IGN/IPL Finals full match report

We start game 1 on Xel’Naga Caverns, all races seem too like this map and it has been in the mappool since the start of Starcraft II.

Let’s see how both players open up, Idra goes pool first and Kiwikaki seems to be preparing for a 3gate Sentry expand.

Kiwikaki throws his first trick into play when blocking idra’s expansion, he lets the blocking pylon finish and builds a cybernetics core on top of Idra’s expansion just before the Pylon dies. Protoss buildings keep building even while unpowered so this delays Idra’s expansion by an additional 15 seconds.


Cybernetics core expansion block

Back in Kiwikaki’s base he is faking a 3gate expand build because of a pylon at his ramp and actually dropping down 3 additional gateways. Idra flies an Overlord into Kiwi’s base but doesn’t scout the 4gate. Kiwikaki cleverly only warps in 3 units to kill the Overlord so he doesn’t reveal the 4gate himself.


3 units warp in

Idra senses there is some aggresion coming his way and drops down 3 spinecrawlers + he is making a lot of roaches. Kiwikaki expands during his attack because it wasn’t too succesful. He lost all his units except 5 sentries, for a spinecrawler and a few lings and roaches. After this fight the supplies are 49-45 in Idra’s favor.

Burrow and Burrow movement are getting researched while Kiwikaki's natural finishes, he drops down his robotics facility. This time it’s Kiwikaki’s turn for sensing the upcoming aggression. because he moves his Stalker/Sentry army into his mineral line with an Observer above it.

Idra decides to attack with his burrowed Roaches and tries to get under the forcefields, into Kiwikaki’s mineral line, but Kiwikaki keeps dropping down insane forcefields which stop the Roaches from unburrowing for so long that Idra’s push gets held off without doing any damage.


5-6 consecutive forcefields to block Idra's roaches

At this point Kiwikaki is 10 workers ahead of Idra and Idra’s complete army is dead, Idra decides to GG out.


Kiwikaki 1-0 Idra

Game 2 is played on Tal’Darim Altar, Zerg players usually like this map because it is very big and you have easy access too your 3rd base.

Kiwikaki spawns in the top left position and is going for a forge expand build, a very strong build on this map since you can wall off your natural with only 3 buildings.

Idra spawns in the top right position and opens up with a pool first and quick gas again, a very safe opener versus early agression which Idra probably feels very safe with against an agressive player like Kiwikaki.

Idra scouts the early expand of Kiwikaki and drops down a Roach warren, he also stops drone production completely at 14 drones, on top of that he cancels his Hatchery. In other words, Idra is gonna try to all-in Kiwikaki with a strong Roach/speedling push.

A minute before Idra’s attack hits, Kiwikaki drops down a 2nd cannon at his wall and he is only making sentries from his 1gateway, his 2nd and 3rd gateway are still quite a while from finishing.

Idra kills 1 cannon and the forge which opens up Kiwikaki’s wall, but Kiwikaki has 3 Sentries up and walls off the hole created by the killed forge. 4 cannons are dropped down and they finish in time before the forcefields run out.


Idra's attack gets held off

Kiwikaki holds but he did lose a lot of probes to Zerglings which did get into the base.

After the attack Kiwikaki has 19 workers versus Idra’s 14, but off course Kiwikaki has the expansion up. I’m not sure if this all-in was a great idea since most Zerg players like Tal’Darim Altar and there are other ways to respond to a forge expand then to all-in.

Idra is in huge trouble now since his push was meant to kill Kiwikaki, he decides to drop down 2 Hatcheries and switches into mass-drone mode.

Kiwikaki is also making a lot of probes while teching to Colossi and is playing very passive.


Kiwikaki forcefields a bunch of zerglings outside of his base

At this point both players are pretty much even again, Kiwikaki decided to go for a very safe macro game which gave Idra the time to catch up in economy with his double expand. They also both don’t have much upgrades yet, 1 Attack is almost finished for both players and that’s it.

Idra scouts the Colossi of Kiwikaki and instantly drops down a spire, but there allready is a Colossus on the field and the range upgrade is almost done, will the Corruptors be in time?

Idra reaches the 200 supply mark at 17:37 minutes, this is pretty insane considering he went all-in at the start of the game, Kiwikaki is at 165 supply. The only problem is Idra’s army is pure Roach/Corruptor which isn’t the ideal composition versus the Stalker/Sentry/Colossi ball.

Currently its 4base Zerg versus 3base Protoss, Idra tries to actively stop Kiwikaki from taking his 4th with his quick Zerg units.

A fight happens at the ramp of Kiwikaki’s 3rd base, the Colossi are in a great position and are able to get their maximum damage on the Roaches, Idra falls back but Kiwikaki chases him all the way to the zerg base killing most Corruptors and Roaches with blink upgraded Stalkers.


The fight at Kiwikaki's 3rd base

Idra desperately tries to rebuild as much units as he can and some Infestors join the fight, Kiwikaki’s army is simply superior though, so a lot of damage is done to Idra’s base before eventually falling back.

Oh and look at this, Kiwikaki’s PvZ trademark in game2, The Mothership has arrived.

Kiwikaki regroups his Colossi/Stalker army and goes in for the final push, Idra leaves the game as soon as he sees the Mothership.


Kiwikaki 2-0 Idra

Time for game 3, Kiwikaki is 1 game away from taking this Bo5 finals, Idra has a mountain to climb.

Will this be the last game or the beginning of a great comeback?

The battlefield of choice this game is The Shattered temple, the newer version of Lost temple. The map is pretty balanced, there aren’t a lot of complaints from any race about the map.
The main differences are the very wide path at the natural and an easier to take 3rd base then on Lost temple.

The players spawn close by air with Kiwikaki in the 12 O’clock position and Idra in the 2 O’clock position.

Idra again decided too open up with a gas+pool first into expand, Kiwikaki is looking very confident dropping his 2nd and 3rd gateway in sight of Idra’s scouting drone.


Idra mineral walks his drone past the walloff

We all know Idra as one of the best macro players in Starcraft II, but he doesn’t seem to like this reputation because another early roach/ling push is coming up, again with cut drone production. The main difference is that the he decides not to cancel his expansion and he has 22 drones at this point.

Kiwikaki gets caught completely off guard because he doesn’t even have a forge yet, Idra simply has way more units. It’s pretty much 20 zerglings and 6 roaches versus 1 zealot 6 sentries and a stalker.


Idra easily wins the fight at Kiwikaki's natural

Zerg units keep swarming into Kiwikaki’s base and he is forced to GG.


Kiwikaki 2-1 Idra

Another macromap for game 4, Shakuras Plateau. One of the older maps and almost a certainty for great games, it’s the old version of the map with a backdoor into the mainbase, but players automatically spawn in cross positions.

Kiwikaki drops the first pylon at his natural ramp which makes it really easy for Protoss to get a quick nexus up. Idra opens with pool first but skips the gas. This really hints towards a big macro game since Zergling speed is almost a ‘musthave’ for early pressure.

The nexus and forge are getting dropped down after the gateway finishes and zealots are getting chrono-boosted out for a 4-zealot push of 1gateway. Idra moves his queens down to the ramp together with a group of zerglings to stop the zealots. He defends it without much trouble but was forced to make a lot of zerglings instead of drones, they are now about even in workers.


The 4-zealot push

4 gateways are being dropped down, so Kiwikaki is preparing a 5gateway push, Idra scouts it with an overlord. During this Idra secured his 3rd base next to the Xel’Naga tower and is up to 72 drones vs 61 probes. Kiwikaki decides to retreat because Idra has a superior army of zerglings and Roaches.


Kiwikaki retreats after seeing Idra's army

Idra’s economy is starting to kick in and he starts doing lot of multipronged attacks, managing to deny Kiwikaki’s 3rd base and dropping roaches into his main mineral line. This is a great example of Idra’s new style, getting ahead in economy and just keep throwing units all over the map until his opponent is just simply out of minerals.

By now corruptors are joining the fight to counter the Colossi which works like a charm, all Kiwikaki’s Colossi are dieing within seconds.


Idra winning the final battle

All hatcheries are literally way-pointed into Kiwikaki’s base, mass roach/hydra/corruptor keeps flooding in non-stop, according to HDStarcraft we are watching the ‘sauron-zerg’ this game.

Kiwikaki loses everything and GGs out, are we really gonna see a 3game comeback? Up to the championship game


Kiwikaki 2-2 Idra

For the last game of the series we traveled all the way to Terminus RE, one of the biggest maps out there at the moment with again an easy to take 3rd base.

Idra changes it up for this last game and he drops down a hatch first, in Kiwikaki’s base we see a standard gateway+cybernetics core opening.

The first zealot and stalker move to Idra’s base very quickly, this was popular a few months ago but it mainly works on small maps, Idra proves this by easily killing both units with his zerglings, meanwhile Kiwikaki dropped down the 2nd and 3rd gate as he seems to be preparing for the very popular 3gate sentry expand build once again.


Early push from Kiwikaki getting killed

The 3rd base of Idra is allready getting build while Kiwikaki's 2nd base is only at 50%, so Idra is infront once again, is the 0-2 to 3-2 comeback on the way?

Overlord drop is getting researched, we have seen this style out of Idra before vs Cruncher in the TSL on this map. Which worked out really well for him, During the research Kiwikaki’s 3rd is going down and he gets the robotics facility up.

Idra seems to be on top of everything this game, as soon as Kiwikaki's 3rd base went down he made his 4th base, Kiwikaki is desperately trying to get even with Idra but he just isn’t letting it happen.

The multipronged roach/hydra drops are starting to move to Kiwikaki’s main and 3rd base, but Kiwikaki scouts them and splits his army between the bases. Idra still tries the drop but really doesn’t do any damage. During this Kiwikaki is getting the very popular Colossi up once again.


Kiwikaki scouts the Overlord drops

Again Idra drops a 5th hatchery while Kiwikaki tries to secure his 4th base, Kiwikaki wins the initial fight at his 4th base and decides to push Idra’s 4th base, most of his Colossi are still alive but there are barely any gateway units left to support them. Instead of securing his 4th base he now lost his whole army and his 4th base. On top of that Idra can start working on getting even more ahead.

By now its 3base Protoss versus 5base Zerg and allready 4 colossi died, Idra has a huge advantage and he starts to get the most out of it. Roach drops are attacking all of Kiwikakis bases which do huge damage. Idra is also getting brood lords up which should surely be the final blow.


Idra drops roaches all over Kiwikaki's bases

Kiwikaki finally deals with all the dropped roaches and moves out with a bunch of stalkers and 1 colossus. But he simply can’t deal with the Brood lord/roach army that’s waiting for him.

The nonstop harass of Kiwikaki’s mineral line is still going on and by now Kiwikaki is down to 25 probes vs 75 drones.

There is no way back anymore for Kiwikaki and he GG’s while his remaining army gets killed.


Kiwikaki 2-3 Idra

An absolutely insane comeback by Idra, after 2 unimpressive games he switched to his own style which obviously worked out a lot better for him. The dropplay was very good and also very hard for a Protoss to deal with.

Idra wins the IGN/IPL season 1 and takes home $2500.