EPTit’s usually gg specially against toss. Before you start flaming me know that I am a high Diamond Player who is fed from failing against death balls (specially toss ).
I will offer you the ultimate zerg ball of death that can beat any traditional terran/toss ground composition. Yes Ultras! You will laugh at first, everybody knows that ultras are horrible, and melt like butter. But have no fear they have a secret weapon ready to be unleashed.
Now lets analyze ultras. They have very high dps, very high hp, on the downside they are melee, bulky (bad ai) cant stay long enough in fight to deal enough damage. And once the front ones die they struggle to get to the front lines before dying horrifically.
To deal with their downside, Blizard gave us the nurse queen! She can heal 125hp for mere 50energy. So total 500 hp/queen. So 1 queen can give 1 ultra another life! Not only that, but ultras are now were they are supposed to be: facing the enemy and causing mayhem none stop. Without queen not only you lose the second life but also the time lost ultras wondering aimlessly to find target and dying in the process.
So effectively a queen quadruples every ultra-strength. You will find ultras on super steroids. With this strategy you can demolish practically bigger armies with smaller forces + you will have most of your ultras still there after the fight. It’s an absolute massacre. I have dealt with the deadly V-ray – Collossi combo 200 army with this strat loosing very few units. Just couple of queens. I would like to Call this strategy: Diran’s Ultra queens!
Its crazy how effective it is.
Now to explain the units composition and positioning:
-You need around 2 queens/ultra. Suppose you have 4-5 ultras you need at least 12 queens. If you have like 8-12 ultras than about 18-24 will do.
-You need about 4-6 speedlings/ultra. Remember ultras are range 1, so they can attack behind speedlings for max damage per surface area. Too many will keep the ultras out of fight for important seconds. Without speedlings it will work with reduce efficiency. Beside speedlings will absorb most of the damage while your ultras and queen set into position. More on that later.
-you need about 3-5 infestors. Infestors are core against MM or stalker specially so they can’t kite you of the creeps. Ultras off creep will lose all advantage (no heal) and die horribly.
-you need to 1-2 groups of ovis with speed upgrade to turbocharge creep spread.
Next you need to be fighting on creep or right off the edge. Queens can’t follow ultras off creep so you need a good creep spread. If you don’t have than make 2 groups ovis each of 8-12 and send them to the middle followed by your queens and mass spread creep. If the enemy is near creep but not near enough you can send your ovi on top of them followed by ultras and behind them the queens. Fungal growth his army so he can’t run off creep and kite you, than select all your queens and spam transfuse on you ultras and watch them rip through hordes of enemies. Your opponent will most likely rage and cry ULTRAS OP! yes now they will fear the ultra, just as we have long feared the colossi balls and the thor balls. It will not be unusual to get several ultras in metamorph status.
You can even send them in ovis and deliver the package in the enemy base and cause great mayhem in their base while you creep spread. 2 ultras can hold the ramp with supercharged transfusion a very long time while the rest of you army trashes his base. You can use infestor for that matter too. If you buy enough time you might even open a space in his base so your ultras will fight much more efficiently. You can even wormhole his base mean time to escape if things don’t look good. Remember loosing your ultras is ok. But loosing your queens is much more unforgiving. Since queens need a lot of time to spam and even more to charge energy.
Pros of this strat:
-Demolishes all traditional ground forces
-ABSOLUTELY trashes the dreaded VR-Colossi ball.
-can deal with banshees/Void rays/Phoenix with ease. and the transition is more smooth.
-Once you get to the ultras you will see that it is not gas heavy, as opposed to the other zerg strats.
-You can survive on 2 bases only (although not recommended) and even beat toss/terran who are 1 base ahead easily if they don’t get the right counter (more on that later)
-don’t need much larva late game, so after a while you don’t inject anymore and let all your queens gather energy
-air harass won’t bother you much, since you will be getting a lot of queens early.
-you can aim to get to ultras asap or play your normal strategy and shift gradually later. Gradually cause you can’t just spam mass queens in an instant have them all charged up.
-queens can help defend your base but don’t sacrifice them unless your game life depends on it.
-You don’t need 200 army to charge, 4-6 ultras, 10-14 queens 3-4 infestors and about 48-64 zerglings. Will shred a lot of things to pieces, even some of the most fortified Terran positions will fall.
-Works wonders in maps like jungle Basin and Xelnaga cavern.
-works wonderfully in low numbers, decreased efficiency as the balls get bigger
-Can use about 4-6 ultras to assassinate PF and run before main army arrives. If they try to repair, all the better.
-Can switch to Broodlords and make BL queen combo. Note that BL + Ultra + queen + infestor is almost unbeatable. (watch first replay for that)
-a group of 10-15 Hydralisks can be grouped with your queens for added range damage. Specially if toss has too many VR or immortals. Not recommended as queen replace hydras as unti-air, lings can do good vs Immortals, besides you wana add BL to your army composition for maximum power.
-Can add Banelings for maximum carnage
Cons of this strat:
-not very mobile, you can fight wherever there is creep only! When your 4 unit types are together or you should just make hit and run off creep. Never make a full engagement cause your queens won’t be there.
-should focus on creep spread mid game and your opponent might catch you off guard.
-sometimes in big fight in all the flashes and animation going you will loosed track of you cursor and cant heal any units. your ultras will die horrifically and you lose.
-queens might block your ultras and all hell will break loose, you should research borrow and borrow immediately your queens so your ultras can have dinner.
-Queens might block other queens from getting near ultras when the front ones have spent all their energy healing.
-when people will get use to this strategy, it will be easy to detect and prepare for it, since mass queens don’t come from larva, you should build gradually and let them charge energy. So your opponent has very large time detecting your strategy.
-after a large battle where you barely won, you might need to wait for your queens to charge up again even if you can replace all of your ultra at once. If you are leading by a margin, you might decide to send them to die the old fashion way and replace them as soon as they die.
-less effective in large maps, you can try the ovi drop if you like.
-requires high APM to actually manage to heal your forces while you fungal theirs.
Counter to this strategy:
Before Terran and Protoss tears go overboard I will offer you the counter strategy myself
For Terran:
-lure him off creep if possible and kite.
-don’t let him creep spread with ease.
-Ghost. Yes Ghost is the hard counter to this strategy! 1 Ghost can burn energy of about 8-12 queens with ease. So if you get 5-7 scout with preferably stealth you will deny the healing for zerg and let your army kill the Ultras the old fashion way + you can snipe some ultras for added damage. The rest should crumble for zerg
-Battle cruisers: yes battle cruiser somewhat counter this strat in mass (at least 10). If you double hit with your plasma gun each ultra, zerg won’t have time to heal the ultras up. Or just focus fire 1 queen at a time, zerg player will not be able to heal his queens in time. Your army sweeps the rest the old fashion way together with ur BC.
For Toss:
-again fight off creep if possible
-Templars hard counter this strategy, since 1 Templar can feed back up to 4 queens. So if you have 6-8 Templars you can feedback all the queens from range and clean the rest with your army.
-pure immortal zealots counter this strategy to some extent. You will practically exchange armies.
-The Mothership! Yes the mothership somewhat counters this strategy not because of stealth only which can be detected but because the mother ship can send the queens or the ultras into the void and deal with the zerg army 1 chunk at a time. Zerg might decide to join his brethren in the void and send he rest of his army there so they can emerge all together. But still it will create confusion and when they reappear the positioning will be messed up so you will be heavily penalized.
Zerg has to snipe the scout or templars or face extinction. I recommend Baneling ovi Drops for Templars and scouts for added mayhem; or you can charge ur banlings + 1ultra (seperate group) on the HT/scout. The ultra will tank + destroy FF. The good news is when they make those they will have less of the rest, so zerg’s other known strategies would work.
Recommended build order to get there asap, although you can use any strategy than switch gradually:
Normal 15hatch 14 pool 18 gaz. Eco boom as long as you think you can. Get roach warren and speed upgrade for zerglings. If pressured make the right balance of these 2 units together with spines.
Get infestor pit asap. Get 4-5 infestors. Do not upgrade the infestor energy yet. Get hive asap. If they attack your third and you think you can’t hold it. Than let it die and buy time with inf fungal growth till your first 2-4 ultras are out. Remember your excess mineral is always going to queens. So you should have around 10-12 queens by now. If he decides to attack, fungal and use all your forces if necessary and turbo transfuse the ultras. None of them should die and you should kill 2000-4000 resource army with them with ease without any ultra loss!
Use your aging roaches to harass and buy more time. Let them meet their end when u get max supply while taking max casualties. Roaches destroy the ai path finding of ultras and you will lose if you have them in your main army, so better open pop for more ultra/queens and if necessary other units. Fully upgrade your ultras first and speedlings. In the end upgrade range. You will notice that late game you will not need that much gas with this strat. You can always add some banelings and baneling drops for added fun.
Please see the replays I have mustard for your reference. And next time Toss/Terran make their ball, show them who has the bigger balls.
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/136719-1v1-terran-zerg-xelnaga-caverns
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/132967-1v1-protoss-zerg-xelnaga-caverns
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/132476-1v1-protoss-zerg-xelnaga-caverns
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/132052-1v1-protoss-zerg-xelnaga-caverns#rd:dna
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/132059-1v1-terran-zerg-xelnaga-caverns
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/132060-1v1-terran-zerg-xelnaga-caverns
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/132062-1v1-terran-zerg-xelnaga-caverns
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/132063-1v1-terran-zerg-xelnaga-caverns
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/132064-1v1-protoss-zerg-xelnaga-caverns
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/132065-1v1-protoss-zerg-xelnaga-caverns
I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed typing it…
Enjoy the new Zerg Ball of death while it lasts..
