UD Mirror - A Proper Tough-as-Bricks Strategy Thread

[RedRagToAnOrc]

This is a chance for the Undead players - read Grog - out there to flex their muscles.

Three reasons for me asking this - firstly, whenever I play Undead for fun I lose in mirror - secondly, out of curiosity, and thirdly so I know what I'm talking about when I'm casting.

How do the two main cookie cutter strategies (Lich/Ghouls and DK/Fiends) in UD mirorr counter one another? When I've been playing for fun, I find that I'll use one, and get beaten by the other... so I switch to that one, only to be beaten by the one I previously used. A perfect example of this is the last two Undead mirror games I played.

First one, on Turtle Rock, was against a Lich/Ghouls player. I did exactly the same early game, and was thrashing him, with advantages in hero levels, I seem to remember thinking of expanding, and a higher food army. However, my Ghoul/Garg army (with heal scrolls, Statues and 5/2 Lich/DK after trouncing him so badly early on) failed to make a dent on his Fiend/Dest , because he simply webbed the Gargs, moved back and I was stuck between a rock and a hard place against his entirely ranged army. I lost.

The second game, I decided to go DK/Fiends on Lost Temple, against my opponent's Lich/Ghouls - once again, destroying him early game, including the most incredible surround (DK/Fiends on a moving Lich, I'll attach the replay) I've pulled off for some time - but anyway, he gets mass Gargoyles with a couple of Destroyers, a couple of Abominations and Lich/DK/DL. Despite my picking off a few Gargoyles and nailing another Lich kill (Sleep > UD Healing Capabilities), he just pushed and destroyed me bit by bit.

We had similar hero levels, and I was under the impression I microed fairly well, picking off webbed Gargs when he got careless with them. So, how do these two stratgies pan out both early game and late game? Which should one use in your opinion, and how should one use them? (Sorry if I sound posh there.)

Replay attached. The surround happens as I'm heading to creep the Ogre Mauler camp on the top right of the centre on LT. It's so funky. :)

-- Red

[GroG]

I'm on campus right now, for the next several hours in fact, so I can't watch your replays but I can help you theory wise. Later, when I get home I can probably watch your rep and give you specifics if you want. So here's my theorycraft for UDvUD:

DK+Fiend mentality
The idea of DK/Fiend is that nova doesn't hurt you as bad, your units are big so it only badly hurts one of your units. Basically, it forces your opponent to nuke your heroes as opposed to your units (so pact is a lot more important in this if you go DK first, I've actually had to go coil/pact/coil/aura before, try not to if you can but if your opponent is good sometimes you'll have to). DK/Fiend creeps a hell of a lot faster than Lich/ghoul. You aren't as mobile, but you work much better with positioning (ie: use chokes if possible). The less fiends you have, the worse off you are since you can't quickly kill one unit in a volley and run. But once you get around 7 fiends, it's very hard for your opponent to run in and just instantly rape you with ghoul, something I'm sure you've seen. Basically, you want to get to the point where you can move foward, FF a ghoul and kill it, move back, they pull back, move forward and FF a ghoul, etc. Lot's of micro, and with fiends heavy production costs, means you won't be macroing as much at home and it will be easier to pull off.

At tier 2, here's what I do. If they go heavy amounts of ghoul (ie: shit-ton of ghoul harass), or I have a lack of garg harass and possibly suspect abomb, I'll get CL second for impale. Impaling ghouls then FF them not only gets you kills, but is a HUGE positioning aspect. You basically need that impale in order to not get surrounded and raped. I gaurantee the first couple of times you get CL second against ghouls or Aboms you will be so surprised at how effective that first impale is you'll wonder why you didn't think of that yourself.

Now, if you see heavy garg harass, you obviously have a few options. One that I've been using lately is the fiend/ghoul build, much like UDvOrc small map unit matchup. You want fiends in front, ghouls behind, web a bunch and have them FF fiends. Start dancing the FF'ed fiends+coiling them, then run ghouls in and kill gargs. This obviously gets much harder with tons of gargs, but with low garg air-to-ground damage, this is actually much easier to pull off than UDvOrc vs. wyvs. Your main problem here is actually when you get down to your last couple of fiends and your UD opponent nuking them. Second hero isn't as important here since, in my opinion, 2 crypt garg isn't as strong vs fiends as people act like it is. I'd watch out for a Nuke on your DK+FF on gargs actually. Possibly get a potion of invuln. Nice second hero here is Lich if you can keep him alive, or else DL. Use sleep against his Lich, or more importantly, once he builds that low level DK use sleep and keep him out of battle.

Really, if you open with DK+Fiend, and your opponent is doing Lich+ghoul, the hard part isn't the gargs its the tier 1 ghoul+lich harass. They are so much more mobile, once he gets L2 he's spamming nova sooooo much more, especially with skeles. It's very hard to tech vs. that opponent since he'll be so aggressive against you not only creeping but I've seen lots of suicide runs against my acos+mine. You have to play very conservatively here. I'm sure GA will tell you to build 2 extra acos or something. I usually build a 6th aco to scout his spawn/creep, so if it comes down to it I bring that back from scouting duty. I've only cancelled my tech once, so yeah. Mining with only 4 acos sucks but I've had to do it my share of times, it's just something you have to accept. Learn to run your acos around.

Lich+Ghoul mentality
This is where you want to be as aggressive as possible. I personally think this build is the superior build on smaller maps where you can just go in and rape acos and stuff during tech, or creepjack easily with scouting skeles. Obviously you know how to play it, just don't let him creep. Always lead with the Lich and attack with ghouls after so that you let his hero hp get going, which is much quicker then unit attacks. Also this is much more important in garg wars, since if you Nuke gargs they'll attack him, then run your gargs in and FF his gargs, don't waste their attacks on Air-to-ground.

When they get more than just a hand full of fiends, it gets much harder to do battle with your opponent. Creepjacks are fine, but you either must run in and commit 100% to a battle, or don't. FF will tear you up so bad if you try to micro too much, or if they have too many fiends. I sugguest just harassing acos. If you decide to go gargs, wait for 5-6 gargs then fly 'em around to the back of their base and harass acos. Harass wood ghouls, etc. Run away, rinse and repeat. Multitask creeping while you do this. Try not to engage..

If you do Lich build and he gets more than 6 fiends, you pretty much need tier 3 tech, ie abombs/destros/frosties.

If you are looking for experimental shit, here's some stuff I've been trying:
-DR for silence on Lich
-banshees for ams vs. Lich
-FE -> 3 crypt fiend. Park a fiend + towers to web garg harass
-Howl use in garg v. garg wars

glglgl

[GroG]

Hindsight view:
11:46 - You just killed his shade, great. Now you move to an area closer to his base for the red creep camp? Woulda been fine, but you let his ghouls run up into your fiends. That's bad news. I probably would have creeped lower left spot and hid an expo there, or just immediately tp'ed when he ran into your fiends.
14:26 - Hide your expand. He's owning you in hero kills/levels at this point. You only have a 2 fiends/2destro, so his ghouls/gargs are going to be much better vs. you now.
16:30 - Where's the nova on his gargs? You are actually letting his gargs engage your destros.. bad. Also, your destros don't have any mana, so basically they suck.
16:45 - At this point, I'd probably try to sleep his DK and Nova+FF his lich and force a tp, cause your raped
17:00 - Devour magic scroll of pro? Ahh shit your Lich died..
20:33 - Your moving way into his army to FF.. Don't go that far in just FF whatever you can, beggars can't be choosers


My synopsis:
1) DL 3rd sucked. You barely used him well, unlike your opponent. Use him either to get a hero kill by sleeping their DK, or to sleep abombs, or just to sleep a hero and be annoying and muck up their spell/item usage on that hero. Your DL barely ever had mana, but I never saw what you were sleeping, only what he was since his targets were good ones.
2) You run way too far into his units to pick stuff off. Don't do that. You either need meat, or you need to stay on the edge. Once he gets up into melee range, you are screwed.
3) I know it's hard when your in battle, but try to remember not to just turn your stats into destros without chainmorphing. They suck so bad without chaining them. That's why I barely use destros. If I use them perfectly, I win. Otherwise I lose. They are such a time-based unit, it's very hard to use them well.
4) I know it's not cookie cutter, but CL 3rd would have been so much better here. Ghouls, Abombs, heros, he could stun any of them. It would have also helped your FF situation, stun his abombs and pick one off, run, etc. Oh well.
5) If you are gonna lose your expansion, just unsummon it and run. You basaically had no chance to keep it unless it had a tower or your opponent fucked up bad, which he didn't. I probably woulda unsummoned and went and tried to kill some acos in his main or something.

You play really.. cookie-cutter. Kinda hurts to watch your reps. I don't want to come off as an ass here, but I just want to say it to you so you'll at least think about it. I know your trying to be good and all that, and you do this audio commentary stuff, but remember: It's just a game. Try to have fun. Don't get stuck in the grind.

[GenocideAlive]

Unfortunately, RR, you're describing just about every single DK/fiends experience to be had with UD. You start off pwning with the DK because his aura + Coil beat the shit out of low-level Nova. But once he gets high hero levels, an L5 DK doesn't match up to an L5 Nova. You need to stay harassing him, creepstealing, etc. etc. If you let him go 5/5/3 with Lich/DL/DK, you're going to lose to Nova / Carrion / Coil in a fucking heartbeat vs. DK/Lich/DL. Your AoE sucks balls and he's going to rip you a new ass every 10s or so when his spells cool down.

Long story short, you need to get your advantage early and then capitalize: expand, push, w/e. You're not going to win the game by hanging back until you hit tier 3 and trying win with heroes (like UDs normally do). You're going to have to do the equivalent of a tier 2 HU push and try to get in his face while your DK + aura + stats can fight his Lich Nova and low level Carrion Swarm.

If he towers up when you start to push, great. Leave and expand, creep up your second hero while DK harassing. Otherwise, if you just both creep balls-out until you get to tier 3, you're going to lose, lose, lose.