Little Self Introduction: I'm a Zerg player and play on the EU servers, right now I got 3.4k points and I'm in masters. I really like lots of fast units and gaining map control, hence I don't like roaches in ZvZ. I mean they're great and it's easy to make them work, but I simply enjoy playing a different style much more: Mutalisks
Yes, mutas in ZvZ. I know lots of pros don't seem to like thema whole lot, but I think it's worth giving them another shot. It is hard to make them work, I'm not gonna lie, but hey, they're funny as hell and great for mixing up your play a bit. Mutas really generate epic games in ZvZ and I think with the infestor change we might see them being used more often, which is great, because mutas in sc2 ZvZ are spectacular to watch.
Your aim for the game is to get mutas out. Mutas need a lot of gas, that's why we gotta train stuff that doesn't cost a lot of gas: Speedlings. But speedlings alone don't do really well against anything but speedlings in lower numbers, that's why we research the +1 melee attack asap. +1 speedlings counter unupgraded roaches cost effectively.
Speedlings do really well along with mutalisks and allow for a lot of map control and such. Now that you gotta keep upgrading your speedlings to keep up with his roaches you will end up having a lot of melee and carapace upgrades, which is good, because the next unit we kinda aim for is the ultralisk.
Why the ultralisk? - Because it's almost immune to fungal, got +damage vs armored and already benefits from your upgrades. That's plenty of good reasons to get them. So the basic game plan consisits of: +1 lings -> mutas -> ultras
Basically, there are two different ways of playing this style: Off of one base with a late expansion or with a FE. It depends on the map which style is to prefer.
9 overlord 15 hatchery 15 pool 14 gas 16 queen + 8 lings
Again pull your drones off gas when you gathered a total of 200 gas. Get the evo chamber when you're at ~12gas after you started researching the meta upgrade.
It's very hard to give numbers for that, because every game is so different. Basically start mining gas when you feel you can afford it without hurting your mineral econ too much. Get the second gas when you start your lair. When you feel save; you got a lot of lings, you got a lot of drones and know what you're up to; get your 3rd and 4th gas.
You really need experience to play this style. A lot comes down to your gut feeling.
Probably one of the most important reasons. When you play on ladder and some mutas are all of a sudden hitting your opponent's overlords you're about to do sick amouts of damage. Most people won't anticipate mutas in ZvZ, because they're "oh so bad" and won't be able to react to them accordingly.
The speedlings with their +1 attacks (keep upgrading) and the mutalisks allow you to gain control of the whole map and to keep your opponent on 2 bases. You're free to expand or even double expand while you keep an eye on what he's doing. Snipe overlords, creep tumors, drones that try to expand, everything you can do to stall some time - you will need it.
Since he won't have any vision of what's going on outside of his base he won't be able to tell if you're droning hardcore or setting up an army. He won't know if you're sticking to mutalisks (which in most cases is a bad idea!) or if you're tech switching. People will aim for a 2 base timing attack with infestors, roaches, some hydras and some queens - defend it and you have won (it's harder than you might think).
You will always see yourself in a position with 1 or 2 bases ahead of your opponent. This m eans taht you don't have to be costeffective in order to win and you can easily outproduce him, since you got a few more hatches.
This is the most important part of this build and at the same time the hardest part too. Most of the times you won't even get to mutas, because it's ZvZ.. That's why we start off with talking about the pre-muta era of your games:
Scouting: On smaller maps scouting with your 2 inital will be just fine. You will see the banelings nest/roach warren before they finish, giving you enough time to prepare. Banelings and roaches are the two things we got to be concerned about.
Roaches He's opting for roaches - hey, that's what we're hoping for! +1 Slings own roaches. You will be producing off of 2 base with a slight economic advantage and he will sit on base rallyin his roaches. Split up your army into 2 different control groups and flank. Keep producing lings and show off some perfect injections - done.
Burrow-Roaches That's a little tricky; not scouting his lair might lose you the game. Get a lair yourself and an overseer.
Blings You can either go baneling yourself and play a ling bling vs ling bling game. There are other sources on how to do that so I don't want to cover it here. Or you can play pure ling vs ling bling and micro well (even if it sounds dumb, I really win doing that) or you can play the safer style and get 2 or 3 spines with lings.
Blings-Roaches: This style gives us quite some headaches. Terrible headaches tbh. Seems like you just earned a BO loss. No BO is bullet proof. Theoretically I would respond with some spine crawlers and targetfire his banelings and split my lings 1 b1 and attack his blings. Once they're down send your lings in. It kinda relies on the opponent being dumb though.
The counters remain the same, there are some differences in scouting and travel times though. Since you like to do the FE build on bigger maps, scouting can become a problem, you might not be able to see what he's doing in time if you use your initial 2 lings, which come later with this build. On big 4 player maps I suggest scouting with the 14th drones like you do in ZvT and then react to whatever you scout accordingly.
Alright, we finally got mutas out, yay! Basically I think sticking with mutas is a bad idea. The surprise effect is gone and the infestors he might have overproduced start paying off. I like getting like ~12 mutas and then prepare to transition into ultras. There are two different things your opponent can do: Getting mutas and not getting mutas.
+1 carapace for flying units! Mutas with +1 armor own mutas with +1 attack, even in slightly smaller numbers. If he does a Muta build as well, it can be quite hard to transition out of ling muta, unless you get lucky and own his +1 attack mutas with your +1 armor mutas or your lings (you still keep upgrading) roflstomp one of his expansions while he's distracted. It's getting really weird in this case, you just gotta rely on what you think is best. Try to get an edge whenever it's possible and just outplay him.
I suggest not getting any further mutas once you hit a number you like. He will be prepared once he saw your first muta out. Use the map control to expand and work towards your upgraded ultra ling army to swarm his units. You should be up in bases and up in production. Your lings will become a pain in the ass to deal with, once his infestors ran out of energy.
First of all, it's very hard to give supply counts or some hints when to get the hive, I will have to play a hundred more games with this style to figure it out. I get the hive once I feel it's about time to get it - experience.
So, your ultras are out. Basically this is where we want to try to end the game. Double pronged attacks work wonders if he managed to take a 3rd base (or even more). I suggest getting a second evo chamber when you start your hive (well, a bit later so it lines up) and start double upgrading. Also research the ling attack upgrde - it's insane: Lings with +3 attack and the attack speed do 13.6dps for half a supply.
It's all about pushing hard now, you got away from your harassing units and reached your beefy, upgraded units to tear him apart. This part of the thread shouldn't be under "Reacting to what they're doing", because you aren't reacting anymore. Swarm him to death.
There are 2 events that will make this style a lot more viable. The infestor change and the introduction of bigger maps.
The new infestor just won't be able to fungal your mutas for hours till his hydras arrive to clean em up. Sure, you will take damage, but a damaged muta is still able to harass non stop.
Bigger maps allow for much better map control. It will be a lot easier to contain him and to punish him for moving out. You will also have a lot of time to prepare when he's moving out and the timing window that gets opened by ultralisks won't matter that much.
Ling Muta into Ultra definitely isn't a build that is easy to play. You need to micro your army carefully at all times and the pressure is always on you, since you just can't lean back and do nothing. However, I think mutas make for much better games and I'd really like to see them used more often. + Show Spoiler +
I haven't played that many games doing this style so I don't have any very good replays in which I did everything right. I'm by no means a pro, so don't be too hard on me when I accidently get two infestation pits isntead of an ultralisk cavern and things like that. Also keep in mind that some of them actually knew what I was gonna do, which makes this build quite a bit weaker, because you don't have the surprise effect.
2v2's don't count, and you will straight up lose to any roach push, or at least give him lots of time to add some AA.
And the reason mutas are super bad is because infestors kill them all dead instantly. Any decent zerg instantly makes infestors and your mutas are suddenly useless.
Not only will it be VERY hard to hit mutas with fungal, but they are only held for a measly 4 seconds. Unless you have 3-4 infestors all grouped to refungal over and over, they won't die.
So you want to say that units you will have are: lings, mutas and later ultras? Don't you think that you will lose to every mid game roach push with +1 attack(2 hit ling)? O let's say there is a mid game and I have roaches, hydras and few banelings/infestors, what do you do? You think you gonna kill that with ton of lings and few mutas?
muta play rocks on large maps because you force anti-air, gain mapcontrol(because the other one wont move out before having significant amounts of mobile anti-air) and you also deny scouting and be annoying when killing supply
i've never combined it with ultras but following with a 3rd base and mass roaches and it works quite well if you dont produce too much of them, if infestors will be changed like this then im sure it will be more viable and maybe speedlings will be more useful too in mid-late game
On March 06 2011 02:47 Flyingpants wrote: 2v2's don't count, and you will straight up lose to any roach push, or at least give him lots of time to add some AA.
And the reason mutas are super bad is because infestors kill them all dead instantly. Any decent zerg instantly makes infestors and your mutas are suddenly useless.
Fast infestor off 2 bases can be destroyed by mutas if done correctly. Just spread out the mutas so they cant all be hit by 1,2 or even 3 fungals and then kill the infestors first and then the queens. If you take him by a little surprise then he will lose.
Also I like mutas in zvz, but only off 1 base. When you get 2 bases it is to easy to be scouted, a deadly roach push to kill you and your opponent should have such a good eco that he can easily afford some spores and a lot of hydras to defend. And If you put up 5-8 spines to defend vs the roach push that might come, then I know what is coming. Mutas are easily countered when you know they are coming so I dont see a 2 base muta play as the best choice.
lately I have been opening with roachspeed pushes and then transition into a spire, vs FE zergs. They then get a late lair and dont get a lot of AA or scout me. So then some mutas come quite quick and they still struggle with defending the roach push that I just use as a decoy :D
Mutas in zvz are pretty good, although my games play out a bit differently. I get as many mutas as i can after the speedling+melee upgrades. The enemy zerg usually goes mass roach and starts attacking when he notices the mutas. I use a lot of speedlings to tank the damage while finishing him off with the mutas if my lings die. At this point most zergs go hydra (..because of their awesome mobility?) and i'll go ling baneling. Banelings are usually pretty effective against hydras if you micro them well. It's not like they can stim kite, right? Also i micro my mutas during the big engagement to be in range of the roaches only. If you want to see his tech route you can show him your mutas right when they hatch by killing his overlords all over the map. He'll usually have some tech morphing by the time you reach his base. I guess mutas against infestors will be a lot more viable if the fungal change goes though.
For those who wonder what I'm defeding a roach timing push with they should go and watch the replays, it's all 3.4k masters opponents from the EU servers. They're all quite good. Basically you will be ahead in upgrades on your lings and you got the defenders advantage and lings train faster than roaches and with upgrade advantage they do really well. If it's only roaches then mutas well do a great job of damaging them. If he gets infestors and hydras too then you already have ultras out. Mutas are as good as roaches in ZvZ. I really look forward to see more of them, since they're so fun to watch and make for great games. If you don't believe me watch the replays tagged epic, they really are.
edit: added a replay of my opponent opting for 2 base roaches on Xel Naga. My ling harass forces him into an all in position since I'm able to kill so many drones. If he had blocked with queens I would have been free to expand and tech to mutas. It's the second replay in the "intention to get mutas" replay section.
I've been trying this all day long and it's pretty fun. I think it's mainly due to the fact that people don't expect mutas, but while it lasts have fun with it! I made like 10 Mutas, teched to hive and ultra but he pushed before. 100 food of 1/1 lings surrounding a 80 food of roach/hydra was pretty hilarious with good results. As soon as hydra numbers drop you bring mutas and you should be fine to clear the rest of the roaches. Bunch of ultras on 3 base usually seal the deal
it does work if you can survive until you gain an econ advantage with your mutas. this happens if you were already ahead or if you can kill 15 overlords (or drones) before he reacts. Normally however, there is a large window where you will simply die if he pushes. speedlings do nothing against a large ball of roaches, upgrades or not - they simply do not have enough surface area.
My long time strategy for ZvZ used to be Speedling expand, then Muta. It was great because you could deny their expos almost forever and basically prevent any quick pushes. In the long run I decided against transitioning into Mutas, as it eats up way too much gas (even if you just get ~6) that you really need for Roach and especially Infestors. It's far easier to just take your expo and since you're ahead of your opponent, just make more Roaches than them and push either if they don't have Infestors or when you have your own.
i dunno. dont take my word for it because i just started trying out Zerg in 1v1, but i tried to muta someone in ZvZ earlier and he just said fuck it and charged my base with roaches. mutas couldnt kill them in time and when i went to his base to kill stuff, i only got off minimal damage before queens and hydras pushed me back. again, im not too experienced and he was a masters player tho so who knows.
On March 06 2011 10:23 Supamang wrote: i dunno. dont take my word for it because i just started trying out Zerg in 1v1, but i tried to muta someone in ZvZ earlier and he just said fuck it and charged my base with roaches. mutas couldnt kill them in time and when i went to his base to kill stuff, i only got off minimal damage before queens and hydras pushed me back. again, im not too experienced and he was a masters player tho so who knows.
This is pretty standard. It's why you can't just go muta. If you stick with muta and let their roach numbers get too big (or if it's close positions) then you will have trouble defending. Maybe initially you can hold with some spine crawlers, though.
That happens when you skip the upgraded speedlings. Against roaches I don't need a single spine crawler, period. I only get spines against banelings. When he moves out with say 30 roaches you should have 60 lings, 2 control groups to flank and at least one macro hatch and you just keep spamming lings till his roaches die.
I think really the proper use for mutas in ZvZ is as a way to force hydra, and diminish roach count. I think it's entirely possible to go muta, and using the map control you have, keep him pinned long enough to take a 3rd, upgrade ranged/armour, and then go back to roaches. I see a lot of players go muta vs me in ZvZ and really I enjoy it, it's easy to turtle up your existing bases, get a bunch of hydra, throw down spores with your excess mineral income, and then -just go and kill him- with your superior roach/hydra count and ups.
I think you need to be very careful to understand that muta is just a method of forcing excessive hydra count, not an actual full on strategy, you're still going to need roaches to kill him eventually.
EDIT: A very very good way of using mutas would be to group them with an overseer and go hunt down his tumours, he's going to be actively creep spreading if he hopes to stop your muta harass efficiently.
On March 06 2011 19:18 decaf wrote: That happens when you skip the upgraded speedlings. Against roaches I don't need a single spine crawler, period. I only get spines against banelings. When he moves out with say 30 roaches you should have 60 lings, 2 control groups to flank and at least one macro hatch and you just keep spamming lings till his roaches die.
This isn't true.
A lot of this seems to depend on you not only coming even in the speedling war early game, but actively winning it and doing solid damage, if you've done that, getting any unit will be fine, mutas or no.
ZvZ simply doesn't allow for muta play in this state of the game.
I feel like ZvZ is essentially a broken matchup, and in that sense, it is the most comfortable one I play in. All you have to do in ZvZ is take your expansion, tech roaches relatively quickly, get 5-6 and invade his nat with speedling/roach.
After that his only choice is to try to outmass you on one base (not going to happen unless you're terrible) or go mutas. Get your lair tech once your nat is fairly saturated, make hydras, and just deny expansions until you can push into his main and win.
That being said, mutas are only going to be good if your opponent either A: Has more than 3 bases B: Is massing ling/roach and is caught off guard C: Doesn't properly respond to the mutas (ex. Double-queen/spores at every base)
In those situations -
A: I rarely ever have to take a third base in ZvZ.and don't really see a reason to so long as you're scouting empty bases and denying expansions, hidden or otherwise. B: You've got to be in Silver if he's just massing ling/roach by the time you've got your lair up. C: You've got to be in in Silver if he doesn't know how to deal with mutas
I typically get around 10 mutas in ZvP so I can harass while their deathball is rolling around the map, but typically no more of an investment than that.
It's also useful to have the spire in ZvP as Brood Lords are just a be-all-end-all against Toss if they've even got a tiny bit of support against Phoenixes and Voids
Thors and Marines just eat them alive, and against the hyper-standard Marine/Tank or M&M push you can't really afford to get mutas out.
My biggest trouble with using mutas in ZvZ is the zerglings to defend roache pushes, it might just be that +1 is the big problem I don't have.
Just a general question though, rule of thumb so to speak, so I can try it in my next future games as I love the idea of using ling muta in ZvZ (I'm a infestor guy atm), but I'm just afraid of using them vs Roaches.
How many +1 lings is it per roach? As I always seem to not make enough.
I use Mutas a lot in ZvZ. I start with Ling/Infestor which should hold against any Roach pushes just fine. Then when I'm safe, I get on 3base and get a Spire and Mutalisks.
I contain him, get more bases and stomp him with BL later. At least if everything goes right.
Infestor/Broodlord rofls at Roach/Hydra in late-game. There is a great tech and gas difference, but you should have more bases at that point.
Game1: he made a roach push on blisterings and you barely hold that. I can't imgagine how would you won that game if he had 3 banelings mixed in his roach army.
Game2: you lost..
Game3: on xel naga you runby speedlings in his main and exp while he was sleeping in the middle of the map. That's pretty much why you won...
I just don't know how would you defend any early roach/bling push or strong mid game timing push with roach/bling/hydra when your ultras are not out yet.
Your backbone army is upgraded speedlings. I mean opponent can just go hydra/infestor combo and kill you easily if he understands that all you have is lings and few mutas.
@ beast: 4 lings per roach I'd suggest, which is the same amount of supply. Then you should non stop bump zerglings.
@alpina: It wasn't barely holding it, it just looked like it - I didn't even have to pull my drones and was way ahead economically. The game I lost was against mutas so I don't see what it would prove. The only reason I lost it is I took the wrong 3rd, because it was like the second time I played on that map and I had troubles defending it. The runby is just something you can do when he's moving out, you will always be able to do that.
Mutas arent solid units in ZvZ currently. Teching them is quite rough but lets expect that you can do it np everygame. How you actually combat roach-hydra-infestor? one fungal KILLS every ling/bane that it hits. And vs fungal it is pretty scary to go harass.
Basicly you are in hurry. I dont like ultras that much. Hydras are quite decent vs them and u need a lot gas and upgrades to make ultras. Maxed roach-hydra-infestor push will kill you before you get enough ultras out.
Though i`m a bit worried what happens after patch when they fuck up the infestors If i cant hit fungal on banes, ling-bane-muta becomse actually quite scary force.
You need to react a lot with this build. He's getting many hydras? - Why should I get ultras then? Banelings and it's gg. He's getting infestors too? He can't have many hydras then, because it's very gas heavy and lings with spread out mutas or banelings drops should deal with it just fine. You guys seem to forget that my income is higher than his and I don't have to be cost effective in order to win. Ling -> Muta -> Ultra is the basic idea, but you can't just do build X and hope that you win. Mutas are very viable and I have yet to be proven wrong. I win about 80% of my ZvZs on ladder.
On March 06 2011 19:29 STALLONEZONE wrote: I think really the proper use for mutas in ZvZ is as a way to force hydra, and diminish roach count. I think it's entirely possible to go muta, and using the map control you have, keep him pinned long enough to take a 3rd, upgrade ranged/armour, and then go back to roaches. I see a lot of players go muta vs me in ZvZ and really I enjoy it, it's easy to turtle up your existing bases, get a bunch of hydra, throw down spores with your excess mineral income, and then -just go and kill him- with your superior roach/hydra count and ups.
I think you need to be very careful to understand that muta is just a method of forcing excessive hydra count, not an actual full on strategy, you're still going to need roaches to kill him eventually.
EDIT: A very very good way of using mutas would be to group them with an overseer and go hunt down his tumours, he's going to be actively creep spreading if he hopes to stop your muta harass efficiently.
On March 06 2011 19:18 decaf wrote: That happens when you skip the upgraded speedlings. Against roaches I don't need a single spine crawler, period. I only get spines against banelings. When he moves out with say 30 roaches you should have 60 lings, 2 control groups to flank and at least one macro hatch and you just keep spamming lings till his roaches die.
This isn't true.
A lot of this seems to depend on you not only coming even in the speedling war early game, but actively winning it and doing solid damage, if you've done that, getting any unit will be fine, mutas or no.
Force hydras? Hydras aren't bad units. They're great after you get a certain number of roaches to protect the hydras with.
I was playing a +1 speedling->muta->ultra a little and i won some games with it. Its a really cool way to play, But a bling roach timing attack can kill you easly.
On March 06 2011 02:47 Flyingpants wrote: 2v2's don't count, and you will straight up lose to any roach push, or at least give him lots of time to add some AA.
And the reason mutas are super bad is because infestors kill them all dead instantly. Any decent zerg instantly makes infestors and your mutas are suddenly useless.
Also I like mutas in zvz, but only off 1 base. When you get 2 bases it is to easy to be scouted, a deadly roach push to kill you and your opponent should have such a good eco that he can easily afford some spores and a lot of hydras to defend. And If you put up 5-8 spines to defend vs the roach push that might come, then I know what is coming. Mutas are easily countered when you know they are coming so I dont see a 2 base muta play as the best choice.
If you see a one basing zerg with 2 gas, and I only see a roaches and/or zerglings, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what's going on.
Even if that person is still unsure about your gameplan after seeing all that, there's no reliable way to stop a slow OL scout from at least seeing your lair+gas, if not the spire itself.
On March 06 2011 02:47 Flyingpants wrote: 2v2's don't count, and you will straight up lose to any roach push, or at least give him lots of time to add some AA.
And the reason mutas are super bad is because infestors kill them all dead instantly. Any decent zerg instantly makes infestors and your mutas are suddenly useless.
Also I like mutas in zvz, but only off 1 base. When you get 2 bases it is to easy to be scouted, a deadly roach push to kill you and your opponent should have such a good eco that he can easily afford some spores and a lot of hydras to defend. And If you put up 5-8 spines to defend vs the roach push that might come, then I know what is coming. Mutas are easily countered when you know they are coming so I dont see a 2 base muta play as the best choice.
If you see a one basing zerg with 2 gas, and I only see a roaches and/or zerglings, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what's going on.
Even if that person is still unsure about your gameplan after seeing all that, there's no reliable way to stop a slow OL scout from at least seeing your lair+gas, if not the spire itself.
What's going on? 1 base roaches? You can't say he's going mutas just cause he has 2 gas off one base.
I think that IF you can do a large amount of damage with +1 melee lings against a onebase roach player and keep an expansion down, you can easily transition into mutalisks. The question is, why would you go mutalisks if you can finish it off right now?
I personally find mutalisks to be too gas intensive to be that useful. Then again I haven't dabbled around with muta's enough because my ZvZ's either end quick and painless or go into a roach/hydra war. In which case I would rather go for infestors than mutalisks.
There MUST be a timing where mutalisks are actually good. A very rare timing but there has to be one either way. I'm thinking about using about 8 mutalisks to snipe off overlords and get mapcontrol while getting a third and down-teching to roaches. Mutalisks en-masse are a dead tech no matter how you look at it.
I have been beaten by good muta players before. And their play involved getting a really quick third right as the mutas pop and then just overwhelming me with their macro since they seize map control. I think that especially in the next patch that mutalisks might become a really fun unit to experiment with considering the projectile of fungal and spreading them to prevent it. Still, I do not see use for it apart from a specific niche right between the time your opponent gets a natural and your muta's pop. They're simply too hard countered by infestors and hydra's to safely get them.
On March 06 2011 19:29 STALLONEZONE wrote: I think really the proper use for mutas in ZvZ is as a way to force hydra, and diminish roach count. I think it's entirely possible to go muta, and using the map control you have, keep him pinned long enough to take a 3rd, upgrade ranged/armour, and then go back to roaches. I see a lot of players go muta vs me in ZvZ and really I enjoy it, it's easy to turtle up your existing bases, get a bunch of hydra, throw down spores with your excess mineral income, and then -just go and kill him- with your superior roach/hydra count and ups.
I think you need to be very careful to understand that muta is just a method of forcing excessive hydra count, not an actual full on strategy, you're still going to need roaches to kill him eventually.
EDIT: A very very good way of using mutas would be to group them with an overseer and go hunt down his tumours, he's going to be actively creep spreading if he hopes to stop your muta harass efficiently.
On March 06 2011 19:18 decaf wrote: That happens when you skip the upgraded speedlings. Against roaches I don't need a single spine crawler, period. I only get spines against banelings. When he moves out with say 30 roaches you should have 60 lings, 2 control groups to flank and at least one macro hatch and you just keep spamming lings till his roaches die.
This isn't true.
A lot of this seems to depend on you not only coming even in the speedling war early game, but actively winning it and doing solid damage, if you've done that, getting any unit will be fine, mutas or no.
Force hydras? Hydras aren't bad units. They're great after you get a certain number of roaches to protect the hydras with.
A real important part of ZvZ is Roach/Hydra ratio, if you have too many hydras, you'll lose to Roaches. If you have no hydras, the extra DPS will crush you.
On March 07 2011 02:40 Chaosvuistje wrote: I think that IF you can do a large amount of damage with +1 melee lings against a onebase roach player and keep an expansion down, you can easily transition into mutalisks. The question is, why would you go mutalisks if you can finish it off right now?
I personally find mutalisks to be too gas intensive to be that useful. Then again I haven't dabbled around with muta's enough because my ZvZ's either end quick and painless or go into a roach/hydra war. In which case I would rather go for infestors than mutalisks.
There MUST be a timing where mutalisks are actually good. A very rare timing but there has to be one either way. I'm thinking about using about 8 mutalisks to snipe off overlords and get mapcontrol while getting a third and down-teching to roaches. Mutalisks en-masse are a dead tech no matter how you look at it.
I have been beaten by good muta players before. And their play involved getting a really quick third right as the mutas pop and then just overwhelming me with their macro since they seize map control. I think that especially in the next patch that mutalisks might become a really fun unit to experiment with considering the projectile of fungal and spreading them to prevent it. Still, I do not see use for it apart from a specific niche right between the time your opponent gets a natural and your muta's pop. They're simply too hard countered by infestors and hydra's to safely get them.
100% true. Mutalisks should NEVVVVVVER be opened with in ZvZ.
If you don't want to read about Infestor/Ling ZvZ, skip to the TL:DR
Because I use Infestor/Ling map control heavy strategies, I get a 3rd before Spire 100% of the time. I can surprise my opponent if he doesn't go Infestor by going Muta and securing my map control even more.
Like: Speedling Pressure, secure map control if he goes Roach. You get your Natural hatchery with the Speedling expand timing, but you make more Lings than usual. You scout a Baneling nest, you gather gas if you already don't and go Banelings of your own(Or Roach if you are not confident enough in your abilities or want to be safe).
Infestor energy asap after Lair. Lair itself should be pretty fast(3guys on gas after you start your 2nd queen) and save resourses for an Infestor pop when Infestor energy research hits 50sec. 4gases should be up as Lair gets done if you Droned well enough, 2-3gas is Doable but vulnerable against Roach attacks.
Get a 3rd when you are safe, Spire after 3rd. THEN you can get Mutalisks.
I use Mutalisks as a stepping stone to BL if the opponent doesn't have Infestors of his own. If he has, I just make more units, go faster Hive and BL.
I hear BL/Infestor/Ling/Baneling rofls at Roach/Hydra/Infestor based armies. Or if he doesn't have Infestors, Infestor/Baneling/Ling also kills Roach/Hydra pretty badly.
TL:DR if you don't want to read crap about Infestor/Ling ZvZ: Use Mutalisks as a Stepping stone to something that uses Spire if the opponent doesn't have Infestors.
I think it depends on map really. Lots of spines can help make this work if the natural is narrow enough to make effective use of them. Leenock did this recently in GSL on Terminus RE with great results.
I always go mutas in ZvZ. And I must first of all say that I dont feel its the proper way to play. I feel almost "cheesy" when I do it. But yea, I would say the biggest factor is surprise element. Also I love when my opponent goes hydars because they are so slow. I can pick off queens, OL, a few drones and it is really annoying. The biggest problems are obviously infestors (but it might not be much of an issue anymore since its not instant cast and its only 4 seconds of damage), and also roach pushes early. I'm kind of skeptical that you can hold 30 roaches with only 60 upped lings, but I guess ill try it. Also I find it useful to constantly pressure run bys into his base if he comes out with roaches... Its a good way to keep them in their base until you get mutas.
60 lings won't be enough to kill 30 roaches, but 120 lngs will be. They eat up the same amount of supply and don't cost any gas. A lot of people are very preemptive when it comes to mutas in ZvZ, but they are really good. At least I have a lot of success with them at my level of play, which isn't the lowest. If you don't believe me you cannot hold roaches with lings or you will die to infestors plus hydras then go ahead and watch the replays, I deal with that kind of stuff every game and it works out just fine.
By the time he has 30 roaches and 10 blings I will have mutas out. The moment he moves out is the same moment he will have 80 lings in his base. If I see him getting blings I will add spine crawlers and be just fine. Even if some banelings hit my lings I will still clean everything up. I have the eco lead anyways and can afford to lose stuff. If you actually read the thread and watched replays then you would understand what I'm talking about and wouldn't need to post like that. Surprise effect, eco lead, map control and mind games are the reasons why I won't lose vs 30 roaches and 10 blings.
On March 07 2011 05:24 decaf wrote: By the time he has 30 roaches and 10 blings I will have mutas out. The moment he moves out is the same moment he will have 80 lings in his base. If I see him getting blings I will add spine crawlers and be just fine. Even if some banelings hit my lings I will still clean everything up. I have the eco lead anyways and can afford to lose stuff. If you actually read the thread and watched replays then you would understand what I'm talking about and wouldn't need to post like that. Surprise effect, eco lead, map control and mind games are the reasons why I won't lose vs 30 roaches and 10 blings.
So whats your transition and how do you deal with infestor? and what do you do for very early roach pushes? Do you just mass lings like crazy? b/c I find it hard to get enough larva to mass that amount of lings.
Broodlords have the same upgrade synergy has ultralisks (You get upgrades for mutalisks) and absolutely destroy any ground army, even pure infestor hydralisk. Go for broodlords, then get banelings if he goes for pure hydra and more corruptors if he goes air. Also, banelings are extremely useful to survive the midgame pushes, because they eat hydras for breakfast.
The thing about broodlords is the following: If you go broodlords he will get corruptors, now you need corrutpors as well to deal with his corruptors. Since you are morphing corrutpors into broodlords you will be down on corruptors and his corruptros will kill all your corruptors and broodlords.
On March 07 2011 07:54 decaf wrote: The thing about broodlords is the following: If you go broodlords he will get corruptors, now you need corrutpors as well to deal with his corruptors. Since you are morphing corrutpors into broodlords you will be down on corruptors and his corruptros will kill all your corruptors and broodlords.
Brood Lords should be a finisher unit, not a random unit composition part. You get Brood Lords when he doesn't have the chance to get Corruptors before he is dead.
The reason why a Brood Lord finisher is so good in Infestor composition is because nothing can get away from the BLs, nor close enough to hit them. The ideal way to do this is when he is resourse starving that if he would go Corruptor, your ground would kill him.
I say this again because it's so important: Brood Lords are a finisher unit in ZvZ. You are NOT going to wait for his counter. If the counter happens, you of course counter him but that shouldn't happen in the first place.
I feel very lost in ZvZ, so ill probably try this build out in my games tonight, but im curious about what you do to deal with early baneling attacks. Do you just try to keep producing lings and out-micro them? Throw down a baneling nest of your own? or give in and go roaches?
If you scout hes doing banelings in time then you can easily do the 14 gas 14 pool ling baneling build, because the opener is the same until you throw down the evo chamber. If you don't scout it in time you can throw down 2 spines crawlers and just micro your lings agaisnt his banelings (you need very good micro, it works just fine for me). When your +1 Melee attack upgrade finishes you will tear him apart once you deal with all the banelings guarding his lings. You also have the production and eco advantage since you got 2 bases and youre not mining gas. It all comes down to micro.
First of all: Mutas are great in ZvZ and used by a lot of pros in tournaments. I love to play them in ZvZ, I dont do them all the time but especially on bigger maps were u only have to defend like 1 choke they are great. Thats the way I play them: Get 2bases and a good defense with spine crawlers and some (like 5) roaches. Get mutas, kill his overlords, dont attack his eco and keep producing mutas. Take a third drone up and build a crapton of spinecrawlers. Dont fly over his creep, and try to deny his third as long as possible. Get a ton of banelings and if he pushes just try to kill his hydras with your banelings (baneling landmines are great because he is pretty gasintensiv with Infestor, Hydra, Roach and overseers arent of much use with you having total air superiority). After you killed his hydras you should have enough mutalisks to kill all the roaches and infestors (infestors dont work that great against huge numbers of mutas). You pretty much win right there.
Or if he doesnt attack and maybe gets his third up, transition into broodlords, which he cant counter because broodlords are countered by corrupters in ZvZ and he cant really use those against your mutas. If he tries to kill the broods with hydras, use your banelings.
Its a really strong build and I saw it used by Lenockfou or IMLosira (dont know which of those) in a GSL ZvZ, just crushing the opponent Zerg. The most important thing is not to overharrass, just take mapcontrol for long enough to get ahead. Its not sooo strong the dumb ladder maps, but I think its pretty playable on Shattered Temple (take the unscoutable "Island expansion") and Shakuras on cross positions.
Added two new replays to the "intention to go mutas"- and the "replays including mutas"-section. The zergs I played against are 3.3k and 3.6k masters, both EU. Have fun trying my ZvZ build.
You can’t really ever ZvZ without Roach if it gets past like the 5 minute mark. Even if your lair went up the second you queen finished, he will have 7+ roaches coming at you with more behind it halfway through your lair upgrade. The time it takes for your lair + spire to get up is more than enough time for your opponent to mass a serious Roach army.
On March 11 2011 01:11 P0ckets wrote: You can’t really ever ZvZ without Roach if it gets past like the 5 minute mark. Even if your lair went up the second you queen finished, he will have 7+ roaches coming at you with more behind it halfway through your lair upgrade. The time it takes for your lair + spire to get up is more than enough time for your opponent to mass a serious Roach army.
I think my credibility is higher than yours rendering your post meaningless. Read the guide and watch the replays before you try to prove me wrong.
Well at first I was like this is totally not going to work. Most ZvZ games I play tend to be pretty good macro games but they all revolve around Roach and Hydra mix and normally the player with superior numbers, upgrades, and/or bases normally wins.
I like your idea and planning though, going to give this a shot on the ladder tonight.
On March 06 2011 19:29 STALLONEZONE wrote: I think really the proper use for mutas in ZvZ is as a way to force hydra, and diminish roach count. I think it's entirely possible to go muta, and using the map control you have, keep him pinned long enough to take a 3rd, upgrade ranged/armour, and then go back to roaches. I see a lot of players go muta vs me in ZvZ and really I enjoy it, it's easy to turtle up your existing bases, get a bunch of hydra, throw down spores with your excess mineral income, and then -just go and kill him- with your superior roach/hydra count and ups.
I think you need to be very careful to understand that muta is just a method of forcing excessive hydra count, not an actual full on strategy, you're still going to need roaches to kill him eventually.
EDIT: A very very good way of using mutas would be to group them with an overseer and go hunt down his tumours, he's going to be actively creep spreading if he hopes to stop your muta harass efficiently.
On March 06 2011 19:18 decaf wrote: That happens when you skip the upgraded speedlings. Against roaches I don't need a single spine crawler, period. I only get spines against banelings. When he moves out with say 30 roaches you should have 60 lings, 2 control groups to flank and at least one macro hatch and you just keep spamming lings till his roaches die.
This isn't true.
A lot of this seems to depend on you not only coming even in the speedling war early game, but actively winning it and doing solid damage, if you've done that, getting any unit will be fine, mutas or no.
Force hydras? Hydras aren't bad units. They're great after you get a certain number of roaches to protect the hydras with.
A real important part of ZvZ is Roach/Hydra ratio, if you have too many hydras, you'll lose to Roaches. If you have no hydras, the extra DPS will crush you.
I sometimes use mutas to force hydras, and then immediately switch to banelings, which are incredibly effective against hydras. It's kind of analogous to protoss building phoenix to force hydras then switching to colossi.
Isn't this what CheckPrime did against IdrA in Code S groups last season (It may be also january, I don't remember that well)? He lost miserably though.
On March 11 2011 01:11 P0ckets wrote: You can’t really ever ZvZ without Roach if it gets past like the 5 minute mark. Even if your lair went up the second you queen finished, he will have 7+ roaches coming at you with more behind it halfway through your lair upgrade. The time it takes for your lair + spire to get up is more than enough time for your opponent to mass a serious Roach army.
I think my credibility is higher than yours rendering your post meaningless. Read the guide and watch the replays before you try to prove me wrong.
Thanks for being a dickhead I guess ETIQUETTE is a word not found in your vocabulary. But I was trying to point out that an early roach push like a 7RR can roughly hit you at sometime around the 5min mark in game(4:40 to make and X time for the distance between bases)., which mean for both build orders the push would come before the +1. Then your first BO has a 21 Hatch, which will pop between 5:00-5:20, which makes a 7 RR hard to probably stop if you follow that build. Ret’s is a bit more plausible to defend against a 7 RR since the 15 hatch will finish between 4:00-4:16, and he will have 2 hatches, 2 queens, and probably enough larva to make enough lings to hold it off when it comes. But in either case you will need to still fend off all of his aggression for 133-213 seconds, while build a lair, spire, and mutas depending on when you start the lair upgrade, which can give your opponent enough time to mass a sizable roach army that even with your first batch of mutas might not be able to finish. Your playing on the back foot for like the first 7 minutes of the game, when most ZvZs are over by that time.
I am not saying your shit doesn't work, I am just saying it might not work against certain other BOs.
Don't broodlings benefit from evo chamber upgrades? Seems to me that maybe a transition into broodlords is worth consideration, as they are supported by your muta-air-superiority, and they're also benefitiing from the +1 flyer carapace upgrade.
I'd say it's worth considering, not that I don't like ultras, they're awesome, but just some thoughts... In any case, nice thread, well made, enjoyed the read! :D
On March 11 2011 04:14 DuncanIdaho wrote: Don't broodlings benefit from evo chamber upgrades? Seems to me that maybe a transition into broodlords is worth consideration, as they are supported by your muta-air-superiority, and they're also benefitiing from the +1 flyer carapace upgrade.
I'd say it's worth considering, not that I don't like ultras, they're awesome, but just some thoughts... In any case, nice thread, well made, enjoyed the read! :D
I havent really tried broodlords yet tbh, cuz it seems like the one not getting broodlords and only making corrutpors would win, but anyone can mix it up the way he wants. I like ultras better cuz they are immune to fungal and dont really have a hardcounter.
Well, I pretty much tried this all last night and I have to say when it works... it puts you crazy crazy ahead.
It's weaknesses, for me anyway, is that if an opponent scouts your heavy ling army they immediately want to play baneling wars and this can get ugly and if you take too many losses, +1 melee or no +1 his lings are going to overrun yours.
Any game where my opponent tried to tech roaches then eventually to hydra though I totally just rolled them every time.
There are some cool tricks u can do with mutas in ZvZ: -) When your on equal bases get some roaches early, which forces your opponent to go roach too, and then switch into heavy muta play (e.g day9`s fast lair build against a standard 14pool fast speed build), or the other way round, get a few mutas, force hydras early and crush him with a roach/ling all-in.
-) and ofc mutas into broodlords is just great, because he won't go spire against your mutas, so he cant produce corruptors/mutas which u need to kill broods, and when he starts the spire too late ur mutas will just crush his air.
and to everone who says mutas are unplayable in ZvZ "because they get countered by...": like everyother build you dont play a mutabuild blindly
He might not get a spire to counter mine, but he might just get one as well. If he takes note of me getting a greater spire he can either go lose the game or get a spire himself. I still think that broodlords are not as viable as ultras in ZvZ, because you sacrifice corrutpors, which are the hardcounter to it, to get broodlords. So the player only getting corrutpors will end up having more of em eventually and will overwhelm your air force. Every broodlord you get you lose 2 corrutpors. 1 for morhping one into a broodlord and another 1 for the additional costs.
But oyu can play it the way you want. The main part of this guide is the +1 melee attack, which allows for the muta transition.
think a viable way to use Mutas in ZvZ is fast lair on one base (well defended with the Day9 build). You should have your ramp blocked by roaches, so he can't see you're going mutas. He will usually speedling expand.
Throw a hatch at the natural when you see him droning up and feel safe. Make around 6-8 mutas and go straight to his main. Unless he blindly put a spore crawler there or saw you coming and already grouped his queens, he will lose some queens and be forced to overreact, making 2 spores per mineral line, hydra den, etc. Then you just get out and hunt the overlords. This should break his economic advantage and allow you to get a quick 3rd with your map control. Then get whatever you want (ling baneling, roach hydra, roach baneling). I would opt for a roach composition because you already have a spire to transition into brood lords. But you don’t want to make any more mutas after the initial ones. Keep you gas for Overseers, Hydras, Broodlords and upgrades.
I will test this some more, but I find it easier than speedling wars if you know how to wall your base properly. Basically playing it like a 2-port banshee harass.
I think a lot of you are confusing winning with mutas, and winning thxs to mutas.
I mean, if you are in an economic lead, have more bases than your opponent, more drones, more upgrades, and a speedling army that is big enough to take on his roach army in a head-on confrontation and kill it... Well thats great really.
I wont deny that the gameplan of getting a giant advantage, and then getting mutas is a pretty good gameplan, and quite likely to win you the game.
However, the big issue, is that often, its going to be quite hard to get into that crushing lead to be able to get the mutas. And without a surprise effect (which wont happen vs good players), its really hard to use mutas to actually get a lead when you are even, or to come back from a disadvantage.
i always tech to mutas of one base then enjoy my map control by droning like no tomorrow and double expanding, into getting mass roach, seems to work well but im playing on a very low level. Edit: getting at a slightly higher level, i cant just sit back and wait till my mutas pop. So i have to get ling roach and expand, getting my additional gasses up
i get called a noob for going mutas but i do it almost every game unless someone specifically counters it. if you micro good and don't lose mutas you can harrass until you have enough to steamroll almost anything as long as you have enough lings to tank for 5 seconds or so.
On March 17 2011 23:26 decaf wrote: He might not get a spire to counter mine, but he might just get one as well. If he takes note of me getting a greater spire he can either go lose the game or get a spire himself. I still think that broodlords are not as viable as ultras in ZvZ, because you sacrifice corrutpors, which are the hardcounter to it, to get broodlords. So the player only getting corrutpors will end up having more of em eventually and will overwhelm your air force. Every broodlord you get you lose 2 corrutpors. 1 for morhping one into a broodlord and another 1 for the additional costs.
But oyu can play it the way you want. The main part of this guide is the +1 melee attack, which allows for the muta transition.
I don't think you got that I have Mutas in this build. So if he goes spire to counter my broods he has to have enough corruptors to counter my 20+ upgraded Mutas + my Broodlords. Thats a crapton of nonupgraded corruptors he has to be able to build in a very short time.
Imo Ultras in ZvZ are hard to play if you start from a standard Roach/Hydra composition. Because u need Infestors or roaches will outmicro u, and u won't have attack upgrades for the ultras and they need a lot of micro because they get stuck behind ur own roaches + they cant kill my air. So I think they're only a good option if u trade armys and then try to remax with them+ling+infestor.
Due to the recent patch I feel like bumping this again.
After doing several ZvZs on ladder against various opponents I have to say that mutas work even better now. People tend not to get too many roaches which helps you out with your +1lings count and fungal duration feels so short now, it's like you can fly away immediately after being hit. Magic boxing is also a useful talent toi have. However, the fungal deals more damage to ultralisks now, but that shouldnt change too much, cause you can fungal like 2 ultras at a time and you need a shit ton of fungals to deal significant damage to them. I will try my basic +1 ling opener with an infestor follow up and see how it works out. I'd prefer mutas being better though :>
It still takes 2 fungals to kill lings, which is great news. Even 1hp lings absorb a ton of roach damage, since roaches dont have smarttargeting and 1hp lings will kill an infinite amount of infestors with 0 energy :>
This build certainly got buffed. I'd also like to mention that I havent lost a single ZvZ when I had mutas out. The hard part is getting to them though. There seem to be so many 9pools these days :S
Thought I'd throw this out there, as I've been having some success with it. Not really following the build, but on the topic of mutas is ZvZ, I've found that they work fairly well against people going for a Roach/Infestor mix. I often times get a spire, and usually only 6 mutas, put them on two different hotkeys, and target down infestors.
It takes 4 fungals, I believe, to kill a muta, and if you spread them out, they will only kill 3 mutas with those five fungals. Likewise, if they throw down infested terrans, you can just leave as soon as any fungals end. A lot of people are going heavy infestors, and really don't have an answer to spaced out mutas, and you are able to do a good bit of sniping. If from this point you go your own infestors, you should have about even roach numbers, and more infestor energy, due to him panicking and throwing down infested terrans and fungals.
On April 04 2011 00:06 OpAndroid wrote: Thought I'd throw this out there, as I've been having some success with it. Not really following the build, but on the topic of mutas is ZvZ, I've found that they work fairly well against people going for a Roach/Infestor mix. I often times get a spire, and usually only 6 mutas, put them on two different hotkeys, and target down infestors.
It takes 4 fungals, I believe, to kill a muta, and if you spread them out, they will only kill 3 mutas with those five fungals. Likewise, if they throw down infested terrans, you can just leave as soon as any fungals end. A lot of people are going heavy infestors, and really don't have an answer to spaced out mutas, and you are able to do a good bit of sniping. If from this point you go your own infestors, you should have about even roach numbers, and more infestor energy, due to him panicking and throwing down infested terrans and fungals.
Along similar lines, I've found a few harassing mutas to be excellent for getting your opponent to waste their infestor energy just before pushing with your muta/bane/ling army. Good harrass on 2-3 mineral lines simultaneously can make it really easy to pick off mismanaged infestors as well.
Ya, I use mutas for harass and to force him into hydras. From there I just pump out an insane of upgraded roaches and I just engage->fly mutas in half way through fight to help mop up.
ZvZ mutas work well if u catch him off gaurd n snipe buildings and shit. Also if it forces a ton of spores you know hes down some workers so use that to your advantage too.
You just cant wait if you do this, once the first 5 o 6 pop gogogogog, cant let him get a lot of infestors out.
However, the fungal deals more damage to ultralisks now, but that shouldnt change too much, cause you can fungal like 2 ultras at a time and you need a shit ton of fungals to deal significant damage to them.
Wait a second, you're talking about casting fungal on Ultras and you're not ironic with that? ...
If you could fungal 2 ultras magically then it wouldn't be a shit idea to keep them away from your roaches for 4 seconds. But not likely.
Mutas are pretty shit against roach infestor. I'll upload replays in a few minutes but let me put it this way. You have less roaches and you're depending on your opponent not to notice. If he/she does then you're completely fucked if he engages on neutral or beneficial ground. The traditionalist will kill your units, kill your drones and maybe tech on a suicide mission. You're insanely behind. He dropped a hydra den the second he saw a muta and while you've been attacking his roaches trying to stop him from razing your base, he's been spamming hydras. Then what are you going to do? You're so far behind from significant losses and hydras decimate mutas.
You can actually just walk across the map with your new roach hydra army and kill his base before he can kill a hatchery. Its like a base trade race except with a car versing a go kart.
The I use them is to just get your big roach infestor army, and then get 6 mutas very late game. Fly these mutas to some far away expansion and just kill all his drones, most players can't even deal with this. If they can then just fly away and harrass at another base. It forces him to divide his attention, it allows you to attack as he moves his army around, and if he is a good player he still has to devote a small part + attention to the mutas. Giving you an opportunity to attack.
Thats a completely different story solidbebe and its very good play. When you supply cap you can build some drones into spines and produce 5 mutas and just clear overlords/kill undefended expansions or force your opponent to react in a way you want him to.
Opening or mid/early late game mutas are a build order loss in my strongest opinion.
Infestor roach hydra will screw you up big time, every time someone goes mutas in zvz, most likely they will get roaches in the early game to hold off aggression, as speedlings wouldn't cut it against an easy ling-baneling transition. From what I've experienced, the z will get a mixture of muta roach ling infestor toward the late game, and making the ultra transition. I just push at this time with a half decent hydra roach infestor army and win. Fungal locks down all mutas and lings easily.
On June 04 2011 18:37 Probe1 wrote: If you could fungal 2 ultras magically then it wouldn't be a shit idea to keep them away from your roaches for 4 seconds. But not likely.
Mutas are pretty shit against roach infestor. I'll upload replays in a few minutes but let me put it this way. You have less roaches and you're depending on your opponent not to notice. If he/she does then you're completely fucked if he engages on neutral or beneficial ground. The traditionalist will kill your units, kill your drones and maybe tech on a suicide mission. You're insanely behind. He dropped a hydra den the second he saw a muta and while you've been attacking his roaches trying to stop him from razing your base, he's been spamming hydras. Then what are you going to do? You're so far behind from significant losses and hydras decimate mutas.
You can actually just walk across the map with your new roach hydra army and kill his base before he can kill a hatchery. Its like a base trade race except with a car versing a go kart.
Destiny himself said muta is useless in zvz because they are huge investment and they group together. Since infestors got buff'd, more are using them because they deal good against roaches and if your muta were out of position and got fungal'd, your whole flock of muta will be destroyed
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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
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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