Road to Masters (2)

Day 2 of my push to Masters league!
And this was when Patch 1.3 just came out! With the infestor speed nerf :( bleah. And the Warp Gate nerf, which means more 2 gate shenanigans as you'll see later on.

1) vs Sidoney (Terran) on Typhon Peaks
This game epitomizes what Benji was complaining about in his blog post.
I opened my usual Spanishiwa style, and he walled off before I could get my drone into his base. (it's a big map -_- )
Tried to fly my OL in at 5min+ to get an idea of what he was doing, but he denied it with his small pack of marines.

So I was playing completely in the dark. Wtf is he doing? Hellion harass? Mass thor? banshees? mass infantry?
I tried to go my safest build, getting 3-4 spines and a few more queens in case of some early push, and once I hit 40 or so food I got my gas up and teched to lair as normal

My lings poked at his ramp a few times, only to see the barracks-2depot wall off, nothing much to be read from there.

Oh Terran oh Terran, thou hath so many possible tech routes that this tells nothing at all.

Then he actually pushed out with a small pack of marines, like 6-8 to clear my ling at the watchtower and outside his base. Nothing out of the ordinary, just good Terran play.

It was only until he hit my creep before I knew what it was:

The Terran march of death

OMGWTF . Marine SCV ALL IN on 4 barracks -_- Well it wasn't really all-in because he still had quite a decent number of SCVs back in base mining. And if you see my baneling nest wasn't even half done, so I knew I was majorly screwed.

I did what I could, trying to transfuse the spines and getting lings to wrap around his marines. I underestimated the number of marines he had though, it wouldn't work.

I knew the expo was gone so I pulled my lings and queens back into my main, waiting on my Baneling's nest.
However, being the great diamond league cheeser he was, he knew this trick (probably after previous cheesing experiences) and ran up my ramp to hunt down my banelings.

And even proceeded to spread his marines out to taunt me as my banelings were morphing in -_-

Sigh.

Looking back, I don't think I would have been able to hold it, with the build I went. The gas just comes in too late for banelings to come out in time... the thing is, how do I even scout it? Against any other kind of harass I'd have been fine - hellion marine.. hellions.. just ramp block and use spines/queens. But marine/scv all in seems to be a weakness of this build, especially when it hits in that small window before you get banelings out.

And you might say, 'oh, throw down more spines!' but the problem is, the SCVs will tank the damage. And the marines will go to work on my spines and queens so... :(
And this is assuming I DO manage to scout it which as mentioned before.. I did what I could to scout but couldn't get a whiff of what was coming zzz.


2) vs MOFFy (Protoss) on Metalopolis
Close spawn, meaning his probe got over waaay early. With some fancy dancing on my expo spot he managed to block it till he could afford a pylon block. I had to go pool first then, and got my hatchery as soon as he cancelled his pylon and i killed his probe.

He followed up with a 2 gate, 3 stalker+zealot harass (Stalkers chronoboosted out) , something I believe many Toss will start using after the recent patch.

Stalkers scooting around to the back to kill my drones

He transited into a 4gate from this harass, but with mass queens, spines, and lings, I managed to hold it off.

The epitome of OVERREACTING.
Note to self - you do not need 32 lings , 3 queens and 5 spines to hold off a 4gate.

He backed out and transited into an expand with +1 attack and blink, while i droned so hard that despite overproducing lings and spines I was still ahead in harvestors. I also snuck a 3rd at the gold on the other side of the map.

I scouted the Twilight Council, but wasn't sure what he was planning to do so I just got a spore at each base + overseer as a precautionary measure for DTs. And being the awesome player he is, he expanded TOWARDS me. That is really freaking annoying.

(More so for Terran since they can just slowpush from their PF there, but toss can similarly cannon push from there and more or less make you feel contained without even doing anything)

I really didn't know what to do. I couldn't engage his army at his 3rd (because I would have to fight on the ramp, and with some nice forcefields like these:

I will basically lose every fight)

I couldn't do a zergling run-by either, because he had cannons at his expo AND his main's mineral line.On hindsight, a nydus MAY have got him stumbling on the back foot, but wouldn't really power me ahead.

So anyway, he teched to colussus and killed me once thermal lance was done.

Colussus + mass blink stalkers = :(

gg


3) vs xunwuFOM (Protoss) on Shakuras Plateau
Same Spanishiwa opening, and i saw him with 1-2 sentries so I guessed he was going for an expand, so I got an early (hidden) 3rd. (When I say hidden I mean not in a conventional location that he may scout)

Then I tried some baneling/ling nydus action, but he scouted all my attempts :(

bleah

You know, I think nydus needs to be buffed. We are spending 100/100 every time we put one down, yet it takes so long to build. Compare it with medivacs/warp prisms which drop instantly. rawr.

I made the tactical mistake here of being pretty much passive while I maxxed out on a roach hydra corruptor army, as he did the same thing as well with gateway  + colussus and their favourite - DTs.

PRO TIP - Some time in the mid - late game, you should always put down a spore + 2 spines at EVERY base you have. No excuses. You should be limited by gas anyway, so you should have excess minerals lying around. INVEST in those. No excuses.
Even if he doesn't go multi-base DT harass, it's not that big a loss. As compared to when he DOES, and you have to split your army + overseers up to quickly react and usually you would have lost considerable drones before you clear his DTs.

Yea so basically he did that and stupid me didn't get those spore/spines and he left me scrambling all over. Sigh, how am I going to get into Masters with these stupid little errors.

DTs are devastating even if your opponent is stupid like this and goes for your spine crawlers instead of your drones

I also messed up an amazing baneling drop on his mineral line .. you have to see this:

WHATTT. That's like 15 probes needing just one more hit.
What happened was the stalker messed up the baneling AI and TWO banelings blew up on the stalker instead of the probes. Sigh.

But as you can see, he was already quite far ahead in probes (78>50) after his DT harass.

Yea but basically the main error was not exchanging armies with him abit, despite having slightly better econ. I denied his 3rd for awhile with a pack of lings, but when he pushed out with his big toss ball of gateway + colussus + DTs + HALLUCINATED COLUSSUS..... it was GG.

He was at 200/200 too -_-

Hi I have 10 colussus not 5. I'm going to decimate your army.

Like seriously? How imba is that? Hallucinating colussus = your corruptors are wasting time focus-firing colussus as you've no idea which is real. How do you beat this? 

But yea anyway, even without the hallu colussus he would still have won, his army totally raped mine. Didn't have an overseer nearby too -_- And his econ is 34 probes higher so... GG.


4) vs Phoenix (Terran) on Shattered Temple
Some time ago ZvT was my weakest matchup - I had no answer to marine/tanks. Now I think it is ZvP - I have no answer to a good pressuring Toss who gets his 200/200 up quickly and rolls me over.

Anyway, I felt more comfortable vsing a Terran in this game after the 2 bad toss losses.

I opened Spanishiwa build (surprise surprise) and he hid his 2 rax at his cliff which my OL AND my scouting drone spotted anyway (we were close air spawn) so... no idea why he did that.

Oh wow.. I only realized something after watching the replay.. He actually DOUBLE expanded to the 'island' expo ! wtf! Well I had 15 harvestors more than him and never quite lost the harvestor lead but still..

Anyway my OL scouted 3-4 rax so I got some early lings/blings before getting my infestation pit. Was afraid of some kind of early infantry push

Shifting spines to a forward defensive position to defend my gold expo too.

Hmm this guy is a Masters Terran and he doesnt constantly make SCVs! So bad.

I cleared out his pack of marines at the XN Watchtower, so decided to push in with my bling/slings army which I kinda overproduced. Crushed his defenses, and managed to kill quite a handful of SCVs before he cleaned out my forces.

I followed up with another attack which cleared his expo, but he had a 3rd and 4th CC at the bottom right of the map . I was ahead by 30 harvestors and felt really comfortable, So i just kept expanding and teching to t3
(He had a siege line in his base so I didn't want to throw away too much army in an overanxious bid to end the game)

I did some burrowed infestor harass:

Fungal + 3 Infested Terran ftw

 Then he started doing some multi prong medivac drops that really messed up my econ abit, but I had ultras coming out already

If I had unlimited gas, I would just mass infestors +ultras. That's all you need - fungal, Neural, ultra swarmmm.

Ok at this point I'm not quite sure why I didn't win. 184 to 113 supply, I cleared his 3rd and 4th expo with mass lings, ultras, infestor.

Ok I know why now.

I kept trying to brute force up his ramp, with fungal + ultralisks. However, with 192387 medivacs healing up the mairnes and marines being constantly streamed out of his barracks (11 at a time) with 3/3 upgrades.. I lost waaay more than I should have.

And to make things worse, I had tech switched to Broodlords but forgot to get infestors/blings support, and his mass marines (yes terran can win with just one unit) cleared out my BLs -_-

Yes so despite having like double his harvestors, he was able to overcome my army and i was actually down on supply for the first time in the game!! I was genuinely worried when he pushed towards my base with mass marines + medivacs and I frantically produced infestors and blings

Picture perfect. BANELINGS BANELINGS BANELINGS OOHHH

Ok the game dragged on for quite abit because he kept massing marines and 3/3 marines are freaking sick and cost efficient. I eventually managed to win , and the total game length was 40 mins -_-

NOTE TO SELF - Just pump infestors if a terran masses marines next time.

Ok, it's lunch break!


4) vs icantrememberhisnameidontcare (no this wasn't his nick)
... Starcraft crashed within the first 2 minutes of the game. Awesome. Great start after lunch yo.
Great streak today, 1 win out of 5 games.

5) vs LmBenz (Zerg) on Metalopolis
Both of us opened 15 hatch, and i decided to go mass lings /blings to early bum rush him.

speedling warz!

Unfortunately he had the same idea (didn't make drones too) and we played speedling/baneling see-who-makes-the-first-mistake game for awhile.
He was no pushover, and none of us made any significant mistakes (like lose a ton of lings to a single baneling)

AND I MADE THE STUPID MISTAKE HERE of not transiting into roach baneling! Which easily beats ling/bling. And... basically he did that. Transition smoothly into roaches while I was still pumping ling/bling

And I made ANOTHER dumb mistake:

Blew up about 3-4 banelings on the queen -_- While microing my lings to run by. He had like 7-8 drones at the expo, if I had got there would hae been able to kill like at least 5-6 of them?

And I realized he basically out macroed me. He massed a round of drones and he was 10+ drones ahead of me the whole time. :(

Then I caught up on macro, but his early lead meant he had shit loads of resources saved up. I tried to get infestors a bit too early, and he had a slight upgrade lead on me too. He engaged just before I could get a critical mass of roach/infestor up and he had +2 attack when mine was almost done, and he kept streaming roaches from there and crushed me :(


6) vs Dom (Protoss) on Typhon Peaks
As usual, 13 hatch 15 pool while he rushed DTs! I stole his gas and kept cancelling on it though, so it slowed down his DT rush alot. He expanded while his Dark Shrine was making, and he made the mistake of letting my lings run up his ramp and scouting his shrine.

I responded with an evo chamber with spores and spines... and he actually got an early 3rd!! Ugh.

I went for a baneling double mineral line drop, with the intention of transiting into roach corruptor after that.

Probes running from one OL drop!

But of course, he missed the second one as it always is

BOOM

Unfortunately, with his THREE nexus pumping out probes, he was STILL ahead even after this drop! Damn.

He got an early 4th too, and was really on top of his probe production >< DAmn.

In our first clash, we were both maxxed out, he had gateway + blink stalkers + colussus + High Templars. Yes, that's what having 4 bases of gas lets you produce

Mass corruptors made short work of his colussus, but my ground army wasn't enough, but i kept rallying roaches so he had to back

He wisely transitioned into mass immortals, which easily dominated my roaches.

AND the turning point of the game - he used DTs to more or less deny my 4th, and I never got about to establishing it.

I transitioned into broodlords which stopped his push which almost killed me, but my lack of a 4th while he had a 6th (yes he mass expanded and spammed cannons at those bases.. how to break huh) cost me the game ::(

Protoss death ball designed to own roaches

He took out my 3rd base before running away from my broodlords! :(

So yea with his DTs denying a 4th, and my 3rd gone.. he could remacro up his mass stalker army which made short work of my broodlords :( GG

6) vs iMed (Zerg) on Typhon Peaks
I opened with 15 hatch and he went pool first into a hatch, with decent pressure from a pack of 15 speedlings or so. Then... he transitioned into roaches and basically pumped roaches while I made roach baneling..

I'm not quite sure what happened this game I think his speedlings made me edgy and I didn't drone up as much as I should have. He made a big bunch of roaches (hidden) and then suddenly moved out. He didn't tech lair while I did, and I guess that's what let him make more roaches?

I'm really not quite sure why i lost. Didn't drone hard at  the right time I guess.. :( He hit with more roaches at the small window before I could get units, and while pushing out he massed drones and was 10 drones ahead.
LOST


BAD LOSING STREAK. :( Stopped playing after this... 1 win out of 6 games! :(

Road to Masters (1)

Exams are over, so it means it's time.play Starcraft 2 and push for Masters League.

This series of blog entries will follow my journey from May 9th 2011 until I hit Masters or until I die from playing lol. I will just give summaries of my games and my thoughts on each game.

1) vs FrOstar (Terran) on Backwater Gulch
Some bad-mannered Masters dude who started off with 'hey noob' and 'ready to get smashed?'
Just mind games so I just shrug it off with self-deprecating comments like 'sure smash me hard' or something.

I opened with Spanishiwa's 13 hatch 15 pool as usual, and held off his bunker harass easily with only about 1-2 drone casualties

SCV on bunker blows up, drones going for marines

He then poked at me with a pack of marines + hellions but my 3 queens + spines held it off fairly well.

Then came the surprise - He did a Thor drop in my main - which did pretty much shit loads of damage killing more than 10+ drones and a few queens..

Thor dominates my mineral line :(

NOTE TO SELF - Queens fail against thors. wtf it took out a queen in like 6 hits or less.
ANOTHER NOTE TO SELF - To handle Thor drops, just put a freaking spine crawler and maybe a spore in mineral line.

After this harass it was pretty much over. He was so far ahead in harvestors and army. When his siege tech was done, he moved out with 2 Thors, some tanks and a bunch of marines and began his slow push.

Terran slow push is probably the most stupid and imba thing in the game

Left the game after he constantly reinforced with more mech and marines.


2) vs Hilakpopcorn (Masters Zerg) on XNC
I opened my standard 15 hatch 15 pool while he went for a 14 gas 14 pool.
He pressured quickly with slings while I rushed roaches after my initial 4 lings.I saw that he had many lings so I got a Baneling nest as well

Then came my stupid move of the game that cost me the game -  I decided to push out with all my roach/banelings, and when I saw his lings runnign to my base, I didn't bother to run back and decided to baserace.

Two reasons why this won't work - 1) I had not enough banelings on defence, and didn't put a spine in my mineral line (If i had these 2 instant win for me)
2) He actually had quite a bit of resources banked up and had just got a roach warren.

So yea basically I killed all his drones and he killed all my drones and our armies ended up with me having nothing and he had 5 roaches + a whole bunch of lings. I had to gg out.

I had 1 baneling left! Wonder if I would still win... -_-

Had this game so easily... sigh threw it away.


3) vs Hilakpopcorn on XNC
yes same dude again. I kinda like how the matchmaking system sometimes does this.. It makes it like a Bo3 or something haha.
Exact same builds from both of us.
Once again, my roaches popped before he could do much damage with his sling/bling initial poke

Got too anxious to end the game again and engaged at a bad spot, losing all my roaches

Don't get cornered

Then I made another stupid mistake - I proceeded to drone up about 6-7 drones while he kept pumping roaches.
NOTE TO SELF - Put down 2 spine crawlers to defend against a push if you want to drone up

Because I DIDN'T, he hit me quickly and simply had more roaches than me. gg.

4) vs Tobzino (Terran) on XNC
As always, opened with Spanisihiwa build, and he went for a 2rax opener.  I really laugh at 2 rax openers nowadays.. I don't know why Terran still bother to go for it, most Zergs know how to hold it already. (e.g. dont let Bunker go up, etc)

So his initial poke failed, and he got a CC during the time. My sacrificial Overlord revealed his 3 rax, so I quickly put up a baneling nest and got a bunch of lings.

He decided to do a timing push when his stim + combat shields was done, but marine/marauder is really laughable nowadays, all you have to do is wait for them to come on creep and do the simple ling-surround-baneling-rape trick that all decent Zergs should know:

Step 1 - Banelings move in first, then slings (because slings move faster)

Step 2 - Run AROUND the infantry ball, don't even bother attacking with slings yet. Blings should be on move command towards infantry

Step 3 - Once you got a good surround like this, you can Attack command your slings, as well as move your blings in.

Step 4: BOOM

So I cleaned out his entire army with plenty leftover, so I just counterattacked hard with mass slings/blings and eventually won the game. gg


5) vs BossDaddy (Terran) on Shattered Temple
It was close spawn, and I saw he didn't use his barracks to wall off. I stupidly thought I could roach bust this easily and went for a roach rush (without expand).
I should've gone sling/bling, I think would have been instant win.

Anyway, he pushed with 3 scvs and some marines and realized there was no expo so backed off abit. Then i stupidly left some roaches at my ramp so he ran up and saw it, then immediately walled off his ramp with supply depot +bunker.

No way I could get in now.

Retreating roaches :(

I did what I had to do - pump drones and expand quickly, get some spines for defence. I would have held pretty decently had he not gone this unexpected route:

WTF 3 PORT BANSHEE

Talk about a good tech switch.

So yea this caught me totally offguard and despite my valiant efforts at queen micro and frantic spore crawler throwing down... I couldn't hold off the banshees. gg


6) vs Narsue (Protoss) on Metalopolis
This guy is actually my online friend so we exchanged some greetings at the start. He knew I always did Spanishiwa build, and it was close spawn, so he opened with 2 rax to try to do some pressure.
I held it off fairly easily with lings and a spine.

I quickly put up a few more spines and his 4 gate followup from that.. well he didn't even try he just backed off after seeing my spines defence. (my sac OL spotted his 4gate)

When you see so many spines, you should back out.

He expanded after that, and I was going for baneling bombs (OL speed + drop) .
Once I had a sizeable ling/bling army, i engaged him while doing simultaneous bling drops on his mineral lines. This move is SO devastating, just that you must have the right follow up.

For me I always expand before pushing, and transit quickly into roach hydra. This close spawn made expanding to a 3rd more difficult :S
Then I also kinda messed up the engagement, with my ground forces moving in ahead of my bling bombs

Dropping bling bombs on him while he spams FF to try to trap my blings

This is VERY bad because the idea is that blings will rape the sentries and weaken the units, and lings will finish them up. Doing it the other way round just doesn't work.

My mineral line bomb did SO much damage - I was ahead by 10++ harvestors. He counterattacked but my roaches were out already and with my spines and queens I could hold it off.

He came again when he had 3-4 colussus, and toss being toss, with well placed FFs he won that fight even though I had a bigger army of roach/hydra.

Zapped to oblivion :(

He spotted my 3rd and instead of kiling me he pulled back to kill it off at the same time grabbing his 3rd. I used an OL to drop some drones off at the base next to mine instead to hide an expansion there.

He made another push when Thermal Lance was done, and I'm really not quite sure how I held it

Basically roach+ queens spamming transfuse, and bling bombs dropped on top of his army

THEN the deciding moment of the game - I actually cleared his army with plenty of roaches left over. BUT. I . DIDN'T. PUSH.

If I had pushed there and then, I would have won the game. He had virtually no army. But because I didn't, and he had a 3rd base earlier than me, he quickly macroed up an army and pulled even with me. Then he made another final push with a tech switch to mass immortals and killed my roach/corruptor army easily and won :(

BAD DECISION NOT TO PUSH THEN UGH. Threw the game away yet again sigh.
I don't mind losing to a more skilled player who outplayed me, but losing because I failed to seize the opportunity to win like this just makes me SAD.

Took a break after this depressing game for lunch, then went on to ladder more.


7) vs Supertofu (Zerg) on Backwater Gulch
Both of us went 15 hatch 15 pool, and when I scouted it I decided to put on some ling pressure.
Once I scouted that he was making lings (seeing 8 or more) I immediately threw down a baneling nest.
(if you see very little lings, he's probably going roach warren. Scout his base with lings to be sure)

In fact, he WAS going roaches, but I had already committed with alot of lings. So i quickly made the push with speedlings. He was caught offguard - in fact, he was supply blocked hence he couldnt get his wave of roaches out in time.

Swarmed :D

I killled a shit ton of drones before he made enough lings to counter my lings (yea dunno why he didn't pump out a round of roaches)
But yea with his lowered worker count, I just kept streaming slings in, and with blings i easily handled his own slings. GG pretty soon after.


8) vs Supertofu (Zerg) on XNC
Yes, again. :) I love these repeat games. Seeing that he went 15 hatch the previous game, I took a gamble and  went for the build order win against 15 hatch - the 10 pool.
There is really no way to hold it off assuming the aggressor knows what he's doing.
yea so basically rush zerglings to his base and put down 2 spine crawlers spread out. He can pull drones but your zerglings can just poke at them and kite them. Your spines will finish before he manages to get his own out, and your lings should have already raped his drones.

Easily won in about 5 minutes.


9) vs Terran (Terran) on XNC
Rofl right at the start of the game I started trash talking him about his nick haha.
me: "Hey that's an original nick"
"Who would've thought of that!"
"I should probably leave now since clearly you dominate me in creativity"
"I mean .. wow"
"The name is genius!"

hahaha.

So anyway, I spotted a gas opener from him and stole his other gas, and i opened with my spanishiwa style which I think he scouted.
He gets a hellion or two with some marines and a medivac or two and I thought he was trying to drop into my main, so I brought my 3 queens over and pumped out a wave of lings to deal with it.

No coming in noobiesss

Little did I know.. he was actually... going for..

.
.
.

BATTLECRUISER RUSH WTF!?

Lucky for me, I had like 4 queens out already so with transfuse I was able to hold off the BC

But he knew with my build I didn't really have map control, so he actually double expanded at his natural and the gold >< Ouch. Before i even got my own 3rd (not at the gold)

I was going for my usual mix - sling/bling/infestors against his marine + tanks + some hellions + 1 BC -_-

Because he got the gold so early, he was exploding with minerals and couldn't spend them. He threw down his 3rd-6th rax too late and was stuck with alot of minerals.

I couldn't do any infestor harass on his mineral line because he had turrets up with tanks nearby :S  So I just massed up an army as quickly as I could, at the same time grabbing my gold (4th base) asap too.
When I was close to max supply I tried to trade armies with him in a pincer attack which failed horribly because he moved down to the right side of the centre gap in XNC and my timing was off.

One group attacking into buildings -_-

Another group with 0 micro :S FULL ENERGY INFESTORS. zomg. If I had just fungaled and Neural Parasite the 2 Thors I wouldve had this clash easily  (Yes i had NP researched)
But I basically just moved my infestors in and let him kill it because I was trying to micro the left side army

He made a quick counterattack but my macro was on top of it - i had infestors and lings ready to handle his army. This time, I remembered to use Neural ;p

Neural Parasite ftw. 

After this clash, my hive was done so I got an ultra cavern and got ultras out with some infestors + lings.
With ultras, you can just auto-attack into the terran army haha. Well, infestors to fungal growth the infantry is important too.

Swarrrmmmmm

It didn't kill him though, because he had alot of marines and tanks and thors streaming out. And yes that 1 BC is still alive. At this point I went for a tech switch to broodlords, while taking my 5th base, and using lings to deny/delay his 4th base

I love how scary Broodlords look. RAWRR

He had just got only 2 vikings out, and my ground army with my broodlord's help managed to exchange off with his army.

Carnage!

After this clash, he actually prematurely GGed and left the game.

He still had quite abit of marines, and a BC + 2 vikings to deal with my leftover 5 Broodlords. However, I did have 6 corruptors coming out , along with my 2 idle corruptors and 2 ultralisks at the watchtower, so I suppose I would still have won eventually.

Good, long, game!


10) vs Dellward (Zerg) on Shattered Temple
I opened 15 hatch to his 15 gas 14 pool, it was close position.
He actually went roach warren immediately after his pool (my drone was there scouting it), and teched to lair after getting just 3 roaches while I had pumped out 7. I tried to pressure abit but he saw me coming and got out some roaches. I spotted his lair and was worried about mutas so I threw down an evo chamber and got a few spores.

It was unwarranted though, because he was merely getting burrow + roach speed.

Because he was on one base this whole time, naturally my econ was stronger and I pumped out roaches quickly. He tried to do some Contaminate shenanigans though, luckily for me I still managed to pump out enough roaches to deal with his roach push

rawr

He kept up the roach pressure for a while, but because I was on 2 base (and 10 drones ahead), I could easily crank out more roaches than him. So I made a follow up counterattack when he pulled back when he realized he had fewer roaches. I just kept streaming roaches in.

Contaminated him as well. As you can see on the Production tab, my +1 was done too. He didn't have any upgrades.

Kept streamign roaches, and he eventually GG out.


11) vs Air (Zerg) on XNC
I open 15 hatch as usual. He also tried to, but I got a minivictory here by blocking his expo with my drone

Drone wars!

This just resulted in him putting a pool down first, then a hatchery immediately after, not much difference.

Again, I decided to go for ling pressure and pumped lings, and seeing he had quite a few lings of his own, I put down a Baneling nest.
Unknown to me, after his first 10 or so lings, he got out a roach warren. And he wasn't bad enough to get supply blocked like the previous zerg i faced, so he pumped his wave of 6 roaches out quickly.

At this point, I made a TERRIBLE engagement.

This was our units at our engagement

His roaches were popping out as my lings engaged his lings head on WITHOUT my banelings (they were slowly running over..) BIG mistake. This probably cost me the game.
If I had just waited on the blings, and the 4 blings killed his 12 lings, 25 lings will easily take out 4 roaches.

Sigh, potentially game winning clash. Anyway, he won that fight because of his roaches that came out, by the time my blings came there was not many lings left to blow up on so they blew up on roaches/lings.

I threw up a RoachWarren in response but it was too late. He rushed with roaches and lings and I ranby to clear his drones. It was not enough though, as his roaches cleaned up my base and his mass of lings killed everything.
 lost :(


12) vs papasoftee (Zerg) on Shattered Temple
I don't know how he guessed it, but he opened 10 pool against my 15 hatch. As mentioned earlier, it's a build order loss, even though I cancelled my hatch and managed to defend his early push. He expanded himself and contained me with lings, and eventually won with more army.

13) vs BIGGUN (Zerg) on Typhon Peaks
I 15 hatched again and he went for a standard 13 pool or something. Didn't matter, he went roaches but I rushed roaches as well, and i held off his early pokes. He expanded then, but I had the econ lead already and never let go of it.

The game did drag on to a rather long game of about 20 minutes, but I won eventually with a better econ in a roach/infestor vs roach/infestor fight.

That's a wrap! My record today was 6/13.. ouch that's bad. Oh well, in my last 10 games it is 6/10. And I WAS on a 3-game win streak before I started today.

Gonna try to play more later at night, and tomorrow! Hope I hit Masters soon!