[MSL] Slim Pickings

Guemchi spawned at 11 while Bisu got 5 on Fighting Spirit. Both scouted after their gateway, following it with gas as standard. Guemchi opted for the safe standard build with a pylon while Bisu played slightly more riskily with a 13 core. Both players made a zealot, Guemchi after pylon and before core and Bisu after core and before pylon. Although both players ended up in the same place this meant Bisu could have faster range or tech. However Guemchi's scout probe got into Bisu's base whereas Bisu reached Guemchi's ramp to find it walled by the faster zealot.
Bisu opted for dragoons and dragoon range while Guemchi used his concealment to make a fast second gateway.
Bisu took a hidden expansion at 7 while Guemchi scouted him with a hidden probe. Guemchi's superior army contained Bisu and he expanded while Bisu made a second gateway and robotics facility. They found themselves in the same position regarding tech and buildings but Bisu was contained and unable to maynard probes to his expansion. Guemchi realised that something wasn't right, that if Bisu still hadn't expanded then he already had a game winning advantage and that Bisu was missing minerals which could easily be some kind of proxy attack. He pulled back to his natural and played as safely as possible while Bisu took his natural.
Both players scrapped in the middle of the map, Guemchi having played far better strategically but Bisu having more bases by virtue of his hidden expansion and Guemchi's cautious play. However Bisu's very sloppy shuttle control let him lose both his reavers for a single dragoon kill. Having only just gone to 3 bases and still behind economically because of the late maynard on his expansion Bisu was behind on dragoon count. Guemchi's army moved out and smashed him, Bisu's stupid strategic gamble having paid off but was unable to make up for stupid tactical play.
GG.



Bogus got Terran at 11 and Savior got Zerg at 8 on Ultimatum. Bogus walled in at his natural and fast expanded while Savior went 12 hatchery 11 pool 13 hatchery on 2 bases. Savior opted for lair and spire while Bogus got a fast +1 weapons and 3 rax. Savior's mutalisks were unable to hurt the clump of marines and medics and although he killed several turrets the marines moved in to support quickly enough to stop any softer targets being hit. His mutalisks continued to inflict superficial damage while Savior expanded to 5 until an irradiate pretty much wiped out the mutalisks.
Bogus' pushed out with a lot of marines and 3 tanks with his first vessel as Savior rushed to hive with lurkers to defend. Bogus swept the lurkers ahead of him and won the first big battle against lurkers and zerglings. Both players continued to reinforce into an ongoing struggle between marines and lurkers but Savior was unable to break the push. By the time defilers were out his losses had built up to the point that he lacked the units to do anything. Bogus broke into Savior's natural while dropping his main and Savior GGed.



Bogus spawned at 11 while Guemchi spawned at 5 on Odd Eye. Bogus opted for a standard siege expand and Guemchi walled in with a fast zealot and rushed to a reaver drop without getting range or being scouted. He attempted a drop rush with a reaver and 2 zealots in a shuttle but Bogus had expected some kind of rushed tech and had 2 sieged tanks with turrets everywhere. However the reaver harass failed to kill more than a few scvs with clever tank micro stopping any real losses. Guemchi was substantially behind having expanded later than the extremely fast expansion of Bogus and lost his reaver and shuttle. However he made up for this the standard Protoss way by taking two expansions at once. Bogus transitioned into Flash style with armoury upgrades, a quick 3rd expansion and rushing to science vessel. Guemchi was fortunate enough to blind counter this with a low gateway count, a quick fourth base and rushed arbiters. Both players skipped the mid game and rushed straight into the late game on many bases, upgrades and tech. There were attempts at vulture harass but they didn't inflict much damage and Guemchi proceeded to take another two expansions at 6 and 7. Bogus was near maxed with pure tanks but could only push in one direction and Guemchi's weaker maxed army danced ahead of it, trying to buy time for the expansions to kick in while taking another expansion at 1.
7 got shut down by vultures but Bogus was stretched over a very long front which he couldn't push forwards on. He stopped and took a fourth expansion near 9 and a fifth at 12:30. Guemchi recalled to 12 before it got properly defended and killed it while Bogus responded with a big push into 3 with his massed tanks. Guemchi realised that if he fought that many upgraded tanks he'd lose his army and then the tanks could simply attack move across the expansions and win. Instead Guemchi danced his dragoons back on the edge of tank range, killing vultures and goliaths while keeping his army alive and sacrificing 3. Guemchi hit back with a recall at 12, killing it which negated the losses at 3 and 4.
Although Bogus's army was by far the stronger Guemchi had been using his superior mobility to trade expansions one for one which given his ambitious triple expansion earlier left him economically ahead. From being 6 expansions to 4 it went down to 4 expansions vs 2 which is proportionately much better for Protoss.
Bogus realised Guemchi had gotten the better of the exchange and pulled his main army back to try and hold a line and retake his expansions. With 6, 7 and 1 unharassed Guemchi's economy was booming and he could pump arbiters for constant recalls. A recall at 12:30 again wiped out Bogus's expansion, holding him at 3 before the 4th could even begin.
Bogus pushed a very long wall of tanks across the bridge towards 1, the kind of army which could not be fought without carriers. Guemchi fought a delaying action with stasis and small suicides while Bogus again retook the two expansions, 12 and 12:30, within his part of the map. Guemchi recalled 9 but it was completely destroyed by emp and rapid reinforcements. However the pressure on 9 pulled the terran line back allowing for a sudden break of the push at 1.
Bogus regrouped his forces and again pushed into 1 while Guemchi again tried to buy time while recalling 12. 1 was destroyed but Bogus managed to save 12. However none of Bogus's expansions beyond his main and natural had been unharassed and the constant pressure had made his scv count extremely low. While he could double expand to 12 and 12:30 over and over he never had the scvs to maynard, the continual losses of 5 or so scvs every time he got hit by a recall adding up after the 6th recall. Another recall at 12 was shut down easily by Bogus's overwhelming army after another 6 scvs were killed by the suicide of an army five times their value. As Bogus sought to capitalise on this gain and pushed to the expansions at 3 Guemchi hit with another recall at 9 which landed and covered the mineral line with storms. His army was on the opposite side of the map and Bogus couldn't save 9, leaving him with two completely virgin expansions at 12 and 12:30 and no scvs to work them. By contrast Guemchi's expansions in the bottom left were near burned out and Guemchi had no map control but he had a lot of income and a lot of units scattered around. Although he couldn't stop the terran ball from smashing 1 again his army was growing at a faster rate.
Bogus found a good spot at the right side of the centre of the map from which he could control the empty base sites at 3 and 1 and protect 12 and 12:30. However the attrition had taken its toll and for the first time in the game Guemchi fought him. A stasis on four tanks and storms on the others broke Bogus's army, giving Guemchi map control and letting him retake 3 and 1. They again returned to a standoff but Guemchi's stronger economy and map control finally left him ahead in the game. Guemchi recalled 9 and was soundly defeated, trading units for time as he took 1 and 3. Bogus pressured 7 and Guemchi traded it for 12:30 and 12, continuing to abuse his greater mobility. As he had every time before, the moment Bogus pulled back to his line Guemchi again retook the expansion the second Bogus retreated.
Bogus realised he was just getting further behind and took his entire army and crossed the map, pushing into 3. Although Bogus killed 3 and 1 Guemchi again countered, killing 9 and having retaken 7 he was still outproducing the terran. Despite a bad build order disadvantage and almost never having map control against the maxed 3-3 tanks Guemchi had outmaneuvered him. Guemchi's new army retook the centre of the map and again retook 3 and 1. Bogus attempted one last push but it was smashed by the larger army. GG.



Savior spawned at 11 on Odd Eye and Bisu at 5. Savior went 12 hat 12 pool while Bisu fast expanded. Savior went to 3 bases and took his gas, powering hard while Bisu rushed his core as fast as possible with just a single cannon. Bisu sent his first zealot to Saviors 3rd at 12 while rushing to corsair. Savior lost a drone and was forced to run them from his 3rd because he'd only made 2 zerglings. Although he quickly secured the situation with zerglings he came out the worse of it. Bisu followed it up with a speed zealot corsair attack against the spire, microing excellently against zerglings and killing a lot of drones at the 3rd before lurkers secured it. Savior rushed to hive off his 3 bases, keeping Bisu on 2 bases by using zerglings.
Bisu macroed up a large army of zealots and dragoons and secured his 3rd while Savior massed cracklings and defilers with a group of lurkers and moved around the map, keeping constant pressure on Bisu. His +2 weapons against +1 carapace allowed him to dominate his side of the map but a wall of lurkers on the central bridges with swarm ready to protect them from dragoons kept Bisu out.
Eventually Bisu tried to loop around the bottom of the map to bypass the lurker defences but was stopped as they were rapidly deployed in his path and covered with swarm. Although he was able to damage Savior's army with storm and zealots there was no prospect of breaking through that many lurkers with zealots. Meanwhile Savior counterattacked Bisu's 3rd at 3 with cracklings and swarm, taking it down to its last 100 hp before Bisu's reserves saved it. Savior took a 4th and 5th at 12:30 and 1 while Bisu went into dt and corsairs to bypass the lurkers. An excellent plague hit the clumped corsairs but without any hydralisks Bisu was still able to contain 1 and stop mining at 12 and 12:30 until spore colonies were finished. Meanwhile cracklings finished off the nexus at 3 and Bisu expanded again to 6.
Bisu was ahead both in army size and economy but substantially behind in economic potential, his main and natural about to burn out and Savior on 4 bases with a 5th coming at 7. Furthermore Savior was utilising his resources very effectively in a modern style, using very cost effective units such as zerglings, lurkers, defilers and scourge which all packed a very strong punch for their cost and collectively overcame all their individual weaknesses. Bisu found his larger army held on the bridges, unable to cross and unable to take the long route without leaving himself open to crackling and dark swarm raids. Savior held him pinned in a stalemate with his army both very close to Bisu's expansions and very close to where he would redeploy if Bisu attempted to move. To add insult to injury he kept plaguing zealots which makes them simply a waste of psi against lurkers and cracklings.
Finally the stalemate broke, Savior attempted to switch to ultralisks while taking 1 and 9 and Bisu moved. He contained 1 with his main army and sent a suicide squad of zealots to 9. Then as pure ultralisks killed his zealots at 9 his main army appeared, catching Savior off guard. Savior did the swarm counterattack at 3 which he'd been threatening to do and succeeded in killing the expansion. However his inattention at exactly where Bisu's main army was cost him badly. Savior threw his ultralisks and cracklings against Bisu's whole army and saw them massacred. Unfortunately the key to his combination was swarm stopping the dragoons and archons while lurkers killed the zealots and ultralisks held the entire mess in place. Savior remembered this and added lurkers and swarm far too late where they were cut too pieces by the victorious army. He then added a few more ultralisks which were also massacred.
Bisu's small army kept killing wave after wave of Saviors units and the game was over. Despite Savior demonstrating a very modern and very effective new style of ZvP he threw it away. His inattention at keeping track of exactly where Bisu's army was meant he hit it in waves as he redeployed his army and as such Bisu's army survived and managed to kill him. It feel that Savior actually outplayed Bisu up to that point. Still, GG.



Bisu spawned at 1 on Match Point while Bogus got 7. Bogus slipped a scv out early and then walled in before Bisu could scout him. Bisu opened normally while Bogus proxied 2 factories below the mineral line at 3. Bogus's carefully planned cheese sent out another scv to scout on the normal timing while Bisu decided that knowing nothing about his opponents build he'd scout carefully and take a safe expansion. Unfortunately while he may have had time to adapt and counter a normal 2 factory there was no time to deal with the 2 fac which not only skipped travel time but also gave him no time to react. Bogus's tanks and vultures with mines came too fast and from nowhere and there was nothing Bisu could do, GG.

Game 1: Hyuk (SW, 12hatch) vs. Zero (SE, 12pool) on Ultimatum

No way to avoid saying it: ZvZ is boring again. Micro and decision making have become so uniformly solid among Zergs that build order wins have returned with a vengeance; prior to this game I couldn’t remember the last ZvZ I watched where the player with the superior build didn’t win. This game proved to be no exception. After a bit of inconclusive skirmishing outside Hyuk’s natural, Hyuk massed zerglings and ran over Zero while Zero’s mutalisks were still sucking yolk in their eggs; with his economy ruined beyond recovery, all Zero could do was bunch up his air units for a doomed assault on Hyuk’s natural, whose gas geyser Hyuk had taken while Zero was cleaning up zerglings. Zero did what he could, but the best micro in the world couldn’t save him from an equal number of mutas and a greater number of scourge. Hyuk advances to the winner’s game on Match Point.




Game 2: Kal (NW, forge FE) vs. type-b (SE, overpool 3hatch spire) on Odd-Eye

If I had to pick a word to describe Kal’s PvZ, it would have to be bruising. He wields his armies like a spiked bat, and though he can be hit-or-miss, few Zergs can survive a direct encounter with him. He didn’t disappoint this game, as he built a stargate and made zero corsairs, using the extra minerals and gas to speed up and power up his 1gate speedlot timing attack. Meanwhile type-b was doing his best impression of Mariah Carey in the late 1990s: spread out, confused, and open to all comers. The simcity at his natural was yea-wide and Kal’s zealots charged right in, sticking so many forks into type-b that I confused him with a Thanksgiving turkey. Kal’s follow-up, a two DT runby through the same gaping orifice, proved equally successful, killing a solid number of drones before perishing. With type-b thoroughly disoriented, Kal was free to take his own third base and macro freely. After routing type-b’s paltry lurker/hydra army twice in the middle of the map, he had a large enough advantage to crush the simcity at type-b’s third base and take the game.






Winners’ Game: Hyuk (SW, overpool 3hatch spire) vs. Kal (NE, forge FE) on Match Point

Over the past month or so, some variant of the 1gate speedlot attack has become a standard PvZ opening off of forge FE. The speedlots are early enough to deal economic damage before 5hatch builds start paying dividends and since they only come from one gateway there’s plenty of surplus minerals to get tech, build extra gateways, and transition cleanly into the midgame.
The Zerg response to this latest timing attack has been varied. The Zergs who do their homework and set up solid simcities at their natural and third fend off the zealots with a sunken and whatever happens to be handy and enter the midgame slightly ahead. The Zergs who don’t do their homework get their economies swiss-cheesed up, lose map control, and then get trampled.

And then there’s Hyuk. He went 3hatch muta with two sunkens at his third and absolutely destroyed Kal’s no-stargate 6 zealot timing attack. He proceeded to shut down mining at Kal’s main nexus and snipe more than a few probes at his natural. With his economy halved, no map control, and no army, Kal seemed helpless to prevent Hyuk from crashing the round of 16. Hyuk would literally have to make five terrible decisions to let Kal back into the game, and Kal would have to make five perfect decisions to gain even the sliver of a chance at victory. This was over.
But Kal begged to differ. Despite being in dire straits, he kept his cool and Macgyvered up a counter to the mutalisks. He morphed the two DTs he had originally planned to follow up his zealot attack with into a dark archon while researching maelstrom and building four high templar which he promptly morphed into archons. Hyuk’s mutalisks, still happily tapping away at Kal’s main, had no chance. Paralyzed instantly, they perished in a few short seconds.

Still, with all the probes he’d sniped and all the mining time Kal had lost, Hyuk was still way way way way ahead. I was pretty much resigned to seeing NATE’s round of 16 getting crashed one more time. Hyuk’s advantage was so large that he’d have to cut it into smaller pieces to get rid of it. It would take the worst decision making over the longest stretch of time that modern Starcraft has ever seen, including the misadventures of Backho[WHITE].

How did Hyuk exploit his advantage? He:

Lost two overlords during the mutalisk harass for literally no reason (8:01, 8:29)
Gave up map control by switching to lurkers.
Lost a game-winning battle at Kal’s natural (at one point they even had a caption saying he’d qualified) by not microing his twenty hydralisks (13:50-14:00)
Lost roughly ten drones at his third to one dark templar while decisively losing a battle on the other side of the map (15:33-16:01)
Didn’t spread his overlords everywhere despite the fact that Kal never built a stargate. Had difficulty placing overlords at his very own expansions.
Traded the two hatcheries and vespene geyser at his third for Kal’s mineral only, then failed to scout Kal taking another third base, this one with a vespene geyser.
Dicked around for several minutes while Kal, with only one mineral line and three geysers, hoarded up templar, templar energy, and archons.
Had the absolute worst army composition against Kal’s army at almost every point in the game.
Lost hydras by the handful in every pitched battle purely due to abysmal army formation (19:20, 20:45).
Lost more drones to dark templar while setting up his old third base (21:52, 22:08).

You’ll notice the word lost crops up frequently in the list above, almost as if Hyuk was trying to tell us that he, maybe, perchance, lost? Indeed, he did. There are games that are so bad that they’re good. This one is not one of them. This one is just bad. Watch this if you like, but you were warned.



Losers’ Game: Zero (NE, 12pool) vs. type-b (SW, 9pool) on Match Point

Despite a rather large build order disadvantage, type-b reached mutalisks safely, as a cautious Zero, after holding off type-b’s initial speedling attack, decided to hatch only enough lings to fend off type-b’s own zerglings. When type-b’s first three mutas arrived, Zero’s spore colonies had popped and type-b had nowhere to go. Still, type-b parlayed his air control into an expansion of his own while picking off a few drones, but even so, his second hatchery finished exactly four minutes after that of Zero, meaning Zero had had eighteen more larvae to play with than type-b.

Nevertheless, type-b had mined far more gas than Zero and would stay ahead in muta count and carapace upgrades for most of the midgame. This enabled him to shut down Zero’s attempts to take a third at 1 while he was able to take his own third at 7.

With total control over his own airspace but no control anywhere else, Zero did what came naturally to him and built a queen’s nest, investing in more spore colonies to close off any timing window teching up to hive would give type-b. He also built a queen and researched ensnare. Scouting Zero’s hive with a scourge and fearing devourers, type-b attacked Zero’s greater spire with all his mutas while taking fire from Zero’s spores and mutas. I suppose his plan was to snipe the spire, take whatever losses he had to take, and regroup on his half of the map with three gas and a spire to Zero’s two gas and no spire. A tactical defeat in the service of a strategic victory, assuming all went as planned.

But type-b had failed to factor in the stickiest of the icky.

Ensnared and unable to flee, type-b’s mutas were forced to fight Zero on Zero’s turf while firing slower than they normally would. With Zero’s reinforcements arriving sooner, type-b’s gambit turned into a total debacle as his entire air force was annihilated. Though mutas, scourge and some hastily morphed spores allowed type-b to fend off Zero’s counterstrike (plus the fact that Zero was missing a spire), type-b’s map control was effectively finished and his fragile economy was in intensive care after sacrificing drones to build spore colonies and losing several drones to a handful of zerglings. Zero, meanwhile, had regenerated his spire and taken a third in the southeast corner.

After some inconclusive zergling raids from both sides, Zero’s devourers emerged, allowing him to take down type-b’s third uncontested. Type-b, meanwhile, had built defilers, the mere sight of which deterred Zero from a decisive attack on type-b’s base. Shortly afterwards, type-b’s defilers and mutalisk escort, while en route to Zero’s third, encountered Zero’s air force. Zero’s mutas were plagued, but type-b’s mutas were acid spored, and were unable to kill enough plagued mutas to pay for themselves or the defiler tech before they died. Type-b then destroyed Zero’s third with a handful of zerglings and a dark swarm. At this point the game was over, as Zero had a completely dominant air force, but that didn’t keep type-b from plaguing like twenty mutas before his handful of mutas died to devourers and mutas. Zero ensnared a flock of his own mutas with an ensnare from one of his queens as type-b gged.

A phenomenal game from both players. Type-b showed how to play 9pool well against 12pool while Zero, forced to drastic measures, revealed a new facet of a matchup that barely has enough facets to qualify as three-dimensional. With an ample display of reds and greens (and some purples and oranges thrown in for good measure), Christmas comes early for ZvZ enthusiasts. Highly recommended.



Final Game: Hyuk (NW, 12hatch) vs. Zero (SE, 12pool) on Fighting Spirit

With the same players using the same openings, one would expect the same outcome.

Thankfully, the previous two games had expanded everyone’s conception of the possible, and for the first time in at least a month, a build order disadvantage fails to hatch into a build order victory, as Zero uses the long rush distance and an excellent defensive formation with a linchpin sunken to crush Hyuk’s pre-muta ling attack with a dozen lings and the sunken still left over. After a bit of foreplay sniping overlords, Zero goes into Hyuk’s natural with more mutas and more lings, takes his place in the MSL, and delivers me from the gruesome prospect of more Hyuk.

Ruby at 5 on Odd Eye and Effort at 11. Ruby's mech opening was competently dealt with by Effort who blocked all the attempts to vulture harass him by staying on 3 hat 2 bases with sunkens. By going 3 hat spire in 2 bases and upping to 3 base 5 hatchery as he was in a strong position against Ruby's 3 factories. With a group of mutalisks able to draw Ruby's goliaths and a lot of hydralisks able to smash wherever the goliaths weren't Effort limited Ruby's map control and expansions.
The first big battle went in Ruby's favour as Effort inadvertantly sent his 2 groups of mutalisks into the mass goliaths ahead of his main hydralisk army. The timing messup left the mutalisks raped and he was forced to cancel the attack rather than suicide hydralisks alone. Effort used his remaining mutalisks to draw Ruby back into his natural and contained two of Ruby's expansions with his hydralisks. However Ruby's army had still not fought any major battles and was growing in size unopposed. His army was able to squat on half the map having grown sufficiently large to cover the entire front line. Having mainly lost vultures and replaced them with tanks and goliaths he was unassailable. Ruby allowed Effort's armies to smash like waves into the solid rocks that was his wall of tanks and then slowly crept his wall of tanks into the central expansion in the middle of the map while walling off the bridges at 2. Effort was unable to attack either point, the massed tanks because they were massed 3-3 tanks and 2 because it was walled off, covered with turrets and tanked to the fullest ability of a terran.
Unable to stop the wall of tanks creeping across the middle of the tanks Effort's front crumbled and he GGed out.



JangBi got 1 on Match Point while FireFist got 7. FireFist went for a gasless 9 pool which JangBi frustrated by blocking the expansion of FireFist with first his probe and then a pylon. Without zergling speed 9 pool has no teeth and FireFists planned expansion simply didn't happen leaving his opening build rather pointless. Trying to make the best of the situation FireFist made just 2 zerglings and then pumped drones while eventually expanding to 11 while JangBi countered perfectly, continuing to pump probes, making just 1 cannon and expanding in time with FireFist.
FireFist headed to lair and spire while JangBi took his second gas quickly and made a fast stargate and citadel without impacting his probe count. In an unusual build he rushed +1 air weapons and deliberately trapped a probe between two pylons to stack his corsairs.
JangBi's corsairs were underused because FireFist did not make any mutalisks, remaining at home until beyond their harassing phase, and his pair of dts only managed 3 drone kills between them. The mass hydralisks shut down JangBi's attempt to take his mineral only but storm was finished in time to stop any real damage being done.
Without anything to spend gas on but ht and with no mutalisks sniping them his zealot ht army was able to run straight through the hydralisks holding the middle of the map. His victorious zealots ran into the base at 11 and massacred drones before retreating to lurker reinforcements. FireFist secured the centre of the map with lurkers and cracklings while pumping drones but by this point FireFist already had an army of dragoons with observers and an even expansion count. The centre of the map turned into a constant battle between dragoons and lurkers while the corsairs massacred overlords which found themselves without hydralisks to protect them.
Eventually defilers arrived to render the dragoons impotent with swarm while JangBi lost his expansion at 5 due to very poor scouting and the lack of a ht allowing a group of cracklings and a defiler to wipe out his critical 3rd gas.
JangBi took his army round the long route to strike at 11 and FireFist reacted terribly. Despite having a lot of 2-2 zerglings against JangBi's 3-0-0 zealots he did not use them in the big battle under swarm. Instead he only used his ultralisks which were eventually overwhelmed by mass zealots. FireFist had an excellent winning combination of lurkers, zerglings, ultralisks and swarm which is extremely effective against a dragoon heavy army which relies on zealots as the only damage dealer under swarm. He hurled each of those parts of his army at JangBi in turn and neatly proved the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Having failed completely FireFist GGed.



JangBi started at 7 while Ruby got 5 on Fighting Spirit. Ruby walled in and went for factory as you'd expect while JangBi went gas core, getting a zealot out to wall his ramp. Taking advantage of being unscouted he skipped dragoon range and went for a quick citadel and archives. Ruby took 2 scvs off gas to siege expand while JangBi went for dt expand with a fast second gas and stargate. JangBi transitioned into normal gateway count and play but with fast arbiters while both went took a 3rd base at 3 and 9 respectively. Ruby's attempted drop got scouted by a well placed pylon and was shut down. Meanwhile JangBi recalled Ruby at 3 and destroyed the command centre. Ruby reacted by pushing across the map but was hit by a stasis and flanked, losing his entire tank force.
Ruby attempted a hidden expo at 12 but JangBi shut it down immediately. JangBi then walked his army across the map and killed Ruby who simply did not have the tank count to attempt to oppose him. GG.



Effort spawned at 7 and opened overpool while FireFist went 12 pool and they both took gas at the same time. To put it simply, a difference of a single drone over a period of time meant that although they mirrored each other perfectly in ling count and lair timing FireFist was able to make a faster second hatchery. That hatchery being around for an extra few seconds meant 6 larva awaited the completion of the spire which meant a critical timing attack and the game was decided. Although Effort took his expansion with his second hatchery because of the contain gained by his slightly faster zerglings it made little economic difference. They both had low drone counts, the drones Effort was able to put on his second gas were sacrificed from his mineral line, having two bases gave him no economic advantage. The build order advantage translated into minor damage which after continual even trading of units with even micro was sufficient to decide the game. GG.



FireFist spawned at 1 on Ultimatum and 4 pooled. He scouted Ruby at 5 first. He sent 3 drones with his rush and mined a hole through the wall. Ruby reacted as well as can be expected but was unfortunate to be close positions and scouted first. Although he rewalled behind the minerals there was no real way he could stop the rush. GG.

For once. ><