Zest is pretty damn good. At every matchup. In every way. Yeah. He’s so good, that I’ve decided to study every little aspect of his PvP, as I’m ridiculously impressed by it.

When Zest played vs sOs in the round of 8 of GSL Code S season 1 earlier this year, he won, and I was impressed. Not too impressed though. sOs sometimes does some crazy stuff, and sometimes it doesn’t go over too well. He also just played a bunch of PvPs at IEM Katowice (which he won) that could be studied. He was also severely jet-lagged. For these reasons, I kind of ignored the series overall. Now, a little over a month later, I’ve decided to go back and look again. The reasons that I listed above for why the series wasn’t the most important thing ever still stand, but now I know I can count on finding brilliance when looking at any recent and previous game of Zest.

This is the game where I have started my re-watch-with-a-notepad journey, and it did not disappoint. Let’s get into it!

Zest bottom left, sOs top right @ Frost

sOs starts off with a very sOs thing to do, Nexus first. Zest plays more conventionally, getting a Gateway and 2 gasses before scouting. He immediately scouts sOs, thus helping him to do EXACTLY what he would optimally do vs Nexus first (because he scouted it as quickly as he ever could).

Zest throws down a StarGate. Then it goes Warpgate - Moco - Stalker

Obviously the StarGate finishes, and he chrono boosts out an Oracle. During this time, the Stalker and Moco travel north to put some pressure on sOs’s Nexus.

Zest stops on 22 Probes, and after the Oracle is started, gets 2 Gateways (going up to 3), followed immediately by a Stalker.

Now here is where it gets really, really cool. The Oracle goes straight up to the main base. sOs has 2 options.

1. Lose a bunch of Probes

2. Keep 2 Stalkers in his mineral line for now

Pretty obviously he will keep the Stalkers back. This allows Zest to pound on the Nexus, and immediately warp in 3 more Stalkers to help out. Now remember that he immediately got the Warpgate research after his Oracle, before the Moco or Stalker. This allows him to get his warpin a bit quicker than sOs. He now has 5 Stalkers and a Moco, as well as an Oracle threatening the minerals of sOs (forcing units to stay back).

It is an obvious time to use the Nexus Cannon.

During all of this, Zest has committed to another Oracle. Pretty expensive. No real damage done yet despite all these units made early on. That’s OK though, he keeps warping in Stalkers (and a Sentry at some point).

Eventually the Nexus Cannon wares off. It’s go time. There is not enough energy for another Nexus Cannon. Unit counts are similar (there was a funny proxy warpin by sOs that was cleaned up with the Oracles). Without a Nexus Cannon available, its impossible to defend both locations at this moment for sOs. The 2 Oracles threaten to SHRED the Probe line if he doesn’t keep back ~4 Stalkers (which he does). With similar unit counts, this leaves him unable to defend the Nexus, which is now assaulted by the full army of Zest. The one Sentry further complicates things. The Nexus is taken down with ease.

From here, even without scouting, it is obvious that the only option in this game is for sOs to go Blink. This should be the only thing that Zest has to worry about for the rest of the game.

Now, as this nexus is being cleaned out, Zest has an easy contain up at the bottom of the ramp. He starts his Nexus. It is now, no matter what, faster than sOs’s.

At this point, sOs tries a little Stalker warpin near Zest’s natural, against which Zest brings in his Oracles, cancels the Nexus, and warps in 3 more Stalkers, which will basically guarantee kills on the counter-Stalkers and proxy Pylons. I find this to be a decisive and brilliant move.

“From here, even without scouting, it is obvious that the only option in this game is for sOs to go Blink. This should be the only thing that Zest has to worry about for the rest of the game.” - Artosis, 2014

Proxy Pylons are an issue when your opponent has to counter attack for a realistic shot at winning. Getting free Stalker kills is also one of the most important things that Zest can do at this moment. Remember, the unit count was approximately even when he killed the Nexus. Stalkers with Blink will wreck Stalkers without. Because Zest is expanding and getting a Robo to counter the obvious Blink, sOs WILL have more Gateway units. These kills are very important.

Zest restarts his Nexus immediately when his money gets back to 400.

This is the point in the game during which I think that Zest made a mistake (yeah there was another mistake not scouting/killing all the Proxys earlier, but I don’t care about that one as much. this one is a theoretical mistake.)

OK, so, on to the mistake. At the EXACT moment that he started to kill the counter-warpin Stalkers, Zest should have FF’d his opponent’s ramp and come home.

- A counter attack by sOs with Blink is imminent

- Zest will have a faster Nexus now no matter what

- Zest has Immortals on the way very shortly (which need plenty of units around to help them – they don’t beat Blink on their own)

Of course, the longer Zest can stay on the contain, the more ahead he can get, and against someone as good as sOs, you want to get ahead as possible.

Well, Zest gets kinda caught leaving a little bit too late, ends up losing some extra units, but overall does an excellent job utilizing the high grass (something we don’t see nearly enough!). Meh, it’s happened to all of us.

When Zest finally gets home, he dedicates lots of Sentry energy to scouting, uses his remaining Oracle as much as possible, and continues his tech tree, making sure not to skimp on units.

(SPOILER)

Zest wins. Really strong and smart play vs a build you don’t see in PvP very often at all.