If you haven’t been paying attention to changes on the periphery of this blog, I don’t blame you: it’s really not that interesting.
But what might interest you is the race-specific guides I have been putting together. Most of the interest on this blog has been in getting some basic, generic builds for each race and getting a feel for each matchup. It’s hard to know exactly where I can best help, but I am trying. As such, I have written up guides for Protoss and Zerg that may interest you.
I previously said I would maintain a few race-specific posts I wrote before, but I think that’s bad publishing practices, so I’ll maintain these pages instead. I’ll post again when I get the Terran one put together, and I’ll also let you know when there are major updates to those pages. In the meantime, feel free to critique and I’ll be maintaining those pages. They’re definitely not complete, but I want to balance completeness with brevity. If you want depth, you’re much better off finding a good tutorial video on YouTube, but I think this is a handy, shorter reference with written build orders.
I have been watching Apollo and Artosis for Protoss recently, and they both play a defensive, reactive style. They open with a 1 Gate Expand, maybe do some Oracle harass, then transition into a Colossus-focused army for a fight in the 10 to 15 minute range.
I think Terran players have been getting greedy in the meantime. Specifically, Terran can go for a 1 Rax Expand and get whatever they want. Maybe that’s really fast Stim and Starport for Marine drops, or maybe there are Widow Mine drops. Behind this, they’re getting +1/+1 because they feel safe behind one bunker and the knowledge that as long as there’s a Missile Turret to prevent DTs, they will be okay.
Okay, maybe not all Terran players play like this, but I certainly do. And as Protoss, I would like to apply some pressure. My current favorites to watch aren’t doing it, but there is one guy who will: EGHuK. I have watched a few of his games, and it’s a mixed bag. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but he’s willing to march up a ramp early and punish Terran players who just have Marines. Here are 2 builds I wrote down. As a disclaimer, he fizzled and lost both of these games.
EGHuK PvT on Whirlwind, laddering
9 Pylon (no scout)
13 Gateway
15 Assimilator (2 in gas)
16 Assimilator (2 in gas)
16 Pylon
17 Cybernetics Core
20 Warpgate, Stalker (chrono)
24 Pylon
24 Nexus (3 in each gas)
24 Mothership Core
27 Stalker
29 Robo
31 Gateway x2
3 Observers, constants Stalkers
36 lots of Obs, Stalkers
61 Assimilator x2
Stalker pressure
transition into immortal
tries to punish terran greediness
Here’s the 2nd game.
EGHuK PvT on Neoplanet, Laddering
9 Pylon
12 Gateway
15 Assimilator x2 (none in gas yet)
16 Pylon
17 Cybernetics Core (2 in each gas)
20 Warpgate, Gateway
23 Pylon
23 Nexus (3 in gas)
26 Mothership Core
Stalker
34 5:40 Gateway x3
6:40 Robotoics
10:00 Stalker Heavy push (fail), 4 Zealots, 2 Sentry
11:30 Gateway x2, Twilight Council
A few things to note here.
First, HuK does a slightly different opening to get to his Nexus. Specifically, he builds the Assimilators early so he’s gas-ready for Stalker/Warpgate/Mothership Core, but he doesn’t get all of his workers in there so he can get the Nexus out faster. It probably also helps that it isn’t really a tell for what sort of build he’s doing based on his gas timings.
Second, he can pressure off of 3 or 4 Gateways. As Terran, I was always worried about the 6-7 Gateway attacks, and scouting that would immediately trigger my defensive instincts. If you stay on top of your macro, though, you can give a good scare with a lot of Stalkers from 3 or 4 Gateways. You don’t have to wait for Robo.
Third, I admit that this isn’t as good as it used to be. Since Siege Tanks no longer require the upgrade, there isn’t that same pre-siege window for attack. Tanks on the high ground raining upon the natural can be brutal.
So consider it. It’s tempting to wait for Colossi, but I think things just get more exciting with early aggression. And if things go poorly, you can always Recall out.
I watch a lot of StarCraft. Not only does watching teach me things and give me something to aspire to, watching eSports is just fun and makes me part of the community (long version of that idea here). Since I watch so much, I am pretty familiar with the landscape and can usually narrow in on the better content. I can see how scary it might be trying to jump in and sort through all of the content, so here’s my guide on watching StarCraft.
Discovery
Step 1: where do I find StarCraft? Well, just about everywhere. There are great archives of past tournaments and tutorial videos, but most of the action is around streams, and there are a few easy places to find that.
Team Liquid. Team Liquid is kind of a mess, but the important stuff is all in the right sidebar. At the top is the calendar of major tournaments and events. When those events are live, you should see links to those event. More frequently (and continuously), there are live streams of players practicing in the area just below that. All of the players in this unexpanded area is notable professional players and worth watching.
Teevox. I don’t use it myself, but this is a front-end for browsing and switching between streams rapidly. It’s pretty self-explanatory.
Twitch. Most streamers use Twitch, and this is the big directory of those streams. I don’t like it as much since it sorts strictly by # of viewers instead of quality of play, but it’s a good heuristic and will help you discover new players to watch
Tournaments
Step 2: what’s worth watching? With a continuous stream of streams and so many tournaments, you should know what the biggest, best produced, most talented tournaments are. The full list of events is in Liquipedia, but here’s my rundown of events worth watching when they appear on the Team Liquid calendar.
GSL. The GOMTV Star League features the best (Korean) players in the world in month long tournaments. It’s absolutely worth watching… if you’re awake. The month long Code S tournaments run for a month and are on past midnight pacific time, so it’s a stretch for North America to watch live
MLG. Major League Gaming has a weekend tournament every month or 2 and flies in players from around the world. These tournaments are in the United States, so it’s more friendly for these time zones.
IEM. Intel Extreme Masters is run by the Electronic Sports League, and they hold major tournaments all around the world, so good luck with the timing. They usually cover a weekend and a few days.
DreamHack. DreamHack is a European circuit, and they just do things right. It’s a lot of European talent, but also a lot of other players, and they always manage to hold epic tournaments with memorable games. The timing is usually North America friendly as the weekend tournaments start in the morning and wrap up in the afternoon.
Proleague. Technically, this is a team league, but these guys are Brood War veterans, and crazy stuff happens in team leagues. For pacific time, they’re on in the later evenings (maybe 8PM-1AM) from Friday to Tuesday, which is actually perfect for my schedule.
WCS. The World Championship Series is Blizzard’s own. They just unveiled the plans, and it looks pretty exciting
And just for completeness, let me rattle off a few more tournaments and content to watch: NASL, Homestory Cup, Iron Squid, OSL, ASUS ROG, GSTL, and EGMC.
Community
What really ties watching StarCraft together is the community, and I hope you join these as well.
Team Liquid. This really is the home for the foreigner scene. The forums are a mess, but content is good.
/r/starcraft. There’s a lot of drama and fluff, but that’s kind of what a community is about, right? I check this multiples times a day.
BarCrafts. Why sit at home alone watching StarCraft on your computer when you can meet up with other StarCraft fans in public and watch together in a sports bar environment? Follow the reference links from the wikipedia page to find more.
Conclusion
If you’re deep in the scene and think I missed something important, let me know. Otherwise, I hope you look into watching StarCraft and the rest of the scene. There’s such an overwhelming amount of content that /r/starcraft often jokes that most members just watch and don’t even play StarCraft anymore. Although I hope that’s not the case for you, there’s so much out there, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
As much as I love Zerg, I need to spend more time understanding Protoss, and Apollo’s tutorials REVAMPED from a few months ago provides a solid framework for Protoss. Similar to his Zerg style, he depends on reactive, macro-based play. Given that, it’s harder to summarize the late game, but I did write up his build orders, and they should give you a sense for the different matchups.
Note that these builds are from Wings of Liberty, so they are slightly out of date. Primarily, the Mothership Core should come down somewhere in these builds, but I’m not exactly sure when.
Protoss versus Protoss
Ah, PvP: the most aggressive matchup. Apollo says there are 4 ways to play PvP:
Robo
Stargate
DT
Blink
The safest of the 3 is 1 Gate Robo, so let’s start with that:
Apollo’s PvP 1 Gate Robo
9 Pylon (scout)
11 Chronoboost
13 Gateway
13 Chronoboost
15 Assimilator
17 Pylon
18 Cybernetics Core
19 Zealot
22 Assimilator
23 Warpgate, Stalker
25 Pylon
26 Robotics Facility (after clearing scouting)
27 Sentry (cut Probes)
29 Observer
Gateway x2 OR Nexus
Immortal
Notes on the build:
Use your first Stalker to kill any scouting Probes before putting down the Robotics Facility
Cut Probes around 28ish supply until you get your 2nd base up. That is pretty good mineral saturation, and you might need the minerals in other places
Depending on what you see, you can go up to 3 Gateways or Nexus at around the 6:00 mark. If you decide to go 3 Gate, the Nexus will come around 8:00
In WoL, Protoss late game was just Colossi with some Archons mixed in to tank damage, so this is what Apollo continues to (Robotics Support Bay coming in before 10:00). Skytoss is much better in HotS, so you probably need a better mix
The only other build he showed off was a Stargate opening, which is perhaps more interesting in HotS:
Apollo’s PvP Stargate Opening
9 Pylon (scout)
11 Chronoboost
13 Gateway
13 Chronoboost
15 Assimilator
16 Pylon
18 Cybernetics Core
19 Assimilator
20 Zealot
23 Warpgate
24 Sentry
25 Pylon
27 4:30 Stargate
29 Robotics Facility, Gateway (cut probes)
29 Phoenix (chrono, attack with 2, get 4 total)
35 6:30 Nexus
39 Observer
7:30 Gateway
8:45 Gateway
10:15 Robotics Support Bay
Notes:
Chronoboost all of your Phoenix. Attack when you have 2 and max out at 4 Phoenix total
Again, Apollo transitions into Robo because Colossi was PvP late game. You can stick with Skytoss if you like.
Protoss versus Zerg
PvZ is the matchup I dislike the most. Protoss is pretty much required to fast expand, and it’s difficult to get aggression going early in the game. Like the other matchups, Apollo likes aiming for Colossi.
There are so many ways to do fast expands, but you can probably get away with 2 variations: Nexus first and Forge Fast Expand (FFE). I’ll present them together, and the notes will apply to both:
Apollo’s PvZ Nexus First
9 Pylon at wall (Scout)
11 Chronoboost
13 Chronoboost
16 Nexus
16 Forge
16 Pylon
20 Cannon
21 Assimliator x2
26 Cybernetics Core
28 Zealot
32 +1 Attack upgrade (with first 100 gas)
Warpgate
6:30 Gateway x3
7:10 Assimilator x2
Robotics Facility
And then the safer FFE
Apollo’s PvZ Forge Fast Expand (FFE)
9 Pylon at wall (Scout)
11 Chronoboost
13 Chronoboost
14 Forge
16 Nexus
16 Cannon
16 Pylon
17 Gateway
20 Assimilator x 2
Cybernetics Core
Some notes on these builds:
If you’re only going to know 1, know the FFE. As you progress, however, you should be flexible in using both builds depending on the scout. If it’s anything earlier than a 14 Pool, go FFE. Otherwise, go Nexus first.
You can send your 8th Probe down to the natural area to build the wall at 9 Supply. Learn how to wall in on all of the maps: it’s subtly different
React if the Zerg pressures early. Don’t be afraid to build an extra Gateway to complete a wall.
The rest of Apollo’s strategy is Colossus Double Forge
Protoss versus Terran
This matchup has also changed as everything new is a bummer for Protoss: Reapers can be annoying if you don’t get your Stalker quickly, Medivac speed boost will tear you apart, and Spider Mines can get a good pop on your slower units. Despite that, Apollo’s guide is still solid. He goes for a “reactive Colossus double Forge” style, using Archons, Zealot, and High Templar in the late game while getting lots of Robotics Facilities up for an easy tech switch. To get there, he uses a 1 Gate Expand into Robo. It’s usually safe enough. He plays the prototypical game at this point in the video, so watch it for almost exactly the build below.
Apollo’s PvT 1 Gate Expand
9 Pylon (scout)
11 Chronoboost
13 Gateway
13 Chronoboost
15 Assimilator
16 Pylon
18 Core
18 Zealot (rallied across the map)
23 Warpgate, Stalker
23 Pylon
25 Stalker
27 4:50 Nexus
31 5:20 Assimilator
Pylon
34 6:00 Robo
6:30 Gateway x2
7:00 Assimilator x2
Observer
7:30 Robo Bay
60 8:40 Colossus, Double Forge
Thermal Lance
9:30 +1/+1 upgrades
10:30 Gateway x3
Twilight Council
12:30 3rd Nexus (timed with your opponent’s)
110 13:00 Templar Archives
Zealot Charge
15:00 Gateway x6
And the last bunch of notes:
The 9 Scout is key because Terran players will wall off and keep you out of their base. It’s very important to see if they have taken their gas and will 1 Rax gasless expand or whether you should consider anything else coming from them
The Zealot and 2 Stalkers should poke early, so send the slow Zealot across first. This poke is probably replaced with a Zealot/Stalker/MsC poke in HotS, but either way, it’s important for scouting, and you may even do some significant damage.
The Twilight Council may need to be earlier nowadays for Blink to deal with Medivac boost
Conclusion
Like in the Zerg tutorials, Apollo goes for a safe, reactive, macro-oriented style. It appears that he really likes Colossi compositions, so all of his builds move towards that. I’ll likely be going over some Artosis footage soon since he’s so good at commentary during his games, and that will be a good complement to this piece. Still, these builds are pretty standard through about 30 supply, so definitely try them out.
The community likes to think that eSports is on the cutting edge of competitive play, but we still have much to learn from conventional sports. I don’t know much about the production and marketing side of sports, but I do know some statistics, and StarCraft, at least, is lagging behind conventional sports tremendously in quantitative analysis.
The only significant statistics I see from StarCraft are 1) win percentages in various circumstances and matchups and 2) Actions Per Minute (APM).* Win percentages are very broad metrics and not particularly instructive. APM is generally regarded as misleading at best and irrelevant at worst. Granted, StarCraft is a complicated game: the sides are often asymmetric, and game length varies. Sc2gears tracks many more statistics, but these haven’t become standard for broadcasting and analysis, whereas conventional sports broadcasts almost always feature statistics. Even Fantasy StarCraft discussions are pretty fuzzy, whereas fantasy football and baseball really are sports fans geeking out over numbers. Generally, StarCraft analysis is qualitative.
One of the coolest advances in conventional sports is computational, normative analysis. Today, games are tracked with better equipment, and by combining that data with advanced statistics, we can make predictions about what players should do in various circumstances. Because baseball is basically turn-based, it already has advanced sabermetric analysis (link to a reddit discussion about this). Basketball, however, has also been making strides in this area, according to this recent story from Grantland.
Hopefully you’re familiar with basketball, but if you’re not, it’s a 5 on 5 sport played on a (usually) indoor court. On opposite ends of the court, there are hoops, and each team’s goal is to shoot the basketball into their target hoop. On offense, teams design specific plays, and execution is key. On defense, however, teams have general schemes and react to what the other team is doing. Given that, it’s always been assumed that defensive skill is all about experience, “smarts”, and other intangibles.
Well, new analysis is starting to give us more concrete ways to understand defense. A new camera-tracking system in the NBA called SportVU can track where players are, and that data is turned into X-Y coordinates for clean video footage. And it gets even better. With significant computational analysis, the Toronto Raptors have come up with the “ideal” defense that minimizes the expected point value of a play**. You can watch the videos in the Grantland article where there are 2 sets of defenses super-imposed on the play: the actual defenders on the play, and the “ghost” defenders of where the players should be.
Hopefully you’re beginning to see how this analysis can impact StarCraft. Fortunately, we already all of the relevant data for unit positions in replays. If we can figure out how to parse expected outcomes from a large number of these replays, then we can begin to see general trends. Watching professional play, big deathball fights often come down to positioning. Is it safe to fight in this open area? Can you safely attack this base without getting trapped? How should you position your army to get the best engagement? Which units should be in front? These are similar questions to what the Raptors are answering in basketball.
It’ll be a lot of work to make this work. Specifically, it’s very difficult to parse meaningful actions out of a stream of data. The Raptors managed to recognize a pick and roll (one offensive player stands beside another defender, allowing the ball carrier to run around them. The first offensive player then goes in the opposite direction, hopefully resulting in confusion between the 2 defenders and leaving 2 open players). It may sound simple, but that’s darn hard, and I find that amazing.
Anyways, I think there’s a huge opportunity here for growth in eSports and a way for us to remain at the cutting edge of sports analysis, and even Artificial Intelligence at that. And there’s a tremendous amount of really interesting stuff that I would have to investigate and share, if you guys are interested. So before you head off, let me know in the poll below if you would be interested in me writing any of the following.
Which of the following topics should I elaborate on?
Just stick with the build orders, buddy (40%, 4 Votes)
Machine learning for event parsing and predictions (30%, 3 Votes)
Speculation on useful statistics for StarCraft (20%, 2 Votes)
Training AI to play StarCraft (this is tangentially related to this post) (10%, 1 Votes)
Advanced statistics and sabermetrics from baseball (0%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 8
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* If you know of more, please let me know. I’m interested.
** I’m not 100% sure how they do this in basketball, but I can explain how this is done in baseball in another post if you want
I’m playing random on HotS right now until I figure out my best race. I’m feeling okay with all of the match ups, except PvZ. Gosh, I just have no idea what’s going on. I know that I need to open with a fast expand as Protoss, but the Zerg just goes up to 3 bases when they see that. And then a few minutes pass, and all of a sudden, an army of arbitrary composition but immense size rolls up and kills me.
The problem is that I don’t know what I’m to do from about 4:00 to 12:00. Pros do Stargate openings, so maybe that? Oh, but I should take a 3rd base at some point. How much army do I need? Maybe I should poke with my 1 Zealot, 1 Stalker, and 1 MsC. It’s pretty disastrous.
Thankfully, I’m currently watching Apollo’s Protoss Tutorials REVAMPED from WoL, and he has an excellent video showing what I think is the prototypical Protoss play against 3 bases. Admittedly, I haven’t watched enough PvZ in HotS to know if things have changed a lot, but I’m inclined to believe that things haven’t changed too much yet.
So check out this game (24:00 into the 2nd Protoss video), with the build order written out below. The keys here are timing attacks. First, he goes in with 4 Zealots and 4 Stalkers with +1 attack around 8:15 (you can even add the Mothership Core too). It doesn’t look big, but I’m certain that the early pressure is very important. At my level, I think Zerg knows to get to 3 bases, but they have difficulty knowing how to time aggressive Droning and enough defense. Second, he goes up to Colossi and attacks around 15:00, which is slightly earlier than classic deathball pushes. This timing might have changed as Zerg are looking to get to Hive sooner with Roach/Hydra/Viper, so let me know if that doesn’t work out as well.
The build order writeup is a little sketchy, but it’s a good outline. Just watch the game: it’s only about 11 minutes of real time.
Apollo’s Prototypical PvZ from WoL (Oct 2012)
9 Pylon
11 Chrono into probes
16 Nexus
16 Forge
16 Pylon (resume Probe production + Chrono)
20 Cannon
21 Assimliator x2
26 Cybernetics Core
28 Zealot
32 +1 Attack upgrade (with first 100 gas)
Warpgate
(Sees 3 base)
6:30 Gateway x3
7:10 Assimilator x2
Robotics Facility
8:15 attack on 3rd with 4 Zealot/4 Stalker
+1 Armor upgrade
Observer
Sentry x4
Immortals
9:30 Gateway x2, Twilight (for more upgrades)
10:30 Nexus at 3rd
11:30 Robotics Support Bay(seeing Reach/Ling), Robotics Facility
A year and a half ago, Apollo (AKA dApollo back then) posted the Working up from Bronze League tutorial videos, which I previously covered. A few months ago, he posted an updated version of “Tutorials REVAMPED” for changes in the game over that year. Although the game has changed again with the release of HotS, his style and basic builds are still sound. Since I have been focusing a lot on openings recently, I thought I would post the build orders he’s using, his thoughts on reacting to various things, and how these might have changed with the release of HotS.
Zerg versus Protoss (or Random)
Let’s start with the basic build:
Apollo’s standard ZvP (Oct 2012)
9 Overlord (to natural)
12th Drone Scout
15 Spawning Pool (for cannon rush)
15 Hatchery (send @ 200 mins)
14 Queen
16 Zergling x2
18 Overlord
4:20 3rd Hatchery
6:00 Extractor x2 (scout for natural gas)
7:00 Roach, Evolution Chamber, Extractor x2
+1 Missile Attack, Lair
Macro Hatchery
A few notes here:
Your first Overlord goes to scout and should hang out for future scouting.
The Overlord on 9 goes to the natural to watch for a cannon rush.
12th Drone scouts means that 1 of the 2 Drones you build after your Overlord finishes should scout
Apollo goes Pool first so that he isn’t screwed by a Pylon block, but if you don’t see a Probe scout, you can go Hatch first if you want
If you get Pylon blocked at your natural, build your 3rd Overlord immediately, then move to build your first expansion at your 3rd base instead. Also bring an Overlord in case of a cannon rush there
If you don’t see a fast expand from the Protoss when you scout, then you don’t need to get your third. As usual, stay 1 base ahead of your opponent
If your opponent does cannon rush you, you can delay the 6:00 and 7:00 timings by maybe 30 seconds
At 6:00, send the waiting Overlord in to look for Assimilators at the natural. If any are taken, then they are teching, not all-in.
Overall, this build is still mostly valid against Protoss in HotS as well. A few thoughts on this:
The new, early threat from Protoss in HotS is the Mothership Core. Because it is an air unit, have a Queen at all bases and target it as necessary
Protoss may also be more willing to poke early because the MsC can Recall the units out. As such, be prepared for light pressure, but don’t freak out
There will probably be more Stargate openings from Protoss since that is also now a viable midgame strategy (and because people like new, shiny things).
Zerg versus Terran
Apollo’s ZvT is a little squishier, mainly because he’s much more reactive here, but the basic idea is Hatchery first and 4 Queens:
Apollo’s standard ZvT (Oct 2012)
9 Overlord (to natural)
12th Drone scout
15 Hatchery
15 Spawning Pool
16 Overlord
17 Queen
19 Queen
Zerglings if you need them
Queen
4:00 Gas
Queen
5:30 Zergling Speed
8:00 Evolution Chamber x2, Assimilator x2
Since this one is less-defined, let me explain more:
The Overlord on 9 goes to the natural to watch for Bunker rushes.
The Drone scout looks around for proxy 2 Rax. If you see it in time, go for the Spawning Pool
4 Queens is important because the primary threats from Terran are Hellions and Banshees, both of which Queens can deal with effectively
If you see Terran go CC first, you can open 3 Hatch (like in ZvP) to stay one base ahead.
The openings here have changed more significantly with HotS. Specifically,
Fear the Reaper! Apollo was worried about 2 Rax; you should worry about Reaper openings. Because Reapers are so dang fast, Terran players are more likely to build the Barracks at their ramp and race the Reaper across, so just scout for that. If you see an early Refinery, you should prepare yourself for Reapers.
Given the early Reaper play, I’m a fan of earlier gas, similar to what IdrA does. He sandwiches it around 18 supply when you’re waiting on Overlords.
Also be careful of Widow Mines. They’re scary, and Terran players may use them to block your 3rd base. I’m not sure whether this requires a reaction, but just be aware.
Zerg versus Zerg
The build:
Apollo’s Standard, Safe ZvZ (Oct 2012)
9 Overlord (scout)
12th Drone Scout
15 Spawning Pool
15 Hatchery
14 Queen
16 Zergling x2 (can be Drones if you see no threat)
18 Overlord
18 Gas (can delay if they haven’t taken gas)
19 Queen
22 Queen
25 Overlord
~4:40-5:00 Zergling Speed (or @100 gas)
Baneling Nest at Natural (or @ next 50 gas)
Spine Crawler (if you feel threatened)
Lair (when you have the gas)
6:30 – 7:15 rest of your gases
Roach Warren
Evo Chamber
10:00 3rd base
Again, some notes:
Unlike the other matchups, you can send all of your Overlords out to scout. Specifically, you should form a line of Overlords between your bases since Zerg can’t shoot them down early
After you get your Baneling Nest, the rest is somewhat flexible, and what’s above is a rough guide. Apollo isn’t very aggressive with his Zerglings, but if they are, you should have an Overlord outside their base to see it coming, and you can morph Banelings for defense
Apollo does mention that he himself is willing to go Hatchery first, but probably just because he’s a boss at StarCraft. Pool first is safer since Zergling rushes do happen.
Fortunately, HotS hasn’t really changed ZvZ openings much. The important thing to note is that currently, midgame ZvZ is all about Mutalisks. Now that Mutalisks are faster (and Fungal Growth is a projectile, and therefore harder to land), the midgame is just having a better Mutalisk count and destroying your opponent. As such, you should get gas earlier since that is the limiting factor in your Mutalisk count.
Conclusion
You should watch Apollo because he teaches solid, clean play. I don’t blame you if you don’t want to watch 4 hours of him playing your race (or 12 if you play Random), but at least watch one or two openings so you can see the mechanics and style that he plays. His Zerg play is reactive, not proactive, and he relies on good scouting and clean macro to win games. His thought process explains how pros often seem psychic by just being aware, so don’t shy away from his WoL content. It’s still good.
It’s been awhile since I have spent all weekend watching StarCraft, but it felt great. The 2013 MLG Winter Championship in Dallas was different in several ways. First, it was the first, major post-release Heart of the Swarm tournament, and many of the players came with their new gadgets. Second, it didn’t have an open bracket, so all of the focus was on the championship bracket. Finally, it was single elimination, so the stakes on each game were higher than ever.
There were a ton of cool builds, but in my mind, the big story was Medivacs, which even IdrA appreciated. All of the Terran players showed very dynamic play, and it seemed like they were constantly attacking in 3 places simultaneously, which left the casters looking in all the wrong places. The best series was Flash (T) v. Innovation (T), the semifinal games between 2 KeSPA players. There’s something all you Terran players out there can aspire to do.
The finals were also awesome as Life (Z) took out Flash using an aggressive Ling-Baneling style. He started the first game with a 10 Pool, and that really set the tone for the rest of the games. I would need to rewatch the games, but I believe he used a 3 base build, with +1/+1 and a quick Lair for Baneling speed to overwhelm Flash. I was pulling for Flash, so forgive me for being defensive, but it really seemed like Life had his number. Flash used a quick Stimpack into +1/+1 Marine/Marauder/Medivac/Mines (M4? Can we call this build the “Carbine”?), and for a guy who often seems psychic, he demonstrated an amazing lack of map vision by moving out at critically bad times. And since both of them kept going back to the same builds (other than that crazy 2 Rax in there), Life came out ahead.
Major props to Life, though: he was aggressive, and it worked. I think the accepted Zerg style has shifted towards this very defensive strategy, obsessed with being 1 base ahead and trying to get to the late game ASAP to bring out the big guns. I personally haven’t seen as much aggressive play as what Life used this series, and he punished Flash for not being ready, again and again.
Given that, would you guys like me to review the games and put together a writeup on Life’s play that series? I have a few other posts I would like to do in the backlog (and I’m also assembling basic guides for each race), but if there’s demand for it, I would be willing to go through the replays again and catch some timings from the finals series. There are already a few posts around the interwebs (post 1, post 2), but if you would like more detail, I can give it a shot.
I have to admit: I don’t know how much most advanced buildings cost. They all cost something like 150 Minerals and 100 Gas. Or maybe 150 Gas if they’re really spiffy. So when I heard that the Dark Shrine got cheaper in HotS, I mostly just thought, “Okay, so I don’t have to rapidly hit D for as long to get it out. Assuming I already have enough money anyways since I’m probably floating 2K resources anyways.” It is astoundingly relevant for pros, though, so DT rushes are back.
And they’re not even too much of a commitment anymore. In Sase (P) versus MVP (T) on Cloud Kingdom in Game 4 of the MLG 2013 Winter Championships in Dallas, Sase went for DTs behind a 1 Gate Expand while getting upgrades. Just a few DTs caught Taeja offguard and destroyed 16 SCVs. Not bad.
Sase’s PvT DT Rush
Standard Protoss Opening
21 Nexus
21 Mothership Core
23 Assimilator
24 Stalker
26 Pylon
34 5:30 Twilight Council
6:30 Dark Shrine
Remember, a DT rush sets you up nicely for either Blink Stalkers or Zealot-Archon as a follow-up. Sase ended up using mind games and went for Zealot-Archon while actually going double Robo Colossi behind it.
I told you that the big Heart of the Swarm (HotS) changes in Terran were the new Reaper and Widow Mines. For Reapers, removing the Tech Lab requirement, adding the speed upgrade out-of-the-box, and regenerating health would turn it into the harass unit it was always intended to be. For Widow Mines, well, they’re just pretty imba. In the first round of MLG 2013 Winter Championships in Dallas, however, the story seemed to be Medivacs.
The Ignite Afterburners gives the Medivac a short speed boost, which makes drops extremely powerful. Since the boost doesn’t require an upgrade, and you can slap a Reactor onto your first Starport, early drops are scary, especially for Protoss. Almost every map has the 3rd curled around against the main base high ground, and while the Protoss is running a few Zealots back and forth between the bases, Medivac drops can bounce back and forth between the bases and deal damage with almost no cost. Pros will probably figure out how to deal with it and educate us all, but in the meantime, you should abuse it.
In game 1 of Flash (T) versus Bly (Z) on Neo Planet S, Flash opened with a 2 Reaper Bunker rush, which worked, so he added on a 3rd Reaper to keep the harassment up. He then added 4 Hellions, which all looks a lot like qxc’s TvZ. The trick comes next, when instead of Widow Mines, he immediately gets Stimpack, adds on a bunch of Barracks, then builds his Starport onto the Reactor for double Marine drops. Granted, none of us have sick drop micro like Flash, but I like the idea of it.
Flash’s TvZ Reapers into Double Medivac Marine Drop
10 Supply Depot
12 Barracks
12 Refinery (cut SCVs all over the place to get things down on time)
14 Orbital Command
14 Reaper
15 Supply Depot
17 Proxy Bunker
17 Reaper
21 Reaper
22 Command Center (on high ground)
24 Factory, Reactor on Barracks
26 Barracks
27 Hellion, Hellion
31 Tech Lab on Barracks
33 6:40 Stimpack
Barracks, Barracks
7:50 Starport
Drops!
But maybe you’re not all about the Reaper opening: I know I can’t macro and do Reaper harass simultaneously. In that se, you might like MVP’s (T) opening against Feast (P) on Cloud Kingdom in game 4. A popular opening we’re seeing in TvP is a CC Reactored Marines build. It feels like a 1 rax expand build, except you do get the early gas, which I think is supposed to threaten Reapers when the Protoss scouts and sees the gas. The Reactor is as good as the extra Barracks you would get from a gasless opening, and you can swap it onto your Starport when the time comes.
Note that Taeja (T) does something very similar in Game 1 on Newkirk City against Sase (P)
MVP’s TvP 1 rax expand
10 Supply Depot
12 Barracks
15 Refinery
16 Marine
17 Supply Depot, Orbital Command
19 Reactor
21 Command Center
22 Marine, Marine
24 Factory
25 Supply Depot
28 Bunker (defensive)
5:45 Starport
10:20 Stimpack (this is notably late)
And if you liked being greedy in Wings of Liberty, you can still be greedy. Taeja and Flash were both doing 14 CC builds to mix things up (in both TvP and TvZ), and it appears fine. There’s not a lot to say, but here’s the build from Taeja versus Sase, game 4 on Cloud Kingdom:
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