[ddengster]

+ [Thumbnail, ignore this] +

SEASL Grand Final Coverage By ddengster

TAEdge(Z) vs FXOFilthy(T), Bo7

+ [Game1] +

Game 1 - Xel'Naga Caverns


TAEdge(Red Zerg) spawns at the bottom, FXOFilthy(Blue Terran) spawns at the top.

Filthy opens up a new strategy - a reaper straight into an expansion. He sends the reaper to harass EdgE's base, shooting down a drone before backing up.


Having gotten an expansion up, Filthy gets up 2 factories immediately. The natural expansion of Filthy is scouted by Edge. Perhaps in response to the upcoming mech play, Edges gets up a roach warren while getting a 3rd hatch. Filthy sends 5 hellions fully equipped with blue flame around Edge's back door, hoping to fry some drone, but Edge is fully prepared.

Talk about quick reaction

The roaches chase away the hellion with minimal drone losses. The hellions move to Edge's third base but find no units there. They do take additional damage from chasing roaches and zerglings, however, before they flee back home. Filthy harasses more with his reapers and hellions, snagging even more drone kills.


The mid game for Filthy consists of tanks, thors, some hellions and marauders. Edge goes for a late switch in mutalisks, which fail to do any sort of damage thanks to thors.

Thors were waiting there all along. Great pre-emptive move from Filthy

The next move from Filthy is a push with marauders, hellions, tanks and thors. Edge engages it with a force of zerglings, roaches and mutalisks and loses the engagement. It takes a few waves of zerg reinforcements to take down the diminished terran marauder mech ball, but thanks to this Filthy is able to get his 3rd base with a planetary fortress up and running.


Filthy, never letting his opponent take a breather, takes out Edge's new 4th base at the far right before retreating back home. Edge tries to engage the ball with mutalisks and roaches, but they prove insufficient yet again. Filthy takes his gold base easily and marches to end the game. Edge, unable to destroy the terran death ball, ggs out of the game.

+ [Game2] +

Game 2 - Terminus RE

TAEdge(Light Blue Zerg) spawns at 9 o'clock, FXOFilthy(Red Terran) spawns at 12 o'clock

Yet again, both players start off with the same build, hatchery before pool and reaper into fast expansion. The reaper yet again shoots down a drone in Edge's main before backing off. 2 factories, and barracks with tech labs spring up for Filthy, indicating a similar build to last game. Edge, hoping to exploit the short base distances and long main base to main base distances, grabs ranged and carapace upgrades, then a third base before upgrading to lair tech. Filthy yet again sends out a bunch of hellions hoping to do some damage, but finds out that edge has walled off the entrance to his base.

Now that's a nice wall off

Filthy reads his opponent almost perfectly. Instead of waiting for more tanks, he pushes with a bunch of marauders and hellions, taking down the 2 spine crawlers in the wall with the intention of catching Edge in the middle of overdroning. Fortunately for Edge, he has roaches spawning just in time to repel Filthy's forces. Filthy retreats back home, and edge decides that it's time to punish the retreating forces. He gets zerglings and advances with his roaches, but Filthy's hellion and maruader reinforcements arrive in the middle of their retreat path and together the terran forces ironically wipe out the zerg force.


Filthy tries to push in with his forces again but is repelled by spawning roaches. His 3rd base is up and running. Edge goes for infestor tech. Filthy yet again pushes with thors, hellions and marauders. However, utilizing the power of his new infestors, edge takes out the entirety of Filthy's forces.

Note the slacking hellions in the top left(Though I don't believe they would have made a difference)

The 4th base for Edge is thus able to get up and running. The next step for Edge is to get up a nydus worm in Filthy's third base while getting the natural base at the 6 o'clock expansion, one of the furthest places for a terran mech ball to slowly crawl to.

A great asset in dividing the terran's time and attention

After taking care of the nydus worm, filthy moves out to secure his 4th expansion. This is when the final nail engagement occurs. Edge, utilizing neural parasites, fungal growths and roaches destroy the terran marauder mech ball through sheer numbers. He floods roaches into the terran base and takes the game.

+ [Game3] +

Game 3 - Tal'darim Altar

TAEdge(Light Blue Zerg) spawns at top left, FXOFilthy(Purple Terran) spawns at bottom left

Filthy sticks to the same opening as his past 2 games, but this time, he gets up an incomplete bunker and a reaper right beside Edge's natural. The reaper kills off some zerglings before it is forced away.


This time, Filthy builds a starport after his 2nd factory and gets a banshee with it. He sends some hellions into the zerg base but they fail to do any damage. That banshee proves its weight in gold, snagging a lot of drone kills and delaying the crucial 3rd expansion of Edge's.


This harassment also allows Filthy to get up his 3rd base. But before it is able to pay for itself, mutalisks show up and try to destroy the command center. Fortunately, scvs show up just in time to repair the command center at red health. The thor eventually drives away the mutalisks.

24 hp command center. What a close shave.

Right now, Edge has 2 new unsaturated bases as compared to Filthy's 3 saturated bases. The mutalisks sit around and refuse to harass the terran, wary of the increasing thor count. Edge tries to attack the 3rd base but backs off upon seeing the planetary fortress. His mutalisks take unnecessary damage by flying over thors. Filthy then moves out at 200 food with a bunch of thors and hellions, which collide with Edge's 200 food of roaches and mutalisks.


Though Edge first loses the fight, he is unable to spend off the 3k minerals and 1k gas sitting in his bank. The thors prove too much for the small paltry roach forces and Edge ggs.

+ [Game4] +

Game 4 - Metalopolis

TAEdge(Light Blue Zerg) spawns at 8 o'clock, FXOFilthy(Red Terran) spawns at 6 o'clock

Yet again the same openings cross paths. Filthy yet again snags a drone kill with his reaper. However, this time he hides more 2 barracks within his base.


Filthy gets up combat shields and then brings out most of his scvs as the overlord spots marines marching to the zerg base. This game is all in for Filthy.

Have you forgotten this?

In desperation, Edge builds 3 more spine crawlers and readies his drones for defense. The first engagement kills off most of Edge's zerglings and some of Filthy's scvs but it is enough to buy time for the spine crawlers to morph in.


Filthy tries to poke in and out of the zerg base, but cannot thanks to well positioned spine crawlers. His marine forces give up and head home to a new command center at the natural as well as a reduced number of scvs. He somehow still finds the resources to fund some tanks to siege Edge's main base cliff. Edge sends some zerglings and slow banelings to take care of this, but they destroy only a part of the marine squad.


Edge is pushed closer to the edge as Filthy lobbies marines into close proximity of Edge's main base. With great micro, he is able to take out banelings while getting minimal marine losses. Edge produces some roaches and tries to reclaim his cliff, but loses all of his forces.

There were actually more roaches before they moved up the ramp. Talk about OP tanks

Frustration piles up on Edge as he finds himself unable to handle the tanks and marines lobbied by medivacs into his main base. Edge eventually ggs out.

+ [Game5] +

Game 5 - Shakuras Plateau

TAEdge(Light Blue Zerg) spawns at top left, FXOFilthy(Red Terran) spawns at bottom right

Both players yet again start off with the same openings(no surprise!). The reaper is yet again able to kill off some zerg units before fleeing from the queen. He is then able to sneak in a bunker above Edge's natural, but does not deal much damage.


Filthy yet again goes for the same 2 factories after his fast expansion. He decides to push into a wall of spine crawlers with his marauders and blue flame hellions, hoping to provide some distraction for his 2 reapers to get into the zerg base and deal damage.


Ironically, due to the reapers being in red health, Filthy decides to focus his micro on the reapers rather than the marauder hellion force at the wall. As a result, his plan backfires and he loses most of his units. Edge decides to counterattack with his zerglings. He finds a hole in the terran's wall off and exploits it with zerglings.

Not something you want to do at the finals

The hellions prove no match for zerglings within the confined area of the terran natural. Filthy loses a whole bunch of scvs before being able to repel the zergling counterattack. Meanwhile, Edge is able to take a 3rd base uncontested. Edge techs up to infestors and roaches with an initial +1 ranged attack and +1 carapace thanks to the 2 early evolution chambers. Filthy then makes a risky, if not daring push with a thor and hellions to Edge's 3rd base and takes it out, That force would not make it home, as they are intercepted by roaches and zerglings on the way back.


Thor reinforcements eventually arrive to drive the roaches back. Filthy yet again pushes towards the zerg's base with 3 thors and a few hellions, and gets himself crushed by roaches and infestors.

Would you call these pushes as applying pressure onto zerg or a "OMG i'm behind' all in?

Edge counterattacks and filthy is forced to lift his factories onto high ground and wall off his entrance. Not giving up, Filthy gets 3 starports with the intention of massing up banshees. Those starports are eventually scouted by Edge's overseer. Filthy tries to make a push with thors, hellions and banshees, but upon seeing 3 base's economy worth hydralisks, roaches and infestors, he backs off. Edge pushes, and takes out Filthy's third base before moving on to Filthy's natural. He makes the mistake of not microing his roaches past the terran wall and backs off to recoup his losses. He eventually overwhelms Filthy through superior economy and sheer numbers.

Looks like that wall made up for its crime of leaking zerglings into the base

+ [Game6] +

Game 6 - Crossfire

TAEdge(Light Blue Zerg) spawns at bottom left, FXOFilthy(BlueTerran) spawns at top right

Filthy yet again opens reaper, and Edge decides to get his spawning pool and a roach warren. Edge gets 6 roaches and marches them towards the terran's base. He then places his natural hatchery down. Filthy, analyzing the information he obtained from the scouting scv, suspects a pressure opening from Edge, and gets a 2nd barracks. Both barracks start marauder production, and when the roach army reaches Filthy's front door they can do nothing.

Talk about reading your opponent's mind

The roaches return back home. Filthy fakes a push when his marauders, forcing Edge to spend his larvae on zerglings instead of drone. He also uses this to get his natural expansion and tech up. Edge, hoping to deal some damage with the zerglings he produced to try to break the terran natural, but is unsuccessful with the arrival of the banshee.


The banshee utilizes its cloak to take out a substantial number of drones before retreating home. Filthy transitions into his usual mech ball of thors. The banshees are utilized to prevent creep from spreading too far as well as to keep Edge on his toes. Edge adds hydralisks into his army and tries to make a push onto Filthy's new 3rd base. However, a cloaked banshee exploits the fact that Edge has no detection whatsoever with his army.


The entire zerg army is forced back to the middle of the map where they meet up with an overseer, but they are unable to destroy the offending banshee which wanders into Edge's still morphing in 3rd base at the left side of the map. Filthy then pushes out with a marauder-mech ball of tanks, thors and hellions. Unfortunately, his tanks are caught unsieged. This does not bode well for Filthy.


Miraculously, the zerg roach/hydra force is decimated, but what's left of Filthy's forces are a tank, a thor and a marauder. He adds some reinforcements to this force and attempts to take out the zerg's still unsaturated 3rd base, but is unsuccessful. By this time, Filthy has a whooping 66 scvs as compared to Edge's 48 drones. Edge attempts to counterattack Filthy's 3rd base with roaches but is thwarted by the terran forces. Eventually Filthy's mech ball pushes out and Edge finds himself unable to quite finish off the terran mech ball. He ggs and gives Filthy the win and the tournament.

Before and after

+ [Game7] +

No game 7

Afterthoughts

+ Show +

G1 - Map control/vision was sorely lacking for Edge. The rocks to his 3rd base were destroyed really late too, and the unit composition was just not too well suited considering Filthy's timing push.

G2 - Constant aggression forces more units than drones out of the zerg right? True, but in this case during the 2nd engagement Filthy pushed out with way too few units. This mistake eventually piled up on Filthy and cost him the game.

G3 - Was it a case of overdroning, the 12 kill banshee or just the inability to produce 3k minerals worth of roaches? Either way, Edge looked extremely outclassed this game. Filthy on the other hand showed us yet another variant of his style of play.

G4 - A game that would make zerg players rage. But props to Filthy for knowing how to follow up on a failed all in.

G5 - Both players made a lot of mistakes, but the damage done by the hole in Filthy's wall was just too much for filthy to handle.

G6 - This map.. is not very favorable for zerg to say the least in my opinion. Filthy went for the banshees to hopefully try and limit the queen's mobility by reducing creep spread while taking out any quick 3rd expansions, which is really bad for zerg considering how far the 3rd expansion is. Other factors include smallish choke points around the map. But I must say that throughout the series, Filthy's ability to read and adapt to opponents while still maintaining a mech style is impressive. Congrats to him winning this whole tournament.

Download the replays here!

[sgLancelot]

Great effort with the screen caps and battle reports! Looking forward to more of such post-event coverages. Thanks!

[FvRsolis]

Awesome job with the battle-report man. Totally agree that crossfire is really Terran favoured (I say that because of siege positions etc).

Filthy played reall well, I'm looking forward to checking out the replay pack!

Thanks a lot!