@@avinotion In starcraft 1 at least you are correct; most their stuff is ancient - though in starcraft two you do see some progress made technologically (such as immortals overtaking the dragoon armor)
Theoretically, lower probe saturation does mean you have resources to allocate elsewhere, as long as you can guarantee a steady buildup with few losses. It was very refreshing to see a Protoss not throw away 900 minerals of zealots over and over for little gain as we so often watch.
The issue was Soulkey consistently floating hundreds of minerals, so he could have easily kept up probe production. Otherwise, he should have been better at spending his money on fighting units.
As someone said already, he was playing the long game. Constant worker production was considered a fact for so long, that no one had tried to question it seriously. You really don't need more than 3 active bases, as long as you're staying aggressive and on top of your enemy. So that is (16+3) x 3 = 19 x 3 = 57 workers. You'll never need more than that. With Zerg, it's over 4 bases with low saturation max. So, (9+3) x 4 = 12 x 4 = 48. Case in point: at 13:04, Soma has 62 Drones, but only 44 army supply. His extra drones are worthless. EDIT: 72 Drones at 21:18. That's a major waste of supply and minerals. EDIT2" 75 Drones to 33 after a couple of attacks at 23:46. So, not only a waste of minerals and supply, but also a waste of larva time.
@@ChristophelusPulpsWasn't this the whole idea to keep the amount of probes on a required minimum throughout the game? It is true that during his more apm intensive moments minerals kinda skyrocket, but on macro rounds he went to zero and usually kept himself around 3-4 hundred - which seems perfectly reasonable. Also don't forget his brain is used to zerg macro which is quite the different beast. Overall can't agree with you on a single point you bring up.
My favorite part was around 9:20 when Soulkey split his Zealots in order to force Hydras to chase one group of them along the right side of the map while the other group headed towards the bottom middle base. The two groups eventually met at the bottom middle base. It was pretty nasty and clearly intentional as a way to distract the main Hydra army.
@@lambda6736 I meant it just went back and forth. The zealots and templars were controlling hydras, the lurkers were defending perfectly, the base expansions kept going up. It was hard to believe that it was less than 40 minutes minimum.
@@dangerfield6855 Oh, I agree with you. The curmudgeon in this thread, however, seems to be unable to click out of a video once they find it uninteresting.
Edited my comment after watching the game. Wow that was just tremendous play. The low saturation was definitely something I hadn't seen before and it appeared to work!
I audibly giggled watching the little yellow dot sneak up to the top right base, watch the drone count drop by ten and then a zealot attack to nail the victory.
The switch into mass zealot + HT + reaver was brilliant. Completely nullified dark swarm! I think Soma needed to switch into ultras or maybe guardians but he just never had an opportunity
If you think about it, having a bank just incentivises bad engagements, keeping saturation low is a long-term strategy that forces you to have cleaner engagements and sets you up to maintain pressure for longer, which also messes up the enemy players perception of what you have
I was thinking the exact same thing; for SoulKey its about efficiency and not trading armies. With the time he saves NOT focusing on more economy, he's able to achieve a perfect balance for his army size as well as the income necessary to keep it reinforced. Another benefit is that a majority of your probes are easy to defend and arent at the opposite end of the map with 4th and 5th bases. You never have to rebuild probes you dont lose.
Also allows you to keep minerals coming in as zerg begins to swarm and cut off access to the outer bases. Often you'll see late game protoss turned into an island race that exists in pockets of units that aren't able to effectively defend any single base.
I think you identified the key point when you said at 17:54 "...because of the damage the zealots did early and he's got this tempo advantage that he's utilizing to be able to play like this..." What I saw was Soulkey gaining a firm advantage with his first attacks, maybe even a large advantage (13 drone kills, mining hatchery kill, den, lots of hydras), which allowed him to play sub-optimally with the low probe count. Had we seen a top protoss player in that position they would have saturated normally and the next attack at around 13:30, where soulkey was around 140 supply and tried to attack top right, would instead have been with a bigger army that would have ended the game. I'm not sure they would chosen to attack up a ramp, but maybe soulkey thought he had enough of a lead he could brute force his way through, but either the natural, 3rd or 4th would have been killable....maybe even with the army soulkey had, but definitely with an even bigger army that could have been fielded if more standard worker production occurred. I'm not trying to criticize soulkey, just explaining what I saw. Just being able to hold your own off-racing against other pros is impressive.
That retreating defense with STORMS starting at about 20:40 EXCELLENT!!! Maybe some day there will be a game analysis extension for SC replays that will allow to select a time range, area of the map, units and give minerals+gas cost for each side after an engagement.
Seems like he juggles what resources he has with 44 probs and applying fundamentals to the matchup like get storm,get goons midgame,get reaver late game etc. Watch his rounds when he has minerals zealots when he has gas templars when his goons die goons. But I think the game happen this way cuz he got damage and made it abit hectic so Z was kinda behind if Z manages to parry early-midgame you prob wont be able to do this. Also Z den got killed think that was a big tempo play usually you have like maybe 1 big play to attack or get your base up before they macro infinity hydras soma couldn't do that.
I haven't seen a pro off-race this well since Flash. Plus, Soulkey is in striking distance of a three-peat for ASL/SSL championship. I hate to be that guy bringing up the B-word, but we might have to start having the Bonjwa discussion if he wins this SSL.
I kind of wish there was a units lost tab, Soulkey basically just ran Soma out of steam with efficient attacks, it's almost like a TvZ in that sense, where you try to grind them down with irradiate and marine/medic efficiency, force them to try and out control you, and win because mid-late game Zerg armies are so cumbersome. Except this looked even more efficient somehow, and the attacks looked even more brutal due to how strong protoss units are.
At 26:28 Soma GG's due to a Templar or reaver drop and followed by the rush of zealots. Drone count goes from 32 to 22 you can see a shuttle on the map top right. As always thanks for the cast Artosis! 👌🏽🫡
Imagine this Protoss style on Kickback. You would have a much larger window to get your fourth base because you wouln't run out of minerals as quickly on your initial three bases. I agree that lower probe count needs to be paired with good army retention; you need both parts in order for the overall strategy to work. One final thought: is Random the next big step in the metagame? SSL 30 Finals: Flash vs. Soulkey, both of them as Random?
When Soulkey stopped mining his main, he left a few minerals left. I wonder if that was an intentional choice, so that if a satellite base is taken out later, he still has backup minerals.
On a personal level, I like the idea of army efficiency vs sending waves of units to die because you can replace them, so seeing Soulkey play a style that I think suits terran is interesting. It does bring up a question of how efficient one can play while cutting down workers, effectively making the bases you hold be longer. Of course, I also wonder if Soma used queens in his comp, it would change things. Cut a lurker or two, bring in some queens to ensnare. Soulkey's biggest point was being able to disengage from a fight, entangle makes that a lot harder to do. Would the game's balance be shifted more dramatically if Soulkey couldn't easily run from fights earlier? I think so.
A more aggressive zerg might have punished the fast expansions. That said, Soulkey played excellently: engaging at right places, getting right units at all times.
With Flash officially announcing his first stream today there is chance could happen. Though probably more likely to happen on their streams then in SSL I'd assume.
I think what we see here is a deep understanding Soulkey about how fragile Zerg’s defenses are. His continued pressures prevents the Zerg from comfortably building up their forces while he shifts the bases he attacks with the understanding that the Zerg can’t properly defend in multiple areas. Also the use of late game reaver play is something you don’t see Protoss do very often. It seems like they just assume scourge would shut it down. But moving reavers with the rest of the army makes it very difficult for Zerg to take advantage of late game dark swarm.
Very interesting game. I think soulkey experience as a Zerg(eco wise) due to mutas being gas heavy also recognised that much of protoss power is in ht, which is more gas than minerals. the goons are just a wall to prevent the zerg from rushing the ht. tha's my take at least.
I've heard about maintaining a comparatively low probe count in PvZ, in some casts by either Starcast TV or SaiyanKCM. But IIRC that was in the context of a maxed out protoss army being unable to compete against zerg if you have too many probes, to the point that you get overrun. So it's better to have a lower probe count and a larger army, since protoss needs critical mass to survive the zerg onslaught.
Hey 'tosis, just a quick reply to your final question: - no I have not seen such gameplay before (low probe etc) - I definitely think it's viable or let's say: even if it's weaker to probe up like this, then only mildly so. - it may be off-putting the opponents usual routines and expectations, which is big thing in broodwar - as we both know well Lastly, thanks Arrrr-tosis!!
Maybe I didn't watch enough games but I haven't seen anyone actually reach the zergs base when its speed hydras vs gateway units, it mostly ends with the protoss having 2-3 goons left or just get steam rolled by the hydras
Soma Gg'd when he was stormed the last minute. See the drone count dropping as the yellow dot on the top right moves. I think Arty missed it. And hell, it was one of the best games I've seen.
Soulkey scouted with the two *Corsairs* and saw *Hydralisks* then he thought that he would have needed one more minute and a half to get seven zealots after making the fourteen probes so instead he went for the early zealots to make the Zerg play more defensively than offensively with the *Hydralisks* which seemed to work pretty well overall... But the Zerg made quite the newbie mistake not making a Spire after his Lair finished around the 7th minute because the *Mutalisks* could have countered this so badly.
I think even though Soulkey won this game is an excellent example why Toss should go for higher saturation & fewer bases - trading base for base will often favour Zerg as Zerg will have less to lose. I really liked the offensive shuttle+reaver play Soulkey brought out with his pushes relatively early in the game, I think reavers are underused in PvZ, and mostly used as defensive lategame resource :)
@@catra195 and some reavers, then yeah. But then a different problem occurs - all protoss units cost a lot of supply, you will have a very small standing army at that point.
