In the footsteps of an Emperor (Casy)

For the 2nd game Soul team sends out the zerg vs terran expert Jju, while KoR counters right away with their own Casy, one of the more promising of the new breed terran players. The staging ground is Nostalgia.

Jju starts bottom left, and opens with a quick expand build. Casy(@5) opens with an early rax, just in case Jju got a little too daring. Jju, knowing the danger, keeps the first scv under close watch, and Casy turned back his early marines with nothing accomplished and starts working on a bio group instead. Meanwhile Jju is being sneaky and takes another expansion at 12!

Casy soon has his first medarine group ready, but Jju has enough speedlings and a sunken, so terran pulls back after losing men. Seeing no lair yet, he realizes zerg is pulling something, and starts scouting for hidden expands. Finds the 12 expand and takes a quick poke at it, but sunkens, drones and reinforcing lings massacres the small battle group. Jju is in the driver's seat now, and secures his bases with maggiot lines of sunkens - also has lurkers morphing and unless Casy can pull something soon he is toast.

But he does! Casy, with progamer instincts, realizes he is on his way into real deep shit and does a quick attack on Jju's natural expand. Looks to me like a hail mary attempt, but who am I to question progamers? Jju sends his drones into the fray, but they does nothing but die as Casy tears thru the massive sunken line, takes care of the morphing lurkers as they are ready, and marches into Jju's main! Runs around harassing for the longest time until Jju finally fights it off, but Jju is not getting a second in peace - just as he kills off the last medics inside his base, a new bio group is knocking. Casy is crazy, and attacks two lurkers holding the ramp with only marines! For some reason his marines dosn't die like they are supposed to, and he is in Jju's base again! Effectively cuts down most of it untill Jju is only defending a lone hatchery and his mineral line. Casy shows beautiful marine micro, btw. Also secures the 3 expand with tanks and bunkers - no way Jju is getting that now.

But despite all his troubles, Jju still has a steady income, and recovers really fast. Drop tech is ready and he halts Casy's mining operations for some time - then busts out with a serious ling/lurker group. Slays a group of Casy's marines, and looks to be going hive tech now. But heck, who am I kidding. Casy backs his micro with a top-notch macro game, and with three bases he'll have to take a toilet break to lose this. He pushes against Jju with another battle group, and Jju, feeling the stress now, does a few micro mistakes while holding his bridges. That's all Casy need. Reinforces with even more marines (can you say "overkill"?). Jju manages to crank out a lone guardian, but has no real answer to Casy's battle group, sporting science vessels, tanks and enough marines to seat a Manchester United match. Jju had enough and types out.

The up-and-coming terran Casy shows excellent decition-making and game control vs the seriously lethal #4 OGN finisher Jju. Look out for this guy folks, he is here to stay.

I for one would not be the one to play Casy on this map - last time he player he put on a real fireshow and pretty much owned the zerg master Jju with a display of micro and macro to make any zerg sweat. But nevertheless Casy's scary TvZ game, IPXzerg is one of the new wave zerg players we keep hearing about, and it'll be interresting to see what he can do.

Anyway, things starts out as standard as they get, IPX(@7) opens a 12 hatch expand and goes straight for lair. Casy plays it totally safe with a by-the-book 2 rax infantry opening, later adding a 3rd rax. No higher tech for now.

Like on the big screen, both players do exactly what they are supposed to. Casy camps outside zerg's bridges, and zerg counters with fast lurkers. Goes 4 hatches from his original bases and just pours on the lurker ling. Casy has meanwhile taken hold of zerg's ramp (you know, the one leading to the gas nat). Lurkers should really own anything on such small roads, but Casy shows off his superior micro and hold off folr the longest time. IPX realizes this is useless and falls back to his expansion again. Casy, still with only infantry, expands to his mineral only and adds raxes.

In a fury of claws and lurker spines, zerg breaks the containment. Casy has a large infantry count there, but you get a lot of lings from 4 hatches, and zerg just sends the buggers running wild. Another infantry group is cut down by zerglings, and zerg is now taking two more expands! He takes position right below Casy's ramp, and massacres a large group of marines - for some reason they had no medic support, and were quickly disposed off. A short first-person view shows Casy's handspeed and man is he fast! Like watching a Boxer fpv with hotkeys smashed fast enough to make Logitech rub their hands in joy.

Casy finally gets his first tanks and sets out to do some expansion control. IPX tries to stall, but can't prevent the loss of his natural gas, but has another running and takes care of the offending battle group without breaking a sweat. The last remaining marines try to run away, but zerg pinches them from two sides and they are gone. Another battle group from Casy has more success; with beautiful control he eliminates zerg's lurkers - and uses only marines! And good is that - IPX just finished his first defilers. Zerg is back to just his main bases, and Casy is on it with 3 vessels; playing only infantry and does he do it good!

IPX tries to get an edge and time to expand again with his defilers and lurker. Casy, in an ultimate show of coolness, fight swarm-protected lurkers with only firebats! Casy's infantry control is just that good! Zerg is clearly fighting uphill now, Casy is taking another expansion, and tours the map with multiple large battle groups. Zerg buys himself some time by eliminating Casy's new expo attempt, but he is in shit himself and desperately tries to get a new expansion - but no way Casy is letting him.

Casy has by now established 2 additional expansions, and has massive marine forces running around the map. Zerg hangs in there a little longer, but really, there is no way he can win this, and so he leaves.

Casy again shows his godly TvZ skill. This guy is just like watching Xellos at his best - rock solid and entertaining as hell. Man do I hope we'll see him vs some real competition in the current OGN.