On April 01 2011 06:09 aquanda wrote: I had my first game of the day against jemag in a practice session. It was a long macro oriented game with him opening forge FE and me opening 15 hatch. ZvP (Z)tQaquanda vs (P)jemag on TA
Wow, you've really tweeked the build from the original version (You don't even pull drones off gas anymore for an earlier lair and dual ups) but maybe it was even more different because it was on TA. It actually looks a lot like Magulina's pvz, or what he used to do. He'd go roach with bling drops. Of course, how he got there was pretty different from how you get there but it's a similar unit composition.
On March 28 2011 17:30 aquanda wrote: alonth: I am changing my "build order" daily. The framework for the build is similar to almost every other build order out there, but here it is: 15 Pool 15 Gas 17 OL (Drones off @ 100) 4 Lings Queen Drone until 21 supply 2nd Queen 23 OL Zergling Speed (3 Drones back on gas) Drone constantly, ensuring you're staying on top of your OL timings from here on out Evo @ ~30 gas Begin +1 Melee Baneling Nest with next 50 gas
when do you usually expand with this build?
sorry, I forgot to add this in there. I take my natural at 21 supply and my 3rd after I've started my lair.
On April 01 2011 06:09 aquanda wrote: I had my first game of the day against jemag in a practice session. It was a long macro oriented game with him opening forge FE and me opening 15 hatch. ZvP (Z)tQaquanda vs (P)jemag on TA
Wow, you've really tweeked the build from the original version (You don't even pull drones off gas anymore for an earlier lair and dual ups) but maybe it was even more different because it was on TA. It actually looks a lot like Magulina's pvz, or what he used to do. He'd go roach with bling drops. Of course, how he got there was pretty different from how you get there but it's a similar unit composition.
I only hatch first when the protoss hasn't scouted me by 15 supply, which rarely happens, so I don't have a solid hatch first build yet. with the recent trend of protoss doing very early gateway pressure builds I find roach ling bling to be a great counter.
On April 01 2011 06:09 aquanda wrote: I had my first game of the day against jemag in a practice session. It was a long macro oriented game with him opening forge FE and me opening 15 hatch. ZvP (Z)tQaquanda vs (P)jemag on TA
Wow, you've really tweeked the build from the original version (You don't even pull drones off gas anymore for an earlier lair and dual ups) but maybe it was even more different because it was on TA. It actually looks a lot like Magulina's pvz, or what he used to do. He'd go roach with bling drops. Of course, how he got there was pretty different from how you get there but it's a similar unit composition.
I only hatch first when the protoss hasn't scouted me by 15 supply, which rarely happens, so I don't have a solid hatch first build yet. with the recent trend of protoss doing very early gateway pressure builds I find roach ling bling to be a great counter.
Heh, that's what I started to do as well since my practice partner is really good vs this strategy and he usually goes mass gates with lots of good splits and stuff.
I guess the goal in the midgame is to get the lair, get drop asap and see what the toss is doing and react to it (as usual). If it's mass gates roach bling should work, if it's a more typical 4 gate + robobay then you can get a spire, if it's collosus VR then you should probably get a lot of infestors (haven't really played around with them since the patch) or a lot of corrupters.
A lot of folks have been saying that 5/6 gate gives them trouble. Has anyone experimented with burrowed banelings as insurance against those early sentry heavy pushes? I've used it a few times with remarkable success.
Ahelvin: I have been using the Infestor a lot more, but not for NP. I feel like relying too much on it can easily kill you (as well as bad positioning) and rather use the Infestor to soften up Sentry/Stalker balls as I bane drop them. The amount of AoE damage banedrop+infestor can dish out is simply insane.
You can rely simply on ling/bane/roach to counter Collosus until the count gets to ~4+, at which point you need to have Corruptors (or NP I suppose) to deal with them.
I suppose to summarize the 1.3 changes to my style, I actually use Infestors as a core asset to my army, instead of a "well I guess I could make a few" sort of thing.
I'm actually wondering about this as well. I watched your replay and you got a roach warren, evos and a bling nest at the same time. You were also getting tunneling claws and burrow the more popular way of defending against a 5 or 6 gate. But if you're getting all those things at once don't you just die those (To be fair Jemag is pretty passive and does that heabvby turtly style)? Why defend with a typical opening anyway? Is it too hard to defend that with bling sling?
Just wondering why you go roach/bling/infestor as well, instead of just sling, bling into hive (With delayed infestors). I mean can't you just get infestors after you start morphing to a hive just to feel safe? Seems like the build works especially well against a double robo, stalker/collosus build but what about a toss who just goes double stargate after getting his third (Who stops at 3 collosus), while you've invested all your gas in roach, blings and infestors.
But I know that if the toss really invests into mass gate early on it can be super tough to beat him even if you have drop. He can have a great stalker/zealot split while transitioning into collosus or air builds.
Aquanda you have inspired me to try this strategy. Its looks really effective!
I just tried it out and although I won the game there were many things that I felt didn't seem right. If you can could you check out my replay and give me some pointers?
I found I floated a lot of minerals mid game even of 4 hatch, any suggestions on when to put down extra gas geysers? Should I just expand at will when I am applying pressure to get rid of the minerals or something else?
Some maps like Tal'Darim have rocks blocking the natural, would it be better to expand somewhere else or make extra lings to break the rocks?
I am in diamond so I understand that my mechanics still need improving but any help would be greatly appreciated thanks man.
if you are floating to much minerals, throw down extra hatches.
Mostly at expansions, but in cases you are 100% sure you will lose it, it could also be in base.
The thing is that once you have like 3 saturated bases, it actually can start to become hard to actually have enough larva for all those lings. So make sure, the moment a hatch comes up, you have a queen there to inject.
if your injections aren't up to par, just throw down another hatch. It's much better sinking 450 mins (hatch + queen) into more production and spending those 1k + mins then losing the game because you didn't have enough army. Just make sure you keep working on injections, and it doesn't become a habit of just making to many hatches to compensate.
If you need some lings to break down rocks, just make them.
From my experience this is not a strategy where you see a toss moving out and you suddenly slam down a big army, you always want to have a ling force moving around the map, threatenign stuff, being annoying, etc etc.
So don't feel to bad about making some extra lings to break down rocks, because at some point you will have to do it anyway, and it's much better to do it early when the toss is passive then later.
And don't be afraid to add gass very quickly, with this strategy this allows you to expand really really agrressively, and I feel like the goal isn't so much ling/bane, but just enabling you to expand really agressively to get a boatload of gas. And once you start pumping out muta/infestor/ultra/broodlors, you will be happy that you have that many gas.
Just my experiences on the concerns that you raised.
1. It's pretty map dependent. It works brilliantly on large maps with open naturals because it makes counterattacking very effective. On the other hand it is pretty awful on maps like Typhoon where literally EVERYTHING is a choke and the 2nd/3rd are fairly easy for a toss to defend.
2. Don't get hung up on just lings. You need an intermediary transition as soon as you hit lair pretty much (you'll be able to fund it anyway). When I lose it's because I fall in love with upgraded lings too late into the game and the map or their SimCity doesn't allow effective counterattacking.
On April 12 2011 15:31 TheHedonist wrote: Been testing this build out A LOT recently.
2 things I'd like to note about it.
1. It's pretty map dependent. It works brilliantly on large maps with open naturals because it makes counterattacking very effective. On the other hand it is pretty awful on maps like Typhoon where literally EVERYTHING is a choke and the 2nd/3rd are fairly easy for a toss to defend.
2. Don't get hung up on just lings. You need an intermediary transition as soon as you hit lair pretty much (you'll be able to fund it anyway). When I lose it's because I fall in love with upgraded lings too late into the game and the map or their SimCity doesn't allow effective counterattacking.
1.) About half my games are on Typhon, which means I am forced to allin in the first ~10 minutes of the game or hope my opponent sucks. And yes, lings are awful on this map. I never do this strategy on Typhon.
2.) Since zerg scouting ability is beyond abysmal, you have to have burrow roaches if you somehow suspect a 5/6 gate sentry heavy attack. You simply cannot rely on the Protoss to have dogshit forcefields in order to defend it. There are also a multitude of other timing attacks he can do to negate the effectiveness of slow banes+lings.
To be honest, this style was effective when Protoss weren't aware it existed, but the only way to make banelings effective now is to use them with overlord drops.
Also, I've had to abandon going 15 pool 21 hatch because a 4 gate build will hit before the hatchery is even finished. Imagine that...
The only map you can consider doing this build on is Meta, and maybe Taldarim (although not likely because he can just 3 base turtle and counter attacks are impossible). Every other map in the pool right now has enough chokes or easily defend-able expansions to make it extremely disadvantageous to the zerg.
Hey aquanda I'm wondering what your general style is now then. Is it roach with bling drops? I've been trying to do that lately but if the toss goes VR/phoenix first I find it a little tough to get extra bases without hydra. And I think roach/bling is most effective when you have infestors so his army can't blink/ff/run away. But yeah, only problem is VR/phoenix combos. You can't just use infestors vs that (I don't think so anyway) and getting corrupters seems super expensive (and not that cost effective), so I think just maybe going roach hydra with some blings might be best. You can drop a few hydras here and there, drop harass, and use the blings when you face his army. You'd have hydras for anti-air defense as well. I've seen sheth go this style a lot on his stream (roach bling infestor) but I'm not so sure how he deals with VRs/phoenixes thrown into the mix.
2.) Since zerg scouting ability is beyond abysmal, you have to have burrow roaches if you somehow suspect a 5/6 gate sentry heavy attack. You simply cannot rely on the Protoss to have dogshit forcefields in order to defend it. There are also a multitude of other timing attacks he can do to negate the effectiveness of slow banes+lings.
This may seem like a stupid question, but could you defend a 6 gate with burrowed ling/bling?
2.) Since zerg scouting ability is beyond abysmal, you have to have burrow roaches if you somehow suspect a 5/6 gate sentry heavy attack. You simply cannot rely on the Protoss to have dogshit forcefields in order to defend it. There are also a multitude of other timing attacks he can do to negate the effectiveness of slow banes+lings.
This may seem like a stupid question, but could you defend a 6 gate with burrowed ling/bling?
The trend of Protoss lately is to delay the 6 gate timing in order to get an observer on the field.
EPT
