Replay Analysis #2: How to TvZ with Mill.Tarson

Hi again guys! My previous article discussed the style of Liquid'Taeja’s TvP and how his style is successful vs his opponents. The key to his success as we have seen is his heavy macro style and epic micro; and now this time we will focus on yet another Terran: Millennium's very own Tarson.

A Background on Tarson

Tarson is not the most well-known player in the International scene, but he is a force to be reckoned with in the European scene. He mostly competes in online cups and rarely goes to offline events. He had the most success leading to the end of the beta of StarCraft 2. The saying of “Tarson Holds!” also originated from him.

Tarson vs HyuN (IPL TAC 3)
Antiga Shipyard
Tarson 5 o’clock position
HyuN 11 o’clock position
Replay can be downloaded here.

Tarson opens up with a Command Center first, building it on his natural. This may seem ballsy but it’s very probable that this version of the map has forced cross-position, so a cheese / rush from Zerg is unlikely. By going Command Center first it gives the Terran a slight advantage and lets Zerg to choose whether to go very greedy (fast 3rd) or not.

'greedy' Command Center first

HyuN goes for the quick third and the game resumes with a very passive early game.

Tarson’s follow up is a build that I have discussed briefly in my second article which has gained much success lately: the Reactor’d Hellion with Banshee harass. This build grants the Terran map control, and to keep Zerg in the dark. Again, a Mutalisk rush is the hard counter to this build so be careful if you do go for this build.

Cloacked banshee + Reactor'd Hellions: Deadly

Tarson’s pressure manages to catch HyuN a bit off guard, killing a few of his Queens and 8 drones in his 3rd base. It looked as if HyuN underestimated the pressure, making a few spores but not enough units.

Tarson’s transition to this is also very interesting: mech. While going mech he also goes for a quick third, managing to deny scouting from an overlord on his 3rd base. With all this going on Tarson is also going for double armoury and keeps producing banshees. This turtley kind of play is quite safe, as Zerg will have to devote a lot of resources (to a borderline all in) just to break a siege defense that overlooks the path to the natural and the 3rd. Of course, if the Zerg decides to be all out greedy and expands everywhere there's nothing you can really do.

Tarson then does an out of the ordinary push with a composition consisting of hellions (with no blue flame), Cloaked banshees and a few Thors. Thors take a surprising amount of baneling hits before it dies so it is always a good idea to have a few Thors up front to tank the damage.

With HyuN’s Spire tech and numerous Queens he manages to kill of the push very easily, with very little losses received.

Easily held off

Sensing a crack in the armour HyuN quickly gave chase and attacked Tarson back, but Tarson’s composition was too strong and HyuN is forced to turn back home, but not before he killed a majority of Tarson’s army with only a few Thors left. During this battle HyuN also took the fourth base in the center of the map.

Repelled

Tarson goes on to counter with his Blue Flame hellions, managing to roast 42 drones in total at the 20:00 mark. This is a very good way to take advantage of the hellion’s very fast mobility. Since Zerg is forced to produce roaches to counter mech the Zerg will have very little mobility, and with Antiga Shipyard’s numerous attack paths it is always a good idea to try and counter with hellions.

At around the 20:50 mark HyuN decides to do a major doom drop right in the middle of the Terran’s defenses. However this turns out to be a bad idea, since Tarson’s +3/3 vehicle upgrades just kicked in, and he repels the Zerg in dominating fashion. The large number of turrets also helped to kill the Overlords. HyuN does however manage to kill 64 SCVs in total in this game, as he attacked Tarson’s 3rd with a small group of roaches just as the attack commenced.

With his army destroyed HyuN decided to transition to a late mutalisk tech however it was not enough to hold off the death march from the very powerful mech army and he is forced to tap out and gg.

The dreaded mech death march

Closing Comments

The art of mech. Mech is arguably one of the most powerful composition you can ever get in the game. It can be so strong that most other compositions die to it even with an A move. The difficulty of going mech is to find enough time to produce sufficinet units before you die. Certain timings can also outright kill a meching Terran. This is why you almost always turtle when going mech. Hellions as I said is also a very effective harassment unit, especially with Blue Flame.

This game may not be as ‘clean’ as Taeja’s TvP but this game really show how powerful mech is and how you should play out mech play and how to harass with it.

Once again thanks for reading,
GL HF!