Lambs into Lions: Chapter One

In his game versus RorO in February, Action opened 12 hatch against RorO’s over-pool. He had a winning advantage, many opportunities to snipe drones, but failed to capitalize on them. At one point he follows two of RorO’s mutalisks all over the map like a noobie when he should have been picking off every single worker.
Perhaps in an attempt to compensate for weak mutalisk micro, Action relied strongly on making large numbers of scourge, which he focused little of his micro on and didn’t use effectively.
He finally lost because he simply didn’t have enough mutalisks, the glaring issue being that he didn’t damage RorO’s economy when he had the chance.

Two months after playing RorO, Action decisively took out EffOrt's natural four minutes into the game, seizing his 9 pool advantage against EffOrt’s 12 hatch.
However, a sharp counter-attack by EffOrt and continuous ling harassment put Action back on his heels, making him too uncertain to move out (similar strategy seen in Calm vs. Jaedong MSL semi-final B, game 4) with his air advantage, buying EffOrt the time he needed to recover.
After that, EffOrt’s experience solidified his two base lead. He used a beautiful mutalisk split to delay Action and keep an economic advantage, leading him to an easy late-game win.

Action’s inability to harass EffOrt’s drones, just as it did against RorO, cost him the game.

In the final game of his Woongjin all-kill, Action and ZerO had nearly identical opening builds, and though Action showed less than perfect mutalisk micro he did have his moments. He showed vast improvements since the RorO game a month before, namely by not spending too much gas and larvae on scourge and actually taking the time to micro his mutas.
While his play was somewhat two dimensional, Action placed an unusual emphasis on his micro, bringing it closer to the level of his top-notch management skills and using it to win the game. If he had showed the same focus on micro in his game versus RorO, Action would have won for sure.

Against Kwanro, in the second set of the same series, Action's strategy was risky and innovative. He used a hatch hidden behind the 9 o’clock expo on Match Point to secretly mass lings, using them to simultaneously delay Kwanro’s spire and defend his perfectly timed sunken.
Even though he lost his hidden hatchery, it served its purpose and Kwanro couldn’t do anything to stop Action’s mutalisks from ending the game, a refreshingly unique and somewhat ironic finish.

      Action has good macro, creative play, and decent ling micro, but his mutalisk micro and overall decision making with them is not yet up to par, and mutalisk micro in ZvZ, is, as Day[9] would say, “the hallmark of a good player”. I think this is only natural as strong mechanics, especially in ZvZ when one has to be insanely precise, only come with experience. To me, ZvZ is Action’s second best match up; he has the ability to be risky and creative while still maintaining good macro, but often times his poor micro mechanics seriously hurts his play.

In April, our hero Terminator faced off against Light, the Winners League beast, 12 hatch versus 12 cc. Light went pure mech and made far too many goliaths for Action’s poor mutalisks to handle, rendering his delay tactic ineffective.
Though Action managed to hold off Light’s first push, Light quickly took a third base and through a combination of good macro, vulture harass, and mech pressure, Action was unable to put any pressure back on Light’s economy and could spend few larvae on drones.
Shockingly, his first dark swarm came 19 minutes into the game, when Light had an insurmountable five base lead and not even the most gosu management could win the game. Action commendably repelled Light’s strongest pushes, but he stood little chance starting his defiler den past the 15 minute mark.

This time in a game prior to The Victories, Action lost to Fantasy in a similarly odd fashion by not having dark swarm up in time. Action went his normal 12 hatch into muta harass but because of six turrets and a bunker at Fantasy’s natural, they didn’t do their primary job of delaying the terran.

When Fantasy moved out to pressure Action’s natural and third, the dark swarm, as well as the nydus canal at his third base, came seconds too late and Fantasy took everything out with his first push.
In this game we see that Action’s timings, despite evidence to the contrary in The Victories, are not yet perfected. Had he got his dark swarm and nydus up in time I think it would have become a very exciting game.

In Winners LeagueAction played BaBy in a high pressure match; if Action lost, eSTRO would be eliminated. At the time BaBy was on a four game TvZ win streak, and we all know how scary his TvZ is (hint: he knocked Jaedong out of the OSL 2-0).
Action got an early BO advantage with a 12 hatch and hid a third hatchery in the top left corner of his main, which led into two and a half minutes of surprisingly effective muta harass, giving Action enough time to get lurkers out and his third base up at Neo Moon Glaive's 4 o’clock main.
When BaBy’s first push finally reached Action’s natural, the Terminator was more than ready to show off his monstrous macro. He flanked with mutas and lurkers, pinning the terran troops between the zerg army and sunkens. After that, Action got his defilers out without a hitch and immediately pushed BaBy’s army back across the map with dark swarm, three lurkers and a handful of zerglings. Sick. BaBy could do absolutely nothing and soon gg’d.
Action did exactly what he says he likes to do, take it to the late-game and win with his management skills. He played an amazing game with good reaction time and perfect swarms, ZvT that’s up there with the best.

Three days later Action went up against Hwasin, a veteran with very strong MnM play. It was in this game that Action, in my eyes, became known for his defiler play.
Action doesn’t joke around about macro; once again he 12 hatched successfully and went the same three hatch build he used against BaBy. However, Hwasin went 12 cc and scouted the third hatchery as it was being made, giving Action no BO advantage.
Just as it was against BaBy, Action’s defiler was perfectly timed to halt Hwasin’s push on his natural and shove it back down the terran’s throat.
Also similar to the Baby game, Action showed the presence of mind to whittle away Hwasin’s science vessels, and though he pressured across the map off three bases, Hwasin was time and time again denied by Action’s dark swarms. The best part of the game came when Action brilliantly built a hatch at 4 o’clock right under Hwasin’s nose, then a nydus, forcing Hwasin to cancel his long planned fourth base and taking it as his own.
A phenomenal number of plagues, not one wasted, constantly weakened Hwasin’s army, and it wasn’t long until Hwasin completely lost map control and had no spot for a fourth base versus a five gas zerg. Even though he decided to go the lazy mans route and mass tanks, Action’s dark swarms and plagues ate it up and it was gg.
In case you missed it, take a look at snowdrift86’s "Last Action Hero" article, it includes some crazy plague statistics from this game.

      Action lost to Fantasy and Light primary because of miss-timed defilers, showing perhaps too much of a reliance on pre-planned build orders and an inability to adapt in-game. Maybe he can’t yet read the flow of the game well enough to see the changes he needs to make, when he needs to make them. But whatever the problem, I’m confident that experience against odd timings and failed harass will give him the insight to adapt on the fly and further strengthen his best match up. Once this guy gets defilers it’s lights out. For Action, it’s just a matter of getting there.

In their game in March, Shuttle took a fast third and opted to play defensively, but unlike in his victory over Free, Action was unable to snipe any templar. When Action, for some reason, decided to attack Shuttle’s army, up a ramp, to prevent him from taking a third, he completely neglected to micro his hydralisks before backing off with heavy losses and no gain.
Action tried again to pressure Shuttle’s third in the late-game but because of bad army positioning he hardly did any damage and was massacred by storms and reavers. Then all Shuttle had to do was macro off three bases until he had a comfortable army composition, which he did with ease, and attack.
Action’s odd, completely unsuccessful timings point to what might be unfamiliarity with economic based protoss builds. Unsure of what to do, he attempted to stall Shuttle by attacking again and again, but without good positions or micro his army was easily squashed.

A few days before he played Shuttle, Action had a very exciting, if not close, game versus Pure. Typical of his awesome self, Pure snuck a gateway in the corner of the main behind Action’s third and used fast DTs to simultaneously harass it, and Action’s natural.
Pure only killed one drone at Action’s third but delayed all mining for over a minute while Action spent larvae on hydras and zerglings. Action then mined for a whopping 20 seconds before Pure came back with more DTs and corsairs to shut down mining for almost another minute, this time killing many drones in the process.
By this time, Action’s economy was so battered he could only hold on and try to survive while Pure took his own third base and pressured Action’s natural, halting mining there as well. Action could do nothing to delay Pure’s third or fourth bases and finally lost to a bigger army.
The reason why Pure could harass so hard and consistently was because Action, as he did against Violet, had no semblance of air control and had to turtle up in his base with hydras and spore colonies, and even in this he failed against Pure’s DT harass.

Action's greatest ZvP performance of the year, in my opinion, was his game against Free on New Tornado. Action used the rarely seen burrow to scout undetected with zerglings, letting him spot Free’s army position and when Free planned to take his third as he macrod on three bases. He also showed perfect timing with his mutalisk harass, sacrificing six mutas to snipe the first four high templar before they left Free’s base and delay Free’s push and expansion.
Despite these good tactics, Action’s sim cities were not the best and his nearly microless attacks glaringly shine light on his dependence to overwhelm his opponent with macro.
All in all a solid game, Action was in control from start to finish but I think he might have got a bit lucky picking off so many high templar at once and delaying Free’s attack.

In round 2 of the Proleague in his game against Violet, Action opted not to open with mutalisks and was horribly ineffective with his scourge, letting Violet effortlessly take air control and hold onto it all game. Violet used his undisputed corsair count to take out at least five overlords in less than a minute, delay mining at one of Action’s bases in combination with DTs, and kill nine drones with a DT drop on Action’s fourth later in the game.
But even without air or map control, Action scouted Violet’s troop movement with burrowed zerglings and managed to squeeze in some sneaky drops of his own.
Action hunkered down, macrod, and weathered Violet’s harass, pulling ahead economically until he could use a key timing drop to take out Violet’s third. Before Violet could recover, Action surprised him with a group of mutalisks, sniping five high templar before engaging Violet’s army and pushing him back across the map. After that, Action stopped the mining at Violet’s new third with a lurker while keeping the protoss force herded in his natural.
Action had a great finish due to good macro and well-times tactics, but losing air control so quickly and easily almost caused his downfall. A better protoss might have exploited his air and mid-game advantage to expand sooner or mass up a larger army, had Violet done either of those things instead of continuing to mass corsair, go for drops and small timing pushes, I think Action would have crumpled. However, Violet didn’t and Action showed great composure as he fended off the harass attempts and dealt with losing so many overlords. Another thing to note is that Violet is 1-3 PvZ in 2010, and Action barely scraped together a win. Compared to his brilliant games against Kwanro, Hwasin and BaBy, his ZvP performance is less than inspiring.

      Action struggles hard in ZvP, especially when he doesn’t put up a fight for air control. Against Violet, a mediocre player, he barely survived with quick reaction time and high templar snipes, but he put himself in an uphill battle as soon as he stopped making scourge. Against better protoss like Pure, who exploited his air domination to the fullest and utterly destroyed Action, his macro won’t be so good in comparison that he can pull out a win. Even if the protoss does not go for mass corsair, Action’s micro is often so poor that he falls back against aggression he could have held off, but because he’s a macro beast he can still win through overwhelming numbers.