Hello TeamLiquid, I’m JayPower and this is my 3rd guide and first video tutorial I bring you. This time it is a PvZ build that Naniwa used almost exclusively during his livestream session on the 17th of July. I did download the VOD’s of the stream session and studied the build closely. Unfortunately they’re not available on his twitch.tv channel anymore (his whole channel is gone). Naniwa did showcase this build in the TSL against JonnyREcco however, if you want to study it being executed by him.
Build overview
This build is a very oldschool gateway expand style but with fewer sentries. You do get the forge with the cannon to secure your natural but you get the cybercore first to tech faster and force your opponent to get his zergling speed before his 3rd hatch.
With a fast stargate you will be able to harrass your opponent very early. Even though you start your stargate at roughly the same time as a FFE’ing player would do, your stargate tech will be earlier than your opponent’s tech because he couldn’t open with a 3 hatch before gas build. Your opponent will have to get gas earlier to get zergling speed and this will delay his 3rd base.
Once you have your phoenix out harassing, scouting and giving you map control, there’s a lot of things you can do after it. Naniwa prefers a fast twilight council (for blink) with a fast robo behind it. This gives you a lot of flexibility since you have easy access to immortals, robo bay (colossus) templar archives (storm/archons) or even a dark shrine. You even have easy access to a fleat beacon with the stargate. The robo will be used depending on what you scout. You will at least get an observer (or more) for mobile detection then tech towards an army composition that counters your opponent’s. You can all-in with this blink observer composition you have, or take a 3rd base.
This pylon could be at your opponents natural (and actually let it finish), Naniwa likes to do that. This might cause your opponent to take his 2nd base at his 3rd base location. This will play into your hand because your opponent will find out a bit later, with his overlord scout, that you’re on 1 base. He will most likely cancel his 2nd base because on most maps it’s extremely difficult to defend a 4gate if you’re spread out like that. Make sure to replace the pylon fast if it’s getting killed so that you can keep producing probes. Of course you can simply put the 2nd pylon in your main base.
18 zealot
You can of course skip the zealot if don’t like to get one. This will get you a slightly faster nexus (23/28 instead of 27/34), so before your 3rd pylon. You can even go nexus before stalker, this will delay your stalker by quite some time though.
23 Stalker
Right now you can pressure your opponent with your zealot (which should be on his way to your opponents base already) and the stalker. Make sure to remember when your opponents zergling speed will finish (assuming he got his gas), timings for that will be in this guide as well.
24 Pylon (at natural) 27 Nexus / 2nd gas 28 forge (at natural) / stargate (in main) 31 pylon 32 cannon / 2nd gate to wall off natural
You can make the forge / stargate / 2nd gate in almost any order you want, depending on how greedy you want to play. I recommend forge first though, it is always good to get that quick cannon up after that the stargate and then the 2nd gateway.
Your stargate will finish around 6:30 if you went forge before stargate. From here on out the build is pretty straight forward. You just make phoenix and go harras with them, it takes 4 phoenix to take down a queen or a roach in 1 lift. You can get more though if you feel like it though. Your 3rd and 4th gas will be around 54 supply. This isn’t an exact timing but rather a direction, when you use this build more often you’ll get it sooner/later to match your playstyle.
Even though you’ll have 2 gateway’s, make sure to make as few units as possible in the early game so that you can get your production (gateway’s) up earlier, this will result in you having more units later. Make sure you are save from any attacks though. If you are completely clueless to what your opponent might be doing, you can send out your first phoenix to scout right away.
- 9 Pylon / 13 gateway / 14 gas - 16 pylon (in main base) / 17 cybercore - 18 zealot / 23 stalker - 27 nexus / 2nd gas / forge (at natural) - 28 Stargate (in main base) - 32 cannon (at natural) / 2nd gate (at natural) - 54~ 3rd and 4th gas
Quick tips
Here is a list of some useful tips you want to be aware of while doing this build.
- If a queen injects, the hold position on it is lost and you can lure it out of spore crawler range again. - Make sure to target the queen once you lift it up with the phoenix if there are overlords nearby. You don’t want to waste any phoenix shots on the overlords causing you to use 2 lifts to kill 1 queen. - It takes 6 fungals to kill a full health/shield phoenix. - If you plan to expand, you can fully wall-off your natural on some maps to feel more save. (ohana + entombed valley). - On some maps you can put you zealot in a very nice position to hold the watchtower. It makes it a lot harder for the zerg to pick it off. Use your stalker and sentry to wall your natural. - Phoenix can lift your own units too. You can use this to pick up stalkers that are surrounded by speedlings for example. - Use phoenix to prevent units from retreating. - Don’t hesitate to get a voidray out if you see your opponent makes a lot of roaches to pressure you expansion. You might not have enough immortals out. You can use this voidray to harass even more in combination with the phoenix’.
Priority when you use your phoenix’:
If your opponent didn’t scout (most likely no spores): 1. Go straight for the queens at his hatcheries to cripple his production 2. Try to kill drones if the spores aren’t ready yet 3. Kill overlords around the map to prevent your opponent from scouting. 4. Stay active around opponent’s base with the phoenix.
If your opponent did scout, you have to assume that spores are ready (evo chambers build quite fast):
1. Go for overlords around the map right away, this will prevent your opponent from scouting your next tech choice. 2. Stay active around opponents base and try to pick off anything out of the range of spores (drones/overlords/queens transferring)
Video tutorial
For this guide I made a video tutorial on YouTube where I explain the build and go over replays of my own.
0:00 – 03:22
This is the first part where I’m doing the build overview. I elaborate on the build order and offer alternatives.
3:22 – 38:54
This is the second part where I’m analyzing my own replays. Mostly showing the numerous things that phoenix can do and how you should respond to what your opponent is doing.
38:54 – 43:31
In this last part I’m giving a list of quick tips and timings that you can apply when you’re doing this build.
Game 1 – Quantic.NaNiwa vs Dignitas.JonnyREcco – TSL4 Ro32 Match 5
In this game we can see Naniwa open with the same type of expand opening but gets the twilight instead of the stargate. This really shows how well you can switch up the tech in this build and not being limited to one build order.
Game 2 – Quantic.NaNiwa vs Dignitas.JonnyREcco – TSL4 Ro32 Match 5
In this game Naniwa went for the phoenix opening into a colossus expand.
In this game my opponents decided to baneling bust me. With a probe scout, a clutch forcefield and a good wall-off I was able to hold off the aggression, being up 10 workers and my 4th phoenix on the way. With the limited tech (lair nowhere near started) and the low queen count I was able to pick off everything travelling between the main and the natural while taking my 3rd base at the same time as the zerg. With the map control that I gained with the phoenix’ I was able to see this final baneling bust coming and held it off.
In this game my opponent `went for a 2 base nydus/hydra play. Even though my colossus tech was late and he got nydus up in my main, I was able to hold off his attack. The phoenix helped me out greatly in this game, picking off a lot of queen and numerous overlords
Here occurred the situation I talked about earlier about the 2nd pylon placement. I blocked his natural with my second pylon, my opponent responded by taking his 3rd base right away. After his overlord saw that I had nothing at my natural and was opening with a 1base play, he canceled his expansion right away. I wanted to pressure this expansion with a 3gate attack after expand, but after I saw he canceled his base and was mining gas, I stuck to the original build order.
My opponent tried to do a big 3 base roach/infestor attack. I was already preparing with immortals and a big amount of gateway units (ideally I would want to get colossus as well but I wasn’t sure when he was going to attack). My opponent spend all his infestor energy to kill 4 phoenix’, this triggered me to attack. The game went to a base trade but I managed to win the game quite convincingly.
This game is probably one of the sloppiest I played. My opponent went for a roach hydra’s composition. With some bad macro on my part I almost lost the game, but my opponent didn’t add corruptors with his army so I was able to close the game out with a colossus push.
This game isn’t a ladder game but a practice game between me and a clanmate. This game shows really well that if you keep a you phoenix very active, you can pick off a lot of stuff (queens/drones/overlords) even though your opponent has 2 spore’s per base. Most player will set their queen to hold position near a spore so that they won’t walk out of range to attack the phoenix (this happens automatically if you don’t set it to hold position). But if your opponent injects with the queen, the hold position resets and you can lure the queen out of the range of the spore again to pick it up.
Also in this game you can see the full potential of making very few units early and getting your gateway’s up as soon as possible. I decided to follow my phoenix harass up with a 7gate blink stalker all-in with +2. Even though my opponent had a very good defense in the making (roach/ling with infestors), I was able to make almost every infestor useless by making them spend energy on the phoenix (it takes 6 fungals to kill a full health/shield phoenix) or killing them with the phoenix.
You can see in the end that im floating quite some money almost causing me the game. This is why I recommend (even to low-mid master players) to get 1 or 2 additional gates. It is very difficult to lift off units with your phoenix, forcefield and blink stalker micro during a battle while worrying about your warp-ins.
In this game you can see how bigger maps can benefit this playstyle very well. We spawned cross position and my opponent assumed that I was FFE’ing. When he found out that there was no nexus at 4:30 into the game he canceled his 3rd hatchery and took a double gas to get zergling speed asap. With his late speed, my zealot and stalker were able to take down 10 slow lings in total (I did loes the zealot).
This game really shows how cost efficient the phoenix/blink stalker composition can be, especially if you catch your opponent off guard. This game I was able to kill 2 queens, 7 overlords and 8 drones in 4 minutes.
In this game you can see 2 other great uses for the phoenix’. The first is to kill off roaches once you opponent’s bases are 100% harassment-proof. If your opponent moves out, or isn’t near a spore with his roaches you can just pick one up and kill it. You’re trading energy for minerals/gas. Another thing you can do is prevent units of your opponent from retreating. This goes very well with the blink stalker combination. This game was very back and forward, my opponent put a lot of pressure on me. But if you hold off the aggression, you can just lift off the retreating units of your opponent.
In a standard macro game with lots of aggression/harassment from both sides, I was able to win the game.
This game was a very straight forward macro game. I tried to go for the 3rd very early but my opponent already had roaches out fast. Because my robo was late I didn’t have access to immortals so I decided to make a voidray to help defend my 3rd. This voidray also helped in combination with the phoenix to put on a lot more aggression on the zerg. Other than that the game was very standard.
If you’re looking for a more in-dept analysis of my game where I go over what I’m thinking at what point in the game, I recommend watching the VOD on my YouTube channel. I’ll explain what my thought process is from what I’m scouting and present you different things you can do to react to what you scout. I make an analysis video for every replay.
Please give me feedback on the guide / video guide. I know my voice sounds very boring and I never get excited, I’m still working on that. Is there another way you would prefer that I setup these video or do you think something is missing? I am working on some audio / video clips and a own logo to make the intro / outro a bit more interesting. So please give me suggestions on how I can improve.
On August 19 2012 20:47 Pimpmuckl wrote: Any usual transitions on this? I guess the usual Colossus Push would work wonders? Nice guide!
A good follow-up that I like is blink stalkers all-in or expand with a quick robo behind it. Phoenix and blink stalkers are just so cost-efficient together. Of course with the quick phoenix you can scout and counter your opponent. The phoenix will arrive before the lair is done most of the time so you get easy scouting. But yea you're right, colossus pushes are a really good follow-up, be careful though against paranoid zergs that will go muta's to deal with the phoenix
your stargate tech will be earlier than your opponent’s tech because he couldn’t open with a 3 hatch before gas build.
Wouldn't that mean a zerg will have tech faster because they don't have to invest so heavily on droning up/ building a 3rd hatchery? If so, then, what are the strengths of this build?
Also, another high masters player who does this build is CCalms, I don't know if he does the exact same build, but he does gateway expand into stargate.
JayPower Netherlands. August 19 2012 22:38. Posts 106
your stargate tech will be earlier than your opponent’s tech because he couldn’t open with a 3 hatch before gas build.
Wouldn't that mean a zerg will have tech faster because they don't have to invest so heavily on droning up/ building a 3rd hatchery? If so, then, what are the strengths of this build?
Also, another high masters player who does this build is CCalms, I don't know if he does the exact same build, but he does gateway expand into stargate.
With tech I actually meant lair tech, which is necessary to prevent the phoenix from doing much harrasment. Infestors/hydra's or even muta's can deal with phoenix quite well with proper placement. Getting the early speed for the zerglings slows their 3rd hatch down which is 1/3 of their production so this will automatically lead to their economy coming up slower.
The strength of this build is that the zerg has to account for possible gateway pressure or even all-ins. As you can see with the stephano style that the zerg actually needs very few scouting information or units in the early game. This results into them having the opportunity to make a lot more drones.
youtube.com/JayPowerSC2
ineversmile United States. August 20 2012 00:20. Posts 571
I've used this build almost exclusively in PvZ for about a month now, and I'm really glad that people are starting to see the light about the 13 gate 14-15 gas opener. I don't know how happy I am about zergs figuring it out and doing some things better, like not flying their first overlord into a Stalker or like getting earlier ling speed.
There are a lot of good variations to this build, and you can pull out whatever follow up you want. Sometimes, I cancel the Nexus and 5gate all-in (old school MC style). Or I go up to 2 gates instead of a Nexus and I apply heavy pressure, if I see some weakness. You can also do Nexus, Twillight, 2-3 more gates and go for a really fast blink timing or for DTs if you build and retain a decent stalker count from the pressure and you want to punish your opponent for playing heavy economics to get back into the game. You basically can do whatever you want to transition, so long as it's something cohesive and logical and you're scouting to make better decisions.
Generally speaking, a Gas/Pool opener is the worst case scenario for you. Any kind of 6-10 pool is basically a joke because you just boost your Zealot and pull probes as needed until your Stalker comes out, then you roll across the map and kill the Zerg with some extra gates. But if they go 14/14 or some other Speedling opener, that's a pretty good counter to this opener. If you can, you want to wall off your natural ASAP using your third pylon and some 150 mineral buildings. If not, you need to figure out some other wall off that keeps you safe from Speedlings, and you need to also consider the high probability of Banes or Roaches coming for a bust. You can delay your expo by a minute or two and be fine, and you don't need any kind of pressure because there is serious economical damage when the zerg gets gas (-1 drone, -25 minerals for the extractor, -mining time from 3 drones for a minute, -100 minerals for speed) if he just makes a handful of speedlings and expands. Basically, you should lean towards expecting an all-in, or a commitment to attacking that requires serious damage be done in order for it to be worthwhile.
I have some replays of playing this style and transitioning a few different ways. If I get a chance, I'll dig them out of my replays folder and post 'em up.
On August 20 2012 00:20 ineversmile wrote: I've used this build almost exclusively in PvZ for about a month now, and I'm really glad that people are starting to see the light about the 13 gate 14-15 gas opener.
The idea that you'll somehow get an advantage by opening Gateway first then going Stargate rather than Forge Fast Expand is totally dependent on how your opponent reacts. These kinds of builds are working because Zergs have forgotten how to play vs Gateway first openers and are so used to Forge Fast Expands.
Gateway first used to dominate the matchup, and Zergs figured out all these pressure builds and they started to literally do nothing. So they will continue to do literally nothing, unless Zerg reacts poorly.
I don't particularly like this build, due to the reasons below. But first I think you made a typo.
Your stargate will finish around 6:30 if you went forge before stargate.
Your video shows you starting the stargate at 6:30, not finishing. For the second game it finishes around 6:30 but you also went stargate before forge/gateway. Unless something went wrong that delayed you by a minute that I didn't see. It seems like you have plenty of gas to place the stargate earlier, but I don't know if you had enough minerals without cutting something else (delayed forge or canon or cut probes or something).
Another point that bothers me, is that it seems it might auto lose to a baneling bust that can be done reactively to scouting the no FFE. If you can get the stargate to finish at 6:30, and your first phoenix scouts the ling bust at 7:05 maybe you can get enough sentries to defend against it? It would hit around 7:15. On the other hand, if you send the first phoenix to scout you highly limit the amount of damage you can do with the phoenix's as they have plenty of time to drop spores.
JayPower Netherlands. August 20 2012 01:21. Posts 106
Your stargate will finish around 6:30 if you went forge before stargate.
Your video shows you starting the stargate at 6:30, not finishing. For the second game it finishes around 6:30 but you also went stargate before forge/gateway. Unless something went wrong that delayed you by a minute that I didn't see. It seems like you have plenty of gas to place the stargate earlier, but I don't know if you had enough minerals without cutting something else (delayed forge or canon or cut probes or something).
Another point that bothers me, is that it seems it might auto lose to a baneling bust that can be done reactively to scouting the no FFE. If you can get the stargate to finish at 6:30, and your first phoenix scouts the ling bust at 7:05 maybe you can get enough sentries to defend against it? It would hit around 7:15. On the other hand, if you send the first phoenix to scout you highly limit the amount of damage you can do with the phoenix's as they have plenty of time to drop spores.
The stargate timing is correct. That game I completely forgot about it and made it when I had 350 gas. I recommend looking at the second game where I go stargate before forge and it finishes around 6:15. This is easily equal to finishing at 6:30 if you go forge first. I'm looking through my other replay and every game where I go forge first, the stargate finishes at 6:30 (or shouldve if i threw it down when I had the money for it without cutting probes). So I stand by my timings that the stargate finishes at 6:30, even if you go forge first (not if you go 2nd gateway before stargate). You can download the inculded replays and see for yourself.
I don't agree on auto-losing against a baneling bust. I even have a replay included where I hold a baneling bust. And yes, I agree that showing the first phoenix completely tips your hand and gives your opponent enough time to prepare for the phoenix' and take way fewer damage. That is why I recommend only scouting with the phoenix if you are clueless to what your opponent might be doing. I also recommend scout the attack path from your opponents natural to yours, starting at yours so that you can see the banelings morphing and prepare for them.
I would recommend that you copy Liquid`Hero's building placement, by moving the Gateway and the Pylon one hex away from the Nexus -- that way you can place down a single Gateway to help block off in case of a Baneling all-in, allowing you to play greedier while remaining safe than you would otherwise be able to.
B1itZZ United Kingdom. August 20 2012 05:31. Posts 56
Really great work on the guide, I have been looking for a write up to this build for some time as I am a big fan. I really like the earlier harassment capabilities to keep the Zerg players honest! Gonna check out your replays now.
On August 20 2012 05:31 B1itZZ wrote: Really great work on the guide, I have been looking for a write up to this build for some time as I am a big fan. I really like the earlier harassment capabilities to keep the Zerg players honest! Gonna check out your replays now.
I think you've misunderstood the idea behind 1g expo'ing instead of FFE. With a build like this, you're counting on your opponent to play honest (such as the Zerg not going hatch first, and investing into speed before its needed/roach warren because they're afraid of gateway pressure), contrary to being able to keep them honest.
Skyro United States. August 20 2012 06:24. Posts 1414
On August 20 2012 00:20 ineversmile wrote: I've used this build almost exclusively in PvZ for about a month now, and I'm really glad that people are starting to see the light about the 13 gate 14-15 gas opener.
The idea that you'll somehow get an advantage by opening Gateway first then going Stargate rather than Forge Fast Expand is totally dependent on how your opponent reacts. These kinds of builds are working because Zergs have forgotten how to play vs Gateway first openers and are so used to Forge Fast Expands.
Gateway first used to dominate the matchup, and Zergs figured out all these pressure builds and they started to literally do nothing. So they will continue to do literally nothing, unless Zerg reacts poorly.
There are so many variations of gateway first openings in PvZ. To make such a overgeneralizing statement about gateway first openings as though there is only one variation is selling it short. Gateway first used to be popular back in the day but that was mostly the super safe 3-gate expand. There are many different variations of 1 or 2 gate expands, such as this one, gate-nexus, etc. which have different strengths and weaknesses.
B1itZZ United Kingdom. August 20 2012 07:57. Posts 56
I think you've misunderstood the idea behind 1g expo'ing instead of FFE. With a build like this, you're counting on your opponent to play honest (such as the Zerg not going hatch first, and investing into speed before its needed/roach warren because they're afraid of gateway pressure), contrary to being able to keep them honest.
Well this is what I mean. In the sense that it stops them cutting corners and trying to get away with being greedy economically, as so many Zergs are doing at the moment.
I think you've misunderstood the idea behind 1g expo'ing instead of FFE. With a build like this, you're counting on your opponent to play honest (such as the Zerg not going hatch first, and investing into speed before its needed/roach warren because they're afraid of gateway pressure), contrary to being able to keep them honest.
Well this is what I mean. In the sense that it stops them cutting corners and trying to get away with being greedy economically, as so many Zergs are doing at the moment.
No it doesnt stop them from cutting corners. If you open 1g fe, you're counting on them to be too scared to cut corners.
SigmaoctanusIV United States. August 20 2012 08:06. Posts 2431
I think you've misunderstood the idea behind 1g expo'ing instead of FFE. With a build like this, you're counting on your opponent to play honest (such as the Zerg not going hatch first, and investing into speed before its needed/roach warren because they're afraid of gateway pressure), contrary to being able to keep them honest.
Well this is what I mean. In the sense that it stops them cutting corners and trying to get away with being greedy economically, as so many Zergs are doing at the moment.
No it doesnt stop them from cutting corners. If you open 1g fe, you're counting on them to be too scared to cut corners.
Well if they are reacting through fear of what you can do then it accounts to the same thing.. People will not do this vs FFE and proceed with fast 3rd etc, as is my point.
I think you've misunderstood the idea behind 1g expo'ing instead of FFE. With a build like this, you're counting on your opponent to play honest (such as the Zerg not going hatch first, and investing into speed before its needed/roach warren because they're afraid of gateway pressure), contrary to being able to keep them honest.
Well this is what I mean. In the sense that it stops them cutting corners and trying to get away with being greedy economically, as so many Zergs are doing at the moment.
No it doesnt stop them from cutting corners. If you open 1g fe, you're counting on them to be too scared to cut corners.
Well if they are reacting through fear of what you can do then it accounts to the same thing.. People will not do this vs FFE and proceed with fast 3rd etc, as is my point.
There is no way you can control what people will or will not do. Im just pointing out, this build is only as "solid/good" whatever you wanna call it as your opponent is scared/accounting for the things you could be doing. Let me put it this way, if you open FFE, your worst case scenarios will better than if you open 1g expo.
That said, I like to do a variation of this build myself, just greedier with 4x cb on probes and no probe-scouting, stalker nexus 5:34ish Stargate, Forge after 4th pylon and sentry. What I do can be exploited in numerous ways, so can the build described in this guide, and so can all builds in this game. It's ultimately just a question of risk/reward-calculation and what you expect your opponent to do and how you expect your opponent to react to what you're doing.
Edit: just a little clarification, my Stargate is done at 5:34 is what I meant.
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BBQ`BBQKingPrime August 20 2012 02:22. Posts 25
