The Zerg Players thread

[Islandsnake]

The ZERG thread

"Join me?"
The Zerg Threads Rules

- If you have a build order, please provide a replay of you doing it - or someone else doing it if you can - even if the person your fighting is worse than you that doesn't change your build order and execution.

- No help to the other races in this thread, use your proper thread for help if you want to defend a 7 pool

- No hating on someones build, you can explain WHY its bad or why it doesn't work but no flaming - and if you disagree with people saying its a good build provide a REPLAY of why you think it doesn't work.

- You can ask for help but don't get mad if you get the answers you dont want to hear, "Macro better" is sometimes just the answer your going to get and the correct one. Also on dont flame people for being bad at the game or worse than you, there are people better than everyone on this forum so lets all play nice and crush the other races together eh?

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That said im going to start things off with the opening that seems to be the hot stuff lately.

ZvT---

Baneling Bust

The purpose of this build is to destory the pitiful supply depot put up by those dirty terrans, almost everyone walls off with a supply depot while slowing building up forces or teching. This build takes advantage of the fact that terran cannot deal with lots of speedlings in a even fight, which is why they wall off specially at the start of the game.

Opening-
Start with your standard 13pool 15gas opening, make sure you make a overlord before your pool pops as well. With your first 100 gas get speed, and with your next 50 gas get baneling nest. Your spawned larva all become speedlings as well as every larva after the rush starts. Scout the target out with 2 lings to see what kinda wall he is going.
Note: If he dose not have a supply depot wall(instead opting for the new popular raxraxfactory wall) do not carry threw with this build, instead use your speedlings to get map control attack rocks and take a expand yourself and transition into a normal game.
If you see that hes building the standard wall then your good to go.

The Attack and transitioning after-

Right as your speed upgrade finshes you should have a decent amount of lings somewhere near his base, morph 4-5 banelings off to the side away from his sight range usally in some bushes your something. And basically slam them into his front door targeting one supply depot, it will explode even if one of your banelings die (they usually have like no forces at this time lol). Charge into his base and wreck havoc in his base and continue to rally lings. The game should end right here or at least you'll be very ahead. If by some insanity you fail to do damage with this build, then try to transition into a expo with speed banelings and speedlings to defend. Beware of fast tech banshees, this build dose get inside there base before he can get them though, but sometimes he'll get his baneshees out if this happens you can simply get a evo chamber while ure lair tech is upgrade and build 3 spore crawlers while hiding lings in some bushes, if he moves out go into his base again if he doesn't transition into a normal game ( with you being ahead since you did damage)

Replay
Build order~ Updated to be stronger by hammy

Hidden Content:

9 Overlord
13 Pool
14 Gas - Put 3 drones on when finshed and leave them there
15 Overlord
15 Drone
16 Queen - Spawn larva asap even if your getting rushed.
18/26 - Food Check :d (overlord pops exactly as your pool finishes)
18 Ling (to repell worker if he's still around, and various scouting purposes)
19 Drone
20/26 - Upgrade Speed
20 Drone
21 Overlord
21 - Baneling Nest
21 Drone
22 - Spawn Larva pops - Make All Zerglings and continue from there morphing banelings when your ready to attack => The attack should initiate as soon as speed is done and your blings are morphed. You should try to sync those 2 near his base (not right in front of it, since keeping this hidden will increase it's potency).

Feel free to post and discuss your builds and general problems and remember to post replays! I'll try to keep this updated and add more stuff if the thread catches on like hotkeys and other jazz

[GRUNT]

You know what's funny - ever since the Terran Players' thread, I've wanted to do a Zerg one, and the Baneling Bust was going to be my contributing build . It was one of the off-the-wall, but effective strategies a while back, but now it's really catching on :[.

[Islandsnake]

I love you too grunt, you should post some replays of the build - I think it could become standard if you scout the supply walloff

[SoFool]

Hey just a curious question, but how come no zerg players go for overpool build anymore or izit just me?

[GRUNT]

I love you too grunt, you should post some replays of the build - I think it could become standard if you scout the supply walloff

Here are two replays for you . All latest patch :].

My build's different though, I build a second Hatchery first. In fact, I go 14 Hatch. I was inspired by this Zerg player who posts on TL called Rrowland. He used to go 14 Hatch into Baneling Bust as well. I think that it tricks the Terran into pushing against you and keeps him at Tier 1 - perfect for defeating with Zerglings and then smashing Banelings on his door .

I also tried it against a Protoss player, and I'll put the rep here for amusement . I was 1 Baneling short of killing that Pylon, though, and that messed up my initial attack. However, this Protoss guy was a little too jittery of Roaches and built Immortals without even seeing a Roach Warren .

[Zexi]

Hey just a curious question, but how come no zerg players go for overpool build anymore or izit just me?

The reason for this is, that you want your queen out as fast as you can, to spawn larva....

If you go for an overpool, your queen will be delata to much, and you would lag behind in the game...

[Zexi]

I don't have a beta-key.. but following the game as much as i can... and im wondering if any zerg player ever go for an spare queen...
she could be use to spawn creep tumors, and that healing thingy she dose...
You could even get drop tech for your overlords, and get a queen inside one.. drop her of, spawn creep with the overlord and spawn a creep tumor... this could be done in your opponent base, or thier expos... this will hinder them building the expo, and at the same time give you a scout on him/her

[TWD]

Absolutely. I think in the optimal situation you should be building a queen if you aren't upgrading or doing research. It's only 150 minerals so it's not like there's some huge disadvantage to making another one. It doesn't take any larvae, and it's only 150 minerals. I think for the most part nobody ever thinks about it.
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SandyXX cam

[Hammy]

The reason for this is, that you want your queen out as fast as you can, to spawn larva....

If you go for an overpool, your queen will be delata to much, and you would lag behind in the game...

That makes no sense at all. Most zerg go for 14pool or 13pool right now (which means their queen is delayed more).

I think people just don't overpool much because of how zerglings have changed and get owned pretty badly by zealots. Versus terran, they almost all wall-in nowadays so being aggressive at that timing isn't such a good idea. On the other hand, delaying those three extra-drones probably isn't worth the faster queen (I've never tested this though, I'm just assuming...) That's how I see it at least.

I've got a question regarding openings though, in case anyone has tested this:
How does 9 overlord affect your timing, when compared to the 10 overlord, and assuming you're drilling to 13/14 drones before pool anyways. I haven't tested this precisely yet, but from my games it felt like doing this gave me an edge on the 13pool build (for ZvZ basically). When I 9overlord, I can get my 2nd overlord at 15 and it hatches as soon as my 8th larvae pops (on 18population= perfect timing). With a 10 overlord, I need to get my second overlord on 14 or I get supply blocked at 18.
Though I need to test this more to be sure, since maybe I was just messing up my 10 overlord build.

I'm mostly wondering how this affects my mineral income (spawning pool, queen and hatchery timings?) and especially how it affects these timings for the 14pool.

Has anyone tested this yet? I'll probably get to it some time soon, but I haven't had the time so far.

Edit: Btw, I was hoping the person who made this thread would format it and plan on editing the OP. I'm glad you did^^ Nothing worse than an outdated sticky!

[Hammy]

Absolutely. I think in the optimal situation you should be building a queen if you aren't upgrading or doing research. It's only 150 minerals so it's not like there's some huge disadvantage to making another one. It doesn't take any larvae, and it's only 150 minerals. I think for the most part nobody ever thinks about it.

I think a great time to make an extra queen is when you're being pressured (expecting a proxy gate/rax or something) or when you're at that point in ZvP where you don't want to tech just yet (because you would lose your ground advantage), but are still wondering if he might be going for a void-ray atack. Having two queens will save your base and then you can just send it over to your next expansion.
I don't think it's always a good idea though, since if you're macroing your spawn larvae you probably aren't using up all of larvae all the time anyways, and making that queen would delay your expansion a lot too...