I suspect that the Battle.net Zerg forums will light up with cries about. The spoiler alert is the new meta game will transition into early bio (marines and marauders) pushes against zerg.
A lot of terrans say and waited for the GSL to come around. Professional teams have been trying their hardest to figure out a strategy for their terran team members to use against zerg players. The first attempt was done by MakaPrime who had to do back to back TvZ games. Many people admitted that the zerg from the first game was just…. not that good. MakaPrime rolled in with siege tanks and marines and just flat out out-macroed the zerg player. The marines with stim stniped mutalisks and the siege tanks were designed to take care of banelings and zerglings. However in the round of 32 he gets eliminated by a zerg trying this out. The tactic in the end failed to beat a zerg of equal skill level.
A second attempt was made by oGsGON who is the think tank for oGs strategy and the leader of this 50-member professional team. The strategy he developed was fairly complicated. It starts off with building an engineering bay at the expansion of Idra and not finishing it. You basically halt production around 90% and build your slightly delayed rax. This forces the zerg to go spawning pool first OR build a fast expand that is extremely vulnerable to attack and harder to defend.
From here the terran pumps out 4 marines and starts sniping overlords so that the zerg player is unable to defend himself effectively. He will supply cap and be forced to pump out more overlords (100 minerals each). The marines move into the zerg main and apply some pressure, once again going after overlords. Once the zerglings come out you micro away. This marines have to GTFO. Eventually the zerg will build a bunch of lings to hunt them down, you hide them. You need to deflect his first ling push and then build a bunker at the third expansion of the zerg while expanding yourself. Load the bunker with marines.
When the zerg goes to try and take his third expansion he runs his drone into the bunker. Once the drone dies you unload the bunker and salvage it, run your marines away. And this is sort of where the strategy stops. It looks from his tank/marine build that eventually this was supposed to go for a timing push on the third expansion but it never happened because mutalisks just pinned the terran down into his base.
The third and successful strategy was something far more basic. To a zerg player feeling this aggression it’s going to feel pretty all-in As it ends up though this is actually a fast expand build. You lay down your first rax and you lay down a second rax while your first one is building…. yes you delay your orbital command.
You have two options with the rax. The first option is to build both rax in your base but move the rax back so it doesn’t get spotted. The second option is to build a “MakaRax” that is a rax that is out of your base but not too far from your base. MakaPrime puts the rax just behind his expansion. The idea is to put it somewhere that people don’t scout or can’t scout but is close enough to your base so that you can push with it.
The idea here is the zerg player is going to look at your base with the drone and see you’re going heavy marine. To him this means you’re pooling gas for factory play or you’re doing a 1-rax fast expand. Both of which imply passive play so he won’t be building a lot of zerglings or spine crawlers to deflect your attack.
The timing attack depends on what the zerg does, the outcome is the same. If the zerg goes spawning pool first you push with two marines. If he goes hatchery first you push with four.
http://www.gomtv.net/2010gslopens2/vod/1238
This is a game at the GSL where FruitDealer, arguably the top player in the world gets eliminated from the round of 32 from FakeBoxer who is said to be an ‘average terran.’ In this match up FruitDealer went spawning pool first specifically because he knew that FakeBoxer is the sort of guy who likes doing bio pushes.
Note in the video that he is not letting the zerglings get a surround on his units. Without the speed upgrade marines absolutely tan zerglings. With the number of zerglings that the zerg needs to make to deflect this attack the terran literally has double the income of the zerg.
As I said, this is a fast expand build. You’re only operating off of two rax and you are just continually pumping out SCVs, marines and supply depots. You’re going to be sitting on a pretty powerful bank roll after this opening attack. So you throw up an expansion, make a bunker, get gas and toss down more rax. If you were banking MULEs for whatever reason you dump those down.
Your second attack is a timing push. You need to get double tech labs and get conc shells and stim packs (and then combat shields after conc shells). You also want to get down an engineering bay and get +1 upgrade. The timing window for this is when stim pack finishes. You will have combat shields half done and +1 upgrade half done. You push and do as much damage as humanly possible.
This timing window is a little more interesting. At this point he can potentially have banelings…. however he cannot have rolly banelings. Basically at this point he is choosing between having banelings (that is having them now) or investing in lair tech (and not having a single baneling ready). Either way, you’re fine.
The key to beating slow banelings/speedling attack is micro. You need to move your marines/marauders away and make sure that the speedlings do not get a surround on you. 95% of the time the game just ends here. You steamroll his expansion and he just says GG and leaves. In that last 5% there are some zerg who even though they now have 1/3 of your economy will keep trying to persevere. In their mind they have some tech structure that just beats what you have. For some people it’s getting down a spire to mutalisk harass. For others it’s getting rolly banelngs to one-shot your entire army.
Usually what I’ll do is take a third expansion, get another two gas and lay down a factory. I’ll continue making out of all my rax and if I’m high on minerals after all that i”ll lay down another rax or two. Basically when my next push comes he will go “BULLSHIT.”
And that my friends is going to be the new terran meta game. If enough terrans start doing this zerg will stop early expanding and will instead opt to get out zerglings.
TheGameGuru.Me 