Things that could have been

Sunday morning, August 27th was the day. The day when I would observe a wild and crazy 6 player free for all (involving Myst, PoA, SlingsNArrows, Bane, Confessor, and Casper) that was to be round 1 of my prized Starcraft Survivor Series. It was going to be the greatest FFA ever...

And then PoA overslept.

Yes it's all his fault that this is not round 1 of Survivor. Well, we can blame Slings too (for having a life =/ ). Actually, only 4 of the 8 people that were supposed to show up did in fact show up -- so of course I had to postpone. I was rather depressed, but at the same time I was in such a great mood to br any game at all that I told myself I wouldn't log off bnet until I had watched an incredible game worthy of a br. Fortunately for me, August 27th also happened to be the date of Montaro's first tourney.

It was around 11:00 am when I finally gave up on Survivor for that day, so I had two hours to kill till Monty's tourney started. However, I was determined to watch a game and br it, so I just hung around in MDO1 and MDO2, biding my time. Between 12:30 and 1:00, the games started (a little ahead of schedule), and I've gotta say, it was a mess. With 128 players and only three official refs, we all expected there to be some difficulty, especially in the first and second rounds. But with a lot of no-shows and others trying to take their place at the last minute, as well as the montaro.org website going down for most of the early part of the tourney, things were off to a slow start. Still, I hung around...

Eventually, the tourney made it past the first two rounds and things quieted down an awful lot. Then, in one of the channels I noticed ..(Myst).. saying he had advanced past the third round. When I asked him who his opponents might be, he told me either =[aBs]=Vanqor, or Orcmaniac. I thought to myself, "Wow, Orc vs Myst, that'd be really cool!" Sadly, it was not to be, for Orc lost to Vanqor, thus setting up the fourth round match between ..(Myst).. and =[aBs]=Vanqor. The gods of bnet were with my in that moment, for I was the first one to join the game that Vanqor made (score!). Right after me, Myst joined, followed shortly thereafter by ..(Bane).., my fellow observer would would provide witty comments and bold predictions that I won't hesititate to throw into my report =)

As I mentioned earlier, this is the match between Myst and Vanqor in the 4th round of Montaro's first tourney. Since it was the fourth round, the map was supposed to be Winter Conquest. However, both players agreed to play on temple, as they felt knowledge of the map should not be a determining factor in the outcome of the game (I know I know I should have just said, "Fuck this I'm not reporting a game on temple! Myst go r/c on Winter Conquest now, bitch!"). If you are a pathetic nincumpoop and need to see what this map looks like, scroll down a little to the first pic with a minimap in it.

Of course the game is made on melee, and Bane and I are forced to lift our ccs and kill our scvs. Well, at least that's what I do. Bane never gives me vision so I have no clue what he's up to. Not until later anyway.

I'm about one minute into the game, and everything is going fine, except no one has given me vision :P Eventually someone pauses the game and I take this opportunity to ask for vision and also permission to let me br it. Vanqor demonstrated his funny sense of humor by saying, "ask me afterwards :P" followed by a "j/k go ahead." So at least I know the players won't bitch about me br-ing the game.

Anyway, back to the GAME. As soon as both players give me vision, I see that Myst (who selected Zerg) has received the 6 o'clock spot, and Vanqor, who randomned to terran, has his scvs mining away at the 3 o'clock spot.

Ok, that's enough of the game. Time for another aside, this time to denounce my fellow observer, Bane. Right at the beginning of the game I innocently kill all but one of my scvs, leaving the last guy with only 5 hp. But what does Bane do? He doesn't kill any of his scvs; instead, he sends them straight at my last guy (I allied him and gave him vision...) and murderizes him. BANE IS EVIL!!!!!

After that massacre, I once again turn my attention to the game. Myst sends his first overlord northwest towards the 9 main. As soon as the second overlord completes, it flies north and Myst orders a drone to scout out the 3 main. Vanqor is no scouting slouch either: As soon as his first depot is finished he sends an scv to scout in a clockwise manner. This might seem a bit strange, but Vanqor is counting on the fact that if Myst was at 12, he would send his overlord to check out 3 o'clock.

Eventually, both players find each other--Myst with his drone, Vanqor with his scv. Once the scouts have reached their respective opponents' bases, things get a little crazy. First, Vanqor decides to be an annoying little tart and start a refinery in Myst's base. But Myst, also an annoying little tart, makes a bold statement, declaring in actions that he won't be outdone by any of Vanqor's gay tactics (Myst made an extractor on Vanqor's vespene geyser, in other words).

The early build orders for both players are fairly standard. Vanqor makes a depot around 8 control, then a barracks at around 11 control, followed by another rax on 13 control. These buildings are set up so as to create a wall going left from the bottom mineral patch . Myst, on the other hand, morphs an overlord on 8 control, then starts a second hatch around 12 control and a spawning pool after two more drones had been made (~13 control). When the spawning pool is about half done, Myst starts a creep colony adjacent to his first hatch. He later cancels it and moves it further to the right, presumably to protect his geyser from the ranged attack of marines.

Myst still has not destroyed Vanqor's refinery, whereas the extractor in Vanqor's base is simply a scary nightmare of the scvs collecting gas from the geyser there. Bane and I both agree that this turn of events is worse for Myst, who needs gas sooner than Vanqor to be able to tech up to lurkers and mutas. Nevertheless, it is not until Myst's sunken and 6 lings finish morphing that Vanqor's refinery is destroyed. As soon as the refinery explodes, Myst has a drone morph into an extractor and orders his six lings to search out the rest of his base for scouts. It just so happens that the scv that Vanqor used to construct the refinery hangs around to see what other useful data it can gather. Sadly, the only thing that scv discovers is that 6 lings > 1 scv.

After that oh-so-brief piece of action, there is another lull in the game, with Myst finishing his extractor as well as pumping large amounts of lings. Meanwhile, Vanqor is rallying large amounts of marines to his choke and has also started an academy. When he gets ten marines, Vanqor decides to attack. He also brings along two scvs to help fight zerglings or possibly to build bunkers.

Unfortunately, by the time Vanqor's troops reach Myst's base, Myst has two full groups of zerglings waiting. Also, it should be noted that Myst has one group of zerglings at the top of his main, ready to hit any would-be attackers from another angle. As soon as his troops get up the ramp at Myst's main, Vanqor orders them to a halt, with the exception of one stubborn scv that manages to dance around one sunken and several lings, providing Vanqor with an excellent view of Myst's base. Based on this info, the attack is called off for now, as Vanqor has decided to wait for the stim upgrade and medic support.

Myst, however, got the tipoff that there might be terran forces nearby by the stubborn scv scout. To make sure, he sends out a lone zergling that is promptly vaporized by a lot of marine gauss fire. Knowing that in a very short time Vanqor will have medics and stim, Myst acts quickly. 12 lings from the west converge on the marines just slightly ahead of the 12 lings from the north. With the speed upgrade just finished, the element of surprise is that much greater, and the lings kill all but four marines before Vanqor orders a retreat to his approaching medics (they are at the bottom of the ramp). At the ramp, Vanqor has a slight edge in positioning, but Myst still has a huge advantage in numbers. Thus it is not too difficult for Myst to power his way down the ramp and overwhelm all but one of the remaining marines. The rine and two meds quickly turn tail and run home, but in the blink of an eye the mass-velocity vector momentum has changed hands.

All of a sudden, the fact that Myst was slow to gas has become a positive -- he ended up spending the money on lings instead of tech, and now he has successfully defended Vanqor's initial attack. Since he has so many speedlings, Myst decides to put them to good use and ram them down Vanqor's throat at full throttle. There's just a slight problem: Vanqor's throat happens to be strong. Very strong.

The first crucial thing that Vanqor does is have two of medics stop at his choke and heal each other for a brief moment. However, in that brief moment, Vanqor has enough time to set up his defenses perfectly. By placing two scvs just in front of two firebats, with two medics healing right behind them, Vanqor is able to fight off Myst, abusing his choke to kill countless lings and not lose a single unit! Once Myst sees that he is going nowhere, he retreats his remaining troops to Vanqor's choke and awaits reinforcements. For some strange reason, Vanqor pulls his scvs and firebats back from his choke. Thus, when Myst's reinforcements arrive and he charges up the ramp again, the same stiff defense is not present. Vanqor quickly tries to move his troops back into position, but it is too late--Myst has penetrated into Vanqor's base. However, firebats and medics still own zerglings, so Vanqor is able to kill off the remaining lings after minimal damage (one supply depot was destroyed).

As always in Starcraft, there is a moment of peace after intense action, so we will take this time to provide a unit/minimap update. Myst has a lair, hydra den, and a spire. His units of choice are currently lurkers and lings, but he also has a few scourge for sci-vessels. Vanqor has assorted m&m&f as well as a tank. He is working on a control tower add-on for his starport, but has not yet started a science facility. Thus his only detection comes in the form of a turret behind his ramp, two turrets near his cc, and his comstat.

Back over in Myst's base, four lurkers have finished morphing and are immediately sent off to Vanqor's base. When the lurks are halfway to the 3 main, Myst orders a scout zergling on a suicide run to see what he can find. Based on the assorted infantry + one tank + one turret defense he sees, Myst decides to go on with the attack. However, he is robbed of the element of surprise when a scout scv of Vanqor's runs smack into the four lurkers. Still Myst is confident he can micro his lurkers to overpower Vanqor.

Myst begins his assault by placing a single lurker at the very top of Vanqor's choke just to the left of the ramp (out of range of the turret). The next two lurkers burrow at the base of the ramp, inside the range of the turret. One of those two is targeted right away by the tank while Vanqor's infantry falls back out of the range of the lurks. As this is going on, Myst brings the final lurker up to the top of the ramp and burrows it. Just after it burrows, the tank pops the rearmost lurker on the ramp. As soon as that lurker dies, Vanqor stims his six marines and charges them in. Because Myst has his attention elsewhere at the moment, the rines are able to take out the topmost lurker without a single casualty by focus firing on it. The last lurker dies to the combined power of the tank and infantry once again without a single solitary kill.

The attack would have been a dismal failure, except Myst has a trick up his sleeve. Remember that other lurker? The one that Myst buried first? Well, he unburrows it right after the rest had been burrowed and runs it straight to Vanqor's completely undefended peon line. Myst successfully kills several scvs before Vanqor gets them to a safe distance. Once he wraps up the threat at his ramp, Vanqor immediately sends his rines and tank northward to eliminate the last lurker, but the damage has been done.

As soon as that lurker explodes, Vanqor sends all his scvs back to mining and I note his two raxes begin to flash. It would appear that during the course of the battle Vanqor had saved up some money.

During this next pause in the action, Myst builds up another attack force, this time consisting of mutalisks and zerglings. In addition, Myst has a ling at Vanqor's natural checking for floating ccs as well as two scourge floating perilously close to Vanqor's starport. It is obvious that Myst is hoping to kill Vanqor's SVs right after they come out of the starport. Perhaps it is a little too obvious though, because a marine comes up and drives the scourge back a little bit, and when the Vanqor's SVs pop out, they immediately rally to his choke, thus evading the suicidal scourge.

Maybe it is that Myst is pissed off that Vanqor outsmarted him on that one, or maybe it is just that Myst wants to keep control of the tempo. Whatever the reason, Myst moves his army of 6 mutas plus 20-odd lings into attack formation just outside of Vanqor's choke (by this time, Vanqor has moved all his units to his choke in preparation to take his natural expansion. Another note here is Myst has started a new hatch at the 9 main). The mutas stop at the cliff overlooking the terran natural and await the signal to attack. When the signal does come, Bane and I are both perplexed: Myst has his lings move in first, then, by the time most of the lings are dead, the mutas attack. The proper way to do muta/ling is to have the mutas attack first and soak up attrition in the air while the zerglings below do the real damage. Because Myst doesn't do this, his attack is a total failure. The mutas are able to retreat with few losses, but all the lings are slaughtered, and Vanqor hardly loses anything.

As a reward for his first real victory in battle, Vanqor gains map control. Knowing how important it is to control the initiative, Vanqor decides to be aggressive, ordering 12 rines, 5 medics, two tanks and an scv to attack-move towards Myst's base and kill anything that moves. Along the way, the rines bump into the leftover mutas from Myst's previous attack. These particular mutas seem to have had too much Everclear, because they actually try and engage the rines for a few seconds, before Myst takes control and tells them to return home.

At this point, I'm getting close to 100 screenshots again, so I have to alt-tab out and move them to a folder. The only reason I bring this up is because this particular time I managed to do something that only happens in my worst nightmares: I opened every fucking screenshot on my desktop. That's about 90 screenshots trying to be opened in succession, with numerous other applications running.

Of course I started getting error messages after the 10th image had opened. I was seriously shitting my pants at this point. To this day (over a month later :P) I have to believe it was a miracle my system didn't totally crash. Eventually I got through all the damn error messages and switched back to bw. From what Bane told me and from what I saw, I think I can surmise how things went while I was gone, but still, I think we all learned a valuable lesson here: Don't be like GRB, he's a stupid idiot.

Anyway, back to the action. The first thing that happens while I'm away screwing myself over is that Vanqor scouts Myst's expansion at 9 and sends all of his troops over to exterminate it. However, Myst has scouts all over the place too, and he notices this massive troop movement towards 9. So, he sends his assorted units consisting of lings, hydras, mutas, and a lurker directly at Vanqor's undefended main. Since terran troops tend to move slower than zerg troops, Myst's forces reach Vanqor's ramp just as Vanqor's troops reach the 9 ramp, even though Vanqor had a big head start. Myst has now forced Vanqor to choose which is more important: his main, or Myst's expansion at 9. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Vanqor elects to continue on at 9 and make sure that expansion gets destroyed. Back at his main, Vanqor is constructing two more raxes, but only one of them is able to complete before the Zerg horde enters the base. The three finished barracks are blinking throughout the battle, and eventually Vanqor is able to eliminate a large number of lings just by producing bats one at a time from his raxes. Still, one at a time simply doesn't cut it production-wise, and Vanqor has to lift each of his raxes. As soon as they lift off, Myst takes his two lurkers and moves them a little bit north, right in Vanqor's mineral line. What follows is a cat and mouse game involving Myst's lurkers and Vanqor's scvs. Vanqor is well aware how important those 8 or so scvs are that he has left, and he carefully manuevers them around the lurkers, managing to save nearly all of them. Meanwhile, Vanqor's large army is still making its way back to his main. His SVs move with a little more speed however, and one has already arrived on the scene, irradiating one of the two lurkers in the mineral line. There are still a few lings left running around in Vanqor's base, and they proceed to destroy nearly all of Vanqor's buildings that can't lift off. Finally, the cavalry arrives for Vanqor. His large medarine force obliterates the last vestiges of the zerg invasion, yet his base is in flames and many of his stationary buildings have been destroyed. Nevertheless, Vanqor still has a decent amount of scvs, a couple of SVs, and numerous infantry.

Vanqor quickly lands all his buildings and repairs those that are in the red. Then he sends all his troops to his choke to protect his new cc (which he had started before Myst's attack). Both ccs are soon blinking away, and it becomes obvious that Vanqor is on the road to recovery. Myst, meanwhile, once again sends a drone to the 9 main to start an expansion there. For defense, Myst has morphed about 6 lurkers and burrowed them at his choke. Also, Myst has 6 lings sitting in the crevice between the the 6 and 9 mains, waiting for the opportunity to perform a surgical strike operation of some sort.

Given the success of Myst's previous attack, I would expect Vanqor to sit back for awhile to try and build up his economy again. Then again, I suck at this game. Vanqor actually takes all his infantry, plus two sci-vessels, and moves to contain Myst and stop him from expanding anywhere else on the map (although he does not yet realize that Myst has started another hatchery at the 9 main).

Myst actually learns of this containment force of Vanqor's by sending a drone out to (presumably) expand. Myst waits a little bit after his drone-scout is killed, then sends those six lings of his from the crevice to harass the peons at Vanqor's natural. Fortunately for Vanqor, he has a few medics in his peon line. With the help of those medics and a few late-arriving marines, Vanqor's mighty scvs are able to fight off the ling attack without too much difficulty.

Aside from this very minor attack, Myst seems to be content with Vanqor having the large majority of his troops stationed right outside Myst's base. Myst does try a little hit and run attack with a few mutas, but they are severely beat down by some marines (without medics no less!). It is at this point that Bane screams at me, "LOL". So I'm like, "Jeez Bane, since when did mutas dieing to marines become so funny?" But then I take a quick look at Myst's base and notice the 8 lurkers Myst has morping at his natural. That's 8 lurkers, all at once. Something tells me Myst had a little too much excess gas there, folks :P

While waiting for those lurkers to finish morphing, Myst puts a lurker on the cliff overlooking Vanqor's natural. This lurker is at the northern-most tip of the cliff, and so it is more of a harrassment tactic that Myst uses to divert Vanqor's attention from his containment force just outside of Myst's base. The lurker ends up being slightly annoying, forcing Vanqor to move his troops out of range of the lurker. Eventually, Vanqor brings an SV over to irradiate it.

Myst's next move is by no means a "slightly annoying" one, however. His 8 lurkers finish morphing, and Myst is not bashful about using them. Let me just state right now that if I had been in Vanqor's shoes, the sight of 8 lurkers burrowing right at the feet of my containment force would have caused me to "accidentally" alt-tab out of starcraft and then "accidentally" engage my dual disc hack. Fortunately, Vanqor is not a pansy like me. What ends up happening is a game within the game, so to speak. In essence, it is that level of MicroWars where you have some assorted infantry and a sci-vessel, while your opponent has lurkers and hydras. The only difference here is that Myst has lings instead of hydras.

It seems that Vanqor is paying very close attention to his containment (in spite of Myst's efforts), because he stims his troops and retreats them virtually as soon as the lurkers come on the scene. A few of the slower marines die to the lurker spines, but most are able to safely retreat to a short distance away. As this is happening, Myst orders all his lings to attack the marines. The problem is that the lings cannot catch up to the stimmed rines quickly enough, so the lings are targetted and eliminated easily before doing any real damage. Vanqor also uses two irradiates (from separate SVs) on two of the lurkers. Myst then takes his burrowed lurkers and moves them northward to try and attack the marines again. This time, Vanqor focuses fire on two of the lurkers and kills them before retreating in a northeast direction. This manuever also let the lurkers get in several volleys, however, and so Vanqor lost a good number of his troops. This process is repeated once more, but before the lurkers can attack, the first two that were irradiated by Vanqor's SVs after the initial burrowing explode from radiation burns. Myst presses with his remaining 4 lurkers, and Vanqor focuses fire again, this time targetting only one lurker. As soon as it dies, Vanqor again retreats. However, Myst decides he has had enough of Vanqor's micro and does not pursue Vanqor. As the last three lurkers make their way back to Myst's base, one of Vanqor's sci-vessels uses irradiate on one of them. So the result is that Myst loses 6 lurkers plus a good number of zerglings, while Vanqor loses about 10 marines, a few medics, and some firebats (about half his total forces). If you are having trouble visualizing this battle, I made a little picture that might help.

Vanqor displays his perpetual aggressive nature by taking his remaining troops and starting his containment over. In microwars, all that matters is winning the battle. You don't have to worry about constantly producing troops or keeping up on supply. But this is a real match; there's more to it than just winning the battle. During the battle, Myst made 3 drones at his expansion at 9, as well as morphing a few hydras into lurkers. As soon as the battle is over, Myst (whose main is nearly dry) takes nearly all of the drones at his main and transfers them to the hatch at 9. These drones are lucky enough to move out of Myst's choke before Vanqor's containment force arrives. Vanqor, on the other hand, has been keeping up on his troop count and so his new containment force is just as strong as his previous one, except that this one has 3 SVs instead of 2. Back at his now-dry main, Vanqor transfers all his scvs to his natural.

I am particularly impressed by the number of Vanqor's troops, because when I look at Myst's natural, there are only a handful of lings, hydras, and a lurker or two. But then I check out his main, and I see a multitude of overlords loading up on assorted zerg troops, and I know why Myst has a seemingly lower troop count: he's preparing a doom drop on Vanqor.

As the 7 ols make their way in a clockwise fashion around the map, Vanqor attempts to disrupt the mining process at 9 without commiting large numbers of troops. Yes, Vanqor is pulling off the fabled dual irradiated SV driveby. This is an extremely effective manuever wherein two sci-vessels irradiate each other, then fly over a group of drones collecting resources. Since the drones are bunched up together, they will all be hurt by the SV (which is not hurt at all by irradiate). Eventually the irradiate runs out on the SVs, but by that time, if the drones don't run quickly away from the SVs, they are all dead. This proves to be a marginally successful attack, but Myst is able to effectively run the drones away from the SVs while hatching scourge from the multiple hatcheries he has at 9 to finally eliminate the vessels.

By the time the SV threat is removed, Myst's overlords are nearly at Vanqor's main. Vanqor still has all of his troops in containment mode outside of Myst's natural, so he is caught completely off-guard by Myst's drop. Nevertheless, as soon as the ols appear on the horizon, Vanqor frantically recalls his troops, hoping to save his main in a similar manner as before. Although Vanqor's troops are faster to get back than the first time there were lots of zerg units in the 3 main, Myst has many more units in Vanqor's base this time. Several lurkers complemented by even more zerglings are able to put many buildings in the red even before the cavalry arrives. Also, Myst does something clever by burrowing two lurkers just above the ramp, in an effort to hinder the return of the majority of Vanqor's army. This placement of the lurkers as well as the sheer number of them is enough to destroy all of Vanqor's troops, even the ones returning from the containment.

In a last ditch manuever, Vanqor sends a dropship containing 6 rines and two medics over to Myst's expansion at 9. At first this drop is very successful, as Myst was managing his attack on Vanqor's main, but soon enough Myst morphs 10 lings out of the hatches he has at 9, and these lings are enough to defeat the drop.

By now, the outcome of the game is obvious. Myst still has several units in Vanqor's main, tearing up any buildings that can't float, and he has sent four lurkers down to Vanqor's natural to deal with the scvs mining there. Try as they might, the scvs are doomed to explode in a bright orange-white ball of light (unintentional rhyming, I swear).

But wait, what is this? Vanqor's not done yet! He still has one marine, several medics, and a sci-vessel at his choke, and by golly he's gonna use them!! D-Matrix can only go so far, unfortunately, and Vanqor's last desperate attempt is foiled.

At this point gg's are offered by all players, and boy it was a good game indeed. I don't remember the final scores exactly (it was over a month ago, after all :P), but they were very close. Vanqor had a slight edge in kills, while Myst had a slight edge in resources and production.

Here is the animated minimap. Key things to pay attention to include the various methods of attack that Myst and Vanqor used. Almost every battle had some aspect that set it apart from the rest, and you should be able to pick that out in the minimap (ie: the first battle at Vanqor's ramp, where a billion brown blobs will approach the ramp and die as soon as they reach the top :P).

It really was a close game, and even a small slip-up on Myst's part could have changed the outcome. For those that don't know, Myst went on to win that tournament, going the distance against some of the top players in Starcraft.

That's it for the report. Now onto some other stuff...

I really have to apologize to the players, to Bane, and to all of you reading this report. This report, as I have previously stated, is on a game that happened over a month ago. The only good reason I have is that I have been too busy with other stuff like school, work, blah blah blah. At any rate, I am happy I had the opportunity to br such a close game between two players of such high caliber. I could not have really asked for a better game to br (except for the fact that it was on Temple!), especially for a tourney match.

Ok, I'm through rambling. Comment, you whores. I'll be sure to comment back.

-Gamma Ray Burst