[BW Blog] Almost choked against All-in

So I spawn at the 5 o’clock position on Fighting Spirit, as a brown Terran.

And my opponent, craftly-_-) spawns at 7 o’clock position, as a purple Zerg.


Comment #1: Brown is my least fav terran color, but whenever I play a game worthy of a blog, I just seem to happened to be brown. -_-
Comment #2: Pay attention to his name now. craftly…..and -_-)….ironically prophetic combo.

I open up with 1 rax fe, standard as ever.



He opens up with aggressive 9 pool speed


My scv finds him at 7 and I see the 9 pool,
but unfortunately, as I try to see if he got gas, his lings surround my scv and kill it.


And he bolts straight towards my base… except he doesn’t know where I am yet, so he wrongly goes towards 1 at first.



As for me, I follow the standard protocol against 9 pool, by bringing scvs to block the ramp hohoho.



Meanwhile, his overlord wanders deep into my territory and finds my base,

but for a price of his life.


His zerglings try their shot at my ramp,

but scvs are too buff. Even with 1 marine, I am safe.


His overlord tries his luck at escape, but is mercilessly executed by my marine,

which gives him an early unnecessary supply block.

Since he started out with a pool first build, this should hurt.
But my foe and his brain trust have devised an evil scheme…
He builds his 2nd hatchery in his main and techs to lair. One can only guess that this will be a super fast 2 hat lurker build.


I meanwhile start my cc in my main. Better safe than sorry.


And surprise, surprise….he builds a hydra den for a 2 hat lurker build.



I manage to sneak an scv out to scout what he’s up to. (I don’t want to lose to some mass speedling all-in)


But to my surprise he has yet to take his natural, didn’t even start it.


I send the scv to 9 to see if he is pulling Snow on me, but no hatchery there either.



Having lost to 1 hat lurker not long ago, I immediately suspect he is going 1 hat lurker. I realize that I’m against an all-in again, so I embrace for the storm by building plenty of bunkers, but my opponent and his military advisers have devised a clever shenanigan.


I thought he was going to wait until lurker and then attack with full force rather than engaging in small skirmish, but reducing my marine count was very fruitful for him.


My bunker finish in time (without which I would have straight up died here) and some of his lings make it into my base, but my superb scv drilling makes his lings look silly.




And since I’m 100% certain he is going lurkers (who would go muta?) I research range before stim.


As soon as I have scan, I scan his base, and lo and behold, I see a hydra den, lurker, lurker eggs, and hydra.



But because I rushed for academy for scan and ebay for turrets, I only have 1 rax! I hurry to build a 2nd barrack


and build even more bunkers to be full-proof against this all-in (even though there weren’t even enough marines to go around)


I am also very wary of two pronged slow lurker drops (I’ve lost games to that strat a few times), so I build turrets to insure that doesn’t happen.



I was so 100% confident that my defense is water-proof against anything he can throw at me. All that was needed to happened now is him suiciding his army into my bunkers (or die in mid-air to turrets) and me making another cheeser look stupid.

But this opponent was not to be underestimated. Having graduated from the Sun Tzu University of Strategies & Tactics, he knew fully well of how to avoid the enemy’s strength and attack the weakness.
He attacks me from the front, and since I lost lots of marines from earlier ling attack combined with the fact that so much money was invested in fast ebay and turrets which delayed 2nd rax, I only had 7 marines.


But bunkers + imba-ness of repair made me feel 100% confident I will clean his attack up, but he had a completely different plan. RUNBY!



What my face probably looked like when this happened + Show Spoiler +

Unfortunately for him, the adrenaline from watching his masterplan work briefly made him too excited to micro properly. As a result, one his 3 lurkers gets lost during the heat of battle and found himself wandering near my gas.

He was cold bloodedly executed by my scvs.


But my main, which is completely vulnerable, is in no shape to defend the lurkers.
With no medic and 7 marines, I do not trust my micro to kill these lurkers. If I end up losing all my marines without killing both of them, I cannot defend myself from 2nd and 3rd wave of lurker ling attack.
I decide not to leave my nat empty to rescue the main. I transfer all my scvs to my nat and abandon ship the main.



This sucks, but game is far from over.
I send my scouting scv back to his nat, and to my HUGE RELIEF, he hasn’t taken his natural STILL.


He is definitely all-inning on one base, so I’m not that behind if at all. (says my brain during game).
My worst fear in this kind of situation would be if he just contains me in my natural with lurkers and starts expanding and macroing.

He arrogantly morphs his lurker on my bridge in plain sight, but loses one of his lurker due to carelessness.




Having shut down my main, he smells blood in the water.
He tries to shut down my natural as well, which would guarantee him the victory.

But he was way too eager, as 1 lurker was not enough to survive the beatings from mass scvs.




But the two lurkers that are in my main is absolutely on a tear, destroying everything in their sight, starting with the scanner.



Since my entire main is a danger zone, I am forced to lift my barracks to a well detected, well defended natural.



Even though we’re both on 1 base mining, I feel very ominous.
Detection off 1 scanner won’t cut it in the long run, which means I have to rely on turrets for detection.
And most importantly, HE dictates how much real estate I can own with his lurkers contain. So much to build, not enough space down here.

So… my solution? + Show Spoiler +

Back in my main, I lose the ebay due to carelessness(forgot to cancel the upgrade too QQ), but I save the cc(which is the only thing that’s important. At least that’s what I tried to convince myself xD). However, the supply depots are at lurkers’ mercy.


Back in his lair, there is a fierce debate going on amongst his brain trust.
The Extremists argue that units must be constantly pumped in order to end the game, while the Moderates argue enough damage was done and that they should expand and drone.
My opponent appears to appease the Moderates by taking the natural



I have to rebuild my ebay, and I am soon put in a horrendous situation by being supply blocked.



Man, being supply blocked when your opponent is all-inning is like a death sentence, and I knew that.
So I have no choice but to cram my nat even more by building depots there,

and because I’m supply blocked, my proxy factory is rendered useless for the time being which was a huge blow as I wanted that vulture asap.


I can ominously feel the tide turning against me more and more with this supply block.
For insurance detection, I put more turrets up in my natural. This is my only base now, I cannot allow this to breached or I lose.


Then, suddenly, before I can even have a chance to unsupply block myself, something appears out of the fog in what I could only describe at the time as….IMPOSSIBLE number of lurker & lings.



The sheer size scared the crap out of me, and I don’t even know how he massed that many lurkers, but with my barracks acting as simcity and bunker + repair being the bane of lurker & ling, I somehow survive the scare with pretty minor loss.




And in order to secure the ramp (and claim some land in my main) I build turret and place marines into the bunker on top of the ramp.

As for the rest, only destruction…


Though a dumbfounding result for him, his lurkers manage to make me move my barracks further deep to a safer location, thus exposing my bunkers wide open.

At this point, my natural is pretty darn crowded.


So I have no choice but to gamble and build depots secretly and hope he doesn’t find out.


Immediately when I get unsupply blocked, I pump vultures and decide to give his economy a shaking as well as scout what he’s up to.


Again, to my relief, even though he built a hatchery at the natural, he has no drones there, which probably means he’s not any better economically than me, and he fully intends on pumping out units and going for the kill.


I sneak my vulture in, only to be greeted by zerglings,

but I do manage to get a drone kill before dying, which is favorable for me. In this situation, losing even a single drone will hurt him.


With all eyes being focused on my natural, I float my main cc to 1 o’clock, hoping to start a ninja expansion there.



And more importantly, I decide to go for what would be a game changer if he doesn’t see it coming: Wraiths!



Back at the 9 o’clock, I figure sending 1 vulture at a time isn’t that great, especially if he built sunkens to defend, so this time, I wait till I have 4, and then I charge in.
I didn’t care what the status of his defense was; I needed this vulture raid to WRECK HAVOC to tilt the game to my favor.



And wreck havoc they deeeed.
To the SHOCK of his advisers, my foe shows his true face of madness, ordering all his drones to work until death, rather than flee, even at the face of vultures.



And once starport is done, and I queue up some wraiths, which I hoped to be game changer.
I can start to feel slightly good about my chances of winning this game.


Most of his units were at the frontline, so he was in pretty bad shape to defend his base from my vultures. Being an attack-minded player that he is, instead of coming back to protect his economy, he decides that I have been left to hang around for too long and time is ripe to finish me off.

He issues an attack command to his impressive sized legion.


With no barracks simcity this time, he breaks my line of defense like a toothpick with a sheer force of will.





I was absolutely stunned by 1. How much lurkers he managed to make again, and 2. How easily my defense collapsed.
I somewhat go into a panic mode.

Even the two lurkers, my bane and his mvps, decides to come join their comrades, but he forgets that I have a loaded bunker at the top of my ramp, severely weakening them as they come down.

And yet again, the scvs take care of business against weakened lurkers.



But tis only the beginning. With the bunkers gone, I now have nothing to protect my economy from this FRIGHTENING number of lurkers.


I too show some madness by ordering my scvs to fight unto death, but they are no match for this legion of lurkers


and I am forced to lift my cc, leaving myself officially not mining. SHIT




But then I looked at his base and thankfully to my vultures, NEITHER IS HE!




And great news! 1st wraith have popped!



I immediately send him to hunt down overlord and give him a taste of being supply blocked in emergency times.
And I remembered that I have a cc floating at 1, so I land it to start a new life and hopefully win this game.



Except…..one problem.

19 minerals….I’m not mining.

My reaction + Show Spoiler +

Whatever hope I may have had all just got extinguished. All he needs to do now is bring back his lurkers to protect his mineral line from my vulture and make some hydras to fend off wraiths, and slowly drone. I AM FUCKED!

But just then, a helping hand comes in the most unexpected way imaginable.

Turns out that I had 4 marines queued up at my barrack, which was being destroyed by his lurkers.


And when it was destroyed, guess what? XD



I had no idea where 200 minerals came from during the game. I was probably in a state of panic, just going like, “wow….I’m in for a slow depressing painful loss.” and then, 200 minerals!



Back in my natural, only trail of destruction and ruinous heap cover what once was a metropolis.



Meanwhile, his disgruntled defense advisers are able to convince him that making hydras are a useful talent toi have when fending off vultures, so he makes hydras and cleans up my vultures at his main.


But at his nat, I still have some vultures + wraith, who now joined the fight.


He has no idea about my ninja expansion, so he thinks I’m hopeless but not leaving because I want to be bm.
Because of this, despite his tacticians and strategists begging him to play safe by retreating his lurkers to defend his base, my opponent doesn’t see the need for it.
He will enter the elimination race, let economy be damned.







With the skin his teeth, my 3rd vulture takes out his last hydra with 1 attack worth of hp left.



Back in my base, my opponent’s madness causes the greatest grief to his army, the death of the most valiant lurker.



Nevertheless, emboldened and angered by the death of their best warrior, the lurkers wipe out and burn down my Fort Ramp.



Craftly-_-) then carelessly makes a drone with his last 50 mineral WHILE my vultures are hovering around for prey.


His refusal to bring back his lurkers to defend has finally costed him BIG TIME as he officially cannot make any more units.


On the other hand, I am slowly rebuilding in stealth. Hope is gaining power by the minute.


UNTIL an unwelcomed creature reveals his ugly face out of the fog.


My opponent when he is informed that I have a running ninja expo. + Show Spoiler +

Probably the death blow to his psych. He entered the elimination race banking on a premise that my only mining base was my natural.
Now, the scenario that he wished he never had to think about it culminating into reality right before his eyes.

I have money saved up, and my now sizable air force has taken full control of his base.


At this point, I’m not certain how much money he has in his bank, but as long as my wraiths kill all his overlords, he can’t make more units.

And as expected, his lurkers eventually come to deny me the mining base, but I calmly lift the cc and make scvs run.
I’m feeling pretty good about my chances now.



Still, it’s going to take forever to destroy all his buildings with just vultures and wraiths, so I leave the vultures to take care of whatever he makes, and bring the wraiths home to whittle down his army.




Watching his pride, the lurkers, being ruthlessly hunted down with no way of retaliation is too much for him to bear.
As impossibility of victory becomes clearer and depression sets in, my opponent has his entire brain trust executed for incompetence and orders his henchman to pull the plug for him.




Losing to a SCOUTED cheese/all-in is like the biggest disgrace ever, but somehow my decisions and his mistakes fitted perfectly together to make a lethal situation for him. I was so ready to be disappointed at myself throughout the game should I lose.

I probably haven’t played too many games where I’m able to experience the emotional roller coaster of going from supreme confidence to speechlessness, to fear, to hope, to despair, to finally slowly going, “oh my…Am I…ACTUALLY GONNA WIN?”

Hope you enjoyed it.
Thanks for reading.

For those who wish to experience this real time http://repdepot.net/replay.php?id=53523