EPT
TL Strategy Grudge Match: Battle Report
Introduction
After much hype, numerous posters all over TL, and great amounts of trash talking on the forums, the official TL Strategy Grudge Match was played on November 3rd between myself and Teoita, the Woktoss. With up to forty viewers, it was quite possibly the most viewed unofficial match ever casted. Speaking of casting, the dynamic casting duo of
This battle report serves as my punishment but also stands as a reflective blog.
Trash Talking
First off, it must be said that my trash talking is, well, trash. However, while I fail pretty epically at coming up with witty remarks on the spot, Teo is excels at trash talking -- though perhaps not at the level of CombatEX or old-school Idra.
Perhaps my favorite comment made in the entire match was:
[TLStrat] BsGTeo: you know i used to think of you as my apprentice but
[TLStrat] BsGTeo: atfer taht last game
[TLStrat] BsGTeo: ill let someone else teach you
[TLStrat] BsGTeo: there's no hope
[TLStrat] BsGTeo: atfer taht last game
[TLStrat] BsGTeo: ill let someone else teach you
[TLStrat] BsGTeo: there's no hope
Of course, my comments during the match were fairly weak, but showed a couple of promising moments ("Void rays OP"). I tried my best to learn some things from Teo as the match went on and began to steadily improve on my trash talking. However, trash talking is still not one of my strengths. As far as this topic goes, Teo wins hands down.
Teo 1-0 John
Game 1: Whirlwind
In what looked to be the beginning of a standard-looking series, both of us opened with what appeared to be fairly normal expands. However, upon immediately scouting of Teo's early nexus and having a probe in prime position, I decided I could 4-gate my way to victory. Normally this is clearly a mistake, but somehow my 4-gate still manages to kill the nexus and get an earlier expansion up for me. However, in a series of bad decisions, I don't scout a proxy pylon in my base, do not respond fast enough to zealot warpins, and waste tons of money on useless tech Over the course of this game, I get an early forge, a blink upgrade, and a dark shrine, all of which are not used effectively. Unfortunately, this would be a continuous pattern throughout this series.
While I have an earlier natural expansion, I'm far behind in the tech tree compared to Teo. Using this obvious tech advantage, Teo opts for a counterattack with a warp prism, four gates, and two immortals. Distracting me with a warp prism in the main, Teo attacks into the natural, decimates my army, kills off my nexus, and kills several probes:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/IPslTJj.png)
At this point, anyone is fucked
In what I felt was a miraculous hold, I manage to keep my main, but I'm far behind in workers, tech and army. With a simple followup colossus push, Teo closes out the game with ease.
One of the things Teo did very nicely in this game was to use hallucination to create fake colossus. The hallucinated colossi help a lot to not only freak out your opponent but also soak up a ton of extra damage (I'm fairly certain I waste like 5 immortal shots on a fake colossus in the last fight). Overall, this was a well-played and smart game by Teoita; he exploited a lot of my weaknesses and mistakes.
Teo 2-0 John
Game 2: Frost
Clueless what to do on Frost, I decided to do a build I had created specifically for Polar Night. Knowing that Teo likes DT expands in PvP and feeling that he would try to metagame me, I created a blind-counter build that is essentially a 3-gate/robo build with a proxy robo into an immortal push. With some luck, I managed to be matched against the exact build I had hoped for, and, while my execution was a little off, I still managed to hit a powerful timing while defending a DT counterattack.
In a moment of distraction, I managed to walk half my army up Teo's ramp before he could forcefield, essentially securing me the win:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/3nvhkSc.png)
This is the worst case scenario for a player
Backed up against a wall with only a single observer and DTs at his disposal, Teo goes for the only move available: sniping my observer and warping in DTs. In a gigantic blunder, I lose my observer several units to DTs, then fail to leave an observer at home to protect my probes. After losing over fifteen probes and nearly losing my entire army, I manage to barely stabilize and finish off Teo.
All in all, Teo did a very good job in spite of the fact that he was blind countered. It's very clear that Teo is comfortable with DTs and knows what to do if he ever gets into a dire situation. Again, Teo did a very good job and exploiting my weaknesses and taking advantage of my sloppy engagements.
Teo 2-1 John
Note: A lot of people, including Teo, accused me of stream cheating during this match. It's easy to understand how, after only scouting one starting location and immediately walking toward Teo's base in cross positions, it looked impossibly too perfect. In my defense, I've gotten fairly good at figuring out where people are on 4-player maps with minimal scouting. The main tipoffs for me that game were vision around my robo, the first proxy pylon, and the scouting probe at top left. Using knowledge and general intuition, I made an educated guess that we were cross spawns. I did not stream cheat for any of these games.
Game 3: Yeonsu
As a silly prepared strategy I came up with two days ago, I decided to pull out this ridiculous 2-base tempest build. In theory, it's a sound build to aim for two-base tempests into the high-ground third. This allows the tempests to sit stationary between the three bases and defend wherever necessary while using walls and cannons to defend the ridge. From here, you can continually exapnd downward toward your opponent's 3rd, slowly creeping forward with cannons. I want to note right away that I made a lot of mistakes; per usual, Teo was able to exploit those mistakes and pull out a convincing win.
Certain that I was going to cannon rush on this map, Teo scoured his side of the map coupled with a very early 9 scout in order to check for cannons or any suspicious activity. Unfortunately, I decided to go for a fairly standard DT expand. Knowing his deficit, Teo opts for oracle play coupled by a very early nexus of his own. Fortunately, his gamble pays off and he is able to secure a well-timed expansion while taking almost no damage from the DT play.
After scouting the tempest play, Teo opts to take a fast 3rd followed by a fairly early third while amassing void rays and doing continuous warp prism harassment. After killing a number of probes and assuming a powerful position on the map, Teo gathers his fifteen void rays and attacks into a vulnerable position for the win:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/7DWZ0zh.png)
The lack of cannons at the front (along with the lack of interceptors and void rays within my own force) makes this area very vulnerable
All in all, I think this was the most lackluster and least interesting game in the series. Neither of us played particularly well nor were any super interesting choices made. Teo did a good job of harassing with warp prisms while amassing an army, but I'm not sure that's full justification for a "good" game. I think if I had executed my build better, the game would have been far more interesting.
Teo 3-1 John
My Terran Adventure
The game started with me spawning as terran. I immediately had a heart attack and lost.
Teo 4-1 John
Game 4: Bel'Shir Vestige
For this map, I had picked an easy void ray all-in in the hopes that I could end the game early. In a rather odd turn of circumstances, both of us do not get early Mothership Cores and instead focus on getting early stargates. There is some early posturing with initial stalkers, but the delay of Teo's MSC causes him to miss the stargate building void rays right outside his main.
With his first oracle, Teo is able to do massive damage to my economy -- up to 8 probe kills and almost a minute of lost mining time -- while simultaneously scouting no tech:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/zsWaggK.png)
This oracle came home a hero known as "Probeslayer"
Teo scrambles to prepare his defenses, but it's already too late when three void rays fly in over his army and six stalkers walk up the ramp. With a lucky build order win, I take game 4.
Teo 4-2 John
Game 5: New Polaris Rhapsody
This map was chosen as a ridiculous series finale to a potentially ridiculous series, and in many ways represented the full spirit of this grudge match. My plan for this game was a proxy gate into a 1-base colossus push -- a strategy vaderseven helped me cook up -- to throw Teo off early and hard counter any kind of DT attempts. Unfortunately, New Polaris Rhapsody ended up being a terrible map for this strategy.
In the beginning of the game, both Teo and me send probes across the map for proxy gates. After the probes high-five in the middle of the map, we both have a good idea of what's going on. For me, a proxy gate into a base trade fits okay into my plan; however, Teo decides to play more conservatively and make a defensive gate while scouting all around his base for proxies.
After a lackluster micro war between his zealots and mine, I do no almost damage but end up with a much earlier cybernetics core. With a wall in place and a robo bay and four gates on the way, I'm in prime position to hold off a counterattack and take the lead. However, I miss one very important detail: Teo has a hidden pylon in my base. In the most painful moment ever, Teo's warpgate pressure is revealed, and I know I've lost the series:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/rt3RRWT.png)
When you gg and facepalm because you didn't scout the probe in your base....
All in all, this was a perfect game to wrap up the series. It showcased an interesting cascade of events that led up to a perfectly iconic ending: mass hidden nexuses, endless BM, pylons spelling out "lol", and the lone colossus -- the last of his kind -- burning up in the lava.
Teo 5-2 John
Teo wins!
Reflections
Walking away from this series, I feel fulfilled. When I was entered into the TLCMAT, I immediately knew I was going to lose very early, especially when I drew the group with Teoita, CosmicSpiral, and opterown. I was honestly very surprised I was even nominated; it never ceases to amaze me when people write comments like "Thanks a lot for the guide! This has really helped my play a lot!" I'm just in constant disbelief that what I'm contributing is actually appreciated so much.
That said, I didn't go into this tournament thinking I would win, so I decided to start a ridiculous poster campaign and write that silly blog post comparing me to Teoita. Surprisingly, the topic went over so well that Teo decided to make his own blog in response and somehow this Grudge Match came about after some internal discussion at TL Strategy. The main idea behind the grudge match was to gain both of us some popularity out there as well as showcase the teamwork of TL Strategy.
Going into the series, I felt outmatched; Teo is known as the big protoss strategy guy, the advocate and poster child for the Soul Train, the "Woktoss". With a background of high masters (and a primarily winning record in PvP vs. GM players) against my stagnant diamond rating, how could I ever beat him? I wasn't supposed to, was I? In a way, it was kind of scary, but it was also fun. Since I already knew I couldn't win, I decided I wanted to do what was best for the stream: create some crazy builds to throw Teo off and win with interesting and innovative builds. My goal wasn't necessarily to win but to have fun.
In the process, I had a great time and learned a few things. The first thing I learned is that Teo wasn't nearly as good as I thought and I'm better than I thought. In a series filled with wonky builds I had never done before, I still managed a final score of 3-2 and took it all the way into the ace match. It can be argued that I got by on luck and that Teoita hasn't laddered or played much at all in three months, but I felt fairly even in skill and wasn't nervous at all going into the final game. It was revealing to me to realize that the guy I kind of idolized and always looked up to for advice wasn't QUITE as strong as I had originally pictured him. I was afraid to try before, but I think if I play my game and the builds I'm comfortable with, I can beat Teoita in another match.
In a lot of ways, this silly grudge match has done wonders for me. It's reawakened my passion for SC2, it's given me the drive to finally fix the holes in my play and gravitate toward strategies I can learn and understand well. It's given me confidence in my skill and the feeling that if I practice and don't get nervous, I can beat many people I originally thought were impossible to beat. I'm reinvigorated with learning strategy and thinking about little things in the game as well as practicing mechanics. I'm really glad I did it, and I'm very happy the production turned out so well
.Thanks to all the people who nominated and supported me!
Cheers, and good luck in the contest, Teo!
_
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