Game 1: SoulKey vs Rain on Crossing Field
SoulKey (Z) spawned in green at 10 while Rain (P) took red at 4. SoulKey went for a 12 hat at his front natural rather than overpool, an understandable decision given the inevitable macro game they would play. Meanwhile Rain surprised me with no probe scout nexus before gate, an instaloss to a good number of Zerg builds, a bad disadvantage vs overpool, but a slight advantage vs 12 hat. I really don't know what to say about that other than for the potential loss to be outweighed by the mining of a single probe Rain must have been certain SoulKey was going 12 hat. To put it in context, 8p,13n,14g before scout is a more ambitious fast expansion build than you would attempt cross positions in PvT, it's the build you would do on an island map.

By 03:30 Rain had a single zealot, no cannons, but over 20 probes and a core before forge. SoulKey, for his part, followed his 12 hat with an 11 pool, a much more rounded build, and spammed drones, dropping a third hat at his rear natural on 13. Despite only making two zerglings his economy still lagged behind Rain's economic cheese. With his scout probe chased out of SoulKey's main Rain attacked with a zealot, first attempting to scout the main and then retreating behind the mineral lines, eventually dying with just a single ling kill. The second zealot did better, scouting SoulKey's main, but a corsair was already out which made the entire affair a little pointless. SoulKey lost no drones and made just eight zerglings to control the zealots, outmicroing Rain completely while a quick hydra den deflected the corsair threat to overlords.

SoulKey integrated the bare minimum of units into the macro heavy three hat lair, five hat hydra opener. Just eight lings for the first zealot zealots, just two hydralisks for the first corsairs, late spire, no sunkens, so many drones. Rain added a handful of gateways, started +1 air and ground, and went for zealot speed but there was no real threat to the five hat hydra. As Rain pushed out with speedlots and corsairs, looking to take his front natural behind the pressure, SoulKey simply backstabbed with a handful of speedlings, secure that his hydralisks could defeat the speedlots, despite not having sunkens. He wasn't wrong and Rain was forced to retreat, leaving a zealot dead on the field with no damage done and no expansion taken.

With high templar coming and cannons warping in at his front natural Rain tried to fight a delaying action with his speedlots against the five hat hydra. A sizable corsair fleet kept poking at the overlords, but always found them protected, while the hydra production dwarfed Rain's response from fewer gateways. It would come down to whether SoulKey would be able to attack Rain's front natural before cannons and high templar negated SoulKey's superior production capacity. Rain's speedlots skirmished back and forth but eventually found themselves in a fight they didn't want to take, running forwards onto the hydralisks only to find more than they were expecting.


Rain cancelled his natural cannons, retreated his newly built high templar up his ramp, and abandoned the attempt for a third base.


None of this would have been possible without SoulKey's crucial ling backstabs to delay the probe and pylon establishing cannons, nor the perfect negation of the corsairs which Rain was depending upon to supply block SoulKey and split his hydra forces. SoulKey seized the window where he had superior production capacity and built himself the late cannons he needed, rewarded with a hydra contain at the foot of Rain's ramp.

Rain went up to six gateways but SoulKey already had what he needed and started to switch back to drones while adding a fourth base at 7. A late Protoss third gas is almost a death sentence in this spot, by the time Rain would be able to get out on the map again he would be confronted with lurkers.

Rain attempted to break out with speedlots and high templar but a bold team of four hydralisks assassinated the first high templar before it could cast storm.


A shuttle loaded with dts also attempted to fly out across the fight, presumably intended to combine with the only asset Rain had, his +1 corsair fleet, and wreak havoc across SoulKey's main and rear nat. The same hydralisk squad took that down too, a sloppy unforced error that left Rain without even a possibility of a comeback..

The observer showed us that SoulKey had misplaced his drones on his rear natural gas and they weren't mining, a pretty huge issue in ZvP when gas units are your only way of beating storm, but hydra team six were able to snipe two more high templar with minimal losses. By this point Rain had all his gateways up and running with high templar tech while SoulKey was transitioning to a more defensive posture, allowing Rain to contest the map and only skirmishing with his hydralisks. The first big engage happened.


Rain's only surviving high templar cast two good storms and pushed the hydralisks back but with no high templar to storm the eggs the lurkers hatched and Rain got nothing for his trouble.

The hydras and lurkers set up a loose contain in front of Rain's third, not trying to deny it, simply trying to trade efficiently and exercise map control. Rain responded by attacking the front to distract SoulKey from the dt drop corsair play he was making.


Unfortunately after killing the first shuttle SoulKey had placed two scourge on the likely path and Rain's second shuttle got absolutely nothing done, the corsair fleet patrolling a main filled with drones but completely lacking in overlords. His frontal attack went well at first but as his attention went to the dying shuttle his speedlots overcommitted onto lurkers and also died.

With Rain's third base established SoulKey accepted that the unit production advantage would briefly swing Rain's way, until Rain's main and nat mined out at least. Rather than let his contain get overrun he simply unburrowed and went back home, content on four base, four gas, seven hats. Rain's army retook map control and Rain promptly started his 4th at 10 while attempting dt drop #3.

The third dt drop did better than the previous two, by which I mean a dt was successfully dropped.


However he was not able to kill any drones and found his shuttle promptly scourged. Rain then considered a frontal attack into SoulKey's fourth before seeing the volume of lurker spines and thinking better of it.


SoulKey's hydralisk, lurker, and scourge combination kept Rain unable to attack but the quick fourth base from Rain removed a key part of the time pressure he was under. Although his main and nat were low on resources he was no longer at so much risk of not being able to at least split the map. Speedlings did some nice high templar sniping but both players adopted a defensive posture, waiting for the other to make a mistake. And despite 15 minutes of chained disasters Rain's incredible macro allowed him to turn it into an even game.

Rain's fourth drop attempt ran into scourge while SoulKey added dark swarm to his lurkers, creating a moving wall of imba that Rain couldn't attack without reavers, which he didn't have, or storms, of which he had too few. SoulKey denied the 6 expansion site with lings while his main force occupied the cliffs near the 12 expansion, scourge picking off the observers every time Rain tried to push. Rain did his best to grind the lurkers down but at points it was just sad.


0/2

Rain's only possible option at this point was to establish his own counter expansion at 6 and try his luck with reaver defence and a split map. But SoulKey painted his army with plague and denied him access to 6, while simultaneously holding his own newly taken expansion at 12. Rain decided it was time to try another drop but (spoiler warning), it wasn't.


The speedshuttle ran around for a little after this before seeking out the remaining scourge on the map and diving into them, possibly trying to give Rain some kind of hint.

Rain decided he would attempt to break 12 again and attacked


Then thought better of it 30 supply, all his zealots, and a plague on his dragoons later


With Soulkey's lurker formations under swarm controlling so much of the map Rain decided to go for drop attempt number 6, scoring the first drone kill of his drop attempts. But by this point SoulKey had also taken and fortified the 6 expansion with maxed out lurkers.

Rain tried to kill the lurkers with zealots again but plagued zealots only have 61hp, making them about as durable as marines against upgraded lurkers. Realizing his mistake Rain added reavers, and then tried to kill lurkers with zealots again. Fortunately SoulKey took pity on him and just ended the game.


GG

This game was a masterpiece of making a great player look bad. Rain's macro was breathtaking, the only thing really keeping him in the game, while he was constantly trying to set up opportunities for a comeback. And SoulKey's counterplays were so smooth they were almost dismissive. From the first two zealots to the corsairs SoulKey made defeating Rain look like child's play. Just "Oh, you're doing that? Okay, I'll block it and make you look like a fool for trying". There were a few spots when Rain's phenomenal macro kicked in and I thought the battle might not be one sided, but then SoulKey swarmed over his lurkers and plagued Rain's army. Although it was a long macro game it was also one of the more brutal smackdowns I've ever seen a player at this level dish out to another.

Game 2: Jaedong vs Stork on Crossing Field
Jaedong (Z) spawned in white at 10 while Stork (P) spawned at red at 4. Stork opened with proxy 9 9 gates in the middle of the map while Jaedong went 12 hat at the rear natural followed by 12 pool. That's about as good as Stork could have hoped for, Jaedong taking the front natural would have been a gift but in either case it's the situation he wanted. Meanwhile Jaedong's overlord missed the gateways and he opted not to drone scout. Stork sent his first zealot immediately, a decision I'm not sure I actually agree with because it tipped his hand when he'd potentially get more from allowing Jaedong to spend more larva on drones while saving up for his second wave of three zealots.

Jaedong's saved larva popped six lings at once, with more coming from his rear natural, and Stork found himself in a tough surround.


Killing just a single drone and getting shamefully outmicroed Stork retreated to the ramp, which he failed to hold.


Lings on the map changed Stork from having a single point of defence, the ramp, to four, the ramp, his gateways, his main, and his planned natural expansion. Instead of being allowed to safely recover his economy behind his zealot block, before eventually conceding the ramp to hydralisks and returning to his own, two base apiece, he was forced to continue to produce zealots.

The game turned strange as Stork, who had 40 supply to Jaedong's 17, refused to respond to the lings on the map and instead threatened to just allin with his zealots. A dance off ensued, in which Stork threatened to commit every time Jaedong threatened to attack with his lings, only for Jaedong's lings to return, with Stork going back to the ramp. However, despite having a two to one miner advantage, exposed gateways, and no forge or units in his base, Stork decided it was time to attack Jaedong's rear natural, which wasn't even mining. He did this without leaving zealots blocking the main ramp, so Jaedong promptly allined with his own zerglings.

Stork traded Jaedong's rear natural hatchery for his proxy pylon and a number of probes but found his zealots split, some going back to wall his main ramp, the main group in Jaedong's main, and three caught freshly produced and surrounded by lings. Jaedong's one hatch speedling mass was able to surround and destroy Stork's entire zealot force as Jaedong took his front natural.


A weird position resulted, Jaedong making pure drones and retaking his rear natural in recovery gaming while Stork, who had no gateways and just a zealot wall on his ramp, rushed out a corsair and powered in response. Eight minutes in though Jaedong's position looked the stronger, Stork had 25 probes to Jaedong's 20 drones, two bases to three. The quick stargate was scouted and Jaedong's hydralisk den was early enough to not let the corsair do damage.

Jaedong teched to lair and added a spire while continuing to make nothing but drones after his overlord guarding hydralisk while Stork rushed his archives before going back for +1 air and more corsairs for dt map control. Jaedong went to five hat with an evo for walling and spawned two scourge into the face of a corsair, picking up a free kill, while Stork's dt caught just a single ling before being spotted.

Stork went up to five gate speedlots with high templar, asserting map control against Jaedong while angling for his third, but Jaedong refused to give him the battle he wanted, instead hatching lurkers in the corner near Stork's base, running speedlings past Stork's army, and offering Stork's army nothing but a sim city wallin with sunkens and lurkers behind it. Every part of that was exactly the play to make, Stork needed to get cannons down at his natural with his map control in order to safely take his third, make his way to observers and a 10 gate army, all while delaying Jaedong's fourth. Instead he was completely denied his third and his ramp was attacked by speedlings and lurkers, a single cannon and two zealots too few to secure it.


Stork made an incredibly clutch hold, blocking the speedlings, storming them, immediately morphing high templars into an archon, and rushing his army back. A potential disaster was averted and, although Stork's third expansion was delayed by two minutes while Jaedong was able to start his fourth, quick observers cleaned the lurkers up. Stork repeated his move from a minute before, pushing out with speedlots and corsairs, while Jaedong repeated his, countering with six hydralisks and a lurker at Stork's natural. Stork found a great connection onto Jaedong's lurkers, getting the best of all possible zealot only engagements, although he'd have liked to have had some gas units if it had been possible.


Jaedong's six hydralisks went 3 for 3 on Stork's only high templar, in addition to delaying cannons.


While Stork's pure zealot army was doing better than he could have reasonably expected against hydras and lurkers, it was at the point in a PvZ where the speedlots are simply delaying for cannons and high templars to establish themselves and secure the new expansion. Jaedong's counterattack ensured that there were no cannons and no high templars for the speedlots to fall back to when fighting lurkers became impossible.

The speedlots started to break against the hydralisks and the only prepared defensive position for them to fall back to was Stork's ramp, not his 3rd as he had planned. Jaedong was on four base four gas while Stork was down to his main and rear nat, contained by lurkers on his ramp. Stork's supply was equal, never a good position for a Protoss, and there was nothing that Stork could really do. He tried to break out once, and then left.


GG

Stork messed up the start, in my opinion, both by immediately showing a proxy 99 and by surrendering the ramp. Jaedong had nothing at his rear natural worth killing beyond a hatchery that he lacked the economy to really use. To compound Jaedong's issue, speedlings only trade well against zealots in that ratio (<3 lings per zealot) when the lings are given room to play, forcing the zealots to split up, defend multiple areas and work in convoys. The ramp was everything, and he threw it away. Twice.

After that I firmly believe Jaedong was ahead, but Stork could have recovered. It was the backstab delaying play on Stork's 3rd, just as SoulKey did to Rain, that really solidified the game for Jaedong. For years the meta has been Protoss seizing map control with speedlots, securing a fortified third by the time Zerg is able to push back out. Jaedong just broke that meta by abusing Stork's own aggression, delaying his fortification of the third with a special ops group of units that could never work had Stork not been bluffing with speedlots. Twice. And that's pretty cool.

Game 3: SoulKey vs Jaedong on Gold Rush
SoulKey (Z) spawned in white at 5 while Jaedong (Z) spawned at red at 12. Both overlords immediately went in the right direction which helps to negate some of the build order luck in ZvZ. Their builds diverged as Jaedong opted for 12 pool 11 gas while SoulKey took 12 hat expand 11 pool, a build order advantage for him. Jaedong then decided to 12 hat at the gas expansion near the upper left part of the middle of the map, his 3rd natural (excluding the islands) after the one below his ramp and the mineral only.

The moment Jaedong's pool finished he started his lair, deciding against ling production, despite the fact that both players were still completely blind. Jaedong's overlord finally made it to SoulKey's natural and saw his lings there, prompting Jaedong to start pumping his own, while SoulKey's overlord scouted Jaedong's main. It's possible that SoulKey may not have known there was a second hat before the lair finished, as Jaedong could have theoretically smashed his own economy for a faster lair tech, but when lair completed there was no way SoulKey couldn't look at the drone count and the timing and know there was a second hatchery somewhere.

SoulKey sent out four lings to grind away at the eggs at 10, assuming the second hatchery was at the 11 expansion, before checking the correct location with his overlord. SoulKey's faster second hatchery gave him more available larva and while Jaedong's faster lair gave him a faster spire, it wasn't yet done. Furthermore the defender's advantage from the ramp and the travel time was completely negated by Jaedong's exposed second hatchery.

Jaedong linged his little heart out and, due to SoulKey producing three drones to mine at his natural, got the required numbers to chase SoulKey back.


However SoulKey revealed that the ling pressure had actually been a feint, splitting his lings into two groups, one of which drew Jaedong to commit at SoulKey's natural where a sunken was waiting, while the other counterattacked Jaedong's main, forcing all Jaedong's larva to be expended just before the spire completed.

Jaedong threw his mass lings against SoulKey's natural, trading about as well as he could have hoped for but killing just a two drones in strategic damage (the sunken dying but having served its purpose), while losing a drone of his own in exchange.


When the dust settled SoulKey was ahead by six supply, having the better of the ling trade at his natural and the benefit of the faster second hatchery and additional minerals from those drones. Jaedong had no lings to speak of, using his new larva for mutalisks, but SoulKey split his own lings to threaten both Jaedong's mineral line and his expansion, demanding the mutalisks abandon one to save the other. Jaedong tried a neat little backstab with his last two speedlings and got a drone kill for his trouble but the economic deficit was beginning to show.

Knowing that his only advantage, a higher mutalisk count, was short lived against SoulKey's stronger economy Jaedong decided he needed to attack. He knew that SoulKey would immediately punish him for doing so by backstabbing his mineral line with speedlings, but he also knew that leaving mutalisks to defend couldn't win him the game, only delay his loss. His only win condition was by forcing a mutalisk fight above SoulKey's mineral line, establishing a snowballing mutalisk numbers advantage. If he could kill three mutas with five, and lose just one of his own doing so, then the fact that he had no drones wouldn't matter, he could kill each new muta as it spawned, or outmicro the scourge AI forever. Then, once all of SoulKey's drones were dead, he could send mutas back to save his own buildings.

Jaedong won the mutalisk fight with dominating micro but SoulKey's lings were killing his base more quickly than he had expected. In a rare strategic error he hesitated in his own plan, despite having four mutalisks alive to SoulKey's one, and no drones to SoulKey's seven. His only win condition was following his plan through to where it led him, trying to kill all of SoulKey's drones before his own base was destroyed. Instead, he backed.

After cleaning up SoulKey's zerglings it was time to attempt to win by pure muta micro, four mutalisks against one mutalisk and whatever SoulKey had made since then. SoulKey had made eight scourge, which Jaedong may have been able to outmicro without loss, but also a spore colony, because he's no fool. What Jaedong planned to do to kill a spore colony was never revealed though because this immediately happened.


GG.

SoulKey played better. Unlike his victory over Rain Jaedong made him work for it, absolutely outclassing SoulKey with his mutalisk micro. But SoulKey's units were in the right places at the right times, he made Jaedong produce lings when he needed drones, then offered Jaedong a choice between an economic disadvantage or fighting into a sunken. Then SoulKey dishonoured that choice with a backstab, giving Jaedong an economic disadvantage either way. Jaedong could conceivably have won had he committed to his strategy, that was some great mutalisk micro, but his hesitation allowed SoulKey's spore colony to close out the game.

Game 4: Stork vs Rain on Gold Rush
Stork (P) spawned in brown at 12 while Rain (P) took red at 5. They both opened with a perfect mirror, 8 pylon 10 gate 11 gas 13 core 14 zealot, but Rain chose to scout earlier, possibly showing respect earned by Stork's repeated proxy 99 gate builds. Both players scouted clockwise around the edge of the map, Stork finding Rain at the first spot he scouted while Rain found Stork at the second.

They continued to mirror, following their core with a dragoon, range, and killing the anticlockwise geysers. But then Rain threw down a quick robo while Stork saved his minerals for an expansion. Unfortunately he was immediately punished for that decision when the dragoon sent to block a scout probe he correctly guessed was coming bugged out, and let the scout probe by.


Few things are more infuriating than that for a Protoss player, and in Stork's case he did everything right, catching the incoming probe and intercepting it off early. His star sense was rewarded by a probe in his base asking the big questions like "how come you haven't got a robo or a second gate?" and "what do you plan to do with all those minerals you're banking?"

Stork scouted Rain back but they were locked into their chosen builds, Stork one gate expansion while Rain went one gate reaver. Rain was forced to choose between accepting an economic disadvantage and going allin, while Stork was desperate to know if he needed to cut his own economy to block an allin, putting him behind Rain if Rain counterexpanded, or play safe.

Stork decided to send forwards two skirmishing dragoons to take a look at Rain's natural, hoping to see dragoon counts, even if they couldn't check for a nexus. They took some potshots at a zealot and then a half second of inattention cost Stork a dragoon as Rain moved his dragoons forwards and then stutterstepped perfectly to get three volleys before Stork's dragoon was back out of range.

Rain took a defensive middle ground option, following his robo with a support bay for reaver and keeping his gateway producing constantly while taking a delayed expansion himself. On the face of it the nexus is too late to get an economic advantage while also not the three gateways he needed for an allin, too little of A, too much of B. However Stork was playing blind, all he knew was that his fast expansion was scouted immediately, that Rain had a robo, and that he was a dragoon down. If Rain counted on Stork cutting his own economy to maximize unit production then Rain's response is actually optimal, using the threat to make Stork do the economic damage to himself while risking nothing.

Stork did exactly that, following his expansion with four gates and cutting probes and tech to hold off an attack that just wasn't coming, while Rain's observer flew in to confirm. A minute later they found their positions reversed, Rain with the greater probe count, expansion, and tech investment while Stork had the mass units ready to allin. Stork sent in a probe before pushing and discovered a shuttleless reaver joining Rain's dragoons at his natural. Despite having four gate dragoon to Rain's one gate he wisely decided not to risk it. Incidentally Rain positioned his reaver halfway up the ramp, taking advantage of limited vision and the dragoon miss chance, a neat little way to amplify it's value.

Stork transitioned into a macro game to match Rain's and got his own observers out. Rain added a shuttle to carry his first two reavers around while Stork spread his larger army into strategic concaves on the map and added his own reavers. And at 8:30 their supply counts were still identical, matching each other completely. Both went to six gates and both headed towards zealot legs and archives, Rain getting there first, but neither chanced to take their third first.

At 12 minutes their supplies were still identical, as were their army compositions and gateway counts. Rain tried to do some cute dt play with an observer scouting for Stork's observers but beyond that, nothing but PvP two base macro wars as they stared each other down. Both added a third at their mineral only at the same time, and both faced adjusted their positioning as their armies split the map. Their only difference was Stork's preference for archons vs Rain's preference for high templar.

Stork made the first move, pushing towards Rain's mineral only with a broad sweeping maxed army. Rain retreated his army and painted Stork's army with storms as he gave ground.



And then, as Stork's army began to lose cohesion and his broad formation began to form into a column, Rain's army turned and held. Rain's army actually had the worse of the positioning, his faster zealots having retreated further and formed a clump behind his dragoons. However both were maxed out, it was going to be a bloodbath.


Rain landed a storm directly on top of Storm's reavers while Stork's archons met Rain's zealots head on and slaughtered them. Stork's dragoon front was broader but Rain's reavers got excellent scarab connections on Stork's zealots and wiped out a control group in a second. They traded destruction in the same perfect symmetry they had displayed all game long and with 100 psi of Protoss dead on each side they were each left with a control group of dragoons, another of speedlots reinforcing, and two reavers with a shuttle.

Then this happened.

Both players spammed zealots to replenish their armies but Stork was unable to defend his mineral only against zealots and two reavers with just zealots. Rain capitalized upon the death of the mineral only by forcing another bad engagement for Stork, killing zealots without taking significant losses in return. As each of their mains mined out Rain was confident in his position, checking the semi island at 3 for a hidden expansion and securing his one base lead. Unfortunately for Rain Stork's hidden expansion was at the 9 main, not 3, and with a gas there it actually put Stork ahead, if he could hold it.

Rain followed up with a storm drop, killing a handful of probes but, not knowing about the 9 base, failing to catch the rest.
The two mining base vs one timing window let Rain take a decent macro lead from his mineral only but his fifty supply lead was mostly zealots which fare very poorly against reavers, archons, storms, and so forth. It would come down to whether Rain would take his own fourth with gas or scout the map to see if Stork had a hidden expansion, his only lose condition.

Rain promptly sent an observer on a tour of all the bases on the map and found Stork's hidden expansion. Knowing that if he sent his entire army to destroy it he would open himself up to a scrappy base trade situation Rain just sent two zealots which, by themselves, took out Stork's lifeline. Rain took a fourth of his own and as Stork desperately moved out onto the map Rain enveloped him. Stork's positioning was better, but it didn't matter.


GG

Both fantastic players, both played a fantastic game. Rain's macro is unbelievable but Stork matched him every step of the way which is very impressive. The game came down to one key fight, which in turn came down to a few key storms and the shuttle snipe with the reavers in it. Up to that point the fight was a meat grinder with both sides pouring reinforcements in and slaughtering each other. The moment Stork's reavers died in that shuttle he was a base down and fighting reavers with speedlots. Nothing else to say, great showing by both.

Game 5: Rain vs Jaedong on Fighting Spirit
Rain (P) spawned in teal at 7 while Jaedong (Z) spawned in brown at 5. Both players used the most recent builds in the meta. Rain opening 10 gate at natural, the 7 natural being one of the two on Fighting Spirit that offer a two (2 is the other) zealot gap wall, while Jaedong opted for an overpool into 11 expand. Jaedong sent his overlord anticlockwise which is the "wrong" direction and messes with Protoss scouting for overlord tricks while Rain scouted across before finding Jaedong on his second attempt.

Jaedong scouted the standard zealot "rush" opener but only made two lings with his first three larva, knowing that the build isn't intended to kill him, it's intended to force him to waste larva on lings while Rain's nexus pumped probes. He added a standard third hatchery at the 3 high ground, and an extractor in his main. Then he waited until Rain's first zealot reached him to pump another six zerglings, bringing his total to eight. The first zealot killed just two zerglings (and brought another two within a single probe hit of death) but the second and third did better, significantly delaying Jaedong's drone production and getting seven zerglings and a drone.

Jaedong's attempt to block it with as few lings as possible, rather than inflicting the wound himself by overproducing zerglings, gave Rain surprisingly cost effective trades, a significant deficit given Rain's superior economy. As Jaedong wasted zerglings and barely defeated the zealots Rain was allowed to take a quick nexus before cannon and pump probes constantly. By five minutes into the game Rain had 30 probes to Jaedong's 18ish. To make matters worse Rain showed off his micro by checking the hp on Jaedong's lings and sniping the injured ones so that a zealot caught out in the open by eight lings was able to kill three before dying.

Recognizing the deficit Jaedong decided to allin, selecting three hatch hydra break hitting right before the corsair scout timing as his weapon of choice and using speedlings to deny scouting. Rain added a citadel for fast zealot speed and started his +1, but stayed on just one gateway pumping zealots, no match for three hat production.

Rain's corsair was incredibly quick and Jaedong missed his timing, his hydralisks lacking upgrades and numbers when they were revealed, prompting Rain to drop another trio of cannons but otherwise relax. Jaedong immediately aborted his allin, knowing that the best he could hope for was sniping the gateway and forcing cannons, and switched to recovery drone spamming. This was immediately scouted by Rain's corsair.

Jaedong was able to snipe a gateway and the forge but back home he was in recovery mode, placing sim city buildings and trying to shelter his overlords with hydralisks as he had no spire. Rain dropped three more gates in his main and teched to storm while his corsairs scouted and forced hydralisks to guard overlords in each of Jaedong's bases. Having scouted no spire Rain added two more gates and a quick robo, content to brawl Jaedong in the midgame with storm against hydralisks.

Jaedong's soft contain overstayed its welcome as the first ht reached 75 energy


but Rain's dt followup left him with no storms in the bank for Jaedong's five hatch hydra.


Jaedong tried to shove into Rain's base and end it while Rain, seemingly confident that his new ht would make it to 75 energy, loaded his dts into a shuttle and headed for Jaedong's main where a corsair was sweeping for slowverlords. Without cannons speedlots defend poorly against microed hydras and high templar are easily picked off but Rain was apparently confident that he no longer needed the cannons and that his gateways could handle it from here.


Rain's confidence was justified as three high templar reached 75 energy at once, giving him time to replace his lost cannons while his gateways spammed zealots.


He then used all three of his storms on small groups of hydra which were actively being microed, rather than wait for a larger group to commit, and found himself attempting a morph an archon in the middle of the hydralisks while his last high templar wandered through the battle without a care in the world. With his cannons still warping in Rain was forced to pull probes to fight hydralisks.

Meanwhile in Jaedong's base dt were immediately scouted but still killed a good number of drones, and forced Jaedong to divert his reinforcements home. Although Jaedong was still on three bases the economic advantage lay with Rain, Jaedong wasn't even saturated at one drone per patch. As Jaedong tried to test the cannons for a third time Rain simply ran over his army with speedlots, moving past and surrounding hydralisks as they retreated across the map.


Against any other micro Jaedong would have been fine, able to pull back behind his sim city and block the choke points with drones, but Rain repeatedly got his zealots on top of the hydralisks and achieved far more kills than ought to have logically been possible. As the zealots reached Jaedong's natural there was a moment of "where did all the hydra go?" and Rain threw his zealots through the gaps in the wall.


GG

Rain's zealot micro throughout was perfection, punishing Jaedong early and establishing an economic lead. Jaedong didn't seem to know what to do from there, his allin was poorly timed, unable to attack before the corsair scout timing, and his economic transition out of the allin left him with nothing but hydra and ling tech against a Protoss with a stronger economy, corsairs, storm, and a lot of gateways. There were a few tense moments but, while Jaedong may have looked like he had a standard five hat ZvP army, there was nothing solid behind the illusion. His drone count was low, he couldn't afford lurker tech, a spire, overlord speed, sunkens, or any kind of contest against the corsairs. Rain simply had to endure, Jaedong had just one bullet in his magazine and it missed.