Game 1 on Crossing Field:
Larva (Z) spawned in purple at 10 while Rain (P) took teal at 4. Larva sent out his 9th drone across the map while Rain continued his established pattern of not 8 scouting, as we've seen in all his earlier PvZ on this map. Normally that's fine because normal PvZ games on Crossing Field are super macro orientated and you can blindly assume your opponent is going for a macro game. But normal games don't include the 9th drone being sent out. You don't scout to see what you expect to be there, you scout to find that what you expect isn't there.

Larva went for 12 hat proxied behind Rain's natural in the top right, 11 pool, while Rain opened 1 gate nexus no scouting.


Larva kept a drone on his ramp to deny scouting but Rain wasn't scouting until he had committed to his nexus anyway. Larva's drone on the ramp denied scouting, letting Rain assume that Larva had taken the back natural, and Larva appeared to confirm that story by sending a drone to fake attempt a hatchery at the front natural, getting repeatedly blocked by Rain's probe, even though it had neither the minerals nor the intent to make a hatchery were it not blocked. Larva knew the timings for a three hat macro opener and wanted to tell Rain a convincing story about how there totally wasn't a proxy hat behind his natural.

Larva grabbed ling speed while Rain's first zealot made it into Larva's base, expecting six newly produced lings from a 12 hat 11 pool and finding them. Larva still looked convincing as a macro opener, his second hat could easily be believed to be at his rear nat. The only "odd" thing was his extractor with no drones mining gas, a quick ling speed. Rain's probe was quickly picked off and his zealot retreated behind the mineral line and died, Rain wasn't able to get the vital information he needed.

Rain sent out a second scout probe but it wasn't drilled to the minerals in Larva's main, even though he had time to send it there before the zealot died. It didn't make it, but it was able to confirm ling speed and a few more lings than Rain might expect.


Rain smelled a whiff what the Rock was cooking and put a probe behind his zealot wall with a shield battery coming. But he wasn't sure enough in his read, he produced a dragoon (which sucks against lings) instead of another zealot, he didn't start a forge, and his probes weren't ready to hold.

Larva drone drilled up the ramp and his speedlings rushed in.


The first zealot got pushed into mass lings and died without doing anything and although the second zealot fared better, the dragoon that spawned to assist him wasn't the help he needed, not vs speedlings. It was over in seconds.


GG

Editorial: Rain showed an established pattern across the last dozen PvZ games and got himself cheesed for his hubris. Small edges from taking a series of risks can add up when you don't believe your opponent will risk everything to allin and punish you for them. But after a few games you should expect them to. As for Larva, clean execution. Nothing fancy but he knew exactly what he was doing and he knew that it would work. Sometimes you need to cheese to keep your opponent honest. There's a reason Protoss always used to scout on 8 in PvZ.

Game 2 on Gladiator:
Larva (Z) spawned in white at 1 while Rain (P) took green at 7. Much more standard openings this time around as Rain scouted anticlockwise on 8 and Larva went for a gasless overpool into 11 hat. The 11 hat was probe delayed, forcing Larva to spawn two zerglings and an additional two drones first for a 14 hat, despite having the drone at his nat with 300 at 11.

Rain played correctly, taking a 13 nexus before 14 cannon, and then 15 gateway, 16 pylon, very macro heavy with almost no cutting of probes. Larva took the gas expansion at 12 for his third hatchery and added gas for a very standard three hat lair opener. Rain kept his probe alive forever against the two slow lings giving him perfect information so he had no fear early, staying on one cannon and hiding a zealot at the 11 natural to sneak into 12. A fast stargate followed with +1 air attack rushed out.

Larva's starsense scouted the zealot at 11 and killed it for free with five zerglings while his spire was on time for the first corsair, preventing Rain from getting anything done. His three hats pumped nothing but drones, his only units in the first six minutes being his first six zerglings, an extremely macro heavy three hat spire five hat hydra opener which was completely unpunished. Rain's one gate late +1 speed zealots weren't even scary enough to force sunkens. Larva made a sim city but otherwise just continued to spam drones, a few scourge policing the skies.

Rain finally got his +1 speedlots, pushed out, and then immediately retreated because he knew his army was so much smaller than what he'd need to do damage that he couldn't even pretend to push. Instead he hoped that by killing the lings he might force more hydralisks while Rain got his storm out. At 8 minutes in and a base behind Rain was actually adding more cannons to his nat to resist a potential five hat hydra break before his high templar were done. The +1 corsair fleet managed to kill just a single overlord before losing too many to be effective beyond acting as a mutalisk deterrent.

Larva went up to seven hat on 4 bases while Rain massed on two bases before crawling out to his mineral only and camping there, spamming gateways and finishing his tech. But even with the mineral only he was a gas behind the Zerg, which meant fighting gas units (lurkers, mutas etc) with mineral units (mostly zealots). Rain's only advantage, if we could call it that, was Larva's willingness to stay on lair tech and try and beat him in a midgame tech macro war. Dancing hydralisks squared off against speedlots near Rain's third but the game continued to follow 20min no rush rules as both players declined a full on engagement.

12 minutes in, we got our first battle as Larva made a play for the high ground adjacent to Rain's mineral only.


Rain's observers were ready and he just trampled straight through Larva's lurkers with four control groups of Protoss infantry. Larva retreated with most of his hydralisks and a bloody nose. Rain pushed out to attack Larva's natural, which was defended by a thin line of lurkers on the ramp, while Larva's hydralisks looped around the other side of the map to counter at Rain's natural. Although Rain had a considerable supply lead, his zealots underestimated the depth of the lurker defense and were punished for it.


Meanwhile, Larva's hydralisks abandoned their own push and instead ambushed Rain's stream of reinforcements in the middle of the map, forcing Rain to retreat.

The first real battle went Larva's way. Rain's army survived but Larva closed the supply gap by 20 and didn't give an inch of ground. Map control was still in Rain's favour though and the 6 gas expansion was going up for him. Larva attempted to turn the victory into a push of his own, attacking a midgame protoss army using nothing but hydralisks and lurkers, without any mutalisks or other attempt to reduce high templar numbers. The results were predictable and stormy.


Successful pickoffs on all three of Rain's observers averted a complete disaster for Larva but the botched attack left Rain up 60 supply and on equal bases.


Rain pushed out into the open ground between Larva's mineral only and gas third and forced Larva to fight him on open ground.


Rain's dragoons established a broad front and a continuous stream of reinforcements flowed from Rain's gateways. Larva was able to snipe the observer again but only one lurker was left by the time it went down, while Rain's zealots had already broken through to 12. The defiler tech was finally done and Larva had the swarm he really would have needed to hold his lurkers against the mass dragoons 30 seconds earlier, but the 12 expansion and the three macro hatches there were already overrun.

The last of Larva's army desperately held onto the ruins at 12, at which point Rain's army, now 80 supply ahead and accelerating, simply diverted into the undefended mineral only.


Completely helpless in the face of the Rain steamroller Larva GG'd out.
GG

Editorial: If either player got an advantage from their defensive macro openings I'd have to say it was Larva, who wasn't even forced into sunkens with his three hat spire five hat hydra and got a colossal economy rolling by the midgame. The problem was that Larva tried to get into a midgame macro off with Rain in ZvP. I don't care who you are or how good at ZvP you are, you don't do that, not against Rain. You make lurkers to hold your bases while you can and you rush to hive to plague his army and swarm your lurkers when you can't hold on any other way. But a lair tech vs storm tech macro war against Rain of all players? I have no idea what Larva thought would happen when he tried that but I'm pretty sure that everyone observing knew exactly what would happen. As for Rain, the boy can macro, we all know that. I wasn't convinced by his opening, especially when the +1 sairs did absolutely nothing, but he did what he needed to do. Larva gave him a timing window and Rain threw 160 supply of Protoss ground units into that window.

Game 3 on Gold Rush:
Larva (Z) spawned in yellow at 12 while Rain (P) took white at 9. Rain scouted on 8 in the correct direction while Larva opened for a gasless overpool into 11 hat at natural. Rain went for 10 forge, 13 nexus, 13 cannon, 14 gateway, a little more defensive than he needed against two zerglings, both of which were chasing his probe, but completely fine given the overlord scouting his nat. Larva added a 14 hat at the natural to the third expansion, a play that immediately signaled his plan for the game. On three player maps, the deciding factor is generally who establishes the third base and the natural. By building his third hatchery at the 6 natural, Larva turned his cards face up and said "break a natural if you want to win, I'll be waiting".

Both players made nothing but workers. Rain added a quick second gas and scouting for Larva's third, checking the central gas expo but was unable to find Larva's third until corsair tech. Rain played a defensive opening, getting +1 air, fast archives, two gates and trying to take the 11 island early. Larva opted for the standard three hat spire but rather than the five hat hydra followup, as is standard, he opted for six hat sim city fast four base with sunkens.


Rain dropped two corsairs to scourge, both completely avoidable, and the game settled into the midgame with Larva up four gas bases to Rain's three.

Rain ran a dt past Larva's wall at the 6 natural but was unable to cap the hatchery there. At the same time, he attempted a +1 speedlot bust at Larva's natural but despite only facing one sunken and five hydralisks, his six zealots were unable to do any damage. Rain had map control but only three bases to Larva's four. He tried to do the same to the 6 natural but had to back off from there too. Mass speedlots, dragoons, archons etc ran around the middle of the map while seven +1 sairs slaughtered overlords but Rain did absolutely nothing with any of it. No expansions onto the map, no reavers to slow push the Zerg in, no dt drop play to knock out the low hp fourth base at the 5 main, just a lot of units standing outside of two fortified naturals.

Rain decided to try and batter down the wall with mass dragoons so he could flood in with his zealots and archons.


However, it all immediately went wrong. Larva immediately replaced the walling hatchery with an evo which could have been one shot with a single volley by five dragoons but which was neglected, causing zealot AI to go crazy running around it to get to the sunkens. And as they got on top of the sunkens, Larva finished his lurkers.


Rain broke through, finishing the last sunken with a dozen speedlots left while Larva's reinforcing army did absolutely nothing, running head first into Rain's greater reinforcing army. Rain was left with around six dragoons and ten speedlots in a base with only drones and three lurkers.

Rain immediately cocked everything up, trying to run his speedlots into a corner of the natural out of lurker fire, leaving his dragoons without zealot support to die to zerglings. Despite Larva having two bases to defend at 6, the main (still on low hp) and the natural, Rain ran his zealots into the corner of the natural and waited for Larva to move all of those scary lurkers away.


Rain slaughtered all of Larva's overlords again which was a sweet move but static defense doesn't take control and Larva had a bunch of drones at 6 ready to turn into sunkens. Although Rain retained the upper hand and map control, which he used to take his mineral only, Larva had the third main and with it his win condition. Rain tried a dt drop in Larva's main but combined his dts and corsairs poorly, his dts hiding rather than killing the hydras which were killing his corsairs. All that resulted was the end of his corsair fleet which endured the full attention of the hydralisks while trying to kill overlords.

Larva upped to nine hatchery hive tech and confronted Rain with this bullshit.


Protoss has very few options against that. They are
A) Take the other main and nat yourself (not possible, three player map)
B) Slow reaver push into it (works until they have their defilers ready, then lurkling and swarm make things kinda ugly because your dragoons stop working and lurkers > zealots)
C) Arbiters with recall to snipe the bases behind the walls
D) Take every island expansion, build a robo, reavers, cannons, gateway, high templar and at least one dark archon at each of them, and wait for the Zerg to realize that you have more minerals behind your bullshit turtle than he has behind his.
Rain decided to go in a different direction, option E, attack it head on.


To spice it up, he decided to work in some storm drops too which were remarkably ineffective. With plan E failing, Rain decided that it was time to take a fourth gas and fifth base of his own at his central gas expo, actually putting him ahead of Larva on bases. With map control secure and up in bases, the pressure was really on Rain and so he decided to go back to plan E.


This may look a lot like the previous gif but this is actually a completely new attempt to break mass sunkens, lurkers, spores, and scourge with mass speedlots.

Larva expanded to the 3 island expo and Rain decided to try plan B at the 11 natural. This had the significant advantage of not being plan E, although it would have been great if he'd tried it five minutes earlier. The shuttle was immediately killed by scourge as it was inattentively left on the edge of Rain's army but the hydra den, a sunken, and a fair few hydralisks were killed by the reavers. That made it all the more unfortunate when they ran out of scarabs and were killed by a handful of cracklings under the uncaring eyes of the rest of Rain's army.


The slow reaver push faltered due to lack of reavers, while Larva was able to safely take both 3 and 7 islands behind his walls. The walls did nothing to defend these bases which could easily be sniped by four zealot drops or similar but served as a great distraction to keep Rain busy. Sunkens and lurkers seemed irresistible to Rain. Larva broke through the eggs at 8 and completely failed to do anything to Rain's base while Rain established the central gas expansion that would be Larva's natural fourth base where the map evenly divided. With Larva's hive tech done, he started plaguing Rain's army, just because.

Rain was still 80 supply ahead, maxed to Larva's 120, but with Larva's two new islands, they were on six bases apiece and Larva was still sheltered behind his wall. Larva sniped Rain's new top expansion with cracklings and Rain responded with this impressive statement against anyone who might argue that observers are mandatory.


With the 7 island stopped, Rain was back ahead on bases and still had a huge army advantage, map control, and all the tech he could want. He therefore concluded that he desperately needed to break into Larva's natural, behind which were two almost mined out bases and exactly three of Larva's eleven hatcheries. It would have to be plan E.

He was greeted by a plague to the face, which he followed by storming all his zealots.


Satisfied with the outcome, Rain decided he didn't really want to break the natural anyway, and backed off. A four zealot drop into his 3 at the same time, chased drones around rather than targeting the hatchery, which was allowed to live for literally no reason. Rain decided the correct play was to try option B again, but mixed it up by taking his shuttle with reavers and flying it into hydralisks at the 3 island.


With his army waiting for reavers that weren't coming, Rain decided to go for option E again. And then for more drops into scourge.


One thing keen eyed readers may notice here is that the 6 natural is actually almost mined out at this point. The bases that Rain has been attacking no longer have any real money in them. Larva's lifeline were his two new island expansions, one of which was right next to Rain's base and was, for most of the game, open for him to walk his giant army in at any time. Larva plagued Rain's army a bunch but was otherwise content to sit behind his wall and wait to see if Rain would do something dumb. Rain, with his army mostly having 1hp under their shields, decided to try and break the 6 natural again. And to make it worse, he tried to do it with reavers attacking downwards without nearby support.


The reaver AI did exactly what everyone knew it would, sending them walking directly into the sunkens where hydralisks promptly killed all three.


For Rain, the game was turning into some kind of farce, he was still even on bases but, in some kind of reverse Midas situation, everything he touched turned to excrement. He therefore decided to do the same thing he tried after the last six pushes failed, a storm drop with no corsair cover, which went the exact same way as the last five attempts.


It may sound like I am being a little harsh on Rain here but I assure you that it's every bit deserved.

At 25 minutes into the game, Larva decided to do his first attempt to attack, running lings into a cannon reaver storm defence at one of the central gas expansions with a drop in overlords ready to follow it up. However, after taking a look at the cannon, reaver, high templar defence, Larva decided that the game didn't need two players suiciding all their units over and over into fortified positions, and turned his overlords around. Rain finally decided to attack a base where Larva was actually mining and where there weren't infinity sunken colonies, and it actually went really well.


Rain killed the expansion and got great value in trade for his units as Larva poured units into a reaver, zealot, archon, high templar group. Perhaps Rain would turn his luck around.

Larva followed by giving Rain a gift of thirty supply wasted, dropping zerglings and hydralisks without dark swarm onto cannons and high templar in a move critics are calling "highly optimistic".


With the 3 expansion destroyed and 7 barely mining, Larva was basically on no economy, his first four bases having been exhausted or near exhaustion. Rain therefore decided to do what he always did when he had no better ideas, another single shuttle drop.


That didn't work and so Rain returned to trusty option E which had never failed him, attacking into the single strongest position on the map, behind which was absolutely nothing of value.


Remember that at this point, Rain has six bases to Larva's six bases, and all three of the remaining base sites are in the centre of the map, completely under Rain's control. If Rain were to sit in the middle of the map doing absolutely nothing then Larva would mine out and have to push into Rain. Whereas if Rain were to break through here then Larva would simply kill the assimilators and drop a nydus at each of his two island expansions. There is absolutely no potential upside to Rain attacking, he doesn't want to attack, he doesn't need to attack, this is the wrong place to attack, he can only lose through attacking, and there is nothing to be won if the attack works. The only thing slightly worth killing is the five hatcheries in this corner of the map but Larva no longer had the economy to even use all those hatcheries.

Rain's entire army died, fighting lurkers without an observer to reveal them. As keen eyed readers might suspect, this was not the correct play. But Rain had his followup for his option E prepared, speed shuttles into all the expansions.



Rain actually managed to improve upon his usual followup, losing speed shuttles at two bases rather than the standard one. After his push into mass lurkers failed, Rain decided to remax with mostly zealots, perhaps thinking that the problem was that he didn't have enough zealots to beat 3-3 lurkers while plagued, and Larva promptly plagued them all again, reducing them to 61 hp. That made them significantly less likely to break through a lurker sunken defence than mass firebats. Outraged by the defiler, Rain decided to storm all his own observers, killing all three at once.


Rain also decided not to bother with any upgrades beyond 3-1-1, despite the fact that he had been maxed for the past fifteen minutes. I guess when you're assuming that every unit is going to be plagued armor upgrades aren't really worth it?

Rain decided to try another speed shuttle storm drop, confident that Larva wouldn't be expecting that.


In a shocking twist, Larva was actually expecting that and it didn't work. But Rain finally had option C, arbiters with recall to drop his maxed Protoss army onto the remaining mining bases, forcing Larva to forfeit the bases, and therefore the game, or charge into reavers, archons, and high templar to retake them. Finally, he would have a strategy beyond attacking headlong into sunken defenses. With any base on the map his for the taking, Rain decided to go for the 12 main, with such vital contents as a hive (after Larva already had 3-3-3) and a spire.


Larva briefly considered contesting the recall before realizing that his sunken wall at his natural was between Rain and the way out and that Rain had effectively taken his army out of play for the price of a spire and a spawning pool.

However, Larva wasn't counting on Rain, and his trusty option B.


Rather than recall his army out to somewhere it might actually be useful, Rain decided to try and brute force his way through. Then, thinking better of that, he decided he'd leave them there until he could recall back out. The good news for Rain was that he had a second arbiter with recall energy. The bad news was that he flew it into scourge. While Rain was still ahead on supply and had an army mostly composed of high templar, archons, and reavers, it was divided into two separate blocks which couldn't be combined. Fortunately, Rain knew exactly what to do. Clearly it was time for a slow reaver push into the mined out 6 natural, while ignoring the fact that all of the untaken bases on the map were within the center which was completely controlled by him.

Rain decided at the last second that what he really wanted to do was actually to try and break the sunkens at the 1 natural, but to do that, he would need to move all of his reavers. Naturally he took the most direct route, flying over Larva's 3 island and the scourge kept there.


Rain's urgency made sense when it emerged that his recalled army at 12 was trying to push down the ramp into the sunkens and lurkers, unwilling to wait for the rest of Rain's army. This was, as with so many other things Rain did this game, not the play.

With Rain's army still divided between the survivors of his first recall and the survivors of everything else Rain had done, Larva decided to put him out of his misery.

GG

(actually the game continued for a bit but I am done, fuck this game)

Editorial: Honestly this was one of the worst played games I've ever seen at a pro level, and I've been watching them for 15 years now. It might be necessary for Rain to provide us some kind of proof that he's not just a macro AI that runs a looped sunken bust storm drop command string. Either way, Rainbot glitched hard today. There weren't even any resources at the bases he was suiciding his army into. And even if sniping the 12 was important, there was no reason to leave his army up there, and certainly no reason to try attacking down the ramp. Rain had this game won for 20 straight minutes if he could just work out that there was nothing he could do about Larva's first four bases, and nothing that he needed to do about them. Rain was starving Larva, not the other way around, but he seemed to be completely unaware that he had already won the game. It was just sad. Apparently Rain has absolutely no idea how to play PvZ when macro alone isn't enough.

Game 4 on Fighting Spirit:
Larva (Z) spawned in brown at 11 while Rain (P) took red at 1. Larva opened 9 pool before overlord, while Rain went 8 pylon 11 forge double probe scout. Rain scouted no hatch at Larva's natural and added a 14 cannon before nexus without scouting into the main for the pool, knowing that both 12 hat 11 pool and overpool would have had the expansion by that point. Then he blocked the natural with a pylon while sending his probe to confirm that there were six lings coming. Larva was forced to make Rain cancel his pylon, allowing Rain to take a 15 nex (with 15 probes) to Larva's 14 hatch (11 drones) expansion at the same time. Advantage Rain. Rain sealed his wall with a gateway, using a probe with a mineral in its mouth to block the gap which is a cool trick when you're against six lings with one cannon because you can hit c (return cargo) and send it sliding back through the probe behind it when lings are told to manually attack it. Meanwhile, Larva just took the 7 natural expansion, repeating his game 3 strategy of taking a fast four gas.

Larva went for three hat lair while Rain scouted him with a decently microed scout probe. Rain put three zealots on the map, two heading for 7 while one went to 12, hoping to creep into Larva's main while Larva defended 7. Larva pumped out a dozen lings and took speed but was pulled back and forth by the two pronged attack, failing to have enough lings in either place to not take damage. However Rain microed his zealots surprisingly poorly, switching off of low drones repeatedly, getting drilled, and doing far less damage than he ought to have.


Rain got just a handful of zerglings for his zealots, while Larva's heavy drone pumping was rewarded with a very cheap hold.

Rain's corsairs were out in time to kill two overlords before scourge but Rain didn't then retreat his corsairs and wait until he had five and +1, instead deciding to keep being active on the map with just three of them against scourge. Larva followed his scourge with three more hatcheries, a wall at both of his fronts, and the 8 main. Rain's three corsair harassment went about as well as anyone expected it to go.


Rain went to four gateways and +1, despite the fact that Larva didn't even have a hydralisk den yet and was just making sunkens. The correct play here would have been to take the 3 expansion quickly while getting high templar, but Rain only knows one way to play. Deciding that storm is highly overrated, especially as a tool for taking earlier expansions in PvZ, Rain turned his first two high templar into an archon and decided to try and do a bust with four gateways against six hatcheries, a sim city, and sunkens. Perhaps the most charitable word for this attack is bold. Failing that, optimistic.


Rain took 3 finally, but Larva was already on seven hatcheries and four gas bases. Rain had total map control but no real ability to break Larva. His only option was to take another expansion, perhaps at the 12 high ground, add some high templar and cannons to it, and enter the mid game on even bases and gas. Larva had completely forfeited map control in order to turtle on four bases, Rain could establish and fortify his own bases at will, using his overwhelming army in the middle of the map to keep Larva contained. With this in mind Rain decided that it would be just grand if his completely mobile army went to where Larva's completely static defense was.


The static defense was broken but Larva was up to eight hat and simply cleaned Rain up with a single round of unit production. Now that Larva had his economy and unit production exactly where he wanted it to be, and Rain had thrown away all of his zealots, map control was no longer entirely in Rain's hands. Therefore Rain decided that the correct play would be a pure dragoon high templar push, with no zealot or archon escorts (these having all been lost in the earlier attempts to break sunkens), against eight hatcheries. It turned out that speedlings and hydralisks do pretty decently when Protoss has no zealots.


With Larva's hive now done and map control completely forfeited, Rain decided that he couldn't actually break Larva's sunken lines and that what he really needed was to take another expansion, the 4 natural. A dt drop distracted Larva's army, pulling it back to let Rain get 4 set up, and it was back to four gas bases vs four gas bases and protoss map control. With a significant supply lead and no more expansions possible for Larva to take it looked like Rain would take it. He could fortify 4, take the free main base at 5, perhaps also take a high ground, all while denying Larva anything beyond the sunken line. All Rain needed to do was keep map control and starve his opponent, equal gas is a protoss win condition in PvZ.

Despite being even on bases as a zerg and despite being unable to contest any other expansions the protoss might take, Larva continued to add sunkens to his wall. This might sound foolish, and were you to do it on ladder you'd probably lose to a protoss that just ignored your static defense and mined out the rest of the map while you turtled. But Larva had learned the lesson from game 3, Rain cannot resist a good sunken wall. The strategic situation is irrelevant, Rain just flipping loves sunkens.


So Rain decided that what he really wanted to do in this spot was attack. But after testing the defense, he correctly realized that it was suicide. Only one logical option remained. While many people might think that option is to keep map control, deny the 9 and 12 expansions to zerg, take the 5 main and ride the superior economy to a win, Rain knew that it was a zealot elevator attack against Larva's main.


In a shocking twist of fate, Larva actually had scourge near his sunken lurker wall and the elevator failed. But there was no way that that could have been anticipated.

With his elevator zealots being cleaned up, Rain decided it was time to back. And by time to back, I mean time to walk his entire army through lurkers, rather than taking the clean exit looping through the 12 expansion where any attempt to clean him up could be stormed in chokes.



Even after all these botched moves, Rain's macro was still incredibly strong. With 4 up, Rain was on equal bases, equal gases, and fifty supply up with map control. The man can make units. He has no idea what to do with the units once he's made them, but he can make them. With total map control, up on bases, and pushing 150 supply to Larva's 96, Rain knew his situation was desperate, it was now or never, he had to try and bust Larva's natural. It's not clear why he knew this, but that he knew it is certain, as evidenced by the fact that he promptly did this.


Rain's entire army promptly died to lurkers but he macroed up another one, sitting on just a forty supply lead after his attack. Larva attacked for the first time in the game while Rain replied with a storm drop that was actually quite effective, exploiting the battle elsewhere as a distraction.


A cute egg block on the ramp while Larva attacked 3 delayed Rain's army but Rain was able to save the expansion, his much larger army showing Larva why Larva needed to stay behind his sunkens.


Meanwhile, the storm drop shuttle had dropped off two dts in Larva's main which had further crippled Larva's economy.


When the dust settled Rain was over seventy supply up, had total map control and had a fifth gas base coming to Larva's two mining bases and four bases total. The game was completely over. It was unlosable. Larva had no army to speak of, no further expansions to take, no way of contesting the map which belonged entirely to Rain.

Larva, in a desperation move, threw a bunch of cracklings at 3, without even dark swarm for support. They all died.


The game was over. Larva had just his first four bases which weren't especially high on resources, very few workers at two of them, and no army to speak of. Meanwhile Rain had the entire map, all five bases down the right hand side, an army at 12, six gas to four, and an eighty supply lead. There was basically no way for Rain to lose from this spot. Larva would need a miracle, he would need Rain to lose his entire army for nothing, to lose map control, to lose both 12 and 5 for nothing, and even if all that happened he would need Rain to allow him to take the 9 expansion. Rain promptly balled all his zealots up into a tight clump and threw them, without any real dragoon or storm support, into massed lurkers.


Rain appeared confused that clumped zealots don't break mass lurkers, but if game 3 had taught him anything it had taught him how to follow up a massed frontal assault into lurkers. It was time for more shuttles.


Larva attempted to take the 9 expansion with just lurkers, no defilers, while Rain still had a forty supply lead. The question was if that would be enough for Rain to deny the expansion and starve out Larva. As Rain attacked 9 Larva dropped the 5 main with a handful of cracklings and no defiler for swarm.


However, although Rain had a high templar, he declined to storm the lings, and he had neglected to make a robo, reavers, or leave any kind of army there. He'd also declined to place scouting pylons around the edge of the base for drops. But at least Rain could turn it into a trade, his 5 main for the 9 high ground expansion, keeping them on four bases each. Rain instead decided to hesitate his attack at 9, his attention diverted to 5. Then, after the 5 nexus was already dead, he decided he would rush his army back across the map and see if he could get there in time to, I guess, well, honestly it's not clear what he was trying to do. Either way though, Larva got 9 for free.

There was another storm drop attempt at 8 which didn't do enough and it was down to five bases each, the map divided with the three central expansions left untaken. Rain still had map control though, Larva having no hope of taking 12 or 6 against the reavers Rain had added to his army. Despite everything Rain was still actually in decent shape. Forty supply up, an archon/reaver heavy army, equal bases, equal gases, the only remaining expansions in his zone of control. Larva tried another drop at 5 but this time around Rain had reavers waiting and the drop did absolutely nothing, Rain had retaken and fortified 5, the game was his. Rain therefore went allin against Larva's natural again. Naturally.


After all, what else could he do? Not throw his army into sunkens and lurkers? Take the remaining key expansions before throwing map control away? Heresy!

Rain took just one observer with his army, a low health one that immediately died to the spore colony, apparently deciding to make things interesting. The battle was still pretty young when the observer died and Rain could have pulled out without losing too much if he wanted but at this point I don't think anyone expected him to throw his whole army into lurkers and not commit to losing every last unit.


Somewhat baffled by the death of Rain's entire army Larva decided to capitalize upon the map control by taking the 12 expansion, finally getting ahead on bases, despite not having had map control for any part of the game. Meanwhile Rain knew exactly how to follow up a frontal attack into lurkers and sunkens, clearly it was time for a storm drop.


Rain realized that the game would be decided by who took the 12 and 6 expansions and that he couldn't allow Larva to take them. Unfortunately he realized this after having already thrown away his entire army into a base that didn't matter at all... four times. But at least he realized it.


Unfortunately for him he didn't have the units left to force the ramp against lurkers, his only option was to accept that Larva had 12 and to fortify 6 with cannons, high templar, and reavers himself. He therefore tried to force the ramp against lurkers, and lost all his army. Clearly it was time for another storm drop.


It all came down to the critical 6 expansion. Larva was basically mined out at his first four bases but had two new ones to survive. Meanwhile Rain's 5 main was fresh, with 6 it'd be a low eco war for the middle. There was nothing for it, Rain knew what he had to do, it was time for a full on attack move assault at the lurker defense at Larva's natural with a single observer, flown into scourge.


To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Rain's attack didn't work. But that was okay, Rain had one last trick in his sleeve. A full on frontal attack into the lurkers, after first having everything plagued.


And he had the perfect followup to that, a storm drop!


With the game almost over the only thing Rain had going for him was that he still, somehow, had map control. He could still take and hold 6 and the middle with reavers, high templar, cannons, and maybe a few dark archons. Larva had mined out both mains and nats. With a failed drop or two the game would break down into a low eco stalemate. All Rain needed to do was not throw his entire plagued army into a line of sunkens and lurkers behind which were no mining bases, thereby losing map control with no potential upside.


GG

Editorial: This game made it abundantly clear that Rain has absolutely no idea how to play PvZ beyond macroing. No strategic sense whatsoever. His macro is amazing, I can't take that from him, that's the only reason he was still "winning" for 25 straight minutes of suiciding army after army into a sunken line that didn't even defend anything of value and seemed to exist only for the purpose of baiting Rain. But he has no clue what to do against a turtling Zerg, and no idea how to close out a game. Artosis famously said "when you're ahead, get more ahead" and PvZ on Fighting Spirit that couldn't be simpler, the expansions are ridiculously easy to defend with storm, cannons, and reavers. Map control translates directly into expansions which, even if you never attack and simply mine them out, deny the Zerg any possibility of winning. At 18 minutes in to the game Rain had to make a series of around eight completely unforced errors to even give Larva a glimmer of hope. Rain scoffed at that, instead choosing to make nothing but unforced errors for the rest of the game.

Quit Starcraft. Really.