StarCraft 2: Swarm Host TROUBLES! (Viewer Games)

[@canebro1]

Void Rays make a lot of sense 1) They are strong in the campaign 2) They hit air and ground (unlike the phoenix and oracle) 3) They don't require the fleet beacon (unlike the carrier and tempest)

[@mitoroskokoros589]

Exactly

[@stixinst5791]

Also cheap, fast and have a skill to counter their counters

[@GruppeSechs]

Nobody said they're bad. The fact they're good is why it's such a groanfest seeing them over and over. The predictable fallback option. This is pretty universally known.

[@Rockpet]

Alternative title: Lowko doesn't know difference between thors and immortals

[@thatsounditmakes9177]

Thank you for giving up a few years of your mental health to cast these very entertaining games Lowko

[@poodlescone9700]

I see viewer submitted games, I click.

[@danielk.5864]

I was in both games like: Okay now its over. And then I saw that the game goes on for another like 3-5 minutes

[@ingrudmessenger1193]

The real question remaining is... did Lowko ever use a heartrate monitor while casting viewer submitted games?

[@youssof.k.8736]

He actually should that would be sick

[@rottenmuffin826]

Credit where credit is due, at 15:17 the protoss deactivated prismatic aligment so that the void rays could escape. We never see that in viewer games

[@plixie1]

I love these so much more than pro level.

[@bagahbread]

IKRRR

[@kalitor]

Actually, Lowko, there would be a great game theory math paper in how Starcraft 2 is balanced and how valuable various decisions are. I was actually talking with a graduate student about writing a paper about this very thing the other day. And there's totally ways to get a PhD studying games. Not only is there a ton of mathematics involved in how a game operates, but I also knew an English professor once who researched environmental themes in video game narratives. She got a grant to support her research that gave her money to purchase video game consoles and games so that she could play and write about them. Yeah, that was when I realized that I had gone into the wrong line of academia....

[@PexoDM]

I am receiving my engineering degree this Monday and the subject of my thesis was evaluation of strategic position in SC2 using machine learning. There's plenty to do in gaming-academia for sure. Starcraft is a breeding ground for machine learning projects, especially reinforced learning with agents (like AlphaStar etc.). I had gathered over 30k replays from tournaments and ladder to analyze, and what's funny the races have extremely close pick and win ratios to each other across the board. at least one Zerg is present in 35.36% of the matches, Protoss in 33.64% and a Terran in 31% of the matches. Win ratios are close as well: Z 34.21%, P 33.57% and T 32.12%. (Fun fact: the most common matchup in SC2 is ZvP) I would say that statistically the game seems to be in a pretty good equilibrium balance-wise.

[@kalitor]

@@PexoDM That is the coolest thesis! Thank you for sharing your amazingly interesting work. Awesome stuff! Is this thesis going to be available anywhere? Often some schools keeps a repository of them somewhere. Or maybe some or all of it got published in a journal. I would love to read it! And congratulations on the degree!

[@PexoDM]

@@kalitor Yeah I will be writing up an article for medium sometime soon about that. Meanwhile I'm happy to answer all questions if any should happen. I made the code open source, and given enough interest from SC2 community I could make it into some web app allowing for analyzing your own replays.

[@Vj3tZ3RG]

@@PexoDM yesss please

[@daethalion1725]

I've loved watching Lowko evolve as he casts more of these viewer games. Lowko in the beginning: "Well, it's not the best plan but I guess I can see why you went for it, nice try!" Lowko now: "YOUR STRATS ARE BAD AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD!"

[@ZirJo]

Lowko is usually really nice, but one person can only have so much mental stamina xD

[@abcdeeer]

because of these viewer games i decided to try playing this game for the first time in 10 years and got placed in g3 and now this video gives me encouragement to try again lol

[@Draeckon]

Videos like this make me jump back into ladder for a few days to a few weeks, but I have yet to keep at it consistently. It's why I've been stuck at Gold 1, low Plat for ages. Grinding out 1v1 and gitting gud just loses its luster for me pretty quickly.

[@musawenkosi3799]

That "job's done" is spot on!

[@holy_knight]

For the teching up or down I got accustomed to it by my first ever RTS It was a Lego RTS, aimed for children, and you had two types of supply The normal units supply and special units supply (20 and 4 respectively) So to have a maxed out army you needed both to be full That was really valuable and made me not underestimate low tier units

[@TheJimmybobtimmy]

Was this the Mars one?

[@holy_knight]

@@TheJimmybobtimmy maybe? There was certenly aliens so pretty sure it is

[@ИльяМиронов-я2л]

Mr Lowko, in my experience when you type glhf before 3 second pre-game timer ends there is no msg in the replay, I believe this happened during 2nd game

[@drasleon4626]

I love Lowkos reaction to the second game. The spine crawlers broke him xd

[@the_rabidsquirel]

Swarm hosts feel like the ultimate strategy in lower leagues. Since most players seem to mostly just sit back and build, why not harass with a unit that costs zero resources to produce? Reminds me of that one viewer game here from a while back where a zerg lost 1/10 of the resources of their opponent over a very long game cause swarm hosts did so much over the course of it. Don't think I've ever seen a stronger imbalance in resources lost than that.

[@Mahons]

I feel like somebody needs to count the amount of times Lowko mistakenly said thor and immortal

[@legion8863]

I didnt even notice until i read the comments, i guess i am fluent in lowkovian language

[@Cheshire9k]

Lowko who cant remember the name of units or skills after 12 years thinks he can get a PHD at SC2.

[@propeacemindfortress]

the thing on the lower leagues is not that people freeze if they try to think... they are still to busy remembering the basics to even try to think... yeah recall... there was something^^ hahahaha

[@Willdreynolds870621]

Damn…. Still watching full video. But I had to skim to see if my games was one of them lol. One day I’ll get on here lol

[@rustymcrae7739]

16:55 I thought there was a mosquito in my room 😂

[@Jiraton]

«Except me, because I'm Lowko, ahah». I completly got this one XD

[@TheRealStoku]

I’m here almost exclusively for these videos. They’re for sure my favorite videos from Lowko.

[@SimpleDisciples]

“Jobs done” love it 😂

[@DavidGamer2ndChannel]

I got a recommendation from Wristwatch Revival next to this video, but I never watch videos about watches or anything like that. I don't think it's a coincidence that you get these recommendations when you watch a video from Lowko. Very funny.

[@Maurodax]

Dr Lowko: "Bah! These kids and their damn Vodirays!"

[@reuben8192]

I definitely laughed at "Nobody speaks Spanish over here, except me because I'm Lowko".

[@captainfischi1029]

20:00 It may well be that the Zerg wrote glhf in the 3 sec countdown. If he did that then you don't see the glhf in the replay

[@LowkoTV]

You do if you hit back a few a times

[@captainfischi1029]

@@LowkoTV For real? Then I'll try that soon xD I was actually 100% sure that it wouldn't appear because I've never seen it in my games. But good to know ^^

[@Jimmy-pp6fo]

@@LowkoTV I am Professor, I actually said glhf but it didn't show in replay xD

[@youssof.k.8736]

Video suggestion: cast a viewer submitted game with a heartrate machine attached. + turn on yohr cam, i think the facial expression will make it even more entertaining and fun

[@ToabyToastbrot]

Wow the Professor floats 1k Minerals from Min 3 on, but doesn't take gas until after 5 min

[@basicuser54]

Also, Dr. Lowko sounds like a pretty scary evil villain

[@paulchiu8853]

I don’t think anyone would fast forward a viewer submit game … because every min there’s surprises

[@MaximumSpice]

It's funny listening to lowko slowly dying casting these.

[@kindasa]

Ok question for @LowkoTV, in that second game, where the zerg did a full wall with spines, you raged that the toss was going to go voidrays. My question is, if voidrays are a bad choice here, what is the correct choice? Stalkers with blink to bypass the wall?

[@Norirane]

Why would you bypass the wall if you can take all the bases in the world and tech up, periodically scouting the Zerg with hallucinations. There's no reason to kick the turtle, just starve Zerg of resources, harass them with oracles and make them attack into you. If they don't want to leave their base at all, then imagine you're playing Zero Hour mission (as the enemy), and send wave after wave of zealots until you run out of money and tap out.

[@Not0bito]

That first game seriously made me want to cry when they didn't recall lmao

[@BrendanCS]

I wish it were possible for both players to lose in games like this.

[@bb-im6hf]

not sure that Serral watches these videos, but players like Has or ByuN, maybe Reynor (not sure which other pro players tend to play non-standard games)? what better way to find some new and never before seen strategies than watching couple lower level people trying to pull off something crazy and then executing it with their skill

[@mirixxxx]

i rly love those viewer games.... i rly think about playing ladder myself again

[@DavidGamer2ndChannel]

Better just watch the videos. But you can do what you want.

[@finestco]

the first game had me crackin up when they switched sides lmao

[@jayyrod1]

The professor taking us to school with a full zerg wall off plus spine crawlers. The culmination of studying top pros has paid off

[@Zendelxex]

Me: What are you guys doing? Game 1: We don't like our starting bases and agreed to exchange places. Me: Understandble. Have a great game

[@formaltable7454]

Shoutout to Heroes of might and magic, where 8 Crusaders would end a Black dragon pretty quickly

[@isaac_shelton]

i love viewer submitted games

[@tipofthespear7821]

Me: fastforward the vídeo Lowko: if You fast forwarded the video you lost it

[@getawaykid]

How did "classic" get an extra 400 minerals at 5:48? They didn't cancel any units or research or building. They only had 290 minerals so they couldn't build a nexus, then all of the sudden they had 690?

[@amythystmiriel]

As best I can tell, he queued up a nexus in the top left and the probe that got that order wasn't the first in line so the others blocked it

[@ShadowTheHedgehogCZ]

14:10 - Heroes 3 of Might and Magic? Yeah, rushing Black Dragons is usually a good choice. Turn based strategy however works very differently. And you can't just choose to only grow higher level units. You will have a lot of lower tier units anyway. You cannot really skip them. If you could, you would. Because Heroes 3 is not a rock, paper scissors like SC2. Black Dragons beat everything. Maybe except other high tier units.

[@stixinst5791]

I disagree. Black dragon dies to a stack of 1000+ skeli archers. That is the way that game is played and I only wish to embrace the swarm until the number clips back negatives

[@Zeracan]

Lowko saying how carriers are the best units to put out. Ones that can be countered. Immediate thought was "ghosts" because only micro-ing a high Templar with feedback can you counter ghosts. Then I remembered, oh right, classic is protoss.

[@ZirJo]

Yes! La casa de papel! You pronounced quite decently for a non Spanish speaker Lowko! And yes, outside spain it's usually known as Money Heist =)

[@jingxuanwang8674]

14:07 What do you mean? Rushing out Black Dragons is good if you have access to Armageddon... (for HoMM3)

[@bb-im6hf]

if it flies or can shoot across the map, it is a good HoMM3 unit that deserves to be rushed. Black Dragons? Manticores? Medusas? Harpies? Beholders? yes please

[@dvgummersall]

YES! LOWKO 6 hour live stream of non-stop, nonsense, viewer submitted games please!!! Sign me up for Lowko 6 hour madness-o-thon!

[@Sam_Holt]

39:20 Money Heist is what its called in the UK

[@Nozdormu1982]

9:12 Immortals become thors

[@CubeItself]

16:30 thats backdoor harassment + frontdoor push was beautiful, i doubt bronze bro is bronze at this point

[@smaakjeks]

Second game, I have the feeling [BARCODE] was used to players saying glhf at the beginning of the match, and he had "u2" cued up to go. But when nothing was said by Professor, they were going to erase the "u2" but accidentally sent it instead. I have that feeling, because that's the sort of thing I might do, and then I'd spend the next 10 minutes explaining to my opponent what happened so that I didn't come off as rude or crazy. And then I would lose the game.

[@PexoDM]

Actually the first 3 seconds countdown at the beginning of the match is simply not recorded to the replay. So if anyone drops gl hf during that countdown it will not be saved.

[@Jimmy-pp6fo]

I am the professor, i actually said glhf at count down but it didn't show in replay

[@smaakjeks]

@@PexoDM Ah okay

[@smaakjeks]

@@Jimmy-pp6fo Cool, okay. Good game :)

[@thomasbishop3494]

OK... just had to leave a comment in regards to the first game. Well, more of a question really. How on God's red Char are these two players in PLATINUM? How? Boggles the mind that they're in platinum when they play as fresh bronze noobs. Did they buy their accounts? Did they pay someone to play for them? Like... for real. I haven't played SC2 ladder 1v1s since HoTS came out and I could easily beat both of them in a 1v2. Like, how are you gonna proxy immortals against Terran who can just fly his shit away? How are you massing marines but you don't have combat shields and medivacs? How do you just stim up a ramp with no medivac support against carriers, just to get all your marines instagibbed? Just HOW? Oh my Kerrigan... good Lowko was casting that game because if it were me doing it I'd be doing nothing but trashtalk these players' "skill." For fuck's sakes the last time I played ladder, people knew how to play the game properly in GOLD league! GOLD! Has the quality of players just dropped so dramatically?

[@dayton440]

I’m thinking the first game those players probably cheesed their way to platinum based on their openers. So they didn’t know how to play after the opening. The second game though… no idea what was going on there, cuz I feel like I almost never see games that dumb at plat 1

[@shermsticky2500]

8:51 Warcraft 3 orc reference

[@toxicavenger9617]

Thats second Game hurted. This protos was so dumb 😂

[@SeriousApache]

Professor got his degree in Florencio Science School for Kids Who Can't Macro Good and Don't Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too.

[@c4c4cr0773]

After too many viewes games, Doctor Lowko becomes Mister Hyde. (I guess this is one way to get your PhD in gaming)

[@Jakemottola]

If they GLHF during the countdown then you wont see it in the replay. So he said "u2" in response to the glhf during the countdown

[@lightswitch0000]

Bingo! misname unit, smelling blood, free space, explain upgrade, rewind game

[@1un4cy]

I was hoping Professor could bait the skytoss into attacking exposed swarm hosts while having burrowed hydralisks pop up from underneath but I don't think even Serral could pull that off, considering how underutilized Burrow is.

[@knicklichtjedi]

Those were two fantastic games!

[@taborlinthenamer2860]

How did the Protoss afford a nexus on the mineral count it says 290 and nothing on the production tab then all the sudden it jumps to 600 ish minerals

[@figuemiraisinremi6036]

Turns out that if you say anything during the countdown of 3 seconds before the start of the game, it won't appear in the replay, so our protoss barcode can say "u2" without being that stupid (although he is protoss, so who knows)

[@rearnessfactorof11]

I love THAT time!

[@Willdreynolds870621]

Omg I’m hoping one of mine are in here lol

[@WindsorMason]

I wish the messages said during the countdown were saved in the replay, could easily make it work like the game was paused and the messages get vomited out all at once... But instead the messages are just not saved so you get people replying to nothing or looking like they're rude and not saying things. xD

[@csmlouis]

Ma, look!! Lowko is failing the Professor on KZbin.

[@harrysoumen6122]

New viewer Games, finally, thx!

[@ledrash6079]

20:03 --> Unless they might have been in a lobby together and the zerg said glhf in there?

[@pepajetel6999]

In some ways Lowko reminds me of my Math teacher.. he just loves roasting people

[@HappyGuardsman]

I would love to see more mod content from SC2 like new races or game modes! Could you do that Lowko?

[@benjaminknotts745]

Protoss only has voids, carriers, and dark templars. Those are the only units Protoss has EVER!!

[@figthegreat]

I love these!

[@adamlong5156]

I think the guy saying "you too" could be in response to a glhf, as I'm pretty sure anything said during the countdown into a game isn't transferred to the replay therefore we wouldn't know

[@mrlobx]

@8:47 Missed opportunity to say Mission Accomplished

[@HuNSalyT]

LowkoTV sadly chat messages during countdown are not shown when you watch the replays.

[@NinjaJugglingMan]

It's called Money Heist in English - La Casa de Papel

[@yoelezequieldemedici2545]

Isnt any chat made during the countdown cutted off the replay? Maybe thats why barcode said "u2" but you cannot see that

[@morgancox290]

When you send a message during the countdown at the start if the game the replay doesnt keep that message.

[@ahmadabbassi7886]

24:07 What just happened? Why is the cannon suddenly able to shoot the overlord?

[@anthonyzarakikira1712]

During the 3 second countdown chat is not recorded in the replay, so he could have said glhf.

[@milletmongoose]

I love these games, lol!

[@1casper234]

psychology in rage gaming might be a topic for a phd to be fair. you just need 5 years of uni first bruh

[@dylf14]

Hilarious games!

[@chrisbien4456]

If you say GLHF or anything else during the countdown it will not show up in the replay.

[@TritonTv69420]

Lowko ma boi!

[@tnasty9209]

Who would ever fast forward one of Dr. Lowko's videos?!

[@basicuser54]

@Lowko we are really only playing against ourselves so I wonder: are you having a hard time lately because you’re losing or not playing the way/making the progress you know you can?

[@mikolaj743]

20:00 i think the replay doesn't show what was written before the countdown.

[@thea.mgamer]

there should be a challenge where the apm is capped xP

[@MrSuspytlik]

I know this is older video, but if you want PHD, what is the Medivac upgrade which came in the latest patch?

[@velocirapper]

Apparently if you type glhf in the countdown its not captured in replays

[@Jabawalk]

The real reason they use barcode name is they are so bad and they knew it. They don’t want you to recognise them so in next match you may say something like “hey you are the guy that supply block for 50% of the game”

[@Sbeas19]

Hey Lowko since you lost some of your sanity with this, why not double on it and invite some other caster to buddy with you and see who loses the sanity the fastest with these viewer games.

[@themistercoolest]

if you type something during the pre game countdown it doesnt show in the replay chat i believe

[@ashra8281]

20:20 if something is said when you're loading in. In the 3, 2, 1 in won't appear on the replay

[@davisjasis9833]

I would like to see lowko play heroes of might and magic , there has been new releses like 5, 6, 7.

[@deathbystereo5322]

The last RTS i played was war3 reign of chaos!! RIP

[@DavidGamer2ndChannel]

The last RTS games I played were AoE 3 Definitive Edition and C&C Remastered Collection, I can recommend those games.