[Sparrow]

Command Center first into early bio aggression.

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Innovation vs Roro 20.07.13

Introduction:

Innovation's command center first into early aggression build is a strategy devised by Innovation to counter Roro's play. Fortunately Roro's play-style is very close, if not the benchmark for standard zerg vs terran play, meaning that this build is also viable on the ladder or vs other opponents in varying situations. However, Innovation, being a reactive player does not go into the game versus Roro with the direct intention of using this build. Only when conditions are met by his opponent Roro does he begin down the path of early aggression, the condition in this case being that Roro opts for an aggressive play-style. The key moment when Innovation realises this is at the 4:10 mark when his scout arrives at Roro's base revealing that Roro has harvested 100 gas and has just begun zergling speed research.



Viability:

There are a number of reasons that this strategy is viable against an aggressive zerg opening, the core being that because zerg invests drone mining time into gas rather than early minerals it means that his economy and unit production capabilities will be lower during the early stages of the mid-game (the mid-game being where players begin or continue down a tech path) Thus Innovation's aggression hits when zerg wants to be saturating their third base to fuel their economy. If the zerg cannot balance maintaining their third base economy AND trading efficiently against the terran player, the terran forces will eventually be able to overwhelm the zerg.

Every strategy has its advantages and disadvantages, Innovation's is heavily reliant on zerg NOT being hyper aggressive against his early command center. The reason why this build is successful against Roro is because Innovation knows that Roro's play-style is to play passive in the early game. Meaning that Innovation's play which focuses on early game economy will gain an advantage as soon as it hits mid-game. Because the standard play for zerg is to invest into early tech to defend against potential early terran aggression Innovation's build gains an advantage as its tech paths are later and all line up for a strong timing when the aggressive zerg is at his weakest.

Arguably this build is only possible against Roro or players with a similar play-style and you could argue that on the ladder a command center first on the low ground is too risky. With this in mind if precautions are taken, such as the command center on the high ground instead of the low, Terran players can remain relatively safe whilst still reaping the benefits of a very aggressive two base play. The beauty of this build also is that if zerg is instead going for a very economic focused play-style, terran can respond by taking an early third base which keeps the early economic advantage in the hands of the terran.



Build Order:

Time:Supply:Action:

00:57 = 10 - build supply depot
02:24 = 14 - build command center low-ground
02:44 = 15 - build barracks
02:58 = 16 - build refinery
03:05 - send svc scout
03:50 = 18 - produce marine,
- upgrade to orbital
- build bunker
04:05 = - upgrade to orbital
04:15 = - scout gas if 100 mined and zerg is pulling drones out of gas = zerg standard
04:35 = 21 - build factory
04:40 = - stop marine production at 2
04:50 = - 50 gas, build reactor on barracks
05:00 = 25 - build supply depot at natural ramp
05:25 = 27 - build barracks x2 at difficult to overlord scout location
05:40 = 29 - switch factory onto reactor,
- produce hellion x2
- build supply depot to wall off main ramp
- build techlab on barracks
06:00 = 35 - build refinery
06:10 = - build supply depot at natural ramp
06:15 = 37 - upgrade stim
- stop hellion production
- begin constant marine production, if roaches build marauders
- keep at least 2 marines in base to deny overlord scout
06:40 = 40 - build engineering bay
- build reactors onto barracks x2
- build supply depot
07:00 = 47 - begin constant hellion production
- build supply depot
07:15 = 50 - upgrade +1 attack
07:35 = - begin producing 5 marines at a time
- build supply depot
07:45 = 60 - build starport
08:00 - stop hellion production
08:10 = 70 - build supply depot
- build refinery
- build widow mine x1
08:20 - build supply depots constantly 2 at a time
08:45 = 79 - switch starport onto factory’s reactor
- start medivac production x2
- continue widow mine production
09:00 - upgrade combat shield
09:40 = 99 - push out onto map with army, use hellions at front to distract / poke
10:10 - upgrade +1 defence

Notes:

Keep hellions alive for as long as possible, don't engage unless you have a favorable engagement. On ladder players tend to get more early defense for the hellions than pro players, so instead of losing your hellions to this defense just pull back, you've already crippled your opponents economy even further by forcing them to build more defensive units.

Innovation engages at third, begins by attacking hatchery and putting pressure on zerg, but switches to kill army even though he could have killed hatchery, once the army is cleared OR it looks like innovation does not have the superior army then he kills the hatch. After engagement, innovation picks up remaining units and drops main. Whilst distracted he uses the rallied units to take out any third that might be being rebuilt.

In the case of a baeling based zerg composition make sure to preemptively split your army and only send in a small group of units for the initial engagement. You want to force the engagement so that the zerg must use his larva to replenish his army rather than saturate his third.

During the battle innovations reinforcements are rallied across the map

Innovation starts to add production behind which includes, a third command center, 4 extra barracks with tech labs if roaches, an armory and engineering bay.

Link to text version of the build: http://textuploader.com/?p=6&id=DGQMA

Thanks for reading!