[PiG]

I realise this is a bit outdated now, but most people on SEA I've spoken to didn't seem to be familiar with Losira style ZvT. So hopefully this is enlightening:


I recently had a ZvT crisis where I just got sick of being unable to beat harass into 2 base push plays with my standard style.

I was investing heavily in gas reasonably early to get a fast lair so i could scout wtf was going on in that marine guarded terran blackspace which could have 3 orbitals or 2 ports hiding in it. But BAM T would harass and force lings or ling/bane when my mineral count already was on the backfoot and the follow-up push would just roll through my low muta count and paltry ground army.

So i was like FK TERRAN CANT SCOUT U BASTARDS I WANT TO EAT YOUR BABIES!!!

But then i rememberd that Losira was sooo awesome to watch the way he played zvt and i rememberd the inspiration i felt watching last season's code A finals. But i was like... doesn't he just do a normal build and transition into 500 BILLION BANELINGS?

Well I went back and watched the games:
http://www.gomtv.net/2011gslsponsors2/vod/62599
http://www.gomtv.net/2011gslsponsors2/vod/61938

And read up what people had said about it and found this: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=210469

This article is a beautiful summary of Losira's late gase builds overdroning 2 bases hard while sitting on hatch tech and getting roach warren and bane nest up so that you can stop any ground play before teching up and taking your 3rd.

Losira uses a relatively small number of roaches normally simply to absorb damage and tank shots and just MASSES of banelings. He doesn't trade very cost efficiently but it doesn't matter because, whilst he takes a 3rd, any terran pressure is INSTANTLY cleaned up. Rather than wasting 2-3 minutes cleaning up a staggered tank push, Losira is out on the map rolling them up as they move out. He often takes a 4th quite fast and drones his 3rd up VERY quickly. Macro hatches also are useful.

From here you can go infestor when faced with Marine-Tank compositions however atleast a small force of mutas is always amazing for map control and denying drops. It's just important not to say "Yay i have infestor/muta lets just get a few banelings with our army now and spend our gas on that". NO U SHITHEADS!. You still want that mass of banelings to fk shit up while u get ahead in econ. Only in the uber-lategame do u want to consider heavily investing your gas in higher tech.

So anyway what's this weak to and how do you respond?

Banshees: If someone goes 1 port then meh its fine u get an extra queen and build a spore or two. Your gunna be ahead in econ enough to afford some spores.
If faced with a 2 port you might need to go overboard on spores and queens while waiting for hydra/muta tech. I personally favour hydra tech unless the 2 port is really fail. 6 banshees absolutely pown 4 queens, even with transfuse, and spire takes 2 long to build.

Drop play: The lack of any early anti-air makes drops a pain in the ass, and can deny your 3rd. Early 3rd queen and good creep spread mean queens and your ground army can defend from this play, so with good control and not getting distracted from macro you will be fine.

25 Seige tanks: Holy shit yes, your banelings will get owned unless your opponent suddenly gets a HERNIA IN HIS BRAIN and moves out his tanks in a ball, unseiged.
This is why with this play you HAVE to keep the tank count down. If you see 3 factory 2 base turtle mech, dont keep building banelings. Sure Losira made it work in GSL cos some terran did the retard unseiged-ball move out. BUT THAT WAS LUCK. SKILL DOESNT MAKE BANELINGS BEAT MECH.

Nonetheless This build allows you to get a strong econ going very fast. You can intantly build roaches to counter helion openers and if they are meching that heavily BAM take 2 extra hatcheries.

Standard openers into a fast 3rd with defensive 2fact tank play is very strong against this. In these cases you want to be gauging your opponents production and scouting constantly the natural to see that 3rd CC going up. Also if you see a gap in the defenses go trade armies, you NEED to keep the tank count low. If the T is very solid and just defends perfectly and takes this fast 3rd, well you need to have scouted that CC early so u can take 4 bases and drone hard for a while. Either way though this play is very hard to beat as you're investing in alot of units early which you can't use. But you know what? IT DOESN'T MATTER BLAH!! WHY?

Because: If a terran is turtling on 2 base, only scouting through scans, then he will lose to the 90% of zergs that drone aggressively and get very fast 3rd base + mutas. Even if he scouts your slow lair tech, by turtling he is putting the ball into your court, which most GOOD Terran PLAYERS will NOT be willing to do. So yeah, keep your units high, and when he moves out catach him out of position and crush him, or keep some larvae banked to build a defensive army.

So yeah... it's somewhat playing the meta-game, but if you learn to read the terran's play then you will be able to dictate the pace of the game. It's a fkn solid build. Get crackin my fellow zergies.

[TargA]

You should upload some replays when you're playing this style! fun to watch others trying to interpret different builds

[Xeen]

I opened this thread expecting a guide on how to 1a infestors into marines.

Have you taken this important aspect into account?

[rezyn8]

sCfOu owned Losira the other night 3-0 in the GSL TvZ - http://www.gomtv.net/2011gslsponsors3/vod/65213

[PiG]

Yoyo i finally started getting back into playing yesterday and my multitasking is pretty horrible atm so I won't put up any reps of this style as i feel the games ive been winning are more my opponents sucking than anything else.

I'll be looking to update the thread/create a new 1 with reps and a more indepth discussion of this style over the next few days.

As for scfou vs losira, yeah that was a bit sad to watch. I feel like scfou's 2rax builds are friggin ridiculously good especially at this point in the metagame where so few T are doing those builds. 2 rax each on 11 supply suddenly becomes crazy effective. And the thing about 2rax is, if controlled right and u scout properly, you should always at worst trade evenly. I think losira was put off by the early pressure, his timings were all garbled, and when sc's pushes came he was slightly too low on units, or atleast felt that way and F'd up his engagements.

The game on Terminus Losira fucked up the first fight, in a situation where you need to overwhelm the first attack and from there just fight scrappily in what is a micro + multitasking war. You SHOULD have the advantage here, but you also have more actions to do with injects etc. so its hard to prioritise.

I don't think sC really showed any weaknesses in the build, just played a more focused and aggressive game which worked out.

[covetousrat]

I have wrote on this topic for ZvP. I have been losing quite a number of games to this push and its really strong. Heres my article.

http://sc2tips.blogspot.com/2011/05/...sira-rush.html

uRvCovetous

[PiG]

Hey guys so whilst I'm far from perfecting this style of play I've finally had a chance to practice it a little with a set vs Iaguz today. I lost most of the games due to silly mistakes (80% of most peoples losses probably!) but the style is starting to show alot of potential. I'll keep updating this thread once I start to really dominate with it.

The Games are here:

http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=299


Whilst Iaguz didn't use air to take advantage of my lack of AA these games show how effective it can be, and quite alot of common mistakes made with the build! Games 2, 5 and 6 are the most interesting for showing the effectiveness of the build.

So here's a summary of what worked and what should have been done differently:


Game 1: After Holding the push and losing all those drones to helions, swapping to muta was not a wise choice. I was already down in units due to using larvae rebuilding drones, and to now waste all my gas on mutas was a bad choice. If it was close air positions or cross-map taldarim it would've been fine. But having no ground army that could engage staggered tanks, iaguz got a strong position above my 3rd and as my poor muta control achieved only a few tank kills my minerals skyrocketed to 4K. Like i said guys, my multitasking is BAD at the moment. The pressure of having tanks shelling my 3rd, and the deviation from what my gameplan had been (build 500 roach/baneling and dominate the map) left me with a situation which could only b rescued by very high apm, which was sadly lacking.

Game 2: This game shows how the style is meant to work pretty much, besides the fact that i forgot roach + bane speed and my planned 180 food push had to be delayed, as such I couldn't quite finish him off with the first massive push despite having a large econ advantage for a long time. I could have waited for another round of roach bane, charged again and denied his 3rd whilst KEEPING THE TANK COUNT DOWN. But no, I decided to do just wait and "macro up". If YOU HAVE ROACH BANE AND THEY HAVE LOW TANK COUNT, KEEP THEM ON AS FEW TANKS AS POSSIBLE DAMMIT. So yeah this game drags on and I pull a BS win out of my magic hat by destroying his production with 500 infested terrans, but this is more Iaguz fault for not having ghosts and defending poorly then me deserving the win.

Game 3: Fail. Just fail

Game 4: Close positions shattered Temple. FML this is even worse than the old shakuras corridor. WHY BLIZZARD WHY???

Still, If i kept my injects up I feel i may have been able to break him, or atleast deny his 3rd from going down so i didn't have to waste my banelings on it. However i over-focused on the engagements and forgot my timers. Zerg 101: NEVER stop injecting.

Note: Close positions on this u NEED the macro hatch.

Game 5: Finally get in stride. Watch the good unit count wrap up his aggression and me getting up to 4 bases, 5 hatches REALLY fast. 200/200 with 31 banked larvae + hive halfway done at 16:30. Good shiz.

If I didn't fight that first push i woulda stayed on 3 bases and kept massing units, however i took the advantage and then carried the momentum as i ran around trading armies CONSTANTLY. THAT's WHAT you need to do!

Oh also, watch my creep spread, its REALLY important for any zerg composition, but especially 1 relying on banes.

Game 6: Repeat of Game 5, should probably have finished it faster but I prefer to trade cost efficiently with Terran and make sure I dont throw away a win by charging into terran imba D.

Game 7: lol I got tired and wasn't paying attention. Only uploading to show that Iaguz won the series 4-3 :P.

I hope this helps influencing alot of you guys away from the obsession with mutas that most of us have :P There are other options available!

Quick Comments

nirvAnA:

Wonderful writeup and great sportsmanship posting even tho you lost haha!