• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 15:15
CEST 21:15
KST 04:15
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
[ASL22] Ro4 Preview: Mirror Mirror4[ASL22] Ro8 Preview: Within Reach5[ASL22] Ro8 Preview: In A Tizzy11[ASL22] Ro16 Preview: Holy Diver5[ASL22] Ro16 Preview: Rough Waters10
Community News
Weekly Cups Results (Sep 28-Oct 4)0SC4ALL: II SC2 Complete Invited Player Lineup10StarCraft II 5.0.17 PTR Patch Notes (Sept 30, 2026)77Weekly Cups (Sept 21-27): herO and ByuN double2Weekly Cups (Sep 13-20): herO scores triple3
StarCraft 2
General
How do you feel about the mass reverts in the 5.0.17 PTR? [Old] StarCraft 3 Reportedly in Development StarCraft II 5.0.17 PTR Patch Notes (Sept 30, 2026) Weekly Cups Results (Sep 28-Oct 4) SC4ALL: II SC2 Complete Invited Player Lineup
Tourneys
Stellar Fest TWO the Moon (Dec 16-20) ISSL (IntoTheTV x SOOP SC2 League): Premier Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament 2026 GSTL Grand Finals Sea Duckling Open (Global, Bronze-Diamond)
Strategy
[H] ZvP Mid-Late Game: Stalkers Collossi HT
Custom Maps
[M] (2) Sweltering Sands [M] (2) Frigid Storage
External Content
Mutation # 546 Catch the Train The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 545 And Drops and Rifts Mutation # 544 Double Trouble
Brood War
General
Sagi.gg Launcher Released BW General Discussion SC4ALL II Brood War Complete Invited Player Lineup 20-year-old Valorant player starting StarCraft Bot on ladder
Tourneys
[ASL22] Semifinal B [ASL22] Semifinal A [Megathread] Daily Proleagues [ASL22] Ro8 Day 4
Strategy
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Cliff Jump Revisited (1 in a 1000 strategy) Replay Review Process - What do you do?
Other Games
General Games
General RTS Discussion Thread Nintendo Switch Thread Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Total Annihilation Zero
Dota 2
Dota 2 Champions League Season 3 Begins April 25! Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
[TL LoL EUW IHs] Teemo shall perish
Heroes of the Storm
Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Community Thread
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Artificial Intelligence Thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread Canadian Politics Mega-thread Dating: How's your luck?
Fan Clubs
Serral Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
[Manga] One Piece Movie Discussion! Diablo Animated Series on Netflix
Sports
Football (Soccer) Thread MLB/Baseball 2023
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
Recent Gifted Posts
Blogs
[ASL22] Ro4 Day1 Ticket Giv…
bITt.mAN
Escaping Into Video Games: G…
TrAiDoS
38 yo Retired SWE loo…
PurE)Rabbit-SF
Can Bots Beat Pros?? Starcr…
namkraft
[meme] I finally understa…
LUCKY_NOOB
Regacy Esports:Our Goa…
regacyesports
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 8707 users

Why zerg always builds mutalisks vs terran?

Forum Index > Brood War Strategy
Post a Reply
SiarX
Profile Joined December 2021
133 Posts
April 12 2024 15:52 GMT
#1
They are costly investments, and often do not deal that much damage to justify cost. I get that they are supposed to keep terran on his base, but would not building many lurkers instead succesfully protect zerg bases, too?
HerbMon
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
United States472 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-04-12 19:33:25
April 12 2024 17:42 GMT
#2
Scouting a Zerg going lurker is fairly easy to sniff out. If the Zerg goes for the fastest lurker timing they can't get their third, which makes them very two base heavy. So if the Zerg commits to this they need todo damage or they're significantly behind economically. Also Terran will sit behind bunker and turret untill they get 3 siege tank and vessel.
How we will win in the period ahead.
CHEONSOYUN
Profile Joined August 2017
623 Posts
April 12 2024 20:30 GMT
#3
zergs fight terrans asymmetrically
JAEDONG...!!! EFFORT IS ANGRY. ZERG...?!
Nirli
Profile Joined February 2023
Bulgaria387 Posts
April 13 2024 01:15 GMT
#4
Because lurkers don't fly.
avanhokie
Profile Joined May 2017
50 Posts
April 13 2024 07:27 GMT
#5
Mutalisks have far greater flexibility, they can defend a push and harass. Lurkers have more limited options in my opinion, outright kill with fast initial lurkers, contain and expand to the 3rd gas and transition, or contain and kill with fast defiler.
Soulforged
Profile Blog Joined February 2007
Latvia982 Posts
April 13 2024 14:26 GMT
#6
Because it is a fucking awesome unit
IntoTheWow
Profile Blog Joined May 2004
is awesome32282 Posts
April 14 2024 14:30 GMT
#7
On April 13 2024 00:52 SiarX wrote:
They are costly investments, and often do not deal that much damage to justify cost. I get that they are supposed to keep terran on his base, but would not building many lurkers instead succesfully protect zerg bases, too?


If you watch some progames, you can see the amount of turrets terran need to make to hold different variations of muta openings. Sometimes they can do with 6 or so, sometimes they more and they also need to rebuild the ones destroyed by mutalisks.
If terran needs to make around 10~12 turrets to hold in the end, that's 750~900 minerals alone (+eng bay), without taking into account the lost SCV mining time because of: building/rebuilding turrets and dead SCVs.

As others have said, if you go lurker, Terran will sit behind a bunker and wait for a good timming. Lurkers don't work well in small numbers versus a Terran army. As a Zerg you will end up being the reactive one, burrowing/unburrowing and taking chip damage everywhere while they Terran manouvers around the map. The moment siege is up, you are on a timer to defend or lose your natural.
You will also lose map control. Pro terrans are very good at skirmishing versus low population zerg armies. You could be dead by a single scan, runby or a drop.

A muta opening not only keeps Terran blind and on the defensive, but forces the Terran to tech to move out, keeps their army small (it's hard to move out versus a good Muta user) and gives some breathing room to expand.
Moderator<:3-/-<
XenOsky
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
Chile2358 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-04-15 07:54:44
April 15 2024 07:11 GMT
#8
lurkers used to be the way to go vs terran back in the day, but lack of movility made it difficult to play vs sk terran, mutas were able to hit before a critical number of marines and gave zergs the ability to move arround the map while forcing turrets.

with time muta control got A LOT better, so mutas became basically the only playable openning.

same shit is happening with reavers in PvT... u can attack or defend with reavers while expanding or reduce the number of terran units while T is pushing...
ἡ τῆς Νεμέσεως τάξις
rusty23456
Profile Joined September 2009
United States112 Posts
April 16 2024 22:35 GMT
#9
at tr24 low mutas are super strong
zimp
Profile Blog Joined November 2008
Hungary959 Posts
April 21 2024 21:22 GMT
#10
I think on mid level ranks, lurker opening is fine. High level terrans have good enough micro to kill lurkers, while high level zergs have good enough muta micro to be cost effective. And people just copied them.
agentzimp
TL+ Member
Liquid`Drone
Profile Joined September 2002
Norway28906 Posts
April 26 2024 15:02 GMT
#11
Ye, at S+ level terrans are very good at countering a lurker opening they expect/know is coming. Therefore you need a good muta game to be competitive at the highest level.

In single games youll see lurker openings with quite some frequency though, especially in the ASL. And zergs that are B or below could do perfectly fine opening lurker every game. When I was semi-competitive at a low S rank level, zvt was my best mu and i opened muta at most 25% of the time, and i virtually never made more than 11.
Moderator
iFU.pauline
Profile Joined September 2009
France1775 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-04-27 09:20:56
April 27 2024 09:04 GMT
#12
There is a myriad of build-order variants for opening lurkers but it should remain hidden strat. Once I watched the finest lurker opening from EffOrt with a 3 hatch build putting spire and den at the same time but instead going for lurker upgrade, the timing was done so he would put 6 hydras dispersed among larva near hatcheries and morph them into lurkers which would be around the time terran would scan and believe muta are coming therefore staying in its base and building turrets. Terran (who was ex-PGM) understood at the very last time and went out of its base to delay lurker wall but failed to do so, with a 5 rax +1, terran never came out of his base for the rest of the game. There is a bit of gambling of course and it's EffOrt executing it when he was going freestyle gameplay.

I was very attached back in the day with a lurker opening and had to force learning muta coze terran would go fact very early and be able to push you way before you had defiler. Also gameplay is pretty straightforward, I would say near boring because it's the same gameplan unless you want to go for fast drop and if you fail terran will just roll over you.
No coward soul is mine, No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere, I see Heaven's glories shine, And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear
Comodore
Profile Joined July 2013
Brazil51 Posts
May 01 2024 17:55 GMT
#13
On April 27 2024 18:04 iFU.pauline wrote:
There is a myriad of build-order variants for opening lurkers but it should remain hidden strat. Once I watched the finest lurker opening from EffOrt with a 3 hatch build putting spire and den at the same time but instead going for lurker upgrade, the timing was done so he would put 6 hydras dispersed among larva near hatcheries and morph them into lurkers which would be around the time terran would scan and believe muta are coming therefore staying in its base and building turrets. Terran (who was ex-PGM) understood at the very last time and went out of its base to delay lurker wall but failed to do so, with a 5 rax +1, terran never came out of his base for the rest of the game. There is a bit of gambling of course and it's EffOrt executing it when he was going freestyle gameplay.

I was very attached back in the day with a lurker opening and had to force learning muta coze terran would go fact very early and be able to push you way before you had defiler. Also gameplay is pretty straightforward, I would say near boring because it's the same gameplan unless you want to go for fast drop and if you fail terran will just roll over you.


Do you have a link or replay of this game?
DeepElemBlues
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
United States5080 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-05-01 23:36:15
May 01 2024 23:27 GMT
#14
On April 13 2024 00:52 SiarX wrote:
They are costly investments, and often do not deal that much damage to justify cost. I get that they are supposed to keep terran on his base, but would not building many lurkers instead succesfully protect zerg bases, too?

if you go straight to lurker and try to contain, it is very hard to stop terran from busting your contain with siege tanks. then if the terran is aggressive and comes out it can be hard to stop them setting up siege tanks at your natural

you can harass SCV line with mutalisks, which also keeps the terran army contained, running around from his natural to his main and back chasing your mutas. and if the terran comes out to attack you can effectively harass his army as it moves across the map with mutas, pick off marines/medics/tanks (if they go tanks. which they usually wont because you went muta first not lurker).

yes lurkers are effective at defending, not so much at containing or attacking (not that they're ineffective, just less effective than muta)
no place i'd rather be than the satellite of love
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Patches Events
01:00
Patch Clash Monthly #2
RotterdaM1052
TKL 407
EnkiAlexander 31
Liquipedia
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
RotterdaM 1052
TKL 407
mouzHeroMarine 367
IndyStarCraft 209
BRAT_OK 52
MindelVK 20
StarCraft: Brood War
Britney 16521
Calm 2452
Horang2 355
Mini 161
Rush 99
EffOrt 80
Zeus 47
Trap 20
Bale 18
scan(afreeca) 15
Dota 2
febbydoto7
LuMiX1
Counter-Strike
fl0m4598
pashabiceps1773
Fnx 1504
Super Smash Bros
Mew2King65
Heroes of the Storm
Grubby3290
Liquid`Hasu562
Other Games
Liquid`RaSZi1692
Beastyqt849
B2W.Neo509
C9.Mang0321
crisheroes201
Dewaltoss148
Trikslyr94
QueenE91
UpATreeSC56
JuggernautJason21
ZombieGrub0
Organizations
Dota 2
PGL Dota 2 - Main Stream25
Other Games
Algost 2
[ Show 12 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• Migwel
StarCraft: Brood War
• 80smullet 18
• Michael_bg 6
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
League of Legends
• TFBlade727
Other Games
• imaqtpie896
Upcoming Events
The PondCast
14h 45m
INu's Battles
15h 45m
Percival vs SHIN
Zoun vs herO
OSC
17h 45m
OSC
1d 3h
Replay Cast
1d 3h
OSC
2 days
AI Arena Tournament
2 days
BSL: Ladder Tournament
2 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
3 days
Patches Events
3 days
[ Show More ]
BSL Open Qualifier
3 days
BSL Open Qualifier
3 days
WardiTV Weekly
5 days
PiGosaur Cup
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

CSL 2026 AUTUMN (S22)
Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
Copium Cup

Ongoing

ASL Season 22
Super Anchor Qualifying S3
Acropolis #5
Acropolis #5 - GSB
ESL Pro League Season 24
Stake Ranked Episode 4
1win Private Club #1
Logitech G Play Connect 2026
SL StarSeries Fall 2026
FISSURE Playground #3
BLAST Open Fall 2026
Esports World Cup 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer Qual

Upcoming

Acropolis #5 - GSC
BSL Season 23
SC4ALL II: Brood War
BSL 23: Non-Korean Championship
HSC XXX
Stellar Fest 2: Lunar Cup
SC4ALL II: StarCraft II
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
RSL Offline Finals
HCC Season 3
eXTREMESLAND 2026
PGL Major Singapore 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 6
BLAST Rivals Fall 2026
IEM Beijing 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 5
PGL Masters Bucharest 2026
1win Private Club #2
Thunderpick World Champ. '26
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.