Before I start, let me just say that this is a report of two terrans duking it out. That means that there will be no huge collages of blood everywhere, no over-sized animated gifs showing wave after wave of troops being thrown at each other.

Ok, now that all the weanies are gone, it is my pleasure to present to you a game involving extremely delicate tactics and very intense battles: The Lords of Rage inner clan tournament final, [LoR]-Aura vs [LoR]-Curly.

The Beginning

A couple of weeks ago, the coolest clan ever, Lords of Rage, held an inner clan tournament. I participated in this tourney, and unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective :P), I was eliminated in the semifinal by Aura. So, after crying myself to sleep that night, I was ready the next day to do a battle report on the first game of the final of the tournament between Aura and Curly, who had defeated Valkyrae in the other semifinal earlier in the week. Let's meet the players, the map, and all the rest of that initial stuff.

Who are these guys?

Curly is one of the most well-respected members of LoR in terms of his sc skills and is the reigning inner clan champion, having defeated Aura in the last such tournament. In competitive play, Curly always chooses terran. This match is no different, and Curly's cc lands at the mid left position of *cringe* The Lost Temple (I swear I had no choice in the map; first map choice was up to Aura).

Aura is also a very well-respected member, but he's sort of like the Buffalo Bills of the early 90s. He always seems to make it to the championship game, but simply can't bring home the bacon. However, he pulls a surprising move on me when he chooses terran as his race. Since he knows very well that Curly will be choosing terran, I figure Aura will pick toss and attempt to ride the "race imbalance" to victory. Nevertheless, Aura claims to have learned an extremely powerful tvt strat that he is sure he can pull off against Curly. Aura carries this confidence with him into the game as his cc sets down at the 6 position of temple.

Early Build Orders, etc.

Aura's build order is something like depot on 8 (at his choke), rax on 10, refinery on 12, and another depot on 15, completing the wallin at his choke. As soon as the refinery finishes 4 scvs are sent to mine gas. In addition, Aura orders the scv that finishes the first depot to scout in a clockwise fashion for Curly.

Curly's bo is very similar, but contains a couple of significant differences. First, Curly chooses not to wallin, instead placing his first depot at the bottom of his base, cleverly overlooking the dangerous cliff just below his base that happens to have enough space for an enemy tank (foreshadow!). Also, Curly elects to begin his refinery before he starts on his first rax. His resulting build order is approximately: depot on 8, refinery on 10, and rax on 12. Finally, Curly has an scv start scouting the other mains utilizing a clockwise path just as his first depot completes.

The process of quick teching continues for both players, as Aura and Curly each grab a factory asap. Because got his refinery sooner, Aura's factory finishes ever-so-slightly behind Curly's. Both players then begin construction of starports as soon as the respective factories are complete.

By now, each player has scouted the map out, but Aura has been inside Curly's base, while Curly is forced to station his scout scv in front of Aura's choke to watch for an early expansion or other troop movements. Aura, however, is not satisfied with the information he has found with his first scouting effort, so he sends in his scv to have another look around. Thanks to a lazy marine, the "stealth scv" manages to dart inside and get a nice look at Curly's base.

That sneaky little scv reveales that Curly's bo has in fact diverged from Aura's in a rather big way. While Aura chooses to begin a second starport, Curly elects to get the machine shop add-on, the control tower for his starport, and an engineering bay. Unfortunately, I make the mistake of announcing that their builds are exactly alike just before Aura starts on his second starport. Since the message hovered there for a second, Dr.Zchivago, my fellow observer for this game, decides to capitalize on my apparent stupidity.

A word to the wise: be careful what you say around Dr.Z, you never know when you'll spark that nasty sarcastic side of his. And if that happens you certainly don't want to provoke him anymore by saying something like, "Your perception of the obvious is exceptional." Speaking from personal experience, this will tend to cause him to go ballistic and utter numerous profanities not fit for reproduction on this report.

Anyway, back to the br. Curly has produced a few extra marines that aren't doing anything of particular use, so he sends them out to scout the 12 and 3 mains as well as the 12 natural for expansions by Aura. Other than that, the game is rather quiet. Well, at least until Aura gets his first dropship and tank.

To Control the Crevice

With Aura's first attacking manuever, I discover his master plan-- he plans to put a tank on that tiny little ledge below Curly's main. But, if you recall, Curly has his "watchful depot" so he is well aware of Aura's strategy. In fact, moments after Aura's tank sieges and startes firing on a nearby turret, Curly sends a tank and an scv into the crack between the two mains. While the scv starts working on a turret, the tank sieges and begins raining fire on Aura's tank. Because Aura's tank was in the process of attacking the turret, Curly's tank is able to get off the first shot and thus win the duel with a small amount of hp remaining.

Yet, it is a shortlived victory, for Aura has started making wraiths, and just as his tank receives the death blow, he sends in a wraith to kill the scv working on the turret, then kills the turret itself. This heroic wraith takes a couple of seconds to chase off the tank, then returns to kill an scv Curly transported back to the crevice in an attempt to construct another turret there. Fortunately for Curly, a turret on the ledge of his main above the crevice is close enough to protect the turret being constructed in the crevice and the wraith is forced away. However, Aura uses the distraction gained from this small victory to start constructing another cc at his natural.

Direct Attack

Aura keeps the pressure on Curly by manuevering his dropship around the two turrets Curly has near the crevice and dropping two tanks right in Curly's main. At the time of the invasion, Curly has only one tank in his main, but it is sieged, and Aura drops his two tanks far enough from the Curly's tank that it is able to get in two shots before Aura's tanks move inside the firing range of the seiged tank. Those two shots are enough to take down one tank and damage the other a little bit. Although Curly's tank is unable to kill the other tank (unsieging took just a bit too long), it is left so weakened that when Curly's next tank pops out of the factory it needs only one shot to finish off the invasion.

Harrassment

After his semi-successful tank drop, Aura continues to set the pace of the game and grab the initiative, this time by gathering the 4 wraiths he has and sending them on a harrassment mission through Curly's base. The first target is the unguarded top half of the mineral line. After killing a small number of scvs, Aura is forced to flee due to a hastily contructed turret by Curly. The turret does not cover his refinery well enough though, and Aura tries to take advantage of that by having his wraiths target the gas facility. However, the wraiths do not do sufficient damage to destroy the refinery before they are driven out by another new turret. The bad news for Curly is that the harrassment does not end there. After being forcibly ejected from Curly's main, the wraiths head north to discover a marine and a tank keeping each other company at the choke point. As there is no turret, it does not take long for the lone rine to die to the wraiths, and the tank soon follows suit. All in all, a very successful mission for Aura. Not only did he do a good amount of real physical damage (scvs, rine, tank), but he kept his psychological advantage of always being on the attack and controlling the pace of the game.

Risky Manuever

Thus far, Aura has been in command, dictating the match flow. Curly has to get back on his feet somehow, and to do that he must take a risk. That risk is using the excess money he built up while fighting off Aura's wraith harrassment to double expand, once at the 12 main and again at the 12 natural. If Aura does not scout these expansions out soon, and if he suddenly decides to be more passive and build up for awhile, Curly can get right back in the game with this gutsy move.

Sadly for Curly, Aura continues to be aggressive. Another two tank drop makes its way to Curly's main. For defense Curly has one goliath (he built an armory in response to the wraith harrassment) and one wraith. Curly tries to kill the dropship before the tanks exit the transport, but both tanks are able to safely land. One tank is brought into the red by the goliath before it explodes into a million mettalic shards. Curly's wraith is able to target the weakened tank and destroy it, but before it can take on the second tank, Aura brings in his two remaining wraiths (the other two were destroyed by a goliath) and eliminates Curly's single wraith. Eventually Curly finishes a tank at his factory, sieges it up and destroys the leftover tank from the previous battle. In response to the tank fire, Aura's two wraiths attack Curly's tank, but it is protected by a nearby turret, and Aura reacts slowly enough to lose one of the two wraiths. The wraith that survives does well enough to force Curly to lift his starport and move it towards the protection of a turret. For the time being, this is enough to halt Aura's attack.

Assessment

Although Aura has succeeded in keeping up the pressure, Curly has managed to stay alive, and his expansions are now coming online. Aura's expansion is being mainly used for gas, although there are a couple of scvs gathering minerals. If Aura does not scout those expansions and do something about them, Curly could concievably build up his forces from his expansions and overwhelm Aura. Curly is producing mainly gols and wraiths right now, with the occasional tank. Aura is making tanks, has just made two more raxes, and is looking to switch strats to mass infantry. As far as upgrades go, both players have none to speak of.

Well, I did say that Aura was a well respected player, and one thing that well respected players do is scout. On the left is the image of the scv crossing the temple grounds heading towards the 12 main, where it was visciously murdered by a goliath and rine. Needless to say, Aura is now aware of Curly's expansion at the 12 main and will most likely check the 12 natural in the near future.

Things are looking grim (for Curly)

With the way the game has gone thus far, Aura has had the upper hand all the way, and Curly is on the ropes. He has almost no room for error. Unfortunately for him, in the next battle, Curly demonstrates some bad micro. In this battle, Aura sends one tank and three wraiths to the northern area of Curly's main plateau. Curly has three gols ready to defend his main, but they are not set up to handle an attack from the north very well. After the first arclite boom falls over the battlefield, the gols scramble around the factory trying to run towards the tank. By the time the gols get near the tank, one is already dead. Here is where Curly makes his crucial mistake: the remaining gols attack the wraiths, allowing the tank to do the real damage. One wraith goes down, but so do both gols.

To make matters worse, Aura has a death squad of 6 rines and 2 medics heading towards the northern part of the map, straight for Curly's expansions. All Curly has to defend his expansions are one tank, one gol, and his scvs. Back at his main, Curly sends a lone wraith in a last ditch effort to kill the tank, but Aura's two wraiths are able to protect the tank and save it. With the imminent destruction of his expansions, as well has having nearly no troops at home to stop any more attacks from Aura, Curly leaves the game. I think Curly would have certainly played the game out and offered the proper ggs etc., but I believe his computer crashed or something, as he mentioned something along those lines. Plus I know Curly personally, and he's an honorable guy. =)

I'll provide you with a minimap animated gif again, but it's not quite as dramatic as in the first two brs I did, since nearly all the action centered around Curly's base.

Final Comments

Well, stupid me forgot to take a screenshot of the final scores, but I'm certain they were ridiculously close. Aura probably out-produced Curly, but kills were most likely equal on both sides. Aura also probably had gathered more gas than Curly and possibly a few more minerals. However, the gas he got from his second expansion was what allowed him to produce just enough units to keep Curly on his heels until Aura had him cornered and essentially strangled him to death.

As I said this was not a bloody, gory, super macro type of game. Rather, this game features some of the most intense battles I've ever witnessed. Each and every battle was crucial, and each and every battle required tremendous micro on the part of both players. I tried to capture that feeling by adding as much detail as possible and describing each battle scene thoroughly and completely.

I would like to take this moment to thank both players for giving me a great game to observe. It might have seemed like Aura was in control most of the time, but a single slip-up or lackadaisical play (i.e. not scouting) and Curly would have been right back in it.

FYI, Dr.Z and I did watch game two, but it was Aura's zerg vs. Curly's terran on Dire, and Aura did one mega drop of lurkers/hydras/lings which eliminated Curly quickly. Not br worthy. So Aura is the current LoR champion. Congrats to him.

Please please please comment! I really appreciate anything and everything you have to say.