Good vs Evil
Light vs Darkness
Protagonist vs Antagonist
Yang Wen-li vs Reinhard von Lohengramm

Two sides of the same coin?
Opposites that require the other to survive?

So, what's this all about? It's pretty simple really. There is always a delicate balance that must be struck in reality. That same kind of balance is needed in a complex game such as BW. In a game where a lot has to be accomplished in a short period of time, sometimes you have to make sacrifices and focus your attention on the best opportunities in order to win.

Thus, in a battle between casual amateurs, who would reign supreme if both players played on unfamiliar maps with no practice beforehand? Who would manage to best and defeat the other in mortal kombat? That, my friends is what this is all about.

It was another nice sunny day when opportunity knocked on my door:
A chance to finally play BW TvZ after a long time.
A chance to play against a devious opponent, JxN, one who knows my game well.
A proposed BO3 series on the recent ASL maps: Sparkle, Transistor and Third World.

full version

With Sparkle chosen first by yours truly, it was finally time to get things rolling. Will my micro win against his macro?

The game starts off with myself spawning at 4 o'clock as the purple terran while my opponent spawned at 7 o'clock as the purple zerg. Already I can tell that this game is going to be interesting seeing lines such as this

We both decided to go for strategies that we are somewhat familiar with. I ended up going for a 1 rax FE into 2 port while my opponent went for 3 hatch hydra, getting an early evo for spores if need be. My gameplan was pretty simple: focus heavily on bio drops after establishing some kind of air dominance early on. Ground movement on this map is extremely restricted due to the fact that all the bases are on separate islands so getting air control will allow for easier troop transportation among cutting off drops and such. Going to battlecrusiers in the late game is always an option too. Just depends on how easy it is to switch to more air units:

Things are pretty calm early on as my opponent is mostly defending while my wraiths kill a couple of wandering overlords and help scout all around the map, giving me tabs on how my opponent is progressing. With my opponent taking his fourth base, it was finally time to go for a double drop as I tried to take my own fourth:

I manage to catch him off-guard and get some drone kills before my drop is cleaned up. Not too shabby when those 2 nasty spores picked off both dropships and some of my army in them. The game continues as another drop at his fourth failed and he tries to establish a fifth base:

Island maps only scream drops and here's probably the best example of a brutally forced drop that you'll ever see. My opponent scouts the dropships and he still gets DROPPED. This move was executed while I decided to finally bring out the big guns, battlecrusiers. With my ability to float resources at all phases of the game and 3 ports already at my disposal, this was it!

Deciding to keep up the pressure, I scout my opponent's fifth base and go for a drop. Alas, it seems like my opponent had a similar idea and we both manage to pass each other as I destroy his fifth while he destroys my fourth:

Lucky for both of us, we are floating a ton at this point. I have also managed to sneak out some SCVs to take some other bases. With his army away and his fourth a bit naked: YAMATO time!

His fourth is now cleaned up leaving him with little income. I'm not in much of a better spot either, having only grabbed a new base recently. This gets scouted fairly soon after, but I have already started a new base on another island as well. My opponent realizes the OPness of nyduses on these island bases and plants one at each island, but I discover and kill one while the other eluded me leading to the ravaging of my new base:

I'm still preventing him from doing any major mining while I have successfully double expanded to the top left corner far away from civilization. It seemed like things were going my way until OH SHIT!

Up against a large lurker-based force with no science vessels in sight and a bad choke point, things looked extremely grim. I would eventually clean things up with a lot of patience though my main is ravaged:

From there, I worked hard on trying to establish my newest bases with turret defense and new structures while my opponent grabs one of my newest bases that fell to his nydus shenanigans! Still, things are finally looking up. With a small but resilient air force, I cleaned up his newest base, re-established it as my own and delayed his latest base giving me an even greater economical advantage:

From there, it was a matter of keeping close tabs on his behaviour, building up my army and going in for the kill:

And with that, I'm up 1-0 in the series! Can I close this off on Third World or will JxN come back to tie the series? Stay tuned!

After game thoughts: I never really played an island map before so this was an interesting first experience. Things are much different in reality haha. Most terran pros in ASL seem to favour sticking to air armies and allowing the zerg to expand unopposed. Always felt that drops are extremely important, especially that zerg becomes extremely strong once they have that much gas and can counter your air force. The addition of BCs and double expanding was the right move, paid off in dividends. Fun game, would recommend the map for any new players who want to try something new!

Here's an FPV for anyone who's interested:

Peeano

Netherlands5700 Posts

June 07 2018 02:15 GMT

I was watching the newest episode of this anime at random about 4 hour ago...
5/5 because BW blog.

ninazerg

United States7291 Posts

June 07 2018 06:47 GMT

It's confirmed: Canada is #1 in bm worldwide.

Estonia806 Posts

June 07 2018 20:31 GMT

Bigfan reported

JieXian

Malaysia4677 Posts

June 08 2018 02:38 GMT

From there, it was a matter of keeping close tabs on his behaviour, building up my army and going in for the kill:

You win one game and now I am your pet dog?

hahahaha

BigFan

TLADT24920 Posts

June 08 2018 21:13 GMT

^ haha I didn't even mean it that way XD

Peeano, ya LoGH is a really old anime. What you are watching is a remake but it will only have 12 episodes. I highly recommend the original. If you don't mind the older gfx, they are great and the character designs are much better too. The only area that the new one improves imo is the space fights. More specifically, it's in 3D and you feel it's in space but we've barely seen much anyways.

Ninazerg, BCs are not BM! Gotta stop spreading all that BM nonsense!

v1, nice try. I can't be reported! :D

c3rberUs

Japan11340 Posts

June 10 2018 02:47 GMT

On June 08 2018 11:38 JieXian wrote:

Show nested quote +

You win one game and now I am your pet dog?

hahahaha

Lol, bm country as always

FFW_Rude

France10201 Posts

June 10 2018 05:53 GMT

On June 08 2018 11:38 JieXian wrote:

Show nested quote +

You win one game and now I am your pet dog?

hahahaha

Just imagine if he wins two

JieXian

Malaysia4677 Posts

June 10 2018 18:17 GMT

On June 10 2018 14:53 FFW_Rude wrote:

Show nested quote +

Just imagine if he wins two

I am imagining a blog full of gifs.

Luckily that will never happen, him winning two in a row.

kogeT

Poland2042 Posts

June 12 2018 21:01 GMT

#10

What did I just read.

Bibbit

Canada5377 Posts

June 13 2018 04:40 GMT

#11

Ayy keep killin it my dude! (:

BigFan

TLADT24920 Posts

June 14 2018 21:10 GMT

#12

^ Hey Bibbit. Long time no see! Nice to see you still hanging around ^^

There was no BM here. BCs are NOT BM! :D

On June 10 2018 14:53 FFW_Rude wrote:

Show nested quote +

Just imagine if he wins two

imagine that

On June 13 2018 06:01 kogeT wrote:
What did I just read.

Only the best battle report on this whole site that tried to compare our year long battles of macro vs micro to those of the battles in the anime Legend of the Galactic Heroes which is a really massive old school, well received anime.

FFW_Rude

France10201 Posts

June 15 2018 18:01 GMT

#13

On June 15 2018 06:10 BigFan wrote:
^ Hey Bibbit. Long time no see! Nice to see you still hanging around ^^

There was no BM here. BCs are NOT BM! :D

Show nested quote +

imagine that

Show nested quote +

So... I guess you're going to have to write another battle report then :p