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Tao of Gaming Tournament Report
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Author:Mark4
IP:pool0243XXXX
Date: 01/23/00 06:01
Game Type: Starcraft
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This report is a Mark4 Production.




Introduction




Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you a battle from the first Tao of Gaming starcraft tournament! This was the quarter final match between two very tough competitors. Gen~Khalsa was fresh from his i2e2 live tournament win in New York, defeating competitors such as LustedSmurf (who had taken down Montaro) to advance to this point. He faced none other than Galac~[SDT] who had defeated Stratus in the last round to advance. This promised to be an exciting fight.

The map for each round of battle was designated in the tournament rules, and the map for the quarterfinals was Dire Straits. I was accompanied by BR.com’s very own BoB_The_Newt whose sole purpose was to "make witty comments". Both players chose their race at the last second before they started.












Khalsa started with his yellow zerg in the upper left, while Galac began in the lower left with his orange protoss. The protoss commander followed a relatively conservative build order, getting a stargate as his first tech building, followed by a robotics facility and robotics support bay. Khalsa began teching for a hydra drop after a few minutes of powering, getting a second hatchery then a spawning pool and an extractor at the same time. In order to cover for the vulnerability that this left towards early corsairs, he also got an evolution chamber and a spore colony.




Watch the overlords Bub!




The first moment of conflict came as Khalsa scouted Galac with his second overlord. The overlord got a full view of the air tech tree that Galac had chosen, but Galac had ordered up a dragoon before the overlord ever appeared and it emerged when the zerg unit was directly over the gateway. This quickly led to the death of the zerg scout. With the little thrill that all protoss players get when they pop an overlord early in an island game, Galac send his first corsair directly north towards where the overlord came from. He find the zerg base and charges straight in, catching Khalsa in the midst of his powering mode without any hydras. Fortunately, the spore colony has just finished morphing and proves sufficient to drive the protoss unit off. Galac did see only one overlord, and knew that there must be at least one more for the number of drones Khalsa had at that point. The first overlord Khalsa had sent out scouting had visited the upper right and lower right and was recalled as soon as the other overlord had seen the protoss tech tree. It had managed to move within half a screen of the zerg main when the second protoss corsair found it and harried it until it exploded.



With the succes enjoyed by his first move, Galac entered into another phase of the conflict. His first shuttle dropped a probe off at the left center island and quickly began a nexus. The shuttle returned shortly after and picked up two zealots and a reaver. The shuttle’s course took it up in back of the mineral line, but Galac decided not to drop there because of two sunkens covering most of the area he could have dropped in. He circled around the top, taking a hit or two from the spore colony when he got too close, then dropped to the right of the extractor. Khalsa had his first hydras coming out at this point, and moved to engage the threat. The first hydra was stopped by the zealots from closing with the reaver and died to a scarab. The zealots then charged into the main, encountering three more hydras and a sunken colony, and were driven back to the reaver. Seven hydras attacked the reaver, but only managed to kill a zealot before losing four of their number and having to retreat, the damaged reaver popping into the shuttle at the last second. After the hydras depart, Galac drops the reaver again and hammers on the extractor until the damaged reaver is finally brought down.




A terrible risk…




Content with the damage he had caused, Galac continues his one stargate corsair production and began a fleet beacon. He also put a second nexus down on the left center island so he could mine the minerals in the top half of the island. Khalsa expanded to the top middle island. Galac tried to prevent reinforcements from reaching the island with two corsair, but a twelve hydra drop killed both corsair before they could destroy an overlord. Khalsa sacrificed an overlord for a suicide scouting mission to the protoss main, but a corsair patrol caught it and finished it just seconds before it would have revealed Galac’s plans. And his plans were becoming obvious. He had a single dragoon for his land units and had put down another two stargates for a total of three. Then the carrier production began. This strat had a terrible risk….and a great payoff. If he could get six or more carriers before Khalsa dropped him Galac would have a very high mobility advantage. If Khalsa caught him at it, then one dragoon can’t beat the forty plus hydras Khalsa created, no matter how much it was microed. To prevent just that sort of drop, Galac was relying on a eight corsair screen patrolling between his expansion and Khalsa’s.



Khalsa decided it was time to make something happen. He loaded up four overlords with hydras, about a quarter of his force, and went to see what he could do. He took a round about route, circling clockwise around the known protoss expansions and heading for the protoss main. Unfortunately, he got caught by a two corsair patrol that caused him to turn around and make a run for it. He dropped on the center right island where Galac had just expanded for the third time. The hydras made quick work of the corsair pursuing the overlords, and forced the cancellation of the warping nexus and pylons. With this victory Khalsa felt an opportunity had come and he expanded to the middle right island with two hatcheries.





Galac realized that the hydras that forced his expansion to be cancelled meant defenses would be a little lower elsewhere. Six carriers rolled out and began an assault on the top middle expansion, not having any problem dealing with the eight hydras left to defend. As the first sunken fell on the outer part of the expansion, Khalsa realized he couldn’t decisively engage the carriers at his expansion because of the range and mobility of the carriers. The only way to fight them would be to force a fight by attacking a point he knew Galac would defend. With this in mind he dropped twelve hydras he had sitting on the right center island on the left center island where Galac had expanded. Galac had no defense on the island and his carriers were very close by, so he recalled them to deal with the zerg threat. Forced into a close fight, one carrier fell almost immediately, and a second one about halfway through. A third one was reduced to half strength before all the hydra were eliminated.




The victory fleet!




With his expansion safe, Galac turned his carriers back towards the zerg expansion. Even with only four carriers left to carry on the assault, the remaining five hydras were quickly overwhelmed. Galac had kept up his scouting through the match and found the expansion in the middle right with his corsair. The expansion had a mere three drones working when the carriers rolled in from the left, encountering no resistance. A reinforcing four carriers made the work even shorter.

With the fall of his last expansion, Khalsa decided it was time for one last gamble. He loaded up six overlords with his remaining hydras and began sneaking down the left side of the map. He avoided all the corsair patrols and deposited his cargo safely in the area of the non mined out minerals. The first few seconds of the attack went beautifully, as thirty or more probes popped like popcorn in a microwave set on overload. Four zealots, a dragoon, and two new carriers were all that defended the protoss main. The twenty four hydras made quick work of the ground forces, losing only three of their number, then neutered the carriers by killing the interceptors.



But the massive carrier force Galac had accumulated was on it’s way back. One carrier fell to hydra horde as it tried to escape, and the second was heavily damaged. Then the strains of John William’s Imperial March could be heard playing faintly in the back ground as the ten carrier fleet came in for vengeance. The hydras were mopped up with little trouble, and Khalsa conceded the game.



Thanks for reading my report. Visit the Tao of Gaming site for overall tournament results and great starcraft strategies.

Mark4



































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