The Zerg Players thread

[Zexi]

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...

I was thinking on an spare queen... dosen't have to be before your expo... could be after that... but yeah... i can see your point in that...

and for the overpool, hmm; i think i misunderstood something or my brain was suplylocked; sorry for that!
thinking about it; going for an overpool, as Hammy said, = losing macro time, ofc i would help against a ruse or chees, so depending on your slow scout, going 13/14 pool where you got the money for it seems a bether way, but again it worked in SC1, so maybe an overpool with a fast banling for destroying the wall in (but look at the start to find a proply bether build)

[Islandsnake]

9 Overlord and 10 ovy are kinda close, even if one is a bit better i think most people are fine with doing the 10 ovy. You could do a extractor trick while ure overlord builds if you want even more drones.

And I would'nt recommend building more queens for defense, In almost all cases you want at most 1 queen per hatch, and you shouldn't need to make another queen to hold off a rush - as your build should be constructed as such so its not required.

So anyone got anymore builds they want to post? I might post another one today with some hotkey setups.

[Hammy]

I was sort of hinting at your build actually : ) Any new build will need some tweaking, so here is my suggestion to optimize the one you already posted:

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).

Basically buys you an extra drone which will help you a lot with your follow up (likely an expansion or 2nd gas for quick hydra followup). At plat, banelings busts aren't really enough. You can damage him a severly but you need a followup.


Regarding the 2nd queen: It's really situationnal. I mean look at TLO vs WhiteRa game 2 of the TLI. Those 2 queens were used to great effect (and I'm not even talking about the fact that the queen ended up razing the P's base).

[Islandsnake]

Hmm that looks good i'll add it to the OP.

Yeah that game was a example of a time when 2 queens would be necessary, though still Im not behind getting a 2nd queen without a 2nd hatchery unless its that exactly situation haha.

Speaking of the tournament yesterday I really liked when ret spread the creep before attacking on desert oasis, very cool stuff.

[Solid]

One thing I'm not sure about is if it is a good idea or GREAT idea to build an overlord at 9 instead of 10.

Anyway, My BOs are as follows:

7-pool suck out

This strategy puts you all in.

5 drone
6 drone
7 pool

Build another drone. Build an overlord to have hope of transitioning out of 7-pool.

Build drones while waiting for pool to complete. Save 3 larvae.

You ought to have 150 min at least to build 6 lings. I believe when I would do this, I have 300, enough to build 6 lings and a queen.

Send the lings and either you win or you lose. It may or may not be a good idea to bring drones with while pumping lings.

(Un)fortunately, the way to beat this strat is to block your ramp. This becomes difficult on maps like scrap station where the ramp is larger than normal.

The reason for doing 7-pool over 6-pool or 8-pool is to get a decent economy going with the intention to transition to something other than lings. 6 pool can and likely will hamstring your economy while 8-pool may result in lings being delayed.

My Standard BO:

9 Overlord
10 Send a drone to scout. You can usually catch terran players building there wall and delaying it a little bit by harassing the SCV on construction

13 Pool
14 Gas (If you'd like to build something other than fail-lings, gas can be delayed to 15 however.)
15 Hatch.
16 Queen


From here I can either go speedlings or roaches versus protoss and zerg.

How do you guys feel about early hatcheries at expos? I feel like I end up needing to do it because even with a queen always spawning larvae I end up with enough minerals to make it worthwhile to expand.

[arthas]

I usually go mass roaches vs everybody,today i tried fast lair with hydra den and infestaion pit,This build turn out greatly....I can't really tell the exact build cuz pretty much depends on you...but expansion with 2-3 spine crawlers around 18/19 are essential for the gas ....

[Islandsnake]

Personally I prefer 8pool over 7 pool.

Drone
Pool
Drone
Overlord
x3 lings.
----


Anyway though, 15 hatch 14 pool or the more safer 15pool 14 hatch is a quite safe build most of the time (cept for zvz)

[TWD]

Anyway though, 15 hatch 14 pool or the more safer 15pool 14 hatch is a quite safe build most of the time (cept for zvz)

To be more specific, the 8 pool can have your pool up by 2:05. The 13 pool gets it by 3:00. The 13 pool won't be able to repel the attack. A 10 pool will get the Zerglings in the base just after the 13 pool Queen comes up on Lost Temple.

Also you almost always need to build those 6 zerglings and Queen asap. I almost always 10 pool, and I love it when I come against a 13 pool that delays the Zerglings in favor of drones. It doesn't kill them, but I can take out their Queen. If I can do that I'll have a 12 larvae advantage, and a free pass to early expand.

You may have noticed that I really like to post times. I'd really like to know what the timings are for some of these builds. I'm particularly interested in what units you have by the 4:00 mark.
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TeenageDreams

[Hammy]

But doesn't it take a huge mis-micro to be able to take out the opponent's queen? With good OL positionning he'll see you comming and pump out at least 2 lings, and put his queen in the middle of his mineral field. You would have to take out more than 3 drones to make it viable (taking out only 3 would still be advantageous for the opponent), and that's not likely to happen.
I haven't tried 10pooling in ZvZ though, but i've had it happen to me and I didn't feel like I was in such danger. However, I've been 6-7-8 (dunno which one it was)pooled, and got owned because I got greedy. I sorta liked that, it's better than roach vs roach most of the time. Getting owned by cheese is a great wake-up call.

[TWD]

I don't know, it's never happened before. I would think that 6ling could still take out a Queen and 2ling under the right circumstances. If the drones got involved it would be a different story. The key thing as the 10 pool player is to justify their cost. You'll be even if you take out the queen or 3 drones. If you walk into the base and find that you can't do that then just run away.

However, the point that I'm trying to make is simply that if they 8 pool you'll lose. If they 10 pool they still have some good options for you. Hence why 13 pool vs Zerg on small maps?

Also if you are scouting long enough to see the Zerglings move out, you better move that overlord. In 15 seconds a Queen is going to spawn.
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LIVE SEX