ZvZ. Yay.

neobowman

Canada3324 Posts

April 18 2010 20:58 GMT

ZvZ. Yay.

Despite the thread title, I actually enjoy ZvZ. It's a fast paced matchup where you can win pretty easily if you play solid, but can still go all-in on your opponent and win that way too.

I played a game against this one guy, Corpse_Martyr. This was back around the end of March. Zerg vs Zerg. I played one game with him, got 5 pooled + sunken rushed, against my 12 pool. Normal people would rage and quit against this guy, but me being me (a guy who cheeses half his games himself) asked for help against the strategy and then went on to game 2.

I spawn at the 5 O clock on Fighting Spirit, while Corpse_Martyr (henceforth known as Bob) spawned at the 7. He quickly reassured me with these words.

Sure, buddy.

I go yet again for my standard 12 pool 11 hatch 11 gas build (I invented it! Me! ALL ME!), while Bob goes for a 12 hatch, which I scout with my second overlord.

T_T

Build order loss. Undeterred, I put up my spire. Normal people would've taken advantage of faster mutalisks with an earlier spire, but me, being the me that I am, instead opted to pump a few more drones, delaying the spire so that it came up at around the same time that Bob's spire got up.
*Facepalm*
I put up a nice little ling wall at my natural in the meantime, to stop any ling all ins... Or not.

"ahs hit" indeed.

By now, a normal, sane person would have hurled some indecent expletives at Bob, mulled around for no reason for a few seconds before deciding that he had better things to do in life than annoying some nerd on the other side of the internet.

However, I am not a normal person. ~~I AM THE ONE~~ I AM A KOREAN! WHO LIVES IN CANADA! So technically, my countries own all the OSL and MSL titles ever. Hah.

I manage to sneak a few lings into his base, while he assaults my giant pulsating excuse for an organ (my buildings) with his own zerglings.

This actually happens so many more times in this game, that I got so tired of adding them in that I just decided to trash half the screens of this happening.

My office of drones running around, defending with pencils and pens.

With both our spires up and lings dead, we both transition into air. Bob goes for the standard mutalisks, while I go for scourge (This is because no D to C- player I know of has even half decent mutalisk micro against scourge. It hits every single time. That and I don't want to practice my own muta micro.) I manage to snipe several of his mutalisks with scourge, so Bob just goes for lings.

ahs hit

If I could make GIFs, this would be one.
+ Show Spoiler +

And thus, I transition into turtle Zerg mode. Though honestly, I have no idea how that works. Do I have to infest a turtle or something?

Here comes mass spore colonies.

While the mutas are away

The Zerglings will ~~eat Bob's guts~~ play.

There was then a lull in the action, where Bob (that's getting old. He's now known as Paul) was scared shitless by the possibility of a ling backstab, and did not move out. I thus took the opportunity to climb back up the spire. (That was so terrible that I don't even think it counts as a pun).

Notice the dots on the minimap? Zerglings readying for a backstab.

A CHANCE.

Or not.

Growing muta count. The group of zerglings that didn't attack last time wait at 3 to backstab.

By now, I'm solidly behind in economy. I don't have that much fewer drones, but I'm 1 gas down. Thus, I do something that I realized that I should've done a while earlier.

Screw it, hidden expo.

And then comes the attack.

Oh man, this could hurt.

Notice the supply count difference. 74 to 31.

The mutas arrive at my mass of spore colonies, my hidden zerglings start to dash towards Paul's base, and he only has half a dozen zerglings to defend.

The zerglings did a sizable amount of damage, and I felt that I had scared Paul enough to feel safe. In the meantime, my hidden expansion got up, and Paul started his own third at the 3 o clock.

Then he spots my hidden expansion.

And SCOURGETRAP!

Now comes with lings attacking the opponent's base. Only $999.99.

Fleet of mutalisks is reduced to 6.

And drones escape from the hidden expansion, barely scratched.

All my expansions were destroyed, but I still have plenty of drones left mining minerals. Thus, I splurge on a hatchery, while still whittling down his mutalisk count with scourge barrages. He already has +1 attack for his mutalisks.

Zergling attack that pretty much shuts down Paul's third base. Top right pic is before, rest is after.

In the meantime, I decide to invest in upgrades.

By that point, Paul had +2 air attack upgrades, while I had +1 armour. Oh, and Paul switched to hydras, so he could take out my turtle spore colony style. He also researched lurker tech.

+1 attack for my zerglings kick in just in time to fend off the attack.

Move out into the center of the map to try and and counter. Spot his forces attacking my base but decide I can defend later.

Whee.

We're currently destroying each other's bases, and I figure that I'd be able to take out his hydra force. I finish off the hatchery at 3, and I simply move back to my main to mop up his forces.

Notice +2 air armor.

I continue with some muta harass at his natural, but only snipe a few drones as the hydras are defending. Thankfully though, the hydralisks deal a paltry 3 damage to my armour upgraded mutalisks.

Final Elimination Race

Natural taken down fairly quickly, as well as defending hydras.

Trying to run to opponent's base with drones to make a creep colony or something. Lurker kills them all T_T. MY BUSINESS IS DESTROYED WITHOUT MY OFFICE!

His base is being taken down very quickly by my zerglings. His force of hydras cannot take down my great wall of spore colonies fast enough and come home to defend. Either way, I was comfortable since I still had an extractor at the top right, as well as 3 drones.

He thinks I won.

The last few minutes are best seen through video.

I actually missed a lot of subtle details in this blog. The game was really micro intense (despite Paul not being able to micro against scourge at all). We both made a bunch of mistakes that could've won us the game earlier (like Paul had around 16 mutas when all my defense was 2 spore colonies. I also could've simply pumped drones instead of long distance gas mining with the 3 I had.) Still, I think this was a really nice entertaining game. This Battlereport is a lot more picture based than my last long one. Here's the replay.

O-ops

United States4236 Posts

April 18 2010 21:04 GMT

Holy shit, talk about a comeback...

Gendo is not comparable to Jaedong k?

lgd-haze

Sweden547 Posts

April 18 2010 21:06 GMT

oh my god, i just scrolled through it. And it looks incredible. Giving it a look now!

LordWeird

United States3411 Posts

April 18 2010 21:08 GMT

Neobowman you are my hero!

Audigy

United States200 Posts

April 18 2010 21:09 GMT

(like Paul had around 16 mutas when all my defense was 2 spore colonies. I also could've simply pumped drones instead of long distance gas mining with the 3 I had.)

so that's who bob is!

funny game, i love zvz

Superiorwolf

United States5509 Posts

April 18 2010 21:14 GMT

nice game! I enjoyed reading it

ProoM

Lithuania1741 Posts

April 18 2010 21:15 GMT

wow lol! 5 stars, pretty nice writeup!

crate

United States2474 Posts

April 18 2010 21:16 GMT

Nitpick: I believe that armor counts before size reduction, so the hydras actually deal 4 damage per shot to +2 armor mutas (attack is much better vs hydras because of this). I looked through liquipedia and couldn't find anything about it though.

Interesting read though. The only zvz build I ever use is 10 hat 9 pool 9 gas because my muta vs muta/scourge micro is terrible and a fair number of d players don't build enough sunkens/place them properly/block the ramp well etc.

AcrossFiveJulys

United States3612 Posts

April 18 2010 21:20 GMT

haha, really fun battle report. good job.

seRapH

United States9758 Posts

April 18 2010 21:21 GMT

#10

lol nice game

Superiorwolf

United States5509 Posts

April 18 2010 21:22 GMT

#11

I think size reduction happens first, but I'm not entirely sure. For goliaths I think they get both the size reduction and the double shot reduction from armor, so...
20 x 1/2 = 10
5 - 1 armor = 4
5 - 1 armor = 4
Total goliath damage vs +1 carapace muta is 8 damage. I don't think goliaths do this:
10 - 1 armor = 9
10 - 1 armor = 9
18 x 1/2 = 9 damage

not sure though!

Carnivorous Sheep

Baa?21243 Posts

April 18 2010 21:28 GMT

#12

Why didn't you kill the Lurker o.O

IndecisivePenguin

United States771 Posts

April 18 2010 21:31 GMT

#13

Really nice play-by-play! I can't wait to check this rep out on BW.

ZvZ can be so ridiculous sometimes haha.

neobowman

Canada3324 Posts

April 18 2010 21:32 GMT

#14

On April 19 2010 06:28 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
Why didn't you kill the Lurker o.O

I didn't have detection of it at the time. Assuming you're talking about the lurker that killed 9 drones. I didn't see it, and didn't really care much since I had nearly no ground units.

RoieTRS

United States2569 Posts

April 18 2010 21:32 GMT

#15

How do draws work on iccup?

Ideas

United States8109 Posts

April 18 2010 21:35 GMT

#16

rofl I hate spore colonies in ZvZ -_-

great post

nbtnbt5

232 Posts

April 18 2010 21:42 GMT

#17

5/5 Epic battle report!

3FFA

United States3931 Posts

April 18 2010 21:49 GMT

#18

GJ. I hope I'm not paul because he did a bad job at winning, now BOB, he did a fantastic job!

jk, great job and I hope next time u two face, u loose, also, YOUR NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO USES 12pool 11 hatch 11 gas!

Bibbit

Canada5377 Posts

April 18 2010 21:51 GMT

#19

On April 19 2010 06:49 3FFA wrote:
GJ. I hope I'm not paul because he did a bad job at winning, now BOB, he did a fantastic job!

jk, great job and I hope next time u two face, u loose, also, YOUR NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO USES 12pool 11 hatch 11 gas!

Wow, what a dick.

But on a lighter note, awesomely written battle report.

evanthebouncy!

United States12796 Posts

April 18 2010 22:08 GMT

#20

hahaha he shouldn't switch to hydras