"Unfortunately, guardians do not do nearly as well against carriers as he thought" -Mark4
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| Montaro Smackdown Special: Arkons vs x_Mage_x | | | Author: | | | IP: | 1Cust234XXXX | | Date: | 02/05/00 10:02 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 5, Max: 10, Min: 8 Lifetime Rating for Mark4: 8.6829 |      |
This report is a Mark4 Production. Find the solution to all your battle reporting needs at www.BattleReports.com
Introduction
Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight I present to you a special feature for Montaro’s Smackdown. Two of the top Kali players square off in an exciting and hotly contested match, sprinkled with vicious comment’s about each other’s skills and mothers. =] In this corner we have Arkons, who took third place for i2e2 in Dallas, has hit top 16 in the b.net ladder, currently third in the Kali/IGL 1v1 ladder, and has enough other accomplishments he bored me to tears and I stopped reading the brag sheet that he msged to me. Opposing him is the much more modest, yet by all accounts better looking, x_Mage_x, who took 1st place in i2e2 Chicago along with “some other crap I don’t want to mention.” =]
The players chose to play on the most popular of ladder maps, Lost Temple. Both players went random, letting chance decide their fates. Arkons drew brown zerg in the top position while Mage received aqua protoss in the left position:

The insults flew fast and furious for the first few minutes, with Arkons describing the deviant sexual behavior he engages in with Mage’s mother on a regular basis. I’m not going to repeat it here as some of the acts he described are illegal in 32 states, and I don’t want this document to become evidence against him in a legal proceeding. Let’s just say that he convinced both Mage and I that he is a genuine pervert =]. Despite all the smack being talked, Arkons proceeded smoothly with his build order, getting a second hatchery in his main, a spawning pool, and then gas. After he produced his first set of zerglings he chased off a probe parked at his natural and expanded there. In the mean time, Mage had went with a relatively conservative build order consisting of double gateways and constant zealots with a slow tech option as he got gas. (just once I’d like to see a non conservative triple nexus probe rush build order =p)
Just a few seconds after his probe was chased off, Mage’s first three zealots arrived looking for a little payback. They ran into eight zerglings at the bottom of the ramp and proceeded to tear into them. Three zerglings a little ahead of the main pack got torn up, and Arkons wisely retreated the remaining five. Two more zerglings joined the group and they turned and attacked the zealots when they reached the top of the ramp, but again were forced to retreat after another three zerglings went down. A fourth zealot joined the first three as the zerg forces attacked again, this time with eight zerglings. Three more zerglings were left in a pool of blood before the zerglings once more ran. Things were starting to look bad for Arkons, he’d lost a lot of troop count and Mage hadn’t lost anything…yet. The tables turned shortly. In Arkon’s next attack he brought ten zerglings into play, and two of the zealots fell almost immediately due to the damage they sustained in the previous battles. The zealots desperately headed for the ramp so they could confront the zerglings from one direction at a time, and received two additional zealots as reinforcements just as they arrived. With this encouragement the zealots turned and faced their enemy again, and when the zergling’s numbers were reduced back down to four Arkons turned and ran. The zealots hit the zerg main just as four more zerglings hatched from the dual hatcheries and the tide turned again with two more zealots falling and only three zerglings going down. The third hatchery at the natural had just come on line and Mage realized the distance was too great to allow him to force any more fights. The two remaining zealots ran for home, one lagged a little behind and was dragged down by the pursuing zerglings.
Round Two!

Arkons was quick to try and take advantage of the temporary superiority in troop count he had. After a few seconds to muster his forces, he took off with two full control groups of zerglings towards the protoss main. Mage knew he was in serious trouble and pulled a probe from mining to assist in his front line defenses of three zealots. When he saw what he was facing, Mage pulled the zealots back toward his gates where a newly formed dragoon had just emerged. Six probes came off mining duty and headed toward the zerglings with vicious determination in their robotic little hearts and fire in their particle beams. Arkons found a pylon at the top of the protoss ramp and ordered his first set of zerglings past it to attack the protoss base, but in a moment of inattention forgot to do the same with the next group. The zerglings were on attack move and stopped to attack the pylon, cutting the effective forces in half for a crucial few seconds. Mage siezed his opportunity and attacked the zerglings, doing significant damage until Arkons realized his mistake and pulled the zerglings back toward the pylon. The damage had been done however. The number of zerglings left could not achieve critical mass to overpower the remaining forces in an encircling maneuver and were dispatched through some very nice probe micro while only losing one zealot.
Mage had won the battle but the war was far from over. The zerg forces had two resource nodes to draw from while the protoss only had one. This advantage was starting to tell as the next assault force of hydras was moving out from the zerg base even as the zergling attack failed. Mage was preparing for this assault with a new pylon at the top of his ramp along with a cannon to help repel the swarm. Eight hydras faced six zealots, a dragoon, and a cannon when they arrived. Arkons seemed dead set on taking down the cannon no matter the cost, figuring his micro skills would allow him to deal with the zealots without any problem through hydra dancing once he destroyed it. Two more hydras approached as the assault began, and Arkons did take down the cannon…at the cost of five of his hydras. Four more hydras joined the fight as a seemingly endless stream of zerg reinforcements poured in. Mage forced the hydras back, but as he engaged them the foremost hydra would retreat while the others fired, then the new foremost one would retreat. Realizing he could lose all his zealots and not inflict casualties, Mage withdrew his forces to the bottom of his ramp. The hydras followed and began to battle to take the ramp. Three zealots and four hydras were killed before Mage revealed the tech he had been working on. The presence of a dark templar was made known when the unmistakable sound of a warp blade was heard cutting into hydra flesh. Not having any overlords near the scene of battle, Arkons withdrew his troops to his main, hastily recalling overlords from scouting missions to protect himself from the cloaked threat.
Round Three!
Mage took the slight breathing room he had gained for himself and expanded to his natural. Arkons floated an overlord so it hovered just over the cliff of the protoss natural, giving him a good idea of what defenses were at the choke, and providing detection for his assaults. Mage sparred a little with his dark templar, killing a suicide scout hydra and checking the other mains for zerg expansions. On seeing an overlord floating toward his expansion, Mage correctly guessed it was a prelude to an assault and sent a dragoon to attack it. The overlord was quickly protected by a massive force of hydras before sustaining appreciable damage. Arkons had showed quite a few advanced techniques so far, and this attack was no different. Rather than rush in and get raped by storm, he divided his force into three easily microed forces of six hydras each. The first one moved in and saw one templar, two cannons, three dragoons, and four zealots awaiting the attack. The hydras didn’t do much damage but did successfully draw a storm. The next two groups were sent in together and take down a dragoon and a cannon, then drew a storm. Arkons microed his forces back and drew the defending zealots right through the storm. The zerg forces annihilate the zealots and start picking off dragoons, when a templar kept in reserve on the cliff droped two more storms, decimating the hydra’s numbers. Even so, all the defenders except one templar were killed, and the remaining two hydras were only stopped by two fresh dragoons from the gateways in the main.
Arkons seemed like a machine. Every attack had been microed and was followed by an attack with a different unit….requiring a different set of counters. Just seconds after his brutal and nearly crippling attack on the protoss natural, Arkons revealed he had changed courses once more. Taking advantage of the versatile zerg production system, his next attack comes just half a minute after his previous one. Nine mutalisks attack the undefended protoss main. Mage realizes the danger immediately and pulled his probes to his natural, buying time for his dragoons to move from the natural to the main. Arkons took a few kills on the probes, but neglected to follow them. Instead he targeted the templar archives and managed to destroy it just as his mutas started taking dragoon fire. The flying warriors took advantage of their mobility and retreated to a position on the cliff over the protoss natural.
Remember how I said Arkons is like a machine? This machine just doesn’t quit. Even as the mutas drew off the dragoons from the natural, a hydra attack was moving into position. Eight hydras moved in to attack, and only one cannon and a dragoon were there to defend. Both the dragoon and cannon went down quickly, but not before Mage desperately landed a few telling storms. Still, with his archives just destroyed Mage really couldn’t afford to spend three storms on eight hydras… As the hydras are finished off the mutas made an assault on the probes, but the dragoons returning from the main arrived just in time to drive them off with little damage.

With his relentless style of play Arkons is just seconds away from another attack. Mage has four of his dragoons near his probes at his natural, two dragoons, two templar, and a cannon on the ridge protecting his front door. A control group of zerglings and a few hydras come in the front door as the ten mutas spread out to avoid storm and attack the entire natural. The templar quickly expend their storms and attempt to form an archon, but are torn apart before being successful. The mutas took down the cannon and concentrate fire on the four rear dragoons one by one, killing them all while losing four mutas. The protoss natural falls as the probes turn on their attackers, then turn and run for the main. A psi storm caught a few mutas and forced them back from the main, but the natural had fallen. With reinforcements pouring from his gateways, Mage managed to force the zerg forces from his natural, and began reconstructing the nexus and set piece defenses. A minor skirmish took place at the right main as Arkons attempted to expand there, but Mage killed off eight zerglings with a dark templar and prevented the occupation.
The Final Round!
Mage was far from ready to give up the fight. He began a second tech tree, getting the protoss air to air weapon of choice, the corsair. The initial corsair entered it’s first conflict with a big advantage…it’s opponent’s were three overlord that couldn’t fight back. Arkons paid no mind to this minor distraction as he began a massive assault. A testing wave of a few zerglings drew a storm to help the ten dragoons defending the natural’s choke. A second wave drew another storm, this time taking down three dragoons before being dispatched. The next wave of zerglings had a few hydras with them…drawing another two storms, and killing three dragoons. Arkons seemed like he didn’t care what he killed as long as he drew a storm. His overall plan was simple. Draw storms until Mage didn’t have enough to defend himself. Defend himself from the eight guardians hovering over the natural cliff that is. When the guardians came in Mage had only two storms left to defend himself against the well spaced guardians with…and his dragoons had suffered casualties. The corsair moved in to assist, and just as it seemed that it would be enough combined with the storms and few remaining dragoons to defend the attack, two control groups of cracklings poured in the front door. With this, Mage had no troops and no source of income. The game was over and Arkons was triumphant. So let it be noted:


Thanks for reading my report. I hope everyone enjoys reading about this game as much as I enjoyed watching it. And Arkons, get some counseling for that sexual frustration you have about Mage’s mother man. =]
Mark4
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