[GOM] Ro16, Week 4 Battle Reports

GOM Classic Round of 16, Day 4

(T)

JangBi
best of three

Game 1
Neo Requiem

Pepe starts at nine o'clock and walls off his ramp. Jangbi starts at six o'clock and scouts toward nine after placing his gateway, but he doesn't arrive quickly enough to enter the terran main. Jangbi uses his probe to harass the wall, so Pepe halts making his barracks and uses the SCV to chase off the probe while using another SCV to finish the work.

Pepe takes two SCVs off gas as he lays down his factory, building toward one factory, command center. Jangbi attacks Pepe's wall with one zealot, a probe and a dragoon. Pepe responds by using his marine to fire on the zealot, bringing three SCVs in to repair.

A second dragoon shows up and Jangbi is able to kill two SCVs before Pepe's tank arrives and chases the protoss units away from his ramp. After Pepe finishes his second tank, he begins to build a command center on low ground in preparation for his expansion. Jangbi uses the time to expand to three o'clock.

When Pepe's command center completes, he lifts his barracks and places it on his high-ground, supporting the move with tanks, then he follows by placing his command center into position.

With three zealots loaded into a shuttle and seven dragoons, Jangbi decides to take Pepe out. He drops his zealots onto some high-ground tanks and presses the terran natural with his dragoons. Pepe reacts by using his SCVs to block his ramp, refusing to allow any protoss units into his main.

A great timing attack by JangBi.

Jangbi loses all but two dragoons, and backs off as he warps a nexus into his natural. Once Jangbi has reinforced for a total of four dragoons he presses down Pepe's ramp, snipes one of Pepe's three tanks, and then retreats again, losing one dragoon in the process.

As Pepe rebuilds his army, Jangbi uses his dragoons to control the middle of the map, preventing Pepe from scouting.

Once Pepe's generated Nine tanks and eleven vultures, he begins a slow push. Jangbi allows Pepe to reach the middle of Neo Requiem as he waits for zealot speed to complete. When it's done, he loads up a shuttle with zealots and attacks the terran push with twenty-one zealots and fourteen dragoons.

The overwhelming number of zealots are able to find their way into the midst of the tanks and Jangbi's reinforcements arrive. Most of Pepe's army is destroyed as a result of the attack.

Total control.

Sieging two tanks below his ramp and using SCVs to block, Pepe is able to buy a little time. Jangbi backs off briefly to allow more reinforcements to arrive, and then pushes into Pepe's natural again, this time with nine dragoons and thirteen zealots.

With only four tanks and eight vultures, Pepe does his best to defend his ramp, but Jangbi's zealots keep streaming into the battle and eventually get down Pepe's ramp. All the tanks go down, and after attempting briefly to use SCVs to kill zealots, Pepe ggs.
+ Show Spoiler [Key Moments] +

Pepe's decision to take his natural off of one factory turned out to be a poor one. Jangbi's aggression paid off in a big way. His zealot speed finished at the perfect time to crush Pepe's slow push.

pepe: 0

JangBi: 1

Game 2
Medusa

Pepe starts at ten o'clock and Jangbi starts at seven. Pepe opens with a wall, scouting after his supply depot completes. Jangbi scouts after placing his gateway. When Janbi arrives at Pepe's wall, he harasses it with his probe, but Pepe saves his SCV, using his scout to mine out the minerals outside his temple-backdoor in the meantime.

Pepe takes his mineral only and Jangbi attacks Pepe's wall with a zealot, a probe and a dragoon. Jangbi successfully kills a marine but fails to do anymore damage before Pepe's tank arrives and drives the small protoss force away.

Jangbi seems content to contain the terran while he techs toward reavers and takes his natural.

As Pepe prepares to take his natural and Jangbi expands to his mineral only, Jangbi's shuttle arrives in Pepe's base. After a few seconds of failing to find a spot to drop, Jangbi chooses to elevate his two zealots, five dragoons and reaver onto the high ground, and walks them over to the terran's mineral only.

Pepe has two tanks in the area and pulls SCVs to fight off the protoss force, but Jangbi focus fires on one and then the other tank. Pepe brings his tanks from his front to remove the threat, but sieges his first two out of range of Jangbi's dragoon. Jangbi continues to threaten with his reaver, buying his dragoon time to damage the buildings at Pepe's mineral-only.

Sneaky "dragon".

As Pepe positions his tanks to retake his mineral only, Jangbi zealot bombs one of them, barely failing to kill it. He drops another zealot and his reaver to fire one more scarab and damage another tank, then he picks up his reaver and dragoon, and retreats. Jangbi then claims five o'clock as his own and puts down several more gateways and a citidel of adun.

Pepe moves out with five vultures to scout and attempt some harass at five o'clock, but Jangbi already has two dragoons there, and the vultures are repelled with ease, only killing one probe.

With twelve tanks, two goliaths and one or two vultures, pepe starts leapfrogging out of his natural, but Jangbi isn't interested in allowing that, and sends seventeen dragoons and 12 zealots into the terran army. The zealots are micromanaged so that one zealot goes to each tank, and the ones that don't die on the way in do tons of damage. Once his zealots are dead, jangbi backs his dragoons out of tank-range and awaits reinforcements.

This is what happens when you don't have enough vultures...

Pepe expands to one o'clock and one of jangbi's observers spot it immediately, but Jangbi does nothing to prevent it from going up. Meanwhile, Pepe begins to leapfrog into the middle of the map again and Jangbi techs arbiters and high templar.

With the exception of a drop of three vultures and a siege tank at three o'clock to delay one of Jangbi's expansions, both players choose to allow the other the freedom to macro up maxed populations.

Although Jangbi chooses to build only one arbiter, Pepe makes fourteen turrets in his main and mineral-only to discourage recalls.

Nearly maxed with twenty-one tanks, thirty-four vultures, nine goliaths and two science vessels, Pepe scans Jangbi's maxed army of forty-one zealots, twenty dragoons and an arbiter and moves out. What he failed to scan was the shuttle filled with four high templar, and with perfect positioning, Jangbi's force surrounds the terran army. Reflexively, Pepe sieges all his tanks at once, creating massive clumps, which Jangbi expertly targets with psionic storms. Pepe's army is decimated within seconds, while the majority of Jangbi's dragoons survive.

Insane storms!

Jangbi sends his dragoons to one o'clock and easily removes the terran expansion. Pepe is able to replace his vulture numbers quickly, but his tank presence is lacking. Despite an incredible number of spider mines, Jangbi almost recklessly rolls over Pepe with attack-move and rally on his side. As production-round after production-round slips into Pepe's base, he's forced to concede. And Jangbi earns his spot in the round of eight!
+ Show Spoiler [Key Moments] +

Jangbi controlled this game from beginning to end, demonstrating why he's a dragon. Pepe was given plenty of time to find a way to hurt Jangbi, he just refused to capitalize.

pepe: 0
JangBi: 2

(P)

BackHo vs

Stork
best of three

Game 1
Neo Requiem

Stork starts at twelve o'clock and Backho at nine o'clock. Scouting one another, both players open with two gate tech. They also produce two zealots each and as their dragoons warp in, both players kill the other's scouting probe and put their plans into action.

Stork's plan is a three gate attack, and Backho's plan is reavers.

Stork moves out before his third gateway finishes and his four dragoons run into Backho's five Dragoons and retreat immediately.

Once Stork saves up eight dragoons and two zealots he tries again, but his extra gateway hasn't yet translated into more units as Backho defends with an identical army and a better unit spread. Both players eliminate the zealots first, and then the dragoons engage. Backho's superior unit-spread translates to a victorious battle as Stork is forced to retreat and reinforce, losing twice as many dragoons as Backho.

Doh!

After reinforcements, Stork returns with five dragoons, and Backho spends a production round on zealots, so he now has four dragoons and two zealots. Stork takes some pot-shots at the zealots as both players continue to reinforce the scuffle. The scuffle finally ends when Backho's reaver arrives and Stork flees.

Backho drops his reaver at his natural and then picks up a probe to place in Stork's base and scout. He sees that Stork's made a forth gateway and is committed to his pressure. Stork takes the red on the minimap as a signal to attack, but when he spots the reaver he retreats to take a position in the middle of the map.

When Backho's second reaver completes, he pushes out. Stork flanks perfectly and although he takes heavy damage in the process, he manages to kill the two reavers and shuttle, and convince Backho that attacking any further would be a mistake. Backho backs off. Stork follows Backho back to his natural, but Stork doesn't yet hold a numbers advantage, and so cannot press it.

A great flank, but will it translate into a win?

Stork's attacks continue to break even with Backho's defense until Backho makes another reaver, forcing Stork to wait for more dragoons. Stork uses small task forces to bait Backho's army into separating from it's reaver, but Backho isn't biting... placing a pylon at his natural to absorb dragoon fire.

With twelve dragoons and two zealots, Stork again attempts a full attack. Amazingly, though down a gateway, Backho's army is almost equal in size and consistency, with two notable exceptions: two fewer dragoons and a reaver. Stork grabs five dragoons and snipes Backho's reaver with them, but loses ten dragoons as a consequence. Fleeing with the remainder of his dragoons, Stork is forced all the way back into his own base.

Sometimes micromanagement is punished.

Backho contains Stork at his ramp, makes two dark templar, and places a nexus at his natural. The dark templar make their way into Storks mineral line, and lacking detection, he GGs.
+ Show Spoiler [Key Moments] +

I think there was only one battle this game where Stork attacked while he possessed a unit and positional advantage. He severely underestimated Backho's talents.

BackHo: 1

Stork: 0

Game 2
Medusa

Stork warps in at three o'clock and Backho at ten. Both players place their gateways and scout toward eight o'clock. Once the probes spot one another, the players correct their paths.

Then Backho places three manner pylons, trapping a large number of probes and making two mineral patches completely unaccessable. Backho's also able to kill a probe with an early zealot and place a fourth manner pylon before the pylons and zealot are removed from Stork's base.

Are you kidding me?!

In the meantime, Backho places a second and then a third gateway while Stork struggles to remove Backho's scouting probe from his base. Once the probe is finally eliminated, Stork makes a robotics facility for reavers.

In a deft bid to gain more information, Stork places a pylon at the minerals outside Backho's temple-backdoor and glitches a probe onto his highground. Stork is rewarded with valuable information. As a reaction to the information, Stork places two gateways, a robotics support bay and a shield battery. Backho moves out with five dragoons and a zealot.

With five dragoons and two zealots of his own, Stork is more than prepared for the attack. As Storks reaver emerges from the robotics facility, Backho can see no way into Stork's main and chooses to contain while he takes his natural.

After getting a shuttle, Stork moves out. As Stork arrives in Backho's natural, Backho's reaver warps in, but it's too far away to assist in defense. When Backho's reaver finally does arrive, he lacks the dragoon numbers able to protect it, and Stork snipes the reaver. The nexus falls shortly afterwards. Stork rewards himself by taking his natural.

When scouting information leads to brilliant counters, it's stunning to watch.

As his nexus falls, Backho finally kills Stork's reaver, but Stork's reinforcements arrive and push into Backho's main. Backho's second reaver shows up and Stork retreats to sit on his advantage.

Backho places his nexus again and takes a defensive position, but Stork moves out with twelve dragoons and a reaver. With only five dragoons and a reaver, Backho doesn't stand a chance. When he recognizes this, he gives up.
+ Show Spoiler [Key Moments] +

Spending 600 minerals (4 manner pylons, 1 zealot, 2 probes) on manner pylons and associated harass backfired for Backho. The fact that Stork scouted Backho's follow up plan didn't help either.

BackHo: 1

Stork: 1

Game 3
Sin Chupung-Ryeong

Stork warps in at two o'clock and Backho warps in at eight o'clock. Both scout after placing their gateways.

After the scouting probes are removed from one another's bases, they both place a robotics facility and a second gateway. Stork runs a second scouting probe out down the east side of the map. As if he had maphack on, Backho sends two dragoons in that direction and intercepts the probe, killing it.

Stork gets an observatory and expands to his natural while getting a robotics support bay, and Backho gets a robotics support bay, a shuttle, and then an observatory and an observer.

Stork places two more gateways in anticipation of the extra minerals from his natural expansion and sets up his units on his high-ground. Backho moves out with two zealots, ten dragoons and his reaver, meeting Stork's units at this high-ground. Despite holding a the high-ground and possessing a decent spread with his dragoons, Backho's excellent shuttle micro wins him the battle, and Stork is forced to retreat to his natural.

Just looking at this you might assume that BackHo is in a bad position...

The next attack at Stork's natural is the same story, and Stork loses his natural nexus. Backho contains Stork while expanding to his natural. In a last-ditch effort, Stork charges down his ramp with dragoons. Although he finally kills Backho's reaver, it's for naught, and Stork GGs. The "speedbump" eliminates "Mt. Fuji", earning his spot in the quarterfinals!
+ Show Spoiler [Key Moments] +

Very smart timing attack + exceptional shuttle micro = better than positional advantage, apparently. Personally, I'm more than a little surprised he knocked Stork off his high-ground. It did not look to me as though he had an advantage.

BackHo: 2
(P)

Stork: 1

Next week we start the quarterfinals! There should be some great games, so keep tuning in!
Quarterfinals

January 4, KST(GMT+9) 18:00
(T)

sKyHigh vs (P)

BeSt[HyO]

Flash vs

Bisu

January 11, KST(GMT+9) 18:00
(P)

free[gm] vs (T)

Mind

BackHo vs

JangBi