EPT
Doggi and Canata opened up this weeks Challenge League games with a TvT on Bifrost, and both players opened up with a two factory build. In fact both players mirrored each other not only in building selection, but also placement, as the first two depots from each player went behind the mineral line and outside the choke respectively.
The first divergence came when Canata chose to build a tank first, and Doggi went straight for vultures with both upgrades in the works. With his first tank Canata saw the vulture threat, and began his own gang of scooters. Doggi took no heed of his opponents early units, and by starting early, he had the numerical advantage very quickly. He sent his first six vultures screaming by Canata’s tank and four vultures, laying mines behnd him as he raced to the table above the mining scv. Using the ramp to his advantage, he was able to prevent the first wave of vultures from Canaata from uprooting him, and it was only the second set that finally stopped his assault. Just as Canata was cleaning up that mess, another four vultures came in and attacked the scv again, this time from below. With a constant rally of vultures from his base, Doggi dominated Canata, who could not get any kind of force together to defend. In an embarrassingly short amount of time, Doggi gained the victory over Canata.
Doggi > Canata
Canata sucked early, and sucked hard. That’s it.
Game 2: Clon (z) vs Soo (p) on Pelennor
Soo scouted Clon right away, sending his probe from his base at five up the map to one. Clon did not scout with a drone at all, and Soo was free to open up his desired strat. A pylon/forge blocked his choke, and his scouting probe then built a pylon and two proxy gates on the rightmost part of the map. Clon decided on a twelve pool, following that with a hatchery at his choke. Upon finding the cannon wall guarding the protoss choke, Clon also took twelve o’clock, which is the standard zerg build on this map anyways.
Biding his time, Soo made zealots from his gateways, and may have just continued doing that until the end of time except for a lucky overlord that drifted over top. With his cover blown, Soo decided to continue blowing as he ran his force of five zealots straight at the only sunken guarding the zerg choke. Jamming his zealots into a corner, and not allowing all of his zealots to attack the sunken, he made things easy for Clon as zerglings pounded the trapped zealots. After ending their lives, Clon destroyed the proxy gates as well as an attempt by Soo to expand to three.
At this point, Soo tried to tech hard to make up for his early screw-ups, and Clon almost let him get away with it, as he seemed to be playing in slow motion. However, not even Klogon could have screwed this up, as lurkers eventually made their way into overlords for a quick drop. With four loaded overlords, he dropped overtop the protoss nexus, ending the game because Soo had decided not to make any more units.
Clon > Soo
A horrible game, where Soo played like a drunk. His wasted his early surprise by not running by the only sunk, and Clon would have had to have been struck by lightning not to win the game after that.
Game 3: Iris[gm] (t) vs Rumble (z) on Requiem
Rumble started at the western compass point, with Iris positioned opposite him at three. Iris looked to take advantage of the topography of Requiem and the difficulty it causes early expand zerg by sending his first marines out to harass the new encampment. However, Rumble was able to bring out some lings just in time, hurling his fist six at the first four marines, and allowing his critters to feed on their bones. Their feasting was short lived though, as more marines came and avenged their fallen comrades.
With the early festivities over, both players settled into their builds, with the terran building up the typical group of MM containing medic and firebat support for the marines. The zerg took advantage of his early second gas by putting up a spire, while defending heavily with four sunken colonies. Indeed, when Iris came to take a look with his first group, he quickly turned around and headed home. Rumble popped his first seven mutalisks and headed over to Iris’ base, using his flyers to harass building scv, stray marines, and misplaced buildings. His harass was very strong, and he did a great job making Iris stay tight.
After getting a hydralisk den and researching the lurker aspect, Rumble continued taking the initiative by setting up a containment of seven lurkers outside the terran ramp. Iris’ army was above his ramp, and he took offense to the zerg trespass. With two scans and some nice micro, thirty MM cleared out the infestation of lurkers, only to be joined seconds later by a couple tanks and a vessel. After turtling for the most of the early game, Iris moved out taking the southern route around the cross. Rumble looked to take his mutalisk/zergling/mutalisk army north in an attempt get behind Iris, but the terran read him like a book, doubling back and raping the counter attack. With this victory, Iris was free to head back set up camp outside te zerg main.
From this point on, Iris was just careful to use his tanks to pound the defense of the zerg while not losing his marines to lurkers. Rumble tried to distract him with more muta harass and lurker runs, but nothing worked, and eventually Iris walked through the expansion. Although Rumble had earlier expanded to eleven, it didn’t matter, and Iris moved his marines into Rumble’s base. The end was quick and brutal.
Iris > Rumble
Rumble really could have had that one, but his inexperience showed as he could not handle the turtle > move out tactic of the terran mass. He needed some higher tech and better micro to put this one away as his lurkers could not be counted on to stop the flow.
Game 4: SaferZerg (z) vs ktf_Autumn (p) on Mercury
OK, I screwed up the liquibet and put the other Autumn in there by accident. But really, who voted against the zerg on this map anyways? Regardless, the game started with the players opposite each other, protoss on the top and zerg on the bottom.
SaferZerg twelve pooled and headed north, as the protoss started an odd build of one gate then… nothing. Alright, he did make zealots, but it was an awful long time before he built his gas and then his second gateway. The zerglings were slow however, and by the time they arrived, Autumn was safe with three zealots. It was at this point the game began in earnest.
Safer expanded to his natural, and added a third hatchery to his nat before making a lair. A hydralisk den followed, and a hydralisk/zergling army formed on the field. Autumn was busy in his own base, teching to templars and making corsairs out of a stargate. These corsairs did very well, as they beat the hydralisks onto the field. They grabbed a hold of multiple overlords early on, and laid a serious detriment to Safer’s macro. Despite that, he was able to take the bottom-middle expansion and build up his hydralisk numbers, while Autumn warped in some dark templars to take advantage of the lack of detection available to his opponent. He reformed his army at the top middle expansion, surrounding the minerals with a ring of cannons that housed his high templars inside for a formidable defense. As attack by the zerg left the protoss reeling, as although his speedlots took care of the zerglings, they could not handle the hydralisk fire from the back row, which were out of range of the cannons defending the minerals. With three hatcheries, the hydralisk numbers were quickly boosted, and Safer launched another attack at the prospective expansion. They surged forward, but a perfect storm in the heart of their ranks forced them to slither back and reposition.
With his nexus now warped in at his expansion, Autumn boosted his macro, creating an army mainly comprised of speedlots, but also with templars and archons for support. He put down an attempted lurker attack from the right with some beautiful storms, and headed down the left half of the map with his army to take care of the bottom-middle expansion that SaferZerg was consolidating. He was quickly forced to turn around however, as a stray probe caught sight of five fast overlords heading up the western edge of the map with intentions of dropping the protoss main. Despite this reaction, the lurker/ling drop did some good damage, destroying the protoss tech including the templar archives, citadel, and robotics. Autumn rebuilt, and again headed down the west route towards the zerg expansion, but in doing so missed a zerg hatchery that has morphing at the mid-east expansion..
Upon arriving, a protracted battle took place, as the speedlots and archons tried to handle the lurker/ling defense of SaferZerg, who was also aided by a couple sunkens in good position between his hatchery and minerals. With repeated storms, Autumn did well to eliminate the lurkers that were defending, but with further reinforcements coming from the south, he was forced to retreat his archons in order to save them for later. A very mature move from Autumn, which showed his experience and patience.
SaferZerg expanded to five and two, looking to take advantage of the time it would take Autumn to regroup. Autumn did so quickly, and this time headed down the right side of the map. He got half-way down, but then ran into that undiscovered expo, which by now was heavily guarded by lurkers and sunkens. Rather than bleeding himself on an unexpected venture, Autumn stepped back and took the trusted left-hand route. He stopped half-way down, and a nexus and cannons quickly sizzled into existence at the mid-west mineral spot. Another zerg drop came to the protoss main, and by now the zerglings were infused with andreal power. Again Autumn lost his tech, as well as two stargates that were creating a fleet of corsairs for Autumn. It took two waves of zealots for Autumn to deal with this problem, and the extended time cost him multiple pylons and additional infrastructure.
Ultralisks were now on the way for SaferZerg, although they had yet to be upgraded and were a slow 2/2. Aided by zerglings, they attacked the new expansion at the mid-west, but some good storms combined with slow ultralisks led to a protoss victory in this encounter. Autumn had again replaced his tech, this time at his natural, and all of a sudden the dynamic of the game changed. A dozen corsairs with +2 atk upgrades made their appearance for the first time, and they rapidly cut a swath through the zerg overlords, which took a major toll on the zerg macro. Although he had massive amounts of banked minerals, SaferZerg had no way to spend them as his shift to ground units left him powerless to stop the onslaught.
With SaferZerg concerned about his overlords, Autumn was again able to expand, this time to ten o’clock. This left the protoss with three mineral sources, while SaferZerg was looking good with five. SaferZerg again attacked with ultra/ling, this time up the right to the top-middle, but another series of great storms and strong archons stopped him once more. While eating up the minerals on the map, Autumn continued to use his sairs to ruin SaferZergs control. Dark templars glided across the map, destroying the two o’clock drones as a dozen ultralisks stood around watching the destruction. Six more overlords came for detection to prevent the killing of the hatchery, but again the corsairs shredded them all. Only with the advent of a spore colony could the ultralisks save the hatchery, but they couldn’t save the drones. Still, SaferZerg could not deal with tese corsairs, and they took another dozen overlords. The kill count must have been to thirty so far, but with many expansions and larvae available, SaferZerg seemed just to shrug off this as a cost of war. He was able to build up a huge ultralisk army despite these setbacks, and ultralisks and defilers finally succeeded on killing the now empty expansion at the top-middle. Upon its destruction, the tide began to turn, and zerglings and ultralisks took apart both the natural and main of Autumn.
With this major blow killing multiple pylons, stargates, and tech, Autumn was on his heels as he only now held ten and nine on the map. He was busy building carriers, but the situation was grim. He headed south once he had three made, and corsairs provided good cover with their d-web, but hydralisks reduced the interceptor numbers rapidly and that limited the effectiveness of the air power. After being able to mass with the cessation of sair harass, SaferZerg eventually managed to run over the last protoss strongholds at ten with his ultralisk/zergling army.
SaferZerg > Autumn
Easily the best game of the night, as the game went back and forth a couple times. If you only dl one VOD this week, this should be it.
Cheers,
Mani
