Wednesday, January 27, 2016

The state of ZvZ (as of January 2016)

Each mirror matchup seems to have its own set of complaints (TvT is all about tank drops, PvP is disruptor ping-pong).  But ZvZ is an entirely different beast in my opinion on how ridiculous it can be.  Right now it is almost a coin-flip matchup where early scouting doesn't help and ling/bling wars reign in the early game even more so than HotS and WoL.  The matchup in its entirely isn't bad, but I'll sound off on the negatives first.

Because each match begins with 12 workers instead of 6, this means build orders can be executed faster.  Notably, the 13/12 is a powerful opener in any ZvZ matchup.  If you drone scout to find this, you cannot react fast enough to properly counter-build; you will have most likely already put down your pool or hatchery.  At best you'll have to fly overlords in their general direction to see if any rush is coming.

Following this of course is ling and bling micro.  Because agression/rushing/whatever you want to call it is prevalent in this map pool, you'll have no choice but to micro your zerglings in every engagement, as well as proper baneling micro to either avoid a huge detonation from your opponent, or not to detonate one of your own to 1-2 enemy lings.  Separate your lings and blings into different control groups at the minimum. 

OL placement is pretty key too.  Usual places include just outside your opponent's ramp, or common pathways to your base.  They'll only be in danger of ravagers and mutas for the most part.  Queens can shoo off overlords that float too close to a base.

If you can get past the ling/bling stage, the matchup can diversify a bit.  Some will get a "safety" roach warren for a few defensive roaches to plug up a choke point against future ling aggression.  Others may just focus on mass roaches with some ravagers.  The other, older option is mutalisks.  Mass mutas was a thing in WoL, then died down in HotS, and is now making a comeback.  This is mainly due to changes with the spore crawler.  Right now they do bonus damage to biological units, but not as much as the HotS days, so they won't 3-shot mutalisks.  While solid counters in the infestor and viper exists, teching to them in a muta vs muta war is incredibly difficult; maintaining a mutalisk flock is very gas intensive, and if your opponent finds out you are slowing down muta production at any time they can just fly in and kill you outright.  ZvZ tends to be very snowbally in general, with muta wars being the biggest culprit.  The lone expection of slowing down muta production for something else is for the +1 flyer carapace upgrade, because it affects every part of the muta's glaive worm attack.

Upgrades of course are very important too.  +1 range attack will allow roaches to kill a zergling in 2 hits.  This will ensure the end of the zergling rush phase of the game (not that zerglings can't be useful afterwards; run-bys are still very potent).  As mentioned earlier, +1 flyer carapace has huge benefits in mutalisk wars.  Speed upgrades for any unit doesn't even need to be mentioned on their importance.

After entering the mid-game, roach compositions can start to include lurkers for zone control.  Hydralisks seem like the natural answer to mutalisks for Zergs that prefer to stay on ground, but you need a lot of numbers.  They are still just as flimsy as ever, and can still be countered by flanking banelings.  Making them to get to lurkers is a different story.  Because of their long range they do create positional play in ZvZ matches where both players go this route.

If games get to the late game, ultras are basically the end-all of ground forces.  8 armor really toughens them against all ground units (they deal with Terran bio rather handily, and they have much better DPS than a typical zerg ground force).  Mass air could still work, but you have to watch for vipers, because parasitic bomb can absolutely wreck your flock if you don't pay attention even with the impending nerf.  Brood lords are still very good as long as you don't require them to fly across the whole map to do some damage.

ZvZ starts off as a blind knife fight in a telephone booth, but has the potential to become very engaging.  Thankfully, Blizzard has rescinded on making any nerfs to spore crawlers so ZvZ doesn't return to muta vs muta all the time.

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