Looking at replays... Some quick summary from spec's point of view.
Game 1: Early game is sort of back and forth, but midgame rover player has no answer to mass minotaur spam. Eventually mass scorcher overwhelms minotaurs, and tank player resigns, despite having 1K extra army value, 3K extra total value, and better static econ. Psych warfare win=)
Game 2: Rover player takes full map control with 3 darts, tank player focuses on eco. First few kodas make cost, but rover player just spams more units and takes mid decisevely, killing unfinished stinger with ~300 metal in it for free, as well as some other misc units. Tank player resigns again, still with superior eco.
Game 3: Koda sneaks out of tank base into rover base, kills a dart and a scorcher that were stationed to defend (making cost), almost kills a mex (negative micro). Then tank player decides to suicide a bunch of kodas to kill a bunch of scorcher-dart-fencer. Everybody dies but rover player gets to reclaim. Again, tank player enters midgame with superior eco, but nearly no units. GG is called by tank player.
Game 4: Early game is quite even, with kodas trading well vs scorcher-dart mix. Midgame transition for rovers is fencer spam, which deals well with kodas, but at that point tank player has over 30% eco advantage. Eco is barely raided by rover player, which transitions into more kodas than scorchers at some point. By some miracle (tank player suiciding kodas to dive on a com was a factor) the rover player stabilizes, and gets out an impaler and some static def. Tank player meanwhile sets up a massive push with 5 minos + ogre and a blob of kodas shielded by welders. While kodas die to rippers and welder spam gets thinned a bit, minotaur push wrecks face. While the first attack is held, followup is just relentless stream of mino-ogre spam. Rovers have generally no real answer to that anyway, so GG is inevitable. Nice dominatrix spam helps to hold the gates for a while, but then a huge wave of monos just rolls in and wrecks face .... except it retreats instead and gets captured by domis, domis capture EVERYTHING rovers win OMG WHAT DRAMA. Generally, upon seeing the domis tank player should have either switched into arty or gollies or something that has the range to deal with them. Instead he just tried suiciding kodachis which kinda worked, but never well enough to matter. GG is called for tank player. Again, losing with superior eco at time of resign.
Game 5: tank player plays defensively and dies to attrition with dart-scorcher and overall depression. very sad. Arguably this had more to do with micro mistakes from tank player rather than anything else.
Game 6: Very first koda gets caught with pants down by 2 darts and scorcher, dies. A lucky scorch gets into tank base and wrecks a welder there. GG is called.
Game 7: lotus and 2 welders die to scorcher and 2 darts. GG.
Game 8: Tank player rushes ogre and wins. except he does not, instead he just gets aggro with some kodachis. Midgame starts with rover player having a substantial income advantage, and few fencers on the field. Kodas split to sneak through def, get caught by dart-scorcher and die. GG.
Game 9: rover player applies relentless pressure, denying tank player any and all chance to leave the base, while naked-expanding behind. Economic win for rover player.
Game 10 (with Anarchid): Pregame - rover player picks a much better start location, getting instantly 2 mex advantage and easy defense in the corner. In early game a scorcher misses an opportunity to dive on tank factory, which would have been total GG for tank player. Despite this, first blood is drawn by koda 1v1 killing a scorcher. Second few darts and scorchers proceed to die to kodas also. Rover player chooses to go for a com push (guardian com drones are nice for keeping kodas from regenning too much), fencers also help a bit. But then an ogre pops... Rover player kills the ogre, but loses com and 3 lotuses, as well as few fencers. In tank's player base... At this point tank player has massive eco advantage, and GG is inevitable. Overall it felt like the ogre killing com was the deciding factor, if rover player was a bit more careful he could take the game. Also the fact that rover player (despite way lower rank) had a noticeable advantage in the game for quite some time sort of shows that rovers are probably easier to work than tanks.
Conclusion 1: tank vs rover matchup is fairly even, slightly favoring the rovers, and mostly depends on players decisions rather than unit qualities. Kodachi trades well vs scorchers if there are >3 kodachis, but in low numbers dies to fencer spam or bad luck. 3+ kodachis are actually formidable and generally win most fights. Fencer + ripper was tried, and worked quite well. Darts are critically important to keep tabs on where the kodas are. I'd argue that tank play in 1v1 is a hit-and-miss sort of thing, and not for the weak in micro.
Conclusion 2: need to try dart/scorcher vs minotaurs and other heavies more, looks like its fun. Overall seems folks underestimate darts in straight up combat. Also I think ripper vs koda was not really explored well. Spamming domis vs mass tank also did not look like a good strat for e.g. a team game.
Overall I feel like the whole koda vs scorcher matchup is a bit strange, and in some crazy way favors the rover player pretty hard. Maybe ppl just need more experience doing it in 1v1?
