If you have a dial-up connection to the internet, my thoughts are with you. Also, the following two paragraphs are the obligatory bullshit introductions to the br. To ease your boredom, I suggest skipping them and going straight to the pretty title pic. But if you're reading this, you're probably one of those weird people who reads everything. So have at it.

This little tale begins all the way back on Thursday December 14th. On that fateful day I took the second and third of three finals in two days. It just so happened that those were my three hard finals, so some celebrating was in order that afternoon. Obviously, celebration calls for some alcohol (eat my shorts, Slings). My house had a lot of good beer left over from a party on the previous weekend, so I poured myself a pint of that. I took one sip, ran to the sink, and spat it right back out. I guess I don't really care for incredibly flat, old beer after all. Without the alcohol, there was really only one way to celebrate: write another br.

Now it seems to me that I have this curse, where any game that I don't take screenshots in turns out to be an amazing back-and-forth battle that would make the greatest report ever. And then when a rematch happens and I'm taking ss, everyone four pools. A bit of an exaggeration perhaps, but nonetheless I found it very difficult that Thursday afternoon to find a game worthy of a br. In fact, I found it very difficult to find a good game the rest of the weekend, in spite of my best efforts. Finally, I was about to give up Sunday night to study for my last final, when a guy named :+:Maverick:+: messaged me on bnet, saying that he and NewbieMcNasty were in the semifinals of a 16 team 2v2 tourney and that I could observe their games if I was interested. I had been specifically looking for a well-played 2v2 with skilled players on both sides for my next report, so I figured there would be a good chance I could find that in a tournament. And so I now proudly present,

Almost immediately after I join the private channel that is the home of the tournament, I notice that the semifinal match that :+:Maverick:+: and NewbieMcNasty will be playing in is about to be set up. I quickly join mav1/1, and in seconds the starting gun has been fired and the race is on.

Mav (:+:Maverick:+:) chooses protoss as the countdown begins and warps in at the 12 o'clock position of The Lost Temple. His ally, NMN (NewbieMcNasty), chooses terran at the last second and receives the 9 o'clock spot. Representing the opposing side are BC (BULLION-CUBE), and RC (Rubix-Cube). BC chooses zerg at the last second and sees his hatch morph in at the southernmost position. Rounding out the players is RC, who elects to stick with random and receives terran for this ballsy move, lands his command center at the 3 o'clock spot on temple.

Immediately all players clone their drones off to separate patches, and the game is underway. Both terrans opt for standard two barracks, refinery, academy builds, aiming to be ready to aid their partners in either a rush or a defense of a rush. At the top of the map, Mav gets two gateways and is pumping zealots continuously. Eventually, he starts warping in a forge and a pylon and cannon at the top of his ramp. BC, meanwhile, morphs a hatchery at the top of his ramp, followed by one sunken adjacent to the hatch. He also goes for a very quick lair.

By now, all players have scouted each other and know their respective races and positions. However, each player is fiercely guarding their ramps, so it will be impossible for standard scouting methods to determine who is teching, and who is not. Except for the fact that Mav managed to sneak in a probe to BC's base earlier, and left the little guy at the northernmost part of the plateau, ready to sacrifice his life for a check on how much the zerg tech tree has progressed. When NMN asks his partner to scout the zerg, Mav responds by sending another probe down to the zerg main, since he wants to save the other probe for a tech check. However, when Mav's other scout probe reaches BC's ramp, it quickly dies to a handful of lings as well as a sunken. Nevertheless, Mav notices a clearly low number of zerglings at BC's ramp, so he immediately sends his secret agent probe to see what's up. As soon as NMN and Mav see the morphing lair they decide they will rush BC, figuring that the zeal/rine combo will be too powerful for a teching zerg, even one with a ramp defense of sunkens and zerglings.

BC is no idiot though, and he knows that he will be double teamed shortly. In response, he morphs another sunken and produces only zerglings out of his two hatcheries. Unfortunately for team Cube, they do not have scouts set up outside their opponents' bases, so they do not realize that Mav and NMN have sent out a large zeal/rine force until the attack on BC has begun. RC reacts by immediately ordering his troops to help his ally, but they must traverse the entire map before they will be of any help. Fortunately for BC, his defense is a solid one, and NMN and Mav do not coordinate their attack perfectly. NMN's marines pass too close to the nearest sunken, and a couple die before NMN can move them to safety. As he is moving them away, Mav makes a critical mistake by having his zeals engage the lings clogging up the top of the ramp. For a few crucial seconds, Mav's zeals do not have the supporting fire of NMN's marines. As a result, BC's lings stay alive for just a little bit longer, allowing his sunkens to get in a few more hits. This ends up making all the difference in the world, as when the last of BC's lings have died, only two weakened zeals are left, as well as a handful of rines. These remaining troops target the weakened sunken to the right of the hatch. However, BC brings an idle zergling which is able to take out five of NMN's rines (since they are still targetting the sunken!). Mav's two zeals put up a brave fight, but without the rine support of NMN, they are unable to take out even one sunken. In a last ditch effort to do some damage, NMN hastily builds a bunker next to the bottom of the ramp, but since the sunkens have the high ground, the attack does no damage whatsoever. In addition, RC's very large quantity of troops finally arrive, strolling in just as the battle finishes and prompting Mav to make a comment about his feelings on the game thus far.

Since they invested so much money into their rush of BC, Mav and NMN are forced on the defensive. To maximize their defensive efficiency, both Mav and NMN beef up their choke defenses, with Mav warping in another cannon, and NMN constructing a bunker followed by a turret above his ramp. Meanwhile, RC continues to rally troops to a spot just above his ramp, while his ally has finished morphing 3 lurkers which are waiting next to a sunken for orders.

The next offensive move is made by BC, who sends three lurkers to 9 o'clock to see if he can hurt NMN at all. RC sends nearly all of his huge force of infantry, but decides to halt at NMN's mineral only rather than attacking with BC at the same time. So, it ends up that 3 lurkers must fight alone against a high ground bunker with an adjacent turret providing detection. Maybe if the bunker had not been on high ground, or maybe if an scv had not been nearby to repair the bunker, the outcome would not have been as clear-cut. In any case, move your mouse over the image to see how decidedly destroyed the lurkers become after the dust has cleared. I must admit I was a bit perplexed by this move on the part of team Cube. It seemed that one person (BC), intended to make a direct assault on NMN, while his ally seemed content to enforce a containment of NMN's base (by posting a large force at his mineral only). The lack of coordination certainly contributed to the lack of success of the attack, which resulted in a loosening of their grip on control of the map.

In fact, Mav decides to try and take advantage of this very situation by mounting a counter-assault on RC's main. Knowing that BC has just lost a powerful part of his offense at virtually no cost, and knowing that RC still has most of his troops containing NMN, Mav figures he can do some real damage by throwing everything he has at RC. And indeed, Mav's instincts prove correct, as several zeals and goons are able to walk right into RC's base. A well-placed tank takes out the goons and a zealot before it is destroyed along with the few rines that were not over at the 9 o'clock mineral only natural. However, that still leaves 4 zeals against a bunch of scvs. One of the scvs attempts to construct a bunker, but is destroyed before it can complete its task. Another scv quickly takes on the job, and the bunker is finished. Unfortunately, there are no rines to go into the bunker. RC is therefore forced to attempt to dance his scvs around his base, trying to stall until another tank and rines are produced. Eventually, a tank rolls out of the factory and seiges up, killing the last zealot. But by that time half of RC's scv force is decimated and his economy is greatly weakened.

The next portion of the game is filled mainly with building up, but also with some minor action. Mav is building a robotics facility, with an aim for reavers and observers. At the opposite end of the map, BC starts an expansion at his natural, and continues to pump a mix of lings/hydras. RC, while still making lots of infantry, has added tanks to his containment force over near NMN's base. Mav becomes a little worried when he is unable to locate BC's "huge ass force," but soon is reassured that it is indeed still there by a recently produced observer. To combat RC's tanks, NMN knows he must get tanks of his own, so that is what he does. However, before he is able to get any tanks out of his factory, BC attempts a lurker drop on his main. Unfortunately for BC, NMN has already constructed a turret in his mineral line, in anticipation of a move like this. He quickly stims his infantry, and they are able to take out the two lurkers before any real damage is done, prompting my witty fellow observer to make the following comment:

After this brief, semi-action-less filled period, things quickly heat up. You may have already noticed in the above image, but BC is rallying all his troops to a point just outside Mav's choke. And when RC diverts over half of his containment force over to the 12 o'clock choke, I know an attack is imminent. For defense, Mav has the cannons overlooking his ramp, plus two reavers and a few zeals/goons. If team Cube attacks with both of their forces combined, Mav won't stand a chance. But instead they attack in two waves, with BC sending in his lings and hydras first. The lings start attacking the zealots first, but are immediately obliterated by two deadly scarabs. The zeals then help the goons in attacking the hydras. Again, the reavers turn the tide of the battle, with half of the hydra force dropping to scarabs. Mav is left with the cannons and reavers intact, and only a few goons. RC continues to wait for some perplexing reason, allowing Mav to retreat his reavers a little bit, which will make his cannons much more effective. Finally, RC decides to attack, and sends in about 12 rines accompanied by 2 leftover hydras. Mav uses a neat little trick where he sacrices his shuttle to allow his reavers to creep up on the bunched up infantry of RC. Unfortunately, the shuttle died earlier than Mav expected. However, he still had a goon left to soak up more gauss fire. This goon also sacrifices its life, but it is a noble sacrifice, since it is enough to allow each reaver to lob a scarab at the rines. 9 of the 12 rines explode as the scarabs reach their targets. Of the remaining three, one tries to take on a cannon, and is easily eliminated. The other two attempt to destroy one of the reavers, but are only able to do somewhat substantial damage before dying to more scarabs. The result: this assault force fares no better than the first, since the cannons in combination with the reavers completely and utterly destroy the rines. The reavers in particular are deadly, with the two combining for 29 kills.

Although Mav barely survived the assault, he feels confident that his reaver/cannon combo will continue to hold off any further attacks, so he expands. However, the truth is that RC still has not recovered from Mav's counterassault on his main, so he is in no position to mount another attack. BC, on the other hand, should have a very strong economy, being the only player with a fully operational expansion. However, it seems that early on he did not make enough drones, because neither of his resource nodes has nearly enough drones mining it.

When the first attack by BC on Mav began, NMN was unsure if Mav could hold, so he ordered his 4 tanks and assorted infantry to break the containment and assist Mav. Because RC sent most of his troops to attack Mav, breaking out turned out to be very easy for NMN. He seiged up all his tanks just close enough to hit RC's containment force. He took one shot from the tank, then obliterated it. RC reacted by ordering his units to run towards the tanks and attack them from up close, but it proved to be futile, as the tanks took out most of RC's infantry before they even got close. And those that did get right next to the tanks were destroyed by NMN's infantry.

With the containment broken, the last vestiges of map control which team Cube once had are firmly gone. BC seems to have some excess money, as he begins a new hatch at his mineral only. His ally is still struggling to catch up, however, as he has not even started on a new expansion, whereas his terran counterpart, NMN, has a new cc which is halfway finished. Once Mav's nexus finished warping in at his natural, he maynards a large amount of probes over, and his economy becomes much superior to BC's. The game isn't over yet, but it has suddenly become pointedly in favor of NMN and Mav.

It does not take long for NMN to scan BC's second expansion at his mineral only, and when he does, both NMN and Mav decide they must take it out. Mav's troop count is still relativity low, since he was just double teamed, and since he has recently expanded. NMN, on the other hand, has been building up his troops un-impeded since the beginning of the game, so he has a huge force consisting of seven tanks and numerous assorted infantry. Because BC has expanded again, his troop count is limited to 10 hydras. RC sets up tanks on the westernmost edge of his cliff in an attempt to distract Mav's troops as they leave his choke, but Mav simply orders his troops to hug the left edge of the choke as they move south, and he easily avoids the tank fire. Eventually NMN and Mav have their forces set up just above BC's mineral only. However, their attack is slightly disorganized, as Mav moves in first, while NMN hangs back. This allows BC to take out all of Mav's forces at the cost of all but 3 hydras. Which means 3 hydras have to take on seven tanks plus infantry. Needless to say, the hydras took it up the ass. Fortunately for BC, all hope is not lost. Just as NMN destroys BC's northernmost hatch, RC's entire attack force, consisting of 4 tanks and some rines, moves into position. Two of NMN's tanks have already moved on to commence raining arclite fire on BC's natural, while the remaining 5 seige up to try and deal with RC's attack. Even though RC is able to get the first shot off, NMN cleverly sends out 3 rines to soak up tank fire. This allows NMN's tanks to get in a few extra shots, and win the battle in convincing style.

With the decisive end to that battle, there is nothing to stop NMN from rolling through the rest of BC's base. Yes, it is likely that BC could put up a fight at his ramp, but that would only delay the inevitable. Especially since his partner still has not even begun an expansion. RC is the first to recognize this, and leaves the game without even a gg. BC then follow suit, and NMN and Mav are in the finals.

Looking back on the game, I think team Cube had a really good chance to win the game after NMN and Mav failed in their first attack. However, they blew it when their own attacks were uncoordinated and lacked focus. RC should not have deployed nearly all of his forces in a containment of NMN that really did nothing at all, except leave him wide open to a counterattack from Mav. Also, team Cube did not macro particularly well. BC, in particular, needed many more drones, since he had an expansion. Also, it seemed that RC took quite awhile to recover from the counterattack by Mav. If you pay close attention to the minimap, you can see how RC's base stays pretty much the same size after it gets infiltrated by Mav's troops.

The final scores aren't too exciting. Mav won the unit scores because he was able to defend a combined attack from BC and RC. He also won the resource scores, because he never stopped making probes. Click on the portion of the scores you think might be cool.

When I rejoin the channel, team Cube has departed and NewbieMcNasty, :+:Maverick:+:, and I are the only ones around. Apparently, there are still two quarterfinal matches going on. Eventually, those two matches finish, and the other semifinal is ready to go. Unfortunately, there is some confusion as to what map the game should be played on. One side wants temple, while the other side doesn't. A big part of the problem is that the rules are vague, saying only that the teams should agree on a map, and not providing a default map in case no map can be agreed on. Another part of the problem is that one of the sides is made up of the tourney organizers, so it is difficult for them to take an objective viewpoint. Finally the game gets underway, on Winter Conquest. I try to observe, but no such luck. So I spend my time surfing the web, occasionally flipping back into bw to see if the game has finished. After a decent amount of time has passed, the players return to the channel, and the team that had been asking for temple is victorious. Unfortunately, this is also the team that requested I not observe their semifinal match. :(

Nevertheless, I join the final game, hoping that mercy will be shown. One of the players at first asks for no observers, but then his teammate, along with Mav and NMN, convince him to allow me to watch. Good thing too, because this game was better than the first one.

When Mav presses the start button, only Leggo has picked his race. But as the countdown ends, all players have selected their races. Mav, as before picks toss and receives the 12 o'clock spot. NMN, also picks the same race as last time (terran), but this time gets the 3 o'clock spot, something which makes Mav type a shout of joy. Meanwhile, Pastha selects terran to complement his ally's zerg. They get the 6 and 9 (oh, the sexual innuendo) positions, respectively. All players clone their peons off well enough, and the tension of a tourney final hangs in the air. Pastha emphasizes this when he tells his ally, "This is it. No mistakes!"

For build orders, all players follow fairly standard 2v2 rush builds. Both terrans make a depot then two raxes in their main, pumping rines and scvs as money and supply allows. Mav gets a pylon followed by two gates and focuses on zealot production. Leggo morphs a hatch above his ramp and pumps lings. Scouting is the next step, with a little confusion on the part of Leggo as to where his first ol should go. For some reason, he thinks it would do better hanging out in Pastha's base, so it stays there for the entire game.

Eventually, everyone has been scouted, and the first offensive move of the game is planned by Mav and NMN. They decide that they might be able to deliver an early knockout blow to Leggo by rushing with zeals/probes/scvs/rines. Mav tries to distract Leggo with two probes while NMN contructs a bunker to the left of the new hatch at Leggo's ramp. The attack, however, takes a turn for the worse when 8 brown lings rush up from the south, quickly taking out the probes before they can react. Seeing that Leggo's lings will reach the bunker before his rines will, NMN cancels his bunker and orders his rines to retreat back to his base (they were just entering Leggo's choke as the order was given). Mav too is forced to retreat, as his zealots will not be cost-effective without NMN's rine support. As the lings destroy the scv that had been building the bunker, Leggo has a drone begin morphing a creep colony directly above the hatch near his ramp. By the end of the battle, both terrans have started harvesting gas, while Mav has begun warping in a forge.

With the failure of NMN and Mav's attack, Leggo and Pastha have a small window of opportunity to double team one of their opponents and cause some serious damage. Realizing this, they move their troops out towards the center of the map, with Pastha muttering a single "p" to indicate their target is Mav. However, on the way to Mav's base, they run into a probe scout which alerts Mav of the impending double rush. Pastha then comes up with the clever idea of trying to double team NMN, who they assume must be coming to assist his ally. Although their assumption is correct, they are unable to capitalize on it, as NMN is able to run his troops back to the safety of his ramp before any serious damage is done. The attackers then decide that pursuing NMN to his ramp would be foolhardy, so they redirect their units back towards Mav's base. Unfortunately for Leggo and Pastha, the time they spent chasing NMN has allowed Mav to nearly complete warping in two cannons above his ramp. With 5 zealots present and 2 cannons soon to come, Leggo recognizes the attack will fail, so he tells his partner to abort. However, Pastha is a little slow to respond. Ordinarily, this would not have been a problem, except that as Leggo's lings are retreating from the attack, they run smack into NMN's large rine force and are obliterated. This leaves Pastha to fight off 5 zeals and several rines. He does an admirable job of stalling by running them behind the minerals of Mav's natural (where only one zeal can attack at a time), but in the end he is overwhelmed by superior numbers.

With this decisive victory in battle, NMN and Mav have a choice between taking over the map and mounting another attack on one of their opponents. With their faith in the overwhelming power of zeal/rine, NMN and Mav opt for the latter. Remembering the power of a sunken above a ramp from their last game, they decide to attack the terran rather than zerg. Pastha has a sound defense of a lot of marines, a few medics, and even a vulture or two above his ramp. Since he didn't wall in, it is much easier for him to hold the high ground in the fight. Not only that, but his ally sends a medium sized ling force to assist him. These lings end up intercepting re-inforcinging troops from Mav and NMN that might have tilted the outcome of the battle. Still, if Mav and NMN control their units well, they may be able to penetrate into Pastha's base. Unfortunately, the attack does not go so well. NMN's troops get too close to Pastha's ramp, and begin taking fire from the rines on the high ground. Since troops firing uphill tend to miss their targets a lot, NMN's rines start dropping like flies. When Mav sends his zeals in, they start absorbing fire, which allows NMN's rines to stay alive a little longer. However, they are still firing uphill, so their efficiency is still shit. In the last few frames of the animated gif, you can see Mav's thoughts on the outcome of the attack (fuck fuck fuck fuck etc.); basically, the zealots get owned first, then the rines die to a combination of gauss fire and ling rape-age.

Once again, the momentum swings towards Pastha and Leggo. Because Pastha's defense was so efficient and strong, he and his partner now have map control. With this comes the same option that they had earlier: to attack or to contain. Since every attack up to this point has failed, they opt for containment. A control group of lings and a control group of mmf, along with a vulture, make up the containment force that is posted just to the right of the temple. Both Pastha and Leggo have their rally points set to their containment force. Also, Pastha sends a couple of scvs over to build two bunkers and two turrets in the middle of the containment.

Mav has chosen to follow the robotics facility tech route, going for reavers/observers. When his first reaver and shuttle are finished, he loads the reaver into the shuttle and sends it around the containment, in the general direction of Pastha's base. However, the shuttle is spotted by an ol of Leggo's, and Pastha quickly sends some infantry to the northern most part of his base, as well as contructing a turret there. Thus, when the shuttle finally comes knocking, it is promptly repelled before even crossing into Pastha's main. Once he realizes the futility of attempting to manuever around the containment force, Mav decides to scout it out and see just how large it is. First, a probe is sent on a suicide mission to gather as much information as possible. However, two lings quickly eliminate that before any real info can be gotten. Fortunately for Mav, his robo fac produces an observer soon thereafter, and the little bugger is far more successful in its reconnaisance mission.

The observer notes that Pastha has spent money on stationary defenses like bunkers and turrets. This tells NMN and Mav that it would be safe to expand, so they do. However, Leggo knows that his opponents will be expanding to the naturals, so he tells his ally to take the cliffs of each opponent.

Pastha then moves an scv out to his natural to begin contruction of a new cc there. Leggo, however, continues to focus on troop production and does not yet expand. As this is happening, NMN tells Mav to prepare his troops: they're going to retake the middle. Mav explains to NMN that he needs another observer, so he can clear out a mine field below his choke. Once the observer pops out of the robo facility, it is immediately sent to the mine field, and a reaver destroys each mine one by one. Strangely, Pastha does not seem to notice or care that his mines are being destroyed. To me, this would be direct evidence of an impending attack, but neither Pastha nor Leggo mention it or react to it in any way.

As soon as the mine field is cleared away, NMN and Mav move out. NMN has a large number of infantry, but the brunt of his attack force is comprised of 6 tanks, which seige up just outside his choke and begin raining fire on the containment force. Meanwhile, Mav has a control group of goons, and about a half-dozen zeals, plus two reavers. Making up the containment is a force of infantry comparable in size to NMN's, but only 3 tanks and about 2 control groups of speed lings. At this point in the game, no one has any upgrades. NMN moves in a few rines first to absorb tank fire, then seiges up his tanks. This is a powerful move which ends up destroying 2 of Pastha's tanks before they are able to fire. The third tank does get off a shot, but one shot does not kill a tanks, so it dies before killing anything. Meanwhile, Leggo's lings are somewhat out of position, being slightly northwest of Pastha's troops. This results in 24 lings taking on all of Mav's troops by themselves. The zeals just serve as something to stall the lings while the two reavers and the goons do the real damage.

Back over at the southeastern part of the containment, things are still not going well for Pastha. All his bunkers have been destroyed, and it's now his infantry vs. NMN's infantry. Except NMN has 6 tanks to support him. It is a valiant fight, but the outcome is inevitable.

You may be wondering how it would be possible for NMN and Mav to overwhelm their enemies as easily as they did, especially given that both of them expanded, while one of their opponents did not. Well, there are a few reasons. First, as I alluded to before, Leggo kept his lings northwest of Pastha's troops, so they ended up taking on Mav's force without any help. Second, Pastha spend a lot of his resources on defense on his main. I remember Leggo mentioning during the game that he was expecting a m&m drop. Especially after the shuttle flew near his base, Pastha took his partner's advice and expected a big drop on his main. However, this meant that his containment force was much weaker than it needed to be. The third reason is that while all this action was happening in the middle, Leggo was making a drop on Mav's main. 8 hydras and two lurkers jump out of their overlord transports just above and to the left of Mav's nexus. The lurkers immediately burrow and take out numerous probes before Mav, who is busy microing the battle in the center of the map, can react. The hydras focus fire on the assimilator and nexus, taking both out, but then Mav's troops come roaring back. With an observer spotting the lurkers, 5 zeals and 4 goons are able to finish off Leggo's drop. Nevertheless, the damage had been done: the nexus, the assimilator, and most of the probes that had been harvesting resources are gone. Fortunately for Mav, he still has his natural operating at full power.

Over at NMN's base, he is having difficulties as well. Just as the last remnants of Pastha's troops in the middle die, a turbo newbie is being set up on NMN's ledge. NMN is quick to react though, moving all his scvs a safe distance away before too many die. Still, it is awhile before NMN is able to dmatrix a tank and destroy the turbo newbie from the lower ground.

These two attacks do make a dent in both Mav's and NMN's economy, but that doesn't change the fact that they now have firm map control, and so Leggo and Pastha will have to take some risks if they want to have a chance. Leggo takes the first one by expanding to his natural. Ordinarily, that would not be a risk this late in the game, but the fact is that Mav and NMN have many more troops than Leggo does, and it would most likely be easy for them to overwhelm him. However, luck is on Leggo's side, because Mav and NMN are about to mount an attack when NMN says, "Don't attack; just take map and get carriers." To that end, Mav expands to his mineral only, and also rebuilds the nexus at his main. NMN also expands to his min only as well as building another cc and floating it to the lower right island. Pastha figures that Mav will expand to his mineral only, however, and a subsequent scan confirms this. He responds by dropping 9 rines and 3 medics northwest of the nexus at the mineral only. Mav is quick to respond though, and stops all his probes which were on route to the nexus while simultaneously ordering half his troops to engage the threat. With all the probes gone, Pastha targets the nexus in the hopes that he can take something out. Unfortunately for him, the toss troops finish off the last rine with only 100 hp left on the nexus. Move your mouse over the image to see the before and after screenshots. Since the nexus is so low on health, Leggo thinks he can take it out before Mav can do anything about it. So 18 of Leggo's hydras are sent in line dance formation towards Mav's mineral only. Unfortunately, Leggo did not take the time to group them up before attacking, so 3 or 4 hydras at a time faced off against 6 goons, a few zeals, and two reavers. The result is that Mav's nexus is still standing, and Leggo has just lost a very cost-inefficient battle.

Just as the last marine dies at Mav's mineral only, Pastha scans the lower right island and discovers a blue cc with its lights blinking. In response, he sends a dropship with a tank, an scv, and 3 rines. The tank and rines are dropped on the plateau with the cc and immediately kill the three scvs there. They then begin to attack the cc while the scv constructs turrets on the land below the plateau. However, NMN sends 4 cloaked wraiths which proceed to kill the rines (despite a scan from Pastha) and then the tank. Pastha finished his second turret at the top of the island, but NMN has 4 wraiths that target it as soon as it finishes and kill it without any casualties. Pastha is not prepared to give up the island without a fight though, and sends another dropship, this time with a tank and an scv. The tank drops next to the first turret, on the lower ground, while the scv drops in the center of the island and immediately starts on a turret. However, Mav has decided to help his ally by dropping 4 zeals on the lower level of the island. These zeals have no trouble destroying the tanks along with all the turrets that were built there. Unfortunately, Mav just leaves the zeals there, and when Pastha brings another dropship, this time with 8 rines, NMN can only watch as his cc is finally destroyed and Pastha begins construction of his own cc. Although the cc is able to finish, Pastha isn't really able to mine much, because NMN drops 4 tanks on the lower part of the island and seiges them up. Pastha is forced to lift his cc and run his rines to the lower part of the island. NMN is fine with no one mining from the island, since he knows that his mineral only is operating at full capacity, while Pastha has yet to even begin mining there. Meanwhile, at the other island, Mav is attempting to set up another expansion, but Leggo has other ideas. He drops 3 hydras and a drone to take the island for himself. The 3 hydras easily take out the probe and lone pylon, while the drone immediately begins morphing to a hatchery.

For all these battles over the islands, the fact remains that NMN and Mav hold a serious resource advantage with their mineral only's, and it shows with their superior troop counts. When Leggo attempts to expand to his mineral only, they finally decide it is time that the dam should break. For defense, Leggo has a few lurkers and a control group of 2/0 hydras. Some of Pastha's tanks are present, but they are in position to protect Leggo's natural, not his mineral only. And Pastha will not be able to provide any immediate assistance, as NMN and Mav have stationed 8 seiged tanks plus assorted toss troops (including dts) as a containment force on Pastha. NMN sends in all his infantry, plus about 4 tanks and 6 wraiths. Mav has a control group of goons, some zeals, some temps, and a few observers. Needless to say, the mineral only goes down in flames in record time, in spite of the fact that NMN and Mav not upgraded their troops at all to this point. However, the push to Leggo's natural is stopped by the presence of two sunkens and a 1/0 tank on the high ground of Leggo's main, plus a lurker and tank on the cliff overlooking Leggo's natural.

With the attack halted (at least for now), Pastha attempts a counter attack on NMN's main. Rather than trying to force his way through the containment, he fills 5 dropships with 8 tanks and 8 rines, and drops them in the southwest corner of NMN's base. Unfortunately for Pastha, NMN has been mass-producing wraiths out of 5 starports, and the 8 rines die before they do any real damage to the cloaked wraiths. The tanks seige up and destroy as much as they can before they die to the wraiths, but they really aren't able to do much other than kill a few buildings. The complete failure of this attack does not bode well for Pastha's and Leggo's chances.

If they are to have any chance at all, it hinges on the possession of the islands. The lower right island remains in a deadlock, but the upper left island is controlled by Leggo. Mav moves to change this my taking two shuttles and dropping 2 zeals and 3 goons. However, Leggo understands the importance of this island, so he already has added 5 hydras to the 3 that were already there defending. Since the hydras are able to attack the toss units one by one as they come out, the attack is a dismal failure, and Leggo continues to hold the island.

Unfortunately for Leggo, the recent pressure on his island and his natural has forced him to produce hydras instead of drones, and his economy is a very weak one. Recognizing this, and also remembering the fact that Pastha is still contained, NMN and Mav decide to make a final push on Leggo's base. Although the attackers hold an overwhelmingly large superiority in numbers, they still must be careful, because Leggo still has lurkers, tanks, and sunkens on high ground where they are nearly invulnerable to ordinary infantry assaults. To handle this, NMN d-matrixes one of his tanks, and has this one move in first. It absorbs the tank fire from Pastha's tanks while the rest of NMN's tanks get in position. Once they have seiged up, it does not take long for Pastha's tank to die. The same SV that d-matrixed the tank moves on to irradiate one of the high ground lurkers. Another high ground lurker is eliminated by storm from Mav. When another tank from Pastha seiges up above Leggo's ramp, NMN rushes in with 6 of his wraiths, kills the tank, then rushes out. A few of the wraiths die, but it is worth it, as the tank would have gotten many kills before dieing. Eventually, all the high ground defenses have been cleared (including Leggo's two sunkens) and NMN stims his infantry and rushes them in. The natural falls very quickly, and all Leggo is left with is his defenseless main and the upper left island.

At this point, things are looking very grim for Leggo and Pastha. There is nothing to stop NMN and Mav from rolling right through Leggo's main. True, Leggo still has his island expansion, but it doesn't have that many drones working there. Not only that, but Mav is planning a drop on the zerg island that will include troops that are "more than just cannon fodder." On the opposite side of the map, Pastha has been unable to take firm control of the island. In fact, he still hasn't landed his cc. So, while both his opponents are mining from two bases, he is only mining from one.

In the face of all this, he continues to fight. In fact, he makes a last-ditch move to swing the tide his way. He takes his entire army, comprised of about a control group of tanks, and destroys the containment force by moving his infantry out first to absorb the tank fire, then seiging up his tanks and winning the battle by quite a bit. Sadly, by using his infantry as bait for the tanks, he lost most of his anti-air. So when NMN swoops in with a control group of wraiths, there isn't a whole lot Pastha can do about it.

And then Mav drops 4 zeals, a goon and two temps on Leggo's island. Two good storms later and all the zerg units are dead.

And then Pastha realizes that the game is over. Both Pastha and Leggo say gg and then leave, making NMN and Mav the winners of the tournament.

As you look at the animated minimap, note how each early attack is repelled, and then how NMN and Mav are able to expand and mass produce units better than their opponents, even though they are contained.

The scores are slightly exaggerated, because Leggo and Pastha turtled up a bit after they lost map control about halfway through the game. Still, they demonstrate the superior macro that NMN and Mav had.

After the game was over, we returned to the channel, and I congratulated NewbieMcNasty and :+:Maverick:+:. After that we all went our separate ways. However, about an hour after the game was over, I decided an interview of the those two guys would be good. So checked to see if they were online. Sure enough, they were on bnet. I asked them for an interview, and fortunately they agreed. Now, this is my first interview, so it was a bit rocky, and I'll have to do a lot of editing. And since there are so many other images in the report I will just present it in text form.

GRB: Congratulations again on winning that tournament.
NMN: Thanks.
Mav: Ya, thanks.
GRB: So, how was the competition in the first two rounds that I missed?
Mav: I think the in each of the first two games we killed one opponent with an early rush.
NMN: Lets see, first game, what were matchups again?
Mav: They were zerg toss
Mav: Xaanix and Cath
Mav: Xaanix went fast dt
NMN: ah yeah
Mav: and got owned =[
Mav: we rushed him as his temp archives was morphing
NMN: right
GRB: yikes
GRB: did you guys pick your races every game?
Mav: ya, picked toss/terr
NMN: 2nd game I almost died
Mav: due to lurks :(
GRB: almost died?
Mav: fast lurks
GRB: ahh
Mav: got his scvs, most his marines and buildings n crap
GRB: wow
Mav: <-- was late getting an observatory =[
Mav: they were zerg terran
Mav: the terran blew though if i remember correctly =]
GRB: ah, so you guys recovered?
Mav: 2nd game i think i helped him build back up by giving him some defense
NMN: i think the 2nd game was closest, cause i almost died
NMN: 3rd game, we rushed when we shouldn't have
NMN: we messed up on the initial rush
Mav: bad micro on both of our parts
Mav: lesson we learned from game 3, when charging a ramp you send zealots first and marines in back, not vice versa :(
NMN: but then zerg lurker rushed me
NMN: and lost 4 lurkers for nothing
GRB: how did you feel when the zerg came with the lurkers?
NMN: I had bunker/turret
NMN: and wrecked him
GRB: i was wondering why the terran didn't help during the lurker rush
NMN: yea, i was expecting him to attack, but he never did (thankfully)
GRB: can marines in bunkers target enemies?
GRB: it seemed like the rines in that bunker were targetting the lurkers one by one
Mav: nope :/
GRB: any other special memories from game 3?
Mav: well, the first three weren't too "fun" games... just rush n die :p
NMN: the final game was the most interesting
GRB: yeah, it was weird when they were first attacking you, and they kept changing directions whenever you scouted them
Mav: my first thought when they started turreting middle and seiging up and mining us in n crap
Mav: was "oh fuck we're fucked" :p
GRB: i thought it looked bleak for you guys too
GRB: but they stopped making units or something, and didn't expand either
Mav: They didn't have enough forces in the middle for sure
NMN: I expected both of them to expand as soon as they had containment
Mav: Neither of em did, insteand me and NMN expanded
Mav: gw "containment"!
GRB: i thought the terran was a little too passive
Mav: "a little" :p
Mav: he didn't do sheeeeeeeeeit all game
NMN: yea
Mav: i think terr did two offensive moves total, one failed m&m drop on my 2nd natural, and one drop on the island NMN was about to take.
GRB: didn't he do a turbo newbie on NMN's cliff too?
NMN: he must have built 20 turrets that game
Mav: all in all it was a fun tourney, but wasn't "too" hard (pardon me if i sound cocky :P) to win :P
GRB: So, do you guys play together a lot?
Mav: Actually, that was like the second time NMN and I have ever played together
Mav: I think I messaged him once to play a couple of good swedish guys
Mav: cause I knew he was a good terran player
Mav: I've played him a bunch of times 1v1 though
Mav: I have a pretty good toss, and toss/terr is a strong combo in 2v2
NMN: Few players actually know 2v2
NMN: we attacked before our opponents in every game i think
Mav: ya, in every game
Mav: we didn't talk much during the games, we still played quite well as a "team" though
NMN: people have to learn: you don't tech in 2v2
GRB: yeah
GRB: ok, anything else you guys wanna say?
Mav: Well nothing, cept we're undefeated and plan to stay that way. =]
GRB: ok, once again, well done in the tourney.
Mav: Thankies
NMN: thx
GRB: i gotta go, so i'll cya later guys
NMN: all righty
Mav: see ya around

And that's all she wrote folks!

In completely unrelated news, there was a partial Solar Eclipse on December 25th and I took two pictures of it using my telescope, a white sheet of cardboard, and my digital camera (hahahahahha what a nerd i am). Here's the first one, and here's the second one (this one has the scary shot of me. All I can say is it was 8:30 am, and I didn't want to comb my hair :P). So if you missed it back then, you can see it for yourself right now. Although I must warn you: it's not all that impressive because only 1/10th of the Sun was blocked by the Moon at my location. I still think it's cool though. =)

Ok, I'm through.

-Gamma Ray Burst