EPTThough not trumpeted as a titan of Starcraft, Strelok admirably fought his way into this tournament. His NASL group was not the most nightmarish, but his road to second place was paved with the remains of no less than a 2-0’d Ret, and a 2-1’d Nightend.
But his first finals foe was no generic zerg. Rising from a veil of arrogance and anger, the Gracken himself now stood between Strelok and international glory.
More terrifying, this was not merely the macro-beast zerg of the past. No, this was a reinvigorated Idra. An Idra who had taken IEM Guangzho and Asus ROG. Yet this Idra, self-professedly working on his mental state, is still not unflappable. He recently succumbed to his tilt in the GosuCoaching Premier League to the aggro-hellions of the wily Kas, dropping team EG into second place in the ace match.
Would Strelok incite the ire of Idra? Could he get the Gracken to tilt? The pre-game interview promised nothing less. Strelok gleefully declared that he had prepared “presents” for EG’s finest zerg. Eagerly, we awaited those presents.
Game 1: Crevasse – Top-left-T / Bottom-left-Z
It started with unremarkably standard fare for a TvZ. We saw a rector-hellions and 15hatch, with Idra taking the outside base. Strelok feigned aggression with his hellions, but Idra’s remarkable creep spread ensured Strelok never grew too bold. Strelok then tried to metagame Idra. He took an early third.
Then the mutalisks came. Hellions died. Strelok was in the dark. For fear of mutalisks, he cut a tank to squeeze out a Thor. Perhaps fatefully, there was no fear of impending banelings. As Idra’s mutalisks shadowed the outskirts of Strelok’s base, Idra took stock of a thinly defended third base, and made a decision that few saw coming from the long-term gamesman.
He made a LOT of banelings.
Banelings complete, the zerg swarm swept north and crashed headlong into Strelok’s defenses at the exposed third base, shattering the line, shredding the orbital, with rallied speedlings spilling into Strelok’s main. Idra had crushed Strelok in game 1.
Game 2: Shattered Temple – Top-left-Z / Bottom-right-T
With the same cookie cutter openings, hellions sat outside the Gracken’s third in a wholly unmenacing fashion. Would this be another face-smashing of Strelok in a standard TvZ?
Any thoughts of standard were swept away as we saw the egregiously early armory. Indeed Strelok had brought presents. These presents were bipedal death-dealing machines. A fast Thor timing was impending.
Then the Mutalisks came.
Driving off the front-door hellions, the handful of Mutas swept forward to see Thors marching forward with a menacing batch of hellions and a cadre of SCV groupies. Dimaga had already faced this once today, had clung for dear life with a phenomenal roach defense, but fell short nonetheless. Idra had no roach warren in sight
Idra hid back in his base, letting the Thors cut through the macrohatch at his door. Buying himself time, he slowly morphed banelings. As the macrohatch died, Idra sprang forward with his paltry force of mutalisks, zergling and banelings. He expertly rolled his banelings around to melt away most of the SCVs, boxed the thors with his mutas, and the zerglings kept flooding in larva cycle after cycle, barely faster than the hellions could roast them away. In a flash of terrible timing, the final thor fell, not 5 seconds before +2 armor completed. As Day[9] might call it, it was an anti-timing.
But Strelok was not deterred - Strelok knew how to Macro. With +2 armor complete, he re-initiated the assault. Idra held the first wave on the razor’s edge; it was not clear if he could hold a second wave, yet hold he did, with the same perfect boxing, the same recurring waves of zerglings.
But Strelok was not done yet.
The Infernal Pre-ignitor was complete. He pulled more SCVs. It was time for one more push.
The blue-flame rapidly roasted away zerglings, SCVs frantically repaired the Thors that were boxed in by mutalisks. Alas, Idra’s macro had recovered too much, and this final wave was barely ground to dust by the defensive persistence of the Gracken. It was a defensive persistence unlike anything ever before seen from Idra.
Game 3 on Antiga Shipyard – Top-left-Z / Bottom-right-T
One game from elimination, what was left for Strelok? Conventional fare had been crushed. His Thor-gimmick had nearly brought Idra to his knees. Much to my disappointment, Strelok fell upon standard play. The beginning rehashed Crevasse with the opening Hellions chewed up and spit out by mutalisks. Strelok again rushed for a fast third, but employed more bunkers and turrets.
As the turret ring tightened and repelled the mutalisks, Idra kept adding mutalisks.
And kept adding mutalisks.
And kept adding mutalisks.
Now with over 30 mutas on the map, and Strelok marched forward with tanks, a few thors, and more marines than Idra had zerglings. Sieging forward from the Xel’Naga, Strelok looked poised to wrest a game from the dreaded Gracken.
Idra scrambled his mutalisks. Darting in and out he delayed the inevitable tank advance. He bought time to build more banelings. Feeling too pressured, the Gracken finally swept in.
Idra tore through the first two layers of Strelok’s siege before his lings ran thin. Loosing few Mutas, and whittling Strelok to his last layer of army, both players retreated. Strelok, however, was not done with his aggression.
Reinforcing vigorously, Strelok marched forward to Idra’s 4th base, north-central on Antiga. Seige tanks were spread, and Idra was short on banelings. Idra tried to corral the marines away from his fourth with the mutalisks, buying him time to morph more banelings. Jab after jab, Strelok killed drones and cut hitpoints from the hatch before being jostled back to his tanks. Idra assaulted the line, whittled it, but could not break it. Again he engaged, and Strelok thinly held. The back and forth was tense…to anyone not noting the minimap.
All the while, Idra had mass-expanded to the Shipyard’s bottom left corner. Not driven by drop play, Strelok never noticed. As Idra’s new hatcheries popped, Idra softened his punching of Strelok’s position, and fell back to regroup. As his initial fourth fell, Idra swelled his army, and with a final unending stream of zerg might, tore through all that Strelok left.
With an unceremonious 3-0, Strelok was eliminated.
Undeterred, unshaken, unchallenged, EG’s champion zerg was ready to move forward. The competition only grows stiffer from here.
