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+ Show Spoiler +On June 30 2013 12:17 Glaive wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2013 11:00 Antylamon wrote:On June 30 2013 10:33 Glaive wrote:+ Show Spoiler +So, I´ve spent a lot of time studying this build, as it´s by far the most frustrating way to slowly suffocate as a Terran. Just painful.
I´m not at all surprised how incredibly popular this has gotten on the ladder, (pulling what feels like a realistic number out of my ass) 7/10 times the Zerg scouts high ground CC on High Master EU the hatch goes down immidiately. More often than not the Zerg takes a nice early lead with the modified 3 hatch before pool variation.
Opinions of a high master Terran:
Many of the proposed counters only really puts you on even footing vs the Hatch -> Pool -> Offensive Hatch opening. The modified 3 Hatch before pool variation, which is completely safe, is a different story. I have yet to play anyone who tries this, but I theorize that you can even go into 4 hatch (Third hatch being the offensive, 4th planted at your 3rd) before pool and get away with it.
The safest, more surefire way to deal with the hatch once you scout it in your nat is to add a second rax and build two bunkers around the hatch. You absolutely cannot allow the Queen to plant a creep tumor, that´s essentially game. Even if you clear out the hatch, queen and any potential spine crawlers, without losing a single unit, the Zerg gets far, far ahead. But even then, the creep spread from the hatch alone puts the Zerg slightly ahead if he doesn´t build Queen/Spines/Lings and instead drones. Unless there is some serious meta:ing going on, the Terran has to account for the possibility of the Ling follow-up.
Why not just 1 bunker? If the Zerg commits heavily to lings, he´ll break it and you lose your nat, and subsequently, the game.
Why not immidiately wall off your ramp? I was excited when I first read about this, in theory it seemed like a great counter. Unfortunately it´s simply not viable on a lot of maps. Whirlwind, Akilon, Belshir etc. all have ramps that are too wide. Besides, the Zerg can simply read the situation correctly and not invest in a single Zergling, cancel his Queen, take a third and drone behind it. Knowing full well the Terran can put on no counter-pressure. The creep spread from the hatch alone more than makes up for the investment. By no means are you absolutely dead in this scenario, but undeniably the Terran is, again, quite far behind.
The problem is information. The Zerg holds all the cards, you simply can´t tell if he´s droning or if there are 12 lings about to pop. If you overdefend, you´re behind. If you don´t take the potential Spine/Ling follow-up seriously, you straight up die or get contained.
Conclusion? The only true counter to this is to block the drone from planting the hatch, the 300 mineral investment into the hatch puts Z slightly ahead no matter what happens next, assuming he in turn responds correctly to what the Terran is doing. Some Zergs will respond by trying to proxy the hatch, though, so you really need to baby-sit that SCV following his drone for just long enough.
Basically the economic damage you suffer from pulling one SCV off of minerals at that ~ 1 minute interval when you need to block the Drone is a lot less painful than having to wait invest in two bunkers, a second rax and then waiting for the creep to recede before you can float your Orbital.
Nothing is more satisfying than blocking that Drone over and over, suddenly he´s floating 500 minerals, realizes that even if he jukes the SCV and gets to plant the hatch, the first Marine is going to pop any second and he opts against it.
My $0.02
Uhm? Did you watch Bomber vs Catz on Whirlwind? You haven't said anything about that yet. I did cover similar scenarios, but didn´t point to that game specifically for a couple of reasons. But you´re right, now that I re-read I think the parallells were mostly drawn in my own head (skipping sleep to watch MLG ftw!) and not as clear as they should have been, I´ll elaborate! Let me highlight the parts of my previous posts relevant to the scenario that played out on Whirlwind vs Bomber. Show nested quote +On June 30 2013 10:33 Glaive wrote:
The safest, more surefire way to deal with the hatch once you scout it in your nat is to add a second rax and build two bunkers around the hatch...
... But even then, the creep spread from the hatch alone puts the Zerg slightly ahead if he doesn´t build Queen/Spines/Lings and instead drones.
Why not just 1 bunker? If the Zerg commits heavily to lings, he´ll break it and you lose your nat, and subsequently, the game.
... Besides, the Zerg can simply read the situation correctly and not invest in a single Zergling, cancel his Queen, take a third and drone behind it. Knowing full well the Terran can put on no counter-pressure. The creep spread from the hatch alone more than makes up for the investment. By no means are you absolutely dead in this scenario, but undeniably the Terran is, again, quite far behind.
The problem is information. The Zerg holds all the cards, you simply can´t tell if he´s droning or if there are 12 lings about to pop. If you overdefend, you´re behind. If you don´t take the potential Spine/Ling follow-up seriously, you straight up die or get contained. 1) Bomber was completely blind and kinda lucked out. 3 rax was my initial response to this build, after further experimentation I realized that you only "need" two. Yes, you can get away with only 1 Bunker with the extra Marines you can squeeze out, but it also hurts you a little bit more economically if the Zerg doesn´t commit. Bomber compensates for this by cancelling his gas and doesn´t remake the Refinery until the 5 min mark. Every time I´ve done that vs a Zerg who doesn´t follow up with the all-in I´ve been completely screwed as I´ve now essentially gone a gasless 2 CC into 3 rax. On some smaller maps there may be potential for a counter bunker rush/SCV pull all-in, they´ve been kinda hit and miss in my own experience, largely dependant on the Zergs control and if he scouts it in time. But in general, that´s just not where you want to be as a Terran player at that stage of the game in HotS. 2) Catz misplayed it. Firstly there was the awkward moment of indecisiveness where he first targeted down one SCVs repairing, then the bunker, then realized he had to kill the other SCV. I´ve seen Catz and many other Zergs execute that variation a lot better. Secondly, he didn´t need to commit the way he did. He had an Overlord in position to scout Bombers ramp, but didn´t. As a result he blindly continued with the Ling follow-up instead of droning. Had he poked with the Overlord he would have seen 3 rax, cut his losses and taken a slight economic lead vs, what I feel, is an overreaction from the Terran. The Overlord patterns times out so that the Zerg can check what the Terrans reaction is before he decides whether or not to commit to morphings lings and pulling Drones for Spines. Correct me if I´m wrong here, Zergs players, but I think the only cases this isn´t true is cross map spawns on Whirlwind and maps of equal size. 3) All in all, it plays out pretty much the same as 2 Barracks into a second Bunker instead of the third rax. Though I must admit I haven´t experimented with it all too much, so I definitely won´t rule out that there might be situations that I´m not considering where you´re better off with the third rax. I doubt there´s a significant difference, but it does warrant further testing! I hope that explained my position on this opening a bit better!
So after going cc - rax - gas - cancel gas - rax, do you recommend going gas or double gas immediately after? or even 3rd cc? or it doesn't matter, and just continue as normal, but a tad delayed?
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To be perfectly honest I´m not sure what I´d recommend at this time, it depends on how you want to follow up. If you have a read on your opponent or not. The safest recommendation would of course be to just open Reaper-expand, but Terrans, being our greedy selves, are extremely unwilling to refute the high ground CC opening - though, I think it might end up being considered a slight risk.
But sticking to the issue at hand:
I´d say it´s map dependant. I definitely don´t like the cancellation of the gas, however. I feel it limits your options too much. But maybe Bomber knows something I don´t (seems like a reasonable assumption :D), maybe you simply don´t have a choice, if you want to be completely safe. I would have loved to see what exactly his contingency plan was, if Catz had just droned and taken a third. Does he just count on outplaying Catz regardless? Was the 3 rax a knee-jerk reaction or did he have it all planned out from the start?
I´ve been favoring to keep the gas, stay on 2 rax and fight it out that way... not being hugely successful in the macro variations. But at least you can get out those Hellions, Medivacs, Mines - and last but not least, dem Hellbats - that allow you to eek out small victories here and there to slowly get you back to an even game. Perhaps most importantly, you get to scout a lot sooner. If you go for Bombers variation your Factory won´t start until around 6:30 (compared to the normal 4:30, so I´d say it´s more than a tad delayed) But in exchange you can plop down a much earlier third CC. The reason I don´t like this is because it delays any potential counter-pressure, allowing the Zerg to be much more greedy. Scouting becomes all but impossible, is he taking a fourth somewhere? How much gas has he mined? Without being able to answer these questions it´s so god damn hard to know in what direction you should be taking your build while still being safe to all the RNG all-ins Zergs throw at you on the ladder.
If you keep the gas it´s possible to reclaim your natural as quickly and still have your Armory, Starport and Reactor started before the 7 min mark. Obviously without the third CC.
I´m gonna run more CGs when I get home further evaluating the merits of cancelling your gas and adding the third rax, I´ll get back with a less TheoryCraft:y answer later  Knowing Bomber it could very well be that he´s determined that you need the third rax in order to hold your natural on maps with some of these wider ramps, where a delayed ling-bust is always a threat until your wall is complete, i.e like 30-40 lings instead of just 12. I´ve been forced to lift my natural even with 2-3 bunkers (no wall) to that.
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You can do this build also against cc on low ground, just plant the hatch right next to cc and follow up normally with pool and lings.
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thong rae gu, that completey defeeats the point of this build. they immediately see it, and their expansion doesn't get delayed from landing at all
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On July 01 2013 05:35 RawBeeG wrote:
thong rae gu, that completey defeeats the point of this build. they immediately see it, and their expansion doesn't get delayed from landing at all
Well terran has to lift of soon when lings come and then there will be lot of creep.
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
Does it works versus Protoss FFE?
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I´m a firm believer in the proxy creep-hatch, actually even saw it in this MLG on Akilon! It was disgusting, creep and Overlords covering the ENTIRE map, up to the Terrans natural and third at like 9 minutes. It was a 4 hatch before pool, even if scouted I don´t know how the Terran can punish it after opening CC 1st.
Seems to be a valid strategy, but, as RawBeeG said, making it right next to a lowground CC defeats the purpose. You´ll lose it without forcing a lift if the Terran reacts correctly: adds 1-2 more rax and defend his natural with Bunkers.
There is a reason why Catz, when he drone scouts, always lets the Terran make the CC a part of his wall ^^
On July 01 2013 06:33 Existor wrote:
Does it works versus Protoss FFE?
The few times I´ve seen it it has failed, but I don´t remember if they were pro games or... you know, Funday Monday, so I won´t say for certain :D Try it!
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On July 01 2013 02:07 Glaive wrote:
I´d say it´s map dependant. I definitely don´t like the cancellation of the gas, however. I feel it limits your options too much. But maybe Bomber knows something I don´t (seems like a reasonable assumption :D), maybe you simply don´t have a choice, if you want to be completely safe. I would have loved to see what exactly his contingency plan was, if Catz had just droned and taken a third. Does he just count on outplaying Catz regardless? Was the 3 rax a knee-jerk reaction or did he have it all planned out from the start?
He went 3 rax to head for a CS push in order to prevent CatZ from droning, thus keeping his lead. Since the Zerg opened gasless, he had to concede at least a Spine at the natural and slow lings to defend. In this game, it went so-so because CatZ decided to transition into a Roach/Baneling bust (at least Bomber scouted it this way though), but otherwise he would have had to interrupt his droning to defend the push. The 3 rax isn't mandatory, it's a decision; 2 rax is the standard answer, with dual gas as soon as possible or a third CC afterwards. Just like the 3 rax CS push, when the hatch is destroyed you use the Marines you built to poke to force extra defence from the Zerg—except you didn't commit to third rax and early bio tech.
On July 01 2013 06:00 ThongRaeGu wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 05:35 RawBeeG wrote:
thong rae gu, that completey defeeats the point of this build. they immediately see it, and their expansion doesn't get delayed from landing at all Well terran has to lift of soon when lings come and then there will be lot of creep.
Terran wouldn't have to lift at all since the bunker would protect the CC, and creep would be irrelevant since the CC would already be landed.
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Is there an analysis on his attack when the cc is down prior to the hatchery? he pulls 5 drones just to harass the CC scv building now.
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EPT
