MightyKiwi opened up with scouting lings and overlord speed, determined to know everything Deth was up to. No reaper, but Hellions were the choice of tech from deth, with no reapers or banshee. A handful of safety roaches kept MightyKiwi safe from hellion drops, and 10m passed with delayed tech and little action. A marine/marauder/mine/hellbat push moved out at 14 minutes, but on creep MightyKiwi's ling/bane/roach/muta held with little damage done and the Zerg's snapback pressured Deth's third. The next major engagement at 18m saw Deth pushing back MightyKiwi's army temporarily. At 19 minutes they clashed again but MightyKiwi's mutalisks held off Deth's marauder-heavy force until widowmines covered Deth's retreat. At 22 minutes Deth pushed onto creep again, and although mutalisks killed some advancing widowmines, there were enough placed down to prevent MightyKiwi's ling/bane flank from destroying the bio. While Deth advanced on MightyKiwi's fourth, a handful of ultralisks arrived to save the day. With a large supply lead at 25 minutes, MightyKiwi moved out again when he saw Deth on creep, doing more damage. Sensing blood on the ground, MightyKiwi pushed out for the kill and forced Deth to tap out.
Game 2 - Secret Springs
MightyKiwi opened hatch first, and unsurprisingly for the map Deth chose to open with three reapers. The game ended swiftly as David tapped out in the face of the effective harassment.
Game 3 - Deadwing
MightyKiwi opened with 16 Hatch, 16 Pool, and Deth opened with a single reaper. 6 lings deflected it, and Deth teched up to hellbats. An overlord scouted the armory, and queens managed to keep MightyKiwi's 3rd alive. MightyKiwi pushed across the map in response, but a wall and banshee kept the roaches from making a hole for speedlings to break through. Deth's transition to Mech went smoothly with tanks, hellbats, and banshees. At 13 minutes, both players were on three bases with Deth ahead in supply. At 14 minutes Deth moved out with a strong push, and MightyKiwi damaged Deth's 3rd with a powerful speedling runby. A tank, some hellions, and many scvs died before Deth's reinforcements cleaned it up. Deth's attack destroyed MightyKiwi's 3rd, at the cost of the army. MightyKiwi's snapback only managed to break a hole Deth's wall and kill 10 more workers before Deth's second army of tanks, thors, and banshees wiped out all the roaches. A steel forest of turrets went up in anticipation of mutalisks, and Deth considered pushing out again at 20 minutes. However, a scan of MightyKiwi's roach/hydra changed his mind. MightyKiwi decided to force an engagement at the junction of Deth's 3rd and 4th bases, losing most of his army. Then came Ravens and Battlecruisers while MightyKiwi started on Swarmhosts and Vipers. At 23 minutes both players had 5 bases to work with, and the minimap was painted purple with creep approaching the entrance of Deth's bases. The slow battle of SHvMech was on in earnest, with at least one of the viewers praying for nukes. Deth, realising nobody wanted a repeat of Lillekanin's infamous game, sent out his armada of Battlecruisers to deal major damage to MightyKiwi's base. The two remaxed their armies. It was here that MightyKiwi showed me that Blinding Cloud works on Planetary Fortresses. But while I facepalmed over not knowing that, MightyKiwi lost about 50 supply. At 35 minutes, in the face of the constant onslaught of the Terran Armada, MightyKiwi gave us the GG.
Game 4 - Overgrowth
Once more MightyKiwi opened hatch first and Deth opened with 2 reapers, getting a couple of drone kills at the cost of a reaper. A viking moved out onto the map to start killing overlords while teching up to mech once again. Something Deth saw convinced him to cancel stim and start meching. A hellion run-by killed 7 drones with no hellions lost and Deth took a 3rd at 11 minutes. MightyKiwi sent a roach/ling hitsquad but it was cleaned up by a tank with hellion support. A hellion drop in MightyKiwi's natural at 16m was coupled with a hellbat force which target-fired MightyKiwi's 4th base into a charred mess. At 18 minutes both armies were almost maxed out. MightyKiwi pushed into Deth's position at 19m and lost most of his roach/hydra, and built 15 swarmhosts in response. Deth took the forward 4th base with a solid siege line, but his ravens stayed at home for some kind of holiday while the locust waves came and went. A roach hydra run-by at 23m took out the CC which would have become Deth's 5th base. Some vikings, a raven, and a Battlecruiser die before the roach/hydra hitsquad died. The Zerg's composition of SH/Hydra/Viper laid constant siege with the odd BC being yanked into MightyKiwi's forest of sporecrawlers. Planetary fortresses were constructed and the back-and-forth trades continued until Deth tried to push out onto creep with his entire force. At 30m, Deth was low on Gas, and MightyKiwi low on mineral income. At 33m a large engagement occurred and both sides lost large chunks of their force with supply dipping back below 150. At 35m, Deth pushed out to attack MightyKiwi's 5th base, and although the game remained close MightyKiwi tapped out again.
Game 5 - Catallena
David opened Hatch and Gas before pool, and Deth opened with 3 reapers. Deth's reaper micro killed drones and lings, and MightyKiwi built only one queen from his two hatches to start. The game was saved for MightyKiwi when a worker surround killed off two of the reapers. MightyKiwi replied with a speedling assault, more than a single bunker and two hellions could deal with. Deth lifted his natural, and MightyKiwi committed to a ling/bane bust. Hellions held the first assault, and Deth's wall-off convinced MightyKiwi not to commit with the second force of ling/bane. Deth sent out a hellion to scout, and MightyKiwi sent in the second ling/bane force, killing off the hellion/marauder defence and continuing to deny Deth's expansion until hellbats fortified the expansion. With the Terran contained to two bases, MightyKiwi expanded to three bases and continued with the ling/bane play while teching up to mutalisks. At 15 minutes a force of hellbat/bio pushed onto creep, trading well thanks to some nice splitting with the ling/bane defence. At 16 minutes MightyKiwi took his 4th and Deth took his 3rd, with creep oozing its way across the map. At 19m a large terran attack on MightyKiwi's 4th was cleaned up, along with the drop, and the zerg ran across the map to take the game.
Game 6 - Vaani Research Station
Once again MightyKiwi opened hatch first, while Deth opened reaper. MightyKiwi took his natural at the third position with a chance to have three bases secured by creep early on. Deth's reaper did little, and Deth worked towards hellions/hellbats with a followup banshee. Deth's initial push was held back with queens and roaches. However, with some banshee harass distracting MightyKiwi at 9.45, a large hellion run-by roasted a lot of the zerg's units and workers. With both players on 3 bases, Deth moved out with marines/hellbats/widowmines/medivacs. At the end of the engagement Deth had double MightyKiwi's supply. While the zerg tried to clean up the main assault, a drop on his natural was enough to end things in Deth's favour.
Final Result: Deth 4 - MightyKiwi 2
A very entertaining series, where even the mech games had their surprises.
The casters then provided us with a fun interview, where we learned:
- Deth's switch from Bio to Mech on Overgrowth was due to MightyKiwi's 3rd hatch timing.
- Deth didn't use the Raven-based mech because he finds Battlecruisers and Gumiho's style of mech are more fun and give more options for counter-attack.
- Deth's thoughts on mass-Hellion and Dream's style of TvZ.
- Deth and MightyKiwi discussed the matchup afterwards, and some of the options each race have for the maps and playstyles.
I am hoping we will see a VOD with the interview included.
Finally, Deth paid forward the 40$ to a new showmatch, with some of us expressing hopes of a PiG vs Iaguz Bo7. Here's hoping!
I've been cheering on MightyKiwi since his SEED days, but Deth had certainly earned himself a new fan today with his entertaining Terran playstyle.
GGWP to both MightyKiwi and Deth, and thank you to Pox and Petrify for the excellent cast!
___________________________________ #WhyILoveSC2: Writing articles and interviews for the OSC and Exile5.
@x5_Crescendo - follow for SC2 info, interview alerts, and fanboy gleetweets.
Awesome work Crescendo!
I was out all day, and didn't get to see the games (didn't see anyone post updates on sc2sea/twitter ), so this recap is great!
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