FlipSide Productions Presents...

Introduction

Some people tend to get paranoid when they're confronted with a map that they don't know, citing map knowledge as a must in the game of SC. Others could care less and can adapt to whatever map or situation thrown at them. Personally, I'm a fan of playing on playing maps that are less known. Now, some people accuse me and think it's because I know the maps, but no, that's not the case, many of these I've never played before. But I digress.

I was hanging around in my clan channel, getting ready to conduct a tournament for StarCraft: Cloaked when ][)eMoNiC[AoD] was looking for people to brutalize in a 1v1. I stepped aside knowing that I'd be turned into goo otherwise, but Bobthedefetable decided to step up and take the challenge. I jumped at the chance to get in a BR, and they let me choose the map.

What map, you say? None other than....

This bizarre choice seemed to catch the players offguard.

Nevertheless, none of them whined about selecting another map, so the game began. Both players elected to place their fate in the hands of a randomizer. ][)eMoNiC(henceforth referred to as Demon) was stationed in the top-left corner with a small regiment of Teal Terran forces while Bobthedefetable spawned with the nightmarish zerg at the bottom-right position.

Demon opted for an 8 depot, 9 rax, 12 rax, 13 bunker build while Bob built an overlord at 9, a second hatchery at 12 in his main, followed by a pool and gas. Bob scouted with an overlord and Demon sent a brave SCV charging onto the creep to explore these uncharted lands. Upon finding the zerg mineral bay the most important exciting confrontation occurred.

The stronger, better armored SCV obliterated the drone in an exciting battle of spine versus cutter. What a game this was shaping out to be! What exciting development would occur next? When would you like me to shut the hell up and get on with the report? Stay tuned.

Demon, for some bizarre reason, tried to set up an offensive bunker inside the lowered ground of bob's base with that scouting SCV before he had marines there waiting to get in. It was destroyed along with the SCV inside it (?) by a few roaming zerglings.

By this time Bob had morphed in a hydralisk den then followed with an upgrade to lair. Demon is taking a metallic approach throwing up an academy, comsat, and 2 factories with machine shops. Upon completion of his comsat he scanned to see what the wily Bob was up to. Let's see.. A lair, a hydralisk den... Could it be... SATAN?

Oh. I meant .

Demon began preparing for a lurker push of the sort by building tanks and one missile turret as well as some infantry to protect against any oncoming zerglings. Bob, having scouted the map thoroughly, deposited a single zergling at every expansion to thwart any weak expansion attempts.

Bob sent in a control group of hydras to see what damage he could wreak. He was at an advantage, he had his opponent adapting to his strategies instead of the other way around.

Upon arriving at Demon's base and seeing the minimal detection he has, Bob morphs two hydras above Demon's ramp, charges a couple hydras in, kills the turret, runs them out. Demon quickly runs up to see what's happening with a few vultures he constructed. He places a few mines on the ramp before the bikes and an accompanying marine get blown to smithereens. By this time, the lurkers have morphed. They are sent in to bury when CRAKKOOOOM, a liberal dash of arclite shock ® mutilates their wretched hides. No lurkers were initially killed because they managed to bury fast enough, but they were wounded, and Demon had minimal detection.

Meanwhile, Bob sent a drone out to the bottom-left expansion and began to morph in a hatchery undisturbed. Back to the battle.

Bob sent a lurker to the perfect spot, right outside of the siege range and next to Demon's supply depots. By this time he had morphed another lurker to accompany the other two. He sent two more to take shots at his factory and machine shop. Whenever Demon managed to scrounge together 50 mana for his comsat he scanned and tried to pick off the lurkers, but they got about 1 to 1½ minutes of shots on, killing the machine shop and severely wounding the factory before Demon had the brains to lift it off.

Demon managed to finally repel the lurkers and hydras and kept on building up defenses. By now, Bob's expansion was up and running, so he was winning in the unit game and the resources. Demon was concentrating on fortifying the front of his base, so we all know what that means.... m00tahzzzzz up the anal.

When Bob built about 18 mutalisks he ran them around demon's base looking for a good place to do damage. He sent a couple hydras in front door to lure the tanks out into the open then sent in the muties to do the damage. In case you weren't sure, mutas > tanks.

Those mutas woulda been enough to do the trick, but as is customary when you totally lay down the proverbial smack, he added insult to injury by dropping hydras on Demon's peon line. It was alllllll over. Now, for the purty pictures of absolute ownage.

I apologize that the game wasn't any better. Going into it, I thought it would be a better game but, hehe, I was wrong. :)

Winner: BOBTHE(UN)DEFETABLE

Lessons Learned:

1. Ample home-base detection is a must. Comsat just doesn't cut it.
2. Don't be forced to adapt to your opponent's strategy, make him adapt to yours.
3. Try not to suck ;)

Comments appreciated, bad raters shall be shot on sight, thank you very much.

Catch you on the Flip Side!

-K.