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ROOT`iaguz · Thu, 5th-Jan-2012, 7:19 PM

Playing TvT in 1.4.3 by iaguz

Today we give you a sneak peak so you get an idea of what our content updates are like in The Grandmaster Manual. This particular content update is written by TGM coach iaguz of team xGKing. He takes a look at how to play TvT in today's metagame, the optimal walkthrough build order to use and why it works, with reference to the latest builds you see used in today's GSL. iaguz currently sits near the top of the SEA Grandmaster ladder with a very impressive 41-3 record, holding the highest win ratio on SEA at the moment. More information about iaguz and TGM can be found at the bottom of this post.

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Overview: The Reaper Opening

Korean TvT has roughly 3 opening styles which I will describe below.

1/1/1 opening: Usually aiming to get Banshees and maybe expansions. Can be extremely dangerous early with marine/tank timings and can be a bit hard to read if they have expanded or not.
Gasless opening: 1 rax expand (or the occasional proxy rax marine/scv all in. Sigh) into either more raxes or tech. Is very strong economically but is vulnerable and if disrupted you can fall behind fast. A bit greedy I think.
Reaper opening: There are two main types of reaper play, the style popularized recently by SlayerS with a 5 speed Reaper, 3 hellion drop opening and the reaper expand variant. This guide deals with the expansion.

I favour the reaper expand currently. It combines scouting, aggression, defense, tech and solid timings and has good responses to most opposing build orders. First, a disclaimer. There is no 1 true opening in TvT. All openings have strengths and weaknesses against other openings and there's not much chance you get to know what his opening is exactly. Playing this build will not necessarily make you a better player and nor will it win games by itself. You will not be immune to random dumb losses.

Why hello there!

That aside, I still think it's very strong. Now, to the build order itself.

The Build Order

Food	What to build
10	1st Supply Depot
12	Barracks
13	Refinery
15	Tech Lab as soon barracks done
16	Orbital Command
17	2nd Supply Depot
20	Command Center, Orbital upon completion
22	2nd rax, reactors on completion. Make a lot of marines.
23	3rd rax
6.20 mins	Ebay (cloaked banshees hit at 7.30-40)
7.20-50 mins / 42-46 supply	Factory

Other Build Order Notes:

The first stage is the standard 10 depot, 12 rax, 13 gas, 16 orbital command. You can opt to start the rax on 11 instead of 12, get the gas on 12 and still have a 15 orbital command (thank you +5 second rax building time). Your reaper comes out a few seconds faster, and that's nice. It also allows you to build the orbital command before the second depot and you don't lose too much from getting supply blocked. Either way is fine.
You want to make 3 reapers and a command centre. Between the second and third reaper you can start Combat Shields. When shields finishes, get stim. 3 Reapers is the magic number for harassment as well as it one shots marines / scvs - see game 3 for an example on how to win the game by the 6th minute mark.
Ebay - Based on what you scout try to determine if he is dropping or going banshee and make turrets if needed, earlier if he goes gas first.
Factory - Start this before you start +1 infantry weapons if gas does not permit. You'll want 2 medivacs quickly.
When minerals permit you want to slap down another 2 Barracks. As soon as these rax finish you want to add reactors to them. You're going to want a lot of marines very fast if he's being aggressive.
After the 2 rax start and your natural is becoming and orbital you're going to want another gas and an ebay. Shields will finish so your next 100 gas goes into stim.
From here you're going to want to get a factory for medivacs, and get +1 weapons on your Ebay.
At this point you can opt to add on tanks, get a 3rd or go fast 2/2 upgrades. It's up to you to figure out how you play this part of the game, the build order is essentially done.

Weakness of the build:

The most common thing I have huge trouble with dealing is Gas first cloak banshee. As soon as you scout gas first you should prepare for a much earlier engineering bay.
The proxy thor rush which is something more easily dealt with by tanks, hellions and cloaked banshees (3 things you just don't have) and not expanding but I pretty much never see this build anymore.

If performed right you should be able to deal with standard cloak banshee openings, marine/tank timings, SlayerS style, other FE builds or whatever weird shit gets sent your way.

If he does an early timing / all in stop it as how we suggested in the previous chapter

Early Game

Reacting based on what you scout

WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR UNITS, WHAT YOU'RE SCOUTING FOR AND WHAT YOU HAVE TO REACT AGAINST.

This based is based on getting an economic advantage from the early CC, and at the same time your reaping giving you the perfect scouting information to react. You play like zerg basically but with mules.

SCV Scouting:
With your scv scout for 3 things. First, where is his rax? If you see no rax then he's probably proxied it and you're going to need marauders instead of reapers. Perhaps even a bunker. In this instance you shouldn't bother expanding, just hold off his shitty proxy, steal his gas and do a 1/1/1 cloaked banshee marine/tank timing. He should not be able to hold it.

Second, does his rax have a tech lab on it? If it does he's probably going reapers. You probably won't get to know if he's going SlayerS style or expansion but at least it's something. In this instance, hide the scv on the map somewhere and go take another look later. A second look will hopefully reveal something.

Third, does he have gas? If no gas then thank your God, it's probably a 1 rax gasless FE and you can do a lot of damage to that with 3 reapers. If he has gas, no tech lab on rax then it could be anything but at least we've ruled out a few options.

Reaper Scouting:
Your first reaper can get into the enemy's base and take a good look around. You might even get an scv kill or two. Great! Each map has common and uncommon points of entry for a reaper. Generally the common ones get covered by marines after he scouts you going reapers. So we're going to have to be a bit clever with it.

Take Shakuras Plateau as an example. The backdoor entrance for reapers is very common and there are almost always marines there. But the smaller juts to the left and right of the main ramp are not. It is safer to put reapers up there. I exploit this in my Shakuras replay below and can infer a cloaked banshee opening from my opponent with the scouting I get from it.

Another way to get a reaper scout through is to try and combine it with and SCV. You can move an SCV to the bottom of a cliff and if he doesn't get shot you know it's safe to jump up. Much better then jumping up 1 reaper, getting shot and dying when you try and jump it back down.

Posted again for emphasis on how awesome this build is

After this you'll get 2 more reapers. 3 Reapers together can 1 shot a marine or an SCV which makes them a potent harassment force against a vulnerable opponent. But most of the time you'll not be able to get these through a competent opponent. That's fine. A few reapers can maintain map control against marines and hellions, hold onto the towers, scout potential incoming forces, sit on possible drop lanes so you can see drops coming and be a potential back stabbing force for later in the game. I generally only try and get really aggressive with reapers early against a 1 rax Gasless FE-ing opponent. There's tons of ways to get value out of them besides.

Below is a replay where I use 3 reapers to cripple a 1 rax FE Terran. He tries to take his natural immediately and has his marines too spread out. 3 Reapers pretty much cripple him.

Game 3
He takes a quick expansion as well and is punished by the mobility of my reapers, allowing me to basically do the same thing as he did (quick expand) but I get to punish him for it.

Against other reaper openings I tend to be defensive with my reapers. If they are going for the SlayerS style then it's important to have maximum defense at home. And if they're also going reaper expand then we just did the exact same build and hopefully I can get a few of his reapers and take map control. Either way, keep your command centre in your base and move it out once you know it's safe! The SlayerS style is incredibly good against a Terran who is trying to defend 2 bases from darting speed reapers. Save yourself some hassle and dead scvs and just wait it out a bit. My second replay on Antiga Shipyard shows me defeating the SlayerS style with this build.

Against banshee openings, I tend to build perhaps more turrets then necessary and use almost no scans. I hate using scans instead of mules against Banshees. Scans cost a mule which costs 270 minerals (... kinda) which is almost 3 turrets. So just make a ton of turrets! When you're out on the map then it's fine to use scans because nothing else will kill the bastards. This happens on both games in the replay below.

Well microed banshees are incredibly hard to deal with though. They don't have to kill many scvs to achieve economic parity and without access to vikings they're damn near unstoppable. Really good turret placement and good marine kiting to mitigate as much damage as you can.

Middle - Late Game

SO WE GOT 2 MEDIVACS. WHAT NOW?

We've survived his opening play, whatever it was, and now we have about 20 marines out and 2 medivacs. Depending on what he did, we should probably try and get aggressive now. Good drops hurt. A lot. If he opened reaper expand or 1 gas fe and you haven't seen anything out of him then it's very possible he's also trying to drop you which could get... awkward. But generally you'll want to try and see what he's doing exactly and try and get as much damage done with your units. This is the point in the game where it's very safe to be out on the map and where you'll want to try and start ending the game however you can.

SO HOW DO WE PLAY THE REST OF THE GAME?

This question is a bit too open ended to be answered simply. You can add tanks, take a quick 3rd, go fast 2/2 and play pure bio (not really recommended but it's an option) it depends alot on what your opponent is doing. Generally you want to use the mobility of your units (Marines + Dropships) to raze mineral lines with their super high DPS / carry out multi-prong attacks while at the same time building up your army and handling his drops well yourself.

I hope you enjoyed reading my standard opener into midgame for TvT in 1.4.3 and for a more detailed analysis I would recommend checking the rest of TGM out.

Here are some sample replays of common situations below. For more examples of this build you can watch GSL as it's very popular with Korean GSL level Terrans.

Game 1
He opts to do quick banshees into a early marine/tank push.

Game 2
He opts to do an early hellion / reaper drop. Marauders save the day and game transitions into the standard marine/medivac game.

Game 3
He takes a quick expansion as well and is punished by the mobility of my reapers, allowing me to basically do the same thing as he did (quick expand) but I get to punish him for it.

-

iaguz

About iaguz: iaguz is

player sponsored by Xeria Gaming as well as a coach for The Grandmaster Manual. He was most recently seen representing SEA at IEM Guangzhou where he was nominated for the "Baller Award" for being the Gimli Terran. You can watch his stream at www.twitch.tv/xGKingiaguz

About TGM: For more information on how to approach the middle - late game you can subscribe to The Grandmaster Manual where each chapter matchup is broken down in detail with replays, build orders and images just like above, by the best players in SEA. The above constitutes less than 5% of the Terran section alone. For more samples, testimonials and information go here!

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ADDITIONAL:

I'm been dabbling with a variation of this build where you only get 1 reaper, stim before shields and faster marines. I liked 3 reapers because you don't have to make an extra depot before your CC finishes which you do when you make not reapers, but I think there's value to this variation, particularly in close air positions where banshees hit a bit soon and you might not be fully prepared.

Stim + scan is also kinda viable against cloak shee too. I think its very hard still If it's gas first though. TvT is hard >< This hasn't really made it into the guide because I haven't worked it enough but it shows promise.

Quick Comments

	nirvAnA:	So well written!
	breadfan:	sweeeet read
	TARane:	great read
	cruxBsK:	As a dude that watch's you're stream from time to time this is outstanding!
	MooZfY:	OshOshOsh!
	dragonnaus:	omg exactly what I am looking for.. I am buying TGM!~
	CHoBo(kice):	Baller coverage.. REP
	ToRsupapower:
	Highlander:	I can't wait to work this into my play!

**PiG** · Thu, 5th-Jan-2012, 8:17 PM

ooooh i dunno why i read this as a zerg player but I enjoyed it lol :P More understandings of GSL!

Quick Comments

ToRsupapower:

lol did excactly the same

ROOT`iaguz · Thu, 5th-Jan-2012, 8:34 PM

I don't think it's actually that GSL. I might of thrown it in there because it looks cool.

Volition · Thu, 5th-Jan-2012, 8:47 PM

Thanks Iaguz, i came to your stream to ask about tvt and you were playing magic! I do have a query though - i have been trying and failing to do a 1 reaper expand for a while. It seems i get that reaper in his base, see the near 1-1-1 and know that push is coming - and it is practially gg.

What is the basic advice? tbh because of this article i am much more likely to sign up for TGM. thanks

ROOT`iaguz · Thu, 5th-Jan-2012, 10:21 PM

Few ways. The same thing between them is that you're going to want a lot of rax units. Tons. Your advantage is stim/shields and arseloads of dudes. His advantage is tanks are really good.

The way above was against someone not very competent and I caught him out on the map. If you can get the jump on a marine/tank army before the tanks siege up and out of position then you can hopefully target down the tanks and you're in a good spot. Keeping a squadron out on the map is fine, after the other Terran starts getting into position his marines will be out in front with the tanks in the rear so when you fall upon his contain you can get those down fast.

The second tactic is to delay for as long as possible, build up as large an army as possible and do a huge bust. This is weak if they throw in a bunch of bunkers but it's good.

Set up a bunker outside the front of your base, get 4-5 scvs on it repairing. He can't move up his units or they get shot and he has to slowly shell you out. From here you have two options, one is to NOT GET MEDIVACS and get tons of infantry out instead. Second is to get a medivac and load it up and drop his base whilst he's contained (massive problem) and base trade.

Either way you handle this, it's very difficult to defeat. But it is doable. After you break his contain shift pressure onto him immediately. Hopefully his expansion was really late and whilst you threw in a bunch of SCV's you're still good economically.

dippa · Thu, 5th-Jan-2012, 10:33 PM

Another option on a map like Shakuras, if you've opted to go for an expansion, could be to locate your existing forces at another natural (so move them to the top-right natural if you spawned in the bottom right) and then perform a flank with reinforcements + SCVs on one side and your existing army coming in from behind.

(thoughts iaguz?)

ROOT`iaguz · Thu, 5th-Jan-2012, 10:38 PM

keep all scvs in your natural for maximum money but yea, like I said above, it can be good if you can sneak out a few bio units and keep them out on the map before he starts his contain. The wider the angle you get when you engage him the better.

The other, other, OTHER way you can win this is to delay (stagger multiple bunkers back), tech to tanks + medivacs with a thin amount of marines kept back, float your natural back once he makes it that far in, do drops and set up a line of tanks in your main. Basically, throw up a bunch of shit that stops his push from going deep into your base, counter attack with a drop or two then leave him with an army that can't actually kill you.

breadfan · Thu, 5th-Jan-2012, 10:39 PM

Great writeup mate, I've struggled with this particular build as well. It's one of those I've been meaning to give some time to getting down and this is the perfect excuse

Volition: TGM is value for money!

spaZzNx · Fri, 6th-Jan-2012, 12:08 AM

Really nice writeup, thanks iaguz

Just asking..what do you think of the Thorzain style 1rax FE opening that is covered in Day9 Daily #394? That opening focuses on getting 3rax with addons running quite early and also a early ebay getting +1 attack. What sort of build do you think would counter this? Also, do you think that build will work in other matchups?

Zepph · Fri, 6th-Jan-2012, 12:23 AM

I like this ^^. Good job fine sir.

ROOT`iaguz · Fri, 6th-Jan-2012, 12:24 AM

Hmmm.

I would have to try the Thorzain build out some. But it does look really, really strong. I'd give it a shot, just make sure to hit all the building timings 100% correct or the build is jank.

This reaper expand is junk in other matchups. You lose to like 1 stalker from protoss and it's not really that good vs zerg.

dippa · Fri, 6th-Jan-2012, 12:37 AM

Opening reaper is really crappy vs Protoss. Even if you go 11 rax 11 reaper, the Protoss can get a stalker out by the time your reaper gets to his base.

It's an effective scout, though. Be interesting to see if it makes a return in HotS (given that reapers will be able to tank a couple of shots from a Stalker, run away, regenerate and then dive back in for another trip).

MooZfY · Fri, 6th-Jan-2012, 1:59 PM

Iaguz, do you still do coaching ? :O

ROOT`iaguz · Fri, 6th-Jan-2012, 6:48 PM

No I don't coach.

Tried Thorzains TvT build out.

It basically gets demolished by the SlayerS reaper/hellion/dropship style. You have to cut a lot of units to fit in all the reactors and tech and stuff and there's a window where you're completely vulnerable to something lame. Like this build! It hits and I'll have like 1 marauder and 8 marines out. Stim not finished (don't think shields'll be finished either). Because of this I think I can only play it on Entombed Valley, because opening reaper is really bad on that map (there's hardly any cliff to get reapers up into the base).

Whilst that build might not be all that common to you, it's extremely common on KR server (about 15-20% of my TvT is vs that build.) and any build that cannot beat this opening is simply not viable.

But provided they don't open that then it's probably one of the best 1 rax FE variants I can think of, next to gasless FE 1/1/1, where you get both refineries after CC and before the second marine (this obliterates 1/1/1 openings but doesn't fare too great against reaper shenanigans and doesn't have the most room for aggression against greedier plays).

**nGenLight** · Sat, 7th-Jan-2012, 4:14 AM

Nerd

10char

Imperial · Sat, 7th-Jan-2012, 8:03 AM

No love for mech

CHoBo(kice) · Sat, 7th-Jan-2012, 11:02 AM

Nice write up guz. I like your coverage on the concepts and detailed explanations!

I would have to agree with the above the Thorzain style is very good apart from strong 1 1 1 timing pushes where you have to pull scv and if you manage to hold you are ahead by miles. But you have to use your mobility to your advantage, if you play this style you cant really be passive.

The other advantage to the Thorzain style is at the moment deflects the current meta game with both the 3 reaper opening and 5 reaper elevator hellion. It can also deflect banshee harras and pretty much everything else really.