Garja wrote:Ye it's a meta thing, but a bad one I'd say. Russia main and first to address strenght is strelets and early mass. it is simply the easiest yet effective thing to do unless opponent defends well, which implies starting huss.
Because of how straightfoward is the win with an all in rush vs not proper defense the opponent is forced to blindly start cav. Now, it is true that on ESOC maps you have everything together under TC so with good garrison micro and mm you can defend more than what used to be. However, a proper executed all in rush is cracking your defense anyway in a way or another. Might be a grinded out game if you defend perfectly but the simple fact that you're on the backfoot the whole game it should warn you that it's not the proper start.
On a side note, but related I guess, without huss start you're not touching Russia eco at all. This gives russia lot of freedom. For example they can more easily semi FF or even just straight FF. Like Russia can go 17v strelets FF with 1 or 2 TPs (about 8 min) and because you won't have huss anytime soon it's totally safe. You don't want to be on par in ages and eco with Russia.
How is it a bad meta call? It gives you a better winrate, so I'd say it's a good call.
Also I think you overestimate the strengh of coss/strel rush. From experience, I can tell that it is not impossible at all to hold it. It's awkward because you'll get iddled a lot, but in the end you will just hold without losing a single cdb, and the game is not over at all.
Your side note is irrelevant because Russia ff is hopeless vs France semi ff, regardless of the build order.
In addition, I've never seen Russia going ff except on Texas. On Siberia, most players just go 5coss/700w/700c and they have 5coss/5musks to defend the raids.
Finally, you can raid with musks if your opponent has no units.