The early game doesnt matter at all most of the times, but the midgame is the time where you can gain an advantage for the endgame. I think in ~75% (thats just a random guess out of my memory) of the games I have an HP lead when it's down to 1vs1 in Hysteria.
That's a nice way to put it but depends entirely on a persons perspective and how they play, I cannot disagree that for Random, that's how it is.
I will definitely say that in some games the 1st few turns have little to no effect on the outcome of the game, but that's true for almost every scheme, again, depending on your perspective.
He might look at my 1st turn as unimportant, but for me my 1st turn can kill/push an enemy worm and steal the best spot on a map.
But imo, there are easy-to-execute tactics that can give you a gamble situation at the end. I never saw anyone actually doing it against me yet, but I think this is the main flaw of hysteria. It kinda leads to the situation that Free described, where its down to one nearly horizontal shot with zook at the end of sd.
Depending on the map and the bng skill of the player that uses this tactic you can win at least 1 out of 3 games against ANY player. I can't prove it, cause like I said, I've never seen anyone tyring to play like this, cause your winning chances are <50% like this, imo, because your opponent has to miss one important shot for you to win.
Again, this is just opinion based and depends on your perspective, what you see as a flaw, other people see it as something they enjoy and appreciate, 99/1, 1/99 or 50/50 it's still true.
He says he can't prove it, why is that? If it's "easy-to-execute" then why couldn't he prove it? 1 reason would be because Hysteria games(like all schemes) usually have the same outcome in the end, but it's never the same step-by-step shots/positions/tactics, the same things happen again and again but in different orders/ways.(After all, it is a sandbox game)
Even if the game doesn't go your way you can still save it late game by hiding on the edge of the map, forcing SD, hope for your opponent to miss once you teleport up (of course it's a gamble, nobody has 100% accuracy, not even you Komo), and then have a big chance to gg him. The success rate of this is, as has already been said, less than 50%, but even if it were only 10% it's still ridiculously high for not doing anything productive during the entire game.
Even if Elite doesn't go your way you can get a few lucky roller nades and do a lot of damage and make a huge comeback.
Part of the fun of Hysteria is that whole rush at the end trying to get those perfect shots off.
This cannot be argued - If aimbots played Hysteria, it wouldn't be a problem, so it comes down to a players skill and the luck they create, which is totally acceptable.(and NOT a flaw.)
Point being, YOU are in control of your shots, you don't press a button and a random shot happens, YOU aim and YOU let go of the space to judge pwoer, you could practise enough you get to the point where you rarely miss, like me in BnG at my peak.
Being SO good at nades/zooks makes people fear you, such as people fear hiding more open Vs me in Elite, they know I will destroy them with BnG, THIS has an affect on a game as well.