+ Show Spoiler [Aeon of Strife] +
Welcome back for another battle report, this time between our All American Protoss Liquid`Tyler, formerly known as Nony, and another protoss from the Broodwar community, RaNgeD! While not a big name in the foreign Broodwar scene, raNgeD is obviously up there with the best of SC2 NA if he's being matched against players like Tyler.

This Protoss versus Protoss match was played on Tal'Darim Altar, currently the largest map in our map pool. Of course, its size affects PvT and PvZ a lot more than PvP, if only because Protoss have the ability to warp in reinforcements at any point as long as there is a pylon nearby. Thus, the deadly efficiency of 4gate play on this map negates expansion heavy play styles for the most part. In fact, in current PvP, one could even call fast nexus a form of economic cheese, regardless of the map. However, because of the recent warpgate nerf (an increase in research time of 20 in game seconds), heavy tech and econ builds are slowly establishing themselves as safe, even versus aggressive play.

The match begins with Liquid`Tyler, the red protoss, spawning at the 11 O'Clock position, and RaNgeD, the blue protoss, spawning at 2 O'Clock. Both players opt early on for the standard gate-assimilator opening, while both scouting in the correct direction. This is where the "mirror" ends however, as Tyler coyly steals RaNgeD's gas to prevent him from getting the gas he needs forboth attacking and expanding. The gas is also essential for a dark templar build, which would have directly countered any form of aggression done without an early observer. The gas steal forces RaNgeD to make three stalkers early, rather than opting for a sentry for guardian shield and force field if Tyler decided to attack. Tyler himself opens with two sentries and a stalker, deciding to go for a twilight council rather than a robo bay, as RaNgeD had.

With just enough stalkers on the field to cover all exits/entrances, both players are forced to play in the dark. Because of his late gas, RaNgeD has significantly more probes than Tyler when his first immortal begins, putting him at a slight economic advantage. However, Tyler's Blink build will allow him to secure map control easier, giving him free reign to expand, tech to DTs, or go all in. Throwing a pylon down at the top tower, Tyler makes it clear that he plans to get aggressive and bloody his fists. However, just as Tyler's forces start moving to establish a contain inside RaNgeD's natural, RaNgeD sneaks a probe out.

Rather than establishing a true contain, Tyler attacks into RaNgeD's base, throwing up some graet force fields while sniping a stalker that was bugging out between a force field and a pylon, reminiscent of the stellar dragoon AI from Broodwar. Losing only two stalkers and two sentries, Tyler goes on to kill an immortal and three stalkers, putting him soundly ahead in stalker count.


Tyler shoes away pesky units with three meticulously placed force fields...


and then throws another two up, catching an immortal in their glittery grasp.

With Tyler backing off into his opponent's natural for a few moments, both players take the ceasefire to macro up and reposition their forces. Because of Tyler's superior positioning, he expands while maintaining his contain. However, RaNgeD's sneaky probe that snuck out right as Tyler moved in is planning a comeback, and it proxies a pylon between Tyler's natural and natural third.


Every player's worst nightmare..

RaNgeD pushes into his natural with a handful of stalkers and immortals, evicting Tyler from his territory. Not phased, Tyler regroups and attacks the natural, oblivious to the true threat near his natural. RaNgeD warps in three zealots while the two are fighting at the ramp to the 2oclock natural. Sending them to Tyler's mineral line, the zealots only end up getting two probe kills and a pylon, but the attack as a whole was extremely successful. Tyler pulled back his entire containing force to his main, and was forced to transfer all of his probes in his main to his natural. This gave RaNgeD the time to establish a solid defense inside of his natural, securing some map control as well as lessening Tyler's by killing his forward pylon. At this point in the game, RaNgeD is still up in probe count, 32 to 26, even though Tyler has been mining from his natural for several minutes now.


The murmurs of a comeback..

Realizing his probe deficit, Tyler decides to go for an ingenious attack using stalkers in the back of RaNgeD's main. Blinking into the small crevasse between the 3rd and the main, and then into the main while using a single stalker to maintain high ground vision, he catches RaNgeD completely off guard and absolutely slaughters his probe line. This brings the probe count to 38-31 in Tyler's favor.


Take notes kids!


Hide the children, because probe blood is flowing!

Forced to be passive because of Tyler's aggression, RaNgeD sits in his natural and broods while Tyler reestablishes map control and takes a due third, securing his economic lead. At this point, RaNgeD is really in trouble because he can't expand and he can't attack without trying at best for a base trade. Blinking up RaNgeD's natural cliff, Tyler manages to kill a few more probes as well as a stray immortal, and in the process furthers his lead even more.


Once more, with feeling.

Finally scouting Tyler's third with an observer, RaNgeD realizes just how much trouble he is in and clears the rocks blocking his natural third, while sneaking another probe to proxy a pylon above Tyler's third. As RaNgeD's zealots warped in at the proxy pylon wreak havoc in the third (killing two cannons and a probe), RaNgeD pushes forward towards the natural with a 30 supply deficit to Tyler.


Again, every player's nightmare. Not even cannons can help Tyler sleep soundly at night.

The armies clash at the top tower, both players microing as much as possible, with Tyler coming out with a commanding lead in supply, not even losing a colossi while completely annihilating RaNgeD's forces. With his third's nexus not even started, RaNgeD is forced to gg, adding a wp out of respect for Tyler's incredibly intelligent play.


An epic battle worthy of these two players in the center of the map.


An end to this Aeon of Strife, and a victory for Liquid'Tyler.

The game was extremely close, and RaNgeD mainly lost because he was at a disadvantage from the point where Tyler blinked into his main and pillaged his probe line. Personally, I attribute this to excessive passiveness in terms of his positioning. Because he sat in his natural rather than taking the fight to the tower, he had no idea what Tyler was doing about his natural as well as to the right of his natural (where Tyler could have blinked in, sniped a robo or a gateway, and then blinked out).

It wasn't completely RaNgeD's fault, however, a Tyler's build obviously focused on denying any presence on the map. The initial gas steal made sure that RaNgeD couldn't have blink out as early, and thus any attack was sure to go in Tyler's favor regardless of what RaNgeD decided to go for on his measly gas income. After the initial contain, RaNgeD was dead in the water unless he decided to push and make use of his Robo tech units, which he obviously didn't, opting for an expansion instead. I would have liked to have seen earlier observers from RaNgeD , because it would have made a lot of his decisions clearer. Rather than playing blind, he could have sized up each situation and then reacted accordingly.


Figure one, as Tyler blinks into RaNgeD's main.

Shown in figure one above are the spheres of influence that each player possessed at this critical point in the game. To a newer player, the match would look even because both players are mining off of two bases with similarly sized armies. However, in this battle report, I have shown that while RaNgeD may be in a similar economic situation, he is still in an extremely bad position. With his tech route, he only has one path to attack along: straight down the middle (shown by the blue arrow and X). Furthermore, his army does not have the mobility needed to defend and scout along his base perimeter, let alone deny further expansions from Tyler. He is open for attack at the three marked red spots, and Tyler continues to abuse his lack of mobility until late into the game.

What brought RaNgeD back into the game was that one sneaky probe that Tyler just missed. Imagine being in Tyler's position at that point in the game; you had just sniped a few units while losing less, you're expanding while containing your opponent, and basically, you would feel on top of the world. Then you have 3 zealots in your probe line.. Oops.. Going from supremely confident to having units in your mineral line isn't fun time any player, and we've all experienced it. Not only did it mess with Tyler, reminding him that he was still playing versus an extremely capable opponent, but it also scared Tyler enough for him to completely forgo map control just to kill those 3 little zealots, allowing RaNgeD to safely expand.

Both players showed extremely high level play, although Tyler simply made fewer mistakes with the superior position that he was in, allowing him to take the game. There is a lot to learn from this game, no matter what race you play. Many players on the scene today tend to downplay the importance of scouting and map control in favor of ohhing and ahhing at gosu micro and never ending macro. It's true, uber micro does win games. As we've seen here today, however, map control is often just as important.


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