Of Diamonds and of Zerg
By wunder_ 17 Comments
Well, I've scraped my way into Diamond. About 180~ games later, my Platinum placed butt has moved from the top 10 position into the top 40 in Diamond. Luckily, or sadly, I've retained a lot of my points and so I entered Diamond around 1000 points in. I've tried to play more games and stay on top of this new league, but I feel it'd getting quite tedious.
Terran vs Zerg
I've always felt that this match-up has been the subject of most controversy, and after patch 1.1 and 1.1.2, I'm finding it more and more interesting. However, one major flaw I find with this match-up that I find extremely hard to break is the liberal use of mutalisks. It seems that mutas can make or break an entire army comp and sometimes I'm not sure why a Zerg wouldn't get Mutalisks in a game. Fighting every other Zerg unit is fine, almost easy. However, the balance between fighting a Hydra army or a Muta army is huge. I find Muta/Baneling/Ling is so tough to fight right now and has been for quite a while. Mutalisks can seemingly only be fought feasibly with either 2 or 3 reactor rax or 6 or 7 thors with 1 reactor rax. Am I wrong here? It seems that vikings will get utterly crushed, even if you stay on top of the muta count at the start. I used to open 1-1-1 with an early viking to scout the Spire timing but I find that vikings are really terrible against mutas for several reasons: a) It's almost impossible to keep up with the mutalisk count as the Zerg can pump out 5-6 mutalisks at a time
b) If you decide to try and go for a 2port reactor and try to keep up with the mutalisks, you won't have a ground army to defend his baneling/ling comp.
c) Even if you keep up with the muta count, the fact remains that Mutas splash hits 3 targets while Vikings only shoot one volley.
So I'm just wondering what a decent counter to muta/b/ling build is. I've had a bit of success with Thor/Hellion, but I find I must end up getting BioMech with Marines/Marauders/Thors/Hellions/Tanks/Medivacs and just balance between the 6 units depending on the comp of the zerg. I've tried experimenting with GhostMarine Openings or playing with Sky Terran (2Port Banshee/Raven) but they both seem difficult to figure out, at the very least. So I'm just asking any Zergs if they have any advice. The biggest problem I face in this match-up is that the longer the game goes, the easier it is to harass the Terran as my Thors are ridiculously slow and need to be in big numbers and can't be split up or else a group of mutalisks can pick them off really easily. Nydus harass becomes stronger and stronger as the game drags on whereas Mutalisk harass remains strong if not stronger, depending on the map, as I'm spread thinly across my 3rd or even my 4th base.
In closing, however, I do concede that a good way to combat heavy mutalisk play is by keeping up with your upgrades. Both Weapons and Armor are brilliant against muta/b/ling as the 3rd splash from the muta, which does 1 damage at Air+0, can be negated with +1 armor and +3 armor can negate the 2nd splash as well. On to the next match-up!
Terran vs Protoss
This is a match-up I've been really thinking about for a long, long time now, and since the premiere of patch 1.1.2 I thought that some dynamism had finally entered the TvP stream. However, with thewe see that mech, specifically, Thors, still don't work against Toss. I thought that with the energy change, Mech can finally see the light against such an anti-mech race. With Immortals and Collosi, blink stalkers and chargelots, Mech is definitely not a viable route for Terran. However, at least without energy, Thors can now be effectively used and not be feedbacked to death. However, it's clear that with a Robo Toss, it's still very hard to use Mech against Toss and MMM+Ghost+Viking is still the most viable strat.
I really feel that TvP is quite stale right now. In the recent MLG DC, GSL2 and Blizzcon Invitational tournaments, we've seen so many TvPs. From SeleCT against KiwiKaki, HuK and NonY, to Loner's 3 bo3s against NEXGenius, we've seen the same TvP builds come out from both Terran and Protoss. A MMM+Viking build vs 3/4GateRobo build. We've seen that neither build is 'imbalanced' and that while
I guess what I'm trying to say is, why hasn't this match-up evolved past MMM against Colossi? Will we ever see Mech or Stargate tech become a viable strat in this match-up?
Terran vs Terran
Ugh. Save the best for last, I suppose. TvT is probably the most annoying match-up for me. Although it may seem that I've just been whining for a few minutes, these opinions have been with me through many games of practicing with my Zerg and Protoss partners. Although I don't have a Terran partner, and this probably attributes a lot to my dislike of the match-up, I really find TvT simply, frustrating. I'm not sure how to get past the Tank/Viking mentality and I always seem to end up losing the Air battle and just slowly being pushed further and further behind. I thought I was doing well in TvTs but after a few demoralizing losses, I find that I'm either overthinking this match-up or I'm not thinking it over enough. I've tried using Nukes to move the tank line, Thors to wreck viking count, or using marauder packs to take out tanks, but it just doesn't seem to work. Bah, I'm so frustrated with this match-up that I can't even really type my actual opinion on this. I feel like TvT is almost like ZvZ except drawn out across a 25-30 minute battle instead of a 7-10 minute battle. All that build up for a 200/200 army just to lose it all to tank fire feels akin to losing all your zerglings to 3 or 4 banelings.
Anyway, that's basically all for now, thanks for taking the time to read this!