EPTSo I am a north american zerg but I play on the korean server most of time and this is the first tournament I have been able to do in oh about 2 weeks due to work and working weekends sucks.
So in the past a lot of tournaments I have played in, I make semi finals, go up 1-0, or 2-0 in an invitational I can't remember, then choke or something and lose the next 2-3 games. This has happened in about 3-4 tournaments. I normally make it to the ro16/ro8 in most tournaments I have a chance to play in.
Today, I did not anticipate making it to the semi's in the NA zotac cup #15 I believe it is. I'm going to go a quick overview of my games to get there.
My first game was vs a diamond zerg who plays mostly customs. We both hatch first, he makes a lot of spines and then does a 1/1 roach attack. I hold, he attacks my third kills a lot of drones, I hold though and he gets a little excited and keeps attacking and I hold and eventually continue to win the game. (he was a lot better then I anticipated). Map was shakuras.
My next game was vs the terran Etsurlizzuma. Our game was pretty good, I was a lot more aggressive then usual due to how fast he took his third on shakuras and was able to keep his tank/army count down, stop mining for a little bit with muta/ling/bane vs marine/tank and a few marauders.
game goes on fine, I kill his fourth before he can even start mining, so he's on 3 base to my 5 (6'th being made). By the time my 6'th is up and running he secures his fourth. So I made an ultra cavern, had 5/3 upgrades for ultra's. Was originally going to go broodlrods but I saw him scan and knew he'd make vikings. I attacked his army killing everything except 2 thors, 3 tanks I believe it was. I had 12 ultra's on the way with a ton of lings and about 5-6 infestors. Then he disconnected. We didn't have to re, he never came back online and I am 95% positive my next attack would have killed him. I was literally about to click A, and attack while making sure banelings hit marines, infestors for neural on his mech transition. But I had barely hit the edge of the 2 cliffs closest to your base when he dropped.
I watched the replay curious on if I would have won as I felt, after watching and seeing our armies I am confident I would have stomped his remaining army and won the game. But there is always that slight chance I wouldn't have so i'll never know for sure, just going to say I am pretty sure I had that won (had 7 bases going or the 7'th just finished and I was about to transfer drones.
So awesome i'm in round 4 (had bye round 1).
So I had a zvz with dakkon on metalopolis. I'm not to sure on his skill level but he went for a ling all in as we both hatched first (if I recall right I did play alot of games today so might be wrong). He did a roach/ling attack that I held easily, I took my third he went muta's, I then hit him with a roach/hydra timing attack and just won with relative ease as I had 2-0 upgrades, believe he had 0 and my army was just a lot stronger.
So round 5 vs RGNPerfect on taldarim. Cross positions, he Forge fast expanded as I assumed he would, so I went fast 3 base, got lair at 9 minutes I believe (nestea/losira style baby! :D). and he did a 6 gate all in (might have been 7 I didn't see all the gates). At first I thought I would hold easy, then FF and well I looked a little in trouble. Luckily I had a sick economy and was eventually able to hold him off, rebuild some drones I lost, and then just kind of A moved him as he tried to take his third as my army was just a lot stronger and I had infestors to his still gateway composition. So won that in the end which was awesome so I made it to the ro8!
So this was vs a terran named rebli, with the starting map shakuras. I would say I beat him really easily on this map not much to say except muta/ling/bane 4 bases fast, crushed his first attack, took a super late third which when he tried to take it I just crushed that killed it, and he gg'd.
Second game I had a pretty good advantage that I almost threw the game away, I crushed his attack, stopped his drop play but started playing a little sloppy as I thought I had won. Something I normally don't do but on the rare occasion after playing like 8 games in a row I got kind of lazy and almost threw it away. I was surprised to see a gg from him after I held off his attack when he just took his 4'th, I did have 6 bases I believe at this time and didn't' really watch the replay to see why he left. So I moved on to the semi finals!
This is where my curse always hits. I faced a protoss obsidian or something (can't remember his name at this moment).
First game on shattered temple he tries a funky zealot/stalker/DT timing attack. I hold it with ease, and we continue and the game is a lot more close then I thought. I go roach/infestor/ling and he goes gateway with some high templar and archons. The game was pretty good, but I won it and was ahead almost the whole game I would say but he just refused to die.
So I am up 1-0. Game 2 is on taldarim. We get close positions I guess you would say even though its not close but you know what I mean. So he forge FE's, I take fast 3 bases, he 6 gates and stupidly I let him walk to my natural and my army was in a terrible position so he only needed to use 2-3 FF's at a time to eventually kill me.
So now I am frusterated due to that big mistake I made with army positioning and thinking "god damnit am I going to lose again in the semi finals after winning first game?". This thought came back in game 3 as we played.
This was a long macro game, he played very very well and I still can't believe I won the game. He ended up taking 5-6 bases, I had 6 or 7 towards the end. I thought I lost during certain points, he forge FE'd, and did a fake 6 gate attack into fast third. So I had to catch up drone, take a 4'th. I tried to attack but FF and all that denied it and he FF'd my army when retreating and all of the units went full retard mode even though there was an opening right next to them.
So I am kind of tilted after my attack loses so badly due to how stupid my units were and I'm thinking "fuck i'm terrible, going to lose in the semi finals again well I ever break this curse!?". Yes somehow I played the rest of the game like amazing, I was able to get 7 broodlords, attack take out an expo, deny his other expo so he was mining off of 1 base for awhile (he never took the natural of the expo closest to you in the really really close positions on shakuras but I didn't know this). He eventually holds me off but he has no colossi, his templar are dead, he made voidrays to get rid of broodlords so I went from roach/ling/infestor into roach/ling/infestor and added like 40 hydra's to take out his other base and I eventually won the game later on.
I fist pumped hard, because for starters my first final in a tournament and I beat some pretty good players to get into it.
So I was confused during this tournament as to why scvlive was playing on the name sterling. I am just guessing sterling lets revival use his zotac account otherwise I don't know but I figured in the ro8 that scvlife was sterling. So in the finals I play TSLrevival.
And I lose as expected, 3-1. I would say the games were probably entertaining, the only game I won was on metal where he took the gold as his hatch first and then he was going to ling/bane all in. I had already made 10 roaches and roach/ling all ind him and won. First game he 9 pooled I believe, I held fine could have micro'd better but don't' believe I lost any drones. Game goes into ling/bane vs ling/bane and he just had a huge advantage after my attack failed, his expo was up sooner and he droned pretty good so he won that easily.
Second game was a macro game and well I have to watch the replay as I am going to learn alot from his play as he just played really really well. His 2-2 roaches with 4-5 infestors > my 2-1 roaches with 6-7 infestors. I am going to analyze that game at some point as his zvz strategy was just a lot better.
Last game was on taldarim and I just 14/14 go for banelings bust, I do some economic damage as he went 14/14/21 expand. I guess I wasn't as far behind as I thought because from what people told me is I should have just stayed back and not force an attack like I did. He went muta's and had 1/1 roaches. I had 2-0 roach/hydra and attacked right as his mutas popped. He held barely but he held, we both had thirds but I couldn't hold his follow up attack. So I lost 3-1.
But I am not mad that I lost, I expected to as I don't have any zvz practice partners so my zvz isn't up to what it should be, but I learned alot and finally broke my curse of being stuck in the semi's. Was happy to make it to the finals, and was happy not to get 3-0'd, after going down 2-0. He won 3-1 but I at least took a game, even if my all in was just better then his :D.
Thanks for reading this long blog but just wanted to share ^^.
replays: http://www.mediafire.com/?c23brmt235vm3pi
. as I knew I could make it to the finals if he wasn't especially lol.
