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United States248 Posts
On July 15 2014 12:18 SC2John wrote:
It's interesting that you use muta/corruptor as a phase AFTER getting 4-5 bases. Personally, I like it better for getting to 4-5 bases, then transitioning into a gas-heavy hive tech army. Also, your hydra/viper army might get better results if you add 4ish ultras to the mix and grab a few infestors if you have the gas. Hydra/viper is amazing for dealing with high-tech armies like VR/colossus, I would think, but it seems like it would just get run over by templar at some point. I do like your idea to use muta/corruptor as a counter to VR/colossus. I may try that; I didn't realize until now, but that makes perfect sense.
I just want to talk about the post 5 base muta corrupter - at 10 gas the muta corrupter production is absolutely insane so if you're ahead already and they don't have the proper tech you can just win. That being said, my personal preference aligns with yours, of getting to 10gas and then transitioning to a "stable" composition which depends on the map, but generally some variation of hydra/infestor/ultralisk/broodlord/viper. That remains in the top 2 of powerful Zerg armies but is so gas expensive you can't really "get there" before 10 geysers.
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Sorry if this was asked before, but I keep hearing about a certain innovative ling/queen/corruptor ZvP style that TRUE used against Zest in the last GSL, what is it?
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United States4883 Posts
On July 17 2014 10:15 VengefulTree wrote:
Sorry if this was asked before, but I keep hearing about a certain innovative ling/queen/corruptor ZvP style that TRUE used against Zest in the last GSL, what is it?
Still trying to figure out exactly what it is. When TRUE used it, he failed miserably and died a horrible, painful death. However, DRG did it last night in Code A to great success, and I'm not exactly sure why it worked so much better for him (other than being a better player, obviously lol).
The timing is ~11:00 with ~6-8 queens, 40 +1/+1 lings, and 14 corruptors. The push itself doesn't seem to actually be that incredibly powerful, but it sets up muta/corruptor and 5 bases very well. It DOES seem to completely demolish colossus/void ray builds (this build just snipes all the colossus/VR up to that point and resets the count while going up to 5 bases simultaneously). Behind this, players just do muta/corruptor until they either overwhelm their opponent or get a significant enough lead to transition into a more stable hive tech army.
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Thanks, I watched the serie and also found True was winning despite the build, so it's effectiveness remains a mystery for me. I really liked the way he defeated Zest's immo all-in in the last game tho, with pure queens/ling, although to be honest Zest choose a pretty bad spot, but maybe he was forced too by the spine wall?
Thanks for the answer, I'll try to see that DRG game.
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On July 17 2014 10:43 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2014 10:15 VengefulTree wrote:
Sorry if this was asked before, but I keep hearing about a certain innovative ling/queen/corruptor ZvP style that TRUE used against Zest in the last GSL, what is it? Still trying to figure out exactly what it is. When TRUE used it, he failed miserably and died a horrible, painful death. However, DRG did it last night in Code A to great success, and I'm not exactly sure why it worked so much better for him (other than being a better player, obviously lol).
He failed during the first game actually, but succeeded in the rest of the series (I can clearly remember the game on Overgrowth where he won). He makes the push and then transition to corruptors/mutas.
BTW guys, how do you open in ZvZ on Nimbus? I feel that it is very similar to Alterazim but I didn't play that map :/
How not to die to any early pool shennanigans? I tried to open 15 hatch gasless but I died to a 6pool + spines. I tried to open with gas, but I lost to a 10pool speedling. I don't know what to do... Any ideas?
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On July 17 2014 23:19 Aelendis wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2014 10:43 SC2John wrote:On July 17 2014 10:15 VengefulTree wrote:
Sorry if this was asked before, but I keep hearing about a certain innovative ling/queen/corruptor ZvP style that TRUE used against Zest in the last GSL, what is it? Still trying to figure out exactly what it is. When TRUE used it, he failed miserably and died a horrible, painful death. However, DRG did it last night in Code A to great success, and I'm not exactly sure why it worked so much better for him (other than being a better player, obviously lol). He failed during the first game actually, but succeeded in the rest of the series (I can clearly remember the game on Overgrowth where he won). He makes the push and then transition to corruptors/mutas. BTW guys, how do you open in ZvZ on Nimbus? I feel that it is very similar to Alterazim but I didn't play that map :/ How not to die to any early pool shennanigans? I tried to open 15 hatch gasless but I died to a 6pool + spines. I tried to open with gas, but I lost to a 10pool speedling. I don't know what to do... Any ideas?
there's always a luck factor involved in any 4 player map. Whoever gets the scout first with overlord has a huge advantage especially in any mirror matchup. If you aren't confident in your drone micro to survive vs 6pool then u can open 14 pool 15 hatch everygame to be safe. 14 pool pretty much beats any early rush but if your opponent went 15hatch then u are slightly behind. If your opponent made more than 8 lings, then it is a strong indicator that he has mined gas also. In this case you make 1 spine + 2 queen to wall off ramp and proceed from there.
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On July 17 2014 23:27 Xinzoe wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2014 23:19 Aelendis wrote:On July 17 2014 10:43 SC2John wrote:On July 17 2014 10:15 VengefulTree wrote:
Sorry if this was asked before, but I keep hearing about a certain innovative ling/queen/corruptor ZvP style that TRUE used against Zest in the last GSL, what is it? Still trying to figure out exactly what it is. When TRUE used it, he failed miserably and died a horrible, painful death. However, DRG did it last night in Code A to great success, and I'm not exactly sure why it worked so much better for him (other than being a better player, obviously lol). He failed during the first game actually, but succeeded in the rest of the series (I can clearly remember the game on Overgrowth where he won). He makes the push and then transition to corruptors/mutas. BTW guys, how do you open in ZvZ on Nimbus? I feel that it is very similar to Alterazim but I didn't play that map :/ How not to die to any early pool shennanigans? I tried to open 15 hatch gasless but I died to a 6pool + spines. I tried to open with gas, but I lost to a 10pool speedling. I don't know what to do... Any ideas? there's always a luck factor involved in any 4 player map. Whoever gets the scout first with overlord has a huge advantage especially in any mirror matchup. If you aren't confident in your drone micro to survive vs 6pool then u can open 14 pool 15 hatch everygame to be safe. 14 pool pretty much beats any early rush but if your opponent went 15hatch then u are slightly behind. If your opponent made more than 8 lings, then it is a strong indicator that he has mined gas also. In this case you make 1 spine + 2 queen to wall off ramp and proceed from there.
The problem is that you will see that he doesn't have an expansion / made many lings too late if it's cross position even if you go 15 pool. To defend 10pool speed / bane or whatever you want to start a spine asap and use larva for lings, which you usually can prepare for when your overlord reaches the natural of your opponent on a 2 player map around 2:50-3 min.
I honestly have no idea how to properly open safe on a 4 player map without getting behind if my opponent doesn't cheese. I think it's retarded to have 3-4 player maps in a game that's so based around builds and timings as sc2. I just don't see what makes makes it a better game to have pure RNG in the start of whether you'll get to prepare for what your opponent is doing or not.
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Well, pool first doesn't get behind vs a hatch first (unless you want to be aggresive with the double inject around 5 minutes). But, as mentioned above, sometimes (on certain maps) it's really hard to see the lings coming with your overlord.
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How does one defend against a ling bling allin when opening gasless in zvz? i find that even when I scout it, banes tear down the wall, and lings get easy access to the mineral lines. Thanks for your help!
Edit: I find this particularly difficult on nimbus.
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On July 17 2014 23:19 Aelendis wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2014 10:43 SC2John wrote:On July 17 2014 10:15 VengefulTree wrote:
Sorry if this was asked before, but I keep hearing about a certain innovative ling/queen/corruptor ZvP style that TRUE used against Zest in the last GSL, what is it? Still trying to figure out exactly what it is. When TRUE used it, he failed miserably and died a horrible, painful death. However, DRG did it last night in Code A to great success, and I'm not exactly sure why it worked so much better for him (other than being a better player, obviously lol). He failed during the first game actually, but succeeded in the rest of the series (I can clearly remember the game on Overgrowth where he won). He makes the push and then transition to corruptors/mutas. BTW guys, how do you open in ZvZ on Nimbus? I feel that it is very similar to Alterazim but I didn't play that map :/ How not to die to any early pool shennanigans? I tried to open 15 hatch gasless but I died to a 6pool + spines. I tried to open with gas, but I lost to a 10pool speedling. I don't know what to do... Any ideas?
Yeah 3+ player maps are really lame in ZvZ. I usually go 15p15h15ovie and then make queen/lings/spine if my overlord scouts early lings. This obviously doesn't work on big maps so I get 1-2 sets of lings to scout and then an extra drone and then save larva to make lings if there's early lings coming. If there are no lings out when I get 3 larva I make drones.
The problem is when they do some early pool with gas and don't come out with their lings immediately at 2:45, which means I will have no units to defend. I don't feel like I can make more drones before starting to save up larva because then I will lose my expo to a regular 9 pool.
If anyone have a solution on how to open safe macro on big maps and how to scout/use larva etc please let me know. Here's an example replay of a game I just played: http://ggtracker.com/matches/5235149
I have no larva for units since I just made drones so I have to sac natural immediately and just panic build 2 spines that don't finish in time. If my opponent had actually done some damage before my spines finish and expanded straight away I don't know how I would win. :/
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In ZvZ, my go-to safe build (especially if my opponent doesn't say "glhf" or similar) is 15p, 15h, save three larvae for lings, build six lings. Start queen, build double gas, cancel one, start overlord. First queen injects and walks to natural, second queen should start immediately after it at the main hatch.
Normal play, you would only build 4 lings and use the last larvae for the overlord (pretty sure 15p/15h into four lings is something I saw in Korean ZvZs in PL/GSL, I was studying up on ZvZ about a month back). But six lings handily defends everything cheesy (make sure you stack drones until lings finish vs <10p, and pull drones to defend natural if necessary vs 10p, and scout if it is 10p bane or 10p speed or 10p macro), and hatch first players will tend to freak out and overmake lings in response to six (especially if they haven't been able to scout your gas timing yet). They pretty much need to make at least four lings of their own to ensure they can safely get queens out and not die to a random all-in, unless they have very attentive--and successful--scouting with their overlord, so you just run home once his lings are out, having been droning up the whole time, and call it even.
Building six lings instead of four is similar to how reaper expand builds now tend to go up to three reapers--the change can give you a slight edge over a standard build, but represents a tradeoff.
tl;dr I go 15p/15h and build a batch of lings when pool finishes, which defends early aggression and threatens hatch-first enough to (mostly) even out the econ.
EDIT: Rough replay demonstration that the econ is about equal to hatch-first. Plus I want to make fun of this one guy who is constantly, constantly a jerk, so I chose this particular replay. I think he deserves it, especially since he seems to be part of the semi-pro team ViViD Gaming with a "partial contract" (http://team-vivid.net/team-roster/). (Yeah, I went out of my way to look this up.)
Here's a replay of me going 15p/15h against ViViD player Valon (low masters/high diamond): http://sc2share.com/BJC
(drop.sc is down?)
I have him chat-blocked (prior experiences) so I went 15p/15h after not seeing any chat from him.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/z6yot1P.jpg)
The actual chat, visible when watching the replay.
He counterbuilds six lings, then calls me an idiot:+ Show Spoiler +![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/lXPqFOC.jpg) Classy!
At the moment pictured, I've just hit 17 drones, and he is on 17 drones, so he was very slightly ahead in econ. And resource-wise, we are essentially equal, too.
But note that our injects are almost identical, and he has no real larvae advantage from the hatch first, because though his second hatch is up faster and naturally generates a few extra larvae, I have an earlier single inject off the earlier queen. Which means the old pool-first fear of being ling all-in'd and being behind on larvae should be put to rest.
Rest of game (not important): + Show Spoiler +Then he goes super greedy fast lair four gas without bane nest or spine or wall, which I scout with my overlord at his natural, so I cancel my defensive spine and do a ling-bane all-in. Maybe he could've still held after some damage (he did see me coming really early, I should've pushed back his overlord with queens), but... not building a bane nest is a huge risk, I'm think he would've held if he had a bane nest at the normal timing.
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On July 18 2014 09:42 6xFPCs wrote:EDIT: Rough replay demonstration that the econ is about equal to hatch-first. Plus I want to make fun of this one guy who is constantly, constantly a jerk, so I chose this particular replay. I think he deserves it, especially since he seems to be part of the semi-pro team ViViD Gaming with a "partial contract" (http://team-vivid.net/team-roster/). (Yeah, I went out of my way to look this up.) Here's a replay of me going 15p/15h against ViViD player Valon (low masters/high diamond): http://sc2share.com/BJC(drop.sc is down?) I have him chat-blocked (prior experiences) so I went 15p/15h after not seeing any chat from him. The actual chat, visible when watching the replay. He counterbuilds six lings, then calls me an idiot: + Show Spoiler +Classy! At the moment pictured, I've just hit 17 drones, and he is on 17 drones, so he was very slightly ahead in econ. And resource-wise, we are essentially equal, too. But note that our injects are almost identical, and he has no real larvae advantage from the hatch first, because though his second hatch is up faster and naturally generates a few extra larvae, I have an earlier single inject off the earlier queen. Which means the old pool-first fear of being ling all-in'd and being behind on larvae should be put to rest.
Afaik, you can't afford to spend all the larvaes with only 17 drones. So even if you had a slight advantage in larvae's count, it doesn't necessarily mean you had an advantage over him because you simply wouldn't be able to make more lings. Not to mention the travel it takes for the ling to get to the opposite's side.
The most important factor I think is the speed's upgrade of the lings.
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On July 18 2014 18:28 RaiZ wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2014 09:42 6xFPCs wrote:EDIT: Rough replay demonstration that the econ is about equal to hatch-first. Plus I want to make fun of this one guy who is constantly, constantly a jerk, so I chose this particular replay. I think he deserves it, especially since he seems to be part of the semi-pro team ViViD Gaming with a "partial contract" (http://team-vivid.net/team-roster/). (Yeah, I went out of my way to look this up.) Here's a replay of me going 15p/15h against ViViD player Valon (low masters/high diamond): http://sc2share.com/BJC(drop.sc is down?) I have him chat-blocked (prior experiences) so I went 15p/15h after not seeing any chat from him. The actual chat, visible when watching the replay. He counterbuilds six lings, then calls me an idiot: + Show Spoiler +Classy! At the moment pictured, I've just hit 17 drones, and he is on 17 drones, so he was very slightly ahead in econ. And resource-wise, we are essentially equal, too. But note that our injects are almost identical, and he has no real larvae advantage from the hatch first, because though his second hatch is up faster and naturally generates a few extra larvae, I have an earlier single inject off the earlier queen. Which means the old pool-first fear of being ling all-in'd and being behind on larvae should be put to rest. Afaik, you can't afford to spend all the larvaes with only 17 drones. So even if you had a slight advantage in larvae's count, it doesn't necessarily mean you had an advantage over him because you simply wouldn't be able to make more lings. Not to mention the travel it takes for the ling to get to the opposite's side. The most important factor I think is the speed's upgrade of the lings.
Right, pool first has no advantage at all, I completely agree. I don't think I ever said that it has an advantage over hatch-first. But my point is that it's close enough to hatch first that you don't lose to a followup all-in, you shouldn't even be at a noticeable disadvantage. Compare it to playing ZvP against a nexus-first immortal-sentry, if you go pool first against that you are at a real and serious disadvantage in terms of econ that will make it harder to hold.
Yes, the speed timing is always important, and that's part of the whole "force them to build some lings". Their lings aren't safe out on the map and make it impossible for him to pressure you (so you can build whatever, full drones or full lings), even if he went hatch-gas-pool, because there will be a window in which you have speed and he doesn't. He will need to be afraid of what choice you made.
We can get into all kinds of subtleties about it, but I just wanted to explain that pool first is a safe build that stops early pools, but also doesn't cripple you vs hatch first.
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On July 19 2014 04:19 6xFPCs wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2014 18:28 RaiZ wrote:On July 18 2014 09:42 6xFPCs wrote:EDIT: Rough replay demonstration that the econ is about equal to hatch-first. Plus I want to make fun of this one guy who is constantly, constantly a jerk, so I chose this particular replay. I think he deserves it, especially since he seems to be part of the semi-pro team ViViD Gaming with a "partial contract" (http://team-vivid.net/team-roster/). (Yeah, I went out of my way to look this up.) Here's a replay of me going 15p/15h against ViViD player Valon (low masters/high diamond): http://sc2share.com/BJC(drop.sc is down?) I have him chat-blocked (prior experiences) so I went 15p/15h after not seeing any chat from him. The actual chat, visible when watching the replay. He counterbuilds six lings, then calls me an idiot: + Show Spoiler +Classy! At the moment pictured, I've just hit 17 drones, and he is on 17 drones, so he was very slightly ahead in econ. And resource-wise, we are essentially equal, too. But note that our injects are almost identical, and he has no real larvae advantage from the hatch first, because though his second hatch is up faster and naturally generates a few extra larvae, I have an earlier single inject off the earlier queen. Which means the old pool-first fear of being ling all-in'd and being behind on larvae should be put to rest. Afaik, you can't afford to spend all the larvaes with only 17 drones. So even if you had a slight advantage in larvae's count, it doesn't necessarily mean you had an advantage over him because you simply wouldn't be able to make more lings. Not to mention the travel it takes for the ling to get to the opposite's side. The most important factor I think is the speed's upgrade of the lings. Right, pool first has no advantage at all, I completely agree. I don't think I ever said that it has an advantage over hatch-first. But my point is that it's close enough to hatch first that you don't lose to a followup all-in, you shouldn't even be at a noticeable disadvantage. Compare it to playing ZvP against a nexus-first immortal-sentry, if you go pool first against that you are at a real and serious disadvantage in terms of econ that will make it harder to hold. Yes, the speed timing is always important, and that's part of the whole "force them to build some lings". Their lings aren't safe out on the map and make it impossible for him to pressure you (so you can build whatever, full drones or full lings), even if he went hatch-gas-pool, because there will be a window in which you have speed and he doesn't. He will need to be afraid of what choice you made. We can get into all kinds of subtleties about it, but I just wanted to explain that pool first is a safe build that stops early pools, but also doesn't cripple you vs hatch first.
Yeah that's not what I was getting at tho. I almost always open pool first on all maps. The big problem even when opening pool first on big maps is that you can't make use of the pool to make lings anyway because you don't know if you want lings or drones. This is the real problem with 4 player maps. If you get unlucky spawns/scouting you won't know about an incoming early gas/pool build before your scouting lings are out on the map and then you have already started making drones of your larva. You can't keep pooling larva after your natural has finished and you can't just blindly make lings from a 15 pool because if he 15 hatches he will have his queens up already if you try to be aggressive with them and you have just wasted a bunch of potential drones on useless lings. This could potentially happend vs a gasless 9 pool as well but then you'll most likely be able to see the lings before you have to spend your larva before your natural is finished.
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On July 19 2014 06:39 Zheryn wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2014 04:19 6xFPCs wrote:On July 18 2014 18:28 RaiZ wrote:On July 18 2014 09:42 6xFPCs wrote:EDIT: Rough replay demonstration that the econ is about equal to hatch-first. Plus I want to make fun of this one guy who is constantly, constantly a jerk, so I chose this particular replay. I think he deserves it, especially since he seems to be part of the semi-pro team ViViD Gaming with a "partial contract" (http://team-vivid.net/team-roster/). (Yeah, I went out of my way to look this up.) Here's a replay of me going 15p/15h against ViViD player Valon (low masters/high diamond): http://sc2share.com/BJC(drop.sc is down?) I have him chat-blocked (prior experiences) so I went 15p/15h after not seeing any chat from him. The actual chat, visible when watching the replay. He counterbuilds six lings, then calls me an idiot: + Show Spoiler +Classy! At the moment pictured, I've just hit 17 drones, and he is on 17 drones, so he was very slightly ahead in econ. And resource-wise, we are essentially equal, too. But note that our injects are almost identical, and he has no real larvae advantage from the hatch first, because though his second hatch is up faster and naturally generates a few extra larvae, I have an earlier single inject off the earlier queen. Which means the old pool-first fear of being ling all-in'd and being behind on larvae should be put to rest. Afaik, you can't afford to spend all the larvaes with only 17 drones. So even if you had a slight advantage in larvae's count, it doesn't necessarily mean you had an advantage over him because you simply wouldn't be able to make more lings. Not to mention the travel it takes for the ling to get to the opposite's side. The most important factor I think is the speed's upgrade of the lings. Right, pool first has no advantage at all, I completely agree. I don't think I ever said that it has an advantage over hatch-first. But my point is that it's close enough to hatch first that you don't lose to a followup all-in, you shouldn't even be at a noticeable disadvantage. Compare it to playing ZvP against a nexus-first immortal-sentry, if you go pool first against that you are at a real and serious disadvantage in terms of econ that will make it harder to hold. Yes, the speed timing is always important, and that's part of the whole "force them to build some lings". Their lings aren't safe out on the map and make it impossible for him to pressure you (so you can build whatever, full drones or full lings), even if he went hatch-gas-pool, because there will be a window in which you have speed and he doesn't. He will need to be afraid of what choice you made. We can get into all kinds of subtleties about it, but I just wanted to explain that pool first is a safe build that stops early pools, but also doesn't cripple you vs hatch first. Yeah that's not what I was getting at tho. I almost always open pool first on all maps. The big problem even when opening pool first on big maps is that you can't make use of the pool to make lings anyway because you don't know if you want lings or drones. This is the real problem with 4 player maps. If you get unlucky spawns/scouting you won't know about an incoming early gas/pool build before your scouting lings are out on the map and then you have already started making drones of your larva. You can't keep pooling larva after your natural has finished and you can't just blindly make lings from a 15 pool because if he 15 hatches he will have his queens up already if you try to be aggressive with them and you have just wasted a bunch of potential drones on useless lings. This could potentially happend vs a gasless 9 pool as well but then you'll most likely be able to see the lings before you have to spend your larva before your natural is finished.
Before I start: can we get a blue post to chime in? surely there's a pro or semipro lurking here who can straighten out some ZvZ build info for us.
What I'm saying is that 4 lings after pool finishes is standard, not blind nor a waste, and 6 works as a super-safe option that still stays on pace with hatch first if you play it standard, which is to send the lings to his base. This choice to build a small round of lings on pool completion is very useful against early pools, and pressures hatch-first openings into making lings, and I think pool first throws away a lot of its options without it.
I get that 4 player maps can suck for this situation, but unless you get the worst possible luck on a 4 player map against hatch first, you will come out fine. Even scouting him dead last, I think he still needs lings to push back your lings, since he will want to ramp block with his queens and thus can't safely mine at his natural until he gets a few lings out. So it's not like he's freely droning, and if he is just all ling-bane all-in to kill his natural, because he won't have enough control of natural area to place a spine there and it's a huge disadvantage for him to play bane wars in his own natural and your speed and bane nest will usually finish first (unless he goes bane nest first). Nimbus is kind of the exception in the map pool, but the map is small enough that you will almost always make it to his base before his queens can block the front ramp.
You are thinking yourself into a corner regarding the early pool defense. If you always make 4 lings, you can buy enough time to get that next bach of 6-8 lings finished and be safe, just running in circles or even fighting with drones. Sure, if you're minimap-blind and don't have overlords watching lanes or somehow get really unlucky with overlord positioning, you could take a lot of damage. Build 4 lings and react, nothing new.
If it's really losing you a lot of games on 4 player maps, I would just 14 drone scout to the close position you didn't send your first overlord to, and send your second overlord cross-map.
tl;dr I don't think it's a problem with pool first as a build, it's a problem with spotting what's coming and that's a major problem in ZvZ for every single all-in and tech choice.
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United States248 Posts
I'm not a blue but I'm a Strategy Contributor. Here's a thread with useful data, although not entirely scientific:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/167577-pool-first-vs-hatch-first-revisited
Basically the take away is pool first doesn't put you immeasurably behind hatch first but there are timing windows where a hatchery first build can make a timing where they will have an advantage in larva/minerals but it goes away after a time.
Although 4lings after pool isn't standard in pro zvz, 1zergling or none is standard. On 4 player maps I think it is more standard to either gamble (hatchfirst/1base tming/etc) or play SUPER safe with 4-6lings since you can't reliably scout your opponent.
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Hola, I keep losing a certain build in ZvP. The protoss goes for a stargate (oracle) into third, and then into +2 blink all-in. I found a post on ATP (I went lurking there) talking about it: here . Apparently Dear used it against DRG and Ragnarok in his Code A games, and Stardust used it against HyuN on Overgrowth in DH.
I like to go 1/1 melee upon scouting stargate, and I tried to add hydras to defend the blink timing, but that didn"t work (see Phog vs Huk on Nimbus that was played just now in WCS AM Challenger). Does anyone have any idea on how to stop that?
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United States4883 Posts
On July 22 2014 08:01 Aelendis wrote:Hola, I keep losing a certain build in ZvP. The protoss goes for a stargate (oracle) into third, and then into +2 blink all-in. I found a post on ATP (I went lurking there) talking about it: here . Apparently Dear used it against DRG and Ragnarok in his Code A games, and Stardust used it against HyuN on Overgrowth in DH. I like to go 1/1 melee upon scouting stargate, and I tried to add hydras to defend the blink timing, but that didn"t work (see Phog vs Huk on Nimbus that was played just now in WCS AM Challenger). Does anyone have any idea on how to stop that?
TBH, hydra/ling is not a bad response at all (especially with +1/+1 lings), and probably has more to do with your execution than anything. You want to use your first pack of lings (~30-40) to cut in behind the army as it's moving out and kill of reinforcements/pylons while pooling hydras at home. If you get a high enough hydra count early, you can just go for a full surround before they're in position, and the FFs will not matter too much. The big thing about hydra/ling is to trade off all the lings and then keep the hydras so that your next wave of reinforcing lings crushes the pressure.
Another potential response is going queen/SH and turtling hard on 3 bases. As long as your positioning and vision is good, you should be able to deflect any direct pressure with your SHs while preventing any multi-pronged harassment with your lings. To follow up, you can either just continue on the SH tech path or switch to muta/corruptor once you secure your 4th and 5th bases and Protoss is attempting to make the switch to colossus with a fourth base. I'm less familiar with this SH route compared to the hydra/ling, so I could be incredibly wrong, but I think it's definitely just as viable.
I think mutas are absolutely out of the question unless you take your 5th and 6th gas geysers MUCH later and blast out like 30 roaches first before taking extra gases and additional bases. Doing this type of army allows you to go ahead and meet the oncoming army on the map before it really builds up momentum. I have seen the weird ling/queen/corruptor timing mentioned a few posts above played against +2/blink with mixed results; the corruptors don't really add much to the fight (against blink stalkers) and decent FFs basically own the lings, but the map control you gain with it is so substantial that you can just go straight into 5 bases and muta/corruptor with your leftover corruptors.
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On July 22 2014 08:01 Aelendis wrote:Hola, I keep losing a certain build in ZvP. The protoss goes for a stargate (oracle) into third, and then into +2 blink all-in. I found a post on ATP (I went lurking there) talking about it: here . Apparently Dear used it against DRG and Ragnarok in his Code A games, and Stardust used it against HyuN on Overgrowth in DH. I like to go 1/1 melee upon scouting stargate, and I tried to add hydras to defend the blink timing, but that didn"t work (see Phog vs Huk on Nimbus that was played just now in WCS AM Challenger). Does anyone have any idea on how to stop that?
John gave you a great overall rundown, as he always does, and his point about checking your macro is also an important point to watch for. I do want to emphasize his point about the importance of the lings in any fight against stalkers, especially blink stalkers.
Lings are actually your tanky units against stalker-heavy compositions, they absorb shots very very cost-effectively, and blink stalkers especially are all about efficiency. Thus, you usually don't want to fight stalkers unless you have at least a few lings to draw the first shots. Even if you want to overwhelm with roaches, just adding four or six lings each time you build more units goes a long way. (The only exception might be when you are larvae-starved, as roaches are more larvae-efficient.)
If you don't believe me, watch any pro ZvPs with blink stalker fights--the bad fights pretty much always happen when the zerg doesn't have lings when he engages, and fights tend to go better once a new wave of lings arrives. The easiest way to throw a lead against any kind of blink stalker play is to not build lings, as it can allow him to trade shields for kills, and then run. If those kills are lings, you're generally fine. When those kills are roaches or hydras, you start to have problems.
So yeah, engage with everything, then back off when your lings are mostly gone. Keep track of your reinforcement timing, if a wave of lings is about to arrive, you can keep your hydras fighting. If not, back off such that you don't lose those valuable hydras.
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EPT
