Banelisk Strategy

Overview

The BaneLisk is a strategy that is used to suppress and confuse a Terran player manipulating them into creating a counter which in turn will be countered by your transition. The BaneLisk strategy involves making enough Mutalisks to harass your opponent with, provoking them into overreacting and making an excessively large amount of anti air (Marines / Vikings / Thor). During the time the Terran is massing anti air units you will be already focusing on transitioning into Banelings and then Hydralisks to counter the army that the Terran will most likely create to counter the Mutalisks that you made.

The purpose of the Muta/Bane/Hydra strategy is to contain the Terran within his base using constant harassment with your Mutalisks, you need to keep as many of your Mutalisks alive whilst harassing as they are the key to restraining the Terran by making them feel paranoid so as to run back and forth within their own base desperately trying to fight off the Mutalisk harass. If done right this will allow you to make use of the gas at both your main and natural expansion’s vespene geysers to transition your army and tech line into Banelings & Hydralisks. The reason for the Mutalisk harass is that by the time your opponent has focused on building anti air for the Mutalisks (Marines / Vikings / Thor) you should already have a sizeable amount of Banelings and Hydralisks that will both heavily counter the typical anti air units that the Terran is likely to make. Banelings will deal immense damage to the balls of Marines whilst the Hydralisks should comfortably deal with Vikings & Thors or any other units that need to be finished off.

Build order

This build order is designed as a straight forward build to forming the strategy, it does not consider any of the multiple various enemy threats that you may encounter. You should only deviate away from the build order to build appropriate counters (an army or static defence) should your opponent threaten your survivability. Try to stick to the build order as best as you can to achieve maximum results.

*Text in BOLD CAPITAL letters – refers to units, buildings & research that you need to build.
*Text in Italics - refers to what action you need to take with a unit or building)
*Text in underline – refers to a mechanic or ability you need to use.

1. DRONE
2. DRONE
3. DRONE (Send this Drone to scout for the enemy base – if you are playing on a larger map that has 4 potential start locations you may want to scout with the “2. Drone” that you made)
4. OVERLORD
5. DRONE
6. DRONE
7. DRONE
8. DRONE
9. DRONE
10. DRONE
11. SPAWNING POOL
12. DRONE
13. DRONE
14. HATCHERY at your natural expansion once you have saved 300 minerals
15. EXTRACTOR at your Main Hatchery (Put 3 drones into Extractor when it is ready)
16. QUEEN at your Main Hatchery
17. ZERGLING (These Zerglings are built with the purpose of scouting / harassment in mind – first scout your main and natural expansion area quickly, then send one of each of the two zerglings to each Xel Naga Tower, then scout the enemy base as you see appropriate with either one or both of the zerglings. When you are satisfied with your scouting/harass you can either keep a zergling just outside by their natural expansion to keep a check on your opponent or bring it back to the xel naga tower nearest your enemy)
18. OVERLORD
19. DRONE
20. DRONE
21. DRONE
22. DRONE
23. The Queen you built at your Main Hatchery will spawn (Send her to Spawn a Creep Tumor at the edge of your creep – furthest away from the ramp to your natural expansion area – from this point on you want to Spawn Creep Tumors from the first one that you made as soon as the cooldown has finished, spreading them around your main base to grant you more mobility & sight, and then gradually spread the Creep Tumors towards your enemy’s base, so you can create a super speed runway for your units to reach your enemy’s base quicker)
24. Tech to LAIR
25. QUEEN at your Expansion Hatchery
26. DRONE
27. DRONE
28. EXTRACTOR at your Main Hatchery (Put 3 drones into Extractor when it is ready)
29. Spawn Larva with the Queen you built at your Main Hatchery onto your Main Hatchery (Use this ability every 40 seconds from now on)
30. DRONE
31. DRONE
32. DRONE
33. OVERLORD
34. DRONE
35. The Queen you built at your Expansion Hatchery will spawn (Send her to Spawn a Creep Tumor at the edge of your creep – Heading towards the middle of the map – from this point on you want to Spawn Creep Tumors from the first one that you made as soon as the cooldown has finished, spreading them towards your enemy’s base, so you can create a super speed runway for your units to reach your enemy’s base quicker)
36. SPIRE (Move up to 3 Drones from your Main Hatchery minerals onto your  Expansion Hatchery minerals)
37. DRONE
38. DRONE
39. DRONE
40. DRONE
41. DRONE
42. EXTRACTOR at your Expansion Hatchery (Put 3 drones into Extractor when it is ready)
43. DRONE
44. DRONE
45. DRONE
46. EXTRACTOR at your Expansion Hatchery (Put 3 drones into Extractor when it is ready)
47. DRONE
48. OVERLORD
49. OVERLORD
50. CREATE 5x MUTALISKS (After saving up to 500 Minerals & 500 Vespine Gas)
51. MUTALISK
52. MUTALISK
53. MUTALISK
54. BANELING NEST
55. DRONE
56. HYDRALISK DEN
57. DRONE
58. DRONE
59. OVERLORD

*From this point on you need to build in reaction to how your opponent is playing (See “Playstyle“). If you would like some suggestions then you could continue onwards using either of these:

[a] Keep making Mutalisks (do this if you believe you can win the game at this point with just Mutalisks)
[b] Start making Hydralisks (do this if you suspect an incoming air attack or hellion attack)
[c] Start making Zerglings & then morphing them into Banelings (do this if your opponent has made mostly Marines)
[d] Continue making Drones (do this if you think you can handle your opponent with only your Mutalisks whilst you boost your economy as much as possible before starting to make Banelings & Hydralisks
[e] Start making a mixture of Banelings & Hydralisks (do this if you think you can win the game in the very near future – so when you feel you have enough Banelings & Hydralisks move them in for the kill.

Play style

The purpose of the MutaBaneLisk strategy is to contain the Terran within his base using constant harassment with your Mutalisks, you need to keep as many of your Mutalisks alive whilst harassing as they are the key to restraining the Terran by making them feel paranoid so as to run back and forth within their own base desperately trying to fight off the Mutalisk harass. If done right this will allow you to make use of the gas at both your main and natural expansion’s vespene geysers to transition your army and tech line into Banelings & Hydralisks.

The reason for the Mutalisk harass is that by the time your opponent has focused on building anti air for the Mutalisks (Marines / Vikings / Thor) you should already have a sizeable amount of Banelings and Hydralisks that will both heavily counter the typical anti air units that the Terran is likely to make. Banelings will deal immense damage to the balls of Marines whilst the Hydralisks should comfortably deal with Vikings & Thors.

Micro

*Focus on killing workers with your Mutalisks (for every worker you kill you will slow down their economy and ability to create units)
*Only focus Marines with your Mutalisks if you outnumber the Marines significantly otherwise try to avoid their army whilst constantly harassing
*Luring your enemy into attacking you due to them not being able to properly fend off your Mutalisk harass will be beneficial should you have Banelings, even more so if you have the Burrow upgrade. You can set up a land mine trap by burrowing several Banelings at a choke point and exploding them as their army steps over your Banelings – This is where Hydralisks come in handy as they will be able to kill off the remaining units that survive after you have used up your Banelings.
*See “Support” – For how to use Infestors & Overseers should you make them

Macro

*Spawn Creep Tumors and spread them around the map whenever possible (This will grant you greater movement speed for your units as well as sight)
*Spawn Larva whenever possible to help boost your production rate

Upgrades

This is a list of the preferred upgrades for this strategy should you have the chance to research them.
[Some of the upgrades further down the list may be not be necessary depending upon the units & playstyle you choose to use]

1. Pneumatized Carapace (Increases the movement speed of Overlords and Overseers)
[Requires: Lair]
This is necessary as you will need to keep checks on your opponent so you can build units/buildings in accordance to how he is playing. Using your Overlords with this upgrade allows you to scout with multiple moderately fast air units (Overlords) which will give you a larger scope of what is happening on the map.

2. Evolve Grooved Spines (Increases the Hydralisks attack range)
[Requires: Lair, Hydralisk Den]
This is necessary to allow your Hydralisks to outrange Marines & just makes Hydralisks better overall.

3. Evolve Centrifugal Hooks (Increases the movement speed of all Banelings)
[Requires: Hatchery, Baneling Nest]
This greatly improves your Banelings chances of reaching their target before dying

4. Evolve Burrow (Enables all Zerg ground units to burrow making it invisible unless detected)
[Requires: Lair]
This ability is useful for both Zerglings and Banelings in particular. Burrowed Zerglings, if placed carefully, will prevent your opponent from building on the same spot you have burrowed that Zergling. I suggest using this ability with Zerglings at places you expect your opponent to build (like expansion areas) so he will need to go to the effort of detecting your Zergling and killing it before he can build anything.

Burrowed Banelings can act as land mines because you are able to explode them whilst they are burrowed. This can be absolutely devastating if used correctly. The best way to use burrowed Banelings is to spread them out across choke points (most likely your own natural expansion choke point) and wait for your opponent to march his army right over them then highlight the ones in range of his army and press X to explode the Banelings. You can also use burrowed Banelings as a pre-emptive strike, for example, if you suspect your opponent is going to expand then you can burrow several banelings along the gap in between where his expansion and the mineral line is. Then you wait for the appropriate time (preferably when the mineral line is fully saturated with workers) and blow up all of his workers at once. In both cases I suggest you use Banelings in situations where they are unlikely to be detected or if your opponent puts little effort into scouting and detecting.

5. Evolve Neural Parasite (Allows infestors to control an enemy unit)
This ability is for mid-late game should you be able to invest enough resources into Infestors. Being able to control Thors will help give your Mutalisks a fighting chance & turn the Thor against the Terran.

6. Evolve Peristalsis (Allows Infestors to move faster while burrowed):
This ability is used in conjunction with Evolve Burrow and it is mainly to keep your Infestors safe and to allow them to get into range in a battle to use their abilities instead of them being stuck behind not being able to do anything

Support

I have already mentioned the units that you need to build to make this strategy work; Mutalisks, Banelings & Hydralisks. However, should you want to vastly increase the chances that your Banelings will reach your opponent’s army then you will want to aim to get Infestors.

*Use Infestors to Fungal Growth the enemy forces (particularly Marines) or even a bunch of workers so your Banelings can get into melee range a great deal easier.
*Use Infestors to Neural Parasite to gain control of Thors to relieve some of the damage that your army will take and turn it against the Terran.

You can also make an Overseer to help keep track on what your enemy is doing.

*Use an Overseer to Spawn Changeling and send it to either scout the map or your opponents forces
*Use an Overseer to Contaminate buildings, stopping them from creating units for 30 seconds (this is something you may want to aim to use only on the Terran Factory should he have an Armory – Being able to slow down the production rate of any would-be Thors will be a great boost for your Mutalisks.