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This report is a Mark4 Production

Introduction

Ladies and Gentlemen, I once again bring you a Rook’s Corner Special Report. Tonight our match up features an infamous character, [z]TheRubberDucky. Perhaps best known for numerous threats on my life when first visiting br.com, Ducky has one other claim to fame. That’s right folks, Probeteroids! But despite that, we all love the little wench. Read up on Ducky with my interview here. It’s a well known fact that I have rooted against every single person to ever be featured in the Rook’s Corner reports. Except Ahscar of course cuz rooting against him is pretty much futile. So, to give my rooting a little edge this time, I asked none other than our very own Whoop, rater extraordinaire, and certified site bad ass to be Ducky’s opponent.

Now it just wouldn’t be a cool report if we stayed on the same old overplayed maps would it? It was time to go for your favorite and mine, Acropolis. Acropolis is a cool map, having six starts surrounding a center plateau on high ground, and a few island expansions on the edges along with expansions in the middle. I highly recommend it. Both players elected to random, Ducky getting orange terran in the upper left, and Whoop spawning as aqua zerg in the lower left. Ducky quickly asked Whoop what race he received and Whoop, confident in his skills, tells him he got zerg.

Ducky shows her characteristic trust in human nature and announces she’s going heavy metal. Whoops shows his mellow side and gives a quick shout out.

It’s a good thing Whoop has such a large forehead…. Anyway, Ducky opens up with the following build:
Depot
Rax
Gas
Depot
Rax
It’s pretty versatile vs any race and keeps Ducky’s options open for a while. Whoop on the other hand is doing his standard power like a whore trick. Three hatcheries before spawning pool. Obviously the large map has made Whoop happy with his chances for a mad power game. About this time both players get a confirmation of their opponent’s races when Whoop’s overlord floats over Ducky’s camp. Despite a frantic marine climbing the wall surrounding his base, Ducky just couldn’t pump enough rounds into the floating supply depot to pop it. Obviously not impressed by Ducky’s forces, Whoop decides that this would be a dandy time to expand and drops a hatchery at the bottom start. Thinks about it for a second or two, realizes his new hatch is lonely and expands again to the bottom right. Total troop count, Ducky: a good control group of marines and medics coming on line with a 3 rax build. Whoop: A large amount of drones.

Shake it Baby!

Ducky has had enough of my threats to post this report on Tao-of-Gaming and lets me know how she feels about me, along with sending a baker’s dozen of marines and a medic to show Whoop how she feels about him. Whoop attacks with his control group of zerglings he had watching Ducky’s choke after the marines have walked by, hoping for a medic kill. This hope proves in vain as Ducky ran the medic straight towards the waiting marines and with a little micro killed all the zerglings without a casualty. Hmmm…. Maybe Whoop wasn’t paying attention. =] As the conga line of marines continues onward, they just miss a control group of drones Whoop had Maynarded over to his lower right expansion.

Whoop had a great economy at this point, but his troops were the highly expendable zerglings. He massed a few more as Ducky moved towards his main. Ducky came right in the front door, showing exactly how psychotic she was by killing a few innocent bengalaas on the way in. Let’s all have a moment of silence for the noble beasts. Whoop’s first control group of zerglings didn’t fare so well, getting only two kills as they attacked. Whoop waited until the marines had focused fire on the sunken protecting him and sent in his second group. These handily tore the distracted marines apart and ended the terran offensive.

Ducky had been doing the cool girl thing and massing troops at home during her attack. A little bit of recon by an intrepid SCV found Whoop’s expansion in the bottom right and a pimp squad of marines set out to dispose of it. Whoop lost his spire in short order and ran the drones to the bottom part of the land area at the expansion, away from Ducky’s view. The undefended hatchery quickly falls, and Ducky brings her troops to the middle to join in an assault on Whoop’s main. Whoop transfers his drones to the bottom expansion, except for one that he starts another hatch at the bottom right with.

With her confidence high from beating on defenseless drones, Ducky moves into Whoop’s main with a control group and a half of marines and a few medics. Whoop brings his micro into play, hitting simultaneously with mutas and zerglings, The mutas soak the damage while the lings deal the punishment, and in short order the terran troops are once again dispatched.

Ya Wanna Dance?

With his mobility in high gear, Whoop sends a muta raid right into Ducky’s main and gets a few SCV kills. Ducky responds with her now moderately large MMF army and drives Whoop off, but doesn’t inflict casualties. Ducky expands one to the upper left island, while Whoop expands to the lower left island and has reestablished his expansion in the lower right. Ducky takes a strike force of MMF and starts clearing the middle of zerglings that Whoop has posted there to reduce mobility. The results are pretty much what you expect when you put zerglings up against firebats.

Whoop takes revenge for the barbecueing of his zerglings by raping Ducky’s upper left expansion with mutas. All the mining SCVs are destroyed at Ducky’s only expansion. Ducky starts feeling the pinch and retaliates with a strike at the much beleaguered bottom right expansion, her firebats quickly dealing with the zerglings guarding it. It looks like Ducky has solved the muta/ling problem for terran in this game.

Ugly isn’t it?

Well, let’s not count out Whoop just yet. Four expansions vs none lets you win with pretty much any unit set you pick, and as Ducky quickly realized, firebats don’t work vs mutas.

Not that Ducky is about give up. A two dropship strike on Whoop’s main is initially very successful, exterminating a hatchery, sunken, and evolution chamber, then dealing with two control groups of attacking zerglings in a decisive manner.

Then Whoop’s cavalry arrives from across the map in the form of two full control groups of mutalisks. Not much can be said about the end of that battle. Whoop is having trouble macroing the way he’d like with all of Ducky’s attacks, so he slaps down another six hatcheries at his lower right expansion. He also fortifies his expansions with nydus canals to enhance his mobility. Ducky makes one more attempt for the lower right expansion, sending a three dropship task force down to attack it, but she is intercepted in mid route by the ever growing muta force. One dropship dies and the mutas back off as the other two unload their M+M cargo.

My fellow observer, Old~El~Paso, also makes his one funny remark of the game:

I think we should all take up calling dropships “shittles”. They’re expensive as shit, slow as shit…I could go on all day. Anyway, as soon as Ducky picks her troops up the mutas move in again and hit the dropships as they try frantically to unload their cargo. The marines coming out one by one are easy meat for the mutas and the attack is over.

Whoop is such a bad ass isn’t he?

Ducky gears up and tries another attack on Whoop’s main. The marines stim and quickly take down the nydus canal, then tear things up for a few seconds until the Muta Army of Doom ™ appears over the horizen with trumpets blowing and kicks the hell out of the task force.

OEP delivers his summary of the game so far.

Whoop, always a gentleman, is happy to oblige. He whips out his patented hive level attack strat and starts rolling over Ducky’s base with a combination of ultralisks and guardians. Ducky’s remaining thirty M+M army falls while taking down about half of the ultralisks. Whoop carefully drops four ultralisks out of sight at Ducky’s upper left expansion and attack moves in, quickly killing the marines stationed there. Finally, Whoop resorts to the ever popular Guardian/Scourge combo to finish Ducky off.

Ducky also advises Whoop on the most humiliating way to take care of the final command center =]

That’s all folks! Thanks for reading the report, and my personal thanks to both of the players for entertaining us all with this game.

Mark4