Backdoor 6: A battle report

One month earlier the world saw the last Starleague end. Some had left permanently, some were still in mourning, and some were watching the new beginning. In October of 2012 the round of 16 of the 7th SSL was underway. SOSPA longtimers Ample and Cola had both advanced through their round of 32 groups, although not easily; both dropping several games. After Cola had taken the first game of the final match in the group, Ample was one game from being knocked out of the tournament. The next map was Neo Electric Circuit.

Ample spawns in the top right while Cola spawns vertical to him in the bottom right. Cola gets the overlord scout immediately and spots a barracks first, walling the main entrance with a supply depot. Cola opens hatch first himself. Ample builds the command center in his base before floating it out to his expansion. Unfortunately for him he lifts he barracks to let the marine in right as Cola's drone scouts reaches his base, the drone spots everything. Meanwhile Cola gets a third hatch at the in-base mineral-only. After running around Ample's main Cola decides to check the wall again, Ample just lifted the barracks to bring another marine in to kill the drone. Ample lets Cola's drone out with his life still intact, Ample is too kind, while Sonic is shouting "Sashin Terran! Sashin Terran!" + Show Spoiler +.



After the shenanigans settles Ample gets two factories and a starport, while Cola is doing standard macro stuff and getting a lair. Cola tries to scout with some slowlings but gets denied at Ample's natural by some freshly constructed vultures. Cola goes for the spire as the vulture reaches his base, he has a sunken up since earlier that helps him defend. The starport from earlier has completed a control tower and the first dropship is out. While on its way to Cola's mineral-only it picks up four vultures. The dropship arrives just as the mutas pop, the dropship gets destroyed easily and Cola barely lost anything. Ample has built up a force of goliaths and valkyries, defending the offensive mutas without a problem. Cola adds another expansion at six o'clock and Ample continues adding factories, neglecting bio completely. Ample moves out and destroys almost all of Cola's mutas, Cola gets to kill Ample's dropship from the distraction. Cola has lots of hydras at home waiting so Ample immediately retreats. Cola goes on with a counter-attack but Ample has tanks and mines up. Ample defends but loses a bit more units than he would have liked.



Seeing the mech from Ample, Cola has decided this game to go for queens. Ten minutes into the game he is already massing them up to save energy. Ample has grabbed his mineral-only and is pumping from four factories. The game continues with four minutes of dancing around the map with small groups of units, scouting bases, laying mines, and clearing mines. Cola secures the bottom left three expansions but only taking the natural so far, while Ample takes the top left main and the three o'clock base. Now on equal amount of bases (including the mineral-only). Cola has made a huge force of hydras and six queens with energy. Cola assaults the three o'clock but is surprised by an already set up tank line, he retreats immediately. Ample runs around the map with some vultures, sniping some drones, laying some mines, generally keeping Cola's forces pinned at home. Ample uses this to take yet another base in the top left that's still not scouted. Cola now has lurkers and defilers up but his economy is starting to severely fall behind. Cola moves out with some hydras to clear the center of the map from mines. Ample uses the opportunity to sandwich the hydras with vultures to take them out.



With sloppy control, Cola manages to lose two more control groups of hydras to vultures and mines, he also loses a bunch of zerglings and a defiler in the process. Keep in mind that the queens still haven't been used, seven minutes after first being produced. After realizing this Cola spends some of the energy on the max energy queens and kills five goliaths with broodlings, quite uneventful. Ample maxes out on minute eighteen and moves out towards Cola's main. Cola diverts the attack with dark swarm, lurkers, and some nice scourge on Ample's few science vessels. Cola finally spots the upper left and drops it with a bunch of hydras, taking out most of the SCVs before Ample can give a proper response. The hydras takes the command center low, a drifting queen appears, yaaaaaaaah infeeest.



Cola tries to infest another command center but Ample is there to defend, while moving to the top left Ample left himself exposed to a flank. Cola dark swarms right on top of newly sieged tanks, the lurkers do insane splash on the tanks. He also gets a nice plague off on five tanks. Ample manages to defend the top expansions and pushes straight towards the bottom left. Cola seems to be completely out of position as Ample walks up to the choke and sieges. Cola successfully defends the bottom left by bringing in some really nice zergling drops on Ample's tanks. Unfortunately, Cola loses a lot of drones before getting there. Cola attacks the top left with a couple of zergling and hydras, Ample only has two tanks there to defend, he miraculously does so with a really nice defense matrix. Cola takes the moral victory as the first infested terran of the game blows up on some SCVs.



Ample takes another shot at taking the bottom left down with a medium sized group of mech. Cola tries to defend with dark swarm but loses tons of units to mines. Some more dark swarms stalls enough to slowly whittle away at the Terran mech. Cola pushes the Terran out of his base, but a camera shot reveals how horrible it's actually looking for Cola. Cola is at 150 supply while Ample is maxed with a huge bank. Ample reinforces the position and takes another stab at the bottom left natural. Cola tries defending with drops and queens but it's not enough to push back the tanks. Cola reinforces through the nydus and finally takes out the army with hydra ling under swarm. Ample keeps on reinforcing and the tug of war continues, Ample takes the opportunity to expand to nine o'clock. Cola's lings finally connect on Ample's tanks and the crack really shows its worth. For the first time in over ten minutes Cola can walk into the center with his units. Every base on the map has now been taken and Ample has effectively stolen one of the bases from Cola. The nine o'clock has now become the newly contested territory on the map, Cola manages to take out the base with cracklings to force an even split. Cola starts making mutas again, and in his base the greater spire is finishing, the guardians are soon to arrive.

There's a bunch of skirmishes in the middle for map control, Ample seems to end up ahead and has more area covered. However, the guardians have now finished at the upper left and are now assaulting the turret defense. After the turrets are down Cola does a huge drop. Ample loses one base but counter-attacks with vultures at nine o'clock. Cola loses a lot of drones, and eventually the base to tanks. The tanks however are now forfeit to Cola's units. After taking out the top left mineral-only, Cola makes a proxy hatchery to use for nydus. Ample keeps on reinforcing the top left to assault the nine o'clock but both players are taking even blows at each other. Just as the nydus finishes ultras are out on the map. Cola retakes the nine o'clock and kills a lot of SCVs at the top left. Ample is still hanging on with reinforcements. Doing all this has cost Cola so much and he is starting to run on fumes. One last ditch effort with a small army he tries to defend the nine o'clock, but Ample's forces are now too strong because he no longer has to defend the top left as it was taken out by lings from the nydus. The nine o'clock dies just as Cola's army does. Cola has nothing more, and is forced to leave the game.

In retrospect, it looked like Ample had control most of the game. Cola only had some moments of brilliance. At the time of tournament the game was amazing, it had almost all the units. Cola also tried to utilize offensive nydus and he was extremely close of pulling it off. One of the finest TvZ's, the actual game speaks more for itself so here's the link: Ample vs Cola on Neo Electric Circuit.