It's safe to say that the introduction of outdated and broken maps to the current ladder pool is one of the most controversial decisions taken by Blizzard to date regarding sc2. Let's be honest: the Wings era is the Wild West of Starcraft. Even if you weren't part of the scene then, you will surely have heard legends about unstoppable 111 all-ins, ridiculous bunker rushes (IdrA vs Jinro on Metalopolis anyone?), impossibly wide open expansions and broken protoss timings. We had one MLG when the entire Slayers team showed up with a new, seemingly unstoppable blueflame hellion build, resulting in games with dozens of dead SCV's. Stephano built his early zvp style on making lots of cheap units and amoving because he knew that no matter what, the protoss would run out of forcefields. Despite the obvious, ridiculous imbalances of the time, this was also an era of discovery and development, and an era when a revolutionary new build could come out of nowhere and change the game as it was known.

Playing with modern units and builds on these maps will certainly be interesting, to say the least. If you are expecting anything remotely resembling balance or fairness, you probably should take a break from ladder for a while. On the other hand, if you just feel like collecting a few Terran/Zerg/Protoss tears and sweet, sweet ladder points, keep reading and playing. You are going to have a good time.





You may or may not know that Protoss is capable of 2basing with absolutely every unit at its disposal, which is amazing in and of itself. Going into the season, many of the "new" maps look like they have been created exclusively so that Protoss players can make other players' lives miserable, to an extent that hasn't quite been matched before. These are just a few ideas:




This is the little brother of the glorious Soultrain, savior of Aiur and reaper of Zerg souls. It's particularly strong on maps with extremely open naturals, like Metalopolis and Xel'Naga, as they are impossible to hold with just bunkers. It has also been used successfully on maps either without a natural ramp, like Daybreak, or with natural "backdoor" rocks to abuse, like Ohana. Of course an immortal all-in is good on Ohana, who am I kidding...

• 13 Gate (3x chronoboost on probes at start)
  
• 14 Gas
  
• 18 Core
  
• 20 Zealot
  
• 22 Pylon
  
• 23 Stalker and WG tech (3 chrono total on WG tech)
  
• 27 Nexus (at 26 food, rally nexus to natural. The probe will reach the natural right on time)
  
• 29 Sentry
  
• 29 Assimilator
  
• 30 Pylon
  
• 31 Robotics. Off robotics: immortal 2x
  
• 33 Gateway, msc
  
• Warp in sentry/zealot as gas allows. Make sure to not delay your immortals
  
• 35 2x gates
  
• Push out when immortals are done. You should be at the Terran's natural around 8:40.

Old maps were not built with the blink stalker+msc combo in mind, and they feature extremely wide open mains as a result. Additionally, on some maps (Metalopolis, Xel'Naga Caverns, Ohana) the main-natural ramp is very close to the spot where stalkers tend to blink in, meaning that it's very easy to simply bring a warp prism along, drop four sentries and end the game with two clicks. Very skillful. The most broken map of them all is Shakuras Plateau, where you can harass and blink into the main from the "backdoor" corridor while being protected by a set of destructible rocks.



I assume that anyone reading this already knows at least one blink all-in for PvT and PvZ, so here's a few ideas for slightly more ridiculous builds:

PvP DT expand into Blink timing:

• Double gas opener, 2 on each gas
  
• 19/26 second gate, 3 on each gas
  
• First 200 gas: stalker, warpgate, msc
  
• Twilight council as soon as you can afford it, dark shrine once it completes
  
• 2x stalkers as minerals allow, scout your side of the map
  
• Cut probes at 24 until you expand
  
• 3rd gate as warpgate completes
  
• ~6:30: blink, nexus, warp in one offensive DT
  
• Nonstop probes after starting the nexus, push as blink completes. If the DT did damage you win.

PvZ Blink/Sentry drop all-in

• FFE opening
  
• From the first Gateway: Stalker, Sentry, Sentry
  
• +1 Weapons with your first 100 gas
  
• 6:20: 3rd and 4th gas.
  
• 7:20: 3 extra Gates and a Twilight Council.
  
• 7:50: Robo.
  
• +2 Weapons when +1 completes; Blink after +2 is started. Chronoboost +2 more than Blink to line up their completion.
  
• 8:30: 3-4 extra Gates.
  
• Go up to 4 Sentries before switching to Stalkers, make a Warp Prism and move out when all your Gates are ready.
  
• 10:00: Pray you get to blink into the main and land a ff on the ramp. Collect ladder points and zerg tears.

PvZ Rain's +1 blink all-in. Completely and utterly broken on Shakuras.

• FFE opening
  
• From the first gateway: 2x stalkers
  
• ~5:40: warpgate, twilight council as as soon cyber core completes
  
• +1 Weapons with the next 100 gas
  
• 3rd gas at 6:30
  
• Blink as soon as the Twilight Council completes
  
• Add 6 gates, cut at 41 probes
  
• Mothership core after cutting probes.
  
• Push/harass his main once blink completes, warping in stalkers on the low ground between mains. If cross positions secure a "proxy" pylon early on, if close by air just use one of the pylons in your main to reinforce.

Every map has some stupidly abusive cannon rush spots, especially for PvP. These screenshots highlight the most well known. The maps shown are, in order, Ohana, Cloud Kingdom, Metalopolis, Daybreak and Akilon Wastes:






You may or may not know that the absolutely amazing taiwanese Protoss Has beat MMA at some Chinese tournament by going proxy oracle into proxy void ray into 4gate into proxy tempest into cannon contain into proxy nexus. Like a true warrior of Aiur.
Anyway, as it turns out, this kind of bullshit would actually be legit on maps where you can use your tempests/oracle to harass the Terran mineral line as well as his ramp defense...you know, older maps like Metalopolis, Cloud Kingdom, Daybreak, maybe Shakuras... Too bad they aren't...oh wait. RIP terran.

• 13 gate, send probe out
  
• 15/18 double gas
  
• 18/18 cyber core
  
• 18/18 proxy pylon
  
• Stargate as soon as proxy pylon completes.
  
• Stalker, warpgate with the next 100 gas. This stalker is only used for base defense.
  
• 3rd pylon at main ramp.
  
• Off stargate: 2x Oracles, Void Ray
  
• Forge at your main ramp as the Oracle is building. Cannon in your main mineral line if he opened fact. Use your stalker to fully block the ramp.
  
• 2 extra gates as warpgate completes and money allows.
  
• Do as much damage as possible with your air army, contain the terran with your stargate/gateway army and a few cannons.
  
• Fleet beacon and msc after as 3rd void ray is building. Use your air army to protect the stargate. The msc is mostly used for base defense
  
• For extra BM make a natural nexus and use overcharge to push up the ramp

The forge is seriously genius. You can really picture Has pulling this shit on ladder hundreds of times and being like "uh fact builds are strong vs this and sometimes i can't quite contain him. Better get a forge to fully wall my main and then to expand at his natural if i want to."



If there's one thing that annoys me about HotS is that Soultrains are seriously half arsed a lot of the time. Like, people will push with 2 immortals after 10 minutes, without pressuring first. This can not stand. Plz make Parting Senpai proud, Ohana is his playground after all.

Soultrain:

• From the first Gateway: Zealot, Sentry, Sentry, Sentry.
  
• 5:50: Robotics as soon as cyber core completes
  
• 6:15: 3rd and 4th gas.
  
• Robo units: Immortal, Immortal, eventual Immortal, Warp Prism, Observer.
  
• +1 weapons as gas allows
  
• 7:20: 3 extra Gates.
  
• 8:15: 3 extra Gates. Separate the two sets of Gates to make scouting harder.
  
• Cut Probes at 46.
  
• ~8:50: move out at with 3 Immortals, 1 Zealot, 10 Sentries. Rally the Warp Prism and Observer to the Zerg third, reinforce with Stalkers as gas permits.

4gate+1 into Soultrain, because #2011nostalgia:

• From the first Gateway: Zealot, Stalker, Stalker
  
• +1 Weapons with the first 100 gas
  
• Move out with Zealot/Stalker/Probe to secure proxy Pylon locations.
  
• 6:35, 38/44 food: 3 extra Gates.
  
• 7:00: 3rd and 4th gas, Robotics
  
• 40/44: add a Pylon at home and at least one proxy Pylon
  
• 7:40: transform Gates and warp in 4 Zealots
  
• Chronoboost Usage: 3 on Probes before your Nexus, 2 on Nexus after adding your first two gasses,1 on pre-wg Gateway units,4 on Warpgate Research
  
• +1 Armor when +1 attack completes.
  
• 8:45: 3 extra Gates.
  
• Robo units: Immortal, Immortal, Warp Prism, Observer.
  
• Go up to full 2 base saturation and get your Sentry count up between 8 and 12.
  
• 10:30: push when the second Immortal is ready.

Yep, that's right, Terrans can now abuse and bullshit their way too, 2010 style. It's not quite as ridiculous as Protoss, but on some maps it's equally broken. I present to you:



3 bunker walls are probably the most Protoss thing you can do as Terran. Depending on the map, you can either fully wall the zerg with 3 bunkers, notably on Cloud Kingdom and Shakuras where the hatch is also in range of the bunkers. This is also doable on Ohana, but it's not as powerful as your wall will be further away. Additionally, on some maps it's possible to wall off a single marine with bunker, thus protecting him from melee attacks and increasing the chances of your rush working. Here are some notable screenshots:





Just like Protoss can abuse the ridicolous architecture of Shakuras Plateau with blink stalkers, Terran can do the same with tank drops. This particular strategy isn't particularly new, as it was a staple in TvZ on Lost Temple, and was re adapted to the point of being used on Deadwing. It is very map dependant, but extremely powerful. A possible build order is:

• 12rax
  
• 12gas
  
• 15oc+reaper, reactor on rax right after
  
• 17cc
  
• 18depot (finish wall)
  
• 100 gas: factory, second gas.
  
• 2 marines from reactor rax
  
• swap rax and fact, start starport when factory finishes
  
• 2 hellions from fact, tech lab on rax
  
• begin walling your natural w/ 3 depots and bunker at this point
  
• swap rax and fac back again after your 2 hellions and tech lab are done
  
• make a tank and 4 more marines from the reactored rax
  
• your tank and medivac should start at roughly the same time
  
• if you know your opponent is not allining you then go drop, put the rax on the tech lab and start stim, add 3rd cc asap. Play standard afterwards, if your opponent doesn't rage quit.

The greatest thing of course is not having just one little piece of abusive bullshit in your build, but going through layers of it. What if, for example, you could 2rax bunker wall and then tank drop? This next build does just that, courtesy of TY who succesfully used it to snipe Soulkey in Proleague. Note that after the 2rax the timings are only a rough indication.

• 12/12 2rax; keep building SCV's as you pressure; bring 3 along (with 3 you can bunker wall)
  
• wall off ramp with 3 depots
  
• make ~6 marines and float rax back home, expand. If bunkers went up you get a free hatch kill
  
• double gas after cc starts;
  
• 3rd cc as soon as you can afford it
  
• fact at 100 gas
  
• make 1-2 reapers for scouting; non stop marines off rax
  
• 100% fact: starport, tech lab on fact, tech lab on rax, 3rd gas. Off fact: 2x tanks; off starport: reactor, 2x medivacs.
  
• Tech lab on rax: stim
  
• After tank starts: 2x ebays, 4th gas
  
• Extra rax
  
• Drop 1 scv, 2 tanks and 7 marines. Have fun. Turrets vs mutas lol yolo

This is by far my favourite TvZ build because a) the look of drones burnt alive is awesome b) it's manly as hell and c) Mvp popularized it and he's a boss. It's really a high risk/high reward build: it's somewhat vulnerable to roach/ling busts (if you really want to you can make a safety tech lab on your rax while delaying your blueflame though) and it really needs to do considerable damage to pay off, but when it does work it's amazing. Assuming you aren't playing against a bust, it's going to be hilariously strong on Metalopolis and Xel'Naga Caverns (hello Tasteless secret hallway!), but you can try it on pretty much any map for extra nostalgia. Here's Mvp's exact build from the GSL final against Life:

• 1rax fe, build 4 marines
  
• 17 depot
  
• 19 double gas
  
• fact at 100 gas, reactor on rax next 50 gas
  
• bunker at nat as the first fact completes
  
• second fact asap, tech lab with rax as soon as reactor completes. Hellions and scv nonstop, hide hellions after the first 4 are out.
  
• blueflame as soon as tech lab completes; non stop hellions; starport after blueflame. Off starport: viking.
  
• Move out with ~12 hellions as soon as blueflame completes; rally your facts over.
  
• 3rd cc and double armory behind your push (~9), add 3rd fact, gasses at nat, start viking production.
  
• Keep map control with the hellions, ebay at ~11 vs mutas, thors/tanks as needed once you have a good hellion count (10ish) and factories kick in.
  
• Make Artosis proud.

The time it takes to lift your CC to the gold on Metalopolis is only about 8 seconds slower than Habitation Station, so all the glorious Gangnam Terran bullshit that Bbyong came up with is still very viable. And let's be honest, every terran just LOVES the idea of going back to the days off 111's on Metalopolis. Here's two build orders for it, with cloak banshees or a hellion drop first:

• Lift Command Center to gold base
  
• 8 Supply Depot
  
• 10 Barracks #1
  
• 11 Refinery
  
• 13 Marine (produce 5 until reactor, then resume)
  
• 13 Orbital Command, Bunker
  
• 16 Factory, Refinery, Supply Depot
  
• 23 Starport, Widow Mine, Supply Depot
  
• 26 Hellion, Reactor (on Rax #1), Barracks #2
  
• 29 Tech lab on Starport
  
• 29 Barracks #3
  
• 30 Raven, Tech lab on Factory
  
• Cut SCVs here, 22 total
  
• Tank production when ready
  
• [~6:30] Banshee + Cloak

• Lift Command Center to gold base
  
• 8 Supply Depot
  
• 10 Barracks #1
  
• 11 Refinery
  
• 13 Marine (produce 8 until reactor, then resume)
  
• 13 Orbital Command, Bunker
  
• 16 Factory
  
• 17 Supply Depot
  
• 18 Refinery (Factory at 50)
  
• 21 Starport, Widow Mine
  
• 25 Supply Depot
  
• Units start dying here as you harass so numbers are iffy
  
• 29 Hellion
  
• 31 Medivac
  
• 33 Hellion
  
• 35 Reactor (on Rax #1), Barracks #2 and #3
  
• [~6:15] Marine drop with hellion runby
  
• 36 Tech lab (on factory), Tech lab (on starport)
  
• Tank production when ready
  
• One Raven when ready

This build is viable on most maps that are also good for blink stalkers (so basically, everything except Daybreak), and it's really pretty simple: make reapers, micro, kill workers, transition into bio and amove to victory. If every map was Shakuras in horizontal spawns, Terran wouldn't really lose any games. Unless when Protoss makes oracles of course.

• 12Rax
  
• 12 Gas
  
• 14 Rax, delay orbital
  
• Make 5-7 reapers for harassment, transition into standard play behind them.

Extra boss points for this build
[00:14:00] Pokebunny: i did actually play a 2rax reaper into 5 rax reaper game
[00:14:01] Pokebunny: the other day
[00:14:04] Pokebunny: it went pretty well



Last and kind of least, Zerg. It's not that Zerg bullshit is weaker per se, quite the contrary, but it's clearly not as manly as Terran and especially Protoss. As Zerg there's mainly two things that are really abuseable: Swarm Host favored maps, and insanely wide open naturals and third bases that allow for a variety of all-ins and busts.



If you can easily split the map and siege your swarm hosts in a good position, shit just gets ridiculous. The strongest in the current pool are probably Shakuras Plateau, Xel'Naga Caverns (oh the irony!), Metalopolis and Daybreak, with Ohana, Akilon and Cloud Kingdom also being really good. Yeah. Basically, this is the plan:






Honestly, dear Terran/Protoss, do you really expect to hold your natural on Metalopolis and Xel'Naga Caverns? That's so cute. Here's a few standard and less than standard builds. Of course you are never really all-in since you can just make 30 drones in 10 seconds and yolo because Zerg is fun like that. #bullshit.

Roach Bane Ling TvZ

• 9Overlord
  
• 13Scout
  
• 15Hatchery
  
• 16Pool, Gas (2 in gas)
  
• 17Overlord, Queen x 2 (Double Inject)
  
• 21 Lings x 4 (2Sets)
  
• Drones to 28
  
• 28 Overlord, defensive Spine
  
• Drones to 31, start Ling speed with first 100 gas. Saturate gas again at 5:30
  
• Drones to 42, 2nd gas, 2-3 sets of lings if pressured by hellions,
  
• ~6:45 Roach Warren (in this order).
  
• Drones to 44, 3x Overlords
  
• ~7:45: 7 roaches, Baneling Nest, ovelords as necessary.
  
• Make non-stop lings
  
• ~9:00: morph lings outside of the Terran's base, amove

3hatch ling bane ZvP. Gold base for extra boss points.

This one is fucking impossible to scout and will get you a considerable amount of tears. Bonus man points if on Metalopolis you double expand at both golds first. On particularly wide open maps (again, Metal and Xel'naga) opening speedling expand might be a good idea.

• 14Pool
  
• 15Overlord
  
• 100% pool: Queen (Inject first, tumour second, then all injects), 2x Lings (Keep 1 at natural to deny scouting of your main)
  
• 20 Gas (As soon as probe is down the ramp)
  
• 21 Hatchery
  
• Drones up to 26
  
• 26 3rd Base (4:45-5:00)
  
• First 100 gas: Ling speed.
  
• Next 50 gas: Baneling Next.
  
• 31 and onwards: make only lings and banelings, amove to victory if he fast expanded.

The wide open third bases on older maps are particularly vulnerable to this kind of build, so feel free to channel your inner Stephano. I have included both ZvP and ZvT builds that rely simply on overrunning your opponent with roaches or roach/hydra.

Roach max

One of the most notorious Builds from the WoL era, it's also quite simple to execute and should be very effective on most maps in the current map pool. It's also quite outdated, so most people will likely be caught off guard as they likely haven't played against this style in a long time. The rough timings for it are as follows:

• 3:15-3:45 First hatch begins
  
• 4:00-5:00 Second hatch taken
  
• 6:00 Double Gas Geysers
  
• 7:00 Roach Warren and Evolution Chamber
  
• 7:20 Lair and 3rd Gas Geyser
  
• First 100 gas will go into lair, then invest in zergling speed, +1 ranged attack and roach speed, in this order
  
• 8:15 Roach Production and 4th Gas Geyser. Roach production times very nicely with the arrival of most protoss timings, which is a nice plus. Begin +1 attack. Drone up to 60-65 drones, then mass units.
  
• 9:00-10:00 Roaches, 4th Base (~60-65 Drones)
  
• Max out, amove and win

1/1 Speed Roach into 2/2 Roach Hydra

This style is actually fairly new, but it's going to be absolutely devastating on older maps, while still being extremely powerful in a more modern map pool. The idea is to beat the Terran's face with so many mid-game units that he will not have time to secure his third base and start dropping and doing those annoying parade 4M pushes, while all you do is inject and amove. Pretty awesome.

• 15 hatch
  
• 14 pool
  
• 17 overlord
  
• 100% pool: lings x3/queen x2
  
• 24 overlord
  
• 100% queens: queen x2
  
• 33 overlord
  
• 5:15 gas x2
  
• 42 overlord
  
• 6:30 sac overlord. Not that your build is going to change or anything.
  
• 6:30-7:00: 3rd hatch
  
• 6:45: lair/roach warren/evo x2
  
• 7:20: gas x2
  
• 100% lair: roach speed/overlord speed
  
• stop drones at 60, constant roach production
  
• 10:30: 1/1 roach timing (150 supply)
  
• Start 2/2 and Hydra den during the attack
  
• 11:30: 4th hatch + drones to about 70
  
• 14:00: 2/2 roach/hydra attack (maxed out)

Because microing lings against mines, defending drops and harassing with mutas and all that is for pussies.




Conclusion