"In the air I had floating an engineering bay, a barracks, a factory, and 5 command centers."
-.Praetor
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| My rematch with TheRubberDucky on Dire | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 10/15/99 08:10 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 5, Max: 8, Min: 6
Lifetime Rating for AQD3: 7.6184 |    | Introduction
The day before yesterday I played a game against TheRubberDucky on Dire straits. The game was pretty close but Ducky had to leave the game about twenty minutes in. The score was within a thousand points and we debated back and forth about who had the advantage and the courses of action we would have taken. There is only one way to solve a discussion like this. I logged onto battle.net last ready to seek out Ducky and have a rematch. The second I stepped into channel nohunters Ducky immediately challenged me.
We got off to a false start. Ducky made the game on his “improved version” of Dire. Improved meaning that my start position had seven mineral patches and his had ten. After being called out on this by YourRoleModel who was observing, Ducky quit the game. I made the next game on a map with even minerals. =p Once again, we chose to face each other on Dire Straits:
Rubber Ducky, you’re the one
I chose protoss and got the bottom left while Ducky picked zerg and got top left. The last game I had experimented with a corsair/reaver strat. I had lost quite a few shuttles to scourge and Ducky’s early spore colony made my initial corsair strike ineffective. I decided on a radically different strat. I would go for templar and reavers and hope he wasted his cash on spore colonies, then continually attrit his initial army of hydras. To accomplish this I used the following build order:
8: Pylon
9: Assimilator (3 probes on gas)
10: Gateway
13: Cybernetics Core(4th probe on gas)
15: Pylon, Dragoon
16: Robotics facility
17: Citadel of Adun
22: Templar archives, shuttle
23: Pylon
24. Robotics Support Bay
25: Reaver, Psi storm research
31: Templar, forge
This strat has a bit of risk to it. If Ducky had switched up his build for fast mutas instead of hydras he could have several free minutes of killing time in my probe line…enough to win the game. I made the dragoon at 15 because I was scouted with an overlord at that time. Unfortunately I didn’t anticipate the path of the overlord as it retreated and it got away. The overlord did let me know where Ducky started from. Just as things started to get interesting YourRoleModel pulled his best Tmac impersonation and lagged out from the game. I used my reaver to drop a probe at the center right big island as soon as it was built. On the shuttles return I picked up my reaver and templar and headed off to the top position. I anticipated Ducky having hydras near the bottom attack spots for the minerals due to his knowledge of my start position, so I circled around to the right of his island and came in near his extractor.
Ducky was a little too good to fall for that trick though. He had zerglings patrolling the edge of his island, each one with it’s own little section. I saw the zergling and anticipated the reaction by hydras. Not wanting to lose the shuttle in the air I dropped my cargo a little to the right of the extractor. Just in time…about ten hydras came in to counter my attack. The reaver had mass hydras spines fired at it, which let me get off a decent storm. I ended up killing eight of the hydras but I lost the reaver, and with no storm left the templar watched helplessly as the shuttle was hunted down , then died itself. I knew I couldn’t afford to lose too many shuttles…
Back at my base a reaver finished and I made another shuttle. I also set down a gateway. I used the probe I dropped off on the right center island to make a nexus and a gateway there, along with a cannon. It was time to go hard on Ducky. My second drop was a reaver and two templar. I set down below his main on Ducky’s island. The hydras came in to attack, but this time I was ready. The shuttle took off for the safety of my main and I started laying down the storm. I managed to get off some good storms and killed a control group worth of hydras. My goal was to make every drop cost effective and prevent Ducky from expanding. I started a second robotics facility at my main. By the time the shuttle got back to my main another reaver and two templar were ready to go. I loaded them up and headed out. I started making templar at my right center island also, eventually getting four.
Rubber ducky, so much fun
The next drop caught Ducky with his hydras in his overlords heading out for my expansion. I dropped the right side of his island and he unloaded his overlords to counter me. A few storms and scarabs later and I had another dead control group of hydras. My strats so far had been gas intensive, but low on mineral use. I ordered up shuttle speed, cranked some more templar and another shuttle and reaver. I also made a few zealots for my next tactic. When the zealot popped out I loaded up a zealot/templar/reaver combo in my shuttle and took off for the back of Ducky’s base. While I did that my new shuttle popped out and I expanded to the bottom middle island. When my shuttle hit Ducky’s base I headed around back to his drone line. He saw me come in with his zergling patrol and sent some hydras to intercept. The shuttle took a little bit of fire, but I dropped the cargo and got off my objective: A good storm right in his drone line, just like my hero Whoop told me to practice. I even got a few hydras with the reaver before I lost the drop.
Back at home I was ready to go again. I loaded the shuttle at home with a reaver/zealot/templar mix. I decided I had a few seconds to do recon with my speed shuttles and checked out the islands around Ducky’s base. Ducky had taken the top middle island. I dropped it with my shuttle, killing all but two of ten or so hydras with my forces. Not a problem. I sent the shuttle back and loaded up two reavers, then two zealots and two templar in my other shuttle. I returned to the top middle island and started laying the smack down. Once I killed all the drones I picked up everything except the zealots and retreated back to my middle right island. Scarabs almost cost more to kill a hatchery than a hatchery is worth =p. Ducky must have been desperate to save that island because he dropped sixteen hydras a few seconds later. I lost the zealots, but since I already killed the drones I was happy.
Time to go Duck hunting
Ducky realized he had to go on the offensive . He chose to do a four overlord drop at my bottom middle expansion. I was hurting a little there because all I had was two templar, and neither had enough energy for storm yet. Fortunately I had two cannons to help delay as my templar ran away, then dropped double reavers from my main to reinforce. I managed to save the base with only a reaver lost. Those hydra had to come from somewhere….I went back to Ducky’s top island and dropped it with four reavers and two templar. It was entirely naked. I killed the batch of drones working there and then the hatchery. Ducky came in with a few mutas to counter, but once he saw the dead hatchery and templar, he backed his forces off.
I had mined out my main and decided to expand to the left middle island. I sent in two templar to guard and about twenty probes. Just as my pylons and nexus started warping Ducky came in with his hydra drop of about five overlords. I stormed a decent amount of troops and reinforced the island with a quick reaver drop. I ended up losing all my troops and had to finish off Ducky’s last hydra with six probes. I had a lot of cash in the bank at that point. I set down ten cannons around the perimeter of that island. I still had a lot of cash left. I dropped another probe at the right middle island to expand again. Ducky came in with a few hydras and some drones on that island a few seconds later. I took the two reaver two templar force left from killing the top island and went over to the right middle island. My drop killed the eight hydras and prompted Ducky to say “It’s over” and then he left the game. Actually, there was a lot of other Ducky conversation in there. After each attack I made insert a Ducky speech bubble saying “You meanie” and if there were templar involved put in either “Storm is imbalanced” or “Storm is gay”. Ducky continued this trend after the game in the nohunters channel where he repeatedly asserted that “Storm is gayer than Tmac.” =]
Thank you for reading my report. My respect to Ducky for a well played and challenging game. Please comment on the tactics that Ducky and I used during the game.
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