Lost Saga MSL - Week 1 - Page 3

Game 1.
Bisu vs sAviOr.
Neo Harmony is a new map and is currently 5-1 in favour of zerg over protoss. It is very difficult for a FE Protoss to establish a safe 3rd on here. This means that a mobile zerg playing for map control rather than an aggressive win can simply starve the protoss out. The protoss player really must seize map control in the early midgame and maintain the momentum on here in my opinion. Expansions can only be taken and held when the protoss player has a lot of threat keeping the zerg pinned down in my opinion.
I'd judge this map to favour the FE into zeechon timing rush we've seen because the spread out expansions make a unified zerg defence difficult to maintain and a mass of protoss roaming the map covers the otherwise difficult to defend protoss expansions. I think extremely aggressive, macro orientated midgame play is what the protoss player needs to get into the lategame in a good position. On a related note, I predict Best being very strong on this map. This is largely theorycraft and hindsight so we will see if time vindicates me.

Any timings are based off the nevake youtube vod of the game.
sAviOr opened hat pool hat with his 3rd hat going down at the 10 o clock nat rather than the much closer 6 o clock location. In doing this he forced the game to be played across the entire map instead of being localised. Against a large midgame army 10 would be dangerously isolated, being as close to Bisu as sAviOr, and defending it would leave his nat vulnerable. However I believe sAviOr expected Bisu would try a subtler, harassment based opening against which the isolation of the bases is an advantage for sAviOr. Bisu's opening was solid, cutting cannons as he saw sAviOr powerdrone. This allowed him to get a faster than usual gateway and a quick second gas, a very strong opening for a darksair or reaversair build. In a very sloppy lapse of concentration Bisu lost his first scouting probe to a few zerglings. Bisu realised that sAviOr was missing a hatchery and used his first zealot to scout it immediately at 10. Although he caught 3 defenceless drones there he failed to kill any as 2 zerglings fended him off.
sAviOr knew that Bisu had seen him powerdroning. He knew that Bisu had wasted his first zealot. He knew that Bisu had just lost his scout probe. He knew that Bisu liked his tech units. The sudden switch to a speedling rush at 7:20 into the vod was an excellent play and it decided the game. Bisu had 1 zealot, 1 dragoon, 1 cannon, 1 cannon on 90% done and 1 zealot on 50% done. At 7:30 he had 12 zerglings against probes, 1 dragoon and a 80% finished zealot. That Bisu actually survived this is a testament to his absurd skill level although he was so desperate he actually maynarded some probes from his main to his nat to help defend. The attack left his economy in tatters while guaranteeing sAviOrs safety and thus allowing him to pump drones from the moment the last ling was made.
Bisu spent the rest of the game playing catchup. His corsair arrived at the same time as scourge and did no damage. At 9:00 Bisu still hasn't even got a citadel, the most fundamental building for protoss map control, whereas sAviOr is shutting down sair play with his 2 gas scourge and has 5 hat pumping hydraling. The robo support bay finishes only at 9:24 and the shuttle at 9:57.
Just to give you an idea of the economic damage Bisu took from the speedling attack, his robo finished at about 7:40 yet he did not start building his first reaver for over 130 seconds. There was nothing he could do. I could argue that he should have gone reavers faster instead of the corsairs because the corsairs had absolutely no offensive potential and without aggressive map control he was doomed but sAviOr had the capacity to do all sorts of funky shit. With 3 well saturated bases, 5 hats, hydra den and spire sAviOr could do what he liked. Bisu probably felt his only shot at actually surviving the next 2 minutes was to scout continually with sairs. Which is all very well but it was quite simply never going to win. At 9:35 sAviOr expanded again and Bisu at this point had 5 corsairs, 0 shuttles, 0 reavers, 2 zealots, 1 gateway, no citadel. There is no other way to describe this but over. Outexpanded, outmacroed and with a smaller army there was nothing he could ever have done.
The next 15 minutes were an exercise in extreme caution. sAviOr never attempted a head on attack against Bisu's nat, there was no point, he had gained a game winning advantage and was simply playing to hold onto it. Every time Bisu tried to get some kind of offensive going sAviOr distracted him or countered at his expo attempts or dropped. sAviOr played to disrupt him, to distract him, to make sure he always had something more important to do than launch full scale attacks. At 15:00 is the classic example of this. Bisu's only real chance in the game to get something going. He has a decent sized speedlot force supported by sairs and reavers and a 3rd base building, defended only by the aggression and momentum of Bisu's army. Instead of defending and therefore giving up the initiative and letting Bisu expand and get back into the game he launches a small and utterly doomed drop against Bisu's main. Bisu is forced to bring his entire army back at which point a second group of hydra shut down his now undefended expansion attempt. While Bisu was being aggressive he could expand safely but sAviOr disrupted Bisu's game flow and prevented him gaining any momentum. It was quite frankly a boring game at this point. At the time of the drop Bisu's main was already pretty much mined, some crystals already gone completely and the others very nearly. sAviOr was waiting him out, tripping him up, disrupting him, buying time.

sAviOr didn't play this badly, but it was no masterpiece either. It was 3 hat speedling switch the moment the scout probe died. Entirely mundane and very effective if the protoss doesn't expect it. Bisu did very well to stay in the game but the damage was done and sAviOr never let him recover.


Byzantium 2 is balanced so far but we've only seen 7 ZvPs on it. It favours ground based builds as it is very open and the bases are far apart in the corners. Darksair, zealot reaver or zeechon timing attacks into open macro warfare is the name of the game here.
Magma opened overpool speed and Bisu forge expand. Bisu abused the distance between the bases by going nexus then cannons while his probe delayed magma's expansion. Magma didn't actually bother rushing, knowing Bisu would stay safe against it, and instead keeping the scout probe from getting back into his main and eventually killing it. Magma did a very carefully fine tuned build, getting 100 gas fast for zergling speed and then taking 2 drones off to get a fast 3rd base at 3 and a fast lair. Bisu was unable to scout so played safe with 3 cannons, 2 zealots and a goon out before his sair finished. Bisu scouts no third base at mineral only and some speedlings heading towards him so added several cannons before eventually scouting the third base at 3. Bisu's build was extremely safe against most cheeses because the overpool speed into scout denial kept him entirely in the dark.
Bisu went for a slow, safe 4 gate speedlot +1 timing attack opening with some darksair play. This is good on this map but magma is well prepared for it and had 3 gas and lurkscourge. Bisu scouts intensively but keeps losing corsairs.
Bisu expands to the gas expansion at 9 because 12 is dangerously close to zerg and the mineral only is worth less. He uses his zeechon army to run round the map keeping threat high although it is entirely toothless and would never be able to destroy a zerg expansion. Keeping his army mobile in the middle he prevents zerg from expanding all over the map and protects his own expansions. Rather than fight the lurkling he engages it, storms all over it and then backs off, using the archons to fight a rearguard against the lings and getting a lot of kills for almost no losses. By the time observers are done his army reached a critical mass and he could engage Zeros lurkling in a straight fight, doing a lot of damage with a series of great storms while at the same time expanding again.
Bisu kept massing up large armies and forcing engagements with the zerg, keeping him from successfully expanding while at the same time taking 5. Taking 5 was an excellent play because it is the most valuable expansion Magma could take himself as 7 would be hopelessly exposed. Also as a main base it would be deciding if Bisu could hold it while any attack on it would leave Magma overextended. Magma held his own with a series of excellent plagues but took continual and heavy damage from Bisu's storms. Eventually he scouted 5 but after a swarmling attack failed due to darks he had to hit it with his full army. Bisu promptly traded it for 2 of Magmas 3 mineral rich expansions and started a switch to darksair. The darksair switch was incredibly clever. Both players were nearly mined out and had lost their newest and richest expansions, whoever held map control after the inevitable battle would win the game. Bisu fought a delaying action with his army and then broke out with darksair, surprising a starving zerg which had only just taken a new expansion and lacked the resources to adapt to this new threat.
Bisu played a very clever game. His aggressive midgame shielded his expansion across his corner of the map and his 5 o clock expansion left the zerg with no options. Leaving it meant the zerg could not expand across another corner of the map and would therefore starve. Attacking it left his current expansions vulnerable. Bisu forced Magma to trade the working bases of both players while tech switching to render the Magma's army obsolete.


Destination is the home of the zeechon timing attack and therefore I'd expect it here. It has shown a lot of straight up games and I believe it exaggerates the advantages of the stronger player because most cheeses are easily scouted and easily stopped on here. It is slightly Z favoured at 26-20 but not enough to be an issue (unlike it's T>Z lol).
Bisu scouted Zero doing a fast expansion to his third and did a fast nexus counter (although he still went forge before gate which confuses me). It was the ideal Bisu opening for him, an uninterupted progression to a 2 gas midgame in which he could get his core and second gas fast without needing more than one cannon. He also disrupted the zergs attempts to take his nat with his 3rd hat, forcing him to make a fourth there. Bisu went for a simultaneous citadel and stargate then to robo, sair and archives at once exploiting his fast second gas to go to darksairdrop. However he lost his first 2 corsairs to scourge while the zerg powerdroned 3 base 5 hatch 3 gas. Personally I feel his opening was overly complicated. Destination is a map that will favour Bisu playing like Bisu (or Stork for that matter) and by attempting to do something tricky he set himself behind. The darksairdrop was a huge investment in tech and effort and the result was underwhelming. The critical timing window for a standard straightup play had been missed and all Bisu had done was killed 4 or so drones for his efforts. Had he had corsairs to cover his dark drop then maybe it would have been effective, had he killed the main hatch it would definitely been worth it. But he risked his corsairs pointlessly and the entire gambit was an overcomplication of a game which a simpler strategy should have won. The situation called for Bisu to play like BeSt, instead he played like BackHo.
Transitioning into zeechon Bisu attempted to take a 3rd but struggled to defend against 3 gas pure muta combined with some fairly good micro on ZerO's part. A combination of 2 archons, 4 cannons at each base and a half dozen sairs had just secured him and allowed him to attempt an offence when a dozen excellently cloned scourge wiped out his entire sair fleet.
This is huge for two reasons. Firstly in purely material terms the cost of the units lost by each side favour zerg by 750/150 which is no small sum. Secondly it leaves Bisu's army vulnerable to muta harass, most notably stormer sniping. Archons cannot effectively stop stormer sniping against a player with good micro. ZerO produces a lot of hydralisks and makes a few more mutalisks to continually pressure the zealots and deal a lot of damage the moment the archons die in the fight against hydralisks.
Bisu is left with an awful lot of zealots, several archons but no storms yet against a huge army of mutahydra heading towards his third. He has enough zealots to clean up the hydra but without air support they're useless. In a desperate attempt to buy time he suicides two control groups of hydra against the zerg main which does save his third but sacrifices any map control and army supremacy he had. Bisu is forced to produce dragoons against the mutahydra army which are a rather poor solution to the problem as they are equally bad against both when not supported with a lot of stormers. Mutalisks inevitably snipe the stormers and the hydralisks simply move in and take the third and therefore the game.

Bisu's opening was strange and did not play to either to his strengths or the maps. His careless loss of corsairs early made his build impotent. However he was still in good shape and had a stronger army until the corsair snipe. Losing 6 corsairs at once meant his army, although larger, was not able to defend his third and therefore had to be sacrificed to save his third. And you simply cannot sacrifice 24 zealots for very little gain midgame without consquences.