CSL Weekly Digest #7

It's 11/11/11, a day of evil to some, a day to remember for many, but for us here at the CSL, it's just lucky number 7 Weekly Digest day! If you have a case of apophenia and you're obsessed with numbers, maybe you'll use some of your more unusual build orders today or go 11 pool when laddering and playing your divisional games -- but before launching into your methodically planned matches, catch up on Week 8 here and prepare yourself for the next!

However let us not forget that today is Veteran's Day above all, so an especially big shout out to the US Naval Academy and the US Military Academy at West Point teams as well as the rest of our military and veterans out there. It's your day, enjoy it! Be sure to check out the Highlights this week for the big Army/Navy showdown as well as all the other awesome stuff we have in store for you. Carry on!

by: Spencer Green

VPSuppy (UCB) vs. vileSpanshwa (UCD)

This past weekend, we remembered remembered the fifth of November with an ultra-special, live-action, LAN-style matchup between UC Berkeley and UC Davis, featuring a slew of talented GM players in a battle for dominance over the Titan division and the West. To start off this colossal matchup that may eventually determine the divisional championship, two familiar faces on the SC2 competitive scene drew swords in a short but engaging ZvZ on GSL Dual Sight; and those faces are the Grandmasters VPSuppy of UCB and vileSpanshwa of UCD. So who had the bigger sword in this matchup? Read on and find out!

In this ZvZ on GSL Dual Sight, VPSuppy decided to bring a bit of aggression with an Extractor trick to 11 Pool and built an Extractor immediately after, while vileSpanshwa opted for the more macro-oriented 14 Gas 14 Pool, a possibly risky move in this mirror matchup. However, although Suppy built his pool a bit earlier, both his and Spanishiwa's Zergling speed upgrade began at the same moment, and the drone count stayed dead even prior to a big Zergling push from Suppy at the fifth minute. As the push left Suppy's base, his Baneling Nest was about halfway done; at the same time, Spanishiwa decided to be greedy and attempted to expand at his natural, even though he knew Suppy's lings were well on their way.

As Suppy's lings arrived, Spanishiwa's Baneling Nest got up just in time and Spanishiwa, being himself, attempted some highly intelligent, slightly crazy micro by morphing a Baneling among some of Suppy's units and having a lone enemy Baneling attack his newly formed one, thus allowing Suppy to waste away one Baneling for another. Immediately after, Span attempted the exact same maneuver twice, only to have his Banelings killed by a sudden flood of Suppy's lings that began to overtake Span's natural, killing the Hatch and Span's only Queen. However, in another display of micro prowess and creativity, Spanshwa formed two Banelings in his mineral line directly next to a bundle of Zerg Cocoons (some hatching Zerglings an instant before the attack) while in range of a Spine Crawler located on the opposite side of Span's main Hatch, thus defending his drones from all but one of Suppy's Banelings, which killed only one of Spanishiwa's workers. Despite the clutch defense and some perfect Baneling hits on Suppy's lings from the UCD Zerg, Suppy managed to take out Spanishiwa's expo easily with a huge number of units, which then streamed into Span's main and killed all of his workers, forcing Spanishiwa to throw up the GG and give UCB's VPSuppy the win.

Being a ZvZ, many would call this game a coinflip. But arguably, the reason why vileSpanshwa lost was because of his decision to expand, even when he saw Suppy's units on their way toward his base. At that point, even Span's stellar Baneling micro could not save him from Suppy's sheer number of Zerglings. But overall, this was a great match from both players, and the rest of the UCB vs. UCD LAN games brought similar results. After this matchup, the Titan division is looking to be intriguing and extremely competitive for the rest of the season until the championship match.

Editor's Note: check out this match and the others in the series here.

Ohio State vs. Michigan State - Set 1: Isaac (Z) vs. dGSckarr (P)
by: Justin Telmo

MLG Dual Sight is a staple in the CSL map pool, being used almost every week. A modification of the Dual Sight that debuted in the GSTL, this two-player map consists of two very different sides: a forest side and volcanic side. The map is symmetrical down the middle, like all good competitive maps should be, down to the tileset shift. It is a medium-sized map, making rushes more uncommon than usual. Both players have a tight ramp that opens to a natural expansion with a much larger ramp. High-yield expansions are located on top-left and bottom-right diagonals, making them easy to spot if trying to attempt a drop. Of course, this is an MLG modification to the map.

Today we have a matchup from the Behemoth Division in the North part of our league between the #3 ranked team, Ohio State, and the 9th ranked team, Michigan State. We will be looking at the first matchup today between Isaac Smith (Isaac.933) and Kyle Hall (dGSckarr.172) on MLG Dual Sight. It seems Michigan State wanted to start with their best foot forward, as Isaac has had a place as Ohio State's starter for a good while this season, and with being the second-highest ranked player on the team, stands there with good reason. His opponent, dGSckarr has seen less than stellar performance this season, standing with a 2-5 record prior to the match. However he is no slouch, as his position in Master's League is slightly above Isaac's, standing at 637 points.

Jumping right into the action, we start off with Isaac spawning as the Red Zerg on the left side of the map, and dGSckarr spawning as the Green Protoss on the opposite side. Both players send worker scouts, something Zerg has a big problem doing early game. dGSckarr opens with a Forge Fast Expand, standard in PvZ at all levels. Meanwhile Isaac opens with a Spawning Pool first, possibly indicative of some early timing attack or to defend against possible cheese. The Spawning Pool before Hatchery build opens up the Zerg tech tree more than Hatchery before Spawning Pool, enabling the Zerg player to take map control with packs of Zerglings running around the map. Of course, control of the Xel'Naga watchtowers is very important, both located near the middle of the map.

At the 4:22 mark of the game you can see just how much of the map is scouted by Isaac, doing a very good job of scouting exactly what dGSckarr wants to do. A Zergling hits the natural expansion Nexus of dGSckarr as it's about to finish, giving Isaac a good idea of how far behind his natural expansion Hatchery would be. Typically a Zerg player wants to stay one or two bases ahead of the Protoss to ensure an economic advantage with the Hatchery costing one hundred less minerals than either a Nexus or Command Center, making it easier to expand.

dGSckarr actually shows some impeccable building placement as he partially walls off the path into his main base with a Photon Cannon, Cybernetics Core, Gateway, and Forge all powered by two Pylons. This would make it exceptionally difficult for Isaac to take advantage of his early Pool by attempting Speedling runbys. However this would only be the case if Isaac had specifically gone for a Speedling expand, which he did not. Instead, he compensated by grabbing a
fast third base and grabbing a Roach Warren and Evolution Chamber foroddly enough, +1 Ground Carapace.

dGSckarr responds by getting +1 Ground Attack upgrades for his Stalker/Zealot army powered from three Warp Gates. Seeing as how the recent patched reduced costs for Protoss Upgrades across all levels, this could be indicative of a two-base, five- or six-gate timing push which should be much stronger with the cheaper upgrades. The cheaper upgrades mean that two Stalkers kill a single Queen, and Zealots one-shot Zerglings. However the +1 Ground Carapace upgrade from Isaac
should even things out a little bit, as both players finish their +1 Upgrades near simultaneously.

Isaac gets his third base up relatively undefended, while showing some impressive creep spreading in an attempt to take control of the map. Top Zerg pros like coL.MVPDongRaeGu, IMLosirA, and NSHS.Seal all have shown just how powerful and important creep spread is in Starcraft 2 as opposed to how it worked in Brood War. Meanwhile, Isaac has transitioned from Stalker/Zealot/Sentry 3 Warp Gates to Blink Stalkers, even more indicative of a 2-base 6-gate timing push, somthing we've seen players such as oGs.MC do frequently against Zergs with a respectable success rate. dGSckarr decides to move out around the 11 minute mark, boldly placing a couple forward Pylons next to Isaac's third base creep line to attempt to reinforce his army.

Both players exhibit good control here, as some great Forcefields from dGSckarr force Isaac to split his army up. A pack of Zerglings and Roaches do break through the Forcefields though, and do a good lot of damage to Isaac's army, but not his economy. The attack ultimately fails, and Isaac is forced to retreat. Despite a favorable army trade-off with his control, he is now behind economically and falling further behind the more time it takes for the third base to be built.

Of course, Isaac does stay one base ahead as he grabs his fourth base just as dGSckarr finishes his third. Isaac's fourth base however, is a high-yield expansion which will further his economic advantage. The harvester differential between the two players is 15, in Isaac's favor. At this point, Isaac seems to be ahead in everything except upgrades, as he starts his +2 Ground Carapace as dGSckarr's +3 Ground Weapons are finishing up. The window of opportunity is seeming to shrink for dGSckarr, but the situation that he is in is not unfamiliar to any Protoss dealing with a good Zerg.

At this point, Isaac has teched to Infestors, which do a great deal of damage to the seemingly less mobile army of dGSckarr's with the Fungal Growht ability, which holds affected units in place while Zerglings and Roaches clean them up. However Isaac does have to be very careful with his Infestors, as they are very squishy and have no auto-attack of their own. Many a Zerg have lost a good pack of Infestors to High Templar Feedbacks, or even worse, good Forcefields.

However, dGSckarr decides to transition into Robotics Facility tech, instead of the more common High Templar tech tree we are used to seeing in PvZ. The Robotics Facility seems a tad late, as he only has his first Immortal out around the 15 minute mark. At some point you would have to weigh the cost effectiveness of Psionic Storms on Roaches versus the enhanced attack damage Immortals do to Roaches. Since Roaches are armored, the Immortals should clean them up quite handily in small numbers, however focus fire from a large enough pack of Roaches would make the Immortals effective. Psionic Storm does incredible amounts of damage to all Zerg units, meaning it would be easier for the Stalkers and Zealots to clean up.

The 14-minute mark sees a push into dGSckarr's third base by Isaac, breaking through a healthy number of Zealots, Stalkers, and Sentries to eventually take down the third base for the Protoss, making life much harder. Lots of economic and army damage is done to dGSckarr, almost game ending. dGSckarr does manage to save a good amount of his Stalkers with good Blink micro, retreating to gather what is left of his army to attempt a final push to break Isaac's seemingly overwhelming army.

In a desperate position, dGSckarr attempts to exploit the apparent lack of anti-air for Zerg by transitioning into Void Rays, a futile attempt as both Void Rays are taken out by well-placed Fungal Growths from Isaac. The loss of dGSckarr's Void Rays cause him to type out 'gg', ending the game and giving the first point in the match to Ohio State.

Editor's Note: Check out this match and the others in the set here.

by: Ben Kim

Can you give us an introduction to Cal Poly Pomona?

Well last year we tried to join the league, but we missed the deadline so we decided to wait until this season. And until probably late July...we were searching seriously for players and so on and then we eventually bloomed up and got to where we are now.

Do you all have any particularly important players that have helped you get to the #1 slot on Kimeran?

Of course, if it wasn't for Spydo, Comogury, Dynamus, and TheManBomb...we definitely wouldn't have gotten to where we were and it's not just them, we have a bunch of really good people that practice with them but couldn't play any of the matches because of work or other priorities....

As for making to the top of the division: we honestly had no idea we were gonna hit this season this hard. But we go in with a mindset of wanting to 3-0 every single week and it allows all our players to improve that much more if we do drop a set.

How did you become coordinator and what role do you play as a coordinator?

At the time of registration, Spydo, one of the founders of the group asked if any one of us wanted to be coordinator because he was too lazy and i decided to do it because it didn’t' seem like too much work at the time. It works out nicely because then the regular players just worry about their matches while I figure out lineups and "research" other schools.

You guys have a huge roster of players and I know that the StarCraft scene in California is pretty big. How prolific is the scene at Cal Poly Pomona?

In all honesty I don't know because we mainly only see each other online, but every day on campus, I see many people on laptops either watching streams or playing games and so on so I would assume it would be pretty big if all those people all found our team/club.

Any shout-outs or closing comments for your fans, competitors etc.?

I want to say thanks to all the schools in the division; they've given us quite a challenge and we are happy to have been placed in such a strong division. Also want to say thanks to many of the other great players I have not mentioned, Machnificent, woodstock, robinswan, TFLpsyduc, RoyalTiger,jklee...and a special thanks to Senth for all the hard work he's doing to make us an official club.

CSL Week 8 – Highlights: The United Starts Air Force Academy vs. The United States Naval Academy
by: Luke Pensiero

For some reason it feels that Week 8 flew by. The games keep getting crazier. The matches are getting fiercer as well. This past week we saw the Air Force Academy face off against the Naval Academy. The classical battle between the air and the sea now makes the CSL its battleground.

USAFA fielded its Zerg player, Pharaoh, up against the USNA’s Zerg player, FOGGcartman. There is something about ZvZ which I love so much; probably the fact that it is so tense to watch and play. Pharaoh quickly got his Lair and dropped a Spire afterwards. FOGGcartman’s sneaky Overlord snuck into Pharaoh’s base and saw the Spire being morphed. This gave FOGGcartman enough time to prepare for the Mutalisks by building a Hydralisk Den and Spore Crawlers.

By the time Pharaoh had his Mutalisks, their effectiveness was almost zero. He flew them around the map looking for any place to poke. FOGGcartman, with an army of Hydralisks and Roaches, decided to move out towards Pharaoh’s base. The two met with both their armies at the gates of Pharaoh’s base. Battle ensued.

FOGGcartman, with his upgraded Roaches and Hydralisks, were able to stomp the weaker army of Pharaoh. Pharaoh had lost all his Mutalisks before this massive engagement by throwing them right at the Hydralisks. The large success of the battle for FOGGcartman allowed him to walk right into Pharaoh’s base and force a GG.

For the second game of the series, USAFA put their Terran player, EnsisIchi, up against USNA’s Zerg player ahnman. This battle was to be played out on Shakuras Plateau. The game started out fairly normal for the both players, EnsisIchi going reactor Hellions and ahnman opting for a fast expansion. Where this game got crazy was when ahnman dropped two Evolution Chambers and began pumping out Melee and Carapace upgrades. I was intrigued.

The game played out with ahnman going Zergling/Infestor and EnsisIchi going for the tried and true Marine/Tank. EnsisIchi started his slow push and put a lot of pressure on ahnman. Ahnman needed to do something fast. He sent his 7 Brofestor Hit Squad: Tunneler Edition to EnsisIchi’s base causing massive, massive damage.

This was not enough though for ahnman as EnsisIchi proves that Marines are indeed greater than everything in the game. EnsisIchi was able to get into ahnman’s base and mess it up real good. So good, in fact, it forced ahnman to GG tying up the series 1-1. Check out the rest of sets to see which side triumphs.

Did you see these awesome posters Cal Poly Pomona's team created? It was all the rage on Reddit, so check it out -- there's even a blank version you can use for your own CSL teams to advertise around campus. Thanks Venerac!

Fallcraft's eSports lecture is up, which you can see in depth here. It was really informative, and probably super appealing to all you the brainy theorycrafters out there! Also, if you heard a few week's ago, CSL's Monk found his way to to a sweet job at Twitch.tv, but there's still room for one more! If you're a talented engineer, now's the perfect chance for a timing attack on this employment opportunity with the best place for streaming eSports. HFGL to all!

For all our new TeamLiquid readers, welcome, and be sure to catch up on our previous digests at www.cstarleague.com. Questions, comments and feedback in general are always appreciated! See you next week.

-Theresa (aka JadedShock)

The Collegiate Starleague is the premiere collegiate gaming league, with over 220 universities participating this year. The CSL is sponsored by Twitch.tv and Tt eSports! In addition to the league, we run contests, tournaments, and work with universities to host and promote LAN events across North America. Check out www.cstarleague.com for more info!

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CSL Weekly Digest #7

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