Fruit Dealer vs Hope Torture

October 2, 2010 7:22 PM

The first official StarCraft 2 Tounament has just come to a close with FruitDealer walloping HopeTorture 4 games to 1 to take home the top prize over 100 million Won ($87,000). The monthly series put on by South Korea's GomTV has attracted quite a few foreign players with the massive prize pool ($170,000 monthly).

Finals:
Game 1(2)
Game 2
Game 3
Game 4 (2)
Game 5 (2)

Some games featuring non-Koreans:
(sign in with Twitter or facebook to view)

Idra vs LotzePrime
The Little One vs Hyperdub

Bonus: A ridiculous Free For All game featuring the members of Team Liquid who are in Korea for the tournament, cast by Husky. (2, 3)

(previously)

posted by empath (41 comments total)

"Fruit Dealer, you're fruit is so good." (Fruit Dealer was one of the players)
posted by artificialard at 7:45 PM on October 2, 2010

All 5 of these games are Terran vs. Zerg. I'm a little surprised, why don't Starcraft tournaments require both players play random? And demonstrate mastery of all three sides?
posted by Nelson at 7:45 PM on October 2, 2010

If you can beat protoss and zerg, you've probably demonstrated enough mastery -- you have to know their builds, strengths and weaknesses etc. But a big part of the fun of Starcraft is mastering and identifying with one particular race. Before this tournament, Zerg was thought to be very underpowered in the ZvT match up, it was neat to watch him completely dominate Terran.

But basically, if you want to watch Starcraft players at their best, then you want to watch the best Terran players vs the Best Zerg vs the best Protoss players, you don't want to watch an amazing player become a better than average player because he happened to draw his weakest race.

TLO used to play random, but he kept getting knocked out of tournaments when he drew Protoss, which was his weakest race, so he switched exclusively to Terran.
posted by empath at 7:51 PM on October 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

It takes a huge amount of talent and skill to become this good at one race in this game: you might as well ask why the 100m sprint gold medallist isn't also required to demonstrate mastery of hurdles and marathon as well. He'll be good at them as well, much better than the average competitor, but he won't even qualify for tournaments.
posted by xdvesper at 7:53 PM on October 2, 2010 [3 favorites]

I have to confess: I have never played StarCraft 2. If I did play it, I would be totally shit, and I have no interest at all in playing.

But I have become completely hooked on watching replays. They make great television! Especially with good commentators (my favourite is Husky and HD together, they complement each other really well).
posted by smoke at 8:07 PM on October 2, 2010 [4 favorites]

The interesting thing is that blizzard was doing balance patches during the tournament A balance patch is where they change the settings so that certain units take longer to make, some units had their damage reduced or health increased, or whatever.

The thing was, a lot of people were complaining that Zerg were under powered vs. Terran. Blizzard actually changed things, making a unit called 'reapers' take longer to build, and most importantly reducing the damage that seige tanks give out.

And between patch 1.1 and 1.1.1 there was actually a huge bug that made a zerg unit called "Ultralisks" have a huge damage range when attacking buildings. One of the techniques for terran is to try to repair buildings when they are being attacked, but with the bug, units that were repairing the buildings would actually get killed trying to repair it. And one of the games actually took place with that bug in place.

And here's the thing: Before the patch only two out of the first 16 players remaning were zerg. After the patch, obviously, a zerg player won.

One of the few non-korean players Idra is pretty popular in US/European scene. But he got eliminated before the patch was put in place.

---

The other crazy thing: This is the first tournament like this, but actually, they are going to be held every month. So a single wonky tournament with balance patches in the middle isn't going to ruin anyone's life.
posted by delmoi at 8:13 PM on October 2, 2010

I'm a little surprised, why don't Starcraft tournaments require both players play random? And demonstrate mastery of all three sides?

I lost a Starcraft tournament at a sci-fi con once, because everyone suddenly complained that the deciding game should be random after I'd trounced them all in the practice game with Zerg. I drew Terran, which was the only race I couldn't win with, and was out after about 15 minutes. On the plus side, I got to sit and watch my best friend win the tournament with the Zerg build order we'd developed!

Random sucks for serious games. Tournaments are about bringing your A game, not about crossing your fingers and hoping you won't get stuck with your B or C game. Though I did learn to play Terran ASAP after that, for obvious reasons!
posted by vorfeed at 8:14 PM on October 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

*looks over at Mister Ruki playing Starcraft 2*

$87 grand would make hearing "In the rear with the gear" a zillion times a day a lot less annoying.
posted by Ruki at 8:17 PM on October 2, 2010 [12 favorites]

Yeah, to play at this level at all, a player has already mastered all the races. Having a favorite race means you can work out the little bugs in your economic development and build order, and try to get crucial seconds in your favor. The only advantage to playing random is that the opposing player would not necessarily know his build order in advance, but as soon as he saw you, that advantage is gone.

These guys have mad micro skills, too.
posted by Xoebe at 8:20 PM on October 2, 2010

These people are machines.
posted by Burhanistan at 8:22 PM on October 2, 2010

Burhanistan, I was going to add a comment about a good friend of mine - watching him play was insane. He was like a machine - the screen would move around so fast I would have almost no idea what he was doing.

We used to play 3v1 against him, and he would mop the map with our faces.
posted by Xoebe at 8:24 PM on October 2, 2010

Also, do not sign into gomtv with facebook unless you basically want to hand your account over to them. Permission to post on my wall and use all my friendslist? You can fuck right off with that, gomtv.
posted by smoke at 8:28 PM on October 2, 2010

But I have become completely hooked on watching replays. They make great television!

I haven't been keeping up with Starcraft 2, but I watched a lot of Starcraft replays a couple of years ago, and I decided you basically couldn't make a more exciting spectator game if you tried. There's a little slow period in the beginning where the commentators can give you the background on the players, the map, etc., and then it's fast-paced thrills the whole rest of the time. And it's wonderfully unpredictable, too: a match might take five minutes or an hour, and one single unexpected play can bring a player back from behind. Lots of fun.
posted by brett at 8:47 PM on October 2, 2010

I'm a little surprised, why don't Starcraft tournaments require both players play random?

Agreed with all of the explanations here but to make an analogy out of it: it'd be like asking a runner to compete in sprints, middle distance, and long distance. They'd probably do extremely well compared to the average or even the lower leagues but then you wouldn't get to see just how much they excel at the one thing they've been training for.

Every once in a while you get a freak/genius/half-man, half-merman like Michael Phelps who squashes everybody at everything but that kind of genius is few and far between and, sad to say, given even modern mores about gaming culture these people are most likely doing something else with their time and their talents. It's only a rare parent who so wholeheartedly supports their child(ren) when they obsess over something that John Stossel would make pithy quip out of.
posted by dubusadus at 8:51 PM on October 2, 2010

It's only a rare parent who so wholeheartedly supports their child(ren)

I know it was going to be the Day 9 Daily #100 before i even clicked on it.

For people who haven't watched it Day 9 is Tasteless's brother (one of the Gom TV commentators). That video tells the story of the two of them growing up together playing Starcraft and how their single mom supported them both all the way.
posted by empath at 9:00 PM on October 2, 2010

There's a little slow period in the beginning where the commentators can give you the background on the players, the map, etc., and then it's fast-paced thrills the whole rest of the time. And it's wonderfully unpredictable, too: a match might take five minutes or an hour, and one single unexpected play can bring a player back from behind. Lots of fun.

I think Blizzard needs to make a more versatile observer mode that takes advantage of the 3d technology more -- more camera angles, instant replays, madden style drawing on the screen, etc.
posted by empath at 9:02 PM on October 2, 2010 [2 favorites]

Also, some enterprising young documentarian should get cameras into the OGS/Team Liquid group house in Korea, pronto, because, really -- a bunch of nerdy foreign kids in Korea playing professional video games with huge money on the line? If you can't make that into a compelling web series, at least, then I don't know what to say.
posted by empath at 9:07 PM on October 2, 2010 [3 favorites]

I'm a little surprised, why don't Starcraft tournaments require both players play random?

One could use the same argument to say that the quarterback and kicker in football (american) should have to play defense, or that everyone should take a turn at goalie in soccer/hockey/rugby. But it is sometimes more fun to see super duper quarterbacks and superduper kickers. OTOH, if we made every player on a baseball team play every position, that might be pretty entertaining. I imagine there would be a lot more runs scored when every player has to take a turn pitching, catching, and playing first base :)
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 9:08 PM on October 2, 2010

I think Blizzard needs to make a more versatile observer mode that takes advantage of the 3d technology more -- more camera angles, instant replays, madden style drawing on the screen, etc.

You can rotate the camera 45° in each direction. The thing is, if you play a lot or watch a lot replays, just that camera angle looks really weird.

What I'd really like to see would be more 2v2s. This free for all between for or so of some of the top top players in the world. Lots of crazy action all over the place (it's one of three).

One of the interesting things about SC is the way you have to use units together to make stuff happen. It would be really interesting to see how teams might use combination of different units from different races.
posted by delmoi at 10:04 PM on October 2, 2010

I suppose this means I have to tone down how often I play my official Terrans Overpowered theme song... Video games are making fine progress as sports.
posted by minedev at 10:33 PM on October 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

From the Terrans OP song:

Tell me why the fuck i need to tech to t2+
just to beat a fuckin' 3 rax t1 push

Is it sad or very awesome that I know exactly what this means.
posted by Justinian at 11:03 PM on October 2, 2010

Also, I'm not sure what you mean by "Official" but there were definitely prior SC2 Tournaments
posted by delmoi at 12:00 AM on October 3, 2010 [2 favorites]

"the quarterback and kicker in football (american) should have to play defense"

They totally should. And the designated hitter is bullshit. You can't just play half the game.
posted by Eideteker at 1:31 AM on October 3, 2010

That was awesome, but... why only 480p?!

I've watched a lot of SC1 tourneys with english fan commentators (VioleTAK, diggity, moletrap, etc.) and the only bad thing was the lowrez videos (often 360p, and never higher than 480p). You could barely make out the minimap, reading text was all but impossible, etc.

The SC2 beta matches I've seen before this were all 720p (or even 1080p) and I was amazed how much more interesting and easy to follow the games got. With all the new units (and the amount of units and info graphics onscreen), Watching these SC2 games at 480p was pretty painful at times.
posted by Glee at 8:42 AM on October 3, 2010

dubusadus writes "Agreed with all of the explanations here but to make an analogy out of it: it'd be like asking a runner to compete in sprints, middle distance, and long distance. They'd probably do extremely well compared to the average or even the lower leagues but then you wouldn't get to see just how much they excel at the one thing they've been training for."

If they wanted to take it to the next level it would be like a triathlon. Each match would consist of nine games where the two players played every combination of the three races (or is it six? can one play the same races against each other in tournament mode?).
posted by Mitheral at 9:02 AM on October 3, 2010

can one play the same races against each other in tournament mode?

Yes (in SC1 the ZvZ games were always sort of cheezy though. It mostly came down to build order and the matches could be over in less than a minute. Hopefully Blizzard's addressed that in SC2).

Having watched a lot of SC1 and the insane high level play of the best pros, I personally prefer the current system where they focus on one race. I want to see the absolute best at something compete, not the "overall most competent", but there might be a crowd for that too..
posted by Glee at 9:23 AM on October 3, 2010

That was awesome, but... why only 480p?!

Oh, that sucks. here is a high-res version. That's what I was watching.
posted by delmoi at 9:50 AM on October 3, 2010 [2 favorites]

Oh, that sucks. here is a high-res version. That's what I was watching.

Now that's what I'm talking about, thanks! (Can't believe I didn't think to look around for high-res versions w eng commentary..)
posted by Glee at 10:32 AM on October 3, 2010

Thanks for posting this but next time could you perhaps avoid spoiling the result on the Metafilter front page? A certain friend of mine who reads MeFi is angry with you.
posted by PercussivePaul at 12:27 PM on October 3, 2010

How can you spoil something that has already aired?
posted by empath at 12:55 PM on October 3, 2010

Wow, thanks Delmoi for the link to the high-res videos from this series. In case anyone wants to check out just one game, this clip is the last game of the championship match. A remarkably one-sided game won by someone playing Zerg, which is usually viewed as under-powered compared to the Protoss and Terran. It seems like FruitDealer wins not only through amazing macro and micro, but also through a weird ability to anticipate the strategies of his opponents and respond in unorthodox ways.

I suggest that people check out these videos before they get yanked by youtube, and I look forward to watching more of FruitDealer's games.
posted by washburn at 12:59 PM on October 3, 2010

How can you spoil something that has already aired?

Lots of people like to wait around until there are videos on youtube or somewhere they can see it after it actually 'airs'
posted by delmoi at 1:02 PM on October 3, 2010

Are you serious? Things that have already aired are the only things you CAN spoil (because you know the outcome, but people who didn't see it live don't).
posted by PercussivePaul at 2:02 PM on October 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

Probably only 480p because GOMTV only made the low res stream available to non subscribers.

I am amazed at the level of play demonstrated by FruitSeller, great series of games. He literally walked into all the nightmare things that Terran can do to Zerg (tank cliffing, proxy reaper, turtle to 200/200, medivac drop harass, etc) and not only managed to fend them off, he managed to come out of each fight at a huge advantage.

Everyone who watches this match will be changed - that's how big this is, because in strategy games, players are limited by what they believe is possible. Now that FruitSeller has shown you can 14 hatch against proxy reaper many players are going to have the confidence to do that - it doesn't matter if they fail sometimes, because they'll practice it and keep getting better, knowing it's possible to do if they get good enough. Before this most players wouldn't even try and just say "well it was an automatic loss".

What was so mindblowing about the way he handled it was the reaper attacked him before the spawning pool was quite ready and managed to kill 4 workers (almost 25% of his total economy) and not only did FruitSeller manage to fend the reapers off, he managed to push the reapers and proxy barracks completely off his side of the map, pin the Terran player in HIS base instead, and end up with about 25% more workers than the Terran player at the end of it AND have an additional base.

Conventional wisdom and all previous tournament experience said that Zerg are completely helpless against Reapers in the early game and get pinned in their base, with an automatic loss without Zergling speed, able to fight Reapers to a draw once you have Zergling speed upgrade, and you can finally push them off when you get that Roach speed upgrade much later after lair tech. FruitSeller did it without either tech x_x
posted by xdvesper at 3:25 PM on October 3, 2010 [3 favorites]

Yah, I hadn't seen this either and I kinda resent the fact that it was spoiled on the front page.

Just finished watching the first game and I'm very impressed. I'm also wondering whether the Ultralisk bug had been fixed before this game had come out, cause it really made Ultras OP. I'm really looking forward to watching these, cause the official forums have been full of QQ about how Zerg is UP and Terran OP. The truth is that Zerg is very hard to play, requiring intense micro just for larve production alone.

I've just finished my 100th 1v1 win, about 50 as Terran and just under 50 for Protoss. I've been working my way up to Zerg last as they are the hardest. I'm going to take notes on this.
posted by daHIFI at 8:39 PM on October 3, 2010

IMO, if you care enough about the outcome that you'd call it "spoiled," you probably should've watched it earlier. Complaining about competition results being spoiled isn't gonna garner a lot of sympathy; when the Cubs finally get around to winning the World Series, there'll be an FPP up within 2 minutes, I assure you.
posted by explosion at 8:59 PM on October 3, 2010

I don't know, explosion. For a serious fan who actually does care (like my friend), what if you were planning to watch it later, like after you got home from work? It's not really difficult to imagine that people can't find the time to watch it live. And for casual fan like myself who doesn't particularly care who won but likes to watch exciting matches, well, thank you for telling me about these matches and providing the links, but they're not very exciting now because I know who wins!

In my small experience with the e-sports community I have noticed that it is fairly common to post replays in a way that doesn't spoil them, or at least to hide spoilers inside threads with a warning. Do you lose anything by extending this courtesy?
posted by PercussivePaul at 10:13 PM on October 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm also wondering whether the Ultralisk bug had been fixed before this game had come out,

Yes.
posted by empath at 10:14 PM on October 3, 2010

I love watching these, especially with Husky's ridiculous over-the-top commentary, even though I'll probably never even play SC2. For some reason I always go in hoping that Terran will win. I think it's some kind of instinctive racial solidarity thing - we can't have humans being taken out by bugs (or space elves).
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 2:58 AM on October 4, 2010

I love watching these, especially with Husky's ridiculous over-the-top commentary ...

Yeah, Tasteless (sp?) is good. I think both of those commentators were pros themselves a few of years ago, and obviously really know and love SC to bits.

And if you like over-the-top energetic SC commentators, "amateur/fan 'caster" moletrapSC2 can be pretty entertaining. He's a SC1 veteran and still getting up to speed on commenting SC2, but I enjoy his haphazard, DIY style.

(I've found myself mostly cheering for the space elves without knowing why. I think it's because I liked the voices of the SC1 Protoss units; "For Aiur!", "Thus I serve!", etc. The Terran Vulture unit annoyed the hell out of me: "Whaddyouwant?!" and the Zerg...sounds were just creepy, with the exception of Kerrigan: "A bold move." Ah, SC1...good times.)
posted by Glee at 3:02 PM on October 4, 2010

Conventional wisdom and all previous tournament experience said that Zerg are completely helpless against Reapers in the early game and get pinned in their base, with an automatic loss without Zergling speed

Blizzard also increased reaper build time by 5 seconds or so in the middle of the tournament. It may be that "no one thought it was possible" because it wasn't. Who knows what would have happened if the Terran player had gotten reapers 5 seconds earlier and the second batch 10 seconds earlier.
posted by delmoi at 12:32 AM on October 5, 2010