Game 1- Circuit Breaker:
Shine(Z) spawned in blue at 5 on Circuit Breaker while Flash(T) spawned in purple at 1.

Circuit breaker is a standard macro map very suited to Flash's 5 rax 2 starport 6th rax 2 base play. It's likely to be one of Shine's weaker maps for the same reason. It's not especially tricky and he'll struggle to take a third gas on it against Flash's early mnm pressure.

As expected, Flash declined to repeat any of the non standard builds like his 8 rax at natural, CC first, rax at the natural for a quick expansion and so forth. A standard 9 depot, 10 rax above the ramp, allowing him to hold the ramp with scvs and a single marine if he had to while setting himself up for the standard macro expansion followup. It couldn't punish any standard Zerg opening, but it is such a safe Terran opening that any non standard Zerg opening would punish itself.

Shine opened with a 12 hatch at his expansion, then a 12(ish) gas in his main, then a 13(ish) pool. Slightly speculative regarding the exact timings because the observer we need was playing the game and was showing us completely irrelevant things while Shine completely changed up the standard Zerg openers but it was definitely gas then a super late pool. Shine has been pioneering some macro opener variants for Zerg with varying success. A few times vs Mong, he opted for a 12 hatch 13 pool, rather than the standard 12 hatch 11 pool, and got severely punished by Mong's 8 rax at his natural openers. Those times he lost so many drones and was forced to make so many lings that the tiny advantage gained by going drones before pool was not only worthless but left him far behind. Shine must have been certain Flash would not 8 rax at natural or BBS to blindly roll the dice again, although it's certainly not an unreasonable prediction to make. By mixing the orders up like this, Shine strengthened his economy and gave himself more gas than Flash would expect him to have at the cost of a slower lair and slower lings; quite risky, quite cheesy but potentially an edge he could use to gain an advantage later.

Flash's scv got into Shine's base, scouting him rather late but still arriving before the very late pool was complete, and Flash laid down a CC at his natural. Meanwhile, Shine went for two hat two base lair, scouted by the scv in his main. Six lings popped and started driving Flash's scv out of his main but we immediately saw this.


Shine has been beating people almost exclusively by killing their scout worker, parking speedlings outside of their base and then denying scouting until his cheese hits. That's the Shine build and it's so easily countered by exactly what Flash is doing here. This stuff is what makes Flash the best. Bisu thought he was too good to lose to a black box. Flash knows that anyone can lose to a black box and so, he took a look inside. And that is how you become too good to lose to a black box.

Unfortunately for Flash, his second scout scv coming from the middle of the map ran under an overlord. That's just unlucky.


Shine's ling speed finished and the second scout scv was killed as it reached Shine's natural. But Flash ain't no fool.


I know it may seem like I'm focusing too much on this small scouting stuff but in previous games, this has been the only reason players who are mechanically better than Shine have lost to him. Sure, anyone can do this, it's not that special. But given that a number of players had the opportunity to choose to do this and they declined to do it and then lost the game, it is absolutely worth pointing out that Flash is just not willing to let Shine surprise him with some kind of weird build. Flash does the stuff that anyone could do, but most players don't.

Shine's speedlings contained Flash to keep scouting scvs out while Flash's scout scv looped behind them and promptly scouted Shine's main and natural. Flash also modified his build to delay his +1 in favour of faster comsats, a backup plan in the event of his third scout scv being denied or some kind of lurker rush. The scv scouted the spire when it was still half done and Flash thought he knew everything. But there was a secret in store.


Shine took the mineral only expansion at 11. The single least likely expansion on the map; it had no gas, offered Shine no real value, and it was on the wrong side of the map.

Flash's scout scv left Shine's main and checked the mineral only natural spot, the 6 expansion spot, the 8 natural and the 7 main. After seeing all of these locations were clear, Flash turned his pushing mnm around and simply brought them back home. I love this play. In a normal game, Flash could have done decent damage there and forced additional sunkens and lings. But rather than try to win it as quickly as possible, Flash reflected on the situation and asked himself if allowing this game to go another 10 minutes, even if he could probably close it out faster, increased or decreased his win percentage. Shine was on two bases, two gases, no tech but a spire. Flash knew that if Shine didn't kill him, then he'd win by default. There was no reason for him to try and kill Shine early. All he had to do was wait for Shine to kill himself.

Flash skirmished against mutalisks with mnm and scanned to confirm that he really was fighting two base mutalisks.


He wasn't, he was fighting two gas mutalisks with a lurker transition (the hydralisk den being hidden in the hidden expansion), but it shows how deliberately he was ruling out possible things that Shine could doing, systematically eliminating all of the potential futures in which he lost the game and leaving only the possibilities which led to his victory.

Shine's muta micro took care of a group of mnm that had been left to duel them but Flash's main force of mnm crossed the map, again verifying that there was no expansions at the 5.5 (mineral only), 6, 6.5 (mineral only), 7 and 8 locations. And again, I love the way that Flash didn't even bother to threaten Shine's natural. He showed zero interest in trying to take Shine's two bases, content that Shine having two bases and two gas was already grandfathered into the futures in which he won the game. The way Flash was playing made it clear that he was perfectly happy to let Shine mine out his main and natural, if that's what it took, but Shine would not be allowed to take a third gas.

Shine produced four hydralisks from his hidden mineral only near Flash's base, hid them near Flash's ledge and sent two slow overlords. It was going to be elevator time.


In the possible futures in which Flash was busy throwing mnm into sunkens at Shine's natural, a lurker drop could do huge, huge damage at this point. Unfortunately for Shine, while Flash had no idea there was a lurker drop coming, he did know that the only way he could lose the game was if Shine did a colossal amount of damage in a rapidly closing window and so Flash backed his entire army back to his two bases and he just sat there. Doing nothing. Then he started adding bunkers in his main based on literally nothing but game sense.

A roaming band of mnm that were shift moving methodically around every single base site on the map found Shine's hidden mineral only, killing five drones, the hatchery and the hydra den. Meanwhile Shine's lurker drop was not going well.


Mutalisk cover allowed the four lurker elevator up the cliff but this awaited them.


Oh, and there were some siege tanks and turrets behind all that too.

With every way that Shine could possibly win eliminated, Flash was content to cross the map and finish him off. Without even a hydra den anymore, Shine was forced to commit to pure mutalisks and sunkens to hold off against huge numbers of mnm, tanks and even science vessels with irradiate. Naturally, he failed. There was an attempted drop with Shine's last two lurkers at Flash's natural but it was easily shut down and either way, it could not have changed the outcome. Flash just walked into Shine's base and Shine could do nothing to stop him.

GG

Flash 1: Shine 0

editorial: I love, love, LOVE how Flash played this! Also, I was insisting before the games that Flash would use this exact opening and transition, would send out multiple scout scvs and would go fast comsats to ensure that he wasn't caught off guard because that's what makes Flash the best. Shine's build was underwhelming; the extra two drones and the faster gas were pretty cute, taking advantage of the near certainty that Flash would open 10 rax in main, and mitigating the fact that he was only two gas. But I didn't really see the purpose of the mineral only expansion. A hidden hatchery to hide the tech could have been better located elsewhere. Ultimately he was going all-in on a bet that Flash would heavily commit to his natural (where muta + sunks would desperately hold) and allow him to get lurkers set up on top of Flash's ramp and barracks. That's a probable win in an improbable situation. Maybe it wins 80% of the time in the 20% of games he gets to use it properly. But Flash correctly identified that Shine's only win condition depended upon circumstances that were within his control and so, he simply chose not to allow those circumstances to happen. He won because he thought about the game and decided not to lose. Beautiful!

Game 2- Camelot:
Shine(Z) spawned in white at 11 on Camelot while Flash(T) spawned in brown at 5.

Flash again opened with a standard 9 depot 10 rax in base, taking no chances; extremely predictable and extremely safe. Meanwhile, Shine again opened with a macro opening intended to exploit exactly that, following his 12 hatchery with a few more drones and then a 13 pool. As I mentioned earlier, this is essentially game losing vs an 8 rax at natural opening. Shine chose to risk losing the game in the event that Flash had done a slightly risky build in order to eke out a tiny advantage in the event that Flash was playing safe. This really illustrates the differences in the style between the two players. Flash knows that Shine likes to take these big risks to steal small advantages but is completely unwilling to take any chances to try and exploit that, instead opting for a safe and solid style and trusting his mechanics. Meanwhile, Shine is assuming that unless he gets an edge somehow, he'll lose anyway and is filling his game with risks to get ahead, gambling on Flash's caution.

Flash's scv wandered around Shine's base, scouting that Shine was adding a third hatchery in his main, delaying his gas and pumping out nothing but drones. Shine making the assumption that Flash would simply counter expand. This is actually very reminiscent of Shine's game vs Bisu on Andromeda where Shine produced nothing but hatcheries and drones for the first few minutes, getting into a macro war and exploiting Bisu's passive response. However, this time Flash's scv confirmed that there were no spare larva and no lings and he simply walked up with his first three marines, crossing the map unscouted and showing up in Shine's natural without warning. This wasn't risky, he knew that Shine had made zero zerglings because his scv had been in Shine's base since before the pool was complete. And with two rax at home and the ability to drop a bunker at his natural when needed, Flash couldn't be punished for overextending.


Flash then started a bunker outside of Shine's natural with five marines behind it, forcing Shine to pull his drones and pump pure lings to stop him. And then Flash simply moonwalked back home, cancelling the bunker before it died. This was exactly the right play to make. Shine effectively lost 8 or so drones from the exchange; only one killed and the rest in zerglings Shine really didn't want to make. Zero marines lost and Flash even kept his scout scv alive!

As Shine's zerglings pushed out onto the map, Flash slipped a scv onto the map, again preempting the loose speedling contain that Shine has always put on his opponents to deny scout workers in every one of his games.


I know I keep saying it but doing these things wins games against Shine and Flash is being so, so good about always ensuring he's not in the dark.

Flash pushed out again with marines in an attempt to keep Shine honest, using pure marines without any academy upgrades due to his decision to go for a second barracks before academy. His push was scouted by an overlord and Shine responded with a sneaky backstab using his speedlings, getting nine speedlings into Flash's base when all Flash had was two marines and scvs. Flash refused to turn his army around, confident that he could hold this with micro and that the reduced damage he would receive if he retreated was less valuable than the damage he could inflict by committing to the attack.

Ten marines without medics or upgrades battled two sunkens, the scout scv bravely dropping a bunker in the middle of the fight


while simultaneously nine zerglings battled in Flash's main.


Flash's attack finished off the second sunken and forced the drones out of the natural, killing three, while simultaneously Shine's lings killed Flash's marines in Flash's main. Shine gathered up speedlings in his natural and overran the bunker while also making a play on Flash's barracks with his zerglings in Flash's main, successfully overwhelming Flash's ability to multitask as the bunker went down without being repaired in a decisive victory for Shine.

For a brief window, Flash had literally zero units other than scvs, three zerglings attacking his barracks while another sixteen or so streamed out of Shine's base. Two firebats popped out and secured the barracks area, but it was clear that Shine had gotten the better of the engagement; marines without stim and medics faring very poorly against both sunkens and speedlings. Shine had lost a decent number of drones while Flash's economy was largely intact but the mineral trade was very much in Shine's favour.

Flash started building a bunker above his natural command center after Shine overran his bunker in Shine's natural. Two marines and two firebats (Flash's entire army) nervously watched as it progressed while twenty speedlings (including three from inside Flash's main) charged at them. With half a second to spare, it completed and they jumped inside, presenting a barrier that Shine couldn't break. Flash survived, but only just. He had taken no economic damage and inflicted considerable damage to Shine, but he had also come less than a second away from ruin.

Shine settled back onto his two bases, rebuilding workers and adding a spire while Flash scanned and confirmed he was making drones and what his spire timing was. Meanwhile, Flash transitioned into his classic five rax build. Presumably as a mistake, Shine only had one drone on his natural gas, a pretty colossal issue for a two gas Zerg, and indicative of the kind of pressure Flash had put on him and how it caused Shine to make unforced errors. Eight minutes into the game, both players settled into a somewhat normal pattern. Zerg on three hatches, two bases and muta, while Terran had two bases, five rax and a blob of mnm.

Shine continued the return to a standard game, sending a drone out to expand as his muta took map control and adding a hydralisk den. Rather than taking the 12 gas expansion though, Shine opted to take the 7, hoping it would take longer for Flash to find and destroy and knowing that the narrow ramp made it difficult for Flash to break. Flash split his mnm into two groups and pushed out with one of them, an uncharacteristic mistake. At the time of pushing, Shine was still on two bases (about to start his third) and had map control while Flash had the strategic advantage, having taken no damage from mutalisks and also being on two bases with a stronger economy. Some muta micro and a speedling flank caught the mnm off guard and Flash's recovering army was whittled down further.


On the one hand, I can see why he'd want to leave half his army at home. A speedling muta backstab at his natural could have potentially done damage had he moved out leaving it only lightly defended. On the other hand, given the significant casualties he had already suffered in the early game, I think it would have been wiser to wait until the five rax built a more resilient force.

Another mnm force, about equal in size to the one that Shine had just killed, pushed out but Flash had not yet scouted the new expansion at 7 and he pushed across the map directly to Shine's natural. Stimming a third force across the map, Flash hit Shine's natural in an attack Shine simply did not expect. While Shine's third had two lurkers on the ramp, Shine's natural just had two morphing creep colonies and some lurkers in eggs. Muta made a bold defense while Shine's speedlings were lost in a literal sense, sitting by themselves in the right center part of the map doing very little.


The lurkers emerged from their eggs and Flash's assault was repulsed, although Shine's muta count was significantly lowered and the trade had been even for both players.


For the third time this game though, Flash's entire army had been wiped out and Flash was still on two base with no plans to take a third, instead adding twin starports and a 6th barracks. The pressure began to move onto Flash to get something done. Shine having achieved a potential win condition through taking a secure third gas and achieving map control once again. The game was still winnable by either player but Shine had gotten himself to hive tech in a decent position which, given who he was playing, was in itself a success.

Flash attempted to irradiate his way into the base at 7, killing two lurkers on the ramp, but was immediately deflected as more lurkers came through a nydus from Shine's natural. Flash then attempted to switch into dropships but was again deflected, this time by scourge which forced the dropships to retreat to safety. With Flash still on two bases and Shine getting double evo upgrades, defilers and additional hatcheries, Flash was running out of time. Shine just needed to hold on with his defilers, lurkers and lings and wait for Flash to burn out.

Flash evidently agreed that he had to get something done and charged into Shine's natural, despite the lurkers, sunken and defiler. His dropships went in the vanguard, dropping marines onto the lurkers and sunken until they were destroyed by scourge, half their occupants going down with the ship. The rest of his army punched through the front, engaging the clumped lurkers on a broad front and taking little damage from them. The defiler lacked energy and although it consumed an overlord quickly, the dark swarm went down after the last lurker died. The nydus quickly followed, leaving the lurkers at 7 unable to come home, and Shine was broken.


Incidentally, Shine had been doing a cute trick where he stacked all his lurkers on top of each other and then placed a drone over them so that they couldn't easily be irradiated or targeted. Unfortunately for him, stacked lurkers don't get good overlapping spines and can be very easily overrun by a broad frontal attack. It was cute but ineffective.

GG

Flash 2: Shine 0

editorial: Shine looked good this game. He took a couple of large risks to gain small advantages, but was only really punished the first time when his late pool and no lings cost him. Flash's second attempt to punish him was converted to Shine's advantage and Shine's dominant map control continued until the late game, crushing Flash's force several times. I don't want to say "allin" because Flash probably had another potential push left in him before he needed to consolidate and take an expansion, but Flash was certainly in a position where the pressure was on him to break Shine before the game became very difficult for him to win. A slightly quicker dark swarm, a defiler already with energy, better lurker placement or scourge closer to where they were needed and it wouldn't be inconceivable for this to have been a Shine win. As for Flash, his mechanics were near flawless but there were some very poor decisions made that led to the needless death of two armies and almost lost him the game. I might go so far as to say he was saved by his mechanics this game.

Game 3- Andromeda:
Shine(Z) spawned in teal at 7 on Andromeda while Flash(T) spawned in red at 11.

For the third game in a row, Flash opened with 9 depot 10 rax, with the rax again at the top of his ramp in the most defensible spot possible while Shine repeated his opener from the previous game (and his ZvT vs Mong on this map) using 12 hatch 13 pool. Shine's overlord first scouted Flash while Flash went for a double scv scout to guarantee he got the information he needed regarding whether he should place his command center. Flash scouted Shine as Shine went to put down his third hatchery at the mineral only and delayed it with an ebay, forcing Shine to misplace the hatchery.

As in game 2, Flash sent his first few marines to pressure Shine into making some zerglings. Although this wasn't early enough to punish Shine's 13 pool, it did force a half dozen lings and Flash backed off rather than fight them. And again, as in game 2, Flash followed his command center with a second barracks, hoping to push pressure on early and not allow Shine to mass drones. His marines pushed out again, but on the second push, he refused to back them, shoving them into Shine's natural and getting massacred by lings. An uncharacteristic mistake, especially given Flash's scv kept him informed of how many zerglings Shine had.


Meanwhile, Shine opted for a very quick evo chamber for +1 carapace, trying to get the most use possible out of his free mineral only. A second scout scv from Flash was deflected by lings and when Flash tried yet another marine only pressure play from his two rax, Shine already had sunkens in position. Although Flash was unable to do any damage, we've previously seen Shine not make the defenses he needed because everyone knows they're needed so, everyone knows they'll be there and so, they won't be tested. Flash punished him for that in game 2 and this game, he cut down on his risk taking.

Shine finished his lair and went spire with both players following broadly standard patterns. Flash's earlier second rax coming at the price of a later academy and +1 but largely reverting to a normal position. Shine made a single mutalisk and ran it around Flash's base a bit, both scouting and also repeating a memorable moment from HyuN's game against Flash on this map earlier in the tournament, slow drop islands into ultralisks and defilers. In that game, only one mutalisk was made, the spire being constructed for scouting and to force turrets rather than for mutalisks.

Shine then made an entire flock of mutalisks, faking Hyun's innovative build while actually doing a standard one. He then attempted to harass Flash, but was immediately denied as he ran into marines and turrets. As in game 1, Flash was content to stay in a defensive position as long as Shine was on just two gas, hitting the 6 island with an early scan and keeping a soft contain on Shine's natural. However, Shine wasn't trying for a third gas yet, instead adding a macro hatchery and using his fast +1 carapace to overrun Flash's contain with mutaling. The marines didn't even have +1 and were no match for Shine's army.


With the soft contain broken, Shine sent out a drone to try and expand while Flash immediately moved out in force with his bio. Shine started a hatchery at the 5 main and Flash immediately scouted it and prepared for a push. In an unusually sloppy play, Flash's army moving across the map split around the walls in the middle of Andromeda and ended up forming two columns which allowed Shine's mutalisk to attack the tail end of one of the columns and roll up the mnm while only ever being attacked by a few marines at a time.


Nearly half of Flash's army died due to that single error and the big ball of bio pushing out to deny Shine's new base before lurkers were done was delayed and then caught out of position, forced back by lurkers while muta killed them from the air.


It turned into a total loss. Flash's entire midgame army was destroyed, any hope of stopping 5 was ended (despite 5 not having the usual lurkers on the ramp) and Shine progressed to hive tech with five hatcheries, three gas and four bases while Flash was still on two. Flash immediately tried to feed more units into the meat grinder and was again heavily punished. Flash trying to keep up aggression but never quite getting the critical mass he needed due to the way his aggression was being punished. Each failure compounded the problem and made the next failure more likely.


Shine tried to capitalize on Flash's latest catastrophic loss of units and tried to break the natural where fortunately Flash already had two bunkers. Lurkerling charged in and although the bunkers were broken and scvs were killed, too many lings died and Flash was eventually able to stabilize.


Shine's mutalisks were forgotten as he pushed the lurkerling in and we'll never know the difference they could have made in that incredibly close few seconds. The lings were mostly killed off by the bunkers and science vessel irradiate cleared the lurkers.

Shine hadn't yet gotten around to establishing mining at his 5 base due to the unexpected effectiveness of his attack and the wave of lings he made to follow it up, but he did have +2 carapace (to Flash's 1-1), defiler tech and map control. With Flash still on two bases, there was no question that Shine was ahead. Flash had to kill 5 as quickly as possible, but he couldn't push out onto the map after the series of defeats that had happened the last few times. Flash decided to send a dropship around the edge of the map on a mission to snipe the new expansion, but a zergling was in position to scout it and scourge were ready.


With his dropship down, there was no longer any hope of killing the base at 5 anytime soon; a nydus, a ramp, lurkers and dark swarm all stood between him and his objective. But nor could Flash simply counter-expand and hope to take it later into the game. Shine had already achieved his win condition. Allowing the game to continue would be inviting Shine to take the other two bases in the bottom right and add ultralisks. With his main and natural running low on resources, Flash pushed out towards Shine's natural.

With six rax and two starports and having not yet lost a science vessel, irradiate was Flash's only real asset. Defilers and lurkers were irradiated without any response from Shine, wearing down Shine's gas unit count through attrition while Shine didn't really make any scourge to stop them. Two scourge were pulled from anti dropship duty and killed a particularly aggressive science vessel but where another player might have severely punished Flash's aggressive vessel use, Shine simply replaced the lost units at his natural and mineral only.

Flash used the opening left by the scourge and attacked with two dropships in Shine's mineral only, fortunately dropping the marines as the scourge that were built to deny this kind of play emerged from their eggs and into the waiting marine fire. The vessels irradiated Shine's responding defilers and lurkers while the dropships looped back around to elevator up the units from the low ground. An extremely messy fight broke out; the survivors of the first drop fleeing out of dark swarm to gun down cracklings while defilers and lurkers were irradiated. The second drop being wiped out by scourge with just a handful of survivors getting out of the dropships in time.


The two drops were cleaned up but Shine's remaining units were all over the place. Cracklings cleaning up marines behind the main mineral line, lurkers burrowed at the mineral only, defilers in the gap between the main and mineral only. Another two dropships headed straight for the 5 main, passing an overlord on the way, and Shine responded by pulling the army he had ready at his rally point through the nydus. As he prepared to fight the dropped mnm at 5, Flash's science vessels flew into his natural and began the eraser on his drones. Shine's attention went back to his natural and the mnm engaged the cracklings at 5 without dark swarm or lurker support. Shine's attention went back to the battle at 5 and he set up lurkers but Flash immediately moved the eraser to Shine's main and Shine was forced back there while Flash broke the lurkers at 5 with mnm.


With Flash's main and natural almost dry and just five mineral patches at his newly taken mineral only, Flash had this one punch left in him but it completely broke Shine. It's not that Shine didn't have the tools to deal with it, although Flash's unit production through the game had certainly been impressive. It's that Flash's combination of drops, elevators and erasers had pulled Shine's attention in five different directions at once. If he could just get his lurkers, defilers and lings together in one place, he could have defended, however Flash simply did too much too quickly.

GG

Flash 3: Shine 0

Editorial: I was wrong about Shine being a six trick pony (like a one trick pony but more tricks). I assumed all three games (I never doubted there would be just three games) would be like game 1, where Shine tried something that Flash was far too good to fall for and Flash didn't even need to beat Shine but rather wait for Shine's allin to fail. After the failure in game 1, it's clear Shine decided to stick to economic advantage tricks to get an edge in a long macro game and try to beat Flash that way, a strategy that very nearly worked for him. Flash's aggression was punished over and over (and Flash didn't seem to learn from that) and after the dropship snipe at 3, Shine was in a dominant position. Anyone being in a dominant position in a macro game against Flash is worthy of respect and Shine certainly earned it. Ultimately, Flash's multitasking managed to inflict too much damage for Shine to survive in the last gasp of Flash's push but it could easily have gone the other way. Also, I'm a little disappointed Shine didn't have burrow. Flash's macro was incredible. He fed army after army into the fire and never ran out of armies. His decision making, not so much. There were a number of instances when his army had absolutely no business being out on the map and that point when it formed two columns and got torn apart by mutas was amateur level stuff. That multitasking at the end though, that wins games. Literally. It literally won this game that was lost for him.