SC2 - Reynor vs. Maru - IEM Katowice 2021 - Semifinals

what are thor armies he looks unstoppable and here he is up here in the top right hand side of oxen lead in the blue the terran player representing envy it's maru and in the bottom left here represented by clash red bull and also all the fans of the non-koreans out there this is radar [Music] confident smiley and often rapping in his booth before his games to get cheered up we've all been glued to his webcam just loving the fact that we get to see so much and hear so much from one of our most i think bubbly characters out there in the scene one of the guys who even when he loses seems to be able to just shake it off with a smile and a grin every single time it doesn't feel like he ever gets into that dark mental space that some players do it you know i really love that period of you know how the swarm and also wings anyway but like we had our stefano character that was just so charismatic so wonderful for the non-korean scene a guy that could smack talk but also have the skills to back it up and i'm like where is that guy oh i miss him you know of course stephano kept playing but never managed to reach that level again and then of course i think he's studying working full-time that sort of thing but uh rainer definitely filling his shoes and then some these days with an absolutely world-class level of zerg play he is absolutely championship material make no mistake and definitely cocky but with the skills to back it up and i love that about him did have a few year with misses in the previous rounds did raynor and he was the first one to admit it in his protoss first zerg matches he kind of barely squeaked through with some timing attacks yesterday he looked like he was poised to finish once again clean timing attacks countering a dark that was trying to get up to mutes but he almost let that last game slip through his fingers from a giant lead and it's these little bits of shakiness against zerg against protoss that rain is gonna need to throw off he needs to really say this is a different match up this is my match-up because mara is not gonna give him any freebies like maru i mean we all know the comeback he made back in the group stage against solar with that just absolutely death defying nuke that somehow brought maru back into that series like but he's made other comebacks as well many throughout this tournament he's really showed that comeback quality raynor's not gonna he's not gonna get away with anything you really need both players to be on their a game nothing is gonna be forgiven in this match absolutely yeah there's gonna be very little room for mistake at this level as soon as you get to the top four of something like the world finals of starcraft 2 none of these players are going to let you get away with anything in fact rayner going to make sure that maru doesn't sneak anything cheeky on him he's going to go put 200 gas early game here into not just metabolic boost for the wings but also pneumatize characters to make sure that those overlords are speedy and fly boys so they can get through the main base of the terran and have a good gander and what's going on interesting opening so far no helium production from maru only marines out of that reacted barracks and i believe he's going to be going into banshees by the looks of it so it's just a marine into cloaked patchy opening now that is the lightest of pressures this is maru saying look i don't want to over commit to attacking onto your side of the map i am just going to do this cloaked banshee harass he's building a hellion or two i mean okay there is a weird attack that can come off this but for now the overlord scout comes in spots the cloak yeah seeing the tech lab spinning there a big deal and that is a real cloak of course mario not faking any upgrades here losing the overlord stings a little bit of course reyna still has presence of an overlord at the left of the natural there just to the west of it and uh back at home everything very normal very hunky dory if you have a rainer getting sport crawler timing up and also just getting the queen count and drone count looking extremely healthy here for the zerg beginning of the game and you're right like there's no early medevac here no hellion count at all uh which really means that maru's only presence across the map is going to be these banshees so rainer really feels like he's got a lot of room to breathe here at the beginning of the game i'm going to be a little critical raynor has rushed into sport rollers uh about 40 seconds before he needed them honestly cloak is miles away the first band she's miles away reynolds 4 up in the main was up so early in this game the one in the third base is finishing it a little bit more of a you know an optimal timing he's going fastly at bainliness so reynold wants to just get a quick bailing speed we're not seeing him really hold down that economy key too hard and oh my maynard there's an armory on the way right now are we going to see a marine helba banshee attack i think we might pick this is a weird way of getting about it i mean hellbout banshee is something that we've seen time and time again but this is an interesting path to get to this destination uh we'll see how well it works out for him obviously with the reacted factory plenty of helium's gonna be here tomorrow at least six to eight hellions during this attack when that armory is uh is up and running and the marines have been getting amassed out of that reactor barracks at the front don't forget so they are going to be joining in as well stim is a ways off so i don't know if this will hit with steam if mario wants to hit as quickly as possible with that armory but uh yeah my goodness this is going to be pretty powerful still that's a lot of marines they don't have stim or anything like that so bailings are going to be the key reynolds is going to make a lot of bailings though and he's very short on gas right now five of them in the way he's completely out of gas reynolds tapping that bailing key as he gets the money he's got the spawn crawler out front a few queens a few paintlings are finishing he's got to try and get those into the middle of the hell bats oh that's not too bad those bailings hit those hell that's real good and now the lanes are nibbling on the backsides of those marines as they go to the edge of the creep banshee is just now showing up obviously with the layer done has mobile detection the queen's able to back back the banshees as well looks like a good start to the fence of rainer and even these banshees flying over a couple queens spreading creep at the front of where rayner's taking his fourth hatchery a good defense for the italian stallion maru's gonna have to wake up this is a sloppy start to him not spreading those hell bats out adequately i thought he'd come forward with the banshees leading the charge to try and focus the banelings down pull the hell bats to do a bit of a spread and let the marines in the banshees kind of focus them down and then maybe do some damage as it is banshees have done nothing he's lost his hell bats don't get me wrong marou has a good economy he hasn't lost his banshees yet he's still got them as a tool but definitely not the uh slowdown that you'd like against a zerg player because now raynor has the freedom to spread creep and drone up his fourth base and mario is going into tanks here so it looks like i'm gonna go for a bio tank follow-up obviously tanks do have efficacy against the ling bay and they have splash damage with really good target fire and really good positioning they'd be very effective there are some nice spots here on oxide oh the banshee's coming in and getting some drones four going down pretty high in hit points they got repaired earlier as well they're doing a bit of flyby here nailing and queen also as well but just most importantly keeping them alive and keeping them a constant threat that reyna has to worry about but yeah so without widowmines here the army of maru isn't super countering the ling main force here of rainer but of course we've seen it done before so let's see how mario executes here as he starts to clean up the creep in front of that fourth base yeah i almost feel like as maru you know raynor is the best lurker player in the world you you want to get a head start on that siege tank count obviously it means your early pushes aren't going to be as powerful as they would be with widow my fines it's hard to kind of sustain that aggression but it means you can build up to a much bigger one later why do we have two tanks in the production tab is the factory blocked or contaminated what is going on with the factory contamination wow very nice by rain oh oh my god balance just all detonated at once there but it actually didn't kill that many marines if i'm not missing that one the tank is still alive as well how was emmanuel detonate on like 14 i think he meant to box a few of them and set them off but oh a little mistake there from rain or a few extra paintings going down that needed that being said the creep is getting out there the control and this is so important oxide it's got so many ledges and areas where tanks can set up in deadly positions later on in the game so the fact that reynolds already got his map uh control pushing to the center if he can get up on maru's high ground as well with the creep that's going to be really bad for the terran and that's why mario is pushing it on the creep now doesn't want to give rain or any more map control and raynor seems to actually be he hasn't got the hydrogen just yet and he's getting his melee upgrades and going straight the infestation pit so it looks like he's playing that swarming mastling bane up into hive getting to ultra's eventually style of course you know can get the hydrogen and go to lurker then eventually but just straight lingbane and queen as far as these army's concerned for now and it is kind of looking at like the mass melee build at the moment absolutely may not i think it's a great way to play against someone who just keeps building siege tanks the more link between you're going to be able to deal with it really well you know hydras can look amazing lurkers can look amazing and renault is one of the best at them but if your opponent's already well prepared with a good siege tank count that kind of got a bit of momentum it can be tough so that hydrogen does now go down in line with the hive so he will still open up the lurk attack but he's not rushing towards it for now it's all about the ling bane the bio drops maru looking for the low risk forms of aggression he doesn't want to actually commit any siege tanks or things that he can't pick up this is just little hit and run harassment tactics i could cancel on the bottom right there actually that might have been a kill on that hatchery uh yes it was he did get the kill in hatchery so a few hundred minerals down the toilet there for rainer and he keeps all the marines bar one there alive one or two 16 marines threatening potentially the nine o'clock base but also the main here serena has to respect this double medevac until he has a way to actually get up to that dead space which no no spy no way to do that for now and yeah he is going to be heading towards lurch attack and by maru he's actually going up to a third factory here pig and they all have tech labs so we're going to be seeing a ton of tank production here shortly that's what i like to see from taren up against lurkers good little bio trades here and there but remember that rainer i think he's not too uncomfortable at this stage she did tweet out just before the tournament went live he said yesterday i was practicing to warm up for this 1v4 versus the boys in arkhan mode so he said you know what i'm going to be ready for maru's multi-pronged harassment i've been practicing versus four players controlling one guy and uh you know what so far mario hasn't really done crazy multitasking it's just little pinpricks yeah i think as maru's army comes through the middle that's really where we're going to see the big clash that matters yeah and that's also when potentially the drop start hit as well he's still got a back with marines plenty of marines on the right side he's got them obviously between nine o'clock in the main base and the double bender back to drop as well and with two two and plus one attack finishing i think it's time to start getting those tanks out there peak through the middle of the map straight up the guts speaking of which incomes and failings and links here from rainer looking for a big connection on the bio doesn't quite find it though and doesn't want to super overextend either so he pulls back to the edge of the creep spread yeah well you know i thought the push would have come by now maynard but you know what he's never planning to push um maru's game plan here is to play the end game maru is saying you know what i think you're really good in the mid game get good in the in the late mid game but if i take this to the end game i just take a billion command centers get into ghosts lots of tanks covering me and some vikings to deal with your vipers i know i can beat you with ghosts and fingers crossed we see six or seven ghost academies and mass nukes as well right now they were dropped doing a lot of damage yeah not quite enough wings there the marines got dropped right on top of those links one at a time and managed to actually clean up the initial force there in the main base reinforces rain and will eventually clean this up but it was a sort of a single file ling attack there until they eventually swarmed the marines and took them down so not super efficient there for rayno and ronna of course still threatening with medevacs three three upgrades are on the way out you're absolutely right pig maru's slowing this game way down he has no intention of going anywhere except with drop ships it's a good way to play this map as well because there's limited bases you can see this is not a comfortable position for rain or he's like dude when are you pushing zerg vs terran is all about defending your pushes why aren't you pushing on the front and mario's just sitting there he's like dude i'm mentally prepared for this game you are and he gets the hatchery and saves a ton of marines as well i think he only lost a couple so beautiful play there for mario getting another great hatchery pick off playing super efficiently here against reyna so far definitely got the better end of the trades rain has had enough he wants to try and attack here but oh maybe rethinking it reconsidering his option there a little bit of indecisiveness from rainer losing a few units for free but at least they're the cheap ones i don't underestimate how much this can throw you off if you're in reynolds shoes you don't practice this sort of game ever like yeah sure you might get to this stage but it's after 10 minutes of back and forth it's not meant to happen just yet oh locker drop plus double knight is the lurk is going to try and defend those nightest worms potentially but no they actually borrow a little further back adapter is not quite done right now is going to push the right side at the same moment the nidus is they're not going to get up the nicest have been denied here the two lurkers picked off in the main base as well rainer went straight up the middle of the map there with the bulk of his forces but didn't manage to find an angle there on maru he's dropping the spire rainer throwing everything at the wall but nothing really sticking at the moment oh man it's terran is covered in teflon pig they just can't make anything stick here how often do you see three planetaries in the production tab at a time maru is entrenching the entire map right now tanks ghosts planetary's going up raynor realizes he's got to do something he's got to do it soon if he wants to put a dent in maru he's got to go and those bailings they are going to take out that come here oh yeah the planetary picked up there rainer hitting the economy obviously not for free a lot of bailings died 12 suvs died as well in the main base income the lurkers looks like mario also hitting the drone line on the south side of the map as well action absolutely everywhere uh mario bringing everything into the main here it seems like to try and get rid of the lurkers and the nice worms and lurker gets a few good shots off i think he kind of picked off a ghost there on the way through yeah the lurk is causing a bit of havoc 16 workers do fall another night it's in the natural as well is raynor i think he's all loaded up in the nightest worms because i don't see any army streaming across the map right now ah yeah but the nightest worms don't have the uh the white bar on them so at least those two knight swim uh entrance points i have to filter myself here are just completely empty at the moment viper is now here for raina 107 drones by the way this kid is rocking a serious economy an incredible income advantage here for rayner but again without killing the terran if the terran max is out get those three three upgrades and a good number of ghosts up you haven't won this game i mean an extra 30 drones doesn't make your army win the fight not at all maynard oh he's gonna take out those suvs that planetary could fall if he focuses it blinding cloud will run out after a little bit the hydra is taking out a couple of these siege tanks remember the hydras only have plus one attack and the ghosts solidarity to them oh the planetary is so low and it just gets picked off of course murray has a high hit point command center he can finish off maru also picking off that top left hatchery which was very cheeky of radar just running out of places on the map to expand to because he's completely covered this map in creep and hatcheries and murray getting rid of that nice worm easy peasy there plus three attacks starting on the armory for the tanks that he does have and the tank out of maru is still pretty convincing i gotta say a good tank out at the moment marauders being prioritized over marines at the moment as well so he has a very strong armored front line and uh i mean it really feels like murray needs to make something happen he's been maxed for a hot minute right now raynor is just sitting on the much bigger work account he's had a bigger bank but there's no way he's being cost efficient if we keep an eye on the unit's loss tab we can actually see that if they both mine out half the map raynor is going to run dry so much quicker maru has been two and a half times the efficiency of raynor raynor's still trying to just bash his head in and mahru's defense is just too good that's a tiny little choke point there for the links and things but they do burst through and finally start to flow into the turret cloak on the ghost in a split as well from maro and his high hit point fire units to tank the banes as efficiently as possible and a few of them do die looks like the 12 o'clock planetary once again under threat does he oh man he's trying for the mass repair the bailings and hydra is picking off the suvs though when the planetary does not stand it goes down maru does have a drop on the other side of the map though four medevac a bunch of marines and marauders with three three clearing through the creep trying to get into the infrastructure deserve that hatchery he's definitely going down easy pick off there for maru wow mar striking back raynor just can't hang on to this bottom right 92 workers sounds good but if you can't mine with those 92 workers what's it even worth raynaud not only has been grossly cost inefficient but he hasn't been able to mine from bottom right or the top left base maru is actually just doing so much better in the efficiency as long as raynor doesn't manage to escalate the pace of this game as long as he doesn't manage to speed things up as long as maru keeps the pace slow maru is far ahead and he's well on his way to a victory in the first man yeah a lot of things that you look at this point are what is the army complexity looking like what is the bank looking like and is there a big army supply advantage for the terran all those things look like really good fermara at the moment he's got that army supply advantage his army is very complex 11 ghosts nine tanks a ton of firepower in this army as well keep mine his tanks on the way to plus three attack and also you know he's got more than enough mining bases to continue to remake and that bank of the zerg not super convincing reyna's been making a lot of attacks happen in this game but he's been losing units losing army when he does it and they haven't all been like you know the very cheap ling bane it's been masling bane with hydras with lurkers and authors as well so it's it's been a very very very inefficient game for reyna so far thinking about reynolds options here you can slow things down a lot we saw solar take down mauro in the late game with brood lord corrupter infester viper usage he did that very well excellently well i say take him down i mean put himself in a winning position i guess i should clarify since mario ended up winning that game but oh snipe is a pretty good ability blinding cloud does not stop snipe uh that that was just a massively awesome trade for maru once again and the thing is raynor needs to be sneaky he needs to come in from surprising angles abduct a few tanks get him pull out he can't be just showing his armies into the sensor towers and then just hanging around because mahru's ghosts are always going to move to respond they're going to get the snipes and honestly it feels like you know he's hitting a bit of a dead end he feels a little bit stuck right now oh man a lot of drones here in the bottom right as well you know rain is trying to even expand on the terran side of the map mario of course never letting it happen reina gears up for a big attack here at the planetary the lurk is kind of separated from the pack they're gonna get target fired down by the marines and waters as they pull back to the fences some blinding clouds going down from the vipers as well they don't have a ton of energy either on those vipers now after those blinding clouds so all nora needs to do is just chill i don't know how rainer pushes into this again well you can't even hang out there because the ghosts whenever you hang out near their defenses like that the ghosts can just walk forward and snipe them so these little attacks i really dislike i think if he comes in abducts all the vikings kills him runs away that's good lands some chain fungals on the vikings runs away that's good but otherwise just kind of chipping at the edges what he's really doing is he's bashing his own head into the wall of maru just to chip the paint off the planetary here or there like it's not actually killing anything while he's losing so many resources well rainer's head is indeed made out of unobtainium so he could crash through a brick wall once or twice i've seen him do it he's had so many of these games where he's been 100 plus drones losing tons of drones going down to 80 up to 100 again playing extremely inefficiently losing tens of thousands more resources than he staring opponent but still winning the game so let's not count him out yet arena of course though do have to say definitely against the ropes here three more lurkers about to go down to these ghosts there's three of these to evacuate oh yeah i mean these things are dead with one more scan there from right from maru and there we go i pick off on those three lurkers and these things aren't cheap rainer is starting to get a bit more of a bank up though gets a parasitic bomb on one of those medevacs going to hit the other two unloads here for marrow and split as well i'd like to see more of that patient play from rain or dropping parasitic bombs on the medevacs is always going to give you guaranteed damage ah the abductor was good but you've got to unsiege and run your lurkers away after that i don't think he can hold on to this position no overseers with this army as well as they just come now a couple lurkers do have their fate sealed by the snipes there of the ghosts tanks also getting some splash damage there on those lanes as they keep getting funneled into these man-made choke points that mario's created for himself defensively here hatchery again trying for the top sort of like 11 o'clock position mario denying it for what feels like the sixth time ah still making three tanks at once tomorrow realizing art alec is a too bothersome here i just need a big line of big siege tanks here so at a certain point raynaud's gonna realize the efficiency just isn't cutting it for him and he's gonna have to change tax uh for now we do see a few extra queens in production i'm not sure if that's just for creeping in checks or if he's actually going to add those to the army uh we talked about spellcaster usage is an option for raynaud another option is swarm hosts does get a planetary this is costly but he is making inroads in tomorrow's territory but there's just layers of tanks upon layers yeah i mean he's not getting critical damage here but he's definitely punching maru and hurting him here by picking off those planetarys picking off uh potentially some production here he didn't quite get those factories though mario still making three siege tanks at once and he made that extra two starboard so i think he's on three star ports at the moment with three reactors looks like he's reactoring out liberators and vikings here so not only is he going to have an incredibly strong mechanical ground force with his tank count he's gonna have a pretty nice air force as well so he's really getting a very expensive army up here for terran yeah with no spire upgrades renault is not going to be able to swap into brood lords or corruptors or anything like that not that it's the uh best army necessarily to go for he's still looking for angles here is raynor i mean he's still maxed he's still got a bank don't get me wrong reynolds still has many chances in this game leaving all of his evolution chambers on reddit points with the vipers they're very cute life is looking for yoinks gonna grab at least one tank in they do grab that one tank it takes a little bit to go down so it's still kind of just firing at zerg and it's the bendings going for the mineral line here kind of going past the mineral line actually a bit of a shift cue there from rainer but he's definitely fighting damage there we go the band is coming in now hitting the suvs very nicely 14 of them going down planetary is gonna get picked up there at three o'clock nice pick off arena getting into the terran's face taking down a ton of suvs knocking maru down to 40 here but i'm still worried pig and i'll tell you why maru is up a lot of army supply right now and i do believe reyna spent his lava yeah he's got a lot of orbitals to drop mules as well does maru so he can hang on 40 suvs that's not the end of the world it's as i said the resource is running out on reynolds side of the map that's the issue so i mean killing a base there's good but he's also got to deny the top left if he can rotate over there and get rid of that then i'm going to start becoming a believer in reynolds strategy for now though it's looking like he's put a dent in maru he's going to need to do something more it's like that three o'clock once again being threatened here just by some uh three three adrenal zerglings or rather two two they're on their way to plus three attack and uh they are doing their job here those lanes the most inexpensive part of reyna's army doing their job just getting rid of a refinery slowing things down at three o'clock any single edge matters here when you're this high level maru is also replenishing those suvs reyna still on an 86 grown count he's going to get a free tank here for no problem whatsoever down it goes once again lifting up three o'clock still slowing down the terrans mining good moves for rainer with these lings and finally we're seeing some spy units coming out seven corrupters going to add to the army here of rainer who is once again maxed out and once again spend his back yeah corrupt is going to be pretty worthless i think um maybe use him for sniping lives but maybe gonna be oh this chokepoint oh my lord oh these pushes are just madness from raynor and they are not working out he's he's looking positive annihilated he's got a it's a lack of patience here from rayner unfortunately maru is stoic as a rock stable and he just manages to weather the storm really here just like a cliff face against the ocean i mean eventually it does get eroded but i don't think rain has got that kind of time yeah yeah it it does like that look at that just taking the italian completely out of his element oh you like movement you like counter attacks you like harassment you like back and forth battles uh how about i give you zero of those i just turtle up do some really light harassment and i wait for you to get impatient that was perfect play for maru yeah i mean we know reyna his his attitude and his energy very much comes through in starcraft one of the reasons why i love this esports so much is that often the game is played like how you are in real life and reyna just wants to go go go he wants to defend defend defend play fast play furious tempo tempo tempo go go go and mario's just like nope we're going to be snorlax we are going to chill and also be extremely powerful at the same time you can try and move me but i ain't going to move kid you know i think every terran player out there has probably watched a rain or zerg vs terran game where he unseiges his lurkers runs on top of the terran's army and just sieges on top of them with mass zergling kind of holding them in place i think every terran's looked at that and go gone that doesn't seem fair like he's got a stimpack siege tank and the fastest unit there's these crazy attacks that raynor wins so much of his zerg vs tearing off and you could feel like maru's whole setup was like i'm gonna make sure they never pay off you try to jump on me with lurkers there was always more tanks behind there was a planetary with another planetary with tanks tanks lives like the layers of defense there i mean this was a kind of one-dimensional strategy for maru but raynor took the bait and just kept fighting into it and that was not good enough it was the most anti-rainer play way to play tvz with someone that really just wants to deal with he's like he actually wants to deal not too many zergs want this i know a lot of these players out there do you want to you don't want to deal with multiple medevacs at the same time while getting pushed through the middle of the map and having to multitask and split and defend raynor wants that game maru started giving him that game at the start there with the medevacs we could see how rainer was doing really well in the defense but when it got down to actually trying to hurt the terran he's like all right when's the move out two two's done is he gonna move out with two two is he hitting a timing is he doing anything no he's not and rayner cost and efficiency really was the name of the game there in game one people will be wondering why did he tap there why did he tap he had no money guys he had no bank and if mario pushed he would have absolutely died in the bottom right winning game one here from team nv he is maru and up here in the top left side of the map representing clash esports in the red he did not get his way in map one let's see if he can turn it around in map two it is raynor looking to be the first non-korean in the grand finals here at katowice yeah ever since snoot of course up against polt way back in the david again that was a region lock tournament not the uh the open tournament the world final that we have today the modern iteration of katowice which you know no offense to the old one but i like the new one better yeah it's it's kind of nice um this is day nine of non-stop awesome games may not i don't know [Laughter] indeed the uh the day nine of starcraft it truly is the greatest way to run a tournament it's amazing the final day of i am is day nine so we go full circle i like i literally didn't even realize what i was saying i was like what are you joking about i'm like oh yeah remember the beginning again i miss you buddy all right so we do have radar looking for those three raxes of course we did see it to finish off solar in the group stages maru uh getting a little bit aggressive putting those racks out on the map and this is a pretty popular map for it as well so yeah arena just trying to cover his bases literally and figuratively here with that drawing scout indeed and you know what uh oxide was maru's pick death aurea here map two is reynolds pick and i thought awesome i i so rarely see rain or die on this map the terrans are always trying to split push down both sides at once and he's just too good at scrambling around to defend always finds a way to get his lurkers out on the other side of the map he's smashing planetaries with bainlings like i don't see rain or losing tomorrow on this map that's what i thought before i saw the last game and now all i can think about is those four bases are untouchable if maru plays the same as he did last game you're not cracking him on four bases and if you don't really need to worry about your four bases it's not that hard i would argue with someone as good as maru to stretch out to a fifth and then a sixth and then a seventh you know if maru can extend the defenses that far like he could easily turn death or a very strong defender's map into that same stalemate scenario i think also a part of the reason why raymond or rather maru picked that sort of way to play against reyna not only is it just very good against reyna's style it also takes into account that we are sort of switching service here because we've got a player in korea and a player in europe they're going from that first map wasn't central so this is on west which is better ping for the korean and central definitely better ping for the europeans so maybe he just played that super slow style because he didn't feel confident with the ability to be able to like split everything on creep and that sort of thing i gotta say man he's still pretty pretty decent with the the medevac drops and that sort of thing so i'm going to go back to what i initially thought and just sort of double down the fact that i just think it was a just a good style to play against rayner's preferred way to zvt with workers absolutely i think we saw it you know some of these super experience players are so good at changing how they want to play the game to to ruin their opponent's dreams uh zest did it first clam yesterday he said i'm not no i'm not going to the mid game on the even footing i'm just going to go at you and just throw wave after wave and i'm always going to counter attack every time you try to move out and i feel like game one was another great example of just such a veteran and maru doing that to reino i mean reynolds been around the block at this point but uh hasn't really been forced to adapt in such a drastic way and if we do get to that same stage i know it's a little bit of ways but just a bit of theory crafting uh yeah i mean is raynaud confident with brood lord infesta viper the way solar showed it that's a big question for us if mario plays it ridiculously slowly and this is very theoretical uh and i mentioned it before you could use swarm hosts a very supply and efficient unit but if the game slows down to a turtle's pace and truly is like hey you attack no no you attack that's where a unit that can just throw free stuff at your opponent does actually have a place and this style of brain of of marrow as well i've seen this from multiple terrans here not just mario but claim as well it is a multiple prong attack slash harassment here so murray gonna try and poke with the hellions while the liberator goes out across the map to try and hit the zerg's drones this could marry up with it's you know marines in a medevac as well uh at the moment it looks like mario's just got the hellions as much as a mobile force haven't seen too much marine production until just now so yeah keen on seeing how how much mario gets done with this start for the drop at the moment just playing bio again obviously dropping the second and third barracks no one really likes to mech anymore these days it's gonna be pretty much bio from here on out nice quick fourth base here for raynor he likes that fast fourth base he uh knows that i can give him a lot of production and if he shuts this pressure down having that fourth finished it's going to allow him to just drone like crazy get four bases of minerals mining but the pressure's starting up viking coming in as the third command center lands the hellions are rotating around looking for an opening as that lip slides around the back the spore does get a few hits on it raynor seems to be well prepared and aware so far yeah these spores were also perfectly positioned for this liberator it's not gonna go uh it's not gonna get too much done here it gets not even a shot off here so the drones queens all stay alive uh hellion picked off on the outskirts here at the edge of the creep as well just in pure rain of fashion beautiful early game zero damage pretty much there for maru dude with a fourth base finished and one upgrade starting at the same time like wow that this is the the zerg dream if you get to this position like because now man it's just drones overlords drones overlords you know the layers starting he'll go into bailing speed behind that by the time the first two medevacs come across the map raynor is going to be at like 75 80 workers he's just going to be in a monstrous position yeah rainer is uh the drone is his friend and he is not afraid to get huge rounds of drones out he's one of the masters of knowing perfectly when to drone and when not to and he manages to get as many of those uh those mining pancakes as possible with a little crab claws he does a fantastic job at having more income than his opponent which he'll almost always have and we are heading towards once again just ling bane and start things off there around the corner though and he has grabbed his gases so does rayna use these gases to go towards a spire pretty quickly here or is he going to play ling bane for quite a while and just go directly into failing speed well we'll have to see exactly what he's got in mind i'd be looking to bust my opponent after that last game if i was raynor and mutas are going to be the uh the go-to with the spy here a bit more mobile force going to allow you to kind of poke and prod and find weakness so that's going to be a nice way to start off with a little bit more potential movement so far the drops finding nothing look at the creep spread once again dude i if it wasn't for that last game being so good for maru i would be looking at this and they're like dude you got to do something right now like the creeps getting out of control raynor is starting to smother this map it's like that meme with the guy tapping his head it's like you can't worry about crease bread if you never move up it's the uh the big brain thing man you know things that us uh mere mortals worry about maru doesn't even sweat about as he comes in on the right and hey cancelling one of the fifth bases over and over in that previous game looks like he will get one cancel to kick things off yeah the mine drag not too great there from arena does damage the marines but does get a cancel there for mario on that fifth base and obviously with the armory done these winner mines are just gonna straight chill here until then oversee it comes over for the clear up where are you going ladies looking for those benefits too much too much dead space unfortunately on death aura for these medevacs because wyatt was such a popular bc opening map back in the day in this match up you can just park those things there all day long gonna need those mutt months to pick them off oh we're just waiting for a mate maynard you know oh there we go they knew they knew they knew he was gonna come at some point so the queen's just waiting for a mate and uh they'll see how that one goes 2-2 is a little ahead for maru here as he continues like i said uh low risk drop pressure uh goes in and loses a medivac low risk drop pressure why because he knows reynolds going to play hydrolurk but guess what reynolds not doing that in this game he doesn't want those drops to be as annoying as they were last time he wants to shut maru down on the map and move right across and blow up maru's fourth base time and again arena gets that full meta back there on the left side so the mute is starting off things in style here getting a nice little pick off rainer definitely in the supply lead definitely in the driver's seat of this game so far now maru i was going to mention these hellions they have been alive this whole game i'm used to seeing those hellions continue to push on that creep scans going down trying to hit drones while drops are happening as well maru's helians have been chilling here to become hell that so now they're healed up and they can join the bio when they do start to move out on the map and rather maru taking his six o'clock base here taking that fourth base planetary finishing and he is reacting directly to the ling bean unicomp throwing in thor's drilling claws around the corner as well but raider knocking on that front door he's gonna make himself an opening here and try and hit that third yeah i don't know if mahru's ready just yet raynor is at a hundred workers max on noodling bain and he's covered in he wants to trade right here right now oh good drag on those mines three of them firing off the fourth and the fifth one getting unborrowed there from maru on the north side so they still have their charges ready if the zerg tries to come back again reyna's lincoln still quite convincing 77 dr ling's here with 22 more on the way almost 100 links here for rainer more bailings also being morphed so he's going to have a ton of melee units out here in a second maru though about to have 2-2 and the winner mine's coming out 2x2 as well with the thor's it does seem like as long as maro's in position his army should be able to take a fight reino has got to get a move on he has the best cvt in the world in a standard situation maru we know is happy to play a non-standard situation in the late game and it's really on rain or he should be coming around and smashing this fourth base he's got to attack the third attack the fourth and swap between those two constantly uh the bailly actually got a lot more there than i thought they would kill quite a few buyer units mario maybe not thinking that they would get that far with the mine and the bio tanking there uh double lurker den going down for rainer as you know players at home double lurker down means you make lurkers twice as fast okay finally adds an overseer to these muters he was missing that for a little bit he lost it in the previous fight so finally replaces and can snipe widow mines again and raynor i mean he's still in a very powerful position that creep is covering everything i was talking about how i think maru should have no problem getting a fifth on this map if he plays like the last game right now there's creep in front of him in a fifth base like he is getting smothered raynor is coming in with another big wave he wants to take this planetary out on he might get it if there's enough veins and he does get it lovely pick up there foreign looks like he had the perfect amount of bailings actually to get the job done there good down goes the planetary and his highs finished up as well so in all seriousness as i was joking before the double lurker den does mean that he'll be able to get double upgrades for those tier three lurkers so he'll have the adaptive talons and also seismic spines right away there so a pretty cool player but it is expensive of course to get this double low commandment you know arena as he is in real life not sure to cash reynor should really be breaking down those rocks on the right of this map just to allow him to stomp this army in the top right he's got mutas and that gives him control i think reynolds focusing on the lurker swap a bit too early you do not want to lose these muters you need those oh punish this army hanging out in the top right mine's getting some good volleys off of those lings in come the banes to help out with the hell bats mara still has a lot of bio underneath these medevacs here or rather enough to be threatening and we got another force in the middle of the map here with the thor's income the lurkers now for rayner forcing murray to lift up here at the fifth base at the north side here at one o'clock but through the middle maru just cleaving through that cree spread yeah mahru's retaking his fourth behind this so his economy is not too bad at all right now and rain on here trying to get into lurkers but he's not quite there seismic finds so the lurker speed the lurker range upgrades they're only about halfway done so raynor at this moment he wants to swap into that composition that's so good to widowmine marauder he's not there just yet now once again a really inefficient game for rayner but it may not matter here still 98 drones still all this bank as well speaking of facts mario's not looking too bad either as he's been maxed for a minute that base over here at nine o'clock gonna get targeted down and taken down and there's room for the thoughts in the medevacs as well everyone's welcome climb aboard time to build some more uh mutes or corrupters here i think uh maru being super annoying here he's just realizing hey you don't have very much anti-air and rain or making a bit of a mistake there maru just opportunistically drops back down oh there's a bunch of lurkers hydras and things rain or trickling in right now oh maru just fancy maneuvers here and look at that even a single marine being annoying on the right of this map he's gonna go back to the dead space raynor is going to have to rebuild some mobile anti-air whether that's oh my god corrupted the two marines get the job done here and yeah this is the woefully inadequate anti-air army here for rayner no flying units not too many hydras either and making hydra is to deal with medevac just isn't as convincing as having that ball of meters that he lost earlier or having corrupters like you mentioned so mario really utilizing medevacs to the utmost efficacy here and these thor's just remain alive he continues to do damage with him continues to trade with them rayner feeling the pressure feeling really impatient here by the loose of things wants to hit back and he has to i feel so kind of damned if he does dead if he doesn't it comes the pain links looking for that suv line looking for another planetary bust oh this is some good damage the planetary does go down there's still a tank in the back another one sieging the units drop on top a crazy hot drop on top of the lurkers and hundreds maru cleans that army up yeah he loses a planetary but he's already got a fifth up behind it he lifts the orbital moves it to his fourth maru is actually smashing right now he's looking so good indeed we do have plus three characters about to finish here for rayner but not as much army as he had before he just lost a lot of it there at that planetary mar of course as most terrans do we'll be building command centers next to their other command center so they can retake it just a case but also to have plenty of scans and plenty of static defense as well if they want to go for the planetaries in a super late game maru's bank getting spent on another macro cycle there he's maxed out again and his army is looking terrifying he's got ghosts now as well to take the fight directly to the workers five base up against reynolds six bases raynor needs to have a big economic advantage and just being up on base is probably not too good for him he really needs to keep that going he doesn't know about the fifth base below and that fifth base he ran straight past it if in that previous bust he just killed the fifth right away it would have been a nice trade but he lost his whole army in that previous fight he still doesn't know about the fifth base and raynor here i think giving maru a little bit too much room [Music] well he's gonna try and make something happen here at this planetary for mario unfortunately this is where all the ghosts are as well mainly something gonna try and get rid of those pesky tier three fire units but once again the fight not looking good for rainer rainer just cannot win a fight against mario here he hasn't done it in game one and he's still not doing it in game two yeah these are really uninspired engagements this isn't what i'm used to seeing from rain or it's just something about the way that previous game went i think has gotten rainer's head because that last engagement was one of the poorest fights i've ever seen the young italian taker just attacking in one direction his bailings in a giant clump walking into widow mines and siege tanks he's got to be a little bit more devious i like that he's got a knight to swim up but he's just cleared his entire bank to re max right now he's still got a good economy he's gonna have more chances in this game but he's got to be a little bit more careful in when and where he finds he cannot be one directionally head-butting into maru especially not when maru knows it's coming maru is having an easy time defending these pushes and he certainly is the uh the mountain keeps coming to muhammad here and he wants to fight the zerg and the zur keeps coming to him with these with these big aggressive lurker attacks with the legs and the bailings and while rainer will occasionally pick off the planetary it costs him so much when he does it because the lurkers generally die and obviously the bailings do blow up to uh to do damage so now mario is in that situation where once again his army is pretty big it's a lot bigger than the zergs reyna's army definitely doesn't suck he's got the vipers now as well but with a good place to emp or snipe or viking usage here those fighters could disappear and there's the emps from maru in comes rainer with this big attack in third place which does look a little vulnerable but come with the reinforcements for the darren mass siege tank just annihilating the bailings getting some suvs he gets a few suvs 15 of them but the base just lifts off and he loses a ton of units once again damage done tomorrow but nothing critical there is no point where he's wrapping around and really smashing the ghosts killing all the bio anytime you're running in with just lurkers and bailings against siege tanks you're getting annihilated so the big problem raynor's having right now is he's not adapting his unit composition right he needs to change the way he's taking these battles if he catches the tanks on the map flanks them comes from multiple angles this composition's okay but anytime you're running in from one angle into mass tank and ghost you're gonna have a terrible time so reynolds got to rethink what he's doing here and at the moment here on the biggest stage of his life in the semi-finals he is having the amazing first eight to ten minutes of these games right he's getting in a spectacular position but he is not finding a way in and it feels like against maru's defenses he is losing a bit of confidence and he's getting a little bit obvious he's he's kind of forecasting what he's going for oh double 07 here look like a nuke ghost if i've ever seen one winner mine actually helps him kill that ghost but takes a few links down with it and come the failings looking for the planetary look at the ghost ball the golf ball actually takes a big hit there a lot of ghosts going down finally rainer getting into the meat of the army there of maru the planetary does get picked off as well rainer definitely finds damage there but will he lose the lurkers again yeah those snipes i feel like that was a much better trade for maru but uh for for rain or sorry but maru floats the command center over and he can replace those those workers as needed he's got plenty of orbitals a fight like that as much better as it looked as improved from the previous ones it's those ghosts on the tail end just blasting all the hydras and lurkers down with their snipes that always makes me question is this worth it and i i kind of feel like i'm not exactly sure what rain was supposed to do here but the units lost tab once again not as bad as game one but close to a two to one efficiency lead for maru indeed maru does have once again the bigger better arnie here at the moment rainer at least with a pretty massive bank compared to game one his bank is pretty monstrous he's also managed to secure that rich vest bean base up there and the north side as well big ling run by here at the third base i love that he's just using lanes here that base is always an orbital and he finds a lot of damage here some tanks and suvs and a ghost as well and much better there we talked about compositions before and you see now hey check it out baru's getting spread out a little thin on this map but finally rain or damage on the right damage on the left he's got to keep that command center back if maru gets that rich gas on the base i mean that means he'll easily leapfrog from there to take out raynor's base and it means he'll simply mine too much of the map out so reynold gets a bit of an opening he starts a great aspire as well so he's thinking about that swapping to brew lords which i really think a big wave of surprise brood lords can be a game ender but you've got to support it with investors if you're up against ghosts now oxide a lot smaller mapping than death aura so rayna does have a little bit more room to expand as well you see that like at this point in the in in game one rayna didn't have any more places to take hatcheries so he's got plenty of places here for those 98 drones to continue to mine for him he has been definitely dwarfing murrah's income for all of this game here another big link but through the natural meanwhile big fight here on the left side the lurkers left alone can mario break through them though he doesn't have too many too much power on the run through and here we go rainers lings getting on top of two of those three factories getting into the natural in the third as well big move from rainer finally the mass zergling this is it everything mahru's got is based around countering lurkers and bailings it's all tanks it's like he's got like liberators tanks turrets ghosts maslin apparently just runs in and beats all of those things maru how do you deal with that maybe he needs to make sure he's got more marines or more ghosts spread across those base maybe more extra planetary fortresses kind of just shoring up the defenses in multiple areas but those last few trades have been spectacular for rain he's not maxing out right now but he's got the gas bank for days he's going to go into brood lords next up he evacuated that base knowing that it was just a matter of time before it got picked off so he goes over to the three o'clock base that just had the drones mining there as it doesn't seem like maru has his sights set on that base at the moment mario really wanted to take control of that high ground so he can put his planetaries there get those rich gases saturated as well so that he can have the extra income for his gas-heavy army units at the moment the bank of maru has been spent and he is again as i mentioned before his income is being dwarfed by the zerg oh i love that investors are being thrown in here for rainer going towards investor brood lord could be really effective here against what murray has at the moment it's a micro battle it's a very intense micro battle but it could do really well this is a lot of defenses to run into blinding cloud goes down corrupters and parasitic bomb landing on the liberators the vikings come forward is there enough corrupters i don't think so they're gonna have to fall back from that there's still a tank in the back and the ghost snipes bam lots of lurkers anhydrous do fall a trade there which i think raynor not happy with cost for cost but he's happy because his next wave is on the way he's gonna be remaxing morphing his brood lords now and getting ready to take that base out with the next wave the next attack is the really important one that needs to break maru down obviously the ghosts are a great unit against the brood lord as long as they're not taking damage their spell the steady targeting snipe ability can be interrupted if the ghost does take damage so that's where the fungals come in but of course it is a little bit of a tug of war if the ghost gets the emp first then the investors are paperweights so this is going to be a pretty big moment here for rainer when he gets up maxed again with those investors and with those broods and the next wave is going to be pretty interesting here big i can't wait to see it yeah if we could see the unit stab as this fight uh comes in i'd love to see the numbers i think there's a decent viking count they're really well spread as well eight vikings 10 ghosts no thor's on the ground no marines either those brood lords are going to cause a problem for those siege tanks don't lean i think that brainerd actually hasn't got pathogen glands yet it looks like these investors are hatching with not quite enough energy for fungals just yet so gonna take a little bit before they're super scary but again the ghost could get the emps anyway so reina just slowly starting to chip away here at this planetary on the high ground for mario that he's been desperately trying to hold on to oh maru gives up the base moves to the right side of the map and knight is one of my answers for raynor he's got some spine crawlers that'll do a little bit to slow this down ling's moving over there as well reynolds going to try and use the ling hydra he doesn't have a very big army there though is this going to work out for radar i mean the lanes got on there but they kind of disappeared as quickly as they arrived there and the snipes with the tanks erase those hydras so no he does not get the job done he does at least of course get rid of that planetary with the broods but they're kind of just sitting there floating around in space and now the drones on the threat keep in mind that rainer had 30 drones oversaturated over there as well so he just lost a ton of his mining oh those drones should have run straight north that was a big mistake raino's gonna rotate his army over there right now he's saying no no it's too slow i've got to stay on the left no no he hasn't moved his army back to this right side of the map the nidus worm doesn't find too much the vikings and the thor dealing with that uh raynor is doubling down on brood lords against thor viking right now this can work but it's gonna come down to the spellcasters and he's got to protect his bases but he's just not moving to defend this right side i thought like reynold was it was starting to take control he is starting to push maru against the ropes but now the terran just called methodical plays starting to trade again and again and again and great decision-making as well for maru finding himself in the driver's seat one more time reyna does still have this big fleet of air units for the zerg and the investors as well and the ghosts are really low and minute deep so it is definitely a situation where this could potentially take a great fight here in the next few minutes these brood lords need to be a little bit quicker to rotate they got to stay in more of a central location reynolds worried about them getting jumped on so he's been very conservative with their movement i want them to be further forward jumping on these armies i think reynolds got the numbers here and he's coming in from behind is maru gonna be able to take out this base if maru goes in any deeper he's gonna be forced to fight this and that could get very dicey we've got some corruptness here and a full energy fighter to help out with those vikings gonna have to look for a parasitic bomb right in the middle of the pack the investors and the fighters are clumped this is looking really scary watch out for those emps maynard right now raynor has not split any of his investors off that can be a game loser the brood lords come forward they get a volley off one or goes down a fungal catches two vikings doesn't hit the center of the pack 16 vikings in the air this is an incredibly close back and forth as you said a parasitic bomb would be a great initiate to this fight but as it is both players are waiting for the other one to come forward and clump up thanks getting some shots off of this oh big fungal there there we go parasitic bomb needs to come with that fungal as well there it is going to take a lot of damage on these vikings huge parasitic bomb with the fungal chain a great hit to the viking count of maru the count of maru's vikings gets dwindled there but still looks strong enough to be a threat to the brood lords maru doesn't feel confident to hold this position anymore starts to evacuate it with his army and raynaud he's in an efficiency game now retaking the base on the right he's actually doesn't even have enough minerals to retake the rich gas base on the right uh he has obviously obviously lost so many more resources which is why the way raynor wins this game is holding all of the middle bases he's got to deny any more basis from maru who's by the way maru's mining is dwindling and maru's gonna counter push on the right a good choice by raynor to give it up but he loses a bunch of lurkers to the snipe takes out a planetary in return both players economy is dropping down into a very very low place i think mari's realized that winning the fight against the brood lord investor is not likely here he doesn't have enough vikings and fours and also enough ghosts to help him out on the ground either so he's just trying to try and be where that army isn't the brood lords are so slow that's one of the main weaknesses here and the investors really have to be with the broods for them to be as powerful as possible so maru does go to the right side of the map and make sure that if reyna comes to his side and does damage he's going to get some in return so murray hits back but of course this game balanced on a wire at the moment it's really hard to call who's winning at this situation you know mario is playing so smart though he realized if he can just land an orbital on the right one round of mules there a couple thousand resources just like that because of the nature of those our rain or with the zergling does scout it which is very good but i think yeah if maru just empties mules on that base his income will shoot up like crazy oh thought caught out in the open uh renault zone one base the base is in the middle left that's reynolds base like right now that's his income and it's getting dry right now so honestly as long as maru just keeps dragging this out drops an orbital drop some mules gets a few thousand resources this is all reynolds competing with it 50 drones on four mineral patches mainard it is just a trickle both of them are running very dry right now mara just sent 70 percent of these suvs over to three o'clock as well a lot of suvs going over that from that orbital a very low mining situation here for both of these players ah man uh this rotation of rainer really feels like rain is starting to take control the south side of the map with mario taking control of the top right but maru's army coming in here he's like all right this is enough i don't want to lose these factories i don't want to lose this base here in the south i need to fight him here oh that ghost energy count looking a lot more healthy the thor count looking good as well mario going to break off a few spies there as they cloak let's see what he can get done he's going for the big earpiece can he get the bees all whiffs there good spready on the investors i'd like to see raynor keep one or two of those investors off hotkey off the control group a little bit further back from the army uh i'd also like to see him have maybe some ling bane or something that could just like emergency jump on the ghost and disrupt them if he gets in trouble because his army is so slow and immobile raynor's got to be super duper careful to not get caught out and exposed and honestly 13 vikings 6 7 thor's 14 ghosts if they are able to connect with the brood lords 12 brood lords will not last very long it's a very lacking amount of actual damage output that raynor has and that's why he's swapped into neural parasite he's going to try and steal the thor's off maru if he can pull that off he could turn this game around massively absolutely we got a stealthy sneaky infested boy over here underneath those doors i mean as soon as that investor is scanned it will be deleted emp is coming down but once again maru missing the center of the pack of those spell casters parasitic bomb hits the back there not the big critical target for the parasitic bombs either it's neither player really finding a ton of damage mario nearly picked off a brood lord the edge of the pack but not quite there either both players nearly getting a little bit done but as the dust settles both of them still with all their units just waiting for the actual fight to begin oh my lord that army oh and big fungal both sides trading spells going to try and chain the fungals oh my god it is rain or parasitic bomb landing and murals going down as well but the investors getting deleted there with the scans oh my god all the investors are dead here he's killed all the investors does he have enough vikings to fight the brutal as he's targeting them down one of the time fighting the corrupters with the force to assist and he goes to assist that engagement for rainer looked all right at the start there with those fungals but maru with too much when the clouds part yeah if he didn't land the murals he was always going to lose that fight once that big emp landed and he only had three or four investors left reign or just did not have the numbers gg it's on their own not enough damage to take that out wow i mean a great showing there from both players reyna giving me a bit of hope in this series but the score does not lie maru on match point here with a 2-0 lead on little caesar here our non-korean representative in this top four i mean this just keeps happening in the intel extreme masters kind of it's a peak we get a non-korean occasionally in that top four you know cyril back in 2018 unfortunately though getting unceremoniously dispatched by classic is it going to be history again here for rayner getting 3-0 by his korean opponent in the round of four god i hope not well i mean these games are very special right this is not a 3-0 crushing in a normal sense you hit your pressure you do some damage finish them off with a push no no no not at all it is a very different you know evolution of the game that we're seeing and maru is out playing raynor right now but that last game i think it was it was a step forward for raynor he needs to make a bigger step forward in the next map he cannot sit back as long as he did i really feel the moment he started swapping into lurkers is where he let that game slip away from him raynor was doing great with the lingbane muta and i think he could have kept maru off of fifth base for a lot longer but he let a whole bunch of his mutualistics die didn't punish the fact that maru was running around the map with bio the whole point of muters was to completely shut maru off the map and he didn't actually use them for that correctly so i think he gave maru a little bit too much space and then he started doing some very lazy lurker attacks where attacking into the fourth not even realizing the fifth was up and undefended and then two or three more incredibly wasteful attacks before it felt like raynor switched on and the zergling run by started coming in and doing big damage and he was hitting his multi-prong and swapping into brood lords and doing many different things it felt like there was a point in that game where raynor finally switched gears and we actually got to see the young italian that has made it this far in this tournament off amazing skill yeah i mean definitely got a lot of hope there from game two rayna was absolutely winning at one point there in that game but it does feel so scary to go to the late game here against maru and it's also kind of ironic really i i remember you know obviously when we were both seeing a lot of starcraft and casting a lot of starcraft in 2019 the answer to zerg back then was don't let them get into the late game because it's just too scary and i feel like the shoes on the other foot here you cannot let this korean terran get to the late game it is just too scary speaking of scary up here on the top left on match point one map away from his first grand final intel extreme masters kadavitsa this is team np's maru [Music] talk about a map that it's scary for as well because i think it favors his style but down here with a big challenge in front of him the zerg player he has to make a comeback even bigger than his previous ones he needs to win the next three maps in a row to keep going representing clash he is reigning [Music] i mean we've seen some magical comebacks in starcraft and of course the game's been around for 10 going on 10 and a half 11 years this year and we've seen some incredible comebacks we've seen some magical moments in this beautiful esport of ours but going three games in a row against a taran that looks this good i just don't know pig that seems like such a tall mountain to climb not only that but also with bad weather and you don't have any might you don't have any climbing gear you don't have any ropes you probably are just in a singlet you look like still vessel stallone from cliffhanger i don't know how he didn't die frost by that movie but you know it's fine but really that's kind of the situation here in game for rainer yeah no room for error at all here as uh looks like we're gonna see that command center first opening out of maru and uh last time maru went for cc first it was game one versus a rogue on death or that was the one where he did the big stim marine hellbat push which he didn't really commit with but he he got way ahead just by keeping rogue off of fourth base and clearing his creep and scaring the heck out of him and this looks like uh pretty much exactly the same build order so far so definitely one which i think raynor will have studied those games we'll see how he prepares yeah so the uh the cc first chord we've seen before here in this tournament i think it was actually this map as well you can see the cc first uh tvz style obviously quite greedy and you can get away with it murray did it against his previous teammate from yesteryear rogue which again we're around a situation where maru did get a 3-0 over his uh his opponent there in the zerg but uh what's really amazing is that mario's in the semis here one map away from the victory and he hasn't dropped a map yet since hitting the playoffs raynor going to go for that forward european third base out in the open no nasty mineral patch drop area which of course uh the other third base was where maru punished rogue with a double tank drop behind there but this is a very different scenario where a lot of the europeans like to just expand along that top side of the map and really push their creep through the north and uh so far reynolds skipping zergling speed and going right up into overlord speed to check what the follow-up is yeah overlord speed immediately here so you know he's still gonna go link speed but he's definitely delaying it it really just wants to make sure the terran isn't sneaking anything in on him in this game obviously he knows he's not being proxy racks at this point but what is murray going for as a follow-up with the cc first build is a multiple barracks opening which we know it is this is the cc first two one one from mario by the looks of it extra queens on the way overlords creeps spreading forwards that react to going down on the factory there starboard building as well and the overlord's gonna start to just wander around double check everything that happens i imagine raynor upon seeing this uh may opt for an earlier bailing nest once he sees the second barracks but so far those marines doing a very good job keeping his vision out yeah the main base being denied vision there by that overlord like you mentioned for sure so this overlord speed not really paying for itself just yet although we do have a overlord on the right side here in the marine county maru oh man he's actually got enough marines to to hide the fact that he's got what he's got but i mean when you see that many marines though as rayner you kind of know what's up anyway there's no other way to get that many marines up with a single barracks so raynor is going to know here that there is going to be very likely an either ground push with marines or a drop timing indeed and the armory is on the way so yep it's that held that marine timing that we were expecting maynard and uh no bailey nest on the way yet for rain or definitely something you want is a roach warren or a mainlanders depending on which style you want to play but the lord's going to come in now and the marines a little bit too slow to react armory is spotted big scout huge scout there for rainer he's got all the information he needs starts the bailey nest immediately here and of course those bailings need to be here yesterday to hold this push i gotta say i actually feel like this is a situation where i feel good for rainer this is a very expensive opening for mario obviously he's going three cc so this isn't all in or anything like that he does he is going to have a follow-up but historically in the series so far rainer has been very good at holding these timings in the early game from maru can he do it again these links going around the back side here yeah i love that choice they're not gonna be good initially against the elbow so you might as well just do a run by there is a wall up but there's a little oh it's not up it's not off the command center's exposed the work is exposed the marines getting on top of straight away already okay a lot of suv's gonna go down those three marines doing what they can and they are going to eventually defend that could have been even worse if those marines weren't reacted with so quickly maru pulled them behind the mineral line and because of that losers eight suvs where he could have lost 20. and all eight of reyna's queens off hatchery judy join the queen spreading queens to just get on that front line and bat away at the hellions and the marines there of maru a good start for rainer that run by pretty inspired a lot of damage there mario picks another angle the ling actually caught the inside of it good defense by maru but yeah what maru maru is meant to be shocking around zerg territory for the next few minutes with this build instead is helen's about to go home just to defend just to secure his own expansion once again six minutes in the game raynor's already ahead it's been like there's three games in a row reino is just out playing maru in the early stages but man maru just makes you forget about that in the late game doesn't he he says oh an early lead i don't care about that dude i am just so calm and collected in the later stages like for rain or it really is you need to take this lead but more importantly you need to capitalize on it and that's what maru is making very difficult uh mario is clearing up a bit of creep here that hatchery of course it is not to be seen serena's doing that eu zvt style of just or actually just a lot of zergs doing it these days expanding at the front door there for their third base and just going along the edge of the map for your fourth and fifth and also i think rayner got his third as his lair as well which is interesting so a few more hit points on that front line doesn't mean these hatches can be a little bit harder to pick off meyer is the choice once again i think that did great for rain or in the early stages uh even if there's widowmines i would not mind raynor going hard into the muters i feel like mutiling bane if you're ahead of your opponent and you're as fast as raynor is you're gonna always find a way in it's such a mobile composition gives you so many angles you can work on you force missile turrets and all this sort of stuff so i really like this style from raynaud i love the opening he's up 20 workers his fourth is established his creep is great uh there's nothing i have except uh compliments for raynor's uh you know first eight nine minutes of the game but i uh i'm very curious because we don't mind drop that's a double mine drop oh my god yeah there's six wooden mines here pig and the armory obviously is done so they're gonna have the ability to uh to i guess remain cloaked when they burrow as well so in their car or on top of the sport crawl it doesn't really matter there samara going for a mind drop at the third base also in the natural as well here comes maru right next to this fire so while the winter mines do get cleaned up here he does at least see the spire oh that one gets a connection seven drones going down more drones than i thought so mario finds some damage and gets the scout off perfectly fine defense though for rain or even letting a few bailings blow up on one of those widow mines just to stop it firing well worth it there you just want to make sure this doesn't get out of control because of course the terrain wants to keep you occupied with those widowmine drops while they macro on up and a quick fourth command center is starting maru that and he would have liked that to be about two minutes earlier to be honest but because he lost all those suvs to the run by it's pretty slowed down uh you're absolutely right there fourth base barely begun here at the third medevacs coming back see she's a little better than bruising it repaired there by the workers at the third maru and rayna getting ready for the later stages of the game here tier three around the corner for the terran is plus two attack starts obviously the armory is done so we can head towards thor's shortly as well to handle the meters once he sees that attack i mean obviously knows about spires the turret's coming down and we know that terence when they play bio love to just go into mines and thor's there's that first door there from maru our tier three unit about to hit for the terran rainer 84 drones starts a round of a cheeky extra dozen their pig because what's 84 drones when you could go up to close to 100 you know they have the term acres dozen maynard well um raynor's dozen is apparently always over a hundred it's it's unlimited workers he's like yeah yeah there's the extra four there we go there we go he's always gotta hit that that you know just just two more on top of that we'll get to the full triple digits and he's gonna go there for sure and that gives him the comfort to throw units at his opponent you know which he's been doing a lot in this series and i i wouldn't mind more of it as long as it's fast paced and early and he's keeping mario off the fourth base but he just the way he's been doing it with lurker bainling against tank heavy has not been working out now kimaru is mine heavy so far in this game mine stores very good versus mutiling bane there's no siege tanks yet so arguably a lurker swap would be good in this scenario it's why he did it last game in the same sort of situation but i still think there's a lot that can be done with mutiling bane right here right now i'm absolutely with you obviously with a lot of mines you can take a really good fight against the beetling bane because of that splash damage if reyna messes up the engagement but historically he's been so good at dealing with those mines with this unit comp he hasn't been losing everything really haphazardly against that kind of comp with this kind of uh you know fast and uh sort of backstabbing army here that rain is going for hive begins immediately there for rainer 2-2 very close to both players actually upgrades very close to both of them here on both sides hive obviously going to be on the front there for rayner but uh fully uh fully hitpointed hive is very very tanky very hard to pick off for the terran run by there from rayna the door is down and he's in again that could be disastrous and great bailing split there already the natural getting ransacked the mutants are going to run in on the north side raynor i could feel that comeback starting he definitely is feeling the momentum focused his eyes just killer focused right now his mute is flying get a turret on the third pulls back for now seeing a widow mind backing up the turret in the main but 25 workers go down and this is of course reynold going to seven bases versatile who's barely establishing a fourth yeah i think reyna knows he's winning here this is when you go full sweaty chad gamer you get laser focused your eyes start to glow and your back arches and you know that you are in the driver's seat and you start to hopefully get a bit of a flow state happening because he's gonna need that for the next three games in a row to come back in this series he's looking real good in game three pig not gonna lie the top base has been taken that's the sixth base here for the zerg oh man or rather the fifth he's taking the six at the south side mute is coming up again towards the natural where he knows there are water mines and turrets hopefully he doesn't lose all of them there he's gonna be pretty good he's been pretty good the baby's in the middle so far he has but i would say too good i say throw him into those mines headbutt go go go go go yes maru sneaky with those widow mines but that's all right you can focus those down if you want to already gets one with the bounce and these muters are starting to find big damage his army is sitting on the right he wants to jump on the fourth planetary to take that out goodbye three three yeah not enough marines here a lot of the force from our on the ground roy marauders and the thor was kind of derping out there and the naturally got one more volley off on this mutant so he loses his engineering base 3-3 being denied fraud the terran is absolutely massive it's very rare that azer is going to have a double upgrade lead for this long i'm worried about reynolds unit count though he's still very heavy on bainlings ah the meters do come in one more time and they are getting more and more damage i mean these meters are paying off in a big way so far as i said though he's on mass mainly like 45 baneling he's going up to 65 banelings that's not good versus widow mines or tanks or these are the things that maru is building lots of tanks lots of widow mines so raynor is putting a lot of his army supply and units that he cannot not only trade effectively with but like there's a good chance he just loses them all to splash damage i mean he's ahead right now but maru is maxed he's hitting max and raynor is not slowing him down he is not stopping him right now yes he's damaged him he's wounded him but it's not mortal and what is the next step for raynor it feels like he is constantly waiting for mario to lose patience and move out but this is not that version of maori this is amaru who just digs a deeper trench he sets up a bigger wall he seizes his tanks more and more and he waits for you to come to him i actually feel like morrow would would do really well if he did push here but him like this oh yeah big bailey run by getting through that wall in there and he actually doesn't have too many suv damage he mainly kills depots the muters though getting that planetary pick off of the north side yeah i mean those depots that's kind of what i was worried about five depots for 40 banelings is it worth it questionable probably not probably not uh mass bailing is really not what you want here obviously because reynolds so high on workers he needs a supply efficient unit to stop a push when it comes it's just that yeah maru is is is not quite stepping onto creep just yet he's darting around defending his bases and that's all he's focused on for now reynolds got to keep doing damage keep doing the run buys keep doing the multi-prong and it's starting to throw in some ultras as well winner mine nearly gets a shot off but he turns and fires picks off those with mines tanks again exposed and picked up easy pickings there for these builders with their plus to attack and these mutants have been the mvps for rainer they've absolutely given him a lovely spot here in this game yes the marines get some pepper on them but i'm not sure any of them actually died there no more air upgrades there's a little bit of a bummer here for rain or but hey he finds another widow might another c-section oh a lot of mutes go down but the bailings cleanse that planetary with their acidic fire they do indeed getting rid of that base there with the bailings again that cost rainer a lot of money but he's not short of a bank here pig 7 000 minerals in the bank and change along with nearly 3k gas in the bank here for rainer and he's going to be able to use that extra supply cap on ultras as well as round out those lings and banes as well so his army is getting slowly more powerful here and finally maru gets 3-3 down after losing those engineering days oh that mute account is getting low i mean they've been the real damage dealer this game so part of me even now at 15 minutes is like dude keep building nudes don't stop like rebuild just hang out at 30 meters dude they ignore siege tanks they can focus down widow mines before they find it the muters are the secret to your success i feel like it's when maru is able to clear creep and run around on the map like this that's where he actually starts to do okay in these series i'm with you i mean these meters are absolutely being the mvp survey and i'll say it again for sure but this ground army of ultra bane language has been doing work as well battling streaming in and cleansing this base once more the ultras still healthy as well as they come on in trying to give those thor's the big kaiser cuddles here taking down ghosts as well and marauders and marines not too many suvs died there but the base does get busted and a lot of the army of maru also got busted there oh man not cheap for rainer but again he is just dumpstering the income of maru right now yeah i think that's totally fine i mean he's got to i think rebuild some more of his mutes or corrupters and go around because the top base is being established as well right now for maru and if mario can get both those bases up as long as he can kind of remax between each wave technically he could still stabilize i think this is perfect for rain although right four or five ultras up front lots of banes smash in and just overwhelm everything on the ground and because the muters are still being such a nuisance as well this is really difficult for maru to deal with uh finally looks like the edge of the mute it might be over those thought there's ghosts getting on top of them and taking them down the ultras coming in for another swipe here oh the paneling's getting into the scv line along and lost this is finding as well the orbital actually dies there to the melee units could have been lifted but that just means that more space for these ultras to get in and get us around all these two ghosts on the edge of the pack get clipped there by the banes and this 12 o'clock base it's not happening pig in fact he doesn't even lift it maru of course is so on the back foot and he doesn't even have a wall on the natural anymore we don't mind defend those bailings oh scv's falling on the natural raynor is in his element and i'll tell you what maru i honestly think has had much better late game than raynor but reynolds early to mid game is so powerful that it affords him this ability to just swarm over the top and he finally gets a point on the board after a rough start to the series we have got ourselves a series ladies and gentlemen star fans out there tuning in finally we've got that non-korean getting ourselves a map there in the top four of this new version of the intel extreme masters katavitsa i mean a new old version we've had it for a few years but it's excellent to see rainer fight back here in the series against maru it's been so one-sided but it has been a sort of a a a change in momentum game one extremely mario favorite game two rayner had some moments a lot closer but maru winning in the end game three definitely looked a little scary for reyna there in the middle once again all the stories of these games has been inefficiency from the zerg backed by a large economy and a big economy advantage rather it's not just one large economy just having a much bigger company than terran but that time his plan worked and those muters those muters man they found insane value so good on that map right the angles you can come from and romanticize in around behind the natural and remember guys out there if you are wanting to become a good terran player you always need to put your engineering bays behind your natural on the edge where they can be sniped by drops and mute or harass repeatedly as every every single time we see this however change your ebay position external players three three's important um no obviously just just kind of joking there but that map it's the same reason the double widowmine drop came in from maru right just it's so much airspace there's so many angles that you can work in from and raynor did a splendid job uh honestly he was making it easy for dark on death or they're rolling banelings into tanks repeatedly in like a line like he wasn't even getting a spread of paintlings it was always like a column of bailings like you guys can shoot us down one or two at a time i think we saw a different rain or a more comfortable rain or and he's gonna have to keep doing that two more games uh if he wants to win this series he's starting to climb that mountain of maru man and it's uh it's a tough one with a lot of sharp edges and some very bad weather but that's the first step let's see if he can make it to the summit though winning three in a row is such a tough ask lightshade is going to be our next battlefield between these titans representing their races obviously we've got two incredible protosses on later we've got that parting zest semi-final coming up which i'm really excited to see i don't know about you dude i think it's going to be awesome i think it might be over in 25 minutes but it's because they're both going to go at each other they're going to go at each other so hard like those guys oh man they won't be yeah mistakes will be punished in that series as well i'll tell you that that's that's going to be a very exciting next semi-final up but for me what i'm really just thinking about here is look at raynor's camera it's a different energy i mean maru never really shows too much but raynor's normally rapping he's popping he's smiling after those first two games where he knows that he was ahead in both of them and let it slip away he's he's kind of been in super focus mode and he's he's kind of saying look i need to have a deep think about it and adapt my play we could see a little bit of singing there but maybe not quite the energy because this man up here an implacable wall the guy who stole solar's soul earlier in the tournament and he's trying to do it to rain or as well in the top left representing envy it is maru and in the bottom right here little caesar the italian stallion from clash on the way back can he do it again this is rainer [Music] yeah definitely a change in energy here pig that focus he's in the it's not personal it's business face that we're seeing here from rayna oh indeed he is and uh this is interesting pool first for raynor uh looking for maybe a couple early zerglings across the map but mario is going for a low ground barracks now pool first does work its way into a really nice roach aggression it could be a two or a two racks repo wall off there's a few different options i mean he would have started the second barracks by now may not it is just a low ground wall off fascinating um i guess that way he just wants to stop the overlord sitting on the pillar so in this positioning if you go marine first you can hunt down the overlord and then you can always float the barracks to spot any overlords nearby so mario i guess just trying to be a little secretive and have a head start on the wall off the downside of this is you actually just died a ravager attacks because you're down in the natural like there's a lot of things that can kind of kill you this wall's a little bit more fragile yeah that i mean you're completely right and it did go we did see pull first from reena so it is definitely a possibility we'll keep an eye on that as uh mario continues his build looks like just a factory tucked in behind that barracks here is the plan so just heading towards that one one one just in a bit of a weird spot obviously used to seeing that in the main base okay so he's just gonna go straight for a factory there and uh imagine a marine should probably be popping out in a little bit but actually no production on the barracks just yet he's just trying to go react to helen's these lings are gonna just walk right in and do big damage they certainly are who needs link speed in they go no reaper to worry about no nothing to worry about that that natural is going to be slowed down here reactor's not even going to happen the reaper coming back immediately there i mean this this already is very annoying for maru yeah i think reynolds had some inside info about the builder maru is going to open for a bit of a change out here gets him an amazing position maru's opening was very greedy i mean he did a cc first in the previous game so maybe raynor was hoping for something similar already multiple suvs delaying the factory delaying the second depot so he's supply blocked right now and delaying the command center a disastrous start there for maru yeah definitely very uncomfortable and only costing rayner half a dozen lanes definitely worth it there for the zerg and of course the game will continue neither player out here at the moment the natural finally done for mario has been slowed down quite a bit the reactor also slowed down quite a bit and murray's gonna have to finish off that wall as well time to get those hellions out in the field and try and get some uh you know wrestle a little bit more map control away from the zookeeper [Music] yeah that's what he was looking for from the start of the game definitely the pointiness of the build order is being taken away though is the aliens start very late and raynor starts a roach roaring here on just 30 drones i think seeing that low ground wall off knowing you've done early damage a ravage is just too attractive doing a big roach push i'd expect to see raynor stop uh maybe 35 workers but hey he's already building overlords so maybe just a 33 drone ravager thing he's only on one gas so he's not going to be able to afford a lot of ravages it's going to be more of just a roachling thrust well i mean the thrust could uh definitely kill if it hits something vital so let's see how rayna goes here obviously the overlords are done and it is time to make the roaches that's the first time we've seen the roach warren here in the game for rainer maybe the time that's uh works out perfectly for him here that low ground wall just too tempting and oh my god oh the production tap maynard i was like doesn't help against this but you know what maru's whole plan was to deny information and go to stop or bc or battle cruise banshee all right well if he does that he is very very dead three or three port banshee what you know what three-point banshee three-point banshee will kill these roaches buddies ah he's not starting any of those units yet the roaches are already almost at his base they are gonna butcher his economy knock off his third gas mining oh yeah that was meant to be a fusion corridor oh mari's dead did you see the look on his face maru had this big awkward smile like he was like oh did i just do that and then he sees the roaches walking and he's like you're kidding me you're kidding me man yeah his face is uh telling a thousand words it's just like oh god really in game four ah man i mean rainer's not gonna front door pretty hard here that thing's about to go down here comes some hell into the back side there with the reapers of course the low hit point roach is getting turned into ravages here rain is in the coal is coming from inside the house mario going for the emergency wall off but that's not going to last too long against these ravager biles and these roads target fires yeah cute wall-off there for maru buying time for his two banshees maru if he wants to stay in this game he absolutely will be able to defend eventually with the band she's the helium counter attack oh a nice little bit there remember speed was made so those are slow zerglings not exactly the natural predator of the hellion the slow circling in the drone but the roaches and their ravages entering ten times more damage on the other side of the map they certainly are double banshee is out here obviously a big supply lead for rainer biles down the last few bits of the terrain instructor on the top of the ramp there the suvs have nowhere to run and not too many places to hide either the double banshees will eventually get the job done they're going to start taking things down but has maru taking too much damage the answer is yes and rainer wins game four and we are going to go to the ace match cheeky cheeky builds coming out there are some spicy moves from maru not getting a chance to do anything that they wanted to reaper on the low ground no marine behind it no rest cv scout there aren't many greedier builds than that he thought hey it's match point raynor's going to play safe but reynolds sixth zergling pressure just set him off on the right footing the ravages and the roaches to finish it off just fascinating though to know here from our state i don't know if ray nor even realizes that was meant to be two-port battle cruiser like did he even realize that when he went in with the roaches and the ravages i'm not sure but maru was definitely being super cheeky there yeah i mean it's a cool build it probably works out for him quite a bit but uh rayna just had an answer for it and i you know as a guy that likes to open bc myself in this matchup from time to time i'm more scared of roaches than i am of anything else because an early roach attack puts a stopper in that kind of play yep takes almost double the time of a banshee to build a battle cruiser so not the best answer to it and when you've got that low ground wall off it takes so many more structures to actually complete the wall off your depots are all exposed your add-ons on the low ground it's very rare in this scenario you pop out a tank at the last moment it's behind the ramp on the high ground and you're all good to go ah that just doesn't really happen so i think definitely he's used up his uh his free lives so far and we're finding ourselves once again in a rain or ace match and i feel like this is the first time maru's really been tested now that we're in this bracket stage i mean you're absolutely right because he has not lost a map yet until now and rainer he keeps having these really close series there's a very situation uh very similar situation rather against dark where it looked like the the korean was a match point and everything was going his way but then a reversal of momentum a shift in the energies and suddenly rainer ended up standing supreme in the end yadmin just asked rainer and said do you need a minute break he said no i am good to go maru as well there you can see kind of adjusting his seat refocusing thinking about what he's going to be bringing out as this one map will decide it all no more chance for error on either side pillars of gold is going to be next up does maru try to turtle to the late game again does he try to recreate that scenario from the first game well in the top right here it is the man who's been in charge at the beginning of the series but is starting to lose it will it let it slip from team nb this is maru [Music] reversal at this point would be truly monumental especially when we look at this in the context of what this terran player did to rogue yesterday but a different beast a different creature some say he's just built different in the bottom left it is raynor [Music] bill all business here from rayner three in a row man what an incredible moment for rainer if he manages to do this that last game though for baru i gotta say probably one of the most unfortunate games in his career just just going accidentally making three star ports you meant to go fusion core just getting kind of build order bopped a little bit as well yeah just kind of sucks especially when you're in a moment like this with so much writing on the line yeah it happens though it's something that you do always risk when you skip that scv count as taran you add a few extra layers of risk with a low ground wall off and you're kind of just asking for it so uh mario getting a little bit too cheeky for his own good and uh hoping his injuries holding up well as you could see him they're actually just kind of squeezing his shoulder a little bit in the uh the camera shot obviously maru recently has had some uh surgeries and some physio and recovery and stuff after some big wrist and shoulder injuries uh some nerve nerve tendonitis sort of stuff going on but he showed you know there's a lot of doubters at the start of the tournament we haven't really talked about it since then because he keeps just destroying everybody [Music] yeah i mean it kind of seemed like everything was good every now and then he would like sort of hold his shoulder and rotate it a little bit maybe uh you know just trying to get a little bit of blood flow happening there of course but it's just a it's one of those things that doesn't really go away if you keep doing the thing that exacerbates it you know what i mean like you keep playing really high momentum high micro bioterrain we know that beyond has troubles with these wrists mario has rob trouble with his shoulder uh you you really got to be careful with that kind of thing even at a younger age and these guys are in their 20s but yeah doesn't it doesn't get easier so you've got to really look after yourself i'm not saying that they can't keep playing at that level you just gotta find a way to keep at that level while also not uh having potential like posture issues or over extending the arm or something like that yeah good doctors in career i'm sure you'll be fine indeed lots of experience with people over gaming as well definitely a lot of experience on that so raynaud there was singing for a little bit he must hit the chorus of his favorite song so we did see a little bit more of that animated movement there in the camera as takes the third base in the triangle formation the eu setup of course no doubt going to look for the fourth right above that as well and look to take down the rocks and control the left side of the map uh terrans normally will expand right below their main with their third base and uh no quick third command center just yet maru is gonna open up with the six marines and a widowman drop into the main and he's gonna quickly swap the factory in the barracks over and he's gonna try and drive five hellions into the natural just after that drop hits we saw this find massive damage against rogue let's see if raynor's prepared for it and a very quick bio mine drop here from maru all right well at the moment reyna not with a ton of information this is also one of the few games where i don't think he got overlord speed if i'm not mistaken so cutting that corner here for i think the first time in the series he keeps getting that overlord speed in the other four games indeed i actually think you're really well set up to defend this without overlord speed as long as you you say hey well i've got some more minerals and gas let's build a few more things build a few more queens and does he see it oh no mario he's not going to get warning of that until it's basically coming into his main base he's going to have to send most of his queens back to the front to defend the hellions zerglings in the main uh arguably you kind of want to do it the other way but he's not going to have early enough warning to get his queens into the main in time all right well in comes that medevac obviously reyna's overlord sees it he's gonna have to scramble his defenses the links are going towards the natural there the queens are on front door judy with these hellions and comes the drop with the marines and finding anything in the main base just yet the widowman actually hits the queen she takes one for the team there natural now under fire but no more winner mines here for mario it's just marines as long as those lanes are ready for the drop marines they're not going to find any purchase and the overlords are all really conservatively placed here by uh by raynor so this is not going to pick up any overloads in fact he's going to lose that medevac maybe transfuse goes down on the queen queen keeps targeting the medevac oh it gets very low doesn't really find anything on once again after the early dust settles it feels like raynor is so consistently just solid through these early stages maru is not able to find any ground in the opening ah i mean at least didn't lose the medevac that would have been pretty catastrophic to start things off there for maru but the widowmine didn't find a whole lot and just rainer every single game except for game four of course just an incredible early game defense yeah raynor is is just unlike any other in in in the build-up stage like his ability to grow and then also to multitask if if you get into one of those scrappy games it's kind of a crime that we haven't got to see it this series where the long games have been very slow long games like mario's never really taken the fight to him because he realizes what raynor's strong suit is you want to drop four bases at once split push two bases at once at the same time raynor will smile and deal with that he'll split his army into six different groups pull his drones away from widowmines like his ability to do that is is the best in the world and that's why maru is very consciously avoiding that so far in this series but it didn't work out going into late game on romanticide he might be a little afraid to try that strategy again rock's gonna get nibbled down by these links the queens move out to spread creep and also hold that front line and he's gotta actually the queens and the overseer well placed here in the natural for those banshees and they're gonna take some shots here immediately good start again the defense of rainer next phase of maru not finding a whole lot of ground just yet because the marines about to have stim pack here it's just seven seconds from done all right good defense so far really mario he's got helium's banshees and a drop but all he manages to find is a few creep tumors and for the most part he has been deflected with ease raynor is almost at 80 workers versus maru's 52. maru floating a third command center out still building suvs he'd like to play a longer game but raynor is already miles ahead this opening has found nothing yeah this is looking very comfortable here for the italian zerg spire going down as the armory comes down tomorrow as well i mean a small nitpick it's a tiny little bit late he's gonna have to wait a little bit for two two but as we can see just not a whole lot of damage done on the zerg side of the map here rainey getting the spores up on the outside as well just in case the banshee's trying to find another angle or even if you know they're gonna help out the drop ship at the edge of the map there's not as much dead space room on pillars of gold for those medevacs to chill in as for their first two maps so that's a plus sign for rainer not enough marines to take that fight that's what i'm sure so mario evacuates he's so quick at clearing mario up and re-spreading the creep feels like maru's scans aren't really even putting a dent in the creep they're barely slowing it down aliens and tank work around the left okay finally we're going to get a push going there are some nice angles on that far left of the map rain all those already splitting up he's looking at that third base that third base does not have a lot of defenses on it maru's mineral line has got to watch out he's got two banshees and that's about it and two banshees aren't gonna be too effective here against a giant swarm of ling bane he is trying to punch back here though that nine o'clock base in his sights with the tank with the bio rainer actually pulling everything back to be on the defense realizing he doesn't have enough at home or potentially going to set up a flank here from both sides in come some failings but they're streaming in single file they bust through the hell that's the bio though still pretty healthy the tanks getting some target fire on the cluster of baits good target fire from maru the bailings die and then hatchery is still in trouble ignis engaged from rain or his flank was not in position he's going to go in again but once again mistiming the flank the lens and the beams all coming in apart from each other the bailings getting focused down oh no massively outnumbered only barely is rain or able to get rid of the tanks this was an incredible engagement from maru and an incredibly inefficient fight there for rayner his hatchery taking a lot of hit points looks like the hatchery at the south side also taking some shots there from potentially the banshees of maru being annoying as he loads up more of those medevacs with tanks to continue to push that hatchery on the far left of the map oh he's being so active those bands she's just surviving for so long and ling bang going to try and ambush him but he doesn't have enough unity reino has not really respect he's creeping that left side of the map and i cannot believe this maru here in game five of this series it felt like it started so bad reynolds got an insane work account but if he loses this fifth base in the top left which i think he will well a lot of those workers aren't really able to mine so he's got a new base down to the bottom right but the banshees continue to be annoying down there finally finally they're going to fall they are going to fall it feels like rainer i mean especially with this hatchery dying just doesn't have the lava here like can does maru need to go home he's actually got such a big army and even though there is a similar account here for the zerg how's he going to reinforce this front line with the links if they go down to the marines oh mario getting out sworn there that's a lot more painless than i expected there from rainer never you mind that ling bane force very healthy in fact rainer feeling like it's healthy enough to hit the taran back oh a lot of his army's out of position right now maybe reynold could catch him in a bit of disarray rain or has equal army supply they're both on 1-1 right now and there's no widow mines that's what makes this so dangerous tomorrow it's almost all on the bio and just a couple of siege tanks to hang on for the moment he's got a fourth command center on the way behind this it's getting up turning into a planetary his second factory's almost finished he's swapping into thor's i'm sure we'll see a reactor in the other factory and widowman inside it in that's going to allow him to go toe-to-toe with the muta ling bane but hey i talked about raynor taking some nasty engagements there you know losing ground the reason i was in such disbelief is because rhino had so many units and it was a bit of a mistake on his part but he doesn't take critical damage losing a hatch is not the end of the world losing a few zergling bailing is not he's still on 98 drones and max out here and he's got a great creep through the middle of the map like raynor has a ton of stuff it just doesn't make sense how healthy he looks right now after losing that hatchery and also losing a lot of his army really officially there but i guess when you have 90 drones you got plenty more bank to make where that came from all the marines threatening that bottom right hatchery in the middle of the map maru again with the hot pickup does survive and he does kill that hatchery in the bottom right the marines survive and pull back not too many bailings either so he's gonna turn the fire in tiger fire down two mutualists nice target fire there from now yeah really well done there punishing gets another muter the meters are finally gonna get on top of that boost should be ready another drop comes in on the left now is maru active on this map there's mutas and wrestling bane and yet mahru's finding damage i mean maru right now is doing very dangerous very potentially ill advisable moves and reynolds it's undefended go for it turn around he goes for it but it gives him a moment and maru uses that moment well pulls the scv's to safety yeah it looks like if reyna really pounced immediately there and was super decisive we've got a lot more suvs in that third but as it stands he does still find a little bit of damage forces are lifted nice a little more mining even morphing a lot more banes here so we can come in for another wave but it looks like mario's army is in position now still not a ton of widow mines although they are getting made three by three at the moment with that reactive factor in the tech like one oh no not looking at the bio for a while there the bailings actually get a really good connection very nicely done there by rain or eight suvs and a bunch of bio he's got to keep splitting up though because you can see raynor's map controls kind of lacking he's lost his creep on the edges of the map it's not spreading as well in the middle you can tell mario really got under his skin with those last few drops and raynor is running his army around kind of one directionally right now he doesn't have any units split on the sides so that means it's hard for him to defend drops but more importantly he's only attacking from one angle he's coming in with a lot of lingbane the mines get a shot off there but they don't actually get a critical connection on the lanes and the veins the bains once again going for the suv line the mute is assisting on the north side as well maru with a big concave of bio though and with a thor surviving he is still fine but does take another blow to his scv line indeed ten more workers going down marrow my growing very well everything except for running the command center or the suvs away sorry and now raynor's up to high of three three adrenal glands on the way happy to stay on ling bane for a while but i'd love to see an ultra cavern come in rain or of course low on gas after having a few of his bases sniped he's got plenty of minerals but his gas is running behind those bailings are not cheap but rain or his creep is now everywhere he's splitting his army up on two sides he's skirmishing right now and then he pulls back on the right goes forward on the left arrows defense is looking pretty good maru looks like he might be able to just survive this middle stage get that fifth base up and this time it looks like maru is actually going to push out a little bit it might just be for creep spread clearing but at the moment is he feeling the the pressure from rainer at the moment does he feel like he needs to get out there and do something or is he going to just slow the game down again and just get up to late stages get that ghost academy and slow it way down oh rainer coming in with another wave of bailings lots of bailings here the winner mines on the left side might be able to help out as the banners get close to that third actually looked like an all-right high point hold there for murray but income more banes the mute is on the top left actually getting shepherded by those marines as well and while maru loses some more suvs here oh i was gonna say it looks like he held pretty well with that last paneling on those hurt suvs you're absolutely right maynard i am with you there that was a ragnarok of bailings that rainor just sent in it's where you you send about 80 and kill two marauders but the follow-up does get a bit the muters find a little bit on the left and going into the natural as well i really love that reynolds muters are what seems to continually find damage he's going into the ultratech behind it his queens are a little far out on the map but this might be bait as the wings come forward they do indeed ling's not too afraid of marauder and thor so they do take a good fight and force the lift up there from morrow 20 scvs have died mute is getting a little bit too close to that anti-air though oh man oh no oh wow i don't know f2 or what but those meters definitely met a nasty end the planetary does go down maynard's seven workers with it raynor still has money to work with or does he maru actually strikes across the map with a counter takes a hatchery out he does indeed mulreina has a huge supply lead it is all drones pig it is not an army and there is teranami in his face and in his base right now two hatcheries going down within 10 seconds of each other and it looks like even units on the right side rainer needs to split his army perfectly here not that many bailings in the force a lot of marauders and thor's as well maru just lifts up and he's going to go for the main oh no brainer falling apart of the seams another exposed hatchery with 26 drones on it the bailing is too late to save it oh my lord he's knocked draenor back to four bases three of which are very low on resources and reynolds still fighting with mostly ling bane rumor he lost all of his muters it was the same thing that caused him problems on romance like he's got to rebuild his anti-air if you don't have a way to punish maru he will drop you for days and right now reynold only has ground fighting units he's under so much pressure he's focusing on the ling bane ultra but this means at any time he's under threat maori picks up moves to a new location raynor he does manage to hold on for a moment here he's still got that face up on the right that he's rebuilding but his main still in trouble mario is buying himself so much time with this he's keeping or off these two bases and left he gets another re-snipe on the hatchery if reynold doesn't build anti-air soon he might be in trouble maynard he's got to rely very heavily on these ultrasound good fights for the broad account of maru is not too bad here on the defense he's going to pull back let the minds take some shots off on those giant units and with the marauders chasing them the ultras have to leave the tail between their legs seven rusty fees do die but murrow does not care he's still got a lot more units out in the map gonna go for a denial on the hatchery again in fact the kill on that hatchery turns and fights the ultras the ultra's actually winning the fight there against the marauders the liberators a little bit too far forward looks like the mines might finish off an ultra gear on the back end though this is the sort of game which rayon made a name for himself in scrappy down and dirty fights in multiple places but the fact that that base got sniped three four times in a row the fact that he hasn't reestablished the left side of the map he is simply behind on the mining right now he has lost far too many hatcheries this game this is big problems for rain or maru's not going to stop pushing it looks like rainer just wants to get in his face and try that on for size can he get it done in the north side that base is in big trouble but on the south side here the hatchery also in trouble maru gonna do more hatchery damage look at that ninth hatchery kill the planetary goes down the suvs go down rainer and maru are just tearing each other apart from within but maru still got mules dropping on the right side raynor needs more than this he's looking for it he's hungry he sees just a small pack of marines and tanks he goes in i love the way he pulls the links back lets the ultras deal with the big the big work there but the rally will hold on raynor has to pull back for now he's got no hatcheries he's only got his third base mining and i'll tell you 17 18 minutes in the game the third base is barely mining raynor is trying to micro his heart out but if he doesn't know hatcheries right now then he's screwed he's got to rebuild those hatcheries maynard i don't know how he does it piggy doesn't have the money maru is in charge here the muters have come back just like he wanted but there is not enough zerg i think there's too much darren i think mario's got it here he's going to bring in the reinforcements oh no a big hit on those commuters coming in this is still so close he's going to get rid of this base as well rain or what was this the decisive movie need he gets rid of that base as well wait wait wait he's killing all of maru's mining right now was that actually the move he needed rain all that uh maynard this is crazy what the hell is raynor actually done it with that ah i mean he's still in it this definitely is not over there is a big army lead for maru though if he gets all of his forces together he should be able to take a fight against this very poor ultra army with not that much ling bane oh this is just he needs time rainer needs time he's got a base on the left a base on the right going up i think the base on the right is definitely going to get taken out he's building investors right now those are the sort of game-changing unit that could do it but he once again needs time they're going to pop with only 50 energy he doesn't have pathogen glands if he could get a few big fungals combined with ultras that is the sort of comeback composition that can win you this game he's going to try and keep maru busy with the ling run by that's a good move but maru is going to snipe one of his bases as well ah these links getting a ton more suv damage well played there by rainer mamaru's army keeps getting bigger here he manages to hit those production cycles and a big bio force if he joins in everything together maru has a potential death bush here so rayner is going to use what he has what has he got he's got an infestation pit he's going to try invest us here spell casters are a way for raider potentially to take a good enough fight against the bio there are no ghosts there are no emps and fungal with ultras and banes can be really deadly to an army like mars if we could see the income graph i'd love to see that the meters come in again looking for just a few suvs every single worker counts at this point and uh you can see that reynolds taking the lead again here and you know what even with mules raynor has got a hatchery fully mining on the left he's got another two hatcheries building every second that goes by is good for rain or i cannot believe it dude honestly i thought the correct move i can see the whole map i can see the resources i thought it was to sit back i thought he was mad for going for that attack raynor apparently has better killer instincts than even those who can see the entire map like he just went for the throat took out all of maru's mining and he did it barely he only just had enough muters to kill the liberators if even one liberator was left his ultras were gonna go down that was sick play by raynor hey man that's why he's got the keyboard and mouse and we've got microphones there's mario's force there gets to the outside clearing up a bit more creep on the way through obviously he wants more hatcheries here he wants to fight small parts of reynolds army so we can pick up more ultras get more of the lanes and the veins taken out of it the winner might actually gets a shot off there as well drones going to the bottom right reyna needs every single mining base here as does maru either player taking another hit to their economy maybe lights out for either of them i mean it's just pure bio mine here can that work yes but the investors are the big game changer the fact that maurice uh sorry raynor's still got very good creep spread is looking good for him oh we don't mind oh lots of lots of little mines and a tower as well bermuda's not really fighting a whole lot all this hatchery 20 drones at it and come the lengths to pick up the bio army but the hatchery does die mario lifts up what he can to save what he can oh it's all about efficiency here oh he's trying to try and hear the bottom right as well but here are the authors big fungals from rainer that was monstrous that's the first time he shows the investors he's not going to get another chance was not expecting these investors a lot of the medevacs went down four of them still very wounded there they're going to be easy pickings in a future fight the lings and banes coming in the left side not that many mines anymore and with a lot of leg pain and not any splash damage they can definitely just roll through this is an orbital by the way not a planetary so it doesn't have fighting strength against this army of right now the bane is coming in really high energy fest is coming in as well to drop those fungals the split from maruto a lot of the marauders survive the baillings are gone and the investors getting picked off as well but does rainer have enough to close this out raynor still got the basement in the bottom right he'd rebuilt his fourth and that's mining as well and he has once again done good damage to maru he's got just too much mining going raynor here oh my god like this game was gonna slip out of his crash but it's been so back and forth but now we can say clearly reynold is up in army 17 supply you've been talking about army supply he was a hidden economy behind an army all game well now he's got double the workers and he's up in army supply his unit's lost tab looking way better than those earlier maps in this series and maru is a bit desperate he's got to do something to slow this mining down we don't mind not a bad move hey drones going down definitely better than nothing but can he actually stop the zerg force anymore winner mine's getting some shots off on the ultras there trying to keep the muters and the investors alive reyna trying to keep everything alive that he can force the lift up here at that orbital though can't save that jupiter on the fire won't be a massive fungal there the ultras coming in for the cleanup a lot of them will die but there's not a whole lot of marines the mute is coming in also to assist winner mines underneath the force though oh no rainer losing a lot of that front line oh the links though the link's cracking into the natural at the same time mahru's on his last legs is he taking efficient valiant defensive fights yes is it enough though i don't know the muters go in they get one of those widow mines he wants to get those liberators as well the league's still threatening this is an orbital they're all orbitals he knows that if there's no units he can tear those worker lines apart raynor is going for the throat and he's bringing in the lanes now these lanes have been doing damage they're inviting their time but now they are just biting terran units they're ripping to the shreds here at this base the rest of the suvs of maori going down as well maru taps out rayna oh my god he did it the three games in a row against one of the greatest terrors potentially the greatest terror alive he did it here and he is going to the

Channel: ESL Archives

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Keywords: ESL, IEM, esports, gaming, competitive, esport, starcraft, sc2, sc, sc2 Highlights, sc2 Live, dreamhack, dh, masters, intel

Id: bvI_ZxFl5Ps

Length: 109min 30sec (6570 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 01 2021