Destiny VS sixJaxMaj0r Showmatch

On August 25 2011 13:04 Frozenserpent wrote:
It's true that terran early game all-in pushes can be very hard to deal with, but that wasn't the case here. These pushes were simply not all-in whatsoever. If destiny had a good defense, major simply would have slowly retreated back, and have a good economy behind it.

Let's look at the games.

In those games, he typically got his 3rd up and running while he pushed out. Major gets his 3rd up and running before Destiny gets a secure 3rd.

Suppose Destiny destroys the push, but trades resources at a 4:5 ratio. IE Destiny loses 4000 resources worth of units for every 5000 major loses in his push. What would the situation be then?
Destiny would actually still be drastically behind. Major had 74 workers at the end of the last game. 74 is pretty much the most amount of workers you would ever want at once, especially as terran. Meanwhile, Destiny had far, far less workers.

Those pushes were very regular pressure pushes in a typical TvZ build. They are fundamental to playing TvZ in a heavy macro style. But, in those games, they ended the game.

It's not because Destiny is so bad he can't handle regular pressure builds. It's because Destiny was already far, far behind by the time the pushes came out. Destiny would need to crush that push in order to have a good chance to win the game.

So let's examine what happened earlier in the games, that caused Major to be at such an overwhelming advantage.

Specifically, let's look at the last build that Major does, which I am quite familiar with on both sides of the coin. Major opens with a hellion expand, which is a very good opening. In fact it's one of my favorite TvZ openings. You see, there are many different kinds of hellion openings for T. We've seen the Slayers terrans favor blue flame hellion openings with drop. There are bfh hellion openings with a heavy count of bfh. These builds typically try to inflict massive amounts of drone damage. At the very least, they need to inflict a decent amount of economic damage or force a large enough response to make the opening worth it.
The reactor hellion opening, however, is a different breed. What typically happens is you build 2-6 hellions, which you will send out, and while they are out, you are getting your 2nd up and running. The CC is actually rather fast. An important trait about this build is that there isn't a heavy commitment that must be paid for with drone blood. So you build 4-6 hellions. Even if you just snipe a single drone, you are really in a good position. You are not behind if you fail to do economic damage, provided that you do not lose those hellions for free. Those 4-6 hellions are the price for map control. You will restrict creep spread past their nat. You will prevent their lings from having free reign over the map. You will force some kind of response, whether it is a spine crawler or more lings. In fact, without the spine crawler, you can probably pick off a few lings for free. Any economic damage you inflict is merely extra. The important point is to not commit your hellions unless you think you have a good chance of inflicting damage.
And that was the position Major found himself in game 4. One big mistake Destiny was timing. He did build a spine crawler, but he didn't have a 2nd queen out, and in addition, the spine crawler was a few seconds too slow. Furthermore, he had a rather low initial ling count. A great way to deal with a reactor hellion is to have a one spinecrawler up, and a handful of speedlings and a queen along with it. Destiny only had 1 queen, and it was at his main. His lings, which, iirc, was something like 2 pairs, isn't enough to stop a hellion runby. A ling/spinecrawler defense against hellion runbies works by zoning them out. They can't attempt a runby because it becomes incredibly risky. Just a handful of lings will trap the hellions, impeding their movements. Just a couple seconds of delaying the hellions will do enough damage to the runby hellions to render them very manageable and simple to deal with.
Roaches were used by Destiny in previous games, and may seem like an obvious solution, but roaches aren't the ideal counter, and, in fact, I think they're quite a poor counter. If you make 2 roaches to fend off 4 hellions, you're investing 200 minerals in a roach warren, AND 200 resources of roaches, which is equivalent to the 400 resources sunk in hellions, but you don't get any map control with those roaches, and hellions add more to terran midgame than zerg adds to zerg midgame. Another aspect to keep in mind is that to get the 2 roaches out for the hellion timing, you have to have the roach warren building rather early. At that stage of zerg's economy, the bottleneck for drone production is minerals. In fact, many zergs get an early creep tumor around that time because they have excess larva if they have 2 queens and 2 hatches. Wait just a bit longer, and it isn't so bad to throw down a last minute spine crawler.
Destiny, you see, doesn't have a "standard" ZvT opener. The standard openers involve a fast zergling speed upgrade. This makes it much easier to deal with hellion and marine pressure. This also gives zerg an advantage in map control. This is because Destiny doesn't have a standard style of ZvT. As we all know, he likes heavy infestor play. He wants to get to the infestor phase as soon as possible, and it is there that he can be comfortable enough to get his 3rd, harass, inflict damage, defend, tech, and get set up for the fast broodlord/infestor push.
You notice, in the games before the last game, Destiny delayed his zergling speed upgrade. There are a few very good reasons why standard ZvT involves a rather fast speed upgrade. For one, marine stutter step micro makes marines very efficient against slow zerglings. With speed upgrade, marines don't become super efficient against zerglings again until the unit counts gets bigger or until stim is available. Heavy marine pressure has very little risk for the terran player if the zerg has no speed upgrade. The zerg can't punish the terran for poking in with the marines, and the terran can poke in and get free units this way, unless zerg invests in a couple spines.
And there are other good reasons for faster ling speed, such as reapers and hellions. Naturally, Major, who's regularly employed reaper and hellion openings in the past, sought fit to punish Destiny for this hole in his early game.
The hellions and the reapers are not unusual builds. They would do quite fine against a standard ZvT build, even when the zerg player is fully prepared. If zerg gets late speed, however, they suddenly become very, very deadly. This explains a lot of why Destiny lost games 2 and 3. And the thing that absolutely convinced Destiny that he had to change his opening build game 4, was that Major didn't need to sacrifice anything significant for that capability. He was playing a TvZ build that is very solid and will match up just fine against a solid ZvT build.
So Destiny had to adjust game 4 and get his speed upgrade earlier. However, his timings for the lings was a bit off and he took a lot of damage, putting him at a disadvantage.
Major followed up his highly successful hellion harass with single banshee harass. This follow up is fairly popular and is rather macro oriented. The idea is that there is no tech cost for the banshee; everything necessary for banshee production is already there. The tech lab is going to be used for stim. The starport is going to be used for medivac production. But if you use the starport and the techlab for a short period, you only need to spend 150/100 for a banshee. This is 250 units of resources. A standard TvZ build doesn't need a heavy gas count at this period, so the gas cost isn't significant. The banshee goes out and can guarantee a couple of drone kills without dying. It is just a very minor harass, typically. The idea is that scv production is limited compared to zerg drone production. Shaving a couple drones here and there will add up, keeping the terran at an ok position against the zerg. Shave a bit more than needed with some good maneuvering and tactics, and then you're looking at a slight economic advantage against zerg. Furthermore, the single banshee isn't bad later on. It can continue harassment until mutalisks come out. If you keep it around, it does some nice dps, and it can delay a 3rd for a little bit.
Banshee comes in, and Destiny only has one queen, with no creep spread between the main and nat. ZvT builds typically involve hatch-first with 2 early queens. You get enough energy to drop one creep tumor before you need to spend the rest of the energy for larva injects. That one creep tumor will make its way from the main, connect the natural, and then make its way out or, more usefully, connect creep towards a potential 3rd. For a map like tald'arim, you can get a nice creep spread to the 3rd by the time you want to take it, making it safer against harass.
That main-to-nat creep connection is specifically for queens to defend against drops and banshees. Queens are actually very good AA units. Banshee harass and drop harass can be very deadly and difficult to deal with without this creep spread.
Destiny had only one queen at his main, and no creep spread. That banshee harass turned from what typically is just minor, but steady harass, into something more significant. Along with all the drones lost to the hellions, the damage done by the banshee was devastating. By this time, it was Major's game to lose. So long as he didn't make any critical mistake, or get massively outplayed in some way, he was going to win the game.

Major's push was just him playing as he is supposed to. If it got defended, he would have several more shots left available.