Well, we both know that you'd have an edge over sanmu over MD MTL because he's been almost entirely focused on SE so far. He'll pick up conventional strategic play while in M'Hunters, I'm sure, but beating him in a best of 11 on MD Strat ME wouldn't prove anything and wouldn't be remotely surprising. You are, like you've said a few times, the gatekeeper of "elite" status on conventional strategic play (i.e., people can't call themselves elite unless they can beat you) and sanmu is just beginning to learn conventional strategic play. Even if you're nowhere near the top at those templates (which I think is something you'd normally concede), sanmu has little chance of beating you there since he's just now starting to get into them.

You should consider taking him up on the offer of a best-of-11 RT Small Earth. You're right that you'd be playing at a disadvantage there, since sanmu probably has played that template over a thousand more times than you and has built significant intuition. I've run into him on QM since his early days on the site when he was just someone who I kept beating to level up my alts, and by now he's actually gotten quite good. Not up there with Ozi, AI, and the others who have really figured out SE, but pretty far along the intuition journey. To his credit, he also understands a lot of the game mechanics and tactics like move order, picking/counterpicking, delays, and the like, so it's far from pure intuition. Sanmu has all the core ingredients of being an excellent player and if he puts his energy into learning conventional strategic play he could be elite pretty soon (on MTL templates); I think if M'H is able to convince him to learn MD MTL templates the way he learns RT SE, he'll show up on their CL roster soon enough. It's just the common barrier of getting a big fish from a small pond to start exploring the ocean.

A best-of-11 RT SE1W series with, say, 10+5 boot time, would be a middle ground imo. You don't seem to think SE requires much skill at all, and 10min on that tiny map should be more than enough time for you to analyze and make decisions based on your strategic logic rather than pure intuition. It'll be meaningful- it'll test whether you've really got SE as figured out as you seem to think. Sanmu's position in SE is actually somewhat analogous to yours: he's not the best player but he can beat the best on occasion and can reliably beat players who are not great on SE. Like how you are the gatekeeper of elite status on Strat ME, he is the gatekeeper of elite status on SE. If you're truly a top player on SE, you can probably beat him. If you can't beat him, you don't have SE figured out.

Plus just playing a short series like that would help you come to an understanding, give us concrete new information, and maybe show you that SE really isn't cancer.

Edited 5/17/2021 16:26:38

> Well, we both know that you'd have an edge over sanmu over MD MTL because he's been almost entirely focused on SE so far.

I didn't say MD MTL, I just said the small earth games had to be MD, not RT. He was also the one insulting my ability to play the templates I do actually play, so I told him if he wanted to actually prove that I'm bad at them like he claims I am, then he should be confident enough to challenge me without also demanding the home court advantage while doing so.

My prediction for best of 11 on SE would probably be me winning 6-3 or 6-4, I've never suggested I'd sweep, he has suggested he would.

Strat ME though? That I'd expect to sweep, or at worst win 6-1.

http://wzclot.eastus.cloudapp.azure.com/tournaments/570/

Poised to sweep much better opponents than him in a ME RR as of this moment. CJ, Eoghan, Mr. Carpenter, and texx would all smack sanmu around on that template.

> If you're truly a top player on SE, you can probably beat him.
You're both seeming to make strawman arguments. I've never once claimed to be a "top SE player".

I didn't insult Sanmu's ability to play SE. He repeatedly insulted my ability to play templates I do actually play.

Edited 5/17/2021 16:42:10

I'm not bad and I'm not interested in being very good in this game like you. I play it for fun. Looking down to people is very bad of you. It's easy to underestimate your opponent by that. You're good at playing Warzone, but very bad in seeing the difference between player who are bad and player who are average or good and play for the fun.

Maybe there are a few players who look down to the Smal Earth, but that does not mean the entire Warzone community of top players does. There are enough top players who play the Small Earth template after all.

You're not the one who makes the rules for how good or bad someone is, which map is better or when people shoud react to you. People can see that by themselves and determine it by themselves how good or bad they are in Warzone.

I'm looking forward to the match between Sanmu and Johnny.

Edited 5/17/2021 16:42:03

Oh sure, best-of-11 SE1W MD would be more than fair between you. sanmu has no delusions about being top-tier on MTL MD templates, while you have no delusions about being top-tier on SE1W RT intuition. SE1W MD would have good signal-to-noise due to your analogous role with sanmu. You represent the bar to be an elite player in general while sanmu represents the bar to be a top-tier player on SE.

If you win without having played much SE at all, then that signals you're right about the template being fairly easy to figure out if you come from an MD MTL background, because it would mean you're probably a top-tier SE player without having put in any effort to learn SE. If sanmu wins, then that corroborates my hypothesis about conventional elite skills not fully translating to SE that easily and SE having its additional set of microtactics that need to be learned and offer significant advantages.

So are you both up for best-of-11 SE1W multi-day (I'm guessing 1d+2d boot)?

Basically, if Nauz wins, then SE is probably a joke that anyone who's good at the game can figure out. If sanmu wins, then maybe we should take that template more seriously. Now we just wait on either or both of them to agree to the series...

Edited 5/17/2021 16:40:26

> I'm not bad

Everyone says this.

Ask a room of 100 people how many of them think they're above average at something.

You're going to get a lot more than 50 people saying they view themselves this way.

Lets pretend you and I play the same opponents, we don't, my opponents are better than yours, even with my higher winrate, but we can pretend we play the same opponents for the sake of explanation.

Our average opponent is hypothetically 1500 elo.

If you beat someone rated 1500 80% of the time, you are rated 1740. If you beat them 37% of the time you are rated 1410. Someone rated 1740 is predicted to beat someone rated 1410 87% of the time.

If I can beat someone 87% of the time, they're bad. But I wouldn't beat you 87% of the time, because a more realistic analysis is that my average opponents are probably 1800 elo, and yours are 1200 elo. That puts us at 2040 vs 1110, at which point I'd be predicted to beat you roughly 100% pf the time. More precisely, you'd be predicted to win 1 game in a series of 212 games.

If that doesn't make you bad, what the hell does?

Oh no, like I said, I haven't read his post yet. He was talking mad shit about Small Earth, and had opportunities to back down from his elitist ramblings, but he didn't. His options now are either 1) stop shit talking Small Earth, 2) admit that he'd lose at Small Earth, or 3) play me. MME doesn't factor into this at all. I never said anything to insult MME. The challenge on Small Earth is in direct response to the shit he was saying.

Uhhh, there's a vast difference between MME and ME, you're talking about MME, while Johnny talks about ME.
Get your templates right.

I don't care about statistics and I play this for fun. That's the reason the winrate is not so high. That's hard to imagine for a player who does everything to win and to become better each game.

Edited 5/17/2021 16:47:24

"I could improve if I desired." is a different statement than "I'm not bad."

The former might be true, the latter definitely isn't.

Also I think a lot of you would actually get along but have just gotten off on the wrong foot due to misunderstandings.

Nauz is a bit of an open elitist but he's also, like he said, someone who will go to great lengths to help someone who wants to learn conventional strategic play. He has no delusions about being the best player on this site but he just seems to have a problem with players who think they're top-tier when they're not. I think that's how he's seeing sanmu, but sanmu is just a guy who's good at RT SE and doesn't claim to be great at anything else.

sanmu is a relatively new player who's so far been almost exclusively playing SE and pushing for the top of the SE leaderboards on QM. He's just beginning to discover the strategic competitive scene and I think if given a few nudges he'll like it a lot and probably get very good at it. He seems to not like it when people are disrespectful (especially if they are disrespectful on the basis of elitism) and Nauz's comments came across to him that way and, lacking context, he judged the MASTER clan that way when the MASTER clan is full of very nice and helpful and interesting people that are great if you can get along with them.

The net effect is that this thread is full of drama and personal attacks, but I'm pretty sure everyone embroiled in it would get along nicely if they'd just gotten to know one another differently. The drama here and having to deal with people telling him he's not good because he only plays SE are driving sanmu away from the competitive, medium-sized map strategic scene. He's now got something to prove on Small Earth and thinks that the community here are kind of prickish, so instead of nudging him in a direction where he'll grow and discover the best parts of the game, you're driving him away.

None of you need to defend your egos. The community has a good idea of who Nauz is, who the MASTER clan is, and can probably get a rough picture of where sanmu is. Almost no one's gonna come out of this with a changed opinion of any of that. So instead of getting caught up in all that, why not make the effort to get along? sanmu could get to see the good side of Timi, Nauz, and other people who've made a bad impression during this drama- both of them are insanely helpful to new players in his position and go well out of their way to provide training and the like. Nauz et al. could bring a new promising player into the community and nudge him in the direction of getting good at conventional strategic play and realizing he likes it even more than RT SE. All of that seems like it'd do more good than bickering on here.

You're all good people and good-enough players for where you are and what you care about. No need to spend so much effort trying to defend yourselves. Drama is entertaining but here and in many other places that comes at the expense of the community and the game.

Edited 5/17/2021 16:58:47

Lol, everyone can improve if they want it. I play many different games and template instead of just a few for the fun. Maybe you play only a few templates where you're really good in those by often playing these. Winning and statistics are everything for you.

Some people like to invest much time in becoming better in Warzone, other people don't. Both is fine and also the top players be beaten by lower ranked players. By unterestimating them, by surpising them or by playing better.

Being a nice and a kind person is much more important thing than the whole Warzone game.

> Maybe you play only a few templates where you're really good in those by often playing these.

I win over 80% at most QM templates. Close to half of my QM losses are actually me booting at picks because it doesn't give me a game immediately and I never realize the game started till I've booted.

What I'm really good at is math, and problem solving. My degrees are in computer science and pure mathematics. Those skills apply to warzone well as a whole. It takes me time to learn to play a template well, for sure. But if you and I both play a template 10 times, I can guarantee I will be substantially better than you on it afterwards.

> Also I think a lot of you would actually get along but have just gotten off on the wrong foot due to misunderstandings.

Probably. I don't have anything against Sanmu even now. He's the one that's been making it personal.

I didn't call him a bad player, I didn't say anything negative about him personally, other than he was unimportant in my eyes and wasn't someone I sought to prove anything to. That's true for well over 99% of the playerbase.

I'm better than most people, anyone that says otherwise is a uneducated or is trolling and feigning ignorance. I'm worse than a lot of people too, but they're still a small minority in the grand scheme. Trying to prove I'm better than specific people as some form of dick measuring contest honestly doesn't interest me. For me to bother to do such a thing, there has to be something in it for me. Sanmu claims I requested coin wagers because I knew he couldn't afford them - this makes no sense. I don't know him, I have no clue what he can and can't afford. My assumption is that most people on this game who aren't children CAN afford $60. I certainly expect most people calling me an "angry child" can.

These posts, were him:

"I'm not sure I can explain the value of emotion to someone who doesn't understand it.

Perhaps I can try. I'll give an analogy you'll understand. You know that sinking feeling of despair you feel after losing a game of warzone? Perhaps after losing a ladder, year after year, despite all your best efforts? That's the feeling other people have when communicating with you.

When people are this sad/mad, they do crazy things. Hell, they might even challenge people who rightfully beat them and say they didn't deserve it. And then back out when the other person responds to the challenge. And actually listening to the other person's arguments? Hell, that's not even on their mind at all.

I tried to cater my analogy to your own personal experience; I hope that helps.

As a side note, I thought I'd mention something. Since you obviously understand warzone a lot better than human emotions (or even the concept of human emotions), I'll be playing in the first timeslot of Clan Wars everyday in S3 for the M'Hunters. I'll play any of the Small Earth templates. If you wanna match up, join then. I'd love to hear you rage more first hand."

The entire post reads as a personal attack. It's not arguing against things I said, it's pure ad-hominem.

It's also FAR more condescending than my post that critiqued someone's gameplay. I didn't attack people personally, still haven't in fact.

He however has continued to do so consistently, post after post:

"You ain't a celebrity bro. You're just an angry child. An angry child who is about to lose a season in Clan Wars :)"

Didn't claim to be a "celebrity", it's a strawman attack. Calling me an angry child while almost certainly being younger than me (picture looks younger at least) is ridiculous. He knows nothing about me, yet instantly resorts to petty personal insults. "Not a good look." to use his own words against him.

"If you want to actually back up your bullshit, you can join Strat 1v1, or either of the voted templates that the community will add to the pool, instead of small earth the template your whole clan seems to play in a sad attempt to avoid playing competent players. That or you can keep dodging like the rest of your clan so that you can keep getting matched vs noobs in an effort to win; it'll make it sweeter when you still lose despite the cheap tactics that way.
"

That was me. Is it harsh? Maybe, but it's also true. MH is intentionally avoiding the templates we play to avoid matching vs us. Some of the members might really like small earth, but when 8 join, and they all join small earth auto dist rather than strat 1v1, that's pretty telling.

Auto Dist Small Earth is about as luck-based as a template can get. It's not even SE1W, which is much more skill-based. The reason you join it, is because you expect to win under 50% at other things and want to bring your winrate closer to 50%.

MH only needs to win about 50%, because they play more games per day than we do.

MH is 58-50 this season, Master is 49-32, 9 fewer wins, 18 fewer losses. 53.7% winrate for MH, 60.49% for Master.

The problem is Sanmu contines to post like this:

"I couldn't care less if you don't respect quickmatch players :P . We've never seen you and don't care for you. We're happy doing our thing and happy to beat you when you try to come to our turf."

He doesn't ask me questions about my views, he makes assumptions about them and then attacks them. My quickmatch rating is higher than his, I never said a single negative thing about quickmatch or those who play it, yet he's quick to try and paint a strawman and then attack it.

"Never thought someone would try to assert their warzone dick size to me over their preference for Strategic 1v1 over Small Earth to me, but here we are. Especially when he isn't even close to the top of the leaderboards for the 1 map he jerks off for."

Same thing here, I had never even mentioned Strat 1v1 aside from saying he was welcome to join that if he really wanted to play me in Clan War. It's not because I am infatuated with strat 1v1, it's because I dislike the rest of the templayes. Strat 2v2 is fine, but not with short turns. Once the two new templates get added I'll join strat 1v1 much less than I have thus far. He's also not making any form of argument about why I'm supposedly not close to the top of the leaderboards. It's like rank 3 on the 1v1 ladder isn't near the top or something. I'm sure he didn't know I've been rank 3 though, because he's consistently shown that he hasn't researched topics enough to be knowledgeable enough about them to have a good foundation before launching personal attacks. I find it actually somewhat amusing that Knyte mentioned he's a law student, because this sort of behavior is the last thing I'd EVER want to see from a lawyer. Lawyers shouldn't be making baseless assumptions and lashing out as the result of them.

"But, make no mistake, you are no master at it. I know dozens of people who'd destroy you at it, and none of them are masters. So don't underestimate them just because they don't meet your idea of what people "should" be playing. Your elitist, ivory-tower bullshit doesn't extend much further than a handful of people."

More of the same. You're assuming I'm bad for some reason. You didn't beat me and then trashtalk, nah, you skipped that, trashtalk from the start, assume your opponent is bad, that's totally the way to win an argument.

You're the one trashtalking me, while I haven't once asserted that you were bad, you're the one making challenges and boasting that you'd win, and you're also the one insistent that the challenges must be in your home court advantage to the greatest extent possible.

What do they call that? Ahh, right, a bad look.

Edited 5/17/2021 17:54:09

I won this

https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=26932484

he wasnt a MASTER but I made good picks

Nice win King

bring me in boss. I play cw every day, consistency is what matters

so is the much awaited fight series happening? will it be livestreamed

Unlikely. Both agree that sanmu would probably win on RT SE1W and that Nauz would easily win on MD MTL templates but neither seems willing to do a MD SE series. Kind of hoping we get one because it will more or less tell us whether or not SE should be taken seriously. If sanmu beats Nauz on MD SE, then maybe there is something to these SE-only players (although whether their skills would at all translate to medium-sized maps is debatable). If Nauz beats sanmu on MD SE, then, yeah, SE must be pretty easy to solve and shouldn't get confused for a template with strategic merit. We can combine that with what we learn from the SE seasonal (https://www.warzone.com/LadderTeams?ID=4078&Offset=0) and get a much better picture that confirms or challenges our priors about the competitive viability of Small Earth.

Are the elitists right about SE? Or are SE skills vastly underappreciated? Guess we'll never find out.

Although I think I'm at about the same level as sanmu on SEAD. Here's our SEAD games from March onward, in which I went 5-2:

- 03/07 - I win (https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=26054619)
- 03/11 - I win (https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=26119579)
- 04/15 - I lose (https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=26559147)
- 05/03 - I win (https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=26782126)
- 05/07 - I win (https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=26833178)
- 05/10 - I win (https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=26865021)
- 05/10 - I lose (https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=26866084)

So I think I'm an adequate substitute here, although I'd never claim to be a good player on SEAD (see my poor showing on the SEAD Ladder - http://wzclot.eastus.cloudapp.azure.com/leagues/418/). And I'm definitely not good on SE1W. Oh and also I'm not wagering coins on this.

If Nauz is up for a multi-day best-of-11 series on Small Earth Auto Dist, then that might be an okay substitute if we really wanna settle this debate. We all know I'm not a good player on conventional strategic templates, so if Nauz beats me on SEAD without having played much of it that would mean that the general skill difference between Nauz and me has more impact than the difference in our SEAD specialization. FWIW, I'm not delusional and I'm pretty sure Nauz would win. But might as well find out.

If Nauz wins, then SEAD will truly no longer be all u NEAD. If he loses, then some merit to the template we must conCEAD. So Nauz, let's just play this out, agREAD? Let's just proCEAD.

Edited 5/17/2021 18:19:55

OK Nauz,

I'm going to try to be as nice to you as possible. It was pretty fun messing with you, I'll admit. But, this has clearly gone too far. I play this game for enjoyment, not to respond to 72 angry texts every morning. I don't think you should bring my career into this. You know nothing about me other than warzone, or anything about me other than this thread. I did not bring your career into it when you tried to humblebrag about your 2 masters. I didn't counter with any information on my career. It's not fair game.

Now about warzone, what SEAD is NEAD said is correct. I felt you were being unbelievably elitist. And you don't agree; or rather, you see things differently. And that's OK. We can agree to disagree. But what's clear is that you did talk shit on SE and me for playing it. Not to mention the numerous times you called me a moron or an equivalent. And that's what led to this situation.

I agree with SEAD. I don't think SE has been "solved" fully yet, and at least not by any active current player. While people can play SE pretty optimally (like 95% ish), the last few percentage points require rigorous case by case knowledge and nuanced ideas. And maybe that isn't interesting for you and you'd rather play another template that has more room for creativity. And that's totally fine if so. But it is interesting for me and I enjoy playing it.

Not only that, but I like the community of people who play it. You don't know them, but many of them are the kind of people who do research on their theses while sipping tea and playing warzone. They are not the kind of people who respond to these threads. That community has been nothing but nice and positive to me.

And that's why I felt so strongly about your elitist comments. They were rude and out of touch. And, if you're going to insult me and my friends in that community, then I'll play you. I gave you 3 options: 1) stop talking shit, 2) admit you'd lose, or 3) play me, and that still stands.

It looks like you've already admitted you'd lose a real time Small Earth series against me. If that's the case, then that's fine. If not, then you either have to withdraw your comments or you have to play me in real time Small Earth. You can't have your cake and eat it too. I personally object to the notion of betting coins on these games; that just seems even more elitist to me. But, like I said, I have people who will support on that front. So we can do a coin match if you want.

But that's just my own personal beef with you. SEAD is NEAD brought another interesting point. This could be a good forum to judge whether your elitist opinions on SE hold any water. SEAD is NEAD is good at Small Earth and he is in the Republic of Korea with me. If you won't play me, then you should play him at the very least.

Good reaction Sanmu!

imagine acting even more immature than me