EPT
This week in the OSL we answer the age old question; what happens when a Stork fights a Rooster? Todays semifinal features the best Protoss right now and the second best Zerg. Let me take a moment to express my utter disdain for the new Sparkyz uniform - its ugly, it looks terrible on Lux and it's got a random Rooster. This could quite possibly be the worst uniform I've ever seen (except for maybe the old Soul uniform).
Anyway, terrible uniforms aside, I am extremely excited about this match. I've had my eye on Luxury ever since Yarnc made it big in 2006 and its so good to see him surpass his brother. Stork on the other hand is my 2nd favorite player of all time. Now that he is a walking annihilator it so good to watch him display some excellent games. I have high hopes for what should be a very good game between two reletively evenly matched gamers.
Game 1 – Blue Storm
So we come to the first epic confrontation on Blue Storm., Luxury spawning at the top right while Stork warps in at the bottom left. Stork pylons in his natural and adds a forge before sending his probe off to scout while Luxury goes 12 hatch at his natural then pooling. As Stork sees the latish pool he builds his nexus first, followed by the gateway then cannons. Luxury responds almost mechanically with his 3rd hatch at his mineral only. Stork adds his core after a single cannon.
Stork sends his first zealot out to harass, and adds a stargate back at home. The scouting zealot earns his moneys worth by killing off 2 drones with impeccable control before he dies to lings. Seeing only 1 gas taken by Lux, Stork adds a couple precautionary cannons while continuing his tech up to Dark Templar. Lux dual teched to Hydra and Spire while looking threatening with Zerglings. Storks first Dark Templar goes walk about and tries to break into Lux’s mineral only.
Luxury has started to build hydralisks, which is spotted by the DT. It is now clear that luxury intends on breaking Stork with a quick 3 hatch hydra build. Luxury goes all in with his Zergling/Hydra force and manages to kill off the cannons and the forge – but at a price. His hydralisks suffer severe losses and in no time Stork breaks out with a large angry mob of Zealots and High Templar which walk all over Luxury.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/Ro4_2/1.jpg)
All I can say about this game, is that it was disappointing. I know Luxury can play better against Protoss than this so I hope this is an isolated event in this series. He tried a 3hatch hydra build – but delayed it for way too long for it to be effective. Stork’s macro was simply too strong for him and it lead to a very disappointing game. Alas, Stork takes the early lead over Luxury.
Game 2 – Fantasy II
After an abysmal first game, Luxury looked to set things right on a map where he has been very strong. Luxury spawns at the Gaema Gowon position (7) while Stork spawns at Ride of Valkyries (5). Stork opens with the standard 1 gate against Luxuries rather predictable 9 pool. Storks scouting probe sees the fast pool, and must be relieved that he hasn’t gone nexus first. Anyway, Stork adds an assimilator after his gateway and prepares his zealot wall against the impending zerglings. Meanwhile Luxury has a hatchery at his natural and has taken his gas.
Stork remains perfectly calm and techs up to Stargate and Lux adds a hydraden and a third hatchery as expected. Once Stork has a sair out, he looks to move out with 5 zealots and a dragoon. He pushes Luxury’s units back, and starts a pylon/cannons in his natural. Luxury’s hydras arrived on time to prevent any overlord deaths but the sair still sees Lux’s entire tech (he is only just teching to lair now). Stork tries to pressure with a small zealot/dragoon army, but backs odd and expands to his natural.
Luxury, realizing his folly from game one, masses up hydralisks quicker than before and sends them off to pay Storks natural a visit. Stork’s cannons aren’t positioned the best, and the hydralisks are able to kill off some probes and the assimilator. However, within seconds Stork has zealot speed and is able to pressure the hydralisks. Then, with 2 excellently placed storms, the hydralisks start to pop and Luxury is forced to go home. Luxury then takes his mineral only and techs to spire.
Stork seizes the initiative and moves out with a zealot/templar army. However, Luxury has lurker tech up and running and manages to lure Stork over the top of them and thus getting some free hits in against the Zealots. Luxury meanwhile has teched transport for his overlords. So within moments of the upgrade finishing he has four lurkers headed over to Stork. He drops 2 at the natural and 2 in his main and scores a very nice number of probe kills before being dispatched.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/Ro4_2/2.png)
Luxury adds 2 more hatcheries at his mineral only, techs to Hive inn his main AND expands to the 12 island. Meanwhile Stork takes his mineral only. Stork gathers up his ball and moves towards Luxury – his army consisting primarily of Dragoon and Zealots (with some HT and an Archon mixed in). Stork spots Luxury expanding to the Xeno Sky main, and sends a squad of Zealots out to shut down the expansion attempt – which succeeds in killing the defending lings and the Hatchery.
Luxury loads up a large drop into a number of overlords – luckily for Stork an observer spots them. However, Stork misses this and the drop is landed without any problems. Stork luckily has build a number of cannons in his main which deal to the main strike force – but a dual lurker drop in his natural kills almost all of his probes. Stork also expands to the Nostalgia natural. Storks army still holds the center ground preventing Luxury from moving across the map to stop his expos.
Stork catches lux trying to expand to the Xeno Sky main again – so he sends off a strong attacking force to kill the defending zerglings and the hatchery and after a decent fight the succeed. However, Luxury has another drop unloading inside Stork’s main. This time the cannons aren’t enough and the Cracklings tear down the protoss architecture – Stork loses his critical Templar Archives and a number of pylons and cannons.
Luxury begins to play aggressively with Lings, sending out raiding parties to annoy Stork. But now he turns up the heat, and unleashes his first wave of Ultralisks. Very quickly Storks forces are surrounded and butchered by the Kaiser Blades of the ultralisks meaning that they have free reign to attack the Nostalgia natural. Storks reinforcements can’t stop the ravaging Ultralisks (seeing as he had no templar tech for a while) and he loses the expansion.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/Ro4_2/3.png)
Stork catches luxury expanding to the 6 island and kills it off with a DT and a Zealot, but it all too late. Luxury sends his army after Stork’s puny forces and soon Stork is forced to gg.
This game wasn’t that spectacular. Luxury did a nice lurker drop build which had immediate success. He killed a number of probes and was able to expand to 12 giving him an extra unseen gas. Eventually, even though he couldn’t expand the gas from 12 kept piling up and eventually he could mass ultra. From there Stork was totally screwed and lost.
Game 3 – Katrina
So we come to the third match on the Prottoss heaven Katrina, Luxury takes up 6 as his starting position and Stork assumes control of 9. Both players expand before anything else – then stork continues by adding a forg/gate/cannon and begins teching while Luxury builds a pool and expands again to the center expansion. Lux starts a hydraden in his nat and makes a cute little ling wall outside storks base to stop any rouge scouts.
Stork continues normally – adding a second cannon and a stargate and Luxury commits himself to a 3 hatch hydra all in. A brief skirmish outside Storks base between Lings and Zealots/Dragoon results in Luxury’s small group being decimated without any losses for Stork. Storks corsair flies around Luxury’s base and he spots the 3hatch hydra so he adds 6 more cannons for defense. Luxury attacks Stork – killing a cannon and the Gateway.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/Ro4_2/4.png)
Luxury uses his Hydra wisely, killing stray units and buildings and he adds a 2nd hatchery at his center expansion. Luxury then attacks with everything he has – forcing Stork to pull some probes but as expected the hydras are stopped dead in their tracks. Stork adds more cannons and Luxury is forced to regroup. Lux techs up to lair and Stork moves out with a small army of Zealots and High Templar.
Lux adds spire tech, and Stork attacks his center expansion. With the aid of a beautiful Storm and reinforcements Luxury’s army is quickly decimated and Lux loses all sight of victory. As his last few hydra die he concedes the game.
Luxury tried a faster version of the build he used in game one and lost exactly the same way. A very disappointing set from such a talented Zerg player. He just threw his hydra onto the cannons and waited for Stork to send his first attack to kill him. Very disappointing.
Game 4 – Troy
Finally there is something worth commenting on. In the Live Report thread many people thought that Stork's choice to Sair/Reaver or even investing heavily in Corsairs was a bad thing for Stork because apparently he has bad Corsair control. This is far from the truth.
Stork made a name for himself in 2005 when he was named one of the three neo-toss kings. He was doing a lot of interesting stuff in PvT and PvP but his PvZ was limited to one trick only. All he could do was Sair/Reaver. Every other build he tried he got crushed, so invariably he would always end up transitioning into a Sair/Reaver game at some point.
This was very good for Khan back in 2005 when Requiem was a proleague map. Stork used Sair/Reaver -> Sair/Carrier extensively against Zerg on this map, and frequently added Darchons, Archons and Storm into the mix against Zerg Air. Stork's masterful use of Sair/Reaver here lead to two epic confrontations against top tier Zergs - namely Savior and Gorush. Those two games are some of the best PvZ you'll ever watch in your life, they are just that good.
Stork's Sair/Reaver was a very potent weapon, worthy of being compared to Nal_ra's Sair/Reaver. However, the key difference between them is that Stork often didn't know when to switch from Sair/Reaver into something else. Thus, most of his PvZ losses came after he had attained a huge advantage from Sair/Reaver then failed to transition properly giving the Zerg a change to come back. This certainly was the case in WCG Korea 2006 when Stork lost to Chojja after gaining a huge advantage.
Nevertheless, Stork has refined his PvZ now and is much stronger. But when he turns on the Sair/Reaver I get excited - for I know that Stork's Sair/Reaver play is beautiful and entertaining as hell to watch; and now he knows when to switch.
Stork sets up a nice little Zealot wall in his natural and adds a forge + cannons and a stargate. Luxury techs to Spire which is a good sign for an entertaining game. Luxury expands to 6 and Stork adds a robotics facility looks like some variant of Sair/Reaver. Stork spots the Spire with his scouting sair, and adds a second stargate and cannons at both nexuses. Luxury looks to be threatening with his mutalisk, but can’t get any good shots.
Both players keep massing their respective air units and Stork loads up a zealot drop. Luxury also walls off 6 by killing the assimilators with Zerglings. Stork expands to 3 and drops his Zealots there to kill the assimilators. A scouting ling sees this, and Luxury sends his muta/ling army to stop the expansion – and they succeed. Stork decides to counter with his army of Zealots but are intercepted mid way through their journey by Mutalisks. Shortly Stork has sairs to defend against the mutalisks.
The Zealots go home and the Corsairs chase the mutalisks. After some reinforcements Luxury engages Storks army of Corsairs – and gets completed raped. Luxury is teching to Hive, but his natural gets sieged by Zealots, Reaver and a sair. After the zealots die, the Corsairs and Reaver float around killing Drones and Overlords at Luxurys bases. Stork takes his third, and the fleet continues to kill many drones.
Luxury, despite noe having 5 bases, is dangerously low on drones and Sair/Reaver are raping his forces left, right and center. Luxury, who is visably disappointed, is forced to concede. Stork performs a nice cut-throat ceremony before smiling like crazy and chugging a bottle of Bacchus.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/Ro4_2/5.png)
This game was the best of the 4 in my opinion, although it still was pretty bad. Luxury made some terrible decisions throughout – like engaging Stork’s fleet of +1 Corsairs with nowhere near enough mutalisks. Obviously, he paid the price and lost everything. Once he lost his army it was only a matter of time before Stork would roll him over.
Results
Stork > Luxury @ Blue Storm
Stork < Luxury @ Fantasy II
Stork > Lxuruy @ Katrina
Stork > Luxury @ Troy
Stork 3-1 Luxury
Closing Remarks
Now Bacchus OSL is essentially finished and most of the story is already written. We have the rematch between Bisu and Luxury and the rematch between Flash and Stork. Both series have the potential to be epic – that’s the thing, the potential.
This OSL had the potential to be an awesome OSL. We had the return of the old school with July and Xellos making it back to the OSL. We had Savior looking to turn things around for himself. We had Sea gunning for some kind of individual league accomplishment. But despite all this we ended up with one of the worst OSLs that I can remember.
Let’s start with the opening, it’s a far cry from previous OSL openings and it was tailored towards the fangirls obviously. However, as this OSL has progressed, the intro has grown on me. Although it is different, I like it. After the initial shock of the opening I grew to like seeing the sexiness of Savior’s big, I rejoiced at being able to see the Xellos foot stomp (for perhaps the last time) and I liked the Bisu fly-by. Jaedong still looks like a douche, but meh, its Jaedong.
Like the opening, this OSL started off terrible – it’s only saving grace was Stork vs Flash on Blue Storm, and even then it wasn’t that great. Then we had to endure a painful tiebreaker round – where no good games resulted. To top it off we had 'Demons Forest' removed as it was buggy; the first time ever a map has been removed from the OSL. The games it produced weren't that great either... So after a slow boring group phase, we moved into a potentially epic Ro8. We had Jaedong/Flash (again), Bisu/Much, Luxury/Frozean and Stork/Best.
The Jaedong/Flash series produced some great games as well as the Stork/Best series – but the other two series disappointed. Frozean choked, big time as did Much and Bisu/Lux had an easy path to the OSL Semis. We were all hoping to be rewarded with some epic clashes in the Semis, and we reached a compromise. The Flash/Bisu series delivered – and then some. Games 3 and 4 were the definition of win. We waited for a while, but these games lived up to being called a semifinal.
Then we came to today’s series. Luxury, who has been looking sharp recently, pitted against Stork, who is just awesome right now. Then Luxury chokes and plays some of the worst ZvP I’ve seen in a Semifinal. Seriously, this was the Zerg equivalent of Pusan/July from Shinhan 2005. It was just that bad. His decision making was completely off today, and well… Stork capitalized on it and makes the finals for the second time.
Here’s a couple interesting things. Stork is the fifth player in history to reach consecutive OSL finals, the other 4 members being Boxer, Nal_ra, July and Nada. In the case of Nal_ra and July who lost the first final they came back and won the second one. So history is telling us that Stork is due – this is his time to win. Also, now that Luxury has dropped out of the running it means that Zerg won’t win their 4th consecutive OSL and that there are no Royal Roaders left.
Stay tuned for the OSL Finals and 3rd/4th playoff – they are both set to be great. Bisu will be eager to humiliate Luxury on Troy after their last encounter *cough* 5 pool *cough* and Stork will be eager to defeat Flash after losing to him in the GSI Finals.
Until then!
