Group J
Hydra < Stats - Eye of the Storm
Hydra > Stats - Flight-Dreamliner
Hydra > Stats - Grand Line SE
      BaBy < Hydra - Eye of the Storm
      BaBy < Hydra - Flight-Dreamliner
Hydra qualifies for the OSL RO16.

Group K
Killer < sKyHigh - Eye of the Storm
Killer > sKyHigh - Flight-Dreamliner
Killer < sKyHigh - Grand Line SE
      Stork > sKyHigh - Eye of the Storm
      Stork > sKyHigh - Flight-Dreamliner
Stork qualifies for the OSL RO16.

Group L
Jaedong > Ssak - Eye of the Storm
Jaedong > Ssak - Flight-Dreamliner
      Movie < Jaedong - Eye of the Storm
      Movie < Jaedong - Flight-Dreamliner
Jaedong qualifies for the OSL RO16.

by Kwark

So, to the first of this week's games. Hydra vs Stats on Eye of the Storm which is unfortunately another one of those games I pick to review because it just made me angry. It's not as bad as their following game, but this one made me angrier.

Hydra spawned in teal at 11 while Stats got yellow at 5 on Eye of the Storm. The game seemed destined to annoy me from the outset as Stats went for a blind thirteen nexus, followed it up with an immediate forge and only then decided to scout. Fortunately he had cross positions and his opponent only overpooled instead of a deadlier 9 pool. Even so, it still gets under my skin because there's simply no need to cut corners. He got away with it but players lose by taking risks like that all the time.

To make matters worse Hydra was unfortunate enough to take the 8 natural before his own for a fast three base giving him an exposed morphing hatchery miles away from support next to the scout probe of a Protoss with a forge. Offensive cannons are a game ender right there if the Protoss has enough initiative to read the situation and see it for the gift it is. Stats is obviously incapable of that kind of on the spot reaction to a situation though, and while I'd like nothing more than to continue to hate him for it, there's a whole game of poor play to cover.

So, Hydra got his three hatchery thing going with just a pair of zerglings, a load of drones and some gas for lair. Standard economic powering. Without zerglings to kill the scout probe Stats could see he was safe to tech and rushed his way to plus one ground attack and speed upgraded zealots. He concealed this from the overlord effectively for a sudden rush, hoping to hit before the Zerg got mutalisks out. The quick four gateways were only intended to produce a single wave to maximize the damage in that timing before switching into corsair production from twin stargates. In many ways this build is a version of the old Nony two stargate build we all know and love.

Stats' refusal to just kill a morphing evolution chamber to break down the wall at 8 confused me because there was only one sunken colony firing at him while he in turn had a dragoon doing the same back. Trying to do a runthrough into a choke with a concave of zerglings is just a recipe for a big mess of bad AI and inefficient damage. Although mutalisks would soon nullify the attack anyway, I still don't understand why many Protoss players refuse to just break a wall down. It's not like fighting their way through a choke saves them any time in the long run when zerglings and drones flood it, nor are the zealots doing anything better with their time, they just get AI bugged when only two of the twelve can attack. It wasn't hugely important this game but it's a pet peeve that keeps coming up.

With the attack blocked the mutalisks went on the offence but the three corsairs Stats had pumped out were sufficient to send them home. A lot of gateways and two stargates quickly gave him overwhelming land and air control, eight corsairs being more than the critical mass needed for careless attack moving. Stats pressured at 10 but saw it was walled off with a whole one sunken and three hydralisks behind the wall firing out. That's a total damage output of 35 vs small units which means that if just two of Stats' zealots were attacking he'd be breaking even. And he had two control groups of them. So he would probably be doing more than he was taking. But whatever, who cares if he's afraid of walls.

But there again, Stats' entire build order was designed to put him in this position. He's on two bases with a load of gateways and a load of lowtech nasty units running around the map while Hydra has three bases with a fourth site secure and is busily upgrading and teching. So really I have to ask the question: Dear Stats. If you never intended to break down a wall, if instead your plan was to take a third base and slowly head for the late game, WHY DID YOU USE A BUILD THAT'S ONLY GOOD FOR MAP CONTROL!?!?!?

This is basic, basic stuff. You have a plan and you use the build order that facilitates that plan. Different build orders are good for different things. What Stats did was waste all his time and energy making an awful lot of low tech units and achieving absolutely nothing. Hydra still took his fourth base when he wanted without any interference from his opponent, just happily executing his own plan involving four gas and upgrades. Stats' build was like an incredibly narrow, very sharp sword and he's trying to bludgeon his opponent to death with the flat of it.

Anyway, stuff is still happening. Stats' fear of walls meant there really wasn't anything being achieved by all these units so instead he decided to expand at 3, mainly because there wasn't much else going on. Hydra sent out a few speedlings and some scourge, I think mainly because he felt he ought to do something, and that went rather well. Stats' zealots moved out the way for the speedlings to delay his expansion while the scourge got their value out of the corsair fleet which was caught on the move.



All in all, if Hydra actually had a plan to get some high tech units with his four gas then it'd be going well. He'd now have a hive almost complete and he could start some crackling abuse while massing ultras and getting ready for a drop or whatever it is he wanted to do. When the observer showed his base where there was just a lair I was therefore a little surprised. After all, he'd not made more than a dozen speedlings in the last few minutes so it wouldn't be too much to ask for some investment to show for it. But alas Hydra is a little deficent.

Some more speedlings hit warping cannons at 3 in order to allow two lurkers to hit it about the same time as Stats got observers out which made the whole exercise pointless. I'm not entirely sure why Hydra was messing about with that stuff to be honest but another look at his main showed he was still on lair. This style is what I like to call 'wrong.' Basically Protoss dominate Zerg midgame because when they get a billion dragoons up with a half dozen high templar mixed in there really is nothing Zerg can do. While Hydra did eventually hit hive it was too late to get any tech worth having out before Stats just attack moved the dragoons into 8. Constant reinforcements and better units kept the Protoss assault going and Hydra was forced to GG.

I feel I've made my thoughts on their play this game pretty clear but I'm inclined to sum up anyway. Stats spent more time fighting his inner demons than he did his opponent, his build designed to smash walls fought his crippling fear of walls to a stalemate. The resulting paralysis gave Hydra the freedom to do what he wanted. Unfortunately what Hydra really wanted more than anything else was to throw hatchery tech units into psi storm and mass dragoons.

by motbob

In game 2, Stats showed that he hadn't practiced for Dreamliner at all. He went Forge-Nexus-Cannon, a build which died easily to what every zerg does every game against Protoss: 9 pool. Watching Stats flail around as Hydra compounded his advantage was painful, but solace could be taken in the fact that Stats completely deserved it. When mutas popped, it was all over.

by motbob

Game 3 was on Grand Line SE. After not dying to Hydra's 9 pool, Stats transitioned to a standard sair opening into a fast templar archives. Hydra played standard as well, getting 3 bases up no problem with a really clean 3 hatch spire --> 5 hatch hydra build. Stats did some damage with his early DTs, but not enough that it was worth the early tech. Of note is the fact that Hydra used burrow to minimize the DT damage (and block Stats's third base for a while).

Hydra returned the fast tech favor by getting Hive really quickly in order to get fast cracklings and a greater spire. His guardians got a lot of probe kills at Stats's natural while also stopping mining. To counter, Stats sent out a ground army that was vastly superior to anything Hydra had, but Hydra cleverly anticipated this by making one million sunken colonies.

For a while, nothing interesting happened. Stats build his nexus sub-optimally in response to a burrowed ling blocking him. He also built a scout for some reason, and made a 4 zealot drop that didn't do anything.

All of a sudden, Hydra was everywhere. He moved to attack the top middle base, pulled back, and immediately dropped the natural of Stats. He attacked exactly where he needed to, and killed zealots and archons when they were cut off from the main Protoss army. All the while, he extended his economic advantage by expanding twice. It was an impressive ending to an impressive ZvP.

by motbob

I didn't have any positive expectations when I started to watch this series. For A-teamers, Skyhigh and Killer and really bad at TvZ and ZvT, respectively. For once, my deductive powers of reasoning led me to the correct prediction: the series was really terrible. Let me tell you about it.

In game 1, everything was super standard. Except for Skyhigh carelessly allowing scouting lings into his main twice, nothing unusual happened for the first seven minutes, with Killer opening 3 hatch muta and Skyhigh opening 1 rax cc. When mutas arrived at Skyhigh's base, Skyhigh stalled with turrets while sending all his MnM towards Killer's base. Because Killer is bad, he didn't have any lings or overlords between his and Skyhigh's base, so he had no idea what was happening until Skyhigh was actually killing his sunkens. After bringing his mutas back to defend and losing them all, Killer gged. 1-0 Skyhigh.

by motbob

Game 2 was not any better. Dreamliner hasn't been played very much, but it already has a reputation for being Z>T. I think this mostly has to do with an easy third gas, but I digress.

Killer and Skyhigh opened with 2 hatch muta and 1 rax cc. When Killer's mutas were building, he put up a really fast third base and had to use mutas to keep Skyhigh away from that base. He lost a few mutas at first, but slowly built up his muta count while, it seemed, Skyhigh did not build up his MnM count. After a while, Killer somehow killed Skyhigh's MnM army, a feat that shouldn't be possible. I had to watch the section where Skyhigh lost his army bit by bit to see if Killer's muta micro was better than I had first seen. It was not; Skyhigh's MnM micro, not Killer's muta micro, was the reason why Skyhigh's army disappeared. Killer proceeded to make his way into Skyhigh's base and kill 2 barracks with his mutas. Skyhigh gged after lurkers joined the party at his natural.

Just pathetic by Skyhigh. A zerg should not be able to kill an MnM ball straight up, no matter how bad the map is. 1-1

by motbob

With dread, I discovered that the video length for the third game was 25 minutes. The horrors which awaited me were too much for any one man to handle. Thus, I console in you, the reader, what I witnessed in the line of duty as a writer for TL. Perhaps after I get this off my chest, I can finally find peace.

The game began with Skyhigh walling off his natural and losing an SCV to a drone in the process, which should never, ever happen. Then again, this is Skyhigh we're talking about.

Killer, with the confidence of having killed one SCV, went 3 hatch to compound what was surely an already insurmountable economic advantage. Little did he know that Skyhigh was utilizing that uber-cheap tactic of Terran players everywhere: mech play. The imba-ness of mech has already been proven by science (see the paper in the SCBW Review by Prof. Sheep, C) and it is not commonly used in pro-matches because of basic etiquette. Apparently, because Skyhigh was a whole worker down, he felt that mech was the only way to come back.

Killer, seeing that Skyhigh was utilizing this unforgivably cheap strategy (OK, I'll stop), massed hydras off of 3 hatch lair and killed 2 depots at Skyhigh's front. He pulled back after he hit Skyhigh's second line of defense (bunkers) and expanded. Apparently, he had been expecting to break in. He made a bunch of zerglings that rushed towards Skyhigh's base but stopped once it was clear that they were useless. Obviously, this was hurtful to Killer's economy. Five drones really would have helped him out a lot.

Killer morphed a bunch of lurkers next to each other in an unprotected location, and a vulture walked past them. All I have to say is that it's a good thing that vulture didn't have mine tech yet, because that would have been pretty disastrous.

When the lurkers morphed, Killer had no idea what to do with them. Eventually he just sat them in the middle of the map, letting them get killed by siege tanks. I guess it was either the siege tanks or his third! If Killer was trying to delay Skyhigh's tanks in their push across the map, he did a really incompetent job of it, taking a lot more tank hits than he should have. Once he engaged Skyhigh, he did a pretty good job of it, using pure lurker/ling to lower Skyhigh's tank count by a lot. Consequently, Skyhigh wasn't able to clear out the lurker defense at Killer's third right away.

Soon after the tank army was decimated, Killer got consume and started bullying Skyhigh's vastly larger army. He pushed Skyhigh into a defensive position, and the Terran couldn't win back the initiative until a drop at the top right took Killer's attention away from his top center base, leaving it open to attack. Coupled with sweet vulture harass at Killer's main, the loss of a base and a whole lot of drones put Killer really behind.

Soon, Skyhigh started laying mines everywhere, and we know how badly Oz Zergs deal with mines. Killer was stymied in his efforts to take out Skyhigh's bases. He couldn't even get close without losing hydras and lurkers to mines and tanks. For five minutes, I watched with an increasingly nauseous feeling as Killer got further and further behind. Maxed mech is not easy to break. 2-1 Skyhigh.

by Kwark

JaeDong spawned at 7 in white while Ssak got yellow at 1. Ssak opened with a rax at his natural which was quickly followed by a command centre and an academy sealing the wall. This was a very fast academy compared to the usual two rax mass marines with the late addition of medics that we usually see but I believe that was intended as a part of the build. JaeDong was just macroing up with a twelve hatch eleven pool thirteen hatch in base while making a lot of drones.

Ssak followed his expansion with fast gas and a factory which was all completely unscouted unlike his academy which couldn't have been more obvious if it tried. Unfortunately cross positions and JaeDong being on just two bases meant he didn't actually have to do anything to defend against a possible mnm play because if Ssak pushed out JaeDong would see it and could just make a wall of sunkens from drones. So although JaeDong hadn't scouted the factory he was also in no way forced to react to the decoy academy tech.

Ssak had hidden his scout scv and was able to sneak it back into JaeDong's base to see the hydralisk den and the lair finish as well as an obvious lack of spire. Meanwhile a poke at Ssak's wall with speedlings checked that no marines were being produced and Ssak only had three marines which tipped JaeDong off about the vultures which were about to push out. As JaeDong took his third at 11 the vultures finished off the speedlings and went to 5 to check for expansions.

Lurkers quickly finished and with another wave of speedlings JaeDong threatened a break but the early tanks of Ssak never gave him an opening. JaeDong correctly realised he couldn't achieve anything and backed off as Ssak started spamming rax and getting a fair sized army up to augment his tank heavy opening. A mutalisk switch by JaeDong killed a few scvs in Ssak's natural but he was in no danger with a valkyrie escorting his mnm, forcing the mutalisks back.

Rather than take a third Ssak opted to pressure JaeDong's third, the lurkers in his path standing no chance against the tank heavy biomech of Ssak. His army appeared a mismatch of hard counters with mines and vultures proving effective against speedlings, tanks smashing lurkers and valkyries doing their thing in the air. The mnm contingent added a little flexibility and support to whatever needed it at the time but was considerably smaller than in standard in TvZ. Oddly enough this one barracks then factory then starport TvZ reminds me a lot of Starcraft II openings and I think it's pretty cool to see it here.

Unfortunately, coolness aside JaeDong is a monster and in this case, a monster with four hatcheries. While a small counterpush with lurkers was wiped out with mines his macro opening and lack of any major defeats let him build a lot of stuff. As Ssak approached 11 JaeDong threw everything he had at the Terran ball and hit that Zerg critical mass. Ssak's units were cost effective at first, especially against the mutalisks, but as the Zerg broke through it turned into a massacre. Unlike the SK Terran style in which the mnm can stim and retreat their way out of most situations Ssak's army was inflexible and static, forced to try and defend the expensive immobile tanks.



JaeDong's map control was short lived as his surviving lurker ling were continually worn down by vultures slipping out and planting mines everywhere. Although JaeDong nominally had the map it became more like two opposing camps with Ssak holding his wide ramp from the middle as he flew a command centre to 12. Then he had moment of idiocy in a game that was, up to now, looking fairly solid.



Damn this!

That kind of blocked any offensive ambitions Ssak had in the short term which was unfortunate for him as JaeDong had just finished his hive and defilers were on the way. Although JaeDong didn't yet have that crucial fourth gas it's still not a situation you like being in. Furthermore JaeDong added a sneaky expansion at 3 after repeatedly having 10 denied to him by vultures. Still, in spite of everything Ssak wasn't in a terrible place, he was at three working bases against three which is ideal TvZ and his base at 12 was an excellent launching pad for harass and pushing against 10 which JaeDong still couldn't take. The problem was both that the fourth gas at 3 put the clock on him and once consume was done it would be 10 acting as the launching pad against 12. Dark swarm reverses the matchup and makes Terran the one who likes lots of room to retreat into in contrast to the normal situation with tanks and lurkers.

JaeDong threw himself at 12 with hydralisks under swarm and Ssak, realising his mass mnm army couldn't stop it, countered by going through the middle to hit 10 and 11. A control group of vultures pumped out by the dual factories cut off JaeDong's army from his bases and the mnm easily slaughtered defending forces to kill the morphing hatchery at 10. However the nydus at 11 kicked in and placed hydralisks and a defiler at the choke to 11 with a dark swarm that Ssak was completely ill equipped to deal with. He still hadn't made the transition into science vessels and while mass mnm vulture make extremely effective raiding parties, simultaneously dealing huge dps and punishing Zerg mobility, they cannot lay siege to a position. Ssak's army was victorious but could simply not press the advantage.



Another wave of mech units pressed out and despite more poor tank control against lurkers he easily swept the Zerg army before him. Although Ssak had lost 12 he had blocked 10, gained map control and had a big army poised next to the hidden expansion at 3. If he had known about it then JaeDong would be helpless to prevent its demise and the game would shortly return to three bases apiece. Unfortunately Ssak didn't know about it and instead used his tanks to add some muscle to the siege at 11 which all went horribly wrong. He found himself caught between mech and bio with tanks on the front lines firing into swarm while a nydus flooded the area with units. He lost a great many tanks and had the rest of his force cleaned up by mutalisks as the valkyries were out of position.

In spite of all this Ssak was still twenty supply ahead and more than capable of launching a big attack at 3 which he now scouted. However during his attack at 11 JaeDong had finally added a nydus at 3 which gave it the instant defilers and constant reinforcements needed to hold and eventually destroy the mech force attacking it. Losing that battle lost Ssak map control and saw his supply advantage drop to just two. JaeDong expanded to 10 and 6 and a minute later Ssak GGed.

I liked this game a lot, especially when compared to the other options I had to review. Ssak's style was unusual and not wholly ineffective while JaeDong was as impressive as ever with his usual faultless macro and dominating style. A few less micro mistakes on Ssak's part, more care in keeping his valkyries with the units they were defending and a single attack on 3 would have made the difference here and given his opponent, that's pretty impressive. They both deserve some credit for this, a good game.

by motbob

Clearly, the fact that Jaedong crushed Ssak on Dreamliner is even more evidence that it's Z>T favored... or not.

Jaedong opened 12 pool gas. His early lings did nothing because of a totally sweet rax/cc/academy wall that ssak threw up at his nat, but the early lings weren't really the point of the build. 12 pool gas lets you get mutas out more quickly than any other build, and that's important on a map like Dreamliner.

When mutalisks got to Ssak's base, Ssak moved his army to the middle of the map and allowed Jaedong to get control over his barracks. Then he let his army be killed by a muta/ling combo. Terrible stuff.

After that, Jaedong put on a mutalisk micro "hospital". He seemed determined to kill Ssak with just mutalisks. After 3 1/2 minutes of bringing destruction and death, Jaedong put up a third base. A couple minutes after that, he took losing 4 lings and 2 drones to a vulture as a sign that he needed to pull back and start powering... or so it seemed. He stopped harassing, but secretly built up a bunch of mutas and got +1 attack for them. When he came back he killed 4 turrets and a bunch of marines and stopped mining at Ssak's natural. OGN showed Ssak with a dazed look on his face shortly thereafter. All this was happening despite Ssak putting in lots of resources to stop it.



After finally getting up enough defense at his base, Ssak boldly pushed out with a group of MnM and some valks. When you're playing against the best zerg in the world, such foolhardiness is swiftly punished. Observe:



Ssak's army quickly died, and so did his chances. Jaedong 2-0.

Jaedong won 2-0.

by WaxAngel

The first match was over in no time at all, as Hydra’s three hatch speedlings rampaged all over Baby’s rax FE. Baby played a slightly risky fast engineering bay build, which left him low on marines and slow to get academy tech. By refusing to build a bunker and relying only on building placement to protect him during his weak window, Baby left himself vulnerable to a speedling break.

Baby barely survived the main zergling attack, but expended all of his marines in the process. Mutalisks and more zerglings soon arrived to apply the finishing touch.

by WaxAngel

After losing so easily in game one, Baby decided to pay Hydra back in turn by starting with an 8 rax at his natural. Hydra played into Baby’s hands with his build, going for a standard 12 hatch. Baby sent his first two marines to kill Hydra’s scouting overlord, which did not expect marines to be out so early.

After removing the overlord, Baby went for a major rush with three marines and eight SCVs. At this point, it became apparent that killing Hydra’s first overlord had actually been a very poor decision. It had alerted Hydra to the cheese rush build way before the actual rush, and his attack timing was far later than the dangerous 1 marine + many SCVs timing.

As it turned out, Hydra was able to defend comfortably, as he already had a creep colony building and zerglings morphing by the time the marines arrived. Baby ended up terribly behind in economy, and tried to do too many things of just a handful of SCVs to recover. Expanding, teching and adding barracks left him with too few marines to fend off yet another speedling attack from Hydra. This time, Hydra didn’t even need mutalisks to clinch the win.

In the post-game interviews, Hydra stated that he had originally planned to play longer, standard games. However, with golden opportunities presented to him to end the games early, he revised his plans to take the easy wins.

Hydra won 2-0.

by Kwark

Stork vs Skyhigh should be good because both of them have reputations for being able to play fairly well. Obviously Stork is the favourite but it's not like Skyhigh is awful. Stork spawned at 5 in white while Skyhigh got 7 in red which immediately favours him. The narrow route between them makes everything much easier for a Terran while playing in the centre favours Protoss. So two thirds of games the Protoss will get a positional advantage but this wasn't one of them.

Stork went for an economic thirteen nexus with a quick second pylon for better probe production with slower dragoons and second gateway. On a map this big it's probably optimal to do such an economic thirteen nex and all in all I like it. He also produced two zealots which alleviates the pressure on gas somewhat while allowing for faster obs. Skyhigh opened depot rax gas as standard and scouted Stork last which meant he was forced into a slow counterexpansion which is fairly unfavourable for him.

Skyhigh's normally timed factory allowed him to throw some mines around and Stork obliged him by walking into each and every one of them. Despite these losses Stork still rushed to arbiters on two gateways with no scouting information. Although obs were a part of his build he committed himself to a low unit count before they were done. Skyhigh however was already pushing with two factories of his own and Stork's first observer finished just in time to see the attack.



The battle was competently microed by both sides with constant vulture reinforcements laying mines to push the dragoons back and letting the tanks do their work. Stork was able to snipe a tank early though and with enough retreating and firing the Terran vulture surge ran out of steam and everything collapsed. I think sieging up and going for a slower push would perhaps have worked better than the fragile, momentum driven style Skyhigh used but that has its own disadvantages.

Skyhigh's next move though is pretty much wrong and makes me wonder if he has any idea how to play this map. He expanded to 9. Protoss loves the centre of EotS. It's like a big happy flanking, storming, stasising, speedlot runthrough killzone. This makes exerting any kind of map control as Terran difficult when the game starts to spread to the rest of the map. With these base sites the Terran wants to keep everything confined to the narrow, heavily cliffed, area in the bottom third of the map and if possible ignore the rest. If he can keep his entire army focussed in that narrow channel then not only is he unattackable but a slow push only has a screen or so to go before it's firing into the Protoss main. If Skyhigh took 6 he would be gaining an extremely useful position, instead he took 9 which commits him into the hell of the middle of the map (Editor's note: He probably wanted a gas base, wot wot.).

Stork responded with an expansion at 3 and Skyhigh realised he had to defend for a bit and, although he did keep vultures moving everywhere, map control went to the mass dragoons. Skyhigh's army was now based on the low ground below his ramp, bridging the gap between 10 and 9, while Stork's faced off against it. Skyhigh could not longer utilise the unflankable route through 6 without exposing himself to a counterattack at 9 but nor could he push into the middle where mass dragoons, zealotbombs and speedlots were waiting. So he simply defended while Stork got arbiters up and took the battle even further north with a 2 expansion. This is a Terran nightmare, Protoss taking the map, forcing the Terran to move out into open ground to stop him and Skyhigh didn't know what to do.

Stork had no such problems and simply recalled Skyhigh's main. On a related note, by taking 6 and defending the ground between 6 and the wide ramp you create a buffer around your main. It is impossible to pass through that area without crossing an expansion which makes recalls into the main much more difficult. Not only did Skyhigh not do this but he also didn't have a single scouting unit between their two bases. The arbiter flew across the map unhindered and hit a base with no recall defences whatsoever.



That incredible oversight pretty much ended the game. Stork's map control was only increased by the retreating of the entire Terran army to save his main and although the recall was cleaned up easily enough the supply block prevented an immediate counter and the loss of an armoury damaged Skyhigh long term. A minute later Stork smashed into the Terran forces in the middle near 9 and overran them.



A vulture counterattack at 2 was stopped by the cannons there and although Skyhigh eventually halted the progress into his natural there was no way he could save 9. GG.

This should have been relatively easy for Skyhigh. Make a load of tanks, build a depot wall in the wide ramp, crawl across the bottom of the map with turrets, depots, lots of tanks and floating ebays. That's the name of the game with those base sites on EotS. Maybe he had something to prove, maybe he wanted to play a distinctive style, who knows. One thing that's worth remembering though is that it was in the middle of EotS that Flash died to Movie last year, it's not somewhere you want to go. Stork for his part played the game like a Protoss should, he macroed up, exploited mobility and then recalled for the win. Completely faultless but meaningless when his opponent was as clueless as Skyhigh.

+ Show Spoiler [How it went down] +

by WaxAngel

Stork started off on the right side while Skyhigh started at the bottom of Dreamliner. Stork began the game by trying to piss off Skyhigh with a gas rush, forcing Skyhigh to put down an early refinery as soon as he saw the scouting probe. This was followed up by a very fast nexus after a single zealot, which went off to harass the late-rax terran.

Skyhigh dealt with the zealot easily, and set about making some aggressive moves. Stork’s fast expansion before gas left him low on troops and tech, giving Skyhigh a window where even four marines and a vulture could be dangerous. Stork cut it close on defense, losing two probes at his expansion but still fending off Skyhigh’s attack. In the meanwhile, Skyhigh had taken his own expansion.

It looked like Stork was going to take an early game build order advantage, but a poorly executed attack by Stork ended up evening the score. Immediately after stopping the four marines attack, Stork sent his entire army of three dragoons to Skyhigh’s natural to see what was up. He really should have known better than to leave himself wide open, since he had just seen Skyhigh’s single vulture survive and run off. Skyhigh completely read Stork’s aggressive use of dragoons, waiting until the dragoons were well on their way to send his vulture back to Stork’s natural, now with mines.

Skyhigh got amazing value for his solo vulture, killing off five probes and two dragoons. On the other side of the map, Skyhigh was wide open as well, but Stork did not have the multitasking to make the most of his three dragoons while trying to defend himself at the same time. The dragoons spent too much time pelting Skyhigh’s barracks, instead of trying to delay the building command center. Eventually, Skyhigh forced the dragoons back with a tank and some SCVs.

The game refused to transition peacefully into the mid-game, with Skyhigh again perceiving he had an advantage and going on the offensive. Three tanks and two vultures attacked Stork’s natural, which was defended by five dragoons. Skyhigh used a constant stream of vultures rallied from his two factories as a shield for his three tanks, which provided the real firepower. Even with two less dragoons than he should have had, Stork’s observer was out, and his excellent micro allowed him to defend without taking any serious damage.

The situation was resolved when Skyhigh’s siege mode completed.


And just when it looked like the hostilities had ceased, Stork’s momentary lack of caution bit him in the rear once more. He set his dragoons about happily removing mines, leaving his ramp completely open for two vultures to simply speed into his main. As both armies had been previously wiped out, Stork lost a very significant amount of probes before his three dragoons could safely remove all of the mines and the vultures.

That finally ended the early game story, and Skyhigh had come out the clear victor. With the food counts near even at around fifty, Skyhigh took his mineral only natural and settled in to carry his lead to a slow victory.

Put in a difficult situation, Stork went for the universal PvT solution: two base reaver into carriers (universal, as in universally guarantees a loss). Stork’s reaver did absolutely nothing to a well prepared Skyhigh, who happily built a ton of factories while upgrading from one armory. Skyhigh then scanned Stork’s carrier tech, and at twenty food ahead, and decided it would be a good time to kill the Protoss off.

By all means, this should have been an easy TvP win. Normally, goliaths would destroy the interceptors from the freshly made carriers, while the Protoss ground troops would be overwhelmed by tanks and vultures. However, Skyhigh displayed some extraordinary mismanagement from his game winning position.

Skyhigh was slow to rally all his factories to his main force, and wasn’t even at full goliath production from all of his factories. This meant he only had a handful of goliaths attacking moving at two carriers, even though he did not have the critical number of goliaths to actually harm interceptors. This allowed Stork to casually ignore Skyhigh’s first goliaths and simply whittle away at Skyhigh’s tanks. When Skyhigh tried to force an advance with tanks, Stork pulled off some textbook micro with his dragoons, culling the most forward tanks with two volleys before immediately pulling his ground forces back.



Skyhigh continued to make too few goliath reinforcements, and soon Stork had four carriers which easily cut Skyhigh’s push down to non-threatening levels. By now, the population counts were even, and Stork had secured his isle expand.



With Skyhigh still committing his ground reinforcements to a very weak push in the center of the map, Stork was free to send his carriers off to Skyhigh’s main while leaving his ground troops to deal with the Terran army. Stork ended up getting the best of both worlds, as he crushed Skyhigh’s carrier-depleted push with a bunch of dragoons and slow zealots, while his carriers got free reign in Skyhigh’s empty main.



Now possessing a critical mass of carriers, Stork separated his dragoons and carriers to threaten Skyhigh on multiple fronts. Carriers picked off factories in the terran main, while dragoons easily went toe to toe with the goliath heavy terran army. The loss of factories quickly began to show, and Skyhigh GG’d out when it was obvious that he would be overwhelmed.

Stork won 2-0.

by Kwark

I was looking forward to this a lot because I'm a huge Movie fanboy and because JaeDong is awesome so whatever happened I was going to enjoy myself. I want Movie to win obviously but even if he gets absolutely humiliated I'll still be able to appreciate JaeDong because from a purely technical perspective, he turns dismantling Protoss players into an artform.

Movie got green at 5, scouted at an appropriate time and when he didn't see his opponent first decided to go forge blind and then double scout. Finally a Protoss who actually plays correctly instead of taking unreasonably high risks for incredibly small payoffs. Meanwhile JaeDong was across the map at 7 in white and was going for the standard twelve hatchery eleven spawning pool opener. JaeDong tried to delay Movie's expansion by blocking it with a drone which was a completely wasted effort because Movie didn't have enough minerals when he started doing it and was only at 440 when the drone died. While he was distracted with this Movie's scout probe had notched up a drone kill, leaving JaeDong two drones behind for his efforts.

JaeDong added a third hatchery at 10 and teched to lair as you'd expect with just enough zerglings to keep his opponent blind. Movie's build was a standard plus one speedlot opening with a stargate first for the essential scouting corsair. Zealot production let him get away with just one cannon although JaeDong's speedlings were denying scouting and a two hatch hydra bust was a possibility and could have worked in this situation. Movie obviously felt that such an attack would be unlikely.

The plus one zealot pressure came off of just one gateway with Movie continuing to tech and build as many corsairs as he could. Rather than commit to an early attack he simply utilized spare minerals, the forge, and the one gateway he already had to get something going. It was a free addition to what he was doing anyway and I love stuff like that. However I do think he could have done more with the speedlots, again the inexplicable fear of Zerg sim cities, even when they only have one sunken behind them, kicked in. Obviously fighting through the choke gets messy but the evolution chamber had only started a second ago, he could broke it down with ease.

One sunken colony really isn't as scary as everyone thinks it is

Instead he chose to run off to pressure 10 instead which makes no sense because if there was sufficient defence at 8 to dissuade him I don't know why he thought there wouldn't be similar defences at 10. JaeDong followed him with speedlings though and was caught out of position as the zealots quickly doubled back and ran into his natural, killing the zerglings in the choke and forcing drones to be pulled in. As JaeDong's zerglings returned Movie moved all his zealots into them which was a huge mistake in my opinion. Two zealots were already through the wall into the natural and it would only take three or so +1 zealots to deal with the zerglings while the others could start wreaking havoc on drones. Just a micro mistake that happens when a few units within a control group have more success than the rest I guess. Although the zerglings were massacred it left all the zealots on the wrong side of a wall now held by drones.

Break in, run out, break in again

The zealots did break in again but mutalisks hatched very soon after and started laying into them from the air. He still killed a lot of drones for very little cost, both in minerals and build, and it was an overall success. JaeDong's mutalisks attacked Movie's main but six plus one corsairs and an archon immediately sent him on his way. Unfortunately Movie assumed that would be the end of muta aggression while JaeDong begged to differ with eight scourge to tip the balance. Movie's corsairs had moved to join the rest of his building army before the cannons in the main were rebuilt, so when the mutalisks struck again the corsairs were out of position and without any cannon support. What Movie should have done was take a look at the situation, realize there were too many scourge escorting the mutas, and respond by evacuating his probes while sending corsairs and archons to defend his main together. Instead what happened was this.



The probes had to evacuate anyway but now it was for considerably longer because there were no corsairs left. Movie panicked and in an attempt to buy time to recover his main decided to send archons and zealots at the Zerg natural in low numbers to try and draw the mutalisks back. Unfortunately for him JaeDong had a wall, which Movie really should have expected to be honest. Rather than attack, he just got indecisive for a bit. By this point JaeDong realised that his mutalisks could win the game outright as long as he could keep pressure on the Protoss main. So he just threw down sunkens everywhere which made life a lot harder for any Protoss counterattacks. An abortive attack at 10 failed horribly and the mutalisks started raiding Movie's natural while scourge kept the stargate suppressed.

Archons without corsair support are pretty useless against well microed mutalisks and JaeDong simply refused to let Movie ever recover corsairs in significant numbers. The archons chased the mutalisks around but with a base as clustered as this, they couldn't touch the mutalisks.



Not only was JaeDong free to slaughter the probes but he also landed a sneaky hits on the archons whenever possible, which is just showing off to be honest. A zealot drop in JaeDong's main killed a few drones but the damage was already done, and JaeDong was thirty supply ahead. After one last suicidal push into a wall with four sunken colonies behind it Movie GGed.

This was a game of missed potential by Movie. His build was very lean and he always had all the stuff he needed to win. His first zealot attack could have done so much more if he'd just had the balls to throw the zealots against the wall and break it down, JaeDong was cutting too many corners and needed to be punished for it. Even then, Movie still did a lot of damage and got ahead. The mutalisks were smoothly blocked by corsairs and Movie found himself with the whole tech tree, an upgrade ahead and map control. It was just one awful decision, to attack move corsairs into his main the moment he saw red on the minimap rather than try and read the situation more carefully, that cost him the game. JaeDong played a strong game as we'd expect, the decision to make a wave of scourge before he even saw Movie's corsair count made for a very well timed corsair massacre. Solid macro, very nice Mutalisk micro, classic JaeDong.

by Kwark

Movie spawned at 3 in red while JaeDong got white at 6. JaeDong opened with an overpool while Movie went for a blind eleven forge and slightly later scouting. His probe arrived at JaeDong's natural at the same time as the forge completed which synced up nicely for reacting to scouting information. Movie was able to immediately nexus followed by a cannon which was the correct play. After six zerglings JaeDong took a third at 9 and then attempted some kind of zergling runby on the single cannon. Movie's probes were in the way and he managed to stop the zerglings without losing a probe although the zerglings were able to chill in the corner above his nexus. This stopped his maynard for a few seconds but with both nexus pumping probes the cost was less than that of an extra cannon. When Movie's first zealot was produced that really should have been the end of that, but some comical mismicroing and self drilling let four half dead zerglings beat a zealot and three probes. What should have been a good gamble for Movie was let down by JaeDong's micro and his own incompetence.

The game continued and Movie scouted JaeDong's lair timing with a probe while teching up to corsairs himself. He scouted the three hatch spire into five hatch hydralisk build. Movie again went for a one gateway speedlot opening which again I like because it's so good to mix a bit of pressure into your build and it makes use of gateway downtime that would otherwise be wasted. Movies zealots hit before JaeDong would have have preferred and got better value for their cost than would have been the case against a proper hydralisk mass.

At the same time Movie was massing up a lot of corsairs from one stargate, getting his plus one air attack upgrade and building a second robotics facility with a support bay. JaeDong's counterpush with hydralisks was able to kill the cybernetics core in the wall but was blocked by a reaver, while Movie's corsairs tore up a lot of overlords without loss.



This was an unusual reaversair build as two robotics and one stargate makes it able to pump reavers faster but leaves it much more fragile in the air, especially against armour upgrades. In addition, Movie made the very interesting decision to get a Fleet Beacon for disruption web upgrade, heavily committing him to corsair/reaver. JaeDong tried to bust the front while there was only one reaver, and Movie's lack of a shield battery made life considerably harder for him. It's almost become standard in PvP to combine reaver expansions with a shield battery so it's inexplicable that Movie could have overlooked this but whatever. JaeDong targetted the reaver and although the attack failed he was able to take the reaver down.



During the attack Movie's corsairs went hunting but JaeDong had stacked all his overlords and kept them moving around the map whenever his hydralisks were busy. As the attack ended they regrouped over the newly produced hydralisks and were beyond Movie's reach. The inevitable reaver drop happened and Movie's shuttle moved directly into JaeDong's base without anything scouting ahead of it where unsurprisingly it was met by hydralisks. Only an immediate retreat saved Movie from disaster but I'm not sure why he did something so risky and predictable. JaeDong meanwhile had realised Movie was on just one stargate and was pumping armoured scourge in a challenge for the air.

Well placed scourge hit corsairs from several angles and killed most of them leaving Movie without any real air control. When he crept an army around the top of the map to drop reavers and a few units at 9 he was only able to cast a few disruption webs and was unable to save the shuttles from scourge. He got good value for his units but was overwhelmed by the superior spending power behind the Zerg's hydralisks. A dark templar drop was foiled by waiting overlords and hydralisks, while discreetly switching to mutas powered by five hatcheries which one stargate could simply not compete with.

Movie was finally making the switch into ground forces with an expansion at 1 and his army actually looked feasible. It had an unusually large reaver component but storm was done and gateways were pumping. The mutalisks caught it without air support but what looked like a disaster for the Protoss became surprisingly benign as an immediate storm avenged the death of two high templar. The mutalisk group took an awful lot of splash damage from a storm and an archon before fleeing without even touching the reavers.

Movie then decided to try one last drop before transitioning into a normal game which may have worked if his army wasn't currently above a burrowed ling. Unfortunately it was and when the reavers got into shuttles, joined the corsairs, and left in the direction of JaeDong's main that kind of game the game away. The result was this.



Movie actually came out of the fight better than I expected but his panicked retreat left no question regarding who now controlled the air. Meanwhile JaeDong had taken 10 and was now up to five bases with mutalisks and scourge suppressing the corsairs and sniping high templar.

What happened next was awful. Movie was trying to expand to 12 but couldn't because there was a burrowed zergling in the way. As both armies faced each other in the middle of the map Movie suddenly 1a2a3aed north in order to kill a single zergling with one hundred and thirty supply of Protoss. Unfortunately he left his reavers behind and JaeDong simply couldn't believe his luck. The swarm surged forwards and Movie lost two reavers before he realised what a stupid mistake he'd made.



Movie tried his best but with his reaver support halved there wasn't much he could do, his army was crushed and JaeDong pushed into his natural forcing a GG.

So, Movie's build. Two robo, one stargate is unusual and not entirely stupid. If you take care of corsairs you can cope with one stargate early, especially with constant upgrading, while reavers are the ones you really need. So in the short term it makes sense. The problem, in my opinion, is that to keep controlling the air as the Zerg gets more hatcheries you need a second stargate and the second robotics doesn't really kick in until that point. The first reaver drop can have two reavers instead of one because of it but that doesn't really justify the cost of the robotics. It was a string of other errors that really cost him though, particularly losing half his corsairs and abandoning his reavers. JaeDong deserves credit for creating constant scourge ambushes to keep the corsair count down and defending perfectly against harass. He was, as ever, really good.

Jaedong won 2-0.