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On March 14 2013 04:27 NeuroNiky wrote:
First of all, thanks for the great guide!
Can you please help me understand better your approach against a stargate opening in a zvp? If I get this correctly, you advice to delay lair to 7:30, then go lair, hydra den, make 10 of them, then go corruptors. All is clear and good, but by when my hydras are out, aren't we already facing an unwieldy number of void rays to deal with just hydras if he just skip phoenixes? That instakill button burns thru hydras in no time. If he went phoenixes, it's not that big an issue as those are easily countered with a 2x number of hydra in my experience (with queen support it's even easier), but in middle game I find void rays to be very hard to counter, unless he accepts a base trade. And as you highlight later, going into late game with a skytoss is something you should just try to avoid as we don't really have any reliable way to won against such a deathball yet.
Also, in zvz, I've been recently experimenting with going burrowed banes to easily counter an early ling attack, but I'm not convinced burrow is truly worth its cost with the mutacentric metagame I'm seeing now. Have you ever tried that?
Just FYI, the void instakill button only gives them a bonus vs armored, so it effectively does nothing vs hydras.
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I love how you explain everything in the simplest way! I'm a master player, but I must learn and learn from players like you 
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Just wanted to throw a tip in here for you zergs, something I learned playing PvT throughout WOL. Put your tech buildings between your main and nat Instead of behind your main mineral line which is further from your nat. This should be the easiest place to defend and allows your defense of drops to be much more concise.
Zergs seem to be having trouble in hots, dealing with drops. Those buildings behind your main mineral line hurt you vs drop play. They give MM places to tuck into and prevent surrounds, they also make easy targets to snipe with a drop. Obviously as in the op, you also want some static defense or a few units pre positioned. As well as getting those overlords in good places to spot drops.
I lost many games as toss in WOL because I had tech in random corners of my main. Losing your Robo tech because you couldn't walk units from your nat to your main in time is a painful way to lose! Most toss learned long ago to put your tech structures in between the main and nat. Think about what terrans do vs muta play in the sense of how important it is for terran to maintain control of the area between the main and nat. Also, when you pull workers this is also the area they will be headed to. Again this just makes the area you have to defend smaller. Some of this is obviously map dependent, but hopefully you get the idea.
Watching some MLG today, I've seen both toss and zergs get punished for building placement. They are often not able to control the space between the main and nat ( the ramp), defend the workers, and stop tech from being sniped at the same time. They would have a much easier time if the tech was along the route to defend the 2 mineral lines.
This little tip can save you some painful loses!
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On March 16 2013 15:48 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2013 14:53 MrLlama wrote:
So I do have a question/statement that I suppose I'd like to toss out there:
In my ZvP experience, the 3 base opener no longer works because it always loses to the +1 6gate timing with mama core. The main problem of course being 2 things:
1. nothing for zerg can shoot up at that time besides the queen but the core and the stalkers take that out pretty quickly, which then leaves the core to just pound away at everything (it's not a lot of damage but it's enough)
2. Time warp prevents surrounds and really keeps me from being able to engage his army effectively, I think this is the real troublesome part because it allows him to just pick my army apart in what would already be a close fight without time warp.
I have faced this a few times on ladder and a couple of times in practice and I just can't seem to have an answer. Some games I try a faster speed for my lings so it's out by that time but that doesn't work, other times I try some roaches but time warp and mothership core aerial attacks are killing me.
Suggestions? Do you think zerg 3 base opener is dead and instead we'll have to tech 2 base lair first (with some timing push)?
(1600 pt Masters Zerg for reference of what I'm facing) Hm I don't think a 6 gate msc timing will kill a third base if you defend properly. It's definitely harder but you should be able to hold it if you see it coming, I haven't faced much 6 gate but I can normally hold it off on the few times I have faced it with the msc. To be honest I think it just depends on how fast you scout the gateway all in coming, throwing down a spore isn't a bad idea anymore just because of what tosses do or to have it attack the msc. I could be wrong I would have to face 6 gate a lot more to know but I don't think so but I also haven't played verse it that much. So as of right now no I don't think it's dead, I think if that were the case I would be facing a lot more 6 gate msc attacks (especially on korea) if it was impossible to hold.
I'd love to play with you/watch you play vs some of my protoss friends to see how you hold the 6gate all in in HOTS if that's possible. Feel free to send me a PM
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Really great guide, been using all the builds outlined and have had a lot of success because of it. Any chance there will be an extension to this guide with more aggressive builds though? Because that would be great.
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Hey Blade & Others!
First off, great guides - and great youtube channel, your videos have helped me hit mid diamonds (Zerg) in WOL. But with the launch of HOTS i have a minor problem dealing with protoss. My biggest problem at the moment is the toss push with +5 Col, stalkers, zealots & (void rays) that hit just before i'm able to get out my hive tech. I have tried delaying with swamhosts, but doesnt really work for me unless they open stargate.
If you could point me in the right direction, i would appreciate it.
/Kal
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Great guide, my hat off to you sir
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Saw Sen get crushed by the Soul Train in MLG today. He didn't make swarm hosts, but tried to defend the sentry immortal all-in with hydras. He was able to delay, but got crushed by a colossi follow up. Now, I'm wondering, against a really well-executed sentry immortal all-in, won't the swarm hosts just die anyway once Protoss gets detection? I guess swarm hosts give you the best chance against the build, but a diligently-scouting Protoss will see your lack of roaches and go more stalker heavy, no? And could then fair much better against the only ling and swarm host army?
I don't know, I just still feel like the sentry immortal all-in is pretty potent, and I don't think the swarm host is such a clear-cut answer as you seem to give it credit for in your guide.
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On March 17 2013 15:41 TFS wrote:
Saw Sen get crushed by the Soul Train in MLG today. He didn't make swarm hosts, but tried to defend the sentry immortal all-in with hydras. He was able to delay, but got crushed by a colossi follow up. Now, I'm wondering, against a really well-executed sentry immortal all-in, won't the swarm hosts just die anyway once Protoss gets detection? I guess swarm hosts give you the best chance against the build, but a diligently-scouting Protoss will see your lack of roaches and go more stalker heavy, no? And could then fair much better against the only ling and swarm host army?
I don't know, I just still feel like the sentry immortal all-in is pretty potent, and I don't think the swarm host is such a clear-cut answer as you seem to give it credit for in your guide.
hydras are a very VERY bad unit imo and in 99% of the situations not even closely worth their cost and more so never ever worth their supply. once T and P players figured out how to the handle the "new" hydra (which is 100% the same shitty unit oncreep and 95% the same shitty unit offcreep...stalker (without blink), MM, roaches, lings, blings, chargelots, helions, medivacs, phoenix, hell even mines (!!) outrun them offcreep) blizzard will finally have to buff it to a useful level.
only times hydras might be useful will be in an all in scenario ZvP if you do a hydra viper based allin vs robo...thats it. other than that just never build hydras, they suck.
as to SHs: i definetly agree with blade that SHs are a very strong answer to the sentry immo all in. maybe there need to be some tweaks like burrow or +1 carapace or whatever to delay the push but once you get SHs out AND locusts in front of your base imo the push gets crushed.
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Does anyone know the opener being used by Jaedong in ZvT. It's a roach push around min 8~ with roach speed, burrow and... i missed first part of the stream so i don't really know.
After doing massive damage in terran's natural he switched to mutas being on 2 bases while third finishes and taking a 4th.
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Thanks for the guide blade, I haven't been able to enter the beta so I'm only now starting to catch up on the openings in HotS. I might join a local tournament in two weeks for fun and I want to make sure I won't get all ined out too soon because I didn't know how to respond
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This is beautiful, thanks so much.
I've been trying to switch to Zerg with the expansion and these build orders and rationales will help a lot.
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Blade, you are sofa king rad for posting this. I'm very much enjoying your streams as well. Keep up with the commentary while streaming...it helps me follow at work. :-)
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New Zealand95 Posts
Awesome job as always blade! Thanks so much for this - I will keep it handy when I start up ladder again.
A few questions on muta/overseer vs. widow mines. If you do happen to spot a clump of widow mines, what do you do? Just avoid them? Are there any circumstances in which you'd choose to engage - maybe if they were the only thing between your mutas and an undefended mineral line? If so how would you normally do it?
Also, have you ever encountered Terrans laying mines for your mutas along possible attack paths, similar to how we might use baneling mines against marines? (Edit: to clarify, I mean out on the map, rather than near your harassment target).
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On March 18 2013 10:08 Chutoro wrote:
Awesome job as always blade! Thanks so much for this - I will keep it handy when I start up ladder again.
A few questions on muta/overseer vs. widow mines. If you do happen to spot a clump of widow mines, what do you do? Just avoid them? Are there any circumstances in which you'd choose to engage - maybe if they were the only thing between your mutas and an undefended mineral line? If so how would you normally do it?
Also, have you ever encountered Terrans laying mines for your mutas along possible attack paths, similar to how we might use baneling mines against marines? (Edit: to clarify, I mean out on the map, rather than near your harassment target).
If I spot a clump I avoid unless I can get a couple lings, I know 12 mutas can kill a mine and it wont' detonate but if there are 3-4 mines I dont' think you can kill them all fast enough but I could be wrong.
Yes I have faced terrans who did that and I always say "god damnit" lol xD. Make sure to kill the mine so it doesn't do it again.
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Well written, cheers mate!
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I didn't really see anything about drone capping in ZvP or ZvT and things like that.
In my opinion Zerg should aim to cap drones extremely early, around 60 drones after important buildings.
Main reasons:
Zerg is gas-heavy, doesn't make much use of minerals. Having 5000 minerals and no gas in bank is worthless.
Allows Zerg to expand to a 4th base earlier because of much earlier units, giving Zerg more gas
Allows Zerg to put pressure on the opponent early, maybe reducing the amount of expansions they have, and also making securing new bases easier for the Zerg.
Allows Zerg to actually have a fighting chance in maxed army battles.
Another hidden benefit comes into play after the opponent mines out his main / nat(especially against Terran) as you will be mining from those for forever.
Because of these factors, I haven't understood people going for the "90-100 drones into loss"-build orders.
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Woahhhhh, this is impressive!
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On March 16 2013 07:51 blade55555 wrote:Bumping this real fast to let you all know I added a bio + widow mine section. Hopefully put enough detail in there, for those to lazy to look for it you can view it in spoilers here. + Show Spoiler +Bio + widow mine combination
The bio + widow mine combination is the strongest form of bio in terms of tvz. It is superior to tanks in the fact that widow mines are super mobile and once drilling claws is upgraded they burrow in 1 second. This makes the bio + widow mine a very strong and hard to engage composition. The best way to deal with it is to go muta/ling/bane with some roaches and send in small packs of lings to set the mines off. Instead of sending only 1 ling, zerg needs to be sending 4-5 to detonate some mines.
A good terran will have his bio with his widow mines so that they can prevent 1 ling and sometimes even 5 lings from detonating a mine. A terran who puts widow mines down and then walks away is very easy to deal with, when they keep their bio next to it, it's a lot harder to engage and requires very good unit control from the zerg. Flanking the terran army is almost a must so that widow mines don't hit all the zergs units. If the zerg can hit from 2 different angles widow mine shots shouldn't be as devastating as they would if the zerg attacks in one direction. If the zerg has roaches sending in a roach with a couple lings is a sure way to force a detonation off a mine or 2.
Swarmhosts are a very strong unit verse bio + widow mine, but if you go that composition the zerg needs to be prepared for drop play. Drop play is something that can punish this composition if the zerg isn't prepared for drops he can die. Another composition that can be good is going muta/ling/bane into swarmhost which allows the zerg to deal with drops much, much easier and then swarmhosts deal with widow mines very good due to the locusts being strong and tanking a few shots.
There are a couple replays show casing the muta/ling/bane -> swarmhost transition and how it deals with bio + widow mine so feel free to download those to see it in action.
I stand corrected, Life's use of Zergling/Baneling compositions at MLG was surreal, it seems Zergling/Baneling is enough to deal with Reaper/Hellion/Widow Mine alone and a Zergling/Baneling transition to Swarmhosts is unnecessary as Life teched up to Vipers and Ultralisks instead.
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On March 18 2013 19:23 Shikyo wrote:
I didn't really see anything about drone capping in ZvP or ZvT and things like that.
In my opinion Zerg should aim to cap drones extremely early, around 60 drones after important buildings.
Main reasons:
Zerg is gas-heavy, doesn't make much use of minerals. Having 5000 minerals and no gas in bank is worthless.
Allows Zerg to expand to a 4th base earlier because of much earlier units, giving Zerg more gas
Allows Zerg to put pressure on the opponent early, maybe reducing the amount of expansions they have, and also making securing new bases easier for the Zerg.
Allows Zerg to actually have a fighting chance in maxed army battles.
Another hidden benefit comes into play after the opponent mines out his main / nat(especially against Terran) as you will be mining from those for forever.
Because of these factors, I haven't understood people going for the "90-100 drones into loss"-build orders.
I disagree with you on 60 drones. If you are talking getting 60 drones max throughout the whole games I think that's not the best way to play. I will agree with getting 90 drones by 10 minutes isn't a good thing, but 80-85 drones when on 4-5 bases is perfect. There is a good use of having a mineral bank as well.
Make static defense, that's the great thing about a huge mineral bank it allows you as the zerg to make static defense so drop play/warp prism doesn't tear you apart. Stay on 60 drones and you'll never have the economy to make static defense at all your bases, let alone you get to 5 bases and you might as well not mine gas because you will have more gas then you have minerals unless you are making pure infestor/viper which will not work.
On March 19 2013 01:47 MoonCricket wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2013 07:51 blade55555 wrote:Bumping this real fast to let you all know I added a bio + widow mine section. Hopefully put enough detail in there, for those to lazy to look for it you can view it in spoilers here. + Show Spoiler +Bio + widow mine combination
The bio + widow mine combination is the strongest form of bio in terms of tvz. It is superior to tanks in the fact that widow mines are super mobile and once drilling claws is upgraded they burrow in 1 second. This makes the bio + widow mine a very strong and hard to engage composition. The best way to deal with it is to go muta/ling/bane with some roaches and send in small packs of lings to set the mines off. Instead of sending only 1 ling, zerg needs to be sending 4-5 to detonate some mines.
A good terran will have his bio with his widow mines so that they can prevent 1 ling and sometimes even 5 lings from detonating a mine. A terran who puts widow mines down and then walks away is very easy to deal with, when they keep their bio next to it, it's a lot harder to engage and requires very good unit control from the zerg. Flanking the terran army is almost a must so that widow mines don't hit all the zergs units. If the zerg can hit from 2 different angles widow mine shots shouldn't be as devastating as they would if the zerg attacks in one direction. If the zerg has roaches sending in a roach with a couple lings is a sure way to force a detonation off a mine or 2.
Swarmhosts are a very strong unit verse bio + widow mine, but if you go that composition the zerg needs to be prepared for drop play. Drop play is something that can punish this composition if the zerg isn't prepared for drops he can die. Another composition that can be good is going muta/ling/bane into swarmhost which allows the zerg to deal with drops much, much easier and then swarmhosts deal with widow mines very good due to the locusts being strong and tanking a few shots.
There are a couple replays show casing the muta/ling/bane -> swarmhost transition and how it deals with bio + widow mine so feel free to download those to see it in action. I stand corrected, Life's use of Zergling/Baneling compositions at MLG was surreal, it seems Zergling/Baneling is enough to deal with Reaper/Hellion/Widow Mine alone and a Zergling/Baneling transition to Swarmhosts is unnecessary as Life teched up to Vipers and Ultralisks instead.
Swarmhosts are never necessary it's just something I really like and find it much easier to use to deal with it. But yes of course you can stay ling/bane never said you had to go swarmhosts was saying a few things you can do to combat widow mines .
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EPT
