2 rax/2 fac (TvZ)

Orizio

Long story short, saw Jjun do this build against Moonglade in the GSL. Don't have a BO but it went something like rax/fact/rax/fact or whatever. Army compisition was completely blue flame hellion/marine.

I'm sure this build have been done to death (and I know hellion/marines is very popular in TvZ) but the build itself was new to me, and I'm interested in Zerg players opinion of it? Hellions obviously deal with zerglings and with a little micro and stim the blings as well. With that in mind it seems like a really powerful early game army composition, although I don't know how well it would do against early roach play? Or roach/hydra play later on?

The best thing about it is that it seems easy enough to switch to expand, as it isn't resource hungry and with two facts down into mid-game tank/marine play.

IRL_Sinister

Roach is extremely good against this composition. I do something similar, based around a 15 min timing push. If you see any type of mech, roach is a fairly solid counter.

Orizio

So what do you think Sinister in TvZ, open standard and scout after you put down the rax, then put down a factory and if he has a roach warren put down two more rax with tech labs and go rauder/rine/tank, and if there is no roach warren go two rax/two fact and blue-flame hellion/marine? What would the roach warren timing be if he was going heavy roach?

IRL_Sinister

Well, like I said, I do the same build every TvZ and I'm getting a pretty high win-rate from it although all-in Roach play crushes it.

What I do is open standard, with rax on 12, gas on 13 and CC on 15. Then at 100 gas I get a factory and Tech Lab on my rax (therefore blocking the choke) and make the old switcheroo. Then I get blue-flame Helion and apply pressure forcing him to either make Spine Crawlers, Roaches or Lings. You can also pretty much nullify his creep spread doing this too.

All the while I'm just hanging outside his base I get a CC as soon as I have 400 minerals (while continuing to pump out SCVs and Helions) and I pretty much stop Rine production at this point because Muta's aren't a problem until ~9 min mark.

Once I have my CC building I get 2 more Factory, one with a Tech Lab and one with a Reactor. The Tech Lab is used to begin producing Tanks and the Reactor continues to pump Helions. Your CC should come up BUT DON'T LIFT IT OFF. Just keep rallying your workers from both OC's to your mineral line. At ~10 mins you'll have enough energy for a scan so use it and see if he has Lair (he should be teching to it if not already on it) and put down an Armory, E-bay and 2 more rax. Put down however many Turrets you're comfortable with at your main and move your OC to your natural and transfer a lot of SCVs. Get 2more Refinery and get them maxed ASAP. Begin pumping Rines from your 3 rax (this is all ~12 mins) and produce Thors / Tanks depending on if he ha many Muta or not (he'll prob have quite a few Bling). All the while if you've been doing decent macro you'll have a significant amount of Blue Flame Helions and you gain map control and scout everywhere. He'll probably put down his 3rd around 13 mins. Don't panic then. Let him Drone up that base and then at 15 mins slowly move to his base. You should have a VERY convincing army with a significant amount of Rines/Tanks/Thors which can pretty much destroy a Zerg army at this point in the game. Obviously good Zergs will defend but at a significant cost. Just keep macroing up and you'll do fine.

I'll upload some games of me doing this push (win and lose) when I get some time today or tomorrow and hopefully you'll see where I'm coming from. This is an extremely solid build, with only a small window of vulnerability from cheesing but it has me at a really high win ratio atm (somewhere around 13:2) on ladder.


EDIT: The Roach timing push is 7 minutes. If he does that it will crush most standard Terran openings. With regards to a general roach opening - I wouldn't worry about it. Roaches are **** off creep and with blue-flame helion you can seriously hamper creep-spread. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of mixing it up but bio just doesn't cut it v Z really. I've gotten it to work, but most Zergs are just going to steamroll bio with Infestor/Ling/Muta

phisku

I play my TvZ in the same way now, with a lot of hellions earlygame.
then if he goes roach Mech with heavy tank support if ling bane hellions/thors are great.
the thors litteraly nullify the muta harass and the hellions nullify creep spread and heavy droning from the zerg.