Behold the Power of Cheese

“Expect only what happens in the fight. That way you’ll never be surprised.” –Duncan Idaho

We've all been there....a couple of minutes into a game, starting construction of our very first buildings when we suddenly hear a sound that cuts through all other noises in the game: a building being warped in.

We're being cannon rushed.

All our brilliant plans, carefully researched and practiced builds, and all the groundwork we've laid go right out the window as we scramble to respond, throwing whatever units we have in the hopes of destroying that first cannon (and probe!) before it materializes and starts killing workers. As with most things sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.

Of course, all's fair in love and war; so why do we hate cheesers?

Because they reduce an exceptionally nuanced game into a talentless coin flip. They rob us of the fun of playing and the joy of pushing our minds and reflexes to the limit and beyond. It’s an undignified, cheap sucker punch in the first second of a championship fight.

That said, I believe cheese can be good at times as its use develops good habits and makes us adapt to sometimes original situations, thereby advancing the metagame.

Before I get into all of that let’s examine some common cheese builds and how to counter them.

Zergling Rush:

The classic StarCraft cheese is the Zergling Rush, and if you don’t believe me, type Zergling Rush into google. There are a few variations on the old favorite, but at the core this build is about building Zerglings as quickly as possible and getting into your opponent’s mineral line before they have any units to counter with. On a small map it’s vicious (provided your opponent doesn’t wall-in in time) and particularly nasty, but if it fails….well… you don’t have an economy worth mentioning and no tech beyond Zerglings…so yeah….most players GG instantly when a rush fails.

There’s a wide variety of variations of this cheese, but all evolved from the core build order:

6 Spawning Pool

5 Drone

6 Drone

7- ZERGLINGS!

10- GG

Counter- Walling in against Zerg, either wholly or with a small choke-point, is the best way to prevent this. It does stop you from expanding as quickly, but you won’t lose to cheese.

If the initial Zerglings manage to get into your base, remain calm, use your workers to destroy them while you wall-in. Remember that the Zerg player likely has very little to follow up with and no real economy to speak of. If you can hold out the game belongs to you.

3-Rax Stim:

This build relies on hitting the timing perfectly to catch the opponent transitioning or expanding, essentially overrunning and crippling/destroying them. The key thing is to arrive at the opponent's base precisely when Stim and Combat Shields finish, though against Protoss I think Concussive Shells is preferable to Combat Shields. The exact composition of Marines/Marauders is up to you, though I suggest more Marauders against Protoss/Terran and more Marines against Zerg. There's a 1 Rax into fast expand version of this build that isn't cheese and nearly as damaging.

When researching this I've seen it argued that it is cheese and not cheese, depending largely on whether you continue SCV production or send your SCVs with the army to soak damage. Regardless, the basic build order is:

10 Supply Depot 

12 Barracks

14 Refinery

16 Orbital Command

16 Marine

17 Supply Depot 

17 Reactor

17 2 Barracks + Tech Labs

17 Supply Depot

17 Stim + Combat Shields

17 Mass Marines and Marauders

Counter- This is a bit tricky to deal with as early scouting won't detect much out of the ordinary, but later scouting, or leaving units outside the opponent's base to watch for the incoming attack, will give you the early warning you need to produce additional units.

One problem for Protoss this early in the game is having an effective counter. You're not likely to have a Colossus out and while Immortals are excellent units they're slaughtered by a decent number of Marines. The best trick is to rely on Photon Overcharge, Zealots and Stalkers, focus firing the Stalkers to try to take down the Marauders as quickly as you can. Marines have relatively low HP, especially with Stim and no Medevac, and should fall to Zealots if the opponent lacks micro.
 

Bunker Rush:

I actually don’t see this all that often, but man, is it annoying when it happens. Bunker rushing occurs when a Terran player builds a bunker in your main, with a Rax either lifted into the main or built there, and proceeds to fill the bunker with Marines while repairing it. Not cool. Another variations involves building the bunker in the mineral line of the opponent’s natural, thereby significantly delaying the expansion and buying the Terran player time to get a Macro edge. Note- when doing this use the minerals to your advantage! Position the bunker so there aren’t many spaces to attack it from.

A few things to remember are to leave your scouting SCV in the opponent’s natural and to rally Barracks to the bunkers. There are a few variations to this build, but the most common is a 2-Rax Bunker Rush that goes as follows:

9 Barracks

11 Barracks

11 Bunker

12 Marine

14-16 Marines

17 Supply Depot

17-19 Marines

19 Bunker

20-21 Marines

21 Bunker

22-23 Marines

Counter- If you find out it’s happening before the bunker is built pull workers to attack the SCV building it first, then any Marines, then the bunker. Start producing units as quickly as you can. It’s going to hurt your economy, but odds are your opponent isn’t doing very well on that note either.

Photon Cannon Rush:

Another classic cheese the cannon rush relies on getting a probe into the opponent’s base without their knowledge and setting up cannons. Actually that’s pretty much it entirely. You get in, set up your second pylon outside of the opponent’s vision and start warping in cannons. On the rare occasions I cheese (always to tease friends) I prefer to build my first cannon by the pylon, also outside of their vision so that if they pull workers to attack they’re already in trouble.

A higher-level variation involves building the cannons directly in the opponent’s mineral line and using additional pylons to block off access.
As a classic cheese the cannon rush can be used as a feint as well; few things are as worrying as seeing your opponent go forge first and no other buildings if scouted early (though the costs are high- I recommend a hidden expansion so you’re not wasting resources).

Another, map-specific version is to cannon rush the low ground behind an opponent’s mineral line, building cannons and then rushing in with a probe (2 works best) to provide vision to the high ground. Building a pylon on the high ground is also recommended. You can actually do this anywhere around the opponent’s base and then rely on the cover provided to start building more cannons inside.

A common cannon rush build order looks like:

13 Forge

14 Pylon

14 Cannons

Counter- As always SCOUT. If you see your opponent only has a forge, or, better yet, find the first pylon being built, you will be prepared for the rush. A few workers pulled off the line can prevent a cannon rush if they start attacking immediately upon the warp in. Remember to always attack the probe at the same time or you’ll just get more cannons.

2-Port Banshee:

This relies on the same thing as the DT rush- getting cloaked units into the opponent's base before they have detection. There are a few different timings that you can use to attack: When you have 2 Banshees, when cloak finishes, and when you have a large ground force and 6 Banshees. 

The variation I've chosen to present attacks with 6 Banshees and whatever ground forces you can have ready. The reasons are it's not much slower than 2 Banshees or cloak, and it hopefully avoids being revealed too early so you can maximize damage. I'm presenting just the basic outline of the build as well - the ground forces you want to build are up to you, though I recommend Hellions if you are good at micro.  

The goal of the ground army is to draw the enemy forces away from their main base, allowing you to do maximum damage to workers/tech/production. If you can remove their ability ot get detection entirely (like sniping a Robotic Facility), do so, as you will need your Banshees to handle their army if they choose to counterattack. 

10 Supply Depot

12 Barracks

13 Refinery 

15 Refinery 

16 Orbital Command

16 Marine

17 Supply Depot

20 Factory

24 Starport (1) (2)

24 Tech Labs on Barracks and Factory

24 Move Starports onto Tech Labs

24 Cloak Research, Banshees, and any other units

Counter- If you see 2 Refineries early on when you scout you should expect tech of some kind and do whatever it takes to keep an eye on the situation  (well, you should do that anyway). Once you detect 2 Starports being rushed and minimal ground forces immediately get detection and anti-air units.

A decent number of Stalkers/Marines/Hydralisks combined with Overseers/Scans/Observers will allow you to handle this attack with relative ease. I prefer to wait til the cloaked Banshees are deep inside of my base before revealing detection in order to catch as many of them as possible, but with static detectors like Missile Turrets that is not possible, so be ready to do as much damage as possible to them.

Proxy Gateway:

Like anything proxy this one is extremely risky- if you get scouted it doesn’t take much for the opponent to realize “Hey, there aren’t any buildings in their main….” The most successful use of this build occurs on maps with very short rush distances, which allows a starting probe to construct the initial Pylon close to the opponent’s main base. Like the Zergling Rush, there are a number of varieties, some relying on 2 Gateways and nothing but zealots, while others also proxy the Cybernetics Core to produce Stalkers. The most important thing to remember is to never allow your early units to be surrounded by workers. They may not do much damage, but a lot of them attacking at once sucks.

My favorite build order for this is:

11 Gateway

12 Assimilator

12 Gateway

12 Cybernetics Core

12 Zealot, 2 Stalkers

18 Pylon

18 Zealots, Stalkers

Counter- Scout. If you scout after the first supply building you should notice nothing in your opponents base very quickly. Immediately pull workers from your mineral line (1-2) and look first around your main base, and then the area surrounding it. If you can take out the Pylon the attack fails, and your opponent is likely supply capped, behind in resources, and lacking any production facilities.

If you fail to detect it in time then try to surround the initial Zealot with Workers while producing something to fight off the oncoming attack. Remember, if you can take out the Pylon you pretty much win, so make that your goal, after surviving.

 

Proxy Hatchery:

This occurs when a Zerg player expands to their opponents natural. It’s a great counter to a Protoss Fast Forge Expand, or any proxy Gateway/Barrack builds as the opponent should lack significant forces in their main base. Use your scouting Drone to build the Hatchery so it’s already in position and behind any FFE, or other wall-in. The common practice is to build 2 Drones and a Queen from the Proxy immediately, morphing the Drones into Spine Crawlers. After that just keep building Zerglings and attacking.

Build order:

12 Spawning Pool

15 Hatchery

15-16 Drones in proxy

16 Queen

16 Overlord

16 Zerglings

16 Spinecrawlers

Counter- As Protoss whenever I come up against this it’s because I’m going FFE, so I cut Probe production, finish my wall-in, and put down 3 photon cannons at the wall-in but within range of the Hatchery. If the opponent cancels the Hatchery I end up with a heavily defended wall-in, though I usually finish before the Hatchery.
Otherwise it all depends on what you’re doing and when you notice the Proxy going up. If you catch it early, a few units should be able to handle it. If it’s done or almost done, fortify your main base as quickly as possible and build units. 

Of course, in the pictured case, the proxy was in my main base.....it was a bit unusual, but I moved probes to attack it quickly and finished my wall-in. I went on to win that game.

Dark Templar Rush:

This is a very, very effective attack if you can get in before your opponent has detection. DTs one-shot workers, and can destroy buildings very quickly. That said, they’re very gas-intense, the Dark Shrine takes forever to build, and if your opponent spots it in advance it’s easy to counter.

That’s about it, so the build order is:

12 Gateway

14 Assimilator

15 Assimilator

16 Cybernetics Core

17 Pylon

19 Zealot

20 Warp Gate Research

20 Twilight Council

22 Zealot

22 Pylon

23 3 Gateways

24 Dark Shrine

24 Dark Templars

Counter- See it coming and always get detection as quickly as possible. If you’re Terran, always have a scan in reserve, while Zerg need a Spore Crawler and Protoss need Observers, Cannons, or Oracles.

Mass Reapers:

This is the single most annoying build to play against in my experience because there’s no way to stop them getting into your base, and as far as dealing with Reapers, well, to quote Watership Down “If they catch you, they will kill you, but first they must catch you.”
Granted, if you’re up against Terran you need to be ready for a Reaper harass in today’s metagame. It’s easy, reliable, helps you get a quick edge and does your scouting. I appreciate and respect that.

I’ve seen this run two ways. The first heads out with the initial reapers for a late reaper harass, with more joining as they’re built. This allows you to do some initial damage, see what your opponent has and transition out of the build if necessary. The problem is it tips your hand as anyone seeing a pair of reapers show up that late should realize what’s coming and start producing units to counter.

The other is to wait until you mass about 6-8 reapers and hit all at once. You can probably one-shot any units left in the base, or close to, and will be able to do quite a lot of economic damage before you’re forced to flee (if, indeed, you are). Of course, by delaying the attack you will face a stronger opposition, so be aware of that.

I must say this is a bit of a tricky cheese build as it requires a great deal of micro to avoid surrounds by probes and/or other units, and, against Protoss, to not lose reapers to a Mothership Core.

Build:

12 Refinery

13 Barracks

15 2nd Barracks

17 Reactor

17 Refinery

17 Orbital Command

17 Supply Depot

17 start Reactor on 2nd Barracks

20 Reapers

Counter- When you scout (have you gotten the idea that you should ALWAYS scout, yet?) your opponent and see two Refineries and Reactors on Barracks (or even if you just see a Reactor going up on a Barracks used to wall-in) you should start producing units immediately, as a large attack is incoming. Two Refineries + Reactors means there’s nothing else for your opponent to produce, unless he’s just stockpiling gas.

If you fail to scout or to realize what is coming, and only realize what is happening when it happens, then stay calm. Reapers may regenerate, but they’re pretty weak. If they’re targeting workers, pull the targeted worker back so they chase, then quickly surround and destroy. Pump any units you can, hopefully something either faster or with longer range. If Protoss use your Mothership Core to keep them back while you produce Stalkers. If Zerg, Queen and Spine Crawlers while producing units.

2-Rax:

The 2-Rax, as the name implies is a very simple build that rapidly produces 12 Marines to attack with around 4:30 into the game with SCVs to soak damage. As with all cheese rushes it's best used on maps with a short rush distance and where you know your opponent's starting location. The Orbital Command is used first to call down extra supplies, and then for a MULE.

Build:

11 Barracks

12 Barracks

13 Orbital Command

13 Marines 

Counter- If you scout your opponent getting 2 Barracks immediately and no gas you should start producing units. Zerg should go for Zerglings and Spine Crawlers, though if you have the ability to produce a few Roaches they're very useful. Protoss should skip Zealots and go directly to Stalkers, allowing you to kite the Marines without losing a single unit, if you've mastered that skill.

10 Roach Rush:

This build is exceptionally effective against most players, but especially against fast expand builds.  It relies on a fake expansion which is canceled after being scouted (and killing/running off the scouting worker), thus tricking the opponent into thinking they can be a bit greedy in their playstyle. It's also important to pull drones off the Extractor and put them back on minerals once you are done with Roaches. 

Build:

14 Extractor

14 Pool

15 Overlord

15 Queen & 6 Zerglings

15 Zergling Speed

20 Expansion Hatchery

19 Drone

20 Overlord x2

20 Roach Warren 

20 10 Roaches

40 Overlord

40 Zerglings

Counter- The counter to this build relies on not being fooled by your opponent's fake expansion. If you see a Zerg player getting gas this early, and researching Zergling Speed, then you know an attack is incoming and should take appropriate measures.

The Protoss response depends on your tech choice, but essentially boils down to Immortals or Void Rays. The advantage of Void Rays is they're flying so Roaches can not attack them, while Immortals do a huge amount of damage while taking very little (though you must protect them from Zerglings!).

For Terrans the appropriate counter is to build Marauders and Bunkers at the top of your natural ramp, while being ready to pull SCVs to repair the Bunkers. 

Proxy Thor/Thor Drop:

Thors are massive, powerful mechanical units that slowly wade across the battlefield dealing death and destruction to all they meet. Not something typically seen in early game, the sight of a Thor in the opening minutes is definitely something that will strike terror in the hearts of any player.

I’m actually going to cover two different builds here – one using a proxy Factory to produce the Thor near the opponents base, and the other using a Medivac to drop the

Thor into the opponent’s base. The idea behind both is to mitigate the slow movement speed of the Thor, allowing you to get it into position quickly. The proxy build is ideal in my mind as you can use SCVs in large numbers to repair the Thor.

To modify the build order below for the drop, simply build a Starport and a Medivac. Otherwise, just keep building Marines, waypointed to the proxy Factory. Move SCV’s up so they arrive when the Thor completes, and attack.

How to ruin your opponent’s day:

11 Refinery

13 Barracks

15 Factory (proxy)

15 OC

17 Supply Depot

18 2nd Barracks

20 Armory

20 Hellion

23 Tech lab on factory (proxy)

24 Supply Depot

26 Gas

Counter- Can you guess what I’m going to say? You really should see this coming if you’re scouting. The Marines massing nearby alone should trigger you to start building units. Massive Zerglings will defeat the Thor ones you can get a surround and take out the SCVs, while Immortals will make short work of it for Protoss.

Worker Rush:

Okay, I have to admit several times Empece and I played 4 player maps 1v1, just for space, thinking it would lead to longer games where we could work on our late-game builds....

In reality I scouted him next to me several times and rushed him with my workers. It worked.

There's no build order here. All you do is take your starting workers and rush across the map. You can build to 9 supply and rush over, counting on getting to your opponent's base before his first supply building is finished, so there's an even fight. Terrans have something of an edge in this if fighting non-Terrans as they can repair their SCV's with excess minerals collected waiting for the 9th, or collected by the 10th since why not. It's important to do this only on maps with a very short rush distance.

Counter- Um. Micro well.

4-Gate:

As many, many people will tell you, when SC2 WoL first came out the typical thing all Protoss players did against one another was build 4 Gateways and throw units at one another, and that changed with HotS, thank god. You will still occasionally see a 4-Gate pulled, and it can be very effective if it remains hidden as the sheer number of units is overwhelming.

As with any build there are varieties, but the one below is my personal favorite. The key is to use only 1 Chronoboost on Probes, saving the rest for your Warpgate research, and then send your MSC across the map when it’s built along with a probe to build a proxy Pylon.

Build:

12 Gateway

14 Assimilator

16 Pylon

17 Cybernetics Core

20 Warpgate Research

21 Mothership Core

22 3 Gateways

26 Warpgate Research and Gateways finish

26 Massive units

?- Pylons as necessary

Counter- If you scout early and see a Protoss player saving energy in their Nexus before their Cybernetics Core is done you can reasonably assume they're going to 4-Gate you. Leave your scout by their ramp so you can see when they send out a Probe to build the Pylon and when any units they have in their base move out. This information will be extremely useful.

Once you know it's coming start looking for the proxy Pylon if you've been scouted. If no scouting has occurred place units on the route a Probe will take to warp one in - just make sure you're far enough towards the opponent's base that the Probe will still be on that route. Remember, finding the Pylon and the Probe is the key- once they're down the opponent is delayed significantly while you can build up.

You should also immediately begin fortifying. Terran should build 2 Bunkers at the top of their natural ramp and be ready to pull SCVs to repair them. Zerg should utilize a couple of Spine Crawlers with Roaches and fast Zerglings. Protoss need Sentries to forcefield the ramp to buy time (this works best on smaller ramps) while getting as many Immortals, Stalkers and Zealots as possible. 

Static Defenses can be very useful in defending your ramp, especially if you don't have the production facilities necessary to build a sufficient force ready when you detect the 4-Gate.  Just be careful to build enough to hold off the attack without wasting resources better spent on units.

Thoughts and Conclusions:

In playing on my day off the other day I lost 5 matches to cheese in a row. I was DT rushed, Zergling Rushed, hit by Mass Reapers twice, and of course the typical Zerg mass Roach all-in. I got so frustrated that I stopped playing for a while to relax (which is normally why I'm playing SC2). That got me thinking about cheese in general. One of my opponents said when I called him out on cheese "Yeah, it's cheese....but it's part of the game."  I do not think it's a good thing to cheese someone except if you play the same person frequently and need to change it up, but I now think cheese serves an important role in games by forcing good habits and teaching us to think outside the box in unusual situations.

If you read through some of the counters presented above you'll note the most common way to counter anything is to scout. And you should scout like you should vote: early and often. After macro I consider scouting to be the most important skill in the game. Early scouting is vital in SC2 because of cheese. Otherwise players could wait for Orbital Command scans, Observers, or Overseers. By it's very nature cheese defies the norm while redefining it. You must scout or you will lose to cheese, and therefore scouting becomes a normal part of the game.

While I presented only a few cheese builds in this piece there are dozens of varients of each as well as probably dozens more cheese builds not included here. The definition of cheese is part of the reason- there are, in theory, tens of thousands of slightly different builds that can be called cheese, and each variation likewise requires a subtly different response to counter properly. What complicates matters is that in early game access to units is significantly limited.  In late game players can analyze their opponent's unit composition, upgrades, and resource bank. In the first 5 minutes? Yeah, you're lucky to have a rough guess and access to more than a couple of units. 

But that's the great thing about being cheesed. You're immediately forced to shift from from 1st to 5th gear mentally as you scramble to figure out exactly what is happening - is this a feint or a real attack? A proxy with rapid reinforcements or everything they've got? WHERE IS THAT DAMN PROXY PYLON?!?! 

Nothing else in the game will make you think like that. When workers are a major force on the battlefield and where you placed buildings makes the difference between survival and glorious victory or death and eternal shame (I might be overstating that...), that's when you're playing SC2 at it's finest. The moment can occur in late game, or in the opening minutes, but that's what I play for. I just have to move beyond viewing cheese as frustrating and see it for what it really is. 

Part of the game.