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:
TvX 14 CC (HotS)
- 10 Supply Depot
- 14 Command Center
- 15 Barracks
- 16 Barracks
- 19 Bunker (at choke into natural)
- 19 Marine, Marine
- Double gas around 32 supply