Liquipedia QnA Episode 2

Topic: Hopin' for a Revolution - The Making of Modern PvZ

On 09-11-09, 3.00 KST, Liquipedia held its second public Q&A. Experts were invited to discuss an up-to-date strategy topic on ventrilo. The MP3 can be downloaded here (right-click, save as)

Questions could be asked beforehand in this thread and are compiled here.

Example Games

For more detailed analysis, we chose three example games that we referred to during the show: As customary, we will have a set of games to watch beforehand and which we'll analyse live on stage. These are:

July vs. BeSt, Game 3 on Andromeda

Not the first usage ever, but the moment when the build mentioned inevitably surfaced in all its strength.

Bisu vs. Shine, Game 3 on Heartbreak Ridge

Paradigmatic display of Protoss not doing many mistakes, but succumbing to the Templar sniping.

BackHo vs. Calm, Game 1 on Eye of the Storm

Who would have thought some hope would come from Backho? But he takes a game off Calm with great DT usage.

Experts

•  Day[9]: Audio-Advisor, Top Zerg Player, USA WCG representative 2004/05, member of the Plott family.
•  Oystein: Liquipedia's head of Protoss strategy, contributing his FPstreams for a long time and one of the top three players from Norway.
•  iNfeRnaL: German Protoss player, around since ages, replay uploader on TL.net and participant of the IEF 2009.
•  NonY: Now semi-retired former professional gamer on the eSTRO team. Winner of the Spirit tournament, 4th place in 2008 Razer TSL.

Transcript

Introduction (00:00:00 - 00:03:37)

Day[9]: Hello everybody this is Sean "Day[9]" Plott and welcome to the Liquipedia QnA number 2, Zerg vs. Protoss. Uh, so today we have a wide variety of experts, and unfortunately we will have no showmatch today because Oystein's internet is falling apart. But that said we will end up having  Stork vs.  Jaedong cast after the match, on Heartbreak Ridge. This is the game from the WCG match 2009, so if any of you want to load that video up on YouTube in higher quality, feel free to do that right around now. We'll put that on hold so that way we can introduce the great array of experts that we have today. So we have Oystein from Norway, Nony from the United States, and Infernal from Germany. So Oystein, why don't you start off by saying a little bit about who you are and how long you've been playing.

Oystein: Yea hello this is Oystein from Teamliquid, and I've been playing for, I don't know, since, seriously, 2001-2002 or so, or not seriously, but low money maps, and you might know me from streaming at Teamliquid, and generally posting there.

Day[9]: Awesome, sweet. And now, moving on to my American friend Nony, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself.

Nony: Hello this is Nony, a.k.a Tyler Wasiliewski and I am ons Teamliquid, and I've been playing the game seriously since about early 2007 and I had a brief stint in Korea playing for eSTRO.

Day[9]: The oh-so-well remembered stint indeed. And Infernal of course our German friend.

Infernal: Ah, hello. I'm Infernal from Germany obviously, and my name is Patrick Möller. I've been playing this game since I guess 10 years or something but I started playing low money maps like 4.5 years ago or something. Yea, I guess that's it.

Day[9]: Well thank you so much again for introducing yourselves because that spares me the honor of butchering all of your names. I'm Sean Plott I have the easiest name here, and I've been playing since the dawn of time, uh, pretty much. Generally just stuck to laddering and WCGs and that sort of thing, but yea, that's about all there is to say about me. And first of all, aren't you guys just pumped for Teamliquid Starleague 2. Did you guys see the prize pool on that?

Infernal: Yea, it's Teamliquid, it's the Teamliquid Starleague. How can you not be pumped about that because the first TSL was great already, and this one seems like it can be even better, even though  Jian Fei will probably not win it this time due to being very busy with studies, but we wish him good luck on that.

Day[9]: It's pretty unfortunate that people are valuing school over StarCraft these days. And I'm curious, will all three of you be playing in Starleague?

Nony: I am probably.

Infernal: I will for sure.

Oystein: I will try, but sort of have all my exams during the ladder stage, so it could be hard.

Basic Opinions on 3BS5HH (00:03:37 - 00:08:10)

Day[9]: Yea that's rough, one day we'll probably reach an Aryan society where StarCraft is required part of school so.... until then it'll just be us continuing to blab with one another, which allows us now to move on to the QnA topic: Zerg vs. Protoss, the whole 3 hatch spire straight into five hatch hydralisk. So, what do you guys feel about this build order? just some general questions. When did you first start seeing it surface, what are some of the difficulties that you had when it first came about, and is it imbalanced? We'll just touch on that briefly, since that's a pretty popular topic of discussion nowadays. Let’s begin with you Infernal, when did you first start seeing it, and what were your experiences with it?

Infernal: I guess I started seeing it when Jaedong was popularizing the build order, personally I don't really think that it's imbalanced, it's just certain factors adding up together that makes it really hard for Protoss lately, which is kind of the fact that Mutalisk micro got a lot more important again, and templar sniping happening, etc. um and yea I guess it's just Protoss being defeated with grace right now. We need some inspiration that's all I guess. I mean, we will benefit out of this dark time for sure, the question is just when.

Day[9]: Yea, I mean Zergs have been winning a lot lately, like you know I think recently in the last few games it's been like over 60% of the Zergs have been winning. Which of course from a Zerg players point of view it's never been more balanced as far as I’m concerned right. But um I'm also curious what Nony what about you what's your experience of playing vs this build?

Nony: Well I think that it kind of started getting going in late 2008 and I was practicing for WCG at that time, and there weren’t a lot of Zerg threats so I kind of ignored it's early stages, but by the time I was in Korea, and December '08 and January '09 I was starting to see it a lot, and it was kind of the difficult thing to deal with. And it was kind of cute the first time I saw it, because I would get my scouting Corsair, and I would look around the Zerg base, and I would see the spire, and then that's all that would pop would be some scourge, and I would be like, "Oh that's cute, you got a spire just to get some scourge," for my Corsair, and then you're just going to go hydra, oh that's a cute little build but you know over the months since then, I mean it's almost been a year I guess, or about a year since it's very beginning, and uh, it has just adapted to every little thing that the Protoss has done differently. The Zerg has found a way to make this build stick, and make it the standard, and now it's just a monster, and that's why we're here discussing it.

Day[9]: Yea seriously, I do really like that description that you gave, as well as the way Infernal said that it's not imbalanced, but it's just really hard. I think that's a really good way to view the match-up, just that that Protosses do have solutions, but the, I mean the Mutalisk sniping is just so easy against the templar, I mean you don't even have to have that good of control, you just have to know how to group them with the overlord. And now Oystein, as everyone has seen from the videos, you play both Zerg and Protoss, you've seen both sides of this match-up. So tell us, what are your thoughts on it, just some brief ideas.

Oystein: Well um, I think it's really well thought-out build, and whoever came up with it had a really bright mind because it's not really just the single build, because it has so much adaptability that you can...

(Infernal: you're cutting out)

Oystein: You can sort of change it along the way, you don't have to... yea, okay, I’m sorry... what I’m saying is that the build has so much adaptability so that you can open up with just a regular 3 hatch, and if you sort of see something, you see him skipping Corsairs, you change it into a 3 hatch Mutalisk build, and yea, just to, um, it doesn’t put you on one deciding road, you can change it. That's why I like it is because you can change it according to whatever your opponent is doing.

Which maps are suitable for 3BS5HH? (00:08:10-00:17:25)

Day[9]: Yea adaptability is really a big key especially in Zerg vs. Protoss because I mean, unlike Zerg vs. Terran, which seems to have that really strict midgame look, and Terran really needs to get science vessels when Zerg has Lurkers, I mean Zerg vs. Protoss is this insane match-up, there's so many choices going on that if you don't have an adaptable build you're going to have no success at all. Now Oystein, I know that you have a little bit of discussion about the maps that we're going to take some looks at. Now do you think that given certain maps there are going to be some huge changes that go on, what are your thoughts about where five hatch hydra ends up being strong and where it ends up not.

Oystein: Ah, yea, that's a good question, because I really think with the way that the maps are looking these days, where every base pretty much has gas, it really this build it excels once you get that third gas. For instance a map like Blue Storm, where you take your mineral-only as your third, you just won't get enough gas to do the muta switch, or get up a sufficient amount of Lurkers if you decide to skip the Mutalisks if he get Corsairs or something, and it makes it very hard to hold your ground with sort of Lurkers and, um, hydralisks that you will normally do if you skip the, um, the Mutalisks. And you just get gas to do the triple evo... yea, if you don't have that third gas, it's going to be a very hard to do build. If you look at a game like Kal vs. Jaedong from the Avalon MSL Byzantum , you can see where um Jaedong opts to take his, he takes his third as a gas instead of his closer mineral only. So I think that the maps are definitely playing a big role in this build.

Day[9]: Well, um, I’m definitely interested by this idea of having gas at every single expansion. What about something like Medusa, which is a map where Zergs started off having trouble on it, but then later on they ended up sort of going forward and winning more games against Protoss, I mean a lot of that has to do with the fact that you could build a hatchery and just wall in your opponent, but I mean even if you do end up taking your third gas as one of those outside expansions, you have the open mineral natural behind you, which leaves you a little vulnerable to drops right as you get those five hatches going, so, um, do you have any opinions Oystein, as to Medusa as a map for five hatch hydra?

Oystein: Ah well, I think that it's a map that sort of favors more defensive play, where you get Lurkers a lot quicker, both to sort of break the temples and put pressure and force the Protoss to make cannons at his min only, or back there somewhere at least, and that...yea, generally I think that it's a map that favors more defensive play, because to get the third gas you sort of have to move out on the map, and it gets further away, so you get yea, the danger of uh Corsairs and Dark Templars will be there and but um I think it's Medusa, it's a pretty balanced map, but if the Zergs get up those hatcheries that you're taking about, and get just huge Lurker/spore/sunken colony line, it's pretty much over.

Day[9]: Now what about you Infernal, what are your thoughts on the maps, like are there maps that you felt a particular challenge against five hatch hydra, or maps that are really really easy, and especially with current trends shifting towards Zergs winning a little bit more, do you think that map making is actually the fundamental issue?

Infernal: Um, in my opinion it's one of the issues because obviously maps like Destination and Heartbreak Ridge are like okay, those maps seem to be designed for that build order (5 hatch hydra) especially destination is really bad because if you take your third hatchery outside to gas, I mean, obviously you get another expansion for free which is the mineral only and yea, probes can't attack you if you have prior defenses, you'll be getting into the long game mode as soon as possible, get defilers, get everything, cracklings, everything that Protoss hates, just being there pretty soon, so I mean Zerg really has every good thing on that map, so... hmm. I guess that somebody is like, having the third base as a mineral only would make things easier for Protoss, that would be true in my opinion, but that's not going to stop everything, which is the main point, because you still don't know what would happen, I mean you can still Mutalisks first and then get mass hydralisks after, okay, you can't switch to Lurkers right away if there’s no third gas, but still I think that the main problem that most Protosses are having right now is Mutalisks and mass hydralisks, so after sniping you just need templar, and if you don't have them you lose no matter if there's a third gas or not.

Nony: I’d like to say that Destination is actually one of the maps that I feel I can handle this Zerg build by playing a little more defensively. Well offensively first, if you can do a build that puts a little bit of pressure on the Zerg so that you are able to take your third gas, as a Protoss player, then at the point in the game when a Protoss player has a timing to attack and then that's when the Mutalisk snipings and all your High Templar die, at that point in the game you don't actually need to attack because you have three base, and you can also take your mineral only as well, and they can snipe your High Templar, but because of the way that destination is designed, with the bridge outside of your natural, and the third gas there on the high ground, you can actually defend against mass hydralisks without having High Templar, so I've seen some games while I was at estro where that situation kind of played out, and I started to get really comfortable playing that way, aggressive first, just to set up the third, and then you avoid the situation of High Templar sniping.

Infernal: Yea I agree with what he said right now. I mean, if you manage to get that third gas up, then it's obviously really easy to go into mass macro mode, and then it gets balanced game, but for example I just like give that question to Nony, what do you do if there are Mutalisks right away, I mean if it's not even getting some hydralisks, but getting Mutalisks right away, and defending properly with nice building placement and like 2-3 sunkens + some Zerglings. I mean, if you don't get that expansion up and there's this huge Lurker contain in front of you after that, I just think that situation happens you're fucked.

Nony: Except the way that I feel about that is that it's not possibly an imbalanced situation. If the Zerg goes 3 hatchery Mutalisks, I don't think that most people feel like that's imbalanced, it's just one of the situations where all of the little tiny things in the game are going to add up to one player triumphing, so... you wouldn't, if the Zerg goes 3 hat Mutalisks you won't be able to get your third set up, but you've managed to avoid an arguably imbalanced situation which is the templar sniping situation, and put the game onto a different track, where maybe you haven't figured out all the answers, but by changing the situation, and getting the Zerg off of, off of his game plan, well then the Protoss is at a natural advantage there.

Planning out Builds (00:17:25 - 00:20:14)

Day[9]: Now I’m interested in the fact that you have spent time with progamers at estro, you've gotten to play with them, you've gotten to talk to them, hopefully some, even despite the language barrier, and I'm curious what some of the techniques that the progamers were trying to try, um, because I mean I assume that when you're playing in a televised match, you're going to play the build that you think is absolutely the best, but in practice, um, I have no idea what sorts of strategies players are actually playing around with, and trying. So, could you tell us a little bit about your experience with that?

Nony: Um yea, actually as I had arrived at Estro Sangho had just come off an awesome win against Jaedong on Destination, where he was very aggressive, and he moved one way with uh, some Zealots I think and then he snuck some DTs into the main of Jaedong, and uh it was really really nice execution of a build, so when practicing for something like that I feel like that's kind of a percentage build that uh you know, it'll work a percentage of the time depending on what the Zerg does, and another percentage of the time the Zerg might just easily defend it, so when you're practicing for something like that you uh, you kind of decide okay I’m going to do this ultra aggressive I’m going to try to sneak DTs in kind of thing, and then you play against Zerg players who are just playing standard, and you just try to perfect your timing, and so you kind of have in the back of your mind if the Zerg plays a little bit differently this is absolutely going to fail, but you just hafta, you kind of um well just guess, pretty much just guess what your opponent is going to play like, and then come up with a specific counter, and then uh that's not really the kind of style that I like, these specific counters because uh well I just don't like percentage builds, I don't like being that specific, I would rather have a system built up where I can adapt to anything, but I definitely saw more of the former case of specific builds than the latter case of the Protoss trying to come up with an all encompassing build that's going to have a chance against anything.

Infernal: To me that sounds kind of like knowing your opponent right? That's one of the major things going on in progaming right now. It's kind of about studying your opponent and trying to figure out what is his weakness and how can I abuse his weakness.

Analysis of Game 2: Bisu vs. Shine (00:20:14 - )

Day[9]: And I do like the idea of specific build orders, because like you Nony, I love having a solid system, I like going into a game feeling like I have every possible angle covered regardless of what the players style is. But I think that it's an interesting idea to play around with, um, uh, a lot of specific build orders, because maybe that would be a good springboard for figuring out a new solid way of playing, and I’m really intrigued about watching some Protosses try that in the future. And actually let's just move on, we've been talking about maps and on general play for a little bit, but lets just dive into some actually games. So Oystein, can you talk a little bit about the  Bisu vs.  Shine game , which was one of the suggested three watchings for this?

Oystein: Uh, yes I can do that. Yea it was the third game of the Bisu vs. Shine series from the OSL qualifiers on Heartbreak Ridge. And, um, it really it was just game that really shows the strength of this five hatch hydra into Mutalisk sniping build because personally I couldn't see Bisu do much wrong that game, I mean he did fairly well at the start, got his expansion up, got a pretty big army going, and then yea, he even did a lot of Dragoons, He had probably close to 20 Dragoons, and like four or five High Templar and still despite that when he moved out and took his third, shine just used stacked mutas and sniped off Bisu's High Templar, and just rolled his army with 1a2a3a of hydralisks.

Day[9]: Now Infernal and Nony, what do you guys think about Bisu's play in that game, what do you think he could have done right or wrong, either before the Mutalisks sniping or after.

Infernal: I was about to shout right out because my opinion about that is so different, Shine basically did a lot of things right, the main thing was um that he mined out that mineral very very early so he kind of forced Bisu to take that early third, Bisu was worried about counterattacks mainly, so yea, it was just like in my opinion he took his third too early, went into total defensive mode, and just hands the game over to shine, and he wasn't doing any aggression, he wasn't doing any scouting, he had no idea what is coming at him, and that was just cocky, it was just bad, it was just wrong. If you ask me, he should have gotten like 10 Gateways or something and just steamrolled the shit all over him. If he had even 3 Corsairs it would have looked so different, but no Bisu makes 20 goons which is like the shittiest anti air unit you can possibly do, and then he only has 4 templars, I mean, 4 templars you can snipe those so easily. If he had like 9 templars instead, yea, things would have looked very different. He didn't need that many goons. Goons, they are like a newbie unit, I don't even know why he made so many. I mean, I know that you need some goons against Lurkers on that map,but.

Day[9]: Hey, let's give those goons a break, they already have bad AI, it's not like they need to be called stupid now.

Day[9]: You're saying that Bisu did the worst possible thing in the world. So do you think that he should have been more aggressive as he was taking his third, maybe he should have just avoided taking his third all together. I mean, do you think that he should have been doing some sort of Zealot Archon push or something like that, or...

Infernal: And just keep on scouting, and I mean, Shine was exactly predicting what Bisu was going to do, and Bisu just fell for it, he was just doing what Shine wanted him to do, and that's why he lost the game in my opinion because well, if you only have Dragoons, they're always going to lose to mass hydralisks, no matter what. I mean, he just wanted to close the (endrance?) so soon, it's like I'm going to be defensive, and that's exactly what shine wanted; he took his min only and macroed and macroed and macroed and macroed and had no pressure at all. And then he saw “Okay, Bisu is really only making goons, he only has 4 HT, okay, let's have some fun, snipe those HT, and win the game.”

Day[9]: So Nony in your opinion, do you think that he (Bisu) would have won if he had just popped the 'D' key off of his keyboard?

Nony: Well I think this is an excellent example of a game where that's all you do, you put aside a couple hundred minerals and gas to make a Dark Archon and Maelstrom, and all of a sudden you have a timing attack that is going to own Zerg. And while I agree with the fact that Bisu should have been doing some more aggressive things earlier, and his play was very predictable, I think that in this game he could have actually won just by making a few less goons maybe making Three ht rather than 4, and having a Dark Archon that's going to Maelstrom those Mutalisks as soon as they fly in.

Day[9]: I was going to say, it looks like Oystein has something to add as well.

Oystein: Yea what I wanted to say was... in that particular game Shine, he opens up with Lurkers first and yea, let's face it, if he scouts Bisu continuing to make more Zealot/High Templar heavy army, or even started massing Corsairs, he won't ever make those Mutalisks, he will just stick to spending that 1000 gas or whatever was used on the muta, and would have spent them on Lurkers, and could have easily held that ridge along, where that min only is, and his natural, and really, that is the sort of inherent imbalance that at least exists where I see it is, that the Zerg will always see what the Protoss is doing because of, either by overlords or in the later stages just sending in some scourge and uh yea, they can always just skip those mutas and if they do that, he's never going to break those any of those ridges without a lot of Dragoons.

Infernal: My opinion is that there is always two ways to go for the Protoss. If you kind of move around a bit, Zerg has to unburrow and burrow those Lurkers all again, and at some point he will be in a bad position. And let's be honest, fifteen goons are enough if you're microing well, but like bisu was doing 20-25, he was just overdoing it, he needed more High Templars for sure, and as Nony said a Dark Archon would have settled all those problems in the game, but then again Bisu just had no clue those Mutalisks were just surprising Bisu so big time you could have seen that if you watched the game live, Bisu was like “Wait, what the fuck Mutalisks, I totally forgot about those,” and that's something that should not happen to the best Protoss in the world.

Analysis of Game 1: July vs. Best ( - )

Day[9]: Now, I do want to take a moment and kind of pull back to the historic Zerg vs Protoss of  July vs  Best , where we really got to see, um, this build order in action, and I like the beginning of the Bisu vs Shine game, because it's an example of how Bisu seems to be in an advantageous position, and then just sort of falls apart because Mutalisks suddenly pop out, that's good to talk about, um, obviously because so many players get frustrated by that, but July vs Best on Andromeda was a beautiful showcase of the pure muscle of um, doing this transition of scourge straight into hydralisks and expanding a whole bunch, so, Nony could you give us a little bit of a history lesson of what went on in that game.

Nony: Yea, so that was all the way back in July '08, and uh, it was pretty much, this is kind of my theory on this build, is that it's kind of an anti Corsair/Reaver build, that has become an anti-everything build. So in that game best is uh, he's trying to do the Corsair Reaver, and so the standard thing for the Zerg is to just get the spire as soon as possible, get some scourge up, and so uh, the problem specifically with that game was that best was losing Corsairs and uh, if you lose some of your first Corsairs you're going to miss your timing on your Reaver harass, and then you're just going to get in a lot of trouble, but the extent of the trouble that he got in just from losing one or two Corsairs and missing that timing, I think that's really the lesson to be learned from that game is that uh, with this build, it's so powerful, the macro is so powerful that if the Zerg can just stop, repel whatever the Protoss is planning on doing for the midgame, then the macro just overpowers and the Protoss doesn't have a chance and so at that point it looked like quite hopeless because best uh you know he didn't play that bad, it was just a few tiny mistakes and then the results were just overwhelming, so it was kind of scary at that point, and now with all the adaptations of the build uh, over a year later, it's just gotten out of control.

Day[9]: Yea and I especially love that point you make about, um just losing a few of those Corsairs early really really screw up everything, and uh that's interesting because I also saw that um the scourge and the Hydralisk thing was most commonly used against Corsair Reaver, and I especially loved how July was researching +1 carapace so that when he did get Mutalisks, he had 2 armor on his Mutalisks, and was able to absolutely crush the Corsair Reaver harass or attack or whatever you want to call it. Now Infernal and Oystein do you have an opinions on that game, that haven't been brought up, because I mean that was really the first time that people were completely blown away by the strength of this transition.

????: Um in my opinion July was just doing everything right, and the whole series, I mean, even the fact that Best was starting off with three cannons, four cannons, that was just scared as fuck because of the previous games obviously, and he did expect July to cheese again and again and again and he was just like, "Oh shit, what is going to happen I have no idea," I mean he did scout, but before he was able to scout with the Corsair, he was already psyched out, and then as Nony said he even continued to lose his first Corsair and oh yea, it's it's just yea, poor poor Best in that game, July was doing everything right, he showed everyone “Hey I can still play mechanically great,” because he kind of had that cheesy reputation, but yea, it was just genius of him if you're asking me, and it looked like, he didn't really look like a good Protoss in this game, even though he was playing decent, he wasn't making that many mistakes as Nony pointed out, but it just looked like there was worlds between those two players.

Day[9]: Yea that's one thing that I really love about watching July play, is that uh, even though he's known for being out of control aggressive, in the games where he does sit back and play very patiently and very um, thoughtfully, he ends up with some of the most brilliant build orders that I've ever seen, and he is probably the player I've imitated from the most just in terms of build orders and of course I'm much more known for build orders than I am for being very passive and long term in nature, which really goes to show how strong his build orders really are, that he's this out of control aggressive player and yet his build orders are so so smart, that someone as passive as I am wants to imitate him. Now Oystein, what are your thoughts on this July vs Best game?

Oystein: Ah, it's good that you ask, um, at the start of the game he actually opens up with a 9 pool speed, and he does a runby, and uh, best, he defends very well, I don't think that he loses a single probe actually, and really it gets into sort of a good position to be in, he gets his first expansion up, and he knows that July's economy is sort of weak but then suddenly just, um, July's econ just booms and goes all over the place, you can see it takes, he has like 6 or 7 expo/bases on his side of the map before best even moves out for the first time, and you can see that July does great things to stall for time, like he threatens to drop the island expansion that game, so best ends up building a ton of cannons there, which of course delays his gateways and yea, just sucking minerals out of him, and he even does drop on his min only that sort of fails miserably, but still, it buys just more time, and you can see that by the time that best actually moves out into the map, uh, July just has half the map and uh, just a moves everything and has Guardians Lurkers cracklings with good upgrades and everything and just demolishes Best.

????: And that's one of the things that I was trying to say, July is really really really good at mindgames, I mean he controls the flow of the game and he even feel like he's controlling the emotions of the player because he's just scaring the other player out so much and, I mean, when I was watching that game I really felt so sorry for Best because I could feel like he felt, it's like what to do, what to do, what was I doing wrong this game (previous game), it was just, he was just so psychologically fucked up, and I mean really fucked, I don't want to insult everything or something, but it's just, I feel so sorry for him.

Day[9]: Well I've got to admit it's pretty bad when you lose to a 5 pool, then you lose to a drone drill, which was a very popular strategy in 1999, and then you're playing a straight up game, you're playing your macro game that you're known for, and July is outdoing you at that, that's totally, taking the fast bus to frowntown.

???: Yea, and Best, he was like, "Hey look at me I'm the macro king, I'm the macro king," and then he was finally was able to play his macro game, and then he got totally overwhelmed in his macro game and it must have been so painful for this guy, and I guess that's the one point where you could have told okay, this guy is never going to be a really really good set player just because of what July did to him.