"Disclaimer: I play with mercury. A lot. KE KE KE KE KE."
-WilliamWC3
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| Fox^1 vs Acura-x (commentary by Crazy) | | | Author: | | | IP: | netgate.XXXX | | Date: | 05/04/01 10:05 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 4, Max: 9, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for Raider: 8.5370 |   | I came to NoHunters in search of that special someone who would play me 1v1. Once there I copied "1v1 msg me!!!" repeated ten times and quickly made sure that that would be the only thing on the screen of anyone in the channel. In the midst of my spam, however I saw Astic's name disappear from the list of people in nh, and along with him, fox, acura-x and one more more member of the a-x. I quickly did a whois on Crazy and found that he was in the game named "astic" Now I only needed to figure out the password. Putting my powers of deduction to work, I decided that crazy used part of his name for the game name, he would use the second part for the passowrd. I quickly typed in "x" into the passowrd field, pressed OK and bingo! I joined the game. Good timing it was too since everyone was already assembled and ready to start. The game commenced.
Game 1
The game was on temple and both combatants picked random for the game.
Both players went for 8-pool to have lings as early as possible without hurting their economy too much. From there, however their builds diverged. Fox morphed 1 more drone and ordered an extractor. As soon it completed morphing he put 3 drones on it right away, leaving only 5 on minerals. At the same time as the extractor poped up, the spawning pool finished as well, and Fox morphed the 3 larva that he had saved up into lings. Soon thereafter he added another hatchery. With such low peon count and gas Fox could only be getting one thing--speed lings. And I was correct in my prediction, as Fox soon took off the drones off gas and ordered them to collect minerals again, obviously having collected his 100 gas for the speed upgrade.
Acura used a more conservative build with later gas. After his 8-pool he spawned two more drones and an overlord on 9. This build allowed Acura to spawn 4 lings as soon as his pool was done. The 4 lings were soon followed by the 2nd hatchery and an extractor.
At this point, it is worth mentioning that both players, after finding nothing with their overlords, sent a drone to find their opponent. That's right guys, despite the common belief, drones CAN be used for scouting. Both peons found the enemy and were confronted with the same sight. Both, Acura and Fox guarded their ramp with 8 lings. I am not sure who threw the first punch, but in the end both drones were dead and the 8 lings were left to consider the meaning of Civil War.
Right after discoverig the enemy, both players attended to their bases. Acura began morphing one of his hatcheries into a Lair, and Fox started the 3rd hatchery. At this point Acura had 11 drones, with 8 mining minerals and 3 on gas, while Fox only had 8 drones on minerals. With Acura getting Lair tech, Fox's goal would be to kill Acura before the latter gets his tech choice of lurkers or mutas. To this end Fox started morphing speedlings en masse and rallying them to his ramp. Unfortunately for him, however, with only 8 drones mining, he was unable to use his 3rd hatchery almost at all.
Meanwhile Acura was also massing lings from his two hatcheries, waiting for his Lair upgrade to complete. He also started ling speed upgrade. He placed his lings on top of his ramp to guard against attack. This attack did not fail to come. Just as Acura's Lair poped out and he started a spire to the left of his base, Fox attacked with all the lings he had. From the outstart of the battle, Acura had fewer lings than his opponent, but his were placed on top of the ramp, giving him a significant advantage. To add to this, Fox forgot a group of about 10 lings at the side of Acura's ramp.
Right about then Crazy makes an interesting comment
Both players had the ling speed upgrade from the start of the battle. Fox kept coming up the ramp with his lings but only 4 of them were able to fight at any given time due to the narrow passage of the ramp. These 4 lings were immediately surrounded by Acura's lings, and as a result had to combat 6-7 lings. Due to this, Acura was able to hold his ramp for a long time, killing most of the attacking lings. Eventually, though Fox noticed lings sitting on the side of the ramp and ordered them to attack. At the same time more lings arrrived from his main and the combined force was able to break the ramp defense. Seeing that he was loosing the battle, Acura pulled his remaining lings to his mineral line where he had constructed a sunken colony.
Fox's lings pursued Acura to the base and started attacking the extractor that was outside of sunken range. Acura tried attacking those lings with his own to try and lure them into sunken range. When he did that, however, Fox ran his lings around the base, in search of the spire. Just as these lings were above the sunken, Acura attacked them from the side, forcing them into sunken range where they got destroyed by the sunken and the some lings.
By then the spire completed and Acura immediately began morphing 4 mutas, while Fox pressed his attack, in an attempt to do as much damage as possible before Acura got his mutas out. He sent more speedlings at Acura, who, having commited to mutas has no more lings, and is forced to micro drones to prevent Fox from raping the sunken. Fox's goal was precisely that however. If he killed the colony before the mutas hatch, he could get some free drone kills, harming his opponent's economy and thus buying himself time to build up some defense in his base that only had 7 drones mining minerals and 3 hatcheries. To this end he keeps sending all his lings at his opponent and pressed his attack despite the mutalisks that hatch from their eggs. Finally Fox managed to kill the sunken. However, the mutalisks finished off the remaining lings with minimal drone losses. That was partailly due to that fact that Fox, by mistake sent his lings down to the gully between 9 and 6 positions. Because of this he did not have enough in his opponent's base to do any significant damage. When these lings finally did arrive at Acura's mineral line, they could do nothing against 6 mutas that fired at them with impunity, quickly putting an end to that invasion.
This long confrontation left both players devastated, but Acura had the advantage of higher tech as well as 2 more drones. Knowing this, Fox went on defensive and morphed two spores in his base to hold off the mutas and morphed 9 more drones, an extractor and started mining full swing. Mutas arrived moments after the spores had finished morphing, having killed an overlord on the way.
At first, Acura's mutas ran into the two two spores in Fox's base and pulled back. But then Acura noticed that the spores were placed poorly, only protecting the mineral line and 2 hatcheries. He ordered the mutas to return and attack the 3rd hatchery. Not wishing to give up, Fox tried to build another spore that would save the hatchery, but when muta rebound started hitting the morphing structure, he realizes that he had no chance. Even if the colony had completed, Acura would still be free to expand with his air superiority and would quickly overrun him. Fox called a "gg" and leaves, asking for a rematch.
Well played game by both contestants. As an observer, however, I do have a few comments. 3-hatchery lings is a potent strategy I think vs 1 hatch mutas with 2nd hatch sometime after the lair upgrade is started. Vs a 2 hatch it is somewhat risky since 2 hatch mutas allow you have a lot of lings. Combined with 1 or 2 sunkens in main this becomes hard to take down with 3 hatch lings.
Another problem with the way Fox played it was not getting enough drones. He had a lot of trouble using that 3rd hatchery of his with only 7 or 8 drones mining. Because of that Acura was able to nearly match him in ling count while teching to muta. My estimate would be that to fund the 3 hatch lings the zerg would need somwhere around 12-13 drones.
As for Acura, his spire was all the way to left side of his plateau and therefore harder to defend. If Fox had more ling left when he broke through, he could have taken down that spire with no drones around to shield it.
Game 2
Neither the players nor the observers were satisfied with the first game, so a rematch was to take place. Some things never change, however and the map was the same old (real old) temple.
Both players randomed again. Fox drew toss at the 9 position and Acura drew zerg at 3 again.
Acura decided to early expand, but fearing early rush chose not to go with the standard 12 hatch 12 pool. Instead he went for the extractor trick to get 10 drones without spawning another overlord. Then soon as he had 300 minerals, he started a hatchery at the bottom of his ramp.
It was positioned so that colonies placed on it creep would be able to defend both, the expansion and the ramp into his main. After the hatchery, Acura quickly got a spawning pool, overlord, and started a 3rd hatchery at his natural.
Fox decided to take the tech route as soon as his scouting probe discovered the morphing hatchery. To this end he built a pylon, gate, assimilator, zealot, pylon, core.
As soon as the zealot popped out of the gateway, Fox sent it to reinforce the probe at the zerg expansion and do whatever damage they can.
Now, normally a single zealot and a probe can do nothing against a 10 hatch 10 pool build. This particular zealot, however, had undergone the Jedi training had the Force with him.
When the Jedi zealot and the probe arrived at the zerg expansion, they found the hatchery below the ramp complete with an egg near it and a few drones running around. Feeling the force flow, the zealot charged a drone. 3 quick swiped later the drone lay dead at his feet. It was no time to relax however, as 6 zerglings were coming down the ramp along with more drones. Seeing such opposition, the Jedi zealot who knew no fear, gathered his courage for the final confrontation. At that moment, however, he his comlink came alive with a scream from Fox, "What the hell are you staring at!? Get the hell outta there!!." Having on choice but to obey his commanding officer, the zealot turned and ran, followed close by the probe that beeped happily at the prospect of not having to die just yet.
After this confrontation, both commanders continued to build up. Fox got a stargate and started a citadel of Adun. He also made a forge and started researching +1 weapon upgrade. His plan was to use corsairs to kill any overlord around his base and then expand with dark templar for cover. If he succeded in killing the overlords, it would be some time before Acura could get his speed upgrade and move a new overlord to the site.
Meanwhile Acura built dual extrator at his main and exansion and got a hydra den as soon as he had collected 50 gas. He also made a sunken near his second hatchery to discourage any attacks and allow himslef to power a bit longer. He knew he did not need much defense because his overlord saw that Fox only had 1 gate. His plan therefore was to power up and get hydras as his main fighting troops.
The next move belonged Fox. His corsair had warped in from Aiur and he sent it on an overlord hunt to Acura's natural, while he made a pylon and 2 canons on his ridge overlooking his natural in preparation to expand there.
Fox's corsair upon arriving at Acura's natural found a few overlords parked over the hatchery and began happily firing away at them. He managed to pop 2 before the newly hatched hydras arrived and chased the intruder away. Upon seeing the hydras the corsair flew to Acura's main and got a good look around before leaving for good and ending up parked over Fox's natural cliff to prevent any lords from hiding there and providing Acura with detection to spot the dark templars defending the expansion that had just been started there. Acura was aware of the starting expansion however due a suicide ling that he sent on a scouting mission.
Here's what the minimap looks like at this point in the game:
Seeing that Fox is about to get a new expansion, Acura began morphing a Lair for overlord upgrades and also started a hatchery at 12 mineral only. He also added two evolution chambers for dual upgrades.
Meanwhile Fox's natural nexus had warped in and he transfered a bunch of probes there and set up a defense of a gateway and 2 canons behind it. Here Crazy had another comment to make.
Fox's corsair had been periodically flying circles around the map and had 4 overlord kills when it decided to pay another visit to Acura's natural. There it found the same overlords hanging around that survived the first raid, but this time the corsair was not so lucky. Hydras arrived quick and the corsair barely escaped, severely damaged. After that it returned to Fox's natural cliff to stay there for good.
By now Acura's Lair had been done for a while. His 12 natural expansion was operational by then and he started 1 more at his own mineral natural. Acura also sent 5 hydras to 12 mineral natural where he morphed them into lurkers. Soon after Acura loaded them into an overlord and headed for Fox's cliff. His lord did not have speed, however and was soon spotted by the corsair. The corsair attacked the floating sack, but the overlord was able to unload the 2 lurkers when overlord only had 16 HP's left. 
The dropped lurkers went and burrowed above and to the left of the extractor at Fox's expansion, forcing Fox to stop mining and run his probes to the bottom of his nexus.
Meanwhile a second overlord approached the cliff. The corsair attacked this one, in hopes of having better luck this time around, but alas it was not to be. Acura's speed upgrade finished when overlord had 100 hit points left. It sped by the corsair, that was firing desperately, and unloaded two more lurkers. With the mission complete, however the overlord got too excited and kept on flyig in the same direction. This path broungt it in range of the canons that quickly ended its life in a bloody explosion accompanied with the popular popping sound.
The two new lurkers joined the previous two by burrowing next to them. Fox had observers and storm by then and stormed one of the lurkers to death using observer for spotting. His second storm killed two more lurkers, but at the same time nailed an observer that floated right over them, leaving him without detection for a short while longer. Acura used this by unborrowing the remaining lurker and burrowing it in the same exact place where the first one was destroyed.
In the meanwhile 2 more things were happening. Acura's began another hatchery at 12 main.  Fox sent out a lone dark templar to the middle of them map to have a look around. The DT ran head on into a group of hydras...with no overlord in sight. While Acura was busy dealing with the cliff drop, Fox managed to kill 9 hydras before an overlord arrived and allowed the hydras to kill the cloacked assassin, causing an outburst from my fellow observers.
 Just as the templar died Fox, who still had not built a second observer, used a shuttle to give himself vision of the cliff anf stormed the remaining lurker since the direction where the spined were coming from gave the away its position.
Well, with so many little things happening at the same time, it is time for the game state update.
It is interesting to note that, even though Acura's holds both his mineral natural and 12 natural, he is almost not using them at all, with only 4 drones mining at 12 natural. His hatchery at 12 is still not complete. Thus, even though he does control the map, he is not using it as well as he could have. The reason for that is rather obvious however. During this time not only has Acura's been microing his attack on his opponent's natural cliff, but he was macroing hydras and positioning them around the center of the map, spreading them out in a line so that he could flank Fox should the latter decide to attack.
Fox has cleared out the lurkers off his cliff and has resumed mining, having lost significant amount of mining time. He does have a large force of zealots, dragoons, and templars with canons for backup. Any attack from the front that his opponent could muster at this point would fail against this defense.
Acura's does not try to break Protoss defense with a frontal assault. Instead he performs another drop on the natural cliff. This time 2 hydras and a lurker climb out of the overlord. Hydras immediately target and kill the corsair that is still hanging out over the cliff. Then they curl up and start morphing into lurkers. This move by Acura's was a great idea since not only he got rid of an annoying corsair, but he also delivered 3 instead or 2 lurkers to the cliff. The lurkers burrow and again begin laying down the smack on the probes, forcing Fox to stop mining again. NOTE: by now Acura has morphed more drones and is mining his expansions at 12 natural and his own mineral only.
Knowing that he is loosing the resource race, Fox decided to attack his opponent befor the resource difference kicked in. He moved his forces out to his mineral only. At the same time, using an observer as a spotter, he stormed one of the 3 lurkers on his cliff, and this time too the observer was fried along with the zerg beast which led Crazy to produce another "lol."
Fox's forces consisted of 9 zealots and 9 dragoons. His upgrades stood at 2-0-1 while Acura was at 1-1.
As soon as his forces assembled at his mineral only, Fox's ordered a general attack, going around one of the temple walls and attacking the zerg containment force from the top. Here is what Crazy has to say about this.  Once there, Fox he runs into a small force of hydras and 2 lurkers. Having no observers with him, Fox moves down and brings 2 templar from his natural to help him in the attack. One of the templars cast a storm killing both of the lurkers, while the goon/zealot force quickly eliminates the 6 or so hydras. Then Fox makes a fatal mistake. His zealots run ahead of gragoons and when the reinforcing hydras arrive, the protoss melee and ranged troops are seperated and engage two seperate groups of hydras. The two battles are zealots vs hydras and goons/temps vs hydras. Also by now Acura is mining all of his expansions heavily and his macro is at its peak. The zealots stand no chance vs the hydras, but the goon/temp force puts up a fight. The two forces engage each other and then the templar lets loose a storm, killing many hydras and damaging many more. But the zerg numbers are just too great and they overrun the protoss even despite great storming job.
 Having lost a major battle, Fox looks to rebuild and expand. Having been fed up with the lurkers on his liff, he merged two templar into and archon and droped it on his cliff, finally putting an end to the lurker threat. He also started rebuilding his army.
Acura chose this moment to attack. He sent a large force of hydras along with a bunch of overlords at Fox's natural. But Fox was able to hold off by moving his dragoons back to the bottom of his nexus so that they were supported by canons. He fought off the attack with minimal losses. And please note, he DID NOT USE A SINGLE STORM DURING THIS BATTLE...don't ask why.
With this victory under his belt, Fox moved out to start a nexus at his natural. A force of 7 dragoons, 3 templar, and an observer ran into 3 lurker eggs morphing the mineral natural. The dragoon fire eliminated 2 eggs and heavily damaged the sole lurker that managed to hatch. The lurker ran away and burrowed behind a tree a little distance away from the protoss force.
Right then Acura attacked again with a medium sized group of hydras. The surviving lurker attacked from the top. Fox unleashes a perfect storm right on top of the hydras, killing 9 of them.
The dragoons cleaned up the few remaining hydras but more zerg troops arrived on the scene. With lings and hydras pouring at his ever-thinning forces, Fox's calls "gg."
Great game guys, well played by both players.
As for my thoughts about the game... I believe Fox should have dropped something on the cliff earlier. With his natural he could have had a lot more troops by the time he attacked.
Acura could have used a drop on Fox's main. Since most of Fox's forces were always defending the natural, the drop could have done a lot of damage. His lurkers on cliff worked great, however, and it is mainly to them that he owes his win.
Well guys, I hope you enjoyed reading this report. This was my first serious report. I think I have done 1 or 2 a while ago, but they were just 30-minute patch-ups that were not all that good. Anyway, thanks for reading this, plz post any comments and suggestions.
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