"this is so fucking bad I want to kill myself and then in my will leave a request to have you banned from the internet."
-Fox^1
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| Intense ladder vrs a 1195 zerg | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 10/16/99 08:10 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 4, Max: 8, Min: 6
Lifetime Rating for AQD3: 7.6184 |    | Introduction
I’ve been trying to do ladder for the past day or so. It’s been pretty hard to find an open game in the 1175+ range. I’m starting to realize that when you get over 1150 or so you have to go find people to challenge. I’ve had little luck in ladder challenges. Everybody there is speaking in ASCII and even if I could see the actual letters my korean is not very good. I’m pretty much limited to: Hello-anya ha say yo, yes-neh, no-anyeh, and where are the drinky girls, which I don’t actually know the korean for but everybody understood anyway when I was there. So I have been asking for ladder game in the private channels.
My first game was against Drefsab from nohunters. He had posted in the comments section of one of my reports that he wanted to play me. We played a ladder game on rivalry, where his surprise mass zergling strat got cut abruptly short by my use of dark templar. It was still a challenging game and I thank him for the opportunity to play. The second game was the most intense ladder game I have played in a while. Nohunters had very few high ladder players in it when I wanted my next game. I went to X17 and within the first ten seconds a player called ikseong (1195) was asking for a ladder game on temple. I quickly whispered him and he created the game.
I wanna be, wanna be like Whoop
I selected my customary protoss and got the right start position. Ik chose zerg when he saw my selection and drew the bottom start. I had a little trouble at the beginning of the game. I usually send the first two probes to minerals patches, then select the next two and send them to a third patch, make a probe, then select one of the second two and send it to a fourth patch before it reaches the third. I’m not sure how I managed it, but I group selected all my probes and sent them all to one patch not once, but three times, twice after they already started mining. This was not the most auspicious start to my game. I though about asking for a restart, but if I had superior skill I knew I could overcome this bad beginning. And if I didn’t I’d get more skill by losing. With all the screwing around over with I began my build order:
8: Pylon
12: Dual Gateway
14: Pylon
15: Zealot
18: Zealot
This is a little different from my usual build. I was full of mistakes tonight. I had started my second pylon a little too late and the second zealot came about ten seconds later than the first. That wouldn’t be a problem unless the zerg was rushing… and he wasn’t. I scouted with my probe that made the 2 gateways in a counterclockwise manner. As you can tell from my description of the positions this put my opponent in the last place I would look. I continued with my build, getting four zealots, then an assimilator and another two zealots. My gateways and nexus were in constant use. As the sixth zealot popped out Ik said “You are 1:00?” I responded with “?”. “I scouted with an overlord.” Odd. He must refer to the map position by clock face position. I didn’t reply. If he didn’t know, I wasn’t going to tell him. =] An overlord came floating over my ramp at this point, shortly followed by ten zerglings. I faced the zerglings at the ramp and Ik quickly ran them away rather than fight up my ramp. At this same time my probe arrived at the bottom and found a hatchery at the natural expansion. There was only one drone at work there.
There is nothing I fear more than a zerg with a natural expansion who can make as many drones as he wants. But there is only one way he can make all the drones he wants: if I don’t attack. I hid my probe south of his natural and sent my six zealots to his natural, followed by two more as they were produced. I also made a cybernetics core, hoping to bag myself an overlord. I started my attack with my probe. It hit the defense of ten zerglings from behind, causing confusion a second before my zealots hit. A morphing sunken colony was sitting right next to the hatchery. The zerglings ran away to give the sunken time to finish after they engaged my zealots. I began attacking the sunken with five zealots while one zealot chased the zerglings. The zerglings came running back and I moved the zealot back to the sunken. The probe was getting free zergling hits the whole time. As the zerglings reached the sunken it finished morphing and started hitting my zealots, but it had taken severe damage. It only got in two hits before dying in a shower of blood. My probe assisted zealots finished the zerglings while only losing two of their number. The second set of two zealots arrived to help beat on the hatchery. Ik sent in six more zerglings to save it, but lost them to the zealots, killing one. That was three more drones he wouldn’t have…this was looking up.
It’s okay to get a little blood on your hands
While I microed the battle at the natural I had accumulated a lot of minerals. I made a citdael of Adun, a pylon, a gateway, and expanded to my natural. I also made a forge and another pylon at my natural and queued up a dragoon and a zealot. The four zealot and probe force at his natural got attacked by another siz zerglings, only killing one already damaged zealot. The hatchery disappeared under the psi blades of my warriors. I sent another two zealots to Ik’s natural and started a templar archives and the ground weapons upgrade. I was content to do containment for a minute or two, getting my expansion up and running with a cannon to protect it and another gateway at my main. I also managed to kill a stray overlord with my dragoon as it peeked around the corners of my base.
I tried to go up the ramp at Ik’s base, but I ran smack into about twenty zerglings. I got stuck at a bad part of the ramp where five zerglings could beat on two zealots and lost my first two without getting too many kills. The last three and the probe made a good stand but in the end he had seven zerglings left when it was over. I saw them start heading out with the last bit of vision from my dead units. I had six zealots at my natural and a cannon to protect it. I made an archon from my first two templar and ordered up two dark templar. Dark templar tear up early zergling attacks without an overlord, and I’d killed the only one around my base earlier. Nothing came in my front door so I relaxed a little bit. When my weapons upgrade hit I decided that it was time to go for the gusto. I took a mixed force of an archon, two dragoons, two dark templar, and seven zealots and headed to my enemies natural. Now this game has sounded pretty one sided so far, right? I’ve beaten the hell out of his every attack and even razed his natural. So how did this become a close game? I’m glad you asked…
Candygram. Flowers. Landshark. Mutas.
My forced arrive at his natural and found nothing there. He hadn’t expanded again. I get that “I’ve got this one in the bag feeling”. Just as the big smile hits my face I happen to glance back to my base. Hmmm. What the heck are ten mutas doing coming in over my probe line? My first instinct is to run back the archon and dragoons. But I catch myself. What would Whoop do? He’d probably start kicking ass. Sounds like a plan to me. I’m not sure I’ll be able to save my base if he gets to keep pumping mutas anyway. I run all the probes from my main to my natural and make another three cannons there in a nice little triangle on the opposite side from my other cannon. Then with a shouted “Remember the Alamo” (I’d just named my main base that for it’s propensity to get overrun =[ ) I patrol my attack force into his main. Back at my base a lone templar is being formed in a gateway. The mutas quickly finish my one cannon I had there and start pounding on the nexus.
At his base my forces are opposed by a control group of zerglings and three sunkens placed around his base. The ground weapons upgrade and the archon lets me plow through the zerglings, and I get down to the serious business of base demolition. The sunkens go down surprisingly easy when six zealots, an archon, and two dragoons concentrate fire on them. Ik tries to form another two sunkens but I finish them off before they become active. My forces start in on killing the base and I turn my attention back to my main.
Ik realized that my probes had actually run somewhere and weren’t huddling in a corner. He sent his ten mutas down to my natural, attacking just as the last cannon finished warping. One cannon fell, then another, but he had lost three mutas. I saw blue flames spring from one of my two remaining cannons just as Ik decided to pull out his mutas and try to save his base. He lost that game of chicken. I guess he realized he wasn’t going to win the base destruction race since I had a natural, and my units had a lot higher damage output than his. I directed my attention back to his main and found that all that remained was a creep colony and a spire. Ik realized he was done for, and with a “very good” surrendered the game.
I checked the stats after which are available HERE. In a 15 minute game I killed 95 units and only lost 22. Of course, the stats are a little misleading as there quite a few drone and probe kills in there too. If Ik had placed his sunkens better and had just a few more his strat might have beaten me. I doubt I could have taken the mutas with the available forces. Ik mentioned after the game he hadn’t expected an early attack.
Thank you for reading my report. Please comment on the tactics Ik and I used during the game. Do any protoss players know of a good counter for the early muta rush? I think I would have been able to defend it with my archon if I had left it at home, but maybe not… Anyway, I finally got to my goal of 1200! This game put me at 1203 =]
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