ZvP: Beating Mass Carriers and Void Rays
Mass Carriers and Void Rays.
If you’ve played a decent amount of StarCraft 2, you’ve probably come across this strategy before.
It is a strategy where the Protoss player sits back off of a couple of bases and gets a huge Skytoss army out while turtling.
Once the Protoss is maxed out, the insane damage output of the Interceptors, combined with the +armor attack of the Void Rays can be nearly unstoppable.
But don’t fret! In this ZvP guide, I’ll be showing you how to beat this strategy as a Zerg player.
For your convenience, this guide has been split into 2 parts:
- How to scout it
- How to beat it
How to scout it
The first step to beating Skytoss is scouting it. Some telltale signs your opponent is going for mass Carriers and Void Rays:
- More than 1 Stargate
- Building many Photon Cannons to defend
- Extremely fast 3rd base
Simple, right?
One more tip: if you see an early 3rd base, try to be as annoying as possible with your Zerglings and delay their expansions.
These small little victories can easily lead to a win in the late game.
How to beat it
The strongest unit composition from Zerg against mass Stargate units is mass Queens and Corruptors, with Zerglings to deal with the ground army.
You’ll want double Spire upgrades and Hive as soon as possible.
Make sure to prioritize the Air Armor upgrades so that your Corruptors don’t die to Interceptors so quickly.
Again, you NEED to be as annoying with your Zerglings as you can. Keep about 20 cracklings in their own hotkey and constantly scout the map for new expansions.
If you find a base with 10 cannons, send 40 cracklings to take it down, assuming it’s otherwise undefended.
Skytoss is a very mineral-heavy composition where the Protoss is constantly re-building Interceptors. If you stop their income there’s no way they can make any more :D
While denying their expansions, get your own expansions behind it. Good players will do Chargelot runbys so don’t be afraid to make a Spine forest at each of your bases if that is the case.
Engaging the Skytoss
You need to try and engage the Protoss army before they max out. In a normal game, the Protoss usually reaches 200/200 with Carriers and Void Rays at around 12–15 minutes.
If the Protoss is unwilling to engage, morph a couple of Brood Lords (1–3 is a good number) They outrange Photon Cannons, so use them to take down one of the bases.
Eventually they are forced to bring their entire Skytoss army to engage you or end up losing an important expansion.
Attack behind mass Spore Crawlers if you have to! Using the Corruptors, FOCUS FIRE down the Carriers first, then Void Rays.
While this is happening, use your Queens to continually Transfuse the Corruptors to keep them alive for as long as possible.
This is a great GIF on how the engagement should go (credits to Lowko for the video!)
If there are too many Void Rays, wait for him to activate his Prismatic Alignment, then back off and engage once the ability has worn off.
Conclusion
Alright, that pretty much sums up my guide on defeating mass Carriers and Void Rays as Zerg. Now you know how to defeat a filthy Protoss player who is going Skytoss, hehe.
Any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments below!
