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Muta ling bling is a composition that is definitely at least on par with roach infestors hydras. You can win games through out-maneuvering your enemy. You do not need the surprise factor to win.
This playing style is all about having a huge economy, huge enough economy to build up a large muta ball which in turn helps build up an even larger economy so that you can throw less than optimal units at your opponent. So how do you do that? Map size need to be large enough. Natural needs to be a closed natural that is easily defended by spines. (Any other map conditions will require you to deal decent economic damage with mutas, since your economy will be relatively weaker as you are required to invest more in your defence.) Scout actively with lings to gauge how much defence you need. You cannot afford to play aggressive, it's a must to get as many drones as possible. Use spines for defence, they are super cost efficient and larva efficient. The gas u stockpile can easily been used to morph in banelings if they decide to go all in anytime before mutas. It's possible to defend a roach ling all-in using blings spines defence even with a 10 drone advantage if the map is large enough to give ample time for you to react. For those who think roaches can split easily to negate the splash damage of banelings, think again. You are forced to ball up when engaging spines. Just dance around with your banelings, if he splits let your spines do the work, only engage if he balls up. The aggressor will be fighting against time since you will be reinforcing instantly. Once mutas are up use them for map control to get more expansions.
If you are the side going roaches, the way to counter this properly is to go hydras first before infestors. Infestors alone without hydras support will get crushed badly if the muta user splits beforehand. What you want to do is to minimize damage while you build up your roach infestor hydra ball. Once big enough, you will need to use nydus to overcome your mobility issues to attack. It can be anyway near the enemy base, it is not required to nydus directly into your enemy base. It's defintely a bonus for u if you can bypass the spines defence and go directly for the tech strucutres, if not it's not really a big deal. Prioritize fungals on banelings instead of mutas if you need to, they have much more burst dps.
This was what nestea tried to do in the GSL. He was definitely not trying to win by relying on the surprise factor of mutas. I first saw this playstyle when nestea crushed sen's all-in with a 10 drone advantage (this is HUGE in ZvZ) on his stream using this exact style on Taldarim.
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A thread that I posted in days ago making the same statement that this shit doesn't work against me.
For the record 2 of the replays the OP was ahead anyway and the other two the opponents got lair after 10 minutes. I have no sympathy if you get a late lair.
Look, I'm going to cover as much of the map as I can, including your natural until a queen denys it, with overlords. And if I only see a few zerglings in your main I'm going to be doing everything I can to deny you ever expanding.
Open - > 4 lings -> fast roach warren -> expand and 2 spines at natural -> more lings to match or barely exceed your count to force you to make lings -> deny a 2nd base as much as I can without getting behind
Meanwhile
Saturating two bases and 4 geysers -> Make at 12+ Roaches -> getting Lair before 8 minutes -> Make an overseer upon completion, contaminate your main hatch and scout your tech -> take third and drop infestation pit -> realize from my constant sacrifice of zerglings or the overseer scouting that you don't have shit and something is afoot ->
Afterwards
Walk in and kill as much as I can before roach/ling dies from the mutas while making nothing but hydras at home. Walk across the map at hydra snail pace while spamming roaches that will catch up to the impervious to mutalisk doom train -> Kill your base with either a muta slaughter or absolute minimal resistance as your laughable mutalisks try to base trade -> destroy your last building as you franticly try to kill any of my buildings -> I point out that roach infestor beats roach hydra and ling roach muta expand or roach infestor muta or ling muta or any other comp aside from ONE:
Late game Roach Infestor Brood Lord. Mutalisks are weaker options compared to just building corruptors and while they can hit ground targets, corruptors serve as more durable and powerful overlord killers.
Yes you can expand off 1 base muta. But it won't put you in the lead unless your opponent was worse than you to begin with.
I know the replays I showed weren't 1 base muta expand but to be honest I don't ever run into this, partly because of my skill level and the unfamiliarity with more technical ZvZ openings in the platinum/diamond range and I don't just sit there like a chump and let my opponent get ahead or stay even.
I did not mention infestor timing because they are part of the flow of my gameplay regardless of mutalisks.
Okay, so I've chronicled exactly how I would counter this (Without precise numbers admittedly) and I have no interest in flaming other people about their views on how to play one of my favorite matchups. But I wholeheartedly disagree with this opening except for the surprise factor an extremely well hidden spire could provide (And I'm talking overlord dropping creep in a random location or building the bloody thing in MY base level of surprise). Most people go roach infestor and I always do so when I see the disparity between armies I immediately know that my opponent is terrible at macro or mutas are coming out. (If it were hydras I would see them with his main army and my overlords would be shot down) Given the adage Never assume your opponent is bad no matter how bad he plays, and having eliminated roach infestor and roach hydra I can assume it will either be a muta play or a mass baneling/mass zergling style, both of which roach infestor deals with.
All I have to do is scout for mutas and be damned its not that hard to counter a surprise attack that you know is coming.
Thats all I have to say about that.
If anyone has any questions I'll answer them and if anyone has any defenses I'll read them but I'm going to play my way until I see a replay pack not yet posted on the forum.
Thank you for reading my very long rant. I'm sorry if I crossed any lines but I feel strongly about mutas being a bad choice.
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I've lost to people of lower leagues when I go 1/2 base muta against zerg.
Granted, I'm only a Platinum zerg, that aside, I don't think mutalisks are the way to go against zerg. Good creep spread by the opponent + spore crawlers and hydras shut down any sort of muta harass.
I suppose in really small numbers, mutalisks are okay, but they won't win you the game. You'd be better off going roach/infestor from the beginning.
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Probe do you have approximate timings for you strategy or are the replays you posted a page back close enough to optimal? I was just messing around with a FE -> +1 melee -> muta opening and wanted to see how it stacked up to your opening.
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I've always used Mutas for a two base timing attack off of a hatch first opening, with Lair before speed and using the gas you build up while making a Lair for Speed, Banelings, and +1 Melee in that order. The trick is to only reveal the Mutas right before you attack to clear out his Overlords. At best, he will scout you are going Mutas when he gets his Lair up (later than yours) and throw down a Hydra den, spam Spore Crawlers, and make Queens.
The only way this build gets countered is when your opponent turtles up with spores, Queens, and Roaches while teching to Infestors. The Roach all in response and the Roach/Hydra timing attack response lose because you will be building up +1 lings and Mutas for a timing attack anyway, and Muta/Ling beats Roach/Hydra every time in a straight up fight.
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Mutalisks in ZvZ aren't really too good, cause they really get obliterated by infestors and hydras. I really like when my opponents go that way, cause that means easy win for me. Plus if you have infestor + roach mutas barely dmg your roaches, making them even more useless. And because I am in gold/plat (should get promotion quite soon) I tend to meet many zergs that try their luck with mutas. I think it might only work if you forgot evo chamber or went really late lair, but chances of that are not too high, so mutas are a no-go.
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On June 05 2011 11:37 crocodile wrote:
I've always used Mutas for a two base timing attack off of a hatch first opening, with Lair before speed and using the gas you build up while making a Lair for Speed, Banelings, and +1 Melee in that order. The trick is to only reveal the Mutas right before you attack to clear out his Overlords. At best, he will scout you are going Mutas when he gets his Lair up (later than yours) and throw down a Hydra den, spam Spore Crawlers, and make Queens.
The only way this build gets countered is when your opponent turtles up with spores, Queens, and Roaches while teching to Infestors. The Roach all in response and the Roach/Hydra timing attack response lose because you will be building up +1 lings and Mutas for a timing attack anyway, and Muta/Ling beats Roach/Hydra every time in a straight up fight.
How early do you get geysers 2, 3, and 4?
(Sorry for the quasi-necro, I was looking around for responses to Mutas in ZvZ after going Roach/Infestor.)
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I hate to be "that" guy, but wouldn't banelings counter your speedling-only ground army?
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CrayAB, anything zerg makes counters a pure speedling army, once I get roaches in ZvZ I have enough to block off my ramp (and block off my mineral line at my expo). If I am really worried I double layer with a spine (when I can afford).
As soon as you get infestors a fungal can literally kill 40 lings in one go (if they clump up together), 4 well placed fungals kills an entire army. After seeing such a large ling army I'd put up a couple spores at my minera lines and get 2 more queens, you either are doing something extremely gas heavy (mass nydus with zerglings o.O?), ultralisks (upgrades on lings), or mutalisk or broodlords. All of which die to roach infestor. Even with the nydus good ovie scouting will defuse that (basically leave 1 roach everywhere he has a overlord).
I see a zerg who goes mass lings as a zerg who is looking for trouble, it literally takes like 50 mutalisk to be anywhere near efficient (against a pure roach army) if he has 4< fungals you are screwed. I've killed 20 mutas with 4 consequative fungals. Imagine going mass infestor roach, not only is mutas extremely expensive, but they require large numbers to be effective.
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infestor counters?
User was warned for this post
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mutas are really good harass, and u pick off overlords and have map control to harass and deny third expo. you dont want to spread creep besides the one u need to connect your main with your expo becaue u want hydra roach to be slower so u can do a ling surround. The most effective ombination i use is muta baneling. baneling=roach and its much more cost effective because baneling kill hydras like marines. get baneling speed, and hydra roach melts to muta baneling
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I really don't see mutas being worth the investment as every build now are hard counters to both your units of choice (ling/muta). Roaches and infestors are just to powerful for ling/muta.
On larger maps i just see the mobility of this unit composition delaying the killing blow by the roach infestor player not actually winning the game. That's just my 2cents
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EPT
