EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/YXvmPku.png)
Introduction:
The mine nerf and the concomitant tank buff from early autumn 2013 were initially designed to promote variety in Terran versus Zerg play. Balance considerations aside, it appears to have been a success half a year later. We saw the emergence of a variation in the form of hellbat MMM, where the build were strictly identical and of several new way of playing TvZ coming from Korea.
Mech came back to life with the merging of air and ground upgrade with a new flavour based on viking/thor defense versus mutalisk, made possible by a quick double armory. The FlaSh/DRG game in Proleague on King Sejong Station perfectly demonstrated this newfound synergy. However a counter composition quickly came up and InoVation lost a wonderful game 2 on Heavy Rain against Soulkey's Muta/Swarmhost army during the korean qualifier for IEM Katowice. Mech went still strong for sometimes but quickly felt out off favor in Korea as zerg players mastered the Swarmhost/Muta style of play
Around the same time one of the best illustration of how little thing can change the pace of a game was the emergence of the three reaper build coming out of an 11 rax and an 11 gas which allowed heavy aggression on the Zerg queens, and promoted an alternative follow up consisting of hellions and banshees after the initial harassment in order to prevent the 70 drones no unit syndrome. One of the first televised games using this three reaper style was of another whole style and Fantasy demonstrated that HotS was far from being figured out when he added 2 ebays, 1 armory and 2factory to his initial 3cc build off 3reapers on Outboxer. That was one of this awe moment for me and I was wondering what was going on and how Fanta was going to make this biomech build work. It worked for him but had no real follow up from other Terrans, mech being the go-to build if you weren't willing to play straight up bio mine/hellbat.
Early may Inno started to stream again, Reality played a wacky game on Merry Go Round and Bunny defeated Snute 2-0 in Fragbite masters. Three events with no other correlation than the emergence of a new way of going biomech, which looked standardized.
Why going bio mech?
Today both bio and mech vZ are really hard to play, blizzard is even considering a buff to compensate for that fact. The issue is ironically the same in both case: dealing with mutalisks. While the bio solution could be to simply prevent the zerg from reaching an insane economy (and that's what blizzard is aiming at), outside of Mvpesque timings mech play will always allow the zerg to reach that stage and there is no real innovation available outside of using widow mines in pure mech armies. Considering both the prevalence of the problem since WoL days and the fact nobody used widow mine deterrence against mutalisks it is safe to assume that it isn't realistic, a logical explanation would be the impact of locusts on widow mines while the current muta/sh style used.
This is where bio mech shines, marines being relatively good versus swarmhost (when they can avoid them or quickly strike between locust waves on some rare occasions. At the same time marines are exceptional against mutalisks who cannot even dream to fight a good marine ball backed up by a few thors composition head on. If you can still get the amount of tanks necessary to obliterate everything except an important number of ultralisks on the ground or a Stephanoesque number of locusts; like in every mech game passing 12minutes, while dealing with mutalisks you'd be in a wonderful place (eg Inno vs SH/Muta). At the same time the mobility provided by marines would allow to expand quicker if your opponent was going for a heavy number of swarm host, to threaten them a bit more easily (hence reducing the opportunity for the locust to get on your front) while getting the economy needed to get a good number of ravens (or even considering a full sky switch ala Mvp) in order to close out the game.
Furthermore, going for an (at the moment) unusual strategy means that there is no clear answer for the zerg, both as far compositions and build order go. Your opponent answer will be probably suboptimal, and even when it'll become figured there is still the fact that it looks extremely similar to a pure mech opening. Today MajOr even pulled off a variation where he went for almost the exact textboot opening for viking-mech, which is a mindgame going on for 12 minutes. Even if pure mech falls out of favor in Korea or in the Pro scene, it'll still be viable as a suboptimal strategy that rely on your opponent not dealing correctly with it and the layer of mindgame between mech and biomech will still be here for us.
The biomech pattern: strategy and build orders
I wish to differentiate these two concepts, utilizing strategy as a broad plan going into the mech (I'm going to play Biomech versus this zerg on King Sejong Station, going for a strong mid/late timing/composition) as opposed to the build order which is the detailed plan (which may or may not survive the early game) used to achieve this strategy. I don't claim to detain the truth or whatever about this and if there are more accurate concepts I'd gladly used them over this arbitrary distinction.
Reality, Innovation and Bunny used a similar strategy in their games, going for a strong hellbat/tank/MMM composition with a few thors in the mix, hitting pre hive timings whenever they could to maximize their army advantage. They used various build and openings which will be discussed a bit later but followed the same pattern. The opening were hugely different, including a very cute reaper 3cc into blue flame hellion from bunny (that build in itself was so sick) but aimed at 3cc 3fac 1rax 1port 1armory infrastructure to go into the mid game. The only variation from the viking based mech is that you cut 1armory. You can totally use your own mech opening to do that (eg 3reapers into hellion/cloack banshee/3rd cc/1 armory instead of two). You can defend basically everything if you went for some banshees, including a two base muta into a muta/roach all in as demonstrated here by Innovation (Inno vs 2b muta)
With the saved gas you'll start this wonderful upgrade that's called stimpack. If the pattern is followed by everyone for the mech upgrade (only attack to begin with), there is a variation from Appolo's favorite terran hope who used a double ebay build where Inno and Reality use a single ebay build (in itself it is one of the most interesting development of recent korean terran play both in TvP with the 4:00ish ebay builds leading to a quick 3-1 and in those TvZ).
Then the bio switch comes in and they add 4 or 5 raxes, all with reactors and start to pump out marines as the main mineral intensive units, the hellbat production becoming the lowest priority. In order to get a max army these three gentlemen went for a total infrastructure of 5 to 6 raxes, 3 factories and 1 starport (respectively 5 reactors/1 tech lab, 1 reactor/2 techlab and 1 reactor) with 1 or 2 ebays and an armory for the upgrades. Then more (2 or 3) raxes are added in order to ensure a sufficient production of bio units.
I'd say that the main point in favor or a strong standardization of biomech is the initial reality game in Proleague
where Reality holds (remarkably) SoO's roach aggression in the early and still follow the biomech pattern already identified. Inno had a similar game that I can't find again on his stream where he holded a roach/bane attack and transitionned into the 1 armory 3 factories into more raxes production facility setup.
Getting from there
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/KDThcAS.png)
To there
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/cQ08Kzj.png)
I'll just add the go to build used by our Code S hope Inno but feel free to try your own stuff, it is way more about getting somewhere than how you get there. I'll try to add some more when I'll get some half decent replays to go with.
A standard 2reaper expand:
- 12 rax 12 gas
- Snd cc after your second reaper is started,
- Factory as soon as possible, then your second gas and your reactor on your rax.
- Starport, switch the rax and the factory, make a tech lab with the rax for your port.
- Produce hellions continuously then two cloack banshees.
- Get your 3rd cc whenever possible
- An armory, double gas on your natural and two factory (your second banshee will end around this time) and a reactor on the starport. Don't use it unless you want vikings to deal with pesky 2base mutalisk builds.
- You get a defensive ebay if you see fast mutas, you can add it later if not.
- When you start your thors 1 & 2 you can get your ebay(s) and start a techlab on your rax for your bio upgrades. Definitely land your 3rd now if it's not done yet and get both the geysers.
- Add raxes.
- Enjoy yourself
Conclusion:
I am willing to discuss everything presented here and it isn't a revealed truth. I think there is a clear pattern leading to a standardization of the strategy through the use of multiple build orders leading to a common mid game play. There are still a few unknown points that I wish to present here.
The upgrades: how many ebays, when to start +1 bio, when to add a second ebay if you do so.
The maps: at the moment it has been mainly used on smaller maps and the viability on either Alterzim or 11-5 Waystation is doubtful.
Will the hellbat buff make the standard bio build so strong that everything else doesn't deserved to be used? If the buff comes through it will definitely shake up the whole TvZ once again.
How many mindgames? The fact it can be both a pure mech or a biomech build until the 12th minute is a huge advantage, MajOr even used a viking versus Serral to deny scouting, it's definitely a tool that'll be used a lot in short term and its long term viability
It has been the funniest TvZ style to play since a very long time for me, providing every tool you need with decent upgrades and a way to ignore the usual rigidities of most terran styles comiting yourself on either bio + a few mech units (late WoL with heavy tank/thor play and MMM was the closest to the current biomech) or mech. Its flexibility is quite a feet and I hope it could become a new standard.
I'll add my own replays later on when I can get a decent game going on.
Special thanks to aAaOnly for his help and advices
Replays:
http://drop.sc/380603
A weird game where I chose to 14cc on Merry Go round, teching to cloack banshee before my 3rd. My opponent went for a sizeable amount of roaches into a muta switch, I got a very good timing to kill both his 4th and 5th (and made a huge mistake, could've got the 3rd instead of backing) then the game got really weird, I misplayed a lot and my plan wasn't good (should've expanded toward his expo and not toward his main too set up a smoother push).
Tons of thing to improve but it's because there is a ton of room to play with.
http://drop.sc/380797
I totally misplayed the early game but read the 2base muta build and was able to react to it. Both my play and my opponent play were far from stellar but the defense against the early mutas was decent.
