Battle of the Ages

The Game begins with Pillars going for a 2 Gateway opening. He scouts early and by the time he finds Maynard's base at 9 a zealot is already heading in to intiminate his zerg opponent.

In this screen shot Pillars gets to see what Maynard is up to. Notice the orange dot at Maynard's mineral only expansion. That is the first zealot. Maynard had started out with a build that was something close to OL 12th drone hatches at expansion, pool, and a 2nd hatch at the expansion. The two would jockey back and forth over these two hatches, but would not do anything more than probe each other for awhile.

Pillars has added an assimilator and a forge at his main, and Maynard has started a fourth hatch at the top of his ramp when Pillars decides 8 zealots are enough to charge the zerg expansion. Maynard has built one sunken at his expansion to go along with his 6 drones and 12 zerglings there as his defense. Maynard's 2nd hatch was also built in such a position that the zealots can't just sneak by his expansion and into his vulnerable main.

Pillars zealots are too much for Maynard's defenses. However, losses on both sides are approximately equal when Pillars decides to pull his zealots back. Pillars lost 5 zealots (500 minerals) and killed 12 zerglings and 1 sunken (475 minerals).

In the aftermath of the battle Pillars decides not to use his 3 zealots and reinforcement zealot that is en route to try to kill Maynard's 6 fleeing drones. I think this may have been a mistake, but it also may be because Pillars has not invested funds in building gateways, but has added a cybernetics core and saved for an expansion. If he loses his 4 zealots to 4 hatches worth of maynard lings then he will lose the game because Maynard would be able to outproduce him by such a great margin. Would you have chased down those drones in the previous screenshot or retreated? Also notice in the minimap that there is a probe hiding in Maynard's main for future scouting.

Maynard fortifies his expansion and starts gas production at his main and natural. Pillars decides to put up two cannons at his choke to protect his natural and his main. Now the pressure is on Maynard. If zerg does not outresource the protoss player it is hard for them to win. Pillars gives Maynard a window of opportunity by pulling his forces back to his choke and teching to high templar. Maynard uses this window to expand 4 times and adding 6 hatches which brings his total to 10.

Pillars has gone into passive mode and Maynard takes advantage of it. Pillars has added 3 more gateways bringing his total to 5, but just kept his troops at home even though he has an attack upgrade and psistorm. At this point Maynard does a probing attack with Hydras, notices an expansion warping in at 3 with his overlord (see minimap), and has to be thinking that it is time to start pumping mass units. I'm scratching my head knowing that Pillars could kill Maynard right now if he attacked because he has more troops , high templar, and the attack upgrade.

Pillars is content to be complacent and build up a large force of troops. Maynard is not content with a 2 to 1 Hatch to Gateway advantage and adds more hatches while pumping huge amounts of units to the center of the map. Many skirmishes are fought in the middle of the map usually involving two small groups of Maynard's units. One group of about 8 hydras will pull goons goons away from the deadly templar while a second group of 8 hydras sneaks around the back of the protoss forces and kills a templar or two.

Now things start getting too dizzying to watch. Pillars expands to 3's mineral only expansion. Maynard is pumping lots of drones from his newly hatched expansions while pumping hydras from his other hatches. Maynard's overlord had noticed the expansion at 3 and 8 hydras were dispatched to kill the expansion. This was the worst bit of luck in the whole game. Pillars had 3 cannons warping in on his ridge next to the ramp to 3's main. Maynard was able to get all his hydras up the ramp right as the first cannon warped in. If the hydras were just 2 to 3 seconds later they would have been turned away by 3 firing cannons. Pillars sends in troops to deal with these hydras and Maynard does three things all at once. He burrows 4 hydras in the mining field at 3, uses the other 4 hydras to engage the reinforcements to 3, and sends in two groups of hydras to blitz the vulnerable high templar in the center of the map.

Here you can see Maynard's trickery. Pillars leaves his troops at 3 after thinking that he killed all the hydras there. Notice the big orange blob at 3 on the minimap. Pillars has diverted his attention to the hydras near his mineral only expansion. He brings in forces to exterminate the zerg presense in the center of the map, but Maynard unburrows his 4 hydras at 3 and takes out some probes and the nexus!

Right after destroying the nexus Maynard runs his hydras at 3 away a little bit and burrows them. Pillars is engaging the zerg forces at of the center of the map, but two notable things are seen in the minimap. Pillars is expanding to 3's natural and there is a stream of hydras that are not engaging the protoss army in the center of the map. They are going to walk around them! Maynard retreats his hydra force in the center of the map after killing one or two high templar and Pillars' forces look to press an advantage. However, about 16 hydras arrive at the mineral only expansion and wreak havok. When all is said and done Pillars has lost all but 3 probes at his minerals only, lost his expansion at 3 and is getting massively outmined. At this point the game is over for all practical reasons. Maynard has achieved 15 hatches and Pillars has only 7 GWs.

Pillars tries to regain economy by reexpanding to 3's main and getting his expansion at 3's natural going, but Maynard does one better. He hatches at 12's mineral only expansion, the top left island, the bottom right island, and hatches on the plateau on top of the natural expansion at 3's cliff. He has also teched up to guardians and builds a massive force to attack Pillars. He gathers 6 mutas, 12 guardians and probably about 24 hydras and 30 lings while also dropping 24 lings on Pillars main. This tech move by Maynard did not work well. Goons with range upgrade and 3 attack, 3 armor, and 1 shield upgrade laughed at Maynard's lings as the lings could only managed 2 damage per attack to the goons. They also blasted the guardians out of the air with ease. At the same time Pillars defended his main only losing his templar archives which he quickly rebuilt. Pillars has momentum now could He put Maynard down? In short no. Pillars finds and razes Maynard's minerals only expansion at12. However at the same time 3 sunkens morph in above the expansion at 3's natural and tear into the protoss probes. The count is 18 hatches (after Pillars killed Maynard's hatch at 12's minerals only) and 7 gateways for Pillars . That just won't win many games. Nor will getting outmined heavily. Pillars transfers his probes from 3's natural to 3's main, but Maynard drops Pillars main and razes much of it while doing a little battling in the middle of the map as well. Pillars resigns with a gg and a few comments on the match. He is very classy in defeat.

Here are the final results

Pillars had his chances early, but Maynard gets so big so fast it is amazing. My final thoughts as I left chat up"with them were simply, "I want to be Maynard when I grow up"

Eliezar