[DarKcS]

Anyone else think this is insanely powerful? It feels like I'm using a terran mech or protoss deathball. Except I'm COUNTERING their deathball. There's nothing quite like that feeling of unstoppableness...


Note the worker count. This is the opposite of a style that needs 90 drones and constant inefficient trades to stay ahead against their deathball. Rather, it rewards it, by being able to trade 2-3:1 cost efficiently in most good engagements versus 1:3 we're used to seeing.
12000 is the value of my deathball in that screenshot, which is 8500-9000~ army value at 160 supply, meaning you are literally able to take on a deathball not maxed out..as a zerg. Think about that for a second!) versus about 8000-8500 with 60 probes.

Also, only little nice caveat about this build for zerg is it needs no injects....after about 3 base. You stop droning, only when you need to mass spine or replenish harassment losses. I still manage to inject when my queen army is next to my 3rd-5th at least on one hatchery. This frees up a lot of APM, which in turns makes this style easier to play.

In fact, this doesn't even need more than 2 base gas. In all my attempts with this playstyle, and watching streamers like catz and destiny do this build as their staple (with stylistic differences [infestors vs corruptors first], you just have no need for the gas. Upgrades early on sure, mid and late game is a constant float. Hive is started as soon as 2-2 begins and it can be spared during "safe" moments, such as after the Protoss's obvious need to pressure by attacking head on at a weak spot like a newly erected base or throwing 1000's of minerals of zealots from proxies or warp prisms to try and do terrible terrible damage, which is easily countered by tranfuse, corruptors, spores, creep spread and mass spines. You need ever be moving out with your slow queen deathball, usually he's always coming to you, because he's afraid of what you'll become on 4-5 base with 3/3 hive tech uninhabited. Hold on, now we sound like a Zerg playing against a Protoss deathball. What's with this astonishing reversal?

Yes, it's true, feedback and storm and tempests and harass all factor in to skill and help counter tranfuse/queens/airballs/locust waves, but against two equal opponents that aren't pro, we're going to see one give way much sooner to the pressure.

So many subtle variations to this style at hive tech with vipers and ultras/BL providing a situational choice, but not a necessary one. The idea here is you can trade head on with a deathball with just locusts and queen/corruptors as the staple...against everything, forever.. Mass corruptor beats voidray and colossus with transfuse, easily. Only badly positioned queens turn this in favour of the protoss. One might say this is map dependant. Turtle styles work amazing on maps like habitation station, and so so on frost, any map though where you have at most 2 major areas to cover instead of 4+, can literally dictate all engagements one way or the other, but we've already seen pro zergs trample protoss on the large maps by planning this style well in advance especially against unaware Protii. If a pro player can be completely stumped this long in to HOTS, we aren't even scratching the surface for how this can be abused.


With so many cheap early gateway allins becoming more of the norm against 3h play in ZVP, and retarded cheeses that keep zerg on 2 base, this low-eco high efficiency build plays right in to the Zerg's hands. 2 base spines in to swarm hosts with mass queens does so well against many followup allins including the much later immortal allin that comes after a failed 4-6 gate (anti 3 hatch) timing.
Finishing off a protoss who has failed a 2 base allin tends to lead to a macro game more than not. It's a risk and timely to put down a Nydus and attempt an immediate counter attack, but if you get the feeling he's very behind, there's a good chance he has no way of stopping it. But such counter-attacks I have only witnessed scarcely during my observation of such games of the last few weeks.


That said, I can see tons of obvious flaws of this style against well executed colossus timings, immortal zealot etc as swarm hosts during 3h timings will be out much too slow, making it flimsy at best if you just sit back and get hit by a timing if you blindly overdefend early on. Time will tell if such turtle play becomes the meta, as it is becoming in most TvZs (mech fml).

Perhaps if the Hydra cost buff goes through, Zerg's will actually be able to trade in 3 base voidray macro games and trade more cost efficiently with twice the gas available. Too many times have I used or seen Hydras die in failed attempts to take out 4-6 voidrays with a small gateway army assisting. Hydras usefulness is quite random. They lose 1:1 to stalkers with chrono'd blink and +3, and with any kind of buffer (zealot), making 3 base timings suicide for Zerg. I've tried to hold the above push with roach hydra on frost so many times against blink allins. It only works if his macro is worse, perhaps due to earlier damage or weird timings.

I wait for the day HOTS gets fucked up more than WoL in ZVP and ZVT and everyone turtles in every matchup. In WoL we thought BL infestor broodlords were unstoppable once reached, but in HOTS we have counters to that, and it's now quite weak. This style is even stronger in my opinion, due to the lack of need of eco and ability to trade for 3:1 their cost.
Scary times ahead.

Obligatory recent replays:
http://drop.sc/372086
http://drop.sc/372087