Replay Analysis #3: The Strategic TvT Matchup with ForGG and SuperNova

A Little Bit of a Background of the Players

Millenium.ForGG has been in the StarCraft scene since way back. He played in Brood War under the name ‘fOrGG’. He used to play for the now disbanded team oGs and now plays for team Millenium. He was one of the players that was really hyped when he first joined Starcraft 2 due to his success in Brood War.

mTw.SuperNova is a Terran who was consistently in Code S before he joined mTw. oGs was his team before that and he was considered to be their top Terran, behind MC in terms of their best player. In fact, ForGG and SuperNova were once teammates in the oGs house.

ForGG vs SuperNova (Campus Party)
Daybreak
ForGG 1 o’clock position
SuperNova 7 o’clock position
Replay can be downloaded here.

Daybreak is a map that many consider to be the most balanced, most notably seen in various GSL games (Code A, Code S, GSTL etc.). The rush distance is very far here, so cheese is not viable, unless you go extreme and proxy your barracks on your opponent’s 3rd and do a 11/11.

With this in mind SuperNova opened with a greedy Command Center first before barracks, while ForGG went for for a safer one barracks expand and also checking potential proxy locations for SuperNova.

Both players’ follow up is almost identical, with ForGG opting for the popular reactor hellion into Cloaked Banshees while SuperNova goes for reactor hellion into viking + raven. The only difference here is that SuperNova wants to go defensive while ForGG is going on the offensive to try and cause damage.

Cloaked Banshee denied

Both players decide to go for mech, which makes for a very interesting game as positioning is everything in mech. However the slight difference between their builds is that SuperNova went for a fast 3rd CC before adding more factories.

ForGG decides to move out and take SuperNova’s Xel’Naga tower and goes in for a poke with his massive amount of Blue Flame hellions and confirms what he suspected: SuperNova is going for mech.

mech confirmed

With ForGG’s army on the offensive SuperNova tried to counter with his hellions only to be met with tank shots. SuperNova was not deterred though, he gambled and went straight to the main which was largely undefended. This caught ForGG off guard and he was forced to land his Vikings to protect his mineral line. But it was not enough, SuperNova had dealt enough damage.

line 'em up!

It is advisable at this time to always build a CC, since this is the time where both armies are similar in size and where one cannot overwhelm the other because of the defender's advantage. Mech also more effective if you to have additional CCs, since you want to sack SCVs to create a bigger army and use MULES instead.

During all this time ForGG had not even started his 3rd CC. Knowing he was behind he tried to all out attack with his army, but SuperNova’s defensive positioning was too good. ForGG tried to go for different attack paths, but SuperNova was not fooled.

Positioning is everything

Knowing he was ahead, SuperNova expanded everywhere. Taking the top-western and middle expansion for his own. All the while siegeing up just in of ForGG’s third. He can do all this thanks to his massive Viking count lead, 16 vs 9. With air superiority SuperNova bullied ForGG, even dropping turrets to his mineral line to add insult to injury.

One thing to note here is that both players are not focusing on upgrades, with on lySuperNova researching +1 vehicle armor. This may be the fact that they ar focusing on the numbers game, since as more tanks are added to your army your DPS goes up exponentially.

SuperNova immediately built turrets and sensor towers in his front lines to help defend against possible cloaked banshees and to make sure ForGG do not flank his siege.

Knowing he was contained ForGG tried to counter, moving through the bottom side of the map, relying on the fact that SuperNova will not anticipate the move.

Move anticipated

However SuperNova’s sensor tower spotted everything, and ForGG was forced back once more. There is not much that ForGG can do right now. He is pinned back, unable to move his army or to expand.

Knowing that SuperNova is trying to starve him to death, ForGG tried one last attack, destroying the destructible debris and attacking with his whole army from one side. But with SuperNova’s 0/1 upgrades vs 0/0 ForGG’s push was doomed to fail and with that ForGG’s last hope to win the game. ForGG taps out and ‘gg’s, SuperNova takes the game.

One last desperate push

 

Closing Comments

This game SuperNova looks surprisingly dominant, defending ForGG’s attacks so easily and attacking, expanding and moving out at the right time. It becomes very hard for your opponent to move once you have sieged up in front of / close to his natural in this map, since to break your siege he has to go through the choke point unless he breaks the destructible debris. It is very rare for 2 players to go mech, it’s almost always the case that one player decides to go bio and try to outmaneuver his opponent.

The key to mech vs mech is as I said before, positioning and in a sense, air superiority since with Vikings to spot you will always have an edge in siege tank battles. SuperNova had air dominance since the beginning, largely due to the opening (Viking + Raven vs banshee) and kept it throughout the game. This is one of the major factors on how he was able to take the game so easily.

It is unfortunate that we did not see the transition to sky terran here, since it takes a delicate balance to transition since if you transition too fast / early, his superior siege tank count can kill you. And if you transition too slow / late then he can kill you slowly with his air dominance.

Thanks all,

GL HF!