[D] Lotv 3 rax reapers openings

klup

France612 Posts

November 17 2015 16:28 GMT

Hi all,

I’ve back laddering for Lotv ,after 4 month of pause. I have laddered Hots for 2 years oscillating between top diamond and low master doing almost exclusively 3 rax reapers opening in both TvZ and TvP (except on maps with virtually no cliff).

This strategy was elaborated by a friend of mine who is not very active anymore and he had made a guide at that early Hots moment about 3 rax reaper openings :

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/409905-3-rax-reaper-opening-in-all-mu

I recently started back applying this build to Lotv in both TvZ and TvT with great success (currently back in top platinium).

Basically my current Lotv version of it is something like

14 supply
15 gas
16 rax
18 rax
19 rax
reaper
(from here I pause a little bit SCV/orbital as my mineral is very low
22 supply
23 orbital
23 2nd gas
constant reaper prod (i experience some starving in gas for few secs for the 4th/5th reaper)
supply /2nd CC/3rdCC asap as your mineral skyrocket.
adapt from there

The goals, pro and cons are practically the same as the Hots guide except the threats of counterpunch are not totally the same in terms of composition.

Compared to Hots, the main advantage of 3 rax reapers is how easier it seems to manage marines and Zerglings(speedlings)/queen at the beginning and how reapers have become way more useful in defending different ground based aggression or harass after the early game phase. I’m not saying they are crazy OP but they are a lot more threatening than their hots counterpart.

In Hots I can assume that this strat was not played a lot if not at all, but it seems to me that it could be a Lotv thing.

What are your opinions on this kind of strat? Have you tried something similar already? If you do can you share some Lotv specific tips about this kind of opening?

I will ladder hard the thing and post replays about success and failures soonTM.

XPA

Germany242 Posts

November 17 2015 17:05 GMT

There is a 2 rax reaper proxyy version that i saw in being used in TvT. I tried it out myself and it works really well. If the opponent isn´t scv scouting it is really hard to stop. You go for 14 depot then 2 proxy rax at 15, followed up by double gas. Constant reaper production to keep his unit count at a minimum. Behind this i get a cc and a factory at home, teching up to cloack banshees (that is why i add a second gas).
Most of my opponents outright lose, or are so busy with the reapers that they don´t geet turrets / don´t have enough marines to deal with the cloack followup. That is diamond level in lotv.
While this build is obviously really allin, so far it feels like an autowin against players that don´t scv scout (but i´m sure that you can hold it with really good micro) or don´t take the snowball potential of teh reapers seriously.

TimeSpiral

United States1010 Posts

November 17 2015 18:33 GMT

We've found this play very difficult to hold in Archon Mode, especially if you're blind-sided with it. We've also used a similar build as a reaction to certain early-game scouts: low-gas openers, greedy reactors, or a delayed barracks can straight-up die to just a couple-or-three reapers (in Archon mode).

We've found the only effective way to hold it, because of how early it hits, is to bunker up while you tech. Not sure there is a standard way to defend against this. But I know a greedy reactor on your rax is basically a build-order loss.

p.s. Diamond Archon Team

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[D] Lotv 3 rax reapers openings

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