EPTWhen I was on/off the TL scene, I was aware enough of flashs 13? win streak, the meme thread, Flash = God etc, so I watched both his losses. The Bisu game I watched first based on the fact that it was around 2am and I didn't feel like a TvT. It was exciting yes, mechanically and tactically fun, but no core = speedzeal wasn't the most gratifying win for me even though I am a SKT fanboy. I believe that flash could have definitely prevented that and won on (what I've heard to be) an imbalanced map.
What better way to reinspire myself with bw strategy than TvT? Now by no means I am a proficient TvT player, actually its my most terrible matchup and I had to PvT for a while. But while watching this game I was mentally taking notes and halfway on I decided to actually write a blog about it to hopefully hear what you guys have to think and to put my thoughts down on paper (another thing I've been learning - putting stuff on paper makes it tangible, concrete and easily able to analyse as opposed to a melting pot of ideas in the head).
So from what I understand, flash is definitely the better player. I haven't seen Fanta's recent TvT but know however that Fanta has been playing well this season. Flash (730) has an early scout in Fanta's (1030) base and expands with bunker. Fanta keenly places his fact outside of his base to prevent Flash scouting/psyching Flash for a possible proxy fact, Flash reacts accordingly and uses barracks to wall. Fanta is now able to float his rax instead and get some crucial scouting information (the good ol' barracks races - who can reach the opponents base first with their rax?). Fanta wisely does not use first vult to poke given Flash's reaction and is gearing up for a 4 vult drop. Here the builds diverge - 1 paek 1 star for Fanta vs 2 paek for Flash. The initial vult can definitely punish a greedier build, but I have no knowledge on travel distances etc given I haven't played BW in years and I haven't studied the map.
Flash's initial composition was perfect in defending the drop suffering basically zero losses. Fanta quickly follows up with 2 more and these 2 vults do a shitton more damage - really punishing flash for thinking danger was over. Flash showed good recognition however of Fanta's low tank count and pushed out for a semi contain.
Here's the unbelievable thing. I always thought that in TvT he who has more tanks wins. But Fanta was able to mitigate this by:
a) splitting flashs tanks by not allowing flash to reinforce via tanks on the reinforcement path
b) using his early star for cloaked wraith to abuse low gol count
Fanta was then able to crack the contain and push down and counter-contain Flash. Flash then sets up the maginot line facing Fantasys base, slightly facing counterclockwise. Fantasy with good awareness deals some damage to the east side as it protrudes slightly (a salient I believe its called?)
Fantasy then does a few things at once. He builds an ebay at the expo between them. He takes his own 3rd. His vults mine the east and also flash's 3rd preventing flash from expanding his influence east. Flash showing great awareness waiting for army support before maynard, and has built up sufficient air (in valks) to combat fantasy as Fantasy was flashing some wraiths to see if he could abuse flash's tank only composition on the ground (pun not intended).
But now Fanta is able to contain Flash from both the North and East, and is taking a 4th. Flash able to sneak vults and see Fanta's 4th as well as marauding Fanta's 3rd at 12. Fanta is able to defend by pulling scv's and using wraiths to quickly reduce the vult count. Fanta counters by dropping Flash's 3rd at 6 o clock and also delays Flash's 4th with vults. Here's another thing I noticed - Flash seemed flustered/extremely busy when the camera zoomed in on him. From the matches I watch of him (albeit quite a while ago) he always looked extremely calm and collected even though his eyes were moving constantly. Flash ddint seem his normal self allowing fanta to dictate the pace of play.
Fanta now proactively has divided the map in his favor by giving him the 2 critical expos at 3 and 9. Flash knows he has to do something and goes for a 3 ship cliff drop with valks to tank the turret fire. Somehow this drop at Fanta's nat doesn't do much, Fanta has had a sizeable number of cloaked wraiths and a late scan by Flash means the drop was negated. Fanta has vultures at Flash's 4th and the two are trading blows continuously. This is definitely not a passive TvT!
Another thing with this game is that Fanta is adding expos before Flash (exception of the natural). Flash seems to be doing a lot of things out of the ordinary (in a bad way).
Flash also has a fuckton of valks, meaning a fuckton of gas - I'm not sure if Fanta had multiple ports at this stage. The Tank wraith vs dropship play is quite nice to behold, I much prefer this to the old school dropship vs dropship. Given that Flash's starports have been quite active, Fanta has the larger ground army and initiates a rolling siege into Flashs maginot line and manages to eke out some territorial gain for a decent army trade.
Flash is basically defending 3 places, his natural, the southern channel leading to the 2 southern bases and the 4/430 natural. Fantasy is able to mobilise his entire army to break through one of these 3 places and the relative army size at that given location at that given point in time means Fantasy is able to suffer 50/50 losses while attacking subverting the traditional defenders advantage.
Flash knows this and is concentrating his power for a doom drop. While Fanta is busy harassing 4/430 Flash somehow finds an air corridor and unloads in Fanta's main. Dual armories go down. Facts go down. Depots go down. Somehow Fanta doesn't panic, sac's his main and pressures Flash's 4/430 while expanding his infrastructure at 1/130, adding mass starports.
Flash stays on the initiative and cliff's 1/130 - this is what Flash needs to do. The game is much more even. The two keep trading blows, but Fanta has slowly built up sufficient wraith count to be annoying as fuck. Flash switches furiously to gol production but Fanta's wraiths doing a fuckton of damage, Flash's 3-0 ups while suited for a ground fight are not optimal vs low damage wraiths. Fanta breaks up to the 430 main and does a manner dmatrix when Flash decides to fight the tank's with scv's. 530 falls soon after.
Fanta's mines are also much more effective given that Flash has used a lot of scan vs cloaked wraith. Flash tries to counter 3 o clock but Fanta has too many mining base, and you know that he knows he's won when u get the zoom in booth shot. Fanta has wraiths inside Flash main and its GG.
Fanta celebrates like he's won an OSL and who can blame him - he just slayed the god of bw.
PS: I clicked preview blog and had to relogin - lost all my final paragraphs + edits. Is this a recurring issue?
