[G] Mass Mutalisk ZvP for 2013

Standard 3 hatch opening to 6 mins, assuming forge expansion into some generic robo 3rd or something else reasonably passive, for a base to work with.

14/15 pool
15/16 hatch
15 overlord
15 queen
2 lings + extras as required
22 queen
24 hatchery
@6:10 3 gas
Lair
Speed
Spire
7:45 3 gas


I don’t really care if people want to do 11 pools, faster gas or 3rd hatch before queen or whatever it really doesn’t matter its at around 6 mins things become more interesting.

~ 6-6.30 3 gas should be taken allowing a lair to be started at around or slightly before 7 mins.
3 gas at 6:30 mins like some players for example leenock use is too late for this. 2 gas at 6 mins is fine, as is 3 before 6:20 or a single gas much earlier, whatever you wish.

We are then going to sack an overlord in the main at around 6:30, especially if there is no gas taken at the natural. Protoss gates for basically any form of aggression go down around this timing and as we want to be droning as hard as we can getting good scouting information is vital. The other main thing we are looking for is a Stargate.

If there’s no Stargate or gates, what he is doing doesn’t really matter that much to you any more. For this example the protoss has a robo and no 4 gate morphing in and the gas at his natural is being taken at around 6:30 implying either immortal all in or a robo 3rd.

From here we get zergling speed and extra gas such that we can afford a spire once the lair is done. If you double gassed at 6 getting another 2 gas with your lair will work out fine, as will just running off 3 gas from around 6:15. Adjust to however you prefer to manage your gas.

Once the spire is started we continue to whack out drones as hard as we can until around 8 mins. At around 7:45 we add on the rest of our gas.

At this point you should have a solid 3 base saturation 6 gasses running, 2 lings + any the protoss forced out of you. You should have no problem hitting a good 70 supply by 8 mins if the protoss doesn’t apply more than 1 gate of pressure. My personal record is at 88 with this build.

Once we have 3 base saturation it is unsafe for us to take a 4th and proceed to drone until the protoss has confirmed to be going for a 3rd. So once 3 base saturation has been reached produce zerglings constantly, no macro hatch is needed at this point. Continue production of zerglings until spire is approx half way complete, you should get a good 60+ odd out if there is no 3rd by this time.

These zerglings serve two main functions, the most important of which is to slow 7 gate robo pushes moving across the map. They can also slow late 3rds a bit and generally just be a nuisance. Combine with overlord creep to block the 3rd for as long as you can though don’t throw the lings away for free.

Once your spire is half way complete cut any ling production and begin saving minerals, gas and larva. From here for as long as the protoss isn’t trying to take a 3rd add on spines at your natural. Once your spire completes assure you have enough to make a good 14+ mutalisks in one big wave. The rest of your minerals should go into spines if there is no third. If it is just simply a very late 3rd you should have time to cancel the spines.

I have not neglected to mention upgrades, I simply do not get any ling or roach upgrades all game for the most part. Eventually in the game there may be nothing better to get but for the early game, money required to get these upgrades going isn't worthwhile. This has been a major reason that mutas are underused. By burning gas on upgrades you are unable to keep the investment in mutalisks required to make this style work.

Between the early overlord sack and scouting the natural gas you should be able to see this is coming well before 7 mins. Simply add on a roach warren, lings, perhaps a spine as needed and hold, then continue. Adding a roach warren isn’t that big of an investment so if you want to do that blind its not a big deal, though roaches are useless other than for survival. People with early speed builds can deal with it with lings if they prefer

Drop any concern for this build out of your mind, get roaches up as quickly as you can and just try to survive. If you survive without large damage you basically win doing whatever.

Can open into 7 gate blink or a DT build. For the Dts your lair should be sufficiently early to make overseers and units. If your lair is delayed you can make an evo for spores. For 7 gate blink produce roach ling, stay on creep, tech to infestors then crush his army. Usual stuff.

Though this build is really bad its still used sometimes. The lings you produce slow this a lot and mutas should be out in plenty of time to either crush or base race vs this.

The big one. This build can definitely hold 7 gate robo. The large flood of zerglings slow the push a good bit. Getting a good pack of mutalisks out in combination with your lings to counter attack is normally the most successful choice though some pushes can be simply engaged. When at the protoss base sniping the cybercore is very high priority, if you can get it down quickly the game is yours, simply make more mutas until you can just roll the stalkers and sentries heads up. Stop him mining asap as a full base race is not uncommon.

A strong spine wall at your natural is required to keep you alive and sacking the 3rd is normally necessary. The wall must be at least 2 spines thick, preferable 3 and as dense as possible. Focus firing the spines on stalkers is normally the best idea, just make sure they arnt killing zealots. You also must use queens lings and spare mutas to control warp prism elevator pushes past the spine wall. Production of many lings is really not recommended, save money for spines and mutas. +1 on mutas helps a lot, definitely worth the money. Make sure your overlords do not die, this can be hugely important in base races as the protoss will never have enough money to rebuild all his lost pylons, leaving no army or probe production for a long time. giving you a huge mineral lead.


Worst case scenario the game may evolve into a full on base race so hide drones on the map etc., however its normally possible to force the protoss out of your base before you lose your main leaving you the only one mining. Also incorrect micro from him can result in him losing stalkers and sentries to the spine wall leaving you with enough mutas to crush him.

Overall iv found this method much more reliable than any roach ling or infestor hold vs 7 gate robo.

This is a real pain.

A spread of lings and overlords + good map awareness to see the warp prism coming is essential for giving you the reaction time you require, fortunately most people who do this build do the same path with prism per map. To hold this you basically need to accept +1 zealots are too crazy good to make much ling production worthwhile. If you blindly built a roach warren your in a pretty good spot just make roaches, micro a bit and you should be alright. If you didn’t you have to get at least one spine per base down asap, preferably more and stall to mutas. When a good 15 mutas pop out you should be able to crush the push and take the game

But its a real pain.

This is the hard counter to this style. Fortunately this build is normally awful, relatively unused and easy to scout. Just abandon this do a roach hydra push or something you’ll be fine.

This is one of protoss 2 best chances of getting to a good place in a macro game vs this, however there are many different ways of dealing with it

Infestor

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Roach
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Vive la Mutalisks!
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2 base mothership
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A fast 3rd from protoss lets you get into a macro game with this style vs protoss with no real advantage for either of you. Can sometimes be denied by lings but largely solid style vs mutalisk openers.

Obviously youv just made a bunch of mutas, you poke around at stuff, do lots of damage vs bad people get largely deflected by good people etc. Stacking mutalisks with an overlord helps massively for sniping pylons etc., focus fire and weave in and out with mutalisks if you must engage stalkers or cannons. Magic box archons and Hts.

Losing mutas is almost always not worthwhile. Main exceptions are focusing down a vulnerable nexus or probe line while protoss is out of position or the forge. Killing the forge or templar archives with mutas helps a huge amount and is definitely worth a couple of mutas if you can get it. Trying to deny blink however is rarely successful so don’t try.

Once the protoss is sufficiently distracted you should literally be throwing down expansions as the previous one completes, you totally want to zerg the map, you can reasonably safely drone up to well in the 90s, sometimes even in excess of 100 drones just to build a mineral bank. Focus on gas income. Aggressive creep spread isn’t that important you just want to be able to build spines in key areas if you need to. Creep drop all bases on the map, strive for utter map control.




Get a good spread of overlords to see any warp prisms and spore spine every base. DT can be VERY successful vs this style if you are not prepared. On the flip side however well deflected prisms and Dts can leave protoss even further starved. Throw changelings at the protoss base as you can, to keep an eye on army movement and tech.

Focus on building a ridiculous mutalisk count with good upgrades and enough spines to ensure your survival. For amount of mutas, basically you never have enough, iv had plenty of games with excess of 80 3/3 mutalisks.

Your ultimate goal is to constantly deal cheap damage wherever the protoss presents a vulnerability while denying a 4th. It is insanely hard for protoss to consolidate enough spread out anti air to take a 4th without losing another base in trade. Preserving your early mutalisks is essential to keep this strong grip on the protoss.

Use an individual muta or few mutas to scout around the protoss base while your flock focuses things down to keep track of the stalkers work out where Hts and archons are located and look for good targets for your mutalisks. This helps you stop lose mutas to big blinks and storms. Again keep control of the map so you can never be flanked leaving the protoss base.

Never transition

Transitioning is the main way people seem to lose when I see them execute all the previous correctly. You have weak ling upgrades and no infestor energy, the second you start burning gas moving into broodlord infestor will give the protoss the relief they need to start pushing you back. Ultralisks baneling hypothetically transitions a bit better but in reality they really not very good.

Protoss 3 base all ins are seriously all in the second the protoss moves across the map any hope of the protoss resuming production in the game are gone instantly. Firstly take out the templar archives, the most valuable thing protoss has, also get the cyber core and forge if its researching. Manually controlling a second smaller group of mutalisks to locate and deal with templar scattered through his base is ideal

Basically burn all your money into spines in key locations.

NesTea in his recent game vs parting on whirlwind used lots of speedbanelings to compliment this. Personally I dislike this, any gas not in mutas imo is gas wasted. However its NesTea, im not going to declare him flat out wrong.

You will commonly have to sack the majority of your bases to survive these pushes but its fine, if you survive with any mining at all your destined to win. You have many bases and protoss cannot safely split his army. Keep good map vision and try and stop probes leaving the protoss base if you can

The mothership can be a key tool for protoss vs mass mutalisk. Firstly good use of the motherships recall ability can help protoss take a 4th more safely. This can largely be counteracted by making lots of little to try force the protoss to recall. Once the mothership is out of energy it gives you a large timing to do lots of damage sometimes including killing the mothership.

Vortex can be extremely dangerous to mutalisks, however less so than broodlords. If all your mutalisks get archon toileted you will probably lose however it is reasonably easy to keep the amount of mutalisks that get vortexed pretty low, they are quite fast and your working to keep good vision over everything with changelings etc. As with broodlord toilets rolling in a bunch of banes into a vortex can save your mutalisks and probably win you the game to boot. In the end of the day protoss mothership usage will likely be cost efficient for them, but its a huge vulnerability.

By the time protoss gets a mothership out without dying and gets energy they will be running on vapours, even taking some pretty cost ineffective trades to keep them contained is normally fine, you should be banking a ridiculous amount by this time.

Motherships can also be dangerous in elimination races, aka sitting on top of a pylon etc. allowing other protoss armies to move more independently. This can be an irritation but iv never lost a game because of it.