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How to Kill Toss Fast:
 Laying the Smack down, Zerg style
 By: (+)FIRST-KNIGHT

Zerg vs Toss can be an extremely frustrating game. Storm, Reavers, and Archons can lay waste to countless minions of the swarm. But baby, early on you can wreak havok on toss. I honestly think Zerg should win this match often in under 20 minitues. Its just painfully difficult for Toss to counter. This little guide will walk you through a couple options in detail.

What you want to avoid:
 Toss, once he gets to solidly into the mid-game, will be able to out power you. Your numerical superiority can be easily leveraged through proper use of reavers, your airial masses will be owned by storm, and corsairs. You can still win a long game here, but you really should be strongly ahead as you go into the mid-game.

So your objective for the first 15 or so minitues is:
  • Maim or even kill the toss scum before he techs too high.
  • Out expand, and gain map control.
  • Tech high enough that your capable of at least fighting off superior toss tech.
The prefered method to getting ahead in the early game? Quite simple really: Be aggressive. Be extremely aggressive. Keep him pressed from the first time your lings hit, all the way until he dies a painful death. Have faith my zergl brethren.

What you should know before you start:
 Its increadably difficult for toss to stop you in the first 15 minitues if you play aggressivly. You should at all times be capable of putting the hurt on your toss opponent. Unless he has exceptional recon skills, and employs them aggressivly. Don't be timid, time is not on your side here. Fast attacks and smart play will win this game for you often. You should be considering one of two early builds. Depending on circumstance. These builds are Ling/Muta, Ling/Lurker.

The 6 Ling Rush:
This is a debatable move, done properly its often effective (at least cost). Done improperly it will simply cost you time and an early 150minerals. I honesly believe you should always ling rush. The costs almost never outweigh the benefits.

My standard builds for lings look something like this:
  • 7 pool
  • (new) 7th drone, 8th drone
  • now wait. You need to have 250 minerals the second your pool is finished.
  • right before your pool finishes make extractor (put one on gas when its finished)
  • build an evolution chamber, this will push you down to 6control.
  • Spawn lings. Cancel evo chamber.
  • By the time your lings finish, you should have nearly enough gas for a lair upgrade. You should make this upgrade asap (probably while your lings are wreaking chaos).
  • You should also be close to a second hatch. Make this asap.
A good ling rush is micro intensive. I'd suggest hotkeying three groups of two lings, or at least two groups of three. Use a 4th hotkey to group them all togather.

Unless he built slowly, and you really think you can take out his zealots, avoid engaging them. If you feel its nessecary. Engage as a group (NEVER piecemeal). Keep an eye on your lings, as soon as they engage his zea lot move whatever ling he's attacking away, then re-attack with it. Repeate. This done properly will keep all your lings alive.

If you moved slowly, or he moved fast, and you can't take out his military, attack a building with 2 lings. Send other groups over to his peon line, have each group attack different peons (shift click a few peons per group, this will make the lings keep killing peons and not run off to attack the zea lot and die), if the zealots chase after your peon killers, move your building killers into his peon line, run the lings he's chasing away. Keep repeating, NEVER engage compleatly unless you think you can kill his defenses compleatly, this will only lose you lings. Bait him by running one group away, while others maul buildings then peons.

Strive to minimize loses, if you can kill 3 probes, and save all 6 lings its better then killing 4 and losing all of them. Your lings are extreamly useful for defense, and harassment. Do your very best to avoid direct combat with them. Instead move on, harass, try to kill a few peons. Once he has two zealots (or your zerglings are all nearly dead). Run. I can't stress the importance of these early lings enough. Your going to skimp on defense in the next builds, and your opponent seeing all your lings survive will dishearten him. Only newbies throw units away, especially this early. Don't do it.

If you can manage it, keep managing your base. In my opinion its more important to manage your lings then your base, but if you can do both it'll pay off big.

This style of ling rushing is difficult to get the hang of, but will A) cost him a lot of time microing a defense, while your causing damage. B) will idealy cost him 4+ peons. This will pay for the ling rush + a lot. The cost of peons isn't 50. Factor in the amount of resources he lost mining with the time it takes to replace his peons from a single nexus and it looks more like

the minerals lost : (n8 + 8) * n
the cost of probes: + (n50)
n = the number of peons lost:

Losing 1 probe is 66 minerals; 16 minerals in mining lost
Losing 4 probes is 360 minerals; 160 minerals in mining lost
Losing 5 probes is 490 minerals; 240 minerals in mining lost
Losing 9 probes is 1170 minerals; 720 minerals in mining lost
Losing 10 probes is 1380 minerals; 880 minerals in mining lost

This hurts a lot early game. And this dosn't count the time and resources lost in producing aditional peons.

Method One: The Muta Rush
This old school tactic is still suprisingly effective vs toss. It can be quite devestating if he hasn't set up enough base defense, or he didn't build enough goons early on.

My build for mutas looks something like:

Watch your time and resources. You want 6 larva ready, 12 control open and 600/600 when your spire comes out so you can bring out 6 mutas that instant. If you have the luxury go for den as while, this will possably throw him off as to what your doing. Hide your spire.

Once your mutas come out, attack hard and heavy. Your biggest goal is killing his peons backup goal is forcing him to pull his peons off resources, while you kill his assimilator. If you really need to, you can beat down a cannon without taking a loss by moving away wounded mutas. You can also kill a few goons if he has them. You should do your best to avoid cannon fire if possable. Don't let anything die, your forces are small enough to heavily micro, do it.

When your mutas are attacking, grab a second, and throw down a queens nest, and when compleated upgrade to a hive. Your looking for a guardian climb. Your mutas are really only a strong distraction, something to throw him on the defense off the bat and slow down his economy.

Keep making more mutas at home if your somewhat successful. Once you get around 9-10 in there he'll have a lot of trouble stopping you. Most people I muta rush do one of two things:

Attempt to creep extra cannons closer to his mineral line, or try to bait my mutas over cannons using goons. Hold will stop the second, the first is impossible to stop if done properly.

If you see him going for cannons (intelligently), and you can't stop it, do your best to kill his assimilator, then run for the hills.

Immediately go for guardians. He just spent a lot of money creeping cannons to cover his minerals, and mining loses. When you get your greater spire, evolve 4-6 guards. Attack again, remove cannons with guards, mutas cleanup. You should also have lings ready and some sunkens to at least slow down a counter attack, or give your mutas a hand if they need it. Spread your guardians out damnit. Don't let storm kill everything you have. You only have a few guardians, take a second, and spread them out. These few seconds will save you vast amounts of resources when his storms come.

If you are still pushed back, consider using a muta/ling strategy. Upgrade adrenal glands, for cracklings. Double evolve, for both carapace and melee. Use your lings to harass every movement he makes, use your mutas for support. This strategy can be really viscous. Cracklings slaughter dragoons, absolutely slaughter them. Mutas mess with zealots enough for your cracklings to take care of business. And hell, even plain cracklings can wreak zealots at less then cost.

When going ling/muta you need to watch for reavers, which you use mutas to remove quickly. Templars which you should use brood ling on instantly. And watch for Archons, which you should avoid using mutas on at all costs. Use mass zergling, you'll lose a lot, but it'll hurt him. Guardians work well also if you can manage them properly, again space them out to avoid splash.

Method 2: Lurker/Ling rush
We're all familiar with the concept for this, throw lurkers down in his peon lines. If you can manage to get burrowed back there you probably win. I modified the basic rush a little to increase the chances of your lurkers finding a nice burrowing location.

My basic build: Its easy to gather about 24 lings. Or like 12 lings 4-6 hydras, and still have gas left for 4 lurkers. Make this happen.

As you send in your lurkers, bring in your lings/hydra slightly ahead of them. Try to slip around the edge, if a cannon is protecting a perfect spot. Throw one group of lings at the cannon, while protecting your unburrowed lurkers with the other. If he's infantry heavy, it will benefit you to burrow 1-2 lurkers here. The second his cannon falls to your lings, move your lurkers in, burrow, and cackle cruely.


If bad comes to worse, and you really can't get into his peon line, use your lurkers to kill his assimilator, or core. Killing either will definitelyslow him down. If bad comes to true worse, move in to attack random buildings. This will at worst, put him on the defensive, and make him sweat. Use the time he takes dealing with this annoyance to do one or more of the following:

Either attempt to capitalize by bringing in about 12 hydras, an overlord (sight upgraded) and a few scourge. If you see an observer popping out to stop your lurkers, kill it with scourge. Throw in a few more lurkers to add pressure.
Your enemy might at this point mass for a final, desperate attack. Don't be stupid. Have enough defenses to dispatch this hopeless assault. If this move fails, use lurkers to contain him. Lurkers are painfully powerful, use them carefully, spread them out, and put them in places he won't be expecting them.

When to Lurker rush, when to muta rush:
Good recon, as always is everything. Depending on his base layout, placement of cannons and ratio of zealots to goons one of these strats will nearly always be successful. You must in both case move quickly. They both depend on very quick tech, and use of this power.

In the PGL finals, Soso lost the final match to xds~grr... because he attacked an overlord instead of continuing down to xds's main. He had a spawning pool, and mutas out earlier. But he lost his edge in the overlord slaying delay. By the time Soso's mutas finally got to xds~grrr..'s base grrr's mutas and scourges had finally poped out. This early, a few seconds really can make a tremendous difference. Make use of it. If your sacrificing economy for speed, don't throw your 30 second advantage away. Attack, and be swift about it. Wasting your head start will simply put you behind your opponent.

Now. Muta rushes are extremely effective, if he has less then two goons and only one cannon covering his peon line. Muta rush. If he defended his choke only. Muta rush. If he has cannons positioned in such a way that you can still hit his peon line with mutas, of course. Muta rush. If he's goon heavy then go ling/lurker. If his cannons are positioned in such a way that his mineral line is extremely well protected but his buildings aren't. Definitely use lurkers. And finally, if he's expecting one, use the other.

Some Misc Tricks with Zerg:
First off, some people don't research burrow. Don't be foolish, this is a powerfully useful upgrade. Scatter burrowed lings all over the board. You'll lose some no doubt... but honestly? Who cares! Their zerglings. And it takes him time to bring an observer along, with combat troops. In this time your gathering useful recon - easily worth the measly 100/100.

Secondly, for those of us who've ever had difficulty grouping nice clean hotkeyed units, burrow is fantastic. Ctr-Click or double click on a unit of hydras or lings. Hit u to burrow. Now ctr-click on another unburrowed hydra. Burrowed units aren't grouped with ctr-click with unburrowed units, so you'll continuously select clean new units. This can save you a lot of time and frustration when massing for attack. If nothing else, this alone is worth the 100/100. Thanks Tommy for the tip there.

Third, once you get defilers out, if you want to take out cannons with lurkers, for christ sake. Use dark swarm. Just Swarm where you want to drop your lurkers, move 'em in. Burrow. They'll take out the cannons with plenty of time to spare. Just watch for storm. This is especially effective on heavily cannoned mineral farms. Don't forget crack lings too. Lings rock under swarm.

Fourth, use plague damnit. Theres nothing more annoying for a toss player to have a group of 12 goons all with 1hp. Trust me here. It feels like those goons are a waste of control, and toss will be careful in Their use since it looks like Their all about to die.

Fifth, heres a neat little move I saw at the pgls by soso its only really applicable on temple, but it can work on other maps that are laid out similarly. Build your second hatch in your choke, in front of your natural. Mine only gas from it at start, and use it as basic choke. Use your start mineral farm style. Your main is now your natural, and is well defended from two sides. Just watch out for highground drops.

Sixth, with zerg go double or even triple evolution chamber. Always. It will always be worth your time to upgrade everything, and start early.

and Finally, don't settle with two hatches. It isn't enough. Once you get two expansions solidly moving you should be looking for around 6-8 hatcheries. Four once you get one expansion moving well. Spend your money damnit. Far too many players will double hatch to start, then sit there with two hatches for way too long.

Theres a reason Aiur went down:
These little tactics are viscous. I've been winning this matchup more and more consistently now that I realized the massive flexibility and vastly different tactics you need to use to defend both lurkers and mutas that early. And hell, I also fear the matchup when I random out toss. Its just scary, and painfully difficult to stop. If the toss player doesn't know what your doing. You should always win. He must use aggressive recon, and if you build both a spire and den it can becomes extremely difficult to tell which you'll go for. Molest him for his mistakes. You can consistently own toss if you hit them early with either of these strats. Be careful though, in the late-mid game the tables turn. And if you can't finish him off early, then make sure your well ahead in expansions going into it. Make him sweat before the sight of the swarm.

-- Royal(+)Knights have spoken
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