Well, not being able to connect to battle.net because you have the wrong pin number for your Starcraft sucks, and trying to play Counter-Strike while having AOL 56k that runs at 33k is a bad move.  Because I only bought the multi-player version of CS, I couldn’t do much, except play Starcraft (I only have 2 games :P).  Then I remembered about that crap 1.08 patch that makes Terran invincible, so I went to SCNation and downloaded it.  I loaded up my SC and decided to see if all those rumors about the replays were true, and it was!  I excitedly played a few comps 2v2 and 3v5 and so on and watched my replays.  I didn’t encounter any replay problems either!  This actually wasn’t half bad.

            Then I remembered that SCNation hosts a site called gosu.scnation.com.  It’s supposedly the “clan” of SCNation or something.  Anyways, I headed over there and went to the “battle reports” section.  I then saw a huge list of these “replays,” and began to download all the replays marked “GOSU.”  After watching a bunch of them, I said that most of them were newbs, or just 1 sided games.  I learned something from one of the games though, a trick that I think (orky)priest did TvZ.  He was 9oclock Terran and the Zerg was at 6oclock.  When priest saw the overlord, he went 8rax on the right edge of his base, and floated the rax down to the lower ground.  This made the trip A LOT faster so he could easily bunker rush the zerg.  Pretty gosu, no? Then I saw Astic-X vs Abrasive-X and it was ZvP (astic was toss).  Astic did a zlot rush and abrasive did a muta rush.  Abrasive barely survived the zlot attack but finished off Astic’s nexus so abrasive won.

            Then I saw some game called Bihua vs unknown.  Bleh, probably some newb game, right? Wrong.  It was [9]Maynard vs [9]Villert.  I dunno if they were the real thing, but the game sure looked like it.  Well, now I have wasted your time, so about half the pictures should’ve loaded.  BTW:  The first have of this game is mainly text, because not THAT much happens (actually a lot does), and the second half was non-stop action, which is impossible to put into words, so I just took 300 pics in total (no exaggeration!).

            The map to be played was Lost Temple.  If you don’t know what this looks like then you’re with me bud, I only know what BGH looks like =P.  Anyways, Maynard gets teal terran at 12oclock, while Villert gets blue protoss at 6oclock.  They both do “standard” builds, I guess.  Maynard goes depot, rax, refinery, depot, and factory, while Villert goes pylon, gate, assimilator, cyber core, and another pylon.  On a side note, both players que their scvs/probes, even though some people say not to que units.  Villert scouts counter-clock wise, while Maynard scouts clockwise.  Both “miners” meet up at the bottom of the ramp, and both players know what to go for.  Villert’s probe enters Maynard’s base and starts to harass the scv building the barracks, but leaves when another scv comes.  BTW: Maynard is making a wall-in.  Maynard scouts Villert and sees the lack of 2 gateways, so he knows Villert is teching.  Maynard makes a second factory when his 1^st one is 50%, and gets an add-on for the 1^st factory.  Villert, meanwhile, has gotten a citadel of adun, and now gets a templar archive.  When Maynard’s machine shop is done, he gets MINES instead of the siege technology.

Villert sends his first built goon to attack Maynard, and attacks the supply depot blocking the ramp.  Maynard repairs the depot w/ some scvs, and makes a vulture and a tank.  At the site of the tank, the goon retreats back, and Villert expands to his natural and gets a second gateway.  Soon after the goon rush, Maynard makes an ebay and attacks with 2 vultures, 1 tank, and 1 scv.  Maynard lays down mines, and builds a turret.  Unfortunately for Maynard, Villert has a few zealots and a dark templar.  The DT kills the tank, while the zealots take the mines’ damage.  Maynard quickly cancels the turret, and attack again with 2 more vultures, another tank, and another scv but the zealots and dts are too much.  Villert gets 2 more gateways, bringing his gateway count to 4. 

6 MINUTE UPDATE:

MAYNARD:   2 factories, 1 ebay, 1 rax, 1 base, 40/42 pop, 231/346 resources,

                       3 tank, 2 vult, 0/0 upgrade.

VILLERT:        3 gateways, tech to temp. archives, 2 bases, 30/42 pop, 291/286 resources, 1 dt, 2zealots, 0/0 upgrade.

Villert now gets his 5^th gateway, and Maynard expands to his natural.  When Maynard’s CC is done in his natural, he “maynards” 9 scvs to naturals.  Gee, “I should be shot for saying Maynard ‘maynarded’ his probes.”  Yes you should, yes you should.  Now Villert expands to his mineral only, bringing his base count to 3.  Villert gets his 6^th gateway, while Maynard gets 3 more factories.  If you are a complete moron, and can’t do math, he has 5 factories in total ;). 

When Maynard has 7 tanks, he moves to the 3oclock mineral only and sieges one and builds a depot.  Villert, mean while, decides to attack at the same time with 16 zealots and 2 archons.  The tanks flee at the site of the army, and Villert kills the sieged tank and the depot.  Then Villert moves on to Maynard’s base.  Maynard has laid down some mines, and has 2 tanks sieged at the top of his cliff.  The zealots and archons run to Maynard’s natural.  Maynard has 4 tanks, 1 vultures and 10 scvs attacking the zealots and 2 archons.  Most of the scvs are killed, and 2 tanks are killed.  The remaining tanks and vultures retreat up the ramp and finish off the archon and zealot with newly built tanks.  After this attack, Maynard ‘maynards’ his scvs to his empty natural.  Ya know what, shoot me too for saying that. 

Because of Villert’s 6 gateways, he is able to produce zealots extremely fast, and does so.  Villert attacks with another 12 zealots, but the mines and the cheap placement of tanks kill the zealots easily (the tanks were on the cliff).  To keep up with his opponent, Maynard gets his 6^th factory.  Yet again, the persistent Villert attacks with 8 zealots and 1 archon.  Maynard has 5 tanks ready, 4 vultures, and a handful of mines ready to take care of the problem (the problem is Villert’s attack smarty pants :P).

In seeing that his attacks have failed, Villert expands to the 9oclock main.  At the same time, Maynard sends 3 vultures and attacks Villert’s probes at his mineral only expo, killing about 7 before Villert can get 2 zealots to take care of the situation.  Villert decides to get another shot, and sends 18 zealots to attack Maynard, but you know the story.  Mines, mines, and more mines with tanks kinda rape zealots.  Not to worry though, because Villert gets 3 forges.  I think Maynard got the better end of the deal on those attacks.  Anyways, Maynard gets a starport, soon followed by a science facility.  Now VILLERT maynards his probes to his 9oclock expo.  Haha, now you can’t get mad at me because Villert maynarded his probes, not Maynard ;).  The only problem is, that Maynard had a vulture scouting that base, and saw the incoming probes.  He didn’t do anything though, and just left the base be, I wonder why (no really I do).

Now Maynard feels confident, and expands to the 3oclock mineral only, and starts the dreaded “tank push.”  Villert sends up a probe and sees the “push,” so he splits his army into to.  One half on the left side, one half on the right side.  Villert attacks Maynard’s “encampment” with 22 zealots and 2 archons.  Many mines are blown up, zealots “evaporated?”, tanks blown up, and archons kaboomied (is that a real word?), and Maynard comes out victorious.  I don’t even know if that fight is possible to explain, but little micro from Villert was showed, and a little from Maynard.  A “macro fight” you might say.  Well, Maynard comes out the victor, but only has 3 tanks and 1 vulture.  Maynard now gets 2 armories, because of the knowledge of his opponent’s upgrades. 

18 MINUTE UPDATE:

MAYNARD:  6 factories, 1 starport, 1 science facility, 1 ebay, 1 rax, 1 academy, 2 comsats, 2 armories, 4 bases, 263/1054 resources, 108-134 pop, 8 vultures, 11 tanks, 0/0 upgrade.

VILLERT:  9 gateways, tech to temp. archives, 3 forge, 5 bases, 696/857 resources, 106/165 pop, 10 zealots, 1 archon, 1/1/1 upgrade.

Villert now expands and attacks the middle with only zealots.  Maynard has done an excellent job of, what’s the word, “BGH”-ing the middle?  A whole ton of tanks and mines destroy the zealots easily.  Again, words cannot describe the battle, just use your imagination boy!  Maynard pushes even farther and Villert gets 2 more gateways (9 total).  Pretty intense game, eh?  Anyways, Villert attacks AGAIN but this time with 1 archon and a whole s*i*-load of zealots.  I mean like 24+.  Well Maynard also makes vultures and tanks and such, and doesn’t lose too much, only 2 tanks and 4 vultures.

Maynard feels like expanding and he does so, to the 3oclock main.  Villert gets his 10^th gateway, and Maynard pushes to the 6oclock mineral only (Villert’s mineral only), and lays 234923749 mines.  Well, not that many, only around 15, but that’s still a lot.  Maynard has been pushing very well this whole time, and most terrans wouldn’t be able to sustain the attacks from the protoss, but Maynard has.  Also, Villert has been doing what any good protoss would do, and they are playing this game perfectly.  Well, back to the game.

Villert gets 3 more gates, bringing the gateway count to 13!!!  Seems like BGH, no?  Over this period of time, even though I haven’t been explaining it, Villert has been attacking the middle over and over.  Remember, 13 gateways making nonstop zealots can be trouble to any push.  Each time, more and more of the terran force was killed, until Villert finishes the terran forces attacking his mineral only.  However, Maynard brought some reinforcements, allowing him to hold onto the middle.  Maynard has been going hard tanks and vultures while Villert has been going hard zealots and a few archons here and there.  Pure gosus.  Maynard adds another factory, bringing his total to 7.

By now I had taken 100 pics, so I told them to wait a minute, but then realized that I’m and idiot and it’s a damn replay =P.  Villert gets his 14^th gate, and Maynard gets his 9^th gate.  Gee wiz, my head hurts from so much fighting and booming and zealot screaming and such.  Great game so far… no, really.  Maynard gets a dropship and scouts Villert with it.  Villert decides to attack the middle again, and I don’t really need to say anything.  But a good try though!  During the attack, Villert expands to the 9oclock mineral only.  Maynard finally pushes to Villert’s mineral only, and starts to attack it.

Villert sends waves of zealots (about 12 at a time) to save himself, but only hurts Maynard a little bit.  Maynard now expands to the 3oclock natural.  Villert decides to “save” his zealots, and waits until he has about 26 zealots and kills the tanks at his mineral only.  Maynard now has 11 factories and 3 barracks’s.  Villert gets 6 zealots and an archon and tries to run them around the middle into Maynard’s main, but runs up with 5 tanks and 3 vultures, and the zealots and archon are quickly killed (with some micro of course).  Villert sees his opponent is semi-open, so he attacks the middle with zealots and goons.  With little micro from Villert, he barely kills the tanks and vultures in the middle.  Maynard, however, turbo newbies Villert’s 9oclock natural’s cliff.  On the second blast, Villert flees his probes from danger, and gets a robo facil.  By now Villert has 3/3/3 while Maynard has only 1/1 upgrades.

RESOURCES UPDATE:

            Maynard’s natural at his 12oclock base is finished with minerals, so he… yeah, you know, *******s his probes to his 3oclock natural.  Villert attacks Maynard’s 3oclock expos but Maynard easily kills them with 8 vultures.  Villert attacks the middle again from the bottom and the left sides.  Somehow, Maynard’s “push” is destroyed, and Villert’s remaining zealots and dragoons arrive at Maynard’s mineral only at 3oclock.  Unfortunately for Villert, Maynard has firebats, tanks, and vultures waiting for him.  Villert loads up 4 zealots, and drops them on his 9oclock ledge, and disposes of the tank, vulture, turret, and scv.  He then rebuilds his nexus at the 9oclock natural, bringing his base count back to 6.

            Maynard now attacks with 6 vultures and 5 firebats but the upgraded zealots are too much for them.  Villert expands to the top left island expo brining his base count to 7, while Maynard only has 5 bases.  Maynard attacks again but this time he attacks Villert’s mineral only at 9oclock.  With flanking, Villert is able to defeat the threat, and survives the attack.  Villert uses his shuttle again, and drops 4 zealots in Maynard’s main, only killing an ebay before the tanks kill the zealots.

            A huge battle happens in the middle, with tanks, firebats, vultures, marines, zealots, and dragoons.  Stimming, mine laying, tank sieging, and mine explosions occur, leaving one man the victor.  Can you guess who?  With all that info no, but with this picture you can:  Maynard does, probably because he invented the term maynarding, but it was a close fight there.  Maynard tries again and pushes to Villert’s 9oclock mineral only.  Villert tries to flank from both sides, but 4 tanks are left.  Again, the gosu shuttle is used, and Villert drops 4 zealots on the tanks, killing them with ease.  Maynard expands to his 12oclock mineral only, bringing his base count to 6.

            30 MINUTE UPDATE:

MAYNARD:  13 factory, 6 barracks’s, 2 ebays, 1 academy, 1 starport, 2 armories, 2 comsats, 6 bases, 2989/603 resources, 155/200 pop, 7 tanks, 6 vultures, 4 goliaths, 3 firebats, 4 marines, 1 science vessel, 2/3 upgrade.

VILLERT:  16 gateways, robo facil, tech to temp arch, 7 bases, 806/2085 resources, 137/191 pop, 14 zealots, 3/3/3 upgrades.

Maynard pushes out to the middle but Villert is able to stop him.  Maynard does his little “vulture” trick again, and attacks Villert’s 6oclock mineral only.  Because of Villert’s 16 gateways, he has a LOT of zealots and dragoons.  At least 44 zealots and 14 dragoons.  He decides to attack the middle, and is encountered with the vultures, tanks, marines, firebats, bunkers, and science vessel.  With good tank placement and mine placement, and correct timing to stimpack the marines, Maynard still loses (gotcha there, didn’t I?).  Maynard makes a CC near his 12oclock mineral only, and floats it to the top left island, finding Villert’s expo there.  Maynard tries to take over the middle, and doesn’t find any units there, so he “sets up.”  Villert drops 4 zealots in Maynard’s 3oclock natural mineral line, killing at least 12 scvs.

            Villert scouts the middle with a zealot, and sees the impending danger, so he sends in waves of 16 zealots at a time.  Maynard stops each of these attacks, only losing a few units at a time, but replacing them quickly.  Maynard scans the bottom right island expo, and drops 1 tank and 4 marines to kill it, which he does so.  Maynard eventually pushes far enough, and finishes off Villert, with a lot of minerals left over.  Villert concedes the game, after his 6oclock mineral only base was destroyed.  Good game, just bloody good game.

WINNER = [9]Maynard

Lessons Learned:

1 – UPGRADES ARE SO HELPFUL!  Upgrade, plain and simple.

2 – Don’t let terran expand, if they do you’re in trouble.

3 – Dropping zealots and microing with protoss is key.

4 – Watching replays too slow screws them up.

Side Note:  The first time I watched the game, I was playing it too slow because I was writing down notes, and somehow the game screwed up, and they didn’t do anything for 5 minutes.  Then I had to watch it 3 more times to figure out where the replay had messed up.  Oh well, I hope it was worth it.

Thanks TO:

Gosu.scnation.com for actually having these replays.  They saved me from complete boredom.

SCNation for having the 1.08 patch ready for me to download.

[9]Maynard and [9]Villert for owning so much.

Sprite for quenching my thirst when I was thirsty making this report =P