EPTOn a quick side note before I begin, my 3v3 team is ranked pretty high right now, but we've stopped playing as of late, because the games are usually one-sided. We either play against a team of players who aren't great/use bad openings and win easy, or we play against players who are legitimately better than us and lose because our team is a bit lacking.
1v1:
Zerg(18 games)
(4)ZvZ: 2-2 50.0%
(9)ZvP: 7- 2 77.8%
(5)ZvT: 3- 2 60.0%
12-6 66.6%
This Season:
Zerg(42 games)
(14)ZvZ: 9-5 64.3%
(22)ZvP: 14- 8 63.6%
(6)ZvT: 3- 3 50.0%
26-16 61.9%
So, In this set I started with a pretty big winning streak, and I was feeling pretty good about my builds and my play in all the matchups. Since then, however, AMM has been matching me up almost exclusively with Masters players, and I've been quite a bit less confident in my play since then. I still really like my ZvP as long as I macro well, which is mostly a problem I've rectified by having a set time to get a macro hatch to prevent resource buildup. My ZvT has never been all that solid IMO, and my ZvZ seemed pretty good, but lately I've noticed a big hole in my game plan which needs to be patched up.
As a result of this, I've done quite a bit of thinking about strategy, and that's why I'm writing a report now rather than waiting until I've played more games. I've always prefered to do my own builds, since I understand why they are the way they are, and they fit my style, rather than copying some build from Liquipedia or something. But I'm thinking in order to improve, I may have to give in and memorize/practice a good build from there.
ZvZ:
My ZvZ build currently goes something like this:
+ Show Spoiler +
open:
10drones
extractor trick + drone
overlord
pool
4drones then extractor (3 drones)
@pool 6lings + queen a second later
ling speed (pull drones off gas)
mass lings until speed finishes
followup:
put 2 or 3 drones back on gas and drone/ling as needed
lair + second extractor
spire + expo
make ~5 mutas to gain map control, scouting, kill overlords, harass drones, force spores, etc, while droning up and transition into 2evo roach/infestor.
once both roach upgrades are done, tech hive and get broodlords
relevant timings: (all are conservative estimates)
first six lings arrive at opponent's base ~4:20
speedling attack arrives at opponent's base ~6:10
to have banelings to defend, opponent needs to build baneling nest no later than ~5:00
So, with this build, the idea is to get a big speedling army and attack in a way in which the opponent couldn't have as many speedlings to defend. So some games are won outright at this point. If they defend with roaches, I have map control and proceed to tech to mutas as the followup mentions. Also, roaches just aren't that great defense unless they position things just right, so I'll tend to injure the opponent and keep them on defense for a while as a result.
The problem is banelings. As I mention in the relevant timings, they need a pretty quick baneling nest in order to have banelings in time, and I'll usually have my first 6 lings still in their base harassing drones at that time, so I'll be able to see it and react if needed. The question is, how do I react to this? I've invested in ~12 lings at this time, and speed is about 1/2 done. I tried cancelling speed once and going roaches, but that didn't work too well.
Now, I have played a few games against a speedling/baneling opening, and I usually won by scouting the baneling nest, building sunks in my main, and counterattacking when they morph their banelings outside my base. The problem is defensive banelings. So I'm at a tough strategic decision: should I continue my build and attack with my speedlings against their potential banelings? My speedling vs speedling/baneling micro is okay. But I'm wondering if there's some better way.
Another option is to modify my standard build a bit, by delaying making speedlings after the first six until I scout a lack of baneling nest at the appropriate time. (that is, normally it goes 6 lings, queen, speed, ling-ling-overlord-ling, but I could instead go ling-overlord, and delay the next lings as long as possible to see if they make the baneling nest in time.
The third option I'm considering is to just switch to a quicker (though much more predictable) speedling attack in the form of the standard 10pool speed.
+ Show Spoiler +
10pool-drone-extractor-drone-overlord
6 lings
save up larva/mins to get queen asap, then ling speed, before pumping more lings
attack shows up at ~5:20 ish with streaming zerglings. I believe I read a thread about a strategy similar to this, which said to send out the queen after the second inject to kill an overlord in an attempt to supply block the opponent just before the attack hits.
So this attack comes quite a bit quicker, but there's pretty much no way to follow it up if you don't win outright, as you'll have only 10drones the whole game.
I'm interested to hear any advice on this.
ZvT:
My ZvT is just horrible. I don't have any sort of "standard" game plan, because it seems there is no such thing as a standard ZvT.. Every game I play is unique, because every Terran I play wants to do something different. I see either a 1rax or 2rax wall-in, and then after that it's like the Family Guy manatee joke from South Park. I could run into a bunker rush or not, 4 rax rine+SCV, 6rax rines, hellion-marine, hellion-marauder, marine marauder stim timing, marine tank siege timing, blue flame hellion drop, cloak banshee, or fast expo. Gimmicky play seems to be the norm, and sadly I'm losing to it, or only winning when my opponent is truly atrocious.
So currently I send out my 10th drone to try to get a scout in, and open 14hatch, pool based on rax timing. That's literally as far as my ZvT plan goes.
. Generally I would so something along the lines of ling speed, lair, spire for some pretty quick mutas, but I've found that teching lair without a baneling nest can leave me vulnerable to marine attack timings. Honestly, I'm just so clueless here. I think I just need to get a solid, safe opening for the first 5 minutes or so, and then start sending in overlords again. I used to send in an overlord standard, but apparently at some point I just stopped doing it. I'm going to have to set up my first 2 overlords for that scout timing and send them both in at the same time if needed.
So really IMO I just need a safe opener until then. I've watched Idra's stream, and he no longer opens hatch first in ZvT, which is quite surprising to me, considering that he and Ret had concluded that hatch first was the only way to survive solid 2rax aggression. I've been trying to pay attention to Idra's current ZvT opener, but haven't noted the timings just yet.
Any suggestions? Anybody know Idra's standard ZvT opening?
ZvP:
My ZvP is my most solid. In all honesty, I was a bit worried when the new patch hit, as a significant amount of my ZvP wins pre-patch were from stopping 4gates. Now everybody is playing the significantly stronger sentry expand or forge FE. The post-patch flavor of the day seems to be DTs and blink stalkers.
My current ZvP is something like this:
+ Show Spoiler +
10drone
extractor trick + drone
overlord
pool
drone to 15
@pool 2 lings + queen (puts me at 18/18 supply)
expo-drone-extractor-overlord-drone [1]
drone/ling as needed while getting ling speed with first 100 gas and stopping gas mining
when their expo is spotted, drone up, put drones back on gas, and pressure with speedlings if possible [2]
lair + 2nd extractor
more drones then 3rd and 4th extractors
spire
sunks as needed
mutas [3]
expo + macro hatch, roach warren + 2 evos, roach ups
after 1/1 roach upgrades, lvl1 melee, lvl2 armor, infestation pit + hive
@hive, get crack attack, ultras, lvl3 armor and lvl2 melee ups
notes:
[1]Something I've tried a couple times if I scout forge FE is to switch to extractor-drone-expo-overlord drone, mine exactly 200 gas and make an extra overlord, building a roach warren @100 gas, and putting on pressure with 8 roaches when the warren finishes, droning up behind. I've tried it twice with mixed results, so I'm not sure if I want to keep doing this. The roaches arrive at the opponent's base around ~7:00, which isn't very quick, but it is nearly unscoutable.
[2]If they don't expo at the normal timing, the general idea is to tech to lair while keeping a speedling army + sunks that can stop a 4gate attack. Once lair completes, the goal is to get hydras and an overseer, which should be able to stop any 1base protoss shenanigans.
[3]Good scouting is needed before committing to mutas here, because if you show up with 8 mutas in their base and they opened stargate and were hiding corsairs with the intention of moving out once they have four of them, you're in big trouble. The purpose of the mutas is harass/map control while I set up my 3rd and get all the roach ups, and to discourage colossus/VR. In my experience the reaction is usually mass blink stalkers, which can be dealt with using mass roach/ling and eventually infestor/ultra/ling. Of course it's imperative that the mutas stay alive to keep the protoss from moving out before I have a large enough roach army to defend.
If I scout stargate tech, I can deal with harass with a few corruptors and move straight into roach + 2 evo ups. I absolutely hate hydralisks, so I'd prefer to use queens early, then corruptors to deal with air threats, with the exception of note [2].
Things seem to be going pretty well in ZvP, at least for now.
Questions, comments, and constructive criticism welcome.
