[MST] The Beginning of the End

Game 1 – Hyvaa vs Mind @ Byzantium 3

hyvaa > Mind. Mind tries 14cc on Byzantium. hyvaa tries 9 pool speed on Byzantium. It’s a story we’ve all seen before. GG.

Game 2 – Jangbi vs Pusan @ Byzantium 3

JangBi > Pusan. Standard 1 gate openings although JangBi scouts on 8 while Pusan plays 1 gate gas blind. Evidently not worried about any kind of cheese and eager for any economic edge he can steal by risk taking. JangBi scouts Pusan last and opens up with a safe and standard 1 gate 1 zealot core build while Pusan does the very cheesey 1 gate core 2nd gate opening blind. The fast mass goon opening is particularly effective vs the standard opening on Byzantium because the mains are below the naturals so a contain at the top of the ramp is extremely effective. The opening builds couldn’t have gone better for Pusan really, scouted last while blindly doing a hard counter. With 3 dragoons against 2 dragoons and 2 zealots he battles JangBi for the high ground in JangBi’s natural. Both players rush to dts and Pusan attempts to snipe dragoons with his slightly higher dragoon count. Unfortunately he goes afk mid battle and despite a strong start, killing a dragoon for no losses, manages to lose 2 more dragoons to zealots which could easily be outmicroed. This is a pretty basic micro situation PvP and Pusan managed to fuck it up completely. With his mass dragoon rush finished Pusan retreated to his natural and expanded, expecting dts to defend against any aggression. JangBi on the other hand was more cautious, instead opting for a dt wall on his ramp and a forge. His own dt rush worked and Pusan GGed out. The story of this game was Pusan taking risk after risk trying to get ahead, first fucking up the dragoon rush and then sending both dts at JangBi blind while JangBi sent only one of his first two, preferring safety over maximum damage. GG.

Winner's Game – Hyvaa vs Jangbi @ Heartbreak Ridge

hyvaa > JangBi. JangBi does an excellent job of blocking hyvaa’s FE while FEing himself and gets ahead with a safe expansion (although I could teach him a thing or two about how to wall HBR). hyvaa’s responds to his inability to expand by continuing to pump zerglings and getting gas before transitioning into 3 base lair. JangBi scouts persistently and stays dangerously low on cannons because of the lack of zergling speed which leaves him ahead in build orders. hyvaa does the standard 3 hat lair, 5 hat hydra opening while JangBi doesn’t make many corsairs, instead rushing an archon and building a lot of gateways. A control group of hydralisks is able to severely punish JangBi for making two archons before storm, killing both and a cannon with almost no losses. Meanwhile JangBi’s zealot counterattack fails pretty badly, killing a few drones but not paying for itself. Finally storm arrives to stop the hydralisks pressuring his natural but some very swift dodging protects hyvaa from many losses. The inevitable 9 mutalisks arrive to provide sniping support for the hydralisks and JangBi must remain in his main base awaiting dragoon support before moving out or taking a third. Evidently the pressures of mass dragoon on 2 gas are showing because JangBi only has 3 ht, 2 of which are sniped and one of which wastes all its energy. With no ht and forced to waste money cannoning up his main against the constant threat of mutalisks JangBi is in a pretty bad position. Eventually he moves out with a LOT of dragoons and zealots but only 3 ht in support, two of which are promptly sniped and the third is forced to use its storm to kill the mutalisks attacking it. hyvaa hits him with the army of hydralisks he’s been building up all game and simply steamrolls over the stormless Protoss, destroying his army and shutting down his attempt at taking a third base. From then on it was simply starvation. GG.

Loser's Game – Mind vs Pusan @ Heartbreak Ridge

Pusan > Mind. Pusan continues his streak of unorthodox openings with a gas steal on HBR. This is getting to the point where I’m questioning whether Pusan can actually play straight up but whatever, I can’t so I can’t really judge. He follows it up with a single zealot pressuring with a probe into 2 gate dragoons while mining out the back entrance to the natural. Mind goes for a bunker at his natural and a FE while building his factory, evidently predicted by Pusan. Unfortunately for him Mind is no fool and checks to see if the mineral is being mined out, a marine chasing the probe away. Without being able to appear behind the bunker his dragoon rush is much less effective and essentially gives Mind a free fast expand. Pusan counter-expands and builds a robo but was left behind by the opening builds. Pusan takes a third while reaver harassing competently, killing a half dozen scvs. His second attempt at harassing goes less well, killing nothing and losing 600/100 worth of Protoss hardware in the process. Unusually for HBR Pusan heads for mass gateways before arbiter tech, leaving him with an army dominating the map but unable to break the camping Terran and the tech which empowers him arriving late. Equally strangely he decides to take the mineral only expansion rather than a gas corner, despite being able to wall gas corners in from vultures with just a single pylon. Eventually though he gets his 200/200 thing going on with arbiters and five bases against a 3 base Terran. Mind remained passive, mining up his base against recall and hoping for one huge Protoss blunder to give him the edge to push out and steal a win. Eventually he realised Pusan wasn’t biting and that the map would be mined out soon if he didn’t take the initiative so pushed out towards the near corner with his 200/200 Terran ball. Pusan refused to engage him, instead recalling on top of the factories which were strangely unmined and set everything on fire. Mind sent his main army home to deal with it and left just a few tanks to clean up the top left corner which were easily killed by Pusan who foresaw this move.
With the six base vs three situation ultimately unchanged Pusan was able to continue to play defensively, refusing to attack unless Mind first pushed out. Mind pushed out again, this time towards Pusan’s mineral only and Pusan attempted a massive counterattack into Mind’s natural area, accidentally getting his stacked arbiters EMPed and losing a lot of units to mines. Mind’s defences held and his attack was able to destroy Pusan’s mineral only and gas corner before losing his army to the Protoss forces. However with his main and natural mined out Mind only had one base mining compared to the two Pusan had so despite his victories his situation was not improved overall. Pusan retained map control and unable to secure a fourth expansion Mind eventually typed out. GG.

Final Game – Jangbi vs Pusan @ Destination

JangBi > Pusan. Pusan opens up with another (see Pusan vs BeSt on HBR) cool proxy rush on Destination. JangBi eventually scouts it and pulls 8 probes to kill the gate while Pusan manner pylons him because JangBi can't put antimanner pylons down like every C rank on Desti. Nor can he kill the gate in time to stop a zealot getting out (in part due to some sexy probe drilling with his scout probe by Pusan). Things go from bad to worse as JangBi gets his gas stolen and Pusan surges ahead with a fast core and second gate. JangBi counters with his own core and second gate but is significantly behind on gas and therefore dragoon range timing and robo timing.
Realising his only advantages are his slightly larger army (3 zealots + 2 dragoon vs 4 dragoon) and the defensive position of the bridges JangBi FEs and Pusan realises this is JangBi's best option and counter FEs blind while harassing with his dragoons. JangBi is pretty much blind at this point so is forced to rush to observers whereas Pusan knows how many dragoons JangBi has and that they have range so knows where the gas is and can safely rush out a reaver while maintaining a secure contain on JangBi's bridges.
Both players macro up identically but JangBi is contained on the bridges. Pusan tries to reaver harass JangBi's natural but JangBi mined out the back entrance and shuts it down with a few dragoons and 0 probe losses, killing both shuttle and reaver. JangBi is then able to break out across the bridges where Pusan's army wasn't properly concentrated in a contain and the reaver was notably deceased. The opposing armies face off across the centre of the map while JangBi takes his mineral only and Pusan takes his gas expansion. Pusan crossed the bridges and attacked JangBi with slow zealots, dragoons and ht while JangBi had only dragoons and speedzealots. His storms were good but JangBi's dragoon micro easily dealt with the slow zealots and Pusan's army was destroyed.The stalemate continued but with Pusan's 3rd base more valuable than JangBi's. JangBi tries to take his gas expansion while Pusan takes his mineral only and attacks. The battle is roughly a draw and the game returns to a stalemate.
They fight again with Pusan's army mainly composed of dragoons and ht and JangBi's zealot and archon heavy. Pusan loses decisively this time and JangBi takes the expansion advantage by expanding again. Pusan suicides a group of zealots to kill the expansion and the game again becomes a stalemate as both players consolidate their half of the map. Pusan wastes some units trying to distract JangBi while attempting to gank a base with zealots but loses on both fronts and JangBi immediately seizes the opportunity before Pusan has time to replace his losses. Pusan is forced to fight and loses. GG.

Game 1 – Upmagic vs Han @ Heartbreak Ridge

Upmagic > han. Standard openings on HBR with both scouting fast to avoid being cheesed. Upmagic walls in, makes one marine to chase the probe away and then fast expands before gas while han opens 1 gate core dragoon range. han fails to scout the expansion until after it is finished and bunkered and despite immediately starting his own is at an economic disadvantage. Upmagic proxies an ebay to scout and with a superior economy coupled with knowing exactly what han is doing is able to attack move roll him.

Game 2 – Savior vs GuemChi @ Heartbreak Ridge

Savior > Guemchi. Again standard openings but Guemchi gets air weapons instead of the usual citadel at the same time as the stargate. He builds up a decent group of corsairs off his one stargate by the time he gets dts out and he attacks Savior’s third with the combination. Despite getting a good number of overlord kills his attack is deflected. Savior transitions into hydras and lurkers while Guemchi makes a large standard Protoss army with everything but zealot speed. As observers complete Guemchi pushes out and starts the inevitable advance across the map but manages to lose 3 of his 4 ht to mutalisks despite having a control group of dragoons and 5 corsairs, all of which were not escorting the ht. As we’ve seen a thousand times before, dragoons and zealots get rolled by mass hydralisks without ht support and Savior overwhelms Guemchi’s army, slowing his 3rd base and forcing him to continue massing units. Guemchi again loses all but one ht to mutalisks, this time with his dragoons paying attention but having suicided his corsairs earlier. A minute later another group of mutalisks again reduces Guemchi to just one ht with his army but Guemchi is forced to attack anyway by his economic deficit. He is defeated and the victorious mutalisks immediately go to his rally point and kill all his ht, again... Savior is still on lair tech but has total map control, 4 running bases and a lot of hydralisks while Guemchi has a few dragoons, zealots and an archon. GG.

Winner's Game – Upmagic vs Savior @ Destination

Savior > Upmagic. Upmagic tries to cheese the Maestro with a proxy barracks but Savior opts for a pool first opening. Upmagic then bunkers the bottom of Saviors ramp which Savior attempts to block with drones but fails, losing 4 of them. Savior decides that he can’t be bothered with this shit and sends every drone to mine out the back entrance and although Upmagic checks for it and attempts to block it with scvs and marines there simply isn’t time and the zerglings get out. Realising that he’ll lose his marines if he sends them back unsupported Upmagic is forced to counter allin but Savior already has a sunken prepared for this eventuality. Upmagics attack fails while Savior wipes out his main except the cc which lifts up and flies the length of the map to Savior’s natural where it joins the bunker and scvs and starts mining. Seconds after it lands Savior overwhelms the defences and makes the MSL. GG.

Loser's Game – Han vs GuemChi @ Destination

Guemchi > han. Both players open up standard. Guemchi took a faster expansion while han opted for the safer quick robo. Guemchi transitioned into 2 gate dragoon with obs while han rushed to archives. Both players got pretty aggressive in the middle of the map to avoid being contained but no battle took place, despite Guemchi’s bigger army. han also killed the ‘pandabearguy’(man that name is annoying). Guemchi started harassing his mineral line from behind the back of Destination and followed it up with a 4 zealot drop in his main, disrupting mining and generally being annoying. han took his mineral only while Guemchi took his gas expansion at roughly the same time. han fails a storm drop and at some point in the game Guemchi got twice as many units as him. Guemchi attack moves into hans mineral only and despite other storm drops being more effective than the first han is defeated. GG.

Final Game – Upmagic vs Guemchi @ Byzantium 3

Guemchi > Upmagic. Upmagic does another fast cc and Guemchi opens 2 gate dragoon. He pressured the bunker with dragoons and rushed to dts while expanding. He suicided his army to snipe Upmagic’s turret and killed him with dts. GG.

Game 1 – Luxury vs Bogus @ Heartbreak Ridge

Luxury spawns at 9 and Bogus at 3. Bogus opens with a wallin at his natural's choke, while Luxury goes for a overpool opening. Bogus takes his natural and adds academy and more barracks, and Luxury, instead of going for a 3 hatch or 2 hatch muta build opts instead for a 2 hatch lurker build.

As Bogus's scans finished building, he was able to quickly find out what Luxury was going for. Moving out his first group of MnM slightly, he let past a couple of speedlings into his base, which didn't really manage to cause much trouble. Luxury also started gathering lurkers right outside the terran natural, while Bogus fortified his defences with bunkers and turrets. At the same time, luxury went around the back to start taking down the temple with 3 lurkers.

Eventually, Luxury decided it was time (a bad time) to attack with all his 8 lurkers and maybe 2 groups of speedlings into...3 full bunkers and some MnM, effectively sacrificing and losing all his forces. GG, horribly play by Luxury, no idea what he was trying to do.

Bogus: 1-0, Advances to Winner's Match!
Luxury: 0-1, Advances to Loser's Match!

Game 2 – Hogil vs free @ Heartbreak Ridge

With the recent trend of PvZ “imba”, it would not be surprising if even Hogil managed to win against free here. Free goes for a standard FE while Hogil opens with a 9pool, with extractor trick. Frees probe, waiting at the natural for the inevitable 12hatch very nearly managed to kill the drone, but the drone was slightly faster and took out the probe instead.

The game progresses very standard, free getting his nexus and gas, Hogil getting a 3rd and teching to lair. However, instead of the normal citadel stargate followup, free decided to build only a citadel at his nat, with a 2nd gate soon after, without researching +1 attack.

As he started his templar archives, he also added 2 more gateways for a total of 4. Moving out his small force of zealots and dragoons, this forced Hogil to add a few sunkens around his bases. Unfortunately for Free, Hogil didn't build scourge first, and instead hatched a couple of mutas.

As his first 2 templar came out of the gateways, the mutalisks arrived just in time to take them out. Merging them into an archon did not help the situation. As more mutalisks gathered, they also took out all the cannons in the protoss main. Free countered with a few zealots into the top right expo, but only managed to take out the 2 sunkens and a few lings before being chased back.

As a last resort (or maybe it was his initial plan), free morphed a dark archon, and while he did manage to maelstrom most of the mutas in his main, the archon that was supposed to take them out moved way too slowly, and they escaped unscathed. Free, knowing that the game was over for him at this point, typed out soon after.

Hogil – 1:0, Advances to Winner's Game to face Bogus!
Free – 0:1, Advances to Loser's Game to face Luxury!

Winner's Match – Bogus vs Hogil @ Destination

The two winners faced off on Destination, with the STX Terran at 12 and Hogil at 6. Bogus decides on a mech opening with 1fact vulture followed by CC, while Hogil chooses 12 hatch with fast lair and hydra den.

Eventually, hydralisks pop out and with a slow overlord to detect any pesky mines along the way to the terran base, they manage to reach the centre, where Hogil morphs 5 hydralisks into lurkers right in plain view of Bogus's vultures. Knowing that he would just have to defend and gain an advantage, Bogus instantly built 3 bunkers and 2 turrets, and sent all his goliaths, vultures and scvs to his bridges, destroying the lurker ling force as it streamed in. 1 lucky lurker managed to squeeze its way past to the back of the Terran mineral line, preventing the SCVs from mining for a while.

Hogil then did a tech switch to spire tech, getting a group of 9 mutas, and taking the 8 expo and the mineral only behind. As Bogus already had a bunch of turrets and Charon booster upgraded goliaths, the mutalisks did not do much damage at all.

As bogus pushed out with the goliath tank force, Hogil coutered his main with his group of mutalisks, killing off a few SCVs and turrets before being forced away by newly made goliaths. At the same time, Bogus took out the Zerg base at 8:00 and set up a contain outside the bridges. Eventually the huge mech force walked into the zerg base, and although Hogil tried to counter again , his meagre force of muta hydra ling was no match for the tough terran defences, and GGs.

Bogus – 2:0, Advances to the MSL!
Hogil – 1:1, Advances to fight the winner of Luxury vs Free!

Loser's Match – Luxury vs Free @ Destination

Free at 12, and Luxury at 6. With a FE opening in mind, Free placed a pylon at his natural, while Luxury had other plans. Opening with overpool, he also sent out his 9th drone around the right side of the map to mine out the free's mineral chunk. Free desperately tried to use his probe to attack the drone from behind the mineral but to no avail. Eventually the mineral was mined away, but free also had a cannon made in his main. Luxury, with his lings out, also expanded to the 8:00 expansion.

Both players teched up, Free going Sair Reaver and luxury going for mutalisks. Luxury then managed to get a group of speedlings past the 2 zealots blocking the back entrance. It seemed like he wanted to use them to take out the cannons in the main, but it epic failed and he only managed to take out 1 cannon.

While luxury was busy harassing the protoss natural with mutalisks and taking out sairs with scourge, 6 zealots sneaked around the left side of the map and took out the hatchery at 8:00.

Eventually, Free loaded up his shuttle with reaver and dt and set off towards the zerg base. The DT was dropped in the main while the sair reaver went towards the natural. Unluckily for him, the scarab glitched very close to a huge group of drones and hydralisks, and exploded without dealing damage.

While adding a bunch of gateways and teching to templar archives, Free then initiated a bunch of attacks all over Luxury's bases, with speedlots to 8:00, reaver drops and sairs attacking around the main and natural. Luxury defended with not too many losses apart from a bunch of overlords at the end of free's harass session.

By this time, Free had amassed a huge force of goon zeal templar, and without the aid of mutalisk sniping, Luxury's large hydralisk force simply melted away to storms, and GG-ed.

Luxury – 0:2, is Eliminated from the MST!
Free – 1:1, will play against Hogil in the Final Match!

Final Match – Hogil vs Free @ Byzantium 3

Hogil spawned at the top left, and Free at the bottom right. This game opened up with an intense fight between cannons pylons probes and drones sunkens and lings as Free decided to cannon rush Hogil's 12hatch. IMO Hogil defended quite well, keeping his calm and not needlessly losing units. It was standard play from both after the early game fight, Hogil taking 3rd at 12 and teching to spire and hydra den, and Free going stargate citadel.

Hogil, instead of the 5hatch hydra muta build, actually decided to go for a more defensive lurker tech. Free promptly started a robo bay, and as he massed a zeal chon force, took his mineral only on the ridge. Hogil had a group of mutalisks and a few lings patrolling the map, and as free approached the 12 expo, the mutalisks managed to snipe both archons, forcing Free to retreat.

Both players went into macro mode, expanding and just dancing their huge armies back and forth around the map, neither daring to engage the other. Hive tech was also finished for Hogil, when finally free decided to move his army out. However, he could not attack up to the zerg bases as going up against a ramp full of lurkers was sure to fail.

With hive tech and a huge economy up and running for Hogil, things weren't looking too good for Free. Zerglings denied him a 5th expo at the left ridge, and a huge hydraling force, although doing no damage to Free's mineral only, did not seem to set Hogil back at all. A huge lurker defence at the top right expo also prevented free from taking out the zerg expansion.

The game dragged on longer as both players took out each others expos, while defending their own. Free also showed some nice lategame harass as he stormed at least 10 drones at the top right expo. However, things started looking grim for free as his main, natural, and mineral only were mined out. He managed to destroy the top right bases of Hogil, but he already had the bottom left expos in control, and while his forces were engaged in the top right corner Hogil took out the Protoss' 6:00 expo.

As it got to the late-late game, it was only a matter of time before Hogil brought out the ultralisks, and while free showcased some beastly PvZ late game defence with reavers archons templar and even a DA (although I didn't notice it being used), it was simply not enough as he had no economy left. Hogil takes the game, and advances to the MSL!

Free – 1:2, is Eliminated from the MST!
Hogil – 2:1, advances to the MSL!

I'm really glad that Hogil made it through. He's obviously the best and manliest Ho out there(take that Hoejja and Backho!)