After the big tournament this past weekend, duckdeok cause a big upset by beating Innovation and nearly beating Maru as well by using primarily tricky builds and early cheeses - most notably, his 2-base blink all-in. After looking through his games, I decided to write it down and share so that you can humiliate your opponent's with fun blink builds! It's time to pull out the quacks .
Hits @8:30 with 12 stalkers All chronoboost is saved for blink after main base saturation
The goal of duckdeok's strategy is to open in a fairly common, straight-forward way while denying your opponent's information. Naturally, this can lead into either a very straightforward, normal game OR it can hide the true intentions of a mischievous all-in. Duckdeok takes advantage of this shortage of information to take advantage of his opponent and "randomize" his followups (for instance, one game he'll do a blink all-in, the next game he'll go for an insanely fast 3rd and normal robo play, as shown in his games against Innovation). The key here is to keep your opponent uncertain and either force a scan (which shouldn't catch anything important if you're positioning your buildings well) or a lot of premature bunkers.
The brilliant thing about duckdeok's build is that it defends well against most early aggression with the high number of stalkers and hits right before most stim timings are finished. This means that when you hit, you can often times snipe the tech lab with stim and get WAY ahead, even if your aggression fails. The huge numbers of stalkers that hit initially (~12) also do so much burst damage that it's generally possible to focus down a bunker in 2-3 shots.
In both games, duckdeok mind games his opponents pretty hard and is able to simply do a frontal assault with just a time warp and good blink micro. In other cases, it's generally standard to pressure the front then blink into the main while using time warp on the ramp to slow down the terran units. Other than this, using good blink micro and clever techniques like blinking down cliffs should secure you the win. The key is not getting surrounded by SCVs and keeping your MSC alive for continual time warps and high ground vision. A special note: duckdeok showed in his game against Maru that you can also cancel the widow mine's attack by blinking at the right time.
Duckdeok does this once on Frost and once on Yeonsu, presumably because you can control the flow of information and deny reapers from scouting your main base. This type of strategy probably also has a lot of promise on Whirlwind, which has only one available entrance for reapers. To transition (AKA if you don't outright win), you would most likely throw down a robo and a forge and take your natural gases while keeping your opponent pinned back with your blink stalkers.
So, whenever you feel you're falling behind in the PvT meta, whenever you feel like you can't seem to beat terran...just channel the duck and pull out all the quacks.
EDIT:
On November 14 2013 07:12 AgamemnonSC2 wrote: I made an audio build for this, hope it helps!
NOTE: Not building the Zealot will result in better build order timing. Cancel Zealot if safe, or do not build it at all. Your forward probe should scout if there is an expansion or not. This is especially important in the lower/not pro leagues!!! A one basing opponent can be beaten, but you may need to defend for a bit.
Thanks to IMBA Builds for the Replay.
Oh, and this is my first one. So any suggestions are welcome!
EDIT: this build also works off of 14 gate -> 17 nexus. This earlier nexus can coax the terran player into playing even more greedy because he won't be expecting a blink all-in.
What would you do against a gas first with this build? I feel that you can only do this against a reaper expand with no factory followup (e.g. widow mine Drops, i guess a hellion medivac push could be thwarted, but you dont have any detection against widow mines), do you suggest scouting with the MSC when you see a gas? to see what he follows the reaper up i mean.
TLDR: When do you Scout with MSC when seeing gas? Difference between gas first and 13gas? Or how do you react vs gas pressure?
Edit: I totally forgot to thank you for this writeup!! So sorry! Thanks alot for the work you put in, i was searching for this build and you just made my day :D thanks for the super work sc2john
Oh my god as a Terran this is the second worst build to see on ladder. It's just so painful and I have no idea how to reliably stop it. Now this with Star Station... Why is this topic here!~!!!
On November 13 2013 17:10 Dragonadern wrote: High master toss here (2000 pts last season )
What would you do against a gas first with this build? I feel that you can only do this against a reaper expand with no factory followup (e.g. widow mine Drops, i guess a hellion medivac push could be thwarted, but you dont have any detection against widow mines), do you suggest scouting with the MSC when you see a gas? to see what he follows the reaper up i mean.
TLDR: When do you Scout with MSC when seeing gas? Difference between gas first and 13gas? Or how do you react vs gas pressure?
Edit: I totally forgot to thank you for this writeup!! So sorry! Thanks alot for the work you put in, i was searching for this build and you just made my day :D thanks for the super work sc2john
The power of this all-in is looking like a fairly normal opening while being quite effective against "standard" or greedy terran play. Last night on Inside the Game, Xenocider was talking about how Innovation was clearly scouting for signs of aggression, didn't see much, and so he didn't build an extra bunker. That's where the strength of this build lies. Of course, the other beautiful thing is that if you don't outright win, you can often times transition out of it with a solid 2-base economy.
I think perhaps you would just forgo blink and play a more standard robo-based game if you scout gas first; like I said in the OP, the build that duckdeok does looks pretty normal and can transition into almost anything. As far as scouting the followup to a reaper off of 13 gas, I'm not sure it's necessary. If your opponent does something standard, this blink all-in will be good; if your opponent does something less standard (i.e. widow mine drop after reaper), they won't have any units and you'll run them over with your all-in. In the game vs. Maru, I believe Maru does something wonky like marine/widow mine drops after reaper; duckdeok just defends the drop the best he can and then does an unbelievably strong counterpush.
Those are my thoughts. Hope they are helpful!
I suppose my next post should include something about proxy stargates!!! :D (So much terran tears, I can feel it hahaha)
I don't understand the expo first blink all-in, the whole point is to get in there before stim is done, why delay it at all? I do the one base version of this and it hits well over a minute earlier than this, I will stick to it.
On November 14 2013 02:53 Littlesheep wrote: I don't understand the expo first blink all-in, the whole point is to get in there before stim is done, why delay it at all? I do the one base version of this and it hits well over a minute earlier than this, I will stick to it.
While it may not hit as hard as a 1-base blink all-in, it does have the advantage of being "tricky" in that it looks almost normal to the terran player until around 8:00. Most terran players, especially with the more modern reaper expands we're seeing, hold off on building a bunker unless they see something out of the ordinary. Duckdeok takes advantage of that by denying scouting every game and mind gaming his opponents using either something like a blink all-in, a 3-gate stalker attack after expansion, or something incredibly greedy like a fast 3rd nexus. That said, it's important to think of this build in context to your goal; duckdeok's goal here was not to do the most extreme blink all-in as possible but to instead set up a series of expectations that he could exploit.
I don't know the exact differences between builds, but having 6 gateways and 14 extra probes and still hitting only a minute later than a 1-base blink all-in is amazing. In every game duckdeok did this in the global finals, stim still had like 20-30 seconds left to go when he attacked. In my eyes, it's still a very good attack timing and allows you to transition a lot better than a 1-base blink all-in.
On November 14 2013 02:53 Littlesheep wrote: I don't understand the expo first blink all-in, the whole point is to get in there before stim is done, why delay it at all? I do the one base version of this and it hits well over a minute earlier than this, I will stick to it.
because there is almost no way of them not knowing it is coming when it's one base. no expansion,6 on gass, missing a pylon? at that point they already know it's coming. with this sick build you have the opportunity to take them by surprise.
I tried the build out on on Star Station, which is a map just as good for it, and couldnt get it to work because of widow mine drop. Any tips on how to Approach this?
I tried it 4 times and I got destrooooooyed. I suck at the game obviously (platinum), and I can't seem to hit the timing correctly. Needs more practice than it might look like it does (or better fundamentals than mine in the first place).
The Mainpart of this build is not to win with brute force but with out-mindgaming your opponent and letting him play greedier and unsafer then against a 1-base all in. You don't expect a Toss to blink all in you when he sees a fast expand. My version is out of a 17 Nexus, which leads the terran into playing even more greedy, like 2 rax fast starport or even 3 CC. It hits at the same time with the same amount of stalkers, so I think playing this all in out of a 17 nexus mindfucks an opponent even more.
In the end it's a pretty solid all in for the ladder and even for tournaments.
On November 14 2013 02:53 Littlesheep wrote: I don't understand the expo first blink all-in, the whole point is to get in there before stim is done, why delay it at all? I do the one base version of this and it hits well over a minute earlier than this, I will stick to it.
because there is almost no way of them not knowing it is coming when it's one base. no expansion,6 on gass, missing a pylon? at that point they already know it's coming. with this sick build you have the opportunity to take them by surprise.
this is a sick build thanks once again john!
..and if it fails to kill, a two base build transitions much better :pp
Sick build, I'm gonna def try this. I like the aggro-pressure style, I'm the type that loves playing a reactive style, so I approve 100% of this over a 1 base definite all-in.
On November 14 2013 06:15 SalvationII wrote: Haha, nice writing you did here.. :D
The Mainpart of this build is not to win with brute force but with out-mindgaming your opponent and letting him play greedier and unsafer then against a 1-base all in. You don't expect a Toss to blink all in you when he sees a fast expand. My version is out of a 17 Nexus, which leads the terran into playing even more greedy, like 2 rax fast starport or even 3 CC. It hits at the same time with the same amount of stalkers, so I think playing this all in out of a 17 nexus mindfucks an opponent even more.
In the end it's a pretty solid all in for the ladder and even for tournaments.
EU-GM toss's opinion.
I used to do this too but only in Wol when nexus first was viable. I would nexus first and follow up with quick blink obs or gateway all in and win the majority of the time. How are you going nexus first in the current map pool though? Even pros rarely nexus first on whirlwind and frost.
EPT
.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/2ozAIJ0.png)
