Corsairs in PvT? - Page 2

On August 13 2017 03:09 CobaltBlu wrote:
Jangbi built a corsair in two different games vs Fantasy in the Jin Air OSL finals. He didn't do much with them though so I'm not sure what the point was besides scouting.

On August 13 2017 06:01 EsportsJohn wrote:
Snow used dweb in the final game of GTB against Light on Monte Cristo. Instead of trying to add on corsairs early and get dweb to break tank lines, he instead used it defensively to bolster his carrier force.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wswoUbOic4I

The strategy he did revolved around going for reaver drops to secure a fast third base and then an immediate tech to ultra fast carriers. When Light began his push across the map, Snow used a combination of his first 3-4 carriers, a small number of gateway units, and his reaver drop to kite the army back and delay the push for as long as possible. Behind this, Snow took a 4th (even a 5th) and slowly built up his tech so that he could crush the Terran army as it pushed into his bases. Once he has zealot legs, archons (sometimes Storm), decent upgrades, and a reasonable number of gateways, he collapses the Terran army at his doorstep (though he trades his 4th base in the process).

Once he manages to survive the first attack and build up a strong number of carriers (6+), then he's comfortable with adding on a 3rd stargate and adding in corsairs for dweb. He then uses the dweb to screw up the mech army as it attempts to push through any chokes for the rest of the game and allow his carriers to trade much more effectively against goliaths (even after 3/3). Interestingly, the corsairs also serve as a soft counter to mass wraith if the Terran decides to be clever.

In some cases, Snow can outright kill his opponent's first push and counterattack with insane efficiency, as seen in his game against PianO in the same GTB series.

Snow has used this strategy almost exclusively in PvT for the last couple of weeks with varying results. The biggest factor I've been able to determine between winning and losing is map choice. On large maps with tons of abuseable air space and winding pathways, Snow has much more success. On the other hand, on maps like Circuit Breaker, Snow is much more likely to get beat down during the very first pre-carrier push (or at least mangled enough so that he can never catch up to the Terran macro).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrEdZmwXaOk

For the average player, this might be a very difficult strategy. Kiting back a mech army efficiently while taking extra bases and teching up as well as having the patience to wait for the right moment to collapse on the mech army is very difficult. However, we can at least take solace in the fact that Snow has relatively low APM for a Korean progamer (250 or lower), so maybe it's not impossible for our feeble minds to comprehend.


TL;DR Snow uses corsairs with dweb, but he doesn't get it early to break siege tank lines. Instead, he adds it onto an already robust carrier army to boost their efficiency against entrenched mech forces.

On August 13 2017 10:40 c3rberUs wrote:
Sairs don't seem like a good idea to add during the midgame. It's not like Protoss is powerless to stop a Terran push at this point. But maybe if they are used in the late game not as a breakthrough unit to get break Terran bases open but instead as used to take back the cost-efficiency advantage that's always been in favor of Terran.

Also yeah, the last PvT game I can remember where at least a sair was used, it was during JangBi's carrier rush on Pathfinder in the OSL finals.

That said, the last game I remember d-web was used, it was by Horang2 on Neo Chain Reaction. It was glorious game.

- edit - @lemmata again, keeping goon count high as possible - now that's an understated reason. Sairs are less arbiters/HT/sci vessels/defilers and more queen-like regarding this. It can be seen in ZvT where Zerg players sacrifice army population for mass queens. The only question here is how many sairs are practical in a given situation. I feel like this side of the corsair question hasn't been explored enough.

On August 13 2017 11:33 Dante08 wrote:


I watched that game and I think the only reason Snow went for Corsairs is cause Light went wraiths and got scouted.

On August 13 2017 12:50 aTnClouD wrote:
It has been tried over the years several times. We just dropped funky unit compositions in pvt cause they don't work. One reason being vulnerable during the transition, another is for the micro intensive and unpractical way the units have to be played. Even if you put bisu in that scenario he will have an incredibly hard time pulling this strategy off. If it was sc2 with smartcast that would be fine, but not on this game.

In the late-late game, the Protoss can eventually build an arbiter for Recall, using the Corsairs to block any missile turrets that may have been set up.

On August 13 2017 15:09 Piste wrote:

You're better off casting those precious webs yourself. It's a rare case when corsairs are viable option, but even then you're not going to have more than few of them. On the higher levels you most certainly want to decide yourself where those webs are spent or it could cost you the game.

Now if you for some reason had like a full group of corsairs then you would just get hard countered by valkyries.