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IEM LG-IMMVP TvZ Mech Build - Page 5

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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Thorn Raven
Profile Joined November 2010
United States126 Posts
August 23 2012 00:34 GMT
#81
I've been using this build every game versus Zerg. It's amazing. Hellions and Banshees dominate the map and even Mutalisks are easy to handle. It really comes down to whether or not Zerg goes for a fast third. In which case, I just delay my third in favor of faster Thors. Of course, if you're going bio, you don't need to delay your third at all.

If it turns out he's going for a Roach attack instead, I already have 3+ Banshees in the map's middle. The build is very versatile and has all transitions protected. The only risk is from the early to mid game right after taking the second base. The first Banshee is usually out in time to defend 2 base Roach aggression, but the amount of damage taken varies. Sometimes it's too much, sometimes it's nothing at all.

And finally, the real attraction of this build is the late game Mechanical play with Raven's slowly building up. The transition is gradual, thus safe and quick enough to meet the Brood Lord tech. Even then, upgraded Thors can deal with Brood Lord's smile-inducingly well. If he gets Ultras instead, I just go for the air upgrades and get Banshees. MOAR THORS. 3/3 is amazing. This build is a God send.
BEARDiaguz
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
Australia2362 Posts
August 23 2012 01:48 GMT
#82
My experiences with the build...

First your going CC first so pray they don't 6-10 pool, of course. This has happened to us all, I'm sure.

Second, ultra fast mutalisks will kill you if you don't respond. Fuckers that hatch as early as 8:00. Fortunately it's a sort of easy read, scv scout really quick gas and if no fast speed or roaches then it has to be fast lair. The other concern is dealing with the other really fast timings, like ~20-23 drone roach or ling/bane timings that can bust through a bunker really quickly.

If he takes his 3rd before 6 mins that means no gas. If after then he has to have gas for speedlings and lair and upgrades. Harassment gets really tricky at this point so consider just stopping hellions at 4-6 and only 1 (uncloaked) banshee for defence or poking around his main and just focusing on 3rd and infrastructure. This is a good time for him to try and slip lings into an SCV line so be a bit map aware.

If he goes 3 hatch before pool go 3 CC before factory and get ready to explode! I also prefer to play a little cautious against 3h before pool when he's also trying to get speed out quickly. A zerg with 3 hatch and speed can very suddenly switch into hyperaggressive ling/bane or some shit and you can very quickly lose to it. And remember to not get too carried away with harassment that you have nothing out when his mutalisks show up.

Midgame is the trickiest part of the matchup because you need to play this part reactively and you need to not fuck up your positioning or you're dead. Zerg have 2 options vs Mech once they've scouted it:

1) Lair tech aggression. Roach drops, mass roach runaround, mutalisks and muta-roach (super fucking amazing vs thor/hellion/banshee, you NEED tanks to beat this), something tricky with infestors and it all comes in varying amounts. This requires you to defend for long enough until he abandons it and moves into hive at which point you must destroy him. Just calmly take bases, kill zergs as efficiently as you can, get 3/3 and keep scanning his hive for when he's going to transition and when he's about to, destroy him. Take care to leave tanks and walls and turrets about for the almost inevitable roach counters, as 3 attack tanks do horrible things to roaches.

2) Fast hive, infestor stall and broods. This is very difficult to play against since it's very easy to turtle yourself to death against it. A lot of map awareness is required here. A really sharply timed 2/2 hellion/tank/banshee push with a single raven is probably the best counter to it, you can't fight broods unless you're racing to fast 4 base and mass starport.

With mech I find that you need to do a lot of fighting before broodlords come out. The best position to be in is one where the Zergs greater spire just finishes and he's only got 2 bases left because you pushed and killed him. It takes a lot of timing and game sense and scouting to master this but it's critical to good mech play imo.
ProgamerAustralian alcohol user follow @iaguzSC2
Grapefruit
Profile Joined November 2010
Germany439 Posts
August 23 2012 20:15 GMT
#83
On August 23 2012 10:48 iaguz wrote:
Second, ultra fast mutalisks will kill you if you don't respond. Fuckers that hatch as early as 8:00.


Not scary at all, in my opinion. If you're doing it right, you'll kill someone doing that with Hellion/Banshee without bigger problems.
Starcraft 2 is funny, everybody picks the race, which he considers to be the weakest. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
dynwar7
Profile Joined May 2011
1983 Posts
August 24 2012 05:25 GMT
#84
so guys, from this thread it seems banshees are the key to mech in tvz.

My question is, is banshee the key to mech tvz ONLY? or mech vs tvx in general? TvT and TvP?
Regarding the imbalance, hilarious to see Zergs defending themselves....
Yoshi Kirishima
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
United States10366 Posts
August 24 2012 06:03 GMT
#85
On August 21 2012 07:18 xrapture wrote:
Don't know why people are saying MVP created this build. Puma is the first person to ever use it in a tournament. He used this exact a lot at a MLG a month or two ago.


my post didn't go through...

Puma is not the first person ever to use it in a broadcasted tournament, unless he or someone else has used this build before the WCG Korea Qualifiers in 2011. This build is pretty old.
Mid-master streaming MECH ONLY + commentary www.twitch.tv/yoshikirishima +++ "If all-in fails, all-in again."
iamcaustic
Profile Blog Joined May 2011
Canada1509 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-08-24 06:21:26
August 24 2012 06:19 GMT
#86
On August 24 2012 14:25 dynwar7 wrote:
so guys, from this thread it seems banshees are the key to mech in tvz.

My question is, is banshee the key to mech tvz ONLY? or mech vs tvx in general? TvT and TvP?

TvT you don't need banshee necessarily in the early game. You can either open cloak banshee to do damage or get vikings to defend against cloak banshee opening and get ahead in air dominance. Comes down to good banshee defence.

From the TvP mech examples I've seen and used that had greatest success, banshees also seemed to be pretty key as it forces Protoss to invest more in anti-air (usually in the form of stalkers) and stay in their base to defend, rather than hitting timings that can kill mech early on.

On August 24 2012 15:03 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 21 2012 07:18 xrapture wrote:
Don't know why people are saying MVP created this build. Puma is the first person to ever use it in a tournament. He used this exact a lot at a MLG a month or two ago.


my post didn't go through...

Puma is not the first person ever to use it in a broadcasted tournament, unless he or someone else has used this build before the WCG Korea Qualifiers in 2011. This build is pretty old.

Getting more than 2-3 banshees is old? Do you have links to VODs? o.o
Twitter: @iamcaustic
vthree
Profile Joined November 2011
Hong Kong8039 Posts
August 24 2012 06:20 GMT
#87
On August 24 2012 14:25 dynwar7 wrote:
so guys, from this thread it seems banshees are the key to mech in tvz.

My question is, is banshee the key to mech tvz ONLY? or mech vs tvx in general? TvT and TvP?


Banshees have always been good in mech TvT once you can take air dominance. 2 banshees can pretty much force your opponent to unsiege their entire siege line (which is huge in TvT). As for TvP, banshees don't do was well after the early game due to observers and blink stalkers. It is too easy to have your banshees picked off.
NewbieOne
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
Poland560 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-08-24 16:32:43
August 24 2012 16:29 GMT
#88
On August 24 2012 15:20 vthree wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 24 2012 14:25 dynwar7 wrote:
so guys, from this thread it seems banshees are the key to mech in tvz.

My question is, is banshee the key to mech tvz ONLY? or mech vs tvx in general? TvT and TvP?


Banshees have always been good in mech TvT once you can take air dominance. 2 banshees can pretty much force your opponent to unsiege their entire siege line (which is huge in TvT). As for TvP, banshees don't do was well after the early game due to observers and blink stalkers. It is too easy to have your banshees picked off.


I probably shouldn't be speaking really (I don't have much credibility), but as far as banshees in TvP go, it seems to me it depends on two factors: 1) your micro, and 2) whether it will dawn upon your opponent "to just go and kill you" (Day9) and if he can actually do that if he wants to (and if your best defence is the shock or lack of thought of your opponent, then the strategy will only carry you so far). I used banshee shenanigans to cover up battlecruiser tech, basically, mass banshees justified a lot of ports and upgrades, it was only a production switch, not a tech switch, to get a decent number of cattlebruisers when you had enough econ to sustain decent BC production (IMHO 3 bases and already at least 1/1 but preferably 2/2 air upgrades). With 3/3 and good use of Yamato, it wasn't that bad. But BCs were still cost-inefficient and I gave up really (it's just too easy to get army after army of a standard, cheaper composition for your opponent, let alone a micro-heavy Toss with blink stalkers). A banshee/viking composition can actually put some hurting on the Toss (even to the point of uncloacked a-move sometimes) but again, you need to outplay him a lot to do that in the first place (as illustrated by your continued survival without much of a ground army before you're forced to reveal your air). Which generally suggests that you should be able to defeat him in a standard game or basically any game anyway because of skill difference. I've actually never really tried Terran air in TvZ, even though it works better there than in any other matchup, supposedly (except if you get caught by slightly more mutas than you can defeat right then and there, then you just can't escape because Terran air is so slow, meaning you die... but otherwise air is like teh gold vs Zerg). It somehow never felt right for any situation I've been in and I've never really developed a situation on purpose. Except maybe occasional breakthroughs against a powerful lategame Zerg where BCs were the logical thing to do.
uzushould
Profile Joined September 2011
Austria122 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-08-24 16:51:00
August 24 2012 16:50 GMT
#89
there where a lot of patchzergs at the IEM and i think MVP tryed to force them out of their comfort zone, because as soon as it comes to unusal games this patchzergs maybe haven t practiced that much against, it puts MVP in a good position because he has so much more experience, knowledge, gamesense and better decision making......so the more unusual the game gets, the better for MVP, and that was what he tryed to archieve with mixing in mechplay

we all know that mech builds aren t that bad in tvz and it never completely died, there are still some guys who use if very frequently like Goody, MKP and so on, but i wouldn t handle it as some kind of revolutionary build or something

as well i think while the guide did point some interesting things out it is by far not a "very deep analysis"

still good work from OP, thx for the translation
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