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Road to Masters (2)


Day 2 of my push to Masters league!
And this was when Patch 1.3 just came out! With the infestor speed nerf bleah. And the Warp Gate nerf, which means more 2 gate shenanigans as you'll see later on.

1) vs Sidoney (Terran) on Typhon Peaks
This game epitomizes what Benji was complaining about in his blog post.
I opened my usual Spanishiwa style, and he walled off before I could get my drone into his base. (it's a big map -_- )
Tried to fly my OL in at 5min+ to get an idea of what he was doing, but he denied it with his small pack of marines.

So I was playing completely in the dark. Wtf is he doing? Hellion harass? Mass thor? banshees? mass infantry?
I tried to go my safest build, getting 3-4 spines and a few more queens in case of some early push, and once I hit 40 or so food I got my gas up and teched to lair as normal

My lings poked at his ramp a few times, only to see the barracks-2depot wall off, nothing much to be read from there.


Oh Terran oh Terran, thou hath so many possible tech routes that this tells nothing at all.

Then he actually pushed out with a small pack of marines, like 6-8 to clear my ling at the watchtower and outside his base. Nothing out of the ordinary, just good Terran play.

It was only until he hit my creep before I knew what it was:


The Terran march of death

OMGWTF . Marine SCV ALL IN on 4 barracks -_- Well it wasn't really all-in because he still had quite a decent number of SCVs back in base mining. And if you see my baneling nest wasn't even half done, so I knew I was majorly screwed.


I did what I could, trying to transfuse the spines and getting lings to wrap around his marines. I underestimated the number of marines he had though, it wouldn't work.

I knew the expo was gone so I pulled my lings and queens back into my main, waiting on my Baneling's nest.
However, being the great diamond league cheeser he was, he knew this trick (probably after previous cheesing experiences) and ran up my ramp to hunt down my banelings.


And even proceeded to spread his marines out to taunt me as my banelings were morphing in -_-
Sigh.

Looking back, I don't think I would have been able to hold it, with the build I went. The gas just comes in too late for banelings to come out in time... the thing is, how do I even scout it? Against any other kind of harass I'd have been fine - hellion marine.. hellions.. just ramp block and use spines/queens. But marine/scv all in seems to be a weakness of this build, especially when it hits in that small window before you get banelings out.

And you might say, 'oh, throw down more spines!' but the problem is, the SCVs will tank the damage. And the marines will go to work on my spines and queens so...
And this is assuming I DO manage to scout it which as mentioned before.. I did what I could to scout but couldn't get a whiff of what was coming zzz.


2) vs MOFFy (Protoss) on Metalopolis
Close spawn, meaning his probe got over waaay early. With some fancy dancing on my expo spot he managed to block it till he could afford a pylon block. I had to go pool first then, and got my hatchery as soon as he cancelled his pylon and i killed his probe.

He followed up with a 2 gate, 3 stalker+zealot harass (Stalkers chronoboosted out) , something I believe many Toss will start using after the recent patch.


Stalkers scooting around to the back to kill my drones

He transited into a 4gate from this harass, but with mass queens, spines, and lings, I managed to hold it off.


The epitome of OVERREACTING.
Note to self - you do not need 32 lings , 3 queens and 5 spines to hold off a 4gate.


He backed out and transited into an expand with +1 attack and blink, while i droned so hard that despite overproducing lings and spines I was still ahead in harvestors. I also snuck a 3rd at the gold on the other side of the map.

I scouted the Twilight Council, but wasn't sure what he was planning to do so I just got a spore at each base + overseer as a precautionary measure for DTs. And being the awesome player he is, he expanded TOWARDS me. That is really freaking annoying.

(More so for Terran since they can just slowpush from their PF there, but toss can similarly cannon push from there and more or less make you feel contained without even doing anything)

I really didn't know what to do. I couldn't engage his army at his 3rd (because I would have to fight on the ramp, and with some nice forcefields like these:

I will basically lose every fight)

I couldn't do a zergling run-by either, because he had cannons at his expo AND his main's mineral line.On hindsight, a nydus MAY have got him stumbling on the back foot, but wouldn't really power me ahead.

So anyway, he teched to colussus and killed me once thermal lance was done.


Colussus + mass blink stalkers =
gg


3) vs xunwuFOM (Protoss) on Shakuras Plateau
Same Spanishiwa opening, and i saw him with 1-2 sentries so I guessed he was going for an expand, so I got an early (hidden) 3rd. (When I say hidden I mean not in a conventional location that he may scout)

Then I tried some baneling/ling nydus action, but he scouted all my attempts


bleah

You know, I think nydus needs to be buffed. We are spending 100/100 every time we put one down, yet it takes so long to build. Compare it with medivacs/warp prisms which drop instantly. rawr.

I made the tactical mistake here of being pretty much passive while I maxxed out on a roach hydra corruptor army, as he did the same thing as well with gateway + colussus and their favourite - DTs.

PRO TIP - Some time in the mid - late game, you should always put down a spore + 2 spines at EVERY base you have. No excuses. You should be limited by gas anyway, so you should have excess minerals lying around. INVEST in those. No excuses.
Even if he doesn't go multi-base DT harass, it's not that big a loss. As compared to when he DOES, and you have to split your army + overseers up to quickly react and usually you would have lost considerable drones before you clear his DTs.

Yea so basically he did that and stupid me didn't get those spore/spines and he left me scrambling all over. Sigh, how am I going to get into Masters with these stupid little errors.


DTs are devastating even if your opponent is stupid like this and goes for your spine crawlers instead of your drones

I also messed up an amazing baneling drop on his mineral line .. you have to see this:


WHATTT. That's like 15 probes needing just one more hit.

What happened was the stalker messed up the baneling AI and TWO banelings blew up on the stalker instead of the probes. Sigh.
But as you can see, he was already quite far ahead in probes (78>50) after his DT harass.


Yea but basically the main error was not exchanging armies with him abit, despite having slightly better econ. I denied his 3rd for awhile with a pack of lings, but when he pushed out with his big toss ball of gateway + colussus + DTs + HALLUCINATED COLUSSUS..... it was GG.
He was at 200/200 too -_-



Hi I have 10 colussus not 5. I'm going to decimate your army.

Like seriously? How imba is that? Hallucinating colussus = your corruptors are wasting time focus-firing colussus as you've no idea which is real. How do you beat this?

But yea anyway, even without the hallu colussus he would still have won, his army totally raped mine. Didn't have an overseer nearby too -_- And his econ is 34 probes higher so... GG.


4) vs Phoenix (Terran) on Shattered Temple
Some time ago ZvT was my weakest matchup - I had no answer to marine/tanks. Now I think it is ZvP - I have no answer to a good pressuring Toss who gets his 200/200 up quickly and rolls me over.

Anyway, I felt more comfortable vsing a Terran in this game after the 2 bad toss losses.

I opened Spanishiwa build (surprise surprise) and he hid his 2 rax at his cliff which my OL AND my scouting drone spotted anyway (we were close air spawn) so... no idea why he did that.

Oh wow.. I only realized something after watching the replay.. He actually DOUBLE expanded to the 'island' expo ! wtf! Well I had 15 harvestors more than him and never quite lost the harvestor lead but still..

Anyway my OL scouted 3-4 rax so I got some early lings/blings before getting my infestation pit. Was afraid of some kind of early infantry push


Shifting spines to a forward defensive position to defend my gold expo too.

Hmm this guy is a Masters Terran and he doesnt constantly make SCVs! So bad.


I cleared out his pack of marines at the XN Watchtower, so decided to push in with my bling/slings army which I kinda overproduced. Crushed his defenses, and managed to kill quite a handful of SCVs before he cleaned out my forces.

I followed up with another attack which cleared his expo, but he had a 3rd and 4th CC at the bottom right of the map . I was ahead by 30 harvestors and felt really comfortable, So i just kept expanding and teching to t3
(He had a siege line in his base so I didn't want to throw away too much army in an overanxious bid to end the game)

I did some burrowed infestor harass:

Fungal + 3 Infested Terran ftw

Then he started doing some multi prong medivac drops that really messed up my econ abit, but I had ultras coming out already


If I had unlimited gas, I would just mass infestors +ultras. That's all you need - fungal, Neural, ultra swarmmm.

Ok at this point I'm not quite sure why I didn't win. 184 to 113 supply, I cleared his 3rd and 4th expo with mass lings, ultras, infestor.

Ok I know why now.


I kept trying to brute force up his ramp, with fungal + ultralisks. However, with 192387 medivacs healing up the mairnes and marines being constantly streamed out of his barracks (11 at a time) with 3/3 upgrades.. I lost waaay more than I should have.


And to make things worse, I had tech switched to Broodlords but forgot to get infestors/blings support, and his mass marines (yes terran can win with just one unit) cleared out my BLs -_-

Yes so despite having like double his harvestors, he was able to overcome my army and i was actually down on supply for the first time in the game!! I was genuinely worried when he pushed towards my base with mass marines + medivacs and I frantically produced infestors and blings


Picture perfect. BANELINGS BANELINGS BANELINGS OOHHH

Ok the game dragged on for quite abit because he kept massing marines and 3/3 marines are freaking sick and cost efficient. I eventually managed to win , and the total game length was 40 mins -_-

NOTE TO SELF - Just pump infestors if a terran masses marines next time.

Ok, it's lunch break!


4) vs icantrememberhisnameidontcare (no this wasn't his nick)
... Starcraft crashed within the first 2 minutes of the game. Awesome. Great start after lunch yo.
Great streak today, 1 win out of 5 games.

5) vs LmBenz (Zerg) on Metalopolis
Both of us opened 15 hatch, and i decided to go mass lings /blings to early bum rush him.


speedling warz!

Unfortunately he had the same idea (didn't make drones too) and we played speedling/baneling see-who-makes-the-first-mistake game for awhile.
He was no pushover, and none of us made any significant mistakes (like lose a ton of lings to a single baneling)

AND I MADE THE STUPID MISTAKE HERE of not transiting into roach baneling! Which easily beats ling/bling. And... basically he did that. Transition smoothly into roaches while I was still pumping ling/bling

And I made ANOTHER dumb mistake:

Blew up about 3-4 banelings on the queen -_- While microing my lings to run by. He had like 7-8 drones at the expo, if I had got there would hae been able to kill like at least 5-6 of them?

And I realized he basically out macroed me. He massed a round of drones and he was 10+ drones ahead of me the whole time.

Then I caught up on macro, but his early lead meant he had shit loads of resources saved up. I tried to get infestors a bit too early, and he had a slight upgrade lead on me too. He engaged just before I could get a critical mass of roach/infestor up and he had +2 attack when mine was almost done, and he kept streaming roaches from there and crushed me


6) vs Dom (Protoss) on Typhon Peaks
As usual, 13 hatch 15 pool while he rushed DTs! I stole his gas and kept cancelling on it though, so it slowed down his DT rush alot. He expanded while his Dark Shrine was making, and he made the mistake of letting my lings run up his ramp and scouting his shrine.

I responded with an evo chamber with spores and spines... and he actually got an early 3rd!! Ugh.

I went for a baneling double mineral line drop, with the intention of transiting into roach corruptor after that.


Probes running from one OL drop!

But of course, he missed the second one as it always is


BOOM
Unfortunately, with his THREE nexus pumping out probes, he was STILL ahead even after this drop! Damn.

He got an early 4th too, and was really on top of his probe production >< DAmn.

In our first clash, we were both maxxed out, he had gateway + blink stalkers + colussus + High Templars. Yes, that's what having 4 bases of gas lets you produce


Mass corruptors made short work of his colussus, but my ground army wasn't enough, but i kept rallying roaches so he had to back off

He wisely transitioned into mass immortals, which easily dominated my roaches.

AND the turning point of the game - he used DTs to more or less deny my 4th, and I never got about to establishing it.

I transitioned into broodlords which stopped his push which almost killed me, but my lack of a 4th while he had a 6th (yes he mass expanded and spammed cannons at those bases.. how to break huh) cost me the game :


Protoss death ball designed to own roaches


He took out my 3rd base before running away from my broodlords!
So yea with his DTs denying a 4th, and my 3rd gone.. he could remacro up his mass stalker army which made short work of my broodlords GG



6) vs iMed (Zerg) on Typhon Peaks
I opened with 15 hatch and he went pool first into a hatch, with decent pressure from a pack of 15 speedlings or so. Then... he transitioned into roaches and basically pumped roaches while I made roach baneling..

I'm not quite sure what happened this game I think his speedlings made me edgy and I didn't drone up as much as I should have. He made a big bunch of roaches (hidden) and then suddenly moved out. He didn't tech lair while I did, and I guess that's what let him make more roaches?

I'm really not quite sure why i lost. Didn't drone hard at the right time I guess.. He hit with more roaches at the small window before I could get units, and while pushing out he massed drones and was 10 drones ahead.
LOST


BAD LOSING STREAK. Stopped playing after this... 1 win out of 6 games!

Anyway, feel free to add me crAzerk.187 for practice games and stuff! I can play offraces if you're plat and below! Thanks for reading!