Replay of the Week #7

Our game commences with Sepirose at the top left and GyungDoo at the bottom right in cross positions. GyungDoo chooses a standard opening, scouting with his gateway probe. Sepirose decides not to wall in, instead building his supply just below his CC and following it soon after with his barracks and refinery close by. However, he decides to take two of his SCVs off gas mining when he reaches 100 gas, signalling a likely FE build.

GyungDoo's scout probe is chased out by two marines, which soon become three and then four. The protoss opts for 1 gate range, and having seen only one SCV on gas, chooses to play safe and FE as well, albeit slightly later. In an unusual move, Sepirose sends two extra scout SCVs to check GyungDoo's tech tree, but he is stopped by some decent goon micro along his path as the dragoons head towards his base. Sepirose begins to upgrade siege mode and pumps out tanks from his one factory with another in construction, while GyungDoo adds a robotics facility after his nexus.

sEpIrOsE's double scout fails to find anything except goons.
The terran expansion is relatively safe, as Sepirose's tanks siege up along the cliff. Not wanting to get behind, GyungDoo takes his mineral only and puts down an observatory; however, Sepirose's flying barracks sees the second expansion, alerting him to these plans. Sepirose now has spider mines, though he has very few units at the moment, with the effects of his expansion yet to kick in. GyungDoo, on the other hand, now has 4 gates with a citadel on the way, and is pumping goons out of all of them.

Sepirose decides to match GyungDoo's bases, taking his mineral only as the Protoss expansion finishes. Sinister things are afoot; Gyundoo's main sees the introduction of a stargate and templar archives in preparation for an early tech to arbiters. He is not likely to be discovered; the terran academy has only just been started, so by the time he finishes his comsats GyungDoo is likely to have an arbiter out. On the other hand, Sepirose is starting an armory; he remains on two factories, though.

GyungDoo builds a pylon at the top right, just near the main ramp, so another expansion should be coming up there. Meanwhile, Sepirose's flying barrack has been surrounded by dragoons, though a few of his vultures save it from destruction. GyungSoo's arbiter tribunal is almost completed, and Sepirose still has no comsat stations even in construction, nor does he have a starport. Moving out is going to become a slight problem for him; his armory is upgrading ground weapons, but there is no sign of goliath production. Research begins in GyungDoo's arbiter tribunal for recall, while his first arbiter commences in the stargate.

Current Position sEpIrOsE GyungDoo Running Bases 3 3 Supply 81/110 108/115 Upgrades 0-0 0-0-0 Resources 235/624 277/42

Unit Count sEpIrOsE GyungDoo 7 3 12 0

A handful of Sepirose's vultures have found GyungDoo's probe at the top right, though no expansion was attempted there. Meanwhile in GyungDoo's main, four more gates have been added, increasing the count to eight as he starts to pump out zealots. As of yet, Sepirose has not really moved from his base; some vultures have come out to harass, but his main force has stayed in. This seems set to continue, as he builds two supply depots in his natural choke, with his engineering bay floating above the remaining gap. He now has four factories with an extra three on the way, and with GyungDoo on three bases as well, he has little reason to move. Move he does, however; some of his tanks siege up on the ridge near his mineral only, and the others leave the safety of the depots to siege up at the edge of the choke and mine up, with turrets building there.

At long last, sEpIrOsE moves something other than vultures.
GyungDoo chooses to expand at the bottom left, and with Sepirose looking relatively static, doesn't face much interference. At long last, Sepirose finally builds a starport, finishing as GyungDoo's first arbiter arrives. Recall tech finished a while ago, and Stasis is now being researched. An expansion is almost done for GyungDoo at three o'clock, with two pylons and a forge blocking any vulture entry there. Meanwhile, a new CC is being built in Sepirose's mineral only, though he makes no attempt to secure the 9 o'clock expansion. An excellent vulture movement from Sepirose sees Gyungdoo lose an entire group of probes he maynarded to his bottom left expansion, and even with three cannons and a dragoon on the ramp he chooses to put another two cannons near the nexus just in case.

GyungDoo loses several probes to a pair of vultures.
With no defense there, Sepirose's expo CC is quickly forced to lift home after a horde of dragoons find it undefended, while much of the Terran army is in his main, anticipating a recall from the arbiter hovering nearby, just out of turret range. With both players more or less on the limit, Sepirose attempts to force GyungDoo out of the middle-left area of the map; Sepirose is hit hard, and though the Protoss is forced to retreat, he does not have enough to secure his expansion, and his CC retreats back again for a short time. A drop from Sepirose sees GyungDoo lose several probes in his bottom left exp, though it is quickly destroyed.

In a strange move, Sepirose is making vessels and attaching a covert ops to his science facility, though all of his CCs have comsats attached to them. A good recall from GyungDoo destroys Sepirose's newly made 12 o'clock expansion, and another recall brings the protoss army home:

GyungDoo's recall smashes down the island expansion.
However, it soon meets a maxed Terran army attacking the bottom-left expansions. Initially, it looks as though Sepirose is winning, with a well-aimed EMP hitting two of GyungDoo's arbiters, but he is badly crushed down by a superior Protoss force, with few survivors heading home:

sEpIrOsE is badly hit by a superior Protoss army.
A second encounter at the top right sees another EMP hit down GyungDoo's arbiters, but this time it has more effect, with the Protoss army substantially reduced by a large number of tanks.

GyungDoo feels the pain of the earlier EMPs come flooding back.

Current Position sEpIrOsE GyungDoo Running Bases 2 4 Supply 157/200 175/200 Upgrades 1-3 2-1-2 Resources 224/478 2636/1292

Unit Count sEpIrOsE GyungDoo 3 13 21 3 14 5

Sepirose starts building two expansions at the top right, though he is immediately spotted by a rogue zealot. Sepirose's force sieges up outside the three o'clock Protoss expansion, but there is nothing GyungDoo can fight with; his force has been EMPed time and time again, so none of his arbiters have any energy. Two of GyungDoo's forges were also based in the three o'clock expansion, so some of his upgrades have frozen as well (armor and plasma). With only two more working bases at present, GyungDoo is hurting; the Terran army is too strong for his meager force of shieldless units and energy-lacking arbiters, though Sepirose loses several tanks to a poorly-attempted attack on the Protoss main.

Meanwhile, the main Terran army is marching upon the bottom left expansions - GyungDoo's only remaining source of income. With the natural obliterated in no time at all, GyungDoo goes straight for the nine o'clock terran expansion, which is largely undefended except for some mines. With his top-right expansions destroyed earlier, Sepirose now has no working expansions whatsoever. Having cleared out GyungDoo's bottom left expansions, and his own nine o'clock one, Sepirose flies an unused command center towards 9, while GyungDoo slowly mines from the 6 o'clock island expansion. However, Sepirose has seen this, and destroys all the probes there with a vulture drop, halting the Protoss economy. With a single nexus warping in at the top-right, and ten minerals left, GyungDoo cannot afford to make any more mistakes. Unfortunately, however, he loses it, and he has only a handful of probes and his old nexuses remaining.

GyungDoo's counter attack succeeds.
In order to get himself some more time, he attempts to recall at the nine o'clock position, but a vessel EMPs the recall arbiter and prevents any damage. In a last-ditch attempt, GyungDoo attacks Sepirose's army head on, but once again all of his arbiters are EMPed by a single vessel; however, his HTs are not hit, and some excellently placed storms wipe out almost all of the tanks, with the remainder being caught in a stasis fired earlier. Now, however, the purpose of Sepirose's covert ops becomes apparent; a ghost locks down both of GyungDoo's remaining arbiters, though it comes slightly late as GyungDoo wins the fight and takes down the nine o'clock expansion with his remaining five goons and an archon. Sepirose attempts to mine from the mineral only at the bottom left, having built a CC there, but is routed by a pair of archons the moment it completes. Another EMP hits both arbiters and both archons, and the two disappear in a single tank shot.

GyungDoo attacks the Terran head on, and is EMPed once again...

...He triumphs, but his arbiters are locked down by a pesky ghost.
Both players are hanging off the edge of death; Sepirose has 24 supply in comparison to GyungDoo's 29, and neither player has any economy at all. GyungDoo's main army consists of two archons and two arbiters, but Sepirose has EMP ready in two vessels and a ghost with full energy. However, he has no real fighting units, but the potential to kill the archons with the ghosts is perfectly possible. As the fight begins, Sepirose loses his ghosts and locks down the arbiters; the archons recieve an EMP, but there is nothing to kill them with. Some of Sepirose's remaining SCVs come to fight, killing off one of the archons, but the other one's 26 hp is sufficient for it to kill off the barracks before another ghost is trained.

Chaos ensues, with shieldless archons destroying anything and everything...

...Except SCVs.
Sepirose did, however, acquire just enough minerals for a vulture, but both of GyungDoo's arbiters have a lot of energy. One zealot, one archon and two arbiters - vs a full energy vessel and an SCV (the vulture was killed). In a clever move, Sepirose lures GyungDoo by flying a spare CC into the open - as his men destroy it, an EMP hits both the arbiters and the two archons. With no units left to fight, Sepirose uses his one remaining SCV to mine minerals at half-map distance, as his CC has not yet landed at the bottom-left minerals; with the one SCV keeping the Terran's chances alive, GyungDoo tries to kill it, but the hero vessel gives the SCV a defensive matrix at the crucial moment, and it passes by with the minerals in hand. With no energy left on the arbiters, it won't get frozen either, and GyungDoo's arbiter micro fails to destroy the matrix.

A rather extreme final attempt to get back into the game is ultimately ineffective.
However, with only 21 minerals in the bank, sEpIrOsE realises he has no hope of mining enough to win - especially since GyungDoo has one probe of his own mining at long distance as well. With no way to matrix his SCV indefinitely, he gives up. GG.

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!