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I have played a few games where I tried this out, mostly for a little fun, but I think in the right hands or after enough practice and testing it could turn into some interesting cheese tactics.
Basically it is a Proxy Creep Tumor via Hatchery cancel. When you cancel your Hatchery, it leaves about a 3 x 3 patch of creep that your queen can then put a tumor on.
The drone can then start a proxy spine crawler, and you can transfer more drones to add to the forward spine crawler proxy, OR you can just use the proxy tumor to block an expo, forcing the other player to get detection to get their expo there.
Maps with long distances for your queen to run would make this cheese very unsuccessful.
Has anyone else tried anything like this?
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^ that's completely different from what the OP is doing.
interesting post, i'm not sure how viable it is -- can you give specific map examples? -- given how many injects you'll be missing in the early/ early midgame periods that you'd like to block expos with via creep. but if you have any examples it'd change my mind. either way, creative thinking is always great to see.
e-- So, one question, if you make a hatchery, immediately cancel, you get this 3x3 creep to build a crawler or tumor on? How many minerals are lost to a cancel?
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No, that lets the hatchery finish. Mine makes use of a Queen and a canceled hatchery.
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I'm not sure on how many minerals are lost to canceling, but yeah, you can build a hatchery, cancel, and put down a crawler immediately (i think I did that at least once, sorry if I'm wrong) Problem is it will take damage from having no creep and slowly die. I will have to test that out though.
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Do you bring an overlord to spew creep on top after? Don't zerg structures slowly die without a hatchery nearby?
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On April 17 2010 20:44 P00RKID wrote:No, that lets the hatchery finish. Mine makes use of a Queen and a canceled hatchery.
you asked if anyone tried anything similar... that's pretty similar....
getting creep near opponent's base, and build spine crawlers
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Why are you usin the hatchery cancel at all? Why not just have an overlord spawn creep there, place a tumor and then build spine crawlers?
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On April 17 2010 20:49 SarcasticOne wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2010 20:44 P00RKID wrote:No, that lets the hatchery finish. Mine makes use of a Queen and a canceled hatchery. you asked if anyone tried anything similar... that's pretty similar.... getting creep near opponent's base, and build spine crawlers
Ok yeah that is similar, but I actually meant something that involved Hatchery canceling to generate creep, or anything involving proxy Creep Tumors.
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On April 17 2010 20:51 Konni wrote:
Why are you usin the hatchery cancel at all? Why not just have an overlord spawn creep there, place a tumor and then build spine crawlers?
Overlord spawn creep is t2? This can be done at any time.
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On April 17 2010 20:51 Konni wrote:
Why are you usin the hatchery cancel at all? Why not just have an overlord spawn creep there, place a tumor and then build spine crawlers?
that is tier2, this is if you want to do something really early game before you tech i suppose
some kind of creep tumor -> spine crawler rush!? :p
2 drones+queen on the way, drone 1 hatchery->cancel->spine crawler, drone2 waits, queen arrives, hatchery->cancel->tumor on space, hatchery->cancel->crawler
2 crawlers + creep tumor for the price of 2 cancelled hatches and queen travel time in the early game, for a very invested rush. that's one use i can think of.
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Dropping creep is only viable with lair. This kind of cheese doesnt make any sense so late into the game with overlords.
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On April 17 2010 20:48 Makica wrote:
Do you bring an overlord to spew creep on top after? Don't zerg structures slowly die without a hatchery nearby?
In that game, yeah, I did, to block his expo on the high ground. Yeah, zerg structures die slowly without creep, but they don't require a hatchery nearby.
On April 17 2010 20:51 Konni wrote:
Why are you usin the hatchery cancel at all? Why not just have an overlord spawn creep there, place a tumor and then build spine crawlers?
Because this can be done before Lair Tech. On a map like Steppes of War for example, you could get a queen to his natural fairly quickly, and instead of waiting for a Hatchery to finish completely, you could just plop a hatch, cancel, put up a tumor, and then just leave, or you could build proxy crawlers.
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Yeah, some of you without beta keys or any knowledge need to please cease posting before consulting sc2 armory. I think a lot of misinformation is spread this way;
1. Creep can only be spread by buildings, and creep tumors tier 1. By using a cancelled hatch, you're left with a patch so basically paying 75 minerals for the patch which isn't awful actually. So this way you'd be able to push with a few crawlers early to stop expo and potentially push.
2. Creep can be generated by overlords tier 2. You can use the same mechanics and just put down a tumor instead of spending the 75 minerals but are spine crawlers still useful? Depends one where you are in the game.
A proxy hatch with queens and sunkens pushing forward wouldn't be a terrible idea if you're on the offensive but at the same time you could just put a hatch down at another base so don't know how viable it is.
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I think it has its best potential vs Protoss, as they tend to wall + tech to robo. Spines at your front door + lings could potentially work, but I like this as more of an expo denial trick with potential of crawler cheese if you want to end it quick.
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Like this a lot. . .
Do you know off hand how much Mineral you lose to cancel a Hatch?
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I will definitely try this on Blistering Sands vs those pesky complete wall ins that toss do :p
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I don't have beta(will if I get 1 of those 50 new keys)so I don't have much experience but I have watched 1000+ vods of SCII(I tallied). I think this is a great idea except for 1 problem.
Remember how people used to try burrowing lings in ZvT to block expos and some people said to fix that with 1 firebat and have it shoot a unit(tank for existence) exactly where they thought the ling was? You can do the same thing with this idea except instead you use the hellion which is much more effective and will completely negate the tumor. If I saw a few reps/vods of this to see exactly how you implement this idea I would be able to comment on this far more accurately.
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On April 17 2010 20:49 SarcasticOne wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2010 20:44 P00RKID wrote:No, that lets the hatchery finish. Mine makes use of a Queen and a canceled hatchery. you asked if anyone tried anything similar... that's pretty similar.... getting creep near opponent's base, and build spine crawlers
there's a huge difference between investing 300 minerals + build time vs 75 materials and a an extra queen. so they're not similar. and you're an idiot
edit: sigh
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On April 17 2010 21:26 3FFA wrote:
I don't have beta(will if I get 1 of those 50 new keys)so I don't have much experience but I have watched 1000+ vods of SCII(I tallied). I think this is a great idea except for 1 problem.
Remember how people used to try burrowing lings in ZvT to block expos and some people said to fix that with 1 firebat and have it shoot a unit(tank for existence) exactly where they thought the ling was? You can do the same thing with this idea except instead you use the hellion which is much more effective and will completely negate the tumor. If I saw a few reps/vods of this to see exactly how you implement this idea I would be able to comment on this far more accurately.
If you really want to block the expo, you could literally cover the entire spot with tumors. There is no way you're going to do that kind of micro to kill a 5x5 patch of tumors.
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You have 9 Megabytes worth of pictures but not a replay of 100kb?
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On April 17 2010 21:46 Paladia wrote:
You have 9 Megabytes worth of pictures but not a replay of 100kb?
I take it you want smaller pictures...
When I get a replay of it actually working sure. But I'm still experimenting with it to see when to do it and weather or not to invest in transferring drones to make spines.
I could post the one that I took the pictures from, although it was mostly a test run and neither me or the other guy are exactly pros. (I'm 1550ish gold)
I might have some replays of it posted in a few days If I get time to get more games in.
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On April 17 2010 21:58 P00RKID wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2010 21:46 Paladia wrote:
You have 9 Megabytes worth of pictures but not a replay of 100kb? I take it you want smaller pictures. Well, this day and age size doesn't matter (in terms of pictures). However, some replays of the strategy would be most welcome.
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if you say you want to do it before t2, than you will loose so much economy by taking a defenceless queen off of your main...
and if you make a second queen, take its minerals, add the cost of a canceled hatchery and it is also very cost ineffective
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How does this work with a spine crawler? Does it die too quickly to be useful?
It seems like starting to make a spine crawler or three right in your opponent's base or natural could be fairly disruptive.
I like this trick with the cancelled hatch and tumor a lot. It seems like a way (albeit a costly one) for a zerg to fortify his choke the way a terran or protoss might. And that's setting aside the cheese possibilities.
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On April 17 2010 22:39 Funchucks wrote:
How does this work with a spine crawler? Does it die too quickly to be useful?
It seems like starting to make a spine crawler or three right in your opponent's base or natural could be fairly disruptive.
I like this trick with the cancelled hatch and tumor a lot. It seems like a way (albeit a costly one) for a zerg to fortify his choke the way a terran or protoss might. And that's setting aside the cheese possibilities.
instead of cancelling hatch make this a lategame technique.
Sen vs i forget who but he uses nydus worm with overlord creep and hits the natural with spine crawlers.
spine crawling has the potential be the new proxy hatch sunk vs Protoss.
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I guess this could work well together with queen/roach aggression as described here.
It's very interesting but quite the investment; sending out a queen early, piling up 300 minerals etc.
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I got a replay that showcases it a tad. The guy basically beat himself by having a pretty bad build order. He played like he was super afraid of mutas, didn't play aggressive enough. I just took it as a good chance to try out some aggressive tumor placement.
http://screplays.com/replays/p00rkid/1122
Oh yeah, and this game just bumped me up to Plat. 1350ish plat now, yay!
And I can see how sending out a drone with your roach + queen push would be great, as you could proxy cancel a creep tumor at the choke to gain some speed advantage.
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it is interesting to read but absolutely not viable..how you can bring the queen to the enemy's base? it takes always at least a minute ant it is a so long way while you could spam larvas..
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I like the idea but I think it'd hard to make it useful even as cheese. There's better options I'd rather do like one base roach or 6 pool. This toss was pretty bad and I think you could have done anything and beaten him. Opening forge? Seriously? I think I've seen that maybe once or twice in hundreds of games.
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On April 17 2010 23:00 P00RKID wrote:I got a replay that showcases it a tad. The guy basically beat himself by having a pretty bad build order. He played like he was super afraid of mutas, didn't play aggressive enough. I just took it as a good chance to try out some aggressive tumor placement. http://screplays.com/replays/p00rkid/1122Oh yeah, and this game just bumped me up to Plat. 1350ish plat now, yay! And I can see how sending out a drone with your roach + queen push would be great, as you could proxy cancel a creep tumor at the choke to gain some speed advantage.
Why not host it on one of the hundred SC2 replay websites which don't require a logon?
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A drones (50/0), a queen (150/0) plus a hatchery cancel (75/0) is 275 minerals - you might as well not cancel the hatchery. The problem with using this strat to prevent an enemy expansion is that tumors only have 40hp. One comsat scan will allow the enemy to kill off however many tumors you care to spawn. For a protoss, he can just build a cannon nearby if he doesn't have observer tech.
On the other hand, I agree that this could be a decent strategy for a Roach/Queen offense.
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Hmm, when you lose your lair do all your overlords lose the ability to spew creep?
It might be useful if you lost your lair and your tech buildings are all sitting there creepless if you use this technique to get a tumor under them without requiring you to spend the full 300 and build time on a new hatch on a base that is mined out, or immediately build a lair at a new base (since you've still got the tech buildings already).
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On April 18 2010 00:18 Piousflea wrote:
A drones (50/0), a queen (150/0) plus a hatchery cancel (75/0) is 275 minerals - you might as well not cancel the hatchery.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you get the drone back?
Also, a queen's time is pretty valuable, but you do still have the queen after you've placed the tumor.
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And the queen can do a great deal of good healing the the spine crawlers if you do this aggressively. I definately see this working to great effect. I want to try and combine a spine crawler-contain (with a healing queen?) and fast-tech to mutas.
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Im guessing you could use it as cheese against another zerg player.
If you try and make a spine crawler on his creep, it should be fairly obvious, and he will stop that.
But if you make 2 spine crawlers at the back of his base, out of sight, using the hatch cancel thing, and then once the spine crawlers are done, you lift them, and burrow them on his creep. That might work.
2 spine crawlers could do some decent damage, even if they are already at 90% health by the time you burrow them on his creep and start attacking. It could also come fairly early I guess.
And dunno, you could make some spine crawlers at your base too, to encourage him to drone up 
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morimacil:
I tried a practice game of it just to see and the build times and cost per Spinecrawler do not make it more efficient than just running a 6pool:
Although this is probably the most fun I've ever had while losing a game:
http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/2967/screenshot019b.jpg
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On April 17 2010 23:37 LuDwig- wrote:
it is interesting to read but absolutely not viable..how you can bring the queen to the enemy's base? it takes always at least a minute ant it is a so long way while you could spam larvas..
For one, you don't do it if they are at a far cross spot. Secondly, if you get late gas (and get 2 at the same time) you can have plenty of drones for extra minerals, and you start a 2nd queen as soon as the first queen is done. You won't miss the precious larva injection. Since this build can be weak vs pressure, you might need to make a spine crawler in base, but that's alright. If he scouts your queen moving out, your as good as dead if he sends out a zealot to kill the queen. Of course you can make lings though to move out to help her.
Basically, don't let your queen moving out get scouted!! If he has good intell all over you, it is a good idea to not do it. And since it is a fairly late cheese that doesn't lose you any sort of economy until you actually move out with the queen, it is safe and you can just play your normal game.
This late gas stuff can backfire if the protoss quick techs to air, so it is beneficial to get your 2nd expo and hydra den when lair is up.
On April 17 2010 23:53 guitarizt wrote:
I like the idea but I think it'd hard to make it useful even as cheese. There's better options I'd rather do like one base roach or 6 pool. This toss was pretty bad and I think you could have done anything and beaten him. Opening forge? Seriously? I think I've seen that maybe once or twice in hundreds of games.
Yeah, I know, he opened stupidly. But hey, that's what cheese is for right? For punishment. I had played some games before that where I knew I couldn't use the tumor strat, but when you scout them right across from you and they are doing something like that it opens it up for possibilities. And like I said, I was just trying to get a replay of the process, not necessarily a "good replay".
I never said I had this down to a science. But there are shenanigans to be had from this and I know there are players that can find a use that will benefit them.
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I really like what the op is doing. I could see this being useful on a map like scrap station in order to just control your own choke earlier. It would allow the ability to stop hellion harass at the choke instead of having to defend at a larger ramp AND at your natural.
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On April 18 2010 06:39 trypt wrote:
I really like what the op is doing. I could see this being useful on a map like scrap station in order to just control your own choke earlier. It would allow the ability to stop hellion harass at the choke instead of having to defend at a larger ramp AND at your natural.
I literally just had this idea when I was taking a dump. This can be used to defend a choke sooner. You put the creep tumor down, then expand at the nat, putting crawlers down.
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Interesting, this exact strat happened to me earlier today on this map. Except I also always void ray cheese vs T/Z on this map, so some unexpected developments happened...
I never expected a proxy creep tumor, so I had to throw down some emergency cannons.
http://screplays.com/replays/hofodomo/1142
I think I would have definitely lost if I didn't cheese as well, because I would never have expected this (didn't know you could proxy tumors this way until this game & thread).
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I'm waiting for the day that people creep tumor rush and just prevent toss from building anything lol
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Imagine if you did this in someone's base relatively early game (would be hard to get the queen in there tho)... would be hilarious to keep extending the tumor and basically stop them from being able to build anything until they get detection
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Pretty sure that tumors take 15 seconds to build and during this time they are not cloaked, so creeping up someones base isn't that practical as they can just kill the tumor when you're trying to extend it and that's the end of that. Not 100% on this and it's not something i've heard much about though.
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I don't know, this seems really risky. That queen that's traveling to the canceled hatchery can be easily scouted and your opponent will definitely suspect something.
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On April 18 2010 11:41 Prozen wrote:
I don't know, this seems really risky. That queen that's traveling to the canceled hatchery can be easily scouted and your opponent will definitely suspect something.
not to mention all the time lost from spawn lava...
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How long will it take the queen to even get to your opponent's base early game? And are you going to sacrifice spawning larvae for a spine crawler rush? Though if you make 2 queens straight off the bat, I suppose this could be interesting to toy around with....
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On April 18 2010 11:56 SarcasticOne wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2010 11:41 Prozen wrote:
I don't know, this seems really risky. That queen that's traveling to the canceled hatchery can be easily scouted and your opponent will definitely suspect something. not to mention all the time lost from spawn lava...
If you don't want to sacrifice spawn larva time, que up a 2nd queen right as the first finishes. The first queen uses spawn larva before she travels out, and the 2nd queen should come out in time to spawn larva again, becoming your primary queen for larva, while the first one can spam tumors.
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United States7166 Posts
you can make the spine crawler immediately after canceling hatchery, with the same drone. you dont even need to wait for the tumor (you can make a tumor + spine if you wanted)
useful zvz cheese!
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please correct me if i'm wrong...but couldn't you just lay a tumor safely in your own base and just use its duplication-ability to spawn on the creep patch left by the canceled hatch, thus removing the need to have your queen leave the base?
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United States7166 Posts
lol no creep tumors can only generate new tumors in a radius of about 6 or 7
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It seems like it might be useful on certain occasions. Next time when u do it and build spine crawlers on scrap station in a zvz dont let my lings run by ; ).
gg though, wish you woulda thrown one up before u left =(
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Seems useful for maps with hard to defend chokes, like scrap station. Would even be useful on blistering sands to wall the choke early with evochamber.
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it's a fun thought, but like what many people have already said, it's not economically viable.
personally, in small maps like steppes, i like putting creep generator as soon as i hit t2 on every expansion spot so they cant expand
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I like this. Innovative techniques like this seems to pop up all the time. Reminds me of Starcraft when there where alot of new discoveries.
Fellow SC2 community, we have a great time infront of us! 
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> one base, 1st queen moves out, build second one immediately. first queen does the tumor trick in the corner of the nat and creeps up to the ramp, crawlers go down, first queen should be at 150-200 energy for transfusions, making those crawlers very nasty. If you drop a second tumor and start creeping back towards your base you can probably even get away with just running your crawlers back to your base to help against any counterpush.
As with a lot of these cheeses, your timing and placement would have to be immaculate, but it wouldn't surprise me if we see something like this once in a blue moon in pro play
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I don't see this being viable offensively on anything other than Steppes. And probably not that viable on Steppes either. Its a cool idea but bringing your Queen into the open like that is just way too risky in most situations. Using it just outside your base could work... but yeah. I'm skeptical.
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On April 18 2010 14:46 studmac wrote:
It seems like it might be useful on certain occasions. Next time when u do it and build spine crawlers on scrap station in a zvz dont let my lings run by ; ).
gg though, wish you woulda thrown one up before u left =(
Heh, yeah I blew that one pretty badly, was my first attempt at that one scrap station. I was raging though, GG.
It really is hard to pull of and make it usefull, but I'm pretty sure most of the time I'm doing it wrong / havn't optimized it yet.
I think I had one game on Steppes that it worked vs a protoss (10 overpool, 13 queen + 6 lings) I will have to find it and upload it.
Oh and nice game there CharlieMurphey.
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On April 18 2010 07:31 cHaNg-sTa wrote:
I'm waiting for the day that people creep tumor rush and just prevent toss from building anything lol
Then toss sends all his units out for mass killing time.
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pretty sure this is a solid counter to the nazgul build and other forward gate zealot aggressor strats that follow up with FE.
although, I expect blizzard to patch this out. but imo, it shouldn't be patched out unless there is some unstoppable bullshit it does. (which doesn't seem to be the case)
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I just tried this in an FFA game on LT. Did the normal 14 pool 16 hatch double queen opening. Spawned larvae once with the first queen and then sent it out on the map towards one of the players. Unfortunately all the players expanded before I could block it so instead I decided to fill up the middle with creep. It was filled before I got lair and sure it may have cost quite a bit since I got 3 queens (the one in the middle I later used on gold base hatch).
I'm gonna try this on the ladder later (1600~ platinum EU) and see if there is some way I can do this 1v1. I'm thinking terrans could have trouble with this if it goes unscouted. Maybe vs a passive port build this could work. I find the notion of saving up 300 mins early vs terran extremely risky as they have 5-6 harassment builds that will crush you if your build is not spot on.
Anyway I don't think the offensive spine crawlers makes as much sense as just blocking expansions but it could be useful.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/Screenshot075.jpg)
Discuss!
On April 18 2010 21:27 CharlieMurphy wrote:
pretty sure this is a solid counter to the nazgul build and other forward gate zealot aggressor strats that follow up with FE.
although, I expect blizzard to patch this out. but imo, it shouldn't be patched out unless there is some unstoppable bullshit it does. (which doesn't seem to be the case)
They won't patch it out, since the Hatch requires the creep underneath it to not lose health. They would have to program it so that the hatchery doesn't "burn" when there is no creep.
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How much does being of creep actually help in combat?
I mean, they help travel times, but does that help in battles?
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hell yea...creep is awesome!!!...is so...creepy...
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On April 20 2010 22:53 Zulufox wrote:
How much does being of creep actually help in combat?
I mean, they help travel times, but does that help in battles?
Yes very much so, it helps units replace the spot of others that have died and helps immensely with melee/roach surrounds.
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I don't have a key so i can't test, but wouldn't it be a good idea to not only send queen+drone but also 1 or 2 uprooted spine crawlers?
they are slow as hell, but the queen is also, and without the need of building them near the opponent the harrass could start right away even if he sees the queen.
only putting down the creep tumor might still be problem
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Is it that much faster to go for the queen and running her across the map than to just skip the queen and go for an early lair?
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On April 20 2010 22:11 Plexa wrote:
They won't patch it out, since the Hatch requires the creep underneath it to not lose health. They would have to program it so that the hatchery doesn't "burn" when there is no creep.
I guarantee you they could make this change in about 10 seconds if they wanted to. They would probably have to change one or two lines of code.
The hatchery is a creep producer. There is no reason for it to ever suffer damage from lack of creep, thus there is no need to include it in the class of creep-dependent buildings.
There's nothing tricky about this kind of programming. It's just a rule. There's no problem solving involved in implementing it. You just decide what you want and put in a flag or conditional. Easiest thing in the world to change.
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very interesting thought these are the type of strats i love to see in play because they are so out of the ordinary... but i do see this being a little difficult to pull off because i think this can be destroyed fairly easy... its like the zerg version of a bunker rush or cannon rush or since this is sc2 were talking about, a pylon proxy and just like those rushes they can be defended against with decent micro or better yet scouting but yeah i can def see this being pulled off seems more difficult then a simple bunker though..
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On April 17 2010 20:48 Makica wrote:
Do you bring an overlord to spew creep on top after? Don't zerg structures slowly die without a hatchery nearby?
overlords can spit creep only after you get a lair
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I dont really understand why this is problem that should be "patched out" in the first place.
How is it so much worse than proxy cannons or bunker-rushes, which are FAR easier to do? If sunkens were ultra overpowered I guess there would be a problem, but then the problem wouldn't be about proxy-sunkens, but simply about sunkens in general.
I short: There is no problem in this, it's just a cheese. Lrn2LiveWithIt.
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