My online tournament recap (p1)

Hi guys, I'm starting a new blog that chronicles my recent online tournament that I participated in. My name's Jtn and I was a diamond zerg player in season one, and for season two I switched to random since I found playing all 3 races to be more fun than just staying as zerg.

This online tournament was just a small tournament meant for just our small group of friends consisting of 12 players total. We had a similar tournament last year that had 8 players where I ended up in the finals, but lost to a protoss player 4-0 in the finals T_T (lost to a 1 base +1 zealot/stalker/immortal push every single game man I was bad). The format for this second tournament was double elimination and all matches were Bo3 until the Semis and Finals, which were Bo5 and Bo7 respectively. The map pool consisted of just the ladder maps, minus Slag Pits and Delta Quadrant because they suck.

A quick background before I get into my first series: right before the tournament commenced, I had just finished exams and also had a quick vacation in Hong Kong to visit my family and relatives, so I was incredibly rusty going into these games. When the tournament organizer asked me what race I was going to play, I picked Zerg even though I had been playing random the entire second season of the ladder because I felt my skill had deteriorated so much that I should stick to my beloved Zerg. Also I have to admit that Nestea's run in the GSL inspired me to pick Zerg again since watching GSL and TSL were my only connection to SC during my stay in Hong Kong due to me not bringing my laptop over.

So my first series was against a Terran who goes by the name CKL (a good friend of mine from way back in highschool), and let me tell you it was one hilarious series. He had also not played SC in a while due to heavy school work and man, both of us were getting completely supply blocked and making completely retarded decisions throughout. But let me promise you, the rest of the tournament gets better! Let's get into this first game of this first Bo3 series:

Game 1: Metalopolis+ Show Spoiler +

We spawn close air, which I immediately scout with my OL. I go for 15 hatch, 15 pool, or well...that was my original plan. Too bad I accidentally made an OL instead of a pool because I thought I already made a pool. Oops. Maybe I should've played a practice game before the tournament <_<

15 hatch 15 OL 15 pool is a good build

The worst part was that he was doing the standard 2 rax, and my zerglings were heavily delayed, but because he was rusty too, his opening was a couple seconds late and I successfully held off his attack with a handful of lings, forcing him to cancel his bunker and walk back home with a couple of marine casualties.

Seeing his expansion, I grab my third at around the 10 minute mark, around the same time as his natural starts to get saturated. Using an OL, I see a factory + tech lab, so I anticipate the standard marine/tank build. This calls for standard zerg play: mutas!

What a bad place for a turret. Notice all those supply drops, hahaha

Eventually he decides he has a big enough marine/tank ball to push through. But he's not expecting me to engage so soon and well, I catch a couple of his tank unsieged! I push through and engage with about 40 lings, 20 banes, and 10 or so mutas against his 20ish marines and 5 tanks.

Let's see if I remember how to actually manage battles

I dunno if he was looking somewhere else but all my banelings exploded on his marines and....yeah.

...was that it?

Foolishly thinking I was really far ahead, I decide to do a small counter attack with my mutas and fly directly over a pack of marines and a thor in his main. I think I end up losing like 6 mutas for free. He tries to expand to the gold but I deny it with a ton of lings and blings, forcing him to lift. His army composition starts to look like Thor/Marine while I'm still sticking to ling/bling/muta. I'm sitting at a comfortable 61 drones to his 55 SCVs, and my 4th and 5th have just gone up. Things are looking good.

DENIED

He manages to sneak in his 3rd and makes it into a planetary with turret support before I can deny it, but by now I have a pretty scary flock of 30 mutas. So here I am, destroying his main with my mutas when for some reason or another, I end up looking away for 5 seconds. This is what happens when you don't look at your mutas for 5 seconds.

Alright my mutas look fine, time to inject....

....fuck

Here comes his big push. I think I have enough units, so I throw everything I have at him. Turns out thors and marines actually do a shit ton of dps. I lose pretty much all my lings and blings for maybe a tank and a couple marines.

FFFFFFFFFFFFF

Good thing I had 5 hatcheries though, because I end up making around 60 zerglings and A LOT of baimnings.

How many banelings is that, Artosis? Just a few

I end up wiping out that attack even when I decide to be retarded and use my lings on marines and banelings on thors herpderp. Now I have ultras out. My opponent is still in this game though, he has now expanded to the gold and has cut thor production. Now' he's got a ton of marines and tanks, perfect against my ground army (not sure why I didn't go Broodlords).

But then I did what every Zerg player does when he's miles ahead. I made a million banelings and right clicked on his planetary fortress at the gold. It died. By this time I was so far ahead it was the simple matter of finishing him up for the GG.

Hope you guys enjoyed reading this blog, and stay tuned for the rest of the series and the tournament! Thanks for reading, and any suggestions/comments are most certainly welcome!

My online tournament recap (p1)

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