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Thanks to GSL, Proleague, WCS, and popular pro streams; the SC2 community has high level strats and BOs that can easily be adopted by any player to increase skill and the chances of winning a game.
But here’s the clincher; the pros HAVE to use these strats and BOs because they are refined and give them the ability to win against someone of equal skill with an equally refined strat/BO. In other words, at the highest level, unorthodox builds are simply inefficient and even the smallest inefficiencies will determine a win or a loss.
Your common gamer does not have the heightened skill that a pro does, therefore, inefficiencies in BOs and strats are more forgiving, thus allowing us all to have a lot more fun on ladder - if we are brave enough to try unorthodox builds and not succumb to the idea that "I have to do what the pros do to win".
With this in mind; is there a strat or BO that you use that isn’t used by the pros that still wins a lot of games for you? Even in Masters, I find that I can still win with fun/unique builds. Here are a couple that I use.
Feel free to share your fun strat/BO that you find works. Feel free to include what league you’re in, because that usually has a huge impact on what can be effective.
PvZ – Double star gate (mass) phoenix/charge zealot/archon, immortal *very effective in masters league and under. However, this strat takes a decent amount of apm and multitasking.
+ Show Spoiler +
9 – build 1st pylon down by natural choke and probe scout/send probe to opponents base (if 1v1 map)
14 – gate (probe has scouted base and is patrolling by enemy natural waiting for drone to try and build hatch or run by to 3rd)
16 – pylon block zerg nat and follow drone to 3rd to try and block that as long as possible too. Chrono probs whole time when energy is ready.
20 or 22 – nexus (this seems late but it lets you prepare for next step) – it’s okay if zerg gets 3rd down. If you do a really good job of blocking, you may need to be careful of ling all in or some other cheese cause zerg will be on 1 base, his 1st OL will see your nat and the gateway and he may just all in.
22 – Zealot, Pylon, Pylon – the 16 Pylon is to ensure you can build a zelot right after your nexus so you can deflect 6 lings trying to run into your nat to kill/weaken you – if this happens, pull some probes and fight with zealot. If zerg doesn’t kill the nat pylon back in their base; prepare for all in and wall off asap.
23/24 – 2 assimilators in main – keep building zealots and sneak in probes when you have money – make sure to not spend too much chrono on probs you need 2 saved up for when your natural finishes.
26/28 – build cyber core and another zelot – you want 3 zealots as quickly as possible without using any chrono on the wg
Around 30 supply – nat nexus is finishing and cyber core is nearly done as well- you should almost have 3 zelots without using a chrono on your wg yet. You also want to put down a forge around this time to ward off any roach allins (which would be coming soon if they know a good BO).
When cyber core finishes, chrono out a stalker and your MS core. Forge should be finishing so put down a cannon. Take your stalker, MScore and 3 zelots and move out onto the map. Build a sentry and put it in the doorway so no lings rush by as your little brigade runs out. As the your strike force gets out on the map (heading for the 3rd) send a probe somewhere to hide on the map for proxy pylons later on in the game. Start chronoing probes like crazy and start researching Warpgate.
The purpose of the strikeforce is to make zerg build lings or roaches – not drone up. If he does drone and misses your army leaving your base you might just kill his 3rd. If I play diamond or lower players – I usually kill the 3rd cause they misread this attack. Masters and higher players usually defend it, but it serves its purpose as a way to stop droning. TRY NOT TO LOSE ANY UNITS (they are important to defend all-ins and to take your 3rd). If you get into the 3rd and there is a small group of lings and a queen or 2, engage, but try and keep your units alive. It’s better to just force them to over build lings. While this army is out on the map, use your multitasking and apm to screenshot back home to build your assimilators at your nat, continue probing (you should pass the zerg in worker count during this attack) AND to build 2 Stargates.
This seems like a lot of stuff going on, and it is – so you gota be quick and you gota posture lots with this army - it might be on the map for a good 2 or 3 minutes. Try and bounce around the map either posturing at the 3rd, killing overlords or sitting in 3rd mineral line (if you can get in) delaying droning while the army arrives. When in doubt, recall back home.
So you forced a lot of lings, you recalled your army home, you have 2 stargates building (or finishing) and you’re up to 35+ probes. Next, start +1 (weapons) on your forge, chrono out phoenix, get your probe count to roughly 45 and build 3 more gates – putting you at 4 in total.
Once you hit 4 phoenix (and continually building them) build a proxy pylon with your probe out on the map and head to the zerg main with your phoenix. You’ll notice you’re banking A LOT of minerals. This is so you can push with a zealot warp in, keep building phoenix and take a 3rd all at the same time. If you do a good job of hiding your 2 star gates, these phoenix will be a huge surprise – and they’ll seem like they came out of nowhere since you were just out on the map a min or two ago with your little strike force. The idea here is to kill queens and overlords and warp in zealots and hit the 3rd. If you do it right, you should supply block the zerg, kill 1 or 2 queens and put A LOT of damage on the 3rd – if not straight out kill it. Meanwhile you can use your mothership core and a zealot or two to escort a probe to the 3rd and start your nexus - sometimes I use my initial strikeforce to do this while my new warped in zealots hit the 3rd. Sometimes I send the strikeforce out on the map if I feel I can do real damage again with them and the new warped in army as well..
The idea with this push isn’t to kill the zerg, it’s to cripple him again or at least get him flustered or making the wrong units.
The transition is to finish 3rd with cannon support, build 5-6 more gateways, get charge +2, then +3 and eventually get archons. Feel free to continue to mass phoenix. If you feel like you’re getting a lot and the game is going to go on for a while, you can swing into double robo immortal production instead. The scariest moment for you will be the 2-5 mins after your 2nd attack. Zerg should be able to pump out a decent amount of roaches and hydras to hit your 3rd. So be sure to defend with good phoenix pick-ups, photon overcharge and zealot warp ins. If not handled well, you could die to a retaliating zerg who can macro efficiently.
The idea with your late game army is to pick up light units (hydras) with your phoenix and have your ground army pound out the rest. The zerg will naturally transition into either hydra /ling/infester or mass roach with burrow/movement sometimes they try and ignore the air and do simply mass ling into ultralisk – but this is not common and a mass void ray tech switch is very scary for zerg. The mass roach build is harder to stop because if they max quickly, your phoenixes are mostly useless – but with double stargate you can start to chrono out voidray.
It is important to have your phoeonix always attack from a different angle than your main army. This will screw up the players physical ability to focus on more than 1 lane. For example: ground army moves up from the left and player focuses attention there, and phoenix army flies from the middle right – now the player has to focus and multitask 2 army fronts and it makes their engagement messy – especially if they are using infesters! This way of engaging will ensure that a lot of their positioning is compromised and their fungles are more prone to miss. *NOTE make sure ground army and phoenix hit their army at the same time because the ground army will take precedents and the hydras will leave your phoenix alone – unless targeted – ensuring that you can simply mass pick them up and kill them off.
Believe it or not, in a pinch, mass phoenix can work like force fields in the sense that you can section armies off by simply removing them from the battlefield all together. If you have archons in your army, they will blast them from the sky – if your apm is good, you can release sections of the army piece by piece and have zealot/archon/immortal clean up.
PvT – Phoenix/charge zealot/archon 2 base bust – transition into 3 base storm/obs, zealot/archon
+ Show Spoiler +
I believe it was Mana who made this build very popular at the start of HOTS.
The idea here is to open with a standard econ build (1 gate, 1 assimilator – build nexus after cyber core finishes, chrono out mscore after nexus goes down in nat, build 2nd assimilator, build Stargate) and transition into early stargate and defend against early aggression or macro into mid game.
In this build you want to macro up into 6-7 gates, +1 armor, charge, templar archives and 5ish phoenix. When the terran pushes on the map with initial army with 2 dropships, you want to completely kill that army and rush their natural (proxy pylons are helpful here).
*NOTE pros ALWAYS pick up marauders for some reason with their phoenix but since marines are light units, you can 2 shot them with phoenix and they are much better to pick up. When terran moves out, you should be able to crush most of their marines with your phoenix alone – as long as your army is engaging at same time.
If the terran is surprised by attack, you may want to all in him and take the win. If he defends in his nat, you want to pull back army, harass with phoenix/scout and macro to 3rd base with storm. More recently, I’ve been crushing the terran army, and instead of crashing into the nat I’ve been saving my army, setting up a soft contain – transitioning right into storm and taking a 3rd. I believe this method is best because it allows for a more stable build. A soft contain with storm can be VERY strong. I’ve often simply ended the game through a soft contain with storm vs mid/high masters players because they mine out their base and I whittle down army with good storm. Because of phoenix, even dropships can be easily scouted and picked off if sneaking away or manoeuvring away from the contain.
I used to open with an oracle and try and harass, but more recently extreme terran aggression with early mine drops and hellions is popular on ladder. So I’ve been opening with 3 phoenix to help deflect attacks and pick up workers if he is simply macroing up. Also, terrans are deflecting oracle attacks easier and I feel like phoenix are a better unit in late game – even if you only build a handful, they are still great at helping shut down drops. Whereas oracles are reduced to simply scouting and obs can do that fine.
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2 base roach drop/nydus all-in, works in both WCS vs Happy and in my master league games
2 base infestor into ultra/viper/infestor/queen ZvP, pretty good, scales with Zerg's micro. also 1 base bane bust, scales with Protoss' inability to scout
muta into ultra into ultra/viper/infestor/queen gives me ~65% winrate in ZvZ
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if its stupid and it works its not stupid.
up to diamond you can go expo,gas first into hellion flood. you will have so much scouting you will see any roach warren
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1 base thor drops into thor marine scv allin.
Have done it like 10 times in master league with 100% winrate.
edit: in tvz i forgot to mention.
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Amazing idea 
Fun things that can work : carrier rush vs T Pigbaby style, mass chargelots all-in vs Z (you mine just enough gas to get msc, warpgate and charge and then flood chargelots, I've got an amazing record with it), carriers based composition vs P. 10 gate 3 gates into DTs catches a surprising number of decent Z off guard too.
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Bane busts and Mass ling against Protoss can be really awesome because they do not scout/expect it.Por example the old three hatch mass slow ling >.< Still gives me some wins.
Fun things that can work : carrier rush vs T Pigbaby style, mass chargelots all-in vs Z (you mine just enough gas to get msc, warpgate and charge and then flood chargelots, I've got an amazing record with it), carriers based composition vs P. 10 gate 3 gates into DTs catches a surprising number of decent Z off guard too.
I got hit with a mass chargelot build,with good macro they seem to be endless and you cant hide your queen/drones >.<
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ThorPool's sig reminds me that RuFF (whose stream I sometimes watch) still makes absolutely ludicrous things work up to high GM level... Ghosts rushes (with or without nukes), mass hellions, proxy thor, old school 1-1-1, many types of biomech vs Z and P...
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I remember him doing a 4 ghost medivac rush to snipe queens and drones. It was... awesome. You could feel the Zergs frustration over the whole battle net.
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On June 06 2015 23:55 ThorPool wrote:
I remember him doing a 4 ghost medivac rush to snipe queens and drones. It was... awesome. You could feel the Zergs frustration over the whole battle net.
Oh yeah I saw him do that build too. Even TLO isn't this creative ^^
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On June 06 2015 23:56 [PkF] Wire wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2015 23:55 ThorPool wrote:
I remember him doing a 4 ghost medivac rush to snipe queens and drones. It was... awesome. You could feel the Zergs frustration over the whole battle net. Oh yeah I saw him do that build too. Even TLO isn't this creative ^^
You stand corrected.
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I once encountered a one base Thor-Ghost rush in TvP, which seemed better that it sounds. EMP + repair + Snipe is quite a combo. I reckon this build can be successfully used in lower leagues.
Also, I don't play Zerg, but I always wondered if a proxy Spawning Pool can work as a mind game. The opponent's scout will see no Pool, and might just assume it's a Hatch first. Of course better players will know something is up from the timing/lack of the natural, but even then, it may be confusing because they will never think there is a Pool somewhere outside of the main.
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Italy12246 Posts
The fucking tasteless build! I once denied Taeja's (zerg) third with it, true story
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Yes, all my builds. Its all about seeing what build your opponent is using. Maybe a current meta build? If, you yourself know their build very well... You can design a perfect build, and to counter it.
example:
in pvz,. mass sentry into fast third, into maxed blink stalker, sentry and immortal is very common.
So I will do gasless 4 queen into double RW, with 1 evo chamber, for a 10 min speed + burrow roach with movement + range timing, while droning my third. into a remax of roach hydra +2 into 5 base muta switch.
works very well at the top of eu and na ladder. Added bonus, fast blink stalker all ins require good proxy pylons. The mass creep spread of 4 queen build keeps those pylons far away.
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vs zerg gas first rax + reactor factory marine hellbat with scv into 2 starport banshee the magic brosio build
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Just watch ruff play. All of his builds are un-orthadox
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Im mid high masters, and these last few games ive been trying this really wonky 14 pool build vs toss and zerg that has actually works very consistently. With so many gold bases in this map pool, I try to design a build to take advantage of it
The idea behind it is to control tempo early game by building 6 lings off a 14 pool while expanding to the gold. you end up supply blocked at 18 ( 19 actually) for a good 15 seconds to do this but it prevents all cheeses, has a great potential to cause your opponent to overreact and play defensively, sets you up with a safe gold base, and may cause significant damage.
Heres the build
ZvP - 14 pool 15 hatch ling pressure expand
+ Show Spoiler +
14 - pool
15 - hatch, at gold if possible (send drone out at 50-100 minerals & 15 supply to get to gold on time). Do not build anything until pool finishes
14 at 100% pool, build 6 lings: at this point your OV should of scouted enough for you to determine their build. Quick enough to stop a cannon rush at gold if you send a drone or two in time to help. If there are no cannon attempts, send these lings across the map, try to kill pylongs, zealots, whatever, while your gold gets up
17 - at 150 mins, build extractor: when/if this extractor finishes you, choose amt of gas you want depending on what you scout. If it don't think they'll be pressuring me early, i will either cancel it till later or just put in one or two drones.
16 - queen
18 - overlord: Usually transfer drones at this point. What is cool about this build is that the weaknesses that it has mitigate each other. Transfering drones to gold bases really cuts on your mining at this stage in the game due to how far away gold bases are. Being supply blocked sucks because you accumulate a lot of minerals you can't spend. Transfering drones while supply blocked means you're not mining minerals that are unspendable either way. this double hiccup in production ends with a saturated gold base and a fast queen to make larvae needed to spend them gold minerals
18 - Build Extractor for extractor trick, and then build a drone at 19/18
100% hatch completion - build queen
I've used this build a few times and so far it has prevented a cannon rush at the gold, outright killed a player who went nexus first, or otherwise gotten me ahead by forcing cannons before cybercores or even gateways. Its turned out to be pretty solid for such a weird start, and it totally throws people off.
zvz:
Same build, just have to acknowledge that its not nearly as solid as in zvp, and that the gas is crucial. This build does well against all cheeses, but can backfire against a well handled 15 pool or HF. gold bases in zvz allow you to keep up early game ling pressure while still occasionally droning, and teching harder. casters always talk about how great the extra minerals are from gold bases, but remember that needing less drones to mine: being able to take gases and tech faster, as your mineral income won't suffer from having 4 gases off of 30-40 drones
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Re: Nick00bot
If they get an early gas, how the hell are you supposed to hold speedling or baneling all-in responses to scouting your gold?
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On June 08 2015 16:02 FlyingBeer wrote:
Re: Nick00bot
If they get an early gas, how the hell are you supposed to hold speedling or baneling all-in responses to scouting your gold?
well the only build that would hard counter it like you suggest is a 14/14 or 13/13 gas pool, but those builds are really rare because they get countered by 15 pool and HF. honestly I've seen them maybe once or twice in the last 6 months, and in order to do them reactively they would have to know you are going for this build BEFORE you build the hatch, which would require very early scouting. In that case, you would see the drones before you build hatch, and could just not build it and be content in knowing that the economic disadvantage of going 14 pool is mostly negated by the extremely early scout required to scout it.
If they go for like an 11 pool speedling all in, just cancel the hatch and build a bane nest as your pool finishes. you should be able to scout their base before hatch finishes in order to
If they go Hatch-gas-pool , your speed will only be slightly behind, and your lings will hit before they have any out so you are likely to do damage.
All this being said, this is hard build to pull off zvz, and requires a lot of crises ling war management because you WILL get all inned. If you manage to survive with 6-8 drones on gold for a minute, you'll overtake their ling count and be in a good position to win the ling war.
I also wanna point out that it is not very hard to time out your drone so that it doesn't cross overlord paths in vaani and expedition lost, so they usually don't scout the gold until it's too late to react.
try it out zvp if you are scared of the ling all in tho, its much safer there
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I use my own variation of Jjakji's old 2 base 2 Fact 2 Port Thor / Banshee / Marine all-in in TvP occassionally, it's quite powerful even when my opponent knows it's coming.
in ZvZ I often play a pretty unorthodox heavily upgraded ling style where I go Queen / Infestor -> Ultra vs Mutas and Muta -> Ultra vs Roaches. Works really well on the ladder, not sure how it would stand up to players who know what's coming.
Actually my response to mutas is always just to make ~10 queens then push across the map with them + whatever army I have. It takes like 5 minutes for the queens to make it across the map, so it surprises me how often I win games like this.
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On June 09 2015 03:56 Pursuit_ wrote:
I use my own variation of Jjakji's old 2 base 2 Fact 2 Port Thor / Banshee / Marine all-in in TvP occassionally, it's quite powerful even when my opponent knows it's coming.
in ZvZ I often play a pretty unorthodox heavily upgraded ling style where I go Queen / Infestor -> Ultra vs Mutas and Muta -> Ultra vs Roaches. Works really well on the ladder, not sure how it would stand up to players who know what's coming.
Actually my response to mutas is always just to make ~10 queens then push across the map with them + whatever army I have. It takes like 5 minutes for the queens to make it across the map, so it surprises me how often I win games like this.
If only Blizz tried making banshees non-light, some mech plays would be more viable in TvP
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On June 06 2015 07:20 mewithoutDrew wrote:Thanks to GSL, Proleague, WCS, and popular pro streams; the SC2 community has high level strats and BOs that can easily be adopted by any player to increase skill and the chances of winning a game. But here’s the clincher; the pros HAVE to use these strats and BOs because they are refined and give them the ability to win against someone of equal skill with an equally refined strat/BO. In other words, at the highest level, unorthodox builds are simply inefficient and even the smallest inefficiencies will determine a win or a loss. Your common gamer does not have the heightened skill that a pro does, therefore, inefficiencies in BOs and strats are more forgiving, thus allowing us all to have a lot more fun on ladder - if we are brave enough to try unorthodox builds and not succumb to the idea that "I have to do what the pros do to win". With this in mind; is there a strat or BO that you use that isn’t used by the pros that still wins a lot of games for you? Even in Masters, I find that I can still win with fun/unique builds. Here are a couple that I use. Feel free to share your fun strat/BO that you find works. Feel free to include what league you’re in, because that usually has a huge impact on what can be effective. PvZ – Double star gate (mass) phoenix/charge zealot/archon, immortal *very effective in masters league and under. However, this strat takes a decent amount of apm and multitasking. + Show Spoiler +
9 – build 1st pylon down by natural choke and probe scout/send probe to opponents base (if 1v1 map)
14 – gate (probe has scouted base and is patrolling by enemy natural waiting for drone to try and build hatch or run by to 3rd)
16 – pylon block zerg nat and follow drone to 3rd to try and block that as long as possible too. Chrono probs whole time when energy is ready.
20 or 22 – nexus (this seems late but it lets you prepare for next step) – it’s okay if zerg gets 3rd down. If you do a really good job of blocking, you may need to be careful of ling all in or some other cheese cause zerg will be on 1 base, his 1st OL will see your nat and the gateway and he may just all in.
22 – Zealot, Pylon, Pylon – the 16 Pylon is to ensure you can build a zelot right after your nexus so you can deflect 6 lings trying to run into your nat to kill/weaken you – if this happens, pull some probes and fight with zealot. If zerg doesn’t kill the nat pylon back in their base; prepare for all in and wall off asap.
23/24 – 2 assimilators in main – keep building zealots and sneak in probes when you have money – make sure to not spend too much chrono on probs you need 2 saved up for when your natural finishes.
26/28 – build cyber core and another zelot – you want 3 zealots as quickly as possible without using any chrono on the wg
Around 30 supply – nat nexus is finishing and cyber core is nearly done as well- you should almost have 3 zelots without using a chrono on your wg yet. You also want to put down a forge around this time to ward off any roach allins (which would be coming soon if they know a good BO).
When cyber core finishes, chrono out a stalker and your MS core. Forge should be finishing so put down a cannon. Take your stalker, MScore and 3 zelots and move out onto the map. Build a sentry and put it in the doorway so no lings rush by as your little brigade runs out. As the your strike force gets out on the map (heading for the 3rd) send a probe somewhere to hide on the map for proxy pylons later on in the game. Start chronoing probes like crazy and start researching Warpgate.
The purpose of the strikeforce is to make zerg build lings or roaches – not drone up. If he does drone and misses your army leaving your base you might just kill his 3rd. If I play diamond or lower players – I usually kill the 3rd cause they misread this attack. Masters and higher players usually defend it, but it serves its purpose as a way to stop droning. TRY NOT TO LOSE ANY UNITS (they are important to defend all-ins and to take your 3rd). If you get into the 3rd and there is a small group of lings and a queen or 2, engage, but try and keep your units alive. It’s better to just force them to over build lings. While this army is out on the map, use your multitasking and apm to screenshot back home to build your assimilators at your nat, continue probing (you should pass the zerg in worker count during this attack) AND to build 2 Stargates.
This seems like a lot of stuff going on, and it is – so you gota be quick and you gota posture lots with this army - it might be on the map for a good 2 or 3 minutes. Try and bounce around the map either posturing at the 3rd, killing overlords or sitting in 3rd mineral line (if you can get in) delaying droning while the army arrives. When in doubt, recall back home.
So you forced a lot of lings, you recalled your army home, you have 2 stargates building (or finishing) and you’re up to 35+ probes. Next, start +1 (weapons) on your forge, chrono out phoenix, get your probe count to roughly 45 and build 3 more gates – putting you at 4 in total.
Once you hit 4 phoenix (and continually building them) build a proxy pylon with your probe out on the map and head to the zerg main with your phoenix. You’ll notice you’re banking A LOT of minerals. This is so you can push with a zealot warp in, keep building phoenix and take a 3rd all at the same time. If you do a good job of hiding your 2 star gates, these phoenix will be a huge surprise – and they’ll seem like they came out of nowhere since you were just out on the map a min or two ago with your little strike force. The idea here is to kill queens and overlords and warp in zealots and hit the 3rd. If you do it right, you should supply block the zerg, kill 1 or 2 queens and put A LOT of damage on the 3rd – if not straight out kill it. Meanwhile you can use your mothership core and a zealot or two to escort a probe to the 3rd and start your nexus - sometimes I use my initial strikeforce to do this while my new warped in zealots hit the 3rd. Sometimes I send the strikeforce out on the map if I feel I can do real damage again with them and the new warped in army as well..
The idea with this push isn’t to kill the zerg, it’s to cripple him again or at least get him flustered or making the wrong units.
The transition is to finish 3rd with cannon support, build 5-6 more gateways, get charge +2, then +3 and eventually get archons. Feel free to continue to mass phoenix. If you feel like you’re getting a lot and the game is going to go on for a while, you can swing into double robo immortal production instead. The scariest moment for you will be the 2-5 mins after your 2nd attack. Zerg should be able to pump out a decent amount of roaches and hydras to hit your 3rd. So be sure to defend with good phoenix pick-ups, photon overcharge and zealot warp ins. If not handled well, you could die to a retaliating zerg who can macro efficiently.
The idea with your late game army is to pick up light units (hydras) with your phoenix and have your ground army pound out the rest. The zerg will naturally transition into either hydra /ling/infester or mass roach with burrow/movement sometimes they try and ignore the air and do simply mass ling into ultralisk – but this is not common and a mass void ray tech switch is very scary for zerg. The mass roach build is harder to stop because if they max quickly, your phoenixes are mostly useless – but with double stargate you can start to chrono out voidray.
It is important to have your phoeonix always attack from a different angle than your main army. This will screw up the players physical ability to focus on more than 1 lane. For example: ground army moves up from the left and player focuses attention there, and phoenix army flies from the middle right – now the player has to focus and multitask 2 army fronts and it makes their engagement messy – especially if they are using infesters! This way of engaging will ensure that a lot of their positioning is compromised and their fungles are more prone to miss. *NOTE make sure ground army and phoenix hit their army at the same time because the ground army will take precedents and the hydras will leave your phoenix alone – unless targeted – ensuring that you can simply mass pick them up and kill them off.
Believe it or not, in a pinch, mass phoenix can work like force fields in the sense that you can section armies off by simply removing them from the battlefield all together. If you have archons in your army, they will blast them from the sky – if your apm is good, you can release sections of the army piece by piece and have zealot/archon/immortal clean up.
I believe it was Mana who made this build very popular at the start of HOTS.
The idea here is to open with a standard econ build (1 gate, 1 assimilator – build nexus after cyber core finishes, chrono out mscore after nexus goes down in nat, build 2nd assimilator, build Stargate) and transition into early stargate and defend against early aggression or macro into mid game.
In this build you want to macro up into 6-7 gates, +1 armor, charge, templar archives and 5ish phoenix. When the terran pushes on the map with initial army with 2 dropships, you want to completely kill that army and rush their natural (proxy pylons are helpful here).
*NOTE pros ALWAYS pick up marauders for some reason with their phoenix but since marines are light units, you can 2 shot them with phoenix and they are much better to pick up. When terran moves out, you should be able to crush most of their marines with your phoenix alone – as long as your army is engaging at same time.
If the terran is surprised by attack, you may want to all in him and take the win. If he defends in his nat, you want to pull back army, harass with phoenix/scout and macro to 3rd base with storm. More recently, I’ve been crushing the terran army, and instead of crashing into the nat I’ve been saving my army, setting up a soft contain – transitioning right into storm and taking a 3rd. I believe this method is best because it allows for a more stable build. A soft contain with storm can be VERY strong. I’ve often simply ended the game through a soft contain with storm vs mid/high masters players because they mine out their base and I whittle down army with good storm. Because of phoenix, even dropships can be easily scouted and picked off if sneaking away or manoeuvring away from the contain.
I used to open with an oracle and try and harass, but more recently extreme terran aggression with early mine drops and hellions is popular on ladder. So I’ve been opening with 3 phoenix to help deflect attacks and pick up workers if he is simply macroing up. Also, terrans are deflecting oracle attacks easier and I feel like phoenix are a better unit in late game – even if you only build a handful, they are still great at helping shut down drops. Whereas oracles are reduced to simply scouting and obs can do that fine.
Wait, wait wait. You're from Winnipeg?!
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TvZ MTV Comp: Any working opening that can transition into Mech (I prefer Hellion and fast 3rd openings personally)... but into a not-widely-used Mech composition of Mine/Tank/Viking. Have not seen anything from Zerg besides the Swarm Hosts before the nerf/change that this core composition cannot handle with good positioning. Can play out aggressively or defensively, whichever you prefer.
The synergy of the composition is pretty simple to understand for positioning correctly against various compositions the Zerg can throw at you. Mines protect Tanks protect Mines, double leapfrog to push (or if he doesn't have a large DPS army, push in with a lot of Mines and burrow -- forces him to move away so you have the position secured long enough for your Tanks to catch up, or he will most likely trade unfavorably with you). Vikings for air range and more consistent damage in case most Mines are on cooldown... okay, let's be honest, they'll be sniping Overseers most of the time. :-P
Drop potential with Mines if you so choose. Hellion squads and Hellbat drops available with the infrastructure. Banshee harass available. A couple or few Mines here and there to catch stray units or damage his army/harassment forces.
Transition into Skyterran or standard Skymech is an option, but I prefer to stick with MTV (though I'll sometimes add some Ravens, particularly if the Zerg goes for BL/Corrupter).
A few Hellbats can be nice against Ling/Bling, but honestly more Mines or Tanks are fine -- remember that Drilling Claws is crucial, though. Whatever you do, don't be half-hearted with your Reactor Factory production -- you want either enough Mines to kill most units that attack into them, or enough Hellbats to tank enough damage for Tanks to do the job. Having an even mix of both will only give you not enough of each and risks more friendly fire.
Thors can be nice against Mutas, but more Mine/Viking is also fine. Turrets and Mines for base defense (Thors too if he's super committing to Mutas). Thors are also nice against Ultras, but more Mine/Tank is fine too. Don't be afraid to make Planetaries past the 3rd base, but honestly good simcity with Mines, Tanks and/or Bunkers with unupgraded Marines is pretty solid defense. Extra Orbitals later on of course.
TvP ATM Comp: Any working opening with an expansion and Factory will do (including Hammer's build opening), my personal favorite is a 4-Hellion rush w/expansion (3-Hellion 1-Mine opening also possible). Repair and Mine/Marine in case of M/S/Z rush, run past with any Hellions you have out already though -- without the MSC at his base he can't really do anything about it.
Transition into Mine/Tank/Banshee, harassing with Banshees and helping your Mine/Tank deal with any Immortals or just as extra microable support against ground.
Mine drops optional to do initially instead.
Transition into Air/Tank/Mine. Specifically: Banshees, Mines, and Tanks as your main damage dealers, with Ravens and Vikings supporting (killing Obs with Vikings is always nice for your Mines and Banshees).
Drops are available as harassment, but I usually just use some of my air force. Hellion squads can be nice for harassment and anti-Templar.
It's a very positional and symmetric composition. You can adjust the ratio of units depending on what the Protoss goes for. If the Protoss is going mainly for Robo, you can go up on the air. If the Protoss is going mainly Stargate or has a lot of Zealots, up on the Mines. Stalkers, Archons, Templar, up on Tanks. And there are plenty of in-betweens and units that several of your units are good against (Mines and Banshees are good vs Zealots, for example; Mines and Ravens against air) -- just make the things that make sense. :-P
PvZ Cololess Comp: FE into DT or Robo opening (I like DT drops personally). Transition into Archon/Immortal/Zealot, eventually getting Charge and High Templar. Warp Prisms are your friend, as are upgrades.
The most important thing with this composition is to be aggressive when you have the army for it -- you'll have to use your judgement based on your scouting since it's not based upon Colossus count. Your Robos (you should have at least two of them, up to three or four on a full economy) should be pumping Immortals with a Warp Prism here or there for army support or harassment. Keep the macro up behind the aggression. You're essentially playing a style similar to Roach/Hydra, attempting to overwhelm the opponent with your units, except they're more expensive but tankier units. You need the High Templar against armies with Hydralisks, Immortal/Archon should be able to deal nicely with Roaches and Ultras if you macro well enough. Vipers will not be as powerful against your army, but Infestors can be more dangerous. Position well and use your Templar. DT, Chargelot, and Immortal harassment against expansions and/or Zerg tech structures can add insult to injury or bring you back from an inferior position if used well. You also have Storm drops available.
If you see signs of Muta play, either go for the kill with Stalker/Archon + any other forces you have, or get up some Stargates while continuing with the pressure. He will be forced to defend with his initial Mutas, giving you time to get some Phoenixes out and deal some damage at the same time. What you don't want to have to deal with is Broodlords -- make sure you can get some Void Rays or Tempests out if you see a Greater Spire.
This is not as "strong" as Colossus/Skytoss turtle, but I find it much more fun to play personally and it gives more opportunity for aggression over turtle without relying on Stalkers or Forcefields.
PvT Cololess Comp: 1-Gate FE or a working aggressive build with an expansion in it (I like DT drops, or a more economic 1-Immortal, 2-Stalker drop from a Robo expand or 1-G expand into a Robo).
Transition into Archon/Immortal. Aggression, aggression, aggression! The logic behind Archon/Immortal vs Terran is that you have a lot of HP for your supply with moderate damage output, so before the Terran has a big clump of DPS-dense Bio with Ghosts, your army can survive long enough for the Terran army to run out of units to kill it, at which point it can snowball into your favor if you preserve what units you have left long enough. Sort of the same logic as Roach/Hydra vs Bio, except you benefit more from preserving units and can add effective splash damage in the form of Storms later on. Warp Prism micro in the midgame can be very effective, as can elevator play.
It is very important that you do not skimp out on Archons or overmake Immortals. Unlike against Zerg ground, a mass of Immortals cannot handle itself very well against Bio. You want about a 4:3 or 3:2 ratio of Archons and Immortals. In the vast majority of the engagements I've been in against Bio with Archon/Immortal, the Archons deal the initial splash damage needed to kill the Bio units (Immortal burst damage with Archon burst-splash can also help kill Bio units surprisingly quickly). The Archons end up mostly dead but by the end of the engagement, there is a smaller amount of Bio left against Immortals, but there is just too much meat left for the rest of the Bio forces to take on. Basic pull-back micro is usually enough to finish the midgame Bio army off.
Make sure not to just let the Terran kite you. Switchback micro (basically counter-kiting) can be good since Immortals have a higher range than Bio units, and can actually punish the Bio player if he wishes to engage and try kiting again.
Past the early stages of the midgame, you'll want High Templar to deal with Bio clumps and Medivacs. DPS density is dangerous to the core Immortal/Archon composition. A handful of Phoenixes are also not a bad idea to deal with drops and Medivacs -- fewer Medivacs means more effective Immortal/Archon. Harassment with Storm drops and Immortal drops (to kill add-ons and tech buildings -- sniping Engi Bays is nice if you can) can be a lifesaver for you. Cheap Chargelot or DT harassment against unprotected bases is always nice.
Once Ghosts come out, it's mostly a matter of positioning. Small Chargelot squads can be handy here to intercept incoming Ghosts. Protecting your High Templar in Warp Prisms is more effective with this style since the Terran probably won't be making very many Vikings.
Again, just as vs Zerg, this composition might not be as strong as a single army as a Colossus deathball, but it offers positional and aggressive opportunities that a Colossus deathball does not.
ZvT Roach/Hydra/Ling/Bling vs Bio: Roach/Hydra has two main weaknesses against Bio: drops and poor army scaling in comparison. Ling/Bling/Muta has little meat, relying on damage output to end the fight quickly and being short-range and therefore quite susceptible to Mines, making it a stressful composition to play with.
Roach/Hydra/Ling/Bling seeks a balance. It is more susceptible to drops than Muta/Ling/Bling, but Speedlings make it a bit easier to deal with in comparison to Roach/Hydra. It scales a bit better than Roach/Hydra as the numbers on both sides get higher simply due to Banelings. It has more survivability than Muta/Ling/Bling and includes units that outrange Mines, making it a little more forgiving against Bio/Mine.
In my experience, it is better to have less Zerglings than more, using them mainly for scouting, harassing, mobile base defense, and cleanup. Using them in large engagements only when you know you can win the engagement with them or if you need them to survive the engagement seems to be the best way of using them, save using a handful of them to draw fire away from your Banelings as they approach the Bio army. The main "oomf" in your army is Roach/Hydra/Baneling.
Though you do not have Mutas sapping up gas, you do have the 4 speed upgrades and Hydra Range that you will want to get, plus normal upgrades and Lair. The order I recommend is Ling Speed, Lair, Roach Speed, Bling Speed, Hydra Speed (smaller maps/aggressive play) -or- Hydra Range (macro maps).
For normal upgrades, Carapace is the priority since all ground units share it, then ranged, then melee.
Before the lategame and later stages of the midgame, make sure not to overmake Hydras. Ling/Bling/Roach is a more solid early and early-mid composition when you're still trying to get upgrades and infrastructure. Getting some out against Hellbats and/or Banshees can be pretty helpful, but against Marine/Marauder, you want to wait until you have your 3rd base mining and healthy production of Roaches and Banelings before you make a bunch of them.
Make sure not to overmake Roaches, particularly past the midgame. You want enough to take a good portion of the initial damage, but you want enough damage units (Hydras and Banelings) to kill the Bio army when it has a good number of Medivacs. Using some of your Hydras to kill Medivacs in engagements can keep them from getting out of hand, but if you add Infestors later and get a good clump of them stuck in a Fungal for your Hydras to prey on, you can still be okay.
As the game goes on, Infestors and Ultralisks can be nice lategame tools, just remember not to skimp on Banelings (can be supplemented some with extra Hydras at this point due to having Ultras and Hydra DPS density in larger numbers) and don't make too many Ultras. A lategame composition of Ultra/Hydra/Bling/Roach/Festor is quite powerful against Bio.
Bio/Tank is actually more of a threat to your composition than Bio/Mine. Add Vipers if you see Tanks.
In the lategame when you have a full economy, having a squad of 8-10 Mutas for intercepting drops, denying expansions, and simply having map presence is not a bad idea.
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Playing PvZ without collosus isn't really unorthodox atm bob.
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Yes but Skytoss is usually the go-to comp, or Blink Stalkers, or Immortal/Sentry. Immortal/Archon/Chargelot/Templar isn't that popular, unless there are games I haven't seen of it. I wanted to make a cheesy pun with "Colossus," too. :-P
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12 gaz (1 probe extract) ,14 gate,17 nexus,17 pylon ,18 cyber core,zealot(forge),MSC. We added 2 assimilators before nexus complete.And expand 2+2+2 probes.Or faster third with one gaz before gate,If we want play agresive,We build 17 pylon proxy and build stargate-oracle without core.
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Wait, wait wait. You're from Winnipeg?!
I used to live there. I'm in Calgary now!
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On June 06 2015 07:20 mewithoutDrew wrote:Thanks to GSL, Proleague, WCS, and popular pro streams; the SC2 community has high level strats and BOs that can easily be adopted by any player to increase skill and the chances of winning a game. But here’s the clincher; the pros HAVE to use these strats and BOs because they are refined and give them the ability to win against someone of equal skill with an equally refined strat/BO. In other words, at the highest level, unorthodox builds are simply inefficient and even the smallest inefficiencies will determine a win or a loss. Your common gamer does not have the heightened skill that a pro does, therefore, inefficiencies in BOs and strats are more forgiving, thus allowing us all to have a lot more fun on ladder - if we are brave enough to try unorthodox builds and not succumb to the idea that "I have to do what the pros do to win". With this in mind; is there a strat or BO that you use that isn’t used by the pros that still wins a lot of games for you? Even in Masters, I find that I can still win with fun/unique builds. Here are a couple that I use. Feel free to share your fun strat/BO that you find works. Feel free to include what league you’re in, because that usually has a huge impact on what can be effective. PvZ – Double star gate (mass) phoenix/charge zealot/archon, immortal *very effective in masters league and under. However, this strat takes a decent amount of apm and multitasking. + Show Spoiler +
9 – build 1st pylon down by natural choke and probe scout/send probe to opponents base (if 1v1 map)
14 – gate (probe has scouted base and is patrolling by enemy natural waiting for drone to try and build hatch or run by to 3rd)
16 – pylon block zerg nat and follow drone to 3rd to try and block that as long as possible too. Chrono probs whole time when energy is ready.
20 or 22 – nexus (this seems late but it lets you prepare for next step) – it’s okay if zerg gets 3rd down. If you do a really good job of blocking, you may need to be careful of ling all in or some other cheese cause zerg will be on 1 base, his 1st OL will see your nat and the gateway and he may just all in.
22 – Zealot, Pylon, Pylon – the 16 Pylon is to ensure you can build a zelot right after your nexus so you can deflect 6 lings trying to run into your nat to kill/weaken you – if this happens, pull some probes and fight with zealot. If zerg doesn’t kill the nat pylon back in their base; prepare for all in and wall off asap.
23/24 – 2 assimilators in main – keep building zealots and sneak in probes when you have money – make sure to not spend too much chrono on probs you need 2 saved up for when your natural finishes.
26/28 – build cyber core and another zelot – you want 3 zealots as quickly as possible without using any chrono on the wg
Around 30 supply – nat nexus is finishing and cyber core is nearly done as well- you should almost have 3 zelots without using a chrono on your wg yet. You also want to put down a forge around this time to ward off any roach allins (which would be coming soon if they know a good BO).
When cyber core finishes, chrono out a stalker and your MS core. Forge should be finishing so put down a cannon. Take your stalker, MScore and 3 zelots and move out onto the map. Build a sentry and put it in the doorway so no lings rush by as your little brigade runs out. As the your strike force gets out on the map (heading for the 3rd) send a probe somewhere to hide on the map for proxy pylons later on in the game. Start chronoing probes like crazy and start researching Warpgate.
The purpose of the strikeforce is to make zerg build lings or roaches – not drone up. If he does drone and misses your army leaving your base you might just kill his 3rd. If I play diamond or lower players – I usually kill the 3rd cause they misread this attack. Masters and higher players usually defend it, but it serves its purpose as a way to stop droning. TRY NOT TO LOSE ANY UNITS (they are important to defend all-ins and to take your 3rd). If you get into the 3rd and there is a small group of lings and a queen or 2, engage, but try and keep your units alive. It’s better to just force them to over build lings. While this army is out on the map, use your multitasking and apm to screenshot back home to build your assimilators at your nat, continue probing (you should pass the zerg in worker count during this attack) AND to build 2 Stargates.
This seems like a lot of stuff going on, and it is – so you gota be quick and you gota posture lots with this army - it might be on the map for a good 2 or 3 minutes. Try and bounce around the map either posturing at the 3rd, killing overlords or sitting in 3rd mineral line (if you can get in) delaying droning while the army arrives. When in doubt, recall back home.
So you forced a lot of lings, you recalled your army home, you have 2 stargates building (or finishing) and you’re up to 35+ probes. Next, start +1 (weapons) on your forge, chrono out phoenix, get your probe count to roughly 45 and build 3 more gates – putting you at 4 in total.
Once you hit 4 phoenix (and continually building them) build a proxy pylon with your probe out on the map and head to the zerg main with your phoenix. You’ll notice you’re banking A LOT of minerals. This is so you can push with a zealot warp in, keep building phoenix and take a 3rd all at the same time. If you do a good job of hiding your 2 star gates, these phoenix will be a huge surprise – and they’ll seem like they came out of nowhere since you were just out on the map a min or two ago with your little strike force. The idea here is to kill queens and overlords and warp in zealots and hit the 3rd. If you do it right, you should supply block the zerg, kill 1 or 2 queens and put A LOT of damage on the 3rd – if not straight out kill it. Meanwhile you can use your mothership core and a zealot or two to escort a probe to the 3rd and start your nexus - sometimes I use my initial strikeforce to do this while my new warped in zealots hit the 3rd. Sometimes I send the strikeforce out on the map if I feel I can do real damage again with them and the new warped in army as well..
The idea with this push isn’t to kill the zerg, it’s to cripple him again or at least get him flustered or making the wrong units.
The transition is to finish 3rd with cannon support, build 5-6 more gateways, get charge +2, then +3 and eventually get archons. Feel free to continue to mass phoenix. If you feel like you’re getting a lot and the game is going to go on for a while, you can swing into double robo immortal production instead. The scariest moment for you will be the 2-5 mins after your 2nd attack. Zerg should be able to pump out a decent amount of roaches and hydras to hit your 3rd. So be sure to defend with good phoenix pick-ups, photon overcharge and zealot warp ins. If not handled well, you could die to a retaliating zerg who can macro efficiently.
The idea with your late game army is to pick up light units (hydras) with your phoenix and have your ground army pound out the rest. The zerg will naturally transition into either hydra /ling/infester or mass roach with burrow/movement sometimes they try and ignore the air and do simply mass ling into ultralisk – but this is not common and a mass void ray tech switch is very scary for zerg. The mass roach build is harder to stop because if they max quickly, your phoenixes are mostly useless – but with double stargate you can start to chrono out voidray.
It is important to have your phoeonix always attack from a different angle than your main army. This will screw up the players physical ability to focus on more than 1 lane. For example: ground army moves up from the left and player focuses attention there, and phoenix army flies from the middle right – now the player has to focus and multitask 2 army fronts and it makes their engagement messy – especially if they are using infesters! This way of engaging will ensure that a lot of their positioning is compromised and their fungles are more prone to miss. *NOTE make sure ground army and phoenix hit their army at the same time because the ground army will take precedents and the hydras will leave your phoenix alone – unless targeted – ensuring that you can simply mass pick them up and kill them off.
Believe it or not, in a pinch, mass phoenix can work like force fields in the sense that you can section armies off by simply removing them from the battlefield all together. If you have archons in your army, they will blast them from the sky – if your apm is good, you can release sections of the army piece by piece and have zealot/archon/immortal clean up.
I believe it was Mana who made this build very popular at the start of HOTS.
The idea here is to open with a standard econ build (1 gate, 1 assimilator – build nexus after cyber core finishes, chrono out mscore after nexus goes down in nat, build 2nd assimilator, build Stargate) and transition into early stargate and defend against early aggression or macro into mid game.
In this build you want to macro up into 6-7 gates, +1 armor, charge, templar archives and 5ish phoenix. When the terran pushes on the map with initial army with 2 dropships, you want to completely kill that army and rush their natural (proxy pylons are helpful here).
*NOTE pros ALWAYS pick up marauders for some reason with their phoenix but since marines are light units, you can 2 shot them with phoenix and they are much better to pick up. When terran moves out, you should be able to crush most of their marines with your phoenix alone – as long as your army is engaging at same time.
If the terran is surprised by attack, you may want to all in him and take the win. If he defends in his nat, you want to pull back army, harass with phoenix/scout and macro to 3rd base with storm. More recently, I’ve been crushing the terran army, and instead of crashing into the nat I’ve been saving my army, setting up a soft contain – transitioning right into storm and taking a 3rd. I believe this method is best because it allows for a more stable build. A soft contain with storm can be VERY strong. I’ve often simply ended the game through a soft contain with storm vs mid/high masters players because they mine out their base and I whittle down army with good storm. Because of phoenix, even dropships can be easily scouted and picked off if sneaking away or manoeuvring away from the contain.
I used to open with an oracle and try and harass, but more recently extreme terran aggression with early mine drops and hellions is popular on ladder. So I’ve been opening with 3 phoenix to help deflect attacks and pick up workers if he is simply macroing up. Also, terrans are deflecting oracle attacks easier and I feel like phoenix are a better unit in late game – even if you only build a handful, they are still great at helping shut down drops. Whereas oracles are reduced to simply scouting and obs can do that fine.
Wait you're from Winnipeg?
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I sometimes go
17 nexus
17 gateway
17 forge
18 pylon
2 gas 3 on gas until 250 gas, then 2 on each gas
cyber when gate is done
Start +1 with first 100 gas
warp gate with next 50
stalker and msc with next 150 gas.
Clean out any overloads which have vision of the forge and chrono the heck out of it along with warp gate
Get 3 more gates and a proxy pylon
Warp in 4 zealots and kill the 3rd.
The greedy nexus gives you a few extra probes than this would normally give you, and so you will have enough to continually get probes, warp in zealots, and get a twilight during the attack and +2
If zerg responds with enough roaches and you can't snipe the 3rd then retreat the zealots and warp in stalkers so they can kite the roaches. Drop a robo, and get sentries and stalkers. You can either take a third, or keep up the pressure.
If you kill the third, you can retreat, get a few sentries and stalkers, take your own third, and be way far ahead with +2 and blink
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vs Zerg
12 rax
14 gas
after 2 marines reactor on rax
20 cc
21 fac
switch factory and rax when fac is done.
make a reactor on rax and start a starport
Make 6 hellions from factory
make a medivac from the starport
drop 8 marines to main while running 6 hellions to natural.
You have to kill as many drones as you can. Dont worry about losing your units, just focus the drones the best you can.
At the same time start tech lab to factory and starport.
make 2 cloak banshees from the starport.
Switch starport to the first reactor you had in the game
start building tanks and more raxes as well.
Go for 7 rax with 3 tech labs and 4 reactors.
Produce marauders from the tech labbed ones.
push with bio/tank/medivac when you have stim/shields/shells.
win game
http://ggtracker.com/matches/6135506
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TvP build I got that has beaten Gm players haha.
9/9/9 proxy reaper into proxy widow mine where you life the factory into the opponents base( can also just build at natural and walk the mines in). Go up to 3 reapers and then 4 rax stim medivac timing.
Bait Photon overcharge as much as you can and be really aggressive but keep everything alive. I have literally won games where I didnt even kill much more than a zealot with the mines. It just makes people freak out and mess up haha.
Works well on Terraform and such maps with large space in the main. Terrible on 4 player maps since you dont know where to proxy the factory.
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EPT
