VOD Analysis: Sea vs Crazy-Hydra

Grobyc

Canada18410 Posts

March 23 2011 06:35 GMT

WARNING: THIS IS LONG. REALLY FUCKING LONG

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=203811 inspired me to do a little VOD analysis of my own, so here goes. I picked the following game because I haven't seen it yet, and the recommendations make it sound amazing. Unfortunately, it is also the same matchup that nbaker based his analysis on. Bear with me -_-;;

The game:

Sea vs Crazy-Hydra on Circuit breaker from recent SWL

The camera first pans on Crazy-Hydra (who I will refer to CH from now on), opening with the standard ZvT staple: 12hatch.

As noted in baker's analysis, the first overlord is sent south for optimal scouting information. CH will be able to see Sea's natural quickly, in comparison to if he sent the overlord west. The second overlord is sent southwest for the following reasons:
a) CH will be able to spot a proxy or rush incoming sooner.
b) There are multiple cliffs on the left side for the overlord to hover above. CH's first overlord will determine if Sea is in the bottom right corner or the left side of the map. If Sea is not in the bottom right corner then CH can steer his second overlord straight left from it's position towards the cliff over the 11 o clock natural.

Sea places his depot in an economic based position, not opting to wall in. It is highly likely that CH will 12hatch, so a wall is not completely necessary. His barracks and refinery start simultaneously, signifying either a fast academy 2 barracks rush, or a mech opening. Mech is the most probable opening.

Once again, as covered in baker's analysis, CHs choice to 2hatch here leaves him with a choice of either 2hatch lurker or 2hatch mutalisk, aside from a speedling allin, upon the sight of a standard 1 barracks expand. Multiple bridges and chokes on this map, along with easy camping of numerous bases also make mech play a possibility; CH may be anticipating a mech opening, which will allow him to adapt nicely with a 2hatch hydralisk.

Because the map is a 4 player map, CH chooses to additionally scout with a drone. As his second overlord heads towards the middle/cross positions, his drone scouts counterclockwise.

Upon mining 100 gas, Sea takes 2 SCVs off the refinery and sends the back to minerals as well as he starts his factory. Only 1 marine is made to chase away CHs scouting overlords and drone. He proceeds to lift his barracks and reposition it to make more room for his production facilities he will make later.

Shortly after, CHs drone arrives only to met the marine moving out in Seas natural. It turns around quickly, only seeing that Sea did not in fact wall off his natural or 14CC. Sea, on the other hand, did not even SCV scout, and is still playing partially blind. I say partially because the drone scout and its timing signifies that CH did not 4/5/6pool. Sea is confident CH has gone 12hatch now.

CH uses his first 100 gas to start his lair, rather than upgrading zergling speed. A speedling allin is out of the question now, especially considering he hasn't made many zerglings yet. 4 zerglings hatch, which he will use to chase away Seas early scouts.

Through Seas lack of attention, CH is able to sneak a by drone the marine on guard, catching every aspect of Seas build. The drone spots the CC that started as well as the factory in Seas base and the lack of marine production. This is a big fist pumping moment for CH. Upon the death of CHs drone and completion of his vulture, Sea begins his machine shop. The vulture moves out towards CHs base, with the assumption that that is where is he located based on the drone and overlord scout timings.

Sea is not surprised to see a sunken colony placed by CH as his natural, and the vulture refrains from moving in.

Still on 1 factory, with the completion of his second CC, Sea begins his armoury and produces more vultures. The machine shop should be upgrading mines.

Until Sea is able to scout CHs base further, he has to be prepared for a mutalisk as well as hydralisk followup from CH. Mines will allow his vultures to delay hydralisks in moving out. Since the positions are across from eachother, hydralisks will have an even harder time moving out. This slightly raises the chances of spire first.

CH continues to pump drones and start his spire, taking his second gas as well. Getting mutas out will allow CH to put on some pressure and keep Sea in his base while CH is able to get a third base up and some hydralisks with overlord speed.

The vulture pops in to CHs natural regularly, checking zergling count as well as attempting to scout potential hydralisks. CH has mostly made drones thus far, and nothing is seen until he moves out with a handful of zerglings. The zerglings take out the vulture before it escapes, and quickly move towards Seas base, hoping for a lack of defense.

Zergling speed has been upgraded by now, and a dozen zerglings make their way towards Seas base as Sea begins a bunker at his natural, next to his 2 vultures waiting. Sea must prepare to defend some zergling pressure. Zerglings continue to morph, rallying to Seas natural.

Sea begins to produce some marines for his bunker as well as pull a fair number of SCVs from mining at his natural in an attempt to defend the imminent attack.

After seeing Sea has prepared for the wave of zerglings, CH backs off while the vultures poke out and head up towards CHs base. During that moment, CH takes the opportunity to run by with his zerglings in to Seas main. CH is able to scout Seas tech and factory count now, noticing Seas first goliath has just finished. A freshly produced vulture along with the goliath are able to deal with the zerglings in his main.

Since Seas 3 vultures that embarked earlier towards CHs base are too far away to join in in dealing with the threat in his main, Sea opts to runby CHs natural as well, sneaking his 3 vultures in to CHs main. Now Sea will be able to determine CHs spire timing as well as pick off some drones while CH has no more zerglings around.

Unfortunately for Sea, a nice drone block is able to mitigate most of the damage, losing only 2-3 drones. The vultures also just miss some mutalisks popping...

and next thing he knows the mutalisks that popped before those are flying over his main. Sea is able to chase them away without losing anything with the help of his marines from his bunker.

With mutalisks out, Sea has to negate any major damage and make it through the midgame with the goal of acquiring a third, and/or putting some pressure back on CH with a higher factory count.

Seas engineering bay is nearly complete now, although goliath range is still in progress. Sea is still producing from 2 factories.

With CHs mutalisk count rising and Seas turrets going up late, CH is able to harass Seas natural rather easily until the goliath missile range finishes. The mutalisks, however, head deeper in to Seas main, abusing structures and other objects to further kill some SCVs.

Sea begins to stabilize both bases over time. CH has used the majority of his larva on zerglings and mutalisks in the previous minutes, leaving him with a poorly saturated mineral line. At this point, CH returns to drone production, knowing that investing in more mutalisks and zerglings will render his economy even lower in the later stages. The ability to harass effectively is slowly becoming more and more of an obstacle with Seas goliath count rising.

With a healthy drone count, CH continues to add his third hatchery in his main, as well as his forth hatchery at his mineral only expansion. Hydralisks are out now as well. Looking for some holes in Seas defense, CH pokes around with his hydralisks and mutalisks without much success.

Seas starport and third factory have finished now. With an adequate goliath count, Sea needs some tank support to deal with the oncoming hydralisks.

A second armoury as well as a science facility are added for further upgrades additionally. Sea begins his third command center on the high ground in his main, aiming to lift it off and relocated at his mineral only in the near future.

CH takes the opportunity to expand to a fourth base with a gas at the 12 o clock expo, squeezing in some drones when able to, while still trying to prepare for a potential attack from Sea.

CH is still on lair tech and has not started upgrades. The third gas is needed before the extra tech and upgrades can be afforded.

With the remaining vultures Sea has, he points them towards CHs mineral only, looking to harass and kill some drones. CH maintains good map control and scouts the incoming vultures, preparing hydralisks to defend. Overlords are positioned on the map to scout dropships as well as expansions or paths Sea is moving out on.

CH is content with his current position, and has no need to do anything risky. Economy, map control, and army size are all sufficient. He keeps on eye on what Sea is doing while slowly trying to consume the map.

Sea has fallen behind defending, and CHs economy is starting to boom. He needs to be successful with some harassment, simply outplay CH by a fair margin, or wait for his zerg opponent to make a poor decision. Seas third command center finishes shortly, but his vultures are not able to accomplish anything of value.

Attemping to catch of glimpse of Seas main, which will give him a good idea of Seas current plan, CH successfully sacs a muta, seeing Seas 2 armouries, 4 factories, and science facility upgrading. This is enough to ensure Sea did not 6 factory off of 2 bases, and that he has likely taken the opportunity to expand instead. An overlord hovers at 6 o clock, so that leaves CH with the assumption that Sea now has his mineral only.

Meanwhile, CH has now started his queens nest in order to get hive tech such as adrenal glands and likely defilers.

At this point, Sea must know he is behind, and feels his best chance lies within turtling until the late game. His fourth CC is started near his third, with the aim the take 6 o clock.

Seas academy only just finishes, along with his comsat stations. The first place he scans is CHs main to get a glimpse of hive timing and other things possibly, such as a greater spire or evolution chamber count.

Little did you (and I) know, when I said he was getting hive tech for adrenal glands and defiler tech, I actually meant he was getting it to mass queens. I mean I'm sure he's getting it for those reasons too, but wtf? The primary purpose of these queens will be for spawn broodling on Seas tanks, so his ground army will more effectively be able to combat Seas mech.

More attempts at vulture harass face the same result as before, with CH completely shutting them down. The situation looks worse and worse for Sea, because unless he can do some damage in his situation, CH is growing exponentially, and Sea will have no openings to take a swing at changing this game around.

A fifth CC is started for Sea at his natural, which he will lift to the 9 o clock expansion. This will be hard for him to hold, because not only can CH shut it down if he moves in to crush Sea while trying to position himself there, but his 2 most important expansions to defend will then be across the map from each other: 6 o clock and 9 o clock. With more map control this count be feasible, but Sea is in turtle mode at the moment.

With his queens now hidden, CH continues to take 2 more expansions: the 11 o clock mineral only, and the 3 o clock expansion.

CHs nice timing gives him queens with energy, a large army and his missile attack upgrade just finishing as Sea is spreading himself out. This is the time for CH to attack.

Despite Seas nice positioning, CHs timing along with the ramp lands a decent blow to Seas mineral only. CH will be able to reproduce much faster than Sea, giving him a not so bad tradeoff, despite Sea surviving the majority of the attack.

With dozens of hydralisks now rallying, CH runs some units in to the 6 o clock position, with Sea barely having the units the salvage the base. Seas remaining forces are sieged up at 6 o block, and CH now might have a good opening to attack down the ramp at Seas third, or possibly even go for the main.

Hoping for things to turn around, Sea picks at a hole in CHs defense, taking out some drones at the northwest mineral only expansion. Every little bit helps him at this point.

Sea does have one other thing in his favour though; he has a nice amount of factories. CH will have an easier time taking out Sea in the next few minutes than he will if Sea is able to continue mining his fresh expansions.

A defiler mound for CH starts as well, as he continues to deny vulture harass from Sea.

With vultures keeping CH on his toes, Sea aims to finally land his CC at the 9 o clock location, setting up tanks and mines just outside.

Now that Sea is back to being spread out, CH aims to take another stab at the 6 o clock expansion. Sorely missile turrets and 4 tanks are situated there for defense. CH still has his queens, which he will be able to use to broodling the tanks.

As expected, CH easily wipes the defense there, although Sea scurries to enforce the position with more tanks. Sea is almost able to breathe a sigh of relief, but not before CH manages to infest the red HP CC there. Although CH was in a command position before, I don't think it's just for the BM. Seas main and natural will be running low on resources soon, and this really puts Sea back even further.

Obligatory picture:

Not only does he infest the CC, but through some more epic broodlings he is able to save it as it flies away. What a BAMF.

Now that the 6 o clock expansion has been dealt with, CHs next target is the 9 o clock expansion. Unless he can work his way in to Seas main to take out the production, attacking the mineral only, which is now near mined out, won't do him much good.

At this point CH has full hive tech up and running, with a defiler enhanced army ready to attack.

Sea does the unthinkable, trying to end the game here and now. The bold move to siege up the middle puts his army at a huge risk for almost a 360º flank.

The result is to be expected, with Sea losing the majority of his force, despite CHs very poorly coordinated attack.

He is, however, able to sneak a handful of vultures in to the 3 o clock expansion of CH, killing all of the drones there. Another squad of vultures make their way in to the 12 o clock expansion, killing even more drones. If it weren't for Sea losing the bulk of his army, I would say he is in a "good" position.

The 6 o clock expansion is also back up and running at this point. If Sea can turtle the fuck out of that as well as 9 o clock, he will be in a workable position. [image loading]

Metapod would be a good choice here (P)

Ash.

Infest CC just chillin'

Another ~~nice assault on the 6 o clock expansion~~ SICK CC INFESTATION puts it out of commission once again. CH is doing a great job of identifying these weak points and enforcing the attacks with queens.

[image loading]

CH can simply stream units to the south side of the map here and there's nothing Sea can do. The expansion is lost, Sea can't move his units at 9 o clock to reinforce without losing that base, and CH now has broken down the door in to Seas main to get to his production.

[image loading]

As what appears to be Seas last stand, he sieges up his units that were at his 9 o clock expansion to demonstrate a counter attack aimed at CHs main. CH has too many expansions to target individually, so it is Seas only choice.

[image loading]

Sea quickly begins falling appart everywhere, unable to defend from everything at once.

[image loading]

CHs endless wave after waves of units throw themselves at Seas push, slowly whittling it down. While this method isn't always very effective in dealing with a mech push, CH has the economy to do it (and it really demonstrates the "zerg swarm" concept ;o), and it keeps Sea occupied microing his few units, rather than vulture harassing for example. A look a the map shows CH rallying from all across the map. Sea realistically is fucked now.

[image loading]

Coming to the realization that Sea hasn't made goliaths in AGES, CH starts pumping mutalisks. Tech switches can be very deadly ~~even~~ especially lategame. The lack of AA from Sea was partially him taking a large risk in order to get back in to the game. I'm actually somewhat surprised the mutalisks didn't come earlier.

[image loading]

Figuring his last stand was his second last stand, Sea tries to push further in to the heart of CHs production with his remaining units... Only to be plagued... Pushing further...

[image loading]

... Only to have 1.5 dozen zerglings hatch beside you

[image loading]

GG

CH played pretty fucking amazing I have to say, and I am gay for Sea (hope I didn't seem too harsh on you bby ;<), so that's definitely saying something. Beautiful queen usage, sick CC infests, pretty nice mutalisk control, great defense from harass, good macro, constant map control, etc.

Sea played very very well too, and although he had some moments where I thought he was going to turn the game around, he really was behind in the midgame and a couple questionable decisions cut those chances in half even more.

This took way longer than I expected, wtf ;_;
I saved all the pictures as a .png, and I think they are taking up way more bandwidth on loading the page than they need to. If it's really that bad I'll probably convert them and rehost them tomorrow. I sleep for now.

xxpack09

United States2160 Posts

March 23 2011 07:47 GMT

Excellent read! I should watch that game now lol

shinjin

United States398 Posts

March 23 2011 07:56 GMT

wow took the time to read all of it, nice job!
actually learned a bit or two about zerg

opsayo

591 Posts

March 23 2011 08:19 GMT

i love these, this is extremely entertaining

<3

GenesisX

Canada4267 Posts

March 23 2011 09:25 GMT

Wow,

Crazy-Hydra is good :O

flamewheel

FREEAGLELAND26781 Posts

March 23 2011 09:30 GMT

On March 23 2011 15:35 Grobyc wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +

WARNING: THIS IS LONG. REALLY FUCKING LONG

Oh baby.

Anyway sex sex sex in this. Skyrar~

Djabanete

United States2786 Posts

March 23 2011 09:36 GMT

Thanks for all the time and effort, really good job.

XsebT

Denmark2980 Posts

March 23 2011 10:00 GMT

Awesome job with this analysis/battle report, grobyc!

I was "omgomgomg-ing" so much during this game when I saw it live. :D

writer22816

United States5775 Posts

March 23 2011 10:02 GMT

This is really good stuff, great work!

NicksonReyes

Philippines4431 Posts

March 23 2011 10:16 GMT

#10

I watched it first before I read this. Nice analysis and screenshots

. Epic game but sad for MBC

. They even showed Light at the start of the game and he just watched his team getting AKed

YejinYejin

United States1053 Posts

March 23 2011 12:33 GMT

#11

Fantasy build is too slow for 2 hatch muta, right? The valkyrie won't be out in time?

I'm just trying to think of other ways Sea could have countered that muta harass. 2 factories and a barracks with no academy seems rather awkward. Hell, even when I go 5 fact golitah, the zerg still flies his mutas in to get some scv kills if there's a good cliff. Especially if the goliaths are only coming out of two factories. Can't zerg usually just a-move over that and kill the goliaths, because they do such crappy damage vs mutas?

Navane

Netherlands2743 Posts

March 23 2011 13:27 GMT

#12

PNG is the proper format. Good writeup.

Grobyc

Canada18410 Posts

March 23 2011 14:36 GMT

#13

On March 23 2011 21:33 DTK-m2 wrote:
Fantasy build is too slow for 2 hatch muta, right? The valkyrie won't be out in time?

I'm just trying to think of other ways Sea could have countered that muta harass. 2 factories and a barracks with no academy seems rather awkward. Hell, even when I go 5 fact golitah, the zerg still flies his mutas in to get some scv kills if there's a good cliff. Especially if the goliaths are only coming out of two factories. Can't zerg usually just a-move over that and kill the goliaths, because they do such crappy damage vs mutas?

Valkyrie wouldn't have been out in time unless he pretty much didn't make any goliaths. He also didn't know CHs tech timing, so his ebay timing was pretty far off, which cost him a lot of SCVs. I would have preferred seeing a 14CC or the completion of a wall at Seas natural with his bunker so he would be able to squeeze out another goliath or two for when mutas arrived. I'm actually quite surprised Sea didn't even SCV scout AT ALL that game though. He was playing blind for the most part until his runby vultures died and he saw 4 mutas in his main. He really needed to have the faster turrets and goliath range to deal with the mutas. CH had 3 drones mining minerals at his natural upon his mutalisks hatching, he had a pretty crap economy. If Sea could defense without much loss, even if he has to turret up hard, then he would have come out ahead, especially considering the larva CH used on that zergling runby. I think the two major things are still turret/goli range timing and not walling defensively at his natural.

nbaker

United States1341 Posts

March 23 2011 15:13 GMT

#14

Wow this is so good! I learned a bunch of new things about Zerg vs mech, so thanks.

I have a couple of questions if anyone can help out:

You mentioned a 2 hatch hydra all-in that's really effective against mech. I remember that Calm just did this to Turn on Fortress. Is this a blind counter if you predict mech or can you start your den immediately after your overlord scouts if you first scout/your drone scout on 12 gets in?

Sacking the mutalisk to scout Sea's infrastructure seems pretty huge. Is there a recommended timing to do this when you will be able to see if he is planning on expanding or going 6 fac?

Is it reasonably safe to double expand off 2 hatch muta vs mech assuming the map is decent sized and you get a few hydras and lings out?

Sea's scan is outrageously late. Lurkers vs mech feels gimmicky so is expanding the best way to take advantage of that?

Upgrades: Is there ever a reason to get carapace before missile, like if you're planning to get a faster hive and use more zerglings? Also, is +1 air carapace worth getting if you don't get queens?

Thanks again, Grobyc. This was much better than mine hahaha.

hellbound

United Kingdom2242 Posts

March 23 2011 15:16 GMT

#15

Nice analysis. Might want to add that when sea scanned CH's main, he immediately upgraded hive and cancelled when the scan wore out. In the interview he said that he did it in order to hide his intention for queen play.

FyRe_DragOn

Canada2055 Posts

March 23 2011 15:29 GMT

#16

great write up and great game!! id like to do one of these but it seems like it would take way too much work lol. crazy hydra genius play with the queens, i hope more zergs start using that as a legit strat instead of just bm.

Taekwon

United States8155 Posts

March 23 2011 15:46 GMT

#17

That game was so facking good.
and am I the only one who thinks CH looks kinda like kingdom?

hellbound

United Kingdom2242 Posts

March 23 2011 19:48 GMT

#18

On March 24 2011 00:46 Taekwon wrote:
That game was so facking good.
and am I the only one who thinks CH looks kinda like kingdom?

Hmmm he does have the plain good guy look like Kingdom, though not similar enough for me to mix them up.

538

Hungary3932 Posts

March 23 2011 20:32 GMT

#19

Wonderful thread/idea, kudos to you Grobyc and nbaker too!

What struck me first about this game (watching live

) was that commentators didnt seem too surprised about seeing the batch of queens (~18:20 in the vod) CH made, it's interesting (and awesome) how they are becoming more and more standard against mech.

Do you guys think that Sea would have been better off crawling towards the 9 o'clock expo, subjecting himself to a bigger ground flank, but giving him more of a chance against the queens? The somewhat recent Calm vs Fantasy game on Aztec comes to my mind, where Calm's attempted queen snipes were rejected by goliaths (after 20:00 in the VOD - though rewatching now I can see Calm being somewhat clumsy, and possibly not having enough energy either, but why attack then?), while here we saw CH abuse the cliff above the 6 o'clock base very well.

It would be also interesting to know if either players based their decisions around the taking of that 6 o'clock base (I can't help thinking it was the pivotal area of this game). We can not be sure if Sea scouted the queens (he scanned the nest and the hive morphing, but only saw the hatching eggs which eventually ended up as 8-10 queens), but CH didnt know either for sure that Sea was going to take that base. Or was taking that base as next that obvious a choice at that point in the game?

Also, why do you think Sea had such low goliath numbers before the muta switch? Was he needing all his gas for tanks? (maybe someone with actual lategame meching experience could chime in)

sixfour

England11061 Posts

March 23 2011 20:37 GMT

#20

great write-up of a great game

don't know if you noticed it, as i don't think you mentioned it, but when sea first scans just before the queens get revealed, you see CH just start hive, then it gets cancelled shortly afterwards. is the terran scan around for long enough for sea to see it get started and faked out by it?

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