Movie out-thought Flash this game. At every point in the game Flash was dictated to by Movie. Flash was forced to FE by Movie's gas steal, thereby leaving himself open to a proxy elevator rush which hard counters it. Flash recognized what Movie was doing and scouted it but Movie immediately adapted. Movie used the fact Flash had scouted it to continue to force Flash's hand, putting Flash into a defensive posture in which he would do what he always does, camp, slowly take a third and upgrade. Movie checked Flash was doing this with a double observer through the turrets and then hard countered him again by taking Flash's 4th, making two forges and rushing 2 stargate arbiters. From the gas steal onwards Flash had been merely reacting to Movie and now found himself camping on 3 bases (two of which were near mined out) against a 5 base Protoss with a vast army, good upgrades and a lot of high energy arbiters. To make matters even worse for him, the 4th base he needed was already half mined out.

This was no accident. From the start Movie had made sure he knew exactly what Flash was doing and more importantly, what Flash thought about what he was doing. Movie's build was hugely vulnerable in the mid-game, lacking reavers, high templar, dark templar, shuttles, a high gateway count etc. It was an investment build, designed to get into a really strong late game position. However mentally Flash had spent the entire game waiting for Movie to attempt a sudden cheesy attack to end it. The gas steal created this expectation, the proxy robo reinforced it and constant mine clearing and feints against the depot walls preserved it. It was only after he'd lost the game on paper that Flash realized how bad his situation was.

Mistakes were made, such as not pylon walling the top left in from vultures, but the biggest mistake was expecting Flash to lose a conventional PvT simply because he was in a terrible position. Flash showed masterful blocking of Movie's arbiter play. He is simply so good at TvP that a unit like the arbiter can't beat him. In my opinion, to beat Flash late game you need the carrier, dragoon, high templar combination, as well as the huge strategic advantages Movie had. Unfortunately for Movie carriers are a really, really ugly transition from his cheap, low tech mid-game whereas 2 stargate arbiters are a natural one. Going carriers would have widened the mid-game timing window he gave Flash to kill him (while feinting to cover it up) significantly and arbiters would be enough against any other terran.

Movie's build here was clever. Not clever in the game 1 strategic genius way but rather as an inventive way of countering Flash's fast expansion. If PvT was a little more volatile we could have been looking at fOrGG vs Flash style upsets over the predictable FE terran but Terran is pretty unassailable early game PvT so whatever. Anyway, the reaver dt combo. Someone in the CJ Entus camp has clearly been studying Flash's play, this doesn't really come as any surprise as every Terran in the world wants to play like Flash but someone clever quantified exactly what defences he makes. About 4 missile turrets around the edge and a turret with ground support on the mineral line. The outer turrets limit shuttle mobility while the mineral line provides cover for the scvs and a base from which the rest of the base can be defended. Dts can't kill that central turret and therefore can't stop an academy. Additionally units can move from there to protect outer turrets if dts come after them. Equally reavers can't do shit within range of the tanks at that central turret and can't be dropped on the tank because of the turret. However, while neither of them can inflict much damage alone the combination can.

Here's why. The outlying turrets cannot be supported without secure ground between them. Reavers can pick them off with dts guarding the undetected ground between the reaver and the central turret. Tanks cannot come forwards out of the protection of detection without being vulnerable to dts. Turrets cannot be built under threat from reavers which means they need to be built sufficiently near a tank that a reaver firing at maximum range at the turret is vulnerable. Together that means turrets must be built near turrets and the only functional starting turret is the one on the min line. That means a lot of creeping turrets and sieged tanks forwards for the Terran, trying to catch the Protoss off guard with a scanned dt which is lifted into the shuttle just too late or a reaver sloppily left within tank range. The whole process is extremely time consuming for the Terran and extremely attention requiring for Protoss. Protoss needs to constantly babysit his units, both preventing them from being sniped and preventing Terran from sneakily leapfrogging an ambitious turret forwards without proper support. However while they're alive the Terran is simply pinned, unable to push with his base slowly being set on fire

The purpose of the build is not to kill or cripple the Terran. This makes no sense on paper because reavers are capable of wiping out lots of scvs if you get a lucky shot and a fast dt drop is textbook quick win. But Movie wasn't aiming for a quick win here (although if Flash had fucked up I'm sure he'd have gone for it). Movie was pinning Flash down through his ideal timing windows while he took his own expansion and powered up. I suspect Movie wanted to have 3 base macro going by the time Flash was pushing but unfortunately overambition with the reaver and inattention with the dark templar broke the combination. He could have kept it going for several minutes longer, throwing it away for a few potential scv kills was utterly pointless. Whichever coach thought up that build is going to be having a few sharp words with Movie about the aims of the build and how to not fuck it up while attempting to get irrelevant bonus scv kills.

Movie's build was a 1 gate fast expansion while denying scouting. The pylon zealot wall in the choke kept Flash blind and after the first two games that was something to unnerve him. Between proxy robos and fast dark drops Movie had earned some caution in Flash and without scouting information Flash had to do a defensive fast expansion. Movie's counter expansion was a few seconds before Flash's, an advantageous timing for Protoss. He proceeded to arbiter rush, skipping psi storm and heading for a third. This build wasn't a clever cheesy build like the earlier ones but simply a macro opening, trying to get into an good late-game position and expand over the map, taking advantage of the many expansions on Eye of the Storm.

The fast arbiters allowed him to consume half the map and create a second group of production abilities at his fresh expansions in the bottom right. This forced Flash to try and crawl cross positions on Eye of the Storm, in order to consolidate his intended expansions at the bottom left and stop Movie's inexorable economic growth getting more out of hand than it was already. Flash was drawn into an exposed position by Movie's growing economy. As in the first two games, Movie utilized the threat to control Flash's strategy. In game 3 it was the threat of a vast mineral deficit rather than of a tech based cheesy attack that limited Flash's options and, as in game 1, Movie was prepared to smash Flash's predictable response. However, unlike in game 1, the terrain of the map was favorable to a massive Protoss ground attack. Furthermore, while in game 1 Flash could just camp and weather the storm he knew that this was not possible in game 3.

Movie's entire build was based around fact that on Eye of the Storm, a big, ground based, late game Protoss army can give a Terran a bloody nose in a fight. It can't defeat a 3-3 maxed Terran army but there again, nothing can. Movie just got as big and scary as he could as fast as possible, skipping the entire mid-game again, gaining momentum like a snowball which could be stopped by any pressure in the first few seconds but rapidly grows into an avalanche. Movie became an avalanche consuming the map and Flash knew if he didn't stop it it'd just keep on growing, constant pressure being exerted by the expansions everywhere. Flash couldn't push diagonally to the key expansions at the bottom right and the first push that actually saw Protoss buildings was met at 6 by carriers. An excellent exploitation of Flash's camping style and refusal to play a mid-game against a Protoss as random as Movie.

Movie's strategy this game was to do a 12 nexus and win. This is a good strategy because 12 nex owns on Fighting Spirit. Unfortunately for him Flash is really good. Nothing more to say here really.