[MST] The Approaching Curve

ForGG appears at 6 while the promising WeMade Zerg spawns at 12. ForGG places a supply depot at choke, then follows up with a Barracks just below his ramp while RorO goes for 12 hatch build, also sending out his 9th drone for a quick scout.

ForGG then starts his gas, and as his first rine appears he also starts a bunker next to RorO's hatchery. Although he is forced to abandon building his bunker, once his 2nd marine reaches the zerg base he attempts to start a bunker again, and although again forced to retreat he manages to take out one drone.

Unbeknownst to roro were 2 starports building in the back of ForGG's base. The first two wraiths quickly started wreaking havoc on the drones, killing more than 8 of them in Were it not for the fact that RorO also started a bunch of zerglings and zergling speed at the same time, the 2port wraiths might not have been as damaging.

When the hydralisks and scourge finally came out forgg already massed more wraiths as well as completed cloaking research, and as the wraiths microed their way out of the scourge attack, RorO tapped quickly GG-ed.

ForGG: 1-0, Advances to Winner's Match!
RorO: 0-1, Advances to Loser's Match!

The small eyed Nbs appears at 6 while the Commander comes in at 12. Nbs sends out a rather early scout, while Stork sends out 2 probes at the same time, with the 2nd going around the back of the natural and evades Nbs' scout.

Both players go 1gate zealot core. Stork's 2nd probe chills out for a while behind Nbs' natural, and when his zealots finally chase Nbs' probe out of his base he starts a pylon there, and eventually proxies a Robotics facility as well. At the same time, Nbs starts his own robo in his main.

While Stork went for a second gate at home, Nbs added an observatory and started a Nexus at his natural instead. As Nbs' observer finally came out, he sent it to Stork's base, and seeing neither a Nexus at the nat or a robo he knew something was up, prompting him to send dragoons around his base to defend.

Stork, knowing he did not have much time to attack before Nbs' economy was going to kick in attacked right after he had 2 reavers. With more ground forces at the front and 2 reavers coming from behind, Nbs' forces were quickly destroyed, giving Stork his first win of the day.

Stork – 1:0, Advances to Winner's Game to face ForGG!
Nbs – 0:1, Advances to Loser's Game to face RorO!

ForGG spawned at top right, and Stork at bottom right. ForGG starts off with a standard 1fac opening with scvs taken off gas after it finishes, and Stork opens with a 14nex, quickly adding 2 gates and gas after starting the nexus.

When ForGG's scv finally reaches stork's base, he reacts by sending out a bunch of SCVs and a few marines towards Stork. After a back and forth battle between zealots, probes, and SCVs marines and vultures, Stork eventually comes out on top as his dragoons arrive to save the day.

Luckily for ForGG who only had a few vultures at the time his mine research finished at the right time to stop Stork from attacking, and even took out a dragoon.

Soon after, both players went into macro mode, with Stork teching up to arbs off two base and ForGG slowly turtling for a 3rd. Stork tried to get a bit aggressive with his zealots outside ForGG's base but only to be repelled by too many tanks and SCVs. ForGG's midgame vulture harass was also rather effective, making Stork lose quite a few zealots and dragoons, letting him slowly mass a huge pile of tanks.

The two huge armies then clashed in the middle, when ForGG decided to push forward with his army. Before he could setup his push properly, Stork quickly stasised a group of tanks and did a nice flank of the metal blob. Both armies were promptly destroyed, but ForGG kept up the pace, quickly retaliating with a small force and sending 2 tanks to Stork's bottom left and destroying the nexus.

With both player's mains and naturals mined out, they went back to playing a bit more defensively.Eventually though, after a couple of recalls from Stork the players again massed sizeable armies and clashed in the middle. If not for Stork's beautiful stasis all over ForGG's army he would probably have lost. After Stork cleared up the remaining mech with his dragoons, ForGG with only his 12 expo mining typed out.

Stork – 2:0, Advances to the MSL!
ForGG – 1:1, Advances to fight the winner of RorO vs Nbs!

RorO appeared at bottom left and Nbs at top right. Both players opened very standard, Roro with a 12 hatch and Nbs with a forge at his choke. However when Nbs finally scouted the zerg base he decided to cannon rush with 3 cannons! Roro seemed to notice the pylon warping in a bit too late and when he sent his drones in to defend it was already near completion.

In the end, Nbs's cheesey cannon rush managed to really hurt Roro's early game economy, killing of 3-4 drones, a few lings, and also killed forced Roro to build and lose a bunch of sunkens, while allowing him to safely set up his own FE.

Roro then started his Lair after a while, and his 3rd hatch at the 9 expo, when Nbs already had his Stargate done and a citadel warping. His forge was also spinning, showing that he was going for a +1 speedlot attack.

As soon as his leg upgrades finished, Nbs moved out with his zealot army. On the other hand, Roro was busy morphing lurkers at his natural, and his 9 expo was completely undefended. With a lack of overlord speed upgrade and adequate anti-air, the combination of corsairs and dark templar led to the 9 hatchery's death.

Roro, now running off 3 hatcheries on one base hatched a few mutalisks and went for probe harass, desperate to get back into the game. This was to be in vain though, as a few minutes later Nbs 1a2a3aed his massive zeal goon temp army into Nbs's natural, eliminating Roro's chance at the MSL.

RorO – 0:2, is Eliminated from the MST!
Nbs – 1:1, will play against ForGG in the Final Match!

The final game was on Heartbreak Ridge, with Nbs at 9 and ForGG opposite at 3. With the prospect of elimination on the players minds and a chance at the MSL at stake, both the players decided to use cheese to improve their chances.

It was a tense moment as ForGG, playing very safely sent out an early SCV to scout (or perhaps to prepare his cheese), and nearly saw Nbs's proxy gateway near the centre. ForGG then started his refinery before the Barracks that would eventually be placed at the ridge around 1:00.

Even when Nbs' zealots began to arrive at ForGG's base, he didn't flinch and continued his proxy plan, starting a factory next to his Barracks after it finished and also blocked off his choke with a supply depot. Eventually the zealot threat was cleared off, and then it was his turn to attack the Protoss base.

Nbs the made a mistake of not building a pylon at his choke in time and letting a vulture in which lost him a few probes. His first dragoon did come out to get rid of the vultures though.

It was very tense as while ForGG was destroying the proxy setup, Nbs' zealots also managed to break through ForGG's supply block. After the vultures returned to clear the base, both players settled down into more standard play, Nbs adding more gates and ForGG getting mines. His proxy factory was discovered soon after though and had to fly back to base. At this point he also started a starport.

ForGG went from a bit of dropship harass which wasnt very successful, and both players proceeded to take their naturals around the same time. Nbs eventually went for a mid game 2dt drop in the terran main, and at the same time ForGG sent out a medium sized force of tank vult along the bottom ridge. Both armies were then promptly destroyed, then both players decided to try to harass with dropship/shuttle again.

The game then turned into a macro game with Nbs takign bases along the bottom edge and ForGG taking his 3rd expo while making supply depot and barracks walls and pushing slowly. Just as things were not looking too great for ForGG, he finally pushed out when he had +1/+2 upgrades and when Nbs suicided a portion of his army into mines and tanks things started looking up for the Terran.

ForGG punished Nbs for expanding too much, and took out both the 6 and 4 oclock expos after. By now, resources were running out for both Nbs and ForGG, but as you all know Protoss needs at least 1 more base than terran to keep up (most of the time). ForGG also had a scary pile of tanks as well.

With ForGG sieging up the centre expo and long distance mining, it was just a matter of time before Nbs had to give up, and with a last futile attack he GG-ed.

Congratulations to ForGG for (hopefully) breaking his slump and advancing to the MSL!

ForGG – 2:1, Advances to the MSL!
Nbs – 1:2, is Eliminated from the MST!