• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EST 02:57
CET 08:57
KST 16:57
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
RSL Revival - 2025 Season Finals Preview8RSL Season 3 - Playoffs Preview0RSL Season 3 - RO16 Groups C & D Preview0RSL Season 3 - RO16 Groups A & B Preview2TL.net Map Contest #21: Winners12
Community News
ComeBackTV's documentary on Byun's Career !8Weekly Cups (Dec 8-14): MaxPax, Clem, Cure win4Weekly Cups (Dec 1-7): Clem doubles, Solar gets over the hump1Weekly Cups (Nov 24-30): MaxPax, Clem, herO win2BGE Stara Zagora 2026 announced15
StarCraft 2
General
ComeBackTV's documentary on Byun's Career ! When will we find out if there are more tournament Weekly Cups (Dec 8-14): MaxPax, Clem, Cure win RSL Revival - 2025 Season Finals Preview Weekly Cups (Dec 1-7): Clem doubles, Solar gets over the hump
Tourneys
RSL Offline Finals Info - Dec 13 and 14! Master Swan Open (Global Bronze-Master 2) Winter Warp Gate Amateur Showdown #1: Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament $5,000+ WardiTV 2025 Championship
Strategy
Custom Maps
Map Editor closed ?
External Content
Mutation # 504 Retribution Mutation # 503 Fowl Play Mutation # 502 Negative Reinforcement Mutation # 501 Price of Progress
Brood War
General
FlaSh on: Biggest Problem With SnOw's Playstyle screp: Command line app to parse SC rep files How Rain Became ProGamer in Just 3 Months BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ [BSL21] RO8 Bracket & Prediction Contest
Tourneys
Small VOD Thread 2.0 [Megathread] Daily Proleagues [BSL21] WB SEMIFINALS - Saturday 21:00 CET [BSL21] RO8 - Day 2 - Sunday 21:00 CET
Strategy
Game Theory for Starcraft Current Meta Simple Questions, Simple Answers Fighting Spirit mining rates
Other Games
General Games
Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Path of Exile Nintendo Switch Thread General RTS Discussion Thread Dawn of War IV
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
Mafia Game Mode Feedback/Ideas Survivor II: The Amazon Sengoku Mafia TL Mafia Community Thread
Community
General
Russo-Ukrainian War Thread US Politics Mega-thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine The Games Industry And ATVI YouTube Thread
Fan Clubs
White-Ra Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
Anime Discussion Thread [Manga] One Piece Movie Discussion!
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread Formula 1 Discussion
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
TL+ Announced Where to ask questions and add stream?
Blogs
The (Hidden) Drug Problem in…
TrAiDoS
I decided to write a webnov…
DjKniteX
James Bond movies ranking - pa…
Topin
Thanks for the RSL
Hildegard
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 991 users

[D] Is there a way to beat Spanishiwa's build? (P) - Page 11

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
Post a Reply
Prev 1 9 10 11 12 13 Next All
lawls544
Profile Joined April 2011
United States36 Posts
May 18 2011 06:37 GMT
#201
I played a PvZ earlier that made me think about Spanishiwa's build. DT rush, while dumping minerals into mainly zealots.

With the initial 2-3 (preferably 3) instead of attempting drone kills/spore crawler sniping, push all the DTs onto the spawning pool (assuming the pool is out of range of the mineral line detection). If you get the pool down, there's a timing window in which no new lings/spines can be made, and you push with your zealots.
Deleted User 101379
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
4849 Posts
May 18 2011 13:00 GMT
#202
On May 18 2011 15:37 lawls544 wrote:
I played a PvZ earlier that made me think about Spanishiwa's build. DT rush, while dumping minerals into mainly zealots.

With the initial 2-3 (preferably 3) instead of attempting drone kills/spore crawler sniping, push all the DTs onto the spawning pool (assuming the pool is out of range of the mineral line detection). If you get the pool down, there's a timing window in which no new lings/spines can be made, and you push with your zealots.


If you manage to kill the spawning pool, you could have done anything with the DTs and won the game.

The Zerg will have at least 2 queens ready to transfuse and his lair will finish around the time your DTs arrive (if you wait for 3), that means he can immedatly morph an overseer and defend... if he didn't build spore crawlers anyways because every Protoss these days seems to do DTs vs gasless expand.
With the new patch, moving spore crawlers takes just very little time, far too little to kill the spawning pool.

A zealot heavy attack is quite strong however, unless the Zerg went banelings or roaches. Most Zerg will have just Lings, and as everyone knows, Zealots rip through lings in seconds and take reduced damage from spine crawlers.
StOrmScAr
Profile Joined April 2011
Italy5 Posts
May 18 2011 14:03 GMT
#203
I think it is quite funny when people think that they can just double FE and its all gd, like the zerg player has no brain and can't react. If he sees u expanding he will expand too, and he has anyway the advantage of getting his expo first...

I think the answer is to put some pressure so u force him into producing lings/roaches early on so he can't drone as much...some warp prism drops harass can be quite effective too..all that while you also FE...and then you see as you go in the midgame..the thing is to not let him drone like crazy, otherwise his advantage becomes too huge...also try to go for a heavier lots with upgrades combination, as he will usually have mass lings...

hope it helped:D
I like trains.
Keilah
Profile Joined May 2010
731 Posts
May 18 2011 14:10 GMT
#204
why would you snipe a pool if you plan to attack with zealots? snipe the roach warren or baneling nest.
yiodee
Profile Joined February 2011
United States137 Posts
May 21 2011 03:15 GMT
#205
you guys are being too cute by saying: "yeah DT rush beats this" or "blink stalker pwns" and forget the fact that the zerg will still sac an overlord to see what you are doing. If you have ever seen spanishiwa playing you will notice his superior game sense. He is not good because his build is great, he is good because he can adapt to his opponent's strategies. I would love to see spanishiwa himself posting in this thread explaining how he would react to some of the build that have been proposed here.

You are also ignoring the fact that zerg will have 4 queens + transfusion and even if you blink past the spine crawlers he can block the ramp and attack with lings. Or he can kill the warp prism and then deal with zealots + anything else you dropped. Plus, Zerg probably saw the robo with the overlord and prepared for your gimmicks. This opening is just an opening like any other; but you can't beat a good zerg's game sense.

That said, please re-think your answers and keep the discussion because as a zerg I am also interested in knowing the weaknesses of this build.

Last, I personally thing that maybe you should drone scout with this build. Not sure when though. I dont think spanishiwa mentioned it on 12 weeks with the pros.
emc
Profile Joined September 2010
United States3088 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-05-21 03:29:54
May 21 2011 03:28 GMT
#206
What about drop harass? drop ships are pretty damn easy to get as protoss, you only need a cyber then robo and they only cost minerals yet warp prisms are used so little . The reason why I say drop is good because it completely avoids the spine crawlers, this is WHY I don't use this build against terran because of drop harass and how easy it is for terran to tech towards.

Anyways, why not try warp prism harass? 3 gate expand into robo, get observer to check him out then get a warp prism and drop in some units to harass him with. Keep your units alive too, when they are in danger, retreat to the warp prism and try a different angle. You can gain map control and possibly even get a fast 3rd with some cannon defense.
Keilah
Profile Joined May 2010
731 Posts
May 21 2011 03:29 GMT
#207
Mentioned in the other thread, but a greedy expand (possible vs no-gas = no sling or roach) followed by +1attack 8-gate with HT (for queen feedback & archon) works really well vs queen/spine and obviously smooshes lings and banes thanks to the +1 and archons. Hits around 10:30-11:00, just before the z will be starting his bane drops and other antics. Roaches work, but that forces a deviation from the ling/bane/infestor play that Spanishiwa suggests; also he says to use ling/bane/spine to stop a 6-gate, and the 8-gate with archives looks basically the same but adds on an archive and hits a little later (the extra 2 gates are just completing around the time you hit, these exist because HTs have a ridic long cooldown). If your scouts miss the archives, your ling/bane defense is going to cost you the game, and even if you do it's only 62s from planting archives -> archon merging complete, not a lot of time to adjust. If you build a bunch of (mostly useless) lings and banes, then notice at the last second that the attack is late or spot the archives a little late, you will have a lot less roaches.


Anyways, I'm sure there are ways for the zerg to solve this and react properly, but there you have it, a protoss way to solidly beat the spanishiwa style as written.
YarNhoj
Profile Joined November 2010
United States69 Posts
May 21 2011 03:37 GMT
#208
I find that what beats me in this build is the late game ultras and broods. While colossus are great mid-game I have found myself switching to almost pure blink stalkers and zealots with about 6 to 10 immortals. The immortals destroy ultras and the zealots can mop up broodlings/cracklings while the blink stalkers take out the broodlords. You can be extremely greedy with your first expansion and get your third much faster than normal. It is also important to build lots of unit producing structures and even additional robos as the main strength of spanishiwa's build is the ability to remax quickly.

I like to push once with colossus, +1+1, and range, so that I can secure my third and then start double robos for immortals as the roaches/ultras can start to pile up around this time. I would advise engaging Z every so often, after you have range, just to force him to build units as opposed to drones. I switch to immortal production soon after taking my third at which point I'm hoping to still have 2-4 colossus.

The weakness's I can see in this build is that Z has very few harassment options until later in the game at which point P can be on three bases, P's standard army compositions does extremely well through the mid-game, and that, like the protoss death ball, the zerg has to keep a lot of his units together. (Lings are not good by themselves.) To that end I have been trying to incorporate zealot harass via warp prisms while poking at the front with my standard mix.
"Wait...wait...don't start another game yet...I need a beer"
rexob
Profile Joined April 2010
Sweden202 Posts
May 21 2011 03:56 GMT
#209
been up against this build some times now and I also find i t very hard. how i generally go with my games PvZ is (vs the 80% used roach-hydra):
stargate/FE -> FE/stargate.
get phoenixes if it is a big map and harass, VR to deny third and def if it is not so big map.
while i fly around for stray overlords i get coloussus up to counter his (hopefully) hydras.
with colussous i get third up and start putting on preassure, killing his extra expos and mostly move around, tearing at his army with forcefields while macroing up 200 and going in for the kill with blink if he gets the time to get broodlords.

vs Spanishiwa's build iv'e found out that:
first of all - it is very hard to recognize it as early as it is needed.

with the queens, it is very hard to harass with phoenix and impossible when he gets infestors. also hard to kill third with VR since if you know he can move in another queen it's hardly worth trying to take out one and have a voulnrable VR so your stargate harass is pretty much useless.

blink i also find too hard to pull of as speedlings kills stalkers fast. with upgrades even faster. with fungal, it's a donation.

high tier late game air is the only thing iv'e found remotly working as i one game had like 14 VR when ha came in with ultras but he also had enugh infestors to kill alot of VR pretty easily
DT is also hard to pull of since the Z is going for fast hatch 2.0 to get the infestors and therefore a pretty easy overseer. fungal also can be used for detection.

no I just don't know how to beat the spanishiwa style, only have a chance with high tier late game air but even needs a third base which his speedlings will deny even if you reveal your void rays.

the the upgraded lings + infestor gets Z so much mapcontrol and can expand at will, beeing safe to drops and, with the queens, air aswell.

what I am going to test next time though is goinf for council-play. start with FE and the rush for DTs to try to do harm while trying to exp and get upgrades, aiming for 3/3. i'm thinking about something like alot of archons with speedzealots, with the archons coming from DT while the gas is needed for upgrades and when done, going for HT to feedback. the DTs should be able to get the third up easy. archons to tank fungals. HT to feedback. ability to get blink if needed. only problem is that Z can tech-switch rather fast and a roacharmy would be hard to beat.
also - the ability to get an archon for one-shotting of drones with drops is avilable.
it's a good day to die
rexob
Profile Joined April 2010
Sweden202 Posts
May 21 2011 12:36 GMT
#210
i think that i've found a way to play vs the spanishiwa style, made a thread just about my/the style including replays:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=225220
it's a good day to die
Fungal Growth
Profile Joined November 2010
United States434 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-05-21 16:44:31
May 21 2011 16:43 GMT
#211
Is muscling through the spines necessarily off the table as option? A sentry/stalker ball with hallucinated zealots to tank the spine damage while the ranged units target the healing queens could be effective.

Husky tried this in his game vs spanishiwa and while it didn't work, but with proper execution it seemed like it had potential.



9:34 game time (4:23 youtube time) Husky attacks Spanishiwa with 12 fake zealots plus a stalker/sentry ball. Think the big problem was that Husky attacked far too late at the 9 minute mark.
LeoA
Profile Joined August 2010
Canada108 Posts
May 21 2011 19:24 GMT
#212
Once you see someone going for spanishiwa style you should expand aggressively and remain on even bases, which is entirely feasible for you to do, seeing as he has sunk so much money into static D. It is very hard for most zergs to win if they have the same number of bases as you ^^
Before you say anything, remember...I bite.
VeryAverage
Profile Joined January 2011
United States424 Posts
May 21 2011 19:49 GMT
#213
I just had a guy go ahead and do a 2 gate chrono zealot. I did the 13 hatch, 15 pool variant. He forced my spines to cancel but I when my queens and couple of zerglings popped, it wasn't even close. This seems pretty difficult to put any pressure on. I think you just have to play extremely greedily and pray for no all in.
Walls
Profile Joined May 2011
United States172 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-05-21 20:20:32
May 21 2011 20:19 GMT
#214
Spanishiwa style was my savior, the protoss was able to win the PvZ match-up so incredibly easily, but now they have to actually shed a sweat or two.
as for the DT's I would say that it'ss very risky but if you catch the zerg off guard you can cancel his third, but no more than that, unless the zerg player is low level.
And I would say the response to your late game composition would be Infestor ultralisk, infestor is used to take out the zealots cost efficiently and ultralisks are used to counter the archons.
In case the protoss player goes for some air-colossi mass air with their zealot archon composition, its most safe to get out corrupters to be able to save the energy on those infestors.
Also with the infestor speen now lowered down we can pay less attention to the infestors but still loosing them would be like a protoss player loosing all his centuries early game (and possibly GGing next.)
As for the dealing with the immortals, it is very cost efficient to use infested terran to scatter them or kill them, also your ultralisks should never waste any of their attacks on the immortals.
ultralisks are easy to micro, save them as much as you can be cause loosing them could be the end of you no matter how far ahead you are. unless you are 7 base vs a 1 base toss with phoenixes.
High templar could do serios damage to your composition so be wary of them. you can deal with them be microing your infestors and keeping the in the back, if the templar get to greedy to kill your infestors kill them with the rest of your army.
If the protoss player switches into mass high templars (gets more than 6 templars out) you can afford to get about 7-8 mutas and wait for an opportunity to catch some of those Templar, because of their movement speed they cant be caught out of position if the protoss player is not careful. and, in time maybe harrass his mineral lines a little make him build a cannon or two. another way of dealing with templar is to use about 10 burrowed roaches in your compostion, as the battle starts burrow your roaches and send them under the protoss army, this would very cost efficient because although the protoss player has an observes and sees them, he focuses his entire army on those burrowed roaches and they take in some much of the focus fire while the rest of your army is doing their job.
SlayerS_Eve's third fan, in the time of hatred... very very proud of that.
yiodee
Profile Joined February 2011
United States137 Posts
May 22 2011 01:39 GMT
#215
On May 21 2011 12:29 Keilah wrote:
Mentioned in the other thread, but a greedy expand (possible vs no-gas = no sling or roach) followed by +1attack 8-gate with HT (for queen feedback & archon) works really well vs queen/spine and obviously smooshes lings and banes thanks to the +1 and archons. Hits around 10:30-11:00, just before the z will be starting his bane drops and other antics. Roaches work, but that forces a deviation from the ling/bane/infestor play that Spanishiwa suggests; also he says to use ling/bane/spine to stop a 6-gate, and the 8-gate with archives looks basically the same but adds on an archive and hits a little later (the extra 2 gates are just completing around the time you hit, these exist because HTs have a ridic long cooldown). If your scouts miss the archives, your ling/bane defense is going to cost you the game, and even if you do it's only 62s from planting archives -> archon merging complete, not a lot of time to adjust. If you build a bunch of (mostly useless) lings and banes, then notice at the last second that the attack is late or spot the archives a little late, you will have a lot less roaches.


Anyways, I'm sure there are ways for the zerg to solve this and react properly, but there you have it, a protoss way to solidly beat the spanishiwa style as written.


yeah I actually lost to this the other day. Mainly because I am not that good of a Zerg, but he beat my bling infestor army pretty bad. The problem with your build is that you would not have as many sentries, so I can just 1a speed banes and destroy your army. The real problem are the archons. Thanks blizzard, the toss lategame was strong enough. Now virtually any toss tier 3 tech destroys lings.

If the zerg knows your stuff is coming though, he can prepare properly. But archons or air seem like the best options vs baneling bombs
pikaaarrr :3
Profile Blog Joined January 2010
United States593 Posts
May 24 2011 06:48 GMT
#216
i keep reading banglings as banging. i think bangling is a better word than baneling though.

ON TOPIC: I honestly think that good blink stalker micro can mitigate a lot of damage from baneling drops, which are essential to this style. In the Stars Wars Ro8...

+ Show Spoiler +
lovecd basically destroyed morrow completely convincingly using blink stalkers incredibly effectively; he basically continuously split the blink stalkers and really mitigated about all of the splash damage, making the banelings very cost ineffective. he didn't even need the sentries much. with constant pressure and aggressive splitting, lovecd constantly denied morrow's third OVER AND OVER AGAIN and could pick his battles with the zerg and win them cost and larva-effectively.
headchopperz
Profile Joined March 2011
25 Posts
May 24 2011 09:43 GMT
#217
I usually 2 gate expo.
And try to pressure him at like 6-7m to scare him to making a ton of lings.
Rylaji
Profile Joined January 2011
Sweden580 Posts
May 24 2011 11:18 GMT
#218
I think just pressuring forcing the Z to make morelings than he wants is a good start, it makes the fast expo less useful in the beginning(less saturation) and it makes him have to worry a bit.
Official Fan of; Obama oGs.MC // God of War ST.JulyZerg // d.Naniwa // ST.Squirtle // SlayerS_Alicia // Emperor SlayerS_BoxeR // EG.HuK // White-Ra // MarineKing.Prime.WE // oGs.NaDa's Body // SlayerS.MMA // MvP.DongRaeGu
KillerMZE
Profile Joined March 2011
Israel22 Posts
May 24 2011 11:37 GMT
#219
Spanishiwa's build is just a very safe macro play that holds off early rushes well. If you see it, just go into full macro mode and play for the late game.
The main reason that Spanishiwa is dominating is not his build, but his skills. The most important thing to note in his games is that he scouts constantly, knows everything the opponent is doing, and his build allows him to delay teching to the correct units until he knows exactly what he should build. Since he is a good late game player, he benefits from using a build that guarantees surviving into the late game. A lesser player may copy this build, but fail later in the macro game.
I play Zerg, and so I can't give any specifics as to how to beat this with the other races, but in ZvZ anyone who expands that fast will not survive long vs a stream of +1 speedlings.
IIIOmegaIII
Profile Joined May 2011
Sweden319 Posts
May 24 2011 12:45 GMT
#220
well if u can scout the build its generally a free win if u just focus macro and go for some pokes.. the zerg is really weak early game so its really just to go ballers with the macroing. blink stalkers works pretty glorious too. spec if u just wanna poke some.
Prev 1 9 10 11 12 13 Next All
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Next event in 3h 3m
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
SortOf 92
StarCraft: Brood War
GuemChi 2680
Pusan 409
Shuttle 358
actioN 209
Killer 135
soO 87
Dewaltoss 35
ajuk12(nOOB) 34
Mong 27
Bale 27
[ Show more ]
Noble 16
Dota 2
XcaliburYe94
League of Legends
JimRising 575
C9.Mang0451
Other Games
summit1g11521
XaKoH 273
Happy260
Livibee33
Trikslyr17
Organizations
StarCraft: Brood War
UltimateBattle 81
lovetv 6
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 13 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• Berry_CruncH213
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
League of Legends
• Rush1383
• Lourlo1042
Upcoming Events
WardiTV 2025
3h 3m
ByuN vs Creator
Clem vs Rogue
Scarlett vs Spirit
ShoWTimE vs Cure
OSC
6h 3m
Big Brain Bouts
9h 3m
YoungYakov vs Jumy
TriGGeR vs Spirit
CranKy Ducklings
1d 2h
WardiTV 2025
1d 3h
Reynor vs MaxPax
SHIN vs TBD
Solar vs herO
Classic vs TBD
SC Evo League
1d 4h
Ladder Legends
1d 11h
BSL 21
1d 12h
Sziky vs Dewalt
eOnzErG vs Cross
Sparkling Tuna Cup
2 days
Ladder Legends
2 days
[ Show More ]
BSL 21
2 days
StRyKeR vs TBD
Bonyth vs TBD
Replay Cast
3 days
Wardi Open
3 days
Monday Night Weeklies
3 days
WardiTV Invitational
5 days
Replay Cast
6 days
WardiTV Invitational
6 days
ByuN vs Solar
Clem vs Classic
Cure vs herO
Reynor vs MaxPax
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Acropolis #4 - TS3
RSL Offline Finals
Kuram Kup

Ongoing

C-Race Season 1
IPSL Winter 2025-26
KCM Race Survival 2025 Season 4
YSL S2
BSL Season 21
Slon Tour Season 2
CSL Season 19: Qualifier 1
WardiTV 2025
META Madness #9
eXTREMESLAND 2025
SL Budapest Major 2025
ESL Impact League Season 8
BLAST Rivals Fall 2025
IEM Chengdu 2025
PGL Masters Bucharest 2025
Thunderpick World Champ.
CS Asia Championships 2025
ESL Pro League S22

Upcoming

CSL Season 19: Qualifier 2
CSL 2025 WINTER (S19)
BSL 21 Non-Korean Championship
Acropolis #4
IPSL Spring 2026
Bellum Gens Elite Stara Zagora 2026
HSC XXVIII
Big Gabe Cup #3
OSC Championship Season 13
ESL Pro League Season 23
PGL Cluj-Napoca 2026
IEM Kraków 2026
BLAST Bounty Winter 2026
BLAST Bounty Winter Qual
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2025 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.