Flash spawned in white at 1 while Effort got red at 7 on Match Point. Effort went for an early drone scout into 12 hat to stay safe from potential cheeses while Flash walled in with a fast refinery for a quick factory. Effort followed with the standard 12 hatch 11 pool 10 gas build, and had the very good fortune of being allowed to drone scout Flash's main as Flash lifted his barracks at just the right time. This was a case of map position based disadvantage (that would not have occurred in sc2) as Flash was at the top position where marines complete outside the wall. Effort got a good look at the building factory and scvs on gas count before Flash finally got rid of the drone.

Effort walled his natural against fast vultures since he scouted the factory, while Flash built a quick command centre at his natural. Effort teched to spire while Flash predicted this and went goliaths and valkryies. Mutalisks with scourge sniped the first two valks unsupported above Flash's natural cliff, and before we could see what would come of it, Flash typed "ppp" to request a pause.


After a pause to consult with the players, head referee Chang Suk Jun clarified the situation: "There was a problem where Flash's monitor suddenly turned off. We deduced that this is an issue with the broadcast equipment, and it occurred during the skirmish between the valkyries, mutalisks, and scourge. As it has affected the progress of the game, we rule that the game will be re-played."


Game one, redux
Flash spawned at 7 in brown while Effort took 1 in white on Match Point. Flash opted to wall in his choke at the standard timing while Effort went twelve hat with a very early drone scout for a potential proxy, aware Flash would like nothing more than to take a quick 1-0 with an eight rax bunker rush vs a 12 hat. Flash followed with a fast gas, factory and then took two scvs off gas while Effort's drone remained scouting his natural to try and rule out a quick command centre. In a ballsy move, Effort sent his overlord in to scout the refinery, knowing that Flash's single marine wouldn't be enough to kill it before it got back over the cliff. I love that kind of abuse of Flash's early low-marine style, stealing a little bit of scouting information that he'd otherwise lack.

Flash started a command centre at his natural, put scvs back on gas, pumped a single vulture before adding a machine shop and armoury. Effort knew that the wallin with a single marine and gas meant vultures, and he walled in his natural tight with a third hatchery, evolution chamber, hydralisk den and a sunken behind them. It proved to be very effectively when Flash sent three speed vultures to Effort's natural, as the choke was completely vulture-proof. Flash was still able to kill all the larva coming from the walling hatchery, another instance of positional imbalance at the top spot on Match Point.

Effort had gone for spire and mutalisks in the meanwhile, but Flash had clearly scanned the spire as turrets were going up all over his base and five goliaths awaited them in his main. Unfortunately for Flash, Effort made only three mutalisks before switching into pure hydralisks.

Effort went on the offensive with his hydralisks, expanding to 12 at the same time. Flash was not caught off guard however, as his vultures patrolling the area around 3:00 caught a glimpse of the hydralisks leaving the natural. Flash prepared his defences, a minefield, a bunker, goliaths, and scvs pulled away from the mineral line. Although Effort had placed an overlord far beforehand to deal with the mines, good SCV and goliath micro allowed Flash to block the attack easily, killing far more Zerg troops than he lost. In addition, a scouting vulture discovered the 12:00 expansion.

Knowing he was behind Effort attempted to power his economy while retaining the initiative by staying on the offensive. He expanded to 3 (which again was immediately scouted by a speed vulture) and prepared for a drop across the wall at 6. I love this play because Effort did not have the tech or the economy to break mechanic terran, all he had going for him was mobility. A drop immediately halts the momentum of the dropped player, forcing them to pull all their units to the back, putting them in a defensive mindset and letting them know that they absolutely must not overstretch their units. Ambitious expansions combined with drops is a beautiful play, so it was very unfortunate for Effort that Flash used his maphack like intuition and scanned the overlords and hydralisks massing at 6:00.

Despite being scouted Effort tried to drop anyway, walking into mass goliaths and losing an overlord before pulling back. Effort still pumped drones to saturate his two new expansions and added a queens nest along with two more hatcheries but it was the wrong time for it. If Effort could find the time to get all his investments fully functioning he would be unstoppable but he had no map control at all, as he had been simply sitting around looking at Flash's mech while Flash's vultures had been out hunting expansions, sniping drones and exerting pressure all over. Flash expanded freely to 9 and then unsieged and pushed out towards 12:00 with no resistance.

After the failed drop Effort realised he couldn't make it to hive before Flash pushed so he went into what I believe was his backup plan, queens. Flash's army moved towards 12, tanks sieging up on the high ground to cover the area below in a classic slow push, an absolute nightmare for hydralisks. Effort's hatcheries were only just beginning to start pumping and his queens didn't have the energy for broodling (it didn't help that Effort wasted some mana on parasite), as the attack was coming far too quickly. Effort threw hydralisks at the tanks in a desperate attempt to buy time, picking off a few of the tanks at the front but being slaughtered by the support fire from the high ground. Flash was using the classic technique of the slow push, a single vulnerable tank at the front taking free shots to force an engagement while the real firepower lurks further back. Effort couldn't get anywhere near the tanks on the high ground and threw away his entire hydralisk mass killing the vulnerable units to just try and buy time for the queens to kill the back tanks.

Finally the queens had the energy they needed and wiped out three of the most annoyingly placed tanks, leaving the front of Flash's mech vulnerable to mass hydralisks. Unfortunately there were no mass hydralisks coming, as too many had been lost in the delaying action. On the other hand, Flash had been macroing hard and reinforced his push into a tornado that easily swept 12:00. Effort tried a desperate switch into mutalisks but against 2-1 goliaths he could only snipe at stragglers before being forced into a bloody final engagement. After losing his main force, Effort GGed.


Effort was faced with a difficult choice in this game. If he rushed to hive he'd lack the economy to break Flash's defensive three bases and every second that passed he'd get further behind. If he went pure economy then he'd have an awful lot of hydralisks but upgraded tanks are capable of dealing with an awful lot of hydralisks. Effort tried to invest heavily in both and cover up the weakness with a drop, putting Flash on the back foot until he had swarm to support his booming economy. I believe the queen switch was a contigency plan prepared for the eventuality of an aborted drop. Effort knew he needed something to support his hydralisks but equally he knew he didn't have time to wait for hive tech, by the time it was complete Flash could have wiped out 12 and his natural from the low ground. A strong economy with queens was the best solution to the awkward situation.

Unfortunately for him broodling requires a lot of energy and Flash's push came too soon for that and Effort panicked and suicided his army into the tanks. As a Protoss player I can empathise with him a lot because it's a situation you see whenever a Terran pushes to hit just before stasis energy. Maybe he didn't know how deep the mech ball was but it was simply the wrong move. As we saw, when Effort finally had the energy to cast broodling he didn't have the units to support it and instead of a critical blow at the heart of the tanks causing the line to fold up and Effort to retake map control it turned into three dead tnaks. Queens don't do much damage, broodling only kills one unit. It can be amazing when the loss of that unit causes the army composition to break down, like sniping ht in ZvP or the killing the critical supporting tanks in ZvT. But it's pretty awful when you're just killing a unit out of spite. In the heat of the moment Effort forgot that, he concentrated so hard on buying time for broodling to complete before 12 fell that he forgot he needed an army to combine with broodling in order to create a victory. He succeeded, broodling was done in time to save 12 but without the hydralisks broodling didn't snowball into a rout.

Kwark's Player Ratings
Flash: 4 of 5.
Flash's play was solid, confident and polished. His vulture scouting was excellent and while he was fortunate to run into the drop on his way to 5 that doesn't change the fact that he always had vultures on the map giving him awareness of what was going on. While it was nothing special he macroed well, made the units and hit the perfect timing and that's what he had to do.

Effort: 3 of 5.
Effort on the other hand showed some beautiful strokes. I loved the fake mutalisks into hydralisk break and I really loved the economy and tech investments while going drop, classic momentum play which is always wonderful to watch at the highest levels. It's a pity that Flash scouted both plays with vultures. Unfortunately in the panic that followed the failure of those gambits Effort's priorities failed, he couldn't have saved 12 and rather than accept that he deluded himself that if he could just buy time for broodling then that'd make everything alright. While I preferred Effort's play that mistake has to be reflected in the scores, it was just the wrong thing to do and I expect a starleague finalist to maintain a realistic grasp on the possible even under pressure.

WaxAngel's Match Rating: 3** of 5.
Comfortable victory for Flash, watch it if you like hydralisks impaling themselves on tanks.
**Notable Play: Someone tried to use queens in an important game.

Flash spawned at 5 in teal while Effort got red at 11 on Eye of the Storm. Effort again opted for really early scouting for a rather clever play. He sent out a drone on 8 population to scout the 7 o'clock start so he could 12 hat at the 9:00 neutral expansion knowing that Flash wasn't adjacent to it. I think he scouted 7 and went for 9 because of its narrow defensible ramp, and his drone went out at the correct time to 12 hat there. He followed it up with a third hatchery on 14 in his natural and despite Flash's rax FE, Effort's build was still more economically exploitative. Flash scouted Effort second and worked out it was three hat before pool from the timings, scouting first 12 then 9 to discover it.

Flash reacted with an incredibly fast ebay rushing out +1 and adding barracks without factories fOrGG style. By camping his marines in the choke between his main and natural he could delay his academy without making himself vulnerable to a mass speedling attack, and could go for a large marine attack at 9 before mutalisks hit. Flash pushed out with his first marines and medics and as the inevitable speedling counter went at the terran natural, it was wiped out by a bunker and firebats waiting for them. Flash's army crossed the map unopposed as Effort had been saving larva for mutalisks, hitting 9 just before they came out in a perfect demonstrating of timing. Unfortunately his +1 was about fifteen seconds behind the ideal mutalisk timing, and flash displayed some uncharacteristically poor micro with several of his marines running back and forth useless as the marines in front prevented them from shooting at the sunken colonies. Effort's mutalisks emerged just as the last of the sunken colonies were about to go down, and forced Flash to retreat. Not long after, the remaining marines grouped together with reinforcements and pushed towards 9:00 again. Effort had been on his way to try and harass Flash with his mutalisks, but the attack forced him to pull back to defend.

The marines at 9 again bugged on the ramp but Flash was able to brute force his way in after taking terrible losses, killing several drones before the mutalisks arrived. Unfortunately for Flash he was falling behind as Effort headed for hive in a strong position with his economy already established by the three hatcheries before pool build. Normally this map is difficult for a zerg to establish expansions on but Effort bypassed that by with his build which enabled him to safely sunken up 9 in time for attacks.

As he teched to hive Effort also got lurker tech, placing stop lurkers outside Flash's natural while expanding to the 7 main. 7:00 also has a narrow entry point which can be easily defended by lurkers, and by securing it Effort would give himself four gas hive which is the magic number in ZvT. Unfortunately for Effort, Flash predicted the use of hold lurkers and scanned their position before pushing out. His marines easily flanked and killed the lurkers in a single scan, giving Flash map control. Flash was fortunate again as Effort flew his remaining mutalisks over the marines in a bad spot, losing most of their number.

A dropship headed towards 7 but Effort was clearly very prepared for it, with a lurker already burrowed on the ideal drop site. Unfortunately Flash was prepared for Effort's preparations and scanned before dropping at a better spot. Flash microed very nicely against a lurker and Effort's remaining mutas, getting rid of them for good. Effort reinforced with two more lurkers, sunkens, and a nydus building, but with the dropship it looked like the nydus wouldn't have time to complete. However Flash was still on two command centres and at was out of scans at a critical moment, forcing the mnm to get back into the dropship.

Flash's army was finally equipped with vessels and tanks but his map control was worthless unless he could break one of Effort's expansions. Choosing to go for the highest value Flash crossed the map to Effort's natural but despite irradiating the first defiler, Effort's consume was done and Effort put down a dark swarm just in time.

Flash diverted his army to 9 while dropping Effort's main and despite the slaughter of the dropship force (all eight plagued) Effort couldn't defend 9 which inexplicably had no defilers or a nydus connection. Flash flew a command centre to 3 and started an expansion at 1 as Effort tried to take a fourth gas in the 8 natural. However Flash's science vessels refused to allow him to establish it, killing the defilers and lurkers and leaving it open to his mnm force.

With 8 destroyed Flash pushed into 7 but Effort had finally completed ultralisk tech and despite only having a few Flash's army wasn't yet equipped to deal with them, getting slaughtered. Effort responded with a big attack at Flash's new base at 1 where Flash was trying to begin his late game mass tank camping switch. Flash decided to strip the defences at 1 and load them into dropships for an attack on Effort's main. The trade was worse for Effort as Flash simply lifed his buildings at 1:00 while Effort's main was devastated by a large MMF drop.

Effort retook 8, 9 and built new hatcheries and tech structures to try and get back into the game, but Flash was relentless, attacking at 9 rather than retaking 1. An eraser hit the mineral line at 7 while the the main terran force crushed 9:00 again and headed to the 7 natural. With the vessel cloud increasing and irradiate constantly killing his units Effort realised he couldn't hold onto 7 and 8 and GGed.


Effort was never really allowed map control this game which is odd given he opened mutalisks and speedlings because usually they get a window. Despite having a very strong economy throughout Effort never really got the chance to put a lot of units in the middle of the map and I think there were two key points in the early game that stopped this. When Flash first pushed towards 9 Effort sent some lings for a counterattack that was utterly predictable and therefore futile. Flash had seen the lings outside his base, his army hadn't met them as it crossed the map, of course there would be two firebats in the choke. The absence of those lings meant the attack on 9 did significantly better than it would have done if there had been lings there. Also, the mutalisks didn't wipe out the mnm but rather forced their retreat. When the mutalisks first come out against rax fe is the zergs time to have map control because mutalisks and speedlings can be very dangerous to small groups of mnm. Effort missed marine kills and lost drone lives there. Second, when Flash attacked 9:00 again, Effort's mutalisks were away trying to counter-attack, making Flash's attack was way more successful and killed way more drones than it should have done. With his economy damaged when he should have had map control, and with no lurkerling phase before hive, Effort couldn't resist Flash's macro. He tried very hard to make it work, but a cool opening build can only get you so far.

Kwark's Match Ratings
Flash: 4 of 5.
I've got to give Flash credit for hitting that mutalisk timing window so beautifully, that was pretty sick. His macro was as good as ever and his distinctive rax fe macro take half the map style was displayed at its best. If his +1 had been ten seconds earlier that'd be a 5 for the wow factor of combining three timings perfectly but without it the rest of his game was only at the very good level. 4/5

Effort: 4 of 5.
Effort's build was cute again and all the zerg fundamentals were there. Solid macro, micro and strategy with a few nice touches like the lurker anticipating the drop at 7. He had some bad luck again but still demonstrated a very strong game.

WaxAngel's Match Rating: 3.5 of 5
Effort was mediocre, while Flash showed some very strong, standard mid-late game TvZ.

Flash spawned in red at 11 while Effort got brown at 7 on Fighting Spirit. Effort opened with a blind 12 hat at his the 9:00 neutral expansion which was pretty unfortunate for him as it was adjacent to Flash. It might have been abusive against Flash's habit of only scouting naturals, but Flash double scv scouted and saw Effort's pool timing, worked out that Effort must have expanded somewhere else, and quickly scouted 9. Flash proceeded to 1 rax no gas FE, following it up with a quick academy and a second rax.

Effort rushed to two hat spire with two gas while pumping lings to apply pressure but Flash spread his marines nicely, used blocking buildings and held the line nicely. There was no way Effort was breaking into his natural with pure lings when the marines were safe behind a wall with scvs ready to support, making Effort's build pretty much allin. Flash's two rax were pumping mnm and it would all come down to whether two hat mutaling with barely a dozen drones could break it.

With his first two medics, Flash sent out his marines to get an idea of what was going on with his medics lagging about half a screen behind. Zerglings quickly surrounded the marines and slaughtered them, Flash even giving Effort some extra help by letting the zerglings get free hits on his force moving marines. Mutas followed up, and it was GG.

What more is there to say about this game. Effort was 0-2 behind and went for a bad allin that would in any normal game leave him kicking himself and saying "wtf I know better than that". In my opinion it was pure tilt play, the result of being 0-2 down in the OSL finals. I do not believe he was ever breaking Flash's natural and when he's got less total economy than Flash has on either of his bases that's obviously going to be a problem for him. The stars aligned and effort's prayers were answered when Flash suicided his marines. When a build only works because the opponent makes an unforced error, it's a bad build.

Kwark's Player Ratings
Flash: 2 of 5.
Scan first next time bro. You're 2-0 up but let's not get cocky.

Effort: 2 of 5.
Terrible build, morally it should have been a loss, don't let the pressure get to you when you're actually pretty good at builds that work.

WaxAngel's Match Rating: 1.5 of 5.
Straightforward, one-sided game.

Flash spawned in purple at 12 while Effort spawned in green at 4 on Great Barrier Reef. Effort's first overlord scouted to the center of the map, which was exactly where Flash's seventh and eighth scvs had gone to proxy rax. The rush was scouted and Effort's nearby scout drone was diverted to harass while Effort 12 pooled. Flash reacted by cancelling one of the barracks and starting a gas.

Effort's first six lings rushed to 12 but Flash had four scvs and three marines on the ramp, more than enough to defend without losses if you block off the ramp. Unfortunately Flash didn't seal off his ramp and lost two of his three marines needlessly. This allowed a later zergling scout to get in and see all around Flash's base while Flash could do nothing but watch as Effort expanded, powered drones, took a third hatch and went to lair.

Flash transitioned into a "fast" four vulture drop although he was so far behind from the opening that Effort's hydralisks completely flattened it for barely any losses. Effort's hydralisks moved up to Flash's ramp for a counterattack but Flash's mnm dissuaded them. Then in a very ballsy move Flash decided to go allin, taking his entire army into two dropships to hit Effort's main while the hydralisks were out of position, to try and do either a lot of damage while Effort recalled his troops or trade bases as Terran on an island map. If Effort had poked at the Terran defenses at all, the base trade scenario would have been likely as Flash left absolutely nothing to defend his main. Either Effort had some sick sense of star or Flash did a scan that betrayed his plans, as Effort sensed something and pulled his entire army back to his main base. Flash's two dropships encountered an overlord on their way to the base, but decided to go ahead with the drop anyway, not knowing that the hydralisks were almost all the way back. The drop was easily thwarted, with Flash having gained nothing.

Having lost his entire army the ramp was the only thing keeping Flash alive and he knew it. He was forced to play one base while Effort took his mineral only and switched into lurkers and lings. Flash tried some last ditch marine aggression, only to be eaten up by far more lurkers and lings than he could handle. GG.

I don't really like this map for proxy cheeses because there's only one place they can be done. Fighting Spirit is fun for the proxy 88rax because you do it above or below the middle depending on your start location (so it's closer to two and further from one main) which at least mixes it up a bit for scouting. Flash tried it anyway and the overlord went there and that was that. He attempted to play one base but with his awful ramp micro and his base scouted it wasn't happening.

Kwark's Player Ratings
Flash: 2 of 5.
Flash tried a cheese when he's the superior player and the map isn't great for it. He microed awfully on the ramp which led to everything getting scouted.

Effort: 4 of 5.
Effort gave himself an easy win with his great decision to overlord scout center. It helped that Flash showed him his entire base, and Effort didn't do anything bad here which puts him on a three automatically. The sense of star block of the all-in drop pushes him up to a four. Effort had very little to do this game but what he did was competent I guess.

WaxAngel's Match Rating: 2.5 of 5.
Fatal, glaring micro mistake from Flash early on, with solid play by Effort all around to consolidate his lead.

Flash spawned in yellow at 7 while Effort got orange at 1 on Match Point. Flash decided to build his rax at the back of his main while Effort went 11 hatch in his nat. He followed it with a quick 10 gas 9 pool while Flash went for a blind 13 command centre. Effort macroed up to thirteen drones with gas and minerals for a quick lair and speed the moment the pool finished, then going pure ling. Flash bunkered his natural and made a second rax but he had no real scouting information and two hatcheries going pure ling have more production at their disposal than two rax.

Flash set himself up in a defensive position with SCVs plugging the gaps in his building wall, but he still had a very wide front to defend. When the zerglings attacked Flash made a critical mistake by selecting all of his SCVs and attack moving them, including the ones that were blocking the important gaps. Effort immediately ran through the holes in the wall and into the Terran main. Flash pulled SCVs and marines to deal with the zerglings in his main, but it meant that he left his front wall still unguarded. More speedlings flooded in through the front, and now Flash was in serious trouble. His solution was to pull every marine but one from the front to defend his mineral line, but it was already too late as Flash didn't have enough marines to protect his spread out base. Flash lost control of his barracks and GGed.

Effort's build would have been easily defeated by a hard wall rather than just blocking buildings and scvs filling the gaps. It worked because Flash didn't scout exactly what was coming which in turn happened because Flash went 13 command centre. It was obviously timed pretty well with the simultaneous speed and lair on pool completion but when it comes down to it, it was nothing more than a speedling allin. Flash lost this because he scouted too late to see what Effort was doing, because he went 13 command centre rather than rax FE and because he got distracted and unwalled his front.

Kwark's Player Ratings
Flash: 1 of 5.
I didn't like his build. I didn't like his execution. Effort was lighting fires on his barracks but there's no excuse for breaking his entire defensive position to deal with that. He's better than this.

Effort: 3 of 5.What can I say? He made a load of lings and then won. I guess he didn't make any mistakes in doing it so he gets a 3/5 but I'd award Octzerg the same 3/5 if he beat Flash with it.

WaxAngel's Match Rating: 2 of 5.
Kwanrollllllleed.... by Effort.