EPTWell recently I have been struggling against Zergs and on this Forum this seems to be a no-no as a Protoss. In Gold/Platinum league and with the past metagame it was pretty easy to overwhelm them with either earlygame pressure and a finisher with mass Gateways for a decisive push or a straight up macro game with a Colossus timing or a 200 deathball. But now after reaching Masters and holding up constant in the middle of my division for about 1~2 Weeks I realized that my stats against Zerg are becoming worse and worse. I mostly succeed in the PvP matchup with decent Micro and a Variety of overall gameplans that became viable after the patch so this isn't an issue. My PvT is pretty solid too and I win like 50-50 but my PvZ really has me worried. The following is about my recent struggles and possible solutions. Any hints you have to offer are appreciated as well.
Vs Zerg in Diamond:
That was the beginning of an uphill battle against Zerg for me. I came from the Platin league with one solid build (the 3-Gate expand) and a variety of different cheesy strats (Like DT, and proxy Voidray) but all the cheesy stuff stopped working when I reached the Diamond level. Constant scouting, correct evaluations about my armysize/composition made it hard to even attempt a cheesy opener because my opponents usually could tell that something was coming and with an evo-chamber and a simple sporecrawler all my cheese was thwarted.
So I had to go with my back up solid build the 3-Gate expand. This resulted in an gradual increase of my win percentage vs Zerg because the current Metagame heavily favored Protoss. Nearly every Zerg was using the old "Zergball" with Hydra/Roach + Corrupter. So my Deathball became mighty effective and my macroskill in PvZ skyrocket in comparison to my Platin-macro.
(In regard of PvZ cheese I got pretty lucky, that I never got cheesed with 6-pool until Diamond league)
Basically I traded my diversity in BO's against one solid build that I practiced for hours and helped me climb up to the upper echelons of my division. The problem that arised with that is that I got pretty inflexible. As soon as my Zergopponent thought out of the box and did something unexpected I became vulnerable and my play became sloppy. The further I got in Diamond the more I was confronted with the concept of different BO's that didn't only revolve around Hydra/Roach. The first time I was owned with burrowed Roaches that moved under my priced FF's I literally was like "The fuck?"
That inflexibility made me loose many points against Zergs and again the Matchup became and Uphill battle where I was slowly sliding down (Creepspread sure made the way up pretty difficult ^_^)
Back to the drawingboard I considered for a moment to go back to my little magicbox and pull out the cheese moves from time to time, but this was after all what hindered me at the start of my Diamond "career" so I quickly discarded it and left myself with the task to watch the Pro's and try to think outside the box. I didn't need more BO's or cheese, I needed the ability to interpret information correct and respond accordingly so that my I could fix my solid but stiff/rigid play.
After watching replays and Streams I managed it to get a bit into the routine to think about what the pro might have been thinking and it helped me tremendously to interpret different signs and catch my opponent offguard before he even revealed his trumpcard.
With that, my decent PvP and my standard PvT I finally managed to get into Masters.
Vs Zerg in Masters:
Happily I played with my Deathballstyle and some of the skills I acquired in Diamond but again I got a pretty bad awakening that it won't go the way I thought. The patch came and the Metagame changed. So basically Zerg got several Options and while the Deathball is still strong, I believe that Zerg got pretty viable counters.
With the Patch and the ideas of some Zerg pioneers the matchup became my worst. Even with micro and if I know that it is coming, I got steamrolled every time by Infestor/Blingdrop/Lings or Roaches. That late/mid game composition has me troubled more times than I can count but it isn't my only problem. Because I didn't got cheesed much until Masters I was pretty unfamiliar with the issue of 6-Pool. That in cooperation with the lategame composition and the highly aggressive Zergstyle's at the beginning with mass Zergs and Roaches made my Winration vs Zerg shrink to a number which is probably around 20% or something like this.
Right now I am considering what to do and I am back to the drawing board again. Well just wanted to write that down (:
If you got any hint I would highly appreciate it. (Can't afford coaching.)
