Match B:
Stork 3-0 ►Advances to Finals
Modesty 0-3 Eliminated

[VOD] Stork < Aztec > Modesty
[VOD] Stork < Gladiator > Modesty
[VOD] Stork < Pathfinder > Modesty
[VOD] Stork < Icarus > Modesty
[VOD] Stork < Aztec > Modesty

Modesty spawned at 12 in purple while Stork got red at 8 on Aztec. Modesty went with an overpool and scouted correctly with his overlord while Stork scouted the wrong site and had to blind forge. Modesty followed with a quick expansion and then made six zerglings but Stork stayed safe with a nexus followed by two cannons. Stork delayed pumping probes and went for a fast gateway and gas while Modesty went for a quick third base at the 5 natural to allow him to secure four gases off just two defensive lines in the midgame.

(Stork's build was a similar variant on the standard Bisu opening that we've seen him and Kal use quite a lot recently. Rather than get a fast second pylon for continual probe production he cut a probe or two for a faster gas and a core the moment his gateway finished. This was followed by citadel before stargate and a very quick second gas without +1 attack. This was not, as NukeTheStars said, a "pretty standard Bisu build opening". Stork was getting similar stuff but in a different order, the corsairs would be delayed and defensive while the dts would be extremely quick.)

Modesty went for an ambitious six hatch off of lair with spire on the way, delaying his second gas and producing no zerglings in favour of defensive scourge and sim cities. He made a hatchery wall at both naturals and took his fourth base in the 5 main. Stork added a second gateway to coincide with the archives' completion and pushed out with dts and zealots. Fortunately he found Modesty had just one overlord at the 5:00 natural, which was killed by the first corsair which had skipped its scouting duties to go on an overlord hunt. Modesty's third was completely torn up, losing a lot of drones, three sunkens and a hydralisk den before the zealots and DTs could be overwhelmed by mass speedlings.

(I want to stress how brilliant this is because it's built around the type of abusive six hatch builds a lot of Zergs have been attempting recently. The standard three hatch spire five hatch hydra build is extremely safe but Zergs have recognised that a lot of stuff like overlord speed aren't actually urgent most the time and that if they focus their build a bit they can actually grab a quick fourth base and/or a sixth hatchery. It's been really tough to counter because standard Protoss openings get their tech too late or can't break the wallin before the Zerg has six hatcheries online. However Stork rushed his archives, skipping a few probes and going citadel before stargate with a delayed +1 ground because he knew overlord speed was going to be later than standard and that he'd get a window there.)

So, Modesty managed to overwhelm the zealots but with six hatcheries against two gateways that was hardly surprising. However the damage was done, Stork had been given several minutes breathing room to get his stuff together whereas Modesty hadn't been able to power drones at all and had missed his timings. Stork responded by playing his PvT style, putting some units on the map, taking his mineral only and pressuring. Modesty desperately threw down sunkens and powered drones, abdicating map control in favour of just going with the plan to secure four base hive.

(Modesty's plan was as standard as could be, it wasn't wrong. Every Zerg is using this build and doing very well with it. It looks kinda silly when he's making ten sunkens behind a wall to defend but Modesty had nothing to gain from playing the midgame against Stork, he already had his fourth gas and six hatcheries, as far as he was concerned he just needed to get to the lategame. Aztec is a three player map, so by quickly securing the second main and natural you take a commanding position on the map for the late game. Modesty had missed all his timings because of the drone massacre at 5 and the forced speedling production, but the basic plan was still in effect.)

Stork wasn't interested in attacking, instead he secured the skies with a pack of corsairs and just expanded again to the gas base at 11. It's worth stressing how far inside his comfort zone he was at this point. Stork was presented with an unassailable defensive line and a load of zealots and dragoons having total map control. With a pack of corsairs neutralising mutalisk threats Stork had suddenly found himself playing PvT, and anyone who has seen Stork play PvT recently will understand what that means.

Stork got out a single shuttle to ferry zealots into Modesty's main with his mass corsairs as an escort, killing a lot of drones and the spawning pool. Modesty tried a late mutalisk and scourge twitch to try and gather some momentum with a surprise attack in the Protoss main, but Stork was fifty supply ahead by this point and simply counterattacked Modesty at his 5 natural base. His zealots ran in and simply killed the walling hatchery despite seven sunkens hitting them, while the returning mutalisks were made impotent in the face of mass storm. The defences were broken and Stork wiped out the bases at 5 forcing a GG.

This was incredibly standard play by Modesty to the point that I'm not convinced he did anything wrong. The mass mutalisks after a Protoss has that many storms are a bit weak but Modesty's timings were all messed up, he should have been at hive and defilers by that point. I feel that from the DTs onwards Modesty was making the best of a bad situation. Therefore I intend to concentrate on our Protoss hero.

Admittedly he was a bit of a gambler. He lost his scout probe very early, delayed his corsair and then threw his first corsair away without getting any scouting done. There are countless builds he would have been in real trouble against, two zealots and two cannons are simply not enough to defend hydralisk cheese. I would have been way happier if he had at least hidden a second probe on the map early and then scouted once the lings were committed to containing him. It was needlessly risky and I worry for the only hope of Protoss. That said, his build was tight, clever, and most of all, it was right. He came into the game with a clear idea of what he thought Modesty was going to do and then he just killed his opponent. He played to his strengths and made the matchup become a question of macro and map control and there's no player on earth right now who can best him at that game.

Wax's Take: Stork played an extremely clever variant of sair-DT, which essentially won him the game. Going citadel first got his DT out faster than his opponent could have expected, and he followed it up by making a normally incorrect play where he sent his very first corsair straight to Modesty's third base. Though he had to sacrifice this late-first corsair to scourge, he managed to sniped the single overlord that was in the vicinity. Alongside his correct prediction that Modesty would be initially pumping pure drones from the hatchery at his third base, Stork was allowed a very fast and unpredictable DT rush to take a firm advantage.

Match Ratings

Kwark:
Modesty - 3/5(your build got owned, no worries)
Stork - 5/5(very clever adaptation of the opener)
Game - 4/5(HULKSMASH!!)

WaxAngel:
Modesty - 2/5
Stork - 4/5
Game - 2/5

Stork spawned at 10 in green while Modesty got 8 in blue on Gladiator. Stork scouted correctly and saw that Modesty again went for an overpool expansion. Modesty made six zerglings but couldn't attack with two cannons defending, so he took a quick third at 6 while Stork again opted again to skip a second pylon in favour of a faster gas and quick core. Unlike the previous game Modesty couldn't take a quick fourth and Stork went for a quick stargate before citadel, clearly showing he was reacting and adapting to his opponent and the maps.

Both players were as standard as they could be, stargate first with plus one air from Stork and three hatch spire five hatch hydra from Modesty. The citadel finished its speed and his single gateway had produced sufficient zealots to give him map control and allow him to pressure, forcing a few sunkens while Stork got all his tech up. Even on a single gateway Stork was able to secure himself and tech to archives and robotics. Modesty secured the southwest corner of the map by taking a fourth base at his mineral only, and pumped a lot of drones to get six hatch hydralisk macro going.

With enough corsairs massed, Stork started to fly around hunting overlords. He found a gap for a DT to slip into the 6:00 base, and although Modesty reacted quickly, he still lost several overlords and drones before enough hydralisks could arrive. While Modesty's forces were occupied defending that base at 6, five zealots struck at the new mineral only and got it down to 153 hp before returning hydralisks managed to kill them off. At the same time Stork began to take the gas expansion at 12.

(The game was in a weird place at this point. Modesty had succeeded in all his goals, he'd established his third and fourth bases (but was still on three gas), gotten a good defensive force up which was capable of responding to any threat across his relatively narrow front, had a lot of drones and was heading to hive. However he wasn't actually winning, despite everything going as he had hoped. On the other hand, Stork had managed to exert a lot of pressure with one gateway and one stargate while getting all his tech up, making a load of gateways and equalising the gas expansions at three each. Although Modesty was getting to where he wanted to be, Stork was making even better progress while pressuring his opponent with fewer units. Strategic use of a few speedlots, a single dt, a speed shuttle and a pack of corsairs had conjured up threat where none existed. Modesty surrendered map control without a fight while Stork kept on powering to the lategame.

In my opinion this was entirely mental, in the first game Stork had messed with Modesty's plan and Modesty had ended up in a "if I can just hold onto these bases then I can get back on familiar ground and win" mentality while allowing Stork to do anything he wanted. Now one nil down in his first high pressure game against the best player in the world [Editor's note: I never said we weren't shameless instigators] Modesty was in a completely defensive mindset, sticking to the bases he had decided he needed to win and ignoring the reality of his opponent's situation.)

As Modesty kept pumping drones and added lurkers to his defensive line, Stork hit with a storm drop at 6 which did better than it should have. Despite seeing the shuttle coming Modesty reacted slowly and lost a lot of drones, although they were quickly replaced. Meanwhile Stork had finally assembled all the stuff he wanted, with two reavers, a shuttle and a big ground army with high energy HTs supported by three gas bases. The shadows that Modesty had been fighting all game finally materialised into a fully formed late game Protoss army as Modesty hit hive. I find a certain irony in this, Modesty had been sitting in his corner thinking "OH GOD he's gonna kill me any second now, I just know it, pull yourself together man, just hold on and get to hive then everything will be okay" and then just as he makes it to hive Stork shows up with a fully formed lategame Protoss army and the econ to back it up. And then suddenly, PvT: a single, relatively immobile defensive line trying to hold on against Stork's macro and map control.

The rest was fairly predictable. Stork had map control, macro and a lategame PvZ army, add into that the best reaver micro in the world and it was just a bad time to be in Modesty's shoes. Modesty replied with rushed plague and some really nice defiler use and actually managed to grind Stork's first army into the ground as the first push tore up his 6:00 base, but it wasn't enough. Modesty hadn't expanded in the midgame and had forfeited map control, his only hope at this point was a hidden expansion and Stork immediately scouted that at 3. Stork could take the bonus mineral only expansion (it's not a real expansion, just a few minerals that you can get if you have map control and lose the moment you lose map control) and kept up the pressure. Stork struck with another force at Modesty's mineral only and managed to finish it off before being worn-down through more attrition, but it just didn't matter at this point, Stork was expanding again to 9. It was one hundred and twenty supply against forty and he just hulksmashed his opponent. GG.

Modesty was way too passive this game. His plan was to establish his four bases with seven hatcheries and get to the lategame but he invested a lot of minerals in midgame units to defend against a timing attack that never came. Modesty thought Stork wanted to stop him from getting to the lategame but with Modesty on just three gas Stork was happy to accept the gift of map control and let the game go long. It was rather ironic that when the hive tech finally happened it was Stork with the reaver, dragoon and storm combo and Modesty lacking in gas income and upgrades, despite the game being played to Modesty's plan. I think he just let his nerves and the first game get to him and lost sight of the game. Meanwhile Stork played PvT. Fast expand, harass, pretend to have units and harass and do stuff while expanding and heading to the late game and then macro/hulksmash/map control/expand more. Sound familiar? Stork was so far inside his comfort zone here that I doubt he'd have been more at home curled up in bed with a hot water bottle and cell phone games. He played exactly like Stork does and these days that's a byword for good. Comfortable, competent and overwhelming victory.

Wax's Take: It was surprising to see yet another Zerg get knocked around by sair/DT, two games in a row at that. If twitter had a PvZ regional setting, "Bisu Style" would be trending like crazy (alongside the new Bisu style: +1 speedlot rush). Modesty made a fundamental error in his anti-Bisu defense by not having sufficient anti-air coverage at all three bases. If you skimp on scourge and go with speed overlords and hydralisks for defense, you cannot match the mobility of corsairs. So unless your hydras are already setup at key locations, some losses are inevitable.

Stork used his corsairs to draw Modesty's hydras towards his natural 9:00, and then quickly changed direction to hit 6:00. There were few hydralisks left at the 6:00 base, which let Stork massacre overlords and slip in his DT. Modesty sent hydras to defend as soon as he realized what was happening, but the damage was already done during the travel time.

Match Ratings

Kwark:
Modesty - 3/5 (execution, not bad, strategy, way too passive)
Stork - 5/5 (forget JvZ, I bring you SvX)
Game - 3/5 (bit more one sided than I really like them)

WaxAngel:
Modesty - 2/5
Stork - 4/5
Game - 2/5

Stork spawned in yellow at 12 while Modesty spawned in orange at 8 on Pathfinder. Modesty opened with an overpool double expansion and Stork responded with forge - nexus - cannon - gateway - cannon. I really don't like that second cannon because Stork had obviously made the judgement that he wasn't getting ling rushed off the bat (or it'd be too late because the gateway came first) and then Stork had a probe in Modesty's main being chased by all of Modesty's zerglings. I'm not sure what that second cannon was to defend against, Stork could see every single zergling on the map and knew that they were in Modesty's main. You can use those minerals to rush tech out without cutting probes and it's just annoying to see a player of Stork's calibre not adapt his build to scouting. Anyway...

Stork's scout probe just refused to die and kept its eyes on Modesty's main and zerglings while he headed to stargate followed by citadel with two gas and plus one ground attack. Modesty went for three hatch spire - five hatch hydra and pumped a lot of hydralisks out to defend against Stork's two gate pressure which was never going to do any real damage. Stork was just trying to put his opponent on edge while teching to storm and harassing with corsairs; the moment the zealots saw how many hydralisks Modesty had they ran straight back to the safety of the cannons. However Modesty had paid a price for his defence, his drone count could have been higher and he had just five hatcheries.

Modesty took the back mineral only at 8 which I don't really like. That narrow path down the left of the map is difficult for hydralisks to defend against storm. However Stork hadn't scouted it and instead sent his first big attack down the middle, a group of zealots backed up by just two HTs. The attack was too early and predictably failed, with Modesty splitting his hydralisks into two groups, one skirmishing with the zealots while the other threatened to snipe the high templar. Stork was torn between rushing forwards with the zealots to engage the sniping hydralisks and leaving his HTs behind, or just letting hydralisks dance in and out of range. He tried to get the most out of his attack, and even managed to get one good storm which did a surprising amount of damage against Modesty who apparently can't micro three groups of hydralisks at once. Still, Stork definitely wasted a lot of troops in a losing battle, and the few overlord kills he got later did little to undo it.

However, Stork's macro was up and running and he had another group of zealots out. He divided them into three forces, the main army looping around and hitting 6 from the right entrance while a few stray zealots ran past Modesty's units into the mineral lines at the natural and mineral only. Although Modesty had more than enough units to defend they were spread poorly, with too many cleaning up the zealots at 8 and too few to wipe out the zealots at 6. He lost many drones and the corsairs again exacted a price on him during the confusion. Stork hadn't won any decisive engagements - the best he'd been able to do was break even at 6 while Modesty was committed elsewhere - but Modesty had completely surrendered map control to Stork's harassment multitasking and the result was Stork taking a third gas at 10. He'd switched into dragoons, ht and observers, the perfect midgame combo and was pushing down the narrow corridor into 8.

Modesty sent a few hydralisks to try and block them and they were massacred by storm. Rather than try and further engage Stork's army which hard countered his own and had significant terrain advantages Modesty all-ined with a counterattack. His hydralisks and lurkers responded by wiping out Stork's natural. The players went into a base race in which both played entirely correctly. Stork had by far the greater force, the perfect midgame army to fight hydralisks and lurkers but he had just two observers and had lost his robotics alongside his natural. Modesty had inflicted more economic damage but didn't have the forces to overwhelm Stork and instead cleverly sniped the observers and used lurkers, turning it into a micro game.

Fortunately for Stork his unit production was concentrated in his main while Modesty's hatcheries were spread between his bases and his tech buildings had been used for walling in. Despite having thousands of gas Modesty failed to morph all his attacking hydralisks into lurkers and instead tried to push up into Stork's main with hydralisks, only to be stopped by speedlots holding the ramp. Meanwhile Stork was move fire microing his dragoons and despite having no detection he was able to pick off the few lurkers that attempted to resist. With his base safe Stork returned to flooding units into Modesty's and promptly won. GG.

I disagree with Modesty's choice to take the fourth that he took, Stork was always going to attack down the left side of the map and Modesty was always going to struggle to defend it with hydralisks. The other natural expansion, or even staying on three bases, would have been better choices. I also feel Modesty could have been more aggressive in the midgame, Stork was primarily using zealots while Modesty used hydralisks and lurkers, clearly the balance lay in Modesty's favour. Stork was able to get damage done because he attacked with small forces on multiple fronts and spread Modesty's forces about, not because he had a superior force. As in the two games preceeding it Modesty responded by shutting down and holding the line which meant that when Stork at last got a legitimate midgame army out he could act freely with it and immediately pressure 8. At that point Modesty would have been forced to create defensive lines on multiple fronts, or just all-in.

Modesty's choice to allin was fine but he needed to lurker-morph all those hydralisks. Stork had no observers and no robotics, but Modesty's hydralisks died to pure zealots trying to force their way into Stork's main. If he'd lurkered them he'd have completely shut Stork into his main. Equally Modesty needed to throw less hydralisks away in a futile defence of 8 and realise earlier that his only hope lay in lurkers and scourge. The realisation that he needed maybe four lurkers to defend came at about the same time he lost his hydralisk den which isn't really ideal. The observers snipes were inspired but there simply weren't the lurkers to back it up.

Wax's Take: It was surprising to see all games take on a similar pattern without significant variation. Stork succeeded at some sort of lair-stage harass in every game, to which Modesty responded by going into turtling-recovery mode, to which again Stork responded by taking map control and a free third gas. Modesty's wonderful Pathfinder game against Kal last week made me think he was capable of mixing it up against Stork as well, but in reality he was trying to play every game like the one on Aztec.

Fans might hate all-ins and one-time-only strategies, but that's really the best play for underdogs. You can't really commend Modesty for trying to go toe to toe with Stork when it did not help him win at all.

Match Ratings

Kwark:
Modesty - 3/5 (strong play but again, too passive)
Stork - 4/5 (you'd have been in real trouble there if he'd sniped the observers faster)
Game - 4/5 (pretty intense at times)

WaxAngel:
Modesty - 2/5
Stork - 3/5
Game - 2/5

Stork won 3-0.

Stork won 3-0.

Well, I'll be honest, I think Stork is going to win this. And not just because I think Fantasy is overrated and gave a shameful display in the semis (although that is undoubtably true) but because Stork is #1 PR right now and deserves it. Right now Stork is the best player in the world bar none. His play is a fusion of the strongest aspects of every Protoss player. He combines his own macro and reaver play (the best in the world) with the legendary pushbreaking ability of Jangbi, the harass of Bisu, the micro of Free and somehow avoids the spontaneous suicide of Kal. His builds are clever, ambitious and exploitative and he has the control to get the most out of it. Time and time again we've seen Stork use reavers to do the impossible and hold off pushes when he should have lost. If Fantasy lets Stork play the game Stork wants to, and Stork is pretty good at imposing his will on the game, he's going to lose. And lose badly. As we saw last week, Fantasy is awful. As we've seen all season Stork is amazing. From this I'm going to go with a 3-0 Stork win.

But, in the spirit of news around the world, I thought I'd ask the uninformed general populace who would win. I asked the TL eve corp (Editor's note: The degenerates who play the game EVE Online) who was gonna win and got the following.

"Stork"
"Stork"
"Stork"
"I'm a fan of Fantasy but I still think Stork is going to win"
"Stork is too good"
"Yeah, Stork is OP"
"Today, er, Song Byung Gu, yeah"

And the scores?
"3-1"
"3-1"
"3-0"
"3-1"
"3-0"

I'll be honest Fantasy, it's not looking good.

Fantasy will take at least one game via a very good build. There's no doubt that iloveoov and Flash will give Fantasy valuable builds and insight into Stork's play, and Fantasy is mechanical enough to be able to pull this off at least once perfectly. However, Stork's momentum is too good to be reckoned with -- Stork was never as good as he is now, and I believe Stork will use this opportunity to finally get himself out of the Kong Line.

Stork should be able to take the series quite easily, unless of course, Flash really is a genius and provides Fantasy with godly insight to be able to take it 3-2. But giving such insight to Fantasy is like giving pearls to swine -- Fantasy is too inconsistent to be able to dismantle Stork's monstrous momentum with raw skill alone -- and Fantasy lacks the game sense to use proper timing attacks. Hence, I believe Stork will take the series 3-1.

I have too much respect for the amount of preparation and focus Fantasy puts into Bo5 series to think that he won't take two games somehow. Even so, I don't think he has a chance of actually causing an upset. Stork is just playing some incredibly good PvT right now, and nothing short of equally incredible TvP is going to stop it.

It all goes to show what a terrible friend Flash is. If he really cared about Fantasy, he would have stayed in the OSL to knock out Fantasy during one of the earlier rounds, as to save him the shame of a third silver medal.