Duckspot BattleReports

Chris Vs. Jacky

2008-09-27T13:09:00.000-07:00

"You guys wanna play SC?"

Those infamous words, once again out in the open. It seems that every other night Calvin, Jacky and I were playing Starcraft, and tonight in the Three Kingdoms / Fooners HQ residence, it was no different.

Then, something unexpected: “You guys start first” Calvin said as he headed upstairs to talk to his mom on the phone. A rare occurrence it was, as usually it ends up being a 3v5 comp battle, or a melee battle. But now?

“Jacky… let’s play a one on one!” And so it began.

And then it ended. In the first game Jacky and I both randomed, him ending up with Terran and I ending up with Zerg. Unfortunately for Jacky, his main was close to mine. A few minutes and a zergling rush later the game was over, a victory for me that was later derided as dishonourable and cheap by Calvin and Jacky. Of course, I rebutted against this and pointed out the fact that this was a perfectly legal move and is a classic gameplay mechanic in StarCraft.

After coaxing Jacky to play again and convincing him that playing 1 on 1 is the only way he can improve his skills, we were set to play a classic Starcraft game on the well balanced Lost Temple – Gamei map. And then the real match began…

I once again apologize for the quality of the images, as my laptop has fried and I'm seriously considering just buying a new one. My desktop does not have photoshop, however, so all these pictures were done using MS Paint =(

I left my race choice at random, and in an interesting and unusual twist, so did Jacky. As the countdown to the game began, we were silent. There will be no trash talking on this night, only pure determination to destroy the other. I drew the 9 o’clock base with Zerg, while Jacky warped into the 3 o’clock with Protoss.

Initial build order for Jacky was rather simple- the zealot “rush”. I taught him this focused build order when he started playing Protoss, wherein the player builds a pylon, then gateway, gateway, pylon, focusing on mineral collection and zero on collecting gas, and leaving teching until later. The point, obviously, is to pump out as many zealots as possible. At 100 mins a pop, they aren’t cheap, but they are by far the strongest early unit in the game. A handful is able to destroy a much larger group of zerglings and marines with ease.

I, on the other hand, built drones until I had 9, morphed one into a spawning pool, hatched an overlord, and then waited for a quick zergling rush. In the meantime I sent my initial overlord over to the 6 o’clock base in the hopes of another quick victory.

But it was not to be. The overlord saw nothing at the 6 o’clock base, and seeing as there were only the 12 and 3 o’clock positions, I gambled and sent my zerglings over to the 12… which was empty! I sent my 6 zerglings over to the 3 knowing that Jacky is now there, but he managed to rebuff me with a small group of zealots. Rush failed.

Instead of losing them all, I ran them back over to the 12 o’clock to save them for later, and to attempt to throw Jacky off the location of my base. Later, he told me that he had already scouted out the 12 o’clock position, so he guessed from where my zerglings were running that I was at the 9 o’clock position. Lucky guess…
Perhaps still stinging (and learning) from the previous loss, Jacky decided to be aggressive and counterattacked with three zealots. By this time I had finished building a hatchery at my natural and had two sunken colonies defending, and Jacky charged right in. I lost one sunken, but pulled a few drones off mineral collection and repelled Jacky quite easily.

But Jacky didn’t give up quite as easily as he did in the past. During this skirmish I sent over my 6 zerglings at the 12 and a few from my main into Jacky’s undefended base, and attacked a cybernetics core I saw warping in to deny Jacky the opportunity to tech. Unfortunately, timing was not on my side as although I got the core in the red, at that moment zealots came out of Jacky’s three gateways and I lost all my zerglings. I managed to take out a few probes, however.

A very brief lull occurred over the battlefield. Trying to read my opponent’s mind and realizing that Jacky was, for once, being extremely confident and aggressive, I upgraded my main hatch into a lair and started a spire, thinking of making mutalisks for a backdoor attack on Jacky’s mineral line and slowing him down. In the meantime, I sent over a couple of zerglings into Jacky’s main, but knowing that he has a ton of zealots I hid them in the far left corner of his base, waiting for his zealots to head for my main and leaving him defenceless so that I can ravage his probes. Sure enough Jacky’s zealots left his base and I pounced on his probes as the zealots went past, destroying a few.

What I did NOT realize however, as I rarely played with Zerg, was that I needed more zerglings to get the task done. Although taking out quite a few probes, they were eventually repulsed by Jacky’s warping in defence. In the meantime, I glanced at my minimap and didn’t even see a speck of white.

Strange?

I looked back at my natural, and heard the familiar sloppy whipping sound of sunken colonies defending, but I didn’t see anything in my visual range. And then it hit me- Jacky was being smart, electing not to destroy my natural, but going straight for my main, for which I didn’t build any defence! Sure enough, Jacky’s zealots emerged from the fog of war, 5 of them vs. a couple of drones (1 of the zealots was killed by the sunkens as they tried to rush past). I was suddenly in trouble- this could very well end the game right here and now, as I couldn’t do anything about them. The tide of war, which up to now was at a stalemate, shifted heavily in Jacky’s favour.

Thinking fast, I moved my drones over to my natural expansion to continue mining as I watched the zealots tear my base apart. He went straight for my spawning pool, and as a result I couldn’t build any zerglings or even sunken colonies for that matter. I cancelled my still morphing spire to raise some cash, and then built an emergency spawning pool replacement in a corner of my natural. Timing, at this point, was critical. In the meantime I morphed a few drones into creep colonies to save time when I am later able to convert them to sunkens, and with my blood pressure rising I started converted them to sunkens just as the spawning pool finished… and right when Jacky finished off everything in my main. Knowing that I still needed more time, I needed to slow those zealots down and keep them away from my still morphing sunkens at my natural. In a moment of desperation and determination, I took a group of drones and sent them to the ramp on my main, heading straight towards the zealots...

Jacky’s zealots were going directly for my natural, but in a display of intense micro, I swarmed my drones all over his zealots… but didn’t stop and attack them. Instead, I used them to block the zealots, which became momentarily confused as they tried to find a way around my drones. As soon as they tried to move around my drones, I moved the drones to the direction they were going, to head them off and block them some more. This tactic was so effective and disruptive that my sunkens all managed to morph in by the time the zealots reached my natural, and in a further display of micro, I moved my drones between the hatchery and a wall, further preventing the zealots from reaching my sunkens. They had to walk all the way around my mining drones and hatchery to reach the sunkens, but being whipped mercilessly by sunkens they all died… with the death toll for me being only 2 drones!

With my defence being successful, I quickly sent a drone down to my former main, in order to restart my battered economy. Knowing that I was still in a vulnerable position, I morphed in several more sunken colonies in front of my natural, leaving only a small chokepoint between them and the wall for Jacky to go through.

A little while later, Jacky attempted an attack but quickly retreated to a safe distance once he saw my sunkens. He came back and retried his earlier tactic by forcing zealots past them into my main. This time however, I had the choke blocked off with zerglings, and with several more sunkens the zealots died. I spawned several more drones and zerglings, and deciding to distract Jacky and play with his head a bit, I sent my zerglings out to attack his units and quickly retreated to my sunkens, luring a few into the deathtrap. By the time Jacky noticed, they were killed. He sent over more reinforcements, and I sparred with his units with some more zerglings, but the same trick didn’t work twice and Jacky smartly pulled his troops further back.

I didn’t stand idly by playing with his units, however. During this time I had a spire morph in, and with a larger drone population I started to build a few mutalisks and more zerglings. Jacky, however, was not very productive at his main base, and it was only now when he started an expansion at his natural.

In a move to end the game, I sent 5 mutalisks backdoor to Jacky’s mineral line, and sent my zerglings in from the front. Strangely, I didn’t find much in Jacky’s base (including defending units), but he did send a group of units to my base in order to counterattack. However, by that time it was too late as he lost all his probes, and he left the game.

GG!

This was one of the best games I’ve ever played, if not THE best. Uncharacteristic of “turtling” Jacky, this was also by far his best game ever played as he was uncharacteristically determined and aggressive (normally he doesn’t attack much… in fact, there was one FFA game I remember where Jacky left the game because he couldn’t take anymore after 30 minutes of play, even though he wasn’t in a bad position). The game was fast paced, it was exciting, and until the last few minutes you really didn’t know who would come out on top (just like a good basketball game). The struggle of power swung back and forth and there were times earlier when both of us came to the brink of extermination and fought back. This was one of those battles which became not only a struggle of power, but also strategy and foresight. We both spent considerable time predicting and strategizing each other’s moves, reacting to surprises, getting “timing” just right, and working hard to throw a wrench in the other’s plans.

As for the mistakes, well, there were quite a few. My biggest probably was my inexperience with zerg, as I didn’t build enough sunken colonies and didn’t attack with enough zerglings (being more used to the micro-specific and powerful Protoss, and the defensive Terran), and didn’t do a very good job of playing in general. This nearly cost me the battle as Jacky was able to overwhelm me with zealots. I was also still getting used to hatcheries and the way that zerg units are built, which is really different from the other two races.

Jacky’s biggest mistake is perhaps his single-mindedness on macroing units. While this worked very well in the early going, even nearly taking me out, once I had enough sunken colonies Jacky should have expanded to his natural and teched to something else (like dropships, reavers, high templar, air units, etc… with an expo he could have also simply overwhelmed my sunkens). In the final few moments before I killed his probes, he was also strangely stagnant compared to the furious pace he led earlier.

As Jacky and I talked about it later, these 1v1’s are excellent for learning how to play. You learn more in one game than you would if you played in several multi-player battles. Lost Temple- Gamei is also a great map for learning because of its balance and the fact that several strategies work well on this map. Each mistake you make is amplified and you have far greater creativity in your strategy, so we agreed that we should play more.

Although the Power Rankings likely won’t change because this was one battle (and Jacky lost badly in the first game when I rushed him), I’m sensing that a few positions could change quite rapidly in the next few weeks if things continue as they are. I’ll see after some careful observations. I have been waiting for a LONG time for a decent game to battlereport, and this game finally delivered… and what a game!

Soon after the game ended, Calvin came downstairs. “So ‘gentlemens’, what’d I miss?’

Jacky’s breathing was shaky. So was mine.

Click HERE for replay.

Deathmatch, Part 3: Calvin Vs. Chris

2007-11-17T13:18:00.000-08:00

"Sir! You alright?" Felix slowly opened his eyes and focussed on Calvin's face. With a grunt, he got up, hand planted on his forehead where he smacked it against the wall.

"Damage report lieutenant?" Felix asked as he surveyed the damage to the command centre. Personnel was tending to each other, code red alarms were active, and the power was cut.

"Sir, we've lost the majority of our SCVs and front line defense" Calvin read off the top of a holographic list in his palm, "All of our turrets, bunkers and our ComSat station were destroyed. What SCVs we have left we're currently repairing the command centre and other buildings with, and we're actively recruiting more personnel to replace them. Most of our marines in the bunkers have survived, and we currently have about 5 scattered regiments of marines and 2 support troops of firebats and medics. All of our siege tanks were destroyed in the blast. We have one Squadron of Vulture troops"

Felix, pacing back and forth as Calvin spoke, suddenly stopped and looked at him. "And the ghost?"

"Sir, we can't any trace of him. Right before the nuclear missile, there were reports of a dropship, last known vector approaching the ghost"

"Damn..." Calming himself, Felix righted a chair from the ground and sat down.

Damn that Ching. Here was a man who wasn't afraid to send entire squadrons of his own army to their deaths. The dropships and wraiths were obviously diversionary tactics to buy that ghost some time. From reports before Ching's counterattacks, it seems he committed most of his troops to this attack. The logical thing right now is to counter-attack with all our forces... it's do or die time. Felix looked at Calvin once again.

"Lieutenant, order up full production of dropships from all operational starports, and prepare for a drop of all marine regiments and support troops. Load up those vultures with spidermines and speed upgrades, and send them out for diversionary hit and run tactics on the enemy base!"

Calvin saluted and rushed off.

Meanwhile, inside a factory...

"Almost done... whew" Corporal Yang breathed as he finished maintenance on his gleaming gun-metal grey and blue vulture. He tweaked the ion thrusters for more boost off idle and changed the steering geometry for sharper handling. With a vulture's thin armour, they're notoriously easy to destroy, and life spans of pilots are typically even less than those of marines. Thus, survival all depends on quick speed and reaction.

"Load 'er up with spidermines and grenades!" Chris motioned to the nearby Factory workers, and then blinked as Lieutenant Poon came running up to him.

"Hey, how are damage repairs after the blast?" Chris asked Calvin as he slowed down and pulled out a document.

"We're working as fast as we could. Corporal Yang, here are your orders... you are to take all remaining vultures and proceed on a hit and run attack on the enemy base. Good luck" and with that, Calvin disappeared.

Chris stared grimly at the papers. "So we're to create a diversion eh? That's our lot in life". He went to his vulture and picked up his helmet, then mounted his bike. "All units, we're heading out. Follow me!" he said into the mouthpiece as he twisted the throttle and rode off into the dawn.

Meanwhile...

"Sgt. LEE! Are you slacking off again?" Jacky woke up with a start and snort. Fumbling around in his science vessel, he finally found the microphone. "Uh, no sir, I'm on full alert". Operating a science vessel has to be one of the most boring jobs in the world. To kill the time, Jacky read various manga, most notably involving scantily clad women. Alas, even that doesn't fully alleviate boredom.

Little did he know, however, that a small group of vultures passed right underneath him, silently and swiftly travelling to near certain death.

"All units, lay down your spidermines!" Chris' plan was simple: lay down mines, draw the enemy out, and then run back with enemy forces in tow right into the trap.

Moving forward again, the gun-metal grey vultures reached their maximum speed of 640 km/h, and headed right into Ching's base. Confusion reigned as surprised enemy troops hastily grabbed their guns and started firing... too late as they hit nothing but thin air. But the vultures didn't stop, instead heading right towards Ching's command centre. "Fire at those SCVS" Chris shouted, as the vultures dove behind the mineral line. Confused SCVs started to scatter as the vultures started firing grenades into the mining SCVs. Several started to explode as they nearly trampled over each other trying to run to safety.

The vulture to Chris' left exploded as a seige tank shell came hurtling down. "Follow my actions!" Chris lead the vultures right into the face of a small regiment of siege tanks, now firing furiously. Knowing that if the vultures got close enough that the tanks won't be able to fire in siege mode, the nimble and fast vultures dodged shells as they got ever closer. "Lay down your mines!" Chris shouted, as the vultures ground to a stop in front of the tanks. "Now run back!" The siege tanks tried to transform back to their mobile form to escape the mines that were laid down in front of them, but too slowly as huge explosions rocked the ground. By this time, the vultures were already running back to their mines they planted earlier... but the enemy was waiting at the gates and closing in. Several vultures faltered and exploded, their riders thrown off, as concentrated gunfire tore into their ranks. By the time Chris got through, only a handful of vultures remained. The enemy, oblivious to their plans, followed them right into their trap...

"Sir, we've detected several explosions coming from the enemy base" Calvin said as Felix looked at the holographic map.

"Good... are the dropships prepped?"

"We have 4 squadrons of marines awaiting command in the dropships"

"Send them out"

Felix looked out a window as the dropships took off and flew off, thrusters silently glowing in the morning light.

Who will prevail? Will Ching get the last laugh? Will Chris make it out alive? Will Jacky ever finish his manga? Stay tuned for future installments!

Welcome to the last part of a three part deathmatch series! In this final, epic series, it's a battle between Calvin and I. Because the other 4 players held up their end of the bargain and got the ball rolling, Calvin and I were obliged to play as well. So, without further interruption:

Once again we played on the Lost Temple- Gamei map. We both randomed our races, I ending up with the rather manly colour (purple) Terran starting at the 9 o'clock position, and Calvin starting as red zerg at the 3 o'clock position.

Build orders were pretty standard for me. On my 8th SCV I built a supply depot, 11th Barracks, 13th Refinery, and on my 17th another barracks and supply depot. My initial plan was to get mass marines, while getting an early start on gas for siege tanks later in the game. Knowing that marines are critical against zerg (especially if they go mutalisks), I elected to skip vultures entirely and keep things simple.

Calvin, meanwhile, morphed in a spawning pool on his 10th drone, and followed it up with a creep colony, extractor, and then another creep company. At the same time my second barracks was started, Calvin built a hydralisk den.

About 3:45 into the game, I sent out two marines and Calvin simultaneously sent out 4 zerlings. They met up in the centre of the map and first blood was spilled

Calvin ran his zerglings around the map after he lost two of them, and my marines chased them around the map since they were on attack move and I was pre-occupied with building my base.

4 minutes into the game, I started on my first factory. At almost the same time it was finished and I started on my second (while building a machine shop addon for the first one), Calvin expanded to his natural

At this point I finally regained control of my marines and sent them over to Calvin's main to harass him a bit. At first I didn't actually notice that Calvin had already expanded to his natural...

I did notice, however, that Calvin's sunken colonies were poorly positioned and easy to walk around. So I did just that, walking all the way to the back of Calvin's base and started firing at his spawning pool. Calvin sent over zerglings and I quickly retreated my marines, losing one in the process.

However, I had two more marines as reinforcements, and they fired back at the zerglings

We exchanged attacks and gunfire a couple of times, both displaying quite a bit of micro (at least more than in the previous two battles =P). Finally, I retreated my marines down the ramp as I saw Calvin had spawned a huge overwhelming force of zerglings.

It was finally at this time that I noticed Calvin had a natural expansion set up, so I proceeded to attack the morphing creep colony, hoping to slow Calvin down a bit

Calvin managed to counter-attack with his zerglings though, and I lost all my marines.

Now 7 minutes into the game, Calvin took the brief lull as an opportunity to expand, as he sent his drone up to the 12 o'clock starting position and started a hatchery

At the same time, I sent out my first siege tank and a small control group of marines towards Calvin's base. Thinking twice, I also sent an SCV after them.

At exactly 9 minutes into the game, I started a bunker in front of Calvin's natural. My plan was originally to contain Calvin (I did not know about his 12 o'clock expansion until the game was over!), but seeing as he didn't have too many troops, I decided to bunker push him instead.

Calvin spotted my attempt, and for the next 2 minutes it was a furious display of micro from both sides. With a second tank now arrived, I moved my marines forward of the bunker to engage Calvin's zerg, while my tanks took the time to set up and my SCV to finish the bunker

When the bunker was just about complete, I ran my marines back into range of the tanks and into the safety of the bunker

Calvin, knowing that he had to stop me now before I establish a foothold, sent zerg after zerg at my tanks and bunkers, and then ran them away. This display of micro went on for quite some time

It was a good thing I had my SCV to repair, otherwise my tanks would have been destroyed.

By the end, with reinforcements arriving, I had established a firm foothold, and proceeded to destroy Calvin's natural

Knowing that I have to press my advantage before Calvin could find an effective counter, I sieged my tanks near the lower edge of the cliff, and sent my marines up into Calvin's plateau. He had troops prepared there, but now that my marines are on the cliff they provided sight to the tanks, which began to kill Calvin's hydralisks

I built a bunker on the cliff to establish a new foothold into Calvin's base. I moved a siege tank up on top to continue shelling Calvin's Natural and to hit any incoming enemy units. My siege tanks provided cover as my SCV completed the bunker

At this point I continued to bunker push, but Calvin had built a spire and was beginning to create mutalisks. My tanks started firing on Calvin's sunken colonies when the first Mutalisks began to attack my tanks

My SCV managed to finish the second bunker at the same time one of my tanks were destroyed. I rushed my marines, which were residing in the first bunker, into the second one before Calvin's mutalisks had a chance to stop them, and they fired back at the mutalisks.

However, I still had a couple of tanks out of range and my SCV was killed. I sent over a couple of reinforcements while I used marines from a bunker outside Calvin's natural to provide mobile support

My new SCVs arrived and I quickly tried to put up another bunker while repairing one.

Calvin at this point had a huge number of mutalisks, and they managed to destroy another SCV and bunker. However, the marines inside were still alive, and at the precise moment my bunker was destroyed, another was built. I rushed the marines from the destroyed bunker over to the new one before Calvin had time to react, and continued to fight off the mutalisks

Finally, after a furious display of micro from both sides, I managed to kill off Calvin's mutalisks. More reinforcements have arrived from my base, Calvin was running low on gas, and my tanks were starting to shell his spire now. Without many options left, it was GG as Calvin left.

GG!

Final score:

Click HERE for the replay!

Out of all three games, this was probably the most closely matched and most exciting.

Lessons learned:

The reason why Calvin lost was probably partially to due with the fact that he expanded too fast. He had three running expansions, while Felix in the previous game made do with two. Also, he probably should have concentrated on creating mutalisks from the very beginning. This way, he could have fended off my attack better. Or he could have even attacked my base altogether as I had very little defense other than the troops I produced for attacking. At least, he could have crippled my economy by quite a bit.

The other mistake was that he gave up the ramp to his base too easily. In Lost Temple games, the game is won or lost depending on who could hold the ramp better. As soon as I was able to move my marines to higher ground, they were able to reveal Calvin's enemy troops to my tanks. Normally, if I were to attack Calvin, I wouldn't be able to see any troops from the top of his plateau because it would be covered by the fog of war. As soon as I was able to take control of the ramp, however, I was able to see everything and thus gave my siege tanks significant control. Calvin probably should have concentrated his attacks early on defending his ramp and not allowing my marines up there or my SCV to build a bunker there.

And finally, the last thing really isn't a mistake, and is kind of a lot to ask from ANY of us casual players. But, mutalisks in even small numbers, when used properly, are more powerful than any unit in the game (except for corsairs, their natural counter... though we weren't playing Broodwars).

Take a look at this Replay. In this game, the zerg player got only a few mutalisks, but look at that level of micro! Using just a few mutas, he managed to destroy ALL of the enemy force's scourge. This is an insane level of micro, for sure, but it showed how powerful they can be when stacked together and moved around. Even Scourge are no match because mutalisks are so damn fast. Mutalisks are even more gay against Terran ground forces, also because of their speed. If Calvin had something like this and selectively attacked my units (especially my SCVs and tanks), then I would have been in big trouble because terrans really don't have any effective counters against properly used mutalisks.

As for my own mistakes, I had quite a few too. First of all, I missed Calvin's natural expo. If I took a look at it first, I could have caused major headaches for Calvin, and perhaps even cripple his economy a bit.

Oh, and speaking of economy, mine was very bad. I spent most of my time trying to outmicro Calvin, but by doing that I basically ignored my own SCVs. I didn't expand to my natural until late into the game, and I never got it up and running as well as Calvin has with his three expos. If I did, I could have had even more troop production.

Also, while I was teching, I didn't bother to upgrade my marines, and they suffered horrendous deaths as a result. I should have stopped for an academy, even somewhat later into the game. Not only would this mean upgrades for my marines (especially Uranium rounds, which would have helped immensely against mutalisks), but I could have also gotten a comsat station, which I probably could have used to find Calvin's 12 o'clock expo.

All in all I honestly believe with no bias that this is the best game of the night. Calvin's micro has improved drastically, to the point where it's extremely hard for anyone to keep up with him. If I were Zerg and he were Terran, the game could have easily turned the other way around. It made for a very entertaining and exciting game.

I would like to thank my opponent, Calvin, therefore, for a wonderful game, and once again to everyone who showed up that night for yet another fun filled start to the weekend.

As for battlereports? Well, it's mid November now and from here on out it's going to be extremely hectic for me. A couple of labs, plus exams starting December 6th, so don't be surprised if there's no updates for at least a month =P

Deathmatch, Part 2: Felix Vs. Ching

2007-11-15T21:39:00.000-08:00

"What? What do you mean annihilated? How!?" Felix slammed his hands onto the large map laying on the centre of operations table. Displayed on the table was a holographic map of the planet BGH. Small, detailed models of Felix's base and the last known areas of Ching's forces floated in realtime 3D on the map, unknown areas shrouded by the darkness that is known as the fog of war.

Felix pondered this latest counter, fingers rubbing the deep furrows on his eyebrows. From emergency transmissions right before he lost contact with the 31st regiment, it seemed that Ching had already called in Wraiths. That could only mean...

"SIR!" Lieutenant Poon dashed into the center of operations. Felix looked up with urgency.

"Sir, we have received reports from outlying scouts that enemy dropships are quickly approaching our base!"

Felix pondered for a moment. Finally, he looked up at Calvin. "Lieutenant, order the construction of a comsat station right now. There are wraiths out there waiting, and all we have for defense are our turrets! Recall our Valkyries and all marine regiments at once!"

"Yes Sir!" Lt. Poon said in a huff as he left.

Reinforcements soon arrived in Felix's main base of operations. Siege tanks set up as they rolled out from factories, and several turrets were built around the SCV mineral line. Marines moved into newly built bunkers, medics and firebats standing silently outside, waiting with grim expressions on their faces.

Then suddenly, the missile turrets stopped rotating, and started firing. The wraiths have come. Targetting maps were uploaded from the turrets into all ground units, and the line of bunkers opened fire into the sky with uranium rounds pumped from the barrels of hundreds of gauss assault rifles. The sound was deafening as the wraiths streaked overhead, their cover obviously blown. Cheers and swearing rang out as wraith after wraith started falling from the sky.

And then suddenly, behind the line of defense, arc-lite seige rounds shot into the bunkers. Firebats scattered and stimmed as medics dashed back and forth flashing their optical healing rays onto wounded soldiers. Some of the marines swung their guns around and stared ready to face this sudden pincer move. Felix's seige tanks swivelled around and trained their sights as hundreds of marines, tanks and goliaths came pouring out of dropships. Some were destroyed before they got off the ships, and several dropships crashed into the ground with their cargo as missile turrets trained their SAMs on the closest ones. Felix watched all this on his virtual map with worried eyes, but was soon relieved as he saw his forces taking control of Ching's attack.

Then, it happened.

"Nuclear Launch detected SIR!" yelled a young woman at the controls of the command centre.

Felix swivelled around. "GET THAT COMSAT SWEEP OFF RIGHT AWAY!"

Meanwhile, on the battlefield, the ghost trained his laser sight right between the command centre and the line of reinforcements. "Yes, this is perfect..." thought Stanley as he grinned in anticipation of a huge fireworks display.

"WHERE IS IT?" Yelled Felix. "I WANT THAT GHOST FOUND". The comsat station finally picked up a single enemy dot on a small cliff behind the mineral line. "KILL IT!" yelled Felix...

but it was too late. A missile hurtled from the sky.

In an instant, all the SCVS, reinforcements were blown away in an ethereal flash. There was no time for screaming, no time for reactions. Just a sudden flash of light, and then nothing. Felix braced himself as the command centre lurched under the force of the nuke. Soldiers and personnel flew against the sideway. As his sight turned darker and darker as he blacked out, Felix had only one thought on his mind: Kill Ching at all costs.

Welcome to part 2 of a 3 part series here on duckspot battlereports. Last time we left off with Stanley's zerg brood prevailing over Jacky's Terran force. In our second matchup, the highly anticipated duel between the two top players in the power rankings will commence: Felix Vs. Ching.

So, without further adieu...

GET READY TO CRUMBLEEEE!!! *cue techno music*

Uh... first off, I apologize for the crappy graphics. I've just re-installed Adobe Photoshop, but all these pictures were created using MS paint. I promise better graphics from now on.

The map for this match, since these two players are true gosus, is the infamous Lost Temple (Gamei version). A favorite of pro players on the circuit, and in fact one of the most overplayed maps ever, this map is almost synonymous with Starcraft. If you're ever lost in Korea, all you have to do is yell "Lost Temple" and then everyone within a 100m radius will come and help you.

The Gamei version, similar to the Gamei version of The Hunters, deals mostly with balance changes. There are a couple of changes made to the map that discourages cheap-ass-ing (in the past, "Terran= instant win" thanks to some map features), and resources have been slightly tweaked.

Oh, and at this point I have a request: If any of you Starcraft fans out there have the WCG version of this map, please kindly send it to me or paste a link in the comments section. The reason being the WCG version under "use map settings" has space for 4 players and 4 observers. This is much simpler and more effective than the current method of observing live games (floating a CC into a far corner, killing your own SCVS and then asking the other players to share vision with you). After observing games a couple of times, it became pretty clear that standing and looking over a player's shoulder while they're trying to fight with each other is inconvenient for all, and since we all have our own computers, why not just view the game like one would view an episode of Heroes or Wangan Midnight?

Anyways, continuing on...

Ching started off as blue Terran on the 12 o'clock start position. His build was rather standard at first: on his 8th SCV he built a supply depot; 10th he built a Barracks; 14th he built another supply depot and a refinery at the same time. Clearly, he was going heavy metal.

Felix, on the other hand, took an even bigger gamble than Stanley did in the first deathmatch, by expanding to his natural on his 13th drone!

This is extremely risky.

On a map like The Hunters where one has mass money, it's very easy to recover if your early expo was attacked. On the Lost Temple, however, where resources are more scarce, it's usually GG if your opponent comes knocking on your front door. Felix could have lost the game right here if Ching had decided to attack.

Ching, however, wasn't interested in early attacks, instead turtling with a Terran-like slowness:

Notice how Ching managed to create an artificial wall around his base using buildings. However, I am of the opinion that a simple 2-depot-1-barracks wall-in is much more effective. Lost temple is notoriously easy to wall in using this method (even more so than on The Hunters), as it's hard to screw up a wall-in. Ching was content, however, with his build, and proceeded to mass troops, building a factory about 4 minutes into the game.

Meanwhile, Felix's newly created hatchery finished morphing in, and he sent over a few drones to create sunken colonies for defense.

Up and running natural expo

5 minutes into the game, and Ching and Felix are continuing to mass and tech, respectively. Ching started building his first siege tank, at the same time researching siege mode. Felix morphed in a spire at his natural and a Queen's nest back home in his main.

As I sat in Felix's chair (he was using my laptop in Calvin's room) observing the game on the screen, with Jacky furiously doing his lab on a Friday night beside me, I looked on with amazement at these two players. Taking a sip of the sprite I stole from their fridge, I knew that this game was going to end in a very gay way, depending on what happens in the next 2-3 minutes.

My hunch proved correct as 8.5 minutes into the game, Felix, running off of the strength of his economy and with his spire now morphed in, started pumping mutalisks and upgraded his spire into a greater spire. Finally, both players began to move in something that could be called "offense".

Felix, looking to scout Ching's base to see how far he's come along, sent over a drone to investigate Ching's build orders. The little guy sneaked along the walls of the factories, but was suddenly spotted by a siege tank. Without enough time to let out more than a weak scream, the siege tank murdered the drone in cold blood:

Felix looked on with anger and sadness. A tear trickled down his cheek as he swore revenge on Ching for killing his favorite drone pet, Fluffy.

Ching, meanwhile, FINALLY decides to go on the offensive, setting up a good ol' Terran camp right outside Felix's natural:

Felix, still obviously swore with the loss of his favorite drone, moves his mutalisks right outside Ching's base... and proceeds to morph some of them...

It's the infamous flying crabs, Guardians! I'm thinking at this point that perhaps guardians are Felix's favorite units... there's not one game that goes by, when he plays as zerg, where he doesn't make guardians. They're pretty gay, but I suppose they're better than upgraded Ultralisks... and defilers.

Anyways, once Felix's guardians were finally morphed, he went straight for Ching's backdoor

Now Ching was in deep shit, and he knew it. He moved his forces towards Felix's natural while lifting his command centre and other buildings, trying to buy time so he can destroy Felix. But... well...

It's not going to happen =/

As Felix continued to ravage Ching's base

It was pretty much GG.

Final Scores:

Click HERE for the replay!

Post Game Analysis

The reason why Ching lost was pretty obvious. He didn't attack until it was too late. No more, no less.

His first mistake was pretty simple: He didn't scout out Felix. If you looked closely in the replay, Ching scouted the other two locations, which means he knew where Felix was, but not what he was building. If he had seen Felix's expansion, he could have adjusted his strategy, going for early marines and the early kill. Instead, he allowed Felix to expand unmolested, granting him a huge resource (and thus, time) advantage early in the game.

His second mistake was that he didn't even bother going on the offensive until 12 minutes into the game. By common sense alone, that would mean that Felix could either have created a million units, or he could have even teched to the very tip of the zerg tech-tree if he wanted. Ching, up until perhaps about 5 minutes into the game, had every chance to pressure Felix and perhaps draw the game out, where he perhaps could have won. Instead, he turtled and allowed Felix to do whatever he wanted, unmolested.

The other strange thing to note was that in post-game commentary, Ching mentioned that he knew that Felix was going for mutalisks. Yet, throughout his turtling, Ching didn't seem to take any countermeasures for possible attacks. No wraiths, not enough missile turrets, not goliaths, etc. It was very puzzling, to say the least.

In terms of power rankings, this game didn't outright determine why Ching lost his #1 spot to Felix. In this particular game, Ching just didn't seem to be in his normal uh... Ching-y state (which is to say, mass units very early and go for the rush). That being said, these two players are still extremely close, so I do expect #1 and #2 to be mixed up frequently.

The reason for Ching's loss is because Felix is a better user of all three races, and has better micro. In a couple of team games on The Hunters, there was this one instance where I was trapped in the top left position, with Felix on the top mid. Here I knew I was in trouble, because my choke is shared with his, and he walled me off very early in the game. I tried going for dragoons very fast in order to destroy his bunkers, but not only does Felix build units as fast as Ching normally does, he also has micro. He lifted up his barracks to use as a sight for his tanks, and moves his troops around so that they defend his tanks well. In that game, I had to abandon my main and shuttle my probes and defending units to another starting position. As mentioned, Felix seems to be better using all three units than Ching. Ching is good using zerg (his best race I think), and Protoss, but when it comes to Terran, he seems to have trouble effectively using marines and tanks properly. I can't really discuss one on one games because I have only seen them play against each other once. But based on team play alone, Felix is superior to Ching, albeit the difference is almost like splitting a hair. They're really THAT close.

I would like to thank Felix and Ching for allowing me to view this epic battle of Gosus, and for everyone over at the Fooner's HQ for allowing me to steal their drinks and food. I suppose next time it's my turn to bring a pizza or something.

Look out for the final deathmatch report, coming out soon.

Deathmatch, Part 1: Stan Vs. Jacky

2007-11-14T18:21:00.000-08:00

"Vector locked in"

The wraith pilot looked through his targeting computer, locking onto his prey. There, on the vast plain that links the 8 islands of the land planet BGH, he saw them: row upon row of enemy Siege tanks and marine regiments en route to Admiral Ching's Command Centre. They've been spotted by a lone science vessel, the intent obviously a counter-attack for the damage Ching did to Felix earlier. The wraith pilot looked around as his wingmen closed into attack formation... and then blinked as they disappeared. Cloak fields activated, they charged their burst lasers and began firing. For the next 10 minutes, all there was were Pandemonium and blood. Screams and explosions filled the cold night air as marines were dashed apart limb from limb, lasers slicing through their thin armour, tanks were destroyed where they laid, shrapnel and confusion flew everywhere. When it was over, broken bodies and scrap metal were all that was left. That, and the cold, quiet night. Many lives were taken on this night, and before the fog of war lifts and one side emerges victorious, more lives shall be taken.

Sensing victory, the Wraiths, now joined by several dropships from Admiral Ching's base, headed out towards Felix's base...

Ching had prepared a special nuclear warhead just for the occasion.

So last Saturday, the Fooners hooked up for another LAN game of Starcraft (it's replaced Poker and the movie theatre as our favourite past time). Unfortunately, Jackson couldn't join us, so we had Howard play instead. Stanley kept bothering Calvin and I about playing a 1 on 1, to determine once and for all who the true "goosu" was. Of course, we didn't want to bite, so Calvin told him to "get the ball rolling first", and what happened were three key 1 on 1 duels.

This battlereport is the first of three.

BUT, before that, I've got the weekly Power Rankings:

1. Felix Chik
2. Steven Ching
3. Christopher Yang
4. Calvin Poon
5. Stanley Lam
6. Jacky Lee
7. Howard
8. Jackson

There's been quite a few changes since the last couple of times we all battled. First of all, obviously, is the addition of Howard. His playing style is kind of strange... while not a threat if you keep diverting his attention away, if you leave him alone he will come after you with the strangest units. It's not uncommon to see him attack you with wave after wave after wave of only marines, for example. And it's very effective.

Besides Howard, the playing level of all the other players have improved. Since Jackson couldn't come, there was no way to verify how much he's been improved, so his ranking stays as it is; however, that could change the next time we battle. Stanley supplanted Jacky, and Felix supplanted Ching. Calvin and I are still at the same places. I will explain the reasons for these changes below, and in the battlereports.

As for why these Power Ranking changes occurred, it involves a complex method of scoring (i.e. This is my own opinion lol). Basically, the outcome of these rankings is dependent on a player's performance both over team games and individual games. Rankings won't necessarily move up or down if a player was having a bad game and lost one or two. There are certain aspects I look for, such as macro and micro ability, strategies (planned, and especially on the fly), defense and offense strategies, ability to multitask, and ability to handle pressure. In team games, I look for leadership qualities, team strategies (simple example: Zealots attack first, bearing the brunt so that marines get several free hits on targets, and marines guarding teammate's siege tanks), and ability to help teammates (especially in the early stages of the game).

Now with all the crap talk out of the way, let's being with our first death match of the day: Stanley Vs. Jacky.

Since Stanley was the one who kept asking us to play 1 on 1s, it was only natural that he would fight against his closest rival first, that being Jacky. Since they were both still novices, the map was decided to be The Hunters- Gamei.

Stanley came in as Blue Zerg in the top right corner, while Jacky had the opposite corner floating in as Teal Terran.

Early builds were, as expected, real slow for both players. Jacky built his first supply depot on his 8th SCV, and a barracks on his 13th SCV. Meanwhile, Stanley spawned an overlord at 9, created a spawning pool almost simultaneously, and then created an extractor on his 13th drone.

Jacky soon built his second barracks at his natural, and followed it up with a bunker. It was pretty clear that Jacky was going for mass marines, while Stanley opted to expand to the 12 o'clock starting position 4.5 minutes into the gameAt

Damn Zerg and the early expanding-ness

At 5 minutes in, Stanley finally spawned an attack force of Zerglings, and sent them to where he thought Jacky's base was. Unfortunately, he went down the wrong choke:

You'd think that after all the games we played by now that Stanley would have memorized the entire map =/

Since Stan's "rush" was doomed to failure before it started, Jacky took an SCV and several marines, and was able to build a bunker in the middle of the map relatively unscathed

Afterwards, the intensity of the game just... sort of died down. Stanley started massing troops at his main base while Jacky slowly, but surely, bunkered his way up to Stanley's main.

I think the lack of intensity also got to Jacky, because at this point on he started lagging behind in terms of reaction time to attacks, etc. However, Stanley still couldn't break through the bunkers no matter how many troops he sent out, so he devised a devilish idea:

That's P.O's cave. That's why he's darker than black.

Pretty soon "the beasts" came charging out of Stanley's base and tore into the ranks of marines and bunkers, assisted with a couple of zerglings and hydralisks.

Yet even with ultralisks, Stanley STILL couldn't break through. However, his constant attacks rattled Jacky enough that he couldn't bunker push any further. However, Jacky did bring up some siege tanks for extra support, and floated a factory and barracks to the centre of the map for faster troop deployment.

At this point, Stanley was fed up, and he finally managed to research drop and speed upgrades for his Overlords. He loaded up a few of them, and dropped them into Jacky's undefended main:

And the result?

Uh... guess that's GG? Jacky left the game at this point.

Final Scores

Click HERE for the replay!

Notes about the game:

While I said that the power rankings don't change solely on the basis of one game, it was clear in this game how much Stanley has improved. While he is still slow on the macro front, what won him the battle was a simple three part strategy:

1. Outexpand the opponent. Early in the game Stanley took a somewhat big risk by expanding to the 12 o'clock starting position. However, he benefitted this once his expo was up and running by whoring minerals and gas like there was no tommorrow. This was important as it leads into the second strategy...
2. Keep the opponent busy. Stan pulled this off very well. Jacky's bunker push was under near constant attack, which kept Jacky from managing his own base very well because he was occupied with keeping the front line alive. While it could be argued that Stanley wasted his troops (Zerg troops are extremely expendable, by the way), he managed to get something more valuable in return: more time. Which leads into the NEXT strategy
3. The end game strategy was the overlord drop. Stanley took forever to research both drop and speed, partly because his teching is still weak, and partly because he was confused =P However, because of strat #2, he was able to buy enough time to finish the research and load up his overlords for the final attack on Jacky's main.

That being said, Stanley's team game is still very weak. His team attack co-ordination is still rather weak... for example, if you try to co-ordinate an attack on Stanley, he doesn't always seem to listen. There were several games where Calvin and I asked everyone to rally at the centre to take control of the map, and while Jacky did, Stanley did not. I think that perhaps he was too focussed on what was going on in his own base to see the messages we kept typing to him =P He has improved very much lately, however. Also, he seems to still have a problem with teching and upgrading his units, as evidenced by the fact it took him 20 minutes to upgrade his overlords for drops.

Jacky, while very good up to about midway through the game, has still improved considerably. In team games, he is an extremely dependable player, and actually puts himself into a role (i.e. planting himself into the middle of the map, and never letting opponents get by. It's a specialized and extremely important task). In team games, it's not uncommon to see Jacky hold the middle all by himself against hoards of players, and finishing the fight when you ask him to by sending over a billion siege tanks. I think, in fact, that Jacky's team game is better than Stanley's. However, in a one on one game, Jacky still has a few weaknesses:

1. First of all, ever heard of Urban Sprawl?

The worst mistake you can make, especially as a terran player, is to create a messy base and throw your buildings all over the place. Jacky managed to somehow create buildings all the way through his natural and even into the middle of the map. There was no order. This not only made it very hard to defend buildings in case of an attack (as Stanley's drop demonstrated), it also makes it hard to find the building you're looking for in that big mess. You could, of course, hotkey buildings, which brings us to the second point

2. Key control and mouse movement. People, take note: "Control + 0-9" are your bestest best friends in Starcraft. By clicking on a building and then hitting "Control 1", "control 2", etc. you can call up the buildings just by hitting that number again. This is indispensible in the early stages of the game, where you are trying to build a bunch of troops but you still need to build SCVS and marines and a whole bunch of units to build up your army. Instead of clicking all over the place, you could very simply hit the number and click on the unit to build. You can also set rally points very easily this way, and finally, by double tapping the number key for the building, your window will zoom right on top of it, so you can move troops around it. This also makes it useful when your base is being attacked and you need to quickly move your screen over to it. Instead of taking precious seconds moving your mouse around and wondering what the hell is going on, just double tap the key to your Nexus/CC/Hatchery/whatever and go from there.

The second thing to remember is "attack move". The principle is simple: select a bunch of troops, hit the "A" key, and then click on a LOCATION on the screen or minimap (i.e. NOT another enemy unit, but the ground around it). What this does is allow your troops to move to the location, while engaging any enemy unit on the way. Instead of focus firing on one particular unit, you could engage multiple units at once. If Jacky did this, he would have done much better.

3. "Never say die". While Stan's drop into Jacky's base was devastating, it wasn't a critical blow. Jacky had managed to expand to his natural, and he still had a huge number of buildings left. If he brought all his troops back to his base for defense, perhaps anticipated further attacks from Stanley, he could have been back into the game. With his bunker push already very formidably defended, Jacky might have had a real chance to win the game if he had put his mind to it and grinded it out. Instead, he conceded victory right after that. It was clear that he lost confidence and the will to win as Stanley kept suiciding his troops into Jacky's bunkers. His micromanaging became non-existant towards the end of the game as Stanley kept attacking him... basically, his reaction time became slower and slower as his confidence waivered and the pressure of trying to manage troop production and fighting of Stanley wore on him. The thing to remember in SC is to always calm down, think logically, and always try to "one up" your opponents strategy. Don't let a couple of small attacks put you off, but be aggressive and be smart. This is, of course, easier said than done, and can only come with experience.

It is, very much, like a tough and close game of Magic: The Gathering.

Because of the results of this game, the strengths and weaknesses became glaringly apparent. As I said, Jacky's team game is better than Stanley's, but in one on one situations Stanley has a cool head and clear strategies. And that is why for this one week at least, Stanley went up one place on the power rankings. We'll have to see if he remains there for long >=P

I would like to thank all players for allowing me to battlereport these games, and for providing a great way to end looong weeks of school. Watch out for part 2 soon =)

Jacky's Wrath

2007-10-27T15:17:00.000-07:00

"The greatest mistake is assuming you know more than your enemy"
-Quote off a random MTG Card

Nerdy reference notwithstanding, there is no greater truth to these words than when you're playing a game of Starcraft. One minute you think you're on top, and then POW, you get raped by 350+ cracklings (this happens with startling frequency in games of BGH ... or even worse, Fast Possible Map Ever).

A case in point came one day when Jacky and his two roommates, JT and Aaron, decided to hit it up with a LAN game of Broodwars instead of studying for midterms. Thus, our adventure began on a little known small map:

Jacky floated in as purple Terran, whereas JT warped in as white Protoss, and Aaron Teal Protoss.

As all three players are rather new, their early builds were rather strange... and slow.

About 5 minutes into the game (about the same time most pro players on Lost Temple would be expanding or teching to Siege tanks/dark templar/lurkers/whatever), here were the player's respective builds:

Jacky started off with a Supply depot, and followed it up with the standard barracks build. He proceeded to build a second barracks and supply depot. Of all the players, I think Jacky had the clearest idea (at this point in time anyways) of what he wanted to do to win the game... Marines... and lots of them.

Aaron, in the meantime, started off with a pylon, an extremely early assimilator, gateway, then cybernetics core. I thought at this point in time he was going for early dragoons and potentially dark templar. Then when he started his forge instead of a second gateway, I raised an eyebrow. What was he doing?

As for JT? Well...

Okay, he just started playing recently, like Jacky. This probably explains why he had 3 pylons and just one gateway, plus a forge...

All three players started scouting about 3 minutes into the game. Aaron knew that JT was a very small threat, so he decided to harrass Jacky when he stumbled upon his base. His probe survived after being chased off by Jacky's SCVs, and immediately ran off a short distance north of Jacky's base. There, I finally understood the reason for the Forge:

Cannon rush!

Jacky apparently didn't see this coming at first, as he was busy macro-ing marines. Thus, it was pretty much too late for Jacky to react when the first cannon came online, and when additional cannons came online and started firing at Jacky's barracks...

Jacky knew he was in big trouble, and even I thought he was completely screwed.

JT wasn't much help either, as his total offensive force consisted of two zealots:

Jacky, relatively new or not, knew that the entire fate of the game was in his hands. He had to do something... and fast. Then, like a ray of sunlight, inspiration struck him in the head:

Yes, the best thing to do at a time like this is to SCV rush Aaron.

Quickly collaborating with JT, Jacky asked him to go for Aaron's defensive force (which consisted of exactly one Dragoon and Zealot), with his three zealots while Jacky went for the Nexus:

A massive "WTF!???" signalled the mass confusion that greeted the Protoss camp, as Aaron was clearly caught off guard by Jacky's daring attack.

Perhaps so confused and surprised, in fact, that he didn't even bother microing his probes to try and kill the SCVs. Jacky didn't even bother going for the probes at first, concentrating his SCVs exclusively on the Nexus while his Marines provided backup fire for any pesky probes in the way:

As the Nexus's shield went down and health flowed steadily into the red, Aaron tried to erect two cannons... too little too late.

As soon as Aaron's Nexus went down, it was all over. Without enough minerals to start up a new Nexus, and his probes being popped one by one as Aaron STILL didn't bother to micro, it was GG as Aaron left the game.

Final score:

Click HERE for the replay!

Lessons learned:

1. First off, don't underestimate your opponent. Even if you're slightly less newbish than him, he could do something that will completely surprise you.

2. Cannon Rushing does NOT work against another Terran player. This isn't just true for n00bs, but true for pros and everyone in general. Click HERE for a replay demonstrating another example why.

This is game between a pro toss and terran player. As you could see, as soon as the Terran player realized that he couldn't keep the protoss player from building dual gateways in his base, he thought of the best solution: Why not move over to the toss base? In a move that astounded the Korean TV audience that was watching this game, the terran player floated his buildings and brought his SCVs over to the protoss base, BUILT A WALL ON the RAMP to keep the protoss attack force out of his camp, and proceeded to rape the protoss base from the inside out with his SCVs. Worst idea ever for the Protoss player.

3. Jacky is Gosu in minimaps. Do not play against this man if you do not want to be embarrassed.

4. Learn to tech faster than these guys. Seriously, it's almost painful to watch =P

5. Don't rush with your workers unless a situation like this occurs. This is one of the few occasions such a thing would work (the other being if your micro is better than the n00b you're playing against).

I would like to thank all three players for a suspenseful and surprising game, and for Battlereports.com for providing the second replay of a, if anything, even MORE exciting game.

~Eastside

The Tides of War Wait for No Man (or Ching)

2007-10-15T17:48:00.000-07:00

BATTLEREPORT? WHAT R THEESE?

Due to the announcement of Starcraft 2, many of the past Fooners who have played Starcraft decided to blow the dust off their old CDs again. Meanwhile, the enthusiasm and sheer boredom of these few veterans compelled the rest of the Fooners to join in, in epic 6+ player team battles to the death.

The formats of the games are simple: Top Vs. Bottom, Starcraft Original (Brood War adds a element of detection and the newer players amongst us can't handle dark templar, etc. very well). However, due to the fact that Felix and Ching are stronger than the rest of us, we elected to go on a 5 on 2 game. Yup, there's no honour or glory for Calvin, Jackson, Jacky, Stanley and I, but as we are really crappy players we need all the help we can get.

As a side note, here's my personal power rankings of all the players at the moment... however, these are mostly due to varying experiences. If you come back to me at the end of the school term/next year, I'm sure the list would be mixed up quite a bit, as everyone is sort of rusty:

Power Rankings
1. Steven Ching
2. Felix Chik
3. Christopher Yang (below the first two by a wide margin)
4. Calvin Poon (GOOSU!!)
5. Jacky Lee
6. Stanley Lam (Jacky and Stanley are actually extremely close, depending on how focussed they are at game time)
7. Jackson Tsui

I have to emphasize that while 2 on 5 does not seem fair, the reality of the matter is that these games are really well matched. The 5 of us lost quite a few games to those 2, and vice versa. It wasn't until about 4AM in the morning when the 5 of us were finally good enough so that we could play 4 on 3 games, evenly matched. Also, as much as it pains me to say it, Ching owns me. He is THE master of early game macro (probably from his gay experience with Bon... I mean Zerg), and if he rushes me early in the game I'm almost guaranteed to go down fast. One day I'll pwn him legitimately, but at the moment I can only keep building my skills up...

Alright, exams are a week away so let's get going...

The game map is The Hunters- Gamei . This is a slightly modified version of The Hunters, with each natural (i.e. closest expansion point) getting it's own Vespene Geyser, as opposed to some getting geysers and some not in the original map. We decided to play this map as it's easy, but not as gay as Big Game Hunters (which requires absolutely no skill in expansion or resource management). Without further adieu, the players and warp locations:

Ching and Felix went Zerg; the rest of us went Terran.

Early in the game Calvin told us to go marines. We all agreed, most of us walling in our base. On my 7th SCV, instead of walling in right outside my base, I elected to build a supply depot further up my choke so that I have my natural protected as well, and on my 11th SCV I built a barracks. Likewise, Jacky did the same. Felix, perhaps sensing that we were too n00b to rush him with marines, decided to expand to his natural using his second hatchery.

It wasn't long before first blood was drawn. 3 minutes into the game, Ching, being the aggressive person he is (just ask Boner King/PO), sent over 2 zerglings to harrass Calvin at the 10 o'clock position.

This was joined by a further two zerglings. Calvin only had one lonely marine that was quickly killed, and as further zerglings appeared Calvin had to pull SCVS off the line to shoo the rats away.

During the chaos, Ching quickly expanded to take Calvin's natural. Jackson, being the closest player to Calvin, sent reinforcements his way to help out... on the way though, he stumbled upon Ching's new expansion and proceeded to pump gauss rifle rounds into it.

Ching had to pull his zerglings from Calvin's base and defend against Jackson, where the marines were quickly killed.

At the same time though, I sent a small pimp squad of marines over to Ching's main to deal some damage...

Unfortunately, my pimpin' pimp squad wasn't so pimpin' when it counted, as Ching recalled zerglings back to his base before I could destroy his spawning pool. However, Stanley and I sent up another contingent of marines, and after quickly dispatching Ching's zerglings, proceeded to finish off the job:

With Ching's main down, it was now only a matter of time. Felix sent over a couple of zerglings to try and save him, but with Calvin and Stan's Marines/Firebats hitting Ching's expansion from both sides, it was an inevitable fall.

With momentum clearly on our side and Ching clearly eliminated, we proceeded over to Felix's base.

Fuck. This is going to be a tough nut to crack.

It was apparent that Felix still wants to play, and won't go down without a fight. With so many sunken colonies littering the front of his natural, our marines regrouped just outside and waited for reinforcements to arrive. For whatever reason I was really unproductive and lazy at this time, as although I built two factories, I wasn't making shit (except marines).

This is how the map looked like 10 minutes into the game:

Most of us had expanded into our naturals, with Stanley being the sole exception. Ching was quite obviously dead, and the mass of rainbow colours outside Felix's base is us.

As soon as the first tanks arrived and sieged up, I put my marines in front to protect them and to provide sightlines to the sunkens

Things were looking good as our tanks were taking out sunkens one by one, and any zerlings that attempted to rush us were met with stiff resistance from marines.

Little did we know however, that the skies were about to turn dark...

OMGWTF Guardians!

Needless to say, Felix's surprise defense move from above his natural caught us with our pants down, and in the confusion marines moved into range of the sunkens, people tried attacking the natural, Stanley was moving his troops I don't know where, and Jacky's fatass tanks blocked everyone from making a quick escape. I was furiously typing "MOVE TO MID, MOVE TO MID" to get us to retreat from the acid spores, but by the time we did, much of our collective forces were gone.

We really need to work on co-ordinating attacks and communicating with each other.

Seeing as we were in slight trouble, I started work on starports

In the meantime, we knew we had to stop Felix from grabbing resources (or else we'd be killed by a mass of mutalisks and guardians), so we sent in our ground troops on a suicidal raid on his expo.

Luckily, we were successful... at the moment.

A brief calm settled over the battlefield, only broken when Stanley for inexplicable reasons sent hapless marines into Felix's natural, only for them to be killed instantly by Guardians.

The next move came from Felix. Realizing that he was starting to run low on minerals and that we were right outside his base, he sent over a couple of guardians to calvin's main. Calvin, without adequate air defenses, could only lift his buildings off and watch as the guardians started destroying his base from the inside out

But wait! Right at this moment my 6th wraith was completed at my starport, and I rushed them over to save Calvin

Moans from Felix's room came as I yelled "WHAT! WHAT!"

Felix was no n00b though, and he knew that I was going to go after his guardians defending his natural. Quickly, he moved his hydralisks underneath his guardians, and his overlord into position to protect against my cloaking capabilities

... And being the dumbass I am, I ran right into his trap

Sigh...

However, this defense and counterattack probably rattled Felix a bit. He was running low on resources, with his main almost mined out, and he had to expand NOW. He gathered up his guardians and hydralisks, and proceeded to push us out from his natural

This is MA house bitches!

We fought back with a combination of marines, siege tanks, and wraiths. Jacky and Jackson were at the front of the battlefield and they lost a majority of their forces before my wraiths and Stanley's marines came to the rescue.

And what of Calvin? He had a nasty surprise waiting for Felix, after what Felix did to him...

I realized at this point that trying to co-ordinate an attack with the 3 newer players were uselss, and that Calvin was quickly trying to rebuild. If you want to get something done, you need to lead by example. I moved my wraiths to Felix's entrance, with several marines to support them from the ground

Then, obviously, I attacked.

I cloaked my wraiths and immediately went after the overlords, while the marines took care of hydralisks from the ground. Perhaps spurred by the fact that I actually attacked, the others rushed in just as my troops were decimated. Fortunately, I had already taken out pretty much all of Felix's minions. Momentum swung heavily in our favour.

As a side note, I have to say that I am really impressed with how versatile marines are. Even this late in the game, they aren't useless, even against bigger and badder enemies... except guardians, but that's only because I didn't upgrade my marines at all, thinking that they were better off as cannon fodder. I was obviously wrong. If I had stim and Uranium rounds, and a couple of weapon upgrades, they would have been absolutely dangerous, even by themselves. Once you have an expansion running, and you're low on gas from building terran metal, you usually have a bunch of minerals left, so you can pump out marines when you're bored, which really aren't absolutely weak against anything. I forgot how good Terran was.

Back to the game, as Felix's expansion falls:

Felix was done for at this point. As our troops entered from his choke, Calvin dropped at his back door and proceeded to lay waste to his buildings

Overcome from both sides, with no resources to spare, Felix left the game.

GG!

Final tallies:

I would like to thank all the Fooners for the fun night that we had. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we'll get too many more opportunities this year for a LAN party as school work is beginning to crunch down on us (again). That's okay though, cuz I have 3 more replays to use for my battlereports =P

Click HERE for the full replay!

~Eastside