It is always tough, every week, to select a game for this column. Some games that make it are awe inspiring - the games that you'd show your newb friends to get them into starcraft. Some games showcase an ingenious strategy, out of the world cheese, or some fantastic decision making. And then, there are games like this. Down 2-1, MBCGame had all their hopes pinned on Light to take it into the ace match, and his opponent was Odin, an unaccomplished player from Samsung's much lacking Zerg lineup.

The game started off seemingly unexceptionally, Odin going for 2 hatch muta, and Light 1 rax CCing. To put pressure on Light's FE build, Odin made 6 lings, of which 4 were sent over to Light's nat. Light's SCV must've missed the lings, because when they arrived at his nat, Light was unprepared, and needlessly lost 2 marines, setting him behind in the early game.



The game then continued with Light playing the role of the aggressor. His expansion done, he moved out with a small team of marine medic supported by a single firebat and medic. 5 lings from Odin pranced around in front of him, threatening to counter, but Light paid no heed to them, resolving to follow through with the strategy he had prepared. He marched his army fearlessly towards Odin's nat, and the lings swiftly swooped in on the now defenseless Terran main. A freshly built firebat fell quickly, and the lings began wreaking havoc.



On the other side of the map, Odin was fighting against time; with every second, impending defeat approached. Sunkens were morphing, but Light's army arrived just seconds before they could complete. A flurry of bullets rained upon them, and drones were forced off the mineral line to supplement the defense. Unfortunately, the first sunken fell almost immediately after hatching, and the drones too, met their ends shortly after. Things were looking grim for Odin, who proceeded to lose more drones in his main after his nat fell, but Light strangely decided to retreat his marines.



This decision was probably influenced by the fact that Odin's mutas were in his main tearing stuff apart. With nothing much else to do but micro his mutas, Odin's control was naturally close to immaculate, although this was hard to discern, given the lack of any anti air in Light's main. A couple of turrets did eventually go up, but these were some distance away from the mineral line. His raxes were also undefended, and Odin chose to take these down first, rendering Light's economic lead pointless by removing his production capabilities.

In the meantime, Odin had been busy building lings. With just 3 drones, there was no way he'd be getting his drone count up to match Light's SCVs anyway. These lings ran past a bunker at Light's nat and began laying waste to the turrets in Light's main. Instead of simply abandoning his main and restarting everything at his nat (or proxied somewhere), Light stuck with it, and ended up losing all the SCVs in his main, subquently being forced to abandon it.

Suddenly, Light's position didn't seem as strong as it had been previously. His main CC was floating, and he was struggling to get turrets up to cover a couple of newly built raxes. Odin made a move to break Light's defenses, but the bunker held thanks to a CC liftoff that allowed more SCVs to repair, and the lings and mutas were forced to retreat into Light's main where they pillaged the remaining buildings. Light then tried to retake his main with a small force of marine medic, but this got eaten up by Odin's mutas, and he gave up, typed in the GG, and left the booth with his head hanging.



Light has had a reputation of losing games in which he has an advantage, and we were treated to another episode of it. There were so many decisions he could've made that would've won him the game easily, but he failed to see any of them before it was too late. The initial decision to retreat the marine medic from Odin's main was by far the worst of a series of mistakes that cost Light the game. If there was a single word that could adequately describe this game, it would be fail.