Our first game of Group D is free vs Doctor.K on Destination. The map seems pretty balanced PvP so the better player should win. And while free is statistically weak in PvP one has to consider the opponents he's been up against to get those results. Rather than say "he got bitchslapped 3-0 in the last pvp series" we should think "he made it to the semis of a league then lost to #1 PR". That said, Doctor.K should be the fan favorite simply on the basis of his name. The Doctor > Pretty.

Free got 11 and The Doctor got 5. Both went 1 gate then scouted for proxies before scouting in a perfect mirror. Both went for gas and a second pylon with zealot before core, not the optimal build but the safest when the opponent is unscouted. They then both built a second zealot and added a second gate, still in a perfect mirror. However as the scout probes died they deviated, Doctor going for goon range while free rushed to darks without range. Free feigned belligerence, despite his rangeless goons being vulnerable. He knew Doctor would not attempt to cross the bridges so he'd not be punished for it, and it may stop Doctor thinking about darks.

The Doctor opted for an expansion with a late robo, camping against any aggression on his side of the bridge. Meanwhile free threw caution to the wind, expanding himself with absolutely nothing to counter darks with, save the possibility of noticing the shimmer and walling his own ramp with darks and sacrificing his expansion. Doctor.K had his timings down and his robo was up with an observatory building when the darks reached his bridge. Unfortunately, it was left unwalled. This is the second time in recent games we've seen players throw away games to dark rushes like this and it is quite frankly inexcusable. Doctor did a fantastic job of microing against the darks which divided to force his army to deal with several fronts while free's main army moved in to assist them. That he survived at all a credit to his skill and some of the best micro I've seen in a long time, defeating an army while moving his own around to dodge a pair of unseen darks while microing his own probes away from a third dark and chasing it with goons. He couldn't save his natural nexus from being sniped though and while free sacrificed his army to do so the bridges left free safe from counterattack and economically ahead.

Both players macroed and then free moved in and killed Doctor.K. A disappointing result given The Doctor's micro, and he would have easily saved himself and been ahead if he'd just walled. Free took risks and ultimately relied upon Doctor.K's mistakes rather than his own skill to win. My only explanation for the lack of a wall is nerves because that kind of thing must be drilled into them by coaches.
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Horang2 is a new player with only 6 recorded games to his name. Of those he's 1-1 PvZ but the sample size makes him a complete unknown. He's in the MSL so he's obviously not without skill but we've not seen enough of him to really judge.

Kwanro on the other hand we have heard a lot about. He was greatly hyped for a while after a few good games and then everybody realized he was mediocre and stopped talking about him. He's got an overall losing record and a losing record against Protoss. So we have a zerg we know is bad against a protoss we don't know anything about on a zerg favoured map. Too close to call.

Horang2 got 11 and scouted correctly to Kwanro at 7. Kwanro did an overpool which Horang2 overcountered with forge and 2 cannons before nexus. A quick tip. The correct build vs overpool with anything but v close positions on a small map is 10-13 forge, 13 nexus, 13 cannon (with a second cannon if larva saved count/extractor merit it). I don't understand why progamers don't tweak their builds to scouting information. The build he used is safe and it's the one he'll have most practiced because it's standard when blind but his nexus could have been 15 seconds faster while staying safe. Kwanro drove out the scouting probe while placing his 3rd hatch at the 5 nat and gassing to lair. This is a very savior pre-bisu build and I'm honestly not sure how it'll go. Horang2, opted for stargate into citadel into robo while building zealots off his 1 gate. The corsair scouted and Horang2 saw that Kwanro had been extremely greedy, going for a fast 3 bases without defense and throwing down a 4th and 5th hat simultaneously. Realizing he couldn't wait he attacked with his 5 speedlots, running past the sunkens and lings into the main where they killed a few drones, probably not earning their cost but inflicting some damage. At the same time he went into an extremely heavy macro build, adding 5 gates, templar archives, pumping corsairs, and making 2 reavers. Kwanro tried to get some offence going and was raped by reavers in an immortal shuttle which always managed to dodge away from hydras and scourge. While Horang2's army was eventually was worn down and ran out of the zealot core the corsairs and reavers survived, continuing to score kills. Kwanro pushed him back to his nat with hydralurk while taking a 4th base at 6 and triple grading with a high drone count and still using lair tech. Horang2 was still at 2 base and macroing, his army doing well in every engagement but unable to secure map control long enough to expand. That level of unit production could not be sustained off 2 over-mined bases and the reavers which had survived all game were eventually killed. Kwanro overwhelmed him and the game was over.

In a moment of first person view I noticed that Horang2 never scouted bottom right. The fast 3 bases, overstretched build which was sAviOr's trademark until it fell prey to darksair and multitasking caught him off guard. It is very hard to fault Horang2's micro or his unit production which were both good. However where he did fail is fully scouting what Kwanro had done (which given he had sairs is inexcusable) and correctly adapting. That kind of 3 base powerdroned then 5 hat hydra into hydralurk lair heavy play is extremely dangerous is you let it get established. Hwarang2 did. That said, I enjoyed this game. It made me very nostalgic. 2009 baby!
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Carthage is 0-2 so far PvZ, although too few games have really been played on it to make any conclusions. I still think it favours macro styles and big balls of zees, goons and stormers. The wide choke makes any defensive style weak and therefore a big mobile army is vital while the open map makes speedshuttle harass weak. Kwanro didn't prove anything to me in his first game while free was somewhat disappointing. I find it hard to really be interested in this game because free isn't very good and Kwanro is worse. Still, free should win.

Kwanro spawned at 11 and free at 5. Free opted for a standard fast expansion while Kwanro went for 9 pool speed, rather unorthodox, especially on two player maps where it'll always get scouted. free simply made a forge and 2 cannons, negating the opening while continuing to pump his own probes. Kwanro killed the scout probe and then went to pumping drones and quickly taking 3 bases, a hatchery at each, trying to recover his economy. In the mean time free was able to tech very quickly, getting a gateway, a core and two fast gases off his ridiculous probe count. While Kwanro stayed at 6 lings, pumping as many drones as he could, he was still economically behind. Knowing this he opted for 3 hat lair into fast lurk, a defensive build that is only good when you need to keep powerdroning but don't have the army to defend it.

Free had the economy to play safe from any cheeses (he hadn't scouted since the first probe), mass corsairs, tech to darksair and make zealots. However the lurk rush stopped him moving out with any real force while Kwanro kept up his powerdroning, moving up to 5 hatch. Darksair harass scored a few drone kills with Free's corsair count reaching dangerous levels and Free's gateways started pumping. Free attempted to add storm drops to the harass but forgot not to suicide the shuttle into hydras he could see. Eventually the inevitable happened, the thing Kwanro had been afraid of since the 9 pool opening and had tried to delay and avoid. A giant mass of P units walked out the front of Free's base and there was nothing he could do to slow it down. 3 control groups of Protoss isn't known for its tact but it does the trick. Kwanro did all he could to buy time for the economy he'd been trying to build up all game to kick in and save him but when the big ball of zees and goons and storms rolled across the map he couldn't stop it. Some well placed storms and a lot of zealots made short work of his hydralisks.

Free played this exactly how I think it should be played. With a lot of gateways, a lot of units and a lot of storms. He made a big ball of Protoss and rolled across the map. His attempts at harass weren't great but in my opinion he only did them because he was waiting for ob tech and his mass to kick in and had nothing better to spend his money on at the time. They could have been better but they were insignificant to the game either way.
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Nothing new really to say about either Horang2 or Doctor.K. Based on their first games I'd expect The Doctor to take this but we've not really seen enough to judge. All we know is Horang2 doesn't scout very well but has nice reaver micro and Doctor.K chokes (I am unwilling to believe that the coaches don't hit them with blunt objects when they forget something so simple yet important as walling PvP when their range includes darks).

Horang2 opted for an aggressive proxy one gate opening near Doctor.K's nat while Doctor went 1 gate scout, saw his scout probe timing and recognized the proxy timing, quickly scouting it and making a second gate himself. I have to conclude this was part of Horang2's plan though as he used the 1 gate zealots just to buy time without any real intent to do damage, instead getting gas and hiding dark rush tech. Eventually Doctor's 2 gate had a big enough advantage to kill the pylon to the proxy 1 gate (something I can't believe Horang2 didn't foresee) leaving him with a completed archives and no gateways. It didn't matter though because Doctor.K had scouted that Horang2 had gas but no tech buildings so had placed cannons more than early enough to deal with a dark rush. His army attacked Horang2's main and although it was eventually cleared up by darks he scored a number of probe kills. The darks chased Doctor.K back to his main, scoring a few kills (partly because of the inability of Doctor.K's dragoons to hit uphill) but the containment only lasted about 30 seconds before observers were out and pressuring. Horang2 knew he was very behind by this point and went for 4 gateways with absolutely no detection, retreating and surrounding The Doctor's advancing forces then moving in for a flank and kill. It was a nice play and helped him recover but Doctor.K was expanding and still had enough dragoons to be safe. Doctor.K realized the expansion was enough to set him ahead and camped on it with a big concave of dragoons. When the inevitable battle came he easily destroyed Horang2's forces. From then on it was over. Horang2 managed to make a big army, including reavers but the difference in their economies was more than he could recover. To add insult to injury Doctor.K eventually scouted the proxy tech hide which housed every one of his tech buildings.

Horang2's build was bad. A good player will recognize what the probe scout timing means and Doctor.K is no exception. Even had Horang2 made a second proxy gateway so the dark rush wasn't delayed it wouldn't have worked. He gave himself a big build order disadvantage attempting a cheese that would never work. From then on he played all-in and failed. Doctor.K played well I guess although I pretty much expect that level of reading from a progamer.
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Byzantium 2 seems to be balanced PvZ so far. It's a good map for the style Kwanro has shown us so far, but Doctor.K will have seen those games and presumably even if he doesn't know what they mean his coach will have told him how to adapt to them. I'd consider him the favorite here. He's not shown himself to be anything special but he seems solid and Kwanro is questionable.

Doctor.K spawned at 11 and Kwanro at 5. Kwanro opted for overpool speed and Doctor.K went forge expand after not scouting him first. With cross positions against an overpool Doctor.K earns the title of only Protoss to use the right FE build by going nexus then cannons. He then undermines that by voluntarily moving his scout probe out of the zerg base. Just don't do it. To add to my tips from when Kal did the same, just don't do this. Ever. Keep the probe circling around his min line so you can see what he is making out of his hatchery. This is quite frankly bad. It's absolutely the incorrect way to play. You need to keep that probe at his hatchery, looking at what is coming out of those eggs, if he's saving larva (means he's adding another hatchery somewhere), if he's getting gas after speed(lair or hydra cheese), if he's droning or linging. This is crucial information and you can't not get it. What happened next is exactly why.

Kwanro walled his ramp with two of his first 6 lings and pumped lings constantly from his main hat. Then he killed the scout probe with the other 4 speedlings and did a run through with about 20 speedlings before Doctor.K had any defense to deal with it. A third cannon warping and a loose wall did nothing to stop his main mineral line getting owned, losing a seventeen probes before the lings were cleaned up. You simply cannot sustain that kind of damage. Doctor.K was left with 6 probes between two bases. The game was over. It didn't matter what Kwanro chose to do to clean it up.

Doctor.K made a D level mistake and was punished for it. Kwanro didn't do a risky build this game. He recognized that Doctor.K decided it'd be fun to play blind and punished him for it. This kind of scouting is something very simple which should always be a part of your (yeah, I mean you, the reader, personally) game. Write it on a post-it note and put it next to the screen. Nobody, even at D rank icc, should fail like that. I would hate to hear what the SKT coach says to Doctor.K about today. Losing two games with absolutely basic mistakes. When you're against a range of builds PvP and that range includes darks you always wall because it costs you nothing and might save you the game. Always. Early game PvZ you circle the mineral line with your probe because if he only has 1 hatch all the information is there. If you move away you lose the minerals to glide to and risk being blocked from getting back to where you need to scout. Absolute basics. I expect better.