Yesterday I had the pleasure to be part of TL Attack and their first Episode in 2012.
So what did I do to play? Well I made this cheerful. Had not a lot of time but wanted to contribute a little anyways.
+ Show Spoiler +
I tried to point out the main focus of each part of the show. However had not enough time to polish it properly so do not consider it too serious.
So when I went online into the HotS Bnet I got invited by TL Hosts and was right in the game. First I thought about tuning in the stream as they might tell him some rules to stick to while gaming but then I figured I could ask ingame and play fair.
The game starts right away. It is a ZvZ in HotS and I start by asking about the rules:
Well they tell me sheth only can make zerglings. I think it is kinda weird as we are playing HotS and people probably want to see new stuff but I just take it and think about an early baneling/ling aggression. So far so good I go for fast gas and put up Baneling Nest right away after my pool finishes. On the other side I see no gas and an expansion being put up so I'm a little buffled by this.
The Hosts jump in probably knowing that something is wrong in this game.
So that's the real deal... Well bad for me I think but my lings are already morphing into banelings right in front of his expansion and a spine crawler being put up at his second hatchery.
The banelings come in trying to go up the ramp while the spine crawler is about to pop up and attack the hatchery.
However Sheth's defense is too superb and my baneling engagment horrible . I end up making nearly 0 damage to his economy.
So I decide maybe I can make some damage to his units or poke by his ramp with my lings again to do some extra hidden banelings. The expansion gets pretty damaged and I think about the consequence of this. To be fair I pulled of the spine crawler and tried to run by. I hope the hosts didn't honestly think I forgot to kill it without a purpose. Oh well call me selfish but I wanted to play longer than 8 minutes.
Things are getting bad for me. My economy is pretty bad and I have no expansion up. I try to get on in game by using the swarm hosts defensive idea in combination with spine crawlers. Probably not the best positioning as pointed out by the TL Attack Hosts.
At least I can drone up and get my third going.
Looks like Sheth on the other hand takes advantage of this and tries to steal a Queen of mine with his Vipers. They were discussing wether the Queen ends up falling to the ground of the cliff. Apparently that is not possible (thanks david kim). However as I found out later when watching the VOD Sheth's task was also to get a Queen and pull it all the way back to his main. While gaming I only saw this:
I just thought he wants to show the new spells and fun you can have with but thought it would be already dead when I saw his roaches poking around my Queen.
Well looks like I was mistaken and she gets pulled away further. This keeps repeating while my Queen doesn't give a shit literally and tries to go home in her snail speed. Loool so hilarious watching it afterwords. InControl saying: "The other Zerg player is like: I don't give a shit about that Queen and is continuing playing" probably fit the best. Indeed I didn't give a shit hehe.
So my Queen already reached his creep and Sheth loosing focus on his task. Ending up killing my Queen while laughing at his own mistake haha.
I'm kinda back into the game, however tech and upgrades are bad but I try to get some action going.
We meet somehow in the middle and he gets some good Viper action by pulling my infestors.
At this time my Ultralisks pop up and I want to know it. I head straight to his third and end up killing it wondering where his army is gone. Nevermind I want to get on run to his second expansion but that's just what he wanted. My infestors and Queens get caught as the last guys in the row and Vipers do their job again:
With my Ultralisks and their new upgrade in their back I decide to go for the fourth expansion and we fight off right in front of it. I use the new Ultralisk burrow and it really looked cool when they jumped out of the ground pushing all Roaches away:
Meanwhile my Swarm Hosts keep killing reinforcements however they are not enough and end up dead pretty soon. Side note: Swarm Hosts are good to deny constant reinforcements when positioned in front of the ramp. Unconcentrated players might not even notice while fighting at the front.
However Sheth has banked so much minerals and gas I can not hold his reproduction. We fight in front of my base and he shows us all how mighty the Viper is in zvz. The Roaches spit on each other while suddenly my roaches somehow forgot how spitting works out due to the vipers green cloud. This surprised me as I didn't play much HotS yet and I clearly see I lost now. Side note: The cloud can be put on spince crawlers making them totally useless.
We get into another combat at my fourth. He shows again the Vipers strength in combination with roaches and grabs one by one of my Roaches. My Ultralisks joined them too late and they get trolled by burrowed Roaches which Sheth likes a lot .
The game is over, I gg out and thank them for the game. It was a lot of fun as I realized how versatile ZvZ might get in HotS.
Now after I watched the VOD of the game I wanted to point out some things: No I did not know what he was not allowed to do. No I did not watch the stream while playing (although Hosts were saying everyone does it). I loved the rest of the show and I like the idea of constantly stressing a pro gamer while he plays and putting up some rules he has to stick to. However for others it might have looked not that neat of Catz and InControl one should never forget that these guys know each other pretty well and they are good friends. I will definitly tune in the next Episode and of course try to play again to get my revenge!
Thanks InControl, CatZ and Sheth for this one!! Keep it up!
How did you like it?
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