Many of you probably know that there’s two main layouts of Forge Fast Expands, or FFEs. On maps like Shakuras or Tal Darim Altar, you can do a more BW-style wall where you have a choke, jam a bunch of shit in it, and slap a cannon or two behind it. However, since that’s not always possible on a lot of the maps in the current pool, people have resorted to making walls by tucking a bunch of shit between their nexus and ramp, then slapping a cannon or two behind it. One map this is prevalent on is Metalopolis.

But then we come to Antiga Shipyard. On this map, there is a ramp you can wall off reasonably well, as shown below.

+ Show Spoiler +

Alternatively, and perhaps more commonly, you can do the Nexus-based wall in, pictured here:

+ Show Spoiler +

The problem with the former case is
1) the ramp is pretty far to be making those early buildings; and
2) the ramp is pretty fat so your wall is spread out and more prone to Baneling busts.

In the second case, the wall works out just as well as that layout does on other maps like Metalopolis, it’s still pretty prone to big roach busts or even smaller roach pressures. So which wall do you go for? Let’s take a quick poll of which one is more common for TLers before I introduce my ingenious solution.

Poll: PvZ Opening on Antiga

Nexus Wall (276)

46%

Ramp Wall (196)

33%

One base to start (124)

21%

596 total votes

Your vote: PvZ Opening on Antiga

(Vote): One base to start
(Vote): Ramp Wall
(Vote): Nexus Wall

Hokay so now we got the preamble out of the way and it’s time to get to the meat of my idea. I wanted a wall that would be pretty resilient to both Baneling busts and Roach busts. Without further adieu, I’m going to show you the result of hours of thought and engineering, and then explain why I’m so goddamn smart afterwards.

+ Show Spoiler +

Alright, I’m sure you’re all going to need a moment to let it sink in and allow the thoughts of “Omg that’s so brilliant, I can’t believe I never thought of it!” to pass. Have you recovered yet? Great, lets move on.

There are no pylons or anything like that in the wall which makes it a lot harder to bust with banelings. The Nexus, for example, take 25 banes to destroy. Further, with this type of wall, its easy to slam down a bunch of cannons behind if Roaches start trying to kill you!

But I know what you’re thinking. “Your nexus is so far away from the natural’s resources!” While this may appear true, please relax and hear me out. You see that assimilator in the bottom left of the picture I provided? You can saturate that perfectly with only 4 probes! I haven’t done all the number-crunching for how many probes it takes to saturate the entire base fully, but I suspect you can mine minerals optimally from it with an absolute MAX of 50 probes. And probably just about 10 or so more for the other gas!

Now you’re thinking “That’s great and I can tell that you’re clearly a genius the likes of which we have never seen, but I’m not sure it provides enough of a benefit to warrant me switching up my style. Is there anything else your ~~product~~ brilliant tactic can do for me?”

Of course there is! The beauty of this Nexus placement is that it very close to being in the middle of the natural and the third base. So when you want a third base, instead of having to build a third nexus, you can simply throw a bunch of probes onto the other side and easily save the 400 minerals! With that money, you can build a pylon and two cannons underneath the opposition’s morphing Brood Lords!

Anybody who is still unconvinced at this point is surely a troll of some sort. I ask you kindly to please leave, as this is a troll-free environment.

Thanks for hearing out my incredible idea, and I’d like to leave you with another poll to see how many people have seen the light! Bye !

Poll: How Will You Open PvZ on Antiga?

Bibbit's innovative new ramp-wall (534)

76%

Nexus Wall (68)

10%

Old school ramp wall (53)

8%

One Base (46)

7%

701 total votes

Your vote: How Will You Open PvZ on Antiga?

(Vote): Bibbit's innovative new ramp-wall
(Vote): Old school ramp wall
(Vote): Nexus Wall
(Vote): One Base

Edit: + Show Spoiler [Testimony] +

You say this can't work at the highest level? Top 20 GM player HeavOnEarth of the newly reformed Team LighT had this to say:

On January 05 2012 15:23 HeavOnEarth wrote:
OMG
i did a blind bane bust and some guy walled off like this!
i only made 5-6 banes .. and TONS of lings.. but i couldnt fit through because my banes couldnt break the any part of his ridiculous wall

Needless to say i typed out gg wp.

johnnywup

United States3858 Posts

January 05 2012 05:56 GMT

brilliant

Mr. Nefarious

United States515 Posts

January 05 2012 05:56 GMT

You're a genius. I can't wait to try this on ladder.

Mity

Canada50 Posts

January 05 2012 05:56 GMT

Not sure if troll or bronze.

Slivered Skin

Canada347 Posts

January 05 2012 05:57 GMT

Rofl Bibbit, you're so cute~

EDIT: Why isn't this in the strategy forum? Seems to me like it'd fit in pretty well there.

Lumi

United States1612 Posts

January 05 2012 05:57 GMT

I laughed SO hard. Thanks. Will be teaching this.

sAfuRos

United States743 Posts

January 05 2012 05:57 GMT

Not sure if you really aren't sure whether this is troll or bronze or if you just enjoy Futurama Fry too much

edit: @ Mity

Stropheum

United States1124 Posts

January 05 2012 05:58 GMT

ummm. what? You just make a bad expansion to cover the potential threat of maybe your opponent doing one of two all ins, rather than just having an inherently more vulnerable wall and relying on better scouting?

Ben...

Canada3485 Posts

January 05 2012 05:59 GMT

Queue all the serious posts that didn't actually read the OP. It's pretty funny, I must say.

BiG

Germany153 Posts

January 05 2012 06:00 GMT

#10

you're such a genius

Arisen

United States2382 Posts

January 05 2012 06:00 GMT

#11

Protoss: Please use this build against zerg!

GJ!

1800STFU

158 Posts

January 05 2012 06:01 GMT

#12

I prefer to use that as a macro nexus, then making a natural, whilst proxying a nexus for large amounts of chronoboosts for extreme 2 base timing attacks.

A brilliant idea I have already used often and will continue to do so

seffer

United States143 Posts

January 05 2012 06:01 GMT

#13

this will never work, blizzard will nerf it soon

Meteora.GB

Canada2479 Posts

January 05 2012 06:02 GMT

#14

Truly a revolutionary work of art.

mango_destroyer

Canada3914 Posts

January 05 2012 06:02 GMT

#15

as a zerg i approve of this sick building placement. *trollface*

stokes17

United States1411 Posts

January 05 2012 06:02 GMT

#16

it gives you mroe room to add gates in your natural. and since that is significantly closer to your opponent you can save 50/50 on warp gate. That in addition to not needing to get a 3rd nexus, AND the cheese proofing makes this quite the safe economic build

Mrvoodoochild1

United States1439 Posts

January 05 2012 06:02 GMT

#17

Troll? if not I hope so. LOL, it was interesting to read nonetheless.

norterrible

United States618 Posts

January 05 2012 06:03 GMT

#18

Revolutionary. I expect to see this in GSL.

Dalguno

United States2446 Posts

January 05 2012 06:04 GMT

#19

I think it looks really good, but it has some potential problems.

1.) The nexus is SUPER vulnerable to mutalisks. I think by the time you get warpgate out is usually when they hit with 17 or so mutas, so you might need more cannons, which, obviously, is more minerals that you're using.

3.) Proxy hatch. He might just be able to sneak a drone into your base, and when your nexus is clear in the heck out there, he may have made a hatch right where the nexus normally goes. Then he can make other stuff inside your base, and usually when they proxy hatch you don't have your gases at your nat yet, so it will go unscouted.

4.) IDK about a six pool against this. It looks like a kinda big area where the nexus goes, and that's 400 minerals. I don't know about the whole timing of it all, but I'm not sure if you'll be able to get a forge/gate/cyber/nexus by the time the lings get there. Could be risky.

Like I said, I'm not really sure so take this all with a grain of salt. This could be pretty metagaming changing! Bonjwa status?

Shortizz

Singapore129 Posts

January 05 2012 06:05 GMT

#20

Nexus as a wall is actually very common already. A friend(Bielsko) on SEA has been building a 3rd Nexus as a part of his wall in on certain maps. Initially, everyone thought it was stupid to have a 3rd Nexus as a wall cos 400 mins is really alot but it has worked surprisingly well for him. It gives quicker probe production and saturation, and really makes ur opponent goes WTF?!