Larva is awesome I agree Mr. 9heart. TvZ is definitely his weakest match up though. I feel like he will struggle against Sea. Sea > Larva ...Zero > Snow (Zeros ZvP is great, just like larvas). Sea vs Zero in the finals.
Zero went for double expand vs single base tech from Snow. Lost a few overlords to corsair harass so snow expanded with about 6/7 cannons at his nat. Zero cancelled his 3rd expo just before it finished and immediately upgraded overlord speed/transportation he then dropped into Snow's main with about 15 hydras and punished snow for having too small an army to defend his base Snow was close to doing major damage with DTs during the drop but fell just a little short.
I feel Zero is slightly ahead in game 2 at the moment but this could go either way. Snow will be able to push out but this map is nice for lurkers which zero has a lot of
But the reality is Snow is going to run out of resources long before Zero so it's really up to him to break Zero at this point, and not the other way around.
Snow is sieging the central expansion but the super narrow choke makes it realyl hard for him to break it, he is doing good damage though, he'll have to break that expansion to win the game.
Sea forgets that you can't a-move tanks into ultraling under swarm and loses half his army. Larva runs ultraling into 2 undefended T expansions and cleans up, somehow bringing the game to 5 base z v 4 base T.
Larva forgets he can't fight sieged tanks in a defensive position without swarm and suicides most of his army. Larva suicides the rest of his army into a-moving tanks that Sea forgot about for the GG.
^^Indeed, pretty fun map -- reminds me of Blue Storm, with the center expo of Fighting Spirit
Really impressive grind from Sea against Larva in their game 1... seemed to set the tone for the rest of the series. Disappointing play from Larva in the last two games
The snipealot2 twitch recording for me worked fine (though i started g2 series one; there probably is g1 right before but I just clicked on the "41TV" labelled video and that started at game 2)
Finally watching the vods. Game 1 was a perfect example to why 1 gate tech is no longer used in most pvz's. Man Snow looked so sloppy overall. With all due respect classic nervous play. Over-committing to cannons at his front in game one instead of going up to 3 gates; In game building 2 observatories, letting his probe transfer to the third base long distance mine, storming his own zealots/other units more than once. Not that he played bad but he doesn't make mistakes like that in practice normally from the games I've seen. He seemed almost over-reactive. Storming much too quickly on small groups of units wasting them, then allowing zerg to move in to crush his army. Basically as soon as he saw anything he stormed it. Relateably(yes i made that word up); his cannoning in the first game. He saw hydras , panicked, started throwing down cannons thinking "I'll definitely be safe then". Without really stopping to think about the situation. He could have easily built 2 less cannons and made gates instead and had a larger zealot count. Again I don't blame him, I know how hard brood war is. I would've probably lost to just the hydras at front I only provide my humble analysis. I'm not really going game
Adding to this as I go. Game one Sea vs Larva. Sea looks super polished on his early marine pressure to punish a greedy zerg. Moving out with 6ish marines with textbook marine micro without the need for wasted scvs causing ling and drones/mining time loses. Super strong, I can't see Sea losing after that to be honest. Hes too fast to waste that advantage. Larvas Muta micro was very impressive, but that's not really surprising for him. Honestly though with no third base the game is hopeless. And were seeing that now in the late game as larva struggles desperately to take a 4th gas vs the mech switch. Honestly it seems like its time for the super fast ultra +2 armor rush off 3 early gases to make a comeback. If theres mines + vults send 1 ultra, if theres no vults and just mines send 2 lings or something like this,skipping defiler. Seems like the best response vs mech switch. However, if you don't clear the mines correctly and make a mistake and lose a bunch of ultras the game can be over in an instant. On top of that you would try to ultra/ling drop positions with tank/vult/mines and minimal turrets. The idea in theory is to push aggressively vs mines, keeping the terran from covering a large amount of ground with mines and oventually shutting down expansions and causing a collapse. Remember just like in tvp terran becomes more powerful at larger supply due to range. Another idea is play standard but prepare an upgraded air switch with scourge for vessels to hard counter the mass vult/tank. Much easier said than done of course. All of it is hard. It's Brood War.
I must say Larva is doing(slash did?) an amazing job of staying in this game, guys a beast. Eventually though the resource advantage results in Terran winning. No surprises there.
Game 2, another victim of tau cross style maps I really feel bad for Larva on this one. With the opening to the nat open to being blocked by 1 depot its really tough to defend an aggresive marine rush. That being said of course his ling all in was very poorly executed. He was willing them to surround that bunker...but the scvs were surrounding it already. Physics is physics. Even for you Sir Larva. The sickness is that if Larva had waited for speed before his first attack he may have won flat out. I understand the reasoning though. You want to reduce the terran marine count as much as possible due to range advantage. He just failed to do that at all with his first attack...after that sloppy play ensured he had no chance of pulling out a miracle.
Third game, honestly even though there was a 9 rax(I think?) Im surprised T didnt send an early scvto scout (or ebay at nat?), you can totally delay the hatch intentionally but not too long that z doesnt try to FE. This results in sunkens being later and in theory a successful early bunker rush. But what do I know. Seas shows why this map is so beautiful to play as a terran player. There are so many things you can do. And whats unheard of on most maps is standard on destination. Fast 1 fact most likely into FE but I haven't gotten there yet after a super successful bunker rush. The hatch goes down but z still has units. Vult speed upgrade follow up allows T to patrol micro vs zergs speedlings though and z falls even further behind. Not to be anti- dramatic but the game is over at this point. Zerg needs to be at least 1 gas up to have a chance vs mech. At even base its hopeless
In conclusion, and in order to be a huge asshole I'd like to quote myself. Look I even changed the L in Larva so people wouldn't think I don't know how capital letters work(which I clearly don't).
On February 25 2015 15:55 TheFoReveRwaR wrote: Larva is awesome I agree Mr. 9heart. TvZ is definitely his weakest match up though. I feel like he will struggle against Sea. Sea > Larva ...Zero > Snow (Zeros ZvP is great, just like Larva's). Sea vs Zero in the finals.