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Clever’s No Gas FE Opening: Overall, a Horrible Trainwreck of a Build.
edit: err.... did i say [G]? I meant [D]. Also i think "Clever's No Gas FE Idea" would be a better title in retrospect. <3 u guys out there who have given me constructive advice on how to work this play in without perhaps going to illogical extremes
Ask yourself the following question: why is it common for zergs to open with an early gas (as early as 14)?
Speedlings. After the first 100 gas are mined, zerg players usually take their drones out of gas and send them back to mine. The point of this opening is to skip that first 100 gas entirely and hold off on the extractor until whenever those drones would have been sent back into gas in a normal build order.
IT IS IN MY OPINION THAT SPEED ZERGLINGS ARE NOT NECESSARY FOR EFFECTIVE ZERG OPENINGS. This is the cornerstone of my build. Getting early speedlings is not always worth the cost:
-- the cost of the extractor,
-- the opportunity cost of what the drone that builds the extractor could have mined,
-- the opportunity cost of what the drones in gas could have mined on minerals,
-- the 100/100 cost of the upgrade,
-- the larva used to build a significant number of speedlings
Of course, something has to be used to ensure the security of the zerg base in the absence of speedlings. This is where Day[9]’s influence comes into play. While watching the queen funday monday, I noted several things from the replays.
Clever’s Spine Crawlers™ and Queens™ have remarkable synergy. Consider the following:
1. Neither costs any gas
2. Both are extremely larva efficient
3. Queens can transfuse spine crawlers
4. Queens can spread creep, allowing spine crawlers to be placed more effectively
Queens handle anti-air extremely efficiently. Void rays and mutalisks are no longer a threat.
Spine crawlers take no supply -- in fact, they SUBTRACT from your supply. This decreases the number of overlords you have to build in order to remain secure. Spine crawlers are also not affected by sentry force fields.
Here’s the premise of this build in a nutshell: abuse the larva efficiency of spine crawlers and queens while spending all your larva on drones. This allows you to get your natural and saturate it extremely quickly, while maintaining a secure position.
Yes, you are giving up map control. Yes, you will not be able to exert pressure on your opponent for some time. This is to be expected. What makes it acceptable is the rate at which you will hit full saturation on both bases. Once this has been achieved, you can immediately mass a significant force of roaches and lings, obtaining map control. In fact, the ways to proceed from this point are boundless. The extra economy could go towards teching up, or getting upgrades, or planting down a quick third.
(Basic) Build Order
+ Show Spoiler +
9 Overlord
9 Drone - Scout on 10/10
Drone to 14
14 Pool
13 2x Drone
15 Hatch
Queen ASAP
Overlords as necessary
Drone hard, maintain constant queen production
Spine crawler at natural when hatch finishes. Add additional spine crawlers as needed.
~40 first gas EDIT: HOLY SHIT popular opinion seems to be that 40 is definitely too late. I'll experiment with getting the gas earlier; it's possible that this just isn't viable, but if it's possible to make it work, it's probably around 30, not 40
Explanation
+ Show Spoiler +Knowing what your opponent is doing is critical. If you’re playing against Terran and you have any suspicion whatsoever that there may be banshee play, get an evo chamber immediately and drop a couple spore crawlers at your main and natural. Keep a zergling outside your opponent’s ramp and another one on a xelnaga watchtower. These are the only zerglings you should need for a long while -- replace them if they are wiped out, but don’t waste larva on massing them up.
You’ll want to build the first spine crawler at your natural as soon as it finishes. You’ll also want to spread creep between your main and your natural as fast as possible, but don’t sacrifice larva injects to get it there.
It is extremely important that you position your spine crawlers and queens such that enemy units cannot run around them and make it into your main. If this happens you are screwed. Building an evo chamber to create a wall-off can be an effective tactic.
Generally once I get my first gas I continue to add another one on as the last one finishes. Alternatively I suppose you could do them all at once. This depends on your choice of transition.
Bbulzibar's Excellent Explanation
+ Show Spoiler +On February 25 2011 11:34 bbulzibar wrote:
While this build won't work at the pro level, Anyone below should think about this more. It's really not that crazy, and I've beat ~2700 Masters players with a similar build. I think most people think it takes forever to get to 40 drones, but it's actually very reasonably fast.
4:00 min 15 Hatch Pops. Immediately put down 2 spines (btw, 2 hurts your econ way more than 1)
4:55 min 2 Spines Pop.
5:45 min 40 drones. Get all 4 gases. This takes 16 drones. (3 on each and 4 to build). 24 drones left mining minerals. 12 drones mining gas. All new drones go on minerals.
When you have 100 gas, get lair, roach warren. 2 evos. Get 1/1, burrow and roach speed. They all finish around the same time.
At 10:30 you have a 134 food army consisting of 30 +1/+1 roaches with speed and burrow, and 62 drones, so you're ready to break down some gold rocks and attack.
I would note that I've never won "because" of this build. It's just another way to get you past the early game into the mid game, without putting you very far ahead or behind.
Maps (and how they affect this build):
+ Show Spoiler +Shakuras is probably the best map for this build. You can build spines at your nat’s ramp immediately without any creep tumors, and it’s difficult for things to sneak up the ramp into your main.
Other maps, like XelNaga, can be a bit tricky thanks to the position of the ramp in relation to your natural. Having multiple queens can be useful to block off the ramp and prevent zergling runbys or the like from r0flstomping you.
The back door on Blistering Sands can be a problem. If you keep a zergling at his front and an overlord over the rocks and have a bit of notice you can still defend most early pushes. By the time the later pushes hit, you should be past the saturation phase and into the “mass units” one.
I don’t play on Steppes, Delta Quadrant, or Basin. Neither, I believe, do most zergs. I don’t think this will work very well on any of those maps. Delta Quadrant’s natural is actually in the worst possible place for this build. Jungle Basin has the rocks behind its natural -- the downside of spine crawlers is that they can’t bounce from place to place to defend.
Close positions are probably going to be a b*tch. Like most FE builds, this can be pretty vulnerable to early pressure/rushes. Don’t ever try this against a cannon rush. If necessary, zerglings can be built to defend early pressure like bunker rushes. Try to minimize their usage, however. Every zergling you build represents a blow to your economy because it could have been a drone/minerals put towards a queen or spine.
TRANSITIONING EFFECTIVELY
+ Show Spoiler +Against toss or zerg I like to transition to mass roach off this play because it’s a solid composition and it doesn’t require you to research any long-winded tech (like zergling speed) to be effective. Sometimes you’ll be able to mass enough roaches fast enough to just go trample him and his inferior economy. Otherwise just spread your creep out, move the spine crawlers to a more useful position, and take your third. You want to tech to lair pretty much ASAP, and at that point you can add hydras or infestors or whatever you choose to the mass of roaches.
Against Terran the idea is to get speedlings, banelings, and mutas as fast as possible. A macro hatch may be appropriate, especially if you don’t have sufficient map control to put up a third quickly.
From then on out it’s just standard zerg macro play. Don’t worry if you can’t crush him with your initial surge of units; as long as you can keep him contained, your next expansion will be safe, and you can maximize your economic advantage.
A FINAL WORD
I am far from a talented player. I get supply blocked, miss larva injects, and my (real, not adjusted) APM barely crosses 100. That being said, I’ve had success with this build against a variety of opponents, and I think it could form a stable foundation for higher-level play.
If you notice anything about the build or have any ideas on how to improve it, PLEASE feel free to state these below. I’m sure I haven’t managed to unleash its full potential -- timings after the 23 overlord tend to get pretty funky with my (erratic) play, so I haven’t locked any transitions down yet.
Honestly this isn’t a full-blown strat at this point because I’m just not good enough to take it there. However I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s a cool idea, with specific but effective uses. Thanks for your time. I’ve posted some replays below.
REPLAYS
+ Show Spoiler +
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Isn't this just a normal 14 pool 15 hatch build (aka the "Idra build")? The only thing I see different is that you are only making spine crawlers and queens
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exactly. every spine crawler/queen you build instead of zerglings frees up larva for drones
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You forgot one important aspect of Speedlings they give you easy map control. If i see nothing but regular lings i am FAR less fearful of a ling run-by because they are easier to handle than Speedlings. I am also much more aggresive because a ling surround is alot more difficult. When there are speedlings, if you advance to far with your army its easy ti get picked off in the open.
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This is just completely worthless. You absolutely need Zerglingspeed for Mapcontrol and to have the option to pressure when the opponent expands etc. You will also have alot of trouble defending against any kind of early push without Lingspeed.
Also, taking Gas at 40 means that you will get super late t2.
Overall, a horrible trainwreck of a build.
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On February 25 2011 05:00 justindab0mb wrote:
Isn't this just a normal 14 pool 15 hatch build (aka the "Idra build")? The only thing I see different is that you are only making spine crawlers and queens
I think you meant the SyCkNeSs build ^.^
The issues I have with this opening is that you delay your Lair tech by so much and you give up map control. Sure, you can defend extremely well early game with that composition, but once the opponent techs, you'll be behind in that respect. Also, by giving up map control, you give up the only advantage Zerg really has in the early game. I don't see this being super efficient.
The trade off you get of course is that you can drone extremely hard and get a really powerful income. I would recommend taking all 4 gas at the same time once you grab it...you really need it to catch up.
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I like the idea and will spend a few games playing with it. StrifeCro has a rather nice ZvZ version that I have been playing around with since watching his 12 weeks session.
Not sure how it will hold up vs T/P, but wouldn't mind losing a few games to find out.
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whoops. I guess I just assumed that since some protoss and terran builds sacrifice map control to get economy up, it might be viable to try the same thing with zerg. That being said I'm not exactly highlighted user material so you're probably right
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What would stop your opponent from being able to double expand after seeing your mass spines + queens? Or what if they just tech to colossi/dts? Your pretty screwed by getting your first gas at 40. There's absolutely no way for you to put pressure, allowing them to get an even better economy then you.
You talk about massing roaches after you get a good economy, but if your getting your first gas at 40 then i'm assuming you will have no lair, no upgrades, and therefore slow unupgraded roaches with speedless zerglings??
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zerg's strength in the current metagame is that they can outmacro AND have map control. any build that sacrifices either of these should be able to gain a significant advantage compared to other zerg builds. without speedlings you offer your opponent the opportunity to tech up or match your macro without fearing any early pressure.
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Delaying gas until after pool + hatch is started one thing.
But delaying gas until 40 supply is entirely another thing. That's WAY too late to be getting gas. What are you going to do against igniter hellion drop? Blink stalkers? cloak banshees? 1 base phoenix?
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You guys may be taking the 40 food gas to literally.. The basic idea is to def with queens and crawlers while you drone up super fast. Maybe take ur gas at 30 who knows
If you can double your opponents woker count while still defending pressure there is potential
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Yeah, how are you going to deal with early stalker pressure? On maps like LT and Shakuras, you can feasibly defend against stalker pressure with solely spine crawlers, but on other maps you're kinda screwed.
Helions, especially with blue flame, will also wreck your day (and your econ)
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I think this build is more promising than it is given credit for. Since the funday monday of Day9 I have been playing around with a similar build (spines + mass queens) against Protoss and Terran. The only difference is I get my gas at 21, have the ling speed and a 2 pairs of lings on the map. Then I drone up very hard, like till I have full saturation on two bases or three bases if my opponent committed an attack on me and retreated due to the spines. Then I switch to mass unit production and attack the opponent.
Going no gas that long might be worth a try but you don't need to anyways since you have a ton of drones and excess minerals you can't spend.
EDIT: The stalker pressure usually comes before you have the speed anyways and you need spines for that. You can use your queens as blockers and spine as defense for that. Also by the time terran can come with helions you should already have your front blocked my spines and queens. Unless terran tries an hellion drop you are totally fine and that is late enough for you to have some units anyways. This strat works for me on all the maps including xel naga with a bit more tactical spine placement. Of course not gonna work on the three maps OP listed but I don't play on them either.
My 0.02 cents as a 2.4k diamond zerg
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TLO actually used a very similar opening in a recent MrBitters episode. In his case, he used it specifically against 2 Rax aggression... just Queens and crawlers til he saturated both bases then took 4 gas all at once.
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i have tried this a bunch.. the only way you can get away with this is with an early pool and possibly a roach warren (they think you are going all in)
and you can't do this in zvz.
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While I do think that delaying gas for minerals is an option to be explored, you are dumping that extra minerals into queens and spine crawlers. they give you safety but nothing besides that. essentially you are delaying your tech to afford no-tech defenses, instead of using higher tech for defense. You end up more or less at the same point (2 safe and saturated bases), except you are way behind in tech, and that makes it really hard to actually go out on the map after that point. this can be more viable on maps like LT where the spines can cover 3 bases, but it's still pretty iffy because eventually your opponent will tech to something that allows them to ignore the spines.
If the extra minerals you get by not mining gas were going into a really fast 3rd instead, the long-term benefits of that are apparent, and this is something that has been experimented somewhat in zvp lately. you do absolutely need at least speed to make that work tho.
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Agreed ^^ this would be too risky to try in ZvZ
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if you do this against terran you will lose to literally everything possible. I can make marines only and win vs this.. non-speed lings are so bad that stim is gonna deal more damage to the marines than your lings will.
your analysis of your own build is shallow and covers nothing whatsoever short of whimsical rushes where you just tell zergs to pray against cloak banshees or runbys...
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On February 25 2011 05:04 DarKFoRcE wrote:
This is just completely worthless. You absolutely need Zerglingspeed for Mapcontrol and to have the option to pressure when the opponent expands etc. You will also have alot of trouble defending against any kind of early push without Lingspeed.
Also, taking Gas at 40 means that you will get super late t2.
Overall, a horrible trainwreck of a build.
WHOA, how is this post glowing?! It's like a beacon of truth! Personally, I'd definitely rather have map control and tech instead of being trapped in my base.
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On February 25 2011 05:40 Algar wrote:
TLO actually used a very similar opening in a recent MrBitters episode. In his case, he used it specifically against 2 Rax aggression... just Queens and crawlers til he saturated both bases then took 4 gas all at once.
I saw that and it was interesting. he said he could do that becase by opening 2rax the terran delays his tech as well.
However idra in the same show said that you want to get a fast geyser even when you are being bunker rushed because he thinks you can't survive the marine/scvs followups without speed.
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seems so dangerous... no speed for map control and no tech... any allin seems like it would stomp this so easy. Not to mention cloaked banshees and no lair for overseers ? Yah a spore or two will help but you invest to much putting them and spines all over and its pointless.
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On February 25 2011 05:31 lim1017 wrote:
You guys may be taking the 40 food gas to literally.. The basic idea is to def with queens and crawlers while you drone up super fast. Maybe take ur gas at 30 who knows
-_-
It's frustrating to have to read posts like this. No, people aren't taking 40 food gas too literally. They're taking it exactly the right amount of literally.
On February 25 2011 04:56 gROOT.clever wrote:
~40 first gas
means ~40 first gas. Not 30. Not 50. Not 70. 40. If the OP doesn't know when to take his gas, then don't specify a supply for when to take gas in the BO.
If a terran opponent is going cloaked banshees, or a protoss opponent is going blink stalkers, delaying your gas by even 10-15 seconds could lose you the game. Gas timings are extremely important for any zerg build, and just saying 'oh btw, grab gas around 40 supply' is a recipe for a BO loss.
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this build will put the zerg in a bad position if it a 2rax rush or blink stalker.
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WOW EVERYONE SO MEAN
i think what you are trying to do here is basically turtle as zerg.
i think the reason that other races can do this vs zerg is because they can
a) harass pretty well
or
b) sacrifice having early presence to build up a MANLY MANLY DEATH BALL/ENDGAME ARMY that can compete with a better economy-having zerg.
If zerg could make a 200/200 army off 2 bases that could compete with a 3/4 base protoss/terran army this might be viable. But this is not the case.
Also, as kawaii mentions, most standard play will kind of circumvent this defense because of the range and versatility of attacking options of the other races. It takes zerg a while to get drops or air so cannons can be strong, but you dont see forge FE vs terran for the same reason you dont see spine crawler FE as zerg; drops circumvent the defense and the range of the attacking units makes it hard to be safe with static D.
I Think its a cool idea but i dont think zerg can be played this way off 2 base because of the map control you give up.
MAYBE, off of 3 base, if you could ensure you'd be safe from drops and harass (which is hard due to lack of watchtower control) and then mass up a cost effective 200/200 zerg army, this might be worth it, but i think its just too difficult. The only cost effective zerg army in the way a protoss death ball is cost effective is something with broodlord/infestors ultra and queen, abusing the energy using units and unit-producing uniqueness of the broodlord.
I think if you want to do this, going for a zerg deathball can be your only goal, and there is no good zerg deathball (IN CURRENT METAGAME), which is why this is a difficult build to do.
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On February 25 2011 05:04 DarKFoRcE wrote:
This is just completely worthless. You absolutely need Zerglingspeed for Mapcontrol and to have the option to pressure when the opponent expands etc. You will also have alot of trouble defending against any kind of early push without Lingspeed.
Also, taking Gas at 40 means that you will get super late t2.
Overall, a horrible trainwreck of a build.
beat me to it. i sort of facepalmed reading this. 40gas wtf? zergs would die to so much random bullshit.
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Not good. You ARE giving up map control in the early game. That is very important. What are you going to do against an opponent who Fast Expands? What are you going to do vs a 2rax? What are you going to do against 2Gate zealot pressure? Queens SUCK vs Marines AND zealots.
Don't even get me started on ZvZ.
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On February 25 2011 04:56 gROOT.clever wrote:
-- the cost of the spine crawler,
-- the cost of the extra queens,
-- the opportunity cost of what the drone that builds the spine crawler could have mined,
I edited your post to show why this is not a free lunch.
Edit:
While I appreciate the attempt by players to make more comprehensive strategy guides, it doesn't help if players disguise poorly thought out strategies in the form of a well thought-out strategy. It's like speaking with an English accent to sound smart.
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I do a similar build vs 2 rax openers, I hatch first vs Terran whenever possible and if they 2 rax I won't have speed in time to fight it off, so I fight it off using queens and spine crawlers and as few lings as possible while droning well into the 40-50 food range which works really well since our economy grows SO fast with minerals and with queens and good overlord scouting you don't really need to worry about banshees or helions until you will have gas.
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On February 25 2011 05:38 NacRuno wrote:
I think this build is more promising than it is given credit for. Since the funday monday of Day9 I have been playing around with a similar build (spines + mass queens) against Protoss and Terran. The only difference is I get my gas at 21, have the ling speed and a 2 pairs of lings on the map. Then I drone up very hard, like till I have full saturation on two bases or three bases if my opponent committed an attack on me and retreated due to the spines. Then I switch to mass unit production and attack the opponent.
Going no gas that long might be worth a try but you don't need to anyways since you have a ton of drones and excess minerals you can't spend.
EDIT: The stalker pressure usually comes before you have the speed anyways and you need spines for that. You can use your queens as blockers and spine as defense for that. Also by the time terran can come with helions you should already have your front blocked my spines and queens. Unless terran tries an hellion drop you are totally fine and that is late enough for you to have some units anyways. This strat works for me on all the maps including xel naga with a bit more tactical spine placement. Of course not gonna work on the three maps OP listed but I don't play on them either.
My 0.02 cents as a 2.4k diamond zerg
This is probably a much better description of how this build might be able to work. I've also found that I wind up with a surplus of mins but I attributed it to poor micro. I can definitely see 40 being late for getting gas, but I still think the basic concept has potential.
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On February 25 2011 05:50 dementrio wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2011 05:40 Algar wrote:
TLO actually used a very similar opening in a recent MrBitters episode. In his case, he used it specifically against 2 Rax aggression... just Queens and crawlers til he saturated both bases then took 4 gas all at once. I saw that and it was interesting. he said he could do that becase by opening 2rax the terran delays his tech as well. However idra in the same show said that you want to get a fast geyser even when you are being bunker rushed because he thinks you can't survive the marine/scvs followups without speed.
I agree with idra here. zergling speed is also needed to defend a possible 4/5 rax stimpush followup (with expansion). see oGsEsnare vs Cezanne in Up and Down matches of last GSL Season, the Stimpush arrived a little before Cezanne had Lingspeed ready (he took gas after fending off the initial pressure, which was before 30 supply and still too late).
On February 25 2011 06:21 gROOT.clever wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2011 05:38 NacRuno wrote:
I think this build is more promising than it is given credit for. Since the funday monday of Day9 I have been playing around with a similar build (spines + mass queens) against Protoss and Terran. The only difference is I get my gas at 21, have the ling speed and a 2 pairs of lings on the map. Then I drone up very hard, like till I have full saturation on two bases or three bases if my opponent committed an attack on me and retreated due to the spines. Then I switch to mass unit production and attack the opponent.
Going no gas that long might be worth a try but you don't need to anyways since you have a ton of drones and excess minerals you can't spend.
EDIT: The stalker pressure usually comes before you have the speed anyways and you need spines for that. You can use your queens as blockers and spine as defense for that. Also by the time terran can come with helions you should already have your front blocked my spines and queens. Unless terran tries an hellion drop you are totally fine and that is late enough for you to have some units anyways. This strat works for me on all the maps including xel naga with a bit more tactical spine placement. Of course not gonna work on the three maps OP listed but I don't play on them either.
My 0.02 cents as a 2.4k diamond zerg This is probably a much better description of how this build might be able to work. I've also found that I wind up with a surplus of mins but I attributed it to poor micro. I can definitely see 40 being late for getting gas, but I still think the basic concept has potential.
You dont always have to get gas at 14 or whatever. But if you write a GUIDE and it says that you should get gas at ~40, this is something COMPLETELY different than getting gas at ~20. So you shouldnt be surprised if your "guide" gets ripped apart if something so fundamental as the gas timing is just completely off... especially because it is the core thing your guide is trying to highlight.
I personally also get gas only shortly before my pool finishes in a 15h14p BO vs terran on for example shakuras plateau, but this has nothing to do with what you are trying to describe in your guide.
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On February 25 2011 06:27 DarKFoRcE wrote:
You dont always have to get gas at 14 or whatever. But if you write a GUIDE and it says that you should get gas at ~40, this is something COMPLETELY different than getting gas at ~20. So you shouldnt be surprised if your "guide" gets ripped apart if something so fundamental as the gas timing is just completely off... especially because it is the core thing your guide is built around.
This is extremely valid. You are correct. I should have posted it as a "discussion" thread and stated it as a hypothetical rather than a "guide."
That being said is there any way that I can get your autograph?
^^
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Well skipping ling speed and defending with just spines and queens is definitely possible.
Everyone who says stuff like "this will die to 2rax" and so on, you are terribly wrong.
First of all, no one ever has lingspeed by the time a 2rax hits.
You can still make slowlings to defend just like any normal build does vs 2rax.
After that, you got spines. They do just fine.
Terran really really doesnt want to be attacking into 4-5 spines at a choke on highground on for example shakuras, with a bunch of unupgraded marines.
You ARE giving up map control in the early game. That is very important. What are you going to do against an opponent who Fast Expands?
Using that build, youd probably do the same thing most ppl do with a speedling opener: Drone as hard as you can as soon as you see an expo.
What are you going to do vs a 2rax? What are you going to do against 2Gate zealot pressure?
Same thing everyone does, use drones, queens, spines, and slowlings.
The mapcontrol isnt really all that much of an issue. You can afford to lose mapcontrol until T2, its not as bad as most people make it out to be. Anytime a terran opens with hellions, zerg loses mapcontrol until T2. No big deal, just turtle for a bit while droning, and then life goes on.
The gas timing, well 40 does seem late, but you certainly can afford to get your gas later than most players do if you are going to skip ling speed, and still get a lair at the usual time.
A defense with spines and queens is overall very effective, its probably a much safer defense than the thin line most speedling builds walk on.
The thing is, its not really giving you an advantage, its just doing it differently.
Instead of investing in lingspeed + lings, you are investing in queens and spines. Your economy wont really be much better off from it.
So the real question is, whats the benefit?
Benefit of the lingspeed expand, is that you have the ability to punish someone who is really being overly greedy. And you get the ling speed up, which is in a lot of cases a very useful upgrade to have.
Benefits I can see with the queen-spine expand, is that you are also covered for antiair.
It just doesnt seem like there is any huge advantage to it compared to the more standard ling opening. You dont really end up saving money and having a stronger economy, because you still need to invest in spines and queens. maps are too small to make reactive spines, so it doesnt really seem all that good for now.
On bigger maps though...
If you can afford to wait until your opponent is moving out to make spines, and they build in time, then skipping lingspeed, and relying purely on a couple of queens and reactive spines to defend could really allow you to have a much better economy early on, you could spend every single larva on drones, and still be perfectly fine if he attacks.
If for some reason you wanted to play without speedlings, as often seen in ZvP mid and lategame, then skipping speed completely and getting a better economy from it would be quite nice.
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darkforce,
if you have seen the recent mass expand /mass ling build against P, i'd like to get your opinion on how viable it would be against terran and what its vulnerabilities would be vs it
if you haven't, it's a speedling expand build keeping 1 drone on gas that gets a 3rd at about 6-7:00. with the gas he gets +1 melee, then a baneling nest, then +1 carapace all before lair.
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Yeah I completely agree with darkforce.
Vs terran, any helion, marine, hell ANY opener will destroy you.
Vs zerg? Yeah if they go banelings, goodbye, or hell if they just go speedlings or roaches
Vs protoss? Any tech and you're screwed
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On February 25 2011 07:09 1Eris1 wrote:
Vs zerg? Yeah if they go banelings, goodbye, or hell if they just go speedlings or roaches
You DO realize that StrifeCro has been doing a no-gas expand with mass spines in ZvZ at the pro level for at least a few weeks now right?
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Although I feel map control with zergling speed is the most standard and strongest way to play Zerg, I still think the idea of making more spine crawlers and queens in the case of playing against a reactor opening by a Terran player is strong. The only thing is, I never ignore my gas or my tech timings. Zerg tech is just too important to ignore. I will 17 gas every game or earlier. Even if it means I'm going to mine the first 100 gas with 2 drones slowly because I'm dealing with really strong early pressure.
All you do to deal with reactor hellion without speedlings or early roaches is make a third queen immediately after your first queen, then you can set up an airlock on your ramp to prevent hellion runbys which can be extremely dangerous and not defended by zerglings. Due to defending with only spine crawlers and queens you can avoid making lings before you have speed and therefore get a larger economy until then, the only difficulty is effective scouting without zergling map control, but I believe that you can't reliably gain map control back from a terran who commits to more 4 hellions with speedlings so you're taking a risk if you try to contest hellions with speedlings. If they do commit to more than 4 hellions they're obviously playing more allin, but you still have no idea when they decide to expand or what they're teching if you try to contest map control and fail.
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On February 25 2011 05:04 DarKFoRcE wrote:
This is just completely worthless. You absolutely need Zerglingspeed for Mapcontrol and to have the option to pressure when the opponent expands etc. You will also have alot of trouble defending against any kind of early push without Lingspeed.
Also, taking Gas at 40 means that you will get super late t2.
Overall, a horrible trainwreck of a build.
Most members here would be warned or temp banned for posting something this hostile. I hope just because someone is highlighted doesn't mean they are allowed to be dicks.
On topic...
I am as skeptical as most about the "late gas," but how much of that 40 supply is drones? I think some people are assuming 40 supply in a normal build would really be like, 35 drones 2 queens 2 lings, but if you're really at like, 29 drones 2 lings 5 queens, that's quite a bit different. Furthermore you're going 100% larvae into drones (minus the pair of lings), and 100% drones into minerals (except for afew spines). This means you should be hitting that supply quicker than normal builds where you spend more drones on tech and gas earlier.
TL;DR : I am willing to believe that the "late" gas isn't actually as late as it seems because of it's high larvae and drone efficiency.
Edit: forgot to say, wouldn't an early marine/tank push punish the shit out of this build? Most other early aggression shouldn't be that scary with spine/queen combo.
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Well this may be OK on some matches but I don't think that it is that good unless your opponent tries to win fast while you put 4+ spine crawlers.
if i saw this against me i'd probably double expand immediately and drone up so hard that it would be hard to catch me with 2 hatcheries and i'd probably have enough to have an auxillary hatch. And have my way from there on.
vs. protoss or terran if they make an expand too when seeing this they would opt going for 3 base colossus voidray ball cause losing map control and making it sure that you won't attack for a while lets them do this. and as it is always said Zerg will lose to same or less amount of bases %99 percent of the time.
Can be fun to try tho. can be done to throw people off balance if they are trying to 2 racks / 4 gate you.
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Minigun (or was it CatZ?) pointed out that if a zerg does a gasless expansion, he/she will tend to lose to 4 gate in ZvP.
Roaches simply come out too late
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On February 25 2011 05:04 DarKFoRcE wrote:
This is just completely worthless. You absolutely need Zerglingspeed for Mapcontrol and to have the option to pressure when the opponent expands etc. You will also have alot of trouble defending against any kind of early push without Lingspeed.
Also, taking Gas at 40 means that you will get super late t2.
Overall, a horrible trainwreck of a build.
This blue background is helpful in seeing the pattern of your posts on TL. I'm just glad to see you make a habit of insulting people, and it wasn't personal when you bashed my previous thread. Perhaps you could attempt to offer him constructive advice without resorting to calling it a "completely worthless, horrible trainwreck of a build."
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On February 25 2011 05:48 KawaiiRice wrote:
if you do this against terran you will lose to literally everything possible. I can make marines only and win vs this.. non-speed lings are so bad that stim is gonna deal more damage to the marines than your lings will.
your analysis of your own build is shallow and covers nothing whatsoever short of whimsical rushes where you just tell zergs to pray against cloak banshees or runbys...
I think KawaiiRice approves of your build.
Also yeah, my biggest gripe is runbys and the fact that since your gas is so late, even devoting your first 100 to lair and delaying ling speed farther, 2 port cloak banshees or DT rush will straight end you hands down, not to mention 4gate blink will just ignore your crawlers. Also a strong stim push, tank marine push, blueflame hellion runby, speedling runby, will all pretty much guarantee a dead main
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On February 25 2011 08:21 Stropheum wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2011 05:48 KawaiiRice wrote:
if you do this against terran you will lose to literally everything possible. I can make marines only and win vs this.. non-speed lings are so bad that stim is gonna deal more damage to the marines than your lings will.
your analysis of your own build is shallow and covers nothing whatsoever short of whimsical rushes where you just tell zergs to pray against cloak banshees or runbys... I think KawaiiRice approves of your build.
Lol. *bangs forehead on edge of table*
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Problem with just spines is that they don't protect an expansion well enough on some maps. Xel'naga caverns, for instance, has to have spines protecting the ramp as well as spines protecting the other side. Even then, that doesn't prevent them from coming from the little back door that leads to the minerals, which means you need to build like a bunch of spines in 2.5-3 separate spots which is just terribly inefficient.
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On February 25 2011 08:36 gROOT.clever wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2011 08:21 Stropheum wrote:On February 25 2011 05:48 KawaiiRice wrote:
if you do this against terran you will lose to literally everything possible. I can make marines only and win vs this.. non-speed lings are so bad that stim is gonna deal more damage to the marines than your lings will.
your analysis of your own build is shallow and covers nothing whatsoever short of whimsical rushes where you just tell zergs to pray against cloak banshees or runbys... I think KawaiiRice approves of your build. Lol. *bangs forehead on edge of table*
Good description of most of this thread.
ROFL at the guy who thinks 4 Warpgate would bust a Queen/Spine opening.
Seriously, thread, the weakness of opening Queen/Static instead of mobile units is that you give up map control and the ability to attack the opposing player (which allows them to play greedy as well, and probably restrict your information if the map isn't conducive to overlord camping). The strength is that you can easily defend any sort of aggression for cheaper (in ~larva/minerals/whatever) than with mobile units, allowing you to purchase more drones.
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On February 25 2011 08:01 jdseemoreglass wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2011 05:04 DarKFoRcE wrote:
This is just completely worthless. You absolutely need Zerglingspeed for Mapcontrol and to have the option to pressure when the opponent expands etc. You will also have alot of trouble defending against any kind of early push without Lingspeed.
Also, taking Gas at 40 means that you will get super late t2.
Overall, a horrible trainwreck of a build. This blue background is helpful in seeing the pattern of your posts on TL. I'm just glad to see you make a habit of insulting people, and it wasn't personal when you bashed my previous thread. Perhaps you could attempt to offer him constructive advice without resorting to calling it a "completely worthless, horrible trainwreck of a build."
I don't see how this changes the fact that he is right
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Delaying gas is fine, don't need speed to stop that first push, but delaying it more then 21 or 25 or something, you will be autolosing to banshees, stim marines, etc etc.
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On February 25 2011 07:41 JerKy wrote:
Minigun (or was it CatZ?) pointed out that if a zerg does a gasless expansion, he/she will tend to lose to 4 gate in ZvP.
Roaches simply come out too late
I'm not sure how much this is worth at my level, but my brother (low/mid diamond) just tried this with me and he didn't feel as though he could even attack my wall with his normal old zealot heavy 4 gate.
However, it was cross map LT and I had like 6 or 7 spine crawlers and 5 or 6 queens. We then went into normal game, I took the gold, maxed on roaches + corruptors and mutas against his 2 and a half base 1 robo, 5 gate collosus / stalker, and I crushed him, especially with all the queens transfusing whatever I could.
I dunno... Im gunna try and see what its like on the ladder though, I think its got potential, at least at my level anyway.
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On February 25 2011 08:57 Oneoldfogie wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2011 07:41 JerKy wrote:
Minigun (or was it CatZ?) pointed out that if a zerg does a gasless expansion, he/she will tend to lose to 4 gate in ZvP.
Roaches simply come out too late I'm not sure how much this is worth at my level, but my brother (low/mid diamond) just tried this with me and he didn't feel as though he could even attack my wall with his normal old zealot heavy 4 gate. However, it was cross map LT and I had like 6 or 7 spine crawlers and 5 or 6 queens. We then went into normal game, I took the gold, maxed on roaches + corruptors and mutas against his 2 and a half base 1 robo, 5 gate collosus / stalker, and I crushed him, especially with all the queens transfusing whatever I could. I dunno... Im gunna try and see what its like on the ladder though, I think its got potential, at least at my level anyway.
Ya, you don't need roachs to stop a 4gate, just produce lings off 2 base and you'll be fine. But again, you will need speed for your lings.
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On February 25 2011 09:08 Flyingpants wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2011 08:57 Oneoldfogie wrote:On February 25 2011 07:41 JerKy wrote:
Minigun (or was it CatZ?) pointed out that if a zerg does a gasless expansion, he/she will tend to lose to 4 gate in ZvP.
Roaches simply come out too late I'm not sure how much this is worth at my level, but my brother (low/mid diamond) just tried this with me and he didn't feel as though he could even attack my wall with his normal old zealot heavy 4 gate. However, it was cross map LT and I had like 6 or 7 spine crawlers and 5 or 6 queens. We then went into normal game, I took the gold, maxed on roaches + corruptors and mutas against his 2 and a half base 1 robo, 5 gate collosus / stalker, and I crushed him, especially with all the queens transfusing whatever I could. I dunno... Im gunna try and see what its like on the ladder though, I think its got potential, at least at my level anyway. Ya, you don't need roachs to stop a 4gate, just produce lings off 2 base and you'll be fine. But again, you will need speed for your lings.
Or Queen/Spine, which is what he used, and what this thread is about.
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I absolutely love this and thanks for posting it. Hopefully it can be refined and standardized.
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im not a high level player (only about 2600 masters), but i like this style of play against toss, especially any early expand build. speedlings aren't THAT much better early game vs toss anyway, and this build let's you get a large econ boost early on against 3gate expand and similar builds. i've gone 3 base no gas builds against forge fe before (taking double/triple gas around 40) with a lot of success. may not work against higher level players, as they may be able to exploit timings better, but i'd try it out.
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If we skip the early game. It seems like you would get to the mid game about the same time
I don't see the huge economic boost you would get if you have to make extra queens and crawlers. You are losing a lotof tech options as well. Your muta harass is delayed and the early hellion attack will. Still do a lot of dmg if your not careful. I dont know if its more beneficial but I do like mass queens. Transfuse late game is highly effective
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Actually in looking a bit more at it, I think it's a bit gimmicky at best vs zerg, but could be very viable vs protoss if you're not on a map like xel naga or metal. I think it would be great against terran, but other better terran players don't think so so I'll reserve judgment.
The issue with attempting this vs zerg is I think as darkforce says: you leave a pretty big window for attack early on with speedling pressure.
I think if you're going to make this work against a zerg, you need to pool earlier (maybe even 9 pool?) and spread creep early such that you can expand perhaps around 19 or 20 once creep is already there. NexLife (I think) did an economic 9pool double queen build to have a ramp block against early banelings, and I think adjusting something like that might work extremely in your favor vs. going for both a late pool and a late hatch when your build essentially depends on spawning pool tech for survival.
I think doing what you describe vs protoss and on a map with a small choke sounds like a great strategy. Vs. Zerg, there's such a huge window in your current build, although I think the concept can still work very well.
regarding your replays:
In zvz (Shak): You left yourself extremely susceptible to early pressure and lost, pretty easy to see why. I think you can't pool this late (14-15) and take a hatch against zerg and then depend on queens/spines to protect you from aggression. It's just too greedy.
In zvz (metal): You basically lost the game in the first few minutes. The only reason you came back is because blue forced aggression vs a wall of spine crawlers and your roach army. Only after this exchange were you able to come out ahead. Had he not attacked you and simply took a third or fully saturated his bases, there's just nothing you can do to punish him.
If you're going to make this work in zvz, you have to realize something important:
1) You will have NO map control, and therefore no ability to harass your opponent. If this is the case, you need to be sure the economic advantage of 2-basing and saturating as fast as possible will EXCEED your opponent's ability to match your production.
You don't have a way to stop him from taking a third, and even though 3rds in ZvZ aren't especially common so early, because you have no means of harassing your opponent, I don't see how you can accomplish this, but I won't say it's not possible because I've never played with or against anything like it.
Again, I think there's real potential here, but don't deny gas just for the sake of denying it. There needs to be a clear advantage in doing so.
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Doesn't Machine do an opening like this? I saw him get completely owned by rushes in some tournament to exploit the lack of speedilings.
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I like the basic concept of gaining a huge macro advantage by skipping gas but for the most part it simply isn't viable against any tech-oriented expansion builds as any P or T are going to be WAY ahead of you tech-wise. Sure you can hold off a lot of really early aggression from hellions, marines, zealot-sentry pushes or whatnot, but not having ANY map control means
- you're not going to get a 3rd up in time to stop a lot of mid-game pushes
- you're not going to have the tech needed to stop a lot of mid-game pushes (hydras/infestors)
- you're going to have to rely on ovie-saccing to scout becasue your lair is so late and you dont have speedlings to scout the front.
Simply,the money is great. But slow lings are sooooooo bad, you've giving a terran or toss free reign on expanding and that's gonna be REALLY hard to break later on when you're behind in upgrades and tech. I'm imagining quick PF's at the gold on xelnaga and ridiculously strong contains on LT and Meta. Not to mention, youre totally screwed on any smaller maps (jungle, steppes) that REQUIRE gas-related shenannigans to pull off wins.
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I imagine the most stable version of this play will delay gas and skip Speed to keep the same Lair timing and get the drone count up faster. Although you can probably get away with a later Lair since you need Lair for detection, scouting, and for units to push out with, but not for units to defend. (Yes, Queens defeat air rushes.)
Incidentally, small maps are actually very helpful for this style of play since it transitions so easily into a migrating giraffe + heal push.
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While this build won't work at the pro level, Anyone below should think about this more. It's really not that crazy, and I've beat ~2700 Masters players with a similar build. I think most people think it takes forever to get to 40 drones, but it's actually very reasonably fast.
4:00 min 15 Hatch Pops. Immediately put down 2 spines (btw, 2 hurts your econ way more than 1)
4:55 min 2 Spines Pop.
5:45 min 40 drones. Get all 4 gases. This takes 16 drones. (3 on each and 4 to build). 24 drones left mining minerals. 12 drones mining gas. All new drones go on minerals.
When you have 100 gas, get lair, roach warren. 2 evos. Get 1/1, burrow and roach speed. They all finish around the same time.
At 10:30 you have a 134 food army consisting of 30 +1/+1 roaches with speed and burrow, and 62 drones, so you're ready to break down some gold rocks and attack.
I would note that I've never won "because" of this build. It's just another way to get you past the early game into the mid game, without putting you very far ahead or behind.
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On February 25 2011 11:34 bbulzibar wrote:
While this build won't work at the pro level, Anyone below should think about this more. It's really not that crazy, and I've beat ~2700 Masters players with a similar build. I think most people think it takes forever to get to 40 drones, but it's actually very reasonably fast.
4:00 min 15 Hatch Pops. Immediately put down 2 spines (btw, 2 hurts your econ way more than 1)
4:55 min 2 Spines Pop.
5:45 min 40 drones. Get all 4 gases. This takes 16 drones. (3 on each and 4 to build). 24 drones left mining minerals. 12 drones mining gas. All new drones go on minerals.
When you have 100 gas, get lair, roach warren. 2 evos. Get 1/1, burrow and roach speed. They all finish around the same time.
At 10:30 you have a 134 food army consisting of 30 +1/+1 roaches with speed and burrow, and 62 drones, so you're ready to break down some gold rocks and attack.
I would note that I've never won "because" of this build. It's just another way to get you past the early game into the mid game, without putting you very far ahead or behind.
This is a much better explanation of this opening than I provided. I'm going to put this in the OP. I don't know if this build is especially viable at the tip-top levels of play. It's worked for me in upper plat (although I admit that against zerg it seems to be somewhere between pretty difficult and virtually impossible to pull off). This whole thread should have been a discussion, not a guide, and I think that's where most people got so pissed off. I didn't have anywhere near enough research done to publish a full-blown guide. And maybe it is just too fanciful to hope that a turtling strategy like this can work at all. That being said I'm going to keep playing around with it to see if there might be something I'm missing.
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I dun like your build ...
I have only seen Dimaga make a late gas transition and he knew his opponent would play passively ... Your builds too risky.
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After watching TLO do a similar build (with a delyed gas), and trying it out myself, I like the idea.
I think your going a bit too extreeme, with it though. First, never use this build on xelnaga, or other maps where you cant cover your mineral line with spines (marines just go behind the minerals and sit there, if you place the spines to block that, he just goes up your ramp). And only get 2 spine crawlers (this will do till he gets quite a few marines, by then you should have speed). (oh and while I was doing the 15 expand, which was the recomendation by TLO, I also think a 14 pool 16 expand would work well, placing the spines on your main creep, then uprooting and moving them once the hatch is up).
Idealy this build should be the counter to the double rax build, defending with a few slow lings and drones till the spines are up. Then you can drone fairly hard and not care about the marines all that much (slow lings, 2-3 queens, and spines can kill a ton of marines). You want to time your zergling speed so that you have it, if he tries a quick stim push. So something like 30 ish gas timing works well if he is going rax heavy. Against fast hellions, just block your ramp with queens, and use lings if he gets close to the spines, hellions suck vr spines. If he goes fast cloaked banshees, just drone up hard, and drop 2 spores one at each base, and laugh as he doesnt do anything while you get muta (4-5 queens and a spore at each base kills banshees quite badly).
His best best is some kind of early tank/marine push, where you dont have muta yet to stop the siege tanks(as you delayed your lair). Good scouting can help slow this down (forcing him to siege and unsiege as he moves across the map). Also a fast drop can bypass your spines, and kill you if you droned too hard (again scouting is critical to stop this!). And I would suggest going a quick double gas (at 35-40), so you can pick up +1 melee attack after you start your lair (after all your going ling heavy to start). +1 melee attack should be finished in time for a good siege tank/marine push. Banelings are probably a bad choice (late baneling speed).
But once he exapands, and you got speed (maybe +1), you should have a crazy good econ compared to him, which means you can get enough lings to defend a double expand. Then I like to drop all 8 gas, and do a crazy powerful muta switch.
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I have been playing around with the concept for some time now, I'm actively working on a two-base max upgraded ultralisk rush defended by spinecrawlers, an army made up of 3 max ultras and a bunch of (like, 7-10) queens are almost literally unkillable (even by 150+ supply armies) in a straight up fight where 90% of the opponents army is not immortals
there are units that easily shuts down queen transfusion, namely HT and ghost, good usage of such units will turn the tide extremely quickly
I play in low level and its such a unique style of zerg play (staying on twobase, conceding map-control, getting invincible deathball, as zerg!) that most people just cant handle the ultras since they, as I like to say, WON'T FUCKING DIE! and that makes most people just roll over and succumb to their fate
this can obviously not be used in higher levels of play, see below however
source for the following:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=190226
if it is gonna be used in higher levels of play only queens and ultras will be insufficient, infestors is a very good addition to make the ultras unkiteable, and cracklings should be thrown in due to their cheap cost, high dps, versatility and larvae inefficiency, you will have a lot more larvae than you need since ultras (1 larvae), infestors (1 larvae) and queens (0 larvae) is extremely larvae efficient, also, zerglings benefit from the ultras upgrades (or vice versa, if you will)
also, notice that your typical army will look something like this:
X zerglings : 0 gas
X queens : 0 gas
bunch of ultras : lets say 1000 gas (5 ultras)
bunch of infestors : lets say 750 gas (5 infestors)
total gas ≈ 1750 gas (ignoring tech cost and upgrades)
lets face it, 1750 gas is nothing compared to the typical deathball cost, in other words, this strategy is actually executable on two bases! (but it's cutting it close)
edit: I get the gas on 21
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On February 25 2011 08:01 jdseemoreglass wrote:Show nested quote +On February 25 2011 05:04 DarKFoRcE wrote:
This is just completely worthless. You absolutely need Zerglingspeed for Mapcontrol and to have the option to pressure when the opponent expands etc. You will also have alot of trouble defending against any kind of early push without Lingspeed.
Also, taking Gas at 40 means that you will get super late t2.
Overall, a horrible trainwreck of a build. This blue background is helpful in seeing the pattern of your posts on TL. I'm just glad to see you make a habit of insulting people, and it wasn't personal when you bashed my previous thread. Perhaps you could attempt to offer him constructive advice without resorting to calling it a "completely worthless, horrible trainwreck of a build."
1. There was no insult here.
He was very specifically
1) outlining why skipping gas is a bad idea
2) not making ANY statement about the OP or inferred traits of OP
It was harsh criticism, but this post did in no way resort to name-calling, let alone actual insults. He's criticizing the suggested opening, and he's clear about why
2. Darkforce gave a more elaborate reply later in the thread, with constructive advice, and if you actually bothered to read the thread before replying you'd see that.
It's also quite telling that you're trying to turn this into a personal matter whereas the OP was happy to take the criticism into account and engage in a meaningful discussion with darkforce.
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This build is super bad, you die pretty much vs. everything and you have no idea what is going on opponents base. Terran makes 2 hellions and you are pinned in your base and you can't even know if he is expanding.. And on ZvZ you are going to die vs. absolutely everything possible lol..
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EPT
