Last night was the opening match for the Taiwan Clan League Season 4, SEA representatives Xeria Gaming take on TCL3 Champions StorM, apparently the best Taiwan Clan. It was always going to be a difficult match for both teams, and for those who missed it, here is a quick writeup/recap of the games!
Players spawn on Xel'Naga Fortress, and both players open fairly standard with a 3 gate robo. Worked adds an observer whilst PayNe adds a warp prism and moves out on the map, catching Worked's pylon as it is warping in below his natural, denying it.
Worked moves to the middle of the map however at the same time PayNe loads up the warp prism and drops into Worked's mineral line and keeps warping in zealots. Eventually the mass of zealots does significant damage to Worked's army and economy and he is forced out of the game.
Daybreak is the map, and we see a standard Speedling expand from Azazel however PayNe goes for a super fast 1 base DT build, a very standard cheese and a bit of an older build as most zergs add a few spores if they do not see the Protoss expand.
Azazel adds a spore at his natural however the 3 DT's walk in and there's nothing to kill them! They quickly take down the single spore at the natural and begin working away at the spores being panic built. The DT's are eventually cleaned up when the Lair and Overseer tech hit, but significant damage has been done, and Azazel is in no position to take a third or be aggressive, and PayNe has already expanded.
Azazel attempts to tech to mutalisks in an attempt to catch PayNe off guard, realizing simply trying to play a macro game is too hard when you are this far behind, however a nice timing from PayNe cleans Azazel up when 3 archons and an assortment of gateway units waltz into his natural as the mutas pop. gg!
Players spawn cross spawn on Metalopolis with very tech oriented builds from both players, HuT taking a quick 2 gas and teching to Banshee whilst we have wiNsStorM add a proxy Stargate and a series of gateways in his main, attempting a Void Ray bust, continuing the Taiwan tradition of refusing to expand early on!
HuT does have a walloff at the top of his ramp, with 2 depots and a bunker, which slows wiNs down long enough to give him a few more production cycles of units. wiNs eventually breaks the depot and bunker at the top of the ramp, however HuT has a second bunker built and is able to repair it for long enough to fend off the pressure for the time being.
In the meantime, HuT's cloaked banshee is in the main of wiNs tearing up the probe count. With no answer to the cloak wiNs is forced to do a final push or simply be unable to keep up with HuT's production. wiNs pushes in but HuT gets a surround with his scv's and crushes the army. wiNs, without an army and economy, ggs!
Players spawn on Antiga Shipyard and iaguz, knowing completely how all in the Taiwan players are playing, decides to CC first. Kim adds a gateway and adds a very quick Robotics Facility, hidden in the gas. Iaguz manages to scout his SCV around Kim's base as the stalker is quite delayed but does not manage to see the Robo, missing some useful information.
Kim pushes with 2 Immortals, some gateway units and a warp prism, iaguz already has 3 bunkers up and is adding a 4th just to be extra safe. Kim however drops Immortals in the main to distract iaguz and warps in some zealots there to assist. iaguz splits his army perfectly however and deals with not only the harassment but also the push at the front, killing the army off.
Both players expand, putting iaguz up 3 bases to 2 and iaguz puts some pressure on, trading units poorly, but he is so far ahead it does not matter. Iaguz double drops in the main and pushes in the natural, prompting Kim to gg!
Players spawn on Xel'Naga Caverns, iaguz opens with a 1 Rax with Tech Lab into Expand, and Kim opens with a 1 gate expand into 3 gate. iaguz moves forward with a few units and manages to catch a stalker for free outside Kim's base, and almost nabbing the sentry along with it, but it manages to scurry up his ramp and drop a Force field denying any further aggression for now.
iaguz decides to put down a bunker at the natural and begins wailing away at the nexus there with his 2 marauders and marine, but Kim manages to get a Pylon up at iaguz's natural and runs his army to iaguz's base, ignoring the bunker threat at his own base and manages to get up a surprised iaguz's ramp. iaguz pulls his scv's in an attempt to fend off the aggression, but zealots chew through a significant number of them before being forced back down the ramp. With a fraction of Kim's harvesters, and a diminished army, iaguz gg's!
Players spawn on Xel'Naga Fortress, both players following the same opening as the previous game with a 1 rax with techlab expand, and a 1 gate expand into 3 gate from Kim. Iaguz pushes forward with his 2 Marauders and Marine and manages to get up Kim's ramp uncontested. Kim pulls 3 probes to assist with his single sentry however iaguz kills the 3 probes off with next to zero damage. iaguz at this point however chooses to back off, however with only 1 gate up and warp gate tech still yet to be completed, there was potential for some more damage to be dealt.
Kim in the meantime has setup a proxy pylon outside iaguz's natural and his 3 gates finally kick into production and he moves out. Kim sneaks a probe in a builds a pylon behind iaguz's natural, prompting iaguz to pull his units back there to kill it. As iaguz's army moves out of position Kim moves forward and puts some pressure on the empty bunker at the front of the natural, but is forced back after iaguz cleans up the pylon and moves back into position.
Kim pushes again however iaguz does not have any scv's nearby to repair the bunker and iaguz is forced back by the zealots. With the continuous pressure from Kim, iaguz eventually loses his army and is forced out of the game.
Both players spawn on Shattered temple in close air positions. Light opting for stargate tech where luway adds a Robotics Facility and pushes out a warp prism. Light moves onto the map with his stalkers to assert map control, however luway loads up 4 zealots and drops then in Light's mineral line. With Light's stalkers completely out of position and 4 more zealots being warped in to his mineral line, Light looks like he is in trouble.
With a phoenix popping out to deal with the warp prism and the stalkers returning to defend, Light is able to defend against the aggression, but has lost a significant number of probes and doesn't really have an army able to counterattack. Light macro's up a few phoenix and manages to take out a few probes and even take the worker lead.
However luway spent this time adding Blink, an Observer and a lot of stalkers, and when she pushes in the front, she simply has too many stalkers and good enough blink micro to use it. As she blinks on top of Light's army, Light taps out.
Players spawn on Tal'Darim Altar in cross positions. People generally accept that in PvP this map is a 4 gateathon, but watching luway's stream I noticed she in fact does a 3 gate on this map, which she did in this game. Basically she grabs both gas, adds 3 fast gates and builds 6 stalkers before warp gate completes, with which she can delay any close pylons and some map control. Then with 3 gates and 2 gas, she can produce pure stalker.
Light however goes for a 4 gate and manages to get his army in a nice position, splitting luway's army in half. luway however does well to not let Light engage half of her army. Light bleeds zealots here and there, losing quite a few trading for a few stalkers however Light's extra gate means he is staying even in supply with luway.
Light manages to run into luway's base as she is pushing across the map, prompting her to turn around. Light snipes off a gateway and a few probes, giving him about an 8 harvester advantage, however in the next engagement, Luway wipes out Light's army and takes the supply lead for the first time in the game as she cleans up his proxy pylons.
With the army advantage but the harvester disadvantage, luway pushes towards Light's base, and whilst Light puts up a valiant defense, luway is able to break it with some good micro and forces Light out of the game.
The players spawn on Xel'Naga Fortress, wulong storm opting for a forge fe whilst JazBas chooses to pool/expand. Wulong is being very greedy, spending all his chronoboost on probes and his tech and defense is lacking quite significantly. JazBas spots this and adds a quick Roach Warren and cuts Drones at around 26.
Wulong macros up to 40 probes very quickly however JazBas pushes out 10 Roaches and follows up with speedlings. JazBas arrives at wulong's base and finds 2 sentries and 2 cannons. With such little defense wulong is punished for being very greedy and is promptly destroyed, prompting a quick gg!
Both players spawn on GSL Daybreak, Wulong plants his pylon on the low ground but JazBas puts down a 6 pool. Wulong attempts to wall in the bottom of his ramp, but the depot there makes it impossible and the lings get into the main and deal some damage. Wulong shows some impressive micro and manages to clean up the zerglings, however he falls behind on supply, and JazBas claims a small worker lead and expands.
JazBas puts a fairly quick roach warren down, most likely to follow up with a Roach Ling bust however a sneaky probe gets into JazBas's main and see's the roach warren before it is killed. JazBas cancels the roach warren, but unfortunately does so within that half second period after the probe dies and when the Protoss loses vision, and wulong sees the cancel.
JazBas works his way to muta tech whilst wulong takes a third (Jaz still on 2 bases) however wulong has plenty of stalkers and cannons spread amongst his base and Jaz is only able to kill a few pylons. A few ling Muta attacks on the third result in some cannons and stalkers being killed off, but wulong is coming out slightly ahead in each battle.
Wulong finally hits a point where he can be aggressive, and JazBas replies by counterattacking and going for the base race. At the end of it all, both players are left on 1 mining base fully cannoned/spined up. The stalker ball manages to weaken the mutalisk flock several times with some devastating blinks due to some brilliant observer placement. wulong has the larger army and after taking a second base is able to remax out, whilst JazBas is still on 150 or so supply, with a weak army comp. Wulong forces a good engagement and JazBas gg's.
Players spawn on Shakuras Plateau in cross spawns. JazBas opens with a Pool/Expand whilst Wulong opens with an unusual Gate/Core/Expand, unusual as there is no wallin and looks very weak to speedling openings. Regardless early game nothing really happens besides JazBas taking a fast third.
At 8:00 on the dot Wulong moves out after adding a bunch of gateways, obviously going for a 2 base allin however JazBas is slow to react, not able to get many roaches out before the ball reaches his ramp. He pulls drones however the protoss ball is simply too strong, killing all the drones at the natural (which included drones pulled from the third) and the roaches. JazBas gg's.
Players spawn on Shakuras Plateau, and both players open similar to the previous game on the same map between JazBas and Wulong. Yes, that crazy build of Wulong is replicated once again by Wizard, but Mafia makes no attempt to try and be aggressive. Mafia delays his third base for a faster roach warren and a round of units.
Once again, the Taiwan Protoss moves out at 8 minutes for a very similar timing attack, however Mafia is prepared, with 8 or so roaches and speedlings being rallied forward, and even a spine to assist. A battle ensues around the proxy pylon where the reinforcements from Mafia eventually overwhelm the timing attack.
Wizard is forced back in his main and is unable to expand, so he macros up a maxed protoss deathball on 2 base and pushes out for his final all in. Mafia in the meantime has maxed out on 6 bases with Roach Infestor Corruptor (3 Collossi are out) and is more than prepared for the attack, however engages in the choke whilst trying to bait force fields (0ms is hard to bait :P) Mafia kills off the tech of the army, but is unable to deal with 15 or so stalkers that push into Mafias third. Mafia is trying to rally roaches but they are getting caught as they rally. Mafia gets a pop of around 50 roaches finally and cleans up the remainder of the army, Wizard gg's!
Both players spawn on Daybreak and Wizard opts for a standard 3 gate expand whilst mafia opens with a speedling expand. Mafia takes a fairly fast third once he scouts the natural of Wizard go down.
Wizard at this point attempts to put on some light pressure and pushes to Mafia's watchtower to force some units with 6-7 sentries and a zealot. The plan works with Mafia building 20 zerglings as a reaction however the map is very large and the army is caught and obliterated by the zerglings as they retreat, giving Mafia a significant advantage.
Mafia moves to take a 4th as Wizard's DT shrine completes, he sends a warp prism with 4 zealots to the 4th and 3 dt's to Mafias third to attempt to take both out which he succeeds at, leaving Mafia 2 base vs 3.
Mafia counterattacks the third and engages the army of Wizard between the third and the natural, however Mafia gets a massive flank with a lot of zerglings, trapping and killing the entire army of Wizard, forcing him out of the game.
The score makes it look very 1 sided, but the general feel of the clan war is that the teams are closer in skill level than is shown here. The Taiwan players play a very aggressive style, probably due to playing on KR which is such a heavy contrast to the current SEA style of long macro games which rewards a greedy style. I like both styles, and I love when a player can mix it up, which I feel we did better than they did. It was also a wake up call for our players a bit, realizing that they have some holes in their builds or knowledge. I know the players are taking this as motivation, as a drive to improve.
The feel on skype was very awesome as well, we had a team chat setup so we could discuss the games with each other, and cheer for our teammates, although it was difficult for me to participate due to having a 4 minute stream delay (TCL admin rule, I actually like this for big events, something we need to look at implementing imo), and there were some situations where I did spoil games (sorry :P). It was still great to see the team get behind each other, there to cheer for them when they win or console them when they lost.
We play against StorM again mid January, so it shall be a good test for us to see if we have improved over the next few months! Our next games are in 2 weeks when we play vs Nw, another strong Taiwan clan and the Japan team later in that week. Nw did not perform as well as StorM in the last few seasons of TCL, but should be a little easier for us but far from a sure win. The Japan team are a complete unknown, I don't even know any Japan players or what server they play on (its not TW/KR as they also require lent accounts, maybe CHI or is there actually a JP server?). Hopefully we can win some series. There's plenty of opportunity for us to make the playoffs (The season nGen won, we lost 2 series in the group stage) and its still possible to even win the group.
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