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United States4883 Posts
AKA: The 3-2-1
"3 colossus, 2 immortals, 1a"
herO did a sick 2-base all-in vs. Polt...upon further inspection, it was very similar to the colossus timing Squirtle used multiple times on his impressive run through the GSL in mid 2012. I thought I'd write down the build so that we can re-examine it and its place in the current meta.
Taken from the semi-finals at IEM World Championship in Katowice:
CJ_herO vs. Polt, G5 on Daedalus Point
The build:
9 pylon
13 gate
15 double gas
17 pylon
18 core
19 zealot (cancel)
21 nexus
*probe scout*
21 MSC
23 pylon
24 warp gate
26 stalker
28 robo (4:55)
29 stalker
35 pylon
36 stalker
@6:15 -> natural gases
@100% robo -> observer x1 -> immortal x2
@7:10 robo bay
Add sentry
@7:50 gate x2
@100% robo bay (8:20) -> colossus x3, thermal lance
@8:30 twilight council -> blink
@8:50 gate x2
Add sentry
@9:50 gate x2
@10:40 gate x1
Hits at 11:30 with 3 colossus/2 immortals/2 sentries/8-10 stalkers/some zealots
NO UPGRADES!
herO opens with an interesting 2 gas expand with only three probes on gas total; it's a bit unclear what the reasoning here is, but it's safe to assume that it times out to get the nexus a little faster than the 2-in-2 gas expansion while still allowing the Protoss to explode his gas income quickly afterwards. Other than this, he sends a probe after his building his nexus to simply confirm that his Terran opponent did indeed expand.
Afterward, herO gets a very fast robo and natural gases off of only one gateway. This is very greedy, but herO is able to get away with it in the current metagame with Terran feeling like they have to defend. In addition, herO is able to deny any scouting by reaper from Polt, giving him total control of the game pace. herO gets an observer to scout Polt's main base then immediately makes two immortals while adding on a robo bay.
At 7:50, herO adds on his very first set of extra gateways, relying on his high tech units, forcefields, and photon overcharge to defend versus any early stim pressure (which, incidentally, happened this game). From here on out, he adds extra gateways approximately every minute until he gets to 8 total.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/VNCVHZ9.png) Stim timing? Np, I'll just trade some of these gateway units NOM NOM
It's very notable that herO skips a forge and upgrades entirely to enable him to get a ton of tech very early, including his early natural gases (indirectly), his early immortals, his quick colossi, and blink followup. All of these details roll into a devastatingly powerful all-in that hits around 11:30, before most Terran players even begin producing vikings.
Particularly on Daedalus, this is an incredibly powerful and difficult to deal with push. The best way for Terran to deal with this is to either punish the Protoss greed early with a marine poke or to simply have a lot of bio units and position well when the all-in hits. I believe the primary power of this build when herO used it was not only it's archaic nature, but also it's place in the current metagame where 90% of games begin with very aggressive early pressure. Like most good plays, alternating between insanely aggressive and insanely greedy can be quite effective in getting into the mind of your opponent and causing them to make errors.
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Well written man. Goes to show how throwing in some old meta builds is an easy way to put your opponent off guard.
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This build works particularly well against Polt because he gets such late upgrades, and so slowly too.
It also plays on the fact that Polt has only one direction, and that is forward.
It's my opinion that in hots because of the mega cannon nexus these pushes into the Protoss natural will almost never kill the Protoss player and Polt definitely overstayed his welcome. He could have pulled back from the fight earlier and been slightly ahead, but probably even.
edit: at least in my play, it's common to cut some bio units to pump out vikings 3 or 4 at a time to deal with a colossus push. After losing your bio force, you HAVE to remake a new one and won't be prepared to kill 3 collosus.
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I think you meant squirtles second place run. MVP won that GSL.
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Ohhh hell yeah i remember this build from his run at IPL (can't remember what one) where he absolutely destroyed pretty much every terran in his path.
EDIT: how did i not mention the name of this build, sooo good lol. And once again thanks sc2john!
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colossi pushes are still quite good but lose a lot of oomph if terran goes 2 rax into tech with a much earlier starport. A good split from terran plus a few vikings on time make it not too hard to hold for terran I think.
Personally I prefer to do this attack without blink and no or just 1 immortal so it hits quite a bit faster. I don't think blink adds enough to include if you all-in it since it also delays your attack quite a bit. In the hero vs polt game I think it was more a reactive play though, polt slightly botched it with an earlier attack and late starports which just gave an opening to hero while his opening is decent to grab a third as well by just dropping double forge then.
The fear of blinkstalker openings definately helps alot for these delayed pushes though, polts opening was rather lackluster I think but seems chosen also because it's quite good against blink openers.
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United States4883 Posts
On March 20 2014 14:59 Thaniri wrote:
This build works particularly well against Polt because he gets such late upgrades, and so slowly too.
It also plays on the fact that Polt has only one direction, and that is forward.
It's my opinion that in hots because of the mega cannon nexus these pushes into the Protoss natural will almost never kill the Protoss player and Polt definitely overstayed his welcome. He could have pulled back from the fight earlier and been slightly ahead, but probably even.
edit: at least in my play, it's common to cut some bio units to pump out vikings 3 or 4 at a time to deal with a colossus push. After losing your bio force, you HAVE to remake a new one and won't be prepared to kill 3 collosus.
Well, yeah, Polt's upgrades are late because he's playing to the meta with his anti-blink build. I agree that this game Polt's stim timing was a disaster, especially since he traded a huge chunk of army for nexus shields, 4 probes, and a few gateway units, but herO also had a very early timing for his colossus as well as two very early immortals. In a more optimal situation, Protoss usually has ~3 stalkers/2 sentries/maybe 3-4 zealots...which that stim timing can wipe out almost instantly and then kill a dozen probes before dying to the nexus cannon.
As far as making vikings to deal with the colossi, I think just getting rax 4 and 5 first and not trading half of your army supply works just fine for shutting down these types of pushes. Back in 2012, Bomber was able to completely shut down Squirtle's colossus allin with what became the standard TvP build for almost a year 1) without making an extra starport and 2) without compromising medivac (at least 4) or barracks production. If you do happen to go 3rd CC first (which you probably shouldn't do based off of scouting information), you would definitely have to make a second starport and cut some unit production.
On March 20 2014 22:15 Markwerf wrote:
colossi pushes are still quite good but lose a lot of oomph if terran goes 2 rax into tech with a much earlier starport. A good split from terran plus a few vikings on time make it not too hard to hold for terran I think.
Personally I prefer to do this attack without blink and no or just 1 immortal so it hits quite a bit faster. I don't think blink adds enough to include if you all-in it since it also delays your attack quite a bit. In the hero vs polt game I think it was more a reactive play though, polt slightly botched it with an earlier attack and late starports which just gave an opening to hero while his opening is decent to grab a third as well by just dropping double forge then.
The fear of blinkstalker openings definately helps alot for these delayed pushes though, polts opening was rather lackluster I think but seems chosen also because it's quite good against blink openers.
I don't agree completely with 2rax builds being a good counter. The lower production of 2 rax means there really isn't a lot of Terran army at the time when the push is supposed to hit. However, because you can pressure early (and because this build is super greedy), it may be possible to delay the push a little bit better by threatening drops and shaving off bits of gateway units. So...it may be viable, it's hard to tell. Like I said before, the standard Terran opener (3 rax -> 5 rax -> 3rd CC) completely shuts down this build just because the Terran has so much supply and can also delay with medivac pressure. Polt's anti-blink -> stim timing build is probably the worst-equipped build to deal with it.
On March 20 2014 15:40 JJH777 wrote:
I think you meant squirtles second place run. MVP won that GSL.
I was thinking "his run to the finals", but I can understand how that might be misunderstood. Fixed now.
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Awesome thanks SC2John. I've been practicing this build and it's a nice one to have in the bag to bust out every once in awhile. Love your write-ups thanks again
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If you watched his other replays, in both IEM Cologne and Katowice hero constantly uses that same 2 gas 3 probe opening. The amount of gas you get is not even as much as a normal 1 gas opening with 3 probes on gas, and if you just get a 2nd gas started before your nexus starts and rally new probes to the gas you end up in the exact same place as hero does in a more straightforward manner.
He does it extremely consistently, down to which probe he uses to build the core and which mineral/geyser it goes back to.
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On March 21 2014 12:21 hellokitty[hk] wrote:
If you watched his other replays, in both IEM Cologne and Katowice hero constantly uses that same 2 gas 3 probe opening. The amount of gas you get is not even as much as a normal 1 gas opening with 3 probes on gas, and if you just get a 2nd gas started before your nexus starts and rally new probes to the gas you end up in the exact same place as hero does in a more straightforward manner.
He does it extremely consistently, down to which probe he uses to build the core and which mineral/geyser it goes back to.
Maybe it depends on the map since some geysers are less efficient then others. Do you know which map you tested this on? Or if the geysers are any more efficient or not?
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This seems like a nice build but whenever I do it, the game turns into a baserace because by the time I have 3 colossi the terran has already begun his onslaught of drops. Any ideas on how to combat that?
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United States4883 Posts
On March 22 2014 08:32 ArTiFaKs wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2014 12:21 hellokitty[hk] wrote:
If you watched his other replays, in both IEM Cologne and Katowice hero constantly uses that same 2 gas 3 probe opening. The amount of gas you get is not even as much as a normal 1 gas opening with 3 probes on gas, and if you just get a 2nd gas started before your nexus starts and rally new probes to the gas you end up in the exact same place as hero does in a more straightforward manner.
He does it extremely consistently, down to which probe he uses to build the core and which mineral/geyser it goes back to.
Maybe it depends on the map since some geysers are less efficient then others. Do you know which map you tested this on? Or if the geysers are any more efficient or not?
Sorry for the late responses, I kind of forgot about this thread:
I think the primary reason he does it this way is because it's a very mineral-efficient way to take two geysers. He only rallies into the geysers and never takes anything off of minerals after 16, meaning that he ends up with almost the same nexus timing as a 1-gate FE. In addition, after he takes his expansion, he can explode his gas income very quickly versus a 1-gate FE that adds a geyser after nexus.
People were already starting to do this type of thing at the end of WoL (the beginning of the 2-in-2 type of builds), but it's kind of been ignored in HotS since you need an extra 100 gas for MSC anyway. All in all, I think it's just a more flexible way to open into expansion.
On March 30 2014 09:12 Daimai wrote:
This seems like a nice build but whenever I do it, the game turns into a baserace because by the time I have 3 colossi the terran has already begun his onslaught of drops. Any ideas on how to combat that?
It's pretty normal to turn into a base trade. In order to avoid the possibility of a base trade, you have to really zone out the Terran army to prevent him from dropping and/or catch 1-2 medivacs with blink stalkers (this is always the case with a 2-base blink stalker/colossus allin). Vision with 1-2 observers and a few pylons on the map is VERY important. Also, keeping your blink stalkers poking on the sides of your army really helps to zone out the medivacs really well.
In herO's case, I think it was purely a meta build since Polt almost always goes for the same build (triple rax -> stim timing -> later medivacs), meaning that herO could deflect the stim timing and counterattack before Polt had the medivacs/vikings necessary to do a base trade AND deal with the threat at the front effectively. If you're seeing a lot of "anti-blink" builds on ladder, go ahead and try this one.
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I wonder if it would be a good idea to leave the Mothership Core and about 6 Stalkers at home when attacking in order to guard against base racing. You could warp in 7 zealots to support the stalkers and MSC if he tries a heavy drop. Of course, leaving the 6 stalkers and MSC behind weakens the attack. So maybe that's not a viable way to play this out. What do you think?
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United States4883 Posts
On April 15 2014 01:39 Salient wrote:
I wonder if it would be a good idea to leave the Mothership Core and about 6 Stalkers at home when attacking in order to guard against base racing. You could warp in 7 zealots to support the stalkers and MSC if he tries a heavy drop. Of course, leaving the 6 stalkers and MSC behind weakens the attack. So maybe that's not a viable way to play this out. What do you think?
Depends on the situation. If you can't stop kill off any medivacs and you scout the drop, it can be better to leave some stuff behind (because if you kill off the drops, you delay your push by 30 seconds but kill off a huge chunk of army). Then again, an all-in is an all-in  . I think it's just one of those things that you'd have to play a million times and get a good feel for. I've seen PartinG deflect drops after moving out off of a similar blink/colossus all-in and come out way ahead, so I definitely think it's viable.
Overall, I think the biggest key to making this work is vision. You want to have your stalkers always poking around the sides of your colossus/immortal/sentry ball to check the periphery and also drop some pylons around the map in strategic locations.
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EPT
