The Raven
Ketroc vs Vreaks

For this week we have Ketroc vs Vreaks: sc2replaystats.com/replay/2971198 A 25 minute TvZ on Prion Terraces, shared with us by sc2hl.com who featured it in their latest Top 5 Community Plays.

Fond Memories of Prion

This replay starts off with the classical problem of Prion Terraces: How do you stop a Zerg from getting both the golds super early?

For Ketroc, the answer seems to be Engineering Bay blocks. The frustrated Zerg decides instead of killing the engineering bays with Zerglings, he’d be better off counter-attacking while talking a regular base instead of a gold. It seems to be the right choice, as Ketroc cancels his CC building on the low ground and panics to put up a wall — holding, but at the cost of a few dead SCVs, a slightly later CC, and some resources spent repairing.

Meanwhile, Ketroc does what Ketroc does, building a Planetary Fortress at both his natural and his third. The Zerg player tries for Mutalisk harass, but Ketroc has is Turret timings down.

But Vreaks is not easily persuaded to be defensive. No sooner than his attack waves are driven off by Missile Turrets and Planetary Fortresses, Vreaks strikes again — and this time delivers a painful blow.

14 SCVs and one Command Center down, Ketroc is in a dangerous spot. But he has a hidden plan.

A few minutes later, Vreaks strikes again and Ketroc shows his hand: Ravens. You might be surprised to see Mass Raven, but even now (before their upcoming buff in the Balance Test) Auto Turrets deal enough damage to shred entire armies.

They don’t excel vs Ultralisks, but with some repaired Planetary Fortresses they do well enough to survive. Even if Ketroc lost a Planetary Fortress and a couple dozen SCVs, he only trades Raven energy for high-cost Ultralisks making it a very cost-effective trade: After these battles, the Zerg player Vreaks has lost 10,000 more resources.

Things get worse. Vreaks Viper’s die casting Parasitic Bombs that don’t kill any Ravens — again, not cost effective for killing a Planetary Fortress — and while the Ultralisks live, they live just long enough to walk through Widow Mines and die to Auto Turrets and Planetary Fortresses.

This entire time Vreak’s has been on an untouched 77-drone, 6-7 Hatchery economy while Ketroc has lost 62 SCVs and several Planetary Fortresses. On the other hand, Vreaks has lost nearly 20,000 more in resources lost.

It’s sort of a wash: Ketroc has a strong standing army and has traded cost effectively, but Vreaks has a superior economy by far.

All Ketroc needs to do to win is get a hold of his shambled defenses and crippled economy well enough to start on the offense, and all Vreaks has to do is get some good Parasitic Bombs off on Ketroc’s Raven fleet to instantly win the game.

Ketroc does manage to split of some Ravens and pick off three hatcheries with Auto Turrets, the whole while having close brushes with death. If he split slightly worse (or this was pre-parasitic bomb nerf) Ketroc would be in dire straights. But as it is, his weak economy doesn’t matter: if you rarely lose units, you don’t need money to rebuild them.

Yet still neither player has managed to do crippling damage to the other — yet.

Yeow! Casting Seeker Missiles on his Hellions, Ketroc is able to snipe the last Vipers out of the initial 11, leaving Vreaks completely defenseless to the Swarm of Ravens who evaporate his remaining Hatcheries with waves of Auto Turrets. The nail in the coffin for our Zerg player Vreak’s is the Widow Mine sneaking in just to blow up the Broodlings from the dead Hatchery, causing him to tap out, being 100 supply down and 40,000 more resources lost.

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- Sc2replaystats.com staff

 Post written by Justin “TheSkunk” Purdy