[D] KiwiKaki Vs Stephano, The Future of the FFE? - Page 5

I’m only plat.. but at my level if I FFE and follow it up with a 7 gate I always seem to overrun the zerg regardless if they took a quick 3rd or scouted it and produced roaches to defend..

Is it simply because I’m plat this is working or is it legitimately strong?.
I usually cannon up my expo significantly and get some sentry’s to block banelings if they come.. so far no issues with this strat?
Maybe get quick muta and distract me long enough to get adequate defenses but no one’s tried it?

On October 10 2011 19:08 kyarisan wrote:


so, in other words, it was the 2/2/2/2 build? 2 bases, 2 gates, 2 stars, 2 robos?

On October 10 2011 23:49 FeyFey wrote:
i like kiwis opening it denys the 3rd and roaches may stop this quiet easily, but that means no 3rd and the roaches don't do much against the wallin. All in all the zealots are really worth it. The roach/ling push takes some control out of you though to stop it. But normally you won't lose more then then forge.
On some maps you even have your 3rd before the zerg. But it always works to pressure a zerg early, you just shouldn't think they won't counter you, as they can switch from chronoboosting 2 nexus to 4 gate in under a second hehe.

To all those people saying roaches/crawlers shut this down, what time are you going to throw it down? You can hit as early as ~7 mins, so what, you throw your warren down @ 5:30? How much eco do you have to do to do that after taking your 3rd as well?

And at 7 mins your third probably just spawned you won't have time to get crawlers up (also remember you need crawlers at both your nat and 3rd since you don't know where he's going to attack).

On October 10 2011 23:38 Belial88 wrote:


It's because you're in Plat. At the lower levels of play, a 7 gate will just about always beat a Zerg taking a fast third, and it's very hard to defend against at any level of play. At normal play though, Zerg can easily hold 7 gate with taking a super fast third, and now it's kind of the new 4-gate, in that it's been figured out, and if Zerg knows it's coming then they'll always win, and that it's super easy to scout for.

You have to hold with speedlings, roaches, spines, and queens. The most tech you can possibly have against 7 gate is +1, but you shouldn't have anything else. You *might* have roach speed on the way if you teched fast.

But it is a super strong all-in cheese, yes. The build is the same as 4 gate, and lower level Zergs generally can't defend against it as well.

On October 11 2011 00:22 Belial88 wrote:


If you are making zealots off 2 gate like this, you will be extremely delayed. The same time most Protoss is throwing down, say, 5 more gateway for a 6 gate +1 all-in, is the same time you only have 2 gateways running. Throwing down a normal 6:30 roach warren means the zealots will be in your base when roaches pop, but they definitely won't have time to kill anything. You will have to micro and shift around drones and queens and use lings, but you will be fine. You won't lose your hatch.

And then you could also just scout, see that there are 2 gateways at the front, it's very obvious, and get the roach warren at 6:00, or make spines + speedlings.

On October 11 2011 00:36 JLew wrote:
Kiwi has done this build literally every PvZ for the last month..

NASL, IPL qualifiers, MLG global invitational.

He beat a couple Korean zergs, slush, and took games off sheth with it.

They knew it was coming everytime, there is games when he loses all the zealots to roaches doing barely any damage and still wins. For people saying ''if they make roaches you autolose'', you're simply wrong. The whole point of it is to force units.

Thanks. I actually have a harder time winning with 4gate than this as it seems everyone knows how to stop a 4 gate these days.. and I only started doing it because when I would FFE I'd get the all-in roach pushes that would just crush me.. so I started doing it more defensively.. but it worked so well I started being aggressive with it and I haven't lost with it… yet... even when scouted! Guess i'll ride this wave until someone stops me lol

On a side note.. I didn’t realize this was considered “all in cheese”.. seeing as how I usually have a pretty decent income rolling in by the time I attack.. I could see a legit transition into higher tech or even expo… Is it because if it IS stopped I would be potentially behind in tech? I mean even if it’s stopped haven’t I forced units vs. tech for my opponent anyways? I always thought it was more of a timing attack than cheese.

They knew it was coming everytime, there is games when he loses all the zealots to roaches doing barely any damage and still wins. For people saying ''if they make roaches you autolose'', you're simply wrong. The whole point of it is to force units.

6 min roach warren is too late, 6:30 is waaaay too late, I hit your 3rd @ 7 mins. You won't have crawlers, you won't have speedlings (just slowlings). You also have to factor in that all your hatcheries are spread apart. You can't instantly spawn all roaches at your 3rd hatchery. Your 3rd hatch will likely go down in this scenario. You can't micro a hatch away from zealots. You can save your 3rd don't get me wrong, but most of the time this is done by just making a ton of lings, but then I will be ahead in worker count.

On October 11 2011 02:08 Belial88 wrote:


Again, this must be because of your league lol. A roach/ling all-in will come way before you even throw down those extra 6 gateways or have more than 3-4 units. Being more 'defensive' with a 7 gate isn't going to save you from roach/ling all-ins, much like BC's aren't a good way to defend against baneling busts.

To handle roach/ling all-ins, you need to build an extra cannon or two, have good building placement, and a good awareness and response for forcefields or having to pull probes to fill in holes. If you watch the Prime clan video, there's a great example where Hongun holds Fruitdealer's baneling bust by building about a million buildings to fill holes (Fruitdealer has commented saying he think P is OP, and in the first 3 seasons of the GSL he always either 6 pooled or baneling busted P every time).

You'll probably get to Masters easily with 7 gate if you actually do it right. You should be pushing out of your base at 8:30 exactly, as in you should be doing your first warp-in of 7 units, have a proxy pylon already set out there somewhere, and be bringing along a probe. By 8:50 you should be engaging and on creep.



It's all-in cheese in the same way 4 gate is all in cheese. If you fail to do decent damage there is no way you are going to come back against a competent opponent. It's still very possible you kill enough drones or the opponent screws up their macro that you can stay in the game or expand, just like with a 4 gate.

In my experience, the hardest thing for me to deal with when fighting against a 7 gater who failed is someone who throws down 2 robos and just gets 3-4 colossi really fast to secure a third and then makes a deathball, or just throws down a stargate and robo and tries to do it on 2 base. It's really hard for Zerg to stop deathballs even when they know it's coming, and even with the right units or preparation Zerg can still lose to it very easily. Then again, there's been a lot of patches in the last few months, and this build was really popular pre-infestor buff, so that may be part of the reason. But that's something that you could definitely pull off in Platinum.

But yea, it's considered all-in because you're behind in tech and you're doing it just to do it, as opposed to reacting what you scout. Zerg just gets burrow roaches and you die. And Zerg should be teching up and droning slightly against it, they don't need 100% unit production to hold it. With 7 gates you can't really produce tech also, so Zerg will get burrow and kill you.

A timing attack would be a 5 gate robo build on FFE, which is more sustainable, and when +1 finishes you put on pressure. 7 gate +1 is a timing attack, but it's a cheesy all-in timing attack, make sense? 5 gate robo, you won't autolose once Zerg gets burrow, and you can defend, and you won't autolose to certain builds, with 7 gate Zerg can defend if he knows what you are doing and will just roll you over afterwards because it has such huge holes in it (lack of detection, lack of aoe).

Really. It's pretty much the exact same as 4 gate in every way. Why can't you just throw down a nexus after your 4 gate has been staved off? Because Zerg will have ecked out drones and finished his lair during the push and then just kill you with burrow or mass units. Same thing.

It's very hard for Zerg to hold at every level, so keep doing it if it works. Much like 4 gate, when done perfectly, it can kill even the best pros even if they know it's coming. It's not a good build, imo, but it's a build that most lower level people don't know how to scout for, and a lot of higher level people don't know how to handle.

On October 11 2011 02:08 Belial88 wrote:


I stated that yes, the zealots will be in the base when roach warren finishes. You will force me to transfer drones, to micro like crazy, and deny mining at a base temporarily. If I actually scout you, I'll make the roach warren much earlier, and I WILL have slowlings and spines. As for hatches spread apart, you have to factor in that you may not know where my third was taken, that I even took a third.

And as the Kiwi vs Stephano game showed, I will happily let you kill my third hatchery if you let me kill all of your zealots.

You will definitely hurt my hatch. You will get it into the yellow. You will deny mining. But with a 6:30 roach warren, you will be the one that loses out, provided I micro (ie kite zealots, pull away drones).

I do think that the true value in this opening is that it denies workers and tech from Zerg when at the same time Protoss can be making workers and tech, so I think it works well on maps where Protoss can take an easily defendable third or when Protoss follows up with deathball play. I think it's combat-ex who does his '2-2-2' gate/sg/robo like this lol.

If your warren just finishes when my zealots arrive and you don't have enough lings to defend I simply just focus fire your hatch (just move your zealots next to hatch and hit hold position and they will hit any lings that engage them or hit the hatch if there aren't). I'm not going to simply send my entire army of zealots to chase your drones and queen in circles. You cannot micro your hatchery away from my zealots, and if you make a warren at 6:00 or later your hatch will go down if you didn't make a lot of lings (it takes about 23 seconds for 5 +1 zealots to focus fire a hatch down).

And contrary to what you may think a 3rd is actually fairly easy to scout. 99% of the time it's in obvious spots because zerg wants to connect creep, but also when you get a fast 3rd you won't have ling speed so scouting a 3rd with your initial probe scout is very probable. Even if you lose it, sending out your first zealot to scout possible 3rd locations is possible.

I'm not a zerg player but I actually don't think trying to defend with roaches after getting a fast 3rd is optimal. It seems to be that it would be cheaper to just make a ton of lings and try to hope you can catch the zealots out in the open or just simply go for a later 3rd.

The fact of the matter is even if scouted, the risk/reward ratio for protoss in this situation is very good. Zealots are completely expendable, and if 3-5 zealots forces you to make at least 2+ spine crawlers (at nat and 3rd, and you would have to toss the crawler up at your 3rd immediately when hatch pops to be up in time), a roach warren earlier than 6 mins, roaches and lings... the zealots already paid for themselves before the engagement even happened. How many drones did you lose/cut from that? But on the protoss side he doesn't cut probes, and depending on the variant does not delay tech. It's win-win for protoss regardless if you save the hatch and stop the push. The push is not meant to be game-ending at all, it's just to keep the zerg honest.

That's why you make lings and spines, and actually see 2 gateways making zealots, chronoboost on 2 gates, chronoboost on forge, lack of gas on the natural, could see lack of gas on main as a big tell, or on big maps just see zealots walking across the map.

What I was talking about was assuming you didn't even scout, you could still hold. But all this doesn't really matter because if Zerg scouts, he throws down a 5:30 roach warren, or makes 2 spines, and holds easily. We can talk about how great 4 gate is or how great proxy cannon rushing is if we're going to discuss "what if zerg played incompetently and didn't scout anything".

Lots of Zerg get zergling speed, so that right there would deny this zealot pressure. I personally think it's ideal not to open gas in ZvP in case they FFE, but if I see 2 gateways I'll get ling speed much faster and just use lings to defend. Check, Losira, and Nestea are also 3 top zergs that always open 14/14 in ZvP and get ling speed even if it's most likely the opponent will FFE and they scout the FFE before they research the ling speed.

You are right, it's generally easy to scout the fast third. But Zerg can deny the scouting, they can take a faraway third, and what happens if Zerg doesn't get a fast third but instead just goes 2 base lair? Also, many Zergs, like Stephano did or many Zergs have done recently in the GSL on TalDarim, opt for a much, much later third, around 40-50 supply, because maybe they were working down rocks or just decided, for whatever reason, to get that third much later.

But you're right. It's generally easy to scout for the third. I'm just saying that there are scenarios where its not like that (faraway third, hidden third, what if they get ling speed, or what if they take a late third or no third at all).

As a Zerg, I'll tell you that you want that third very fast. I used to think a fast third was stupid, because of how drone saturation works (you need 16+16+16 workers to make it return more income than having 24+24, and thats with perfect maynarding, time for maynarding to return dividends after having a bunch of drones being transferred and not mining) but it gives a huge defensive advantage to have that creep and queen production up.

But, would it be cheaper to make a ton of lings and catch the zealouts out in the open? I don't know if I'd argue that, but it wouldn't be bad. Again, Zerg could just scout, and then easily make lots of lings and get speed in time and catch the zealots in the open.

Protoss making 3-5 zealots instead of tech and sentries really hurts and delay them. I know you mentioned you still get your warp prism 7 gate push before 10 minutes, but a push at 9:30 is much easier to hold than a push at 8:30. Like, a million times easier to hold.

If Zerg sees the mass zealots, he can easily make 10 roaches with a 5:45 roach warren, and do a ton of damage with the counterpush.

I understand what you are saying, and I don't disagree. I think the real merit of this build is denying droning/teching while getting probes and tech as Protoss. But Zerg can easily scout for it and prepare for the stargate/dts/robo, you won't have any sentries, you will temporarily not have ANYTHING at home after I just made a bunch of army leftover from holding the zealots. But you won't kill the Zerg, and you won't kill the third.

You will put on pressure, and pressure is good, sure. But even if they don't scout, Zerg can be fine. The kiwi vs stephano game showed that Stephano took a huge lead, even despite losing a third, because he didn't lose any drones and just remade the hatch while Kiwi lost his entire army, 1k in army is worth trading for 300 minerals in an expansion that we haven't been able to drone up yet anyways and delaying the Protoss tech.

I'm not saying it's a trash build or anything. It's great catching Zerg off guard, and it transitions very well on certain maps for a faster third or for tech against a Zerg who doesn't make a lair or evo chamber in response. But the risk/reward is not great at all. On a big map, say cross position tal-darim, Zerg gets a 6:00 roach warren, makes 2 spines, micros and runs away drones until 10 roaches pop, on creep, and in the meantime continues droning up and gets his lair and doesn't overreact.

3 gate sentry pressure is good pressure. FFE 2 gate, is not reliable, stable pressure, and will often result in Protoss behind. It won't lose the game for Protoss, but it's hard to see how Protoss would come out actually ahead. It transitions great, but Zerg won't ever die from it, shouldn't lose their third without the Protoss taking more losses than them, and leaves Protoss really vulnerable and without sentries.