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Hello, and welcome to my first blog post that I will try to make quality 
So I was playing ladder today, and I got matched up in a ZvT. I drone scout his CC first, but opt to not change my opening; I open 15 hatch, 17 pool, 18 gas 17 overlord. Pull drones off at 100 gas. He scouts the 100 gas mined and that I had pulled out, then leaves. I'm at 2 base saturation and send the drone to my third only to find an ebay block at 99% health (  )
Here, clearly things aren't going my way.
"What should I do here?", I ask. If I just accept my losses and take a later third I'm behind, so I decide to adapt (he saw gas but saw me pull out, so he thinks I'm going macro), and go for the bust.
I say, "fuck it!" and put drones back in gas, take a second one, and throw down a roach warren and start overlord production. I'm planning to do a delayed 2 base roach/baneling bust.
To my delight, he transitions into some kind of bio/hellion play, attempting to kill my third. I crush his army, move to his base, and turns out 10 roaches, 12 banelings, and infinity zerglings don't give a shit about 4 bunker wall off and marine/hellion/scv defense. He defends the first wave, over extends (by this I mean he walked down his main ramp), gets surrounded, and proceeds to leave the game. However, he decides to stay classy and before doing so, he states, "faggot."
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/3guSK.jpg)
(don't mind the insane bank I have )
I queue up another game, and it's a Protoss who tries to do that annoying thing where they go 17 nexus while denying your expansion with pylon block(s). I drone scout and force him to go forge first, but he delayed his cannon until after gateway + pylon. I take my third hatch, open as standard, except making 6 lings to put on some aggression as I suspected a weakness in his wall (his multitasking was bad). The lings get to his base, kill the cannon as it's warping in, and then:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/r4wbX.jpg) he mad bro
The moral of the story is that you should never be afraid to diverge from your game plan if your hatcheries are denied. Don't be scared of going all in (or just pressuring) if you suspect a weakness in your opponent. If I hadn't reactively done that roach/bane all in I would've been destroyed by his 3 base marine/tank push at 170 food (I think Terrans call this a 2/2/1? +1 tanks, 2/2 marines).
In the ZvP I turned an even game into a free win by nothing more than a gut feeling and investing in just two more zerglings than I would normally get to kill a pylon block.
As Zerg, we have to adapt constantly. If they're trying to delay you, you always have the option of just going and killing them! I'm not encouraging you to all-in every game, but don't try to play every game behind! Worst case scenario is you lose the game and learn to improve your scouting and game sense
thanks for reading!
 
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I honestly just hate facing roach baneling busts so much as a terran. Its the most incredibly frustrating thing ever.
I never hold it.
LOL
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Good job. You are not cheesy or allin. You have good STRATEGY the essence of the game.
Nice~
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you don't have to have your third blocked to all in a guy but yeah the moral of your story is nice
On October 17 2012 12:49 ILuMiNaTe wrote:
I honestly just hate facing roach baneling busts so much as a terran. Its the most incredibly frustrating thing ever.
I never hold it.
LOL
i feel you bro : (
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Grats on the wins!
On the ZvP though, I'd say as you get higher up, competent Protosses should see the lings coming, and have a probe ready to wall off to give the cannon time to finish. Of course, if it works, why fix it? Just advising it may not work as well in future ^^v But again, grats, always feels nice to win
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Well the way he says it, he actually figured out his opponent's multi-tasking was bad, which lowered the odds of him being competent enough to do it
Reactive all-ins are great. I used to do them all the time in PvT and PvP. Especially PvP: Any opening and I'd leap on that sucker.
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Your depending on other people their mistakes to win, and you all-in, sorry but i cannon respect that play... You say its "reactive", but when you say: "I was delighted to see he transitioned into marine/hellion" you are saying: "pfff, no tanks I’m lucky!" In most games a Terran will transition into something with tanks it being Marine tank or Mech. When you run up the ramp at 10:40 he could have had 3 tanks + hellions or mariens.
Hell, if someone doesn’t scout whether or not you have taken your 3rd base before the 10:40 mark I’d say they are playing way to passive.
Now the way you are playing against Protoss is abusing the metagame. I'm not saying that’s wrong because hell the protoss player does it himself by expecting you not to make zerglings -without any reason besides it being the standard. But what if the metagame shifts? You cant abuse it anymore in that way, maybe (example) 2 gate expands become popular and the metagame shifts, now you cant abuse the greedy play from tosses anymore.
I make myself guilty of abusing the metagame but it leaves me in an awkward position if the metagame shifts...
I would say reactive play is more of: I see him going composition A,B,C now i'll make E,D,T to respond to this. Or: He's going mech and I’m not getting drops+speed for my ovies to abuse the slow mech units. Sure sometimes they are bagging to be all-inned, but you cant base that on a scv blocking your 3rd.
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On October 17 2012 12:49 ILuMiNaTe wrote:
I honestly just hate facing roach baneling busts so much as a terran. Its the most incredibly frustrating thing ever.
I never hold it.
LOL
just here to quote this.
also, stop talking about yourself being "reactive" when youre just building random amounts of units at any given point in time as zerg and call it a timing push while it is in fact pretty much allin and relies on your opponent not scouting it at all. i know how you feel when you get 5raxd or 6gated without scouting it. i hope you dont behave like the two players you highlighted in that case. must admit that protoss deserved to lose though.
edit: "As Zerg, we have to adapt constantly. If they're trying to delay you, you always have the option of just going and killing them! I'm not encouraging you to all-in every game, but don't try to play every game behind! Worst case scenario is you lose the game and learn to improve your scouting and game sense "
ah, nearly forgot.
actually when i play tvp, protoss doesnt build a zealot and i block his 1gate fe with an engi bay i can tell you with safety at least 50% of the games following out of this are 4gates. so basically free wins for me. that terran just didnt react AT ALL.
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On October 17 2012 13:33 TerranosaurusWrecks wrote:you don't have to have your third blocked to all in a guy but yeah the moral of your story is nice Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 12:49 ILuMiNaTe wrote:
I honestly just hate facing roach baneling busts so much as a terran. Its the most incredibly frustrating thing ever.
I never hold it.
LOL i feel you bro : (
Yeah, but I generally don't like to do all ins if I don't have to.
LOL, I can understand! I'm not even sure how to defend. I think you either need godlike micro or a banshee.
It's funny, half the posts are "lol you all in your bad," while the other half are "I actually read the whole post and kind of agree"
Yeah, all-inning relies on my opponent making a mistake. I should know that; I'm approaching mid masters after all. And it's not like almost every game is either me dying to an all in or me defending it/he plays macro in which case its a 30+ minute game with infestor/blord because that's the only way to kill a Terran if he doesn't suck.
Your depending on other people their mistakes to win, and you all-in, sorry but i cannon respect that play... You say its "reactive", but when you say: "I was delighted to see he transitioned into marine/hellion" you are saying: "pfff, no tanks I’m lucky!" In most games a Terran will transition into something with tanks it being Marine tank or Mech. When you run up the ramp at 10:40 he could have had 3 tanks + hellions or mariens.
Hell, if someone doesn’t scout whether or not you have taken your 3rd base before the 10:40 mark I’d say they are playing way to passive.
Now the way you are playing against Protoss is abusing the metagame. I'm not saying that’s wrong because hell the protoss player does it himself by expecting you not to make zerglings -without any reason besides it being the standard. But what if the metagame shifts? You cant abuse it anymore in that way, maybe (example) 2 gate expands become popular and the metagame shifts, now you cant abuse the greedy play from tosses anymore.
I make myself guilty of abusing the metagame but it leaves me in an awkward position if the metagame shifts...
I would say reactive play is more of: I see him going composition A,B,C now i'll make E,D,T to respond to this. Or: He's going mech and I’m not getting drops+speed for my ovies to abuse the slow mech units. Sure sometimes they are bagging to be all-inned, but you cant base that on a scv blocking your 3rd.
I'd say it was reactive. I guess you didn't see the full replay and I didn't explain well, but I saw his marine count and an overlord sac revealed a really late factory, so I knew he had a third OC, 2 rax, and tech that won't be online for a while. I knew it was the right move, it was reactive. I was a bit lucky (medivacs before banshees? O.o ) but I think without the luck I still would've won.
This isn't a low ass level game, it's not like I'm in gold, made 10 roaches and a-moved for the win.
On October 17 2012 14:05 heha wrote:Grats on the wins! On the ZvP though, I'd say as you get higher up, competent Protosses should see the lings coming, and have a probe ready to wall off to give the cannon time to finish. Of course, if it works, why fix it? Just advising it may not work as well in future ^^v But again, grats, always feels nice to win
Thanks!
Yeah, I was really surprised he didn't scout me at all. Since he was so behind from the opening builds I guess he felt the need to play extremely greedy to catch up, so he didn't even have a probe at his wall...
Poster below you is also right
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On October 17 2012 20:25 Sajiki wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 12:49 ILuMiNaTe wrote:
I honestly just hate facing roach baneling busts so much as a terran. Its the most incredibly frustrating thing ever.
I never hold it.
LOL just here to quote this. also, stop talking about yourself being "reactive" when youre just building random amounts of units at any given point in time as zerg and call it a timing push while it is in fact pretty much allin and relies on your opponent not scouting it at all. i know how you feel when you get 5raxd or 6gated without scouting it. i hope you dont behave like the two players you highlighted in that case. must admit that protoss deserved to lose though. edit: "As Zerg, we have to adapt constantly. If they're trying to delay you, you always have the option of just going and killing them! I'm not encouraging you to all-in every game, but don't try to play every game behind! Worst case scenario is you lose the game and learn to improve your scouting and game sense " ah, nearly forgot. actually when i play tvp, protoss doesnt build a zealot and i block his 1gate fe with an engi bay i can tell you with safety at least 50% of the games following out of this are 4gates. so basically free wins for me. that terran just didnt react AT ALL.
Said it last reply, but:
-overlord sac revealed late factory. This means either mass rax, rax + stim timing, or fast 3rd. Judging by his abysmal marine count I deduced that it must be the last option. I knew that if I busted I would win, if not id lose. So I did it, and won.
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I enjoy this blog. It interests me because i'm gold so the scouting is less intelligent. Interesting to read the inner dialogue of a higher level player with some pictures..
I would call this a reactive style. You are thinking when you play. I have most fun playing when I'm actually thinking instead of hoping... think instead of hope= fun.
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On October 17 2012 19:08 Razac wrote:
Your depending on other people their mistakes to win, and you all-in, sorry but i cannon respect that play...
Cannons are indeed not a respectfull way to play. ;DDDD
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On October 17 2012 23:38 Wortie wrote:Show nested quote +On October 17 2012 19:08 Razac wrote:
Your depending on other people their mistakes to win, and you all-in, sorry but i cannon respect that play... Cannons are indeed not a respectfull way to play. ;DDDD
Dude if I had a ladder point for every time I got pylon walled/cannon rushed 
I enjoy this blog. It interests me because i'm gold so the scouting is less intelligent. Interesting to read the inner dialogue of a higher level player with some pictures..
I would call this a reactive style. You are thinking when you play. I have most fun playing when I'm actually thinking instead of hoping... think instead of hope= fun.
Thanks!
I could've picked better pictures, but I found the ragequits pretty funny. From now on I drone scout in ZvP LOL
Indeed, thinking is always good. Eventually you'll have seen it all (1 base hydralisk, I've actually seen it before) and will become better at identifying builds just based off intuition and limited scouting. Twice I've played against 4rax scv all in, both times I felt it was coming (despite not directly scouting it), built a spine and 4 queens, and just won. Just be careful in gold, it's hard to identify opponents' builds when they don't even know what they're doing!
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EPT
