EPTGame 1
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Game 1: Metalopolis, cross positions
Rain expands after his first barracks and then adds on two more. HongUn Expands after starting to research warpgates and then adds on two gateways and a robotics facility. Rain adds on two more barracks and a ghost academy as he gets some add-ons and starts stim, combat shields, and concussive shells. HongUn builds two forges for +1/+1. Rain moves out with smallish army, but gets half his army cupped by forcefields, loses a lot of units, and is forced to retreat. HongUn continues chronoboosting +2/+2, gets his twilight council for charge, and starts his templar archives.
Rain techs up to starport for medivacs and starts his own +1/+1 off two engineering bays. Both players expand to their thirds. A confrontation in the middle of the map sees HongUn chasing Rain all the way back to his base but eventually losing his army after trading for roughly equal food. +3/+3 finishes for HongUn, as well as storm and the khaydarin amulet. Both players keep adding on basic production facilities. HongUn again pushes to Rain's base as he expands to his forth, takes the gold, and builds a fleet beacon. Rain pushes against HongUn's gold, but runs into a huge wall of storms and gg's.
The upgrades were the name of the game in this match. The impressive thing was that they allowed HongUn to use chargelots to push Rain's bioball around the map. Six or seven chargelots would force much bigger balls of infantry all the way across the map. They would die to kiting, of course, but they gave HongUn a very strong presence on the map and in the late game gave HongUn a clear path over which to storm. I've never seen protoss gateway armies do so well against terran bioballs.
HongUn 1-0
Rain expands after his first barracks and then adds on two more. HongUn Expands after starting to research warpgates and then adds on two gateways and a robotics facility. Rain adds on two more barracks and a ghost academy as he gets some add-ons and starts stim, combat shields, and concussive shells. HongUn builds two forges for +1/+1. Rain moves out with smallish army, but gets half his army cupped by forcefields, loses a lot of units, and is forced to retreat. HongUn continues chronoboosting +2/+2, gets his twilight council for charge, and starts his templar archives.
Rain techs up to starport for medivacs and starts his own +1/+1 off two engineering bays. Both players expand to their thirds. A confrontation in the middle of the map sees HongUn chasing Rain all the way back to his base but eventually losing his army after trading for roughly equal food. +3/+3 finishes for HongUn, as well as storm and the khaydarin amulet. Both players keep adding on basic production facilities. HongUn again pushes to Rain's base as he expands to his forth, takes the gold, and builds a fleet beacon. Rain pushes against HongUn's gold, but runs into a huge wall of storms and gg's.
The upgrades were the name of the game in this match. The impressive thing was that they allowed HongUn to use chargelots to push Rain's bioball around the map. Six or seven chargelots would force much bigger balls of infantry all the way across the map. They would die to kiting, of course, but they gave HongUn a very strong presence on the map and in the late game gave HongUn a clear path over which to storm. I've never seen protoss gateway armies do so well against terran bioballs.
HongUn 1-0
Game 2
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Game 2: Xel'Naga caverns.
Rain opens with two barracks, one reactored the other techlabbed. HongUn scouts it and so opens early stargate. Rain expands and then attacks up HongUn's ramp. HongUn traps Rain's units in with a forcefield and kills them all with minimal losses. The game is paused by Rain due to monitor difficulties, but is quickly resumed. HongUn pushes out across the map to Rain's natural with a mostly zealot voidray army. He harasses into Rain's main with voidrays, then traps Rain's units in his main with a forcefield as he attacks the natural. But when the forcefield wears out, Rain manages to chase HongUn out of his expansion. HongUn loses two void rays to stimmed marines. He then loses the rest his army to Rain's infantry and leaves the game.
It really seemed like HongUn had the game after destroying Rain's first force, but he just couldn't convert.
Rain 1-1
Rain opens with two barracks, one reactored the other techlabbed. HongUn scouts it and so opens early stargate. Rain expands and then attacks up HongUn's ramp. HongUn traps Rain's units in with a forcefield and kills them all with minimal losses. The game is paused by Rain due to monitor difficulties, but is quickly resumed. HongUn pushes out across the map to Rain's natural with a mostly zealot voidray army. He harasses into Rain's main with voidrays, then traps Rain's units in his main with a forcefield as he attacks the natural. But when the forcefield wears out, Rain manages to chase HongUn out of his expansion. HongUn loses two void rays to stimmed marines. He then loses the rest his army to Rain's infantry and leaves the game.
It really seemed like HongUn had the game after destroying Rain's first force, but he just couldn't convert.
Rain 1-1
Game 3
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Game 3: Lost Temple, cross positions
Both players tech fairly early: Rain up to a tank drop, and HongUn to blink stalkers + hallucination. Rain uses some interesting tank centipede micro to pick off some stalkers in the middle of the map. HongUn blinks up into Rain's base, but is quickly destroyed by tanks and marines. Rain moves across the map with marines and tanks, but some super fancy blink micro by HongUn eventually repels it.
Both players expand to their naturals. HongUn techs up to dark templar. But Rain makes a raven and switches over to some marauder production. After Stim finishes for Rain, he starts both combat shields and concussive shells. A blink raid by HungUn manages to take out a techlab, a medivac, and the raven as his robotics bay finishes.
Constant dark templar harassment on Rain's huge army forces it back to his base but does little damage. HongUn tries to expand to his gold, but his two-colossus army gets caught in middle of the map by a huge marine-marauder-tank army, which lets Rain roll into HongUn's base for the win
HongUn lost a lot of supply and resources in small groups for too little gain. So when the final confrontation came, Rain's army was just too big. HongUn must have lost at least five or six dark templar for a grand total of a couple marines.
Rain 2-1
Both players tech fairly early: Rain up to a tank drop, and HongUn to blink stalkers + hallucination. Rain uses some interesting tank centipede micro to pick off some stalkers in the middle of the map. HongUn blinks up into Rain's base, but is quickly destroyed by tanks and marines. Rain moves across the map with marines and tanks, but some super fancy blink micro by HongUn eventually repels it.
Both players expand to their naturals. HongUn techs up to dark templar. But Rain makes a raven and switches over to some marauder production. After Stim finishes for Rain, he starts both combat shields and concussive shells. A blink raid by HungUn manages to take out a techlab, a medivac, and the raven as his robotics bay finishes.
Constant dark templar harassment on Rain's huge army forces it back to his base but does little damage. HongUn tries to expand to his gold, but his two-colossus army gets caught in middle of the map by a huge marine-marauder-tank army, which lets Rain roll into HongUn's base for the win
HongUn lost a lot of supply and resources in small groups for too little gain. So when the final confrontation came, Rain's army was just too big. HongUn must have lost at least five or six dark templar for a grand total of a couple marines.
Rain 2-1
Game 4
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Game 4: Delta Quadrant, HongUn clockwise.
Rain opens with three naked barracks, only one of which is scouted. HongUn opens with four gateways. Rain pulls a bunch of his scvs and gets to Rain's base right as warpgates finish. A bunker goes down in range of two pylons and two warpgates. HongUn is forced to rebuild a bunch of his base on the far side of his nexus. HongUn's micro holds up for a while, but barely doesn't manage to break the bunker, and so is eventually overrun.
One of the keys here was the fact that Rain sent a bunch of his scvs back to his base and was willing to trade marines for probes as he restarted scv production. The extra income allowed him to make another barracks and eventually overrun HongUn to get within one game of the finals.
Rain 3-1
Rain opens with three naked barracks, only one of which is scouted. HongUn opens with four gateways. Rain pulls a bunch of his scvs and gets to Rain's base right as warpgates finish. A bunker goes down in range of two pylons and two warpgates. HongUn is forced to rebuild a bunch of his base on the far side of his nexus. HongUn's micro holds up for a while, but barely doesn't manage to break the bunker, and so is eventually overrun.
One of the keys here was the fact that Rain sent a bunch of his scvs back to his base and was willing to trade marines for probes as he restarted scv production. The extra income allowed him to make another barracks and eventually overrun HongUn to get within one game of the finals.
Rain 3-1
Game 5
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Game 5: Scrap Station
After some more technical difficulties HongUn opens with four warp gates, which is scouted by Rain's floating factory. Rain gets quick concussive shells and starts a command center. When the four gate push comes, Rain doesn't pull his scvs in time and both bunkers fall. HongUn is able to overrun.
After scouting the four gateways so early, it seemed like Rain should have been bettered prepared against such a standard build.
HongUn 2-3
After some more technical difficulties HongUn opens with four warp gates, which is scouted by Rain's floating factory. Rain gets quick concussive shells and starts a command center. When the four gate push comes, Rain doesn't pull his scvs in time and both bunkers fall. HongUn is able to overrun.
After scouting the four gateways so early, it seemed like Rain should have been bettered prepared against such a standard build.
HongUn 2-3
Game 6
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Game 6: Blistering Sands
Rain expands behind quick concussive shells and adds on two barracks. HongUn gets four warpgates, a very quick twilight council for charge, and pulls all of his probes off of gas. HongUn goes to work breaking down Rain's backdoor rocks with mostly stalkers as Rain adds on two more barracks. HongUn breaks down the rocks and attacks with fifteen zealots at 9'. But he suicides a lot of them into a bunker with a million scvs repairing it! The bunker is placed just so that the zealots can barely hit the bunker, but also can't get good surface area on the scvs due to other buildings. The zealots just charge around in aimless confusion as they are mown down by marines. In the end HongUn loses most of his zealots without doing any significant damage. HongUn recharges his zealot count and tries to get into the terran mineral line. But the zealots funnel single file into marines and die. HongUn goes for a last ditch dark shrine, but Rain has plenty of scans saved up and so is able to move on to the finals. Tasteless awkwardly describes an apparently very touching moment between Rain and his coach that happens off screen.
Rain definitely silenced any of his critics with this match, showing that he certainly deserves to be in the finals. He played very solidly throughout and won quite convincingly. Despite some significant errors, HongUn showed some very strong and creative play. I really wish he would have used his plan from the first game more as it seemed very strong.
Rain wins 4-2
Rain expands behind quick concussive shells and adds on two barracks. HongUn gets four warpgates, a very quick twilight council for charge, and pulls all of his probes off of gas. HongUn goes to work breaking down Rain's backdoor rocks with mostly stalkers as Rain adds on two more barracks. HongUn breaks down the rocks and attacks with fifteen zealots at 9'. But he suicides a lot of them into a bunker with a million scvs repairing it! The bunker is placed just so that the zealots can barely hit the bunker, but also can't get good surface area on the scvs due to other buildings. The zealots just charge around in aimless confusion as they are mown down by marines. In the end HongUn loses most of his zealots without doing any significant damage. HongUn recharges his zealot count and tries to get into the terran mineral line. But the zealots funnel single file into marines and die. HongUn goes for a last ditch dark shrine, but Rain has plenty of scans saved up and so is able to move on to the finals. Tasteless awkwardly describes an apparently very touching moment between Rain and his coach that happens off screen.
Rain definitely silenced any of his critics with this match, showing that he certainly deserves to be in the finals. He played very solidly throughout and won quite convincingly. Despite some significant errors, HongUn showed some very strong and creative play. I really wish he would have used his plan from the first game more as it seemed very strong.
Rain wins 4-2
Game 7
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I guess when all you have is chargelots, everything looks like an isolated tank
