Looking for a good game to report this time, I headed to ~nohunters looking for anyone willing to let me observe a 1v1. Hmmmm, no takers. So once again, I find myself in the rotting stinkpile of public games, surrounded by comp stomps and "$$$BGH we liek milk" games looking to find two decent players to fight for my amusement. Still wondering if "1v1 Temple" was the best possible name, MoJoGoGo and bleachedhair joined almost immediately. They'd both played many games and had no objections to letting me watch, as long as I didn't say a single word. Fair enough. gg's, hf's, gl's and go goddamit's are exchanged and the game begins.

bleachededhair, henceforth referred to as Bleach, sat back and tried not to scream as her mind was sucked from the real world and onto the battlefield. She opened her eyes to find herself at the 12:00 position next to a nice purple nexus and four hardworking probes. MoJoGoGo, um Mojo, screamed like a woman the entire trip and threw up next to his white hatchery when he arrived at the 6:00 position.

Bleach quickly warped in a pylon after her 8th probe popped out and then a gate at around 10 sending that probe to explore the dark black battlefield. Mojo quickly throws down a hatchery at his expansion with his 13th or so drone.

At this point, gl hf's are exchanged heartily

Bleach, anticipating her need for psi, quickly warps in another pylon before her gateway is finished. She is also the first to scout the other player, strolling past Mojo's expansion hatchery and right past his quarter-done spawning pool. She panics like a pig in a bacon factory. Shit, says she. What do I do now?

editor note: she didn't actually say that but the writer has a good eye for that kind of thing so shuck it trebek

Her first zealot proudly warps onto the battlefield and marches angrily towards the zerg territory. It arrives to find a NEW hatchery morphing, just above the expansion. Not so much angry now as blinded with rage, the zealot hacks furiously into the tough organic membrane. Not to be outdone by the insulting zerg, Bleach matches him with a warping nexus at her natural. She then lays down a pylon below her ramp, sensing that the zerg may actually retaliate. Her third zealot of the game pops out of her single gateway and she sends the two of them off to help the first. She also starts to warp a forge, sensing that that will help with the erection of cannons.

The first zealot, now frothing at the mouth, stops frothing when he finds himself surrounded by six white zerglings and a bucketful of drones. He's quickly vaporized by the angry lings and the drones go back to mining their fancy early expansion.

Sensing that the unpredictable zerg will probably retaliate, she sends her two zealots to the base of her ramp and starts two cannons next to the pylon, also at the bottom of the ramp. Mojo starts an extractor and sends his six white critters pouncing up the field to see what's shakin. Mojo, being cunning as well as observant, notices quickly that the 3 zealots in front of the two shiny blue spheres have way more hitpoints then his zerglings do so he just runs them into Bleach's peons, losing two on the way. She sends her zealots to chase them but they still manage to kill 3 or 4 probes before being sliced into unrecognizable red puddles.

Bleach's second nexus has just finished and (perhaps noticing that her nexuses outnumber her gateways), starts another gateway as she begins mining her natural.

Mojo, knowing that Bleach is no match for upgraded troops begins TWO evolution chambers and a den (which for you newbies out there, lets you morph hydralisks say it with me, hi - druh - licks). Hydras require lots of gas so he also starts an extractor at his natural. Mojo is a very confident zerg overmind which is why he only has 10 or so lings defending the entire Mojo Dojo. Bleach on the other hand, has 2 cannons and 4 zealots at the base of her ramp and is furiously mining in an effort to catch up. She also starts a cybernetics core with the obvious intentions of either teching to something or just getting some goons out on the field to confuse the simple zerg. At this point, the simple zerg sends two lings to check out his enemy's progress but his scouts are unfortunately ripped to bloody shreds by cannons and psi blades.

Mojo begins morphing drones at all three of his hatcheries as he has noticed that he forgot to replace his drones when he sent all his main ones to the expansion. Bleach is climbing the tech tree but not allowing Mojo even a peek at her underpants. Her defensive wall of 2 cannons, 7 zealots and 2 goons is solid enough to keep her adversary from getting a peek up her skirt. However, Mojo's defence consists of 10 little zerglings at this point. He sends another scout to sneak a peek but it runs right past the 7 zealots. Mojo, more surprised than hurt, quickly morphs 4 hydralisks and starts two creep colonies. Is he too late?

No. Bleach, polit and patient warmachine that she is, makes her zealots wait for the two goons she forgot to send with them. Once the goons arrive, there are 8 hydras and the harmless creep colonies are morphing into the more dangerous and generally scarier sunken colonies. Bleach sends her troops in but with one huge subterranean spike she retreats her troops, trying to draw the vile bugs out of their safety zone. It works. They follow her out but she feels the protoss are still losing the battle and orders them to flee back to their home base.

Mojo now has 12 hydras and sends those to the middle of the field. He then sends 4 of those to chase Bleach's army. They eliminate one lone zealots but are then cut down by 4 goons, two cannons and a few zealots. Mojo then sends his two control groups of hydras into that defence and succeeds in destroying the goons and cannons but only to find that 4 more goons are doing that funny walk that goons do right at them. The rest of his force is cut down so he takes time to regroup. And regroup he does while starting his Lair.

Editor's note: My screenshots reached a hundred at this point and I could no longer take any so I had to alt-tab, ctrl-x and ctrl-v them somewhere else. (No, little newbie, that is not key sequence to activate the map hack. That's the button on your computer that says 'reset')

When I returned to the game a few seconds later, Mojo had leveled Bleach's expansion and was just destroying the refinery. He tried to run his 12 or so hydras up the ramp but by now Bleach had a trained templar with a storm and it actually wiped out about 8 or 9 of the group. Mojo sends the three war heroes back down to guard his new hatchery which is just above the last one.

Sensing a desperate drop, Mojo rallies about 8 hydras to sit at the west end of his main base where the drop would most likely come from. Mojo has put down another hatch just above his last one and instead of making combat units, has upgraded with both evo chambers, made more drones, morphed into a lair and has started a spire.

Bleach now has 5 zealots, 3 goons and 2 temps at the top of her ramp, probably quite afraid to leave knowing that there could be a mass of hydras waiting just outside maybe even lurkers (she had no observers yet). Being in this state of mind, she starts a third gateway, a robotics factory and a stargate perhaps thinking that seeing all these new shiny buildings will raise her army's morale. Right she is. Her entire army (all 10 of them) decide to take on the zerg themselves. They head straight towards the zerg camp but AGAIN a scouting hydralisk passes them and loses its life to let Mojo know what's coming. Mojo's outer defence now consists of 5 drones and a hydra so he quickly sends the 8 from the back of his base to meet them. Unfortunately, these templar were terrible with storm and it probably cost them this battle.

Bleach decides that she should probably send her 8 new zealots down to help (or beat the templar til they learn how to storm). They join but Bleach decides that the handful of hydras and three new sunkens are too much and sends her troops back to her base. Unfortunately, she has angered Mojo. Mojo the Angry sends a dozen hydras to chase them. They dodge two storms with 1 casualty and kill most of Bleach's attack force. They climb the ramp and start to spit at some buildings but 5 new zealots and 2 goons chase them away.

Mojo the Angry becomes Mojo the Patient as he takes the time to rally 5 groups of hydras, several mutalisks, upgrade to hive, upgrade to greater spire, transform 6 muties into guardies and start another hatchery at his mineral only. He has not scouted Bleach at all during this battle but senses that she is weak. He's right. She has a starport, a corsair and a fleet beacon but will never be able to get carriers.

Bleach has only been able to build up 2 cannons, 5 goons, 7 zealots and a few temps while Mojo has made a half score of hydras and teched to guardians. Her corsair proves no match for hydras and her cannons and goons quickly fall. Mojo loses massive numbers to storm however as the battlefield becomes blanketed in hydra guts.

With the guards all stormed out, the dozen or so hydras that remain and 3 or 4 groups of new ones and proceed to violate her main base, covering every inch of it with toxic acid.

They agree on a a rematch and that's coming up next :) But first... scores, yay.

Summary:


- Don't just throw storms around. They're capable of incredible damage so place them right

- Commit to your attacks

- Multitask. Expand while attacking while making more units while teching while upgrading

- You don't have to attack frontal. I say this because Mojo could have easily dropped and taken out most of Bleach's base before she could have even reacted.

- I'm not sure if bleachedhair is a girl, I only think so because she got purple and bleached hair is for girls