[D] Is there a way to beat Spanishiwa's build? (P)

Now much of this wouldn't matter except that he has been gaining popularity and the build is really good and it is hard to beat as Protoss. The biggest example of its potential to win and some of its weakness sufaced when he appeared on the "V" and beat ROOTMinigun in a best of 7. The strategies durability and flexibility really shined in the show match and as I was watching ROOTMinigun struggle through the first three games I was thinking to myself, there has to be a way to beat it. I will give a brief summary of the games.

Before the first game on his stream Minigun was studying Spanishiwa's play and familiarizing himself with it so in the first game it was a surprise when Spanishiwa went pool before expo. On top of that he also managed to throw Minigun off when he threw up an evo chamber on top of minigun's ramp preventing him from fully walling off. After he had destroyed the evo chamber spanishiwa proceded to bust up his ramp with a bunch of zerglings while expanding behind it and getting banglings. After Minigun held off the initial push he proceded to four gate Spanishiwa, Spanishiwa then sacraficed his expansion and went in for a counter attack completely destroying Minigun's economy and when he held off the four gate it was clear that the game was over.



This game demonstrated how powerful his counter attacks can be and how devastating it is to not leave some defense at your base. Which also bears the question do all attacks have to be all ins? My logic behind this is that by leaving things behind in you main while you attack your offensive force is then considerably weaker thus it is easy for him to defend, and if you bring all you units he will counter attack and more likely than not do more damage to you than you do to him.

In game two Spanishiwa executed the build he is famous for going thirteen hatch with three spine crawler. He then took a secret third and teched to infesters and also attempted to drop zerglings in Minigun's base. All the while taking on Minigun's army head on and using fungal growth to trap the stalkers and colosuss. Finally he gets ultralisks and Minigun ggs.



This game shows the strength of his build over a semi complete protoss deathball. His use of infesters trapped the army and Spanishiwa's endless stream of zerglings and banglings did the damage. It also showed how he denied the expo making it hard for Minigun to keep his economy going. Finally his upgrades and tier three tech put the nail in the coffin. This also showed how powerful it was against colossus and the conventional protoss army.

In game three Spanishiwa used his standard opening while ROOTMinigun did a fast expo. Minigun then transitioned into DTs and with a fast reaction Spanishiwa trapped them with his queens until he could get detection and kill them. Overall the really did not due any lasting damage. Spanishiwa then took advantage of his mobility and attacked Minigun's main inflicting heavy economic damage and destroying his nexus. In the final battle he demonstrated the power of the infesters as he fungal growthed Miniguns army and destroyed it in seconds. Minigun then gged.



This game demonstrated the power of his mobility more than anything else. As Minigun moved out Spanishiwa slipped into his base crippling him economically and forcing him to pull back his army. Then when the final engagement happens it seemed as if Minigun had the larger force but a couple fungal growth prevented the stalkers from blinking all the while softening them up for the upgraded zerglings. So a protoss has to take into consideration that his already immobile force can be completely stopped and torn apart by infestors.

Game four was a good thing for Minigun. In the beginning he pylon blocked spanishiwa forcing him to get a pool first. He then proceded to put on four gate pressure. What allowed him to do the damage that he did was that fact that he force fielded the ramp and prevented spine crawlers from getting down which allowed him to pick off the hatchery. When he saw it wasn't going to win the game he backed off without losing to many units. Minigun then turtles and techs and in the final engagement uses excellent forcefields to fend off the massive zergling attack.



What gave Minigun the game was the accumulation of a few small advantages that he took. First blocking Spanishiwa's expansion it force him to go pool first so he couldn't go for an early economic lead, secondly his force fielding of the ramp prevented static defenses from coming down the ramp and allowed him to pick off the expansion, thirdly he caught two infesters out of position which made the final engagement easier, and finally his forcefields meant that the zerglings couldn't do any damage which allowed the colossus to go to work. So this gives us a hint on what we need to do: attempt to block the expo and put on a lot of early pressure.

In game five the two players found themselves in an awkward position. Minigun used a six gate push and broke down Spanishiwa's defenses all the while a nydus in Miniguns main meant the players traded bases. Ultimately because Minigun saved some of his tech structures he was able to bounce back faster and over power Spanishiwa with a protoss deathball.



This game's peculiarity makes it less useful than the others to find ways to defeat the strategy, however it does give us an idea of how to truly hurt the protoss. As a zerg alot of your tech is dependent on your Lair/Hive, along with the various tech structures. So as Miniguns destroyed all of this it took a long time for Spanishiwa to come back because he essentially had to rebuild all the tech that he lost. His harassment also failed to do a critical amount of damage and thus Minigun was able to get a full sized deathball. This situation demonstrated that a deathball when in full force can beat Spanishiwa's composition but the difficult part is getting there.

Game six is where ROOTMInigun really shined. This game he decided to go a 4 gate blink stalker build and basically turtled for the first part of the game. This prevented Spanishiwa from scouting and allowed him to quickly get his build up. When he moved out he put a pylon at his base fully walling off his ramp and warped in reinforcements off of a proxy pylon. While abusing the terrain he used blink micro to pick off zerglings until he had accumulated a critical mass of stalkers and went in for the kill, forcing Spanishiwa to gg.



This was a very good game for discovering how to counter this build because Minigun used mobility to defeat his zerglings. With Spanishiwa's build he is reliant on being more mobile than you. So blink stalkers prove useful when countering because they negate the full damage of the zerglings and can hit before infesters pop out. This means that as a early game ender I believe blink stalkers to be most effective if one can efficiently use blink micro and abuse the terrain.

Game Seven is the game that proved the full effectiveness or Spanishiwa's static defense. Minigun decided to go a four warpgate build and when he wanted to move in he was met by five spine crawlers effectively blocking any aggression Minigun had in mind. So instead of busting up the front he decided to go for the back, luckily Spanishiwa spotted it and repositioned his spine crawlers to defend. After completely destroying Minigun's force Spanishiwa teched to infesters and banglings. He utilized bangling drops inside Minigun's probe line to somewhat cripple his economy. However what ended it was the final fungal growths of Minigun's army and bangling drops from behind.



So Spanishiwa won the game due to his mass infesters locking down minigun's army along with the bangling drops to do economic damage. This again demonstrates the strategies power.

The Blink ability gives you the one thing that zerg wants, mobility. With is you can pretty much avoid being surrounded by zerglings and stalkers are pretty cost effective as it is. So if you abuse the terrain and avoid taking to much damage you can eventually amass a critical mass of stalkers.

We did not see air at all in the games above however in some games that I have had with a practice partner I have discovered that if you are able to hide it from him late game air particularly carriers and void rays will decimated his army. However if it is scouted chances are he will have time to get either corruptors or hydralisk which means the build has its flaws.

In the game where Minigun blocked Spanishiwa's expo it prevented Spanishiwa from going for that super macro game he likes. I will point out that if you are able to constantly be attacking him all the while preventing a counter attack the build will eventually crumble under the pressure because it is hard to go one base infester and delaying infesters will allow you to get exponentially ahead as the game progresses.

In the game above DTs were not used to their full efect however if one manages to sneak them into the zergs base before he has detection it is potentially game ending and thus can be used to against it however if your timings are not right then they are not in the least effective.