[BW] Snow vs Guemchi

Hey guys, I’m back with my second battle report and hopefully I’ve improved. My first one had blurry pics from a bygone era so I thought I’d make one with clearer pictures from a recent match

. This is game 3 in a Bo5 of the sponsored LoveTV map-test matches. This game features a Protoss vs. Protoss matchup between (P)

by.Snow of CJ Entus and (P)

Guemchi of Woongjin Stars in the old school map Bifrost III.

+ Show Spoiler +

Note: The original Bifrost 3 had a mineral only at the back of the base. A gas was added to allow for modern standard play, as well as a temple to block the small backdoor cliff.

Guemchi, the yellow protoss starts at the bottom left spawn.

Snow, the red protoss starts at the top right spawn.

Guemchi has a surprise for Snow.

Guemchi decides to keep his momentum from the last game by sending a very early probe to Snow’s base. He makes a pylon just outside Snow’s line of sight, hoping Snow won’t go this way.

Snow sniffs it out

Snow roams his base a bit then sees the danger. Guemchi puts down a gateway and starts harassing the mineral line where he builds a manner pylon. Snow quickly deals with the pesky pylon but now he has to deal with Guemchi’s zealots. Guemchi manages to pick off some probes before Snow finally manages to destroy the pylon powering the gateway and pushes the last zealot away from the base. Knowing he has more units, Snow continues the march inside the yellow protoss base until newly arrived dragoons force him out.

At this point, Guemchi manages to slip a scout into the red base and sees a citadel warping in, so in response, he goes robo tech to get observers. Guemchi broke out from his main, continued to the red protoss base and got repulsed by new goons in similar fashion to earlier.

Progamers show their uncanny timing as both players take their naturals at the same time.

As Guemchi blocks Snow’s entrance, his shuttle reaver goes to the back to harass but Snow has some goons at the near the mineral line of both his bases.

The shuttle waits in vain for the goons to leave

The yellow protoss is not the only one equipped to do harassment. As soon as the shuttle reaver clears the area, Snow slips a shuttle through the outside cliffs for a storm drop.

Warning: If you like probes or you’re a probe yourself, please close this tab now.

STOOOOORMMSSSSS!!!!

The two HT combined for 16 kills

Snow is able save his HT and get back to get off another salvo but nets no kills this time.

Guemchi, not to be outdone, takes his idle shuttle – now carrying high templars, replies with his own storm drop.

STOOOOOORMMMSSS!!! 11 kills!

Both players take their third expo at the same time. Snow moves his army to the center, to the right of the bridge while Guemchi is content with sitting his army between his main and the 3rd. Then the harassment continues.

Another 7 kills for Snow

The lightning storm continues, Guemchi nets 9 probes

At this point, the game has reached a kind of stalemate where forcing an engagement can mean destruction in the map’s many chokepoints. The only safe way to get even a slight lead is to harass economies and send little patrols to pick off unguarded expos. Both of the players tried the latter, unfortunately the expos are all easily defensible and they fail to do anything.

With neither player wanting to commit to a full attack, the harassment resumes. Guemchi drops a DT and some HT in the red natural to good effect.

I don’t even want to count how many kills anymore.

In retaliation, Snow drops three DTs and a lone zealot in Guemchi’s natural expo. They make short work of a cannon and then proceeds to hack away at the nexus. Meanwhile Snow deals with the yellow DT in his nat as soon as detection became available.

Uh oh, Guemchi’s in trouble now.

All the while, Snow brought his forces across the bridge, just adjacent the choke point that leads to the yellow protoss base. With his opponent a base down, a successful attack will solidify Snow’s lead. Guemchi however has other plans.

As Snow moves in, yellow templars and reavers blanketed the choke point with storms and scarab explosions. The red protoss army is forced to fall back to the other side of the bridge. Snow takes the expo in the middle area near the bridge to widen his lead as the stalemate continues.

Guemchi needs to equalize the game with his own expo. To pull attention away from his own warping expo he marches his army towards the bottom of the map either then goes back.

Quoting LoveTV –“shiiiiit, fuuck you”

The yellow protoss army converged to defend the fourth expo. Then out of nowhere, Snow runs his shuttle through the army and somehow survives to drop another templar to deal more damage to the yellow protoss eco.

More STOOORMMSS!!

Guemchi tries to retaliate with reaver harass and a storm drop but they were foiled because of Snow’s heightened defensive effort. Then we get the most interesting revelation of the match:

Arbitersssssss

Snow attacks the yellow protoss’ third and got annihilated by a combination of cannons and reavers. Guemchi’s stronger defense also stops a storm drop near the 12 o’clock expo. Even then, Snow manages to sneak this in.

Does Guemchi have any probes left?

The harassment from Snow has gone unanswered for several minutes now so Guemchi tries again. He manages to land high templars on the 3rd’s cliff and then… stares at the probes. Even Lovetv was puzzled by this.

Ugh, Guemchi, those are probes over there.

With an arbiter at hand, Snow tries to force an engagement

Snow knows that if he attacks the yellow protoss force and comes out even, his now clearly superior economy can produce at a faster rate. With an arbiter in the mix he attacks, but the defenses across the bridge (filled with archons and cannons) are too strong. He goes to 12 o’clock and tries there but no luck.

That move though did two things for him 1) he delayed any expo from warping in and 2) he shifted the focus from his own expo building at the opposite side of the map.

To get the final, badly needed expo, Guemchi launches a storm drop and a small attack simultaneously on the red protoss.

LOL Finally, he finishes the job.

Arbiter to the rescue!

With the final vacant expos taken, a decisive battle can no longer be avoided. Snow tackles the problem of attacking Guemchi’s line by dividing his massive goon-zeal-HT heavy force into two. The majority rallies to his 6 to swing upward. The rest will cross the bridge as the main force drives Guemchi away.

Snow's army

Guemchi's army

And so it begins…

STASIS!

Guemchi gets reinforcements from across the bridge.

Guemchi was driven back but not destroyed, eventually repelling Snow with his archon heavy army.

Snow retreats a bit and softens up the archons with blasts of psi storm. After getting replenished by newly macro’d units, he attacks again.

Inside the red circle: Stasised observer. Clutch

Initially, Snow was facing dragoons flanked by angry archons but then he made a clutch stasis, removing Guemchi’s detection rendering him unable to return fire. Snow procedes to completely decimate Guemchi’s expansion and any he hope he has of winning the game. He eventually continues on to attack 12 where Guemchi types out.

Good game.

Thank you for reading!

[BW] Snow vs Guemchi

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Ongoing

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