"Tried Tested and True...Chevrolet. No, actually it's Lost Temple. Surprise"
-Fractal_Wave
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| WGT Chronicles: Chapter 2 | | | Author: | | | IP: | AMontsouXXXX | | Date: | 04/25/04 08:04 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 2, Max: 8, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for Raider: 8.5370 |  | WGT CHRONICLES: Chapter 2
Well, WGT season 8 has started. I started out with a mix of wins and losses for my protoss.
First I played a Spanish zerg player nOsEyA who had a high of B5. He won the first game, so I asked for a rematch and went 9/10 double gate rush. I killed a bunch of his drones early on and then kept hitting him constantly making him build zerglings instead of replacing the lost drones. Eventually I built up to a force of Archon/speed zeal, ran by his sunkens into his main and killed it. He had only just then made a hydra den. Then my second archon/zealots force came from my main, and the two met up at my opponent's natural with obvious outcome.
Then I played a Norwegian zerg player. It was 12/3. He tried a secret expo to 6 natural, but neglected detection, and 2 DTs spelled doom for that operation. I then ran him over with goon/zeal/temp.
A few more unremarkable games followed. Whereas the previous season, I could not take a step without running into a terran player, this time everyone seemed to be playing protoss or zerg. I guess the StarCraft universe ran out of beer and malt liquor.
At the point of the upcoming game I was well into C5 and coming out of a loss in PvP where I tried a 3 zeal/4 goon rush, which failed miserably and allowed my opponent to get reavers and secure his expo before me. He then ran me over with goon/reaver.
I shrugged off the loss and went on to the next game. Lesson learned: I shuda made 5 zeelits, meaning I should have made 2 extra while my cyber core was making instead of just sitting around waiting.
Game 1
My next opponent was BMFin. I was not in the least surprised when I saw him pick protoss at the same time as me.
The game started, and I found myself at 6 o'clock (I'd like try a few of the other maps--temple gets boring, but at lower levels, people tend not to want to play anything else).
I made a gate on 10 and sent the builder probe to scout. After the last game, I did not really feel like 2-gating, so I started assimilator on 12.
My scout ran into her enemy counterpart at 3, so I knew my enemy was at 12. BMFin tried blocking the 3 ramp with his scouting probe an trapping my scout at the 3 plateau, but after a bit of confusion at the move, my probe made it out.
Meanwhile, at home I made a zealot before beginning my cyber core. BMFin could have been 2 gating, and if I did not start my zealot production early, I would not have enough to stop him if he decided to attack.
My probe arrived at 12 and saw that my enemy had also gone 1-gate. In addition, he had even foregone the initial zealot to get his core done sooner. I felt a bit like slapping myself for not going 2-gate. I could have had my win within the first 7 minutes. Oh well, c'est la vie. I felt a little better when my zealot popped out just soon enough to block the enemy probe from entering my base, denying BMFin recon. Take that!
I added a second gate when my cyber core was almost done: about 19/20 control. I also tried to pull my usual trick of hiding a probe at my opponent's natural to look out for expansion attempts, but BMFin showed his complete lack of respect by bringing a dragoon and blowing her up.
I had a zealot blocking my ramp and two goons when BMFin hit me with 2 goons and a probe. I shuddered in fright at the sight of the mining robot coming at me. My troops were not as easily intimidated however. After a short skirmish, my opponent's troops retreated, one goon in the red and the other with some shield damage, and both with some more respect in their little hearts. The only damage I had sustained was the loss of shields on my zealot.
This move gave me much needed information about my opponent's strategy. When my scouting probe had left BMFin's base to go hide at his natural, he still had not started his second gate. This attack was nothing but a weak bluff to make me believe that my opponent was agressive and was set on pressing my ramp. It also gave him an idea of my troops count, so it was also a scouting attack. His troop count however gave away more than mine. 2 goons meant he still did not have his second gate, which in turn meant that he was doing some sort of tech rush. It could have been reaver or DT. With the possible threats in my mind, I continued the game.
I started the robofac for observers. Then, knowing that my opponent was low on troops, I took my then 5 goons and the zealot and headed for his base. Aiming for the kind of fearsome firepower that my opponent had used, I included a probe in the assault.
At my mineral natural, I chased off an enemy probe that was watching for an incoming attack. BMFin knew I was heading his way. When I arrived at 12, I left the probe outside his choke for the same reason as he had his at my min only. At the same time, I went for his ramp with my troops. BMFin was guarding the entrance to his base with 5 goons. I killed one before retreating but lost the zealot and one of my own goons. I did not run far however. I stopped just as I was outside the range of BMFin's high ground dragoons. I ordered my troops to hold position there. If BMFin tried coming down the ramp, his goons would stop at the bottom of the ramp to fire on mine. That or he'd have to run down and suck up the free hits. As a matter of fact, he did try to break out briefly, but seeing that he had no chance, backed up into his main. One more goon arrived from my main to join the containment force.
Confident in my safety for the moment, I started a nexus at my natural. The robofac had finished by then, so I started an observatory. I also wanted some canons and upgrades, so I started a forge as well, placing it so that it blocked the space between my minerals and my assimilator in the main. In case of a reaver drop, it would block the scarabs if the reaver landed outside of my probe line. I also ordered the probe outside the enemy choke to go hide at his natural (yes I really like that trick).
BMFin chose this particular time to attack my containment. I had 5 goons defending, and he tried coming down the ramp with 4. I smirked with that air of superiority that you get when you a 14-year-old tells you he's gonna kick yer ass. That smirk vanished though when I realized that my goons were dying way faster than they should have been and heard the sound of warp blades. I killed all 4 of BMFin's goons and lost two of mine before signaling a general retreat. At home I started an observer. I was not worried--the observer would be done by the time we reached my base.
At home I had 2 goons by my nexus watching out for a reaver drop. I called them to the ramp. Two more goons popped out of my gates just as the three retreating ones arrived from the south, bringing me up to 7 defenders. DTs killed two of them before the observer arrived on the scene and allowed me to return fire. One DT died and the other one ran away along with one goon and a zealot that BMFin had brought along. The dragoon died, while the zealot and the DT made it to safety.
My expansion nexus warped in just then. I sent a control group of probes there from my main and started gates number 4 and 5 (I had made a 3rd gate during the containment and DT ordeal). I had a pretty good idea of what was coming. DT rushers whose rush fails inevitably go for speed zealots next. Not a negligible threat since the 100 HP zealots that came about in 1.08 do really well against dragoons. Plus you can have more of them due to lower cost. 25% more to be exact, and that is significant. To counter that I made a canon in the mineral line at my expansion and started citadel of adun for speed zealots of my own and archons later on. I also made a canon by my main mineral line to defend against any DTs BMFin might try to sneak in there.
I did not gave to wait long to see whether I was right in my predictions. Less than 30 seconds after the DT and the zealot disappeared in the fog of war outside my base, BMFin hit me with 11 speed zealots and a DT. I had 10 goons, 2 zealots, and a canons in the mineral line to defend with. Not bad at all, but even so the danger was still there.
The attacking zealots moved in to encircle the 7 goons of mine that were on low ground, and I retreated them towards the nexus and the canon while attack moving 3 goons and 2 zealots from my plateau. At the same time I ordered the probes working at the expansion to come out and help defend. I had 5 goons and 2 zealots left when BMFin sounded retreat. His remaining 4 zealots and a DT made it out. The exchange cost him 7 zealots, while I lost 5 goons. About even, except for the gas. The excess gas he had meant I would be facing templar and storm pretty soon.
The probe at BMFin's natural reported a nexus started. I ordered it to attack the builder probe there and shifted my attention to home. I was reseraching zealot speed and producing troops from 5 gates. Templar archives were about half way done. In general, the game was looking to be well in-hand, though I was in no position to attack my opponent due to him most likely having a lot of speed zealots to denfend with. I had begun a second cannon at my natural when I saw a DT run into my main. It tried to hit my probe line there, but saw the cannons and thought better of it. It ended up milling about and taking a few swings at a pylon before being eliminated. While my troops were in the main eliminating the DT, BMFin hit my natural with the 4 zealots that he had saved from the previous attack. Two zealots, a goon, 2 cannons, and a bunch of probes were enough to take care of that with the loss of just one zealot.
Around that time I began adding zealots and archons en mass to my army, which resulted in mineral pileup, so I added 2 more gates, bringing my total up to 7. I also added a second forge and began upgrading weapons at the existing one. We were about 10 minutes into the game at this point.
Cautious of sneak expansions, I sent zealots to scout 3 o'clock and 12 mineral only. They reported the locations empty. Good. I sent them to patrol both 3 and 9 loations.
I continued building up at home. Shields and weapons were upgrading. Yes, shields. Shields benefit all protoss units and buildings and not just ground units. Also shield upgrade makes archons a lot tougher, and since I use them a lot in my late PvP game, that is very important.
Soon I had about a control group and a half of zeal/goon and 2 archons and I ordered my troops to move out. They ran into 7 enemy goons at my mineral natural, which retreated in the face of my incoming army. I pursued. The fleeing goons stopped just in front of the 12 choke and I killed some more of them when I hearn canons firing at home and saw some wrong colored dots at my natural on the minimap. When I looked there, I saw that BMFin had unloaded 2 zealot and 2 templar there (zealots to draw fire giving the templar time to storm). I ran the probes away, loosing about 5-6 to storm. It was not that bad, about the only benefit to having a non-saturated mineral line. The templar and the zealots died to the two cannons at my natural, and I ordered the probes back to mining.
In the meantime, my attacking force moved into the enemy choke. There, to my great dismay, I ran into a force of zeal/goon that was at least one and a half times as big as mine. BMFin did not have archons, but he did have 3-4 templar mixed in for storm. And storm he did. As soon as our forces engaged, he placed two storms, one on my goons and one on an archon and some zealots. I danced the goons out of the storm, but there was nothing I could do there and then, so I retreated losing a few of my units and killing almost nothing. On my way out, I saw a probe and a pylon at 3 mineral only. Knowing I could not stop my opponent from taking his expansion just then, I did the only thing I could to delay it by killing the probe as my troops ran by.
My enemy had a greater troop count and was about to expand again, but even though the situation was dangerous, I was by no means at too great of a disadvantage because I had started an expansion at my own mineral only at the beginning of the attack, and the nexus there was half way done. I also had 7 gates at home to crank units from, so my troop count was not going to to stay low for long. I just needed BMFin to refrain from attacking for 30-60 seconds and I would be all set.
It was not to be however. Just as I was thinking that all I needed was a little more time, BMFin attacked my forces that were grouped in the middle of the map. A set of reinforcements from my gates had arrived there right before that, and I pushed his attack back despite 2 of the now 3 archons dying to storm. BMFin retreated to his choke again. As both of our troops ran by the 3 mineral only, I was happy to see that he still had not started a nexus there. Those happy thoughts were rudely interrupted however, as my troops ran into a large enemy force at BMFin's choke. Within seconds my victorious force was reduced to 2 goons and a very damaged archon retreating from 5 zealots and 5 goons. Once again I was reduced to counting the gates at home and hoping that my opponent would wait just a bit before attacking.
Once again my hopes for BMFin to have a bit of patience were in vain. For some strange reason, he seemed intent on attacking me. As my 2 goons and an archon ran back with enemy troops close on their heels, I ordered 4 templar to morph into archons at home and started some canons at my mineral only, where the nexus had finally finished. To add to my troubles, BMFin picked that time for his shuttle to visit my natural once again. It unloaded 2 zealots and a templar, and the latter proceeded to storm 6-8 of my probes to death. Things were deteriorating rapidly. Looking at my 7 gates no longer seemed to do the trick of calming me.
I am not sure what was going on in the mind of my opponent right then, but for some odd reason, half way across the map, he ordered 3 of his 5 goons to turn around and go back to his base. When his forces came to my mineral only, there were only 2 goons and 5 zealots following them, which were dispatched easily with zealots/archons arriving from my main. Well, that was kind of cool.
I realzed what had happened soon enough. Apparently, BMFin wanted his pursuing troops to halt and wait for reinforcements from his main, but he misclicked and only stopped 3 dragoons. How did I know that? Because as soon as I finished fighting off the previous wave, 6 dragoons, 3 zealots, and an archon came knocking on my front door. I had 1 templar, 1 dragoon, 3 zealots in various states of damage, 2 cannons and 3 archons, one of which had under 20 shield points left. It was going to be close. With help of storm, and insane damage from the archons, I managed to kill all the attacking forces with a dragoon, an archon and a cannon remaining. Goon soup was still on the ground when BMFin arrived with 3 templar, 3 zealots, and a dragoon. His templar stormed my archon, and 2 of them began to morph into an archon for my enemy. I ordered my archon to attack that before the morph finished. It managed to kill the morphing archon and the dragoon despite being stormed. Two more archons arrived from my main, and I was able to put an end to the attacks. I had 3 archons and 2 zealots left (though one archon was out of shields, and I was forced to make a shield battery later to recharge him). A new batch of troops had come out of my gates, and my upgrades were at +1 weapons and +1 shields. It looked like, thanks to the mistake on my opponent's part and his division of his forces, I was able to ward him off.
My speedy observers (I like getting observer speed if a game lasts--it's cheap by late game standards and makes them much easier to operate and move to hotspots) reported that he had a nexus and 2 canons at 3 mineral only, which meant that our resource intake was equal if I was lucky, but most likely I was a bit behind due to storm raids on my natural. Speaking of those raids, I added a third cannon there in hopes that it would allow me to kill the shuttle before it unloaded anything. I knew BMFin was not trying to take either 3 or 9 mains or naturals thanks to 2 zealots patrolling those locations.
As it turned out, 3 canons was not enough to stop a shuttle from unloading its cargo. BMFin swung by for yet another psi raid on me. This time though I ran probes as soon as I saw it arrive, and he was able to kill no more than 1-3 before all his troops were dispatched. One to three probes for a templar and 2 zealots was a decent trade off as far as I was concerned.
Even though the latest psi raid on my natural did not do much damage I was still rather pissed about a shuttle swinging into my domain whenever it felt like it (the shuttle made it away all 3 times) so I made a shuttle of my own, loaded it with 2 templar and sent it towards my enemy's mineral only. At this time I also sent a probe to 9 main for future expansion purposes. Also around that time, my zealot patrolling 3 o'clock met up with an enemy zealot sent there with similar orders. My zealot got the first hit in and was able to kill the newcomer. I maintained recon autonomy for that area.
During the interesting developments depicted above, my peon control squad arrived at 3 mineral only. I unloaded the templar on the 3 plateau and stormed the saturated mineral line. A juicy sound of popping probes rewarded me for my efforts. The templar got 24 kills between them, and the probe line was reduced to 2 little robots fleeing in fright. Very gratifying. I picked up the templar and ordered the shuttle to BMFin's natural.
Meanwhile, my opponent seemed intent on keeping my probe population low as well. A shuttle unloaded the good old 2 templar/2 zealot payload on my main cliff above my mineral only. I saw it however, ran the probes, and sent the zealots that had just come out of my gates to kill the intruders. BMFin was unable to kill any probes and lost a templar before loading his troops back into the shuttle and fleeing. Just before that, a zealot of his arrived at 9 position and this time he had the upper hand. His zealot killed my patrol and the expansion probe.
Next move belonged to me. My shuttle arrived at BMFin's natural. If I thought his mineral only was saturated before, this was it to a whole another level. My templars got 2 storms off, and their kills went up into 20-30 range each. I picked them up and left.
BMFin however, was intent on continuing our psi raid duel. His shuttle came back and unloaded a templar on low ground near my mineral only. He was unable to come close due to canons. I moved the probes and an archon killed the templar and the shuttle. This duel was finally going my way. My opponent saw that too and, it seems, decided to put and end to a little game of storm the peons that we had going. Within moments of the enemy shutle dying, 2 control groups of zealot/goon accompanied by a templar and an archon attacked my mineral only. I had some dragoons, but the bulk of my forces was composed of zealot/archon and a few stray templar. I got off 2 sweet storms right on top of the dragoons, and BMFin backed off. Confident, I ordered my troops to attack. 4 more templar had arrived from my main, and I laid down quite a few storms. My force overpowered my opponent' Unfortunately, when all my troops stopped, my templar kept on moving, following the original attack move command. Some of them went as far as the enemy mineral only expansion, where they stormed a few goons before being dispatched.
Even though BMFin decided the psi raid game was over, I had reasons to disagree with him. My shuttle arrived back on the cliff above his mineral only. He had made a pylon there, but no canons. I trormed his mineral line, killing most of the probes and ran again. I was beginning to really like that new game.
On the downside, even though I killed BMFin's attacking force, the slip with the templar caused half of them to die, and most of my other troops died in the battle. This was bad because BMFin kept with his rally troops directly into enemy base policy and attacked me again. His next attack, which came just as I killed the first one consisted of 10 dragoons and 2 templar. I had 3 templar (with low mana) and 2 dragoons and 2 cannons at my natural. I was also in the process of moving some more zeal/goon from my main to help, but it looked like we were about evenly matched. I ordered the 2 termplar with the lowest mana to begin archon morph, but BMFin stormed the forming unit twice, killing it and the remaining templar with the help of some dragoons fire. Within moments, he also killed one of my goons, and the reinforcing troops were having trouble with my ramp choke. My enemy began morphing an archon of his own and still had all his goons. I had 4 goons on defense and some more milling about the ramp, as goons are prone to do, trying to come down. In addition to everything, the choke formed by the water and my mineral only nexus made it hard for my forces to get into good attacking position. The even match ceased to exist.
I fought the battle with the troops I had and reinforced with new troops from my main. Eventually, I was able to break out from behind my nexus and bring down his goon count down to 3, killing the archon before the behemoth finished morphing. Just as I was about to sigh in relief, 5 zealots, a dragoon, and an archon arrived to reinforce the attacking force. I cursed. I was using zealots heavily to beat back the attack, and the new archon on the side of my enemy spelled doom for them. In addition to everything, both of the canons were now dead and a zealot had made it into my mineral line and begun slaughtering probes. The archon had made it into range and began doing the same thing to my zealots. To top it off, BMFin had a templar storm my probes, bringing their count down to 2.
I was finally able to put an end to the attack with another set of troops from the gates. I ordered zealots to attack the archon directly, so they surrounded and killed it, taking minimal damage in the process. The few remaining goons were dispatched quickly once the archon was gone. I had held onto my expansion, though just barely. In addition to my hardships, my glorious peon control shuttle flew into newly built canons at the enym natural and died, ending my expansion tour. I survived the prolonged attack, but my expansion was in a rather pitiful state.
I knew that I was lower on peons, despite all my peon raids, which meant I had to kill BMFin's mineral only soon or be at a numerical disadvantage. There was a plus though. Since during the attacks I thought I was going to lose my mineral only, I had begun an expansion at the bottom right island. Around this time, the nexus there was done and I had begun making probes from it.
I had a templar, a control group of zealots, and an archon and was contemplating attacking BMFin's mineral only. He had different plans though, and showed them off by attacking me with a force similar to mine. We both tried to storm each other's zealots and archons so that that the storm would hit only the other person's units. We both danced our zealots. In the end I came out ahead with an archon and a templar remaining. Good for me, but my plan of attacking the mineral only was not going to happen. BMFin was matching me unit for unit. I needed some sort of an advantage to be able to take him down. In addition to everything, one of my observers noticed BMFin beginning a nexus at 12 mineral only. I needed to do something.
Just as I was thinking that, a shuttle flew into my island expansion. It unloaded 2 zealots and an archon. I had no defenses of any kind there, and the island fell in short order along with 8 probes that I had shuttled there.
Depserate for some sort of a break, I had begun production of dark templar and had a medium-sized force of zealot/goon with 4 archons for support. During the game I did not notice BMFin to have many observers, so the dark templar could allow me to take down his new mineral only at 12 and kill units that came to reinforce it.
An observer from BMFin had just flown above my forces and got torn apart by archons thanks to my own detection. I took that as a good omen and ordered an attack on 12 mineral only. I arrived there, bypassing the troops guarding 3 mineral only. BMFin brough his zealots and one archon force to defend, but my templar got a sweet storm off right on top of all his troops as they engaged mine. Another storm, just as good, a second later and combined fire from 4 archons vaporized the enemy troops. I had barely lost anything. My forces laid waste to 12 mineral only nexus and proceeded to the one at 3. My weapon upgrade had jsut hit +3, and despite the best attempts from BMFin to defend his expansion, my forces rolled over it with reinforcing zealots arriving from my main. BMFin called gg.
GG indeed. For quite a while there I was sure I was losing.
Well, that's that for chapter 2. I was originally going to include a PvZ to go along with this, but that meant releasing this report later. I would rather keep them coming out more frequently than release one 20-page report every 3 weeks. So here it is.
In general, season 8 is starting out slow for me. Since I started playing early in the season, I end up playing a lot of people who usually occupy the top of the ladder, and they kick my ass more often than not. As a result I am currently 18-20 and in the lower portion of C4. I got to play a some national team members though from korea, australia, and some other countries. They beat me, but the games taught me a lot. I feel like I am getting back to my old shape, though I still need some multitask work.
On an amusing note, I played a Japanese terran player who was undefeated and claimed B2 high. I DT rushed him and then refused to rematch. Mad bad manner on my part, but his angry whispers for 10 minutes afterwards made it worth the loss of my integrity :)
Thanks for reading this.
Raider
P.S. Should you like to see the replay, search nA.Raider on wgtour.com. You will need to register to download the replays, but the process is easy. All my games are there, including the ones of me getting my ass handed to me on a silver platter, at least if my opponents uploaded them like they are supposed to. Most of them tend to be pretty good about that though since WGT admins can be pretty strict with people who get caught slacking off on legitimate replay posting. |
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