

Oops.



Red rover, red rover…



firebathero bites off more than he can chew.



A crushing blow.



firebathero keeps himself in the game.



A stasis can change the world.



This is actually the first expansion to be shut down the whole game.

After having lost to him in the first game of the night, firebathero faces off against his old teammate Stork once again in the final match of Group E. The map is La Mancha and the two players spawn in cross-positions, FBH in the upper left as the blue terran and Stork in the bottom right as the purple protoss.firebathero goes for a rax FE build while Stork opens 12 nexus. Both scout the upper right location first, probe and SCV entering the natural choke at the same time. FBH’s SCV turns around to head straight for Stork’s base as soon as he sees the probe, putting his scouting a good 20 seconds ahead of Stork’s, whose probe takes the time to check the upper right location before sending his probe in the correct direction.The SCV enters Stork’s base to see the 12 nexus and core timing, but misses the very fast forge Stork places in his natural to get an early start on plus one attack. Stork’s probe sees only the barracks and natural cc before taking a wrong turn and getting gunned down by FBH’s first two marines.Stork gets his robotics facility before dragoon range for fast observers. firebathero puts down two factories with machine shops to research both vulture upgrades simultaneously. When they complete he boldly tries running two vultures straight past Stork’s forces guarding his choke while two of the five dragoons are out of position chasing a scouting SCV. One of the vultures makes it through, snagging a couple probe kills and laying down mines in Stork’s main. Getting a little bit sloppy, Stork loses a dragoon and zealot to mines while cleaning up the vulture.Stork narrows off his choke with pylons to help prevent any further vulture shenanigans and moves out with his first observer and the bulk of his dragoon force to apply some pressure, leaving four back at home to block any more vultures from getting in.firebathero, however, is not about to give up on vulture run bys just yet. Sneaking four vultures into position above Stork’s natural, he waits for Stork to pull two more goons from his choke to clear some mines and goes for it once they stray just a little too far.Mines kill one of the defending goons and force the other out of position, and the two surviving vultures pick off another seven or eight probes before Stork’s dragoons show up. At the same time he manages to snipe Stork’s probe at the 6 o’clock before it can lay down Stork’s third.FBH builds a command center in his main to float out to his third behind his vulture aggression and Stork starts his third while teching to arbiters. Stork’s third is up and running just a hair behind firebathero’s. FBH sacs a pack of vultures to kill another batch of probes at Stork’s new third.Perhaps feeling a little to sure of himself after such a comfortable start to the game, FBH pushes out to set up an aggressive position on the southwest center ridge. Stork waits just long enough to gather his forces in the open space south of the southeastern ridge and attacks while FBH is still sieging up. The cards are all stacked against FBH: he has no detection on the ridge but scans to deal with Stork’s first arbiter, he’s lost a lot of vultures harassing while Stork has conserved almost every military unit he’s made so far, and Stork has a slight upgrade advantage at 1-1 to 1-0 for FBH.The predictable result is a clean route for Stork of an army that would have been perfectly adequate for defending the advantage that FBH had managed to accrue in the early game. Stork sets up a fourth at the bottom left main, blocking some more attempted vulture harass with a tighter wall-in on the ramp.After replenishing some of his tank count, FBH pushes out again to establish a more modest position on the northwest center ridge closer to his corner of the map and starts a ninja expo at the upper right main.Stork gathers together his army after marching around the map clearing mines south of FBH’s tank line. He stasises a clump of vultures and a vessel to the south of the tank line at the cost of an arbiter and marches his army counterclockwise around the center of the map to attack from a better angle.With his plus 2 attack finished, Stork’s superior army crashes against a still modest tank line that is completely undefended, all FBH’s vultures either still frozen or simply out of position. With good storms and another stasis, Stork kills all the tanks there and then easily handles FBH’s scrambled reinforcements. FBH’s late science vessels cost him again in this battle, as he had no EMPs ready to support his army with.Stork expands to the 3 o’clock and then finds the hidden expo in the upper right. He shuts it down with an archon and a few zealots and takes another expansion at the bottom left natural. FBH’s expo at the upper right main had been running for long enough to be mildly profitable and he already has a new command center floating down to the more easily defendable 9 o’clock.FBH again sets up on the northwest ridge and Stork picks another fight, this time engaging from the south. FBH is better prepared for this fight, his tanks sieged up on the high ground and his supporting units up in front, but Stork wins again easily with some more nice stasis and storm usage.Stork follows up with an attack on the 9 o’clock. After three major engagements however, Stork’s main army is looking a little frayed and the attack fails to do much damage to FBH’s entrenched position besides catching a few SCVs with storms.The action dies down for a bit as FBH contents himself with defending the open space outside his natural while macroing up a new army. Stork’s remaining army makes another sweep around the middle of the map clearing mines.Despite the blows he has taken, firebathero has the economy to rebuild, and now at 3-3 upgrades is looking formidable again. After bringing his army back around the center over the northeastern ridge, Stork wisely backs off without engaging as soon as FBH to sieges up.Stork expands to the upper right main and brings his army back down to the southwestern ridge to clear some newly placed mines. FBH takes this opportunity to push to the northeastern ridge. As he does Stork’s army comes back around to engage.Stork lands a couple good stasises but firebathero also catches a lot of dragoons with EMP. This time FBH comes out with the upper hand after trading armies, barely finishing the last of Stork’s army with reinforcements while a small army waits to come out of stasis. He maynards SCVs to the upper right natural expansion and lays siege to Stork’s 3 o’clock from outside the wider entrance to the base with his tanks.I can only imagine that FBH was still in the dark about Stork’s much more vulnerable base in the upper right main at this point. Stork had no way to defend there while FBH held the natural. Shutting down that base would have left Stork at three mining bases while FBH sat on two in a good position to take a third.Instead though firebathero once again pays the price for being unnecessarily aggressive. Stork’s zealot-heavy wave of reinforcements reaches the tanks before vultures arrive. Protoss units are at an advantage in these smaller encounters and there are no vessels around to help against Stork’s arbiter. When stork sieges his next set of tanks outside his own expansion at the upper right natural, Stork easily sweeps them with his rapidly expanding army and kills FBH’s base there.firebathero has no army left and has only one base still mining against Stork’s four. Once the hopelessness of his situation sinks in, FBH ggs without dragging it out any longer.