GSL3 RO32, Day 2

Game 1: Steppes of War
      An unconventional start as NewDawn gets a 10-hatch into 10-pool as Bit walls in at bottom of his ramp. Bit gets a second barracks, and then bunkers NewDawn in at the bottom of his ramp. NewDawn has enough zerglings, though, and manages to destroy the bunkers before his expansion falls. Bit gets another two barracks and attacks with all his marines and scvs at the 6' mark. NewDawn tries making a few spine crawlers, but they don't finish in time to stop the terran army.

A solid punish of the early hatchery. I wonder, though, if NewDawn could have won if those spine crawlers would have finished, or if he had a queen to transfuse them. NewDawn must have thought that the 10hatch/10pool was viable since we've seen so many four-barracks marine/scv all-ins this tournament.

BitByBit 1-0

Game 2: Shakuras plateau, close positions
      NewDawn gets a more standard early hatch. Bit gets both of his gases while a scouting drone is still in his base. The gas ends up being for two-starport banshees. NewDawn luckily starts his lair without scouting it, followed by a spire after he does scout it. Queens shoot down the first two banshees as mutas start to come out and their attack upgrade begins. Bit switches his starport production over to vikings and NewDawn starts getting roaches. Bit attacks with most of his scvs and his entire army, which as this point includes a lot of marines and marauders. It does a lot of damage, leaving NewDawn with only five drones. Bit just macros up a bit off of his own dozen workers, attacks again, along with his scvs, and wins.

NewDawn seemed to be able to do everything he wanted to do and had all the knowledge he needed to win. BitByBit straight up did his thing and won.

BitByBit wins 2-0

NewDawn got his neck wrung

Game 1: Xel'Naga Caverns
      The game starts like so many others this tournament: early hatch against two barracks, mutually scouted. Essy(sC) comes up with a single marine and three workers to try to wall Fruit in at the bottom of his ramp. Fruit's drones do some very good work in chasing away the marine, and ten zerglings come out to deal with the bunkers. The push is denied, and Fruit hunts down some of the reinforcements in the middle of the map. Essy gets two more barracks and a command center at his natural. Fruitdealer takes his third, starts a baneling nest, and zergling speed. The baneling nest doesn't finish in time to hold off another marine attack though, and so he loses all three of his queens and a huge chunk of his drones, leaving him almost ten workers behind.
      Fruit tries a baneling bust at the terran front, but Essy has plenty of bunkers to avoid damage to his economy. It forces Essy to start being very defensive though, so Fruitdealer is able to take his gold. Essy manages to destroy Fruit's third, but a baneling/zergling flank takes out the entire army. Essy starts dropping ALL OVER the map, tons of drones and zerglings, the baneling nest before baneling speed finishes, and Fruit's gold hatch with a push. Fruit gets his spire to deal with the omnipresent medivacs as Essy takes his own gold. However, all he's really able to do with them is prolong the game that he really can't win.

Again, the four barracks marine play seems to just cripple zerg's economy early. Still, Fruitdealer played very well from a disadvantage.

sC 1-0

Game 2: Steppes of War
      Fruitdealer sends two drones to harass, and then hides a hatchery at his third., followed by a roach warren. Essy does a two barracks expand. Essy adds two more barracks and a factory, and eventually scouts Fruit's odd second base. Fruit expands to his opponent's gold as his third and gets a baneling nest. Essy very slowly starts to push across the map to Fruit's two expansions, Fruit makes a spire and starts muta production. Fruitdealer's banelings take out a bunch of marines, leaving no anti-air for Essy, so mutalisks start destroying siege tanks and suddenly Essy has to gg.

Fruitdealer is so neat. sC had the entire middle of the map covered with tanks and bunkers, and Fruitdealer managed to come back and win it.

Fruitdealer 1-1

Game 3: Delta Quadrant, cross positions.
      Again, hatch first against two barracks. Essy pushes with four marines and two scvs. It is pushed back with a nice surround. Essy gets a total of four barracks, two with techlabs, two with reactors. Fruit spends his first bit of gas on zerglings speed and a baneling nest, then takes his gold. Terran starts to push out at 10'30" with 28 marines and 8 marauders against 33 zerglings and 20 banelings. Fruitdealer has more than enough to wipe it out.
      Fruitdealer's macro starts to slip as he takes another gold, almost hitting 2000 minerals. Essy decides to all in with all of his scvs, but they get baneling-mined , and Essy leaves the game.

That last game seemed like it was Fruitdealer's from beginning to end, which is strange because it started just like game 1. The difference really seemed to be that baneling nest, as Fruit's xling micro even without speed is very good.

Fruitdealer wins 2-1

Game 1: Metalopolis, cross positions.
      Ret gets his hatch first- TheBest goes for a one-rax expand, followed by two factories, starting with pre-ignited hellions. Ret gets zergling speed, a lair, then banelings, then his third. After Ret spots the now three factories, he gets a spire and a roach warren. But when the hellions come in to his main, he has no units to stop it. However, he had made SO many drones, that the damage doesn't put him too far back. A thor comes out for Best and a forth goes down for Ret, along with an infestation pit and a hive. The two players get mostly roaches and thor/tank respectively. Best pushes out at 14' with a dozen siege tanks, four thors, and a bunch of scvs, presumably on autorepair. Ret starts getting all his roach burrowing upgrades and a greater spire. As the armies engage at Ret's natural a bunch of broodlords finish for Ret in his main. The natural falls, but broodlords finish and finish off the army.
      In the meantime, Best has not expanded, not made starports, and only made tanks really. Best pushes out at 19' to take his gold, but Ret has more than enough broods and corruptors to delay it. The base manages to start mining a bit, but a roach drop forces Best's army away from the gold, so Ret forces a lift at the gold with roaches. All of a sudden, the food count is 200 to 100, and Ret overruns with roaches.

Good job by Ret. His macro and creep spread was out of control.

Ret 1-0

Game 2: Steppes of War
      Early hatch against a one barracks and gas. Ret steals the other gas, and Best responds with some anemic pressure. Best gets one of each UPS and attacks at 7' which a bunch of hellions, marines, and a couple medicavs. A lot of tense micro, but about even food gets traded. Best transitions into blue flames and two-port banshees. Three banshees come in with a hellion drop. Both queens fall to the banshees, and Ret has to leave, not having any anti-air and or lair.

Those banshees after a 1-1-1 build were pretty rough.

The Best 1-1

Game 3: Jungle Basin
      Both players start the same way, except Ret with a little earlier roaches and Best with marauder+shells. Best pushes out with four marauders, a medivac and two hellions, reaching Ret at about 7'. Best gets in, but Ret makes a round of thirty zerglings to push them out without too much damage. A viking gets in and kills five overlords since the queens are dead, though. As Ret scouts Best's continued lack of expansion, he gets his lair, a baneling nest, then a spire, and two spine crawlers that take scare away some hellions. A really tough attack with hellions and marauders comes in. Best drops some hellions into the backdoor while attacking the front. The backdoor drop hits a ton of zerglings in a pretty clever way. A long micro battle ensues, in which the two medivacs and one viking really push things in Best's favor. After barely holding for so long, Ret has to gg.

This game seemed to balance on a knife's edge the whole time. If a queen had been alive to kill that viking, or that spire had gone down a little later or early, I think Ret could have held. Well-played by Best, although it could have gone the other way. In fact, it was actually very impressive that Ret hung in for so long after losing five free overlords, and building a spire and evo chamber that he never even used.

TheBest wins 2-1

Game 1: Lost Temple, close by air
      Gateway/Cybercore against an early reaper and two barracks. The reaper falls before killing anything, and each player makes another basic USP and expands. After some teching, HongUn ends up with three gateways and a robotics facility, and JSL with three barracks(TTR) and a factory. Both players continue up the tech tree with a robotics bay+range and a reactored starport + stim/combat shield. A medivac drop is fended off, and JSL gets another starport to pump out vikings. HongUn attacks at 13' with three colossus and an army of stalkers. The vikings don't manage to snipe any early colossus, many die to stalkers, and HongUn is able to force his way up JSL's ramp.

A very nice two-base timing win for HongUn.

HongUn 1-0

Game2 : Delta Quadrant, cross positions.
      HongUn goes immediately up to a starport, while JSL gets two barracks with both addons. A reaper scouts the starport, and JSL expands to his natural while HongUn works on taking out his back door's rocks to expand. That same reaper scouts the expansion. JSL gets another barracks, an engineering bay, and a ghost academy. HongUn uses some phoenix to snipe units around the map. HongUn makes a fleet beacon and another stargate! JSL makes a nuke! HongUn makes a carrier! A mexican standoff at HongUn's ramp ends when JSL nukes up the ramp, cancels and runs in with his medivac-less bio army. Some great emps kills the shields of HongUn's units, but three carriers and gateway units end up demolishing JSL's army. HongUn then just attack moves across the map to kill JSL.

So it turns out that two-base carrier is really good. It looked pretty safe and sold, especially cross positions on Delta Quardrant where your back door is safe. I wonder why JSL had no medivacs, though, and if that would have helped against the carriers.

HongUn wins 2-0

The third game did not arrive.

TheBest had almost no anti-air, and I feel that if Ret used that spire to bust out even 3 mutas he could have cleaned up the attack. I'd have to see the replay first to decide. Maybe he had no larva to spare or something. Sad game in general.