EPTFor all of Day[9]’s talk of Thorzain’s “passivity,” the spoon-killer showcased his meticulous style in a brilliantly aggressive fashion, which became the underlying theme of the series.
Game 1: Crevasse – Thorzain BR / Demuslim TR
While both players opened with FEs, Thorzain quickly ramped up marine production. Opening with some slippery drops, Thorzain inflicted little damage with marines. However, it put Demuslim scrambling to bolster his air-exposed natural’s drop defenses. Repeated skirts of Demuslim’s turrets kept him scrambling as Thorzain mobilized his tanks. It was only then that Thorzain’s brilliance became clear.
Moving his tanks into the center, Thorzain executed a Xel’Naga tower-centric positioning strategy. He used this as a launching platform to repeatedly assail the second and constrict Demuslim’s space at the third. Using the towers to pin his foe back, free to not make Vikings given the vision advantage from the towers, Thorzain feely expanded across the snow-swepts depths of Crevasse. With his back to the wall, Demuslim deftly used his Vikings to establish positions that allowed him to slowly chip away at Thorzain’s thinly held positions. Swinging back and forth, Demuslim whittled down Thorzain’s stranglehold. Then, just as Demuslim was free to take a breath in the north-center of the map, Thorzain wedged a large cluster of tanks between Demuslim’s third and main, while he freely mined from nearly 5 bases, breaking the backbone of Demuslim’s force.
Game 2: Terminus – Thorzain R / Demuslim T
With the opening loss, Demuslim retreated to the Terminus, one of the largest maps around. Surely the spoon killer wouldn’t immediately assail the 1raxFE from Demuslim.
Surely?
Demuslim’s hopes of a sharp macro advantage were dashed by a vicious assault by Thorzain, anchored by marines, tanks without siege mode, supported by a banshee and the constantly spawning Vikings.
Pulling SCVs, teching to factory, and landing his own Vikings, Demuslim narrowly held the line at his expo. But Thorzain did not let up. Landing his own Vikings and pulling just a few of his own SCVs, the spoon-killer continued to press the expansion, forcing Demuslim to keep pulling SCVs. After minutes of tousle, a tank in siege mode forced Thorzain back, but not until Thorzain had established his own expo and a narrow worker lead.
Once Thorzain’s own siege completed, he established another contain, again restricting Demuslim to the three easy bases.
Mindful of the Spoon-killer’s stranglehold, Demuslim slipped out a few medivacs to harass. Damage was dealt, but none of it crippling. As Demuslim established air control, he swung his Vikings around for a brief landing-harass. Damage was dealt, but none of it crippling. And at no point did he uncover Thorzain’s sleight of hand.
With his stranglehold, he of course expanded behind it, building on his economic advantage, but key stratagem was to cede the skies.
With the illusion of air control, Demuslim was able to force back Thorzain’s contain, one inch at a time. With the illusion of air control, he began the dreaded transition to battlecruisers. With the illusion of air control, he played a tad careless with his Vikings to force back Thorzain just a bit quicker to secure a fourth base. But his air control was only an illusion.
While his tank line receded, the spoon-killer built his Vikings, but hid them in the shadows. Finally, to secure his fourth, Demuslim pushed out with his tanks, Vikings ready to break the back of Thorzain by unveiling his BCs. It was only then that Thorzain unleashed his own fleet of Vikings. In his carelessness, he came up but a few Vikings short. Though he had pierced the line, it was only by a thread. With no economy to fall back on, and BCs worth their weight in festering manure, only then did he realize how thoroughly he had been outplayed.
Opening with righteous fury, settling into a genious contain, Thorzain had taken game 2.
Game 3: Shattered Temple – Thorzain TL / Demuslim BR
Opening with a gas-first off-the-cuff banshee that did no damage, game 3 seemed ready to settle into a standard TvT. Demuslim started angling towards mech, with Thorzain committing to marine-tank. Moving to take a quick third at the gold, Demuslim set up a sturdy-as-stone tank line for defense. Yet the slippery spoon-killer caught wind of an opening on the left, and Thorzain took it.
Sliding 4 tanks past the immobile line, the Spoon-killer nestled his tanks by the backdoor rocks and shelled the gold from behind. It took minutes and some landed Vikings later to finally free the gold. As tank lines ebbed and flowed around the Xel’Naga, Thorzain took to the skies, dropping marines at all corners of the map. Unable draw an edge in the tank lines, and pressured by the drop play, Demuslim was forced into submission.
And so the Spoon-killer took Demuslim’s hope in hand, and crushed it in his fist.
