Disasterpiece Theater #8
What's the Difference? TRUE vs Nerchio

By: Mizenhauer

What's the difference between an entertaining-but-scrappy brawl, and a crime against professional StarCraft II?

We explore that question on today's episode of Disasterpiece Theater.

After taking a celebratory look back at Neeb's triumph in the 2016 KeSPA Cup, it seemed fitting to reminisce about a less glorious moment in non-Korean StarCraft II.

I’ll say it flat out, prior to joining the writing staff at TL.net I had never watched a WCS event. I was, simply put, a Korean Elitist ([Editor's note: A shocking revelation]). Neeb had done his darndest to prove me otherwise by winning the KeSPA Cup in the autumn of 2016, but his performance at BlizzCon that year (group stage wins against Patience and a brutal 0-3 vs Dark) didn't suggest the foreigners would be overthrowing their overlords any time soon.

Flash forward to April 2017 and I found myself volunteering to recap the opening WCS event of the year, WCS Austin. It was not something I was overly looking forward to, but at the time I was doing anything I could to contribute to the site. I was not expecting to see any good games—in fact I was hoping that my long held beliefs in the frailty of foreigners would be proven correct. If everything went to plan I would be able to walk away from the weekend on the same high horse I had ridden for years, proselytizing that the gulf between foreigners and the Koreans participating in Code S was as wide as ever.

Now, dozens of tournaments have been held since WCS Austin 2017, so it's natural that I've forgotten many of the specific details. But, even now, one game still burns in my memory. A game so abhorrent that I had to confer with a certain pro to confirm that it was indeed as bad as I had interpreted it to be. In the semifinals of WCS Austin, Nerchio and TRUE played one of the sloppiest, error-filled ZvZ’s ever seen by mortal eyes.

Back in My Day, Foreigners had to Walk Uphill to WCS Both Ways

While we try to evoke a sense of nostalgia with the disasterpieces, this one might remind fans of a time they'd rather forget.

Nerchio vs TRUE fit a fairly common match archetype during 2013-2017: One of the best foreigners looked to uphold the honor of the international scene by beating a Korean who was ranked… …#23 on Aligulac.com.

That may seem odd, if not sad, from the present perspective where a non-Korean player has won the last three world championships. However, that's how far the foreign scene still lagged behind Korea in 2017, even when you took Neeb's historic KeSPA Cup 2016 victory into account.

In fact, just a few months before that KeSPA Cup, TRUE had shone a light on how big the gap was. After a nondescript 2015 campaign in Korea where he had finished #32 in the WCS global standings, TRUE relocated to the United States in 2016 to compete on the WCS Circuit. At the WCS Summer Championship, his first tournament after becoming visa eligible, he went all the way to the championship. It was the kind of result that made the region-lock look both farcical and utterly necessary at the same time.

The problem wasn't that TRUE and his fellow expats were untouchable—it was more that players who were mid/low-tier in Korea were competing on the same level as top foreigners like ShoWTimE, Nerchio, Snute, and Neeb (and soon, Serral).

Whether or not Nerchio and TRUE themselves cared about such matters, the stakes were tremendously high for fans of international StarCraft, AND the Korean elitists praying for their downfall.

The Match: Nerchio vs TRUE - Proxima Station

The series started off on Proxima Station, a map that prominently features a backdoor expansion. TRUE appeared to stick to his reputation as a hyper-aggressive player, opening up Gas-Pool before Overlord. However, he pivoted into what I guess you could call a macro build by his standards, taking his backdoor expansion while pooling his forces for surprise Speedling timing. Nerchio, meanwhile, began with OL-Pool-Hatch-Baneling Nest, a conservative opening which theoretically would allow him to deflect TRUE’s trademark aggression.

Despite Nerchio’s prescience, holding the attack proved to be more difficult than expected. TRUE ignored Nerchio's main and went directly for the backdoor expansion, trading extremely well against Nerchio's slow Zerglings, Queens, and Drones before Banelings could save the day. While TRUE was unable to take down the Hatchery, he came out with a nice worker lead.

TRUE's lead grew even larger when the two Zergs looked to take their third bases. Nerchio was too cavalier in trying to take his third despite playing from behind, and a relatively small Zergling-Bane force from TRUE managed to cancel the base and pick off even more Queens (bringing the total to five). Nerchio found himself a dozen workers behind, almost an entire expansion behind, and only slightly ahead in terms of Lair timing.



A disadvantage like this is usually insurmountable. However, this wouldn't be a disasterpiece—or tale of foreigner heroism, depending on how you look at it—if the game didn't end up being much, much closer.

Needing some gimmick to make up the difference, Nerchio went for a quick Infestation Pit (remember, Fungal Growth still fully immobilized units at the time). He seemed resigned to the fact that he'd be playing the rest of this game from an expansion or more behind, and knew he'd need to luck into several amazing fights in a row. As for TRUE, he continued to snowball his lead by taking his fourth base with gold minerals well ahead of Nerchio, while casually getting Burrow and Tunneling Claws for his rapidly growing Roach force.

After maxing out at around the 10:00 mark, TRUE started looking to get active on the map once more. His Roaches knocked down the destructible rocks around Nerchio's territory, making it extremely hard for Nerchio to cover all entry angles and secure a fourth base on Proxima Station's tricky terrain. TRUE quickly demonstrated this point, dragging Nerchio's army out of position with a feint at the enemy third while his main force slipped through a different corridor to tear down Nerchio's freshly spawned fourth base.

At this point, TRUE could have simply backed off and continued to consolidate his resource lead by teching up. Or, he could have just a-moved his army. Intentional or not, TRUE's two-prong maneuvering had put him in a natural flanking position, and Nerchio's army sat in a vulnerable spot after vainly moving to try and save the fourth base. But rather than going for either of those moves, TRUE decided to go for one of the worst Tunneling Claw plays ever.



if (player == TRUE) {
lose_unit(roach)
}

It's hard to tell exactly what TRUE was even going for here. It could be that he thought Nerchio had limited detection (Nerchio actually had plenty of Overseers to spare), and that burrow-moving his army would let him set up a perfect surround attack. Or, he might have been going for an extremely optimistic burrow backdoor with his smaller Roach force ("completely blind" would also describe it), and was forced into a head-on fight when things went south.

Whatever the case, the result was a massacre. TRUE's supply almost instantly dropped by thirty when his smaller Roach force was annihilated by a perfect combo of Fungals and Biles. TRUE's main Roach force coming in from the other side no longer had the numerical advantage, and ended up fighting against Nerchio's superior Roach force that had the support of both Infestors and Ravagers. A few more Biles were enough to force TRUE’s units to awkwardly retreat.

Although Nerchio had gotten the dream fight he wanted, it was far from an instant comeback. TRUE was still enjoying the fruits of his great early-game, and he still came out with a supply lead despite suffering a massive defeat. He was able to make 30 new Roaches immediately, and was soon back up to 200/200.

TRUE seemed almost defiant, choosing not to morph any of his Roaches into Ravagers or tech up any further. The game was still very much in his favor, especially since Nerchio had lost all his Infestors in the previous battle. In the big picture of things, TRUE was still in position to continue denying Nerchio a fourth base, take more expansions of his own, and eventually bleed the Polish Zerg out.

It looked like that plan was bearing out, as TRUE once more used two-prong tactics to prevent Nerchio from taking a fourth base. He sent more burrowed Roaches blindly to their doom in a clumsy feint toward Nerchio's third, but it was still enough of a distraction for his main force of Roaches to knock down the morphing Hatchery at the fourth.

Like before, simply denying Nerchio's fourth should have been perfectly satisfactory for TRUE. But instead, TRUE made his second major over-extension of the game. He seemed to grossly misjudge how distracted Nerchio was by his burrowed Roaches, and sent his main Roach force in for a frontal attack. However, Nerchio's main force was actually quite close by, and he was able to quickly consolidate his army on defense. For the second time in as many minutes, TRUE comprehensively lost the fight and was left with no choice but to back off again after taking significant losses.





Yet, still, TRUE somehow remained in the lead. Despite making some enormous tactical blunders, he had still achieved his primary strategic goal of denying Nerchio a fourth base. Even with all his Roach losses, he was mining far more minerals than his foe and had new bases popping up to keep his income stream steady. If he could deny Nerchio’s fourth just a little longer, the Polish Zerg would run out of minerals.

So what happened next? You should know the story by now: TRUE denied Nerchio's fourth base AGAIN (technically twice in quick succession), and followed that up with ANOTHER ill-fated frontal attack. He displayed the most patience he had shown all game, and set up a three-sided flank that could hit Nerchio's force from all angles. However, TRUE bungled the coordination on the actual attack, with all three divisions hitting at staggered timings. This made it so that TRUE was actually driving his forces into Nerchio's own pincer at times, leading to Nerchio driving TRUE off again.





Finally, Nerchio decided it was time to break the cycle of suffering. After three painful tries, he seemed to accept that it was impossible to defend both his third and fourth base at the time. With just enough left in the bank for one final max-out, Nerchio went for his first offensive of the game.

The nearest target was TRUE's gold base, which while nearing depletion, was still contributing significant income to TRUE. A single Infestor Nerchio had managed to squeeze out allowed for a big Fungal-Bile combo on the defenders, buying him the space to take down this gold base.

However, this only proved to be a temporary success. TRUE already had another expansion operational, and his mining outstriped Nerchio's despite the loss of his gold base (and several Drones there). Whether or not Nerchio knew about this extra expansion, he couldn't push any further as TRUE's bank and defenders' advantage were kicking in. Nerchio had to withdraw and confront the same old problem: how to establish a fourth base.

After plopping down a fresh Hatchery for the final time, Nerchio regrouped his forces for another offensive that might cover his new expansion. Unfortunately for Nerchio, this move-out turned into a disaster engagement that had been more characteristic of TRUE. Moving his Roaches and Ravagers into the fog of war in the middle of the map, Nerchio was surprised by TRUE's main force which was also in the midst of maneuvering. But while TRUE's all-Roach swarm was ready to fight at the drop of a dime, Nerchio's Roach-Ravager force was caught horribly out of formation with his Ravagers at the front. Nerchio tried desperately to rearrange his battle lines, but TRUE had already gotten off a few massive salvos of acid that decided the fight. TRUE’s army encircled Nerchio’s—pushing forward into the steadily shrinking mass of Roaches. He had done it. Despite error after painstaking error, the immutable laws of StarCraft II economics had won him the game.

Finally, despite his best efforts, TRUE puts this abomination of a game to rest.

While this game definitely had some dramatic elements, that hardly means it was actually good. Sure, a few mistakes are a necessary part of any epic comeback—if progamers played perfectly all we'd get is slow snowball games. However, this game went beyond "a few mistakes" and into far less forgivable territory.

Perhaps this is a minority opinion—plenty of so-called "clown fiestas" have been celebrated by StarCraft fans over the decades, proving that for many, entertainment trumps all. I humbly implore you to hold competitive StarCraft to a higher standard.

Fortunately, for Nerchio, this was merely the first game of a best of 5. And, while TRUE jumped out to a 1-0 lead, he unsurprisingly lost the next three games and was eliminated from the event.

Honestly, as someone who admired TRUE during his time on Jin Air Green Wings (he convinced Rogue to change his ID from CliMax to Rogue—an undisputed upgrade in quality though certainly not in hilarity) it was a pleasure to not have to witness another series of dubious quality from the Korean Zerg on that particular weekend. Still, for the purposes of this series, we’ll always have Austin.

---