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United States4883 Posts
For those of you that watched Group B of WCS Korea, you probably noticed that sOs tried this gas steal into stargate strategy several times with mixed success. I wanted to take a closer look at this strategy and what its strengths are as well as how Trap was able to nearly thwart it twice. Obviously a successful double gas steal is good and gets sOs far ahead, but sOs did this strategy several times on maps with geysers that were far apart; this means that sOs felt comfortable if he was only able to steal one gas. I'm going to focus on single gas steal scenarios, therefore.
Links:
TL thread: Double Gas Steal PvP
sOs vs. Trap GOMtv
sOs vs. Trap G1 (Twitch)
sOs vs. Trap G2 (Twitch)
sOs vs. Trap G2 (decider match) (Twitch)
The build order looked something like this:
- Send probe to opponent's base on 8/10
- 9 pylon (chronoboost x3 on nexus)
- When probe arrives, steal gas (~1:30)
- 14 gate
- 15 gas
- 17 pylon
- 17 gas
- 19 core (3:10)
- 21 gate (3:45)
- 24 stalker (chronoboost)
- 24 pylon
- 26 MSC
- 26 warpgate
- @100% stalker -> double stalker (chronoboost)
- 31 pylon
- 32 stargate (5:30)
- @100% stalkers -> sentry/zealot
- @100% stargate -> oracle (6:30)
First thing, sOs sends a probe to steal a gas, which generally forces a zealot to be made by his opponent. This zealot is necessary because there are only a few single gas strategies; to avoid being predictable, you HAVE to kill off the assimilator. Also, this means that his opponent can't make a second gateway and therefore can't have more stalkers than a 3-stalker opening. Ironically, this super early scout makes sOs privy to all cheeses and allows him to play more greedily in the early parts of the game.
Sidenote: sOs also does a cute little money exchange by running his probe that stole the gas between a mineral patch and his stolen geyser. Not only does this mess up worker pairing and prevent mining on one patch, but also allows sOs to waste a lot of his opponent's minerals and gas.
sOs follows up with a 3-stalker opening and aggressively pokes around with his stalkers + MSC. He can do this safely because he knows the gas steal enables him to have more stalkers than his opponent. During this time he's particularly looking for any kind of frontal gateway pressure (3-4 gate followup) or any kinds of proxies (dark shrine, stargate, twilight, even pylons). In one of the games, he goes so far as to push into Trap's base to scout, kills off a few workers, then recalls out. Doing a gas steal and poking around vigorously with 3 stalkers also really limits your opponent's ability to scout; in one game, Trap is forced to build a blind robo for observers because he can't scout his opponent's main base.
This build actually defends a counter 4-gate quite well in that it can snipe an early probe and buy enough time with MSC/stalkers for void rays and an additional 2 gates to complete. Although sOs never actually went up to 4 gates in his games against Trap, he was floating nearly 500 minerals when his stargate finished. If he scouts warpgate pressure with his stalkers/MSC, he can drop 2 additional gateways and chronoboost out a void ray as soon as the stargate finishes. If he scouts stargate play of any kind, he can immediately chronoboost out his own phoenixes and quickly gain the phoenix lead. If he scouts later tech such as blink, robo, or dark shrine, he can make an oracle to punish the later attack timings.
From here, it's a lot of normal PvP gut response things on whether or not you should expand, get a robo, get double stargate, etc. But, as we can see, sOs's opening actually allows him to transition into the mid game rather safely. I think the main way Trap was able to exploit sOs's build was to skip MSC to get tech up at the proper time despite only having one gas, allowing him to still hit early tech attack timings.
I'm not sure what the exact weaknesses of this build are, but I assume a really dedicated blink all-in or a 4-gate DT/archon bust could work as long as you hide your tech well. A defensive phoenix play is probably a best-case scenario against this strategy; you have the advantage of getting an earlier nexus, earlier phoenix, and the ability to switch into pressure if you need to.
Anyways, I like this build upon further inspection. Might be a fun one to play around with. 
 
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stealing as and messing up worker mining is not exactly how the game should be played but very innovative/abusive
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On September 27 2013 03:43 needcomputer wrote:
stealing as and messing up worker mining is not exactly how the game should be played but very innovative/abusive
There is no way how the game should or shouldn't be played. Don't create completely artificial rules and constraints for yourself. It's the player who decides how to play the game, not the game itself.
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Didn't sOs do a double gas steal into 4 gate last season? I forget who it was against or what round it was in, but apparently he likes that opening in PvP. I definitely don't blame him, it's a super easy way to get a massive lead. The only reason I haven't adopted it is just that I don't feel like instigating that much rage and BM on the ladder haha. I feel dirty enough punishing hatch first's with cannons lol.
Nice write up SC2John! Maybe I should just man up and start doing this...
[Edit]: Ok, that gas steal definitely wasn't in the OSL, when the hell was it... I know it was sOs. For reals... I've looked through WCS Season 1 and 2 VODs and can't find it. Maybe I'm just insane.
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On September 27 2013 04:20 TwilightRain wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2013 03:43 needcomputer wrote:
stealing gas and messing up worker mining is not exactly how the game should be played but very innovative/abusive There is no way how the game should or shouldn't be played. Don't create completely artificial rules and constraints for yourself. It's the player who decides how to play the game, not the game itself.
Although I agree with you that it's ok. Blizzard didn't, or thought there was a problem with it. In BW you had 1 gas per base, so gas steals were much more powerful, which is why they designed this game to have 2 geysers per base. Which imho, hurts zerg the most for a number of reasons.
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On September 27 2013 06:48 MarlieChurphy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2013 04:20 TwilightRain wrote:On September 27 2013 03:43 needcomputer wrote:
stealing gas and messing up worker mining is not exactly how the game should be played but very innovative/abusive There is no way how the game should or shouldn't be played. Don't create completely artificial rules and constraints for yourself. It's the player who decides how to play the game, not the game itself. Although I agree with you that it's ok. Blizzard didn't, or thought there was a problem with it. In BW you had 1 gas per base, so gas steals were much more powerful, which is why they designed this game to have 2 geysers per base. Which imho, hurts zerg the most for a number of reasons.
Of course you think it hurts Zerg the most lol, you play Zerg 
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On September 27 2013 07:26 DinoMight wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2013 06:48 MarlieChurphy wrote:On September 27 2013 04:20 TwilightRain wrote:On September 27 2013 03:43 needcomputer wrote:
stealing gas and messing up worker mining is not exactly how the game should be played but very innovative/abusive There is no way how the game should or shouldn't be played. Don't create completely artificial rules and constraints for yourself. It's the player who decides how to play the game, not the game itself. Although I agree with you that it's ok. Blizzard didn't, or thought there was a problem with it. In BW you had 1 gas per base, so gas steals were much more powerful, which is why they designed this game to have 2 geysers per base. Which imho, hurts zerg the most for a number of reasons. Of course you think it hurts Zerg the most lol, you play Zerg
I know you are just joking, but I was aware of this before the game even went into beta, and I played random.
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How does this hurt Zerg most? Zerg always starts with two hatches except for a few really aggressive opening. That gives them 4 geysers and I haven't seen any zerg taking all 4 geysers in early in the game. Perhaps in ZvZ? I am not so sure about it but even in ZvZ I don't remember seeing a zerg taking both geysers before establishing the natural.
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On September 27 2013 08:13 usethis2 wrote:
How does this hurt Zerg most? Zerg always starts with two hatches except for a few really aggressive opening. That gives them 4 geysers and I haven't seen any zerg taking all 4 geysers in early in the game. Perhaps in ZvZ? I am not so sure about it but even in ZvZ I don't remember seeing a zerg taking both geysers before establishing the natural.
Zerg has larva, this means they have to choose between workers or army at all times. Other races can constantly produce workers, or at least produce them more consistently if they aren't doing some cutting build.
Zerg needs more gas (need T3 stuff faster as well). This is arguable, but It's been mostly accepted.
Zerg has less supply cap because of queens for the macro mechanic being 2 supply.
And most importantly, Zerg loses a worker to make a structure. So instead of in BW where you needed only 4-5 workers to get steady gas off of one base, you now need 8. The other races in BW needed only 3-4, a marginal difference, and in SC2 6 which is a bigger difference.
So a fully saturated base of zerg needs minimum 3 drones for structures, 1 queen, 16-24 miners, and 6 gassers. Which is more taxing than the protoss or terran counterparts.
PS- Zerg is most commonly droppped or backdoored, making running workers and reloading geysers that much more tasking. This is the single biggest gripe I've had with zerg. It feels messy.
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On September 27 2013 06:48 MarlieChurphy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2013 04:20 TwilightRain wrote:On September 27 2013 03:43 needcomputer wrote:
stealing gas and messing up worker mining is not exactly how the game should be played but very innovative/abusive There is no way how the game should or shouldn't be played. Don't create completely artificial rules and constraints for yourself. It's the player who decides how to play the game, not the game itself. Although I agree with you that it's ok. Blizzard didn't, or thought there was a problem with it. In BW you had 1 gas per base, so gas steals were much more powerful, which is why they designed this game to have 2 geysers per base. Which imho, hurts zerg the most for a number of reasons.
I remember them saying in the beta double gas was done to promote strategic diversity and more decisionmaking between taking no gas, 1 or 2. It also gives scouts more of an indication what build is coming. It was never about gas steals, which weren't even broken in BW where there was far worse worker pathing. The game is also balanced around sc2 zerg as a whole so even if it does hurt them very slightly, they're stronger in other areas to compensate. The races are meant to work differently (protoss barely loses mining time to warp in buildings), you can't complain about zerg losing drones to build shit when the game's balanced overall.
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United States4883 Posts
On September 27 2013 03:43 needcomputer wrote:
stealing as and messing up worker mining is not exactly how the game should be played but very innovative/abusive
Lol, it's quite interesting for sure. I don't know if you can call it abusive though. There's more than one variable going into this, it's actually quite a huge list of things to account for. In the analysis, I made it seem like sOs's followup build was super easy based on scouting, but in order to pull off the right tactics and scout in the right areas at the same time is incredibly difficult mechanically, and even then, it's still impossible to account for literally everything.
On September 27 2013 05:40 Kommatiazo wrote:
Didn't sOs do a double gas steal into 4 gate last season? I forget who it was against or what round it was in, but apparently he likes that opening in PvP. I definitely don't blame him, it's a super easy way to get a massive lead. The only reason I haven't adopted it is just that I don't feel like instigating that much rage and BM on the ladder haha. I feel dirty enough punishing hatch first's with cannons lol.
Nice write up SC2John! Maybe I should just man up and start doing this...
[Edit]: Ok, that gas steal definitely wasn't in the OSL, when the hell was it... I know it was sOs. For reals... I've looked through WCS Season 1 and 2 VODs and can't find it. Maybe I'm just insane.
I don't remember seeing the double gas steal recently. 4-gate has traditionally been the followup as you'll just have warp gate faster. Here's an older topic on TL that talked about double gas steal and the pros and cons: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=400652
On September 27 2013 08:35 MarlieChurphy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2013 08:13 usethis2 wrote:
How does this hurt Zerg most? Zerg always starts with two hatches except for a few really aggressive opening. That gives them 4 geysers and I haven't seen any zerg taking all 4 geysers in early in the game. Perhaps in ZvZ? I am not so sure about it but even in ZvZ I don't remember seeing a zerg taking both geysers before establishing the natural. Zerg has larva, this means they have to choose between workers or army at all times. Other races can constantly produce workers, or at least produce them more consistently if they aren't doing some cutting build. Zerg needs more gas (need T3 stuff faster as well). This is arguable, but It's been mostly accepted. Zerg has less supply cap because of queens for the macro mechanic being 2 supply. And most importantly, Zerg loses a worker to make a structure. So instead of in BW where you needed only 4-5 workers to get steady gas off of one base, you now need 8. The other races in BW needed only 3-4, a marginal difference, and in SC2 6 which is a bigger difference. So a fully saturated base of zerg needs minimum 3 drones for structures, 1 queen, 16-24 miners, and 6 gassers. Which is more taxing than the protoss or terran counterparts. PS- Zerg is most commonly droppped or backdoored, making running workers and reloading geysers that much more tasking. This is the single biggest gripe I've had with zerg. It feels messy.
...I had no idea this blog would swerve in this direction so strongly. I think you could have narrowed all of that down to "drones are really precious for zerg so having to sacrifice a drone for a geyser and spend twice the drones to get the same amount of income is difficult". The rest of it is bullshit lol.
All that said: the geysers don't really affect zerg too much now because most zergs open 2-3 hatcheries and ~40 drones before gas anyway. Gas isn't really as important for zerg until hive tech. Protoss, on the other hand, MUST have gas at the very beginning of the game, so gas steals are quite powerful against them, even if it's only one geyser.
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United States4883 Posts
On September 27 2013 09:58 Scarecrow wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2013 06:48 MarlieChurphy wrote:On September 27 2013 04:20 TwilightRain wrote:On September 27 2013 03:43 needcomputer wrote:
stealing gas and messing up worker mining is not exactly how the game should be played but very innovative/abusive There is no way how the game should or shouldn't be played. Don't create completely artificial rules and constraints for yourself. It's the player who decides how to play the game, not the game itself. Although I agree with you that it's ok. Blizzard didn't, or thought there was a problem with it. In BW you had 1 gas per base, so gas steals were much more powerful, which is why they designed this game to have 2 geysers per base. Which imho, hurts zerg the most for a number of reasons. I remember them saying in the beta double gas was done to promote strategic diversity and more decisionmaking between taking no gas, 1 or 2. It also gives scouts more of an indication what build is coming. It was never about gas steals, which weren't even broken in BW where there was far worse worker pathing. The game is also balanced around sc2 zerg as a whole so even if it does hurt them very slightly, they're stronger in other areas to compensate. The races are meant to work differently (protoss barely loses mining time to warp in buildings), you can't complain about zerg losing drones to build shit when the game's balanced overall.
*cough*FORCEFIELD*cough*
EDIT: added some links to the top for everyone!
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On September 27 2013 10:23 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2013 09:58 Scarecrow wrote:On September 27 2013 06:48 MarlieChurphy wrote:On September 27 2013 04:20 TwilightRain wrote:On September 27 2013 03:43 needcomputer wrote:
stealing gas and messing up worker mining is not exactly how the game should be played but very innovative/abusive There is no way how the game should or shouldn't be played. Don't create completely artificial rules and constraints for yourself. It's the player who decides how to play the game, not the game itself. Although I agree with you that it's ok. Blizzard didn't, or thought there was a problem with it. In BW you had 1 gas per base, so gas steals were much more powerful, which is why they designed this game to have 2 geysers per base. Which imho, hurts zerg the most for a number of reasons. I remember them saying in the beta double gas was done to promote strategic diversity and more decisionmaking between taking no gas, 1 or 2. It also gives scouts more of an indication what build is coming. It was never about gas steals, which weren't even broken in BW where there was far worse worker pathing. The game is also balanced around sc2 zerg as a whole so even if it does hurt them very slightly, they're stronger in other areas to compensate. The races are meant to work differently (protoss barely loses mining time to warp in buildings), you can't complain about zerg losing drones to build shit when the game's balanced overall. *cough*FORCEFIELD*cough*
Quality post. I'm saying zerg is balanced based on its performance as a whole, not on whether it needs slightly more workers to get the same amount of gas. wtf has that got to do with forcefield?
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United States4883 Posts
On September 27 2013 11:57 Scarecrow wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2013 10:23 SC2John wrote:On September 27 2013 09:58 Scarecrow wrote:On September 27 2013 06:48 MarlieChurphy wrote:On September 27 2013 04:20 TwilightRain wrote:On September 27 2013 03:43 needcomputer wrote:
stealing gas and messing up worker mining is not exactly how the game should be played but very innovative/abusive There is no way how the game should or shouldn't be played. Don't create completely artificial rules and constraints for yourself. It's the player who decides how to play the game, not the game itself. Although I agree with you that it's ok. Blizzard didn't, or thought there was a problem with it. In BW you had 1 gas per base, so gas steals were much more powerful, which is why they designed this game to have 2 geysers per base. Which imho, hurts zerg the most for a number of reasons. I remember them saying in the beta double gas was done to promote strategic diversity and more decisionmaking between taking no gas, 1 or 2. It also gives scouts more of an indication what build is coming. It was never about gas steals, which weren't even broken in BW where there was far worse worker pathing. The game is also balanced around sc2 zerg as a whole so even if it does hurt them very slightly, they're stronger in other areas to compensate. The races are meant to work differently (protoss barely loses mining time to warp in buildings), you can't complain about zerg losing drones to build shit when the game's balanced overall. *cough*FORCEFIELD*cough* Quality post. I'm saying zerg is balanced based on its performance as a whole, not on whether it needs slightly more workers to get the same amount of gas. wtf has that got to do with forcefield?
It's my blog, I can post however I want lol.
But you're right, I misread. Apologies, I thought you were making a blanket statement that the entirety of SC2 was based around balancing zerg (which would have been a pretty strange thought, lol). I see now you were just talking about zerg as a whole being balanced, despite needing more workers on gas.
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Nice read, I was thinking about this thing as well. Funny how I did it the other day against a random protoss without even thinking much out it, but then wasn't sure how to follow things up.
Not the first time I think about something and see a pro do something very similar. Same thing happened when I was looking for a 1 gate FE build, then Naniwa did a build nearly indentical to one of the variations I had in mind. I experimented a few times with double forge after my robo, but before adding extra gates in PvT... then Tails or Creator did that. I tried to figure out a way to go triple nexus, and a day or two after that Artosis posted his thoughts on a triple Nexus build Oz did... a couple of weeks later, First goes triple nexus a few times in WCS. I also thought fast thirds were going to become more common in PvZ, even though I was very confident in my ability to come up with a build like that at the time, since my PvZ sucked... it did take a while to become popular, but a lot of players have been doing that lately.
I guess I need to practice more. I'd probably be able to make better use of my ideas if I got to master league. But then again, I'm really not a big fan of ladder. I wonder if I shouldn't be that paranoid about the fact that I'm not masters... lol
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Oh, there was also a game I watched on Naniwa's stream. I thought about going oracles in PvT and transitioning right away into carriers... and he did that... hahaha
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On September 27 2013 08:35 MarlieChurphy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2013 08:13 usethis2 wrote:
How does this hurt Zerg most? Zerg always starts with two hatches except for a few really aggressive opening. That gives them 4 geysers and I haven't seen any zerg taking all 4 geysers in early in the game. Perhaps in ZvZ? I am not so sure about it but even in ZvZ I don't remember seeing a zerg taking both geysers before establishing the natural. Zerg has larva, this means they have to choose between workers or army at all times. Other races can constantly produce workers, or at least produce them more consistently if they aren't doing some cutting build. Zerg needs more gas (need T3 stuff faster as well). This is arguable, but It's been mostly accepted. Zerg has less supply cap because of queens for the macro mechanic being 2 supply. And most importantly, Zerg loses a worker to make a structure. So instead of in BW where you needed only 4-5 workers to get steady gas off of one base, you now need 8. The other races in BW needed only 3-4, a marginal difference, and in SC2 6 which is a bigger difference. So a fully saturated base of zerg needs minimum 3 drones for structures, 1 queen, 16-24 miners, and 6 gassers. Which is more taxing than the protoss or terran counterparts. PS- Zerg is most commonly droppped or backdoored, making running workers and reloading geysers that much more tasking. This is the single biggest gripe I've had with zerg. It feels messy.
Yes, but:
1 - Zerg can make 21 workers at a time when they aren't making combat units.
2 - Protoss needs just as much gas late game. Might be Zerg = Protoss > Terran there.
3 - Zerg units take less supply and rebuild much faster than P or T units
4 - Zerg structures cost less to compensate, and Zerg can make many drones at once (vs. just 1 at a time for other races)
5- I play Protoss and I get dropped every single PvT. And in PvZ I often have to deal with Muta harass, which involves pulling workers too.
I don't think your argument holds. It's different but it's not more gas dependent or hurt more by 2 gas per base.
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