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Let me preface this by saying - this is not intended to be balance whine. I don't perceive the ZvP matchup to be imbalanced in either race's favor. My understanding is that it is slightly Zerg-favored on the EU ladder, and slightly Protoss-favored on the Korean ladder. The goal of the topic is just to discuss an alternate playstyle for Zerg that may be more effective. Bear in mind that I don't play at a super high level - mid diamond to low masters - so I don't claim to be an authoritative figure on the subject.
So I want to start by outlining a number of presuppositions that I take to be true in this matchup. These aren't all meant to be revelations; some of them are pretty obvious, but they're intended to explain why the matchup is the way it is - and where we might have gotten it wrong. I wanted to be rigorous about these so that if anyone views them as incorrect, they can be called out easily, and have it be clear where the disagreement lies.
Forge fast expand is the best Protoss opener in the matchup. Six months to a year ago, Protoss had not figured out how to deal with one or low-eco-two-base aggression from Zerg designed to counter the FFE: Roach-ling attacks, baneling busts, 6-pools, etc. Thus, in an attempt to play safe against these attacks, many Protoss used gate-first openings instead of the FFE. Now, however, it has been demonstrated that a FFE build, competently executed and with sufficient scouting, can fend any of these attacks and come out ahead. Therefore, the FFE dominates all other Protoss openings.
Once the FFE is scouted, the Zerg's options are to go for two or three base play. One-hatch aggression, as I mentioned, is not a strong option against the FFE. Also, between the FFE cannon walloff and sentries, there is nothing that the Zerg can produce on tier 1 that can cost-efficiently attack into the Protoss. Thus, the options are to either go for some Lair tech on two bases, or to try to outmatch the Protoss economically with a three hatchery style.
Conventional two-base Zerg aggression looks increasingly obsolete. When the matchup was in its nascent stage, a number of Lair-based 2-hatch styles developed to put the game in the Zerg's ballpark. These included Nydus Hydralisks, Hydra creep pushes with overlords, 2-hatch Muta, and ling-infestor timing attacks. These pushes have all but vanished from both the ladder and progaming scene, for the simple reason that they didn't turn out to be very good pushes. They weren't hitting the right timings, and weren't nearly as hard to defend as the equivalent Protoss 2-base all-in.
Therefore, three-hatch play has become the default response to an FFE in ZvP. Since it looks like the Zerg can't effectively punish the Protoss on either one or two bases, three-hatch play looks like the best way to go. The Zerg's gameplan is now to play reactively, eco up to 60 drones or more while getting Lair tech, and fend any aggression using Roaches and Zerglings, eventually transitioning to higher tech.
3-hatch Zerg openings are very good at denying an early third from the Protoss. The aggressive build pioneered by Stephano - the 12-mintue Roach max - is extremely effective at punishing (or outright killing) a Protoss that attempts to continue to play economically off of their FFE by grabbing an early third. Many Protoss feel that they are incapable of defending a third Nexus against the sheer quantity of Roaches the Zerg is capable of producing off of three bases. That's not to say that there aren't any builds in the metagame capable of securing a quick Protoss third, but they are sufficiently difficult to execute such that they are not the norm.
Therefore, Protoss tend toward attacks off of two bases that hit before the 3-hatch Zerg can get aggressive. This is the face of the current ZvP metagame - 2-base Protoss timing attacks against 3-hatch Zerg defense - and it's not one that everyone is terribly happy about. It's not that taking a third against Z is impossible, but it is quite hard to do safely unless you get aggressive first and put the game in your ballpark.
The current Zerg style of playing against these attacks is a razor-thin defense. Typically, the Zerg will scout the Protoss's tech in the main and gases at the natural between 6:30 and 7:15. This will inform how many drones they're allowed to produce from that point onward. As a rule of thumb, it's generally around 60 - more if the Protoss is going for a 4-gas tech-heavy attack, less if they're going for a 2-gas all-in gateway attack. Regardless, the modus operandi is to produce as many drones as possible and only start producing units right before the attack hits.
These attacks are difficult for the Zerg to defend with their current playstyle. There are a number of reasons for this. First, the suite of attacks that the Protoss can choose from is diverse enough that it is sometimes difficult to scout and react accordingly. There are a huge number of variations, listed in order of perceived popularity:
* Immortal/sentry timing attacks * 7-gate +2 blink stalker timings, with or without warp prisms * 6, 7, or 8 gateway timings, with or without warp prisms * Sentry/warp prism attacks that force field the Zerg's ramp * Mixed gateway/stargate attacks * Double stargate all-ins * Colossus timing attacks
all of which can spiral out of control if not reacted to correctly. These attacks are also varying degrees of all-in. A cutthroat 6-gate that stops below 40 probes is certainly all-in, but a Protoss that continues to build probes and does a delayed timing with immortals and sentries can still viably secure a third, either before or after the push. Therefore, even if their push doesn't outright kill the Zerg, the Protoss can frequently transition to the next phase of the game without falling behind.
The goal of the Zerg in this situation is to defend the push with a higher drone count and end up ahead. From there, they can start building infestors, mutalisks and/or hive tech, and break the Protoss with superior economy and tech. Which brings us to the last and possibly most contentious point...
This may be the ostensible goal of the Zerg, but it isn't happening often enough. If we examine what these defenses tend to look like, both on the ladder and at the pro level, they don't often look like a game state that I want to play for deliberately. Drones are pulled, hatcheries are lost, spine crawlers are thrown up panickedly between warp-in cycles, queens die left and right. Even at the highest level of play, Zerg are sometimes just stomped by a two-base all-in without being able to put up much resistance. And even if the push is eventually fended, it's often done so at such a high cost in lost drones and hatcheries that the Zerg has not achieved his goal of coming out ahead by defending.
I understand that this last point is something that, if one were to disagree with it, could only be settled by looking at a ton of different replays - something I don't have the time or inclination to do right now. If your experience on the effectivenss of Zerg defenses in ZvP differs, then there's not much else to say. But this has, at least, been my experience both on the ladder and watching pro replays.
So where does that leave us?
It's my belief that the current Zerg style of opening three hatch and defending off of ~60 drones is wrong-headed. What I want to question is whether the assumption that the Zerg can take three hatcheries, drone to 60, get Lair and still fend all two-base attacks from the Protoss is dogmatic and greedy. It's been my experience that this form of opening is not robust enough at defending against Protoss aggression.
What is the alternative? As I stated, I don't think that two-base aggression from the Zerg is an attractive alternative. It might catch an opponent off-guard in one set of a Bo3, but it isn't a place the metagame is going to stabilize at. However, there are a number of safer openers that I'd like to see players experiment with:
* Two base defense with an in-base macro hatch, taking your third after the push is defended * Three hatch defense, stopping drones at or around 44 and massing speedlings in advance of the attack, droning to ~70 after the push is defended
Why are these openings more attractive? First, let's talk about the drawback of these openings. In the hypothetical best case scenario of the three hatch 60 drone opener, if you defend without losing drones or hatcheries, you will end up more ahead than you do if you defend with either of these openings. This is to be expected; it's a greedier opener, if you get away with it you will be more ahead.
But how many more two-base attacks are you losing to by going for this opening? One thing I've noticed after defending many Protoss 2-base attacks is that they're extremely tempo oriented. The force they move out with initially is not that scary, but because of how many gateways they build it looks really daunting after the first warpin. However, because the Zerg is always trying to squeeze in as many drones as they can before the attack hits, they very rarely have the opportunity to attack that weak initial force.
Once the first warpin hits, the tempo is in the Protoss's favor. Even if the Zerg has a superior economy and is producing more total army value of units, the fact that the Protoss had more units at the start makes every phase of the engagement more cost-efficient for them. However, if that weak initial force is greeted by a huge mass of speedlings before the first warpin, this tempo shift never occurs. The attack is either crushed outright, or the Protoss cuts his losses and goes home. The two-base defense into third is particularly easy to defend, because you can spread creep further in one direction, and only need spine crawlers to cover one point on the map.
But will the Zerg really come out ahead in this scenario? They'll have so few drones! That's what needs to be theorycrafted and tested in-game, but I think they might. Once the first timing of the Protoss is thwarted, the Zerg will have a considerable window to drone up and take their third if they haven't already. The large number of units they massed is also likely to be able to deny any third the Protoss tries to take. Thus, the goal of these openers is to
* take your economic lead after the first Protoss push, rather than before. * structure your drone production the same way as other races - producing a mix of drones and units simultaneously, rather than operating bimodally (building all drones and then all units)
At the very least, I think this opener is more likely to defend 2-base all-ins. Where the matchup goes from there is an unexplored point in the metagame that is worthy of investigation.
Anyways - that's pretty much the gist of it. I don't have replays to share, as I don't think I'd be executing them at a high enough level for them to be persuasive. I just posted this because I think examining the logic and theory behind ZvP openers is pretty interesting. Thoughts?
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Pretty good analysis... I would love for top zergs to attemps what is described in that OP.
As a protoss player, this kind of reaction could be really good and force the protoss to be less greedy and way more on the defensive since a 2 base zerg is risky to push against...
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I feel like this post is a couple of months late. I'd argue that the standard of ZvP right now is a 4 base zerg vs 3 base protoss. Protoss has lately been getting much more comfortable against the 11 minute roach attacks, which makes it unattractive for zerg to even attempt them, as they could more comfortably get into late game with an earlier fourth and starting infestor/muta. However, it's almost come full circle in that the protoss now tries to hit its heavy mid-late game timing of 15 minutes right before brood lords are finished. Generally, though, I feel that the matchup is exploring the late game a lot heavier, as the only two 2 base all ins that seem to work are the immortal sentry all in, and the 1 gas 8 gate, but both have become fairly straightforward to handle if scouting is done correctly.
Edit: however, similar to how Stephano gets a 17 gas against terran, i feel getting an early speed would certainly help cut a lot of early game woes out. Simply denying any hidden probe with speedlings stops a lot of pushes before they can begin. But I do feel that a Protoss going for an early third would be happy to see a Zerg cutting drones earlier on, knowing that he will still be able to hold his third and be in even better shape.
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And if he doesn't attack?
I've just wasted a huge amount of minerals on lings that can do zero damage to a 2base protoss and I'm not even sure can deny a third without roach support. Protoss takes a third while being economaclly even or ahead and goes into the late game with a huge smile on his face.
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On August 06 2012 08:32 IcemanAsi wrote: And if he doesn't attack?
I've just wasted a huge amount of minerals on lings that can do zero damage to a 2base protoss and I'm not even sure can deny a third without roach support. Protoss takes a third while being economaclly even or ahead and goes into the late game with a huge smile on his face.
I feel like this is the big problem that cutting drones heavily will face. The reason the stephano timing was so tough was that it was optimized as far as drone count goes to hit with as many roaches as is physically possible at such an early timing. With modern protoss early third base builds being able to hold such a timing, de-optimizing a timing will just make it easier on the protoss.
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United States8476 Posts
This is well-thought out. However, I'd like to point out a few holes. You provide a few timing attacks, but don't consider that every timing attack has a different response. That is, with a traditional roach/ling opening, each timing not only requires a specific unit response, but a different time to cut drones if you're using a standard 3 hatch play:
- Immortal/sentry timing attacks-hits around 10:20, cut drones around 60 or slightly below
- 7-gate +2 blink stalker timings, with or without warp prisms-can hit at 9:30, cut drones 50-60 depending on version
- 6, 7, or 8 gateway timings, with or without warp prisms-hits much earlier than others, around 8:00, cut around 40ish drones
- Sentry/warp prism attacks that force field the Zerg's ramp-more dependent on unit positioning/initial units rather than drone cutting
- Mixed gateway/stargate attacks-cut at 60+ drones
- Double stargate all-ins-depends more on spore/queen preparedness
- Colossus timing attacks-hits at 12:00 at earliest, sometimes much later
Basically, there is no catchall cut at 40 drones and mass speedlings response as you suggest.
Another problem is the both your suggestions, stay on 2 base, 3 hatch, and cut drones at 40 for speedlings put you behind in economy to the Protoss. In addition, there's not a reliable way to tell if your opponent is expanding or all-in-ing until lair, and even then it's tricky. Immortal expands and immortal all-ins look very similar. Thus, you will be blind sacrificing economy versus even an expanding Protoss who threatens a push.
That being said, there are many players, such as Nestea and Dimaga who do indeed get a few speedlings to fend off early gateway pressure by dying pylons and to deny extremely fast 3rd bases from Protoss, but this, by itself, is not the golden solution that defends all all-ins.
I'm fairly certain that this thread mostly comes from the frustration of defending immortal-sentry all-ins. Perhaps focus on dealing with that first as an individual all-in in isolation before trying to cover all of them.
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The problem is that if the protoss gets an observer out he will see that you're either not droning up, or not taking your third. His response either way will be to not attack - putting the zerg behind.
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While this seems to be a good idea to catch you opponent off-guard, especially if you're familiar with their style, I do not think this is a superior build. While the "razor-thin defenses" can, by definition, spiral out of control and can easily lose you the game if you screw up, this isn't good enough reason to abandon them. If an opening is only good if you can execute it almost perfectly, you do not abandon it for a more forgiving but economically worse opening, but instead you learn to execute it perfectly.
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Instead of sacrificing economy for units early on, what about sacrificing it for faster tech? For example, roaches are much better against immortal/sentry armies with lair tech upgrades (burrow, tunneling claws). That way, instead of relying on delaying the push until you get a 200/200 army, you can kill it with a smaller but better army. Also ling/infestor crushes any sort of pre-colossus push handily. And if protoss doesn't attack, it's not like the tech is wasted, and you're also not stuck with 200 food of bad units later on.
If we do something like, double gas at 5 minutes instead of 6 minutes, and get lair quickly. Only get 2 injecting queens instead of 3 since we won't have the money to use all 3.
Also, this is probably crazy, but queens do the same DPS as roaches, have +1 range, and also are not considered armored units (no bonus damage from immortals/stalkers). They also have transfuse. Is it feasible to mass queens as a primary fighting unit?
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In this match up a lot of the pushes don't have a lot of zealots because they are centered around stalkers, sentries, and immortals because roaches can easily kite and rape zealots and since the common day build is 3 hatch 200/200 by 12 min mark with roaches. So what i propose is that we go back to the destiny style where we go ling infestor with early upgrades for the lings. If you build both your gases 30 seconds early and then go to immediately lair and then to infestation pit you can probably get out infestors in time if you use some lings to threaten a counter attack. Once they see infestors they will have to respond in 2 ways, all in with colossus or high templar, or expand. If you don't see an expand, Neural parasite VS colossus is very strong. If you see a expand you already have lair and upgrades, so you can go to hive and then to very quick brood lords. Since you have the early investors, if he went up to 3 base and is going to do a timing push, you have lings to counter with, fungals to buy time, and infested terran back stabs to buy time.
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On August 06 2012 12:28 Andybendy wrote: In this match up a lot of the pushes don't have a lot of zealots because they are centered around stalkers, sentries, and immortals because roaches can easily kite and rape zealots and since the common day build is 3 hatch 200/200 by 12 min mark with roaches. So what i propose is that we go back to the destiny style where we go ling infestor with early upgrades for the lings. If you build both your gases 30 seconds early and then go to immediately lair and then to infestation pit you can probably get out infestors in time if you use some lings to threaten a counter attack. Once they see infestors they will have to respond in 2 ways, all in with colossus or high templar, or expand. If you don't see an expand, Neural parasite VS colossus is very strong. If you see a expand you already have lair and upgrades, so you can go to hive and then to very quick brood lords. Since you have the early investors, if he went up to 3 base and is going to do a timing push, you have lings to counter with, fungals to buy time, and infested terran back stabs to buy time.
Ling/Infestor was standard ZvP when Neural Parasite was still 9 range. With the 7 range it has now, you can't really NP colossus without the infestor dying which is why the style died off.
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On August 06 2012 10:44 quarkral wrote: Also, this is probably crazy, but queens do the same DPS as roaches, have +1 range, and also are not considered armored units (no bonus damage from immortals/stalkers). They also have transfuse. Is it feasible to mass queens as a primary fighting unit?
Queens are slower and bigger, it would be alot harder to get a good concave around any army. not to mention i think the queen attack is split into two shots? Tell me if im wrong but doesnt the protoss armor get x2 on their attacks?
it would also be super hard to max out on queens due to their terran-style building rather than from larva.
edit: mass queen's speed would be fixed by the mass creep. Queen @ liquipedia: (i was right about armor/2x shot) http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Queen
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The entire premise of this is flawed because Protoss players can hold a fast third, even against a Stephano style 11:00 max push.
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Protoss almost never get armor, they mostly go for +3 attack and get at most +1 armor early on. Maxing out on solely queens is not possible, true, but you could get a decent number of them, like 6-9 when P does the 2 base immortal/sentry push. Then use their superior range and survivability to target and kill sentries. They have the same range as sentries, so P can't really do anything funny with them, plus with mass transfuse they can easily outlast one round of force fields.
Defending the roach max thing with a robo expand relies entirely on force fields. What if you get overlord drop,and just drop roaches right on top of his army at 12 minutes? Sure you might lose 2 overlords of roaches in the process, but the remaining should clean up his army. Protoss armies at 12 minutes after a fast third are tiny......
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On August 06 2012 13:30 quarkral wrote: ...Protoss almost never get armor...
default armor of stalker, zealot and immortal is 1.
roach dmg: 1x16(+2) queen dmg: 2x4(+1)
Making queens dmg 6 rather than 8 per hit 20% reduction in dmg. Roaches dmg however goes from 16 to 15. not as great a reduction
edit: broken formatting. ALSO, i remember someone made a sick spreadsheet with the decreases in DPS for each upgrade for each unit in each race (each is a sick word)
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On August 06 2012 13:15 sanddbox_sc2 wrote: The entire premise of this is flawed because Protoss players can hold a fast third, even against a Stephano style 11:00 max push. I have to agree with this.
Ok you mentioned crushing early thirds with the stephano 10:30 roach max timing. I know the conclusion coming from the kcdc thread, one of the top ways to stop that is to take your third early with a combination of gateway wall offs and a few well placed cannons. I take mine around 730 and have no trouble stopping the attack that comes at 1030.
While it would be tricky to defend my third against a bunch of slings, i would just scout that my opponent hasn't taken a third himself and just continue to play two base knowing that im already ahead of my opponent.
On August 06 2012 13:30 quarkral wrote: Protoss almost never get armor, they mostly go for +3 attack and get at most +1 armor early on. Maxing out on solely queens is not possible, true, but you could get a decent number of them, like 6-9 when P does the 2 base immortal/sentry push. Then use their superior range and survivability to target and kill sentries. They have the same range as sentries, so P can't really do anything funny with them, plus with mass transfuse they can easily outlast one round of force fields.
Defending the roach max thing with a robo expand relies entirely on force fields. What if you get overlord drop,and just drop roaches right on top of his army at 12 minutes? Sure you might lose 2 overlords of roaches in the process, but the remaining should clean up his army. Protoss armies at 12 minutes after a fast third are tiny......
I believe your wrong on the whole toss dont get armour, I and many other protoss always follow up +1 weapons with +1armour right after this leads into a better macro game. If you want to have +2 weapons started right after +1 finishes you need to get a very early twilight council and that is more centered around the 1430 timing with 3-4 colossus or some other type of timing push or all-in
While yes a toss army if a zerg techs into drops a toss can afford to lose a lot and still have a good chance win, and i dont think dropping right on an army would be very effective around 12 minutes the toss should have anywhere from 110-130 supply depending on tech and macro.
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Nice write-up. Whenever someone presents an idea that goes against current "metagame," people will criticize you using planty of examples why it is bad and hence why it is not metagame today. It is happening to you here as well.
As someone else pointed out, the problem might be "what if Protoss doesn't attack?" When somoene finds a way to extend the purpose of the units you made off of 2 bases, then it might have a potential. If units serve only 1 purpose: defend 2 base attacks, then it becomes waste if the attack never comes. Instead, if units can be used also to consistently deny protoss 3rd for a longer time or outright kill protoss, then that extended purpose might be worth delaying your own 3rd for. Currently, many seem to think it's not worth it. Therefore, metagame is not 2 base play you presented. But hey, who knows what might happen in future. Someone might find a way/timing to make it work.
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I like the idea. Pretty well thought out; there's only one thing I would point out as sketchy. I think you only lack the notion, just like NrGmonk stated, that every timing has a response, and as such, there are a few bases you're not covering with this idea, the biggest of all being you get behind P in econ with pretty much all the scenarios you gave, and that's not such a good possition to be in. If P doesn't strike at the timing you were pointing out for whatever reason, you're pretty much screwed in late game because you cut on drones so much. I still think the idea behind being prepared for immortal pushes is for the Z to deny P the necessary econ to get a critical mass of immortals... If you play too defensively, not putting enough pressure, and cutting econ, you're screwing yourself in the mid-long term of the game.
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In my opinion to stop the 4 immortal 1/1 sentry attack you need 3 base economy. Its sort of that paradox you have in TvP where to actually defend a 1/1/1 the protoss has to expand early to get an economic edge instead of building up an army on 1 base. Therefore 3 base is needed in ZvP much like 2 base is needed in PvT. However 2 base roach ling, banelings busts, and nydus allins are incredibly powerful against FFE players going for gateway and robo aggression and are incredibly underexplored.
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I would like to chime in considering I'm more of a midgame zerg than a lategame one.
Getting a macrohatchery before the third is out of the question. I have tried it many times and it only really works against a Gateway opening that stays on one base for too long. There is no reason you should delay that third past the 30 supply mark unless you are facing a Gateway opening that has the possibility to get out Zealots to deny that base or atleast deal damage to your drones there.
As for the Zerglings, you shouldn't make more than a small hitsquad designed to deny pylons from going down. What I like to do against the Immortal-Sentry is have a small force near his natural to jump on him and bait out some forcefields before retreating. It delays the push just a tad and you don't need to overcommit on Zerglings that early. It mostly comes down to scouting though. Your scouting has to be top notch to decide when to get drones or units, and I tend to scout the gasses rather than the actual tech. I only scout the base once my overlord gets zapped by their first GtA unit because I can decide a ton from just seeing the gasses.
2 gasses for a long time - maybe +1 and a chrono on cybercore: Depending on the units spawned it could be a DT rush, a Gateway push or a Voidray +1 Zealot pressure. 3 gasses taken usually means stargate play because the gas timings line up better than a 4 gas or 2 gas econ. 3rd and 4th gas taken by 6 minutes - sentries zapping at overlord - its the Immo-Sentry all in, almost guaranteed or a third taken with Immo-Sentry.
It is definitely tough, but there are loads of different responses to each two base all in or two base pressure into a third. You shouldn't skimp on the dronecount too much, rather staying even with him is about as low as you can go otherwise a major counter attack when he takes his third is too costly and he will just be able to probe up evenly together with you and forces you into a much more passive playstyle. If you want to stay aggressive like me, you need that dronecount to make your aggression not being a desperate all in and rather a way to seize mapcontrol and a faster fourth.
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