Thursday, January 29, 2009

First Contact at Python: ZvP battle against Tom Phoenix

This is a classic match. The Protoss fighting for survival, and the Zerg trying to assimilate them.

This all came about when I first proposed to Tom that I wanted to have a match with him, telling him that I'm Zerg player, what I didn't know was that he was looking for a Zerg player to have monthly matches against at that time, when he ask if I could be that Zerg player I agreed. We then prepare a match when this is it. Anyway without further delay I will now talk about the matches.

Note: My name in all my matches(til i decide to change it for some reason) is LurkersNeedLove.

Me VS Tom 1st Match
Map: Python 1.3


I started at the 7 o`clock spawn point while Tom started at the 1 o'clock one. I entered this match with a negative mindset, believing that I will be stomped into the ground by Tom, do to the fact that he started his training earlier then I did, but I was determine to give it my all.

I started with a 9 pool build with plans to go expand twice when Tom FE(Fast Expand) or go into a Cholera build(2 hatch with lurkers) if Tom didn't. When my overlord finally found him I notice that he didn't FE and was going for either fast Sairs or HTs do to the early Cyber core he had. I then had my zerglings go to his base to contain him a bit. I also sent what was my scout drone to my natural to set up my expansion then. When my hatch was finished upgrading into a Lair and was in the middle of getting the Lurkers Aspect, was when Tom broke out of my contain on him, and in fear that he would press the attack I made a few sunks. Only after the sunks were about finished that I notice that he got HTs to make Archons and was not leaving his base thx to my ovie that was hanging over a nearby cliff, and so I made some more lings and lurkers and sent them to the middle of the map while upgrading to Hive tech. Only after my Hive was finish that both me and Tom decided to attack each other. After noticing that Tom retreated when my Lurkers got near led me to the conclusion that Tom didn't prepare for Lurkers and so I press the attack and demolish his expo that he had at his natural. After gathering up several more forces, I sent a ovie to see what waited on top of his ramp, and saw an attack force preparing to to and break through, so I moved my Lurkers closer to the ramp and made a bit more forces hoping that Tom would attack right then, surprisingly he did, and misjudged that lots clumped up when going up or down ramps, which led to them being ravaged by my Lurkers and also let my forces break into his main where he admitted defeat.





Me VS Tom 2nd Match
Map: Python 1.3
Replay Link

This match had me starting at the 1 o'clock spawn point, and Tom at the 2:30 one. I was filled with elation with my previous success, but was wary that Tom might have gone easy on me, and would not do so this time.

This time I decided to go Overpool into a 3 hatch lurker build. I found tom at the close 2:30 spawn point and saw no nearby pylon and guessed that he was preparing for a FE, while Tom's Probe got into my main and preceded to give me cheese me, where I quickly finished off the Probe so it won't be able to scout me any more and give me more cheese(even tho I love cheese, well at least the food version anyway). After I finished dealing with the cheese, I rushed a few lings into his base to see what damage I could do, sadly though I didn't do as much damage as I thought I would be able to do. After getting a Lair I made a push to get my natural and was surprised(tho i don't know why I should of been now) to see none of Toms forces, then I proceeded to expand into my natural and make a third hatch. Only after my queens nest was finished that I decided to change plans from teching to ultras to do a Lurker Drop on Tom. Seeing how successful that went and noting that he had inefficient defense to prevent another one I whipped a few more Lurkers into my ovies and Dropped Tom again, then prepared to attack his base with lings(I forgot to bring the Lurkers =P) while he explain to me why he was GGing, tho I thought he took another expo, but he didn't I guess.


Conclusion: While I prepared to get crushed, I still went all out and defeated him both times to my delight(sorry Tom I can't help but be a little elated), But I must not let that get to my head for any future matches, and therefore I looked over the matches to find some of my biggest mistakes.

1. Weak Micromanagement: There was times that I let my drones be idle(I consider this to be a part Micro and not Macro), there was also times when I let my forces die do to heedlessness, and other times when I could of made them more useful instead of sit there and watch.

2. Weak Macromanagement: There was times that I didn't have the resources to do what I wanted, and other times that my resources got a little out of hand, But my major concern here is that I don't know where to place my buildings, and so I have the tendency to place them at the bottom of the creep.

3. Scouting: I know that my Drone management for scouting is low, and that it would most likely to get killed before I have it in the enemy base for long or retreat it. Then there was the fact that I didn't, or was slow to, look to see if my opponent took another expansion.

4. Lack of Aggressiveness: I need to fix this, fore I didn't had enough of it, one of the main play style of the Zerg is to be aggressive.

5. Teching: I had no idea for the life of me of why didn't start making a Ultra den in the first match, and why I didn't start teching to Hive once I finished getting the movement and drop capabilities to use in my Lurkers Drop.

6. Expansion: As a Zerg player I need to expand more mainly do to this rule of thumb for us, 1 more than Terran and twice that against Protoss, otherwise I could be easily overruned by my opponent.

7. Lurkers Placement: While this is not as important as the others listed above it is still important, I need to start placing my Lurkers apart far enough from each other so that Psi Storm can't hit any more than 1 of my Lurkers.

6 comments:

  1. Whenever you need a terran opponent, I'm available :-)

    You should try iCCup one day.

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  2. *sigh* I guess this wasn't a good idea

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  3. I don't know why I keep checking

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  4. yes please do start playing on iccup if you don't do so already. and update please.

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  5. Also... I also struggle with problems 1-4. As a toss player I tend to tech and expand OK and lurker placement is not applicable to me but i really need to work on my micro, macro, and scouting. i tend to turtle too much as well.

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