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About Me
I know I have not posted on Team Liquid before, so I thought it would be appropriate to tell you who I am. I'm only a Diamond level Terran from Australia, playing on NA and SEA servers. Because I'm a bit lower level I know I'll probably get a lot of flame, but hear me out because I think I've caught onto something here. Also, I'm a very active member of d2dgamer.com, who hold low level tournaments and a lot of fun for the every day gamer. Definitely check them out 
Reasoning
In current metagame of TvT, the Blueflame Hellion / Banshee (iEchoic) build has cropped up as a powerful harassment build that allows a player to not only tech quite fast and expand relatively safely, but also deliver massive economic damage to their opponent with decent micro. It is not uncommon for this build to take out over 10 SCVs for the opponent, even if the build is spotted.
The problem with trying to defend against this build is that the majority of players want to go for marine builds to kill banshees, but marines are cleaned up easily by the hellions. Also, even if you hold it off, you're likely to lose a lot of your army / workers and the other player is very capable of easily transitioning due to the fact they already have a factory and starport out.
As I have been seeing this build a lot in diamond ladder TvT, I've been searching for a decent build that can counter the harassment of this build and then allow you to turn around and hurt your opponent. The best counter to this build, that I have found, is in fact Ghosts.
Theory
The reason Ghosts are so powerful is the fact that they are not technically classified as light armored units. Hellions deal massive damage to marines because of their armor class, but ghosts are actually Psyonic units, not light, and as a result the bonus damage does not apply. Ghosts are also useful because they themselves have bonus damage to light, which both the banshee and hellion are. From my experience, it appears that 1 ghost is able to take on 3 hellions by themselves because of these factors and the high health of ghosts.
Another benefit of the ghost is the EMP ability. By EMPing a banshee, it loses all its energy, removing the need for missile turrets and orbital scans. This effectively makes banshee cloak a wasted 200/200 investment from your opponent.
Ghosts also have the snipe ability, which deals 45 damage to biological units. Marines without combat shields and SCVs die from one snipe, and a ghost sniper round only costs 25 energy. It is also an instant cast ability with no cooldown. This means that with good micro one ghost is able to snipe 8 workers or marines before they even get in range, making the ghost an exceptional unit against marine builds as well, and particularly in the early game where neither player has a large army yet ghosts can be extremely economical and lead to a huge advantage.
The Build
I realize that a lot of people prefer to see specific build orders, so I'll share the one I have been using. I'm by no means a pro, and this is probably a suboptimal build, but I've been using it quite effectively. If anyone from TeamLiquid decides to post a better build order, go ahead.
+ Show Spoiler +
9 Supply Depot
12 Barracks
13 Refinery #1 --> 3 workers when finished
15 Orbital
16 Marine --> Chase off scouting worker
17 Marine --> Tech lab after marine
17 Supply Depot
17 Ghost Academy --> Ghost when finished.
18 Refinery #2 --> 3 workers when finished. Once you have 6 workers you'll have just enough gas income to continuously produce ghosts from one rax.
20 Barracks
22 Barracks
~30-40 Factory/Starport --> Medvac ghost drops.
I've kind of made up the last few, basically the key point is you'll want 2 fairly early geysers to continuously produce ghosts, and you'll want a very fast ghost academy. Usually you can get out 2-3 marines before you have the gas for a ghost. As a result of using heavy gas units, you'll have excess minerals, meaning you can choose to either fast expand behind the push, or add a few more barracks to pump out extra marines and make your push stronger.
I usually push out with my first 2 marines, 2 ghosts, and 3-4 scvs to make a decent timing push on their base. Keep making ghosts and rally them near your mineral lines - your opponent is going to be attacking your SCV line so you want to be prepared. If this fails to kill the enemy, you can make another push when you have a dropship and cloak up. If you EMP the orbital command centres they cannot scan your ghosts, and this can be a very good harassment strategy.
On a side note, when blue flame hellions enter your mineral line, you're probably better off just continuing mining and letting your ghosts clean up. By trying to move your workers, you're very susceptible to getting them all lined up together and blasted down by one hellion round.
Counters
This can be a very powerful build if used right, but like any build there are counters to it. Generally marauders can be killed with snipe, but they take a lot more energy to kill due to their high HP, so I'd advise against using ghosts against marauders. Also, tank openings are very good against ghost rushes. Early marine cheese can usually be held off with 1-2 bunkers while you're waiting to get ghosts out.
Replays
Replays of me using this build can be found at the original post on D2DGamer.
http://www.d2dgamer.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&Itemid=113&func=view&catid=57&id=2725
Thanks guys, hope this helps out a bit.
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You should check out the Ghost First TvT build by qxc on Liquipedia. It is very similar, though slightly faster, and is accompanied by a lot of followup strategy.
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wow this seems real powerful. i mean the blue terran didint micro very well on his first drop but he didint expect to see ghoats. i was amazed at how easily u took down marines banshee and hellions. looks like 4 or 5 ghoasts with a medivac is serious trouble and then that cloacked kicked in. nice play dood definitly going to give this a try. I was prayin for a nuke lol
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Its definitely worth trying out on the ladder if you're looking for a counter to the iEchoic hellion/banshee build hope it helps out.
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Interesting, though it seems a bit boned vs anything else. That is a bit horrible, since at the time you need to commit to the build, you won't have any clear hints that you are facing iEchoic and I'd assume it's basically a BO loss vs mech/1 rax FE with bunkers?
(note: I watched only first replay)I'm also not totally convinced that the ghosts could truly deal with well controlled hellions/banshees for harass. In a straight up fight though, those combos seem pretty damn deadly vs the iEchoic build.
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Regarding your point on blue flame hellions, a possible way to mitigate the damage as much as possible would be to just stop all your scvs and use the idle workers hotkey (or button) to individually spread them out across your base, as I beleive they would spread out going to different locations, both saving SCVs and splitting the workers relatively quick. For semi-quick recall after the hellions are killed, the process could go like this
1. Double click/box scvs
2. Hotkey to an obscure/unused key
3. Hold down the idle worker key and spam click all over your base.
4. Profit
5. Return scvs to mining after hellions are dead.
Hopefully this will help someone.
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To make this better id like to point out 2 things. Medicavs to heal the ghost, and to drop with cloacked ghost to snipe lika e mofo. Also this build sucks because everything exepct helion / banshee owns ghost pretty much 
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Can you scout properly whether he is or not going for the iEchoic 1/2/2? Does it work against other builds?. I mean, iEchoics TvT is by no means the current metagame of TvT, but rather a new idea for avoiding tanks/marines
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This is obviously a pretty specific counter to the banshee/hellion build, and is by no means a standard build order. However, because you can get ghosts out, its not a terrible opener, and by opener I mean that it will not be your whole game plan but the early ghosts do allow for some nice pressure using snipe to give you an advantage. Its definitely worth a try though,
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The replay you posted wasn't really the iEchoic build, but the build seems like it would be a direct counter to iEchoic's new build since the main damage dealers in 2fact 2 port are light. It would seem to be as effective as a thor opening(against 2fact 2 port) except you can get ghosts way faster, they're more mobile, and they instantly kill scv's with snipe. It would pretty much die to any other build.
A few questions about the build. Can you scout somebody going IEchoic 2fact 2port with enough time to change the build if they aren't? And something needs to be done with all that excess minerals.
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On February 24 2011 09:20 Zarahtra wrote:
Interesting, though it seems a bit boned vs anything else. That is a bit horrible, since at the time you need to commit to the build, you won't have any clear hints that you are facing iEchoic and I'd assume it's basically a BO loss vs mech/1 rax FE with bunkers?
Vs tanks you are in a fair bit of trouble, but if they fast expand with bunkers you can drop into their base and catch them offguard from time to time. Also, you can FE yourself behind this build so you're really not that far behind in my opinion.
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On February 24 2011 10:09 Sar wrote:
The replay you posted wasn't really the iEchoic build, but the build seems like it would be a direct counter to iEchoic's new build since the main damage dealers in 2fact 2 port are light. It would seem to be as effective as a thor opening(against 2fact 2 port) except you can get ghosts way faster, they're more mobile, and they instantly kill scv's with snipe. It would pretty much die to any other build.
A few questions about the build. Can you scout somebody going IEchoic 2fact 2port with enough time to change the build if they aren't? And something needs to be done with all that excess minerals.
Like I said I'm not a pro player and I know I'm a bit scrappy, but the build itself is pretty useful against the hellion/banshee play. Because you've got 3 barracks up, if your initial push doesn't work you can transition into MM fairly easily, and the ghosts can be useful later game for harassment / EMPing orbitals/ravens/medvacs later on.
As I said I'm happy for someone with better replays/build order to repost this, I just feel like noone has really tried using ghosts against the iEchoic build yet so I thought I'd put it out there. And yes, my macro slips from time to time =D
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On February 24 2011 08:18 Mysterion wrote:
wow this seems real powerful. i mean the blue terran didint micro very well on his first drop but he didint expect to see ghoats. i was amazed at how easily u took down marines banshee and hellions. looks like 4 or 5 ghoasts with a medivac is serious trouble and then that cloacked kicked in. nice play dood definitly going to give this a try. I was prayin for a nuke lol
Shoulda nuked him haha  he left too early.
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I did a little bit of testing with this build. Theoretically it seems like a good idea till you figure out that banshees cost less gas than ghosts and do more damage. Using all this gas on ghosts leaves you with the mineral dumps of either Marines or helions which iEchoic's 2fact 2Port counters pretty hard. Helions take care of the marines and Banshee's take care of the ghosts and helions.
The Ghosts spells aren't very useful because 1 the opponent isn't making bio, and 2 they aren't going cloaked banshees.
If the Ghosts could snipe the helion drops, then they would be worth getting in my opinion. Otherwise it's basically the same as muta/ling/bling with ghost cept you can't snipe anything.
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Ghost opening aren't really as terrible against tanks as you might think. Sure, you don't want to run into tank lines but nukes are always an option. If he goes turtle or contains you with tanks, you can still pressure and drive him back with a couple of well placed nukes.
While i have never gotten a ghost opening to work, it was something i always wanted to do. I have faced it a couple times on ladder and always lost - maybe because it's so rare and i wasn't prepared. However, it's a solid build and a good counter to many of the common openers (cloakshees, early bio allin, hellion/air).
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True, and when you have cloak as well there is potential for a lot of harassment / scouting opportunities around the map as well.
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I do feel like ghosts are underused in the pro scene... I mean you can EMP orbitals! No moar mules / scans is pretty leet, and sniper rounds make for guaranteed worker damage which is always great.
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Old build.
I've already played that build in beta.
Vs bio fast exp instant lose ;P
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On February 24 2011 08:17 Jadoreoov wrote:
You should check out the Ghost First TvT build by qxc on Liquipedia. It is very similar, though slightly faster, and is accompanied by a lot of followup strategy.
God, why does everybody think qxc's ghost first build is similair to all ghost builds? It is NOT similair to ANY ghost builds i've seen on TL gosh.
Anyways, I've been playing with this myself aswell, the only problem IMO at lower levels is that you need alot of APM to keep up with everything, especially if you go for a marauder heavy transition. How do you usually transition out of it?
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"Counters
This can be a very powerful build if used right, but like any build there are counters to it. Generally marauders can be killed with snipe, but they take a lot more energy to kill due to their high HP, so I'd advise against using ghosts against marauders. Also, tank openings are very good against ghost rushes. Early marine cheese can usually be held off with 1-2 bunkers while you're waiting to get ghosts out."
So you mean like exactly 99% of every Terran opening beats this straight up?
Like even if you masses marines you'd still win, you'd eventually get enough to go mass raven marine..? against the ghosts...?
... Sure it "barely" counters iEchoic's build which isn't even an issue, if you want to beat his build... Don't go marine tank >.>
The direct counter for iEchoic is going pure viking tank, because all your minerals + (150 + 50 + 50) gas is spent on hellion production (two reactors and pre-ignitor) your already behind almost 3 vikings worth of units, or 1 tank and 1 viking. Once he has that air control he can just sim-city and shut-down the drop.
Anyways I've seen mass marines beat iEchoic's build, its a great build, but it isn't "Perfectly unorthodox" Just play well and don't mass marine tank or marine marauder or marine viking or anything really light without a huge army of it.
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Rushing ghosts isn't the right way to go about it. You are too vulnerable to almost every single standard opener a Terran can throw at you unless you turtle hard.
What I opt for instead when I play Ghost TvT is a 2 Rax Stim expand, which establishes a really strong economy early on and can apply some early pressure. You need to get the extra gas from expansion, that way you can get the Moebius Reactor upgrade and Infantry upgrades. This also let's you seamlessly add on Bio units into your Ghost army and help you deal with tanks. Also, the extra gas will let you tech to Medivacs.
Ghost drops are also really, really strong from what I've found. You can kill workers extremely quickly with snipe, and Ghosts are so durable that they can take a small group of marines head on with the support of your Medivac.
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On February 25 2011 00:46 Kornholi0 wrote:
So you mean like exactly 99% of every Terran opening beats this straight up?
Like even if you masses marines you'd still win, you'd eventually get enough to go mass raven marine..? against the ghosts...?
... Sure it "barely" counters iEchoic's build which isn't even an issue, if you want to beat his build... Don't go marine tank >.>
A) Don't insert random %ages you sound stupid.
B) No, this build does not INSTA LOSE to everything. You make an early push, and are usually able to do some heavy damage. But you scan the ramp before u go up obviously, if they have a good defense you simply pull back and transition out. Ghosts are actually really useful for a long period regardless what build they've gone.
C) One ghosts could EMP ravens (another reason why its not a terrible reason to have a ghost academy up in the first place)
D) This build isn't "MASS GHOSTS ALL GAME LONG"... It's a ghost opening, which you transition out of later game once they either transition out of hellion/banshee or they get a critical mass at which point you're definitely better off with marauder/viking.
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On February 24 2011 07:54 SpunXtain wrote:
If you EMP the orbital command centres they cannot scan your ghosts, and this can be a very good harassment strategy.
Omg, I've never thought about this!! It's so strange that I'd always thought likely targets of EMP are units and maybe protoss buildings to get rid of shields... Never would i have connected that you can EMP the orbital command thanks
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i Echoic build is for pro people and it is hard to do successfully! I'm platinumT and by far I've killed 2-3platinum T using that build.......I believe this ghost build is too risky!
TanksVikings is so much fun
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SC2 is all about risk and reward.
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Might try this build, it actually does sound viable.
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Whatever you transition into, you should always keep a squad of ghosts and a medivac + nuke on your sideboard. Take a careful drop in the main, emp orbital, launch nuke and snipe the shit out of workers. Plant the nuke between your ghosts and the ramp their army will come back on.
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Tried it once as well, esp. on maps like SoW and other small maps. Followed up with BioTank and 2 GAs with two Nukes. A nuke takes 30 seconds or so to "research", so you can almost constantly cloack Ghosts and nuke the shit out of your opponent.
As said, Banshee, Marinepushes and Hellions loose to it. On the other hand you more or less instant loose if he did set up a Bunker full of marines in time, so you can't get in. He bunkers up until he got like 2-3 Tanks and makes a go - really a weak timing window in the Ghost build, cant really do shit against it, due to too less tanks being ready, no nukes, only Marines... argl.
I'd advice to build GAs hidden at more or less random safe spots on the map, if he realizes Ghosts are comming, it's essentielly lost. Might as well rally Ghosts "hidden" in your base or into bunker, so he cant see when he scans the choke.
gl with it, always lovely to see ghosts out there, although i guess it is not the most effective way of playing, it certainly is a quite funny approach to tvt 
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Hmm, how would nukes with a transition into tanks play against a tanking player? you could theoritically use the ghost for spotting due to cloak, as well as nukes to force the enemy tanks to move away or die, allowing you to gain ground.
I'm not a terran player, so got no idea if/how this transition would work, but may keep you alive against the viking/tank terrans?
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United States7483 Posts
On February 24 2011 09:20 Zarahtra wrote:
Interesting, though it seems a bit boned vs anything else. That is a bit horrible, since at the time you need to commit to the build, you won't have any clear hints that you are facing iEchoic and I'd assume it's basically a BO loss vs mech/1 rax FE with bunkers?
(note: I watched only first replay)I'm also not totally convinced that the ghosts could truly deal with well controlled hellions/banshees for harass. In a straight up fight though, those combos seem pretty damn deadly vs the iEchoic build.
A good ghost opening like the QXC one is actually strong against nearly every terran opener, and does decently against the others. Pretty much the only thing that will straight up beat a ghost opener is a thor rush, and you can still beat it, it's just hard.
Bio rush: you get 20 damage to light with a ghost, and snipe decimates bio balls. A couple ghosts will do massive damage to the ball, way inordinate of their cost. You should have some marines too, so you'll be fine.
Bio/tank push: This one is a little dicey, use the ghosts to take out all the bio support and then clean up the tanks after. It'll take careful micro but it's do-able.
Banshee rush: easiest thing in the world. Push EMP, aim, click, win.
Hellion rush/drop: A couple ghosts demolish this. Move your scvs away carefully and take out the hellions with the ghosts. You do have to spot the hellions BEFORE they are roasting scvs, but that applies to every other build also.
Raven opener: EMP.
Fast Expand: You can nuke! Nuke is very underused and very powerful. You can clear out add-ons and supply depots with them easily, as well as roast workers. Most people don't use Nukes because they don't get ghosts and it's a tech deviation. Since you already have the tech, it's easy to incorporate. You can nuke important buildings and worker lines to punish the terran for not having the units or the proper detection to stop you. Nukes one shot supply depots, tech labs, reactors, bunkers, sensor towers, and missile turrets in the center of the blast, and will often put these buildings in the red even if they're not in the center. Fun fact: You can emp command centers to stop scans. What's really fun, is if you get two ghost academies with 2 nukes, and nuke each base at the same time or double nuke important buildings.
Later on, you can use nukes against tank lines to force them to unsiege and run away. If you do it right, you can stim your marines and cancel the nuke right as they unsiege, run in and clean the tanks out.
You can also snipe worker lines and 3 shot scvs with a ghost.
From a ghost opening, you can use your ghost as your harass unit and take map control. You force your enemy to get missile turrets, save scans, or get ravens to deal with cloaked ghost harass and nukes. You can easily transition from there into any other terran build, and secure an expansion. You don't need to hide your ghost academies, and it's recommended that you don't, since he could take them out with a little luck (and luck based strategies suck >_<). If he bunker rushes you, you could be in trouble if you don't stop the bunker from going down, but you should be making sure that type of nonsense isn't occuring and holding xel-naga watchtowers etc.
Ghost openings in TvT are awesome.
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On February 25 2011 09:28 SpunXtain wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2011 00:46 Kornholi0 wrote:
So you mean like exactly 99% of every Terran opening beats this straight up?
Like even if you masses marines you'd still win, you'd eventually get enough to go mass raven marine..? against the ghosts...?
... Sure it "barely" counters iEchoic's build which isn't even an issue, if you want to beat his build... Don't go marine tank >.> A) Don't insert random %ages you sound stupid. B) No, this build does not INSTA LOSE to everything. You make an early push, and are usually able to do some heavy damage. But you scan the ramp before u go up obviously, if they have a good defense you simply pull back and transition out. Ghosts are actually really useful for a long period regardless what build they've gone. C) One ghosts could EMP ravens (another reason why its not a terrible reason to have a ghost academy up in the first place) D) This build isn't "MASS GHOSTS ALL GAME LONG"... It's a ghost opening, which you transition out of later game once they either transition out of hellion/banshee or they get a critical mass at which point you're definitely better off with marauder/viking.
Literally any opening can beat this =/
Ghosts are defensive spell casting, with offensive calldown (nuke). Which is a very useful thing to have, I'd say that ghosts should be less focused on the build and more of a build that allows ghosts to be used, such as a marauder medivac play would do well etc etc.
But seriously this is good against like 1 rax expanding and the 3 rax stim push (which still doesn't even do that great against it)... Both of which aren't very common among terrans, this is one of those builds I'd practice a few times and keep in my back pocket if I ever got good enough to play against TLO lol.
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United States7483 Posts
On March 05 2011 18:54 Kornholi0 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2011 09:28 SpunXtain wrote:On February 25 2011 00:46 Kornholi0 wrote:
So you mean like exactly 99% of every Terran opening beats this straight up?
Like even if you masses marines you'd still win, you'd eventually get enough to go mass raven marine..? against the ghosts...?
... Sure it "barely" counters iEchoic's build which isn't even an issue, if you want to beat his build... Don't go marine tank >.> A) Don't insert random %ages you sound stupid. B) No, this build does not INSTA LOSE to everything. You make an early push, and are usually able to do some heavy damage. But you scan the ramp before u go up obviously, if they have a good defense you simply pull back and transition out. Ghosts are actually really useful for a long period regardless what build they've gone. C) One ghosts could EMP ravens (another reason why its not a terrible reason to have a ghost academy up in the first place) D) This build isn't "MASS GHOSTS ALL GAME LONG"... It's a ghost opening, which you transition out of later game once they either transition out of hellion/banshee or they get a critical mass at which point you're definitely better off with marauder/viking. Literally any opening can beat this =/ Ghosts are defensive spell casting, with offensive calldown (nuke). Which is a very useful thing to have, I'd say that ghosts should be less focused on the build and more of a build that allows ghosts to be used, such as a marauder medivac play would do well etc etc. But seriously this is good against like 1 rax expanding and the 3 rax stim push (which still doesn't even do that great against it)... Both of which aren't very common among terrans, this is one of those builds I'd practice a few times and keep in my back pocket if I ever got good enough to play against TLO lol.
By the time a 3 rax stim push hits, you'll have several ghosts on the field. Ghosts do exceptionally well against marines, and snipe one shots them if no combat shields, and even if there are shields, it one shots after stim. You'll easily have 8-10 snipes, and ghosts do well against marines with auto-attack. The marauders are a little tougher, but you don't ONLY have ghosts, you have marines too. Ghost harass can be quite powerful too, on par with banshee harass (both units cloak, both do very good damage vs. scv lines, but the ghost is often times a better fighting unit, and EMP is so good. It's also hilarious to EMP command centers and deny scans or mule calldowns, and there's no better way to harass a terran than to nuke his building add-ons.
Ghosts are actually STRONG. 100 hit points, 13.4 dps vs. light units, snipe deals 45 units instantly to biological units from huge range for a measly 25 energy. Ghosts spawn with the ability to one shot 2 marines, 3 with moebius reactor. You're also immediately safe from banshee and hellion openers by opening ghost.
It's a robust, safe, and reasonable opening that many people refuse to do because it's different.
For the record, it's been used in the GSL quite effectively. MVP.Noblesse demolished MakaPrime.WE with a ghost opening build, and MakaPrime.WE is (or was) considered to be an amazingly strong terran player.
EDIT: they're also great to have late game vs. a bio build, as EMP will shut down medivac healing, and nuke makes fighting against mech so much easier, as good nukes will allow you to control positioning (and shut down ravens).
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Glad to see some people agree; ghosts are a very viable unit and people underestimate how useful they are in TvT because they're so used to tank/marine only builds. Truth is there is a lot you can do with ghosts all game long, including nukes, emps, scouting, harassment etc. and opening with them can be pretty safe if you play it well.
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On March 10 2011 07:40 SpunXtain wrote:
Glad to see some people agree; ghosts are a very viable unit and people underestimate how useful they are in TvT because they're so used to tank/marine only builds. Truth is there is a lot you can do with ghosts all game long, including nukes, emps, scouting, harassment etc. and opening with them can be pretty safe if you play it well.
So maybe we can take this discussion not as just a "ghost centric" build, but a viable defensive and offensive option thats often overlooked by terrans in the TvT mu
I like the ghost build, but I find a wall off is almost essential and protecting the mineral line from hellions is difficult to deal with if you have your ghosts "out" at their base. Generally, I lost if it came down to my ghosts in his base and his hellions in mine. It's a nice build to throw out everyone once in a while, and I feel with a lot more practice you could adapt to any situation, but I'm definitely not comfortable enough to make it a standard like cloaked banshee.
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On February 25 2011 12:05 ashburn wrote:Show nested quote +On February 24 2011 07:54 SpunXtain wrote:
If you EMP the orbital command centres they cannot scan your ghosts, and this can be a very good harassment strategy.
Omg, I've never thought about this!! It's so strange that I'd always thought likely targets of EMP are units and maybe protoss buildings to get rid of shields... Never would i have connected that you can EMP the orbital command thanks
What you want to do is to emp the orbital and then nuke his depots. Most competent players will move their workers/army away, resulting in little damage, so nuking depots is guaranteed damage that shuts down production for a bit.
Ofc, there are innovative ways to kill nuking ghosts without detection, i.e. using hellion/tank splash on your own units.
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Noblesse vs Maka on Scrap Station was probably the best ghost build I've seen.
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wow, the first replay was such a great display of the build. However, whats the reaction to a standard tank-viking-marine build? Of course, scouting plays a huge role in this MU, but the ghost build seems to rely on the fact that you're expecting your opponent to go along the lines of banshee hellion drops since you're getting the academy relatively early.
I realize this build can also negate the 1-1-1 banshee rush, but I generally tend to go for the standard tank build for TvT. Do you just change output of the 3 rax into mmm?
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On March 16 2011 17:49 Kingqway wrote:
wow, the first replay was such a great display of the build. However, whats the reaction to a standard tank-viking-marine build? Of course, scouting plays a huge role in this MU, but the ghost build seems to rely on the fact that you're expecting your opponent to go along the lines of banshee hellion drops since you're getting the academy relatively early.
I realize this build can also negate the 1-1-1 banshee rush, but I generally tend to go for the standard tank build for TvT. Do you just change output of the 3 rax into mmm?
Basically if they go fast tanks that's probably the hardest build to counter with this, but its certainly not unbeatable. The guy is going to be using all his gas on siege tanks, which means he will be dumping minerals into marines which you can snipe off pretty well and then move in to clean up the undefended siege tanks with marauders.
You're right, generally the transition is into MMM play with less siege tanks than normal, but you're going to have quite a lot of additional mobility and the threat of nukes/cloak harass/orbital emps is likely to keep him in his base a lot longer.
The other advantage is that you're able to fast expand very well behind this build order, so if you can hold off his early tank advantage you're going to be in fantastic shape going into the mid-game, and you always have the option of using nukes to break his siege lines if they become problematic. The build does require some finesse and you're going to have to find ways to get more out of your units than you invested into them, but the fact that this build order hard counters most cheese/early pressure builds and still lets you expand early really makes it worth learning in my opinion. Personally, its become my stable build and I have just recently been promoted to Masters thanks to it =]
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Ghosts are awsome in tvt. I open with them almost every game. But i was doing slightly other build. With only 2 raxes for faster expo. Nuke owns!
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Since Hellion Air came out i've stopped investing so much in Marines. Hellions just roost them. And Detection is pretty gay because the high viking count just murders ravens. Basically my TvT now with great succcess is TvT Mech with Ghost and only OCs instead of PFs for alot of scans. Pfs aren't that helpfull in TvT compared to the OC. Lots of OCs mean you don't need vikings. And the ghost means you can nuke push your opponents Tank Lines. Your "build" isn't really a build, more like Ghosts are good in TvT. A ghost rush on the other hand is very weak to standard Marine Tank or Bio pushes because the high investment of ghost that early means your behind in tech. Your opponent is gonna have more tanks, a faster siege, a faster stim, ect. And then your screwed if he pushes. Ghost are good. Just not Ghost Rushes in TvT.
Consider just adding ghosts once you expand as an alternative. Because whats the point of getting a ghost that early if your not gonna use it then.
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I know everyone is saying that Ghosts counter Hellions, but exactly how fast can they kill off a 4 Hellion drop before they actually do some damage? I thought Ghosts fire much slower than the average Marine.
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Eh.. this is only good against like 1rax fe (even then you have to attack before bunker gets up) or iechoic, both of which are fairly uncommon. Echoic's build is not enough of a stable standard style to warrant a specific counter. I guess it would be ok against straight cloak banshee too but I think raven would be better vs that.
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Hey man, didn't know you posted on TL.net Nice build, very interesting to see terran players implement ghosts in TvT as they are much more common in TvP than any other matchup.
Very cool stuff.
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On March 17 2011 00:43 Pokebunny wrote:
Eh.. this is only good against like 1rax fe (even then you have to attack before bunker gets up) or iechoic, both of which are fairly uncommon. Echoic's build is not enough of a stable standard style to warrant a specific counter. I guess it would be ok against straight cloak banshee too but I think raven would be better vs that.
This is not a build to specifically counter iechoic. Ghost can actually be used in conjunction with marines for a fairly effective timing attack. Well at least against anything other than tanks -.-. If you really wanted, mass reapers are an effective blind counter to iechoic, but this is just a normal counter. Thing is, it is still effective timing push in the event that they dont go iechoic, unlike mass reapers.
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Last week watching RootDrewbie's stream (He was playing his EA account Wok)he came across TLO who used a similar build in 3 games TvT. The inital ghost push was strong but did not win it. more standard tanks drops mm harass etc came out on top.
Ghosts are expensive units and making them gives up on alot of tech.
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You can catch up, and you can usually expand very easily. Abuse his lack of mobility if he goes for a lot of tanks by going MMM etc.
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If he goes for tanks(like he most probably will), you can halt ghost production, make marauders, utilize a nuke to push out if he contains you, or punish his defenses by nuking him at home. It's usually better to lean toward marauders over marines if he's using tanks, as marauders can tank and protect the ghosts from stimmed marine DPS, and also crush tanks that are out of position or wounded from nukes.
Nuke range is far enough that you can drop one about 3 range from his closest tank, forcing him to unsiege, at which point obviously you can just cancel and stim in, sniping his marines with the ghost. From there you can clear out his tanks and go siege tech as well to match. Tanks+nukes makes for some interesting siege pushes. Ghosts make great emergency detectors vs cloaked banshees as well!
Just watch your macro, heh.
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I've been playing the iechoic build a LOT (ever since it wrecked me on the ladder and I looked it up)- I've toyed with the idea of ghosts as a counter, tried it, and it didn't work very well. In essence, when I tried to go ghosts against my friend who was iechoic, he just went and #$% killed me. Ditto when we swapped. Part of the proper iechoic build is ravens (since it gives a ridiculous amount of scouting, I'll see the ghosts very quickly), and the raven, while light, won't be sniped. In addition, you're playing terran like you play zerg- you don't want to engage their army, you want to dance around it. Ghosts are a good caster unit, and do what they do very well- they are not a straight up fighting unit. Yes, they have a bonus against hellions and ghosts, but they are MUCH MUCH more expensive than either.
Furthermore, with the iechoic build, the simple presence of banshees forces detection- you don't need to actually get cloak.
You're also using marines are your mineral dump- marines are hellion bait.
Ghosts against zerg however...
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On March 18 2011 14:33 Selkie wrote:
I've been playing the iechoic build a LOT (ever since it wrecked me on the ladder and I looked it up)- I've toyed with the idea of ghosts as a counter, tried it, and it didn't work very well. In essence, when I tried to go ghosts against my friend who was iechoic, he just went and #$% killed me. Ditto when we swapped. Part of the proper iechoic build is ravens (since it gives a ridiculous amount of scouting, I'll see the ghosts very quickly), and the raven, while light, won't be sniped. In addition, you're playing terran like you play zerg- you don't want to engage their army, you want to dance around it. Ghosts are a good caster unit, and do what they do very well- they are not a straight up fighting unit. Yes, they have a bonus against hellions and ghosts, but they are MUCH MUCH more expensive than either.
Furthermore, with the iechoic build, the simple presence of banshees forces detection- you don't need to actually get cloak.
You're also using marines are your mineral dump- marines are hellion bait.
Ghosts against zerg however...
If your opponent realizes it's the iEchoic build, they can just produce a few cycles of marauders and get conc shell, while producing a handful of marines and keep your ghost production up. Marauders and ghosts are pretty much immune to hellion damage, and marauders slow em down for the ghosts to pick them off. The banshees get EMP'd and end up losing cloak until they can build up 25 energy again(this will be less effective after the patch nerfs EMP to 100 energy damage) and while ghosts aren't 1 for 1 cost effective vs banshees, they're not far off; marines just seal the deal. From there you can tech to thor/viking or something to take care of hellion/banshee/BC. Not to mention depending on your opening style with hellion/banshee, those that don't get a bunker up by around 21 supply will get killed if their opponent does a QXC-style ghost push.
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I think if you're failing against the hellion/banshee build with this ghost opening you're probably doing it horribly wrong. It hard counters so well.
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EPT
