[LennX]

SEACL Semi Finals Recap

The SEACL semifinals kicked off with a clash of two of the top SEA clans, TA and nGen!
In this recap LennX and crAzerk go through the stand out match of each series!

+ [Match of the Series - nGen vs TA by crAzerk] +

nGenJazBaz (Zerg) vs TARossi (Terran)
Jazbaz has consistently remained in the top tier of the GM league, while Rossi is no pushover either, a top GM Terran and regarded as a fearful opponent to meet in tournaments
These two duke it out on GSL GSTL Terminus SE:


Jazbaz opened up with a 15 hatch, while Rossi went with a gas opening instead of a 2 Rax pressure, both logical decisions given this map is pretty big, and the rush distance is long, especially in cross spawns like these.

Rossi opens with 2 Reapers to scout/harass while expanding at the same time.

Apart from sniping a Creep Tumor, Rossi was rather passive with his Reapers, choosing to just control the watchtowers while macroing up.
This allowed Jazbaz to get an early 2nd expansion (to be on 3 bases) which is quite easy to do on this map, given how close the 3 bases are.
Both players chose to move out with a small force to do some scouting, but Jazbaz wasn't paying attention this zerglings!

Lost about 8 lings here! ;(

Apart from this, both players seem content sitting back and playing the macro game.

At about 10:00, Rossi moved out for a stim timing push with a pack of marines and a lone marauder.

Jazbaz, however, was well-prepared for this, and his Roach/ling/bling forced Rossi to load up his infantry and back out of the sure-lose engagement.

Rossi tried some fancy drop play around Jazbaz's 3rd but couldn't do much damage and had to back out. Following this, Jazbaz massed up a big ball of lings/blings and decided to attempt to bust Rossi!



Jazbaz didn't have the best of baneling micro in this engagement, and accidentally blew up most of them on tanks, leaving only his Zerg remains over the Terran base.

Rossi's superb macro (I was watching the production tab, I don't think he ever stopped making SCVs for the first 10-12 minutes of the game, resulting in him being ahead of Jazbaz in SCVs for quite a while)allowed him to mass up a solid ball of MMM with tanks despite losing quite a few marines in that bling bust, and he goes for yet another timing push when his 1/1 infantry upgrades were done.




Kiting banelings into tank line!


Rossi using the terrain to his advantage


Banelings hit their mark this time, cleaning up the infantry ball as well as tanks.

Jazbaz followed this up with some multi prong muta-ling attacks, but couldn't do much apart from killing 1-2 addons, with Rossi splitting up his army perfectly. Both players settle back into macromode again, with Rossi grabbing 2 bases while Jazbaz establishes his 5th.
Jazbaz maxxes out first on muta/bling/ling (25 mutas to be exact) while Rossi had a huge marine ball with tanks and a Thor as well for good measure.

They engaged at Rossi's 5th, and with Jazbaz hitting Hive tech, it looks like he should be able to remax quickly after the clash with some Tier 3.. ........ but wait, he has no Tier 3 buildings.
As for the engagement...






BAD MISCLICK WTF.
My little Zerg heart skipped a beat when I saw this


Not sure what made Jazbaz do this - he basically decided to sac his banelings and lings onto that CC that just landed there, and flew his entire flock of mutas into 129837123 marines.



Oh wait ok I know why.


He GGs out immediately after.

+ [Thoughts about the game] +

The game went fairly evenly throughout, heavy macro game from both players apart from that attempted bling bust and the timing pushes from Terran, which are standard. Rossi's macro was superb this game though, and that allowed him to keep up with Jazbaz's economy.
It was rather unfortunate that Jazbaz threw that final battle because of lag, but to be honest, I would think Rossi would have came out on top that battle with decent control from both players, and Jazbaz would have needed to remax with some Tier 3 units. However, he did not have any T3 tech besides his Hive, so reinforcing ling/bling probably wouldn't have been able to stop the advance of the Terran army.

In case you were wondering, the series didn't have any particularly interesting match (many ZvZs) so I just took a random game to write up on. I assume most people are bored of ZvZs or dislike it, so i chose this one.

+ [nGen/TA results] +

nGen vs TA
nGenLight > TAdeth (nGen 1:0 TA)
nGenLight < TARossi (nGen 1:1 TA)
nGenJazBas < TARossi (nGen 1:2 TA)
nGenMaster > TARossi (nGen 2:2 TA)
nGenMaster > TASanchez (nGen 3:2 TA)
nGenMaster < TAEdge (nGen 3:3 TA)
Pringles < TAEdge (nGen 3:4 TA) !

TA wins 4-3 in a nailbitingly close series! They move on to the finals to face the winner of aLt vs inFi!

+ [Match of the Series - aLt vs inFi by LennX] +

This is a TvZ of YoonYJ versing Revenant @ Shakuras Plateau.


We start off with YoonYJ at top right and Revenant at bottom left. Revenant goes for 15 hatch, 14 pool while YYJ decides on a reactor Hellion pressure while expanding. With his hellions, YYJ manages to secure map control as Revenant threw up 2 spine crawlers in response to the hellions. Having got his natural expansion up and mining, YYJ was happy to sit back and wait for a siege/marine timing attack. Meanwhile, Revenant got rid of the hellions just outside his natural and decides to get a spire leaving only a small speedling army to defend himself.

Getting rid of Hellions never seemed so easy

The tanks/marine timing hit while Revenant's spire was about 60% done and +1meele attack was only 1/3 done. An excellent scan from YYJ took out 4 creep tumors and forces more lings to be made. Both spine crawlers were uprooted and placed into a better spot. YYJ poked up the ramp with his ball of marines but he was denied by the excellent defensive work of Revenant. Having got a surround of YYJ marines, the sieged tanks friendly fire cleared both the marines and lings. Both side were busy building more offensive units. Revenant with 3 more spine crawlers and 12 lings morphing in while YYJ was rallying in more marines and tank.

The 2nd battle started with 2 queens dieing after getting a transfuse off on a spine crawler. 2 other spine crawlers were uprooted and placed on a high ground managing to snipe off 2 tanks. Waves after waves of marines were streaming into Revenant natural clearing off any Zerg biological lifeforms that came within range of their guass rifles. Even a mule was dropped to repair tanks that were low on hp. Deciding that speedlings weren't the answer to sieged up tanks, Revenant goes for a tech switch into 7 mutalisks. Revenant also has no army at all while his mutalisks force were morphing in and this caused him to lose his evo chamber with +1meele attack almost done.

2 tanks for the price of an Evo Chamber

YYJ decides to back off after seeing mutalisks and he goes to the 10oclock natural in search of a potential Revenant 3rd. Just as YYJ saw no 3rd from Revenat and backs off, Revenants sneaks a drone there and build a 3rd! YYJ then sieges right beside Revenat ramp. Revenant decides to counter and go for YYJ base hoping that YYJ will either turn back or forces a base trade scenario. Noticing the muta/ling runby,
YYJ stimmed his marines up the ramp, taking out both the hatcheries in the natural. Revenant also took out YYJ natural and rushes to YYJ main. It was now a full blown base trade scenario. Revenant unscouted 3rd base was looking more valuable as the base trades continues.

+1 air weapons completed for Revenant just as YYJ army marches up to the zerg main and begun wrecking havoc. However, the muta/ling army weren't have such much fun. The lings ran into YYJ minerals and promptly got surrounded by scvs and marines who were rallied behind the mineral line. The lings didn't stand a chance. With 6 mutas left in YYJ base, Revenant was forced to back off and try to defend his 3rd, now his only remaining base left. At this point, YYJ had almost triple of Revenat supply. The base trade scenario was not looking as good as it was for Revenant now.

After clearing Revenant main, YYJ wisely remained there lest he got ambushed by the Zerg army when he was un-sieged. This prevented Revenant from clearly YYJ's army with his mutas/baneling force that were morphed just before the baneling nest went down. Hoping to sneak his drones to his last remaining base, the drone transfer was spotted by a heroic marine who just stimmed and ran to the ramp. His life was the payment for the drone transfer information.

YYJ decides to un-siege his army at Revenant former main and make a dash for freedom after re-securing his natural and macroing up a decent army size again. The un-sieging of the tanks was spotted and the Zerg army closed in. It was a bloodbath. Whatever creep that was left was of no help to the un-upgraded banelings as the stimmed marines out ran them. But all the tanks were cleaned up by the mutas and a solo queen.

Marines: We are Flash.

Revenat is now playing in the dark and is verr being in harvester and army count. He threw up spines crawlers in his new base and sent his remaining muta force for a scouting run. Having spotted YYJ new army marching towards his base, Revenant taps out.

aLt is now 2-0 up in the series.

+ [aLt/inFi results] +

Match 2: aLt beats inFi 4-1
inFi vs / aLt

YoonYJ > inFiTargA
YoonYJ > inF
YoonYJ > GGMuse
YoonYJ < NeoRedArchon (By Forfeit)
aLtJimdiddy> NeoRedArchon

TA VS aLt for the champsionship this Sunday.