I thought I would take some time to showcase a new build I've been using in TvP for about 2 weeks now. Its a close copy to a TvZ build in SC1. I've read a lot on the strategy forum that people think TvP is imbalanced, on both sides. Hopefully this guide will allow for some more macro based play, and less 1base facesmashing. I'll outline the build, its strengths and weaknesses, and then provide some replays against quality opponents.
Standard Opener The general build order is as follows: 10 Depot 12 Rax 15 Orbital 15-16 Command Center (Skip marine if possible) *various transitions, which I'll outline later in the blog
First off I'll go over its strengths. Obviously, due to the fast expand nature of the build its nearly certain to give you an early economic advantage which should allow you to continue outexpanding your opponent. It's also very strong at holding off early aggression and allows you to upgrade and tech up OR be aggressive after your SCV production kicks in. Another big advantage this build gives you, is a sense of urgency for your opponent. Will he expand himself? will he attempt to 1base bust you? With minimal scouting, you can prepare accordingly.
It's weakness is simple. You have to be overly defensive in the early game, and due to the placement of expansions on many of the maps, this build is not viable on nearly half of the current Blizzard maps. More or less, any map with a backdoor or wide natural expansions(think Blistering Sands, Desert Oasis, etc). You also need to prepare for a wide variety of Protoss openings. Stalker Blink busts, fast void ray, dark templar, etc.
Replays The matches listed in the .rar are as follows: 1. Masq(T) v. Bee(P) Lost Temple - 1Base Bust v Double CC 2. Masq(T) v. Fallen(P) Lost Temple - Fast VoidRay v Double CC 3. Masq(T) v. HuK(P) Scrap Station - 1rax FE v Stalker Blink 4. Masq(T) v. rBoOCrAfT(P) Kulas Ravine - 1rax FE v fast highyield 5. Masq(T) v. LzGaMeR(P) Kulas Ravine - 1rax FE v Immortal/HT 6. Masq(T) v. TTOne(P) Lost Temple - Double CC v Collossus 7. Masq(T) v. TTOne(P) Metalopolis - 1rax FE vs Mass Stalker
Transitions After your first command center, you can transition in the following ways: second command center, mass rax into MM, fast 4th with double ebay upgrades and turtling.
Within the replays, you can see the variations I use depending on what the opponent is doing. Typically if you scout a low early game army count, you can expect void rays. If you scout a robo, or a large army, you should prepare for a expansion bust.
Anyway, thats all for now from me. I'll have another blog coming showcasing another build I've been using once I gather enough quality replays.
Feel free to message me with any questions you have, and as before I'm still looking for some practice partners to test these sort of builds out with.
On May 11 2010 18:56 Ftrunkz wrote: Wont standard warpgate pressure builds crush this on every map except maybe LT? (not to sound pesimistic ;o)
No, it works quite well on Metalopolis, Lost Temple, Kulas, and Scrap Station. I've been working on a variation for Steppes of War, but its not ideal. It definitely does not work on Blistering Sands or Desert Oasis, though.
On May 11 2010 19:13 LuDwig- wrote: What do you mean with prepare for 1 base push? How do you manage the intial push? (ling/zea/roach etc etc)?
Well, its specific for the TvP matchup, so ling/roach aren't considered. It easily holds off any zealot rush due to the wall-in placement of the initial rax and depot.
ok how do you place them? I know you have uploaded your replay but i suppose that woul be great to know with your words why you think that this build can holds any rush Do you use buker?
(however i am at work now so i can't give a look to the replay so i am really curious to figure out your build in some way XD)
EDIT: How can you "skip" marine?
The usual PVT opener is zealot sentry for prevent both marauder and reaper turbo rush. So if you exp without marines you will have an entire base without protection? I assume you get a real fast bunker immediatly after the cc? I assume also that you put your first depot near your choke to start building your wall?
EDIT#2: I hate you! i have a tourney this evening and now i want to try this strategy! I know i will lose because i have never practiced it! But this seem so cute!
On May 11 2010 19:19 LuDwig- wrote: ok how do you place them? I know you have uploaded your replay but i suppose that woul be great to know with your words why you think that this build can holds any rush Do you use buker?
(however i am at work now so i can't give a look to the replay so i am really curious to figure out your build in some way XD)
The initial wall-off looks something like this xCx
with the X being a depot, and the C being the Rax.
Bunkers are great tools to hold off any initial rush. If you EVER feel in danger of a bust (due to scouting, or lack of) its always best to throw down 2-3 bunkers. Keep in mind you can salvage these bunkers for their full value.
However, I'm a fairly greedy player (who else does 1rax double CC?) so I try my best to get away without using any bunkers. After you add the initial command center, you can throw down 2-4 more rax and continuously pump marines without add-ons. This marine mass will allow you to combat any stalker opening with minimal micro until you get your planetary fortress up.
Additionally, this mass marine opening will allow you to fend off a voidray opening as well.
You can transition however you like (I would not suggest tech/starport switches). Marauder/Marine/Dropship are fine choices as well. Or you can turtle and just mass upgrade (Stim/Health/Conc, Double Engineering).
edit: sorry I wasn't more specific, you don't ENTIRELY skip marine production. You only skip your first marine to get the first command center up that much faster.
EDIT#2: I hate you! i have a tourney this evening and now i want to try this strategy! I know i will lose because i have never practiced it! But this seem so cute!
If you like, I have another 10-20 replays of this build against various players I could send you.
On May 11 2010 19:40 dethrawr wrote: Eh this isn't new, and its less powerful than avilo's opening into ghost mech. Doubt it will work vs high level players.
As you'll see in one of my replays, I mention I'm not a fan of ghost openers. Anyway, I'd consider those replays I uploaded to be against quality players. I also have replays against the opponents that avilo showed in his ghostmech builds, but the games weren't as good.
I like greedy builds myself but this looks quite susceptible to cheese like 4 gate, voidrays, dts or any type of build designed to exploit terran's lack of mobility.
On May 11 2010 20:38 Catch]22 wrote: I'hve been doing a similar one but with a 19CC instead, what do you reckon ar the pros and cons of each of them, and how do you respond to void rays?
15CC lets you get up the command much earlier, and on maps like scrap station or lost temple it will pay off in the long run.
In the replay pack, you can view this game: 2. Masq(T) v. Fallen(P) Lost Temple - Fast VoidRay v Double CC
where it shows my reaction vs fast void ray. I typically do my standard fast +1attack upgrade, and if void rays come, throw down some turrets and get +1 missle range. If you hold it off without taking too much damage, you'll be so far ahead.
On May 11 2010 21:51 avilo wrote: so, basically this build is autoloss to any proxy. @_@
but it isn't.
Assuming you scout relatively early, unless they proxy in your main you should be able to wall off in time and repair until your marine is out. If you suspect a proxy, just get a marine before your CC.
I think your biggest problem would be a fast stargate build (or 5 warpgate all in)
3 stalkers and 1 void ray are gonna give this build a pretty tough time imo.
On May 11 2010 19:40 dethrawr wrote: Eh this isn't new, and its less powerful than avilo's opening into ghost mech. Doubt it will work vs high level players.
As you'll see in one of my replays, I mention I'm not a fan of ghost openers. Anyway, I'd consider those replays I uploaded to be against quality players. I also have replays against the opponents that avilo showed in his ghostmech builds, but the games weren't as good.
as has already been said, this opening is completely vulnerable to all-in's, or semi-allinishness. It works great if they play standard, sure, but definately not when they know they can crush you easy.
On May 11 2010 19:40 dethrawr wrote: Eh this isn't new, and its less powerful than avilo's opening into ghost mech. Doubt it will work vs high level players.
As you'll see in one of my replays, I mention I'm not a fan of ghost openers. Anyway, I'd consider those replays I uploaded to be against quality players. I also have replays against the opponents that avilo showed in his ghostmech builds, but the games weren't as good.
as has already been said, this opening is completely vulnerable to all-in's, or semi-allinishness. It works great if they play standard, sure, but definately not when they know they can crush you easy.
if you tried the build, you would know it can hold off all-ins without much trouble once your planetary is up. Your marine count will be fairly high by the time your command center is finished (if you do a single CC expand). You can simply pull SCVs and move out to secure your planetary.
In the ghost mech build, he sits on 5 marines until 8:18 when the first tank/raven pop out. How does this hold off an all-in? This FE build has superior marine numbers in the early game (roughly 3-4x) and has the planetary fortress natural complete at 7:04.
I'm not downplaying his build, im just saying I personally like the fast expansion better.
This "Holding off the Void Ray" replay that you link is such a bad one. That Protoss lost at least two, maybe 3 void rays due to awful control. He easily could've gotten you in a lot of trouble, or maybe even beaten you, early.
I don't think this is strong enough to hold off an early void ray harass against a top player. That guy had awful control and didn't know how to use void rays at all (not abusing range vs marines, not getting the beam charged up.....
I'l'l try this opening with my terran partner in a bit, he'll try to mix it up a little with this every once in a while. Looks like a really weak opening to any sort of early aggression, especially void rays. Most of these players didn't play the way they normally do, in my opinion.
Would like to see less selectively picked replays, too.
Well, I'm not sure what you think the build is, and is not capable of, but I can say with certainty that I wasn't super selective with these. I could upload many, many replays showing this off against a wide variety of players not listed here (Nony, Antimage, Capoach, Katari, etc.)
I would feel comfortable saying it works roughly 85% of the time, and that the losses are due to human error or just stupidity (missing a turret, mismicro, bad ralley, etc).
I had the honor of talking to Masq yesterday night on my stream and I myself have been looking for a new TvP strategy. In comes Masq and he talks about "Hey wazzup Trump. You should try this out."
I'm like: "who is this guy?"
But anyways, Masq executes this build exactly against White-Ra as casted by HDStarcraft at
and I as a terran player who's built several marauders and marines in my lifetime of course was absolutely shocked to the brutal effectiveness of a "simple" build. Maybe the title is correct that this is "The Best" TvP opener. I believe that I have been executing a worse version of this build in two different ways:
A) early aggression with marauders pre-expand (thus making my economy not as good as masq's, and my marauders don't do anything early) B) an early expansion roughly the same time as masq but I go for ghosts too quickly. The ghosts don't do as well early game it turns out.
Now unfortunately the replays no longer work so I figure I should ask The Man himself.
1) What do you do against a Void Ray opener? I would assume pumping marines instead w/stim pack should be good. Do you also turret?
2) What do you do against someone who would go Colossus? I would assume pumping out vikings but it may be possible to bust them before then as well.
3) Do you only put 2 scvs on your first refinery? And then 2 scvs on your second refinery? I -think- I noticed this in that replay
Pretty sure this is the build that I will be doing come retail in my TvP for a long time to come.
This was a pretty common TvP opener at the end of beta. As a P player, I found that poking with a couple stalkers to force defense, rushing a void ray, researching blink during void ray harrass, and starting expo during void ray-blink stalker attack is incredibly effective. This strategy works because it forces early bunkers at the front, then hits the back with the void ray (ideally pick off tech labs to prevent stim research and marauder production), and finally uses the void as an efficient spotter for blink. I was undefeated in about 5 games against this opening in the last couple days of beta.
EPT
Do you use buker?
