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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
the first time i saw this was originally supernova but he wasn't doing this as much, forgg was the person who popularized it imo. i just remember watching his original hellion banshee game vs leenock on daybreak and thinking the whole time how refined his build was, and how safe it was from mostly everything. even though he lost that game, i'll never forget my jaw dropping one inch for every scv, marine and 2nd depot that was skipped while forgg took ref 1, 2 after his CC. what seems so trivial now was just so amazing back then.
I think you forgot the "Slayers terran helion" where they would mass blue flame and just pwn face, forcing blue flame helions to get nerfed. Also, Destiny (although no one likes to admit it for some reason) started ling infestor into ultras long before stephano did and defeated players like bombers in show matches. This was when Infestors did 36 damage and 48 btw (the super Winfestor). Stephano only got credited because he did it better =)
On December 22 2012 19:21 phodacbiet wrote: I think you forgot the "Slayers terran helion" where they would mass blue flame and just pwn face, forcing blue flame helions to get nerfed. Also, Destiny (although no one likes to admit it for some reason) started ling infestor into ultras long before stephano did and defeated players like bombers in show matches. This was when Infestors did 36 damage and 48 btw (the super Winfestor). Stephano only got credited because he did it better =)
Hm no Destiny only massed infestors, remember he kept claiming you "only make ultralisks if you want to lose". He also didn't go for the ungodly early double evos. A lot of people said it was not possible to go pure ling for so long AND take double upgrades so early on. Destiny stayed on two base for a long time and made a lot of infestors,
Stephano expanded earlier and made much more lings and fast upgrades and tech, ultimately going into fast ultralisks. Stephano's build was also a lot safer and versatile than Destiny's.
On December 22 2012 19:21 phodacbiet wrote: I think you forgot the "Slayers terran helion" where they would mass blue flame and just pwn face, forcing blue flame helions to get nerfed. Also, Destiny (although no one likes to admit it for some reason) started ling infestor into ultras long before stephano did and defeated players like bombers in show matches. This was when Infestors did 36 damage and 48 btw (the super Winfestor). Stephano only got credited because he did it better =)
Well that's not true. it wasn't just ling infestor stephano did. It was very fast upgrade that made his lings be able to beat marines and tanks. One of his favourite build at the time where he started to popularize his new meta game was his" ling only style" A style that made Terrans in EU question the state of balance of lings. Kas was especially very outspoken about this hehe. You are right about one thing other zergs did make lings and infestors before Stephano did but not in the way he did it with his gas timings and fast upgrades followed by a macro hatch and a fast 3rd to get more larva for lings and then tech to ultralisk and it completely revolutionized the current metagame
Great write up, brought a little tear to my eye remembering all that tvz once was. The glory of the epic marine splits, baneling flanks, muta harass, drop / runby aggression and defense... God.
Some series/games you may want to use as reference material/case exhibits:
Golden age: MMA vs DRG blizzard cup, Leenock vs jjakji GSL finals Ghost era: MVP vs NESTEA, blizzcon finals. MVP vs xigua WCG Terran's (almost) only hope in an age of Zerg domination: Polt vs Stephano, lone star clash 1, assembly winter, MLG - a period that gave birth to one of the most stories rivalries in star2's (short) history. The short lived period of "holy crap Terran's winning with a composition that should never work): MKP VS DRG from the MLG arenas they met each other in. Byun's tvz marauder banshee hellion compositions in the mid game. Polts CC first marauder hellion.
God, this truly is an amazing matchup. The advent of infestor-turtle-hive has ushered in an era of hopelessness for Terrans in general, but history is cause for hope, huh?
A lot of mistakes (from what I remember): 1.) -) roaches were 3range (not 2) -) Fruitdealer won because he was a heavy gambler, mixing allins with 60drone builds. This basically had nothing to do with "marine control". He was just simply one step ahead, metagaming opponents instead of going for "blind builds".
2.), 3.) -) didn't MKP use 1rax FE quite heavily? And if not MKP, I think Boxer and Nada were probably way more influencial than Mvp for using FE builds; as far as I remember, Mvp was "just" the best T player at that time. Especially in TvT. -) Maka (MakaRax) needs to be mentioned somewhere here; These builds had quite a huge impact on how T was being played
4.)
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
Every Zerg was doing that. I can't remember any good Z players that went 3base at that time. Kyrix was famous for 2basing, July was famous 2basing. There was really noone who played fast 3bases at all. Nestea was "just" better at not getting faked out, better at droning, better at spreading creep. He developed a lot of great defensive mechanisms (pushing creep with a spine crawler) and - similarily to Fruitdealer - was quite good at metagaming his opponents with a variety of banling busts and heavy droning.
7.) This timing push was like the oldest build ever, when Mvp played it. 50% of all TvZs on the ladder in Masters league was the 3Tank push, from early to late 2011. Everybody was doing it and Mvp was one of the first players to stop doing it. But he always mixed some forms of it into his play. Ghosts were being used before that. Everybody had started using them at that time. Demuslim made a comment along the lines of "I didn't know how to handle Zerg lategame. Greg told me to stop building Vikings and build ghosts instead. They are amazing." I think Thorzain was well known for them as well. Select ditto. Basically everybody minus MMA was going for Ghosts in TvZ at that point. Mvp didn't get Ghosts nerfed. Ghosts were nerfed because Terrans found ways to mass them and in the old form they countered every Zerg unit, once massed.
8.)
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
Simply no. The queen patch was made, because of hellions. The official comments were something like "hellions can contain Zerg too easily for two long".
10.), 11.) 2base Mutas have always been around and have never hindered Terran from going Mech.
On December 23 2012 00:29 Clazziquai10 wrote: You may need to add roach hydra zvt really soon lol
That's only effective because MKP messed up repeatedly against it.
Maybe MKP messed up quite a bit. But Stephano beat Ganzi and MMA quite convincingly with it as well, and MMA especially seemed to be playing quite well against it.
WoL may not have enough time left for such a huge metagame shift, but when HotS comes out with hydra speed buff, it could happen.
On December 23 2012 00:29 Clazziquai10 wrote: You may need to add roach hydra zvt really soon lol
That's only effective because MKP messed up repeatedly against it.
MMA Ganzi?
I remember people said the same thing when Stephano introduced his upgrades lings infestors. I recall Idra calling it gimmick style and no one will remember him in 6months hehe
On December 22 2012 13:38 danl9rm wrote: 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.
Yeah, I was thinking about this. Although the write-up includes some mention of hellions and such, I just want to point everyone to MLG Raleigh 2011 where Mvp totally turned the matchup on its head with his blue flame hellion build in TvZ. After this, yes, was the SlayerS hellion dominance.
Also might mention the IEM where Mvp basically made mech viable against zerg; mech is increasingly becoming the standard in TvZ, it feels like.
On December 23 2012 00:29 Clazziquai10 wrote: You may need to add roach hydra zvt really soon lol
That's only effective because MKP messed up repeatedly against it.
MMA Ganzi?
I remember people said the same thing when Stephano introduced his upgrades lings infestors. I recall Idra calling it gimmick style and no one will remember him in 6months hehe
I totally believed this too. I was of the definite opinion that once everyone figured out his timings and the way he played, they'd be fine against it and he'd fade into obscurity. When we remember him smashing faces at Red Bull LAN with his continual roach/ling maxout, it didn't matter that all the protosses knew the timing of his 3rd base, roach warren, evo chamber, lair, and roach pressure. They still all died. I finally accepted the fact that Stephano was actually a really good player with just really solid strategy and logic.
hehehe I believed in infestor/ling ^^. Though even I underestimated that it'd overtake muta/ling/bane as the dominant Zerg comp.....I also sadly underestimated how it would contribute to making the game far less entertaining. It was cool when it first came out though :/
Overall, I think you hit most of the notable eras, except two.
1) The Slayers BF Hellion surge at MLG Anaheim in 2011. Namely, the dreaded elevator push that killed numerous Zergs.
2) General trends in Zerg play following MVP's 3rd title win and GomTvT of October-end of 2011. I distinctly remember Zergs across the board improving their creep spread (SEAL!), experimenting with wall-ins to combat hellions, and some opening with multiple queens to beat the elevator push (Nestea vs MMA on Terminus immediately comes to mind).
On December 22 2012 15:20 Cyro wrote: Looking back, that DRG vs MMA bo7 was probably the peak of ZvT and arguably WOL as a whole
MMA almost didn't rely on ghosts even before the snipe nerf. This made his TvZ so exciting to see (the massive dropage helped it a lot too). TvZ was good before late game before ghosts come out e pewpew anything.
TBH, the peak of quality of WoL, IMO, is the 2012 TvT. Mech vs Mech, Biotank vs Mech, Bio vs Mech, Marinetank vs Marinetank. All of these styles are really awesome.
The problem is with Zerg dominating we almost never see a TvT =/.
Other thing that people aren't seeing is that TvP is becoming really Terran favored these days. Guys like Bomber just aren't losing to Toss anymore. The "new" heavy drop style is really strong. But this is happening with just some players and with so few terran out the no one is really seeing.
People are talking about Destiny using infestors, but I'm pretty sure Dimaga did that before him in the World Allstars match versus MVP. Either way, I think this current history focuses too much on players and not on general strategies and trends (compared to, for example, the PvZ history linked in the first page, which only uses players as examples). Doing so skips over a lot of general strategies that are hard to attribute to singular players, and distracts people with debates over who did what first/popularized what versus the actual strategies that are used.
On December 22 2012 13:51 Escuche wrote: 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.
Not only Destiny but also Nerchio and every EU zerg. However Stephano was the first to use it at very high level, revealing its strength to the koreans who used it after Stephano defeated korean terrans in IPL and ESWC!
Yeah the SlayerS hellion is kinda missing, LucifroN came back to sc2 and destroyed Stephano and Nerchio with similar blue flame drop builds!
If there is one for TvP, PuMa popularized the 1-1-1 in inter but I believe Polt and MKP were the first to use it (MKP vs MC GSL WC for example) in korea.
On December 23 2012 00:29 Clazziquai10 wrote: You may need to add roach hydra zvt really soon lol
That's only effective because MKP messed up repeatedly against it.
No with the queen buff creep spread and big maps it's a viable to enter lategame, with some transition.
Stephano is starting to use it and remember what people used to say about ultralisks lol? It will be the same for that.
For the longest time, Zerg players said that Ultralisks were a terrible, god-awful unit. Now as we know, they are one of the best late game units out there and with fungal, they become even stronger. It's amazing that so many Zerg players bought into the dogma for so long, instead of trying them for themselves.
On December 22 2012 19:21 phodacbiet wrote: I think you forgot the "Slayers terran helion" where they would mass blue flame and just pwn face, forcing blue flame helions to get nerfed. Also, Destiny (although no one likes to admit it for some reason) started ling infestor into ultras long before stephano did and defeated players like bombers in show matches. This was when Infestors did 36 damage and 48 btw (the super Winfestor). Stephano only got credited because he did it better =)
That's wrong I think. Destiny's builds had not much in common with Stephano's.
On December 22 2012 19:21 phodacbiet wrote: I think you forgot the "Slayers terran helion" where they would mass blue flame and just pwn face, forcing blue flame helions to get nerfed. Also, Destiny (although no one likes to admit it for some reason) started ling infestor into ultras long before stephano did and defeated players like bombers in show matches. This was when Infestors did 36 damage and 48 btw (the super Winfestor). Stephano only got credited because he did it better =)
That's wrong I think. Destiny's builds had not much in common with Stephano's.
I heard that Dimaga did it before him though.
Stephano first success in the EU scene was way before the infestor buff, using infestor+broodlord to beat the much more famous at the time Strelok on jungle bassin, Day9 made a vid about it I believe. It was in a go4sc2 semi-final.
On December 22 2012 10:47 LlamaNamedOsama wrote: 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.
Very nice and detailed writeup but the OP missed the elephant in the room:
The zerg deatball of infestor/broodlord/corrupter. The OP claims that the banshee mechanic build enabled the "As a result of this, the balance at this stage has pretty much found its place". However, this is false - there was no answer to the zerg deathball.
If anyone is in doubt, read Ver's analysis of the patchzergs.
On December 23 2012 10:22 Azzur wrote: Very nice and detailed writeup but the OP missed the elephant in the room:
The zerg deatball of infestor/broodlord/corrupter. The OP claims that the banshee mechanic build enabled the "As a result of this, the balance at this stage has pretty much found its place". However, this is false - there was no answer to the zerg deathball.
If anyone is in doubt, read Ver's analysis of the patchzergs.
On December 23 2012 10:22 Azzur wrote: Very nice and detailed writeup but the OP missed the elephant in the room:
The zerg deatball of infestor/broodlord/corrupter. The OP claims that the banshee mechanic build enabled the "As a result of this, the balance at this stage has pretty much found its place". However, this is false - there was no answer to the zerg deathball.
If anyone is in doubt, read Ver's analysis of the patchzergs.
You realise that thread was satirical right?
Its easy to label something as satire if you don't agree with it. I admit the foreigner explanation was a bit far-fetched but everything else, including the invincibleness of the infestor/broodlord/corrupter is 100% true. For those in the dark, Ver is a noted BW strategic authority and the author of the brilliant "How to improve" guide.
On December 23 2012 10:22 Azzur wrote: Very nice and detailed writeup but the OP missed the elephant in the room:
The zerg deatball of infestor/broodlord/corrupter. The OP claims that the banshee mechanic build enabled the "As a result of this, the balance at this stage has pretty much found its place". However, this is false - there was no answer to the zerg deathball.
If anyone is in doubt, read Ver's analysis of the patchzergs.
You realise that thread was satirical right?
Its easy to label something as satire if you don't agree with it. I admit the foreigner explanation was a bit far-fetched but everything else, including the invincibleness of the infestor/broodlord/corrupter is 100% true. For those in the dark, Ver is a noted BW strategic authority and the author of the brilliant "How to improve" guide.
No, it was pretty clearly satire. I play Terran and have some pretty strong opinions on late game TvZ but I can still see the manner which he wrote it was making fun of people who use the term 'patch zergs'. Hell, he named the headers after the Star Wars movies.
On December 22 2012 19:21 phodacbiet wrote: I think you forgot the "Slayers terran helion" where they would mass blue flame and just pwn face, forcing blue flame helions to get nerfed. Also, Destiny (although no one likes to admit it for some reason) started ling infestor into ultras long before stephano did and defeated players like bombers in show matches. This was when Infestors did 36 damage and 48 btw (the super Winfestor). Stephano only got credited because he did it better =)
That's wrong I think. Destiny's builds had not much in common with Stephano's.
I heard that Dimaga did it before him though.
Destiny definitely led the popularization of infestors.
On December 23 2012 00:29 Clazziquai10 wrote: You may need to add roach hydra zvt really soon lol
That's only effective because MKP messed up repeatedly against it.
No with the queen buff creep spread and big maps it's a viable to enter lategame, with some transition.
Stephano is starting to use it and remember what people used to say about ultralisks lol? It will be the same for that.
For the longest time, Zerg players said that Ultralisks were a terrible, god-awful unit. Now as we know, they are one of the best late game units out there and with fungal, they become even stronger. It's amazing that so many Zerg players bought into the dogma for so long, instead of trying them for themselves.
ultra don't work in all maps, it needs a huge open space and don't do too well breaking defensive terrans because of the pathing issue. They suck against PF defensive terran, and definitly is a unit to lose the game at pre hellion and ghost nerf era.
The reason is that ultras require all the melee and armor upgrade to be effective, but hellion opening makes it incredibly risky to take a quick third and so you are always forced to play 2 base vs 2 base unless you get roach out) Ultras will not really get the upgrades early enough to be effective.
And as for who popularised infestors: Dimaga used it fairly often even before infestor buff Then Spanishwa invented the IceFisher style which is only the opening, but his game focused on getting upgrades and infestors fast usually in mid game.
On December 22 2012 10:47 LlamaNamedOsama wrote: 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.
It was MLG Anaheim.
Negative. It was MLG Raleigh where Mvp was the champion. Anaheim was Leenock v Naniwa, and most of that event was based around the evolution of PvZ. Mvp unveiled the build that became standard in TvZ for a long time, which was BFH into expansion. Then of course, came the BFH hellion nerf, so reactor hellions became the thing, then players starting expanding BEFORE reactor hellions, etc....
And even if he was the first to show it in a GSL game, you can't say that everyone "stole" it, as it must have been used on ladder before. And if not, Gumiho has been doing similar builds (as well as many players, even ones that aren't pros) where you open hellion banshee (expand before or after hellions), and getting to 3 base or 3 fact before taking third. I remember Gumiho using a hellion banshee into fast third build (i know, different from what forgg usually does which is take 3 fact before his third) against Nestea in 2011 WCG qualifiers on TDA), and other terrans including MMA doing that after gumiho started showing it in GSL/WCG games with some slight variations. I also remember Gumiho doing a 3 fact build before taking his third vs his Code A series against Curious.
Not bad but you should talk about the 2 base 3 tank push that was standard until stephano came in. Also the 2base marine bfh push. See Sen vs Marineking in the GSL world championship.
I'm sure we could argue who "invented" infestor/ling all day. Personally, I learned about it from a strat post MrBitter made here in Feb 2011 and was using it pretty much through the summer until I got frustrated playing against mass drops. Then I saw how Stephano was handling it and went back to it. But I also remember Leenock doing it a couple times and I think another Korean Zerg who I cannot recall atm. Tbh, I remember Destiny way more for his infestor timing attacks in ZvP rather than ZvT, though he obviously deserves credit for popularizing the infestor in general. I don't think we can ever really say who "did it first", but I think that Stephano's IPL3 win was the main catalyst behind the shift to infestor-based play, so it's fair that he gets the lion's share of the credit IMO.
I think Spanishiwa's gasless opening deserves some mention as well. I think it was generally the most useful in ZvT, and I think it's also the first time gasless openings were really explored.
I enjoyed reading this. I wonder where we are going? the day9 daily on bombers tvz SEEMS to have started a little shift on the ladder, at least where I play.
On December 23 2012 00:29 Clazziquai10 wrote: You may need to add roach hydra zvt really soon lol
That's only effective because MKP messed up repeatedly against it.
No with the queen buff creep spread and big maps it's a viable to enter lategame, with some transition.
Stephano is starting to use it and remember what people used to say about ultralisks lol? It will be the same for that.
For the longest time, Zerg players said that Ultralisks were a terrible, god-awful unit. Now as we know, they are one of the best late game units out there and with fungal, they become even stronger. It's amazing that so many Zerg players bought into the dogma for so long, instead of trying them for themselves.
Ultras "suck" only because infestor/broodlord/corrupter is just better
God, it's been just a year since MMA vs DRG... So much has happened after and lowered the thrilling standards of TvZ. I wonder what the metagame would look like if the queen buff never existed.
Spanishiwa's gasless build deserves a footnote really, I remember when it entered the metagame and eventually created the safe gasless builds.
I think you missed the part where BL infestor firest became prominent. Then the Terran started using ghost snipe to counter but then snipe got nerfed so ghosts were again sacked.
On December 22 2012 10:47 LlamaNamedOsama wrote: 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.
It was MLG Anaheim.
Negative. It was MLG Raleigh where Mvp was the champion. Anaheim was Leenock v Naniwa, and most of that event was based around the evolution of PvZ. Mvp unveiled the build that became standard in TvZ for a long time, which was BFH into expansion. Then of course, came the BFH hellion nerf, so reactor hellions became the thing, then players starting expanding BEFORE reactor hellions, etc....
No, he's right, it was MLG Anaheim. Anaheim was the one that MVP won (http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/2011_MLG_Pro_Circuit/Anaheim), and Leenock vs. Naniwa was Providence. I don't think MVP "unveiled reactor hellion" into expansion because that predated the Slayers' incorporation of medivac drops for that opening to do huge early game damage, and the Slayers team used that at Anaheim.
On December 23 2012 00:29 Clazziquai10 wrote: You may need to add roach hydra zvt really soon lol
That's only effective because MKP messed up repeatedly against it.
No with the queen buff creep spread and big maps it's a viable to enter lategame, with some transition.
Stephano is starting to use it and remember what people used to say about ultralisks lol? It will be the same for that.
For the longest time, Zerg players said that Ultralisks were a terrible, god-awful unit. Now as we know, they are one of the best late game units out there and with fungal, they become even stronger. It's amazing that so many Zerg players bought into the dogma for so long, instead of trying them for themselves.
Ultras "suck" only because infestor/broodlord/corrupter is just better
Ultras "sucked", because they were really bad pre-Stephano style, as they are easily counterable if the opponent has enough time to prepare (Marauder, Siege Tanks) and really bad vs marines if not properly upgraded. Coming out 2-4 at 15min (and becoming 3-5 soon after) helped a lot - and made Terrans whine a lot about "Zerg not being supposed to get T3 that fast". Not to mention how much better "Infestor-->Ultralisk" is, compared to "Mutalisk-->Ultralisk".
On December 22 2012 10:47 LlamaNamedOsama wrote: 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.
It was MLG Anaheim.
Negative. It was MLG Raleigh where Mvp was the champion. Anaheim was Leenock v Naniwa, and most of that event was based around the evolution of PvZ. Mvp unveiled the build that became standard in TvZ for a long time, which was BFH into expansion. Then of course, came the BFH hellion nerf, so reactor hellions became the thing, then players starting expanding BEFORE reactor hellions, etc....
No, he's right, it was MLG Anaheim. Anaheim was the one that MVP won (http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/2011_MLG_Pro_Circuit/Anaheim), and Leenock vs. Naniwa was Providence. I don't think MVP "unveiled reactor hellion" into expansion because that predated the Slayers' incorporation of medivac drops for that opening to do huge early game damage, and the Slayers team used that at Anaheim.
Oh, you're right. I was totally sure it was Raleigh. My bad.
And I was talking about, in particular, the BFH opening which was the same as reactor hellion except you get a techlab and fast blue flame instead of the reactor. I would say that was the highlight of this MLG, as Mvp did that exclusively against every zerg player, and from that point onward, hellion openers became the standard. Overall, I would say the SlayerS hellion domination started at Anaheim and didn't become REALLY popular until the next MLG.
On December 23 2012 10:22 Azzur wrote: Very nice and detailed writeup but the OP missed the elephant in the room:
The zerg deatball of infestor/broodlord/corrupter. The OP claims that the banshee mechanic build enabled the "As a result of this, the balance at this stage has pretty much found its place". However, this is false - there was no answer to the zerg deathball.
If anyone is in doubt, read Ver's analysis of the patchzergs.
You realise that thread was satirical right?
Its easy to label something as satire if you don't agree with it. I admit the foreigner explanation was a bit far-fetched but everything else, including the invincibleness of the infestor/broodlord/corrupter is 100% true. For those in the dark, Ver is a noted BW strategic authority and the author of the brilliant "How to improve" guide.
No, it was pretty clearly satire. I play Terran and have some pretty strong opinions on late game TvZ but I can still see the manner which he wrote it was making fun of people who use the term 'patch zergs'. Hell, he named the headers after the Star Wars movies.
Yes it was a satire but no that was not my motivation. Satire can be used to push legitimate cases too. I released it to a) make people laugh at the absurdity of the situation and b) in a (forlorn) hope to get enough pressure on blizzard to remove fungal from the game and strengthen better units like muta/baneling to compensate.
On December 22 2012 14:52 FinestHour wrote: honestly, you should include some input about the infestor :0 like go more in depth on some more of its impact
Infestors only made a real impact once Zerg could tech and econ like crazy because of broken as shit queens.
Seriously, remove the queen buff and no one would be talking about Infestors at all right now.
Not sure if it is really that significant, but what about MKP bring back pure Bio play in early 2012 (.vs Curious in GSTL, and DRG in MLG etc.)? I know pure Bio wasn't exactly new at the time but it certainly wasn't popular, or thought to be viable.
On December 24 2012 21:20 noXZ wrote: Not sure if it is really that significant, but what about MKP bring back pure Bio play in early 2012 (.vs Curious in GSTL, and DRG in MLG etc.)? I know pure Bio wasn't exactly new at the time but it certainly wasn't popular, or thought to be viable.
Yeah that's true as well. Although not sure about the date, might have been last year because I remember games on Lost Temple where he never used tanks, just used Marauders to tank Banelings while Marines did the rest. At the time it was standard for marine/tanks/medivac because it was more reliable.
Probably not significant because only a couple of Terrans picked it up while nearly everyone else stayed on the standard composition.
On December 23 2012 10:22 Azzur wrote: Very nice and detailed writeup but the OP missed the elephant in the room:
The zerg deatball of infestor/broodlord/corrupter. The OP claims that the banshee mechanic build enabled the "As a result of this, the balance at this stage has pretty much found its place". However, this is false - there was no answer to the zerg deathball.
If anyone is in doubt, read Ver's analysis of the patchzergs.
You realise that thread was satirical right?
Its easy to label something as satire if you don't agree with it. I admit the foreigner explanation was a bit far-fetched but everything else, including the invincibleness of the infestor/broodlord/corrupter is 100% true. For those in the dark, Ver is a noted BW strategic authority and the author of the brilliant "How to improve" guide.
No, it was pretty clearly satire. I play Terran and have some pretty strong opinions on late game TvZ but I can still see the manner which he wrote it was making fun of people who use the term 'patch zergs'. Hell, he named the headers after the Star Wars movies.
I also disagree with you.
I found Ver's analysis to be mostly true with some sensational parts added for humor.
On December 22 2012 13:51 Escuche wrote: 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.
Yeah I was thinking this too. It was catz and destiny who really pushed infestor use to the limits and innovated a lot of things like using infested terran bombs to harass. They were really the first ones to show how infestors could be used to fight major battles and harass and defend.
On December 22 2012 12:28 Chronos. wrote: 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
Hahaha x) but... NesTea said : "I would remove Hydralisks from WoL"
I think you should have mentioned before the queen/overlord patch TvZ was at a 52~% win rate in terrans favor, lots of people considered it the most balanced non-mirror match up and I considered it the most fun to watch. The overlord patch was a good idea I think but I don't know why blizzard thought range upgrade for queens was a good idea, practically making every game no rush 15 while both players get 3 bases and zerg slowly kills you with bl/infestor.
These reads are proving that Terrans as a whole are more intellectual and responsive as players and people. I do not see one counter thread made by a zerg that is well organized saying, if infestors get nerfed we will be screwed, or this is why we NEED fungal to have poison stun and be so cost effective agiasnt its mirror spell, the Hunter seeker missle.
On December 25 2012 08:46 RaXCitY wrote: These reads are proving that Terrans as a whole are more intellectual and responsive as players and people. I do not see one counter thread made by a zerg that is well organized saying, if infestors get nerfed we will be screwed, or this is why we NEED fungal to have poison stun and be so cost effective agiasnt its mirror spell, the Hunter seeker missle.
Are you actually saying that, based on the evolution of the metagame, Terran players are more intelligent. I play Terran and even I think that is fucking stupid.
On December 25 2012 08:51 KT(Rolster)HaunteR wrote:
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.
That's quite true Karmi. ForGG created that build overall when he came on the scene.
He went through Code A with 0 games lost.
I'm not even sure what you're trying to insinuate with this post :/
I think you misread the post as saying he won 0 games? It's saying forgg lost 0 games in his code A run, so he was a good Terran/worthy of recognition in the TvZ strategy list history.
On December 25 2012 08:51 KT(Rolster)HaunteR wrote:
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.
That's quite true Karmi. ForGG created that build overall when he came on the scene.
He went through Code A with 0 games lost.
I'm not even sure what you're trying to insinuate with this post :/
I think you misread the post as saying he won 0 games? It's saying forgg lost 0 games in his code A run, so he was a good Terran/worthy of recognition in the TvZ strategy list history.
No I didn't misread it, I just didn't know he didn't lose any games so I thought it was randomly bashing ForGG. Sorry for my mistake.
I am saying counter arguments don't even exist for zergs meta game style currently and every answer before was a NERF on Terran buff on zerg. As a result Terran becomes the road less traveled, and those who play terran are picking to play easy normal HARD off the bat . Its not meta game evolution as you call it, because evolving means you get better, it's a meta game roller coaster of bad design.
Very nice write-up. I could see Stephanos new roach-hydra build become part of this history anytime soon. It's really interesting to see how the metagame changes.
On December 22 2012 13:51 Escuche wrote: 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.
Yeah I was thinking this too. It was catz and destiny who really pushed infestor use to the limits and innovated a lot of things like using infested terran bombs to harass. They were really the first ones to show how infestors could be used to fight major battles and harass and defend.
Well, I learned about ling infestor through bitters 12 weeks with the pros. Which was even before the infestor buff. I think he was tought it by lzgamer who said it is a strifecro build. I still remember how all the terrans on the ladder were like "How can this work???" when I used mrBitters build.
I feel like roach/ling and roach/baneling busts deserve some kind of mention, but I don't know who you'd credit, or when exactly it was. It was before queen buff. The refined build for roach+baneling may have been shown first by DRG or Leenock, but the idea behind it was a bit older.
sometime after 1 marine + 4 hellions + 3OC + double ebay started becoming normal, zergs would mix in roach all-ins to try to keep terrans honest. I have no idea what you're building behind those 4 hellions, if you are cutting corners every game you'll lose if I happen to choose to all-in you.
On December 25 2012 09:31 Oboeman wrote: I feel like roach/ling and roach/baneling busts deserve some kind of mention, but I don't know who you'd credit, or when exactly it was. It was before queen buff. The refined build for roach+baneling may have been shown first by DRG or Leenock, but the idea behind it was a bit older.
sometime after 1 marine + 4 hellions + 3OC + double ebay started becoming normal, zergs would mix in roach all-ins to try to keep terrans honest. I have no idea what you're building behind those 4 hellions, if you are cutting corners every game you'll lose if I happen to choose to all-in you.
Roach+ling busts date back to the days when zergs started to use this former ZvZ build against Protoss' 3gate expands. At those times the first ZvT roach+ling busts were experimented with as well.
But yeah, I'd say DRG is the first highly successful player that was doing roach based early game busts in TvZ. (MLG Winter(?) finals vs MKP from early 2012 comes to mind, where he did like 3 roach/bling busts)
On December 25 2012 09:31 Oboeman wrote: I feel like roach/ling and roach/baneling busts deserve some kind of mention, but I don't know who you'd credit, or when exactly it was. It was before queen buff. The refined build for roach+baneling may have been shown first by DRG or Leenock, but the idea behind it was a bit older.
sometime after 1 marine + 4 hellions + 3OC + double ebay started becoming normal, zergs would mix in roach all-ins to try to keep terrans honest. I have no idea what you're building behind those 4 hellions, if you are cutting corners every game you'll lose if I happen to choose to all-in you.
Roach+ling busts date back to the days when zergs started to use this former ZvZ build against Protoss' 3gate expands. At those times the first ZvT roach+ling busts were experimented with as well.
But yeah, I'd say DRG is the first highly successful player that was doing roach based early game busts in TvZ. (MLG Winter(?) finals vs MKP from early 2012 comes to mind, where he did like 3 roach/bling busts)
When they first started being experimented with isn't the important point, but when they became a standard choice for zerg.
At one point, ZvT openings got so stale when zerg were contained on 2 base by 4 hellions and had no information. 90% of the time, zerg did one of two builds: 4 queen no gas into 2 base lair (at this point it was usually infestors, but sometimes muta), or roach all-in.
Basically the idea was that 4 queen no gas was the only two base way to keep up economically with a 3OC terran, it wasn't even worth investing any gas trying to get a 3rd base or feign aggression because it put you further behind than you would be if you didn't mine gas. But if you don't take gas there is zero possibility of aggression, so terran doesn't need to make any units apart from the first marine and 4 hellions, so he could go 3 OCC + double e-bay while teching to medivacs, and then make 6 reactors at once before making units, and there's nothing stopping him from making a 4th OC if he wanted. The roach all-ins were mixed in as a greed check - is terran being ridiculous this game or is he playing safe? Very occasionally you saw speedling opening, where'd you'd make a wave of about 24 lings with the first injects and fight the first hellions for map control. You wouldn't beat the hellions, but you'd know if he stopped at 4 or kept making them. Annyeong, leenock, and life all did this a fair bit. This is the main reason why terrans started being more cautious about their first bunker, placing it behind minerals or up against the cliff, instead of in the open. Smart bunker placement more or less neutered this build, but it added some spice while it lasted.
People love talking about how exciting old zvt was, but it was getting pretty stagnant for the zerg at this point, because those 4 hellions were so limiting. boom queen buff, boom zerg now has 3 base builds.
I feel like the "roach all-in or 4 queen" era deserves acknowledgement.
On December 25 2012 09:31 Oboeman wrote: I feel like roach/ling and roach/baneling busts deserve some kind of mention, but I don't know who you'd credit, or when exactly it was. It was before queen buff. The refined build for roach+baneling may have been shown first by DRG or Leenock, but the idea behind it was a bit older.
sometime after 1 marine + 4 hellions + 3OC + double ebay started becoming normal, zergs would mix in roach all-ins to try to keep terrans honest. I have no idea what you're building behind those 4 hellions, if you are cutting corners every game you'll lose if I happen to choose to all-in you.
Roach+ling busts date back to the days when zergs started to use this former ZvZ build against Protoss' 3gate expands. At those times the first ZvT roach+ling busts were experimented with as well.
But yeah, I'd say DRG is the first highly successful player that was doing roach based early game busts in TvZ. (MLG Winter(?) finals vs MKP from early 2012 comes to mind, where he did like 3 roach/bling busts)
When they first started being experimented with isn't the important point, but when they became a standard choice for zerg.
At one point, ZvT openings got so stale when zerg were contained on 2 base by 4 hellions and had no information. 90% of the time, zerg did one of two builds: 4 queen no gas into 2 base lair (at this point it was usually infestors, but sometimes muta), or roach all-in.
Basically the idea was that 4 queen no gas was the only two base way to keep up economically with a 3OC terran, it wasn't even worth investing any gas trying to get a 3rd base or feign aggression because it put you further behind than you would be if you didn't mine gas. But if you don't take gas there is zero possibility of aggression, so terran doesn't need to make any units apart from the first marine and 4 hellions, so he could go 3 OCC + double e-bay while teching to medivacs, and then make 6 reactors at once before making units, and there's nothing stopping him from making a 4th OC if he wanted. The roach all-ins were mixed in as a greed check - is terran being ridiculous this game or is he playing safe? Very occasionally you saw speedling opening, where'd you'd make a wave of about 24 lings with the first injects and fight the first hellions for map control. You wouldn't beat the hellions, but you'd know if he stopped at 4 or kept making them. Annyeong, leenock, and life all did this a fair bit. This is the main reason why terrans started being more cautious about their first bunker, placing it behind minerals or up against the cliff, instead of in the open. Smart bunker placement more or less neutered this build, but it added some spice while it lasted.
People love talking about how exciting old zvt was, but it was getting pretty stagnant for the zerg at this point, because those 4 hellions were so limiting. boom queen buff, boom zerg now has 3 base builds.
I feel like the "roach all-in or 4 queen" era deserves acknowledgement.
I think, especially towards the end of that era, a lot of Terrans went back to sacrificing hellions on drones and many zergs did actually go back to 3queen+speed openings and just have like 8speedlings for defense for the occasion that the 4-6hellions ran past the crawler. But it was generally the same setup. 2base+double upgrades or lair or roach allin.
But well, this write up is extremely incomplete and filled with misinformation, as I already wrote. + Show Spoiler +
A lot of mistakes (from what I remember): 1.) -) roaches were 3range (not 2) -) Fruitdealer won because he was a heavy gambler, mixing allins with 60drone builds. This basically had nothing to do with "marine control". He was just simply one step ahead, metagaming opponents instead of going for "blind builds".
2.), 3.) -) didn't MKP use 1rax FE quite heavily? And if not MKP, I think Boxer and Nada were probably way more influencial than Mvp for using FE builds; as far as I remember, Mvp was "just" the best T player at that time. Especially in TvT. -) Maka (MakaRax) needs to be mentioned somewhere here; These builds had quite a huge impact on how T was being played
4.)
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
Every Zerg was doing that. I can't remember any good Z players that went 3base at that time. Kyrix was famous for 2basing, July was famous 2basing. There was really noone who played fast 3bases at all. Nestea was "just" better at not getting faked out, better at droning, better at spreading creep. He developed a lot of great defensive mechanisms (pushing creep with a spine crawler) and - similarily to Fruitdealer - was quite good at metagaming his opponents with a variety of banling busts and heavy droning.
7.) This timing push was like the oldest build ever, when Mvp played it. 50% of all TvZs on the ladder in Masters league was the 3Tank push, from early to late 2011. Everybody was doing it and Mvp was one of the first players to stop doing it. But he always mixed some forms of it into his play. Ghosts were being used before that. Everybody had started using them at that time. Demuslim made a comment along the lines of "I didn't know how to handle Zerg lategame. Greg told me to stop building Vikings and build ghosts instead. They are amazing." I think Thorzain was well known for them as well. Select ditto. Basically everybody minus MMA was going for Ghosts in TvZ at that point. Mvp didn't get Ghosts nerfed. Ghosts were nerfed because Terrans found ways to mass them and in the old form they countered every Zerg unit, once massed.
8.)
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
Simply no. The queen patch was made, because of hellions. The official comments were something like "hellions can contain Zerg too easily for two long".
10.), 11.) 2base Mutas have always been around and have never hindered Terran from going Mech.
On December 25 2012 09:31 Oboeman wrote: I feel like roach/ling and roach/baneling busts deserve some kind of mention, but I don't know who you'd credit, or when exactly it was. It was before queen buff. The refined build for roach+baneling may have been shown first by DRG or Leenock, but the idea behind it was a bit older.
sometime after 1 marine + 4 hellions + 3OC + double ebay started becoming normal, zergs would mix in roach all-ins to try to keep terrans honest. I have no idea what you're building behind those 4 hellions, if you are cutting corners every game you'll lose if I happen to choose to all-in you.
Roach+ling busts date back to the days when zergs started to use this former ZvZ build against Protoss' 3gate expands. At those times the first ZvT roach+ling busts were experimented with as well.
But yeah, I'd say DRG is the first highly successful player that was doing roach based early game busts in TvZ. (MLG Winter(?) finals vs MKP from early 2012 comes to mind, where he did like 3 roach/bling busts)
When they first started being experimented with isn't the important point, but when they became a standard choice for zerg.
At one point, ZvT openings got so stale when zerg were contained on 2 base by 4 hellions and had no information. 90% of the time, zerg did one of two builds: 4 queen no gas into 2 base lair (at this point it was usually infestors, but sometimes muta), or roach all-in.
Basically the idea was that 4 queen no gas was the only two base way to keep up economically with a 3OC terran, it wasn't even worth investing any gas trying to get a 3rd base or feign aggression because it put you further behind than you would be if you didn't mine gas. But if you don't take gas there is zero possibility of aggression, so terran doesn't need to make any units apart from the first marine and 4 hellions, so he could go 3 OCC + double e-bay while teching to medivacs, and then make 6 reactors at once before making units, and there's nothing stopping him from making a 4th OC if he wanted. The roach all-ins were mixed in as a greed check - is terran being ridiculous this game or is he playing safe? Very occasionally you saw speedling opening, where'd you'd make a wave of about 24 lings with the first injects and fight the first hellions for map control. You wouldn't beat the hellions, but you'd know if he stopped at 4 or kept making them. Annyeong, leenock, and life all did this a fair bit. This is the main reason why terrans started being more cautious about their first bunker, placing it behind minerals or up against the cliff, instead of in the open. Smart bunker placement more or less neutered this build, but it added some spice while it lasted.
People love talking about how exciting old zvt was, but it was getting pretty stagnant for the zerg at this point, because those 4 hellions were so limiting. boom queen buff, boom zerg now has 3 base builds.
I feel like the "roach all-in or 4 queen" era deserves acknowledgement.
That is so true, actually. The Queen buff may not have been the best decision, but I agreed about the fact that something needed to be done at the time, I really don't see it as the golden era of ZvT, it was a lot of random coinflip vs random overgreedy from terran, it might have been kinda even, but it was too random for a strategy game.
On December 22 2012 10:10 MeaNySC2 wrote: 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
Citations are definitely needed for this statement. According to this source, queens were buffed for the sole purpose of better early-game creep spread, and to better combat against early game all-ins and hellions; it made no mention of balancing solely ZvP.
On December 25 2012 09:31 Oboeman wrote: I feel like roach/ling and roach/baneling busts deserve some kind of mention, but I don't know who you'd credit, or when exactly it was. It was before queen buff. The refined build for roach+baneling may have been shown first by DRG or Leenock, but the idea behind it was a bit older.
sometime after 1 marine + 4 hellions + 3OC + double ebay started becoming normal, zergs would mix in roach all-ins to try to keep terrans honest. I have no idea what you're building behind those 4 hellions, if you are cutting corners every game you'll lose if I happen to choose to all-in you.
Roach+ling busts date back to the days when zergs started to use this former ZvZ build against Protoss' 3gate expands. At those times the first ZvT roach+ling busts were experimented with as well.
But yeah, I'd say DRG is the first highly successful player that was doing roach based early game busts in TvZ. (MLG Winter(?) finals vs MKP from early 2012 comes to mind, where he did like 3 roach/bling busts)
When they first started being experimented with isn't the important point, but when they became a standard choice for zerg.
At one point, ZvT openings got so stale when zerg were contained on 2 base by 4 hellions and had no information. 90% of the time, zerg did one of two builds: 4 queen no gas into 2 base lair (at this point it was usually infestors, but sometimes muta), or roach all-in.
Basically the idea was that 4 queen no gas was the only two base way to keep up economically with a 3OC terran, it wasn't even worth investing any gas trying to get a 3rd base or feign aggression because it put you further behind than you would be if you didn't mine gas. But if you don't take gas there is zero possibility of aggression, so terran doesn't need to make any units apart from the first marine and 4 hellions, so he could go 3 OCC + double e-bay while teching to medivacs, and then make 6 reactors at once before making units, and there's nothing stopping him from making a 4th OC if he wanted. The roach all-ins were mixed in as a greed check - is terran being ridiculous this game or is he playing safe? Very occasionally you saw speedling opening, where'd you'd make a wave of about 24 lings with the first injects and fight the first hellions for map control. You wouldn't beat the hellions, but you'd know if he stopped at 4 or kept making them. Annyeong, leenock, and life all did this a fair bit. This is the main reason why terrans started being more cautious about their first bunker, placing it behind minerals or up against the cliff, instead of in the open. Smart bunker placement more or less neutered this build, but it added some spice while it lasted.
People love talking about how exciting old zvt was, but it was getting pretty stagnant for the zerg at this point, because those 4 hellions were so limiting. boom queen buff, boom zerg now has 3 base builds.
I feel like the "roach all-in or 4 queen" era deserves acknowledgement.
Was it really that bad? For me at least, the hellions just forced out some roaches sometimes. I would (and I thought pros did this too) just get 3 roaches to clear out the hellions and reclaim map control. This meant that I couldn't be super-greedy, but in the past few months we've seen what a greedy Z can do, and it's arguably imbalanced.
Also, some of the problems you refer to are based on a lack of information by the Z player; this issue is significantly mitigated by the OL speed buff, making it feasible for some OL's to actually cross the map without getting shot down by marines. If you saw a 3CC opener you could go allin, if not you could secure map control with roaches and macro.
Back in those days I had no problem watching or playing TvZ and I thought the matchup was exciting and balanced.
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.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but Hellion Banshee builds had been in use since late 2011. I remember game 1 of the MMA vs DRG series (which remains to this day the best SC2 TvZ series of all time imo) MMA did a variation of this against DRG's Roach Bling Ling timing attack. It looked like DRG would outright kill MMA, but failed or forgot to make an evo chamber / spores back at home and the counter harass with cloaked Banshees swung things into MMA's favor.
Of course ForGG (and Supernova iirc) were the first to use refined Hellion Banshee builds as their standard openings after the queen patch in May.
Edit: Overall, I'm fairly impressed with the quality of this write-up. While there are a few inaccuracies, it generally covers the overall flow of how TvZ has looked thus far in SC2.
On December 22 2012 10:10 MeaNySC2 wrote: 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.
It took 6/12 snipes per bl/ultra. Also the only real reason it worked so well against july was because he went hyper aggressive at the start and then later got caught offguard and lost a ton of units for free. That game was a terrible game to think of balancing snipe. Thankfully though, the nerf didn't quite go that way, not straight after that game that everyone remembers as the reason snipe got nerfed.
On December 25 2012 00:04 Micket wrote: What about the Slayers' Blue flame hellion massacre of MLG Anaheim 2011?
That was mostly a TvT style.
No that was a zerg massacre, where they elevatored hellions and rines into the zerg base, killed slings with hellions and massacred everything else with rines. Was quite fun to watch, the micro they were pulling off...
On December 25 2012 00:04 Micket wrote: What about the Slayers' Blue flame hellion massacre of MLG Anaheim 2011?
That was mostly a TvT style.
No that was a zerg massacre, where they elevatored hellions and rines into the zerg base, killed slings with hellions and massacred everything else with rines. Was quite fun to watch, the micro they were pulling off...
all match-ups.
the marine/bfh elevator was a TvZ build, but suddenly everyone was doing non stop hellion drops in all match-ups and roasting worker lines on the 4th or 5th try.
Although I can't comment anything intelligent, I do have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this write-up. Definitely interesting once you ingest the long way which SC2 has travelled since release. It makes you realize that the "golden age" of ZvT is truly gone but at the same time it gives you hope that a new "golden age" will come again.
EPT
Especially seeing cute things like bane mines, raven play. It was...well, it was fun.
