The last 3 months ZvT has been in a bad spot, and one of the primary reasons is the new bio into late game mech switch terrans have been using.
What is it? Well, the name is pretty self explanatory. The terran player opens with a basic medic marine build, and generally some timing push involving a vessel. After a while, the terran player stops making medic marine and transitions into a pure mech army with tanks and vultures and goliaths and mines. The game that started it all:
What's so good about it? Well, this build has been giving Zerg headaches for a number of reasons. I'll list some of them: 1. Army composition. This one is fairly simple: Terran dictates the army composition. Zerg doesn't go hydras because he wants to, and then forces Terran to switch from bio to mech. If terran goes bio, Zerg must go ling lurker. If terran goes mech, Zerg must go hydra muta. Switching to mech lets Terran rain chaos on Zerg's lurker ling. While a zerg can make the switch, he will usually have plenty of useless lurkers he has to suicide, and he won't have many upgrades (attack or speed or whatnot) for his hydras, which lets Terran establish further map control. Ultras? Well, unfortunately ultras aren't that great against mech, and they eat a lot mines. To paraphrase Day9: "Hydra muta is the optimal composition vs mech. I've always said Ultras let siege tanks maximize their damage".
2. Vessels. Mutalisks are actually pretty good against mech. They hold their ground against goliaths, force Terran to make said goliaths (which then don't fare too well against hydras), and give Zerg a lot of opportunities to attack and counter attack. When a Terran goes mech, he usually won't tech to vessels for a while. Often times the terran even has to resort to valks to combat the threat. With the bio --> mech transition though, vessels are available and shortly become numerous, effectively shutting down mutas and allowing Terran to survive with very few goliaths: the rest become those pesky vultures. This game is a fairly good illustration of this (and it's just a fantastic game). Note how quickly Jaedong's mutas get repelled around the middle of the game, even though Midas has like 4 goliaths in the game.
3. MINEEESSSSS. The mech transition usually happens when Zerg is playing lurker / ling / defiler and looking to establish his 4th base and ultras. It's obvious here why mines are good: they ANNIHILATE this composition. Defiler lurker pushes? ling lurker pushes? Anything involving zerglings and lurkers? Boom. Even when ultras come out these bastards are annoying. That's the most obvious reason mines are so awesome. The unit composition Zerg needs vs bio just sucks against them. Another reason though: since Zerg can arely attack until they get an adequate hydra force to take out the mines, Zergs find it very hard to use the timing window during which terran is switching composition. This is a pretty big deal. The following game illustrates how awesome mines are, as well as how hard it is to deal with mech having to use the wrong composition. It also shows how the mines during the transition make it hard to Zerg to abuse the timing window.
4. Economy. I saved (in my opinion) the most important for last.
Straight up mech is a pretty outdated thing. Sure, it works on some maps but in general its fallen out of favor. Why? Because it offers Terran no map presence for a long time. 2 Base mech timing pushes are fairly easy to delay and hold off. Mech allows Zerg to get their 3rd up almost uncontested, and drone whore / expand a lot more after that too. Jaedong illustrates the most extreme example of this, abusing mech's lack of map presence and turning Starcraft into World of Hatcheries:
Unlike mech, however, bio forces Zerg to play a low econ game. Zerg can't even take their 3rd until over 7 minutes into the game, where they spawn 9 mutas just to keep terran in their base. After that Zerg techs to hive off 3 hatcheries, and tries to stay alive with defilers while grabbing a 4th gas and ultras (in the most standard game ever). In short, Zerg's economy is much weaker. Their expansions are limited, as is their luxury to produce drones. This is fine vs a medic marine army, which can be combated with a lower econ by using defilers and lurkers to make the most out of your units (until ultras show up).
This is not fine, however, against mech, where Zerg can't play low econ with muta harass and defiler pushes. Vs mech, Zerg just needs a ton of stuff: bases, drones, army, expansions, and hatcheries. That's the beauty of the bio --> mech switch. It forces Zerg to play on a lower economy, and then punish them for it by going mech. Pressure from medic marines doesn't allow Zerg the economy they would usually be able to get vs a pure meching terran. With that, the terran death ball becomes so much harder to fight. Killer vs Skyhigh offers a good illustration of how this strategy limits Zerg's expansions and economy.
Now, I realize the picture I'm painting is a little more bleak than reality. The bio --> mech switch isn't the end all strategy, and its been beat several times. Zergs have still found ways to push before the transition is complete (Jaedong vs Skyhigh on Fighting Spirit), and even after Terran has switched Zerg have still won by powering hydra / muta / ultra (Jaedong vs SSak on Eye of the Storm, or Jaedong vs Midas on Odd Eye). The strategy is, however, very powerful, and it's something that's been giving Zergs a lot of trouble. It seems as if the only way for Zerg to win is to outplay the Terran, which doesnt seem fair. Even when they do, the strategy still sometimes allows Terran to win. (will insert Jaedong vs Sea video when it's uploaded to youtube).
What more is there to say about the switch? Anything else I'm missing that makes it powerful? And most importantly, what can Zerg do against this? Unlike Fantasy's last gimmicky strat (the vulture drop rush --> valk thingy), this one seems really solid and hasn't shown many weak spots.
Credentials I'm a max rank C terran who used this strat as one of my main TvZ strategies for about a month and a half. That's pretty much it though . I'm not the best player in the world, and I'm not Day9 when it comes to analysis but I did my best. I also haven't played BW for 3 or so weeks now, so I might be missing some things that maybe more skilled players can bring to light.
Also I didn't do any map analysis cause Fighting Spirit and Grand Line are the only maps in the new map pool that I've played myself and am familiar with. That being said, it doesn't seem as if this strategy is as map dependent as mech normally is.
EDIT: Quote from Sea about the strategy after defeating Jaedong with it:
- If you have to evaluate the late mechanic strategy ▲ In my opinion, if the Terran has absolute control over the late mechanic strategy, then the Zerg cannot win. If a Terran has really great command over this strategy, there is no way Zerg can win in an average map.
terran imba i believe you could drop your way to win. You can drop on top of tanks like in that zero vs flash game(didnt work there, but i believe if he attacked any other position with such mass drops he would have breaked the line . the left side of polaris rhapsody is more wide open) or you could try dropping some in main ( possibly defilers + lurkers under swarm; lurkers are really good if they have time to burrow under swarm, if u could burrow them on the main-->natural ramp you could possibly delay tanks for a while before irradiate comes) i think they could use guardians or just mutalisks to deal with mines and attack only after clearing all the mines up. and you can always DONT ATTACK and wait till they come. On polaris rhapsody there are good siege positions everywhere, but on fighting spirit the moment he would decide to attack with good scouting you could break it.
well yes as of now Z is painfully underpowered to the T in terms of strategy. I personally think going just pure air will work (imo, noobish as it may sound). by pure air i mean scourge, mass mutas, guardians in the back, and overlords shitting out hydra/ling( for the sole purpose of splash damage from the tanks and mines, hydra/ling doesnt actually do any damage) yes sci vessels are gunna be a total bitch, but with good scourge control i believe it can work.
Hydra/lurk would totally abuse this imo. Also, jaedong's lurk/queen vs fantasy i think would work against this, adapted of course to hydra instead of blitz defiler. The transition to mech would give time to build up queen energy and hydra upgrades, while lurkling deals with mm remains.
Ok, now I'm serious. This build looks good on some maps, but probably fails on other. Second denchanic game from fantasy against zero ended with an infamous zero's doom drop that devastated fantasy's factory count. I dont think that's a bad build, just not universal.
This game shows how obnoxious Terran tech switches are nowadays.
Also, that taking a terran's potential 4th-5th gas really limits their options and potential in the later game. However, on 2p maps, it can be a lot harder to achieve this.
On August 06 2010 00:57 DarkSaieden wrote: Hydra/lurk would totally abuse this imo. Also, jaedong's lurk/queen vs fantasy i think would work against this, adapted of course to hydra instead of blitz defiler. The transition to mech would give time to build up queen energy and hydra upgrades, while lurkling deals with mm remains.
In that game the purpose of the queens was to ensnare so the marines couldn't run away from lurkers / swarm. Doesn't really apply much here and queens using broodlings are definitely not game changing. It needs 150 energy and most of the time the queen would die to irradiate pretty quickly afterwards
This game shows how obnoxious Terran tech switches are nowadays.
Also, that taking a terran's potential 4th-5th gas really limits their options and potential in the later game. However, on 2p maps, it can be a lot harder to achieve this.
Agree, but this kinda goes back to point #4. With medic and marine pressure terran forces zerg to play low econ and remain relatively contained until defilers. Its so much harder to expand. Again, thats mainly why this strat is so effective.
I think this bo could actualy be alot better if terran also kept mantaining is small mnm army wich are better at map control and rape mutalisk hard and also allow you to do drops while mining/camping the rest of the map.
If terran is making his initial MM ball with only 2 or 3 barracks I think it might not be necessary for zerg to go lurker... perhaps if zerg scouts terran doing this transition with his normal muta harass he has a chance to just skip lurker and go pure hydra.
Great writeup. I like how all your examples of zergs beating this type of play are just jaedong lol.
I dont play zvt regularly so im just theorizing here, but i think the proper response for a zerg player going for safe play would be to use the timing window between bio and mech to pump drones and hatcheries, get dual evos and hydra upgrades, forgoing ultralisks in favor of mass hydra/ling/lurker/defiler. This is if the terran plays in the way you described, with lots of vultures/mines being annoying around the time zerg gets hive.
I watched the killer vs skyhigh game and the situation looked a bit different than the one you were talking about,since he went for mech first and then added bio in still pretty early in the game. But it was also very effective lol.
I think the zergs biggest problem with mixed bio/mech style in general is being able to scout adequately to know which is coming and when, because each tech path requires such a different response from zerg. All of the tvzs of this type of play ive seen so far where the terran does well are because the zerg was caught in a situation with a bad unit combination. Terrans have a much easier time scouting (and being able to take an economic lead with their walled off 14ccs) in the early/midgame that they can dictate the flow of the game for zerg, and often be able to hard counter zergs unit combination
I was going to make a discussion thread for this, but thankfully, you did, so I don't have to do the research. As of last night, this has definitely become a challenge to game balance, and thus merits a good discussion.
I think the answer for zergs is mostly finesse. Just like the answer for Protoss defense of mutalisk templar-sniping, was "defend better", I think the zerg answer is "attack better". EffOrt, for example, needs to do better with his zerglings, he keeps sending them through minefields in packs, while spreading a group of zerglings out would clear minefields more effieciently. I think zergs can also do better at anticipating this transition, and going back to hydra/muta. Rarely do terran play bio/mech/air and so zergs simply need to abandon hive tech once they're there, and power mass muta/hydra.
Drops are also a huge part of the way zergs need to play this, and that means better overlord usage. Overlords need to be more aggressive at searching for mines, and threatening drops.
Honestly, I think, despite what Sea says, that this strategy can be abused (lack of mobility) and that zergs simply have to get used to it. We'll see if EffOrt and Jaedong are caught by it again in the rest of the Round of 8.
On August 05 2010 23:51 SubtleArt wrote: It seems as if the only way for Zerg to win is to outplay the Terran, which doesnt seem fair.
If you outplay your opponent, you win. If your opponent outplays you, they win. Seems perfectly fair to me.
im pretty sure he meant that the zerg would have to outplay the terran mechanically and tactically, because hed be strategically unable to do so. Ofc you could say that all terrans are outplaying zergs these days, because terrans have revolutionized tvz, while zvt is somewhat stagnant strategically.
And fantasy making a big splash in BW again... This isn't impossible to beat, it's just that Zergs have to adapt their Mech strategy a bit to play against this properly. Against normal Mech, Zerg has the advantage of a much better economy, but against a bio -> Mech, Zerg has the advantage of higher tech. Defiler + Lurker is actually a very effective defensive combination against Mech, and more so because the Terran's Vessel count is limited.
Another thing, Vessel count doesn't limit the Zerg's ability to go mass Mutalisks at all, especially on Polaris Rhapsody (the supposedly "imba" map of last night), because of the double gas expansion. Terran will have to get some Goliaths then to counter the Mutalisk threat, and that will pull the Terran's gas in three directions: Tank, Vessel, and Goliath, not to mention the decreased Vulture count.
If there's one other disadvantage that Zerg has in this style of play, it's that their upgrades are completely messed up. Carapace upgrades are essentially useless, and they aren't getting the Missile attack nor Air Carapace upgrades they'll need to push back Mech.
This isn't really "unbeatable", it's just another strategy experiencing a peak in usage, like 3 Hatch Muta -> Quick Hive or Corsair/Reaver. Zergs will soon find a way around it.
That being said, the performance of Jaedong and Effort (especially Effort) last night wasn't too hot. Not really the best decision making I've seen by either player in recent times. I mean Effort sending streams of units in against Mech or Jaedong attacking an established Terran position without Swarm is just ugh.
EPT
. I'm not the best player in the world, and I'm not Day9 when it comes to analysis but I did my best. I also haven't played BW for 3 or so weeks now, so I might be missing some things that maybe more skilled players can bring to light.
