

Not making the same mistake as ZerO did.



As seen in ZvP.



The calm before the storm.





And the battlefield is stained red with blood.

homing missles



Queens are so underrated.



This looks bad for our hive-tech hero!



Where did that queen come from?

Set 1. Dante's Peak. great spawned as yellow in the upper left, and Hydra as red in the bottom left. Hydra scouted incorrectly; great starts off correctly but then incorrectly veers off-course, leaving both players blind. But never mind that, the audience just had one question: will great make do on his promise to show us a revolution with hive? We all wanted it, yet we don't really think it'll happen--would this game deliver?At one minute and fifty seconds in, I saw the first sign. Hydra went for a pool-first build and great opted for the in-base hatch, following up with a pool-expansion. Another 3-hatch build, like the one he used against ZerO! Was he planning to utilize mindgames and go for the ling all-in instead of taking it to Hive?Hydra's lings attempt to stall great's expansion, but with the inbase hatch before pool, great has more than enough larva to morph into lings, keeping Hydra out. At this point, Hydra, knowing what happened to ZerO in the semis, wisely plants down two colonies. They come in handy, as great attempts to flood Hydra with lings soon after.I'm really not sure why great decided to go through with his attack after seeing the two sunkens. Had he just used his ling and larva advantage to keep Hydra contained (not to mention Hydra just sunk money into two sunkens) he'd have been free to spore/tech up. Instead, he sacks almost all his lings for one eventual drone kill. What's up with that? At least he managed to get some scouting information--with one zerling left alive running around in Hydra's main, great saw that there was no spire up yet.At this point the question of whether or not great would 3hatch ling all-in was still in the air, but as Hydra started his spire and great his lair and evolution chamber we knew that Hive tech was the ultimate goal. Hydra plants a third hatch and an evolution chamber of his own at the natural to simcity against great's ridiculous zergling numbers.With mutalisks spawning, great's zerglings are driven back. But what's that small yellow dot in the top right? Is great surreptitiously tries to take a third at the 1:30 main? Unfortunately, that wasn't the case--it was simply a scouting zergling.Trying to hit before great had gotten his defenses fully up, Hydra approaches great's base with a sizeable zergling force backed up by a pair of mutalisks. Would Hydra be able to break great before great's own mutalisks spawned?Despite having the extra support in DPS from a couple mutalisks, Hydra simply did not have enough firepower to break through great's zergling lines. And as great's spire tech spawns, Hydra is forced out byscourge.Both players try to take a third--Hydra expands to 6:00 and great to the 1:30 main. However, during all this great has been scouting with zerglings while Hydra has not, uncovering Hydra's third easily. And Hydra cannot defend! With great's mutalisks flying around the perimeter of his (Hydra's) main, Hydra has to keep his own air force there in case great decides to make a move. Canceling the at the last moment, Hydra is now in a tough spot since great's expansion is undiscovered and untouched as of yet. And the queen's nest goes up for great!Hydra tries to take 6 again, and great forces another cancel. But this time, something's different--Hydra has scouted 1:30 and a small force of zerglings are en route. And the hatchery has already finished, so great can't cancel it! Before the zerglings can arrive, great's hatchery goes down. Undaunted, he plants another hatchery at 12:00, while Hydra expands to 6 for the third time and adds another hatchery in his main.But now great has a queen! With this piece of royalty in command, he goes straight for Hydra's spire. And as Hydra rushes to defend, great springs his sticky trap.With Hydra's mutalisks slowed to a crawl, great barely manages to finish off the spire before heading out. This was such a nice maneuver from great: not only did he manage to kill off Hydra's spire, but also the bounce damage from his mutalisks knocked out quite a few of Hydra's mining drones. Alas, nothing in life is free, and in doing all of this, great lost his third to zerglings again.Even with the base disadvantage (and probably still the army disadvantage), great overall was in the lead. His Hive was complete while Hydra was still on lair, his greater spire was starting before Hydra had even started to rebuild his own spire, and due to his shenanigans in Hydra's main, his drone saturation was better (Hydra's third barely had any drones mining either).At this point, the game was not decided just yet, but you knew great was going to win. The only question was in the how. In a sort of desperation move, Hydra attempts to attack great's natural but backs out after seeing two spore colonies, sacking a few scourge into great's overlord stack.Devourers finish morphing for great, and as he starts up his third and fourth bases, defiler mound, and hydralisk den, he goes on the offensive. As great starts attacking overlords, Hydra engages with his muta force supported by a fleet of scourge.But great has a trump card.The hidden queen in the stack reveals itself, ensnares, and suddenly Hydra is the one running away. With his remaining mutalisks and supporting devourer great makes short work of them, then starts on Hydra's exposed overlords.At this point, Hydra only has one option. With the tech advantage and air superiority lost, he sends zerglings to attack. He manages to snipe a few drones, but in turn loses almost all the drones at his natural to great's mutalisks.And now the game is over. Hydra fails to kill off a base, and great has defilers and lurkers already while Hydra is still stuck in the proverbial stone age. As swarms closed upon his natural, Hydra tapped out.So I ask again, did this game deliver? Knowing the answer now, we all will say that the game did indeed live up to the expectations and hype. As a person who found the previous "awesome" hive tech games sloppy and lackluster, even I was giving this game a thumbs up at the end. While it definitely did have its share of huge blunders on both sides, that's exactly what made it such a good game in my eyes. In fact, I remember thinking as the game finished that if great hadn't made a few mistakes early on, the series would easily be his with this new hive-oriented build.In hindsight, I wish the series hadn't opened with this game. After all, the coup de grâce is supposed to come at the end of a prolonged engagement, not right at the start! While great did bring quite an impressive Ace-in-the-sleeve to the table, it failed to really discomfit Hydra and hit home in the next few games, as we shall see.