Vandroy Profile Blog Joined March 2010 Sweden 154 Posts Last Edited: 2011-05-09 12:45:36 #1



Table Of Contents



0.0 Introduction

1.0 Opening Build Order

1.1 Gameplan

1.2 Flowchart

1.3 Scouting

2.0 Early game

2.1 Drone scouting responses

2.2 Hatchery before pool

2.3 Gas/Pool

2.4 Early pool

2.5 Creep spread

3.0 Mid-game

3.1 Upgrades

3.2 Unit composition

3.3 Mid-game tactics/strategies

4.0 Late game

5.0 Replays

6.0 References

7.0 Closing words





0.0 Introduction

Recently I have been having trouble in the ZvZ match-up feeling like every match is somewhat of a coin flip and this was something I wanted to change. I wrote this guide to help my self get a better understanding of the match-up and also to share my thoughts at the same time, perhaps it will help someone else too. This guide aims to show a solid and safe macro based ZvZ relying on good scouting and knowledge of the match-up.



1.0 Opening Build Order

You basically have two openings to choose between if you want to play a solid macro style in ZvZ and those are either one of the hatch first builds(most common is 15hatch) or one of the gas/pool builds(most common is 14gas/14pool). After some thought I chose to go with the 14gas/14pool build. Both openings have their pros and cons so lets take a closer look as to why I ended up with 14gas/14pool opening instead of the hatch first one.



Hatchery first

+Strong economy

+High production

-Weak against early pool(even though it's possible to defend most stuff)

-No map control in the early game

-Low to no scouting possibilities in the early game



Gas/Pool

+Safe against early pool

+Good flexibility, can adapt to your opponent easily

+Good scouting possibility

+Map control

-Slightly worse economy than hatch first

-Less larva than hatch first



As previously stated both openings are good and stable, but I like the Gas/Pool one better just because it gives you so much more control and flexibility. If you are going for a hatch first you're going to be in the dark for while, not knowing if he threw down a baneling nest or not, droneing or not, whilst the one with speedlings has full knowledge of what you do.



Build order:



Depending on map, drone scout between 10-15 supply

14 gas

14 pool

16 overlord

16 queen

@100 gas zergling speed

18 lings

19 lings





1.1 Gameplan

The general plan is to go in to the mid-game in a very all around safe way with your economy on par or ahead of your opponents. To do this you have to vigilant with your speedlings so you don't get behind in drones or just straight up die in the early game. Once you have passed from early to mid-game you start upgrades, defend and/or be aggressive with roaches, and later infestors. From there you should aim to take a relatively fast third base as soon as you feel safe, and then add hydras to your composition once you have 6 gases and can support it.



1.2 Flowchart

A small flowchart to summarize the gameplan of the match-up, it's hard to be more specific due to ZvZ being so dynamic. Right click and choose view picture or view it on another tab to see the whole flowchart.





1.3 Scouting

Scouting is extremely important in ZvZ and good scouting is the key to success even more so than in other match-ups. E.g. you face a 15 hatch, he defends your initial agression, you back off having safely expanded meanwhile you were at his front. Now in this scenario 2 injects pop for your opponent and he has 2 choices, to make ~16 lings or ~8 drones(+/- a few for the larva that he already had) or something in between, and if you're active with your speedlings doing pokes and runbys you can get a good feeling what he's doing and then repsond appropriately, otherwise you you'll die or get too far behind economically.



Drone scout

Before reading this I would like add that everything seen with the drone scout can be manipulated by your opponent. You should always try to confirm what you have scouted by scouting again(e.g. with lings) and then re-evaluate your response if your opponent has changed his build.



Depending on the map, the drone scout should come somewhere between 10 and 15 in supply. There are three things to look for with your drones scout that will decide whether you stop mining gas at 100 and expand or keep mining it and delay the expand.



- The first one is a hatchery at his natural, if it's there you know that he went hatch first and you can go ahead with your speedling expand.



- The second one is an early pool, made at 10 supply or below, this should be no problem to defend with 14gas/14pool opening.



- Third and last thing to look for now that you know he's not hatching first or early pooling is whether he's going to keep mining gas after 100. If he doesn't continue mining he will most likely go for a speedling expand. If he does continue mining then you can't know if it's for roaches or banelings until you get your lings to his base(assuming he doesn't put down his tech before he has killed your drone).



So in conclusion you want to scout at a time so you can decide whether to take your drones off gas after 100 or not. If you for some reason don't see his base before you have to make this decision(sometimes Tal'darim feels so big) you can compromise and keep 1-2 drones on gas until you see what you need. This will give you a later expand should you face a hatch first but leaves you ready to throw down a baneling nest or roach warren against anything else.



Speedling pokes and runbys

This is something you want to do through the entire game, even in the late game. Speedlings are the best tool you have to find out about his tech path, drone count and army size. If you have map control, an active group of speedlings outside his natural also provide the threat of a backstab that your opponents has to worry about while you at the same time get alot of information. If you don't have map control for some reason(e.g. you made drones while he made some more lings) you can still utilize just a few speedlings to do runbys into the opponents base. In the middle to late game a small force of 10-20 lings can keep good check on how many bases your opponent is at and also have the possibility to deny any bases going up.



Slow overlord sacrifice

ZvZ is a very tight match-up and losing an overlord early can make a big difference. In many scenarios speedlings make a better job at scouting and therefore overlord sacrifices are not used that much in ZvZ. The only time you should need to sacrifice and overlord is if your opponent goes for a one base strategy while blocking his ramp with either lings or most commonly roaches. From there you can face a few different strategies such as fast muta, fast roach speed with +1 or burrow, in base hatch mass ling, or roach rush with speedling reinforcement. They can all be scouted with an overlord since queens don't kill them fast at all, and after that you just have prepare accordingly.



Overseer

Going into the mid it will be harder and harder to get information with your speedlings and therefore, if you feel safe, one of the first things you should do after lair has finished is to get an overseer. This overseer will tell you how big his army is, what tech path he has chosen, how his upgrades are and whether he's upgrading from one or two evolution chambers. When you have scouted your opponents base you may choose, if your overseer has enough hp left, to drop an contaminate on either his evo chamber or hatchery(more on this later). Do not let your overseer die, it's very good to have detection and at this stage of the game you don't want spend another 100gas for a new one.



Xel'naga towers

They are ofcourse good to have and you should send small zergling forces to try and keep control over them, but it's more important to have good overlord placement.



Overlord placement

The overlord placement in ZvZ is also a form of scouting, although a more passive one it's equally important. With your overlords in the early game you should try to make a "vison highway" with them from your base to your opponents, with one overlord keeping check to see when the expansion is taken. Be aware though, some players like to walk out with a queen to try and snipe an overlord. Other places that are important to keep check on with your overlords are expansions, attack paths to your expansions, your base(against nyduses) and keep at least one close to your opponent for scouting purposes.



2.0 Early game

The early game is where alot of ZvZs are decided, and it's also the most volatile part, one mistake here can cost you the entire game. The most important things at this stage of the game are hitting your injects and scouting. As with the 14gas/14pool you don't have any larvae to spare, in contrast to hatch first, it's crucial that you don't miss any injects at the start of the game. Ofcourse injects are important through out the game but it won't kill you to miss one at the 15 minute mark.



2.1 Drone scouting responses

In this section I will go more in depth into the three different scenarios from scouting with your drone. There are many different ways you can go in ZvZ and I will provide solid reasoning as to why I have chosen the follow-up that I have. Because every game differs after the 20 food mark there won't be any exact build orders to follow up with, they will be more like guidelines. E.g., you're opting to expand with roaches and your opponent decides to tech lair while only makeing 1 pair of zerglings, then you skimp on your army to get your expand faster because you know he can't pressure you.



2.2 Hatchery before pool

Upon seeing this build you want make sure to stop mining gas at 100 because you are going to be expanding behind speedling pressure. The speedling expand is a popular build(there is even a recommended thread about it, see references), some people like to use it only against hatch first, others use it against every build.



The idea behinde the build is to pressure your opponent with lings while you get your expansion up. You will only be making lings with your larva after you started your queen and this will force your opponent to also make units or he will just get overrun. The advantage you have in this situation is that you will have speedlings much faster than him, giving you the map control.



You also have all the scouting info you need(while your opponent is in the dark), if you see roches or spines you can safley drone abit, but if you see only alot of lings then you need to be wary of his lingspeed kicking in after a while. He also doesn't know if you have a baneling nest on the way or not, so defending with only alot of lings is a risk on his side. That's why most people also use roach, spines or banelings(with delayed ling speed) to defend, which will give you some room get a better or equal economy.



Key things to think about is to be very active with your speedlings, and to not miss any injects early on is crucial becuase you're already going to be larva starved as it is. You want to not drone up too much either and just die, the goal is to transition into roach/speedling on equal or slightly better economical footing as the opponent.



Generals build order guidelines:

Make zerglings until you are out of larva then expand at around ~22 food

Keep making zerglings and overlords(when needed) with all your larva

Start a queen when you have 150 minerals to spare

Put drones back on gas when you can support constant zergling/drone production.





Some people like to keep 1 drone on gas all the time from the start(Machine, see refrences) since you can sustain constant zergling production anyway. I choose keep none on gas to get the expansion and second queen up slightly quicker, and then put 2-3 drones back on gas sometime after the second queen has been started.



I would also like to point out that you can do the build order abit differently depending on things like map. If you are close position then you want make all larva into zerglings and only expand when you have 300+ minerals and no larva. This is becuase you can apply good pressure with those first zerglings on shorter distances while on longer once your opponents will have enough zerglings for you to do much before speed. Therefore on longer spawn(e.g. cross pos Tal'darim) you could make only 4-6 ling so you don't waste any larva and then expand on 19-20 food instead.



As with any ZvZ it all differs from match to match but your transition will have to come sometime after you've gotten your expansion up and running and also made some drones. When you can safely do this is a judgement call from game to game, don't forget that you can gain alot of information from your speedlings to make that judgement call easier.



2.3 Gas/Pool

This is probably the most common opening used in ZvZ because it's safe and flexible. From this opening you have 3 paths to choose between, they are speedling expand, speedling/banleing, or something with roaches. Your scouting drone will be able to find out if the stop mining gas(a.k.a. speedling expand) or not.



Speedling expand

Against this you want go for a normal one base baneling attack with a delayed expansion. This attack is really strong against the speedling expand build and will probably set you ahead in both tech and economy. When Sheth played a 1base baneling(with late expand)opening against speedling expand on 12 weeks with the pros he also completely crushed it(see references). The goal is to deny/kill his expansion while getting your own up and the same time. From there on you can transition into roaches and macro up, also be ready for some timing attack or all-in if he has not retaken his expansion.



As long as you focus on the goal of taking down his expansion and not to try and finish him by running banelings towards his drones or something similar, you will be fine. The trick is to guard your zerglings with banelings while they are killing the expansion. This means he can't engage with his own lings, he can't move down spines and roaches won't come out in time, letting you take the expansion down.



General build order guidelines:



Use all your larva for zerglings and keep 3 drones in gas

@50 gas baneling next

@~125gas take one drone of gas

Morph your first 5-6 banelings

Expand when you can while still constantly producing lings





If your opponent has superior mirco and somehow manages to defend with his speedling expand you're still not in bad shape. In the worst case scenario you won't kill his expansion but by then your own should be up and you can transition to roaches with banelings as defense and macro up.



1base baneling or roach

Against both these openings I have chosen to open roaches into expand smilar to what Machine showcased on 12 weeks with the pros(see references). Why I have chosen this is because it's safe against both a baneling and a roach opening and it lets you get up a relatively safe expansion. A drawback with this opening is that you have to sacrifice some map control, against a baneling opening, for safety. However you still have the speedling upgrade so can scout and recontest map control after you get your expansion up.



If your opponent opted to go for banelings he's probably going to either cancel his baneling nest or just build very few banelings when he sees your roach warren with his first couple of scouting lings. From there you want 6-7 roaches before you expand, this is so can protect your ramp and expansion without the risk of getting overrun by speedlings. In this situation your opponent can either choose to expand, or tech from one base(more on that shortly). If he expands you just go into macro mode from there and start getting that +1 attack for roaches asap. Here you must still be active with some speedlings so can see whether he's making an army or drones after expanding.



If your opponent went for a roach opening instead he will either be going for a similar expand as you or some one-base timing attack. In the first case you will be equal footing as you opponent and can go ahead getting the +1 attack for roaches and start to macro up while constantly scouting with your speedlings. The second case is similar to where someone going 1base banelings choose to tech instead of expanding after the initial aggression. Both builds will try to block their ramp to hide what strategy they are going for, so you need good knowledge what you can face and also when it's a good idea to sacrifice an overlord. The things your opponent can throw at you from 1base are the following:



- Roach push with speedling reinforcement/support

- An extra hatchery inbase into mass speedling

- Fast spire into expansion

- Roach push with speed and burrow

- Roach push with speed, burrow and +1 attack



There are many different ways to do these builds, some people like to expand when they move out, others start their expand when they see that the push isn't working. The later your opponent starts his expand the more all-in he is(even though his attack will be slightly stronger), and he will need to do some economical damage with his attack.



If you start teching to lair as soon as your queen pops from a 14gas/14pool it will finish at ~5.30 ingame time, which means that roach speed will be done at ~7.20 and spire at ~7.10 if you start it as soon as lair is done. Should your opponent choose to start lair immediately when his queen pops then you should be able to scout this with your first pair of lings since he won't have roaches out yet to block the ramp.

Some other timings are:



- Your hatch will be about 70% done at ~6.00 should you put it down at 26/34 with 3 roaches and 4 speedlings.



- Inbase hatch finishes at ~5.40 if you put it down still mining gas after speed and constanty produce zerglings from 14gas/pool.



- Five extra roaches pops(into a total of 8) from the first inject at ~5.30 and can move to your base being reinforced by speedlings.



I havn't played against inbase hatch much at all but I think you should be able to scout that with your first couple of lings or atleast guess it if tries to block his ramp with only lings. When you see and inbase hatch you want add more roaches to get that ball into critical mass and adding a baneling nest can be good if he put on a lot of pressure.



Knowing these timings, a good time to send in your overlord would be at around 5.40(which is when your hatch is abit more than halfway done) to see if he's going for some hatchery tech timing or lair timing. After you know what attack your opponent is going for all you have to do is make drones, roaches, speedlings and queens accordingly.



General build order guidelines:



16 queen

18 roach warren

17 lings

@100 gas zergling speed

Take one drone off gas

18 lings

19 overlord

19 roach

21 roach

23 roach

25 overlord

25 expansion





Note that against someone going straight for lair you can get away with throwing down your expand with only 1-2 roaches and also have time to make some drones. On the other hand against someone going for one base baneling you may need up to 7 roaches before you can safely expand. Getting your expand up before you opponent puts you ahead and as long you don't die(or lose too many drones) to any of the metioned above timings, you should be in a good position going into the mid-game. I would also like to add that 1-2 extra queens with transfuse are very cost efficient defensive units, so it can be a good idea build them to hold any of the pushes and also against mutas.



2.4 Early pool

When facing an early pool it comes down to good mirco and knowing what to do. You should however have the upper hand since you opened 14gas/14pool. A few things to think of are:



- save larva(make overlord at 14) to be able to make 4-6 lings as soon as the pool is done

- check your outer edges of the creep to detect any pre-building of spines

- take drones off gas(or keep them if you are really confident in your micro)

- make two control group with drones to be able to better mirco



If he tries to put down 1-2 spines with his lings, tell ~4 workers to attack each spine, the rest should still be able to take on the lings.



Against early pools with gas you are most likely going to face some fast banelings and to this you can either put down a roach warren asap after pool or go for spines. The key to comming out a head of this build is to split your drones so that he can't hit more than 2 at the same(it's not as hard as it sounds). If you can do that then all that's left is to clean up the few lings he has with roaches or lings and you will still be ahead in drones.



2.5 Creep spread

Creep spread is clearly not as important in ZvZ as in other match-up but it's still good enough that you want to do it. It gives you vision and increases the mobiblty of your queens and hydras by alot. I would however never trade a larva inject for a creep tumor in this match-up, so it would either have to be from bad injecting, extra queens, or early second queen(before expand is done). Extra queens are surprisingly good defensive units, being really cost effective with transfuse, demand no larva and cost only minerals. I think it's beneficial to get a couple of extra queens and also spread creep for any zerg.



3.0 Mid-game

On the contrary to what some people might believe, mid game ZvZ doesn't just have to be about sitting on your 2-3 bases and macroing up to your 200/200 army of the golden composition. In this part of the game there are many tactics and strategies to throw your opponent off and for you to gain the advantage without ever attacking head on(more on this in section 3.3). I the mid-game you also have access to alot better scouting possibilities with overlord speed, overseers and your good old speedlings. There is therefore no excuse to not knowing your opponents tech, army and amount of bases and when they go up.



A good idea in the mid-game is to look for timings where you can gain an advantage, e.g. if you started your upgrades before him in the early game you could attack just when your upgrades finish and then you'll have the upper hand with better upgrades in that timing window.



3.1 Upgrades

There are many good upgrades that you want to get, some are a must have while others are more a personal prefrence but lets first take a look at the attack and armor upgrades.



Here is table of the shots to kill for roaches vs roaches:





Looking at this table you can see that going armor or attack in a roach battle doesn't matter in the mid-game. However you can't discount that you will have lings, infestors and hydras(later on) since they are also affected by these upgrades. The question is really weather you want to go for attack -> armor -> attack or attack -> attack -> armor so lets take a closer look:



Assuming you start +2 ranged attack from a second evo chamber some time after you've started +1 armor the first one. This allows you to upgrade +2 armor simultaneously with +2 ranged attack while if you hade gone for +2 attack in the first evo chamber you'd have one evo chamber doing nothing becuase it has to wait for +1 armor to finish. This problem could be avoided by just timing +2 attack and +1 armor to start at the same but you don't always the have resources and opportunity to this.



Your lings will also benefit from the faster +armor while hydras and infested terrans will benefit from the faster +2 ranged attack. In the end it won't make or break the match and either one is fine, but e.g. if you're planning to go for an infestor runby you want get the faster +2 ranged attack.



Other upgrades

There are a few lair tech upgrades that you should aim to get every game and those are overlord speed, burrow, roach speed and hydra range. These upgrades give so much for their cost and really are a must have but you by no means need to rush to get them all as soon as lair finish. A good idea is to get roach speed asap and aslo start off by getting and overseer for scouting and then later get the overlord speed. Burrow is also something you don't have to get instantly but it's something you want sooner rather than later for infestor, roaches and also delaying expansion with burrowed zerglings. Last but not least hydra range, you just get this one when you plan to start hydra production.



Some other good upgrades are drop and roach burrowed movment but they are by no means as cruicial.



3.2 Unit composition

You want to start off by getting just roaches and then infestor while focusing on getting all the important upgrades. A roach/infestor army also has alot better mobility than an army with hydras in it, this allows you to also be aggressive with harassing and pokeing. Getting infestors first before hydras allows them to save up alot off energy which is going to come in handy later and you can also execute cool tactics like infestors harass.



Your end composition however needs to include hydras because of their high dps, a 200/200 army without hydras are going to get crushed by one with hydras any day. The ratio is always hard to tell, it varies from game to game, but I would say about 50/50 hydra/roach and then 4-6 infestors as backup. So together with you starting +2/+2 upgrades wanting more infestor and starting hydra production you need alot of gas so for this you will to have a third base.



3.3 Mid-game tactics/strategies

In the mid-game there are some tactics and strategies that you can utilize to get ahead of your opponent, which will let you get further ahead and evetually win. Remember that you still need to actively scout your opponent so you don't fall victim to any of the mid-game tactics and strategies.



Muta switch

The muta switch can be very powerful if you do it at the right time, however done badly can put you behind instead. The idea is to catch your opponent by surprise if you scout him only going for alot of roaches, you can chose to proxy your spire with an overlord pooping creep or just put it in your base(with a greater risk of being scouted). The plan is actually only to make one round of mutas(6-8) and then go back to the normal gameplan and even if he has the perfect defense it won't be an horrible outcome for you.



The best scenario is ofcourse that you get to his base, he has no anti air except queens, you kill both queens and some drones, he goes all-in, you defend it and win. In a more reasonble scenario you can snipe 1-2 queens, force some spore crawlers and kill several overlords placed around the map. Not only does this keep your opponent completley in the dark(he can't even scout with overlords/overseers) but this also gives you full map control.



A risk with this however is that you opponent could just choose to attack with all his roaches and potientially do some serious damage since mutas just kill roaches so slowly.



Infestor runby

Alot of players don't keep an overseer with their army and even fewer keep and extra one at their third base. This opens up possibilities for burrowed infestor harass with either infested terrans or fungal growth. I like the infested terrans better because even if you won't kill as many workers you still kill some, and then you can kill a hatchery in a matter of seconds if you have 10-16 infested terrans with 2-0 in upgrades.



The magic number for infestor harass is 2, 1 just isn't going to cause enough damage and more than 2 will leave your army too vulnerable. It should also be said that infestor harass, as with any other harass, is served best with an attack, pressure or harras on another front at the same time.



Queen/roach with Nydus

Queens are really good units all around, they cost no larva, they cost only minerals, they have high hp, they can shoot air and ground and they are super cost efficient with transfuse. They also have one fatal weakness, they move slower than snail, which makes it very hard to do any sort of offensive maneuver. So the combination off all larva going to cheap roaches while you are at the same time building queens and then eliminating the walking distance by using nydus, naturally makes for a very strong attack.



They beauty of this is also that you don't have to nydus in his base(though it's better to do it if you can) for it to succeed, just close enough so you queen don't have to walk that far. If you want to execute this strategy you have to start building queens earlier so that their transfuse energy stacks up, and this is also the tell as to someone going for this kind off attack. Should you get nydused the best way to deal with it is to try and focus fire each queen so they can't transfuse before killing the roaches.



Double pronged attacks

I've touched upon this lightly before and as most of you probably already know, attacks on multiple fronts can sometimes be really strong. In ZvZ this only really becomes viable when your opponent has 3 or more bases. For these attack you want use roaches and speedlings because off their high mobility, and you can also throw in some burrowed infestor harass. A few good examples off multiple attacks can be:



- take ~8 roaches and some speedlings and attack his third while feigning an attack with you main army against the natural



- nydus/drop in the main with only some zerglings then attack his third base when reallocates his army to the main



- burrowed infestors using infested terrans on one base while you attack another



Be careful to not lose too many you units becuase then there is a risk that your opponent will just walk to your base and kill you, even if your harass worked well.



Contaminate

I think this tactic is pretty situational and it can be good, but on the other hand overseer do cost alot of gas which means less infestors and hydras. You want atleast 2 overseers, one for scouting around his base and one at your base against any sort off burrow shenanigans. From there it's not such big step adding another 2 overseers to get some contaminate action going.



A good thing you can do then is to almost permanently contaminate your opponents evo chambers letting you sprint ahead in upgrades. Another thing is to contaminate is the hatchery off your opponent which both stops the larva inject timer, stops the hatchery from spawning larva and should the queen inject during this time the inject timer will reset. Last but not least this is more off a tip that you can use even if you have just one overseer, and that is to contaminate the infestation pit if it's researching(you can see this) because most players will time their infestor to pop just after the upgrade is done.



4.0 Late game

Not many ZvZs go into the late game and therefore I don't as much experience in this part of the game. I can start of by saying that both ultras and broodlords are not that good in ZvZ. Ultras just get kited by roaches and hydras now that fungal is so short, and you will also have the wrong upgrades for ultras. Broodlords can be good if you surprise your opponent and kill him but otherwise there will just be a corruptor war with ground support, and you don't need a Hive to make corruptors. You could also go for broodlords if you sit on 3-4 more gases than your opponent because then you can get air dominas while still making some broodlords.



In the late game when you're sitting on 4-5 bases each speedling runbys and backstabs become extremely powerful. They can take out expansions and important tech building, and should you lose lets say your roach warren and then get attacked you won't be able to get any roach reinforcements during the battle. Going into the late game you should prioritize getting the +3/+3 upgrades first, then adrenal glands for your speedlings and then start upgrading melee attacks.



At this stage of the game you have to value every unit and expansion even more, so be careful with where you attack and try to keep all your bases safe



5.0 Replays

I would like to say that sometimes I forget something or misjudge my opponent, my play is no where near perfect but I think I stick to my game plan pretty well in these replays.



- roach/speedling expand

- 10 pool baneling defense(the drone spread could have been better)

- roach/speedling expand into muta switch

- roachspeedling expand into defending against a muta switch

- speedling/baneling expanding(he tricks me into think he's going for speedling expand but instead goes for roaches skipping zergling speed) into a pretty standard mid-game. I get crushed in the end even though I was ahead in tech, eco and upgrades just becuase I forgot to add hydras.

- Speedling expand vs hatch first with roaches.

- Speedling expand vs hatch first into mass speedling



6.0 References

12 weeks with the pros - ZvZ with Machine

Machine talks about and shows a speedling/roach expand

12 weeks with the pros - ZvZ with Sheth

Sheth crushes a speedling expand with 1base baneling with delayed expansion

Chaosvuistje's speedling expand

A rather old guide in tl's recommended threads, it has a pretty good description on how to deal with hatch first builds.



7.0 Closing words

If you're reading this part then hopefully you've read the whole guide and if so that makes me very happy that you took the time. In closing I would like to say that I learned alot writing this guide and I'll be glad if someone else got some useful information from it too.



-Best regards Vandroy Hello I'm Vandroy from team Property and this is my first guide so I hope it's up to TL's standards. English is not my native language so there might be some spelling errors. I hope you enjoy reading my take on ZvZ and please comment if you like it or wonder about anything! I will be busy this weekend but I can add more replays after then if people are interested.Recently I have been having trouble in the ZvZ match-up feeling like every match is somewhat of a coin flip and this was something I wanted to change. I wrote this guide to help my self get a better understanding of the match-up and also to share my thoughts at the same time, perhaps it will help someone else too. This guide aims to show a solid and safe macro based ZvZ relying on good scouting and knowledge of the match-up.You basically have two openings to choose between if you want to play a solid macro style in ZvZ and those are either one of the hatch first builds(most common is 15hatch) or one of the gas/pool builds(most common is 14gas/14pool). After some thought I chose to go with the 14gas/14pool build. Both openings have their pros and cons so lets take a closer look as to why I ended up with 14gas/14pool opening instead of the hatch first one.+Strong economy+High production-Weak against early pool(even though it's possible to defend most stuff)-No map control in the early game-Low to no scouting possibilities in the early game+Safe against early pool+Good flexibility, can adapt to your opponent easily+Good scouting possibility+Map control-Slightly worse economy than hatch first-Less larva than hatch firstAs previously stated both openings are good and stable, but I like the Gas/Pool one better just because it gives you so much more control and flexibility. If you are going for a hatch first you're going to be in the dark for while, not knowing if he threw down a baneling nest or not, droneing or not, whilst the one with speedlings has full knowledge of what you do.Build order:The general plan is to go in to the mid-game in a very all around safe way with your economy on par or ahead of your opponents. To do this you have to vigilant with your speedlings so you don't get behind in drones or just straight up die in the early game. Once you have passed from early to mid-game you start upgrades, defend and/or be aggressive with roaches, and later infestors. From there you should aim to take a relatively fast third base as soon as you feel safe, and then add hydras to your composition once you have 6 gases and can support it.A small flowchart to summarize the gameplan of the match-up, it's hard to be more specific due to ZvZ being so dynamic. Right click and choose view picture or view it on another tab to see the whole flowchart.Scouting is extremely important in ZvZ and good scouting is the key to success even more so than in other match-ups. E.g. you face a 15 hatch, he defends your initial agression, you back off having safely expanded meanwhile you were at his front. Now in this scenario 2 injects pop for your opponent and he has 2 choices, to make ~16 lings or ~8 drones(+/- a few for the larva that he already had) or something in between, and if you're active with your speedlings doing pokes and runbys you can get a good feeling what he's doing and then repsond appropriately, otherwise you you'll die or get too far behind economically.Before reading this I would like add that everything seen with the drone scout can be manipulated by your opponent. You should always try to confirm what you have scouted by scouting again(e.g. with lings) and then re-evaluate your response if your opponent has changed his build.Depending on the map, the drone scout should come somewhere between 10 and 15 in supply. There are three things to look for with your drones scout that will decide whether you stop mining gas at 100 and expand or keep mining it and delay the expand.- The first one is a hatchery at his natural, if it's there you know that he went hatch first and you can go ahead with your speedling expand.- The second one is an early pool, made at 10 supply or below, this should be no problem to defend with 14gas/14pool opening.- Third and last thing to look for now that you know he's not hatching first or early pooling is whether he's going to keep mining gas after 100. If he doesn't continue mining he will most likely go for a speedling expand. If he does continue mining then you can't know if it's for roaches or banelings until you get your lings to his base(assuming he doesn't put down his tech before he has killed your drone).So in conclusion you want to scout at a time so you can decide whether to take your drones off gas after 100 or not. If you for some reason don't see his base before you have to make this decision(sometimes Tal'darim feels so big) you can compromise and keep 1-2 drones on gas until you see what you need. This will give you a later expand should you face a hatch first but leaves you ready to throw down a baneling nest or roach warren against anything else.This is something you want to do through the entire game, even in the late game. Speedlings are the best tool you have to find out about his tech path, drone count and army size. If you have map control, an active group of speedlings outside his natural also provide the threat of a backstab that your opponents has to worry about while you at the same time get alot of information. If you don't have map control for some reason(e.g. you made drones while he made some more lings) you can still utilize just a few speedlings to do runbys into the opponents base. In the middle to late game a small force of 10-20 lings can keep good check on how many bases your opponent is at and also have the possibility to deny any bases going up.ZvZ is a very tight match-up and losing an overlord early can make a big difference. In many scenarios speedlings make a better job at scouting and therefore overlord sacrifices are not used that much in ZvZ. The only time you should need to sacrifice and overlord is if your opponent goes for a one base strategy while blocking his ramp with either lings or most commonly roaches. From there you can face a few different strategies such as fast muta, fast roach speed with +1 or burrow, in base hatch mass ling, or roach rush with speedling reinforcement. They can all be scouted with an overlord since queens don't kill them fast at all, and after that you just have prepare accordingly.Going into the mid it will be harder and harder to get information with your speedlings and therefore, if you feel safe, one of the first things you should do after lair has finished is to get an overseer. This overseer will tell you how big his army is, what tech path he has chosen, how his upgrades are and whether he's upgrading from one or two evolution chambers. When you have scouted your opponents base you may choose, if your overseer has enough hp left, to drop an contaminate on either his evo chamber or hatchery(more on this later). Do not let your overseer die, it's very good to have detection and at this stage of the game you don't want spend another 100gas for a new one.They are ofcourse good to have and you should send small zergling forces to try and keep control over them, but it's more important to have good overlord placement.The overlord placement in ZvZ is also a form of scouting, although a more passive one it's equally important. With your overlords in the early game you should try to make a "vison highway" with them from your base to your opponents, with one overlord keeping check to see when the expansion is taken. Be aware though, some players like to walk out with a queen to try and snipe an overlord. Other places that are important to keep check on with your overlords are expansions, attack paths to your expansions, your base(against nyduses) and keep at least one close to your opponent for scouting purposes.The early game is where alot of ZvZs are decided, and it's also the most volatile part, one mistake here can cost you the entire game. The most important things at this stage of the game are hitting your injects and scouting. As with the 14gas/14pool you don't have any larvae to spare, in contrast to hatch first, it's crucial that you don't miss any injects at the start of the game. Ofcourse injects are important through out the game but it won't kill you to miss one at the 15 minute mark.In this section I will go more in depth into the three different scenarios from scouting with your drone. There are many different ways you can go in ZvZ and I will provide solid reasoning as to why I have chosen the follow-up that I have. Because every game differs after the 20 food mark there won't be any exact build orders to follow up with, they will be more like guidelines. E.g., you're opting to expand with roaches and your opponent decides to tech lair while only makeing 1 pair of zerglings, then you skimp on your army to get your expand faster because you know he can't pressure you.Upon seeing this build you want make sure to stop mining gas at 100 because you are going to be expanding behind speedling pressure. The speedling expand is a popular build(there is even a recommended thread about it, see references), some people like to use it only against hatch first, others use it against every build.The idea behinde the build is to pressure your opponent with lings while you get your expansion up. You will only be making lings with your larva after you started your queen and this will force your opponent to also make units or he will just get overrun. The advantage you have in this situation is that you will have speedlings much faster than him, giving you the map control.You also have all the scouting info you need(while your opponent is in the dark), if you see roches or spines you can safley drone abit, but if you see only alot of lings then you need to be wary of his lingspeed kicking in after a while. He also doesn't know if you have a baneling nest on the way or not, so defending with only alot of lings is a risk on his side. That's why most people also use roach, spines or banelings(with delayed ling speed) to defend, which will give you some room get a better or equal economy.Key things to think about is to be very active with your speedlings, and to not miss any injects early on is crucial becuase you're already going to be larva starved as it is. You want to not drone up too much either and just die, the goal is to transition into roach/speedling on equal or slightly better economical footing as the opponent.Generals build order guidelines:Some people like to keep 1 drone on gas all the time from the start(Machine, see refrences) since you can sustain constant zergling production anyway. I choose keep none on gas to get the expansion and second queen up slightly quicker, and then put 2-3 drones back on gas sometime after the second queen has been started.I would also like to point out that you can do the build order abit differently depending on things like map. If you are close position then you want make all larva into zerglings and only expand when you have 300+ minerals and no larva. This is becuase you can apply good pressure with those first zerglings on shorter distances while on longer once your opponents will have enough zerglings for you to do much before speed. Therefore on longer spawn(e.g. cross pos Tal'darim) you could make only 4-6 ling so you don't waste any larva and then expand on 19-20 food instead.As with any ZvZ it all differs from match to match but your transition will have to come sometime after you've gotten your expansion up and running and also made some drones. When you can safely do this is a judgement call from game to game, don't forget that you can gain alot of information from your speedlings to make that judgement call easier.This is probably the most common opening used in ZvZ because it's safe and flexible. From this opening you have 3 paths to choose between, they are speedling expand, speedling/banleing, or something with roaches. Your scouting drone will be able to find out if the stop mining gas(a.k.a. speedling expand) or not.Against this you want go for a normal one base baneling attack with a delayed expansion. This attack is really strong against the speedling expand build and will probably set you ahead in both tech and economy. When Sheth played a 1base baneling(with late expand)opening against speedling expand on 12 weeks with the pros he also completely crushed it(see references). The goal is to deny/kill his expansion while getting your own up and the same time. From there on you can transition into roaches and macro up, also be ready for some timing attack or all-in if he has not retaken his expansion.As long as you focus on the goal of taking down his expansion and not to try and finish him by running banelings towards his drones or something similar, you will be fine. The trick is to guard your zerglings with banelings while they are killing the expansion. This means he can't engage with his own lings, he can't move down spines and roaches won't come out in time, letting you take the expansion down.General build order guidelines:If your opponent has superior mirco and somehow manages to defend with his speedling expand you're still not in bad shape. In the worst case scenario you won't kill his expansion but by then your own should be up and you can transition to roaches with banelings as defense and macro up.Against both these openings I have chosen to open roaches into expand smilar to what Machine showcased on 12 weeks with the pros(see references). Why I have chosen this is because it's safe against both a baneling and a roach opening and it lets you get up a relatively safe expansion. A drawback with this opening is that you have to sacrifice some map control, against a baneling opening, for safety. However you still have the speedling upgrade so can scout and recontest map control after you get your expansion up.If your opponent opted to go for banelings he's probably going to either cancel his baneling nest or just build very few banelings when he sees your roach warren with his first couple of scouting lings. From there you want 6-7 roaches before you expand, this is so can protect your ramp and expansion without the risk of getting overrun by speedlings. In this situation your opponent can either choose to expand, or tech from one base(more on that shortly). If he expands you just go into macro mode from there and start getting that +1 attack for roaches asap. Here you must still be active with some speedlings so can see whether he's making an army or drones after expanding.If your opponent went for a roach opening instead he will either be going for a similar expand as you or some one-base timing attack. In the first case you will be equal footing as you opponent and can go ahead getting the +1 attack for roaches and start to macro up while constantly scouting with your speedlings. The second case is similar to where someone going 1base banelings choose to tech instead of expanding after the initial aggression. Both builds will try to block their ramp to hide what strategy they are going for, so you need good knowledge what you can face and also when it's a good idea to sacrifice an overlord. The things your opponent can throw at you from 1base are the following:- Roach push with speedling reinforcement/support- An extra hatchery inbase into mass speedling- Fast spire into expansion- Roach push with speed and burrow- Roach push with speed, burrow and +1 attackThere are many different ways to do these builds, some people like to expand when they move out, others start their expand when they see that the push isn't working. The later your opponent starts his expand the more all-in he is(even though his attack will be slightly stronger), and he will need to do some economical damage with his attack.If you start teching to lair as soon as your queen pops from a 14gas/14pool it will finish at ~5.30 ingame time, which means that roach speed will be done at ~7.20 and spire at ~7.10 if you start it as soon as lair is done. Should your opponent choose to start lair immediately when his queen pops then you should be able to scout this with your first pair of lings since he won't have roaches out yet to block the ramp.Some other timings are:- Your hatch will be about 70% done at ~6.00 should you put it down at 26/34 with 3 roaches and 4 speedlings.- Inbase hatch finishes at ~5.40 if you put it down still mining gas after speed and constanty produce zerglings from 14gas/pool.- Five extra roaches pops(into a total of 8) from the first inject at ~5.30 and can move to your base being reinforced by speedlings.I havn't played against inbase hatch much at all but I think you should be able to scout that with your first couple of lings or atleast guess it if tries to block his ramp with only lings. When you see and inbase hatch you want add more roaches to get that ball into critical mass and adding a baneling nest can be good if he put on a lot of pressure.Knowing these timings, a good time to send in your overlord would be at around 5.40(which is when your hatch is abit more than halfway done) to see if he's going for some hatchery tech timing or lair timing. After you know what attack your opponent is going for all you have to do is make drones, roaches, speedlings and queens accordingly.General build order guidelines:Note that against someone going straight for lair you can get away with throwing down your expand with only 1-2 roaches and also have time to make some drones. On the other hand against someone going for one base baneling you may need up to 7 roaches before you can safely expand. Getting your expand up before you opponent puts you ahead and as long you don't die(or lose too many drones) to any of the metioned above timings, you should be in a good position going into the mid-game. I would also like to add that 1-2 extra queens with transfuse are very cost efficient defensive units, so it can be a good idea build them to hold any of the pushes and also against mutas.When facing an early pool it comes down to good mirco and knowing what to do. You should however have the upper hand since you opened 14gas/14pool. A few things to think of are:- save larva(make overlord at 14) to be able to make 4-6 lings as soon as the pool is done- check your outer edges of the creep to detect any pre-building of spines- take drones off gas(or keep them if you are really confident in your micro)- make two control group with drones to be able to better mircoIf he tries to put down 1-2 spines with his lings, tell ~4 workers to attack each spine, the rest should still be able to take on the lings.Against early pools with gas you are most likely going to face some fast banelings and to this you can either put down a roach warren asap after pool or go for spines. The key to comming out a head of this build is to split your drones so that he can't hit more than 2 at the same(it's not as hard as it sounds). If you can do that then all that's left is to clean up the few lings he has with roaches or lings and you will still be ahead in drones.Creep spread is clearly not as important in ZvZ as in other match-up but it's still good enough that you want to do it. It gives you vision and increases the mobiblty of your queens and hydras by alot. I would however never trade a larva inject for a creep tumor in this match-up, so it would either have to be from bad injecting, extra queens, or early second queen(before expand is done). Extra queens are surprisingly good defensive units, being really cost effective with transfuse, demand no larva and cost only minerals. I think it's beneficial to get a couple of extra queens and also spread creep for any zerg.On the contrary to what some people might believe, mid game ZvZ doesn't just have to be about sitting on your 2-3 bases and macroing up to your 200/200 army of the golden composition. In this part of the game there are many tactics and strategies to throw your opponent off and for you to gain the advantage without ever attacking head on(more on this in section 3.3). I the mid-game you also have access to alot better scouting possibilities with overlord speed, overseers and your good old speedlings. There is therefore no excuse to not knowing your opponents tech, army and amount of bases and when they go up.A good idea in the mid-game is to look for timings where you can gain an advantage, e.g. if you started your upgrades before him in the early game you could attack just when your upgrades finish and then you'll have the upper hand with better upgrades in that timing window.There are many good upgrades that you want to get, some are a must have while others are more a personal prefrence but lets first take a look at the attack and armor upgrades.Here is table of the shots to kill for roaches vs roaches:Looking at this table you can see that going armor or attack in a roach battle doesn't matter in the mid-game. However you can't discount that you will have lings, infestors and hydras(later on) since they are also affected by these upgrades. The question is really weather you want to go for attack -> armor -> attack or attack -> attack -> armor so lets take a closer look:Assuming you start +2 ranged attack from a second evo chamber some time after you've started +1 armor the first one. This allows you to upgrade +2 armor simultaneously with +2 ranged attack while if you hade gone for +2 attack in the first evo chamber you'd have one evo chamber doing nothing becuase it has to wait for +1 armor to finish. This problem could be avoided by just timing +2 attack and +1 armor to start at the same but you don't always the have resources and opportunity to this.Your lings will also benefit from the faster +armor while hydras and infested terrans will benefit from the faster +2 ranged attack. In the end it won't make or break the match and either one is fine, but e.g. if you're planning to go for an infestor runby you want get the faster +2 ranged attack.There are a few lair tech upgrades that you should aim to get every game and those are overlord speed, burrow, roach speed and hydra range. These upgrades give so much for their cost and really are a must have but you by no means need to rush to get them all as soon as lair finish. A good idea is to get roach speed asap and aslo start off by getting and overseer for scouting and then later get the overlord speed. Burrow is also something you don't have to get instantly but it's something you want sooner rather than later for infestor, roaches and also delaying expansion with burrowed zerglings. Last but not least hydra range, you just get this one when you plan to start hydra production.Some other good upgrades are drop and roach burrowed movment but they are by no means as cruicial.You want to start off by getting just roaches and then infestor while focusing on getting all the important upgrades. A roach/infestor army also has alot better mobility than an army with hydras in it, this allows you to also be aggressive with harassing and pokeing. Getting infestors first before hydras allows them to save up alot off energy which is going to come in handy later and you can also execute cool tactics like infestors harass.Your end composition however needs to include hydras because of their high dps, a 200/200 army without hydras are going to get crushed by one with hydras any day. The ratio is always hard to tell, it varies from game to game, but I would say about 50/50 hydra/roach and then 4-6 infestors as backup. So together with you starting +2/+2 upgrades wanting more infestor and starting hydra production you need alot of gas so for this you will to have a third base.In the mid-game there are some tactics and strategies that you can utilize to get ahead of your opponent, which will let you get further ahead and evetually win. Remember that you still need to actively scout your opponent so you don't fall victim to any of the mid-game tactics and strategies.The muta switch can be very powerful if you do it at the right time, however done badly can put you behind instead. The idea is to catch your opponent by surprise if you scout him only going for alot of roaches, you can chose to proxy your spire with an overlord pooping creep or just put it in your base(with a greater risk of being scouted). The plan is actually only to make one round of mutas(6-8) and then go back to the normal gameplan and even if he has the perfect defense it won't be an horrible outcome for you.The best scenario is ofcourse that you get to his base, he has no anti air except queens, you kill both queens and some drones, he goes all-in, you defend it and win. In a more reasonble scenario you can snipe 1-2 queens, force some spore crawlers and kill several overlords placed around the map. Not only does this keep your opponent completley in the dark(he can't even scout with overlords/overseers) but this also gives you full map control.A risk with this however is that you opponent could just choose to attack with all his roaches and potientially do some serious damage since mutas just kill roaches so slowly.Alot of players don't keep an overseer with their army and even fewer keep and extra one at their third base. This opens up possibilities for burrowed infestor harass with either infested terrans or fungal growth. I like the infested terrans better because even if you won't kill as many workers you still kill some, and then you can kill a hatchery in a matter of seconds if you have 10-16 infested terrans with 2-0 in upgrades.The magic number for infestor harass is 2, 1 just isn't going to cause enough damage and more than 2 will leave your army too vulnerable. It should also be said that infestor harass, as with any other harass, is served best with an attack, pressure or harras on another front at the same time.Queens are really good units all around, they cost no larva, they cost only minerals, they have high hp, they can shoot air and ground and they are super cost efficient with transfuse. They also have one fatal weakness, they move slower than snail, which makes it very hard to do any sort of offensive maneuver. So the combination off all larva going to cheap roaches while you are at the same time building queens and then eliminating the walking distance by using nydus, naturally makes for a very strong attack.They beauty of this is also that you don't have to nydus in his base(though it's better to do it if you can) for it to succeed, just close enough so you queen don't have to walk that far. If you want to execute this strategy you have to start building queens earlier so that their transfuse energy stacks up, and this is also the tell as to someone going for this kind off attack. Should you get nydused the best way to deal with it is to try and focus fire each queen so they can't transfuse before killing the roaches.I've touched upon this lightly before and as most of you probably already know, attacks on multiple fronts can sometimes be really strong. In ZvZ this only really becomes viable when your opponent has 3 or more bases. For these attack you want use roaches and speedlings because off their high mobility, and you can also throw in some burrowed infestor harass. A few good examples off multiple attacks can be:- take ~8 roaches and some speedlings and attack his third while feigning an attack with you main army against the natural- nydus/drop in the main with only some zerglings then attack his third base when reallocates his army to the main- burrowed infestors using infested terrans on one base while you attack anotherBe careful to not lose too many you units becuase then there is a risk that your opponent will just walk to your base and kill you, even if your harass worked well.I think this tactic is pretty situational and it can be good, but on the other hand overseer do cost alot of gas which means less infestors and hydras. You want atleast 2 overseers, one for scouting around his base and one at your base against any sort off burrow shenanigans. From there it's not such big step adding another 2 overseers to get some contaminate action going.A good thing you can do then is to almost permanently contaminate your opponents evo chambers letting you sprint ahead in upgrades. Another thing is to contaminate is the hatchery off your opponent which both stops the larva inject timer, stops the hatchery from spawning larva and should the queen inject during this time the inject timer will reset. Last but not least this is more off a tip that you can use even if you have just one overseer, and that is to contaminate the infestation pit if it's researching(you can see this) because most players will time their infestor to pop just after the upgrade is done.Not many ZvZs go into the late game and therefore I don't as much experience in this part of the game. I can start of by saying that both ultras and broodlords are not that good in ZvZ. Ultras just get kited by roaches and hydras now that fungal is so short, and you will also have the wrong upgrades for ultras. Broodlords can be good if you surprise your opponent and kill him but otherwise there will just be a corruptor war with ground support, and you don't need a Hive to make corruptors. You could also go for broodlords if you sit on 3-4 more gases than your opponent because then you can get air dominas while still making some broodlords.In the late game when you're sitting on 4-5 bases each speedling runbys and backstabs become extremely powerful. They can take out expansions and important tech building, and should you lose lets say your roach warren and then get attacked you won't be able to get any roach reinforcements during the battle. Going into the late game you should prioritize getting the +3/+3 upgrades first, then adrenal glands for your speedlings and then start upgrading melee attacks.At this stage of the game you have to value every unit and expansion even more, so be careful with where you attack and try to keep all your bases safeI would like to say that sometimes I forget something or misjudge my opponent, my play is no where near perfect but I think I stick to my game plan pretty well in these replays. Vandroy vs goswser - roach/speedling expand Vandroy vs Hister - 10 pool baneling defense(the drone spread could have been better) Vandroy vs ikjewq - roach/speedling expand into muta switch Vandroy vs Insomnia - roachspeedling expand into defending against a muta switch Vandroy vs Zingy - speedling/baneling expanding(he tricks me into think he's going for speedling expand but instead goes for roaches skipping zergling speed) into a pretty standard mid-game. I get crushed in the end even though I was ahead in tech, eco and upgrades just becuase I forgot to add hydras. Vandroy vs Biscuit - Speedling expand vs hatch first with roaches. Vandroy vs Skinky - Speedling expand vs hatch first into mass speedlingMachine talks about and shows a speedling/roach expandSheth crushes a speedling expand with 1base baneling with delayed expansionA rather old guide in tl's recommended threads, it has a pretty good description on how to deal with hatch first builds.If you're reading this part then hopefully you've read the whole guide and if so that makes me very happy that you took the time. In closing I would like to say that I learned alot writing this guide and I'll be glad if someone else got some useful information from it too.-Best regards Vandroy