GSL2 RO4: NesTea vs SlayerSBoxeR

Game 1: Delta Quadrant, close positions, Boxer clockwise
      Boxer walls in the bottom of his ramp, gets another barracks. Nestea gets his spawning pool first, then a roach warren at around 18 supply as Boxer gets both gasses. Boxer scouts the earlyish roaches and quickly gets a bunker at the bottom of his ramp, lifts his barracks back into his base, and put a tech lab on it. Meanwhile, Nestea gets speed for his zerglings and a nest for his banelings (and beer for his horses?). Nestea sacrifices his entire economy for a giant army, going down 14 drones to 27 scvs. He ends up attacking with 25 zerglings, 5 banelings, and 8 roaches into 4 marauders and 14 marines in one bunker at the 7:20 mark. The push breaks Boxer fairly comfortably, and that's game.

A very solid all-in by Nestea.

NesTea 1-0

Game 2: Metalopolis, positions close by air
      Nestea ninja scouts with his overlord, and expands before pool. Boxer gets a tech lab, reaper, and a bunker behind the the mineral line of the natural. But the drones actually catch the reaper before it can there, almost killing it. So Boxer just expands with the extra minerals from the successfully salvaged bunker. Boxer continues to tech up to factory for tanks and a starport for banshees, but Nestea takes his third and gets a baneling next. Kyrix goes for a 17 baneling bust, but it does almost no damage due to Boxer's sieged tanks.
      After the bust fails, Nestea gets his lair and uses it to get a spire, then a roach warren. He also tries for a forth base, but Boxer kills it with his banshees, then goes into Nestea's third for some nice harassment with some blue-flame hellions, which kill all the drones at the third, and many at Nestea's natural. In response, Nestea sends over a dozen mutalisks, which take out a fair amount of scvs. Boxer hides a third at the 12 o'clock natural, and pushes out. He sets up camp at the bottom of Nestea's main with four thors, a bunch of sieged tanks, and light marine support, then does some elevator action to the higher ground. Nestea has made more than enough roaches to hold it off, and counterattacks when some drop ships save the thors from acidy green death.
      But Boxer actually stays in the base and continues to do damage with the thors. At this point, though, Nestea's mutas have killed almost all Boxer's scvs, so while Boxer stays in the game for which a while with some fancy tricks, he just can't keep up in supply and gg's out.

Boxer did a lot of excellent work this game, but Nestea's macro and tech kept him significantly ahead the entire game. Boxer seemed uncharacteristically passive, maybe a little rattled after that reaper got caught. This was a good example of how difficult it is to win if you let a zerg's macro get out of control. If that hellion harass had started earlier, it could have been a different game altogether.

NesTea 2-0

Game 3: Scrap Station
      Boxer double proxy barracks at the third, which float up to the weird highground area above Nestea's natural. Nestea early expands, scouts the barracks, and manages to stop bunkers completing at his natural with zerglings. Boxer is forced to rally the marines behind the barracks. Nestea counterattacks with his zerglings. Boxer tries putting up three barracks at his ramp, but the zerglings get through. Boxer holds it off, but at a huge cost to his scv count. Nestea gets speed and a lair. Boxer tries to do some damage with the marines from his now five barracks, but Nestea easily has enough stuff.

All there is to say about this game is that Boxer proxied; Nestea scouted it in time, and responded to it appropriately.

NesTea 3-0

Game 4: Blistering Sands
      Boxer proxies a barracks in the middle of the map, and gets a second at his natural's choke. Nestea early expands and spots the proxy. A bunker is completed, but only one marine makes it in after a couple die to some perfectly executed drone surrounds. The rush is pushed back by zerglings, and Boxer floats the forward barracks back to complete the wall-in at his natural's choke. Boxer expands, but doesn't seem to have vision of a bunch of zerglings taking out his back-door rocks. It's ok though, since he attacks with about ten marines into Nestea's natural which forces the zerglings to defend. Nestea fends it off at little cost.
      As Boxer techs up to tanks and a starport, Nestea manages to take down the back-door rocks, catching Boxer completely off guard. The zerglings get in, but don't actually do that much damage at first. Siege mode finishes, which helps to fend off the stream of zerglings. Nestea sees he won't do enough damage with tier 1 units and finally starts his lair. Boxer pushes out with marine/tank. The push looks strong, but Nestea pulls all of his queens to help fight it off, which they do. Nestea gets his tech with baneling speed, some upgrades, a spire, and a third hatchery in his own base.
      A drop by Boxer delays a third at Nestea's gold, but the first round of mutas come out, which lets Nesta kill the medivac and re-expand. Boxer pushes out with medivac/marine/tank and a handful of marauders. But the marines get caught on creep-- fall to speed banelings, roaches, and mutalisks. At this point Boxer is down by about forty food and gets overrun.

Boxer couldn't win despite being up in tech and being on an equal number of bases for a long time after stabilizing. Very impressive by Nestea to both hold off the rush and still win after his own counterattack failed.

NesTea wins 4-0.

Nestea is obviously emotional after the last gg, and rightfully so, having blanked a legend. He played very well, and never was seriously in danger of dropping his first game in the entire tournament. He made all the right units at exactly the right times while keeping his economy huge throughout the match- very impressive.

Boxer, on the other hand, showed an extreme discomfort with the TvZ matchup. He never once showed the dominance and clear control that he did in all of his TvTs earlier in the tournament. It wasn't as though there was a single flaw in his game either: he lost to a rush, a macro game, a failed rush, and a fairly non-standard, weird, back-and-forth game. Boxer had said going into this match that he wasn't fully prepared for a zerg opponent, and this was shown to be precisely the case. A disappointing match after an exciting tournament for The Emperor.

NesTea needs no game 5

Not needed

Not needed