EPTZvP on Shakuras.
Spawned in close-air positions.
Me: Speedling expand.
Him: Forge-expand.
My response: Continually scouted the front of his natural while gritting my teeth and droning like a madman. Placed a couple of spines at my natural in case he poked with anything, and a little later dropped a spore crawler at each base in case of DTs or air. Got two bases nicely saturated with decent gas timings, sent an overlord over his main and started making roaches.
His attack: He rolls out across the map with a river of stalkers just after I placed my third at around 8:30. To be quite honest, there looked to be so many of them that I almost gave up then and there. They turned out to be blink stalkers too, as he hopped up into my main. Rather to my surprise, I managed to hold by maintaining roach production.
My follow-up: Finding myself in uncharted territory (that is to say, still alive after a 6/7 gate blink stalker push) I pushed forward to contain him at his ramp. He seemed to be trying to take the pocket third but I denied it.
FATAL MISTAKE:I made the classic Zerg error of waiting too long and maxing on Lair tech units, and also failed to take any more bases. Sitting at 200/200 with money and larvae in the bank, I decided to try and take him with a 300-food push, throwing everything I had up his ramp while remaking roaches and belatedly teching to hive. I barely scratched his army and he pushed out immediately. My roaches and corruptors spawned, and I was eventually able to take down his forces, but not until after it took out my third. With no reserves and only one mining base, I was dismayed to see he had taken a third in the meantime. His next stalker push came while I was gloomily trying to resaturate a new third, and I had to GG.
Specific lessons learned:
The follow-up to holding off a big two-base Protoss push is to contain, expand, and tech, because when he pushes out again he's going to have his big force-multipliers: Colossi and suchlike. I could have had broodlords at the back of his natural and what became his third so easily, so much earlier. I could have been dropping roaches into his main, lobbing infested terrans into his natural, gooping up his gateways with overseers. I could have had three more bases.
General lessons learned:
This was the first time I'd ever held off a 6-7 gate push, and I did it by brutally crushing that nagging voice telling me to get some early units 'just in case'. For the first seven minutes or so I had four lings, all of which got used poking up his ramp into the cannons. I kept my money really low for that opening period - scarily low: it was weird to start roach production on two bases with two queens and to only be able to make three roaches, both larvae and resource-wise. In fact, it felt like I must have done something wrong, and that's perhaps the most important lesson of all. I need to re-educate the part of my brain that tells me I'm doing well when I'm able to spam out nine or ten roaches at a time.
ZvZ on Antiga Shipyard
Me: Speedling expand.
Him: Hatch first with spines and lings.
My early attack: Ran lings and roaches past his spines into his main, taking out a queen and keeping him busy for a bit. Sloppy macro in the meantime meant I had a bunch of minerals, which I quickly turned into two more expansions at my third and the nearest gold.
His response: He teched hard and attacked with mutalisks. I had to sacrifice my fourth base, but was able to use queens and a couple of spores in my main and natural to drive him off.
My follow-up: Made a large hydralisk force off three bases and pushed across the map. He'd continued teching hard and had broodlords out, but couldn't prevent me erasing his natural. He had the tech advantage but I had the production, and was able to go toe-to-toe at the central raised watchtower with a constant stream of hydra whittling down his mutalisk numbers and focusing down broodlords. I did a ling-runby into his main and took down the completely undefended greater spire, retook my fourth base, patrolled lings for hidden expos and crushed through with a massive switch to corruptors to take the game.
Specific lessons learned:
To be honest, it was a bit of a scrappy game and I don't think there was much to glean from it.
General lessons learned:
Bite the bullet and expand, especially on a map like that one. Play to my strengths: if I've made units, use them.
ZvP on Nezarim Crypt
Me: Speedling expand.
Him: 3-gate expand.
My response: I convinced myself he was going to play aggressively (zealots and stalkers out first rather than sentries) and made rather too many roaches. I droned and took a third behind them, kept an eye on his ramp and saw that he was expanding and placing cannons. I made sure he wasn't taking a third, and - mindful of my earlier mistakes - teched up to hive and a greater spire in good time, as well as placing three more bases on my side of the map. I made a few mutalisks and sent them into his base, and was able to take advantage of his simcity to kill a lot of probes.
His attack: He poked with DTs at my third but I saw them off with minimal damage. My mutalisks finally induced him to push out with an odd mixture of zealots, immortals, a few phoenix and a couple of void rays. I had a huge roach-ling army out in the middle of the map and managed to flank him quite nicely, taking out almost everything he had.
FATAL MISTAKE:This was more bad luck than anything. While placing the expansions, I'd accidentally broken my keybinds, so that only a single incomplete hatchery was now bound to '1', rather than all six bases. Thus, despite having dilligently spawned larvae in preparation for remaxing, I found myself inexplicably unable to build anything to take care of his few remaining forces, which took advantage of my confusion and charged into my main. Although I saved most of my tech with hasty spines and spore crawlers - crucially took out my hive and spawning pool. Without the ability to make spines and spores, and with my lair rebuilding, he was able to put a DT in each of my expansions and whittle them all down. I made a valiant last stand with some lings, roaches and broodlords but couldn't break his heavily cannoned third and had to GG.
Specific lessons learned:
I shouldn't have overreacted at the start and made so many roaches. As it happened that wasn't a factor in the loss, but I could have had a much stronger economy and earlier tech if I'd made do with a couple of spines - I had ample scouting info.
I expanded in a timely fashion and my overall plan - to hit broodlord tech in time to counterpush - would have worked perfectly but for the unfortunate keybind mixup.
General lessons learned:
Once again, map presence was key. I could have done even better by occupying the tower closer to his base; that would have given me longer to remax.
ZvT on Abyssal Caverns
Spawned close air positions.
Me: Roach expand
Him: Mass BF hellions
My response: I scouted exactly what he was doing, spread overlords to watch for drops and made roaches to hold the front.
His attack: His 10-12 blueflame hellions, when they came, killed a total of 3 drones. He then proceeded to try and drop, but lost everything again to queens and roaches. Meanwhile I sneaked a third, which he later dropped, losing all but a single hellion in exchange for a few drones.
FATAL MISTAKE: Distracted by his harass and with no clear plan (similar to the 7-gate blink build yesterday, I'd never survived versus BF hellions before and had no idea what to do next) I didn't pay enough attention to what he was making, and my macro slipped horribly, teching to hive far too late.
His follow-up: He turtled up on two bases with masses of turrets and siege tanks, adding on a couple of thors, and then pushed out, catching me with 2000/1000 in the bank and dithering over what to build. The short push distance gave me no time to recover and he rolled over me.
Specific lessons learned:
I think that the correct follow-up to fending off mass BF hellions is to tech, because the Terran is geared up for mech, can turtle very hard, but has no immediate ability to attack. A couple of broodlords would have made all the difference, and I could easily have had them in time.
