pullarius1 Profile Blog Joined May 2010 United States 508 Posts #1 v ChoyafOu

Game 1:

+ Show Spoiler + Scrap Station



Nestea goes for early zergling speed followed by an expansion. Choya walls off the bottom of his ramp with a gateway and a cybernetics core, and gets an early stargate for a void ray. Nestea morphs a roach warren, then an evolution chamber. Choya shows his void way, prompting a spore crawler, lair and hydralisk den from Nestea. But Choya makes five warp gates and* attacks in with a thirty-two food army against a single zergling for Nestea. But holy cow, Nestea somehow holds through five minutes of the most intense zergling/roach micro ever! Choya ggs after his force dwindles down to zero and his proxy pylon gets destroyed.



What. The. Fuck. There is absolutely no way Nestea should have been able to hold that. Choya hardcore all-in'ed and Nestea teched all the way up to hydralisks without building fighting units! Choya seemed to give up on controlling his forces once he thought he had Nestea beat. But Nestea responded by moving his flock of overlords over Choya's stalker heavy army. This made the stalkers dally at the choke killing overlords, buying Nestea time to get enough units to micro his way out of he situation. This was a clever bit of strategy by Choya, but easily one of the most impressive displays of grit, control, and scrappiness I've seen in the GSL so far by Nestea.



Nestea wins 1-0



*Note: I had literally written here "and rolls over an unprepared Nestea," because there was so obviously no way Nestea could have won at that point.

+ Show Spoiler + Deflowered Lost Temple, cross positions



Nestea pools, then hatches, followed by zergling speed. Choya again goes for a early stargate. Nestea gets roaches, an evolution chamber, some spore crawlers, and a lair. Choya gets four phoenix and kills a few probes and overlords with them. Nestea gets hydralisks, range, and +1 missiles again. Choya gets a a forge and expands. Nestea gets drop tech. Choya get a robo, a warp prism, and a robotics bay as he continues harassing with his phoenix. Choya expands to the island. Nestea goes for a huge hydralisk drop in Choya's main. Choya spots it, but loses his whole main anyway. Colossi with range defend Choya's natural as he tries to rebuild on his island. But Nestea get a spire, some mutalisks, and when he scouts Choya's hidden island, Choya concedes.



It's hard to imagine Choya even taking a game off Nestea at this point. Choya actually went for a very greedy economic play this game, and Nestea punished him for that too.



Nestea 2-0



+ Show Spoiler + Metalopolis, close-by-air positions



Nestea gets early zergling speed and expands. Choya rushes for dark templar and expands as his dark shrine is warping in. Nestea builds a roach warren and an evolution chamber for a spore crawler at the entrance to his natural. Nestea gets his lair and +1 missile attacks. Choya's first two DTs quickly get killed. Choya researches blink and +1 weapons. Nestea gets hydralisks and drop-tech again. Choya takes his third. A doom drop kills Choya's main with ease. Nestea expands and gets a spire. DTs from Choya save his natural as he rebuilds at his third, and another DT forces a cancel on Nestea's third. Nestea finally scouts the extra protoss expansion. Nestea gets an in-base third hatchery as he builds up a muta flock. Nestea retakes his third. Choya, meanwhile has rebuilt up to eight warpgates, building nothing but stalkers to deal with the mutas. But Nestea is so far ahead that he just builds a giant army of roaches and wins.



Nestea wins 3-0, advances.



Nestea brings his Season 1 winning streak to 7-0. There was nothing Choya could do against this beast of a zerg. He went for three very different, fairly clever builds, but Nestea knew exactly what to do and how to play each time. I don't think a fighting unit of Choya's ever even saw one of Nestea's hatcheries.



Nestea wins 3-0

+ Show Spoiler + Nestea wins 3-0



Choy-no

+ Show Spoiler + Nestea wins 3-0



NesTea, that was NasTea





Match 2: IMMvp v TSL_Trickster/Kisu/Tester

Game 1:

+ Show Spoiler + Scrap Station



Kisu expands after his gateway and before his cybernetics core. Mvp quickly techs to starport while scouting with his factory after one hellion. A small hellion/marine raid kills all the probes at Kisu's expansion. Mvp gets a raven out as Kisu builds up to four warpgates and a stargate. Mvp gets two tech labs on his two barracks for stim/shields. When they finish, Mvp attacks through with a large marine/marauder force with a couple banshees thrown in. Kisu doesn't have enough to defend and leaves the game.



An interesting expand build by Kisu, which seemed reasonable for scrap station. However, after killing all of Kisu's expansion probes, Mvps push was too strong.



Mvp wins 1-0

+ Show Spoiler + Xel'Naga Caverns



After a quick regame, Mvp techs up to pre-ignition and a starport. Kisu expands, after his cybercore this time, and gets four gates with a robotics facility. Kisu foils Mvp's hellion drop with some very heads-up forcefields and a clever warp-in. Mvp gets a raven a bunch of marauders and hellions, a couple of banshees, and attacks with all of his scvs. This unit composition is... super effective. It tears through Kisu's army and Kisu concedes.



What a strange build by Mvp. It seems like Mvp has found these perfect numbers of different units that beat any protoss army that can be built by that time. Mvp had 85 food at the beginning of the final battle, and 73 at the end, compared to Kisu's 30. For the record it was 8 marauders, 8 hellions, 1 medivac, 2 banshees, 5 marines, and 1 raven. Add a pinch of micro and bake on gosu for eleven minutes and seven seconds.



Mvp wins 2-0



+ Show Spoiler + Shakuras Plateau, close positions



Mvp expands after a fast concussive shell. Kisu expands after warpgates. Mvp takes advantage and bunkers the expansion out of sight of the nexus. Mvp snipes Kisu's first sentry, allowing him doing a lot of damage to the army and economy of Kisu with a few marauders and a marine. Almost all of Kisu's probes are forced off the line to kill the bunker when the marauders retreat to it. Mvp uses his lead to expand to the vertical main as he builds up to five barracks and a factory. Kisu gets six total warp gates.

Mvp starts shields/stim/+1 as Kisu attacks through the top rocks. They finish before Kisu's push gets there. Kisu's first attack fails; Mvp has way too many units. Mvp techs to starport for medivacs and takes his forth at the vertical natural. Kisu builds two more warpgates, signifying that he doesn't expect to take a third himself. A drop from Mvp destroys Kisu' natural. At this point Mvp is up by almost eighty food, so he just attack-moves through the rocks to kill his opponent and move on to the semifinals.



Mvp has a preternatural game sense. He always sees to know exactly where to be, what to build, and when to attack. I don't think he planned that successful early pressure: he saw an opening and capitalized on it. To beat Mvp will be to play almost flawlessly. Otherwise Mvp will find that weak spot and pound away at it until you die.



Mvp wins 3-0, advances

+ Show Spoiler + Mvp wins 3-0



Mvp passed the tester with flying colors

+ Show Spoiler + Mvp wins 3-0



Trcikster can Kisu his GSL hopes goodbye.



Results:

+ Show Spoiler +

IMNestea 3-0 ChoyafOu

IMMvp 3-0 TSL_Trickster



I don't know what they're putting in the water over at the IM house, but their dynamic duo has managed to go 16-0 throughout the first Code S season. Of course this undefeated streak can't last forever, as the two teammates face off against each other in the next round. In his interview, Nestea said that Mvp will "be the end of him," but whichever way it goes, the match promises to be awesome.



Match 1: IMNesTeav ChoyafOuGame 1:Match 2: IMMvpv TSL_Trickster/Kisu/TesterGame 1:Results: @pullarius1

DarkPlasmaBall Profile Blog Joined March 2010 United States 38953 Posts #2 Thanks for the summaries and analyses "There is nothing more satisfying than looking at a crowd of people and helping them get what I love." ~Day[9] Daily #100

Beefwipe Profile Joined October 2010 United Kingdom 55 Posts #3 Cheers

StorkHwaiting Profile Blog Joined October 2009 United States 3464 Posts #4 Game 1 Nestea vs Choya is simple to explain. While the commentators wanted to hype it up and make it seem crazy for entertainment purposes, I'm sure Artosis understood what was actually going on.



There are a few key factors to why Nestea held off the attack:



1. Choya consistently fought on creep.



This allowed Nestea to fight as if he had roach speed, which is absolutely essential vs gate armies. The creep was extended out past both his bases giving Nestea a lot of room to fight in without fear of force fields, which is the primary means for protoss to cut up the zerg army and make it take unnecessary losses.



2. Map layout



Because of the way scrap station is set up, Nestea was able to defend both his main and expo with no fear of sentry ff up his ramp nor any units skirting around behind him. Therefore, it was a very easily defended yet wide choke with zero threat of ramp ff's. That means Nestea could consistently retreat without danger and without any economic loss YET having the advantage of creep. It is the ideal environment for a zerg to defend vs 5g all-in.



3. Choya went for stargate first, then the all-in.



This meant Nestea had MUCH longer to prepare for the 5gate. His eco was much better established, he had enough time to slip in the +1 ranged attack, and there was still plenty of gas left over to make roaches. If you add up the gas expense of hydra den + range upgrade versus stargate + void ray + phoenix, I think it's easy to see that the hydra den did not set Nestea significantly behind. If Nestea had thrown up the hydra den versus a straight 5g that would be a much different story.



4. Nestea left a cloud of ovies over his army.



The overlords absorbed a lot of stalker shots during the back and forth fighting. Nestea consistently retreated his roaches to kill zealots, while the stalkers dumbly shot at ovies because Choya had difficulty aiming at stalkers under the cloud of overlords. This gave Nestea much more tanking for his units.



5. Choya did not micro.



Choya did not focus the queen with his void ray. He just retardedly shot at random stuff. He never picked up the queen with his phoenix. And he let his stalkers shoot at a bunch of ovies through the first 3 battles.



6. +1 attack finished



Because Choya microed like a chobo, this gave Nestea enough time for the +1 attack to complete, thus guaranteeing his eventual victory.



So, basically, while Nestea played very well and held out vs a very tough strategy, there were a ton of little things that went on during the fights to easily explain why Nestea won. Choya played like a chobo and Nestea, like the baller he is, created a perfect storm for his win.

Muirhead Profile Blog Joined October 2007 United States 550 Posts #5 On January 18 2011 01:40 StorkHwaiting wrote:

Game 1 Nestea vs Choya is simple to explain. While the commentators wanted to hype it up and make it seem crazy for entertainment purposes, I'm sure Artosis understood what was actually going on.



There are a few key factors to why Nestea held off the attack:



1. Choya consistently fought on creep.



This allowed Nestea to fight as if he had roach speed, which is absolutely essential vs gate armies. The creep was extended out past both his bases giving Nestea a lot of room to fight in without fear of force fields, which is the primary means for protoss to cut up the zerg army and make it take unnecessary losses.



2. Map layout



Because of the way scrap station is set up, Nestea was able to defend both his main and expo with no fear of sentry ff up his ramp nor any units skirting around behind him. Therefore, it was a very easily defended yet wide choke with zero threat of ramp ff's. That means Nestea could consistently retreat without danger and without any economic loss YET having the advantage of creep. It is the ideal environment for a zerg to defend vs 5g all-in.



3. Choya went for stargate first, then the all-in.



This meant Nestea had MUCH longer to prepare for the 5gate. His eco was much better established, he had enough time to slip in the +1 ranged attack, and there was still plenty of gas left over to make roaches. If you add up the gas expense of hydra den + range upgrade versus stargate + void ray + phoenix, I think it's easy to see that the hydra den did not set Nestea significantly behind. If Nestea had thrown up the hydra den versus a straight 5g that would be a much different story.



4. Nestea left a cloud of ovies over his army.



The overlords absorbed a lot of stalker shots during the back and forth fighting. Nestea consistently retreated his roaches to kill zealots, while the stalkers dumbly shot at ovies because Choya had difficulty aiming at stalkers under the cloud of overlords. This gave Nestea much more tanking for his units.



5. Choya did not micro.



Choya did not focus the queen with his void ray. He just retardedly shot at random stuff. He never picked up the queen with his phoenix. And he let his stalkers shoot at a bunch of ovies through the first 3 battles.



6. +1 attack finished



Because Choya microed like a chobo, this gave Nestea enough time for the +1 attack to complete, thus guaranteeing his eventual victory.



So, basically, while Nestea played very well and held out vs a very tough strategy, there were a ton of little things that went on during the fights to easily explain why Nestea won. Choya played like a chobo and Nestea, like the baller he is, created a perfect storm for his win.



Choya had the game won, and he knew it. He knew it so much that he just layed back and didn't try to micro .

Choya had the game won, and he knew it. He knew it so much that he just layed back and didn't try to micro starleague.mit.edu

pullarius1 Profile Blog Joined May 2010 United States 508 Posts #6 On January 18 2011 01:40 StorkHwaiting wrote:

Game 1 Nestea vs Choya is simple to explain. While the commentators wanted to hype it up and make it seem crazy for entertainment purposes, I'm sure Artosis understood what was actually going on.



There are a few key factors to why Nestea held off the attack:



1. Word



All true points, but I wouldn't call " a ton of little things" simple :-p All true points, but I wouldn't call " a ton of little things" simple :-p @pullarius1

StorkHwaiting Profile Blog Joined October 2009 United States 3464 Posts #7 I didn't say it was simple. I said all of those added up made it easy to explain why he won. A lot of people are reacting with OMG how did he do that? Makes no sense!! But it does make sense to me as a zerg player who's practiced vs a LOT of 5gs. It def wasn't easy what Nestea did, but I wasn't shocked when he came out on top.