StarCraft 2: Serral Plays The BROOD LORD Micro Trick! (Cure vs Serral)

Long macro game of professional StarCraft 2 between Serral, the current SC2 World Champion, and Cure. In this match Cure decides to open up with a Terran turtle style. He maxes out on Terran Mech (Thors, Siege Tanks, Liberators and Hellbats) after opening up with Battlecruisers and eventually transitions towards Ghosts and Tactical Nukes. Serral harasses constantly with Zerglings, Banelings, Roaches, Ravagers and Corruptors, but has to slow down and transition towards Brood Lords.
Support my work on Patreon: / lowkotv
Become a KZbin member: lowko.tv/join
More Lowko: / morelowko
Lowko Clips: / lowkoclips
Be part of the community on Discord: / discord
The hardware setup I use: lowko.tv/setup/
Lowko merchandise: lowko.shop/
StarCraft 2 is a military science fiction real-time strategy video game developed and released by Blizzard Entertainment.
#StarCraft2 #SC2 #RTS
--
lowko.tv
/ lowkotv
/ lowkotv
/ lowkotv
/ lowkotv

[@nrxia]

You know, Winter is right. Cure really is "the people's Terran." Just like Cure, I could also see myself getting murdered by Serral.

[@jindrichjochec296]

These vids are how I learned english, you could almost say it is educational content.

[@sparkyk24]

You must be really good at saying that things will pay for other things with their lives 🤣

[@Mentherex]

How long did it take you to learn what "pull the boys" meant?

[@manuxs100]

I agree lowko has a really good English

[@jindrichjochec296]

@@sparkyk24 I sure am, but what I really excell at is saying HEELLOO EEVERYONE, my name is... 😆

[@thermiteturtle3486]

B is for brood lord!

[@Jabawalk]

There is one Zerg unit that we all agree it’s IMBA: Serral

[@13g0man]

Serral imba, nerf Serral.

[@flamerollerx01]

He certainly is an absolute unit.

[@ottle2570]

@@13g0man restrict his apm to a max of 100, then its kinda fair

[@ZerglingLover]

@@ottle2570 Serral’s APM isnt even that insane at the pro level. His EAPM is whats actually insane

[@faulergeist4159]

@@ZerglingLover What does EAPM mean?

[@jakobbrun6535]

What a banger! Serrals control really is immaculate. He has been 'forced' into so so so many ultra lategame battles over the years that I would argue he is just ahead, tactically, over any opponent you can name. The perfect zerg: laughs at such insignificant things as "patience", the only thing that matters is the destruction of the opponent. Cure did make a series of rather big mistakes, though. The BC/Hellion force could have done so much more if split up. And ghosts must be added so so so much faster, and in larger numbers. I guess Terran would to have equal ghost:brood lord counts BEFORE the deathball of broods happen, and then trade snipes for brood lords. I also do not understand why Cure kept so many siege tanks - splashing his own units did a ton of damage over the course of the game. I agree with the assessment that Terran can definitely win this late game. They have just not practised it to the extent that Serral has.

[@dado380]

I think that the Dark understanding and utilisation of every Zerg unit is light years ahead of Serral.

[@Krasses]

@@dado380 Yet Dark is not the champion here. Maybe Dark has been playing handicap

[@dado380]

@@Krasses Yet everyone is copying Dark handling of Zerg units.Remind me who won last dreamhack and who has the same number of wcs finals win and even more finals. Btw Life is the best sc2 player ever.

[@agloggen]

@@dado380 Dark's understanding of units may be better but Serrals utilization seems better. He sees Dark do something once and incorporate it into his gameplay almost flawlessly. Both Dark and Serral are exceptional players. Serral simply seems a little sharper when it comes to execution. But what do I know? They would both kick my ass 😅

[@ZerglingLover]

@@dado380 why is Serral called the GOAT then? Why has he won two championships? why did he destroy the #2 ranked player in the world? I know that you think you need to bring down the achievements of others so that you can feel better about your favorite player, but you dont have to; you can just like a player more than another.

[@PotatoMan1491]

Lowko = 499k Midko > 500k Highko = 1m

[@danielandersson7485]

just my type of humour :D

[@ch00ch002u]

The real magic is Serral sniping 7 of 10 ghosts (seen at 21:21) without Lowko noticing. That's half the technicality of Cure's army gone in an instant, followed by the loss of 7 Thors.

[@Erebus2075]

and still his in the game for an extra 20 min :P if Z lost 7vipers+7broodlords in the same setting then the game would be over :P

[@cocohead5971]

​@@Erebus2075 Am nope! That happened in many games that went to the late game. You exaggerate a lot and seem very salty towards the other races. And I both get why that is. And at the same time, I don't. Because looking back, zerg was by far the strongest at the onset of SC2. I.e. the "Wings of liberty" era. Then they did took a huge hit either just before "Hots" came out, of shortly after. But they still were quite strong, since they had the Swarm host. But then it too, got nerfed. And then the Ultralisk and the fungal growth. But even so, you obviously can win and quite convincingly so, as Mr Cereal here, demonstrated. I can tell though, that you think Blizzard has something against zerg. Yet, I bet you don't have any answer to why that would be. It's also completely irrational to think that would be the case. Because, why on earth would they want to destroy their own game, their own product??? They are running a business, not a players fan club. So if their game is heavily unbalanced, more players will be disgruntled, and more will stop playing. And in the end, Blizzards reputation, and credibility will take a huge hit. From which they potentially may not recover. So it's in their own interest to keep trying to adjust the game until it's as balanced as possible. And that's why they keep doing it. The conundrum is, that zerg is the most difficult race to balance. Why so? Well, because it's the most differently built and functioning compared to the other two races. And, generally speaking.. as a beginner and all the way up to, say, a medium skilled player, you're probably going to perform, quite a bit worse playing them, than terran or toss. But once you master the dance of speed+mass+spell casters. Then you all the sudden have quite the advantage, as been demonstrated by a number of top ranking players over the years. In fact, Zerg has owned the scene during the last 3-4 years for the most part as far as I been able to tell. But I could be wrong of course. I don't follow SC2 anywhere near as close, as I used to. Anyhow, try to be a bit less salty and zoom out a bit to get a better and more fair overall view. That's the only tip I can give you as of right now, I think. Have a nice day!

[@kawashinimon]

@@cocohead5971 Not strictly true. Protoss was actually the strongest race at the start of SC2. Back in beta, void rays were hilariously broken and dominated every game, to the point they had to be severely nerfed on 1.0 release. Which is probably why voids have always sat weird in the balance (Blizz is afraid of buffing them too much again) and why Protoss has continually seemed to struggle behind the other races in balance, even if slightly.

[@duderuler]

"When people see a game like this they probably think about balance." I know you probably meant something about Broods being exploitable or something, but thats not what came to mind. I think that pros being able to have 50 minute games proves that the game is decently balanced. An unbalanced game would suffer from perpetually short games, especially at the pro level.

[@Krasses]

Broods are fine, the broodlings died pretty fast. The real damage comes from tanks friendly fire I think

[@Erebus2075]

only here for broodlord micro, because i want to see that become standard; at least untill blizzard nerf it to sh*t bc if P or T can't A-move+ spam ONE spell brainlessly and 100% win EVERY endgame vs. Z, then Z need to be nerfed to sht, like the last few years now ;) and how can you think its balanced when serral need to outplay people for fcking 30+ minutes to finally win on last resources, like reversed scenario with maru outplaying lets say Dark this much and the game would be over within 12 minutes -_- currently the balance is so damn T and P advantaged that Z-pro players can switch race and have amazing results still; bc just soo much stronger :/ and on paper Z get fcking SMASHED! like fungal is a joke! if you got good micro; vipers are hardcore shut down by like 40 different things and the strongest unit super late game for Z is actually Zerglings (yer they suck! but a lot better than EVERY other unit which just get OWNED and cost 20 times more... like several units and tech of Z is only used as a meme built -_- thats how bad it is. only because serral and reynor are starcraft demi-gods and much! better than everyone else on the sc2 field right now that Z isn't in a super bad stated; also look at how insanely much more both P and T could do to play better and how little Z can; Z is basically only nydus micro and broodlord micro which can be improved and one of those are an legal 'exploit'; devs didnt want you to do that and the other does little extra -_- )

[@hivetech4903]

Single matches never prove anything. Balance only comes from measuring win-rates of *all* tournament maps over months - that's how Blizzard has always done it and the results are on aligulac which shows current balance is very good, you are 100% right there.

[@kawashinimon]

That isn't really true. An unbalanced game can be extremely long; just look at HotS swarm hosts. They were clearly extremely unbalanced but they didn't always end games quickly; they would often times stall out games for extremely long times until the zerg could just out-efficiency the Terran/Protoss.

[@rubyrhodhooligan859]

Long drawn out games can also prove issues with balancing.

[@Panda-cp9cs]

Love the amount of serral games lately! after a long drought this flood is very welcome

[@jake4580]

Serral is simply better, he was using all available "spellcasters" to the best of their ability. I think Cure tried to mix in the Raven, but he realized it was too much for him to handle. I mean, how many EMPs, Snipes and Antiarmor Missiles did anyone see in the game vs the amount of Neuro, Fungal, Blinding Cloud, Changling, Abduct? Cure just couldn't keep up with Serral's godly micro/macro management. I mean, if Blizzard is going to nerf Zerg, they are really handicapping Serral so other players can get a better chance at winning.

[@NastyVlocka]

Serral is good, no doubt that, but there are other God-like players for terrans, and noone like ravens, they are soooo faking sloooooooow. Everything teran has is so faking slow in compare to zerg. Vikings are slow as fak so its hard to beat parasitic boms and fungles, and there are zerg antiair that can morph into faking antiground siege unit with free unit spawns. How the fak you can beat something that rapes your air army and then has perfect antisiege utility to the ground. Terran has no faking antiair splash, Thor aoe is joke right now, cannot harldy be effective versus mutas. The next faking shit is that neural parasite can even has effect vs units like mama/BC. Imagine you can enslave flying city by using long cock from the ground while burrowed and invisible. You can also enslave whole faking fleet of the BC. You can joink mass tonn with viper meanwhile Viper can fly back like nothing. Fk you just moved the thousand mega tons floating city, gj. Viper can make mama ship making 4x her max speed with flying cock. Fak zerg dudes. Ofc you have to have serral godlike players to control it all, but for zerg sky is the limit, meanwhile terans are faking limited. Why the best terrans who are there are only ones getting issues with wrists, that speaks for itself. Whatever just let my inner rage out. Peace on you, you sons of the beaches.

[@Erebus2075]

they will nerf Z no doubt... if P or T can't A-move+ spam ONE spell brainlessly and 100% win EVERY endgame vs. Z, then Z will be nerfed even more to sht, like the last few years now ;)

[@Thulgore]

I would love to see Serral focus on playing just P or T just to see what he could do.

[@Topbao]

I always wondered if in a parallel universe serral was playing another race would Zerg be nerfed as much as they did? Imo probably not lol

[@TubeTAG]

@@Erebus2075 This implies they ever touch the game again. Seems a bit of stretch to me.

[@SaltpeterTaffy]

Map is almost mined out. "Serral is absolutely destroying Cure so far!" Game not even halfway over yet. Aw yeah, this is a good one.

[@Erebus2075]

only here for broodlord micro, because i want to see that become standard; at least untill blizzard nerf it to sh*t bc if P or T can't A-move+ spam ONE spell brainlessly and 100% win EVERY endgame vs. Z, then Z need to be nerfed to sht, like the last few years now ;)

[@Leonhart_93]

@@Erebus2075 If only they would bother nerfing or buffing anything these days. So many things need touch ups and this one trick is so hard to pull only pro players can expect to do it and still have enough attention left to not lose to anything else in the process.

[@michielzandbergen6219]

@@Leonhart_93 the thing is indeed, its not that hard to pull off. But its hard to do accurately while also keeping macro going, and keep attention to positioning

[@Leonhart_93]

@@michielzandbergen6219 I think that's the definition of "hard to pull off" in Starcraft. Because realistically I see gold players with insane reaper micro while they float 2k minerals at the 4 minute mark. The struggle is ALWAYS keeping up perfect macro rather than insane micro tricks.

[@ZXeno84]

That queen getting launched off the screen at 38:32 was amazing.

[@FineCutJoinery]

lowko casting Serral always reminds me of the Simpsons going to Itchy and Scratchy land, goes on about how good Serral is and best in the world, then something happens "welcome to Itchy and Scratchy land where nothing can possibli go wrong.... possibly go wrong... thats the first thing thats ever gone wrong"

[@Arkeli5]

What a game. With the greatest of respect, I do think it was a much closer game than you were making out, for most of the video Lowko. Serral is the best in the world and he was averaging 450 Apm and still very nearly lost the game. I think you were on to something in regards to the nukes but in this case, I don't think Cure wanted to use what little gas he had left, on them. I think when he looks at the replay he might agree with you to. use the nukes to back the Zeg into a corner, than use a raven to anti-armour missle the zerg army and go for the big fight. What an incredible game though. Imagine playing that in a best of 7 after a long day of tournament play!

[@ZirJo]

Wow! at 28:01 Serral targets a couple of broodlings with his Broodlords for getting the effect that Lowko described a couple of minutes before. CRAZY

[@4gates4]

thanks the only reason i clicked

[@1lomi901]

37:45 I must say, this instant 3 group split was impressive

[@johnlepage4542]

I never comment on videos, especially starcraft 2, but I watch an absolutely incredible amount of them. Much like the guy that has seen so much basketball or football or hockey and can name all the players, has observed their strengths and weaknesses so much that he can predict a play before it happpens. Now, I said all that to say the following: The balance in SC2 is incredible right now. It’s probably the most balanced I’ve ever seen it, and I think the fact that the top level PLAYERS are currently quibbling over the most minor tweaks we’ve ever cared about says a ton about what an amazing job Blizzard has done. In fact, I’d say that a player like Serral being able to play his off races with such amazing success even against his primary race shows just how balanced the game is. Trying to point to games between races played by people that have minuscule but identifiably different skill levels as evidence of balance or imbalance doesn’t work. You have to compare not just apples to apples, but the same apple variety grown in the same orchard by the same person before you can really claim to have a truly accurate comparison. Innovation showed how broken Terran was for so long. How many balance patches came out because he proved for so long that Terran just needed perfect macro and perfect decision making to dominate a match? Micro was important, but the macro and the ability to read a situation and respond correctly were the 2 skills most important to Terran. That isn’t the case anymore. Now Terran has to be perfect at all 3 skills, and that’s because of Innovation. Now Serral has caused the same to happen for Zerg. That’s all that’s happened. I could, maybe, understand some complaints (very minor ones though) about Protoss still, but more because a player with the same mastery of AND affinity for Protoss hasn’t come along as yet, and so the balancing applied to Protoss has come due to the amount of games played as a whole against the other races rather than because of one player figuring out a minor imbalance to the point of it being abusive. This game going that late, in such a standard progression, with such predictability that Lowko was able to “cast” the end game (brood lord micro trick, impatience/loss of endurance by Cure) literally minutes before either happened, and still not being able to be certain who would win (other than that Serral is provably the best player ever) just goes to show how balanced the game is, and these two races specifically are. Again, some arguments can be made about Protoss balance, more so maybe in PvZ but that’s a whole other argument.

[@lyolev6628]

Great game by both guys, really nice play. I do agree with you that over extension and patience is key in this scenario. Serral was very patient and just poked Cure's army until he killed it. If Cure waited would have been different

[@TaleshicMatera]

Re: Liberators v Creep tumors, perhaps the compromise to keep it in the vein of a siege instrument, the Lib can only attack a creep tumor that is building--so it can halt creep expansion/rebuilding but can't clear existing creep.

[@magrao600]

Lowko: probably the best unit on starcraft right now Me: can terran make queens?

[@Franpowah]

Queens can't Snipe, EMP, nor fight off creep.

[@voodoo1094]

It depends on the state of the game. Clearly queens are the best early game unit, but then Zerg really needs them to survive. There's an argument to be made that ghosts are the best late game units in the hand of a skilled player, but then Terran also needs those to be competitive in the end.

[@rqceive618]

I love how when the talk about best units in the game appears, there are no Protoss units mentioned. One thing I would like to point out is that by far the best Protoss unit is either the distuptor or the tempest because of its zoning

[@heakboy]

BLIZZAAARD

[@jesusbarrera6916]

problem with Queens is that they are neccesary and not rather an offensive unit, without them creep, larvae and AA would be SC1 levels of bad and Z would lose every game in the first 3 min

[@erikvarga4367]

7:53 The essence of that crab beatle got assimilated into the swarm. There is no death for these creatures, just changing form.

[@benjamineidam]

Incredible how Serral made it, although he made 3 big mistakes: 1. He attacked the main waaaay too late. 2. He never harassed the base-triangle in the south-east, just with lings or smt. And 3. He almost forgot Adrenal. Which made this victory even more impressive to me!

[@ingrudmessenger1193]

According to Harstem there actually is one terran that does occasionally add a Raven in the lategame in TvZ: Maru. I don't know which game(s?) he was refering to but maybe you could ask him and possibly even cast them to see how it goes. But my guess is that Ravens actually aren't that great. They're quite easy to target with Vipers, slow and expensive... i think against somebody like Serral it would just be a massive money sink.

[@burnhamrobertp]

Maru also regularly uses hellbats to front-line for broodlings, significantly cutting down the effectiveness of the broodling trick.

[@berengerchristy6256]

@@burnhamrobertp blue flame hellbats do terrible things to broodlings

[@elgar7252]

Maru used a few Raven's against Reynor in the Bo5 series Winter posted yesterday.

[@madumlao]

Cure had so much in bank he could actually remax into BCs midway. Serral had too much invested into broods to counter it.

[@freaky97able]

That was my thought too. Besides. BCs are always great.

[@skya6863]

Wouldn't neural completely wreck bcs

[@madumlao]

@@skya6863 Neural does nothing to BCs. This situation already played out vs innovation. Serral had an even bigger anti-air force, a spore forest, more infestors, etc. The BCs straight up took the neurals but then survived long enough to kill everything. (yeah tell me that's balanced).

[@Spartsou]

50 minute game of Serral and Cure? Yes please, and thanks Lowko!

[@Gabriel64468]

About the mules at the end: even if they don't make it back it denies ressources from Serral. But these super lategames are almost always decided on gas, not on minerals, so I doubt this ever ends up becoming a big factor.

[@agloggen]

Love the micro move at 28:00 pulling 2 broodlings back to keep brood lords out of range of Cure

[@darksombrerehorus]

lowko: comments on how low gas cure has and that he might need it for repairs. Also lowko's next sentence : why are we not using any nukes any more ? I dont know maybe because he has 2 nuke worth of gaz left ???

[@combustinbug973]

Throwing newly spawned Broodlings onto the old Broodlings? I used to do that in Starcraft 1 when the Brood Queen had the ability to spawn Broodlings in a bio unit It was fun messing with it in the campaign

[@Anon-nj4ub]

That final showdown between the two armies was fucking amazing

[@helmutm.vegapacheco2693]

You see, that raven consumed all of the Terran's gas..

[@heyrea]

What a match! Putting in a request for the last match of uThermal's raven finale!

[@sisi6679]

Gotta give props to cure for fighting till the BITTER end hahaha

[@marcomarin1196]

Turtle Mech has turned into the new Skytoss. You need 7-hand 3 spell caster, 300+ APM Gymnastics to win.

[@TheRyepoog]

Serral definitely respected the anti armor missile. Just hard to get the shot with derpy Thors lmao.

[@solaire1037]

The whole time I was like " FIRE BATS!"

[@catbert7]

That should not have gone on so long. By 22:16, Serral was ahead by 4k Minerals, 5k Gas, and controls 2/3 of the map, after just devastating both the Ghosts and Thors. Then, shortly afterward, he just stops attacking, gives up the last mining base without a fight, and lets that enormous bank lead entirely collapse, and nearly reverse...

[@Raesh_]

Free units have always been an issue IMO, they're just too cost effective... it's why infested Terrans were also removed from the Zerg. You can argue that in terms of cost the Auto-turret and the infested Terran had at least one (Energy), Swarm hosts have a high supply count and are much less versatile than Brood Lords, but while Brood Lords are slow and high in supply they still remain extremely powerful, especially with that micro trick we've seen Dark and now Serral use. Maybe a targetted Nerf on how quickly Brood lords regenerate their broodlings could open them up to more vulnerability. That being said, as Lowko said Serral is Serral and he's still a master at controlling Zerg.

[@nahruz.w3044]

Yeah.....zerg cant have any cost effective unit...i guess.....

[@Raesh_]

@@nahruz.w3044 I'm not saying that they shouldn't, but there's a difference between cost efficient and free units. Zerg have great potential and utility already with Vipers and Infestors. That being said when a unit becomes TOO cost efficient there's a potential problem (This could also apply to Ghosts, old Queens, and others)

[@__-dy9gv]

Lowko, could you please always say in the description or in the video what tournament and context the game is from.

[@johannesfourie4053]

Hey Lowko! New fan here. Very entertaining casts! Would love to know what is your first language? Exceptionally good English and your sense of humour is gold.

[@LowkoTV]

I'm Dutch, I live in the Netherlands. Thanks! :D

[@csmlouis]

Ahhh, Lowko did not mention the soft-underbelly of the Terran. I only needed that for BINGO.

[@flaviusclaudius7510]

"I've seen this game before" and my immediate thought was "yep, they're going to dance around each other for the next 20 minutes" and then see there's 24 mins left in it ...

[@NightFore]

Standing here, I realize we're close to 500k subscribers! Keep going, love you.

[@bmcwxyz]

9000 minerals in the bank and didn't cross his mind to start using Hellbats to screen for the Thors instead of just trading out Thors for Broodlings.

[@SimonGalarneau]

I would like to give you a tip Lowko, If you could start using another color for Zerg player than Blue. I noticed over years, it hard to locate or identify few details on map/creep, when purple goo is purple and dark/blue player is over it. Idealy you could swap a zerg to a white/yellow color. MY 2 cents

[@bagahbread]

No way this guy went mass Broods and his only reliable anti air being spore crawlers. This man is a Starcraft god

[@megiemaster]

26:12 I ALWAYS KNEW INVESTORS ARE SOME SORT OF ZERG CREATURES!!!! ty for revealing the truth lowko!!

[@zakx66]

great game and great cast as always

[@thegalaxyisinvalid]

Doctor Lowko prescribes radiation for tumor-related problems.

[@hiddentruth1982]

I knew this match was over at 28 minutes roughly. about the time brood lords showed up.

[@davidholland4713]

Another demonstration of Serral's near-perfect late game. Using nukes to slow push and clear creep has one issue -- each costs 100 minerals and 100 gas, so it can only be a temporary strategy. Cure's gas ran low, because Serral was better at retaining bases. Cure's play for first 30 minutes looked impressive, but in truth he didn't get a significant advantage whereas Serral kept gaining in efficiency and seemed to know exactly how to prod Cure into overextensions. If terran can play strongly enough to get a significant resource advantage, that can turn into a win, but that's tough to do against Serral.

[@ZerglingLover]

yeah, Serral is a master baiter.

[@333kenshin]

can someone explain why are liberators so popular in late game compositions vs mass broods instead of hellbats? - anti air sucks vs. brood lords - overkill, slow rate of fire, and bounded target area sucks vs. broodlings - immobility makes easy target for viper abduction - cannot attack creep tumors or static defense - takes 3x resources, 1.5x supply, 2x build time more than hellbats imagine at 36:05 if instead of 3 libs and a nuke there were 10 hellbats on the front line, burning a path through spore crawlers, creep tumors, and broodlings for the thors to get under the brood lords. They would drop like flies, but their quick production time and move rate means they could resupply quickly.

[@ruffianeo3418]

The removal of the Ravens seeker missile might be the reason for this new meta. Also that broodling trick (have Broodlords not gotten a range nerf to give Thors a chance in the past?)

[@bayne1127]

"his army is not as big as it would otherwise be" he says as the zerg is maxed out XD

[@ganthc]

Lowko, you explained what Cure did wrong. He was super late on getting ghosts and maybe more ravens. There was the moment where all of Serral's broodlords were on one side of the map, and Cure had a massive Thor army that could have pushed. Maybe add in some dropships to quickly get the Thors back to safety and you might have had a devastating push from Cure. Instead, the Thors stopped their advance, and Serral was able to regroup and solidify his position. Not that Cure played poorly, it's just Serral is that good and you can't make hardly any mistakes against him.

[@onyxia8786]

2:47 It's alright for Serral, he only lost 2 lings so he traded favorably there and also he delayed terran tech for a long time (reactor)! Delaying production of marines in the early game is HUGE!

[@ramnikbanwatt7211]

Hi Lowko. I am a great fan of your casts. I am only silver league so take this with a pinch of salt but I had very good luck against this tactic with massed fire bats for ground and mass Vikings for air. Add in Ravens for Anti armor and ghosts/nuc’s for advanced players and I think this could be winnable. The mobility of the Terran was a big advantage. With massed cheap units neural parasite/ abduction would probably not be very effective.

[@AbaddonBlight]

39:47 Serg, the 4th race playable only by Serral

[@etistyle96]

it's all getting Sergy there.

[@luckors6219]

For a minute i thought this was gonna be the gsl dark finals

[@br4dley]

I think the issue is with the races that are turtling and not the zerg. Previous patch protoss was very strong if left to get that maxed out army which is why they turtled, now its the terran who almost always win if they drag it out into the lategame with unbeatable maxed out army due to cost efficiency. Like you said it might not work on the top 5 pro's but it works against everyone else.

[@rados6826]

Cure couldn't clear Creap with Nukes as you suggested - he didn't have Gas for that

[@ziggoguy]

"HNNNYYERRRRRRG!!! ZERG OH PEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

[@colestevens3069]

499K SUBS!!! YOU"RE SO CLOSE LOWKO!!!

[@adampreisler2303]

The raven anti-armor makes a lot of sense with units that fire fast or have multiple attacks at once. At the end it looked like Cure could rather combine javelin rockets with the anti-armor missile. If you get a good hit on clumped up broodlords (like at 38:41), they get wrecked since each thor has an additional +12 dmg in splash. They got 1 less range but since Punisher Cannon deals an astounding 47 dmg to single massive target, adding +3 doesn't make much of a difference really - just 6% difference while the Javelins get +25% and also deal splash. If 6 thors fire into a clump of non-light units they deal: 1 thor: 4*(9+3) = 48 dmg per 1 javelin missile volley for a fully upgraded thor 6 thors: 48*6 = 288 dmg to all clumped up units -> 225 is enough for Broodlords Also I thought once he had 2k gas and 9k minerals he'll add like 6 rax and fly them over the factories since MARINES are much better than HELLIONS in winning games and he already had a starport. He wouldn't have the upgrades but still the zerg cannot do much because going off creep is a suicide. If Serral doesn't split his broods Cure would fly medivacs around and kill his bases. Sure he didn't have the upgrades and that's an issue but still better than hellions - the ending was so drawn out that he could've gotten to 2/2 likely. Still what a great game!

[@RealLifeMassMultiplayerRPG]

look at graph red more unit "red has more unit" yes indeed lol

[@Zawmot]

Gonna echo Lowko. Imagine if Libs shot at creep tumors.

[@SomeCanine]

I gotta wonder why people don't seem to use the other terran air units very much. Are they just not cost efficient enough? There was many times during this game where a few cloaked wraiths would have completely wiped out that air army.

[@REgamesplayer]

It is nice to see that Terrans are finally improving their gameplay and building a raven. However, I think that Serral and rest of the zerg could improve their gameplay too by using late game free time by spreading creep around the map. At the end, Serral was doing nothing, just sitting there. If he would have made few more queens, he could had made more creep everywhere where terran is not. This would give him an additional buffer. Extra queens are also very useful for transfuses which zerg still do not utilize optimally in the late game. I'm not even talking about theoretical capability to try and backstab terrans with group of zerglings or a lurker while their main army is ahead. This would allow zerg to slowly whittle terran away, forcing them to be more impatient. If they would transfer troops to defend their bases, then zerg could fight a smaller main army. All of the late game seems to be built on a single giant clash, but both factions just end up sitting and idling with their units with occasionally catching slightly mispositioned units. I think that there is still room for improvement.

[@Varuga]

Lowko, Maru has been making Raven regularly against zerg recently.

[@dylanwatts9344]

The patience is real. Many Zerg would of got irritated and rush the Thors, losing in the process. This isn't balance, it really is skill. Broods are slow, so send hellion or marine run by on the opposite side with a vikings to counter split broods. You have to force his APM to an ungodly point so he starts making mistakes. If the army is that hard to control, splitting his focus breaks him.

[@xitaris5981]

The map Dark did this on was also Data-C

[@TeaLessens]

LowkoTV. Your content is better than I expected. Have a sub and a like.

[@yamilabugattas3895]

That's probably the Serral effect, but this just looked unfair.

[@kasaruukii]

No more face reactions in the thumbnail? I was enjoying those lol

[@omiroszymarakis2237]

Hello @Lowko, your casting is awesome as always but is there any chance you can change to an observer mode which has always enabled the income (for example +1200, at the bottom of the screen on minerals and gas). That would be very useful, as we always want to see who mines the most and how much at every moment. Thank you very much!

[@Martad0m]

it feels the same in any competitive game when a new strategy comes along, initially no-one knows what to do against it and it tends to win most games. in DotA it was the OD rushing meteor hammer that stomped every game for a month, valve hardly touched the balance of it only minor tweaks. its still a strategy but players learnt how to play around it and the meta evolved. the brood lords seem to be in the same position, they cant really nerf the broods without severely handicapping their usefulness, however there are still many strategies to be tried against them that have potential, its just up to the players to find them

[@glennriter5965]

"Errrr Zerg OP eeerrrrr." Yep that's me lol. Totally called out right now lol To be fair though I think the issue from my perspective is that the only unit Terran really has that stands out as OP is the ghost, and those are countered hard by Lings. Not even in the sense that "other units surrounded by lings will eventually overwhelm them", just like... Lings. Throw them at ghosts and the fight is over. And literally every Zerg player keeps a contingent of Lings all the way through end game because lings are an amazingly efficient low tier unit. As are banelings but that's its own thing to discuss. Where am I going with this? Zerg has Lings, Banes, Roach/ravager and on the list goes. They've got a ton of really awesome units. Terrans have ghosts that are standout, but all the rest of the units are either situationally good (siege tanks) or downright bad (everything mech.) Even Toss have a few varieties of creatures that are explicitly good if you're good (void/templar/stalker etc.) Terrans though? Nerf the ghosts and widow mines, and give some buffs to the rest of their units so that there are actually multiple strategies that are worth using. I know there'll be people telling me I suck at SC2. Those people are right. I watch pros play games because I do suck at it. But man... Terrans are just. So. Boring. Because they get absolutely wrecked if they try and do any deviations from their normal builds, and if they DO play the standard strategies, they still struggle to win and almost need their opponents to make actual mistakes while keeping their own micro flawless.

[@miragenikita6329]

epic game thx for posting it!

[@hamburgers7817]

The biggest difference I see when I play Zerg vs Serral is he is so patient and knows when to commit and when to back off. Obviously he's 1million times better than me at everything else. But his decision making is so good its why he makes zerg look so good. Def not imba

[@TubeTAG]

Drop 4 mules behind enemy lines. Broods autoattack with their broodlings in the wrong direction. Pounce with Thors. /armchair-general

[@glennriter5965]

Ok but unironically that's pretty clever and would make for a pretty good counter for mass broods. Hard to use so just bringing out some air units is going to be better in almost all circumstances, but it'd be a brilliant move in a game like this one where he was already hyper committed to ground.

[@niensaechao5222]

*Lowko @ **43:18* Terran needs to be slower at moving in. *Also Lowko 10 seconds later* He can't really move any slower than this. Lowko loco moments 🤔

[@mido5126]

Hey Lowko, the last days there are some bots that try to look like you and want people to think that they won a pc. Just wanted to inform you about it. Some people might fall for it. Be aware my SC fellows ^^

[@TubeTAG]

"The best unit in SC2." I didn't know Terrans got Queens now.

[@oza_lup]

Yes, ghost

[@stalwart56k]

Bring back the science vessel and use irradiate on the brood lords!

[@holysaintknight343]

GG Yes pushing using nukes is a good move

[@-42-47]

It sometimes sounds like you say Terran Meh instead of Terran Mech, and it's very fitting when they go up against Serral.

[@harryschlotter3403]

With all due respect, the way Serral yeets around his brood makes me wonder if his gf would ever want kids with him.

[@marchmonkey7768]

war of attrition is zergs main strategy at super late game

[@asdfasdf-mn8iu]

Lowko, i think you misread why cure lost that game there. He can't go forward any slower and creep itself doesn't really matter all too much for serral's units. Creep is mostly relevant because of the vision it gives (telling you where units can't be if you don't spot them) and because of spore crawlers and potentially queens (although serral used no queens in the later fights). Serral won the game, because he controlled the army way better. Imo cure isn't as good with ghost micro as other terrans are (byun and maru come to mind) and also his positions aren't clean. You can see serral probing around, going to the flanks of the army to pick off 1-2 thors, which is possible because broods can all stack up in one place, thors have to cover a lot of ground. If cure always keeps the concave up (not possible due to terrain, but if it were possible), the broods would always trade unfavourably. But it's much easier to clump up the broods, find that 2 thors that stand a bit forward and snipe those while only losing half hp on 2 broods. If cure had more ghosts left over, he could be going around, probing himself and trying to snipe the broods when serral doesn't pay attention; all in all, serral's control of his army is just unmatched in sc2.

[@eplanti]

@lowkotv quick question, i remember the last time the BL trick was used to hilarious effect by targeting structures... But quick question, what about just targeting changelings? Changelings are cheap and disposable, would that work?

[@Gokkee]

Nerfs can only go so far. There are tons of times players at any game win and keep winning with "meme races/heroes etcetc" and its not nerfs that is needed, it's simply the players.

[@DSteerTV]

I'm no pro but instead of more thors, probably should've gone back to BCs after you see Serral go full brood and target fire the buildings? I'm sure I'm wrong because maybe there wasn't enough resources to transition

[@Darkruk]

I knew about the trick with brood lords but this trick takes away the dps since there is no impact damage. It's great at destroying buildings because usually tanks cover them and provide extra damage with AoE. This trick isn't actually that hard since you can really stay much more in the back but also it requires enough ratio of units where broodlords need to generate broodlings faster than enemies can kill them without getting hit once and enough units to cover the broodlords. Clicking on of your units to be attacked is easy since you usually have a lot of them after doing it once but it means you need to be non-stop clicking and it's very tiring for the player.

[@Drachnon]

I really thought Cure was going to win when he was sending small hit squads to take out Serrals infrastructure. But then he kept repeatedly fighting Serrals Broods head on.

[@DeadDumble]

As a d1-m3 zerg I can say at my level it doesn't feel op to use this and 9 times out of 10 when I have these kinds of matches, I tend to lose. Terran army is really strong and you have so many spells to cast and micro tricks you need to do along with watching all your bases for nukes and moving spore crawlers, it just ends up being easier for the terran with mech until you get to the top level. As I won't argue that I am excellent at this game, far from it, but my level zerg don't seem to do well in this scenario. Generally if I see a transition happening towards Mech then I will usually do an all-in play to attempt to completely starve out the Terran on three max of four bases and keep them to that while consuming the rest of the map ensuring that they can't take anything and if they get a fifth or 6th base I tend to Forfeit

[@daethalion1725]

Why is the raven able to be hit by neural parasite? It's a mechanical unit!

[@znxster]

It's not the Zerg that are the issue .. its the Serral :)

[@flamerollerx01]

I think if he'd made some marines when he still had medivacs, then swooped around to where he started and up behind the broods, he might have been able to kill a bunch of them.

[@glennriter5965]

You're not wrong. Broods are powerful if you can't reach them. If you can reach them though? They die easy, and they're too expensive for each loss not to be felt keenly. Most games where Serral starts making a bunch of broods, they die early and then he'll lose. Not to say Serral loses all games or even most, but... Most games where he produces broods, they die helplessly and he isn't able to make up for the lost resources so the rest of his army soon follows.

[@GravitasZero]

We need to nerf Zergs some more, make it unplayable lower than master league xD

[@yhs0809]

Since a time Serral snipe on the gas resources instead of minerals. You found that he fon't carry about the mineral use