EPT
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This wedensday the first of the 2 OSL semi-finals got underway. Two of the hottest terran players right now, the "New Emperor" Casy (aka iOi[alive]) and the most accomplished player in progaming, the "Genious" terran Nada had both fought hard and long to get this far. Nada clawed his way thru the round of 24, via the wildcard matches. He has been looking a bit shaky thruout the tournament, but found some of the groove back with his defeat against the amazing ZvT master Yellow[arnc]. Casy, a brilliant player in his own right, is hailed as the new Boxer. He has it all: Mind-blowing micro, incredible agressive play, brilliant strategies and a horrible win percentage against protoss. He is a TvT monster as well, so the games should be good. Let's go.
EDIT: I added the VODS if you just want to watch the game instead of reading. Thanks to CharlieMurphy and the uploader wifebeater232.
Game 1 : Neo Arkanoid
The first game is always an important one. There is always the air of nervousness, with nobody knowing what to expect and both wanting to grab the momentum right away.
This one started out with Nada getting the bottom left position and Casy landing in the bottom right. As expected Casy quickly got around to making the usual terran buildings, true to his style aiming for aggression with a fast-exp build that would eventually lead towards goliath drops.
On the other side, Nada opens with a dual-rax build(!) and starts the marine production right away. Everybody's eyes are now on Nada, can he blast his way thru 4 neutral buildings before Casy gets sufficient defense? The characteristics of the map should help, there is usually no reason for terran to get vultures here, thus Casy's first troops will probably be either goliaths or wraiths.
Nada goes agressive right away, with his ever-increasing marine numbers blasting thru one obstacle after another. Casy gets an early warning when his floating rax spots an scv and a single marine right outside his base, but with his barrack in the air and factories still being contructed, there is painfully little he can do. I'm doubting if he even noticed the abnormality.
Nada's build was the perfect counter. Just as the temple covering Casy's base fell, two medics joined the marines, and with stimpacks activated they ran into the completely defenseless base. Almost needless to say Casy could do nothing but watch his scv's die in a useless battle.
Nada takes the first game with a perfectly timed rush build that leaves Casy shaking his head in disbelif. The genious terran shines on the big stage and takes a strong lead in the mind games.
Nada 1:0 Casy
Game 2 : Hitchhiker
The second game has Nada(@5) and Casy(@1) both opening standard rax/fac builds. With no opstacles both scouted their opponent quickly. Seing nothing weird, Casy went ahead with his fast expansion plan, sending his barracks flying towards Nada's base. However, Nada again took a slightly different path and produced 7 marines while researching spider mines and making a tank with additional vultures later. He set out against Casy as soon as the tank joined the marines, once again trying to take advantage of the predictability of early terran builds today.
Despite spotting the attacking force with his rax, Casy had no time to prepare sufficient defenses, and thus had to fight Nada's forces with a single tank and two marines, while desperately trying to finish a bunker. Casy eventually lost the battle, leaving a few reinforcing vultures free to kill workers for a while. He eventually cleared his base with a pair of wraiths, but spider mines still covered his factories, and Nada had meanwhile established his own expansion.
Casy gamely hung in and tried to make a comeback with invisible wraiths, but his scv losses were too severe, and Nada quickly finished him off with ground-based metal.
Nada brilliantly read his opponent, hurt Casy badly with his first rush and forced him into a hopeless defensive position. Another quick victory has him in pole position for a quick win in the series.
Nada 2:0 Casy
Game 3: Reverse Temple
It's do or die for Casy. He has been playing uncharacteristicly poor up to this point, taking a lot of damage early leaving him without the means to fight Nada evenly. Casy needs to focus and up his game if he wants to stay much longer.
A classic 12/3 game in the making. Nada(@3) opens rax-fac in his base, with Casy(@12) mirroring him. Casy is the one upping the marine numbers this time around, making a quick attack with his 4 first marines. A sweet moment of micro and the help of workers leaves no marines alive and Nada slightly ahead. Both now gets factory units, with Casy opting for the strong 1 fac 1 port strategy, and Nada going for the easy money with a new command centre at his natural.
In this moment of calm, Nada tries a quick poke at Casy with a few marines and two vultures. Once again Casy is undefended and takes a lot of scv casualities before an emerging tank can defeat Nada's strike force. The damage is done; Casy's mineral line is severly underpopulated, and once again he switches to wraith harass to even things out. Nada has goliaths and scan ready quickly, and the wraiths do little damage, despite being invisible. Nada is now clearly in the lead, with Casy trying very hard to play catch-up. He establishes his own expansion, but without means to do any pressure he lets Nada build up his forces and fortify his holdings further.
Casy sieges a small tank force right above the temple walls, but Nada just walks over it with goliaths and some tanks. Beautiful goliath control btw, moving during the cooldown and stopping when they are ready. A dropship picks up some goliaths and drops them behind Casy's main mineral line, frying a few more workers before Casy can react and clear the field. Just a distraction, Nada is just keeping Casy occupied while he does his massive macro thing and moves into end-game. He moves now two dropships into location to drop 4 tanks below Casy's nat, but Casy spots it with a dropship of his own and gets the tanks with some goliaths.
Casy, trying to gain some momentum, takes 3 dropships of his own and sets up camp in Nada's main. It works, but only because Nada just dumped most of his army in Casy's main! Casy takes the bet and continues his attack while clearing his main, losing most of his workers (again) in the process. With some hasty reinforcements he clears Nada's main, leaving only two burning factories defended by tanks.
And this is where the real Casy finally shows up. Nada still controls his natural and a new base down at 6, but Casy ignores the lack of workers in his bases and goes all-in with simultanious drops both at the 6 base and Nada's natural. Nada counters with his last forces, but Casy ignores it and lets his natural go while destroying Nada's income completely. Nada takes down Casy's natural, but is stopped by workers and a few factory units at the main, leaving him with .. nothing.
Casy takes the win with an absolutely fantastic comeback. Nada held the game firmly and was slowly dismatling Casy, but a brilliant counter-attack and a few perfect decitions from Casy turned the game completely around. Casy analyzed the situation and made the best choices possible in his given situation, giving him a surprise win and another shot at that elusive final.
Nada 2:1 Casy
Game 4 : Longinus II
Here is the situation: Nada is up 2-1, with two games to go. Casy took his time firing up his engines, but if he can keep the momentum from last game, he could very well edge out Nada here. Nada has not been the monster we expect him to be so far, winning by clever rushes and losing a game he really should have won on Reverse Temple. It's as exciting as ever!
The game opens with Casy(@7) being the offensive one again, and Nada(@11) going defensive and fast expanding. Casy catches him offguard early with a small vulture/marine force, but apart from halting the expansion progress he does little real damage. Time is always important, and Nada's counterattack is halted by a clever wall of depots and a rax covering Casy's new expansion. Once again wraiths are harassing Nada, killing quite a few workers before Nada can clear the air with goliath and scans.
Nada, somewhat behind at this point, tries to level the field with well-placed spider mines, but Casy takes no damage and deftly clears the field with a tank/vulture combination. True to his agressive nature, he goes forward and engages in combat with Nada's solid army. Nada emerges as the victor, and Casy plants a defensive network of spider mines to buy time for reproduction and further expanding. Nada meanwhile takes to the air with dropships, preparing for the harass game. Casy sets up solid defenses, and Nada's initial drops does little real damage.
Key skirmishes break out all over the map, with expansion control being the main focus of both players. Nada, as expected, controls the larger armies, but Casy impresses the most with his pinpoint drops and near-perfect unit placement. Nada gathers most of his forces around his new 12 base, but Casy counters by dropping a small diversion there and launching another attack at Nada's natural, severly cutting down his scv numbers. Nada counters with a large tank force, but is forced to retreat because of the unpredictable minefields covering the middle of the map.
This is all getting somewhat confusing, so let me sum things up somewhat. At the moment Nada has his main, natural and the 12 gas base. Casy holds his 3 naturals, and the 7 base. Armies are about equal, but Nada lost more workers and is currently only defending, leaving Casy room to take the map uncontested. Casy has also gone into one of his rare macro moments, almost equaling the cheater terran himself (iloveoov) with massive forces appearing from nowhere.
Ok, back to the game. Casy shows the first signs of things to come with 6 dropships heading for Nada's main. Nada sees the ships, and sends all his workers to fight while calling up reinforcements. Casy's dropships contains fewer units than one would expect, but Nada loses most of his workers. Casy is also planting random turrets around the map to spot and disrupt enemy dropship movement. With almost complete map control, Casy is able to set up a strong force at Nada's mineral only, further halting Nada's ground movements. Casy is clearly ahead on every point at this point.
Remember that containment force? The always aggressive Casy gets tired of them sitting around and drops them right on Nada's natural insted. Deals a lot of damage, but Nada is patiently waiting now and clears the field with dropships of his own. Also clears out a large drop aimed at his important 12 base, leaving Casy semi-neutralized for a short time. Nada temporarily takes the army advantage, but has to act fast before Casy's now massive economic lead kicks in. Casy now has a grand total of 7 bases, including his mined out naturals. Nada is still stuck with 3.
But despite his current advantage, Nada seems unsure where to strike. His army moves out, but then goes back, clearing some mines and turrets and killing Casy's dropships, but doing nothing to change the economic balance. When he finally commits to a big attack thru the middle, Casy has already matched him and goes head-to-head with overwhelming numbers of tanks and goliaths. Nada has another ace up his long sleeve and does a doom drop on Casy's 9 expansion, leveling it. Unfortunatly he waited too long, and has no means of stopping Casy's metal from destroying his other bases. When a wing of wraiths meets his dropships mid-air, he types out.
A massive game on its own, it had Casy's name written all over it. His aggressive play was world-class on the tricky plains of Longinus, and Nada found himself outplayed in a big way. It is weird, Nada looked like he was playing rather bad, but it can just as well be explained by Casy playing incredibly well.
Nada 2-2 Casy
Final game : Arkanoid
The final game is again on the map Arkanoid, a map where Nada is great. The question is, can he swing the momentum back to himself after Casy's dominant win in game 4? He has the big game experience to not be nervous, but he has not shown anything great so far in the series. Casy won't lose to cheese again, be sure of it. This will be fought straight up. Either way, the games should be good.
Nada(@11) and Casy(@1) basicly mirror each other. Both going fast expand builds, both doing rax scouting. Casy differ slightly by not killing the obstacles with workers, but rather opting to wait for a marine while mining with cc slightly out of place. Both are also taking their 2nd natural as soon as possible. Their strategies differ by Nada being the one to go wraiths for once, and Casy instead opting for a 4 factory goliath drop build. Nada's build evolves into a tank/wraith build, while Casy choses to stay with only goliaths and clearing a path thru the neutral buildings.
Nada stays calm and is content with observing Casy and wait for the opening move. It comes a bit quicker than expected, as Casy levels Nada's 2nd natural with a 12-goliath drop. A quick followup against the other natural gets a few workers, but nothing major. Things are looking about equal, but Nada's army is more diverse, currently consisting of tanks, goliaths and a supportive group of wraiths. Nada is expertly using the wraiths for scouting and dropship sniping, not risking harass at this point. Casy counters by random turrents again, while also expanding his armies with tank support.
While Casy is busy clearing the center and setting up strategic forces, Nada is happy taking is slow for now. His wraiths are limiting Casy's expansions, and a few dropships are flying around to control the free bases. Both have 3 bases now, with Nada taking a 4th and Casy focusing on aggression again. Casy looks slightly in the lead with more troops and more map control.
With the wraiths currently disrupting his expansion options, Casy choses to commit to a large attack on Nada's right natural. Sets up a scary tank line and starts blasting away. Nada can't defeat the assault, but after taking heavy losses sets up a defensive line of tanks, bringing the situation to a stalemate. Nada is also silently expanding down the map, now bringing his base count to 5.
Casy brings in dropships to break the stalemate, but Nada responds with dropships of his own and ends up on top. With that move, Nada put himself firmly in the driver's seat. Casy now has two things to do; damage Nada's expansions and starting his own. Neither will be easy against a Nada with two more bases and a solid standing army.
Casy goes about it without breaking a sweat. Nada focuses on denying Casy any new expansions, but Casy focuses entirely on expansion attacks and takes down two bases in quick succession. Unfortunatly it is not enough, as Nada is brilliantly swinging dropships and manouvering his scary armies around the map, taking down Casy's troops and buildings wherever he goes.
Casy, desperate in the face of Nada's overwhelming power, sets up whatever defenses he can gather in a last-ditch attempt to halt the oncoming onslaught. But it is all in vain. Nada is all over him now, and the game is already decided. Nada's metal rolls over Casy's desperate attempts and sends him into defeat.
Nada shows his mastery of game management and comes back after a weak opening. He used his options to full effect and managed to deny Casy the extra money that would have made the result different. Casy got a bit over-agressive and lost ground in the economics battle.
Nada 3-2 Casy
An amazing series of entertaining games that went right down to the wire. Nada looked like he would take it quick, but Casy abused his holes in game 3 and 4 and showed world-class TvT. To my eyes Casy was the most impressive today, his amazing control is madly impressive and his ability to change games is right up there with the man he is said to replace. Nada looked a bit shaky, with the last game being the only one that really showed him playing well. Good luck to him in the finals, where he will face the winner of Savior and Iris.
Read the winner's interview here and remember to thank joohyunee for his excellent translation.
Scroll down to read Mani's great report on the 2nd semifinal. He has VODs! And that reminds me, these TvT games are all worth watching. Grab them from ilovecat's www.sc2.org or from out very own torrent tracker.
