Never vs Shuttle - Quarter final Round1 Group A

Othello

This game starts out fairly standard with Shuttle and Never both getting a fastish expansion and not showing much aggression. Shuttle goes for a reaver/zealot drop harass and manages to take out a tank and a few SCVs, but that is all the damage he is able to do at this point.

Shuttle has his goons positioned in a partial contain as he claims his third. Never is able to force Shuttle's troops away to claim his third as well, to which Shuttle responds by taking the mineral only at 12.

At this point Never decides he has a window of opportunity and begins a solid push up against Shuttle, being very slow and cautious with plenty of turrets planted along the way. Shuttle meanwhile has laid down a huge number of gateways and appears to have cut probe production to try and muster a strong defense force before the slow push reaches sieging distance of his 3rd.

Just as Never engages Shuttle's third Shuttle rushes in with a surprising number of troops. He controls them excellently avoiding the mines with his zealots and getting them into the tank line quickly busting the push and coming out with a huge advantage.

Shuttle knows victory is within his grasp and presses into Never's 3rd. Tanks explode and goons turn to soup and it looks like Shuttle is going to show how manly he is by ending the game right away when some lucky satan mines rip up his goons and end the assault.

Never switches to defensive mode and returns to macroing while he claims the 9 o'clock mineral base. Meanwhile Shuttle attempts to take bottom right and 3 o'clock, but in both instances vultures squash the probes.

Never sends out a dropship loaded with two tanks and shows us why Othello has a 6-0 TvP record in this tournament by dropping one on the cliff overlooking Shuttle's natural and one overlooking Shuttle's 3rd. While Shuttle scrambles to deal with this he launches a surprisingly strong push up the center.

Shuttle appears to be cracking under the pressure as he tries to micro in three places at once. He postures his troops around the map to take out Never's expo at 9, but Never decides this is a fair trade as he rolls up to the entrance of Shuttle's natural.

Shuttle continues to stream reinforcements in one by one to die and finally GGs when he forces return and are reduced to blue goo by the sieging terran army.

Never 1 - 0 Shuttle in a disappointing display of play by Shuttle. I know he is capable of so much better.

Blue Storm

Shuttle starts at the bottom and Never at the top. Shuttle immediately decides that a straight macro game against Never on this map is not in his best interests and sends a probe directly to Never's natural for a proxy. He lays down one proxy gate and engages in some really pimp probe micro delaying the barracks as long as possible and scoring one SCV kill.

Never meanwhile is walling in and spots the proxy before the first zealot comes out. His barracks being delayed is hurting him, however, as two zealots are wrecking havock on his barracks before his first marine pops out. Knowing the marine would spawn right beside the zealots and live a short painful life he cancels the marine causing Tasteless to proclaim "I don't understand this world anymore!", which gave me a great chuckle.

Never appears to be going straight for vultures, relying on SCV repair to hold the zealots at bay. Meanwhile Shuttle places another pylon and it is revealed he has a forge in his base. Just as the vultures begin popping out Shuttle places a cannon at his proxy to try to work on the wall.

Unfortunately one vulture can reach the cannon and works on it during its construction. In a tense moment the cannon finishes and manages to take out 2 vultures before finally being neutralized. Shuttle decides to back out and transition into a more standard game.

Shuttle claims his natural and third while macroing up and Never does the same thing; sending some vultures out to harass as well, but not accomplishing more than delaying Shuttle's 4th. Shuttle postures around the map uncomfortable in the knowledge that he is at base parity with a terran and perhaps aware that Never is busy securing his 4th as well.

Never pushes out with the intention of creating a siege location at the 'sweet spot' outside the small entrance to Shuttle's expansion. Things look really bad for our hero Shuttle as tank fire rains down ending the lives of innocent probes.

Shuttle makes a last attack at this position and has such a surprising number of troops that it causes Tasteless to exclaim "I don't understand this game anymore!!".

Shuttle rolls over Never's forces in a similar manner to Game 1, but this time as he pushes his advantage he micros perfectly. All the mines are cleared out by dragoons and zealots run directly into Never's insufficient tank line carving it to shreds.

Never types out visibly unhappy that he wasn't able to end the set at 2-0 and will now have to face the next great Protoss on Katrina. Woe is him.

Never 1 - 1 Shuttle. ^_^

Katrina

Ahh Katrina a map that has built up so many memories in a such a short time. A topic of so much contention. It is widely regarded as being favored toward Protoss in PvT and Never knows it.

Never spawns at 12 and Shuttle at 3. Just as Tasteless recaps the OSL game where Flash proxied Stork it appears that Never is taking a page out of that same book, placing a proxy barracks on the highground near Shuttle's base. His placement is alarmingly lucky since he has not scouting Shuttle out yet, but Shuttle is also finally seeing some good luck as he decides to go straight for a 2 gate goon build rather then the 14 nex which would spell his doom.

Shuttle scouts out Never's base and knows something is up so he sends out his first zealot to investigate. This runs into a small force of 3 marines and an SCV which clean it up handidly. Never pulls some SCVs and launches his all-in assault on Shuttle's front door with about half a dozen marines and several SCVs trying to place a bunk.

Shuttle however already has 3 dragoons at this point is able to mop up the attack without a single loss. Never is in deep shit now as he floats his proxy barracks home and sets up a bunker for defense.

Shuttle launches his offensive now with 6 dragoons. They clean up the non-bunkered marines and then run past the bunker scoring a ton of SCV kills before being cleaned up. Never is frantically trying to keep things together as he expansion comes online and he pumps marines from 2 barracks.

Shuttle returns shortly with another force of dragoons now with range upgrade complete. Shuttle expertly positions these out of the range of the bunker and easily takes it down before Never can react with repair. Never tries to scare off the dragoons with his sizable marine force, but Shuttle simple goon dances back and forth easily reducing the marine force to nothing more then blood splatter, losing minimal dragoons himself.

Never knows the end is here for him and types out, GG.

Never 1 - 2 Shuttle. The hero protoss who clawed his way up from the 128 player level topples his seeded opponent and secures his spot in the semi finals.