[Stallion]

crux vs Nerve Gaming By Stallion

cruxDoc (P) vs inFiJokes (T) on Shakuras plateau

Game started off with Doc in the 5 oclock and inFiJokes in the 7 o'clock positions. Doc proceed to steal Jokes second gas and pylon block jokes for fast expanding. Doc proceeded to fast expand himself. Jokes in response to this went for a 1/1/1 build that denied scouting with a bunker at the top of the natural ramp. Jokes dropped hellions in a medivac with a banshee to do damage to Doc's mineral line. luckily for Doc he had transfered half his probes before and after the hellions and medivacs were cleared up was ahead in worker count by 4. Doc went up to 6 gates in the aftermath and moved forward for an attack when Jokes pulled scvs and marine tank scved all in'd Doc. Doc showing his micro killed the single banshee that Jokes had. Having moved his probe to put down proxy pylons got supply blocked. In response Doc moved up to his main base pulling all probes and giving up his expand not realising Jokes had no sight to the high ground and he had more than enough energy to forcefield out Jokes and wait to be unsupply blocked. Jokes sieged and moved his scvs and marines up the ramp after scanning to c there was no resistance. Doc in a suicidal move attack moved downa ramp with army and probes without even guardian shielding.
Doc gg'd 0-1 to nerve gaming.

cruxStallion (P) vs inFiJokes (T) on Calm before the storm

After some thought since I had limited options I put myself in backing my pvt on a long map where his 1/1/1 will be next to useless. inFiJokes started in the 2 oclock position myself in the 5 o'clock position. This is from my point of view. I pylon scouted and was going to go for a creator prime opening to be careful of cheese and backing my mid game if he got a small advantage. I scouted him first and probe harrased while noticeing that he was command centering first and was using supply depos to wall in. i attacked with 1 zealot and a stalker while the 3rd was enroute. i picked off 2 marines without losing either while he started his bunker. the bunkers got up and i backed off not losing any units and killing 3 or 4 marines and 2 scvs. I put up a proxy pylon to the side and left a stalker to scout. As i was doing this harras i expanded in base. I proceeded to get a 4 more gates and a robo for scouting. getting a observer first i saw him doing a scv tank marine attack. I had in the meantime gone my double forge build while pumping units off 4 gate and immortals out of the robo. I microed back the stalker picking up a scv and marine and went to met his army before it could siege forcing an early siege then backed up my ramp giving me some time while i chucked down 4 more agtes and chronoed everything. i wrapped in 3 zealots to kill reinforcements and waited for his attack. he moved his tanks up to the edge of the cliff and slowly moved his units up i attacked making sure to target the tanks with the immortals. I killed the tanks and he pulled back to his bunkers he had made without my vision. He floated a barracks in for sight which i pick off with my stalkers. i then get an 8 wrap in and attack when the next immortal pops. i break his contain and advance to make it 1-1.

cruxStallion (P) vs eASE (T) on Antigua Shipyard

After betting inFiJokes i was really surprised that Nerve selected another terran to play me. I used the same opening as the game before (creator prime opening) and 1 gate expanded behind it as i saw no gas with my probe. i then had map control and put a proxy pylon down for my dts later. eASe moved out on the map for what i was assuming was going to be for pressure at the front with a drop on the main. what he actually did was move out to the watch tower and take a 3rd. i proceed to then win the first big engagement with 2 2 and charge and some killer (if i do say so myself) forcefields. the dts i wrapped in while this engagement went on started tearing up his scvs too and he overstimmed his reinforcements. From he i kept pushing and reinforced when i could and won. crux 2-1

cruxStallion (P) vs TheGoonSquad (P) on The Shattered Temple

PvP is a fun match up for me now that i understand it to a certain degree and after waiting 10 minutes i was starting to fell some nerves for some reason. the match started out with TGS in the 12 and me at the 3. i took 2nd gas on 20 having scouted him playing standard with a 9 scout. he then put down send gas and went blink. i went 3 gate to robo and after our observers catching each other in no mans land i made some immortals so i could expand. Here lay my crucial mistake that ended up costing me dearly. each time i went to scout with my stalker his blocked mine at watch tower. i didnt even try to scout with army which resulted in him having his expand far sooner than was safe and me not scouting as i was trying to catch his observer and stalkers with my own.he then proceeded to run me around a bit as i got blink and just outmacroed me. 2-2

cruxEldrid (Z) vs TheGoonSquad (P) on Metalopolis

Eldrid after turning up late got probably the best zvp map in the game. TGS tryed to Forge expand in long positions vs Eldrid who decided to bane bust him as a responce. What followed was eldrid busting thruough TGS pylon and cannon by the ramp and running up to the main where he killeda lot of probes with his banes and lings. TGS had 3 gates pumping zealots out which Eldrid avoided for about a mnute as his reinforecement lings ran through TGS maze of sim city at his matural and joined him. Eldrid then blew 8 banes up on 4 zealots and with his small handful of lings killed the main base. Eldrid then took his 3rd and was double the supply ahead even while roach attacking with burrow all over TGS's natural and what follwed was a slow but sure death for TGS. crux 3-2

cruxEldrid vs nRvHavoC on Xel'Naga Caverns

TvZ on Xel'naga isnt fair for zerg im told and i soon found out why. HavoC 2 raxed with his 2nd raxs hidden behind the tall garss on the left of Eldrids expand (Eldrid being at the 1 , HavoC at the 7). Havoc killed Eldrid 1st overlord before it got to safety too. Eldrid was going for fast roaches so after HavoC killed Eldrid expand and HavoC tryed to show boat by building a base at Eldrid expand eldrid simply walked by with roachs doing significant damage to Havoc's main and econ which eventually got cleanned up by a banshee. While this was happening HavoC had pulled his 8 marines out of the bunkers outside Eldrid base and ran for Eldrid main base. Eldrid making 2 more roachs and having 2 queens in his main pulled his drones to the side and killed the marines with minimal losses with his new roaches and queens. The games was all but over though as HavoC pulling his extra base to his actual expand and having 5 mules drop down and some banshees. The rest was pretty clean cut with some excellent micro on both sides. But eventually Eldrid who had played amazing to have the game go as long as it did gg'd 3-3

cruxNXZ vs nRvHavoC on Terminous SE

I put NXZ in as i felt he deserved to avenage his fallen zerg brother.. As the last map favoured the terran significantly NXZ and i decided we should play on the realllllllllly big map aka Terminous SE NXZ at the 1 Haroc at the 4....... bummer. The following game turned out to be truly unique. HavoC decided to bring back reapers and went a reaper speed build with 4 barracks dedicated to making them. the intial reaper got shut down without doing too much but the 6 follow up reapers killed a lot of lings while HavoC took his expand and added 2 more barracks. from there it became a game of catching the dropships while NXZ teched to a fast 2 2 and infestors. Havoc took a fast 3rd and kept dropping more and more until the infestors caught the better of 4 dropships of 1 0 marines and his 2 2 lings ate them up. NXZ advanced with lings and infesters made some banes and attacked. What followed was pure chaos. lings running forward tanks firing and a hole in the defence that was overlooked then realised. The lings ran through! the banes and infestors run around. Fungals everywhere. Banes exploding on clumps of marines. Surviving marines scattered everywhere. Meanwhile a drop is dropping on NXZ's main and 3rd. NXZ attack gets into the main the supply depo gets up. the attack will be cleared up. In NXZ's main his drones have been pulled and his reinforcement lings and infestors clean up the drop. NXZ's 3rd has been lost. the drops at the 3rd kills the hatch and picks up and leaves. NXZ starts 3 3 and moves off to attack while retaking his 3rd. HavoC hasinst recovered from the orgianl attack and has relanded his natural as the next wave of NXZ's lings hits HavoC lifts but is too late and loses the natural. NXZ bane busts HavoCs main and goes on to win a tight match with some amazing play on both sides. crux 4-3

NXZ's point of view

+ [Game 1 vs HavoC] +

First off vs HavoC, I picked Terminus after realizing it was the version that allowed a quick third with less minerals, with an entrance to the third guarded by rocks. I was incredibly nervous before this game, HavoC had just used a solid 2 rax play to defeat Eldrid (despite the fact he nearly blew it even after killing 2 overlords and a hatchery for free at the beginning) and with my hate for all things bunker I didn't really want to play. However Eldrid, immediately after his game says to me, "He wasn't good, you would've crushed him on any other map NXZ". I felt much more confident after this as I went into the lobby and the countdown began. I spawned in the top position while ovie scouting to the left and began my build. Going for a standard 15 hatch 15 pool with a gas later on I defended HavoC's early bunker shenanigans with drones (or a ****** bunker as BsK put it :P), while he moved out with his reaper which I defended with zero drone loss. I continued my build normally, grabbing 1-1 ups, macro hatch, a third, while massing up some speedlings. Once I had a decent group of lings I moved out across the map to his base and began working on his rocks. However with my terrible reaction time his first 4 speed reapers destroyed all but 4 lings as I retreated. I immediately unburrowed my spine and tried to put it to the main where he would jump up with his reapers. However it timed out so that the reapers jumped up and 2 shot it before it could finish burrowing. After some dancing with reapers and lings (me attacking his reapers when they jumped up then retreating when he jumped down because I expected him to jump one up to get sight range to kill my ling from the low ground, however this didn't work out as he just leaped all of them up and when i realized this I sat at the edge of the cliff waiting for the suicidal maneuver) I defended the reapers and got 4 roaches out while securing my third and extra gases. HavoC then began dropping me with the first one catching me out of position at his base which i defended after losing an extractor. The second with 2 medivacs (1 more than last time!) did slightly more damage as I told my control group "1" to go defend (normally my lings are 1 in zvt) however this did not work out well as this was the one roach on the other side of the map trying to keep watchtower control while killing his third rocks. This drop did a lot more damage then I'm pretty sure he dropped again with 3 medivacs and sniped my pool before I reacted (CURSE MY SLOW REACTION TIME, WHEN I WAS WATCHING THE VODS I LOOKED LIKE SOME DIAMOND SCRUB :P). After defending this he dropped once again with 4 medivacs which arrived as my infestors popped this time I crushed all of his units and caught 2 medivacs with fungals. At this point, my 2-2 was coming up and my baneling speed was about to finish, so I moved out across the map and morphed in a group of banes and attacked him. After sneaking through his wall my infestor/ling/bling rolled through his weak low upgraded marine marauder(for those roaches earlier I think) tank ball and took the game after killing all but 5 scvs and his nat OC while forcing his third to retreat. After defending his drops which sniped my third I went in for the kill with my lings catching his nat OC (previously his third) and taking it to really low red hp (it was gonna burn down) before rushing up into the main and destroying his last remaining troops. YES, I'd pulled out a win for crux and tbh i was rather disappointed in HavoC's play, he had a very late third on terminus and I felt like he reacted poorly to the map and the easy macro capabilities that it brings. However, after watching the vod on Spoon's stream I was disgusted with my play, I hated it, with a huge passion, I watched my slow reactions to drops and sighting things on the minimap time and time again and decided that in order for me to reach the top I just had to "be" better and so that was what I resolved to do (this was after the clanwar was over though btw).

cruxNXZ vs nRvGRIM on Duel Sight

Duel Sight NXZ at 1 GRIM at the 7. speed opening from NXZ. GRIM responds with a dt rush. GRIM loses his intial stalker to NXZ's lings who clean that up, a pylon and 2 sentrys. NXZ gets a quick +1 attack as GRIM moves out trys to expand while pushing getting ready to set up a his proxy pylon. NXZ attacks what looks likes 4 zealot feels the dts damage backs up and gets more spores and an overseer while pumping lings. GRIM isn't going for a dt zealot attack though its an archon zealot all in. While GRIM gets his proxy pylon set up NXZ runs around with his lings into GRIMS main and his lings start destroying the place. GRIM in responce attacks and his first attack does well killing most of NXZ's lings who pulls them off and makes more while retreating to his main. GRIM advances on NXZ's main and NXZ just hold with lings drones and his 2 queens. truly a unique strategy and one thats got me thinking.

NXZ's point of view

+ [Game 2 vs GriM] +

Next game was on dual site vs GRiM. This pick was really weird to me, to be more specific not the player pick but rather, the map pick. They wanted to play a pvz on dual site? From the beginning I knew something was up. Anyways, the game began and I spawned on the right position with him on the left. I figured he wouldn't open ffe here and I feel much more confident going speedling vs 1 base builds, regardless i could still roach or bane the hell out of his expansion if he tried to ffe on this map. My overlord scouted no ffe and so I expanded comfortably with his nasty little probe JUST escaping past the zealot into his base. He went for a stalker pressure build, leaving the zealot behind as he used the stalker to secure map control. However, He didn't retreat quick enough as I used my first inject on 8 lings which easily cleaned up the stalker and approached his ramp. I picked off his low ground pylon before retreating. Later on as he moved down the ramp with 2 sentries and a zealot I ran in with my lings and picked off both sentries despite his forcefields. 3 HerO lings escaped the deathtrap that was one zealot blocking his main with two force fields and another zealot blocking the bottom of the ramp. I held positiong the lings and legged it the moment the first force field ran out. With this being the last game and everything I had already made a spore at my nat just in case and had melee on the way. I sacced an overlord which couldn't die to his all zealot army which scouted his dt shrine prompting me to add more spores and get an overseer immediately when my lair finished. My lings at his nat got attacked which after taking a glance at them saw the dt's shadowy thingy and heard its unique attack sound. At that I retreated while pumping lings to defend some kind of attack. As he moved out and began to put up a pylon I poked forward with my lings sniping the probe and spotting an archon. I immediately ran around and countered, killing most of his probes and his dt shrine before retreating. I engaged his army at my ramp after he held my initial attempt of engaging him with my nat drones and lings. My newly build lings from the main charged down the ramp with my counter attack lings surrounding from the other side. Unfortunately this fight went wildly in his favor with me killing some probes and an archon and maybe 1 zealot and him wiping out most of my lings. I retreated to the main and pulled all my drones and lings and my one queen to fight his army as this final fight began my 2-1 finished and i held with a little over 10 drones a queen and a large group of lings, during the fight I morphed an overseer with which I countered killing his nat nexus before running into his main past the broken wall off (lol) and killing the dt that was his last hope of a comeback. With that he gg'd and we won!!!!! YEH.

the NXZ awards!

+ [HerO award for player expecting to sweep tournament but getting cheesed out.] +

Doc takes this one :P you know what I'm talking about doc

+ [MC award for performing well and just making it through the group] +

Stallion performed really well in his 3 games despite some poor scouting in his final pvp game. With that run he takes this award

+ [Stephano award for getting owned by tournament format.] +

Eldrid takes this one with his almost auto lose map in xel'naga caverns.

+ [DRG award for playing zerg and finishing first in the group.] +

I take this one, despite my games being pretty one sided, I feel like it didn't show the domination required that would allow me to get the mvp award (who looked much more unstoppable then DRG in the group stages btw), besides DRG and I both play zerg so I take this one.

+ [MvP award for being a baller and getting cheated out of his rightful first place group spot because of maps and format] +

OK so this goes to 2 players, cruxBoss and cruxMyth both players were our potential next choices but due to tournament format, couldn't participate.

vods found from game 2 onwards at http://www.twitch.tv/spoonsc2/b/303129583 i casted game one so will be at twitch.tv/stallion15

This ended a Truly entertaining clan war with crux winning 5-3. I hope my write up was ok. I'd like to give thanks to Nerve gaming for being amazing gentlemen through the whole match and hope we can have many more .

cruxStallion
crux 5 - 3 Nerv

Quick Comments

	Snx.FigJig:	manner man, manner clan!
	Maynarde:	gg crux <3
	Reere:	gg wp ww~ (well written!)
	MooZfY:	Awesome write up :D
	TCPLemminks: