In this TvZ, I decide early on to put some hellions out. I do so, send them out to get set up for an attack, I go back to my base to do some things, then I jump back to the hellions and ... yep, they’ve been surrounded and are insta-killed. I’ve got some marauders back at the base, though, and, knowing that my opponent is going (at least at this point) for a ground army, I decide to go double starport to get out some cloaked banshees against which he will theoretically be practically defenseless. The thing about banshees, though, is that you have to build up a fleet of 4 or 5 and hit without your opponent expecting them, because they’re easily countered by any unit that can attack air.
These conditions basically lead to a perfect recipe for my opponent. Since I have a relatively small ground army, I get baneling rushed, my wall is broken, and lings rush in to kill my SCVs. My banshees take care of the lings (after a minute), but now the banshees’ cover has been blown, so the other guy goes muta/baneling. At this point, practically all of my walls are broken down, my expansion hasn’t been walled yet, and my banshees have only a limited amount of time to attack. The Zerg player takes full advantage of these weaknesses, rushing banelings to my second mineral line, annihilating my banshees with mutas, and then going straight for my base. It’s gg.
I think that a lot of the reason for my losing this match was not only the fact that I make some small but crucial errors but that my opponent took expert advantage of all of my missteps. Also, his early-game roach warren fake-out really threw me off. Wp on his part.
Check out the replay with commentary:
Lessons learned:
1. Watch your hellions closely! They could have worked wonders if only I had microed them.
2. Keep your walls up in TvZ. I made three mistakes in this respect. I didn't put an inner wall around my main mineral field, I didn't rebuild my main wall, and I only half-walled my natural expansion. Bye-bye SCVs.
3. Keep scouting, even when you're under constant attack. I could have been better prepared for his mutas -- especially as I had two starports -- but I was really distracted by his constant harassment, and I totally fell for the fake roach warren.
Other thing to note is scout better, you just assumed the zerg would maintain the status quo thoughout that game and not attack cause well hes zerg, even in the youtube vid you act as if you were suprised about the bling bust.
You also mention the loss of 4 maradars and I think it was 1 marine being lost as painful, from a supply and cost perspective it hurt the zerg a lot more than you, the zerg just spent about 750minerals and 250 gas on larva inefficent blings which only took out what 450 minearls and 100 gas. You then proceeded to mess up his production by killing both of the queens in his main.
Why did you follow it up with banshees for "suprise harrass" when he had lait tech??? (actually if i am wrong can someone please correct me, it just doesnt makes sense when i fell that a MMM push could have ended the game soon afterwards)
In my opinion you also got greedy in his main
Can someone correct me on the deport placement at the choke, everytime i see the double depot i think win/win with bling is it not possible to wall off with 2 racks and 1 depot?
Thanks Bordz. I think you're right. One thing I'm working on balancing is knowing when to pull back after an initial pressure and tech/expand a little so I'm not just throwing my units away at my opponent's front door. This is one of those cases where I probably would have been fine putting on some more pressure.