TvZ Baneling Bust Counter Build

At long last after laddering yesterday, I’ve finally found the answer to the build I’ve been bragging about on this blog for months.

My standard go to zerg build for TvZ and ZvZ. In other words a counter to the baneling bust.

Yesterday my MMR was pretty high. I even had a TvZ against a master leaguer, where I schooled him with my baneling bust.

But in another TvZ, I faced a fellow diamond league player. He had but a single supply depot separating my ling/bling from his SCVs. I busted him. Normally at that point in a game, I’m feeling pretty confident. I’m thinking I’ve pretty much already won.

During the bust, I even noticed that he had made a critical blunder. He didn’t do a full wall off. Despite busting him, my lings could run directly into his base. Surely I would win this game. Except once inside his base, what few units he had managed to hold off my lings. The answer to my baneling bust was so simple and obvious, I’m kicking myself for not having discovered it sooner. He had Hellbats.

He didn’t even have that many. But he did remind me of something I’ve known for some time now. That hellbats counter lings. They counter lings hard. They basically make any amount of lings disappear. What was blizzard thinking? It’s like giving Terran colossus in the first few minutes of the game -- and for almost no gas.

I don’t think I’ll ever play a TvZ on the terran side the same way again.

The build is about as simple as you might imagine it.

10 Depot

13 Refinery/Barracks

Orbital, reaper and depot after barracks finishes

CC

Reaper #2 (What really separates the men from the boys in this build is how well you can use those first two reapers to harass the zerg)

Factory

Reactor on Barracks

Armory

Once you get out your first few Hellbats, you’ve won! Congratulations, you’re now immune to lings. From here, make two more barracks, each with Tech labs. Start Stim research and make a reactor on the third barracks. Continue to produce marine/hellbat/marauder. When you have enough gas, make a starport and medivacs (vikings if you suspect mutes incoming).

When stim finishes, you push. If your zerg opponent was going for mutes, and he probably was, he’ll be forced to use them defensively. Any lings he has will melt away, and with your marauder heavy army composition, you’ll be able to steamroll him.

ZvZ opening theory

ZvZ opening theory.

After experimenting with my ZvZ build for a few more weeks, I have to say it withstands the test of time. ZvZ is still one of my most successful matchups. The opening is still useful in nearly all circumstances. I believe a 7 pool is about the only opening that beats it, and even then it’s somewhat map dependant.

I’d like to say that ZvZ has about three phases.

Phase 1 - Zergling run bys and Baneling wars.

Phase 2 - Mutes or brute force.

Phase 3 - Tier 3 units and the fight to keep expansions.

The reason why my ZvZ build is so good is, it gets phase 1 right. I’ve come to learn that many zergs actually attack before my build is ready to attack them. In other words, my build gets a few more drones where many opponents would simply begin to make zerglings. That makes my build better for defending than attacking, but still useful in each circumstance.

Game theory would suggest that it is better to attack than to defend. After all, in phase one of a ZvZ, two banelings can pretty much win the game outright. But against a worthy opponent, you’ll both probably lose a few drones and a good number of lings before stabilizing and teching up to a lair and phase 2.

Although lair technology offers many choices, only two are any good. You either make a cloud of mutes and attack. Or you make a ton of roaches and attack. It’s tempting to go for infestors or hydras, but I’ve never seen that tech choice actually work for anybody. Infestors, at their prime, were tough to use against mutes. In HotS, they’re impossible. And with mutes having an inherent speed boost, hydras are doomed to never get the engagement they need.

If you go for roaches, its important to attack early, and to use your excess minerals on spores and queens. The trick is to get speed, run into his mineral line, and do damage that he can’t recover from. You must have enough anti air back at your base to repel the inevitable mutalisk counter attack.

If you go mutes the plan is different. You want to run in and kill as many queens and drones as possible, as fast as possible, before me gathers too many defenses. If he overspends on anti air, you must use your mutes to clear the map of overlords, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, deny his third.

Since zerg anti air only really works with proper creep spread on an established base, you shouldn’t have much of a problem denying his third while you take your own.

Phase 3 is still uncharted territory for me. But with solid Phase 1 and 2, you won’t ever need it. As one of my recent opponents told me, “Have fun with your six minute games.”

Protoss PvP Openers and Game Theory

Protoss PvP Openers and Game Theory

This morning I had a game of StarCraft that was RvR, random versus random. I rolled Protoss. Right off the bat I’m thinking, 5 gate. It’s the defacto standard build to go as Toss. Even though we were on a large map, I didn’t send a drone scout immediately. It paid off, as my opponent sent an early scout, allowing me to see that it was a PvP game.

Now that I knew the matchup, I had to consider game theory. Should I continue to 5 gate? Go twilight council into DTs? Stargate? Robo?

What I no longer like about twilight council into DTs is that it can present some base race scenarios. It can leave you vulnerable to DTs as well. I like to attack from defendable positions. I opted for Robo into 5 gate. It would allow me to get detection, as well as perform an even better 5 gate attack, than an orthodox 5 gate.

I filled up the prism with stalkers, and sent it in through a long flight path. While that was happening, I used a single stalker as a diversion, to poke at his front. That stalker saw my opponent going Robo, but making immortals.

My prism wound up killing some drones, and escaping. So I kept him on the defensive without losing anything. Perfect.

Somewhere in the attack, I had too many minerals, and expanded to my natural.

In a PvP, I love seeing my opponent go Immortals. It prompts me to go Chargelot Archon. If he’s going to invest in anti-armored units, I’m going to make anything but.

Of course, he tried to attack me with a handful of immortals. I was able to defend with simple force fields. He tried coming up my ramp again. I cut off another immortal. All the while using my warp prism to continue harass and confirm that he was behind me on his expansion.

I won the game a few minutes later when I attacked with my chargelots and archons. By then, he had made a few void rays, which the archons made quick work of.

It occurs to me that I won for the simple reason that I tailored my army to counter his. While he, at some point, made a commitment to immortals. Even though I wasn’t going for a stalker heavy army. He committed to charging up my ramp, even though I displayed impeccable force field control.

And isn’t this one of the classic ways to win a game of StarCraft? By playing loose and changing your plan of attack to be specific to your opponent on that match. Isn’t it a classic way to lose, by being rigid and inflexible in your strategy.

It’s also a very Zerg way to win, being somewhat reactionary. What surprises me is that these kinds of mistakes seem to be more emotional, and human. I would have thought that such mistakes were only in the realm of amateur players, of silver and gold league. But apparently, anybody can get an idea stuck in their head, which causes them to lose simply because they couldn’t see fit to modify it.

The Pain of Diamond League

And now, with time to play with the boys at the top level of Diamond, I am worn out. All of my tricks. All of my strategies, the winning combinations that got me here -- are useless!

For all you lower league players out there who dream of reaching Diamond or beyond, I urge you caution. All you will find up here is blood, sweat and tears.

When I random Zerg, my early baneling attacks are always met in kind.

When I random Toss, there’s a more skillfully executed 5 gate to match my own.

When I random Terran, my opponent always has a drop ready to decimate my mineral lines.

No, the strategies that I’ve written about here will not earn you victory’s favor. Not in Diamond league. They may get you here, but once you’re here, you’ll have to come up with some other magic to advance further.

Of all the strategies, I’m most curious about the game theory behind the ZvZ matchup.

My 15 hatch opening still seems like the clear winner. Yet it loses to earlier pools. I’ve been experimenting with earlier pool attacks, especially on smaller maps, but I’ve had little success with them. I’m trying to find out if there is a definitively superior opening to use on small maps where spawn locations are fixed. But to no avail.

ZvZ matchup feels like it has two stages. Stage one is to either baneling bust the other guy or defend his bust. Stage two is a race to mutalisks, or to defend against mutes. It’s rare for a ZvZ to make it into a third phase.

Protoss HotS Build - DT into Chargelot/Archon

Protoss HotS Build - DT into Chargelot/Archon

I’ve been having no small amount of success with a new build I’ve been using. What’s great about it is, it works in both PvZ and PvP matchups.

9 pylon

13 gateway

15 assimilator

16 pylon

Core after gateway

Zealot and 2nd assimilator

warpgate research

Twilight council

From here, you add gateways as your minerals come in. Add a sentry and MSC as your gas builds, making sure to keep enough vespine to thrown down a Dark Shrine once the Twilight council is finished. Subtle building placement here goes a long way. I like to build my pylons together in a line. But I sneak in the Dark Shrine in that same line of pylons. In this way, you are giving your opponent to see the shrine and possibly mistake it for a pylon. Every small advantage helps.

vZerg, make sure to do an early harass/scout with your Zealot/Stalker. Keep the sentry at your base for emergency Force Field defence. It is usually around this time that a zerg player will scout with an overlord. Which is great, it makes little difference, even if he sees all of your tech.

Obviously, the idea is to warp in 2-3 dark templars. You send one to each of his main, natural, and expansion. A key point is to send them in staggered so that if your opponent has detection, you’ll only lose one DT.

But the real strength of this build is in the follow up. Research Zealot legs, and continue to produce as many zealots and DTs as possible, morphing the DTs into Archons. Then attack when you have three archons and a large number of zealots.

Against zerg players, your army will almost always be more than they can handle. A zerg player will likely have lost some mining time to your DTs. He will have spent more money on detection, and he almost certainly can’t have mutalisks by the time you attack. Even if he has mutalisks, your archons will tear them apart.

Part of the reason why this attack is so effective against zerg units, is because every unit you’re attacking with is a tank. You’ll have so much HP that it’s almost impossible for a Zerg to have the dps to beat you. Really, the only way they can counter this army is if they get a very favorable engagement, on creep, in range of spines and queens, with lings and roaches.

Against Protoss players, this push works because no units in your army are armored. Most standard Protoss armies use primarily stalkers or immortals. By having a chargelot/archon army, you are engaging an army that will get no bonus damage against your army. While your archons will get bonus damage verses his stalkers. If he goes Stargate, or Robo, it’s practically an auto win.

Please, give this build a shot and tell me what you think.

Menu Button Bug Fixed

So I get home from work on Tuesday, and start to download the new patch of HotS. I’m reading through the patch notes and what do I see?

Fixed a performance issue that could occur when the in-game menu was accessed with a large number of files saved to the Replays folder.

The very bug that I’ve been blogging about for weeks now finally gets patched. I even got the fix to it days before Blizzard finally fixed it. Let me tell you, this is the moment that you finally get some satisfaction from blogging. The day you can say “You read it here, first.”

The one bug that I’m still seeing is the 2v2 Game Mode selected by default. It seems like after every patch, my Game Mode gets set to 2v2. Even though I never play 2v2. Could this be a legitimate bug, or does Blizzard simply want to promote the matchup?

John's Terran HotS Build

Since I’ve been working on my terran play, I’ve been looking for a good go to build. Something to compliment Teran in the same way that I have a 5gate for toss and a two base ling bling for Zerg.

I believe I have found that build in a player known only as John. I found his post about a build he uses on the official SC2 forums. He claims an obnoxious win rate with it, and I decided to give it a shot.

* John

10- supply 12- rax 12- gas 16- reaper oc supply depot 19- reaper command center factory 20- reactor on rax rax (2) rax (3) @ completion swap factory to reactor, tech lab on barracks (1). - pump hellions, start stim when tech lab finishes. Put reactors on barracks (2) and (3) when gas is available. Pump Marines, marauders, hellions, push when stim finishes. Start third cc, 2 eng bays, and starport when money is available.

What I really love about John’s build is that, when executed properly, it really does feel like a well orchestrated symphony. The early reapers give map control when the Zerg would normally take it. They allow you the possibliity to both kill drones and queens (with micro).

It allows for a stim timing attack, and can outright win games against a greedy zerg player. But most of all, it taught me the importance of balance of tech labs and reactors. I think that’s a big part of the problem I’ve had playing as terran -- not enough reactors.

When I use this opening, I can feel how the number of active workers matches up nicely with the amount of stuff you can build. I’ve even been modifying this build and using it against Protoss. The trick is, less hellions, more widow mines and marauders.

But the absolute best part of this build is the built in timing on the third. I’d like to think that my macro is pretty good. Halfway decent at least. That is, for the first two bases. I’m at that point in my macro where I’m not too sure about the timing on the third. This build has me taking a third base at what feels like the pro timing to take it. It’s like its exposed this flaw in my macro timing. I honestly feel I’ve learned a lot from this build.

Even better is how flexible it is. I’ve been able to use this build to take my natural, only to have a 4 gate or a baneling bust push me back into my main. It usually doesn’t even matter! Once enough widow mines are out, the protoss will have to retreat. Once enough hellions are out, zerg can’t contain you.

Hats off to you, John.