Match Rating: 8/10
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Game 1 - Metalopolis
Cross positions, Rain at 9 and HongUn at 3
Standard opening from HongUn, one barracks and no gas for Rain
Command center starts for Rain, then two more barracks, HongUn gets a nexus a little later at 27 supply
Two more gateways for HongUn, Rain puts a bunker at his natural
Robotics for HongUn, a fourth barracks for Rain and tech labs for all his finished barracks
Ghost academy for Rain in the gas as well as stim, two forges and observer for HongUn
The first observer finds a small infantry force in the center of the map but Rain scans and kills it
Shields and concussive shells research starting for Rain, his small infantry group goes to poke the natural
Rain edges forward with a ghost, but HongUn's sentries are spread
HongUn cuts the army with force fields and easily kills half of it, too late an EMP hits a few sentries but not all of them
Twilight council done for HongUn, getting charge
Double engineering bay now for Rain as well as a starport
Immortals coming now for HongUn to completement his gateway units
Templar archives finishes for Rain, both players take a third base
Storm starts for Rain, HongUn is up to 2/2 and Rain isn't done with 1/1
HongUn tries to engage in the center of the map, but his force fields block his zealots away from the infantry
Rain drops during the battle, but meanwhile HongUn pushes him back into his base
For some reason HongUn doesn't retreat and loses his army to Rain's reinforcements
3/3 coming for HongUn, Rain staying at 1/1 and adding two more barracks
Rain drops in the main again and tries to snipe a pylon, then picks up as zealots are warped in...the medivac is feedbacked but barely survives
Rain engages in the middle of the map again, HongUn pushes him back and this time has templar to storm the SCVs at the natural and the surviving infantry
HongUn pokes Rain's third but pulls back from engaging the planetary, meanwhile starts a nexus at a center gold base
Rain uses two dropships to harass HongUn's fourth, kills a few pylons before having to retreat
HongUn starts a fleet beacon to the delight of the crowd...the benefits of being 50 supply ahead
HongUn tries to walk down toward the gold base and half his army is melted by storms
Rain concedes
As he promised, Rain played a macro game, and as I expected, HongUn looked like he was quite a bit better.
Game 2 - Xel'Naga Caverns
Standard opening for HongUn, second barracks and reactor for Rain while the probe is still in his base
Stargate for HongUn, stim for Rain
Void ray for HongUn, Rain moves out with about ten marines and a few marauders
Rain expands behind his pressure, then goes up HongUn's ramp
Force field comes down behind him so he can't kite the zealot at the top of the ramp, all of Rain's units except two are killed, though they pick off a sentry
Game is paused...
Some sort of monitor problem, apparently.
Game resumes, HongUn moves into the natural with two void rays and some gateway units
A bunker finishes just in time for HongUn to get marines in it, the gateway units escorting the void rays die and force them to pull back to his proxy pylon
HongUn still making void rays, Rain making marines and getting shields
With the marines in the main trying to fight the void rays, HongUn puts a force field on the ramp and attacks the natural again
HongUn is driven off again when the force field goes away
HongUn's three void rays swing into the main again, but Rain stims his marines, kills one void ray and several damages another
Rain gets a few reinforcements, then engages HongUn's outnumbered forces around the proxy pylon
All the void rays are destroyed and the few zealots and stalkers die as well
HongUn concedes
Well, HongUn made some micro mistakes, but I'm not convinced going void rays after seeing a barracks with reactor is a great strategy.
Game 3 - Lost Temple
Cross positions, Rain at 1 and HongUn at 7
Standard openings for both players
HongUn's scouting probe is denied by the wall-in and then killed by the marine who happens to spawn at just the right time
Factory for Rain and then a second gas, second gateway for HongUn
Twilight council for HongUn, starport and tech lab factory for Rain
Blink for HongUn, siege tank for Rain
Hallucination research interrupts Artosis' theorycraft
Rain moves out with a dropship with two tanks in it and snipes a stalker in the center of the map
Proxy pylon for HongUn but it's in plain sight of Rain, he goes to kill it
A hallucinated void ray gives HongUn vision of the high ground and allows his few stalkers to blink up
They get crushed by a far superior Terran force
Rain moves out with three tanks, two dropships, and a decent marine escort, HongUn has about a dozen stalkers in the middle of the map
HongUn blinks up on to a center hill and kills both medivacs, then retreats as Rain scans
Rain sieges up at the natural choke
HongUn blinks his stalkers down and kills two tanks in the back while the other marines are around the front tank
Rain making a command center and getting stim, dark shrine for HongUn
HongUn expands as well, pokes Rain's natural but siege tanks on the high ground force him to retreat
Robotics coming for HongUn, raven coming for Rain
The first DT arrives just as the raven comes out and gets killed after killing two marines
Stalkers blink into Rain's main, kill two tech labs, snipe a medivac, then as they leave they snipe the raven as well
Robotics bay coming for HongUn, Rain pumping infantry
Rain pushes out to the center but then pulls back, building more barracks
Colossus and thermal lance coming for HongUn, who has DTs in the center of the map to screen
Another DT comes in to Rain's natural, Rain's replacement raven isn't done but he has a turret there and kills it easily
Zealot charge coming for HongUn as well
Rain pushes out with four tanks and a large marine/marauder army
HongUn engages with two colossus and a much smaller gateway unit group
The tanks focus down one of the colossus and the infantry picks off the other as HongUn tries to retreat
Rain moves down and kills HongUn's natural nexus
HongUn concedes
Rain countered HongUn's blink strategy perfectly. HongUn's switch to colossus tech was too little, too late.
Game 4 - Delta Quadrant
Right positions, Rain at 1 and HongUn at 5
Standard opening for HongUn, three barracks for Rain
HongUn only saw one barracks, looked like a one barracks fast expand build
Four gates for HongUn
Rain sends his SCVs with his first six marines
No sentries out to stop the ascent up the ramp, SCVs start a bunker
SCVs attack the stalkers, probes attack the marines
The bunker finishes, some of the SCVs go back to Rain's base
The bunker is in range of a gateway and the cybernetics core
The marine count dwindles but reinforcements arrive and the core goes down
HongUn builds another cybernetics core in the back of his base
Rain takes out another gateway, HongUn down to two gates
The battle goes on as HongUn takes more and more stalker and probe casualties
Rain never quite manages to get an overwhelming number of marines like you usually see in these rushes, but HongUn finally runs out of stalkers, which amounts to the same thing
HongUn concedes
Well, after some pretty good macro games, Rain goes back to what got him here and hits HongUn with a strong marine rush. HongUn must have practiced against this, but the way he built the barracks so HongUn never scouted them (without taking the risk of a proxy) was clever. By pulling back his SCVs after the initial attack he wasn't even totally all-in.
Game 5 - Scrap Station
Standard openings for both players
Factory for Rain, positioned to be floated to HongUn's base, as well as concussive shells
Four gateways for HongUn. The three extra gateways at in the rear of his base
Proxy pylon placed, Rain getting a command center and a bunker with marauders
Stim and an extra barracks are on the way, Rain starts a second bunker as soon as the stalkers arrive
HongUn ignores the bunkers and attacks the marauders and marines outside the bunkers
When they are down, he clears out the bunkers surprisingly easy despite SCVs present to repair
Rain concedes
HongUn's build blind countered Rain's, and though Rain scouted it he reacted slowly. Artosis was convinced he could have won with a faster response. I'm not so sure but he's played, what, a thousand more SC2 games than I have?
Game 6 - Blistering Sands
Standard openings for both players
Rain sends two marauders, a marine, and two SCVs to the ramp
There are no sentries there but Rain doesn't know and pulls back
Four gateways for HongUn, three barracks and a command center for Rain
Twilight council for HongUn getting charge, no longer mining gas
HongUn's stalkers go to the rocks, he holds his main group of zealots in reserve
Command center floats to the natural, there's a bunker built there to help defend
Rain puts two bunkers near his production facilities
Fifteen zealots and three stalkers move up into Rain's base
All of Rain's SCVs surround the main bunker and repair, denying the zealots surface area
The marauders stand in between buildings, likewise denying surface area
Finally HongUn pulls back with eight zealots and starts mining gas
HongUn moves back with his zealots but Rain has a bunch of marines standing amid a ton of buildings
HongUn's zealots move to the natural and kill some SCVs, but get driven off by marine reinforcements
He makes some sentries and moves back to the natural, forcing it to lift
Unwisely HongUn moves up the ramp, but his zealots melt to the ball of marines there
HongUn getting a dark shrine while Rain now attacks his back rocks
Forcefields split the army as it tries to move up the ramp, but there's plenty more infantry coming
HongUn tries to warp in a DT, but Rain scans and kills it before it even finishes warping in
HongUn finally surrenders
Fantastic game from Rain. The building placement, the bunker placement, the infantry micro, everything he did was perfect, and against that many charge zealots he needed to be.
Commentary: I don't think anyone gave Rain much of a chance of beating HongUn in a seven game series. I hope not, at least, because I sure didn't. Perhaps I underestimated the benefit Rain got from being able to train with sSKS and SangHo? Regardless, I think it's safe to say this was Rain's best GSL showing, and it's really impressive that with all the pressure and so much money on the line he still performed his best. I do feel like my comments in the preview about how even the best Protoss seem to use strategies without backup plans apply here. HongUn played a very generic macro game in game 1 and won convincingly, but in the other games he was using strategies that, while perhaps not all-in in the strict sense, left him with no good option if countered successfully. It worked on Scrap Station in game 5, but in the other games Rain either played well or had the right build order and got huge advantages. I'd like to see a Protoss who can play a (theoretically) inferior opponent the way NesTea and Jinro (sometimes, at least) do, reacting and countering whatever opponent and then out-expanding them. It'll be an interesting finals regardless of who wins the MC/Jinro semifinal.
Cross positions, Rain at 9 and HongUn at 3
Standard opening from HongUn, one barracks and no gas for Rain
Command center starts for Rain, then two more barracks, HongUn gets a nexus a little later at 27 supply
Two more gateways for HongUn, Rain puts a bunker at his natural
Robotics for HongUn, a fourth barracks for Rain and tech labs for all his finished barracks
Ghost academy for Rain in the gas as well as stim, two forges and observer for HongUn
The first observer finds a small infantry force in the center of the map but Rain scans and kills it
Shields and concussive shells research starting for Rain, his small infantry group goes to poke the natural
Rain edges forward with a ghost, but HongUn's sentries are spread
HongUn cuts the army with force fields and easily kills half of it, too late an EMP hits a few sentries but not all of them
Twilight council done for HongUn, getting charge
Double engineering bay now for Rain as well as a starport
Immortals coming now for HongUn to completement his gateway units
Templar archives finishes for Rain, both players take a third base
Storm starts for Rain, HongUn is up to 2/2 and Rain isn't done with 1/1
HongUn tries to engage in the center of the map, but his force fields block his zealots away from the infantry
Rain drops during the battle, but meanwhile HongUn pushes him back into his base
For some reason HongUn doesn't retreat and loses his army to Rain's reinforcements
3/3 coming for HongUn, Rain staying at 1/1 and adding two more barracks
Rain drops in the main again and tries to snipe a pylon, then picks up as zealots are warped in...the medivac is feedbacked but barely survives
Rain engages in the middle of the map again, HongUn pushes him back and this time has templar to storm the SCVs at the natural and the surviving infantry
HongUn pokes Rain's third but pulls back from engaging the planetary, meanwhile starts a nexus at a center gold base
Rain uses two dropships to harass HongUn's fourth, kills a few pylons before having to retreat
HongUn starts a fleet beacon to the delight of the crowd...the benefits of being 50 supply ahead
HongUn tries to walk down toward the gold base and half his army is melted by storms
Rain concedes
As he promised, Rain played a macro game, and as I expected, HongUn looked like he was quite a bit better.
Game 2 - Xel'Naga Caverns
Standard opening for HongUn, second barracks and reactor for Rain while the probe is still in his base
Stargate for HongUn, stim for Rain
Void ray for HongUn, Rain moves out with about ten marines and a few marauders
Rain expands behind his pressure, then goes up HongUn's ramp
Force field comes down behind him so he can't kite the zealot at the top of the ramp, all of Rain's units except two are killed, though they pick off a sentry
Game is paused...
Some sort of monitor problem, apparently.
Game resumes, HongUn moves into the natural with two void rays and some gateway units
A bunker finishes just in time for HongUn to get marines in it, the gateway units escorting the void rays die and force them to pull back to his proxy pylon
HongUn still making void rays, Rain making marines and getting shields
With the marines in the main trying to fight the void rays, HongUn puts a force field on the ramp and attacks the natural again
HongUn is driven off again when the force field goes away
HongUn's three void rays swing into the main again, but Rain stims his marines, kills one void ray and several damages another
Rain gets a few reinforcements, then engages HongUn's outnumbered forces around the proxy pylon
All the void rays are destroyed and the few zealots and stalkers die as well
HongUn concedes
Well, HongUn made some micro mistakes, but I'm not convinced going void rays after seeing a barracks with reactor is a great strategy.
Game 3 - Lost Temple
Cross positions, Rain at 1 and HongUn at 7
Standard openings for both players
HongUn's scouting probe is denied by the wall-in and then killed by the marine who happens to spawn at just the right time
Factory for Rain and then a second gas, second gateway for HongUn
Twilight council for HongUn, starport and tech lab factory for Rain
Blink for HongUn, siege tank for Rain
Hallucination research interrupts Artosis' theorycraft
Rain moves out with a dropship with two tanks in it and snipes a stalker in the center of the map
Proxy pylon for HongUn but it's in plain sight of Rain, he goes to kill it
A hallucinated void ray gives HongUn vision of the high ground and allows his few stalkers to blink up
They get crushed by a far superior Terran force
Rain moves out with three tanks, two dropships, and a decent marine escort, HongUn has about a dozen stalkers in the middle of the map
HongUn blinks up on to a center hill and kills both medivacs, then retreats as Rain scans
Rain sieges up at the natural choke
HongUn blinks his stalkers down and kills two tanks in the back while the other marines are around the front tank
Rain making a command center and getting stim, dark shrine for HongUn
HongUn expands as well, pokes Rain's natural but siege tanks on the high ground force him to retreat
Robotics coming for HongUn, raven coming for Rain
The first DT arrives just as the raven comes out and gets killed after killing two marines
Stalkers blink into Rain's main, kill two tech labs, snipe a medivac, then as they leave they snipe the raven as well
Robotics bay coming for HongUn, Rain pumping infantry
Rain pushes out to the center but then pulls back, building more barracks
Colossus and thermal lance coming for HongUn, who has DTs in the center of the map to screen
Another DT comes in to Rain's natural, Rain's replacement raven isn't done but he has a turret there and kills it easily
Zealot charge coming for HongUn as well
Rain pushes out with four tanks and a large marine/marauder army
HongUn engages with two colossus and a much smaller gateway unit group
The tanks focus down one of the colossus and the infantry picks off the other as HongUn tries to retreat
Rain moves down and kills HongUn's natural nexus
HongUn concedes
Rain countered HongUn's blink strategy perfectly. HongUn's switch to colossus tech was too little, too late.
Game 4 - Delta Quadrant
Right positions, Rain at 1 and HongUn at 5
Standard opening for HongUn, three barracks for Rain
HongUn only saw one barracks, looked like a one barracks fast expand build
Four gates for HongUn
Rain sends his SCVs with his first six marines
No sentries out to stop the ascent up the ramp, SCVs start a bunker
SCVs attack the stalkers, probes attack the marines
The bunker finishes, some of the SCVs go back to Rain's base
The bunker is in range of a gateway and the cybernetics core
The marine count dwindles but reinforcements arrive and the core goes down
HongUn builds another cybernetics core in the back of his base
Rain takes out another gateway, HongUn down to two gates
The battle goes on as HongUn takes more and more stalker and probe casualties
Rain never quite manages to get an overwhelming number of marines like you usually see in these rushes, but HongUn finally runs out of stalkers, which amounts to the same thing
HongUn concedes
Well, after some pretty good macro games, Rain goes back to what got him here and hits HongUn with a strong marine rush. HongUn must have practiced against this, but the way he built the barracks so HongUn never scouted them (without taking the risk of a proxy) was clever. By pulling back his SCVs after the initial attack he wasn't even totally all-in.
Game 5 - Scrap Station
Standard openings for both players
Factory for Rain, positioned to be floated to HongUn's base, as well as concussive shells
Four gateways for HongUn. The three extra gateways at in the rear of his base
Proxy pylon placed, Rain getting a command center and a bunker with marauders
Stim and an extra barracks are on the way, Rain starts a second bunker as soon as the stalkers arrive
HongUn ignores the bunkers and attacks the marauders and marines outside the bunkers
When they are down, he clears out the bunkers surprisingly easy despite SCVs present to repair
Rain concedes
HongUn's build blind countered Rain's, and though Rain scouted it he reacted slowly. Artosis was convinced he could have won with a faster response. I'm not so sure but he's played, what, a thousand more SC2 games than I have?
Game 6 - Blistering Sands
Standard openings for both players
Rain sends two marauders, a marine, and two SCVs to the ramp
There are no sentries there but Rain doesn't know and pulls back
Four gateways for HongUn, three barracks and a command center for Rain
Twilight council for HongUn getting charge, no longer mining gas
HongUn's stalkers go to the rocks, he holds his main group of zealots in reserve
Command center floats to the natural, there's a bunker built there to help defend
Rain puts two bunkers near his production facilities
Fifteen zealots and three stalkers move up into Rain's base
All of Rain's SCVs surround the main bunker and repair, denying the zealots surface area
The marauders stand in between buildings, likewise denying surface area
Finally HongUn pulls back with eight zealots and starts mining gas
HongUn moves back with his zealots but Rain has a bunch of marines standing amid a ton of buildings
HongUn's zealots move to the natural and kill some SCVs, but get driven off by marine reinforcements
He makes some sentries and moves back to the natural, forcing it to lift
Unwisely HongUn moves up the ramp, but his zealots melt to the ball of marines there
HongUn getting a dark shrine while Rain now attacks his back rocks
Forcefields split the army as it tries to move up the ramp, but there's plenty more infantry coming
HongUn tries to warp in a DT, but Rain scans and kills it before it even finishes warping in
HongUn finally surrenders
Fantastic game from Rain. The building placement, the bunker placement, the infantry micro, everything he did was perfect, and against that many charge zealots he needed to be.
Commentary: I don't think anyone gave Rain much of a chance of beating HongUn in a seven game series. I hope not, at least, because I sure didn't. Perhaps I underestimated the benefit Rain got from being able to train with sSKS and SangHo? Regardless, I think it's safe to say this was Rain's best GSL showing, and it's really impressive that with all the pressure and so much money on the line he still performed his best. I do feel like my comments in the preview about how even the best Protoss seem to use strategies without backup plans apply here. HongUn played a very generic macro game in game 1 and won convincingly, but in the other games he was using strategies that, while perhaps not all-in in the strict sense, left him with no good option if countered successfully. It worked on Scrap Station in game 5, but in the other games Rain either played well or had the right build order and got huge advantages. I'd like to see a Protoss who can play a (theoretically) inferior opponent the way NesTea and Jinro (sometimes, at least) do, reacting and countering whatever opponent and then out-expanding them. It'll be an interesting finals regardless of who wins the MC/Jinro semifinal.
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