Overview At MLG Providence, Naniwa made a spectacular run through some of the toughest Zergs on the planet. For many of the games, he used almost the same exact build order with only occasional variations. Since seeing this impressive, consistent success with a single strategy, I've been employing it on the ladder with a 100% success rate so far - but, of course, I'm only facing high diamond/low masters players, so it doesn't mean that much. Still, I like this build so much I want to share it with you all and hopefully generate some discussion. I'm basing this on the vods from MLG providence. I'll be adding to and improving this guide over time to include more of the variations and responses to scouting I observed from Naniwa's play. This guide right now covers the barebones, ideal build you want to aim for.
The quick summary of this strategy is a multi-stage +1 zealot harassment after a forge fast-expand, into a Colossus semi-all-in. It seems specifically designed to punish Zerg players who open with fast 3 bases into muta (including roach defense with a muta transition).
Strengths Any Zerg strategy that skips roaches will have a very difficult time saving the 3rd base from +1 zealot pressure.
Any Zerg that tries to open with 3 base roach with a transition to mutalisks is almost certainly going to die.
Taxes Zerg's multitasking and forces nonstop units, all while building up to a ridiculously strong timing.
Each stage of this build is a sharp and aggressive move that forces a response from Zerg, while we transition smoothly into the next stage.
Very, very high likelihood of killing Zerg's 3rd with each stage of the attack.
The build looks like a harass-based macro build, making the attack timing that much more unexpected and powerful.
Weaknesses This is a semi-all-in. The 3rd nexus can't be taken until at least the 12-13 minute mark. If each stage of the build gets totally thwarted, you will be pretty far behind in economy.
Low Colossus count and reliance on sentries. Corruptors, huge swarms of roaches, burrow-move roaches, and good flanks can be very dangerous. Many of these options are dissuaded or weakened by the early stages of the build, but a smart Zerg who scouts well could still employ them.
When to do this build Against a droning, double-expanding Zerg.
When you expect, or just plain fear, playing against Mutalisks in a macro game.
When not to do this build Against an all-inning Zerg (1 or 2 base, no 3rd).
Stage 1: Expand There are plenty of guides on forge fast-expands. Check those out for exact details. Naniwa went nexus first most of the time when he could get away with it on the map, but I don't believe it's a huge deal whether you forge fast-expand or nexus first. Don't do this build out of a gateway expand, as the timings will be different.
Take both gases in the main at the standard time. You should build them both after the forge, nexus, gate, cannon and 2nd pylon (the order of these depends on your opening build), as soon as you can afford them while building probes.
Sneak 2 probes out early and hide them around the map. You want at least one to survive to plant a hidden pylon near Zerg's 3rd base.
Start +1 attack on the forge as soon as you have 100 gas. Keep chronoboosting this.
Start warp gate as soon as the cyber core finishes.
Create 2 zealots from your forward gateway. When the 2nd finish, send them both at once to clear towers, kill isolated lings, scout Zerg's 3rd, and generally force units. Optionally bring a probe with them to plant a pylon. If the zealots scout an all-in (very early roaches, a lot of lings, no 3rd) you need to deviate from the rest of this strategy and build a stargate for defense.
After the first 2 zealots, make sentries from your gateway.
Make 3 gateways as soon as you have the money.
As warp gate gets close to finishing, build a pylon near Zerg's 3rd, hopefully unscouted.
Right as warp gate finishes and you're turning the gateways into warp gate, build both natural gas assimilators and a robotics facility.
Throughout all of this, we're making probes constantly. STOP PROBES WHEN YOU HAVE ~50. This is pretty all-in - we don't need any more than this.
Stage 2: Zealot Harassment Begin warping in +1 Zealots from the forward pylon and target the 3rd base. If Zerg is using purely Zerglings, he will have a very tough time holding his 3rd. Target fire the hatchery to get the Zealots to surround it, and then press hold position. The Zealots will attack any zerglings nearby, or the hatchery if there are none. Zerg has to see this coming, or have spines up, or have roaches already done, to avoid any damage from this, but this attack also serves the purpose of forcing units from Zerg at a time when he wants to be droning. We should catch Zerg with approximately 50 drones, and dissuade him from making any more for the remainder of the game. It's great if you kill the 3rd, but it isn't totally necessary. If he has enough roaches, retreat the zealots. Otherwise, against pure zergling or against low roach numbers, keep pressuring with the zealots.
Stage 3: Warp Prism As soon as you either kill the 3rd or have to retreat from roaches, warp in sentries to a max of 8.
Start +1 armor.
While the zealot pressure was going on, the robo facility will finish. Immediately construct a warp prism and a robotics bay. All chronoboost goes to the robotics facility now.
After starting the robotics bay, add on 3 more gateways.
As soon as the warp prism finishes, construct an immortal. Go harass with the warp prism, trying not to lose it. At this point, you can harass the main while attacking the 3rd, try to snipe tech structures, go for a sentry drop and forcefield the main ramp... there's a lot of possibilities. Go for whatever you're comfortable with. The main goal of this harass is to continue forcing Zerg to make units, to lose units or drones, and generally to multitask and turtle a lot while we tech up. If Zerg makes a big mistake, we can do some damage here.
The immortal should finish just as the bay finishes. Begin a colossus and thermal lance.
Stage 4: Colossus Push Thermal lance will finish when the second colossus finishes - at approximately the 12 minute mark. Attack!
This is the exact timing that most Zergs try to switch to mutalisk. Warp in nothing but stalkers from 7 gates to shut those down - the colossus and sentries will wreck zerglings and roaches.
Aim at the 3rd base first, if it's still alive or he rebuilt it. If you kill the 3rd but your attack is eventually repelled, you want to fall back on a 3rd base at the same time as Zerg rebuilds his for a pretty solid economic position.
Most of the time you can move right in for the kill. If he does come in with mutas, make sure to use guardian shield. If he's going infestor with mass ling, he would have had a very hard time saving his 3rd from the 4-gate +1 Zealots; but assuming he's still on this composition, favor zealots more than stalkers. The colossi will win any engagement, assuming he can't neural them. Be careful.
If Zerg was going mutas and elects to counter with them rather than fight you head on, just warp in stalkers at your base while continuing the main attack. He can't have enough mutas to win against 7 gates worth of stalker warp ins at this timing.
Use the warp prism as a mobile pylon to reenforce your army. This makes the push that much stronger, and more versatile - Zerg can't try to snipe a forward pylon or get between you and your reenforcements. You can also keep warping in at your army if you get up into Zerg's main and forcefield his ramp.
A Note on the Transitions This multi-stage all-in works so well because of the strength of each transition.
The 2 early zealots force more units than Zerg wants to make before the warp gate timing (8-9 minutes).
The 4 gate +1 zealot pressure forces Zerg to have a roach warren already, and to make a lot of units when he wants to be droning. If Zerg doesn't have roaches ready to go, or a lot of spinecrawlers at his 3rd, he will probably lose his 3rd base. If Zerg has spines at his 3rd, just go attack his natural. Any mass spine defense means his build will be delayed that much more.
The zealots force roaches. Once Zerg has enough roaches to hold off the zealots, they will typically begin transitioning into lair tech - either roach-hydra, roach-infestor, ling-infestor, or ling-muta. Muta is the most common right now, and the warp prism harassment and constant stream of zealots will make Zerg really want to gain air control. Mutas make sense from a Zerg standpoint if they think they'll be facing macro warp prism harassment strategies.
The all-in hits Zerg right at their weakest. They held off zealot pressure, have at most 50-55 drones, and want to take another base while teching and droning, all at once. Again, mutas are the obvious choice to do this with, because of the instant map control they provide. Zerg pretty much always sits on a minimal ling-roach defense against 6-7 gate all-ins. We show up with 2 colossus, 8 sentries, and 7 gates worth of stalkers and zealots right at a time Zerg can't really challenge that army with a conventional, standard strategy.
Replays and Other Resources MLG Providence Winner's Bracket: Naniwa uses this same build twice in a row against DRG, winning convincingly. Excellent examples of the build in action.
A collection of my own (high diamond) games against mostly masters (some diamond) players on ladder: Not 100% perfect execution; actually pretty sloppy in some of the games. Still won very convincingly. Includes games where the zealot pressure kills the 3rd and games where the zealot harassment does almost no damage.
Live first-person game, with commentary, in which I execute this build!
If you like these videos and this guide, I hope you'll consider checking out the rest of my channel. Tons of (high diamond. grain of salt.) Protoss strategy, builds, and analysis!
I find this to be a ridiculously powerful timing attack/all-in that seems to dominate standard Zerg play right now. It's a fantastic build to have in the back pocket for a best-of series, or to cruise through ladder Zergs in short order Best of luck out there!
Feedback, suggestions, etc. are welcome! Hope you enjoyed my guide.
I normally do not like guides where there is not some sort of food count to tell when to place buildings up to a point, but the way you describe when to place down each building is fantastic. I tried this build as a high platinum player who faces diamonds regularly and this is a very strong build to have in a players arsenal.
Plus you got praise from Sunkure, who is a master of writing guides. =D
Wow a great write up, good job and thank you After Providence I was really interested in this zealot +1 build by NaNiwa to kill the Zerg's third, but didn't realise it was part of a bigger build.
I did the zealot thing by accident today though. Except, I took my third base very early, at around 7-8 minutes. I made 4 gateways before this and a robo, and +1 attack. Basically I killed the third pretty easily, and could get immortals out in time to stop any roach counter-aggression.
What is your opinion on this different route after the zealot pressure? You can go collossus and hit a very powerful 3 base timing which is pretty early, maybe close to 12 minutes but I'm not sure, I'll have to check the replay (maybe it was a while after). It seems a pretty stable route vs a fast third, however I have only played one game of this style so I'm not sure how it would fare against other builds. (obviously you wouldn't get the fast third if you scout they aren't building third because this is probably loss to all in)
Sorry if I went a bit off topic, but I will study your build a bit more and hope to use it soon
>CecilSunkure I really appreciate the feedback, you write great guides! The variation you did in that game was interesting indeed. You hit about a minute earlier than Naniwa, but you also skipped the 4-gate zealot harassment, the warp prism, +1 armor, and thermal lance, and moved out with only one colossus. And it STILL looked strong as hell! I think those little details would have made it all the more devastating :D
>ProxyKnoxy The +1 zealot 4-gate pressure while teching is becoming a common part of many Protoss FFE builds nowadays. I know Liquid'Hero does the same thing in many games, leading into warp prism and DT drops with macro play. Naniwa's variation is a particular timing push based on that common opening, so it's tough for Zerg to differentiate it from other macro plays when he scouts it.
I personally think 4 gates and a robo is not quite enough to safely take a 3rd with, but I haven't really tried. I like to take 8-9 minute thirds with 6 gate sentry, like Huk often does, on some maps with easy thirds. I think White-Ra does what you're describing, but with tons of warp prism harassment while the 3rd goes up - but I see him die a lot to pressure, as well, haha!
Of course if a higher-level player wants to comment I'm sure you'll get a more informed answer than mine.
On December 20 2011 07:36 GomJabbar wrote: >CecilSunkure I really appreciate the feedback, you write great guides! The variation you did in that game was interesting indeed. You hit about a minute earlier than Naniwa, but you also skipped the 4-gate zealot harassment, the warp prism, +1 armor, and thermal lance, and moved out with only one colossus. And it STILL looked strong as hell! I think those little details would have made it all the more devastating :D
>ProxyKnoxy The +1 zealot 4-gate pressure while teching is becoming a common part of many Protoss FFE builds nowadays. I know Liquid'Hero does the same thing in many games, leading into warp prism and DT drops with macro play. Naniwa's variation is a particular timing push based on that common opening, so it's tough for Zerg to differentiate it from other macro plays when he scouts it.
I personally think 4 gates and a robo is not quite enough to safely take a 3rd with, but I haven't really tried. I like to take 8-9 minute thirds with 6 gate sentry, like Huk often does, on some maps with easy thirds. I think White-Ra does what you're describing, but with tons of warp prism harassment while the 3rd goes up - but I see him die a lot to pressure, as well, haha!
Of course if a higher-level player wants to comment I'm sure you'll get a more informed answer than mine.
Ah, Providence was the first time I saw it done and I thought Nani had created it, didn't realise it was so common And yeah I watch White-Ra's stream a lot so that's probably where I got that idea from xD Of course it is entirely situational and maybe in some circumstances it can work well; I'll have to do more testing on it though.
6 gate sentry sounds pretty coo, have you got a link to a build order?
Thanks for this again! Now I'll stop stealing your thread :p
I would say this is somewhat weak to a 2 base muta build. However, 2 base muta is basically all-in itself so its covered in your 2 base all-in "When not to do this build" section.
Because this is a robo build, you will get a chance to scout your opponent pretty quickly so you have a chance to identify all those all-ins pretty easily.
I always thought this was simply the standard forge fe opening(early +1 with 3 more gates at 6:30/45 to line up with warp tech) with naniwas/heros twist of zealot warpins/warp prism follow up to pressure the third then a reaction base soley on scouting the spire.
The colossus push isnt really the overall build more so a reaction to scouting the spire no?, is it really effective against anything else?. You can do this opening all the way up to scouting no spire around 10 mins and just take a third and play a standard game.
On December 20 2011 08:31 decerto wrote: I always thought this was simply the standard forge fe opening(early +1 with 3 more gates at 6:30/45 to line up with warp tech) with naniwas/heros twist of zealot warpins/warp prism follow up to pressure the third then a reaction base soley on scouting the spire.
The colossus push isnt really the overall build more so a reaction to scouting the spire no?, is it really effective against anything else?. You can do this opening all the way up to scouting no spire around 10 mins and just take a third and play a standard game.
You can look at it that way. I think it works well in general against any sort of 3 base ling-roach into lair tech (infestor, hydra, spire) build. It's also effective at ending the game before mutas come out (at any point Zerg can transition into mutas no matter how he opened) and trap you in your base for the rest of the game while Zerg takes the entire map I know many players believe the game is basically over once Zerg has you contained with mutas and gets a big enough number, and this build is a great way to play that totally avoids muta play.
It's also tough sometimes to scout the spire in time to reactively do this build. Considering the timing of this build comes from starting the robo bay almost immediately after the robotics facility finishes, there's no time to wait for an observer scout or a warp prism to fly over the spire. There's actually not enough room in this build for a fast observer between the warp prism and the immortal, before colossus production.
Plus, consider this: if you scout a spire, you want to do the colossus timing push to kill muta builds. If you scout NO spire, you actually still can do the colossus push, because there won't be corruptors. With 8 sentries worth of forcefields, Zerg pretty much needs amazing positioning and/or burrow roaches to not die without any corruptors.
I guess in my opinion this timing push is powerful and versatile enough that it's strong in a TON of situations.
Is there any safe way of transitioning this build from the point [or hell even prior, though that sounds far more dubious] of the colossi into a third base? That is, can the initial pressure and timings be done, but the actual push itself forestalled in favour of a more macro orientated path? Is it viable, and more importantly, would it actually be any good?
On December 20 2011 09:21 lizzard_warish wrote: Is there any safe way of transitioning this build from the point [or hell even prior, though that sounds far more dubious] of the colossi into a third base? That is, can the initial pressure and timings be done, but the actual push itself forestalled in favour of a more macro orientated path? Is it viable, and more importantly, would it actually be any good?
I think if you scout that definitely there is no muta transition before you make the push you can take a third base and change the push into a later 2 colossus poke/pressure rather than an all in, but re watching naniwas reps he blindly goes for it and i think that's because if he goes 1-2mins to late and there is mutas he's missed his timing and he's screwed because he cant scout early enough, maybe you could incorporate hallucination into the build as a faster scouting tool to watch for mutas to make a fast third/later push a viable option
i actually never thought of this build like you did this writeup, so my props to you for enlightening me. Also your video's inspired me to just go for making my own, because i've been way to picky about my in video presentation of myself, that i didn't make one yet, and i promised some people i would ^^
I've sort of independently developed a build that is similar to this one. Good to know that Naniwa went and refined it for me so I can stop being super anal with my replay analysis xD
Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaank you! Awesome build, going to give a go! My PvZ is fucking noob like, and it seems like it's going to shut down those fucking Mutalisks. Pesky bastards.
While the timings may not line up exactly, variants of this build are becoming very common in the upper platinum/low diamond ladders. The trend is for light aggression to force units or kill an expansion, then a follow-up attack with +1 or +2 hitting just before mutas (terran has a similar bio siege tank push). Mixing in the warp prism, or any harass really, is just good form and keeps Zerg on defense.
The tell of the build are the early zealots from the first gateway. If I see the chrono going down on the first gateway and/or zealots, during a FFE, I get a roach warren and ~3 roaches most ASAPly. If the 3rd is nearby I go ahead and take it, but defending an early 3rd with this aggression is just difficult. I may take a macro hatch first before 3rd in this case. I can't say how many times I've either lost the 3rd or the entire game because +1 zealots harassed while I had only lings.
EPT
Best of luck out there!
I know many players believe the game is basically over once Zerg has you contained with mutas and gets a big enough number, and this build is a great way to play that totally avoids muta play.
