[ke_ivan]

After watching the NaDa vs. Byun games, I felt as if someone bludgeoned me over the head with a hammer. While it is true that all Terran games are positional in nature, it becomes a numbers game once the positional game has stabilised. The question really is: could NaDa have come back by simply taking complete dominance of the air against mech?

Mech play here will be defined as hellion/tank/thor/viking. Sky play will be defined as viking/banshee/raven/BC.

Mech play relies largely on air dominance for LoS. Without that air dominance, Mech is only half as powerful. Generally, if two meching players had exactly the same unit composition, the one with air dominance wins. However, in theory, sky terran players take that air control away with a unit composition that could take down vikings and thors with relative efficiency (point defense drone + banshee/viking).

It is true, however, that early game the sky terran player often loses map control once hellions are out on the field. But with banshees out, the Sky terran shouldn't have too too much of a problem. Hunter seeker missile could possibly be used to take out hellions (lulz) or more realistically vikings. Late game, BCs soak damage. The problem is that these builds are so expensive - but if you can do it with mech, shouldn't sky terran be feasible too?

I think the sky terran strat could be viable TvP (since we all know that toss has crappy anit-air), but TvZ i'm not so sure.

What do you guys think?

[HuT]

I feel Sky Terran is extremely unexplored, but in general Sky Terran would beat Mech. However, Sky takes even longer to macro than Mech, so it may be a case of the Roach in ZvZ - you can go muta, but you wont be able to kill all the roaches before they wreck your base. Same applies here, Sky would take too long to successfully macro up. With bio being popular in TvT aswell, Marine dont care too much for Banshees and with upgrades they lol at BC's. Maybe Ravens might find a use for Seeker Missle?

[ToRDeathsFang]

Originally Posted by ke_ivan

I think the sky terran strat could be viable TvP (since we all know that toss has crappy anit-air), but TvZ i'm not so sure.

Don't quote me on this one but i think Phoenix beats Vikings food-for-food (in equal numbers). Terran's that use a lot of air units generally have to give up all map control until they can get out Banshees and even after that they will be pretty vulnerable until they can get that critical mass. Banshees are really good, do good damage, but they need bigger numbers to be unstoppable.

Idk, it could work in TvP. If i saw a Terran doing this all-air strat i would probably instantly start getting Phoenix/Stalkers with HT support to feeback ravens or storm the banshees. Until this is tested we don't know how viable it would be

/2c

[LennX]

Did you see the polt/bomber match? One problem of going air is that your units will stack together and a thor volley while not being painful, will hit a hot of stacked vikings together. As for hunter seeker missle, it can be out runned so it is not really useful. PDDs are first and foremost the most important for a raven followed by auto turrets. Also no matter what, a Terran going mech will have a small air force. The terran going air will have a smaller land army in comparison. Mech Terran can spilt his army in respond to Sky Terran but can Sky do the same? Mech can also transit into marines easier as compared to Sky as Mech already have a decent land force already.

This will mimic the real life situation. No matter how good your airforce is, you can't do shit without land units to deal the finishing blow.

[ke_ivan]

While it might be slower to macro, I think that air power can take map control mid-game. Banshees are cheaper than tanks (though they take longer to produce); vikings are also cheaper than siege tanks; BCs are a third more expensive than the thor; and ravens just cost a lot of gas. PDD also takes care of marauders and thor volleys and viking volleys. (PDD also does stop boodlings!) Theoretically, banshees/BCs could take care of marines (if all things are equal). I think that the difference between mech and air in terms of cost isn't that great.

[dippa]

sky terran is even weaker than mech in small numbers.

that's essentially the trade-off: more power in the early game or a stronger composition later on (but the idea with say, bio, is to work around that by having superior firepower through numbers).

[ROOT`iaguz]

Didn't watch recent tvt games which apparently I really should, but I think sky terran falls over to Mech terran purely because of thor/viking. By going vikigns I force you to go a great number of viking and by going thor I trump all your non-Battlecruiser units extremely hard. Not to mention there's all sorts of earlier timings where weird stuff can occur. Not sure.

I dunno though. There's tons of factors going into this. I think it's an interesting and unexplored avenue of the expanding TvT mindset involving mech play. Fascinations abound I"m sure (and people still think this matchup is shit?)

[ke_ivan]

Woah, Sky terran is even more unforgiving than mech. Basically, in Bomber vs Polt (Optimus), the person who engages wrongly is dead. Ok, i'll be sticking to siege tank/marine in TvT for a while. At least you can come back from losing a bad engagement.

[Nemo]

Originally Posted by DeathsFang

Don't quote me on this one but i think Phoenix beats Vikings food-for-food (in equal numbers).

Food for Food yes (both are 2 or 3 I think) but not cost for cost. Once we were arguing about it with Cosmos and we finally went to Unit Tester Map. 15 Phoenixes beat 15 Vikings but 16 Vikings beat 15 Phoenixes. Considering Viking are 150/75 and Phoenix 150/100, Viking have the edge.

That reflexion drove him to his banshee build that is his standard in TvP and he has huge success with it. He beat inf with it on ladder for instance. The only replay I found was : http://www.terranimba.com/replay/sz8E0Bs3XOqGAmf6R8

Originally Posted by DeathsFang

Idk, it could work in TvP. If i saw a Terran doing this all-air strat i would probably instantly start getting Phoenix/Stalkers with HT support to feeback ravens or storm the banshees. Until this is tested we don't know how viable it would be

It is perfectly viable and strong. I can't tell more about possible defenses as it is not my build and I don't want to give away other's secrets without their permission.

Originally Posted by DeathsFang

Terran's that use a lot of air units generally have to give up all map control until they can get out Banshees and even after that they will be pretty vulnerable until they can get that critical mass. Banshees are really good, do good damage, but they need bigger numbers to be unstoppable.

In TvT the more viable "Sky Terran" is probably the iEchoic 1-2-2. Its is very special to play, very fragile but beats any guy that is not aware of the threats. His main strength is to have total Map Control and force the opponent to turtle on 2 bases. Thors kills it if BC are not ready soon.

[ke_ivan]

I don't know about going a strat based on what someone else doesn't know. I prefer the kind where strats are open and it's positioning that matters, cuz with strats that are based on secretive building, you're just praying that your opponent doesn't find out what your build is and leaving that to chance. Which means you'll lose to players with decent scouting. I wonder if there's a slow way of transitioning (of course there is! that's the Polt (Optimus) vs Bomber game! lulz). In any case, i don't think going sky mech immediately is safe. I think maybe going into 2-port banshee is possible, but doing it so early makes it even more all-inish. imho it's safer to go hellion or marine/tank into sky terran, making this strat a super super late game strat.

[porkchop]

i watched a couple of TVT games last weekend , aparently , they can be ok , it was between KJH, EXPLICIT and i forgot the other ones name , sorry anthony , al AUSSIE based ,, they were like ok, explicit liked going banshee hellions , into vikings and tanks , it was ok , KJH went marine tank builds , and anthony played standard, ... i think marine ghost would beat , any air compo there, well, thats just me ..