"I have a winning or undefeated record vs everyone"
-Hawk
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| Corbalt vs Me 4 game series P vs Z | | | Author: | | | IP: | zmapxyprXXXX | | Date: | 02/21/01 08:02 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 2, Max: 9, Min: 9
Lifetime Rating for Fox^1: 7.3810 |  | Corbalt vs Fox
1st before I begin I would like to go over a little backround on Corbalt. Cause he deserves a little praise for his improvement and current skill.
Corbalt- All Toss player.
Corb is an all toss player who in the recent month has become IMO one of the elite toss players. He has defeated many top players which I guess I could start to list, but then of course it doesn't really matter. What does matter is that his knowledge of P vs Z imo is the best that I have access 2 right now. I don't mean in terms of how many strats he has. But of what each unit does, and the correct counters. His zealot rushing is amazing and I can't seem to ever get a fast expand and keep it. But then again, I do things like 14 hatch. I don't understand why ppl say I power to hard sometimes :-/
In any event, Corb is da man. Recently starting this thing saying P >>> Z. He makes himself believe it, and therefore giving him more strength when he plays this matchup. If anyone wants to see how toss should be played... Watch this guy.
Anyway I had been talking to Corbalt online about strats, so on and so forth. Anyway recently he has been able to access a gamei account. For people who don't know what that is, Gamei is a korean server you can log into. No hacking or abusing. It's the most legit ladder I know of. If you see someone who is 1600+ They aren't just some pansy, they are the real deal. Myst, Astic, Corb, and once in a while myself, play on this ladder. Anyway Corb was talking stating that he feels very confident in P vs Z now, that he does not see anyone non-korean, besides a handful of ppl, ie Maynard, (orky)soul, and others. That can beat him in a 5 game series in p vs z. Bold statement from a good player. But that's how you have to play this game at this level. You can't play scared, you have to say, YES I CAN BEAT YOU!! Am I going to play against Astic-x in T vs Z his best matchup and say, "Oh man I better get lucky" No way! I have to tell myself, I own you, and I can beat you. It's all about confidence. If you are confident you will play better.
So later that day I met Corb online and we played 4 games. Why not 5? Well you will see why. Anyway lets go over the games.
Game 1 Corbalt vs Fox
Map: Lost Temple
Corbalt chooses protoss and is granted them at the 9 position
I choose zerg and is placed at the 6
I scout directly next to me with my overlord... Why? Why would I do this? I could just send him to the 3 and then send the next one to the 9. I know his race, but I want him to look for me. The reason for this is that if Corbalt is at the 9, I have the advantage of the longest distance walking between 2 positions, and will fast expand. If he is not at 9 then I will hatch in main and then soon after at my natural. Corb is a great zealot rusher and I will not play into his hands by expanding and allowing him to take it down with early zealots. But Corb was at 9, and my build went like this. Note that I saw that he was at 9 before my ove was finished allowing me to decide where to place my 2nd hatch.
9 Ove
12 Hatch at natural
11 Pool
13 Hatch at natural
Lings
Corb didn't even zealot rush me, he went gate then gas. Making zealots from 1 gate and holding at his ramp. He then got a cyber core. This easily told me that he was going to go corsairs. Even though he might have gone reaver, it didn't matter. The best bet was to get early gas then go hydras from 3 hatchs. So I did that. Corb mentioned to me if I knew what he was doing, I told him corsairs, and he called me a hacker. All in good fun of course. Anyway I had hydras when corb started to attack me with his corsairs. Through good corsair micro, and bad ove placement he was able to get 2 with the use of a 2nd corsair. But that's ok, that told me that he has used 150/150 for the stargate, 300/200 for 2 corsairs. I had an expo and he didn't. I checked his ramp and he had a few zealots and dragoons. Well that tells me that he is using LOTS of gas. Now I narrowed down what he is doing.
a) He is going 2-3 gate goons now.
Answer: I get a 4th hatch and make hydra/lings. Keep powering from 2 bases and when he expands hit him.
b) He is going reaver/goon
Answer: Since that requires HUGE amounts of gas, since he had went corsair tech, I can freely power, but I must protect peon lines and my cliff with hydra/sunken.
c)He is going goon/templar
Answer: Corb is money hacking me, because he must have 13489729348 gas in order to do this, if I don't beat him then I deserve to lose. hehe
So the best bet is to get a 4th hatch and instead of massing mucho hydras get a good defense from drops. Regardless of what he does, I have 2 bases he has 1. So it's best to be safe. If he goes 3 gate goons, I can hold it with sunks at my expo coupled with a good sized hydra/ling, but also protect from reaver/any drops with sunkens at both mains, with a few hydras. Soon corb visits my main with a shuttle, I have about 6 hydras there and the shuttle drops reaver/goon. With good hydra spread I am easily able to kill both the units with few losses. His shuttle runs away. I send a ling to him and I see that he has just started to warp a nexi. That's ok, I start a lair and keep drones/hydras coming. He soon drops my ledge and annoys me, but I have a few sunks and hydras, and he does hang around pestering me, but it doesn't really impact the game. I check his base again and I see that he has goons/reaver blocking, I only saw 1 reaver, maybe he is getting another. So I don't want to engage with hydras yet. Instead I am going to expand and get a few mutas.
So I send about 24 hydras outside his mineral only just incase he tries to attack then I can setup a flank. I then expand to my mineral only and start working on upgrades. Corbalt engages me with his 12-16 goon force with a shuttle, that probably has 2 reavers. I have 15 hydras at my mineral only with 24 from behind. My flank owns him hard, and forces him to retreat. I was able to kill his shuttle before it unloaded the payload. I then countered his natural with the hydras and I was able to finish him off. Corb says a gg and wants a rematch. GG to Corb he did well. The game had a little lag, and corb does count on his micro to win it for him, but I was rusty, since I have been playing a LOT less then usual, so we were even :P
Game 2 Corbalt vs Fox
Map: Lost Temple
Corbalt chooses protoss and gets the 3 position
I choose zerg and get the 6 position.
I scouted once again to the 9 position and didn't see corb. So I placed my 2nd hatch at my ramp and got gas early. Myst was talking to me telling me that I could do a 10 hatch at natural 11 pool build. Some koreans do this and it holds a fast zealot rush without a problem. But I had not tested it to see if it can work for me. So BAH! I wanted to tech to speedlings from the early gas, because speedlings are the best counter to early zealot attack. Corb comes in with a standard zealot rush. I keep the ling production up and he holds at the bottom of my ramp. I attempt to make a sunken at the top to get him to leave my ramp alone. He runs up and is able to micro his zealots very well. I lose all my lings and my morphing sunken, but am able to hold him off with reinforcing lings before he did more damage. The problem with me was that as soon as I got 2 lings, I would attack. It would have been better if I waited for a full 4 lings, they would have done much more damage. I might have been able to defeat his zealots and have more lings then I had now to show for it. But oh well. I massed more lings at my ramp and he held it at the bottom. This time my new sunken finished and it chased him off. But I had speed this time and many lings to his zealots. Which told me that corb is probably getting goons over zealots. That and my overlord showing me a warping cyber core.
Anyway I had speedlings and was able to really hurt his zealot numbers. Especially since he ran them and I was able to get a lot of free hits in. I then made about 24 lings and expanded working my way to mutas. I stopped all ling production, and basically powered drones, which was a bad idea. I figured that he would tech to shuttle and place goons on my ledge, which is a good play, and another reason I was teching to muta. The next piece of action was about 2 min later when I scout with a ling and see that corb has about 8 goons and 6 zealots heading towards my base. I believe those goons had range. I tried to flank but one side of the flank came in a congo line, and corb was able to micro out of a battle. His 5 zealots and 8 Goons raped my 24 lings. It wasn't pretty :-/ I had 6 mutas, but corb added a few more goons, took my natural and soon my main. It was a quick game, with a mistake of mine trying to power a lot when corb wasn't expanding and instead powering troops. GG Corb, and I asked for a rematch.
Game 3 Corbalt vs Fox
Map: Lost Temple
Corbalt chooses protoss and gets the 3
I choose zerg and get the 12.
A S D F fucking 12 / 3. At this position a toss is very strong. They can go SUPER fast zealot rush and hurt even a player going early hatch/pool build in there main. If you go 12 pool expansion. He can do a tech build and not have to worry about you doing a power build to hold whatever tech you can offer. BLEH since corb is a zealot man, I decided that 12 pool fast expansion would be best. If he tried to tech on me, well I would rather lose to a tech build, since it's weaker then Corb's early zealot game.
I start to pump lings and corb zealots me. We then have a have a micro battle for like 20+ minutes. Constant lings vs Constant zealots. The thing about the zealot/ling battle is that if you are a zerg player, you cannot go 2 hatchs early and expect to win, unless you have enough lings. Early game he is going to have about a 2/1 ratio of zealot to ling, and he will try to engage you because lings die quicker then zealots. He does not want you to get large numbers. Because my larva comes a lot faster, and it costs me a lot less. If he waits, instead of seeing 10 lings vs 5 zealots, he will see 24 lings vs 9 zealots. So corb wants to pressure a lot and keep my ling count low, while building his zealot count. So you, as a zerg player, has to run and conserve your hurt lings, and also keep hitting his hurt zealots and make sure that he loses them.
Corb engages me and at 1st he was able to turn the tide because I forgot a supply. I placed a 3rd hatch down to get me 1 supply, but I eventually lost my natural hatch to 2 red zealots. Which died once more lings came. I lost my natural but I still had lings. I kept pumping them from 2 hatch and was microing very well against corb. I expanded again to my natural and was still having this ling/zealot battle with him. I noticed that he added a 3rd gate, and I hoped that my 3rd hatch comes soon, or I am doomed. Cause then he can pump 3 zealots for about every 4-6 lings I get. Which isn't good for me. Corb keeps sending zealots but I setup a great ling trap by running 12 lings to the left of his zealots towards the 12 mineral only, which he ignored and headed straight for my ramp, I used 12 more lings to block the ramp and sent the 12 lings back, I was able to really hurt him a lot. I countered on him, but he was able to hold his ramp. I stopped for 1 sec and got drones from all hatchs to get a 4th hatch, but Corb countered right there. If I had not stopped ling production I would have REALLY hurt him, but corb knew it was now or never since I had 3 hatchs, with 1 at my natural. He was able to overpower me and it was gg.
Corb NEVER let up, he knew that if he let me idle for 2 min, that I could get 4 hatchs with a good amount of drones at both and just have to much of an advantage. GJ for him seeing that and he deserves that win, even though 12 / 3 is imbalanced ;) I really had to have a rematch. He was 2-1 with me, and I knew that I could have won both of those games. I wasn't outplayed, those mistakes were mine that I made. So I felt that I could win. Maybe he did outplay me, but I didn't believe that. Which is good, I still had not lost my confidence. Against Corb, if you lose your confidence you lose your edge, and Corb just uses it and pounds you into the ground.
Game 4 Corbalt vs Fox
Map: Lost Temple
Corbalt choose protoss and gets the 12
I choose zerg and get the 9
This game was different because it was a little laggy, I had 4 games and I was feeling good, and I believed I knew what Corb was going to do this game. I hatched at my ramp and went early gas. I held off his zealot rush with lings, in fact I added a drone to the mix and killed his helping probe asap which really turned the tide in my favor, I ran to my ramp because I lost my drone and few lings, to lag. I added a sunk to my ramp to scare him away but I kept making lings. . I added a hatch right next to my main one, as soon as I could. I didn't hesitate, Corb was trying to zealot bully me, and I couldn't let me do it, especially with 2 hatch. Even though I only had 3 hatch in my main, I felt great.
There is nothing wrong with making more then 2-3 hatchs in your main, and not expanding. PPL seem to forget that 2 hatchs cost 600 minerals. It costs corb 450 to purchase 3 gates, but 100 minerals per zealot as it's only 50 minerals per pair of lings. So it really isn't that bad. As I expanded with a drone corb tried to hit me, but I had plenty of lings and he knew he would lose numbers, and he ran to his ramp. I could have countered right there, but there is no need. I would rather setup a safe position where I could power drones/lings, and have a few sunks to back me up. If I send all my lings to him, he has the advantages, since his new units come quicker, and he can retreat to a ramp if he is losing.
Corb was getting his core right now so I left with my overlord. I kept massing lings from 3 hatchs and once the 4th hatch was done, made drones until I had about 5 drones on the expo, but then I went back to all lings. I didn't want corb overpowering me like he did in games 2 and 3. It was a great call on my part because here comes Corb with probably 7 zealots and 10 goons. He never expanded and didn't tech. He just pumped units, probably from 3 gates. The goons were probably ranged as well. I didn't see this, but I just can't forsee corb having tech coming along with all the ground troops he had in such a short time. If a zerg over powers and a toss doesn't tech and just powers units, he can run a zerg player over.
About ranged goons. Corbalt had about 7 zealots, his micro is soo good, that he is able to make ranged/goons with a few zealots really beat down even on a ling force. But unfortunately quantity > quality. I had about 45 lings this time however. I was able to set the flank up perftectly. He lost all his zealots and ran his goons back to him main. I decided to do the same as corb and just power units. I got myself a evo chamber and researched +1 to armor, if he countered me by getting +1 zealots, I would be able to match him with it. I also started to get 2 gas, so I could power mutas. Since I had him on the run, Corb wouldn't just try to counter me, he would expand, and I think that mutas would be perfect since protecting his peon line cost 300+ minerals in cannon cost. If he did protect with cannons, he wouldn't have a large force in the front to protect a mass ling/muta, since I had already expanded. Also if he went corsair/templar, which would be the best coutner to me, his troop count wouldn't be that high, since he woudl have to tech all the way there. I was going mass lings, so I could also tech to guards/crax if I wanted to. Also don't forget, 2 bases > 1 in z vs p. ESPECIALLY when the toss player doesn't have any tech.
But it didn't make it that far. Corb was able to micro and kill all my lings, but couldn't hold the 2nd wave of 25+ speedlings, and gave up. It was very laggy and I think corb may feel he was cheated since he couldn't micro goons against lings especially in lag like that. But CORB, ME RUSTY USER =P!
Anyway All 4 of those games, there was a quick turning point. At the level corb plays at and the level I had to play at in order to beat him. It takes 2 seconds to make the game over. I crucial mistake and BAM! Corb shows how aggressive a toss player must be in order to win. Because letting up to long allows a zerg player to power back into the fight. I would love to have had a 5th and deciding game, but the games were getting laggy and I had more of an advantage against him in a high lat situation. Zerg dont' require nearly as much micro as toss do to win :P Also Corb had played 12903879348723 games on gamei earlier a really fucking awesome p vs p that wore him out, so he probably wasn't at 100% GG CORB!!!!!!!!!
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