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So today while watching some new GSL matches thrown onto the GOM site, I saw a funny match between Nada and Hongun (match 6). The particularly cool thing about this match is that Hongun went for a Mothership during the mid-game. The key difference between Motherships late game and mid game, is that if you lose the Mothership without making it cost-effective mid-game, you lose the entire game. This meant that Hongun was banking on using his Mothership to win, or at least gain some sort of lead in order to win.
After surviving a few attacks from Nada's standard play (it was surprising he survived them at all, I guess 4 phoenix can really do a lot of damage) the Mothership finally pops out near the end of Hongun's life, and to his delight Hongun gave a hilarious smile/giggle and the camera caught it perfectly. I decided to make a .png of it:
+ Show Spoiler +
In the midst of Artosis and Tasteless cracking jokes left and right about phoenixes lifting planetary fortresses in a 2v2 strategy in order to shoot other air units, the face of Hongun made me laugh all the harder. Then, to top everything off the largest engagement of the game occurs in the middle of the map and Hongun uses the spell you all would have guessed he'd use; Vortex. Although, who would have guessed he used two Vortexes!?
The face of Nada when his entire army gets double vortex'd was even more hilarious than the face of Hongun when the Mothership first arrived:
+ Show Spoiler +
Of course, Nada does the smart thing and runs all of his army into the closest Vortex. This way all of his army can fight all at once, rather than half at one time and half at another. As long as the Protoss doesn't have splash damage units, this is the proper way to react.
Despite this match being very funny, there is also a key micro option that Hongun didn't think of during the match; take a look at how he utilizes force fields once the vortexes wear off:
Hongun was relying on using Force Fields to take on the Terran MMM, though he just didn't have enough raw strength once his Force Field energy ran out to compete with the next push Nada threw at him. Now, try to imagine if Hongun had used his force fields better. Instead of force fielding the army after the Vortex, what if your Vortex'd half of the Terran army, then used Force Fields to ensure that the rest of the Terran army doesn't run into the Vortex? Thus easily killing off half of the Terran army?
Nada runs these units into the Vortex, but imagine if force fields were in the way.
At one point Hongun had his mothership crawling across the map (presumably for a Mass Recall) when Nada attacked. I'm willing to say that if Hongun had better Mothership placement (not halfway across the map during an enemy attack) and thought out the use of his Vortex and Force Field spells, he would have won this major engagement. Perhaps this Mothership style can work against a standard Terran build if used properly.
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No reply yet? Either way this is really interesting and too bad I can't watch, would like to see exactly how the engagement went.
And yeah he probably could have used them better, it doesn't seem he planned it out too well. May be he was overconfident and didn't think he needed to calculate the vortex/FF so well? Oh well, at least Hongun is still going to advance 
Thanks for sharing, but I have a couple questions.
How did he get the Mothership out? Like, how did he survive all the way till then? And why didn't Nada, if he didn't, push Hongun earlier if he already knows he has no Colossi?
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Yep, I was pretty scared for nada at the beginning of the engagement, but throwing vortex on all Nada's forces at the same time pretty much negated the effect of the vortex :/
+ Show Spoiler +That, said, i feel that Hongun mostly did this build to throw the game, as if he had won, both Nada and him would have had to teamkill in ro16 (Nada vs Jinro and Hongun vs Check.:/
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It's true, while he still probably would have lost the game, using FF in the way you described would have at least kept his third and Mothership alive for awhile longer. Long enough at least for him to try to make something happen later in the game.
I think Nada was unaware of how long the MS was out, because he looked pretty surprised when it was able to drop 2 vortices. It didn't look like he was able to see it when he attacked HongUn's natural.
I'm not sure what he was trying to do with the recall either. Even if he pulled it off all of Nadas units would have been near his main, and his army was a lot stronger than HongUns. I think he could have afforded to loses a few depots and an addon or two if it meant killing HongUns whole army + MS.
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What's more interesting than the mothership was the 4 phoenixes.
Imagine if hongun had been waiting for something else instead of a mothership. Things such as a critical mass of immortals? Voidrays? Templars? Etc...
4 phoenixes and sentries kept hongun alive much longer than I thought was possible. Maybe there is something to that?
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Very interesting! I've been carefully watching how mothership play is being integrated more and more and I find that it is being used for the vortex more often than the recall (unless you're KiWiKaKi, of course).
Considering the ridiculous amount that sentry forcefields already add to the Protoss arsenal, maybe Protoss play will become almost completely about crowd control and positioning in order to enter archon toilet-esque scenarios. Perhaps Protoss will be the ones looking for the best places rather than Terran siege tanks.
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From what I could see the phoenixes were being used to lift the marauders so that the few zealots and sentries he had defending the attack would last longer, with GS up and all. Although the phoenixes could have done even more damage inside NaDa's base - when they first arrived, NaDa had one marine and about six or seven marauders.
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Keep in mind that vortex destroys forcefields, so the shield around it has to be pretty wide.
I like this idea for dealing with concaves though, huge bioballs might be entirely manageable without colo/HT if you have good timing.
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On February 25 2011 08:29 sevia wrote:
Keep in mind that vortex destroys forcefields, so the shield around it has to be pretty wide.
I like this idea for dealing with concaves though, huge bioballs might be entirely manageable without colo/HT if you have good timing.
I think this whole idea is best for some sort of allin, as I think getting a mothership will delay your aoe tech too much to transition into HT or colo.
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Just wanna point out that they both were through to the next round already and that the game didnt mean anything at all. I'm pretty confident the only reason HongUn went for mothership is because he wanted to put on a show and didnt care if it worked or not. I'm also fairly confident that Nada would've crushed HongUn had he not taken the game so lightly (remember his Thor rush vs Idra last season). Nada simply didnt wanna show any of his builds, and HongUn was just kidding around.
I'm not saying that 2 base mothership is bad, but I dont think that this game has any revelance as to if it is or not.
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I think this had potential, gateway units are perfectly capable of dealing with infantry with just a small amount of support, and the mothership provides that.
That said, I think HongUn perhaps deliberately did something funky this game. If he beat NaDa, he'd have to face Check, his teammate, and risk teamkilling. if he loses, he faces Jinro, who, while arguably the stronger player, is *not* a teammate.
He already knew he was safe in the ro16 and Code S, so I think he was more doing this as a bit of showboating than a serious attempt to win. If he lost with it, he gets to face Jinro rather than Check, which is good. if he won with it, he'd have won with a mothership, which sort of makes up for having to potentially teamkill or be teamkilled.
of course, all this hinges on whether HongUn knew while playing that Check and Jinro had passed through the group. I don't know whether they are allowed to be told that sort of thing.
However, it is still definitely worth looking at the actual merits of the strategy, because it did seem quite good.
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A great man once said "TITS OF PAIN." 0_o
As for mothership... well I would imagine that if you actually went for it, Terran could just roll your over with bio because you aren't investing in much keep aliveness.
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Nice post. Although to be honest there was no way HongUn was ever going to allow himself to win this match, since winning would mean he had to face his teammate CheckPrime in the next round, so it's hard to say which 'mistakes' were intentional and which ones weren't.
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On February 25 2011 08:56 Wargizmo wrote:
Nice post. Although to be honest there was no way HongUn was ever going to allow himself to win this match, since winning would mean he had to face his teammate CheckPrime in the next round, so it's hard to say which 'mistakes' were intentional and which ones weren't.
Yeah, I'm so gullible at times TT
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It was a big mistake to use both vortexes at the same time. BIG mistake.
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Canada13389 Posts
On February 25 2011 05:21 BobMcJohnson wrote:Yep, I was pretty scared for nada at the beginning of the engagement, but throwing vortex on all Nada's forces at the same time pretty much negated the effect of the vortex :/ + Show Spoiler +That, said, i feel that Hongun mostly did this build to throw the game, as if he had won, both Nada and him would have had to teamkill in ro16 (Nada vs Jinro and Hongun vs Check.:/
Interesing proposition there in the spoiler.
Otherwise, I had the exact same though cecil while watching the game this morning with my coffee. though to be honest I think the double vortex was more for lulz than anything else since they do look like eyes staring at you the way he placed them.
either way I was glad it was a recommended game since it was well worth the watch if only for the looks the players gave while playing the game lol.
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It definitely seems like a good use of the Mothership in mid game, especially if used the way you stated. Gunna have to try this out sometime lol
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United States8476 Posts
Yea, I was thinking the exact same thing as the OP about the forcefields to prevent units from running into the vortex. I also agree it was a big mistake to use both vortex at the same time.
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Anyone else think that HongUn's primary plan was to recall his army into Nada's main and then FF shennanigans on his the ramp? His mothership was heading to Nada's base before he pulled it back when Nada went aggressive.
It pretty much forces a base-trade, Terran can fly some buildings around but a Mothership with limited detection is pretty strong.
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I think HongUn's plan was just to make the game as entertaining as possible. He certainly didn't want to win and have to face Check.
Example: when he "accidentally" left his phoenixes above NaDa's army, he only moved them a very short distance, they could still be hit.
Its not really possible to know which mistakes cost HongUn the game that were deliberate and which were unintentional mistakes, but I think we can all see how surprising it was that HongUn held off such significant bio pushes with really nothing more than a chunk of sentries, four phoenix and a handful of zealots.
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While that was definitely an inventive way to play(throw?) the game, the thing that allowed hongun to get to that point in time alive was the godly forcefields. While I agree he could've thought it out even more and forcefielded to prevent units from getting into the forcefield, which would've made the game last longer, I have no doubt in my mind that hongun primarily didn't want a teamkill.I must admit I was surprised at how long he lasted though.
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I think it'll be hard to draw conclusions based on an irrelevant match, especially since if HungUn loses, he avoids facing his team-mate. Since the game is quite "meaningless", HungUn probably played for fun.
Also, remember the Idra vs Nada game in the last GSL? Nada went for a thor all-in, which I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have done if it wasn't a "meaningless" game.
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I think the only difference if it had been a "serious" game would be that HongUn would have to play a lot more defensive. Unless you are in an excellent position you can't really risk schlepping your Mothership across the map to try a Mass Recall, but he obviously was doing it for shits and giggles.
He held off a surprising amount of bio with limited Sentry/Zealot/Phoenix, which is the most impressive part IMO. Could make it a lot easier for Protoss to get into the mid/late game with minimal army and maximum tech, although Mothership is the only thing you can really transition to with such a Stargate investment.
Maybe use the Mothership/Zealot/Sentry/Phoenix force to slowly take the map and then macro out a massive gate army? No idea this is pure theorycraft.
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What made the theorycrafter in me all giggly when I watched the game was the idea of a 111 setup that essentially used phoenixes to harass mineral lines and "counter" ravens, medivacs and banshees while depending on a combination of immortals and gateway units to combat the ground forces.
It would prevent terran from doing heavy drop harassment if you patrolled the skies with a fleet of phoenixes (ala Mutalisks) while during combat your phoenixes kill their medivacs as the rest of your army deals with the bio.
The important part being the harassment of the mineral lines; or more importantly the threat of harassment.
Could a fleet of Phoenixes be the new Reaver/Shuttle?
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Yeah I was going to say that HongUn mostly went for it because he knew if he lost, he would be able to avoid his teammate in the next round ( I saw people said it already though). But yeah he did make a lot of mistakes that could have helped him win the game..including floating so many minerals during the game. At one point I saw like over 1000 minerals stored >< . He probably hasn't practiced this build that much.
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Its weird how Hongun seems to invent new and pretty cool Strategys like the double forge build (from season 2) but doesn't really execute them well..
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It was a funny game, but I didn't feel either player did as well as they could, and I don't think they took it too seriously. That's just my opinion.
It was very entertaining though!
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Great post! Love the analysis too. It does seem pretty weak till the mothership is out though, it's a lot of tech invested and a lot of time before it actually comes out. Added a link to it from HongUn fan club if that's ok (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=196263).
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