Scarlett's SWARM HOSTS are no problem for Harstem! (StarCraft 2)

Best-of-3 series of StarCraft 2 between Scarlett and Harstem. This match is from the ESL SC2 Masters 2023 Winter open stage, where the winner of this match gets to move on to the main event knockout stage.
Support my work: / lowkotv
Lowko merch: lowko.shop
Tech setup: lowko.tv/setup
Discord community: / discord
My second channel: / morelowko
Twitch livestream: / lowkotv
Live most days, starting at 2 PM CET / CEST
StarCraft 2 is a military science fiction real-time strategy video game developed and released by Blizzard Entertainment.
#StarCraft2 #SC2 #RTS
Kijkwijzer (Dutch viewer guide): 6, violence, fear
--
/ lowkotv
/ lowkotv
/ lowkotv
/ lowkotv

[@itranscendencei7964]

Harstem seems to be one of the few Protoss pros that understands just how strong the Immortal/Archon/Zealot comp is, especially against Zerg.

[@ManDuderGuy]

Used to be 2base CIA All-ins ftw back in the day. Balance/meta has shifted, but it's still strong.

[@itranscendencei7964]

I prefer to do it with 3 bases, if possible. Against Zerg though, the 2 base version is much better, I think.

[@Eraz0rZ]

Its called hydra timings before storm is done. They destroy Archon immortal so insanely hard.

[@itranscendencei7964]

@@Eraz0rZ Do they finish before 7:00? Not trying to argue, just asking. Although, I didn't mention anything about Storm being necessary. :)

[@miza6]

harstem has figured out the PvZ lately

[@jeremyadamson9618]

Lowko’s internal timer for 69 workers is on point as always, love to see it

[@kiaweetan500]

That snipe of the droppalord and 3 Queens pretty much doomed the all-in in game 2. It was already a shaky all-in against blink stalker, and then the wheels just fell off the German Taxi.

[@yannickv.4027]

27:27 losing 3 queens all at once was painful 😢

[@Deto128]

Those zealots were just wrecking things in the first game. Scarlett had a huge mineral bank - wonder why she didn't just make a bunch of spines?

[@Izik09834]

I don’t think scarlet is all that good compared to the top level players. She seemed to only be able to be in 1 place and only 1 army. Almost like a protoss was playing Zerg and just deathball all army hotkey. She let the hive die to like 4 zealots

[@jakes.5206]

​@@Izik09834 I agree... I think also another issue is that lurkers make army rotation much more difficult. Whenever Scarlett wasn't babysitting it, the lurkers re-burrowed in the middle of the pack, and so some hydras ended up getting donated to Harstem.

[@Izik09834]

@@jakes.5206 I think lurkers are bait, late game Terran rolls lurkers at an insane cost efficiency. We need more para bombs paired with fun gals on the vacs to see any Zerg bane connections

[@jonalban4349]

I was surprised that you didn’t comment on Harstem sniping the overlord with three queens in it in the last game

[@iskandar7688]

I'm really impressed by Harstem, gz to him !

[@danielw1383]

Lowko, when will we get the singing intros back?

[@tobiaskarlsson7565]

"I am Lowko, I can go anywhere. Yes I am Lowko, I can go anywhere. I am the Lowko, I can go anywhere, including here, and here, and here"

[@Manu_Music98]

never please x)

[@elmoo88]

God.... As a Zerg main, I want to root for Scarlett... But as a Dutchie, I want to root for Harstem.... Life is so difficult sometimes 😂

[@gregmodesto2610]

Beautiful pickoff @27:26

[@Phi1618033]

Scarlett was clearly distracted by Harstem eating his french fries with mayonnaise.

[@kristianstenerson2608]

it's delicious

[@lothar3073]

French fries with mayonnaise? What is this disgusting abomination and where do I order it?

[@Phi1618033]

@@lothar3073 The Netherlands

[@henria.277]

That is literally the main condiment for french fries in belgium and the Netherlands ​@@lothar3073

[@LowkoTV]

French fires with mayo is the ONLY way

[@BrohunGaming]

masterclass in patiency by harstem in this first game

[@Loeschzwerch]

Happy year of Harstem!

[@jonadabvalencia113]

Lowko you've been sick for a while I hope you get better soon. Take care.

[@LowkoTV]

Hey thanks!

[@matthewclark7955]

Genuinely shocked by the strength of harstems play here. Well played captain

[@jthwaits]

2024: The year of Harstem!

[@vitorh3568]

Specially beautiful 1st game by Captain. Nice

[@shikanoin_vik_gaming]

I just wanna mention the snipe on the Dropperlord in game number 2. That was definely a great move! ❤🎉😊

[@Stuarthigggs]

Hey Lowko sleep crew: I just tried .75 playback speed. Slow-mo lowko is 👌. It offsets the coffee effect

[@niquil7800]

WOWWWWW...! Harstem! FINALLY Ik ben zo ontzettend blij voor jou. Al dat harde werk finally pays off :)))) Freaking AWESOME game man!

[@billl.2441]

Harstem underrated AF. I love how he improved over time. Very impressive. Super underrated.

[@mathis2k]

Lowko, can you do a classic game from times gone by. This swarm host play reminds me of Snute from some years ago :) Would like to see those games with your commentary of how the game is played now a days.

[@ehk5948]

Can't use replays that aren't the current patch so he'd have to like cast over a cast or mute the old cast and not have game sounds. Neither is ideal

[@zapoyou2]

Harstem has had some banging games recently

[@ChristianSandviknes]

Daaamn that first game. I can feel it, 2024 is gonna be the year of harstem!

[@cyberhikikomori5326]

That was surgical from Harstem. Great bait & counter

[@override83]

"Death by a thousand cuts", that's what I felt like Harstem did. Not one big game-winning fight, but just constantly chip away at her resources with cheap zealots. Man, I'm a big fan of my fellow Canadian, but this was impressive to watch! All of it is, because I never touch SC2 multiplayer, but to see how he was constantly chipping away on her drones and main structures while keeping the threat of that big scary Protoss army right outside of her defenses, but in sight that she knew she couldn't over commit to sending her entire army to the zealots. This was masterful.

[@kirbyjoe7484]

Harstem is truly a master of dynamic tactics, deception, and creative harassment. The thing that holds him back most is he loves to play like a "baboon" as he so eloquently puts it. He would rather throw all kinds of crazy creative tactical strikes at the wall and see what sticks rather than ride a tried and true macro strategy to victory even if going the normal route might be the better one. If you ever watch him play from his perspective you'll see him literally talking about what normie tactic he really should be using at this point and then he just can't help but get some creative untested idea for an attack in his head and he'll just dive into it without a second thought. What's crazy is how often his on-the-fly ideas work out.

[@jexilthevulpix2476]

I feel like Harstem and Raynor have similiar styles of play of protoss.

[@kozatas]

Reynor has Zerg style. Lots of gateway units and the army is divided into 2 or 3.

[@ivelkroezen7437]

Reynor and Harstem do often do like fun coaching videos together, so I wouldn't be surprised if they discuss their protoss play

[@awrawrwar]

Dunno if it was just me, but the second game I felt a lot of frustration in the way Scarlett was playing the game. Probably weird to say it like that when I'm watching this second hand, but it really felt that Scarlett didn't seem too interested in playing the game.

[@deltaavatar6249]

Modifying the map is not the more time consuming part, if i calculate correctly doing the mineral changes would take 20-40 min between changes and testing, moving those changes to the working server ... a couple of weeks if not more, the issue here is that public servers are dangerous because anyone can access them so there is a lot of quality assurance before, a lot of security reviews and so on, and yes that change shouldn't affect anything but on public servers you cant take the risk ergo making the change is a lot more time consuming than it seems.

[@GamerGabeGG]

Im new to Harstem but damn that was a beast of a first game, Scarlett is hard to take down ggs to both

[@chrispark7258]

Man I’m usually a big fan of Scarlett but game 1 was just too painful to watch 😢 She seemed so distracted by all the zealots runbys when she could’ve left a couple lurkers at each of her perimeter bases instead of constantly dancing against the toss main army.. which ultimately didn’t matter bc the only time it mattered she was looking elsewhere 😅 Hoping this was just a bad game and not the beginning of a bad habit

[@lothar3073]

5:00 Harstem almost lost moracles, say it lowko!

[@ruminarui]

Happy New Year

[@Noetig999]

is there a rule that no zerg are making static defense like maybe 5 spines to defend from zealots?

[@Cheshire9k]

"Scarlett is being harassed to death." Quotes out of context

[@Fotta1989]

Get her, Captain!

[@essen9329]

For the past 2 years I've been convinced Harstem is Lowko, and Lowko is Harstem.

[@livio1396]

love seein m'boy harstem doing well in matches

[@BigBossMar10]

Scarlett had incredible creep spread. It was right at the front of the 3rd and covered pretty much all of the map. I think she waited too long to attack and her sitting back waiting for Protoss to attack into lurkers was a bad call.

[@BluMarine22]

I remember doing that same thing about 2 years ago when I tried only swarm hosts but my opponent destroyed me with the air😅😂😂

[@danc6167]

As a Dutch Canadian, this matchup is both my favourite and the most difficult for me to watch

[@SaltpeterTaffy]

Game 1 is serious Protoss judo. Scarlett has the larger army for most of the game and by any metric is the favorite to win, and Harstem manages to control her the entire time with sheer prudent strategy. Keeping the harassment on the opposite side from the army, never taking a fight with the main force, never overextending. The zealots and high templars were easily the MVPs of that game. Despite that terrifying lurker force, it never felt like the game was even close.

[@ExternalHDD-Reviews]

Just in time for lunch

[@aerouant8224]

Blizzard! work is a four letter word for them.

[@whisk5724]

Scarlett spreads creep like a champ

[@TikkaQrow]

If M$ changes anything (and it will, Kotick was a corporate parasite that drove all the Blizz games into the ground) It'll be at least a year before changes start, and it'll probably start with the newer and currently profitable IPs like OW2 and Diablo. I'm sure next Blizzcon gonna have a lot of new and long awaited announcements.

[@xn85d2]

Scarlett does possibly the best a Zerg can with the Swarm Hosts, transitioning to them early enough that their insanely high supply cost isn't fatal and then transitioning away to a better army quickly but it still doesn't seem worthwhile at all. They are such a trash unit they may as well be removed.

[@Artyom.Vnukov]

The Lips are so good!!

[@sintanan469]

I love watching these casts where Scarlett loses. Not because I have anything against the player themselves, but because I know it makes Scarlett's fan boys angry over the loss, and that makes me happy. My first encounter with the Starcraft 2 community was Scarlett fanboys insulting everyone that did not worship the ground Scarlett walks, and it turned me off so much from the game I don't even bother playing SC2 online.

[@Scawtsauce]

harstem popping off lately

[@owlnyx]

Game of the Year??

[@SawyerKnight]

My Life For Aiur!

[@jonsolo32]

These two playing each other is like watching your parents fight. 😢

[@burdy1990]

Say no more Lowko. I press the like button before I click the video if that makes sense. 😂

[@DylanKnighting]

Math, problem for Harstem. But Scarlett’s Swarm Hosts? No problem for Harstem

[@enriquegarciacota3914]

Unless he has to remember how they are called while playing 😂. “How do you call those? Ah, probes

[@chrisR-B]

Scarlet ftw. Let’s go homegirl!!

[@nemean3670]

I love the videos but I only have interest to watch if I don't know the results, no hate I just wanted to voice that not knowing what will happen is my favorite. Maybe other people dont mind the title idk.

[@deathezz]

What does Lowko mean with curved ball??

[@elgato9o]

would it be bad to make the mothership not being able to get abducted, or at least not by a single viper. maybe 4 vipers at least need to connect an abduct simultaneously. It just doesn't make sense for a single viper to abduct such a large ship.

[@edmundkempin3170]

That first match was pretty amateur from Scarlett, I don't understand why they didnt transition into Broodlords, despite having a massive bank and the tech to do so. In fact both matches were pretty packlustre if im honest

[@dukelornek]

man love it when scarlet pulls our the swarmhost but this was disappointing, Harstem stop being so good lol

[@jamyorday]

Spoiler Shield 🛡️

[@emilfacebook]

would lurker muta comp work? since most of ground toss units are so slow

[@Tribuneoftheplebs]

Thats exactly what I was thinking when Scarlett was floating thousands of resources. Build mutas and force Harstem to tech towards phoenix and destroy his undefended probes if he doesnt.

[@GabaGhoul0]

muta lurker behind swarmhosts sounds like something you would see from Bly 😂 . If the swarmhosts deal significant damage and out the zerg way ahead I don’t see why not. In this case protoss showed the mothership which would usually indicate 2+ stargates and access to phoenix upgrade. along with storm, archons, and blink stalker in the mix it would need to be a huge surprise.

[@ult2006]

Lesgo first under a Lowko video edit: I love ur vids plz never stop

[@mriconoclast13]

Love me some Harstem. Love me some Lowko. Great stuff.

[@pedroluizmc]

As usual Lowko never shows a Scarlett win. 😮

[@Yagnnoz]

Great cast! Can you also do Harstem vs Reynor?

[@quinlamothe5929]

This patch is a real low point for zerg.

[@tertozer3543]

Harstem has improved a lot, but so has Scarlett. Love seeing the progress from both of these players.

[@deynjer]

Is Harstem Lowko?

[@BakuCarl]

Lol lurkers are only good if they walk into them or u sneak them unto opponent base.

[@Shazbot277]

Cheesest man alive did not cheese 😂

[@WiiUverse]

All that money and no defense made for the constant stream of zealots.

[@DarsusD]

I see Harstem i press like

[@teeee8534]

why harstem wasting time building gateway and robo unit when he saw scarlett go swarm host? just switch to full skytoss will give you auto win, and its absurd for scarlett to tech switch after she saw skytoss, its impossible to win when full skytoss appeared

[@ryanfahey1281]

uwu waifu, new Lowko vid just dropped!

[@oldvacher]

Best country in the world? And that one is facing a Canadian? Muahahahahah. So funny.

[@Big5ocks]

We all know the Netherlands is the greatest country in the world... no need to keep reminding us 😉

[@user-cp6xi9io4y]

Deserved loss in game 1, Scarlett threw that one really hard...

[@RavagHer]

one of the more one sided matches.

[@DoUNoHarm]

I love Harstem and Scarlett. They're the best. Harstem is creative. Scarlett is a beloved veteran. I wish Scarlett could get better against protoss.

[@snowdrop9810]

Harstem made scarlett look like a masters 2 player, would not have guessed the zerg was GM if the replay was sent to rank roulette.

[@michaelbooser2316]

Can we please cast a scarlett series that she wins please

[@RavagHer]

swarm hosts are just trash. the only way it can be a thing is if ur enemy is turtling like crazy be we all know that terran and protoss at high level are the one attacking the zerg more often than the zerg containing the other races.

[@user-ys1iy4fx8w]

علي موحان❤😘❤😘💗😘💗💓💓💗💓💗💓💗💓💞💗💓💗💓💗💓💓🧡💜🧡💜💗👍👍❤👍💗👍💗👍👍💗👍💗💜💗💜🧡🧡😘🧡😘🧡😘😘🧡😘🧡😘🧡😘🧡😘😘🧡🧡

[@sparkyk24]

Spoiler Alert Scarlett always loses lately. I haven’t seen her win in months

[@DarkZerol]

She "retired" some time ago and is only now getting back into the game to play it competitively. I'm pretty sure she isn't playing to her fullest capacity yet.

[@JavierMartinez-oe3qk]

😶‍🌫

[@user-zo5tl1yd9c]

？？？

[@moha437]

Lately harstem and reynor are the most enjoyable protoss players to watch

[@hiddentruth1982]

is it just me or has scarrlet fell off over the last year?

[@User-DogFather02]

more ZERG

[@jackMeought-fr8vl]

Scarlet taps out too early for my tastes. Come on scarlet, fight like a man.

[@crippletime]

Algorithm comment

[@TheMasterhomaster]

LowKo eats a COUPLE (like 7 of them) of boogers for breakfast 🍳

[@christophermiller3873]

That would be SEVERAL, please edit thanks 😂

[@TheMasterhomaster]

@@christophermiller3873 the joke is LowKo constantly says a couple when he is describing 3 or more things.

[@Michiho.]

looks like Scarlett is not in her best physical condition or she's just letting Harstem win, she got so much resource on both game but not spend much of it and very slow in respons.

[@Ghost-dx8mm]

Scarlett the favorite over Harstem?????? THat is complete B/S! There is NO WAY shes the favorite over him, Harstem is 100 times the player she is....she doesn't even compare, to ANY of these guys, she SUCKS! Period.

[@Hisu0]

Can somebody please make harstem switch to terran so I can finally despise his guts in peace? As a protoss fangirl, I find it hard to root for my team when it's that guy...

[@c0rruptreality]

Your video titles tell me how the game ends. No point in watching