Flash spawned in yellow at 1 while hyvaa got green at 7 on Match Point. Flash opened with a standard depot rax, placing his rax at his choke, while hyvaa opted to 12 hat 11 pool. Flash added a quick gas which is very surprising given his reputation as a very predictable, very standard 1 rax FE player. His rax was immediately followed with a factory, unknown to hyvaa who had opted not to drone scout and could only see that Flash hadn't FEed. hyvaa went for a third hatchery on 14 and added a gas but lost his first overlord when Flash floated his barracks and used two marines on opposite sides of the high ground to kill it, beautifully taking advantage of hyvaa's predictable movements.

Once the overlord died Flash immediately started a cc at his expansion with only two marines and a factory getting machine shop upgrades. It was an incredibly ballsy play, but Flash had read hyvaa's drone powering from three hat lair correctly. hyvaa was afraid of some kind of vulture runthrough and powered drones while playing defensively. Flash's used spider mines to stop further expansions by hyvaa.

hyvaa headed for spire but Flash was already pumping goliaths and hyvaa had only just scouted Flash's expansion. Held to just two bases, hyvaa was falling behind with every passing second and the game now hinged on how well he could perform mutalisk harass. Flash was perfectly aware of this and had turrets with goliath support and a floating ebay to get vision of the easily abusable cliff behind his natural mineral line. In a sexy move (that isn't done enough) Flash then covered his scvs in his natural with his ebay and rax making them virtually untouchable.

During his muta harassment hyvaa had attempted to take a third gas at 11, but a mine there stopped his drone until a slow overlord could make its way up there. Trying to make up for lost time hyvaa also expanded to 6 but was immediately scouted by wandering vultures. Knowing that hyvaa couldn't hold the expansion at 6, a force of goliaths left to dispatch it while vultures layed mines on their flanks. hyvaa still didn't have overlord speed and despite having a reasonably large army of hydralisks and mutalisks had his mobility severely limited by the mines. The goliath force that had taken care of 6:00 found itself contained by hydralisks, neither force willing to venture through the choke.

Flash took his mineral only while teching to science vessels and dual upgrading his mech. Hyvaa stayed at lair tech and continued to mass hydralisks, sacrificing his economy to build a vast army that almost rivaled Flash in supply. Knowing his opponent was on three bases with a low drone count, Flash was content to defend and wait to complete unstoppable mech army. Hyvaa was forced to comply, unable to do launch any kind of attack on Flash's many tanks, mines and vessels.

Instead hyvaa took his mineral only and tried to power drones late while breaking the goliaths at 6 with a big army of hydrlisks and mutalisk support. Flash tried to expand to 5:00 but hyvaa quickly removed the CC with hydralisks and mutalisks before Flash's army could mobilize to defend. Despite losing all his mutalisks to irradiate the cc went down. In a nifty move hyvaa, left a few of his hydralisks burrowed there after the rest had left, which allowed him to kill yet another command center when flash tried to retake the expansion.

With Flash's expansions delayed hyvaa tried to expand to 12 while making more mutalisks and hydras. Hyvaa's army was able to kill yet another expansion attempt at 5:00, hitting it before the superior but less mobile army of Flash was able to move to defend. Irradiate on the mutalisks proved useless as hyvaa immediately took the irradiated mutalisk and placed it over scvs, killing several. Flash realised the pattern and redeployed a significant portion of his tanks to 5 to hold it but found his high ground above his mineral only being overwhelmed by a mass of pure hydralisks as a result.

Despite having 5 killed again Flash used the distraction to kill hyvaa's 12:00 expansion with a two tank drop, while hyvaa responded by taking 6:00. Flash attempted to take 5 again, and initially repelled Hyvaa's attack on it with his high ground advantage. Although Flash was mined out down to just his mineral only, hyvaa's had also mined out main and natural, which meant successfully holding 5 would even up the economic battle. However, hyvaa used mutalisks to snipe tanks on Flash's high ground before another massive swarm of hydralisks moved in and broke it again, destroying the 5:00 expansion and forcing Flash to GG.

A very nice game by hyvaa, overcoming the early disadvantages with excellent use of mutalisks and hydralisks together to break mech. Flash relied entirely upon irradiate to counter mutalisks, but Hyvaa's great isolation micro of the infected mutalisk made that it an ineffective counter. hyvaa's superior mobility was used very effectively, massing a lot of firepower very quickly in a small area to win a decisive victory over the forces Flash garrisoned there and then rapidly dispersing before Flash's core army arrived. Flash died a death of a thousand cuts, unable to strike hyvaa's swarm of stinging bees with the sledgehammer that was his mech.

Hwasin spawned at 11 in teal while Baby got red at 7 on Fighting Spirit. Baby sent out an early scv and built his rax in the middle of the map for a shorter flight distance to his opponent while Hwasin opted to just 14 cc blind. Neither player had scouted the other so Baby couldn't immediately use his proxy rax to rush but sent out a pair of scout scvs to scout 5 and 11 at the same time. Upon scouting Hwasin, Baby knew his proxy rax gave him an aggressive edge and built a bunker at Hwasin's natural to shut down any hope of a very early expand. Both players teched up to factory, but Baby's tech was obviously faster. Realising Hwasin would still be able to defend a rush, Baby started building a command center of his own while Hwasin was still waiting to clear out the bunker at his natural. Hwasin's siege tanks removed the bunker at the natural, but Baby backed his marines out to a new containment line just barely out of range of Hwasin's tanks on the high ground, but still being in position to delay Hwasin's expansion. It wasn't a position that could be held for long, but it served to delay Hwasin's expansion even further while Baby got his expansion up and running.

Hwasin took everything he had and surged out to break the contain and Baby backed off, refusing to lose a single tank. Hwasin was ahead on supply thanks to his faster second factory which he built to break the contain but Baby was ahead in tech and economy. This supply advantage was extended when Hwasin used a rax to abuse the difference in range and sight range of tanks to snipe two of Baby's tanks without loss.

As both players went to four factories, Hwasin expanded to 12 while Baby headed to starport and dropships instead. Baby's vulture drops in Hwasin's main and natural failed when it was seen by scouting SCVs at 9:00, but Baby took advantage of Hwasin's forces being diverted away and used two vultures to raid and killed many scvs at 12. The dropship full of vultures bounced between 12 and 11 and was able to disrupt mining in the main while more sneaky vultures hit 12. Hwasin retaliated by shutting down Baby's expansion attempt at 6 but despite being an expansion ahead Hwasin was losing countless scvs to dual dropship harass and could barely mine. Vulture drops happening all over his expansions left him barely mining from two bases at any one time, and his minerals were left very undersaturated.

Hwasin gave up chasing the vultures around and tried to exploit Baby's heavy investment and losses in vultures with a frontal assault, knowing that although he'd lost a lot of scvs Baby had paid for that damage by having a smaller army. Hwasin was able to break though Baby's army and push up to his natural although Baby's scvs caused a lot friendly fire damage. Unfortunately for Hwasin, two wraiths appeared to force his tanks back while Baby's new tanks stabilised the front line. With the immediate disaster averted Baby, expanded to 9 and continued his dropship play.

The much stronger economy of Baby had reversed the supply advantage by this point with Baby 20 supply ahead. Although this was almost completely an SCV advantage, Baby still had a considerable army that was strong enough to force Hwasin to use his own army defensive to block Baby's advances on the map. This left Hwasin's mineral lines open to the continued harass of dropships and the moment Hwasin pulled his army back to clean up the drops, Baby's army moved forwards to take position below 12. While you normally have to pay for every inch of ground in TvT, Baby had forced Hwasin to give up yards for nothing.

Rather than risk his advantage with a deeper push, Baby created his own siege line around the top left portion of the map, pinning Hwasin down while he double expanded to 6 and the 4 natural. By this point Hwasin was pretty much out of options with fewer expansions, fewer scvs and a smaller army against a better positioned army. The only thing going for Hwasin was that Baby's very long line of tanks meant his forces were stretched thin and vulnerable to concentrated pressure.

Again Baby showed excellent awareness of the situation and rather than risk his army he pulled back to camp at his five expansions, holding the contain for just long enough to get the economic advantage. This is excellent play, not risking a game winning advantage for an immediate victory. Baby didn't need the contain when he had twice the expansions of his opponent, so there was no need to risk any part of his army in order to create a game winning advantages. Hwasin's attempts to push on the map were blocked by Baby's now centralised army and he was forced to try to expand to 1. Wraith's shut this down and Hwasin's counter drop at 9 was blocked by waiting tanks. Hwasin tried one last failed push before Baby, now doubling Hwasin's supply, pushed forwards on every front. Hwasin didn't have the units to hold him and despite a last ditch drop at 4 the game was over. GG

Fantastic play by Baby. Slightly reminscent of his game with Stork last week, Baby combines dropship harass with speedvulture use beautifully, abusing the speed of the vultures while using his dropships like magnets to lure his opponents army to wherever he desired. Hwasin simply couldn't keep up with Baby whose harass effectively dismantled him, vultures and dropships moving freely through Hwasin's bases, somehow always hitting wherever Hwasin wasn't. Once ahead Baby refused to risk his advantage, always understanding what Hwasin had, what his assets and commitments were and how to meet them. A beautiful game.

Zero spawned at 7 in red while Calm got yellow at 5 on Eye of the Storm. Both players scouted incorrectly with their overlords and both went for 12 hat 11 pool 10 gas. They both mirrored perfectly with an instant lair on the completion of their pool and six zerglings in case of a 9 pool as neither had scouted yet. Both pumped zerglings out and teched to zergling speed, the leftover drones from a 12 11 opening being sufficient to run two hatcheries without adding more. Zerg cannot increase their production capacity without the significant resource and time investment in a new hatchery, so there is no point in having the minerals to run 2.5 hatcheries if you can't add a third.

Both aware of this they invested mostly in zerglings with their early larva while heading to spire as standard. Calm risked an early zergling attack but microed it poorly and was outnumbered, losing a few zerglings sloppily. Zero immediately pressed his advantage and Calm's retreat took him all the way back to the choke at the entrance to his main. Although he could hold this choke Zero could hold the other side just as easily and that's what he did while most his zerglings tore the hatchery down. Calm immediately realised his mistake but it was too late and despite having muta support Calm was forced to attack Zero's zergling line. His hatchery and all his zerglings died before he broke out, and although he killed Zero's zergling army in the process, it wasn't enough. Zero also had mutalisks out and with the added travel time he could defend against Calm's mutalisks. With two hatcheries against one there was nothing Calm could do, he continued to try to win mutalisk wars but after his mutalisk flock was destroyed he was out of options and GGed.

A perfect mirror up to the point Calm attacked. He lost a few more zerglings than his opponent in their first scuffle and that advantage was enough to cause an exponential collapse of Calm's forces if he stayed in the battle. His retreat to his main choke was a mistake though as Zero simply contained and killed the expansion. Calm put himself in a no win situation where he was forced to break out into well positioned zerglings or lose his expansion, and he ended up doing both. Decent play by Zero and not that bad by Calm, that's ZvZ for you.

go.go spawned in yellow at 8 while fOrGG got red at 12 on Great Barrier Reef. Both opened with standard depot rax gas fact, with the difference being that go.go double SCV scouted. Neither player was able to see up the ramp of the other because they both scouted very late. This meant fOrGG's fast double port went unseen, as did go.go's two fact. go.go did see however, that fOrGG's ramp wasn't walled-in and he opened by pumping double upgraded vultures which presented a big threat to fOrGG who was relying on marines to hold his ramp. fOrGG saw the threat with his floating rax and tried to bunker, but it was too late to hold his ramp and all his marines died in defense. However, go.go couldn't kill fOrGG's tanks with mines, and was unable to hurt his economy. Meanwhile the wraiths were destroying go.go's economy, and there was no armory to stop them. go.go proxied a starport at 12 to try and rush a drop up into fOrGG's main but it was clear that it wouldn't work. Having no economy left go.go GGed out.

An interesting game because both players went for builds the other had very little capacity to counter. go.go couldn't do anything against wraiths while fOrGG came very close to losing to the vulturess. If go.go's mines had been placed slightly differently then it is quite possible that go.go would have done just as much damage to fOrGG's economy. Both players went fairly allin with their builds, fOrGG won because his floating rax tipped him off while go.go didn't scout with a rax, and because his build was slightly easier to counter.

Kwanro spawned at 7 in blue while Kal got purple at 1 on Match Point. Kwanro opened with a gasless overpool, a standard defensive opening to stop the Protoss getting too greedy with the assumption of first scouting. I like gasless overpool on two player maps because you can't do much with the speedling or lair openings simply because the Protoss will always scout them, while on the other hand 13 nex is ahead vs 12 hat 11 pool. A drone heavy overpool keeps the Protoss honest without setting back the Zerg that much.

Kal had the micro to delay two drones from expanding for a very long time, long enough for Kwanro to build six lings and still have 450 minerals by the time he finally took his natural. Kal did a forge nexus with a lot of probes, making the cannons just in time to hold the zerglings he guessed were coming with very smooth timing.

Kwanro quickly added a third hat at 11 and teched to lair while Kal rushed out a core and headed to stargate, getting a faster corsair compared to standard timings because of his nex before cannons and Kwanro's delayed natural. Kal's tech pattern was strange, three zealots, a dragoon, a spinning core and a fast robo with his stargate pumping. However Kwanro's scourge scouted everything that was going on, constantly checking unit numbers and looking for a shuttle snipe while he headed for six hatchery hydra.

Kal's corsairs were as good as last week, a +1 corsair pack able to find openings and exploit them easily. Then Kal surprised me by taking his third really early, guarded only by a slow reaver crawling up. Kwanro almost stopped the expansion but the reaver arrived in time to stop Kwanro from trying an attack. This meant Kal was able to take a third base against a six hatchery Zerg with just one gateway, six slow zealots and a reaver. With his economy booming Kal put down a ton of gateways while Kwanro found himself with a big army he couldn't really use, just sitting on the high ground above Kal's third and watching himself fall behind. Things got worse for him when a dt slipped into 11 and despite there being overlords and hydra nearby managed to get ten drone kills.


Kwanro's expression upon seeing it told the story, he knew he'd lost, and when Kal pushed out with a massive army of dragoons, speedzealots and HTs Kwanro didn't have the units to stop it. His economy was behind and Kal overwhelmed him with ease. GG.

A fairly simple game compared to last weeks group, but still decent. Kal's build was extremely finely tuned, a slow reaver coming out just in time to save his third. Taking that third as early as he did was the decisive play, Kwanro scouted well and knew there wasn't any kind of early push happening, he just incorrectly thought he could stop the expansion from happening. Although the outcome was very plain the build itself was a thing of beauty, Kal's constantly active gateway throughout the early game gave him just enough units to hold off the first wave of hydra with the newly produced reaver. Every part of the early build was focussed around that intent to expand and the outcome was that he held when he shouldn't have normally. Kwanro massed hydralisks rather than counterexpanding and then couldn't attack leaving him with no economy and no benefits from having a big army.

The dt's kills were a nail in the coffin but the game was all but over by that point anyway. Kal's build was very good and Kwanro's reaction to it was completely wrong, although by no means stupid (I was as surprised as anyone that Kal had the units to hold his third). If Kwanro had reacted to Kal's economic buildup by strengthening his own economy it would have negated Kal's advantage but by investing in units then leaving them dormant he fell behind. Kwanro played an otherwise solid game and I can't really hold that one wrong decision against him when against a less perfect build it would have been the correct play.

Movie spawned at 11 in blue while Stork got white at 5 on Fighting Spirit. Both players opened standard pylon gateway, scouting clockwise and mirroring nearly perfectly. The only difference was that Stork scouted on 9.5 while Movie scouted on 10, the more intuitive time as the gateway completes. Both added an assimilator, a zealot and a pylon but Stork's probe made it to Movie's base two seconds before the zealot got out while Movie's probe was just too late. If Stork actually worked out the timings and set up a deliberate 9.5 scout in case of cross positions, then that's a very cool move.

Unfortunately for him the huge advantage that is scouting info in PvP was undone when he managed to lose his own scout probe to zealots and let Movie's scout probe tickle his blocking zealot into moving out of the way. Stork really ought to be above making those kind of mistakes. The moment Stork's scout probe died Movie capitalized on the opportunity and rushed towards dts, probably not his intended build but good in the context of Stork's mistake. Both players then took their naturals with dragoons to stop further scouting.

Stork followed his expansion with a one gateway robo opening, massing dragoons out his gateway and relying on his scout probe to give him advance warning of any danger. Movie's scout probe had outlived Stork's by some margin, and he was free to follow-up his expansion with several gateways for faster macro.

The dt rush went ahead but was scouted by a sneaky probe and couldn't get past a blocking zealot on the ramp. The attack on the zealot tipped Stork off and the DT did very little damage beyond getting a few probe kills. Movie's expansion was just as fast as Stork's though and his build was better suited for the macro conversion, already having several gateways ready to flood units. Stork tried to exploit this by rushing to dts himself, a good follow-up given Movie had recently seen his base and had no reason to expect this switch. Combined with a shuttle, it could easily bypass Movie's cannons at the front, and in any case it would unlock tech he needed later. However Movie's play adapted into a very solid, very standard build, quickly adding a robo himself and mirroring Stork, just a few psi ahead.

Stork's attempted expansion at 6 was blocked by a sneaky dt and Stork responded by doing the same to Movie at 12. Both players cleared each other's DTs and took their second expansion in a still perfect mirror, the only difference being army composition. Stork opted to spend his gas heavily on dragoons with a few zealots and ht evening out the mixture. Movie did the opposite, augmenting his early dragoon core with speedlots and archons for a quick break, a far better offensive composition.

Using zealots to lure Stork out of position at 6 Movie threw himself at Stork's natural. Movie's dragoons got in each other's way while cluttering the bridge which let Stork cover his army with storms while the mass dragoons fired away. Movie eventually got across the bridge and once his zealots were finally in range they managed to inflict a fair bit of damage to Stork. Furthermore the battle delayed Stork's probe transfer to 6 while Movie got 12 running as he attacked. Movie's last few units ran away but despite losing the battle he was still five psi ahead, less than he had been before but still in a good situation. As Stork pressed forwards to counterattack two sneaky zealots hit 6, killing a cannon and disrupting the probes that had arrived to mine.

Both players macroed competently but Movie continued to stay ahead by a small margin, either using a more cost efficient unit mix or having a few extra probes. Stork's storm drop on 12 killed just five probes while twenty more escaped due to Movie's immediate response. Despite Stork's best efforts Movie controlled the centre of the map and was free to take 9. Stork went on the offensive and their armies met in the middle, both maxed. Both players stormed and microed competently, Movie showing particular skill in isolating and avoiding Stork's archons while getting his own zealots amongst Stork's dragoons. Again Movie lost the battle by the smallest of margins, losing eighty supply to Stork's seventy but Stork was in no position to capitalise on this advantage. The ramps protected 12 and 9 and attacking across the bridge into Movie's reinforcementswould be suicide. Victory brought Stork no rewards and he was forced to counterexpand at 3 at an economic disadvantage.

Stork feinted at 12 and Movie sent his army to reinforce it allowing Stork to quickly shift direction and hit 9. However despite killing half the probes and disrupting mining, the attack did no real long term damage and Movie's zealots were there fast enough to save the nexus. Any advantage from Movie not mining his fourth for a few seconds was negated by Stork not having his fourth yet. Movie used his map control to start another expansion at 7:00. Although Stork saw the probes maynarding to 7:00, the three cannons there were enough to send Stork's inquisitive zealots back. Another storm drop attempt, this time at 9, was met by another flawless evacuation which left just three probes to die and killed the shuttle with ht.

Movie's macro kicked in and he maxed out twenty psi ahead of his opponent who had just started a counterexpansion at 1. Unfortunately for Stork this gave him commitments at the top of the map which would be difficult to fulfil. The same could be said of Movie's expansion at 7 but Stork seemed to prefer counterexpansions to suppression. The gap between the central walls and the bridge isn't really much of a choke much of a choke but when maxed armies clash it still functions as one. When Movie moved his entire army towards 1 his army spread out into a long column going across that part of the map, naturally forming a concave. When Stork moved his army towards 1 to defend, his army was walking straight into a slaughter.

Seconds before suicide Stork realised he couldn't enter a battle like that and pulled back his front zealots, reorganising his army with frightening speed. As Movie impetuously chased he found Stork reversing the situation, pulling back just beyond the narrowest point of the terrain and spreading himself out, microing a maxed army with ease. Again both players microed nicely, Stork exploiting positioning and storms better while Movie microed his zealots to keep them alive and mix them up in Stork's dragoons which both keeps them away from the dangerous archons and keeps dragoon fire away from his archons. Although the battle was devastating to both armies Movie scraped through as the victor.

Dts stopped Movie from being able to press his advantage immediately but Movie took the natural at 7 as the battle started and this placed Stork in an impossible position, pressured economically at 7 and militarily at 1. As Stork headed towards 7 Movie was able to use his larger army to leave a few units at 1 killing the expansion and the rest chasing Stork south. When they fought, Stork's storms were again much better but despite beating Movie's reduced army Stork didn't have the forces left to attempt to break 7. Now two bases behind his map control barely lasted thirty seconds, the next wave of Movie's army dominating the map and destroying 3. GG.

A great PvP. The build orders showed how to exploit scouting information and more importantly, how to transition from a lopsided exploitative opening into a very standard midgame. Stork's battle control was better in every battle with some beautiful positioning and storms. In contrast, Movie's zealot micro in battles was impressive (although perhaps a little more time spent storming would be better) and Movie's macro was excellent. Stork didn't fall behind because of macro though. He allowed Movie's expansions to set the pace of the game and was always reacting. When Movie took 9 Stork waited a bit, then attacked and then took 3 to counter. The story repeated itself with 7 and the end result was that Movie always had simply more money to play with. Stork was tactically beautiful to watch, mechanically perfect and yet strategically passive. Movie's play was less visibly sublime than Stork's, just very, very good in an extremely standard way. Despite being outmicroed in every battle and losing all but the final one he still managed to pull out a win and that is worthy of respect.

Pure spawned in red at 7 while Fantasy got blue at 1 on Eye of the Storm. Instead of scouting Pure focused on maximizing his income by going for a blind 13 nex, which is a really strong build on Eye of the Storm. His FE variant added a fast pylon which is notable because it means he didn't rely on the second nexus for psi which in turn means he didn't cut probes, instead delaying his second gateway for a stronger economy. He was extremely fortunate that Fantasy went depot rax gas fact on cross positions and forced to take a slower expansion with no hope of any kind of rush. With two gateways pumping dragoons and a robotics on the way vs Fantasy's one factory, the situation couldn't have been more advantageous to Pure.

Pure recognised the threat vultures posed before his dragoon army got larger amd walled his natural with a pylon and some zealots. When an scv came near, Pure broke his own wall and blindly chased the SCV, oblivious to any ulterior motives from Fantasy. A vulture promptly ran past and claimed three probes before it was killed. Pure attempted to expand towards 9 but a vulture killed his probe and his dragoons seemed unwilling to wait for an observer to catch up. Somehow, even on two bases a piece, Fantasy was keeping pace with Pure's supply count. Pure felt the need to split his army and send six dragoons to 9 to kill a single vulture. Fantasy immediately saw the opportunity for a massacre and pincered the dragoons, a hammer of tanks smashing them against the mines, killing five dragoons and only losing the vulture which he'd discarded at 9. Fantasy followed this massacre with an expansion at 12 while continuing to disrupt Pure at 9.

Both players continued as before, Pure poking around but unable to get near 12 while Fantasy used vultures to steal free kills wherever he could. Pure teched up towards arbiters and when the inevitable big battle happened Fantasy found himself on the move and out of position, and his tanks were caught by speedzealots. However despite not mowing down the Protoss army the way an army of his size would have if it had been prepared, he still forced the back off, and was able to recover the tanks caught in the first stasis.

Pure's attack was unable to get sufficient momentum to secure his expansion attempt at the 10 natural, and although he attempted to save it Fantasy was just able to hold a tank line on the high ground and kill it. Fantasy and Pure simultaneously expanded to 3 and 5, and both players tried to shutting down the other's expansion with vultures and zealots respectively. However while Fantasy was able to defend 3 with vultures, Pure was unable to do anything about the Fantasy's army digging in on the low ground outside his base. Having successfully isolated 9 Fantasy finally dug in like a Terran for the first time in the game, a layer of mines in front of well spaced tanks. Two tanks went to 9 to destroy it while Pure's army was helpless to do anything but watch.

Pure counterattacked with a recall at 12 which was completely undefended thanks to Fantasy's aggressive mobile play. However Pure couldn't establish 6 and trading 9 for 12 still left him a base behind. In a very cool move Pure recalled his original recall army (which was now stranded far behind enemy lines) from 12 to 3 and successfully killed that command centre. However it didn't really matter at that point because Fantasy had been too far ahead economically for too long and suicide attacks did not improve the state of Pure's army. As the recalled units were cleared up Pure realised how far behind he was (70 supply) and GGed.

Quite an interesting game. Pure was given every build order advantage he could ask for and yet refused to take any control over the gane. The fear of vultures turned him into a passive mess, refusing to do anything unless he could be sure vultures wouldn't sneak in and punish him for it. Rather than play in the standard fashion Fantasy used his tanks like a Protoss uses zealots in PvT, keeping them as a mobile clump able to bring a lot of pain on a dug in area that needs cracking. We actually saw a reversal of the usual PvT metagame, Fantasy's vultures acted like dragoons, moving round the map clearing up stray Protoss units and holding a wide front line ahead of the main part of his army. Either because he was forced to or because he just plays strangely, Pure found himself playing passively while slowly expanding. Fantasy took ambitious undefended expansions using aggression and momentum to defend them, just as a Protoss should do. Because Pure skipped reaver tech he couldn't really do anything about it. There's a reason Terran's normally camp and try hard not to overstretch and Fantasy didn't change that, it's just the unique situation made it viable. A speedshuttle would have dismantled Fantasy but it was interesting to watch Pure at least attempt the passive-camping style.

Shine spawned at 4 in purple while Effort got blue at eight. Both players sent their overlords clockwise which favoured Shine who scouted correctly. Shine went 12 pool 11 gas while Effort went 12 hat 11 pool 10 gas, builds which in theory should favour Effort slightly. In practice though the ZvZ triangle isn't an issue these days as players know how to correctly react to everything so they don't end up too far behind. Although Shine couldn't be aggressive even with his faster pool he did get a faster lair up and counterexpanded quickly.

Shine built just two zerglings, rushing his own natural hat the moment his overlord saw Effort's late pool and confirmed the 12-11-10 build. A quick sunken at his natural left Shine fairly safe, playing with slightly fewer drones than his opponent but a much faster spire. Both players powered drones for a while, getting their natural and natural gas mining. Then Effort pumped out a dozen zerglings when he saw his opponent pumping drones with just one sunken to defend. Unfortunately for him Shine had an overlord at his natural seeing this and was able to react during the travel time, squeezing out as many drones while Effort made zerglings and then switching his production to be safe by the time Effort reached him.

Effort found himself with more zerglings but no way of being offensive while their economies were fairly even and Shine's spire was way faster. Shine exploited his spire by rushing some scourge above Effort's eggs which is a really cool move. Both players completely shut down their drone production to concentrate on mutalisk and scourge production which is correct because there is no need for addition minerals when the hatcheries are already producing nonstop. Despite Effort losing one of his first muta to scourge they ended up very even in the midgame, both defensively massing mutalisks.

Shine was the first to move, crossing the south of the map to hit his opponents main, but Effort's army was nearby and they microed against each other without really engaging, neither sure he could get the upper hand in a fight. Then as Shine's mutalisk microed above Effort's base Effort unleashed his mass zerglings. The mutalisks and scourge clashed, with scourge flying into each other while mutas attempted to pick them off. Effort's zerglings were able to penetrate Shine's natural but the drones quickly evacuated and new zerglings in his main stopped too much damage being done. Shine lost all his zerglings, a sunken and a drone in exchange for Effort's much greater zergling force.

Shine gained the upper hand in supply and while Effort began to harass Shine's natural with stray zerglings and nearby mutalisks, he could not inflict any real damage. The mutalisks and scourge clashed again, this time near Shine's natural but again the scourge cancelled each other out and after a few volleys the mutalisks parted, unwilling to risk a fight to the death. Sensing he had the upper hand in mutalisks, Shine returned to attack Effort's main. As two zerglings ran up to Effort's natural Shine hit the main and sniped drones. Effort quickly sent his muta and scourge to defend and was forced to fight a crtical battle over his own main. Both players microed but Shine's numbers couldn't be denied. GG.

A nice game with decent micro by both players. Shine's powerdroning early making just two zerglings from his faster pool was very effective. Effort found himself with a lot more zerglings while Shine made just enough to keep Effort from attacking and maintained a stronger economy. Both players used mutalisks and scourge competently but Effort's zerglings were inevitably wasted while Shine put that value into his mutalisks.