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Concerning the Day[9] Daily #134 - Mass Queens in ZvZ

Why did you send him some poor replays along with the decent ones?

Patch 16 made the patch 15/16 replays un-watchable, so I was unable to know which game was which, nor watch them. Also, I found out that he was going to do a Daily on this topic about 10 mins before the livecast. Although I knew he was going to do a daily on it eventually, I had NO idea he'd do it today, especially not with the 1 replay of the game we had on ladder that was, IMO, a poor exhibition of mass queens. (I was going to send the good replays after a Patch-15-Rep-Fix was found) So I messaged him and found out he just got a program to load up the patch 15 replays, and so I just sent the entire replay session, and he aired random ones without being able to watch any beforehand.


Explain how those first 2 replays that Day showed, happened?
First you gotta understand, Dimaga and I already practiced 50+ ZvZ's for World Cup and already both knew how strong queens were in ZvZ. The key of this practice session was not to test the strength of queens, but rather to find a strong build that made them a very strong choice, or the BEST choice, on that map. As you can guess and can see, the biggest vulnerabilities is the early game and trying to protect your expansion+main. Fast banelings, zerglings, any sort of aggression are all valid concerns and 1 slipup, or if you ever leave ramp to Spawn Larva, speedlings can instantly zip up and win the game.

We quickly found out that if the 1 base-ing (Dimaga) player simply gets an expansion quickly enough without being pressured early, he can easily fend off the queen attack with mass spines + mutas. So the key is not only to defend early game but also to prevent the other from expanding properly, and what timings and manner to do it.

In game 1, I focused so much on defense (dimaga is probably the scariest aggressive zerg I've ever seen, you didn't get to really see it in those replays but the others he kept raping me with excellent zergling use or muta use), that I forgot to make a roach warren so it was really pointless to continue as now he could FREELY expand and easily hold the expo with mass spines.

In game 2, my timing for roaches were way too late, and his muta timing surprised me as well. I don't remember exactly why it was so late, perhaps a mistake from me or perhaps just did not understand the timing. And once I was unable to kill the expo, yet again we knew he could defend the queens and so we just restarted.


Does this work on maps other than Steppes of War?
The timing attack push I imagine will work fine on close positions LT/Metal, as well as Scrap Station. However scrap station would require a totally different opening as 2 queens cannot block the ramp, so you'd probably need to get very fast baneling (after expo), or possibly roach but that seems weaker and harder to defend. We only tested this on Steppes so this is mostly just speculation.

What makes Queens so effective attacking units?
Consider the stats. 175 HP, 1 armor, 4 (x2) Ground damage, 9 Air damage (long range!), both with decent firing rates. Receives same upgrades as roaches/hydras. NOT Armored! nor Light! (hydras get RAAAPED by banelings!) 150 minerals, ZERO gas! An antiair unit costing zero gas for zerg, can you understand how important that is. Excellent Transfusion spell, and with large numbers, and @ 50 Energy, you can cast it SOOOO many times. Creep tumor synergizes nicely, and you can Spawn Larvae with a newly made queen RIGHT as it pops, which is almost perfect spawn larvae timing. And only requires spawning pool, doesnt use larvae to morph, zerg's only early game anti-air is now an effective antiair unit.


But what are the drawbacks of Queens?
You cannot make them from larvae, you can only build them up gradually and also cannot upgrade to Lair while doing so. They move almost as slow as Overlords when off of creep, and on creep are still the slowest ground zerg unit. If you accidentally lose some of them, you're kind of screwed as you have to slowly rebuild them. If zerg ever gets enough mutas, it's basically impossible to use Transfusion if he focuses them down almost instantly. They stop attacking for a bit when casting Transfusion. In the mid-late or late game, with multiple expos from both players, the queens immobility makes them horrible for both defending and being


What happened in games 3&4?
Game 3: This time Dimaga made the mistakes and tried to expo way too quickly, and my roaches this time were on time and able to quickly crush it, and also get some drones. He also loses a few mutas while trying to harass. Given these circumstances it was very easy to win with Queens.

Game 4: This is the final game we played, I played the best I'd done so far and had all the timings down very well, and covered any vulnerabilities in defense. He also played fairly well and yet was unable to really do much to me. My roaches and timing gave him quite a scare and did a bit of damage too, as going by what he could see, he had no idea roaches were coming until I started sending them out. This delayed his expo enough and my build was going strong and so that cleanly put me in a great position.

What are the ideal defenses to combat this mass queen/roach timing attack?
MASSSSS spines (zerglings are horrible, banelings horrible, roaches weak due to transfusion support), along with preferrably mass mutalisk support. Playing the 1 baseing player style that Dimaga did is certainly no easy task, you must have strong timings, especially when to drone and make units, good control.

And if you left in the middle of the Daily, only watching 1 or both of the starting fail games (and I fear some may have done this!), I'm very embarrassed and also a bit sad T_T