EffOrt, who spawns at the top 12 o'clock position, starts off with a 9 pool - diverging from July, down at 6 o'clock, who opts for a slightly more favorable economy with an overpool. They both throw up their extractor at roughly the same time, but differ completely in what they do with their first 100 gas - EffOrt opts to immediately tech to Lair while July spends it on ling speed.

At this point each player's scouting overlords finally arrive at the others base and get a glimpse of their intentions. Effort immediately pulls back his lings and buys speed as he sees July's heading towards his base, while July in turn upgrades Lair. However - July has no real intention of actually getting a spire and fighting EffOrt in the midgame. He hides lings in the back of his base where the scouting overlord cant see them, sneaks them around its line of sight and down the ramp, giving him an extra 6 or so lings that Effort has no idea exist.

With this advantage of surprise, July simply rushes straight to EffOrt's ramp and - despite a nice ling concave and 2 drones that were pulled to defend, breaks uphill with his superior numbers and begins to wreak havoc in his opponent's main - killing drones and forcing a spire cancel which completely negates any advantage Effort had held. The drones finally clean up the invading lings but Effort, knowing it is futile to continue, types out before July even returns with another attack.

July, who Tasteless starts off by calling a "mammoth force" in the backhanded compliment of the century, spawns at 1 o'clock and sends his overlord in the correct direction towards EffOrt at 9. He again goes for a slightly more economy-oriented build, throwing down his pool at 12 and taking an expansion almost immediately after.

Unfortunately, this time it does not pay off. EffOrt went for a hyper aggressive 9 pool speed and has started upgrading ling speed before July has even begun to gather vespine gas. Effort arrives at July's natural hatchery with a constant stream of speedlings - and despite a decent amount of dancing and stalling with his own ling force by July, he decision not to pull drones costs him and Effort takes down both July's lings and his natural expansion.

The game at this point is effectively over - EffOrt's spire is already going up before July has even hit lair. July, knowing this, makes a last ditch attempt to damage EffOrt by making pure lings and streaming them towards EffOrt's base once his ling speed finishes. He gets up the ramp, but Effort has already thought ahead and put down a sunken colony. July, growing ever more desperate, pulls a drone in a last ditch effort to place an offensive sunken in EffOrt's main. Effort immediately throws down a second sunken, realizing he just needs to defend and the game is his. July makes a valiant attempt to break Effort one last time, but the second sunken arrives at the perfect time to shut him down and he concedes.

The least exciting game of the bunch. EffOrt, at 3 o'clock, despite having very bad success against Calm with his frequent use of 12 hatch, decides to use it again against July - perhaps taking note of July's frequent use of safer/eco builds so far this series. It is a very smart decision, as July indeed does go for the safe 12 pool, giving Effort a major build order advantage.

From that point, the game plays out as ZvZ's with these builds always happen. The player with the earlier hatch/better eco, EffOrt, masses up lings - forcing the weaker economy player to try to match him, which he inevitably cant. The huge ling swarm of Effort arrives right before the mutas pop with perfect timing, and July's weaker force has simply no chance, especially in the wide choke of Neo Medusa. He loses drones, and has to defend with his first mutas - negating the slight advantage in spire timing that he gained from his build.

EffOrt's better economy pumps out mutas rapidly and there is nothing July can do - he types out after a short aerial fight.

Despite the mediocrity of game 3, the fourth game is easily the most exciting of the night. EffOrt, on the left side of the map, opens with a standard 12 pool into expansion, while July on the right pulls one of the ballsiest ZvZ builds I have ever seen in progaming. He builds a proxy hatch in a hidden location at the bottom of the map - purely for building hidden lings as it is not near any minerals.

EffOrt senses something is up as his overlord arrives in July's base and finds the timing completely off for someone with no natural expansion. He sends his initial lings all over the map searching for July's proxy - but in one of the closest scouting calls I've seen in a while, BARELY misses the edge of the creep - and is therefore extremely surprised when July shows up with an overwhelming ling force. What happens next is some of the best ling/drone micro I've ever seen in a ZvZ - EffOrt uses a perfect concave and drone positioning to make his smaller army as cost effective as possible. July wins the fight but with far fewer lings left over than he should, and as EffOrt continues to spawn lings he soon regains control of his natural and throws up a sunken.

Effort's insane defense has clearly thrown July off guard at this point - because he begins to make sloppier erratic moves - rushing his lings straight to EffOrt's main, being extremely aggressive with his inferior mutalisk count, etc. His one major chance to get an advantage - killing EffOrt's red hp natural hatchery - is ignored in desperate attempts to take out drones. With his back against the wall, July brilliantly takes out EffOrt's damaged spire using a single sneaky hero ling - but is so far behind in both muta count and drone count that he is unable to capitalize on the advantage it gives him. Effort streams into July's base and he types out.

An unfortunate loss for July - he showed very creative ZvZ and intelligent ZvZ play, but EffOrt proved too solid to allow this unorthodox strategy to succeed. Congratulations to EffOrt for taking the 3rd place title for GOMTV and getting a ticket to Blizzcon!

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