Banner by SilverskY
by KwarK, Waxangel and motbob
Firstly I'd like to welcome you all to the OSL. Last weeks hype post aside, this is where it begins, the round of 36 has started. I'd just like to briefly mention our new roster and inform you of the new format we'll be using for this part of the OSL. Our trio of writers are Waxangel and I who are continuing from last season, and motbob who has joined us. Obviously no real introductions are needed there. Waxangel and motbob will be doing brief recaps of the more average games along with discussions of anything they feel is relevant, from maps and statistics to player rivalries. I'll be choosing games to feature based upon how good they are, how interesting they are or if I just can't help a good rant. Those games will get longer battle reports as well as related (usually) tangents I feel like including.
Notice: I will have to miss the next two weeks as I will be on training exercises in Wales without any access to technology but I am confident the others will produce excellent work without me. Also, we stole the Proleague team's table of contents box. Eat it, Proleague team.
Round of 36 Week 1
Quick Results
+ Show Spoiler [Results] +
Group A
great > BeSt - Eye of the Storm
great > BeSt - Flight-Dreamliner
Sea > great - Eye of the Storm
Sea < great - Flight-Dreamliner
Sea > great - Grand Line SE
Sea qualifies for the OSL RO16.
Group B
free > Canata - Eye of the Storm
free > Flight-Dreamliner
Calm < free - Eye of the Storm
Calm < free - Flight-Dreamliner
free qualifies for the OSL RO16.
Group C
RuBy > JangBi - Eye of the Storm
RuBy > JangBi - Flight-Dreamliner
Hyuk > RuBy - Eye of the Storm
Hyuk > RuBy - Flight-Dreamliner
Hyuk qualifies for the OSL RO16.
great > BeSt - Eye of the Storm
great > BeSt - Flight-Dreamliner
Sea > great - Eye of the Storm
Sea < great - Flight-Dreamliner
Sea > great - Grand Line SE
Sea qualifies for the OSL RO16.
Group B
free > Canata - Eye of the Storm
free > Flight-Dreamliner
Calm < free - Eye of the Storm
Calm < free - Flight-Dreamliner
free qualifies for the OSL RO16.
Group C
RuBy > JangBi - Eye of the Storm
RuBy > JangBi - Flight-Dreamliner
Hyuk > RuBy - Eye of the Storm
Hyuk > RuBy - Flight-Dreamliner
Hyuk qualifies for the OSL RO16.
Battle Reports
Map Order: Eye of the Storm - Flight-Dreamliner - Grand Line SE
June 16th Games
Group A: great vs BeSt
+ Show Spoiler [Best vs Great - Game One] +
by WaxAngel
The first leg of ‘The Battle of the Most Inappropriate IDs’ took place on Eye of the Storm. The game opened up in standard fashion, with Protoss going for a forge-expansion while Zerg did the usual three hatches at three bases thing. The game looked like it could be interesting, until Best decided he would start massing +1 corsairs. At that point, every educated e-Sports fan knew that things were going to go rapidly downhill for Best.
I think everyone saw this coming.
Best did not disappoint, and gave everyone a good laugh with his infamously poor air-unit preservation skills. To Great’s credit, his scourge micro was pretty clean when he brought down five attack-upgraded corsairs. By dispatching Best’s key early corsairs, Great was able to pin down the protoss with mutalisks while leisurely taking a fourth base and teching to hive.
Very few things of note occurred afterwards, as the game hurtled towards its inevitable conclusion. Great was in full-out lazy mode after having taken such a huge advantage, which allowed Best to kill heaps of poorly microed Ultra-ling during his last ditch attack. However, Great was already too far ahead, and simply threw more stuff at Best until he died.
+ Show Spoiler [Best vs Great - Game Two] +
by Kwark
My intent was to only cover the Ruby vs JangBi series from day one but when I saw great vs BeSt I felt there were a great (no pun intended, great just has a stupid name!) many things that needed to be said. So, great spawned at 3 in orange while BeSt got red in 6 on our new map Dreamliner. great went for a five pool while BeSt opened FE and scouted on eight. Although BeSt scouted the five pool early he did not have a probe at his natural and could not forge immediately; this isn't ideal but I guess it is excusable. However after starting his forge he then sent the probe at his natural back to mine and forgot to send it back to his natural to actually start making things. So in the most urgent situation possible in a game of Starcraft we find ourselves in this position.
I don't know how you do it BeSt
BeSt finally adds a single cannon, a gateway above it in the wrong place, sells and remakes the gateway and a forge to narrow the choke. Unfortunately in all the years BeSt has played Starcraft he's never taken thirty minutes to work out Protoss walling. He placed a second forge to the left of his first to narrow the choke which was good but he didn't understand that forges side by side create a wall that lings can get through but probes can't. Furthermore if he'd been thinking he'd have realised that he could put a second gateway above his first forge to the left of it which would have closed the choke. But we can't expect BeSt to know that a gateway above a forge walls.
And so we find ourselves in this position.
You've really got to ask yourselves how this happens to a progamer
Kwark's conjecture
So, to go on a quick tangent, defending five pools. After all, if BeSt can't do it maybe some lessons are in order.
If you scout your opponent first, which you will on two player maps, you can hold your natural from a five pool with relative ease. You need to forge immediately which means if you suspect five pool is a possibility it's worth losing ten seconds mining time by sending a probe out to the natural early. Once you know it's a five pool spend all your time at your natural working out the wallin, after all, it's early game, what else are you going to spend the time on. That wallin will decide if you hold or not so consider everything you can do with pylons, gateways, forges and probes.
Once you've narrowed your choke as much as you can you need to assess how much time you need to buy and what options the choke gives you. If I can digress to a personal anecdote here, a few years ago I saw Savior five pool Stork live at the WWI in Paris on Blue Storm. Stork cannoned extremely late and then got three probes, two of which held minerals, and placed them in the choke with the mineral ones at the front. The zerglings arrived and, because Savior is a good player, he immediately manually targetted the front probe. Stork promptly hit c and that probe glided through the one behind it. The zerglings could now no longer attack that probe and because they were told to attack it they went crazy. That bought Stork a few seconds. Then Savior worked it out and manually targetted the second probe and it too immediately glided back. Again the zerglings went crazy and again they wasted time. By the time he was through that choke the cannons were up and the five pool did no damage, Stork won with ease. Since then I have always made sure to exploit that trick whenever I try to hold a choke with probes against zerglings and it has always worked well. Move a probe holding minerals to the front, hotkey it, press c, that's all there is to it.
So, that's how you defend a five pool. Let's see how BeSt did.
[x] Scout at an appropriate timing.
[ ] Be ready to react immediately.
[ ] Cannon immediately at your natural if you can hold it.
[ ] Consider your wallin.
[ ] Exploit the probe cargo return trick.
Amazingly the only thing BeSt did right was finding out it was coming which in a way makes all his other failures even worse.
So, back to the game. great had only made six zerglings and was getting his economy back up while BeSt's cannon didn't actually fire a single shot at the four zerglings that made it in. The game turned into a question of how well BeSt could defend his mineral line and how much great could disrupt it. Again BeSt showed he simply doesn't understand how to play against a five pool so again I feel I need to quickly clarify something. Stacked probes absolutely destroy zerglings and damaged probes can quickly take refuge in the mineral line to be switched for new ones.
What you do is whenever the lings make a move at the mineral line you drill the nearby probes towards them and hit them with a stacked moving shot. Usually they'll retreat rather than get hit so all you waste is mining time which is acceptable as long as you don't lose any probes and you only use the nearby probes.
What you absolutely must not do is use all your probes like BeSt did. You have to maintain a working economy and it is absolutely absurd to grab twelve probes off the mineral line in order to chase back four zerglings. Each time you do that you're doing more damage than if you'd simply let him kill probes. A decent rule of thumb is to use a few more probes than he has lings attacking and to return to mining the moment he moves outside drill range. You don't want to be fighting zerglings with probes in open ground so your field of defence is just the mineral line and up to the vespene gas. If there are just a few zerglings, as there were in this game, simply push them back whenever they come at the mineral line and wait for a zealot. If there are any more and they have speed you will save money by adding a pylon and cannon in your main, especially if you head down that route early.
Overreaction much
great took his expansion and quickly teched to lair, adding a hydralisk den as the lair completed while BeSt eventually cleaned up the four zerglings with a zealot after getting horrendously behind. He still lost three probes and he wasted so much mining time chasing four zerglings around with twelve probes that it didn't really matter what he did. He added cannons and retook his expansion playing blind and then slowly teched to corsair with no scouting information other than great having taken his natural.
I really like how great acted to avoid scouting, maynarding only one drone to his natural so his main was far more saturated but having his natural scouted would make BeSt afraid of some kind of followup bust and make him cannon his front. Then eight lings to ensure a zealot couldn't suicide into the main for a look before returning to pure economy. He hit the timing windows for BeSt's scouting options perfectly so even if BeSt wasn't so terrible, there were misdirection safeguards.
great pre-emptively sent overlords to cliffs where they waited for hydralisks and drop research, the perfect counter to two hatch bust paranoia. BeSt was afraid an attack was coming at his front and didn't have the gateways to block it with anything but cannons. To cover his options he went for two stargates in case of mutalisks but he was completely unprepared for the drop which would hit just seconds after the research completed. Three overlords of hydralisks crossed the short gap between their bases while a fourth with the zerglings was ferried up the cliff. BeSt's first corsair crossed paths with the overlords as they headed to his base but clutch decision making let him down. It was a situation where split second intuition was needed, it would only take him four seconds to scout the main and see what great was doing, and in 99% of cases it makes far more sense to go take a look. In this case though, seconds made all the difference and if Best didn't realize it was a drop and start attacking the overlords right away he'd lose.
BeSt stuck to the standard playbook and went ahead to scout. If he'd had time to think it through I'm sure he'd have realised there was only one situation where slow overlords would be crossing that divide and in that situation every second was golden. But most of the time you don't mess around killing overlords, you go straight for the scouting and BeSt is nothing if not standard.
To his credit BeSt worked it out shortly afterwards and immediately returned his corsair to attack an overlord. Unfortunately for him he was faced with three overlords to choose from. The front one which was already almost into his base, the middle one which was just behind the front one and the back one which was out over the ravine. BeSt decided he'd open with the middle one, take off 1/4 of it's health and then move to the front one which was now over his base and unloading.
Yay for paint
I cannot begin to explain how absolutely idiotic this is. Every Protoss player from D rank up knows how long it takes a corsair to kill a slow overlord. It's a situation which we come across fairly often. If we assume that BeSt has played a game of Starcraft before and that it was a PvZ and that he opened FE corsair then he should know this. So any credit BeSt gets for working out it was a drop goes when he decides to attack an overlord which will unload before he can stop it, then switches to an overlord which is even closer to getting through just to make sure that the third overlord will also make it.
BeSt pulled his probes and zealots up to the drop but it made no difference, especially with the sneaky zergling drop hitting from behind. The first overlord went down a little after it unloaded its cargo, the second was brought down by two corsairs after it unloaded its own hydralisks and the third overlord was covered by a load of hydralisks as it made it successfully into the Protoss main. The hydralisks promptly killed BeSt and after trying to fight them with probes for a bit he got bored of humiliating himself and GGed.
+ Show Spoiler [Best vs Great - Game Three] +
Great won 2-0
Group B: free vs Canata
+ Show Spoiler [Free vs Canata – Game One] +
by WaxAngel
The second series of the night was rather similar to the first, with the two players playing exactly the way they usually play to a predictable conclusion. Can you guess how it went? Yup, you’re right! Free bludgeoned Canata to death in an ugly, but exciting brawl of a game.
The early-mid game actually played out to Canata’s advantage in terms of being able to keep up with the Protoss expansions, but in any case the game safely progressed to the usual 3/3 Terran vs arbiter abusing Protoss phase. From there on out, the game was as mentioned above, truly ‘typical’ Free and ‘typical’ Canata.
Free was perfectly happy to wage a massive ground war, smashing head-on into the entrenched Terran positions with masses of zealots and dragoons supported by HTs and arbiters. As usual, all of his finesse was reserved for battle.
On the other hand, Canata was very average as expected, showing little flair or decisiveness. To give Canata his due, his macro and micro were the best they’ve been in quite a while. He did all the things a 3/3 turtle terran is expected to do (EMP arbiters, put mines in good positions, etc) but he wasn’t particularly great at it.
Canata obliged Free in his desire to trade troops over and over, which provided great entertainment as the players fought massive battles for position over and over. While the awesome firepower of 3/3 mech kept Canata on even footing for quite a while, Free always seemed like he was coming out slightly ahead. Canata was never able to achieve a decisive victory, and he eventually ran out of steam as Free continued to expand and throw more and more troops at him. Eventually, the balance tipped and Canata was forced to GG.
+ Show Spoiler [Free vs Canata - Game Two] +
by WaxAngel
The two players kept the close aerial distance in mind as they faced off Flight-Dreamliner. After relatively quick expansions by both players, Free decided to be the aggressor by going for a robotics support bay and speed shuttles, while Canata built a starport and two wraiths in order to defend against any aerial attacks. The strategies employed turned out to be in a simple straight rock > scissor relationship, as Free’s two shuttle and two reaver attack was utterly thwarted by defending tanks and wraiths. Canata followed up his good defense with a counter drop of four vulures, which was defended rather poorly by the Protoss player.
Although Free had lost decisively in the drop battles, he was still in a decent position in the overall picture. With little aggression occurring outside the drop tactics, both players had been expanding freely. While this gave Canata an easy three bases, Free had been even more reckless and had gone up to five.
The turning point in the game came with the first Terran push, when both players had decided the drop stage was over and the land war should begin. Canata mobilized his army to push out on the “airplane” in the middle of the map, taking aim at Free’s northern expansions.
Free went for a risky attack on the entrenched Terran position, not waiting for arbiters despite the fact that he would still have a few minutes before the push could advance into truly dangerous territory. At first it looked like it was a poor decision from Free, as the Terran tank line was very deep and had sufficient vulture + mine support. However it turned out that Canata had made the mistake of advancing his push on top of his older spider mines, which left a huge chunk of his tanks sitting directly over 125 damage splash bombs. The result was…. predictable.
Everyone saw this coming, too.
There was no coming back for Canata after losing his first push. Free’s five bases kicked in, giving him a huge amount of troops to throw around at will. Although Free definitely could have gone for more finesse in his finish, with carriers/recalls/etc, he opted to do what he did best and beat Canata into submission with waves of ground troops.
+ Show Spoiler [Free vs Canata - Game Two] +
Free won 2-0.
Group C: RuBy vs JangBi
+ Show Spoiler [Ruby vs JangBi - Game One] +
by Kwark
Ruby spawned in blue at 11 on Eye of the Storm while JangBi got yellow at 7. JangBi opened thirteen nexus which is a great build on EotS while Ruby opted for a safer rax depot. One thing to note is that JangBi went for a second pylon before gas which meant he was not cutting probes, instead trusting that the map was too big for Ruby to try some kind of bunker play when he scouted it. Fortunately for him Ruby scouted him last which meant that even if Ruby had wanted to hit it fast he wouldn't have found out about it in time. JangBi made two quick zealots for defence while getting his core and second gateway up with a booming economy. Ruby sent a vulture to test the defences but JangBi's first dragoon came out in time to send it back without losing a probe.
Ruby knew he'd scouted the FE too late to do anything but counterexpand slower and send his first vulture to try and get something done. When that failed he was forced to fight in the macro war at a distinct disadvantage; normally the Terran player can take the slightly faster expansion with a siege or mine expand but the thirteen nexus changes everything. With players of equal skill it's almost always an advantage for Protoss. JangBi tried to pressure Ruby a little with his first two zealots and a dragoon but after seeing Ruby's unit count he realised Ruby had taken a late counterexpansion and although he could do no direct damage the economic damage was already done.
Both players proceeded to macro up, JangBi getting observer tech and four gateways while Ruby prepared for the late game with academy, armoury and just two factories on tanks. However JangBi had absolutely no scouting information and was forced to play safe while waiting for his observers, so while Ruby set himself up for the late game JangBi was doing a general safe midgame build with slow arbiters and no third expansion.
Ruby set up a defensive position on his half of the map while JangBi found himself with a load of dragoons, a shuttle of zealots and no real plan for dealing with anything but a six factory allin.
Also Ruby kept sniping observers and I love him for it
Instead of attacking Ruby simply expanded to 9 with the intention of covering the narrow path between 7 and 9 with mines and tanks which he made even sweeter by sniping the observer over the minefield. There was no way JangBi was attempting to attack 9 down that route so he was forced to react by taking 6, a rare situation where Protoss takes his third later than the Terran.
Although JangBi still had map control and now had his first arbiter out his position was deceptively weak. On a two base economy with a third base just starting he was in no position to replace an army and with the tanks at 9 just a screens length away from threatening his natural a double expansion would be risky. JangBi had critically overinvested in the midgame while Ruby was simply not interested and had skipped straight to the late game. Despite taking a few tentative pokes towards Ruby's line, Jangbi understood he couldn't attack into it and instead focussed on containment.
With Ruby pulling ahead in supply at 150 JangBi finally made his move with a recall in the Terran main, and an expansion at 4. It wasn't ideal but he needed something to get some momentum in order to get 4 up and try and play on an even footing.
The recall wasn't awful, mines were just beginning to be laid in the area and there was no real recall defence there yet. However with an awful lot of buildings in the way the superior ranged damage of Ruby's cleanup squad stopped the worst of the damage. They mainly killed depots and an armoury but Ruby was not supply blocked and still ended up ahead in supply. That said, JangBi did get his fourth while Ruby was just starting his own at 12 so the recall suceeded in its goal.
JangBi tried to threaten 12 but as the tank line stretched across the top of the map he thought better of it and pulled back. By this point both players were maxed with Ruby on 2-0 upgrades and JangBi on 1-0-0. A few stray high templar did little to make his army more potent while Ruby's addition of ghosts easily proved their value. An arbiter poking around near 12 to see if it could find a nice recall opportunity was immediately lockdowned and destroyed.
cute
As JangBi expanded to the main at 5 Ruby began to leapfrog his army across the centre and JangBi decided he had to make a move. The EMPs missed the arbiters and as the tanks at the top of the observers screen got stasised it looked for a second like JangBi might break through. Then the camera panned up to show another control group of tanks, safely behind the stasis, which wiped out the remaining dragoons in a single volley.
As the dust settled Ruby was thirty supply ahead and JangBi simply did not have an active presence on the map. Ruby didn't even wait for the stasis to wear off, instead pushing immediately for JangBi's main. He tornadoed in and there was simply nothing that JangBi could do about it, he didn't have the units. He launched a small counterattack at 12 which was quickly cleaned up and with his gateways contained behind a narrow choke with tanks in it he took heavy losses. Eventually some units from gateways at 5 were able to draw fire and allow JangBi to retake his natural but doing so left him fifty supply behind and Ruby's wave of reinforcements crushed 4 and 5. JangBi desperately attacked wherever Ruby wasn't with whatever units he had, killing the scv expanding at 1, and attacked 9 as his own 5 o'clock base fell. However each time Ruby's reinforcements cleaned it up and as Ruby relieved 9 he was a full hundred supply ahead. JangBi realised it was over and GGed.
The big question this game is how the hell did Ruby start the game with a big economic deficit and then safely take a third base before JangBi. And while I love a lot about how Ruby played this, ghosts and observer sniping especially, the answer is that JangBi fundamentally misread what Ruby was doing and overcommitted himself to playing a midgame that simply did not exist. Not even a single vulture crossed the map in the midgame, Ruby simply wasn't interested in what JangBi was doing and JangBi was unable to damage what Ruby was doing. JangBi had the money to play a softer midgame, perhaps by making a few more gateways and a lot less units while expanding so he was still capable of quickly pumping an army if needed but was also setting up for the late game if not. Instead he squandered his advantage by building units that wouldn't fire a shot for five minutes while Ruby invested and reaped the rewards. Ruby's strategy wasn't amazing but there were a few excellent technical elements and his macro was clearly working. He made JangBi look like a second rate player.
+ Show Spoiler [Ruby vs JangBi - Game Two] +
by Kwark
Ruby spawned at 3 in orange while JangBi spawned in red at 6 on Dreamliner. Both opened with standard builds, pylon gateway gas core pylon from Protoss and depot rax refinery from Terran. JangBi followed his core with a fast robo before range which was scouted by the scv. This allowed Ruby to play optimally against JangBi with a fast machine shop and expansion. Ruby added a quick ebay at the bottom of his base and starting pumping siege tanks while JangBi, anticipating Ruby's response, also expanded.
The moment the ebay finished it immediately started flying to the island at 4 where is landed on the expansion site. This turned out to be absolutely huge because a few seconds later a shuttle arrived to drop off a probe. This not only sabotaged Jangbi's plan to take a fast hidden expansion and showed his shuttle timing, but also meant there would never be any value to expanding there.
When the reaver drop came Ruby had a tank sieged and several more in tank mode nearby which blocked it without a scarab fired. Without an island expansion to defend and with no damage done the money invested in the reaver and shuttle were completely wasted. With no real action going on both players took a third in the corner and macroed up.
JangBi continued to attempt drop play but Ruby had a mobile force and blocked double speed shuttles taking less damage than he dolled out. Both players were expanding along their sides of the maps and added a fourth base as this happened but the diversion down the drop tech tree was delaying JangBi's progression to the late game. When JangBi finally attempted to take the island Ruby immediately shut it down with a drop before moving the dropship into JangBi's base over the stargates and fleet beacon.
JangBi tried to take his expansion at the island again and again Ruby immediately blocked it with a vulture drop which not only killed the probe and a cannon but also killed JangBi's reaver, sent to block it, with a mine.
boooom
After playing 20minNR they finally decided to start clashing in the middle on one sixty supply and four bases apiece. However the drop play and subsequent carrier switch pulled focus from JangBi's ground army while Ruby's build was much more efficient. Ruby was going for a lot of factories with good upgrades and money to use them, no funny business or messing around. Ruby took the middle of the map where there is no room for potentially devastating flanks, and safely expanded to 12. Furthermore he was confident enough in the weakness of the island at 5 to follow up his vulture drop with a single dropship of units killing three cannons and a reaver.
One tank and two goliaths in an extremely tight window cause 1500 minerals of damage
Ruby was maxed a full thirty supply ahead of his opponent while pumping out a few ghosts to augment his army against carriers. As JangBi committed his carriers and ground army against 12, Ruby simply sent his ground army at JangBi's base, confident JangBi had nothing there that could stop it. JangBi responded by allining into 1 which meant that Ruby knew JangBi's army could do nothing to save his main. Ruby split his forces to save 1 while simultaneously smashing JangBi's bases at 6, 7 and 8. A minute later Ruby was still at one fifty supply and had only lost the 12 o'clock base while JangBi was at ninety supply and three bases down.
10 o'clock fell seconds later as JangBi's carriers fled from the ghosts and 3-3 goliaths, and JangBi decided to fortify the island and rely on carriers doing a counterattack. This was probably JangBi's best option in as much as he'd lost control of his main and he couldn't fight Ruby's army, but to be honest it's normal to just leave in that position. Ruby finished off the island expansion with a drop and started locking down the carriers with over three times JangBi's supply. When it became evident he'd have to start hiding buildings Jangbi decided it was probably over and GGed.
To borrow an adjective from Day9 which I feel is really appropriate, Ruby's build was lean. Expand, upgrade and make stuff. That was it. And that really suits Dreamliner because although Dreamliner is an air map in the early game the late game is dominated by whoever has the big army in the middle. That's where the important expansions are and Ruby's build was from the outset built around getting that army in the middle. That engineering bay on the island was also really useful because it meant JangBi couldn't take the island until the late game and the fast shuttle was seen. Ruby knew what JangBi was doing and could counter it while keeping his build tight, JangBi's build, on the other hand, was pulled in several directions, first by the reavers and then carriers.
+ Show Spoiler [Ruby vs JangBi - Game Two] +
Ruby won 2-0.
June 18th Games
Group A: Sea vs great
+ Show Spoiler [Sea vs great - Game One] +
by Motbob
In game 1 on Eye of the Storm, the game opened 3 hatch vs 1rax cc. Sea looked a little bit off in his decision making. He didn't do the timing attack that almost every Terran utilizes vs 3 hatch, and great didn't even have to morph any of his creep colonies into sunkens until late in the game. Also, Sea fell for great's tricky build hook, line, and sinker, which to be fair was the coolest build ever. Great took metagaming to a whole new level (nuclear launch detected) as he built a FAKE fake spire, pretending to do the trick-spire-into-lurker-into-hive build that Calm likes to do from time to time. In reality, great made a pittance of lurkers (just enough to defend his third) and then a whole bunch of mutas. It was really funny to see the observer react so late to the mutas as they entered Sea's base, just as Sea's army was being cornered by lurkers at great's third. It's clear that the pros who commentate Starcraft for a living were just as shocked by great's creativity as we were.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD2m5RLtD-s#t=09m55s
mutas out of ****ing nowhere
mutas out of ****ing nowhere
Unfortunately, great didn't seem to have the multitasking to pull his excellent build off. At the north, his lurkers, sunks, and lings failed to work in tandem to take out the scattered remains of Sea's ravaged initial MnM force. In Sea's main, his mutas died whilst hovering over a command center. A better Zerg would have kept Sea in his base longer with crisper muta control, perhaps allowing Hive tech to get up in time. As it was, Sea pushed great's 3rd with overwhelming force, sending the game into garbage time with three Terran bases vs two Zerg bases with one making. Great's too-late dark swarm let him get up 4 bases, but that's all he was able to do. He slowly lost ground against Sea's healthy tank count and conceded.
+ Show Spoiler [Sea vs great - Game Two] +
by Motbob
All game 2 showed was that great understood the map Dreamliner better than Sea did. Great went 3 hatch muta into a pretty fast third gas. The third base location on Dreamliner is relatively secure, so it made sense. With the fast gas, great went fast hive, and his guardians and defiler/lurker/ling tore up Sea's army really easily. Great marched straight to Sea's nat and had it under swarm by the 12 minute mark.
+ Show Spoiler [Sea vs great - Game Three] +
by KwarK.
In our first game on Grand Line SE in the OSL Sea spawned at 7 in white while great spawned at 11 in purple. Sea opened depot rax as you'd expect while great opted for a twelve hatch eleven pool. Both players scouted at roughly the same time and both scouted towards 5 with a worker. great opted to go without gas and follow up his pool with a quick third hatchery on fourteen, pumping out drones and building up his economy to support his fast three hatcheries while Sea built a command centre on the high ground ready to fly out as you'd expect. All in all, while there were other options, this is just about the most standard the game could be.
great made four zerglings and while adding his gas and then followed it up with a quick lair and second gas with all but two larva spent on drones. He did some nice overlord scouting in Sea's natural, poking in to look for a cc and then backing out safely. He also killed Sea's scout scv early which meant his build and spire timing were unknown to Sea. Sea opted for a fast starport opening with his factory pumping vultures and a bunker in his natural to hold the front.
Three speed vultures pushed out to get some scouting information and kill a few speedlings but Sea knew he wasn't getting into great's main. In the mean time Sea had taken a very unusual tech route, following his fast starport with a fast science vessel and an engineering bay instead of the usual armoury. Marines and medics are the staple of TvZ but when mech is used the quick starport and armoury allow valkyries and goliaths to take the role of antiair. Unupgraded and unsupported marines with a lot of turrets and fast science vessels is something I've not seen before and I'm not convinced it's good. Anyway, great attacked Sea's natural with eleven mutalisks and the four turrets there struggled to stop them. Scvs repairing them bought some time but the turrets went down and the marines brought in to help lacked the range, speed and staying power that medics and upgrades bring.
Three turrets and a few scvs died blocking the mutalisks which continued to harass and do damage. Even the sudden appearance of the science vessel with energy for irradiate didn't change much because marines simply can't fight microed mutalisks.
Air defence circa 1999
I thought at this point it was going to be a very short game but great's mutalisk micro was worse than it should have been and he was already transitioning out of mutalisks when he started to harass so lacked the followup. Still, he was able to kill a tank and do a lot of damage while expanding to 1.
Sea transitioned into mass rax with a high science vessel count, a tank count that really should have been higher and a very small marine army. All he really had going for him was irradiate while great was heading for a quick three gas hive. Sea started a command centre to float out to the 6:30 natural and when great tried to do some mutalisk scourge sniping Sea punished him with good micro and some devastating irradiates. The irradiate really damaged great's mutalisk force and did a lot of damage to the lurkers great was relying upon to buy time. Fortunately great had creeped some sunkens forwards to force Sea to siege his way in and buy a little more time which they did perfectly. Consume finished in time and great was able to deflect the attack with dark swarm and lurkers.
Just in time
Sea's attention turned to 2 where great was taking the natural but with a nydus at 1 great was able to immediately reinforce 2 and Sea lost a lot of marines to inattention and a lurker under dark swarm. Sea's continual pressure was opening the expansions along the bottom of the map for him and he took 6 while transitioning heavily into mech and mining along his side of the map. Although his marines had 1-1 upgrades Sea was spending his three gas income on mass factories with vultures, tanks and science vessels with upgrades of their own. great was slow to respond to this switch and found himself fighting pure vultures and tanks on the ground with zerglings and lurkers which didn't work especially well. The mutalisks he needed were morphed into guardians which were bait for irradiate.
Sea's massive growth across the entire bottom of the map reached the main at 4 where he started building more factories putting himself in an excellent position for the late game while holding the centre of the map. His early barracks was lifted to the islands at 3 and 9 where they ensured no expansions. great mirrored Sea's expansions the moment he realised what Sea was trying to do and the game quickly turned into a top versus bottom with a sieged tank line facing off against dark swarmed lurkers in the middle. That said, Sea got the better of every exchange of fire and it was only dark swarm that stopped his advance.
Then out of nowhere the economic balance began to shift. Sea's stronger economy began to mine out at his first three bases while the lower saturation of great kept his income at consistently high levels. Guardians hit 5 and as Sea diverted forces to block them a devastating counterattack of cracklings, dark swarm, plague and lurkers smashed Sea in the top centre. The victorious forces bypassed Sea's beachhead in the middle and went down the right hand side of the map into 6 where they killed a number of scvs before being cleaned up. great was on six! mining bases and was keeping his money lower than Sea.
He added drop tech and double expanded to both islands while doing a big drop at 4 but Sea blocked the drop with ease and immediately dropped both 3 and 9. 9 fell but the drop at 3 was blocked by guardians which also stopped Sea taking 4. Sea found himself fighting in five places at once and if he hadn't had the foresight to build factories at 5 he would have been in real trouble. As drops and guardians hit him on one side of the map another ground army bypassed the centre to head straight for Sea's natural. A mine killed most of the zerglings but still, great was penetrating deeper than he should have been able to.
lol spider mines
Sea was reduced to two fortresses in each corner and an isolated island of tanks in the centre of the map while massive drops, guardians and ground armies ran around the map. He was no longer able to even attempt to cross the map despite being maxed as the one seventy supply of great was extremely strong. great took the opportunity to get 3 up and mining and to retake 9, consolidating his position rather than risk throwing forces into an opponent who looked like he was stabilising.
Sea again dropped 9 and great responded by smashing down all three central paths at once to overwhelm and crush the forces in the middle of the map and converge upon 6 which promptly lifted off. The losses in supply were fairly even but as Sea drew a line with his tank reinforcements and stopped the push in its tracks great threw down dark swarms and refused to retreat.
Here the line is drawn
or not...
Despite being reduced to just two mining bases at 5 and 5:30 and despite having zerg forces flooding from the victory at 6 into his main Sea held on. The struggle for his main looked close as the swarms made a continual trail up the ramp but the +3 tanks at the back held the line. Even though he was under enormous pressure Sea still controlled a lot of resources within his half of the map, he was just unable to really exploit them.
A lurker drop stopped mining at 5:30 while Sea expanded to 4 and although the drop was cleaned up great continued constant pressure. Rather than build up for another big push he felt if he could continue the pressure he could break through and his forces flowed across the map into the tanks of Sea. Eventually after wasting a lot of zerglings trying to get up a ramp with tanks on the top great conceeded he had to build up for a bit. Sea immediately retook a position in the middle of the map and started mining at 6 again. A drop at 9 was blocked easily by great but now he was running out of resources too and starting to get a bit more optimistic in possible sources.
Not all that unrealistic given the last minute
Although great had done an excellent job at stopping Sea from mining those expansions he couldn't quite extract Sea from the corner he'd backed himself into and as long as Sea's tanks were lined up on the cliff next to 5 he would always be able to take 4 eventually. The island at 9 gained a critical role but unfortunately for great just as he loaded OLs up with drones to ferry over there Sea dropped it and killed the hatchery.
Zerg attacks in the centre became increasingly wasteful and although he kept stopping mining at both 4 and 6 with guardians and lurkers respectively great was running out of money. Only 12 and 3 remained while Sea had 6, 5:30, 5 and 4. Another drop stopped the hatchery at 9 again and the massive zerg attacks became somewhat smaller zerg attacks. Without the size to pay the overheads demanded by mines and tanks before you actually engage, great was just throwing units away and he couldn't afford to replace them. When it became clear he couldn't take 9 he GGed out, ending an excellent game.
This was a fantastic game. Sea's build, which I'm still rather dubious about, hit the three hatch mutalisk timing perfectly with irradiate. I'm still not convinced it could actually stop a detirmined three hatch mutalisk build with just irradiate, turrets and vanilla marines but unless the zergs expect it then it shouldn't have to. Sea's tech switches were sudden and shocking and his aggression into mass expansion was very fun to watch. Equally great deserves a lot of credit for pulling off the kind of massive attacks he did and for managing a seven base zerg economy with minerals under a thousand. For a while it looked like Sea would win and then great's economy kicked in and it looked certain he had it. His attacks crushed Sea on every front and he was simultaneously smashing down the door at both Sea's mains at one point. I feel it was great's eagerness to finish Sea off with a stream of reinforcements after a victory rather than building up for another concentrated attack that let him down. He hit like a wall of water breaking through a dam but as the river slowed to a trickle Sea was always able to retake the ground he lost.
On a related note, when fighting Terran mech the losses you take engaging are pretty much always the same no matter how big your army is. So if you have 50 hydralisks and engage you may have 30 left by the time you actually get into range and start firing. Equally if you have 30 hydralisks you'll only have 10 left by the time you start firing. An army 3/5 the size may only have 1/3 the effective firepower. What this means is that is that the firepower of your army increases disproportionately to the size of your army and if you send too few units, as great started doing, they are simply wasted.
great wasted units and although he killed a lot of Sea's units in the process he failed to ever take any ground in the process. What he needed to do was break Sea's army in the centre and then show a bit of restraint, occupy the ground and expand to 6. Instead he got overambitious pushing for the immediate win and each time his units died against the twin fortresses at 5 and 7. Still, a lot of credit for both players, this was a fantastic game.
Group B: Calm vs free
+ Show Spoiler [Calm vs free - Game One] +
By KwarK
Calm spawned in purple at 5 while Free took red at 11 on Eye of the Storm. Calm opened twelve hatch eleven pool and while Free went for a FE, scouting with just a single probe but making up for it with a blind forge. Then when he scouted the twelve hatch he cancelled the forge for a faster nexus. All in all I like this because it's rare to see a Protoss player show a genuine awareness of what his limits are early game. Calm followed up with a fourteen hatch at the natural at 8 before taking his gas and heading for lair.
Free's scout probe stayed alive forever allowing him to get away with a very fast core and stargate off of just one cannon. Both players rushed to get tech up, Calm getting a fast spire while Free's corsairs were even faster. Calm transitioned into five hatcheries, using them to wall both his naturals, while Free pushed out fast with five zealots and a dragoon, hitting just as zealot speed completed.
The attack took the observers by surprise because we hadn't seen Free's base and it was fairly surprising to Calm too. He had six zerglings, one sunken and one morphing creep colony against five speed zealots and a dragoon. There was the potential to do terrible damage and if Free hadn't decided to go afk and rely on attack move against a wall then it would have. Unfortunately, he did that thing I just said.
Painful to watch
The dragoon and zealot could have brought down the walled off sunken between them while the remaining four zealots could keep the zerglings down and kill the creep colony which hasn't even begun to morph into a sunken yet. There was some real potential here.
The timing window just before mass hydralisks was missed and therefore the next stage, mass hydralisks with overlord speed, happened. Calm crossed the map and it was only a lot of corsairs taking a lot of damage that allowed a pair of dark templar to buy time. Unfortunately for Free Calm just sent more overlords and Free couldn't kill them. Calm smashed the front in because Free had walled far forwards and rather than just abandoning the one cannon at the front and building a new concave he decided to he was committed to holding the initial line.
It's all about concaves and Calm has one
The hydralisks broke in and started trying to snipe the high templar before storm research completed which meant they took an awful lot of damage to probes and a single cannon which they couldn't get to because of the aforementioned probes. In the mean time the corsairs had cleared Calm's main and natural of overlords and two dark templar were single handedly winning the game. Speedzealots stabilised Free's natural where he massed cannons and high templar and Calm lost the majority of his drones and a lot of mining time.
A minute later Free had rebuilt an army and Calm was still trying to replace drones. Speedzealots and high templar with storm were out and the hydralisks were obsolete. Free simply had to attack and Calm GGed.
That zealot dragoon attack triggered Calm to go hydralisks sooner than he probably should have, he still didn't have the drones to really support five hatcheries. Still, Calm was justifiably afraid of him, he wasn't to know Free would mess it up. After Free's awful cannon placement he deserved to lose, Calm had this game in the bag. It was sloppy of him not to invest in either a spore colony or a rearguard of hydralisks to protect overlords. Free played badly throughout while Calm only made one mistake but where dark templar are concerned one mistake is enough.
+ Show Spoiler [Calm vs free - Game Two] +
by KwarK
Free spawned in yellow at 3 while Calm got red at 6 on Dreamliner. Calm opened overpool speed while Free fast expanded correctly with forge nexus cannon. The moment the zerglings chased Free's scout probe out of his main Calm started a lair but the effort the lings put into denying Free scouting should have given him some indication something was up.
That something was one hatch lair rushing to a lurker drop and the lair completed faster than Free's cybernetics core. Free rushed to stargate as fast as he could using probes to fill the gaps in his wall and ensuring his safety against allins. A second gas and a cannon in his main covered Free from most options.
His first corsair scouted the untaken natural and the hydralisk den so Free immediately knew exactly what was going on. Unfortunately for him there were already three overlords dropping him, one ferrying units up the cliff, one crossing the divide with hydralisks and one taking lurkers the short distance into his natural. Free played correctly though and like all cheeses Calm failed in the face of correct play.
The cannon on Free's mineral line stopped the zerglings from getting anywhere or doing any damage and Free's corsairs dealt with the overlords the moment he worked out what was going on. Immediate cannons in his main covered most of the main mineral line, a robotics facility was already underway covered by cannons in his natural and some very quick thinking to deal with the lurker drop in his natural.
Pylons stop him dropping behind the mineral line while probes trap the lurkers inside cannon range
It didn't fail completely, Free's mining was very disrupted as he couldn't let his probes mine freely incase they spread themselves onto the covered patches. But with no permanent damage done and Free's robotics facility complete the damage was extremely short term and Free still had all his probes to send back onto the mineral line. At the same time his corsairs wiped out half of Calm's overlords forcing Calm into a two hatch hydralisk allin rather than any hope of recovering his drone count somehow.
Free understood that Calm was allin and he didn't need to mess around getting the gateways and psi storm needed to win because trying to get them was risky and he simply needed to hold. He had a robotics and he quickly added a support bay and kept it pumping reavers. A corsair verified that calm wasn't producing drones and zealots with reavers are pretty capable against drops of low numbers of hydralisks. Calm lost all his hydralisks and rather than wait for the inevitable just GGed.
Free played correctly this game and that's all there is to it. The pylons under the overlord to move the dropped lurkers were a nice touch but they didn't decide anything. What decided it was that Free made a list of Calm's options in his mind and countered each of them in turn. What made it a game worth commenting on is that it didn't actually matter which cheese Calm opted for, Free had it covered. It's always fun to watch a player get it right, especially after BeSt vs Great on the same map.
+ Show Spoiler [Calm vs free - Game Three] +
Free won 2-0.
Group C: Hyuk vs RuBy
+ Show Spoiler [Hyuk vs Ruby - Game One] +
by WaxAngel
The game opened up in a very standard manner on Eye of the Storm, with Ruby going for a rax FE while Hyuk did some sort of three hatchery build. Both players opted for pseudo all-in builds, Ruby going four rax while Hyuk got zergling speed and started pumping lings to go alongside his mutalisks. Ruby seemed somewhat aware of Hyuk’s motives and did not move out prematurely, waiting until he had a strong M&M force that could fight off a potential zergling flank. Despite his precautions, he still managed to lose the M&M versus mutaling battle. Ruby’s micro and positioning were good, and yet still he still lost decisively enough that the follow-up mutaling were able to camp his barracks and effectively end the game.
+ Show Spoiler [Hyuk vs Ruby - Game Two] +
by WaxAngel
Since his semi all-in worked so well in game one, Hyuk decided to go for a full all-in with a two hatch mutalisk rush on Dreamliner. Ruby played safe again, completely aware of Hyuk’s strategy and only needing to defend well to win. Unfortunately for Ruby, his defense was very poor, and this game felt like it was straight out of 2006. Hyuk tore Ruby up with mutalisks, and secured his passage to the Starleague proper.
+ Show Spoiler [Hyuk vs Ruby - Game Three] +
Hyuk won 2-0.
Flight - Dreamliner
A study in e-Sports product placement
A study in e-Sports product placement
After six games, I really don't know what to make of this map. I'm not sure if the progamers do, either. We saw an unusual amount of crazy play on this map, with Calm doing an insane 1 base lurker build and Great doing a 5 pool slow drop build. I wish I had a chance to see some of the unique features of this map used so that I could write about them with greater insight, but I guess instinct will have to suffice for now.
Let's take a look at the map:
The first thing that we should notice is the two island expansions at the top left and bottom right. It'll be interesting to see how these are used now that arbiter play (and counter-arbiter play) in progames has been really refined. Last time we had a map with island expansions was Andromeda. That seems like ages ago, doesn't it? Now we have two maps with isles in the Starleague, Dreamliner and Grand Line SE.
Triathlon had a whole bunch of semi-island expos, and that was a nightmare for Terran players trying to counter arbiters. However, Triathlon featured a complicating factor: free arbiters.
Outsider and El Niño/GBR also had a bunch of semi-island expos, where, again, arbiter play was extremely powerful. However, these expansions were temporary in nature. You'd never see a Terran player build 20 turrets to protect an expansion on Outsider. However, that's something that we'll certainly see on Dreamliner at some point.
There's a false dilemma for Zerg in deciding which third to take reminds me heavily of Blue Storm. Zergs can either take the safe mineral only or the more risky expo with gas. On Dreamliner, I think, the decision isn't really a decision. The expo with gas is still fairly secure, and gas is just so important to zergs. See great vs Sea on Dreamliner for an example of a game where the entire gameplan for Zerg was getting that gas fast. Great looked super safe when he took it, too. In my opinion, it's going to be really hard for Terrans to deny Zergs a third gas.
I don't really have an opinion on the cliffed expo in the middle. I'm sure there will be interesting late game situations where it comes into play, but I don't think there's anything we can predict regarding it.
The short fly distance compared to land distance didn't seem like that big of an issue to me. Right now, we're seeing Terrans severely overreact to predicted Protoss reaver builds. One of the most memorable moments on the map El Niño for me was when, early on in the lifespan of the map, Terran would just make mass anti-air units blindly and sit them in the middle of their base, just waiting for a reaver drop. Protoss practice partners had obviously been dropping reavers left and right prior to the first televised games. Sure enough, the reaver drops came, and, just as surely, they were repulsed. Eventually, Terrans and Protosses didn't rush for anti-air and reavers, respectively, and I think we'll see a similar shift in standard play on Dreamliner.
WARNING: UNEDUCATED OPINIONS AHEAD
Map balance: Terrans are going to have a tough time on this map, I think. First of all, it's going to be really hard for them to deny a Zerg third. Zergs are going to have a lot of ways to get to hive tech, and I think it'll be easier for them to get to four gas than on a lot of other maps.
Against Protoss, how are Terrans going to mount an effective push? I watched Free vs Canata and Jangbi vs Ruby and got the impression that harassment-based play is going to be a lot more effective than anything involving a big push.
As for Zerg vs Protoss, I really have no opinion. I get the feeling, though, that Zergs don't like their chances on this map. In the two ZvPs we saw, the zergs did insane cheese. Of course, Calm and great might have not liked their chances on the map because of lack of practice, not because of imbalance. We'll have to wait and see.
What we learned: Pokedex edition
Group A: Sea, great, BeSt
To no one's surprise, Sea made the top sixteen. He looked sharp, but then again, he always looks sharp in qualification. One day, Sea will go far in one of the individual leagues, but until that happens, we'll just assume he's headed for another early exit. Best was a bonehead as usual, another thing that might never change. It's not a surprise that Great was the player we learned the most about, considering he was stuck between two of the most stubborn constants in e-Sports. Besides showing a consistently respectable level of play, Great proved he understands the theory behind defeating a turtling mech Terran in ZvT. He is starting to remind me of Calm before he turned into a Clam: a very clever zerg with adequate mechanics.
Sea is RATICATE! Raticate evolves from Rattata, one of earliest pokemon you can catch. Very soon, it learns the powerful ability Hyper Fang, which easily tears through everything thrown at you during the beginning portions of your journey. However, as you explore more of the world and fight more difficult opponents, Raticate's poor statistics and one dimensional game plan begin to limit his usefulness. A stubborn trainer can take Raticate all the way to the end, but to most, he is just a tool to get through the first few stages of the tournament.
Group B: free, Calm, Canata.
Free coming out of this group was not a big surprise, as he was favored over a slumping Calm and a typical Canata. There were some fun games in this group, but there was very little new to learn about these players from their games. Free never had to think particularly hard, and won through the strength of his mechanics. Clam tried to use some clever builds to exploit weak timings and almost succeeded, but just barely failed versus his opponent’s solid defense. Canata played standard, without being notable at all. So, as long as Free seems to be the Free we all know and love…
Free is MACHAMP! One of the most powerful straight up fighters, Machamp will beat anyone in a straight physical battle. However, he is very one dimensional in his approach, and is weak to dynamic attacks such as flying or psychic assaults. Free is one of the best straight up battle microers in all of e-Sports, and can often lure his opponents into slugging it out with him. However, more clever opponents can take Free out of his comfort zone, or simply roll with his punches until he exhausts himself.
Group C: Hyuk, RuBy, JangBi.
All in all, there were three evenly matched players in this group and it would have been no surprise to see any one of them make it out. Ruby had the best momentum going in with his ace match victory over Flash, but overall all three players had been showing good but unremarkable performances as of late. The most striking similarity between the three was their inconsistency, as they are all capable of dishing out, and be on the receiving end of a shocking upset. Not surprisingly, Hyuk proceeded to lose in embarrassing fashion to Mind in his next PL game, while Ruby and Jangbi bounced back with solid wins versus Tyson and Kal respectively.
Hyuk is PARASECT. At face value, Parasect seems to be rather useless, having poor stats and being the very weak “bug” type. On closer examination, Parasect has a wide variety of annoying tools at his disposal, from the ability to leech his opponent’s health away, amplify his own power, or put his opponent to sleep. Used correctly, these skills can bring down even the most powerful opponent, though at times it can come down to pure luck.
Thanks for reading TeamLiquid's OnGameNet Starleague coverage!
We will return next week, and continue to criticize progamers who are way better than us at Starcraft while making obscure Pokemon references.