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Recently I've been trying out a new ZvZ opening - I'm not sure if it has a name but I'm calling it the great build because great was the first player I saw using it.
The basic structure is: inbase 12h 11p gas and 3 drones in some order 8 lings when your pool finishes speed, pull drones off gas hatchery at your natural
Putting your hatchery in base lets you defend against 9 pool a lot easier than normal 12 hatch. Whereas previous inbase 12 hatch builds were just ling allins, taking your nat means you are in a playable position if your lings don't instantly win you the game.
I know of four pro games in which this build was used - if you know any others please post them! This build is best on 4 player maps (all of those games took place on 4 player maps). Also, the proper building placement and overlord scouting pattern for this build is a bit different than for a normal build. Here are those games:
great vs Zero (10 hatch) @ Circuit Breaker Build notes: extractor starts at 2:33 (all times are taken from the overlay timer), natural starts at 2:47. great never puts any drones back on gas. Analysis: Zero's first ling attack looks a little scary (great pulled 3 drones to help defend it) but once great held that off he's got a larvae advantage AND a drone advantage and is in a dominant position. In this game Zero tries to transition to mutas and gets rolled by mass ling, but had he instead played safer great will probably just be able to beat him with mutas. 10 hatch is a ling allin that relies on a larvae advantage but the great build has the larvae advantage so it's not surprising that this was mostly a build order win for great.
great vs Hydra (12 pool) @ Dante's Peak great's build order: Build notes: extractor starts at 2:06, natural starts at 3:16. A drone goes back on gas at about 3:50. A lair is morphing at 5:07 so my guess is great started it as soon as he had enough gas from that one drone. At 5:38 we see 2 drones on gas. Analysis: Again we have a somewhat scary moment early on - I guess with a build this greedy most games will work out that way. Hydra reacts well to the build and makes the necessary defenses to not die to lings. It costs a lot! great transitions beautifully into mutas and spores and from here on out we're in a pretty standard spore/muta vs no spores but superior muta count game, which great plays extremely well (it helps that he's got positional imbalance on his side). This is a sweet game and there's a lot of stuff worth analyzing about these sorts of setups but the point that I want to make is that great has ended up in a playable position.
great vs Hydra (12 hatch) @ Circuit Breaker Build notes: extractor starts at 2:08, natural starts at 3:22. We see a drone on gas at about 3:55. Analysis: Hydra gets lair first and a quick sunk and great responds by making drones instead of lings. great's inevitable ling attack is a failure and his spore colonies were not up in time to protect his drones from mutas. I wish I could ask great what he should have done differently this game because I doubt that what Hydra did simply hard counters great's build.
Saint vs Soulkey (12 hatch) @ Circuit Breaker Build notes: gas on 13 Analysis: Saint's gets badly outplayed, and it seems like he is in a losing position after his lings fail to kill Soulkey.
Does anyone else have any experience playing this build? When I play it usually either I kill them with lings or I lose to mutas because knowing when to transition out of mass lings is really hard. I'm also not sure how you should respond differently to 12 hatch or 12 pool.
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I did it and got 9poolspeeded by someone who scouted me very quickly. My lings still came way too late.
I'm not really sure what it's good against... If it isn't safe vs 9poolspeed (especially on 2player maps), it's hard to justify doing it in base instead of at the natural. What do you really gain? If he 12 pooled or 12 hatched then it would have been better to put it at your natural, and if he 9pool speeded you're still dead in a lot of situations.
I want to try maybe experimenting with inbase 9hatch9pool maybe... and go into a 3 hatch at my natural of course. It's the quest to develop safe play which can evolve into the lategame, really, which is why 3 hatch is ideal. But then... if you're going to 9hatch anyway, you might as well do it at your natural unless the timing is just enough that it only survives if it's in main vs 9pool speed.
The safest zvz build I know is 11pool gas, speed lair, take a drone off to get hatchery, and then put it back on.... That seems to get me through 90% of my ZvZs without feeling severely disadvantaged and allowing my skill to decide the match. However, that build is more or less standard muta/ling zvz, which is what Great's build is trying to get away from so that this matchup can be revolutionized.
If you're losing to muta in your transition, make sure you're placing spore colonies properly. It's necessary to get spores when your opponent's spire is faster but you have a better economy.
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I remember most of the games Great tried this, the opponent got to his base pretty late... IIRC at least...
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On May 15 2011 23:54 Chef wrote: I did it and got 9poolspeeded by someone who scouted me very quickly. My lings still came way too late.
I'm not really sure what it's good against... If it isn't safe vs 9poolspeed (especially on 2player maps), it's hard to justify doing it in base instead of at the natural. What do you really gain? If he 12 pooled or 12 hatched then it would have been better to put it at your natural, and if he 9pool speeded you're still dead in a lot of situations. If he scouts you first and went 9pool speed, yeah that sucks (your lings come at the same time they do with 12 hatch), although you're still better off than if you had 12 hatched at your natural because you can get a sunk and not have to cancel your hatchery.
You should really only do this on a 4 player map, and given that, your best defense against 9pool is your non-standard overlord scout pattern: you send your first overlord halfway towards the base you would expect them to come from, then change its direction. For example, people normally send their first overlord clockwise on FS since that's the closest natural, so you send your first overlord counterclockwise. With this scouting pattern, the only way a 9pooling player learns where you are in time without drone scouting is if he sent his first overlord towards you (in which case if he sent it the way people normally do your first overlord went towards him as well). With a normal scouting pattern (send first overlord towards one not-crossmap base, send second overlord to the other) your first overlord can meet his second overlord or if you are crossmap both of your first overlords can meet at another main, but your scouting pattern avoids both of those.
Placing your initial hatchery inbase is something you do because they scout it later and it's better against 9pool and no different against 12pool or 12hatch since in that case it makes no difference whether you place your 2nd hatchery inbase and your 3rd hatchery at your natural or vice versa. The main thing this build gives you is the third hatchery, but it comes at the cost of not being able to play standard and tech to mutas.
I'm not sure if it's good against anything in particular if you don't win with lings, but the fact that great was able to beat Hydra with it suggests that it's not useless.
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9/10 hatch-at-natural 9/10 pool speed openings follow a similar path, but they're more aggressive and lower econ. (Yes, it's safe against 9 Pool Speed openings... actually, 9 pools are much easier to play against than other builds because your opponent will not have the economy to mount a proper defense while teching spire without choking himself.)
In-base 12 hatch is undeniably safer than building at the natural. Your Zerglings spawn together, your drones can pull to help them far more easily, and the option to place a Sunken Colony (possibly in your mineral line) is always there. Furthermore, against a faster Zergling Speed, you can just camp your ramp. (Which might delay your natural, but it's probably fine to do so.)
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United States11390 Posts
Judgement Day has a bit too many oddities in zvz for it to be applicable though.
Hat in main though is a really strong opening there for other reasons ie how hard it is to actually hold the gas expo in addition to your main.
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There's a big difference though, since there's 3 resource locations and 3 places to spore up (1 place to sunk)
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Yo I'm pretty sure the Korean commentators said 10hatch when great used the Hive build in the MSL Finals set 1....the quick 10 lings at first with one on gas after speed and then getting the 3rd hatch ASAP is what makes the larvae useful. If you 12 hatch inbase I'm pretty sure you get screwed in more ways than just 10hatching.
Then he gets 4 lings and pressures a bit more, gets 2nd drone on gas after lair starts, and then 3rd gas somewhere over the rainbow time.
What really makes me nervous about this build is that you have more larvae but still a 'normal' amount of drones so if you become trigger-happy with the s and z keys you're screwed, esp. if they start building sunks like Hydra did. I think the key point of the build isn't this but the spire/evo/spore timing in conjunction with drone/ling production...because that's when it really matters.
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it seems that the 12 hatch in main is soft counter to 10 hatch ling all in, and soft countered by regular 12 hatch.
I'm not sure if this is too off topic but has anyone ever used a 3 hatch before pool to soft counter a 12 hatch?
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On May 17 2011 15:08 Release wrote: it seems that the 12 hatch in main is soft counter to 10 hatch ling all in, and soft countered by regular 12 hatch.
I'm not sure if this is too off topic but has anyone ever used a 3 hatch before pool to soft counter a 12 hatch?
I guess this is possible if you get a lucky scout and both players go 12h to start? Considering on a 4p map, the first ovie usually gets to the natural several seconds after the nat goes down...
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On May 17 2011 15:08 Release wrote: I'm not sure if this is too off topic but has anyone ever used a 3 hatch before pool to soft counter a 12 hatch? Close air positions on Python or Lost Temple. You have overlords watching each other to see who puts down a pool first, and soft counter their opening with a later pool.
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