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Hello dudes and dudettes,
I was going over some VoDs this weekend and found an interesting game from week 1 of this year's KCM Race Survival - Best vs Zero on Retro.
VoD with Timestamp
Now Best had a rough start which resulted in a weird strategy I haven't seen so far. Sadly my understanding of BW isn't yet good enough to come up with it on my own, and my Korean isn't yet good enough to understand whether the casters went over it, so I thought I'd ask here:
Best went up vs a relatively standard Hatch first 3 Hatch Spire into 5 Hatch Muta/Hydra build, while playing Gate FE. If I didn't miss anything in the VoD, he went for an extremely fast Citadel after the SG, even before the first Sair, and way before +1. He stopped Corsair production after 2 iirc, and made 3 DTs in total, first one to harass, the others made a Dark Archon. After that he went into a quick Maelstrom and several "regular" Archons.
Now for my actual questions:
1) Is this a standalone build similar to 4 Gate 2 Archon or was it reactive and something "triggered" Best to go into this strategy?
2) If it was reactive, what would you guys say was the thing that actually made him go for it?
My first thought was that since he lost his Sairs so early, he knew that he couldn't get Air superiority back without a ton of luck, and the fast Maelstrom + Archon Splash would be a "compromise" of being able to catch clumps of Mutalisks without being completely useless against the inevitable Hydra followup (as for example, throwing down a 2nd SG and trying to play catchup would). But the extremely fast Citadel made me discard that idea again, it really looked like at least the early DT/Dark Archon was pre-planned.
I'd really appreciate any sort of input on this, be that someone who speaks Korean listening to the cast to see if they explain the idea; or someone who knows other pro games where this strategy was played; or even just your own ideas and thoughts about the game. Thanks in advance already!
Edit: Forgot the [H] in the title, sorry!
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it was reactive, he messed up his bisu build timing/the zealot poke, lost the 3 sairs for free, lost zealots too. there is no time to get sairs back the mutas are already out/almost out. he sees the hydra den being built, the 2nd gas running, he already had a dt ready to go to 12. so only option is canon/archons/DA and then gateways to try and stay on the map.
Commentators say at 7:30 that he messed up, and then a bit later after the first maelstrom on the hydras than zerg needs to mess up something, like falling behind in upgrades, for best to recover. The citadel doesnt look that weird, like yeah it s not directly a 7 30 timing since no sair +1 and the +1 zealot is a tad late, so instead it s a fast(er) archive build, probably timed for the dt/sair harass of the 3rd that he fails to do (the bisu build) and then he adapts after that, knowing the hydra den timing and that the spire is already out and finished (since scourges are out in big numbers).
That is my personal opinion and the commentators do not comment on the opening that much aside from saying that sair/dt attempt to hit 12 is very risky with the amount of scourges already out (and then best proceeds to lose all sairs, caster curse right there ^^)
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On April 18 2023 05:53 WGT-Baal wrote:
it was reactive, he messed up his bisu build timing/the zealot poke, lost the 3 sairs for free, lost zealots too. there is no time to get sairs back the mutas are already out/almost out. he sees the hydra den being built, the 2nd gas running, he already had a dt ready to go to 12. so only option is canon/archons/DA and then gateways to try and stay on the map.
Commentators say at 7:30 that he messed up, and then a bit later after the first maelstrom on the hydras than zerg needs to mess up something, like falling behind in upgrades, for best to recover. The citadel doesnt look that weird, like yeah it s not directly a 7 30 timing since no sair +1 and the +1 zealot is a tad late, so instead it s a fast(er) archive build, probably timed for the dt/sair harass of the 3rd that he fails to do (the bisu build) and then he adapts after that, knowing the hydra den timing and that the spire is already out and finished (since scourges are out in big numbers).
That is my personal opinion and the commentators do not comment on the opening that much aside from saying that sair/dt attempt to hit 12 is very risky with the amount of scourges already out (and then best proceeds to lose all sairs, caster curse right there ^^)
I see, so how does the fast Maelstrom fit into all of this? Since he knew the Hydras were on their way already, wouldn't the standard reaction be to get Storm ASAP? I get that Maelstrom is a quick upgrade, but it's still quite a delay if you also take into account that his first HTs aren't able to bank energy, since he needed Archons to help defend
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On April 19 2023 23:28 WinstonBlack wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2023 05:53 WGT-Baal wrote:
it was reactive, he messed up his bisu build timing/the zealot poke, lost the 3 sairs for free, lost zealots too. there is no time to get sairs back the mutas are already out/almost out. he sees the hydra den being built, the 2nd gas running, he already had a dt ready to go to 12. so only option is canon/archons/DA and then gateways to try and stay on the map.
Commentators say at 7:30 that he messed up, and then a bit later after the first maelstrom on the hydras than zerg needs to mess up something, like falling behind in upgrades, for best to recover. The citadel doesnt look that weird, like yeah it s not directly a 7 30 timing since no sair +1 and the +1 zealot is a tad late, so instead it s a fast(er) archive build, probably timed for the dt/sair harass of the 3rd that he fails to do (the bisu build) and then he adapts after that, knowing the hydra den timing and that the spire is already out and finished (since scourges are out in big numbers).
That is my personal opinion and the commentators do not comment on the opening that much aside from saying that sair/dt attempt to hit 12 is very risky with the amount of scourges already out (and then best proceeds to lose all sairs, caster curse right there ^^) I see, so how does the fast Maelstrom fit into all of this? Since he knew the Hydras were on their way already, wouldn't the standard reaction be to get Storm ASAP? I get that Maelstrom is a quick upgrade, but it's still quite a delay if you also take into account that his first HTs aren't able to bank energy, since he needed Archons to help defend
well (again, personal scrub opinion) Best at this stage must first of all not insta die to mutas. As you say he must get an archon (possibly 2) off his first ht, so the fact storm research is after maelstorm isnt an issue because he is not going to have ht with energy anyway (mutas would just snipe those, then it s gg). Hydra upgrades are going to be a bit late too since it was spire first so that s some time there to survive the muta and put some pressure on the map before hydra are mass produced and upgraded (force hydras/units, less drones). I believe this is why he moves out with archon da goons and a few zealots when he does and stays to fight by maelstroming the hydras and hitting mutas with the dragoons, he needs to buy time
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On April 20 2023 02:21 WGT-Baal wrote:
well (again, personal scrub opinion) Best at this stage must first of all not insta die to mutas. As you say he must get an archon (possibly 2) off his first ht, so the fact storm research is after maelstorm isnt an issue because he is not going to have ht with energy anyway (mutas would just snipe those, then it s gg). Hydra upgrades are going to be a bit late too since it was spire first so that s some time there to survive the muta and put some pressure on the map before hydra are mass produced and upgraded (force hydras/units, less drones). I believe this is why he moves out with archon da goons and a few zealots when he does and stays to fight by maelstroming the hydras and hitting mutas with the dragoons, he needs to buy time
Aye, that makes sense. Glad I at least somewhat judged the game right as a scrub myself :D Thanks a lot for the input!
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EPT
