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Can zerg beat mech without queens?

Forum Index > Brood War Strategy
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SiarX
Profile Joined December 2021
133 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-05-13 16:39:33
May 13 2024 15:40 GMT
#1
Mechs is so cost efficient and does not care about dark swarm, that queens seem to be the only possible counter. Or maybe smth like mass mutalisk can work?
Mutaller
Profile Blog Joined July 2013
United States1051 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-05-13 16:48:06
May 13 2024 16:46 GMT
#2
Yes mass muta is very good against mech. Zerg expands and drones heavily while using mutas to defend, and researching hydra upgrades at the same time. After the upgrades finish zerg can transition into mass hydra, and the terran tank count will be low because they need to build goliaths all game long. Soma has a game demonstrating this in the School for Zerg discord, but that requires money to support the project.
"To practice isn't for you to get better now in the present. Practice will never betray you and will always come back for you in the future." -Jaedong
SiarX
Profile Joined December 2021
133 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-05-13 22:12:00
May 13 2024 22:11 GMT
#3
On May 14 2024 01:46 Mutaller wrote:
Yes mass muta is very good against mech. Zerg expands and drones heavily while using mutas to defend, and researching hydra upgrades at the same time. After the upgrades finish zerg can transition into mass hydra, and the terran tank count will be low because they need to build goliaths all game long. Soma has a game demonstrating this in the School for Zerg discord, but that requires money to support the project.


What if terran builds valkyries instead of goliaths? Valkyries shut down mutas pretty hard.
Piste
Profile Blog Joined July 2006
6183 Posts
May 14 2024 01:52 GMT
#4
U can build anything vs mech. If you can't attack his army, don't do it.
Severedevil
Profile Blog Joined April 2009
United States4839 Posts
May 14 2024 02:14 GMT
#5
Mech needs lots of gas but struggles to spread its units to take lots of geysers, because its units are slow and fight poorly when spread. If mech needs lots of tanks (to stop your hydras or ultras) but also needs lots of goliaths or valkyries (to stop your mutas or your overlord drops), mech struggles to afford all that gas.

On the other hand, if mech can mitigate those problems with minerals instead of gas (missile turrets vs air, vultures or building walls vs ground), then mech isn't so squeezed on gas and becomes a lot scarier.
My strategy is to fork people.
iopq
Profile Blog Joined March 2009
United States1096 Posts
May 14 2024 07:41 GMT
#6
Yes, ling/ultra drop is a very easy way to overwhelm the mech switch. I've tried the other ways, but they are much more difficult to pull off, while hitting a drop timing and then overwhelming them by attacking every position at once is easier on the Zerg player than the Terran player scrambling to defend every location

it's not a good way to attack a heavily defended Terran position, that's actually going to be the zergling/lurker dark swarm creep where you bunt the zerglings to advance lurkers under dark swarm
Liquid`Drone
Profile Joined September 2002
Norway28804 Posts
May 14 2024 07:44 GMT
#7
A bit map dependent. The answer is basically 'zerg needs the threat of queens to deter a full turtle-terran, but zerg can easily beat a non-full-turtle terran mech without queens.

If there is a map with 3 reasonably easily accessible gasses, then terran can choose to play very slowly and meticulously, not moving out until they have many irradiates and a whole lot of tanks. If zerg is on hydra/muta and facing 2/2 tank goliath with 12+ tanks and 4+ vessels, zerg becomes incredibly cost-inefficient. A terran who simply waits and never really attacks until they are at this stage, and at this stage only moves out to secure another trio of bases rather than attacking into zerg, will beat a zerg who does not have queens.

I recall watching games on colosseum where zerg literally had twice the resources of terran, but still lost, because they did not make queens. Colosseum being a map where this turtle terran approach is the best - only 12 bases total, and they're in four clusters, and every base has gas. Now, on colo, zergs can absolutely win games without making any queens - they can get to 6 gas muta with relative ease, and that crushes most move outs. But if a terran knows that zerg won't build any queens under any circumstance, they can choose to simply sit until they have 180 supply, 10 irradiates, and then move out to establish themselves on the least mined quadrant, then it doesn't really matter if zerg has 60 mutas and the ability to make another 60. They're just gonna melt away. Z can get some stuff done with ultralingdefiler drops but this is still contingent upon finding some holes in terran's defense.
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