ESL

The ESL Go4SC2 SEA Cup #1 was the first of hopefully a looong series of tournaments and with a prize pool of $75, you can bet it attracted the top players from SEA!


Anyway, I spotted mOOnGLaDe in the brackets so I dropped him a PM to follow him through his games, but I'll only do a full write-up (with fancy pictures) for the semifinals/finals! Let's go.


OH wait wait, before we start,

I must say Glade is a pretty good mannered person? I just PMed him (he was on FXO account which is only Masters so yay I can PM him ) (You can't PM GMs) to ask if I could follow his games cos I will be writing up on finals, and he said sure and invited me along for all the games without me reminding! You would think someone like him, being a big time top player and all, would not bother with random people like me ha. 


EDIT: And he forgets about me in Finals Game 1... LOL. Spoke too soon. 

SEMIFinals

Game 1 - FXOmOOnGLaDe vs cArn on XNC

Carn knocked out some strong players like Rossi and Jump on  his way to the semis, and now his biggest challenge would be MOONGLADE. How will he fare? 

Apparently Carn and Glade trained alot when they were in Korea, so they must be quite familiar with each other's styles.

Glade tries to take a 14 hatch, but carn shows some nice SCV movement queuing:

He actually manages to delay Glade's expo till 16 supply! And Glade was floating 400 minerals before finally managing to put it down too

Glade sneaks a Drone into Carn's base and tries to gas steal, but Carn blocks this attempt quickly with a Refinery (Which he canceled after he killed the Drone)

As Glade drones up, cArn moves out with a small marine force to try to do some damage.

Forces a cancel on a Spine, and kills 2 lings and a drone, before the 2 Queens of Glade clears it up

In the meantime, cArn himself was making a fast expansion, and gets 2 Factories to back it up with. With a TechLab and Reactor on each, it looked like it was going to be blue flame Hellions!

Glade sacs an OL from the top and sees everything, and puts down a Roach Warren in response.

Once 8 Hellions were out, carn moved out with his Blue Flame Hellions, and tries to be sneaky by splitting up his Hellions - 3 moving in from the front and 5 from the tunnel entrance to the right!

Unfortunately for him, Glade had his defence perfectly planned out:

Queen blocks ramp, with perfectly placed Spines

While Roaches form a wall at the back! Glade knew this was coming thanks to his well-placed Overlord at his 3rd!

Carn ran all his Hellions in though, which was cleaned up by Glade after they killed some Drones. 

Carn killed 12 Drones in this harass, losing all 7/8 Hellions.. not a very good exchange for him.

Glade was droning up so heavily - he was 15 drones ahead in a few minutes, and while Lair was done he started +1 attack, roach speed, OL Speed /drop all together, with a Baneling Nest.

Carn, on the other hand, was making Thors and Hellions - with his Hellions being very mobile and scouting around the map for Glade's 3rd - which Glade actually hid on the left side! Carn only found this after it was done, and he couldn't take it down before Glades' Roaches came to push him away.

After making a round of 19 Drones at once, Glade then tries something fancy - 

Roach Drop!

Glade probably decided to do this as he saw that Carn was going mech, which is fairly immobile. Carn did get back in time though, and Glade quickly ferries his roaches out without any losses, but without doing any damage either (almost kills a Factory!)

When cArn moved his army to clear his gold rocks, Glade drops his roaches into the base of cArn once again  - and Carn decides not to defend it! BASE TRADE!
 

March of the Mech.


And this little decision here by Glade was rather smart :
He had a sizable group of roaches in his base when Carn reached it , apart from the dropped Roaches:

However, after one volley from the Roaches, Glade actually decides to pull all these roaches away to join his roaches at Carn's base!

Now remember, Roaches will probably not win a base race against Terran for simple logical reasons - Buildings can lift off, and roaches can't shoot air
However, Glade has a 3rd base fully mining all this time, so he constantly rallies Roaches to join his big roach ball, while Carn has absolutely no more mining and production while Glade clears up his buildings.


This mean that while Carn's mech army is big and scary, it was static in size, while Glade's Roach count was growing.!
When Carn finally hit Glade's 3rd base, the roach count was at 65  Vs 5 Thors, 5 Hellions and 6 Tanks. Even though he should win in a straight up battle, Glade pulls one more trick out of his bag - I'll let the pictures tell the story:

[spoiler=Thoughts about the game]
Glade's superior macro this game won him the game - his army was just so much bigger, and I think even without the drops, his roach army should still have beat the mech heavy army of Carn. Glade handled the Hellion harasses perfectly, macroed well, and just showed his mettle as a solid macro player (on top of his WC3 micro skillz)[/spoiler]


Game 2 - FXOmOOnGLaDe vs cArn on Tal'Darim Altar

Terrans seem to be picking this map alot against Zergs, probably due to the fact you can abuse that cliff at the natural quite easily with a siege line.


Carn goes for the exact same play, 1 Rax FE with BLue Flame Hellions. Glade goes the Baneling route this time - a pretty much blind response as Carn denies the sac OL scout with his well-placed Marines.

Carn's blue flame Hellions meets the roadblock of 3 Spines and2 queens - In my opinion he should have just ran these straight into Glade's Main, would probably have killed all the Drones there as Glade didn't have any units to defend these!

He instead chose to back out with the Hellions which continue roaming the map scouting for expansions -but somehow miss Glade's hidden 3rd :

Glade gets only Lings at this point as he techs to a Spire, and Carn swoops in with his Hellions onto Glade's 'natural 3rd' (the 3rd base on Glade's quadrant of the map) and starts picking at the Hatchery. With some good micro, the Hellions cleared all the lings that Glade threw at Carn, and ALMOST sniped the Hatchery, if not for:

11 Mutas popping just in time! 45 HP on the Hatch btw.

After running his hellions out, he makes a sneaky dart around and shoots the Hatchery down to 6 HP!!! Before a clutch Transfuse by Glade saves it, and the mutas takes out the Hellions.


However, all this while Carn has been staying on top of his macro, and makes a push immediately with a scary looking army of 2 Thors, 2 tanks, some hellions, and mainly marine/marauder

Glade had virtually nothing besides his Mutas, which he used to magic box and kill the 2 Thors.

As he lost all his lings earlier, he had nothing to make Banelings with, so Carn gladly took out Glade's natural expo and natural 3rd Hatcheries!
However, he was overeager and pushed further into Glade's base, but his over-stimmed marines fell easily to the Mutas, and Glade could easily clean up the marauders and tanks leftover.


Lucky for Glade, he still had his hidden 3rd expansion, (I guess it's not a 3rd now) so he wasn't out of the game just yet. As cArn takes his own 3rd expansion with a sizeable SCV lead..

Glade STRIKES with his giant flock of Mutas, and kills A LOT of SCVs.

Glade followed this up with a round of Drones, and he ended up 10+ Drones ahead!


However, Carn now moves out when his +2 infantry weapons were finished to make a strong timing push.

Banelings roll in - but Carn has such a big mech backbone behind too.


With some brilliant marine splits, Carn totally shuts down the baneling attack, and his thors with marines push off the Mutas. Glade seems to be in trouble now, with 6 Thors bearing down on him and he had nothing but Mutas

sorry about the chat in the past 2 screenshots lol. A friend asking for a game and just chatting with him

Anyway, Carn wisely pushes in before Glade has time to morph any banelings, and the marines engage the mutas and clear most of them. Glade is forced to throw banelings into the Thors in a desperate bid to take them out.
Glade constantly rallied lings in, and eventually managed to take out those Thors, but not after they cleared Glade's entire main base, including all his tech buildings! 


Glade desperately tried to macro up an army again, and gets an Infestation Pit. cArn never takes the foot off the pedal, as he pushes out yet again with a big marine/Thor ball.
Glade has to engage with his ling/bling army

But there was simply too much from cArn. Glade GGs out

[spoiler=Thoughts about the game]

The recent Zerg metagame shift has seen many Zergs begin to use roach/infestors more against Terran, but Glade seems to be against Infestors for some reason. The Mutalisks DID do a good job of harass and all, but I just feel that with Infestors, the marine splits and Thors wouldn't have been that successful (Assuming good Fungals and NP going off well) 

Carn played a solid macro game and powered through Glade this game with his strong pushes, and together with his good marine control, these won him the game.[/spoiler]

Game 3 - FXOmOOnGLaDe vs cArn on Metalopolis

If I'm not wrong, cArn was the first person to take a game off Glade in this tournament. I didn't catch Glade's first 3 rounds though, but assuming they were BO1, it has to be the case.


Glade must be feeling rather annoyed this game, after losing a game previously and getting close spawn! 
The problem with close spawn is it becomes harder to get a 3rd as Zerg - You have to hide it at the Gold on the opposite side which means it's quite vulnerable to a Terran harass (e.g. drops)


Anyway, cArn does the exact same 1 rax - CC - 2 Factory - reactor blue flame hellions build that he has been doing all series, while Glade throws down a Roach Warren and a Baneling Nest simultaneously!


The problem I find with cArn's build is that while it is more economical for him, it also means the Hellions hit much later, which means the Zerg can Drone really hard and get pretty far ahead.
This was the case, with Glade taking a 10 Drone lead and pumping out a good round of Roaches well in time for the blue flame attack.

Hellions come in from the side and Drones evacuate nicely into a solid wall of Roaches

Glade then decided to do a Roach/Bane bust, and masses up an army and heads over ...

He busts through the wall-in!

However, cArn gets a perfect surround with all his SCVs, and his tanks shelled away safely from the outside, and cArn manages to clean this up!

Naturally, this did some severe economic damage, and Glade was 20 drones ahead. He chooses this time to get a hidden 3rd at the opposite gold expo, while maintaining his Drone lead. He could not push up Carn's ramp anymore as Siege Mode was done for cArn.


As Glade powers ahead in economy, cArn takes his expansion while his Hellion does some scouting:

I hope you can see the arrows - that was the Hellion scouting path! It was amusing to see that it basically scouted everywhere besides the gold, and only saw it when he took the watchtower

While Glade masses up a scary army of Roaches/Lings and Blings, cArn had other plans -

Takes a strong position at the watchtower, shelling away at Glade's gold

Glade had to engage , even though it's highly disadvantage to attack up that ramp against sieged Tanks.

Glade threw all his lings/blings at the infantry army, and his Roaches marches in and manages to clean this up

Not an equal trade for Glade, but it was a necessary one.


With his superior macro (and the gold), Glade managed to mass up another big ball of banelings/roaches and decides to throw them straight into cArn's siege line.

SWARRMM

Glade clears out cArn's expo, but is temporarily repelled by tanks on the high ground

Glade simply masses up even more Roaches, and makes another final push - and cArn taps out. Glade moves on to the finals!

[spoiler=Thoughts about the game]

That Roach/Baneling bust set cArn waaay too far back to catch up - he needed to do some Hellion harass or drop play to balance out the harvester count, but never quite managed it. Glade's subsequent superior economy gave him the easy win this game.[/spoiler]

Game 1 - FXOmOOnGLade vs inFiTarga on Shattered Temple
Both players open with standard Baneling openings, and the game went on for QUITE awhile with speedling/baneling micro wars as both players show off their prowess at micromanagement in a How-to-micro-banelings-speedlings clinic.
There wasn't really any clear winner, though it appeared that Glade had the upperhand as the engagements were forced just outside Targa's base. This went on until the 11:00 mark!! That's like over 8 minutes of micro wars! Wow.


This speedling/baneling war was brought to an end when Targa transitioned into Roaches amidst the high micro battles, but :

Glade catches 5 drones with 2 Banelings, putting him ahead.

The Units Lost tab also showed Glade ahead by about 300-400 resources.


Glade expands while getting Roaches for defence, and his slight drone lead lets him go ahead in food count. He maintains this lead when he cuts Drones as he masses up an army of Roaches/Lings to prepare for his all-in attack as he is fond of doing. (I really can't remember the last 'long macro' ZvZ that Glade played - he always aims to end it fast)


The reasoning for this is simple - if you hit early enough with an all-innish attack, you are forcing your opponent to either have pumped pure units to defend your attack, or you will basically win the game (or kill alot of drones if he pulls them, thus evening you out)


Glade moves out with a solid ball of Roaches, and he does a little micro trick which I thought was worth highlighting:

As the Roach ball moves close,

He pulls half the roaches UPwards

And this allows him to engage with a much quicker concave!


Glade had far too many Roaches - 26 to 15. Targa had to GG out.


[Spoiler= Thoughts about the game]
The first 10 minutes were SO intense - I'm personally not very good with sling/bling micro and don't really like bling wars (when I'm playing) because they can get so bloody close and you can lose the game in one split second's hesitation or mistake. 
Both players microed really well with Glade being slightly better and wasting some Banelings of Targa by running up 1 ling at a time. 
NOTE TO SELF: Put Banelings on Hold Position when stationary!
And when they transitioned out of this, Glade just made the earlier Drone pump and got the harvester lead - can't really blame Targa because he wouldn't have any idea if Glade was going to all-in again with Roaches or Drone up. 
This tiny lead snowballed into a big Roach lead, and by the time Targa caught up in harvesters, Glade had too big of an army and was knocking at his door.
[/spoiler]


Game 2 - FXOmOOnGLade vs inFiTarga 
mOOnGLade flicks his hair and uses his long manes to scare Targa away. 
Targa flees.


GG


Game 3 - FXOmOOnGLade vs inFiTarga
Ok sorry for that, Targa actually D/Cs after the 1st game ended, and never came back. After like 30 minutes of waiting, the tournament organizers finally decide to walkover him, and Glade wins the $75 cash prize!!

Look at Glade's happy face

That was rather anticlimatic. As you can see, I decided to write up on the semifinals instead because of this.. hope you enjoyed it nonetheless!

The 'Kill' switch of Zerg

This is just a short writeup which I originally wanted to post this as a Road To Masters (RTM) column but my games all didn't turn out how I wanted them to be to illustrate this, so I'm just posting this early.

I probably won't post a RTM post this week, as I'll probably be covering the SEACL (hopefully) so that'll take up my time. Also, I want to ladder more, so less writing!

[spoiler=Introduction (skip this part if you have no time though I encourage you to read because it provides context)]

I start this column off with a question: "Name a word or phrase that describes some aspect of 'standard' zerg play."

Chances are, some of the words that you came up with would be 'reactionary', 'macro', 'weak in early game strong in mid-late game'.

I would like to draw your attention to the last phrase. Most people, even Zergs themselves, expect Zerg to macro up in the early game, get a strong Drone lead, then power ahead in the mid-game with an explosion of strong upgraded tier 1/2 units, and perhaps eventually tier 3.

Thus, many strategies of other races involves denying this - Terran has a wide variety of harass from hellions/banshees/bunkerrushes to slow the droning up of Zerg. Protoss has the 1 stalker into 3 stalker/1lot harass. There are also some strategies that are designed to hit Zerg just before their economy kicks in, like the stim/combat shield timing push, the hellion/marine timing push, 4gate, etcetc.

While playing standard Zerg CAN win games, it often means having to deal with a large variety of harass play by the other races (ZvZ is obviously a different story) in which you have to be 'reactionary', have to scout (which can be often denied), etc.

[/spoiler]

Recently, I observed a tournament in which nGenMaster, a high level Zerg, single-handedly 4-0 a very strong aLt team. People who know his style of play knows he's a very aggressive, often unpredictably so, kind of zerg. He doesn't sit back and macro when you expect him to - he pumps a round of units and comes knocking at your front door. If you're not ready, you're screwed. If you are, it's fine, he is already droning up heavily behind this first round of units, and has the defences for any aggression you may throw at him.

JulyZerg is also known to be a very aggressive Zerg, and commentators have mused that he has a 'kill' switch, which when he flicks on, he goes all out aggressive and has only one goal - to kill his opponent. And he knows precisely when to flick this 'kill' switch, even if it's not at a conventional, expected time.

These two players have inspired me to revamp my outlook towards Zerg play, to try to incorporate this aggressive style into my play instead of playing standard (or spanishiwa-style (well actually his style involves being aggressive at a certain point, but the early game is way too defensive)). This strategy involves

- Being aggressive at times when you normally wouldn't be (early game!). Pressure pressure pressure, contain contain.

- Droning up hard behind this aggression

- Adapting an aggressive mentality ALL the time, always be ready to throw the 'kill' switch!

- However, the 'kill' switch doesn't mean 'go all-in'. You should have something to fall back on... though in MOST situations you should aim to win it there.

And why this works is

- Your opponent won't expect it.

- Under this pressure, he will probably overproduce units and won't carry out his normal game plan. Basically, you'll put him on edge.

- If you turn on the 'kill' switch at the correct time, you should win anyway. the problem is knowing when is 'the correct time'.

Let me illustrate this with some games :)

So I went on to play ladder, with this new mentality in mind.

1) vs Wyfor (Master League Protoss) on XNC

I didn't really have an aggressive gameplan for Protoss besides just the roach-ling semi-allin. Hopefully I'll collect more games after this which I have a strong, pressure, aggressive early-game plan to handle protoss, besides roach/ling.

Anyway, this game, on my 10 scout I saw this:

Gateway/Forge on the lowground!

Only means one thing, fast expansion!

What does this mean? It means..

KILL SWITCH ON

The problem with a Protoss FE is that it's rather vulnerable to a roach bust, and you have to react accordingly (more cannons) if you know one is coming. Also, a FE on this map isn't really easy to defend due to the wide choke at your expo.

The problem with a roach bust is that it is rather all-in, and if it fails (he threw down enough cannons) you MAY be behind.

So my plan was clear - I was going to attempt a roach bust with just 6-7 roaches, and I'll expand/ drone up behind that. And because I went 14pool/14 gas (my usual Toss opener) , it perfectly transitions into a 7RR.

Now, he sent out another Probe which spotted my Roaches running towards his base, so he reacted with:

Simcity - about 4 cannons? Lol

So when my roaches reached his base, I kept trying to find cracks, where I could snipe a building or two. His cannons were pretty well-placed as you can see, but I eventually found a sweet spot:

And I forced the cancel on the nexus! 

He did try to throw up some cannons within range of my roaches, but I denied them all.

Now what is the typical follow-up after a 'roach bust' fails? Many Zergs would just retreat and then drone up heavily and try to 'recoup' their losses'. But with the aggressive mindset in place, I was thinking 'I don't want him to feel comfortable. I shall keep pressuring him'

Constantly denying anything he tries to put down out of range of his cannons. Look at how many extra cannons I made him throw up due to this aggression!

All this while, I was droning up, expanded, teching to lair. I didn't make any more roaches besides these initial few.

At this point, in 'Resources Lost', he had already lost 1200 resources in cancellation. (Probably should take 75% of that since it isn't accurate)

Your thought process needs to be clear here - what can a Protoss do on one base?  Yes, tech to either DTs, Stargate, or Blink. (or even colussus, though it would be hard to sustain production)

Thus I threw down a hydra den, and got some spores.

I decided to keep up the aggression, and:

Snuck (sneaked?) in a Nydus! 

Unfortunately, he had Void Rays ready as you can see, so it wouldn't kill him outright, but :

Zerglings running riot in his mineral line

I killed a total of 12 probes with this attack, and definitely made him even more afraid and contained, on top of powering me ahead in economy.

At this point, his entire army was defending his expo (probably afraid of roaches coming in again) while he sent his Void Rays out to try to do some harass.

Luckily for me, I had already pumped out a round of hydras, and I pushed this away easily

After this, I knew I was ahead, and given how he probably only just expanded, I knew I had to

FLICK THE KILL SWITCH
(RANDOM note - 'flick' looks like something else when the L and I are capitalised)

I began rallying my roach/hydra army forward, and true enough:

He just didn't have enough. GG

Of course, this game was partially won because of his faulty strategy (Seriously, who does a FE on XNC), but I just wanted to highlight the advantages of being aggressive and hitting quickly and decisively, instead of sitting back and macroing up (if I had done that, he would probably have won because we would both be on 2 base)

Game 2 - vs Canx (Diamond Terran) on XNC

Against Terran, I used to do the Spanishiwa opening, but I decided to try a more aggressive style this time round. My goal was simple - defend any bunker rushes he attempts at the start, make a round of roaches and go knock on his front door while I drone up hard and tech to lair.

My scouting Drone spotted an early gas, so I immediately guessed reactor hellions. Even better for my strategy! Roaches >> Hellions. (Even if he was rushing double starport banshee, it would be vulnerable to this strategy as well)

Indeed, my ling spots the reactor on the Factory, which means reactor hellions

First batch of hellions can't do shit against Roaches

He tried a few more times with 3-4 hellions but my roaches easily fended him off.

Now, a typical Zerg makes about 3-5 roaches just to defend against Hellions, then proceeds to Drone up behind this. Because I need to be aggressive, I made 6 Roaches instead, and pushed his base!

Panic bunkers - I sniped the SCVs easily and began sniping marines/hellions

I kept this up for quite awhile - all this while droning up behind this aggression. Remember, aggression =/= all-in. I think I killed about 3 hellions, 4 SCVs and a bunch of marines before he finally reduced my roaches to 3 and had too many marines. Well, what really drove me back was a BANSHEE that popped out.

As you know, a Banshee beats a Queen 1v1, so I was in a spot

I was throwing down spores and making extra queens, so I managed to fend off the banshee harass. I decided to transition to mutas/bling at this point (mutas for banshees, bling for marines, lings/roaches for tanks)

Barely survived.. 1 HP!!

He then hit with some sort of slowpush with quite a handful of marines, 4 tanks and some banshees. I waited on my banelings before engaging:

BOOMZ!

Roaches actually do pretty decent DPS against tanks, just that you need something to support them like lings/mutas or something, as they die pretty fast to tanks too. But they're good for soaking some hits while your banelings/lings roll in.

By now, I had grabbed my 3rd, and with my little flock of mutas, I decided to poke around to see what he had.

Well-placed turret, ok. Armory building.. ok transitioning to Infestors for neural parasite 

But wait, I wanted to see his main army, so I flew up towards his entrance deliberately

I saw this army....

And I was thinking... WHAT? This is it?

Obviously...

KILL SWITCH ON

Immediately rallied all my roaches /blings forward and started pumping pure units

I even deliberately flew my mutas in a bad arc to bait his marines, and let him catch up with me to snipe my mutas

But I was just buying time while my army was moving in:

What happened next is too gruesome to watch so I will skip that

And with the 'kill' switch on, I streamed in never-ending zerglings, roaches, mutas, whatever key my fingers hit first

GG

Granted, his macro wasn't really good (didn't constantly make SCVs) so his army wasn't big enough, but the roach pressure at the start probably delayed his CC (since I killed so many units and forced bunkers) and considering aggression right after the contain won me the game.

~~

Just to end, yesterday I was watching mOOnGlaDE (no idea how he capitalizes his nick) stream for about 2-3 hours (he streamed for longer than that, just that I watched for this amount only) and I realized he also has a similar aggressive playstyle, at least against Terran.

His gameplan is something like this - get some Roaches or speedlings to hold off early aggression, then Drone till 2 bases are saturated, and when almost so tech to banelings and lair and start massing roaches/lings.

Then he morphs all his lings into banelings and does a timing roach-baneling push that somehow always catches the Terran offguard!

And if you think about it, Roach/bling beats just about any combination the Terran has, besides mass marauders.

How about mech? you might ask. Ok I wish I had the replay to show you or some screenshots to prove it, but this particular game stood out - his opponent did indeed go mech, and had like 4-5 thors with 5-6 tanks and marauders/marines/hellions. Glade had more or less played in the dark and just got roaches/blings blind and was taking his 3rd when his opponent decided to push out.

So naturally, you'd think he was screwed right? How will banelings beat a big mech force?

With his 20 roaches and 30+ banelings, he saw the Terran moving forward and his 'Kill Switch' flicked.

UNSIEGED TANKS. IN I GO.

and he engaged - he basically used the rolling banelings like speedlings and got a surround around the mech army and BLEW IT ALL UP. 

The roaches streamed in... but all the mech was dead!! 

Yes, he killed a  big mech ball with just banelings. 

everyone on stream was going crazy when he did that, as it seemed so unbelievable. And of course Glade just followed up with some roaches/lings and cleared out he Terran.

Playing an aggressive-style Zerg is really strong. I hope to hone and develop my own Kill Switch!