I think I speak for most zergs when I say that it's gotten pretty discouraging watching zerg after zerg get rolled by this +1speedlot archon push. The push is incredibly strong when timed right and it seems as if zerg's are still struggling for a definitive counter to this BO. So I made this thread to call some attention to what I'd call a pretty ingenius solution to stopping this rush. And although this particular solution is map dependent, I think it is a great example of how such a tiny thing as the placement of 2 buildings can do to help the zerg.
So here's the jist of it:
Shark opens 12hatch into 3hatch lair for scourge, Reach with FE Sair into the eventual speedlot archon push that's haunted zerg lately. Shark opts for earlier ling speed than normal, which denies reachs scout until sair, and allows shark to forgoe any sunkens until later. Shark drones hard, and gets up to 5hatch. Here he makes 6 mutas with more to come. They are largely ineffective for the moment. Normal ZvP so far, scourges chasing sairs, etc etc. This is where the magic happens.
Reach's speedlot archon push comes out with 2 sairs, 3 archons, and 10 speedlots screaming toward Sharks 3rd. Cut to sharks base.
Just before the attack
Some things to note here about sharks layout of his 3rd. Zealots cannot pass to the left of the hydra den, nor can they pass between the 2 hatcheries due to Shark blocking the path with the larvae trick, and an egg block.
So the zealots either have to go single file through the space to the right of the den, or fumble their way through the drone line to get to the sunkens.
During the fight
More importantly, the archons are completely locked out from the sunkens for the entirety of the fight. This allowed sharks now 10 mutas to hover above the sunkens hammering away on the zealots without being attacked by the archons, which did little to nothing during the entire fight aside from killing some lings sent in to flank
The aftermath
Shark is left with 10 mutas, which only took minor damage from the corsairs, and 0 damage from the archons the entire time. One of the archons finally is able to get through the drones, but by that time all but 1 zealot is dead. Shark goes on to pump hydras off 5hatch and dominate the rest of the game .
What was so cool about watching this was how simple of a thing it was that allowed shark to not only survive the attack, but end it with such a large number of mutas that he was able to immediately fly to reachs base and kill a large number of probes virtually ending the game. If that was just a regular sunken set up, that base goes down 10/10 times.
Here's the game if you care to watch it for yourself. It starts around 9:54
On December 18 2008 11:37 thopol wrote: That's some clever base design. It makes that normally defenseless base really strong. I wonder if other zergs will take the cue, what do you think?
Well this game isn't the first -> last two weeks I've seen all the zergs design that 3rd in the same way
On December 18 2008 12:02 Hittegods wrote: Isn't a key part of this timing push to be able to threaten both the nat and the third? So if the third is hard to breach, you go for the nat instead?
On December 18 2008 12:02 Hittegods wrote: Isn't a key part of this timing push to be able to threaten both the nat and the third? So if the third is hard to breach, you go for the nat instead?
My thoughts exactly. I wonder what would've happened had Reach went for the natural.
well would that still be possible if you played at the 5oclock base though? Because your Larvae will spawn downwards and you "may" have some conflict with a bunch of sunks and units
On December 18 2008 12:04 sillyboy_tomato wrote: well would that still be possible if you played at the 5oclock base though? Because your Larvae will spawn downwards and you "may" have some conflict with a bunch of sunks and units
When you use the larvae trick the larvae goes to the top left of the hatch, but you can morph it anywhere along the path. If you spawned at 5 you would just have to use the 2nd hatchery's larvae to do it.
On December 18 2008 13:48 anotak wrote: Shark was the guy that first used mutalisk stacking in progames too (before even julyzerg)! a real unsung hero of the zerg race...
Woah, I didn't know that. Maybe he'll do better now?
On December 18 2008 13:48 anotak wrote: Shark was the guy that first used mutalisk stacking in progames too (before even julyzerg)! a real unsung hero of the zerg race...
Woah, I didn't know that. Maybe he'll do better now?
I always liked him as a player, he helped out the race alot imo. he was supposed to be a master multitasker, and that's what actually scares me the most. a person who can control all of his zerg units with efficiency.. -_-;
Zerg walls are simply the best. Seriously, they make me more excited than a Korean commentator when a scarab is heading towards a probe line.
Anyway, today I was bored and didn't have anything better to do, so I thought to myself, "Geez, Zerg always complain about securing a third gas on Medusa against zeal/archon timing attacks, I wonder if anything similar to this is possible?"
I took 40 minutes to sate my own curiosity, and then decided that I wanted to share it with this community, from which I've lurked so much knowledge! So I made an account and without further adieu I present my Medusa walls:
The evolution chamber is optional. That egg below the main hatchery forces zealots and archons all the way around the extractor to get to sunkens. However, by placing the evolution chamber there, in combination with the egg, the expansion is completely sealed off, meaning the protoss is going to need to hack down a building to get in, which simply wont happen with 3 sunkens and ~10 mutas standing behind.
By using the larva-to-the-left trick on the leftmost hatchery and morphing an egg, the left side is sealed off. There is still a gap between the rightmost hatchery and the hydralisk den however, and I'm not sure if it's possible to get a larva to that gap to block it, although a lurker egg seals it up nice and good. The extractor is also a little exposed in this one, but if you have mutas it shouldn't be too much of a problem.
I also did similar walls on the natural expansions, prompted by the person above worrying about the nat being targeted instead, but it just occurred to me that you want units to be able to leave your natural, so i'll have to redo those at a later date.
Anyway, I welcome improvements/(constructive)criticism, so let me know what you think. I may do some other popular maps at a later date if I feel like it.
I'd liek to point out that Reach executed the attack TERRIBLY, and is also significantly worse than any opponent he might face at the moment because as a player in the current scene Reach probably wouldn't even be on the practice team if not for his name
i watched the stream and during the fight it looked like reach was afk. he could easily just tell the arhcons to rape the drones and go to the back, it would take about 2 hits worth of time, and he would have done a hell of a lot more damage. instead it appeared he was afk as his archons wandered around the front doing absolutely nothing
I actually watched Reach go in and thought "lol ez win" and then he fucked it up so monumentally I couldn't believe it
On December 18 2008 14:56 RisingTide wrote: Zerg walls are simply the best. Seriously, they make me more excited than a Korean commentator when a scarab is heading towards a probe line.
Anyway, today I was bored and didn't have anything better to do, so I thought to myself, "Geez, Zerg always complain about securing a third gas on Medusa against zeal/archon timing attacks, I wonder if anything similar to this is possible?"
I took 40 minutes to sate my own curiosity, and then decided that I wanted to share it with this community, from which I've lurked so much knowledge! So I made an account and without further adieu I present my Medusa walls:
The evolution chamber is optional. That egg below the main hatchery forces zealots and archons all the way around the extractor to get to sunkens. However, by placing the evolution chamber there, in combination with the egg, the expansion is completely sealed off, meaning the protoss is going to need to hack down a building to get in, which simply wont happen with 3 sunkens and ~10 mutas standing behind.
By using the larva-to-the-left trick on the leftmost hatchery and morphing an egg, the left side is sealed off. There is still a gap between the rightmost hatchery and the hydralisk den however, and I'm not sure if it's possible to get a larva to that gap to block it, although a lurker egg seals it up nice and good. The extractor is also a little exposed in this one, but if you have mutas it shouldn't be too much of a problem.
I also did similar walls on the natural expansions, prompted by the person above worrying about the nat being targeted instead, but it just occurred to me that you want units to be able to leave your natural, so i'll have to redo those at a later date.
Anyway, I welcome improvements/(constructive)criticism, so let me know what you think. I may do some other popular maps at a later date if I feel like it.
Nice walls on Medusa! However, I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that the timing on that "fourth" on Medusa is somewhat later than the third on Destination, so would it be likely to have two hatcheries *and* a den there? Jaedong lost the game before the fourth even came up.
On December 18 2008 15:29 Carefree Me wrote: Nice walls on Medusa! However, I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that the timing on that "fourth" on Medusa is somewhat later than the third on Destination, so would it be likely to have two hatcheries *and* a den there? Jaedong lost the game before the fourth even came up.
That was the game against Tempest right? I'll have to watch that game again to check the timing and teching of it all. I was thinking it may even be possible to place that fourth as a third, before the mineral only round the back, using the same build that Shark did against Reach.
Everyone should always aim to maximize the things they do the most. Good job on spreading the word. It makes logical sense to use your structures in the most effecient and productive ways. Terrans definitely learnt to vs Protoss, some ingenious base layouts on Blue Storm come to mind OO, Zerg should do the same.
On December 18 2008 15:18 parkin wrote: SimCity Zerg nice!
Heh, too much Tetris when I was younger...
Ok, against Tempest, Jaedong went 5-hatch hydra, 2nd at his nat, 3rd at his min only, 4th in his main and 5th at the fourth location (I hope that doesn't just confuse me...) If he went 2nd at nat, 3rd at fourth position, 4th at nat, 5th at fourth position, foregoing the min only until later, then it's possible the buildings would've been up in time to be a wall for a timing attack at around the 8-minute mark (assuming he used his evo chamber to help at his nat). Sunkens may not even be necessary if you place range upgraded hydras behind.
On December 19 2008 06:53 SuperJongMan wrote: Sim City Zerg is sooo gay -_-; We must burn this knowledge. BURN IT. Add in a lurker and a spore and you have invinci-mode.
FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE!
Quit Whining I for one give props to Rising Tide for the walls! I think I'll actually play as zerg o medusa cause of this excitement
On December 19 2008 08:18 Nytefish wrote: I could imagine something like this happening 5 years ago:
"In the future we'll be talking about wall-ins for all races!" "Stop your newbie theorycrafting, thread closed."
"Protoss wall-ins?!? Protoss FAST expansions!?!?! HERETIC!"
Well, it's 40 degrees Celsius here at the moment, so I decided to sit in front of my laptop with a fan pointed at my face and do some more walls because, let's face it, this is more useful than playing tetris.
Nothing new here. This is the same as Shark used against Reach. It requires an egg to be morphed but still allows zealots between the hatch and hydra den.
Morphing that egg there completely seals it off, meaning that zealots and archons have to meander through the drone line to get to the sunkens. The lower sunken should probably be repositioned, don't know where to however.
That sunken sort of has to go in the middle of the drone line, as otherwise a 'toss could hit the gas and far right drones. Otherwise it's a complete seal.
9'o'clock is the annoying step-child of the bunch. It would be perfect except for 2 tiles of buildable ground that creep simply won't spread to, so the second hatch and hydra den have to be swapped around and a little bit of larva positioning has to go on. Shift the second hatchery's larva to the left and leave the main one's to the south and you should be able get one where an egg stops zealot incursions. A third sunken may need to go in the drone line as well.
And did you know that it's possible to kill a larva by timing the building of a building in the direction the larva is crawling? It's similar to crushing a siege tank with a barracks. Also, somehow it's possible to kill 2 larva by grouping 3 with a zealot at 12 on Destination and spamming 's'. I haven't been able to reproduce this however....
Edit: I'd really like suggestions for other maps to do this on, typically ones where holding a third base against a timing attack is difficult.
I think SuperJongMan should post a link to this thread in his PvZ bible translation, putting this as a header: "DaVinci Code". Every zerg on ICCUP should read this! I'm so glad we don't have to resort to something like a 3 hatch lurker/muta build to counter this :D.
Btw, has there been any new developments on countering this archon/+1 speedlot push? Developments on any new maps, new counters, new wall-ins on existing maps, VODs of progamers using this as a counter? Hopefully (or hopefully not) we'll see the toss player in Jaedong's MST group try it. I haven't seen this timing push used since the Jangbi vs Zero match.
ETA: I didn't realize this thread was in the broodwar section and not the strategy section.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d38/dandicedan/sharkwallbefore.jpg)
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I for one give props to Rising Tide for the walls! I think I'll actually play as zerg o medusa cause of this excitement![[image loading]](http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo225/TheRisingTide/Dest12o3rd.png)
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