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Excellent OP, I've been trying this lately after reading and it's been working very well. I'd like to mention two thoughts I've had on the matter (but am generally not good enough to pull off with any consistency)
1) I try to get an early Overseer, sometimes 2. There are three reasons for this. First it forces a response to air, which otherwise they would be able to skimp on. Second, it lets you delay their upgrades with Contaminate, which makes yours that much better. Finally it makes defending the banshee that much easier (but maybe I'm just not very good with my spore placement).
2) By the late midgame I try to get both my olord upgrades. A drop of 1 infestor + 6 speedlings (I think that's how many fit), wrecks a mineral line so much harder then 4 banelings. FG stops them from running or effectively surrounding, and takes about 1/2 hp, letting the lings clean up. And as a bonus, the moment your FG lands you can put the infestor back in the OL and attempt to make your escape while the lings cause havoc. Compared to baneling drop it's almost always more cost-effective.
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Saw that strat on the stream, I love being able to try something a bit different the standard ling/bling/muta. The hive and gas timing are helpful, thank you for this.
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Calgary25980 Posts
Interesting thread. I like how specific the explanation is and how you've already preempted some of the criticism. I'll definitely try it out.
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WAIT WAIT WAIT, so your trying to tell me that not spending 70%+ of my resources on units that cant attack the unit/s (rines/thors with rines close by) terran is spending most of their money on, is a good idea????????? I think your clearly not thinking straight! 
Also i think getting a spire and using corruptors (like 4 total) to stop drops is a good idea. Kind of like you would use a spire in ZvP 5hatch in BW. Because stopping flying things with things that don't fly is annoying. Also if they are still alive in the late game, which is quite likely, then you have half you brood lord already
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I use the same built and it is good as long as you react. vs pure mech you have to go roaches and if terran fos marine/tankyou need broodlords fastly to not get killed by mass tanks.
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Thanks, good thread! Double evo early sounds solid. I'm curious about how and when you mix in queens and creep tumors in an ideal buildup. With 15hatch 14 pool I usually get 2 queens and 2 tumors asap, but maybe with the 16 pool you've got enough minerals to inject->drone right away? 3rd queen sometime during the lair upgrade?
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On February 15 2011 07:42 nanoscorp wrote:
Thanks, good thread! Double evo early sounds solid. I'm curious about how and when you mix in queens and creep tumors in an ideal buildup. With 15hatch 14 pool I usually get 2 queens and 2 tumors asap, but maybe with the 16 pool you've got enough minerals to inject->drone right away? 3rd queen sometime during the lair upgrade?
Funny you should mention queens, as I kinda omitted them in the OP.
We're mining on one gas that we get kinda late. (at 21)
This means we can go up to 4 queens before we start our lair.
It means we CAN go up to 4 queens before lair. Not that we MUST.
I like to drop 1 tumor in the main, and inject in my nat with the first 2 queens.
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proper infestor micro can shut down terran entirely. medivac drops and banshee harass are pretty much nullified if zerg reacts quickly, and fungals can land pretty easily on a marine tank force as long as there are enough lings to meat shield. played a mid masters zerg who went roach ling infestor with ~8 infestors in the mid game and pretty much shut down rine/thor/tanks without problems. its actually surprising how devastating it is, yet i rarely see it being used.
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I'm also curious about how you view your armies, specifically Infestor count, when deciding about tech. Throwing down a spire costs a tad more than one infestor, but after a while it'll really pay off. Good timing on the spire lets you get broods out soon, given your early infestation pit. Assuming a heavy tank composition, how soon do you go for spire? NP and a few more infestors first or tech for the long game?
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On February 15 2011 07:44 MrBitter wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 07:42 nanoscorp wrote:
Thanks, good thread! Double evo early sounds solid. I'm curious about how and when you mix in queens and creep tumors in an ideal buildup. With 15hatch 14 pool I usually get 2 queens and 2 tumors asap, but maybe with the 16 pool you've got enough minerals to inject->drone right away? 3rd queen sometime during the lair upgrade? Funny you should mention queens, as I kinda omitted them in the OP. We're mining on one gas that we get kinda late. (at 21) This means we can go up to 4 queens before we start our lair. It means we CAN go up to 4 queens before lair. Not that we MUST. I like to drop 1 tumor in the main, and inject in my nat with the first 2 queens.
queens have been extremely underrated until just recently, I am a gold level player, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but in a recent game I played (where I used a strategy that revolved around getting extremely fast upgraded ultras + queens) the game went like follows:
early: close position lost temple, not much happens, he techs to tanks, I tech to ultras while adding queens and spinecrawlers for defense (spinecrawler+queen is indeed unkillable by anything that doesn't outrange the crawlers).
mid: he drops tanks on ledge and does a mini-push, missmicro on both parts ends in his tank-drop dying to queens without me losing any (transfusion ftw) and me losing 2 of 3 ultras when defending (those were my first ultras), I have ~8-9 queens with 120ish energy left
late part of mid: I attack with my queens and my ultra (notice the singular in "ultra" indicating 1) onto his adequatly defended natural.
I proceed to lose 0 units for the rest of the game thanks to transfusion. the end.
another example is a game vs toss, 3ultras+10queens (38 supply) vs 10zealots+12archons (68 supply) (funky mix I know, he was forced to turn his mass HT (that he got as a reaction to queens) into archons because he really needed units to fight the ultras)
slaughter commenced. I lost nothing. he lost everything
did I forget to mention that the queen's dps was only used against air units (if there were any)?
anywho, my point is that adding queens to the lategame of that composition is (as day[9] would say) deadry, very, very deadry
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As a terran player at high diamond, I can tel you that at my lowly noob level it doesn't work well if the terran plays it right. I lost the first game against it because fungal is brutal. I won second game because I just went into a super slow tank/pfort push, with hellion drops. He can't deal with the hellions well enough, and the etanks are unbreakable. No mutas to harass the pforts either.
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Nice strat. Good post.
I've been trying to find something new to try against Terrans. Getting a little bored of the Muta play atm. (And it's sooo much gas...) This looks like it could be alot of fun, I really like Infestors, Ultra's and Cracklings and wish I used them more.
Going to have to try this.
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I've tried this before, and its a great alternative to Mutas in the mid game. Mutas give you good map control and harass options, but infestors are way better especially when terran is going a tank heavy build. One problem is that medvacs are somewhat harder to pick off. Also I find that Mutas help when assaulting a seige line or drawing units away from areas. They can also help stall a huge push.
As well with this build, you are very vulnerable during a period when infestors are just starting to come out. You need to watch out for timing attacks during this time, as I have lost games due to stim pushes and etc. Also don't forget that infestors are only 80 hp. Its very hard to control infestors so that they don't die during engagements, especially for less skilled players. One more thing to note is that infestors can be nullified by EMP. At least mutas can magic box from thors.
Just my thoughts.
+ Show Spoiler +~3300 rank zerg, if it matters
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Part of me thinks that a lot of the build's success seems to be rooted in the predictable nature of zerg. Terran expects to see muta bling and they probably are just caught completely off guard when they see this. It seems like a goofy unit compositions like mass blue flame hellion + ghosts would do well. Has anyone scouted the early infestation pit and gone cloaked ghosts with emp against this? I remember qxc experimenting with getting a fair number of ghosts and just spamming snipes but it seems like just 2-3 would wreak complete havoc with emp.
This also seems really larvae inefficient, you're going to need a macro hatch up pretty fast + a third queen to try and keep money low. If you have 2 1/2 to 3 mining bases I think that a second macro hatch may even become necessary (though you'd probably be in ultra territory by then). Is the usual hive + ultra timing around the time that the 2nd expansion becomes operational? Also, barring any kind of shenanigans are you holding off on banelings until the ultras are out? In a normalish game where terran does a 2-3 base tank marine medivac push (before ultras) how many banelings will you have if any?
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I thought of this very composition before. In fact TLO used this to great effect in the beta. However im not so certain that an Infestor Ling army mid game is more powerful, than the ling bane Mutalisk.
I mean it seems like if i'm not using my not using my infestor's energy efficiently, then i could get rolled by a push.
I do however like the idea of Ultralisks with Infestors, micro is pretty much an ultras worsted nightmare. This seems like a solid way of teching to this composition.
pretty much im just skeptical of the mid game. Though this must have some legs, cause we saw in GSL that LeenockFou was experimenting around with this style.
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Did you watch any of the replays? In the the Blistering Sands one, He's down 20 food, throws away 2 infestors due to a bad rally, and still rolls his opponent. The beauty of this build lies in the upgrades, if you have an upgrade advantage, and your opponent can't run away due to fungal, the zerglings just roll through the typical mid-game comp of marine/tank.
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A couple points.
1st: I'm in no way saying infestor play is better than muta play. I think it is very powerful. I think it is very fun. And I think its a lot easier. We're basically making a giant "a-move" blob, and just supporting it with infestors. Obviously there is eloquence that comes at higher levels, but infestors are much more forgiving than a mutalisk army that can instantly evaporate with a single misclick.
2nd: This build does very well against the current Terran meta game, and it does okay against everything else. As the meta game shifts (and it will) maybe this style will become less effective. Of course cloaked ghosts with EMP will be a thorn in the side of this build. Its a hard counter to the unit your play is centered around. This is why, as Zerg players, we are constantly scouting, and playing as adaptively as possible.
3rd: Skipping mutas initially does not mean never making any. I played a ladder game just today where I transitioned from infestor ling into about 30 mutas because drop play was annihilating me. After I regained control of the skys, though, I switched right back into ultra/ling/bane, and continued to support it with what infestors and mutas I had left over. This leads me to my last point...
4th: You guys have to let go of this notion that a certain play-style should be concrete, rigid, and unchanging. Watch, or talk to the best Zerg players in the world and you will quickly learn just how adaptive they are. Every decision made by a top level player is made with the purpose of countering his opponent... Just because you open one way or another doesn't mean you have to commit to that path forever.
One of Zerg's greatest strengths is in its ability to smoothly and quickly transition between techs.
Edit:
Also in response to being larvae inefficient:
Sure it is. Watch the first replay on Metalopolis from the OP. I had 4 hatcheries in my natural. This isn't a bad thing. It's a great thing. We have tons of production, and we can afford to utilize it. That's what Zerg is all about, man.
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Funny you posted this. I have been playing with this strat after watching your stream last week.
Before using this build i used ling/bling/muta. While this is still a powerful strategy I found it very weak to mid-game pushes. I was losing to tank-bio pushes all the time because they would hit before I had more than a handful of mutas. And IMO mutas don't do much until you have a bunch of them. And a bunch of mutas is a huge gas sink.
With this build I have to micro well against the tanks, but I almost always win. Fungal growth makes a Terran hesitant to commit, which gives me time to mass up my army. Last night, for example, I saw a Terran moving out with 4 tanks and ~15 marines ~5 maruaders. What did I have? 5 infestors and 5 roaches. But I held him at bay for 2-3 minutes with fungals and was able to mass my army and crush him.
Another aspect of this build that I haven't heard much discussion about is the use of Infested Terrans. IMO Infested Terrans are great at breaking siege lines. I will launch 3-4 eggs to draw tank fire then rush in with my roaches. While the roaches tank damage I launch eggs all around the remaining siege tanks. Not only the the Infested Terrans take out the tanks VERY fast, they also do good damage to the remaining ground army and clean up medivacs. What is great about this is that Infested Terrans abuse the immobility of tanks. Infested Terrans are painfully slow, right? Well sieged tanks and fungal growthed bio are even more slow :-)
Oh, and quick 3/3 ultras and cracklings are awesome! Once I hit my early 3/3 on 3+ bases I feel almost unstoppable. And since I'm not dumping gas into mutas I can actually afford the Ultras!
Another aspect of this buildt that I love is that I get all of my tech out early. I can often have an army of Ling/Bling/Infestor/Ultra/Brood/Corruptor shortly after the 20 minute mark. There isn't much that can take out that army, especially with 3/3 upgrades.
There are two main problems that people have touched on. First: dropship play. I have found that if a Terran is going to keep drop harassing me I need to leave 1 Infestor and a handful of ling/roach at each base. As long as I have good overlord positioning to see the drop I can hold it off with these few units. Speedlings are especially nice for this since they can get back to the front line in a hurry. Another option is to get 4-6 Corruptors. Corruptors live forever if you are careful with them, and can become Broodlords later (I usually start my greater spire once my Ultras are halfway done). Also, Corruptors give you the scouting you lose by giving up Mutas.
The second problem with this build: I do worry about seeing 5+ banshees on my door. I always build extra queens, but if I fail to scout mass banshees I will die. But its no surprise that Zerg needs to scout...
Long live Mr. Bitter! Long live the swarm!
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The Bitter BUILD!, you still need to name it after yourself
My experiences, thoughts:
- drop play , it sucks, its annoying, but hes splitting up his army, so its only fair you either do the same or have static D to deal with it. An infestor at each base will almost completely keep a terran from wanting to drop there.
- bancheese , fungal reveals cloak, banshees are snared in place and queen has a greater air attack range then the banshee has ground. BYE BYE banshee, and a kill for your queen. ( she needs a win from time to time) now out in the field your queens are not present and banshees can mean trouble
- map control, you don't surrender map control, you surrender air control. Biggest thing i've noticed while doing this build is that 1 viking can be very effective at clearing all of your overlords that are in space(void areas around bases). at that point, drops become hard to spot
- turtle Terran and a quick third, if your aware of him attempting this, just roll out with the your superior standing army before that PF is finished. This is where zerg can end a terran in mid game
Harass is the single biggest weakness I see in this build, but the power of burrowed infestors is highly underused and harass doesn't just mean his worker line or addons. Killing marines for only energy is a great harass IMO(popping up and using fungal, or lobbing ITs in the middle of them so tanks shell the marines)
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Another important point on the topic of burrow harass:
Fungalled siege tanks cannot enter or exit siege mode.
This means burrowing infestors and sneaking up on his army can result in epic lols as you fungal his unsieged tanks, and 1a with everything else.
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EPT
