EPTThis began as a reply in Musicus’s thread (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/529372-who-invented-the-shitty-ravager-rush) but the length got out of hand so I figured I might as well make it into its own thread.
I will preface this by saying that I’m (obviously) not a progamer nor well-connected behind the scenes, so if Nerchio or Snute or any other progamer comes in and says this post’s contents or analysis or whatever is completely wrong in every respect, then that’s that.
That being said, here we go:
The initial justification I used for crediting Inno was soO’s winner’s interview, where soO explicitly says that Inno recommended the build to him:
.
However, as Musicus and others have pointed out, Inno himself played against several ravager rushes at NationWars IV, specifically from Nerchio and Elazer, who in turn credited Matiz. Mizenhauer also claimed that Scarlett used it in an online tournament around the same time. Others have said Catz was experimenting with the build as far as back as LotV beta.
Suffice to say that there are a lot of claims. However, the key point that I found most everyone has overlooked or disregarded is that different players used several different variations on the “fast ravager rush” build, and that as far as I can tell, soO’s version (which I suspect Inno created) was first played by soO in the GSL, not anyone else. This may sound like a pedantic and hairsplitting distinction, but I for one think the difference is quite significant and have explained it in detail below.
The first example I found (January 21) was Nerchio’s in NationWars:
It was gas-pool-hatch into two lings followed by six roaches (three morph into ravagers). The map was Vaani and Inno used a standard reaper expand. Nerchio won the game, and I would attribute this in no small part to his initial two lings getting past Inno’s wall and dragging the reaper back after it poked into the main (without seeing the roach warren) and scouted the natural hatch. The three-ravager + three-roach followup wasn’t spotted until it was at Inno’s front door and it promptly killed him.
Since getting two lings over a lowered depot on Vaani is something of a lucky break, I’m not sure what would’ve happened if Inno raised the depot on time and the reaper wasn’t forced back to defend. Nonetheless, I think it’s safe to say that the two lings played a crucial role here.
The next example is from Elazer, not even an hour later:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxuW0mqrS8Q&feature=youtu.be&t=9906
Unlike Nerchio, Elazer went for a pool first into double gas, followed immediately by a roach warren and three roaches which all morph into ravagers. The map was Overgrowth and Inno again used a standard reaper expand. This time, Inno scouted the ravagers with his reaper and eventually won the game after a prolonged hold.
So the differences between Elazer’s and Nerchio’s versions are fairly significant. Elazer never expanded, skipped the lings, and took two gases immediately while Nerchio never did take the second gas. Elazer also began the attack with pure ravager while Nerchio had roaches. And of course, Nerchio won while Elazer lost.
Digging deeper, I found that Elazer had in fact used the exact same build at WESG as well, against Major (January 13).
It was called the “Habitation Station build” since that was the only map it was used on, and was immediately copied by Stephano the very next day, also on Habitation Station:
So it appears that Elazer is the inventor (or rather Matiz, from whom Elazer got the build, according to the other thread).
Taking a small digression, Mizenhauer pm’d me and claimed that Scarlett had used the shitty ravager build in an online tournament before soO did in GSL. After some more digging, I identified that the online tournament in question was the IEM Katowice Korean Qualifier #2 (January 29), during which Scarlett faced Maru on Habitation Station and used a modified version of Elazer’s Habitation Station build with a gold expand:
Back to the original point, the power behind the Habitation Station build–and any cheese–is in large part due to surprise. Therefore, the later the ravagers are scouted, the more effective the rush will be. The problem with Elazer’s Habitation Station build is that there’s nothing to deny a scout of the rush, and so it completely relies on the opponent’s lack of scouting and/or lackluster micro in the actual defense. Unless Terran goes CC first, the chances for Zerg aren’t optimal. With a standard reaper expand and competent micro, Terran has a reasonable shot at holding the rush, which is obviously far from ideal for the Zerg.
And that issue brings us full circle, back to soO’s winner’s interview, to the question immediately preceding the one about the build’s inventor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB_bk_whKgs&feature=youtu.be&t=5140
Here soO explicitly says that the shitty ravager build failed on Whirlwind because the lings were late getting to TY’s base. We can see that in Game 1, the lings hit at more or less the exact same time TY’s reaper scouts the ravagers out on the map, ~2:55 or so:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB_bk_whKgs&feature=youtu.be&t=1163
and then TY promptly cancels his natural and starts a bunker. Contrast this with Game 4 on Abyssal Reef, where soO uses the shitty ravager build again, but this time the lings hit at ~2:10, pulling TY’s reaper back to his base before it makes it across the map and scouts the ravagers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB_bk_whKgs&feature=youtu.be&t=3849
Because of this, TY doesn’t realize he is being cheesed until the ravagers are already in his natural (his reaper scouts reinforcements at the same time the first ravagers walk up). And then soO wins the game.
Adding the evidence of these vods to what soO said in his winner’s interview, I came to the conclusion that Inno, after having seen first Nerchio's cheese and then the Habitation Station build (on Overgrowth) at NationWars, refined it to punish reaper expand as well as CC first and then recommended it to soO for GSL, thus producing the Shitty Ravager Build™.
So a TL;DR
1. Matiz invents the 12-pool into ravager rush
2. Elazer uses this build on Habitation Station at WESG, bringing it to public attention
3. Elazer uses this build on Overgrowth at NationWars, moving the Habitation Station build off Habitation Station
4. Inno refines the build by adding lings and produces the Shitty Ravager Build™
5. soO uses the build and beats TY in GSL
EDIT: Fango brought up a great point about Scarlett incorporating two lings into the Habitation Station build against Maru on Habitation Station at WESG. It's not quite the same as the shitty ravager build since she went gas before pool, and the lings are too late to stop Maru getting a successful reaper scout. But it is very similar, so I can only assume that Scarlett and the other pros didn't pay the build much attention after she lost with it.
EDIT #2: Scarlett in turn attributes the build to Voltz, who beat ByuN on Ulrena with it mid-2016. Deeper into the rabbit hole.....
