Just saw TLO vs Strelok game 3 in the GLHF invitational link:
Despite scouting an eminent banshee rush, TLO used 2 of his queens and an overlord to rush creep all the way up to Streloks natural. The Queens still were able to return to base quickly to repel the banshees, but the creep tumors placed far ahead leap-frogged a few times to cover the terrans natural. Strelok used a scan, but there was still creep blocking his CC from landing. When the terran army moved out to remove the tumors/overlord, a ling ball, laying in wait, surrounded them and caused mass destruction.
Credit to TLO (although I'm sure this has been used many times before) for so effectively using a creep rush.
While all zergs should be spewing creep at every expansion and pushing out with creep tumors, creatively putting down tumors away from one's own base allows for some very interesting creep harass.
a great combo I saw TLO use in that game was spewing creep with the overload, and then putting the creep tumor on the spewn creep, making the tumor give 2x the bang for the energy!
yea i watched it today too its really awesome because it wastes 1 scan for sure from the terran although it is only that strong because expansion of strelok comes quite late but it is always a nice thing to have in your head
This has been used many times before, but more in the form is ovies pooping creep on the nat. However, I find this play with the tumors interesting and seemed to be quite a bit more of a pain to deal with, having to waste the ~300 minerals that could have been a mule for a scan, rather than just chasing off the ovi with a few marines. I definitely think we might see more of this going on with how increasingly popular it is to get multiple queens fast for creep spreadidge and transfusion fun.
Obviously, the point of doing so was to prevent the expo, thus preventing a full on mech play. I think a simple gas steal could have been even more effective in combination with this expo block/creep harass. Forcing to play a MMM style play and only get tanks even later.
I think it was only possible because he was close to his enemy base so he could walk his queen out there relatively easily, and in time for it to block the expo.
It would be much harder and almost impossible in maps where the expo distance is huge
True, but if they were cross positional Terran mech would be far less scary. Zerg could expand all over their half and tech to ultra or Blord. I'm sure part of what factored in to TLO's decision to do this was that he knew it would be harder to expand and tech T3 if he went mech.
On June 29 2010 03:33 Frozz wrote: Just follow the creep tumor track And 1a to set your foe back Your base? It's been stated Spawn larva's outdated If only this creep could attack
I watched the strategy as well, and was blown away by how many scans and how much attention that Strelok paid to it. Plus, it's intimidating as hell.
Makes a zerg ground army better equipped to deal with mech. I plan to use this.
I'm glad that the queen has seen some meta game love.
On June 29 2010 03:33 Frozz wrote: Just follow the creep tumor track And 1a to set your foe back Your base? It's been stated Spawn larva's outdated If only this creep could attack
Make that the 3rd limerick by Frozz I've read today. Amazing stuff man.
On June 29 2010 04:43 JHancho wrote: I watched the strategy as well, and was blown away by how many scans and how much attention that Strelok paid to it. Plus, it's intimidating as hell.
Makes a zerg ground army better equipped to deal with mech. I plan to use this.
Make sure you're using it for the right reasons though. Wasting scans is really only a positive side effect of the actual reason he did this. Not specifically you, but people shouldn't copy something cool they saw with out understanding why.
Full on Terran mech is still really scary for Zerg to engage directly. In order to do so you need to have some power unit like Ultra or Blords. Ultras and Blord with a good mix of either ling/roach or hydras/infester respectively takes A LOT of bases. You can't safely and effectively get 4-5 bases when you're in that close positioning because every time you expand near your main you expand closer to them. Else you're forced to expand to the other side of the map which is much harder to defend. That said, TLO blocked the expo for long enough to prevent 4-5 factory hellion/tank/thor, forcing him to use something like marine/tank which is MUCH more manageable off of 2-3 bases than would be full on mech. Not just "Oh cool I can slow down his eco by blocking this expo and causing him not to make as many mules as he would like."
EPT
