Daily Ladder-age #40: Never Giveup/Surrender Pt.2

All great adventures start somewhere; this adventure took place on Derelict Watchtower. Both players open fairly standard, me with my 2 fast gas into MSC/stalker/Warpgate, while my enemy uses a reaper expand.



His reaper is picked off easily.


Look mommy, I'm flying! I'm flying! I'm fly-FAAAAAAAAAARUARAHGAUGGHHHHH!!!

Since I've been starting to have an identity crisis for my PvT recently (much like my recent one for PvZ), I decide to go oracle expand like I used to. Oracles felt like they became so useless as soon as I got to the level where people just put widowmines in their mineral line... until I realized that now I'm at a level where people are smart enough not to just waste money and preemptively place mines in their mineral line. Guess who came in for some cake.


Mmmm, oracle soup with some scv sprinkled in. Saucy.

My harass goes AMAZINGLY. Seriously this guy just wasn't ready for it at all. He was being pretty greedy I guess, and I caught him at a good time when my oracle hit (just before his reactor rax kicked in). Heck, my oracle even gets an opening and goes in for second helpings.


I'mma firin' mah lazaaaaaaaaa

At this point in time my worker lead is pretty significant. I start to try my best to macro up like any good, young Protoss player would. The big guns to aim for of course is dat colossus, and since I felt like I was in a pretty good spot I even got a bit greedy and threw down myself a 3rd base.


Behold, the mighty protoss army!

Meanwhile, an army's just about the only thing the terran has going for him... I spot his lack of units just as they move out, but my forces still are actually pretty inferior to his.


Behold, the "scrappy" terrans!

I harass a tiny bit again as his units are out of position, but at my natural ramp the heat is coming in... By the way that oracle got at least 22 kills. RIght before his attack resources lost were 1225 vs 0. That woulda been pretty damn good if I actually build up an army to defend form his.


Nooo, the colossus if focused down! You mean terran players actually MICRO!?

I end up coming out of the fight with still a bit of a lead from economy, but I actually realize that I lack the production to support my 3base income. The terran player brings along some widow mines and makes any more engagements extremely tricky.


Wha... where'd my army go? Did they cloaking field away?

I lose my colossi and my natural base... and am left with only a handful of units to defend. Heck at this point many players may have GG'ed out (and my enemy may have very well been able to kill me if he controlled right). But neigh, I stayed strong! I FOUGHT HARD!!! I REMAINED IN THE GAME!!!


Y tu third!? Y tu!?

So yeah my third base is also sniped, basically for free since the terran healbusses just buss them out. Pretty bummed out at all the mis micro that went down during this early game segment. I could have saved 1 or 2 of the colossi that I lost and I could have done a lot more with force fields too. If I had defended well this would have been a breeze due to my 22 kill oracle.

So I FINALLY Manage to get enough units out to be pushing away the terran... I'm under the impression that I'm way behind and that loss is eminent. However, from the observer point of view, I notice something... something with 30 kills.


THIS FUCKING ORACLE

My light-hearted "Hey, I'll just try making an oracle again, for old times sake" oracle got 30+ kills. Wow. I'm pretty impressed. It's definitely all thanks to this guy that I didn't lose the game at this point. By the time the oracle finally dies the worker count is 31 for the terran and 51 for me. AW YISS. Oracles. The terran didn't make many more SCVs, but thanks to OP mules his income is fairly stable. While I'm trying to rebuild my economy a little bit, he decides to go full out army production for a couple of minutes, resulting in yet another attack. I have a couple of archons instead of colossi since I decided to give up anti-air production.



He poked in a tiny bit at my expansion, but decided against fighting up the ramp. He proceeded to contain my natural base's ramp using his superior army as well as annoying-as-hell widow mines.


And a concave to boot!

With mineral patches running low, the most abundant resource I had at my disposal was gas. Now my children, lets look back on our Protoss; What unit rapes bio and costs tons of gas? That's right, some mutha fuckin high templar.


YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

On a side note they're worthless without storm.


God damnit Leeroy we can't follow you in to your shit.

Luckily I had storm in the researchin' for a while so right after my failure of a move out my HT could now storm. After letting him contain me for a little longer I set out for the hurt.


Round 2 bitches.

While I did do some good damage I was still fairly far behind, and was forced to retreat.


Sneaking by.

I finally get around to getting up my 3rd base again at 23 minutes in to the game, just like all other standard protoss players. My army starts to become VERY high templar heavy, which is very useful against an enemy who doesn't tech to ghosts. A series of Sexy storms actually gets me in to a pretty good place, making all of his units pretty damn low on health.


I'm sexy and I know it.

After all my sexy storms I actually manage to finally take a supply lead! Whoo!


Suprise butt-sex.

Then that drop happened. My main army is crushing his forces and quite frankly I don't have the time nor resources to deal with his piddly-ass drop. My main army moves back to fend it off, and I allow my 3rd to be sniped yet again.


Augh again!?

I once again create my 3rd, all that silly jazz again. In this game, I finally brought myself to do something that's always been pretty awesome; storm drops. I caught his timing of when he was floating his 4th base over, so I patiently waited for the right moment to strike... At the same time, more fights emerged near my base. Storms are still awesomely useful, and my massive number of them just keeps getting me going even though my army supply is a lot lower.


HE SHOOTS! HE SCOOOORES!!!

My enemy also keeps up extremely annoying drops, which I simply can't afford to handle on a 1-base income. I also decide that it's time to move out, and I basically suicide my 2 ht from my drop to kill off some marines and soften up marauders at his base.

Ah yes, the end game. This end game is... rather long.
First off, my big idea to push; I begin moving out my army, setting up my warp prism at his 3rd for my proxy pylon. My units at the time of the push are 24 zealots, 1 colossus, and 14 high templar. If my enemy had great EMP micro then my army was shit. as it turns out, he wasn't too great.


Standing in the storms~

I demolish his 3rd's SCVs line, and I decide that the game is now or never. I move up to get into his production to seal the deal..... but not quite.


Balls. heh.

It turns out that archons have a hard time walking up and breaking ramps. I also made a terrible mis-micro by losing my last colossu (37 kills!)... I just about threw the game right there. I at least still have income, and I finally get my 4th base at 33+ minutes in to the game too. I have a ton of gas saved up to make HT too.


He keeps dropping me~

My 3rd is also sniped for the zillionth time this game. By this point I notice 2 things; 1, my enemy has no more viking production (free colossi damage!) , and 2, I don't have charge. Well damn. Slowlots. I think I actually never ended up researching charge this whole game.



He shortly after sniped my 4th... and I have no mining bases. I decide to go for it once a drop hits since I actually have no more minerals to defend it, and warp in a single HT to save up for a storm while marauders whiddle away at my gateways.


Hey Joey, looks like we got an easy job this time around! But why are we killing gateways?

I thought that the only reason I won was because my enemy never hit a single EMP; actually it was quite the contrary. He hit a few EMPs. It's just that my HT had more than 100 energy <3.



I now realize I have an advantage since his medivacs have no energy and I have tons of AoE.


Coupe de Grace?

I get into his production, and this time I don't fail. Turns out that he has barely any resources left either.



The terran takes all of his remaining units to go for a base race as he flies his production facilities away to a new base.


Joke's on you, I have no mining bases!

We end up with his evacuating to a new base location while I chase after with my remaining forces. Right before he manages to build his bunkers I strike; all of our remaining forces (save my probes) go in for the final battle.



AND RESULT; I TRIUMPH!!! His last ditch attemp is to go into my base to kill my stuff too... but then I remembered some units that I warped in a while ago to deal with drops.


GG!!!