Zerg timings for mutas during PvZ

Hi there I’m new and I’m having some trouble dealing with mutas, I am wondering what the correct scouting timings are for the spire and other things related like gasses or lairs or any other indication towards muta play. Thank you.

After you see the Lair has finished, you should either see a hydra den, or you should see a spire. Ignore roach warrens as they all make them for safety anyways. So once you know the lair has finished, you want to start going all through the Zerg’s creep/bases looking for which tech they chose. You can use hallucinated phoenix and oracles if you went for a stargate opener.

If you see muta, chrono out like 5 phoenix and put down shield bats/cannons at min lines. Put stalkers in each min line as well. Try your best to catch the muta on the map (maybe by sending the oracle to their base as they will want to kill it, and you can revelate the mutas so your phoenix can find them.)

If you see hydra, you still have to keep searching for basically the whole game (with hallucinated phoenix) because they can do a switch anytime.

If you ever do not see a third, and you see four gas, that is a really strong indication that it will be muta.

assuming you do a standard 1-gate expand, you will be able to scout with your first Adept safely until roughly 3:30 when Zergling speed finishes, assuming they opened standard 17-17-17 (Hatch then Gas/pool). You are looking for:

  1. lack of 3rd base
  2. all 4 gases taken and
  3. lack of gas unit, despite seeing 2.

However, these should just point you to the possibility of 2-base muta. You don’t want to over-react to something you have not confirmed. If you see all 3 above, drop a single Stargate, but only produce 1 phoenix from it. Scout with that single Phoenix and confirm that a Spire is indeed on the way, and/or kill Overlords safely with that Phoenix. This Phoenix act as a deterrant for your opponent to actually build Mutas, or if he still does since low level people don’t understand counters, you have a Stargate to chrono boost Phoenix out of.

The important thing, after scouting is to

  1. Not overreact to something you have not confirmed
  2. Macro appropriately
  3. Don’t panic.

It is very easy losing to 2 base Muta if you get caught with your pants down (that was actually my only Zerg loss last season, although I only played 14 games), but that’s how you learn.