EPTHey guys, its MY first post on this site. My first first post was stolen by my friend when i left my computer on :[
How sad.
Some of you might recognize me from the WCG Qualifiers, I sat around the channel and had some pretty nice discussions with a few of you.
Or as the poor sap that was always paired against G5 or Luckyfool
Few things to note:
Due to college apps, a new girlfriend and the Intel Science Talent Search,
-I don’t have the time to mass game iccup so I just goof off on iccup against my C/C+ ranked friends
-I don’t keep track of proleague trends, in fact only 2 weeks ago was I beat by 3 hatch spire 5 hatch hydra
-I hate long games because I lack the practice to have good macro
That being said, I am in no way your typical Protoss player.
So one day, while taking an extremely wasteful 50 minute shower I was thinking up a starcraft build to use for the TSL.
It would have to be extremely straight forward, extremely easy to pull off macrowise, fun to do so I don’t get bored and end up on Modern Warfare 2
And most importantly…
Is a cheese
-The idea behind the build-
Reaver sair is good on a few maps, namely andromeda and on cross positions python and destination
Coincidentally, all of these maps have a relatively easy 3rd gas to obtain… It’s either on a friggen island or has a really neat bridge infront of it where a good sim city + reavers can massacre 40 hydralisks. (for the sake of simplicity, I’ll be referring to your 3rd base as an “island” for the remainder of this guide)
The build is designed to look like reaver sair for the most part, that is until the first pair of scourge die
The build is also designed to not have any openings to any cheeses because it is based off of the Forge FE
-The Build-
I hate having to give you guys psi/max psi counts (e.g. 8/9 pylon)
Why? Because it’s the forge FE. You could be doing 13 forge 13 nex, 14 nex, 12 nex, 11 forge 12 double cannon and 14 nexus
The point is, there’s a lot of different possible openings, it’ll be kinda hard to write down
So bear with me while I give you relative timings and a brief summary of what you have at a certain key point in the game.
1) The super duper early game!
You start off your basic forge FE with the objective of getting a second nexus as fast as possible without dying
If you have the opportunity to gateway first (lucky scout or you’re playing on colosseum 2), do so!
As soon as your gateway is making that pwwwwinngggg noise (warping in), take a gas!
[What you should have: 1-4 cannons, 1 gateway, 2 nex, 1 zealot, 1 forge]
2) The kinda sorta maybe early midgame
When your core is finished take the second gas
Get a stargate and then a robo facility
Make 1 corsair and try to keep it alive as long as possible
Start making a second corsair a few seconds after the second one (shuttles are expensive! :/ )
Take the island expansion as your 3rd gas and use the standard “make robo support bay when the shuttle is 50%” thing to get yourself your first reaver and add cannons. You want to have around 8 so you look like you’re dedicated to reaver sair.
[1 shuttle, 3 nexii, 1 reaver, 1 zealot, 4-8 cannon in nat, 2 cannon in main, 1 stargate, 1 core (upgrading air attack), 1 forge, 1 robo support bay, 1 robo facility]
3) The zerg begins to spam 5sh6sh7sh8sh9sh time!
After the first reaver is done and 8 probes are transferred to your island, cut probe production in the first two nexii in order to produce 4 more stargates and a fleet beacon (wait 10 seconds after scout speed to start making scouts so they finish at appropriate times).
You want 2 reavers in your front and 1 reaver in your island shortly after that
Oh and get a scout with your original stargate
Note: It is crucial you do not let your 3rd gas fall. Fill every little bit of room on your island with cannons
Get an observatory and start making a few observers so you can see possible incoming dropships to your island or extremely vulnerable main
[1 shuttle, 3 nexii, 3 reaver, 1 zealot, 8 cannon in nat, 2 cannon in main, 6-10 cannon in island, 5 stargate, 1 core, 1 fleet beacon, 1 forge, 1 robo support bay, 1 robo facility, 1 observatory, 1 scout]
4) The dude caught on to you so he’s now taking a 4th and 5th base
If he isn’t doing that, he’s bad at this game
Do not push out until you have 11 scouts.
Note: 1 scout + 5 scouts + 5 scouts = 11 scouts!!!
From then on out you keep pumping scouts and attempt to get the other island, or a reasonably safe 4th base with 2 more reavers sitting ontop of the ramp or whatever.
If you do get a 4th base you get 3 more stargates
If its andromeda you can add 1 more stargate when you get your min only
It’s up to you whether or not you want to switch into a ground army after you’ve decimated enough of the drones and overlords. In fact, you already have 5 reavers ready to push with a bunch of dragoons and templars. It’s a pretty shaky transition but hey it kinda works
[1 shuttle, 3-4 nexii, 3-5 revers, 1 zealot, 8 cannon in nat, 2-6 cannon in main, 6-10 cannon in island, 5-9 stargate, 1 core, 1 fleet beacon, 1 forge, 1 robo support bay, 1 robo facility, 1 observatory, 11 scouts]
-The control-
Scouts with speed are pretty darn annoying…
11 scouts with +1 attack stacked with a probe (probes cant fly so why don’t you pick one from your island?) can 1 shot kill hydralisks
and 1 shot kill overlords
and 1 shot kill drones
and take down any creep colony that started to warp to a spore colony before it becomes a spore colony
22 scouts can freely engage 4 spore colonies and take minimal losses
Try not to engage hydralisks as they do a lot of damage in critical mass. Rather just fly around and starve the zerg out by making him remake drones and overlords.
The micro vs scourge is simple.
I’m sure most of you guys know of the ZvZ Muta vs Scourge Patrol trick where you use patrol to shoot while flying when you’re 2 matrices away from the scourge
Well scouts have a longer range than mutas do so you have even more space to use the Patrol trick.
-Why this build isn’t absolute crap?-
Any early game cheese or break will not get through because the strength of the Forge FE is defense.
Most people have little practice vs scouts and therefore will underestimate their strength.
That is, scouts can take one hell of a beating and if you have shield batteries they’re gonna last oh so much longer.
-Possible counters?-
If they go 2 hatch muta they’ll run into 2 cannons and 2 corsairs
If they go some crazy muta tech switch, im pretty sure 2-6 cannon and 11 scouts will beat 20 muta
Lurker drop? Reavers + obs + scouts
Hydra drop? Unless it is SUPER SUPER SUPER early, you’ll have map control and be able to kill all the ovies before the hydras are done
Ultraling? You’re funny
They need some clutch plagues to win, and usually people will have just finished hive tech by the time you attack. Use your observers to scout out their tech, this is crucial.
If there are defilers, you must be more careful
-The beauty of this build-
YOU CAN HAVE TERRIBLE MACRO AND STILL PULL THIS OFF BECAUSE SCOUTS TAKE FOREVER TO BUILD
I spend most of my time watching the scouts I’m microing
Whenever I see my gas pile up to 600 or something I go back to my stargates and make another round. And even then they end up queued.
Game winning scenario!
[22-33 scouts destroying every hatchery, drone, overlord, whatever. 3-5 bases (including main and natural), 5-12 stargates pumping scouts OR 12+ gateways pumping ground, 5+ reavers in defense or being dropped to be annoying, the rest of the buildings I named before (its not as important as what I already listed)]
I would love to post some replays, but I don’t have access to my computer right now. In fact I should be taking notes during History class.
