"Slings..in that pic of you in WLJ's BR, it looked as if you had a life, is that true?"
-SCV~007
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| Zerg tech rush | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 10/12/99 10:10 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 3, Max: 9, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for AQD3: 7.6184 |   | Introduction
Laddering is a hard thing to do successfully. In my experience the hardest thing to do is go from 1000-1100. In that range you are playing people who have not yet learned that disconnecting results in being reset, and if they have they don’t have all that much to lose anyway. So far I’ve had six wins this ladder season, with three of them being draws from disconnects. I can’t wait to get over 1100 and actually get credit for most of my wins. =[
Last night I played four games. Every time I picked protoss before I started and my opponent picked zerg. The most frustrating game was a nasty little fight where I experimented with a corsair/dark templar rush. When my cannons on the cliff above my enemies natural took out his spore colony and I sent in my horde of dark templar to clear out the mass of sunkens he had, he actually started saying “I disc”. So what is that supposed to do? “Oh, your gonna disconnect, let me kill half my probes and let you get back in the game then.” I tried to explain to him about ladder.abuse@blizzard.com and how disconnecting was going to get him reset. Too bad his English vocabulary was limited to “I disc” and “?”. The odd thing was his record showed very few previous disconnects. Maybe the cheese factor in my strat embarrassed him to the point where he lost all semblance of good gamesmanship.
It was with the sour taste of the last game in my mouth that I went looking for another game. After a few minutes of fruitless searching I made my own game “1:1 1060+”. A player called im~back joined my game with a score of 1090 or so. Happy to play a higher rated player with few disconnects on his record, I exchanged a few pleasantries to which he responded “Gogogogogogogo”. Not a problem. I picked protoss and started the game, while he waited until the last second to pick zerg. The map was the Lost Temple:
How about a nice game of chess?
I started in the top position. A bad spot for any race, but not quite as disadvantageous for protoss. I went with my usual vrs zerg build order for a medium land map:
8: Pylon
12: Dual gateways
13: Pylon
15: Two zealots
21: Pylon
21: Two zealots
I scouted with the probe that built the two gateways in a clockwise manner. I wasn’t too lucky in my search pattern and found my enemy in the last place I looked, the left start. When I sighted creep it was out farther than usual. I knew that this meant creep colonies had already been put down at the natural. Time to start putting the pressure on. I took my first four zealots and three probes and moved them to just outside his natural. With another two zealots patrolling in from my main as back up, I sent my expeditionary force right in. There was one sunken and two morphing creep colonies. I charged in, hoping to inflict my damage before the other colonies finished. I got in just a few attacks on the sunken before the other two sunkens finished. IB sent in six or so zerglings from his main. This didn’t look good. I finished one sunken and was getting hammered on. I had lost two zealots and IB sent in his drones to attack. I left one zealot and the three probes attacking the top sunken and used the other zealot to attack the drones. I killed three drones before my forces were destroyed, the sunken in the red.
Not the best of beginnings. I had lost my initial force and my risk of using probes to attack had not paid off. Whoop would be ashamed of me. I took the two reinforcing zealots and sent them back to base. Minerals had piled up as I microed my attack, and I quickly queued up another two zealots, then made a cybernetics core, a pylon, and a forge. I sent a probe to the right start, seeing an overlord on the way. I let my setback rattle me a little. I was not thinking clearly about what a double hatchery to the natural with mass sunkens meant. Generally you expect a tech choice from this strat. Mutas if the enemy is smart, lurkers if he isn’t. And mass hydras if he is higher level macro player. Not realizing the enemy would probably be teching given his 1090 ladder score, I continued with my zealot production, a single cannon to the side of my probe line behind my gateways my only concession to defense.
He has the mutas
I warped in a nexus at the right start and a stargate along with another gateway at my main. I’ve been experimenting with a late corsair rush to try and catch some zerg players off guard. My first corsair took off to the right start’s entrance where I had spotted an overlord earlier, hoping to get a quick free kill to make my investment start paying off. I had just started making two dragoons at my main when the hammer dropped. Six mutas came in fast and low over the edge of my plateau and settled over my probe line. My cannon got in a few shots, but not enough to really make a difference before the mass fire destroyed it. My corsair didn’t find the overlord and I quickly ordered him home. My two dragoons attacked the mutas, but my base construction pattern worked against me. The pitiful sound of probes beeping and exploding was everywhere. I had lost about half my probes at this point, three dragoons were queued up in my gates, and my first two were died hard.
I was thinking about giving up. My economy was screwed. I was going to have a bad problem countering his air units. A lot of players would have given up. But in the end, there is always someone better than you. Someone will always get lucky, will use the perfect counter to your strat, have better macro, better micro, click faster… Probably half the people reading this are better players than me. It doesn’t really matter if you win or lose a game of starcraft…. But quitting becomes a habit that can carry over to real life. So when you have your back to the wall you dig a little deeper and show your enemy that even though he might win, he isn’t going to get it for free just because he got a little ahead.
I started making probes from both of my nexus. My corsair lit into his troops and managed to kill a wounded mutalisk before he turned his troops on it. He attacked it with three mutas, but he microed them so that they formed a triangle with the corsair in the middle. I hate it when zerg players micro =p. Well, you can always use it against them. I moved the corsair away from base, getting the mutas to follow for a screenlength or two. My new dragoons popped out the gates and started harassing the mutas left at my base. A second corsair popped out too. The three mutas I led off rejoined their fellow at my base but now I was opposing them with two corsair and three dragoons. I started warping in a cannon and the mutas headed back for his base. I followed with my corsair, getting both of them killed without inflicting enemy casualties.
I needed a direct counter to the mutas and one stargate wasn’t going to cut it. I warped in a templar archives and kept up with corsair production at my main. My opponent wasn’t going to stop pressing his advantage. Ten or so mutas started hitting my expansion at the right start. They managed to get all eight probes before they could run and took their time finishing the nexus and pylon. This was looking worse all the time. I started an expansion at my natural, hoping to get back in the game. My hope was that I could use low mineral units like templar to buy me enough time to get back on my feet.
But who has the eye of the tiger?
I was given about a minute of peace. IB attacked the left side of my probe line with his ten mutas, but ran them away after he started taking fire from my six dragoons and three corsair. I kept on making corsair and researched storm. A minute later he attacked my new expansion with his muta force. Storm hadn’t been finished yet but I sent in the five corsair I had on hand. Another one warped in just as the forces engaged, so I sent that one in too. I red misted two mutas before he started running them away. My corsair followed in hot pursuit. The mutas settled to a stop at the bottom start and were quickly engaged. He lost another three before bringing them into his main at the left start. There he lost another two before running them again, this time to his natural. I didn’t pursue. Four overlords were hovering around a morphing spore colony. The splash from six corsair eliminated them, losing one of the corsair and damaging another from the spore colony and few hydralisks.
I felt I was back in the game. He had lost his mobile attack force and a decent amount of supply. I had had enough time to crank probes from both my nexus that I could fully support three gates. I started another gate and expanded to the right start position again. To try and keep the momentum rolling I sent the eight or so zealots I had hanging around to just outside his mineral natural, using two goons and a dark templar as support. I was about to send in the dark templar to try for some free kills, but pulled him back on sighting some zerglings and hydras under the protective detection umbrella of a an overlord. IB sent his forces just inside the sight of my units. He may have been trying for a show of force as our units looked at each other across the open field. The tension was growing with both our forces maneuvering for position at the choke, I putting my zealots in a horseshoe shape and he placing his zerglings in a wing on the top side of his forces. Well, only one way to get the gold on this one. My two newly arrived templar took matters in their own hands. The first psi storm vaporized the front rank of zerglings and lured the rest to their deaths. A second psi storm cut down the group of hydras coming in. But he had a lot more there than I expected. More and more hydras poured out of his natural, another control group at least. Following them were three lurkers. My zealots and dragoons started battling the superior numbers assisted by a psi storm on the mass of hydras. The numbers went down rapidly on each side….then the lurkers buried. With my last psi storm I hit the forward two and killed them both. The other one was far enough back that it wasn’t in position to do any damage. The final outcome was one zealot and one drained templar still alive on my part…but the line was held.
I had a little bit of breathing room now. I set down four gateways at the right expansion, bringing my total to eight. I also added another forge for more upgrades. It was time to make Whoop proud and try my poor imitation of his god like macro. I started cranking zealots, dragoons, and templar in about a 1:1:1 ratio. When I had six of each I made two archons and sent these forces to the mineral natural of the left to reinforce my containment. As they reached the halfway mark a force of about twenty hydras ran over the templar and zealot there. I enagaged them with my relief force, inflicting decent casualties but losing most of my forces. As I ran the few surviving templar and dragoons back to my base IB halted his attack, probably thinking he could not succeed with his lowered numbers. I switched over to dragoon and templar production only.
Payback…
Another mass hydra attack came in. I spotted it leaving his natural with my dark templar, which kept pace with his forces as they headed towards my natural. I let the first hydras go into my natural then took the second half of his troops with a series of psi storms launched from my cliff. I then advanced my dragoons into the fray, quickly killing the remnants of the second half of his attack. A psi storm softened up his first group of hydras as my dragoons attacked from the rear. I lost very few dragoons in the conflict compared to his two control groups of hydras. I sensed the advantage had firmly shifted into my hands. At this point a corsair found a morphing hatchery in the bottom start.
I started priming for the final blow. All eight gateways were pumping dragoons. After each one had produced four I knew the time was right. Setting my remaining templar to follow the dragoons, I attack moved towards IB’s natural. The group from my main arrived at his natural as a control group of hydras was coming out. Sixteen dragoons and a psi storm later I had taken care of the problem with only one dragoon lost. The sixteen dragoons from the right start encountered another control group of hydras heading to the bottom. They too were dispatched in short order with only two dragoons falling. I took six dragoons and sent them to the bottom start to deal with that problem.
As his last hydras fell I began cursing in a monotone drone. Yet again the waiting for players screen came up. With a regretful sigh I alt tabbed out to my email program and composed yet another letter to blizzard, this time telling them that the screenshot I was sending was suitable for framing =[.
Thank you for reading my report. Please feel free to comment on the tactics used in this battle. In particular, I would like your thoughts on the usefulness of the late corsair rush and methods of getting recon on zerg who have sunkened up.
| | Battle Shots! | 
Yet another shot suitable for framing that gets sent to ladder.abuse@blizzard.com
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