Replay of the Week #5

The battle commences with Saber at the bottom left and Haim at the top right. Saber warps in his first pylon in his main, presumably not going for an FE build and following it up with a gateway, sending the probe to scout towards the top left. Haim chooses to take his safer mineral only expansion, and scouts with a second drone soon afterwards. His next drone starts his pool, and Saber finishes his second pylon, sending his first zealot towards Haim's base.

Haim attempts to take his gas natural, but Saber's scout probe delays him for a little while before putting down the hatchery just in time. With two zealots heading towards Haim, and a third in production, Saber begins warping in a nexus at his gas natural. With his scout drone seeing the zealots, Haim hatches six lings, terrorising Saber's zealot and probe that are wandering around hopelessly in the zerg main. As Saber's second zealot arrives, Haim is forced to split his forces, and some good micro with his probe sees Saber kill off a few zerglings and proceed towards the main mineral line.

Haim's lings don't like unwelcome visitors.
Meanwhile, Saber has put down an assimilator and a forge, and his expansion is not far from completion. Haim's drones in his mineral only natural are being harassed by one of Saber's zealots, and as such they retreat back to the main mineral line as some ling reinforcements arrive and wipe out the first zealot at the top, though the scout probe remains alive. With his other zealot, Saber manages to pick off two drones; he loses the two units for the trouble, but another zealot in Haim's mineral only has killed a drone there as well, forcing them towards the now-completed gas natural.

Saber picks off a few drones.
Some more excellent micro from Saber sees a significant number of Haim's lings get cut down by two zealots, and at this point Saber's supply is almost double that of his opponent. Though it lay useless for quite a while, Saber has finally started mining gas from his main, and a cybernetics core is half finished there. Haim has enough gas for a lair, but he has lost a lot of minerals to Saber's harassment, with some drones killed and a lot of forced lings pushing his economy back; no drones are mining from either of his expansions. However, his modest ling force finally removes any presence of Saber's zealots in his base, and the zealots which were heading there turn back and stay in Saber's natural, where two cannons are warping in.

At long last, Haim's lair begins, and he is finally able to mine from his expansions. Saber seems intent to continue his harassment, as he puts down a stargate near his nexus, having run on two bases with one gateway for quite some time. With two forges running, Saber has started double upgrades on weapons and armour, and puts down a Citadel in his main. Meanwhile, Haim now has both of his geysers mining, and a hydra den is coming up next to his lair, though he suffers a supply drop as one of Saber's dragoons kills off his overlord to the east of the Protoss main.

Saber's first corsair arrives in Haim's base, and finds a cluster of five overlord all sitting together, which make up the vast majority of his supply. Unfortunately for him, Haim's hydra den was perfectly timed and a small number of hydralisks chase it off. A spire is halfway finished for Haim, so Saber does not have long to make his corsairs count. However, he seems undeterred by the enemy defenses, with his core researching weapon upgrades and his stargate continually pumping corsairs. He also has a robotics facility finished, with a support bay started.

With a bit of a lacklustre ground army of eight zealots, Saber finally puts down some extra gateways, increasing his gate count from one to four against Haim's five hatches. His corsairs are doing their job well, however; Haim's small number of scourge do not succeed at putting him off, and he takes down two overlords giving Haim further supply drops.

A small number of mutalisks make their way towards Saber's main, where a shuttle is about to unload a probe on the six o'clock island. Haim's mutas are easily outnumbered by a modest pack of corsairs, for which the +1 upgrade has now completed. Two more gates start in Saber's main near his mineral only expansion, and Haim has just started to expand at the top left, taking the gas natural there. As Saber's corsairs and reavers travel towards Haim's base, five scourge camp themselves outside his stargate, though the corsair produced there survives with some damage. Saber's probe is killed at six, preventing him taking the island there.

A blockade is set up around Saber's stargate.
Haim adds two hatcheries in his mineral only, with five of his hatches now based there. A templar archives has finished for Saber, with a nexus coming up in his mineral only. Saber's corsairs are chased off by a relatively small army of hydralisks, along with a mutalisk from earlier.

Saber's shuttle is sent off course.
The game has been suspiciously quiet so far; neither side has attempted a full-on attack, though Saber's non-speeded zealots have moved out into the open. The first real battle sees neither side win:

The rather zealot-intensive Protoss army sends Haim fleeing in terror.
Though Saber killed most of Haim's army, he has no observers to kill his lurkers with, and as such he goes straight for Haim's expansion at the top left. With no way to win against the lurkers, he focuses on the hatchery, but it survives with 73 health and is immediately put into lair mutation.

Haim's hatchery lives... just.
A queen's nest is on the way for Haim, with three evolution chambers making simultaneous upgrades. He has also taken the main expansion at the top left, though the natural one remains weak against an all-in against a handful of units. At the moment, Saber has the upgrade advantage; his 2-2 is two-thirds completed, although Haim's second armour is not far from completing either.

You can build whatever units you like, so long as they're zealots...
A storm drop in Haim's top-left bases sees him lose a lot of his drones to one templar, though he is quite rich as far as resources are concerned and can easily replace them. Saber has taken the nine o'clock expansion, putting up quite a few cannons there and narrowing the choke with a pylon. With a horde of zealots like no other, he charges straight into the lurker defense at Haim's top left natural, and though he takes heavy damage, he reduces the expansion to dust.

And they don't seem like the right tools for the job.
A pack of lings attempt to take his force by surprise from the right, but is mostly stopped by a well-placed storm. Though Saber's force at the top left is ultimately trapped in, having its final observer killed by some of Haim's hydralisks, it still prevents the Zerg expanding in the mineral only and cuts down a lot of lings before dying out. However, Haim does take the 3 o'clock expansion.

Haim's lings are melted away by a pesky templar.

A very, very pesky templar...

Meanwhile, Saber attacks the same spot again with a more dragoon-intensive army, seeming to walk right through Haim's ling reinforcements before smashing down his newly rebuilt expansion. With the Protoss army above the ramp, Haim is forced back as his lings are decimated by a storm. Attempting to load his drones into an overlord and escape, Haim tries to sneak them back to his main bases, but it is killed by Saber's goons and his main top-left expansion is knocked out. However, an ultralisk cavern and a defiler mound are up for Haim, though nothing has come from them just yet.

Haim loses his top-left bases.
Saber has put down a nexus and some cannons at the natural at the bottom right, but having smashed down most of Haim's economy, Haim ensures that it doesn't finish with a small group of cracklings. In his natural, five ultralisks have hatched alongside three defilers and a large army of lings, with another two ultras sitting around at the bottom of the map. Another storm drop from Saber sees Haim lose several of his drones as his army closes in upon Haim's natural.

A large fight ensues, with Saber forced back and forward by dark swarms, but with Saber's army size Haim's ultralisks are cut down painfully, with four critically injured ones retreating for the time being. Saber moves in and smashes in the Zerg natural, taking most of its drones, before Haim's army from the bottom comes up and with the help of some swarms kills off the remainder of Saber's attack force.

Haim's dark swarms do little to help him.
Once again, however, Saber's supply is almost double that of his opponent; however, his ground army's impressiveness isn't reflected in this, with only three archons and a group of zealots fighting off Haim at the top left, where Saber has taken the gas natural. He pushes Haim back after killing his defiler, and attempts a storm drop at three o'clock, which is where Haim's main income is coming from; miraculously, Haim manages to maynard his drones into the storm, losing about half of them to it.

With a much more impressive force than before, Saber moves out towards Haim's 3 o'clock base, but first destroys his expansion attempt at the bottom right mineral only with half of the force. He also kills off Haim's island expansion with a reaver drop, and Haim's position is looking ghastly. With only one running expansion left with little defence, and a hundred supply behind, he doesn't look to be in a recoverable position. His last hope relies on a strong ultra-ling army which heads for Saber's top-left expansions, promptly slaughtering the small amount of Protoss resistance and destroying both expansions there. Unfortunately for him, his main bases have met their end to Saber's attack force, and as such he runs back home to defend.

Haim takes revenge.
Saber's zealot-strong army traps the ultralisks below the ramp, and when they do get up, they are heavily damaged from storms; with too many zealots for his swarms to be effective, the few remaining zerg units die, and with Saber's army shutting down Haim's last resistance, his three o'clock expansion is destroyed and he gives in. GG.

Haim loses his last base and gives in.
Do you have a replay you think is worthy of this feature? If so, send it to djurgarden21[-at-]gmail.com and perhaps it will be seen here in the near future!