The Maestro

On the advice of my brother I bought The Starcraft Bible by Patrick Howell O'Neil, which gives alot of good background on how Starcraft the game in it's 3 incarnations has become such a huge global success.

One of the great things about the book is that it gives some history on some of the great players of Brood War.

One player who received alot of coverage is Savior, also known as Maestro for his reign as the greatest Starcraft player in the world a few years back. His career was forever tarnished however, when he and several other players were convicted of match-fixing.

On TeamLiquid.net, there is a great, very incisive and indepth story on what made Savior such an incredible player. Although I don't like or appreciate Starcraft or Brood War very much, it is still very inspiring to see someone analyze the moments and strategies of a player to such a level.

If you want to know more, check it out here: God of the Battlefield Part 1

Sais na Hagoe

In one game during the GSL, the Zerg player Leenockfou, after winning a close match raised up 6 fingers to the camera, symbolizing the fact that a certain strategy, one he had used in the game he just won, was still viable. The move is called 6 pool. It comes from the fact that when you start as zerg, instead of creating drones to build your economy, you keep your six initial drones and have them harvest until you can build a spawning pool. As a result of this, you trade in your ability to compete in a longer game, for an early rush, which if not expected is very easy to defeat. In his match on Lost Temple against Guinea Pig in the 3rd GSL last month he 6 pooled, did some initial damage although not too much, but was still able to convert his dangerous all-in rush into a victory.

If you scout and see that your opponent has only five drones and a spawning pool, then they are about to 6 pool you. Na'liston maisa hao, sa' ti apmam magi i tinigong.

Yesterday I saw my brother Kuri get 6 pooled. Thankfully he scouted it early but it sent a chill down my spine, ha na'etdot i tatalo-hu, when he yelled "Ah crap I'm dead!" Fighting six pool requires being walled in and having an early unit which you fight them off until more can be made. It also means pulling your workers to help stall for time. Thankfully this particular 6 pool took place on Lost Temple, where it is very common for people to fast expand to their naturals. He was able to wall in with his already built forge and two additional gateways outside his natural. He got them up just in time, and although one gateway was lost, a canon was fished to scare them off. The forced turtling worked to my brother's advantage as he mined, upgraded, fought off mutalisk attacks, but eventually blew up his own gateways, expanded to the nearby gold base and fought back the zerg across the map, one expansion at a time.

GSL Finals

I have to admit, I was let down by finals of the GSL last weekend.

I was all excited and pumped up, I even decided to write about the GSL in my column in the Marianas Variety this week just to share even a faint engram of how excited I was. My brother's friend had GSL watching party, where we had pizza and endured the incredibly long and mind-numbing interludes between matches, only to watch TSL_Rain get completely outplayed by OGSMC. There wasn't really a lot of suspense, although there were some interesting plays.

I got the feeling that most people expected Rain to act like Bitbybit and simply all in rush every single game, but I felt like he was straining against that and trying to prove himself to be a bit more than that, and as a result a sort of cautiousness crept into his play. He made the unusual move of going siege tank against protoss in his first two games, as if to prove he wasn't one of those kaduku taisensia na all in freaks, he brought some siege, some marines and medivacs and would bunker like crazy just outside of MC's base. He wasn't rushing but trying to blockade. In both instances, his timing was a bit off. Although he had no way of actually knowing it, MC had already expanded in both games, the first to his protected natural, the second to a hidden base, and so the blockade didn't work since Rain was stuck on one base. In both cases he didn't press effectively, and so MC was allowed to come back.

This is not to say that Rain is not a great SC2 player. You don't get to the finals of the GSL by being lucky or super-cheesy. You have to have alot of skill just to play at that level. But you could definitely see Rain's newness in his play. He started off in a way that seemed to doubt himself and to doubt his style of play.

In the 3rd match, Rain was able to come back by playing with the mind of MC and tricking him into thinking he was going to go two barracks when in fact he was going for the infamous partial "Tasteless Build" to rush out cloak banshees.

In the 4th match, MC almost completely mindf-cked Rain by doing the cheesiest most despicable rush possible where you build your gateway in your opponent's main, pylon on 7, gateway on 8 and then just chronoboost out zealots to tear the base to shreds. The map was Steppes of War which is one of the smaller maps ideal for quick and brutal rushes and I like most people watching was anticipating a super fast Terran Rain rush, but MC shocked everyone (ko'lo'lo'na Si Rain) by rushing his attack before Rain had even built his supply depot.

The 5th game, was the final, although it was very close. Both players got attacks into each other's bases at the same time. Rain snuck blue flame hellions into MC's base and took out all his probes. Rain tried to defend off a zealot-immortals-stalkers-sentry force which invaded his main but could not. It was somewhat close, but ultimately Rain's command center could not escape as it was surrounded by sentries and stalkers picking it off.

OGSMC is a great player. The way he picked apart LiquidJinro in the round of four was so brutal it should have come with a warning for people watching. But I was disappointed that one of the more macro players did not make it to the final to make the last games more epic. It seemed that many players had practiced techniques to try to kill your opponent in that first timing window when they expand, or get them with some sort of blitz tinigong before they are even ready for aggression. I was glad that at least one of the final games (game 2) went to an epic level, with nearly all bases taken and so many things happening at once not even the commentators could keep up. I hope that in the next tournament however there is a good mixture, because the first layer of strategy, the mind games which take place at the very start can be fun to watch, but there is nothing more satisfying than a game which pushes the limits and endurance of both players and the audience by going far beyond what you could imagine at the game's start.

Kao Kesu, Pat Ti Kesu?

I asked the other day what is the definition of "cheesing" other than the sneaky things you do to your opponent that they don't like. I think I found out one of the ways of making a distinction between smart tactics and the sneaky tricks of the weak.

Cannon rushing is one of the "cheesy" tactics that Protoss can use. Photon Cannons are a structure which you are supposed to use for defense. It is as the name implies a canon which gives you some pretty solid defense against both air and ground units. But it can be used as an offensive weapon well, by placing a pylon in your opponents base and then setting up canons around to harass and give them a headache. There is a science to where you place your pylons. You can block off their ramp, try and put it directly in their main base.

A cannon rush can be a legitimate tactic and not always a weapon of the tactically weak. After watching it used in the GSL a couple times, used against my brother and also see others use it online I think that to rush it onto the main or even blocking their ramp is a tool of the desperate. It is an attempt to kill the other before you or them can even start the match. When these tactics are used against better players they tend to fail miserably. Because if they fail, you wasted a significant amount of resources with usually little to show.

The more intelligent use of canons in an offensive manner that I've seen is against the natural expansion and not the main. Setting cannons up to harass and taken out a recently build expansion. I've seen players use this most against Zergs who tend to expand the fastest in order to slow them down a bit. The cannons are not meant to kill the opponent, but simply to slow them down, while you can catch up and build your own expansion.