1 Gate expo vs zerg. How should a zerg player play against this?
Greetings. (ZvP) level.
Lately i´ve been facing a ton of players and they didnt FFE, infact they 1 gate expanded. I dont know how to deal with it or what to do and i feel lost in the matchup if they dont FFE. I usually go for the 12 min max out roach army (Stephanos build) , but against 1 gate FE you can´t take the risk because he can actually attack quite early. I seriously got no idea on what to do. I tryed to play it like stephanos style but it doesnt work at all ,I also tryed to play the old roach hydra build but it doesnt work either and I´ve tryed several 2 base all ins.
They go for 1 gate FE , and then they turtle in 2 bases untill they have a mini deathball and roll over me. If i attempt to expand my expansion gets killed with zealots harass (At the begining of the game).
Also i would love to know a decent 2 base all in that i can do when i smell something tricky
First thing needed is to scout it.
It is safe to go hatch first against a gateway expand (can't be cannoned). The gasless three hatch builds are not safe as you have found out.
It is really hard to hold early speeding attacks with a 1 gate expand. If you open 14-14 against you can often make the P cancel his nexus and even straight up win the game. P simply does not have many units when they are trying to expand and is relying on perfect ff. You need a different mind set, Z becomes the early aggressor and P is forced to be defensive in the early game.
I'm currently writing up a build-order document on how to safely take a fast 3rd base vs Protoss gateway openers, for TGM. Should be put in by the end of the week!
pretty much what boony said, a speedling expand will work well, protoss has no chance of defending their expansion and must either cancel it or lose the game.
First thing needed is to scout it.
It is safe to go hatch first against a gateway expand (can't be cannoned). The gasless three hatch builds are not safe as you have found out.
It is really hard to hold early speeding attacks with a 1 gate expand. If you open 14-14 against you can often make the P cancel his nexus and even straight up win the game. P simply does not have many units when they are trying to expand and is relying on perfect ff. You need a different mind set, Z becomes the early aggressor and P is forced to be defensive in the early game.
I remember the consensus used to be that off a gateway opener the toss could still smash a hatch-first by cancelling/not harvesting their gas and rallying zealots while doing a slightly later cannonrush.
Now that was back when everyone was noob (and maps were smaller) so maybe it needs new testing? Either way I'm sure it depends on how fast the toss scouts you. So would be map and scouting dependant.
As for speedling opener. You can't react to a gateway-opener with this unless you scout ridiculously early with a drone. So swapping your opener is just trying to blind-counter.
If the Toss is smart he will always scout and will always modify his 1 gate expand into a 3 gate expand if he scouts a speedling opener. Which gives you a less economic position.
My recommendation is make sure you scout not much later then when your pool goes down and if you spot a gateway opener grab gas asap and just do a normal 2-base opener. If you still want to take quite a fast 3rd there is a build for that which I'm fleshing out atm. But as I said it is being written specifically for TGM and isn't finished so I won't be sharing it yet.
I'm actually writing up a few documents for TGM and one of them will most likely be open to non-subscribers. Hopefully it's this one!
I usually grab a gas as soon as I notice it's a gateway build to get ling speed, and three queens as soon as possible to deal with any zealot/stalker harassment (which they're now amazing at with the new range) and get the creep spread going. From here just drone heavily as usual (assuming you've got the nexus spotted with an overlord) and keep a ling near their base/on the tower. Throw down a third and a roach warren once you can afford it and start mining/taking gas. Assuming no pressure, you end up with a little bit oversaturation while the third is building, so it's not economically ideal; but it's safe. Once the third finishes, transfer drones and then head into whatever midgame you normally would.
I haven't experimented much with fast 3 hatch vs gateway openers. I'm interested to see PiG's take on it.
Speedlings are the key thing IMO. There's not really much a P can do to counter that because sentries won't have enough energy to keep lings away for long and +1 won't be done very soon at all.
As a protoss, i would have to say that you need to go 2 base mutas, get some early harass in. Usually you should be able to be active enough to continually hurt the protoss to the point you get far ahead.
Early on, get 2-3 spines, get some roaches and lings. Make sure you chuck up a spore crawler or two for dt's or air. Try to always have map control. If you can see a protoss moving out with a zealot+sentry ball, you can anticipate it. Early on burrow is really effective too, if they attack your third with zealot sentry burrow around their sentries or where their sentries are gonna be. Should be fine.
Keep up your scouting and counter what they go for. If it is collo, get corrupters, if it is archons, get infestor, roach, hydra. If it is a voidray army, get mutas, if it is pheonix based, get corrupter +hydra/muta.
PiG has given a lot of good information here, but I want to discuss a few side notes.
- 1 gate expo usually expands around 5:15
- 2 gate expo, around 5:30
- 3 gate expo is usually up around 6:00
You can scout which it is by whether he made gateway first (duh!) and then the timing on the expo. EZPZ. Once you scout this, you have options--you can apply direct pressure in the form of a lot of lings (on two bases; as mentioned earlier, this can be quite devastating). Behind this ling pressure, you can expand.
Another option is a two base roach-ling attack, again for map control and punishment reasons.
Yet another option is a two base mutalisk build. This is one of the only situations where this works, actually -- gateway first openings almost always transition to a colossi-based deathball, and usually without much mucking about with other tech. It's still important to do a 7-8 minute overlord sac just to make sure, but generally Mutalisks are a great option in this scenario, which then allows you to take as many bases as you like while spending your money on drones and spine crawlers and hatcheries and mutalisks. High Templar/Blink Stalkers just aren't very easy to get to using gateway first. Just don't die to a four gate or DTs XD
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