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United States4883 Posts
After watching DRG vs. Innovation, there were a couple of things I noticed that DRG did differently from most zergs in order to win (of course, aside from being a total baller and macroing/microing absolutely perfectly):
- Spread creep as far as possible early on and maintain creep spread the entire game. DRG, especially in game 3, was able to deny Innovation's attempts at clearing creep and kept his creep spread going all game. As a result, Innovation was unable to even leave his base, much less do an "endless push" across the map.
- Excessive use of burrow to pull the terran back. DRG constantly burrowed handfuls of lings at expansions, banelings in mineral lines and across the map, and even in one instance burrowed an entire zergling/baneling counterattack to hide it. These burrow tactics constantly kept Innovation on his toes and forced him to constantly reinforce his expansions and use scans, weakening his frontal pushes.
- 3-4 spine crawlers at the front of outlying expansions and several spore crawlers at interior expansions. DRG relied on small packs of ling/bling and his mutas to clean up drops and used 3-4 spine crawlers at the top of ramps to deflect frontal pushes into his 4th/5th bases. Meanwhile the spore crawlers put a timer on drops and therefore protect the interior expansions.
- Lots of banelings to clear marine/mine armies. When Innovation set up the doom drill on DRG's 4th base, DRG used primarily banelings rolling down in small groups to clear bits of marines instead of the 2:1 zergling/baneling ratio most other players are using. Banelings, although more expensive than zerglings, kill both widow mines and marines effectively and do almost guaranteed damage every time if spread properly. In this way, DRG was able to avoid wasting as many zerglings.
- After breaking a frontal push, counterattack with mutas. After a push is broken, terran doesn't have many units and the mine count is reset; this means the terran cannot make another frontal push, but can drop. DRG's muta counterattack discourages the threat of counterdrops because the terran player needs to consolidate his small army to deal with the mutas. If the terran DOES attempt to drop anyway, DRG's hatching zergling/baneling can deal with it and the terran player's base will take heavy damage.
- Don't tech to hive unless you've stabilized on 4 bases. In the first game, DRG never went to hive tech and was floating over 2000 gas (and he didn't even take gases at his 4th). DRG instead prioritized spending all of his early gas on making nothing but banelings and mutalisks to protect his mineral income (his 4th base). Only once he was stabilized on 4 bases and able to push Innovation back did he even try to tech to hive because he just didn't have the minerals to do it.
All in all, I think it's safe to say: Lair tech is back! I think if we learn anything from the most successful ZvT series so far (Scarlett vs. Bomber and DRG vs. INnoVation), I think it's that zerg should focus on staying on lair tech for as long as possible and using creep spread to protect their bases instead of rushing for hive and hoping to get infestors/ultras in order to deal with marine/mine. Understandably, it's still insanely mechanically difficult for zerg to keep up, but we've definitely seen better results from players avoiding hive tech.
I'd definitely like to hear some discussion on this  .
EDIT: For those of you who didn't see it, you can watch it for free here:
Game 1: http://www.twitch.tv/wcs_gsl/c/2881568
Game 2: http://www.twitch.tv/wcs_gsl/c/2881540
Game 3: http://www.twitch.tv/wcs_gsl/c/2881520
 
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yeah, I agree. Though I'd put the crux a bit differently as 1-3 are basically just things we have seen out of many Zergs before.
1. His gameplan was not to reach Hive and win with a strong engagement, but to stay up one base (4:3, 5:4) and then deny the equalizing base, letting INnoVation run dry after 25+mins.
2. What you described with 4 and 5 basically comes down to NEVER attack with bigger amounts of banelings. Use mutalisks and zerglings to counter while keeping your banelings at home.
Unlike the other Zerg attempts we have seen to beat INnoVation, DRG did not play defensive into Hive or offensive baneling based, but defensive baneling based.
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
Sounds like I really need to see this game, there's been so much hype about it.
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United States33603 Posts
INnoVation took more damage to baneling hits than usual
he played well, but I'm not convinced he played 100%
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I'm not sure how any of this is new. Nearly every Zerg have been doing the above
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I like your style, simple and short, but pointing out interesting things.
I wonder why burrow tactics are not used that much o:
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What really made the difference is overall bad micro during big engagements and way too many medivacs
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I lol'ed at the game 3 on Yeonsu. Innovation doing pretty much the same thing except with a reaper opener. I noticed during the 11-13 minute mark ingame he used his marine/medvac force to clear the creep once....twice....three times. In the same area. He used 3 scans and wasn't able to push the creep back :O
Queens are so worth their 150 moniez
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United States4883 Posts
On September 10 2013 03:05 Big J wrote:
yeah, I agree. Though I'd put the crux a bit differently as 1-3 are basically just things we have seen out of many Zergs before.
1. His gameplan was not to reach Hive and win with a strong engagement, but to stay up one base (4:3, 5:4) and then deny the equalizing base, letting INnoVation run dry after 25+mins.
2. What you described with 4 and 5 basically comes down to NEVER attack with bigger amounts of banelings. Use mutalisks and zerglings to counter while keeping your banelings at home.
Unlike the other Zerg attempts we have seen to beat INnoVation, DRG did not play defensive into Hive or offensive baneling based, but defensive baneling based.
I think this is the perfect synopsis. Thank you!
On September 10 2013 05:10 ktimekiller wrote:
I'm not sure how any of this is new. Nearly every Zerg have been doing the above
I'm not so sure about that....
1. We see far too many players get creep spread going then abandon it after the first medivac push. DRG intentionally met the 10-minute creep destroyer force and pushed it away before it could do anything and then kept spreading creep so that by the time Innovation attempted to push at 14:00, the creep was already halfway across the map and further. Reference "Race is Terran" further down: Innovation tried 3 times to kill creep in the same area, wasted a ton of scans, and did absolutely nothing to push back the creep.
2. NOBODY is using burrow like this. Like, only Leenock and Jaedong have been using this a ton to great success.
3. This is a very specific setup. Most players just spam spores and spines at every base. DRG specifically has spines at outlying expansions, spores at interior expansions.
4. No one is rolling ALL banelings into 4M armies. They're trying to split less expensive lings to soak up the damage but the lings die too fast. Against banelings, the marines HAVE to back up and damage is also dealt. DRG also saves more lings this way, meaning he never has a baneling shortage because he's constantly morphing them.
5. This is something that perhaps is and has been fairly common. I concede on this point.
6. Most players attempt to hold a 4th base for the extra gas income so they can rush hive. DRG puts more of an emphasis on minerals (he doesn't even take the gases at his 4th until hive) and stays on lair tech (mineral-heavy tech vs. gas-heavy tech).
On September 10 2013 03:55 Waxangel wrote:
INnoVation took more damage to baneling hits than usual
he played well, but I'm not convinced he played 100%
I feel this way too...but at the same time, DRG definitely showed a lot of subtle things that were quite different from how zergs have been playing this matchup recently. I think along with his incredible display of skill (probably the best we've ever seen him), it was the small brilliant adjustments he made that gave him the extra power to plow through Innovation.
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I thought that DRG did what many Zerg players have been trying recently (and Zerg responses have evolved over the last few months) and brought it together into one package allied to his superb skill. Strategically, it hinged on staying on Lair tech rather than looking to transition to Hive while preserving the 4th and denying the Terran 4th. Tactically, it depended on superb creep spread, preservation of banelings, use of lings for runbys, use of Mutas for swift counter-attacks, use of baneling landmines, use of spines and spores and looking for good engagements. I thought his play showed the incremental and collective nature of problem solving in Starcraft - one of the most beautiful aspects of this game in my opinion.
This is not to say that 4M is solved. That remains ongoing and remains to be seen (it may also be map dependent). But, Zerg players certainly received a massive transfusion (haha!) from DRG for dealing with this dominant Terran play style.
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Russian Federation262 Posts
Very informative post, obviously a must-read for all Zerg players.
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Is there a VOD of this match?
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United States4883 Posts
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Thanks for writeup and links.. Zerg must play perfect Terran not so much. There is still balance let alone variety issues for zerg at the end of the day I think nothing will be cracked because it's a game of mistakes and terran can afford more. Not to mention 4m is stale as hell.
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United States4883 Posts
On September 11 2013 08:11 tdt wrote:
Thanks for writeup and links.. Zerg must play perfect Terran not so much. There is still balance let alone variety issues for zerg at the end of the day I think nothing will be cracked because it's a game of mistakes and terran can afford more. Not to mention 4m is stale as hell.
I'm not so sure...after seeing that series of games, I feel confident that 30 more professional games like that will yield results in changing the meta just like the first few times zergs started making 4-6 queens before gas to get creep spread going.
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I'm not really that high of a level, but in the last week, my TvZ has gone really badly and partially it's from 1, 3, 4 and 6(ish). It's been a lot of fun though to see how Zergs are changing it up on Korea.
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On September 11 2013 10:40 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2013 08:11 tdt wrote:
Thanks for writeup and links.. Zerg must play perfect Terran not so much. There is still balance let alone variety issues for zerg at the end of the day I think nothing will be cracked because it's a game of mistakes and terran can afford more. Not to mention 4m is stale as hell. I'm not so sure...after seeing that series of games, I feel confident that 30 more professional games like that will yield results in changing the meta just like the first few times zergs started making 4-6 queens before gas to get creep spread going.
I highly doubt it. I guarantee terran will still yield 55+ win % and if no patches go through I can see it getting higher.
I don't think you realize how much harder it is to play like DRG did, then what Innovation did. It's a lot easier to do endless bio over and over, run behind widow mines then spreading creep, injecting, splitting versus widow mines, etc.
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United States4883 Posts
On September 11 2013 11:56 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2013 10:40 SC2John wrote:On September 11 2013 08:11 tdt wrote:
Thanks for writeup and links.. Zerg must play perfect Terran not so much. There is still balance let alone variety issues for zerg at the end of the day I think nothing will be cracked because it's a game of mistakes and terran can afford more. Not to mention 4m is stale as hell. I'm not so sure...after seeing that series of games, I feel confident that 30 more professional games like that will yield results in changing the meta just like the first few times zergs started making 4-6 queens before gas to get creep spread going. I highly doubt it. I guarantee terran will still yield 55+ win % and if no patches go through I can see it getting higher. I don't think you realize how much harder it is to play like DRG did, then what Innovation did. It's a lot easier to do endless bio over and over, run behind widow mines then spreading creep, injecting, splitting versus widow mines, etc.
Nono, I totally believe 4M is stupidly easy. I offrace as terran occasionally and I beat way better players than me with it...as long as you can hit +2/+2 at 14:00 without dying, you can pretty much win against anyone who isn't microing and macroing nearly perfectly.
But I think if we were to see more of those types of games, we would definitely see some shifts and things getting perhaps less stale. It's only natural: SC2 gets really volatile and attack-based then starts to settle down once people discover stable ways to play, then someone comes up with some kind attack-based strategy that stirs up the pot again, etc. I think this is the beginning of a more interesting era of TvZ, whether or not a balance patch comes up or not.
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EPT
