[G] ZvT Reacting to Mech

On December 17 2013 11:38 blade55555 wrote:


I disagree with you on unupgraded marines. Those are shit versus a unit composition that has upgrades. Going unupgraded marines is just a waste of minerals, better to get more CC's so you can have less scv's and more army.

I don't think any meching terran player would agree with getting unupgraded marines in any situation unless it was super super late game both of you had no gas and could only make mineral units.

What he should have done was scan more (he had plenty of CC's) and then started making vikings. Then the game would have been a lot closer then what it was. Unupgraded marines wouldn't have helped him at all in that situation.

On December 17 2013 13:33 MrMatt wrote:
Did someone use mech recently to make it much more popular. Usually don't see it often. Got it 4 terrans in a row today laddering. Good thing I watched this guide. Won all 4 and went 9 and 0 woot.

On December 17 2013 12:10 CannonsNCarriers wrote:
Fodder hellions / hellbats are strictly superior to fodder marines if the hells have upgrades. I suicide bomb those hellions into zerg mineral lines all game. 400 minerals of hellions can toss the zerg off balance and are almost guaranteed to get their mineral cost in drone kills. Hellion runbys also keep the zerg from thinking he can go up to 5 bases safely.

To counter, zergs must make two spines per hatch. If you have no spines, you will lose drones constantly.

On December 20 2013 01:54 blade55555 wrote:

Don't let them get there. Deny bases and try to trade efficiently. If you are letting Terran take 4+ bases and he gets mass ravens it's near impossible to win.

On December 27 2013 18:22 THEPPLsELBOW wrote:
Blade, you should watch Happy vs DRG (or I think some other good Korean Zerg), where happy managed to get a very large raven count, but he was up against infestor, SH, corruptor and I think 2 Broods, 2 Vipers, some really odd but efficient combination.

The game revolved around a dance between the raven flock and the infestors. With enough infestors, you can spawn Inf Terran along with the locusts wave, so that the locusts cover the infestors and they can be in range to throw eggs that splash onto the tanks. As long as you control at least 60% of the mining bases, you can trade somewhat inefficiently, constantly risking infestors and vipers to get a couple tank or raven snipes, with the premise that eventually the terran has to expand past 4 bases, and its much much harder to defend your 5th and 6th and still have enough for your main.

You can't use your ravens to kill the SH, and too many spores are there for any banshees to do damgae. If you attempt to use ravens, you risk losing them all to Infestors. He brings all his queens so any seeker missile that doesn't kill, can be instantly transfused to negate the damage. So it's basically a pure stalemate unless Terran decides to push up with tanks (but he'll suffer more losses)

DRG won that game, though it wasn't easy. It's a very subtle macro edge, okay I'm trading 400 gas for 300 of yours, but since you're gonna run out of gas sooner, then I will win in the long run. Happy didn't have enough money in the bank to safely transitions to BC's either since his economy suffered some damage for before.

On December 28 2013 02:19 Faust852 wrote:


Remember Lucifron vs Goswser on Newkirk ? Split map, shit tons of spores/spines/vipers/corruptors and SH. Lucifron with shit tons of BC, ravens, vikings and tanks + PFs. Lucifron on the sme amount of bases was totally unable to do anything and just lost after 1hour because he ran out of ressources after trading Locusts for armys and Goswser trading BC for vipers.
And it was Newkirk, THE maps for meching x).

On January 01 2014 13:03 captainwaffles wrote:


??? What makes you say that?

On January 05 2014 18:43 GtC wrote:
What I find really ironic is how broodlords, originally the lategame tech all zergs were rushing and all other races were attempting to attack before, are now being used for timing pushes.

On January 09 2014 03:47 FFW_Rude wrote:


Hello Ret, i'll ask you since Blade seems occupy What do you think went wrong in the Hydra vs Reality game ? I remember low vipers and no spores but that seems so simple... he had a huge bank at one point.

Cause i think that he did some mistake but... even if i hatch a LOT of games, i'm still a bronzie so i'm not sure that i saw the "right mistakes". I ask more from a spectator comprehensive way than a player (because i'll never reach that level or near that level of play)

I hope i'm not derailing the thread as the hydra game seemed relevant to this thread. But i'm not sure.

On February 02 2014 08:16 LucoxP wrote:
I really find it hard to play against mech/sky terran when if the initial BL morph doesn't win you the game. I guess I just have to mass static defence up and get the 20 SH+ festors going?

On December 17 2013 11:47 MarlieChurphy wrote:


Look at his mineral count at the end of the game. He could easily just have fodder marines and barracks to soak damage or just send around the map carelessly. (even just floating barracks sitting around like overlords)

He also had only like 120 supply, so he will eventually trade out the marines for mech units and he also has the barracks infrastructure to fall back on if he needs that switch.

PS- I'm not saying it wins him the game, or it's good (I think mech is the worst to use in TvZ) but it is more ideal that making turrets or hellions with mineral excesses. He already has quite a bit of OC anyways (each of which cost 550).

On December 16 2013 06:44 Girondelle wrote:
Very cool video, what about producing a round of mutas before getting the swarmhost? I've been doing that and I think I might to reconsider it because your style with faster swarmhosts seems to work better. But, I feel that when I don't go mutas, I can't defend versus the hellbat drops and it feels like terran can skip turrets/thors and macro even faster. I'd like to get your opinion on that.

On February 02 2014 09:06 Smurfett3 wrote:

make sure you utilize vipers. Their abducts is what allows you to chip away cost effeciently against their sky army. Like if you pull in a bc into a spore line, that bc is most likely gonna die. Just gotta keep the vipers alive though (abduct is long enough range so it will be amicro war)

On February 02 2014 09:41 RyLai wrote:


CCs and Turrets are better. Marines cost supply, CCs and Turrets don't. What do you need Marines for? Extra DPS? You have Tanks to destroy anything on the ground. Anti-air? That's why you get a few Thors and spam Turrets (which are great mineral sinks cause they solve your early anti-air issues AND COST NO SUPPLY; plus they give detection). Harass? Bitch please, Hellion runbys.

And upgrading them later is a massive waste of gas that could've been spent on repairing or replenishing your Sky Terran army in the super lategame where the gas counts of both players decides the game. 725 minerals is nothing, but 725 gas is 2 BCs and a Viking (plus some to spare), or 2 BCs and a Tank, or 3 Ravens and a Viking or Tank. These units controlled well in the super late game far exceed what a bunch of Marines can do. What are Marines gonna do in the lategame? Stim in and die to Fungals and Swarmhosts/Broodlords they can't reach? What will the mech units do in comparison? BCs will 1-shot any Infestor or Swarmhost it gets in range of, and will 2 shot a Broodlord (and guess what, you could afford 2 BCs with the gas used to upgrade your Marines, which means 1 dead Broodlord, or 2 dead Infestors/Swarmhosts). Ravens can also blow up an entire Zerg army if the Zerg doesn't react to the Seeker Missiles, or protect your precious BCs from some Corruptor fire.

The fact is, Bomber just didn't scout well, played super fucking greedy, and got punished for it. He never got a Starport until around 16 minutes. The reason you go Starport is so you don't straight up die to mid-game Roach timings (the ability to scout and do economic damage is just a massive plus). This was how mech became viable in WoL, and even if you can go faster Tanks now, I'm not sure it's enough to defend a massive Roach push. Honestly, if he had an idea of what blade was doing, he would be so far ahead if he just got a decent Viking count and a few more Thors. Zerg would be left on 4 bases with shit upgrades versus Terran Mech on 3/3. Honestly, I feel like FlaSh would smash blade's face in here cause FlaSh doesn't play greedy mech (unlike his bio).

And the point about 120 supply is like... What...? It was a 190+ vs 190+ supply battle, basically maxed out armies. Using reinforcing UNUPGRADED Marines streaming out of a Barracks will not deal with 6 Broodlords (with 8 more morphing in). Marines would absolutely not (in any way) help Bomber's position more than it would hurt him. The investment into Marines overall delays his entire goal (to get Sky Terran as quickly as humanly possible). I mean, what happens when he gets a high supply count with Marines? He has to start finding ways to suicide them without being too cost ineffective (or else he dies cause a ton of supply was Marines he no longer has).

I've seen Thorzain do this a few times when playing mech. Guess who's also the worst professional-level mech player I've ever seen? Yeah, Thorzain. Watch good Koreans play mech (or even the bad ones that just know how to abuse the style), and you'll understand that you should never need Marines.



Drop a bunch of Spores and Spines at each base (and/or leave a few Roaches at each base). You should've macroed a ton of economy early on (since mech doesn't get straight up aggressive early on). And think of it this way, he's spending gas on Medivacs, which slows down his macro, and you spent minerals only. It's a good trade for you in the long run as long as you pull your Drones to avoid taking too much damage.

And the Terran skipping Turrets and Thors doesn't make them macro faster. What does skipping Turrets do for Terran? Build up a massive mineral count (which COULD be used for CCs, but eh). But Turrets are useful. They give more vision around your base (meaning Nydus plays are weaker), they defend from that random Muta switch (if it ever comes), they defend from Burrowed Infestor/Roach shenanigans, and they serve as good aggro magnets for uncontrolled Swarm Hosts. You have a bit of a point on the Thors, but Thors are still nice to have to push creeping Overlords away from expansions. The Terran is going to build 4 Thors blindly anyway, because otherwise they straight up die to a standard Muta build. Whether you actually go Mutas or not, the damage has been done by the option existing. So why invest the extra 1000 gas into Mutas when you can use it to accelerate your own tech instead? By going Mutas, you slow down your own tech by at least as much as you've derailed the Terran. The Terran already is looking to invest 800 gas into Thors, and will spend 400-600 more compared to you spending 1000. Seems to be a trade in the Terran's favor doesn't it...?



Yes, Vipers are really nice and all, but given equal skill, I'd say Terran still has a better time in the micro war. Yamatos 1-shot most of what Zerg has, and Vikings have long range too. There's a reason Terrans who do this tend to slowly push their way forward until the Zerg rolls over and dies.

On February 02 2014 11:32 Smurfett3 wrote:
I believe a viper abduct skill is at a 9. vikings shoot at 7. if you can abduct a bc that is about to yamoto a viper, you should be happy to trade a viper for a bc (bc is a crap ton more expensive). Infestors with NP can also neutralize bcs. If a bc is loading up a yamoto, a NP will interrupt the bc from firing. You can also use the yamoto against the terran too in given situations

On February 02 2014 11:40 Incand wrote:


Vikings got a range of 9. You lose a viper every time you abduct.

On February 02 2014 11:40 Incand wrote:


Vikings got a range of 9. You lose a viper every time you abduct.