[OSL] The End of the Beginning

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For players like (P)

Shine, and (P)

Movie, the end of the long and winding road through the OSL prelims and the Ro36 is in sight. A seat in the Round of 16 of the most prestigious Starcraft tournament in the world is certainly an agreeable place to be, and obtaining a place in the group stages for the first time is a milestone in the career of any young star. But even the most star-struck progamer at the group selection tonight knows deep down what the four seeds, who have either tasted glory or come damn close, already take for granted: at the end of the day, the season, or your career, the only thing you'll care about is whether or not you've got that badge on your chest.

This new road will be shorter. But it will also be much, much harder.

Let's take a look at how the first road ended. Time for recaps of the last 6 OSL Ro36 groups!

Ro36 map order:
1. Eye of the Storm
2. El Niño
3. Heartbreak Ridge

Recommended games have a * in front of them.

Group G - Recap

Mind < HoGiL
+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +

Mind > (Z)

HoGiL
+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +

Mind < HoGiL
+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +

HoGiL < Flash
+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +

HoGiL and

Mind are two players who have been pretty irrelevant recently. Mind has been Wemade Fox's ace player but hasn't done much in the individual leagues since winning an MSL in 2007. HoGil has apparently been good in practice, but not in televised games: in his recent MST winner's interview, (Z)

type-b said that he feels like he's a worse player than HoGil even though HoGil hasn't accomplished as much. That sentiment would be all but confirmed with HoGil's excellent play against both Mind and Flash.

Unfortunately, Day[9] did a show on HoGil vs Mind game 1, and even more unfortunately, I've seen it, so any analysis I do of the game is going to be biased by my previous hearing of Day[9]'s almost certainly correct opinion. I'm pulling double duty this week, recapping 6 groups instead of the usual 3, so I'm going to cop out and tell you to go watch Mr. Plott's analysis on the first game in lieu of reading a recap from me.

Let's go straight to Game 2, then. HoGil double expanded early, putting his third hatch at the mineral expansion behind his nat on El Niño. He got a waaaay early evo chamber before his lair finished... It was clear then that he was going to continue the heavy macro style that he had shown in the first set. Mind went standard bionic. He turreted up hard, and HoGil's mutas did very little damage. HoGil picked up a third and fourth gas and teched quickly to Greater Spire. Unfortunately, he forgot to get an army and that's a problem when Terran is macroing normally. Even 6 sunks, 2 spore colonies, and dark swarm couldn't stop a fantastic timing break break at HoGil's natural: Mind broke through decisively after he reinforced with firebats and irradiated the defilers. Guardians morphed too late and HoGil had a lot of damage done to his nat, main, and third. Soon, Mind had more than double HoGil's supply, and even losing two full dropships couldn't keep him from victory. HoGil did a good job of putting ultras under swarm (and hatcheries under command centers... weird) in order to drag the game out, but he wasn't able to secure another expansion and had to type out after being at half Terran's supply for about ten minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0wPaeQPxE8#t=12m12s
"I have to attack now"

Game 3 was sort of a textbook example of how to beat a meching Terran as zerg. Mind went standard fast vult into expand, while HoGil went 2 hatch muta, with a third hatch in base, which I thought was a little odd against mech. You'd think a zerg would expand with his third hatchery. The hatch served an important purpose, though, making the passage from the nat choke to the main pretty vulture-proof. Also, it would have been hard to get a drone up to the third on HBR without it getting killed by the vults that were still roaming around on HoGil's side of the map. Eventually, HoGil used his mutas to kill the offending vultures and expanded before sending those mutas to Mind's base to harass.

Day[9] mentioned in his Zerg vs Mech podcast that muta harass is useful because it encourages the Terran to make goliaths, not tanks. This was certainly true here: HoGil flew outside the periphery of Mind's base once or twice with mutas before retreating, and a minute later Mind had pretty much pure goliath. Even though HoGil didn't kill anything with his 6 mutas, they did excellent damage to Mind's unit composition simply by existing.

Day[9] seemed impressed with HoGil's play:

On October 28 2009 19:00 Day[9] wrote:
out of controlgil

On October 28 2009 19:09 Day[9] wrote:
on a new plateaugil

HoGil made lurkers at this point, which seemed pretty ineffective: he used them to defend strategic points on the map, but when they were "blocking" the route to his third, Mind's speed vults simply ran past them. It would have been much better to have 6 hydras instead of the 3 lurkers that were there.

At the thirteen minute mark, HoGil had built a bunch more mutas, and they had +2 carapace. He had expanded to the standard 4th base location. He had not even attempted to attack Mind's heavily turtled position. When Mind overextended with tanks, he darted in, killed them, and ran away as fast as possible. When he got Hive and his fifth, I was sure HoGil would simply wait for swarm and then attack.

But he didn't. He attacked before his defiler mound went up in a Pickett's Charge on Mind's position at his natural. While Mind had much of his army focused on taking his fourth, HoGil sent all his available units to attack the thin line of tanks that had been exposed. The attack was... alright. HoGil chipped away at Mind's tank count but lost his huge muta fleet in the process. A benefit of the attack was that Mind, after reinforcing his nat with tanks, was suddenly weak at his 4th, which was where HoGil's defilers were poised to strike. HoGil completely ran over Mind's army of 4 tanks and 20 goliaths with some well-placed swarm, lurkers, and hydra, and went on to force his 4th to lift.

Mind got his 4th resecured, and the onus was on HoGil to shut it down once more. He did so with a mindf*ck of an attack. Let's do a quick exercise before moving on. If you're Terran, and the dark swarms in the following video go up, what do you do? How do you react?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ref2WBrNDvA#t=21m58s

Those swarms, to me, mean, "oh, the zerg is trying to attack my tanks and vults directly through the swarm" and my reaction as a Terran is that my six siege tanks are just going to eat that alive. I don't need to do any preparation for the attack, so I don't. The real attack, of course, didn't come under the swarm. It travelled over it in the form of a drop. Of course, the swarm helped by making it difficult for Mind to reinforce his 4th from his natural, since his units had to pass through invincible lurkers.

After that attack, HoGil merely had to ride his substantial econ advantage out. One last attack on Mind's 4th and it was gg.

HoGil showed great play in all three games, dropping losing game 2 only because Mind showed fantastic timing. The SPARKYZ zerg was looking strong as he advanced to meet the seeded player in his group. Unfortunately, the final boss is always the hardest, and (T)

Flash was definitely no exception on this day. Though he had a cold (actually, it was probably the flu), Flash showed why he's currently the best Terran on the scene right now, and, more importantly, #1 power rank.

In game 1, HoGil went 3 hatch... again. Flash went fake bunker rush (something zergs are glad more Terrans don't do) into 1 rax FE. It was interesting to see a textbook example of why Zergs don't go 3 hatch at all anymore. Flash was able to push out towards HoGil's natural fairly easily before mutas popped out, forcing HoGil to make 3 sunks, partially offsetting the economic advantage that he had gained by going 3 hatch as opposed to 2 hatch. Flash was able to keep his main army in the middle of the map being aggressive against HoGil's third base even while mutas were attempting to harass at Flash's main. Flash forced HoGil to cancel his third, putting him solidly behind in the game right away. Mutas killed a few turrets, but Flash always had stimmed marines ready to force those mutas away before they could pick off SCVs. Eventually HoGil just said "screw it" and flew right over Flash's small defending group of marines to behind the main mineral line, which was surprisingly effective since Flash found it difficult to get over to where the mutas where. The marines got stuck in a single file line and HoGil was able to pick off a few SCVs and marines.

HoGil had lurkers at this point, and had put up a hidden third base. He used the lurkers to bait Flash into exposing his army long enough so that he was surrounded with a massive wave of lings. Flash lost a control group of marines, plus some medics and firebats... but he scanned the ninja expansion and had tanks and vessels out. Knowing that he wouldn't have swarm in time to stop a tank + vessel push on his third, HoGil stalled for time by mounting a fairly successful attack on Flash's natural. Flash tried to shut down HoGil's third using a rambo firebat and a dropship, but the dropship got scourged and Flash came out a little behind on the harassment.

Hive was coming up for HoGil, so Flash had to act fast. He went for HoGil's natural and did a lot of damage to the Zerg army, which was trying to stall for time before consume was researched. HoGil tried a neat trick with lurkers that tragically didn't work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dox5XuWsFdU#t=15m09s
"Clever, my friend, but not nearly clever enough!"

Flash was very good at determining what he could and could not do in the face of dark swarm.

Terran had a pretty strong advantage at this point. HoGil had to defend a bunch of different types of pressure at once: Flash was pressuring his natural and his third, which were on separate sides of the map. He had to defend against Flash's main army and against dropship harass. Speaking of dropships...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dox5XuWsFdU#t=19m23s
"2ez"

Flash went to bonjwa micro mode and started destroying everything on the map using what FBH once called "the power of the marine." After an eraser and a sunken break, HoGil gged.

Game 2 on El Niño began with HoGil apparently expecting an 8 rax. He went 12 pool gas before expand into 2 hatch muta. He got two sunkens very early, which made his already weak economy simply awful. Terrans nowadays are very adept at stopping early mutalisk harass, and it seemed impossible that HoGil would enter the midgame with an advantage. The first minute of muta harass went well, but soon Flash had his base locked down tight and HoGil had a control group of essentially useless mutas. Normally, useless mutas get turned into fast guardians, but it seems that whenever I see that fast greater spire build off of two bases, the zerg always loses. HoGil didn't get fast guards, but he lost anyway. He couldn't do anything with his mutas or his lurkers, and he couldn't get a third up and running. Spurning bonjwa micro mode for the moment, Flash went into monster macro mode and ran over HoGil with his first vessel. Please view this animated gif, courtesy of MrHoon, and debate amongst yourselves: was it Flash's excellent micro or macro which won him this battle?

EDIT: the gif hosting vanished in a puff of smoke, so here's a youtube video of the attack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WebRtbkv0Ag
macro, micro, who cares?

Group H - Recap

**firebathero > (P)

Jaehoon
+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +

firebathero > (P)

Jaehoon
+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +

firebathero < ZerO
+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +

Moving from Flash vs HoGil to (T)

firebathero vs (P)

Jaehoon was a jarring experience for those who were watching live. The drop in skill level was so severe, it left a few viewers closing out their streams and gasping for air. Nevertheless, FBH and Jaehoon, miraculously, did produce an interesting game when they clashed, if only because of fate. Since the first game they played was the 2000th OSL game ever, it was destined to be epic!

Game 1 was on Eye of the Storm. Both players opened very normally, with Jaehoon going 2 gate expand into obs and FBH siege expanding. FBH showed remarkable foresight in the midgame, when he mounted a 5 fac timing push in anticipation of 2 base arbiters from Jaehoon. Despite the cross positions, FBH was easily able to set up a contain outside of Jaehoon's base. He had difficulty getting turrets up the wide ramp leading to Jaehoon's base, and Jaehoon did a good job of using the tools at his disposal (a shuttle and zealots) to keep FBH's contain from becoming a nat break. After arbiters came out, Jaehoon was able to abuse FBH's rationed scans by sending in cloaked zealots to drag mines and create what were effectively zealot bombs minus a shuttle. FBH wasn't able to ever sustain turrets up the ramp and it cost him his position. After FBH finally made it up the ramp, he ran out of scans at a critical moment and Jaehoon was able to break out. Spectators on TL saw this sequence as a show of ineptitude, but in my opinion it was more of a good defense from Jaehoon than a bad attack from FBH. Jaehoon made FBH use scans, and that hurt him later on.

One recall later and Jaehoon was solidly on top in the game. Except... he had been unable to expand during the contain, so his probes were long distance mining. He lost both of his arbiters to goliaths, and was able to take out only one of FBH's two mining bases during the chaos caused by the recall. But FBH had very few SCVs at his last mining base, and had no machine shops on an of his factories. He was essentially stuck with building only vultures.

Honestly, it would be counterproductive for me to describe to you what happened next. Instead, please watch the last five minutes of a mediocre game that somehow became epic against all odds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNF0jpGuaYA#t=23m00s
either the number 2000 has some kind of mystical properties or this game was fixed

Somehow, Jaehoon mustered up the will to play game 2, and the match continued. Jaehoon went 1 gate fast reaver. I've said before that I like early reaver on El Niño because of the nat design, but Jaehoon used his shuttle/reaver to mount a really stupid bulldog that cost him his entire army in exchange for basically nothing. FBH immediately expanded, and Jaehoon was irreversibly behind. He went arbiters, but FBH swooped in and took out his third before they could come into play. The way that FBH positioned his army prevented Jaehoon from defending his fourth from any type of harass, so he was forced to engage FBH immediately in an effort to keep it from falling. FBH's army was too strong, and after it was clear that FBH would be able to take out Jaehoon's fourth base at will, Jaehoon gged.

FBH went on to face ZerO, who has been playing well recently in Proleague. His two matches against FBH were games two and three of his 9 game win streak, a streak which is ongoing.

Game 1 started poorly for FBH when he left a few marines hanging in the middle of the map in the early game. A couple got picked off by lings, which helped lessen the early pressure on Zerg that comes with the 3 hatch muta build that ZerO did. After mutas popped, a tense game of cat and mouse started, with FBH's island of marines trying to take out ZerO's third without getting smashed by ZerO's group of mutas and lings. A neat sequence followed in which ZerO used fantastic unit control to keep his third base up and running:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR7-PBN26CM#t=8m30s
it's not always good to be this aggressive with your marines

After the failed attack, ZerO had equal supply to FBH. That's never good for Terran at this stage of the game, although FBH had slight compensation in the form of a fast vessel. That vessel allowed him to try to mount a push before ZerO got swarm, but his attack petered out when ZerO sacrificed all of his mutas to stop it right before it got to his third. Very soon afterward, ZerO had dark swarm and was comfortably able to take a fourth gas... or would have been, anyway, if he hadn't let two defilers die at that fourth base. FBH did a number on ZerO's army while he struggled to get dark swarm up to defend his new base. Hell, it might have just been better to sac the expansion and save all those lings and lurkers.

In fact, FBH killed so many units trying to defend ZerO's fourth that he was solidly ahead after ZerO finally cleared him out. He had a healthy vessel count, three bases, and a large MnM army. After he smashed Zero's infant fifth base and got up a fourth of his own, it was tough to envision him losing. But after a bad attack on ZerO's fourth, a few lost vessels and a dead full dropship, and after a fifth base got up for ZerO, FBH lost the momentum. ZerO followed up those victories by putting ultras under swarm at the 3 o' clock base... and the way that base is designed, those ultras were pretty much invincible. A simultaneous attack at FBH's fourth left me wondering where all of the Terran supply was if it wasn't defending against these attacks. I was confused until the observer brought the screen over a group of BC's.

It turned out that FBH had switched tech to battlecruiser in a flash of overconfidence. He lost the game because of it. Simply put, the BC's did a terrible job of defending FBH's expos and assisting the attack on ZerO. Eventually, ZerO pushed into FBH's main, and it was all over.

FBH had a won game, but he threw it away.

Game 2 was a much simpler affair. ZerO 12 hatched and FBH went for a Sparks rush. Unluckily for him and his marines, ZerO massed lings, seemingly on a whim; he hadn't scouted FBH's 3 rax or even the fact that he was on only 1 base. FBH lost his whole army to the mass lings and was not ready to deal with ZerO's 2 hatch lurker followup. After losing a bunch of units to stop lurker, and after a bunch of lurks ran up his ramp and wrecked havoc, FBH gged. It's very fortunate for ZerO that he massed lings instead of trying to cut it close with sunken colonies.

Group I - Recap

Luxury < GuemChi
+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +

Luxury > (P)

GuemChi
+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +

Luxury < GuemChi
+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +

Hwasin > (P)

GuemChi
+ Show Spoiler [both game 1 VOD] +

Hwasin > (P)

GuemChi
+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +

see above

After winning the Lost Saga MSL, (Z)

Luxury fell into an incredibly deep slump. At the time these games were played, he seemed to be climbing out of it, matching Flash in Proleague performance and making it out of OSL preliminaries. (P)

GuemChi has had his moments, but he isn't really considered an ace on his team and he hasn't gotten far in any leagues.

One thing I really like about Eye of the Storm is that PvZ games can't end because of early ling runbys from zerg. The sim city is so tight at all four starting bases that you would have to be a moron as Protoss to let lings into your base at the beginning of the game.

Unless, of course, Zerg 4 pools.

Luxury was unlucky: Guemchi scouted his 4 pool right away and cut probes to get a cannon and gateway up at the choke. After a tense battle in which a lot of probes died, Luxury got 3 lings into Guemchi's main and put his expansion up at about the same time. While the three lings were making things difficult for Guemchi, a zealot and probe were running around in Luxury's main. Luxury had a tough time cleaning them up, and Guemchi was able to get his natural up without any trouble.

The whole game was essentially a micro-fest with long lulls, so there's no point in talking too much about it. Suffice it to say that Guemchi teched up quickly and used high templars to deflect a hydra army at his natural while simultaneously running two DT's into Luxury's main, which killed all the drones within and ended the game.

In Game 2, Luxury overpooled into 2 hatch lair into 3 base/hatch spire. Guemchi went totally standard, going forge FE and going sair DT. Unfortunately, sair DT falls to a pure hydra timing attack, especially if the Protoss loses two corsairs early like Guemchi did. Luxury did a good job of having an overlord near Guemchi's base so that Guemchi couldn't just defend with DTs. Luxury easily broke the nat with hydras.

I really wanted to see a Luxury vs Hwasin Bo3, so I was on the edge of my seat for game 3. Luxury went three hatches at three bases, and Guemchi freaked everyone out by going citadel before Stargate, presumably so that he could do a fast zealot timing attack. But then he canceled the Stargate, got a templar archives, and didn't start +1 attack.

Of course, in the absence of corsairs, it was natural for Luxury to go mass muta. That's what he did, cleaning up the four zealots and one dragoon that Guemchi sent to his third. Guemchi's strategy seemed to be a gamble: attack Luxury's third and hope that the zealots distracted him enough so that a DT runby into the main was possible. However, just like every other Zerg on the scene, Luxury had buildings helping to block the passage from the natural choke to his main. Guemchi's DT's were killed in the choke by lings.

Luxury was then free to send his mutas to Guemchi's main. Guemchi made 6 HT's, lost 2 to mutas, and morphed the others. He also morphed 2 DT's that really weren't going to do any good otherwise. He tried to move out with the two archons and the DA along with the zealots, hoping that the threat of maelstrom would keep mutas away and that hydras weren't massed at Luxury's third so that he could perhaps take it out. Unfortunately for him, Luxury had massed a LOT of lings, which he used to kill both archons. Guemchi tried maelstroming the lings, which was kind of dumb since it allowed the mutas to swoop in without fear and clean up the attacking force. The mutas headed back to Guemchi's base to do more harass. But then...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIcp2aSxNjY#t=12m05s
oops

After this really dumb mistake, Luxury still had some things going for him. He had a bunch of hydras against a Protoss who didn't have much storm. He had a lot of gas for a transition to lurkers. He had map control.

He didn't utilize any of those advantages. He did a bad job of dodging storm. He made the switch to lurkers very late. He didn't head up to Guemchi's third base after the second big hydra battle even though he could have. He went for the nat instead! Why, Luxury, why?

After Luxury let Guemchi get his third up and sandwich his forces, the game was effectively over. It was a simple matter for Guemchi to get storm at his nat and defend. By the time Luxury tried to move up to Guemchi's third base, Guemchi had a bunch of cannons and a few HT's. Luxury was on three bases, so he was way behind after Guemchi caught his army trying to take down the Protoss third base and killed all the hydras. Luxury no longer had map control, and didn't have lurkers, so he couldn't defend his fourth. Guemchi just marched up and destroyed his pure hydra army with storm and that was GG.

I've forgotten what Luxury looks like without his "I f*cked up" face on.

(T)

Hwasin surely practiced mostly for Zerg, and that makes his swift and sure win against Guemchi all the more impressive. He 2 fac'd in game 1 in cross positions on Eye of the Storm. Guemchi went 2 gate goon with range into expand. I'm not exactly sure what he did wrong in his build, but he sure as hell did something, because Hwasin DEMOLISHED him with the 2 fac.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcGT9ltrPBs#t=6m55s
DEMOLISHED

In game 2, Hwasin went siege expand and Guemchi went 1 gate nexus into 2 gate goons with range. He went reaver, which, again, I like on this map a lot. Apparently reavers showed up a lot in Hwasin's practice games, because he had a bunch of tanks and marines just sitting around in the middle of his base, waiting for the incoming shuttle. It was a pretty funny sight to see.

Guemchi loaded up a shuttle with a reaver and two zealots and headed straight for the mineral only base behind the natural, killing the SCV that was building a cc there. But, again, it's obvious that every Protoss in the STX house and their mother goes reaver on this map, because Hwasin had a wraith which killed the shuttle and hurried back to pick off the hapless zealots and reaver that, though doomed to die, were forcing the cc to cancel. Although mining at Hwasin's third was delayed by a long time, it probably wasn't worth a full shuttle.

It's interesting that the metagame on this map is already advanced enough that Hwasin got a wraith before even seeing a shuttle.

Meanwhile, Guemchi had his third up and running. In a very cool sequence, Hwasin tried to assault that third with a dropship, but Guemchi was ready for him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcGT9ltrPBs#t=21m40s
neato

A minute later, Hwasin pushed out and Guemchi tried to break the push with 2 shuttles full of zealots, but he failed. Soon afterwards, a bunch of probes travelling between expansions ran into a pack of vultures and Guemchi was suddenly very behind. Hwasin knocked down the front door, and after a recall that just wasn't effective enough, Guemchi gged.

Group J - Recap

*Horang2 > (T)

FrOzen
+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +

Horang2 < FrOzen
+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +

FrOzen < EffOrt
+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +

FrOzean's name is no longer FrOzean! If you look at the lobbies before his games with Horang2, he spells his name FrOzen. He's finally corrected the spelling!

A much more interesting change in his screenname, however, is the team name in front of it. FrOzen's transfer to STX Soul from Samsung Khan raised a few eyebrows, since STX already had Hwasin and Khan suddenly only had a slumping firebathero in their Terran lineup. The transfer seems to have worked out very well for STX, where FrOzen has been a solid (if seldom appearing) member of the team since he started appearing in the lineup. Over at Khan, firebathero continues to struggle.

(P)

Horang2 has become legendary for being the most abusive progamer Protoss in Korea. It's pretty much a deserved title; there was a point in his career during which all he would do was either proxy tech or rush DT's... or both. Hot_Bid put it eloquently after a match between hite and Air Force ACE:

On October 18 2009 14:32 Hot_Bid wrote:
PvT Abuse Checklist
Name ___Horang2____
[ ] Manner gas
[x] Proxy buildings
[ ] DTs
[ ] 14 nexus
[x] Fast carriers

What parts of the list would Horang2 check off against FrOzen?

In the first game, it was 12 nexus! FrOzen scouted it immediately, which usually means a bunker rush is imminent, but all he did was send a single marine and SCV to make a non-threatening bunker, forcing Horang2 to simply pull a few probes before the bunker was cancelled.

FrOzen, having evidently decided to take the double nexus "on the chin," as Artosis would say, went mines quickly and expanded before getting a starport and a second factory. Meanwhile, Horang2 went two base carriers, which FrOzen promptly scouted with a dropship that was on the way to do what turned out to be an effective vulture drop. He immediately got three more factories in preparation for a timing attack. Horang2 made a corsair and used it to scout around in lieu of observers, the unit a NORMAL PROTOSS would make. These myriad factors led to a very weird sequence, in which a corsair was chasing FrOzen's dropship around while it was dropping vultures, FrOzen was building up a substantial amount of turrets outside of Horang2's base while starting to reinforce with goliaths, and Horang2 was suiciding zealots into mines Pusan style because he didn't have any observers.

Things looked very bad for tiger toss. FrOzen was forcing his way up Horang's wide ramp with turrets, only one stargate was producing anything, and goliaths were massing outside his front door. After FrOzen took out the upgrading cybernetics core right next to Horang's natural nexus, things looked completely hopeless. Horang2 decided to go on the offensive with his carriers, flying up the relatively short distance from his natural expansion to that of the Terran player. FrOzen moved all of his goliaths up to defend his nat, trusting that his siege tanks would be able to finish off Horang's natural.

The tanks were, indeed, able to destroy the nexus, but up at FrOzen's base, carriers were killing off all of the defending goliaths.... and then the armory... and then the reinforcing goliaths... and then the marines. Two newly built carriers at Horang's main were trying to clean up the tanks, but weren't able to kill them before they took out Horang's main nexus.

Horang now had six carriers against FrOzen's non-existant army. FrOzen tried to proxy 3 starports and build mass cloaked wraiths in the hopes that Horang had neglected to build observers for the entire game. After seeing that Horang2 had in fact built observers, he tried to float his factories over a field of turrets and make his stand there. Horang2 was too quick, though, and got to the turret field before everything was set up. FrOzen gged.

Fakesteve was not enamored with the play of either competitor.

On November 04 2009 17:24 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote:
RETIRE PLEASE FROZEAN

RETIRE PLEASE HORANG2

Game 2 was on El Niño.

Let's say you're Protoss and you've just gone 2 base carrier. How do you top that? Well, with 1 base carrier, of course! Before this game, Horang2 had gone 1 base carrier on Match Point with little success, but that was after a double nexus that lost to a bunker rush, so why not try again in the context of a normal game?

Horang2 deviously tricked the spectators into thinking that he was trying a standard game for once when he went 1 gate core, but the hopes and dreams of people like Artosis and decency-loving Terrans everywhere were shattered when Horang placed a pylon at the expansion above FrOzen's main, opposite his natural. He then got a stargate in his main while upgrading air attack.

Much like in Hwasin vs Guemchi, the Terran base was about as reaver proof as you can get. Marines and tanks, once again, were just hanging out in the middle of the main. FrOzen was clearly not expecting carriers at all; but, then again, who would?

Horang2 bravely set out with his two carriers, killing two tanks and making FrOzen glad that he had just finished his armory. FrOzen, predictably, got a lot of goliaths and turrets, getting his main, his natural, and his new third base all locked down tight. He then got a covert ops. After trying to get a fourth base and failing, he pushed out and started researching lockdown. Horang tried to engage the army but there were simply too many goliaths to handle; the carriers were just bleeding interceptors.

Horang sniped FrOzen's third base while FrOzen was setting up his fourth. A minute later, Horang2 attacked with a large carrier/dragoon/zealot force at FrOzen's fourth. A few carriers were locked down, and FrOzen held his position although he lost a lot of his army. At this point, FrOzen seemed to solidly take the lead: he surpassed Horang2 in supply for the first time and had a ground army powerful enough to demolish anything Horang were to throw at him head on. In a funny display of cheek, he built a "hidden" expansion right next to Horang's base that was immediately scouted and destroyed.

Soon, FrOzen was nearly at 200/200 goliaths and basically invincible. He attacked Horang's fourth base then darted back to defend against the inevitable carrier counterattack. When the carriers failed to do much damage, Horang was doomed and had to gg.

Continuing the pattern, Horang went zero base carriers in game 3. In other words, he didn't go carriers at all! I'm so clever!

Heartbreak Ridge was the site of the infamous Horang2 vs Nada game that was so representative of Horang's playstyle that Artosis and Fakesteve raged together on camera about it in a video interview. FrOzean must have been quaking in his boots, expecting proxy reavers, scouts, max sairs with d-web, or something equally crazy to come at him.

Horang fake proxied a pylon; that is, he built a pylon outside of his base, wanting FrOzen to think there was tech hidden somewhere on that map, when in reality he was simply building a robotics facility in his main. Horang gained an advantage after dealing with FrOzen's FD pressure, exchanging 3 goons and a zealot to about seven marines, 3 vultures, and a tank. Unfortunately, FrOzen had seen the robo bay and had built a starport + wraith to counter it. All Horang2 could do was stop mining at FrOzen's natural for a moment before the wraith swooped in and took care of business.

Horang seemed to be behind at this point; his natural was late and he had a useless shuttle and reaver. So, after a vulture drop, he did what any reasonable Protoss would do. He ignored his probes' screams of agony as the vultures pelted them with grenades and went for an INSANE all-in attack on FrOzen's front with only goons and observers. Horang2 seems to play Starcraft like I play chess: once something goes wrong, make a crazy attack or sacrifice and see what happens! Needless to say, this did not work, and FrOzen advanced to play EffOrt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwkcdCQQg8c#t=12m54s
horang is a funny guy, even in defeat

EffOrt, not surprisingly, beat FrOzen pretty badly. In game 1, FrOzen showed that he hadn't really practiced against Zerg that much, going bbs. After EffOrt scouted it and canceled his 12 hatch, FrOzen built a bunker at his choke, a bunker which did not really do much since EffOrt had snuck a drone to the other side of the map in order to expand. At one point, an SCV poked into EffOrt's base and saw that the spawning pool was close to the edge of the creep. EffOrt did a cool move in response: he made a creep colony next to the pool so that there was no way FrOzen could swing all his forces around, build a bunker, and kill it.

As EffOrt prepared to 2 hatch lurker by building a lair and hydra den, FrOzen was apparently unaware that there was an expansion at the top right until zerglings came from that direction and took out a medic and firebat that had just spawned. It was all downhill from there; zerglings rushed the Terran main, killing the academy and forcing FrOzen to mount a desperation attack on EffOrt's main. It failed, and FrOzen gged.

FrOzen showed poor game sense by not sending a marine or two out to look for hidden expansions, but it was more EffOrt's intelligence in getting a drone out in the first place that won him the game than FrOzen's error helping him lose it.

Game 2 was a lot more interesting. EffOrt and FrOzen both played the early game standard; EffOrt went 3 hatch muta and FrOzen went 1 rax expand into academy and ebay. EffOrt was droning up really hard up until he got his mutas out. He got a very early evolution chamber, and about when his mutas normally would have started building, he simultaneously got a third base and a queen's nest. He was building up a lot of gas, so it was a good bet that he was going guardians, which seem to be a popular unit on this map. FrOzen simply stood, confused, with his marines in defensive positions for mutas that were very late. After the third got up and running, mutas finally started popping and headed towards FrOzen's base. After some halfhearted harass, EffOrt mounted a zergling/muta attack on FrOzen's army which didn't accomplish much. A muta down, EffOrt retreated and prepared, assumedly, to morph his mutas.

Meanwhile, FrOzen was going very tech heavy. He had two ebays upgrading, two starports, and more barracks than his two bases could realistically handle. He sieged up at EffOrt's natural, only to be pushed back by a Guardian/ling surround. He got his third and accepted that fact that he wasn't going to be able to push in before defilers with swarm were active.

A couple minutes later, another push at the natural was deflected by Zerg, this time with the help of swarm. But FrOzen was solidly ahead in terms of supply, and his vessel count off of two ports was about to be overwhelming.

Except, instead of getting two vessels so that he could kill defilers and the remaining guardians, FrOzen got two dropships.

This was a really bad decision that probably cost FrOzen the game. Zerg was holed up on one side of the map; FrOzen didn't need more mobility. He needed brute force to take down EffOrt's natural, which would have come from having a few extra vessels. Even worse, he let the dropships get scouted before they did anything, so EffOrt knew to place scourge at his main and third. Just look at how well prepared EffOrt was for FrOzen's drop:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozoDzliIjR0#t=13m37s
He shouldn't have even tried

At this point, I shook my head in sorrow at FrOzen's won game slipped away. EffOrt stuffed FrOzen's further attempts to drop, and, after FrOzen took his main army up to destroy his fourth, made a powerful counterattack at FrOzen's own fourth base. Afterwards, EffOrt sent lings and ultras to the Terran third and natural simultaneously. Suddenly, FrOzen's supply advantage was nowhere to be seen, and EffOrt simply sent wave after wave ultras and lings to the enemy natural while simultaneously expanding. FrOzen got mines, which I like, but that's the kind of move that you have to make in preparation for ultras ravaging your natural. It's not something to research while it is in the process of being ravaged.

EffOrt pulled a great trick here that made me respect his ZvT more than I already did. At one point, FrOzen had cleared out all of the zerg units at his nat, so he sent out his vessel on a search-and-irradiate mission, moving them to the middle of the map. EffOrt anticipated this and moved his army out of the predicted path of the vessels before moving down and attacking FrOzen's natural once again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozoDzliIjR0#t=16m56s
this is A+ level metagaming right here

After the attack in the video, it was pretty much over. EffOrt had a massive economic advantage, rode it to victory, and advanced to the Ro16.

Group K - Recap

Pure > (Z)

Hyuk
+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +

Pure < Hyuk
+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +

Pure > (Z)

Hyuk
+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +

Pure > (T)

Leta
+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +

***

Pure < Leta
+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +

***Pure > (T)

Leta
+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +

All

Pure has been in the past year has been a mediocre Protoss on a bad team. His opponent, (Z)

Hyuk, somehow recently stopped being the worst progamer in Korea and began contributing to his team, SKT, in a big way. There was a lot of hype surrounding Hyuk, mostly because of the rapidity of his ascent: one day, he couldn't win a game to save his life, and the next day he was beating Jaedong and all-killing in the STX Masters Cup. They faced off with the knowledge that one of them would have to face Leta. That was probably a harder task for Hyuk, who's ZvT has historically been terrible.

In game 1, Hyuk went 12 hatch, probably due to the difficulty of breaking into the Protoss main with zerglings on Eye of the Storm. He immediately got a third base, while Pure went forge-nex-gateway-cannon. Predictably, Hyuk went 3 hatch spire into 5 hatch hydra; not so predictably, Pure prepared for what looked like an archon/zealot timing push, morphing his first two templar without hesitation. He followed through, sending out an archon and about 10 zealots across the map. Hyuk then split his army, retreating to both his third and his natural without even trying to slow Pure down. Pure attacked Hyuk's natural, crushed his half of an army, and did a lot of economic damage. He rode the advantage out for a fairly easy win.

Game 2 was much simpler. Pure went sair/DT but couldn't do anything with it. Hyuk responded with a hydra bust and broke through.

Game 3 started off in a cute fashion when Pure pulled off some early probe shenanigans, making Hyuk place two hatches not at his natural. Once again, Hyuk went for the seemingly ubiquitous build of 3 hatch spire into 5 hatch hydra. Pure went for an early templar archives and +1 attack upgrade, preparing for another archon/zealot push. This time, Hyuk did not split his army, and Pure was forced to dither about the map, his speedlots and archon unable to do anything. Pure soon massed HT's, and simultaneously, Hyuk started morphing lurkers. The Zerg and Protoss armies, bolstered by these two elements, met on one of the ridges, where the high templars got the best of Hyuk's lurkers with a few storms. Hyuk retreated to his natural and prepared to send out a group of mutas in order to snipe high templars.

Pure, however, had his HT's hidden safely away at his natural and furthermore had a mainly dragoon army to deal with Hyuk's mutas. Hyuk danced around these dragoons until he realized that there weren't any HT's accompanying them. He then sent his hydralurk army down to exploit that fact, but couldn't catch Pure's army cleanly. A minute later, Hyuk Split his army again and tried to bait Pure's goon out so that he could go for a nat bust. But he went all out against the natural and then pulled back. It was very strange seeing Hyuk's army movement his game... he probably could have won if he hadn't tried to do anything fancy.

All of a sudden, Pure had map control. Hyuk tried to snipe temps once again, but Pure's army and positioning was just too strong. Since Hyuk didn't have lurkers on the ridge leading to his 4th, Pure was able to get his dragoons in a favorable position to fight Hyuk's hydras. Pure won the battle and was able to push up to Hyuk's hatchery after reinforcing a half minute later.

Hyuk split his army AGAIN, sending some hydras to destroy Pure's infant 3rd base and keeping some at home to defend. Pure committed everything he had to the break at Hyuk's natural, forcing Hyuk to pull back his hydras before they had killed Pure's nexus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4h3vVZyDZs#t=17m41s
the crucial attack

Pure did a great deal of damage by breaking the natural and basically put himself ahead permanently with the attack. Hyuk used his mutas to great effect (in both traditional harass and sniping templar) in an effort to get back in it, but Pure had a large economic advantage and rode it to victory. At one point Hyuk was desperately holding off an attack while distance mining at the same time.

Pure advanced to face Leta, a Terran who's reputation really took a hit when, among other things, he lost to type-b in the Ro8 of the last OSL. Leta hasn't been the same ever since Kim Carrier picked him to win the Batoo OSL. The curse claims another victim, I guess.

This was the best Bo3 in the entire Round of 36, based solely on the merits of the last two games. The sole fact that Leta almost made a comeback against impossible odds with lockdown and nukes makes these games a must watch.

Well, maybe not game 1.

The first game started off with 1 rax cc vs double nexus, which usually implies that a long game is forthcoming. Not this time, though. Pure tried some token early goon pressure against the bunker that Leta put at the front of his natural, and by the time the goons were driven away, Pure magically had templar tech and observers. Leta tried to do a deep six rush, but It failed pretty badly. Pure not only had templar tech, but he also had more than enough gateways to hold anything off. Leta sieged up between the two players' mains and Pure immediately broke his tank line, killing everything. The game dragged on a little while longer after that, but it was really just a formality.

Game 2 was more interesting. Leta 2 fac'd and lost a depot to front door harass, so he got supply blocked. During a 2 factory rush. That's bad, for those of you keeping score at home. He completely failed to get up Pure's ramp, lost almost all of his vultures, and had to scurry back home when he saw that Pure had gone reaver. Fortunately for Leta, he had built a starport during the rush, so he was able to take out the shuttle/reaver combo while suffering very little damage himself.

Still, Leta was behind. So he did what any rational Terran with a starport would do and loaded up a dropship to do some harass. It went well, stopping mining at Pure's natural and letting Leta get his expansion up. Leta then dropped two full dropships of units behind Pure's nat, which didn't go so well... Pure cleaned it up easily with DT's. He also killed a dropship of Leta's that was trying to head home.

Then, Leta killed a base's worth of probes with vultures while a group of DT's killed a bunch of tanks in the middle of the map! It was crazy out there, crazy I tell you! Leta dropped a few vultures and saw that Pure was going arbiter. When it was all said and done, Pure would have been in a pretty good position even if arbiters hadn't been on the way. There's probably no one who gets more utility out of their vultures, though, and this game was no exception. Leta's vults kept him in it until the end.

The first recall was... really bad. Pure didn't kill the cc he recalled to, and he lost his whole army without taking out many Terran units at all. However, Pure found success when he simply marched goons over to Leta's fourth and sniped the command center. At the same time, Leta was dropping a tank behind Pure's 4th base, a drop that couldn't easily be cleaned up because the are the tank was in was blocked off. Leta tried a large scale drop at another expansion, but Pure killed it off with a nice defensive recall.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbnh6b9JD2g#t=24m14s
a nice defensive recall

The game sort of went on like that for a while, with Leta doing everything he could to stay in the game by harassing with dropships, and with Pure recalling all over the place. Eventually, Pure made a crucial mistake: Leta was amassing a large, single army in the center of the map, and instead of trying to defend against the inevitable push against one of his expansions, Pure tried to recall into one of Leta's expansions. He lost about 10 dragoons for next to nothing, and was very behind after Leta rolled up to one of his expansions and destroyed it. But Pure bounced back and, while Leta was destroying one of his nexuses, he killed Leta's last mining base. Now Leta had a vastly superior army, but no income... and Pure still had arbiters.

Amazingly, at one point, after Leta lifted his main cc to replace one that was destroyed, he didn't have any scanners left on that map. An arbiter was able to hover above a mining base beset by vultures and completely protect it. Leta did have vessels, though, and Pure missed a golden opportunity to destroy at least some of them when he had a group stasised but didn't keep dragoons around for when they got out of said stasis.

The game again went into a period where so much stuff was happening that it would be dumb to just spell it out. Honestly, you should watch the VOD.

Leta slowly built up an advantage, mostly by using vultures and dropships (and finally getting a scanner.) He kept shutting down Pure's expansions, and Pure wasn't able to do anything to his since Leta had a cluster of siege tanks around his two mining expansions. The power of vultures won Leta game 2.

Game 3, however, was won with the power of carriers. Remember that game in GOM between Shuttle and Flash on Heartbreak Ridge, where Shuttle got a huge advantage and Flash just sort of slowly moved across the map until Shuttle had suicided all his money away? Well, it turns out that Shuttle should have gone carriers.

The game started off with a failed gas steal into double nexus from Pure, a combination which leading experts have called "totally gay." Leta tried to cheese that double nexus off the map, but his bunker rush failed due to some quick thinking from Pure, who put a pylon at Leta's choke in order to keep any marines from reinforcing the rush. Leta's expansion was quite late; it started operating only after he had built a second factory. Soon, Pure was 15 supply ahead of Leta, was warping in a third nexus, and had an arbiter tribunal on the way. Things got worse when DT harass did a lot of damage at Leta's natural. Basically, Leta was boned.

What do you do as Terran when your opponent is way ahead of you in every possible way and is about to get arbiters out? If you're Leta, you build ghosts with lockdown. No decision is a bad decision when you're going to lose anyway!

Like a good chess player, Pure tried to simplify when he was ahead in material. He attacked the forces at Leta's natural head on, taking heavy losses, but killing almost all of Leta's tanks. Soon afterwards, he recalled at Leta's third, putting the base count at six bases to two, an impossible situation for Leta.

However, Leta must have read this blog because he didn't make a suicidal push just to end it, which is what 90% of players would have done. Instead, he gave everyone watching a show to remember.

The first order of business was obviously to get the third base up and running, which Leta did. Second, Leta tried the dropship harass which had won him the game in set 2. That didn't work... so Leta went straight to step 3.

Step 3 was revolutionizing TvP.

Well, not really. But it's hard to watch these two sections of the game and not get excited.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ASIA7OV4-0#t=22m44s
revolution part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ASIA7OV4-0#t=25m07s
revolution part 2

For a brief, fleeting moment after Leta's first engagement with the carriers, in which he locked down two of them, it was easy to slip and think that maybe Leta still had a chance. But as Tasteless once said, "Even if you're a little BGH noob, you know what happens when they get that many carriers." Pure had about 9 stargates pumping.

A nearly maxed army of mostly goliaths couldn't stop the combined might of carriers and stasis. In a crucial battle, Pure stasised the majority of Leta's goliaths before moving in to pick off the rest. At another point, Pure caught Leta off guard at his main base, forcing him to move his entire goliath army across the map in order to defend. After nuking an enemy expansion and a group of his own buildings surrounded by enemy units, Leta gged and Pure advanced to the Ro16.

Group L - Recap

RorO < RuBy
+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +

RuBy > (T)

go.go
+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +

RuBy < go.go
+ Show Spoiler [VOD] +

Before this group, Ruby had shown unprecedented results for an Airforce ACE player. I am too lazy to look up when the last time an ACE player qualified for both leagues at once was, but if you simply look at Ruby's recent results you'll see what I'm talking about. Ruby is most definitely ACE's ace at the moment.

On the other hand, Roro had lost six in a row before playing Ruby. Ruh roh, roro!

Look, I'm tired, OK?

Anyway, there wasn't a whole lot of hype about a match between an ACE player and a A-teamer on Wemade FOX. That's to be expected, but that doesn't make it right. Ruby's great play has gone totally unappreciated, and Roro was part of the reason for Wemade's early success (before, uh, he went on his 6 game losing streak.)

Ruby's build was unique: 1 rax, 1 fact, 1 port, 1 science facility, 2 ebays. Pit that against Roro's 3 hatch lurker and you have a recipe for... something. I'm not sure what, since I never see these two builds apart, let alone in the same game!

Ruby had two vessels out before a muta reached his base. It was a single muta for scouting purposes, but still!

Ruby got a force of siege tanks and tried to set himself up outside of one of Roro's expansions before consume was researched, but it was to no avail. Defilers were in position before Ruby's army got anywhere near a zerg base.

At this point, there were about 4 different things happening at once until the end of the game. It really was a great game, and probably has to be seen in VOD form to be appreciated. Let's just say that Ruby defended multiple expansions while attacking multiple expansions, and just kept doing that until he won the game. Also, Roro apparently doesn't know how to defend against dropships.

Here, let me just embed the point where the game becomes exciting so that maybe you'll watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7NKSysioG8#t=14m17s
you've got 20 minutes, right?

(Spoiler: Ruby wins game 1.)

I'll permit you to simply read about game 2. Both players went as standard as standard gets, with Ruby going 1 rax expand into academy and RorO going 2 hatch muta. Ruby defended against the mutas really well, and RorO tried a lurker/muta/ling bust at the Terran natural. It didn't work, and RorO was way, way behind and had to resort to desperation attacks for the rest of the game. When they all failed, he had to GG.

The first lurker all-in was sort of spectacular, so I'll show it here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZRMKNWAi4s#t=9m58s
boom go the lurkers

Day[9] says that TvT is his favorite matchup to watch because it's very positional. I agree; I also agree with with the person who said that TvT is "like chess, if your chess pieces randomly exploded in your hand all the time."

So yeah, I usually like TvTs, but not ones on maps like Neo Harmony and Eye of the Storm which basically devolve into "who can make more vultures?"

Game 1: Ruby hacks. I know this because he scouted crossmap to find go.go immediately and steal his gas. The game then devolved, oddly enough, into a competition to see who could make the most vultures. go.go won that battle and transitioned into wraiths. This ended up not mattering too much, since Ruby immediately built goliaths and kept them with his army when he pushed out. After the siege lines met in the middle, the standard TvT pattern of "use your army in a bunch of dropships to kill his undefended units" took hold.

What's the point of telling you about the specific bases that go.go or Ruby attacked and defended? That sort of thing would be really boring to read. I love TvT and all, but if you want to get a feel for what really happened in the game, you've gotta go watch the VOD!

Game 2 illustrated a quip that Idra once made about 14cc: he said something like 14cc vs center rax vs normal opening is the closest thing in Starcraft to rock/paper/scissors and that the winrate of a 14cc build over a normal build is insanely high.

Well, go.go went 14cc. Ruby set up a killer contain, supported by bunkers and a flashing rax, that held go.go in his base permanently. Only... what was the point? go.go didn't need to get out of his base right away. He was content to tech up to starport and move out when he had the tank numbers.

Random note: I appreciated the fact that go.go went for a gas expansion for his third instead of a mineral only, like Ruby did.

The game moved into "killer dropship" mode and go.go used his superior dropship numbers to win. Ruby tried an all-in attack with tanks and SCVs, but, obviously, it failed, and he lost.

Game 3 was very much like the first two, except for one major difference: a highlight-worthy moment!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4QRmC0zbbo#t=21m15s
nukeleear lunch detected

Ruby gged rather than being nuked more times, and go.go advanced to the Ro16.

Editor's Note: This may have been the first TL newspost that actually caused the death of a writer. Motbob managed to pump out 9700 words to recap a ridiculous number of games, and I sincerely hope he is not dead. Stay hydrated and take a few days off, you deserve it man!

[OSL] The End of the Beginning

[OSL] The End of the Beginning

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