EPTWe saw three good games between players we where expecting to perform and expecting to bring the excitement levels. The final match of the day however wa s between two of the smaller names on the SOSPA scene and we where all expecting the event to wind down and many viewers in time zones that requiired them to be awake in the middle of the night probablly went back to bed.
Big mistake! We saw a really special game with GuemChi doing what turned out to be a highly specialized build specifically for them map. But it looked to many that he had just lost it and didn't no what race he was playing. He was expanding ahead of a forge and a cannon. Does he thing he’s playing PvZ?
Last responds with at first confusion just like the rest of us. He decides his best option is to put on some pressure and decides to bunker rush. GuemChi’s first gateway just finishing around the time the bunker is started he has no unit’s to defend initially. However Last hasn’t planned to bunker rush, he hasn’t even considered getting marine range. GuemChi is able to build a cannon that reachs the bunker whilst out of range itself. The gateway survives by the skin on GuemChi’s teeth with a little bit of micro from his only Zealot forced to sacrafice himself for Aiur or at least to let the first Dragoon get out and push back the remaning marines. How close GuemChi came to losing his only Gateway at this point forces to me ask not for the last time in this game whether this is genious or crazyiness I am watching.
GuemChi has now won himself about a minute reprieve as Last’s reinforcements must walk the long way around thanks to Peaks Of Baekdu’s unique architecture. Last’s next attack packs 2 Siege armed tanks and a small contingent of marines to guard them. As the shelling starts GuemChi chooses to engage straight away and succeeds in neutralising one of the tanks for the loss of almost every thing yet to emerge from his Gateways.
GuemChi has no more cards to play untill his Reaver is out and Last’s attack reduced to just one tank and a few marines looks to vulnerable to push in for now. Last is content to siege down the Gateway and Forge Whilst GuemChi stares at his Robotics Bay just waiting for that Reaver the one and only hope to keep him in this game.
That hero finally arrives and enters the the fray and with a flash of glorious electric blue that illuminates the battlefield Vultures and Marines start exploding. But the Hero in that Reaver can only do so much and it itself combusts in a tragic burst of that same blue coloured light.
Last thinks he has won now. Tanks heavily damaged but still alive and now there is no Protoss army to stop his push. He mines the high ground to stop anything produced from the now four pesky Gateways at the top of the ramp. The marines and tanks move in to take care of the now forefit Nexus.
The fight proceeds to a new desperate low for our Protoss hero. Tanks sieged at the bottom of his ramp their support struts forced into the remains of what was once the Protoss natural base shelling GuemChi’s production facilities. The new Dragoon blood freshly out on the battlefield fight desperately for their lives alongside anouther Reaver hero firing from good postions amongst the burning Gateways they call their home down upon Last’s artillery offering a brutual bombardment in return themselves.
Finally a round of Zealots comes forth from the midst of the burning gateways and a new plan is devised to clear the Terran forces from this precious Protoss soil.
Maneuvering to come from behind a task force of Zealots jump from the skies followed by the reaver whilst the two remaning Zealots bravelly run down that ramp into a caldron of fire and shells. Almost everyone committed to this desperate attack lost their lives but crucially the Terran attack is neutralised. The Protoss forces have defended almost to the last man their base.
It’s around this stage that it becomes apparent that Last is not in a good situation. He should have more SCV’s than he has. He should have more production facitlites or have taken his natural himself and be in a better place economically. But he had commited everything to that attack and he is looking vulnerable now. Now it’s time for the next in the line of Heroic Reavers to go to work in the Terran mineral line. The hunt isn’t entierlly sucessful the Reaver sacrifices it’s self for only 3 SCV’s. But Last has such a small economy every miner lost on the line is crucial at this point.
The game goes oddly quiet as both players try to improve their perilous economic positions and macro up some kind of army to compete in the fight to come.
The ground selected for the final battle is a small stretch of flat ground outside GeumChi’s Natural base. This will be where the war is decided. Last’s Wraith scouts high above the battlefield inform the tropps below that the Protoss are coming. The warning gives the tank commanders time to set up their artillery postions and get a shield of Vultures in front of them. There is either no time left or no mines left to plant mines in front of them a fact that might well decide this fight. The Wraiths priority now is to spot and engage the shuttle. They know the most powerful, most deadly Protoss weapon lies inside tha shuttle and it is their job to take it out. Spotting the shuttle dropping the first of those deadly Reavers and knowing it might allready be to late the Wraiths bravely dart forward to annihilate that shuttle. In doing so they expose themselves to the ant air fire from the Dragoons marching forwards. Both Wraiths are shot down in seconds and the shuttle survives. The Wriath pilots did everything they could.
With no air support no mines in the ground and both reavers able to fire and retreat back to their shuttle the battle is over The Terran army is wiped from the map no prisoners are left to tell what happended. In truth the Protoss army was probablly always going to win the engagent and win this war. But it was not for a lack of bravery from the Terran pilots and commanders who lost their lifes this day.
GuemChi has just Forge fast expanded against T and lived to see anouther day he can not even believe it himself.
Last is a broken man.
He’s broken today. But he will have the last laugh.
9 Days have now past since Last lost to GuemChi and he has had a lot of time to think about what has happended. He’s analysed the game from every angle watched the replay 100 times. He still can’t believe he didn’t win. He curses his luck, he curses Peaks Of Baekdu’s architecture. Give me a straight fight GuemChi I will beat you next time.
But that is not how the SSL works his next fight is against HiyA and if he losses he is out. He watches HiyA’s games, he watches HiyA’s stream and he realises this fish means trouble. He stares at his dwinderling supply ramen and dreams of been able to afford to eat Galbi for dinner instead. Getting out of his group would be worth ₩1,000,000. That’s a lot of Galbi. His mind starts to wonder and he devises a plan. An awful, evil plan.
Straight away the commentaory team know something wrong. Three of Last’s SCV’s are mining but one loan SCV has a different mission, it forges out into the night knowing exactly where HiyA’s forces lie and knowing excatly what is to come next. On the high ground just outside HiyA’s natural a Barracks begins to be constructed.
HiyA doesn’t scout yet, he’s got this in hand Last can’t compete with him in any kind of normal TvT. Perhaps that should have been the clue.
Last’s SCV finishes the Barracks and continues on to the next step in the wicked scheme. A bunker is started just on the edge of the cliff into HiyA’s main. Out of range of the Barracks but crucially out of sight for now.
HiyA decides he better go and see what Last’s up to. There’s not likely to be anything he can’t deal with but it’s best to prepared. Straight away he runs into trouble there’s a bunker been built just below the entrance to his main. The implications run though his head. Trouble.
Five SCV’s are taken from the line. They must intercept the marines and not let them get in that bunker.
Last’s SCV puts the final stage of the plan into action and boldly starts a second bunker in range of HiyA’s Barracks. With 1 marine out for Last and the next on the way this single marine on the map can take pot shots at the SCV’s trying to stop the bunker going up and forces their attention onto himself. He’s able to run back to the safety of the already finished bunker whenever HiyA's SCV's come out to try and surround him and they are forced to fall back and focus their attention on the bunker again.
There’s nothing the SCV’s can do. They can’t stop the bunker going up under fire from that marine and everytime they go back to try and kill the marine he jumps into the bunker. HiyA’s only hope was to use all of his SCV’s and perhaps divide them between the threats and I still don’t know that would have worked. He’s rapidly running out of options. His Barracks finally finishes and he has a tough split second choice. To start building the marine where the Barracks is now or to lift off and move out of range of the bunker knowing by the time he finishes his first marine then Last will probablly have 4 or 5 marines. Neither choice is good. He presses 'M'.
HiyA’s SCV’s are forced to watch on as the now 3 marines from Last fire away at HiyA’s Barracks. Realising they can’t just sit back and wacth it burn they time their final attack to coincide with HiyA’s first marine coming out. They surge forward and surround the bunker whilst the HiyA’s marine doesn’t know what has hit him. he marches out of the Barracks into a hail of machinegun fire and is barely even able to return fire before he is cut down. Lasts SCV even attacks Hiya’s poor marine himself doing everything it can to furfill the evil plan. Realising it’s going to be close his last moments are spent repairing the bunker and trying to jump inside it when ever HiyA’s SCV’s themselves focus on him. This SCV has caused a lot of harm to Hiya’s cause by destracting Hiya’s SCV’s, reapairing the bunker when he could but finally he dies a brutal death assualted by fusion cutters from both sides.
But he has done enough. With a fourth Marine arriving and anouther SCV ready to take the place of his fallen comrade. It has become clear the evil plan has succeeded. HiyA is in shock and starting to realise the reality that he must beat Guemchi to stay in the competition. Last knows now that only Larva stands in the way from having Galbi for dinner. He must come up with anouther evil plan.
Five days Latter came the final test for Last in this group. A very rare site in the current age of Broodwar a Zerg Overmind. Not knowing what these elusive creatures are capable of and having five days this time to think of a plan, Last knew what he was going to do.
The Battleground is Fighting Spirit a patch of land filled with the debris and reamins of so many battles down the years. A location both players know very well and there are no secrets here. Last puts his plan into action. He doesn’t act straight away this time he finishes his 5th SCV before anyone knows this isn’t going to be a normal game. Boldly out into the night anouther one of Last’s SCV goes this time it’s impossible to know where Larva’s base might be and the SCV settles for a less trampled patch of grass just off to the east of the middle of the battlefield, somewhere Larva is less likely to scout.
Larva has seen the previous game Last played against HiyA and is aware that Cheese is possible. He sends his overlord to scout to the West and sends a drone up to cut through the middle of the map to look for anything out of place. Seeing nothing suspious in the actual middle of the map Larva decides to send the Drone on to the North East and routes his Overlord to the North after it has found nothing to report in the Natural of the South West base. “There’s nothing suspious going on here, let’s see what Last is really up to” Larva thinks to himself.
The first Marines pop out of the Barracks and are under strict orders to stay quiet, maintain radio silence and to not go anywhere. They must amass a large enough strike force before they are to reveal themselves to the Zerg.
Reaching the top right and fully scouting there’s no Terran presence in the main or the natural Larva is starting to get the jitters a little bit. He tells the Overlord to go back an re-check the main of the South West base and the Drone is give strict orders to make haste to the North West base. Where is Last? Larva has the slight jitters but suspects nothing untoward is going on. So much so that he puts a third hatchery down rather than ordering any Lings to begin their metamorphosis.
Seconds latter things start to go wrong. A SCV marches confidently into Larva’s natural and defiantly starts to build a Bunker followed by the Striker force of 4 marines and anouther SCV.
Larva transfers Five drones to his natural and starts to morph one of them into a sunken. There’s not enough Creep down on the ground yet though to build more than one. Larva is forced to except the truth that he is not going to be able to defend the natural. He reluctantly sends the drones back to his main and considers his options. There aren’t many.
This game is do or die. If Larva wins he’s through to the Ro8. If he losses that’s it he’s out sent home with nothing but regrets and a meager ₩500,000 in his pocket. There must be something he can do. Two drones are taken off the worker line and morph into Creep Colonys. They will form the last line of defense if Last attempts to come up the ramp. But Last isn’t thinking of taking risks. He knows all he has to do is reinforce his current position at Larva’s natural and he will be home and dry.
But it all feels worryingly familiar. Thoughts of what happended against GuemChi start to eat at his confidence. It couldn’t happen again? Could it?
His stomach starts to moan, he won’t eat Ramen for dinner today!
Larva forced to play on one base decides Muta’s are his only hope. He keeps having optimistic pokes with his Lings surely there must be some way he can break the contain. But Last has built a solid wall. Even a Barracks to block any Zerg foolish enough to try and break the blockade. Larva has one last gamble his scouting Drone is still on the map. If he can get a second base up somewhere on the map, maybe just maybe he can get back into the tournment some how.
But no. Last has seen this coming a final evil step in a wicked plan comes to fruition and a loan Firebat selected and recruited just for this job. It gets to the drone miliseconds before it can morph into a hatchery. Flame grilled is Larva’s final hope and flame grilled Last’s dinner will be tonight.
