takes to build those workers is a much larger impact. If he wants to expand, it doesn't take as long to saturate the minerals. If he doesn't, he can stop building workers way faster. But the mineral savings are big, too.
@nibs1989 Yeah, the *immediate* boost of the savings turns into maxing out on mineral workers faster, which translates into making those Stargates faster. Streamrolling speed bonuses left and right.
I don't understand this conversation. That's not a large part of it, that's ALL of it. You can't buy anything with gas only. So.... the advantage is you have more probes mining minerals. "Also?" No. Only.
Super fast scout makes sense: gotta make sure the pro doesn't try to just win with cheese before the gas ever comes into play. Don't know if it's optimal but it's what I'd be paranoid about in his shoes.
Unlike what many people are saying, I did not gamble, tried to scout to the best of my ability, and had a response plan for most scenarios I can think of.
Mass sentries sounds like a legit strat with this challenge. They cost 50 minerals, and they do quite well against gateway units and can probably drag the game out long enough until you get enough gateways and templar archive for mass 100 mineral archons.
Was my plan for G4. But Harstem's first Stalkers were faster than in my practice games so I was forced to build more Stalkers than Sentries which delayed everything.
I love that harstem completely misjudged how disgusting this is For instance, on 1 base, 16 workers mining aka 16minerals per second, warp gate warping in high templars have 32s cooldown, at 50 minerals each, we have 16/(50/32) =10.24 warp gates on cooldown permanents. You can support 10 gateways on 1 base, making 5 archons on 1 base every 30 seconds. This is unbelievably broken
In fairness, pro players have done some pretty ridiculous challenges - uThermal has won a 6v1 before for instance (granted, that was against bronze/silver players and he didn't do it on the first attempt.. but still, winning a 6v1 at all is a way bigger handicap than winning a 1v1 against an opponent with infinite gas). If it reaches the lategame, a pro player will still destroy a lower ranked player even with infinite gas - but there might be some cheeses that hit way earlier than they normally would that a low ranked player could execute that could beat a pro player.
@@asdfqwerty14587 uThermal would have never won that game against coordinated bronze players where 1-2 people just worker rush him. Doing that would ofc be boring, so it wasn't done. And here it is similar in that the pro has the best chance winning by just rushing before gas can make a difference. You can build t2 & t3 units way earlier with unlimited gas. And so pros won't really hit lategame ever. You just need to pick gas heavy units, not units like stalkers or vikings.
Well pro's will just rush you early game, before any gas can make a difference I would just spam spine crawlers and queens while rushing mutalisk, don't do 1 base all in, but open up with a second base right away, not even a pro will be able to stop two base zerg with lots of early spines and queens against early harass then two base minerals only muta rush, unstoppable
They have the distinction of being the only major tournament played after the WTL. After this we're all sort of walking into the unknown: no one has announced that they're picking up SC2 for major/premier tournaments next year, and, rather than saving Starcraft, Microsoft seems to have cut Blizzard's staff even further, so we don't know if anyone there is even courting the esports world to pick up SC2 for another year (although you can damn well bet that they're keeping the licensing fees in place!), or if anyone is even taking the Balance Council's calls anymore.
I bet a player who's moderately skilled that goes for some kind of reaper cheese could beat a top pro player - there must be some kind of reaper cheese that's just impossible to defend against when the reapers cost no gas, though I don't really know what the best way to do it would be.
I dont think it matters, proxy 2 rax reaper I think will not be stoppable just because of a sheer number of reapers you can send. Reapers are buildable with a reactor too, its just too many reapers that kill buildings way too fast, you would do the adept glaive rush but with reapers, jumping between nat and main and just rallying more and more into the oponents base.
just keep adding barracks supply depots and mules while spam flooding reapers lol. no refinery, no tech lab, just spam barracks reapers depots and mules
I wouldn't count on it. Reapers look good when good players use them - they die incredibly inefficiently when they get outplayed, and, like harstem demonstrated twice, the pro player can defend while killing your economy.
Mutas would be better, spam a couple spines and queens and not even pro micro will do any early dmg, then good luck stopping muta spam on two base zerg with infinite gas
@@shen_zhuoran you had no static defenses Corrupters were a mistake as well, should have spammed only mutas, they are the price of zealots! + don't cheap out on upgrades, they are a huge advantage and cost you only minerals And third base was a mistake, slowing your muta rush down And worst mistake, don't trade units against his economy, trade units for units when you already have such a giant economy advantage
@@shen_zhuoran think G3 felt more like a corruptor denying nexus strat though. Probably an adjustment I can see is, walling off the natural, building spores in mineral line, and macro hatches in main instead of expanding. I do think the mass mutas would lose against phoenixes though.
The second game he literally had you on the ropes if he checked the bases naxt to your main - you couldnt fight the army on the ground, if he didnt retreat, he could trade half of the army for the win - that is with him losing viking war and everything, all he needed was the courage to check the bases next to your main with one of them already being destroyed and know that it is not it. He wouldnt kill you outright of course since you had air supremacy and your buildings could fly but then you would definitely be on a timer which I think even gold league player should be able to exploit. For the fourth game I thought he will rush high templars into archons which would cost basically nothing with the gas cost being 0 but stalkers? Madman.
It's definitely more a surprise factor than anything. If Harstem had actually scouted it, he'd probably be able to mount a defense, or make a call to abandon the main sooner, and yes, Harstem was also thinking too little about the infinite gas and playing as if it were a normal game. That said, good on him for exploiting the map. I'm surprised he didn't bring out his infamous '8 archons and 5 sentries' build that he kept bragging about on reddit; probably because when he actually played he realised that buildings actually take a whole lot of time to make.
@@hetaresgaming7771 But really, rushing voidrays and then going archon/carrier after it is probably going to kill everyone. Because you get 50 mineral archons, cheaper carriers and cheaper buildings to get to carriers, meaning you can speed it all up. You need minerals for all of that, but the cheap archons will get you safety enough, I think. So, as long as you can survive any early cheeses or attacks while you are doing the voids, even if someone does defend the voids, the follow up is just too good. As for the second game, I dont think infinity reapers are beatable. Reapers cannot be masses in a regular game because they cost gas that you need for tanks instead. Now, you dont need to care about that, you can use reapers instead of marines. That is just insane, especially if the enemy does not reaper wall like Harstem did not.
@@CZProtton But that's the point; as long as you can survive, which a plat player definitely would not. Not against a 'top class pro player like Maru or Serral', as claimed by OP in his original reddit post, and as we all know Harstem isn't even near their level, and once he what his opponent was going for, he handled it relatively well even with big mistakes like forgetting to wall, gettign supply blocked. or not paying attention to the ramp during a contain.
@@berndarndt9924 reapers can beat 12 barracks production worth of marines? You don’t even need your home base especially because you pulled the boys to build all the proxy barracks! Worst case scenario it’s a base trade, can you kill the main, a bunch of barracks, and their nearby supply depots before 12 barracks worth of constant marine production overwhelm you? Not with a couple reapers you can’t
@@raymondsjursen4470 It would probably be too slow. You can only really win with fast all-ins because, as soon as you give time for a pro to build up and get more tools, he will out micro you.
@@Ghi102 I think BCs would work despite being slow, since they fly and have enough effective hp. Also Yamato on shots pretty much everything the pro can build.
@@shen_zhuoran white background with dark text (in this case on reddit in the browser, nothing to do with starcraft itself). A lot of apps and websites have an option for dark mode where you have dark background and white text instead. A lot of people find it easier on the eyes. There's also a browser extension Dark Reader to force dark mode on sites that don't provide the option.
Bro how much time do you need to rush a templar archives with 2 bases? you need to learn to create more workers and just use static defenses to prevent harass
Yeah, basically this guy was way overestimating himself. Like I posted, I'm pretty sure bonaan or printf would beat him with a cannon rush before his cyber core finishes making, so his infinite gas would be useless. He also keeps saying 'I can hold off anything with 8 archons and a few sentries' without figuring build time of both buildings and units into his calculations, nor a contain situation.
@@shen_zhuoran A counter forge is one of the counters to the cannon rush. However, lower level players (even grandmasters) would not be able to successfully hold off bonaan or printf, as they only-cannon rush users; they do not play the game properly. They do not learn to make armies, they aim to kill you with the cannon rush there and then, or by a follow up. I would reccomend you looking at Harstem's practice with both printf and bonaan on his channel in regards to both holding a cannon rush and executing a cannon rush. It can be incredible knowing how crazy and specific their cannon rush is.
@@hetaresgaming7771 I watched quite some printf games. When his opponent blind counters him, he does not try to kill with cannon rush. Instead he makes a cannon containment and then attacks with a follow-up. With infinite gas, the cannon containment would not work in his favor, as basic units and cannons cannot break the main ramp and his tech would be massively behind.
Yea the guy didn't really think this through. He could have played very defensive and spammed spine crawler or cannons in his base, then micro would play no role as even a pro couldn't break early turtling with any kind of cheese
[1] When you counted the Vikings for the Viking wars, did you also consider it is not only numbers but also upgrades, since he can out-upgrade you very fast? [2] Chasing drones and workers is in his advantage, not yours, given that you need your workers harder than he needs his. So a 1 to 1 worker trade benefits him. [3] The opposite of a banger is a whimper.
I think infinite gas is crazy. You could build 10 Stargates and 10 robo bays and pump out immortals or void rays for roughly the same price as a stalker. The only advantage you might have is a massive apm lead to be able to multitask, but it's definitely a cool challenge.
I think you severely underestimated the economic impact. 6 probes less for full saturation, 3 probes per gas collecting minerals every second they would have been mining gas, as well as +150 minerals saved off assimilator costs.
+500 minerals per base and several minutes worth of gas mining worth of stuff is a crazy lead. Not to mention it simplifies macro and mental stack by a fair bit.
I think you need to exploit the speed advantage in tech, like he did with voidray. Perhaps ravager for zerg, mass reaper or bc for terran? Id love to see a mass dt build, archons and dts would be very cheap.
I mean, you're basically removing one of the rarer resources in a game all about timings. You're essentially giving your workers and production a straight up buff. Same would be true for the inverse (minerals).
He "had a plan" but didn't do it properly. Tank viking is fine, but you need a good micro. Zerg just go hydra roach. Toss anything but gateway units. Though air is preferable.
He should have built mass ravager vs Harstem. Build 20 roaches morf them into ravegers without speed and get free win. Easiest 60 supply army. Imagine how fast can you build roaches without gas! You need 3 gas to build toaches this is 12 workers lost for mining.
i may be mistaken, but wouldnt zerg be the best in this scenario? the game is going to be decided by an early-midgame all-in because they have the knowledge of their opponent having infinite gas and the challenger knows that no resource advantage can compensate for the difference in micro. zerg has access to the ravager as a strong, low-tech unit that is capable of breaking walls and static defense. reapers for terran are too micro intensive and toss is limited by the time needed to build their tech
As someone who's probably about Gold, my choice of strategy per race would be: Protoss: Dark Templar opening followed by High Templar spam for Archons Terran: Reaper spam into Ghost spam Zerg: No idea how to win as Zerg. Would be in a unrecoverable position by the time I'm really using the Vespene. Reaper spam opener feels the most unbeatable, yet simple enough for even a noob like me to pull off.
Against a pro I would just spam cannons/spine crawlers, I would be too afraid to be outplayed at the start of the game before I get any tech online Should be impossible even for a pro to beat early defense spam, you just need to survive till your tech opens up.
Ur T and P builds both don't work. I tried Archon spam, which is too late and too clunky, being kited out by long-range units like Stalkers, Collosi, or Disruptors. Reapers need 5 raxes + Reactors, which also means late timing.
@@raymondsjursen4470 not a ton though, even without using the barrier spell you can just mob up with illusions and cas shields. They hit ground and air and the illusions can give vision. Not bad for 50 minerals a pop. 1/2 the cost of a zealot.
Watching this guy type gas10000000 into the wrong chat channel over and over instead of gas99999999 just hurts my soul to see. But he put up a good fight and a great show of it. Fun to watch.
In the last game, couldn't he go for sentries instead? They are quite strong and cost almost no minerals, so it should be possible to go even something crazy like 6-8 gate sentry rush...
I think just playing like printf would probably make this advantage pretty low, that said I think a diamond 1 or a masters 3 would win in a preparation match, it's very strong to not have to build gas and have additional workers mining it and being able to tech instantly, playing PvP with basically having an archon instead of a zealot would be insane
Obviously, his claim is bad as any professional can cheese so effectively that gas is not even going to come into play. But, if the game goes at least 5 minutes, I think he is right. Anyone around 3k MMR can kill any pro at that time, because you are just so much faster in getting crit mass of some units. Zerg rushing mutas, he went corrupters for some reason but cheap mutas? That you can just throw at the phoenix and trade it out, because they are cheap? No shot that can be countered, if you also throw banes at any buildings you see. Infinite gas makes banes actually cost efficient, which is insane. And using reapers instead of marines, I think that would kill anyone.
i'm writing this before watching the game. i feel like the ability to make 50 archons on 1 base is too much to handle for any one so i'm betting on the infinite gas guy.
me: a pro at 'watching' sc2 vids.. well what you do is build a quick 2nd expansion and protect your mineral lines.. battery/cannons.. once your mineral line is safe, all you need to do is build archons.. 100 mineral archons.. can fight air/land.. unless you're playing Terran and they get ghosts, I don't see how anyone could beat you. the low level player was too interested in proxy, but if he just left his stuff at home, he wouldn't have lost his base so easily and negate counterplay.. because its counterplay that allows pros to beat you.. hence static defence, cannons/battery to make up for your inability to defend or multitask effectively.
With just a few changes (lessons learned) they could've won each of those pretty easily. It's just some of the specific choices and execution in those matches that put them too far behind. I'd bet if they kept refining it themselves, they could cover their weaknesses better and just overwhelm each match.
