EPT![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/SilverskY/EVERSLFinals.jpg)
Banner by SilverskY
The Green Mile
By DoctorHelvetica, Motbob, and Kwark
TeamLiquid Official Coverage
![[image loading]](/staff/DoctorHelvetica/greenmile/finals.jpg)
The Green Mile is a term meant to refer to the long walk a prisoner on death row takes before his execution. The Green Mile is also a famous movie. The Green Mile is what
Movie will walk before he faces the greatest Terran of our time and the most dominant player of today. 
Flash won his first OSL when he was 15 by embarrassing a PvT mastermind, Stork. The game was never the same.Flash again finds himself in the Starleague, at the peak of his career, against a Protoss known for his mediocrity in PvT. Flash is on the crest of a double Starleague victory and even the craziest CJ fan knows Movie isn't the one to stop him. This is Flash's OSL. He will play the role of executor.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/IntoTheWow/motbobOSL/1260081401_1.jpg)
Well done Movie, well done.
But this isn't a write-up meant to trash Movie, or to belittle his accomplishments. Movie defeated one of the best ZvP players around 3-1 to advance to this final, and he upset everyone in the qualifying rounds and in the group stages to advance to the biggest stage in E-Sports. Movie deserves to be where he is and, as a young Protoss, his achievement is very impressive. However, Movie is a mortal. Tonight, being mortal just won't cut it.
Let's be clear, here. There can always be an upset. People said the same thing that will probably happen to Movie would happen to
Mind and fOrGG. StarCraft is a great sport in large part because of its great upsets and the constant injection of new talent. However, if there is anything close to a certain winner, this series has one.Predictions by KwarK
Movie's OSL run has been greatly helped by the strength of his PvZ. Indeed, he has gone from a nobody in a generation of new Protoss faces to a known figure based on his PvZ upsets. This means, on the face of it, his PvT still has a lot to prove. TLPD would seem to confirm this, giving him a lifetime 11-13 PvT record, or 45%. However, those TLPD stats exclude the games in the prelims. His full PvT record, according to TLPD, is 22-18 with 9-3 in the last 12 games. In this OSL run he has played 7 PvTs and has not yet lost one of them.
Hwan may be a nobody but 2-0 vs Lomo and Light are respectable wins.Movie is walking the royal road. On his OSL journey he has faced four terran opponents and has eliminated each of them in turn without dropping a single game. His PvT record outside this OSL may be poor but his PvZ was relatively unknown as well. Flash is obviously the statistically better player, something that is true regardless of his opponent. However, Movie's OSL run is built in defiance of statistically better players and each time he's succeeded. Because of this (and because F>X is boring) I am going to ignore the statistics in my predictions.
I must acknowledge I want Movie to win. I dream the dream every fan does, to be able to walk among a crowd of other fans and say "I loved him when he was still underground". As such I find myself obliged to call Movie winning this. If I do it and am wrong then it doesn't matter because I'm a fan and am therefore excused my delusions. If I'm right though, it'll cement my plans for vicarious glory. It is with this mentality, clawing at any possible excuse to call Movie's victory, that I start watching his recent PvT vods.
Game 1 is on New Heartbreak Ridge. The map was traditionally considered Protoss favoured although the changes to 2.1 have evened it out somewhat. It's a 2 player map which favours clever proxy or gas steal builds but also makes other types of cheese more easily scoutable than on most maps. Movie has shown clever builds on here in the past, notably against
go.go earlier in the OSL (if you haven't seen that vod watch it and copy it for icc). Of course Flash did lose to Stork on this map but Stork is a top notch PvTer and he made Movie work for it. Watching Movie PvT vods made the phrase "like Best but..." spring to mind. Movie is no Stork. He's not even a Best. He's innovative and may show us some crazy new build but ultimately on a two player map Flash isn't going to be unlucky. So this should go to Flash fairly easily.Still, it will be interesting to see what Movie comes up with. He must know he can't just play standard PvT and beat Flash. Personally I'm hoping he does some sort of proxy robo elevator. A combination of his fantastic reaver micro (the one part of his game Flash should be afraid of) and surprise might just to the trick.
So presumably Flash is 1-0 up now and yawning on his way to yet another 3-0 win. Game 2 is El Nino. Flash has never played a TvP on here according to TLPD and Movie has only played one (against Light earlier in the OSL). The map is statistically Terran favoured although progamers seem to think this pool is strongly Protoss favoured. The map suits Movie's style of harass and reaver micro combined with arbiter rushing but when a big Terran ball crosses the map I just can't see Movie having the control to stop it.
The main criticism of Movie has always been how unpolished his gameplay is. He loses units to mines when he has obs, he lets vultures eat his probes and he lacks the big battle micro to execute the ambitious builds he attempts. El Nino gives Movie a lot of options to play to his strengths but I see Flash blocking each and every thrust before pushing across the map in an unstoppable ball. Where Stork or Bisu may show some excellent shuttle storms and flanking Movie will get EMPed and run his zealots into mines.
Sorry Movie but you don't have the skills to take it in the late game and Flash isn't a player who will lose it in the early game.
Still, hoping for a lucky scarab.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l5JaYqGe2g#t=25m07s
El Niño allows for creative play
El Niño allows for creative play
I think the outcome of game 3 will depend on the score. If Flash is 2-0 up Movie will know he's lost and that will fuck with his game. Playing Flash has got to be hugely intimidating at the best of times but knowing you now have to 3-0 him must be a killer. Eye of the Storm is a big macro map which favours Protoss and TLPD confirms that Protoss have been winning here. As with El Nino, Flash has yet to face a Protoss on this map while Movie has only faced one, beating Light. One thing worth noting is that Movie has been thrown Zerg opponent after Zerg opponent in the OSL. His game against Light on Eye of the Storm was 3 months ago while Flash who is in both leagues is fresh off of a victory against Best.
So, on to the predictions. If it's 2-0 in Flash's favour Movie just has a meltdown, loses all his probes to vultures and all his dragoons to mines. 3-0. If it's 1-1 however, Movie knows this is the map he's going to take the lead on. He went 13 nex against Light and I suspect that'll happen again. Give him cross positions and no proxy raxes and he may have a shot at it. Again I'm betting on reavers playing a decisive role because Movie (and his coach) must know that reavers are the best part of his PvT game; He'd be an idiot to neglect them. That said, he opted for fast dts and dt drop in both his games against Light. That was 3 months ago and it's really easily shut down if you expect it. Flash has to know it's coming and I think Movie's coach will advise him not to try it here. Anyway, Movie transitions into fast arbiters and crazy good macro and takes this map to go 2-1 ahead.
So, at this point it's either 3-0 Flash win or 2-1 Movie winning. Game 4 is Fighting Spirit and both players are 1-1 on it. Flash is 1-1 to Best and Movie beat MVP but lost to Really. His loss to Really was 3 months ago while his win was earlier this month so it's possible his PvT has improved but I'm still not confident. On a random note, ret is in the vod of Movie < Really. He'll 13 nex again because it owns on Fighting Spirit and because he didn't earlier this month vs MVP. Flash will probably shut it down with a perfectly executed bunker rush and Movie simply won't have the micro needed (compared to Flash at least) to stop it. In his loss against Really the Terran went 2 fac but I just don't see Flash ever going 2 fac. Surprise has no value when your fundamentals are as strong as Flash's, I expect him to simply play it to his own strengths.
The game will turn into a macro game with Flash FEing and Movie pressuring with range dragoons while retaking his expansion himself. But Flash's macro is amazing and Movie won't be able to stop his first push.
If it goes to a 5th game it'll go to Flash imo. I would be amazed if Movie manages to come up with two really cute ways of beating the best player in the world on a 2 player map. If he can do it he'll do it game 1 where it has psychological impact. Normally I'd insist it was possible but Flash is Flash. Game 5 will be a straightup macrofest simply because Flash wouldn't allow it not to be twice. Movie doesn't have the polish to win that type of game and will therefore lose.
So, my predictions are 3-0 or 3-2 Flash depending on the outcome of the first 2 games. If Movie wins a game it'll be because of some absurdly good reaver micro and/or a cool build. Plus the maps are in his favour. But that won't be enough to take three games off Flash.
Recaps
![[image loading]](/staff/DoctorHelvetica/greenmile/lyhvskyhtxt.jpg)
Game 1 was on El Niño, the ice version of Outsider.
Flash had seen success on this map against zerg, destroying HoGiL in the Ro36. The map itself was 5-4 TvZ before this series, so neither player could easily blame a loss on map imbalance.Just like HoGil did a couple months ago,
Calm 12 pooled with gas in order to get slightly faster mutas. Before Calm's natural hatchery had finished, his lair had started building, and his spire finished at about the same time as Flash's academy. Just like in his games vs Pure, Calm sacrificed some economy in order to get his mutalisks out as fast as possible. His first mutalisks got to Flash's natural before turrets had finished building, but there were so few of them that they weren't able to kill off the anti-air quickly enough to give Flash problems. Calm was able to kill SCVs in the main, but, again, he wasn't able to eliminate Flash's turrets there and thus had to retreat. Calm regrouped his mutalisks and sent a drone to the empty main on the map in order to take a third.By the time Calm made another attempt at harass, Flash had his base completely locked down. Attempts by Calm to reduce the size of Flash's MnM army were met with deadly force. However, Calm persisted, and his mutalisks were eventually able to find a hole at the bottom of Flash's base through which they barreled into the main mineral line. After a bunch of SCVs died, Calm had to retreat... but there was no place to retreat to. He either had to fly through a sea of marines or a cluster of turrets. He eventually chose the turrets, weakening his mutalisk group beyond repair.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZHikK2tefQ#t=10m27s
we're trapped! trapped like rats!
we're trapped! trapped like rats!
As Calm's third was going up, he sparred with Flash's marines outside of Flash's base. Predictably, he got the worst of it, and while mutalisks were dying, Flash was preparing a push on Calm's third with a vessel. At the 12:30 mark, after 3 solid minutes of muta vs MnM micro, Flash's army coalesced and attacked. Since Calm had a late hydralisk den, Flash had the opportunity to get to Calm's third before lurkers morphed. He did so, killed a lurker egg, irradiated Calm's mutas, and killed all his drones. He lost his army, but soon pushed out with a much bigger one towards Calm's natural. With no third and a crumbling natural, Calm typed out.
Game 2 was on the site of Flash's infamous game against Jaedong: New Heartbreak Ridge. HBR is an unusual map; you'll find people who swear that the map is imbalanced in each race's favor. It seems obvious that HBR is a map that can be abused in some way in every matchup. In this game, Calm did a good job of abusing mutalisks and cliffs.
Calm opened with a build that shocked no one: he 12 hatched, got a fast lair, and went 2 hatch muta. Flash seemed to be expecting some kind of zergling shenanigans. He sent a marine, and later, an SCV, behind his base to check whether the minerals at his third were being mined out, and he built a bunker at his natural. He was very precise with his marine positioning; they were stationed at his natural choke and were in the ideal position to stop a runby. Unfortunately, he was focused on the wrong zerg unit. Calm had no intention of making more than 6 zerglings.
Calm's 2 hatch mutalisk build was one of the most perfectly timed I've ever seen. 6 mutalisks popped at the 5:48 mark, and Flash just wasn't ready for them. Calm rolled over Flash's defense with a joint zergling/muta attack on the natural, and Flash couldn't secure his base. Calm kept Flash's marine count low and kept forcing Flash to rebuild turrets. The game was over when, two minutes after Calm had entered Flash's base, he hadn't lost a single mutalisk and was morphing lurkers at his third. Flash gged after losing every marine that popped out of his barracks for a solid minute of play.
Game 3 was far and away the best of the night. It began with Flash and Calm at cross positions... Flash went 1 rax cc and Calm, once again, went 2 hatch muta. It's pretty difficult to muta harass on Fighting Spirit, and Calm basically just used his mutalisks to keep Flash's MnM group in the middle of the map from getting to either Calm's natural or his third. This was probably Flash's intention: better to have mutas dancing around in the middle of the map than at your base killing infrastructure. Maybe Flash planned to reinforce with an unstoppable army, kill Calm's third, and win the game. This didn't happen, perhaps due to a ling runby at the beginning of the center battle that killed some marines, so Flash had to be content with being able to construct one million turrets at his natural and main.
All of a sudden, Calm found himself with a safe third and a healthy mutalisk force, which is a position in which not many zergs have found themselves in recent play against Flash. Calm tried some harass, and although the aforementioned turrets kept him away, it was alright. Calm had lurkers morphing and was well on the way to the fabled "nothing" that allows zergs to win on Fighting Spirit.
Flash attacked with a few tanks and a vessel building. Calm mounted an effective delaying action, but, once the vessel arrived, Flash moved his army confidently to Calm's natural. When Flash's troops arrived, three things happened at once.
- Guardians, which had been morphing over the cliff by Flash's natural, hatched and began ravaging Flash's natural.
- Dark swarm went up outside Calm's nat, stopping Flash's attack
- Calm put down a fourth base
Now, Calm had hive tech and four unkillable gas expansions. Flash had a supply advantage and map control, but the "map control" advantage was fading with each defiler and ultra made.
Suddenly, both players were in full-fledged macro mode: not directly engaging, taking bases, positioning their vast armies, harassing. Calm tried a drop on Flash's fourth base, but if Flash hadn't carelessly lost 4 vessels it would have been a total failure, with a few ultras dying for basically nothing after Flash scouted the overlords. Actually, that was a lie... the attack did serve a purpose. It drew Flash's forces away from Calm's side of the map, letting him get two extra bases up.
At the 20 minute mark of the game, Calm had a clear advantage. He was killing vessels, killing MnM, and locking down his six bases. But when Calm tried a light assault on Flash's natural, spectators saw a specter of the game to come: Flash had two sieged tanks sitting behind a proxied factory, helping to defend the attack.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/IntoTheWow/flashcalm1.png)
a sign of things to come
At this point, Flash went into hardcore Destination-vs-Zerg tank camping mode. He just kept increasing the tank count in his army until he was maxed. Soon, he had a chokehold on the six bases on his side of the map, and the subsequent attack attempts by Calm weren't just failures. They were suicides.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/IntoTheWow/flashcalm2.png)
MOTHER OF GOD
Calm, after seeing the vast amount of tanks, needed to make a tech switch into lair units. But he didn't adapt at all; he acted as if he were fighting a standard unit composition from Terran.
Calm kept killing vessels and kept himself from suiciding too many units. However, Flash was slowly crawling across the map with an invincible army. What followed was the most painful ten minutes of the OSL. Calm kept trying to break Flash's tank line until he lost map control, at which point Flash sent an army of MnM to kill one of Calm's bases. At that point, things started snowballing for Calm. Flash multitasked him to death, preserving his Terran ball and sending death squads to squash expansion attempts.
After a final suicide attack against +3 tanks, Calm typed out.
Game 4 opened like the first three: 1 rax cc vs 2 hatch muta. Early on, an embarrassing mis-rally cost Flash a marine. Other than that, the first action arrived as Calm's mutas popped and headed for Flash's marines in the middle. Flash showed the style that has won him so many TvZs this season, with aggressive marines and perfect macro at home. Though his initial marines died, he attacked with an even stronger army and continued to keep Calm's mutas in the middle.
Flash kept macroing and strengthening his army, and at the 10 minute mark he pushed towards Calm's natural, barging through the lurkers that Calm had strewn in his way. He killed all of Calm's mutas, his sunks, his fast defilers w/o consume, and, finally, turned his sights on the natural hatchery. Calm made a face and GGed. It was a sudden end to the series; Flash advanced to the finals.
![[image loading]](/staff/DoctorHelvetica/greenmile/movsshtxt.jpg)
El Niño is un-holy ground for
Shine haters because of the infamous mass mutalisk game vs Stork in the quarterfinals. It was the map used for Game 1 of this series. After standard openings from both players, Shine put his third hatchery in an exposed expansion that couldn't be easily protected from a zealot attack with a sim-city. Two zealots took a leisurely stroll down to Shine's third and killed two drones without trouble. That alone should have let Movie know that something was up, and when he scouted a group of four hydras at an earlier point than they should have existed, he knew exactly what Shine was doing. Shine was trying a 3 hatch hydra build, and the exposed hatchery was in the position it was in because it was very close to Movie's base.When hydras got to Movie's base, it looked like they would do enough damage to justify the build. Shine killed a few cannons, the front gateway and forge, and a zealot and pylon. However, he tried pushing his luck, and Movie used some great probe micro and convenient reaver timing to his advantage and blocked the attack.
Things weren't totally over for Shine after the failed break, but Movie had a massive tech advantage: before Shine's lair was done, Movie had a stargate and two reavers. Movie showed poor corsair control when he lost his first sair to hydras, giving Shine time to tech. But a zealot drop that killed Shine's spawning pool left Shine back in big trouble. A successful DT drop put Movie even further ahead.
Movie cheated death by scourge one more time with another drop, this time losing his shuttle and 2 zealot 2 HT cargo to hydras.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/IntoTheWow/shinemovie1.png)
oops
There were more HT's where that came from, though, and Shine found that out when he tried to drop. It was moderately successful, but Shine didn't have the hydras to spare. After the drop, Movie simply pushed out and killed Shine's sparse army with reaver/HT/goon. Shine reinforced and drove Movie away, but Movie reinforced with stronger units and rolled over Shine. The game ended with both armies dead and a lone reaver in Shine's base killing drones.
Game 2 was on New Heartbreak Ridge, and a lot of people thought that Shine and his muta micro were favored here. Shine ordered up 3 hatch spire, and Movie sent a small force of a few zealots towards Shine's base... but not before checking the minerals behind his natural!
In the middle of the map, zealots killed an unreal amount of zerglings before dying. Shine was very aware of Movie's drop-heavy style, so he built a sunken colony next to his main mineral line. Movie somehow slipped a probe in and saw it, and while he was pondering this revelation, he LOST THE SHUTTLE WITH THE REAVERS IN IT TO SCOURGE.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/IntoTheWow/shinemovie21.png)
don't mind me, i'm just passing through
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/IntoTheWow/shinemovie3.png)
oops pt. 2
This unforgivable blunder should have cost Movie the game, and certainly the failed attack with a dozen zealots and a shuttle with two reavers should have sealed it. But Movie performed a storm drop that immediately got him back in the game, and Shine did nothing with his army advantage by almost doing a drop but pulling out at the last second.
Shine executed the dreaded Zerg Muta Tech Switch, but Movie had made a tech switch of his own into mass goon. He had a DA, too, which maelstromed Shine's mutas and gave everyone watching live a fit of awesome. The muta loss hurt, but Shine made a perfectly timed drop and stalled Movie's massive army with lurkers. The game hinged upon one observer: Shine had killed Movie's observatory, so if he could get one obs snipe, he had a good chance of winning. But he couldn't pull it off, and Movie's army ravaged Shine's nat and main. 2-0 Movie.
Game 3 was on Eye of the Storm, a map that was clearly designed with the goal of helping Protoss players get out of the early game. The sim city for tosses on this map is incredibly tight and can be fully protected with only one cannon. This has caused a lot of zergs to go 12 hatch, but Shine doesn't know that build vs P and so he 9 pooled like always while Movie went forge-nexus.
Shine used some nifty ling positioning to deny scouting of his third base while he teched to 3 hatch spire. Movie lost an early zealot that was alone in the middle of the map, but his zealot micro is pretty amazing so he took a few lings with him.
After Movie's first corsair killed an overlord, Shine killed it with a scourge trap and followed up with mutas. Shine had a very difficult time taking out Movie's anti-air defense... because you can't kill something that doesn't exist. As Movie maynarded his probes to his nat and scrambled to get something up in his base that could shoot at air, building archons, cannons, and corsairs all at once, he tried counterattacking Shine's third base, which failed completely due to excellent building and ling placement by Shine. Eventually, after the stargate was destroyed, the mutas were driven off. The game settled into a state in which Shine danced around the map with his mutas, taking targets of opportunity, dodging archons, and hoping Movie didn't quickly get a corsair force.
Soon, Movie massed up a balanced army and attacked Shine's nat. Unfortunately, Shine had lurkers and Movie didn't have obs, mutas and lings were killing his fledgling third, and Shine was getting a fourth base. Things went further and further downhill for movie as he lost 2 HT in the middle of the map and had a third base attempt shut down once again. When he got an observer, his powerful army rolled into Shine's natural, killing all of his defending forces and sunken colonies. But Shine's reinforcements met Movie's reinforcements in the middle of the map and killed them. Soon, Movie had no army, no attack, and no third. The game ended with Guardians killing probes and high templars, and spore colonies killing observers.
Game 4 was on Fighting Spirit, the best PvZ map ever made. Movie was in full Bisu-probe mode, attacking drones, attacking the spawning pool, mining minerals.
Things were slow for a long time. Movie upgraded something in his core fairly early, meaning either a goon heavy or corsair heavy opening. As it turned out, it was sair DT. A group of zealots and DTs headed down to Shine's third, killed the defenses, and killed the hatchery. It was unforgivably greedy play from Shine that allowed Movie the success that he had. He had all kinds of information about what Movie was doing, but while the attack was going on, three drones popped at the attacked base.
Soon afterwards, Movie proved once again that he has terrible corsair control by losing control of his main to Shine's desperation mutas. He had to transfer his probes, and it took a little while for him to drive the mutas away.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/IntoTheWow/shinemovie4.png)
seriously, movie had about 6 corsairs. how did this happen?
Meanwhile, a single probe in Shine's base killed two drones while Shine was distracted. Shine kept flogging his one trick pony (oh man that's such a misuse of a metaphor) and killed a whole bunch of probes with great mutalisk micro.
Unfortunately, Shine was never able to get a third up and running, and Movie was. Movie made it his mission to kill Shine's mutas, and he won the game with an archon-heavy army and lots of corsairs. Movie rode his advantage and advanced to the finals.
We'll see you guys at the games tonight!
