Group G
Really > Snow - Eye of the Storm
Really < Snow - Flight-Dreamliner
Really > Snow - Grand Line SE
      Really < ZerO - Eye of the Storm
      Really < ZerO - Flight-Dreamliner
ZerO qualifies for the OSL RO16.

Group H
Action < Shuttle - Eye of the Storm
Action > Shuttle - Flight-Dreamliner
Action > Shuttle - Grand Line SE
      Action > fOrGG - Eye of the Storm
      Action > fOrGG - Flight-Dreamliner
Action qualifies for the OSL RO16.

Group I
HiyA > Reach - Eye of the Storm
HiyA > Reach - Flight-Dreamliner
      HiyA > Shine - Eye of the Storm
      HiyA > Shine - Flight-Dreamliner
HiyA qualifies for the OSL RO16.

by Motbob

Game 1 doesn't deserve more than a sentence or recap. Really did a 4 rax timing attack on 1 base, both players played really sloppy, and Really ended up taking control of Snow's natural without too much trouble. There.

by Motbob

I think Game 2 might be the worst game of Starcraft I've seen all year. Luck and lack of skill led to some of the silliest situations imaginable. It was excruciating to watch. I want to spend only two sentences on this game, but seeing as I spent only one on the first game, I feel that it is only fair to you, the reader, that I meticulously document every aspect of this game's failure.

Actually, it wasn't all bad. Really timed his SCV scout so that it got to Snow's ramp right before his first zealot got there to block. That was when the good play stopped, though. A sea of mediocrity awaited anyone brave enough to watch this series after the snoozefest that was game 1.

Like in most games on Dreamliner, the Protoss player went reavers into carriers. In this game, the way Snow did it was just bad from start to finish. Firstly, he wasn't able to keep his probe in Really's base long enough to determine whether Really was going 1 fac cc or 2 factory, so he had to delay his expansion and get obs before a shuttle. In other words, his first reaver was really late.

When the reaver did (at long last) arrive, Snow showed impeccable shuttle/reaver control, but Really matched him with equally good defense. Driving off reavers and controlling vultures seemed to be too much for Really, however, and he suicided a few of them into a pack of goons.

Meanwhile, Snow went 2 base carrier, a fact that was divined instantly by some clutch scanning by Really. Really's response to this was to expand, to not build goliaths, and to build 4 rax outside of his base, isolated from the rest of his forces, when Snow still had a rampaging reaver in play. It seems like, in theory, watching MnM get torn up by reavers and zealots would be comical, but for some reason, here, it was just painful to watch. I am sure it has nothing to do with me being an eSTRO fan.



Predictably, Really lost terribly after losing his primary source of anti-air. I leave you with a picture of Snow using the precious first minutes of carrier time to... attack a floating barracks.

by Motbob

I had zero expectations for game 3, and those expectations were completely surpassed by what I watched! This game was definitely above the level of "worst game ever." Was it good enough to make the jump from "This is painful to watch" to "an average game of Starcraft," though? Read on to find out!

Let me drop the sarcasm here. Really vs Snow game 3 was one of the best TvPs I've ever seen. It was everything a TvP should be: from both players, we saw precise unit control, excellent game awareness, and intelligent decision making. Go watch the VOD.

The game started off exciting, with Really bunker rushing Snow's double nexus and easily killing it. During the period afterwards, where both players were getting their economies up and running, Really tried to put up a hidden expansion. This kicked off a tense period where Snow thoroughly scouted for the hidden expansion, eventually finding it at the worth possible time for Really: right after it finished and too late to cancel. The dead expos score was soon tied at 1-1, but while goons were up at the north of the map killing Really's command center, Really was being aggressive with his tanks and causing problems for Snow at the south. Eventually, the game settled into an even position, with neither player holding a clear advantage.

The the game kicked it into high gear, with Really fighting to take the island expo on his side of the map and Snow fighting to prevent that from happening. in the meantime, Really employed his trademark vulture control. The awesome micro from both sides really needs a youtube clip to do it justice, so I'm going to show one instead of detailing the action.



A few minutes later, Really did something that blew my mind as he drove Snow's shuttle away from 9 o' clock once and for all. He combined vulture mines and wraith usage in a really cool way. Here's the clip:



Really needed 9 o' clock, and the gas it contained, pretty desperately. With Snow transitioning into carriers, he-- OH NO SIEGE UP!! LOOK OUT!!





Even with evaporated tanks, Really was able to make a pretty strong pre-carrier push with the help of some sick d-matrixes. This push and the initial carrier attack was one of the coolest parts of the game. Take a look!



From the above video until the end of the game, all there is to describe is impeccable army control from both players. Eventually, Snow lost his ground army and Really was able to just pump goliaths and win. Please watch the VOD; it's really spectacular stuff!

by WaxAngel

The matchup between two of the latest Proleague hotshots began with a clinical dismantling. Starting from a standard overpool three-base versus forge expand scenario, Shuttle took a small advantage by being allowed to stay at only one cannon for a long time. This meant his gate and core were fast, leading to fast sairs, which further led to two early overlord kills.

Action appeared to be thrown off considerably, as he was shockingly unprepared for the six speedlot follow up that heavily damaged his third base. Shuttle continued to pummel an off-balance Action, sending in the six corsairs he had built up to sweep up overlords despite the presence of hydralisks. Dark templars were the natural continuation for Shuttle, but before he could be punished even further, Action simply GG’d out early in disappointment.

The GG was on the fast side, but not surprising considering that Action must have been disgusted at his really bad play, plus the fact that players tend to GG quicker in non-crucial matches.

by WaxAngel

Having taken a truly embarrassing beating in game one, Action (6:00) opened up with a much more aggressive build to try and pressure Shuttle (3:00) in their next game. Even though he knew the easily scouted nature of the two player map, Action went for an overpool with a fast extractor right up in Shuttle's face. This forced Shuttle to make two cannons before his nexus, which played right into Action’s hands as he cancelled his ling speed upgrade after confirming the defensive protoss opening. Overall it led to a much more convenient early game for Action, going for safe three base play while his overlords kept tabs on Shuttle’s doings.

Shuttle gathered sairs off one stargate while going for reavers to exploit the short gap between the mains. Action seemed to expect as much from Shuttle, getting the burrow upgrade in preparation. Although not a direct counter to harassment play by Protoss, burrow can be a very useful tool in the hands of a skillful player. In a frantic series of events, Action proved as much.

Instead of going with his first reaver, Shuttle waited for shuttle speed and a dark templar to start his harassment. His goal was to go three ways: speed zealots to the 8:00 expansion, dark templar dropped in the main, and reaver at the natural. It was a very good idea on Shuttle’s part, and not poorly executed, but he could not muster up enough speed or finesse to make Action sweat. Let’s look at the sequence:

Shuttle begins by sending some zealots that don’t quite have speed upgrade done across the map. Action actually burrows a scouting zergling in Shuttle’s face here, but Shuttle doesn’t seem to care. Just as well, Shuttle and Action both know sending out harassing zealots around now is standard.

Even though Action was already expecting a textbook simultaneous attack, it didn’t help that Shuttle gave Action a few seconds of prior warning. His corsairs fly out towards the edge of Action’s main for the first time in forever, killing off a scourge and alerting Action. His shuttle drops the DT, but a burrowed zergling already knows something’s up. Still, this is better than if Shuttle had flown all the way near the hatchery, where Action had hydralisks prepared for the jackpot unburrow play.

DT and speed-zealots hit the main and 8:00 expansion almost simultaneously, but it’s no big deal for Action since he knew about both way in advance. Drones burrow at both bases, Action loses three drones or less. The lone DT is cleaned up instantly when an overlord arrives, while the hatcheries at 8:00 take a little bit of damage while the drones hide.

Shuttle tries to reaver drop the natural, but Action has already dealt with the other two situations. The DT is dead, while he sent some hydralisks to kill the zealots at 8:00. Shuttle’s reaver drop is literally two seconds too late, and Action sees it and deals with it in stride by burrowing his drones.

Desperate to do some damage, Shuttle tries to fly the Reaver into the main, seemingly having forgotten that there are eight hydralisks there that killed his DT not nine seconds ago. His scarab bugs out, and he loses the reaver.

Sequence length (from DT dropped in main to reaver killed): 33 seconds, 12:52 - 13:25


Shuttle was still in a good situation. Ideally he would have liked to have done damage, but simply distracting Zerg while he took a third base would have been fine too. It was too bad he had not expanded during this window, but he was still in possession of his core ground force with templars and reavers, weakened slightly by the loss of his harassment troops.

With his mineral only expansion completing towards the end of this sequence, Action found himself in the ideal situation of the current ZvP metagame: Six hatcheries, lots of drones, three gas bases, and in position to take a fourth. In preparation for Protoss’s inevitable main ground push and expansion attempt, Action turned on the macro and prepared for the major battle that was soon to come.

Shuttle’s first major mistake was probably the game deciding one, as he stayed aggressive with corsairs far longer than it was advisable. Action had pumped a big round of scourge in order to precede his templar hunting mutalisks, and Shuttle continued to make Action look good by letting him swat the corsairs for free.



If Shuttle was fazed by the sudden loss of his sairs, he did not show it when immediately moved out with his huge hanbang army. Shuttle had macroed up impressively, with some fourty odd zealots and dragoon, supported by four templars and two reavers in a shuttle. The templars ended up being mostly decoration, as Action happily traded a small group of mutalisks to snipe them off. With the templars gone, the two players collided in the key moment of the game.

Action’s army was almost purely hydralisks, set up in a very good concave line along the point of Shuttle’s entry. However, his macro had not kicked in fully compared to the massive amount of ground troops Shuttle had brought along. Shuttle had managed to get off most of his storms before losing his templars, meaning the mutalisks were in no position to snipe the reavers, which ended up getting off some massive shots against the hydralisk army.



When the first wave of hydralisks broke against the Protoss rock, it looked like the power of the mixed Protoss force was prevailing even without templar support. Yet, the glimmer of hope lasted only a moment as the second and third waves of hydralisks poured out to batter down Shuttle’s remaining army.



Having only just started warping in his third base, Shuttle was on the back foot. Still, he had just enough money left in his main and natural to squeeze out another hanbang army with which he could turn the game. Action allowed Shuttle to finish the expansion for the time being, as he macroed up with an eye to finish Protoss in a second major confrontation.

Shuttle did not shy away from combat, and charged ahead in what would certainly be his final offensive move should he lose. It was a shame then, that he was so sloppy in such a dire situation. Shuttle’s dragoons and shuttle full of reavers went ahead of his slow templar, and found the hydralisks advancing in their direction. Instead of pulling back to benefit from the heavy artillery support of the templars, the reaver goon combo engaged the Zerg head on. It was just what Action had wanted, as he had made another round of mutalisks to exploit the still sair-less Protoss army. The reavers were toast without air cover, and the dragoons were toast without reavers.

Shuttle managed to get off some absolutely stunning psionic storms once his templars finally arrived, but the core of his army was already too depleted for it to matter. He won the battle, but not decisively enough to go on the offensive. With his main and natural now running out, his splash reinforcements were very limited.



Shuttle’s macro and resolve were still in play as he had a big dragoon and zealot force built off the very last minerals at his main and natural, but Action was happy to trade armies yet again. Down to only one mining base, Shuttle finally reached his breaking point and could no longer keep up with the waves of hydralisks that had tormented him all game.


This was a supremely entertaining game where two players were content to trade armies in huge battles over and over. The results of the battles often seemed to be a tie where both sides took heavy losses, but as far as Shuttle never felt comfortable enough to take a third base, they were advantageous army trades for the Zerg player. Action was fine with keeping things deadlocked at 3.5 base versus 2 base, and then winning the game after Shuttle’s main and natural predictably mined out.

To nitpick at some of the play, Shuttle definitely had a few textbook expand while attacking opportunities which I was surprised he didn’t take. Losing the sairs was very dumb, as he could have very easily crushed Action with four templars worth of storm. He could also have won the penultimate battle very decisively if he had kept his templars with his main force. With Protoss never attaining a simultaneous three base situation, any sort of hive tech would have meant a much easier win for Action. I was not under the impression that Shuttle’s army was so intimidating that Action could not find the breathing space to go hive, but as long as he wins, you can’t blame Action for using pure hydra-muta or whatever combination he chooses.

by WaxAngel

Action started top left while Shuttle took bottom right in the deciding match on Grand Line SE. After two games of overpooling, Action went for a hatchery first expansion. Action went for the appropriate protoss build in this situation, going forge-nexus-cannon. All seemed normal as Action placed a third hatchery at the 2:00 natural, but he gave things an early twist by putting down a hydralisk den.

It turned out to only be an instance of low-fat cheese for Action, as he was getting a fourth hatchery as well. A group of hydralisks were produced to force Shuttle to put down several cannons for defense, after which Action continued to make drones and put himself into a standard three base – five hatchery situation. Shuttle had been going both robotics and templar tech while he defended, using his first shuttle to expand to the 3:00 isle rather than harass.

The critical point in the game would once again be corsairs versus scourge. Shuttle was inattentive once more at the wrong time, and lost four of his six corsairs to some of Action’s scourge. This was very bad news for Shuttle, since Action was going for the same combination of hydralisks and mutalisks.

Some excellent preemptive storms spared Shuttle’s templars from getting sniped by mutalisks, but he had inexplicably skimped on anti air defense at his island even after his early corsair losses. Action tore down the 3:00 expansion easily, only killing the probes with mutas and dropping 2 hydralisks to finish off the nexus.

Action had taken the 2:00 main in the meanwhile, and was up to a total of eight hatcheries. Shuttle decided this was the time to attack, bringing out his 162 food hanbang against Action’s 178 food swarm. It was a similar situation to the last game, a powerful two base hanbang rush versus a rich zerg opponent. But this time around, Shuttle would have templars.

Shuttle busted into the 2:00 natural with great speed, putting down a rapid series of storms to crush the lurkers. With almost all of Action’s army coming to defend from the 10:00 main, there would be no Zerg flank. Shuttle took up a good position just outside the natural choke at 2:00, forming a wide line to take on the zerg army coming from the west.



Shuttle microed very well and Action fought inefficiently, but it didn’t matter because Action simply had too much stuff. After roughly breaking even in the first confrontation, Action replenished his army in a heartbeat and counter-attacked with fury. There was nothing Shuttle could do against such overwhelming numbers, and he GG’d out.

by Pangshai

Game 1 of Hiya vs Reach was a huge macrofest on Eye of the Storm. Opening with a confident 12 nexus, Reach scouted cross map and immediately found Hiya 1 rax CCing. The game slowed to a crawl from here as both players were content with sitting around on their respective sides on the map, Hiya taking his time with armories, scans and turrets, before adding more factories, Reach teching towards arbiters while taking a third base.

Further into the game, Hiya embarked on some minor vulture harass, also laying some mines around the map, and Reach took a 4th base to match Hiya's 3rd. Action finally picked up about 15 minutes into the game, when an arbiter was spotted heading towards Hiya's main for a recall. Unfortunately, Hiya was well prepared for the recall with turrets and mines, and Reach, for some reason, decided against flying his arbiter deeper into Hiya's main before executing the recall. The result: a massacre. Reach succeeded in taking out only an armory before his entire army met its end.



The failed recall narrowed the supply differences somewhat, and when Hiya moved out after some more failed vulture harass, he was only 20 supply down. Some back and forth chipping away at each other's armies eventually balanced out the supply difference, and when the major confrontation took place just outside Reach's bottom left bases, Hiya stomped all over Reach with his immense tank numbers.



Unsurprisingly, Reach's two expansions fell, and his counterattack attempts on Hiya's expansions ended miserably, with his entire army meeting its end to mines, tanks, and Hiya's returning forces. It was now not looking pretty at all (if it even had been previously) for Reach, who was pumping carriers. Many protosses had attempted this, but few had succeeded. With insufficient bases, and no land army to support his carriers, Reach's carriers found huge difficulty being effective.



Still, trying his best, Reach picked off tanks, goliaths, vultures as his bases fell like flies, but eventually he was forced to type in the GG as Hiya's mass goliath army A-moved its way into his final mining base.

by Pangshai

The second game on dreamliner had Reach in the right side position against Hiya at bottom. Reach opened with some rather unusual gate, assim, pylon build, delaying his core for a faster zealot to block the ramp with, then adding a 2nd gate for 2 gate goons (with 2 zealots). Hiya, unsure of what Reach was planning, probably changed his build from a siege expo to a makeshift FD with mines instead of siege mode.

When Reach attacked with 2 zealots and 4goons, he succeeded in forcing Hiya to lift off his CC, and delayed the expansion until siege mode was researched, when he wisely backed off. In the meantime, Reach's own expansion had also warped in, and the corner mineral-only was well on its way.

Now, unlike last game where both players simply sat and macroed, this time, we were treated to a whole lot more harass action, with Reach teching to reavers, but being rather unsuccessful with SCV killing before being forced to retreat by an imminent wraith. Hiya, on the other hand, harassed brilliantly with vultures, netting a whole lot of probe kills, and forcing Reach into making some pretty amateur errors like suiciding goons into mines.



The harass continued well into the game. Reach eventually took an additional 2 bases along the top of the map and began teching towards carriers, and these bases were continuously raided by vultures despite the presence of cannons. A first person view of Hiya showed that he was well aware of Reach's tech path, but he was in no hurry to punish Reach for overstretching himself simply because of the effectiveness of his harass.



Had Reach been able to establish and mine from his 5 bases peacefully, he would've been in a pretty good position, but as it was, when Hiya finally decided to move out, he was at 180 supply to Reach's 160. Naturally, it doesn't bode well when Terran outsupplies Protoss before a fight, and like last game, the carriers were unable to turn the tides of the battle. Hiya had even left half his tanks at home in fear of a counterattack, but they weren't necessarily for the Terran army to overcome Reach's meagre forces.



From here, all of Reach's expansions fell except for the recently taken island at bottom right. There was no doubt in anyone's mind, however, that Hiya had the game in the bag. Reach fought valiantly with his carriers against Hiya's A-move goliaths (just cause he had so many), but when 3 dropships worth of goliaths found its way to his island, Reach knew he wouldn't be able to keep replenishing his interceptors any longer, and threw in the towel.



There were no cheers when Hiya won. The fangirls had been there for their suave Protoss hero. Hiya played a standard, no-frills Terran, but Reach was just unable to keep up, disappointing the legions of fans who were rooting for him.

Hiya won 2-0.

by Motbob
I didn't want to watch this game. "Really lost a 100 supply advantage. lol he's so bad!!" blared the headlines of the Recommended Games Gazette. Oh well. It's all part of the job, I suppose. Let's run through how it happened.

ZerO put down a really fast third base; it was his third hatch in a 3 hatch muta build. Really, predictably, tried to take it out early, but Zero made a whole bunch of lings and kept him contained. Truthfully, Really is lucky that he didn't get his army surrounded and destroyed. By the time Really had a large enough army to survive the lings, Zero had a spire up. But Really had a good econ going, compared to Zero, and soon he had enough units that he didn't even have to worry about muta harass. He just took his massive MnM army and went knocking on Zero's front door, and Zero was forced to concentrate everything there to defend. He made a bunch of sunks and teched to Hive.

Really made a bunch of MnM and vessels and dropships and put constant pressure on Zero, eventually getting Zero down to a pittance of Hive units. But Zero fought back, putting lurkers behind the mineral lines of all of Really's expansions and slowly killing his army. I'm too depressed to go into more detail than that, to be honest. Really should have focused more on defense instead of trying to attack into swarm and end the game.

by Motbob

In Game 2, Really made Zerg spectators everywhere rage with an engineering bay block of the zerg 12 hatch into a 14cc. Zero pulled about seven drones to kill the ebay, which I thought was pretty astounding. Why don't Terrans ebay block more often? That's a lot of mining time lost for Zerg. Zero decreased the economic disparity by a little bit by going 3 hatch before pool, but Really still seemed to hold the advantage.

Zero tried a 3 hatch lurker build with +1 attack, which I thought was really awesome. When Really moved out to force Zero to make sunken colonies (as every Terran does against a 3 hatch build), Zero made a lot of lings in lieu of a third sunk for defense, and then, brilliantly, he used those lings to supplement his lurker attack. It was a textbook example of optimizing your build.

While Zero was being aggressive with his lings at Really's natural, Really tried to counter Zero's nat right before lurkers popped. The lurkers burrowed right as the last sunken colony fell, and they cut through the marines like a hot knife through... well, I don't really need an analogy here, do I? You all watch Starcraft, don't you? Lurkers murdering marines is one of the most viscerally pleasing sights to see in the game.

Once Really lost most of his army, he went into panic mode and built two bunkers at his nat. However, Zero didn't have any intention of breaking the nat. He simply expanded, put up a second evo chamber, and, got a spire, saved up larva... wait a second... is he going for a totally sweet delayed muta attack?? Oh, no, he's just got bad macro. Too bad.

Once Really realized that Zero wasn't going to all-in (and come on, man, it's Zero. He'll play the macro game in just about every situation) he became really aggressive with his marines. He was correctly paranoid about stop-lurker, so progress was slow on the path to Zero's third base. He didn't get all the way there. A wall of lurkers built up at a pivotal point on the map, and Really was forced to wait for his two starports to start pumping out vessels before he could attack. As he waited, Hive tech loomed.

A side note: Really seemed very slow to expand in both of the games he played. He was content to macro off of 2 bases for a really long time in both cases. As a result, he had a supply advantage in both games, but he didn't necessarily have the overall advantage.

Right as Zero got to Hive, he made a massive attack with pure lurker ling. I don't think I've seen an attack of this scale work quite so well before. Have a look:



Right as the attack was completely stopped by Really, ultras were out for Zero. At about the same time as ultras were popping, Zero was getting a fourth gas. And after the fourth gas went up, of course, Zero went into unstoppable Zerg macro mode. "It ain't 2009," Zero said, while hotkeying his ultras into control groups, "but we can still destroy everything."

Really's healthy tank count kept him in the game, but he was fighting an unwinnable battle. He probably realized this shortly before he left the game without saying gg. His teammate later claimed that this was accidental. I believe that statement about as much as I believed the denials of matchfixing.

Zero won 2-0.

by WaxAngel

The story of the night was role reversal, as the man known as the time-attacker took on a late game Zerg powerhouse.

ForGG started at 2:00 while Action began at 8:00 on Eye of the Storm. Action went for a normal 12 hatch build, while ForGG greedily put down a 13 command center. ForGG was up to his usual tricks, trying to transition quickly into pure mechanic terran off a bare bones defense. It was a build he had success with in the past, where a fast push mech push would catch his Zerg opponents at an awkward timing where they were both trying to expand and keep up on troop production.

However, ForGG didn't get a chance to impress Action as three hatch speedlings broke through his front at the worst possible time. ForGG had only one vulture and a bunker with two marines defending his natural, which were easy pickings for Action’s speedlings. Newly produced factory units barely staved off Action’s attacks, but at the cost of many units and SCVs.

ForGG displayed his great timing instincts, pushing out with six goliaths in the gap where Action would be producing mutalisks. Unfortunately Action was prepared for such an attack, and had produced sunkens at his natural already. Having failed his attack, and with mutalisks outnumbering goliaths in his main, ForGG quickly conceded the game.

This was a somewhat premature GG, because ForGG could have stuck around for at least fifteen more seconds to see if his opponent would misread the situation and back off. Action would certainly have won easily if he had attacked the goliaths in ForGG’s main head on, but in the unlikely but still possible situation where he played it safe, there was some hope for ForGG.

It’s a well known fact since the iloveoov days that an FE Terran always has a foothold in the game regardless of whatever early damage Zerg does, as long as the command center survives. Action had sacrificed a lot of drones to go speedlings, and despite killing a lot of SCVs and delaying ForGG significantly, the population counts were still even at that point. If ForGG had just defended at that point, there was definitely a way back into the game for him.

by WaxAngel

In a repeat of game one, ForGG got shanked by zerglings while he tried to mech. Action went for a recently rare 12 pool-gas build into expand, while ForGG attempted to go 2 factories from his main. Even though ForGG scouted Actions build, all he was thinking was “fast mutalisks,” which let 12 speedlings pummel him when his first vulture went on a silly scouting run.

While ForGG was busy pumping goliaths and getting charon boosters to defend what he thought would be an inevitable mutalisk attack, Action was actually just getting a third hatchery and pumping straight drones. ForGG did recover fairly well from the early setback, quietly massing goliaths and slowly taking his expansion. Too early aggression would again be his downfall, as his advance with 12 goliaths left his main wide open for a late mutalisk counter.

The role-reversal continued as Action came in with a powerful hydralisk + mutalisk timing attack before ForGG could get mines or tanks, finishing off ForGG’s goliaths and forcing the GG.

For the second time, ForGG had been in a decent situation following his early game setback. Being totally in the dark about Zerg hurt him badly in this game, but you have to criticize him a little bit for going pure goliaths for too long. Action did not show mutalisks far past their due timing, and blindly going mines or tanks was a relatively safe guess for ForGG at that point.

Action won 2-0.

by Pangshai

Game 1 of Hiya vs Shine commenced on Eye of the Storm with Hiya's 1 rax FE meeting Shine's 12 hatch 12 pool, 2 hatch (with 3rd hatch in main after spire) muta build. However, Hiya's response to Shine's build differed from the usual - instead of getting up an ebay for turrets, he made a fast acad, and rather than play defensively, he moved out quickly with 3 rax MM to apply pressure on Shine, forcing the mutas to engage ranged upgraded marines out in the open.

Shine tried valiantly to outmicro the marines, but decided to keep his mutas out of harm's way, forcing him to start 3 sunken colonies in defense. With his mutas now free, he flew them over to Hiya's base and commenced a brutal harass, aided, in most part, by misplaced turrets. While Shine was busy laying the smackdown on Hiya's SCVs though, Hiya retaliated by taking out Shine's 3rd base with his marauding MM force, leaving both their economies hurting (although Hiya probably got the short end of the stick).

Eventually, Hiya got sick of Shine's muta harass, and moved out with 2 groups of MM, hoping to force the mutas back to defend. Unfortunately for him, Shine had lurkers on the way, and with 5 sunkens, held the attack easily, while the mutas continued massacring SCVs back in Hiya's main. At this point, it looked pretty dire for Hiya, who had barely enough SCVs to mine both his bases, and had only just started his factory against Shine's already morphing hive.

What worked out for Hiya, though, was his marine micro. Shine tried again and again to overcommit with too few forces (especially in the defense of his freshly taken third base), allowing Hiya to run in with stimmed marines, pick off a lurker, and retreat, slowly chipping away at Shine's army. Hiya's aggression was taken another step further with dropship play (that was mostly unsuccessful), vultures and mines, limiting Shine's movement.



Shine was fine with just hunkering down and taking more bases though, and a 4th was started over at the bottom right nat. He also tried, with some success, to stop Hiya's third from going up with some late game mutas. Hiya, similarly, made a number of moves against both Shine's nat and the 4th base, irradiating lurkers and defilers alike, but over and over, he was forced to retreat by lurkers under swarm. He was, however, finally rewarded for his efforts when a 3 dropship hit Shine's main and Shine was unable to rally the units required to defend it, resulting in the lost of most of his tech, and the hatchery.



Ultras eventually made their appearance on the battlefield, but their numbers were too few and upgrades too weak to be a match for Hiya's MM vessel combo. After a failed drop on Hiya's main, and with Hiya's army raining shells on his 4th, Shine tapped out of the first game, giving Hiya a 1-0 lead.



To be honest, Shine was partially at fault for his loss to Hiya. After setting up his 4th base, he got overly greedy with pumping drones and setting up hatcheries for late game, placing too much confidence in the ability of swarm/lurkers to hold off Hiya's advances. His lack of vessel scourging/plaguing also contributed to his downfall, allowing Hiya to periodically take out a bunch of units for no cost to him at all.

by Pangshai

Game 2 was over in a jiffy. Shine's opener was a 12 hatch, 11 extractor, 10 pool, affectionately known as the Kwanro build. Allowing him incredibly fast ling speed without compromising his lair timing, Shine simply ran past the defenses Hiya had prepared at his nat, and proceeded to wreak havoc in Hiya's main, forcing SCVs off mining, and picking off marines.



Each time it seemed that Hiya had almost successfully cleared out the lings, more lings just sped past the bunker and joined their brethren in Hiya's main. When the mutas arrived, Hiya's ebay wasn't even started yet, and after Shine finished the remainder of his marine force (just 2 marines), Hiya GGed out of the game.



A quick, swiftly delivered kill from Shine. Hiya must have felt especially cheated this time.

by Pangshai

The third game between Hiya and Shine was much like the first, with both players employing the exact same builds, Hiya 1 rax FE into acad & 3 rax with a late ebay, against Shine's 12 hatch 12 pool, 2 hatch muta, with 3rd hatch in main after spire. Similar to the first game, Hiya forced Shine to engage a range upgraded marine group in the middle of the map, and he once again, decided to abandon his attempts at micro.

However, there was a major difference between this game and the first - Shine's mutas did not quite do enough damage at all this game. Safe a couple of SCVs, marines and turrets that he managed to snipe off, his mutas were unable to penetrate the defense lines that Hiya preemptively reinforced with marines. Effectively, Hiya had traded a group of MM for Shine's third base, putting the Zerg player far far behind in the macro game.



Shine quickly replanted a hatchery at top left while teching to hive, in an attempt to claw his way back into the game, and Hiya manoeuvred his army aggressively in response, applying pressure to the newly taken Zerg base. Lurkers were out in time to defend it though, and Hiya wisely backed away, choosing instead to regroup his army, and move out for Shine's main with an army supported by 2 tanks and a vessel.

With Shine's defiler mound just done and consume on the way, time was ticking for Hiya's push to end the game. Tanks pummeled on the sunken colonies, and Hiya impatiently brute-forced his way into Shine's nat just as consume completed. Had he been slightly faster with the defiler snipe, the game would've been over right there, but Shine managed to get a swarm down at his nat, saving it for the time being.



Didn't matter though. Hiya's next army walked into Shine's third, and with no army to speak off, Shine's defenses were easily steamrolled.

Progamer pokedex is written with some knowledge of the competitive Pokemon scene, but not based solely upon it. There's too much esoteric meta-game knowledge to be explained to the casual reader. Instead, the combined portrayal of pokemon in various media are the basis for the analogies.