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[G] CyNStarbuck's Muta counter to immortal all-in

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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Natalya
Profile Joined December 2011
Belgium287 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-12-11 20:15:15
December 11 2012 18:21 GMT
#1
Hey Everyone! I asked one of my IRL friend, CynStarbuck, how does he holds that nasty all-in. For those who dont know him, he's currently #1 GM in Europe. Yes. #1.

He advised me a build that can definetely be used as a one shot thing, which means it can be used on ladder on maps such as Cloud Kingdom or Ohana, or once in a BOx. The build, I feels, should be tested by high masters/GM for sure. It requires to be able to shut down any agression of the 4gate +1 attack or the 7 gate all-in type with only 10 speedlings. You will need insane map awareness to find and kill any pylons on the map. It requires to hit your transfuses like a madman. Yes, your transfuses, not your injects. It requires a little bit of multitasking. It requires a willingness to gamble. It requires to be able to scout and read your opponent like an open book. It requires to be able to take some toss bm in the face when mutalisks will rape their mineral line at 10:00 :D

To summarize the bo, it is as follows : Start with a standard pool double hatch. It's important to makes it look standard, although it's really not. Take a gas as soon as your third hatch starts. Make only one queen total. Yes. One queen total. I said you were gambling. With your gas, make ling speed then starts the lair. You will be making more or less then zerglings as your speed finish to make sure you deny any early pressure and any pylon. Starts queens number 2 and 3 at your nat and 3rd. Take gasses number 2 and 3 at your nat (your third will be too poorly populated to take gasses, + you will sac your third). Then take gas number 4 at your main once your lair finish. Make an overseer in case you're not certain it's immortal all in. And once you're certain, starts the spire, starts non stop queens production at all your hatcheries and starts 10+ spines at your nat (full wall-off). Basically, you'll be attacking with you 8-9 mutalisk when you are sure he's far enough on the map that he cant come back. You want to be tanking damage with queens tranfusing each other and tranfusing spines. And you will squeeze zerglings with whatever minerals you have left.

Now I'll discuss some more precise points :

Denying scouting and denying pylons : + Show Spoiler +
First of all, you dont want the probe to come back to your main and scout your early gas, obviously. This shouldnt be too complicated.

With your first 4 zerglings, you want to find the scouting probe and chase him all the way to his base. You then want to make sure not any pylon is planted anywhere on the map, as it would likely mean your death. The ling speed come early enough to deny any pressure like a zealot stalker pressure. In the replay against Titan, you see one zergling killing the probe while the stalker and the zealot are taken care of by two groups of speedlings. The role of those speedlings is also to make sure the protoss doesnt scout the absence of a queen at the third.


Why queens? + Show Spoiler +
Because immortals, sentries and stalkers sux against them. A wall of spines with no queen support is easily wiped out by immortals, given that forcefields will make sure no zerglings or roaches can help. The same cant be said of queens. They tank immortal shots decently and can transfuse each others.


Scouting yourself (identifying the immortal all-in) + Show Spoiler +
Nothing really new here. You are looking for sentries, a robo, for a 3rd gas at his nat followed by a later 4rth gas and the forge upgrading but not chronoboosted.


Transitions if it's not sentry immortal all-in + Show Spoiler +
I see three possibilities. A 3rd, a stargate into a two base all-in or a blink all-in out of two base. Against a stargate opening, you dont want to make a spire since you only have 4 gasses and you are not likely to outnumber the phoenixes hard enough. Make an infestation pit and tell yourself you only lost about 10ish drones by delaying your second and third queen (my estimation), but your good tech and a high infestor count could make up for it.
Against a blink all in, I would react the same way.
Against a third taken with robo tech, I would still go for mutas as they can do a ton of damage imo. Your situation here is not ideal, but hey!, I said it was a gamble.


Some thoughts on balance + Show Spoiler +
If the Immortal all-in remained largely unanswered in, say, 6 months, a diminution of the build time of the spire by approximately 30 in-game seconds could possibly allow Zergs to have an early-midgame based on mutalisks and a healthy economy at the same time, much not like it is the case in this build, where the economy has to be sacrified big times in order to have such an early spire.

I think it wouldnt break zvt completely. Terrans would have to adjust timings here and there but all in all we see so few mutalisks these days it wouldn't be a bad change. It could also means Zergs would have the choice between teching hard or taking an early third. Right now, we see zergs either going for some all-in roach attack or take a fast third. Not enough variety in my opinion.

But it could break ZvZ to the point where mutas would be able to deny the third 24/7, making it the standard choice of ZvZ. A muta vs muta war is fun to have from time to time but I would rather not play muta vs muta every ZvZ


Replays :CyNStarbuck vs RoxKisTITAN

CyNStarbuck vs VegaShoWTime


Communism
Profile Joined November 2010
United States176 Posts
December 11 2012 19:09 GMT
#2
I mean to in no way diminish the credibility of this build as a viable way to defeat the sentry all in. I also completely believe that CyNStarbuck has lots of success with this build against the sentry immortal all-in. The question / problem that I pose to this style is that like you said, in order to get this spire out you are sacrificing a lot of eco (very late queens, very early gas), this means that all protoss now has to do is figure out better ways to identify this build, and then just dont all in but try and fake the all in and always win / come out ahead. I feel like CynStarbuck is probably #1 on EU GM because he is a beast of player, not because he has found the secret answer for the masses to the sentry/immo allin.

I also feel like this build may be very successful right now for him / others, because of what i said earlier, the fact that this is a slightly faster timing that protoss players arent used to, so it catches them off guard and the responses they are used to might not work as well against this incarnation. The problem still remains though that what you are doing is planning on cutting a huge amount of eco early on to blind counter an all in that may or may not come, and then hoping that you are good enough at scouting to determine it isnt coming.

Just in general wouldn't it be better to work on a reliable way to hold it where you identify that it is coming, and then respond appropriately. (this is what i feel like most people are trying to do, not that it has been very successful)
Rhiot
Profile Joined May 2011
112 Posts
December 11 2012 19:15 GMT
#3
This is actually a variation of how Destiny played his ZvPs because I too have been doing this exact same opening against all robo play and it is very successful. It is just hard to beat gateway all ins.
aAa.Crow
Profile Joined May 2011
France9 Posts
December 11 2012 19:16 GMT
#4
I'm top master on Europe, and I would have discovered this build earlier ! Thanks a lot, simply awsome.
Flonomenalz
Profile Joined May 2011
Nigeria3519 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-12-11 19:41:42
December 11 2012 19:22 GMT
#5
And what happens if the Toss went for something like a nex --> forge --> gateway --> robo --> 4-6 gates --> third?

Scouts your build while you're "hoping" he's going immortal sentry, reacts appropriately, and is ahead of you in eco.

Or the Toss does a SG opener with phoenix and murders your econ because you have no drones to make spores, else you hurt your already low econ.

Sorry, I'm not buying this at all, not without replays of it against the immortal sentry all in, AND replays of it against non immortal sentry, so to see how he transitions with cut econ.

EDIT: Whoa, my eyes like blurred over the replays section. Let me watch real quick.
I love crazymoving
jcroisdale
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
United States1543 Posts
December 11 2012 19:31 GMT
#6
I think a big give away would be the lack of queens. I know me and many toss like to scout three different times before deciding are tech. Twice with probe and once with zlot+stalker. The lack of queens would be a huge tell, once i notice the zerg stops playing standard I just sit back and wait for his attack.
"I think bringing a toddler to a movie theater is a terrible idea. They are too young to understand what is happening it would be like giving your toddler acid. Bad idea." - Sinensis
Flonomenalz
Profile Joined May 2011
Nigeria3519 Posts
December 11 2012 19:50 GMT
#7
Watched the game against Titan. He doesn't move out until about 8 sentries and a WP at around 10:00. Parting moves out at 8:30. The muta window and spine wall window + reinforcing queens becomes a lot tighter against the all in when it's actually executed properly.
I love crazymoving
Damnight
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
Germany222 Posts
December 11 2012 19:57 GMT
#8
Yeah a mate told me about this build, he´s a high master protoss, I am a lower master player. Still what if you just warp in 4 stalkers at home defend the mutas whilst destroying the third base. Then retreat take a third; max; kill the zerg. No way you can max on a good tech faster than the toss at this point. I´d like to see a replay where the toss is like: "Fuck it and abort mission!" I mean 9-8 mutas are defendible, espacially considering the economic situation the zerg is in. once you warped the second round of stalkers 8-9 mutas are defended. If the Zergs goes apeshit with mutas after this, isn´t there a timing window to squeeze through an archive?

Still I really need the reps cuz I play around with this months ago but never seemed to get anywhere. I guess it´s because I hate gambling.
Natalya
Profile Joined December 2011
Belgium287 Posts
December 11 2012 20:13 GMT
#9
On December 12 2012 04:09 Communism wrote:
I mean to in no way diminish the credibility of this build as a viable way to defeat the sentry all in. I also completely believe that CyNStarbuck has lots of success with this build against the sentry immortal all-in. The question / problem that I pose to this style is that like you said, in order to get this spire out you are sacrificing a lot of eco (very late queens, very early gas), this means that all protoss now has to do is figure out better ways to identify this build, and then just dont all in but try and fake the all in and always win / come out ahead. I feel like CynStarbuck is probably #1 on EU GM because he is a beast of player, not because he has found the secret answer for the masses to the sentry/immo allin.

I also feel like this build may be very successful right now for him / others, because of what i said earlier, the fact that this is a slightly faster timing that protoss players arent used to, so it catches them off guard and the responses they are used to might not work as well against this incarnation. The problem still remains though that what you are doing is planning on cutting a huge amount of eco early on to blind counter an all in that may or may not come, and then hoping that you are good enough at scouting to determine it isnt coming.

Just in general wouldn't it be better to work on a reliable way to hold it where you identify that it is coming, and then respond appropriately. (this is what i feel like most people are trying to do, not that it has been very successful)


It's hard if possible at all to identify the build. Lings are there in time to deny stalker/zealot poke to come close enough to a hatch to see if there's a queen.

The immortal all-in, according to me, is an enormous gamble as well. The only informations toss has before executing the all-in is that he saw 3 hatches. That's it. Most of the time zerg could even cancel the third and toss wouldnt know about it. The parting build does no scouting at all except with probes (correct me if i'm wrong). He simply think he can kill anything Zergs would do out of 3 hatch (and so far he's been proven right :D).

About taking a fast third, dont forget you have speedlings extremely early and 8-9 mutas that can deal a ton of damage because early third will have no defenses for mutas so early.


On December 12 2012 04:50 Flonomenalz wrote:
Watched the game against Titan. He doesn't move out until about 8 sentries and a WP at around 10:00. Parting moves out at 8:30. The muta window and spine wall window + reinforcing queens becomes a lot tighter against the all in when it's actually executed properly.


I'm not sure it wasnt executed properly. He did a slightly different version than Parting: he had +1 attack and +1 armor done before moving. Parting has only attack.


On December 12 2012 04:57 Damnight wrote:
Yeah a mate told me about this build, he´s a high master protoss, I am a lower master player. Still what if you just warp in 4 stalkers at home defend the mutas whilst destroying the third base. Then retreat take a third; max; kill the zerg. No way you can max on a good tech faster than the toss at this point. I´d like to see a replay where the toss is like: "Fuck it and abort mission!" I mean 9-8 mutas are defendible, espacially considering the economic situation the zerg is in. once you warped the second round of stalkers 8-9 mutas are defended. If the Zergs goes apeshit with mutas after this, isn´t there a timing window to squeeze through an archive?

Still I really need the reps cuz I play around with this months ago but never seemed to get anywhere. I guess it´s because I hate gambling.


First of all, the protoss, I feel, cant warp the stalkers directly under the mutas or they'll die (it would be 9-10 mutas vs 7 stalkers without blink). And since they dont have blink, Mutas could still run back and forth and rape a ton of probes. + if you're really going at it, you can wait to see a warp at the front before coming with mutas.

The replays are available, maybe i'll edit to make it more visible
Andre
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
Slovenia3516 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-12-11 20:15:07
December 11 2012 20:14 GMT
#10
I'm not sure how some of you are doubtful about this. A build described in the OP was used by Jaedong in one of his first games where he relied on taking out pylons all the while teching to mutas and getting a spine wall(he lost though, maybe not a good example. DRG used something like this as well back when immortal-sentry allin got popular. And as someone else mentioned Destiny used to do a variation of a muta build as well.

While the build overall heavily relies on very narrow timing windows there's one thing it's better at than "standard" play, and that's the lack of effect forcefields have on you due to mutas.

Mutas have potential in countering immortal-sentry, but I'm not sure you should be cutting as many corners as the OP describes.
You must gather your party before venturing forth.
Natalya
Profile Joined December 2011
Belgium287 Posts
December 11 2012 20:17 GMT
#11
On December 12 2012 05:14 Andr3 wrote:
I'm not sure how some of you are doubtful about this. A build described in the OP was used by Jaedong in one of his first games where he relied on taking out pylons all the while teching to mutas and getting a spine wall(he lost though, maybe not a good example. DRG used something like this as well back when immortal-sentry allin got popular. And as someone else mentioned Destiny used to do a variation of a muta build as well.

While the build overall heavily relies on very narrow timing windows there's one thing it's better at than "standard" play, and that's the lack of effect forcefields have on you due to mutas.

Mutas have potential in countering immortal-sentry, but I'm not sure you should be cutting as many corners as the OP describes.


If you dont cut so many corners, you dont have mutas in time. That's like the fastest imaginable lair tech out of 3 base, except if u choosed to go lair before speed, but that's like begging to die to zealots +1
whereismymind
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United Kingdom717 Posts
December 11 2012 21:03 GMT
#12
cynStarbuck so good! I hope Empire picks him up asap
one day.. i'll lose my mind
HighLach
Profile Joined December 2011
United States132 Posts
December 11 2012 21:20 GMT
#13
Nestea does a variation on this build, and it's very good.
sitromit
Profile Joined June 2011
7051 Posts
December 11 2012 21:26 GMT
#14
Didn't Suppy try something like this against Parting at BWC? He sacced his 3rd, put a ton of spines in his natural and tried to defend with Mutas, on Ohana. Parting killed him anyway eventually.
MateShade
Profile Joined July 2011
Australia736 Posts
December 11 2012 21:49 GMT
#15
What if he attacks straight at the natural?
Natalya
Profile Joined December 2011
Belgium287 Posts
December 11 2012 22:25 GMT
#16
On December 12 2012 06:49 MateShade wrote:
What if he attacks straight at the natural?


?? You make a wall of spines at the natural and sac the third
Girondelle
Profile Joined December 2010
France969 Posts
December 11 2012 22:30 GMT
#17
What if he warps a round of stalker in his main, put some canons in mineral lines and go for the kill a bit latter?
jonaa
Profile Joined December 2010
Netherlands151 Posts
December 11 2012 23:11 GMT
#18
Starbuck metagames / gambles in every matchup he's the type of player constantly looking for a 'trick' to win. He's good nonetheless I guess but I don't feel like this is in any way the right answer.
D:
Natalya
Profile Joined December 2011
Belgium287 Posts
December 11 2012 23:15 GMT
#19
On December 12 2012 07:30 Girondelle wrote:
What if he warps a round of stalker in his main, put some canons in mineral lines and go for the kill a bit latter?


This has been answered already

On December 12 2012 06:03 whereismymind wrote:
cynStarbuck so good! I hope Empire picks him up asap



On December 12 2012 08:11 cLunAsTyY wrote:
Starbuck metagames / gambles in every matchup he's the type of player constantly looking for a 'trick' to win. He's good nonetheless I guess but I don't feel like this is in any way the right answer.


How do you guys know Starbuck? Are you high GM yourself or something? I'm really curious
zhurai
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United States5660 Posts
December 11 2012 23:29 GMT
#20
He advised me a build that can definetely be used as a one shot thing,


anything that's a "one shot thing" can't be a stable answer (AKA: Gimmicky)
Twitter: @zhurai | Site: http://zhurai.com
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