Replay of the Week #2

The match commences with True at the top right, and MajoR at the bottom right. True starts off with a supply to the left of his CC, followed up by a barrack down below towards his ramp. MajoR gets an overlord, and goes straight for a 12 hatch, with both players choosing to scout at 12 supply. While MajoR is following up with the usual 12pool, True has opted for a 1rak FE, making his second supply depot next to the first and starting a marine. MajoR's scout turns coward after seeing the 1rak and runs away, choosing to sit outside True's natural, just outside the choke. True's scout on the other hand has more courage, and attempts to delay MajoR from taking his mineral only expansion with little success, due to the zerg sending two drones out. He gets his expansion started in the meantime, though.

As MajoR's pool finishes, he hatches another three drones. It seems clear that neither player will attempt an all-in rush, with True steadily pumping rines and SCVs and also building his third supply, and MajoR pumping out drones non-stop to compensate. Four drones are maynarded to MajoR's natural as it completes, with a gas starting in his main at 15 supply. A sunken is going up in MajoR's natural, but as it finishes, an SCV passes by - at exactly the right moment. It takes two hits and survives, going up the ramp and seeing the Lair tech begin. True's academy is half done, and with an extra two barracks coming up, he is doing a 3rax tech build. MajoR has been pumping drones non stop, with his expansion gas almost finished, and as such True's nine marine army is not in any danger for the time being, though medics are beginning to come out and MajoR remains with one sunken.

True's 3rax is almost done, and Stimpack tech has started, with an engi bay coming up and his two comsats also building. Major's lair has finished, and a hydra den is not far from completion in his min only, with a spire in his main half done. A drone is sent off to expand at the left, but True appears to be moving out; his modest MnM army kills MajoR's scout ling, causing him to immediately throw up 2 sunkens in alarm, winning terran a 350 mineral setback for the zerg. Lurker tech has completed for MajoR, but True is already sitting right outside his base in preparation.

MajoR's lurkers hatch straight into True's contain.
MajoR's expansion is put down at 9, and seeing True move out towards his natural, throws down an extra sunken. When his lurker tech finishes, it turns out to cost him quite a bit; he has only 500gas as his spire completes and no surplus supply, putting him in a bit of a sticky position. He continues to produce six lurkers, unfazed by this, and pushes True's army a few centimetres back, at the expense of showing him the lurker tech. However, True's scouting SCV has miraculously missed his 9 o'clock expansion, and much of his marine army remains in his base, evidently wary of a mutalisk force, with 5 turrets and about 20 marines stationed there.

MajoR's position looks nasty. Tanks are coming out for True, his science facility is starting, and an attack upgrade is almost finished. Adding to that his rather lacklustre army in his natural, and a total lack of defence in his remote expansion, and he seems almost doomed. He does have a queen's nest up however, so he is bound to come across hive tech soon, although True seems intent on getting a second factory to deal with the lurker-based build.

However, with the vast majority of True's army in his main and natural, and yet to scout MajoR's defenceless expansion, MajoR capitalises:


True's army expects a mutalisk attack that is not coming.
As his hive tech finishes, and with a 1-0 armour upgrade also done, MajoR continues harassing the Terran army outside his natural, which has not been reinforced for some time. Some lings are able to escape and eventually come back to destroy the small marine force, ending True's contain. A defiler mound has gone up in the meantime, with Consume research having just started.

A painful flank brings True's contain to an end.
After losing his containment, True promptly brings all of his men straight into his natural entrance and sieges up. MajoR scouts around, losing a lurker, and then burrows just outside True's choke, though there is just enough room for single file marines to get past safely. True's tanks siege up, scan and blast MajoR right back out again, allowing Terran's now vessel-containing army out into the open.

True redefines 'Single file' in order to escape the lurk contain.
Looking around, there is very little zerg army to be seen; a modest number of lurkers and some lings are hanging around between the two player's bases in the middle, and a small force is hatching in MajoR's natural, although defiler consume tech is now completed. Another expansion has also started for MajoR at the bottom left. A fatal mistake from True leaves MajoR okay, however, as True's vessel is scourged while he attempts to mop up some burrowed lurkers with a tank. Though his army still doesn't have a giant amount of power behind it, he does have a lot of lings and a defiler, and as such he begins pushing True back towards his natural with some swarms. A new vessel has come out for True, and in an interesting twist, his 2 factories are now pumping out vultures and researching mines and speed. An expansion is also going up for him at the top left.

True's vessel goes out with a bang.
Through some kingly defiler usage, MajoR almost pushes True into his natural with nothing more than two defilers and a small pack of lurks, but fails at the last moment as he runs out of energy. Both sides took relatively large losses from the ensuing fights, with True losing several tanks and a large chunk of his marine army. However, both player's resources are rocketing, even though neither were close to the limit before the fights began. As True's top-left expansion finishes, it gets promptly ambushed by four lings, forcing it to lift.

MajoR almost forces him into his natural... almost.
Deciding enough is enough, True's army moves out towards MajoR's 9 o'clock expansion, but his departure is soon celebrated by a defiler and a pack of lurks that promptly occupy the space where his army was, cutting off his natural. Several rines die, and though some SCVs that were maynarded to the top left pass through, they mostly survive, with only a few losses, and the contain does not last long. True sends two of his vults up to deal with the lings, while going straight for MajoR's expansion. MajoR, however, is teching Ultralisks in his base, though it's not up yet.

The battle that ensued showed clearly that MajoR's defilers were saving him; no defiler came to aid his expansion, and though a large Zerg army met True there, it was crushed mercilessly on the spot.

MajoR's defiler-lacking army fails to stop True's obliteration of his expansion.
In the meantime, another four lings have ambushed True's top left expansion, though some medics are keeping his scvs alive a little longer. His army goes up there and destroys them, and one of his scouting SCVs makes its way into MajoR's bottom left expansion, discovering another target for the terran to destroy.

Once again, the Zerg looks to be in a sticky position, but do not fear: ultralisks are out! The armour upgrade has been finished, and the speed upgrade is half done, but a large ling force accompanied by some ultralisks and defilers moves out. It might look good, but MajoR appears to get a bit complacent, with a huge force of lings going in front and getting promptly shredded by the waiting Terran army, even with the newly-finished 3rd armour upgrade on them.

True's top left expansion has never really gotten the chance to mine much, with continual ambushes from small Zerg forces constantly forcing it to stop as True comes to rescue it again and again. True's army, due to this, is essentially split in three; a relatively small force is at the top left, a medium-sized force is at the bottom left challenging MajoR's main expansions, and his vultures are mining up outside MajoR's natural. A drop on MajoR's minonly was attempted, but was promptly foiled by ultralisks which just managed to sneak in to kill it as it landed behind a hydra den.

Apparently, the conveniently-timed 3rd armour upgrade didn't cut it as far as MajoR's lings were concerned.
Scourge are in short supply in this game, and True takes as much advantage of this as he possibly can. The vessels in his main army at the bottom go ahead, scouting south and causing absolute disaster by irradiating 5 of MajoR's ultralisks, and heading to his expansions shortly afterwards.

The ever-pesky Science Vessels do their job.
MajoR handles the situation well, relaying most of his drones to the main bottom left exp before crushing the terran force and relaying them back again. His expansion hatchery survives on a mere 75hp, however. MajoR then continues to focus all of his efforts on taking down True's top-left expansion, but an ever-growing army of vessels is continually irradiating his ultralisks with no real counter on the horizon. His ling/ultra army is stronger than expected, however, and wipes out a large chunk of True's main army before dying, and some of his lings once again managed to break through and shut down the top exp, forcing it to lift.

True's perseverance holds, and he frees his expansion and continues mining there. In the meantime, a drop on MajoR's expansions at the bottom left has taken down the hatchery there, but was stopped by an ultralisk when it attempted to drop in the main exp. Major does have another expansion at three o'clock, but that's not going to be very secure when so close to the enemy.

At this point, True is in the lead. He has a bigger army, a large vessel count, and a lot of resources in reserve; he doesn't, at the moment, have his top-left exp running, as it's been harassed by a pack of lings; however, MajoR's 3 o'clock exp has not been running for long, and having his 7 o'clock exp taken out could well mean the end of him. True goes straight for both, with a large marine army cutting down MajoR's attempt to rebuild his bottom-left expansion, though he fails to bring down the main expansion. At the same time, his initial attempt to take down the 3 o'clock exp fails, but a renewed army takes it down nonetheless.

In doing so, True's expansions were taken down by a ling/ultra force by MajoR, and as such he has no running expansions whatsoever. With his resources depleted and nothing in the bank, True is forced to go and free his expansions before doing anything else, though MajoR is suffering economically as well. An irradiated dropship forced him to burrow all his 7 o'clock exp drones for half a minute, and he has no other running expansions; the remaining units have to be used very wisely, particularly against True's standing vessel force, even though many of them are at only a few HP from an earlier plague.

True's top expansions have been once AGAIN routed by a ling/ultra army, and though True could save it, he chooses to abandon his expansions in favour of trying to destroy MajoR's main running base at 7 o'clock. Seeing this, MajoR runs back to his expansion, and although a defiler gets a very nice plague on True's marines, his lings and ultras are shredded as they approach the ramp, as the ultras had been irradiated. The next reinforcements from the nydus canal crush the remaining force, though two of MajoR's new ultralisks get irradiated for the trouble. One of True's top expansions is running again, and this time it has two bunkers ready to buy it time.

With the amount of spare energy he has in his vessel army, True irradiates any unit he can find in MajoR's running base, save the drones as there is a spore nearby. With his plagued HP, he can't afford to get near it, so anything that comes out of the nydus canal gets irradiated - including zerglings! MajoR's irradiated Ultra/ling army attempts to fight off True's small MnM force but is ultimately defeated by three matrixed marines which are the sole survivors of the battle, along with some medics.

As a final resort, MajoR sends a few ultralisks and some lings to True's expansions, disabling them once again as the SCVs run home to his main. However, his success is hollow, as True's MnM and vessel force destroys his last working expansion. With True holding the cards, MajoR attempts some distance mining and also tries an island expansion, but is stopped by a four marine drop at the bottom. His final army attacks True's expansion - however, this time it is well defended with a large MnM army that is too strong for him, and he loses the fight and gives up. GG.

MajoR's ultralisks finally give way.

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