It it is a common criticism that my writeups are much too short, and lack the humor and other filler that everyone has become accustomed to over the past few years.  Unfortunately, I do not have the experience necessary to begin adding editorials or match commentary to my reports. Too much has changed since I last played 6 years ago, and my commentary would pretty much consist of “Hmm, he shouldn’t have done that,” which is not helpful to the reader at all.  To that end, my writeups will be strictly journalistic in style far into the foreseeable future until I gain the playing experience necessary to change styles and flesh out my reports with the editorial fill that everyone seems to desire.  I apologize to those who read my reports expecting a story, because you won’t get it. What you will get is a detailed and complete accounting of the battle, which is all I set out to do from the beginning.

That being said, on to the match!

Match Info:
GOMTV MSL Ro8 Set 2
Jaedong (Z) <Blue Storm> Flash (T)

Here we have a match between two BW powerhouses, Jaedong’s zerg and Flash’s terran.  We begin the game with Jaedong spawning at the lower spawn point, Flash in the upper spawn point (for those who don’t know Blue Storm, the map only has 2 spawn points: 7 and 1).  Jaedong goes for an early expo and an extractor before putting up his spawning pool.  Flash goes for an early expo as well after putting up a barracks at the choke into his main.  With an SCV lurking inside his main, Jaedong upgrades his expo hatch to lair in an attempt to keep Flash from seeing his tech.  Unluckily for Jaedong, Flash’s SCV gets chased out of his main by a pack of SCVs right into the expo before it is killed, giving Flash a glimpse at Jaedong’s lair [3:45].  While Flash has been distracting Jaedong’s lings with his scout, he has finished building his academy and a bunker at his natural expansion.

With his lair tech complete, Jaedong has immediately put up his spire, and Flash has yet to get a start on his engineering bay.  Containing Flash in his base with a group of 6 lings [5:23], Jaedong has also started a proxy-hatch expansion right on Flash’s doorstep in the 12 position.  Flash finally gets his engineering bay up, and begins building turrets at his natural, fortunately completing them before Jaedong’s 6-muta harass force arrives [6:15].  Flash fends off the initial harass as best as he can between his turrets and a small MnM force, but Blue Storm’s cliffs make trapping the mutas nearly impossible.  Jaedong seems to be fully committed to using mutas and taking full advantage of the cliffs, with no new ground forces entering the fray.  Flash responds by building many turrets at his natural, but without the full potential of MnM, he is continually losing turrets to Jaedong’s harass.

Flash’s progression has been severely limited by the sheer of number of mutas Jaedong is throwing at him, and his science vessel tech is very far behind.  Jaedong makes a foray into Flash’s main, killing off the SCV working on a factory, further slowing down Flash’s tech progress [8:10].  It has become clear now that Jaedong is focusing completely on mutas and going for his greater spire tech, as the only ground forces he has put out in the entire game were the 8 lings from the beginning of the game.  Jaedong continues to harass the turrets at Flash’s main, taking them out in a few seconds, and replacing each muta lost with another three.  With the constant muta harass, Flash is completely unable to move out of his base, and his tech speed has suffered vastly.  It’s interesting to note that he has yet to produce any reinforcements from his position 12 expansion, almost as if he has forgotten about it.  Flash has scanned Jaedong’s hive tech and finally completes his first starport, going for a second one before he puts up his science facility in order to focus on wraiths.  Jaedong spots the tech on another journey into Flash’s main, destroying the SCV and taking out a sizable MnM force using brute muta force and some excellent micro [1:00].  At this point Jaedong has nearly 2 full control groups of mutas and is using them to devastating effect.  Flash attempts and push with a strong MnM group into the middle of the map, but meets up with a full group of mutas and loses a significant number of marines, effectively dooming his push [2:14].  Jaedong has taken this time to expand again, this time up into position 11.

Flash has finally put out a small squadron of wraiths, just as Jaedong completes his first force of guardians.  Unluckily for Jaedong, he only has one overlord near Flash’s natural and no overlord speed upgrade researched.  Flash’s wraiths take out the lone overlord, cloak, and proceed to slaughter Jaedong’s guardians [3:38].  Losing that many guardians is a severe drain on Jaedong’s gas, but with Flash so far behind and Jaedong so well expanded and with such a massive force of mutas, it might not make an impact on the outcome of the game.  Flash again attempts to push out of his base with a MnM force, but with a half dozen overlords finally making it to the battlefield, Flash’s wraiths quickly lose the upper hand and Jaedong reasserts his air dominance [4:15].  Jaedong has taken full advantage of his containment of Flash, bringing up a third expansion, this time into position 6.  Flash, his economy sorely pressed, finally begins construction of a science facility.  His second group of guardians complete, Jaedong again moves against Flash’s natural, but Flash’s excellent wraith micro takes out all the guardians before Jaedong’s mutas can take them out [5:30].  About minute later, Jaedong’s third group of guardians makes a more significant impact, finally taking out a line of turrets, giving them a clear shot at the mining SCVs, forcing them to retreat.  Still without any science vessel support, Flash simply cannot keep pace with the sheer number of air units being thrown at him, losing MnM forces and wraiths faster than he can afford to keep up.  Flash has been reduced to mining only from his nearly mined out main, while Jaedong expands into position 5 and is now mining unharmed out of 6 bases.

Flash, still without even one science vessel, makes another massive MnM push out of his main and into the middle of the map, where Jaedong has broken from his all-air build and produced about a dozen lings, which get taken out..  Jaedong pulls back his mutas in order to regroup, then sends them back at Flash’s force, taking it out in a few seconds [8:31].  With the loss of his final force, Flash is forced to gg, and Jaedong takes the match.

Youtube Links:

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