EPT
Group F: JulyZerg vs Reach / Boxer vs Ddang
First round: Nostalgia
Reach(11) vs JulyZerg(8)
Reach started off by doing a 1 gate build, while JulyZerg did a quick expand to his natural. Reach decided on sairs as his choice of fast tech, while JulyZerg was going up to mutas. July saw Reach's tech and prepared accordingly with a spore colony. There was a bit of building up, during which July started a hatchery at the 6:00 expansion.
Reach's follow up to sairs was a 3 gate speed zealot rush. He had a group of over 10 zealots with speed before July's spire even done. JulyZerg was skimping on defenses to a nearly suicidal level, as he had but 2 sunken colonies when Reach started to come at him with 10 speed zealots.
An odd turn of events and some dumb decision making on Reach's part saved JulyZerg from a quick death. JulyZerg countered with an easily disposable group of speedlings as Reach ran into the zerg natural. Reach saw the two sunkens and was happily smashing them into bits, when he decided to retreat for no reason in particular. In the meanwhile, new troops from his gateways had easily killed off the invading lings with probe support. Maybe Reach was seeing triple, and that it was 30 lings in his base, and not 10.
Reach attacked again with his zealots, but was fended off by the prepared JulyZerg. Reach had enough time to cannon up his main and take his natural before July started getting mutalisks.
While July started massing mutas, Reach was making nonstop archons with the gas he had saved up for the past few minutes. When he got three, he took the archons and a whole lot of zealots to attack.
July's base was lacking defenses yet again, with only 3 sunkens and some mutalisks. This time, Reach didn't retreat from a fight that he had won. With less than 12 mutalisks accumulated, JulyZerg put up little resistance and lost the first game.
Reach defeated JulyZerg
Boxer(8) vs Ddang(5)
Both started with 2 fact builds, which eventually branched into Boxer going faster tanks into an earlier expansion, while Ddang went more vultures into a later expansion. The situation developed into Ddang having a bunch of mines outside Boxer's base to contain him, while Boxer was starting to mass from his faster expansion.
What happened next was a mind blowing series of attacks from Boxer. After using scan to clear the mines from the area in front of his base, Boxer sent a squad of vultures to attack Ddang's natural from the side entrance. The single tank was easily taken care of, but Ddang sent back vultures to defend before the Boxer could do too much damage. But that was not all that Boxer was doing, he was attacking Ddang in the center of the map at the same time. Ddang had some widely spaced tanks in the center to try and take control, but they ended up being perfect targets for vultures with mines. Ddang managed to reestablish his presence in the center, but was shaken up nonetheless.
Boxer didn't stop there, he took another group of vultures and sent them around the map clockwise in a long detour to raid Ddang's natural again. The last attack had been stopped before much damage had been done, but this one turned into a game ender. After taking out the defending tanks, Boxer still had enough vultures left over to pick apart the defending vultures sent by Ddang. Clearing out the natural, Boxer sent his vultures into Ddang's completely undefended main. As Boxer started placing mines and prepared the dissection of Ddang's main, Ddang gave him a GG. A bit quick, but it there was no doubt that the game was over
Boxer defeated Ddang
Second round: Neo Guillotine
Boxer(8) vs Reach(2)
Boxer started with 2 fact vultures, while Reach went for gate-robo-gate-reaver. Boxer had some fun with his first few vultures, killing one of Reach's goons. Reach defended well after that, waiting for his reaver to come out. Boxer assumed Reach was contained for the while being, and started on a CC at his natural.
Reach's reaver came out and arrived at Boxer's natural CC just before it was completed. Boxer let Reach pound away at the 99% complete CC for a while, cancelling it just before it was destroyed. Reach tried to find an opening to drop his reaver, but found Boxer's mineral line too well defended. He was still able to drop on the sides and get off a few good shots on random units. More importantly, he was expanding twice.
After the first drop, Reach picked up an additional reaver and came back with a dual-reaver speed shuttle. Boxer had taken his natural and had defended it well, but had left his main a little open. Fast reactions let Boxer save his SCVs, but he had to expend a lot of time securing his main against the reavers. By that time, Reach already had a billion gates and ground troops.
Trying to make up for lost time, Boxer tried to push. However, he was painfully defeated by a deluge of dragoons and zealots. It was already too late, and all that was left was for Boxer to do his trademark "stay in the game until the bitter end" act. Reach finished off Boxer quickly, with a quick and overwhelming ground assault.
Reach defeated Boxer and qualifies for the Starleague
JulyZerg(11) vs Ddang(5)
July went for the usual 3 hatch exp build, while Ddang went for rax first into bunker rush. July's excellent drone micro made sure Ddang would receive a nomination for the "most humiliating cheese rush failure of '04" award. Ddang followed up with fast tech into a two tank drop.
July did a fairly safe followup after the failed bunker rush, making a few hydras instead of rushing straight up to lair. Hydras shooting from low ground turned out to be a great counter to Ddang's 2 tank drop on the cliff. July continued to make hydras, adding in some lurkers later.
Ddang made 3 rax in his main and tried to make a comeback with marine/tank. He wasn't doing so bad at first, but then July got lurkers. After that, Ddang's forces were continuously defeated, and eventually his main fell to a swarm of hydra/lurk.
JulyZerg defeated Ddang
Final round: Namja Iyagi
Boxer(11) vs JulyZerg(2)
Boxer went for the usual 2 rax build while July went for pool/gas first, and then 2nd hatchery at his natural. The game progressed without incident until Boxer's academy finished and a 2 medics and firebats came out. July's expansion had just about finished at that time, but he was still a while away from lurkers. With only sunkens and zerglings to defend with, a simple M&M force was a big danger.
July had made 2 sunkens and was adding a 3rd when Boxer entered July's natural. He saw that the 2 sunks and lings would be to strong to take on directly, so he opted to move his troops behind the minerals at the natural to prevent mining. This would have delayed JulyZerg greatly, because his first two sunkens were too far away from the minerals. However, his 3rd sunken had been well placed to stop such tactics. Boxer noticed the positioning of the 3rd sunken and started to pull his troops back. Not missing a chance to take the initiative, July pounced on the unorganized, retreating M&M formation. Boxer saved some of his troops, but he lost a fair amount of valuable marines early on. Boxer made the best of his remaining force, by placing them in a bunker on the cliff that could cover JulyZerg's gas.
Boxer had made another group of marines, and sent them to the southern entrance of July's natural. The bunker he made covered not only July's natural gas, but the northern entrance as well. Boxer's plans for 2 way containment were foiled by 2 of July's lurkers on hold suddenly shooting their spines off. Boxer retreated, while July chased him all the way back with lurk/ling.
July pressured hard with lurker/ling, hard enough to force Boxer all the way back up his ramp and completely into his main. A bunker on top of the ramp was what deterred July from trying to finish the game once and for all. Boxer was quite patient, he started a CC in his main, while making tanks to clear the lurkers. July expanded as well, taking the 5 o'clock main.
Boxer pushed out to his natural using tanks, getting his natural up and running just as JulyZerg did 5:00. He sent off one of his trademark dropships to try and mess with the Zerg economy at 5:00, but July was already prepared and didn't take any significant damage.
The extra resources from the natural were put to use, with several more barracks going up and a second engineering bay constructed. July simply massed, making a very large amount of lurkers and lings. He wasn't just stand by and let Boxer take advantage of his new base.
It turned out that the king of micro had too much confident in his unit control abilities. While a bunker would have been very useful in defending his natural, Boxer decided 3 tanks and a bunch of M&M would be enough to stop anything zerg could send. He was very wrong, July's dedicated lurker/ling production had made a force that was not going to be easily stopped by anyone.
Masses of lurkers and lings stormed Boxer natural, and then his main. Boxer did the only thing he could do, and admitted his defeat to the young Zerg player who had just outplayed him in a way that few have dnoe.
JulyZerg defeated Boxer and qualified for the Starleague
