EPTGame 1: Antiga Shipyard – Thorzain BR / Puma TL
With two players who love not to scout, this was guaranteed to be peculiar. Puma opened with a 1Rax-FE into gas, while Thorzain hopped straight into banshees. Thorzain’s banshees snuck around the map, looking for angles to poke in at. He found small windows here and there, picking off a few marines here, some SCVs there. It was enough to even the field, but nothing more.
As tanks rolled onto the rust-colored Shipyard, Thorzain explored the map, while Puma drew a line with his Siege. With his quick third he dropped a sensor tower in the gulf amid his bases. Skirting the edge of this tower, Thorzain sprang into action.
The spoon-killer rode up to the cliff beneath Puma’s main and elevatored marines and tanks to the high ground, with tanks below for cover. Fire and molten metal rained upon Puma’s main, and Thorzain, it seemed, had a clear advantage.
The beast from EG, however, was unphased. Moving a few tanks in position, and keeping air control he sacrificed a quarter of his base, but pinned down Thorzain’s stand. With Thorzain dedicating more than 5 tanks to that ledge, Puma smelt an opening.
Thundering down the left side and swinging into the center, Puma rolled into an unseiged Thorzain reinforcement troupe. With a mounting tank advantage and the quicker siege, Thorzain’s light position at the Xel’Naga was hammered into submission. With full map control Puma marched across Antiga, laying siege to Thorzain’s own third. With so much army pinned at Puma’s main, Thorzain struggled to reinforce. Slowly blasting away the ever-so-rapidly repairing base, and unchallenged in air control, Puma’s rally tightened his grip around the spoon-killer. With that brilliant maneuvering, Puma sealed his victory on Antiga.
Game 2: Tal’Darim Altar – Thorzain TR / Puma TL
Tal’Darim became the scene of variations on a theme for these titans of Terran. Both went for rapid expands, aiming for heavy marines, stim, +1 attack and no scouting. Indeed, While Puma landed a scan, Thorzain’s first knowledge of Puma’s activity was Puma’s marines claiming the Xel’Naga between them. Ready to push up into Thorzain’s expo, Puma led with an SCV. From the screen we saw the trap that the spoon-killer had lain – the perfect concave. Puma’s forces would surely be crushed.
Yet Puma’s beastly reaction time saved him for the moment. The instant that SCV took fire, Puma retreated with due haste. Sprinting home, evey marine would live to fight another day.
Unfortunately for Puma, that day was very soon.
With Puma’s assault deterred, the spoon-killer began his trek across the map. As Puma saw the death-squad move across the map, he treaded back and established a bunker. With not a glimmer of fear, Thorzain marched forward and up the grassy ramp.
Thorzain had but a one marine advantage.
Puma had a bunker, and nearly had a tank.
Both had stim.
Clearly this was not a position Thorzain could assail.
Yet somehow, Thorzain knew more than even we with the observer view. Thorzain’s +1 attack finished a mere 3 seconds before Puma. The instant +1 finished, the spoon-killer leapt upon the beast. Instantly crushing the bunker like a flower in an iron grip, Thorzain’s marines assembled a firing squad. Seeing the holy firestorm raining upon his home, SCV were brought to the fray. Puma’s +1 attack and the SCVs let him hold the line on this grassy altar. But the damage was done. With a single extra marine, and mere seconds of an upgrade advantage, the Spoon-killer had broken Puma’s line and slaughtered nearly 30 workers. The beast had been knee-capped.
A dance of tanks ensued about the grassy fields, but no brilliance of Puma could save him. Blindsided by Thorzain’s perfect timing, struggling to recover, Puma ceded his claim to Tal’Darim Altar.
Game 3: The Shattered Temple – Thorzain B/ Puma T
If Tal’Darim Altar showcased Thorzain’s brutal precision, Shattered temple displayed his instinctive knowledge of TvT.
The match began with both players applying variations on a fast expand. Thorzain’s was heavier on marines, while Puma crunched out two tanks. Ready to apply some early pressure, Puma moved out across the map. Surely, we thought, with no tanks for Thorzain, Puma could inflict some damage to the standing marine force.
As Puma had begun his tank production, Thorzain assembled a meticulous firing line of marines. As Puma marched across the map, Thorzain’s line completed. Then, with no scouting information, as Puma’s army was 2/3rds of the way to Thorzain’s base, the Spoon-killer’s line marched forward as though he had smelt blood on the wind. With the perfect line of marines, he intercepted Puma’s army, forcing a hasty retreat.
With Puma’s tanks too vulnerable to siege, Thorzain gave chase all the way to Puma’s base. Puma was waiting, readying a trap. Barely atop the ramp, Puma seiged a tank. From our observer view, we saw the tank arc. Yet without seeing the tank, Thorzain felt it’s presence. In one glorious motion, he halted pursuit with by one marine barely in range. That one marine stimmed forward to test the waters while the others narrowly sidestepped away from the tank’s firing arc. That one maneuver revealed that Thorzain intuitively divined Puma’s tank positioning.
As Puma defensively entrenched, Thorzain danced his newfound tanks around the center, looking for opportunities to catch Puma out of position. The Beast from EG girded for a frontal assault; the Spoon-Killer refused to oblige.
Swinging around the corner of the Temple’s central field, Thorzain once-again executed elevator play into Puma’s base. The thunderous Crucio Cannon shells crashed into Puma’s infrastructure, and there was no out-maneuvering Thorzain this time. With Thorzain’s vise-grip on the center, Puma could do nothing but slowly use his air control to peel away Thorzain’s position. With the Spoon-killers magnificent marine splits, Puma’s advancing tanks faced a hailstorm of bullets
getting into position. He finally had wrested control of that cliff from Thorzain, but Thorzain had many more barracks and an entire extra mining center.
Thorzain continued his dance of tanks around the center, forcing Puma’s to re-arrange his. As Puma shuffled his Tank positions to bolster his third, the Spoon-killer returned to that ledge, laying siege once again to Puma’s Barracks and Factories. With mining drying up for Puma, every shelling was costly. With Thorzain’s flowing minerals, each shelling was cheap. Again Puma peeled away that position, but at tremendous cost, exposing his gold, which Thorzain immediately trounced. A final resort to drop play disrupted Thorzain’s mining, but alas, the Spoon-Killer took up position directly in Puma’s natural.
Always a step ahead of the Beast from EG, the Spoon-killer took a 2-1.
Game 4: Dual Sight – Thorzain R / Puma L
Looking to salvage the series, Puma retreated to his ace map, the fiery forests of Dual-sight. It was time to mix things up, Puma decided. It was time for Mech.
Thorzain had declared but a day ago that his TvT v. Mech was one of his best matchups. It was time to put the spoon-killer to the test.
With his more mobile force, Thorzain slowly claimed an expansion lead, sliding back and forth posturing to assault Puma from different angles. Finally, slipping Puma out of position, He once again began that elevator-siege at the north edge of Puma’s base. Tank shells crashed down on Barracks, as Puma once again re-organized his tanks. Once again with air control, he peeled away Thorzain’s position. But this time, off the back of his mech play, he bolstered his air control. He added banshees.
Noting that the Spoon-killer almost never made Vikings, Puma abused his air control with vigor. As Thorzain lost that position, he retreated to the center, where the tank lines were drawn. Puma gently edged forward with his air, sniped a tank, and retreated. Slowly Puma’s tanks advanced. The Spoon-killer, known for meticulously picking apart his foes, was being picked apart himself in a most meticulous fashion. Thors marched forward to greet the banshees, but Puma faded in and out of the shadows, denying the Thors more than a single volley. Puma edged forward. Then, with blistering fury, his hellions sprang into action.
With a defiant claim to central ravine, Puma’s hellions rolled from field to field, immolating workers, crushing Thorzain’s economy. Marauder-marine fire-fighters responded, but always were too few or too late. Thorzain made two last-ditch sieges of Puma’s third base, but reinforcements were too near. Puma’s mech had slowly ground down the Spoon-Killer.
Game 5: Terminus - Thorzain R / Puma B
Crushed beneath the weight of Puma’s mech, Thorzain moved to Terminus. In these depths of space, Thorzain rushed to a cloaked Banshee. Puma’s opener blindly and viciously took advantage of this.
Puma immediately unleashed a reaper and hellion onto the gargantuan space-platform, rushing across the map. Climbing to Banshee, Thorzain had but two marines to defend. With brilliant agility, the hellions drew the marines forward out of position, with the reaper cliff-jumping to behind them. Eviscerating the Spoon-killer’s only defenses with this aggressive maneuver, the hellion-reaper pair assaulted Thorzain’s workers. In moments of terror, SCVs were dismanteled and melted to slag, knee-capping the spoon-killer barely 5 minutes into the game.
Finally repelling the Beast with his own SCVs, Thorzain’s only hope was to return the favor with his cloaked banshee. Alas, Puma’s Viking timing was pristine; he tore the banshee asunder and expanded. Immeasurably behind, Thorzain ceded Terminus.
Game 6: Cevasse – Thorzain TL / Puma BR
The Spoon-killer’s back was to the wall. Facing elimination, Thorzain brought the battle to Crevasse.
Against Demuslim, Thorzain demonstrated a brilliant Xel’Naga-centric positioning strategy that let him forgo air control but still shell into the distance. Thorzain was ready to repeat that strategem, but Puma lay waiting.
With the Spoon-Killer opening 1raxFE, Puma’s quick banshee leveled the playing field, pounding away Thorzain’s worker line. The blue-flame-drop follow-up met ready riflemen, with both players again on even footing. Then, as Thorzain drew ready to expand again, he rolled out to the Xel’Naga Towers.
Sieging round the towers, the Spoon-Killer began his constriction of the Beast from EG. But this beast would not be held down.
Puma again laid claim to the skies with Vikings, and the Banshees filtered forward. Holding the line with his own tanks, Puma’s Viking-Banshee fleet slowly poked and prodded Thorzain’s army. Desperate to save his tanks, Thorzain threw pack after pack of marines into fields of tank fire to pick off banshees. Marine after marine was crushed beneath the weight of the Crucio Cannons. As the snow grew stained with blood and crusted with debris, Thorzain’s aggressive position was peeled away. A die-hard commander, Thorzain looked for avenues to slip in drops, but Puma’s air control shut him down.
As the Spoon-killer faded from his position at the towers, so did his chance of survival. Puma now maneuvered his tanks to the tower, and rolled forward to lay waste to Thorzain’s own encampment. With no air control, fewer tanks, and no Xel’Naga Tower, the Spoon-killer knew he had met his match.
Unleashing his armored fury upon the Spoon-Killer, Puma secured his passage to the finals.
And in the finals, an old foe awaits. For the glory of NASL2, Puma will face Hero.
