I sorted my head. What strategy should I use? Should I just go random? No, that is no fun.
I should do something special...something fag. And thus I decided to do what the backstabber had done to me, mass cannons, and yet add a new element to use up my gas. I decided to go cannon/templar. A highly defensive strat, waste the minerals on cannon harassment while using up the gas on assorted templar units. Would this strategy work out okay..? I'd soon find out in this game..

During this building stage I basically was focusing on early gas so mass templars would be viable once I got to archives and three gates. Little did I know, I wasn't the only one doing a fag strat. Wick was going marines, and nothing but, thus massing barracks. Unfortunately, I later learned that he hardly consumed any of his minerals. I built three cannons on my choke, then started teching to shuttles and templars. Zerg was obviously going early mutes since he never made a hydralisk den while upgrading to Lair. Level had a nice mix of M&Ms while starting factories. We constantly scouted and saw that Zerg had only a handful of lings to guard his bare base, thus the inevitable happened. Wick attacked him just as Zerg had completed his Lair. About a dozen marines marched to Zerg's base and started shooting at some lings that were on hold position on the ramp. After about three deaths Zerg realized his mistake and pulled his lings back. Zerg had been saving up money (827 minerals, 440 gas at this point) and had a spire going at about 300. At this point Wick left his marines there, probably wanting to have the cliff advantage against Level who would seemingly come help his ally. Level didn't, but Zerg killed the marines with some back-up zerglings. At this point Level started a starport while pumping tanks, and my templar archives had finished and I started storm research with the 200/200 I had saved up. The spire finished also and he started mutalisk production. While that was underway Wick and I were planning another attack. I shuttled a probe to Zerg's base, and found a spot left of his base to start cannoning. Wick sent his two dozen marines to Zerg also. The idea was that my cannon field would be a spot for Wick to retreat to if he was overwhelmed, but he would still have a good spot to attack from. While I planted cannons, Zerg had finished spawning twelve mutalisks, and was getting prepared to hit Wick by placing his mutalisks at Wick's expansion. Using this moment Wick charged the Zerg base and took down his drones and overlord, then started focus firing on his spire. When the spire was half gone, Zerg came back and finished off Wick's marines. Wick should've retreated to my cannon field, but he didn't. Ironically, Zerg didn't spot my cannons

Of course by then I had about five templars and started heading to help Wick. One of the templars came across 9 mutes heading to the south of my base, and so I stormed the mutes, but NONE DIED. Ghetto storm damage decrease crap. I could tell the mutes were planning to hit my probes, so I left a templar above my nexus. Of course a minute later the mutes did attack, and I stormed them directly. All died except for one of them. I let a second storm loose, but that also didn't do much. Now this was the bitchiest 35 hp mutalisk there ever was. I had to wait until a new templar warped in, then merge with the original templar, and finish the mute with the archon. Of course, the mutalisk escaped, as my probes were sent back to the mineral line after waiting at the cannon field. The muta still took a decent number of probes, which I immediately started rebuilding. As for the Level vs. Wick battle, nothing happened.

Wick kept amassing marines while Level just contained him. Sort of. Red later would expand to the top left island with a floating CC. For a couple minutes we all just built, and I finished cannoning Level and Zerg's cliffs, although there weren't any expansions there. Having not scouted, I sent a DT to Level's base and luckily Level was just sending out more troops to Wick. Level had around 10 marines, 15 medics, and three scvs, so I proceeded to kill them all. I took out all his marines, and so he was forced to back pedal his remaining units to the cliff within turret and tank range.

*A note of interest, from here on out, whoever attacks me would win, no matter what. Right now I had only a templar and the archon for unit defense, plus the three cannons. I believe that it's thanks to the cannons that they didn't attack me, because if they had the knowledge of me not cannoning, then there wouldn't be any fear. A quick tank push would've finished me with no casualties on the other sides.

So if I only had one archon and templar, where were the others? They were heading to Zerg's base yet again. But it didn't do anything for Level had a nice defense set up there so I had to retreat until Wick was ready to attack also. After this minute assault Level expanded to his natural while killing the cliff cannons with tanks. So Level and Wick have an expansion each while me and Zerg still are mining at our main which are close to running out. Zerg started a hatchery at his natural. About time. Now is the biggest mistake of the game hands down. As the units I sent out were going to Zerg's base, Zerg's mutalisks were going to my base, at least I thought. About halfway they changed direction to Wick's expansion. That was no doubt the biggest mistake of the game. My base was extremely bare. But anyway he attempted to take Wick's expansion, took out the one scv there before dying to his cloaked wraiths. Wick decided to not dare let the momentum shift to their favor and also to get rid of Zerg once and for all and we both attack his base with a marine, templar, and wraith combo. While the units were being sent out I expanded to the bottom right island while Wick expanded to his mineral only and natural. The combo broke through the lings and was heading up the cliff while Zerg was furiously trying to get his mutalisks to morph to guardians. We hit the base head on and I got about 15 kills off storming. Of course Level soon caught up to us and cleared the threat, except for a trio of cloaked wraiths, which were killing Zerg's drones. After some hesitation they were gotten rid of also.

I expanded to my natural. For a while we just built up and I noticed that Level was planning an attack on me. Now here was another momentum changer. One of the morning games I had was a 2v2 where I was getting tank pushed by a Terran. I was Zerg, and my troops could've overwhelmed the Terran if I had attacked. But no, I let the Terran set up and tank push my ass along with some zealots. So what lesson did we learn? To always keep them on your toes. I basically got a templar, clicked the Storm button, clicked on Level's natural mineral line, and watched. The templar floated his way avoiding the humongous Terran group in the center, while absorbing whatever fire he received from a lone goliath at the expansion. It let loose a storm a split second before dying.

But was I done? No sir. Wick was sending troops from time to time to the huge group and then failing miserably. Seeing my situation, I got about 7 dark templars, 2 zealots, and 1 dragoon and while avoiding the huge group, I hit Level's base again. This attack was very successful as my dts finished off the scvs and then proceeding to climb up the cliff and taking a few tanks, then having their way with a group of supply depots. This forced Level to divide his forces, as he took his goliaths back to kill me and leaving his M&Ms and tanks behind. Using this opportunity Wick rushed the overlord detector with wraiths, killed it, and then sent all his troops to attack Level. The troops were marines, marines, marines, tanks, and two battlecruisers. Yep, Wick may not know how to use Terran to max potential, but he does it with style. And just saying that the battlecruisers were the best because they were what took out Zerg's mutalisks. Zerg expanded again to his natural at that time. As good as the attack was, Level still survived with a couple battlecruisers of his own. But with this attack, the game was sealed. Desperate for minerals, Level destroyed my bottom right expansion and expanded there. That was his only source of income and thus we regrouped, finished Zerg, and afterwards finished Level,

So this is a nice example of breaking all the rules and still owning hard. The only unit anybody had that could detect was the overlord, THATS IT. There were no vultures, no reavers, no hydralisks, no science vessels, etc. Wick didn't even have any medics and thus were owned in every minor confrontation he had with Level early game. As for spending their money, Wick was horrible at it! He had >1000 minerals and gas about 60% of the game, but of course his many expansions made up for it. The rest of us kept our money low. My strategy was obviously a lot more effective than it should be, basically because Level had no vessels and Zerg went muta/ling.

can u see me?

-Archon6