|
edit: For people who are clicking on this for the first time, I've found that this style of play is complimented beautifully by Spanishiwa's no-gas fast expand. You can read about it here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=207017
Hey guys,
I've been working on this style for a while, and I feel like I've finally gotten it to a point that warrants some serious discussion here on TL.
A few weeks ago, I brought LZGamer on my show to talk about ZvT. To my surprise, he told me that he has a much easier time dealing with a Zerg player who's massing mutas than he does against one building infestors. We worked on the style for about 2 hours, but really only managed to scratch the surface of this powerful build. You can see the VOD of the event here:
http://mrbitter.blip.tv/file/4663284/
Since then, in literally 100% of my ZvTs, I've skipped mutas (at least initially) in favor of getting faster infestors.
For some perspective, I'm playing between 3100-3200 masters, and practice with top 200 players on a regular basis.
Here's the build, as I play it. Importantly, you can open up however you like. This style of play doesn't really deviate from a standard mutalisk build until lair is started.
- 15 Hatch
- 16 Pool
- 21 Gas
- @ first 100 gas: ling speed
- @ second 100 gas: lair
Straight up, and simple. Nothing fancy thus far.
Importantly, understand that you will need to deviate if Terran is doing something silly. If he's 4 raxing you, you're obviously going to want banelings before lair. If he's gone 1 rax expand, then you could probably get away with as little as 2 lings. As is always the case when playing Zerg, you have to be very reactive and adaptive.
After starting lair, things get a little bit more specific.
- Immediately go up to 4 gasses (you've only been mining on one thus far)
- And add double evo chambers.
While infestors are very powerful units, the strength of this build isn't solely in the infestor. By skipping mutas (at least initially) we're literally freeing up thousands of gas. This gas has to go somewhere, and upgrades are going to be the first place you put it. People so often fail to realize how efficiently zerglings are able to trade with marines when appropriately upgraded. This is further compounded when the fight happens under fungal growth.
- +1/+1 should be started immediately
- And as soon as lair finishes, your infestation pit needs to go down, with the energy upgrade following right behind it
This is where the build really opens up and becomes so powerful. When going muta/ling/bane, you're basically conceding that the Terran player has the stronger army, and making up for that by using your high mobility mutas to harass. Its extremely difficult to engage a Terran ball, but you gain lots of map control.
Infestors are exactly the opposite. You're essentially giving up map control until you have your first 3-5 infestors out, but you're doing so in exchange for the stronger standing army. Your play-style has to reflect this. You don't want to get aggressive until your infestors are out, but once they hit the map, you have to start challening the Terran player for map control, and actively looking to make good trades. While this is happening, you want to expand everywhere.
Trading is a very important concept for Zerg players to understand. The backbone of the Terran army is the siege tank. We can engage marines, marauders, hellions, thors, and banshees, but as soon as we get in range of a siege line, we have to back off. It's wired into our systems as Zerg players. Siege tanks kill banelings, and banelings are what we rely on to engage everything else.
This changes when playing infestors. Instead of engaging up TO siege lines, and then backing off, we want to engage the siege line directly, and crush it. Fungal growth will deal with marines, and upgraded lings work wonders against tanks. When tank numbers get critical, we'll simply add in neural parasite, and use it to halve the tank numbers, once again allowing us to engage the Terran ball.
Back to the build, after +1/+1 completes:
- +2/+2
- Hive
- If you haven't added a spire and a baneling nest yet, this is when they both go down
Infestor/Ling will completely dominate a mid-game Terran army, but eventually, Terran is going to get some significant medivac numbers out, and we'll no longer be able to rely on fungal to control marines. At this point, we have to add in ultras and banelings. There is an awesome thread about the strength of ultra/bane here:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=187434
Ultras get a bad rap, in my opinion, BECAUSE of muta/ling/bane. A Zerg player going muta/ling/bane will have invested so much gas into banes and mutas that when he finally makes his first ultralisk, he'll have either not upgraded them at all, or will have only gone as far as +1/+1.
Playing this infestor style with such a heavy focus on upgrades changes that. +2/+2 will be done when hive finishes, and +3/+3 should be following closely behind. Add in the ultra armor upgrade, and you get +5/+3 ultras that are to be supported by fungal growth, banelings, and +3/+3 cracklings. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand why this is a powerful army composition.
Another beautiful little detail about our reliance on infestors and lings in the mid-game is the fact that our army is sooo cheap. Not only is it cheap in terms of resources invested, but its very cheap in terms of supply. It's not uncommon, when playing this style, for your 150 food army to actually have more stuff in it than the 180 food Terran army.
This gives us lots of extra resources and supply room to add in those ultras.
Here are some replays:
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/139481-1v1-terran-zerg-metalopolis
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/137424-1v1-terran-zerg-xelnaga-caverns
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/133327-1v1-terran-zerg-shakuras-plateau
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/131900-1v1-terran-zerg-metalopolis
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/131899-1v1-terran-zerg-blistering-sands
And here's one of IdrA doing it far better than me:
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/140681-1v1-terran-zerg-xelnaga-caverns
TLDR:
Strengths of the build:
A stronger standing army with a very cost effective, inexpensive mid-game
Weaknesses of the build:
Banshee play can be tough to handle without lots of queens
Mobility - dealing with drops is possible, but it means splitting up your army on a whim, and spot-on control.
We give up early game map-control in exchange for the stronger standing army
Other important details:
Just because we skip mutas initially doesn't mean we can never add them. A mid-game muta transition can be extremely effective against a Terran player who hasn't added any turrets to his natural or his third.
Roaches are another great transitional unit, especially as mech play is becoming more and more popular.
Speaking of mech: Don't forget to research and use neural parasite.
Never stop teching or upgrading. With such a cheap army, there's no reason to not hit hive in like 14 minutes, and to have your entire tech tree running by 16.
|
Wow, awesome contribution MrBitter! Great like always, it's nice a see a change of pace. This looks well thought out and actually makes a lot of sense. FG is great against bio and you can grab NP if Terran goes mass Thor or such to counter that.
My concern is, Terran will be able to utilize mobility and drops and such to deal economic damage and harass you constantly. By giving up mutas, what options do you have of harassing back? Zerg wants to go into a mid/late game with a larger economy than Terran, so if you can't harass, won't you be at a disadvantage against a solid 3 base saturated Terran?
|
i've been playing with this build since leenock showed it in gsl.. mech builds with early blue flame and delayed banshees can own you pretty hard tho..
if terran opens mech and then takes his second and third you can do nothing but suicide your lings and get rolled..
|
When I dabbled in some Z in beta I used to do this strat  it's pretty damn solid, I think most people knew TLO for using it tho? Infestor + zergling into mass ultra. It can be ridiculously good, I wanna watch reps
infestor turtle in general can be pretty ridiculous if you pull it off, because you can't be drop harrassed, and if you play it SC1 style using fungal to delay until hive tech...there's some pretty crazy shit you can do that as a T makes me want to cry  lol.
|
Excellent thread!! I may be a nobody, but from watching this strat being used time and time again on MrBitter's stream, I can most definitely vouch for its effectiveness. I've tried it a few times at my unimpressive gold level, and it positively crushes the Terran player in most cases *if* you take good care of your infestors and micro them properly.
Thank you!!
|
I love you. I've tried to create a infestor style months ago but just couldn't make it work. Maybe it was cause banshee harass was so popular back then but i've always wanted to do this. You're post just opened up a shitstorm in my head to try the infestor style again.
As for the harass, i actually did alot of Burrowed infestor play to do harass when I tried making my infestor play. I would bring 3 infestors 2 for fungal if im hitting the main and 1 for infested to finish them off. or I would just use 3 infestors worth of terran to snipe addons and supply. It worked almost as well as mutas and honestly if you can get them out even better, if not then at least you forced a scan.
|
You are the man MrBitter !
I was struggling to make that build works, my ZvT is terribad, i don't have so much time to find all of those timings and prioritys ( i was getting so few gaz, and didn't beleve enought in those speedling ), i'm kind of casu i guess.
But let me thanks you here a lot for sharing that build ( and of course, the 12 weeks ).
I'll look at every second of those reps' !
|
by giving up map control, you can be outmacroed by the terran easily. his drops will hurt your ability to get 3+ bases going while you not having map control will allow him to get 3+ bases easily.
i'm just trying to weigh the pros/cons here when compared to muta/ling/bling play.
|
On February 15 2011 03:35 HelloSon wrote:
by giving up map control, you can be outmacroed by the terran easily. his drops will hurt your ability to get 3+ bases going while you not having map control will allow him to get 3+ bases easily.
i'm just trying to weigh the pros/cons here when compared to muta/ling/bling play.
Infestors can let you turtle to hive tech though, and with this style of play you'll have anywhere from 6-12 infestors, which absolutely demolishes drop play from Terran, as any dropship that comes within fungal range = 100% dead resources for Terran, and more time to tech to hive for you as Zerg.
Not to mention the mass amount of lings you'll have, you can just swarm any little drop that lands.
|
I think that this build is a lot tougher to make work when the T plays it properly and slowpushes with a lot of tanks. It's going to be really difficult to break him and you can't do anything like sniping the tanks with Mutas or harrassing the main to delay and so on. Also, if the T adds in a few cloaked ghosts it's really easy to insta-die as soon as he gets one EMP off on your Infestors, since they're all you have.
I'd say that this build has the potential to be stronger than the muta build, but in my opinion you're going to have to play a lot better in comparison for that to happen. So it definitely wouldn't be anything I'd recommend to people below mid master.
|
On February 15 2011 03:32 bananafever wrote:
i've been playing with this build since leenock showed it in gsl.. mech builds with early blue flame and delayed banshees can own you pretty hard tho..
if terran opens mech and then takes his second and third you can do nothing but suicide your lings and get rolled..
This can be one of the tougher things to deal with, because nothing in the Z army effectively deals with the banshees.
Blue flame hellions aren't as big a deal as people are implying. Hellions do kill lings, but not when surrounded, and fungal makes that little detail trivial.
Ultimately, you have to scout well, and be ready to transition. This is just part of playing Zerg.
|
On February 15 2011 03:27 Synystyr wrote:
Wow, awesome contribution MrBitter! Great like always, it's nice a see a change of pace. This looks well thought out and actually makes a lot of sense. FG is great against bio and you can grab NP if Terran goes mass Thor or such to counter that.
My concern is, Terran will be able to utilize mobility and drops and such to deal economic damage and harass you constantly. By giving up mutas, what options do you have of harassing back? Zerg wants to go into a mid/late game with a larger economy than Terran, so if you can't harass, won't you be at a disadvantage against a solid 3 base saturated Terran?
I think the whole point of this is that you are switching playstyle with the Terran. With muta ling bling you're harassing them with muta and have a weaker standing army. In this build you give up your ability to harass and give him the opportunity to harass, but you have the stronger standing army, so you act like you do.
A good way to deal with being harassed is to take it to the dome and make them defend themselves instead of allow them time and units to harass you with. I think that's the OPs point.
I'm no where near his level and havnt gotten to watch the replays yet but sounds awesome.
|
I've started using this in my ZvT's recently and I am loving Infestor/Ling/Bling. The current metagame for TvZ seems to favor Bio/Mech with mostly Marine/Tank and this just seems to work sooo much better than Muta/Ling/Bling.
It transitions really nicely to Hive Tech like MrBitters says. Mutas just suck up a stupid amount of gas and you have nothing left for your uber units. I had a beautiful game on Saturday using Infestor/Ling/Bling. Terran was on 3 base (w/ gold) and I thought that meant I was gonna auto-lose. Infestors kept me alive long enough for 5 bases and I ended up with a late game comp of (Ultra, Corrupter, BL, Infestor)... GG I was so happy.
The ZvT right before that, I went Muta/Ling/Bling, killed like 5 big terran armies and ended up losing because of a few mis clicks with my muta ball.
|
I play at about the same level as you and I've tried this a few times and had two main problems with it.
First problem is drops of course. You can try to split up your infestors so you can catch medivacs, but defending multiple drops against a competent terran's just extremely hard. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I'm definitely not capable of the precise multitasking needed.
The second thing is army engagement. My problem was that since you don't have mutas to snipe stuff, the T army can be spread out much more. The efficiency of a mainly ling army decreases dramatically when the T has his tanks spread out well. Also, it's really hard to actually get to the marines with your infestors. Any decent Terran's going to keep his marines in the back vs infestors while leapfrogging his tanks forward. If you want to get anywhere near the marines, you'll have to walk into siege tank fire. I guess you should try to catch him unsieged, but what's stopping the terran from turtling and slowly expanding towards you? It's not like you can punish him for being too spread out like you can with mutas.
edit: exactly what I wanted to say as well:
On February 15 2011 03:38 Shikyo wrote:
I think that this build is a lot tougher to make work when the T plays it properly and slowpushes with a lot of tanks. It's going to be really difficult to break him and you can't do anything like sniping the tanks with Mutas or harrassing the main to delay and so on. Also, if the T adds in a few cloaked ghosts it's really easy to insta-die as soon as he gets one EMP off on your Infestors, since they're all you have.
I'd say that this build has the potential to be stronger than the muta build, but in my opinion you're going to have to play a lot better in comparison for that to happen. So it definitely wouldn't be anything I'd recommend to people below mid master.
|
Ever since I watched your stream I looked in awe at your ZvT. I've tried first hand to replicate and understand the whats and the hows of infestors, but I never saw a thread that was dedicated to it by you. My ZvT understanding has skyrocketed ever since I started doing other things than muta/baneling.
So here's what I have to say.
THANK YOU SO BLOODY MUCH, just watching the occasional streaming was worth more to me than most of the 12 weeks with the pros video's combined.
|
The way I see it you don't have to give up complete map control. I actually think, and this is purely speculative on my part, that you can force a terran into his base once you get a few infestors up, expecially with burrow. I say try to treat your army like a terran army. Force him into his base by campin infront of it. You're army is going to be stronger untill he gets a x number of siege tanks. You can build static defenses to try and defend from drops and place overlords around his base to spot them. This might not be ideal but I firmly believe it's possible to contain a terran in the traditonal sense.
|
The main problems I had with this build were:
1. Denying an early 3rd for the Terran. Even with upgrades engaging marines or marine/tank off creep isn't a good proposition for Zerg. At the same time letting Terran get an early 3rd (especially a gold) is pretty troublesome. How do you handle/deny/delay a 3rd from Terran without mutalisks forcing him to be defensive?
2. As you said banshees, but even more so in mass drop play or a drop + attack. I always found that if the Terran player did a split attack early on or went for banshees I was in serious trouble. With only 2 or so fungals to start with T players were able to run me out of energy on my infestors and still have more to throw my way.
I also vaguely remember it being bad vs things like a marauder/hellion push that can pack a ton of hurt on lings when positioned well. Fungaled or not if the marauders are slowing and protecting the hellions you're in for some pain.
|
i really like this idea but i think this strategy should not be used no matter what the terran goes - its surely strong against bio/tank and mech but against banshees i would still prefer mutas as the terran will be on one base and if the banshees dont cause heavy damage you are on a huge advantage
else i think this strategy has a lot of advantages as FG+ultras absolutely destroy terrans and ultras are the very best units to kill planetary PF quickly
|
I don't think you really lose map control maybe a bit of air control... you continue creep spread and have a ton of lings to run around every where... plus the burrow infested terran on unit clumps by tank lines is LOL
This build is actually VERY VERY strong mid game before medivacs come onto the field... If drops are hurting you as zerg then you aren't spreading the creep enough and your overlord placement is bad. Even having a single lings on patrols is helps eliminate drops...
With this paticular build all it takes are 2 fungals and a group of banelings to completely win the game or turn the tide in your favor.
I have been playing an almost identical build for awhile now except with a transition into Blood Lord Infestor late game... Utralisk after that if i don't win.
|
You can also get drop/speed and do 2x fungal+ a few infested terrans and clear a mineral line.
Infestation Pit also builds much faster than spire.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
