[D]Code S Terrans having a hard time with mech TvZ - Page 2

On November 15 2012 12:43 ragz_gt wrote:
MKP beat HyuN in game 3 in Ro16 B with a viking anchored aggressively defensive mech timing designed to hit before BL

On November 15 2012 13:35 Ver wrote:
I don't want to be mean but this is why they are in code s and you are theorycrafting. They are doing it for a reason, so maybe try to figure out why instead of proposing fairy-tale ideas like purposely trying to fight broodlord/infestor. 9 times out of 10 you can't, which is why people don't try it on stage.

They are playing a strategy which relies on them performing close to perfectly to win, though it works pretty well when they do. In practice, when they can play perfectly, the build works out well. In the nerve-wracking gom booth, when both guys aren't playing perfectly, it does a lot worse because Terran mistakes count for far far more than Zerg ones. But that is something that is extremely hard to understand as a player, so it's natural they keep doing it. And frankly, even with that, it's still one of their best hopes of winning. Maybe they'll be able to overcome nerves and play flawlessly that day. Players have to think that way: it's almost absurd to plan ahead for getting nervous, because that vastly increases the likelihood of it occurring.

For example, when Flash does a similar strategy he is able to truly hit before 15 minutes, not 16 (assuming no Zerg aggression) as he doesn't make those errors. That's how he beat Soo on Metropolis in MvP: he attacked while Soo was hive rushing (off of a muta opening) because Soo didn't think it could that fast, so he was stuck with no lair and no hive army. Earliest broods are going to come at 1530-16 mins, probably 1630-17 if they make enough roaches to appear threatening. In the finals Mvp kept getting delayed due to bad decisions/life playing well. In Ryung vs Curious on Entombed Ryung loses 10 hellions and a banshee to random fungals when marauding around. That in itself almost loses him the game, even though it may not be obvious, because now his push comes later, and Curious makes broodlords in time. Mech has zero margin for error.



You seem to be under some kind of illusion that making vikings actually lets you beat broodlords: it doesn't, beyond an extremely narrow timing window against a hive rusher who will have no corruptors for a minute (which, amusingly enough given your post, is what Mvp kept trying to hit in the finals and almost won on entombed had he not clumped his vikings and auto lost to 1 fungal; he also did win on Abyssal with it). Mvp's strat is really quite clever: you ram his support casters away with your excess of tanks; he can't broodling wall because he hasn't reached a critical mass of broods yet, and he has no/few corruptors to morph into broods because he needs broods to kill your ground army, so he loses them all to vikings and you win the game. It's extremely tough to hit but it works.

Outside of that timing, if you're making vikings you've basically already resigned to lose the game unless the Zerg has a seizure and clumps his brood/corruptor against seeker missile (like Soo vs Major on Daybreak from MvP); something which you cannot engineer. And even then, it's still dubious. The Ryung/Curious game where Curious made a horrific error and lost his entire broodlord army and still won 2 minutes later despite Ryung playing incredibly well is the kind of game that happens all the time in practice (except the Zergs are less likely to blunder in that way during practice and thus win even easier).

Calling Mvp's strategy a "shitty strategy" is beyond comprehension. Mvp is the most innovative player by far in the history of the game. Any build he does has very good reasons behind it. Instead of insulting him, learn from him.

On November 15 2012 15:24 Insoleet wrote:
I think that the air transition must be executed at the same time the terran knows zerg is building the greater spire.

The terrans i see building 5 starports when the zerg is morphing his greatspire doesnt seems to have so much problems.

They also expand very aggressively with PF. Their CC are all in their bases.

I dont have any link to show you, but recently Kas did it against golden and it worked nice.

5 starport laboratory can build vikings very fast, and then go for banshees very fast too. And when the terran thinks he can do it, he can build his ravens.

If the terran knows his army will be catch offguard by BL, he should go back, and save time for his vikings by attacking everywhere except where the broodlords are. 3 tanks with 5-10 hellions can do a lot of damages to the bases far from the zerg army.
He should also have a ground army to tank the broodlings and the ultra transition with his vikings.

But well, the only problem is fungle, rooting vikings into GG is a big problem. Because the terran can be ready and still loose. He needs to have perfect control, whereas the zerg has to... fungle and transfuse :D Hopefully this will be fixed in some times.

On November 15 2012 15:24 Insoleet wrote:
I think that the air transition must be executed at the same time the terran knows zerg is building the greater spire.

The terrans i see building 5 starports when the zerg is morphing his greatspire doesnt seems to have so much problems.

They also expand very aggressively with PF. Their CC are all in their bases.

I dont have any link to show you, but recently Kas did it against golden and it worked nice.

5 starport laboratory can build vikings very fast, and then go for banshees very fast too. And when the terran thinks he can do it, he can build his ravens.

If the terran knows his army will be catch offguard by BL, he should go back, and save time for his vikings by attacking everywhere except where the broodlords are. 3 tanks with 5-10 hellions can do a lot of damages to the bases far from the zerg army.
He should also have a ground army to tank the broodlings and the ultra transition with his vikings.

But well, the only problem is fungle, rooting vikings into GG is a big problem. Because the terran can be ready and still loose. He needs to have perfect control, whereas the zerg has to... fungle and transfuse :D Hopefully this will be fixed in some times.

On November 15 2012 15:46 zhurai wrote:

ok say you turtle and get a bunch of vikings.. (that are probably behind in upgrades in the first place?)
what are you going to do with your air to air army once he remaxes on ultra bane infestor

On November 15 2012 16:21 iaguz wrote:
Brood/festor/corrupters isn't an invincible composition, but to beat it you have to abandon the 3 base mech push that most people go for and start transitioning into ravens at like... 12-14 mins with the thinnest possible amount of tanks and thors and so on. This is what MVP did on ohana in IEM Koln and it was actually kind of neat (he did something kind of similar on metropolis a few times too, except with huge continuous harassment with marines in medivacs). But I feel it's very difficult to do on most maps, because Zerg have an awful lot of ways to nibble away at terran. Ohana is very cramped, Zerg will only get 5 base and so will terran. So it's extremely limited how a late late game will play out which is what this strategy is aiming for and for how much nibbling he can do.

Compare to a map like Whirlwind which is extremely huge and there's far too much ground to defend, Terran can only cover so much. And what they don't secure the Zerg will mine, and cover in crawlers and other fun stuff.

OP has a fair point that it does appear that Zergs have adapted to the current mech trend and that Terrans are going to have to mix it up a little. It's just that the criticisms for what they have to do are, well, wrong.

On November 16 2012 00:04 Nyxisto wrote:
i think one fundamental mech problem appears once the game hits the "zerg tech-switch" stage. I don't remember which game of the ro16 it was, but it was a mech tvz on entombed, where the terran player played really well, and even managed to kill a brood/infestor army very efficiently , but then lost to a (18) ultralisk switch.

I think if zerg techswitches that hard , even theoretically it isn't really possible for mech to answer it, because the necessary thor production you need to fight ultralisks is just to slow.
One important thing for the zerg for that tech switching to work is a really strong economy throughout the game, though.

Which also is the second problem mech runs into, because i think the game, if none of the players makes a really huge error, comes down to how many drones you can kill. If the terran player is not able to kill a huge amount of drones, you don't really have a timing window for your push to work, and the zergs bank is way too high which will enable him to tech-switch as he wants, which i don't think mech has an answer to.

I really feel like most mech tvz's get decided purely by how many drones you kill, because you that gives you the needed timing window for your big push to do dmg and/or prevents ultra/brood switches.
Which in the end means that it's on the zerg's early/mid game defense if you win or lose the game, which i don't like at all.

And nothing against MvP's mech build, it was innovative and great, but i feel like the better the zergs deal with the drone harass the more the build will fade out. With Marine/tank, like Bomber did at LSC, i feel like it's really up to you if you win or lose.
It comes down how you execute your pushes after you max out on three bases, and you always have the option to kind of avoid the zerg deathball and pull him out of position. The extremely slowness of zerg lategame armies is something mech doesn't abuse at all, and that combined with the things mentioned above is why i think marine/tank in the end is superior to mech.

On November 19 2012 13:38 Cydearrm wrote:
I saw a game recently where Thorzain beat Slivko with Marine-Tank into an Air transition with Ghost support. He EMP'd Slivko's Infesters and rolled over Slivko's air army. It got me thinking, and (correct me if I'm wrong) I believe that PDD stops all Zerg AA except the Infested Terran. Why haven't more pros been using Ghosts against Infesters? Or am I just not watching the correct games?

edit: Here's a vod of that game from IPL caster search submissions. Game starts at 0:16. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTJZbX0NUBA&feature=plcp