Lurker Viper, the newest roflstomp zerg build

General Discussion
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At least in ZvT, not sure about ZvP

Just so people don’t automatically assume I am super biased I main Toss and off race zerg.

First video is of Vibe analyzing Serral starting to his this “new” lurker viper comp after the patch and how effective it is, in this case against bio tank:

And here is a video today of Serral against Inno sky/mech (BC, liberator, thor, tank, Viking, BF hellion)

He absolutely crushes it. He even makes some very uncharacteristic mistakes like letting a multiple hellion runbys torch workers including one that gets 27 in one go. And he still crushes inno. It could have honestly been a lot worse.

So the build is pretty simple. Get hydra lurker and a TON of Vipers. Get infestors if he goes BCs. BCs? Just abduct (or neural). If he gets Thors? Abduct again. Serral didn’t even bother to split his Vipers and just crushed any thors that walked up. Vikings? Parasitic bomb. Liberators? Parasitic bomb or abduct, your choice.

So the answer is tanks right? Nope. First of all, Good luck exploiting that 3 range advantage over lurkers. Tough to get vision when vipers rule the skies. Already tough to micro tanks but even tougher when you are trying to move forward while staying out of range. Couple of times inno lost tanks because he crept 1 or 2 too far. Not to mention, how are you going to stop the abducts? And even if you manage to do it perfectly, the zerg player can unburrow his lurkers and move back before your tanks even complete siege. And the best part? Its not like an immobile broodlord army. The mech comp is immobile, especially the Thors. So if he can zone out your lurkers and vipers you just attack somewhere else!

Lowko said that maybe ghost would have tipped the balance. I don’t think so. Especially if Serral tried to split his Viper but either way, the lurkers are going to be too good at zoning because they outrange the ghosts.

Maybe its not unbeatable but this isn’t just theorycrafting. The replays show some good evidence that it hard counter most and maybe even all terran compositions. At the very least, I think people in the forums (including me) dismissed any complaining about how much stronger lurkers are with +1 range and just assumed siege tanks would easily counter them. But in the right hands with vipers supporting its pretty scary.

Edit: Oh and another thing… be ready to burn a lot of scans unless you want to invest resources/supply in ravens… that can also be abducted.

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ready
https:// drop.sc/replay/12578754

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ROFL. Nice. There were certain points in the game where I was like… will he have enough?

I definitely don’t think pure slow mech the answer after watching your replay and the Vibe replay, bio is pretty good for sniping bases and harassing. Breaking the stalemate of siege tanks vs Lurkers. Especially with the upgraded medivac speed but easier said than done.

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Blizzard should look your post FriendlyTOSS, you are 100% right, Hydra / Lurker / Viper is op and stomp both Mecha and Bio so easily. I don’t understand why they allow a composition to stomp everything from one race. Blizzard should really nerf Zerg fast or we will see again Zerg free win a few thousand dollars for free.

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Lurker fast burrow was a mistake

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I love how whiners use Serral to represent all Zerg’s to justify their whining. It’s incredibly stupid but I guess it works for the audience in the this forum.

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I think Terran needs cloaked ghosts vs that.

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you cry no matter what, so whats the point? zerg could have one viable build and you would want it nerfed.

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Zerg did not do the same thing with maru before terrans were nerf to the ground :slight_smile: … But the problem is : when terran perfom, only one terran performed well. Actually every Zerg perfome so well (Dark, Serral, Reynor, Rogue)

Cloacked ghosts are basically useless because zerg have free detection that move faster than the light.

Zerg have LOT viable build, but this build is just op, countering just everything terran can do. I think they need to nerf viper and maybe up the snipe ability of ghost or give an upgrade to terran for fast siege/unsiege tank or liberator. (And nerf queens / banelings for sure)

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Once again, Serral wins a a map so obviously Zerg is overpowered! You’re not even considering that Serral is just the better player, not even for an instant.

Also the fact that you say Ghosts obviously don’t work without even trying to show any evidence just proves that you just wanted to whine and nothing more. Just another QQ thread on the bnet forums…

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I watched that lowko game this morning and felt bad for Terran. However at the same time innovation did not make any spellcasters of his own. The spellcasters in Starcraft have always been incredible force multipliers when used correctly. The only thing that seemed broken to me is the viper’s consume ability. The difficulty in managing casters should be when and how to use your energy. With the viper you basically have a unit that is perpetually at full energy. Even if they get emp’d or feedbacked it only takes a few seconds to get back to full energy. Then you can just spam all the spells you want. All of the vipers spells are pretty good, and that’s fine because most of zerg’s army units aren’t great, but when you watch serral spamming them it makes it look broken.

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Ghosts get rekt by 100 banelings a click.

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Right now, I would love to summarize the forum in the last few days:

List of OP Zerg Units:

  • Zergling

  • Baneling

  • Ravager

  • Hydralisk

  • Lurker

  • Queen

  • Infestor

  • Viper

  • Swarm Host / Locust

  • Overseer / Overlord

  • Mutalisk

  • Corruptor

  • Brood Lord

Of course Spore/Spine crawler are crazy op as well.

I.e.: Only Roach, Ultra and Drones are not OP.

Only one time I would love to hear a suggestion from all those people how to play the late game against, e.g. mech with mass Thor/Siege Tank, Liberator, Ghost without Lurker, Viper, Hydra, Infestor. Give me a reasonable suggestion? Same for Toss-Deathball. Just show me. Thank you in advance.

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It’s pretty amazing how nerf crazy people are about Zerg and Protoss these days.

Zerg overall is fine. The only glaring issues it has unit wise is SH’s being a terrible design and Queens being able to defend too much stuff alone.

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The problem of Zerg is not the late game by itself, is the fact that they can safely get there with Mass Queens.

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It’s not just that queens can defend everything; it’s that making queens is the equivalent, at least in TvZ, of making drones. Queens will be able to spread creep when you have a bit of breathing space which will then in turn force Terran to scan. The more creep you have the more money Terran loses and the further Zerg gets in economy.

Just imagine if drones had the stats of zerglings, that’s what the queen is.

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That reminds me of a posting I made which became my most favorite posting in hindsight.

During early LotV, Terrans were struggling vs. Ultras to a point they thought, they had to finish the game before Ultras popped out. I asked Terrans, why they wouldn’t build Ghosts vs. those oh so op Ultras. Some Terrans set out in detail why Ghosts aren’t viable vs. Ultras and the rest of Zerg’s composition as an answer.
Punch line: two months later Ultras were pretty much extinguished from the game because some pros found out, Ghosts were actually quite good against them.

I mean, honestly, Serral comes up with a new composition he feels comfortable with and Terrans immediately call it op instead of asking themselves how they can handle it.

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Only if you’re really…really bad.

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The point is Serral is overfall really good and can play perfectly different playstyle and beat the best players either in ZvT, ZvP or ZvZ, and that no matter what Zerg is doing (ultras or broodlords/infestor or lurker/vipers) Terrans will always whine about it.

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Point is, Zerg units synergise extremely well. No other race can use 3 units to dominate the game vs any composition. Zerg can.

And before someone comes here crying MMM!!! Marine, Medivacs, Marauder? Killed by ling bane. Marine, Medivacs tank? Killed by ling bane. Marine, medivacs WM? Killed by WM.

Even the composition most Zergs cry about cant do well with 3 units and it falls off sharp in mid to late game and even before that needs to rely on drops.

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