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I can't say it isn't a good build. I've faced it twice, and just because the second time I saw it coming and reacted VERY well in close position and beat a MUCH better zerg friend using this strategy. By utilizing elevators and other strong pushes you can abuse the fact the defense is only in the front, and not in the main. Blue flames can be dropped around and slide into place to roast drones and delay things even more. He was 3.9k master prepatch, while I was only 3450.
However... if you let this monster get going, yes, it is going to be insane the amount of shit the zerg could transfer into and run you over with. The creep spread alone is insane.
I won't say it's end all zerg opening, but it definitely is a reliable opener, with very few windows to abuse. It's the kind of opening you want in your arsenal if you learn you're playing against a passive enemy.
And -- why are you all arguing with darkforce? You do know he's a regular in top 200 EU, if not top 200 world? He's very, VERY solid in his zerg play. Very. There is a difference in spanishwa and darkforce. Both good, but it's like good, and great. You know?
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On April 18 2011 01:11 Nyarlathotep wrote:
On that note, joining in with the "please stop flaming the pros." Seriously? They post valuable content to the forums because they feel like it. Don't jump to conclusions like: "they lost a game not using Spanishiwa therefore Spanishiwa is better." It hurts my mathematician soul.
lol. Frankly, Darkforce has become gosu in my book simply because he has remained civil despite so many people being complete assholes to him.
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On April 18 2011 01:40 iAmJeffReY wrote:
I can't say it isn't a good build. I've faced it twice, and just because the second time I saw it coming and reacted VERY well in close position and beat a MUCH better zerg friend using this strategy. By utilizing elevators and other strong pushes you can abuse the fact the defense is only in the front, and not in the main. Blue flames can be dropped around and slide into place to roast drones and delay things even more. He was 3.9k master prepatch, while I was only 3450.
However... if you let this monster get going, yes, it is going to be insane the amount of shit the zerg could transfer into and run you over with. The creep spread alone is insane.
I won't say it's end all zerg opening, but it definitely is a reliable opener, with very few windows to abuse. It's the kind of opening you want in your arsenal if you learn you're playing against a passive enemy.
And -- why are you all arguing with darkforce? You do know he's a regular in top 200 EU, if not top 200 world? He's very, VERY solid in his zerg play. Very. There is a difference in spanishwa and darkforce. Both good, but it's like good, and great. You know?
It's for this reason that I almost never use this build against Terran. IMO they have too many reactive ways to abuse the late gas and it ends up putting me further behind than if I had just gotten gas with my Hatch first.
Agreed that it's a reliable opener that should be part of any Zerg's arsenal for a BoX series. Not sure that I agree with Darkforce and Spanishiwa being on completely different levels though. Darkforce has been making some really good points here and I hate that people flame him for it, but I look at them as two sides of the same Zerg coin (crazy builds like this can only help the game grow).
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Purely basing off of last season points and darkforce holding top 10 in the world for a while. Spanishwa was around 3.7k. Darkforce I'm sure was over 4.1k Yes, points mean very little, but darkforce ritualistically is dominating top players.
Maybe I'm biased, but I love watching darkforces stream lol.
User was temp banned for this post.
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Sheth just lost a zvz that rarely happends his opponent used this build and sheth was behind in upgrades drones units etc there was nothing he could do and he tryed to herass as much as he could so the spanishwa build seems very strong in zvz
User was temp banned for this post.
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I was watching Spanishiwa's stream, and in one game Response seemed to have an extremely hard counter to this build. He went gateway harass to expo without forge, followed by DTs and taking extremely fast 3rd and 4th bases while making a ton of cannons at each of those bases. Since you can't have an early overseer with this build, DTs take complete map control and you can't take a 3rd base until way too late. Lots of cannons also nullify infestor harass mostly.
I wonder what you can possibly do against this? Maybe take gases earlier than usual and surprise him with a baneling bust?
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On April 17 2011 18:53 DarKFoRcE wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2011 11:42 Nemireck wrote:On April 17 2011 09:18 aust1nz wrote:
Nemireck -- that's a really interesting and, in my mind, valid point. However, for those of us who are never going to play Starcraft BEYOND ladder play, I think this build provides an interesting alternative, especially in the ZvP matchup.
That said, would it make sense for a pro to have this build in their back pockets for an unorthodox play style when ahead? That's also a fair and valid point. For ladder play, this build is probably really solid (I'm going to be practicing it myself to see how it feels). But when pros post their criticisms, they have no choice but to judge the build based on what they know ACTUALLY works at the top levels of play, and it's good that they can come into these threads and point out the general weaknesses for those players that DO aspire to be the best, and not just become good, solid, ladder players. I think i have even said in a post before that people in lower leagues (or even low-mid masters) will probably have more success with this build than the build they used before. For this i see two reasons: a) the build they used before was worse than this build; b) they lacked experience for the build they used before. The thing is, spanishiwa gives you an overall gameplan and buildorder and a buildorder that fits to that gameplan. Most people here have probably never had such a thing as a gameplan and a buildorder that goes above 15-20 supply (from coaching people i know that ;p). Now if you are able to execute the build order he has given you, you are already a better player than anyone else in your league, just because the other people arent able to execute their buildorder and have no gameplan. The reason why i am critizing this build all the time is, that once you rise in the leagues at some point, this build order will give you some trouble. Imagine you have made it to the grandmaster league. Then you get your next laddermatch and its our friendly italian cloud. lets assume he just builds 1 rax at the bottom of the ramp on xel naga caverns. you have to be instantly concerned that a second baracks was proxied somewhere. so you better make like 2 crawlers at your natural minimum. turns out he is just going 1 rax CC and then immidiately into blueflame with just 1 rax. no bunkers (typical cloud :D). he then proceeds to poke around a little with hellions (killing creeptumors that are planted out of range of the crawlers) while going for double ebay and siegetank tech and getting a relatively quick third commandcenter. i dont want to go too much into detail as cloud has an important match against zerg coming up, but i can tell you that you're in quite some trouble if you have zergling speed finished as late as 80-90 supply.
But darkforce if a terran plays greedy wont the spanishwa build just get an early third? btw thx for you input really love that you take time to discuss this build much respect
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Just a bronze player here, giving his two cents.
I gave this build a shot and have had great success. Down here in Bronze, it's working wonders. Trying to emulate Spanishiwa's style has given me a better way to deal with some of the early aggression while droning hard and also an opportunity to practice my general macro, infestor/ ling play, baneling drops, and mass creep spread. I love it. It's probably going to become my basic approach for a while, and I'll keep practicing it for sure.
While I understand that it may have some shortcomings at the very top level of play, I think it's still a useful thing for me to work on. If anything it gives something to work with as I keep refining my mechanics and strategy. The community keeps telling people at my level to just find one build you like and learn it inside and out to get better. As far as I can see, every build has some shortcomings and ways to be exploited. For my purposes, this build is just as good as any other then--right?
Please, if Darkforce or any of the more experienced players has an opinion on a better sort of opener for a fledgling player like myself to start with, post it. Are there other, complimentary builds you would recommend I learn and have in my arsenal for situations where this style would be a bad idea?
Thank you.
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On April 18 2011 02:29 Nerdslayer wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2011 18:53 DarKFoRcE wrote:On April 17 2011 11:42 Nemireck wrote:On April 17 2011 09:18 aust1nz wrote:
Nemireck -- that's a really interesting and, in my mind, valid point. However, for those of us who are never going to play Starcraft BEYOND ladder play, I think this build provides an interesting alternative, especially in the ZvP matchup.
That said, would it make sense for a pro to have this build in their back pockets for an unorthodox play style when ahead? That's also a fair and valid point. For ladder play, this build is probably really solid (I'm going to be practicing it myself to see how it feels). But when pros post their criticisms, they have no choice but to judge the build based on what they know ACTUALLY works at the top levels of play, and it's good that they can come into these threads and point out the general weaknesses for those players that DO aspire to be the best, and not just become good, solid, ladder players. I think i have even said in a post before that people in lower leagues (or even low-mid masters) will probably have more success with this build than the build they used before. For this i see two reasons: a) the build they used before was worse than this build; b) they lacked experience for the build they used before. The thing is, spanishiwa gives you an overall gameplan and buildorder and a buildorder that fits to that gameplan. Most people here have probably never had such a thing as a gameplan and a buildorder that goes above 15-20 supply (from coaching people i know that ;p). Now if you are able to execute the build order he has given you, you are already a better player than anyone else in your league, just because the other people arent able to execute their buildorder and have no gameplan. The reason why i am critizing this build all the time is, that once you rise in the leagues at some point, this build order will give you some trouble. Imagine you have made it to the grandmaster league. Then you get your next laddermatch and its our friendly italian cloud. lets assume he just builds 1 rax at the bottom of the ramp on xel naga caverns. you have to be instantly concerned that a second baracks was proxied somewhere. so you better make like 2 crawlers at your natural minimum. turns out he is just going 1 rax CC and then immidiately into blueflame with just 1 rax. no bunkers (typical cloud :D). he then proceeds to poke around a little with hellions (killing creeptumors that are planted out of range of the crawlers) while going for double ebay and siegetank tech and getting a relatively quick third commandcenter. i dont want to go too much into detail as cloud has an important match against zerg coming up, but i can tell you that you're in quite some trouble if you have zergling speed finished as late as 80-90 supply. But darkforce if a terran plays greedy wont the spanishwa build just get an early third? btw thx for you input really love that you take time to discuss this build much respect
And then how do you defend that third? Sure, on Terminus RE you can do that. But on for example Xel Naga Caverns you
a) have to kill rocks to take a third (you can do that with your spine crawlers for the non-gold.. ok) and you have to
b) defend it somehow. do you want to invest into more static defense? or slow lings?
Some other examples:
taldarim, if you invest into static defense, how do you kill the rocks quickly?
shakuras, again the distance to the third is quite big and its an open space inbetween, how do you even get out of your natural when there are hellions waiting outside?
crossfire.. the third is very far away, even bigger problem than shakuras
metalopolis.. similar problem again.
On most of the current maps you simply need a mobile army to take a third.
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Thank you for the responses Darkforce, it's really appreciated.
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Darkforce quick question. Maybe his Static Defence style is not the best but do you feel a shift towards Heavy ling/Bling Upgraded/ Infestor? maybe his opening is not as strong but i seem to just dominate the Protoss Death ball with his army comp and terrans to. I just seem to lose to all in/ Blind play (2 port banshees)/(proxy 2 rax) ( blue flame) ( 4 gates)
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On April 18 2011 03:18 Moonling wrote:
Darkforce quick question. Maybe his Static Defence style is not the best but do you feel a shift towards Heavy ling/Bling Upgraded/ Infestor? maybe his opening is not as strong but i seem to just dominate the Protoss Death ball with his army comp and terrans to. I just seem to lose to all in/ Blind play (2 port banshees)/(proxy 2 rax) ( blue flame) ( 4 gates)
ZvP i have no clue what unit composition is best right now, so it might be good. Against terran i personally hate playing without mutas, but i like adding infestors later on.
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The best unit composition is without any doubt Zergling/baneling/infestor and later ultralisk to step on forcefield, against any sort of deathball. It allows better mobility and harassment windows than roaches/hydra as well.
Please check the second part of this thread:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=211407
Watch the replays with unit lost tab on every battle, you will see that you have to spend twice less ressources than the protoss to crush his army.
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Looking at Cruncher VS Mondragon game 1, his build on Terimus with an extremely early 3rd would transition amazingly into the spanishiwa style. Why does a zerg going spanishiwa normally not get an early gas? Because then they would have to either get a faster layer, which would delay queens, or waste the money on the extractor.
By getting an early third, the zerg can get a lair and speed while also getting many queens. Depending on scouting, the zerg could go mass speedling all-in, infestor, muta, roach, drops, drone pump... pretty much anything.
Of course, this all depends on how easily a 3rd can be taken. It could possibly also work on Shakuras, albeit spine crawlers would have to be positioned very well. Terimus seems like the best map because it has only one entrance to the 3 bases, and a rich vespene geyser.
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On April 17 2011 18:53 DarKFoRcE wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On April 17 2011 11:42 Nemireck wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2011 09:18 aust1nz wrote:
Nemireck -- that's a really interesting and, in my mind, valid point. However, for those of us who are never going to play Starcraft BEYOND ladder play, I think this build provides an interesting alternative, especially in the ZvP matchup.
That said, would it make sense for a pro to have this build in their back pockets for an unorthodox play style when ahead? That's also a fair and valid point. For ladder play, this build is probably really solid (I'm going to be practicing it myself to see how it feels). But when pros post their criticisms, they have no choice but to judge the build based on what they know ACTUALLY works at the top levels of play, and it's good that they can come into these threads and point out the general weaknesses for those players that DO aspire to be the best, and not just become good, solid, ladder players. I think i have even said in a post before that people in lower leagues (or even low-mid masters) will probably have more success with this build than the build they used before. For this i see two reasons: a) the build they used before was worse than this build; b) they lacked experience for the build they used before. The thing is, spanishiwa gives you an overall gameplan and buildorder and a buildorder that fits to that gameplan. Most people here have probably never had such a thing as a gameplan and a buildorder that goes above 15-20 supply (from coaching people i know that ;p). Now if you are able to execute the build order he has given you, you are already a better player than anyone else in your league, just because the other people arent able to execute their buildorder and have no gameplan. The reason why i am critizing this build all the time is, that once you rise in the leagues at some point, this build order will give you some trouble. Imagine you have made it to the grandmaster league. Then you get your next laddermatch and its our friendly italian cloud. lets assume he just builds 1 rax at the bottom of the ramp on xel naga caverns. you have to be instantly concerned that a second baracks was proxied somewhere. so you better make like 2 crawlers at your natural minimum. turns out he is just going 1 rax CC and then immidiately into blueflame with just 1 rax. no bunkers (typical cloud :D). he then proceeds to poke around a little with hellions (killing creeptumors that are planted out of range of the crawlers) while going for double ebay and siegetank tech and getting a relatively quick third commandcenter. i dont want to go too much into detail as cloud has an important match against zerg coming up, but i can tell you that you're in quite some trouble if you have zergling speed finished as late as 80-90 supply. Especially in lower leagues, people play so many allins, and allins is what this build is great against (better than the way i play, i will freely admit!). the thing is just, that when you play against a greedy fuck like cloud (sorry i have to take you as an example again cloud :D), you cannot only be worried about all the random allins, but also about what you are going to do when your opponent sees that you get super late gas and stationary defense and just goes super super greedy. In the lower leagues you dont have people who play like this, because of all the allins that are being played, but the higher you get, you will encounter people who play like this more often, or play like this as a reaction to scouting no gas + stationary defense. On April 17 2011 16:57 Ziggitz wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2011 07:38 DarKFoRcE wrote:
Maybe this is the case, we will most likely never know. But i personally think its a good attitude to be very very critical of a new build order, otherwise you will implement alot of bad habits in your play. Im very open to trying things, but i put a lot of value into my intuition when it comes to whether a build might be viable or not. And as i pointed out in another post, the build seems just so completely counterintuitive that i do not see it worth putting in alot of time. The advantage we humans have over a computer is that we can detect patterns and thus dont have to do everything by trial and error.
I won't debate your other points about the build itself since I can't actually play the game right now and I'll be posting much of what I think about Spanishiwa's style in a document I'm in the process of writing, but this paragraph needs to be addressed, because it's absolutely poisonous thinking. [...] I shortened your quote so it doesnt make my postsize explode. Anyway, I am not just saying "my intuition tells me that this is bad, so its bad" I have given logical reasons in my posts why i personally do not like this build (for my level of play). I have made very big changes to by build orders over the time. As i said before, there were times when i was also one of those persons who liked to build spine crawlers. My playstyle has evolved out of that, and in my opinion it has evolved to the better, especially since it allows me to mix in allins (which is very important in my opinion). If you dont want my opinion/intuition, feel free to ignore it. I absolutely dont care what build you use, i am here out of 2 reasons: i like to argue, and i want to help people. If you dont want my help, i dont care, but there seem to be plenty of others who are quite happy that i do post here. So my post got pretty long, what i basically tried to say is: If you like the build and dont care too much whether its still effective at the very top, just play it. But if you want to make it to the very top or at least play with the aim of making it there, it might be better to learn the builds that are being used by the best (nestea, losira etc.). Due to my rather aggressive tone of argueing, people sometimes think i am just all negative, because you quickly forget that i actually do not only write negative things in my posts.
I completely agree with almost every post that you've made. I'm not an SC2 pro or anything like that, but I AM at the top of a competitive game and completely understand how arguing with people who THINK they're good enough to have an opinion can be like banging your head against a wall. They hit GM league (or in my case, win a couple of side tournaments) and suddenly think that their opinion matters, and whenever a REAL pro tells them otherwise, they take it personally and don't even look at the merits of the points you're making. As such, I also understand that I should TRUST the players at the top when they tell me things.
As a little mid-diamond nubbit with no interest in becoming an SC2 pro, I appreciate builds like Spanishiwa's no-gas FE, and iEchoic's Hellion/Air TvT because they are solid ladder builds for the lay-SC2 player who's only interested in general ladder success. But I ALSO appreciate post's like yours, that point out clear problems with the builds as they relate to the TOP level of play, because I can immediately understand that there will come a time when I have to ditch the build and master proper, standard play.
Much like you can 5rr into Platinum, and then have to find something that works against better players, I figure you can no-gas FE, possibly right into Grand Master league, but like you said, I trust YOU when you tell me that at some point in my ladder climb, there's going to be a point where I hit a wall, because the players are going to be good enough, and understand the game well enough to properly respond to the build.
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Some people at our boards have also made similar statements as the ones here in TL.net. I do believe that while the Ice Fisher build has some uses it's definitely not a "revolutionizing" opening for Zerg as the late gas pretty much puts oneself at a very defensive position. Early pressure is the key against this build and I don't think the Zerg player can do much to prevent scouting this build.
On the good side Spanishiwa does teach a valuable lesson here: It is necessary to keep pressure on the Zerg.
I know some people are skeptical about the pros but if there are two people on these board that I will blindly trust are Darkforce and Lalush since they've spent as much time developing BO and tactics to improve gameplay. I would honestly love to have either of them at our boards. Some of you guys have them here for free giving you tips and providing freedback. They are even taking their precious time to elaborate on why the build is not as effective as it seems. Don't throw that away.
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So I read through a lot of the posts.. not all of them 32 pages is like a book.
I also noticed there isn't any replays of vs mass roach.
I've been practicing this build and tried it on ladder, first zerg I went up against did mass roach and destroyed me. I was under the impression this build never bothers to go roach/hydra, but noticed you do mention roaches in your zvz. How important do you think it is to get roaches vs roaches?
How do you prevent the opponents expand when they go mass roach?
How do you take a 3rd when he has lings at every patch + roaches split up?
My opponent took a third very quickly.
When I went to take my third he just attacked with all his roaches.
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im clearly with darkforce here playing with such a late gas does not seem to be any good idea for most maps and matchups
not only are you bound to defend but also very vulnerable - blink stalkers on xel naga?mass roaches on xel naga coming from the side?blue flame drops into your main?as it disables aggressive play as been said you open the door for any kind expansion/dual expansion by the other player
you also are not able to pick up any chances especially in zvp where passive play hasnt really turned out really well - chances like forge expands on scrap station, too fast expansions with 3 sentries and 1 zealot which can be picked off by 12 speedlings nicely or even ling runs into the main (and even on the highest levels people are not immune to; just watched liquidtyler loosing to nothing but speedlings)
last but not least a strategy and gameplan should also fit to your style of play; i personally handle zvp in a way where my approach is to destroy the protoss economy rather than getting base after base because i like being aggressive and creative strategies way more and using something you dont like often ends in performing it very poorly
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First of all let me say that I love this build, but I feel that after I throw down my 4 gases it becomes difficult to balance minerals and gas, meaning i feel that I am too gas heavy. Should I get infestors sooner, or is there a unit composition that would better alleviate this?
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On April 18 2011 14:52 drgonzhere wrote:
First of all let me say that I love this build, but I feel that after I throw down my 4 gases it becomes difficult to balance minerals and gas, meaning i feel that I am too gas heavy. Should I get infestors sooner, or is there a unit composition that would better alleviate this?
In my experience, I have so many workers that it would be pointless to take them off gas. Just make sure that you throw down the evo chambers right after lair, then after lair finishes get drop and infestation pit. Gas shouldn't get too out of control and even if it does, it wont detract from anything. Make sure to watch a few of his replays to find out his exact timings; everything is very smooth for him.
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EPT
