[OSL] Groups E, F, G and H

fOrGG got white at 12 on Great Barrier Reef while Hydra spawned in green at 8. 12 hat 11 pool from hydra while scouting straight to 12 with a drone and seeing fOrGG's standard 1 rax. fOrGG follows it up with a quick cc at his natural after 1 marine which is a standard timing vs 12 hat. Meanwhile hydra does a 3rd hat in base with a fairly late gas and lair, a macro heavy build with a lot of drones.

fOrGG builds up a decent marine count from 1 rax and adds academy and a second rax, not needing an ebay with no 2 hat muta to worry about. Hydra still has only 2 lings and makes a sunken as a gesture towards defence but no real safety. He also makes a fast evo which is a pretty big indicator of a ultralisk rush. We've seen similar builds earlier in the OSL, notably on Fighting Spirit with a very nice ensnare on the mnm as they tried to break the sunkens just before it hit. So this should be interesting. The scv sees it and I don't doubt fOrGG understands what it means.

fOrGG pushes out with 5 marines and a medic and because he's only made 2 zerglings which are chasing a scv Hydra just doesn't see them coming and make any more lings or sunkens. A second sunken is morphing when he finally sees them arrive but it's too late to block a runthrough destroying his economy. With 3 hatcheries Hydra can correct his mistake very quickly with a dozen zerglings but it's too late. 10 seconds warning of the mnm attack would have made it do no damage simply because hydra had so much production at his disposal but bad scouting left him with just 5 drones mining.
After it became clear fOrGG was stable hydra just GGed.
You gotta scout.

Hydra got orange at 7 on Fighting Spirit vs fOrGG in blue at 5. fOrGG didn't bother with that Flash style 8 rax stuff, opening absolutely standard again. Hydra opted for 12 hat 12 pool, scouting wrong with his overlord and drone, despite being close positions to fOrGG who scouted him first. A fake bunker rush pulled 3 drones from mining but fOrGG had no intention of actually using it, keeping his late marines safely at the top of the ramp while taking his expansion.
As in game 1 hydra followed up with a gas and 3rd hatch in main on around 16 control however this time he scouted better, leaving a zergling outside fOrGG's natural. A fast 2nd gas suggested a different twist on the build but unfortunately for hydra the scv scout still lived on and scouted it. An attempted pure marine push with 6 marines at a weird timing was backed off after he scouted a single sunken, fOrGG testing whether Hydra would make the same greedy mistakes again and hydra answering in the negative.
Hydra again went for a fast evo and fOrGG made fast 5 rax no factory, a fairly cheesey build if unscouted. Hydra again left the natural unscouted for a few seconds and that was all fOrGG needed to throw his entire army into the middle of the map without alerting hydra. Despite having his hive half completed (ultra rush as I suspected!) and a decent speedling and mutalisk count hydra's army was out of position. The sunkens were too few and broken without support and by the time the mutalisks got back there was little they could do.
GG

fOrGG cheesed and hydra simply failed to keep track of what was where. It sucks but you either have to play ultra safe or know these things. You can't just skip defences and hope to blind counter a defensive build. hydra attempted to take the best of both worlds and got punished for his greed.

fOrGG got yellow at 8 on Great Barrier Reef while YarnC got orange at 12. YarnC went for a 12 11 with a fast scout drone to 8 while fOrGG opted to 13 cc which was immediately scouted and harassed by the drone. In the mean time YarnC placed a 14 hat at his back mineral only, drilling a drone over which is the safest 3 base macro play available to zerg on this map. fOrGG got 2 barracks and a bunker quickly but they were unnecessary as YarnC only made 4 zerglings, 2 to wall the ramp (which fOrGG hadn't scouted up) and 2 to kill the scv.

At this point fOrGG has seen nothing of YarnC's except the drone count at the natural, a fast 2nd gas at the natural and a ling wall. What he hasn't seen is a 3rd base because by placing it at the back it hid it from scouting. This forced him to rush to comsat to try and work out if a 2 hat muta/lurker was on its way while YarnC actually did the same fast evo build as hydra did, hiding the evo at his 3rd.

With 4 rax paid for by his 13 cc fOrGG tried another early rax pressure after scouting 3 hatch hydra but YarnC had seen the games before and had a ling to see them coming and 4 sunkens to hold them. If you don't need to be aggressive sunkens are a very larva efficient way of blocking attacks, giving 175 minerals of stuff for a single larva which allows the others to be pumped into mass drones.

The mutalisks came out but there were more than enough turrets to deal with them. Their lack of damage wasn't that significant though as YarnC took the next island at 2 (with the exposed mineral line but a gas) and rushed to hive with two evo chambers. The mutalisks were just for a semblance of map control while mass sunkens held the line at his natural and a fast hive was the only real aggression.

fOrGG pushed out with a massive army of mnm and 3 tanks to try and break in before defilers while YarnC tried to delay it with mutalisk harass (killing a tank) and adding a second line of sunkens to buy time. Realising consume was researching and that he had to make his move fOrGG just threw his army into the sunkens as tanks tore them down, taking massive losses and almost having his army wiped out as 8 more marines arrived at the last moment to stop the zerglings finishing it.

He broke through and by the time YarnC had his tech up he'd lost his natural and GGed.
A very nice timing attack. It was extremely close, a single missed round of production and fOrGG wouldn't have broken in and the advantage of his massive army would be completely negated by a dozen zerglings with a defiler. Well played.

fOrGG got yellow terran at 1 while YarnC got teal zerg at 11 on Fighting Spirit. 12 hat 11 pool from YarnC again while fOrGG opted for a safer rax cc opening in this second game, scouting YarnC first. As before YarnC opted for a 3rd hatch on 14, this time in main with a fairly late gas and lair. In contrast to earlier games fOrGG opted for a fast ebay which is odd because you usually see +1 rushes as a defensive play against mutalisks. That said, given he's faced a carapace rush in all 3 of the last 3 games a +1 rush is not unreasonable. As in the earlier games he quickly upped to 4 rax academy without bothering with factory, macroing up for a big timing attack. YarnC went to spire as we'd expect and started placing creep colonies although maybe not enough as fOrGG added a 5th barracks before factory, the purpose of his +1 becoming apparent as part of a funky timing rush.

YarnC double teched to spire and hydralisk den and rushed out a few hydralisks which morphed to lurkers while he scouted the mnm count with an overlord and stayed on 2 bases. Having seen how aggressive fOrGG was playing YarnC simply presented no openings during the rush phase. fOrGG scouted there was no 3rd then backed off as lurkers pushed him back, allowing YarnC to take and secure the bottom left. Realising YarnC had worked out the pattern he added 2 factories with machine shops to try and hit a different timing allin push. fOrGG's army moved depressingly close to a massive hold lurker trap with 6 lurkers in a concave but, realising he could only kill a few YarnC held his nerve and let them walk away safely, hoping to be rewarded for his patience later.

He was not disappointed, fOrGG scanned the bottom left and despite having no science vessel, went for the kill. Again his army grazed the lurkers range and again YarnC held his nerve, rewarded as every mnm walked into their crossfire zone. It was a massacre from which fOrGG could not recover. His tech was too heavily delayed by mass marines and mass tanks to deal with the defiler followup and YarnC's army just pushed into his natural and finished him off.
GG.

fOrGG tried the same lowtech 2 base allin build 4 times in a row and on the 4th attempt YarnC simply hard countered it. Mass mnm rush hard counters 3 hat muta and a fast 3 base but fails against 2 base lurker. Tanks can work against lurkers but by getting them in numbers he put a lot of pressure on his comsats for scouting and scanning and simply couldn't scan ahead of himself. YarnC understood that fOrGG's build was imbalanced in the most literal sense of the word. It was very heavy on units but on the opposite side of the fulcrum, it paid for it by lacking any tech. He refused to be cheesed and made fOrGG pay the price for using a lopsided build. Loved it. This game was an inspirational lesson about understanding and dealing with that situation.

YarnC got purple at 1 while fOrGG got yellow at 5 on Eye of the Storm. YarnC opted for a 9 pool gas opening, hoping to punish a 13 cc or a risky rax expand. fOrGG went for a normal depot rax timing but scouted in the wrong direction which is obviously very dangerous in this context. A second scout scv went out and passed the scout drone of YarnC which let YarnC hide his zerglings from the scv as it went past in a sick, sick move. However he messed it up (you have vision for a bit after the scv moves past) and fOrGG saw it. Despite 5 scvs in a wall and a bunker YarnC was still able to trade a drone and 4 lings for 2 scvs and a marine with the 2 remaining lings terrorising the terran base while fOrGG was forced to keep his forces at the front in case of a mass speedling followup.
That followup wouldn't come, YarnC droning and taking his expansion unknown to his opponent. Despite being 13 to 23 control behind YarnC's income was comparable simply because fOrGG was so committed to holding his choke.
Actually YarnC skipped a lot of drones, keeping zerglings walling his choke to kill another scouting scv and teching to lair. With two hatcheries he was able to catch up, still having a decent speedling count for defence. fOrGG was forced by the context to 2 rax firebat push against the unknown number of speedlings outside his base because he had minerals to spend and an expansion simply wasn't an option. However YarnC's 2 hat spire was almost done and the expansion attempt shielded by the 2 rax push was delayed by a sneaky zergling sneaking back to attack the scv.
fOrGG scanned the natural and saw the 2 sunkens and the spire. He then displayed some incredible clutch play. He looked at the spire hp, at the units he had at his disposal and considered his options. He then stim packed 6 marines up the map so they arrived as walking corpses in time to add their firepower to the sunken break which massacred the speedlings and broke through as the mutalisks hatched. Absolutely beautiful. It's easy to criticise fOrGG for being robotic and cheesy because, well, usually he is. But this game he read the situation perfectly and made some difficult decisions instantly to turn the situation into a win. The game wasn't over, fOrGG made it over.
There was some mutalisk micro for a bit but that was just crowd pleasing, YarnC lost a lot of drones and his spire. Nothing good was gonna happen.
GG

HyuN in green at 4 vs frOzean in red at 8 on Great Barrier Reef. frOzean opts for a forwards 8 depot walling at his nat which is rather unusual imo, especially as he doesn't scout. He follows it up with 13 cc which is insanely risky in my opinion. Fortunately for him he hard counters HyuN's 12 hat 11 pool and gets scouted second, proving the bw God's have absolutely no sense of justice where frOzean is concerned. HyuN doesn't dwell on the essential unfairness of life though, instead opting to drill a drone to his back mineral only third and expand there. HyuN goes for a fairly fast lair (lower drone count, earlier assim) for a 3 hat build while frOzean makes a fast 2nd rax and academy.

HyuN transitions very cleverly. He mines the crystal at his natural down to 12 minerals (mineable through in seconds, but not by a single scout scv), then goes for a hydralisk den timed for a lurker rush at his island 3rd. The only way frOzean could discover he was being lurk rushed would be to throw away comsat and his depots are exposed where they are. frOzean attempted some early pressure but HyuN was just balling out of control and didn't even make any sunkens, instead using 3 hydralisks to snipe a firebat and then massacreing the mnm with speedlings with hydralisks morphing to lurkers just before they died and promptly coming back with full hp. Very clever stuff.

frOzean used the mnm to buy time for 2 bunkers and 2 turrets in front of his depot wall to stop lurkers besieging it while teching up. Meanwhile HyuN rushed to hive as fast as he could. This was clever because although he's only on 2 gas his lurk rush gives him position right outside frOzean's base. In ZvT late game map position is hugely important as every inch taken is paid for in defiler blood. Although he's not got the gas to attempt a standard lategame if he can just hold that position until swarm then he's only two swarms from frOzean's natural. His hive really is fast, evidence that he's doing this with a very clear plan although that speed was paid for with no evo chambers and a low drone count.

HyuN expanded to 12 for the gas but still had on average 0.75 drones per mineral, his mineral only treated more as a bonus with a in main 3rd hatch than as an actual expansion. HyuN finally got his tech up, building 2 evos and a spire to complete his late game options while trying to hold onto his contain. Meanwhile frOzean tried dropping the back of his 3rd, scouted by an overlord but still dropping its payload in the island to stop mining at the min line.

frOzean's army broke the contain which fell back rather than be destroyed but frOzean didn't have any kind of contain going on of his own, instead simply pushing forwards towards the expansion at 12. By completely ignoring the concept of territory in TvZ (same principle of keeping them a lot of swarms away from anywhere important and giving yourself room to retreat) he played into HyuN's style. At the same time frOzean lifted his mnm at the 6 island across the mineral line to harass the buildings because the drones were gone and mining just as efficiently as before in their new homes.

HyuN cleaned up the drop at 6 easily but had more difficulty at 12 where despite having more than enough units to defeat the mnm he cast swarms very badly. frOzean simply backed his mnm out of the swarms and killed the zerglings as they followed. Defilers were wasted and he paid the price in drone losses. Although he saved 12 it cost him considerably more than it should have, especially expensive gas units which he couldn't afford to be throwing away.

By this point frOzean was finally exercising map control with a marauding army of mnm and vultures moving around, laying mines and keeping track of HyuN's army. Another drop attempt at 6 ran into scourge but a few more defiler suicides left HyuN ill equipped to fight the mnm but fortunately some nice plagues and bad micro let him survive. A spore colony claimed two plagued vessels and a lurker claimed a dozen plagued mnm which weren't moved out of range of it.

With the fronts blocked by swarm and lurkers frOzean attempted drop play. Unfortunately for him he ran them over an overlord and was scouted. He was intelligent enough to scan before trying to drop and avoided suiciding them into waiting units. Instead he thought he'd send them to 6, where HyuN would never expect a drop (again -_-). A dropship of mnm was scourged and the second only made it through because more scourge got there too late but it failed to kill a single drone.

Somehow 4 scourge flew over frOzean's army for about 10 seconds as it moved on move rather than attack move before all hitting the same vessel. Terrible by both players. frOzean not shooting the scourge down given as much time as it takes for scourge to overtake vessels moving away at full speed was awful and HyuN only killing one vessel given this unique opportunity was pretty bad.

HyuN now had a good mixture of units but was contained behind a minefield as frOzean had finally realised the importance of territorial control. frOzean pushed towards his natural and HyuN managed to divide swarm and zerglings so effectively that not a single zergling was saved by swarm and there were no units left to attack frOzean's army once it was under swarm. With the minefield contain holding fast frOzean took the mineral only expansions at 9 and 7 and pushed towards 12. The nydus defiler arrived too late to block anything and was immediately irradiated anyway. Despite a good plague the mnm tore through all the drones at the expansion as well as taking down most of HyuN's army with them.

With his economy gone and no map control is was over for HyuN, frOzean had simply gotten too big in the time HyuN was contained and was now armed with a control group of tanks to back him up against ultralisks. Irradiate and tanks ended it.
GG

HyuN simply showed a continual failure to use defilers and lings effectively together. One of the combination was always dead by the time the other got going. His plan wasn't bad and there weren't that many stupid strategic mistakes. It's just time and time again he showed up with the units to deal with frOzean and failed to make the magic happen. Every failure cost him economy and together they cost him the game.

HyuN got purple at 1 on Fighting Spirit while frOzean got white at 11. Both players opened standarder than standard with a 12 11 and a depot rax respectively. HyuN scouted frOzean first but scouting info doesn't really effect either player's build in this situation as both of them can play pretty optimally with just standard stuff. HyuN placed a 3rd hatch in his main with a quick gas, showing he wished to power drones and defend early game with a single front line rather than risking overstretching or having to try and defend a high ground 3rd. That makes sense because the two bridges on opposite sides of the high ground expansions are tricky to hold with sunkens and the ramps make speedlings ineffective against mnm too. The costs of defending a 3rd base outweigh the economic benefits of taking one at this stage in the game so HyuN decides to simply not bother, despite opening 3 hatch.

frOzean follows up with a very quick 3 rax, fOrGG style. However by overlord hunting (unsuccessfully) with marines he left his natural open and a zergling got up the ramp and scouted the 3 rax. If the zerg anticipates it a build like that loses almost all of its shock power and the terran is left dealing with the disadvantages, such as delayed tech, with none of the advantages. HyuN just continued on to spire as standard but with creep colonies ready to morph and a few extra speedlings.

frOzean pushed out anyway because you kind of have to, even if you know it has been scouted, but was blocked by 6 sunken colonies and a speedling runby in his main. The runby did no damage but his ebay and factory were so late that mutalisks were actually fairly dangerous. HyuN cleared a few stray marines from 5 with speedlings and sent a drone there but did not expand, correctly predicting that frOzean would move to block it. Instead he attempted mutalisk harass, running his mutalisks into mnm several times and taking so much unnecessary damage on them that they became completely useless. Their hp was simply too low to be a credible threat to mnm which simply ignored them.

HyuN rushed to hive again off 2 gas as but found his 3rd base at 5 under attack as mnm held the ramp. Although he eventually broke the ramp it cost him 6 mutalisks and all his speedlings which was rather unfortunate given his planned guardian switch. frOzean attempted to pressure 5 again, this time with tank and vessel support, but swarm and lurkers shut him down with few losses to both sides. frOzean set up a contain, again using mines to limit the control and options of the 3 gas zerg. With only 3 gas it's actually remarkably hard to deal with mines because all your gas is earmarked for defilers, scourge and lurkers. The lurkling under swarm combination is so bad against mines that zerg finds it very difficult to attack.

While this was going on frOzean expanded to 9 and pushed into HyuN's natural, losing his contain at 5 in the process. Although his attack was eventually blocked by swarm and saw his army destroyed he did kill every defiler, HyuN's natural and a considerable number of drones. With frOzean's new base at the 7 main that left frOzean ahead on bases TvZ which is a pretty good place. Even though HyuN was expanding to the 5 natural the loss of his 1 natural kept him on 3 gas.

Despite having a game winning economic advantage frOzean decided to push out and had his mnm plagued and then wiped out by irradiated ultras. In my opinion irradiate is the last thing you want in the mix when your army is plagued but whatever, that cost him about 2 control groups of mnm. He also had every science vessel plagued but despite the losses was still able to push out to kill HyuN's natural again.

As we've seen over and over, HyuN had defilers (and this time scourge) there to swarm all over everything but nothing to actually attack. By the time lurkers got there he'd lost the expansion and drones again. There were some more great plagues but HyuN simply couldn't get above 3 gas, no matter what he did, and the constant irradiation of gas units took its toll. As frOzean's army composition shifted more and more towards tanks the situation just became unplayable for HyuN. He lost his natural again and this time could not break the push which went into his main and ended the game.
GG

HyuN's poor control was the story of this series. In this game it was his muta micro that really hurt him. He was in a good position strategically but his failure to gain any map control through muta micro against pure mnm with late vessels made his 3rd gas really late. His strategy was to take a 3rd with mutalisks, get guardians really quickly and then do stuff with that. Instead he took a late 3rd at the expense of his mutalisks which undermined the entire build.

Fantasy spawned in yellow at 8 while frOzean spawned in red at 12. Both players opened rax gas fact as standard with frOzean scouting slightly earlier (although still very late). They both took an expansion at a similar time but fantasy kept 3 scvs on gas to frOzean's two. It made very little practical difference though and at the 5 minute mark they were both on exactly the same supply with the same tech and units.

Eventually they deviated as fantasy went for 2 vultures and attempted to harass frOzean's one vulture which was immediately stopped by the appearance of a tank. They then returned to mirroring with almost identical wraith and cloak timings. fantasy's was slightly faster though, a product of his earlier gas. He outmicroed frOzean's and was able to use cloaked wraiths to pick off scvs building an academy.

frOzean's cloak finished and he cleared up the two wraiths and began to counterattack with cloak but by this point fantasy had stopped making wraiths and had taken the opportunity to pump from factories. This was unfortunate for frOzean who had overreacted to the wraith threat with 3 starports which would be having a great time against two starport wraith but had a less fun time against goliaths. Realising he was pretty committed frOzean continued to mass wraiths while taking a hidden expansion at 5 in oov style old tvt. The wraiths appeared and surprised fantasy who lost a dozen or so scvs to them which is pretty massive in tvt. A vulture shut down the expansion attempt at 5 but that wasn't much consolation given how behind his economy was. Although fantasy's larger ground army was able to break through against frOzean's the control group fo wraiths arrived to finish them off, wiping out every tank. Fantasy's vultures suicided into the mineral lines effectively but were inevitably cleaned up while the wraiths continued their rampage. frOzean then pushed in with vultures and wraiths ahead of his tank force to take the win.

The observer is unclear as to exactly what happened next. What we see with the vultures is them laying mines all round a goliath, then moving round the goliath so a mine kills 5 friendly vultures. It's unclear what happened to the wraiths but 3 of them appear late in the battle out of the 10 or so that were there before. With no support the tanks of frOzean are wiped out. The players are still very well matched at this point, all that has happened is that frOzean's big advantage has been lost. They each have their main, natural, mineral only and back mineral only. However frOzean has more expansions coming and has fantasy's back mineral only blocked while fantasy is continually winning the ground engagements with superior micro (or less inferior micro).
Although frOzean is two bases up he's 40 supply behind from a succession of big tank battle losses and his bases are cut off and destroyed.
GG

This was actually a quite interesting game. frOzean's 3 starport wraith play was unorthadox and surprisingly effective. fantasy took a lot of economic damage and one point frOzean was poised to move in and establish position at his nat. However in big battle micro and particularly vulture use fantasy was clearly the better player. The advantage was whittled away until frOzean was losing on all fronts despite having considerably more income. Nice play by both players.

Game two saw cross positions TvT on Fighting Spirit with fantasy in teal at 7 while frOzean got orange at 1. fantasy semi proxied a 10 rax on the far side of his bridge to hard counter a 13 cc while frOzean went 10 gas 11 rax in a pretty standard opening. fantasy's gas followed frOzean's rax timing pretty closely with no real disadvantage. frOzean played safe with marines and fantasy didn't bother to rush, instead lifting his rax and floating it forwards while taking his expansion.

frOzean's faster gas gave him a fast 2 fac to fantasy's 1 fac cc but with cross positions this advantage would expire if the timing window wasn't hit perfectly. fantasy bunkered up his side of the bridge and added a second factory himself. However frOzean's siege completed just before fantasy's, allowing him to set up position to destroy the bunker without any threat of returning fire.

fantasy drew back his tanks and sieged them the second it completed but was forced to lift his cc which came under fire from frOzean's push. Using the cc as a spotter he advanced his tanks to counterattack and by very careful target firing was able to win the tank fight with exactly 2 hits (and a bit of splash from other hits) on each of frOzean's tanks. Ignoring the vultures and target firing tanks left fantasy with 5 mines placed at the feet of his sieged tanks but he picked off each and every one with beautiful vulture micro. With his tanks destroyed by floating building sight range spotting, target firing and target selection and his vultures negated by mine sniping frOzean had his army dismantled before his eyes by an inferior force.

While all this was going on fantasy's forwards rax was landed on frOzean's natural site and was blocking him from counterexpanding during the push. Two bases against one (frOzean eventually taking his natural but not having time to benefit from it) fantasy surged forwards across the map and smashed frOzean's forces, taking the win.

Good strategic play by frOzean again. He gets a lot of hate and I confess to giving him my fair share of it. However in this series his strategic play was decent. What fantasy showed us though was simply on another level. He exploited everything he could to maximise his army's damage output. His vultures' concussive attacks sniped mines in a single hit while his tanks didn't waste a single shot, doing their full explosive 70 against frOzean's tanks with just the right amount of splash damage to tip them into 2 shot kills. Watch it. It's really good.
GG

FireFist vs PianO on Great Barrier Reef. FireFist spawned at 8 in yellow while PianO got green at 4. FieeFist's overlord scouted correctly. PianO opened depot rax as standard while FireFist did a 12 hat 12 gas 12 pool. PianO fast expanded as you'd expect and killed FireFist's first overlord as it fled wjo;e FireFist teched to lair the moment the pool finished. PianO's build was standard, building 2 rax, a bunker and an academy. FireFist progressed to spire while PianO went for a 3rd rax before factory for some early pressure.

FireFist did not rush in with the first 8 mutalisks, instead taking his back mineral only and sunkening up his natural. Only when PianO pushed out with his first group of mnm did FireFist hit PianO's main with mutalisks. PianO chose to send his mnm to kill FireFist while trying to regain control of his main with newly produced units but his micro was poor and he had too few turrets. He lost his main and the mnm were unable to break the sunken line after drones drilled into them. With his base dead PianO GGed.

Too few turrets in his main (3 in total) and a decision to allin lost PianO the game. There was no need to allin when his economy was much stronger and defensive play would prevail long term.

PianO spawned in yellow at 1 while FireFist spawned in white at 11 on Fighting Spirit. Both players opened standard, depot rax and 12 hat 11 pool, 13 hat. PianO FEed and FireFist headed slowly to lair with an eco heavy build. FireFist made a hydralisk den timed to complete with lair. PianO moved out early and with use of stim packs rushed across the map to sunken break FireFist, killing a lot of drones with firebats.

PianO used this time to make 5 rax and macro up another army. However as he moved out FireFist used the base at 12 to go around the middle of the map and counterattack, killing many scvs and marines with lurkling. This constant unit production left FireFist unable to recover his own economy or take a third base but it allowed him to break even with PianO's army. FireFist attempted one last attack, using the route through 3 to try and pincer PianO's army on his bridge. However PianO anticipated this and divided his army to defeat each pincer in turn.

With his army destroyed FireFist accepted defeat and GGed, although he was defeated by the sunken break and had just been going allin since then, albeit with some success.

FireFist spawned at 11 in blue while PianO got orange at 7 on Eye of the Storm. FireFist opened 12 pool gas while PianO opened depot rax. FireFist made a fast lair and used early lings to block scouting while rushing to lurker with an exp. Meanwhile PianO, playing blind, was forced to block his choke with scvs and build his cc inside the wall out of fear of some kind of ling allin play.

PianO added a 2nd rax and put comsats on both his ccs to rush scouting and see what was going on. Despite scanning 2 hat lurkling he still pushed out and tried to take his natural, starting a bunker and blocking with mnm. FireFist hit at the perfect timing with 3 lurkers and a group of speedlings with more lurkers following. The mnm could not retreat easily and died to the lurker spines as PianO lost his army and control of his natural. With his natural comsat disabled he was forced to attempt to fight lurkerling with no turrets, one comsat and few marines. He failed and GGed out eventually.

A standard 2 hat lurkling timing attack vs 1 rax expand. PianO was overambitious, scanning his opponent and believing that through knowing it was coming he could micro against it. There was no need to expand so fast, it was an unnecessary risk and it cost him the game. As in Set 1, PianO identified an advantage and then ignored it in an attempt to win a quick game.

FireFist spawned in purple at 8 while EffOrt got green at 12 on Great Barrier Reef. EffOrt scouted correctly with his overlord, a fairly big advantage in ZvZ. EffOrt went 12 pool while FireFist went 12 hatchery at his expansion, an advantageous build. EffOrt followed his pool with gas, as did FireFist. However EffOrt opted to send two drones to sunken rush the 12 hat with his lings. With a sunken behind the mineral in the main and another next to the hatchery in the main EffOrt attempted to force FireFist to use his first zerglings on the sunken in the main, giving EffOrt time to blcok the base of the ramp with his own zerglings and sunken support.

FireFist used his drones to destroy the sunken while playing microwars with 2 hatchery lings against 1 hatchery lings + a morphing sunken colony at his natural. The sunken in his main was blocked but the sunken at his natural completed, although EffOrt lost too many zerglings to effectively hold it. In the mean time both players started lair with EffOrt's significantly faster while EffOrt sacrificed several more zerglings to harass drones, abusing FireFist's very poor defensive micro. FireFist lost 4 drones to zerglings, an unacceptable loss rate.

Knowing he was at a significant advantage in tech and economy but behind in unit count and production EffOrt recognised he needed to make some sacrifices. Either advantage would be enough but both might cost him the game. He made 2 sunken colonies to protect his faster spire

while FireFist threw his zerglings into them, losing vast amounts to drone micro and sunken colonies. However he was only able to produce a single mutalisk having lost many drones. The mutalisk went to work on FireFist's drones as he produced a spore colony while more zerglings wiped out EffOrt's drones, undefended because he lacked the resources to produce anything. Eventually the spore colony completed leaving FireFist with 3 drones and EffOrt with none.
GG

EffOrt spawned at 5 in brown on Fighting Spirit while FireFist got blue at 7. Again EffOrt scouted correctly and opened 12 pool gas and again FireFist went 12 hat 11 pool. However this game Effort quickly expanded, then made 6 zerglings which delayed his lair, leaving only two drones on gas. FireFist massed zerglings off of his two hatcheries, getting a superior count. He attacked EffOrt's natural expansion but EffOrt saw this coming with his overlord and made a sunken colony which, combined with superior micro, held his natural easily. Both players teched to spire at around the same timing but FireFist was several control ahead.

FireFist threw another army of speedlings into EffOrt's natural, very nearly breaking him but being unable to finish the sunken, despite it being on 10hp for some time. The players traded scourge but mFireFist sent his first mutalisks to destroy an overlord, leaving them out of position to defend his mineral line against EffOrt's mutalisks. FireFist tried another zergling attack which again failed and when the mutalisks clashed EffOrt came out ahead. Mutalisk superiority combined with superior micro ended it pretty swiftly and FireFist was forced to GG.

FireFist spawned in white at 5 while EffOrt spawned at 1 in red on Eye of the Storm. FireFist opened 12 hat again while EffOrt went for a 12 hat 11 gas again with his overlord scouting FireFists FE first. As in game 2 EffOrt followed with his own expansion with a fast lair instead of immediate zerglings. Both players played defensively with EffOrt having a slightly faster lair and FireFist having 2 extra drones from his opening. EffOrt made a LOT of speedlings unknown to his opponent and attempted a timing attack to hit seconds before spire completed so FireFist had 6 larva saved up.

FireFist did make a sunken but it completed too late and despite a concave EffOrt was able to overwhelm him. Although FireFist lost a few drones and his spire his superior drone count from not massing lings at the same time as EffOrt did left them with even control counts. Both players ran zerglings into the other's base but although neither did any damage the arrival of EffOrt's mutalisks ended the game.
GG

FireFist's overlord wasn't in EffOrt's base so it couldn't see the switch into pure speedlings. In many ways this win was attributable to luck, EffOrt's overlord could see FireFist droning because he scouted correctly, FireFist's overlord could not see the zerglings. Still, it happens.

Bisu vs Modesty on Great Barrier Reef. Bisu got white at 12 while Modesty spawned in purple at 4. Bisu did his build, by which I mean he placed a pylon at his natural, and Modesty overpooled. Bisu scouted correctly and blocked Modesty's FE with a pylon, forcing Modesty to make lings before expanding although the 100 minerals missing in turn forced Bisu to cannon before nexus. However he did not allow this to get him behind by continuing to pump probes while expanding. Modesty took a 3rd at the 9 natural and took his gas off of 6 zerglings, pumping drones and teching to lair.

The zerglings did not allow Bisu's scout probe out, effectively keeping him blind until Bisu used a zealot to feint and slipped it out. Modesty lost an overlord scouting Bisu's tech and after a dragoon killed it Bisu cancelled his stargate and switched to 5 gateways with dragoon range. Modesty had no idea this cheese was coming, all he could see was the forge spinning +1. He countered the faked threat of +1 speedlots correctly with a wallin at both naturals but without mutalisks or speedlings he was defenceless against the dragoon cheese. Bisu was extremely vulnerable to mutalisks as although he could have hypothetically defended them with mass dragoons it would be inefficient and would pin his forces while Modesty countered. However he was in luck and the pure dragoon were able to hit and do sufficient damage before a critical mass of mutalisks or speedlings could be created to stop them.

GG although Bisu really shouldn't be cheesing zergs. As Bisu he should have the ability to just safely own them without hoping Modesty does a certain thing. I want to emphasise just how little Bisu could do against mutalisks without cannons, a stargate, a citadel of adun etc... His dragoons would be completely pinned while Modesty could adapt and macro.

Bisu spawned in teal at 1 on Fighting Spirit while Modesty got white at 11. Modesty went 12 hat 11 pool while Bisu double scouted and forge fast expanded as standard. Modesty took a third base at 9 and teched to lair as standard while Bisu added a fast gateway with just one cannon and teched. Bisu's transitions were as standard as can be with just two gateways, unlocking the entire tech tree while Modesty walled in with 5 hat as well as adding a lot of hydralisks.

Rather than attempt a quick 3rd base Bisu instead macroed up off his first two, playing aggressively with speedlots.

A mutalisk switch blocked the speedlots which were forced to retreat although they killed a fair number of hydralisks. However during the distraction Bisu expanded to 3 and massed up 5 corsairs with an archon. Modesty's mutalisks did no damage against the corsairs and instead he tried to take an expansion at 7. He then attempted an attack on Bisu's front as Bisu's army still showed no ht to block the mass hydralisks. The first two ht were sniped without casting which suggests storm completed extremely late. However reinforcements arrived and storm completed which blocked them. A lurker contain was set up and a battle on the bridges between lurkers and hydralisks and ht with dragoons began. While containing Modesty took another expansion to the 7 natural.

Modesty stuck to lair tech which counters the macro heavy low base count style well and Bisu's attempts to break out failed. A shuttle drop killed a few drones and a spire but did no real damage while another big push at the front failed, losing a lot of speedlots to lurkers. Bisu attempted another big push off of 12 gateways, finally breaking out with some good storms against the 8 hatchery hydralurk of his opponent. Bisu's army smashed into Modesty's natural and with only small groups of units moving in to defend the mass dragoons cleaned them up easily.

Bisu expanded to 12 but had his expansion at 3 shut down by a lurker drop. However Modesty's attempts to block Bisu's mining were just delaying the inevitable as Modesty had lost his entire tech tree and most of his unit production. Bisu overran him and ended the game.
GG

Bisu spawned at 12 in orange while go.go got blue at 4 on Great Barrier Reef. Standard openings from both players with gateway core and depot rax respectively. go.go then took a leaf out of Idra's book, going rax at his natural and making a fast cc before gas. Bisu went zealot then dragoon which is very able to harass that kind of FE but he scouted incorrectly, allowing go.go to bunker late safely.
Bisu responded with dragoon range, 2 probes on gas and a fast counterexpand, although this was fast as in no further tech and only one gateway, go.go's command centre was still completed before Bisu started his nexus. Bisu's dragoons harassed the bunker of go.go but he had more than enough minerals to repair it so there was no real threat. go.go took his back mineral only very early, powering his economy very strongly while teching to starport and armoury. His build was very defensive and very dangerous once he gets 10 factories and 2 armouries up.
Bisu meanwhile stayed on two bases (not having any scouting information) and teched to reaver. Bisu attempted to reaver harass go.go's third at 6 but a nearby wraith took down the shuttle and the reaver bugged and refused to fire on tanks so Bisu lost all of them for only around 200 minerals of damage. go.go continued to camp up, adding turrets, siege tanks and making a 4th command centre in his main to take his mineral only. Although Bisu took his own back mineral only he was still considerably behind on macro as he teched to arbiters. An attempt by Bisu to expand to 9 was shut down by vultures which also delayed an expansion attempt to Bisu's mineral only.
go.go pushed out to cover the base at 3 below his cliff which he also expanded to, posessing five bases from the defence of his main. This left go.go ahead in expansions and only 40 supply behind with 160 to 200. A tank drop behind the mineral line at 2 disabled Bisu's expansion there while Bisu countered with a recall at 6 which inflicted some damage but was unable to destroy the command centre before being cleaned up. Attempts to block the harass at 2 failed and Bisu lost that expansion leaving him behind again, despite taking 8.
After another failed recall attempt Bisu realised this was going to be a macro game and took two more expansions at 11 and 9. However by this point go.go had reached 200 supply and 3-2 upgrades and began to crawl across the map. Bisu hit 6 with a recall and threw his army into the push at the same time but could not kill the command centre at 6 and succeeded only in killing the vultures. Lacking the zealots to fight mass tanks with the dragoons he had saved from the earlier battle Bisu attempted to delay with stasis but ultimately could not break the push. As it reached his natural he was forced to gg.
go.go's build was as lame as a Terran can be but he played it very nicely. Great Barrier Reef allows a Terran to defend 5 bases from a single cliff line and go.go played a nice adaptation of the original Flash Destination build designed to exploit that. Bisu's reaction wasn't ideal but he lacked the scouting information to play optimally. go.go simply played better, using an excellent build perfectly.

Bisu got yellow at 11 while go.go got red at 7 on Fighting Spirit. go.go went rax at his natural again while Bisu again opened standard gate gas core. go.go went for a command centre at his natural again, as before, but this time Bisu scouted him first and forced a fast bunker with his zealot. Bisu left only one probe on gas, rushing his own counter expansion with fast dragoon range to harass the bunker. Again Bisu went for a robo before taking a third, possibly because a third is harder for the Terran to take on Fighting Spirit so it was more likely go.go was massing factories.
Bisu headed towards reaver but go.go set up a complete network of turrets around his entire perimeter. Bisu then took 12 blindly. I don't like this play. If he wanted to blindly go 3 base against 2 then it would have been optimal to do so immediately to maximise the economic advantage. Equally if he judged that he needed to play more safely then he should have massed up more. Bisu opted for a middle route blindly with the benefits of neither.
go.go scouted the expansion at 12 and tried to push up but Bisu hit him with speedlots and dragoons on the move, catching him out of position and breaking his push. The complete break and rolling back of a push is very significant because it is the tank mass that gives a push its power. Vulture losses can be replaced in seconds but it takes time and gas to build up a significant number of tanks. The complete break of a push knocked go.go out of the middle of the map for some time which is a problem for him when he was behind on expansions.
go.go attempted to expand to 9 but Bisu's army was simply too large and go.go could not stop the expansion attempt being crushed and the Command Centre falling. Bisu's army continued to grow and he expanded to the main base at 2, using the open nature of the map to hold map control with massive low tech armies of speedlots and dragoons. Just as go.go exploited the map terrain in their first game Bisu exploited it in their second, drawing go.go into the map and then flattening his army. Outexpanded and with his army destroyed go.go GGed out.

Bisu spawned in purple at 11 while go.go got yellow at 5 on Eye of the Storm. Cross positions favour go.go if he goes fast command centre again. However in the third game go.go went for gas as standard, perhaps not wishing to be too predictable. Bisu went zealot then dragoon with range, rushing and killing a marine with his zealot while go.go pumped marines and added a second factory in what looked like an old fashioned gundam.
Bisu headed to reaver while expanding as go.go pushed out with marines and a tank. What go.go showed Bisu looked like a normal FD expand and as Bisu hadn't been able to scout inside his main he knew no better. go.go didn't rush out immediately and Bisu pulled back to his natural as he expanded so he didn't see go.go's tanks leaving his main. With excellent scv scouting go.go saw the shuttle's path and moved his advancing army out of the sight range of it, going around the edge of the map up to 12. The first indication Bisu got that his opponent had not expanded was when his shuttle, containing the reaver he needed to defend against a 2 fact, reached go.go's expansion.
This was a truly excellent play, go.go manipulated Bisu's scouting and suicided marines to represent a build he was not doing. He lured Bisu into a position from which he could not defend. Bisu recognised how much trouble he was in and immediately abandoned his natural, walling it in with pylons to buy time. His reaver wreaked havoc in the undefended mineral line of go.go but he could not stop go.go's push in his own base. Despite killing all go.go's units in his base and all but a handful of scvs he could not save his main and was forced to GG. And rather than pull his reaver back and hope he could salvage enough in his main to leave him ahead he continued to use his reaver against go.go, hoping to ensure his victory if he could save his main.
This was Bisu's mistake. His reaction to discovering go.go's trick was excellent, abandoning his natural immediately and realising he needed to do damage with his reaver to recover. However the only way he could block the push was with both a shuttle and a reaver which he simply did not have time to produce in his main. After killing half of the scvs I believe Bisu should have brought his shuttle and reaver home, despite the fact it could have done no damage in that travel time. Bisu succeeded in completely destroying his opponent's economy but could not save his own. Still, he played a very strong game and it's a testament to how truly clever go.go's strategy was that it overcame the mechanical and tactical superiority of Bisu. Watch this game.

he's got a 3-kill today, so there is light at the end of the tunnel.