EPT
Dream Team: Nazgul(p), Grrr...(p), V-Gundam(t), Jinnam(z)
The separated group of pro-gamers under one manager. Let loose to do whatever they please, they are brought together in times of dire need (like when they need to kick another team's ass for money).
Greatest Ones: Xellos(t), Chrh(t), Nal_Ra(p), forU(p)
A more traditional "team" than their adversaries. Full of extremely skilled players, who just have some strange hex when they go on TV. And they all look marvelous in their navy suits!
Game 1: Xellos vs Nazgul on Plains to Hill D
This report is longer than the rest, because everyone here seems to care so much about Naz. Xellos started 11:00, while Naz started at 1:00. Naz got off to a good start, when Xellos's scouting SCV missed his base even though it made it's way there first. Nazgul has made his pylon and gateway to the side, so Xellos, who wasn't scouting deep, had to re-check all of the mains.
Both players were thinking of the same thing early on: Island expanding. Nazgul went for a fast robotics bay and shuttle, while Xellos went for a quick dropship as well. Nazgul's first shuttle went to the 3:00 and 6:00 islands, dropping off probes. A nexus was warped in at 3:00 soon after. Xellos loaded his first dropship with an SCV, sending it off to the 9:00. Xellos had done a little preparing, his engineering bay had been built close to the 3:00 and floated there seeing the warping nexus. He loaded up 2 tanks and went for a drop.
With nothing but a warping nexus and a pylon, Xellos went about shooting the pylon while Naz ferried goons up to his isle. When the goons came to kill the tanks, Xellos tried to make a quick retreat, but ended up losing his dropship and tanks. Xellos built a CC at his 9:00 during this time. Naz, on the
other hand, made more shuttles and teched up to shuttle speed.
As both players built up, Xellos tried another drop. This time it was 4 tanks. The tanks shot a few probes, before Naz promptly sent shuttles full of reinforcements, which forced Xellos to run again. Not to be daunted, Xellos continued to make more factories and started building a command center at his natural.
It was at this time that Naz caught Xellos off-guard. Nazgul sent 3 shuttles and dropped off 8 speedzeals and 2 goons in Xellos's main. Xellos was short on units, and scrambled to try to stop it best. With the units defending the choke gone, Nazgul sent troops by ground as well. As both sides traded casualties in Xellos's main, Nazgul took the 6:00 isle.
In the end, Xellos managed to save his main after losing several rounds of units from his factory. He also suffered the damage of losing the command center at his natural. After being repelled from Xellos's main, Naz followed a drop at Xellos's isle expansion. Xellos stopped this too, but not before taking heavy SCV damage. Feeling the game rapidly falling away from him, Xellos pulled out a risky maneuver, discreetly building a CC at 7:00. Later, Xellos took back his natural. Naz kept playing safely, expanding to the 5:00 main, while taking care of the 9:00 isle once and for all. The game had already entered the finishing stages.
Naz found 7:00 a little late, but not very. Xellos attempted to save it, but it was a poor choice as he outmatched on the ground. Eventually Naz started doing suicide drops into Xellos's main to free up population for 7 gate carriers. Xellos attempted a final attack, but was unable to even defeat Naz's reduced ground forces. With carriers soon upon him, Xellos conceded the game.
Nazgul defeats Xellos
Game 2: Chrh vs Grrr... on Bladestorm
Chrh started at 7:00, while Grrr started at 1:00. And now we move on to the mid game! Both players played very passively early on. The two players fast expanded (Chrh to his min nat, Grrr to his gas nat), and followed with by taking their other freebie expansion soon after. The two players branched there, Chrh being aggressive and Grrr being defensive.
Chrh started the first real aggressive movements of the game, trying to harass with vultures. Grrr continued to stay in defend & expand mode, stopping Chrh's vulture harass attempts without trouble, and taking the 11:00 gas natural as well. Chrh stepped up his attacks, adding drops to his harassment attempts. They failed to do damage, and ended up being a waste of units on Chrh's part. In the meanwhile, Grrr stayed with only dragoons for the longest time ever. Chrh started expanding to 5:00, starting command centers there, while hoping to extend defense line to cover them later.
Things didn't go Chrh's way though, Grrr choose to engage Chrh's forces whenever they started advancing too far, keeping them from taking 5:00. Chrh did get some valuable mining time from 5:00 before Grrr scouted it out, but was powerless to stop Grrr from razing it when it happened. With victory before his eyes, Grrr... took the 11:00 main, while going for many, many stargates in his main. 5:00 expansions failed, Chrh started on a CC to go to the 9:00 isle.
Chrh tried for his last chance to turn the game in his favor before the masses of carriers ran him over (floated him over). Amazingly, he still had a significantly large amount of ground troops. In a last ditch attack, he was able to crush Grrr's significantly lacking ground troops (all population in stargate carriers!). While Grrr... hung on and waited for carriers, Chrh killed the nexuses at the 11:00 and 1:00 gas naturals. Chrh desperately tried to build on that after the carriers came out.
With Grrr low on cash, Chrh sent small groups of units continuously, trying to disrupt Grrr's resources while keeping the carriers far away from himself. Grrr happily complied, sending his carriers here and there to take care of the units Chrh threw at him. In the end, Grrr proved to have chosen correctly (though we never know what would have happened otherwise), as the expansions and units Chrh built up during the harassing were not enough to take the masses of carriers. GG!
Grrr.. defeats Chrh
Game 3: Nal_Ra vs V-Gundam on Sauron
V-Gundam started at 11:00, while Nal_ra started at 5:00. V-Gundam started with what appeared to be his trademark build. Nal_ra was expecting such a thing, and prepared accordingly. He went for 3-gate range goon with ob, waiting for the marines and vultures to knock on his door. V-Gundam dealt Nal_ra a low blow, flashing 2 factories + some marines, and then expanding ASAP.
Nal_ra tried to compensate, expanding to his nat, and then to the 7:00 main. This turned out to be overcompensating. V-Gundam didn't wait very long after he expanded to attack, he sent out a moderately sized force quickly. Nal_ra did his best to try and delay V-Gundam, but it was of no use. Nal_ra had made himself vulnerable, and V-Gundam was making him pay.
With V-Gundam on the cliff overlooking his nat, Nal_ra tried hard to keep the tanks from advancing within range of the nexus. This worked to a degree, Nal_ra didn't just lie down while he lost his nat. Nal_ra prevented anymore forward advancement, which would have gone all the way into his main. V-Gundam continued to take the initiative, dropping 7:00 to do some heavy probe damage. He also double expanded to the 11:00 main and nat.
Nal_ra was down, but barely managed to hang on. He tried to counter the 11:00 expansions, while precisely stopping V-Gundam whenever he showed anything less than full attention. Tired of Nal_ra's tenacity, V-Gundam applied the final blows. Well, they should have been final blows, finishing off 7:00 and taking his main. Nal_ra still clung on the best he could, fighting until the bitter end.
V-Gundam defeats Nal_ra
Game 4: forU vs Jinnam on Sauron
Jinnam started at 7:00, while forU started at 11:00. ForU gave a preview of the unorthodox game to come, opening with 1 gate fast gas. Jinnam started playing into the scenario of "excessively plain zerg gets raped by bizarre protoss strat." He opened with 2nd hatch on ramp, and 3rd hatch at expansion soon after.
ForU went stargate first. Though Jinnam's overlord had left the toss base after seeing the cybernetics core, Jinnam prepared for corsair tech anyway. He went den, thus suffering only 1 overlord loss while hydras protected the rest. He kept minimal hydras and opted for more speedlings while teching to lair.
ForU's follow-up was a special package for Jinnam (U!), a shuttle with a reaver and 2 zealots. Unfortunately for forU, he landed at the nat, which had a meager 4 drones mining. Still bad for Jinnam, who had mainly speedlings and a few hydras. Jinnam boldly surrounded the reaver with speedlings, trying to get in as many hits as he could before the lings met their inevitable fates. The reaver and zealots focused fire at the hatchery, trying to take it down before Jinnam massed enough troops to overwhelm them. Jinnam succeeded in killing the zealots and reaver, as the shuttle was mysteriously elsewhere. Just as Jinnam's troops left, a speed shuttle arrived with another reaver to finish the job.
While Jinnam recovered and re expanded to his nat, forU hit him with another blow. This time it was combination of everything in Jinnam's main. A shuttle dropped 2 DTs and a reaver, while some zealots ran in by ground. The drop wasn't as successful as it was cute. It killed a fair amount of drones, the spire, and some units, but not quite cost effectively. Anyway, it tied up Jinnam again, and confused him about what the hell forU was doing. Meanwhile, forU expanded and cannoned up.
Jinnam had taken the blows early on, but struck back very hard. ForU had effectively thrown most of his troops at Jinnam in what turned out to be nothing more than a time buying attack, and was low on units. Jinnam showed up at forU's nat with 10+ hydras an 2 lurkers. ForU had 2 zealots and archons defending, but the supporting cannons were all placed close to the nexus. Jinnam used his lurkers to move in, staying out of cannon range. ForU kept his few ground troops near his exp, preparing for a direct attack on the natural's defenses.
Jinnam then made a very critical move. Taking a risk, he took his hydra/lurk and attacked forU's ramp. 1 cannon. Seeing no sense in trying to go up a ramp with lurkers and hydras, forU sent his zealot pair and archons to try to counter Jinnam. Jinnam delayed those easily, morphing lurkers on all the ramps on the way to his base. The hydra/lurk in forU's main went for the gateways, rather than try to attack the probes at the natural from above. ForU gave up his gates, building them anew under cannon cover. Fortunately his robotics facility was already protected by cannons, letting him build a reaver for immediate defense. He lost 4 gateways anyway. Jinnam continued cause forU pain, tearing down his expansion with his reinforcements.
Down 4 gateways, an expansion, and all the probes there, forU managed to live. The reaver from his main, and the many templar from his rebuilt gates were too much splash damage for even Jinnam to try to attack. Jinnam was forced to back off, letting forU get down to his natural and start long distance mining.
Jinnam's dilemma was that he had not expanded at all. The situation worsened when a dark templar killed the drone he had sent to 5:00. So Jinnam made a decision, it was to finish forU off using just his main and nat. Rebuilding his spire, he made mutas to try to shake up forU. ForU was not one to fall victim, however. Having been on the receiving end for the last few minutes, he was still in defend mode. Unable to attack, Jinnam focused on making an impenetrable containment force.
2 bases vs 1, where toss has all the tech and gas in the world. ForU broke out with an exclamation point, having 4 archons as his front runners. Despite the fact that he was fighting uphill, the brute power of archons and storm erased Jinnam's containment from the map. Such an impressive force was prevented from advancing, however. Jinnam used lurkers and scourge, buying himself time for other options. The dam had already burst, however. ForU simply took the long way around, taking a big circle through the map, through 1:00, 5:00, and finally 7:00. A mainly dragoon army arrived to challenge Jinnam.
During their long trip, Jinnam had prepared somewhat. He turtled in tightly at his natural. He had made a little slip though, he couldn't stop the protoss army from simply walking into his main. This was a critical hit for Jinnam, the dragoons holding the ramp could also fire down and stop mining at his nat. The other troops cleaned up the tech buildings in his main. Fortunately for Jinnam, he had taken the lower middle expansion, so he was still mining.
On the opposite side of the map, Jinnam was doing a little better. ForU had run out of cash at his natural, and had expanded to the 1:00 main. He had left the vicinity of the nexus undefended, letting 2 leftover mutas stop all resource mining. Seeing his adversary strapped for cash as well, Jinnam continued to do his best. Giving up his main and nat, he decided to his the situation to his advantage by trapping the protoss troops in his main with lurkers below the ramp. After leaving a sufficient force to keep the toss troops in place, he scrounged up what he could to try and hit protoss's only mining base.
Things did not work out for Jinnam in the end. ForU had a powerful force that he had made from the last resources at his natural, forcing Jinnam to give up on any ideas of attacking 1:00. Rather, the tables were turned as forU turned to attack the southern expansion in the middle. In a spectacular battle, Jinnam barely stopped forU's force even after being liberally sprayed with storm.
However, Jinnam had been forced pull all his troops together to stop this attack. The protoss troops holed up at the 7:00 used this break to come out. Combined with freshly warped protoss reinforcements, they went to 6:00 and received the final GG from Jinnam.
forU defeats Jinnam
Dream Team 3 : 1 Greatest Ones
