Cedric Dautinger made his thesis about armed conflicts in videogames and is writing as a specialized journalist for the Rossel Group in Belgium. Player since he was nine, he stayed faithful to his computer but also owns various consoles. His favorite genres are STR, RPG and simulations.

StarCraft II, the STR king and streaming-champion, offers you to observe zergling rushes and technical moves. But not always… Bringing back an established strategy to use it in-game was brilliant but not well-accepted. But what are we talking about? 

We are talking about the attrition warfare. “Attrition warfare is a military strategy in which a belligerent attempt to win a war by wearing down the enemy to the point of collapse through continuous losses in personnel and materiel. The war will usually be won by the side with greater such resources.”, says Wikipedia. This special tactic of “doing nothing except waiting” was theorized a long time ago by strategists like Sun Tzu, and is easy to imagine if you think of a medieval siege. But attrition warfare is still in use, in modern conflicts like the Great War or lately in the Syrian conflict.

The players:

Steffen Hovmand, a Danish Terran player also known as "Lillekanin" was fighting against the Finnish Zerg player Wenlei "ZhuGeLiang" Dai. The Daily Dot reports (http://www.dailydot.com/esports/longest-sc2-match-controversy-match-fixing/) that "Hovmand adopted a stall tactic by rushing Ravens and using them to delay the match using their abilities as cost efficient defense. Auto-Turrets combined with Point Defense Drones, which make his other units and the turrets tough to take down, make it nearly impossible for a Zerg player to break through without a lengthy war of attrition. Dai adopted such a strategy, massing Swarm Hosts to slowly break down Hovmand, leading to a tediously long affair."

The game:

After three hours, zergs could finally be able to attack the base with an army of Investors and Invested Terrans. Hovmand reaction was quick: he moved his entire base using the capability of Terrans to make their buildings fly. In his safer position, he then used Ravens to produce free smaller units and started again his attrition warfare. The map was empty of resources and players were back to the initial point.

One hour later, Hovmand took the decision of moving, typing “I AM A TERRORIST” and attacking Dai’s forces. Round two? No, as WCS 2015 disqualified Hovmand for his final punchline but also because he was checking social media and Twitch’s chat while is base was defending. Information he could read would have allowed him to cheat. But Blizzard also reacted by thinking of attrition issues to avoid long and boring events.

The full match (more than three hours) you'll find here

Cédric Dautinger