The forth day of OSL action promised to show games were more exciting and unpredictable than ever. Anytime, our Protoss hero, fought to get himself back into the running in his group while underdogs like dongrae and forGG attempted to show that they truly belong on the OSL stage.
Game 1 – Oov vs. Dongrae Hitchhiker
Oov (11) and Dongrae (5) opened with very different builds. Oov went with a fact/CC (big surprise ) while Dongrae opted for a fact/port build. Dongrae got a pair of cloaked wraiths in the air and poked at Oov (who by now had a port of his own) while the gorilla cleverly hid his lone dropship in a random area of the map.
Oov built his factory count up and got a nice tank/goly force massed, but he was unprepared for Dongrae’s imminent assault on his cliff. Dongrae ferried some tanks to the high ground and walked them to the cliff overlooking Oov’s natural. He reinforced this group with dropship loads. After losing his few dropships to wraiths in an attempt to clear the drop, Oov tried to walk his large ground army across the map to attack his opponent’s natural expansion. However, Dongrae was ready for him...
Dongrae blocks Oov’s passage with a pair of tanks and a rax wall.
Oov attempted some counter drops and signature random expos, but Dongrae was now in control.
Great game from Dongrae who didn’t panic when his opponent expanded before him. He used his tech advantage to effectively control the air and caught Oov at the perfect time. Had that cliff attack been any later, Oov would have had enough dropships to defend himself. Dongrae’s technique to load up the high ground with units for a large cliff attack perfectly exploited the timing of his opponent’s build. Nice stuff.
Game 2 – Anytime vs. Yellow[name] Arkanoid
Anytime (11) teched to sairs quickly and used his early zeal/goons to clear the way at his natural expansions. Yellow Jr. (1) went with a very different strategy. He pooled first and began to tear through the neutral buildings as he pursued a 2 hatch hydra build. It was obvious that Anytime was in big trouble. Not only did Jr. scout Anytime first, but he altered the path of his overlord to make it look like it had come from a different main. This ment that he had not only gotten full information about his opponent’s position, but the overlord trickery caused Anytime to keep his scouting probe in the wrong location in the center of the map.
Yellow got to mass up hydras as he broke through the buildings toward Anytime’s main, completely unnoticed and uninterrupted.
Jr. went with an all in build that was basically based on fooling his opponent into scouting improperly. There was only a 33% chance that he would scout Anytime first, giving him this advantage. Further, Anytime had clearly expected a build like this and had a scouting probe in the middle of the map for no purpose other than to catch it. However, he misplaced it due to Jr’s trickery.
I’ll give Jr. props for planning a manipulation strategy, but the fact is that this game went so well for him because of luck. Anytime would have scouted it if the positions were anything other than perfect.
If I were Jr. I’d have headed straight to the casino after this game and if I were Anytime, I’d have cried myself to sleep. Tough break for the 2nd seed, who now has no chance of getting a top 2 spot in his group.
Game 3 – Savior vs. Chojja Reverse Temple
Chojja (6, pool first) seemed to take the lead quickly as he forced Savior (2, hatch at nat first) to cancel his fast expansion hatch. Chojja also got his lair and spire up more quickly, but he cut drones in order to pull this quick build off. Savior, on the other hand, was heavier in drones and when his second hatch finished morphing, this made a huge difference.
Savior overwhelms Chojja with lings before spire tech can kick in.
Chojja lost a ton of drones and soon lost the muta/scourge game due to lack of economy.
Savior’s timing was great. He didn’t lose much from the canceling of his nat hatch and his early drone massing paid off big time. Chojja didn’t seem his usual self and his hungry build didn’t seem to give him any obvious advantages.
Game 4 – GoodFriend vs. July Longinus
GF opened with a one rax CC (sealing his base off with a depot/rax wall) while July played a standard 3 hatch. GF got an e-bay for +1 weapons right away and managed to get a vulture into July’s main to harass, but netted zero drone kills before it was dealt with.
GF continued to mass infantry and grow his infrastructure while July threw up a very late spire (his lair and den had both already been done for a while). Once his mutas were in the air, July wasted most of their health with some clumsy and ineffective sweeps.
GF was quickly ready to move out and flattened his Zerg opponent with a whack of MnM and 4 tanks.
July’s build was confusing and had no momentum to it. He didn’t manage any harass and his muta control was sloppy. Easy win for our favourite mundane Terran.
Game 5 – GGPlay vs. ForGG Longinus
GGPlay (11) played it by the book with a hatch first at his nat while ForGG (7) walled off with a rax, seemingly using the same expansion build as GF did before him. Instead, the Terran moved in for a bunker rush. He managed to kill 6 of GGPlay’s defending drones in the micro battle that ensued without even finishing his bunker. After this huge economic win, ForGG abandoned his attack and built a CC at his own natural.
ForGG shreds GGplay’s poorly microed drones, completely removing the need for him to press his attack any further.
The game continued and GGPlay made a run for it, but the conclusion was inevitable.
GGPlay threw this game away on drone micro. It looked like Boxer vs. Yellow all over again out there! After that ForGG went through the motions to pull out his win.
Game 6 – Zergman vs. Jy Hitchhiker
Both players 9 pooled, Zergman (11) before overlord and Jy (5) after overlord. Right off the bat, Jy underproduced lings and lost 3 drones to an early ling attack from his opponent. Zergman even escaped with 2 of the lings and put up a sunk at his main to stop his opponent’s retaliation attack.
Zergman displays keen game sense in minimizing his spending on defenses to maximize the impact of his first wave of spire units.
A very typical muta/scourge battle ensued, but Jy was still down those 3 drones that he lost in the beginning of the game. Most guys can’t beat Zergman in a muta/scourge battle when they have even economy, so I think you can guess what happened here.
This game was pretty boring. Jy blew it in the opening minutes by letting those lings take him apart. Watching this gave me flash backs of Jju’s 6 game ZvZ disgrace a few seasons ago.
Recommended VOD of the day.
The competition wasn’t very tight in this game day. Unfortunate circumstances and big game blunders accounted for most of the games. I guess I’ll give Dongrae a node for taking down the scariest SKT1 Terran with a cool and calmly played cliff strategy. He loaded that sucker up so heavily that it couldn’t be cleared and still managed to hold his wall successfully. Not a fantastic game as recommended VODs go, but today wasn’t exactly a showcase of greatness.
There are some interesting situations coming up, like the possibilities for ties in some groups. The group stages will conclude next week and we’ll see which players will make it to the round of 16, be it by winning their groups or wildcards.
If you want to learn more about the mechanics of the groups stages and how wildcards will work, reference one of jkillashark's old OSL summary posts or read Mani's ShinHan OSL introduction news post. I'll summarize the standings and possibilities of advancement for players once the first round is over at the end of next week.
Damn I was really rooting for OOV this week, shame but well played by Dong. But I was exhillerated (sp?) Savior pulled through in that zvz! The starting had me kinda going T_T for a while there with the hatch cancelling but indd after he lost nothing but a bit of time while having a major eco diff in his favor its all good afterall.
Savior ftw! <3
VERY nice writeup btw manablue, really enjoy your newsposts. Good writing, funny, good screenshots and nice spoiler use. Thumbs up! Hope to see it still here every week in the new year .
I think Hwasin, Sea.UpMagic or even Midas or GF, might be the terrans to root for in this season... NaDa and Oov are not giving any satisfactory results. I guess everyone can read them like a book by now, and though they are skilled, they wont be making the cut
Zergman had a nice touch to his build and gameplan. You seemed to have missed it.
- 9 pool and speedupgrade. - NOT sending out his own lings but camping in his base and build their numbers. - Catch the lower-count lings of his opponent (travaldistance and production time) who may have expected a 12-pool or the like when he went into zergmans base - then immediately counterattack with higher ling count.
That gave him the edge throughout the rest of the game.
Thanks for uploading these games Corinthos! What you've been doing recently with OSL games is very cool. Keep it up!
As for the spoilers, the point was never to hide the results from you, but to take away the "this player > that player" so that people wouldn't know the results by glancing at the report or pictures.
If you're reading my report word for word, I assume you want the result.
I don't think there's much point in hiding half my reporting in spoiler tags. Most of what I write takes place after the advantage that won the game. So I'm going to keep doing it like this. Hopefully that makes sense to you guys.
Thanks for uploading these games Corinthos! What you've been doing recently with OSL games is very cool. Keep it up!
As for the spoilers, the point was never to hide the results from you, but to take away the "this player > that player" so that people wouldn't know the results by glancing at the report or pictures.
If you're reading my report word for word, I assume you want the result.
I don't think there's much point in hiding half my reporting in spoiler tags. Most of what I write takes place after the advantage that won the game. So I'm going to keep doing it like this. Hopefully that makes sense to you guys.
Yup, not a problem. You write great reports ManaBlue. Anyhow do you plan on writing a report for the MSL games too? If so I better start downloading the VODs lol.
On December 30 2006 11:02 Corinthos wrote: Yup, not a problem. You write great reports ManaBlue. Anyhow do you plan on writing a report for the MSL games too? If so I better start downloading the VODs lol.
Orome is going to be doing any MSL coverage we have. Hopefully he get those reports up.
On December 30 2006 11:02 Corinthos wrote: Yup, not a problem. You write great reports ManaBlue. Anyhow do you plan on writing a report for the MSL games too? If so I better start downloading the VODs lol.
Orome is going to be doing any MSL coverage we have. Hopefully he get those reports up.
On December 30 2006 11:02 Corinthos wrote: Yup, not a problem. You write great reports ManaBlue. Anyhow do you plan on writing a report for the MSL games too? If so I better start downloading the VODs lol.
Orome is going to be doing any MSL coverage we have. Hopefully he get those reports up.
I'm working on it, the VODs were uploaded late, I only just finished downloading.
On December 30 2006 11:02 Corinthos wrote: Yup, not a problem. You write great reports ManaBlue. Anyhow do you plan on writing a report for the MSL games too? If so I better start downloading the VODs lol.
Orome is going to be doing any MSL coverage we have. Hopefully he get those reports up.
I'm working on it, the VODs were uploaded late, I only just finished downloading.
Awesome.
Corinthos, regardless of whether reports are written, any uploading you can do is awesome. Just update that topic you made, or make new ones as you upload stuff.
I rewatched the savior game and it's insane. savior played a perfect game. chojja didn't gain any obvious advantage because's savior's micro was perfect, and he macroed like usual while having perfect micro, making savior in a whole other class from 2nd best like others have said.
I didn't think savior played perfectly, chojja just made a horrible mistake early on. He gained an advantage when he made savior cancel his hat and got into savior's base w/ lings. What he should've done at that point was harass savior in his base and make savior pull off drones for a bit w/out losing any of his lings, and then retreat up the ramp w/ his reinforcements and hold the ramp while waiting for his spire to finish. If he did that, his huge tech advantage would've won him the game. Instead of doing that, he wasted his early lings and had a ling disadvantage and savior was easily able to break out.
On December 31 2006 01:48 ArC_man wrote: I didn't think savior played perfectly, chojja just made a horrible mistake early on. He gained an advantage when he made savior cancel his hat and got into savior's base w/ lings. What he should've done at that point was harass savior in his base and make savior pull off drones for a bit w/out losing any of his lings, and then retreat up the ramp w/ his reinforcements and hold the ramp while waiting for his spire to finish. If he did that, his huge tech advantage would've won him the game. Instead of doing that, he wasted his early lings and had a ling disadvantage and savior was easily able to break out.
Once chojja got into savior's base with his 6 lings, savior already had 6 lings come out 1 second after. chojja wouldn't have been able to harass savior and his sick micro at all. Then chojja did bring reinforcements to the top of the ramp but savior used his 8 lings to kill off chojja's 6 while losing only 3 himself because of great micro again on the ramp. chojja could have played it better but the reason neither of your suggestions for chojja worked is because of savior's micro control.
chojja maybe could have won if he microed his lings better and didn't let savior get a ling advantage, which is what you said, but I think savior deserves a lot of credit for why that didn't happen. Plus even if savior's lings didn't break out and harass chojja's base, savior still had a decent shot because of his economic (more workers) lead and his slightly faster second hatch compared to chojja's tech lead. Also, savior's muta/scourge micro is much better than chojja's, chojja's early tech allowed him to get more scourges out than savior but savior's great muta micro killed almost all of them.
On January 02 2007 17:55 useLess[ies] wrote: Once chojja got into savior's base with his 6 lings, savior already had 6 lings come out 1 second after. chojja wouldn't have been able to harass savior and his sick micro at all. Then chojja did bring reinforcements to the top of the ramp but savior used his 8 lings to kill off chojja's 6 while losing only 3 himself because of great micro again on the ramp. chojja could have played it better but the reason neither of your suggestions for chojja worked is because of savior's micro control.
chojja maybe could have won if he microed his lings better and didn't let savior get a ling advantage, which is what you said, but I think savior deserves a lot of credit for why that didn't happen. Plus even if savior's lings didn't break out and harass chojja's base, savior still had a decent shot because of his economic (more workers) lead and his slightly faster second hatch compared to chojja's tech lead. Also, savior's muta/scourge micro is much better than chojja's, chojja's early tech allowed him to get more scourges out than savior but savior's great muta micro killed almost all of them.
It doesn't matter that Savior had 6 lings already when Chojja got into his base, it's still very hard to chase and catch other lings in zvz when they're controlled properly (especially if they're the same speed). Just the fact that there are lings in your base forces you to chase them around and waste time, they don't have to be attacking your drones or tech. If Chojja controlled them properly, it would've been very tough for Savior to kill them. Instead of running his lings around, Chojja went straight for Savior's drones and stupidly got his lings trapped and surrounded by Savior's drones and lings. Savior was already behind tech wise, he had a much slower gas and he spent his first 100 on ling speed. If Chojja held the ramp properly (he should've had most of his initial 6 lings alive and reinforcement 6 lings to make ~11-12 total), he wouldn't have been forced to make a sunk and his first 3 mutas would've won him the game or at least put him into a greatly advantageous position.
On January 02 2007 17:55 useLess[ies] wrote: Once chojja got into savior's base with his 6 lings, savior already had 6 lings come out 1 second after. chojja wouldn't have been able to harass savior and his sick micro at all. Then chojja did bring reinforcements to the top of the ramp but savior used his 8 lings to kill off chojja's 6 while losing only 3 himself because of great micro again on the ramp. chojja could have played it better but the reason neither of your suggestions for chojja worked is because of savior's micro control.
chojja maybe could have won if he microed his lings better and didn't let savior get a ling advantage, which is what you said, but I think savior deserves a lot of credit for why that didn't happen. Plus even if savior's lings didn't break out and harass chojja's base, savior still had a decent shot because of his economic (more workers) lead and his slightly faster second hatch compared to chojja's tech lead. Also, savior's muta/scourge micro is much better than chojja's, chojja's early tech allowed him to get more scourges out than savior but savior's great muta micro killed almost all of them.
It doesn't matter that Savior had 6 lings already when Chojja got into his base, it's still very hard to chase and catch other lings in zvz when they're controlled properly (especially if they're the same speed). Just the fact that there are lings in your base forces you to chase them around and waste time, they don't have to be attacking your drones or tech. If Chojja controlled them properly, it would've been very tough for Savior to kill them. Instead of running his lings around, Chojja went straight for Savior's drones and stupidly got his lings trapped and surrounded by Savior's drones and lings. Savior was already behind tech wise, he had a much slower gas and he spent his first 100 on ling speed. If Chojja held the ramp properly (he should've had most of his initial 6 lings alive and reinforcement 6 lings to make ~11-12 total), he wouldn't have been forced to make a sunk and his first 3 mutas would've won him the game or at least put him into a greatly advantageous position.
I see that you are probably right about chojja being able to win or at least be in a greatly advantageous position. So I will say this, if savior had done chojja's build and vice versa, I guarantee savior would have easily won the game doing the things you recommend chojja had done. It was a risky build for chojja and I think he lost because he was so intimidated and scared of savior, at least that's the impression I got. It seemed like chojja knew he was going to lose before the game even started so when he actually gained an advantage with his build, he made a lot of mistakes playing scared.