[MSL] Overcome All Text by flamewheel Graphics by disciple

Banner by disciple. Table of Contents



Groups C, D and E Results

and Recap



Battle Reports



Lategame ZvZ: Ramble Edition By ]343[, l10f, swanized and flamewheel



At the beginning of this MSL, there were some that stated that this would be Swarm Season 2.0, considering the number of zergs that qualified in the MST. While I was initially hesitant to say that originally, given that the number of zerg players qualified for the Round of 16 after six groups is already 8, with a chance to go as high as ten... pretty crazy, huh? Especially for this week--five out of six qualified players are zerg, with the lone exception being Stork.



Anyway, we know how everybody hates ZvZ. Watching a ten minute game with ten drones mining isn't exactly what a lot of people think of as "fun", but perhaps it doesn't have to be like that.



Along with the regular stellar battle reports, this article features another ramble-type talk by swanized and myself. If you choose to read this, keep in mind it may not be 100% true since neither swanized nor I are progamers, but we tried our best. In any case, our little article has been approved of by a B- ** Korean zerg * , so there's some merit in that, right?



Groups C, D and E Results and Recap

As said before, this week zerg prevailed. In the three ZvTs, zergs went 3-0, and in five ZvP, zergs prevailed four times to one. And in ZvZ... uh, zergs won every time. Surprise! Either way, though some of the games might have been blatantly obvious which side would win (Calm vs Jaehoon?) for the most part zergs played well. RorO's win over Stork was definitely very solid, and even though Fantasy and Leta made some questionable choices, Soulkey and great played well enough to take advantage of the mistakes. If you've spent the last week without internet, or if you happen to live under a rock (where did that phrase come from anyway?) let's take a look at the results for this week. And if you'd like to take a comprehensive look at the MSL, check the R&S thread here.



+ Show Spoiler + Group C: (12/25 17:00 KST)

2-0 ► Advances to Round of 16

2-1 ► Advances to Round of 16

1-2 Eliminated

0-2 Eliminated



Fantasy < Triathlon > Neo.G_Soulkey

great < Benzene > Leta

Neo.G_Soulkey < Circuit Breaker > great

Fantasy < Circuit Breaker > Leta

Neo.G_Soulkey < Dante's Peak > Fantasy



Group D: (12/23 17:00 KST)

2-0 ► Advances to Round of 16

2-1 ► Advances to Round of 16

1-2 Eliminated

0-2 Eliminated



Light < Benzene > Stork

sHy < Circuit Breaker > RorO

Stork < Dante's Peak > RorO

Light < Dante's Peak > sHy

Stork < Triathlon > Light



Group E: (12/23 19:30 KST)

2-0 ► Advances to Round of 16

2-1 ► Advances to Round of 16

1-2 Eliminated

0-2 Eliminated



Calm < Circuit Breaker > Jaehoon

Hydra < Dante's Peak > Killer

Calm < Triathlon > Hydra

Jaehoon < Triathlon > Killer

Calm < Benzene > Jaehoon (12/25 17:00 KST) great 2-0 ► Neo.G_Soulkey 2-1 ► Fantasy 1-2 Leta 0-2(12/23 17:00 KST) RorO 2-0 ► Stork 2-1 ► Light 1-2 sHy 0-2(12/23 19:30 KST) Hydra 2-0 ► Calm 2-1 ► Jaehoon 1-2 Killer 0-2

The games of this week weren't as high-quality as the ones of last week. Luckily, Group of Death Group C automatically means that some of the games had to be okay. It's the same concept as monkeys in front of typewriters--put enough good progamers together and they'll give you some decent games to watch! In any case, ]343[, l10f and I combed through the multitude of games, bringing you two good games and one, uh, not-so-good game for your reading pleasure.



Battle Reports

By ]343[, flamewheel and l10f

Group C Winners' Set: Neo.G_Soulkey < Circuit Breaker > great

+ Show Spoiler + By flamewheel



I don't know what it is about great, but he seems to attract lategame ZvZs. Now, if you put him together with a Woongjin Zerg...



On the map Circuit Breaker, great in red spawned at 1:30 and Soulkey in orange spawned at 10:30. With both players scouting correctly, great opens with a 9pool while Soulkey goes for a 12pool expand. We can see great is rushing for fast mutalisks, since his lair is well underway before his first six zerglings have even popped.



Seeing that great's spire has started, Soulkey knows he has to go for spores to stall while he gets his own spire up. great, realizing that he is now disadvantaged in economy, defense, and larva count--basically everything besides tech--decides to go for an attack while expanding before Soulkey can solidify his advantage too much. However, great is unable to break through Soulkey's defenses, and has to content himself with keeping Soulkey occupied with his mutalisk flock.



A few uneventful minutes pass. Soulkey scouts around the map with his scourge, playing cat-and-mouse wih great's mutalisks. Focused on building up mutalisk count, great has prioritized placing a third hatchery and taking a third base at three over teching to hive.



Around eleven minutes into the game, Soulkey decides to make this set not boring.





Hive tech.

Taking a look at mutalisk fleets, great has upgraded carapace while Soulkey opted for attack. Looking at this in conjunction with the fact that great has the larger air force, we can all guess what Soulkey is going for.





If you were able to guess "greater spire" give yourself a cookie.

Scouting this with a heroic scourge, great immediately throws down a queen's nest and evolution chamber.



Soulkey discovers the third at three with a zergling and begins morphing devouvers, knowing he has to mount an attack. Interestingly enough, the game is now reversed. While it started off with great being disadvantaged in everything but tech, now he is the one ahead in everything... but tech. While teching to hive, great throws down spore colonies everywhere, knowing he can begin to squeeze his advantage after he has caught up in tech.



Wait a minute...





This battle report so far has only featured pictures focused on specific buildings.

What the den?



Anyway, with devourers done Soulkey decides it's time to be a man. And by "be a man" I mean he decides to press an attack before great catches up in tech. And by catches up in tech, I mean finishes his defiler mound.





What the mound?

We can now see great's long-term strategy. By going for a defiler mound and hydralisk den, we can tell that he's seeking to neutralize Soulkey's air advantage and plans to take the battle to the ground. Soulkey doesn't want that to happen.



Soulkey sends a squad of zerglings to three with the intent to snipe spore colonies, but he has an ulterior motive in mind--to draw out great's mutalisks.



With his devourers in between great's natural and third, Soulkey decides to assault the exposed mineral line. However, a well-timed round of scourge hatches and kills off a few key devourers, forcing Soulkey to pull back momentarily while great builds more spores... and something else.





Better than the double observatory build.

Oh man double defiler mound. So good, so good. With a few new devourers, Soulkey decides the time to attack [again] is now!





Mumble about breaking a combo.

It's ridiculous how good devourer-muta is against other air fleets. Despite having a vastly superior force of mutalisks as well as scourge supporting, acid spores are too much for great, forcing him to pull back. Luckily, his earlier scourge escapades bought him the time needed to throw down more spore colonies, and as such Soulkey cannot press the attack any further.



It's easy to enumerate on who's winning at this point. While everybody in the LR thread was screaming their heads off about "OMG HIVETECH ZVZ" a simple look at the minimap tells us great has the advantage. He's up in tech, having defilers, hydras, and lurkers unlocked. He has more hatcheries, better defensive capabilities due to spores, and more bases. Really, the only thing Soulkey does have at this point over great is map control. Before defilers can make a ground army exponentially stronger, devourer-mutalisk still reigns supreme. Realizing how far behind he is, Soulkey has decided to play catch-up, getting his own den and mound up, while finally taking a third base at 12.



great decides to test his newfound hivetech abilities by setting a trap. Using a group of zerglings to assault the morphing hatchery at 12, he sends a defiler, getting ready to plague.



Feeling generous though, great decides to plague his own mutalisks instead of Soulkey's.





Talent and ability!

His plot foiled after losing the defiler and the majority of his mutalisks, great decides to make the transition to a ground-based army. Soulkey sticks to his guns. Since offensive guardians are always a good idea, Soulkey decides to make a few.







Looks like ZvT!

Soulkey decides to go for a two-pronged attack. While shelling great's natural with his guardians, he also sends zerglings to attack 3:00. However, he is unable to achieve any success at either base. Since lurkers gonna lurk, his zerglings are forced to pull back. And at the natural, plague + hydra + scourge kill off a few guardians and force the others to stay back. With his attention and forces thus occupied in these fruitless attacks, Soulkey loses his own third to a hydraling attack, and manages to get all his remaining mutalisks plagued.





I really don't have anything to say about this picture other than "roflcopters".

Anyway, with the mutalisks forced to pull back great has an open line to Soulkey's natural. Despite having superior forces, he is unable to press the attack too far due to Soulkey's own lurkers and swarm, though he does manage to take out a hatchery and the evolution chamber.



Soulkey finally decides to back up his remaining guardians with his pack of devourers (could have used them a while back since they really don't do much against hydralurkerling anyway...) and starts picking off overlords and drones. Soulkey actually does a pretty good job of harassing in these next few minutes, and uses zerglings to pick off isolated defilers and drones.



great goes for another attack, but without overlords he is unable to attack Soulkey's defending lurkers and is forced to pull back after his defilers get sniped by a few defensive guardians.



Soulkey continues his process of stalling by running around zerglings, though he tries the same trick again by morphing guardians behind the natural. This time, they are promptly taken out by scourge.



great is still winning handily, establishing his fourth base at the mineral-only before Soulkey even starts his third at 9. Having speedlords (what a good term!) great is able to fake an attack on the natural before crawling to 9, forcing Soulkey to cancel.



In the next few minutes nothing really happens. Soulkey retakes his third base and does a good job of sniping defilers. great takes a fifth base at 4:30 and attempts to save gas for Ultralisks. Meanwhile, he decides he's going to be EffOrt.





Offensive nydus!

Neo_G.Bonjwa is too awesome for this though and is able to shut the network down, and great looks sad. But he doesn't really care, since he's about to unlock the unit needed to break through swarm-assisted lurkers.





Moo?

The rest of the game consists of great's army slowly moving closer toward Soulkey's bases. At this point, we've known Soulkey lost 20 minutes ago. We're just waiting for the cows. Soulkey knows they're coming as well, and decides to tap out. great advances 2-0 after yet another amazing display of lategame ZvZ.



Overall, this game showcased just how far ahead of other Zerg progamers great is at lategame ZvZ. While Woongjin zergs (Soulkey and ZerO) are skilled in taking the game to hive tech, great knows just how to take them apart. In the section below the battle reports, swanized and I have some theorycrafting we'd like to share with you. It's interesting to see how far ZvZ can go--really, perhaps one day we'll see this become the norm, not the exception. I don't know what it is about great, but he seems to attract lategame ZvZs. Now, if you put him together with a Woongjin Zerg...On the map Circuit Breaker, great in red spawned at 1:30 and Soulkey in orange spawned at 10:30. With both players scouting correctly, great opens with a 9pool while Soulkey goes for a 12pool expand. We can see great is rushing for fast mutalisks, since his lair is well underway before his first six zerglings have even popped.Seeing that great's spire has started, Soulkey knows he has to go for spores to stall while he gets his own spire up. great, realizing that he is now disadvantaged in economy, defense, and larva count--basically everything besides tech--decides to go for an attack while expanding before Soulkey can solidify his advantage too much. However, great is unable to break through Soulkey's defenses, and has to content himself with keeping Soulkey occupied with his mutalisk flock.A few uneventful minutes pass. Soulkey scouts around the map with his scourge, playing cat-and-mouse wih great's mutalisks. Focused on building up mutalisk count, great has prioritized placing a third hatchery and taking a third base at three over teching to hive.Around eleven minutes into the game, Soulkey decides to make this set not boring.Taking a look at mutalisk fleets, great has upgraded carapace while Soulkey opted for attack. Looking at this in conjunction with the fact that great has the larger air force, we can all guess what Soulkey is going for.Scouting this with a heroic scourge, great immediately throws down a queen's nest and evolution chamber.Soulkey discovers the third at three with a zergling and begins morphing devouvers, knowing he has to mount an attack. Interestingly enough, the game is now reversed. While it started off with great being disadvantaged in everything but tech, now he is the one ahead in everything... but tech. While teching to hive, great throws down spore colonies everywhere, knowing he can begin to squeeze his advantage after he has caught up in tech.Wait a minute...What the den?Anyway, with devourers done Soulkey decides it's time to be a man. And by "be a man" I mean he decides to press an attack before great catches up in tech. And by catches up in tech, I mean finishes his defiler mound.We can now see great's long-term strategy. By going for a defiler mound and hydralisk den, we can tell that he's seeking to neutralize Soulkey's air advantage and plans to take the battle to the ground. Soulkey doesn't want that to happen.Soulkey sends a squad of zerglings to three with the intent to snipe spore colonies, but he has an ulterior motive in mind--to draw out great's mutalisks.With his devourers in between great's natural and third, Soulkey decides to assault the exposed mineral line. However, a well-timed round of scourge hatches and kills off a few key devourers, forcing Soulkey to pull back momentarily while great builds more spores... and something else.Oh man double defiler mound. So good, so good. With a few new devourers, Soulkey decides the time to attack [again] is now!It's ridiculous how good devourer-muta is against other air fleets. Despite having a vastly superior force of mutalisks as well as scourge supporting, acid spores are too much for great, forcing him to pull back. Luckily, his earlier scourge escapades bought him the time needed to throw down more spore colonies, and as such Soulkey cannot press the attack any further.It's easy to enumerate on who's winning at this point. While everybody in the LR thread was screaming their heads off about "OMG HIVETECH ZVZ" a simple look at the minimap tells us great has the advantage. He's up in tech, having defilers, hydras, and lurkers unlocked. He has more hatcheries, better defensive capabilities due to spores, and more bases. Really, the only thing Soulkeyhave at this point over great is map control. Before defilers can make a ground army exponentially stronger, devourer-mutalisk still reigns supreme. Realizing how far behind he is, Soulkey has decided to play catch-up, getting his own den and mound up, while finally taking a third base at 12.great decides to test his newfound hivetech abilities by setting a trap. Using a group of zerglings to assault the morphing hatchery at 12, he sends a defiler, getting ready to plague.Feeling generous though, great decides to plague his own mutalisks instead of Soulkey's.His plot foiled after losing the defiler and the majority of his mutalisks, great decides to make the transition to a ground-based army. Soulkey sticks to his guns. Since offensive guardians are always a good idea, Soulkey decides to make a few.Soulkey decides to go for a two-pronged attack. While shelling great's natural with his guardians, he also sends zerglings to attack 3:00. However, he is unable to achieve any success at either base. Since lurkers gonna lurk, his zerglings are forced to pull back. And at the natural, plague + hydra + scourge kill off a few guardians and force the others to stay back. With his attention and forces thus occupied in these fruitless attacks, Soulkey loses his own third to a hydraling attack, and manages to get all his remaining mutalisks plagued.Anyway, with the mutalisks forced to pull back great has an open line to Soulkey's natural. Despite having superior forces, he is unable to press the attack too far due to Soulkey's own lurkers and swarm, though he does manage to take out a hatchery and the evolution chamber.Soulkey finally decides to back up his remaining guardians with his pack of devourers (could have used them a while back since they really don't do much against hydralurkerling anyway...) and starts picking off overlords and drones. Soulkey actually does a pretty good job of harassing in these next few minutes, and uses zerglings to pick off isolated defilers and drones.great goes for another attack, but without overlords he is unable to attack Soulkey's defending lurkers and is forced to pull back after his defilers get sniped by a few defensive guardians.Soulkey continues his process of stalling by running around zerglings, though he tries the same trick again by morphing guardians behind the natural. This time, they are promptly taken out by scourge.great is still winning handily, establishing his fourth base at the mineral-only before Soulkey even starts his third at 9. Having speedlords (what a good term!) great is able to fake an attack on the natural before crawling to 9, forcing Soulkey to cancel.In the next few minutes nothing really happens. Soulkey retakes his third base and does a good job of sniping defilers. great takes a fifth base at 4:30 and attempts to save gas for Ultralisks. Meanwhile, he decides he's going to be EffOrt.Neo_G.Bonjwa is too awesome for this though and is able to shut the network down, and great looks sad. But he doesn't really care, since he's about to unlock the unit needed to break through swarm-assisted lurkers.The rest of the game consists of great's army slowly moving closer toward Soulkey's bases. At this point, we've known Soulkey lost 20 minutes ago. We're just waiting for the cows. Soulkey knows they're coming as well, and decides to tap out. great advances 2-0 after yet another amazing display of lategame ZvZ.Overall, this game showcased just how far ahead of other Zerg progamers great is at lategame ZvZ. While Woongjin zergs (Soulkey and ZerO) are skilled in taking the game to hive tech, great knows just how to take them apart. In the section below the battle reports, swanized and I have some theorycrafting we'd like to share with you. It's interesting to see how far ZvZ can go--really, perhaps one day we'll see this become the norm, not the exception.

Group C Losers' Set: Fantasy < Circuit Breaker > Leta

+ Show Spoiler + By ]343[



and , having dropped TvZs to and earlier, meet in the loser's match of Group C. The map is



Leta's rax CC is met by Fantasy's fac CC. Leta's bunker completes before Fantasy's SCV even arrives, and Leta's late SCV scout is caught by a vulture.



Leta follows up his factory with a starport and academy, while Fantasy adds a second factory with 1 addon. Fantasy lays a few mines and retreats his vulture, and his floating barracks notices that Leta's machine shop is not even spinning after producing a tank.



Leta's first wraith pops as Fantasy is partly done with his academy and armory, and he uses it to fire at the scouting barracks. Showing the wraith is a ploy, though, as he adds his addon and an armory. Fantasy, unfazed, expands and adds two factories, building a few goliaths.



Leta's wraith does some scouting and annoyance while he evens up the factory count. He begins by building not one or two, but three dropships before moving them at all!



The dropships are spotted by mines as they move out towards Fantasy's 3rd, and Fantasy quickly retreats his units... but Leta unloads on the ledge above the 3rd instead, with access to the main. Fantasy pulls the SCVs at his 3rd and brings units back to defend.





3 dropship opening.



The exchange comes out fairly evenly, and Leta looks to press his advantage with an advance in the center. His siege line goes up outside Fantasy's bases, but Fantasy, undeterred, tanks his 4th. Leta does some cute drop micro to clear the mine blocking his 3rd, and deftly blocks a vulture attack on his tank line.



Fantasy tries to break the contain with a bigger army, but the sieged position of Leta, with some good mining, does a good deal of damage in return.





Mines: 25 mineral mini-nukes!

Fantasy's superior army does break out though, forcing Leta's tank line back. Fantasy increases his factory count to 7 with 1/0 upgrades done, while Leta does the same. Both build a couple wraiths for annoyance, but with no real result.



Fantasy's 4th base is half saturated when he snipes the SCV building Leta's 4th. Building on his economic advantage, he turrets up and pushes Leta's forces back. But this opens him up to some vulture harass.





Sup?

Meanwhile, the force clash in the middle; Fantasy's superior tank numbers obliterate Leta's tank line.





Oh sorry, sup?

Leta clears the yellow minefield on the left side of the map and sieges up his reinfocements. Though Leta's 4th is lifted due to vultures, he has a trick up his sleeve: 3 wraiths are out to pewpew some tanks. Goliaths come to defend, but the wraiths escape.



Leta's tanks at his 4th go down, but he reinforces successfully. Both players take their 5th bases, Fantasy at 12 and Leta at 9. Meanwhile, Leta's sneaky wraiths amass 5 tank kills.





Wraaaaaaaiths.

Leta, having pushed Fantasy back to the right side of the map, is able to siege Fantasy's lightly-defended base at 12. Fantasy counters with a huge drop at 6; Leta's command center is forced to lift, but his base at 12 is gone as well.



Leta expands to 10.5, while Fantasy's 6th (now 5th) at 4.5 has been up for a while; he takes the nat at 4. Fantasy's forces push toward 9, but Leta drops to defend. Fantasy's vultures do a bit of minor harassment but clear out the tanks at 12.



Fantasy has to defend with SCVs to respond to a drop at 4.5, but clears it out despite losing a few dropships to goliaths.





So you have siege? I have more units!

Leta again drops 4.5 with 5 dropships, and Fantasy only has 3 dropships--not enough to save the base. He contents himsefl with clearing out the SCVs at 6, which Leta continued to mine at by displacing his command center.



Fantasy decides it's time, and shoves his entire tank/goliath army into the choke of Leta... but backs off after heavy losses. His command center at 4 is gone as well, leaving both players with 3 bases mining. A drop forces a lift at Fantasy's base at 3, while he takes out Leta's inner mineral only and a freshly built command center.



Leta soon finds tanks sieged in his mineral only and his main, and they take out a starport, armories, and a large number of supply depots.





This sucks. (Notice how this mirrors the first image in this BR.)

Fantasy negligently lets his command center at 3 burn down while floating away. Leta finally works out of the supply block at 120 caused by the destrcution of his supply depots, but Fantasy's tanks force a lift at 9, and push up to 10.5, destroying the natural and sieging Leta's other main. Leta has little to defend, saving only SCVs and depots, but Fantasy has only one mining base at 12.



Fantasy begins distance mining at the 11 mineral only while Leta floats his 9 o'clock CC to top left. Fantasy realizes he still has a large pile of dropships at 7.5 and picks up a lot of units. Leta's last attempt to clear his natural of tanks is rudely interrupted by the arrival of Fantasy's much larger dropship fleet, and he taps out.





gee gee.

Summary Fantasy's early economic advantage was able to carry him through all the expansion trading. Leta didn't harass the extra bases quite enough despite his early dropship opening, and the surprisingly slumping Fantasy finally gets a good win. Fantasy and Leta , having dropped TvZs to Neo.G_Soulkey and great earlier, meet in the loser's match of Group C. The map is Circuit Breaker ; Fantasy spawns in yellow at 1, while Leta begins in red at 7.Leta's rax CC is met by Fantasy's fac CC. Leta's bunker completes before Fantasy's SCV even arrives, and Leta's late SCV scout is caught by a vulture.Leta follows up his factory with a starport and academy, while Fantasy adds a second factory with 1 addon. Fantasy lays a few mines and retreats his vulture, and his floating barracks notices that Leta's machine shop is not even spinning after producing a tank.Leta's first wraith pops as Fantasy is partly done with his academy and armory, and he uses it to fire at the scouting barracks. Showing the wraith is a ploy, though, as he adds his addon and an armory. Fantasy, unfazed, expands and adds two factories, building a few goliaths.Leta's wraith does some scouting and annoyance while he evens up the factory count. He begins by building not one or two, but three dropships before moving them at all!The dropships are spotted by mines as they move out towards Fantasy's 3rd, and Fantasy quickly retreats his units... but Leta unloads on the ledge above the 3rd instead, with access to the main. Fantasy pulls the SCVs at his 3rd and brings units back to defend.The exchange comes out fairly evenly, and Leta looks to press his advantage with an advance in the center. His siege line goes up outside Fantasy's bases, but Fantasy, undeterred, tanks his 4th. Leta does some cute drop micro to clear the mine blocking his 3rd, and deftly blocks a vulture attack on his tank line.Fantasy tries to break the contain with a bigger army, but the sieged position of Leta, with some good mining, does a good deal of damage in return.Fantasy's superior army does break out though, forcing Leta's tank line back. Fantasy increases his factory count to 7 with 1/0 upgrades done, while Leta does the same. Both build a couple wraiths for annoyance, but with no real result.Fantasy's 4th base is half saturated when he snipes the SCV building Leta's 4th. Building on his economic advantage, he turrets up and pushes Leta's forces back. But this opens him up to some vulture harass.Meanwhile, the force clash in the middle; Fantasy's superior tank numbers obliterate Leta's tank line.Leta clears the yellow minefield on the left side of the map and sieges up his reinfocements. Though Leta's 4th is lifted due to vultures, he has a trick up his sleeve: 3 wraiths are out to pewpew some tanks. Goliaths come to defend, but the wraiths escape.Leta's tanks at his 4th go down, but he reinforces successfully. Both players take their 5th bases, Fantasy at 12 and Leta at 9. Meanwhile, Leta's sneaky wraiths amass 5 tank kills.Leta, having pushed Fantasy back to the right side of the map, is able to siege Fantasy's lightly-defended base at 12. Fantasy counters with a huge drop at 6; Leta's command center is forced to lift, but his base at 12 is gone as well.Leta expands to 10.5, while Fantasy's 6th (now 5th) at 4.5 has been up for a while; he takes the nat at 4. Fantasy's forces push toward 9, but Leta drops to defend. Fantasy's vultures do a bit of minor harassment but clear out the tanks at 12.Fantasy has to defend with SCVs to respond to a drop at 4.5, but clears it out despite losing a few dropships to goliaths.Leta again drops 4.5 with 5 dropships, and Fantasy only has 3 dropships--not enough to save the base. He contents himsefl with clearing out the SCVs at 6, which Leta continued to mine at by displacing his command center.Fantasy decides it's time, and shoves his entire tank/goliath army into the choke of Leta... but backs off after heavy losses. His command center at 4 is gone as well, leaving both players with 3 bases mining. A drop forces a lift at Fantasy's base at 3, while he takes out Leta's inner mineral only and a freshly built command center.Leta soon finds tanks sieged in his mineral only and his main, and they take out a starport, armories, and a large number of supply depots.Fantasy negligently lets his command center at 3 burn down while floating away. Leta finally works out of the supply block at 120 caused by the destrcution of his supply depots, but Fantasy's tanks force a lift at 9, and push up to 10.5, destroying the natural and sieging Leta's other main. Leta has little to defend, saving only SCVs and depots, but Fantasy has only one mining base at 12.Fantasy begins distance mining at the 11 mineral only while Leta floats his 9 o'clock CC to top left. Fantasy realizes he still has a large pile of dropships at 7.5 and picks up a lot of units. Leta's last attempt to clear his natural of tanks is rudely interrupted by the arrival of Fantasy's much larger dropship fleet, and he taps out.Fantasy's early economic advantage was able to carry him through all the expansion trading. Leta didn't harass the extra bases quite enough despite his early dropship opening, and the surprisingly slumping Fantasy finally gets a good win.

Group E Losers' Set: Jaehoon < Triathlon > Killer

+ Show Spoiler + By l10f



The match of the century has finally begun. Both Killer and Jaehoon are known for their impeccable play and are sure to give us a very entertaining game. Little Jaedong starts at 5 o'clock as the White Zerg and Jaehoon starts at 7 o'clock as Brown Protoss. Jaehoon uses the map's imbalance to its full potential and takes his back expansion after making a gateway. However, Killer is fully prepared to face the super fast corsairs by using Jaedong's 2-hatchery-spire-into-expand-then-mass-mutalisk build that he likes to use in Triathlon ZvT.







The 2-hatchery-spire-into-expand-then-mass-mutalisk build, often seen on Triathlon.

However, Killer decides to add his own spin to the build, and builds a hydralisk den early, along with an extra hatchery in his natural. Of course, Killer's brilliance shows because he decides to not make a single hydralisk in the whole game, after getting a hydralisk den. Anyway, Jaehoon sees the early spire and decides that he does not need cannons to defend against Killer's mutalisks, and continues making corsairs with +1 attack upgrade without getting a second stargate.





Jaehoon's perfect defense after scouting Killer's main and seeing a fast spire.

Of course, Killer's mutalisks begin to wreck havoc in Jaehoon's cannon-less main base, and Jaehoon decides to send his corsairs to defend against the scourge-heavy army. Killer, seeing that Jaehoon has nothing but corsairs, runs away with his mutalisks and scourges, letting Jaehoon build a cannon and get more corsairs.



Killer sees that Jaehoon completely forgot that he had an expansion, leaving it wide open, and decides to kill a few probes. However, Killer thinks he's too good to kill the nexus and decides to go to Jaehoon's main, where there are cannons and corsairs. Jaehoon, of course, decides to let all his corsairs die to scourges as a distraction for his reaver to get to Killer's base. Killer pulls back all of his mutalisks when Jaehoon has no defense against mutalisks in his main and expansion, just to defend against one reaver. The reaver somehow manages to get 0 kills with its scarabs before falling.









A common sight in Jaehoon's PvZ. By that I mean Jaehoon winning with his eyes closed.

Killer goes back to Jaehoon's base to finish him off, but finds out that Jaehoon had been preparing for his mutalisks while he was off killing the reaver. Killer still decides that he has enough to kill off Jaehoon, and loses all his mutalisks to dragoons and corsairs. Killer still manages to kill off a lot of probes and the next group of mutalisks should be able to kill off Jaehoon. Jaehoon drops 3 zealots in Killer's 3rd expansion, and Killer once again pulls back all of his mutalisks to defend.





Looks like Killer won this game!



...





GG? ...

Killer takes a 4th expansion, and Jaehoon knows he is way behind economically, and that he needs to do something with his army. He moves out with a lot of corsairs and dragoons, along with one reaver. Killer only needs to make sunken colonies in his expansions to defend, and not lose all of his mutalisks to the corsairs. Of course, Killer forgot to upgrade his mutalisks and he does exactly what he needs to lose: not build sunken colonies and fight corsairs with mutalisks. Killer GG's even before losing all of his mutalisks, leaving the commentators confused. Jaehoon somehow managed to win the game even with all his mistakes. Killer lost total of two buildings before he tapped out: 2 sunken colonies. The match of the century has finally begun. Both Killer and Jaehoon are known for their impeccable play and are sure to give us a very entertaining game. Little Jaedong starts at 5 o'clock as the White Zerg and Jaehoon starts at 7 o'clock as Brown Protoss. Jaehoon uses the map's imbalance to its full potential and takes his back expansion after making a gateway. However, Killer is fully prepared to face the super fast corsairs by using Jaedong's 2-hatchery-spire-into-expand-then-mass-mutalisk build that he likes to use in Triathlon ZvT.However, Killer decides to add his own spin to the build, and builds a hydralisk den early, along with an extra hatchery in his natural. Of course, Killer's brilliance shows because he decides to not make a single hydralisk in the whole game, after getting a hydralisk den. Anyway, Jaehoon sees the early spire and decides that he does not need cannons to defend against Killer's mutalisks, and continues making corsairs with +1 attack upgrade without getting a second stargate.Of course, Killer's mutalisks begin to wreck havoc in Jaehoon's cannon-less main base, and Jaehoon decides to send his corsairs to defend against the scourge-heavy army. Killer, seeing that Jaehoon has nothing but corsairs, runs away with his mutalisks and scourges, letting Jaehoon build a cannon and get more corsairs.Killer sees that Jaehoon completely forgot that he had an expansion, leaving it wide open, and decides to kill a few probes. However, Killer thinks he's too good to kill the nexus and decides to go to Jaehoon's main, where there are cannons and corsairs. Jaehoon, of course, decides to let all his corsairs die to scourges as a distraction for his reaver to get to Killer's base. Killer pulls back all of his mutalisks when Jaehoon has no defense against mutalisks in his main and expansion, just to defend against one reaver. The reaver somehow manages to get 0 kills with its scarabs before falling.Killer goes back to Jaehoon's base to finish him off, but finds out that Jaehoon had been preparing for his mutalisks while he was off killing the reaver. Killer still decides that he has enough to kill off Jaehoon, and loses all his mutalisks to dragoons and corsairs. Killer still manages to kill off a lot of probes and the next group of mutalisks should be able to kill off Jaehoon. Jaehoon drops 3 zealots in Killer's 3rd expansion, and Killer once again pulls back all of his mutalisks to defend.Killer takes a 4th expansion, and Jaehoon knows he is way behind economically, and that he needs to do something with his army. He moves out with a lot of corsairs and dragoons, along with one reaver. Killer only needs to make sunken colonies in his expansions to defend, and not lose all of his mutalisks to the corsairs. Of course, Killer forgot to upgrade his mutalisks and he does exactly what he needs to lose: not build sunken colonies and fight corsairs with mutalisks. Killer GG's even before losing all of his mutalisks, leaving the commentators confused. Jaehoon somehow managed to win the game even with all his mistakes. Killer lost total of two buildings before he tapped out: 2 sunken colonies.



So we saw yet another hive-tech ZvZ game. Though this one inspired just as many "WTFBBQSAUCE HIVE"-esque comments as the ones before it, this time around I happened to start noticing trends in play. If there's one matchup that is the least-developed out of the six, it's definitely ZvZ. Since the progamers for the most part (besides great) don't really seem to have much interest in delving past the mutaling stages, swanized and I decided to take a stab at it. Remember, B- ** Korean zerg * approval! Totally going to wave that about as much as I can.



Lategame ZvZ: Ramble Edition

By swanized and flamewheel

As soon as I saw Soulkey add spores I already knew that this game was totally over. Simply put, Great’s hive tech ZvZ is so far ahead of everyone else, including Yellow’s, it’s not even funny. Before Great schooled Soulkey in hive tech ZvZ on GrandLine, hive tech ZvZ consisted of massing muta/devourers/defilers while expanding (As shown in Zero vs Type-B on MatchPoint or GGPlay vs YellOw on 815). Great came up with a much superior strategy with his hydralurks against Soulkey on GrandLine. Zero quickly copied his style on triathlon against Great himself but only proved he understood the substance but not the essence of great’s style as great won a crushing victory there too. -swanized



This game played between Soulkey and great was very similar to one they played back in June. In that game, Soulkey was forced to spore to defend very fast mutalisks and used his defensive advantage to tech to hive. Instead of following up on this, great opted for a fast third and gets hydras and defilers, while Soulkey went for air support in the form of queens. Though the initial aerial battle ended in Soulkey's favor, he was unable to damage great's economy too much. In the end, great's hydra/ling/lurker army supported by defilers was able to keep Soulkey from taking too many bases and eventually busted Soulkey's natural. To read more about this game and previous hivetech ZvZ games, check swanized's thread here.



If you read the ZvZ battle report above in this article, you should see that this most recent game is almost exactly the same as the one just described, with the only major difference being devourer/guardian instead of queens. In both games, great completely rolled Soulkey, despite the "oh my gosh so exciting!!!" nature of the games.



So then, what does great do differently? And in terms of our limited spectrum, what does great do that is correct? swanized and I will attempt to go on a journey to explore this conundrum that is lategame ZvZ.



For the most part, I will be talking about the zerg units and how they affect lategame ZvZ. swanized will deal with how they were used in this specific game between Neo.G_Soulkey and great.



First off, just a short note on the how and why this game made it to this late stage--so far all the ZvZ games that have made it to lategame have been the result of a fast-muta approach for one player forcing the slower-teching player to spore up. This discrepancy in opening is pretty important--despite what we all want, we're not going to be seeing many [unintentional] lategame ZvZs from identical openings. This recent game is no different. great's plan right from the start of the game was to play a very aggressive 1hatch mutalisk build, since his lair had started before any zerglings were made. Though he was unable to end the game with his initial mutaling attack, he didn't suicide any mutas into spores, so he was able to maintain map control. This allowed him to expand, and since Soulkey was "contained", he teched.



Soulkey initially did a good job with hiding his tech, since many ZvZ games that involve spores still wind up ending on the "who has the larger muta flock" battle. great originally was playing this game, since he focused on taking a third and massing mutalisks (with +1 carapace), readying for the battle. However, after great scouted the hive with his scourge though, he immediately put down spores of his own and started teching himself. With so many spores on the map for both players, this makes muta incursions very cost-ineffective. In the same sense, mutalisk-supported zergling busts are no longer possible. If one player tries to mass zerglings, he won't be able to prevent the defender from killing off his zerglings with mutalisks.



Looking at it this way, teching is the optimal idea. Both players assume a more defensive stance, one that is not normally associated with the fast-paced mindset needed for ZvZ.



At this point, since maintaining air supremacy is still the dominant strategy, there are three viable tech routes for a player in this case: queens, devourers, and defilers. Later on, when ground battles become more important guardians, hydralisks, lurkers, and ultralisks come into the picture.



Since queens can be gotten before hive tech, they are definitely the fastest and easiest to get, but they are also the least effective. While ensnare does slow down both movement and attack speed, its effects aren't as deleterious to the opponent as one would think. When it comes down to mass muta vs mass muta, neither player moves his mutas around much, thus kind of making the movement decrease useless. The 18% decreased attack speed is nice, and can easily turn the tide when both sides have a similar number of mutalisks. However, in this case great had both the larva and gas advantage, so even with ensnare Soulkey faced a risk of losing the crucial battle.



In my eyes, queens are best used when both players have similar-sized mutalisk fleets. Scourge use is still important, but if we discount the fact that both players will be using scourge effectively, the attack speed decrease given by ensnare gives the queen user an advantage. Later on, queens may be used for broodling and parasite, which would make breaking lurker lines easier. However, ultralisks can serve the same purpose but with more offensive powers. Out of all the units in the zerg arsenal, the queen remains the most confusing one to me, since it's not one I can logically deconstruct--trial and error and much testing in the future will have to suffice, it seems.



I think a possibility Great could have considered is to make a queen cloud sort of like terrans make vessel clouds in TvZ. You might tell me Irradiate is only 75 energy whilst broodling is 150, to that I reply queens are half the cost of a vessel and thus you should be able to make a lot more queens then a terran can make vessels. Plus parasite is good and ensnare is pretty good. -swanized



Teching to devourers takes longer than it does to tech to queens, but in aerial battles they are more useful. Since acid spores stack up to 9, a mutalisk fleet with 4 or 5 devourers will make short work of one that does not have any devourer support, even if the opposing fleet is much larger. In the battle for air supremacy, the devourer is a Zerg's best weapon, and it is treated as such here. In this game, I do believe Soulkey made the right choice to tech to devourers. With his devourers, he won the first air battle at great's natural easily.



Getting the devourers out was essential to Soulkey’s transition into an hydralurk force. To support a reasonable amount of hydra/lurk/defiler you are going to need at least 3 gas. However as long as great had the stronger muta pack it was impossible for Soulkey to expand and thus his only choice was to tech to devourers (note that had the teching difference been smaller, say overpool vs 12 pool instead of 9 pool vs 12 hatch a queen probably would have been enough for Soulkey to take his third, but in this situation just getting a queen was not enough and he really needed to tech to devourers).



Meanwhile, Great takes his third and now that devourers are out he needs to spore up his bases now that Soulkey is the one with air superiority.



This is were Soulkey made a critical mistake. As soon as he got his devourers out Soulkey needed to expand to a third, maybe even fourth, base quickly and get hydra/lurker/defiler while pressuring Great with his muta/devourers. With his air supremacy, he should have expanded, maybe twice, to 9 and 7. He did eventually expand to 12, but the problem of expanding there is that it is so close to great's bases by ground. Since spores are too powerful, air supremacy at this point is a way of covering your own bases. With his muta-devourer fleet, Soulkey could have kept great from using zerglings to pick off his bases before defilers made his air units obsolete. Defilers make mutalisks obsolete using darkswarms on hydralisks and plagues on the muta packs. Thus now that air control doesn’t mean anything the focus shifts on hydralurker/defiler.



What Soulkey did however, was pressure with muta/devourer without taking a 3rd expansion. Even though he went on to butcher all of great’s mutalisks that didn’t matter because Great already had defilers (with plague finished because of double mound) while Soulkey was only starting his third base at the 12 o’clock. Even though Great made a few mistakes (like plaguing his own mutas), he was still in a beautiful position. -swanized



great chose the third tech route. Skipping greater spire tech completely, he went straight for defilers , supported by two defiler mounds. Now, defiler tech definitely is the slowest. To make defilers viable against air you need both plague and consume, making defiler tech costly and slow. However, it is the most powerful of the three choices listed above, since after upgraded defilers get out, mutalisks are useless. Plague makes them very weak, and dark swarm prevents them from being able to defend against zerglings. Defilers are a good choice if you have an economic advantage, and that's what great does. Despite losing the air battle, he doesn't take economic damage since he has so many spores out, and simultaneous hydralisk teching means lurkers prevent zerglings from doing anything.



Speaking of lurkers , they should be simultaneously researched alongside defilers. While hydralisks aren't that useful in ZvZ (in small numbers, they absolutely die to mutalisks), lurkers are insanely useful. Two lurkers completely stop ravaging zergings, and if supported by spores they can't be picked off by mutalisks since, well, they can't be seen. great's faster lurker tech allowed him to defend his bases for low costs while using the resources saved to macro up large armies. As if lurkers themselves aren't awesome enough, swarmed lurkers are pretty much invincible to everything but ultralisks. After defense is sufficient and a player is looking to take map control with his ground-based army, hydralisks and zerglings should be used to escort lurkers out into the open. As with all other Zerg matchups, roving cracklings should be used to scout and take down undefended expansions as well, a fact that great made clear in his post-game interview.



As if Soulkey weren't behind enough, he decided to make offensive guardians . We all know how absurdly bad guardians are in ZvT, since they end up dying to one or two wraiths. The same is true for lategame ZvZ. Guardians get wiped out by scourge, and later on by swarmed hydralisks. Spending 150/200 to assault two or three drones is definitely not worth it when the expensive guardian is killed by a 25/75 pair of scourge. While I do agree with Soulkey's defensive use of guardians to snipe great's defilers, he should have left him at home to defend his bases. I really don't see any use for offensive guardians in ZvZ (unless you're so far ahead) since guardians are slow, expensive, and take a long time to make... while scourge are cheap, fast, and spawn quickly.



Another critical mistake that Soulkey made was to morph guardians behind Great’s natural. Now they did deal quite a bit of damage but far from enough to justify the cost of 5 guardians. Great pulled his drones and only had to produce a round of scourge to kill everything. Soulkey had delayed his defiler tech even more and his hydralurker and thus didn’t have the unit count to prevent great from taking out his 3rd and almost his nat. Back on 2 base the game was almost finished for Soulkey, what he needed to do instead of trying some guardian harassment was to put lurkers with swarm support at his 3rd to defend any assault as he REALLY needed the gas income. Lurkers with swarm support are nearly unbreakable in ZvZ until ultras get out (only way is to have a lot more lurker then he does or snipe defiler with broodlings) and Great was still only on 3 gas so he couldn’t pump ultralisks yet. Not making guardians could have very well saved the game for Soulkey. -swanized



Lastly, the ultralisk . As with other matchups, ultralisks shouldn't hit the field until a player has sufficient gas (5 bases) to sustain them. In ZvZ, the ultralisk is the game-ending unit. Once ground-based armies become the focus of the game, it's almost impossible for one zerg to break another zerg's swarm-supported lurker line without ultralisks. With their 400 HP they can tank quite a bit of damage, allowing the rest of the forces afterward to mop up.



At this point the game was pretty much over but Soulkey dragged it on for another 15 mintues with lukers under swarm. He did show a pretty cool defensive trick by using 2 guardians (protected by hydras) to snipe defilers, that I found to be very smart usage of his guardians instead of wasting them trying to kill drones and dying to scourge at Great’s nat. Soulkey GGed before great was able to get his ultralisks out, but rampaging cows definitely would have cut through the defending lurkers easily.



Why so good at hive tech ZvZ great? -swanized



With each unit individually stated, how does one bring them all together into the lategame? I can see both the devourer and defiler tech routes being viable options--devourer for a more control-oriented play into expansion and defiler for a player that already has ascertained a larva/economy advantage through the midgame. After both sides have defilers and lurkers to defend, it comes down to protecting expansions and macroing up ground armies. Guardians can be employed defensively to snipe key opposing units like defilers, but used offensively they are just a use of precious gas. In the end, should one player gain a significant advantage over the other, he should just tech to ultralisks and break through the defender's lurker line, ending the game.



Weirdly enough, I see lategame ZvZ evolving into something like TvT. While TvT focuses more early on about ground control, later on it comes down to dropships. This parallels the ZvZ shift from air to ground (TvT it goes ground to air), since degrees of map control in TvT change between the ground-based and aerial-based phases. Vultures are like zerglings--they run around trying to harass enemy bases and miners. Hydralisks and lurkers act akin to goliaths and tanks as the ground force, with the hydralisk/goliath supporting the more immobile siege unit (lurker/tank). And if the game drags out long enough, battlecruisers/ultralisks force the end.



Interesting, wouldn't you say? This Zerg-infested MSL update brought to you by the MSL recap team of ]343[, l10f and flamewheel, with a special appearance by Woongjin fanboy and fellow rambler swanized. disciple, as usual, is sick nasty with graphics.



*l10f

**from four seasons ago Writer damn, i was two days from retirement At the beginning of this MSL, there were some that stated that this would be Swarm Season 2.0, considering the number of zergs that qualified in the MST. While I was initially hesitant to say that originally, given that the number of zerg players qualified for the Round of 16 after six groups is already 8, with a chance to go as high as ten... pretty crazy, huh? Especially for this week--five out of six qualified players are zerg, with the lone exception being Stork.Anyway, we know how everybody hates ZvZ. Watching a ten minute game with ten drones mining isn't exactly what a lot of people think of as "fun", but perhaps it doesn't have to be like that.Along with the regular stellar battle reports, this article features another ramble-type talk by swanized and myself. If you choose to read this, keep in mind it may not be 100% true since neither swanized nor I are progamers, but we tried our best. In any case, our little article has been approved of by a B-Korean zerg, so there's some merit in that, right?The games of this week weren't as high-quality as the ones of last week. Luckily, Group of Death Group C automatically means that some of the games had to be okay. It's the same concept as monkeys in front of typewriters--put enough good progamers together and they'll give you some decent games to watch! In any case, ]343[, l10f and I combed through the multitude of games, bringing you two good games and one, uh, not-so-good game for your reading pleasure.So we saw yet another hive-tech ZvZ game. Though this one inspired just as many "WTFBBQSAUCE HIVE"-esque comments as the ones before it, this time around I happened to start noticing trends in play. If there's one matchup that is the least-developed out of the six, it's definitely ZvZ. Since the progamers for the most part (besides great) don't really seem to have much interest in delving past the mutaling stages, swanized and I decided to take a stab at it. Remember, B-Korean zergapproval! Totally going to wave that about as much as I can.