At SpawningTool, we have always been dedicated to helping the starcraft scene, whether it was with providing the biggest pro replay database or giving you some killer builds for ladder! Today we are proud to announce that we are partnering with PSISTORM Gaming to further our goals in Esports! We will be working together to increase the amount of awesome StarCraft you guys get to see!
Spawning Tool has been around for years. It has seen its ups and downs, but never have we seen the activity we saw right after the LotV launch. Our plan to prepare for the launch was to get the build orders feature launched and try to market it as much as possible. The expectations was that the site views would go up by a pretty decent amount, because people need build orders!
These days it can be hard to find build orders. Many of the sites that posted quality builds, stopped mid HotS. This left a niche open for us to jump into! Apparently we did something right!
After the LotV launch, we saw a HUGE jump in views. 
When we got this info, we were happy that the preparation paid off. We were glad to see that despite all the talk of the decline of StarCraft and no one laddering, there was clearly a huge interest in build orders and replays.
Here are some more stats that we have gathered! 
This is a very promising sign to see. The fact that more than half of our views are from people that have already used the site before leads us to think that we are doing our jobs well. People would not come back to a site if they did not see any improvement value in it.
One thing we have been really hyped about is the amount of people on the site throughout the day. As I am writing this post, it is 6am EST. The site has been averaging from 20-40 active viewers every time that I have checked since the launch.
Build wise, there are many people posting, viewing, and getting involved. There can never be enough StarCraft content though! If any of you have a cool build or idea, you’re welcome to add your builds. Or if you just want to learn a new build, just come by to study up (and vote and comment while you’re at it). We are very open to getting new people to help out if they are interested.
Overall, thanks to all the content creators and build posters that have gotten involved already. You guys made this entire plan possible! We want to continue this and are excited for the future of Spawning Tool and StarCraft :).
~MorN_sc
View this build on Spawning Tool
I saw this build on /r/allthingsterran. /u/Bakemonoda had posted a video on the build where he explains the build. He was more than willing to upload the replay and let me do a write up on it for a build of the week, so thanks to him for that.
Basically this build puts the pressure on the protoss before they can get a warp prism out, then the cyclones can deal with the warp prisms after it’s out :D. The protoss opens standard, but this build still does a good amount of damage/game ending damage.
The goal is to do some damage with the proxy reaper, then follow up with cyclones to finish off the game/put yourself in a game winning position.
The proxy reaper is extremely effective in LotV right now. The reapers arrive before a mothership core is out (on a two base protoss opening) and they can do big damage by kiting around the adepts/stalkers. The bombs also disrupt mining/give extra kills.
By the time that the mothership core can get out (if the protoss decides to make it), there will be a cyclone to target it down. After the third reaper, you can also lift the barracks and float it at a ramp/cliff, for the cyclones, so they can have vision and target stalkers/adepts on top of the ramp. This takes away most of the defenders advantage that the protoss would normally have with terrain.
Reapers also can give vision by jumping up on the cliffs/suiciding up ramps to give vision.
Using the reaper bombs to keep the stalkers/adepts from attacking is also another strong thing that you can do to keep the cyclones from taking damage. The reapers are only there to distract/tank for the cyclones. The fact that both of the units in this cheese have high speed makes it hard for the protoss to deal with. The only thing that they can really do is try to save the MSC to photon overcharge some or use the adept ability really well to counter the speed of the terran units.
The latter is the best of the two in my opinion, because photon overcharge only last like 11 seconds as of the last patch.
The followup for the build is just getting another CC and another factory (if you want to go mech). If you want to go bio, I would reccomend floating the barracks back home, switching it with the factory after about 3 cyclones, and starting stim right away, along with more barracks.
~MorN_sc
LotV Proxy Reaper into Cyclone (Bakemonoda)
- 13 Supply Depot
- 14 Refinery
- 15 Barracks
- 16 Refinery
- 18 Reaper
- 19 Orbital Command
- 19 Factory
- 19 Supply Depot
- 19 Refinery
- 19 Reaper
- 19 Factory Tech Lab
- 20 Reaper
- 20 Command Center
- 21 Cyclone
- 21 Supply Depot
- 25 Factory
- 26 Cyclone
- 31 Factory Tech Lab
- 31 Cyclone
- 36 Barracks Tech Lab
View this replay on Spawning Tool
In this game, TY opens with a CC first into a gas before his barracks. This is the most greedy you can be in the early game. He only has one marine out before the 6 minute mark (which he uses to deny scouting). The reasoning behind this is the fact that snutes reaction to the CC first is to go 3 hatch before pool. This is a dream scenario for TY. He quickly adds his second gas to get access to fast tech.
This is a game where TY gains small leads off of early harass. His first mode of harass is the hellions. He makes 4 hellions off of his factory, which ends up roasting 4 drones. This is not a big deal, but it sets snute slightly behind. TY also keeps his hellions alive, to use for more harass throughout the early game.
TY’s second mode of harass is the viking. He uses this to deny overlord scouting, forces snute to spend money on non army related units, and take map control. In the early game, droning up to 3 1/2 base economy is the most important thing for a macro zerg. Setting that back at all can delay the army/tech and make follow up pushes game ending.
TY’s third mode of harass is a widow mine drop. He sends out a medivac with 2 widow mines and 4 marines which kills 8 drones.
All of these small edges that TY gained puts him in a position where Snute’s tech and saturation is delayed. Behind all of this harass, TY is researching stim, making tanks, adding gas, starting double upgrades, and adding more barracks.
The viking is used to push back and kill overlords out on the map, making it so snute does not see the move out with marines, medivacs, and tanks at around 10:30. TY takes a third behind this.
Bridgehead is known as a map where the terrain can be abused. The rocks at the natural have been an issue for many players. TY sieges his tanks behind these rocks while he drops the marines on Snute’s side of them. This creates a strong and very difficult to defend position for snute. It is a very similar strategy to the deadwing one, where you siege behind the rocks in between the natural and the third. This is why zergs always break the rocks there and have also started breaking the rocks on BridgeHead. TY kills Snute’s natural with this push and gains a large supply lead. Snute has almost triple the units lost compared that that of TY after this maneuver.
The aggression doesn’t stop here though! TY keeps dropping in Snute’s natural and 4th, denying the bases and denying mining! Snute does not successfully retake his natural until the 17 minute mark, only to be quickly denied again by TY. Throughout all of this, TY continues to drop marines and widw mines killing drones constantly!
Snute holds on well, but in the end TY’s early game lead, mechanics, and micro prove too much! This is one of my favorite games of all time, I think it’s a must watch!
~MorN_sc
TY CC First Into Two Base Tank Push
- 9 Supply Depot
- 14 Command Center
- 15 Refinery
- 16 Barracks
- 19 Orbital Command, Marine
- 20 Factory
- 20 Orbital Command
- 20 Barracks Reactor
- 22 Supply Depot
- 23 Starport
- 24 Refinery
- 25 Hellion x2
- 31 Marine
- 31 Supply Depot
- 34 Hellion x2
- 34 Marine
- 38 Viking
- 42 Supply Depot
- 42 Widow Mine
- 42 Barracks Tech Lab
- 46 Widow Mine
- 46 Medivac
- 46 Supply Depot
- 51 Marine
- 52 Stimpack
- 55 Supply Depot, Barracks x2
- 55 Marine
- 56 Barracks
- 58 Starport Reactor
- 58 Factory Tech Lab
- 58 Supply Depot
- 58 Engineering Bay
- 58 Engineering Bay
- 60 Marine
- 60 Refinery
- 60 Refinery
- 62 Siege Tank
View this replay on Spawning Tool
I chose this build for a replay of the week because of the similarities it shows to Heart of the Swarm. The only main changes are what you can afford and when. Also, in Legacy of the Void, CC First is a much more viable build because of how fast you can get the command center down, compared to the rush distance on maps. The economy change made it so every race can get down buildings and expansions faster, but the time it takes for a unit to go across the map still stays the same, making greedy builds more viable in this new expansion.
Legacy has been pushing towards a more micro and agression based play. With all of the changes, it is harder to get maxed because of how fast your enemy attacks or you attack. Also, in my opinion, upgrades matter even more because turtling is harder to do.
This build starts off with a CC First into a quick 3-rax play. The point of the build is to try to get +1 attack, stim, combat shield, two medivacs, and 16 marines out as fast as possible. When you get these units, you have a ton of utility on the map to do one big attack, multi-prong attack them in their 3rd and main, or just force units out of them. After the starport goes down, I add a quick 4th and 5th barracks to create a strong followup push. This makes the build very all in. It is very hard to transition when you are constantly building out of 5 rax, a factory, and a starport. The amount of units that come for the followup push make up for this though.
One important thing is to stop producing SCVs once you get two base saturation and 3 gases.
Again, this is a very micro oriented build. Misclicks lose games with builds like this. I managed to get lucky and snipe his morphing banelings this game, but if they had formed, I would have split, picked up, and then kept on with the multipronged attacking!
~MorN_sc
MorN CC First Hyper-Agressive LotV TvZ
14 0:25 , Supply Depot
16 0:58 Command Center
17 1:13 Barracks
18 1:32 Refinery
22 2:12 Orbital Command x2
22 2:18 Bunker
23 2:34 Barracks
23 2:36 Barracks
23 2:45 Refinery, Barracks Reactor
26 3:03 Supply Depot
27 3:20 Refinery
29 3:24 Barracks Tech Lab x2
29 3:27 Factory
33 3:42 Engineering Bay
33 3:47 Stimpack
38 4:01 , Supply Depot x2
38 4:05 Combat Shields
39 4:12 Starport
39 4:13 Factory Reactor
39 4:20 Refinery
45 4:31 Terran Infantry Weapons Level 1
49 4:47 Supply Depot
52 4:59 Barracks
52 5:01 Barracks
58 5:18 Supply Depot x2
60 5:29 Factory Reactor
67 5:51 Barracks Reactor, Supply Depot
67 5:52 Barracks Reactor
View this replay on Spawning Tool
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0svEpeFf4w&feature=youtu.be&t=1h1m19s
This week I had a very hard time deciding which replay to feature on the front page. I knew I wanted it to be one of the games of PartinG vs TaeJa, but I didn’t know which one. There was the double cheese game that ended in a draw, then there was the game after on the same map in which TaeJa cheesed again, and there was this game. I chose this game because TaeJa finally realizes that he needs to mix it up to beat PartinG. In a standard macro game, TaeJa was stomped by PartinG.
In this game, TaeJa opens with a gas first. When one sees this opening, he can expect to see a 1/1/1 hyper-aggressive and possible allin from the Terran player. TaeJa decides he wants to mix in some mind games on this map though. When PartinG’s probe slips past the marine and gets into the base, he sees that the factory is moments from being finished. TaeJa immediately pulls all of his SCVs from gas and pools up to 400 minerals after the probe is dealt with. He soon after puts down a 3rd Command Center, being extremely greedy.
PartinG’s reaction to the potential aggression was to constantly chrono out stalkers and the warp gate tech, delaying his own economy. This puts TaeJa ahead because of his 2 extra command centers on the way. TaeJa also moves his hellion out onto the map to trick PartinG even more. The build that TaeJa showed made PartinG almost positive that it was a 2 hellion, 6 marine, 1 mine, 1 medivac attack at about 6 minutes. When TaeJa moves his hellion across the map, he makes PartinG think for even longer that the build he scouted was accurate information.
TaeJa takes advantage of this trick and goes EXTREMELY greedy. He stays on one gas for very long just so he can get his extra barracks out sooner, then takes 3 gases in progression to tech up as fast as possible. TaeJa also takes his third at the 9:30 mark.
Based on the stats and replays we have on Spawning Tool, it shows that PartinG only ever loses games when they go past the 16 minute mark. TaeJa must have been checking up on our valuable statistics 🙂 , because he wanted to get into the mid/late game as fast as possible!
If people say that INnoVation is a robot, I say that TaeJa is a piece of clay. In game 3 on Iron Fortress, in multple cases, his medivac drops were sniped. This ultimately was too costly and was one of the main reasons why he lost that game. In this game, TaeJa, when sending out drops, would drop one marine out to scout ahead and to the third positions the find PartinG’s army. TaeJa also goes double starport this game in order to counter PartinG’s large colossus count that overwhelmed him in game 3.
The multipronged aggression/multitasking from both players throughout the game was truly impressive. PartinG sends out a warp prism with DTs and attacks mutiple bases with it. TaeJa also defends this agression while killing PartinG’s third base!
Towards the end of this game, you can see why PartinG is known as one of the best players in the world: he just refuses to die. Even when TaeJa was a base up and microing his heart out, PartinG kept on taking good trades with his units and holding the Terran forces back.
TaeJa eventually overwhelms the Protoss army and wins despite PartinG’s efforts.
This game was extremely close. It is surprising that TaeJa, even when he is half retired, can still keep up and take games off of one of, if not the best, Protoss in the world.
-MorN_sc
- 9 0:54 Supply Depot
- 11 1:26 Refinery
- 13 1:50 Barracks
- 16 2:56 Orbital Command
- 16 2:58 Factory
- 17 3:14 Supply Depot
- 21 3:59 Pulls out of gas after being scouted
- 21 4:01 Widow Mine
- 24 4:19 Barracks Reactor
- 24 4:27 Command Center
- 24 4:34 Supply Depot
- 28 5:20 Command Center
- 29 5:46 Bunker
- 33 6:07 Orbital Command
- 33 6:17 Barracks
- 34 6:20 Barracks
- 37 6:40 Engineering Bay