Unsung: An Article Series

Calm macros up a little, and we catch his FP-view of morphing the first 8 lurkers.


As the lurkers hatch, he immediately moves in front of Fantasy's natural, separating the main terran army from reinforcements.


but the first vessel arrives almost immediately:


Now Calm, instead of macroing up, spends most of his larvae producing a sizable lurker-ling army, and prepares for a huge pincer attack on Fantasy's army while it's trying to secure territory for the terran third - and the zerg also starts his hive to catch up in tech.



The terran entrance is still intact, and the first sieging tanks clean up the zerg forces. Calm now takes the 6 o'clock base, and is transferring slow overlords there - maybe preparing a slow-drop?
Fantasy now has 5 barracks and a factory constantly blinking, with two starports pumping vessels. He decides to use his temporary army advantage to push out as the defiler mound starts morphing. Calm tries to delay frantically




They are both cleaned up easily, the terran army decides to go for the new base at 6, and a dropship ferries a strike team to the undefended bottom right.




The first defiler is on his way towards the terran natural, but it is irradiated, and a tank snipes it just as it is about to cast the first swarm.


At this point, Fantasy is clearly winning most of the engagements, but he is still on only two bases versus Calm's 4, even after taking out the hatchery in the bottom right - which is already rebuilding.
Fanta finally starts floating his third command center to its place, while an other terran army moves out to threaten the base at 6:


At the same time, a dropship sneaks its cargo into Match Point's huge main:



Now the action is all over the map. Fantasy manages to push through to 6, a d-matrixed marine spearheads into the sunkens with no reinforcements or nyduses in sight for Calm. The zerg tries a counter-attack in the middle of the map, but it's disrupted by a smaller M&M force.


Fantasy could be ahead now in economy, but he makes a huge mistake with his SCV-transfer to the landed third:



After spending some irradiates, Fantasy destroys the base at the bottom.




- which Calm tries to plague repeatedly without success. Without Fanta putting any pressure on Calm, he reacts lightning-fast to an other drop:




Fantasy is comfortable sitting on three bases now, and pushes towards the rebuilt bottom left with a highly upgraded firebat-heavy force. In the end he doesnt even need the melee damage:


And the reinforcements are denied in style:


Now this is the point where you might want to stop reading this BR for 20 seconds, and watch the events in the VOD instead, this link will make it start at the right time (if not, you're looking for 32:30):

No, don't skip it, just watch. 20 seconds is all I'm asking for, which you won't regret.
The reason for that: Calm displays picture-perfect cloning, and the retreating vessel cloud disappears in red flames within 2 seconds to a control group of scourge.


Sadly, this might still not be enough to get Calm back in this game. He is down to his three original bases - even though a hatchery is morphing at the top, the terran's map presence makes saturating it highly unlikely. At this point, Fanta slowly sets up for a 4th, but he is obviously preparing for the kill.


Taking a minute to gather his thoughts and army, he sends a smaller M&M group to kill the new base at the top, while his main force moves through the middle, the firebat-heavy infantry just waltzing through Calm's desperate swarms.


GG. Despite a few minor mistakes, Fantasy played a very impressive game here. He decided to stay on a few bases in favor of a quicker tech progression and a temporarily bigger army - but he always did the damage he needed to do at the right times and places.

Calm played his 2-hatch opening improperly, falling behind due to mismicro, and Fantasy reacted very nicely to all the mindgames the brain zerg was trying to play on him. While the STX ace wasn't showing his "Clam" form, he was still thoroughly outplayed in this game. (And with it, SKT1 took the win against STX)

fantasy is only able to kill a pair of zerglings, before getting finished off by the sunken.

After a while, 6 mutalisks pop for Calm, which proceed to fantasy's base after killing the pesky marine. Frustrated, Calm is met by a valkyrie and a handful of turrets accompanying his low medic marine count.



Trying to pick away at anything, Calm succeeds in luring a valkyrie out far enough, where he is able to kill it off, coupled with a few marines here and there. Another 2-3 valkyries are in production for fantasy in the next couple minutes though.

Still on 2 base, with fantasy's second command center finished on his high ground, Calm begins lurker production in hope to break fantasy as he expands.

+ Show Spoiler +



With no tank support, and a bunker started late, Calm looks to make his way in to fantasy's base, dealing heavy damage. 4-5 Lurkers are able to burrow in the middle of fantasy's base, and reinforcements are rallying constantly.





No way to defend the attack, fantasy gives the gg and hopes he can make his way through the tie breaker for his group.





ZerO is able to 3-0 the group, forcing a 3-way tiebreaker for fantasy, Calm, and Pure.



Later that night, both players prepare for their MSL match the following day. Calm practices his lurker use ZvT, and fantasy continues to learn how bio works. The next day, the sun rises, and the players are pitted up against each other in their MSL group as well.


It appears we've been matched up again...

What I quite enjoyed about Calm and fantasy's first game of their MSL match was that it was very straight forward and can easily be described with pictures. Actual battle reports will be written for game 3 of their MSL match and game 5 however!

+ Show Spoiler +

Beating fantasy on Match Point puts Calm ahead 2-0 this season, up a game in both their OSL and MSL group on him.



At this point, fantasy has 3 days to get his shit together in time to make his way out of the 3-way tiebreaker between him, Pure, and Calm, who he will face yet again.




Calm proceeds to beat Pure, although fantasy gets stomped by Park Sae Jung. This leaves a potential draw (I.E. another 3-way tie breaker) for the group if fantasy can overcome Calm.


The calm before the storm

fantasy spawns as the blue Terran at the 11 o' clock position, opting for a wall-off at his natural choke. Calm, the orange Zerg at the 7 o' clock position, settles with the fact that 12hatch is a good build ZvT, and finally uses it.






Although fantasy walls off, he does not in fact go for a fast expand, and instead takes a quick gas in his main and opens with a factory.

Busily microing the 3rd hatchery in his base, Calm forgets about his first scouting overlord, and lets it die carelessly to fantasy's only marine. He does manage to see the command center at the natural has not started yet though.

Fantasy's first vulture arrives, only to meet a sunken colony and a handful of zerglings, but his vulture is able to deny Calm his 3rd base twice as he techs to his spire. fantasy has taken his expansion at this point and is going in to the mid game with mech in mind (not surprisingly, he must have been pretty pissed).



When Calm's mutas are out, they head straight to fantasy's base to begin their harassment. fantasy already has goliath range at this point, but only has 3 goliaths to work with. The mutalisks are able to find a hole in to the main of fantasy, and go to work on some SCVs, but only to be chased out when the goliaths close in. During this time, Calm sees 3 barracks in the making, indicating he will be facing a biomech army in the near future.




Finally, Calm is able to get his 3rd base under way in the bottom right corner of the map, but it will be difficult to find the larva to drone up, seeing as he will need to bolster an army in hopes to defend the incoming attack.



Half a dozen lurkers have been morphed, and Calm is now pumping out a lot of hydra ling lurker, but his hive has only just begun and his 3rd base only just recently finished.

With fantasy's army out on the map, Calm moves the majority of his army around the top to prepare for a stab in the back. What Calm does next is very smart though.



Calm leaves two lurkers atop the ramp outside fantasy's natural while the rest of his army moves heads straight to fantasy's base. With little defense there, Calm easily takes out over a dozen SCVs as well as fantasy's reinforcements and some production.





Fantasy, realizing his army is too far to counter, runs his army home to clean up his base, only to be met by two lurkers along the way. Whether fantasy did not notice or lurkers, or was lacking enough energy immediately on his scanners, he loses an insane chunk of his army, walking over top of the lurkers.



Calm appears to have not macrod so well during the attack, and/or made too many drones, because after fantasy cleans up his base, he moves out for the attack. Calm is extremely unprepared, and fantasy is doing a great job of slowly crawling forward with tanks, rendering his well placed lurkers useless.


Calm attempts a small counterattack with units in the map from his 3rd base as well as other stragglers, but fantasy still has a bunker up with a tank sieged behind it, anticipating the move.

Defiler tech is not quite done yet, and fantasy proceeds to push deeper in to Calms territory, forcing him to pull drones briefly until he is able to hold down with swarm and a couple lurkers. During this time, fantasy has completely ignored Calm's vulnerable 3rd and 4th base.





With a shattered economy and tech, coupled with tanks blasting their way through everything in his main, Calm is forced to gg after another small counterattack.


Fantasy's win against Calm finishes the tie breaker with all 3 players 1-1, creating another tie breaker. Uneventfully, Pure immediately steps up and crushes both players, advancing 2-0 to the round of 8, and preventing another Calm vs fantasy game for the day. This ends both Fantasy and Calm's Korean Air OSL S1 run.



My eyes are set on you now

Another quick (even quicker this time!) recap of Calm and fantasy's 2nd game in their MSL match.

+ Show Spoiler +


That brings us to our final game of Calm and fantasy's run against eachother in the Hana Daetoo MSL of 2010! Tied 2-2 overall the past week, this game not enough decides who advances to the round of 8 in the MSL, but it gives the players a chance to redeem themselves!


Fighting to stay in the MSL

Calm spawns as the brown Zerg at the 5 o' clock position, 12hatching once again. After laying down his hatchery, he sends out a drone to scout the ever so clever fantasy, enabling him to identify which of the various fantasy builds he will pull out from under his sleeve. Scouting correctly, counterclockwise, he finds fantasy opening with a barracks and quick gas. at the 1 o' clock position.



fantasy opens with his typical factory as he puts down his command center directly at his natural while sending out an SCV to scout.



Calm's hydralisk den finishes with ample time, and he takes the initiative of spreading out his overlords to create a slow path of detection to fantasy's base. 10 hydralisks pop out, with more rallying, as he takes out all the mines in his way and heads across the bridge to fantasy's natural.



Hydralisks poke in and see a large amount of SCVs getting pulled to repair the bunker filled with marines, then retreat after killing an SCV or two, only to run in again as a few more rallied hydralisks group up with the bunch. Calm focus fires down the bunker and begins to wreak havoc on the SCVs and marines that were inside.





Things begin to looks grim for fantasy, as his siege mode is not yet finished, despite getting a tank out. Many SCVs are lost while keeping the hydras at bay until siege mode finally finishes and the tank holds fantasy's expansion.

Enough damage is done to make up for Calm's lack of drone saturation and Calm takes his 3rd while getting his tech and economy back up track. fantasy is down on SCVs and still only producing off of 1 factory. Calm begins his spire just as fantasy resumes mining at his natural expansion.



Just like his game on Eye of the Storm, fantasy adds on barracks and aims for another biomech unit composition. Calms spire finishes at 9 minutes and he prepares to put fantasy on the defensive.

Knowing mutalisks are coming, fantasy has been producing goliaths off of his factory, so his tank count is still rather low.



Mutalisks are greeted by 5 goliaths without range, accompanied by a small group of turrets. Calm locates fantasy's 3 tanks sieged up at his natural, and runs in to pick off 2 of them before retreating.

During the harassment, Calm begins his 4th at the 7 o' clock natural, placing his hatchery a matrix above the mine, frankly not giving a shit.



Fantasy is turtled up tight, defending any attempts at muta harass aside from trading another tank for a muta. He gears up to push out in order to take a 3rd. Fantasy's army consists of 3-4 tanks, 4-5 goliaths, and about a dozen marine medic.

As fantasy moves out, Calm runs in to fantasy's main from behind his natural killing a few SCVs before being vacated.



Fantasy awaits Calm's attack, not stretching his army and further than what is shown above as he adds more barracks and plays a heavy 2 base style.





As Calm notices Fantasy move out further, towards the center of the map, he runs in with mutas once again, killing likely a dozen or so SCVs and 8-10 marines.









When Fantasy pulls back some units to defend the mutas, Calm assaults the front with a large lurker ling force, aided by his mutas, which fly back to help in the battle. Fantasy is overwhelmed and pushed back behind his bridge, where he continues to macro up and turtle.


Lurkers: no shortage of them

At this point, Calm has his 4th gas up and a healthy amount of drones with his whole tech tree nearly complete. Defilers are out and swarms constantly push back any of fantasy's attempts to break out. Fantasy tries to irradiate as much as possible, but Calm is solid at keeping the vessel count from getting too high.



Calm increases the pressure and finally pushes all the way in to the natural with his lurkerling force and defilers, sieging fantasy's natural. Fantasy's main is mined out and his natural is under siege. Calm is about to take a 5th and there is no way fantasy can make a comeback now.


This last game on Fighting Spirit ends the qualm that fantasy and Calm had during this season's OSL and MSL, with Calm advancing in to the round of 8 to face great. Rest assured, the Calm-fantasy rivalry does not end here.