Battle Report: Rogue vs Classic

Zealously

East Gorteau22261 Posts

January 06 2015 00:44 GMT

If you're at all familiar with Proleague, you'll know that while we're often treated to bread-and-butter standard macro games or short games decided by pre-planned build orders, the SPL also tends to be the place where we most often see games that, put simply, make no sense. Be it through absurd maps (thanks Arkanoid), clashing build orders, or chains of rather... peculiar decisions, there will always be games that play out nothing like we could have reasonably expected them to. Players make mistakes, and unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately?) this seems to occur more frequently than anywhere else in the Proleague arena.

With that said, I give you Rogue vs Classic, a game that should have ended long before it did and in the opposite way. Taking place at match point with SKT up 2-1, Rogue had his work cut out for him: stop whatever Classic (who, despite his less than illustrious reputation, is still a GSL champion) might throw at him and take Jin Air to the ace match.

Do I need hands for that?

Deadwing, rather notoriously, is a very large map. While this in most cases might lead to very macro-centric games, it also means that there is a lot of empty space available both in-base and nearby for proxies and other sorts of shenanigans.

Weather forecast: shenanigans with a chance of Faker

As Wolf accurately pointed out, being up a game or more in a series allows for greater freedom of choice. With the knowledge that you're in the lead, you can freely improvise or employ more risky strategies. Classic knows this and made use of the fact. Operating under the assumption that Rogue would open safely in standard Deadwing fashion, Classic channeled one of the most prolific Protoss players currently active in Starcraft 2:

Rogue, meet Has.

Rogue pulled a significant amount of drones in hope of stopping the rather unconventional cannon rush before any of the cannons could get up. But with one cannon finishing on the low ground behind safety of two pylons and additional ones constructing on the high ground, he was pushed back and forced to cancel his hatchery. Moving to the third base position to get his expansion up while cannons were closing in on his main base, Rogue was met with further resistance even there.

"Why on earth wouldn't I cannon your third as well?"

Unsurprisingly, Rogue chose not to pursue an expansion when both possible locations were at risk of being sieged by photon cannons. The situation looked dire, and what does one do when things seem dire and the game unwinnable? It depends on the school of thought you subscribe to, but Rogue made it clear that he has taken a page out of Life's and soO's books of Zerg.

The proxy hatchery is the solution to all of your problems if you build enough of them

While Classic had prepared for a proxy or similar shenanigans at his natural with a gateway and a cannon in place, Rogue simply walked past him and strolled right into the main where he built not one, but two hatcheries. Emphasis on two, because Classic only reacted to one. He forced Rogue to cancel the hatchery near the lower right corner of his base, and left it at that. Whether it was because he didn't see the hatchery or because he thought Rogue simply wouldn't go through with it, Classic left the second hatchery - which had now finished - to its own devices.

The result

Classic lost several workers in an ill-fated attempt to steer the game back on track in his favor by killing the constructing spine crawlers, and once roaches popped into his base accompanied by queens, a nydus (!) and three spine crawlers, things only got worse. Several indecisive attempts to kill a unit or three were made by the SKT Protoss before he decided that his only choice was a last-ditch suicide attack. You can guess how that turned out yourself.

Meatgrinder (noun): the act of attempting to push back three queens and seven roaches with probes

With the roles reversed and Classic contained in his natural, things were... I'm actually not going to say it, just look at the picture below and try to figure out how you go from a very successful cannon rush to that in 5 minutes.