[xGKingdelete]

Hello, guys. First thread!

Ever since the very beginning, there has been one question we have all asked, but no matter how hard all the scholars and philosophers pondered, none could find an answer. I think we all know what the question is (well the title kind of gave it away). How 2 beat mutas?


What people often do is defend until they get blink, defend until they get high templar, defend until they get psi storm and archons, try to secure a third base, and move out. The problem with this is that as soon as they move out, there are mutas and zerglings in their main and zerglings, and if they pull back to defend, the damage has already been done. So the players end up base trading.

The problem with base trading is that high templar are so slow. By the time you take out their natural and main, you've already lost yours. And you still have to deal with their 5 hidden bases. Also, since you're getting high templar and archons from high templar, you're gas starved. The army composition is mainly zealots archons and high templar, which don't fare very well against 30 spine crawlers. And if the zerg player decides to switch to roaches, you just get rolled.

Oh, I forgot what happens when there isn't a base trade - when the protoss turtles forever on 3 bases. Eventually, the zerg player seems to be sloppy with their mutas and you kill all of them. And it's the best feeling in the world. You decide to move out, and it turns out he was just sacrificing them to get more supply for the 20 broodlords and 20 infestors in the middle of the map.


Now, I'm aware that this is all theory. Games are all situational, and they all end differently. Sometimes the protoss wins through some miracle. But still, about 80% of the games I've watched or played involving mutas end with the protoss losing. Obviously, whatever we are doing now isn't working.

So what do we do?

1) The in-game tech tree tells us that carriers hard counter mutalisks.
...

2) Double stargate phoenix with +1 air upgrade
This is one possible way. If the protoss player can get 4-5 phoenix early enough, mutalisks are completely shut down. That's an "if", though. If the zerg has speedlings, the first scout the protoss player will get is going to be an observer or a hallucinated phoenix. Sometimes by the time the spire is scouted, it's too late.
Also, going double stargate and chronoboosting out phoenix slows the growth of the gateway army a lot, so the zerg will still have control of the ground. And it's a lot easier for the zerg to tech switch than the protoss.

But still, phoenix are good against zerg. Double stargate is definitely an option.

3) Kill the zerg before mutas get out.
I've seen all-ins work, but if the zerg player sees it coming, there are usually enough spines to hold and the protoss player is very very behind.

4) Somehow tweak what we already do until it works
This is what I've been trying to do. Problem solving.

Problem: psi storm and archons-from-high-templar take a lot of resources and time to get, especially considering we may want to leave some high templar and/or archons back at home to defend the mineral line.
Solution: maybe we won't get psi storm and archons-from-high-templar.

Problem: when we finally get our high templar with enough energy, high templar are slow and make base-racing difficult.
Solution: yep, no more high templar

Problem: high templar and psi storm take a tonne of gas, forcing us to have a zealot-heavy army, and while mass zealots are good against zerglings, they don't shoot up and they don't kill a wall of spine crawlers (neither do high templar).
Solution: sorry, high templar

Problem: it's very hard to put pressure back on the zerg. We're contained. Often, taking a third base is almost impossible.
Solution: double forge for upgrades. Since we won't be moving out for a while, we'll have plenty of time to get these upgrades. Also, both attack and armour upgrades are good against mutalisks and zerglings.
Solution: put pressure back on the zerg so we can take our third before he comes back to harass. But how will we do this?

Dark templar.
Dark templar cost 125/125. They are equally demanding in both resources, so we won't have an excess off minerals.
They can still be morphed into archons, which are a must-have against muta/ling.
They force the mutas and zerglings back to defend, allowing us to take a third.
If we're lucky, they'll kill a tonne of drones and/or snipe an expansion.

But most importantly, dark templar are unbelievably good in base-race scenarios. Zergs tend to win by building hatcheries all over the map while bace-racing. One patrolling dark templar can lock down two or even three expansions. And once the zerg player loses their main, they won't have any overseers (unless they smartly get a second lair somewhere else), and overseers are relatively slow and hard to use anyway.


So that's what I'll be trying out from now on (oh no, you're all going to metagame me on the ladder now).
-double forge and rush to blink straight away.
-dark shrine as soon as possible
-use dts to put pressure back on the zerg and take a third while that's going on
-mass up as large an army as possible (including unmorphed dark templar)
-move out, bringing probes if possible.
-Have dark templar patrolling potential hidden expansions


I'll attach a replay I from this morning, a game I played on NA. I had 1.1k minerals and several probes at the end, but I ended up losing because I was just retarded and didn't build anything. But If I did build that pylon, I would have won.

Oh, and also I'm undecided on whether to get immortals or not. They cost the same as two stalkers, they're terrible against lings and don't shoot up, but they destroy buildings very very fast. If it's a classic bace race, there won't be an engagement between the armies anyway.



So... what do you guys think?

Quick Comments

	TATheMoonStar:	i will also be trying this, i like ur points and ideas and i think phoenix to snipe overseers and give mutas something other than probes to kill is an epic sc2 bisu build idea
	ZiggyD:	DT pressure and base race ideas are good. I will be playing with this.
	FvRsolis:	it's how I defeat ling/muta.. The 25 gas really adds up over time!