OSL Finals Reports

Well, I'll be honest, I think Stork is going to win this. And not just because I think Fantasy is overrated and gave a shameful display in the semis (although that is undoubtably true) but because Stork is #1 PR right now and deserves it. Right now Stork is the best player in the world bar none. His play is a fusion of the strongest aspects of every Protoss player. He combines his own macro and reaver play (the best in the world) with the legendary pushbreaking ability of Jangbi, the harass of Bisu, the micro of Free and somehow avoids the spontaneous suicide of Kal. His builds are clever, ambitious and exploitative and he has the control to get the most out of it. Time and time again we've seen Stork use reavers to do the impossible and hold off pushes when he should have lost. If Fantasy lets Stork play the game Stork wants to, and Stork is pretty good at imposing his will on the game, he's going to lose. And lose badly. As we saw last week, Fantasy is awful. As we've seen all season Stork is amazing. From this I'm going to go with a 3-0 Stork win.

Fantasy 3-0 ►Gold
Stork 0-3 ►Silver

[VOD] Fantasy < Gladiator > Stork
[VOD] Fantasy < Aztec > Stork
[VOD] Fantasy < Pathfinder > Stork
[VOD] Fantasy < Icarus > Stork
[VOD] Fantasy < Gladiator > Stork

Fantasy @ 5 opened up a bizarre and suboptimal rax cc that involved getting gas before command center. Why he did this specific version is unknown, but he must have had some reason for it. Stork @ 2 in response showed the exact opening he used against Hiya: 1 gateway double expand into reaver. The early game played out essentially standard for these unique openings except Stork got to show off his trademark judgment by sniping an ever so slightly exposed tank early on. Fantasy predicted Stork's fast reaver and grabbed charon boosted goliaths and academy off of 1 factory, later transitioning into a 5 factory heavy vulture composition with extremely early vessels and EMP. Stork on the other hand added a few more gateways and observers after the reaver, then quite audaciously, took a hidden fourth off of 4 gateways! Such a bold move is by no means safe or standard play and Stork deserves recognition for it.

The main trouble for Stork was that he was in the dark about Fantasy's plans. His shuttle and observers kept getting sniped the moment they entered Fantasy's base, so Stork really had no idea what he was up against. He most likely assumed that Fantasy was doing some kind of Flash-esque 2-3 factory with a fast third command center given the rapid goliaths, academy, light drop harass, and vessel. Under such an assumption, Stork's extraordinarily early fourth made complete sense as Fantasy could not punish it. However because Fantasy was actually doing a delayed 5 factory build, Fantasy could have easily punished Stork's quick fourth — but he did not spot it! Quite ironic that the modern master of hidden expansions got one pulled over him. In fact, he caught Stork's probe going to the 7 main and probably assumed that Stork was going to expand there instead!

Both players' choices made the game quite interesting strategically. Stork made a correct judgment on incorrect information, got well ahead, and decided to go carriers with templars, a very solid choice given the positions and map. Fantasy, on the other hand, did not have the right information and thus did not make the right choices, but his active vulture use and subsequent map control negated Stork's fourth considerably, albeit indirectly. He was simply content to play for position and double expand, a very rare move that we don't really see anymore.

Despite Stork's momentary position of weakness, he still felt confident enough maneuvering around and trying to expose Fantasy's army. He did catch it at a good moment in the southwest middle area, sniping a few units before having to retreat, and seriously weakening Fantasy's overall force. This encounter seemed to bolster Stork's confidence, and he quickly ran back around to cut Fantasy off from his new high ground expansion. This time Stork's sense deserted him, as after a bit of skirmishing he decided to fight. For a moment it seemed that Stork might just win, but two EMPs spelled the difference between victory and defeat as Stork lost crucial storms. His army was mostly flattened, and the stragglers that ran over to the high ground expansion were shortly cleaned up as well.

Once Fantasy crushed Stork's army, the rest of the game was really just a formality. Stork did not have the units to defend from Fantasy's follow up push and did not yet have the carrier count to really make an impact. Stork had accomplished miracles with carriers before, but Fantasy's secure position over Stork's natural isolated his carriers from receiving gateway unit support. Carriers alone are not enough to win a game; they need to be coupled with some kind of ground army, preferably goon/templar. Stork's desperate dt harassment was the right move, but he simply didn't have enough other cards to play to make the DTs effective. At that point, all Fantasy needed to do was keep forcing Stork to defend his bases so he didn't have enough time to raze any of his expansions with carriers. As long as Fantasy kept Stork on the defensive, he had a won game, and he did just that.

Stork made some excellent decisions overall. His expansion timing couldn't have been better; even though he was denied of information, he still correctly judged that he could take 4 bases against fantasy's 2 at such early timings and safely tech for carriers with templars. He then made a beautiful snipe of part of Fantasy's army in the middle, substantially weakening it. These decisions plus the map put him in a very favorable overall position, however, he threw away those leads first by losing his initial shuttle and later incorrectly committing to a battle.

Losing the initial shuttle allowed Fantasy to take control of the map with vultures much earlier than he should have, as Stork couldn't enforce a contain as easily. Therefore, Stork was unable to safely transfer probes to his 9 o' clock expansion until far later than he would have liked, and he also employed his trademark 'goons die to mines' strategy. Despite these setbacks, he was still in an absolutely fine position until he threw away his army.

Stork's decision to fight at that critical moment wasn't necessarily a bad one: by luring Fantasy out of position and engaging to the west of the Terran natural, Stork was able to seize a critical area that led to Fantasy's third gas while the Terran army was not fully set. If the battle had gone as Stork imagined, they would have traded armies and Fantasy would have been left without the crucial tank backbone to fight Carrier/Goon/Templar. The critical factors that Stork did not judge correctly were the EMPs and upgrades. A 2 base Terran does not typically have multiple Vessels with EMPs saved nor does it have +2 attack at that particular timing, and a Flash-type build would not have the army strength to actually win that fight.

Fantasy's bizarre build, however, had all of those normally unattainable qualities that allowed him to win that fight decisively. Stork misjudged the situation and made an ordinarily solid move that proved fatal under the circumstances. His carriers were a fine choice given his advantage and the map, but he needed to make choices in harmony with his tech path and he did not.

Fantasy's only mistake was his poor first engagement in the southwest area of the center. He hurried too much and didn't take the time to keep his position secure at all costs, an action inconsistent with the rest of his play. Overall Fantasy's build relied on some very thin margins and not making any mistakes. His extremely unorthodox transitions and information denial were aimed at confusing Stork and getting him to make incorrect decisions. Had Stork not thrown away his ground army so inefficiently, an interesting game would have developed where Fantasy would have to defend his isolated plateau expansion at 4 and somehow secure more expansions, most likely by forcing repeated engagements, while Stork needed to keep Fantasy occupied until he could take enough expansions to cement his dominance.

Rating:

Fantasy - 9.5/10
Stork - 8/10

Fantasy @5 opened up with the more standard rax cc after second depot. Upon seeing this, Stork @ 12 again went with 1 gate double expand reaver. Despite his game 1 loss, Stork had no reason to change his build order. He had been in a very good position until he committed to a very poor attack and threw away the game. While Fantasy's opening in the previous game kept Stork uncertain and produced a reasonable, though odd equality, Stork's 1 gate double expand reaver had in no way been directly countered. On a map where Fantasy could not focus on position and double expand like on Gladiator, Stork was absolutely justified in trying to use his trump card once more.

The only notable deviation of the early game was Fantasy double scouting at a late timing, intending to use the second SCV to hide behind Stork's inevitable goon contain and confirm exactly what he was doing. Hopefully we see more of these kinds of moves in the future, because it really is a reliable way to get crucial information. Stork somehow seemed to predict this action and stuffed a goon on the ramp to his natural, intercepting the scv and keeping Fantasy in the dark.

Even though he couldn't confirm Stork's opening, Fantasy still went ahead with his prepared build order. And like so many Fantasy series games, he got a straight up build order win versus Stork's own superb build. By opening rax cc 2 factory followed with a starport into 5 factory, Fantasy aimed at shutting down Stork's reaver harassment and killing him with an immediate timing push. A scv found the incoming shuttle, Fantasy killed it with a wraith, and all that was left was to go through the motions. Fantasy walked out, set up in front of Stork's third and gradually pushed in. A few minutes later he had killed the third and set up a DMZ in front of Stork's natural. With no way to break out and Fantasy far ahead economically, Stork typed out.

The shuttle and reaver meant everything to Stork's build. With them, Fantasy would be pinned in his base long enough for Stork's economy advantage to kick in as it occurred against Hiya. Both Fantasy and Hiya went for a 5 fact, but Hiya tried to defend the harass the normal way with turret/tanks aiming to hit with a strong tank support once he was safe from the reaver. On the other hand, Fantasy geared for a quicker timing attack only possible without the reaver as a threat. By the time Hiya could safely move out, his push was a lost cause. That is the difference Fantasy's simple but skillful alteration made. Without the shuttle, Stork had nothing to stop Fantasy from killing him in the very narrow timing window when he would be vulnerable. Just compare the supplies when each Terran pushed out: Hiya 78 | Stork 102 ; Fantasy 71 | Stork 74.

Stork didn't do anything wrong this game and he did most things right, particularly his denial of Fantasy's hidden scout. His loss was effectively decided from the moment the game started. Perhaps he could have made more of a game of it by holding back his goons and engaging Fantasy closer to his third and catching him unsieged below the ramp, but he simply didn't have the unit count to really win a fight until Fantasy's position was too secure. Fantasy of course, essentially played a perfect game. The only unique aspect was his patience in pushing very slowly and making absolutely sure Stork had no chance to catch him unsieged and get back in the game.

Rating:

Fantasy - 10/10
Stork - 9/10

Fantasy @8 seized the momentum of his wins and didn't take the risk of guessing how Stork @4 would react after seeing another Rax CC. Instead, Fantasy kept the initiative by going for the rather rare, though underrated, dropship FD. Stork was content to do a normal 1 gate expand while taking a risk in teching to robo off of 1 gateway.

Fantasy's first drop was a great success, catching Stork completely off-guard and without goons in the proper locations. This small victory was all Fantasy needed to take a small advantage and run with it. The tank-vulture-marine elevator into the Protoss main did significant damage while drawing most of Storks' army into the main. This opened a window for Fantasy to pick up his tank and drop it at the natural while newly produced vultures came in by ground for even more disruption. Next, Fantasy gave time for his econ to kick in by sniping Stork's exterior buildings from outside his main, including a poorly placed observatory! Observers are the key unit for Protoss to shut down harass, and even delaying one or two at crucial timings can and did provide big dividends. Fantasy followed up with another small victory by tank dropping the back of Stork's natural, hurting Stork's econ even further, before being forced to run.

Here, a peculiar situation developed: Fantasy's dropship was being hounded by Protoss units, and losing it with two tanks would stall his momentum and give Stork a huge breathing window. Thus the hunt was on: Stork vs. the dropship, and surprisingly enough, the dropship won! Stork tried to corner it first in the top right, but he didn't have enough dragoons there. Fantasy then managed to escape into the middle while covering with vultures, but was ambushed by Stork's exceedingly late goons coming from the bottom of the map. Yet still, through Fantasy's great use of terrain, the dropship still did not die. The bizarre chase was culminated by Fantasy fleeing into Stork's main, elevating some more vultures in. Stork suddenly had nothing to defend his main because everything was out chasing the single dropship! This attack did serious damage to Stork's economy and weakened his exposed stargate. Because Stork was teching to arbiters and staying on 2 base, he could not afford to lose any tech or suffer extra economic damage. Stork's only consolation was that finally, finally, he sniped that rascally dropship! But that was a small consolation, for Fantasy's shenanigans had bought him enough time to finish his third and start his fourth before Stork had even begun his 3rd. The point of assured economic defeat was looming for Stork. He tried to punish Fantasy's exposed third, but Fantasy's enormous unit superiority prevented any real damage or loss of position.

At this point, all Fantasy had to do was slowly push Stork's natural. With nearly 4 bases to 2 and all the early damage that had been dealt, Stork simply had no way to defend against the push. Instead, Fantasy tried to get cute and started to elevator into Stork's main while securing the middle. Dedicated Terran elevator strategies are normally a waste of time, and this was no exception. Stork's 10 minute late shuttle made a stunning debut, dropping zealots on every tank that entered the main and substantially reducing Fantasy's punch. But still Fantasy persisted, ferrying more and more units to get killed by rampaging parachute zealots. Around this point, Stork simply fell apart. As long as he kept his dragoons in a defensive position in his main and 3rd while continually zealot bombing any tank drops, Stork could stall long enough to get a fifth base up and start recalling. While offering many opportunities for harassment, Pathfinder is a difficult TvP map in the late game. Not only is the main totally exposed to recalls and the various expansions slow to reach with tanks, but Terran simply can't take more than 4, at most 5 bases while Protoss gets to grab the extra main and natural. Despite his precarious position, Stork still had that possibility.

However, it was not to be. Stork threw away his entire army trying to break Fantasy's well set up position at just the moment when half a dozen vultures burst into his third base, killing every probe and another group was killing off his main. Stork knew these attacks were coming and did nothing about it, indicating that he misjudged the situation and felt the game was essentially a lost cause at that point. With vultures in his main, third, and a drop coming down at Stork's fourth, Fantasy cemented his domination by smashing Stork's "army" at his natural, forcing the GG.

In a heavily harass focused game like this, the ability of the Protoss to reverse the momentum of the game comes from their ability to block or delay at least one attempt. Specifically, sniping a dropship or trapping a group of vultures. Heavy harassment only works versus players as good as Stork if you can do something to knock them off-balance initially and never let them recover. But once that initial disruption occurs, the Terran can keep pouring on the pressure and force the Protoss to react one step too late. Against someone as good at harassing as Fantasy, Stork could not simply be content to react. He would need to take risks by proactively trying to anticipate and preemptively shut down one wave instead of just reacting. Stork did not actively try to do this, essentially preventing a comeback.

Stork's play this game wasn't as good as the previous two. His only serious errors were the poor placement of his buildings and his suicidal attack into Fantasy's low ground elevator setup, but he did not create any kind of opportunity where he could reverse the tide. In particular, he took far too long to get a shuttle out to stop the initial tank sniping of exterior pylons and the natural probes, and seemed to be lacking on observers the entire game. He made the correct decision to stay on 2 base and tech to arbiters so he didn't overextend himself, but with all the gas he saved up, he could have made good use of dark templars to distract Fantasy from his aggression momentarily and disrupt mining or building expansions, or even have built a second stargate. All Stork needed to do to get back into the game was one recall in the exposed main combined with attacks on the hard to defend Terran expansions. However, it seemed he didn't really have a plan for victory and could do nothing more than react to Fantasy's attacks.

Fantasy did a superb job of finding weaknesses and continuously keeping Stork one step behind. He could have ended the game far earlier than he did by simply attacking Stork in quite an enormous window instead of expending far too many units and time trying to kill Stork's stargate. Had Stork played essentially perfectly at the end, Fantasy could have been in trouble and should never have given him even that possibility.




Rating:

Fantasy - 9.5/10
Stork - 6/10

Fantasy won 3-0.

Fantasy won 3-0.

Overall this series consisted of Fantasy playing incredibly while Stork played solidly but not spectacularly. No, there wasn't any choking, nor did Stork play below his normal level until perhaps the end of game 3. Stork played consistently well, but Fantasy played that much better.

So where did Stork go wrong? To analyze that we must go to well before the final back to his ro16 and ro8 games against Sea and Hiya, where Stork first unveiled his new build against rax cc and mercilessly crushed the helpless Terrans. Had Stork saved that until the finals, Fantasy would have gotten thwomped and forced to either abandon rax cc or keep losing. However, would Stork have even advanced this far without that build? That's not an easy question to answer, and it's unfair to fault him for revealing a build too early.

Essentially, Stork gambled that Fantasy and his team would not be able to construct a proper counter to his new build. It wasn't a bad gamble at all. Stork's opening was the first Protoss build that gave a very strong edge against rax cc openings and revolutions don't happen overnight. The shocking part is not that Stork used the same build twice, but that Fantasy and T1 figured out how to beat it decisively and in two different ways in such a short time.

What this series showed is that you absolutely have to bring something unexpected to the table to win against such a strong series player. No matter how good a build is, if it is known the T1 Terran team can dissect it within a week or so! Stork used the unexpected quite well in his Incruit games and it was a major factor in his success. In game 1, he faked gas steal while actually proxy gating, something Fantasy was clearly not prepared for and lost very easily to. Then in game 2, he went with an economic DT drop that caused Fantasy to mistime his follow up attack. Lastly, in game 5 he was able to gas steal and get away with some major risks because of the fear implanted by the prior proxy gate.

Stork's flaw this time was simply putting too much faith in his ace build that was already revealed. But it is not easy to blame him for that. He can't control if Fantasy rax cc's or not, only react, and if he went with a more standard build Fantasy could have easily gotten an advantage due to the strength of rax cc openings. Cheese is almost out of the question against rax cc openings anymore due to the extraordinarily strong economic base. However, Stork should certainly have considered some kind of dt opening or 12 nexus for game three instead of going with another 1 gate nexus.

On Fantasy's part, we were shown yet again just how well his series are planned out. Instead of trying to dodge Stork's ace build against rax cc by opening factory expansion, Fantasy met Stork head on. By doing so, he narrowed down the possible responses Stork would make: it is ludicrous to suggest that Stork might not have used his trump just on the off chance Fantasy figured out a counter in a week or so. Furthermore, the order Fantasy did his builds is also very important. If he did his game 2 wraith timing attack build in game 1, Stork would definitely not have done 1 gate reaver double expand again and Fantasy would have lost the chance to use his game 1 build. However, by using the goliath build in game 1 Fantasy gained parity but did not make Stork think that he had anything better that would crush 1 gate double expand reaver. It was only after the complete build order loss in game 2 that Stork must have received a sizable shock and been forced to consider alternatives.

Then, after crushing it twice, Fantasy didn't give Stork any opportunity for reversing the momentum like he gave Jaedong in Batoo. During that series, after winning with a new dominant build and a mind game based off of his initial win, he played a defensive mech on Chupung Ryeong, and let Jaedong regain momentum with a surprise hydra/muta all in. This time around, Fantasy seized the initiative from the start in game 3 with a surprise dropship FD and didn't look back. Stork was in the passenger's seat the entire series and never had a chance to control anything.