LotV Featured Replay of the Week: Proxy Reaper into Cyclone (Bakemonoda)

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

Featured Replay of the Week: TY’s Abusing Terrain with Siege Tanks on Bridgehead!

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

MorN CC First Hyper-Aggressive TvZ

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

 

Featured Replay of the Week: TaeJa vs PartinG MindGames

View this replay on Spawning Tool

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

TaeJa vs PartinG Mind Games

  • 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

Featured Replay of the Week: Maru’s Proxy Marauder into Bio Tank

View this replay on Spawning Tool

Game 2. Overgrowth. Grand Finals. What do you expect Maru to do? Proxy of course. Maru goes for a proxy marauder. He places it right below Dream’s base, because he expects dream’s reaper to go scout to the his third, then go to Maru’s base (which would then make his barracks unscouted). These type of attempted mindgames only take place in matches where the players know each other very well.

After dream scouts the proxy marauder, he makes the choice to send his reaper to Maru’s base instead of using it to defend. This choice would let him get scv kills, while still defending his own base by pulling scvs.

Maru ends up getting a surround on the reaper which potentially saves this game for him. He had no units on his own side of the map, so this reaper could have been game ending.

After the multitasking dies down, maru goes 3cc! In units, he has a hellion, reaper, and a marauder to defend against any aggression that Dream would throw at him. This is the definition of greed, which is not usually Maru’s play style. He is usually the one multitasking the opponent and constantly applying pressure.

One of the more impressive things in this game is how Maru defended against Dream’s medivac drop at ~ 7:00. His micro is top notch. The fact that he defended this aggression so well means that he can get away with his 3cc. Dream’s followup banshee also gets deflected by a hidden widow mine!

The game evens up after Dream gets 8 scvs in a sneaky double medivac drop as Maru moves his army out onto the map. In order to kill just a little more scvs, he does not attack with his marines until he is on top of the mineral line.

Maru actually forgets combat shields and does not have it researched until ~17:00. Dream did not capitalize on this though.

At around the 18 minute mark, dream sneaks about 30 marines into Maru’s natural and ends up killing a command center. This forces Maru into a counter attack which kills dreams 3rd command center.

These guys are trading blow for blow in the mid-game. They both managed to get maxed by the 16 minute mark, but end up at 100 supply each at the 19 minute mark.

Maru who still has an army advantage and the air advantage closes in and forces Dream into a contain. With great siege tank placement he manages to stop the mining at the natural and forces dream to try something crazy.

Dream ends up trying for a surround by dropping marines behind Maru’s army then attacking with both halves. It almost works, because he has a slight upgrade advantage, but Maru’s medivac count is what saves him. Who would have thought this all started with a scouted proxy marauder? Well, I guess Maru would have ;P

-Morn_sc

TvT Maru’s Proxy Marauder into Bio Tank

  • 10 1:00 Supply Depot (send your proxy SCV at the same time)
  • 11 1:38 Barracks
  • 13 1:54 Refinery
  • 16 2:43 Barracks Tech Lab
  • 16 2:55 Orbital Command
  • 16 3:03 Supply Depot
  • 16 3:08 Marauder
  • 21 3:50 Reaper (defensive)
  • 21 4:29 Factory
  • 21 4:57 Command Center
  • 23 5:33 Starport
  • 24 5:49 Command Center
  • 25 5:56 Supply Depot
  • 25 6:04 Engineering Bay
  • 26 6:21 Hellion
  • 26 6:26 Viking
  • 26 6:29 Engineering Bay

Nathanias reviving the iEchoic build in LotV TvZ?

So far, the metagame in the Legacy of the Void beta has been hard to decipher while players are still figuring out the game. Openings are definitely inspired by existing builds, but exact timings and supply counts don’t match. Compositions from then on out are a mish-mash of all units with multiple pivots in-between. It has been really inspiring to see how players are using new units.

As I was going through LotV replays on Spawning Tool, however, I noticed that Nathanias has done new things with old units in reviving a version of the old iEchoic build from Wings of Liberty TvT. The exact build is not too important, but looking at the build order, the important thing is that he starts with Hellions and Banshees, then transitions into Hellions and Battlecruisers. That’s basically the idea.

The build worked in TvT with the basic assumption that there are 3 units that Terran have to counter air: Marines, Thors, and Vikings. At the time, Thors didn’t have the High Impact Payload, so with enough armor on Battlecruisers, neither Thors nor Marines could really handle them, except in very large numbers. Large numbers of Marines get roasted by blue flame Hellions, and Vikings can be countered by more Vikings, and hence, air superiority wins. And all of this can be achieved on a few Factories and Starports by moving add-ons back and forth.

In modern TvZ, Zerg has Queens, Hydralisks, Mutalisks, Corruptors, and Viper’s Parasitic Bomb. To be totally honest, I have no idea why this build should work. I guess standard ZvT is Muta-Ling-Bane. The only meaningful change as part of LotV that I can think of is the Tactical Jump, which would seem to help a lot.

Sorry for not providing more insight on this build, but I don’t have a VOD link, and I can’t watch the replays. Even so, hopefully there are more of you out there who are just as excited as I was to see this build come back. Let me know how this works for you in the beta!

Download the replay

Apollo shows us HotS builds in LotV (and how to adjust build order timings)

Most streamers are trying new, fancy things in LotV. Openings are adapting for the economy changes. New units are everywhere. Not Apollo. Apollo knows HotS builds, and he’s using HotS strategies. And they seem to work, more or less. It might not be the most innovative StarCraft play, but this is really helpful for us because it helps us compare timings from old HotS builds versus LotV builds.

We have some writeups from his past tutorials, though the most useful one is probably his Terran in HotS. Here’s an example build he used in TvT. It is a very standard Reaper Expand into Starport

Apollo’s HotS TvT

  • 1:00 10 Supply Depot
  • 1:37 12 Barracks (at ramp)
  • 1:50 12 Refinery (delay next SCV slightly)
  • 2:45 15 Orbital Command, Supply Depot (at ramp), Reaper (scout)
  • 3:40 18 Reactor (Marine x2 when ready)
  • 4:00 19 Command Center (in-base)
  • 4:12 20 Factory
  • 4:36 21 Marine x2
  • 24 Marine x2
  • 5:15 27 Starport, Hellion x2, Swap, Orbital Command

 

Compare this to a build he just used on stream against ForGG.

Apollo’s LotV TvT

  • 14 0:20 Supply Depot
  • 16 0:42 Barracks
  • 16 0:52 Refinery
  • 19 Reaper, Orbital Command (continuous Marines afterwards)
  • 20 Command Center (at natural)
  • 21 Supply Depot
  • 23 2:10 Factory
  • 23 Refinery
  • 30 2:56 Starport (delayed because of pathing, Medivac when it’s done), Tech Lab on Factory
  • 35 3:00 Bunker
  • 35 Cyclone (Tank next)
  • 4:26 Command Center, Barracks x2
  • 4:45 Tank drop starts
  • 5:30 Barracks x3

There are a few differences we have to account for between HotS and LotV builds:

1. Supply counts are about +4 from before. This begins with the Supply Depot going down at 14 instead of 10 and continues forward. This, of course, affects the minerals available, but most builds are timed out based on the tech tree, not minerals, so it works out

2. Times start about 40 seconds earlier. Because of the increase from 6 to 12 starting workers, builds start earlier. Use this as a delta on your builds.

3. The game clock is faster by a factor of ~1.4. Legacy of the Void has blessed us with a game clock that is the same as real-time, so your 15 minute game actually takes 15 minutes, not 11 minutes.

These changes lead to the build adjustment formula for HotS Terran builds to LotV Protoss builds, which I will coin as “Apollo’s First Law of Void”

LotV = (HotS – 40) / 1.4

By the way, Apollo crushed ForGG in that game. My rough analysis is that Cyclones are good in small numbers, but they aren’t a backbone to a Mech army, because mass Marines work pretty well.

Tune into Apollo’s stream if you get a chance. He’s a great player to learn from.

Moving to blog.spawningtool.com

In an effort to realign content, I will be moving this blog to http://blog.spawningtool.com. It isn’t up yet, but I figured I would post forewarning in case I am not able to make a smooth transition. I will post again afterwards.

Since I’m posting, here are a few tidbits.

First, I’m excited for the upcoming launch of the Legacy of the Void (LotV) beta! There aren’t too many surprises in the announcement, but I’m glad to see it coming so soon. There will probably need to be some changes to Spawning Tool to accommodate Legacy of the Void, but I haven’t really figured out the details there. Hopefully I can get into the beta early and play the game.

Second, speaking of playing, I played a game this morning, which is more noteworthy than it should be. The game was unremarkable, and I feel bad for my opponent. I went for a Reaper expand into a (not very good) 10 minute timing attack while they opened 3 Hatch before Pool. I saw 1 Overlord early, so I took a slightly different path to their base, and in the process, I think I might have (unintentionally) perfectly skirted around the vision of 3 Overlords. I think they were probably surprised.

Third, I think I’m going to play around with more Ghost builds. I saw this reddit post lamenting the diminishing importance of the Ghost, and I figured I should give it a shot. I don’t know any Ghost builds or how to even integrate Ghosts into a composition other than late game TvP, but I’ll report back on what I find, hopefully.

See you on the other side at http://blog.spawningtool.com!

Build orders from KT Flash’s stream

If you missed all of the buzz, Flash streamed himself laddering for almost 3 hours earlier today. You can find the recording on twitch, but if you’re just interested in his build orders, I have them here. Let me know if you see any mistakes; I probably missed things (like I think I missed him get combat shields most of the time), so let me know what i need to fill in

Game 1 – TvP on Frost LE http://www.twitch.tv/ktrolsterflash/b/453050408?t=5m10s

Bio

  • 10 Supply Depot
  • 14 Command Center (at natural)
  • 14 Barracks
  • 16 Barracks
  • 17 Scout
  • 18 Marine (basicall constantly)
  • 19 Bunker (at natural choke)
  • 19 Orbital Command x2
  • 21 Refinery
  • 22 Refinery
  • 26 Supply Depot
  • 28 Tech Lab on Barracks
  • 30 Supply Depot
  • 32 Stimpack
  • 5:50 34 Engineering Bay (gets upgrades at some point)
  • 37 Reaper? (I think he needs a better scout)
  • 6:30 +1 weapons
  • 42 Reactor on Barracks
  • 6:45 Missile Turret at natural
  • 44 6:55 Factory (Reactor when done)
  • 47 7:15 3rd Refinery
  • 7:45 54 Command Center (in base)
  • 7:55 Starport
  • (Still Marines)
  • 65 8:40 Barracks x3
  • 8:55 swap Starport onto Reactor, Medivac x2, Refinery
  • 9:10 +1 armor
  • 9:30 pushing out with only Marines
  • 9:45 starts producing Marauders
  • 10:15 3rd base taken
  • 11:00 Engineering Bay, Armory
  • 11:20 takes gases at 3rd base
  • 12:00 Vikings start coming out (he saw Colossi with earlier push)
  • 12:30 Starport, +1 air weapons

Wins in about 16:00 Continue reading

WCS Season 1 Finals brought to you by: Hellbats

Unless you’re in Europe (or similar time zones), I hope you caught the WCS season finals last night. Well, at least I hope you caught the semifinals because both of those series were very entertaining. The finals were mostly forgettable as INnoVation rolled SoS, which is really too bad.

I think it would be fair to summarize all Terran play this weekend as Hellbats. Terran strategy has shifted to drop-focused play, and they’re really preferring Hellbats over Widow Mines. I noticed that even when Hellbat drops appeared to be ineffective, Terran still didn’t fall behind. My guess is that the combination of

  1. cheap Hellbats (it’s cheaper to fill a Medivac with 2 Hellbats than even 8 Marines)
  2. money spend on required static defense
  3. lost mining time

make it a tricky proposition to deal with right now. The INnoVation versus aLive quarterfinal game was just painful to watch. TvT seems the most affected by Hellbats at the moment because mech has become the standard style (as opposed to bio or bio-tank), but we’ll see if that mobility swings things around again.

Anyways, I got 1 interesting strategy out of this. On Neo Planet S, SoS pulled out a Tempest-High Templar strategy on INnoVation that looked awesome (VoD here). Standard TvP is bio with Vikings for Colossi and Ghosts for High Templar. SoS’s plan was to use Tempests to shoot down everything, and when the Vikings and Marines came, he would back off onto 1 of the many high ground areas around the map and storm the Vikings/Marines. The strategy is very gas-intensive, so a lot of minerals get dumped into Photon Cannons (Tempests are slow to defend against a mobile bio army) and Zealots to take damage and harass.

By this game, SoS wasn’t playing very well, which has been attributed to nerves. There was a time when INnoVation wasn’t mining, so I like to think that the strategy might have worked. I think it is pretty specific to Neo Planet S and its rings of high ground, but you should try it on other maps and see how it goes.

Let me know if you want me to write up any rough timings or build order from the game.