EPT
Game 1: Mingu (z) vs Zeus (p) on Mercury
Although Mercury has proved to be more advantageous for zerg recently, Zeus was definitely the favorite heading into this one. Eighty three percent of you obviously thought so, as this liquibet was heavily one-sided in Zeus’ favor.
Mingu stamped out the eleven o’clock main as his initial territory and promptly sent his overlord on a beeline for Zeus, who was encamped at eight. Obviously a good start for any zerg, but especially so today as Zeus dropped a forge first, followed by a gate and an assimilator. A cannon warped in between his gas and nexus, and with the placement of his other structures, any early pressure from Mingu would be hard pressed to do any significant damage. For his part, Mingu decided on a twelve pool, but quickly took his natural expansion as his overlord revealed Zeus’ intent.
With the boost from his fast gas, the initial forge was soon grinding out a +1 attack upgrade for the protoss player. A second gateway was added next to the first, and zealots started to make their pilgrimage through the warp gates and onto the terrain. Mingu seemed a little indecisive at this point, simply working with his main and natural before settling on a hydralisk den for lurkers with a lair in progress. With his rapidly increasing number of zealots, Zeus felt secure enough to leave his main base and force Mingu’s patrolling zerglings away from his bridge that leads into the center. With no scouts overseeing his actions, Zeus next put down both a citadel and a stargate in order to pursue his next strategy. For his part, Mingu quickly reacted to the zealot pressure by dropping down a line of four sunkens at his bridge, while he still waited for his lurkers to hatch. It was quite surprising that it took eight minutes for Mingu to get a lurker, especially against a toss that had not moved from his base.
With this delay, Zeus simply continued to build his zealot numbers and then proceeded to cannon his bridge to facilitate the taking of his natural. Finally Mingu got his lurkers evolved, and they set up containment outside the protoss base. Zeus seemed fine with this early on as he had not been very aggressive thus far, but when Mingu tried to start an offensive hatchery on the mid-west expansion outside his ramp, something had to be done. With only a single overlord, Mingu played right into his hands, as a corsair shredded the floating sac into a fine spray, and a cloaked blade slinger emerged from Zeus base to slice up the still morphing hatchery. Although he managed to stop this potentially game ending threat, his lack of observers did not allow Zeus to slaughter any of the still burrowed lurkers in the area.
With his attempt at the mid-west discovered, Mingu re-hatched, but this time it was at the top middle, just across the ramp from his base. Seeing still that Zeus was not coming out anytime soon, Mingu also expanded to the two o’clock main, while continually sending a mix of hydra/lurker units to patrol the area outside nine. With the ever increasing zerg presence, Zeus decided to act and a garrison of speedlots came sprinting across the bridges. However, without any secondary unit support, these noble warriors quickly met their doom as spines ripped them from the bottom up. In the face of this defeat, Zeus loaded up a 4 zealot drop that headed north to Mingu’s main, but two scourge forced him to drop his units off early before the shuttle was kamikazied. As Mingu wiped up the mess left by the two zealots that escaped, Zeus tried once again to escape fro his main, this time with speedlots, and a couple archons, commanded by a high templar. Again, Mingu was up to the task and sent his army to swarm over the protoss units. Although he did not attack back at the protoss natural, Mingu took the opportunity to again expand, boosting his expansion count to four.
By this point in the game, it was obvious that Zeus had one more attack left in him. He gathered his units into formation, with dragoons and observers leading the way, followed by high templars and then speedlots. He took his time with the attack, using his long range goons to take out lurkers, while storming any melee units that tried to come close to his dragoons. He had initial success with the first line of lurkers but was soon forced south due to the high concentration on the path from nine to twelve. This proved to be a fatal mistake as a zerg force encamped at six, and out of the way of any observers, came up to meet the protoss force. Like a hammer and anvil, the protoss army was hammered between the combined weight of lurkers in the north and upgraded hydra/ling in the south, and its destruction triggered the end of the game.
Mingu > Zeus
Zeus seemed to have a confused build early, which gave him no opportunity to pressure the zerg early on. This was definitely a good thing for Mingu, because he started out very sluggishly, and it was only once he put up his second expansion that he really got going. Maybe there just isn’t enough oxygen in the studio.
Game 2: Junwi (z) vs kOs (t) on Biofrost III
A couple of battle tested veterans opened on the Biofrost, each of them eager to prove that they are relevant in the modern broodwar scene.
Junwi took the right side while kOs took the left, and from the hop both players wanted their valuable vespene early. Junwi actually took it on twelve, before his pool, while kOs waited until a barracks blocked his front choke before starting up his refinery. An scv was busy harassing Junwi’s main, but the zerg took his gas natural at three o’clock and dropped a hydralisk den next to his half completed lair. Because of the block at the terran gates, Junwi needed a look inside the other main, so he sent his lings on a journey down the west border of the map to come up through the mineral only expansion. Unfortunately, a supply depot, an scv, and a lone marine stood sentry on the route, and access was denied. It was a good thing for kOs, as he did not want to reveal his double factory build until his first handful of vultures went on the prowl.
As the bikes scooted across the alien landscape, they came upon a sentry of fresh hydralisks blocking access to the zerg third of the map. With a little micro however, kOs was able to get by them and down towards the zerg expansion at three. The gas mining drones did not stand a chance, and vulture grenades quickly dismembered them, while also revealing a spire in the works as well. kOs boosted his factory count to three, while quickly starting up an armory to respond to the now completed spire.
With upgraded vultures having the speed to blast by Junwi’s still meager forces, four more vultures sped across the map, this time heading to the zerg main. They motored up the ramp and in behind the zerg mineral source, forcing Junwi to send all his drones to his expansion. Being careful of mines, he dealt with the threat with a half group of hydras, but the zerg economy was still beleaguered by these delays.
After finally getting his drones back to work, and ridding his base of the vultures, Junwi set about creating a little offence of his own. As he had a completed spire already, he looked to take a technical advantage over kOs by using air units for increased mobility, and to take out any further bike raids. Meanwhile, after discovering the spire, kOs had switched wholly over to ranged goliaths and taken his mineral only expansion in behind his main. Junwi swooped through the area with his aerial force, but enough goliaths had been manufactured to prevent any serious damage. kOs struck back quickly, taking the bottom route across the map and ending up with nine of his bipeds o the ramp underneath the zerg natural. The gattling rounds cut a swath through the few mining drones, and the spire took some hits, but Junwi had reacted quickly and speedlings and mutalisks quickly neutralized the threat. Both players took a breather for a quick minute, replenished their dwindled army numbers, and Junwi took his mineral only while kOs dropped another two factories to take his macro to another level.
When the engagement began again, the terrain revealed a map teeming with goliaths, as kOs had decided on a mono-unit army, while Junwi seemed determined to prove he could own the skies despite his opponents choice of unit. Mutalisks came gliding in again to the terran expansion, but this time it was met by a field of deadly revolving towers. Determined, Junwi reduced four of them to rubble, but in the face of four more turrets and incoming goliaths, he was forced away without halting the mining. kOs had plans of his own at this time, and as he chased away the zerg from one spot, he was pressing in on another as thirty goliaths poured across the map to the gap between the zerg main and natural. It looked as if the game might be up right there as kOs came wading in, but three sunkens guarding the route to the main morphed just in time to join another three leading to the natural and the goliaths were in a sunken vise with mutalisks and a few zerglings clawing away. kOs turned tail to run, and for the third time Junwi headed for the terran expansion. This time, with the goliaths further out of position, the +2 atk mutalisks destroyed the remaining turrets and forced the scv to scatter. As they made their way north to the shiny new terran gas expansion at ten, the mutalisks regrouped with reinforcements in the middle of the map and tried to strike again. By this time, however, kOs had stationed his army at his expansion, and with a constant stream of new recruits coming from his main, Junwi could make no inroads.
kOs now had his gas expansion secure and online, while his army did nothing but grow. Junwi had teched to his hive, and had a greater spire in the works, but his momentum was flagging as he could not seem to deliver the body blow that would cripple the terran and give him the upper hand. Still though, he stuck with his air units, while also getting some andralings and defilers. As the zerg tried to reach the upper levels of his tech, kOs was content to stick with goliaths as he built up scattered stands of turrets to hinder the zergs movement, as well as another command center to take twelve. Once the greater spire was complete, the remaining zerg mutalisks incubated to form guardians, while his zergling numbers continued to multiply. His time to act would be forced upon him quickly though, as kOs had an uncountable number of 1/1 goliaths marching from west to east. Junwi tried to split this force in half by attacking with his new heavy bombers, but the slow moving guardians were pulled too far inland from the cliff and goliaths surged forward, launching massive volleys of missiles at their foe. Junwi really went beyond his reach, and his guard numbers suffered because of it. kOs parked himself again at the zerg choke, and prepared for a colossal assault while taking the expansion at six. The end to the game came quickly, but somewhat unexpectedly, as both players faced off across the narrow choke. kOs had his goliaths in position, but just as Junwi was about to launch a combination andraling/ defiler/ guardian attack at the terran army, a wing of cloaked wraiths came from above and decimated the zerg air force. With no real option, Junwi tried to make it with only his ground troops, but the metal numbers were too strong, and kOs stomped zerglings like AT-AT’s stomp Ewoks.
kOs > Junwi
Junwi did his best to prove that zerg air was superior to terran metal, but in the end kOs just had too much power. The early mobility of air over land units on this map helped keep Junwi in the game for a long time, but once kOs was able to secure his expansions and leave them without fear of having them instantly razed, he kicked his macro into high gear and put on an impressive display.
Game 3: Yooi (t) vs Umbrella (z) on Requiem
Terran took charge up at twelve with a barracks before his depot, but didn’t seem to be trying for a bunker strategy. However, once his scv found Umbrella’s second hatchery at his natural, this is what happened. Thanks to his early barracks, two marines were already double-timing it down the map as a bunker was placed between the hatchery and the zerg ramp. Umbrella was not going to be foiled in his opening game that early though, and eight drones crawled up the ramp and surrounded the structure, forcing the terran to retreat back. Not satisfied with this, Umbrella made sure the threat was done as he chased down two of the marines with his drones and showered them with acid. After sending his drones back to mine, Umbrella now moved out with more menacing units in the form of zerglings, and Yooi had to make haste back to his ramp with his remaining marines as to not lose any more.
After a brief interlude where both players tried to establish themselves, Yooi again came down with ten marines, and this time tries to run down the zerg ramp, which has a complete sunken and one in the making overlooking it from the natural. Umbrella was stalled briefly by a pair of zerglings, and by the time he managed to clear a path, only four souls made it through the gauntlet and into the zerg main. These unfortunate marines were quickly victimized by the hungry zerg, which left terran with very few units back at home.
For his part, Umbrella had shrugged off this early pressure well, and was now in the process of researching lurker tech. Yooi again showed up, this time with four marines and three medics, and he inexplicably tried to go down the ramp for the second time. Umbrella, now fortified with four sunkens at his choke must have giggled inside as he saw these units fall without doing damage, and the only explanation I could think of was a severe mis-click by Yooi. Nonetheless, Yooi continued to send his units south, although now he parked them out of range of the zerg defense and set up a thin perimeter around the zerg exit. Umbrella, still getting a lurker/ling army ready, threaded a drone through the mineral wall of his natural and headed around to the lowered expansion at seven. With a far superior force, he used his lurkers to push out of his natural, and once in the open, he quickly turned the tables on Yooi and chased him back to the top of the map, setting up his own containment just out of range of the marine filled bunkers. Just as it looked like the game would slow momentarily, Yooi once again came roaring back, breaking up the containment with two tanks and a vessel fresh off the production line. With both players commanding significant standing armies in the middle of the map, minor scuffles took place between the two forces, but neither player was willing to commit to an all out battle without having an obvious edge. Yooi tried to gain that upper hand by loading up a dropship and heading towards the zerg expansion at seven, but it flew into a group of advancing hydralisks and the plan met with an abrupt end.
Once again, the two armies circled each other warily around the center cross, until finally they met in the northern side of the map. Yooi charged forward with his two groups of MM, half dozen tanks, and three vessels, but Umbrella was unwilling to make a stand with his hydra/ling/lurk force, and steadily backed up to the west side of the map. With no where to go, he fled down the ramp and into the nine o’clock main, which worked right into Yooi's hands. Quick as you can say MyMicroSucks, Yooi seiged a couple tanks and held a handful of marines at the top of the ramp. With the zerg army trapped, Yooi brought reinforcements down from home which were being produced by the bucketful thanks to a throbbing economy consisting of his main, natural, and soon to be nine clock. Despite losing another dropship, this time to scourge, Yooi was unstoppable as he parked outside the zerg encampment. Umbrella was frantically trying to rebuild an army, and was having moderate success after climbing the tech tree to defilers, but Yooi’s vessels irradiated all of them, which allowed the infantry to blast their way through Umbrella’s expansion. In the heat of the moment, Umbrella managed to out micro the held units at nine, and release his hydra/lurker from their self-imposed exile, but it was too late to save his natural. Instead, he tried to pin the terran army against the remaining minerals at his natural, but his workers had been at it for too long at Yooi managed to escape through the back and head across the bottom of the map towards the zerg expansion at seven. Knowing that losing this expansion would mean death, Umbrella threw all of his units to pursue the platoon, and with his hydra/lurk supplemented by some brand new ultralisks, he saved his expansion and the game.
From this point on, the action came fast and furious, with both players multitasking to the best of their abilities. Zerg tried to make up for his natural loss by expanding to five, but he needed to stop the terran from expanding if he wanted to win the game. Yooi now commanded a large number of vessels, and despite his apparent need to sacrifice some of them on a regular occurrence to scourge, he spent time irradiating every ultralisk he could find. This in turn reduced the number of zerglings around the ultras, and soon it became a problem that Umbrella could not ignore. With the zerg’s attention elsewhere, Yooi sent a strike force of stimmed marines on the short trip down the map and zapped the hatchery at five, just before the tusked behemoths could carve them up. With so much attention focused by the commentators on the bottom half of the map, a quick survey of the northern half showed that Yooi was looking strong with CC’s at one (in the corner), three, and eleven (in the pit). In reality, Yooi could lose as many rines as he liked as long as he had the barracks to replace them.
Umbrella managed to force the three o’clock CC to lift when a group of andrallings had their way with the mining scv, and he did not wait long enough to even kill the scan add-on before dropping a hatchery of his own., because at the same time Yooi was busy mopping up an attempted hatchery at nine with a group of MM. Zerg tried to counter, and take out the force, but a timely dropship swooped in just before the first lings got their and transported the marines to the base at seven. Three marines managed to make the drop before scourge slammed sideways into the ship, tearing it to pieces before it hit the ground. Umbrella took the chance to expand to the seven corner, while Yooi also took another spot. A large terran force of 30 MM and a dozen vessels, maybe finding home a little cramped with all the units, made a break for three o’clock to liberate their scan and refinery. Umbrella countered at the perfect time, and caught the terran stretched out in a line. Bisecting it with ultras, zerglings and scourge, the zerg made short work of the terran army, and Yooi was forced to rapidly D-Matrix his own vessels in order to save even half of them. With the terran cowed into staying home for the moment, Umbrella retook nine and was looking strong. Yooi made another couple stabs at irradiating ultralisks and killing three o’clock, but he only succeeded in losing more of his vessels to the scourge. Umbrella looked to be in control at this point, with three fresh expansions and remnants elsewhere.
Yooi was not done though. His time in the Challenge League taught him to not give up, and he clawed his way back into the game. Another all marine strike force, similar to the one he used early, made a break for nine and took out the hatchery with their +3 atk upgrades seconds before zerg back up could arrive. As Yooi tried to secure the path to his main, battle cruisers started to emerge from three starports on the strength of his corner expansions. Umbrella cut this efficiency in half by removing the terran from eleven, but was unable to make a breakthrough at the main terran base. A costly attack led to Yooi being able to march his ground army to nine while his growing fleet of Cruisers attacked three. Although Umbrella managed to beat off the ground and keep his western expansion, the game had once again evened out. Yooi still controlled two expansions in the northeast, while Umbrella was working off the southeast, nine, and the pit at five.
As the last minutes of the game played out, both players looked to have the ability to win. Yooi definitely controlled the skies, but a zerg army featuring a mix of almost every unit was seething in the middle. Yooi moved out with his MM, BC’s, and diminished vessel count, and the two met in the center on the left. With only hydralisks to combat the BC’s, Yooi made short work of them which enabled him to sneak some units down the right side and take out five. He then tried to use his BC’s and vessels to tackle a reinforced nine, but Umbrella hit the clumped group of air with a perfect plague. As his 1hp vessels hurtled towards the zerg base, two spore colonies finished the job that the plague couldn’t, as they destroyed a vessel with every shot. The BC’s were a little heartier though, and a gigantic yamato strike killed the hatchery in one blow. After losing both nine and five, Umbrella had little recourse to kill the superior air of the terran, and after forty minutes, conceded the game.
Yooi > Umbrella
This was a classic, winnable by either player right down to the wire. I am tired just writing about it, so I cannot imagine what it would be like to play like that.
Game 4: Pusan (p) vs Ggon (random) on Pelennor
Although Ggon is listed as a random player, he obviously felt his best chance on this map lay with the swarm as he chose zerg to tackle Pusan. Either that or he knows Pusan’s PvZ sucks. Either way, these two had a tough act to follow as they finished up the day’s competition.
Pusan started in the bottom corner at seven, and he chose to go forge first as he narrowed his choke with his initial structures. With two probes scouting fast, he was trying to get in an offensive cannon strategy early, as this map was made for it. When he did eventually find the zerg at one, he harassed with one probe while sending the other to the twelve o’clock plateau in hopes of making cannons to overlook the zerg choke. Unfortunately for Pusan, Ggon had decided on a pool before a hatchery, and with the help of a fortuitous overlord, he stopped the attempt before it could get off the ground. Following his lings, he placed a second hatchery next to his choke minerals as well as at the twelve o’clock expansion. Getting lurkers, Ggon looked very strong early on with an abundance of available minerals, and Pusan delayed by his aborted cannon attempt.
Not to be outdone though, Pusan teched hard while barricading himself in his base with his static defense. A nexus next to his choke minerals, three gateways, a citadel and a stargate all came up in short order as Pusan felt safe from any imminent attack. While harassing the zerg with corsairs, and finding no resistance from Ggon, Pusan was able to get a look of everything his opponent was doing, as well as the lurkers that were scurrying down the map to contain outside his base. With this intel, Pusan sent out his force of eight speedlots, and intercepted the lurkers in mid-trek. Instead of burrowing his lurkers and forcing the protoss back, Ggon continually tried to run around the much quicker zealots but Pusan managed to kill three of them without detection before Ggon ran home. After this the zerg gamer looked rattled, and despite his poor start, Pusan was able to get back into this game.
If this weren’t enough to demoralize Ggon, while this was taking place, two zealots ran into his expansion at twelve, which only had a single lurker for defense. With the zealots dodging spines like Boxer, they managed to kill all of the drones mining there before Ggon could react. To his credit, Ggon did switch up to mutalisks and a muta/ling force ran down the map towards six, where Pusan was getting ready to take another expansion. The first wave of mutalisks killed the cannons, while the second wave killed the turrets, but to be cost effective, Ggon would have had to lose half the units he did, or kill twice the enemy buildings. Pusan simply retook his expansion, and with the zerg army sputtering due to a lack of economy, Pusan all of a sudden had the upper hand.
Another mutalisk attack by Ggon met with much better success as he forced all the drones to run to his choke, where cannons and another nexus were waiting for them at the four mineral patch. Pusan ignored this attack for the most part, and instead chose to attack both the zerg choke and the twelve o’clock expansion with his speedlot/archon army. Again, Ggon suffered a major blow to his drone count at twelve, but lurkers held the defense together at the zerg choke, so Pusan simply backed off and took another expansion, this time at five. With the game starting to slip, Ggon marched his mix of hydralisks/lurkers/and zerglings into the middle of the map, where they promptly met the waiting zeal/archon force. What looked to be an even numbered close fight melted away in a swath of blue lightning as two high templars cast three perfect storms overtop the zerg army. Lurkers popped like pustules under the heat, and from that point on the game was no longer in doubt. Ggon tried one more attack to destroy the protoss expansion at five, but Pusan rolled over him and into his main.
Pusan > Ggon
Ggon gave this game away. He practically got a free three minute head start as Pusan’s failed cannon strategy left him miles behind. With two and a half expansions, two gas sources, and three early hatcheries, Ggon simply did not pay attention to the game and got wiped out. If I was in his position five minutes into the game, I could have beaten Pusan, and I am horrible at this game.
Anyways, some epic games this week. I love to watch them, but damn they make for some late nights. Liquibets for next week will be up shortly.
Mani
^^
