Replay of the Week: WhiteRa vs Bly

Although not as long as our previous featured replays, this game brings to the table tight execution of cheesy build orders, know-hows of crysis management and predicting your opponent by just reading the possible future developments of the situation. Bly gives us a blueprint, a template of yet another way to punish greedy protosses and plays it out almost perfectly. WhiteRa, on the other hand, is there to be an example that there is no unwinnable situation and there are always cracks in every build order, every army composition and every containment.



Bly and WhiteRa spawn as the red zerg at 6 and the blue protoss at 12, respectively, and as the early game goes on the way we see that this won't be your average ZvP. WhiteRa chooses to go for the very greedy 17 nexus, while Bly is approaching the game via the safest ZvP build order for his race - gas before pool. But the two things happen next that throw the early game stage in a sporadically observed state. Seeing that WhiteRa has gone for 17 nexus and the scouting probe leaving the premise of his main, Bly immediately cancels his speed and throws in an extremely fast lair at 3:40. Bly extends his deceit by even sending a "expo" drone down to his natural for the probe to see before he removes it with the first zerglings.

At 5:20 four drones reach the ground under the initial scouting overlord, the latter pooping creep all over the front yard of WhiteRa. As Bly's spine crawlers finish, they find juicy targets in the faces of the fresh nexus, the initial gateway and the forge. WhiteRa ends up losing all three of them but his answer to Bly's cheese is already on the way: at 7:00 he throws down double stargate while pylon-walling his ramp to keep the lings away. A quick glance at the production tab reveals, however, some more troubles for WhiteRa. Bly has read the situation perfectly and, either in expectation of the SG play or following Losira's guide of "How to break a protoss with style", puts down a hydra den.


For every villain there is a hero

As the stargates finish, WhiteRa uses void rays and phoenixes to weaken zerg's contain and eventually finds a crack in the enemy lines and uses it to sneak out his gateway army out. WhiteRa goes around the right sight of the map and, reinforcing his units via a proxy pylon priorly hidden just east of Bly's natural, moves out to hit the newly built zerg base. At 13:30 the hatchery falls, despite the unit mix advantage of Bly. The guilt is laid upon the positioning of the defensive spine crawlers, not at all covering the right flank of Bly's natural. WhiteRa then moves back to work on his mid-game plan and finally, at 16:10, he retakes his natural. Meanwhile, Bly has lost all his momentum - his hydra count is far too low to organize a counter attack and so he tries to follow WhiteRa's example and tries to stabilize.


WhiteRa decisiveness and immaculate army control brings him back into the game

By the 20th minute mark, the game has reaches somewhat of a normal rhythm. WhiteRa is transitioning into colossi, while Bly is taking the gold as his third and adding infestors and banelings to his core of hydras - a composition all of us know is not the best when it comes to fighting protoss death ball. As soon as Bly spots what WhiteRa has been cooking the whole time, a roach warren and a spire are immediately put down but it is too late. At 24:00 WhiteRa moves in to destroy the gold base of Bly, opening an alley to approach the natural. So he does and one minute later the final battle ensues.

Although he has managed to mix in some roaches in his army, Bly's composition is not at all tailored to stop WhiteRa's death ball. The zerg is pinned down at his natural and tries to make something happen with his last reinforcements and even manages to destroy the bulk of the gateway army but the colossi are still standing. As his natural hatchery falls, Bly gg's out... and says something else in Russian.


Blazing out them pesky roaches



Do enjoy this replay, dear friends, and while you do we will be on the hunt for even better once to deliver to you! Next ROTW is coming later this week as part of our promise for a double dose features until end of October. See you soon!