In the GSL 2012 S3 Finals, Game 1, on Daybreak, LG-IM Mvp went for an interesting 1-1-1 expo build that I'd like to discuss. Basically, he opened up with a 1 gas starport rush, and attacked with a medivac, 4 hellions, and 8 marines, while taking his expansion. His expo was pretty quick since he only took 1 gas and never cut scvs, and he was able to deal economic damage that let him transition into a won game.
From this point forwards, you constantly make Marines, Hellions, and a Medivac when your Starport finishes. At 40 supply around 6:00 you move out with your 8 marines, 3 hellions, 1 medivac, and begin your Command Center.
Thoughts/Discussion
So, obviously in the game between Mvp and Squirtle everything went to hell. Instead of having his units at home, Squirtle warped them into Mvp's nat and it became a hilarious base trade. I was wondering how this sort of build would play out normally, and its viability on other maps or against other builds. In this game, Squirtle went for an unusually economical 1gate FE into 4 gateways, which should probably be the strongest defense. He has like 2 stalkers and a zealot as the attack begins, with 4 stalkers warping in.
It's pretty clear that against any sort of Fast-Expanding Protoss you'll need to do a fair amount of damage. Against a normal 1 gate FE, though, it might not be so bad-- you'll only be expanding about a minute slower, and picking up a few probes shouldn't be so hard. It's pretty clear Mvp decided to go for a 1-gas Starport rush before he scouted Squirtle, since he started his Factory without a second gas well before he scouted the greedy 1 gate FE.
I feel like this build could be viable for doing some damage, especially on maps where you're vulnerable to drops or hellion runbys at the nat, and being able to take map control from the zerg early unless he really invests into stalkers would be nice. It might even be guaranteed damage since you can hit two fronts at once pretty early, and it's not THAT uneconomical.
Does anyone else use (or has anyone ever used) a build like this? How does it fare against a 1gate FE or 15 Nexus build?
it should be pointed out he dropped the marines in the main and did a runby into the naturals with the hellions. Really using the structure of of Daybreaks natural. The only map that would allow for this tactic would be cloud kingdom but you can probably do this only slightly less well on other maps.
It's really not that great of a build if the protoss just defends, they get way ahead. It just so happened that squirtle was out on the map and didn't warp in at home...so the game ended up in one of the very few situations where squirtle would just die imo.
Also it's not that it's not economical, but assuming the protoss can somehow defend, you're left with no units. It's like going gas first banshee expo in TvT - you never cut econ and get a super fast banshee, at the cost of having nothing else. In this case, you have a factory, reactor, starport, but no seige tanks, no banshees, no maruders: only plain, unupgraded marines. Holding something like a 6gate robo/holding a sentry gateway push/holding Squirtle 2base collusus/being able to punish a Toss who takes a 3rd right after holding your push are all things to consider. With such a late stim, you're stuck at home till about 10 minutes and don't have nearly as many units as you would off a 1rax expo.
So I think the best response by a Toss facing this build is to hold it, lose ~6 probes, warp in units to force extra bunkers while taking a 3rd and spending all chronos on probes. Force 1/2 bunkers in front and maybe probe pull (remember, no stim or maruders so your units can always get away) while you catch up in eco and get a nice army. That or go for a committed bust, I'm not sure which one is best (factory for tanks makes a bust seem like you're playing into Terran hands if he does go tanks though).
As for mistakes Squirtle made: 1) Scouts no low ground expo. MVP could have gone for 1rax expo on high ground, but then the cost of playing slightly defensive would balance out by the economic hit of not going 1rax expo to low ground? If MVP had gone cloak banshee, Squritle would have been equally screwed. Squritle had no scouting of 1rax expo before he threw up the extra 3 gates. I think it's important to note how hilariously terrible Squritle played out this game.
Either have some sentry w/ 4gate or better yet, 3gate robo it. And play slightly defensive. Terran supposed to be strong now, why the fuck would you blindly move out across map against an opponent you haven't even seen expand? That's like a T moving out against a 6gate and losing cause all his troops get forcefielded (a side point to how stupid Squritle played this series; game 7 Squirtle holds the 11/11 with scv pull. The ONLY response left from MVP is to allin again, he's sacced so many scvs. Why on earth is Squritle leaving his base?).
So if Squritle was playing defensive like he should have, he pulls army to main to catch drop. Luckily sentries are super slow so are still probably in nat when hellions come, puts down some FF, maybe loses ~6 probes, takes 3rd, game goes on.
I don't think it's worth reading anything into this game given how terribly Squirtle played, you'd have to provide more examples of it in game.
As people mentioned, this build relaying on the fact that the prottos should be making mistakes. You need to understand, that whenever you're doing a strategy that relaying on eariler damage instead of solid eco opening, the opp defensive skills will be tested much more then ur harras skills, and therefore, u're basically gambling on something u dont have any control on (Your opp skills).
Considering this isnt allin - the real problem comes into the question of - "Did i do enough damage?" If he tottaly stoped you - you're miles away in eco and in army value. If you killed a few probes - you're still behind, as few probes isnt enough to come up with huge delay on expanding you have behind. If you killed more then few probes - you might have just equialized the game. a thing that could have happen in a standard 1 rax fe game.
Better just not gamble, and play standard - builds like that MVP did, are great for tournaments, cuz in tournaments theres a big factor of mindgames and mixing tactics.
On May 27 2012 21:41 dohgg wrote: As people mentioned, this build relaying on the fact that the prottos should be making mistakes. big factor of mindgames and mixing tactics.
This build is one of those that FORCES mistakes from the protoss. The multitasking ability required to hold a super early two prong attack off is no easy business, and most will just straight up die if greedy builds were played against a good controlled of this build
It should also be noted that this build is rather old on KR ladder. The most common build would be to drop 3 hellions in protoss base while 8 marines hit the front. It is extremely micro intensive, but shows how much better-multitasking and micro abilities can shine for terran players on ladder (even against diamond-master KR protosses you can see them fumble hardcore) There are many follow ups for this build (I.E. If more than 6 probes were killed a 2 port banshee follow up would insta-gib the protoss 90% of the time). Its best against protosses who go FE and greedy tech.
On May 27 2012 21:25 teamamerica wrote: So if Squritle was playing defensive like he should have, he pulls army to main to catch drop. Luckily sentries are super slow so are still probably in nat when hellions come, puts down some FF, maybe loses ~6 probes, takes 3rd, game goes on.
Its not easy defending against this when you play something greedy. When I execute it I make sure I show my units at his front so he thinks im going for some early push (1 rax FE into 4bb 16 marine push are quite common) which forces him to get all his units to the nat, then I do the hellion drop - he pulls the units to his base, my marine attacks up the ramp and shift attack his probe line (if he didnt get zealots he is fucked), and continue microing hellions for the probes while dropship pulls back. Mvp's switchup is very uncommon and is probably while squirtle got caught off guard. Also, depending on Mvp's follow up, sometimes 6 probes is all the damage he needs.
It's a pressure build thats designed to do some damage, killing 6 or so probes should be standard unless your opponent have gone extremely defensive and is 100% prepared, which he wont be unless he goes for the fastest robo ever.
What happened in this game was that Squirtle had expanded and then went for pressure with a 4gate after expand, his units was on the opposite side of the map, at this point it was kind of a lucky win for Mvp, but Squirtle also allowed his stalkers to get sorrounded by SCV's at Mvp's base, which is why he didn't do any damage in return, whether it would matter in the long run nobody knows.
On May 27 2012 21:10 avilo wrote: It's really not that great of a build if the protoss just defends, they get way ahead. It just so happened that squirtle was out on the map and didn't warp in at home...so the game ended up in one of the very few situations where squirtle would just die imo.
Even if squirtle was at home defending i still think mvp does good damage there. Lets say squirtle does a standard 1gate fe into 3gate robo and defends. He'd probably have a few stalkers in his main expecting banshee, observer on the way to mvp's base, and maybe a sentry and a zealot at his natural. As long as mvp is able to drop his units out without getting picked off, his units will easily overrun the few stalkers in his main. Then theres hellions in his natural picking off probes. I think its a very strong build actually against an fe protoss.
its funny because last shadow tried i believe this exact build against squirtle and he deflected it perfectly, if u want to learn how to effeciently play against the build watch that game, redbull lan
I saw this kind of build from Marineking and Bomber too and those are my thoughts to it.
By doing a fast tech to Medivacs and having this 4 Hellions you have great herrass potential after a 1 Gate expo. You stop the Protoss from beeing too greedy and with the scouting you can determine fast what tech the Protoss will be going first, so you have plenty of time preparing for it and hitting a good timing.
Your expandtion comes quite late, so normally you are at an economic disadvantage depending whether you can do damage or not. This shouldn´t be the overall goal. I think the goal is to pin the Protoss back at his base, so that you can get your Expo, Barracks and Upgrades going. The early scouting gives you enough time to prepare for hitting a timing aggainst his tech choice. For this i think you need a verry good gamesense and you need to know what timing works well aggainst his tech choice.
You will also leave the Protoss in a situation, where he doesn´t want to be in. By doing a 1-1-1 and denying his scouting about your expandtion he should still be thinking about a 1-1-1 allin and prepare for it.
Well, this is a pretty simple/basic/fundamental build. It's a 111 hellion drop into an expand. Basically, it's a substitute for a banshee opening into expand.
You achieve nearly the same tech, about the same expansion timing, and aim for the same goals; map control, pinning the protoss to stay home, killing some probes, scouting his tech, punishing greed, etc.
It can transition into mech too.
This kind of 111 opening can be better than a 111 banshee opening because cloak doesn't finish as fast, and because you can trick your opponent and/or catch him off guard by harassing two fronts. You got your hellions and marines. There are more units you have to be able to harass him in more places than just with 1 cloak banshee (and a 2nd one coming, but it's not there yet), hence there are more chances for your opponent to mess up. If he panics, you could easily roast a lot of probes, or if he reacts slowly, he can lose a couple more probes than he should have due to marines, which is quite a lot.
Another advantage over a banshee opener is that you can use the 8 marines for your army later, and you already have starport tech for medivac. You can just expand, add more rax, start upgrading, etc., and get back to "standard" pretty easily. The hellions can still be used for map control and to very easily and conveniently scout for proxylons and his expo timing, etc.
It's also safer than a cloak banshee opening in some ways because you have 8 marines you can use to defend home. If he comes and attacks you and has an obs, your banshee isn't going to do as much.
Basically, it's a decent build. Like any harass build though, there is a chance of failure, and the measure of success can vary widely. So part of the choice to use such a build is preference -- are you willing to take a risk? Maybe you are confident in your micro? Maybe you expect him to do a certain expo build that is too greedy, and know you can do enough damage to get ahead or, at worst, stay even?
@padfoota
Just wondering, are you talking about 2 port banshee on 1 base? Also do you think that is the best follow up to finish him off, or is that build good moreso because it can catch the protoss off guard? Thanks in advance!
Just wondering, are you talking about 2 port banshee on 1 base? Also do you think that is the best follow up to finish him off, or is that build good moreso because it can catch the protoss off guard? Thanks in advance!
Yep. Off one base. A 2port banshee build off one base, if executed properly with a raven, is only hard countered by stargate play + cannons. The raven begins to build right after medevac comes out so itll be out just before observer gets to our base, and as long as you can snipe the obs before he sees the starports (hide them well) it should be instant gg once you have 4. It works exceptionally well when toss is trying to power drones or some form of counter attack right after your double attack and then bam, cloakshees everywhere. 99% of protoss players (past diamond) will have obs run straight to your main first, so once raven is out i tend to be scrolling everywhere trying to snipe that fucker.
I must warn you tho, you'll feel like a total retard after winning with it :/. Its just...the difference in intensity compared to most other pressure/rush builds (1-1-1 control marine, raven, siege tanks, focus fire with them), (TvZ shift focus fire with tank, stim spread stutter marines), (hellion marauder 5 scv 2 marine rush against toss insane micro >_>), (hellion openers TvZ), (Viking Hellion/ Hellion reaper opener tvt) is just so insane...its almost hard to get used to....if you went for standard 3 hellion drop, you'll lose the hellions, which is 6 probes worth at least. If you used marines too chances are you will kill 10+, and if the protoss is a player not used to being dropped with hellions and runs the probes - 20 probes easy, and the banshee follow up just allows you to bypass forcefield defense and outright kill him.
Summary as I tend to type messy - 1. Off one base AFTER hellion drop + 8 marine 2. As a follow up and also as a backup plan, although it never really works for backup. Its an extremely great follow up, since when you deal lots of damage with the build and kept up macro, protoss players will generally go defensive mode and spam chrono on probes to try and catch up. The banshee follow up allows you to bypass the forcefield defense, and since he is probing, no way in hell he'll have phoenixes out if you sniped obs. As a backup is when not enough damage is dealt and the guy is coming at you since he opened some defensive robo play expecting 1-1-1 and went immortals. I fuck up macroing most of the time when executing the rush so when his push comes i never get enough stuff to defend :/
Just wondering, are you talking about 2 port banshee on 1 base? Also do you think that is the best follow up to finish him off, or is that build good moreso because it can catch the protoss off guard? Thanks in advance!
Yep. Off one base. A 2port banshee build off one base, if executed properly with a raven, is only hard countered by stargate play + cannons. The raven begins to build right after medevac comes out so itll be out just before observer gets to our base, and as long as you can snipe the obs before he sees the starports (hide them well) it should be instant gg once you have 4. It works exceptionally well when toss is trying to power drones or some form of counter attack right after your double attack and then bam, cloakshees everywhere. 99% of protoss players (past diamond) will have obs run straight to your main first, so once raven is out i tend to be scrolling everywhere trying to snipe that fucker.
I must warn you tho, you'll feel like a total retard after winning with it :/. Its just...the difference in intensity compared to most other pressure/rush builds (1-1-1 control marine, raven, siege tanks, focus fire with them), (TvZ shift focus fire with tank, stim spread stutter marines), (hellion marauder 5 scv 2 marine rush against toss insane micro >_>), (hellion openers TvZ), (Viking Hellion/ Hellion reaper opener tvt) is just so insane...its almost hard to get used to....if you went for standard 3 hellion drop, you'll lose the hellions, which is 6 probes worth at least. If you used marines too chances are you will kill 10+, and if the protoss is a player not used to being dropped with hellions and runs the probes - 20 probes easy, and the banshee follow up just allows you to bypass forcefield defense and outright kill him.
Summary as I tend to type messy - 1. Off one base AFTER hellion drop + 8 marine 2. As a follow up and also as a backup plan, although it never really works for backup. Its an extremely great follow up, since when you deal lots of damage with the build and kept up macro, protoss players will generally go defensive mode and spam chrono on probes to try and catch up. The banshee follow up allows you to bypass the forcefield defense, and since he is probing, no way in hell he'll have phoenixes out if you sniped obs. As a backup is when not enough damage is dealt and the guy is coming at you since he opened some defensive robo play expecting 1-1-1 and went immortals. I fuck up macroing most of the time when executing the rush so when his push comes i never get enough stuff to defend :/
On May 29 2012 06:13 MasterKang wrote: just saying this is an extremely common build that all terrans employ. it's pretty mcuh an auto-win against FFE and really good against nexus first.
Well, any 12 rax 13 gas opener can auto-win against a 15 Nexus -> Forge build, since that build is designed to play against gasless expos. I was more thinking about how it plays against less greedy Fes than the one Squirtle used.
You don't even need to play a macro game with this. You can straight up transtition into a marine tank timing/all-in to take advantage of your opponents weakened economy.
People are giving the protoss WAY too much credit and faith in terms of the perfect defense.
I just played this build 3 times (with poor execution since I was just doing everything by feel) on ladder (China mid-high masters) and I got 10-18 probe kills every time which put me vastly ahead.
Think about it, you have a medivac full of marines dropping the toss's main, which makes the toss pull usually more than half of his ~7 units to defend. Then you run in FOUR hellions, into his natural full of probes. ~10 probe kills is almost guaranteed, and I don't even lose my medivac or any marines - just pick up the marines and go home right after his units are out of position.
If the toss then run his units back to his natural, just run your hellions away and come back with the medivac. Even if you don't score any additional probe kills, the economic damage from lost mining time is MASSIVE on part of the toss.
People in the strategy forums are all top 3 Korean GM when it comes to theorycrafting... If MvP had success with it, go try out the build yourself before discrediting the it.
This build is actually fairly common and very deadly. It was first used by TLO when the game first came out on Scrap Station. Since then I've seen Demuslim, MKP, Supernova, and MVP utilize it. It is one of the reasons you can't blind go 1 gate expo into robo without adding gates even if you scout factory tech.
Everyone and their mother has done this build. It's just a different variation of 111 which can either all in or expand, very dependent on damage done either way. It's really not guaranteed good damage if the Protoss anticipates it in any way. I do plenty of hellion-based all ins on ladder and they are hit and miss as much as they are fun. FE into fast Robo is probably best case scenario for Terran with this build.
It's actually really easy to defend this if he just moves his natural's probes to his main before the hellions are there. Forcefield ramp and defend the naked marine drop
The build is very easy and natural, the only choices you have are :
1) gas first or not 2) reactor on the rax (after 2 marines) or not
Other than that it's just a 1-1-1 on 1 gas with continuous SCV and army production. You naturally end up having 7-8 marines, 3 hellions at the time your first medivac pops out.
Should be noted that MKP likes this build very much in TvP and TvT, sometimes even proxying the factory and starport to drop the hellions faster and in a concealed fashion.
It's pretty darn good against ffe or nexus first if you can catch protoss out of position. otherwise, it's a bit of a gamble. Therefore, I think this build works great in conjunction with a reaper or marauder expand, since you're planning to get anyway; if you spot a greedy build you can go hellion, and if not, go with the original, more economic build
On May 29 2012 10:00 NrGmonk wrote: This build is actually fairly common and very deadly. It was first used by TLO when the game first came out on Scrap Station. Since then I've seen Demuslim, MKP, Supernova, and MVP utilize it. It is one of the reasons you can't blind go 1 gate expo into robo without adding gates even if you scout factory tech.
Well, I would be careful saying first, especially since there was so little coverage on korean players in early beta, unless you mean first used in a notable tournament that was accessible by foreigners or something?
Anyway, question about PvT. If you go to 3 gate then add robo, isn't the obs a bit late in scouting if terran is doing marine/tank/banshee all-in, or what? What is the proper way to scout and prepare for these, I guess, or is there a little risk either way? Or do you mean maybe you can still go 1 gate robo but the units you make are different or such?
On May 29 2012 10:00 NrGmonk wrote: This build is actually fairly common and very deadly. It was first used by TLO when the game first came out on Scrap Station. Since then I've seen Demuslim, MKP, Supernova, and MVP utilize it. It is one of the reasons you can't blind go 1 gate expo into robo without adding gates even if you scout factory tech.
Well, I would be careful saying first, especially since there was so little coverage on korean players in early beta, unless you mean first used in a notable tournament that was accessible by foreigners or something?
Obviously, that's what I meant. Of course there were probably tons of people who did it before him.
Anyway, question about PvT. If you go to 3 gate then add robo, isn't the obs a bit late in scouting if terran is doing marine/tank/banshee all-in, or what? What is the proper way to scout and prepare for these, I guess, or is there a little risk either way? Or do you mean maybe you can still go 1 gate robo but the units you make are different or such?
You must go 3 gate into robo to not die to this push. By the time this push/drop hits, between 6:40 and 7:00 I believe, you will have only 4-5 units with 1 gate into robo, but 6-7 units with 3 gate into robo. Think about what you need to stop 8 marines, 1 medivac, and 3 hellions and you'll find that the answer is about 6-7 units. 3 gate into robo can also stop the marine/tank/banshee all-in, but you just can't rush to colossi with 3 gate into robo.
On May 29 2012 10:00 NrGmonk wrote: This build is actually fairly common and very deadly. It was first used by TLO when the game first came out on Scrap Station. Since then I've seen Demuslim, MKP, Supernova, and MVP utilize it. It is one of the reasons you can't blind go 1 gate expo into robo without adding gates even if you scout factory tech.
Well, I would be careful saying first, especially since there was so little coverage on korean players in early beta, unless you mean first used in a notable tournament that was accessible by foreigners or something?
Obviously, that's what I meant. Of course there were probably tons of people who did it before him.
Anyway, question about PvT. If you go to 3 gate then add robo, isn't the obs a bit late in scouting if terran is doing marine/tank/banshee all-in, or what? What is the proper way to scout and prepare for these, I guess, or is there a little risk either way? Or do you mean maybe you can still go 1 gate robo but the units you make are different or such?
You must go 3 gate into robo to not die to this push. By the time this push/drop hits, between 6:40 and 7:00 I believe, you will have only 4-5 units with 1 gate into robo, but 6-7 units with 3 gate into robo. Think about what you need to stop 8 marines, 1 medivac, and 3 hellions and you'll find that the answer is about 6-7 units. 3 gate into robo can also stop the marine/tank/banshee all-in, but you just can't rush to colossi with 3 gate into robo.
If you go gas first, is it possible to move out quicker? You get an earlier factory, and can also reactor your barracks which I believe will get you to 8 marines faster if you do it after your 3rd marine or something...(too lazy to calculate it)...any thoughts?
Vs a gate scout I'd think you can't hide you went gas first, so it doesn't seem worth it. Going normal opening at least keeps it hidden until Toss does zlot stalker push. Also if you do this, it makes more sense to allin after I think. You kill probes with this build, so if you allin after the toss has to both rebuild his econ and defend your army. That or have some timing you plan on hitting, because if you just kill some probes and don't have some aggression planned in the next few minutes, you wont be able to punish a toss who acts greedy to catch up in probe.
I've seen some people suggesting an all-in followup to this build. I don't deny that an all-in could be entirely adequate as a follow-up, but I wonder if it is the only possible solution-- Mvp, after all, slaps down his CC at 6:00 in his game with this. It seems to me that if you manage to deal some damage, you can counteract the fact that your CC is delayed, and transition into a pretty normal midgame. In fact, you'll already have out a lot of tech, so you can continue to maybe apply some pressure. One of the annoying things as a Terran player in the early game is that a couple stalkers can just freely roam the map until you have some way of catching them or mitigating their poking at your marines-- but with a Medivac you'll be solid.
I whas always convinced I whas better than those plat protoss on ladder and because this build requires a little bit of micro to defend I've gone straight up to high dia just like my other match ups ^^
TLO played this like one and a half year ago in TvT. It was the exact same build ,so I don't see this being MVPs build because he tried to play it in TvP. I like the build ( that kind of builds) against Protoss because they are flexible and you aren't forced to a certain kind of follow-up.
1200 master here. I used to do this almost every TvP but it does have its flaws. Specifically, I would only recommend to follow it up with a 1base all-in. If you expand and do little damage with your harass you are in a lot of trouble. If i want to expand behind a 1-1-1 I'd rather go banshee and expand behind it.
This build also build-order loses to 3-4 gate after expo pressure, and it will almost never do (enough) damage to 3gate before robo (assuming 1gate FE). On the bright side, it does build-order win against forge expands.
Also, it probably goes without saying, but only do this vs 1gate expos.
Edit: Reactor on rax after 2 marines delays your Starport a little bit but leaves you in a lot better position to defend any follow-ups as you can pump 2 marines at a time. Since you will have 8 marines by the time your medivac is out either way I would say that reactor rax is just hands down the best choice.
Edit 2: There are some maps where this is actually pretty broken. Close-air meta, close-air antiga, close-air shakuras etc. These spawns will almost guarantee you more than enough economic damage.
On June 03 2012 05:49 Garmer wrote: it's possible to modify this to make a nice opening mech build
I play it into mech in TvP. You survive the early-mid game with tank/marine/banshee and bunkers, then add 2 factories, one goes on the reactor the rax was using and the other gets a techlab. Then get double armory and add ghosts as you take a 3rd. You don't want more than ~5 tanks though, because they are awful in TvP. Instead focus on thor/banshee/hellion/ghost. EMP your own army (thanks, Blizzard) before fights and gl hf.
On June 03 2012 05:26 Starshaped wrote: 1200 master here. I used to do this almost every TvP but it does have its flaws. Specifically, I would only recommend to follow it up with a 1base all-in. If you expand and do little damage with your harass you are in a lot of trouble. If i want to expand behind a 1-1-1 I'd rather go banshee and expand behind it.
This build also build-order loses to 3-4 gate after expo pressure, and it will almost never do (enough) damage to 3gate before robo (assuming 1gate FE). On the bright side, it does build-order win against forge expands.
Also, it probably goes without saying, but only do this vs 1gate expos.
Edit: Reactor on rax after 2 marines delays your Starport a little bit but leaves you in a lot better position to defend any follow-ups as you can pump 2 marines at a time. Since you will have 8 marines by the time your medivac is out either way I would say that reactor rax is just hands down the best choice.
Edit 2: There are some maps where this is actually pretty broken. Close-air meta, close-air antiga, close-air shakuras etc. These spawns will almost guarantee you more than enough economic damage.
I agree overall, though it's important to note against those pressure builds you can actually potentially base trade. That situation occurred in the gsl finals, so I'd say it's not a complete build order loss against those 3-4 gate pressures after expand. I'm not a huge fan of doing this build if you can't verify your opponent is expanding, though. I think a reactor expand would be the best transition if you can't scout a nexus, rather than continuing with the rest of the build.
On May 29 2012 15:41 Blazinghand wrote: I've seen some people suggesting an all-in followup to this build. I don't deny that an all-in could be entirely adequate as a follow-up, but I wonder if it is the only possible solution-- Mvp, after all, slaps down his CC at 6:00 in his game with this. It seems to me that if you manage to deal some damage, you can counteract the fact that your CC is delayed, and transition into a pretty normal midgame. In fact, you'll already have out a lot of tech, so you can continue to maybe apply some pressure. One of the annoying things as a Terran player in the early game is that a couple stalkers can just freely roam the map until you have some way of catching them or mitigating their poking at your marines-- but with a Medivac you'll be solid.
You can go with an expo right after but I think that the all in followup is way better just because the amount of damage you ACTUALLY have to do with this to be ahead is prettyyy huge.
Not exactly like the Opening in the OP but pretty close.
Yep, same idea, marine drop and hellion harass. AKA a kind of 1-1-1 opening. And pretty much all 1-1-1s include/give: pressure, harass, safe opening, chance to kill greedy players, flexibility, though of course the expansion is much more delayed. But with openings such as banshee opening or this kind of marine/hellion opening, it is almost guaranteed you will kill at least a few probes and/or slow him down a bit so that if you expand right after you won't be too behind for there to be a significant advantage. You could expect to be slightly behind I think (though ofc this depends on map too) but then again there is the chance your opponent may outright die if he expected you to expand.
@Habitus
Perhaps you are just being humble but I hate when even Artosis say things like (paraphrasing when MKP did gorapadong mech build vs Genius and won) "It is important to remember the reason why he won was not because he went mech, but because he did so much damage with the hellions!"
He and other seem to completely forget... when do you see BFH harass in Bio play TvP??? The hellions are part of mech. By showing that even pros can lose probes to BFH harass, it pretty much shows that the style is "viable". Pros are capable of blocking every drop in bio PvT, but do they? Not always. Will they block every hellion harass? Not always!
If anything, the 2 replays you show do show that mech is viable (or at least, that specific style)
Unless, you are referring to the FIRST harass with the marine drop? That did quite a lot of damage, but I don't think it put Hack into that big of an advantage. It was either about equal or Hack with a slight advantage, at least in regards to him going mech instead of bio. Even if he was ahead, it shows again that mech is viable; the opener worked, and there are no major weaknesses in [that] mech TvP that cause it to be "not usable". It may be weak, it may be hard, it may be unforgivable, but those are all subjective things and depend on the individual.
On July 11 2012 16:27 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: Yep, same idea, marine drop and hellion harass. AKA a kind of 1-1-1 opening. And pretty much all 1-1-1s include/give: pressure, harass, safe opening, chance to kill greedy players, flexibility, though of course the expansion is much more delayed. But with openings such as banshee opening or this kind of marine/hellion opening, it is almost guaranteed you will kill at least a few probes and/or slow him down a bit so that if you expand right after you won't be too behind for there to be a significant advantage. You could expect to be slightly behind I think (though ofc this depends on map too) but then again there is the chance your opponent may outright die if he expected you to expand.
@Habitus
Perhaps you are just being humble but I hate when even Artosis say things like (paraphrasing when MKP did gorapadong mech build vs Genius and won) "It is important to remember the reason why he won was not because he went mech, but because he did so much damage with the hellions!"
He and other seem to completely forget... when do you see BFH harass in Bio play TvP??? The hellions are part of mech. By showing that even pros can lose probes to BFH harass, it pretty much shows that the style is "viable". Pros are capable of blocking every drop in bio PvT, but do they? Not always. Will they block every hellion harass? Not always!
If anything, the 2 replays you show do show that mech is viable (or at least, that specific style)
Unless, you are referring to the FIRST harass with the marine drop? That did quite a lot of damage, but I don't think it put Hack into that big of an advantage. It was either about equal or Hack with a slight advantage, at least in regards to him going mech instead of bio. Even if he was ahead, it shows again that mech is viable; the opener worked, and there are no major weaknesses in [that] mech TvP that cause it to be "not usable". It may be weak, it may be hard, it may be unforgivable, but those are all subjective things and depend on the individual.
Don't get me wrong, i LOVE mech play and try to do it whenever i can. However, these two replays are prime examples of why it's usually not a good idea to do vs toss. In the first replay, well, he lost. And in the second one he did very good in the early harass and had a devastating supply lead in the midgame - so far so good. But as he dragged out the game long enough for the protoss to recover and build appropriate counters, he almost lost the last engagement, even though he was miles ahead. I feel like if he just went bio in the midgame (maybe with a couple of BHF thrown in for harass) he would have been so much better off and finished the game a lot earlier and safer.
On July 11 2012 16:27 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: Yep, same idea, marine drop and hellion harass. AKA a kind of 1-1-1 opening. And pretty much all 1-1-1s include/give: pressure, harass, safe opening, chance to kill greedy players, flexibility, though of course the expansion is much more delayed. But with openings such as banshee opening or this kind of marine/hellion opening, it is almost guaranteed you will kill at least a few probes and/or slow him down a bit so that if you expand right after you won't be too behind for there to be a significant advantage. You could expect to be slightly behind I think (though ofc this depends on map too) but then again there is the chance your opponent may outright die if he expected you to expand.
@Habitus
Perhaps you are just being humble but I hate when even Artosis say things like (paraphrasing when MKP did gorapadong mech build vs Genius and won) "It is important to remember the reason why he won was not because he went mech, but because he did so much damage with the hellions!"
He and other seem to completely forget... when do you see BFH harass in Bio play TvP??? The hellions are part of mech. By showing that even pros can lose probes to BFH harass, it pretty much shows that the style is "viable". Pros are capable of blocking every drop in bio PvT, but do they? Not always. Will they block every hellion harass? Not always!
If anything, the 2 replays you show do show that mech is viable (or at least, that specific style)
Unless, you are referring to the FIRST harass with the marine drop? That did quite a lot of damage, but I don't think it put Hack into that big of an advantage. It was either about equal or Hack with a slight advantage, at least in regards to him going mech instead of bio. Even if he was ahead, it shows again that mech is viable; the opener worked, and there are no major weaknesses in [that] mech TvP that cause it to be "not usable". It may be weak, it may be hard, it may be unforgivable, but those are all subjective things and depend on the individual.
Don't get me wrong, i LOVE mech play and try to do it whenever i can. However, these two replays are prime examples of why it's usually not a good idea to do vs toss. In the first replay, well, he lost. And in the second one he did very good in the early harass and had a devastating supply lead in the midgame - so far so good. But as he dragged out the game long enough for the protoss to recover and build appropriate counters, he almost lost the last engagement, even though he was miles ahead. I feel like if he just went bio in the midgame (maybe with a couple of BHF thrown in for harass) he would have been so much better off and finished the game a lot earlier and safer.
Well, I'd like to discuss it in slightly more detail.
The first one he lost, but in the good engagements, he beat the protoss army, even if only slightly. The major turning point was a result of 2 things: 1) Hack not handling the DT harass enough by being sloppy, for example he didn't make sure his turrets finished so he waste lots of time/resources/APM and 2) getting many tanks caught off guard towards the end when he was pulling back. And we must take notice of how the game was still either one of theirs to take before those 2 "mistakes" of Hack even though Hack didn't do as much damage as he should nor could have with his first marine drop, as well as his hellions harass in the midgame. If we ignore Hack not handing the DT harass properly and giving away the rest of his tanks, this game is an example of Mech still working even without killing many probes, which is a very common similarity between many of the few mech games we see in high level play where the mecher succeeds and wins. According to this game, heavy economic damage is not, as many have believed, a strict requirement for mech to work. Another thing to look at pointing to mech's individual style, that is, a style that is not gimmicky for the sake of not using Bio units but a style with its own strengths and weaknesses -- is the fact that Creator took his third without much economic damage nor pressure from Hack. In Bio TvP, if you were to let Protoss get away with 3 base like that and not kill more probes than Hack nor kill buildings nor pressure Protoss from safety turtling without fear on 3 base, you would probably be in trouble. But in this game, Hack shows that with mech, you can play passively, and take your own third and sit back, unlike in Bio.
The first point I think he could have handled much better; I think most will agree that Creator is at least slightly better, anyways. The second point, though, supports the idea that mech is unforgiving. Being caught off guard like that doesn't happen as easily with bio armies, and bio armies can at least do some damage before dying, but tanks will most likely be shooting at chargelots and not kill anything without being able to siege up.
Now on to the second game. His supply wasn't that far ahead. Here are a few times I documented. Hack's supply 45 to 40, 120 to 105, 180 to 140. Before the last battle, 200 to 140.
His supply certainly slightly higher, but remember that this style of hellion tank was really heavy on the hellions, which are food inefficient units. So the supply difference isn't very significant. I would consider hellions to be more like a 1.5 supply unit (you don't need that many hellions to be able to fry all the chargelots, so at that point excess hellions are used just for harass or tanking, the latter of which is accomplished much better by Thors: if hellions were 1.5 supply, 4 hellions would still be 360 HP which is still less than 1 thor, which also has 1 more armor).
Also I simply disagree on him almost losing the final engagement. Can you elaborate? When the Protoss first engages with the really spread out force, yes the fight was certainly close, especially since mech TvP is (at least for the hellion/tank phase) quite fragile in terms of composition when maxed. However, you have to also remember that many times, the Protoss will not be able to have his units spread out so much to mitigate splash (and EMP, of which we did not see in that battle). Although Hack sieged up in a pretty good position with the cliff helping his position, that didn't matter too much since Lure was able to make such a good engagement anyways, as if the cliff wasn't there, by attacking Hack's army from both the front and the back. In addition to the lack of EMP, he also could have had a few vikings to provide vision and chip away at the Colossi's HP before the fight.
Now, yes the supply was 200 to 140 before the fight. But it seems Hack has more workers than Protoss, judging by the units left on the field, his reinforcements, and the units in production (about 80), while it seems Protoss has about 60 workers. So the army supply was more like 120 to 80. This is still a lot, but considering the food inefficiency of Hellions, I would say it's more like 100 to 80 (there's about 40 hellions), if we are to look at supply as an indicator of army strength.
Of course, even looking at it as 100 to 80, that is still quite an army advantage. However, Hellion/Tank, as seen in the game vs Creator, does not stop evolving its composition there. Once you add BCs and have them upgraded to 3/3, your army becomes much much stronger and flexible. Then you can even start replacing worker supply with OCs, making your army even bigger. Now, this doesn't address the fact that before BCs are added, you may say Hack's 100 supply hellion/tank army didn't beat an 80 supply protoss army as much as it maybe should have, but to me the battle's result seemed to be about right. He was left with several tanks, which is critical so he can quickly get back up to a healthy ~15 tank count. Often times the Protoss can warpin chargelots and just force you back, but here he still had many hellions left, making any chargelots ineffective, and being able to tank immortals and keep them away from the tanks.
Another thing to consider is that, if you still disagree with me, that though it may seem that Lure is crawling his way back into the game because he was close to winning the last engagement, you must realize that Hack is on 5 base while Lure is on 4. Although Lure was possibly getting close to stabilizing and equally the army supply, Hack is already pumping a higher economy than Lure, with 1 more base and ~20 more workers, and that's not even taking into account the MULEs he has.
On July 11 2012 19:35 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:wall of text
You can sugar-coat it all you want, but 200 vs 140 supply is a DEVASTATING supply lead. If he had that supply in bio instead in mech he would have absolutely steamrolled the toss. He could have made 2 rines per hellion (which is the same mineral and supply cost) and marauders instead of tanks and used the excess gas for medivacs.
If mech was all that viable, it wouldn't be so difficult to find a couple of replays with mech crushing toss on equal footing. But instead we get one were the terran actually loses (but hey he ALMOST won !) and one where he had basically won due to the opening and dragged the game out to a point where he almost lost his advantage. I'm still hoping for the warhound to be the answer, but right now, there is little advantage of going mech in TvP, there are just too many hard counters the protoss can field.
Not exactly like the Opening in the OP but pretty close.
Yep, same idea, marine drop and hellion harass. AKA a kind of 1-1-1 opening. And pretty much all 1-1-1s include/give: pressure, harass, safe opening, chance to kill greedy players, flexibility, though of course the expansion is much more delayed. But with openings such as banshee opening or this kind of marine/hellion opening, it is almost guaranteed you will kill at least a few probes and/or slow him down a bit so that if you expand right after you won't be too behind for there to be a significant advantage. You could expect to be slightly behind I think (though ofc this depends on map too) but then again there is the chance your opponent may outright die if he expected you to expand.
@Habitus
Perhaps you are just being humble but I hate when even Artosis say things like (paraphrasing when MKP did gorapadong mech build vs Genius and won) "It is important to remember the reason why he won was not because he went mech, but because he did so much damage with the hellions!"
He and other seem to completely forget... when do you see BFH harass in Bio play TvP??? The hellions are part of mech. By showing that even pros can lose probes to BFH harass, it pretty much shows that the style is "viable". Pros are capable of blocking every drop in bio PvT, but do they? Not always. Will they block every hellion harass? Not always!
If anything, the 2 replays you show do show that mech is viable (or at least, that specific style)
Unless, you are referring to the FIRST harass with the marine drop? That did quite a lot of damage, but I don't think it put Hack into that big of an advantage. It was either about equal or Hack with a slight advantage, at least in regards to him going mech instead of bio. Even if he was ahead, it shows again that mech is viable; the opener worked, and there are no major weaknesses in [that] mech TvP that cause it to be "not usable". It may be weak, it may be hard, it may be unforgivable, but those are all subjective things and depend on the individual.
I was referring to Marine in main + Hellion in Nat, followed up by Banshee, followed by BFH drop, all of them worked really well in the game against Lure (against Creator they didn't work as well or got shut down). Since they worked so well I was trying more to pre-emempt anyone saying it was the harass not the Mech that won the game.
I posted both of them to show that this style of Mech seems very viable, as even against Creator (a very good Protoss) where the early drops/harass weren't cost effective in general, plus afew times losing Hellions in the mid-map for little or no damage (ran into Creator's army by mistake) he still was able to play into a position he should of probably won from. The lack of detection at end (losing his Raven + no Turrets) let the DT harassment be too effective at the end, as he tried transitioning into BC+Raven/Ghost. BC+Raven/Ghost seems to be agreed as the best End Game Comp if fully upgraded but is very hard to safely transition into, this style is one of the better ones I've watch at possible being good at getting to that Comp.
On July 11 2012 19:35 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:wall of text
You can sugar-coat it all you want, but 200 vs 140 supply is a DEVASTATING supply lead. If he had that supply in bio instead in mech he would have absolutely steamrolled the toss. He could have made 2 rines per hellion (which is the same mineral and supply cost) and marauders instead of tanks and used the excess gas for medivacs.
If mech was all that viable, it wouldn't be so difficult to find a couple of replays with mech crushing toss on equal footing. But instead we get one were the terran actually loses (but hey he ALMOST won !) and one where he had basically won due to the opening and dragged the game out to a point where he almost lost his advantage. I'm still hoping for the warhound to be the answer, but right now, there is little advantage of going mech in TvP, there are just too many hard counters the protoss can field.
In the first replay (against Creator) you see Hack throw away aload of Hellions during an engagement as he doesn't pull them back as the Protoss pulls back abit, he loses that at near equal supply. Later he pulls them back and wins at near equal supply, I have a feeling that this is still a rather new style even to people such as Hack who are using it currently so knowing the right ratio of Hellions to Tanks, knowing when to add in Ghosts (make a big difference late game to the Comp) and how to not over commit to Vikings are all things that need refining. Bio by now has worked most of the kinks out of its varied playstyles, Mech is still rather un-explored, and this Hellion heavy style atleast looks somewhat viable as a Option to throw in on some games alongside the more standard Bio play (as Hack did in both those series of games)
Unfortunatly you are so much better of going bio as terran. As said before, there are so many units that toss has that counters mech that it becomes unviable as standard play.
You just cant thin out toss gateway units with mech like you can do with bio, forcing toss to warp-in new units and delaying his tech.
People play mech because its fun and can surprise a toss I guess but your time is better spend practicing your macro and MMMVG positioning.
Now to stay on topic, I think going for 1/1/1 as described by OP can be tricky to defend by toss but dont expect to win more than 50% of your games and it is ofcourse not a good build to do when playing against the same opponent more than once.
But if you are confident that you are a better terran player than the protoss you face on ladder but are losing because of deathball engagements this build can really pimp up your TVP winrate.
Even when the pros do it in tournaments I just dont think this build is viable at mid master level
On July 12 2012 02:11 derpinator wrote: Even when the pros do it in tournaments I just dont think this build is viable at mid master level
For what its worth, most pros seem to agree with you. Mvp only used it once out of all the TvPs he played Season 2 (and he played a lot of them). It seemed like something he just had in the back pocket, part of his infinite supply of crushingly strong builds.
It definitely seems more of a "I'm in a Bo5, I'll toss this in here" sort of build than the kind you'd want to practice with, or use a lot on the ladder. In a way, I'm kinda sad it was so successful because I didn't get to see Mvp's followup ;_;
On July 11 2012 19:35 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:wall of text
You can sugar-coat it all you want, but 200 vs 140 supply is a DEVASTATING supply lead. If he had that supply in bio instead in mech he would have absolutely steamrolled the toss. He could have made 2 rines per hellion (which is the same mineral and supply cost) and marauders instead of tanks and used the excess gas for medivacs.
If mech was all that viable, it wouldn't be so difficult to find a couple of replays with mech crushing toss on equal footing. But instead we get one were the terran actually loses (but hey he ALMOST won !) and one where he had basically won due to the opening and dragged the game out to a point where he almost lost his advantage. I'm still hoping for the warhound to be the answer, but right now, there is little advantage of going mech in TvP, there are just too many hard counters the protoss can field.
I'm disappointed because first of all
you quite rudely dismiss my effort to elaborately and clearly describe my view and belittle it to a meaningless "sugar coating"
and
you don't address anything I say, really, so there is nothing for me to discuss with you.
Your saying that 200 vs 140 supply is a devestating lead only helps to further my point that mech works. The supply was not that great in the start: again, I note 45 to 40 supply. It snowballed into 200 vs 140 supply. Do you see now?
How about PvZ? When Zerg roach maxes at 12 min and protoss only has about 140/200 supply, is that a devestating lead? Supply is only a number that helps you look at the situation. It cannot be used as simple as you are using it.
Also, the second paragraph's concept has been proven wrong. Remember when people said Mech didn't work in TvZ? Then we saw MVP and other terrans using mech occasionally, especially on Dual Site. Remember when people said mech didn't work in TvT? How about when everyone started playing mech? Just because you don't see a strategy commonly, it doesn't mean that it doesn't work well. People have been proven wrong in both of these examples.
On July 12 2012 02:11 derpinator wrote: Even when the pros do it in tournaments I just dont think this build is viable at mid master level
I'm mid masters, and it works for me (without losing too much ofc), so I would say it's viable It's also been used in both lower and higher levels on ladder successfully.
Not exactly like the Opening in the OP but pretty close.
Yep, same idea, marine drop and hellion harass. AKA a kind of 1-1-1 opening. And pretty much all 1-1-1s include/give: pressure, harass, safe opening, chance to kill greedy players, flexibility, though of course the expansion is much more delayed. But with openings such as banshee opening or this kind of marine/hellion opening, it is almost guaranteed you will kill at least a few probes and/or slow him down a bit so that if you expand right after you won't be too behind for there to be a significant advantage. You could expect to be slightly behind I think (though ofc this depends on map too) but then again there is the chance your opponent may outright die if he expected you to expand.
@Habitus
Perhaps you are just being humble but I hate when even Artosis say things like (paraphrasing when MKP did gorapadong mech build vs Genius and won) "It is important to remember the reason why he won was not because he went mech, but because he did so much damage with the hellions!"
He and other seem to completely forget... when do you see BFH harass in Bio play TvP??? The hellions are part of mech. By showing that even pros can lose probes to BFH harass, it pretty much shows that the style is "viable". Pros are capable of blocking every drop in bio PvT, but do they? Not always. Will they block every hellion harass? Not always!
If anything, the 2 replays you show do show that mech is viable (or at least, that specific style)
Unless, you are referring to the FIRST harass with the marine drop? That did quite a lot of damage, but I don't think it put Hack into that big of an advantage. It was either about equal or Hack with a slight advantage, at least in regards to him going mech instead of bio. Even if he was ahead, it shows again that mech is viable; the opener worked, and there are no major weaknesses in [that] mech TvP that cause it to be "not usable". It may be weak, it may be hard, it may be unforgivable, but those are all subjective things and depend on the individual.
I was referring to Marine in main + Hellion in Nat, followed up by Banshee, followed by BFH drop, all of them worked really well in the game against Lure (against Creator they didn't work as well or got shut down). Since they worked so well I was trying more to pre-emempt anyone saying it was the harass not the Mech that won the game.
I posted both of them to show that this style of Mech seems very viable, as even against Creator (a very good Protoss) where the early drops/harass weren't cost effective in general, plus afew times losing Hellions in the mid-map for little or no damage (ran into Creator's army by mistake) he still was able to play into a position he should of probably won from. The lack of detection at end (losing his Raven + no Turrets) let the DT harassment be too effective at the end, as he tried transitioning into BC+Raven/Ghost. BC+Raven/Ghost seems to be agreed as the best End Game Comp if fully upgraded but is very hard to safely transition into, this style is one of the better ones I've watch at possible being good at getting to that Comp.
Ah, I see. I misunderstood the meaning of the reason as to why the harass let mech work (you were saying it was part of mech, right?)
I agree with you, he would have been able to win the game if he wasn't so sloppy with the defense against DT (which also led to him not watching his tanks). If he had those 5 bases running without being so hurt/delayed by the DT harass, his econ would have been much better. Instead he was only able to make 1-2 BC and not be able to reinforce quickly nor make the tech/upgrades for the BC really pay off (+3/+3 stalkers are pretty good against +1/0 BCs).
EPT
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