Imba

PorkLust (Protoss) vs Baggy (Zerg) on Andromeda

Just how long can a StarCraft game go? PorkLust and Baggy seem eager to test the limits in this monster game that stretches on for over 80 minutes. PorkLust opens with a corsair-reaver composition but Baggy keeps building hydralisks and scourge and relentlessly expands. The two split Andromeda down the middle and proceed to deplete all the expansions on the map. PorkLust adds a hefty base of carriers to his army to which Baggy responds with defilers and devourers. After a protracted series of battles, PorkLust gains the upper hand on land but Baggy still has a well-fortified outpost on the north island that threatens a draw if he can't eliminate it. Running empty on resources, PorkLust gathers an army of archons and mind-controlled defilers and positions for a recall to siege the island. As PorkLust feints with corsairs on the east side of the island, two arbiters charge the west side of the island and recall the archons into the midst of a final pack of hydralisks. The mind controlled defilers throw up dark swarms and PorkLust takes the game.

Exiles (Terran) vs Abhors (Terran) on Arcadia 2

In this special debut of the newly announced Air Force ACE team, fan favorite Exiles pulls a tricky play that makes his opponent misread the starting location of his home base. Starting the northeast corner, Exiles sends an early SCV to proxy a barracks at the bottom right. Abhors, who began in the bottom left, scouts up to the empty base initially then to the right but encounters the northeast ramp blocked by a single SCV. When he reaches the southeast corner, he sees two marines guarding the ramp and believes this to be Exiles's base. Meanwhile, Exiles is researching spider mines and beginning production of mass vultures. When Abhors finally sends a vulture to clear out Exiles's marines he climbs atop the ramp and to his surprise finds the southeast corner completely empty! Confused, he moves his forces out to the middle, but Exiles catches his tanks at the bottom of the ramp, destroys them with spider mines, and streams into Abhors's base for the win.

Sszi11a (Protoss) vs Elegante9 (Protoss) on Fading Realm

Sszi11a became famous in the early days of StarCraft for making shuttles that shoot scarabs. Scouting and sensing an incoming dragoon-reaver push, Elegante9 makes scouts to assassinate the shuttles, an unorthodox play by today's standards. However, seeing scouts wouldn't have been inconceivable in the previous version 1.03, which wasn't too much further back than this game. Elegante9 succeeds in removing Sszi11a's first shuttle and reaver but at a cost of much damage from dragoons. Sszi11a's dragoons proceed into Elegante9's base but are repelled by a fresh wave of zealots and scouts. Both players rebuild and Sszi11a once again moves out into the map with dragoons and a shuttle with 2 more reavers. Elegante9 snipes the shuttle, but the reavers land safely and continue their slow advance with dragoon support. Being too heavy on scouts, Elegante9 has no answer to the oncoming mass of dragoons, cancels his expansion, and is unable to halt Sszi11a's advance.

LoLark (Zerg) vs Zed (Protoss) on Holy World

The signature feature of the Holy World map is a decorative neutral command center adorning the center, surrounded by permanent disruption fields. Wouldn't it be great to actually use this? LoLark puts down a spawning pool and early gas while Zed plays a standard forge expand. LoLark makes a group of fast speedlings to discourage Zed from leaving his base and snipes his scouting probe. LoLark adds hydralisks while Zed goes for templar tech. With Zed pinned in his base, LoLark sneaks a queen to the middle of the map and infests the neutral command center. As hydralisks poke at Zed's base and dance back, overlords come in to drop infested terrans at Zed's advancing forces. Zed holds his bases, but a few key infested terran hits decimate his forces and allow LoLark to take map control. Eventually the resourcing advantage becomes too great and Zed is overrun.

Oops_Ink (Zerg) vs Heartbeat (Terran) on iCCup Testbug

Oops_Ink and Heartbeat have already guaranteed advancement out of the group stages and find themselves in a situation where the tournament bracket favors placing second in the group. Thus, they play a set of games with increasingly crazy build orders trying their best to throw their games without blatantly forfeiting. In the final game of the series, Oops_Ink takes his first expansion all the way in Heartbeat's natural. Heartbeat seems unconcerned and techs directly to one-base battlecruisers. Oops_Ink's advance hatchery finishes and he adds two spine crawlers and a spore crawler. Bringing in an overlord for vision, the spine crawlers poke a hole in Heartbeat's wall-off and Heartbeat retreats his barracks. Despite the opening, Oops_Ink's roaches and zerglings seem disinterested in advancing up the ramp. Heartbeat steers a battlecruiser to Oops_Ink's proxied expansion and is rebuffed by queens. Oops_Ink runs up Heartbeat's ramp with queens and crawlers but Heartbeat's battlecruiser is repaired by a group of SCVs and a second battlecruiser joins the fight. As his two battlecruisers converge on Oops_Ink's hatchery and fire Yamato cannons, Heartbeat calls "gg" and resigns the game. Oops_Ink responds with "no" and is declared the winner.

Jetsky (Zerg) vs Dragooon (Protoss) on Katrina

Zerg player Jetsky exploits the narrowest of timing windows to perfectly catch Dragooon at This One Timing. Jetsky spawns at the 12 o'clock position and immediately takes his expansion at the northwest corner. Dragooon spawns at the 9 o'clock position, puts down a gateway, and begins training zealots while he expands. Dragooon sends his early zealots to harass both of Jetsky's bases and succeeds in killing a few drones, making Jetsky lose mining time, and forcing the production of a fair number of zerglings from Jetsky to repell the incursion. The opening minutes of the game end with Dragooon having secured an economic edge then adding on a forge and a stargate at his base as well as researching zealot speed. Jetsky wastes no time in building a spire, which is scouted by Dragooon's corsair as Jetsky is down in supply 32 vs 52. Jetsky begins building an air force while Dragooon begins securing his base with cannons and positions his corsairs for the upcoming attack. As the commenters yell "EE Han Timing!" Jetsky takes his force of mutalisks and scourge towards Dragooon's main and manages to trade his scourge for Dragoooon's corsairs while his mutalisks kill probes. Dragooon sends a large counterattack of zealots towards Jetsky's base but a wall of sunken colonies finishes just in time to secure the win.

Sushi (Protoss) vs BioRave (Zerg) on Longinus 2

Rookie player Sushi revolutionized the Protoss vs Zerg matchup and surprised the world by defeating three-time MSL champion BioRave at the height of his career in a stunning 3-0 upset. In each of the three games Sushi followed roughly the same initial formula. Sushi first takes a fast second base and builds a quick corsair. In response to seeing a non-aggressive economic opener from Sushi, BioRave double expands himself. Sushi continues adding corsairs, bouncing between BioRave's 3 bases to pick off overlords until BioRave eventually builds enough hydralisks to deter the threat. With BioRave's overlords placed defensively to be safe from corsairs, Sushi deploys dark templar across the map to carve up drones where detection is lacking. With corsairs and dark templar simultaneously rampaging across multiple locations in the map, BioRave can't keep up with the harassment and is eventually overrun by Sushi's economic edge.

Corbel (Terran) vs Ambrosia (Zerg) on Lost Temple GomTV

This game demonstrates that dancing can be very very bad for you, especially in the finals of a team league. Corbel walls off his choke with what eventually becomes 3 barracks and begins building a second command center and factory. Ambrosia opts for a 2 base timing push with zerglings and banelings. Ambrosia busts down Corbel's ramp, destroys his infantry, and begins streaming zerglings into Corbel's base. Ambrosia then taunts Corbel by typing the /dance command to make his zerglings spin in circles. Corbel uses the reprieve to build a supply depot to plug the gap in his wall-off and establishes a siege tank. This repels Ambrosia's attack and he is forced to retreat the remnants of his dancing zerglings. Corbel rebuilds a force of tanks and marines and pushes to Ambrosia's base. After wiping up Ambrosia's forces, Corbel drops a mule and dances his marines in front of Ambrosia's expansion hatchery. Ambrosia hatches a small flock of mutalisks and proceeds to harass Corbel's bases, but it is too little, too late.

Label (Terran) vs WorreyOx (Zerg) on Mercury

One of the most memorable chapters in one of Brood War's longest-running rivalries has Label defeating opponent WorreyOx 3-0 in back-to-back-to-back SCV/marine bunker rushes. In this third game on Mercury, Label sends a large contingent of 6 SCVs and 2 marines to build a bunker by WorreyOx's expansion hatchery. Despite WorreyOx pulling 10 of his 12 drones and attempting to surround, Label finishes the drones with minimal casualties and establishes the bunker.

Ark (Protoss) vs RRidUh (Zerg) on Metalopolis

Notoriously ill-tempered player RRidUh prematurely leaves a winning game after being intimidated by hallucinated units. Ark takes the 12 o'clock spawn on Metalopolis and establishes a 2nd and a 3rd base, building a core of blink stalkers backed by colossi. RRidUh spawns at 6 and seizes the entire lower half of the map. As Ark attempts to take his gold mineral base, RRidUh sends a large wave of zerglings and defilers towards the gold and then to the 10 o'clock expansion while sending overlords to drop zerglings in Ark's main. Ark cleans up the attack and establishes his gold but loses a large number of probes in the process. Knowing he is behind in workers, Ark pushes his deathball down towards RRidUh's territory but meets a renewed force of defilers and zerglings as well as corrupters and brood lords and loses his colossi without doing much damage to RRidUh. RRidUh's growing number of brood lords moves to drive Ark away from his gold base. Ark rebuilds his army, adding a significant number of sentries, but is behind on bases. Ark catches RRidUh's brood lords in the remains of his gold base and blinks underneath them, trading his stalkers for the brood lords but preserving his sentry and colossi counts. Ark pounds on RRidUh's gold base from afar with colossi but he clearly does not have the army to deal with the impending replenished force of brood lords that RRidUh is building and advances no further. RRidUh sends a large swarm of zerglings, corrupter, and brood lords to meet Ark in the middle of the map. Seeing RRidUh's advance, Ark bolsters his army with a group of hallucinated void rays. Despite Ark having an inadequate stalker count to take on the brood lords, RRidUh retreats in the face of the void rays and promptly leaves the game before the battle can play out.

Airbus (Terran) vs Shelf (Protoss) on Monty Hall

Then 14-year-old StarCraft prodigy Airbus solves the Monty Hall problem once and for all – and the solution is to build a refinery! Monty Hall features three paths connecting the northwest and southeast corners of the map. The paths are blocked by small patches of 64 minerals which mean that troops cannot cross until the patches are mined out, but a worker can – and is encouraged to – glitch across the mineral patch to begin scouting or building in one of the three paths. Airbus sends two workers down the middle path which each begin building a barracks. Shelf begins 1-gate gas and sends a probe down the lower path. Airbus mysteriously builds a refinery in the middle path expansion on his opponent's side. The purpose soon becomes clear as SCVs mine the small mineral patches guarding Shelf's base, then go into the refinery to swap their held minerals for gas so that they are eligible to mine again. Meanwhile, Shelf sends a probe up the top path and to scout Airbus's base while his bottom path probe drops a proxy pylon. Just as Shelf gets a look into Airbus's base to find it puzzlingly empty, Airbus's SCVs finish mining out the small mineral patch and a half dozen marines bust into Shelf's largely undefended base.

Janitor (Terran) vs EvasionAnt (Terran) on Newkirk Redevelopment Precinct

This battle features a non-stop prolonged TvT siege clashing in the middle of the map. TL called it the best game of the year. EvasionAnt spawns in the lower right and builds an unusually fast gas into two reapers. Janitor spawns in the lower left and repels the reaper attack with no losses but EvasionAnt's reapers spot an early cloaked banshee from Janitor. Both players enter midgame on even footing and take their third bases. However, their army compositions begin to differ at this point. EvasionAnt build a mech composition with many hellbats backed by siege tanks and medivacs while Janitor goes bio-mech. Janitor initiates aggression by sieging in range of EvasionAnt's third command center. EvasionAnt's hellbats clash with Janitor's infantry while siege tanks from both players bombard from afar. EvasionAnt forces Janitor to retreat his tanks and begins a series of hellbat drops at Janitor's expansions. Janitor regroups his forces and reinitiates the siege on EvasionAnt's third. Every time he breaches the defenses a fresh wave of defending troops rises to take the place of their predecessors and he is pushed back by hellbat drops. With both players mining from many bases, nonstop reinforcements arrive from both sides. Janitor succeeds in establishing bases on the entire west half of the map and making small incursions into EvasionAnt's 3rd and 5th bases, but finds himself constantly losing SCVs to hellbat drops. With resources running thin on the entire map, Janitor manages to catch EvasionAnt's medivacs out of position and kill off most of them. He takes advantage of the momentary boost in mobility to begin claiming resources from EvasionAnt's side of the map but both players are having difficulty holding on to their most lucrative mining bases. Having gained a foothold for an economic advantage, he is finally able to snowball his lead to a win and eliminate the last of EvasionAnt's mech forces.

Vino (Zerg) vs LovelyJudo (Terran) on Nostalgia

LovelyJudo was on a massive 25-0 winning streak in televised Terran vs Zerg games. Vino was a rising Zerg star. Both players were top candidates for walking the Royal Road, and only one could succeed. LovelyJudo opens with an aggressive two barracks, scouts Vino, and begins building a refinery over his gas. Vino pulls drones to attack the partially build refinery and the game stabilizes for a few minutes as LovelyJudo adds an academy while Vino techs to lurkers. LovelyJudo pushes out with a handful of infantry arriving at Vino's natural before lurker tech finishes, but sees it guarded by three sunken colonies and retreats. Vino plants a third base at the 6 o'clock spot on the map right in between the two player's starting locations and moves zerglings and lurkers up to meet LovelyJudo's infantry. Choosing relentless aggression over economy, Vino builds a large wave of zerglings and catches the first wave of LovelyJudo's infantry out on the map. LovelyJudo entrenches his corner of the map with a couple bunkers. Vino gathers his forces to simultaneously charge into LovelyJudo's fortified position from both the bridge and the cliff entrances. With zerglings drawing fire from bunkers, Vino sneaks 4 lurkers into LovelyJudo's base and plants two on his ramp while the remaining two go deeper. With no way to get back into his own base as his SCVs come under fire, LovelyJudo is soon overrun.

Jayyy (Terran) vs Cluws (Zerg) on Reverse Temple

In this incredibly pimp play, Jayyy sends a false signal of a fake fast expansion then overruns his Zerg opponent. Cluws opens hatchery first while Jayyy opts for two barracks. Cluws builds a handful of speed upgraded zerglings to shut down Jayyy's scouting SCV then resumes mass droning. Jayyy's marines chase Cluws's scouting overlord just over the cliff on the east side of his expansion, where the overlord still has vision of the mineral patches but not the location where the command center would be. Jayyy sends five SCVs to mine the mineral patches of his expansion, which Cluws scouts. A few seconds later, Jayyy advances northward a force of marines, medics, and firebats far too large for someone who had just expanded. Cluws begins throwing down sunken colonies and building zerglings but they come too late to meet the incoming infantry.

Ravine_ (Protoss) vs Parasol (Zerg) on Sin Peaks of Baekdu

The much anticipated Holy War between the Maestro and the Dreamer would see an epically long game with massive armies coming down to an elimination race. Parasol takes a quick expansion and opens with zergling and hydralisk pressure, which forces Ravine_ to build a couple defensive cannons near his initial ramp before he can successfully expand. Ravine_ invests early in teching, getting a stargate and a templar archives. The players build large armies and move about the center of the map, but both are able to hold territory effectively and build a strong economy, splitting the map in half. A wave of upgraded zerglings from Parasol finds some success tearing down buildings around the first and second bases of Ravine_ before being stopped by archons and reavers. Meanwhile, dark swarms, zerglings, and guardians pressure Ravine_'s 2 o'clock base. Despite the harassment, Ravine has a large army and counters into the front of Parasol's 8 o'clock base while dropping a large assortment of reavers at the back of that base. The map erupts into a nonstop stream of storms, dark swarms, archons, ultralisks, lurkers, and reavers. Buildings and bases fall but both sides retain a large army and a lot of money. Both sides take their armies deep into their opponent's territory and remove each other's primary production facilities. In defending his bases, Ravine_'s reavers whittle away at Parasol's hyralisk reinforcements but Parasol still has many mobile ultralisks while Ravine_'s cluster of archons and templar are too far south to return in time. In the nick of time, Ravine_ loads a probe into one of his shuttles and begins dropping pylons at distant corners of the map before his last base succumbs. Ravine_'s forces find the remaining buildings of Parasol first and win the elimination race.

HoboRogue (Terran) vs i.Frigate (Terran) on Wuthering Heights

In addition to displaying a well-executed play in game, HoboRogue's ceremony after the game is even more notable. HoboRogue opens double starport wraiths vs i.Frigate's fast expansion. He runs two vultures by i.Frigate's bunker, successfully entering the base with one of them, forcing i.Frigate to pull SCVs off mining, and sniping a couple marines. HoboRogue's wraiths then follow up the harassment at i.Frigate's expansion, picking off SCVs in the mineral line uncontested. i.Frigate adds missile turrets but HoboRogue continues to shoot SCVs through the gaps in the turret line. HoboRogue's wraith numbers continue to grow, he researches cloak, and brings in siege tanks to keep up the pressure. Upon winning the game, he emerges from his booth, rips off his clothes to reveal a set of swimming trunks, awkwardly dances, and then saunters along the beachside venue towards the ocean and jumps into the water.