As my avid 1-2 blog readers might have noticed, I have yet to preceed my previous blog entry, and prior to this one, I was really in doubt whether or not I should even continue to attempt producing more personal entries / content for my viewers...
Alas, it was a tough decision, however I've decided that I will attempt to fullfill the responsibilities of a blogger and attempt to provide daily content, although I will not be able to promise 24/7 twitter updates etc as I have a full time study ( reading about 60 hours a week, sometimes it feel like 18 hours a day!
But enough about the rambling of my everyday problems, back to SC2!
so the last couple of weeks I've been studying hard, but I still failed my exam in Family & Heritage rights ( who said law studies were easy!?), so I told myself : "How can I make this a cheery day?".
I came to the conclusion that all I needed was some easy wins on my elder brother's Bronze 1v1 Ladder account. so after a few build order wins, ( in one of the games, I scouted a 3 rax pressure 1base all-in vs this Silver leaguer and decided to counter it with sentries and Immortals.... those Immortals sure do like to eat marauders for dinner, ) I eventually went to face off against this Diamond leaguer, as my MMR had crossed a certain threshold for me to be unable to be paired up with players below Gold league or below.
this is where it starts to get intense, and I will attempt to explain the game in phases, preferrably in step-by-step process.
"THE GAME" / Protoss ( the "dental-floss toss" <- Me ) V.S. Super never-giving-up-even if I'm on about 28 supply in about 14minutes[blizzard time] - Zerg. <- my opponent, and a fierce one at that!
The map: ESV Cloud Kingdom (the new ladder season mapaddition)
So it started off with a standard 9 pool expansion vs a (if you can call 9 workers into pool into 4 lings that sit and wait outside my FFE (forge fast-expand) build and decide to fall back on a macro-oriented metagame-phase) FFE build into 5 gate 1 robo into double forge chronoboosted upgrades ( I am sitting on 4 gas at the time the 2 forges are placed and starts upgrading with CB, so my valuation is based on the fact that I can rely solely on Zealots and Sentries in my composition as have yet to scout any other possible threats than the typical Zergling Roach early game unit composition one would expect (he had zergling speed at about 4:57 so I presume he wanted to retain his map presence/dominace by counting on mobility of the light Zerg army, rather than play blindly and tech up to broodlords roach infestor(roach for meatshields) and rely on the tenatcity of the seemingly unbreakable Patch 4.3.0 Zerg Deathball v.1.0 ).
so based on these assumptions, we both play with the mindset that if we were to attack, we would've been crushed in a pitiful and horrible way, and unable to in any shape or form to amass any unit composition that would swing the game in our own favor.
that lead to heavy droning into double expanding zerg vs a later, yet somewhat fast 3rd base for my protoss army, which indefinitely resulted in a drone count of 79 drones on 4 base to 68 probes on 3 base ( which seemed more than enough for me at the time).
after a slight period of passivity, followed by him sacking 3-4 overseers to scout (or at least attempt to) my Tech pattern and unit composition, and me sneaking a few observers ( I LOVE to make 5-6 observers mid game, as I usually rely on mineral heavy unit composition which allows me to invest gas into scouting and map awareness without the "fear" of having to throw away the odd 100-200 minerals here and there to lings ( zealots getting sorrounded due to low APM is the worst feeling ever :p ), we decided to clash into each other.
the following battle constisted of the respective units:
Protoss army :
Sentries [ 8 ]
Zealots [ 14 ]
Immortals [ 3 ]
Collosi [ 2 ] <- no Extended thermal lance in the first battle as I was attempting to metagame my opponent to heavily invest / rely on corruptors
Stalkes [ 28 ] <-- at the time I was investing into blink and it was a mere 18 seconds from finishing at the time our armies collided
Observers [ 4 ] <-- not that they would have a significant dps output, but the sheer power of denying the army to burrow / infestors to sneak up on me, is NOT to be underestimated !!!.
Zerg army:
Zerglings [ 58 ]
Roaches [ 19 ]
Corruptors [11 ]
Infestors [ 7 ]
Hydralisks [ 4 ]
Queens [ 4 ] <-- he had pretty average, actually good, creep spread despite my several attempts to limit/deny creep spread with my occasional probing(sorry for the pun :p) up on creep and sniping a few tumors here and there.
Overseers [ 3 ] <-- his first intention was to snipe my observers and utilize burrow for roaches and infestors I presume, but my stalker count vs his roaches and overseers kind of cancelled each other out or so.
at first I felt like I could not loose this fight due to my high zealot stalker count, but I severely underestimated the might of the infestors, and the positioning could not be worse.
Somehow just before the fight, I forgot to place my zealots (who already had charge at the time in front), and the AI, as beautiful as it can be, did the cruelest of things to me. I was watching in pure AGONY when I saw my Zealots charge in a big round pile and get fungalled along with my stalkers (due to the sheer amount of zerglings 1A-moving did not really help me in terms of army management and sniping infestors(i completely forgot I had blink at the time))
so in a flash I had lost 11 Zealots or so, 14 stalkers and he had retained every single (except for 1) of all of his infestors.
then after a few miliseconds or so, I realized I had to pull out of the positioning I was in, as it was too dangerous for my army composition and too easy for my opponent to crush me (my Collosi had survived the initial 2-3 fungals and barely took hull damage from it, so the sheer might of my 2/2 upgrades as opposed to his 1/1 army was enough of a fear factor for him to not chase after me.
HOWEVER, as he had noticed my collosi, he decided to instantly pull about 18-20 zerglings somehow without me noticing and prepared a ling counterattack to snipe some probes from my main base.
LUCKILY I had photon cannons galore in my main, my natural, in the middle of the map (for detection and extra dps - I dared not to venture on creep with such a fragile and immobile army at my disposal and without proper vision on the opponents army.
THOUGH DESPITE my counter protection measures, I had not properly viewed the minimap for eventual lings, and I presumed that my photon cannons simply were THAT good to snipe lings... what I had not accounted for was the fact that he had hid about about 10 zerglings and morphed them into Banelings upon seeing my photon-fortifications at my mining bases.
THE CONCLUSION, is that I had placed an Artosis pylon powering my robotics facility and one of my two forges ( the other one was a part of my wall at my natural due to my FFE opening build, as well as the newly made Fleet Beacon ( I had used a LOT of minerals and was stackking gas, so I decided to attempt an Archon toilet with a mothershi.
THE LESSON was to be that I had forgotten to scout his banelings and without taking notice, he quickly sniped the pylon and went for my Nexus that was barely, and I mean BARELY done making the mothership ( it was 4 BLIZZARD seconds from finishing), and in a flash (no pun intended :p) I was without 3/3 /only 3/2, WITHOUT Extended thermal lance, and WITHOUT the remaining minerals even from cancelling a Mothership, as I recall it the pricing is at 400 Minerals and 400 Gas for a mothership,
THE OUTCOME was that I had lost my main tech and sitting on my already low APM, I was unable to scrap together an army, and without extended thermal lance, he continued to pressure me with roach ling and infestors, before eventually overcoming me with a broodlord / infestor / corruptor transition, in which I had no time and resources to react on, due to my inability of scouting his main tech (THIS GUY used 14 Spore crawlers to sorround his main so I was just exactly unable to sneak an observer into his base and actually figure out when his broodlords were gonna come out... god I envy Terrans and their Scanner Sweep so much ).
that was my game of the week..... next week I will hopefully have a just an awesome match and attempt to make another review of the game / a battlelog
Until then, enjoy reading and take care