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By Adam "Gerbil" Venis
MLG DC: IdrA’s new ZvT style focused around mass Mutalisk with ling/baneling support has success and then every Zerg on the ladder uses it for months to come. Before this, zergs were (if you can believe it) complaining that their roach hydra from the beta no longer cut it vs marine marauder medivac.
GSL 2: IMNestea shows everyone the viability of hatch first in ZvZ and versatility of roaches, ending a gradual decline of “who can get the fastest baneling” wars in the matchup. Before this, the counter to a 14/14 ling bane was literally a 13/13 ling bane; counter to 13/13 was 12/12 etc.
Now neither of these players can be considered one trick ponies, moreover it was their overall ability as a player to execute these strategies that took them to the top. But without the ideas and innovation in their play, neither of these players could succeed as they did. Look at someone like LeenockfOu. This guy has top notch mechanics and plays one of the most solid games anyone has ever seen. He has yet to succeed, however, at the level he should, because he tries only to accomplish what all other players are doing, only better.
I don’t mean to talk only about GSL Zergs. Innovation in your play is something all StarCraft players have to incorporate, lest they fall behind at a competitive level. It advances the metagame for everyone when revealed, can throw your opponent completely off their toes and give you an edge in a game – or set - that isn’t expected. That’s exactly what the advantage I speak of is: not being expected. When a Protoss players faces his first Korean 4 gate rush in PvP, do you think he’ll see it coming from a mile away, or will he spot pylons popping up in his mineral line once it’s already too late to defend?
StarCraft is full of counter intuitive responses that take time to develop. Who knew that the best way to stop a cannon rush in PvP was to start your own forge and use cannons defensively, or to stop it ZvP was to proxy a hatchery in some unknown location? I guarantee DIMAGA was giggling when he baneling busted dozens of Terrans in early beta because it didn’t occur to them to wall with only their barracks and factory.
Ok, enough anecdotes, let’s look at the theory behind all of this. Everyone knows that the best way to improve against a specific matchup, composition or timing attack is to “practice practice practice” with a partner until you nail it. Now imagine how much harder it would be to play in a tournament setting against a composition you’ve never seen or considered before. It could even be the smallest reordering of a previously familiar build order, and Mutalisks fly into your Terran base 30 seconds earlier than expected, and you have no turrets to answer. Instant GG. We’ve seen examples of this in almost every GSL.
Many people underestimate the strength of the current metagame in StarCraft. Of course, StarCraft is a game with imperfect information; if you could see what your opponent was doing everywhere at all times I’d have to report you to Blizzard. Even though top players try to avoid it, tons and tons of assumptions are made every single game. The main factors for these assumptions are an opponent’s strategy based on what can be scouted, the opponent’s tendencies in other games, and what’s generally accepted to play out in a given position, dictated mostly by the metagame. Top players need to use that to their advantage on the opposite end of things: you know what your opponent sees of you and what they should expect. Now turn that around and make it a favourable position.
To date, ZvP has one of the strongest streamlined tendancies. Roach, Hydra, Corruptor vs. Stalker Colossus, with some minor details mixed in. Specifically, in the mid game (80 to 140 food) Zergs tended to focus on almost pure roach, with burrow and speed upgrades to defend a Protoss 6 gate push. In turn, Protoss started going for 4 gateway + 1 robo pushes with 3ish immortals, and they were generally focusing on being prepared for a large roach defense. What’s worth noting is that even though this gateway immortal push is geared on countering a standard Zerg strategy, it is a fairly stable composition in and of itself, as it has no hard counters whether scouted or not. This is a very important part of innovation, because it really causes your immediate opponents and everyone seeing your strategy to really have to think about dealing with it in the future.
Now it’s Zerg’s turn to react, and there have been several strategies popping up. One is to get a few roaches and hide a spire to transition to muta ling, taking advantage of the comparatively lower gateway unit count. Another is again to minimize defensive roach production and tech quickly to hydra, defending with large hydra numbers and some roaches and/or lings to tank. Once Zerg does this, of course one could say “Protoss is safe to transition into colossus and kill these hydras! PvZ is broken I knew it!”, but that’s a case of innovation, that’s just safe and solid transitions. It still forfeits tempo and map presence, which were the focus of that midgame aggressive strategy in the first place.
If some Protoss were to practice, learn and understand a midgame aggression build with a Chargelot, Archon, Sentry composition (and have the transitions prepared and well mapped out beforehand), that is innovation at its finest. It may not even be the best strategy in a vacuum, but it could be far and away the best. The fact of the matter is it gives the user psychological tempo and a much stronger understanding of the situation in any game leading to it.
In any important match of StarCraft, keeping comfortable and composed is critical. By twisting conventional strategies around or even developing a new one from scratch, you throw your opponent off and get a huge advantage in this regard. Who knows, you might even get a strategy named after yourself! Imagine everyone on battle.net talking about YOUR imbalanced build…
Gerbil is a 3700 masters division player, with a consistent top 200 ranking.
