In this review I'm going to be analysing a short game between two well known players. I suggest you watch the game first and then read my review.
Nota Bene: I just want to remind people who don't know, you don't need to be on Bnet to watch recordings. Here you can simply drag and drop a recording on top of the SC2 icon, and the game loads itself.
-Spoiler- Here we are! I'll be examining a short game between two very strong and well known players who you may or may not know. In this game we'll examine how the hero of this game defends against the standard but strong play of his opponent. This game was posted at SC2win.com and I
believe was a custom game. And so I give you:
TheLittleOne (IMG:
http://img1.imagilive.com/0610/zerg.gif) vs.
Huk (IMG:
http://img1.imagilive.com/0610/protoss.gif)
Map: Blistering Sands(IMG:
http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/3572/mapn.jpg)
The Game:We have our good friend and hero TheLittleOne up in the top right position as the blue Zerg, with his opponent, Huk, as the yellow Protoss in the bottom left position. Blistering sands is, in my [very professional and intelligent] opinion an interesting map. You have two places where you can be attacked that need to be watched. First you have the choke right outside your expansion that needs to be defended. Many players will block their ramp or the choke to defend early on. But there's a second weak spot, which are the destructible rocks. You
must keep an eye on those rocks, I've lost a number of games where I would just lose because all of a sudden I had no harvesters: "What the hell how did they get there?" Oh fruit, the
rocks!". There is a "sweet spot" where you can cover both your choke and your rocks, which you want to control on this map.
So what are our players going to do on this map? Well Huk is going to opt for the standard, yet very effective, dual Gate for mass Zealots. He's going to speed things up with his Chrono Boost and will rush TLO.
TLO however is going to do something which is pretty unorthodox (he is TLO after all), which isn't your standard Zerg opening at all. He's going start off with a double extractor trick, meaning that when he's at 10 food (and hasn't made an Overlord yet), he's going to make two extractors. This brings him down to 8 food, and he then makes two winged shrimp (aka Drones, but that's a boring name) to bring his food back up to 10. By cancelling both his extractors, he's back up to 12/10 food. Smart way to speed things up early on! TLO will then proceed to 12 pool and make an Overlord. He'll then make 6 Lings to harass his opponent's mineral line (which Huk will micro pretty effectively, not losing a probe unless I wasn't watching properly).
Afterwards TLO is going to completely skip gas. This means that early on, he won't be getting Ling speed. Against a Zealot rush. I shall remind you that the best way to counter Zealots with Lings is to surround the Zealot with Lings and nibble him to death (Zealots 3 hit lings while Lings 30 hit Zealots ... keep in mind that Zealots hit at "slow" and Lings at "fast"). Zealots are very effective at chopping up Lings into tiny little pieces. So what is he planning? Well instead of going for mass Lings to defend, TLO is going to make a handful of Lings and 2 Queens.
You'll notice that by the time Huk comes along with his 3 sushi chefs, TLO has 4 Lings in his base, 2 Queens, and his drones. He's going to be able to micro that and kill the Zealots before they do significant damage:
(IMG:
http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/593/queenz.png)
You'll notice the blood there, which are the remains of 2 Drones and 4 Lings (2 more shrimp die from the two remaining Zealots: Huk understands that he won't be able to take out a Queen, so he's going to target the flying crustaceans). TLO however will successfully kill the 3 Zealots and defend his gooey home! Good job by him.
As it is, at the end of this exchange TLO has lost 400 minerals worth of units and Huk has lost 300. Huk also has 2 more harvesters than TLO (17 vs 15), but the drone count will soon be compensated by Zerg's ability to make more than one drone at a time. Nonetheless, Huk has successfully harassed TLO in the early game.
Huk and TLO will now be regrouping their dudes. Huk is going mass more Zealots and hope to break TLO, while TLO is finally getting an Extractor up, opting to get the gas necessary for Ling speed. However the real deal is his third Queen (Ling speed comes after the fight). The Queens are going to help the Lings deal with the Zealots and once the Zealot numbers are down, they can deal with the remaining units. Here Huk pushes up and tries to do damage, but unfortunately he's fighting Zerg on creep. This taffy is advantageous to the Zerg player, as Zerg units are faster on creep, it really helps them surround enemy units. Here Huk does the smart thing and runs off the creep and fights there:
(IMG:
http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/7327/16696929.jpg)
Now Zealots are experts at dicing up Lings. They do insane damage to them, you'll notice these 7 Zealots are going to murder 21 Lings, even with Queen back up and even with a concave (you'll notice that the Lings form a rough circle around the Zealots, meaning that more Lings can attack at a time than Zealots, which is of course an advantage to whoever has that concave). What's really going to save TLO (as he loses all of his Lings with 3 Zealots remaining) are the Queens. Those Queens not only helped kill Zealots during the fight but also killed off the surviving Zealots easily.
While we're at it, let's take a quick glance at TLO's Overlord placement. We can see that he has one right over his destructible rocks, one over Huk's main and another one not far from his expo. These Overlord's give TLO a good idea of what's going on at the key locations of the map. He can see the Gateways and he can see Zealots coming in for a push. Those Overlords are immensely helpful and a good Overlord spread is something every Zerg player should learn to pull off.
And of course every player facing a Zerg opponent should learn to kill off Overlords the best they can. Keeping information from your opponent is important!
(IMG:
http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/5336/sentryi.jpg)
At this point TLO has only lost 200 more resources than his opponent, which isn't bad at all. He's now going to place three Spine Crawlers where they can protect his ramp which are going to be fundamental for defending against Huk's next pushes, pushes which are going to incorporate more than just Zealots. Notice that TLO is also being active with his creep tumours. That creep
needs to spread, always (as Zerg) spread that damn goo!
(IMG:
http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/6853/lulp.jpg)
As it is though, there won't be a next push as the game will end soon. With Ling speed, TLO will manage to run past Huk's dudes and just end the game by taking out two little Pylons:
(IMG:
http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/2940/gate.png)
A word of wisdom to Protoss players. Be careful where you put those Pylons. If they are powering buildings then they need to be safe. You can put them on top of a cliff or surround them with buildings, but be very careful to keep them alive. I've lost a number of games because of poor pylon placement. These little details are key to becoming a more competent player.
In conclusion, we find that TLO has found a way to deal with very early Zealot pressure, by skipping gas and going Ling/Queen
very early. This helps him stay alive long enough to get Spine Crawlers and to get his first expansion. And though here the game didn't go on (it would have if those Pylons weren't destroyed and Huk's Probes weren't going to suicide-sacrifice themselves), we would probably have seen some more defence by TLO to then transition into a tech or whatever else he had planned. Note that at the 10th minute, things look pretty normal, but TLO's start can be considered a little weird. That's why you should see your games as a series of transitions, from point A to point B. You can't just mass Mutalisk and think that's a strategy, you have to find a way to
transition to the point where you can go mass Mutalisk. It's an important thing to consider for any strategy.
I hope you've enjoyed this analysis, by all means comment, flame or criticise. I doubt that I know everything there is to know about SC2, so by all means if you disagree with something please say so (but with a good argument behind it). xoxox