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Aotearoa39261 Posts
While discussing Muta/Ling is nothing new on these forums, I don't really feel like the topic have been given the treatment it deserves. I hope that this thread can shed a lot of light on the issue at hand. As such, if you have any muta/ling replays on hand it would be appreciated if you could upload them - both games where P wins and ones where Z win.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/sc2_reps/mutaling.jpg) No longer the solution
It is not very difficult for a Protoss and a Zerg to enter the midgame on even footing. Hell, more often than not I would say the Protoss is able to attain an advantage. But once the game goes into mid game, things change. Zerg have a number of formidable options at the their disposal - hydra, roach, nydus, aggressive expansion, muta etc. Of all of these, as a Protoss I fear Muta/Ling more than anything.
In true Zerg style, Muta/Ling offers Zerg unparalleled map control and presence on the map. For simplicity, let us restrict our discussion to Lost Temple since that seems to be the benchmark map at the moment. Speedlings are an excellent unit to control Xel'Naga towers, couple this with good overlord placement and the Zerg player essentially knows what's going on everywhere on the map. A good Zerg will not let a Protoss sneak a third - he will have to earn it.
In the midgame, 2vs3 base is the common scenario. With gas being such a limited resource those extra two geysers are critical. They allow the Zerg to begin to REALLY pump Mutalisks which not only give the Zerg a really good way to harass the Protoss, but they're also surprisingly difficult to kill - i.e. they're useful in defence as well. Part of the reason they are so effective is because they are able to focus fire on units so well, meaning key units can be removed from a protoss army since protoss no longer have an effective splash unit. Focus fire is also the best way to attack - thus making mutalisks that much more effective.
So what is a Protoss to do? It is nearly impossible to be able to match the Zerg in economy given the mobility and awareness speedlings offer the Zerg. The flow on effect from this is that when the P engages the Z, his army will cost less gas and hence lose the battle. Perhaps Stalker/Sentry in equal gas is able to effectively repel mutas, but without those two extra geysers - you won't be able to catch up to the Zerg.
Here are the options protoss have at the moment
- Archons; as a shadow of their former selves, and a massive gas sink, not really a viable option against a zerg who keeps massing muta
- Stalker/Sentry; need to have equal economy for this to work, and incredibly weak to speedlings
- Phoenix, Zerg just doesn't go mutalisks immediately, instead builds hydralisks as per the proper counter, once phoenix are removed - build mutalisks and the protoss will never be able to catch up (phoenix need to be about equal resources to fight muta)
- Storm; doesn't deal enough damage quick enough, Zergs can easily move out of storm wasting 75 energy
So yes, as it stands I don't see how a good Protoss will be able to beat a good Zerg in the mid game. While I am not a tournament level player (at least I dont consider myself such), I offer you three replays demonstrating various aspects of Muta/Ling (and would have offered up more if I could find the rest of my mutaling games)
Game 1 - this was born out of testing blink stalkers as an opening against Saracen. Perhaps I was far too behind after the opening, but in any case it demonstrates how badly speedlings destroy stalkers
Game 2 - this was me trying a Zeal/Archon combination to try and overcome ling/muta. You can be the judge of how effective it is.
Game 3 - this is Saracen vs HwaNi, a korean Protoss who is also struggling against Muta/Ling (he asked on a Korean forum about how to beat it, the response, build more Stalkers). Despite HwaNi's massive advantage and correctly guessing Sara was building mutalisks - this game shows how a clever Zerg doesn't lose to phoenix.
Game 4 - Brink vs Xiaozi, fairly interesting use of Mutalisks. Results in a gg, so you mayaswell watch it anyway.
All three games (I think) the Protoss is never able to get ahead in the resources spent in army. I am confident that with equal resources spent on army that Protoss are able to fight Mutalisks on even ground. However, getting to that point seems impossible. Further, Saracen isn't even using the full force of the Zerg tech tree (nydus etc) which just scares me even more to think what a better Zerg can do. I am eager to hear TLs take on this.
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I'm only plat, but i recently had a game on lost temple, i started out with forge fe and scouted he was going muta/ling, i cannoned up my minerals on main and natural and had several blink stalkers, when he came he was easily repelled by the cannons and blinks stalkers so he goes mass expand crescent, i shut down all his bases besides main and natural with dts, just after doing this he decided he needs to do something so he comes in with a redic amount of mutas and sweeps up my main and natural. apparently he'd just been making mutas the whole time, who knew the answer to a hefty amount blink stalkers and cannons was simply more mutas? i was left wondering whether he's really just dumb or pretty smart.
edit: response: cant upload because it got erased with the 10 replay limit, didn't think it would be of any value.
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As long as the protoss has an expansion and scouts the spire while it is being constructed, the protoss should be fine (which is why I prefer robo first builds against zerg). Put down a couple cannons at each mineral line, build two stargates, and crank out phoenixes to take care of the mutas. If you get +1 weapons early, your zealots will shred the zerglings. The real trick is to properly time a transition into either colossi or templar to deal with the inevitable tech switch to hydras.
I'm a firm believer that relying upon ground units to beat mutalisks is a bad idea for toss. The mobility of the mutalisks will just rape you, and your stalker/sentry force doesn't do enough damage to compensate for its relatively slower move speed.
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I've actually played against mutaling twice on lost temple in the past few days and they were both ridiculously annoying (I lost both in the late game). I played xiaozi once and he seemed quite good at this style. Zerg gets free islands via mutalisk + nydus worm and start spamming sunkens so you cannot touch his other expos. It gives a really strong transition into corrupter broodlord since you have air upgrades going and the center becomes a no protoss ground unit zone.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On July 18 2010 14:28 xDaunt wrote:
As long as the protoss has an expansion and scouts the spire while it is being constructed, the protoss should be fine (which is why I prefer robo first builds against zerg). Put down a couple cannons at each mineral line, build two stargates, and crank out phoenixes to take care of the mutas. If you get +1 weapons early, your zealots will shred the zerglings. The real trick is to properly time a transition into either colossi or templar to deal with the inevitable tech switch to hydras.
I'm a firm believer that relying upon ground units to beat mutalisks is a bad idea for toss. The mobility of the mutalisks will just rape you, and your stalker/sentry force doesn't do enough damage to compensate for its relatively slower move speed. See Game 3 of the uploaded replays. It's also really tricky to scout the spire given that speedlings are controlling the map. In game 3 hwani just predicts that Sara is going mutalisk and goes dual stargate. After game, we kinda felt like Protoss's best chances are two stargates with a transition into stalker/colo. Although neither of us know the solution to when Zergs get 20 mutalisks.
On July 18 2010 14:30 kNyTTyM wrote:
I've actually played against mutaling twice on lost temple in the past few days and they were both ridiculously annoying (I lost both in the late game). I played xiaozi once and he seemed quite good at this style. Zerg gets free islands via mutalisk + nydus worm and start spamming sunkens so you cannot touch his other expos. It gives a really strong transition into corrupter broodlord since you have air upgrades going and the center becomes a no protoss ground unit zone. This sounds incredibly scary. Have any reps you can share?
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On July 18 2010 14:12 Anon06 wrote:
edit: response: cant upload because it got erased with the 10 replay limit, didn't think it would be of any value.
To get past this, go to your SC2 Beta replay folder.
On windows 7 it looks like this:
C:\Users\<user name>\Documents\StarCraft II Beta\Accounts\########\#-S#-#-######\Replays\Unsaved
Where ######## and #-S-#-#-###### are random numbers assigned by Blizz.
In that folder are ALL your unsaved replays up to around 50 or so, maybe more. Move them all to your \Multiplayer folder in the \Replays directory and you should be able to find it.
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I can't view the blink stalker replay. Is it from phase 1?
I was hoping to see your stalker vs zerglings battle, because I've seen some gorgeous blink macro that slowly pecked at speedlings and it seemed to work pretty well. You need to pick the location of your fights though.
Check out the last replay in this pack from Tozar called "PvZ intense micro". He abuses a cliff by blinking one stalker at a time up a cliff and bringing it back after its shields are down.
He also doesn't just blink away during open battles. He blinks units individually as soon as they are surrounded.
Anyway, you might already do all those things. Like I said, can't view the replay it seems 
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
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PvZ xiaozi
I'm not sure if I have the other one
edit: ya no autosave so it was deleted -.-
Zerg was much more abusive with his mutalisks in that game but whatever
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On July 18 2010 14:40 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2010 14:36 Back wrote:
I can't view the blink stalker replay. Is it from phase 1? No it was played today, I'm not sure what issue you could be having since it works for me just fine Blinking stalkers against speedlings doesn't really work, at least it doesn't work well. The issue is once you blink away the speedlings just run up to you again and surround you with regular lings you dont have this problem. Anyway, thats an issue for another thread 
Yeah it sounds like you blink your entire Stalker group at once after being surrounded. That's what I do too because I'm not quick enough but it seems to work 100x better to constantly blink the front to the back.
You really should check out the replay I mentioned.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On July 18 2010 14:45 Back wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2010 14:40 Plexa wrote:On July 18 2010 14:36 Back wrote:
I can't view the blink stalker replay. Is it from phase 1? No it was played today, I'm not sure what issue you could be having since it works for me just fine Blinking stalkers against speedlings doesn't really work, at least it doesn't work well. The issue is once you blink away the speedlings just run up to you again and surround you with regular lings you dont have this problem. Anyway, thats an issue for another thread Yeah it sounds like you blink your entire Stalker group at once after being surrounded. That's what I do too because I'm not quick enough but it seems to work 100x better to constantly blink the front to the back. You really should check out the replay I mentioned. I'll check it out, but blinking one stalker is pretty useless if the zerg is making a decent amount of speedlings  if you dont blink the other stalkers they die because they're surrounded. I know the trick you are talking about with stalker micro and it only really works when you have at least 10 stalkers and they're not able to get a proper surround off on you.
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I just watched Game 3. The toss didn't tech properly. After expanding, he blindly built two stargates and started building phoenixes. This initial investment wasn't that bad because the zerg built a spire and a den. However, after seeing hydras being built, the toss did not make an immediate tech switch to either colossi or templar. The inevitable end result was that he pushed out with phoenixes/zealots/stalkers/sentries and got flattened by hydra/ling/roach, putting him hopelessly behind for the rest of the game. Yes, the toss did get charge, but that's not enough against a large hydra force. I think the toss would have been ok if he threw down an immediate templar archives upon seeing the hydras.
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Hey. I have been using Muta-ling as my strategy almost exclusively in ZvP for the last 3 months abusing it's power to the full extent. Unfortunately this composition is not broken in any way as proven by my Protoss practice partner who manages to succsessfully beat with ease any muta ling based play within the first 15 minutes of the game. The 'usual' builds protoss use are simply not the correct direction in my belief to approach a zerg who can potentially Muta-ling, although are not neccessarily completely helpless. I'm not sure my Practice partner will want me sharing a Rep Pack of him vs me, i'll have to ask him first. But believe me, once protoss' start approaching this MU correctly you will see it's far from broken.
One thing i can add however, is that from all my experience in the last 3 months, Archons are the way to stop muta ling. No questions asked. If your examples of Archons failing against muta ling come from any situation in which the Zerg has managed to produce over 20 Mutalisks against low archon counts, it is illogical to expect the archon to be at all effective. Archons are the viable solution to this build, but it simply comes down to not letting the Zerg Mass those Mutalisks.
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Heh, I actually enjoy this topic. It's a nice change from complaining against Terran.
Let me see where to begin.. a 2 base mutalisk build, and we'll just assume for the sake of argument that the 4 gate didn't work because of good roach/ling micro and placement. Now, a 2 base muta play can actually be one of the hardest things to deal with for a protoss, and one of the easiest things as a zerg to go with. Let me start by saying that it is not going to take a simply mixture of 2 units to beat. Lings destroy most of the decent air hitters. I.E archons and stalkers. And by destroy, I am quite literally meaning no contest. Especially given that lings require no gas, where as stalkers and archons do. I can tell you it is beatable, just exceptionally hard compared to a ground build against toss. I think this comes from the flaw that while phoenix is supposed to be an anti air, it barely fills that role to its purpose.
Now, with that out of way, we can work on unit composition. I'll use one of my own favorite builds as a zerg with is a double extractor, 3 per after the queen pops, and simply amass lings from there. Barring anything except a four gate, this will keep me safe throughout most of the beginning game. It lets me easily expand, I can an excess of spine crawlers for those nosy little zealots and stalkers trying to interrupt my mining time, and can easily saturate a second base while continually making overlords, drones, and lings. This is done simply because I am saving up every bit of gas towards a large onslaught of muta lisks around the 11-13 minute mark. In the area of 16-20, depending on my hatches larvae pop, how many lings I actually need, etc.
So, what has been done to beat me in this build? A similar strategy by the toss. Triple up on the pylons powering static defenses. Nothing makes me smile more than seeing one pylon powering 5 cannons.What you need is gas, so use the minerals to get a decent static defense. Use zealots to form a wall in that crevice at the early stage. Trust me when I say it's absolutely infuriating trying to break that with lings. Now I know, lots will say, but what about banelings, or roaches, or hydras. I'm not counting those is this case, I'm trying to work with the problem he has. So please, bare with me on this and avoid the 'what if' parts. Use them to get a nice saturation And before it finishes, try and time a double assimilator there as well. Get that going before you get your minerals saturated. Do an upgrade when you can afford it. My opponent went for 2, though he also used a 2 gate to make that zealot wall very early. He had a total of 5 sentires when I pushed. 2 were used to put up shields against the lings, giving him time to focus on the mutas. 2 were using forcefield, one would pop one off just as another's lowered, and 1 made a few phoenix's. He had 2 high templar, which zapped the lings as I sent in my mutas towards his economy. He killed about 15 of them, since I was at the time trying to focus fire down the pylon defenses to get rid of the cannons. He also had 2 archons, which, I did not know at the time, do splash damage. I'll be the first to tell you that this had me shocked when 2 archons quite literally destroyed 7 mutas. Combined with 5 stalkers, I quickly fled back.
Then he pushed out, got my spire, the static defenses kept me from killing too many probes at any one time. Certainly not worth the price of 700 mins and gas. I apologize for not having the replay, but I do hope that this can be mildly helpful. I think the total gas was about 1350 for him, maybe 1550? It was rather high, but no less expensive than my 1600/1600 muta costs, and the 100 per muta thereafter. I guess in closing all I can say is that unlike myself, my opponent had to use a salvo of units to defeat it. It's not nice, it isn't pretty, but it sure did the job effectively. Those archons with their vs bio bonus and splash damage wrecked my world. That, and the great use of forcefield, made the zealots that much more effective. I realize it isn't always this easy, and probably won't always work this way as you begin to throw in the 'what if's', but I hope this post at least made it a bit easier for you to have a way to deal with the mutalisk speedling combination that's been giving you grief. Best of luck gaming.
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When I tried muta/ling against a decent toss (500-level diamond in phase 1), archons were the answer, and they shut me down good. Archons have splash...it's a line-splash, and it's not very big, but it's there, and 3-4 archons will easily tear up 16-20 mutas, and can take on near-infinite amounts of zerglings with proper force field placement.
2 base archons + gateway units > 2 base muta/ling. You can get the archons out before zerg gets their 3rd up and running. Mass muta is definitely NOT the way to go against toss, I usually stop muta production around 8-12 mutas, and switch over to something else (hydra against mass gateway units/stargate, roach against HT/archon, corruptor against colossus).
I wish I could show you the replay, but there's no way to view phase 1 replays
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I have been starting to use muta/ling in my zvp after failing game after game with roach hydra versus a 2 base gateway/colo timing attack.
I've been trying to use muta ling to contain and expand a bit while i get hive tech for broodlords.
i'm also considering getting hive tech for ultras.
I'm glad other people are using this successfully, theres some chance that this strategy might be very viable.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On July 18 2010 15:01 BlasiuS wrote:When I tried muta/ling against a decent toss (500-level diamond in phase 1), archons were the answer, and they shut me down good. Archons have splash...it's a line-splash, and it's not very big, but it's there, and 3-4 archons will easily tear up 16-20 mutas, and can take on near-infinite amounts of zerglings with proper force field placement. 2 base archons + gateway units > 2 base muta/ling. You can get the archons out before zerg gets their 3rd up and running. Mass muta is definitely NOT the way to go against toss, I usually stop muta production around 8-12 mutas, and switch over to something else (hydra against mass gateway units/stargate, roach against HT/archon, corruptor against colossus). I wish I could show you the replay, but there's no way to view phase 1 replays I completely disagree that 3-4 archons will tear up 20 mutalisks. And in my experiences, and in the replays provided, 3-4 archons just lose that fight. In the OP I think I covered that I think with equal economy that Protoss should be able to fight off Muta/ling reasonably (i.e. better player wins). However, throw in the third base then you've got an issue. When the Zerg has you out gassed its difficult to keep up no matter what unit composition you go with.
On July 18 2010 14:54 MooiSh wrote:
Hey. I have been using Muta-ling as my strategy almost exclusively in ZvP for the last 3 months abusing it's power to the full extent. Unfortunately this composition is not broken in any way as proven by my Protoss practice partner who manages to succsessfully beat with ease any muta ling based play within the first 15 minutes of the game. The 'usual' builds protoss use are simply not the correct direction in my belief to approach a zerg who can potentially Muta-ling, although are not neccessarily completely helpless. I'm not sure my Practice partner will want me sharing a Rep Pack of him vs me, i'll have to ask him first. But believe me, once protoss' start approaching this MU correctly you will see it's far from broken.
One thing i can add however, is that from all my experience in the last 3 months, Archons are the way to stop muta ling. No questions asked. If your examples of Archons failing against muta ling come from any situation in which the Zerg has managed to produce over 20 Mutalisks against low archon counts, it is illogical to expect the archon to be at all effective. Archons are the viable solution to this build, but it simply comes down to not letting the Zerg Mass those Mutalisks. I'm less concerned with Muta/Ling as a build, rather Muta/Ling as a midgame transition - which is where I think the power of this combination really shines. If the Protoss invests all his gas into Colossus/Sentry/Zealot then a timely muta tech switch is almost instant GG. Archons do work, I agree, but you need to keep up in gas for them to be able to win in the end (at least in my experiences).
I'm interested to see what you think the "correct" way for protoss to approach the matchup is.
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On July 18 2010 15:16 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2010 15:01 BlasiuS wrote:When I tried muta/ling against a decent toss (500-level diamond in phase 1), archons were the answer, and they shut me down good. Archons have splash...it's a line-splash, and it's not very big, but it's there, and 3-4 archons will easily tear up 16-20 mutas, and can take on near-infinite amounts of zerglings with proper force field placement. 2 base archons + gateway units > 2 base muta/ling. You can get the archons out before zerg gets their 3rd up and running. Mass muta is definitely NOT the way to go against toss, I usually stop muta production around 8-12 mutas, and switch over to something else (hydra against mass gateway units/stargate, roach against HT/archon, corruptor against colossus). I wish I could show you the replay, but there's no way to view phase 1 replays I completely disagree that 3-4 archons will tear up 20 mutalisks. And in my experiences, and in the replays provided, 3-4 archons just lose that fight. In the OP I think I covered that I think with equal economy that Protoss should be able to fight off Muta/ling reasonably (i.e. better player wins). However, throw in the third base then you've got an issue. When the Zerg has you out gassed its difficult to keep up no matter what unit composition you go with.
I should clarify that you don't simply have your 3-4 archons by themselves, but near your stalkers and especially near your sentries (for guardian shield).
3-4 archons is all you need to complement your already existing army of stalker/sentry/zealot, and yes they work. And you can definitely hit zerg before they get their 3rd base up & running.
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On July 18 2010 15:27 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2010 15:16 Plexa wrote:
I'm less concerned with Muta/Ling as a build, rather Muta/Ling as a midgame transition - which is where I think the power of this combination really shines. If the Protoss invests all his gas into Colossus/Sentry/Zealot then a timely muta tech switch is almost instant GG. Archons do work, I agree, but you need to keep up in gas for them to be able to win in the end (at least in my experiences). .
If the zerg has the resources to tech switch rapidly into muta/ling after going hydra/roach, then I think that the protoss is going to lose no matter what the zerg does.
Agree here, if zerg can save up to 1000+ gas while going hydra and/or roach and make a "timely muta tech switch" then the protoss player got seriously outplayed.
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On July 18 2010 15:16 Plexa wrote:
I'm less concerned with Muta/Ling as a build, rather Muta/Ling as a midgame transition - which is where I think the power of this combination really shines. If the Protoss invests all his gas into Colossus/Sentry/Zealot then a timely muta tech switch is almost instant GG. Archons do work, I agree, but you need to keep up in gas for them to be able to win in the end (at least in my experiences). .
If the zerg has the resources to tech switch rapidly into muta/ling after going hydra/roach, then I think that the protoss is going to lose no matter what the zerg does.
Also, off of two bases, and assuming that the protoss went colossi first, the toss army should be more stalker heavy by the time that the zerg makes the tech switch into mutas. Stalker/sentry should be able to hold their own against the mutas long enough for phoenixes to come out in response to the switch.
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EPT
