Game of the Match: Beast vs. Mind (set 1)

Game 1: beast vs. Mind on Fighting Spirit
Beast's ineffectual mutalisk harassment was unable to hurt Mind's economy or his marines. Beast was restricted to defending for most of the rest of the game after that, which he did credibly but which ultimately allowed Mind to out-expand him and get a huge army and economy. Mind did a great job of handling Beast's attempts at harassment and he had a powerful, well upgraded mech force by the time Beast broke out with ultralisks, allowing him to crush the zerg army and take the game.

Game 2: SalDaGa vs. Mind on Ciruit Breaker
Saldaga went two base stargate and made corsairs with disruption web before carriers. Mind moved out with his tanks and Saldaga used disruption web to break the initial contain. This success proved short lived however, as Saldaga's small army got recontained almost instantly and, with better spread tanks on Mind's part, Saldaga's corsairs were of little use. Mind mined up the outside of Saldaga's natural and took his mineral third while Saldaga waited for two carriers, which were not to break through a well prepared Mind. Mind busted through the natural and won the game.

Game 3: Sky vs. Mind on Electric Circuit
Sky seemed to be playing for the extreme late game, playing safely and expanding more slowly than Mind without any meaningful offense. He finally passed Mind on bases (5 vs. 4) at the thirteen minute mark of the game, about the same time he attacked into Mind's mech force outside his natural. Sky seemed to be going for a pre 2-1 timing, but his only +1 attack upgrade also wasn't finished, and Sky got demolished attacking into sieged tanks. Mind's upgrades finished and he moved out onto the map with a huge army, which crushed through Sky's fourth and fifth bases while Sky frantically tried to get a carrier fleet. Mind coolly made goliaths and continued attacking, and Sky had no choice but to gg.

Game 4: HiyA vs. Mind on Mist
Mind put on a little pressure by going two factories before machine shop, using his extra vultures to push Hiya back into his natural, and then landing his barracks to block Hiya from getting out of his main. Hiya kept the pressure on with his starport, using a dropship to harass Hiya's scvs while simultaneously moving out onto the map with his tank lines. Hiya's third was quicker than Mind's, but the pressure that Mind applied allowed him to expand to his fourth more quickly, and Hiya was forced to build four starports to try to get back map control. The gambit seemed to work at first, giving Hiya the mobility he needed to snipe dropships and break tank lines, but Mind reconfigured his composition with more goliaths and ultimately won the final engagement on the back of his superior economy.

Game 5: Killer vs. Mind on Neo Jade
Killer went two hatch mutalisks at vertical positions on Jade. He built a fast third hatch in his main while also taking an early third gas, so Killer's initial mutalisks, while well controlled, did not have the numbers to really carve into Mind's army or his scv line. Still, Killer did a good job of keeping Mind back while he got his tech up, but an unfortunate engagement outside Mind's natural lost killer five of his early lurkers, after which Mind decisively attacked into Killer's natural. After a tense battle, Mind's forces proved too tenacious for Killer, and Mind completed the all-kill as Killer left the game.






Game of the Match: Zero vs. Movie (Set 2)

Game 1: Snail vs. Movie on Fighting Spirit
Snail went for the six hatch four base zerg macro opening against Movie. This build starts out very defensive, but is supposed to shift once the zerg has all his hatcheries producing and can move out with a ton of zerglings and hydras and lurkers. Snail never managed to transition into the offensive phase of the build, constantly being kept on the back foot by corsairs and zealot attacks. Movie was free to expand and build up a big army which at length he used to bust through Snail's natural and win the game.

Game 2: ZerO vs. Movie on Circuit Breaker
Zero went five hatch hydra against a corsair zealot build from Movie that was very similar to his game against Snail. However, once Movie had his corsairs, he built a robo and got shuttle speed and produced shuttles for harassment continuously for the remainder of the game. Most of the action was at Zero's bases, where his multitask was pushed to the limit by constant harassment. Movie managed to kill a lot of drones of Zero's, but Zero also did a good job of killing shuttles and catching them after they had dropped. Movie expanded along the north and kept his army on his side of the map, relying on harassment to keep the zerg pressured. Zero's larvae were constantly being diverted to rebuilding drones, and he was usually only one base ahead of Movie, but the expenditure of constantly making shuttles and templars to fill them eventually cost Movie, as Zero attacked him out of position at Movie's natural and brok through to the main while fighting efficiently against Movie's forces. Once he got a hold, Zero kept attacking, pressing his advantage and preventing Movie from rebuilding an army.

Game 3: ZerO vs. Kwanro on Electric Circuit
Zero went twelve hatch and Kwanro went twelve pool. Zero greedily split his larvae between drones and zerglings when his pool finished, and Kwanro fought his way in. Because twelve hatch gets lair before speed, while twelve pool gets speed before lair, Kwanro's zerglings caused havoc in Zero's main, running around and killing drones. Zero's economy was much weaker from that point, and Kwanro finished him with zerglings as each player's spire was finishing.

Game 4: Brave vs. Kwanro on Mist
Kwanro opened with nine pool and ran three zerglins into Brave's main, where he killed off four probes. Kwanro followed that up with five hatch hydra and easily busted the front, winning the game.

Game 5: ZergMaN vs. Kwanro on Neo Jade
Zergman twelve pooled while Kwanro nine pooled with speed. Although Kwanro's initial zerglings were easily defended, he waited for his spire to finish and started attacking again with mutalisks. Zergman was prepared with sunkens, but Kwanro hovered over the ramp between his main and natural and sniped Zergman's lings while his own lings harassed Zergman's main. Zergman built up a bunch of zerglings of his own and countered, but Kwanro defended with his mutas and, now with the ling advantage, killed off the spore in Zergman's natural, leaving him defenseless against the mutas and forcing him to gg.

Game 6: PianO vs. Kwanro on Blue Storm
Kwanro nine pooled, but Piano was able to defend the zerglings with good scv and marine micro. Piano responded by getting a second barracks and trying to counter with marines, but Kwanro wisely built defenses instead of greedily droning off the nine pool. The early barracks gave Piano more production than Kwanro expected in the midgame, however, and Piano was able to break the sunken line at Kwanro's natural just as the mutas were finishing. Kwanro lost most of his mutas defending the bio force, and was unable to defend the followup attack.

Game 7: PianO vs. Cola on New Sniper Ridge
Piano eight raxed, but Cola was able to defend the bunker rush with minimal losses by pulling his drones. Piano followed up with +1 five rax and attacked Cola's three sunkens just as his lurkers were morphing with six medics in his composition. He easily broke the sunkens, and Cola's muta micro was not up to engaging the formidable bio force. Cola's lurkers were killed as soon as they finished and he conceded the game.

Game 8: PianO vs. Mong on Circuit Breaker
Piano built a proxy rax in the middle of the map, which he used to do a delayed attack with three marines , which delayed Mong's factory. From there, Piano just continued to abuse tech advantages, first halting Mong's expo by being two vultures up on him, then killing off all his scvs with cloaked wraiths and drop ships. Mong was always a step behind Piano, and quickly lost the game.

Game 9: PianO vs. Zeus on Fighting Spirit
Piano did some damage early with excellently controlled vultures, and then took a hidden third at the six o'clock expansion. Zeus scouted the base as he was gearing up to take his own third, but by then Piano had already finished his command center at twelve, and he just transferred the scvs across the map. As his +1 finished, Piano moved across the map with his mech army, setting up and building turrets just outside Zeus's natural. Zeus had one arbiter, but wasn't able to get an effective stasis off, leaving his ground army to attack into the metal ball to their death. Piano pressed into Zeus's natural, and Zeus tried to fight off production for a minute before accepting it was futile and surrendering.






Game of the Match: Bisu vs. hero (Set 8)

In the last match of the week we saw SKT taking on STX. SKT was second to last in Sonic Proleague so far with 0-1 score, so they were desperately searching for a win. They were probably too much relying on Bisu to not lose, but hero proved us that Bisu is a mere mortal after all, beating him in an amazing game on Circuit Breaker. Unfortunately for STX though, SKT had one player left for the last game, and unluckily for hero, it was a Terran player. sSak managed to beat hero in the last game and take a much needed win for SKT, but it was a really hard earned win. Bisu will need to go in a godlike mode if SKT wants to climb on the top of the ranks.



We haven't had a detailed battle report in our write-ups in quite a while, but this game was too good to let it go unreported. I'll also try to use a different style in describing the game, where I'll let pictures (and animations!) do most of the talking on how the game went, which will hopefully make it seem like you were actually there, watching it live. The second match of Woongjin Stars against CJ started on the Circuit Breaker, with Movie spawning at the top right corner and ZerO at the bottom right.

Game started relatively standard with both players opting for a safe openings. Movie went for a fast expand, building corsairs to scout what Zerg is doing and going for a really fast high templars to defend himself from any potential fast hydra attack from the Zerg. ZerO on the other hand, went for a 12-hatch build and getting a fast third base at the bottom left natural expansion. After the first eight minutes of both players just building their economy, ZerO has made a group of hydras to put pressure on the wall of Movie. Movie was well prepared for it with his early high templars and storm.

ZerO continued making hydras and rallying them to the front of Movie's base, hoping to contain him long enough and stop him from getting his third base. He also got his fourth base at the bottom left main base. Movie, without having enough units to move out of his base yet, decided that the best course of action would be to do a harass of his own. And it payed off.

A minute later, Movie got enough of ground units and with support of high templares, moved out of his base to get a second expansion. Of course, ZerO would have none of that and with still a considerable amount of hydra force left, he denied Movie's first attempt at getting that base.





Movie then regrouped his units and decided that it would be a better option to draw ZerO's units elsewhere on the map, so he can safely expand behind it. Unfortunately though, he underestimated the ZerO's hydra number and with some excellent storm dodging, ZerO managed to kill most of the Movie's units quite handedly.





It was not all doom and gloom for Movie though. His initial plan worked and he did manage to get his expansion up while that attack was going on. At this point in the game, both players decided to stick to their own side of the map with Movie expanding yet again at the 12 o'clock and ZerO enforcing his economy while also building units. Since none of them wanted to directly attack their opponent because they both had strong defense, Movie decided to employ his guerilla tactics of drop harass, or as I like to call it, a place where shuttles go to die.





But every now and then, a drop would work beautifully and it just makes you wonder if it was all worth it just to see such satisfaction.

While all of these drop shenanigans were going on, both players expanded even more, taking almost every single expansion on their side of the map. Seeing his units spread thin and being really tired of killing shuttles, ZerO took an opportunity and attacked the main base of Movie which was not that well defended.





With the help of the swarm, cracklings and some very well-placed lurker egg blocks, he managed to take most of the buildings in Movie's main base.

The game was really hectic at this point, with both players trying to attack and defend at the multiple fronts. ZerO tried to take a mineral-only expansion of Movie, but with reinforcement of two reavers arriving at just the right time, Movie managed to defend it, at least for a little while longer.





Though his other mineral-only expansion was not so lucky.





Another two expansion fall down to just a couple of Zerg units under the swarm.





Movie wasn't standing still while his bases were falling down though. He managed to kill a six o'clock expansion of ZerO with a couple of DTs and then killing a bunch of drones at the other two expansions.




When all was said and done, Movie was left with the top left expansion which he was gonna try to defend as hard as he can with a handful of units, while ZerO was left with really poor economic situation and most of his drones dead, but he had a very big army left with which he had to finish Movie's last stand.





Without much thinking, ZerO attacked with all he got, dropping ultras on top of Movie's units and swarming all over the place.

And just when it seemed like Movie will barely hold, ZerO pulls out a brilliant move of loading two additional ultras into his almost dead overlord and drops them again on top of Movie's units and kills the last two reavers, who were pretty much Movie's only chance of defending.

Knowing that if he defended, he would probably have won the game, Movie hesitated a bit, but upon seeing more Zerg units pouring in, he had to GG in the end. And a good game it was indeed.

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WRITERS: mustaju, nbaker and 2Pacalypse-
GRAPHICS: KasPra