BWCL Season 50 Week 7 Rev-B vs Rkd_

We've done it, boys, Rev-B is back in style.
I'll do a bit of a writeup of the games but do not expect this every week, I might make it a more regular thing if it's well received and I have the time (am off of work come Mon and Tue).


This weeks games featured BWCL newcomer Danant, a troubled Taptap who was not only battling morale but also an upset stomach, ViR, our currently strongest Performing player and our "why play quick games, mining out the whole map is more fun" Icelandic endurance master Steamy in the 1on1s and Maitreya + Vir, aka "the guys who will be forced to play 2on2 together each week from now on" in the 2on2.


1on1s:

Danant (T) vs Pacha (Z) 0-2
Our #1 slot game was the last to start, due to.. let's call it South American organization.
The first game featured Pacha going for a 2hatch muta build, harassing Danants standard 2 base play. 4 sunkens at home and the mutas kept zerg safe, while he teched into guardians. Unfortunately they came too early and Danant didn't have an answer to them, losing his natural and consequently the first game.
Game 2 was played on escalade, where Pacha went full zerg and 4pooled his way to a 2-0 victory.

Taptap (P) vs makito (P) 2-0
Let me start off by saying that this game was hard to watch. Not because of gameplay, but a PvP featuring a Player who plays in white and the other one in "not quite as white" is no fun (I was told how to Change colors after the game..).
The first game started off with Taptap going for a 1g robo build, while makito went for a timid 2gate zealots into 3gate goons. Makito seemed scared by the gas and made some defensive canons against drops and therefore cutting units.
Seeing this, Taptap listened to every BW caster in the world and went for the good old "when ahead, get further ahead", by keeping his reaver in a defensive stance and expanding. With his macro kicking in, Taptap decided it was time to push. He picked up the reaver and attacked makito's natural, killing it. Surprisingly, the canons in his main base were of no help in defensing the frontal attack. After killing the natural, Taptap set up a light-ish contain and - you guessed right - got further ahead. After stopping getting further ahead and committing to an attack up makito's ramp, TapTap had to fall back and took a third base. Behind in upgrades but ahead in tech, Taptap easily held off his opponent's attempt at pressuring his third and countered his way to victory.

Makito picked La Mancha for game 2. Black vs white this time. We won't discuss the historical significance of this, for now I'm just happy that I actually know who's units are who's. The game started the same way as game 1 with makito playing 2gate, Taptap going for 1gate gas. This time, though, uppon seeing the 2gates, he made a second gate of his own. Now, Taptap was the one expecting something weird, making a robo and a forge at the same time with a canon at his ramp and teching into obs. With the roles somewhat reversed, makino was the one starting the aggression with his 3 gateways. Taptap had started an expansion but thanks to his strong macro was able to hold it off before it really started.
In his second wave of aggression, makino loaded up a reaver into his shuttle, planing a two pronged attack. His shuttle, for some reason, took the scenic route, though, giving Taptap's expansion enough time to put him economically ahead. Makinos reaver did finally arrive in Taptaps main and killed a few probes, but his frontal attack was held off easily. 12 minutes into the game, Taptap went for his game-ending attack. Makino killed most of Taptaps probes at the natural with the reaver (who had by now seen almost all of La Mancha) but wasn't able to fend off Taptaps army back at his own base.

ViR (Z) vs Aldarizzz (Z) 2-0
Game 1 had Aldarizzz starting with a 9pool gas against ViR's 12hatch inbase. While ViR pretended it's the pre 2000s, following his hatch up with an 11pool and 10 gas (he might have snuck a drone in, sorry), Aldarizzz went tech heavy, teching lair and lingspeed to support his 6 aggrolings. ViR went for his own speed just a bit behind that of Aldarizzz, deciding to challenge his opponent's scouting ability, by throwing down a hydra den behind it. The attempt to poke in was easily held off by ViR, leaving Aldarizzz only guessing, what he would be up against. Once 2 lings finally managed to make their way into ViR's base and see what was going on, Aldarizzz had already droned and was still on 1 hatchery, his spire at 400/600. Once the first mutas hatched, lings and 5 hydras were already at his natural, which he had just recently started. Aldarizzz had no way of defending and tapped out.

Purple against slightly less purple… but by now I have learned how to change that! (fantastic, it turns into yellow vs yellow but I'll stop whining, since the 2 People reading this aren't going to be interested in that)
Zerg vs zerg on Escalade. While Aldarizzz went for a 9hatch xp 9 pool, ViR kept on sticking to his tried and trusted 12hatch inbase build. Aldarizzz went for the lair tech route, this time on 2 bases, but ViR mixed it up a bit, getting speed and pulling the drones off of his gas, in order to take a 3rd hatchery at his natural. One sunken was not enough to fend off the onslaught of lings sent over by ViR and the lack of a defensive positioning on the ramp forced Aldarizzz to tap out.

Steamy (T) vs poison48 (P) 2-1
The first game had Steamy going for a 1 rax expand, while his opponent stayed on 1 base for a scary amount of time. Correctly identifying the cloaked threat, Steamy made a scan and turrets and held off the 1 base DT drop without losing too much. An unorthodox followup with an archondrop right after the DTs proved too much for the vultures that had been made in response to the first drop, resulting in a "go rematch man" by poison. We'll leave that one uncommented.

After this loss game 2 happened (obviously). But let me tell you, this one had it all. The game was played on neo sulphite. A standard opening by Steamy was met by a 1 gateway, 2 zealot rush into a quick xp by poison. Steamy didn't take damage from the zealots, so he decided to counter the expansion. Big time. All of his units and alot of scvs were sent into the attack. And scvs can build bunkers. That is exactly what happened with a bunker placed next to poisons nexus. The Nexus didn't fall but it cost protoss alot of units and mining time, during which Steamy secured his own natural and added more factories. Steamy tried funnelling in a few more Units but couldn't get into a good offensive position, since poisons 3 gateway production had kicked in. The game slowed down for just a short time after that, with poison going into reaver drop. It dealt quite a bit of damage to Steamys natural and had it not crawled into a randomly(?) placed mine and died, it could have dealt game ending Damage, since like protosses should, he was further expanding behind the attack. After the first very eventful minutes, the game went into more of a standard mode with protoss teching to arbiters on 4 bases and Steamy adding more factories and upgraded on 3 bases. During this time a random dark archon was sitting in poison's base gathering energy. With Steamy's macro kicking in, he pushed the middle and forced protoss to use his arbiters defensively, forcing out Energy for stasis and even defensive recalls. The fight in the middle took quite a while and when watching the replay I saw a cc landing and thought nice, Steamy is taking his 5th base. But when I saw probes mining and bringing the minerals back to said cc I remembered the random dark archon. Yep, Poison was going for pimpest plays and had actually mindcontroled an scv and was trying to get some tanks of his own. Behind those shenannigans he was also teching carriers. Luckily Steamy either had his Steamysenses working or he..scanned, but Steamy was prepared for the carriers and had denied protoss from taking the map, so with way superior income he managed to not win pimpest play, but the game and forced out a "crea" from his Opponent after 37 minutes and 30 seconds.

Poison's next mapchoice was La Mancha.
Within the first 10 seconds, he had announced that he would be taking this one seriously: "now all my power". All his power was an 11 nexus, prompting Steamy to go zerg and start his 3rd base at the 5 minute mark.
A quick push by protoss punished Steamy, killing his natural, prompting a "GG MAN" from our beloved South American foe. Poison went ahead taking the map, having 5 bases and 3 port carrier production at the 15 minute mark.
A big push to Protoss's natural and his 3rd caught him offguard with his units first just standing in the middle of nowhere, then attacking a base which hadn't yet been taken. Once his units had finally found an actually mining base, he was met with adequate defences and had to pull back. Poison was put back onto 3 bases but still had a scary fleet of 9 carriers with a controlgroup of goons. After both armies having circumvented one another, a basetrade started, putting both players on minimal economy (19 probes vs 20 scvs) but left both with a strong army. Both Players kept on dealing damage to their opponent but Poison started losing his carriers while Steamy started getting a good (at least better) economy. After some more back and forth Poison finally tapped out and actually gave Steamy a "GG". 36:46 minutes. Steamy really makes the most out of each game he enters!


2on2:
Maitreya (P) ViR (Z) vs makito (P) Pacha (Z)
A PZ vs PZ in the 2on2. Both protosses started off standard with 10/12 gates. ViR went for a 12 pool gas, while Pacha decided to mix it up and go for a 9 hatch expand. We won't Mention ViR's 8th drone being a bit of a rebel and wanting to go for a wander around his mainbase instead of mining minerals, but after some wild pinging by Maitreya, the drone decided to get his lazy bum to work. Since ViR's overlord flew right over Pacha's expansion, the action ensued right away with Maitreya rallying his zealots to the Expansion and ViR's lings wanting to follow. Knowing that this expansion is risky, the Rkd team sent out their units as soon as they popped, causing ViR to stay behind, fending off makito's aggression. ViR managed to pick off the first zealot, which led to Maitreya changing course and going for protoss. In the meantime, Pacha had sent 6 lings into ViR's now defenseless mainbase. Makito, knowing he will have to fight a 1on2 for a bit, with his ally's expansion being a juicy target, went for a 3rd gate while being pressured by Maitreya. While Maitreya managed to get into makito's main, although being on 2 gates and makito having the defender'd advantage, Vir fought off a zergling army by Pacha by not over committing into an attack but waiting for his reinforcing lings to hatch. Once they were out, he took advantage of the fact that his lings had speed, while Pacha's lings were still slow. Pacha's light lingcontain against ViR got killed, while Maitreya sent his army of 8 zealots to counter. Makito's counterattack on ViR was held off, while Pacha died to zealots, leading the Rkd Team to tap out.

I am sure that game 2 was equally exciting, for now i have a 1vs7 comp game on hunters instead of the correct replay. So I'll continue the writeup once I get my hands on the right replay

And here's game 2:
PZ vs PZ again, no random going on from either side. The map of choice was La Mancha. Both zergs started with a 9pool Speed build while Maitreya decided to go for a quick game, starting with a double 9 gate. ViR went for speed, pulling his drones out of gas while Pacha teched straight for lair, no gas, only 1 drone keeping on mining gas. A first 6 vs 6 ling Encounter between the zergs left both with 5 lings remaining and deciding to pull back and wait for reenforcements. Both protosses started sending their first zealots to their zerg opponents. ViR managed to trap a lonely zealot at his natural with Maitreya sending hisforces to the opponent's zerg, leaving ViR to deal with the slow lings and 1 remaining zealot, which he did, thanks to his constant production of lings. Behind this, ViR was getting a second hatchery while Pacha had his lair up but only a single sunken and no lings for defence. ReV went in, sniped the spire and while ViR left, Maitreya stayed at Pacha's ramp to stop the nonexistent zerglings from helping, in order to 2on1 against protoss. Makito wanted to be a good ally and help his zerg friend break out, only for his zealots to get surrounded by ViRs zerglings. Thanks to his 3 gates, makito managed to stop ViR's zerglings and the now reenforcing zealots from Maitreya but lost quite alot of mining time and some probes. ViR once again went into aggromode and attacked Pacha, leaving him at 6 drones but 3 mutas. Maitreya, in the meantime, used the advantage they had gotten to take an expansion. F those casters who always say that nobody expands in 2on2s.. Pacha sent his 3 mutas to ViR's base and this is when things got hectic. The creep had just finished when the mutas arrived but got killed. Maitreya sent 2 goons to help, leaving his freshly created expansion defenseless, since his zealots and ViR's lings were killing Pacha. Makito upson seeing this, took the opportunity to attack Maitreya with the zealots he had been making from 3 gateways. After the dust settled down, ViR was left with 4 drones, Pacha was dead, Maitreya had not lost anything but a cannon at home and was starting up his 2nd base and makito was still just making zealots. One last zealot + muta attack on ViR was fended off by the units Maitreya had left him in defense and the Rkd team tapped out.

WoW, fun text write up! Really entertaining to read!