Deathmatch, Part 1: Stan Vs. Jacky

"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 =)