when I First set my eyes on dreamliner I instantly fell in Love with it
here are a few reasons.
1.I instantly liked the fact that there is a short Rush distance, a rather short Push distance and another kinda long Push distance. but with the longer one being good for StrongeR pushes.
here I depicted it
red is the Rush distance
YellOw is the short Push distance
and Green is the long and powerful Push distance
for any of you who don't know what I mean by more powerful Push distance you can observe the fact that Green goes on high-high ground(don't know how to call it lol) and will be attacking downhill on area B... Where the opponents army will probably be positioned therefore giving you a high ground advantage at the expense of speed. I thought that choosing the right Push route might be the difference between victory and defeat in a lot of games.
2. another Reason why I liked this map a lot is that the 3rd and fourth looks rather easy to defend.
for instance... having your army positioned in area A pretty much secures that 3rd Gas
and having some form of Control over area C also gives a fairly easy fourth Gas. so I thought the lategame could very well be about controlling area C (keep in mind having C also gives easy access to the island and gives easy attacks on your opponents own fourth Gas.)
3. I loved the fact that there are islands expansion considering the short Air distance. therefore a player going for some sort of a drop play has a Nice transition since he can secure both islands.
4 it's a plane :p
ok so I thought this map would give very interesting games in ZvT so I am all hyped about the map.
and then... I look at the map Stats
1-8 TvZ
I was shocked because I certainly did not thought it would be THAT imbalanced...sure the Air distance is pretty short but I thought it should be managable and even if I was wrong...1-8...that's worse then Battle royale.
therefore I embarked on a journey to discover what is exactly THAT Imba on this map... I have watched all 9 vods on this map and here are my thoughts about them
First Game
great vs Sea
in this Game great did a Really Cool build...he went with a normal muta harass but delayed
the lurkers a bit for a faster hive.he harassed very conservatively with his mutas... once hive rolled he got BOTH a greater spire and a defiler mound. now I was thinking he would try to harass with the guardians but instead he used those guardians to defend against the ball while simultaneously pushing with defilers and Lurker ling. sweet build but I don't think great abused any map feature except the rather short base distance maybe.
second Game
Hyuk vs RuBy
Hyuk goes 12pool 2 hatch muta variation and starts doing his harass... harass don't do too much damage at First but Hyuk does a mutaling bust and manages to snipe all the turrets at the Natural he goes on to make devastating damages and win the game
third Game
Leta vs Kwanro
ok so I could write a battle report but the OSL Team already has quite a good one
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=132556
here Leta wins by going 2-port wraith ... thus reversing the short Air distance on the zergs... that close Air distance is looking like the culprit for the imbalance so far. very Smart of Leta to do that.
fourth Game
ZerO vs Really "infamous Rage quit"
the battle report here is much more complete because It's the Only Game so far that has not been won by abusing the Air distance (beside great vs Sea)
Many people did not like this Game but I found ZerO's Build to be very Smart and tailor-made for this map.
Really starts the Game by doing a manner e-bay to delay ZerO's expansion and doing a 14CC himself. ZerO goes 3 hatch( I was glad because I was getting sick of watching 2 hatch mutas) and starts pumping quite a bit of lings. and ZerO does not get a spire but a Hydra den. Really scans this and moves out with his MnM toward ZerO's Natural but ZerO manages to sneak a Control group of lings past his forces and he sends them harass the worker Line
lings get in
meanwhile Really sees that there are Only 2 sunkens at ZerO's Natural and he tries to break them
sunken break
but ZerO's lukers pop Just in time and he manages to defend while losing Only 2 lurkers.
just a little bit too late Really
meanwhile ZerO pulled the lings that were at Really's Natural and
"we're surrounded Sarge"
ok so at this Point I believe everyone agrees that ZerO has a pretty good advantage and he uses this advantage to take a third Gas AND the Mineral Only and here comes the brilliant part about ZerO's play in this Game...instead of rushing defilers like you normally do he made a big lair army to fight toe-to-toe against the terran army.
I thought this was especially brilliant because...as I explained during my map analysis earlier in this article...late-game dreamliner is(I believe) mostly about controlling important pieces of terrain like Area C...this lair centered army of ZerO let him take great map Control and gave him ridiculously easy expansions. this lair army is very mobile too so ZerO could abuse the Green Push route a lot and give him big flanks on Really's army.
ZerO uses his mobility to make a flank using both Yellow Push route and Green Push route
now the brilliance in ZerO's build does not quite stop here...once ZerO got hive did he transition Into defilers to back this army? NO...he got fast ultras.
the reasoning behind this is that defilers are a very slow unit...getting ultras before defilers let ZerO continue to use his superior mobility to take more expansions. also...ZerO's lair army strategy forces him to get a large ammount of upgrades on his troops so the ultras out upgraded the marines ... once Really cleans up ZerO's flanking force showed on the picture above...it's already too late, 4-3 ultras are out.(4-2 maybe...I had a hard time distinguishing the upgrade count on the youtube video).
circled in Green on the mini-map...more ultralings, in blue is Really's ball having to come all the way back and clean this up while taking heavy losses.
ZerO finally got defilers
about time
but he got them precisely when 11o'clock was finally secured and all this extra mobility was no longer needed...perfect timing.
as a result of all these strategies based on army mobility let us look at the expansion count.
that's 6 to three... ZerO is currently taking the middle. Really's main is mined out so I did not include it
after that Really snipes two bases but ZerO is still on 5 bases and Really Only has 1 non-mined out expansion
ragequit
so this time ZerO played the map nearly perfectly in a very creative manner. Terrans will need to do like zero and find ways to play the map and take advantage of those easy expansions...if they ever make it past the mutas.(damn that 12pool 2 hatch mutas)
fifth Game
Action vs fOrGG
Action does a 2 hatch speedling all-in and it it goes unscouted
I don't think this worked due to the short Rush distance...probably would have worked on any map. imo not Really dreamliner's fault. (though the short Rush distance certainly did help)
sixth Game
Shine vs HiyA
Shine does a 2 hatch speedling all-in and it goes unscouted. this happening twice in a row is making me think that the Rush distance might possibly be a bit too short.
Edit: Waxangel told me that the rush distance ia actually 30 seconds which is correct... the short rush distance is in no way responsible for the imbalance and as I said in Action vs fOrGG this could have worked on any map.
seventh Game
Killer vs sKyHigh
in this one Killer goes mass mutas all-in and it works. what sKyHigh could have done better is get a better BarrackS turrets positioning ... he could have backed off with his MnM a bit earlier too. I think skyhigh had the right idea by going out in the open with his marines and having the mutas not attack his mineral lines.
eighth Game
Jaedong vs Ssak
I have high hopes for this one since I did not watch it and Jaedong don't cheese too often.
Jaedong went mass mutas... Ssak had a cute wall-off Where he put a rax, a CC and an Academy to wall off. he also had the right idea I believe by getting a valk...but getting a valk after losing Infinity workers won't help you Win unfortunately.
ninth Game ( at Last)
Hydra vs BaBy
ok...so BaBy gets an overlord snipe and should be thankfull to god that this will delay the dreadful 12 pool mutas...instead, he pulls 7 SCV and tries to bunker Rush Hydra when the hatch is almost done...Hydra pulls a few drones snipe a Marine builds a sunken and voila.
that was more BaBy having some of the worse decision making Ever then dreamliner being Imba.
CONCLUSION
-12 pool 2 hatch muta is way too powerful on this map, Terran will need to find a way to defend it if they want to have a single chance of winnig...I believe Leta had it right when he decided to 2-port wraiths (incidentally Only Leta won). I think Ssak also had it right by making a valk...T will need to find a way to pump valks faster then 12 pool 2 hatch muta though, or at least Just a bit later (is that possible?) Both me and the mapmakers severely under-estimated that possibility when doing First analysis of this map.
-Terrans were not cautious enough of cheeses in my opinion...with such a short Rush distance 2 hatch speedling all-in is going to happen all the time and they should be very cautious... scout a lot etc..
-now I think the 3rd Gas is a bit easy to secure.Really only managed to attack it once or twice in ZerO vs Really hard to tell since everyone except ZerO and great cheesed T_T.I think T will have to do like zero and come up with builds that take advantage of this feature of the map.
-I believe that if Terrans manage to overcome this dificulty then this map is going to give wonderful games but if they don't...Dreamliner should be stored in the same box then battle royale. I Really did not know what could T who faced mass muta do to fend it off...anyone has an idea? I think skyhigh had it right when he moved out with his marines...maybe backing off a bit earlier with them though
-In conclusion it is a lot too easy for zergs to cheese on this map and even when they do not cheese I find this map to be Z favored because the 3rd gas looks kinda easy to take. Terrans will need to find a way around 2 hatch mutas and make sure they scout any 2 hatch speedling all-in attempt
ok thanks for reading...hope you had as much fun reading this then I had fun making it :p
feel free to give feedback
Edit: something I forgot to express is that I don't feel the map is as imbalanced as the stats show because 1-8 is pretty brutal. I would not call it 1-8 imbalance but Terrans really need to find a way around 2 hatch mutas. even when(if) they do I think it will be a bit zerg favored but still playable for T and will give pretty awesome games
Edit: while I agree with all of those that said that 9 games is a small sample size but I only wanted to show why Terrans have been losing so far... I also expressed in my comments and in the above Edit that I don't think the map will be imbalanced once terran manage to deal with 12 pool 2 hatch mutas but that it will be a bit zerg favored nonetheless. waiting for 10 or more games to be played would have lead this thread to have been made at a date where this would no longer be as relevant as it currently is (read before the finals or semi-finals).
Zero vs really was the only game that had a large coverage because it was the only game of interest, beside Leta vs Kwanro that was already covered by OSL team.I was thinking of doing a better write up for great vs sea but I am a bit tired and this already took me a lot of time. sorry if there are some weird capitalization...it did not cross my mind when I pressed TLPD-ise that Push and Air and etc. were players T_T. I did not feel like correcting those capitalization