[crAzerk]

BSG Open #20 by crAzerk

Ah, covering my first tournament. It was kind of a last minute thing as I had just PMed nirvana about doing write-ups for tournaments, and I thought 'hey, there's a BSG tournament tonight, why not try that out first?'. So i contacted Zergtastic, and got it arranged

I'm still undecided how to write this. Should I do it in an objective reporting style, or just treat it as a blog entry? And, it's BSG so I wasn't sure what kind of games I would see. Maybe I will write in a corrective style, noting certain mistakes? We'll go with the flow

SEMIFINALS (BO3)

+ [Game 1 : DeathsFang (Protoss) vs xpaperclip (Terran) on Tal'darim Altar] +

xpaperclip opened with a 3 rax while Deathsfang went for a 3gate robo. Deathsfang actually chronoboosted his first zealot out though I'm not quite sure why.


Deathsfang doesn't put probes in his 2nd gas for quite awhile.. If you are going robo, you should probably start mining from that 2nd gas earlier.

xpaperclip went for early +1 attack/armor with infantry upgrades (stim/shields) ... but did not attack.
This confused me. If you're going to rush the infantry upgrades and +1/+1, you're going to want to do some kind of a timing push, instead of sitting back.


Marine 1: "How come Johnny gets to rest in the shade in his tank while we gotta stand out here?"


Both players expand, with Deathsfang expanding considerably earlier and hence pulling ahead slightly in his economy and army.

Now xpaperclip tried to do a drop, but by some good fortune Deathsfang just so happened to be clearing the rocks at his 3rd and caught it.


Medivac: MAY DAY MAY DAY!

After this failed drop, xpaperclip tries to hide a 3rd at the other side of the map, but Deathsfang has started his 3rd earlier and it's nearer to his base as well.

Deathsfang had a solid harvester lead and never gave it up, macroing up and coming close to 200 before the first big fight.

TIP for Terrans - don't stop upgrading. Upgraded infantry are REALLY strong. I have got rolled by some Random Masters guy who got Terran, and he just went pure mass infantry with medivacs, and rushed 3/3 upgrades. With good marine splits and all, he easily handled my sling/bling/muta army. upgraded infantry are just so sick!

Anyway, back to the game:

xpaperclip engages just outside Deathfang's expo:


With a bigger army, better upgrades, and colussus being colussus, Deathfang easily wins this battle and the game

+ [Game 2 : DeathsFang (Protoss) vs xpaperclip (Terran) on Metalopolis] +

Standard 3 gate robo by DeathsFang, and a 3 rax fact from xpaperclip.

Deathsfang hides his scouting probe in the vents.. will it have any part to play in the game? Read on to find out!

Probe: I'm having a sauna get the f-ing camera off me!

xpaperclip follows up with an Engineering Bay and another Barracks ... and both players idle in their base for an eternity. Seriously, the inaction of both players led for a pretty boring early-mid game.
Both players expand... and xpaperclip somehow chooses to leave his army at the top instead of defending his expansion.


Why would you hide up there instead of defending your expo? I bet the observer was laughing too.

Deathsfang sends 3 stalkers to check out the expo, and they get some free SCV kills because of that.


Free SCVs

In the mean time, remember that hidden probe? Yes, it hasn't been spotted yet! And guess what he's been up to!


Proxy pylon! Warps in some zealots which proceed to kill some SCVs in xpaperclip's main


xpaperclip finally spots the proxy pylon (and probe) and kills them, but not until after the zealots managed to kill the SCV making this:


The Forgotten Depot - it stays unfinished the whole game actually. (got cancelled later on)

And this game instead of throwing up 21736 production facilities like the previous game, xpaperclip stayed at a modest 4 rax 2 fact 1 starport (last game he made about 8 rax) and ended up with 2000 minerals hovering I guess as Terran you should throw up a couple more production buildings especially after you have expanded. Helps to re-macro your army as well.

So both players are pretty much doing nothing until about 18 minutes in when xpaperclip pushes out to Deathsfang's 3rd while expanding to a 3rd himself, and manages to force a cancel. However...


Excellent forcefields funneled the infantry bulk in an awkward manner (looks to be forming a heart doesn't it?)

Deathsfang was quite far ahead at this point, but decides to sit back and macro. (He had 121 supply to 88)
Both players do set up the 3rd in the end, but good scouting by Deathsfang denies xpaperclip his 4th:


2 scouting Stalkers forces the cancel.
And do I take the best screenshots or what? LOL.

xpaperclip actually manages to max out much earlier, but does nothing and Deathsfang hits when he hits 200/200, but accidentally walks into a siege line


Halt! Who goes there?

Deathsfang wisely circled around and went in from the bottom instead.



Good FFs, but ... xpaperclip won with his reinforcing Marauders. I really thought Deathsfang was going to win this battle with these sick FFs, but somehow Terran keeps streaming infantry and manages to clean up the Protoss army.
(oh after checking, I realized Terran was 3attack/2armor while Protoss had 2/3 (3 armor 2 weapon) upgrades. I told you upgraded infantry was imbalanced)

After remassing an army, xpaperclip moves out towards the 3rd/4th of Deathsfang after doing some Viking/Raven harass to deny mining at the 4th.

With a better econ and much more resources banked up, paperclipx was able to re-mass a larger army (faster too) after that first big clash, and took the game after these two fights to even the series.

+ [Game 3 : DeathsFang (Protoss) vs xpaperclip (Terran) on The Shattered Temple] +

Standard 3 rax opening from xpaperclip, but Deathsfang goes for a 4gate! Finally! Variety!

Unfortunately, the hidden Probe got scouted by xpaperclip who learns from the previous game and sends a marine scouting his perimeter


Probe hunting.

Unfortunately again for Deathsfang, an SCV spots his army waiting outside xpaperclip's base for another round of warp in and quickly puts a bunker down at ramp. Deathsfang needs to push now!!


SCV - Hey guys what's u-


Deathsfang hears my agonized cry, and charged up the ramp. Unfortunately, Concussive shells was done and the zealots couldn't do much.


Bunker gets up, and the 4gate more or less gets nullified.


Deathsfang backs off and transitions into an expansion, and xpaperclip makes a slight push off an expansion. Forgets about his bunker full of units on the top of his ramp though

He sets up a contain with siege tanks, but:


xpaperclip forgets to rally his units!

PRO TIP : When moving out to attack, always rally your production facilities forward towards your army as well.

However, Deathsfang was hesitant in warping units and engaging it and unnecessarily lost some stalkers to the tanks.
But it doesnt matter, the larger marauder-heavy army, with stim and concussive, easily took out the Protoss army


xpaperclip takes the series 2-1 and moves on to the finals!

And because I couldn't be in two places at once and I'm lazy to get replays from the other semis, we're moving on the finals!


FINALS (BO3)

+ [Game 1: xpaperclip (Terran) v Dixzor (Terran) on XNC] +

Dixzor opens with the standard
9 supply
10 mindgames
11 mindgames
12 barracks

Read from the bottom - up


And Dixzor actually goes for a 1 rax hidden CC !


dangerous SCV transfer! - if xpaperclip had the watchtower he would have seen this train of SCVs.

xpaperclip goes for a 3 rax engine bay into a 4 rax fact, and at 9:25 xpaperclip's SCV FINALLY scouts the expo. Can't really blame him, it's rather unexpected to expand that way.

With the early econ lead from the hidden expo, Dixzor powers ahead with a bigger army and at 11:25 engages - WITHOUT STIM.


Stimmed infantry + tank at the back. Guess who wins?


xpaperclip wipes out Dixzor's army because of stim, and takes out Dixzor's hidden expo, getting his own expo up and running.

Dixzor seems to have forgotten entirely about stim or any other infantry upgrades, but he has a trick up his sleeve:


3 port banshees!


Despite horrible positioning and no stim, Dixzor's banshees allowed him to win this engagement.
...
and Dixzor tries to harass with his banshees, but with turrets, some vikings and marines streaming out, xpaperclip manages to handle the 6 banshees easily.

And because xpaperclip had 2 base now compared to 1 base of Dixzor, he was able to macro up a bigger army and easily hold off an all-in from Dixzor.


GG. 1-0 to xpaperclip.

+ [Game 2: xpaperclip (Terran) v Dixzor (Terran) on Shattered Temple] +

xpaperclip opens with what he has been doing all night, 3 rax fact into more rax and engine bay with mass marines at the start, while Dixzor goes for a 2 rax REAPERS


Haven't seen these since a few patches ago


Dixzor early expands off this, and controls the Watchtower while getting a 3rd rax and fact... and continues to pump reapers. xpaperclip gets scared back into a contain by the mass reapers, while Dixzor powers ahead with his 2 base


When Dixzor hid these pack of reapers with one reaper holding the centre watchtower, it become clear what his plan was. He was going to wait for xpaperclip to move out with his army, then hop into the main by the cliff with these reapers.

And indeed, that was what happened. Reapers hop into the base and clears out any remnant infantry and kills buildings and kills ALOT of SCVs. xpaperclip had a precautionary bunker at the back of his mineral lines but that didn't hold off the mass reapers.

Also didn't help that xpaperclip walked his army into a siege line while trying to defend his base

Tanks blowing up the infantry

So Dixzor takes the game soon after (50 SCVs to 9 SCVs at one point) and evens the series as I swear under my breath because I have to write on ANOTHER game lolol.


Can't get more one-sided than this

+ [Game 3: xpaperclip (Terran) vs Dixzor (Terran) on Scrap Station] +

So this game starts off with xpaperclip going for a unique mass bunker harass...


.
.
.
na who are we kidding. He does his standard 3 rax with engine bay with a Factory. Dixzor tries to hide a Factory at the back of his base but it's spotted by xpaperclip's scouting SCV.

Dixzor then got a starport and does the most devastating drop known in Starcraft 2 :


.
.
.





SCV DROPS

Ok he actually did this to confuse and distract xpaperclip so he could get his marine/hellion army up the ramp of xpaperclip.. but the marauder heavy army of xpaperclip took out Dixzor's army easily. Dixzor quickly picks up his SCVs again and returns to his base.

IMO he could have done better with a hellion drop at the SCVs, and using the main force at the ramp to be the distraction instead. Instead of doing that wonky SCV distraction he did.

xpaperclip does a nice contain while he expanded, and the two of them play some spotting wars


Who can outrange who faster?

Dixzor eventually pushed out with siege tanks and won that little contain fight (because xpaperclip again forgot to rally units forward.. need to fix that!) xpaperclip lost all his tanks in that attempted contain, falling behind in his macro abit while doing his micro in the contain.

Dixzor scans xpaperclip's base and seeing the scan, xpaperclip wisely places his army in position, anticipating a drop. His scan on Dixzor's base spotted the medivacs moving out, confirming this, so he waited.


Medivacs: WOAA COMMODORE NOT HERE!

But with some dancing around and luring xpaperclip's army away, Dixzor manages to get the full drop off and sieged up, but Dixzor is without any infantry upgrades again, and xpaperclip overwhelms the drop with stimmed marauderheavy army.


Stim for the WIN!


Dixzor once again tries a tech switch to a 3port banshee, while xpaperclip sets out a semi contain in the tunnel of this map. Banshees managed to snipe a tank but the infantry army was too much and prevented any further damage.



Dixzor was forced to engage as his main was mined out and he needed to get his 3rd up, and xpaperclip won this fight decisively.

Overproduced Medivacs imo.


Somehow xpaperclip doesn't finish the game (because of another rally point into his base instead of forward) yet... and continues to rally.

And Dixzor is up to weird shenanigans again: loaded 2 medivacs full of SCVs...
.
.

which vikings picked off before they even landed... not that they would have done anything.

At 25:30, xpaperclip finally decided to end the game:

Larger infantry army, with 198723 medivacs supporting

GG. xpaperclip wins the BSG !

xpaperclip using one build to win the whole tourney reminds me of Lithium (or Kit, on these forums) a few GPDs ago... He had a very distinct style of PvZ and I remember him just sticking to it and pretty much winning an entire tournament with it. (got matched against Zergs all the way, myself included. Knocked me out comfortably 2-0) (Lithium won the GPD for 3 consecutive weeks too) Granted, Lithium had excellent macro as well, so.. yea.

So these finalists will be back again next week for the BSG Cup! Will be exciting to cover that..(I hope) though I'll probably just do the finals if they want me to.

Liked this article? PM me to cover tournaments that are ongoing! Though I'll probably do just the finals next time, this took really long. Also, do check out my blogs in the 'Blogs' section of this website, I have an ongoing column 'Road to Masters' there. Feel free to add me up on Battle.net for a game/chat too!

Thanks for reading!

crAzerk.187