[MSL] Round of 16 - Day 2 - Page 41

On July 24 2010 22:33 TwoToneTerran wrote:
Jaedong took an advantageous early position with a ling runby that killed a few probes and stopped Kal's gas mining for quite a bit. From there he got his third up safely and proceeded to contain with lurkers, killing off Kal's wall before being forced back past the bridge (fighting spirit).

From there, Kal did a lot of poking and prodding to kill the contain of Jaedong, but the big move was when he snuck the vast majority of his army out from the six oclock position (He spawned at bottom right, Jaedong at top right, for reference), and proceeded to engage Jaedong's main army with his a few times, essentially coming out ahead in every fight. With this he completely broke the contain Jaedong had on him, rushed to go kill Jaedong's fourth in the top left, and essentially left Jaedong on 3 base vs 3 base (Kal had expanded to six during the battles) and had about a 40 supply advantage on Jaedong.

Jaedong responded by building a base at the 3 o'clock, which was risky as Kal had map control and that was the base in between them. But Kal decided to, instead of attack or contain, to expand to the bottom left main. He sent a control group of units down there to defend it as he just wanted to keep a hold of his advantage at that point.

By then, Jaedong had reached hive with the necessary upgrades (2 carapace I believe, along with the typical adrenal/defiler stuff), and macro'd up an impressive army with the economy off his fourth base. He engaged Kal's army in a closely fought battle that Kal might've won had he had more units in a less passive location. Instead of pulling units away from his expansion (in fear of a defiler + lings guerilla attack, maybe), he just backed all the way up to the bridge outside his natural. It's worth it to note that Kal had not made any reavers for the entire game at this point and had used most of his storms in his retreat. Jaedong did a very well controlled darkswarm push all the way up to Kal's nat, where he destroyed his robo facility. From there Kal didn't have any observer production and, frankly, didn't have the units in his main to defend against lurker crackling and swarm. Jaedong killed Kal's main and proceeded to prod at the bottom left expansion where Kal had created a desperation defense with 2 robos producing reavers. Jaedong made some guardians and that's all she wrote.

Basically it went:

Jaedong takes an advantage with lings, compounds on it with a contain. Kal breaks the contain with a clever loop around, and completely demolishes Jaedong's army in every confrontation. Jaedong holds on and Kal gets defensive and passive. Jaedong macros an army and shows Kal how good Dark Swarm is.

On July 25 2010 06:45 OneOther wrote:

Good summary overall. But one important part that deserves to be mentioned is the fact that Jaedong made a LOT of zerglings early-mid game instead of pumping drones. First 5 zerglings did some damage, but the next 20 or so, essentially none. Yeah, he killed some probes and started off good, but I wouldn't say that Jaedong was ahead going into the mid-game. His fourth/fifth hatcheries were really late, and his drone count was pretty low until he got the contain set-up. This is a big deal in ZvP as most people know. Thus, Kal was able to win the battles decisively and take control of the center mid-game - on top of Jaedong's questionable attacks/micro. It was really Kal's game to lose, in my opinion.

On July 25 2010 08:45 Tien wrote:
Kal wasn't going to beat Jaedong that game.


Kal tried to push upwards near Jaedong's bridge after winning all those battles, but Jaedong held the ground with 2 groups of troops, half a dozen lurkers. Kal by that point retreated because he was out of storms. Plus his half his dragoons were at half health.

He couldn't break through. Even if he tried, 20 seconds later, Jaedong was reinforcing with another group and a half of cracklings / hydras.

Kal was able to build such a huge force mid game because he went 9 gates on 2 bases. After winning all those battles, his bases were exhausted. That's why he never went reavers. He didn't have the money. Check his first person view when he tries to push at Jaedong's bridge, he was tapped out.

Either he took another expo at 7 or do 1 more all in push.


Jaedong's upgrades though, were the turning point of the game. Kal was stuck on 3-0-0 the whole game where as Jaedong was getting upgrades for attack / range / carapace. He tore through Kal's army early late game.