EPTIn 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.
Especially seeing cute things like bane mines, raven play. It was...well, it was fun.
