This StarCraft Reddit situation is CRAZY

[@ChannelMiner]

Props to the guy for taking up Harstem on the challenge instead of just being all talk.

[@davidm2031]

Not only that, he proved his point. He was able to win a map.

[@shen_zhuoran]

Thanks! It indeed felt great!

[@darealrulezbreaker9493]

@@davidm2031 and the second game was really really close too! I started rooting for the guy haha

[@forcelightningcable9639]

I think he already had the strat ready when he posted, but yeah, homie got balls.

[@shen_zhuoran]

@@darealrulezbreaker9493 I tried hard and lost due to my 3K scouting and multitasking. What if I had 3.3K scouting and mutlitasking T_T.

[@TheChaosSpectrum]

"this guy doesn't know how to macro" - proceeds to get supply blocked for eternity.

[@Stardash81]

Fr

[@MagnusRender]

Funny, yes, but who was the better macro'er overall?

[@BarefootCM]

I also think he is too skilled to guage how much easier macro play is for lower skill players when you have infinite gas. Yeah the bonus econ by not spending on gas structures but also its essentially an extra worker to build, simpler build orders, less actions to juggle into your apm.

[@knoxtibia3330]

it was pretty good, then misplaces his command center 2 minutes after that lol

[@knoxtibia3330]

then cancels his third base in the third game, captain was cooking

[@MattSlaughter]

The look on your face when those first voids came in cracked me up, haha.

[@Leonhart_93]

Makes sense, their main downside these days is that they are really expensive. Remove that, and you get yourself some tough units.

[@TheLOUDERMAN]

Pure gold

[@calebadam2576]

You could tell he was not prepared to actually face a challenge, but enjoyed it immensely.

[@JasonMendoza-hd3ce]

He was so honest in his response and had no qualms with sending kudos to them, love it.

[@singleplayerparty3899]

Went back to watch that part. Totally worth it! Haha

[@SimonWesleyCh.]

Dude, the pure fear in your voice when you saw those three void rays in the first match is absolutely priceless.

[@redcollard3586]

Bruh spoilers

[@zeri3889]

@@redcollard3586 why do you read the comments before watching the video thou? xD

[@RichyRich2607]

"fear"

[@Jyaif]

I rewatched the "what the hell" moment a dozen time

[@OmegaShinku]

brought me back to OG void rays days

[@N4rha]

I find it funny that Harstem is surprised at the early scouting when his opponent knows that he's facing the cheesiest man alive

[@shen_zhuoran]

Unlike what many people are saying, I did not gamble, tried to scout to the best of my ability, and had a response plan for most scenarios I can think of.

[@mothrahlurker788]

Because it really doesn't make any sense to scout at that timing.

[@nichfra]

When you play against a proxy 3 or 4 gate the gas doesn't matter as much as micro does. So making sure you aren't rushed and can actually use your gas advantage is important. The timing is slightly off because they aren't a pro player.

[@shen_zhuoran]

@@mothrahlurker788 I was checking for proxy gates and cannon rush. Both were scoutable at that point. My micro is worse so I need to respond earlier.

[@Shmandalf]

To be fair I think the cheesiest man alive is Florencio, but I get the sentiment

[@朕是神]

Mass sentries sounds like a legit strat with this challenge. They cost 50 minerals, and they do quite well against gateway units and can probably drag the game out long enough until you get enough gateways and templar archive for mass 100 mineral archons.

[@shen_zhuoran]

Was my plan for G4. But Harstem's first Stalkers were faster than in my practice games so I was forced to build more Stalkers than Sentries which delayed everything.

[@NewTyp3]

⁠@@shen_zhuorannice try! Proxying them outside his base like that was interesting, what was the thought behind that?

[@nightmareTomek]

@@shen_zhuoran yea, you normally can't afford 4gates proxied so far, they're all mineral heavy, that's why your core was late and subsequently his Stalkers so early. As said somewhere else, I'd love to see you refine the build and try again, some 1000 sentries shenanigans sounds more interesting to me than the good old meta that hasn't changed since 2017...

[@Confluence358]

Yeah I was also thinking mass 100 min archons lol. If you somehow survived for like 7 minutes you could climb the tech tree sooo fast and just start pumping them out like nobodies business.

[@Alsicufe]

So freaking nice seeing someone humble after the first one, acknowledging misstakes, blindsides etc without beeing salty/pissed

[@boliveto]

love harstem critical thinking and how unbiased he is on every game, even his own

[@felonyx5123]

Super fast scout makes sense: gotta make sure the pro doesn't try to just win with cheese before the gas ever comes into play. Don't know if it's optimal but it's what I'd be paranoid about in his shoes.

[@shen_zhuoran]

I was specifically checking for proxy gates or cannon rush. Anything from his base would not hit earlier than my Voids.

[@mothrahlurker788]

@@shen_zhuoran You don't need to scout this early for proxygates and a cannonrush only blindcounters himself. Because no matter what you do, a tech rush, either robo or stargate is a win.

[@EncryptedLiberty]

Every assimilator is also 3 probes. So for every assimilator that you would normally take, you need to build 3 less probes. I suspect that's a large part of it, because that's a significant part of expanding that you don't need to do anymore.

[@nibs1989]

He saves himself 450 minerals off the bat by not needing assimilators, which saves time and equals 3 easy Stargates and 3 voidrays really fast.

[@52flyingbicycles]

450 minerals saved per expansion!

[@EncryptedLiberty]

@@52flyingbicycles I think the time it takes to build those workers is a much larger impact. If he wants to expand, it doesn't take as long to saturate the minerals. If he doesn't, he can stop building workers way faster. But the mineral savings are big, too.

[@GangsterGumbo]

​@nibs1989 Yeah, the *immediate* boost of the savings turns into maxing out on mineral workers faster, which translates into making those Stargates faster. Streamrolling speed bonuses left and right.

[@XanderCrews4Prez]

I don't understand this conversation. That's not a large part of it, that's ALL of it. You can't buy anything with gas only. So.... the advantage is you have more probes mining minerals. "Also?" No. Only.

[@barbecuedchicken2894]

I love that harstem completely misjudged how disgusting this is For instance, on 1 base, 16 workers mining aka 16minerals per second, warp gate warping in high templars have 32s cooldown, at 50 minerals each, we have 16/(50/32) =10.24 warp gates on cooldown permanents. You can support 10 gateways on 1 base, making 5 archons on 1 base every 30 seconds. This is unbelievably broken

[@asdfqwerty14587]

In fairness, pro players have done some pretty ridiculous challenges - uThermal has won a 6v1 before for instance (granted, that was against bronze/silver players and he didn't do it on the first attempt.. but still, winning a 6v1 at all is a way bigger handicap than winning a 1v1 against an opponent with infinite gas). If it reaches the lategame, a pro player will still destroy a lower ranked player even with infinite gas - but there might be some cheeses that hit way earlier than they normally would that a low ranked player could execute that could beat a pro player.

[@berndarndt9924]

@@asdfqwerty14587 uThermal would have never won that game against coordinated bronze players where 1-2 people just worker rush him. Doing that would ofc be boring, so it wasn't done. And here it is similar in that the pro has the best chance winning by just rushing before gas can make a difference. You can build t2 & t3 units way earlier with unlimited gas. And so pros won't really hit lategame ever. You just need to pick gas heavy units, not units like stalkers or vikings.

[@mcmarkmarkson7115]

Well pro's will just rush you early game, before any gas can make a difference I would just spam spine crawlers and queens while rushing mutalisk, don't do 1 base all in, but open up with a second base right away, not even a pro will be able to stop two base zerg with lots of early spines and queens against early harass then two base minerals only muta rush, unstoppable

[@gypsycatcher18]

@@mcmarkmarkson7115 so go and do it, challenge harstem and show us how tough you are

[@majormarketing6552]

@berndarndt9924 Doesnt matter.

[@asharak84]

As a reminder, on these maps with big walled areas it's trivial to know if they break it open: Click a scout into the blocked area. If they head across the map then there is an opening, if they head to faceplant into a wall it's closed. Unless the opponent is sneaky enough to break in and then wall behind them then it's a simple way to know without having to look carefully.

[@XpomAE]

Yea, these voidrays scared the hell out of me

[@wikihoolima8988]

I’m watching the second game and thinking: “reapers for 50 minerals - TAKE MY MONEY”

[@shen_zhuoran]

You need micro for Reapers to pay for themselves. In my hand, Reapers are worse than unstimmed Marines...

[@gagaronpew4382]

i was thinking mass raven and auto turret spam

[@shen_zhuoran]

@@gagaronpew4382 I could have try next time!

[@Leo.23232]

@@shen_zhuoran they have better stats still, so how are they worse even if you a move them

[@shen_zhuoran]

@@Leo.23232 They have lower DPS against units with base armor, which is basically anything Protoss, except Probes.

[@rykehuss3435]

oh hey its the legend himself, Flash

[@MegaSchwarzesSchaf]

Instant chills!

[@sealboy1211]

To this guys credit, playing a 1v1 against a pro player is kinda like a jam session with a pro musician, and he made it happen.

[@i_am_person52]

the voidray jumpscare

[@michaelbuckers]

WAS THAT THE VOID OF 87?!?

[@FatherNagic]

@@michaelbuckers dude that isnt funny

[@bloodclot]

Timestamp?

[@keeleyhoek]

This isn't the SC2 name tier list I was promised my man

[@Chris_and_Cory]

Preach!

[@desmofan1864]

Right? We're waiting, Captain!

[@squashiejoshie200000]

Something I don't think you considered, or at least not before the first game. He doesn't just save 150 mins on 2 assimilators. He saves 300 mins on 6 probes that you would use to mine gas, and 6 supply for an additional 100 minerals on a pylon. He didn't just save 150 mins. He saved 550 while reaching full saturation around 3 probes earlier. In the TVT game, with his advantage, I would certainly have gone 2 starport BC rush, teleport them across the map ASAP, then follow up with banshee/reaper, either going for the all-in if I control the production or to cover an expand if not. Backup strat would be mass ravens and trade free stuff for enemy resources. With the ZVP, I'd probably go with a 3 hatch muta build, expanding for macro, starting spire, and building mutas off of 2 injected hives and 1 non-injected hive. With that I can focus on trading efficiently with the mutas and using their quick healing to be more efficient. It would be an all in though. If I have to transition off of mutas on zerg against protoss, I just lose to stalker micro.

[@Kradukman]

For the tvt, thor+ 2nd base is probably the better call. You don't need air superiority with mass thors+scan.

[@squashiejoshie200000]

@@Kradukman I was thinking maybe thors, but don't think they are a good early option just bacause of speed. Like yeah, you could put out a few medivacs to get them to the opponent's base fast, but I think they would just be too slow compared to a bc rush.

[@Kay-bs3bl]

Yeah 2 BCs WITH Yamato cannon on one base is completely possible. That would have decimated Harstem. He can micro better with a cyclone but Yamato would shut that down.

[@52flyingbicycles]

We all know the answer to starting with infinite minerals: 12 proxy rax marine all in

[@shen_zhuoran]

That's less fun. I'd build a full wall of cannons fully surrounding their main.

[@52flyingbicycles]

@@berndarndt9924 reapers can beat 12 barracks production worth of marines? You don’t even need your home base especially because you pulled the boys to build all the proxy barracks! Worst case scenario it’s a base trade, can you kill the main, a bunch of barracks, and their nearby supply depots before 12 barracks worth of constant marine production overwhelm you? Not with a couple reapers you can’t

[@alltat]

Proxy-hardwall the entire map with hatcheries and then rally infinite zerglings into their base.

[@arkadiuszkisel5054]

Now the question is if you could win with bronze that has infinite minerals

[@MTGandP]

Or play for the late game by immediately taking every base on the map

[@stanimir5F]

Haters gonna say: "this wasn't the real Flash"

[@goodlearnerbadstudent756]

Flash only plays remastered

[@shen_zhuoran]

If it's real Flash then even Serral/Clem/herO would have died 100% of the times.

[@kesatola3554]

@@shen_zhuoran nah, didn't you watch the video, flash can only get to 3k mmr in sc2, clearly inferior gamer

[@shen_zhuoran]

@@kesatola3554 lol

[@goodlearnerbadstudent756]

@@kesatola3554 flash doesn't play sc2. He quit like 10 years ago.

[@FrelanceEQ]

I think the key insight is that having free gas isn't just about how quickly you tech up or whatever, it also, or even primarily, functionally halves the cost of units, *while* doubling how many workers are active early.

[@momchilandonov]

Damn, my country Bulgaria is really quite active in the SC2 tournaments. Uthermal mentioned it at least twice and now Harstem

[@user-nh2bf4to7g]

They have the distinction of being the only major tournament played after the WTL. After this we're all sort of walking into the unknown: no one has announced that they're picking up SC2 for major/premier tournaments next year, and, rather than saving Starcraft, Microsoft seems to have cut Blizzard's staff even further, so we don't know if anyone there is even courting the esports world to pick up SC2 for another year (although you can damn well bet that they're keeping the licensing fees in place!), or if anyone is even taking the Balance Council's calls anymore.

[@thewealthofnations4827]

Why is Bulgaria breaking into SC2 space?

[@curious3342]

zero gas banelings sounds really hard to beat

[@raymondsjursen4470]

Templar archive. 100 minerals for every archon

[@Wwillswords]

​@raymondsjursen4470 takes to long to get online

[@Ghi102]

@@raymondsjursen4470 It would probably be too slow. You can only really win with fast all-ins because, as soon as you give time for a pro to build up and get more tools, he will out micro you.

[@jordanleighton6893]

^

[@berndarndt9924]

@@Ghi102 I think BCs would work despite being slow, since they fly and have enough effective hp. Also Yamato on shots pretty much everything the pro can build.

[@rogueduelist3137]

Can’t believe the void rays were such a surprise. Toss is easily the best race for this as they have the quickest and most effective gas dumps that also don’t require micro. Sentry’s, archons, and void rays are OP for this

[@enlightenerr8342]

Haha great stuff! Would watch another one!

[@memph1ston]

Shocked there's no infinity-baneling strat so far 😂😂

[@noah.2B]

Infinity baneling means infinity zergling which means infinity larvae.......

[@mcmarkmarkson7115]

Mutas would be better, spam a couple spines and queens and not even pro micro will do any early dmg, then good luck stopping muta spam on two base zerg with infinite gas

[@shen_zhuoran]

@@mcmarkmarkson7115 I thought that's what I did in G3...

[@mcmarkmarkson7115]

@@shen_zhuoran you had no static defenses Corrupters were a mistake as well, should have spammed only mutas, they are the price of zealots! + don't cheap out on upgrades, they are a huge advantage and cost you only minerals And third base was a mistake, slowing your muta rush down And worst mistake, don't trade units against his economy, trade units for units when you already have such a giant economy advantage

[@hsinglim]

@@shen_zhuoran think G3 felt more like a corruptor denying nexus strat though. Probably an adjustment I can see is, walling off the natural, building spores in mineral line, and macro hatches in main instead of expanding. I do think the mass mutas would lose against phoenixes though.

[@rohdri]

It's twofold actually. First you save the minerals on the assimilator but then you have a bigger boost. Every probe is going into mining minerals right then. That's going to add up too.

[@mothrahlurker788]

That's literally what he alluded to.

[@rohdri]

@@mothrahlurker788 the assimilators, yes. I missed where he considered the workers all go straight to mining.

[@Aminmotors]

I laughed out loud for a minute straight when the void rays came in, hahahaha great video

[@Softcloner]

I think you need to exploit the speed advantage in tech, like he did with voidray. Perhaps ravager for zerg, mass reaper or bc for terran? Id love to see a mass dt build, archons and dts would be very cheap.

[@shen_zhuoran]

A 4K Protoss could probably pull off a mass DT build. Not me due to micro issues.

[@RupertBruce]

Could you bounce a viking down into those clustered tanks to get the friendly fire to do the damage for you? Could you get the viking out unscathed?

[@asdfqwerty14587]

I bet a player who's moderately skilled that goes for some kind of reaper cheese could beat a top pro player - there must be some kind of reaper cheese that's just impossible to defend against when the reapers cost no gas, though I don't really know what the best way to do it would be.

[@CZProtton]

I dont think it matters, proxy 2 rax reaper I think will not be stoppable just because of a sheer number of reapers you can send. Reapers are buildable with a reactor too, its just too many reapers that kill buildings way too fast, you would do the adept glaive rush but with reapers, jumping between nat and main and just rallying more and more into the oponents base.

[@shen_zhuoran]

Yeah, if only I had any micro...

[@Tmoy1124]

just keep adding barracks supply depots and mules while spam flooding reapers lol. no refinery, no tech lab, just spam barracks reapers depots and mules

[@EllipticalReasoning]

I wouldn't count on it. Reapers look good when good players use them - they die incredibly inefficiently when they get outplayed, and, like harstem demonstrated twice, the pro player can defend while killing your economy.

[@berndarndt9924]

@@Tmoy1124 You should add reactors since they build faster than barracks and cost less minerals.

[@CoysRamirez]

The "what the hell" killed me. I was cackling for a minute there

[@goodlearnerbadstudent756]

surprised he didn't went mass DT, since with infinite gas, DT is like the cost of a zealot each.

[@TheRlyNewHide]

Yeah, or Archons.

[@mothrahlurker788]

Not nearly good enough to win.

[@Fenrakk101]

@@mothrahlurker788 in these circumstances being good enough is less important than being fast enough. they could probably tech up to DTs like a minute faster than normal and pump them out dramatically faster. or tech up to HTs/archons much faster and build them much, much, much faster

[@panner11]

dt is the type of the unit that gets harder to make effective the higher the level of your opponent. You want to make things are brute force and uncounterable when playing against a pro.

[@Fenrakk101]

@@panner11 i agree, but it could have worked and more importantly: would have been fun

[@sevreal4]

This was one of your most fun content lately, this was a blast to watch!

[@Dark_Voice]

The second game he literally had you on the ropes if he checked the bases naxt to your main - you couldnt fight the army on the ground, if he didnt retreat, he could trade half of the army for the win - that is with him losing viking war and everything, all he needed was the courage to check the bases next to your main with one of them already being destroyed and know that it is not it. He wouldnt kill you outright of course since you had air supremacy and your buildings could fly but then you would definitely be on a timer which I think even gold league player should be able to exploit. For the fourth game I thought he will rush high templars into archons which would cost basically nothing with the gas cost being 0 but stalkers? Madman.

[@adamnevraumont4027]

I mean, do warpgate and sentries. At 50 minerals and 2x damage on shields sentries are badass units. Contain with sentries, tech to archons.

[@mothrahlurker788]

@@adamnevraumont4027 You literally saw how containing with sentries plays out.

[@YoshiKirishima]

He'd be able to just float his OCs, he had plenty of SCVs left still and with MULEs he'd have a higher mineral economy. He couldn't really do much once he lost air superiority and Libs came out. Going all-in and trying to kill all the production and main was the best bet. He just needed 1 Viking at home to defend the Lib harass so he could continue production and reclaim air superiority. Or honestly cut 1 Viking and get an armory so he can mix in thors so he doesn't even need air superiority vs Libs.

[@JudgeAnnibal]

@@YoshiKirishima Not going for 2 bases as terran with infinite gas is also kinda dumb - if all you need is minerals, just pump out more mules! It can support more vikings or much needed upgrades that Harstem cannot afford. The 450 minerals you save from 2 extractors and 6 workers already pay the expac off.

[@EternaltheGrey]

If he'd grounded his vikings to kill the 3-tank push while the enemy vikings flew home to deal with the liberator harass, that would probably have done it too. So much breathing room to mine, probably even to expand safely.

[@Mooplet]

I always really like the first bit of commentary as the scouts hit the bases, especially with wacky / alternate rulesets like this or uneven teams or something, it's very instructive seeing the adjustments and hearing the explanation

[@patrickrudiger8762]

I think it was less of an overextimation of mutas. There were plent of things that went badly in the third game and that were result from the buildorder that were not due to mutas as such: - too few queens! If you save all the money for assimilators and gas and stuff - which is cost avoided very early since you dont need the assimilator and stuff for ling speed and thus means more drones early - you should have more queens, and there should be a spore in each base for the oracles. The lower the level the more urgent you need spores. Because lower level = slower reaction time = more damage if no spore, so spores are even more important than on higher level where one might have good queen movement. - regarding cost early, the lings early were quite uncalled for because they cost part of the larva. They were way too early, and queens would have hurt the eco less and helped more later with the oracles. - the idea to add in corruptors was great and if they would have been used a bit more conservatively, this would have worked out to counter the phenix. The reason why normally one cannot go corruptor against phenix is because the toss can go voidway, which counter the corrupters nicely. However, do they counter the corruptors strong enough if the corruptors basically cost 150/0 instead of 150/100? I dont think so. Well, i dont think so if you expand a lot. But expanding a lot should be very possible when mutas give you temporary map control. A further reason why this did not work was that a veeeery large amount of corruptors was thrown away in order to snipe bases. With the stalker heavy comp you had, and the early stage of the game, which involved only 2 finished bases, it was just too cost ineffective. After the first base snipe he basically had to build up his corruptors again, leading to insufficient growth of the muta count. Even having the gas as a present, just too many minerals went down the drain on such stuff. Honestly, after seeing your defenses he should have thought "fine, i just double expand and go t3". Its not just money that was lost in the tried base snipe but also attention and apm, which are a precious resource on this level. And when gas is free, you can go for broodlords quite early. The raising number of mutas - when you have corruptors to handle the phenix - cannot be countered by stalkers for that long (the larger the numbers get the wors stalkers get vs mutas, and with the gas cost removed, mutas are cheaper than stalkers!). They also cannot be countered by phenix/voidray because with the map control and thus ability to expand and the gas being free, the voidrays are likely not cost effective enough (Which is why ithink you using mostly stalkers not voids to def them was exactly the right call). Thus you would have to go archon vs the mutas, which is problematic if the zerg goes BL. And with the BL showing up a lot lot earlier in view of gas being free, the air transition will likely not be in time.

[@MsHojat]

Infinite vespene from the start of the game is HUGE. That's hundreds of minerals of advantage in the early game and hundreds more as time goes on. Banelings in particular seem scary as they are now only 50 minerals each, and then ravagers and lurkers are crazy as well. But then again Void Rays are also super scary, and also require gas for their production facilities. And if the void rays somehow doesn't kill them, mass archon spam will, with each archon only costing the price of just a zealot. Against terran this sounds maybe the most possible to beat just due to their mineral dependence (hellions,marines,marauders,widow mines), but still super scary.

[@balazspeter1721]

Dear Harstem. I have an idea. Spellcaster units when attack moved should stop when they reach spellcasting distance. This way lover level players could use them without sending them in to the enemy army.

[@AxolordlL9]

love how positively you can take a loss & talk well of your opponent as a league of legends player, it just feels so refreshing to see such good sportsmanship!

[@mranderson978]

This is the Starcraft II equivalent of giving your opponent a Queen head start in chess.

[@emissarygw2264]

I do think the key is to just abuse the free resources to hit an extra spicy all in timing. Unfortunately the early game units tend to be mineral heavy so the pro has a chance to throw you off your game plan before the advantage really kicks in

[@MikeOldani]

I'm sitting here waiting for 5 minute Archons and battlecruisers

[@misterf.3688]

Great content - really enjoyable, immediately gets me thinking what I would do :) Thanks to you and Flash

[@paxconsciente3352]

this is a great series to continue imo

[@adicacid]

What a coincidental topic, Day9 also posted a video the other day about "what if one player started with 100 more minerals" and talked about compounding advantages. Meanwhile here it's cranked up to 11 with infinite gas.

[@Frostbiite59]

i'd say minerals overall is a larger advantage because you've got the ability to use them right away to bolster your economy or get closer to your tech, with gas you still get bottle-necked for quite a bit by your minerals early until you macro and have the minerals to sustain actually spending the gas

[@jandjhroco]

@@Frostbiite59 I think it might depend on how good the player is. I think with a large skill gap, having less gas would be harder to mess up. Not having to use economy to start collecting gas is huge. Those workers all work on more minerals and supply is not taken up by those workers.

[@Aminmotors]

33:32 "I knew you were trouble when you *warped* in" Theres actually a version like that haha

[@jawascrapper6277]

this actually could become a popular challenge between pros and amateur players. I guess a lot of (good) players want now to do exactly that against as many pros as they can. And maybe it could be a good way to create a link between those two kind of players. edit: just to add that it might aalso become a new format for streamers to do. Y'all know, we have "bronze league heroes", "bronze to gm challenge" and so on. I can see an "Infinite gas challenge" becoming a staple of sc2 streaming, because it would be interesting to see with what kind of creative shenanigans the amateur player will come with, moreover if the amateur can choose the matchup like in the third game, and of course how the pro or semi-pro player will react to it. Also the amateur has nothing to lose since it's normal to lose to a pro player.

[@vonriel1822]

Wandered in here from a random recommend and this was a ton of fun. It's not often I get to see a pro player point of view, it's always insane, and the ruleset made the matches quite interesting.

[@themodernshoe2466]

Dude love this, he clearly put thoughts in the builds, each game felt like a campaign mission

[@brycedaugherty9211]

Most people could not pull this win off. But this guy actually has a shot with these rules

[@bayanzabihiyan7465]

Protoss - 12 Pylon -> Fastest Gate, Core -> Triple stargate is 100% one of the strongest builds. Only way you beat this is if you proxy him before stargates make anything. I also think 2-Gate, Core, into more gates and mass sentries would be pretty funny, 50 minerals each would allow you to probably sustain 6 gates of of 1 base. 100 mineral archons are also insane, but templar archives tech is probably too late, stargate is just so much faster. But if you do the sentry version, then a twilight council into templar archives would be quite affordable spending only minerals. For Zerg, I'm thinking that a ravager all-in would be crazy. 100 mineral ravagers sound super broken. 12-pool, into roach warren, can probably afford a hatch somewhere, and just spam ravagers. Use those surplus minerals from not needing gases to build some static defense at home. Terran doing 2 factory tank - 2 starport viking is pretty dam strong and I think that build order was a good choice. Or reapers from 3 barracks reactor equivalent to a 6-rax reaper. The micro and macro of this build would be very difficult. Early game ghost spam against zerg I think would be unbeatable, they eat up queens and lings for breakfast, and with cloak can even deal with roaches.

[@tomwallen7271]

I thought in the last game he was for sure gonna go Archon.

[@kirill429]

Well done, would have loved to see an interview with the player after the games!

[@ZerglingLover]

I’m unironically so shocked that he won game 1 lol

[@quineloe]

tbh the triple void ray at 3:30 is something else There's a reason he does this with Protoss and not Terran or Zerg

[@ZerglingLover]

@@quineloe wait till u see game 2 lol

[@hetaresgaming7771]

It's definitely more a surprise factor than anything. If Harstem had actually scouted it, he'd probably be able to mount a defense, or make a call to abandon the main sooner, and yes, Harstem was also thinking too little about the infinite gas and playing as if it were a normal game. That said, good on him for exploiting the map. I'm surprised he didn't bring out his infamous '8 archons and 5 sentries' build that he kept bragging about on reddit; probably because when he actually played he realised that buildings actually take a whole lot of time to make.

[@CZProtton]

@@hetaresgaming7771 But really, rushing voidrays and then going archon/carrier after it is probably going to kill everyone. Because you get 50 mineral archons, cheaper carriers and cheaper buildings to get to carriers, meaning you can speed it all up. You need minerals for all of that, but the cheap archons will get you safety enough, I think. So, as long as you can survive any early cheeses or attacks while you are doing the voids, even if someone does defend the voids, the follow up is just too good. As for the second game, I dont think infinity reapers are beatable. Reapers cannot be masses in a regular game because they cost gas that you need for tanks instead. Now, you dont need to care about that, you can use reapers instead of marines. That is just insane, especially if the enemy does not reaper wall like Harstem did not.

[@hetaresgaming7771]

@@CZProtton But that's the point; as long as you can survive, which a plat player definitely would not. Not against a 'top class pro player like Maru or Serral', as claimed by OP in his original reddit post, and as we all know Harstem isn't even near their level, and once he what his opponent was going for, he handled it relatively well even with big mistakes like forgetting to wall, gettign supply blocked. or not paying attention to the ramp during a contain.

[@joeyfarish2528]

3:32 "WHAT THE HELL??!!" There is true emotion coming out of Harstem here

[@hexaquras9374]

personally lightmode is even crazier

[@Ttangko_]

[@shen_zhuoran]

What's lightmode?

[@hexaquras9374]

@@shen_zhuoran opposite of dark mode where instead of having your web browser being dark its flashbang white like what harstem has currently

[@DFGdanger]

​@@shen_zhuoran white background with dark text (in this case on reddit in the browser, nothing to do with starcraft itself). A lot of apps and websites have an option for dark mode where you have dark background and white text instead. A lot of people find it easier on the eyes. There's also a browser extension Dark Reader to force dark mode on sites that don't provide the option.

[@Ttangko_]

@@shen_zhuoran on your desktop click your youtube profile icon top right > in the middle you can see "appearance". toggle light-/darkmode there

[@danielskrivan6921]

I was expecting archons. Free gas means they're basically fancy zealots.

[@mothrahlurker788]

They just take too long to tech into.

[@dorbie]

"I've checked pretty much everything on my side of the map", nope.

[@skepley]

"I don't see any spots where I don't see stuff" I love Harstem's deep insights

[@Karttibone]

With infinite gas I would have gone fast Speedling Infestor. Infestation pit builds super fast and infestors are quite cheap on minerals. 5-6 Infestors while you have a couple of stalkers is not that good. You also need a stargate or robo to fight it, since burrow is cheap and will be fast. For Zerg it's super good but he didn't think his build through well,just felt like "herpaderp 2 base muta/corruptor". You gain a lot from not having to build an extractor. That is already one worker ahead from pretty much the start. And you don't need gas workers (+2) you're ahead 3 workers on minerals by default. By the time anything starts to happen that is already an upgrade or two worth of minerals you get for free. As soon as second base finishes you'd start Lair in main. No queen skips but you build them from the main. - 15 pool - 16 hatch - pool finishes -> queen in main + Zergling speed - natural finishes -> Lair in natural (prime drones to go natural if you can afford) - second queen from main -> first goes to nat - 20 2-3 sets of zerglings - Lair finishes -> infestation pit + burrow (from nat) - saturate bases to 32 until infestation pit finishes - 3 infestors as soon as infestation pit finishes - rest of minerals goes to zerglings - build 3rd base when you move out (or go all-in and get 2 infestors per inject cycle and the rest zerglings)

[@smedleycheswith1272]

For ZvP, banelings were the obvious play, you can pump out so many lings and the only limiting factor on banelings is gas.

[@mothrahlurker788]

Banelings cost 50/25, that is the easiest freewin for Harstem.

[@JJV7243]

Weirdly enough - in this setting it might be limited by larva

[@bellofigoitaliano5038]

How’s is harstem confused about game 1 , time is more important than skill , time

[@orangesouls7112]

Not sure if trying to end things quickly is the way every time or if dragging it out a bit longer may have gone better. Possibly if they tried to contain through the better, faster tech instead of hoping to smash through with it every time?

[@Jyoryaxx]

They get 150 Minerals from not building assimilators and 6 probes from not using them for each base. That means for each base, half a base of extra minerals and no limitation on gas, which tends to be more limiting in the first place. I can see why it's so significant.

[@Exit_zero]

I bet that guy was so happy after that first game

[@shen_zhuoran]

Yes I was.😆

[@xnephysisthere]

@@shen_zhuoran Duuuuuude just imagine if you ended game 2, you would be playing up against Harstem's buddies next. You could of been going places with this man

[@RuneKatashima]

I think I could take more games for Harstem and I haven't played in like 7+ years (middle of HotS I stopped), on the same rules. I thought 3k was better, but he felt *really* low elo. So I went to go look it up and it's between plat 1 and diamond 3. I don't even remember if we had numbers back when I played. I think the quality of players back then was better. My Elo would have been considered diamond 1. I only say this because I continue to watch Starcraft games of mid-ELO and the quality just seems really bad. 3k feels like old Gold to me. And I'm a creaky old 35 year old now. Anyway, was fun to watch Harstem! Thanks for picking it up and not mocking the guy.

[@CabbageCookies13]

Harstem not stealing gas is a missed opportunity

[@JJV7243]

that would have been hillarious

[@ZackeroniAndCheese]

First time finding your channel. I only know some StarCraft from LS, Grubby, and Day9 videos. I find your video very entertaining

[@nesssixteen6106]

As someone who tends to mostly watch Brood War: why didn't the other guy build turrets when he tried to do the siege tank contain? I suspect the answer might be that liberators would just destroy them, but would there not be a timing where the turrets could be up before the liberators? Usually when something like this happens in brood war, a terran containment becomes damn near impossible to break once turrets go down.

[@donovan4444]

You could tell Harstem was shook after game 1 when that hard supply block came in game 2

[@tiborsipos1174]

Its not only "no gas" You need 6 less workers per base to harvest gas, so you not just save, but funnel gas oriented supplies AND time to army. Thats instantly 6 supply per base to army. It even escalates more if you technically have half army need / doubles your army value (depends on how you look at it) And your tech again only needs mineral so that's time saved by not needing time to mine resource and again... those worker supply is funneled either to better mining or straight to army supply that have better value the gas hevier they are...

[@Lightkie]

Right off the bat when he said "I've checked everything on my side at least." I was like: have you heard of stargates? Like seriously.. how did he not think of that himself.

[@JaharNarishma]

I expected mass reapers in game 2. 1 base, 2 rax production to hold of a potential early rush into extra barracks with reactors. Marines and Reapers has got the same cost: 50 minerals.

[@BlitkriegsAndCoffee]

To add to the money saved by not building Assimilators comment, you also don't need probes to mine the gas, so your mineral income is also boosted, or your tech is again that much faster.

[@Necrocidal]

For the last game, it would have been amazing to see something like 7gate sentry. Especially with the extra damage they do now vs toss.

[@Framidan]

In the first game I was expecting VR, because it is a pretty common cheese at that MMR, very strong if not scouted properly.

[@markototev]

I wish the event was in Plovidv so I could have come, with work and other engagements I couldn't come to Stara Zagora to see you guys play. Hope you enjoyed your tiem in BG

[@RuneKatashima]

13:00 he can just walk in and normal attack with his tanks and you die. Edit: He did say he doesn't know Zerg so I'm not surprised it was his worst build.

[@CedarMcKay]

Nice effort, fun challenge. I think I would have tried turtle 2 base and going for Viking/BC.

[@lovethesuit]

What a fantastic channel, thanks for uploading.

[@Parkanian]

this is a way harder challenge than expected. What about the alternative? 3k vs. a pro with zero gas (pro is not allowed to build any assimilators)?

[@gewinnste]

I can see that working even against top pros - not reliably, but every now and then. There's a reason why units are meticulously balanced in terms of accessibility. Unfortunately, except in the first game, they didn't exploit that fact hard enough . Should have just done the void ray rush every game (even from home base), plus a sentry for every 50 unspent minerals. In this situation and with the new extra damage vs. shields, they're uber-marines against protoss (80 HP, 14 DPS). Just a-move them in for some extra damage and as "meat shield". Maybe an archon rush would be even better, especially vs. zerg and terran - at least it would be the by far highest cost reduction per unit. Like somebody already said in a comment, an archon would cost as little as a zealot (you need 3 more tech buildings, but it's still insane value and probably early enough).

[@seri-ously8591]

It's pretty understandable Harstem underestimated the challenge and forgot about how much mineral you can save initially not investing into gas expansions. Since it's not only the gas but also the worker/time needed to saturate those gases, which is extra mineral and seconds you take off for yourself. If you think about the unlimited gas perk being just a pure mineral build (which can usually lead to faster tech/army), then I think Harstem would've been even more cautious in the first game.

[@SaltyNard]

saves 6 workers on gas + 2 assimilators, x3 for the natural and third. That's 900 minerals in workers alone, straight to void rays. Minerals get saturated faster, less pylons needed for them, even more minerals banked. Yeah if his build order resembles something made by a semi-sentient human being, it's almost impossible to win, that's a massive lead.

[@Alexander-nc2qg]

"The other day I was peacefully browsing reddit." - Your first mistake this video. "I could make a video out of this." - Your first august decision in this video.

[@drillnauticus]

Thanks for seeing this through!!!

[@slouch186]

as someone who has no clue at all how starcraft works, what any of the strategies are, or what any of the lingo means - i think i would enjoy a version of this video idea that explains what is going on in a style that noobs would understand

[@Fenrakk101]

This was a lot of fun, though with the benefit of hindsight I think they got a bit lost in the sauce with how cool it is to tech up early with this. The longer the game goes on the less of an advantage they have, they'd probably win more consistently here if they considered it free macro and just rushed/massed basic units at a huge discount and pushed across the map with a boosted 1/1 timing

[@TheFRealBoggieMan]

Why did the guy never do mass gateway archons? High templar are 50 minerals for him. For a 100 mineral unit, archons are pretty fricken good.

[@psilon69]

As terran I feel like just mass reapers from min 1 is the play. You can do triple barracks reapers and I don't see a way to win it. As for the last game he could just do mass sentries. They tickle of course but with unlimited force fields you can just slowly but surely kill anything

[@scottdomingue4644]

A practiced 2 base BC rush, with full gas costs hits at like 5:30. No gas...? 4:00? and probably with tanks at your front door.

[@starcraft2own]

It's funny listening to harstem go "I guess the only advantage is no assimilators." But the real advantage isn't only the early mineral advantage but also the fact that they're not capped to how much gas they can mine either. Meaning they are max tier and owns half the map income wise at like 4 minutes game time. It's only until later in the game that gas isn't the limit factor. Early game it sure is. As Harstem realised further into the video.

[@KKKuma]

I knew it would be void ray in the first game. They are fast to build for how much their mineral cost and also flying and can deal with building

[@tophatwolf]

Awesome stuff dude, loved this xD

[@alexsappington1587]

Yes!! I was hoping youd do this

[@jarrakul]

Honestly impressive showing by our fake Flash here. Would've loved to see a redo of that first game, though. Like, is there actually good counter to gasless proxy void rays? Inquiring minds want to know.

[@Necrocidal]

3 stargates and voids = 150 mins (2x assimilators) + 900 gas mined? (I forgot the exact costs of things nowadays, it's 150 gas each for SG+VR, and probe mines 4 gas / 5 mins?) So by the time he has 3 voids from 3 gates, he effectively gained ~1300 extra minerals, on top of also having infinite gas.

[@growtocycle6992]

100 sentries. Hallucinate 100 sentries. That would be an interesting strat, considering harstem didn't build splash

[@auzor5900]

Wouldn't it be even better for Zerg or Terran? Zerg: each gas geiser not needed, saves a drone. Full mineral rush, but you actually have gas for whatever; upgrades, roaches, mutas,... less drones needed means more supply for zerglings/army. Terran: ah yes. Mules + infinite gas. truly a fair and balanced situation. Could actually go full army once there's enough bases to keep dropping mules XD