[D] Is there a way to beat Spanishiwa's build? (P) - Page 7

On April 20 2011 01:57 Firekidt wrote:
Zerg vs Zerg: All you have to do is deny his 3rd. His build focuses on a long-term macro based game that punishes all-in attempts while spending the bare-minimum for defense while macroing. However, the finer points of the build, like Nydus worms, Overlord drops, and many other forms of harass require creativity and APM that only higher level masters players can perform.

Subsequently, just deny his 3rd base as long as possible while a. getting your own 3rd, and b. teching to Roach-Infestor-Broodlord. Also, his build can fail to a well executed baneling bust.

Protoss vs Zerg: DT rushes are really difficult to counter with his delayed lair, regardless of what he said on Day9's stream. A high level rush will hit earlier than the 8 min mark. Also, a forge FE is a smart choice regardless of what build he is doing(although do not attempt air cheese). At lower levels, a 6 gate +1 timing push can break his build.

Terran vs Zerg: Like i said, his build in the mid-late game is where skill really matters. While Spanishiwa himself can easily mind-control tanks and thors while controlling his whole army/magic boxing his mutas, not many people can. Mech play works very well, especially since hsi build doesn't punish early expansions. Similarly, early/mid/late game drops are very effective becuase of how delayed his mutalisks will be.

On April 20 2011 02:38 CecilSunkure wrote:
You don't need super early DT. You just need them as you're taking third. Once you have DT tech throw a couple into his main via warp prism, and some at his other bases, and draw most of his army to a single location with your army. By hitting multiple locations with the DTs and placing your army in a location that will force him to draw his army out forces the Zerg to split his army up properly to take care of each harass point, and if he over-compensates one of the areas your large army might just crush his and you'll take the game.

DTs shouldn't be used to immediately kill the guy, they just take advantage of late lair tech, many low-tier zerglings/banelings, and extends the amount of time you control the middle of the map (easier to take a third/fourth). Once you've hit multiple hatcheries with your DTs you can merge them into archons after forcing a lot of resources to be spent on detection, 4 archons in a normal stalker/zealot/sentry army is incredibly tough for ling/baneling styles to harm, often times people baneling carpet bomb my archons, and none of them die, but they do it anyways because they are so used to sentry/stalker armies dieing like that.

On April 20 2011 02:56 ZeromuS wrote:


Very smart assertion that has been lost so far in the thread sounds effective at keeping chokes safe

On April 20 2011 03:08 CecilSunkure wrote:

Well you definitely can do it earlier if you like, and it should work really well on many people, but if the other player has any foresight (perhaps has played you before which happens a lot high up on the ladder) then they can simply make an overseer. Also really good Zergs make overseers at the specific timings of which DTs are most likely to appear, so going a with a standard DT timing and relying super heavily on it is a terrible thing to do, as the DT will just die. You have to throw the DTs against players like this when you know they won't have an overseer, and it can be hard to know when to do that. So, if you use them later like I do it's highly unlikely they'll have 2-3 spines and a spore crawler at each base while having an overseer on their army, thus they must split their army apart to take care of each harass point. I also like to warp in a lot of zealots into the main with the DTs to force a larger chunk of forces to be sent back to their main (and if they don't their main is gone along with their lair and any tech).

There's also a timing you can hit with units from 3 Gates that hits before the Zerg should have speed and carrying capacity for overlords, where you can deny the third pretty safely as long as you have good FF usage. Here's an example: http://drop.sc/6843 - Note I was playing really casually (had just gotten off work, only had time for one game). If you do move out to hit their third and they engage you, you need to FF their ling/banelings away and also FF and trap a lot of units. Your army will die off before it can get back if you simply FF without killing any of the Zerg forces. FF one line and immediately FF another line behind it and trap as many banelings as you can.

On April 20 2011 14:35 polysciguy wrote:
a couple things, 1 what is the standard "tell" for a spanishiwa build, is it the absurdly early hatch? the absurdly early hatch with no gas? what should i look for when im scouting to determine that this is coming

2. I think people, since the KA removal, have been underestimating the power of templar tech, which, with feedback, seems like it would do much better here than the more standard colo/void deathball. people seem to forget that archons are absurdly good against zerg, at +3 they do 44 damage vs bio with a splash, so get 4-5 archons and watch zergling armies explode, combined with storms/feedback, and backed up by a standard gateway army, it seems like this would be a good way to go.

On April 20 2011 16:15 Golgotha wrote:
his hatch is similar timing to any standard Z FE...the tell is seeing no workers on gas.

On April 21 2011 09:35 shuckyducky wrote:


Against Protoss, I've been adapting Spani's build by building an extractor at a standard timing so it can be scouted. I'll even put some guys in gas until I can chase the probe scout out.

The idea I'm playing with is to plant a little doubt as to how safe it is to fast expand since I might be doing a normal speedling fast expand. Once I get my queens and first spine crawler I can deny any follow up probe scouts, so they're limited on information until they get an observer, hallucinated phoenix, or probe my defenses and see I did not get an early zergling speed.

Also it's helpful in that, if the situation calls for a deviation - say I scout a DT rush - I can start gassing without the delay of the extractor build time.

[B]On April 21 2011 11:01 polysciguy wrote:[/B
don't most speedling expands get gas at nearly the same time as pool so you can get to that 100 gas as the pool pops?

On April 21 2011 05:44 AzureD wrote:
In my experience the delayed DT rush is far more deadly than the fastest DT rush you can do because it is pretty easy to read a fast DT tech which can be countered rather quickly with a Spore. A fast DT tech also kinda looks like a Stargate rush so a Spore counters both.