Ok. I first came across this build while watching a VOD from the beta. It was a protoss player named "Drunkbobby" playing against IdrA in one of the Zotac cups. Idra did a standard (maybe not at the time, but now) fast expand into roaches. Instead of Drunkbobby going for the predictible robo tech, he throws down a twilight countil and gets blink. He pressures IdrA's front, blinking back stalkers that are injured and winning by pure blink micro on the stalkers. (This build was back when Roaches had 2 armour, so it works even better now)
This build works the best on a zerg that went for an early expansion and is making roaches.
9 Pylon 12 Gateway (scout) 14 Gas 15 Pylon 16 Zealot (you can skip this if your opponent has a late pool, but I don't advise it.) 18 Cybernetics Core (at 100% warp gate) 19 Gas #2 21 Stalker 23 Pylon 24 Gateway (around this time you should scout to make sure he is not going mass lings. If he is, stop here and transition into zealot collossi.) 24 Twilight Council (at 100% blink) 26 Stalker 28 Gateway 30 Two stalkers, move towards the zerg base and set up a forward pylon.
Once the pylon finishes, warp in another round of stalkers and start the attack. Blink should finish just as you are attacking. If the zerg went roaches, this will most likely win. When a stalker gets low on health, blink it back behind your other stalkers. If he is focus firing that stalker, he will waste time walking towards it. If not, you can move it back forward and keep attacking with it.
Pros: Great against Roaches, can blink away from small amounts of zerglings, very strong/quick attack. Cons: Loses very easily to mass zerglings (but you shouldn't have gone stalkers if you scouted it). Leaves you openish early game.
Honestly, this build gets shut down by creep spread + 2 base speedling roach. It works if you can blink past a spine crawler line, but that's about it. 2 base blink stalker has transitions out of, whereas one base blink stalker doesn't really.
Nice OP, I will definitely try this out. My only concern though is I feel very vulnerable to Zerg when going pure stalkers. It's relatively quick for Zerg to spend the next production round on zerglings, while you have to keep guessing if he's producing roaches or lings. But I suppose you could win (or do severe damage) with the first attack if you get the timing right and catch him off-guard.
What you can do are some variants- protoss FE into blink, it will also help extremely against mutaling which is standard I'm pretty sure. With this, you also have resources to get +1 weapons which would help immensely against roach ling.
The awesome part of the FE into blink is that you'll already have the forge for upgrades, and have plenty of gas for blink. Perhaps you should change it to that? When you open 1base blink, You need to do significant pressure, or rather just enough to be able to secure the late expo. It is heavily reliant on keeping the stalkers alive of course, but it has potential.
If you see him throw down a bunch of eggs after he sees your stalkers, its safe to assume they are lings, and you can use your next production round on zealots instead of stalkers.
With the right amount of micro, and a bit of good scouting, this build can shut down most zergs (at least around the 1-1.5k diamond area)
Edit: @above, I am not really a fan of 2base builds, it just feels like my second base takes too long to get up early game. Thats why I prefer 1 base openers.
That replay is back when roaches cost 1 food and had 3 range. But it's still viable. I usually use it when I FE and my opponent makes mostly roaches. I'm not a fan of 1 base blink stalkers as it is very all-inish if you don't do significant damage. Note that replay is close positions on LT, one of most 1-base friendly positions you can get.
Idra vs LiquidTyler game 3 in the recent gosucoaching showmatch. Tyler did a really good job shutting down creep spread with his first stalkers, then some great blink micro vs the zerglings and then finishing the game just before roach speed. Perfectly executed imho. He cut probes at 25.
yah i think its best on a map like xel naga caverns because of the high ground/ low ground at the natural expo. if you make sure the fight is there and build a pylon there u can blink the stalkers down to the lower part if lings get to close
On November 04 2010 13:56 Douillos wrote: Can you get hallucination after core to blink up in to main with hallu phenix? Sounds like a good think to add in for scouting + going up cliffs.
You may as well just get a Robotics for the observer. It would also help with a transition to Colossus if he goes Hydra/Roach.
off the one base strat u cannot get a robo maybe hallucination but i dont even think that. If you watch g3 of what nony did its basically a timing attack on the zerg player right as he is about to take his 3rd base but before t2 units and technologies are there.
Oh and EDIT*** i use a 4gate version of this which i dont understand why u would use a 3gate unless your planing on a expansion while you attack but the 1 less stalker over the 3 rounds of warp in i use prior to attack is 3 stalkers, which might not sound like alot, but 12 instead of 9 makes a difrence. but im gonna try the 3 gate version with a expo.
I use this strat constantly, almost every PvZ game blindly.
win rate is very high but blink stalker micro takes some practice to get good at.
things i find that beat this are- mass spine crawlers if u cant blink past and mass speedling if there is no high ground. roach does not beat this, or at least it never has for me.
Although when i first started using this build was a few months ago and it didnt really start to get the win ratings it has untill recently but i think that is due to increased practice with fast blink stalker micro because my opponent usually comments on it befor he GGs out.
Im really happy with how his build has been going but ive been trying to figure out exactly what i have to scout and what little changes i need to make to really make this a killer BO.
i have found that when u scout a huge line of crawlers u have 2 choices, find a way to blink up into the main or you expand in which case i usually go pheniox and harass OL while expanding then figure out where the main spine crawler line is and attack the expansion that doesnt have it then try to widdle down the army with blink micro while the zerg is forced to create overlords.
i have found tho that if you continue blindly doing this youll find that zerg does have ways to defend it then a strong counter attack which is why ive been trying to find ways to figure this out befor its to late so if anyone has advice on this it would be great other then that i would say this build is really strong once u learn to blink a mass of 12-16 stalkers 1 at a time without losing any.
I think this build can be viable under two circumstances: 1. You have the micro to pull it off 2. The map allows you to blink the stalkers to high/low ground where lings cannot chase them.
The 2nd point was critical to the success of the build in idra vs nony on Xel naga caverns, as he could blink to low ground to countinue to escape from the zerglings.
Hydras would definitely destroy this, if you can hold the enemy off long enough to get hydras and the economy to support them, which is unlikely, as the build starts to pressure really early.
I know that in the beta Nazgul for a time would go 3gate blink stalkers in pvz, and after stabilizing he would add on a stargate and get a single phoenix for high-ground vision (blinking) and general overlord harass.
Obviously the roach range buff makes mass blink stalkers (off 1 or 2 base) less effective against a roach build, but as mentioned White Ra recently used a 2-base into 3 (gold) w/ robo variant against a 3(2+island) base muta build to great effect on LT with a perfect timing mass blink into the main with an obs, bypassing several spines at the natural choke.
That said it was a very narrow timing window and White Ra basically boxed every stalker and near-blindly blinked into the main the second the obs arrived.
On November 04 2010 18:11 ftwprogamah wrote: Oh and EDIT*** i use a 4gate version of this which i dont understand why u would use a 3gate unless your planing on a expansion while you attack but the 1 less stalker over the 3 rounds of warp in i use prior to attack is 3 stalkers, which might not sound like alot, but 12 instead of 9 makes a difrence. but im gonna try the 3 gate version with a expo.
4gate pure stalkers requires completely cutting probes and failing a bit on macro doesn't it? This pretty much sounds like something to expand behind, as you can keep him busy and (almost) safely retreat if need be. Transition into a 6 gate w/ storms timing push or something.
I'm a zerg player and I dont feel this to be extremely effective when I've played against it, but they might just be doing it wrong of course. A combo of roach ling and 1-4 crawlers have always been effective for me I think.
I'm curious as to whether or not a +2 attack blink stalker play could be remotely viable. +2 attack costs 400/250, counting the Forge. +2 attack blink stalkers kill Zerglings in 3 shots instead of 4, Hydralisks in 7 instead of 9, and Roaches in 10 instead of 12. (Also Spine Crawlers in 22 instead of 26, Overlords in 13 instead of 15, and Mutas in 11 instead of 13.)
I imagine it could only really be effective as an FE (so that you have two bases to support all those upgrades, and need the Forge anyway) or if the damage upgrade for Stalkers is buffed to +1/+1 instead of +1/+0. (Roaches dying in 9 hits? Spines in 18? Yes, please.) But it could be a thing to explore.
I played this strat a lot lately and I think it's very powerful only if the zerg goes for mass roach cause it sucks a lot if he just mass speedlings + spine...
I play a variation of this build where I add 2 sentries in with my blink stalkers. The point of the sentry are to both guardian shield and also FF his main ramp so he cannot get any reinforcements to his expo. Most smart zerg will have their units on the ground but if you catch him off guard, he may not have as many units which make things easier for the stalkers.
Most of the time, I'll usually just take out his expansion while I expand and then run away before my FFs run out. Then I can transition into whatever I like from there. The only problem with this build is you can miss a blink if you choose a group with the sentries in it and forget to press tab.
Well the point of this version is to punish going for fast roaches. I said in the OP that if he is massing lings or has multiple spine crawers at the front that it won't work as well.
EPT
