The PvZ conundrum

The PvZ connundrum: A look at late game P v Z, Broodlord infestor trouble.

During the round of 16 in the GSL we had TSL_Symbol play Liquid'Hero. These games were endurance matches to say the least. Each game made it to the 40 minute mark with Liquid'hero up against every protoss' nightmare; a patient zerg sitting on a massive broodlord/infestor army protected by a wall of spine crawlers.

This scenario plays out often in the matchup and it seemingly hinders on a single moment, the vortex. There are other ways to deal this army composition whether it be the massive carrier switch, speed prism harass but the most popular is still the archon toilet.

For those unaware, the archon toilet is a strategy that hinges on trapping a portion or all the zerg's broodlords in a vortex. Then you walk all your archons (more is better) into the vortex to annihilate all the zerg forces once the spell ends.

With this strategy the game literally hinges on this one spell. Vortex misses, zerg wins. Mothership is captured by neural parasite, zerg wins. Vortex lands on broods and archons enter, protoss wins.

There has to be another way.

Let us look at the trouble of this zerg army. It is easy to focus on the broodlords. They are slow, powerful, high health siege units. Anything on the ground gets blocked by the broodlings if they are not dealt with quickly. The real trouble however, are the infestors. Fungal growth locks units in place damaging them while infested terrans do tremendous damage to both ground and air forces.

The speed prism harass takes advantage of the sluggish zerg army by ideally picking off valuable tech structures, harvesters and delaying the zerg push. This is typically done in conjuction with mass expansions to gather a large bank of resources. However there is still the army to deal with.

In the current metagame this usually leads into the carrier transition. Carriers have some of the highest damage output available, are unimpeded by the broodlings and have immense range to pick off infestors. The carriers however hinge on surprise as they take a long time to gather a force large enough to be formidable. If scouted, the zerg can hatch an appropriate number of corruptors to make engagements troublesome. With the assistance of infested terrans and fungal growth locking down the carriers and their interceptors this too can become a toss up.

While I do not have a guaranteed way to win in these situation, I believe the thinking of protoss players needs to adapt. Below is simply a suggestion for a new approach to dealing with this army.  The warp prism harass is an excellent idea but it does not go far enough. The clear vulnerability of the broodlord/infestor is the speed. Bypassing the army into a base race may give the advantage needed.

By going into this stage of the game with that mindset you can prepare accordingly. As the harass and expansion explosion occurs set up a backup main base and establish a tech tree in case the main goes down.A second cyber core, spreading out gateways, along with a dark shrine/templar archives in unconvential positions can go a long way in recovering in these chaotic situations.  The mothership's recall ability allows you to save entire mineral lines which can be the difference between a win and a loss.

Forcing your opponent into tough choices opens the doors for mistakes. In the latest stage of the game a single misstep often results in a loss. The pattern of mothership/vortex into GG puts all the pressure on the protoss to make the right move. I am not suggesting this is the answer to all lategame protoss vs zerg but with the state of the game as it is, something needs to change.

If you have any ideas regarding this article, matchup or others please comment or contact me on twitter @m2nello.

Get one step ahead of the metagame,
Chris Martinello