"im allied WITH MY BIG FAT JOHNSON"
-Bob_The_Newt
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| New ladder season | | | Author: | | | IP: | WCS3.NORXXXX | | Date: | 01/09/01 12:01 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 4, Max: 9, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for AQD3: 7.6184 |   |
Ah, the start of a new starcraft season. The fresh smell of Korean hacks in the air. The ever so exciting thrill of chatting with players 4 pooling their way to 1200. The raging controversy over the best way to clone probes. Does it get any better than this? Yes it does! For the first time in about six months when I opened up the ladder menu I had over a full page to choose from. It’s been usually about 4-6 games for a long time now. I’m guessing this is because of three things. First, a new ladder season. Second, 1.08 is bringing back all the cool guys who want to play ladder with balance and without hacks…they just want to get in some practice. And third, the D2 servers were down so all those geeks came back to SC for a night =]. Whatever the cause, it made me a happy little ladder player. Thank god for fast speed where my old man reflexes can actually compete.
Jesus loves you. Everyone else thinks you’re a hacking lamer.
My first game of the night was on my AQD3 id with no ladder record. (I played another id to 1100 just screwing around Sunday afternoon but blizz lost all my games after I logged off for dinner =[ ) Looking over the deliciously full join game menu I picked out a snazzy little “I am the biggest newb in the world so come play me” game hosted on Dire. Mock all you want, but you get kicked out of the “1200+++ super elite” titled games when you have 1000 as your ladder rank. Plus it was on Dire, which always puts a smile on my face. The guy picked zerg to my toss, which sorta clued me into his actually sucking. You either go random or toss on Dire….unless you’re a god. My last Dire game didn’t go all that well cuz I played Fox’s random gosu zerg (he had to leave before it was over but he had a distinct advantage), but this guy wasn’t hard. Let me summarize. He went mutas, I did sair/reaver. My sairs killed all his lords before his spire finished, he managed to pump 6 mutas and kill my reaver drop, but lost all his mutas to my sairs shortly after. Then I ferried stuff over and just tore down his base. I suggested to him that he use scourge in the future but he didn’t seem to believe me. Oh well.
The second game was a little more challenging. Map was lost temple, I chose toss to my opponents random. My start was at the 12 position. I started out with a slightly risky build vs random:
8 pylon
10 gate
12 gas
14 core
15 gate
16 pylon
This build is my standard opening vs toss and terran. It gives you quick tech options vs both those races and just enough early goons to hold an early rush except a cheese rush from 12 to 3 or vice versa. I scouted with the probe making the first pylon in a clockwise direction. Nothing at 3, nothing at 6 (I was at the 14 supply mark at this point), and I continued with my vs terran/toss build because I figured I’d have at least seen an overlord by this time if my opponent was zerg. Checked the 9 spot and saw the hatchery morphing at the expansion. Now, I’d normally call this a hack except that if my opponent hacked and saw my build, he really should have 9 pooled and ate my lunch. So what I end up with is a tech build with no troops vs a zerg who early expanded. Only one way to go with this sucker. I start a citadel of Adun and pump a few zeals and one goon to chase away a curious overlord. He scouts just a little with a zergling every other minute. I get my templar archives with no real conflict and wonder what the deal is. A three hatch ling build would run me over. Quick mutas was a possibility as my scout revealed early gas. But I started to feel the force. Sometimes you just know how a game will play out. I started to get that feeling right then, maybe Luke in episode four force feeling. Not reliable but enough to take out that chobo death star =].
So I was convinced he’d be going for hydras. I used a probe to scout and had my hypothesis confirmed. Hydras it was. I cranked two dark templar out and sent them to watch the way in. I had really low troop count at this point, which bothered me, but it was going to be a micro game from my stand point anyway. I skipped making more troops, researching storm and then expanding to my natural. The enemy attacked towards my base with ten hydras at this point. Two went down to dark templar before he decided it wasn’t a good idea and ran back to his detection umbrella in his base. I knew the next phase of the game was critical. I had to get enough troops to balance out his early expansion and zerg troop efficiency advantage before he got olord speed. I started doing goon/templar from three gates and maynarded probes to my expansion.
When he came, it was obvious what his strat was. He had opened with a three hatch pump, going almost all drones with a few sunkens at his natural. He then went four or five hatch, got his hydra upgrades and olord speed, then stopped making anything but hydras. It’s a good strat, not a top player one, but good, easily executed by most average players, and damn hard to stop for toss. Of course, I had more time than most vs this because of the dark templar. And in PvZ, time is on the toss side as far as the ability to successfully repel an attack. I had eight goons and a few random zeals along with three templar at the top of my ramp. He came in with about 30 hydras. I watched him move when he tried to dodge storms and his troops moved in three distinct groups. Two big ones and one smaller. He stayed back from the edge of my ramp, and moved towards my natural, hoping to force me to come down the ramp and get slaughtered. My first storm moved his hydras back enough to buy me some room. Second storm moved them back more. He killed the cannon at my natural and started hitting probes. Third storm, this time ones that took damage from the first two started dying. Fourth storm. Got a good group as he came in to attack. Extra high latency cost him twelve hydras that he couldn’t pull back fast enough. My last storm missed almost clean. I had targeted a hydra at the start of the conflict and didn’t retarget in time. He had ten or so hydras left to my four goons. Well, a goon is worth two hydra right? I had +1 weapons and range. Too bad for him I also had macro and all three gates pumped goons throughout the conflict. Another three goons joined my side and I managed to eliminate the threat. I had lost some probes, but not my expansion. And he had lost what was obviously a three minute pure unit pump. Unless he expanded I was doing very good.
Dtemps ran out to the resource sites. No zerg expansion. Looks like happy boy had learned one very effective strat and learned it well. But all the memorization in the world wont help vs someone who can micro and macro. I concentrated on macro for a little, getting my gate count up to six and hotkeying them so I could macro during combat if I needed to. My opponent came in again with twelve or so hydras escorted by olords, but I hadn’t lost my templar from the first attack. A storm and the presence of about eight goons backed him off pretty quick. I figured the game was firmly on my side now. I sent a probe to 3 and started a cannon defense on the ramp, then a nexus.
My opponent had one trick left in his book. By my way of thinking, it was reasonably retarded because he had already seen I had the counter to it, but maybe he hadn’t encountered any good toss players before. He had a control group and a half of hydras outside my natural. I scouted his force with a dtemp I had outside his forces and found zerg eggs on the ground. This obviously meant lurkers. I had kept up my macro and had 18 or so goons, one or two zealots, a few dtemps, and six templar. He came in and buried his lurkers at just about range from my goons so they wouldn’t die getting close. I didn’t even bother to micro the goons back. Storm. Two lurkers unbury and bury closer to my ramp, maybe hoping to force me back and run for a worker kill shot. Storm. Storm. Storm. Storm. Problem solved. I move all my forces out and shift the rally point for my six gates to his mineral natural. I Maynard the idle probes from my main to my new expansion, then attack his natural. He has a control group of hydras and three sunkens. I just patrol in my forces. My constant reinforcements help in overpowering him. He attacks with all the lings he can muster to counter my goons just as six speedy zeals reach the scene. That and a storm ends it. He quits as I’m taking down his natural hatchery.
So, a good second game with just enough of a challenge that I was ready for more. I was hanging out in nohunters and Mantra! was harassing me about playing a game or sth when I got a random challenge from A6-Van. I didn’t know him, but he had 1147(rank #972) ladder from a 10-2 record to my 1048 2-0. I wasn’t sure what the deal was, but 8 wins gets you 1200 if you play people your own rating. Still, it was early in the season and maybe he had to play newbs from lack of competition. Either way, Mantra! got blown off for a chance at a newb killer =]. Sorry big man. I figured he was some smurf from the nohunters community willing to play me because of my name.
I hope they screw zerg in 1.08 =]
This game was also on temple and I had chosen toss at 12 again. Remember last time game I said I felt the force? This time I really felt the force. He randomned but I figured him for zerg at 3. I scouted off my pylon building probe and saw his olord coming from 3 at my ramp. The force was strong in me last night =]. With a zerg that close I used the following build:
8 pylon
10 gate
12 gate
13 zeal (have to stop constant probes)
15 pylon
My scout probe finds him doing the 12 hatch thing. Zerg usually get away with this trick, but I had a plan. My probe harassed his drones a little to steal his concentration, then ran for his natural. Now as most toss players know, your first zeal usually gets to the expansion hatch and gets to beat on it for ten seconds before six lings come and drive you off with the 12 hatch build when the zerg player is smart and saves larvae. I had a different plan. I could tell from the quality of this guys micro during our initial encounter that I would be able to get away with some tricks. My first zeal runs right through his natural and runs to his main. I see 3 eggs getting ready to hatch and target a drone. The lings hatch and I kill the drone, then the zeal starts hammering the next drone. I get started on drone three before the lings finish the zeal. And at this point in the game, killing drones is a very good thing.
“Do you like to ladder a lot?” A6
“You don’t know who I am?” me
“No, should I? Sorry, I don’t know anybody” A6
“You ever visit br.com?” me
“Yes, all the time, but not the forums” A6
“I’m Mark4”
No response after that…
I set back just a little and power up some zeals. When I get three I head into whoville again. I see a hatch at his natural and a sunken guarding it. But my first attack made him nervous, the sunken was set back as if he made it on the first patch of creep available. My three zeals engage six lings which run back to the sunken. Marky don’t play that game. I sent my zeals up the ramp and set the rally point for my gates to just above the ramp. My hotkeys let me macro while I was managing this micro battle. The lings seemed afraid to engage and A6 did the very worst thing you can do with lings vs zeals. He attacked and then ran his lings a few times. This sucks cuz it lets my zeals shields recharge while the zerglings stay dead =]. The correct technique is to engage from as many different sides as possible at once with the lings, try to have four lings attacking a zeal at once, and once a ling takes a hit, run it back two steps then back into the fray so the zeal targets another ling (you’ll actually get 2 hits on the ling cuz of reaction time/latency setting, one less than needed to kill it), and always have your lings attack until the end unless they wont kill any zeals at all. This makes sure you do more than shield damage. As it was I got about six ling kills without doing more than shield damage to my zeals.
Right at the top of the ramp was a newly morphing hatch. I started beating on this and two more of my zeals followed their little rally point right up to the fight. A6 must have thought he could hold me there because he didn’t cancel the hatch. My zeals would beat on the hatch, see the lings coming and attack them, watch them run, beat on the hatch some more. The hatch finished and he immediately made a creep colony right next to his hatch. I finished the hatch as the colony morphed to a sunken. As it finished he attacked from both sides with a decent amount of lings. Some of my zeals were hurt from the fight and he managed to take them down, but I finished the colony and almost all of his lings. Back at my base I had been keeping up with unit macro, but not making any new buildings or probes. Too distracting to go back and order a probe to mine during a fight. I set down a third gate, a forge, and a core. I settled back and macroed a little bit, figuring I had to be ahead with him spending money on lings while I took down the hatch and sunken.
When the forge warped in I started +1 weapons. I had eight zealots so I sent them in to party. At his choke I killed a ling and saw one sunken and another morphing in a position that covered his ramp. A good player would hope I went for the ramp again and have lings blocking it, letting his sunkens get free hits while I figured out my mistake. I estimated out forces were about equal so I just patrolled into his natural, letting the sunkens act as a natural choke to help me vs the lings. The technique worked well enough, with me taking down both sunkens and heavily damaging the third before reinforcements from his main attacked my lings. But wait! My hotkey battlefield macro meant I had reinforcements too. My next three zeals threw themselves into the fray and took down the sunken while zerglings attacked them. I had two heavily damaged zeals left, so I retreated them to his choke. Back at my base I warped in a stargate, figuring he had been all ling for way too long.
My next wave of zeals numbered six. Picking up the damaged ones they attacked into his natural yet again. He had one sunken made and another being morphed, supplemented by lings. I attacked, seeing he had made the same mistake in sunken placement as last time, canalizing his lings into 1v1 battles with my zeals. If you ever face this situation, you want to try and arrange your sunkens so you can flank a zealot assault if you plan on using a ling heavy strat. Once again I took down the sunkens and the lings with three zeals left. My next three arrived just as the battle ended and started attacking his natural hatch and drones. The drones attacked with newly morphed lings and killed one zeal before being put down. About this time my first corsair killed an overlord over my natural choke. It then went into his main and saw a finished spire. Damn the force was with me that night. I slapped down two cannons on general principle because if he went scourge before mutas I could still be in trouble vs air. My second sair joined the first in attacking lords as his larvae at his natural hatched into mutas. They swept over my base and ran into the cannons, backing them off quickly. The came back to his main where they engaged my rampaging corsair. At this time my macro had put twelve zeals at the top of his ramp and his natural was no more. I charged in and killed his two defending sunkens, despite his drone defense, and the game was mine.
Well, GG to all the people I played last night. The record of the third ladder game is here. I hope you all enjoyed this report and please feel free to leave me game tips in the comments section. In slightly other news, I’m sure this would have been more informative for all of you with a replay attached =]. Let this be the first announcement of the br.com plans for a replay section. Now, a bunch of replays with one line titles is going to be pretty useless. In order to have value, you have to know what’s in the replay and that its worth watching. To this end our replay section will end up looking something like the battle report section does today. You’ll have a main title, an author, a brief description, and a link to where you uploaded the replay in our report management center. And the important part. A rating. A quick numerical guide to how worthwhile a replay is to watch. And to do that we need raters. This is the part where you come in. Being a replay rater takes a different set of skills than report rating, and it’s pretty much a do at home thing for most of us. So I’m looking for people who think they might want to watch a few replays a day and offer a rating to them. I’m planning on having a lot more raters for replays than we have for battle reports. Basically, if you show an interest and have been on the site more than three days I’ll probably pick you. This is also probably going to be a gateway to becoming a report rater later on if you don’t have godly report writing skills =]. Contact me at mark4@battlereports.com if you are interested. Thanks!
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