11th Bronze match - 22 July, 2011.

Terrans just like to drop me..... but to be fair, so do I.


My opponent Bloodhunter, went mass Marine with Medivac support.
I expanded and teched to Hydras and drops as per usual.

Even thou I got additional Queens, spread creep, and placed a few Zerglings around in order to see them, I should have done the same with my Overlords so I could have seen it coming.
To be fair, they did brush up against my sight, but I wasn't paying enough attention to catch it.

"That's..... really annoying."

Either way, a bunch of Marines dropped into my expo and wiped out the drones there, but I managed to counter with my Roach and Hydras before they could kill my hatch.


I then remacroed my drones into my 3rd, and got more Roach/Hydra.
Once my drop tech was up, I as usual dropped into the back of his base and as usual they never see it coming.
I even spread a little creep just out of spite.

"That's.... really annoying."

Got to do a little better watching my minimap and positioning Overlords.
But I did get my Zergling portrait for this win, so that was something.


~Yoh

10th Bronze match - 21th July, 2011.

Hey, another Terran, and one who didn't suck, how about that?

My Silver Terran, SonofThor, did something rather annoying in this match.
He Blue Flame Hellion dropped me, and boy do I suck when I'm under pressure.

He did terrible, terrible damage, and yet, I still won convincingly.

"Oh god, it BURNS!"

His Hellions came in, roasted most of my expo's drones, then went into my main, and did the same.
I think I killed two of the three hellions, he killed some 30 drones....... yeah, I suck.
Even when I had a bunch of Roaches, I still lost all these drones.

"If only I could lift off....."

When I finally shooed him out of my base, I remacroed and took and ninja expansion and got Hydras. He on the other hand, even thou he had an early CC, he didn't expand for the longest time.
All he did was put on a ton more production, which he couldn't possibly use, a built up a few Marines and Tanks.

"Pay back's a bitch."

Once I was back on my feet, I dropped a mid-size army in the back of his base, and his own buildings prevented him from getting back into his own base except in single file.
By that time half his base was gone, and while he mopped up my first force, my second wave hit his expo and after killing a ton of SCV's, I caught his tanks out of position and killed them with minimal losses.

"Single file, no rushing now."

He then called GG.


All in all, he did very well with his Hellion drops, more due to me sucking under pressure.
However, his extremely late expansion and poor base layout kicked him square in the ass.

I on the other hand need to work on my ability to deal with pressure.
First I think I need to build a few additional Queens early on, so I have something to fight back with, esp as the early pressure that seems to be mostly screwing me up is air based.
Given my current build, I can easily afford it.


Got to try and not lose 30 drones next time.

~Yoh

9th Bronze match - 19th July, 2011.

Another one sided smackdown.

But it's a Terran this time, Silver apparently, I don't believe it, this guy sucked ass.
My opponent NOS, rushed for Vikings even thou he had less then 20 SCV's........ and sat on them the entire match.
He must have had 12 Vikings by the end of it, fat lot of good they did.

"Hey Vikings....... how about you use them? How about now? Now?"

He also had a obsession with Missile Turrets, I don't know why he was expecting Muta's.

"Paranoid much?"

I on the other hand just expanded all over the map, and did my usual Roach/Hydra drop play.
Of coarse this gutted his main, and he even landed his Vikings in a vain attempt to stop me, even thou I wasn't paying any attention at all.

"Where are thou's Turrets when you need them?"

I ended up pulling back and remaxing and pushing his PF and wiped him out.
There really was nothing to this game. I macroed up, and went in and kill him, the end.

Some people just suck I guess.


~Yoh

8th Bronze match - 18 July, 2011.

My first ZvZ since I've been playing in the 1v1 Bronze league, and it was an interesting, while slightly nerve wracking experience.


My opponent Jules, a Gold level Zerg player opened up with a ton of aggression getting his gas before pool, and start pumping nothing but Lings while getting speed.
No expo, nothing but pure Ling aggression early on.

"Dead giveaway to early ling aggression."

I however saw this with my scouting overlord as it was Metalopolis, and my instinctive reaction was throw down a early pool, and build an auxiliary hatch on top of my ramp instead of expanding, because what I needed was larva, not another mineral line.
And man was that the right decision.

"I love you ax-hatch, smother them with your fatness."

When his lings push, the few that I had just wasn't enough and the 4 remaining lings could have done a lot of damage, if my 2 Queens hadn't sandwiched them between my ramp and my ax-hatch, picking them off with ease.
I then positioned them on the ramp and held position preventing reinforcements from getting up.

I continued to get lings until my Roach Warren got up, and quickly started pumping as many Roaches as I could, while I scoated with my lings and saw he STILL didn't have an expo.
I thought this was really odd, so I look at his 3rd, still nothing.
Ran into his base and holy batmat Baneling, there we're a lot of Lings and Banelings being morphed.
Needless to say, I knew a big push was coming.

"That ling must be pissing himself right now."

I got another Spinecrawler on my ramp (thankyou ax-hatch), and switched from drones back to pumping nothing but roaches while I got the +1 attack.
By this time I had my expo up, and easily had twice as many drones as he did.
Building so many lings off of one base makes you unable to build any drones as you just don't have the larva. But I didn't have that problem.

So when his force made it's attack, we traded forces pretty well as I backed up to the wall with my spines stabbing his lings in the eye, and I came out with about 6 roaches left.
But I was able to easily remacro up a massive roach force and found his ninja expo with a few lings.

"Good thing Roaches kill Banelings, eh?"

Why he didn't just take his expo, I'd never know.
But I just ran up and killed it with my roaches as I took a 3rd.


He counter attacked with his lings, but I had more roaches at home and I easily defended, then I walked into his base uncontested as he GG'ed.



The thing about early aggression is that you had better hope you do a ton of economic damage, otherwise your opponent is going to be in a massive lead and will likely smash you a little later on, just like I did.

It could have gone the other way in all honesty, but my instincts we're bang on and I reacted correctly. Especially the auxiliary ramp hatch, that saved my ass.
Got to remember that against early Zerg aggression.


~Yoh

7th Bronze match - 17 July, 2011.

Hey, my first loss, how about that, I'm not immortal.
It was against a fucking Diamond player..... you heard me, a Diamond player.
Something is just plain wrong with this matchup system for a Bronze leaguer with a handful of wins under his belt to be thrown up against a bloody Diamond player with some 400+ wins..... agh.

Rant aside, it was a lot closer then it felt at the time.
Don't get me wrong, he manhandled me, and my reaction to several situation was just terrible, but when the final push came, I almost held it off.
So at least macro wise, I'm apparently up there with the Diamonds, how about that.


My opponent, cGLuvi, a Protoss expanded pretty early, as did I.
But because my scouting was god awful, I didn't see his quick Voidrays until they we're right on top of my natural expo.
My response was awful, not only did I lose a whole lot of drones, but at least 2 Queens and my expo...... yeah, I'm pretty terrible under pressure, esp when I've never been in that situation before.

"My reaction: Heroic Blue Screen of Death."

I did eventually repel them, fortunately my 3rd was up so I just transferred the surviving drones.
I managed to build up a pretty decently sized Roach/Hydra army and retook my natural, but when his large army of Voids/Pheniox's/DT's and Gateway force push towards my base, my force just wasn't quite large enough and fell.

"Can I call a time out?"

"Never a welcomed sight."

Then his DT's destroyed my mineral lines so I couldn't re-macro up, and I called GG.



Overall, my macro was decent, but my scouting and reaction to the Voidrays was terrible which set me up for the later loss.
It could of gone a lot better, but it's not nearly as one sided as some games I've been in.


~Yoh

5th & 6th Bronze match - July 16, 2011.

Well, I had a few more games the other day, against even more Protoss, and yet again, it was pretty one sided.

Macro people, marco.


My first match of the night was against TUMICHAEL, which like a lot of Bronze Protoss I've seen, just couldn't decided on what units he wanted..... so he just got everything.
His tech was all over the map, and while his Phoenix's did a little bit of damage, they didn't even begin to cover the cost of getting them, which ate into his ground army.

"Cute, ineffective, but cute."

So when I rolled into his base with all my Hydra's, between getting all thous air units and his tech being all over the map, his puny ground army didn't stand a chance.
Pick something a stick with it. If you get air tech, make sure you do a ton of damage or don't even bother with it in the first place.

"Stargate and Robotics and Twilight, oh my!"

Even if he just used them to pin me back in my base and took an early expo, that would have been fine. But no, his expo was late too.

All that matters in the end is who has the bigger army.

"Nice forcefields."

My second match was against kennypowers, who could of been the same person as the last guy, because he made all the same mistakes, and even a few new ones.

Again, his tech tree was all over the place, and even thou he got a lot of gateways early, he just couldn't afford to produce out of them. So there was long periods of time where he could have been building units, where instead he got tech he didn't need.

"Just going out on a limb here, but did he need that Dark Shine?"

For example he got DT's, which in the final battle didn't amount to jack shit all, because I had detection. Every single one of those DT's could have been a sentry, and he would have been much better off...... not well off not to get rolled by me, but at least he could of held off one of my forces.

"But wait, there's more!"

Yeah, I dropped half of my army in his back door, and I still won the push at the front hands down.


Long story short, don't get to many different tech building, you won't be able to afford to use them. Streamlined armies are going to work a lot better.

"You'd think he would of seen this coming."

PS: Replays uploaded.

~Yoh

Terraria has stolen my soul!

I just can't e arsed play SC2 tonight, becaue I just bought Terraria, and I haven't stopped playing since.
It's just bloody addictive.

I'll try to make up for it tomorrow.


~Yoh