EPT
Table of Contents:
Part I:
1) Introduction
2) New Muta Survivability
3) The Perks of Having Harassing Flyers
4) The Zerg Midgame in Context
Part II:
5) Transitions
6) Closing Thoughts
7) About Me
Introduction: In recent posts on TL, I've noticed a lot of people talking about zerg and all of the new problems in ZvT, including reaper openings, hellbat drops, mine drop, big 4M aggression, etc. In my HotS experience, I've been studying the play of ST_Life a lot and noticing how he uses a ton of ling aggression into muta/ling play to survive against a variety of things. In my opinion, mutas should be used to open the midgame 100% of the time in ZvT because of their versatility, their new durability, and the plethora of options it opens up for the zerg player. The focus of this article is to explain the new (essential) role of mutas in ZvT and the HotS mindset in the zerg midgame.
New Muta Survivability:
Mutas got a huge buff coming into HotS. With increased acceleration and immensely improved regeneration rates, HotS mutas are much faster and more resilient than their WoL counterparts, and now better suited to harassment. This being said, having a few mutas in HotS are just as good as big ball of mutas were in WoL in terms of both harassment and cutting off reinforcements. In other words, to achieve the same results in HotS, you can dump less supply and less gas into mutas for the same intended role.
In ZvT, 8-12 mutas are a perfect number for harassment, denying drops, and cleaning up mines. With the new survivability of mutas, players can take a shot from a widow mine or take on a drop and still have a healthy ball of mutas in the next 1-2 minutes. In WoL, if the muta health dropped into the red, it was basically a useless muta in any kind of direct engagement; in HotS, a muta in the red is practically a full health muta in 1-2 minutes and useful again. Less is more in HotS.
The Perks of Having Harassing Flyers:
Harassment is becoming a big part of HotS. With the addition of several fast, agile units with fairly good survivability (reapers, speedvacs, oracles, mutas), HotS is quickly becoming a game that stresses multi-tasking to its limits, especially in the ZvT matchup. Zerg's primary harassment tools are lings, burrowed roaches, and mutas. The most notable thing about the mutalisk is that is a flying harasser; while lings and roaches can be stopped with walloffs, bunkers, cliffs, etc., mutas are free from static defenses and can easily and nimbly dart around turrets, mines, bunkers, and terrain. This is important because it can force terran units all the way back into the main and also makes mutalisks great at cutting off reinforcements.
In addition to being able to bypass terrain, the second most important thing about having a flying harassment tool is that it forces turrets in ZvT. Terran can't always have marines in position to deal with mutas at all angles, so turrets in mineral lines, turrets at outlying expansions, etc., MUST be made in order to zone off mutas or buy time for ground forces to get there. Much like terran drops force some kind of static defense, mutas force static defense and minerals to go into things other than barracks and 4M.
Mutalisks are also the primary defense against drop play. In my opinion, mutas are now ESSENTIAL to deal with drop play now, because static defense and ling repositioning aren't strong enough to deal with the new speedvac boost. The nerfed infestor also has lost a lot of its effectiveness in dealing with drops.
Mutalisks are also great at killing off unprotected mines. With a critical number of mutas, it's possible to one-shot a mine before it has time to go off. This makes them invaluable as sweep-up crews.
In short, mutalisks are great harassment tools because they allow you to get to several places other units can't and because of their versatility in being used both offensively and defensively.
The Zerg Midgame in Context:
In modern ZvT, we see a lot of the terran sitting back playing economically for the first 12-14 minutes of the game and then suddenly jump into constant 4M aggression. Meanwhile, zerg players threaten to do busts while trying to get as strong of an economic lead as possible, transitioning into the mobile muta/ling/bling in order to deal with the absurdly powerful terran aggression. Mutas are required to deal with drops and the only units that really synergize well and deal with 4M well are ling/bling.
The goal of ZvT midgame is to get to 4 bases (8-10 geysers), get hive tech, and get out ultras to deal with the overwhelming power of 4M. The most difficult part of this is that almost all of the zerg's money MUST go into defending with banelings and static defense; in addition, the more bases zerg has, the more spread out they become, making the hyper-mobile 4M force even harder to contend with. In addition, there is a terrifying period of time in which terran has 3/3 upgrades and zerg is still morphing hive, and this is generally where we see most zerg's crumble and collapse. So the question here is: What edge can we get in order to survive until ultralisks? Is there a middle ground stepping stone between muta/ling/bling and hive tech?
This is where I believe mutalisks fit. I believe that by spending gas ONLY on 8-12 mutas and dumping all the rest into muta upgrades/burrow/overlord speed, etc., we can fairly easily afford a way to survive until hive tech. Looking back, it's apparent that we only need enough mutas to deal with drops and to snipe turrets. Any more than this is overkill. Instead of using an additional 800 gas on 8 more mutas, we can spend that gas on overlord speed and start dropping creep on all of terran's expansions, we can spend it on burrow and use burrowed banelings, we can use it on muta upgrades to increase the survivability on our existing mutas, we can use it on getting infestors faster or get hive faster. There are a number of ways we can spend that gas in more clever ways.
Of course, this is quite APM intensive on top of an already quite APM intensive strategy. But at the highest levels of play, shouldn't players be able to make use of this idea?
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