Introduction

The time had come! I finally had a good connection, and I had one of the greatest players out there, [o]Mr.X , promising me some games to observe. He had been playing Diablo 2 for a while, but after deciding to return to the BroodWar scene, he needed just a day or two to warm up. So when he was back in shape we hoped to get Pillars to play him (they had played 9 games the day before and it was 6:3 in [o]Mr.X's favor) but he didn't show up on Kali, so we went to B.net and I observed about 7-8 games... what a night it was, [o]Mr.X played =-psyduck-=, :+:jolly:+:, SuperCondomUser (:+:Kevin:+:), 1st~Kakaru and an awesome Korean guy, [EPIsode]:-=V=-. Total number of screenshots taken: 997 =O !!!

Game

The first game I observed was a Zerg vs. Zerg on Lost Temple. Doesn't sound interesting? Well what if the players are SC legends [o]Mr.X and =-psyduck-= and :+:jolly:+: is observing too? Ok thanks I see you care now =P. BTW :+:jolly:+: and =-psyduck-= seem to be relatives, I checked their profiles at Starcraft.org, their names are Richard Nguyen and Huy Nguyen... That fact explains something :+:jolly:+: said at the end of the game, you'll probably notice what I'm talking about =] ... Anyway, both players had chosen Zerg, [o]Mr.X started at 12 and =-psyduck-= at 3. The map was an observer version of LT, so me and :+:jolly:+: were seeing the whole map, and :+:jolly:+: had something to say about that =]

Both players sent their first Overlords to scout their closest position and they soon met, so now both knew where everybody was. I noticed Mr.X sent one of his newly built Drones to mining a bit late, because he was probably aligning his "cheat enabled" message meanwhile =]. Rather than early pool both built Overlords at 8 and Hatcheries at 12 control, with [o]Mr.X being a second behind. Then their Overlords arrived at each others bases.

Since both were now seeing each other's actions, a weird thing happened... None of the two would build a Spawning Pool first!!! Their builds diverged at this point though, with =-psyduck-= adding an Extractor. What would happen next? Well guess what, [o]Mr.X expanded to his natural, still no Pool... What about =-psyduck-= ? He expanded too, a little bit later though, because of that extractor.

So now [o]Mr.X had three Hatcheries, but no Gas and no Spawning Pool yet! Time for a Pool? No... He built another Hatchery below his ramp! He had 4 Hatcheries now... and he finally started a Spawning Pool. Since =-psyduck-= had 4 drones less mining minerals (3 were gathering gas and one had been morphed to an Extractor) he started his Pool even a bit later than [o]Mr.X, and he added an Evo Chamber as well. Obviously he was going for an early +1 attack upgrade for his Zerglings.

Now I had a little chance to witness how well top players calculate everything they are doing... [o]Mr.X maynarded some drones to his natural, and they arrived at the exact second the Hatchery completed... not to mention that he had cloned them to separate minerals as well =]. Same picture at =-psyduck-='s natural...

Now the players saved up some Larvae and as soon as their Spawning Pools completed both players started pumping Zerglings. =-psyduck-= decided to tech further (he had a lot of gas now and he better put it to use) so he started upgrading one of his Hatcheries to Lair.

So both were producing hard Zerglings now, but [o]Mr.X had more income and more Larvae because of the additional Hatchery. He was gathering his Zerglings at the bottom of his ramp, effectively guarding both his natural and his main. Somewhere around this point he morphed an Extractor. =-psyduck-= was gathering most of his Zerglings at the top of his ramp, and the rest at his natural, which was a mistake [o]Mr.X would use... Note that both players had all their Overlords scouting so it was almost like they were playing with shared vision. As soon as [o]Mr.X had about 40 Zerglings he moved out southwards. Obviously he wasn't going to wait for =-psyduck-='s attack upgrade to finish =].

A short bloody battle took place... The white mass of Zerglings charged towards 3's natural, meeting some resistance by the defending red Zerglings there... The main group of =-psyduck-='s Zerglings ran down the ramp to help but this way [o]Mr.X had not only more Zerglings, but the positioning advantage as well, with the defending Zerglings running through the ramp in single file right into the large group of attackers that were waiting at the bottom of it...

...and the game was over, with =-psyduck-= leaving with a "gg" in the end of this battle .

Check out the Scores, I found them interesting and I'll try commenting on them... You see in the end [o]Mr.X had killed 39 Zerglings and he lost 12. And he attacked with the same number, so if =-psyduck-='s Zerglings were positioned better they would have had some chance of holding the attack. Of course they weren't 39 as the attack started though, some were produced during it, so I'm just speculating here. Another interesting fact - =-psyduck-= had 600 Gas more than [o]Mr.X but he was yet to use it, and [o]Mr.X had 600 minerals more than =-psyduck-= (and he had put them to use already).

I would like to thank [o]Mr.X and =-psyduck-= for letting me observe this short but still very interesting game, and :+:jolly:+: for his appearances in the screenshots =].

To learn more about what [o]Mr.X is up to, visit  www.team-outcast.org ! Right now I'm helping him with the graphics for his detailed Zerg vs. Terran strategy that will be posted soon. To learn what report I'm working on, visit the same site!