Dual Tournament - Week 2 - Reports/Game Discussion

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GGPlay Z (Hanbit) - O.oc T (Samsung)
Game 1 - Hitchhiker
GGPlay (5) 12 pool into expansion, oc (11) with barracks into CC built above ramp, which is blocked by 3 marines and 1 SCV. GGPlay gets mutas and takes out 11 SCVs, 12 marines and 1 turret with only 5 lost mutas. While doing this he got lurkers going and mineral only + one more expansion. oc has 2 tanks and loads of mnm outside his natural, GGPlay goes in with all his units and kills both tanks + reduces the marines with a good amount, oc has no vessel out yet so the lurkers do a lot of damage. Eventually they retreat after some scans, and instead burrow at the cliff above the mineral line, neglecting any mining there for a while. oc pushes forward but lurkers are in the way and picks off many marines pumping from the 4 barracks and a few tanks, GGPlay has now another expansion so that's 5 bases alltogether... oc tries a drop in the main which fails terribly before GGPlay sends in streams of zerglings and lurkers covered by defilers and after plague on the almost destroyed natural CC, gg.


A plagued CC ends the game...

Excellent muta control by GGPlay and sloppy play against lurkers by oc. Except the very late drop, he didn't even have time to attack once so that pretty much says it all.

Game 2 - Neo Arkanoid
GGPlay (7) 12 pool and a quick spire, oc (11) 14 CC triple barracks with early academy. With a lucky scan he finds GGPlay's base immediately and also the spire, so he starts ebay at once. However the mutas are out and a really long muta harassment starts, when it ends the result is: 16 SCVs, 24 marines, 3 medics, 2 towers and a bunker for 9 lost mutas... or 2400/75 minerals/gas to 900/900 - whew! So now finally oc has a vessel out and he pushes forward vs the 3 base zerg. He can't do much though as GGPlay has many lurkers waiting for him, instead he is the one pushing forward now with defilers and lots of swarms going. Vessels die in about every attempt to destroy them to 2 scourges, oc loses marines here and there and can't keep up with the pace, GGPlay goes in with lots of lurkers under swarm and just like last game oc makes a pointless drop in one of GGPlay's expansion... GGPlay counters with a plague on 3 of oc's 7 barracks and history repeats itself when oc types out.


And here - 3 barracks!

Totally amazing muta control, just what I expected to see from GGPlay. Watching him ZvT is really fun! It's obvious that oc wasn't up to GGPlay's standard in this match, he just couldn't control his units well enough and lost many without managing to attack at all. Not too often you see a zerg have defilers out before terran even does his first push.

iloveoov T (SK) - HaZin[saM] Z (Hanbit)
Game 1 - Neo Arkanoid
oov (7) 14CC double barracks, HaZin (11) fast lair while massing zerglings. 12 zerglings break the temples and storms into oov's choke, looks bad for oov who only has 3 marines... but he pulls out 8 SCVs to block the entrance. Zerglings fall back and lurkers morphing, oov pushes forward with his mnm group though and meets 2 lurker eggs in the middle. HaZin times a zergling attack well though and manages to save his lurkers, a bunker just finishes at oov's choke but the 2 lurkers passes by only to die to scans. HaZin starts his second hatchery, breaks other temples and puts oov's expansion on hold. However he loses another 4 lurkers and gg.


oov just barely gathered his SCVs in time to block the zergling rush...

Weird build, I've never seen 1 hatch lurkers on Arkanoid before. Even though oov fast expanded it didn't really put him at a disavantage after he blocked the initial zergling attack, and then he just camped the entrance to his base, getting many free kills and defended his base against lurkers. But yeah, my guess is that HaZin didn't want to play oov in mid-game cause of his macro.

Game 2 - Longinus II
oov (11) walls-in at his choke to his main (not too commonly seen) and then expands, HaZin (6.30) 12 hatch into pool and then a third hatchery at the very southwest. Second barracks going up, oov has to micro around his marines against small zergling assaults, HaZin morphs all sorts of things: 2 evolution chambers, hydra den, spire, 3 sunkens and a fourth hatchery. Normal-sized mnm group camping outside the sunkens, HaZin puts down another 2, all in a straight line. Mutas out but they don't do any damage since oov has turrets up, he has 6 barracks, 2 factories with addons and vessels now. oov has huge mnm army + vessels moving back and forth, HaZin decides to confront it with all he has... mutas, lurkers and many, many zerglings goes in just to... die? I'm pretty sure not more than 5 marines + 1 vessel died for oov all in all, so with a really big advantage oov sends everything in including 5 tanks who doesn't even siege against the sunkens (only after a while when he realize he loses too much). Desperate zergling attack in oov's base and gg.


95% of this red blood is from zerg units... aouch!

HaZin was never even close here. Once again he goes for a really weird build, with mass hatcheries and a "hidden" spire that is scouted by a SCV anyway. His mutas didn't do anything at all and the all-in battle that ended up in a bloodbath for HaZin was a really poor decision. He lost the game there but I think oov didn't expect such an easy win.

Child Z (STX) - Bisu[Shield] P (MBC)
Game 1 - Longinus II
Child (3) 12 hatch pool then takes mineral only, Bisu (11) forge into expansion and techs to stargate. Child adds a 4th hatchery to his choke, has lair but chooses to mass hydras. 9 zealots and a dragoon storms in but are repelled by the hydras, sairs dies as well. Child counter-attacks with many hydras, takes down the 2 cannons and some units... Bisu adds more cannons but they are destroyed shortly after completed, zealots are coming from 6 gateways but Child's hydras won't just die, gg.


A simple hydra rush, a perfect counter...

Bisu chose his typical build which Child had a good counter to, since sairs are pretty much useless against hydras. Bisu didn't have time to tech to archives and HTs, so the zealots he produced were just meat.

Game 2 - Hitchhiker
Child (5) 12 pool then expands, Bisu (11) techs to stargate as fast as possible then archives. 4 quick OL kills by sairs and a dragoon, then first DT is going into Child's main, killing 9 zerglings but almost dies to muta... all drones leave and in comes 3 zealots and a dragoon killing the morphing sunken at Child's natural. Sairs in, spire down by DT, OLs dead - gg.


The sunken goes down, a DT in the main, what to do!?

1 base sairs/DTs for Bisu was enough to win this game. Child almost managed to kill the first DT but didn't have any OLs in his main, he also didn't have any army at all except some zerglings so his sunkens were way too late. Child had a group of zerglings camping below the ramp of Bisu's base, apparantly he didn't notice half of them got killed by the first DT though.

Game 3 - Neo Arkanoid
Child (5) 12 pool into hatchery below the middle temples, Bisu (11) 14 nexus. Fast hydra den for Child who sends his troops to Bisu's base after having scouted it, Bisu has sairs out and adds a cannon behind the temples Child is attacking. The mass hydras breaks through but Bisu blocks the choke with a lot of probes while setting up about 5 cannons, which warps in just in time for the attack. Child loses his troops and after breaking the second temple he goes for 12 instead, Bisu adds 6 cannons there though so the hydras have to retreat. Obviously there's only one way left for Child to attack but Bisu is ready with cannons there as well, eventually he goes all-in with the hydras at the first place but with reaver support the hydras die like nothing. Child is way behind now and Bisu just masses reavers and shuttles, killing an awful lot of hydras. Child burrows his hydras at his both expansions in hope for Bisu to go there but Bisu just avoids the traps and instead goes for the main, luck or sense I don't know, but Child has to unburrow all his hydras and go support main... way too many reavers, web and sairs there though, gg.


Child burrows his hydras in a hope for Bisu to reaver-drop the place...

Child went back to his succesful strategy from the first game, although it wasn't much of a problem for Bisu to defend his chokes thanks to the temples. After those attacks and all lost hydras the game was basically over, Child desperately tried to make it even by hiding his hydras and hoping for a reaver drop but Bisu was smarter than so.

GoRush Z (SK) - Sea[Shield] T (MBC)
Game 1 - Hitchhiker
This was definitely the most anticipated match of the day, although I personally prefered to see how oov would perform. Sea (5) goes barracks gas then expands to mineral only, GoRush (11) 12 hatch into hydra den and spire. GoRush adds a 3rd hatchery and 4 sunkens at his natural along with lurkers, Sea has triple barracks, a factory and a mnm group waiting outside the sunkens. GoRush breaks through the southern temples but Sea scouts him with a SCV and has troops there. GoRush takes mineral only and another expansion, Sea makes a push into GoRush's main but GoRush very effectively delays it by burrowing and unburrowing lurkers so Sea has to siege up and down all the time. When Sea is finally in the main GoRush has defilers and swarms so he is forced back, GoRush then builds a nydus canal to his (2) expansion and breaks through the temples to Sea's main. Lurkers, hydras and swarms all over the buildings, Sea loses his main but destroys 1 of GoRush's 4 expansions... not a good trade-off as tons of ultras invades Sea's base and gg.


Really nice defending by GoRush here, as he takes out many marines with a few lurkers...

Both players played well, GoRush managed to expand more and was after defending the initital push in a huge advantage. I don't think he was prepared for the nydus canal though, it was a nice idea by GoRush.

Game 2 - Longinus II
Sea (6.30) walls-in and expands, GoRush (3) 12 hatch pool, another hatchery and then spire. About 7 mutas out but they aren't used well against the 0/1 marines, Sea has turrets up long time ago and 2 barracks 1 factory. He pushes forward but sees 4 sunkens in the natural of GoRush along with morphing lurkers, so he chooses to take out GoRush's newly constructed double gas at 12.30 instead. It is only protected with 2 morphing sunkens but zerglings and lurkers comes in time to save it. 22 marines, 2 medics and 3 tanks sieges up outside GoRush's natural instead, no defilers out yet and at the same time a mnm drop in his double gas - gg.

Sea went for the double gas with the first mnm group but then let it be with the second batch of units, maybe GoRush expected him to continue attack his double gas until he got defilers out but... Sea won the game with a nice timing push.

Game 3 - Neo Arkanoid
Sea (7) 14CC double barracks, GoRush (2) double expands. Sea tries with a timing push again with 10 marines and 2 medics on their way to GoRush's base. However, zerglings are burrowed and surrounds the group, killing them all... except the 2 medics who wander around inside GoRush's bases for a while. GoRush masses mutas who do a decent amount of damage, he manages to make Sea lift his natural CC anyway. Things get harder when Sea has irradiate resarched though, so GoRush starts hydra den and pumps out some lurkers while still adding mutas. A big mnm + tanks group is heading towards GoRush who just started his queen's nest. GoRush suicides all his mutas but kills off the big group with lurkers, however vessels are getting more and more and GoRush can't keep up with it... in rushes Sea and destroys everything but one expansion, Sea has to irradiate his vessels and kill all burrowed drones and final mass scourges before GoRush ggs.

Again, GoRush was late with defilers and it cost him the game. I would say he did okay with his mutas since he put Sea's only expansion offline for most of the time, but he build so many of them, lost them easily and in the end just suicided them all so I think he got behind much cause of that. Sea has really good macro though and 2 bases are enough for him to win the game.

Preview:
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815[Hyo] Z - Stork P
Game 1 - Neo Arkanoid
815 (5) double expands, Stork (7) 14 nexus then gateway/forge. Stork techs to sairs and reavers, 815 tries an early push with zerglings/hydras but is denied by cannons. This is the only attack he's going to do for a long while, his priority now is to mass mutas and keep them in base. Stork isn't just going to wait for them though, so he expands to his second natural and (9.30) while scouting some with a single reaver drop. He also takes out most of 815's mutas cause of poor control and cover from his side. FPview of 815 shows that he is really slow, but also reveals burrowed hydras and a hive coming. Reaverdrop in 815's main, 4 reavers + sairs making a alot of damage before the reavers die, most of drones and mutas dead. Stork will shortly after lose another 4 reavers to hydras who have seen the 9.30 base and goes to take it down. However, 7 cannons make that impossible. About 15 sairs for Stork now and HTs without storm. With those sairs he checks out the main of 815 and luckily finds over 10 mutas in coocoons, but we never get to see what was inside them since they either died or canceled (but we could always guess... ).


Please, don't morph your dear mutas at the closest possible place to your enemy, where hydras are restricted as well...

For the first time in the game we see 815 use plague + ensnare combo, but about half of the sairs comes out alive anyway. Devourers finaly out for 815, about 10 of them with 2/0 upgrades - sairs have 0/2/2. Stork finds out that 815 has expanded at 12.30 and 1... quickly he drops a DT at 12.30 and HTs at 1, storming a LOAD of drones who just were transfered from the nydus canal there. The sairs eventually flee but get ensnared and some dies, the DT gets about 20 drone kills before 815 gets an overlord to his upper bases. The only place who remains to expand on is 11.30, so each player has all bases on each side except that Stork has 1 base less. He easily destroys 12.30 though with 5 reavers and 1 dark archon, then continues to 1 but resistance await; lots of devourers get maelstormed, and over 20 sairs just arrive in time to get in some shots. However, they all get ensnared, and thus Stork loses all of them.

Finally Stork expands on 11.30 while 815 re-restablishes his 12.30. 6 guardians have morphed and attacks 11.30, but with mass cannons and storms they can't be of any use. More guardians, mutas and devourers attacking but wow, Stork really uses many well-placed storms and that will be their doom. 815 tries for a hydra attack instead but there are just too many cannons and reavers everywhere... now with 6 reavers attacking it doesn't take long to obliverate 12.30 as well as 2.30. Finally, Stork goes for 1 and without a strong enough ground force, 815 doesn't manage to kill any of the reavers and ggs.


Plague, ensnare, acid spores, storm, web... so many special effects on one screen! Btw - need I say that swarm is coming up?

A nice action packed game, mostly air based though. I think 815 should have gone for more hydras instead of wasting much resources on expensive units who didn't do much good, like the guardians. He lost many mutas and such cause he didn't have enough hydra support. Plague + ensnare was used nicely though, but those storms from Stork just teared apart the hugy army of devourers. In the end, sairs had 2/2/3 and zerg air 2/2.

Game 2 - Hitchhiker
815 (11) 9 OL into pool then expands to mineral only, Stork (5) blocks ramp with zealots and adds a proxy robotics south of 815's base. First reaver is out, drops in 815's just produced natural (without any drones) together with 6 zealots and a dragoon. Tons of hydras in the way though, reaver makes about 5 kills before dead and the zealots doesn't have speed so they are easy preys. 815 breaks down the southern temples just when Stork goes in with a group of dragoons, who finishes the natural hatch. 10 dragoons and 2 reavers are transported above the cliff and destroys mineral only who is only protected with a sunken. 815 decides to go all in at Stork's base with about 20 hydras, lots of dragoons there though so only 7 remains after the battle. Stork rapes the main of 815 and when the pool goes down... 815 is eliminated!


A very rarely seen scenario... apparantly 815 didn't think this was such a gg. : )

Stork, a protoss, won over 815, a zerg, on Arkanoid. Thus, him winning the second game as well wasn't too surprising. 815 should have protected his bases instead of going all-in like that, I'm pretty sure those remaining hydras were not going to win the game anyway. He massed hydras and had a really low drone count, too bad Stork had prepared the perfect counter. Nevertheless, fun to see a player get eliminated!

Shark[gm] Z - FreeDom.werra T (Hanbit)
Game 1 - Longinus II
Shark goes for 2 base lurkers, FreeDom wall-in then expands. His initial mnm + firebat group gets raped by lurker/zerglings and after that Shark builds 10 mutas. With those he kills off more groups of mnm instead of harassing the base. Shark continues to expand and FreeDom takes mineral only with about 5 sieged up tanks, however, Shark attacks from behind and takes out all of the tanks since FreeDom's mnm group covered the front side. Since then, Shark had a major advantage and keeps on pushing, he even morphs 2 guardians for some reason. After a while he has many ultras out, but FreeDom manage to stay alive thanks to crazy macro and sloppily placed swarms. Anyhow, Shark just runs over him in the end, infesting his mineral only CC and gg.

Game 2 - Neo Arkanoid
Shark 3 hatch spire (but never makes any mutas) and lurkers, FreeDom 14CC and mass mnm. Shark drops early in main while FreeDom is firing on 3 temples, he makes moderate damage. After that, Shark just defends against mnm + tanks with lurkers without swarm, FreeDom shows some poor micro so the fights go even or maybe a small advantage Shark. However, swarm is bound to come and while FreeDom is busy trying to expand to his second natural, Shark takes the opportunity to expand to every possible place... basically. More drops from Shark, more scourged dropships and vessels from FreeDom - Shark is way more succesful though since he have placed tons of sunkens and nydus canals everywhere. Shark prepares a queen and once again infests the second natural CC of FreeDom, plague on all vessels and gg.

fOrGG_V T - Kingdom P
Game 1 - Hitchhiker
This would be the highlight game of the day. fOrGG (5) walls-in, techs to factory then adds expansion + 3 more factories. Kingdom (11) builds focuses on dragoons while teching to robotics and observer, he also expands at the same time as fOrGG. Terran has turrets up for protection against fast DT, but otherwise it's clear for the observers. 5 factories, 2 with add-ons for fOrGG, he also adds more turrets along the middle path as he discovers a shuttle. Meanwhile, Kingdom has built 2 starports for carriers. fOrGG continues the push with turrets and has 6 tanks in Kingdom's natural, pure dragoons can't do much against them since there are mines in the way as well, so he loses his natural. 2 carriers out though and they make the push retreat, now it's Kingdom who is going forward, destroying the turrets along the way. About 10 vultures rushes to Kingdom's base, but 3 dragoons block the ramp. They still get through though and picks off many probes until more dragoons pop out. 4 carriers and +1 damage now for Kingdom who is harassing fOrGG's natural, while also holding off goliaths above the ramp. He destroys the assimilator for slower goliath production and pushes to the factories, at the same time he sends his ~10 dragoons to fOrGG's natural and gg.


Fast carriers for the win!

It wasn't looking good for Kingdom when fOrGG pushed forward and took out his natural, but with insane carrier micro he got control of the situation and won. The goliaths came a bit later than I expected though, it wasn't until Kingdom reached the natural with his 4 carriers that they interfered. Anyway, it was a dangerous build for Kingdom, good job.

Game 2 - Neo Arkanoid
fOrGG (7) 1 factory 1 starport for early drop, Kingdom (1) 14 nexus followed by dragoons and stargates. As said, fOrGG drops 4 vultures with mines and speed vs 4 dragoons. They take out 3 dragoons, but more importantly, scouts the 2 stargates. Out comes... sairs?! And not just 1 for scouting, he produces them continously. Having 5 sairs, he encounter 2 dropships who he destroys, although they drop their cargo in the middle of nowhere. fOrGG continous to be agressive with more drops, now including goliaths and tanks. Not good for those observers or sairs flying around, so Kingdom starts carriers. Both players with 3 bases now, fOrGG sieges up right in front of the gateways in the main and Kingdom has to act now. He goes in with his 7 dragoons who all die on one round of shots from the as many tanks, and the 4 carriers barely have any interceptors at all, so when fOrGG sends goliath reinforcements and gets a number of around 10-15, Kingdom ggs.


Well, ok, it doesn't work EVERY time...

It's hard to win over terran on this map when you're playing protoss, fOrGG dropped his goliaths and tanks in the enclosed area of Kingdom's base as terrans usually do. The shuttles usually die before they can counter-drop, and without any long range units, carriers are the only effective thing to use. However, I have no idea why Kingdom went for 6 sairs and not use them for anything except to kill 2 dropships. Maybe a way to confuse his opponent, but well, carriers with such a low economy and weak ground force is really a gamble. You don't win with that tactic unless the opponent plays passive.

Game 3 - Longinus II
fOrGG (6.30) 1 factory with an early push, Kingdom (11) techs to cybernetics core with 2 gateways. fOrGG attacks with 7 marines and a tank, encounter 4 dragoons with range. fOrGG retreats, with mines around Kingdom retreats as well. Both players expanding, Kingdom feeling greedy also expands to his mineral only. Observers scouting everything, fOrGG decides to push and siege up at the mineral only with 7 tanks and many vultures killing off the zealots dropped from a shuttle until turrets are up. Kingdom has an army consisting of 7 speedlots and 14 dragoons - shouldn't be a problem should it? He chooses to go in, but with mines in front of the tanks, the dragoons take a lot of punch before they actually do some damage to them. Whole army of Kingdom dies, new set of zealots goes in to finally get rid of the tanks. However, pure zealots are easy preys to vultures, and with 4 more tanks coming up Kingdom loses his mineral only and is pushed back to his natural. fOrGG has 3 fully operational bases though, so he sends in more tanks and rolls over the remaining forces of Kingdom without even sieging, gg.


This is what's left of Kingdom's army after attack moving into mines...

Hard to analyze this game. fOrGG just had better macro and also micro with good mine control. Kingdom used too few zealots and the push came right before he had teched to archives, so it was a good decision by fOrGG. He really looks solid in TvP, we will see how his future games work out.

AnyTime..[gm] P - Dream.t)Jangbi P
Game 1 - Neo Arkanoid
PvP? Is that correct!? Wow! AnyTime (5) starts this set of games with 2 gateways, Jangbi (1) chooses the more natural 14 nexus into cybernetics core. AnyTime breaks through the neutral buildings and goes for 11 with a probe, using the pylon trick, while sending his zealots to 7 and dragoons to 1. Seeing the pylon behind the temples at 1, he breaks through both temples with 5 zealots and 6 dragoons. In they go, they meet up with a lone zealot and 5 dragoons, as well as a warping cannon that pulls off 2 shots before being destroyed. Jangbi has to draw his probes, but they won't make any difference; AnyTime just lost 1 zealot and 2 dragoons after the fight, gg!


Surprise, surprise! Didn't expect this, huh!?

Now this is what I call a great game on Arkanoid! Usually it takes 10 minutes before even the first battle occurs on this map, this game was over in 6:20. Although scouting the right direction last, AnyTime did a very good job on minimizing the time taken. Obviously most players goes for 14 FE on Arkanoid, so it surprises me that not more players goes for this kind of rush build.

Game 2 - Longinus II
AnyTime (6.30) core with 2 gateways, Jangbi (11) core with 1 gateway. AnyTime manage to block a zealot in his mineral line with 2 zealots, getting a free kill. AnyTime adds robotics for reavers and observers, Jangbi adds another 2 gateways and later a robotics. AnyTime expands, Jangbi with 1 more gateway does an early push that AnyTime sees with a probe though: 9 dragoons and a zealot vs 7 dragoons, 3 zealots and a reaver. Jangbi immediately targets the reaver and destroys it after its second shot, however he isn't able to destroy the army and thus retreats his reinforcement and instead expands. AnyTime who is ahead with more gateways attacks and runs over Jangbi, Jangbi tries to micro his reaver with a shuttle but it doesn't help cause AnyTime has 2 reavers and many more dragoons + speedlots. Jangbi eventually destroys the army, losing almost all probes at both bases, but when zealot reinforcements arrive he ggs.


So many shots in the air, but AnyTime comes out as the great victor...

This was maybe the quickest match so far in ODT. I am really impressed over AnyTime's play and coolness. It was clear though that Jangbi is a new and inexperienced player; sweat dropped off of his face already in the first game. Let's see if AnyTime encounters any more skilled protosses in the further games.

Preview:
http://teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=51900

By.Flash (T) - Ever)P(TT (P)
Game 1 - Longinus II
I really enjoyed TT's play from Survivor, so I was excited to see what he would pull of in this match. Flash (6.30) walls-in 1 factory into CC, TT (2) goes 1 gateway core and adds another gateway + robotics. TT has 5 dragoons shooting a depot for a while, leaving his base all open for a marine to scout it all. TT expands since Flash is just sieging up in his base, with observers he sees that Flash is lacking academy and turrets so he drops 2 DTs + a dragoon in the main. A turret is there, but they destroy it, and this is the result of the "little" harassment: 8 turrets (most incomplete), 6 SCVs, 3 vultures,1 goliath and 1 tank.

At last, Flash is able to finish some turrets and kill the darn invisible guys. Now Flash decides that he has to push forward, so he takes the mineral only, same goes for TT. Vultures have finally mines ready, but TT with his dragoon squad manages to destroy the CC which was supposed to land at mineral only. Advantage TT? You would think so, but TT has no probes at all on mineral only but expands to northern double gas anyway, Flash has now mineral only secure and 1/1 tanks. A really failed HT drop by TT coming up; 3 HTs, 1 zealot and a shuttle dies but only gets a single SCV. 10 factories now, 3 with add-ons... Flash just runs over TT with a stream of units, as TT can't storm properly or use zealot bombs, gg.


See all those piles of metal? They have once been turrets...

Flash has pretty good macro, but TT... horrible. He got a huge advantage with the DT drop but probably didn't produce more units at that time so he only had 10-15 dragoons and a handful of zealots to fight the much bigger army of Flash. The HT drop was a joke and the storms in general were really poor. I think TT should stick with cheese strategies cause he doesn't seem to stand a chance mid-game.

Game 2 - Hitchhiker
Both players early scout who steals each others gas, protoss of course gets his gas up first. Flash (11) walls-in kinda (not a real wall) and pumps out marines, TT (5) techs to archives and is just going to add 2 proxy gates north of the island expansion, when a SCV sees it all. Marines come and TT cancels them, 1 factory 1 starport with a wraith out scouting, sees robotics. Flash prepares for a DT drop and turrets up, not risking a repeat from the previous game. However, TT just sends them out the middle path where Flash has his first army as well... all 9 marines and 2 tanks dies to 3 DTs, which of 1 dies. Both player's naturals up and running, TT also starts a nexus at mineral only... 6 gateways vs 4 factories.

Flash pushes forward with a big army but since the middle path is so small, TT storms the approach and thus Flash can't destroy the natural just yet. TT counters with a HT drop at the new base at mineral only, his storms kill off 6 SCVs, Flash makes another attack at east but observers see it and they storm the army to death. TT now has 7 and 1 as well, and with arbiter coming up, it's looking good. However, Flash with 3 dropships kill 7 off as well as mineral only... another army takes out 1 - whooooops! TT desperately tries to block the upcoming army on the east with stasis but it doesn't help much, gg.


"Man, I have SO many vultures on this cliff - don't f*ck with me! Hmm, wait a minute, wasn't it tanks who owns on cliffs? omg tt;---;"

A poor game; TT expanded like crazy but his army was pathetic. TT has probably the worst macro I've ever seen. He only survived that long cause Flash tried to roll in instead of dropping, so he got owned by storms. Flash seems to have decent macro but I'm not really convinced about the rest... losing the whole initial push cause of no comsat and placing mines next to a cannon was hillarious stuff. Btw, it's not hard to macro if your opponent never adds some pressure...

ChoJJa (Z) - HiyA[fOu] (T)
Game 1 - Hitchhiker
ChoJJa (11) 12 hatch and goes directly for lurkers, HiyA (5) 8 rax and goes to attack natural, starting gas though. 6 drones out, 3 of them dies and 2 marines. Zerglings out, marines fall back and HiyA starts factory as well as starport. First vulture gets 4 zerglings, factory floats to the north-east and produces a vulture but zerglings are there and kills it, factory floats back to base. Wraith out, getting 3 OLs, ChoJJa has to setup a spore colony in each base. He also builds a third hatchery in main, and adds 2 sunkens to natural when he sees HiyA push. HiyA with 16 marines, 3 medics, 2 tanks and a vessel goes in and kills everything. 6 marines reinforce the army, HiyA moves up the ramp and d-matrix on a marine, all lurkers finito - gg.

For once, a terran played one base - wiihoooo! It worked really nice as well, ChoJJa couldn't do anything about the sieged tanks since he had vessel out early, and ChoJJa lost some drones in the start. When terran entered the natural, there was only 1 sunken and 2 morphing, but they died before they finished, and the 3 lurkers weren't any problem. Hopefully 1 base terran will be a more used tactic on Hitchhiker after this, since every zerg tend to (or have to) expand.

Game 2 - Longinus II
ChoJJa (7) 5 pools, HiyA (11) goes standard 10 rax. ChoJJa sends 6 zerglings and 3 drones to 7, HiyA just scouts the empty main when they arrive and immediately starts a bunker. 1 marine out, ChoJJa is busy killing 3 SCVs while the marine gets 4 of his zerglings. Finally marine is dead but a new one comes out and enters the bunker, HiyA cancels his second barracks. All drones go back to mine, 6 zerglings attacking depot, gets 1 SCV but mostly just taking damage from the 3 marines... ChoJJa has to retreat. He expands to natural but 9 marines, 1 medic and 1 firebat is waiting for him just outside. 20 zerglings run in, they get a single marine but dies to the stimmed mnm group, gg.


"Two eggs, and two drones... wtf! Hmm, maybe he has something going on?!"

Terrible micro from ChoJJa, the lone marines just stood shooting without any need to move, HiyA blocked the bunker with SCVs and the zerglings weren't able to hinder it. Not much more to say, ChoJJa usually qualifies for MSL and OSL, and EVERYTIME i see him play, he loses miserably. The face he has after each loss makes me just laugh so much... I feel sorry for him, he only seem to get crushed in the starleagues but always actually manages to enter them, though not this time.

GooDFriend (T) - XellOs (T)
Game 1 - Neo Arkanoid
Both players, GF at 11 and XellOs at 1, uses the exact same builds so I'll just describe the order: 14CC, 2 factories, starport, armory, academy, 2 more factories and then second natural. GF is a bit behind though as XellOs made him cancel his CC while it was under construction. After this, countless of goliath/tank drops occured for about 30 minutes, GF harassed new expansion attempts better though and had after a while 6 bases to 3. XellOs went all-in at 5 but when he tried to construct a base there GF stopped it and gg.

This is the most standard TvT on Arkanoid that you can find... really boring and not interesting at all, even though it's two famous players you watch. To summarize: GF just played better and was able to outnumber his opponent in bases, don't ask me what made him do it though... impossible for little me to see. Blah.

Game 2 - Hitchhiker
Mirror builds again, XellOs produced 3 cloaked wraiths in the start who didn't do much, then the tank/goliath war started again. The game was about 45 minutes, so after half of the game both players started to build BCs from 2-3 starports. Each player had 5 bases, GF managed to destroy the natural though. Every base was soon mined out except that natural, but it didn't matter much since FPview of XellOs revealed a mineral supply of over 4000 - it was just the gas who was missing.


It's a long wait, but the most patient SCV gets to deliver the gas... an honored job.

Eventually GF pushed into XellOs' main, destroying depots, and when the BCs came close to each other, GF pulled off some amazing yamatos; XellOs had slow reactions and couldn't even yamato once before his army was crushed, gg.


All those big, orange shots on the screen belongs to GF... holy!

Such a long game, and it all came down to the BC battle... which XellOs fu**** up big time, but I must say GF has some absolutely outstanding yamato cloning, maybe even better than the one we recently saw from NaDa. I don't know if his TvT is back in shape, but it will be interesting to see (the results, not the games ).

Yooi (T) - Reach (P)
Game 1 - Longinus II
So, we finally have the popular Reach fighting. Yooi (7) 14CC into 2 factories, Reach (11) techs to robotics and dragoon range. Reach scouts the FE and sends 2 dragoons to damage the bunker at choke, adds another dragoon but Yooi repairs it with 4 SCVs. Lots of repairing but finally he has siege mode and the dragoons retreat. Reach has taken his natural by now, and has 2 reavers out. He starts 4 additional gateways, counting 5 in total and observatory + double gas expansion. Yooi with 5 factories moves out, mostly vultures though but no spider mines yet. He gets them shortly after though, but observer is just coming to check them out so he adds turrets.

Reach has pure dragoons since he doesn't yet have citadel, though he uses his reavers very nicely here and there; at last his shuttle is going down so he drops the reavers behind the natural mineral line, though the SCVs surrender without any casualties. Both players taking mineral only, it seems that Yooi still didn't discover the double gas however; he never attacked any either base of Reach so far. Reach, knowhing he has the upperhand, goes in with all he has (dragoons and speedlings) and destroys the mineral only CC. Some nice use of Yooi's mines with dragoons do we get to see as well before the gg.


5 scarabs from those babies and KABOOM!

Thank you, Reach, for giving me a good game after the previous sleeping-pills. Yooi didn't have the best micro or tactical sense, he really should have tried to take out the double gas or at least push forward, but he didn't move at all from the encampment in the middle. 2 reavers and a shuttle equals this: 8 vultures, 3 marines, 3 SCVs, 3 depots, 1 tank, 1 turret and 1 refinery = 1525/100 minerals/gas. Yeah, I forgot to say that he picked off 3 mines as well! Also, I have seen zealot bombs, but dragoon bombs? Cool.

Game 2 - Neo Arkanoid
Yooi (11) who seems to be a bit sad about the loss goes 14CC 1 factory 2 starports, Reach (5) 14 nexus and techs to stargate. First sair out, scouts everything including the wraith cloaking research and a SCV who starts a CC at the second natural. Because of this, Reach cannons up and adds observatory + fleet beacon. 3 wraiths harassing some together with 2 tanks dropped in the enclosed area, destroying an assimilator and various probes. Observer just out though so Yooi loses all wraiths and tanks + the floating barracks, but he already just added up factories to reach a number of 6. Reach takes his second natural, Yooi builds CC at both 12.30 and 1... a dropship goes down to the 5 sairs, but goliaths are coming out and Yooi destroys the tempels to Reach's base with 5 tanks, 4 goliaths and 4 marines. Apparantly Reach has built another stargate for carriers, so his ground troops are pretty weak; not even speed for zealots has been researched. It doesn't matter much though, cause sairs web the tanks and ground forces go in and push the army back.


This is how it looked when Reach deflected the early pushes... add some storms to that and you got the later pushes.

Yooi, feeling rich, adds another 2 starports making it 4 and produces a vessel too. Reach has 4 carriers and the interceptor numbers starts to become usable, thus he pushes forward but has to retreat after getting his dragoons squashed. About 5 cloaked wraiths joins the party and with goliaths they get 3 carriers and all 2 sairs, although all wraiths dies... but this doesn't look good for Reach at all. Yooi has taken 2.30 but it quickly falls down to a zealot drop and carriers, about 15 goliaths and 5 tanks attacks but with new sairs out he webs them and manages to stay alive thanks to storms. 10ish cloaked wraiths for some reason attacks the 5 sairs just chilling on a deserted place, they take out 2 sairs but gets completely crushed... why not target the lonely observer instead, if anything, hmm? Reach's main is mined out so he is forced to get 6.30, another army attacks but web, storms and carriers have no problem with it this time.

Reach wants 7 as well and adds some cannons there, wraiths don't want cannons there so they go for the kills... however, 3 sairs comes in - 10ish wraiths die once again. About 10 carriers now, big terran push coming towards 7, Reach kills a vessel for the third time, destroys a lone CC at 8.30 and sends in some DTs to the north-east expansions. Well, he destroys the push and hurries to his main to save it from another, smaller push... cannons are there, HTs are there - no problem! A single survivor DT somehow destroys the CC at 12.30... anyway, Reach has soon mined out his original 3 bases, so he warps in a nexus at 7 now. Yooi still has 12.30 and 1 to mine from, but he really wants 2.30 but is once again prevented by a DT drop. Now for the biggest army so far; Yooi has changed to 100% pure goliaths and with about 40 goliaths he breaks down the temples to 7... will Reach be able to defend it?!


That is many goliaths, yes?

Tons of interceptors in the air when the goliaths passes the temple, cannons warping in, 6 storms and more interceptor madness and the goliaths are down to ~20. But wait! EMP!!! Yooi has FINALLY researched it and nullifies a lot of carrier's shields... more carrier dies than ever before, but storms and cannons and dragoons will eliminate the rest of the goliaths. The goliaths never seem to end though, now with some tank support to take down the cannons. However, Reach has regained some carriers and has now 8 of them, the army of terran is going nowhere. Dragoons destroying absolutely everything at north-east, but it doesn't matter much since the bases were pretty much mined out anyway. The final battle is here - Yooi has prepared another group of wraiths who takes out 3-4 observers, but Reach just has loads of observers and a perfect placed storm on the stacked wraiths explodes 'em all - gg!

Ironically, the best game of the first round in ODT is in my opinion also the best. At least it has to be the closest game! I won't ignore the fact that Yooi played pretty bad, having 2 more expansions but not pumping out enough units. It all came down to one thing, a big problem; 4 starport wraiths! He wasted more than 40 wraiths throughout the game and over 5 vessels, his tactic to take out the observers and then eat the carriers for meat was a horrible one. Reach just had way too many of them, probably pumping them out semi-constantly from 1 robotics. With all the minerals he had late game (2000+ as shown in FPview), he could just have added 4 more factories to make it 10 and produced twice as many goliaths than he produced wraiths from those 4, that would be 80 more goliaths... the only problem with so many are that carriers can hide at the enclosed areas and goliaths will have a tough time getting through the small passages on Arkanoid, so it was hard to stop the carriers either way. Anyway, props to Reach for some insane carrier micro, nice use of cannons, great storms and webs... and a 2:0 victory.

GGPlay 2:0 O.oc
iloveoov 2:0 HaZin[saM]
Child 1:2 Bisu[Shield]
GoRush 1:2 Sea[Shield]

815[Hyo] 0:2 Stork
Shark[gm] 2:0 FreeDom.werra
fOrGG_V 2:1 Kingdom
Anytime..[gm] 2:0 Dream.t)Jangbi

By.Flash 2:0 Ever)P(TT
ChoJJa 0:2 HiyA[fOu]
GooDFriend 2:0 XellOs[yG]
Yooi 0:2 [Oops]Reach

Advancing/Eliminated
Terran: 14/8
Zerg: 4/11
Protoss: 6/5