PiGStarcraft Profile Blog Joined December 2010 Australia 945 Posts Last Edited: 2014-06-05 12:24:25 #1



How it started: Idle Thoughts



A month or so ago one night as I was drifting to sleep the thought occurred to me that I crush Terran. This was an odd thought because I had been practicing almost purely ZvP for my Challenger match, and I felt pretty sloppy with my muta-lingbane. However mech was the craze and all over ladder I was facing it in 90% of my games. It felt like I almost never lost games, even when experimenting with mass mutas, I could normally win by forcing heavy Thors and swapping back to SH.



A month or so ago one night as I was drifting to sleep the thought occurred to me that I crush Terran. This was an odd thought because I had been practicing almost purely ZvP for my Challenger match, and I felt pretty sloppy with my muta-lingbane. However mech was the craze and all over ladder I was facing it in 90% of my games. It felt like I almost never lost games, even when experimenting with mass mutas, I could normally win by forcing heavy Thors and swapping back to SH.

I tried mass muta for the first time after seeing Leenock pull it off in his GSL group. Luckily SH make up for horrible muta-usage







It occurred to me that since my endgame was unrivaled I should only lose to mech if I fall enough behind to let them mass BC-Raven (Terran need a good hour left alone for this to happen ). However vs bio my play was getting little practice and I was struggling, even when I'm on form I feel bio vs muta-ling is a very evenly matched mechanical contest. So as I began to drift to sleep I started fantasising about finding a way to force a match vs bio to the point where I have Hosts, infestors and vipers. Oh how awesome it would feel, if a bit dirty



I quickly forgot about these idle thoughts and didn't think about it again until a week or so later when I was streaming a game vs some nonstop helion-banshee aggression. Assuming my opponent was going mech and being too lazy to double-check it, I went straight for double upgraded roach-hydra and teched for my hive + enduring locusts. I was shocked to see bio walking across the map, and began to laugh at how badly I'd misread the game. I figured I'd just have to play roach-hydra-SH and see how it goes!



Figuring it out on the fly



My opponent quickly swapped into tanks seeing my composition and began expanding aggressively and trying to find holes in my defence, I had already realised I would need to be airtight against drops though, and had spore-batteries on the exposed flanks of my far bases. 3-4 Hydralisks were on mobile patrol plugging gaps as they spotted drops coming in, and not a drop was able to land.



It occurred to me that since my endgame was unrivaled I should only lose to mech if I fall enough behind to let them mass BC-Raven (Terran need a good hour left alone for this to happen). However vs bio my play was getting little practice and I was struggling, even when I'm on form I feel bio vs muta-ling is a very evenly matched mechanical contest. So as I began to drift to sleep I started fantasising about finding a way to force a match vs bio to the point where I have Hosts, infestors and vipers. Oh how awesome it would feel, if a bit dirtyI quickly forgot about these idle thoughts and didn't think about it again until a week or so later when I was streaming a game vs some nonstop helion-banshee aggression. Assuming my opponent was going mech and being too lazy to double-check it, I went straight for double upgraded roach-hydra and teched for my hive + enduring locusts. I was shocked to see bio walking across the map, and began to laugh at how badly I'd misread the game. I figured I'd just have to play roach-hydra-SH and see how it goes!My opponent quickly swapped into tanks seeing my composition and began expanding aggressively and trying to find holes in my defence, I had already realised I would need to be airtight against drops though, and had spore-batteries on the exposed flanks of my far bases. 3-4 Hydralisks were on mobile patrol plugging gaps as they spotted drops coming in, and not a drop was able to land.

Often the Terran will try to hit before you get SH, or many SH out. 12:34 is what the fight looks like



I quickly realised that with the fast bio and medivacs boosting around the map there was no way to secure a 5th and began adding static on 4-base. I needed a strong economy to afford the static D and high-tech composition, but with roaches in my composition this left me with little army supply. I needed to use my units perfectly to survive. I quickly realised the key points of making this work were not over-building SH, just enough to wittle down frontal pushes. Most important was adding quick infestors to limit the mobility of the bio, which otherwise can stim right by the slow locusts. I also needed to add spine fortresses on common attack paths so that if the larger terran army splits I can defend multiple locations with my tiny yet elite army of locust-fungal-abduct. As soon as the tanks came anywhere on creep I would abduct them mercilessly. If the marines try to shield I would chain fungal them to death. It was beautiful, horrible, disgusting and imbalanced all at once.



I quickly realised that with the fast bio and medivacs boosting around the map there was no way to secure a 5th and began adding static on 4-base. I needed a strong economy to afford the static D and high-tech composition, but with roaches in my composition this left me with little army supply. I needed to use my units perfectly to survive. I quickly realised the key points of making this work were not over-building SH, just enough to wittle down frontal pushes. Most important was adding quick infestors to limit the mobility of the bio, which otherwise can stim right by the slow locusts. I also needed to add spine fortresses on common attack paths so that if the larger terran army splits I can defend multiple locations with my tiny yet elite army of locust-fungal-abduct. As soon as the tanks came anywhere on creep I would abduct them mercilessly. If the marines try to shield I would chain fungal them to death. It was beautiful, horrible, disgusting and imbalanced all at once.

Even when you're down on bases if you don't let drops in you're fine...



Should Terran attack or defend?



One of the key reasons you can tech so high is the way roach-hydra can absolutely crush an aggressive bio player. It forces bio-players to defend, and there's no way for them to confirm if you're going to all-in at 2-2, or just stop at 160 supply and add SH-infestor-Hive. Terran are caught in a really tight place against this. Their best option is still to drop and counter-attack and find the holes in this intricate zerg setup. The zerg needs masterful defensive positioning and control to be airtight. On maps where you can zone out drops relatively easily, I feel it's actually completely broken and I'm not sure what Terran can do to win: Daedalus, Habitation.





Thanks Dayvie



So here I was, figuring out this abusive and powerful way to crush Terran with roach-hydra at its core, and then my boy D-Kim gave Hydras +10% attack speed. Thnx bro :D













Responses to comments

+ Show Spoiler + My answers are spoilered to avoid clutter.



On March 11 2014 20:51 VieuxSinge wrote:

Do you think bio+raven (for P.D.D.) works against this style (since bio/tank seems to not work)?



+ Show Spoiler + I think getting a pack of ravens and going to heavy BC to win slowly with PDD/HSM/Yamato is the way. I don't think bio can hold up vs fungal + free units at all.



On March 11 2014 23:04 Squat wrote:

Would it be possible to upload the replays somewhere Pig? My poor colour vision combined with the high brightness makes it rather difficult for me to see what's going on, and I'm actually quite interested in this.



+ Show Spoiler +

I was a bit slow on adding the SH - you can tell I don't really practice this much, I really enjoy exciting muta-ling ZvT . This is just fun to mix in once in a while and laugh at it's ridiculousness. Hi Squat I'm sorry about my weird gamma settings on my stream, I'll upload a replay from today: http://ggtracker.com/matches/4825880 I was a bit slow on adding the SH - you can tell I don't really practice this much, I really enjoy exciting muta-ling ZvT. This is just fun to mix in once in a while and laugh at it's ridiculousness.



On March 11 2014 23:08 Aveng3r wrote:

Would you rather fight a maxed Terran army with bcs or no bcs and more Vikings/ravens?



+ Show Spoiler + You can abduct + fungal viking/raven all day long. You can't out-micro yamato cannon unfortunately. I'd fight the viking-raven any day :D



Avilo claiming he knows the counter

+ Show Spoiler + On March 11 2014 23:54 avilo wrote:

There is already a counter to this i figured out, which is mass bio, + mass medivac (12+ medivacs) with avilo raven accumulation™ lategame. You end up with a pure bio army and 15+ ravens which can fight against roach+hydra without tanks or mines.



OP is right though - roach/hydra is incredibly strong, and completely underestimated vs Terran at the moment. Hydras especially were already very good pre-patch vs bio (not many knew this) but now are very good vs bio into lategame post-hydra buff.



I will say, this style is not 100% new vs Terran bio because i know of one player that was doing this months ago and apparently still is but not sure if he is 100% active or not. That guy is of course fitzyhere except he does it off of terrible 2 base economy with mass queens and no expansions.



Even so, it's still pretty powerful because tanks are utterly useless vs this style, widow mines even more useless than tanks, so the only good things to spend gas on for the Terran player are medivacs, mass marauders, and ravens.



Bio-raven fails miserably vs well-used fungals. This will only work if the Zerg lets you sit un-touched for way too long. Bio-raven fails miserably vs well-used fungals. This will only work if the Zerg lets you sit un-touched for way too long.



Is it really the SH which makes you win?

+ Show Spoiler + On March 12 2014 00:15 Tyrhanius wrote:

Is it really the swarm host which make you win ?



I see rather than the fungal + cloud is way more decisive vs bio/tank.



Moreover you have to consider this style is not very known, so the terran players who face you are learning to deal with you during the game ^^.



In game three, we can see you're very dependant on viper, because when you have lost one, you decide to sacrify your base and wait for more vipers to engage.

In my opinion, a good way the terran can counter you is to make something to kill viper like vikings.

Ghost can be a very good option too, as bio will crush your army if you have no energy for fungal and cloud.



And when we're on your view we can see you have very good mecanisms, very good micro and you anticipate drops very well, so i don't think it's really imba in sense you have easy win. From what i've seen, it rather a different way too play vs bio which interesting too, and i rather compliment you to play this over than Muta/baneling/zergling.

Muta/baneling vs bio is interesting, but more variety is better.



So in my opinion it's not really imba : vikings/ghost, mass drop can counter this.



You're right viper-infestor is absolutely vital. At the top-level this was used heavily in early WoL but your army supply is too small to fight unless you can get really good spells off and you slowly lose all creep-spread and multi-prong + drops + the sheer size of the terran army would overwhelm your small, supply-inefficient roach-hydra-infestor-viper army.



The reason I make out like this is a new thing is I've taken an old style and found a way to transition into some SH to push back those slow, spread out frontal pushes and contest Terran in the lategame.



The reason I think it's imba is it's a strategy the zerg can do every game that can work against everything (on certain maps). You're right viper-infestor is absolutely vital. At the top-level this was used heavily in early WoL but your army supply is too small to fight unless you can get really good spells off and you slowly lose all creep-spread and multi-prong + drops + the sheer size of the terran army would overwhelm your small, supply-inefficient roach-hydra-infestor-viper army.The reason I make out like this is a new thing is I've taken an old style and found a way to transition into some SH to push back those slow, spread out frontal pushes and contest Terran in the lategame.The reason I think it's imba is it's a strategy the zerg can do every game that can work against everything (on certain maps).



On March 12 2014 02:18 ymir233 wrote:

I think the line about the infestors being able to trap the bio from moving quickly past the locusts (or even worse, ONTO the locusts at a bad time) should be put in bold. The thought of trapping the mobile army with a small number of infestors (akin to Life's early 3base-2base infestor/spine/ling counters to Parting's immortal all-in) and then the rest is just cost-efficiency is really the key here (as simple/"obvious" as the thought may have been).



+ Show Spoiler + I agree, good fungals controlling the map and threatening/punishing Terran movement is integral



On March 12 2014 03:33 loft wrote:

Thanks for sharing your games. Nice infestor / viper control ~~



In the end Terran rules the sky... I think.



Looks like close games even when the Terran isn't responding the best way possible to your build. (As you say, SelecT doesn't do what you would suggest)



+ Show Spoiler + Select not doing what I would suggest actually allows him to gain a greedy 3rd base and a good advantage. Keep in mind I've barely practiced this and could have executed much better with practice.



On March 12 2014 03:55 chairmobile wrote:

Well obviously once you get sh out against bio, they have to go tank because fighting sh without aoe is like trying to arm wrestle the pacific ocean.

But if you don't stay on line/bane for a while, the first push at 9:30 or so straight up kills you, no? And if you make blings and commit to ling/bane speed (which you absolutely need against any aggressive bio player, aka any good bio player) how will you have the gas to go SH? Drops and stuff will rape you in the meantime unless you commit to a lot of static D at which point the terran can just out expand you and start making that BC/raven mix.

I understand how the composition is ridiculously good against bio once it's out. I don't understand how the hell you get/transition to the composition without dying or getting behind economically.



+ Show Spoiler + If you watch the vods you see that I am doing it how Soulkey used to in season 1 2013 WCS KR is very solid and doesn't die to ling-bane. You're 3rd is saturated much later but you force lots of bunkers and deny their 3rd base for a long time. I might not have done this in the game vs Select but if you see my response above to Squat I linked a replay of me doing the opener a lot more textbook Going to respond to some of your commentsMy answers are spoilered to avoid clutter.



One of the key reasons you can tech so high is the way roach-hydra can absolutely crush an aggressive bio player. It forces bio-players to defend, and there's no way for them to confirm if you're going to all-in at 2-2, or just stop at 160 supply and add SH-infestor-Hive. Terran are caught in a really tight place against this. Their best option is still to drop and counter-attack and find the holes in this intricate zerg setup. The zerg needs masterful defensive positioning and control to be airtight. On maps where you can zone out drops relatively easily, I feel it's actually completely broken and I'm not sure what Terran can do to win: Daedalus, Habitation.So here I was, figuring out this abusive and powerful way to crush Terran with roach-hydra at its core, and then my boy D-Kim gave Hydras +10% attack speed. Thnx bro :D Progamer www.twitch.tv/x5_pig | pigrandom88@gmail.com | @x5_PiG | www.facebook.com/pigSC2