The PiG Daily - Thinking critically about SC - Page 7

VoDs:

Vs Maru Frozen temple:
Vs Reality Ulrena:

Good build for aggressive maps
The fast carapace makes roaches incredibly efficient vs marines, and lings able to survive a tank blast.
Terran will scout the lack of a 3rd and be afraid of an all-in and might over-react
It crushes Terran aggression
People are having a very tough timing scouting zerg thoroughly, and instead count on a few pokes to check 3rd base timing, as well as a few timings or hard pressures to show what the zerg’s up to.
Makes it really hard to verify how they should react.

RUN THROUGH THE OPENING

17 pool
17 hatch
18 1:12-1:15 gas
Straight to 3 queens
46 - evo chamber (just before saturation) → carapace
48 - roach warren (just after 2-base mineral saturation)
3:40 - 2xgas ~48 supply
4th queen
@RW - 4-8 roaches for safety
~4:30 Lair
~60-75 3rd base (When you have money for it without pausing your production much.

Stay single evo all game - RAVE ABOUT THIS
Add 4th gas
Steadily drone 3rd, even before it’s up start droning it
Infestation→ Hive → Ultra cavern

Vs tankivac opening adjustment
After carapace starts, begin overlord speed and extra queen production
Use a 3-queen overlord drop to defend the tankivac
Just use some speedlings as extra support rather than roaches
Go drop 8 lings in their main since you’ve got ovie speed!

Infestors or bane drops?

You don’t have gas for both
Choose if you prefer fungal to combo with your bile, or bane drops to put pressure back on and pull your opponent’s attention home

Still is played out as a Hive rush heading for ultras, but get’s there in a very different way.

LOAD REPLAY VS JOSH GOING ULTRA/Hive

Show snippet of VoD showing bane drops from losira

Show replay vs josh going to ultras/hive

Show snippet of VoD showing

Build Order

Zest is where the build may have originated from, and he does it damned well:

Benchmark: 7:30 - 8 sentries, 10 stalkers, 8 zealots (lots of lings so +1 zealots rock)

Oracle
Double oracle
4-6 adept timing
Robo, twilight + forge
Stalker-Sentry
~7:30 stalker sentry timing
HIT BEFORE LURKERS!
Force ravagers
Deny 4th base
Pick off units
2nd robo + immortal production
Option to go charge, archon, OR disruptor


9:40 -
Your aim is to stay on the map and keep on controlling chokes etc.
Lurkers can’t push into an army well as they take time to burrow, so you can snipe them off
You can delay a push until you have your counter up
This game no delay! Lurkers get in a great spot - especially for this map
On SEJONG you might want to just yolo their back rocks to threaten and keep them back, as the angles are so awkward to defend. You can buy a lot of time.
It’s just a bit dangerous if you get surrounded/flanked by lurkers


Potential counters

Drop the toss at 6:30-7:00 with some small ling/roach squads to buy valuable time
Good creep spread
Engage far out to waste FF
Need 4-5 ravagers to break FF
Try to avoid massing ravagers - too useless later on in the game

Basetrade

13:00 - great retreat by showtime abandoning the 4th and going for huge counters
Maybe disruptors would have avoided this situation being front on
However this map is so good for multiprong aggression - disruptors are very hard to control in those situations
Real issue was getting pushed so far back into bad spots and THEN going for the big counterattacks - getting those started earlier would have changed everything

Alternate defence: <-- defending with queen/ling/spine
^Probably doesn’t work on some maps/or vs the very best pros. Not sure if it works vs the proxy

Apotheosis

Immediate scv crosses the map
No scv production
14seconds - 2nd scv crosses (this is a very long rush map)
16s - add 1 scv
Barracks + gas asp
@150 minerals 2nd barracks
Add 2 scvs
@100% rax - 3rd rax + reaper
2nd gas
NO ORBITAL
@100% 2nd rax - scv goes to build bunker
Total of 15 scvs

Micro:
Always aim to lose 0 reapers
Focus fire as much as possible
Grenades to zone
Also to punish retreating units
Let some units come forward and knock back the other ones
Knock queens/roaches off creep so you can snipe them
Rotate to abuse the ramp
Whenever they’re forced to engage on that ramp you can abuse them

Reaction:
Perfect early response from Snute
Immediate roach warren
Lings dance back and forth on creep to buy time
Dodge bombs

Later response messed up
Tanked too many bombs
No need to chase the reapers off creep just have to keep buying time and dodging bombs
Vs this super fast proxy version it’s ok to build a spine or two to help support if you’re gas starved. Extra queens is ok too.
Once you start losing units it can spiral very fast

Frozen temple free win!



Now the non-proxy version vs Elazer/violet

Replay vs violet galactic process

Standard barracks gas
17 2nd rax
18 3rd rax
20 2nd gas
Orbital after 2nd reaper starts
Just 1 more scv produced after orbital until CC goes down this game - but often adds 1-2 more during all this.

The extra economy from the constant scv production at the start makes a huge difference.

~4:00/12 reapers - tech lab + factory + 2xreactors
Straight into starport for double medivac marine stim pressure
5:20/57 supply - 2xebay
6:00/70 supply - 3rd gas
85 supply/7:00/as you push out - 3rd CC
Steadily add armoury, 2xrax, and then 3xrax as you have the money

Hit with stim medivacs to keep up pressure and multiprong with the reapers for potentially devastating damage

Response:

Elazer builds too many lings, interrupting his drones too much
Doesn’t drone after them either - sitting on 22 drones for wayyyyy 2 long - should have saturated his natural fully before roaches.

Most of this show was planned in my head so not many notes.

Prism Counterattack PvT - shutting down aggression and keeping Terran on the backfoot

This is a very specific response to gas-first pressure expands where the Terran usually hits a very sharp pressure at 4:00, sometimes from 2 directions whilst expanding behind it. Due to the fast factory + starport, unit production (rather than infrastructure) and fast expand - the Terran will struggle very hard if you 1) Shut down his pressure and 2) counter-attack with a warp prism immediately.

Not an all-in, but you can choose to all-in off it and it’s very hard to stop.

Even just as a middling pressure you can always find some damage, put on huge pressure and pin the Terran back for a long time whilst you head for a slightly delayed macro transition.

2 parts

Part 1 - defending whatever comes your way

Shutting down fast 4:00 2-pronged attacks/widow mine drops

Drogo stopping 1-base allin on frozen temple
No natural
Adds immortal - kinda special for this push, but great vs any prolonged 1-base play

Showtimes first replay vs Masa defending early pressure cleanly -

Part 2 - Counter-pressuring and controlling the pace of the game

Sejong game