The Concept Mass Sairs, Mass Lots. Flexible attack for fast 3 gas. Have some sairs around for fun.
The Build
1) Double Nexus - Core Same as any regular double nex, cept you don't get the natural gas.
2) Stargate - Citadel - +2gate (3) - Sair - Speed Up - 1 Cannon in main. *Off 1 gas: Star - Adun - Sair - Sair - Speed Up is possible, but very very tight. Because of the second sair, the leg up can be a little late but it should work out. *1st Sair scouts. *The Cannon in main is for surprise mutas. Since you are massing sairs you should be fine (unless his name is Park Sung Jun)
3) Mass Zealots + 7 sairs + Nat Gas + Archive @ 200 gas. *Zealots take off as soon as they get new legs. *Mass probes and when money allows build an assimilator. *Archive.
The Management -
1) Purpose is to snipe a 3 hatch to scourge zerg build. * The speedy lots hit at about 7:10. A minute faster than the 4 gate 2 archon. The zerg at this time can have about a sunken at every base and some hydra/ling. While it is just speedy zealots, they will still pose a threat. * Moving the speed lots around, the sairs steal OL kills. If Sair/Reaver - the hydra's will move to stop reavers, if Sair/DT, only the DT has to be stopped. When Speed+Sairs, the unit composition of the zerg is off, OLs die, and zealots will still trim down ling/hydra. * Still, it is better to play passive than aggresive. Increase to 5 gate + add templar.
2) Mutalisks! Mutalisks! * Laugh. Too easy. Too easy. * When scouting with the first sair, If a spire and natural gas is up, put 3 cannons @ main. (You don't wanna get scourged all at once and type GG) * Legs finish about when mutas come in. If the zerg did main gas only, even with scourges, the sairs (about 4 now) and cannons shrug this off. * Since they invested in Mutas, Hydras and lings won't be present. When the zealots run into the main, the nail is in the coffin, just hammer it in.
3) No Spire Zerg * Sometimes, Zergs are assholes and just go straight Den. Could be hydras or lurkers. Regardless, the answer's the same. Get less sairs (3-4) but continue harassing OLs. It's hard to stop both sairs and speed lots together with just hydras. * While this goes on, get a fast Archive and prioritize your 3rd Nexus. * Even if a lot of lurkers come, it will be 3-4. Because of sairs, mass lings can't be made (OL def), make sure to proceed nice and carefully and lurker/ling will be hard pressed to crack you. 4) Just a zerg... (Scourge+Hydra) * Get 7 sairs. Group Sairs (Trap a probe with a pylong) and slowly pick off skoji. While playing out the sair/lot. * Get Archives, and Storm, no archons. * Even with mass hydras, zealots can hold. When the zealots are about to give way, Storm should arrive. * Now get 3 base and late game.
That's all for now, simple right?
Sairs+Zealots are easy units to control. You don't need Bisu hands but rather follow your own pace and just take care of your units. Sairs if still kept alive and healthy in count can serve a plethora of uses in other parts of the game. So yeah, that's why passive play in this case is better...
That's all for today. More to come, like a part two and stuff. Maybe tomorrow? Maybe later this week.
Version 2. Stronger Late game, Weaker Timing Attack. You still get corsairs! 1) Double Nexus. Standard ya? 2) After Core - Stargate - Citadel - Nat Gas - +2 Gates - Sair - Speed - Air Up - Zeal/Sair The main difference this and the previous version is the nat gas. [ -_-;; ]. The gas will complete at about the time the stargate completes. As you finally manage to save up some gas, get the templar archive. * No big difference if you get sair+1 or not. When the sair comes out, 1-2 photon in main. * Make zealots and probes through the whole process 3) Templar Archives (3-4 sair timing) - attack - prepare expansion - psi storm The reason it's 3-4 sair timing is because that is when your gas will finally start really flowing. Put the archive down as soon as you don't feel starved on gas. * The purpose of the build isn't really to attack but rather be able to defend with a flexible force while also presenting a threat to the zerg. * Before getting the second expansion, prevent the zerg from getting the 4th base, and if you see space, try to go for some drones or such.
Bastard Zerg - 1) The Standard: 3 hatch - lair - spire - 5 hatch hydras. You're first corsair tells all. Bring him home after the spire's done. The scourges man! * Send the zealots out with speed. The zerg can hold with sunken ling hydra. * NEVER lose these units needlessly. Only when the zerg gets a fast 3rd expo we fully engage. If you think you can get some lings or drones while not taking damage, go for it. We can't lose zealots by the magu. It's 5 hatch vs 3 gate. Of course we get pushed if we lose these guys.
As your zealots commando their way around, set up your 2nd expo. Photo+Zealots can hold a lot. After holding, 8 gateway POWAaaa. Ofc you gather up your hanbang and go from there. The whole purpose of the build here is the lategame 3 base hanbang. 2) Slow Mutas: 3 Hatch - Lair - Spire 4 Hatch w/ Nat Gas - Muta & Scourge This is what zealot sair kills best. When muta/scourge come, 3-4 sairs make defence easy. * The focus here is the speedy lots. When the zergs mutas come, These guys are sent to run amuck the zerg base.
Because the mutas are out, zerg has no.. blah blah, part 1. In the chaos of the drones are running around, zealots acting like headless chicken, and mutas killing zealots - take your sairs (6+) and calmly dispatch the skoji (use the zealots to help find where in the base they are). If this is done, mutas are ez.
Anyways, the zerg's still at 4hatch+ at this stage so don't mass too many speed zealots but get your 2nd expo ready sooner. In this case, the zerg and toss are at the same base count, toss has taken no damage, zerg has sairs and drone damage to worry about and the game practically plays itself. 3) Hydra Lurker: 3 Hatch Lair - Den - 5 Hatch * Cut corsairs, about 3. * Cancel Legs, get archive. Get Dts. As you try to harass with this mini sair/dt, gather storms. * Don't expand and get robotics and gateways instead. We have to gather up a 2 base hanbang =(.
There isn't a real easy way to necksnap the Hydra Lurker through management. Just use your dragoons and high templar well. And by well, I mean like, really really well. Like, at least 10 times better than you usually play. It won't be easy but it's not impossible. Storms are gonna be key here. Center fight well, but it'll feel pretty gay, like old 3 hatch hydra waves, and feeling short on storms... 1.07... ~_~ NO NO! 4) 2 Hatch Muta - 2 Hatch Hydra You messed up man. Scout better. If your corsair is what sees this, it's too late. * Like all zerg all ins, hold and win.
Vs Muta - Cannon whichever stargate your nexus is at. Actually, go ahead and cannon everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Gather sairs, if you hold, you win -_-;; if you fail, you ... failed.
Vs Hydra - Use probes and hold, and if you hold with probes, this build cleans up rather well. The 3 gate Zealots help holding a lot and as time goes, legs will also finish. In this scenario, a hydra vs speed up zeal fight actually favorites the zealots due to the count and zergs production. If you can get to this scenario without crippling damage, GJ on your win.
Stork vs Yellow - Batoo Regames. Stork vs July - Batoo Regames. The games have the same builds but Stork vs July, July's immense pressure makes Stork fumble his build. Also Jangbi used this somewhere vs Firefist or so in winner's league on RH but he lost to a chogoling all in so... .. so......
... i've never seen a pro do this before. is this a popular build? could you possibly link to a replay or VOD of this working? nice guide though. as always your work is great. praying that i don't encounter this (if it works) in the future.
Yes, it's a common Samsung build actually. Jangbi and Stork used it a lot. Also there's a lot of discussion and a whole pt. 2 (variation) that will be done soon. Not tonight.
And I wouldn't share but anything but up-to-date PvZ builds and tactics. I mean, why would I want a zerg to win?
On March 30 2009 12:30 Dromar wrote: Am I right that there's no +1 in this build?
Yes that's right. There is the 3 gate zeal speed rush with +1 but that build skips the stargate and sairs altogether. I don't think it's very viable nowadays on most maps but when Longinus was motw on ICCUP I was using it there.
On March 30 2009 12:30 Dromar wrote: Am I right that there's no +1 in this build?
Yes that's right. There is the 3 gate zeal speed rush with +1 but that build skips the stargate and sairs altogether. I don't think it's very viable nowadays on most maps but when Longinus was motw on ICCUP I was using it there.
Really? I guess that explains why I don't PvZ haha. I thought it was still standard.
If the zerg sees that you haven't even started your second gas by the time your corsair is out won't he just take a quick 4th base and do a muta heavy build (or just pure mutas)? Last I checked the only build that shut down mutas was 2 stargate sairs and this is just 1 stargate with no +1 air attack.
Also if you guys go to the original korean thread there are two replays of this specific build at the top. So for the ones asking about +1, the answer appears to be you just don't get it until you break off of the opening BO.
I have a questions about '3) Mass Zealots + 7 sairs + Nat Gas + Archive @ 200 gas.'
Does that mean to take your natural gas after you have 7 sairs? If you are making just sairs and not other gas units then you'll get a surplus of gas after a while. Is that when you make the templar archives so when your able to make the templar archives you take your gas? I just don't understand when you get templar archives with this build.
Edit: I watched one of the replays attached and after 4 sairs he got second gas and then after 6 sairs he got templar archives.
Sounds viable @ lower levels. Though the whole build seems a tad risky, if you don't do much damage with the initial zealots, and corsairs get sniped by scourge early on (it's only 1 stargate so it's not like there are that many corsairs to reinforce), I would say it's really rough to come back. Are you planning on taking a second expansion with this build order? If so how do you plan on defending it without storm? Pure cannons don't work vs hydras. If the zerg survives the initial attack, the common hydra/lurk, or mass muta + scourge would destroy this strat, all zerg needs to do is scout with a scourge to see the army composition.
This seems like more of a 2 base, all-in attack, similar to the heavy zealot + a shuttle w/2 reavers + some corsairs timing attack, except with a faster timing attack of course. Probably still viable though, would like to see some reps.
@ Those people who are not saying this is viable or its only good at low levels
The 2 reps attached to the post @ pgr are against 2 different zergs. One of them was B- with good stats and the other (who was also Korean) was B+ last season with good stats. Its viable against high level zergs.
+1 Speed Zeal is pretty good on maps where the third's wide open (Long and Tau are pretty good choices) and you'd be surprised how often you can do a run into the Zerg's main which is insta death.
I love how PGR21 does strategy with reps. Seems oh so logical.
that definitely doesn't look like it. i've watched it before and skimmed through it just now but bisu got his archives much faster and got templars (both high and dark) out early before he pushed. heck if anything it looked more like the +1 speedlot and archon push.
On March 30 2009 11:44 SuperJongMan wrote: * When scouting with the first sair, If a spire and natural gas is up, put 3 cannons @ main. (You don't wanna get scourged all at once and type GG)
From a Zerg point of view, that's pretty good advice. Damn.
What Zerg opening puts Zerg in the best position against this build?
Any strategy where you do nearly the same thing regardless of what you scout isn't very good.
Sometimes, Zergs are assholes and just go straight Den.
If you see this, this is not the build you want to be stuck with, it is possible to win sure, but you're at a disadvantage. When will this kind of thing be scouted, and what other builds could you move in the direction of if that happened?
*Off 1 gas: Star - Adun - Sair - Sair
How many zealots will you have by this time? It seems like if you scout them and they're being aggressive you'll want to prioritize things other than star sair sair.
What's the point of writing a guide if you ask me questions it answers? Ofc being stuck with just zealots isn't good vs mass hydras but it's not so hard to hold with goon templar. and get a 3rd. The build was displayed by Stork in batoo re-games. I dunno, you want me to write the guide again so you can try reading it?
imo this build is designed if the zerg goes heavy mutalisk. most of the progamer maps have chokes and high ground that's going to stop zealots cold if zerg is prepared for it by blocking entrance.
there's a game in which stork owned jaedong with it in the wcg, when jd assumed stork was building mass corsairs.
a game recently, Nony vs. F91, check out the 1st game in which zealots failed.
Some people just don't understand there is no ultimate strategy to adapt to everything opponent does and still have an advantage or at least be on par. It's 11 years today guys. This guide is very viable and is even more so when you know your opponent well.
I still don't understand why so many people think this build is good vs mutalisks. Corsairs can do very little against mutalisk-scourge, especially without +1 until you have like 7-8 and even at that point its still all dependant on micro. And by the time you have that many corsairs the zerg will either have gone very mutalisk heavy and have like 15 which you proably won't be able to stop without perfect micro, or he will have already transitioned completely into something else. For instance, if you watch savior vs best on colosseum from a few months ago savior is not only able to defend easily vs like 7 +1 sairs with 10 mutas and scourge, but he was nearly able to break best's nat against it. And it wasn't any gosu muta micro, all he did was send in mutas first and clone scourge, not the hardest of things to do (although not the easiest).
The guide says to make 3 cannons and defend with 4 corsairs while you go on a split up suicide attempt to damage him with speedlots, but what if the zerg just defends? Even if he only has like 7-8 mutas by the time you have 4 sairs because he got his second gas after his 5th hatch then lings+sunks is still good to prevent you from running around as his small number of mutalisks kills your zealots because they don't even have +1 to clear through the lings at a good speed . Then it says afterwards that the attack actually comes at 6 corsairs and that you somehow find his scourge with your zealots and easily pick them off before battling his mutalisks? I just don't understand how that is realistic at all.
Of course it depends on if the zerg actually does this. But the point of the 3 hatch spire build is that the only time the zerg doesn't see exactly what you are doing is the time between when he suicides an overlord as your first sair pops out and when his scourge are out. With this build 2 gates go down as the stargate builds which he should see. And even if he doesn't then he can see that you have no +1 air attack going at your core, and no second gas or robo at your nat and will obviously go mutalisks. In the event that the zerg mindlessly goes 5 hatch hydra against mass speedlots then great, but in that case you could have just gone +1 speedlots after your first corsair and probably would have worked even better.
You say that Stork used this and won in the batoo regames and after watching that Vod he obviously did. But as was 99% expected, yarnc saw a build with only 1 gas and went mutalisks. And the guide claims in both parts that mutalisks are so easy to deal with. Yet stork was not only unable to do anything with his zealots but he could barely defend his gateways. Yarnc ended up doing minimal damage and stork managed to just barely morph an archon, while yarcn left with half his mutas dead and the other half almost dead, putting this build in the best possible position vs any zerg that doesn't suck at scouting and as such stork was not ahead, he just wasn't behind. For the next 10 mins of the game it is pretty much stork contained with a 3 bases vs a 4 base Z with even supply and managed to come out on top in a somewhat even game. Had stork not had a free 3rd base to take while he was contained he would have almost certainly have lost anyways.
So now I guess that it makes this build decent on maps in which you have a free 3rd base like medusa and andromeda, and Bisu has used the "part 2" of this build to great effect on andro and medusa from what I see and won pretty much every game easily as it appears closer to a normal build and so the zergs tried to transition into 6 hatch hydra with 4 bases, so I guess its hard to argue against it there. But also in the case of stork vs yarnc, stork managed to sneak a probe into yarncs base and so he knew the build was able to work. However if he had not, then this is a build you pretty much have to start doing before your sair scouts his base. Had yarnc done the ever so popular 3 hatch lurker into 5 hatch hydralurk to break the temples on medusa then wtf would this build have done? Zealots suck against lurks and can't even be used for suicide as zerg has only 1 choke to his 3 bases and corsairs sure aren't going to stop it. Without reavers or storm the only thing this build can really do is get a crapload of cannons at both chokes and get a really delayed storm with a very low gas build against a giant containment build. Goodluck with that. I know you have added that the build isn't some dominate PvZ build but it seems to think that it works great vs no matter what the zerg does as it includes everything the zerg can do in the guide, making it seem like it can be used all the time.
So from what I see this is a very good build on Medusa if you know what the zerg is doing, and Andromeda. However the guide doesn't say that and whoever wrote it doesn't seem to think that at all. It's not like I completely disagree with this guide and thanks for taking the time to translate it. It just annoys me that everyone thinks this is so great and then some people post videos of completely different openings claiming that the build is awesome. But mostly I just took the time to write this because the severe underestimation of mutalisks against the "Bisu" build is really bugging me.
Its good vs mutas because mutas cant do anything at all to harm the protoss unless the zerg gets rather lucky with the scourge or theres no more than a single cannon.
Splitting your forces is the best way to deal damage vs a muta zerg because he wont have many lings and you arent waiting for the +1 either so this speedzeal attack is coming at a pretty decent time. Going above 11 mutas vs corsairs is just suicide because you just cant compete in mutaling production as he can in corsair/zeal/archon. and its much harder for the zerg to micro mutas than its for the protoss to micro corsairs, especially when theres an archon nearby.
Best and most standard build on andromeda is corsairs with speedshuttle reaver to take that island quick into standard play or even carriers.
On April 01 2009 10:14 Cloud wrote: Its good vs mutas because mutas cant do anything at all to harm the protoss unless the zerg gets rather lucky with the scourge or theres no more than a single cannon.
Splitting your forces is the best way to deal damage vs a muta zerg because he wont have many lings and you arent waiting for the +1 either so this speedzeal attack is coming at a pretty decent time. Going above 11 mutas vs corsairs is just suicide because you just cant compete in mutaling production as he can in corsair/zeal/archon. and its much harder for the zerg to micro mutas than its for the protoss to micro corsairs, especially when theres an archon nearby.
Best and most standard build on andromeda is corsairs with speedshuttle reaver to take that island quick into standard play or even carriers.
I don't get how skipping +1 makes the rush any faster. With a +1 rush your +1 finishes at the earliest possible time zealot leg can finish, so its basically just doing a +1 rush which is pretty much agreed as being bad vs 3 hatch spire but this gets an insignificant number of corsairs with the rush. And yes, obviously going above 11 mutas is risky against hardcore corsair builds but you can just get like 11 and transition into something else. But even so going above 11 isn't THAT bad. Even against normal 2 gas builds it has shown time and time again that they don't "counter" mutalisk builds. In 1 game recently on chupung (i forget the players) a zerg delayed the P's 3rd for like 3 mins whent he P had like 5 sairs and 2 archons (or I might be mixxing up 2 different games with similairish builds?). July completely ranover jangbi with them in the race war, but I guess jangbi suicided 3 corsairs so that isn't the best of examples. There have games recently where they just go mutas and transition straight into ultras (although they lose in the late game) and never seem to have problems killing stuff and defending fine with the mutas. And last year savior won like 3 games vs normal 2 gas builds making nothing but mutalisks all game, showing that you can keep up mutaling production vs archon+sair builds that have even normal gas timings while defending 5 bases. Jaedong also did it vs Much on athena showing that you don't even need more than 3 gas to do so (although that was goon-da-storm).
Obviously those are progamers and no one else has similair muta micro but I'm not saying get more than a dozen mutas vs those builds. But when you start bringing in B level players and above and claiming it works you obviously need to talk about people who have at least decent mutalisk micro. And its not like the zerg just screams "I'm going mutalisks!" they get them right after the scourge chase the first sairs away which is viable against this build as the speedlot rush is delayed by about the same ammount of time due to getting the stargate before citadel. I guess because P is determined to do a corsair build anyways that part doesn't matter, but the main point is just he can't get both corsairs and archons off of 1 gas. The build can't even afford +1 air or ground attack, the ground which is needed eventually, let alone make enough archons to matter at a reasonable timing. And the templar archives is so late that your 4th base will already be saturated and have transitioned into probably hydralisks by the time he can get 2 archons out to fight the mutas. At least I think, I have played against a lot of similair builds but none exactly like this.
Skipping the +1 makes it faster because the citadel and therefore leg speed is faster (the 2nd gas only affects templar archives).
And im pretty sure all games where zerg opens mutas are when the toss makes no more than 1 or 2 corsairs or any at all, because you dont make mutas when the stargate keeps blinking because for one, a muta opening is rather easily scouted and if you mass drones they wont be in time and if you cut drones, making sunkens + lings is painfully expensive if the toss has speedzeals.
Usually you see pros switching to mutas far into midgame after they have really thinned corsair numbers with scourges and making more corsairs is not affordable because its critical to secure with hts that 4th (or even 3rd) for the protoss and zerg has already a pretty sizeable hydra army.
For a vod on how mutas can go really wrong even if properly timed vs a sair build watch jaedong vs bisu on neo harmony.
In Jaedong vs bisu, Jaedong made his mutas immediatly after his spire was done and his second gas unfinished at that point. Then he lost all his mutas trying to break cannons with like 5 mutalisks and no scourge for some reason and then instead of transitioning into hydras he made like 10 more mutas that did nothing and then he didn't even have hydra speed by the time 2 archons were out and at his nat. And there have been plenty of games where Z purposely makes mutas vs corsair builds (although they don't always win, they aren't behind because of it): Yarnc vs Stork on medusa, as already described, savior vs best on collo, haran vs best on chupung with a few other games I don't remember, like half the games on blue storm, July vs Jangbi on harmony, Luxury vs Jangbi on Carthage, July vs some toss on andro, and I think bisu vs zero? (I just remember bisu losing like 5 sairs to scourge at the end of the game).
According to the guide the speedlots hit at 7:10. Just taking the timing from the recent TL rep of infernal vs I_wish_you at 6:45 he has 3 fully saturated bases, a sunken, a hydra den, 5 hatches, and still has enough money for 8 mutalisks along with his scourge that are already out. So if you cut the hydra den out and a few drones you can still have lings at your nat to stop a runby if he splits them in half. And in one of the reps of this build the attack actually hits at 7:30. In the one on colo it hits at 7:20 and he leaves his base right before 7 mins. However in that rep he made 1 cannon at his choke, 1 at his main, and none at his nat. Thats really cutting it tight to get the zeals out even that early which is a little later than the guide describes.
I cant remember every single game you posted but the ones i do remember the zerg winning, the protoss never had more than 2 corsairs at the time the mutas arrived at their base.
And as for the infernal rep, yes he had the money for mutas but other upgrades had bigger priorities and the mutas ended up coming much later than 7:10 and being useful a bit later than 8:00
This build isn't really the "holy grail of PvZ" like the zeal+2 archon push that SJM published earlier. It's a strong build, but I feel it's more to give secure you a third and help your transition into later game than it is to outright kill a zerg. It definitely has some weaknesses, but at the same time, some strengths too. It's just another build to add to your list of builds.
EPT
