Zerg Low-Tech Opener

[B~E]

I'm a new player who's been giving a shot at HOTS for a few weeks now, and I mostly play Zerg. I was wondering how long you can survive against T and P on Queens, speedlings and banelings before having to chose a tier-2 tech.

Maybe I have a shitty play-style, but I'm asking because I like to chose my mid-game strategy as a reaction to counter my opponents, meaning I try to expand and set the stage for a macro-game (for exemple opening with a 3 hatch) only deciding on a lair tech once I know what my adversary is going for.

So, to rephrase my question, how long can you survive against T and P with 3 hatch with nothing but upgraded speedling, banelings, queens, supported by spores and spine crawlers? Is this even a valid way to play as Zerg?

[GnaReffotsirk]

Crawlers are bad. they're too weak against an 8 min attack from T or P. You can only get up a decent 2 base 1.7 saturation at that point.

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Crawlers are bad. they're too weak against an 8 min attack from T or P. You can only get up a decent 2 base 1.7 saturation at that point.

[protoswarrior]

Crawlers are bad. they're too weak against an 8 min attack from T or P. You can only get up a decent 2 base 1.7 saturation at that point.

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Crawlers are bad. they're too weak against an 8 min attack from T or P. You can only get up a decent 2 base 1.7 saturation at that point.

That's...not true. Crawlers are excellent defense on a 2 base economy for Zerg because they do 20-25 damage each and have a ton of HP. Add in transfuse from queens and the production on 2 hatcheries and Zerg can almost always hold any 8 min attack from Protoss or Terran with extra queens, speedling/roach and spines.

If you're having trouble, it has more to do with missing injects, not macroing correctly, or reacting too late (due to inadequate scouting with lings and ovies) with spines (which take 50 seconds to build). If you can provide a replay, I can likely point out what you did incorrectly and how you can improve your response to an attack.