July spawned at 6 o'clock and Flash at 3. Flash opened with a wall at his natural and followed with a biomech/fe opening. July opened with 12 hatch and scouted Flash first, then chose two hatch muta.

Just before July's spire finished, Flash managed to dart a vulture into July's main, where it managed to stop drones from mining, kill 4 drones and 5 zerglings before July's muta hatched and removed the nuisance. Flash's mutalisk defense was more than adequate to defend July's counter-harass. In fact, it seemed like Flash overspent on anti-air defense, forcing July to abandon any aerial assault. Instead, July used his muta to destroy Flash's scouting vulture, which was racing around the map looking for any expansion drones July might recklessly send out as a reaction to Flash's excessive defense. July showed no immediate desire to expand beyond his main and two naturals, content to build up his mid-game army off three bases.

Flash spots July's eventual expansion to 9 o'clock and moves out with his first batch of units: a group of medic/marine, 5 Goliath, 5 Tanks and a vessel. July immediately shuts the attack force down with a mixture of lurkers, lings and mutas. Although July is able to kill all of Flash's MnM, he fails to penetrate Flash's choke and Flash's mech survive. Macroing perfectly out of 6 rax, Flash quickly replenishes his MnM army, preparing to claim the middle of the map as his own.

July buys time by threatening Flash's Vessels with Scourge and forcing Flash to siege and unseige his tanks to deal with lurkers as he crosses the map. When Flash sets up camp outside July's 9 o'clock expansion, July responds by flanking with a large force of hydra/lurk/ling and he's able to take out Flash's tanks and half of his MnM. Delayed, Flash rallies his barracks to the middle of the map and holds ready.

July instantly produces two control groups of Hydralisk and attacks Flash with Hydra/lurk to reduce the Terrans' map control. In the middle of the scuffle, Flash's upgrades finish and July is forced to retreat without his lurkers. July expands to 10 and 11 o'clock and begins producing zerglings again. Everytime Flash moves out into the middle of the map, July beats him back to his natural. Flash's Vessel cloud wasn't getting any smaller, however, and July's lair tech army, while competitive, was beginning to look vulnerable to mass irradiates.

At 120 vs 100 supply (Terran advantage) Flash sent a small control group of MnM to July's undefended expansions to the north and held waited to see what July would do. July chose to counter Flash's natural, but Flash scanned the approaching units and stimmed/positioned/seiged before they arrived, taking full advantage of Terran's range advantage. After the battle was over, neither of July's northern expansions were mining (though they'd been saved with a few lings) and Flash held a 100 to 50 supply advantage.

Abusing his advantage, Flash moved his MnM and Vessel army outside July's rally point. July wasn't completely defenseless, though, so Flash just irradiated all of July's lurkers and then sent his army to complete the job of destroying July's northern expansions. Flash rewards himself by expanding to 1 o'clock and irradiating several of July's hydras and lurker eggs, taunting his zerg opponent. July eventually gets a plague off on Flash's Vessel-cloud, but Flash just sends the affected Vessels back to his base to be repaired.

Flash built up a control group of firebats to compliment his MnM army and finally attacked July's forces, ripping them to shreds despite dark swarm dotting the battlefield, then eliminating July's 9 o'clock expansion. July attacks with the last dregs of his army (hydra/ling with 1 defiler), but a 75 supply zerg army isn't particularly effective when pitted against a 185 supply terran army and July concedes.

Chogosu. Flash is the master of passively directing his opponent and was in total control the entire game, leading July around by his nose. From the moment he over invested in static defense he was telling July what to do (expand). By positioning his army in the middle of the map, threatening expansions, he forced July to stay lair tech to protect his expansions. And by attacking those expansions with small ground forces and looking for July's response, he was able to trick July into a counter that Flash was fully prepared for. Strike one for July.

In last week's recommended game, July spawned at 3 o'clock and Flash at 9. Flash opened with a mech build and July chose a three hatch hydra build. With 7 hydra saved up and his hatcheries rallied July began his push. Flash had 3 vultures outside July's natural and saw it coming from a mile away, but was initially ill-prepared for such an early rush. Flash placed a bunker immediately, but only had 1 marine to put inside it, and so he pulled 11 SCVs to help in the fight.

Surprisingly, July opts to contain Flash, rather than go all in, and techs to muta as Flash fills out his defense with seige tanks. Flash scans the spire when it is half finished and sends 3 vulture into July's natural. One Vulture survives to get into July's main and gets three drone kills before a hydra can eliminate the threat. Flash is able to get turrets up before muta reach him, but July finds a hole and begins killing Flash's SCVs. Unfortunately, Flash then produced a Valkyrie to completely shut down the muta harass.

His tech switch spoiled, July concentrated on building up to a doom drop. Flash for his part switched to MnM to compliment his mech. Flash, having scouted July's expansion to 10 o'clock (but not the doom drop) loads a dropship with MnM and drops the zerg expansion. July uses his muta to defend the drop, but Flash's Valkyrie erase the muta and the expansion loses the majority of its drones before July can clean it up.

Flash moves out with his army of 10 tanks, and two control groups of MnM and that is when July drops. Flash's Valkyrie spots the drop coming but is unable to prevent it from happening... it does, however, alert Flash to the threat a few moments sooner and as a result July is only able to destroy Flash's Academy, some Terrets and a couple supply depots before Flash clears out the threat.

When Flash moves out again, July delays him with a massive 18 lurker army with a few support Hydra/ling. Unfortunately for July, a mostly lurker army doesn't do especially well against 10 Tanks (some with d-matrix on them) and July is forced to withdrawal and buy time for he Ultra/ling tech to kick in.

In the meanwhile, Flash starts pushing into July's heavily-sunkened expansion at 10 o'clock. Utilizing his nydus and some darkswarm, though, July was able to push Flash back. Discouraged, Flash changes his focus and attacks July's less-defended expansion at 1 o'clock. Although July was able to save the expansion, Flash bought time by using a medic wall to defend his marines as they killed most of the drones.

Both players built up their armies for a few minutes and until Flash decided to become aggressive again after his upgrades finished. Hungry for irradiates, Flash loses his Vessels to a plague and hydralisk, but regardless is able to keep his MnM alive in between two darkswarms at 12 o'clock. In the delicate moments when Flash was securing his third, July gets a MASSIVE plague off and turns most of Flash's army red but, perhaps feeling insecure about his army's size, chooses not to capitalize on the momentary advantage. Instead he saves his Ultralisk for use later.

When July finally does attack it is a beautiful mixture of darkswarm and Ultralisk, but although he kills over 30 marines, he's unable to seal the deal and Flash floats a command center to 6 o'clock, securing another expansion. After regrouping, July attacks that expansion, but using masterful medicwalls, Flash is able to defend the assault. This battle repeats a few times until Flash feels comfortable enough to send half his army to the north to take out July's expansions there. Unable to deflect the 3/3 marines, July admits defeat.

This game was much closer than the previous one and I have to wonder if July would've won had he been prepared to attack shortly after his massive plague on Flash's ground army. Strike two for July.

In game 3 July spawned at 9 o'clock and Flash at 1. July opened with 3 hatch ling w/ fast lair tech while Flash fast expanded and stayed MnM, having placed a bunker for defense.

When July attacks he successfully destroys Flash's bunker and chases Flash's marines back to his ramp, where SCVs come to assist in defense. July killed all of Flash's marines and 10 SCVs, but was unable to penetrate Flash's ramp. Having placed his spire, July already had a follow-up prepared to finish Flash off.

Flash quickly puts up as many terrets as he can afford and turtles as hard as he can for the coming storm. When July's muta hatch he immediately sent them to Flash's ramp, hoping to catch Flash's marines in an awkward spot. There are two terrets above the ramp, however, and Flash is able to fight off the mutas.

Still fully in control and expanding at will, July next chose to rush to hive (for guardians). In the meantime he continued to harass with his muta, though he was a little sloppy at times and lost a few more than he should've.

Not content to merely defend the whole game, Flash moved out at 90 supply and began his assault on July's sunken line. July's first 3 guardians are morphed in time and he used those to defend, but he was a little sloppy with them, and allowed them into marine range where one was picked off by marines and another by irradiate. When July's second batch of guardians finish morphing, Flash was forced back until his reenforcements arrived. July pushed him back again with lurkers and darkswarm.

Next Flash dropped July's expansion at 11 o'clock and killed the nydus canal that was there, pulling July's guardians away from his natural. When he saw that the guardians were out of position, he attacked July's natural, killing all of July's lurkers before the guardians could come back and defend. Flash retreats briefly, expands and it could at that point be said that he was even with July.

July began producing Ultra/ling while Flash began to kill July's least defended ninja-expansions. July, apparently panicing, begins using his ultra before their upgrades are done and his first six are irradiated and killed piecemeal while Flash turtles.

After killing those Ultra, Flash expanded again and moved out with a 173 supply army vs July's 121 supply Ultra-heavy army. July was unable to mount a defense capable of stopping Flash as his army marched straight into July's natural, and then his main. Like the mighty Casey, the mighty July had struck out. T.T

Flash is going to the finals!

One has to wonder if a lurker follow up to the ling assault would've been more successful than muta/guardian. Regardless of any nooby second-guessing, it's difficult to say how Flash was able to mount such an easy comeback after the success of July's opening. Incredible display of TvZ!

Despite the one-sided score, this series was an absolute joy to watch and I hope you take the time to see them if you missed them the first time around.

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Congratulations go out to IdrA for winning Valor!
You should buy dinner for Iris and EffOrt after their GOM games! :D