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[D] SC2 History of TvZ

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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MeaNySC2
Profile Blog Joined October 2011
Korea (South)38 Posts
December 22 2012 01:10 GMT
#1
1. The early builds (Open Season 1)
In the early days, as we may all know, Terran was a lot stronger than Zerg in many aspects. First of all, the limited map pool contained many maps (Lost Temple, Steppes of War etc) that were favorable for Terrans for the reasons that they were small and provided vulnerability of Zergs' expansions. Next, regarding the builds, Terrans were able to make Barracks before supply depot and research Nitropack(reaper speed) upgrade before factory. Also, building times for barracks and bunkers were 60s and 30s from the currently 65s and 40s respectively.
At the time, there were no expansion builds. There were many players that used the 5 rax reaper build as well as 1 base marauder hellion/ marine marauder rushes. These builds were extremely difficult to hold as Zergs especially when their roaches were only range 2. However, as Terrans have not yet come up with the marine split control, the one base builds were still defendable. This is probably the reason why ST.Fruitdealer's win as a Zerg seemed amazing.

2. MarineKing's Entrance (Open Season 2~3)
Blizzard has patched Terran to not be able to build Barracks before supply depot and upgrade reaper speed before factory.
This is when the historical gamer appears to the scene. He was Boxer, who is currently known as MarineKing. MarineKing really did live up to the name of Boxer, showing impressive gameplays. In fact, this was the player that first showed his marine split control against banelings. Today it is regarded as the basic micro to have as a Terran, but at the time, it just did not make sense that pure marines could kill banelings. Moreover, he develops 2rax builds into standard builds, namely 12/14 and 11/11.
Realizing that his innovation was too much, Blizzard patches bunker build time from 30 to 35 to 40.
Although he did lose to Nestea in the Open Season 2, he did completely pioneer the metagame.

3. MVP's fast expansion
After the end of Open Season 3, it was MVP who introduced the standard build of all time, fast expansion.
At the time, going for fast command center seemed very vulnerable against Zerg. This was because roach and baneling all ins seemed scary. However, MVP showed that with proper micro, reactored factory expansion and 1 rax expansion could sufficiently handle these all ins. It was at this stage of SC2 that almost every Terran considered fast expansion as the standard go-to build. The reactored factory expansion was especially the popular one, allowing Terrans to deny creep spread with 4~6 hellions while gathering army and halting Zergs to get 6 gases.
Also, Zergs started to use mutaling rather than roaches.

4. Zerg's Development - Nestea (2011 March)
Zergs were having a hard time dealing with reactored hellion expansion and 1rax expansion builds, not to mention the classic 2 rax. This was due to the way how BroodWar was played. Zergs were pressured to have one more expansion than the Terran, but this often led them to crumble before taking the wanted 6 gases. This was when Nestea showed a new way to play. Rather than prematurely going for another expansion, he prepared himself to defend Terran's push. Only after defending the push would he go for the 6 gases. Nestea, after getting 3 bases, would get mutaling instead of droning, and would continue droning after defending pushes. His leniency for expansions gave him huge success.

5. Terran's Development - Triple (2011 post June)
Terrans have realized that going for a push on 2 base and taking third is getting difficult. Hence, they have realized something.
(1) If Zerg is going for early pressure, they can defend it with hellion, marauder and tanks
(2) Getting a macro OC on 2 bases would provide immense economy thanks to the mules.
Therefore, the reactored hellion into triple build comes to the scene. Contrary to the 2 base build, while sacrificing a small number of marines, Terran would have one more Orbital Command. Terrans would always have faster third and sufficient army to defend early pushes. Furthermore, because queens only had 3 range at this time, the hellions from this build were sufficient to gain map control and reduce creep spread. This is the reason why even in the present, we almost always see the triple OC.

6. DRG's Entrace and MMA (2011)
Though he could not pass through code A preliminaries, DRG's performance in GSTL after mid 2011 was astonishing. He was always on top of the Korean ladder, and gained a lot of attention when he has joined team MVP. This was when he was probably the best player in dealing with Terran's triple build.
He was able to be patient against Terran's triple, calmly fending off the hellions and crushing the opponent after getting 6 gas. When Terran engages, he would often counterattack against Terran's vulnerable expansions. MMA was his rival.
MMA was player of SlayerS, really resembling Boxer's SC1 dropship plays. The two players' matches were always interesting and showed the top level play of TvZ. The peak of this was at Blizzardcup Finals. Please watch from set 1 to 7 if you have not yet seen the games.

7. King MVP's Strategy and nerf (late 2011~ early 2012)
2011 August Code S ro4 MVP vs July game 2 Metalopolis.
MVP comes with a new strategy. He went for hellion expansion into 3 tank timing push into triple without being greedy. July seemed advantageous with better early game economy. However, fantastic tank positions and unit movement allowed MVP the gold expansion and split the map into half. This is when a new unit appears: ghost. When the map is split into half, July could only go for hive units to go against MVP. Here, MVP comes with more than 16 cloaked ghosts and snipes all of broodlords and ultralisks. This was astonishing. At the time snipe dealt 45 damage, meaning that 10 shots and 8shots would kill an ultralisk and broodlord respectively. Compared to how much zerg has invested on these units, this strategy was far more efficient.
Unfortunately, MVP has forced Blizzard to nerf snipe.

8. Stephano's New Metagame. Upgrade Zerg, Upgrade Terran (early~mid 2012)
When mutaling and hellion triple were becoming solid standards of the matchup, a new metagame enters.
This metagame, for the first time, started in the West, rather than in Korea. It was from Stephano, who brought many interesting plays. Instead of using mutalisks, he used infestor ling to sustain mid game to produce ultralisks in the late game. This has become such a standard in the present, but at the time, no one could think that a Zerg could win a game against Terran without mutalisks. It was due to medivac harassments. However, Stephano's near-perfect macro and multitasking utilized infestors to fend of drops to get hive units and easily take games.
Here, there was an important thought process. It was to minimize baneling count to use that gas on Zergling upgrade. This was considered very unusual, but it has become the solid standard now. In the blizzardcup, MVP used massive number of hellions to punish his build. However, after this build's advantage was discovered, mutaling builds have come to an end and infestor + hive units have become the new metagame. Furthermore, though in the past, Terran's upgrades were better than the Zergs', now it is much easier for Zergs to get faster upgrades, leading Zerglings to be much stronger in the field.
In reaction to this, Terrans have also come up with their own upgrade style, going for double ebays. TvZ has basically come to double into triple into double upgrade.

9. Queen patch, Overlord patch, death of hellion triple, entrance of 6 queens (mid 2012)
David Kim claimed to balance ZvP by buffing queen range and overlord movement speed. However, this patch gave much greater of an impact to TvZ. With the new queen buff, early hellions were easily fended off by queens. Therefore, Terrans have decided to go for an expansion first before taking double gas into factory. In other words, because Terrans could not stop zerg from droning hard in the early game, they have decided to go for an early expansion themselves.
Until this patch, Zergs had to take gas before going third to fend off hellions. However, with the queen buff, queen was the only unit Zerg needed to get extremely greedy. This was when Yugioh came up with 6queen build triple. He used the 6 queens to fend of marine hellion and get the late speedling to defend further pushes. 2 of the 6 queens were pumping larvae, while the remaining 4 transfused themselves to stay defensive and spread creep. This allowed Zergs to go extremely high econ build, saturating all three bases in to time. When Terran was willing to push at 2/2 timing, the creep was already spreaded to the Terran's base.
No Terran could provide solution to this, leading to 3-22 winrate against Zerg in the GSTL.

10. TvZ ultimate: banshee mechanic
However, Terran, being the responsive race, eventually came up with a solution. Instead of trying to make a massive army for the win, they tried to harass the 8gas while taking expansions themselves and playing late game. MVP especially used the first 200/200 army to pressure the Zerg while getting raven, viking and battlecruisers and play the lategame.
Also, there was another Terran who was doing a new research. It was MarineKing. In Atlantis Spaceship, MarineKing went for one rax expansion into getting constant hellion and banshee to harass the Zerg while taking a blatant third himself. He then went for double armories, playing the mech lategame. MVP has developed this by getting constant supply of banshees, leading the banshee mechanic build.
As a result of this, the balance at this stage has pretty much found its place.

11. Present
While banshee mechanic was definitely a strong build, this only worked under one condition: Zerg does not go for early pressure. Zergs have realized that instead of going for a fast third, they could go for 2 base pressure once again to find the weakness of triple into mech. The roach attacks were still defendable with sufficient banshee and hellions. However, the 2 base muta was extremely difficult to hold, especially when Terran has nothing but ground attacking units. This was when the mech play started to fade away, bringing the marine tank once again. However, against the marine tank, Zergs have realized that they won't necessarily have to rush hive unit at the cost of safety. They could just stack up infestors to deal with pretty much any form of attack, and safely taking 8 gases into hive units. This playstyle from the Zerg proved extremely successful, leading to many ZvZs in major tournaments.
GM Korean Terran FUNTIME twitch.tv/meanysc2 youtube.com/meanytv
aaycumi
Profile Joined March 2011
England265 Posts
December 22 2012 01:34 GMT
#2
Frankly, that was a good write-up. Have such a time pointing people to found out this stuff but you did all the research cheerz.
LlamaNamedOsama
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
United States1900 Posts
December 22 2012 01:47 GMT
#3
Nice writeup, although you left out a part of the Slayers hellion period, where the Slayers team dominated the matchup with their hellion drop strategies (around the first MLG that started inviting koreans, I believe Columbus?). This, in combination with their insane amount of scv kills with hellions in TvT, led to the hellion nerf.

Also, forgg should get credit for the hellion-banshee opening as the new method of trying to harass when hellions alone were not enough with the post-queen buff.
Dario Wünsch: I guess...Creator...met his maker *sunglasses*
dUTtrOACh
Profile Joined December 2010
Canada2339 Posts
December 22 2012 01:51 GMT
#4
Hopefully this thread continues to be updated as the HotS beta draws to a close and the early metagame is established for the expansion. As someone who doesn't participate in the beta it would be nice to pop onto this thread and see more or less where Terran stands, when the time comes. Thanks for the write-up. It's pretty good.
twitch.tv/duttroach
Steelo_Rivers
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
United States1968 Posts
December 22 2012 02:09 GMT
#5
Im mad that in #9, ForGG got no type of credit for his Hellion Banshee build that everyone stole.
ok
glabius
Profile Joined November 2011
46 Posts
December 22 2012 02:12 GMT
#6
Yeah a couple errors I think. Forgg is the one that popularized the banshee hellion build after 1 rax expand. MVP then brought the build to prominence in some IEM I forgot which.
iTzSnypah
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
United States1738 Posts
December 22 2012 02:21 GMT
#7
Even though there is a lot of content, I felt that it is all abridged too much and leaves too much to be inferred. People who didn't play in the early phases of TvZ are going to feel that the game was broken by your description.
Team Liquid needs more Terrans.
TheDougler
Profile Joined April 2010
Canada8304 Posts
December 22 2012 02:30 GMT
#8
No mention of BitByBit?! Shame!

Otherwise nice writeup.
I root for Euro Zergs, NA Protoss* and Korean Terrans. (Any North American who has beat a Korean Pro as Protoss counts as NA Toss)
monk
Profile Blog Joined May 2009
United States8476 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-12-22 02:45:28
December 22 2012 02:43 GMT
#9
On December 22 2012 11:09 LgNKami wrote:
Im mad that in #9, ForGG got no type of credit for his Hellion Banshee build that everyone stole.

forGG was the first iirc, but all oGs Terrans(forgg, Supernova and thestc) used it a lot before anyone else did. Also, it might be nice idea if we write one for every MU. PvZ one here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=383628#5.2
Moderator
dynwar7
Profile Joined May 2011
1983 Posts
December 22 2012 03:07 GMT
#10
Interesting read, I enjoyed it
Regarding the imbalance, hilarious to see Zergs defending themselves....
Chronos.
Profile Joined February 2012
United States805 Posts
December 22 2012 03:28 GMT
#11
Thanks for the writeup, it's really cool. I think a useful thing if you have the time would be to link 1 standard game from each of these periods, or a game where this tactic was first employed for example. I love TvZ so much, it's so dynamic and has shifted so much since launch. Can't wait to see how the matchup will unfold when HotS is released!!!

By the way, you might have to put in another entry to this histroy soon:

12. Stephano's New Metagame Part 2. Roach Hydra
danl9rm
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
United States3111 Posts
December 22 2012 04:38 GMT
#12
Wow, nice. There are probably even more "steps" in there, maybe not worth mentioning. I'm thinking... SlayerS' 8 blue flame hellion drop. Doesn't work? Do it again.

I guess you could get caught up with doing every iteration. You definitely hit the highlights. Great job.
"Science has so well established that the preborn baby in the womb is a living human being that most pro-choice activists have conceded the point. ..since the abortion proponents have lost the science argument, they are now advocating an existential one."
Escuche
Profile Blog Joined June 2012
60 Posts
December 22 2012 04:51 GMT
#13
For some reason, people always credit Stephano for the ling infestor upgrade style. The first person I saw rely on that heavily every game was Destiny, long before Stephano did it, back in 2011. And even before that, Terrans used to upgrade marines while Zerg players ignored upgrades.
KimJongChill
Profile Joined January 2011
United States6429 Posts
December 22 2012 05:19 GMT
#14
Awesome write-up, really makes me think of re-evaluating my current zvt..
MMA: U realise MMA: Most of my army EgIdra: fuck off MMA: Killed my orbital MMA: LOL MMA: just saying MMA: u werent loss
Heavenfallz
Profile Joined September 2012
Australia73 Posts
December 22 2012 05:24 GMT
#15
Nice write up. Was nostalgic thinking back to those times and how sc2 developed
"Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories" - Sun Tzu
casualman
Profile Joined April 2010
United States1198 Posts
December 22 2012 05:32 GMT
#16
Mid-Late 2011, the age of muta/ling vs marine tank, the age when ultralisks and infestor/broodlord were used in equal amounts in the lategame was the golden age of TvZ. Tons of pressure all game, lots of drops, and zerg couldn't just drone with as much impunity as they do nowadays. The midgame was king; instead of modern TvZ, in which a 14:00 hive is standard, fast hives were around 16:00~17:00, and the muta/ling vs marine/tank phase of the game lasted well into 18:00~24:00 minute time intervals. We'd see lots of bases from zerg, 4ths from terran while either pressuring or turtling heavily, and tons of sharking around on the map with lots of small engagements here and there.

Oh how I miss thee TvZ
GuMiho <3
Thienan567
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
United States670 Posts
December 22 2012 05:47 GMT
#17
I wouldn't say we had lots of small engagements here and there, but rather a bunch of medium-sized engagements with entire armies (which weren't always maxed) at various points at different times around the map. e.g. one big fight at zerg third, followed by engagement at terran third while zerg takes fourth, while a drop is going on, nydus here, runby there, drop over there, etc.

I have to agree it was damn fun though. Especially seeing cute things like bane mines, raven play. It was...well, it was fun.
FinestHour
Profile Joined August 2010
United States18466 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-12-22 05:54:06
December 22 2012 05:52 GMT
#18
honestly, you should include some input about the infestor :0 like go more in depth on some more of its impact
thug life.                                                       MVP/ex-
Cyro
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United Kingdom20285 Posts
December 22 2012 06:20 GMT
#19
Looking back, that DRG vs MMA bo7 was probably the peak of ZvT and arguably WOL as a whole
"oh my god my overclock... I got a single WHEA error on the 23rd hour, 9 minutes" -Belial88
vayuu
Profile Joined May 2012
Canada66 Posts
December 22 2012 06:46 GMT
#20
long midgame aggresion was the soul of SC2, sad to see it wither away
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