[H] - ZvT - Mass Marines Deny Third

To start with, I know that the positions that we spawned on Entombed are not good for Zerg because of the short rush distance, but this has happened to me on other maps and I'm starting to question the mass queen openings now.

I'm currently having trouble with Terran that go for an early marine timing (no upgrades/stim/etc) to deny my third. A couple of queens doesn't seem to hack it and slow lings just get chewed up. Is this just one of the disadvantages of going mass queen? Any thoughts as to how you can save a third when this happens? In general, I go for 4 queens instead of 6, do I need to stop going middle-of-the-road and either do 3 or 6 queens?

Replay:
http://drop.sc/253670

NOTE: I played like crap this game, so no need to analyze the play too much. I just wanted to show what was going on in case others haven't run in to this.

Last edit: 2012-09-16 23:13:19

Jebediah Germany. September 16 2012 23:52. Posts 105

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I think this game doesn't have a lot to do with the problem you're describing. You didn't float in an OL and you never sacrificed Lings to scout his front, you didn't even see him move out. He caught you with your pants down, because you only had two Lings on the field. Scout more in the early game and you should have a much easier time holding early pushes.

An opening I really like is the "JonnyRecco"-opening that IdrA mentioned in a show. It's a standard 4queen opening, but you get two gases at 36 and start Ling Speed asap. Your third goes down at 44 with your Evo Chambers following shortly after, to wall off your natural. With this opening your speed is usually done when the Terran wants to deny your third.

But again: Just scout earlier and more. He had almost all his marines firing at the rocks, a Zergling would have seen all of them, giving you time to pull all your queens and get out more than just two Zerglings.

romelako United States. September 18 2012 02:05. Posts 370

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That build is designed to counter a gas-less build with 4 queens. Solution? Scout better and recognize the build so you can grab your gasses earlier and get speed and/or banelings to deal with the timing.

osiris17 United States. September 18 2012 02:30. Posts 165

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The Terrans gas timing will be pretty slow with this opening. From the late gas timing you will know he isn't producing hellions. He could be taking a 3rd CC, doing this multiple barracks pressure, or even getting a 4th CC. With the multiple barracks pressure, the gas timing will be even later than a 3rd CC. But a 4th CC will delay the gas timing further, making discriminating between 4thCC and multiple barracks difficult by gas timing alone.

Therefor an earlier gas can confirm 3CC, but later gas does not confirm multiple barracks.

The typical zerg build can react to this adequately as long as your crawlers are timed properly. You will have to put the crawlers down a tad earlier than you typically would against hellions. You also will need to use your 2nd queen at your natural for a creep tumor instead of an inject. That will allow your queens to move to the 3rd in a timely manner. You should do this anyway if you scout a rax > CC opening. When you scout this moving out of the natural, start producing lings, and with your typical gas timing instead of zergling speed get roaches and put down a warren. Pull your queens after hitting 1 more inject, and then replace them by quing up more queens.

Use the pulled queens, crawlers, & lings for defense. Time your crawlers to complete right when you need them to.

Be liberal with producing zerglings.

After you hold this pressure his followup and his tech are quite delayed, and it will allow you to drone up adequately. His 3rd is also very delayed. The pressure makes you delay your drones, but don't concern yourself with it. Hold the pressure adequately and you will be in good shape.

On some maps where the 3rd is too far from the natural (and I'd include entombed here), IMO you should be opening roaches instead of lings anyway. On those maps, it isnt very difficult to hold this since opening roaches requires a slightly earlier gas timing (~5:00). Reacting with roaches is much easier too. Roaches and crawlers and a couple queens. It is very important to scout this moving out, otherwise you may find yourself surprised.

I'm not a huge fan of blindly getting early speed with 2 gas @ 36 unless you're doing it for some other purpose than this, or if you know your opponent is doing this.

Last edit: 2012-09-18 02:49:41

Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate. - sun tzu

Zheryn Sweden. September 18 2012 03:55. Posts 852

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Generally I don't like to go for gasless 3base vs terran, as it is extremely hard/cost ineffiecent to hold off early aggression. I think you need to get speed faster if you want to go for an early third base. It might be possible to treat it like ZvP and get extremely fast third and a quick roach warren and be able to get roaches out, but I think you're hurting your economy too much by doing this and it's much harder to know if an attack is coming than vs protoss.

On ladder maps it's a bit retarded since in those positions you don't really have time to reactively get units in time.

hundred thousand krouner

Northern_iight Canada. September 18 2012 04:04. Posts 329

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if you see terran open expo before gas, you have to grab your gas to get speed first. Speed will allow you to destroy those vanilla marine timings at your third. you can tell by their expo timing if you are not able to get into their base with your drone scout

osiris17 United States. September 18 2012 04:25. Posts 165

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You should always strive to macro as much as possible while still being able to survive what may be thrown at you. You can survive with 3 base gasless FE, so cutting it is just bad play.

Last edit: 2012-09-18 04:26:08

Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate. - sun tzu

Zanno United States. September 18 2012 05:15. Posts 1433

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i do a variation of this build to zergs almost every opportunity i can, because i prefer to rax wall (too many baneling allins on ladder)

you can still win as long as you don't let the marines get home. the first thing you need to do is see it coming.

the second thing you need to do is respect the map positions. taking that third in these positions is extremely unwise, and droning up without gas like that is even less wise, which is the exact reason why it's disabled in tournament play.

now he did this build off of CC first and you scouted it. you can do three things

1) either take your third even faster, so that you have time to spine it up. he really can't hit any earlier than he did, his wall wasn't complete and he moved out when immediately when the 5th rax was done. because you cut gas, defending this many marines with pure zergling isn't ever going to work, so you need spines and queens ready
2) or, just take your third at a more normal timing somewhere else on the map. the one on the rocks is good in these positions, but rocks are a pain, so you could take the top side nat as your 3rd and join yourself together by taking the rocks as your 4th. if terran doesn't scout a fast 3rd, he won't attack with this build, and even if he scouts a 3rd that far away, he can't really attack it until tanks and medivacs are out because the close positions are just asking for a backstab
3) or, you could just scout the depot wall, do a committed 2 base leenock-style play, and probably kill him outright. being greedy in dangerously close positions swings both ways. if they open 1 rax expo into 4/5 rax using them as a wall 2 base play is throwing rock at a paper you already know about, but with cc first, gas is delayed even further

either way this replay is interesting because it's a textbook example of what happens when one player scouts and adapts his gameplan to what he sees while the other player is completely blind

Last edit: 2012-09-18 05:17:17

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shadogi United States. September 18 2012 23:46. Posts 194

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On September 18 2012 05:15 Zanno wrote:
the second thing you need to do is respect the map positions. taking that third in these positions is extremely unwise, and droning up without gas like that is even less wise, which is the exact reason why it's disabled in tournament play.

I think going forward that I will take an old school early gas (~17 supply) for ling speed on map positions like this and possibly go for some early-ish roaches for defense. I've recently seen a roach attack gaining popularity in the GSL that gets an early roach warren and ~8 roaches for some early aggression. If the Terran goes for a pure marine force like that, then the roaches just wreck them.

Thanks for all of the suggestions guys! Oh, and the replay was only a simple example. Clearly I made a ton of mistakes that game, but it was the general idea of a mass marine third denial that I was trying to get some perspective on.

Thanks again!

romelako United States. September 19 2012 01:18. Posts 370

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On September 18 2012 23:46 shadogi wrote:

Show nested quote +

Be careful with this. The 1-1-1 build hard counters a gas opening from the Zerg.

Clazziquai10 Singapore. September 19 2012 02:05. Posts 920

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You shouldn't be thinking like this: oh, I will go X build next time that will totally destroy this Y build that I'm having trouble with, because a few games down the road you will run into build Z that totally destroys your build X and you will again come to TL asking about how to counter this build Z.

Instead, like what others have said, you should be focusing more on reacting to what your opponent is doing, scouting more and just making minor tweaks to your build depending on what you've scouted, not changing up your whole build entirely because you find it to be weak against another build.

Belial88 United States. September 19 2012 08:25. Posts 5217

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Replay analysis:

- Dont be late on your initial hatch. If you realize your drone is going to get there later than 300, you should always start another drone asap. 15 hatch is better than 16 hatch, but 16 hatch is better than a 15 hatch planted with 30 minerals banked. What I like to do, is hotkey my 14th drone to some hotkey (you dont have infestors, broodlords, or even lings out, so you can manage a hotkey, not to mention justput it on 9 or something), and send it to an empty mineral patch, and when it returns cargo I'll send it to natural. That will make sure it gets there at 300 on most maps (on this particular map and spawn position you might want to just send it straight away)

Very minor, but it's silly mistake you shouldn't be making.

- your opponent went CC first, so that means you are free to go fast third hatchery before pool. There is a lot of bad posts in this thread right now saying dumb things about how he can pressure your third, but they are totally bullshit. If Terran takes his natural, you can take your third. There's some minor factors that can delay it, like 2 rax bunker attack that eventually exapnds or reactor hellion that may fry the drone, in which case you'll probably want speed first, but when Terran goes 1 rax FE, much less CC first like in this game, you can definitely take your third right away.

Also, I don't know why you are drone scouting if you don't respond to what you drone scout anyways. Think of all the openers terran can do:
- rax/gas your initial overlord can see this by seeing late expansion, or see the add-on or gas in his main with a poke, if not 2 lings made right when pool pops because you saw terran wasn't going 1 raxFE/cc first with your initial overlord.
- 2 rax you aren't changing your bo at all, and you'll know it's a 2 rax before your pool finishes because he'll clearly have marines, bunkers, and SCV in your natural.
- 1 rax FE - initial overlord spots this, continue as normal
- CC First - initial overlord spots this, tcontinue as normal (or fast third, really).

So why are you bothering drone scouting? Most pros stopped scouting in ZvT for a LONG time, but very recently drone scouting has become popular solely because Zergs can go reactive fast third vs CC First. If you aren't going to take a third hatchery before pool vs a CC first opening, don't bother drone scouting.

Obviously, it's a 4 player map and you scouted his base last, but i get the feeling from your posts that you wouldn't go fast third before pool. which you should (that, or don't drone scout). And I think it would have been better to send that drone to your close spawn first, so you can 'knock out' 25% of the bases quicker. Sending it cross spawn like that just makes it so if you scout his base last, you find out really late.

I would have just brought the drone straight home when you saw he wasn't at close spawn, because you pool money and have to plant either a hatch or pool down, can't wait to see if Terran went CC first or not (and he's clearly not 2 raxing because there's no bunkers in your natural), so the timing has passed. Your overlord will see what terran is doing in time, or just make 2 lings.

- you should make your overlord on 25, not 23. 23 is a little too early. maybe 24, but 23 is too early imo. most pros i observe go 25. some 26 but i think 25 is better.

- your build is super vulnerable. You need to make 6 queens in order to hold pressure like this (or any pressure, hellions would have hurt you really bad too). You are basically doing the exact same build so far as anyone else doing a 6 queen opener, except you don't make a 5th and 6th queen. You are being greedier than DRG in this game.

- at about 5:30, or 40+ supply, you need to sac an overlord in ZvT (or at least poke in). You would have saw that Terran had no gas at his main, and no gas from terran by 40 supply does not mean they went 3 OC's and delayed gas, it means they are doing a 2 base mass marine attack that's kind of all-in. You should be freaking out. Instead you are just cutting corners and plodding along.

- please please please don't send a drone to make a hatchery at 5:30 all the way from your main/nat. You are literally throwing away 300 minerals for about 15 seconds, this is really hurting your drone production. It really matters. Send that drone on time. This is a common theme I see in your macro, you just queue up a building from far away instead of sending a drone pre-emptively. You have 192 APM. You have more than enough APM to do this the right way.

- 3rd and 4th gas are taken too quickly. If anything, you can start a third gas around 60-70 supply after starting speed and 1/1... your 3rd and 4th gas i feel are just a little too quick. You won't have speed or tech anytime soon, you need to rely on slowlings/queens/spines for defense, and to drone up to stay competitive with 2 base terran. (or 3oc terran for that matter). You really shouldn't get gas so quickly.

- You fail to scout completely that Terran is doing an all-in, so i really don't see any chance of you winning this game. If you sac'd an overlord, you may not have seen all 4 rax, but you would have seen his 2 rax have not been lifted off to make add-ons, so you would have known from that the he was doing a mass rax all-in, you would have seen no gas at his main which would tell you 100% that he's doing a mass rax all-in, you might have seen his marine count which would tell you he was doing an all-in, you would have saw the rax in his natural which would tell you he's doing a mass rax all-in, you would have seen no factory or starport at the top of the ramp which would tell you he was doing a mass rax all-in. There is literally no way you could not know he was doing a mass rax all-in, no matter which way you would have sent your overlord. But you don't do that... Terran is all-inning. If you aren't prepared for it, you are going to die.

Here's a couple all-ins that would have crushed you because you don't scout. at all. which doesn't make sense, you can't play zerg like that...
- 4 starport banshee all-in
- marauder/hellion all-in
- triple factory mass hellions
- marine all-in (as happened)
- marine/marauder stim all-in
- multi-drop all-in

Get it? you need to scout.

- Hotkey your spawning pool. You can hotkey it to your queens, it won't affect anything you can just tab to it or click to it througth the profiles, you can hotkey it to your hatches, you can hotkey it to your scouts, you can set it on a completely irrelevant hotkey like 0 or 9, you can set it to an even further away, irrelevant, custom hotkey like f12. The key is that you should really hotkey it, as well as upgrade buildings, unless you are very fast (which, granted, you are). You are late on speed. tt.

- You get blindsided by marines because you sent your overlord too late.

Really that's the only reason you lost. That, and you did a weird, super greedy build by doing the 6 queen opener but with only 4 queens. I think also that on this map, you need to make a spine early on at like ~30 to wear down the rocks, or have a ling in front of his base ~40 to make sure he doesn't send out a bunch of marines like he did, so you can slowly get over there in time. You also would have had creep all the way to your third easily if you went 6 queen instead of 4 queen.

A normal 6 queen opener, that would make zero lings and be blind, would have held this off. What would happen in a normal 6 queen opener, is that these marines would arrive, all 6 queens would be pulled as drones ran away, you would already have a spine up at your third because you always make a spine at the third, and you'd up-root the spine from your nat, to your third. You'd also pump some lings. You might lose all your queens, but with transfuse and a little micro and rallying lings, you should hold. It won't be easy, but bear in mind that Terran's tech is non-existent, and his third is super late, so losing 6 queens to hold this kind of pressure off, puts you somewhat ahead. If you actually make 10-20 lings in time, you are just miles and miles ahead and you'll have broodlords out before he even thinks of pushing out.

so yea. tldr, scout at 40+, not 55+, make 6 queens. otherwise, you played fine.

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Belial88 United States. September 19 2012 08:39. Posts 5217

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That is not true at all. There is nothing more cost efficient than micro-ing 6 queens against marines, you pull them back so they never die, as well as transfuse, plus a spine or few, on creep. There's a reason every pro zerg goes fast third in zvt these days and 6 queen, not to mention most zergs go third hatchery before pool vs CC First. I think you are just saying you don't feel comfortable with it because you don't know how to execute a 6 queen opener properly. If you learn to do it correctly, i think you'd surprised just how ridiculously easy it is to hold any sort of 2 base all-in or pressure even if you are blindsided.

I used to feel the same way, I'd get gas super early when going fast third to get speed, when I went 3rd hatch before pool vs CC first I'd gas up really quickly. But then I learned you just gotta get those 6 queens asap, and your economy is a lot stronger for it because you aren't using up larva. It's much easier to get 6 queens out on gasless than get 4 queens out on gas. It's SO much more cost efficient to use 6 queens and a spine than 20 speedlings who you had to mine gas with (which puts you down more than the cost of those queens by a lot, just the speed itself 'costs' you like 300 minerals about, i believe).

That makes no sense at all and is bad advice. You can hold vanilla marine timings at the third with 6 queen just fine. The problem was the OP was not only blindsided, but went 4 queen. If he had 6 queen he would have held, or if he did any opening and just scouted on time, he would have had enough slowlings in time.

Early roaches really hurt your economy, and early roaches would not have been out in time against this marine pressure anyways. When pro zergs get roaches in zvt, it's usually to do a semi-all-innish roach attack (which would have been absolutely crushed in this game, the guy even had a bunker) Getting gas at 17 for ling speed just hurts your econ too much against a terran going CC first, and you have to make so many lings too, and so early on, and you'd have zero creep spread at all.

Be careful with this. The 1-1-1 build hard counters a gas opening from the Zerg.

That makes no sense at all and is bad advice. 1-1-1 is not viable in ZvT, probably to do with the fact zerg has to get their natural so early on and tech heavy all-ins aren't really good against zerg because they come too late (tech harass or plain army all-ins can be strong though). 1-1-1 doesn't counter anything from zerg. Your comment is like saying broodlords counter CC first. it's that wrong.

OP lost because he only made 4 queens instead of 6 queens. He also could have held if he just scouted and then made lings in time.

Belial88 United States. September 19 2012 10:23. Posts 5217

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Here's a game I played that's actually very similar to what happened in your game. He went 1 rax FE and had some reactors instead, but it's the same marine count at the same time.

I went 6 queen, and held easily. Using some micro, I simply pulled back the queen he targeted, and my other queens just tore him apart. Extremely cost efficient, I didn't lose a single queen. I made some lings too, but they weren't really necessary at all and came after the battle was done. It would have been even easier if I engaged at my third or nat where there was a spine and a choke (i engaged in the open, I wanted to get my creep spread going - that should give you an indication of how easy it is to brush off with 6 queen).

You can also just take your third ~35 instead of 45. The difference is there's that round of injects popping, and you either make a hatch earlier and delay those drones or hatch later and make the drones sooner. I see some pros take it at 35, some at 45. Not really sure which is better economically, but if you are worried about getting creep, spine up, yea go 35. On entombed valley I think taking it at 35 would be better because of those rocks, especially close spawn, though.

http://drop.sc/254603

osiris17 United States. September 19 2012 22:10. Posts 165

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If your opponent went for CC first then scouting this will be very easy, and upon seeing the multiple barracks a faster gas for ling speed can be better. It is an overinvestment against just 2 rax and a bunker rush, but against 3+ rax it's preferred.

Last edit: 2012-09-19 22:13:07

Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate. - sun tzu

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