The power of the rock, paper, scissors opening of ZvZ shows itself quite clearly here. Although the advantages have been dwindling due to improved strategy and tactics, they still exist. Zero's 9 Pool gas opening is significantly more aggressive than an OverPool gas build. Unfortunately, this build is a clean win against 12 Hatch, and suffers many problems against a 12 Pool. Had Luxury done a traditional 12 Pool with his second Hatchery in main, he would have gone into the midgame with a comfortable lead. As is, his simultaneous 11 Pool and gas looked to establish a reasonably safe expansion, which played right into Zero's hands. A very nice maneuver to notice is that Zero begins to send five Zerglings across the map, while a single Zergling checks the last unscouted base. Zero reacts quickly to the scouting Overlord and presses his advantage, eventually forcing Luxury to resign himself to cancelling his Hatchery and defending his ramp.

At this point Zero had a small lead, with a faster Spire and an expansion morphing at his natural going into Muta play; however, good Mutalisk control is always the ZvZ equalizer. Because Luxury had a second Hatchery completed, he was able to put more of his gas immediately into Mutalisks, whereas Zero would have a few Larvae of lag before he used all his stockpiled gas. This meant Luxury had a small window to attack before the natural geyser of Zero sealed Luxury's fate. Some cute Zerglings distracted the first Mutalisks of Zero, saving both Luxury's Drones and Overlords.

When the camera panned to eight eggs sitting by Luxury's Hatcheries, I knew he had lost the game if he couldn't finish it within in the next minute. The immediate movement of the Mutalisks to Zero's natural confirmed that Luxury was well aware of this too.

The first battle in ZvZ is so telling. Zero's control looked reasonably good, but was evidently not good enough. You can see that although Zero doesn't take much damage from Scourge, he is taking fire from Luxury's Mutalisk group for far longer than he should. To add to this, there are four units of Zero's near the battle that he never uses. I actually rewound the VOD several times to rewatch this battle. Zero was down an Overlord, but up in position - he had the defender's advantage. I'm still unsure of why he commited to attacking Luxury's Mutalisk group. It's possible that he was fearful of being down Mutalisks due to the supply cap after losing his Overlord. Regardless, his control against Luxury's Scourge, combined with forgetting to add Mutalisks to his control group, led to a swift loss.

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Destination. Two-player maps are about as close as you can get to removing the guessing game from ZvZ, so game 2 should have been a look directly into each player's skill in the matchup (or as close as we can reasonably see from just one game).

Zero opened with a fairly modern ZvZ build of what appeared to be 9 Overlord 9 Extractor 12 Pool. This is a modified 12 Pool that looks to stockpile gas to get out an extra Mutalisk or two through the midgame. Luxury played a much more traditional Overpool gas - a very good "catch all" build. The two builds match up against each other a bit strangely. Because of the known location of your opponent and scouting Overlords, neither player needs to waste Larvae on Zerglings after the intial 6-8 are out. This means traditionally Zero will feel comfortable getting his Spire up with minimal defense to utilize his gas, while Luxury should feel confident in placing a second Hatchery earlier than usual.

And then we see how quickly ZvZ can fall apart when you start to make assumptions. Every Zergling that isn't necessary feels like it's lost you the game, but every Drone that should have been a Zergling will also lose you the game. So you do your best and pray. Zero cut defenses to get his second Hatchery much quicker than I expected with this build once he assumed he was safe from the initial threat of a Pool-first build. Unfortuantely, clever Luxury had hidden his first 6 Zerglings in his main while waiting for Zergling speed to finish. Zero actually had a fair shot to live this attack - Luxury had 10 Zerglings moving at separate times across the map, while Zero had 4 Zerglings, Drones, and 2 Larvae.

I'm really not sure what Zero was thinking using his four Zerglings on the ramp. Perhaps he missed the six Zerglings Luxury tried to sneak out of his main? Regardless, with his Spire placed sealing his mineral line he would have lost it to the Zerglings if he allowed them free passage to his main. By the time Zero realized what was about to happen, his Creep Colony was far too late and he had already spent some Larvae on Drones. Game two quickly went up in smoke the second that Spire died - there is essentially no way to come back from losing a Spire in modern, professional ZvZ. You can actually pinpoint the moment Zero seemingly stops caring. It's when he's losing Zerglings amongst a dozen Drones and not using them to defend. This game screams sloppy strategy and worse tactics from Zero. To his credit, Luxury showed some nice Drone defense against Zerglings at the end of the game.

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In game 3 the map, Carthage, came much more into play. The long rush distance tends to mean expansion first builds are safe on this map. Both of Zero's previous games on this map have been 12 Hatchery (expansion) 11 Pool 10 Extractor builds. On a smaller map with less a less convoluted rush distance, Luxury's 9 Pool gas would run right over Zero's 12 Hatchery build; however, the natural of the map certainly gave Zero the best chance to survive the rush opening. This is especially true because Luxury spent his first 100 gas on Lair instead of Zergling speed! This decision could have possibly let Zero stall long enough with the few slow Zerglings of his own to survive the rush with minimal losses. Zero decided that is not something he wants to risk and reverted to 1 Hatch Sunken play. So we find ourselves in a situation very similar to game one with the roles reversed...

...and with Zero down four Drones from where he should have been. When the third Drone died, his fate was sealed. The fourth was another 6 inches of concrete in front of an already sealed door.

I can understand cancelling the Hatchery if you aren't confident in the timing to live against a 9 Pool (especially if you haven't yet confirmed if reinforcements are coming or if speed is coming), but Zero's Drone vs Zergling control should have been much better than what he displayed. Running to Luxury's natural or pulling the targeted Drone away were both available options. Instead he did neither and this is the result. To his credit, Zero did defend nicely against Luxury's second attack, but as former progamer Alan Feng will tell you, damage to the economy is exponential. There was no way Zero was coming back from being 4 Drones down. Just no way.

Byzantium II is cheeseable, we've seen some nice proxy 99s here as well as proxy gate goonbreaks. Once the game gets to the goonreaver stage though I can only see it going one way. To be honest it's tricky to really discuss these games beforehand because my expectations are simply too low. I guess maybe if Stork somehow gets an early ramp contain and holds it he might win maybe. But that's an unlikely scenario.

JangBi spawns at 11 and Stork at 1 with both scouting on 10. Both scout clockwise and therefore JangBi gets first scout whereas Stork gets second. Both get the gas on 11 but when JangBi's scout probe arrives on 13 the builds diverge.

For those of you who don't play Protoss I'll briefly explain. The early game is all about goonwars, whoever gets range first can outmicro their opponent to take free shots and force them back down the ramp. Once the ramp is camped the aggressor has a huge advantage. So logically you would like to do to the 1 gate goon PvT opening. However the possibility of 2 gate openings, as well as proxy 99s, forces a blind player to open 8p, 10g, 11a, 13p, 14z, 18c which has significantly slower range than the 8p, 10g, 11a, 13c, 14z, 16p version. Both builds get the same amount of gas and after both have completed range they are even, the safe build is not at a disadvantage long term. What it does mean though is that there will be a 25 second window in which JangBi's rangegoons will absolutely destroy Stork's if he micros them.

JangBi scouts Stork's one gate in main and promptly goes for the optimal goon build whereas Stork, still playing blind, must go for the safe build. Stork is not at a long term disadvantage here but the timing window makes it very possible that he could get contained early and that will weigh him down even after he has range. A further disadvantage of the early core is that the goon arrives to finish off Stork's scout probe earlier, leaving him blind before JangBi has committed to any tech route. Stork is forced to play safe, holding his own ramp to maximise travel time between them and getting a fast robotics off 1 gate to deal with the lack of information. Meanwhile JangBi is anxious to press his timing window, not because he is aiming for the fast win but rather as a threat defence for his fast expansion build. If Stork was going for some kind of crazy proxy tech hide cheese he would not be able to hold his natural area and therefore his base against JangBi's goons. A counter fast expansion would be equally vulnerable, only a 2 gate goonrobo build is really safe against JangBi at this point so by pressing his advantage in the timing window he can confirm exactly what his opponent is doing. The goon harassment begins and JangBi can see that Stork is playing safe against him whereas Stork is still entirely blind against JangBi. All he knows is that he's under attack by some goons which isn't all that helpful

The goon micro wars starts and JangBi micros perfectly. It was truly incredible, taking freeshot after freeshot as Stork desperate retreated then surged forwards trying to buy time for his range and avoid losing his nat area. The fact that he was outnumbered didn't seem to matter as JangBi claimed 2 goon kills for his 1 loss. As range was about to complete JangBi backed off, leaving Stork still unsure what he was up against and JangBi already on 2 bases. At this point Stork should have been able to rule out any 2 gate massgoon builds from JangBi because with micro like that he should have already lost to them. However the die was cast, Stork's build was fixed and he couldn't do anything until reaver so he was forced to sit and wait while JangBi's superior economy surged ahead and 3 gates ate away at the unit advantage.

JangBi really delayed his robo to mass units against Stork's timing attack. The reason he knew he didn't need observers is because he knew that Stork didn't know the same. It's less complicated than it sounds. All Stork has seen from JangBi is a fast core and 1 gate dragoons, Stork has to be aware of the possibility of a dark rush and therefore has to open robo. Because Stork is forced to open robo JangBi isn't. Of course it all gets very metagamey at this point with what-ifs but it all goes back to that first scouting probe going the right way.

Stork got his reaver out, collected his army and moved in for the attack. He still hadn't scouted JangBi but he should have been able to rule out all options but a FE because nothing had happened yet. JangBi backed deep into his nat, created a big killzone and invited Stork into it which he promptly did, reaver first. With his heavy support sniped Stork's army lost all momentum and despite extremely bad pathfinding by JangBi's dragoons allowing his 5 to die to Stork's 4 the 3 gateways swiftly cleaned it up with ease. With his attempt to kill JangBi's nat defeated Stork was forced to go 2 bases himself, counter expanding a full three and a half minutes after JangBi. However money matters and JangBi had 4 gateways to Stork's 2, more probes and a far greater income. Even the tech which had been Stork's sole advantage had been evened out by now. As Stork's expansion finished JangBi moved in for the kill, sniping the reaver and then trading goons, secure in the knowledge that he was making them twice as fast. Only the arrival of a hero reaver which secured 4 goon kills for 0 losses (surviving on very red health) saved Stork from an immediate loss. It didn't matter though, JangBi was going to 6 gates before Stork was going to 4. JangBi had more probes, more gas and speedlots coming. He had the money, he had the units, he had the map control. Stork camped his natural for a while, desperately hoping JangBi would engage him on his terms and suicide an army but when he scouted JangBi taking his third he realised he would not play ball. Forced to attack he moved out with a large army of zeegoonreaver whereup JangBi pulled a cute trick out of his deck. JangBi knew that the robotics facility had been pumping reavers full stop to desperately try and even up the advantage. JangBi knew that Stork had been massing units full stop for the same reason. Once Stork's main army moved out a single dt crept into his base and killed 30 probes, revelling in the lack of cannons and observers. The battle itself was closer than it should have been. JangBi had been skipping reavers in favour of mass early and then storm but storm was just too late to help and Stork won. However although Stork pushed the advantage the severe lack of probes meant his unit supply dried up completely. JangBi's reinforcements kept coming and Stork was forced to conceed.

GG

I think it's important to recognise here exactly how key the scouting probes were. The build orders allowed JangBi to pressure while denying scouting after killing the scout probe early, all off 1 gate goons. That meant all the information Stork had to work with was that JangBi had goon tech and at least 1 gate. And that's not helpful. Stork was forced into a general counter build and while it's a good build and doesn't play that badly against JangBi's FE build it is still less than ideal. Against a player like JangBi, that's enough. The timing attack failed (reavers go at the back Stork) and the only reason the game went on any longer is because a single reaver claimed 7 dragoons during the attack at Stork's nat.

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Game 2 saw Destination, a 2 player map that is very difficult to cheese on. The natural bridges are excellent for holding against massgoon and walling against darkrush. The fact that it's 2 player assures a fast scouting and you can always tell when they proxy if your scout probes don't cross in the middle (at this level at least). So, the better player should win. Go JangBi!

Stork warped in at 11 while JangBi took 5. Both mirrored perfectly, opening 8p, 10g -> scout and then checking the far side of their nat for proxy 99s and checking their main on about 12 psi.

Seriously guys, check. It slows your scout probe for a total of one second to go slightly further in the nat and it's about 5 seconds mining time to check your main. Stop losing to proxy 99s and realise you don't actually have to, you just have to remember to play safe.

JangBi again opened 13 core against Stork's 12 pylon opting for the faster tech. However unlike on Byzantium where you have to hold your nat area to avoid a lethal contain and your nat area is a big flat sniping area the nat of Destination is easier to defend with rangeless goons. The significance this game will be much less than last. Both players immediately went for range leaving the JangBi slightly ahead with a faster range and an extra dragoon instead of a second zealot. Returning to a near perfect mirror they both chose to FE off of just 1 gateway, defended by the bridges. JangBi again used his excellent goon micro to harass with his faster range while Stork used a probe he had hidden at 4 earlier to scout JangBi's build.

They both went 2 gate goon with robo, although JangBi had a slightly faster expansion and had damaged many of Storks units by stealing free hits. Oddly enough I think Stork actually had a larger army than JangBi, and he definitely did at his nat. However those bridges work both ways and if Stork actually tried to move out and deal with the goons it'd cost him more than it was worth.

So, they enter the midgame with the same build in a still near perfect mirror (perhaps a slight advantage JangBi). Both players opted for templar tech rather than reavers but the price of Stork's superior army was shown by the significant delay in the speed with which they reached storm. Conscious of how he'd lost the game before Stork remained at 2 gates off his 2 bases (you can support 7), choosing to make a forge while JangBi made the 3rd gate. JangBi made a shuttle, placed a dark and 2 stormers in it and then, content that he'd done all the teching and macroing he felt he needed to, JangBi threw down another 4 gates and went into pure goonzeestorm macro mode.

Storks defensive cannons were a wise choice as although he had goons and obs in his main to block the first dark they would have moved at some point and his mineral line would have been abused. However although Stork killed the 1 dark dropped without loss the distraction provided cover for the stormers to hit his mineral line, causing some damage (probably about the same as it cost). Stork reacted by going to 6 gateways himself and continuing the mirror game (albeit with a slightly worse economy).

Strangely enough Stork opted for fast darchons. Now I really like this because if your opponent is going zeegoonstorm you kind of have to go zeegoonstorm too. Storms pretty much rape reavers and early Destination is very unfriendly to archons PvP(they don't like the bridges and goons snipe them). And if your opponent is definitely massing stormers then the ability to snipe them for 50 energy each is a great deal. Evidently JangBi and Stork have been in this situation before and both know each others' game. Just so you Terrans and Zergs can appreciate the full extent of this. Imagine irradiate with much more range and a faster cast time and only 50 mana. Imagine PvZ if broodling cost 50 but could only hit stormers.

The two armies sparred a little in the middle, both unwilling to venture across the bridges (clumped units + storm = ). I'd have been interested to see the psi counts at this point. I believe JangBi was ahead but neither player had any real advantage in this still near perfect mirror. Both players took the gas expansion by their main (4 and 10) at the same time. I believe JangBi hit 200/200 first and he kept making attempts to establish a beachhead on the far side but Stork did an excellent job of constantly reforming his front line so no matter where JangBi crossed he would always be attacking into a superior concave with his units dangerously clumped. Soon after Stork reached 200/200 and the attempts to cross came both ways with both responding equally well to shut down any attempt. Forced to spend their money they both took over their respective sides of the map, adding as many gateways as they could to allow them to replace their armies immediately and in JangBi's case, stargates for arbiters.

Surprisingly JangBi was the first to make a mistake. He regrouped his army into a single mass near his nat and Stork leapt on the opportunity to cross the bridges and establish his entire army concave free on the far side of them. JangBi responded immediately with his full army but it was too late and his battle line too disorganised. His zealots all got stuck on each other on his left flank, falling victim to several very well placed storms which covered the entire group. At the same time his right flank was beaten back by Stork's zealots which promptly hit his dragoons. Although JangBi's army was perhaps better at the start of the fight his left flank got owned by storms and when the zealots broke through they couldn't do sufficient damage. Although Stork 'won' the fight it wasn't the victory he needed. Both their armies were reduced so much in size that the huge sweeping concaves that had enforced the stalemate before were temporarily gone. Lacking the units to press his advantage Stork gave up and attempted an expansion at 9 which was immediately shut down by a well placed dark. JangBi remained ahead, their armies were still well balanced and JangBi was actually ahead a base as well as technologically ahead with his arbiters. Both players massed back up to large armies while Stork evened up the base count by taking 2. However in another display of sloppiness (he didn't have the same observer line on the bridges as Stork) JangBi allowed Stork's army to safely cross at 8 and then set up it's own concave there as well as hitting his expansion at 7. JangBi realised it was too late to salvage his mistake and rather than suicide his army into Stork's contain at 8 went allin for a counterattack towards 2. Stork realised it was suddenly a race to the finish, his own expansions beyond saving but JangBi's equally vulnerable. He headed immediately towards JangBi's heart but was caught out of position by JangBi's army which had pulled back at the last second. While the fight was good the arbiter made a great difference, cloaking causing lots of bad AI, storms wasted downing the arbiter and an excellent stasis on a group of zealots with an archon. JangBi won the battle convincingly, his surviving units sufficient in number to give him an exponential advantage in every fight for the rest of the game. Despite some expansion trading and counterattacks from Stork the game was over.

GG

This was a great game. The army control by both players was fantastic, the attention paid to concaves, unit positioning, unit combos and metagame was excellent. Stork's constant repositioning of his smaller army when trying to stop JangBi crossing was perfect. It's no secret that I'm not a huge Stork fan but I really cannot find much to fault with this game. In the end he lost because he took 2 too slowly and he didn't go arbiters. However the game was a complete mirror until JangBi's arbiter finally gave him the first decisive victory of the game. Both players showed a fantastic level of play and degree of understanding of the matchup.

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Game 3 on Carthage. If the first two games are anything to go by then JangBi will most likely wow us with his goon micro but Stork's solid builds will not put him at any real disadvantage. It'll get ground out for a while and eventually JangBi will win, although not without really being made to work for it first.

JangBi spawned at 11 and opened 8 pylon scout, probably a wise move when you're 2 games up on a map where proxies are very easy. Stork on the other hand played ambitiously with a 13 core build, guessing JangBi wouldn't proxy and having his suspicions confirmed by the early scout probe (a proxy 99 one would be slower) and a safe build wouldn't feel the need to scout so fast. JangBi opted for the standard 2nd pylon before core opening leaving Stork with faster range and goons on an open map with no ramps to defend the main. However in a moment of appalling carelessness Stork let himself get manner pyloned, trapping 3 probes and blocking 2 crystals. Manner pylons are annoying if you do the safe opening with the fast zealot to deal with them. They're far, far more damaging if you go straight to goon. Stork's build order advantage became a large disadvantage in a single moment of sloppiness. It's not like he couldn't see what JangBi was trying to do either, he just didn't think it was worth keeping a probe there until he could place an antimanner pylon. While he successfully drilled 2 probes out and made a zealot (at the cost of cutting a probe) it still significantly delayed him while JangBi's economy kept on pumping.

JangBi opted for a 2 gate goon robo build while Stork faked an expansion while proxying 3 gateways at 1 for a timing attack against JangBi's army while it was out of position attacking his 'expansion'. Unfortunately things didn't go to plan. Maybe someone Stork trained with talked to JangBi, maybe JangBi has just played with him that much, maybe JangBi hacks. For some reason JangBi sent a scout probe straight to 1 just after the gateways were made, forcing all 3 to be sold and leaving a completely tragic expression of Stork's face. His fake expansion had lost all credibility and his mass had been delayed.

Stork transitioned into a 3 gate reaver build but his robo was delayed by the fact that his original plan hadn't involved a robo. While their goon count was reasonably well matched JangBi got a speedshuttle with a reaver early and hit Stork's mineral line. Scarabs hit for once and 10 or so probes went down for no losses by JangBi. Realising he was more behind than ever (he'd probably cut probes to 3 gate robo so fast) Stork took his entire army and went allin. They clashed at JangBi's natural area (to maximise travel time without being contained) and JangBi had a few more dragoons. When the dust cleared JangBi's army was still standing and Stork was left with a shattered economy.

GG

Getting manner pyloned is just sloppy. When they go 8-> scout I often delay my core for a second pylon purely because I want to antimanner. The advantage of an antimanner (saved mining time on the blocking probe and much saved time when he may actually have gotten it) outweighs the risk. Obviously Stork felt he could block it more cheaply while going 13 core. Obviously he was wrong. I don't mind his 4 gate proxy trick. With a faked expansion JangBi would have to move out with goons + reaver the moment it was done. That's how a 2 gate robo build works, you get 2 gate goons + reaver and you push. Stork set up an ambush that would most likely have flanked and killed JangBi's army and given Stork the win. However JangBi was expecting it (somehow) and after he scouted it the game was pretty much over. Stork wasn't dead but it was advantage JangBi, and JangBi doesn't need an advantage to win.