Strategy Forum Highlight Nomination Thread

On August 23 2010 08:41 iEchoic wrote:
Edit: Mega-Update Sept 17! Changelog:
- Added two new replays
- Added protoss FE to 'adapting to protoss strategies'
- Updated transitioning into lategame to future-proof strategy for patch 1.1
--> Ghosts have been integrated into the build to counter certain compositions
--> Battlecruisers are no longer used due to the nerf in patch 1.1

Intro
As my school starts very soon and I probably won't be able to invest the time to try to compete at this game at a high level anymore, I thought I'd write a guide to share some tricks for my most successful matchup before I start to suck at the game. I'll start off by saying that I didn't invent most of the components of this build. I didn't invent 1/1/1 (or 1/1/2), and I did not invent 2starport play. However, I was dissatisfied with the rax/fact/rax/starport/starport opening as I felt the extra building time for the rax and gas wasted on marauder-based bio kept the build from being efficient. I began making a build to increase the efficiency of the two-starport core which is extremely versatile and difficult to counter in TvP.

This build is an optimization and stylistic change to the 2-starport play which is becoming increasingly popular. I feel that it is more powerful and more versatile than most 2port play.

Build Overview
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Build Order
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Build Strengths
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Adapting to Protoss Strategies (Updated!)
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Transitioning into lategame (Updated!)
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Replays (Updated!)
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FAQ
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Hope you enjoy it, feel free to ask questions or help me find optimizations - please read through, try it, or at least watch replays before hating :p

On February 02 2011 08:54 iEchoic wrote:
Edit: the Day[9] vod is up! Check it out: link - probably the best place to start if you're new.

Intro
I'm not one who likes using siege tanks in TvT. About a month ago, I began brainstorming a tank-less build & composition with the following properties:

- Must be able to react to all TvT openings
- Must be very mobile (and gain map control as a result)
- Must be able to do economic damage faster than other mobile builds (such as cloaked banshee)

The result is a 2fact2port opening that relies on a hellion + air composition. I've found that all Terran compositions can be beaten with only these units:









As of me writing this, I am a top 50 US player, and I estimate that I win 80-90% of my TvTs. This build has proven to be effective at a high level.

I have to mention that this build is very difficult to execute. This is not the type of build you read about, try, and immediately win all your games with. It took me several days to get the basics down, and even now I feel that it could be executed better by players better than I. The mechanics and game sense requirement to execute this is high - lower-level players will find it a good test of their mechanics, and players better than I can probably make it stronger than I can. However, if you have the patience and mechanics to learn it, I guarantee that it will give you a rich payoff. The road to shunning tanks is not an easy one, but it is a rewarding one.

Overview
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Analogy to ZvT
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Build Order
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Why it Works
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Reacting to Terran Openings
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Lategame Compositions
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Tips and Tricks
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FAQ
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Guaranteed vs. Gambled Hellion Drops (new!)
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Replays
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On January 27 2011 04:26 Alejandrisha wrote:
this is the ideal composition that you want to end up with. the only issue is the ordering. If you open stargate its very hard to secure 3 bases until you get stargates, THEN void rays, THEN robo, THEN colosi.

If you're playing against a zerg who is as good as you are, he's going to smash you (unless it's jungle basin) if you're playing too passive and only have void rays + gateway units.

The way you want this composition to form is by opening gateway + robo because from there you can secure a 3rd much faster since you have colosi and forcefields so the zerg has to engage on your terms (the only map this doesn't really apply to is scrap station because of your relative immobility). You can support a robo and a whole bunch of gates on these 3 bases, and then as you take a 4th feel free to add on 3 stargates.

In the late game, void rays are extremely potent because the the late game zerg arsenal will be primarily roach hydra with the addition of brood lords (and maybe some left over corruptors) or ling/roach/ultra (not as common these days) and a stalker/sentry/collossus/void ray army is pretty much unkillable against either composition. This is really only if you have a stalker/sentry/col army against roach/hydra/corruptor and it's at that awkward stage where you feel or scout broodlords on the way and blink alone won't get the job done if you try to attack. showing up with a handful of void rays does disgusting things to broodlords :D

On February 13 2011 16:25 Alejandrisha wrote:
the build is not meant to be very sustainable.. in fact the strongest ones cut probes at 20 (16 mins 3 gas 1 to proxy)
the way the timings line up, it gives you the max amount of proxied units, 6 stalker 1 zealot at ~5:40 and then 4 zealots shortly thereafter. after that, you can't really support all 4 gateways but you have the highest amount of units possible at the given time. I think you can sustain about 3 stalker cool downs and almost 4 zealot cool downs while adding a pylon here and there, but if you only had 3 gateways you wouldn't have that burst and you'd have quite a trust fund mounting and you would be choked on wg cool downs to spend it

On December 30 2010 22:29 PredY wrote:
i wonder if there are just no thread or whatever but biomech seems to be the best build for me. and im not talking about 1factory or 2factory biomech but 3/4rax 4/5factory 1/2starports biomech with MMM tank hellion ghost viking, thats really good combo that can counter everything (even P air). i've had a great succes with it and with MMM you dont have to be worried about blink stalkers abusing your tank immobility and with marines/vikings (perhaps even thors) to counter protoss air.

basically i go reactor marine expand into 1 or 2 factory (tanks or hellions), add more rax so im on about 3rax 2fact or 4rax 1fact on 2 base and take 3rd quickly, play defensively, onnce im on 3base i get ghosts and more factories and aim for deadly 200/200 push with combo mentioned above

On February 14 2011 02:40 PredY wrote:
i saw sjow do it on delta q vs someone
i use it on xelnaga caverns from time to time but differently. going reactor barax first, take second gas before first factory and also get blue flame, you get a lot of marines so you dont die vs voidrays, you can push fast expanding protoss with 3tank about 12 marines and rallying hellions and usually win. if youre good enough and can see if something's up and expect DTs and get turrets then you can use this, but the expand is REALLY late so as every 1base build, quite risky

obviously stargate voidray or phoenix are the best openings vs this, probably blink as well
but it's really fun because it reminds me of bw

On November 10 2010 21:48 PredY wrote:
there are a few scenarios.

if you don't scout his proxy and go straight to his base and see no gateways, just put down a bunker IMMEDIATELY somewhere close to your scvs and depots (the building placement management is crucial here, try to learn put buildings close to each other in the beggining). then it depends on your build, you can go fast starport for cloak banshee tech and it's mostly autowin.

if you scout the proxy, if it's 1 gate, go the same as in previous scenario but banshee isn't autowin anymore because he didn't commit that much. if it's 2gate, go the same thing again.

if it;s 2gate in your base and you scout it (if not you're dead), you can either pull like 6-7 scvs and kill the gateways (NOT the pylons), or what i prefer cancel gas and put down 2nd barax, then immediately when first rax is done, start building a bunker close to his gateways so you can shoot them down.

also the micro is obviously important here, try not to lose scvs, and with marines you can semi-succesfully kite the zealots

On February 11 2011 21:37 Synystyr wrote:
Thanks for featuring my thread under the Terran guides :D I also have a few threads I can link to you...

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=185963
TvX 2 Rax 3 Bunker Fast Expand Opener

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=146518
iEchoic's TvP 1-1-2 Hellion Drop Build

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=163605
Antisocialmunky's TvZ Marine/Raven Build

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=140629
Gnial's PvT Stalker-Void Ray Build

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=141155
Antimage's PvZ Void Ray Expand Build

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=191430
Kcdc's PvP 2 Gate Robo 1 Gas Opener

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=142887
Kcdc's PvT 1 Gate FE Opener

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=159671
Anihc's PvZ 15 Nexus Guide

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=187603
Kazansky's Critical Upgrade Analysis

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=191702
LaLush's Analysis of Macro

On February 18 2011 01:26 Synystyr wrote:


This may be a little different from what you usually hear, but one of the best ways to learn a matchup is to play it from the other end. Do a few customs as Zerg, find out what the timings are for yourself. You'll get an idea of what a Zerg will have a certain point in the game or what to expect if you scout X. This will allow you pick apart the matchup for the inside.

I.E Pool is up, geyser is mining, no sign of expansion. Assume one base play and prepare for roach/baneling bust.

One of the best timings I've found is a 4 Rax Stim+Combat Shield Marine push off a 2 Rax FE (IMMVP style). This hits before speed banes comes out and can win you the game if you have good splits.

Another of the most important things to scout for from a Zerg is how they are spending their gas. Do you see mass speedlings but no signs of roaches or hydras? That is usually a transition to Mutas, and you can have turrets ready to intercept them while getting the necessary AA that fits the synergy of your build. It seems like you die to Muta harass too often, so don't be afraid to get turrets earlier. It's better to waste a little money on them earlier than to die because you didn't later.

Lastly, good scouting and expansion denying is important. You want to know when the Zerg army moves out and you want to know when the third is going out. Hellion runbys can score you a lot of drone kills if you catch the Zerg off guard and denying expansions while grabbing yours safely will almost always net you the game. Use the watchtowers and maintain control of them.

On February 18 2011 01:14 Synystyr wrote:
In Z v P/T, I like to go 15 Hatch/14 Pool. The timing of your first queen should line up with the hatchery finishing I believe, I use the first 25 energy to drop a creep tumor, simply because you cannot afford to use those 4 Larva you get with an injection first at the point in the same. Creep spread is sooooo damn important so you should always go tumor first. After that, depending on your economy, you can decide if its better to inject or to drop another tumor for faster creep spread.

In ZvZ, creep spread isn't nearly as important until you hit Lair tech. You'll need the larva for those mass speedling battles if that's how the game plays out.

On December 03 2010 13:14 bNy wrote:


I have to say the same, you will forever be my God.... No more useless medivacs, woohoo!

On December 21 2010 01:24 4kmonk wrote:
I've been seeing a lot of zergs asking questions about how to stop 4 gates and I've seen even more people give terrible advice about how to stop it. I also know that even many top level zergs don't know the proper way to stop this. I hope I can help some people by sharing what I know about this strategy. Feedback is greatly appreciated.

The main problem with the general advice that people on teamliquid give about stopping 4 gates is that they're usually about the unit composition to get vs a 4 gate. This is wrong for 2 reasons. First of all, there are many types of 4 gates that come with different timings and different compositions and each has a somewhat different counter. Second of all, unit composition is, in my opinion, the least important aspect of stopping a 4 gate. Most 4 gates, especially the later 4 gates can be stopped with a variety of tactics. In order to stop a 4 gate, the two most important aspects are:
1. Scout the 4 gate
2. Cut drones at the correct timing
Everything else is secondary. Of course, you want spine crawlers and a good unit composition, but these things are by far not the reason most people lose to 4 gates.

Scouting the 4 gate:
First, to stop the 4 gate, you must know that it's coming. This can be done in various ways. Here are some techniques that I've come up with.

1. A drone scout can determine if the gateway was built on 10 or 13 and it can check the nexus for the number of chornoboosts the toss has saved.
2. Overlords can be sacked to check the number of gates and the unit composition of the protoss. 3. Finding out the toss's 2nd unit out of his first gateway can give you a big clue as to what strategy he's doing. A stalker most likely indicates a tech build/4gate. A sentry rules out the zealot/stalker 4 gate, so free feel to drone to 30 drones.
4. Killing the initial scouting probe lets you deny proxy plyons that will make his push much faster. 5. You can run lings up the protoss's ramp every 20 seconds to check how many chornoboosts he uses on his warp gate tech.
6. If you learn warpgate timings, you can tell how many chronos the toss has used on his warpgate tech. This can give you a hint on the mindset of a good protoss. 3 chornos on the warpgate could possibly mean a 4 gate, 4 definately means a 4 gate, and 0-2 probably means either no 4 gate or a very delayed 4 gate. These timings off a 13 gate are approximately:
5 chornoboosts: 5:20
4 chornoboosts: 5:30
3 chornoboosts: 5:40 etc...
0 chornoboosts: 6:10
These timings indicate when the warpgate tech finishes and gateways start morphing. Units can be warped 10 seconds later and will finish warping in 15 seconds. For example, if you use 4 chornoboosts on warpgates, warpgates will finish at 5:30, units will start warping in at 5:40, and units will have finished warping at 5:45.

Types of 4 gates
By learning the types of possible 4 gates, you will be able to recognize them in a game and respond accordingly.

Pure zealot 4 gate
This is by far the easiest 4 gate to stop as long as you scout it. The protoss can stop mining gas after 50 gas and focus only on zealots. If he doesn't make even 1 stalker, he won't be able to deny scouting. Throw down a roach warren and you should be safe.

Zealot/stalker 4 gate
This version of 4 gate comes out very quick and is probably the hardest to stop. Toss cuts probes at 20 probes and in order to stop this variation, you need to cut drones around 18 drones on certain maps(20 drones on most maps). As a reference, this build can have 7 toss units around 5:35. The zerg's 2nd hatch will just have finished by that time off of a 14 gas 14 pool build and therefore there is no way you can build spines at your natural to hold it off in time. On maps with narrow chokes, it's possible to preemptively build a spine crawler in your map and then walk it down to your natural. On maps with wide chokes, you absolutely need both speedlings and roaches to defend against this type of 4 gate. Make more roaches if he's zealot heavy and more lings if he's stalker heavy. Surround the stalkers with your lings and kite the zealots with roaches. Even then, if you do everything perfectly, it's still a micro war with the zerg having a slight advantage.

Zealot/sentry 4 gate
This comes slightly later because toss must get 2 gas in order to execute this version. Toss usually cuts probes around 23 in this version and the initial push is generally pure sentry/zealot. This version might look like a normal 3 gate sentry expand, but you won't be fooled if you have constant scouting of his expansion via either a ling or an overlord. Also, you can sometimes tell by the sheer number of units he has. If the toss spots roaches, he will add a round of stalkers. Spines are decently effective against this 4 gate, because this army generally has a lower dps. A good amount of roach/ling is also effective, because the toss will simply get overwhelmed. Mass lings are not effective at all vs this. As long as you don't overextend yourself, you should hold this off. One key thing to be careful of vs this version is not to let toss up your main ramp or it's pretty much over for the zerg as he can endlessly forcefield your ramp.

Delayed 4 gate
These are by far the most varied and are only hard to stop when you can't scout it or your macro is poor. By 6:10, if the toss has not expanded yet or moved out, you definitely should suspect that something is up. If you have no idea what the toss is doing, then you're not in a very good position. The reason 4 gate is problematic in this case is that you have to prepare not only for 4 gate but also a vast myriad of other threats such as voidrays, phoenix, dts, blink stalker, immortals, and warp prisms. In any case, by 6:10, vs a 1 base toss, you should start your lair to prepare for air/dts/blink stalker and pump mass drones until 30 drones and then cut drones entirely. This is because all the threats i mentioned before actually all come at the same time, around 7:10 to 7:30 and if you cut at 30 drones you should be able to properly respond to all of them. Also, with 30 drones and 2 bases, you'll definitely be able to outmine a toss who has only 1 base anyways if he says on 1 base for too long. In any case, with good macro and a mixture of lings and roaches, you'll hold.

Varying your defense based on the map
Next, you have to vary your 4 gate defense techniques based on the map being played. All of these factors contribute to determining whether spines should be a major component of the 4 gate defense and how much time you have to react.

Maps with long rush distance and tight chokes(lost temple, shakrus plateau)
Lots of spine crawlers are the best answer for defense as you support those spines with additional units. These maps are the worst maps for 4 gate, but it's still possible to lose to a 4 gate if you're not prepared or you don't abuse the choke.

Maps with wide chokes(xelnaga, metal and delta)
These naturals are not defended as efficiently with spine crawlers. Although spines are definitely still useful in these situations be wary that with improper spine placement, the protoss can simply walk around your spines.

Maps with short rush distances(steppes, close distance metal, close distance lost temple, delta)
These maps force you to make preemptive spines because you won't have enough time to make reactionary spines after he moves out of his base.

Maps with ramps to the main that are easy to get up(xelnaga, delta quadrant)
Pay special attention to your ramp on these maps if your opponent has sentries. If the toss gets up the zerg's ramp with sentires, the game is pretty much already over.

Maps with backdoors(blistering, scrap station, and jungle basin)
These generally make spines somewhat less effective. Don't overly invest in them(~3). However it takes forever to kill the rocks, so if you scouted and droned correctly, the time it takes for him to kill the rocks should translate into a bigger army advantage for you.

Unit choices
Unit choices are the least important part of defending a 4 gate. For most of the 4 gates(the later ones), unit choice isn't really that important. Before you start your game, you should have a build in mind and this build should be flexible enough to handle any of these 4 gates. If you scout a 4 gate, you don't have to abandon your build entirely. Instead, just adapt by cutting drones and making whatever unit you were going to make in the first place. Ling roach, ling bling, +1 speedlings, and hydra are all somewhat decent choices to stop 4 gates. Muta, however, is not.

On February 02 2011 13:35 4kmonk wrote:
You have to check for the existence of a hatchery around 3:40. If it's not there, run up the ramp by clicking on some minerals and check for either roach warren, baneling nest, lair, or nothing. If it's a roach warren throw up a forge and delay with sentries for long enough to get 2 cannons up. The guy in the replay said to put 3, but in my experience, 2 is enough. I don't see baneling busts working vs sentries.

On February 11 2011 08:46 4kmonk wrote:
I've studied MC's builds a lot so here's my take on it. oGsMC has many voidray builds and although they may look the same they're all very different. The one he uses the most is the one i assume you're talking about. That build hits with 5 stalkers and 1 voidray and its intended purpose is to depot bust and to scout what your opponent is doing. The build is approximately: gate stargate gate then robo around 6:30.

I've also seen 3 other oGsMC builds involving voidrays. They are: 3 gate stargate all-in, a different 3 gate stargate all-in, and 2 gate stargate expo. Do not confuse these builds for the same build. They are actually very different and each has a different purpose. All 4 builds differ in the choice of the first gateway units and number of gateways. Once you commit to a certain set of units, you cannot go to a different voidray build. The most impressive aspect of oGsMC's play is his ability to choose the right build based on his very limited scouting information.

As for counters to this 5 stalker + voidray build you're probably talking about, 2 rax expand with a reactor first solidly counters this build, as does 3 rax. 1-1-1 builds where terran doesn't get a wall off are good vs this build. Also, if he scouts your stargate and goes viking first on his starport, you will be behind.

On August 24 2011 22:34 4kmonk wrote:


Slow down a bit. You ask a billion questions within the span of a post. You're more likely to get a response if you're not all over the place.

I'll address the your main theme of the drop issue. The best way to stop drops is vision. Watch towers, observers and pylons. With vision you can where his army is or where it isn't. You can then optimally position your army to where it needs to be. Watch common drop paths; if you don't see units pass by those paths, you don't need units there. If you see his main army, judge how big it is versus how big it should be. You can then make a guess if there's a drop on the map.

Without a robo, you'll have more trouble with vision. An alternative solution in this scenario would be to pressure the terran front so he feels he can't commit to a drop.

Unit composition to defend drops actually doesn't matter as much. You can use blink stalkers or chargelots + templar or dts. All can work.

On August 22 2011 19:01 4kmonk wrote:


You invested in too much stuff that wasn't units. Twilight + charge + cannon + +1 air attack + 5 extra probes is all unnecessary. With your first poke up his ramp, you see 2 sentries and 2 stalkers. That's enough to rule out dts until you phoenix get to his base to scout. If you want to expand and hold a 1 base allin, cut out all that crap. I count 850 wasted minerals and 400 wasted gas. You'd be much much better off turning those unit zealots and stalkers. None of that stuff kicks in in time for you to hold off the allin. After you scout that he counterexpanded, then you can gradually add all of that stuff.

Also, it's a misconception that if you just get phoenix and he just gets collosi that you automatically win. You have to actually do some damage with those phoenix. This can be demonstrated in a recent game between socke and mana from the iem cologne tournament on metal. Socke hides 7 phoenix and tries to allin mana with immortal gateway phoenix vs 3 collosi + and expansion. Socke loses badly. The strength of the phoenix versus the collosi is if you invest so many resources into collosi, you won't have enough gas to make sufficient stalkers to defend the phoenix harrass.

For a strategy that stands toe to toe with collosi, check out my profile for the robo twilight strategy, which is by far the most common strategy used in korea atm.

On August 19 2011 09:24 4kmonk wrote:


You should have scouted his main before a pool finishes. If so, check if he has a gas. If he does, hide your probe somewhere and go back into his main at around 4:00. Check his gas again. Are there still drones on it? How much gas has he mined? If he's mined more than 100 gas, then you should suspect a roach or baneling allin.

From there on, you need at least 2 well placed cannons. Do not hug your cannons against other buildings. Instead, place them one space behind those buildings so that roaches cannot target them.

Chorno out sentries and block any holes into your base with gateways/pylons as he kills your buildings.

On September 16 2011 19:11 Chaosvuistje wrote:


I'd have to agree with Pugnae, if we miss position our zerglings they will all get chopped off by forcefields or blasted by storm, losing tons of supply in the blink of an eye.

Mispositioning should always be unfavourable, with good positioning you can kill the Infestors well, with bad positioning you'll get your collosi snatched away from you. And this can actually be stopped quite easily unlike a forcefield spell or a storm by sniping the infestor with X ( fill X in yourself, blink stalkers, DT's, feedback, phoenix spreaded out ) even at 9 range.

Having that said, with 7 range neurals I won't be researching neural parasite unless the protoss goes for an immortal composition. Against collosi they will get fried again and against archons the Protoss will probably have HT out anyway.

On September 08 2011 21:58 Chaosvuistje wrote:
I have known this major flaw in protoss design since the end of beta where I really started playing Protoss and Zerg off and on.

It is sad for the protoss players around us. The truly mechanical players get punished for the race while the weak players ride on the strengths of timing pushes. I've always imagined Protoss as a broken race, not balance wise but design wise. And it breaks my heart that they can't do multi pronged attacks or small pokes at an enemy without getting swamped. The biggest appearance of the design flaw is PvP, where it still hasn't breached past the one base phase.

I thank you for this post. And as a Master zerg player I can see that I fully agree with it. Protoss just can't be balanced well if offense and defence is so much intwined. Because nerfing one will nerf the other and vice versa. It is sad, but I truly hope that Blizzard revamps the warp gate mechanic with gateways. And give warp gates a trade off when compared to gateways. I don't think this is feasable in a patch however, only in HotS could such an enormous feat be implemented since the metagame then will be slightly in shambles allowing protoss to relearn timings more easily.

On September 08 2011 15:18 Chaosvuistje wrote:
+1 melee zerglings become 20% cooler when compared to a normal zergling which does 5 damage. Not only that, but the +1 melee upgrade opens up the path for a quicker +2 melee upgrade which is an upgrade with infinite possibilities.

Meanwhile, the +1 range only benefit your roaches, which attack slower than your zergligns and are in fewer numbers than zerglings. Not only that, the +2 range does not give the Zerg the ability to oneshot probes.

On September 04 2011 04:57 Chaosvuistje wrote:
Ummm...

No.

Let me explain why this won't work. First off, Broodlord tech takes an enormous amount of time to get up. And if you want to have them out reasonably quickly, you need to get your third up. This third will make you extremely vulnerable to Roach attacks where your spine crawlers are not, because +1 roaches will swamp your Zerglings utterly.

Mutalisks are great, but you need to have quite a tight build going to get them out safely when you are playing against a good zerg. Otherwise you will just get swamped by upgraded Roaches. Muta's can be used to deny the third of the opponent, AKA give you an advantage later. But they don't do anything to defend you unless you want to get out a lot of Mutalisks in which case you will have to abandon the Broodlord plan altogether.

My advice is to get good at Zergling Baneling and Roach timing attacks to get you into an advantage rather than going straight for Infestor Roach. This will give you a better feel for the match up.

On December 25 2011 17:33 Chaosvuistje wrote:


I think I have seen that game actually, although I didn't take notes on it and I don't have a GSL pass so I'm unable to watch the VODs ( yes, even the up and down ones, sadly ).



Don't believe anything casters say simply because they are famous. Artosis says Mech is the way to go in TvP, and I can't say many terrans bar the fanboys of artosis believe it is. I mean ask Goody, the actual mech god, and HE will tell you that mech doesn't work in TvP. Also I wouldn't believe D9 to say the word 'hard counter' in any way shape or form unless he is joking due to him believing it is a bad word.

As for the Mutalisk transition, maybe against a fast Infestor player you have to transition out of them faster, like at 5 or 7. But it certainly doesn't impede the Mutalisking player from getting map control and an uncontested third and maybe even a fourth. While the Infestoring player will have to fight for his third to get up while staying at home. I mean think of the things I can do to annoy your Infestors for a minute:

• Send a small pack of Zerglings to intercept them and do damage to them. You have to protect them using your own lings or even waste a fungal.
  
• Send random Mutalisks out to attack your Infestors, which you have to back up with Queens or be forced to retreat back.
  
• Send Zerglings and Banelings to attack the third, have you fungal them or attack them with Zerglings and Banelings of your own, and later come in with Mutalisks once you expended some energy.
  

And I could go on and combine all of these just for the heck of it. I'm saying that while it might be possible to hold your third against a good Mutalisk player, it takes far, far more skill to pull it off than the Mutalisk player has to pull off. You need to have good fungals, you need to not have your Queens sniped, you can get your Infestors intercepted, you need to worry about counter attacks while I harass the third, you need to spread creep for your queens and protect it otherwise they will be slow as hell... It is far, far easier to mess with the Infestoring player as a Mutalisk player than it is the other way around where you fungal some of my Mutalisks and kill them. Plus the thing you can lose as the Infestor player can be Infestors, your third and stray Queens. These are far more important and gamechanging than a couple of Mutalisks could ever be.

Fast Infestor styles do have these troubles, because any aggressive opponent, either with a lot of Roaches, Zerglings or Mutalisks, will get the third up faster. It takes a lot of fungals to kill off Roaches, and you can't really be certain that they will clump up. The only advantage I see from a fast Infestor player is that he can have a large Infestor ball up faster for sniping bases and the like. It doesn't give economic safety that Roach based or Mutalisk based styles do provide, while still hinging everything on the control of the Infestor player. It's not forgiving in the least.

I use this midgame Spire style simply because I want to get a third up safely and without much unit making beforehand. Mutalisks are the perfect unit for that as they are amazing against pretty much everything Zerg uses in the early game, aside from mass Queens. Getting the third up and saturated fast is the only reason I even left my old timingattack based Roach style behind in favour of this. Mutalisks simply allow you to freely saturate your base within reason without having to worry about balancing unit vs drone all that much.

I'm not a firm believer that there is such a thing as a hard counter for someone that goes Spire in the midgame of ZvZ where people have droned up almost equally. That includes Infestors, if played correctly and transitioned fast enough. Perhaps if I go for 12 Mutalisks as my style against Infestors, I will lose painfully to a push coming later. But I refuse to believe that if a Spire player is smart and transitions well, that he would still lose because the other player went 2 base Infestor. And even then I feel that the 2 base Infestor player relies more on the opponent going for Mutalisks than the Mutalisk player relying on the opponent to do anything.




Roach/Hydra/Infestor might be more micro intensive if it is pitted against Muta/Ling/Bling, but there really isn't any micro aside from pre-battle positioning and fungalling against one another. It is boring in the way that there is almost no harassment, counter attacks or in-battle micro going on at all. It's just unit trading and postiioning and large army clashes until one player succumbs from economic disadvantage. Boring for spectators that don't understand ZvZ and slow for players that want to micro a lot.

Now imagine Mutalisk versus Mutalisk, now there is nothing but harassment, counter attacks and defences going on. Once Infestors are transitioned into, Mutalisks can't roam the map uncontrolled or they face getting fungalled hard. So now you can just go on double Muta harass to evade the large muta flock of your opponent while still being safe with Queens and Infestors at home. There are so many bases being taken and so many being taken out by counter attacks that there really shouldn't be a time in the midgame where there isn't any action going on. It relies far far less on deathball versus deathball than Roach/Hydra does which is why I prefer to watch and to play it.