Pony Express Issue 75: May 11 - May 18, 2009

Bisu vs Roro:
http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/games/12113_Bisu_vs_RorO/vod

This week's battle report features bisu, power rank's current #1 player, against roro, who has made a previous appearance in vod of the week where he was defeated by casy's 1 base old school style play. On a multiple game winning streak and showing good form, the odds are in strong favour of bisu, but will roro, the clear underdog in the game, throw some unexpected strategy at bisu to take the win?

The game starts out with roro taking the 9 position, and bisu in the 5 position. Having played and watched too much PvT in the last week, everything seemed standard in the opening builds of both players.



Hold on a minute, this is PvZ, your first pylon goes at your nat. Even klazart would know this was not the bisu build. Bisu's intentions were soon revealed as he started 2 gateways at his pylon in main, looking to send some early aggression roro's way. Roro on the other hand had done an overpool build, and quickly took his natural, oblivious to bisu's sneakiness.




With 3 zealots and 2 probes, bisu advanced towards roro's nat, where he was frantically trying to throw up 2 sunken colonies at his newly morphed hatchery. With their ridiculously short morph time, the sunken colonies were up with plenty of time to spare, and bisu and his now 5 zealots, was forced to retreat.



Having rallied his zealots to roro's nat, bisu's ramp was undefended, and roro was able to run 6 lings up into bisu's main. However, with good probe micro and roro's lack of ling speed, bisu was able to defend without probe losses, and also took his nat while warping in an assimilator. Roro, not wanting to be left behind in the macro game, took a 3rd base to the north, wisely delaying his lair from the scouting information provided by his lings in bisu's base.




After finally clearing the lings in his main, bisu moved out with his zealots and dragoon, catching an overlord in the middle of the map, and forcing an additional sunken colony from roro, but otherwise not doing much damage. A couple of speedlings tried the same run-by tactic, but bisu had his ramp blocked this time, though they successfully scouted a warping robotics facility at bisu's nat.



In the meantime, roro's lair and hydra den were completed in his main, and these were scouted by bisu's first corsair. A quick shot of bisu's main showed the cybernetics core spinning, and with the quick robotics and 2nd corsair being manufactured in the stargate, strongly suggested a corsair reaver build, which bisu confirmed, adding a second robotics facility at his nat.



Making the first strike in the mid game, bisu did a 4 zealot drop on roro's northern 11 oclock expansion, looking to pull roro's hydras away from their position at his nat defending his overlords, so his corsairs could swoop in for some overlord kills. Unable to bring his hydras in for defense in time due to the corsair threat, roro lost his hatchery, setting him back significantly.




Perhaps opting for a swift counter attack in hopes of dealing some damage to bisu, roro moved out with his group or so of hydras, which bisu scouted with a lone zealot. Simultaneously, bisu had found roro's expansion attempt at the top right main and was taking potshots at it with a single dragoon, while moving out with his shuttle of 2 reavers and its escort of about 8 corsairs. Shuttle speed completing just as the convoy arrived at roro's base, bisu put his units' mobility to good use, killing many drones at both roro's main and nat, despite attempts to save them with burrow, losing only 1 reaver in exchange.






During this harass, roro had sent some hydras to top right to save his expansion, while another group remained in the centre of the map, limiting bisu's ground unit movements. However, with his returning reaver and 2 newly built ones, bisu quickly cleared out the hydra threat from the centre of the map.





As this was going on, roro did a drop of hydras, first landing his hydras at the right side 4 oclock expansion, where he stopped an expansion attempt, His small number of units was cleaned up easily by a single newly built reaver, and he was forced to retreat the remainder, not having done much besides delay bisu's expansion.



Having nullified the drop in his main, bisu moved his corsair reaver force to do another drop on roro's main. This time roro got his drones burrowed in sufficient time, and prevented major drone losses, but when his hydras arrived, bisu simply picked up his reavers and flew them up north to roro's 10 oclock expansion. At the same time, bisu also sent a couple of zealots up to roro's hatchery at 2, and put an end to mining operations there.




Roro, not wanting to be left out of the fun, also executed a drop of his own, landing a small group of hydras in bisu's main, where they took out defending cannons easily. Unfortunately for him, with 2 robotics pumping, bisu had plenty of reavers, and 3 crawled their way back into the main taking out the drop with ease.





Having lost both his 2 oclock and 11 oclock expansions, the game seemed over for roro, playing 2 base vs protoss with a third base warping in. But he wasn't giving up just yet, and it seemed he was preparing 1 final hanbang hydralisk attack to take out bisu's nat. An overlord scout revealed the defense would be too strong for him, and he instead opted for a drop at bisu's newly established 6 oclock base.

With some good probe surround on the hydras, bisu somehow managed to clean out the drop with a mere 3 cannons and probes, his 2 reavers arriving too late to take part in the festivities. A second drop, however, this time behind the mineral line of the same expansion, allowed the reavers to see some action.




Bisu then made another foray into enemy territory with his corsair reaver force, and with some star sense avoided a burrowed hydra trap that roro had set up for him at the bottom of his main. Landing his reavers at roro's nat, and throwing a whole bunch of disruption webs, bisu shielded his reavers from hydra attacks while dealing massive damage, taking out many hydras, a hydra den and a hatchery.




Desperate, roro did another drop, which was easily crushed by bisu's new reavers. A lurker attack behind bisu's 6 oclock base's mineral line did slightly better, netting a number of probe kills. Seeking to take advantage of bisu's distraction, roro attacked bisu's reavers in his main, successfully taking them out, but not before the damage had already been done.







Having cleared out the lurkers at the 6 oclock base, and with another expansion at 5 coming up, the loss of a couple of reavers was rather insiginificant to bisu. Once again, trying to salvage a lost game, roro dropped hydras behind the mineral line of the 5 expansion, but was, again, forced to retreat to reavers (they're EVERYWHERE!). Bisu's counterattack at roro's nat takes it out, and despite roro doing yet another drop at his expansion at 4, he simply ignores it, flying into roro's main, destroying his lair, last mining base, and all his hydras, concluding a game that ended ages ago.







Nice game by bisu putting on a nice display of corsair reaver tactics. Roro on the other hand, played lacklustrely, and did not have an answer to bisu's harass. His drops were all small and easily taken out by bisu's defending reavers, and he lost a lot of both hydras and drones. Unable to stop bisu's expansions or mining, until it was too late to be significant, roro was eventually just unable to keep up. Bisu never built a land army or even a citadel, and stuck with his original 2 gateways the whole game. 1 sided rape from bisu executed to perfection.