[herTTTz]

As many of the sc2 players here might know, the guy who wrote this (day9) is one of the famous person in esports right now. He used to be a professional player of sc, but since sc2 appeared (2010) he dedicated to analyze the game, and has even a daily show about it.

The interesting thing about starcraft is that it's played _so_ much (in s. korea is a profession, kids actually go to live in "pro houses" were they play all day), that the game has/is evolving to a point where every little thing matters. In the highest levels, you can't really fight a straight up battle and hope to win, it's a game of getting little advantages (like removing %1 of his income) and trying to get ahead, and push those advantages much later on. Increasing your economy, building up you army, the execution and management of your units in the fight, everything counts.

[endtime]

The game is played at a high level, sure, but I'd call this a slight exaggeration. 1% of a player's income is less than a single worker even in the late game (when most players have around 70 workers), and a single worker kill never really makes a huge difference.

[jarin]

Killing a single mining worker can make a difference very early in the game if they're using a very timing-heavy strategy, but that's really only at the very tip-top levels of play.

[jtchang]

Depends when the kill is. A single worker from your initial 6? Big problem.

[endtime]

You can't even get a scout worker to your opponent's base before they're up to 9-10 workers or more on most maps. Anyway, killing one worker of 6 is 17% of someone's economy, not 1%.

[algorias]

Killing a worker early is subject to compound interest, so that 17% (or 10% more realistically) of an early worker kill is going to grow exponentially all game long.

[endtime]

>an early worker kill is going to grow exponentially all game long.

That's a very unrealistic claim, though yes, losing a worker very early can have a measurable effect. But that pretty much never happens, outside of all-in cheeses like 6 pool or proxy 2 rax/gate.

Are you defending the original claim that games are decided over affecting 1% of one's opponents economy?

[jasonlotito]

> the original claim that games are decided over affecting 1% of one's opponents economy?

The original claim wasn't that the game was decided over 1% of someones economy. Rather, that games were decided over many small advantages gained, things like affecting someones economy by 1%. You do that 5-10 times throughout the game, and that's a good 5-10% of their economy.