[ddengster]

Photos and Replays by DDengster on the Mothership Studios Facebook page!

Semi Finals - aLtOxygeN(T) vs nGenRefallen(P)
Game 1

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Game 1 - Lost Temple

Refallen(green) spawns at the top, Oxygen(red) spawns at the bottom.

The game starts off with oxygen going for a command center at his natural after one rax while refallen goes for the standard one-gate core, chronoboosting his stalker out.

A lil gutsy to put that cc in the natural instead of hiding it in base, don't you think?

Refallen claims his 2nd gas and builds an additional 4 gateways. signaling his intention for a huge allin push. His stalker scouts the bunker at the front. Oxygen, thinking that Refallen was going to fast expand, builds an engineering bay at refallen's natural.

The scv had been hiding at the back of the mineral line for quite some time. The 5 gate would've been scouted if he wasn't trying to do cute stuff

Refallen pushes into the natural with 8 gateway units and easily demolishes the bunker at the front.Oxygen pulls his scvs, but is unable to hold off the incoming gateway units and ggs out.

GG

Afterthoughts

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Refallen did declare PvT to be his worst matchup, but oxygen could've done a much better FE build. Cute stuff like the ebay block and the position of forward bunker are things that he might want to look at.

Game 2

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Game 1 - Xel'Naga Caverns

Refallen(green) spawns at the top, Oxygen(red) spawns at the bottom.

Both players start off standard, with oxygen doing a one rax fast gas, getting a marauder out, and building a command center in his main, while refallen goes for a one-gate core into 2 gates before taking his expansion. Oxygen manages to snipe the scouting probe before it sees the tech lab and the command center thereafter.


Refallen then gets up 6 warpgates, while oxygen decides to tech up to starports. He manages to scout refallen's main base by sneaking an scv in. Unfortunately, he fails to click on any of the warping in buildings before the scv dies.

How did that scv get in there?

Probably thinking refallen was going for some tech, oxygen decides to try and apply pressure on Refallen. It does not go well for the terran army.

oO pressuring an opponent who's about to go allin

Even with the slight loss of bio units, every unit counts in defending an allinish 6 warpgate push. Refallen eventually pushes into oxygen's unbunkered main, steamrolling scvs and bio army alike. Oxygen gg's.



Afterthoughts

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Both players played well, but a lack of game sense by oxygen cost him the game. He had about 2 chances to detect the 6 warpgate push, one being when his scv scouted refallen's base in which he failed to click on the gateways being warped in), and the other being the amount of units refallen was warping in.

If at any point he detected that it was a 5-6 warpgate push, bunkers would have been thrown down, and the game would have been his.

Game 3

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No game 3!

Finals - nGenRefallen(P) vs inF(Z)
I think zerg right now is underpowered against toss. - Claim by Refallen before the finals

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Game 1 - Xel'Naga Caverns

Refallen(green) spawns at the bottom, Revenant(orange) spawns at the top.

The game starts off with Revenant going for a 14 pool before hatch and Refallen going for a one-gate core. Refallen, unfortunately, gets himself supply blocked.

The number one bane of players.

Refallen opts for 3 gates, which gets scouted by a zergling. He then throws down an expansion after getting a good amount of sentries. Revenant opts for roaches, and manages to kill the scouting probe barely before it sees the roach warren.

Almost!

Revenant makes a whole bunch of zerglings and roaches, and proceeds to put pressure onto his opponent's natural. Refallen wastes a bunch of forcefields trying to catch the zerglings.

Delaying the inevitable

This allows Revenant to have better control over his units. Zerglings flood in and the combined forces of zerglings and roaches manage to take out Refallen's natural expansion. Not wanting to play from behind, refallen gg's out of the game.


Afterthoughts

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It's scary how revenant was able to maintain this aggressiveness for such a long time. Refallen would probably have been fine if he didn't take the bait to trap those zerglings.

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Game 2 - Shakuras Plateau


Refallen(green) spawns at the top right, Revenant(orange) spawns at the top left.

Revenant starts off with an unorthodox build where he goes for an inbase hatch first, then pool and a third hatch at his natural expansion, while Refallen goes for a forge fast expand.


Perhaps in response to the forge fast expand, revenant takes the bottom natural expansion before he techs to lair. His overlord sneaks into Refallen's base and sees a single stargate. Unknown to Revenant, Refallen has built 2 stargates.

Saccing an overlord for information

Revenant's response to this is hydras. Refallen utilizes his new phoenix and void rays to gain some map control. After getting 4 void rays, an explosion of gateways are warped into his base.

Refallen now has 6 gateways, fyi

After getting a substantial amount of ground force, Refallen breaks his top rocks and pushes through the top passageway into his opponent's main.

The air toss army has been gaining popularity recently.

Revenant, having spent most of his money on drones, upgrades, and hatches, finds out that his 26 hydras are unable to do much damage to the protoss army and taps out.


Afterthoughts

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Refallen's army definitely looked unstoppable this game. However, it is fair to say that Revenant overextended himself economy wise.

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Game 3 - Lost Temple

Refallen(green) spawns at 9, Revenant(orange) spawns at 12.

Refallen goes for a forge fast expand while Revenant starts off with a 15 hatch. His manages to kill off the probe trying to expand, forcing Refallen to build a cannon before his nexus.

A drone baring the ferocity of Revenant's aggression

Revenant does a quick tech to lair and drops a nydus network. He plants a worm on top of Refallen's natural cliff and builds 3 spine crawlers on the creep generated by the nydus worm.

Abusing cliffs zerg style

Refallen meanwhile goes for a variant of the same build he did last game. He gets 2 stargates producing voidrays and 4 additional warpgates. As his natural cliff gets bombarded by spine crawlers, he sends a void ray to deal with it, but loses it to 2 hydras and a queen.

Void ray < hydras

The cliff siege is lifted with the bravado of void rays. With some great micro, Refallen takes out the spine crawlers in spite of the presence of hydralisks on the cliff.


However, the spine crawler siege had done its damage. Realizing that he is behind, Refallen pushes with a force of zeals, stalkers and void rays.

Make no mistake, this is a desperation one-punch KO push.

And yet again, the protoss army prevails against Revenant's primarily hydralisk force. Refallen, true to his word that zerg is underpowered against protoss, takes the game.


Afterthoughts

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It was good to see Refallen win after being set back. Revenant's build in which he invested in 3 spine crawlers and nydus tech to only dominate the cliff was a little questionable - and a little allinish. Still Refallen made the right decision to push at the right time and take the game.

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Game 4 - Metalopolis

Refallen(red) spawns at 6, Revenant(orange) spawns at 12.

Refallen yet again goes for the same forge fast expand, while Revenant goes for 15 pool into hatchery. Recalling the success of the first game, Revenant drops an early roach warren and begins pumping out zerglings. He rushes speedlings into refallen's mineral line, but is held back by a forcefield and the excellent simcity that is Refallen's natural expansion.

Nice wall

Revenant manages to snipe the cannon near the mineral line, allowing himself free reign over the right side of Refallen's natural expansion. The zerglings take it out on a gateway being warped in. Once the gateway falls, the zerglings dart in again for a second attempt to take out the last remaining cannon.

Zerglings showcasing the aggression that is Revenant

The last cannon falls, and Refallen is forced to fight with his probes. The zergling force has been whittled down and is easily taken out. But now Refallen has a more pressing problem to face: Roaches from revenant's base are now streaming down into his natural.

Casualties of war: 1 cannon, a bunch of lings and roaches

Fortunately, Refallen is able to hold on until his cannons are warped in. Upon seeing the cannons, Revenant decides to pull out and wait for reinforcements. He goes in for yet another attempt at breaking Refallen's natural, but is repelled. For the next attempt, Revenant changes his tactics and goes for the lone pylon supporting the cannon, warpgate and core.

Revenant, exploiting whatever vulnerabilities he can

Refallen had already forseen this, however. He builds a pylon as far away as possible but still able power the cannon and warpgate as soon as he sees the roaches attacking the pylon. Revenant is forced to retreat and drone up, allowing Refallen to stabilize. The drone to probe ratio is heavily in favor of protoss. Refallen tries to take his third base, but is delayed by zerglings.

Protect your third!

Refallen can afford these delays, however. He gets his robo tech and blink research up and pushes to revenant's third base. After an intense battle involving stalkers blinking out of a zerg burrowed roach ambush, refallen is able to take out Revenant's third base


With the destruction of the third base, Revenant is unable to put any pressure on Refallen, who is able to get a fourth base up without any difficulty. The final push comes and Revenant finds himself unable to stop the protoss death ball.

Grats to Refallen for winning SSL Jan!

Afterthoughts

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This game was already over once Revenant's allin attack failed. Props to Refallen, who instead of ending the game in one big counterattack, decided to take the safe way to win the game by expanding and teching up.

In showing calm resilience in the face of overwhelming aggression, and overcoming his worst matchup PVT, Refallen is worthy of the title of the top protoss in Singapore. Do look out for him in future!

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Not needed

[HDPhoenix]

Huge propz and thanks to Ed for doing this for us!! ^___^ Love your work

[progrezzion]

excellent work

[HDPhoenix]

Uploading SSL Jan photos and replay summary by DDengster on to our Facebook!

[orcbreath]

Semi-finals - inF (Z) vs SwEEt (Z)
Game 1

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Not shown on big screen, so no replay

Game 2

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Game 2 of the semi-finals between inF and SwEEt began on Scrap Station, with Sweet spawning on the top 11 o'clock position and Revenant spawning on the lower 2 o'clock position.

Both players decided to go for early aggression, SwEEt opening with a standard 14gas 13pool while Revenant opted for a more economic 15gas 14pool, squeezing out one more drone before his gas went down.

Once the Spawning Pools finished for both players, they morphed all 3 of their saved up larvae into Zerglings, beginning an intense battle for map control early game, both players attempting to break into each other's mineral lines to snipe off drones.

SwEEt made the first breakthrough, due to his earlier pool, his zerglings raced into Revenant's base. However, he was unable to snipe any probes due to Revenant's zerglings heckling him throughout.

Soon enough, his effort paid off and he was able to snipe Revenant's queen.

No escape

By this time, both players already had their baneling nests up and were prepared for a baneling-zergling micro war

One of SwEEt's poor overlords gets left in Revenant's base and is shot to death by a Queen, leaving SwEEt supply blocked, a large setback in early ZvZ. Now Revenant seizes his momentary advantage, pressuring SwEEt who is forced to erect a defensive Spine Crawler.

However, while the Spine Crawler is building, Revenant streams in with zerglings and banelings, the banelings immediately heading for SwEEt's mineral line. While SwEEt frantically tries to move his drones away from the dangerous banelings, Revenant's banelings burst, killing 3 of SwEEt's drones and some zerglings before his zerglings are repelled, but only after they killed a handful more drones.

Ouch.

Revenant realises he's ahead now and begins construction of his lair, followed soon after by a spire. SwEEt instead techs to a Nydus Network, an interesting choice in ZvZ. However, SwEEt's first nydus worm is within vision of Revenant's base and is met by a swift response from Revenant, sending some of his zerglings to dispatch the worm, also sniping another one of SwEEt's overlords with the help of his creep highway, supply-blocking SwEEt for the second time this game.

Because his attack was unsuccessful, SwEEt still does not know that Revenant has a spire on the way. But by some stroke of luck, his blind Hydralisk Den is the perfect response to Revenant's incoming mutalisks.

Phew.

SwEEt is still not in the clear, though, as by another stroke of good fortune, Revenant opts to begin his Air Armour upgrade before his Air Attack upgrade! Allowing his Mutalisks to withstand more Hydralisk punishment.

Because of the mobility and map control his Mutalisks grant him, Revenant safely expands to his natural. Revenant has amazing timing and his first 4 Mutalisks snipe an overlord, supply blocking SwEEt, and kill 2 of SwEEt's Queens just before his Hydralisks hatch, the single spore crawler in SwEEt's mineral line only defending his drones.

Where are my Hydralisks?!

Now, SwEEt's luck takes a turn for the worse as he was expanding just as Revenant's Mutalisks came marauding into his base. He is forced to cancel his hatchery just before it finishes and all his Hydralisks are killed with help from reinforcement Mutalisks as well as a 3rd Overlord snipe from Revenant, preventing SwEEt from reinforcing his Hydralisks. SwEEt also realises by now that his opponent has his natural up and mining, due to a failed zergling run-by.

Revenant believes he can end the game and sends a group of zerglings and his mutalisks to attack. Although he is repelled by SwEEt's Hydralisks and Queens, it is not a large set-back for Revenant, who is now clearly in the lead.

SwEEt begins to build a nydus worm by the Xel'naga watch tower, a great strategy as this reduces the time taken for his hydralisks to walk across the map and allows his units to retreat quickly. However, his nydus worm is scouted by Revenant's Mutalisks and is killed, along with an overlord.

SwEEt realises he is too far behind and prepares for an all-in attack, using his hydralisks to break down the rocks and pulling drones off minerals to aid in the attack, while Revenant begins taking his 3rd base. The drones are all killed off by Revenant during the transfer, however, making SwEEt's attack even more desperate.

All in

Revenant is prepared for this attack and overwhelms SwEEt's army with Zerglings, Banelings and Mutalisks, SwEEt's hydralisks melting to the banelings.

SwEEt's all-in fails and he GGs shortly after.