This is actually the best possible thing to happen for you as a zerg player. He's running just Phoenixes and he has given you map control FOR FREE.
Your Strategy is going to be as follows:
- Build a couple spore to stop early Phoenix harass.
- Expand to 3 or 4 bases
- Spread your creep
- Build pretty much any unit, you're going to run over him
He's giving up the Macro advantage as you now have map control. You can build Hydras as a direct counter to Phoenix and they have the nice benefit of being strong against 4 gate.
Now if he pushes out a more standard 4 Warpgate play, you just FE and play normal vs a 2 Base Protoss. By the time you make a serious push, the Photon Cannons will be a small factor.
Btw, what do people feel about the plural of Phoenix? In Roman mythology there was only one Phoenix in the entire world so the word had no plural. I've been using it as both plural and singular (like fish) as a result.
So let's talk about Sauron Zerg, because a number of things have changed between Broodwars and Starcraft 2.
First off, Siege Tanks will use smart targeting so they don't all hit the same unit (and waste damage), this means they are much more effective against mass units; Colossus retains all the strengths of the Reaver, but with wider AoE and faster attack rate; even High Templar now have smart cast to make it much easier to get out Psionic Storms. Splash damage has gotten much easier and stronger in Starcraft 2, and many units do higher dps than their Broodwar equivalents, while hit points have remained largely the same. In short, massing units isn't as effective as it once was.
In addition to the increase in AoE, unit production rates and harvesting rates have become much faster. While in Broodwars it was unheard of to hit supply cap on less than 3 based, many Starcraft 2 players do it on 2 base. The result is much shorter games (on average), with Terran and Protoss opponents hitting supply cap.
Finally, there are the map differences. Shorter maps, with more resources per base, and nice chokes really reduce the numerical base advantage that Sauron abused.
In short, its not as effective as it once was... which leads me to my point:
You should try to Sauron every game
Despite everything I just said the Sauron Zerg is the Starcraft 2 equivalent of playing a ZvP on Metalopolis where your opponent has his main and natural and you have every other base on the map. If you're that far ahead, it doesn't matter what you do; this was the whole point of Sauron Zerg: getting more ahead. It doesn't take a genius of July's talent to win from that situation, but it does take a genius to get to that situation. The impressive thing about the Sauron Zerg wasn't that July could wipe the floor with TheRock, he could have done that on 5 bases, it was that he actually could get to 9 bases. July was so much better than Rock that he was able to get to such an impossibly powerful position.
So here is my guidelines for you:
- When you're ahead, don't try to win
- When you're ahead, try to get more ahead
I know I've said it a dozen times (as has: Idra, Ret, Fruitdealer, Day9, HD, and just about every other pro-player out there, even Artosis), but your number 1 goal is always to get more ahead. What Sauron Zerg teaches us is that getting more ahead is the easiest way to win.
Best Answer
This is just to supplement Decency's answer (below) for readers who are unfamiliar with Brood War; please read it first https://gaming.stackexchange.com/a/74844/20893. I agree with him, you just can't do BW muta micro in SC2. But what exactly is it that you can't do?
Mutalist Micro
Sometimes it's not clear what BW players mean by "mutalisk micro". I think it's easier to show in-action than to describe it in words, but I'll try both.
Along the veins of the Jaedong vs UpMagic video in the question, and the Jaedong vs Iris video in Decency's answer, I'll add in Jaedong vs Fantasy (it's actually not his best) and July vs Hwasing (how it all started).
The Liquipedia article on Mutalisk Harassment is a textbook resource explaining the mechanics and advantages of muta micro, but it doesn't hurt to repeat the points here.
Grouping
Allows the mutalisks to be moved like 1 unit
Allows mutalisks to stack their damage on the same target
Prevents opponents from focus firing down single mutalisks. The targetting AI would generally pick a different mutalisk every time the mutas moved out and then back into range. Since the mutas were stacked on top of each other, an opponent had a hard time clicking and picking a specific mutalisk
Targetting & Moving
Mutalisks belonged to a group of units (Vultures, Wraiths) that did not need to decelerate while firing because they fired projectiles. They could fire on the move!
As long as the the target was < ~30° of the direction the mutas were facing, the projectile would fire. This meant that sometimes the mutas looked like they could shoot sideways or backwards.
Slight variations in how the game interpreted the Patrol, Hold Position and Attack-Target commands meant the mutas could concentrate all their fire on one target or spread out the damage amongst multiple targets to prevent overkilling one unit.
Here are some detailed discussions on how to pull it off.
Result
At the risk of sensationalizing the results of mutalisk micro (because it's not quite this good), imagine fielding a 1320 HP (120 HP x 11 mutas) unit that dealt 99 dmg to the first target (no upgrades on either side), and then 33 dmg to the second target and 11 dmg to the third target. Then imagine that it didn't even need to pause to attack, could shoot sideways, could turn 180° instantaneously, and slowly regenerated health. O_o!?
In the case of Jaedong, because he could micro 2 control groups of mutalisks (it's mind boggling to think about the mechanics of it), his Mutabehemoth was a 2640 HP, 198 dmg (then 66, then 22) natural disaster, rampaging across the map.
You'll notice in the Jaedong vs any-other-player games, the commentators' camera almost never leave the mutas. That's where the game is - the whole game. Jaedong's mutalisk micro controlled the game.
Now imagine taking that away from him.
The Pain of Switching Over to SC2
In the case of Jaedong, his virtuoso mechanics depended on the idiosyncrasies of BW. I really appreciate that Decency explains the latency reason for why it can't be done.
Even for the average competitive player, the exploits in BW made the game distinctive. For the more dedicated Zerg player, deep understandings of topics such as "Which Way Does the Mutalisk Glave Wurm Attack?" meant that SC2 feels like a completely different game.