Well, I have some time to do some updating. I was going to do this last week but things came up and I didn’t have time. As of today there is only 10 days left to the TSL and to reach the rank of 48 I’ll have to be at least a B+. Sad to say, I don’t think I can obtain it now since I haven’t been mass gaming as much as I should be but, hey, that’s life. Working two jobs can really take a chunk out of life and having fun.

I’m just going to recap just a few of my better games to save you all the boredom of reading so much and, sorry, no pictures. I don’t have time to do even simple copy paste crap today. I have to leave in a few hours and I’ll be gone all day and then it’ll be till next Sunday because I can post again. Enjoy what you can out of this and, again, I'll update a few more games to this report so please don't rate it until I say it's ok.

Games 7 & 8

Map: Blue Storm

Players

I started the game off with a simple FE build in mind. Distant sent out 2 Drones to kill my Probe who was preventing him from taking his Natural. I placed a Pylon to keep him from building a Hatchery for as long as possible. He still placed a 2nd but it had to be further away from the minerals. Since I already had a Forge I thought I could get some Cannons built inside his Natural before reinforcements arrived.

First I started a Nexus in my Natural back at home before I built 2 Cannons in Distant’s base. I expected a few Drones to come out and try to stop me but I didn’t really think he would pull his ENTIRE mineral line to destroy the Cannons. I tried to build 2 more but sadly, I had to cancel the first two and then Zerglings started to arrive.

Luckily for me, as soon as I saw the Drones come out to defend I started a Cannon by my Natural Nexus just in case things went awry. Now that I had at least 8-10 Zerglings bearing down on me, I started another one. I also moved some Probes to block the small gap that lead into my base to stall for the 2nd Cannon.

When my 2nd Cannon was just seconds from completing, I moved my Probes away from the gap. Huge mistake. Just as I did so, a control group of Zerglings ran in and destroyed my already built Cannon just as the 2nd warped in.

The next 5 minutes of the game was frantic back and forth micro with my Probes trying to rebuild the Cannon. Zerglings trying to kill anything they could. 1 Cannon finishing just as the other dies. I did manage to get a Gateway completed and a few Zealots but it was too late. Looking back, I should have just built 5 Cannons and I would have been totally safe but in my pride, I thought I could hold the attacks. After watching the replay, I realized he did a 9Hatch//9Pool, which really hurts a Zerg’s economy and leads into a 3 Hatch Zergling build. If I had kept my cool and not tried any cheese, I would have fared better.

I knew I could beat this guy and I challenged him to a rematch. He accepted.

I started off in the Top Right this time and he got the Bottom Left. I decided to just keep it simple and do a FE with 2 Cannons before Nexus in case he switched things up on his end. He did. He went for a 8 (maybe 9) pool before placing down his 2nd and 3rd Hatchery in his Natural. Since he went Pool first I was going to see Zerglings earlier than usual. Maybe because he thought I was going to cheese him again. I don’t know.

I needed to know what Distant was up to and my first course of action was to get a Starport as quickly as possible to scout around. By the time a Corsair was flying down to scout the Zerg main, I was moving out with a full group of Speedlots +1. I know that a Hydra push was a favorite technique of Zerg on Blue Storm so I prepared for it instead of Mutalisks. I guessed correctly. My Corsair spotted a Lair with a Hydra Den and a large group of Hydras. I started a Robo. Facility while researching Psi Storm for my HT.

Since I had a small force of Corsairs flying about, I decided that the best way to counter his cloaked units, was to get some of my own. I also started an Arbiter Tribunal and started producing 1 as soon as it finished. If I could kill his Overlords with my Sairs, he would be in huge trouble trying to fight a cloaked army.

I took my mineral only and the bottom right expansions as we continued to mass up. He tried to take the 6 o’clock expansion but a few DT and Zealots mopped it up easily enough despite the Lurkers protecting the area.

A small battle broke out in the middle which I won. He did not expect the Arbiter at all and was forced to flee after losing half his Hydra//Ling force to the invisible Psi Blades. I continued on to the top left, to see if I could find an expansion. I did. Glee! I killed it.

Soon I had so many minerals and gas that I didn’t know what to do with it and started producing troops like crazy. My hands aren’t very fast and it was taking quite a lot of concentration to keep my macro up which lead to a poorly microed battle on the ramp just outside his mineral only. I got off a few decent storms and killed a lot of his Hydras, Lurkers, and Zerglings but alas, he was reinforcing constantly to the battle while I was macroing back at home. I figured I had 6 HT, if I could kill enough of his units to break even, I’d be ahead.

The surprising thing is that, I won. I survived with my Arbiter, (VERY RED HP) a few Zealots, my Corsairs and 2 HT with no mana. I retreated towards my base and found I had a rather large army produced. I quickly queued up my Gateways and moved out again to re-take the ramp near Distant’s Mineral only.

It was also during this time that I remembered that I had snuck a Probe inside Distant’s base a long time ago and for some reason, I built a Pylon and a Gateway. I made a few DT in an attempt to snipe his main buildings. While hitting his Mineral only, I sent the DT in. Realizing that he couldn’t defend his main or his mineral only, Distant gg’d and left the game.