Long ago, there was a boy, almost a man, who wished, on his birthday, to become a man. Sitting in his home, waiting for the world to see his strength, poise, and stature, he wished only to gain the respect and trust of his peers. What he got instead was Starcraft, and it was better then all that other shit.

Time passed, and after triumph and loss, many trials overcome, and friends made, and friends lost... he came, alone in a world where your only allies are enemies to a place where he need never want of anything, ever again.

He came to Battlereports.com.

This particular match up is extremely popular, seeing as you can only combine the races of Starcraft in six different ways in 1v1. Today its Zerg against Protoss.

The players:

The game begins: Opening moves.

LoZeR-X lands with Zerg at the 9 o'clock position. He quickly performs his normal half assed split, ending with an ugly but functional four mining drones.

Archess either warps his nexus to the 3 o'clock, or rolls it in on wheels, Im not a Protoss player so I am not sure how they handle it. His opening orders send probes to four patches as well.

LoZeR-X does his traditional move, sending an ovie to scout the nearest base, to the south, while building up nine drones then inflating another overlord at 9 control. After it hatches he creates three drones from larve, then holds back until he has the money to send his 13th drone to create a hatchery overlooking his ramp. Following shortly after is a spawning pool under his gas mine, and an extractor. A tiny probe barges into his base and makes a circuit of the place, then leaves without trying to fry any drones or mine chunks of flesh out of any of LoZeR-X's buildings. LoZeR-X spawns 6 Zerglings and sends them to the Protoss base.

Archness plays it cool, getting 8 control while again reminding me and the obs that he is, in fact, 'Rick James, Bitch!'. At 8 control he sets down a pylon, then at 10 control sets down a gateway and sends a probe out to scout. As the probe leaves to discover the poorly named "Lost temple" (Here's a good place to start looking...) He warps in an assimilator, now at 11 control. He begins a pylon and warps in two zealots from his single gateway. Before the second one is complete, his scouting probe reports that a handsome Zerg commander seems to be occupying the 9 o'clock plateau. Choosing not to engadge, Archess warps in another zealot and a cybernetics core at 20 control.

The battle begins.

LoZeR-X sees an opening in the Protoss defence. He starts a third hatchery inside his main

and tells his lings to run to the Protoss zealot line. He also orders his overlord into the Protoss base to scout what Archess had in store. Meanwhile, Archess readjusted his zealots to block the incoming Zerglings. LoZeR-X's first wave of Zerglings finds that Archess decided not to let them run up his ramp and attack his probes. While this encounter goes down, he has built another gateway and has began his goons, and soon produces his first while adding a robotics bay to his base. LoZeR-X forgot that he had left an overlord inside his foes base and soon the first kill is awarded to Archess and his white Protoss kids.



In any case, LoZeR-X commands a few of his loyal drones to place an evo chamber and a hydralisk den, intending to add some hydralisks the mix. Archess gloats over the dead overlord for a moment

Archess has been busy making a small Protoss force in hopes of keeping LoZeR-X contained.

Minimap update at 8:00:

Right now, There is an orange blob of LoZeR-X's growing Zerg forces, matched by a white slash of
Archess Protoss containment. Archess is sending a probe, the white dot inside the box, to create a nexus and some cannons at his expansion.

Things heat up

LoZeR-X finishes his lurker upgrade, and creates an army of seven lurkers. He lays down a Hatchery at his main, and sends two scouting Zerglings past the Protoss forces outside his base and at Archess's natural expansion. Ah ha! Thinking it a fine time to set out from his base LoZeR-X unburrows his lurkers and rushes his Zerglings into the dragoons range, bringing the lurkers behind. Archess pulled his goons back as the lurkers burrowed, and LoZeR-X followed to the center of the map. The ensuing fight was not in LoZeR-X's Favor, as it seems that lurkers spread out too far don't support each other. The Protoss ended up coming out slightly ahead, destroying 7 lurkers and quite a few Zerglings for the troops at the contain and a few extra goons pulled off his ramp.

This fight was just getting started though! Archess left some goons laying around in a rather spread out formation, and LoZeR-X gladly took advantage of the weak formations by taking out five goons for a few poorly tossed plasma balls and a few 'Nak Nagala you, buddy!' as the 2 remaining goons ran off. But as you can see from the following pictures, LoZeR-X was facing a grim prospect in Archess dragoon whores. I mean, hordes. Really. No dragoon whores guys.

Suddenly the dragoons lurch out of Archess's base and head right for the Zerg base. They catch LoZeR-X's hydra in front of a mineral only expansion in progress. The hydralisks fight toe to toe with dragoons, even pushing them back for a moment, but with zealot support the expansion has to be cancelled. If not for the sudden birth of 9 more hydra, the Protoss may have continued on into LoZeR-X's Main

Archess is growing weary of this game of win some lose some. He decides to spend some 1200 minerals on expanding to the 12 main, 12 natural, and 6 mineral only. LoZeR-X suddenly is faced with a huge crisis that he has no idea is going on. The only small advantage the Zerg has is that the Protoss forces have not yet called apon the templar to aid them in battle.

Minimap update at 16:00

Things were not going well at this point for LoZeR-X. Archess was building templar, expanding all over the map, and soon could overwhelm LoZer at will. There was only one thing for a Zerg to do in such a dire situation, aside from a 7 hydra drop that accomplished nothing besides running like a pansy from one goon. Not my proudest moment
That would be hive tech. The hope for a future with Ultralisks and cracklings, one where Zerg need not fear Protoss ground. LoZeR-X spotted one of many new expansions by Archess and suddenly hope began to fade. It seemed that yet another ZvP would end horribly wrong.

But this battle isn't over yet.

LoZeR-X Gathers his large swarm of Hydralisks and Zerglings, and attacks the scattered Protoss units, and suddenly the fight isn't so one sided. The units standing guard at the 6 Natural rush to assist thier overrun Protoss patrol, but are beat back to the safety of the mineral only. Or... not safety. LoZeR-X smelled blood in the water, which meant that he would forgo swimming and take down the expansion instead. Suddenly, in the course of a minute, momentum had shifted to the Zerg. Two hatcheries were set down at his mineral only, and the next conquest was lined up. The north called.

LoZeR-X raced north to continue his offence. The 12 Main was almost empty, but soon his force was joined by zealots which were dispatched. Archess was not pleased, and soon after the Zerg pulled the nexus down, archons supported by zealots came storming onto the plateau. LoZeR-X thought quickly and tossed his remaining forces into overlords and ferried them to safety, thumbing their caraprice* spikes at the helpless Protoss forces as they left.
*(many Zerg don't really have much nose to thumb, so they make do.)


Archess was quick to retaliate, throwing his archons and zealots into LoZeR-X's mineral only expansion. It must be said that the 2 hydralisks and 6 cracklings saved from the last engagement were just enough to tip the scales in the Zerg favor.

The end comes

It was a hard fought game, Click here to view the score and here for the replay. As for lessons, I suppose a big one is to not leave my overlords sitting around where they can get blown to bits by goons, as well as be aggressive. Had I stuck with my normal defensive style, I would have lost the game.