Unsung II: Zero vs great

Instead of going home to protect against the ling runby ZerO goes on the offensive again, but with no ling reinforcements this fails miserably and he is forced to turn around but too late.



Before ZerO can get home his spire is down after only 4 mutas have spawned. ZerO has no choice but to throw down an evo chamber to protect against the mutas ZerO knows are coming. With spores in place the game goes into a stalemate where both players mass an air force, but ZerO will never catch up with HoeJJa in muta/scourge.



This caught everybody by surprise, especially HoeJJa who has decided not to scout ZerO and has no idea what is happening until the greater spire is half way done. In response to this HoeJJa cancels his third at 3 o'clock and puts down an evo chamber and spores up. Yea, I know, but that's what he did!



HoeJJa is now suddenly behind in tech army and econ. The only thing he has going for him is the mobility of his army, his muta/scourge being faster than ZerO's muta/scourge/devourer. ZerO decides to blindly push towards HoeJJa's base. Somehow he manages to dodge ZerO's scout lings but then ...





For the second time in this game ZerO rushes his army back to prevent critical damage but HoeJJa's scourges delay him and for the second time he is too late, when he arrives HoeJJa has already retired leaving ZerO's natural in ruins.



ZerO is now on one base against HoeJJa's two bases, he has to put on pressure on and he decides to go for HoeJJa's main again. HoeJJa counter attack again and for the third time in this game ZerO rushes back to defend but third time's a charm. HoeJJa has significantly less scourges and cannot delay ZerO as much and ZerO catches HoeJJa's air force before he can destroy anything but spore colonies.



Acid spores starts stacking on HoeJJa's mutas and he is forced to retire towards his spored up base with ZerO in hot pursuit.



During this battle ZerO also rebuilds his natural hatch and gets his economy going again. After killing almost all of HoeJJa's drones he retreats, being in a position of superior army, econ and tech.



In this game the hive tech came as a surprise, not just to the audience and commentators but to the opponent who did not expect it. In fact, HoeJJa didn't even scout for it. After making a big mistake in the beginning ZerO throws away his BO advantage when he loses his spire to a ling runby. This forces him into an unwinnable position in standard ZvZ but ZerO does not play standard. Even though HoeJJa allows ZerO to get to hive undisturbed he has not won the game yet, his stronger army has to catch HoeJJa's army but when this happens the game is essentially over.

great spores up in preparation for his impending loss of air control, putting 3 spores in each of his bases.



Soulkey decides to go for great's 3 o'clock with his lings and use his muta/devourer to prevent any reinforcements ...



great launches a ling counter that forces Soulkey to retreat with his muta/devourer air force. This gives breathing room to finish two defiler mounds for fast plague, something which will be very dangerous to Soulkey's muta/devourer. But before defilers pop ...



But Soulkey has a pretty hard time taking advantage of his stronger army. All of great's bases are spored and sunken'd up and Soulkey is still only on 2 hatches to great's 4. Soulkey realizes this and puts up another hatch in the 12 o'clock.



great will have none of that third though and pushes it heavily with his 4 hatches. Soulkey tries to hold it off with his own ling/muta/devourer ...









Meanwhile great, after a long time, manages to kill the 5 guardians that were harassing his natural and 3 o'clock. great tries to set up a contain near Soulkey's natural but decides it's too dangerous near the cliffs with Soulkey's guardian/devourer/lurker, especially when he doesn't have any oovies around, and consequently retreats. He puts up his 4th base at 1 o'clock and keeps going for ling/hydra/lurker/defiler until he feels save to advance again.





At this point in the game Soulkey is almost mined out and desperately needs a new base while great sits comfortably on 4 bases. Soulkey has a very strong but also immobile composition of ling/lurker/devourer/guardian with a couple of defilers mixed in. great uses his opponent's immobility to take a new base at bottom right main uncontested.



With a nydus up from his natural to his 9 o'clock, Soulkey is in a pretty unbreakable defensive position but at this point he has no map control at all. The game goes pretty stale and even the ever enthusiastic korean commentators have a hard time getting excited as evident by this, which mostly sounds like a plea for something to happen.





At this point the game is essentially over though, great has full map control and better economy. He gradually takes new bases all over the map while Soulkey cannot get out of his measly 3 bases.





The game shows great reacting perfectly to a timely scouted hive tech by Soulkey. He gets a superior economy going while calmly teching to defilers that makes any large scale aggression Soulkey could have wanted to do with devourer/muta virtually impossible. The game would have been over much sooner if great had not been so careless with his mutas and defended against harassment better. Soulkey relentlessly did ling runbys throughout the entire game which helped him keep some map control but in the end it just delayed the inevitable. great's unit composition was just a lot better and with his superior economy he just rolled over Soulkey in the end.

great was already morphing a sunken, and zero puts one down too, preparing for the vengeance for the drone



Afraid of great's earlier mutas, zero decides to sacrifice some of his economic advantage, and morph an evo chamber, and then a spore colony at each of his bases.
Great's first wave is composed of scourge, and he



but only kills a drone. Zero, expecting the scourge, makes scourge of his own at first, and by the time his first mutas pop



With the mutas Zero fights off a new wave of lings. Both players show perfect micro to kill some scourge, and spend some time just macro up, then finally:



and starts the hive subsequently



To the big satisfaction of the crowd and the casters,





Now both players appear to be scared - zero moves out to ride his momentum of surprise, and great wants to engage before zero can make queens - not knowing he already did.





but great has vastly superior muta numbers, and even after two landed ensnares he still wins, taking out zero's mutas, spore colony, and



observer shows its due to the level 2 carapace upgrade - great is using his spire timing advantage well



Zero has a single carapace upgrade, and he isnt close to catching up either




great is confident in his economic lead, so he puts down an evo chamber as well, with a few spores to defend his three bases. In fact, after scouting zero's air fleet of mutalisks, queens and devourers, he ups the number of them at every base.

Zero continues to threaten the borderlines of the Khan zerg's territory, and starts a third hatch, still not taking the expo towards the opponent. Great sends out a few scourge to try to snipe either queens or devourers



zero snipes a drone trying to sneak an expo on the left



the damaged queen becomes frenzied, darting alone towards great's base, almost falling to a spore colony, but not finding great's army anywhere



great's army returns home, but they get ensnared fast, and when zero starts picking off drones, great cannot risk losing his mutas





which great scouts immediately with an other clutch scourge-scout
great tries to double-expand, and while one of them gets scouted,



the game just keeps steering further from the zvz norm, a group of hydras tries to repel zero's advance



So far Zero has been staying true to his fame, using his queens perfectly - his two original ones still alive -, and he's landing ensnares left and right




great's army is whittled down down though, and he is forced to withdraw behind his spores.
rushing for defiler tech



At this point, both players catch a few seconds of rest, 18 minutes into this zvz, then Zero attacks the front with a small muta-ling army, seconds before consume finishes for great's defilers. Drawing defenses to the natural, the Woongjin zerg flies over the main to take out a defenseless defiler and to scout great's 6th hatchery - which he thinks to be his fifth.
Zero uses this time to double-expand,



Just in time before it's scouted. Both players set up defenses with lurkers and Nydus canals.



Zero launches a small assault on the left with lings



...and landing his own swarms on the front.



The Samsung player is slowly starting to re-establish his map presence with defiler-lead lurker/hydra armies, and starts to break up the lurker eggs leading to Zero's fourth.



Zero is visibly upset about the news. He masses lings on both sides of the egg wall, to try to get rid of the threat. Great uses this time to attack the hatchery in the middle with a control group of lings



Both players are massing units and macroing, and great takes his 6th base.



and the game is far from over!
At this point there are no major engagements, but the action is all over the place. Every defiler has a high bounty on their heads, they are plagued, broodlinged, and to the commentators' amusement:








Zero tries a zergling counterattack, but lurkers dispose of it with relative ease. Zero clears up the mutas, and tries to rebuild his lost hatch, but great is already moving down there again with a huge lurker-hydra force.




But they still manage to snipe all of the defilers. The obersver spots Zero's Ultralisk Cavern,




After trying to flank each other relentlessly



And then the inevitable:




Zero loads up for an other drop as an assault on the left



Zero tries to reinforce the drop, but scourge intercept him



so he gives up on the drop and decides to defend instead



Zero wins the battle after losing the hatchery, and immediately goes on a counterattack, but great's new ultras,



After some back and forth ultra-ling engagements in the middle, zero is always forced to flee from great's territory



and the Samsung zerg is 2 bases ahead of him now. After getting his final group of ultralisks get plagued, Zero taps out.



Zero was playing well, as long as the regular ZvZ skills are considered, but great just showed huge confidence and experience in his lategame management. Even though Zero was winning several engagements, after great's third hatch was placed, his map control (or the calculated surrendering of it), defense timings, larvae usage and other decisions were all steadily putting him ahead in macro - even though he made some smaller mistakes along the way. Still, we also have to applaud the Woongjin zerg's endurance and creativity, because it was due to them we were able to witness this gem of a battle, an incredible ZvZ where almost all zerg units were used: truly a game to remember in BW history.

And so on...