Liquipedia QnA Episode 1

On 09-09-13, 4.00 KST, Liquipedia held its first public Q&A. We invited some experts to talk an up-to-date strategy topic on ventrilo. The MP3 can be downloaded here (right-click, save as)

Topic: Modern Mech TvZ - Overhyped or Overpowered?

Questions could be asked beforehand in this thread.

For more detailed analysis, we chose three example games that we referred to during the show:

1. Flash vs. Effort on Destination, Korean WCG Qualifier - Near-perfect mech play on Destination
2. Skyhigh vs. Jaedong on Destination, SPL Ace Match - How to counter mech on Destination
3. Canata vs. Jaedong on Heartbreak Ridge, Avalon MSL- A Fake-mech variant w/ valks

The Hosts

• Ver, Liquipedia Head of Terran Strategy
• Chill, Liquipedia Head of Zerg Strategy, Strategy Forum Moderator

The Experts

•  Day9, Audio-Advisor, Top Zerg Player, USA WCG representative 2004/05, member of the Plott family.
•  Artosis, commentator, videomaker, omnipresent in WCG USA, representative in 2004. The soul of ESPORTS.
•  IdrA, professional gamer on the CJ Entus team, winner of the Valor Tournament and the ESL Extreme Masters.

Transcript

Intro and Opening (00:00:00 - 00:01:46)

Chill: [Are we live ... Well I guess] Thank you to everyone who's tuning in for Liquipedia's first strategic Q&A. There's been a lot of changes lately in modern TvZ, which a lot of people are having difficulty adapting to, even progamers. So, our intentions are really just to go through the match-up with some people who understand it better than everyone else. Hosting it today is gonna be myself, Chill, and I will be joined by the Terran Strategic Guy from Liquipedia, who is Ver.

Ver: Hello there. I'm Ver. As was stated, I am the Head of Terran Strategy of Liquipedia and just overall I hope everyone will enjoy the cast and let's have a good discussion.

Chill: Alright, and our experts today are gonna be the most famous Terrans in ESPORTS. We're joined with Mr. Artosis himself and the only white hope left, Idra. To take it away Dan!

Artosis: Yo! I am Artosis. I am glad to be here, alongside my favorite little nerd Idra. We hope to answer all your questions about this new mech whole hullabazoo.

Idra: And explain why none of it should work, but seriously they don't know what they're doing.

Artosis: Exactly.

Is Mech easier or harder to play against? (00:01:46 - 00:02:58)

Chill: Let's start there. In terms of the TvZ match-up, do you think Mech makes things easier on the Zerg or harder on the Zerg, and keep in mind we're not talking about pro gamers here, we're talking about middle to upper tier foreigners.

Artosis: Well, the thing is that most people, including pro gamers, don't really understand how to play it against Mech exactly, they don't understand the fact that all you really have to do is protect your economy and mass up. So, I mean that's hard to answer on both levels. I think it should make since a little bit easier for Zerg, because Terran just doesn't do as much with Mech, you don't want to be as quick with Zerg, and stuff like that, but people just don't know how to play against it right now, so I think it's seeming harder, because people are used to ten years of Bionic play.

Idra: Yeah, that's right. All you really have to do is defend against the Vulture harass and you're good to go, you just sit back and macro. It basically turns into PvT except that the Zergs aren't used to Vultures yet, so that makes it all weird.

Mech vs. Bio on Various Maps (00:02:58 - 00:15:18)

Chill: Ok, so then, say you're talking to a Terran who's at the peak of C+/B-, and there's this revolution coming in – it's been coming in for a while – but, we're seeing a lot of players use mech on specific maps. Is this something you would recommend, always play Mech on these maps? Or would you recommend that fundamentally, mech isn't as good as bio, as in, this change will basically pass, stick with bionic play.

Idra: It definitely depends a lot on the maps. On Destination where bio is so bad and mechanic can work if you play it properly – the really turtley, vessel heavy style that Flash played – then it's better than bionic. But once Zergs get used to this change and figure out how to deal with mech properly, it's going to be weaker than bio on most maps. So really long term, it would be in their best interests to just stick to bio or, if anything, look at the mech into bio builds the players like fantasy use now, and in the long run, that will be better for them.

Artosis: Another thing to keep in mind is that these lower level players don't have as much apm and their multitasking isn't as good, and mech is actually really easy to do apm wise, you just sit in your base. The only thing you have to do out in the map really is harass with vultures, so in that sense, mech can be really good for them because, obviously in bionic, to macro that properly, it really takes about 300 APM, and some pretty hardcore multitasking – it's really the most mechanic intensive thing to do in StarCraft. So in that way, mech can be good for these lower level players to be playing.

Idra: Well it's good in that it gives them easier wins, but it doesn't really help them develop as players, so in the long run, it's not a good thing.

Artosis: Indeed, if they are aiming to be a progamer, it's probably not quite as good as bionic.

Chill: Okay, but for the rest of us?

Artosis: For the rest of you, I think it's quite an intelligent choice.

Chill: Ok, so let's keep it on this basic introduction then. Let's just go through the maps quickly, where you guys personally think mech is better than any sort of bionic opening.

Idra: Destination is the biggest one I think.

Artosis: Yeah, Destination, definitely. That map is actually pretty good with mech. You can cut it off really easily.

Day[9] joins.

Artosis: Welcome. We've had an extremely Terran biased talk, talking about how we believe mech is not quite as good as it's hyped up to be and people are kind of playing versus it kind of wrong overall, what are your thoughts?

Idra: And is it eventually going to fade out?

Day[9]: Yeah I don't really think it's necessarily so much like really bad or really good, I think it's kind of like an alternative. Definitely for the most part people are playing against it totally wrong. Like for the most part there's still this huge reliance on Hive, like most Zerg players think it's the key to stopping any Terran, but of course it's just what you do against Medic Marine. So it's just applying the wrong logic to the wrong situation... I don't think it's going to necessarily going to fade out though. I think it's definitely really strong on a lot of maps though. It's just sort of like a good alternative.

Chill: Well, we were just basically going through at a really high level, which maps are good for mech. Which maps should people consider trying out mech if they are completely inexperienced with it. And Destination is an obvious one, so I'd like to hear your thoughts on some ones outside of Destination.

Day[9]: Why exactly would you say that Destination is an obvious one?

Idra: Well I think it's mainly because it's just such a bad map for bionic. Trying to defend that natural, then trying to push across bridges and everything like that, it really doesn't work.

Day[9]: Is it really that tough for bionic?

Artosis: It is quite hard to actually bust a third base. Ssay they take their third base over that tiny little bridge, and you're trying to bust that. Have you ever tried getting MnM over there against Sunken Lurker? It's quite disgusting...

Day[9]: I mean for me, the thing that makes a map really good for mech is having really easily defendable third and fourth gases. Like Katrina, in my eyes, is like the perfect Mech map. Because no matter what direction you push, there's an expansion there, and it almost always has gas. And you win even if your opponent has like 50 guardians.

Idra: Yeah, the third gas is really big because it allows you to get vessels without really sacrificing your mech... Idra cuts out.

Day[9]: Yeah, and likewise, don't mech on Medusa. Just don't do it. I know you like see pros do it, and it looks cool, but oh man I just get so happy when I'm playing Medusa and my opponent starts meching.

Idra: Yeah, mech is absolutely terrible on Medusa.

Artosis: You definitely do not want to mech on Medusa.

Day[9]: The big thing that Mech is good at is being really hard to kill. It has an unbelievably strong composition. There's no real good logical way to beat it. Like with MnM, you can just have four Lurkers and Swarm, and you're just like, “I can just hold off as much as I want.” But against Mech, you just need a lot of stuff. And really, that's the only important key to stopping it. Therefore, expanding a lot and abusing Mech's lack of mobility is like the key thing, and Medusa allows for that perfectly because all the expansions are off that center spoke and they are all really awkward to get to, so you kind of have to kill them one at a time, and Zerg can take the whole map like in that hilarious GGPlay vs. Flash game. That was just really rewarding to see him go Mech against like mass Ultralisk Muta. What are some other like maps that you like a lot for Mech? Because, personally, I didn't think that Destination was particularly good or bad for Mech, but I definitely didn't realize that it was so difficult for MnM.

Artosis: Yeah, that's how I base my opinion on which maps are good for Mech. Any map where I find bionic to be ridiculously hard, both defending Mutas at my natural, and just overall moving around the map are maps that I like mech on. And currently, the only one that I really use Mech on a lot is Destination. I use it on Colosseum some, but I don't think it's really actually that good there actually, I just like it there because the third gas is so easy to get.

Day[9]: Yeah, I like playing against Mech on Colosseum because, again, similar to what I was saying about Medusa, you can take like the opposite mains or those opposite mains naturals on the high ground and just macro really hard, and whatever direction the mech army chooses to attack to, he's moving away from your other expansions, so it's just really easy to hold the mid.

Idra: Mech is kinda weird on Colosseum because it has the features you want – a really easy to establish economy – so you can get that big invincible mass moving out, but you also have the Zerg taking the entire map and you have to deal with that. It's kind of a weird trade off.

Artosis: Yeah, and you can't hold a fourth base no matter what you do, you have to kill them off three base. Like, there is not a four base on that map.

Chill: What about Heartbreak? What are your thoughts about mech on there?

Day[9]: Heartbreak is just an unbelievably hard map. That map is just so hard in every match-up no matter what you are doing. I hate that map. That map is so Protoss imbalanced. The big thing that I say when I look at Heartbreak is that taking a fourth base is really hard. Everything you do has to be geared towards using 3 bases really really well because taking a fourth base is just the most awkward thing in the universe.

Artosis: Yeah it is, and that map, mech wise, TvZ, I've been trying both builds on iCCup, trying them both out, mech and bionic, and I don't know. I haven't decided on this map yet. It's really hard to defend Mutas with bionic, and for that reason I've been going mech slightly more than bionic, and the third gas is not really that hard to take because the way you can kind of siege tanks to block off that path to it. So I'm leaning slightly towards mech on that map.

Day[9]: Yeah, and I think the biggest thing also to consider with MnM is that Zerg can move around that center really easily with Lurkerling and Defiler. Like if you're on the bottom lane, Zerg can just go on the top lane and push really well. So unless you're doing some sort of super late game oriented build, or you already have mines on the other path and an absurd amount of vessels, then it's really good for Zerg in the midgame once they get Defilers. I mean even then the map is just impossible. Mech is just fine on it in my opinion.

Idra: That's the one map where I think it depends a lot on the Zerg's play style because I usually go bio on there but that is because 2 Hatch play is so common on that map, and as long as you defend your natural well, you get a really strong timing push because everyone goes 2 hatch to 3 gas mass lurker, just normal style, so if you play bio really well into that, then you get this really great timing push. But I think if Zergs played more macro heavy, then mech would be really good on there, because it gives you the easy defense of the natural and the quick third gas. And it's really hard for Zerg to take a big economy, which is so important when you're playing against mech – like, they only have a few expo's available.

Day[9]: And that's really the only way Zerg can play against a competent mech player. Because in one of the example games we had to watch today – in Flash vs. Effort, really Flash demonstrated that mech is very good at holding a defensive position really really easily, and the only way that Zerg could have been able to do it is to take a ton of expansions, and because, as I mentioned before, Heartbreak Ridge makes taking a fourth and fifth so hard, you just can't get a good late game set up for Zerg against mech.

Talk on Flash vs. Effort (00:15:18 - 00:31:33)

Chill: So let's talk about the example games. Game 1, Flash opened up with the proxy e-bay at the natural of Effort. How effective, from both a Terran and Zerg perspective, is this build? Is this something people should do every time?

Idra: I think the e-bay is a really, really, good idea. It's not required, but it's very strong.

Artosis: I agree.

Day[9]: I feel like that the e-bay isn't the most important part of that game, or really of any mech strategy. I think it's a fine thing to do on two player maps. I mean, when I'm Zerg and I look at that, I think, “Oh that's unfortunate.” I mean I don't freak out and send like 50 Drones to go kill it off, but I think Effort did pretty much what you're supposed to do. Especially on Destination, you can't do something like just build your hatchery somewhere else. Because a lot of players go to the left expansion and builds their hatch there and says, “Oh I'm going to 2 hatch off these bases.” Because if your opponent does go vulture, which is exactly what Flash ended up doing, it's so hard to hold your front because vultures pretty much get to go walk right into your main. So Effort did the right thing by setting up that block early with his first Hatch.

Chill: Something that I think should be mentioned for the players coming towards the C~C+ level is that I like the e-bay because it puts your opponent kind of on his back foot, and if you know the timings how everything changes when you do the e-bay, and your opponent doesn't, then I don't think it gives you an inherent advantage to the Terran that's doing it, but it kind of sends you down a different path. And if you're used to that path, your opponent might not be. It's similar in ZvP, both 9 pool and 12 hatch are fine, but you should play to your own strength as the Zerg. And I think that something Terran should look at, especially on two player maps like that, to kind of take the advantage, and take the tempo into their hands at the get-go.

Day[9]: See I would say the opposite, and I would say that it's dangerous to start doing that stuff too early until you're comfortable with just doing standard straight up play. I mean to contrast it with the 9 pool/12 hatch opening, obviously with the 9 pool the goal is to pressure the Protoss into making too many cannons, too much defense and gaining map control that way, but when you make an e-bay, you're pretty much making some big assumptions of what opening the Zerg player is going to be doing, because you can make yourself really vulnerable – like I played a game where I went 9 pool and he built an e-bay, and I just got to walk right into his main and kill him off. And a lot of times, especially if you're at that C level, you tend to default to playing a little bit too defensively and overreacting. I've definitely played against a lot of players who built an e-bay, and then when I get to his base, he has way too many SCVs blocking his ramp and I haven't really made that many Zerglings, and it can kind of throw their tempo off a little bit. I think the e-bay is something that you want to start incorporating to see the subtle changes that happen once you get the fundamental, underlying behaviors that will happen. Really, if you're playing against a competent Zerg player, he's not going to be deviating drastically just because he saw an e-bay there. He's going to be rearranging what he's supposed to be doing so he can get back on the same track he wanted to be on. I think that only at the C level would you see a reaction that would be so wrong that it would justify doing it at the C level.

Artosis: Well, something that I'd like to add in there, is that really what you're saying there Chill, if you know any build that people don't play against a lot, let's say 2 port wraith TvT, that's not popular anymore, but if you know all the ins and outs of branches from that, you're going to have a slight advantage even if that isn't the best thing in the world. I mean it could be similar for the e-bay in this way, but if you're actually trying to get better as Day[9] was saying there, this isn't a build you would want to do too often because it's actually somewhat complicated overall how to adapt to the various things Zergs can do there.

Day[9]: And also to gripe for a bit, or perhaps say nit-pick, I should say that I distinguish between an opening and a build. Like my build is my total long term game plan and everything and my opening is well, what I open with, so I would just say that the e-bay thing is just an opening for a pretty typical mech build, which is really just the 2 factory into add-on into goliath expand pretty quickly. And that's really the sort of fundamental core of what's going on, less of e-bay in my opinion.

Idra: Actually in some situations, the e-bay can be part of a whole big game plan thing because the thing is that you were saying that only at C level would you get Zergs who react really badly, but it's really popular instead to go pool first instead of pulling drones and killing it, and go into a really fast 2 hatch muta with speedlings to block the vulture - because you don't get a sunken in time - but if you can force them to do that, and you go 2 fac speed vulture, then it's almost a free win because they have to keep pumping speedlings to defend the vultures and then they have no econ mutas against 2 factory goliath and you just defend and take your expansion and go into a goliath tank timing push, and you can have that game planned out and control everything because of the e-bay. So it's not always just a little one off tactic you use.

Day[9]: No, but that's exactly what I'm saying. You should have an underlying build planned, and then say, “Should this opening do what I want it to do. Does it help, does it contribute in some way.” I feel that Flash did have that planned in, where if the Zerg did exactly that, he would have a great way to crush it, but if Zerg didn't react in the wrong way, he still had a standard, straightforward normal way to play. And I want to make sure that no matter what build people do, even if it has a lot of those awesome timing pushes like what you're talking about, that you still have some sort of underlying fundamental stable play that can happen even if he doesn't do in a sense what you're hoping he does.

Idra: Oh yeah, but I don't think the e-bay really takes away from that because it's almost guaranteed to always do some damage, because even if they go pool first straightaway, you're going to have that wall-in, so their lings aren't going to do anything, and if they are going 12 hatch, then you just delay the mutas, forcing them to pull drones, or do a late pool first.

Day[9]: Wait what did you mean by take away? I think I may have misspoken.

Idra: Umm.. I'm not sure exactly I'm sorry.

Day[9]: Yeah I was saying that like, when a lot of times when people think of build orders, they think from the start of the game, forwards, so a lot of players would think, “I'm going to open up with an e-bay.” And then, they start doing their analysis from there. And what I'm saying is that they should instead think, “Oh what do I want to do, oh, and an e-bay can help me do that.” So for instance you would want to think, “Oh, I want to screw up his economy early on.” Like in that Flash game, I'm going to use the e-bay to throw it off little bit. And also, an added advantage after I've made all these decisions, is that this timing push can occur if he makes certain mistakes.

Idra: Uh okay, yeah that's what I meant.

Chill: Alright, it looks like we're all friends here.

Day[9]: Yeah man, we're BFFs, you should see the photos I have.

Chil: (Laughs) Oh yeah I've seen them.

Idra: No one should see those.

Day[9]: Oh yeah I gotta upload those today. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, I took a series of photos at Blizzcon, and I am the worst photographer in the world. I covered up like the flash and all of them, and I just started howling with laughter. Why don't I start uploading them right now while Chill talks about the next topic.

Chill: Well, we've only talked about the opening of Effort vs. Flash. I don't know if Artosis and Idra want to talk us through what exactly did Flash do right in this game, and maybe Day can talk about what Effort did wrong.

Artosis: Well, what I really liked about what Flash did there was extremely vessel heavy play, which gave him a super, super, super strong late game. And the cool thing about it is that the siege tanks, basically, if you get a ton of siege tanks there with upgraded attack and they just melt anything on the ground, and he didn't have to buy goliaths after his original set of them, because he just used turrets to fend off scourge and stray mutas, and just used the vessels to replace the giant mass of goliaths that you usually see with mech builds. And that, I think, was the main point of this game – the point to really bring home. You need a nice vessel swarm if you want that late game staying power.

Idra: Yeah definitely. The vessels actually get ignored too much in mech play. And especially on Destination, the whole 2 base timing push thing definitely doesn't work if they don't lose drones early and then go mass muta, because you can't take a third gas easily if they go that style of play, and they can just run around and counter if you try and go around and attack. So really, just playing defensively like that and getting a big vessel mass up is much more powerful, and I don't think that kind of play gets used often enough.

Artosis: Yeah, the whole countering thing against mech – that's one of the strongest ways to fight against mech – and that's especially one of the reasons that I really hate these builds that are goliath timing rushes and stuff, because if the Zerg's smart, they're going to counter you, and you're going to be in a really gross position. But vessels, obviously, they're very mobile and very cost effective, so they really kind of fill in these gaps with mech. So if he's like countering you with 3 groups of units in your main, you can't walk all your goliaths back, because then he just flys down and kills your tanks, and it'd just get dirty. And that's what the vessels really do for you, and yeah, they're awesome.

Day[9]: Yeah, and also to talk about how awesome Flash is. Now that all of this has been said, I'm sure that a lot of players are going to go out and they're going to start making vessels when they are meching and go, “haha, I'm awesome.” But what's really important to note – and you'll see this if you stare at the cash counter in the bottom right of the game – Flash intentionally stockpiled up a lot of gas, and he did this by doing that vulture opening. And you see that he continues to make vultures as time progresses. And this is more of a “I'm going to make vultures to free up gas so I can make vessels.” A lot of players do the opposite, which is much worse. They sort of run out of gas and go, “Oh, I guess I'm going to make vultures now.” And if you watch the game, you can see that the times at which Flash made those vultures are really well timed, and he's able to check out a lot of expansions, poke around, and then lay mines in the middle so he can move out at the appropriate time, and that's what allowed him to spend all that extra gas and have 2-2 when he first moved out across the double bridges and have 4-5 vessels.

Idra: Yeah, you can actually see the opposite situation in Skyhigh vs. Jaedong. Because Skyhigh doesn't balance his resources like you said and he doesn't go vessels fast enough – he just relying on goliaths. So he doesn't get the map control and he doesn't get his vessels out at the right time, and he's never able to establish himself because of that. He's never able to get past his bridges really.

Day[9]: So to answer the question Chill said, which is, “What did Effort maybe do wrong there,” I really think that if you're convinced that your opponent is going mech, you shouldn't focus too much on mutalisk harass, because again, that's trying to convert mnm logic to mech. Goliath range crushes Mutalisks if they already have range. So I think Effort should have instead been trying to expand a lot more. I definitely think that you should get some Mutalisks, because the absolute, most basic thing that Zerg is trying to do, is make some mutalisks, so Terran is forced to make some goliaths, and then you start getting Hydralisks, which forces your Terran player to get a lot of Tanks, and just by doing that little change of unit combination, the Terran player has their push delayed by a whole bunch, which is exactly what Zerg wants. I really think that Effort focused a little bit too much on Mutalisk harass and played a little too tight with his expansions, like he made his 5th hatch also at his third expansion, I definitely think that the 5th Hatch should have been at another expansion. Because then, you can start really abusing Terran by getting lots of Hydralisks and Mutalisks in the mid and late game, and start to really screw up the unit composition of Terran. Because really when I looked at the moment that Flash crossed his double bridge, it was almost all tanks and vultures, 4-5 vessels, and a pretty small amount of goliaths. So that situation would have been great if Effort had an absurd amount of Mutalisks to move in and take it out. And really, vessels are going to do serious damage to the Mutalisks, and the Hydralisks are going to burn up to the vessels and tanks and mines and what not, but that's normal for mech. You just need to have a lot of expansions so you can replenish your army as Zerg and move in and keep pounding him, which Effort was not in a position to do. He had to stay back and keep expanding, and eventually it was just impossible for him to break anything.

Talk on Skyhigh vs. Jaedong (00:31:33 – 00:36:00)

Chill: Okay, so lets move on to the second game, which is also on Destination, but kind of shows a reversal of the situations, which is Skyhigh against Jaedong. Now as you mention in both of these games, the Zerg player gets the typical ball of 11 Mutalisks, but I specifically notice that Jaedong was just using his Mutas to defend Vulture harass, open up expansions, and he would run in, take a peek at Skyhigh's base, but he really wasn't in there for more than a second. Now Artosis, when you're opening mech, do you find Muta harass as annoying as when you're opening bio, or do you find it pretty easy to thwart. What I mean by this is as a Zerg player, should I be using my Mutalisks just to defend the harass, or should I be harassing the Terran back with my Mutas.

Artosis: Well if Terran actually knows the timing to properly defend this, which a lot of players when they start doing mech have a lot of trouble with that, but basically if you have goliath range when the mutas get there, it's extremely easy to defend against them. They might kill a few SCVs, but basically you're pounding the Mutas non-stop with the goliaths. I don't really fear the Mutalisk harass at all as long as I know the actual timing for whatever happened in the early game, because a lot of things can go different in the early game such as a vulture harass that didn't do damage or a vulture harass that did do damage, or they're going the quicker 2 hatch muta or 3 hatch, whatever. As long as you know the timing, then you can hold off the Mutalisk harass really, really easily, as opposed to MnM, where you have to be on top of everything, looking for those Mutas constantly, moving my MnM force around. With Goliaths, I put a few in my main, a few in my expo, put some turrets here and there, and I'm good to go.

Day[9]: In that Skyhigh game, Jaedong didn't actually get Mutalisks... Well he got them eventually, but he definitely threw off his opponent early on. If you watch the game, he opens up the game with 2 hatch, and then he gets the Hydralisk Den to hold off the vulture harass, and everything is looking normal from Skyhigh's point of view, but then you see Jaedong taking all of his workers off gas except one, and then he just throws down another Hatch in his main and starts expanding. He got his spire, and when you look back in Skyhigh's base, he had all these Goliaths that were ready to hold off some big Mutalisk attack that never really came. And Skyhigh even spent a lot of money on Turrets and all this stuff. In a sense, Jaedong, just by building the Spire, and letting Skyhigh know he needed to defend against Mutalisks, that was enough, he didn't need to get the Mutalisks immediately. And then that allowed Jaedong to get his expansions so easily, and when he did get Mutalisks, that's just again abusing the same basic idea that Zergs are trying to do. If Mutalisks are coming, then it forces the opponent to get more Goliaths. And then, there are no Mutalisks, which forces Skyhigh to get more Tanks and ground stuff. And then, Jaedong finally starts getting Mutalisks, and Jaedong starts using them to hold off harassment at all of his expansions, but also to screw up the composition of Skyhigh's army even more as he thinks that he needs to make more goliaths before pushing out. And now, his vessels are really, really delayed because he was expecting to deal with this mass Hydralisk army when now he needs to have more vessels to kill off these Mutalisks and his timing gets all messed up. From Zerg's point of view, things are feeling very, very easy to pull off. He's just making Hydras and Mutas and expanding, and by the time Skyhigh's first push comes out, he just attacked move from all sides and won.

Chill: One of the things I actually noticed a difference of between Flash and Skyhigh was that Flash took his mineral only first. My thinking in Mech is that gas reigns supreme, but is there a situation that would ever call for you to take your mineral only first Idra, or is this just a function of, “It's an easy base to take, so I'll just take it on the way to pushing to that third gas expo on Destination.”

Idra: It was mostly that it was just easy to take that base that game because he got all the vessels early and stuff, he had a smaller ground army and he would have overextended himself to go and take the fourth gas as well, so it was just that expo was there, and he had extra minerals, it doesn't hurt to have more minerals since vultures are very strong as well, and since he was also going for a very vulture heavy army since he wasn't making as many goliaths, but it was basically that the expo was already defended, might as well take it.

Day[9]: Yeah, and if you watch the game, you see that he builds the Command Center fairly early, but that's probably one of those situations where you build the Command Center early because in a handful of situations you can end up taking the gas expansion you want, and if you can't, you can just lift and take the mineral only expansion or whatever you want.

How do you use Drops versus Mech? (00:36:00 - 00:40:55)

Chill: The last situation we have on this is dealing with drops. This person has asked me a question that neither of the games featured drops. What makes you consider drop, Day, in ZvT against mech? You know drop is kind of suited to two points, I find, against Marines it’s, in the later mid-game and then kind of if the game drags out, you consider a kind of a bigger drop. Is that similar to mech, are we waiting to see more doomdrops against mech, or what style of drop should I be using against mech?

Day[9]: Well, the first biggest thing that I would say is not to make it like a lynchpin of your strategy – not to open up saying: “I’m gonna go for drop quickly”, because then that sacrifices all the expanding which is sooo important against Mech. So once you do have your expanding set up and you’re doing a lot of the underlying things you wanna do, like the +1 attack, +1 armor for Mutalisks, then you can start considering to get drop, cause you should have Speed Overlord at this point. And really, you can use the same logic you use in other the other match-ups with drop: Whenever my opponent moves out of his base I can walk into his main with a drop. You have to be a little more careful against Mech because they have mines there and a few tanks sieged up. It’s kinda hard to break. So I wouldn’t necessarily rely on it as this “doomdrop” per se, but you can definitely screw up Terran’s lategame if they’re starting to overextending themselves. In the Flash vs Effort game for instance, it would have been really hard for Effort to pull off a drop before Flash started to move outside his double bridge, because if he did attack early, when Flash was still turtling in his main, Flash is just gonna absolutely walk over it. But right when Flash does move out across the double bridge, starts expanding to the left side, a drop in the main would have forced Flash to pull a bunch of units back in to his main to defend, at which point Effort can sorta attack the front. Again, everything is geared towards having a lot of expansions, having a lot more units, and making just enough units be in the wrong place at the wrong time so you can walk over his front. Really I’ve never found cutesy harassment drops, like dropping a few Lurkers here and there to be really of any major impact.

Chill: Artosis and Idra, you agree?

Idra: Yeah I think like using little mid-size drops is just a tactic to keep in mind if you see an opening for it, not use it as part of your overall strategy or your build or whatever. Don’t be focused on that. But keep in mind that one of Mech’s big weaknesses is the lack of mobility. So if you see that opening it’s definitely something you should consider because they can be really strong in the right situation.

Artosis: Yeah drops are just there to abuse the lack of mobility, as they were saying. A lot of times you won’t even have a situation where you can really drop. And especially on a map like Destination you know that they’ll just cut the map in half, there will be anti-air everywhere, there will probably be a Vessel swarm, so drops oftentimes, you know, aren’t even going to work at all, but you know any way that you can abuse the lack of mobility, make them run around a little bit more, it’s gonna buy you time and therefore you’ll have like way more resources cause obviously you’ll have more bases and that’s just good play against Mech.

Day[9]: And oh, oh, I have another totally awesome thing to point out that’s superduperduperimportant and totally kick-ass. So, if you look at Destination, and think of Flash’ overall gameplan, he wasn’t really going for any big push at any point, he was going for controlling the two side-expansions: the left and the right expansions on the map. Which, if he has a strong enough blob in the middle defending, he can just sort of edge forward and kill those off and then secure them. It’s very similar to what you see in Terran versus Terran, where the left and the right expansions become a super key component of the map. I mean, the thing that really made me think is the thing that Artosis said, yeah, the map gets cut in half on Destination. And what’s so awesome about Mech on that map is you can just play defensively and when Zerg tries to take his half of the map, which involves either the left or the right expansion or both, again, you can just edge forward and take em out really really effectively. And Flash abused that and there was very little Effort could do, especially once Flash was 3//3 and had tanks which, as you know, are an imbalanced unit.

Chill: Yeah I think we’re gonna have to cut that out from the VOD, because I’ve lost so many games where I’m up like 6 bases to 2 and then someone just sits back, pushes forward, I can’t take those two side bases, and I pretty much wanna kill myself.

Discussion of the Valkonic build (00:40:55 - 00:55:00)

Chill: So let’s move on quickly from that game, and move forward into Canata versus Jaedong on Heartbreak Ridge. Now this is a very interesting and very purposefully put forward build by Canata. It was kinda the 8 Rax Bunker, into Ling-proof wall with a Vulture, into Valkyrie. Now I’ve known Idra and Artosis, for a while, having been working on builds involving Valkyrie, and maybe one of you will wanna talk us through this build.

Artosis: Alright. Well, basically this is, you know he pressures with the 8 Rax, and goes right into some Vultures and a Wraith. The Wraith gives him scouting, harasses some Overlords and all that. Into some mines, into… basically it’s a kind of Valkonic: he gets Valks to defend and goes Marine/Medic/Tank timing push. And this is really kinda dependant on doing a little bit of damage, you know, he killed 2 or 3 drones with the 3 marines and SCV, and, you know, he got a couple, and another with the Wraith, he got an Overlord and also he forced him into making a lot of lings, so he kinda slowed Jaedong down, which made the Marine/Medic/Tank timing really really good. And that’s what the Valkonic build is all about is: causing a little bit of damage and getting this absolutely sick timing off with extra Siege Tanks where you kinda barrel through their army right before Defiler. It’s actually like a really hard to pull off timing attack.

Day[9]: Yeah, and I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this, but I saw this game and I don’t call this Mech. Do other people call this Mech? I just call this 1-Rax-openings-that-still-go-Medic/Marine. Am I allowed to say this? In this Q&A?

Idra: Yeah it’s not a Mech build. It’s like Dan was saying called Valkonic build in Korea.

Day[9]: Yeah.. like, in my opinion I call things Mech because, I mean, there’s lots of factories that they can build with Goliath Tank. Still, this build is totally awesome and I have all sorts of neat things to say about it.. but just in case…

Idra: I think it’s included cause it’s like a Fake Mech. It looks like a Mech opening but then transitions into…

Day[9]: Ah-ha… I see. Well I play a lot against Frozz and he LOVES to opening Mech and then go Medic Marine so… every time I see the Wraith I’m just like “Ohh I’m gonna lose to Medic/Marine so, maybe that’s just my own personal life-problems.

Chill: Well um, from my eyes it looked like Jaedong got steamrolled pretty convincingly in this game. I dunno if you guys wanna comment on specifically what went wrong. One of the other things I noticed was that he rushed to Hive fairly quickly, but it looked like he defended the bunker rush, you know, reasonably well. He pulled a lot of Drones, but I think that’s completely acceptable. He pushed away the Vulture, easily, and his Mutas were stopped fairly convincingly by the Valkyrie and then, when he pushed out, he just got steamrolled, so… where was the mistake from Jaedong here?

Artosis: Em you know, I don’t know if there was a mistake, maybe Day[9] has an opinion on that, but um, this is like a very hard to pull off build. Basically if you watch Canata’s point of view: he kinda knows what Jaedong’s gameplan overall, this game, is going to be and he counters every single thing Jaedong does right as Jaedong does it. And, I mean, this is a build that really no one does with Fantasy and Canata really the only ones that pull of Valkonic builds with any regularity. And I think that it was a just a really well planned-out build order, well planned-out game and Jaedong was just on the bad end of that one.

Day[9]: Yeah also, um, there was this point early on where Jaedong really doesn’t have any mobility.

Idra: Like, the 8 Rax only got a few drones, but it forced him to make quite a few lings and pull all the drones and then the Wraith slowed him down more and the Mutas did almost nothing and really that gave Canata enough of an advantage for the Timing push to work. And the thing about this is that it does give you a really strong timing push but it’s so fragile, because if they get the Defiler out in time – and most Zergs will rush for Defiler pretty fast against it – then there’s almost nothing you can do, cause you just got your first Vessel out, you don’t really have the infrastructure set up for a long game, because you are so focussed on that one timing push. So really, in a way, it kind of a cheesy, allin-ish type of build, although it’s later mid-game and you do have more of a backing than normal.

Day[9]: You know a lot of games of Kwanro against a lot of Terrans, there was a period of time where Kwanro was playing against Terrans that pretty much all opted to do this sort of play, and, for anyone strugging to beat it, that’s are like really good case-studies for exactly what Idra was saying where you can get a Defiler very quickly and it’s very difficult for Terran to deal with because doesn’t really have any Vessels. And um, also I think that there was this period of time where when, after Jaedong kind of held off all the obnoxious harassment, where I think he could have taken another expansion a little bit earlier because, virtually always, when a player opens with this style of play, he has one Rax, one Factory and one Starport, which really isn’t enough to make a big army to kill anything off.

Chill: Alright, so, now, keeping in mind that the people listening this are in the range of D+ to B-, they’re not gonna beat Jaedong and certainly not gonna be Canata.. for the person listening to this and says: “Hey, this looks like an interesting build, maybe it’s not going to improve my understanding of the game, but it’s just another tool in my belt” Is this something you recommend people taking a look at? You know, playing a few dozen games on ICCup, or should they just avoid this? This isn’t a build for them.

Day: Oh, are you talking from the Terran’s point of view? Or from the Zerg’s point of view? Like, should the try to opt for Bionic?

Chill: For the Terran

Idra: It’s actually a really really ridiculously fragile build, very hard for Terran to pull off. I don’t think a low-level Terran would have much success at all with it. Because with that timing push it’s so hard to hit the right timing and use it to like, full advantage.

Artosis: You know, at the same time, Zerg might go slightly slower Defiler at that level. So, you know, it is really hard to pull off, but the extra Siege Tanks make it super strong before Defilers. Just once again, if they get to Defilers you’re gonna get chrushed if you’re some noob.

Day[9]: Yeah I would say newbies go for it man. It’s awesome. The build is like really fun to do. I’ve done it and you feel like the man when you win. But, as they said, it’s superduperduperduper easy to lose, so if you do, just blame the build and still assume you’re still the best player in the world.

Artosis: Yep, that’s what I do

Idra: That’s a good plan.

Chill: lol

Ver: Just something I wanna point out, on the overal build is that Jaedong has a hard time preparing against exactly what Canata is trying to do, because he doesn’t know exactly what Canata is trying to do and that, I think, is one of the main strengths to the build: it’s that it’s not just an obvious opening but it has a lot of tech switches and transitions.

Day[9]: Yeah there is a lot of stuff that can happen, but what’s key against this sort of play is to just rewatch a lot of replays and set up timing based on what you don’t see. Like, a lot of times if I see someone, you know, do any sort of bunker rush, which may or may not happen, and like, a Vulture that doesn’t have speed or mines and if I see an expand really fast I pretty much know about how many unit producing structures they have at what time. And you can sort of poke in. You know if you see a Wriath here or there, something like that you can get quite a bit of information, but really I would say that, to just, really, if you’ve got a training partner just say, “Ok, do this opening and here is 4 things I want you to do. Play 4 games against him where you do the sam build and sort of see how everything lines up and you start to see subtle differences that’ll kinda help to let you know what your opponent’s doing, but definitely it’s not something obvious. It’s not like when you’re playing against a Medic/Marine player, and you’re harassing with Mutalisks and you can literally see his main, and you can see what’s going on. A lot of times your timing get’s a little bit thrown off with this build and, unless you’re not paying attention to the really subtle stuff, you can get thrown way off.

Ver: On the same point, would it be potentially worth it, for a reasonably high level player, or even pros, to open with 1 Factory-Port and make a Wraith, just like in this build? Since a Wraith is a pretty key part of it since it forces him to get Hydras and you can see exactly what they’re doing. So, the wraith often can be used as a signal that they’re heading into the Bionic, but would it potentially be useful to go Mech and open with a Wraith to try to fool them into thinking you going with the Valkonic build?

Artosis: Well, you could do something like tha, but that would be an extremely high-level thing against someone who knows all the ins and out of these builds. This would literally have to be a top Korean amateur or, you know, maybe a low level progamer. So, you know, yeah, you can do tricky meta-game stuff like that, but again, it’s something like that, that type of trick is gonna be completely wasted at, you know, the C+/B- level I think.

Idra: Yeah you need to know how someone thinks to be able to play mindgames with them. And there’s not enough… it’s not as standardized at a lower level so you can’t really predict their reactions as well.

Day[9]: Yeah, an I mean, even.. again, the most important thing to note, the Idra and Artosis both implied, is that if you spend all this money on Wraith, especially gas, to get the Starport and the Wraith so early, what does that do that going Mech can take advantage of? The answer is there’s not really much that is can take advantage of unless your opponent does something totally wacky or responds in a way you know exactly how he’s gonna respond to. A lot of times players kind of obsess about the idea of tricking or fooling their opponent. And in a lot of circumstances, when you hear about these sort of trick things to psyche the opponent out, the follow-through, like going Mech, after getting that Wraith, doesn’t take advantage of how you trick them. Like, I see a lot of players who go Citadel of Adun, to go Dark Templar rush, and then they cancel when the kill the scouting SCV and then they’ll get a Robotics Facility so they can Reaver drop, and then their Terran opponent got an Engineering Bay anyways and they can hold of a Reaver drop totally fine. And, I mean, it’s situations like that where, you know, not just in this, but in a lot of them – make sure that what trick you’re trying to do is actually taking advantage of something.

Artosis: Yeah, you know, that’s just like when you get an offensive gas as Terran and they make a Zealot – that’s like “Well buddy, I’m already making Marines. Why would you make a Zealot?”

Day: rofl

Chill:, Yeah, and I think that something you mentioned about kinda psyching out the player and playing mindgames. At the C+ level is definitely something I think people are missing. I remember when there was that Casy against Julyzerg game, where he made the fake expo and then just sent the SCVs to mine to make it look like he had expanded, and then he broke. I remember a ton of people being like: “That wouldn’t have worked on me. I would have sent my Overlord to check or I would have or I would have noticed that the SCVs aren’t coming back. Like, first of all, you wouldn’t have even noticed it on the minimap that there is SCVs. Second of all, like.. (Day lols) So.. at this level don’t fall into that little trap, just get solid play before you start spicing it up with these other things.

Day[9]: Yeah and if you do do some weird cutesy opening that does involve a trick – or whatever you wanna say – make sure that you can abuse it in some really awesome cute way and if that doesn’t work , you have so sort of really nice, great follow-through. This is exactly what Greg was saying earlier: if you open up with an early e-bay to do that, if your opponent responds with trying to hold off your Vulture with mass ling, you can get that guaranteed win. But if he doesn’t open that way, there’s still this nice solid way to play it off normally.

Chill: Ok so I think we’ve discussed those three games pretty clearly and kind of shown three dimensions of Mech or Mechish openings.

Why doesn't Idra play Mech? (00:55:00 - 00:56:10)

Chill: We've got a lot of direct questions from people who wrote in the thread. The first one I'm gonna open to Idra is.. someone's asking: "Idra has a lot of positive thoughts on Mech, but we basically never see you play Mech. So, why is it that you favour Bio almost every time over Mech play?"

Idra: "Well really that's because most of the games you see of me are against foreigners and I feel that Bio is good, a bit more safer, a bit more standard, because you play so many more games with it. I know how they're gonna react, I know what to do in every situation and I feel that it'd be an unnecessary risk to go with Mech where, you know, some weird Hydra timing or... an all-in drop or trying to run Lurkers around... just anything can catch me off-guard and cost me a game that I would have 99% won if I'd just played straight up normal Bio. So really only in rare situations, like, when I play on God's Garden or something, where it's absolutely impossible to win with Bio will I got Mech against a foreigner. Against Koreans I will... I do more varied play.

How important are Vultures? (00:56:10 - 00:58:00)

Chill: Ok, moving on, someone is asking: "How important, in the early game, is the actual Vulture harass and Vulture pressure?" They're saying.. from kinda the low-level foreigner perspective, "We feel," and I'm gonna include myself in this group, "that Mech can just turtle up and suddenly roll out with a huge army, but at a little higher level, how important is that pressure with the Vultures?"

Artosis: At the higher level you really need to do a lot with the Vultures, because people are gonna be right on top of expanding and, I mean, if you don't do any damage with Vultures in any game that I play at a high level with Mech, if I don't damage at all with Vultures I feel that I cannot win, because.. I mean... it's just.. it's a big part of the build overall. I mean, if you look at the Jaedong vs Skyhigh game, he does almost no damage to Jaedong. Jaedong just crushes him. And there's Tech switches in there as Day[9] was saying earlier, but killing some Drones is extremely important and that's one of the reasons why Idra and I feel like Mech is a little bit overhyped because Zergs just aren't blocking the Vultures well enough.

Idra: Yeah.

Chill: Not sure if Day[9] is still with us... [..]

How do I scout without a Comsat? (00:58:00 - 00:59:20)

Chill: Ok we can move on to...

Ver: Em.. further questions... go ahead.

Chill: Now we're gonna move on to some questions specifically tailored for the Terran perspectives. Someone is saying: "A lot of Mech, especially in the discussion we've had, is talking about, you know, Zerg switching to Hydra's. Now I need to start getting more Tanks, or, you know, he's switching to Muta's and now is the timing I should get Starport." He's saying "When you open Mech you typically have a later Comsat, or no Comsat until the later game." At least, from his perspective, "How can you scout what Zerg is doing without a Comsat?"

Idra: The Vultures are really big.

Artosis: Yeah, you really need to be running your Vultures everywhere. First off your SCV you have to keep it alive as long as you possibly possibly possibly can. Literally you should be able to keep it alive until you see a Spire going up. And if you don't then you might be in trouble, you might need to send another SCV, but other than that you need to be running all over the place with speed Vultures to kinda keep an eye on his rally points, see what he's making exactly.

What Vulture opening should I use? (00:59:20 - 01:04:40)

Chill: Alright, something I found is there's just kinda three Vulture openings that I'm aware of. There's just the 1 Vulture into expand, then there's one with mines, where they kind of mine up the middle and there's the third one where it can actually be 2 Fact Vultures with Speed where they try to run by. At kind of a mid to high level foreigner level, which one of these is the safest and which one, say on a standard Mech map like Destination, which, if I gonna make one of those my textbook TvZ Mech opening, which one should it be?

Artosis: I think that they all matter based on what you scout. If the guy is gonna go for some quicker Hydra build, which happens a lot in the foreigner scene: people just kinda guess what build order you're gonna do and try to counter, that's kind of the risky play that foreigners enjoy to do for whatever reason - the mines might be a little bit safer, but you can always.. if you scout well enough you can do pretty much whichever one that counters it best. Like, if they're going for Hydra obviously you go for mines and maybe a bunker. And, you know, if it's more of a Ling heavy game you want the Speed Vultures or just going straight to Mutas you might want the Speed Vultures.

Ver: I think 2 Fact...

Day[9] comes back and rambles about power blackout [What's been going on?]

Artosis: We thought you were going to disagree with the whole Vulture-needing-to-cause-some-damage.

Day[9]: Dude, I do. I do disagree. Am I allowed to just like take a moment to disagree? Are you like really in the thick of the discussion? I'll just take things over.

Chill: Not anymore!

Day[9]: Here we go. So, I would say that in a lot of builds you need to have some sort of pressure that goes on, or have something that you're taking advantage of and Vultures are the easiest thing to do, especially with a lot of one-base openings. You can get two factories really fast, you don't need Goliaths that early, so you can get Vultures and then you can kill off a whole bunch of stuff and still be okay against Mutalisk harass. That's the most normal thing in the world. But a really great game, where a Mech player didn't go Vultures at all and just crushed his opponent was, em, Hwasin vs by.Hero on Neo Medusa. Hwasin, he opened with, I think, it was a 14 Command Center. Some sort of super fast expand and walled off and then he was... yeah and he didn't need to go Vulture harass. I would also say that he couldn't go Vulture harass because he actually needed to get units fairly quickly, but he was able to get his economy up strong enough so that his timing push in the mid-game was super super strong. And again, he's abusing his early resources. And if you're not getting early resources then you should abuse Vultures so that you can screw up your opponent's resources so you're still even. So I mean Vulture harass can be very very important and really deadly, but also make sure it's consistent with whatever ideologies behind your build. So unghh...

Artosis: Indeed.. that is quite true.

Day[9]: I say true things... Dan. And also to derail further one thing that's like really cool to note, about that game, is that Hwasin made a ton of Goliaths. He was really really aggressive with Goliaths, even long after his opponent started to transition into mass Hydralisk, which was a really big key to allow him to be really aggressive. A lot of Terran players don't wanna push out in the mid-game with Mech - they try to get a whole bunch of tanks, in addition to, like, a decent-size number of Goliaths and that's almost always easy to stop for a Zerg player, because you can kind of delay it a little bit and then just make sure you have the right units for when you actually need to kill it. But, by getting so many Goliaths so quickly Hwasin had this absurdly good concave - he like, had almost more Goliaths than his opponent had Hydralisks, which allowed him to get in this amazing position right outside Hero's base. So, in general, the more aggressive you wanna be, the more skewed towards Goliaths your army composition should be. And, if you watch the game, it's just a great great example of this. It's just such a cool game.

Idra: Well if I remember right, didn't Hero's Mutas kill a lot of SCVs that game and that Goliath push was kind of the last ditch all-in kinda thing? Like, he couldn't afford to wait for a better army composition cause of the lost SCVs?

Day[9]: Em, that didn't happen this game though, I actually have it loaded up right now and he actually... he lost a few SCVs but he got the Goliaths out quickly enough that he was able to repel it. And again, sort of relating back to that Vulture thing he did that, so he could hold it off so easily. If he went Vultures he would have lost SCVs and probably be forced to do that sort of all-in. That would be really funny though: I was like: "Here's a great little all-in if you screw up and lose everything - super good. Totally recommend it."

What's my ideal Drone saturation? (01:04:40-01:07:10)

Ver: Alright, heading on to further questions.. one person asked: "Is there some sort of ideal Drone saturation that a Zerg should be going for is they're given the oppurtunity to expand unimpeded against Mech? Is that the reason why Zergs on the Destination games stopped expanding at three gas bases, or does pressure from the Terran moving out force them to immediately switch to unit production?"

Day[9]: This is what I would say is that hard part in playing against Mech because I make it sound easy - I'm like "Ohh just expand a lot" - cause then your economy and Drone saturation becomes like the difficult part, like all the neat subtlety stuff - so what you can do is: you can expand a decent amount and not have a very high drone saturation. You're gonna be focussing more on minerals than gas, because, again, gas is what you really need against Medic Marine, not against Mech in the mid-game. So you can end up with something weird, like maybe 6 or 7 drones mining and then you can stop and make a few units and then you can sort of go back to making more drones. It's kinda hard for me to describe without a game to look at.. but, what'll end up happening is, by doing this switch between getting some Mutalisks and getting some Hydralisks you want to continually delay the push so that you can squeeze out more Drones. And unlike Medic/Marine there's no good phase to make Drones. Cause with Medic/Marine you get Lurkers, and then you kinda get to make Drones until you those Vessels are getting close to coming out, but against Mech a lot of players have weirder timing pushes. And as long as you're not making an absurd amount of Drones, as long as you have a decent amount of units being made here and there you can get away with expanding quite a bit and taking a lot of Hatcheries early on.

Should we add Defilers to our play? (01:07:10-01:10:45)

Chill: Alright, someone else asked a question I'm interested in. For a while we saw professionals using Dark Swarm in ZvP actually and a lot of foreigners were advising so it's unnecessary, we don't need Defilers in ZvP. Nowadays we know of course that isn't true. [...] Now, we've always said you don't really need Hive to break Mech. But, Jaedong used it pretty effectively against SkyHigh in that final push with Hydra/Defiler and.. I can't remember the game but there was a game on Neo Medusa.. it was.. top left against 3 o clock, Zerg at top left.. and he just flanked in and he had about 4 defilers and put up the most ridiculous swarms I've ever seen.

Idra: Yeah that was Hyvaa vs someone. Transcriber's note: It's Hyvaa vs Fantasy on Medusa

Chill: Yeah.. and the Zerg wasn't even that good I seem to remember, but.. anyway, the Defilers really won that battle, so, are Defilers really something we should be adding to our play or is it kind of unnecessary for foreigners? What do you think Day?

Day[9]: Well I'll reply first, but I definitely wanna hear what Artosis has to say about it. The way I would put it, is that Hive is not crucial in the way that it's crucial against Medic/Marine. I mean, honestly, you get Defilers in the mid-game in Zerg vs. Terran, against Medic/Marine - that how I'd say, your mid-game plan is to get Defilers really fast and you can continue expanding and holding off absurd amounts of Medic/Marine. I would say that, against Mech the crucial thing of the mid-game is economy. And late-game things like Dark Swarm can only help. I mean, Dark Swarm will obviously reduce damage from the Mech army composition, but too many players get overly excited about getting a Hive. What Jaedong did against Skyhigh - I think that's a totally awesome timing. He focussed on having a strong midgame with getting all those expansions and, more importantly, those upgrades and then, because he had the money, he went for the Hive to bolster his already huge army. Hive can help do that - to make your big army better. But rely on it. Cause you see a lot of players do all that stuff. They'll get some Lurkers and say "Ok you can't push til Vessels", which is true. And then they get a Hive and throw in a Dark Swarm with their Lurkers and then all their Lurkers will die in 3 seconds cause Terran has like 15 Tanks and it's impossible to break. And then, because they were going for this low econ style, cause they got their Hive so fast, Terran is able to just go kill them once they kill off all the Lurkers and the Defiler and THAT's the sort of thing I wanna make sure people are avoiding.

Artosis: Em, you know, I think Defilers can be good, late-game, as you were saying. And um, a few other instances that it would be good in is when it's a scrappy game, which happens sometimes with Mech versus Zerg where both of you have injured each other a lot and it's kind of this weird situation where Terran isn't huge but, you know, he has good upgrades, his army is still quite hard to kill. I think Plague, in those situations, can be quite useful. And also, specifically on Destination, if you use a little bit of Swarm, with Lurkers, on those high grounds, it really slows Terran down on the 3 o clock and 9 o clock hill expansions, which they really have to push up to and kill those expansions over and over and over on that map specifically. That can slow Terran down quite a bit, which can be really annoying. Especially if they didn't go heavy Science Vessel, which some Mech don't do. So, that's just kind of into addition to what Day[9] was saying there.

How about Queens and Ultralisks? (01:10:45-01:15:30)

Chill: What about Ultralisks and Queens? Do they have any use in Mech?

Day[9]: Wait a minute.. I know what we're talking about. Is this the Skyhigh vs Hero... not Hero... Zero! I was close.

Chill: I dunno, it's just a question, but I dunno what he's referring to.

Artosis: I think that's probably what he's referring to. The.. you know, that was a really cool strategy and I feel like Zero could have executed it better and maybe, in that situation, I dunno. But em, as for Queens otherwise I feel like, you know, maybe in some weird long drawn out game Broodlings can be pretty good. It definitely wears Terran down, if Terran's being really passive. I think it can be good but the results are inconclusive so far.

Day[9]: Yeah I can't really imagine a Terran player being like "Arg! He's getting Queens! Dammit." It just doesn't feel right.

Idra: When Terran is in a real low econ situation, and they have that big tank backbone that you're not able to break and you have a lot of economy and you're not really in danger, but you can't do anything to him then I think Broodling's okay to kind of wear down the Tanks without really costing yourself much, but, in just a normal straight up game I don't really think Queens are worth it.

Day[9]: Yeah...

Chill: And to the people who were kinda like asking this question it's like... you don't wanna fool around with cloning Queens to Broodling man. Just get a lot of Hydras. That's what you should be doing at this level.

Day[9]: Well, I briefly wanna talk about that Zero/Skyhigh game, cause it was just awesome. So Hero opened up with the 2-Hatch standard Mutalisk play and he did his expand. And note that, if at this point Skyhigh was going Medic/Marine Zero would be in the position for a very normal game. However, once he went 2-Hatch Mutalisk and had that expansion he saw that Skyhigh was going Mech. On Coloseum, it's really hard to push into the mains when you have those high-ground naturals. Especially for Mech because you need some high-ground spotter and the Tanks need to be positioned properly and Sunken Colonies absolutely demolish Goliaths. So if you're making a ton of Mutalisks the way that Zero did Skyhigh's gonna be having a disproportionate number of Goliaths, which makes his expansions even more secure. So right now we have 4 secure gas expansions and a skew towards tons of Goliaths. So suddenly, by getting 6 or 7 Queens, Zero's guaranteeing that he won't lose these expansions. Because there's no reason for the Terran to say "Oh he's getting a whole bunch of Mutalisks - Let's go ahead and make 15 Tanks." He's not gonna get that many, he's gonna have just enough Tanks to break the Sunken Colonies and use his Goliaths to make sure the Tanks don't die. But by getting the Queens, he can kill off those Tanks. So now all of a sudden we still have 4 very secure gas expansions and we're almost insured consistent skew towards Goliaths until a later stage of the game. So, he gets a whole bunch of Ultralisks, which traditionally suck against Mech, because Tanks and Mines do so much damage to Ultralisks. But, because, again, we have predominantly Goliaths in here, the Ultralisks are really really effective right when they come out, because Skyhigh's not really expecting it. So in a sense it's kind of an All-innish kind of play - I wouldn't say it's all-in if the Ultralisks need to kill th Terran right when you get them, but you really do need to have some huge amount of damage dealt when you get those first Ultralisks out. Because what we saw happen in the game is that Skyhigh was in a really kind of tight spot for a little bit. But then he got Tanks and Mines and the Ultralisks just couldn't really do much and his play sort of started to fall apart. But that's just like a really clever use of Queens: to abuse the fact that there's that skew towards Goliaths.... and THAT is what I have to say about that game.

What do you do against Flash' Goliath into Medic/Marine build? (01:15:30-01:20:10)

Ver: To change the subject a little bit and head to a different set of questions.. Someone asked: "When Flash used that build that focussed on getting Goliaths and an MnM force and Tanks and pushes out before Defilers - How is a Zerg supposed to play against that, Day?

Day[9]: Oh... ugh... that strategy I don't like playing against too much.. Em, really the point of getting the Goliath/Medic/Marine army early on is that em [...] the Goliath/Medic/Marine is really good at holding off Mutalisk harass. You get the range of the Goliath and if they get close to the Goliaths with the Mutalisk then the Medic/Marine start doing a ton of damage. But note that the Terran on 1 Factory and 1 Barracks for a little bit longer than he wants to be. So what you can do as a Zerg is when you see this you don't try to go for a super aggressive harrass - in stead you can go for an another expansion and an extra Hatchery, sometimes two, before you get to Lurkers. Because the normal transition in Zerg versus Terran is to go Mutalisks and then get Lurkers pretty fast - that way you can defend your fourth gas. And then you go for a Hive. Against THIS play you can go Mutalisk harrass, expand, then get another Hatchery and THEN go Lurkers. Because you don't need the Lurkers because there is no mid-game push that's gonna come out's not really that threatening when they still have 1 Barracks and 1 Factory. Because if you make 1 or 2 Sunken Colonies at your expansion and at your choke, you're pretty much defended with your Mutalisks. There's not much they can do. A game that I think is a really good example is July versus Flash on Neo Medusa in the Gom TV Classic. That is a great example of how July, in stead of trying to find some hole in Flash' defense, abused Flash' lack of mobility and then in the midgame just expanded a bunch without really worrying to much about it. And that set July up in a great position that.. he lost cause he's too aggressive and loses all his games that way.

Artosis: And I wanna throw something in about this build to Terran players out there. I don't suggest anyone really uses this build. I think it's actually quite garbage. It feels like an extremely mid-range build - it's not very good at anything and, you know, Flash won a few games with that - I think that was just cause it's this new thing noone was quite used to yet and I think that it has really low potential.

Idra: And he was playing NsP_RorO. Yeah it's not even that good against Mutas cause if you get into that point where you do have that little core of Marines, and you do have Goliath Range, then it's okay versus Mutas. Before that, there's a little timing there where it's really hard to hold off the 2 Hatch Muta. And I think he lost like 2 or 3 games to Yellow and Luxury and whatnot with that build versus 2 Hatch Muta. So, really, it's just kinda weak in general.

Day[9]: Yeah there was also that Jaedong versus Flash on Return of the King which was like the big game that Flash HAD to win and then, you know, a bunch of Mutalisks and Lings came along and just killed him. Well.. to play the Devil's Advocate, one thing that IS really good about the game isthat you do get a little bit more control in the mid-game (when you don't die). It's kind of a weird composition when you move out with Goliaths and Medic/Marine in the mid-game. You can't exactly do the normal stuff you wanna do as Zerg against it. I mean, it's not gonne break any of your expansions, but you can get a decent amount of center control. You saw Flash do this to some degree of succes on God's Garden when he did this opening. He was able to just sort of secure the mid pretty easily and then when his big late-game Medic/Marine army came out he was already in a good position. He wasn't really trying to push out into the middle, he was just able to walk out into the middle. But.. you do die a lot when you do this build so... don't do it.

Idra: Yeah

When do you Bunker rush going Mech or Valkonic? (01:20:10 - 01:28:20)

Chill: Well, just glancing through this list I think we've actually touched on everything in one way or another. A lot of questions have been answered. You know, don't rush Hive, Zerg needs to expand and get a lot of shit, Terran needs to keep his scout alive. Ver, do you have anything to add for these three guys?

Ver: Well I guess that the only thing that I would like to focus on a little bit more is on the tricky Valkonic builds that Canata and Fantasy use. Well I guess this applies to Mech as well. Overall, in what situations is the 8 Rax Bunker rush into Vulture stronger than simply opening Mech in your main without the bunker rush for both Mech and the Valkonic builds?

Artosis: I'll let Idra answer that more in detail but I wannt point out that SKT1 always has great plans against Jaedong specifically (like that game - Canata against Jaedong) where.. (Day: That's so true)..it is quite true... cause Jaedong, the thing about this guy, and the reason why I think this build was done specifically exactly as it was done, is that Jaedong probably never played a game against exactly that. And that's kind of how you kill Jaedong. That's how Fantasy did it on Medusa during the Proleague playoffs. Do something he's never seen before, do it really well, and I think that's kind of exactly why he opened specifically like that in that particular game.

Day[9]: You know the general rule I always say about 8 Raxing is that it should be designed to do damage to the Zerg, not to kill him. And also, it makes it a little bit more risky, in the opening, because if you mess up at all you can sometimes be in a worse position that if you hadn't. But if you're good enough, overall, it will provide a good amount of an advantage. Always, the most important thing about StarCraft is that if you're 8 Raxing to do damage make sure that you're taking advantage of it in some fashion. That is why 8 Rax into Vulture is just so normal because when you 8 Rax the Zerg generally makes a lot of Zerglings and doesn't get to get that much gas. So you have a lot of slow Zerglings at the start and if you get a Vulture really fast you can continue to put pressure on him. That's why that follow-through's so normal. So for instance, if you 8 Rax and then are able to wall-off your front, that's, again, a totally normal thing to be abusing. But em.. if you 8 Rax and it delays your expansion and Zerg gets to expand really quickly afterwards then you know don't 8 Rax. Don't do it.

Idra: Yeah 8 Rax into Mech is a really powerful build in general. It kinda sets you up in the same position that the e-bay rush into 2 Fact I was talking about earlier does. Because, it just makes the Vulture that much more powerful because their Sunken is normally gonna be delayed or out of position. Sometimes they'll even cancel the Hatchery like, I think it was Effort versus Flash on Destination like a long time ago: He proxy 8-Raxed and Effort scouted it and actually went 12 Pool in stead of going Hatchery first and so then he had to make Lings and he was just kept in this whole cycle where he's controlling everything he did, because he had to respond to the threats Flash was making and so that just kep him on his back foot and let Flash control everything and eventually set up or that timing push that there was no way Zerg could hold.

Day[9]: Yeah... and also a really good map to do the 8 Rax into Mech is Andromeda. It's super awesome for that. You can wall-off your front and 8 Rax and the positions are really really close and then once you hold that off you can go Mech and it's suuupersuperawesome to do. It's actually pretty easy. I actually never go Medic/Marine on Andromeda cause it's just so easy to do that opening for me. Cause my Terran control is not very good and if you're struggling with Terran control and just want to change things up a little bit 8 Rax into Mech on Andromeda is really good.

Chill: I think the point you're trying to get across there for everyone, you know, is you don't need to know the advantages of every build if you're just gonna play this game casually. I mean you don't need to know "when this happens I need to do this" or things like that, but at a high level you need to look at your build, say "These are the strengths of it. From these strengths this follow-up makes sense. And.. it doesn't take that long to do. You don't even need to do it consciously although it is better. But, I think that's something that can be applied to everything, not even Mech. That's something anyone trying to improve should, you know, take 5, 10 minutes, look at their build.. where are the holes, what happens when, what is strong coming from this. And that's something that can benefit you quite a bit.

Day[9]: Yeah and so I wanna make a point that's gonna be long-winded so thats basically par for the course for me. So like, um, think about what you want your basic game plan to be. Which could be looking at the map and see what's good on this, what's bad on this. In terms of big ideas: don't think of your openers, think about the mid-game. For instance, someone would look at Katrina and say: "Huh, it looks like Mech would be really strong on this because no matter where I push there's tons of expansions and lots of gas. Let me try to develop a good Mech play and then you should say "Well what opening would be best for this? Should I open up with Vulture harrass? Should I open up with 14 Command Center? Is an 8 Rax best?". And then you should have that opening serve the greater purpose of your build. Too many people start and think about openings. They say "Well I'm gonna 8 Rax - what do I do next?". It's much better to do it in the other direction. So in another example that was really eye-opening to watch was Fantasy versus Jaedong on Heartbreak Ridge in their semi-final match. So when I look at Heartbreak Ridge I think "Well it's really hard to get a 4th gas for Zerg. And this is clearly what Fantasy saw too. Because when he opened he did a cute 1 Rax 1 Factory 1 Starport play but he was going for Vessels and Tanks early. Which meant that when Fantasy's army came out he already had Mines for Vulturs and he had 4 Vessels instead of the usual 1 when you do your mid-game push. In other words, Fantasy set himself up immediately for a late-game army that camse out much earlier than normal. He wasn't able to put on much pressure in the mid-game but that's okay because the 4th gas is dangerous to take. So by identifying that he needed to get this really strong mid-game army. This unusually strong mid-game army focussed on Vessels that's how he was able to decide to open up with the cute 1 Rax 1 Factory 1 Starport build. He didn't just open up and say "Oh look I have a bunch of Vessels isn't that cool" - He thought about what would be most important for his mid-game first. So especially in Mech it can be really really fragile if you do it wrong and you get a lot of frustrating losses if you're not macroing properly. Think about what is good on this map. What can Mech abuse on it. And then make an opening geared towards that will bring you a lot more success. Alright, next question.

Final remarks/summaries (01:28:20 - 01:33:00)

Chill: I think that covers it for Mech. We've been going for about an hour and a half. I dunno if Artosis and Idra specifically if you wanna summarize your thoughts on Mech to a sentence or two specifically designed for, you know, the C level player.

Artosis: I would love to Chill, thank you. You know Mech.. if you're looking to just play some fun games then go ahead and do some Mech. If you're actually looking to become really great at StarCraft I suggest you stick more to Bionic. But it's good to, you know, play a little bit of Mech here and there. But, bionic overall is gonna make you better at RTS games. It requires a ridiculous amount of speed and multitasking and a lot of things that you don't use in any other Terran match-ups. And if you get yourself into a rut where you just go Mechanic against everything you'll gonna kinda of be the slow player. And also Bionic is more fun to play. So.. that's my 2 cents on it.

Chill: Yeah I agree with that 100%.

Idra: Well, on the forum actually a while ago, like a long time ago, I said that I think Mech is gonna end up like the two base Reaver into Carrier build for PvT. And I still think that. It's gonna be a little cheesy, it's, on some maps, like on Katrina was, or like Destination is now, it's gonna be the best option because of the specify features of the map. But overall, as Zergs figure out how to handle it and figure out how to counter it, it's gonna kind of fall into.. like people are gonna stop using it and Bio is gonna come back at the forefront. I that's how I think it'll end up.

Day[9]: I actually have a haiku about, em, Meching, for Zerg (laughs). It goes a little bit like this:

Don't get a fast hive

Expanding is much better

Enjoy raping Mech.

(Idra: wow) So that really is what I repeat to myself before every game. Yeah I know, and it actually is a haiku. I say what I mean. (Artosis: That was totally a haiku) I know, everyone was counting on their fingers. I could feel it. But seriously, you don't end up with anything near these cool exciting, dramatic, games against a Mech player. I think it's more fun to play against a Medic/Marine player. Because you can end up with something where he has like 4 or 5 control groups of stuff and you have 2 Lurkers, and a Swarm, and one of the Lurkers has been [Irradiate]d and you're like "Come on! Defend!". And you're just freaking out and like when it holds, you feel like you're the man.

Idra: Yeah that's absolutely awesome.

Artosis: Yeah that's so fun. I love it when that happens.

Day[9]: But like when, like against Mech it's basically: "I'm gonna get a whole bunch of shit! Ohhh, I didn't have enough. I'll try to get more next game." And that's.. that's fun for a while, I guess, but I wish everyone would start going Medic/Marine on ICCup to make games more fun. Contribute to the joys of StarCraft.

Idra: Make Defilers more powerful.

Day[9]: laughs Yeah I think that's the biggest problem in Terran versus Zerg. The Defilers aren't good enough. Swarm needs to be, like, a 100% bigger.

Artosis: Yeah, you know, well I think that what they need to do is just give the Defiler 5 starting armor, because it doesn't have enough already. (Day lols)

Chill: Oh God I can't wait to get you two in here for the TvP session, if we ever do one.

Artosis: I wanna see the Protoss you're gonna match us up with. We're gonna destroy him.

Chill: I'm gonna bring in the finest from Peru. They laugh

Chill: Alright, well. I think we've pretty much burned the candle out on this point. We've been going on for a little over an hour and a half. I wanna thank Artosis, Idra and Day[9] for coming on, rambling about Mech for a little bit. Thank you to the Liquipedia staff for running the Liquipedia - it's pretty ridiculous how big that's gotten and how much information is in there. So if you've forgotten about it take a look and thank you for Ver for coming along and thanks lot to Mystlord for streaming this for us. I think there's probably gonna be a follow up, dealing with the other match-ups for players who want to improve and also wanna understand the match-up a little bit when watching professional games. So, just stay tuned for that! Thanks everyone.