"FLS, I will hunt you down to the ends of the earth. There is no place small, dark, and damp enough to hide your wretched carcass. And when I find you, your grandson will rather have his private parts infested with the fleas of a thousand camels than hear of your horrible fate."
-Mark4
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| Mark4 vrs Kain-the-feared | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 07/01/99 08:07 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 3, Max: 9, Min: 9
Lifetime Rating for Mark4: 8.6829 |  | Let me set the scene for you. A thursday night before a 4 day weekend. I come home with the intention of going to bed early and playing a little starcraft. I'm in a 1v1, sipping a little bit of jack daniels when ghost~lizard messages me "Hey, come to feared domain for the tournament."
I start cursing a bit, realizing that being slightly inebriated wasn't going to help me all that much vrs pillars. After quite a bit of waiting and screwing around, the tournament head repeatedly yelling for people to be quiet, and other not quite as glamorous as you might imagine activities, the ref tells me "Pillars was too scared to play you, you get a by." Well, maybe those weren't his exact words (Pillars might have been on vacation... I'm pretty sure it was fear though =])but I did advance to the next round. Next I drew Kain-the-feared as my opponent. Talk about your lucky tournaments. First Pillars, now Kain =p.
Enough set up. I asked for the match to be played on Dire. Kain prefered another map because "I don't like island", but was gracious enough to play me. Dis-the-feared was observing. We began our game with both of us choosing protoss. I got the top left and he drew the bottom left. The first offense belonged to Kain with a early one dragoon drop. I lost two probes before my first dark templar hit the ground, chasing the goon back into his shuttle. My reaver popped a second later and I loaded my troops for a quick offense. I was greeted by a newly warped set of cannons, close enough to be mutually supporting vrs a dark templar in the back of his probe line.
My reaver killed the first cannon with help from the dtemp, but an observer floated overhead quickly after, leading to the destruction of my troops by dragoons with no further losses. The set up was a perfect ambush for my type of drop, no doubt constructed by Kain on the fly after seeing my tech buildings. His mutually supporting cannons gave him the time to react to any drop before losing probes, and his goons gave him the ability to meet even a high tech threat with his observers. I might have done at least some damage by manually targeting the probes once I saw I couldn't take his ground troops.
I realized Kain had done more damage and not sustained losses from his drop, while mine had gone poorly. I expanded to the middle left center island with a previously dropped probe. I queued up a second gateway, researched psi storm, and started producing a reaver and a templar in short order. This would leave me in a good position to kill a mass goon drop if I got to my second reaver in time, and it was pretty obvious I was not going to be able to match him dragoon power for power. Unfortunately, my ISP disconnected me at that time. The final stats showed Kain with a slight resource advantage and 15,000 to my 12,000 points, mostly in units from his drop, and resources.
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Phase Two:
I relogged onto my ISP. Kain, Dis, myself, and Bri-the-feared (head ref) discussed the game. Dis as the ref said it was too close to call, but if he had to call it he leaned towards Kain. I expressed my preference for playing again, Kain thought it was cool, and Dis and Bri agreed. Kain insisted on a new map, to be selected by Dis. Dis picked Rivalry and we started again.
This time Kain and I both went random. I drew zerg and the upper right, Kain drew protoss and the upper left. I began with a standard double hatch at the entrance to my base. Kain started annoying me with a probe, attacking my larvae and generally being a nuisance. I continued with my build, going pool on 9, then overlord, then two sunkens at my entrance hatchery. As the sunkens started in, Kain attacked with a zealot and probe. A master level tactic, using the probe with the zealot is the same as if the zealot has the +1 weapons upgrade when fighting zerglings. They die in two hits instead of three. My sunkens finished without being seriously threatened though, and Kain retreated to the bottom of my ramp.
I started making zerglings from both hatcheries at this point and got gas. Kain was setting up a fire base at the bottom of my ramp. He had five zealots and was warping in two cannons. As soon as I saw the cannons I attacked with all my zerglings, about eighteen in all at first, another four joining the fray after they hatched. I destroyed three of the zealots while Kain retreated the other two to give his cannons a chance to warp. I divided my forces in half to kill the cannons while pursuing his zealots. I eliminated the last resistance and massed about 12 zerglings below the entrance to his main.
Kain had two zealots on the ramp, blocking my zerglings. Back home I started the armor and melee attack upgrade and getting speed. I also expanded to my natural mineral site. I went for his ramp with the lings, sacrificing several to overcome the zealots. A dragoon and another zealot reinforced, but my six remaining lings took care of that threat, and killed a warping cannon as a bonus. Two more zealots came to support the limping dragoon, and I retreated my forces. Dis tells me that if I had taken the 12 extra zerglings I was reinforcing with and attacked, I had the game won. Would have been nice to know then =]....
I had Kain "safely" contained, and started on my tech tree. I had gotten the lair a little while ago and now started on my spire for mutas. I kept up a decent amount of zergling production. This is the part where Kain shows me playing a one unit game and leaving a 1600+ player a minute of breathing room is a BAD idea. I see a shuttle heading towards my base with a scouting overlord, just a second before the overlord starts getting hit by a corsair =[. I know that Kain has a reaver by simple deduction. Zerglings don't do so hot vrs a reaver. Kain drops a reaver and two zealots in the middle of my drone line. My micro skills can't support feeding a reaver and killing two zealots with six zerglings, no matter how much I want to. I make my second big mistake here in not attacking Kain's main while Kain's first reaver is no doubt in that shuttle and before a second one can be made.
I know it's pretty ugly at this point, but giving up is a little too mentally weak for me to indulge myself. I drop a hydra den at my mineral expansion and make a sunken at my main to give the reaver something to chew on. My spire has been taken before even one muta could be made. I keep running into supply problems as the corsair is chewing up my overlords. Of course Kain is willing to help me out with that by killing my units =]. I suicide run some zerglings along with three hydras and force Kain to pick up his reaver after it's heavily damaged. I also force back his corsair for a second or two. Reinforcements come in and Kain starts the reaver chewing on my mineral expansion. I finally manage to kill it with my last hydra, as the hydra eats a scabard. I have lost my main's hatchery, all my tech buildings including the spawning pool, and have two drones left. Doesn't look good.
I attack with my last six zerglings on Kain's main, finding an undefended choke and actually killing three probes before two zealots and a dragoon catch me. Kain uses his reavers to clear my choke, then his zealots clean up. A masterfully played game on his part. At least from my perspective =].
Lessons learned:
o An early goon scouting drop on dire can catch techers a few seconds short. His build was almost the same as mine in shuttle time, except he went without templar and got quick observers.
o I need to press an attack when I get a temporary advantage. I've cursed the other side of a ling strike for so long, it was like I didn't think my ling attack would work.
o Kain is better than me at micro. And adapting his tactics. Probably why he's 1600+. Nah...
| | Battle Shots! | 
I clear out Kain's forward base.
Kain is about to drop the hammer on me =[
I express my feelings about Kain beating me like a pinata =]
My final act of defiance...
Kain offers a "GG" as I take my last bit of revenge =]
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