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Byul-inspired counterattacking mutalingbane guide

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
Post a Reply
Matiz_pl
Profile Joined August 2008
Poland163 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-05-10 19:26:15
May 07 2017 18:37 GMT
#1
[image loading]
Innovation is trying to push out, Byul doesn't allow him to do it through counter-attack at Terran's third.

Hey guys!
After 3.8, Zerg vs Terran has changed quite a lot. Ultras aren't the only good option vs Terran anymore. There is still a lot of emphasis on roach playstyles, especially in foreign ZvT scene, however we can clearly see a strong re-emergence of MLB style. As someone very experienced in this style and following closely the trends of korean metagame, I thought it would be a good idea to write guide about it, because MLB vs bio is by far one of the most spectacular matchups in Starcraft 2 and it is simply really damn good option in current metagame.

I've seen many Zergs in Korea playing MLB, but the way Byul plays it I think is by far the most impressive. The way he does his runbys rips apart even players like Innovation or Byun and I think he has the best understanding of how MLB works in ZvT, so I decided to extract as much information from his playstyle add a tiny bit of my ideas and present it to you in 4000 words :D. Let's jump right to it:


Why has MLB faded away in early lotv?
- Faster creep receding
- Worse zerg economy
- Very strong ultras
- Appearance of ravager infestor combo

Why has MLB re-emerged after 3.8 and lotv in general?
- It's good for zerg players who want to force their own tempo of the game instead of getting pounded by terran for 10 minutes
- Ultras got nerfed and also people have learnt how to deal with them
- Tanks are really good now against ravager infestor
- Bases mine out faster and there is more of them, so mobile compositions are better
- Liberators no longer demolish mutas
- Lotv maps seem to favour mobility-based playstyles
- Players have learnt how to work around MLB weaknesses
- Terran harrassment is so strong that other styles struggle against it, especially in Korea.
- Introduction of „steal from control group” hotkey

[image loading]
Losira sees that his opponent has thors, decides to go for basetrade just when JJakji moves out.

1. A little about me
+ Show Spoiler +
I'm mid-grandmaster zerg, I have 5 years of experience in coaching. I used to coach Snute, and he said I helped him significantly to qualify for IPL V in las vegas (2011). I also used to be a salaried coach in polish team for half a year and my high master mentees used to take games off of Nerchio with the build I prepared for them. I have also coached around 40 people privately. Right now for half a year I'm doing coaching as my way of living


2. How do I win with MLB and why is it good?
+ Show Spoiler +
MLB is not really too cost efficient in direct fights. However, it has insane mobility and it is by far the fastest unit composition in the game. It seems zerg players have figured out how to abuse this fact and Byul does it in incredibly impressive manner.
So when you hear abuse the mobility what does it actually mean? I used to be super defensive player so I couldn't really understand exactly what to do with superior mobility. I was happy that I could handle drops without problem but this is by far not enough to fully realize potential of MLB. Basically, mobility advantage requires you to play somewhat aggressively. It doesn't mean just attacking, it means being present on the map and waiting for the opening to counter attack. The best way to show it is the gif at the beginning of guide. As soon as Byul notices that Innovation is moving out, he runs into his third base, forcing him to pull back.

Tasteless once said that there are two types of dominant zerg, the one that doesn't allow opponent to leave the base, and the zerg that absorbs all the harrassment from the opponent and takes no damage. I think the best idea is to combine the two. Early on, runbys aren't that effective, because there is only one wall and there is just less to do for Terran. However taking third base for T is usually a point in which T struggles against attacks. This is when fun begins and on 66 drones and 5 hatcheries zerg can produce tons of zerglings. This is also the moment when Terrans is thinking about moving out, so many of them don't protect their third properly and you can kill tons of stuff. If you have constant threat at his third, Terran can barely move out of his base, then behind it you tech to mutalisks and you continue to keep him in base. Only after mutas are out, you are able to drone really safely from 66 to 75 drones. Your map presence allows you to spread creep like madman and force your own tempo of the game. Of course terran can move out, but if you are playing this properly, he is supposed to be in a loss-loss scenario. If he stays in base, he is going to be exposed to more muta harrass. If he moves out, he gets either basetraded or suffers a lot of economic losses and then mutas comeback and clean up the army. Also, the longer game goes, the better it is for zerg, because you can tech to burrow infestors and eventually ultras or broodlords at 5 bases which T really struggles to beat.


3. Walkthrough through all stages of the game
+ Show Spoiler +
1. Early game goals and defensive timings
+ Show Spoiler +
In the early game you just want to survive and drone up as heavily as possible. Going over all Terran openings would take way too much space, but I'll try to give some pointers. Your initial overlord should scout the wall of Terran in his main base. If you see barracks with reactor it's most likely going to be 16 marine drop, if it's factory with reactor it's naturally hellions. With factory opening, your second overlord should poke what's behind the initial wall. There is plenty of options for terran. The things you want to scout the most is whether he has starport or third CC, his addons and armory. The most common followup to hellion openings is 1-1-1 on 2 bases. Techlab on starport generally means ravens or banshees, if techlab is researching, it's most likely cloak. If starport has reactor it's possible that it's also liberators. Armory means naturally hellbats and if there is only one addon – reactor, it very often means hellbat push.

The most common timings you have to watch out for:

Timings from hellion openings:

4:00 – 4 hellions runby to kill your drones – have queens in position and 10-12 lings behind them to prevent the runby. It's critical that you have overlord spread in front of entrances to your natural and third and you see this coming.

4:15/4:25 – The earliest hellbat pushes – In order to counter them you need to start either baneling nest or roach warren at 3:30 then it's ezmode usually. If you like to be greedy and have good micro, you can also hold it with queen ling, 5 queens plus 20 lings from behind, target down medivac, split lings, split queens and transfuse. Remember to make spores at 4:40 to counter incoming liberators, banshees or ravens. They are often a followup.

4:25 – widow mine drop, get some spores, can be even reactively, just split stuff.

4:40 – Banshee with cloak, start your spores at 4:20 (hehe).

~4:50 – Hellbat Banshee pushes – to hold them you really need to have bane nest/roach warren, which means that I always start them at around 4:00 against hellion openings in order to be safe.


Timings from Barracks openings

5:05 - 16 marines – 4-5 queens in position, 32+ lings to surround. Start building lings at 4:20 and additional queens at 4:00. (also, if terran skips reaper, he might come with this timing 20 seconds sooner)

5:30 - 3 medivac marine 2 cyclone push. It's surprisingly strong, and you really need to have banelings to counter it, so start your bane nest not later than 4:30.

5:30 – Hellbat marine stim push, the same as above, get many banes.

6:20 – 4 medivac combat shield push with +1 atk. This thing is really scary, you need at least 12 slowbanes and 40-50 lings to hold this properly. I have a build adjustment that I start my lair at 4:00 and then bane nest right away. This way when lair finishes I can start bane speed and have it ready for this timing. It delays +1+1 a bit but speedbanes make holding such pushes much easier.

Of course at different levels of gameplay, the timings might not be as crisp, but it's still fine to build stuff at around the timings I said, it will grant you safety so you will not die while having reasonable economy, and that's the goal of early game.


2. Mid game goals
+ Show Spoiler +
Quite good timing for spire is 7:00. Beforehand, you want to develop economy, ling count, queen count and upgrades. In case he went for raven harrass, you can rush spire even at 5:30 or 6:00, which will shorten the period of harrass. Naturally it varies since there could have been pressure, but 7:00 is a good benchmark and if you delay it more, Terran can get pretty nasty with both pushes and drops.
In mid game you really want to have the 66 drone count at least. Because mutas are relatively expensive, eventually you want to reach 75 drone count to pump really tons of stuff. However if you go straight 75, terran has freedom to move out and he sets up the contain at your fourth and the game becomes a parade push, which is favourable thing for terran. This means that you should build 66 drones and then mass zerglings, much more than is necessary to defend.

Good defensive setup:
[image loading]

This is basically impossible for Terran to push into assuming you have constant ling production coming from your eggs. This means that all the lings that you currently have in that army can be used to counterattack, because you are safe. The number of your banelings may vary, at the beginning of midgame you will have less than this, later, maybe even more.

Here starts the fun part. Creep is the border of your territory. You don't ever want to fight off of it with your main army. It's been said tons of times, but I want to emphasise this so much – zerg is never cost effective off creep vs bio if the numbers are even. So, what to do about it? A couple of things, but let's figure out first, Why runbys are good and basically necessary?

1. You can't attack head on, because you fight off creep.
2. You damage Terrans economy.
3. You fight against Bio that doesn't have medivacs often, so your lings trade extremely well against marines.
4. You force Terran to micro at 2 places. This is extremely beneficial for zerg, because terran army is more micro intensive, so at the same time when you hit him with runby, send a portion of your banes from main army to try to kill some of his main army
5. You often force Terran to stay in base, which is a good thing – you can build up economy, muta flock and spread creep.
6. This is sick: If you managed to deal a lot of damage to Terran, or even better, you jumped on top of his production – he has to really hurry. This means he has to run into your creep and then take engagement there. This is bad situation for Terran. They always want to take time with their pushes – they want to pre-split their bio, set up mines, slowly wait until creep disappears. By forcing him to basetrade, you put him in super uncomfortable position, then just morph 30+ banes and you should win.
Point 6 forces smart Terrans to pull back to his base whenever you threaten the basetrade, which means you can easily grow as zerg.


Economically, you want to be at 4 bases and 1 macro hatch and inject them all constantly. Also, It's pretty important that you grab 7th and 8th gas when you feel safe, because that's when you can launch serious muta production or tech to hive/infestors. You can't do it too early, because you might struggle with having enough minerals to build lings.

There are 3 critical moments in midgame:

1. Zerg taking 4th base and holding it.
Terran will always try to break 4th base of Zerg and this makes sense, because if Terran manages to do it, he will almost always win. 4th base is important, because minerals mine out from main base, it provides important creep at forward location, provides a lot of larvae, and 7th and 8th gas. It's also very important to have creep from your 3rd base to the 4th prior to building it, because otherwise your queens won't reach the location and in pre-muta phase, queens are very helpful.

2. Terran trying to set up a parade push and forward siege location at Zerg's 4th.
This eventually most likely will happen, but as a Zerg you should delay, disrupt and weaken as much as possible. Breaking this feels like breaking free for Zerg, suddenly you can harrass Terran much more easily, push him back to his base and setup backstabs. You delay this the most by having forward creep, so you really have to care so much about your mechanics there and your macro cycle. (more advice on this in section 6) Another way to delay Terran is to have obviously 30 lings waiting for him to move out. You don't have to necessarily deal damage, if you see that terran is coming back, you should also retreat with your lings. The threat of aggression is very often more scary than actual aggression. Also, if you can't do economical damage, you can always try to intercept his reinforcements, this weakens his main army so it's also worth it. In section 3 I've described how to beat such contains.

3. Terran taking 4th base.
Assuming point 1 and point 2 went well, you most likely built up a nice muta flock with +1 or +2 attack and you traded a lot of ling bane vs bio etc. Every trade after which you were free to produce mutas safely, is a win for you. You managed to push back the Terran, maybe with some losses, but if you did, you are most likely ahead. Now, the rule of not engaging off creep still kinda applies. I've seen (and done myself..) million throws in this situation. Instead of direct engagement, I'd say starving Terran is the best way to win. If you manage to catch the CC flying to 4th base or you snipe it while being built or you even kill it once it's done, suddenly the Terran has massive income loss, because he mines out his main and natural much quicker than Zerg. His 4th is absolutely critical and denying it over and over is basically a win condition for Zerg. You can notice that other styles including ultralisks often try to apply pressure at the 4th of Terran and it's for the same reason. Once Terran tries to get 4th base, his defenses are extremely streched, because there is so much locations to defend – his production, his third, his 4th and even the natural is kinda good to target as well. Also, I've noticed that when it comes to muta flock action, very often killing command centers is much more worthwhile than killing SCV's. CC's unlock additional mineral patches and mules, and killing them cripples Terran economy much more than killing SCV's. If you manage to do kill 4th twice, the game is over.


3. Late game goals
+ Show Spoiler +
MLB is and should be really heavy midgame style. In HOTS, people barely ever tried to tech up to hive, because all those 3 critical moments I described in previous section will always happen before hive. In Lotv however, you don't have to be as strict and teching to hive is definitely viable. You have to keep in mind you weaken your midgame by teching to hive, so there has to be a reason for teching, like you got ahead somehow or he goes for 150 army supply push with not many scv's, or if terran just 100% camps. In most of these cases, mutaling bane should do just fine, but with full terran defensive mode, hive is actually quite good response, both ultra infestor or broodlord infestor are fine. Hive off of mutas is in my opinion actually much more scary than off of ravager infestor because you should have access to 10 gases as opposed to 8, which means you can make seriously TONS of ultras. Mutas also retain very good utility in lategame, because very often Terrans like to drop in lategame, because hive units are quite slow. Also, the harrassment option is still great, and they are quite good actually at picking off liberators.


4. Beating terran contain and dealing with widow mines
+ Show Spoiler +
Many people struggle against widow mines when playing MLB. They are indeed strong but once you get the hang of microing against them, it feels quite fine. There are 6 things that you can do against widow mines:

1. Fight where there are no widow mines – again runbys and everything
2. Force widow mines to go back, together with entire army going back
3. Snipe them with mutalisks
4. Detonate them with small group of ling bane
5. Don't attack move, just move your units, like this:
6. Split your lings

[image loading]

This was extremely well done by Byul here. He faked that he will move in with entire army. It means he forced out a stim of all Terran units, so Marines already took a lot of damage. Then, he pulled back most of his units and only engaged with 3-4 banelings and 5-7 zerglings. That's exactly how you are supposed to do it, because if marines stand and just shoot, they will kill zerglings and mines will not detonate. That's why banelings are necessary, to force marines to run away. This way, either mines will be killed, or they will detonate, or he will kill some marines. All of these scenarios are good. Repeat until terran runs out of mines or medivac energy. Full on engagement works only if Terran is on creep and widow mines are on cooldown. He also engaged while he was harrassing the Terran, forcing engagements in 2 places out on the map.


5. Dealing with thors
+ Show Spoiler +
Thors are actually very strong against MLB. The reason for that is that, as described in previous section, you want to do pokes against main army of Terran. The problem is that once Thors enter the field, such pokes are pretty much impossible or will always be cost ineffective. I think the proper response is that whenever you see a thor, you go for immediate basetrade with all your mutas and all your lings and a couple of banelings. Leave most of your banes in your bases and morph most of lings that you produce into banelings as well and just go for it with whatever you have. I think the best way to do this actually is when you already have presence on the map, if you realize thors are coming when they are at your doorstep, it most likely will be too late. The second gif at the top of guide shows Losira executing this idea.


6. What can go wrong and how to recover
+ Show Spoiler +
There are a couple of ways in which you can get behind. It can be earlygame harrassment or big widowmine shot or unspotted drop, then you have to be more aggressive with taking chances. In general I advise that the runbys themselves should be not that commital and mutas should stay in the defence until you manage to clean up the contain at your 4th. But if you get behind, you kinda have to take more risks. The runby has to be more aggressive. I think Mutas could abandon the contain position and try to achieve something in Terran base. The best way to come back I think is to try to force engagements at 2 same locations and very often Terran might lose a lot of army and it can equalize. Another option is basetrade, in which Terran might have to step on creep and then maybe you get the chance to come back.


7. Important mechanical tricks
+ Show Spoiler +
Do you use F2 key? Then don't. I don't think this style is possible to execute with F2 to be honest. Naturally, you can use to to help to hotkey your army, but generally you want to rely on hotkeys as much as possible. For newer players – the best technique to hotkey your army right away is to add eggs to control group. This might be a bit tricky with mutas as you might lose 1-2 sometimes if you harrass and he cuts your reinforcements so you have to watch out there, but other than that it's awesome.

Steal army from control group. Holy shit man, this is so unbelievably useful there. This could be the main reason why this style is a pleasure to play. What I do is build a round of lings and then I add eggs to my main army control group. Then I select all the zerglings that are currently in my main control group army and I create new one that will runby. Can't express how good it is.

Tapping – Have your natural hatchery on another control group. In the selection interface at the bottom, right below the „Hatchery” caption, there is bar that shows the progress of the inject. While you play, if you constantly spam this key while doing other things, you can track when to do the round of injects and then basically you don't ever miss them. Naturally it's super difficult to do, but you have something to aim for. This is extremely important because MLB is very larva heavy, so you injects have to be on point to keep up with terran. At the same time, you can combine this with macro cycle. It takes the same time to reset creep tumor timer as it takes to reset inject timer, so once you are done with all your injects, you can also spread creep and create nice macro cycle around this.

Generally, I have 4 main hotkeys:
- Main ling bane group
- Runby ling bane group
- Mutas
- Queens
- And then If the game progresses towards infestors then I have them on separate hotkey as well.


VODS:

Absolutely genius first game against Innovation by Byul in SSL Premier
Really nice basetrade from Losira against JJakji in IEM Katowice
Byul vs Ryung Game 2 from GSL code S

I have created a discord channel for people that I coach and to build a community around it. I will be posting replays and links to vods, builds and also you can find practice partners there, so I encourage you to join
https://discord.gg/UY3XVtn

If you are interested in my coaching, you can read about it a bit more here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/561ilk/cheap_high_level_coaching/
I charge 15$ an hour, message me and we can figure stuff out

Thanks a lot for reading. Please consider liking my social media. I will be putting more content soon, so this is how you can stay up to date with it. Also do you think I should go for written guides like this or rather videos on youtube?

https://www.facebook.com/Mateusz.Matiz.Kowalski
https://twitter.com/MatizSejong
www.youtube.com/Mattie92s
"Competitive gaming consists of one and only one rule. You use what wins. " - FuumaMonou
Argonauta
Profile Joined July 2016
Spain4906 Posts
May 07 2017 20:08 GMT
#2
Wow really inspirational matiz, I am getting tired of infestor ravanger playstyle so it will be great to mix in some good old LBM.
Rogue | Maru | Scarlett | Trap
TL+ Member
Aunvilgodess
Profile Joined May 2016
954 Posts
May 07 2017 21:08 GMT
#3
By far the most fun comp the Zerg can build.
Railgan
Profile Joined August 2010
Switzerland1507 Posts
May 08 2017 03:25 GMT
#4
"Do you use F2 key? Then don't. I don't think this style is possible to execute with F2 to be honest. "

I just killed BeastyQT with this Build and all I did was F2 with Mutas on a Hotkey. Anything is possible
http://sc2replaystats.com/replay/activeArmy/4815224

overall nice write up. It would be great if you could post this to spawningtool with a complete build order.

I am curious as to how many Mutas you actually build though. I like to play pure Muta with only a couple Lings and Banes and it works fairly well for me. But I see most Zergs just go for 12-18ish Mutalisks and build mass Ling Bane behind.
Grandmaster Zerg from Switzerland!!! www.twitch.tv/railgan // www.twitter.com/railgansc // www.youtube.com/c/railgansc
Hunta15
Profile Joined April 2014
United States81 Posts
May 08 2017 04:13 GMT
#5
- Introduction of „steal from control group” hotkey


What is this?
Tachion
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Canada8573 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-05-08 06:03:30
May 08 2017 05:20 GMT
#6
On May 08 2017 13:13 Hunta15 wrote:
- Introduction of „steal from control group” hotkey


What is this?

http://puu.sh/vJegQ/b423803223.jpg

"create control group and take away units"
"add to control group and take away units"
These are new keybindings that were added in LotV. In case you're not aware of what they do, let me try to help with an example.

You have 1 control group with 10 zerglings.
A 2nd control group with 10 banelings.
If you use these hotkeys, you can select 5 banes and add them to the ling control group while simultaneously taking them out of the 2nd control group with 1 key click. In WoL/HotS you would have to add them to control group 1, then reselect 5 banes to remake a new control group 2. It basically saves you time and clicks.

This is useful for this counter-attacking style because it allows you to easily remake control groups of zerglings for when you want to split them up and counter. Select 20 of your 80 zerglings, use the "create control group and take away units" hotkeys to make a new control group so you end up with separate groups of 60 and 20 lings for better army control.
i was driving down the road this november eve and spotted a hitchhiker walking down the street. i pulled over and saw that it was only a tree. i uprooted it and put it in my trunk. do trees like marshmallow peeps? cause that's all i have and will have.
Hungry101
Profile Joined November 2015
25 Posts
May 08 2017 06:19 GMT
#7
I thought this post was very good and I like the approach taken to explaining the style/matchup. I personally didn't give RoachRavager a proper chance because I don't like the speed of it.

Things I didn't know was Byul's style of dealing with the mines (looks hard to do). Also some of the timing attacks Terran do I haven't really seen at my level (D2) and they look Brutal.

It's worth mentioning that another good article on MLB is PiG's 1-gas style. I'm not sure you can defend some of the timing attacks with this style (given lack of gas) but it does allow for some huge Ling counter attacks.

Th1rdEye
Profile Blog Joined December 2006
United States1074 Posts
May 08 2017 07:00 GMT
#8
Awesome guide. Using muta/ling/bane to counter has been very crucial for a lot of the ZvT i've won, and I actually carried a similar tactic with me to BW in ZvT as well.

I think one of the big strengths that people might not think of is:

- When you counter a terran, he's forced to look away from his army and focus on two armies instead. The same goes for the Zerg, as you don't want to sac your stuff at home carelessly.

- There's a higher chance of T messing up either army's control considering you are now the "real" aggressor, and you can set a pace of mind games to abuse where T is focusing his screen, aka bane and BOOM!

- The further the creep spread, the more time you have to gather your stuff and hold the push

The hardest thing about this strategy for me is games when I am behind and trying to catch up. A solid start really helps, otherwise it's hard to ever feel safe to have map control or spread creep far enough to make tactful decisions in time.

Thanks again for posting this! Such good content from everyone lately, both in SC2 and BW.
from the days of: TheMarine [NC]...YellOw [H.O.T.]-Forever99 OgOgO [_MuMyung_] ChRh PlayGrrrr.... SlayerS_`BoxeR` [Oops]Reach [ReD]NaDa [DF]zergboy..!! Pusan[S.G] Nal_rA GARIMTO SSamJJang ChoJJa JinSu Silent_Control iloveoov H_PauL_WII JulyZerg [DaK]JoYo
TelecoM
Profile Blog Joined January 2010
United States10669 Posts
May 08 2017 15:06 GMT
#9
Nice guide Matiz! I remember your coaching well, keep it up bro!
AKA: TelecoM[WHITE] Protoss fighting
Saechiis
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Netherlands4989 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-05-10 15:43:05
May 10 2017 15:41 GMT
#10
How do you have your natural on different hotkeys when you're using steal hotkeys? Checking the larva timer seems like a really good plan but my hotkeys are set up so I can't have stuff on two different hotkeys.
I think esports is pretty nice.
ArtyK
Profile Joined June 2011
France3143 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-05-10 18:05:06
May 10 2017 18:03 GMT
#11
On May 11 2017 00:41 Saechiis wrote:
How do you have your natural on different hotkeys when you're using steal hotkeys? Checking the larva timer seems like a really good plan but my hotkeys are set up so I can't have stuff on two different hotkeys.


I use ctrl to create/steal, and shift to add instead of add/steal. So if i need something in 2 control groups i use shift
Sup dood ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ KiWiKaKi | SLush | uThermal | PtitDrogo | SortOf | Clem ~ "I told my mom she should vote for me in Nation Wars, she said 'I dunno, I kinda want Finland to win'" – Luolis ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_NScWV9h8k#t=1h01m
TL+ Member
bulya
Profile Joined February 2016
Israel386 Posts
May 10 2017 20:32 GMT
#12
Sometimes add steal is good, adding morphing banes on a separate hokey for example. This is more relevant to ZvP, but add with stealing is good.
I use shift to add and alt shift to add and steal.
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