[G] Experimental Proxy-Spine Crawler Rushes

TangSC

Canada1866 Posts

November 18 2011 19:34 GMT

Proxy Spine Crawler Rushing

Here is a 2-part stream episode on baneling busting and spine crawler rushing:
http://www.twitch.tv/tangsc/b/300323301

Here are a few replays of this style, most opponents are mid-master Protoss but there are a few Zerg/Terran examples:
http://drop.sc/59803
http://drop.sc/59810
http://drop.sc/59809
http://drop.sc/59808
http://drop.sc/59807
http://drop.sc/59806
http://drop.sc/59805
http://drop.sc/59804
http://drop.sc/59802
http://drop.sc/59801
http://drop.sc/59800

The Concept:

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Hello TeamLiquid users! Thanks for taking the time to check out a fun post on the spine-crawler rush! *Queue dramatic theme music*

I warn you – this is not a strategy I recommend using at the top levels. It's more of an experimental/for fun style, definitely not something that will maximize your SC2 improvement. I've been practicing proxy spine crawler rushing in every matchup on my mid/high master EU account. Doing it blindly, I have a roughly 50-60% win-rate with it. I've noticed, however, that against Forge-fast Expand and 1barracks CC, this number is dramatically higher - with proper execution, this build is extremely powerful against greedy opponents. Does this mean you should do cheesy rushes every game? Absolutely not, but it's a lot of fun to experiment with new styles and I encourage everyone to have some fun and try this out!

Instead of building my first expansion at my natural, I build a proxy hatch somewhere near my opponent's expansion and keep an overlord (in case I need high ground vision) nearby. By getting a queen and spines at the proxy right away, I can make creep tumours and slow-push into their natural.

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Spine crawlers do heavy damage to buildings, making speedling runbys very effective!

The Build (ZvT/ZvP):

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There are quite a few ways of doing this build, but the way I recommend first is the spine/speedling all-in, where you basically creep up with the spines and use them to break a hole for your lings to get in and do damage.
9Overlord
15Pool
16Gas
16Proxy Hatch (When it's half done, send 3 drones to build spines and use proxy-hatch larva to create additional drones)
Start your speed and then take guys out of gas - you want EXACTLY 16 drones mining 2 per patch - after you have those 16 drones, you make only lings (be sure to replace any drones you take to build spines at your proxy)
Once your queen is out, use the energy all on tumours - you want to aggressively creep forward with spinecrawlers asap. Keep building more and more lings, you'll need them to 1) Defend your spines
2) Runby and kill workers

ZvP Hydra/Spine Variation:

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My personal favorite, we skip lings entirely to get a very fast hydra den and use spines and hydras to push at 7:30.
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By having an overlord with my creep/spines, I can attack up the high ground and eventually push right up the ramp.
9Overlord
15Pool
17 Proxy Hatch
16Queen
18/18 Gas (Extractor to get your only set of lings to kill scouting worker)
4:35 Lair
4:50 3-5 Spines
6:00 Hydra Den
Use all gas on hydras, all minerals on spines/queens.
7:30 Hydras are on the field! Keep pushing the creep/spines closer and using hydras in conjunction with spines to do HEAVY dps

Summary

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So there you have it...the spinecrawler rush. As a rule of thumb, you'll want between 5 and 8 spinecrawlers - never let them get your spinecrawler count too low and you'll win. Be aware that some players will turtle up on one base and go into voidrays or dts, but remember you have a fast lair with your hydra build - and with your ling build, you can either get a few spores or just constantly build queens. For those looking to defend this style, I recommend voidrays or tanks.

- Tang
Courtesy of www.TangStarcraft.com

zhurai

United States5660 Posts

November 18 2011 20:16 GMT

Hehe, this actually reminds me of ZvP on Metal close positions, where I'd make like 5 spines and push the creep rapidly, and go like roach hydra ling off 2 base and win (was hard on ST close tho...).... though that wasn't proxied and was off 2 base econ and not 1 base :D

>_>

Host-

New Zealand459 Posts

November 18 2011 20:21 GMT

So when do we get gas with the ZvP hydra version....

Schnullerbacke13

Germany1199 Posts

November 18 2011 20:23 GMT

why not try fast lair and use ovie creep ? a proxy hatch is quite an investment and makes this pretty much all in

Blazinghand

United States25561 Posts

November 18 2011 20:26 GMT

Overall I liked this guide, reminiscent of NesTea's spinecrawler rush. What really made it for me, though, was....

On November 19 2011 04:34 TangSC wrote:
There are quite a few ways of doing this build, but the way I recommend first is the spine/speedling all-in, where you basically creep up with the spines and use them to break a hole for your lings to get in...

That's... that's an amazing pun. Creep up. It semi made my day. :D Keep up the good punning.

The_Templar

your Country52798 Posts

November 18 2011 20:27 GMT

If I do a decent amount of damage but don't kill them, how would I transition?
Seems like an allin.

Blazinghand

United States25561 Posts

November 18 2011 20:30 GMT

On November 19 2011 05:27 TehTemplar wrote:
If I do a decent amount of damage but don't kill them, how would I transition?
Seems like an allin.

I imagine the transition would probably involve taking your own natural;; like most sort of proxy attacks, this is an all-in, but also like most proxy attacks it can do a fair amount of damage. I'd say, take your natural expansion, drone up, and scout aggressively. Against a terran player, it's possible he expoed in-base, etc, and it could become a macro game. It really depends how much damage your dealt though.

Also, slap down creep tumors in his nat and try to spread them away from his base to connect with your creep highway from your base. It will slow down his expansion and give you solid map vision.

TangSC

Canada1866 Posts

November 18 2011 20:30 GMT

On November 19 2011 05:21 Host- wrote:
So when do we get gas with the ZvP hydra version....

Just a tad later, right after the hatch

darkscream

Canada2310 Posts

November 18 2011 20:31 GMT

On November 19 2011 05:27 TehTemplar wrote:
Seems like an allin.

I recommend you view the post history of the OP.

Wortie

Netherlands212 Posts

November 18 2011 20:32 GMT

#10

On November 19 2011 05:27 TehTemplar wrote:
If I do a decent amount of damage but don't kill them, how would I transition?
Seems like an allin.

That can't be right, an All-in guide by Tang???

Hmm seems pretty straightforward to me, dunno if this is really a guide worthy.

Host-

New Zealand459 Posts

November 18 2011 20:40 GMT

#11

Not to steer away from the Spine Crawler rushes, I've been bling busting a fair bit as cheesing is quite fun once in a while so I think I can provide a few tips for that.
5 Blings for a pylon/supply depot
13 for a forge/gateway

vT if they have a depotraxdepot wall, have your 5 blings hit the rax, the splash damage hits both depots and kils them both.

In regards to the actual spine crawler rush. I've been using the aXa version of it, with overlords pooping creep, 3 spines into nydus and can very much vouch for the effectiveness of something like this. Will definitely try this variation out though, straight into Hydras seems alot more potent than just lings.

Flonomenalz

Nigeria3519 Posts

November 18 2011 20:42 GMT

#12

Umm... I can't understand how any Toss in masters would lose to this. I must be highly overestimating Masters skill, but off of a FFE, shouldn't you be actively scouting, as Toss? You should scout expansion timing, and if no expo, look around for proxies while throwing up cannons. Then if it's not Roach/Ling all in, expect 1 base shenanigans like nydus or spine rush?

I mean, this is so much more of a give away than the 2 base variant with fast Lair... yeah sorry, it's okay for ZvP but I don't like it as much. If you lose to this in ZvT.... well, you just got caught with your pants down and flat out no scouting. 1 base zerg in ZvT... it's either roaches, baneling bust, or proxy. That's it. Scan main base for roach/bane, when none is seen, proxy is obvious.

This is the kind of scouting I expect to run into when I hit masters... am I overestimating? No offense to masters players, I know you're all better than me.

FeiCer

15 Posts

November 18 2011 21:21 GMT

#13

About this spinecrawler/hydra stuff etc, i have been doing kinda same thing.
I go for 12pool, 18 hatch and i put down my gas 19-21. If i scout FFE I occasionaly go for lair + 3 spines + hydra + speedlings (delayed speed, lair before speed) timing and it hits about 7:00 mark, what do i have about then is 3 gas with 9 drones mining and 2 fully saturated mineral-lines. I have only 4 lings on field so i need to be active with them and so on and im doing only drones because I want to have good eco (sometimes i can put down 3rd, but mby its me playing badly and missing injects) When my lair finishes, i put down hydra den, I have overlord highway ready for hydras, 1 overlord to poop creep outside of protoss vision and 3 drones to do 3 spines, and rallying some zerglings there to defend if protoss scouts it. the timing of this is right before ppl usually put down most of their gateways, but instead of when they see my 3 spines and some lings, mby hydras if I want to break wall-off faster they put down extra cannons instead of gateways. Im sorry that i dont have any exact BO / replay to show you incase if anyone is intrested in this.

But remember this is only high-diamond / low-masters level of execute / play. I just felt to share this, mby more economical build not so cheesy

.

How this differs from tang's build is; later spines and less, less zerglings because of droning (after lair I do 10-14 zlings to defend spines) expand with workers (approx. 39 workers), and slightly later hydras, but i have noticed that VR or DT's don't come so fast as my hydras so its same situation!

I'm not sure how clear this is, but i just wanted to share this to you! i hope you get hang of it!

TangSC

Canada1866 Posts

November 18 2011 21:25 GMT

#14

On November 19 2011 05:27 TehTemplar wrote:
If I do a decent amount of damage but don't kill them, how would I transition?
Seems like an allin.

You could take another base near your proxy, but this is a pretty big commitment - it's more or less an all-in. There will be 5% of games where it's theoretically correct to expand and sack the proxy but usually you want to commit to containing them to one base or killing them.

tuestresfat

2555 Posts

November 18 2011 21:26 GMT

#15

On November 19 2011 05:42 Flonomenalz wrote:
Umm... I can't understand how any Toss in masters would lose to this. I must be highly overestimating Masters skill, but off of a FFE, shouldn't you be actively scouting, as Toss? You should scout expansion timing, and if no expo, look around for proxies while throwing up cannons. Then if it's not Roach/Ling all in, expect 1 base shenanigans like nydus or spine rush?

I mean, this is so much more of a give away than the 2 base variant with fast Lair... yeah sorry, it's okay for ZvP but I don't like it as much. If you lose to this in ZvT.... well, you just got caught with your pants down and flat out no scouting. 1 base zerg in ZvT... it's either roaches, baneling bust, or proxy. That's it. Scan main base for roach/bane, when none is seen, proxy is obvious.

This is the kind of scouting I expect to run into when I hit masters... am I overestimating? No offense to masters players, I know you're all better than me.

As far as NA is concerned, yea they're pretty bad. Yup, you're supposed to keep a scout out on the map and have a means of checking up on the zerg when you wall yourself off with a FFE but pretty much no one actually does that. When you don't know what the Zerg is up to TvZ one option is to throw down a scan, but that would be giving up an early game mule and no terran would ever do that.

As for myself, my macro still slips hardcore once in awhile, I make dumb micro mistakes, I completely misread my opponent's build, I do get supply blocked every now and then, but I hold my own in masters. So no, masters players aren't all that 98-percentile gods you think they should be.

TangSC

Canada1866 Posts

November 18 2011 21:29 GMT

#16

This isn't about what's going to beat the best players or what's the most viable build, it's a fun way to mix things up.

Tunzi

United States14 Posts

November 18 2011 21:53 GMT

#17

I warn you – this thread is more of an experimental/for fun style and not necessary something I would recommend for maximizing your SC2 improvement.

Can you add this disclaimer to all of your past and future guides as well? Thank you.

BrassMonkey

Canada84 Posts

November 18 2011 22:11 GMT

#18

On November 19 2011 05:23 Schnullerbacke13 wrote:
why not try fast lair and use ovie creep ? a proxy hatch is quite an investment and makes this pretty much all in

That is suggesting that fast lair, ovie creep and spine crawlering your opponents natural is not all in...