The map: Frostsabre is a snowy map with 4 mains, each placed with the entrance facing away from the middle. The coveted center of the map holds many feisty creeps and in its core a few ice drakes trusted with the protection of a highly potent gold mine. On the whole the map is generally littered with low level creeps, containing in this field mostly gnolls and trolls.

I received my tree of life in the northern position and began with my usual NE build: four wisps on gold and the last wisp on lumber duty. The first recruited wisp was ordered to construct a moon well while the next wisp produced from my tree of life started an altar of elders. Making sure to keep constant wisp production going until 11 food; I summoned an ancient of war and started producing my chosen hero of that day, the Keeper of the Grove (henceforth known as Groovie). When my ancient was near completion I started a hunter’s hall and a second moon well. As soon as the hunter’s hall was complete my huntresses started popping up in the production queue. I chose the entangling roots ability for my Groovie, and started to creep.

My honored opponent received Orc in the western area. He sent all of his peons to mine gold, and began the construction of a barracks when his first recruited peon was completed. He later added a burrow, then an altar of storms to his base. As for my opponent’s hero, the skilled Farseer was chosen with his first point going into the feral spirit ability. When BallistaCraft had 3 grunts ready he was off to hunt creeps, almost a minute before myself.

BallistaCraft was quick to arrive at a small gnoll camp just south of his base. The gnolls guarding the camp were easily dispatched by Ballistacraft’s forces, and after using his army of four grunts to kill off another camp of nearby trolls, Ballistacraft’s hero reached level 2. During this time my opponent was also rewarded with a sobi mask (50% extra mana regen) and slippers of agility (+3 agility).
Meanwhile, my army of four huntresses and a lone archer took out a similar camp of gnolls to what BallistaCraft had defeated east of my base.  At this time BallistaCraft sent a summoned wolf to scout the 12 spot, revealing all of my base before vanishing in a puff of smoke. He also got a good look at my current army, and charged it with *counts* FOUR grunts. I was unprepared and my unit formation was literally suck. The grunts charged in and focus fired on a huntress, almost trapping it before I could slap myself and start microing. Wolves were summoned and chain lightning ripped through my forces, causing me to retreat to the safety of the trees. When I realized I couldn't hide in them (doh!), I transformed two of the trees into treants via my Keeper of the Grove’s newly acquired skill (he had just reached level 2). After a little kitty dancing the treants were in front of the grunts while my huntresses were a bit away safely throwing ninja stars (or whatever they’re called) at the orcs, ultimately giving me the upper hand. And with more huntresses coming in from my base, BallistaCraft decided it would be best to flee the scene. His last grunt was trapped with my entangle spell and subsequently surrounded and killed. I decided not to pursue the hero since Orc defense is imbalance.

After the little skirmish BallistaCraft starts teching, upgrading his great hall into a stronghold and then constructing a spirit lodge (for production of spellcasters), before continuing his tech by beginning to upgrade to a fortress.
Meanwhile, I decided to continue with my huntress creeping; scouring the center of the map in search of new victims. During this time I found a Crystal Ball, and a -wait for it- tome of greater experience! With the help of that little item I came very close to reaching level 5 with my Groovie. BallistaCraft also went out for some experience, and got his Farseer to a comparatively embarrassing level 3.

With my new high-level Groovie I stop creeping for awhile, and begin an expansion in the northwestern part of the middle. BallistaCraft scouts it with a wolf, but decides not to attack since his tech to taurens just finished and he probably wanted to add a few of those big boys to his force before making any form of assualt. Taurens are usually one of the better counters to huntresses, and soon Ballista had three of them with the rest of his army moving north towards my main.
Using my see-in-future hack, I decided to move south to attack his base, and ran into his massive melee army just north of his main.

Our two forces clashed as night fell upon us. The holy shamans used their bloodlust spell on half the orc troops, making them better, stronger fighters. The huge cow-like taurens threw themselves into the middle of my huntress army, using their devastating pulverize ability to do splash damage. I ran back a bit, taking advantage of the little range my huntresses had, and cast entangling roots on the taurens; an act that bound them to the ground, unable to fight, while receiving moderate damage from the roots. My macro was better than usual and fresh huntresses arrived to help, rallied to my hero. Four treants were summoned and placed between the grunts and huntresses, quickly turning the battle in my favor. All the grunts soon fell, and with clever use of the entangling roots, BallistaCraft's Farseer was slaughtered. Left on the battlefield were three huntresses and my hero versus two full hp taurens. Easy win for BallistaCraft? Think again. With hefty dancing, and continuous use of entangling roots  the taurens are killed without losses; leaving my small group of battle hardened troops just north of BallistaCraft's base.

After the attack I fell back a bit, not wanting to waste units to the enemy burrows without any reason. When I got 8 full hp huntresses (moon well ownage), I couldn't wait any longer. I came in from the east and started focus firing on the altar, hoping to destroy it before the Farseer could be revived. Unfortunately I didn't count on BallistaCraft sending 8 (!!) peons over to repair the building. Thus the hero came out and released a maxed out chain lightning attack. Even though it took its toll on my troops, the evil roots from my own hero soon came from the ground and entangled the poor Far Seer, disabling its retreat to safer ground and ultimately allowing my troops to kill the hero. As my troops took out the burrows and other key buildings of the base, BallistaCraft said GG and we had a long conversation about how this matchup seemed impossible to him. He claimed he was practically helpless, and talked for awhile about imbalance while I clicked on my huntresses several times to hear the funny sounds :) As I returned to the channel, I checked his 1v1 stats: 38-2 ^_^

Yep, GG. I know it wasn't very long, but I would like your comments on the Orc-NE imbalance thing. And if you think I'm gonna let you outta here with less than 1mb of loading time, you're probably new to this site. So here comes Game 2:
Right! Away we are.

In one corner we have the man of the ocean, 'ye who drinks those weird blue drinks: aka IamBLUE who in an astonishing move chooses blue(!!) night elf for the match. In the opposite corner we have Alucard. And we all know what color and race he prefers, right? Right? RIGHT? Of course. He chose brown wndead. (Note: This game was between two really good players, which means I didn't observe it. Rather, I downloaded the replay of the game from some site :[~ ) Anyway just look at the pic.

The Map: Surprise! It's Lost Temple, dude. Actually I think this is easily one of the best maps War3 has to offer; containing lots of easy creeps in the middle which are essential in the beginning game. The only weird thing is probably the islands, they just don't seem rewarding enough imo. The other non-natural expansion in the bottom left and the top right are excellent places to expand, since many people neglect scouting these parts, and instead concentrate on the middle portion of the map.

Blue came out in the north spot with his sexy night elves. I must admit that after seeing his build here I copied it completely, hehe, guess that's what replays are all about. Anyway, the build goes like this: first you send all your available wisps on gold and fill the entire production queue of your tree of life with wisps. The first new wisp makes an altar, and the next wisp creates a moon well. From then on all wisps go on wood until you have enough for an ancient of war. Having completed the previous steps, a second moon well and then a hunters hall should be created.
On the opposite end of the map, Alucard popped up on the delicious (if you're into that) undead blight. He started a crypt and then sent his three acolytes on gold, the ghoul, meanwhile, immediately started collecting wood. The next acolyte out created an altar and a ziggurat before going to work summoning gold (lazy coat wearin' bastard). A major surprise comes when Alucard selected his hero: the rarely seen Lich.

Alucard, the brown undead, was the first to go creeping, taking out the creatures at the 3:00 natural while using the sexy frost nova spell to even the odds against the monsters (almost reaching level 2 in the process). When the creeps were gone, Alucard immediately expanded with an acolyte. A great tactical move since he knew that IamBLUE (now know as "Blue") already had scouted his main, and therefore probably wouldn't scout the 3:00  natural until much later in the game.
At the other end of the map the Groovie had been summoned, and along with two archers began creeping. A few gnolls and an ogre later, the Groovie reached level 2, grabbing a claws of attack (+6) at the same time. Huntresses by then were put into the ancient of war production queue, and a few of those crazy women were already rallied by the newly leveled hero.

Both players began creeping the monsters in the center. Alucard retreated after achieving level 2, and by then had his expansion up and running at full speed. He used his gold to set up two ziggurats (later to become spirit towers) for defense.

Blue got half  way to level 2 when he decided to test out the defense of Alucard. Three huntresses, two archers and the Groovie began dealing out the smack to six ghouls and the Lich. Unfortunately, the Lich was carrying a Scroll of the Beast, using it to boost the damage of the surrounding units by 25%. When Blue saw this, he immediately escaped towards the middle. There he met up with reinforcements and fought with the ghouls in close proximity to the Fountain of Health. With the constant hp-regenerating fountain on his side, Blue easily triumphed the ghouls, causing the Lich to retreat back to the main.

At this point both players began their tech towards tier 2, all the while constantly creeping. Upon reaching tier 2, Alucard began the training of his second hero, the Death Knight. Blue utilized his new tech by starting an ancient of lore, allowing him to train dryads.

Both players took their naturals, but only Alucard scouted his opponent's, allowing him to mount a surprise attack on poor Blue. The undead army, containing ghouls and few fiends, crashed into the area accompanied by the new Death Knight. Blue was quick to teleport to his expansion, and a huge battle began just south of the tree of life. The ghouls were backed effectively by the fiends, but ultimately the huntress force was to big, and Blue drove off the attack  with no less than six huntresses in good health.

Blue was looking preeeeety good right about now, and decided to take the initiative. His huntress army, now backed by a single (cough) dryad and two ballista, set out for the undead natural (remember, Blue still hadn't scouted Alucard's other exp). On the way to the natural something rather funny happened. The undead Death Knight was on a leisure trip around the plateau, and got caught by the incoming elves, yet suddenly he vanished into thin air. First time I ever saw the cloak of shadow in use ^_^.
Anyway, the Knight lived to tell the tale and the undead army was rushed to the natural where they clashed with the elves. The level 5 Lich fought bravely against the level 5 Groovie and his army, but the 3-2 upgraded huntresses were just too strong, and they began hitting the spirit towers guarding the expansion. Alucard wouldn't allow this, and kept pumping crypt fiends from three crypts, continuing to harass the invading elf force. For several minutes the fighting went on, resulting in the death of both the Death Knight and the Lich. Blue fled the base with his newly leveled, level 6 Groovie after killing all the acolytes, although leaving the haunted mine.

A minute later Blue already had a new army of around 8 huntresses supported by 2 dryads. These leet units followed the Groovie over to the eastern main, where a golem and some trolls met their death. After killing the creeps, Blue killed the Death Knight, who apparently likes to wander the map without much support and had wandered himself right into Blue's army.  After this encounter Blue decided to see where the DK came from, and in doing so saw the undead expansion at the eastern natural (the one Alucard had from the start). With ballista for support, Blue began laying the smack on the defending spirit towers. Alucard would have none of this, and came over with his revived DK, the Lich, a lone necro and around 8 ghouls. Fierce fighting followed, and the melee ghouls were raping, at least before tranquility began to heal the huntresses, quickly turning the tide of battle. The Death Knight was caught with roots, and was focus fired to death. The skeleton warriors fell, and the Lich fled to the main; but not before killing the ballista. With no siege equipment, Blue decided it was best not challenge the two remaining spirit towers, and thus left the base.