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[G] PvZ Pylon Block into 3 Gate Blink - Page 6

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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FiWiFaKi
Profile Blog Joined February 2009
Canada9859 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-06-04 05:12:45
June 04 2011 05:03 GMT
#101
On June 04 2011 02:47 saer wrote:
Kiwi, I'm curious what you do if you show up to scout and there's a drone patrolling the ramp, do you wait to make forge until you've seen that there is no patrol and do a different build? or is there some way to deal with this drone?


In the current meta game nobody really patrols their drone. I mean if it's in close positions I don't place a forge, therefore you will NEVER scout me in time. And if you just magically assume, which happens in maybe 2% of the games? Then I can go for a forge expand with the forge on the high ground.
In life, the journey is more satisfying than the destination. || .::Entrepreneurship::. Living a few years of your life like most people won't, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can't || Mechanical Engineering & Economics Major
birdkicker
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States752 Posts
June 05 2011 17:30 GMT
#102
On May 28 2011 15:21 iTzAnglory wrote:
Wow tried this build two times in ~900 Masters, works great! Especially on Tal Darim because they think you are about to fast expand (yes I get greedy with it and build it in my natural, in the main looks too obvious). If you spread out your pylons you can easily stop all Nyduses, and if you delay the one in your main, just throw down 3 cannons and 2 sentries on top of your ramp. Unfortunately it does not work in tournament MLG maps =(


u are only 400 masters. I've been seeing you lie in almost every post and also see you troll with 1 liners about imbalance. I wonder if you'd stop after your tempban is over.
JLew
Profile Joined February 2011
Canada353 Posts
June 07 2011 15:38 GMT
#103
On June 04 2011 05:21 galivet wrote:
Ultimately there is some simple math.

Zerg and Protoss will both be on one base as far as resource gathering is concerned. A roach costs half what a blink stalker costs. Blink stalkers are better than vanilla roaches, but not [i]twice[i] as good. Zerg's tech is delayed if he was going hatch first; protoss's is delayed as well if went for the wall-in. Conclusion: Zerg just lays down a macro hatch in-base to produce a roach army that costs as much as Protoss's blink stalker army. From there it's a standard game since neither player will have a clear advantage.


You forget the zerg also has to fight through the cannons, I usually throw down a 2nd cannon and then go 2-3 gate void cause almost every zerg responds with trying to break out with spinecrawlers/roaches and once I get the queen and have 2-3 voids + zealots/stalker it's pretty much GG.
@Triumph_eSports . www.Triumph-eSports.com
Gracksaurusrex
Profile Joined February 2011
United Kingdom171 Posts
June 07 2011 15:50 GMT
#104
This is like the best strategy ever, the zerg players in silver league have no idea how to stop it
galivet
Profile Joined February 2011
288 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-06-07 16:00:28
June 07 2011 15:59 GMT
#105
On June 08 2011 00:38 JLew wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 04 2011 05:21 galivet wrote:
Ultimately there is some simple math.

Zerg and Protoss will both be on one base as far as resource gathering is concerned. A roach costs half what a blink stalker costs. Blink stalkers are better than vanilla roaches, but not [i]twice[i] as good. Zerg's tech is delayed if he was going hatch first; protoss's is delayed as well if went for the wall-in. Conclusion: Zerg just lays down a macro hatch in-base to produce a roach army that costs as much as Protoss's blink stalker army. From there it's a standard game since neither player will have a clear advantage.


You forget the zerg also has to fight through the cannons, I usually throw down a 2nd cannon and then go 2-3 gate void cause almost every zerg responds with trying to break out with spinecrawlers/roaches and once I get the queen and have 2-3 voids + zealots/stalker it's pretty much GG.


Well then you aren't really doing the blink stalker follow-up that is part of *this* strategy, which is what I'm saying can sometimes be defeated by a good roach-push. v0v

JLew
Profile Joined February 2011
Canada353 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-06-07 22:13:49
June 07 2011 22:12 GMT
#106
On June 08 2011 00:59 galivet wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 08 2011 00:38 JLew wrote:
On June 04 2011 05:21 galivet wrote:
Ultimately there is some simple math.

Zerg and Protoss will both be on one base as far as resource gathering is concerned. A roach costs half what a blink stalker costs. Blink stalkers are better than vanilla roaches, but not [i]twice[i] as good. Zerg's tech is delayed if he was going hatch first; protoss's is delayed as well if went for the wall-in. Conclusion: Zerg just lays down a macro hatch in-base to produce a roach army that costs as much as Protoss's blink stalker army. From there it's a standard game since neither player will have a clear advantage.


You forget the zerg also has to fight through the cannons, I usually throw down a 2nd cannon and then go 2-3 gate void cause almost every zerg responds with trying to break out with spinecrawlers/roaches and once I get the queen and have 2-3 voids + zealots/stalker it's pretty much GG.


Well then you aren't really doing the blink stalker follow-up that is part of *this* strategy, which is what I'm saying can sometimes be defeated by a good roach-push. v0v



Sorry I should have made my post a little more clear, If I do end up doing a pylon ramp block vs. Z I usually aim to go 3 gate blink like this post says ( this thread combined with Squirtle doing something similar in NASL is what got me doing it ). Keep in mind I'm posting from a low diamond level so anything I say may not be relevant for better players.

I have probably done this build or something similar to it 20 times in the last 2 weeks and I think I have only lost twice, both times when I first started doing it. Once was because I screwed up the wall ( lol ) and once because he got a Nydus down in my base and killed everything with speedlings. I usually bring 2 probes and try and hide one on the inside so I can scout later and see their response. If I see a roach warren go down then I will usually postpone getting blink ( I think in a stalker heavy army vs z blink is almost mandatory at one point in the game or another ) and get voids while still throwing in stalkers/zealots as much as possible from my 3 gates.

Usually there comes a point where the zerg kills my initial 3 blocking pylons down with spine crawlers; by this point I have already built a backup pylon further back so that my cannons don't lose power. Usually the zerg gets annoyed and just tries to bust out with roaches as a last ditch effort and and basically I find at this point it doesn't matter what my composition is ( blink stalkers or voids/gateway comp) , I usually win the game right here.

Like everyone has already stated the most important part of this build almost is scouting to make sure he doesn't get up a proxy hatch or nydus, if they have already started a hatch outside and cancel it it's very important to make sure you follow the drone with a probe just to keep tabs on it. Get pylons around the edge of your base to watch for nydus canals and you should be fine. In my opinion if you get your pylon wall up before the zergs pool is finished the game is yours to lose.

I get what you're saying that what I'm defending is a deviation from the 3 gate blink build, but what I'm saying is that that part of the build is pretty open, if you don't think 3 gate blink is going to work then you're not committed to doing it.

@Triumph_eSports . www.Triumph-eSports.com
Crue
Profile Joined June 2011
Australia47 Posts
June 07 2011 23:10 GMT
#107
well constructed post, in depth. ill be giving this a shot.. should be fun
Self improvement is Maturbation
galivet
Profile Joined February 2011
288 Posts
June 07 2011 23:18 GMT
#108
Thanks JLew for the tip about hiding a probe in the zerg's main inside the wall-in!
Exley
Profile Joined April 2011
United States239 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-06-09 00:26:05
June 08 2011 20:12 GMT
#109
Forgive me for the length of the following post; I just thought I'd include everything that needs to be said about playing against this build.

I've spent some time playing against this build and I am 100% comfortable playing against it, even if they get the cannon contain off. Here is a reactive build that I feel is quite solid against the variety of 1-base allins after a cannon contain. I'm not good at formatting but here are the guidelines:

14G/14P runs the risk of not getting lings out in time, so it's safer to go 14P/14G, or even 15P/14G, but 14P is the safest.

Have your second overlord hover near your ramp, when you see the pylons go down immediately bring 3 drones and attack the middle pylon. You may need to reposition the drones to get all 3 attacking.

If you had gone hatch first, cancel the hatchery and use that drone to attack the middle pylon along with the three on the inside, then pull an additional 4 drones to attack the cannon (total of 8 drones), 3 more drones are needed per additional cannon.

Assuming you went 14P... Overlord at 14, save 3 larvae for lings.

As soon as pool finishes build a queen, a spine crawler, and 3 lings. Do not research speed just yet and make sure your drones are off gas.

The lings should come down as the middle pylon is destroyed. Creep tumor with the first 25 energy of your queen, start building a second queen and research speed when you have no larvae for drones. If your lings manage to kill the cannon contain you will be at a significant advantage. Cancel the spine crawler and throw down the hatchery at your natural and resume playing standard, delaying builds and tech by as much as 1 minute.

If your opponent threw down an additional gateway and pylon to make sure your lings can't reach the cannon (you can prevent this from happening if you by chance have a drone outside of the pylon block), then you need to wait for your spine crawler to kill the pylons. Don't worry, this delays any push they were planning by a few seconds and means they were saving minerals instead of building infrastructure. Also, save energy on your second queen for a transfuse when you decide to bust down the ramp.

If your opponent throws down an additional pylon behind the cannon or more cannons, start building another spine crawler. When it finishes you are going to run both spine crawlers, both queens, and any lings necessary to kill the cannon(s). As such, you need creep to be growing beyond your ramp, so make sure you extend the tumor to the edge of the cliff.

After clearing the contain, throw down a hatchery at your natural and keep droning. You are going to need a spore at your natural and at your ramp, since DT's are beginning to be a possibility. Throw them down at around 8:00.

Throw down a macro hatch by 5:30 and put drones back on gas. Throw down an evo chamber at 6:30, and a roach warren around 7:00. Start researching +1 melee as soon as evo chamber finishes.

Resume droning, you can safely get to 34 drones. I safely got to 35 having thrown down a roach warren way too soon, so you can probably get a couple more. Make sure you are spending all queen energy, since you can always spend an extra inject on the macro hatch. If you scout blink research with an overlord, you can opt to throw down some additional spines since you know he is all-in.

The +1+1 blink push hits between 9:30-10:00, which is when +1 melee finishes. You will have ~34 drones, 2 spine crawlers, 1 or 2 spore crawlers, 2 queens, ~10 roaches, and ~20 lings with +1 melee.

Important timings:

5:30 - Macro hatch
6:30 - Evo chamber
7:15 - roach warren and +1 melee
8:00 - spore(s)
8:45 - optional additional spines

Here is a replay against someone who almost note-for-note copied fake KiwiKaki's build order. There are two notable mistakes I made: one is pulling an extra three drones since I wasn't expecting him to gateway/pylon block me. The second is my roach warren timing, which could have been delayed an extra minute. His blink micro isn't perfect or anything but it clearly would not have mattered anyway since my ling production was about to get silly.

[image loading]

Like I said in the beginning of this long and labored post (phew), I am now 100% comfortable playing against this build. Fake KiwiKaki was playing against Zergs who either did not know to properly manage their economy in this situation or resorted to nydus all-inning, so I invite anyone to try it or any pylon-block variants against me --- Exley.293.
Blazinghand *
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States25558 Posts
June 08 2011 20:43 GMT
#110
On June 09 2011 05:12 Exley wrote:+ Show Spoiler +

Forgive me for the length of the following post; I just thought I'd include everything that needs to be said about playing against this build.

I've spent some time playing against this build and I am 100% comfortable playing against it, even if they get the cannon contain off. Here is a reactive build that I feel is quite solid against the variety of 1-base allins after a cannon contain. I'm not good at formatting but here are the guidelines:

14G/14P runs the risk of not getting lings out in time, so it's safer to go 14P/14G, or even 15P/14G.

Have your second overlord hover near your ramp, when you see the pylons go down immediately bring 3 drones and attack the middle pylon. You may need to reposition the drones to get all 3 attacking.

Overlord at 14, save 3 larvae for lings.

As soon as pool finishes build a queen, a spine crawler, and 3 lings. Do not research speed just yet and make sure your drones are off gas.

The lings should come down as the middle pylon is destroyed. Creep tumor with the first 25 energy of your queen, start building a second queen and research speed when you have no larvae for drones. If your lings manage to kill the cannon contain, then you will be at a significant advantage. Just throw down the hatchery at your natural and resume playing standard, delaying builds and tech by as much as 1 minute.

If your opponent threw down an additional gateway and pylon to make sure your lings can't reach the cannon (you can prevent this from happening if you by chance have a drone outside of the pylon block), then you need to wait for your spine crawler to kill the pylons. Don't worry, this delays any push they were planning by a few seconds and means they were saving minerals instead of building infrastructure. Also, save energy on your second queen for a transfuse when you decide to bust down the ramp.

If your opponent throws down an additional pylon behind the cannon or more cannons, start building another spine crawler. When it finishes you are going to run both spine crawlers, both queens, and any lings necessary to kill the cannon(s). As such, you need creep to be growing beyond your ramp, so make sure you extend the tumor to the edge of the cliff.

Throw down a hatchery at your natural and keep droning. You are going to need a spore at your natural and at your ramp, since DT's are beginning to be a possibility. Throw them down at around 8:00.

Throw down a macro hatch at 5:30 and put drones back on gas. Throw down an evo chamber at 6:30, and a roach warren around 7:00. Start researching +1 melee as soon as evo chamber finishes.

Resume droning, you can safely get to 34 drones. I safely got to 35 having thrown down a roach warren way too soon, so you can probably get a couple more. Make sure you are spending all queen energy, since you can always spend an extra inject on the macro hatch. If you scout blink research with an overlord, you can opt to throw down some additional spines since you know he is all-in.

The +1+1 blink push hits between 9:30-10:00, which is when +1 melee finishes. You will have ~34 drones, 2 spine crawlers, 1 or 2 spore crawlers, 2 queens, ~10 roaches, and ~20 lings with +1 melee.

Important timings:

5:30 - Macro hatch
6:30 - Evo chamber
7:15 - roach warren and +1 melee
8:00 - spore(s)
8:45 - optional additional spines

Here is a replay against someone who almost note-for-note copied fake KiwiKaki's build order. There are two mistakes: one is pulling an extra three drones since I wasn't expecting him to gateway/pylon block me. The second is my roach warren timing, which could have been delayed an extra minute. His blink micro isn't perfect or anything but it clearly would not have mattered anyway since my ling production was about to get silly.

[image loading]

Like I said in the beginning of this long and labored post (phew), I am now 100% comfortable playing against this build. Fake KiwiKaki was playing against Zergs who either did not know to properly manage their economy in this situation or resorted to nydus all-inning, so I invite anyone to try it or any pylon-block variants against me --- Exley.293.


Okay, i'm not sure if anyone's tried this out, but I was wondering if it was possible to reduce the surface area on the pylons...

Currently, people wall off the ramp like this:
+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]

This gives room for three drones to attack the center pylon, or 2 drones to attack a side pylon.

What if you walled off like this?
+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]

Walling like this still creates a total walloff (on the low ground) and only lets one drone attack the center pylon. I'm not sure how many drones can attack the side pylons, though-- if it turns out that it's still only 2, this would be a better way.
When you stare into the iCCup, the iCCup stares back.
TL+ Member
Trusty
Profile Joined July 2010
New Zealand520 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-06-08 21:10:41
June 08 2011 21:05 GMT
#111
On June 09 2011 05:43 Blazinghand wrote:
What if you walled off like this?
+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]

Walling like this still creates a total walloff (on the low ground) and only lets one drone attack the center pylon. I'm not sure how many drones can attack the side pylons, though-- if it turns out that it's still only 2, this would be a better way.


Edit: I'm totally wrong
Blazinghand *
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States25558 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-06-08 21:14:17
June 08 2011 21:12 GMT
#112
EDIT: Trusty corrected his post above. I'm leaving my original post here to show the rationale for the alternative wall-in, though (I'll spoiler his original reply).

+ Show Spoiler +
On June 09 2011 06:05 Trusty wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 09 2011 05:43 Blazinghand wrote:
What if you walled off like this?
+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]

Walling like this still creates a total walloff (on the low ground) and only lets one drone attack the center pylon. I'm not sure how many drones can attack the side pylons, though-- if it turns out that it's still only 2, this would be a better way.


Your second image doesn't look like a wall off, are you 100% sure? (Can't test - at work).
I have seen ace use a similar wall off in your second image, but he built 2 cannons and was using the gaps to micro his probe up & down the ramp for high ground vision - (units could still get past his wall off)


Yeah, I'm sure it walls in. The bottom of a ramp has only 5 "access squares", so 3 2x2 buildings can wall it in like that, or a single 3x3 coupled with a 2x2 building can do so as well. Using pylons this way, you still need 3, and it's still a total wall-in-- I just don't know what the surface area is on the 2 side pylons, how many drones can attack it. It might be superior to the standard wallin, and it might not.
When you stare into the iCCup, the iCCup stares back.
TL+ Member
Kornholi0
Profile Joined November 2010
Canada634 Posts
June 08 2011 21:19 GMT
#113
6-10 pool- After you scout it start a cannon right beside the forge and place a gateway to finish the wall. In this manner only one zergling will be able to attack the cannon at the same time. If you feel unsafe with it you can wall with a forge + gateway + a pylon and place the cannon in the back, but that's wasting unnecessary resources early. Practically a free win, you can go 1 gate VR chronoing out them as fast as you can and attack with three, at that point there is no possible way they can hold after their investment.
I am not bashing it, but I would say a 10p would easily defend against 1 base voidray. All you need to do is not attack with 6 lings =/. Typically if a toss goes forge first against a 10 the zerg has a very easy time getting a second base up. Generally when I see forge first I expect voidrays, so I throw down a hydra den when lair is finished (queens + spores first), if they are going gateway units hydras still wreck gateway units. With the tosses expo delayed you've played their own game against them.

I see a 10p non-aggression being very effective against your build. Do you have any games of a zerg 10p you? I am just curious.
Team Channel: VTeX Team Co-leader: AGGhost 223 Stream: http://www.twitch.tv/agghost
Exley
Profile Joined April 2011
United States239 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-06-08 22:11:09
June 08 2011 22:10 GMT
#114
On June 09 2011 05:43 Blazinghand wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 09 2011 05:12 Exley wrote:+ Show Spoiler +

Forgive me for the length of the following post; I just thought I'd include everything that needs to be said about playing against this build.

I've spent some time playing against this build and I am 100% comfortable playing against it, even if they get the cannon contain off. Here is a reactive build that I feel is quite solid against the variety of 1-base allins after a cannon contain. I'm not good at formatting but here are the guidelines:

14G/14P runs the risk of not getting lings out in time, so it's safer to go 14P/14G, or even 15P/14G.

Have your second overlord hover near your ramp, when you see the pylons go down immediately bring 3 drones and attack the middle pylon. You may need to reposition the drones to get all 3 attacking.

Overlord at 14, save 3 larvae for lings.

As soon as pool finishes build a queen, a spine crawler, and 3 lings. Do not research speed just yet and make sure your drones are off gas.

The lings should come down as the middle pylon is destroyed. Creep tumor with the first 25 energy of your queen, start building a second queen and research speed when you have no larvae for drones. If your lings manage to kill the cannon contain, then you will be at a significant advantage. Just throw down the hatchery at your natural and resume playing standard, delaying builds and tech by as much as 1 minute.

If your opponent threw down an additional gateway and pylon to make sure your lings can't reach the cannon (you can prevent this from happening if you by chance have a drone outside of the pylon block), then you need to wait for your spine crawler to kill the pylons. Don't worry, this delays any push they were planning by a few seconds and means they were saving minerals instead of building infrastructure. Also, save energy on your second queen for a transfuse when you decide to bust down the ramp.

If your opponent throws down an additional pylon behind the cannon or more cannons, start building another spine crawler. When it finishes you are going to run both spine crawlers, both queens, and any lings necessary to kill the cannon(s). As such, you need creep to be growing beyond your ramp, so make sure you extend the tumor to the edge of the cliff.

Throw down a hatchery at your natural and keep droning. You are going to need a spore at your natural and at your ramp, since DT's are beginning to be a possibility. Throw them down at around 8:00.

Throw down a macro hatch at 5:30 and put drones back on gas. Throw down an evo chamber at 6:30, and a roach warren around 7:00. Start researching +1 melee as soon as evo chamber finishes.

Resume droning, you can safely get to 34 drones. I safely got to 35 having thrown down a roach warren way too soon, so you can probably get a couple more. Make sure you are spending all queen energy, since you can always spend an extra inject on the macro hatch. If you scout blink research with an overlord, you can opt to throw down some additional spines since you know he is all-in.

The +1+1 blink push hits between 9:30-10:00, which is when +1 melee finishes. You will have ~34 drones, 2 spine crawlers, 1 or 2 spore crawlers, 2 queens, ~10 roaches, and ~20 lings with +1 melee.

Important timings:

5:30 - Macro hatch
6:30 - Evo chamber
7:15 - roach warren and +1 melee
8:00 - spore(s)
8:45 - optional additional spines

Here is a replay against someone who almost note-for-note copied fake KiwiKaki's build order. There are two mistakes: one is pulling an extra three drones since I wasn't expecting him to gateway/pylon block me. The second is my roach warren timing, which could have been delayed an extra minute. His blink micro isn't perfect or anything but it clearly would not have mattered anyway since my ling production was about to get silly.

[image loading]

Like I said in the beginning of this long and labored post (phew), I am now 100% comfortable playing against this build. Fake KiwiKaki was playing against Zergs who either did not know to properly manage their economy in this situation or resorted to nydus all-inning, so I invite anyone to try it or any pylon-block variants against me --- Exley.293.


Okay, i'm not sure if anyone's tried this out, but I was wondering if it was possible to reduce the surface area on the pylons...

Currently, people wall off the ramp like this:
+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]

This gives room for three drones to attack the center pylon, or 2 drones to attack a side pylon.

What if you walled off like this?
+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]

Walling like this still creates a total walloff (on the low ground) and only lets one drone attack the center pylon. I'm not sure how many drones can attack the side pylons, though-- if it turns out that it's still only 2, this would be a better way.


With that walloff you can actually get 4 drones to attack each pylon on either end, so this is much worse than the standard walloff.+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]

Blazinghand *
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States25558 Posts
June 08 2011 22:20 GMT
#115
On June 09 2011 07:10 Exley wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 09 2011 05:43 Blazinghand wrote:
On June 09 2011 05:12 Exley wrote:+ Show Spoiler +

Forgive me for the length of the following post; I just thought I'd include everything that needs to be said about playing against this build.

I've spent some time playing against this build and I am 100% comfortable playing against it, even if they get the cannon contain off. Here is a reactive build that I feel is quite solid against the variety of 1-base allins after a cannon contain. I'm not good at formatting but here are the guidelines:

14G/14P runs the risk of not getting lings out in time, so it's safer to go 14P/14G, or even 15P/14G.

Have your second overlord hover near your ramp, when you see the pylons go down immediately bring 3 drones and attack the middle pylon. You may need to reposition the drones to get all 3 attacking.

Overlord at 14, save 3 larvae for lings.

As soon as pool finishes build a queen, a spine crawler, and 3 lings. Do not research speed just yet and make sure your drones are off gas.

The lings should come down as the middle pylon is destroyed. Creep tumor with the first 25 energy of your queen, start building a second queen and research speed when you have no larvae for drones. If your lings manage to kill the cannon contain, then you will be at a significant advantage. Just throw down the hatchery at your natural and resume playing standard, delaying builds and tech by as much as 1 minute.

If your opponent threw down an additional gateway and pylon to make sure your lings can't reach the cannon (you can prevent this from happening if you by chance have a drone outside of the pylon block), then you need to wait for your spine crawler to kill the pylons. Don't worry, this delays any push they were planning by a few seconds and means they were saving minerals instead of building infrastructure. Also, save energy on your second queen for a transfuse when you decide to bust down the ramp.

If your opponent throws down an additional pylon behind the cannon or more cannons, start building another spine crawler. When it finishes you are going to run both spine crawlers, both queens, and any lings necessary to kill the cannon(s). As such, you need creep to be growing beyond your ramp, so make sure you extend the tumor to the edge of the cliff.

Throw down a hatchery at your natural and keep droning. You are going to need a spore at your natural and at your ramp, since DT's are beginning to be a possibility. Throw them down at around 8:00.

Throw down a macro hatch at 5:30 and put drones back on gas. Throw down an evo chamber at 6:30, and a roach warren around 7:00. Start researching +1 melee as soon as evo chamber finishes.

Resume droning, you can safely get to 34 drones. I safely got to 35 having thrown down a roach warren way too soon, so you can probably get a couple more. Make sure you are spending all queen energy, since you can always spend an extra inject on the macro hatch. If you scout blink research with an overlord, you can opt to throw down some additional spines since you know he is all-in.

The +1+1 blink push hits between 9:30-10:00, which is when +1 melee finishes. You will have ~34 drones, 2 spine crawlers, 1 or 2 spore crawlers, 2 queens, ~10 roaches, and ~20 lings with +1 melee.

Important timings:

5:30 - Macro hatch
6:30 - Evo chamber
7:15 - roach warren and +1 melee
8:00 - spore(s)
8:45 - optional additional spines

Here is a replay against someone who almost note-for-note copied fake KiwiKaki's build order. There are two mistakes: one is pulling an extra three drones since I wasn't expecting him to gateway/pylon block me. The second is my roach warren timing, which could have been delayed an extra minute. His blink micro isn't perfect or anything but it clearly would not have mattered anyway since my ling production was about to get silly.

[image loading]

Like I said in the beginning of this long and labored post (phew), I am now 100% comfortable playing against this build. Fake KiwiKaki was playing against Zergs who either did not know to properly manage their economy in this situation or resorted to nydus all-inning, so I invite anyone to try it or any pylon-block variants against me --- Exley.293.


Okay, i'm not sure if anyone's tried this out, but I was wondering if it was possible to reduce the surface area on the pylons...

Currently, people wall off the ramp like this:
+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]

This gives room for three drones to attack the center pylon, or 2 drones to attack a side pylon.

What if you walled off like this?
+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]

Walling like this still creates a total walloff (on the low ground) and only lets one drone attack the center pylon. I'm not sure how many drones can attack the side pylons, though-- if it turns out that it's still only 2, this would be a better way.


With that walloff you can actually get 4 drones to attack each pylon on either end, so this is much worse than the standard walloff.+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]



Aww, turds. well, it was worth a shot
When you stare into the iCCup, the iCCup stares back.
TL+ Member
EatThePath
Profile Blog Joined September 2009
United States3943 Posts
June 08 2011 23:09 GMT
#116
On June 09 2011 07:20 Blazinghand wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 09 2011 07:10 Exley wrote:
On June 09 2011 05:43 Blazinghand wrote:
On June 09 2011 05:12 Exley wrote:+ Show Spoiler +

Forgive me for the length of the following post; I just thought I'd include everything that needs to be said about playing against this build.

I've spent some time playing against this build and I am 100% comfortable playing against it, even if they get the cannon contain off. Here is a reactive build that I feel is quite solid against the variety of 1-base allins after a cannon contain. I'm not good at formatting but here are the guidelines:

14G/14P runs the risk of not getting lings out in time, so it's safer to go 14P/14G, or even 15P/14G.

Have your second overlord hover near your ramp, when you see the pylons go down immediately bring 3 drones and attack the middle pylon. You may need to reposition the drones to get all 3 attacking.

Overlord at 14, save 3 larvae for lings.

As soon as pool finishes build a queen, a spine crawler, and 3 lings. Do not research speed just yet and make sure your drones are off gas.

The lings should come down as the middle pylon is destroyed. Creep tumor with the first 25 energy of your queen, start building a second queen and research speed when you have no larvae for drones. If your lings manage to kill the cannon contain, then you will be at a significant advantage. Just throw down the hatchery at your natural and resume playing standard, delaying builds and tech by as much as 1 minute.

If your opponent threw down an additional gateway and pylon to make sure your lings can't reach the cannon (you can prevent this from happening if you by chance have a drone outside of the pylon block), then you need to wait for your spine crawler to kill the pylons. Don't worry, this delays any push they were planning by a few seconds and means they were saving minerals instead of building infrastructure. Also, save energy on your second queen for a transfuse when you decide to bust down the ramp.

If your opponent throws down an additional pylon behind the cannon or more cannons, start building another spine crawler. When it finishes you are going to run both spine crawlers, both queens, and any lings necessary to kill the cannon(s). As such, you need creep to be growing beyond your ramp, so make sure you extend the tumor to the edge of the cliff.

Throw down a hatchery at your natural and keep droning. You are going to need a spore at your natural and at your ramp, since DT's are beginning to be a possibility. Throw them down at around 8:00.

Throw down a macro hatch at 5:30 and put drones back on gas. Throw down an evo chamber at 6:30, and a roach warren around 7:00. Start researching +1 melee as soon as evo chamber finishes.

Resume droning, you can safely get to 34 drones. I safely got to 35 having thrown down a roach warren way too soon, so you can probably get a couple more. Make sure you are spending all queen energy, since you can always spend an extra inject on the macro hatch. If you scout blink research with an overlord, you can opt to throw down some additional spines since you know he is all-in.

The +1+1 blink push hits between 9:30-10:00, which is when +1 melee finishes. You will have ~34 drones, 2 spine crawlers, 1 or 2 spore crawlers, 2 queens, ~10 roaches, and ~20 lings with +1 melee.

Important timings:

5:30 - Macro hatch
6:30 - Evo chamber
7:15 - roach warren and +1 melee
8:00 - spore(s)
8:45 - optional additional spines

Here is a replay against someone who almost note-for-note copied fake KiwiKaki's build order. There are two mistakes: one is pulling an extra three drones since I wasn't expecting him to gateway/pylon block me. The second is my roach warren timing, which could have been delayed an extra minute. His blink micro isn't perfect or anything but it clearly would not have mattered anyway since my ling production was about to get silly.

[image loading]

Like I said in the beginning of this long and labored post (phew), I am now 100% comfortable playing against this build. Fake KiwiKaki was playing against Zergs who either did not know to properly manage their economy in this situation or resorted to nydus all-inning, so I invite anyone to try it or any pylon-block variants against me --- Exley.293.


Okay, i'm not sure if anyone's tried this out, but I was wondering if it was possible to reduce the surface area on the pylons...

Currently, people wall off the ramp like this:
+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]

This gives room for three drones to attack the center pylon, or 2 drones to attack a side pylon.

What if you walled off like this?
+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]

Walling like this still creates a total walloff (on the low ground) and only lets one drone attack the center pylon. I'm not sure how many drones can attack the side pylons, though-- if it turns out that it's still only 2, this would be a better way.


With that walloff you can actually get 4 drones to attack each pylon on either end, so this is much worse than the standard walloff.+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]



Aww, turds. well, it was worth a shot


It takes a lot of clicking to set your workers up like that. Additionally, you can attack the one on the edge through the gap, requiring them to move their guys around again. The point of the L wall is that if they don't pull workers, you don't have to place the 3rd pylon, which is pretty huge for jumpstarting your gateway a little later.
Comprehensive strategic intention: DNE
W2
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
United States1177 Posts
June 08 2011 23:21 GMT
#117
L wall looks dumb because 4 drones can hit the side pylon. If the drones aren't pulled quick enough. the protoss can place 3 cannons as a reinforcement wall, but that's not that great in of itself and a waste of resources.
Hi
Exley
Profile Joined April 2011
United States239 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-06-08 23:28:58
June 08 2011 23:28 GMT
#118
On June 09 2011 08:09 EatThePath wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 09 2011 07:20 Blazinghand wrote:
On June 09 2011 07:10 Exley wrote:
On June 09 2011 05:43 Blazinghand wrote:
On June 09 2011 05:12 Exley wrote:+ Show Spoiler +

Forgive me for the length of the following post; I just thought I'd include everything that needs to be said about playing against this build.

I've spent some time playing against this build and I am 100% comfortable playing against it, even if they get the cannon contain off. Here is a reactive build that I feel is quite solid against the variety of 1-base allins after a cannon contain. I'm not good at formatting but here are the guidelines:

14G/14P runs the risk of not getting lings out in time, so it's safer to go 14P/14G, or even 15P/14G.

Have your second overlord hover near your ramp, when you see the pylons go down immediately bring 3 drones and attack the middle pylon. You may need to reposition the drones to get all 3 attacking.

Overlord at 14, save 3 larvae for lings.

As soon as pool finishes build a queen, a spine crawler, and 3 lings. Do not research speed just yet and make sure your drones are off gas.

The lings should come down as the middle pylon is destroyed. Creep tumor with the first 25 energy of your queen, start building a second queen and research speed when you have no larvae for drones. If your lings manage to kill the cannon contain, then you will be at a significant advantage. Just throw down the hatchery at your natural and resume playing standard, delaying builds and tech by as much as 1 minute.

If your opponent threw down an additional gateway and pylon to make sure your lings can't reach the cannon (you can prevent this from happening if you by chance have a drone outside of the pylon block), then you need to wait for your spine crawler to kill the pylons. Don't worry, this delays any push they were planning by a few seconds and means they were saving minerals instead of building infrastructure. Also, save energy on your second queen for a transfuse when you decide to bust down the ramp.

If your opponent throws down an additional pylon behind the cannon or more cannons, start building another spine crawler. When it finishes you are going to run both spine crawlers, both queens, and any lings necessary to kill the cannon(s). As such, you need creep to be growing beyond your ramp, so make sure you extend the tumor to the edge of the cliff.

Throw down a hatchery at your natural and keep droning. You are going to need a spore at your natural and at your ramp, since DT's are beginning to be a possibility. Throw them down at around 8:00.

Throw down a macro hatch at 5:30 and put drones back on gas. Throw down an evo chamber at 6:30, and a roach warren around 7:00. Start researching +1 melee as soon as evo chamber finishes.

Resume droning, you can safely get to 34 drones. I safely got to 35 having thrown down a roach warren way too soon, so you can probably get a couple more. Make sure you are spending all queen energy, since you can always spend an extra inject on the macro hatch. If you scout blink research with an overlord, you can opt to throw down some additional spines since you know he is all-in.

The +1+1 blink push hits between 9:30-10:00, which is when +1 melee finishes. You will have ~34 drones, 2 spine crawlers, 1 or 2 spore crawlers, 2 queens, ~10 roaches, and ~20 lings with +1 melee.

Important timings:

5:30 - Macro hatch
6:30 - Evo chamber
7:15 - roach warren and +1 melee
8:00 - spore(s)
8:45 - optional additional spines

Here is a replay against someone who almost note-for-note copied fake KiwiKaki's build order. There are two mistakes: one is pulling an extra three drones since I wasn't expecting him to gateway/pylon block me. The second is my roach warren timing, which could have been delayed an extra minute. His blink micro isn't perfect or anything but it clearly would not have mattered anyway since my ling production was about to get silly.

[image loading]

Like I said in the beginning of this long and labored post (phew), I am now 100% comfortable playing against this build. Fake KiwiKaki was playing against Zergs who either did not know to properly manage their economy in this situation or resorted to nydus all-inning, so I invite anyone to try it or any pylon-block variants against me --- Exley.293.


Okay, i'm not sure if anyone's tried this out, but I was wondering if it was possible to reduce the surface area on the pylons...

Currently, people wall off the ramp like this:
+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]

This gives room for three drones to attack the center pylon, or 2 drones to attack a side pylon.

What if you walled off like this?
+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]

Walling like this still creates a total walloff (on the low ground) and only lets one drone attack the center pylon. I'm not sure how many drones can attack the side pylons, though-- if it turns out that it's still only 2, this would be a better way.


With that walloff you can actually get 4 drones to attack each pylon on either end, so this is much worse than the standard walloff.+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]



Aww, turds. well, it was worth a shot


It takes a lot of clicking to set your workers up like that. Additionally, you can attack the one on the edge through the gap, requiring them to move their guys around again. The point of the L wall is that if they don't pull workers, you don't have to place the 3rd pylon, which is pretty huge for jumpstarting your gateway a little later.


I still don't see any benefits to this type of wall. Lets say they don't pull a single drone and let your cannon wall complete. The cannon will be in range of a spine crawler on the high ground, which is a disadvantage compared to the standard pylon block.

Now lets say the Zerg actually knows what he is doing and pulls 4 drones, the correct number for this type of wall. He's going to have at least 3 drones attacking the pylon. Sure, you can do damage to one of the drones, but it won't change the fact that at least 3 and sometimes 4 drones will be hitting that pylon-- just keep right-clicking the pylon and eventually all 4 will lock in place attacking. What I'm trying to say is that if you L-wall me I will 100% break the pylon faster than a standard pylon block.

Here's another hypothetical. Lets say you finish the initial 2 pylons and throw down a cannon, but the Zerg sees it now and sends 4 drones. Guess what; that cannon isn't going to finish, since 3+ drones will deny a cannon if they start attacking it soon enough. You'll need to spend an additional 150 minerals on another cannon behind it and throw down additional buildings to protect against lings assuming your opponent went a standard pool opening.

Besides, a standard walloff has the same benefit that you list, being that you only need 2 pylons assuming they finish. I do not see a single benefit from the L-wall, sorry.
dslyecix
Profile Joined November 2010
Canada37 Posts
June 08 2011 23:31 GMT
#119
What is everyone's opinion of a proxy stargate instead of the 3gate blink follow up? I've had success with the blink stalkers, but in the odd case things don't go my way, I've been finding myself facing the mass roach style that's all the rage these days and I honestly am having so much trouble against it. Just wondering if a void transition would work and maybe steer zerg away from roaches?
CapnAmerica
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
United States508 Posts
June 10 2011 20:56 GMT
#120
On June 09 2011 07:10 Exley wrote:
With that walloff you can actually get 4 drones to attack each pylon on either end, so this is much worse than the standard walloff.+ Show Spoiler +
[image loading]



I feel like such an idiot. This is awesome, I always thought the L-wall-in was actually superior because I could only hit the middle pylon with one drone, but now I realize that the side pylons can be attacked with more than 2 drones!

Thanks. :D
After all this time, I still haven't figured out the correlation between sexual orientation and beating an unprepared opponent. Are homosexuals the next koreans? Many players seem to think it's an unfair advantage. - pandaburn
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