The finals were best of three, this being the first game, both players choosing zerg and no real action made as of yet we called it "Battle of the Cerebrates".

Now before the game started Skywalk~WSC~ the tournaments creator and webmaster at SCN (http://www.starcn.cjb.net) gave congratulations to the two finalists and then after much technical problems from nearly everyone created the game. Now I wanted to go into a little something before anything else, I believe alot of winning StarCraft is mood, and here's what the mood of the players was like... FRiLgOrE was happy he had won his last game by a forfeit and happy to have gotten to semis just before finals, however his moral wasn't it's best, Scorp-[JK] was the hot favorite. Scorp's moral was fairly ordinary, the atmosphere of the finals on the Australian server didn't seem to effect him at all.

And now that that's out of the way we can go start the game!

Both players had chosen Zerg, and as Skywalk~WSC~ had said "Hmm, this could be interesting." Although I felt that Scorp-[JK] had the upper hand because of the race draw since he plays Zerg in more than 90% of his games, and 100% of this tournament. FRiLgOrE on the other hand practices alot with Terran and Protoss just as much as Zerg. But surprisingly FRiLgOrE was ahead for most of the beginning.

Both players found each other nearly immediately, and it was a question of who was going to rush first. Scorp-[JK] found that FRiLgOrE's build order was a typical zerg's build, 10th hatch via the extractor trick, 9th pool. The second hatch went just below the ramp as seen in the picture to the right. This was to protect both main and an expansion if need be. And FRiLgOrE learned that Scrop-[JK] had gone for an early pool.

Scorp-[JK] then realizes his opportunity, as he sends in a small army of zerglings to knock out FRiLgOrE's defensive hatch. To Scorp-[JK]'s disliking his force of zerglings were warded off by FRiLgOrE's first batch of lins, but not without leaving a little bit of damage to FRiLgOrE's hatchery as seen below.

Scorp-[JK] retreats his remaining zerglings who were on their way to the fight, he stops them for base defense just in front of his expansion. Scorp-[JK] then proceeded to get a second hatchery just below his first and an expansion. With this Tri-Hatch build came hydralisks, Scorp-[JK] knocked up a den while massing zerglings at a rally point at his vally choke infront of his natural.

Meanwhile... FRiLgOrE built his expansion, a couple sunkens at his remaining defensive hatchery and made a few more zerglings which sat idol next to his defensive hatchery. FRiLgOrE then started his lair as Scorp-[JK] sent in a second wave of zerglings.

Scorp-[JK] used his zerglings in a surprise move, he tired to run past FRiLgOrE's defensive hatch, unfortunately FRiLgOrE's zerglings were positioned perfectly to stop any men from running up the ramp, Scorp-[JK] lost the little battle and withdrew any men he could to the #1 point as seen on the mini map to the left. Scorp-[JK] than began to build a little force of zerglings and hydras at the #1 point and set up for a third attack, as he was doing FRiLgOrE was getting ready to set up a spire and begin building mutalisks. The only problem I could see so far in this game was for a Final of a SC tournament neither player seemed to scout enough. The game seemed fairly regular and wasn't as high paced as we had expected as FRiLgOrE played a fairly defensive game so far.

With his gathered army Scorp-[JK] set up an attack for a fairly tricky move. He was to try and pass the zerglings and sunkens again and make a hit on FRiLgOrE's main. Scorp-[JK] sent his army in, and lost nearly all of it to the sunkens and zerlings, however he got past and moved his hydras and remaining zerglings behind FRiLgOrE's mineral line... This worked to FRiLgOrE's despise, and took out quite a few mining drones, However both players didn't seem to have many drones, I felt that Scorp-[JK] had the most since his expansion was up before FRiLgOrE's.

Just in time FRiLgOrE finished off a few mutas, and attacked the hydras killing them off before too much damage was caused. From this point on the action began.

FRiLgOrE quickly got back on his feet, mining at both main and expansion at the same rate as Scorp-[JK]. FRiLgOrE got up 9 mutas and then made an attack on Scorp-[JK]'s main...

FRiLgOrE's attack wasn't all that great, despite Scorp-[JK]'s defending army included just 5 hydralisks and a building spore coloney. But Scorp-[JK] called his hydralisks guarding his expansion up and warded off the mutalisks. After that Scorp-[JK] started getting his lair and FRiLgOrE attempted to expand to the 9:00 position, Scorp-[JK] saw this and sent his hydras towards FRiLgOrE's new base... To FRiLgOrE's advantage this proved the perfect distraction and sent in his mutalisks into Scorp-[JK]'s lightly guarded expansion. Just before losing everything there Scorp-[JK] brought back his hydras for defense allowing FRiLgOrE to safely get his expansion at 9:00 up and running. As soon as FRiLgOrE saw the hydras however he ran his mutas away again playing a hit and run style game. FRiLgOrE kept massing mutas with Scorp-[JK] plundering an attack on FRiLgOrE's 9:00 expansion.

Scorp-[JK]'s attack on FRiLgOrE's expansion ran into light defense but as soon as FRiLgOrE saw the attack he sent his 24+ mutalisksts at the attacking hydras. After that it was pretty much over. FRiLgOrE set up another expansion at 9:00's neutral, Scorp-[JK] made a final attack on FRiLgOrE's main which was defeated by returning mutalisks and then FRiLgOrE sent in his mutalisks to finish Scorp-[JK] up.

A good game played by both players. But FRiLgOrE came out victorious 1-0.

What we learnt?

• Tournaments should have at least 32 players because 16 just isn't enough of a challenge causing players who really aren't top notch to be up the top causing a fairly boring game for observers who need to rely on each others company to get through it :) just kidding :) FRiLgOrE and Scorp-[JK].

• Mutas own Zerglings and hydras.
• Always keep guys everywhere as scouts.
• FireFly has a bad memory and you shouldn't make him do battlereports :).

Special Thanks to:

Hogfather and Aus-1 for the Server.

Agamemnon(MT) for the announcements for the tournament.

Skywalk~WSC~ and SCN for the Tournament and stuff.

FRiLgOrE and Scorp-[JK] for playing.

Links:

http://www.aus-1.au.nu

http://www.starcn.cjb.net

http://members.dingoblue.net.au/~firefly1 (Not Finished)

Send all complaints or compliments to Firefly (firefly1@dingoblue.net.au)