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http://www.zerg-lair.com/11/stephano
I saw this post awhileago and it made my day! I didn't get to ask anything, my bad luck 
anyway, in question 10, Stephano recommends safe openings that are "good to practice and get better":
10. IronMan: What basic build order do you advise to the people you train to practice and get better ?
Safe build orders, not especially aggressive. Hatch first against Terran, the Sen Build against Zerg and finally Pool Hatch against Protoss. The macro is an important element and I think it's most important to learn to be solid before trying anything else.
Can anyone link to these builds please? Where can these builds be found? Thanks!
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I think this is Stephano's ZvT build, some rough timings;
15 hatch
15 pool
17 extractor speed
Build a queen at your main and natural asap (queen at nat doesn't injects, she uses her first 25 energy for a creep tumor @ your nat, this is nice so you are able to get your creep across the map quite a bit faster)
22 spine @ nat
Evo chamber in case of hellions
44 supply put drones back on gas, get a second extractor and start your third queen
At this point you should put down 2 evo's but its okay to put them down earlier if they do a hellion build.
Start +1 melee and +1 shields for your Zerglings.
Third gas when your +1s have just started
@ 50% of your +1s start your lair, also get your fourth gas
Put down a macro hatch whenever your minerals get over, say 500.
@100% lair infestation pit
@100% infestation pit path glands, then time it out so your infestors spawn just as path glands finishes
Ofcourse this is assuming you know standard zerg play, like spreading creep with your third queen keeping up with injects and making lings or drones whenever you are safe.
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From the answer to the question, I feel like Stephano isn't telling anyone to use any specific builds (except Sens build) but just saying that it's good to use standard safe builds, which actual variation you decide on doesn't matter much.
Here's a basic ZvT safe standard build:
15 hatch
16 pool
16 overlord, drone to 18
@pool finished - queen at main and nat, 2 pair of lings, 1 overlord, 1gas
@queens finished, inject both hatches, move main queen to nat to poop tumor, build third queen at nat
@100 gas - speed
@100 gas - lair
@50 gas - baneling nest
If you scout reactor factory, build a spine or two at nat. This gives you a strong economic opening which leads nicely into ling/bling/muta and you can drone until you see something going on. You can also take first gas later and get an extra queen at main hatch as well, having 4 queens so early is great for creep and defence, but gives later tech.
A safe example vs toss:
14 pool
16 overlord
if no probe by nat, hatch, else, queen and 2 pair of lings
depending on if you hatched or built queen&lings, do the other thing afterwards
@queen done - build another queen, build overlord
Again, you get an economic opening without fear of anything, your hatch is early but you still have lings early enough to deny cannon rushes. Your scouting drone (I send on 13), you will see if it's FFE (in which case you can take third right after you built second queen), if it isnt, get ready to sac an overlord by 4:50 and get gas after second queen so you can have speed before any 1base allin.
Here's a safe opening vs zerg:
14 gas
14 pool
15 overlord
@pool done - remove drones from gas, queen, build six lings, build ling speed
Keep building lings, expand when you have the money.
Rush with lings to opponents base to scout his opening, he shouldn't be able to deny any scouting unless he went for an early pool in which case you can just use your lings to defend and get an economic advantage.
How you react to what you see with those lings is up to you... if you see hatch first, you can go for banelings and try to punish it. If it looks like early roaches, you can keep building lings since masslings ruin roaches. if you see banelings, get spines and more queens.
Basically, a build which gives the strongest economy possible while still being safe against everything is what you want in each matchup to practice since this gives concistency. Knowing allins etc is good for tournaments etc, but for getting better at the game, standard and safe = awesome.
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Thanks for the post!
On February 17 2012 19:33 Tobberoth wrote:
From the answer to the question, I feel like Stephano isn't telling anyone to use any specific builds (except Sens build) but just saying that it's good to use standard safe builds, which actual variation you decide on doesn't matter much.
Here's a basic ZvT safe standard build:
15 hatch
16 pool
16 overlord, drone to 18
@pool finished - queen at main and nat, 2 pair of lings, 1 overlord, 1gas
@queens finished, inject both hatches, move main queen to nat to poop tumor, build third queen at nat
@100 gas - speed
@100 gas - lair
@50 gas - baneling nest
If you scout reactor factory, build a spine or two at nat. This gives you a strong economic opening which leads nicely into ling/bling/muta and you can drone until you see something going on. You can also take first gas later and get an extra queen at main nat as well, having 4 queens so early is great for creep and defence, but gives later tech.
I think this is good for both ling/infestor into faster hive and muta/ling/bane. Should the 3rd be considered as part of the opening or is it dependent if Terran takes map control with hellions/banshees/drops? Is the macro hatch timing (before or after 3rd) part of the opening?
A safe example vs toss:
14 pool
16 overlord
if no probe by nat, hatch, else, queen and 2 pair of lings
depending on if you hatched or built queen&lings, do the other thing afterwards
@queen done - build another queen, build overlord
Again, you get an economic opening without fear of anything, your hatch is early but you still have lings early enough to deny cannon rushes. Your scouting drone (I send on 13), you will see if it's FFE (in which case you can take third right after you built second queen), if it isnt, get ready to sac an overlord by 4:50 and get gas after second queen so you can have speed before any 1base allin.
Here's a safe opening vs zerg:
14 gas
14 pool
15 overlord
@pool done - remove drones from gas, queen, build six lings, build ling speed
Keep building lings, expand when you have the money.
Rush with lings to opponents base to scout his opening, he shouldn't be able to deny any scouting unless he went for an early pool in which case you can just use your lings to defend and get an economic advantage.
How you react to what you see with those lings is up to you... if you see hatch first, you can go for banelings and try to punish it. If it looks like early roaches, you can keep building lings since masslings ruin roaches. if you see banelings, get spines and more queens.
For all match-ups, are gas timings considered part of the opening (besides the 1st gas)?
Basically, a build which gives the strongest economy possible while still being safe against everything is what you want in each matchup to practice since this gives concistency. Knowing allins etc is good for tournaments etc, but for getting better at the game, standard and safe = awesome
Definitely.  I'm really motivated to practice right now, knowing the openings is a great start. Thanks again man, and to all those who posted!
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On February 17 2012 18:56 Bojas wrote:
I think this is Stephano's ZvT build, some rough timings;
15 hatch
15 pool
17 extractor speed
Build a queen at your main and natural asap (queen at nat doesn't injects, she uses her first 25 energy for a creep tumor @ your nat, this is nice so you are able to get your creep across the map quite a bit faster)
22 spine @ nat
Evo chamber in case of hellions
44 supply put drones back on gas, get a second extractor and start your third queen
At this point you should put down 2 evo's but its okay to put them down earlier if they do a hellion build.
Start +1 melee and +1 shields for your Zerglings.
Third gas when your +1s have just started
@ 50% of your +1s start your lair, also get your fourth gas
Put down a macro hatch whenever your minerals get over, say 500.
@100% lair infestation pit
@100% infestation pit path glands, then time it out so your infestors spawn just as path glands finishes
Ofcourse this is assuming you know standard zerg play, like spreading creep with your third queen keeping up with injects and making lings or drones whenever you are safe.
this is the ZvT opening leads specifically to the Ling/Infestor midgame build Stephano uses... thanks!
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for stephano's ZvT build, when do you clear out the hellions?
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On February 17 2012 20:02 c_kAelle wrote:
Thanks for the post!
I think this is good for both ling/infestor into faster hive and muta/ling/bane. Should the 3rd be considered as part of the opening or is it dependent if Terran takes map control with hellions/banshees/drops? Is the macro hatch timing (before or after 3rd) part of the opening?
It's definitely dependant on what the terran does, but you're not really forced to act a certain way either. Personally, I always prioritize getting mutas out, so I won't try to take a third before my mutas come out, regardless if the terran tries to deny it or not, and I will often not even make a macro hatch before that timing either. That, however, is assuming terran went for early hellions. If they use bio etc to put on aggression and such, I like to put down a macro hatch and allow some delay for my mutas to stay safe. It's really up to you how you want to play, it's definitely possible to go for third even as hellions pressure you if you can sneak a drone past. Same with evo chambers, if you like ling/infestor, you want them early while they aren't as critical if you're rushing for mutas.
For all match-ups, are gas timings considered part of the opening (besides the 1st gas)?
I say it's more relevant to the game plan than the actual opening, unless you're doing something cheesy which requires unusually early 2nd gases. For ZvP where Toss FFE, I generally get no gas until about 5:40, where I get 2 gases at the same time in main, but I always get the gas around that time no matter what as long as it's an FFE, so I guess you could say that's part of the opening, in a sense.
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Whats Sen zvz? i never followed him much
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What we call the Sen build (in France at least) is 14 gas 14 pool, mine 100 gas for speed, then stop gas, and expand
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On February 17 2012 21:36 SolidMustard wrote:
What we call the Sen build (in France at least) is 14 gas 14 pool, mine 100 gas for speed, then stop gas, and expand
A standard speedling expand then.
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On February 17 2012 19:39 barrykp wrote:
what's the sen build?
I can answer to that because i'm french.
In French, "Sen build" is a gas/pool (14/14 or 15/15) and you stop mining gas at 100.
For the rest of the world, "Sen build" is a "one base mutalisk", created by the player "Sen" at the beginning of SC2. Pomf&Thud (french casters) made a big mistake in a movie and they called a 14/14 a "Sen build". Now, french people use "Sen build" for 14/14.
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What I don't understand is why Stephano gets his 3rd queen so late. Why not just get it immediately after the first two?
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On February 17 2012 22:53 Magus.421 wrote:I can answer to that because i'm french. In French, "Sen build" is a gas/pool (14/14 or 15/15) and you stop mining gas at 100. For the rest of the world, "Sen build" is a "one base mutalisk", created by the player "Sen" at the beginning of SC2. Pomf&Thud (french casters) made a big mistake in a movie and they called a 14/14 a "Sen build". Now, french people use "Sen build" for 14/14.
You're mostly right, but I think that in French, Sen Build refers simply to "14gas/pool into 20/21 expand", (also called gas pool fast expand), not necesseraly a 1 base muta build.
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On February 26 2012 21:17 decaf wrote:
TangSC begs to differ.
ZvZ on the ladder would certainly be a lot more pleasant if people were playing sensible, safe openings as opposed to doing gimmicky, coin-flippy builds.
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On February 17 2012 18:56 Bojas wrote:
I think this is Stephano's ZvT build, some rough timings;
15 hatch
15 pool
17 extractor speed
Build a queen at your main and natural asap (queen at nat doesn't injects, she uses her first 25 energy for a creep tumor @ your nat, this is nice so you are able to get your creep across the map quite a bit faster)
22 spine @ nat
Evo chamber in case of hellions
44 supply put drones back on gas, get a second extractor and start your third queen
At this point you should put down 2 evo's but its okay to put them down earlier if they do a hellion build.
Start +1 melee and +1 shields for your Zerglings.
Third gas when your +1s have just started
@ 50% of your +1s start your lair, also get your fourth gas
Put down a macro hatch whenever your minerals get over, say 500.
@100% lair infestation pit
@100% infestation pit path glands, then time it out so your infestors spawn just as path glands finishes
Ofcourse this is assuming you know standard zerg play, like spreading creep with your third queen keeping up with injects and making lings or drones whenever you are safe.
infetation pit is not that early
if terran pushes with hellions+marines+first 2 medivacs you just die if you build the infestation pit that early
if you kill the hellions you can build the infestation pit that early but if the hellions survive you should be more careful with the timing of the infestation pit imo
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On February 26 2012 21:32 sVnteen wrote:Show nested quote +On February 17 2012 18:56 Bojas wrote:
I think this is Stephano's ZvT build, some rough timings;
15 hatch
15 pool
17 extractor speed
Build a queen at your main and natural asap (queen at nat doesn't injects, she uses her first 25 energy for a creep tumor @ your nat, this is nice so you are able to get your creep across the map quite a bit faster)
22 spine @ nat
Evo chamber in case of hellions
44 supply put drones back on gas, get a second extractor and start your third queen
At this point you should put down 2 evo's but its okay to put them down earlier if they do a hellion build.
Start +1 melee and +1 shields for your Zerglings.
Third gas when your +1s have just started
@ 50% of your +1s start your lair, also get your fourth gas
Put down a macro hatch whenever your minerals get over, say 500.
@100% lair infestation pit
@100% infestation pit path glands, then time it out so your infestors spawn just as path glands finishes
Ofcourse this is assuming you know standard zerg play, like spreading creep with your third queen keeping up with injects and making lings or drones whenever you are safe.
infetation pit is not that early if terran pushes with hellions+marines+first 2 medivacs you just die if you build the infestation pit that early if you kill the hellions you can build the infestation pit that early but if the hellions survive you should be more careful with the timing of the infestation pit imo
Why that? You only lose a drone and 100 minerals since you're not gonna use the gas anyway. I'm pretty sure Steph does it that early in most of his games. I could be wrong though it's been a while since I played zerg.
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On February 26 2012 21:17 decaf wrote:
TangSC begs to differ.
Haha I do beg to differ, decaf! I obviously don't think there's anything wrong with Stephano's advice about using safe/solid openings to learn, but I do think there are certain skill sets that are better honed by using an aggressive style. Probably the most important reason is that attacking frequently improves your ability to continue production while looking away from your base (though you could argue that frequent scouting accomplishes this as well). Maybe a better idea would be to open the same safe/standard way each game but plan to have different transitions based on scouting - some of your responses can be macro, some can be aggressive.
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