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Giant hole in early to midgame of this before the infestors come out. Did you see the Blizzard Cup RO10? MVP wrecked stephano by scouting and then reacting to his style (or anticipating it altogether :p)
Reactor hellion expand into
blue flame hellion (2fact?)& bio
into a timing attack where you just kill him because he's going mass zerglings and you have the most accessible counter to zerglings in the game :>
[Consider fast upgrades because where is your gas going if you're going hellion marine?]
A lot of lings will just wreck hellion marauder allin, but if you don't all-in and just go with this composition and strike before infestors with pathogen are out, you should be fine given reasonable micro vs zerglings (ie don't get surrounded on creep, etc). And once you get medivacs out it gets even harder, if your initial push didn't just kill him.
His new fast hive from roaches is scary, agreed, don't like it when zergs get t3 fast (in which case mobility abuse and/or really good engagements are your best bet), you have to deal with t3 zerg or attack in the smaller window
Try 3port cloaked banshee after your 3rd (no experience, but this isn't theorycraft) vs ling infestor (yeah it sounds dumb) they'll fungal your banshees, but fungal on 1 banshee (since you've amoved them all around the map) is better than fungal on 10 marines.
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I don't use the style much myself, but from my dabblings in it, it'd say there are two things you can abuse:
1. Infestors are slow as crap and the only decent antiair of the zerg. Use drops, but be sure to be quick about it, an infestor catching your whole medivac and marine force is terrible. It was stated in this thread earlier that drops don't work against a zerg who has 6 spines at each expansion.. well duh, you can't attack with mutas when a terran has 20 turrets either, the drops obviously have to be used long before a zerg can afford 6 spines per base.
2. The timing where a zerg is going for infestors is a weak spot, there's only lings for defense and infestors take quite a while to build. If you can time a big bio push at this point, you will do big damage.
Other than that, it's important to bank on the fact that infestors are slow defensive units, it should be relatively easy to expand as long as the ling runbys can be handled. As for late game situations, I really don't know. Ghosts are obviously strong against infestors and infestors are not all that great against mech, but then again, a zerg will have T3 by the late lategame with this build.
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best thing to do against this style is just be aggro and force zerg to use up fungals. When the fungals run out, you win. Much like sentries for protoss, Zerg can't really afford to keep churing out infestors if they ever want to tech up, so if you just constantly pressure/drop/snipe infestors, it delays broodlords and keeps zerg at home.
I can't say MMM is any more effective than just pure marine/medivac. I think if you want to fight big-ball-of-units style marauders are better, but honestly 3-4 pronged marine drops constantly are the way to go. You don't even have to watch or micro them. Just drop them in a spot where zerglings will have trouble so that the zerg has to split up his infestors to defend, and you're golden.
A good example of this can be seen by going through Destiny's VODs of a day or two ago, where he played Drewbie/Catz doing the nonstop marine drop stuff.
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On March 13 2012 17:46 darkscream wrote:
best thing to do against this style is just be aggro and force zerg to use up fungals. When the fungals run out, you win. Much like sentries for protoss, Zerg can't really afford to keep churing out infestors if they ever want to tech up, so if you just constantly pressure/drop/snipe infestors, it delays broodlords and keeps zerg at home.
This.
Also, if you never kill off medivacs, the numbers eventually get out of control, and the terran basically stop losing units as long as the terran isn't behind on upgrades.
So once aggression starts, do it a lot, try picking off infestors, don't clump units, and drop multiple locations at once.
For example:
- If the zerg is defending with lings on patrol, or with mass spines, doing a drop where you kill off the units and a queen, or a couple of spines, before retreating, healing up, and doing it again, is hellish to deal with because you have to constantly be on top of rebuilding defensens, move the right amount of units to every location.
- Constantly being aggressive towards the main, and taking out tech buildings and defenses there, is very scary for the zerg to deal with because you are likely to overcommit to defenses there.
- Prioritize killing drones over killing hatches. A good stephano style is saving his 16 drones (800 minerals) and letting his hatchery (350 minerals) die, and just move his drones to a new location. Kill the drones first, and if you don't get the hatch as well - you can drop again later.
You basically want to tax the other players multitasking skills.
And yeah, it's really hard, because that means you have to multitask as well.
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Well I think everything has been mentioned, thanks in large part to Morrow, but I think I'll throw in my 2c.
I play this style as Zerg and I far prefer it over Muta/Ling/Bling. In my experience, there are no obvious exploits you can abuse as Terran, but there are some adjustments you can make to help you more effectively combat this style (pardon the repition):
* Emphasis on MMM: the worst part about playing against MMM is not the drops, but the fact that Terran has already "accounted" for your super quick ultra switch. Ultras are only really good against the entrenched siege style. A smart Zerg might throw down a spire as he's going hive setting himself up for a broodlord switch.
* The early Viking is a bitch, it forces Zerg to have good creep spread since he has to split up his army between his bases and requires the creep for an early warning against a big push
* Abuse the terrain. Forcing lings and Ultras to wrap around terrain features to get to tanks makes our blood boil.
* Ghosts are still scary!
* Wall-offs and good simcitying can literally win you the game, just as bad simcitying can lose you the game. Players who play this style well will attempt to delay your push with backstabs and counterattacks.
* Fast upgrades. There is nothing more demoralizing than hitting 3/3 and thinking you have a huge upgrade advantage and then seeing marines at like 2/3 or something. Lings are really the crux to this composition, if your marines can stand their own against the lings, you're suddenly forcing a lot more fungals and you're better equipped to deal with those ultras.
* Make sure you scout that Hive and prepare accordingly! This style is really about getting Hive asap, pure ling/infestor can be aggressive but zerg will struggle to close out the game if he's not at a massive advantage.
* Sensor towers are less vulnerable due to lack of Mutas and can help you defend counter attacks and drops. (Zerg drops is another element this style lends itself to, so beware!)
* When I see Cloaked Banshees, I put down a spire just to deal with them. It's really tough to play against them, they might be most abusive thing Terran can do against this style.
To me Ling/Infestor seems like a solid style, I don't think it's as gimmicky as it used to be. It's popularity and effectiveness will die down in the coming months as Terrans figure it out more, and then we'll see offshoots of this style (Stephano already has a few, as does DRG and Nestea). Quick Hive will become less viable as Terrans figure out the timings and execute them, and more midgame units (Roaches or Banelings) will come into play.
If I had to make a prediction, I'd also say that this will be the foundation for the first big ZvT style in HoTS: Vipers in particular will make a good addition to this style, possibly replacing the infestor. The tunneling buff to Ultras will also aid this.
I hope some Terrans can glean something useful from this. ZvT is shaping up to be a wonderful matchup in SC2, with a broad range of styles available to both sides, I'm excited to see where it will go in the coming months.
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On March 13 2012 14:07 MorroW wrote:
i think theres a keypart in the micro control
normally youd think you want to spread your bio and the tanks to abuse him being melee and using fungal as this super aoe but i think this is actually wrong way to approach it.
lings with high upgrades rip through bio thats spread out
i think its better to keep most of your army in a clump, especially the siege tanks pretty close together. as soon as zerg attacks, scan on it and youll see the infestors well ahead and then you target them all down with the tanks while sitting still with all bio in a clump
if you kill all infestors with the tanks, the lings wont stand a chance at all seeing how theres almost no surface area to fight the bio with
a big thing that makes mutalisk scary is that they deny drops, vikings and creates huge threats of counterattacks.
good sim city should should deal with counterattacks very easy vs ling infestor
a viking can roam around the map pretty uncontested hunting overlords aswell as patrolling the edges of zergs base to make it impossible for him to know if a drop is coming etc
to actually mass drop everywhere as some might think is a good way to abuse ling infestor i dont think this is very true.
lings are super mobile and 1 infestor with a handful of lings shut down drops super cost efficiently.
as long as your not forcing him to be on a certain part of the map, his units will be spread out across all bases to deal with these sorts of drops. therefor i think its more crucial to work on frontal power pushes.
the need for no turrets or leaving many units at home while pushing or threats to just die from any attacks of zerg (when bane speed and mutas would normally be out) allows you to get upgrades going super quick and establish a ton of econ and infrastructure.
then once you reach this high tank count and maybe 2-2 upgrades (example) you can start putting the real heavy pressure on.
its key to capitalize on the things mutalisk are normally for
the most normal way i see terrans fail against this style is:
-they waste too much units trying to get lucky drops
-they dont build up or plan real timing attacks
-they fail micro control and misunderstand how this army should be fought
-they are too passive or push too slow, allowing the ultras or broodlords to come out just in time
-they dont know how to push on the map without getting caught offguard and their entire army owned because of it
whenever i play vs infestor i feel more comfortable than vs rly good mutalisk players. it feels like i should win every battle unless i get caught unsieged or fail to target down the infestors with the tanks.
a good tip for the ones who have trouble getting caught unsieged against this style - keep a medivac well up infront of your army or have it follow the zerg army constantly. youd be amazed how much effort and energy it takes to kill 1 medivac with infestors. if they do it just send another one, after 2-3 medivacs are killed like this they wont even have energy left lol
ive also seen polt send in fake drops (empty medivac) into zerg bases that he knew are guarded by many infestors just to trigger him to kill it with purely infestor energy
another thing that you can do, but is pretty abusive (invest alot to counter infestor style without actually scouting it) is starting to tech cloak banshees early on. im not saying 1base cloak banshee. but if you start building cloak banshees from 1 starport after your 2base. you make it soo much harder for them to do anything at all. id recommend fooling around with this abit and see how it feels.
i think its super good anyway
the infestor ling play is quite easy to play with compared to mutalisk play. so it creates a false illusion that its super strong because the zergs your facing are harder to win against compared if they play mutalisk
naruto also gave some great points aswell. its super key to not lose your hellions (much moreso compared if they play bane muta ling) and going 6-8 hellions just to make it almost impossible for them to creep spread or take a 3rd is pretty darn good
Not the thread starter, but thank you so much for this advice. Amazing. Going to use it in my games. For those who don't know, morrow knows more about the tvz/zvt matchup than probably anyone else in the world. Golden nuggets right here  .
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On March 13 2012 17:41 Tobberoth wrote:
I don't use the style much myself, but from my dabblings in it, it'd say there are two things you can abuse:
1. Infestors are slow as crap and the only decent antiair of the zerg. Use drops, but be sure to be quick about it, an infestor catching your whole medivac and marine force is terrible. It was stated in this thread earlier that drops don't work against a zerg who has 6 spines at each expansion.. well duh, you can't attack with mutas when a terran has 20 turrets either, the drops obviously have to be used long before a zerg can afford 6 spines per base.
2. The timing where a zerg is going for infestors is a weak spot, there's only lings for defense and infestors take quite a while to build. If you can time a big bio push at this point, you will do big damage.
Other than that, it's important to bank on the fact that infestors are slow defensive units, it should be relatively easy to expand as long as the ling runbys can be handled. As for late game situations, I really don't know. Ghosts are obviously strong against infestors and infestors are not all that great against mech, but then again, a zerg will have T3 by the late lategame with this build.
The 20 turret comparison is terrible. 1 Turret roughly equals 1 spine when comparing mutas/turrets vs spines/8rines-medivac
Of course you wouldn't attack 20 turrets, however zergs can, and often do, attack SIX turrets with their mutas when they reach around 20. The problem with this is that your rines/medivac don't have the mobility of mutas so you can't drop 20 rines to kill a base or the zerg will just a-move into the rest of your army and roll you.
However, it does seem that bio seems to be one of the better ways to deal with this style (ironically) because of it's greater mobility and that it doesn't need to be stuck in one place (seiged) to be effective. Plus it's easier to micro and get a big army with.
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On March 13 2012 07:34 Silvertine wrote:
Just use Polt as an example. MMM is a bitch to play against when you use that style.
This.
I also suggest looking at VileIllusion's playstyle. He likes to go bio vs zerg.
You have to remember that you must utilize the fact that he's not investing in mutas. Drop everywhere! Just make sure that you keep and eye on the drops before they get to the drop point in case of any infestors near by
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Another thing that I feel has been neglected a bit - similar to morrows point about targeting tanks with infestors, I have a lot of success with sending a few marauders slightly ahead of my marines to shift-kill infestors as he moves in. He is basically forced to back away or waste multiple fungals on marauders if you have marines a bit behind (out of fungal range but can protect marauders). This + constant drops with pure bio is what I have most success with.
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Sorry for my stupidity, but what is a MMM?
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I think it was in one of his appearances in Code S where Stephano got pretty much raped by MVP who went for a timing attack at around 9 minutes with around 8 BF hellions and a shitton of CS marines. If the Z doesn't get the perfect surround there is not much he can do if you micro your hellions a little bit, all his lings just die.
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United States97274 Posts
On March 14 2012 23:54 DEAF wrote:
Sorry for my stupidity, but what is a MMM?
marine marauder medivac
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Since we are theorycrafting let me add to it. I watch lots of his vod's and I think what people are missing is that Stephano plays very reactively by scouting and map awareness - he understands the weaknesses and strengths of his army compared to yours and how to safely transition or turn a disadvantage into an advantage. Thus he predicts what you will likely do and reacts accordingly.
- You invest in mass BFH and marines - he has ling/roach/queen/infestor ready.
- You do drops, he has lings/queens and infestors at each of the outer bases as well as the middle covered.
- You do air, he has mass queen/infestor and is knocking at your front door with ling/roach.
- You try to get 3 bases saturated, he has 5+ bases a ton of spines and heavily upgraded ling/Blord/Infestor/Corruptors by the time you move out or mass ultra instead of Blord.
- You all- in push into his main, he counterattacks into all of yours while getting another 2 bases.
The premise for how to beat Stephano is wrong - I don't think just doing X strategy or X unit composition beats him. This thread is about Stephano and if you watch his VOD's you will quickly know that he knows exactly how to stay safe or crush you with what he has against whatever you have. He already has in place a PLAN for everything you do, a unit composition is not going to help you auto-win against Stephano.
"You have 5 collossi and 10 zealots that have destroyed my main and natural...that's ok I know how these 12 lings can beat that" (seriously watch his VOD's on his stream channel with WhiteRa - 2 hours in on Shakuras and prepare to be enlightened). While WhiteRa wrote the book for Special Tactics, Stephano reviewed every page before print.
To beat Stephano or any top Zerg player means you have to beat the man, not his immidiate unit composition.
Good luck with that.
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I got this notes from QXC when i watched QXC's stream a few months ago. I took a screeshot of his notes when i saw that. want to share to the terran community.
- ghost to emp
- maurader to kill ultra
- sensor tower to check for nydus
- very spread out tanks to control space
- infestor strength increases as time goes on either try to do timing before or just as infestor comes out (only 1 fungal/min energy) or double expand to take advantage of weakness of unit
- vs hive 4-6 tanks max
- 10-20 ghosts
- 8-10 medivacs
- rest marine/marauder
- some vikings if BL
- make ghosts as soon as scout infestor
- constant drops to deny extra bases (1-3 medivac always out on the map)
- transition into some marauders as soon as see hive
- fast 3/3
- pf all bases except for natural
- keep creep spread down
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Watch polt... drops everywhere. He also often does an 8~9 minute push with combat shield marines and blue flame hellions. It's very effective against ling infestor builds with proper micro (infestors haven't popped yet).
It takes more effort to respond to a drop than to initiate one. And with infestors they're even more difficult to deal with.
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You dont, the only people in the world that actually can beat him consistently is :
DRG
parting
MMA
MVP - maybe not now cos he is in a slump
Thats it. And even MVP, parting and MMA are questionable.
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On March 18 2012 11:11 Josh_rakoons wrote:
You dont, the only people in the world that actually can beat him consistently is :
DRG
parting
MMA
MVP - maybe not now cos he is in a slump
Thats it. And even MVP, parting and MMA are questionable.
Polt should be there too.
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On March 14 2012 14:58 genius_man16 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2012 17:41 Tobberoth wrote:
I don't use the style much myself, but from my dabblings in it, it'd say there are two things you can abuse:
1. Infestors are slow as crap and the only decent antiair of the zerg. Use drops, but be sure to be quick about it, an infestor catching your whole medivac and marine force is terrible. It was stated in this thread earlier that drops don't work against a zerg who has 6 spines at each expansion.. well duh, you can't attack with mutas when a terran has 20 turrets either, the drops obviously have to be used long before a zerg can afford 6 spines per base.
2. The timing where a zerg is going for infestors is a weak spot, there's only lings for defense and infestors take quite a while to build. If you can time a big bio push at this point, you will do big damage.
Other than that, it's important to bank on the fact that infestors are slow defensive units, it should be relatively easy to expand as long as the ling runbys can be handled. As for late game situations, I really don't know. Ghosts are obviously strong against infestors and infestors are not all that great against mech, but then again, a zerg will have T3 by the late lategame with this build. The 20 turret comparison is terrible. 1 Turret roughly equals 1 spine when comparing mutas/turrets vs spines/8rines-medivac Of course you wouldn't attack 20 turrets, however zergs can, and often do, attack SIX turrets with their mutas when they reach around 20. The problem with this is that your rines/medivac don't have the mobility of mutas so you can't drop 20 rines to kill a base or the zerg will just a-move into the rest of your army and roll you. However, it does seem that bio seems to be one of the better ways to deal with this style (ironically) because of it's greater mobility and that it doesn't need to be stuck in one place (seiged) to be effective. Plus it's easier to micro and get a big army with.
What?
Attacking six turrets with 20 mutalisks? That will NEVER work out well for the zerg player.
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On March 18 2012 11:11 Josh_rakoons wrote:
You dont, the only people in the world that actually can beat him consistently is :
DRG
parting
MMA
MVP - maybe not now cos he is in a slump
Thats it. And even MVP, parting and MMA are questionable.
I find this hard to believe
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On March 13 2012 14:07 MorroW wrote:
i think theres a keypart in the micro control
normally youd think you want to spread your bio and the tanks to abuse him being melee and using fungal as this super aoe but i think this is actually wrong way to approach it.
lings with high upgrades rip through bio thats spread out
i think its better to keep most of your army in a clump, especially the siege tanks pretty close together. as soon as zerg attacks, scan on it and youll see the infestors well ahead and then you target them all down with the tanks while sitting still with all bio in a clump
if you kill all infestors with the tanks, the lings wont stand a chance at all seeing how theres almost no surface area to fight the bio with
a big thing that makes mutalisk scary is that they deny drops, vikings and creates huge threats of counterattacks.
good sim city should should deal with counterattacks very easy vs ling infestor
a viking can roam around the map pretty uncontested hunting overlords aswell as patrolling the edges of zergs base to make it impossible for him to know if a drop is coming etc
to actually mass drop everywhere as some might think is a good way to abuse ling infestor i dont think this is very true.
lings are super mobile and 1 infestor with a handful of lings shut down drops super cost efficiently.
as long as your not forcing him to be on a certain part of the map, his units will be spread out across all bases to deal with these sorts of drops. therefor i think its more crucial to work on frontal power pushes.
the need for no turrets or leaving many units at home while pushing or threats to just die from any attacks of zerg (when bane speed and mutas would normally be out) allows you to get upgrades going super quick and establish a ton of econ and infrastructure.
then once you reach this high tank count and maybe 2-2 upgrades (example) you can start putting the real heavy pressure on.
its key to capitalize on the things mutalisk are normally for
the most normal way i see terrans fail against this style is:
-they waste too much units trying to get lucky drops
-they dont build up or plan real timing attacks
-they fail micro control and misunderstand how this army should be fought
-they are too passive or push too slow, allowing the ultras or broodlords to come out just in time
-they dont know how to push on the map without getting caught offguard and their entire army owned because of it
whenever i play vs infestor i feel more comfortable than vs rly good mutalisk players. it feels like i should win every battle unless i get caught unsieged or fail to target down the infestors with the tanks.
a good tip for the ones who have trouble getting caught unsieged against this style - keep a medivac well up infront of your army or have it follow the zerg army constantly. youd be amazed how much effort and energy it takes to kill 1 medivac with infestors. if they do it just send another one, after 2-3 medivacs are killed like this they wont even have energy left lol
ive also seen polt send in fake drops (empty medivac) into zerg bases that he knew are guarded by many infestors just to trigger him to kill it with purely infestor energy
another thing that you can do, but is pretty abusive (invest alot to counter infestor style without actually scouting it) is starting to tech cloak banshees early on. im not saying 1base cloak banshee. but if you start building cloak banshees from 1 starport after your 2base. you make it soo much harder for them to do anything at all. id recommend fooling around with this abit and see how it feels.
i think its super good anyway
the infestor ling play is quite easy to play with compared to mutalisk play. so it creates a false illusion that its super strong because the zergs your facing are harder to win against compared if they play mutalisk
naruto also gave some great points aswell. its super key to not lose your hellions (much moreso compared if they play bane muta ling) and going 6-8 hellions just to make it almost impossible for them to creep spread or take a 3rd is pretty darn good
Thank you. You are a saint.
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EPT
