Wednesday, July 28th - 18:30 KST

EffOrt < Eye of the Storm > Action
Hyuk < Grand Line SE > HiyA
Pure < Polaris Rhapsody > Hydra
Stork < Flight-Dreamliner > Fantasy


Friday, July 30th - 18:30 KST

Leta < Grand Line SE > Bisu
Flash < Polaris Rhapsody > ZerO
Sea < Flight-Dreamliner > Jaedong
Kal < Eye of the Storm > free


Monday, August 2nd - 18:30 KST

Leta < Polaris Rhapsody > EffOrt
ZerO < Flight-Dreamliner > HiyA
Pure < Eye of the Storm > Sea
free < Grand Line SE > Fantasy


Wednesday, August 4th - 18:30 KST

Action < Polaris Rhapsody > Bisu
Flash < Flight-Dreamliner > Hyuk
Hydra < Eye of the Storm > Jaedong
Kal < Grand Line SE > Stork


Standings

Group A
Leta: 2-0
Bisu: 1-1
Action: 1-1
Effort: 0-2

Group B
Flash: 2-0
Zero: 1-1
Hiya: 1-1
Hyuk: 0-2

Group C
Sea: 2-0
Jaedong: 1-1
Hydra: 1-1
Pure: 0-2

Group D
Stork: 2-0
Free: 2-0
Fantasy: 0-2
Kal: 0-2

by Motbob

I've never been able to work out a method of covering ZvZs that wasn't very simple and that wasn't scarce on details. It seems like every recap of a ZvZ could go like so: "Player A and Player B made zerglings, then Player A and Player B made mutas, then Player A outmicroed Player B and won. For more details, go watch the VOD." I'll try not to do that here.

The map was Eye of the Storm, with EffOrt spawning at 2 and Action spawning at 10. Both opened with virtually identical builds except that Effort went for an 11 pool instead of the much more popular 12 pool. He sacrificed a faster drone in order to get a very slightly faster pool. I'm curious whether the slight sacrifice in economy has to do with defending against 9-pools or whether it was just a mistake. Maybe it was just a variation that doesn't have any effect at all on the economy.

Both players got gas right after getting their pools and put up expansions when they had the cash.

Action managed to slip one of his first six zerglings into Effort's base and see the mass of zerglings that Effort was compiling. That scouting information might have made the difference when Effort attacked at Action's natural. Effort quickly pulled back after it became clear that Action had a force that was perfectly able to defend.

An arms race of zerglings commenced until mutas started popping. Upon reflection, it seems like the period of the game where mutas hatch would be the absolute worst time to attack with an enormous group of lings, but that's what Effort did. Obviously, he was repulsed.

The first muta vs muta battle of the game was inconclusive, but Action pulled a brilliant ling backstab that tilted the game firmly in his favor. Soon, both Effort and Action were once again doing the D.A.N.C.E. with mutas and scourge. Action somehow microed better than EffOrt, and, after the battle, he won easy as A.B.C. Effort's gg was the most delayed concession that I've ever seen in a ZvZ.

In an interview after the game, Action basically said that he had taken his ZvZ to the next level for his game against Effort:



Action: 8/10
Effort: 5/10
Game: 5/10

by WaxAngel

The game opened with Hiya spawning top left, and Hyuk at bottom right. Hiya successfully opened with a greedy command center before barracks build versus Hyuk’s standard three hatch. With a fast drone scout of Terran’s plan, Hyuk decided to play aggressively by going for three hatch muta-ling. Unfortunately for Hyuk, Hiya was going for a great counter to such a build by going for four barracks M&M with slow tech.

Hiya timed his first venture out of his base just around the time mutalisks would hatch, attacking with more M&M than Hyuk expected. Still, some poor micro from Hiya allowed Hyuk to trade favorably with these M&M nullify the first threat.



With four rax up, Hiya could produce a large amount of M&M indeed, and he was quickly able to reinforce himself and go on the offensive again. However, it seemed that he was overestimating his productive capacities, as he was using his M&M rather wastefully. With careful mutaling micro, Hyuk whittled down yet another M&M force.



Hiya was not discouraged, though perhaps he should have been. He sent out a third, even weaker force, which Hyuk had no problem cleaning up at all. This time Hyuk had the momentum to go on the offensive himself, poking at the terran main with his mutaling. Fortunately for Hiya, he had built a lot of turrets while his marines were dying, and Hyuk really couldn’t do much. Seeing the limitations of his current plan, Hyuk transitioned to lurker tech while expanding to his mineral natural, while Hiya was riding his untouched economy to 6 rax and siege tank production.

Despite having thrown away a ton of marines early on, Hiya’s strong economy meant he could still produce way more stuff compared to Hyuk’s 3 hatch build without many drones. Once he had a vessel and three tanks, Hiya moved out to attack again. It looked dangerous for Hyuk, but he managed to squeeze out enough troops from his three hatcheries to perform a great flanking maneuver to yet again crush Hiya’s attacking force.



But once more, a battle won for Hyuk was not the end of the war. Hyuk had been running three hatcheries all game, with his mineral natural having barely completed. On the other hand, Hiya was producing off 6 rax and a factory at home. Hiya instantly had another army to attack with, while Hyuk could barely reinforce the remnants of his victorious army. Just after having beaten a big terran army in a major battle, Hyuk was forced to GG when Hiya casually sent another similar sized army his way.



Match Rating: 5/10
A pretty average match with lots of action, but Zerg always seemed doomed in the end since he couldn’t do any economical damage with his pseudo-allin build. There were some good battles, but a Terran victory was inevitable in retrospect.

Hiya: 6/10
Pretty much just defended well, macroed well and attack moved. Which was all he really needed to do to win the game, given the nature of Hyuk’s play. He said as much in his post match interview, saying he knew he was going to win eventually as long as he didn’t take any damage from the mutaling. There was no real flair, but Hiya was completely untroubled in a well deserved win.

Hyuk: 5/10
Microed his troops very well in battle, but was unable to do the amount of damage a 3 hatch mutaling build requires to win. He also failed to transition out of mutaling quickly enough, leaving him at three hatcheries for far too long.

by WaxAngel

This game was the pairing of the two worst players in this Starleague, so I was interested in how this game would unfold. As it turned out, there wasn’t really much to it.

Pure spawned at bottom and went for a 1 gate tech build, while Hydra spawned on top and went for an early pool into double expand. The twist on Hydra’s build was that he took a risk and went for the double-gas expand first.

The early pool was no threat to Pure, with a dragoon coming out just in time to support his Zealot at his choke. Not having been drone scouted, this left Pure in a good position to execute whatever tech build he had prepared.

And then, Pure threw away the game in a few seconds. Moments after repelling the six zerglings, Pure felt that for whatever reason, he needed to be aggressive. His one dragoon and zealot moved out to attack the six lings at his natural, which was an immediate invitation for Hydra to simply to ignore Pure’s troops and move up into the Protoss main. Although the lings wouldn’t be able to do much damage, they would perform a critical bit of reconnaissance: Pure was going directly to robotics tech.



Knowing that he was now royally screwed, Pure decided he needed to do some sort of damage right away…. With two zealots and a dragoon. The fact that his second hatchery was far away at the double-gas expansion was a slight annoyance, but Hydra easily killed the protoss troops with a few rounds of speedlings.

A speedling counter killed most of Pure’s probes before the reaver finally killed the zerglings, and Pure had almost certainly lost the game. He had to keep trying though, and he sent his shuttle and reaver off to see what they could do. However, in a game where nothing had been going right for Pure, misfortune (and I dare say, poor judgment) struck one last time as the shuttle flew straight over Hydra’s hydras. Pure GG’d out, and Hydra got his first OSL ro16 win.



Overall Rating: 1/10
Nothing exciting happened, the game ended quickly due to Pure botching a risky build horribly.

Hydra: 5/10
Hydra barely had to play this game, besides the part where he backdoored his lings for the critical scouting. Pure just handed him the win without Hydra really having to show any skill.

Pure: 1/10
A stupid attack allowed a zergling backdoor to see his all-in build, another stupid attack lost him most of the troops that would support his all-in reaver build, and even though the game was lost by then, flying your shuttle into hydralisks is pretty stupid too.

by KwarK

Stork spawned in brown at 6 while Fantasy took red at 3 on Dreamliner. Stork sent out a very early scout probe, possibly for a gas steal but Fantasy reacted correctly by starting a refinery and then returning the scv to mining until the standard refinery timing. Stork did some extremely nicely microed probe harass but Fantasy's counter micro was just as good and a scv survived on 10hp. Stork opened eight pylon, ten gateway, zealot probe wall on ramp into fast expansion before gas which is a very bold play. It gives an expansion only two hundred and fifty minerals slower than a thirteen nexus opening, still faster than most PvZ FE builds, and is safer than the conventional double nexus. Although like all FE builds it has trouble with fast vultures, the extra zealot production makes it stronger against bunker rushes and actually capable of blocking a Terran counter expansion (Editor's note: This is the exact same build Stork used against Skyhigh, where he actually did suffer greatly against early vultures before winning later with carriers Stork said he didn't have much time to prepare, so he went with the same build).

A fast zealot did surprisingly well, killing a marine and reducing two more to eight hp. Stork had a dragoon out in time to defend his natural from the first vulture while Fantasy's counter expansion was considerably later. Stork immediately added a second gas, allowing him to pump dragoons from two gateways, get range and tech towards a robotics facility, doing his best to mitigate the strain on gas that fast expanding always gives Protoss. Although Fantasy hoped to pressure him, Stork simply had too many units and all Fantasy could do was place a mine at Stork's third site to delay a further expansion.

However Stork had no interest in taking an immediate third base, instead turning his considerable income to four gateways and a fast stargate. With the quick gateways he could assert map control over the Terran in the short term while the carrier switch would hopefully block the Terran mass in the longer term. It takes Terran a while to build up sufficient tanks to push out and wrest map control from dragoons and Stork hoped that by the time that happened his carriers would be out and ready to take over responsibility for containing the Terran. It was a good plan and it was unfortunate that he placed the stargate and fleet beacon near his main nexus where they were immediately scanned by Fantasy.

The game should have been over at this point as Fantasy knew Stork was going two base carrier. Terrans have an economic advantage on equal base counts and by immediately starting dual armoury upgrades he could have rendered the carriers impotent. However Fantasy had already started a command centre at the mineral only at 1 which forced him to maintain a massive tank presence on the map to deal with Stork's dragoons. Furthermore he confused this two base carrier switch with a late game carrier switch. When a maxed Protoss loses his army and starts pumping carriers from eight stargates by all means race across the map to get maximum impact out of your tanks and vultures before they're obsolete while freeing up supply for goliaths. That's great. But in this case the Terran had more expansions than the Protoss and the Protoss fast expansion had funded massive dragoon production while the money for carriers was coming from what would usually be spent on the citadel, archives and associated upgrades. Rather than a temporary weakness in Stork's map control this moment represented the absolute peak in his dragoon count.

Fantasy pushed towards a concave while zealotbombs ate away at his tanks. However he quickly came to terms with the fact that his intended timing attack was simply not viable by which point he had already wasted some of the time in which he should have been switching for dealing with carriers. Since he first scanned the stargates Stork had established a gas expansion at 3 and was starting to take the island while Fantasy had only achieved a position in the middle of the map that he couldn't advance from. The carrier count increased towards a critical mass while the terrain of Dreamliner allowed dragoons to bypass the Terran wall and access the expansion at 12.

Fantasy found himself trying to defend 12 with goliaths against dragoons while carriers bounced back and forth between his main and the middle of the map where they wore down defences that were never quite ready. As defensive play failed him he pushed across the map into 9 while Stork's army replied at 12. Fantasy's reinforcements were able to save 12 along with mass repairing while Stork's carriers avenged the loss of 9 by the complete destruction of the Terran army. Although this exchange seemed to favour Fantasy Stork had yet to lose a carrier all game and his count was reaching a critical mass. As Fantasy tried another massive attack, this time at Stork's natural, Stork again replied with a counterattack at 12 and also with carriers in Fantasy's main..


Fantasy's goliaths returning up the ramp were too few to cope with the mass carriers, while the attack at Stork's natural, stripped of most of its goliaths, faltered. And although Stork lost his natural nexus he had the island while Fantasy had lost his main base and all his production facilities. Several control groups of dragoons and a full group of carriers crashed into 12 and Fantasy typed out.


Fantasy was given all he needed to win here when he scanned the stargates but he tried to do too much too fast. A timing attack, an expansion, upgrades and mass factories became three different ways to counter carriers, all of which lacked the funding to succeed. His timing attack was bogged down while the factories meant he never made it to a second armoury or a science facility. In the end Stork was able to get his mass carriers up without any real disruption and the mobility those carriers provided meant they were extremely effective against Fantasy's army and main base. Stork's build was clever and well rounded but any build is prone to failure when scouted as perfectly as his was. He deserves credit for executing it so nicely.

Stork gets a 4/5 for a nice build and solid execution.

Fantasy gets a 2/5 for his panicked strategy. His macro and micro were good but knowing what the opponent is doing shouldn't be a disadvantage. In this case it was and Fantasy loses points for that.

That said, the game was enjoyable to watch, I'd give it a 3/5.

by KwarK

Bisu spawned in white at 7 while Leta got green at 11 on Grand Line SE. Both players opted for blind fast expansion plays with Bisu using a twelve nexus while Leta placed his rax at his natural where it could wall with a following fifteen command centre. These builds are more or less even with both players getting a strong economic start. However Bisu scouted the wrong way which led him to go for a zealot and a fast second gateway to block a bunker rush that wouldn't be coming. This meant he had units and map control for a contain but couldn't attack and nor could he prevent Leta taking his third below his main cliff.
In true Bisu style Bisu headed straight for two base fast arbiters which would be pointless for dominating the uncontested map and useless for attacking the enemy base. The fact that his strategy (his only strategy in PvT) made no sense in this context didn't bother him as he went two base against the Terran three. Eventually Bisu caught up and decided he'd try and deny the Terran third with dragoons which went predictably wrong. Realising he had no other options he took his own third.

By this point Leta was content he'd gotten his economy in order and was creating the means of victory, eight factories with dual armoury upgrades. Bisu replied with mass gateways but as usual refused to go for any tech beyond a single stargate pumping arbiters. Why he does this is unknown for at least two stargate arbiters has the advantage of a lot more stasis. But I've decided I'm not going to be disappointed by Bisu anymore so whatever, I'm sure one arbiter at a time is all you need.

Leta started to slowpush down the centre of the map so Bisu got all his units together and attacked up into the push from a single angle with the support of a single stasis. It looked okay for a few seconds as he crushed the first few tanks but then his own stasis blocked him and all his zealots died to vultures and although the rearguard of tanks were clumped up there were no storms or stasis to disable them.

As his zealots died Bisu was forced to retreat his dragoons. Both players expanded to the middle at 12 and 6 respectively although Bisu refused to take his third gas there because Bisu doesn't need gas units in PvT. As if to illustrate the point Bisu promptly followed up his not taking gas by throwing an arbiter into goliaths without any scouting, support or apparent aim.

Realising things weren't going his way Bisu tried a new tactic, throwing his entire force into the Terran wall from a different angle. Not the new angle and the earlier angle in some kind of concave or flank but rather everything attacking at once, like before, but from a different side.

The advantage of this new angle was that he only lost half his units getting into a position where he could use his one(!!!!) stasis on a single tank. He was able to kill a lot of vultures but then the massive amount of spread out tanks (Leta wasn't even pushing at the time, he was in a defensive setup) killed everything.

With Leta continuing to camp at the top of the map without threatening anything Bisu decided he had no time to wait and he'd never get a better moment than now. He gathered his remaining forces and hurled them once more into the Terran. The tanks were as spread as ever because they only get clumped when pushing and Leta saw no reason to push. Bisu lost all his units again.

Leta finally decided that this was all a bit sad and he should put Bisu out of his misery. He attack moved down the middle of the map and although his units were now clumped and exposed from many sides for some reason Bisu didn't have any units. Bisu didn't contest him and lost 6 and 5 without a fight. A recall at 12 was immediately EMPed and cleaned up by vultures while Bisu sent the rest of his army in one last counterattack towards the Terran main. That failed and he GGed.

The problem this game was that Bisu has no clue what he's doing. His build was an effort to dominate map control against a passive Terran who just wanted to sit in his two naturals and ignore the map. His attacks lacked any real firepower from the tech and served no strategic purpose. Leta wasn't pushing, he wasn't taking a position on the map, he was barely expanding. Leta was just sitting there letting Bisu kill himself and Bisu was more than happy to oblige. This is not how PvT is played. This is not how anything is played. This was just yet another act in the farce that is Bisu's PvT. He's below the level of joke player now. Leta was faultless in as much as he didn't really do anything but it's very difficult to judge a player who just sits there like a brick wall while his opponent tries to headbutt it down. I guess if he's seen Bisu play PvT lately he knew that's all he needed to do so his strategy was either non existent or very finely tuned to his opponent. The very fact that I need to say that though is a sign of how bad things have gotten.

Bisu 0/5
Leta 3/5
Game /5

by Motbob

A 30 minute TvZ involving macro masters Flash and ZerO? Heck yes! I was really pumped to watch this game, partly because I knew the quality of play would be high, and partly because I made a very specific prediction in the OSL preview article, and I wanted to see if it was accurate. Basically, I theorized that Flash does a lot better in games where he can prepare for a specific opponent on a specific map. Based on this game, I think I was right.

Flash has been coming off a tough month, judging from his TL Power Rank position. He had a lot to prove in this game. With his winrate under 80%, a convincing win over an S-class zerg was exactly what he needed to assuage the fears of his fans. Zero, on the other hand, is competing for the title of Woongjin Stars ace (more on this later).

On Polaris Rhapsody (what does that name mean, anyway?) Zero spawned at the bottom with a 12 hatch, and Flash spawned at the top with a wall-in at his natural and a double command center. Flash actually scouted Zero before throwing down the double command, which implies to me that he had a backup plan in case Zero went 9 pool, which makes me wonder why Terrans don't scout and 14cc every game on this map, or on every map that allows you to wall off your natural. Doesn't this mean that Terrans get an automatic advantage on any 2 player map with a narrow nat choke?

Zero somewhat evened the score with a fast third base. I do not know whether he felt able to because of the nature of the map or whether it was because Flash asked for it with his double cc. Either way, Zero's third was done before mutas popped.

At this point, it might be prudent to note that Flash was going mech. He got to factories pumping goliaths, but he played it very safe, making a bunch of turrets in his base to make himself absolutely immune to any type of muta harass. Zero saw the composition of Flash's turrets and goliaths and didn't even attempt to engage once.



At this point, a ticking clock should have appeared in the mind's eye of both Zero and everyone watching the stream. A meching Terran will eventually make a powerful push across the map, and the opposing zerg must be able to break that push when it happens. Some preparations that a zerg should make might be:

- getting upgrades
- building the correct composition of mutas and hydras
- denying extra bases if at all possible
- if the Terran builds mostly goliaths, perhaps getting dark swarm would be good

Because Zero is competent, he built an evo chamber and an extra hatchery right after his muta harass failed (although, is it possible to fail at an act if one does not even attempt that act?) He started massing hydras and mutas, and he went heavy on the mutas at first in order to keep Flash in his base. So far, so good.

While Flash massed, he sent out vultures to do some harass. He wasn't able to kill many drones, and all of his vultures died, but he gave Zero one more thing to worry about while the Terran-push-of-doom clock ticked down. Also, once mines finished researching, Zero needed an overlord if he wanted to take a single step around the map.

At one point, Zero took drones off of gas, which puts him at the top of my list of "zergs who know how to play against mech." Most zergs, including Jaedong, will just mindlessly keep drones in all available geysers at all times, even as their gas count skyrockets and their mineral count hovers near 0. Zero really impressed me with the simple act of noticing that his gas count was high and making a logical change.

Flash massed up enough goliaths to safely take a third, and easily handled Zero's mutas with irradiate and anti-air when Zero attempted to harass. After he securing his third, Flash started to turtle harder than I thought was possible. Observe:



Because of the way Flash took his third, his fourth base at 9 o' clock followed naturally. In fact, everything that Flash did seemed to flow naturally from what happened earlier. He seemed to have complete control of the game from beginning to end.

After Flash took a fifth base and Zero took a seventh, the time for the two armies to engage was imminent. Unless Zero wanted to die a slow death of advancing turrets and tanks, he'd have to take action. And take action he did. The next video might be the best attack on a fully entrenched mech army ever attempted in a progame:



It didn't work. The core of Flash's army, the tanks, still stood, for the most part. Zero had a short time to recover before he had to stop Flash from killing the top right base.

Zero took that crucial time to... BUILD ULTRALISKS? WHY????

And just like that, all my respect for Zero's knowledge of the Z v Mech matchup disappeared, because everyone, everyone knows that ultras are the very last thing that you want to build against mech. The tanks at the top right were ripe for another ling drop. Zero could have just gone back to muta/hydra and tried to break the top that way. Anything would have been better than ultras.

Watching the rest of the VOD was painful. As Zero's ultras Pickett's Charged their way into Flash's tank line, I averted my eyes until I was sure the battle was over. When my gaze met the computer screen once again, half of Flash's tanks remained, and turrets were being erected in the area. An opportunity lost.

Though Zero lost his opportunity, his opponent kindly granted him another chance to win the game. Flash overextended himself in an effort to kill Zero's top right base quickly, and Zero went in with well-executed ultra drops and smashed him. If Flash had just waited and brought up tank reinforcements, the Zero's ultras would have melted. As it was, Flash took a totally unnecessary loss in his tank count.

A few minutes later, Flash pushed towards the top right base again. Zero had a noticable grimace on his face by this point. After the base went down, Zero didn't win a single battle.

No Korean zerg has ever played what I would consider to be textbook style against mech. Zero showed signs of it at first, but ultimately gave it up for the allure of ultras, which often mean doom for bio Terrans.

Zero: 10/10 before ultras, 0/10 after.
Flash: 10/10
Game: 8/10. Stop watching after the first ultra pops.

by KwarK

Sea spawned at 3 in orange while Jaedong got 6 in red on Dreamliner. Sea went for a standard barracks command centre opening while Jaedong opted for an overgas, overpool hatchery build with an immediate lair on the completion of the pool, standard for a two hatch muta rush. Jaedong continued to pump drones from his hatchery, completely ignoring the scv in favour of a stronger economy. This is notable because it's the first sign of the defining theme of the game. Jaedong was saying "I don't care if you know what I'm doing, I'm still going to do it and I'm going to win".

The hatchery completed and Jaedong made his second gas and spire while Sea added a second barracks and an academy. Both players had a decent idea of exactly what the other had so the question was who would execute it better. By opting for a second barracks then engineering bay rather than the other way round Sea set himself up for a timing attack which would threaten Jaedong as his first mutalisks hatched while shielding his own main with the aggression. If Jaedong microed imperfectly he could lose some of his first mutalisks which in turn would lead to more losses later as his mutalisk flock remained stunted. Whereas Sea could use the time this attack bought to turret up his main in time for the mutalisks, despite the slower engineering bay. It's excellent in theory and has been popular since Flash started doing it a year ago. Unfortunately for him he was playing the Tyrant who cut off his chain of reinforcements, sniped a few marines and then wiped the whole squad out without a single mutalisk loss.

Nine marines and two medics helpless before Jaedong's micro

Despite the fact that the attack was always intended as a suicide to buy time that was still a fairly bad outcome for Sea. Jaedong's mutalisks broke through the outer defences of his main base and started bouncing between the bottom of the natural and the top of the main, exploiting the cliff against marines and medics while they killed scvs. He attacked the same place over and over, each time killing more scvs and the marines that protected them.

That is not a happy mineral line

Although Jaedong's economy was still very weak with his mineral lines extremely undersaturated Sea's was not much better and he was barely able to keep his three barracks running. Jaedong was free to expand at 9 with his total map control, taking a third gas and adding a few drones to increase his income to the three hatchery level. The mutalisks raided the same spot again claiming another ten scv kills and countless marine and medic kills before flying out with their plus one armour protecting them. Fifteen seconds later they'd been switched with some higher hp ones and raided the same spot again. With two control groups of mutalisks and upgrades coming Jaedong's message was clear. He intended to kill Sea with mutalisk harass alone, not as part of a timing attack or cheese, just with micro because he could.

It's one thing to infest a command centre when you've already won straightup but that's not what we're seeing here. We're not seeing a normal advantage being spent for humiliation. Jaedong stated his intent in the first minute of the game where he had no advantage beyond his skills. He had decided to make an example of his opponent, absolutely breathtaking when you consider that the opponent in question was Sea.

Sea realised Jaedong had no intention of switching out of mutalisks and started to pump valkyries while keeping everything in the heart of his base protected by turrets.

A Terran quivering in fear of mutalisks
At a seventeen supply deficit with fewer workers Sea needed Jaedong to slip up in order to get back into the game. While Jaedong did oblige him by attacking straight into the heart of that defence he was able to kill the two valkyries and come out fifteen supply ahead. Content that he had map control he expanded to the double gas in the middle of the map, not because he needed it, simply because it was there.

Jaedong skirted around Sea's base looking for an opening but the extreme range of valkyrie rockets meant every poke cost him a lot of splash damage. Eventually he got bored and attack moved all his mutalisks and scourge into the marines, medics, turrets and three valkyries.

He had the numbers to back up his ambition and won the fight but he lost his supply advantage, having been unable to harass Sea for several minutes. Sea's economy was recovering from the decimation it suffered previously while Jaedong's economy was more concerned with showboating and taking five gas just because. Furthermore Sea had started sending out lone marines with stim to kill drones, suicide missions but profitable ones. Sea couldn't contest map control, anything he sent out there was doomed, but with no zerglings or sunken colonies it wasn't hard for a marine to get a drone kill or two.

Sea finally moved out with the one valkyrie that hadn't been killed and a lot of marines and medics. Jaedong's drones in the middle expansion refused to evacuate, despite the undersaturated mineral lines elsewhere that could really use their survival, and Jaedong threw his mutalisks at the marines and medics head on. He was unable to harass as he'd ideally like to because of the valkyries range but even so, head on clashes between mutalisks and marines and medics don't usually go well. In this case Jaedong lost and was forced to pull back although the death of the valkyrie meant he could resume harassing the marines and medics.

In a gesture of stubborn futility Jaedong leaves the drones to die

Although the mutalisks were able to clean up Sea's army the supply advantage had now been reversed and Sea had used the window to switch to science vessels. His next attempt at harassment saw an excellent irradiate which did a lot of damage to all Jaedong's mutalisks. With Jaedong now on the back foot Sea was able to expand to 1 while his growing economy upped to seven barracks. A further clash between mutalisks and marines went badly and another good irradiate took its toll. As Sea closed in on the replaced central expansion Jaedong GGed.

This game is a nightmare to rate because of what Jaedong was doing. I honestly cannot see a single weakness in Jaedong's strategy that I'm not fairly sure was deliberate. Obviously if he'd changed techs after reducing Sea to about fifteen scvs that would have been great. But I'm pretty sure he knew that at the time so I can't really hold it against him. And while I know it's a double standard to say Bisu's an idiot just because every choice he makes is a bad one whereas Jaedong is allowed to make bad choices, the reason I don't mind holding Jaedong to a different standard is because he is simply on a different level. Jaedong, you played incredibly nicely. That mutalisk micro was beautiful, your mistake was the ambition in trying it against Sea. But you're going to qualify anyway so who cares. As for you Sea, well you were on the ropes there for a while. But you held it together and you reacted correctly to what Jaedong was doing. Plus I really liked those suicide stim marines you sent out. Ultimately you did what you needed to do to beat Jaedong and you deserved that win.

Sea 4/5
Jaedong 4/5
Game 5/5

by Motbob

Kal and free: the tragic figures of the Protoss race. Over the past year, they've performed better than either Stork or Bisu, the players who have historically overshadowed them, but their breakthough has come at a time when Protosses have barely been able to get to league semifinals, let alone league championships.

On Eye of the Storm, Kal spawned at bottom right with free at the bottom left. Kal tried to bust free before reaver with a 3 gate build, and he won the initial battle at free's natural, but free pulled probes and finished his reaver at a critical moment to drive Kal away from his base.



Free expanded shortly after winning the battle. Because Kal didn't know whether free was going to build a shuttle and go on the offensive, he had to hold off a bit and tech up before expending himself. With a faster expansion, free was able to begin to close the supply gap between him and Kal.

When free's expansion finished, he moved his forces in front of Kal's base, hoping that his tech advantage (2 reavers instead of one) would give him the advantage in a fight. While Kal was setting up a defense, he made a big mistake:



Not only did Kal lose a bunch of probes, but he also lost the subsequent battle decisively after losing his shuttle due to poor micro. GG

Free: 8/10
Kal: 6/10
Game: 6/10

by WaxAngel

Effort took the top spot while Leta began at the bottom on Polaris Rhapsody. Right off the bat, Leta revealed his intentions to play a non-standard build by walling in and taking his gas early. Effort decided to go overpool gas into expansion, leaving his scouting to an overlord that arrived somewhat late to see Leta’s wall.

While Effort followed up into a fast 2 hatch lair strategy, Leta had built a hidden factory near the 9:00 expansion, starting two starports in his main for his signature TvZ wraith tactics.

With a combination of luck and skill, Leta slipped his first vulture into Effort’s main while the zerglings were occupied chasing down a scouting SCV. A hydralisk den and morphing spire showed that Effort was fully expecting Leta’s wraiths, but he had no defenses against the single vulture other than a handful of slow zerglings. Hatching hydralisks eventually took down the vulture, but not before it had racked up five drone kills. Given the nature of his spawning pool before hatchery build, this was a crushing economic blow to Effort, and he was forced to cancel his spire to retrieve some minerals.



In an odd reversal of roles, Effort found himself carefully defending with hydralisks against Leta’s bunched up wraiths. Effort did not skimp on hydralisks as he tried to recover his economy, and Leta found his first four wraiths unable to do much damage. Instead of being overaggressive, Leta wisely waited until he had six wraiths and the cloaking upgrade, at which point he could pick off drones in a single volley.

Leta’s wraith micro was impeccable as usual, and he managed to kill 2 overlords, 15 hydralisks, eight drones, and a lurker before finally losing his first wraith. All the while, Leta was transitioning to M&M and tanks back in his main, something which Effort was well aware of but hard pressed to stop. Effort did a really admirable job at balancing troop and drone production while Leta’s wraiths were constantly jabbing at him, and he had a surprisingly respectable amount of hydralisks and lurkers when Leta’s marines and tanks came knocking.

Effort might even have stopped this first push if he had done a better job at preserving his lurkers, which were left exposed to be scanned and focused down by Leta’s wraiths. After a brave last stand, Effort GG’d out.



Match Rating: 7/10
Very one sided, but Leta’s technical excellence in using the two-port wraith build is always a joy to watch. Hardly any pros have signature strategies anymore. I greatly appreciate the fact that Leta continues to use the two-port wraith build, even though his opponents are expecting it from him.

Leta: 8/10
Leta was very fortunate to get his early vulture in to do economic damage, which pretty much decided the game. Even so, he built on this advantage beautifully. His TvZ wraith strat is based around killing your opponent through a thousand cuts, not going for the throat. That means he has to micro very carefully for a prolonged period of time, and he did exactly that against Effort. He barely lost any wraiths while never letting Effort build any momentum. Mostly excellent play from Leta, but his marine micro was rather mediocre on the game winning push.

Effort: 6/10
Though it was clever by Leta, you have to blame Effort for taking so much damage from the early vulture. His overlords were set up at locations that would detect a vulture from Leta’s main, but not the side route where the hidden factory was located. Effort’s hydralisk den timing easily gave him the time to play it safe and have a few hydras beforehand, but perhaps because he had started with a low econ build, he only wanted to make drones unless he was absolutely forced to react.

Although he played from what was basically an unwinnable position, Effort really did a great job at staying in the game as long as possible. He balanced defense and drone production extremely well, and he was close to being able to scrap together a last ditch all-in rush.

by Motbob

Uh oh, it's a ZvT on Dreamliner. Uh oh, the Terran is at the 6 o' clock position! Oh no, the zerg is going 12 pool gas for the fastest possible mutas! is there any way for Terran to win?

Well, not in this case, apparently. Hiya double cc'd and held off ZerO's initial lings, but even with the economic advantage, he still got flattened by ZerO's mutas. ZerO just abused the space behind Hiya's main and destroyed everything. It was a game that did not deserve more than a paragraph.



Match ratings:

Hiya: N/A
ZerO: N/A
Dreamliner: 0/10

by Kwark

Sea spawned at 5 in green while Pure got 11 in purple on Eye of the Storm. Cross positions are ideal for a Protoss long term but Pure opened with an aggressive build. His first pylon was placed in his choke, narrowing it so a single zealot could wall while his probe scouted across the map, a sign that his build urgently needed to know whether his opponent was close or far. A cybernetics core quickly followed while a fast zealot was produced by cutting probe production. Sea for his part opened with a standard build and a good barracks depot wall which allowed his marines to micro effectively against the zealots. This meant he didn't need to rush out a fast vulture and could proceed to machine shop and tank as he'd like to.

Pure tried to break in with two zealots and a dragoon and succeeded in killing five marines before a tank arrived to drive the remaining dragoon out. Content he'd done all he could and without any more scouting information he went for a robotics and expansion. Mines at Sea's natural made it impassable for Pure's units while the tanks and vultures kept probes out so Pure was completely in the dark. Sea exploited this with a quick second factory and the machine shop upgrades, hitting Pure with a very early push before his natural kicked in. Pure's units were out of position and he simply didn't have enough to defend with. Furthermore some epic mismicro led him to minedrag mines away from siege tanks and into his own dragoons. Sea sieged up in his natural and the game was over. GG.

This was a nicely executed two factory push from Sea. Pure's aggressive build was not able to gain any momentum and with no scouting information he resorted to an expansion. Sea saw this coming and reacted to execute his opponent. Very simple, very smooth. Sea got the job done.

Pure 2/5.
Sea 4/5.
Game 2/5.

by Kwark

Fantasy spawned at 7 in red while free got yellow at 5 on Grand Line SE. free went for a thirteen nexus because he's baller/lame (pick one depending on your race) while Fantasy did a standard opening. Unable to get any kind of cheese rush going on and with a factory already build Fantasy decided he needed to take extreme steps to recover the economic game. With a wall preventing his main from being scouted Fantasy added a quick command centre at 11 where free would not expect it and could not scout for it. With a third quick command centre at his natural it was clear Fantasy intended to fake standard play while apesmashing his opponent with a hidden expansion.

Unfortunately for him free is really, really good and scouted around the map immediately because it costs nothing to be careful. I want to emphasise just how good this was. He had absolutely no reason to suspect anything was going on, it's because fifty minerals for a probe is negligible compared to a hidden expansion. Most of the time those things don't pay off but regular use of them is one of the markers that divides the good from the great. free dispatched some dragoons to clean it up while Fantasy lifted up and sent the lot home. I think free's dragoons could have killed the command centre as it flew past so he missed a big opportunity there but there again, had he not retreated them the moment the situation was dealt with that could have gone badly for him in other, vulture related, ways.

Both players took their third expansions at 5 and 7 respectively. Fantasy flew his command centre the length of the map while free just expanded in a more conventional fashion. Despite the opening free was only twenty supply ahead as they evened up on bases. However excellent pylon walling (good drills!) had repeatedly denied vulture raids while he'd gotten arbiter tech up and started a fourth base at 2. With his economy and tech set up for the late game free turned his gateways on, accelerating away to a forty suppy lead while more vulture raids were shut down constantly.

Fantasy moved out to establish position on the map near 6 with a lot of sieged tanks and free seized his moment. Having given himself all the tools he needed to win in the late game he was more than happy to start engaging the Terran army, confident he had the tech and money to back it up. An excellent stasis claimed four tanks and although the zealots lacked the speed upgrade they still served as meatshields while the dragoons were microed into range and tore through the tanks.

denied
His supply advantage actually lengthened during the battle and he took the opportunity to expand to the main at 1. Fantasy continued to try and abuse vulture mobility but free had eyes on the map everywhere and patrolling dragoons were always close to the action. With his main tank force crushed and harass failing him Fantasy was running out of options. free decided it was pretty much over and attack moved into Fantasy's mined up, tanked up, natural expansion. Two more stasis pinned down a lot of tanks and Fantasy's army crumbled. free pressed his advantage, burning down most of Fantasy's natural and pushing up into the main.



Fantasy refused to leave and eventually regained control of his natural, although he lost his third at 7. However free had taken yet another expansion at 12 and the game was clearly over. With fantasy unwilling to do the honourable thing and leave free started trying to convince him. Arbiters stasised Fantasy's mineral line while stargates pumped out scouts in the hope that eventually Fantasy would realise this wasn't going to work. free messed around with twice the supply of his opponent until eventually he got bored and recalled the scouts in. Fantasy couldn't take it anymore and GGed.

free played an incredibly good game here. Everything he did was done perfectly, he simply would not allow Fantasy to get anything going. The hidden expansion, shut down. The vulture harass, shut down. The push, shut down. And the worst part is Fantasy didn't make any huge mistakes, he was just thoroughly outclassed. And I'm not even a big free fan.

free 5/5.
Fantasy 3/5.
Game 5/5 (plus required watching for PvT on open maps).

by Kwark

Bisu started at 11 in yellow while Action got 5 in brown on Polaris Rhapsody. Action went for a gasless overpool while Bisu went for forge cannon cannon nexus instead of the forge nexus cannon cannon he should have been able to get away with. If the opponent immediately goes for a six zergling break then it is marginally safer to go cannons first because it ensures the second cannon is complete before they arrive rather than just one and a half cannons in the nexus first variant. However it delays the second nexus by three hundred minerals mining time to do it so personally I prefer the riskier version.

Anyway, Bisu did a fairly standard fast expansion build while action double expanded, taking 7 before 6 after a probe blocked it. With a fast gas action built a hydralisk den for a three hatchery hydralisk break while Bisu's probe continued to scout the area. Only some nice zergling micro forced it to keep its distance. Rather than do a hydralisk allin Action got his economy built up and only after he had his transitions ready in the form of a lair did he make a wave of hydralisks. Bisu's first corsair scouted them as they attacked but Bisu was forced to make four cannons and sacrifice probes to buy them time to complete.

As this was happening Action was pumping more drones, getting a spire and evolution chamber and setting himself up for the midgame. The hydralisks were not intended to win the game, although I'm sure Action would have been more than happy to follow through if Bisu gave him an opening, they were to throw Bisu off his plan. They killed the forge and gateway in his wall but did not attempt to break the cannon line, especially as Bisu's corsairs counterattacked in his main and natural.

Bisu counterattacked with some speedzealots which were able to kill a few drones at 7 but could not net their mineral value before they were killed off. A followup attack with speedzealots and high templar left both high templar vulnerable to hydralisk snipes which turned out to be a bit redundant as Action lost the hydralisks in question and had mutalisks nearby anyway. As mutalisks counterattacked they were in turn sniped by a storm and some corsairs, shifting the momentum straight back to Bisu. Bisu pushed out without observers despite having previously scouted lurkers and at the same time expanded to 12. Mutalisks hit the undefended 12 while Bisu allowed his entire army to be drawn into hold lurkers near 6.

you don't see this happen in ZvP too often

Some nice storms avenged the zealots in hydralisk blood but Action was still one base and two gas ahead, a very nice place to be as a Zerg. Bisu was behind in supply and Action had a big army of hydralisks, lurkers and mutalisks poised to hit 12. Unfortunatlely Action can't mutalisk micro but isn't aware of this and tried something he was in no way able to do. Mutalisks swooped in to snipe the two high templar while the hydralisks got ready to feint across the bridge and then seize the high ground at 12. Instead the mutalisks stacked and hovered next to an archon somehow failing to kill a high templar while they got themselves killed. The hydralisks attacking across the bridge clogged themselves up while the lurkers were poorly positioned and proved ineffectual. Bisu broke out, regained map control and a significant advantage against his lair tech opponent.

Action decided he had no choice but to make twenty-four mutalisks. So he did that. His mutalisks attacked the massive dragoon high templar force hoping to snipe high templar and the rather bemused Bisu just filled the air with storms, including some excellent predictive storms. The mutalisks fled to harass 12 and 11 instead where two more storms ended them. With most of his money thrown away Action had too few units to withstand the juggernaut of Bisu's army which slammed into his natural. GG.

Bisu's play was alright but not great. The two pillars of his game, macro and psi storm, were both fully on display and they proved enough to beat a rather ineffectual Action. Action seemed to be filled with bright ideas and ambition and absolutely lacking in execution. The stuff he was trying to do wasn't bad. In fact, a lot of it was quite good. But he wasn't good enough to pull it off and the failures turned out considerably worse than if he'd just stuck to bland textbook play.

Bisu 3/5.
Action 2/5.
Game 2/5.

by WaxAngel

Dreamliner is becoming considered to be very favorable to Zerg in ZvT due to mutalisks and the close air distance between mains. Zero vs Hiya and Jaedong vs Sea tested this idea, with Zerg and Terran going 1-1. When Hyuk went for a 12 pool optimized 2 hatch mutalisk build, we knew we’d see this imbalance theory put to the test again.

Flash scouted out Hyuk’s build with his SCV, which would have been no surprise to him, and went for a little variation on the typical rax FE build. After putting down his command center, Flash started to cut SCVs in order to get out a faster second barracks and academy. This allowed him to get out a small force of marines and 2 medics with stimpak very early, and perfectly timed so that mutalisks would still be some ten odd seconds away when the marines reached the zerg natural.

There was some form of contingency plan on Hyuk’s part for an early attack, as he ran six zerglings into Flash’s main just as the small M&M force left. However, to Hyuk’s dismay, Flash's M&M totally ignored the zerglings, leaving them to two firebats that popped out at just the right time. This severely discombobulated Hyuk, as he was relying completely on those six lings to buy him the extra seconds he needed for his mutas to hatch.

Instead, Flash arrived at Hyuk’s natural to be greeted by a sunken colony that was not even complete. The tower went down quickly, and the drones rapidly evacuated as Flash set up his M&M to bring down Hyuk’s muta as they emerged from their eggs, before they could bunch up into the deadly muta ball.

Things continued to go well for Flash, with his force-fire control being superior to Hyuk’s mutalisk micro. Flash’s initial force killed off most of Hyuk’s mutalisks before being eliminated, which meant Flash’s follow up army easily ended the game.

Match Rating: 4/10
Short, one sided game. Flash didn’t have to do much, but he was perfect at what was required of him. Worth seeing if you like seeing a clinical destruction, otherwise don’t expect much entertainment.

Player Ratings
Flash: 6/10
Flash had it very easy, since his opponent refused to defend. In an interview, Flash mentioned he had never expected the game to end outright with the rush, and he just took the gift as it came. Still, it was perfect execution in a very advantageous situation.

Hyuk: 2/10
Hyuk completely relied on his zergling backdoor to buy him some time, and was completely lost for what to do after Flash just ignored it and went straight to the natural. Oh, his mutalisk micro was pretty bad too.

by Motbob

JvZ is often a one-sided affair, and it was even worse than usual vs Hydra since the game started with Jaedong 12 pooling against Hydra's 9 pool. As the game progressed, Jaedong had more zerglings than Hydra when it was necessary to survive and more drones at every other time. That's a recipe for victory in ZvZ. He also had a faster spire, and he quickly overwhelmed Hydra with a larger mutalisk count.

Jaedong: 9/10
Hydra: nothing-he-could-do/10
Game: 2/10.

by Kwark

Kal spawned at 11 in yellow while Stork got 5 in red on Grand Line SE. Both players mirrored with a standard pylon gateway gas while scouting clockwise. Stork opted for a core then zealot while Kal did a zealot then core but with cross positions this made no real difference in any other building timings. Stork went for a fast range while Kal went for a second gateway, seen by Stork whose probe lasted longer because of the later dragoon. Kal's scout probe was forced to leave earlier and did not see Stork saving up minerals for a quick expansion.

Stork's build was very clever because Kal's second gateway would not kick in in time to threaten his single gateway before the expansion started paying off. Furthermore Kal might not even attack because he would not know about the expansion. The lack of scouting information ruled out four gateway allins, Stork knew Kal's build would be very general and therefore very weak against a focussed build like his. Kal attempted pressure but Stork had equal numbers of units in the battle and a concave from defending. Both players mismicroed a bit with their goon sniping and zealot dodging, wasting shots on a zealot and using too many or too few shots on each dragoon. But despite making life harder for himself than it ought to be Stork held and Kal was forced to take a slow counterexpansion.

Despite all this both players reached sixty supply at the exact same time although Stork had more gateways set up. Content that his early advantage was paying off Stork moved in to establish a contain on his opponent and get storm, zealot speed and upgrades. Stork's attempt at reaver harass with a speedshuttle killed just one probe and was extremely fortunate to make it back alive, relying more on Kal's mistake than any good micro by Stork. Kal's counter reaver harass was no more deadly, if a little less suicidal.

Stork took his third faster and had significantly faster high tech although Kal had more supply. Kal attempted an attack using a shuttle to draw Stork's forces out of position for his army to destroy, but the moment he saw high templar he wisely chose to retreat. As Stork pushed forwards Kal continued to harass Stork's natural and took his own third. It was a little too late though as Stork's army attacked head on and despite both players doing excellent storms Stork's army was victorious and broke through to kill Kal's third. Yet more harass killed every probe at Stork's natural but although the psi count was even Stork had units where Kal had probes. An immediate attack covered Kal's immobile forces with storm and Stork was able to clean him up. GG.

This was a clever game. Stork's build was not prepared, it was a reaction to having scouted his opponent for longer and being cross positions. He saw the fast two gateways and worked out exactly how to best exploit it. That was enough to gain him a marginal advantage and, when backed up by consistently solid play, led to him winning. This wasn't a build order victory, Stork had to be as good as Kal at every aspect of his game to hold onto his edge, but he was. Kal's play was very strong technically and I struggle to fault him here. He did some nice harass too. A good game.

Stork 5/5.
Kal 4/5.
Game 4/5.