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Introduction (Updated 4/22/11) This is a build I've been using to cheese NA, KOR and SEA ladders for quick-wins in ZvZ from 1.1-1.3 with high success. It is tremendously strong against every standard zerg opener except a PERFECTLY executed 14gas/pool speedling baneling (and I mean perfectly). You can scout/counter 10 pool baneling easily and you can also scout/counter (and be very slightly behind) 14gas/pool baneling.
You may also choose to go all-in or take a completely safe expansion (independent of what your opponent decides to do, even if it's this exact build).
Goal: I wanted a quick-win build that beats most other speedling timings, speedling/baneling timings, 1-base roach timings, and ALL builds that seek to fast expand. While this build most certainly is NOT all-in due to it being a mirror matchup, it most definitely does depend on you dealing reasonable damage to your opponent. Your attack will secure your own expansion, but if you fail to deal any real damage (re: kill some workers+queen+ some/most of his army), you may be a sad panda.
The Build: 10 Extractor 10 Extractor trick drone 11 Spawning Pool (then 2 drones to gas) 10 Extractor trick drone 11 Overlord 11 Queen 13 Zergling (Same time as queen) 14 Zergling (depending on how precise your timing and drone micro) 14 Metabolic Boost (~2:55, PULL OFF GAS) Inject/Spam zerglings.
Expand or All-In? If you decide to expand, you should hotkey a drone, and rally it out ~200min, then with your next queen energy after 1st inject, drop 1-2 tumors (depending if you hunted OLs and lost time).
If you decide to all-in, send 4-5 drones (or however many you like, although I think more is less here since they will get in the way of ling dps if you send too many) and instead of expoing, drop spines as you attack. -TIP: try to position the spines such that they can't be surrounded. Put them between gas/pool/hatch area, or in mineral cracks.
Tips: - Queue your 2nd OL to his first OL so you can (hopefully) hunt it down with your Queen. Your lings will keep your queen safe.
- Since you are only making 11 drones, you need to MICRO them very well. This means not just herp-a-derp boxing them and clicking them to the middle patch, then going AFK for a poptart. Make sure you have all 4 closest mineral patches doubled up as soon as you can. When you only have 11 drones, this can literally shave 10-12 seconds off your timing attack. In a game that may only last 6 minutes, that's a big deal. Reference this thread if you are looking for an in-depth guide on worker micro: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=211953
- Your first two zerglings should deny scouting if there is a drone. Next, at least one should charge up the ramp and perimeter the base. You want to gauge your opponent's pool and gas timing, and if he has opted for any tech (baneling nest or roach warren).
- Make sure you make a good "overlord vision highway" from your ramp to your opponent's.
- Immediately after your 2nd inject, send your Queen down your ramp to kill his closest overlord. As this is a 26 food timing push, your 3rd inject is not necessary, and allows you to creep tumor while you expand, or inject for a finishing move.
- Properly timed, this should beat most speedling/baneling and roach openers, and give you map control as long as the game lasts. Your speed will ALWAYS finish first (at least I can't think of a reasonable build that beats this meta boost timing) and you will ALWAYS have more lings.
- If you spot an expansion with your scouting lings, you've very likely won the game outright.
- Your rush should be HITTING his base right about 5 minutes.
- You have the option to expand or reinforce, or spine+queen and defend.
- When you attack, your goal is to overwhelm. You need every ling alive for the attack and try to hit AS SOON as your ling speed finishes. You have a small window when your ling speed will give you a tremendous engagement (re: concave) advantage on your opponent's slow zerglings (if he went speedling). This window is larger if your ling scouts later pool/gas timings or any similarly greedy opening (a lot of drones).
- It can help greatly to hotkey a drone for your expansion. It's very likely that when you are expanding, you will also need to inject, and you will be in the middle of microing the most important battle of the game. Hotkeying a drone and also a camera angle at your nat will be VERY beneficial in ensuring you don't forget your expansion (which I do in many of these games, although it doesn't end up mattering).
- If you feel like playing slightly more passive, you can feel free to add a 12th drone to this build with only a slightly delayed 13th pair of zerglings. You can also choose to add more drones at the cost of 2 zerglings each. However, any drones you create after 3:30 will not repay themselves before you attack.
Replays (All-In): vs. Master vs Michael vs Kraqit vs speedling baneling
vs. Diamond vs Michael vs Kimchi vs speedling roach expand
vs MFCHAS vs Michael vs speedling roach
vs Michael vs smokedit vs double hatch
vs Michael vs cartonbox vs speedling expand (std)
vs jaydubz vs Michael
vs Michael vs Metal
Replays (Expand): vs. Grandmaster vs iCHORNinja vs Michael against 14gas/pool standard (long game)
vs TAEdgE vs Michael against 15h roach, late lings, loss
vs. Master vs SoYLauroS vs Michael vs 1base roach, lots of BM
vs [deleted by opponent request] against roach expand
vs Michael vs ProAnnn against 14g/p 1-base roach
vs. Diamond vs Michael vs Angel against 10pool speedling (~close game)
vs Michael vs 콩라인득도 against 14h cross-slag
vs Michael vs HyperGeist against fast baneling aggression (close game)
vs Michael vs Samuel against 13pool/13gas/18bling/20meta (likely loss, opponent disconnect)
vs Michael vs Quasit against 14gas/pool speedling roach
vs Michael vs DangsteR against 14gas/14pool/20bling
vs Michael vs Samuel against 6 pool drone all-in
vs Michael vs ZergSPR against 12gas/pool speedling baneling
vs Michael vs Daren against 13pool/12gas speedling roach
vs. Platinum vs Michael vs fenril against 14pool/gas speedling baneling aggression (closest game)
vs Michael vs desmoulins against 11 pool/13gas speedling baneling
vs Michael vs Terror against 12 overpool/14gas fast lair/roach (close game)
Summation: Again, I feel this is a pretty strong build against your run-of-the-mill zerg opponent who does pretty standard stuff. This build is nothing magical, but the slightly earlier meta boost timing due to 10 extractor allows you to almost perfectly hit a number of timing windows against most standard zvz openers.
Please offer any criticisms, analysis, and/or replays of your own. Thanks for reading!
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On February 11 2011 23:39 HaNdFisH wrote: Did you seriously just post a practice game of me trying to learn zvz (by far my worst mu) on TL.
You didn't seriously do that would you...
took it off, no worries mate!
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On February 11 2011 23:39 HaNdFisH wrote: Did you seriously just post a practice game of me trying to learn zvz (by far my worst mu) on TL.
You didn't seriously do that would you... Give him a break, nobody cares who you are and if you're losing to a guy in diamond you don't need to protect your build orders or replays.
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On February 11 2011 23:43 MoreFaSho wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2011 23:39 HaNdFisH wrote: Did you seriously just post a practice game of me trying to learn zvz (by far my worst mu) on TL.
You didn't seriously do that would you... Give him a break, nobody cares who you are and if you're losing to a guy in diamond you don't need to protect your build orders or replays.
I think he just meant that the game isn't a very high level one for he was trying things.
And btw, that build is very close to the Z build in the unbeatable PZ strat.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=170655
Edit: In my book, a build that HAS to deal significant damage to be viable is all-in. This 11 drone build IS all-in.
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More like I didn't want the practice replays posted as to avoid seeing my terrible zvz. I care, doesn't matter if anyone else does or not.
Posting a practice game 10 minutes after playing it without asking I would consider not the best etiquette.
It does seem like a fairly potent build however.
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On February 11 2011 23:53 AlgoFlash wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2011 23:43 MoreFaSho wrote:On February 11 2011 23:39 HaNdFisH wrote: Did you seriously just post a practice game of me trying to learn zvz (by far my worst mu) on TL.
You didn't seriously do that would you... Give him a break, nobody cares who you are and if you're losing to a guy in diamond you don't need to protect your build orders or replays. I think he just meant that the game isn't a very high level one for he was trying things. And btw, that build is very close to the Z build in the unbeatable PZ strat. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=170655
Yeah, but the main difference is your 9 pool with early gas is a giveaway of some serious shenanigans, while this build sets you up for a nice expansion. Even though mine gets only one more drone, it has longer drone mining time earlier on, and so it hits at the same time.
In 2's, you need your first lings as fast as humanly possible to protect against double cheeses. In this one, you get the same push, but you're very slightly greedy at first to ensure that you can afford an expansion (so that it's not all-in).
If you were to do that build in 1's, the zerg would see it and just turtle with spines while he drones up. It's scouted before you can have lings to kick his drone out, and the extra early lings don't serve any function whatsoever since his queen + 2-4 lings will defend easily.
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well ill start with comments no the post :D
since you cant stop scouting it your enemy will most probably know that you will do some early aggression. and since this builds biggest strength is that your enemy is supprised by your high zergling count and the fact that he cant react in time, since this is a realy strong timing push, you will fall behind economically against a suspiccious opponent
catching up economically is hard, since a zergs econommy isnt realy based on the amount of hatches, but on the amount of drones
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On February 11 2011 23:59 michaelhasanalias wrote:
Yeah, but the main difference is your 9 pool with early gas is a giveaway of some serious shenanigans, while this build sets you up for a nice expansion. Even though mine gets only one more drone, it has longer drone mining time earlier on, and so it hits at the same time.
In 2's, you need your first lings as fast as humanly possible to protect against double cheeses. In this one, you get the same push, but you're very slightly greedy at first to ensure that you can afford an expansion (so that it's not all-in).
If you were to do that build in 1's, the zerg would see it and just turtle with spines while he drones up. It's scouted before you can have lings to kick his drone out, and the extra early lings don't serve any function whatsoever since his queen + 2-4 lings will defend easily.
I don't agree on two points:
- The pool in both builds is at almost the same time, your pool is only a few seconds away and in both builds there is an extractor before overlord. I seriously doubt the opponent would be able to tell builds apart. If you think that the 2v2 buils in 1v1 would meet a turtling Zerg, I don't see why your build wouldn't meet it as well.
- Both builds have 11 drones too.
And that is All-in because if you don't attack with your lings you'll be behind. The very definition of all-in is: "if you don't do damage, you're behind" = all-in.
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On February 12 2011 00:29 AlgoFlash wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2011 23:59 michaelhasanalias wrote:
Yeah, but the main difference is your 9 pool with early gas is a giveaway of some serious shenanigans, while this build sets you up for a nice expansion. Even though mine gets only one more drone, it has longer drone mining time earlier on, and so it hits at the same time.
In 2's, you need your first lings as fast as humanly possible to protect against double cheeses. In this one, you get the same push, but you're very slightly greedy at first to ensure that you can afford an expansion (so that it's not all-in).
If you were to do that build in 1's, the zerg would see it and just turtle with spines while he drones up. It's scouted before you can have lings to kick his drone out, and the extra early lings don't serve any function whatsoever since his queen + 2-4 lings will defend easily. I don't agree on two points: - The pool in both builds is at almost the same time, your pool is only a few seconds away and in both builds there is an extractor before overlord. I seriously doubt the opponent would be able to tell builds apart. If you think that the 2v2 buils in 1v1 would meet a turtling Zerg, I don't see why your build wouldn't meet it as well. - Both builds have 11 drones too. And that is All-in because if you don't attack with your lings you'll be behind. The very definition of all-in is: "if you don't do damage, you're behind" = all-in.
No numbnuts, if you pull all your drones and your lings and attack, then its an allin, cus there is no NEXT STEP. His NEXT STEP is expanding after his attack. This means his build has a followup even if it has to deal significant damage.
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On February 12 2011 00:29 AlgoFlash wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2011 23:59 michaelhasanalias wrote:
Yeah, but the main difference is your 9 pool with early gas is a giveaway of some serious shenanigans, while this build sets you up for a nice expansion. Even though mine gets only one more drone, it has longer drone mining time earlier on, and so it hits at the same time.
In 2's, you need your first lings as fast as humanly possible to protect against double cheeses. In this one, you get the same push, but you're very slightly greedy at first to ensure that you can afford an expansion (so that it's not all-in).
If you were to do that build in 1's, the zerg would see it and just turtle with spines while he drones up. It's scouted before you can have lings to kick his drone out, and the extra early lings don't serve any function whatsoever since his queen + 2-4 lings will defend easily. I don't agree on two points: - The pool in both builds is at almost the same time, your pool is only a few seconds away and in both builds there is an extractor before overlord. I seriously doubt the opponent would be able to tell builds apart. If you think that the 2v2 buils in 1v1 would meet a turtling Zerg, I don't see why your build wouldn't meet it as well. - Both builds have 11 drones too. And that is All-in because if you don't attack with your lings you'll be behind. The very definition of all-in is: "if you don't do damage, you're behind" = all-in.
Hmm...
Well, it's my understanding that an 11 pool is different than a 9 pool, and that's actually a pretty big difference when you scout one versus the other.
From scouting the 9pool, your opponent has a very good idea a full 2 minutes earlier that you're going for an early rush aggression.
The definition of "all-in" as I understand it is "if this attack fails you cannot recover." I don't really know any all-ins that opt for an expansion, but I will agree that the point of this build is to overwhelm your opponent with an early attack.
By your definition of "all-in", it might seem that any build with a timing push that fails is all-in.
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this build will be strong because zvz has shifted to economic play on many maps.
How does the zergling speed timing fare against a 14 gas 14 pool and how much of a ling advantage do you have?
thanks for sharing
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On February 12 2011 00:16 OoOo wrote: well ill start with comments no the post :D
since you cant stop scouting it your enemy will most probably know that you will do some early aggression. and since this builds biggest strength is that your enemy is supprised by your high zergling count and the fact that he cant react in time, since this is a realy strong timing push, you will fall behind economically against a suspiccious opponent
catching up economically is hard, since a zergs econommy isnt realy based on the amount of hatches, but on the amount of drones
I don't think that the build's strength is in catching the opponent off guard. I believe its strength is in hitting a very small timing window where almost every standard opener is weaker.
If you watch in the replays, almost all of them involve the standard reactions... a spine, a baneling nest asap if he was planning speedling expand, and hope for the fastest roaches of his life if he went 1-base roach.
If I scout with my lings and see he went straight for banelings with no speed, I'll just spine myself and drone instead of making those last bit of lings, and then BS him as he pushes out with his army. If he's too slow with banelings, I can just attack while morphing.
The issue with "spotting" is WHEN he can spot the massing. With good overlord spotting, it's likely he can identify my lings moving out and massing at around 3 minutes. This gives him roughly 85 seconds to react, which is, coincidently, the time it takes to drop a baneling nest and morph banelings.
If he doesn't respond promptly and correctly, he has almost certainly lost the game. And because I have more lings from an earlier pool, I have map control, so he doesn't know how many lings I have except by counting them as they slowly stream out.
On February 12 2011 00:43 navy wrote: this build will be strong because zvz has shifted to economic play on many maps.
How does the zergling speed timing fare against a 14 gas 14 pool and how much of a ling advantage do you have?
thanks for sharing
I haven't played vs 14gas 14 pool yet, but my guess would be:
at least 6 ling advantage (more if he builds more drones), and ling speed advantage at the time of attack.
Larva for a 3rd injection won't pop until I'm in the base, and I believe anything but a hard transition from 14g/p to banelings fails due to inadequate time.
None of this is substantiated by a replay, just guesswork on my part.
edit: actually in the replay vs. Quasit, he went 14gas/14pool
- His pool finishes 31 seconds after mine. - His ling speed finishes 28 seconds after mine. - He made 7 more drones than I did (warren, spine, + 5 mining) - On engagement, it was 23 ling vs 8 ling, 1 queen, and 1 spine crawler. When the attack finished, he had 7 drones, no queen and 47hp on his spine crawler, losing 450 resources more than me (28% of his resources vs. 20% for me)
Because I hit a little bit late, I think he could have held it off if he had just pulled his lings and workers back while the rest of his lings popped. He also had some very poor drone micro (or lack thereof).
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I think people has been using a lot the term of all-in to any non-macro-oriented strategy.
An all-in is a black/white strategy, with no middle option. Is a movement that makes you win or lose, no more. This build even beign ver early aggressive doesn't have to be an all-in because you can recover from it.
The idea of "if you don't do damage, you're behind" is wrong! Come on! this is a standard in game, not in a particular strategy. You have to do damage to be ahead. I think the term all-in has been used in a lot of strategies.
A strategy that can makes you win or put you behind economically is just that, a strategy, not an allin.
Sorry for my english.
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On February 12 2011 00:29 AlgoFlash wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2011 23:59 michaelhasanalias wrote:
Yeah, but the main difference is your 9 pool with early gas is a giveaway of some serious shenanigans, while this build sets you up for a nice expansion. Even though mine gets only one more drone, it has longer drone mining time earlier on, and so it hits at the same time.
In 2's, you need your first lings as fast as humanly possible to protect against double cheeses. In this one, you get the same push, but you're very slightly greedy at first to ensure that you can afford an expansion (so that it's not all-in).
If you were to do that build in 1's, the zerg would see it and just turtle with spines while he drones up. It's scouted before you can have lings to kick his drone out, and the extra early lings don't serve any function whatsoever since his queen + 2-4 lings will defend easily. I don't agree on two points: - The pool in both builds is at almost the same time, your pool is only a few seconds away and in both builds there is an extractor before overlord. I seriously doubt the opponent would be able to tell builds apart. If you think that the 2v2 buils in 1v1 would meet a turtling Zerg, I don't see why your build wouldn't meet it as well. - Both builds have 11 drones too. And that is All-in because if you don't attack with your lings you'll be behind. The very definition of all-in is: "if you don't do damage, you're behind" = all-in.
No, that is a definition of cheese. All-in means win NOW or you're f'ed. Pulling drones or 6 pooling and going for it is an all-in, because losing your units will result in a situation where you'll never come back. Builds like this are cheese. Builds that can win instantly or lose horribly, but you must do damage at least to stay in the game. It's not all-in even if you don't do damage, you'll just be pretty behind. All-in means you have little to no chance of surviving.
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Ok I guess I don't have a good understanding of what is all-in. Thanks for your help Flacon_NL. I guess I have never seen any all-in build then (but the 12 drone rush maybe).
And michael, to clarify, the pool may be a 9 pool or an 11 pool but it's a 9 after 10 extractor and 11 after 10 extractor. The difference is one drone. Look at the timings, it is almost the same.
To tell builds apart, one would have to count the amount of drone (which would be the same 50 seconds later anyway).
Edit: Thanks also Sm3agol, I understand how wrong I got.
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I do the 1 base lair tech wall in with roach/overseer/muta, and I find similar mass ling strategies like this to do only miminal damage. On most maps by minute 5 I have an almost complete wall off of my main and roaches/queen to plug the gaps with hold. By the time the lings manage to kill a roach or the queen most of them are dead and then I attack with drones/remaining units for easy clean up, while being miles ahead in tech. It holds well because the units that plug the gaps are only usually able to be attacked by 2 lings at a time. So Roach splash helps and queen is just beastly and it always seems they want to target the queen..
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Seems like in order for you to win with this build you have to get lucky and have your opponent go fast expand or just over drone. It's definately a viable cheese, but cheese at that. If they scout you and do any safe builds such as 14 gas 14 pool or 14 pool 15 gas roach they will have a huge economic lead, which in zvz is auto-loss.
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It is so stupid that every single build order topic gets cluttered up with people debating the semantics of "all in" and "cheese". WHO CARES? It's a BUILD, can we PLEASE just leave it at that?
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I don't understand. Isn't this build just overpool + spam speedlings? What's new about this?
There's no "next step" to the build. So it's either all-in (and yes I would describe this as all-in personally), or it's the start of a build.
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Have you run up against a 6 pool using this build? I know it's not as common now but with only 11 drones and no scouting isn't there a major risk from this build? Even if you run your drones away you will loose your nearly undefended queen which will majorly set back your build. Possibly only an issue on short rush distance maps.
I don't see how you can rely on your zerglings to prevent a scout. Unless your opponent is scouting on like 16 they will see you went for an earlier pool before you have lings. If they also went for an 11-pool (which is somewhat common in zvz) wouldn't the defenders advantage make this strat a near auto loose? I know in your one replay you have vs an 11-pool but they were also going for banelings which will slow down ling production on the defense.
I think the major thing your strat has going for it is it's not standard so people aren't expecting it. However, I can't help but feeling a defensivly minded zerg wouldn't be able to stop this easily with a normally timed scout (around 12 food).
With that said this will win you a lot of games. I do something similar (+1 sling attack out of 11 pool) that wins me most of my zvz. About 50% of zvz the other zerg will try to FE and you'll win straight up. Also, people rushing to roaches will get hit before they have enough roaches out. That's 90% of the games you will play right there.
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So you want to pressure the other zerg but still be good on macro? http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=181318
Here's my guide on it. Instead of going for an 11 pool and just lings after, I go for a 14gas 14 pool. Which is generally the most adaptable build out there. 11 pool builds HAVE to do damage. 14 gas/14 pool builds don't really rely on having certain damage done to your opponent. Which is why it is the more safe option.
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On February 12 2011 02:36 Chaosvuistje wrote:So you want to pressure the other zerg but still be good on macro? http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=181318Here's my guide on it. Instead of going for an 11 pool and just lings after, I go for a 14gas 14 pool. Which is generally the most adaptable build out there. 11 pool builds HAVE to do damage. 14 gas/14 pool builds don't really rely on having certain damage done to your opponent. Which is why it is the more safe option. I think you are missing the point with his build. Your build is great and something similar to it is used by a lot of zergs. The OP's build was specifically designed to defeat this type of build via early aggression. He will have over double your zergling count when he hits. It's not as solid of a build but it's capitalizing on the weakness of all the more solid builds.
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On February 12 2011 00:45 michaelhasanalias wrote: [ I haven't played vs 14gas 14 pool yet, but my guess would be:
at least 6 ling advantage (more if he builds more drones), and ling speed advantage at the time of attack.
14g 14p may be the most common standard opening in ZvZ. That's quite a problem if you haven't tested your build against it.
I dowloaded one of your replay, and you have enough gas to start speed research at 3min11. Which is the exact same time the pool pop up with a 14g14pool opening. This means both builds get the speedling research at the same time.
The difference is you have 11 drone, the 14g14pool usually make 15 drones.
You may have 6 more lings, but you have to cross the map. If you attack the lings count will be even, meaning he will have the advantage thanks to the queen and possibly drones. Unless you managed to out micro your opponent, you shouldn't make much damage here, and you certainly shouldn't be able to kill the 4 drones you need to get even on economy.
Looks like your build is countered by 13g13p and 14g14p...
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I just lost twice vs this build, using 13g13p both times. I underestimated the threat and didnt react in an optimal way. I guess, massing Zerglings and blocking the ramp until you get speed as well should work. On short rush distance or large ramps a spine crawler is essential. No way to get banelings in time, and later pools second inject is significantly later. This, combined with the speed will result in a severe worker loss, even with a queen and drone drilling.
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I'm not sure how reliable this will be, but food for thought.
Using the sc2 build order tool http://sc2calc.org/build_order/ (you can copy and paste these orders in to see results)
I put standard gas first opener: 9 Overlord 14 Extractor > +3 14 Spawning Pool 15 Overlord 15 Metabolic Boost 15 Queen > Spawn Larvae 17 Zergling [7] 24 Overlord 24 Zergling [2]
vs my best estimate of this build
10 Extractor > +3 10 Extractor Trick 11 Spawning Pool 10 Extractor Trick @100 gas take 3 off gas 11 Overlord 11 Queen > Spawn Larvae > Spawn Larvae 13 Zergling 14 Metabolic Boost 14 Zergling[2] 16 Overlord 16 Zergling[2] 18 Zergling[8]
Results-- Speed Complete: 14g/14p (4:47), Your Build (4:30) When your build speed is done, the bulk of your army pops (24 lings) at 4:29 Assuming it takes 20 game seconds for your lings to reach his ramp, puts the game time at 4:50, where 14g/14p will have... 18 Lings and speed complete
so come the time of engagement you basically have a six ling advantage but he can choose to engage at his ramp, buying time for his faster reinforcements. in your build, i didn't account for another overlord to raise the 26 supply cap, since it would delay your last lings losing your advantage, while the defender will have an overlord popping right away, allowing reinforcement. the 14g open will have 4 more drones at this point and mining breaks down:
You have mined a total of 2251 minerals and 326 gas at 4:52 with 14g/14p You have mined a total of 1984 minerals and 100 gas at 4:50 with your build
Him being able to afford the gas allows for a roach reinforcement or baneling tech, putting him in a much better spot, since you rely on using nearly all your minerals to get out those lings.
So it seems like this build would have trouble vs. a very standard 14g/14p assuming the enemy plays standard (mass lings after 17, get baneling tech) and has an overlord outside your base (or near your base) to see how many you move out with
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On February 12 2011 02:28 Talkerst wrote: Have you run up against a 6 pool using this build? I know it's not as common now but with only 11 drones and no scouting isn't there a major risk from this build? Even if you run your drones away you will loose your nearly undefended queen which will majorly set back your build. Possibly only an issue on short rush distance maps.
I don't see how you can rely on your zerglings to prevent a scout. Unless your opponent is scouting on like 16 they will see you went for an earlier pool before you have lings. If they also went for an 11-pool (which is somewhat common in zvz) wouldn't the defenders advantage make this strat a near auto loose? I know in your one replay you have vs an 11-pool but they were also going for banelings which will slow down ling production on the defense.
I think the major thing your strat has going for it is it's not standard so people aren't expecting it. However, I can't help but feeling a defensivly minded zerg wouldn't be able to stop this easily with a normally timed scout (around 12 food).
With that said this will win you a lot of games. I do something similar (+1 sling attack out of 11 pool) that wins me most of my zvz. About 50% of zvz the other zerg will try to FE and you'll win straight up. Also, people rushing to roaches will get hit before they have enough roaches out. That's 90% of the games you will play right there.
The point of denying scouting isn't to hide my 11 pool. The point is to hide what I'm doing with it. If I go 11 pool for faster speed (giving me the map control I want) and then just drone up and expand, it looks like a slightly different speedling expand build. But not until you see lings trickling out do the red flags go off, and by then it's difficult to respond to. It's certainly not unstoppable, but I think it is difficult if you can't match ling count and delay the engagement as long as possible.
vs. 6 pool, your lings are out right about the time his lings arrive, and with minimal drone micro you will army trade him and have double his drone count and a queen to boot. Because 14g/p (with proper micro) can defend a 6 pool and come out economically ahead, it stands to reason that an earlier pool with earlier lings would be safer.
If I scout him matching my ling count, I'll do something like a BS as soon as he pushes out, and rely on double spine + reinforcements + my lings retreating once I've killed his drones. I believe this happens in two of the repays I posted.
On February 12 2011 03:25 Elean wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 00:45 michaelhasanalias wrote: [ I haven't played vs 14gas 14 pool yet, but my guess would be:
at least 6 ling advantage (more if he builds more drones), and ling speed advantage at the time of attack.
14g 14p may be the most common standard opening in ZvZ. That's quite a problem if you haven't tested your build against it. I dowloaded one of your replay, and you have enough gas to start speed research at 3min11. Which is the exact same time the pool pop up with a 14g14pool opening. This means both builds get the speedling research at the same time. The difference is you have 11 drone, the 14g14pool usually make 15 drones. You may have 6 more lings, but you have to cross the map. If you attack the lings count will be even, meaning he will have the advantage thanks to the queen and possibly drones. Unless you managed to out micro your opponent, you shouldn't make much damage here, and you certainly shouldn't be able to kill the 4 drones you need to get even on economy. Looks like your build is countered by 13g13p and 14g14p...
I edited that post (and the OP to be more specific about the replays) to reflect that I did in fact play 14g/p once. Personally I think it should have been a draw after the attack, but due to his poor micro, I was able to win shortly after.
If the player is greedy at all with his 14g/p beyond the opener itself, it seems he's going to be in a very precarious position.
On February 12 2011 04:21 Bitters wrote: Him being able to afford the gas allows for a roach reinforcement or baneling tech, putting him in a much better spot, since you rely on using nearly all your minerals to get out those lings.
So it seems like this build would have trouble vs. a very standard 14g/14p assuming the enemy plays standard (mass lings after 17, get baneling tech) and has an overlord outside your base (or near your base) to see how many you move out with
In the three games I played yesterday vs. speedling baneling, the player either had to cut too many lings, or in cutting the drones to match my army seemed forced into being aggressive himself. In that game (vs. fenril, replay #3) I just defended his attack with a counter army, and transferred the defender's advantage to me. Had he not attacked I think we'd likely have remain tied until one of us committed to engagement.
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On February 12 2011 02:47 Talkerst wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 02:36 Chaosvuistje wrote:So you want to pressure the other zerg but still be good on macro? http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=181318Here's my guide on it. Instead of going for an 11 pool and just lings after, I go for a 14gas 14 pool. Which is generally the most adaptable build out there. 11 pool builds HAVE to do damage. 14 gas/14 pool builds don't really rely on having certain damage done to your opponent. Which is why it is the more safe option. I think you are missing the point with his build. Your build is great and something similar to it is used by a lot of zergs. The OP's build was specifically designed to defeat this type of build via early aggression. He will have over double your zergling count when he hits. It's not as solid of a build but it's capitalizing on the weakness of all the more solid builds.
The build in the OP relies on catching the opponents lings out in the open with your superior ling numbers. While this is perfectly fine, and does have its strengths, if I can force him to fight on my ramp and my ramp alone ( which is not hard, park the lings on the top and make sure there arent any cracks ), then his number superiority will be nullified as my reinforcement hit faster.
Not only that, his build cuts gas. Speedlings are great out in the open, especially versus slowlings. But if you go mass speedling, and the opponent backs his lings up with ANY number of banelings, you better micro like Jaedong. Because one wrong move, one wrong engagement, and the zerglings flood into your base and wreck up everything.
The build and the goal it has doesn't make it an unviable build. Its just that if you know how to defend it, you will be at a 3 drone advantage. This doesn't mean that much, since you get total mapcontrol with this build for some time and you can simply retreat and drone up a bit while blocking your own ramp.
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Sorry I can't watch the replays right now, what if a 1base player fights you on the ramp?
-edit- above poster said it as well
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On February 12 2011 17:16 Chaosvuistje wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 02:47 Talkerst wrote:On February 12 2011 02:36 Chaosvuistje wrote:So you want to pressure the other zerg but still be good on macro? http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=181318Here's my guide on it. Instead of going for an 11 pool and just lings after, I go for a 14gas 14 pool. Which is generally the most adaptable build out there. 11 pool builds HAVE to do damage. 14 gas/14 pool builds don't really rely on having certain damage done to your opponent. Which is why it is the more safe option. I think you are missing the point with his build. Your build is great and something similar to it is used by a lot of zergs. The OP's build was specifically designed to defeat this type of build via early aggression. He will have over double your zergling count when he hits. It's not as solid of a build but it's capitalizing on the weakness of all the more solid builds. The build in the OP relies on catching the opponents lings out in the open with your superior ling numbers. While this is perfectly fine, and does have its strengths, if I can force him to fight on my ramp and my ramp alone ( which is not hard, park the lings on the top and make sure there arent any cracks ), then his number superiority will be nullified as my reinforcement hit faster. Not only that, his build cuts gas. Speedlings are great out in the open, especially versus slowlings. But if you go mass speedling, and the opponent backs his lings up with ANY number of banelings, you better micro like Jaedong. Because one wrong move, one wrong engagement, and the zerglings flood into your base and wreck up everything. The build and the goal it has doesn't make it an unviable build. Its just that if you know how to defend it, you will be at a 3 drone advantage. This doesn't mean that much, since you get total mapcontrol with this build for some time and you can simply retreat and drone up a bit while blocking your own ramp.
If someone rushes banelings, you would abandon this build and just defend/drone. If he just transitions to banelings as a counter, he will likely lose outright. 2 of the replays I posted (1 removed) involved users who seemed to have the goal of going speedling expand and transitioned to speedling/baneling upon realizing that I had cut drones at 11 for the foreseeable future. There just isn't enough time to do that unless you already had plans to go baneling independent of your scouting information.
Regarding the last paragraph, I do agree with you that if properly responded to, one would either force a non-engagement, or defend and come out ahead.
The reason I believe this build is working so well is that players simply have a false sense of timing security when they transition to banelings as a response. Quite simply, you can't buy enough time to transition unless you had already planned and were executing it by the time you know I'm producing only lings.
If I see baneling tech rushed though with my scouting lings, I'll abandon this and it goes into normal zvz stuff. I may be slightly behind, but it's I can match his drone count once he matches my ling count.
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On February 12 2011 17:34 michaelhasanalias wrote:If someone rushes banelings... Mind discussing the ramp block issue that negates ling speed and number advantage?
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On February 12 2011 17:49 eth3n wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 17:34 michaelhasanalias wrote:If someone rushes banelings... Mind discussing the ramp block issue that negates ling speed and number advantage?
If someone rushes banelings, you just wouldn't attack. When you scout with your first 2 lings, you would just drone up and drop 1-2 spines.
If he's transitioning to baneling in response, there just isn't enough time to do it AND block your ramp AND defend the banelings in your base AND get them out in time.
I don't think it's possible to delay engagement this long.
You can ramp block with 3 roaches and a queen, but I don't think there's time to get a 4th roach out if you're doing any sort of standard 1-base roach (with a reasonable scout timing).
We can debate the finer points though, but I do agree this build is definitely beatable (no build is unbeatable)... it's just that the response needs to be both timely and correct in order to successfully defend or stalemate.
I'm going to ladder more tonight and if I get any more zvz matchups I'll try to post them, especially if what you refer to happens.
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Oh I just meant more generally, not necessarily baneling play. With a build like this one, its obvious that if a defender can delay it long enough with any response, they win (or have a substantial advantage) as long as they still have their drones after the engagement. As you said in your OP, every second counts. And the ramp seemingly provides the best opportunity to this.
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I liked to do this build quite a bit for a while, as against most openings it either wins or just requires good micro to come out on top. I now switch it up with a different build and try to defend with banelings into an expo and roaches ideally, but I still think the speedling expand build is great if you can micro well.
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Just lost with this build for the first time when reasonably executing it. One of the top players on SEA was nice enough to give me a custom before GSL start and I tried it on him. He didn't know it was coming, but it looks like I lost because I was microing a forward ling and didn't make my inject set in time (they were 20 seconds late and basically missed the fight).
Still I think it's a good rep, and I'd say I decently executed this build, although I think I missed the timing window because I was almost 25 seconds late.
vs TAEdgE vs Michael (against 15h roach, late lings, loss)
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Can I ask you kindly not to caps each word you want to stress? That putting aside: What you are doing in here is just making as many lings as possible, and trying to kill him. If he's not deadn you expand. If your zerglings will die, you will not be able to make an expansion.
It's like you're doing a 6pool and because you killed his economy, you will expand xD
Nothing new here
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These type of builds are becoming more and more popular in ZvZ. And from my own experience it's extremely hard to survive with any typ of FE build.
However, I do believe it is quite easy to scout and react correctly. On normal scout timing (10th drone) you will scout the gas before pool which instantly tells you that early agression is coming. I always react by delaying Zergling speed and getting 4 roaches out as fast as possible (on a 14p/14g BO). Once your main ramp is blocked the entire point of the build has been nullified and you can safely tech and do a roach timing attack or drone/expand once you're sure you have sufficient roaches.
P.S. Creep sim city is also nice to block a delayed MASS speedling all-in (which often is the followup if the first attack is blocked)
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On February 28 2011 23:01 Kraelog wrote: These type of builds are becoming more and more popular in ZvZ. And from my own experience it's extremely hard to survive with any typ of FE build.
However, I do believe it is quite easy to scout and react correctly. On normal scout timing (10th drone) you will scout the gas before pool which instantly tells you that early agression is coming. I always react by delaying Zergling speed and getting 4 roaches out as fast as possible (on a 14p/14g BO). Once your main ramp is blocked the entire point of the build has been nullified and you can safely tech and do a roach timing attack or drone/expand once you're sure you have sufficient roaches.
P.S. Creep sim city is also nice to block a delayed MASS speedling all-in (which often is the followup if the first attack is blocked)
There are a few replays where this is attempted and fails. I think your best bet trying something like that would be a queen and 3 roaches, or roach/queen/couple lings. You usually don't have time to get the roaches out and to your ramp and in position. (Also most zergs will put a forward overlord around opponent's natural, and after my initial queen inject, I attempt to kill that overlord so as to supply block/delay you or cost you a larva at the least.)
1-base roach is inherently weaker than speedling expand in most cases, and if you do manage to seal your ramp, I can just drone and not attack. If you do manage to block, it's because you've either cut drones to get there (not as much as me) or you skipped speed, or both. In that case, my expansion is going up as you block, and I'll have saturated both bases and have my own warren by the time you push.
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To Michael : thanks for sharing. I was experimenting 11pool too for some time, and my 1v1 partner in ZvZ convinced me it was bad. With this 26 speedling timing push, I'll will give this build more consideration. Thanks, again.
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Reminds me of 9pool speed of BW... Yeah, it has to do damage, but it has such a huge advantage to do so against the current metagame's standard "safe" openings. Speedlings vs roaches is actually kinda difficult for the roaches when the lings are in these numbers.
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You say this isn't an all-in build but it really is.
By your definition, 6 pool isn't all-in because 6 pool requires to deal a lot of damage to the opponent to stay at an advantage (or win).
This is all-in in the sense that if you either don't attack with the lings, or can't deal damage with the lings, you are at a large disadvantage. simcity + sunken/queen/ling would defend this well as long as the pool is built a a good time (11 over pool, 12-14 pool).
That said, I will not say the build is bad, because hatch-first, and later pools are rather common builds that might not hold up well as long as one micros well vs. the enemy.
On March 01 2011 09:22 sylverfyre wrote: Yeah, it has to do damage, but it has such a huge advantage to do so against the current metagame's standard "safe" openings. Speedlings vs roaches is actually kinda difficult for the roaches when the lings are in these numbers. I either disagree with you, or you're using "safe" to mean not actually safe. A safe build is 11overpool to 14 pool. While 14 pool would have more trouble, these builds should be able to deal with it, and will be ahead when fending it off, that's how safe builds work. If you run a more risky build like 10 pool (which this essentially is) or 14 hatch, you're then taking risks on one side of the spectrum in hopes to gain an advantage against a player doing another type of build.
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are you sure this build can beat a defensive baneling play?all i have to do is to morph two banes in my mineral line and i am safe. or can you even win against a speedling opening ( 14 gas/14 pool build) into defensive baneling? if there is a similar post to this one: sorry but i dont have the time to read all of them.
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On March 01 2011 22:30 ThisIsSparta_ wrote:are you sure this build can beat a defensive baneling play?all i have to do is to morph two banes in my mineral line and i am safe. or can you even win against a speedling opening ( 14 gas/14 pool build) into defensive baneling? if there is a similar post to this one: sorry but i dont have the time to read all of them.
The issue is timing. Roughly half of my games, I play against something like gas/pool speedling expand that transitions from expand into defensive baneling. The entire basis of this build is to overwhelm with speedlings during a critical timing window (about 25 seconds) that overlaps in almost every standard build.
The reason this fails almost every time is because you have to know that this is what i'm doing, and it's not really possible before ~3:30 (assuming you have good spotting). Then, assuming you realized it, you have to drop a baneling nest immediately, and morph banes immediately. Since your gas is later, you may not be able to drop the nest immediately even though you may know the proper response and realize it immediately.
Assuming you had the minerals/gas to drop a baneling nest (no certainty), you have 90 seconds from when it's possible to figure out and when I try to kill you. That leaves a 10 second window to say "hey, he's massing lings," gather the resources for a baneling nest, then drop one.
In games where the opponent transitions to defensive baneling, I would say roughly half of them involve me engaging him as his banelings are morphing.
The game vs. Fenril (plat) is a great example of defensive baneling that turns into heavy aggression, and I would say it is definitely the closest game. We reached basically a stalemate until one of us (him) decided to engage.
Lastly and most importantly though, since you can't deny scouting with the first two lings (unless you do something like 9pool double queen), if I see what looks like a rush baneling that can defend what I will do, I can always just spine/drone and back off. In order for you to have the ability to defend what I'm doing, you have to at least match my ling count, and I can just drone.
Even though this looks like an all-in to some, it's incredibly easy to transition out of, and the threat of this build is going to force army production from the other player, at which point you can drone hard and break even or come out ahead (this happens in a few games as well).
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On March 02 2011 08:34 michaelhasanalias wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2011 22:30 ThisIsSparta_ wrote:are you sure this build can beat a defensive baneling play?all i have to do is to morph two banes in my mineral line and i am safe. or can you even win against a speedling opening ( 14 gas/14 pool build) into defensive baneling? if there is a similar post to this one: sorry but i dont have the time to read all of them. The issue is timing. Roughly half of my games, I play against something like gas/pool speedling expand that transitions from expand into defensive baneling. The entire basis of this build is to overwhelm with speedlings during a critical timing window (about 25 seconds) that overlaps in almost every standard build. The reason this fails almost every time is because you have to know that this is what i'm doing, and it's not really possible before ~3:30 (assuming you have good spotting). Then, assuming you realized it, you have to drop a baneling nest immediately, and morph banes immediately. Since your gas is later, you may not be able to drop the nest immediately even though you may know the proper response and realize it immediately. Assuming you had the minerals/gas to drop a baneling nest (no certainty), you have 90 seconds from when it's possible to figure out and when I try to kill you. That leaves a 10 second window to say "hey, he's massing lings," gather the resources for a baneling nest, then drop one. In games where the opponent transitions to defensive baneling, I would say roughly half of them involve me engaging him as his banelings are morphing. The game vs. Fenril (plat) is a great example of defensive baneling that turns into heavy aggression, and I would say it is definitely the closest game. We reached basically a stalemate until one of us (him) decided to engage. Lastly and most importantly though, since you can't deny scouting with the first two lings (unless you do something like 9pool double queen), if I see what looks like a rush baneling that can defend what I will do, I can always just spine/drone and back off. In order for you to have the ability to defend what I'm doing, you have to at least match my ling count, and I can just drone. Even though this looks like an all-in to some, it's incredibly easy to transition out of, and the threat of this build is going to force army production from the other player, at which point you can drone hard and break even or come out ahead (this happens in a few games as well).
baneling opening means that i build my baneling nest right after speed upgrade at 15 supply, not after i scouted you and saw that you are massing speedlings. could you give me a timing when your lings will attack my base? i dont mean your first 6 lings, coz they are not that much of a thread. i mean the lings you get after your first injection. i will post the timing when i get my first baneling.
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On March 02 2011 16:29 ThisIsSparta_ wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2011 08:34 michaelhasanalias wrote:On March 01 2011 22:30 ThisIsSparta_ wrote:are you sure this build can beat a defensive baneling play?all i have to do is to morph two banes in my mineral line and i am safe. or can you even win against a speedling opening ( 14 gas/14 pool build) into defensive baneling? if there is a similar post to this one: sorry but i dont have the time to read all of them. The issue is timing. Roughly half of my games, I play against something like gas/pool speedling expand that transitions from expand into defensive baneling. The entire basis of this build is to overwhelm with speedlings during a critical timing window (about 25 seconds) that overlaps in almost every standard build. The reason this fails almost every time is because you have to know that this is what i'm doing, and it's not really possible before ~3:30 (assuming you have good spotting). Then, assuming you realized it, you have to drop a baneling nest immediately, and morph banes immediately. Since your gas is later, you may not be able to drop the nest immediately even though you may know the proper response and realize it immediately. Assuming you had the minerals/gas to drop a baneling nest (no certainty), you have 90 seconds from when it's possible to figure out and when I try to kill you. That leaves a 10 second window to say "hey, he's massing lings," gather the resources for a baneling nest, then drop one. In games where the opponent transitions to defensive baneling, I would say roughly half of them involve me engaging him as his banelings are morphing. The game vs. Fenril (plat) is a great example of defensive baneling that turns into heavy aggression, and I would say it is definitely the closest game. We reached basically a stalemate until one of us (him) decided to engage. Lastly and most importantly though, since you can't deny scouting with the first two lings (unless you do something like 9pool double queen), if I see what looks like a rush baneling that can defend what I will do, I can always just spine/drone and back off. In order for you to have the ability to defend what I'm doing, you have to at least match my ling count, and I can just drone. Even though this looks like an all-in to some, it's incredibly easy to transition out of, and the threat of this build is going to force army production from the other player, at which point you can drone hard and break even or come out ahead (this happens in a few games as well). baneling opening means that i build my baneling nest right after speed upgrade at 15 supply, not after i scouted you and saw that you are massing speedlings. could you give me a timing when your lings will attack my base? i dont mean your first 6 lings, coz they are not that much of a thread. i mean the lings you get after your first injection. i will post the timing when i get my first baneling.
All that information is in the OP.
If you were to rush baneling nest, you can't deny my scouting with the first two lings, and when I see it is almost done when I scout you, rather than make 45 more lings, I'll just make 2 spines and drone up. From there, we'll be more or less even and play a standard game. If you attack, you'll probably lose the game due to BS / double spine.
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Yeah I agree with Sparta, i play 14 gas/ 14 pool ling/bane opener as a standard ZvZ on most maps, even with the new map pool and my baneling nest finishes at 4:20 every time (unless of course I scout a roach warren), which is just in time to shred your timing attack I feel like. Also, my speed starts at 3:00 or so, sometimes a lil quicker sometimes a lil later (~3 seconds) so that means at absolute most if i horribly fuck up at the beginning you will have a 6 second window where i dont have speed and you do. And keep in mind if you push at 5 minutes, I will have seen your mass lings with my scouting lings and will have left 2 banes in my base and moved out with more banes and my lings.
I think that there is no viable way you can expect any pure speedling play to hold up against the standard ling/bane opener, unless serious mistakes are made by the ling/bane player. I mean the ling/bane opener is designed to counter any sort of pure speedling play.
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Also if you do build 2 spines then i will just expand and keep a few blings at my expo, yeah we will be playing a macro game but i will start out with a 4 drone advantage.
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On March 02 2011 17:34 Communism wrote: Yeah I agree with Sparta, i play 14 gas/ 14 pool ling/bane opener as a standard ZvZ on most maps, even with the new map pool and my baneling nest finishes at 4:20 every time (unless of course I scout a roach warren), which is just in time to shred your timing attack I feel like. Also, my speed starts at 3:00 or so, sometimes a lil quicker sometimes a lil later (~3 seconds) so that means at absolute most if i horribly fuck up at the beginning you will have a 6 second window where i dont have speed and you do. And keep in mind if you push at 5 minutes, I will have seen your mass lings with my scouting lings and will have left 2 banes in my base and moved out with more banes and my lings.
I think that there is no viable way you can expect any pure speedling play to hold up against the standard ling/bane opener, unless serious mistakes are made by the ling/bane player. I mean the ling/bane opener is designed to counter any sort of pure speedling play.
you can theorycraft all day. This build is clearly beatable and starting banelings immediately is one way to do it. In almost all ZvZ games I play, the opponent does an opening very similar to you. In most of those games, the banes are usually morphing as I attack, and half the drones are gone by the time you get the banes out, if I don't focus fire them (usually I do).
The issue you're going to run into with your strategy is that I'll just attack you sooner if it's that close, and you can't defend morphing banelings when I have 2-3x your army supply. The game probably won't end and will likely be even before and after the exchange, but it's by no means a counter to go 14pool speedling baneling.
If you don't match my ling count you're going to die, and if you rush banes AND match my ling count, we'll be even until one of us attacks.
There are few real options that you can do to outright beat/stagnate this, and two of them require omniscience, and so aren't really viable:
1) 7RR. As silly as 7RR would be in ZvZ, The roaches would all be out by 4:45, and with drone micro to clog up attack lanes, you would probably crush my army if I engaged, which I probably would, since I'd be in your base as the roaches pop.
2) early pool (9-10) baneling rush. You'd forego speed early banelings, giving you the ability to both deny scouting and keep me in my base. I'd likely spine, but it would certainly force a transition out of this build.
3) Any economical 1-base opener with 2-spines started by 4 minutes and decent drone micro. You don't need to attack with the drones, just use them to make sure I can't get surrounds on the spines, and you'll win without losing anything but maybe your queen.
4) 14 pool speedling baneling. If executed properly, you'll force either non-aggression, or some sort of stalemate. It doesn't counter 26 speedling expand, but it can give you a slight economic advantage. It's still very risky if you don't make enough lings or make too many drones, and you can still die very easily.
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On March 02 2011 17:27 michaelhasanalias wrote:
All that information is in the OP.
If you were to rush baneling nest, you can't deny my scouting with the first two lings, and when I see it is almost done when I scout you, rather than make 45 more lings, I'll just make 2 spines and drone up. From there, we'll be more or less even and play a standard game. If you attack, you'll probably lose the game due to BS / double spine. [/QUOTE]
i dont think that we would be even. i have a 4 drone advantage early on, then you make 2 spines, so i get agead even more ( 2 spines 200 mins, 2 drones 100 mins). i wouldnt try to kill you with banes when i see 2 spines going up. i would just match your ling count to gain map control, expand, throw down a roach warren and opt for lair tech, so i can make fast upgrades and do a timing push. dont think there is any chance that you can hold this off.
i am not saying your build is easy to counter, coz you would kill every fe, without being too all in.
but i think a baneling play can counter this build. coz you only drone up to 15 supply and then get lings till your safe ( no more drones!) i would play defensive until i can match your ling count and then i would force you back to your base and react to what you are doing. if you play defensive and drone up, i would expand and drone up myself. ( you cannot expand) if you are massing more lings...well -> banelings
though i believe you that its a tough build to counter, and i would have to micro well to hold it off. but i dont think its possible to just drone up and transition into a standart game, when you dont do any damage to your opponents econ.
but of course i could be wrong , could you provide a replay to prove that this build is also strong against baneling play? btw sry for my english
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On March 02 2011 20:24 ThisIsSparta_ wrote:could you provide a replay to prove that this build is also strong against baneling play? btw sry for my english
More than half the games I posted the opponent attempted to go baneling. I suppose if I find a game where the banes get out, then sure. It hasn't happened yet, but it's certainly possible.
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as other people have stated 14 pool 13/14 gas will be more than capable defending this easily if responded correctly I mean seriously it will be almost free win against 14 pool who masses lings like alot of people do blindly and is careful and waits for you to do something with your earlier pool and with overlords spotting you can defend this at your ramp or at mineral line with queens + drones + lings or even throw spine crawler after seeing that very fast pool if you scout it. (i guess these were stated earlier already )
but i still think this build is a quite nice becouse theres so many other "normal" builds that u see in ladder that this build crushes through and even alot of 14pool variations loses against this and huge number of wrong decisions from opponent will give you an edge in my opinion and I hate it when greedy zergs go hatch first and im sure from my own experience this build has major advantage over it (atleast on my level)
anyway thanks for the build ill definitely start using this for fun and see how it truly works against different builds.
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On March 02 2011 20:29 michaelhasanalias wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2011 20:24 ThisIsSparta_ wrote:could you provide a replay to prove that this build is also strong against baneling play? btw sry for my english More than half the games I posted the opponent attempted to go baneling. I suppose if I find a game where the banes get out, then sure. It hasn't happened yet, but it's certainly possible.
forgot that you already posted replays , my bad.
i just want to see if any of the guys you played followed the correct bo and are microing well. when you open baneling, even 1 little mistake will cost you the game (1 supply block, speed started a few seconds too late, baneling nest a few seconds delayed). you have to follow the bo perfect to win against your speedling opener.
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ok i just watched the replay you played against fenril. he opened baneling and you say it was one of the closest games. now i am sure 14gas 14 pool into defensive baneling is the hardcounter to your build.
the game was close as you said, even though he did many horrible mistakes:
his banelingnest was finished at 5:20, but he morphed his first banelings at 6:30, even though he morphed his banes so late and didnt position them defensive (instead he morphed them right at your base) you could not kill him, nor do any damage to his econ. you saw the baneling nest and throw down 2 spines, what left you with 9 drones to 13. he was in your mineral line with 6 banelings and ran right into your queen without doing any damage! he could have won the game there if he had microed his banes. then he wanted to finish you off, even though he knew you had 2 spines up, a queen and lings to defend and you just ran right into his base, when he moved out without scouting your lings ( they were waiting at his natural) and killed everything, coz he didnt even try to protect it. all he had to do was, sit back, expand, drone up and end the game with a timing roach push.
sry but there is no way this build could possibly stand against a proper executed baneling play.
btw he did a 14pool 13 gas build. i use a 14 gas 14 pool build, so speed up and baneling nest kick in sooner.
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This build, after trying sooo many different things in ZvZ, finally has me not so terrified when I see another zerg after clicking "find match". It's been good so far, and I've even gone so far as to make a couple 2-3 ling hotkeys as "baneling strike groups". Works like a charm, if they don't GG, generally it's not hard to keep up the ling pressure to take the win. It transitions so nicely into an expo it's ridiculous.
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Just because 14 pool/14 gas baneling play counters this doesn't mean its bad, which seems to be the implication a lot of people are saying...or something. This build is just another element of the ZvZ rock paper scissors.
The thing about going banelings is that in order to have that baneling nest early enough, you have to commit to getting it very early, a point where if the other zerg does a good job, you won't know if they're going mass speedling. Overpool can go into roach very easily if that is what some people choose to do (I remember that overpool is the best build to go if you don't plan on expanding before 25 or so supply).
It's a solid build and works well, and it's just something else to think about when you play ZvZ.
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On March 02 2011 21:03 ThisIsSparta_ wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2011 20:29 michaelhasanalias wrote:On March 02 2011 20:24 ThisIsSparta_ wrote:could you provide a replay to prove that this build is also strong against baneling play? btw sry for my english More than half the games I posted the opponent attempted to go baneling. I suppose if I find a game where the banes get out, then sure. It hasn't happened yet, but it's certainly possible. forgot that you already posted replays , my bad. i just want to see if any of the guys you played followed the correct bo and are microing well. when you open baneling, even 1 little mistake will cost you the game (1 supply block, speed started a few seconds too late, baneling nest a few seconds delayed). you have to follow the bo perfect to win against your speedling opener.
Here's a replay where I feel I did execute the build decently, and probably would have lost if not for opponent disconnect. I think the build my opponent does is an extremely conservative and fairly economical way to open the game.
vs Michael vs Samuel
By my own standards my ling rush was a little bit late, and my decision to harass early lowered my ling count quite a bit, but I think it was at least an average execution.
In this game, my opponent opts for 13pool, 13gas, 18 bane nest (with first 50 gas), then 20 meta boost. While he didn't get speed for the fight, because of the earlier banelings, he didn't really need it. If I had scouted adequately, I would simply have droned up and we'd play a normal game, but because I didn't, I went for it anyway and tried to attack a timing window that simply wasn't there.
Note that if you are going for this build and you scout an early bane nest like I should have in this game, then you simply wouldn't mass the lings and instead would macro hard and play defensively. You don't typically make the decision to make those last 12-14 lings until after you will have scouted the opponent's base. The early banes counter what this build WOULD do, but doesn't counter the build outright. You are very slightly behind, but it's by no means auto-lose since you can very easily just make drones instead of lings, and still secure an expansion.
On March 03 2011 03:05 ThisIsSparta_ wrote: ok i just watched the replay you played against fenril. he opened baneling and you say it was one of the closest games. now i am sure 14gas 14 pool into defensive baneling is the hardcounter to your build.
the game was close as you said, even though he did many horrible mistakes:
his banelingnest was finished at 5:20, but he morphed his first banelings at 6:30, even though he morphed his banes so late and didnt position them defensive (instead he morphed them right at your base) you could not kill him, nor do any damage to his econ. you saw the baneling nest and throw down 2 spines, what left you with 9 drones to 13. he was in your mineral line with 6 banelings and ran right into your queen without doing any damage! he could have won the game there if he had microed his banes. then he wanted to finish you off, even though he knew you had 2 spines up, a queen and lings to defend and you just ran right into his base, when he moved out without scouting your lings ( they were waiting at his natural) and killed everything, coz he didnt even try to protect it. all he had to do was, sit back, expand, drone up and end the game with a timing roach push.
sry but there is no way this build could possibly stand against a proper executed baneling play.
btw he did a 14pool 13 gas build. i use a 14 gas 14 pool build, so speed up and baneling nest kick in sooner.
14gas/pool banelings pop about 5:00-5:05 by what I can tell. This, if perfectly executed, can and will stop this rush, but if any part of your opener is late, you're going to die. That said, if I scout and see you had a baneling nest drop around 3:30-3:40, I'm going to be far more likely to transition into a standard game.
I do suppose that one of the reasons that my opponent bling nests tend to be later is that during the normal time you'd drop a bling nest, I'm in your base scouting. So perhaps the thinking is "I'll delay it a few seconds while I kick his lings out" and that buys just enough time to end the game on a push.
In other words, if I'm running around freely in your base and you don't drop a bling nest by ~3:50, you're going to lose the game if you didn't drop double spines within 20 seconds.
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[QUOTE]On March 03 2011 09:23 michaelhasanalias wrote: [QUOTE]On March 02 2011 21:03 ThisIsSparta_ wrote: [QUOTE]On March 02 2011 20:29 michaelhasanalias wrote: [QUOTE]On March 02 2011 20:24 ThisIsSparta_ wrote:
Here's a replay where I feel I did execute the build decently, and probably would have lost if not for opponent disconnect. I think the build my opponent does is an extremely conservative and fairly economical way to open the game.
vs [url=http://topreplays.com/Replays/Details/4946/Michael_vs_Samuel]Michael vs Samuel[/url] [url=http://topreplays.com/Replays/Download/4946][img]http://www.topreplays.com/img/layout/download.png[/img][/url]
By my own standards my ling rush was a little bit late, and my decision to harass early lowered my ling count quite a bit, but I think it was at least an average execution.
In this game, my opponent opts for 13pool, 13gas, 18 bane nest (with first 50 gas), then 20 meta boost. While he didn't get speed for the fight, because of the earlier banelings, he didn't really need it. If I had scouted adequately, I would simply have droned up and we'd play a normal game, but because I didn't, I went for it anyway and tried to attack a timing window that simply wasn't there.
Note that if you are going for this build and you scout an early bane nest like I should have in this game, then you simply wouldn't mass the lings and instead would macro hard and play defensively. You don't typically make the decision to make those last 12-14 lings until after you will have scouted the opponent's base. The early banes counter what this build WOULD do, but doesn't counter the build outright. You are very slightly behind, but it's by no means auto-lose since you can very easily just make drones instead of lings, and still secure an expansion.
[/QUOTE]
14gas/pool banelings pop about 5:00-5:05 by what I can tell. This, if perfectly executed, can and will stop this rush, but if any part of your opener is late, you're going to die. That said, if I scout and see you had a baneling nest drop around 3:30-3:40, I'm going to be far more likely to transition into a standard game.
I do suppose that one of the reasons that my opponent bling nests tend to be later is that during the normal time you'd drop a bling nest, I'm in your base scouting. So perhaps the thinking is "I'll delay it a few seconds while I kick his lings out" and that buys just enough time to end the game on a push.
In other words, if I'm running around freely in your base and you don't drop a bling nest by ~3:50, you're going to lose the game if you didn't drop double spines within 20 seconds.[/QUOTE]
And what if your opponent sees your two spines and decides not to engage and just drone up like you? your opponent would have a 5 drone advantage and you have to spend 200 mins for spines, while he can use his map control to expand. (when you played fenril and scouted the baneling nest you immediately throw down a roach warren additional to your spines, so there is for you to gain map control before you get the speed up for your roaches).
you cannot keep up with your opponents econ if he decides to outmacro you. you cannot move out with your roaches without speed up, you need to make a at least 10 roaches before you can expand, otherwise you would not be able to defend it, so you fall even more behind. No way to beat a two base zerg while your on 1 base.
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On March 03 2011 04:45 dave333 wrote: Just because 14 pool/14 gas baneling play counters this doesn't mean its bad, which seems to be the implication a lot of people are saying...or something. This build is just another element of the ZvZ rock paper scissors.
The thing about going banelings is that in order to have that baneling nest early enough, you have to commit to getting it very early, a point where if the other zerg does a good job, you won't know if they're going mass speedling. Overpool can go into roach very easily if that is what some people choose to do (I remember that overpool is the best build to go if you don't plan on expanding before 25 or so supply).
It's a solid build and works well, and it's just something else to think about when you play ZvZ.
read my post again! i never said its a bad build. There is no way to defend a fe if your opponent opens with this build and even with a roach opening its extremely hard, or maybe even impossible.
maybe you misunderstood me, but i think this build is fucking awesome! ( maybe i should have stated this before). but why not discuss about some counters? its a strategy forum so why not discuss about what to do against this build?
btw there are maps ( scrap station, xel naga, metalopolis if close position) where i always open speedling/baneling no matter what i scout. with my first 2 lings i scout his base, if i see a roachwarren i cancel my nest and make a round of drones then throw down a roach warren myself. and if i scout no roach warren i know that he is going mass speedling.
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On March 03 2011 18:55 ThisIsSparta_ wrote: And what if your opponent sees your two spines and decides not to engage and just drone up like you? your opponent would have a 5 drone advantage and you have to spend 200 mins for spines, while he can use his map control to expand. (when you played fenril and scouted the baneling nest you immediately throw down a roach warren additional to your spines, so there is for you to gain map control before you get the speed up for your roaches).
you cannot keep up with your opponents econ if he decides to outmacro you. you cannot move out with your roaches without speed up, you need to make a at least 10 roaches before you can expand, otherwise you would not be able to defend it, so you fall even more behind. No way to beat a two base zerg while your on 1 base.
This extends far into the realm of theorycraft, and beyond the scope of discussion in this thread. In your world you can also pop 45 ultralisks at 15 minutes and hold me to 1 base the entire time. The real game is played differently.
I'ts not a default decision to drop a few spines, but if I'm scouting cut drones and many lings, I'm going to spine expecting an attack. If there are early banes and not a lot of lings, I know it's defensive.
There are so many factors that go into the follow-up decision-making that it's really not worth discussing unless it comes up.
I do like that you're continually trying to shoot theorycraft holes into a strategy that has been working well. I openly admit that early bling is going to force a transition out of this build. I don't see why you think that's going to end the game. It doesn't necessarily give you any sort of advantage unless I attack you.
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I have been using this build for 2 months.
Except that I get 1 more drone than you do, which means that I am able to get an expand up when rush fails if it does so...
And, I don't use it against Z as much. I use it against protoss.
It will bust down anyone not doing a proper wall including forge. It powers through the "1 zealot + 1 sentry or stalker" start that most people do.
So just a tip: try your build against protoss too, it works up to mid masters on euro servers quite well. And if you scout the full wall including at least 2 cannons, you can abandon at 18 supply to expand super safe. If they did a forge fast expand, normally you can power through - depending on map.
I started using it because I got so annoyed with the forge expands that messed with my expands
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On March 03 2011 20:34 aebriol wrote:I have been using this build for 2 months. Except that I get 1 more drone than you do, which means that I am able to get an expand up when rush fails if it does so... And, I don't use it against Z as much. I use it against protoss. It will bust down anyone not doing a proper wall including forge. It powers through the "1 zealot + 1 sentry or stalker" start that most people do. So just a tip: try your build against protoss too, it works up to mid masters on euro servers quite well. And if you scout the full wall including at least 2 cannons, you can abandon at 18 supply to expand super safe. If they did a forge fast expand, normally you can power through - depending on map. I started using it because I got so annoyed with the forge expands that messed with my expands
(off topic)
I don't see how you will beat a protoss with mass speedling. I was doing that until I started laddering consistently, and it worked until about mid-plat, when they start making units.
The only thing I can think where this could work with modification is sending 2 drones to hit the zealot on the rear.
Sending lings in against sentry/stalker/zealot where 1 ling attacks at a time seems like a meat grinder, but I guess if it's working for you that's good.
The only way I'd do this build against toss though is if I sent drones to attack the zealot too. I suppose it's possible to maybe have the scouting drone still alive such that you could just send 1 drone? maybe?
You can definitely squeeze an extra drone in when the overlord pops and before the queen, but it lowers the number of speedlings you can send to the opponent (a non-issue if you're running up a wall and attacking 1 ling at a time vs zealot).
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On March 03 2011 21:36 michaelhasanalias wrote: (off topic)
I don't see how you will beat a protoss with mass speedling. I was doing that until I started laddering consistently, and it worked until about mid-plat, when they start making units.
The only thing I can think where this could work with modification is sending 2 drones to hit the zealot on the rear.
Sending lings in against sentry/stalker/zealot where 1 ling attacks at a time seems like a meat grinder, but I guess if it's working for you that's good.
The only way I'd do this build against toss though is if I sent drones to attack the zealot too. I suppose it's possible to maybe have the scouting drone still alive such that you could just send 1 drone? maybe?
You can definitely squeeze an extra drone in when the overlord pops and before the queen, but it lowers the number of speedlings you can send to the opponent (a non-issue if you're running up a wall and attacking 1 ling at a time vs zealot). Well you will beat him because he has no units and it comes as a surprise when he has 1 zealot, and is getting out his second unit, with most standard builds? - 1 zealot or 1 zealot + stalker / sentry is what is normally there. - It hits before more gateways are done in almost all builds. - If he went stargate, it kills him off before it's out. - It hits before warpgate is done in all builds. - 1 zealot cannot defend against 10+ zerglings, even when just one attack at a time. And once it's dead, you have free entrance to the base with your reinforcements, and you outproduce him.
Basically you have 6 zerglings out at 18 supply, make an overlord, and kill off his scout / scout his front. If he made a normal build, you continue to attack when speed finish, and he has a hard time to defend.
Just try it. Most protoss believe they are safe with 1 zealot completing their wall, is why it works.
I'll get ahold of a replay and show how it works when I get home.
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On March 03 2011 19:20 michaelhasanalias wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2011 18:55 ThisIsSparta_ wrote: And what if your opponent sees your two spines and decides not to engage and just drone up like you? your opponent would have a 5 drone advantage and you have to spend 200 mins for spines, while he can use his map control to expand. (when you played fenril and scouted the baneling nest you immediately throw down a roach warren additional to your spines, so there is for you to gain map control before you get the speed up for your roaches).
you cannot keep up with your opponents econ if he decides to outmacro you. you cannot move out with your roaches without speed up, you need to make a at least 10 roaches before you can expand, otherwise you would not be able to defend it, so you fall even more behind. No way to beat a two base zerg while your on 1 base.
This extends far into the realm of theorycraft, and beyond the scope of discussion in this thread. In your world you can also pop 45 ultralisks at 15 minutes and hold me to 1 base the entire time. The real game is played differently. I'ts not a default decision to drop a few spines, but if I'm scouting cut drones and many lings, I'm going to spine expecting an attack. If there are early banes and not a lot of lings, I know it's defensive. There are so many factors that go into the follow-up decision-making that it's really not worth discussing unless it comes up. I do like that you're continually trying to shoot theorycraft holes into a strategy that has been working well. I openly admit that early bling is going to force a transition out of this build. I don't see why you think that's going to end the game. It doesn't necessarily give you any sort of advantage unless I attack you.
if you post your build you have to expect that people will discuss it. so whats the problem?
i just said how i would react to your build. could you tell me how you would transition out of this build? you throw down 2 spines to be safe and drone up. you scout me and you see that i am doing the same and i am expanding.
what will you do?
btw its fact that i will be ahead in econ ( 15 drones to 9), and its an significant advantage so early on in the game. its a fact and not my imagination.
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Here's an example vs protoss (84 in masters on EU, so not too good a player).
http://www.mediafire.com/?cv9is73ncbx97zr
Yes, it's possible to block, but you have to know how - and most players don't it seems. I am sure it won't work most of the time on > 3200 master EU players, but on diamond and low masters, it has a really high success rate.
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oh so this is basically the speedling expo at 22 except it is at 26
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I like this build very much.. Best thing in ZvZ since 7pool double crawler. =3 It also works really well against Protoss as well, and against Terran you can transition to an easy baneling bust with it.
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To be honest, with good execution many players can hold this off by even doing a hatch first. I just don't understand why people go any other build than hatch first speedling into roach in ZvZ. I don't think any other build is superior. Even 6 pool can be beaten with the drone micro trick. I don't think anyone can really debate this. To learn ZvZ the right way, I'd recommend watching Mr. Bitter's vods of him and ret talking over ZvZ. It made me actually realize that your mindset should be just like the other matchups. Drones drones drones and uh.... more drones?
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On March 04 2011 06:43 Farkinator wrote: To be honest, with good execution many players can hold this off by even doing a hatch first. I just don't understand why people go any other build than hatch first speedling into roach in ZvZ. I don't think any other build is superior. Even 6 pool can be beaten with the drone micro trick. I don't think anyone can really debate this. To learn ZvZ the right way, I'd recommend watching Mr. Bitter's vods of him and ret talking over ZvZ. It made me actually realize that your mindset should be just like the other matchups. Drones drones drones and uh.... more drones?
i think its because 1 little missclick will cost you the game. really hard to hold early aggression off, possible but really hard. well in zvz you cannot just drone up like in other match ups, i know ret is drowning like crazy, but he is awesome and there a few people out there who can play his style ( as bitter said). you have to be really careful in zvz, drone to much and you are fucked..
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On March 04 2011 06:43 Farkinator wrote: To be honest, with good execution many players can hold this off by even doing a hatch first. I just don't understand why people go any other build than hatch first speedling into roach in ZvZ. I don't think any other build is superior. Even 6 pool can be beaten with the drone micro trick. I don't think anyone can really debate this. To learn ZvZ the right way, I'd recommend watching Mr. Bitter's vods of him and ret talking over ZvZ. It made me actually realize that your mindset should be just like the other matchups. Drones drones drones and uh.... more drones?
The only time hatch first is going to beat this build is if the lings are late. The replay vs. Edge is a great example of this. Had I hit with 10 more lings in the initial attack (instead of 10 lings 20 seconds later) the game would have ended, and Edge is one of the best zergs on SEA. Even at that, he used some pretty insane micro to fend it off. (Not taking anything away from him, as he's obviously a great player.)
On March 04 2011 00:42 aebriol wrote:Here's an example vs protoss (84 in masters on EU, so not too good a player). http://www.mediafire.com/?cv9is73ncbx97zrYes, it's possible to block, but you have to know how - and most players don't it seems. I am sure it won't work most of the time on > 3200 master EU players, but on diamond and low masters, it has a really high success rate.
(off topic)
Personally if I'm going to cheese a guy and rely on him not knowing some basic response, I'd rather 6pool toss than do this and hope he doesn't wall behind the zealot.
One thing I do find interesting though is that you have two lings able to attack his zealot. Is this his error, or is it due to the building placement or map? If I could ensure 2 lings attack the zealot every time, I'd have less of an issue doing a build like this.
edit: Here's a replay a friend was helping me test this idea. He says he miffed a FF otherwise he thinks he would have been okay, and I think I agree, but maybe it's worth posting anyway.
vs Michael vs NoFilter
The biggest thing is that unless your opponent is a silly goose and puts his core along the not-straight wall above any ramp, only 1 ling at a time can attack.
I'll mess around with this more, but if anything seems to come to fruition, I'll make a new thread, so as not to derail this one too much.
edit2: another friend of mine offered to help me test this.
vs Michael vs Slapstick
He said his 2nd sentry was late, so maybe that would have been the difference. (would finish at 5:12)
I micro'd my drones pretty poorly (still learning execution myself) and his zealot wasn't in perfect wall position because he had never played this map, but if the zealot was in position, I think it's exposed to 2 lings at a time. The ramp on SP is slanted, meaning either the zealot won't complete the wall, or he will be exposed to double zingling.
very interesting....
edit3:
Here's another replay where the sentry definitely comes out on time. I mineral walked 2 drones (probably should have sent 3).
vs Michael vs NoFilter
I think I'm going to make a new thread... this is a cool strat. Especially on Slag Pits, and possibly other new maps that have slanted ramp walls, because 2 lings can hit the zealot at a time. That's a really big deal.
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On March 04 2011 09:32 michaelhasanalias wrote:I micro'd my drones pretty poorly (still learning execution myself) and his zealot wasn't in perfect wall position because he had never played this map, but if the zealot was in position, I think it's exposed to 2 lings at a time. The ramp on SP is slanted, meaning either the zealot won't complete the wall, or he will be exposed to double zingling. very interesting.... edit3: Here's another replay where the sentry definitely comes out on time. I mineral walked 2 drones (probably should have sent 3). vs Michael vs NoFilter I think I'm going to make a new thread... this is a cool strat. Especially on Slag Pits, and possibly other new maps that have slanted ramp walls, because 2 lings can hit the zealot at a time. That's a really big deal. Make no mistake, it is nearly an all in (if you can scout with your overlord, and have a place to hide it afterward so it doesn't die, you can transition into econ because of queen, but you are behind quite a lot).
The proper response is scouting, checking drone count, realize it's an all in, and wall off with another building. Forge or gateway. Forge with 1 or 2 cannons kills it dead of course.
Most peoples response on ladder has been "lucky, I almost had 2nd sentry out" - but no, they didn't, because it hits before you get out 2 sentries in normal builds. And a cannon started late, is no problem.
Since no one rushes like this, I think I have like 80% success rate with it. ZvP is my worst matchup, and when I am just losing to them in normal games, I get annoyed and just do this.
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On March 04 2011 15:44 aebriol wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2011 09:32 michaelhasanalias wrote:I micro'd my drones pretty poorly (still learning execution myself) and his zealot wasn't in perfect wall position because he had never played this map, but if the zealot was in position, I think it's exposed to 2 lings at a time. The ramp on SP is slanted, meaning either the zealot won't complete the wall, or he will be exposed to double zingling. very interesting.... edit3: Here's another replay where the sentry definitely comes out on time. I mineral walked 2 drones (probably should have sent 3). vs Michael vs NoFilter I think I'm going to make a new thread... this is a cool strat. Especially on Slag Pits, and possibly other new maps that have slanted ramp walls, because 2 lings can hit the zealot at a time. That's a really big deal. Make no mistake, it is nearly an all in (if you can scout with your overlord, and have a place to hide it afterward so it doesn't die, you can transition into econ because of queen, but you are behind quite a lot). The proper response is scouting, checking drone count, realize it's an all in, and wall off with another building. Forge or gateway. Forge with 1 or 2 cannons kills it dead of course. Most peoples response on ladder has been "lucky, I almost had 2nd sentry out" - but no, they didn't, because it hits before you get out 2 sentries in normal builds. And a cannon started late, is no problem. Since no one rushes like this, I think I have like 80% success rate with it. ZvP is my worst matchup, and when I am just losing to them in normal games, I get annoyed and just do this.
You don't even need to do that. Just make a 2nd zealot if you scout those early pool shenanigans, and you're safe. It mitigates the mineral walk and makes your wall take twice as many ling deaths to break. then the third sentry can FF at ~5:10-5:15 and you're good to go.
That kind of overreaction is what loses games against better players imo.
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Added new replays and modified OP slightly:
vs Michael vs HyperGeist (against fast baneling aggression)
This was an interesting game because I couldn't really get vision of his base, although I was almost positive he was going banelings based on his ling count and where he tried to hide them.
He went 10 pool baneling before meta, and we almost base traded, but I was able to just barely hold it off.
I think if he had opted to delay meta and for an extra 1-2 banelings it might have made the difference.
vs Michael vs 콩라인득도 against 14h cross-slag
vs Michael vs Angel against 10pool speedling (~close game)
This game was interesting because I thought for whatever reason he 6-8 pooled me. I countered his spine aggression by triple-spining, not realizing until it was too late that he had 10 pooled me. Because of that gaffe, this game was closer than it should have been.
I still am a big advocate of 11pool speedling > 10pool speedling. My speed was late because I forgot to put on gas after my pool, but I still was only very slightly later in speed than he was, and it was between engagements.
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On March 04 2011 07:36 ThisIsSparta_ wrote: i think its because 1 little missclick will cost you the game. really hard to hold early aggression off, possible but really hard. well in zvz you cannot just drone up like in other match ups, i know ret is drowning like crazy, but he is awesome and there a few people out there who can play his style ( as bitter said). you have to be really careful in zvz, drone to much and you are fucked..
Who said any other Zerg matchup isn't like this? Every Zerg matchup is about knowing WHEN to build drones, and I actually find it a lot easier to tell when to drone and when to not drone in ZvZ than other matchups because you can look at his buildings, your buildings, and keep comparing in order to get a good sense of what he'll be doing in the near future. This allows you to know how many drones and how many units to build. I don't know; it's just a lot easier to get reads off of Zerg players for me because maybe I just understand the race's possibilities a lot more than the other races. I'd like to play a little Terran to really know what their options are (I offraced as Protoss for a couple weeks and now I feel much more confident ZvP)
It is a good point, however, that hatch first is sometimes VERY VERY hard to execute against some very aggressive openings, and a lot of the time comes down to that one Zergling that you pulled back at the last second to get another hit in. However, I think that you'll win a whole lot more games just going Hatch first than trying a bunch of different all-in builds. Maybe that's just me, but I've been doing Hatch first for quite some time after a long history of overpooling etc. and my win ratio in zvz is something crazy like 90%. I'm only 3.1K diamond, so maybe I'm not the best person to speak to this, but I feel much more comfortable doing a hatch first and overwhelming with eventual roach infestor play. Probably just a stylistic thing. Everyone has their differences I guess.
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On March 11 2011 05:16 Farkinator wrote: It is a good point, however, that hatch first is sometimes VERY VERY hard to execute against some very aggressive openings, and a lot of the time comes down to that one Zergling that you pulled back at the last second to get another hit in. However, I think that you'll win a whole lot more games just going Hatch first than trying a bunch of different all-in builds. Maybe that's just me, but I've been doing Hatch first for quite some time after a long history of overpooling etc. and my win ratio in zvz is something crazy like 90%. I'm only 3.1K diamond, so maybe I'm not the best person to speak to this, but I feel much more comfortable doing a hatch first and overwhelming with eventual roach infestor play. Probably just a stylistic thing. Everyone has their differences I guess.
Yeah this is a good way to play if your opponent is not very aggressive. It's certainly true that the style I recommend in the OP is for "quick win" type, but it's also a very high chance to end the game.
If I "greedily" invest in extra army at the expense of economy and you "greedily" invest in extra economy at the expense of army, I'm going to beat you.
However, if you "greedily" invest in extra economy and I don't take advantage of it, then of course you will be at the advantage.
I mean that is the crux of how 15hatch came about. It punishes quite well the very standard economical 14gas/pool opening by taking that extra economic advantage that simply can't be taken advantage of if you get the standard gas/pool timing.
By comparison, this variant of 26 speedling build punishes ANY investment into economy beyond the standard, including any hatch first play. I think that if properly executed, there just isn't a way to survive against this aggression if you open with a hatch first (equal skill withstanding), but of course perhaps I just never encountered it.
Lately I have been playing more games on the Korean ladder, and I have had similar success (although korean server players tend to be less concessionary and will continue fighting until they have nothing left).
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On March 02 2011 17:34 Communism wrote: Yeah I agree with Sparta, i play 14 gas/ 14 pool ling/bane opener as a standard ZvZ on most maps, even with the new map pool and my baneling nest finishes at 4:20 every time (unless of course I scout a roach warren), which is just in time to shred your timing attack I feel like. Also, my speed starts at 3:00 or so, sometimes a lil quicker sometimes a lil later (~3 seconds) so that means at absolute most if i horribly fuck up at the beginning you will have a 6 second window where i dont have speed and you do. And keep in mind if you push at 5 minutes, I will have seen your mass lings with my scouting lings and will have left 2 banes in my base and moved out with more banes and my lings.
I think that there is no viable way you can expect any pure speedling play to hold up against the standard ling/bane opener, unless serious mistakes are made by the ling/bane player. I mean the ling/bane opener is designed to counter any sort of pure speedling play.
Felt worth a bump to respond to this.
After playing a bit more and maybe partly because this is starting to become more popular in ZvZ, I've lost a couple times lately to 14gas/13pool speedling baneling. The banes are up in time if you plan to do them before (which i'd recommend in all honesty, independent of what the opponent may or may not be doing).
For someone who executes it WELL, it's almost a free win. If he doesn't, then he'll still lose.
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Very good build. One easy counter is a Zerg who pumps out two fast queens and hold the ramp while teching.
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On February 11 2011 23:35 michaelhasanalias wrote: While this build most certainly is NOT all-in due to it being a mirror matchup, it most definitely DOES depend on you dealing SIGNIFICANT damage to your opponent.
A build that needs to do significant damage to your opponent in order to not be behind is about as close to the definition of "all-in" as I can imagine.
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On March 20 2011 11:29 moxie wrote: Very good build. One easy counter is a Zerg who pumps out two fast queens and hold the ramp while teching.
This is not a viable counter to my build. The queens will get eaten alive vs lings, and unless you had lings in front while the queens did damage, you aren't going to defend it.
Against 9 pool double queen, you have far superior ling count, and his queens don't get in position to wall until about 20 seconds before you attack. You can always attack with 16 lings 30 seconds sooner, and he won't have the ability to wall or more than ~6 lings himself.
A wall can be a terrible ally, especially when you have a false sense of security because of it.
On March 20 2011 13:10 hizBALLIN wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2011 23:35 michaelhasanalias wrote: While this build most certainly is NOT all-in due to it being a mirror matchup, it most definitely DOES depend on you dealing SIGNIFICANT damage to your opponent. A build that needs to do significant damage to your opponent in order to not be behind is about as close to the definition of "all-in" as I can imagine.
This has been discussed for a few pages. It's not, and calling it "all-in" doesn't make it so. No build that gets you an expansion up is all-in, and it is possible with scouting to abandon this build if you see fast banes. Anything else is going to lose to this. (Although 4g/p baneling is the most common opener.)
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Hi, I have been practising this build rather successfully against zerg. I am platinum level, so i don't yet have the proper control that you speak of, so I am not doing it perfectly.
But I was wondering about one thing: what to do against an opponent who blocks his ramp with lings and roach? In this particular match I tried to engage his lings to gain access to his base so I could run in and overwhelm, although in the end I failed, due to lost amount of lings I guess, and slippery injection. I am not sure what I could have done differently here? Do you have any tips?
The problem is that I couldn't access his base without losing lings to begin with, and after a short time more roaches would have popped out and made it entirely impossible.
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/163093-1v1-zerg-backwater-gulch
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Sounds pretty cool and really strong, will definitely try it out when I get home. One thing I would like to note though, the recently more popular spanishwa build calls for like 4 queens right, 2 of which block the ramp? Even if it wasnt queens and the opponent goes for roach timing, would this build still do enough damage? I don't know the answer because I don't know how the timing matches up for these two builds.
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u stated a build that wanted to accomplish so many goals
and all it is an 11 pool speedling build?
User was temp banned for this post.
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updated OP slightly, also added a new game vs another GM player:
vs iCHORNinja vs Michael - This game ended up going up and into the 20 minute mark, but if you watch you'll notice that after the initial aggression, I never really give up my lead, and that safe expansion really helps solidify this game in the later stages. (His BM is because I 6-pooled him on ladder and won, not because he isn't normally a nice guy! I'd have probably BM'd too.)
On April 13 2011 02:43 Fishermang wrote:Hi, I have been practising this build rather successfully against zerg. I am platinum level, so i don't yet have the proper control that you speak of, so I am not doing it perfectly. But I was wondering about one thing: what to do against an opponent who blocks his ramp with lings and roach? In this particular match I tried to engage his lings to gain access to his base so I could run in and overwhelm, although in the end I failed, due to lost amount of lings I guess, and slippery injection. I am not sure what I could have done differently here? Do you have any tips? The problem is that I couldn't access his base without losing lings to begin with, and after a short time more roaches would have popped out and made it entirely impossible. http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/163093-1v1-zerg-backwater-gulch
Your pool was 25 seconds late which also caused your rush to be about 25 seconds late. Lastly, on backwater gulch cross-position, this build needs to be air-tight to hit those timing windows.
Had you hit it, I think you'd have been able to surround his roaches with your speedlings without issue, then surround the spine/queen and finish him off without much trouble.
Drone micro is very important when you are working at a build that needs to be this precise, and you didn't really double up on close minerals the way you should, and then missing those few carries + minerals on the extractor mis-cancel hurt you a bit.
I highly recommend reading this thread, which encapsulates almost exactly what I am referring to and in equal or better words than I could explain to you: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=211953
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Thanks alot for the reply! I am still learning the basics of such specific timings and drone splittings so you pointing out specifics helps out alot
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updated the OP a lot and also added an all-in option I've been using on ladder with high success recently against better players. I've been playing random though in these games, so that may be part of it.
I really feel that the spine all-in version is tremendously strong against just about anything most zergs can do.
I still believe this is a nice alternative to the standard zvz, as even if you can't end the game, because it's mirror your game can and sometimes will continue along a different path, giving you (the player expecting this) a material and situational advantage.
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I watched some of the replays, and I can't say I'm overly impressed by the play of some of your opponents. Especially the lack of scouting by some of them have completely made me wonder exactly how low the quality of players is starting to become.
The timing of this kind of attack is actually so late, that an expansion first would likely hold it. What I suggest you try a lot more is to poke out with the slow lings. In some of your games, 8-10 slow lings would be at his base before he'd be able to have Lings out. That is potentially game-ending. - There's no need to wait for speed to kick in to be agressive, you've just got to be more nimble till then.
-- Edit -- What I am trying to point out is the fact that your attack with 21 speedlings hits at 4:45 earliest. At 4:45 a 14 expand would be able to absolutely crush this sort of attack. At that point in time, a 14 hatch will have; A spine, 2 queens and about 12-14 slow zerglings. That is more than enough to drive you away, unless the ramp is abnormally huge.
If you attack earlier with a small amount of slow lings, you'll be able to force mistakes, or at least delay the 14 hatches unbreakable defense.
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Since i first read about this strat in this thread i have been using it mainly in all my ZvZ's and it works a treat, thank you op!
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On April 24 2011 12:41 Xana wrote: I watched some of the replays, and I can't say I'm overly impressed by the play of some of your opponents. Especially the lack of scouting by some of them have completely made me wonder exactly how low the quality of players is starting to become.
The timing of this kind of attack is actually so late, that an expansion first would likely hold it. What I suggest you try a lot more is to poke out with the slow lings. In some of your games, 8-10 slow lings would be at his base before he'd be able to have Lings out. That is potentially game-ending. - There's no need to wait for speed to kick in to be agressive, you've just got to be more nimble till then.
-- Edit -- What I am trying to point out is the fact that your attack with 21 speedlings hits at 4:45 earliest. At 4:45 a 14 expand would be able to absolutely crush this sort of attack. At that point in time, a 14 hatch will have; A spine, 2 queens and about 12-14 slow zerglings. That is more than enough to drive you away, unless the ramp is abnormally huge.
If you attack earlier with a small amount of slow lings, you'll be able to force mistakes, or at least delay the 14 hatches unbreakable defense.
Which games are you referring to?
I've lost one game in 3 months to hatch first, and it was against the #2 zerg on SEA (and my rush was late.) But if you have an account on NA/SEA/KOR we can 1v1 and test it out. I certainly don't see 14hatch that often.
Vs hatch first I almost always attack with my earliest lings. At least where I play, 14hatch is a very uncommon opener. It's either 15hatch or pool first most of the time.
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----> Michael vs 콩라인득도 against 14h cross-slag <-----
If you watch the timings and replay closely, I don't see you being at his base a whole lot sooner than what you were. If those lings had been at the ramp with the two queens and one spinecrawler for support, I don't see you breaking through in any way or shape.
Else, again, the two hatches inbase completely demolishes this build. You get the same amount of queens at the same time, and can use the hatch to help blocking off your ramp. This build is made for two-versus-two, and the point was to force early units and stop any attempt at expansions. As with any Zerg versus Zerg, if people are slightly bad at scouting they'll do mistakes. Mr 콩라인득도 could've easily won if he had gathered his units + queens at the ramp and kept you out.
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You should state when to scout and with what on 4player maps. First lings? 11 Drone? probably not as the build is too tight. OL will maybe not get to a base in time on some maps even.
Also, a Roach rush will have 7 Roaches by 4:45, blocking the ramp forever.
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On April 24 2011 18:41 Morghaine wrote: You should state when to scout and with what on 4player maps. First lings? 11 Drone? probably not as the build is too tight. OL will maybe not get to a base in time on some maps even.
Also, a Roach rush will have 7 Roaches by 4:45, blocking the ramp forever.
Only a complete noob would 7RR in zvz, but I will tell you that it does counter this one build (and it loses to every other zvz build outright).
I always scout with my first lings, as those lings are pretty much 100% undeniable. I send two lings to run a circle around the enemy's base and then may micro one of them. They run opposite rings. I thought I had this in the OP but if not I'll be sure to add it.
Because nothing your opponent can do before that time will impact your build, there is no reason whatsoever to drone scout. 11pool is completely safe vs any earlier pool, and any build counter (10 pool baneling, perfectly timed 14gas pool baneling) can be scouted with the initial two lings. If you scout this baneling nest and decide to abandon the build, you can do so before the first inject pops.
Recently I've always scouted the other adjacent position first rather than close position. Then, with a drone scout I can clip the side of my base around 1:10-1:30 to see his overlord (depending on the map). On metal it's 1:10 and on Shattered it's closer to 1:25. This doesn't reveal I have a pool until well after I've laid it.
In general ZvZ, I pretty much think drone scout is worthless unless you plan to go for an extremely greedy 15hatch, in which case you should scout on 9. Otherwise, in such a volatile matchup, I'd rather have the 50 minerals and rely on ling scouting and a safe early opener.
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added two more replays:
vs jaydubz vs Michael
vs Michael vs Metal
Both of these guys were rank 1 diamond just about to be promoted to master, and I was rank 1 diamond and promoted after these last two games.... so it's definitely a viable all-in at low master level about where I thought.
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A 15 hatch is not greedy. The point about the 15 hatch is that with an 8 scout on some maps, or a 9 scout on others, you're more than likely to reach the enemy's base before you hit 14-15 workers. If you then see such an early pool and noone mining gas anymore, its easy to instantly toss down a pool constricting movement, and then have your lings+queen in your mineral line. There is no way in hell someone can break such a defense without banelings.
The 15 hatch build has a scout that allows you to go 14 pool if the need calls for it. After that its just a matter of staying in your base and not losing those lings to speedlings. 26 speedlings fight just as good as 26 lings. The simple key to beating this strategy is to do proper scouting. We're talking knowing what comes out of the first injection cycle, and if only lings has been made up untill this point. If you're capable of reading that, you'll know exactly what you need to stay alive.
~ Xana.
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On April 26 2011 04:38 Xana wrote: A 15 hatch is not greedy. The point about the 15 hatch is that with an 8 scout on some maps, or a 9 scout on others, you're more than likely to reach the enemy's base before you hit 14-15 workers. If you then see such an early pool and noone mining gas anymore, its easy to instantly toss down a pool constricting movement, and then have your lings+queen in your mineral line. There is no way in hell someone can break such a defense without banelings.
The 15 hatch build has a scout that allows you to go 14 pool if the need calls for it. After that its just a matter of staying in your base and not losing those lings to speedlings. 26 speedlings fight just as good as 26 lings. The simple key to beating this strategy is to do proper scouting. We're talking knowing what comes out of the first injection cycle, and if only lings has been made up untill this point. If you're capable of reading that, you'll know exactly what you need to stay alive.
~ Xana.
You make some good points for discussion, but slow lings =/= speedlings in a fight. Speedlings are usually able to get a much better concave/surround than slow lings, which makes a huge difference in this attack.
Not really how confident you can be in being able to scout this coming, 26 Speedlings at 4:45 is extremely fast IMO, and I've had pretty reasonable success with it on the ladder, really only losing to one-base Roach or players that were flat out better than me.
All-in-all a pretty good pressure to have in the toolbox for ZvZ.
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The point is to not allow that concave. By fighting in the mineral line, against a wall or on your ramp means that the other player cannot surround. If you attack, the enemy has the advantage of the defender, which means fighting where he pleases. If he chooses his ramp and support it with queens your push is dead. Afterwards, you'll be pressured with lings and forced to make units. In that scenario, you won't be making drones. As your opponent is up one hatch on you, he'll be speeding ahead in everything and you'll be dead in the water.
I really do suggest going for attempted early expand every single game. Early expands on most maps holds 14 pool without a sweat and leaves the opponent dying.
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uploaded a new master replay from a grudge match custom when some guy called me out in a team game after he went 1base roach on a huge 4v4 map. Its full of BM and a pretty good example yet again of why this subtly altered speedling expand exploits almost every other zerg build.
The queen hunting his OL both blocked him and lured his roaches out, was simple clean up after that.
vs SoYLauroS vs Michael
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Tried this build and I loose most of times when opponent goes for roach. Most times, they feel aggression coming and are going for 2 spines and I loose too
Can you give me some tips? Here is one of my replay (forgot to bring drones for spines on this one) I am only a silver player, trying to improve, so you would certainly see a few mistakes there
vs Celeblin vs Arch
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I'm not sure if I've ever faced this build exactly, but my standard zvz is a 10 overpool, queen on 15, extractor after queen that skips ling speed and uses the first 50 gas for a baneling nest. I expand with 6-8 slowlings and morph banes and have 4-6 banes and 4-8 lings with a hatch building at 4:40. I drop a roach warren and transition to roach/bling. I'm pretty sure this survives and comes out economically ahead against this build, though I'd be down for testing it.
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Seems interesting. I'll have to check this out.
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Yeah, this build is totally awesome, been using it ALOT! Altough i dunno how important your second inject is? It feels like it wont get you your 26 lings much faster? I usually move out my queen after the first inject to snipe his overlord (2 player maps). Works great =).
Also if the opponent is fast expanding, i think sending out your first 6 lings (while hiding the rest of the lings youre making could do some damage? And only sending 6 lings wont alert your opponent too much that 20more are coming soonish!
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It's good to throw in early pool builds like this every now and then, maybe 5% of the time.
PS what is with your signature michaelhasanalias... seriously what is with that?
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On May 11 2011 05:56 pwadoc wrote: I'm not sure if I've ever faced this build exactly, but my standard zvz is a 10 overpool, queen on 15, extractor after queen that skips ling speed and uses the first 50 gas for a baneling nest. I expand with 6-8 slowlings and morph banes and have 4-6 banes and 4-8 lings with a hatch building at 4:40. I drop a roach warren and transition to roach/bling. I'm pretty sure this survives and comes out economically ahead against this build, though I'd be down for testing it.
I've never faced anything like what you're talking about, but I, too am searching for a build that both reliably holds this and comes out ahead of most other builds.
I still use this as my default opener unless I know my opponent knows/thinks that I'm going to do it (for example on SEA, where there aren't many players to begin with).
I'd be happy to do a few games against you if you have an account on NA, KOR or SEA. You can add me via my sig and we can test it out. Most of the time when my opponent goes baneling, I kill him as these banes are morphing. I will definitely say that the key to stopping this with a late baneling nest is to morph them in different locations and buy as much time as possible with good drone micro (around spine/queen/etc).
If what you're saying is accurate, and you have banes finished and hatched after dropping a ~20 nest (15 queen, 17 extractor, then 50 gas), I'd be pretty impressed, although I think my initial 2 lings may scout it in time and allow me to use that inject on drones instead. I'm not sure of the timings though... so let's play if you have some time.
On May 11 2011 09:19 Zacke wrote:Yeah, this build is totally awesome, been using it ALOT! Altough i dunno how important your second inject is? It feels like it wont get you your 26 lings much faster? I usually move out my queen after the first inject to snipe his overlord (2 player maps). Works great =). Also if the opponent is fast expanding, i think sending out your first 6 lings (while hiding the rest of the lings youre making could do some damage? And only sending 6 lings wont alert your opponent too much that 20more are coming soonish!
I personally don't feel that the 2nd inject is important at all. In order to maximize the ling count for your timing attack, you must use every possible larva on lings, and this means capping at 26, not making an overlord earlier than that. Further, the opportunity cost for that inject is that you can probably kill a forward overlord of your opponent's (and in rare cases, two overlords). This supply block will completely screw him if he was going roaches, and at least cap his ling count to slightly below yours otherwise. Then, you need creep for your expansion (or nothing if you all-in him).
Once your first inject pops, you'll be at 24 or 25 supply, and the 25th and 26th set of lings will be made as your main batch are en route.
It really depends on both the timing of the expansion and the contents of the opponent's base as to whether I'll engage and force a hatch cancel. Often times I'll be happy to let it complete, because those 300 minerals (and drone) won't be present during the engagement, and may even offer a split army (if he transferred), allowing me to destroy his main with less opposition. If you force a cancel 15-45 seconds before you attack, those 300 minerals will go into spines and possibly roaches, lings, and/or a second queen. Sometimes I go for it, but often I'll just lightly harass and make sure I have a good idea of where his money is being spent. Usually I prefer it being spent on that hatch, since a hatch can't defend itself.
As for the not alerting him of your other lings, if he's good he'll have a 20-25 second heads up as to when you're coming. Even with an overlord snipe, there should be an overlord vision highway between his base and yours (minus your nat since your queen will snipe it). So he'll have a good idea that there are lings coming and be popping units as you engage. In most of my games, units are all ~5-10 seconds from spawning off his inject as I move in, and it basically cuts his standing army in half, since I can engage 100% to <100%. A FE further sections off his possible defense.
On May 11 2011 12:59 Exley wrote: It's good to throw in early pool builds like this every now and then, maybe 5% of the time.
PS what is with your signature michaelhasanalias... seriously what is with that?
Personally the main reason I use this build as my standard is because it forces my opponent out of his element very early in the game. It's 100% safe against cheese (re: 6 pool, 7 pool spine all-in, etc etc) and has a very good chance of ending the game at 6 minutes via build order counter. It's very forgiving to my misclicks, and very unforgiving for my opponent's misclicks. It has very smooth transitions to mid-game via hatch, spine/baneling, 1-base roach, spine all-in, etc. All of these are reasons I love to use this build. Even if my opponent suspects speedling aggression, this build hits anywhere from 30-60 seconds faster than the standard speedling expand due to the 10 extractor, so I can (and often do) catch him just seconds before he is fully prepared.
| Michael | has | an | alias .... I feel like that's pretty transparent, as far as aliases go.
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Interesting build for sure. I wonder how does that fare on big map like Taldarim, or Typhon Peak though...how do you handle scouting, and the more important travel path ? Do you systematically go for expand behind your initial round of lings ?
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No your signature not your name. Am I missing something?
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On May 11 2011 23:25 ArhK wrote: Interesting build for sure. I wonder how does that fare on big map like Taldarim, or Typhon Peak though...how do you handle scouting, and the more important travel path ? Do you systematically go for expand behind your initial round of lings ?
I don't think a competent player will lose to this on tal'darim or cross shak, but typhon is still close enough that it will work.
On May 12 2011 05:08 Exley wrote: No your signature not your name. Am I missing something?
I try really hard to post great content and give a lot of insightful information whenever I can, and he temp banned me a few months ago for replying to some thread where I didn't watch the replay before telling the guy why it couldn't possibly work.
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On May 12 2011 05:13 michaelhasanalias wrote:Show nested quote +On May 11 2011 23:25 ArhK wrote: Interesting build for sure. I wonder how does that fare on big map like Taldarim, or Typhon Peak though...how do you handle scouting, and the more important travel path ? Do you systematically go for expand behind your initial round of lings ?
I don't think a competent player will lose to this on tal'darim or cross shak, but typhon is still close enough that it will work. Show nested quote +On May 12 2011 05:08 Exley wrote: No your signature not your name. Am I missing something? I try really hard to post great content and give a lot of insightful information whenever I can, and he temp banned me a few months ago for replying to some thread where I didn't watch the replay before telling the guy why it couldn't possibly work.
Michael always has good things to say, posts good replays and never is inconsiderate towards anyone. He also happens to know what he's talking about most of the time. This 26 speedling he uses is a strong opener but the only issue I see with it is it doesn't reliably come out ahead against the most common ZvZ opener, the typical 14 gas/14 pool unless you simply outplay your opponent. I do however like the way it matches up against hatch firsts, early pools and bascially anything else they try. On larger maps I still feel Hatch First should be the standard over early pool speedlings.
Builds like this are always good because you take away the possibility of being caught with your pants down. There is no Build Order Loss when playing this kind of style. It is also not extremely easy to scout and understand if you hide your lings well enough.
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it beats a 14 gas/ 14 pool? wow... i'll def check through the replays
lol the game with ichorninjga is pretty epic... he won the game although his hatch was taken out in the beginning awesome 1-base muta timing
ironically, ichorninja lost to rock/papers/scissors (roach/muta pwns roach speedlings which pwns roach/hydra)
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I stopped this build with 14 slings 2 spines with queen. Close position meta and spine locations where next to pool and behind mineral line. It was tough because I strategically pit my pool close to hatch and gas to avoid surround on my queen. I slowly got some roaches near end of engagement and walled with roaches and moved spines so the could attack the lings hitting my roaches. He tried to expo but I got enough roaches to stomp it and kill him later after he went muta and I sniped all his shit.
My point is that you can stop it with positioning, regardless it is a very strong build ( high diamond for those who are interested.)
I opened 14 gas 14 pool
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This is interesting and after writing down the bo and trying it for myself, it felt awefully familiar like some kind of overpool build. However, I will try this out on ladder as I hate the zvz match up and it makes an easy way to get though it I suppose ^^
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On May 13 2011 23:34 iiGreetings wrote: I stopped this build with 14 slings 2 spines with queen. Close position meta and spine locations where next to pool and behind mineral line. It was tough because I strategically pit my pool close to hatch and gas to avoid surround on my queen. I slowly got some roaches near end of engagement and walled with roaches and moved spines so the could attack the lings hitting my roaches. He tried to expo but I got enough roaches to stomp it and kill him later after he went muta and I sniped all his shit.
My point is that you can stop it with positioning, regardless it is a very strong build ( high diamond for those who are interested.)
I opened 14 gas 14 pool
I've recently started practicing against this, and I think if you just open 14gas/pool and don't make more drones, you'd stop it easily. The issue becomes, when you're playing a mirror match and your opponent just doesn't attack you, or sneaks a couple drones in...
I've been using this opener for 5 months with ~95% outright win rate zvz, and I'm looking for something that will reliably crush it and still enable early aggression. I haven't cropped the replays I posted, I just haven't really lost with this build. Perhaps it's a product of my opponent skill level (~low/mid master).
I've had a few ideas and been testing some ideas out but so far don't have anything to show for it.
Naturally the bigger maps (as someone else mentioned) you just can't do this on and I also agree hatch first is the way to go. On like ICCup valhalla or crossfire for example, you can hold this even with hatch first simply by stopping drone production.
I I think with great micro you can really do a number on this build. If you have sneaky building placement, a spine or queen to aggro walled in or something, drones clogging attack lanes, using lings to block ramp to buy time...
If you opt for a 10OL and then 2 drones this can really have a nice transition to mid game (assuming you still hit the timing and do some damage, or at least force an equal and opposite ling force).
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I've been trying your build out for a couple of days but I'm repeatedly having problems with spine crawlers. Maybe it's just the opponent scouting very early each time, or the close by air scouts but most of the time my opponent has one (or two) spines by the time that I reach his base. These absolutely demolish my lings..
What should be the priority? Drones > queen > lings ?
Thx for the build anyways, when no spines are present It absolutely owns
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I've been using this build for a while, and it's amazing. At my level, people aren't good enough to actually hold hatch first and this allows me to punish that. If they go one base roach, it gives me map control and allows me to expand way before they do. Banelings will come too late and by then you'll have roaches anyways.
The early speed is just phenomenal. This also flows nicely into a spanishwa style econ play, where you just turtle up with mass spines and queens and you drone really hard. What exactly is the weakness to this build? There must be one. Maybe at very high levels, hatch first can still defend it?
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Someone did this build to me on ladder today, i saw a super fast pool and gas and i threw down a bane nest as soon as i could with a 14gas/14pool opener and just got a later speed. I made some banes and was ahead. It was on close by air positions on shakuras.
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On June 12 2011 18:28 ErrorNA wrote: Someone did this build to me on ladder today, i saw a super fast pool and gas and i threw down a bane nest as soon as i could with a 14gas/14pool opener and just got a later speed. I made some banes and was ahead. It was on close by air positions on shakuras.
I think people should have to post replays whenever they say "someone used this build against me on ladder and I did X and beat it ez". It's possible he wasn't actually doing the build, or had very poor execution or something. I'm actually curious, so could you post the replay?
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this timing doesnt work vs speedling openers on cross positions or big maps.
the speedling expand replay vs cartonbox in the OP is a hatch first build, which means it's mislabeled imo..
speedling opener is 14g, 14p, speed, drone to 20, decide to expand or mass lings - finishes speed research at around 5:10
i feel like you basically auto-lose at that point, you can't deal damage and you are behind in drones, you have equal map control and probably can't hold an expansion.. if both players macro are perfect you end up with a 10 second window to attack his slowlings, and you can't hit the enemy drones/queens or else you die to drone/ling pincer or get counter attacked.
speedling opener is quite possibly the most common opener, and it transitions into either a speedling all-in, speedling expand or banelings so i ask this question:
does this build simply not work on big maps or cross positions, or is there a way not to be hugely behind the most common zvz opener without some sort of sweet micro-intensive ambush on his army?
you can arrive early enough to exploit the "i have speed and you dont" timing window on most maps, but ST cross position and Taldarim altar don't seem to jive with this build (meaning a 33% chance on ST that if you do the build, you're auto behind)
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OP, I have another question. You mention that you can go all-in by bring drones to make spines, but when exactly should you do this? I always just expand, and can never think of a good reason why I should go all-in. Is there something I should scout that lets me determine if I should bring drones to make spines?
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I watched the replay vs iCHORNinja. Since it's gm it looks like sea server because this looks like a diamond game on na server. He's ahead at around the 6 min mark and you try to one base muta only getting like 6 muta out at a time maybe? You win the game after being behind and he plays less than optimally. I don't see how this beats anything but hatch first, and against that I would prefer to go 10 pool like losira did against machine on shakuras in mlg columbus. I have to reference it because 10 pool looks bad on paper even to me but everything seems to line up nicely and he's able to get his lings out at 2:44 instead of yours at 3:06. You have speed way faster though but really the 6 lings are only used to kill a hatch first so I want them out asap since I'm only looking to make about 8 lings then go back to drones for a while so the speed is useless that early.
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I'm a plat player that does not play a lot (circa 300 ladder wins), but I use this build exclusively in ZvZ. At my level, this build is fairly solid if it is well executed. The timing is crucial : as michaelhasanalias stated you should hit the base asap. That is why it works better on smaller maps.
A thing that was omitted above is that this build is quite easy to execute, and might push the adversary to do a mistake. Because the matchup is fragile, at my level this is really important : I have a build easy to perform, that punishes well mistakes, and is really good against fast expand. Also, after the initial push, adversaries tend to believe that you're going all-in so they often do not expand too fast, or defend too much with spines. That is why I also win games with this build by expanding into 2 base roaches.
The only real concern is people that build spines. 1 spine is OK but 2 spines means you need to stop attacking and expand asap.
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Very bad build. It's easily countered by simple scouting and building your own speedlings, and if you don't have down syndrome you'll build a baneling nest if you see more than 10-15 speedlings early on.
Just another ZvZ cheese.
I understand that it could possibly work because the current ZvZ metagame says not to drone scout, but still, I don't really see why this is a good build at all. Any kind of early pool can be defended by drones and speedlings. If this hits at the ~5 minute mark like you say, then it is perfectly reasonable that I have been into your base, realised that you went early pool and have too many lings and not enough drones. Put a spine crawler or two down and a baneling nest.
The same response is required as early banelings. Extra queens and spine crawlers.
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On February 11 2011 23:35 michaelhasanalias wrote:Introduction (Updated 4/22/11)This is a build I've been using to cheese NA, KOR and SEA ladders for quick-wins in ZvZ from 1.1-1.3 with high success. It is tremendously strong against every standard zerg opener except a PERFECTLY executed 14gas/pool speedling baneling (and I mean perfectly). You can scout/counter 10 pool baneling easily and you can also scout/counter (and be very slightly behind) 14gas/pool baneling. You may also choose to go all-in or take a completely safe expansion (independent of what your opponent decides to do, even if it's this exact build). Goal: I wanted a quick-win build that beats most other speedling timings, speedling/baneling timings, 1-base roach timings, and ALL builds that seek to fast expand. While this build most certainly is NOT all-in due to it being a mirror matchup, it most definitely does depend on you dealing reasonable damage to your opponent. Your attack will secure your own expansion, but if you fail to deal any real damage (re: kill some workers+queen+ some/most of his army), you may be a sad panda. The Build: 10 Extractor 10 Extractor trick drone 11 Spawning Pool (then 2 drones to gas) 10 Extractor trick drone 11 Overlord 11 Queen 13 Zergling (Same time as queen) 14 Zergling (depending on how precise your timing and drone micro) 14 Metabolic Boost (~2:55, PULL OFF GAS) Inject/Spam zerglings. Expand or All-In?If you decide to expand, you should hotkey a drone, and rally it out ~200min, then with your next queen energy after 1st inject, drop 1-2 tumors (depending if you hunted OLs and lost time). If you decide to all-in, send 4-5 drones (or however many you like, although I think more is less here since they will get in the way of ling dps if you send too many) and instead of expoing, drop spines as you attack. -TIP: try to position the spines such that they can't be surrounded. Put them between gas/pool/hatch area, or in mineral cracks. Tips:- Queue your 2nd OL to his first OL so you can (hopefully) hunt it down with your Queen. Your lings will keep your queen safe. - Since you are only making 11 drones, you need to MICRO them very well. This means not just herp-a-derp boxing them and clicking them to the middle patch, then going AFK for a poptart. Make sure you have all 4 closest mineral patches doubled up as soon as you can. When you only have 11 drones, this can literally shave 10-12 seconds off your timing attack. In a game that may only last 6 minutes, that's a big deal. Reference this thread if you are looking for an in-depth guide on worker micro: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=211953- Your first two zerglings should deny scouting if there is a drone. Next, at least one should charge up the ramp and perimeter the base. You want to gauge your opponent's pool and gas timing, and if he has opted for any tech (baneling nest or roach warren). - Make sure you make a good "overlord vision highway" from your ramp to your opponent's. - Immediately after your 2nd inject, send your Queen down your ramp to kill his closest overlord. As this is a 26 food timing push, your 3rd inject is not necessary, and allows you to creep tumor while you expand, or inject for a finishing move. - Properly timed, this should beat most speedling/baneling and roach openers, and give you map control as long as the game lasts. Your speed will ALWAYS finish first (at least I can't think of a reasonable build that beats this meta boost timing) and you will ALWAYS have more lings. - If you spot an expansion with your scouting lings, you've very likely won the game outright. - Your rush should be HITTING his base right about 5 minutes. - You have the option to expand or reinforce, or spine+queen and defend. - When you attack, your goal is to overwhelm. You need every ling alive for the attack and try to hit AS SOON as your ling speed finishes. You have a small window when your ling speed will give you a tremendous engagement (re: concave) advantage on your opponent's slow zerglings (if he went speedling). This window is larger if your ling scouts later pool/gas timings or any similarly greedy opening (a lot of drones). - It can help greatly to hotkey a drone for your expansion. It's very likely that when you are expanding, you will also need to inject, and you will be in the middle of microing the most important battle of the game. Hotkeying a drone and also a camera angle at your nat will be VERY beneficial in ensuring you don't forget your expansion (which I do in many of these games, although it doesn't end up mattering). - If you feel like playing slightly more passive, you can feel free to add a 12th drone to this build with only a slightly delayed 13th pair of zerglings. You can also choose to add more drones at the cost of 2 zerglings each. However, any drones you create after 3:30 will not repay themselves before you attack. Replays (All-In): vs. Master vs Michael vs Kraqit vs speedling baneling vs. Diamond vs Michael vs Kimchi vs speedling roach expand vs MFCHAS vs Michael vs speedling roach vs Michael vs smokedit vs double hatch vs Michael vs cartonbox vs speedling expand (std) vs jaydubz vs Michael vs Michael vs Metal Replays (Expand):vs. Grandmaster vs iCHORNinja vs Michael against 14gas/pool standard (long game) vs TAEdgE vs Michael against 15h roach, late lings, loss vs. Master vs SoYLauroS vs Michael vs 1base roach, lots of BM vs [deleted by opponent request] against roach expand vs Michael vs ProAnnn against 14g/p 1-base roach vs. Diamond vs Michael vs Angel against 10pool speedling (~close game) vs Michael vs 콩라인득도 against 14h cross-slag vs Michael vs HyperGeist against fast baneling aggression (close game) vs Michael vs Samuel against 13pool/13gas/18bling/20meta (likely loss, opponent disconnect) vs Michael vs Quasit against 14gas/pool speedling roach vs Michael vs DangsteR against 14gas/14pool/20bling vs Michael vs Samuel against 6 pool drone all-in vs Michael vs ZergSPR against 12gas/pool speedling baneling vs Michael vs Daren against 13pool/12gas speedling roach vs. Platinum vs Michael vs fenril against 14pool/gas speedling baneling aggression (closest game) vs Michael vs desmoulins against 11 pool/13gas speedling baneling vs Michael vs Terror against 12 overpool/14gas fast lair/roach (close game) Summation: Again, I feel this is a pretty strong build against your run-of-the-mill zerg opponent who does pretty standard stuff. This build is nothing magical, but the slightly earlier meta boost timing due to 10 extractor allows you to almost perfectly hit a number of timing windows against most standard zvz openers. Please offer any criticisms, analysis, and/or replays of your own. Thanks for reading!
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the problem with this build is that it's larvae inefficient, you might wanna try changing it up a bit so you can keep spending your larvae, cuz you're sitting on 3 unused larvae pretty long when waiting for the pool to finish.
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