StarCraft 2

PPL have been asking for an example of Reking (double gas block into banelings) with an opponent who handles it optimally, and truly plays at a diamond level after the extractors go down. Degausser made it happen, albeit with plenty of whining. Enjoy the replay folks!

Join the bnet forums discussion @ http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/375112020

If you like it, wub it!

I now offer personalized SC2 lessons for Zerg players bronze to low diamond (for a fee), including practice games and in-depth replay analysis. If interested e-mail me at [email protected]

Nice. this guy did do loads better

But I still don't see why he made thors He didn't see the spire so he obviously expected roaches / hydras which failed. tanks would have saved his ass on that wall , plus a sensor tower might have helped.

Either way well played.

Was this N/A server, if so add me

MercScout.376

I'd love to play against a decent zerg player here and there Plus I'm terrible vs banelings so I could use some practise

Thor is a great counter for banelings.... Sorta... In theory it's a great counter.

Without upgrades, it takes 21 banelings to drop one thor, far from economical. The banelings do a great job of cleaning out all the trash that's escorting the thors however, allowing zerglings to surround em and clean em up unobstructed, so it wasn't such a great choice. Ya I'm NA, will add ya.

wow! nice job dude, post more of these if you get a chance. do you have any vs protoss??

Thx, what kind of replays vs protoss? Blocking both gas, or just good replays vs protoss? I generally only block 1 gas vs protoss as zealots are way too strong vs banelings and I don't like going roaches since stalkers > them in such a huge way once they get em out, but have plenty of good replays vs protoss I can post if you want, I've just been sticking to ZvT since that's what ppl have the most trouble with.

good game, always love to see banelings blow sh.t up

since I lack experience with terran, I have a few questions.

if he decided to wall in and keep walling in afterwards, why on earth would he make thors instead of 1-3 tanks for defense ?

why did you call thors OP? what except light air and tanks are they good against anyway?

why didnt the terran support his thors with mmm or lots of hellions? arent they really weak in the open by themselves?

the gas steal - he qq'ed about it at the end but it didnt do that much imo, expept perhaps mess with his bo and mindset. It didnt put him behind he just forgot proper counter afterwards and even made the gas sink thors and only TWO banshees with CLOAK RESEARCH which is really expensive. so what exactly did it accomplish.

thanks

Well played, he didn't stand a chance vs your banelings. wish I could play this good

Commanderkeen lol, now THAT is a throwback. Ok.

Q1 - Ya absolutely, siege tanks would have been a good choice, but he was in an if or situation (because of the gas block) so he opted thors. Siege tanks would have allowed him to take his natural easier, but wouldn't give him a chance to push out, and since he knew I was macroing up heavily thanks to the gas block, he rushed out whatever he could muster to try to attack me asap.

Q2 - ZvT in general is widely considered imbalanced in the terran's favor, and thors are a big reason for this. They're an absolute beast at taking out most ground units, particularly with proper escort (helions, marauders, or siege tanks). Our natural counter for a ground force like this is mutas, but thors do huge splash damage to mutas! It takes 2 thors 1 volley to kill a muta, and any nearby mutas are in the red due to the splash. Essentially this puts thor in the position of being an anti-air siege tank when facing zerg, despite its already extremely potent ground threat.

Q3 - He spent most everything he could on the thors for that push, and marines earlier on to stave off a baneling bust (which behind 3 rax do a pretty good job, so kudos to him for that!). This was a very haphazard push on the terran's part, and that's exactly what you want as a zerg player - to force them out of their comfort zone, force them to use an impractical composition due to lack of resources or time (in this case both). If a terran can make a proper composition including thors, it will generally take a 2:1 army resource advantage to clear it out (see Q2... /sad panda) which leads to why I've started using this gas block as my standard.

Q4 - The gas block dictated the pacing of the entire game. A terran likes to get their gas around 13 for a typical 1/1/1 (I actually came very close to missing the block). He however didn't have his gas until 25! This was a difference of 2 minutes and 55 seconds in this particular game. This means that his siege tanks, his thors, even his reapers (which would have been useless now due to being so late) are 2 minutes 55 seconds slower. This puts him in the position of being extremely vulnerable to baneling bust as the only thing he can defend himself with during that 2 minutes 55 seconds and shortly after, are marines. That's why after I saw he was 3rax walled I macroed up, as for at least another minute or two he was no threat whatsoever. So ya, the gas block doesn't appear like a big deal at the end of a 20 minute game, but it actually set the stage for everything that happened as the game went on. In fact, the entire viability of banelings this game revolved around the fact that he was gas starved.

K hope that helps, lmk if ya have any more Qs!

Great tips. wubbed for sure

Nice! You know, I would have loved to see a baneling nydus into his mineral line when he is on one base only. His saturation is bound to be HUGE at that moment, since he hasn't gotten to expanding yet with only marines.

So 6-8 banelings from a nydus is sure to set him even further behind.