EPTHow I stopped worrying and started loving the Flash
The way his scvs almost seemed to slide along invisible lines of power reminded me of his game against oov, where the little tin can negroes repaired one of his tanks with unerring precision; saving it by fractions of a second and scary red numbers in hit points, only to be coldly moved to mining duty while the unit was still very much under attack, yet out of imminent danger in the kid's mind. As his first depot came up, I could swear if I looked at his screen at the time he placed it I'd see only about 80 minerals, but it got built anyway because it was Flash. There's just a kind of unearthly grace and smoothness to his game. At the time he placed his double cc cc, he almost succeeded in looking invincible.
Little did he know that GGplay had, somewhere in his pool of infinite wisdom, already pretty much found a way to decide the game by not going hatch-first. But what made me fall in love with him was how he took it. Insane record, sure. Youngest, well, probably pretty much everything in progaming, yeah yeah. Yet now he sees 6 lings at his building cc while the barracks aren't even done yet. In the very first game of his first OSL semi final, nonetheless.
Imagine for a second how his fellow terrans might react.
I can envision the emperor's disapproving 'How could you do this to Boxer?' look, a 'Wtf? But I'm Nada! How?!' from, um, Goodfriend, and an 'Omg... OmgOMGOMG *chokes and surrenders semi-finals on the spot*' from Goldenboy.
But this unbelievable little hatchling proceeds to look squarely into the face of the sadistic close-up camera hoping to catch his moment of despair, and, in the manner of an old samurai warrior, gives a courteous respectful nod in recognition of his opponent's choice of strategy. An understandably bitter nod of course, but in a spot where others might have been embarrassed, shocked or bewildered, he just grimly accepted the fact that he had gone for a risky opening and got outplayed in the prescout poker by GGplay (on a side note, GGplay's fans poising huge posters of him in rock paper scissors stances were pretty exhilarated).
So, does he concede defeat and type out? In GGplay's dreams. He lets the lings pound the cc until almost 0 hp, cancels, then scv drills the hell out of them at his own choke, surviving until the first marine was finally read his list of crimes, issued the armor and set his combat status to active. Having macroed and teched all this time himself, GGplay doesn't feel the necessity of further assaulting the choke with what would now become bigger losses, and opts to retreat.
Flash pardons a couple of marines more, moves them out to chase away the lings outside his base and tries to end it all before his opponent can utilize his overwhelming tech and economy by going all in with most of his scvs, hiding them beautifully behind his troopers just beyond the sight of the retreating zerglings. With the impressive micro at GGplay's ling and sunken defence; blocking lings perfectly with scvs and protecting near-dead soldiers, for a second I could almost believe he could do it, if I didn't know it was impossible.
Saying the Nadaesque unyielding spirit, zen-like acceptance of setbacks and undeniable skill were marks of a true champ might sound a bit cheesy, and would most of all be premature. After all, the kid *is* only 14. Everything about him could be just a consequence of novelty, excitement, the innocence of youth. He might start feeling the pressure of it all eventually, and by the time he actually reaches puberty may turn into a nervous wreck, with the occasional embarrassed victory ceremony now and then. Or he might become too good too fast, quickly winning all there is to win in progaming, start wearing an unbuttoned shirt with a constantly flashing gizmo around his neck and rest on his laurels until he'd only get called up for the odd proleague 2v2, but never let off the team because of his past glory. But should that not happen, the future does indeed look bright for the golden mouse making company.
Hitchhiker (T11 Z5)
Forcing lings instead of drones with a fake bunker rush, Flash proceeded to destroy the very creatures he indirectly spawned by luring them in with a meager 4 marines standing guard on his choke at the beasts' careful scouting run, then let them impale themselves on the bigger reinforced group awaiting their earnest assault. Still not completely satisfied, he sent the big group out and caught the surviving little clawers in held position beneath his choke, slaughtering all but one.
Fake bunker rush to fast expansion it may have seemed, fake bunker rush to siege tank rush it turned out to be. Yes, that would be one of the things I hate most in a ZvT. I remember a game, Goodfriend I think vs some zerg, where the zerg went spire, made innumerable sunkens, and brilliantly harassed the assaulting force; killing rines there, damaging a tank elsewhere, picking off reinforcements, and in time amassed enough lings and mutas to kill everything and eventually won the game. I don't remember what map that was played on, but it was not Hitchhiker. 1-1.
Python (T8 Z2)
The first regular game had Flash going the regular 1rax fast expansion against GGplay's regular 3hatch mutas, which failed to inflict much damage. It came down to the zerg securing his 3rd just finished expansion, with 2 stalwart hydras already standing on the choke, waiting to become horrendous slimy creatures. Well, at least more horrendous and slimy than they already were. Flash sent his m&m force the right way, probably having scanned the hatchery. GGplay managed to buy a second or two with his mutas, just enough to morph the hydras. The rines positioned below the hatching eggs and kept firing away, the mutas harassed and a group of lings was standing by nearby to charge when the subterrenean monsters hatched and burrowed.
With mounting tension the hp of the eggs kept dropping, they came nearer and nearer to completion, and when it seemed like they had to hatch any nanosecond now flash fired his scan. And the first half of the vod chunk ended (at this point I would like to thank Yakii for making all this rambling possible ^^).
The beginning of the second part showed one spiking lurker covered by the group of mutas, but nevertheless having focused bursts of standard issue marine rounds unleashed upon him. Long story short, Flash killed everything, then killed all the additional lurkers GGplay sent to save the expansion, then killed the expansion, and afterwards never relinquished the advantage. GGplay did kill all 3 of his tanks with lings and lurkers in an excellent move at one point, but Flash just compensated by abusing a lot of irradiating vessels, taking out an expansion every time he intended to. GGtime's revenge in the form of plague and a single mutalisk killing a bunch of the flying monstrosities came too late as a huge terran army was already at his doorstep. 2-1, with GGplay facing a zvt on Monty Hall he could not afford to lose.
Monty Hall (T11 Z5)
In the face of elimination, GGplay daringly expanded and opened up on both ends immediately, with Flash going double cc on a map where it can't be so fantastically easy 9pooled (ingenious proxy-extractor mineral discarding trick notwithstanding).
Having scouted the zerg's unsunkened expansion in his opened eastern path, Flash naturally sent his first group of rines augmented with firebats and a medic nowhere else. Yet the eyes, or whatever sensory organs the zerg had evolved in the course of millenia for the overlords looming above the cliffside, were upon him, and they saw the medic and a firebat trailing dangerously far behind the group of infantry. One could ask oneself if Flash actuallysaw the lings speed up perniciously just before killing his scouting scv. Probably not, considering his militarized criminals walked right into a resonable group of the bloodthirsty critters, their two accompanying firebats not being of much use except for giving a nice loud bang.
Losing quite a bunch, Flash nevertheless moved his remaining firebat and medic heavy force just beyond the range of the meanwhile finished sunkens. The loose group of speedlings managed to wreak further havoc, killing an scv at Flash's expansion and some of the rines sent to defend before being chased away. But What finally spelled doom for the flashy young lad would turn out to be the scv he had some time ago sent to mine away at the western mineral barrier, assumingly to make a path for eventually assaulting the zerg's vulnerable western expansion. Yet a traitorous shadow hovered above the industrious worker's trusty laser pickaxe, revealing to its sinister master when the ardous labour would bear fruit. Utilizing the precious opportunity mercilessly, a big pack of zerglings descended through the opening as soon as the worker's back was turned, assaulting the defending force while the surviving eastern lings flanked from their side, causing general carnage and mayhem. Flash called home his containing force and eventually cleared the beasts from his base.
And then the skies grew dark. Mutalisks descended on the defenders, now due to their commander's understandable increasing zergling paranoia consisting of 5 firebats and not a whole lot more marines, causing even more general carnage and mayhem. Somehow surviving even through that, it finally took lurkers and guardians to make Flash type out. The boy sure doesn't like to lose.
Fantasy (T5 Z1)
Looking at his sweat-covered face at the end of the game, no, the boy sure doesn't like to lose.
He started out with the last thing I would expect - and the last thing he expected GGplay would expect (or maybe it was just the only strat he had practiced) - a double cc. The gambit succeeded as GGplay went hatch first, making it certain this game on Fantasy would last longer than the last.
Mutas for GGplay again. Nothing much happened in the game before they spawned, except for that impressive scene where a group of speedlings encircled and killed a slightly straying medic from the group of infantry flash was running around the map. Then the mutas spawned.
Only this time, the damage they did was considerable. I don't know if yellow[name] started giving micro lessons out of boredom, but however GGplay learned it, he learned it well. The flying deathrainers attacked at almost their maximum rate of fire during their elegant flight, melting rines and scvs every time they attacked, containing Flash in his base long enough for lurkers to spawn and defend the third expansion he had taken.
After that he pretty much, as Flash in game 3, never gave up his advantage and everything he did turned out right. Flash didn't dare going after the new zerg expansion just yet, preferring to wait for more troops, 2 tanks and a vessel. Instead of taking the big army head-on when it moved out, GGplay simply attacked the terran main, forcing it to return and defend, leaving Flash tangled up in the mess. Flash cleared his main and tried expanding while sending his army again to tackle GGplay's now 2 north-western expansions. GGplay sent 3 lurkers to the building cc which impaled about a dozen marines trying to slay them and successfully defended his own expansions with defilers and swarm. Flash dropped an expansion, GGplay killed the drop. Flash didn't do anything flashy for a while, GGplay built zounds of ultras and ran him over.
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All in all, I'm pleased with things as they went. First, because it's hard to dislike GGplay, and he more than deserved this win. And I always wanted to see him in a final.
Second, it's scary how good Flash is even now, both at game mechanics and how he handles matters, being only 14 years old. This series did show he still lacks a great deal of experience, and he was clearly losing focus at least as late as game 5. And thank god for that, it was getting real creepy that a 14 year old was just owning everyone. But on the other hand, even if for whatever reasons he didn't play his potential 100% the last two games, it was by no means for not giving his absolute everything.
Talent, mindset, dedication... Who can say if this kid is about to become the next big thing, but barring getting hooked on crack or something, he might just be the best bet.
But however that turns out to be, what matters is that we have been witness to the emergence of a new impressive face in the universe of starcraft, that can easily be liked or disliked, but hardly ignored.
