The Game: Starcraft: Brood Wars
Location: The Lost Temple (Bob’s Obs)
Commander(s): (orky)MasterD and Candle
Objective(s): Seek and destroy opponent
Observer(s): [ToJ]Kralgon (me), {AoF}Adoni_1, Pandaman

Introduction:
(orky)MasterD – a great Starcraft player
Candle – another good Starcraft player 

Real Introduction:
(orky)MasterD – MasterD is an awesome SC player. He is the 3^rd American to join (orky), joining their ranks on 11-16-00.
Candle – Candle basically is the one that taught me most of what I know. He is another great Starcraft player. Not necessarily world-class, but great nonetheless. 

Ok… so those intros sucked. Go cry and maybe I’ll make better ones… Ok, so maybe not.

Both players picked their races since MasterD challenged Candle to a PvZ after watching Candle run over {AoF}Adoni_1 in that same match-up and annihilating me PvZ the previous night.

Initial (approximate) builds:

Candle does the standard Hatch – Pool – Hatch, expanding at his natural with the second Hatch, and plopping down another underneath his main Hatch. He follows this up with an Extractor in his main. Candle begins scouting by sending his Overlord to the 6 o’clock main then sending his second Overlord to the 12 o’clock main while sending his first one to the 6 o’clock.

MasterD begins with a Pylon, Gateway, a Nexus at his natural, Pylon below the ramp, then a forge. After the Forge warps in, MasterD proceeds to warp in two Cannons. Three brave Zealots from Auir support the Cannons.  It looks like MasterD will try to match the expansion Candle has taken. Indeed it is a risky move, but MasterD just might have the skill to pull it off. MasterD scouts Candle with a Probe and finds the Hatchery morphing in.

Candle, trying to capitalize off of MasterD’s maneuver, sends off eight Zerglings in hopes of taking down the quick expansion. At the same time, a Drone follows the Zerglings on their way out and begins morphing a Hatchery at the 9 o’clock mineral only. The Zerglings arrive about at the time the Nexus finished warping in, but there are three Zealots and one finished Cannon defending the way to it. Seeing the strong defense, Candle pulls out his Zerglings losing half of their number. While the Zerglings are on the way, MasterD sends a Probe to scout and finds the Hatchery morphing in.

MasterD now adds another Gateway in his main followed by an Assimilator. MasterD sends an immediate counter-strike on Candle in the form of a handful of Zealots. Candle is forced to cancel his almost complete Hatchery at the mineral only and the Zealots continue on to the natural expansion. There, Candle has about a control group of ‘lings that he pulled back and a sunken and MasterD retreats back to his base.

MasterD keeps massing units and adds a third Gateway and then a Cybernetics Core. Candle, back in his base, morphs a Hatchery into a Lair and starts the building of another Hatchery in his main, this one next to his first. Candle also stations a Zergling right outside of MasterD’s base to catch any movement. He also sends a Zergling to the 6 o’clock main and patrols it between the mineral only and main.

The buildup continues longer as MasterD warps in a Cannon to the left of his Nexus and a Citadel of Adun. He also adds an Assimilator to his natural expansion as well as a Cannon to the right of his Nexus. Candle has begun morphing his Hydralisk Den. A Probe is send to Candle’s base for recon by MasterD. This time he finds a handful of ‘lings and a Sunken and MasterD moves out again for a strike with eight Zealots. Seeing this with his Zergling stationed outside of MasterD’s base, Candle throws down two creep colonies and begins morphing what probably are Hydralisks from all his Hatches since his Den had finished morphing.

MasterD strikes with his Zealots and quickly kills the ‘lings and pounds on the Sunken. Candle morphs his new Colonies into Sunkens and they complete before the first Sunken is destroyed. As ‘lings pour out (instead of the Hydras I had guessed) and Drones attack the Zealots, Candle morphs three more Creep Colonies. Candle barely holds off the attack with his combination of Zerglings, Sunkens, and Drones. Back at home, MasterD has not been idle and a Templar Archives, and three new Gateways are near completion. He also warps in a Cannon at the top of his ridge to make sure he can hold off any counter-attacks.

Candle again expands to his mineral only with the help of 14 Zerglings hatched during the attack. He also adds some Hydralisks to his force.

MasterD, always wanting information on his opponent, sends a Probe to scout out Candle. He finds the new Hatchery morphing defended by the Zerglings and Hydras. In response, he sends three Dark Templars to get rid of the base. Unfortunately for him, Candle had stationed an Overlord on top of his cliff and it saw the Dark Templar. After a miniscule amount of kills, one Dark Templar is slain, and the other two run off damaged.

MasterD adds three more Gateways in his main and one more at his expansion as Candle loads up many Hydras and ‘lings into six Ovies and sends them off to MasterD in what is his first major offensive. MasterD has just two Cannons guarding the area, and the drop devastates MasterD. Before the force gathered at his valley arrives to dispose of the intruders, MasterD’s Nexus falls as well as one of the two Cannons. MasterD quickly throws up another Nexus.

Note: MasterD has 11 Gateways

A DT causes some trouble at Candle’s mineral only but it is quickly eliminated. Candle now patrols a Zergling he sent to the 3 o’clock mineral only between it and the main.

Candle sends 9 Hydras and a Drone to the 6 o’clock main in hopes of expanding, but a DT follows quietly behind and takes some shots at the Hydras. An Overlord is called in and the DT quickly vaporizes into blue smoke but MasterD now knows about this expansion attempt.

Instead of taking down the new expansion, MasterD does the unexpected and attacks Candle’s mineral only. With Candle’s forces split, MasterD feels he can take down the mineral expansion. The expansion is lightly guarded with two Sunkens, a small number of Zerglings, and a handful of Hydras. MasterD attacks with around 14 Zealots and 3 Templars. Candle had just maynarded some Drones to the fresh expansion, leaving them wide open to storms. MasterD casts one on the Drones, but only manages to kill four of them. The Protoss force easily overpower the Zerg, and the expansion falls, but more Hydras come in for backup.

MasterD marches on into Candle’s natural where Drones join in on the fray, turning the tide for the victorious Zealots. Adoni quickly notes that MasterD already has +2 attack, but Candle has no upgrades yet. This is huge for MasterD, especially with the Zealots getting +2 for each upgrade (+4 total). Candle barely holds off the attack with Drones, Sunkens, and Hydras.

My attention is drawn to the 3 o’clock main where three Hydras have begun morphing into Lurkers. It looks like Candle may be dropping MasterD, and using that place to drop from since it’s more convenient if he wants to hit MasterD’s natural. Candle sends a suicidal ‘ling into MasterD’s base to find out what’s happening over there. He finds that already MasterD has 12 new fresh Zealots and two Templars. In reality, there are even more troops for MasterD since he had not yet set the rally points on a few of his newer Gateways.

MasterD decides to send a Zealot to the 6 o’clock main to find out how Candle’s expansion is doing. He finds that a few of the Hydras had morphed into Lurkers and now defended the empty base. He takes this opportunity to make a Robotics Facility.

It seems both players have the same thing in mind as MasterD’s new force of Zealot/Templar collides with a small band of Candle’s Hydralisks in the middle. The Zealots easily overpower the Zerg, and a few Zealots stray off and arrive at Candle’s new hatchery at his mineral only. There are a couple Hydras stationed there as well as about half a dozen Lurker Eggs.

The Hydras back near the middle being killed, more Zealots arrive at the expansion and Candle gets overpowered. Clicking back in his base, I find a Spire completed. MasterD presses to the edge of the creep, but then is pushed back by Hydras. Storms erupt and wipe out the Hydras, but MasterD pushes no farther. Clicking back to MasterD’s natural, I find four Overlords stationed above and many Probes wiped out. None of the observers seemed to notice the drop, but seeing that the Hydras and Lurkers at the 3 o’clock main were gone, I guessed that Candle had dropped the natural.

MasterD sends a force of Zealots down to the 6 o’clock main to wipe that out. There, a second Hatchery is morphing and there are minimal Drones mining. Candle drops a Drone on the northwest island and starts an expansion there. An Overlord over the 6 o’clock ramp sees the Zealots gathering and Candle takes two of his Drones and hides them near the top of the plateau in hopes of later remaking the expansion and saving a few precious Drones. MasterD attacks, and he has indeed neglected the drones that ran away. Adoni observes that MasterD now has +3 attack and neither player has any upgrades besides that.

The expansion falls and MasterD expands to the 3 o’clock mineral only. Both mains are running dry, and resources seem to be running short. Another battle ensues in the middle, and MasterD again comes out on top with superior numbers. MasterD adds a Cannon and a Gateway at his newest expansion. This expansion has been discovered by an Observer. Candle’s natural is already running dry, and his island had just come online. MasterD still has a constant resource flow and therefore has the advantage.

There is another battle in the center, this time with Hydras and Lurkers against the Protoss force of Zealots and Templars. With MasterD’s Observers and Templars, Candle’s attack fails miserably. With no more minerals in his bases, Candle loads up Drones into his Overlords and drops them at the island expansion. MasterD pushes onward with his Zealot/Temp combo and with no Drones to protect the Sunkens, Candle concedes.

Scores:

It is interesting to note that Candle outresourced MasterD by a fairly good amount, but MasterD always seemed to have more units than Candle.

- [ToJ]Kralgon